Canny carnies spirit of show
FOR THE MOST PART, THESE FAIRY FLOSS-FLOGGING VAGABONDS BRING NOTHING BUT JOY AND VERTIGO TO YOUNGSTERS OF AUSTRALIA, TOWN AFTER TOWN, YEAR AFTER YEAR
HARDWORKING men and women will spend today gently towelling the batter from umpteen thousand surplus dagwood dogs for later reuse and beating out three days’ abuse from the panels of their devastated dodgem car fleets.
Ah, the Cairns Show, you handsome, disgusting beast. I have missed your innumerable contradictions.
The confused blend of anticipation and irritation as you wait restlessly for a spin on the ferris wheel.
The nostalgic scent of recycled deep-fryer oil butting aromatic heads with a half-tonne of goat manure filtered through dry straw.
The CWA nannas flaunting their intricately decorated sand cakes alongside a dozen heavily calloused woodchoppers mowing through a rainforest with laser precision.
You don’t get variety like this anywhere else but the show.
But most spellbinding of all are the carnies.
My fascination with those freewheeling nomads who man the rides, showbag stalls and sideshow alley harks back to when I was just a runt, trying to scalp a dollar for hot chips and convince mum I wouldn’t spew on the Gravitron.
Back then, these folk were the gatekeepers to everything a child desired – full-blown sugar rushes, showbag toys that may or may not meet Australian safety standards, and the exhilarating feeling of gifting your mother a fresh batch of laundry after a particularly bladder-weakening turn on the Kamikaze.
Primary school was bubbling with urban legends about kids who hopped on the ghost train but never came out the other side. It was much like the tale of Tiny Tim whose spectre rode his squeaky wheeled tricycle across the Tinaroo Dam wall in vain search of his mum with every full moon, and the heavily haunted House on the Hill in Mooroobool, since replaced by an apartment complex.
The point is that these ride operators presumably did not hire actual raised-from-the-dead skeletons to man the ghost train, so those terrifying demons that so haunted our dreams were just flesh-and-blood humans sporting decorated tights.
The power they held over the under-12 populace of Cairns was enormous and spanned the entire calendar. It lingered long after they ripped down their tents and trucked off to peddle their scares at the Kalgoorlie Muster. But who were these people? Did they hold blue cards for working with children?
Who would stand up for them were I to malign their good standing in a spurious newspaper report?
That last query led me to Google. I was searching high and low for some kind of Carnival Workers Union fighting for the rights of showpeople when their name was unfairly brought into disrepute or their employment conditions dipped below First World standards.
There was nothing, only a United States-based Facebook group with 478 members that was not so much an organised workers’ guild as it was an online jobs board looking for someone to man the mechanical bull at the Burlington County Farm Fair in Columbus, New Jersey.
This complete lack of an organised union meant Mike Myers was let off scot-free when he remarked in his Austin Powers film that there were only two things that scared him: nuclear war and “carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.”
Now I will admit there are some shysters about, not least that scumbag who rinsed me of my rightful $50 winnings for knocking down every tin at the ball toss stall in the mid-’90s because my “hand went over the line”.
There was a bloody metal bar blocking the line and my big brother witnessed it, ya crook.
But for the most part, these fairy floss-flogging vagabonds bring nothing but joy and vertigo to the youngsters of Australia, town after town, year after year.
I am also yet to see any peerreviewed studies into the measurements of their handspans. They are a strange bunch, sure. But I love ’em.