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If Dostoyevsky measures the degree of
civilization in a society by entering its
prisons, then I ask, what more can we
learn by examining the lives of those that
refuse to enter a society they see as being
prison?

“What time does the band go on?” says
the unassuming middle-aged southerner
as we stand outside finishing our smokes
watching a light snow fall in Charleston,
WV.

I smile before taking my last drag. I always
get a kick in watching the reaction in their
eyes when I explain that there is no band.
“You know man, it’s a sideshow,” I say.

His eyes grow wide.

Just then a drunken patron stumbles outside
the bar and I hear the voice of Bryce
Graves, the ringmaster of Hellzapoppin,
announce in his best sideshow barker
tone, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are going
to see freaks, wonders, and human
curiosities the likes of which you’ve never
seen before. They’re all real, undraped
and unashamed, right here!”
I toss my smoke. The show has begun.

When the Hellzapoppin Sideshow Review
was born in early 2009, it must have
been in a dark needle-strewn back alley,
discarded and left for dead until the imagination
of Bryce “The Guvna” Graves
discovered it in Dallas, TX.

And what more appropriate of a birthing
table, I have to ask, than a city known for
a presidential assassination, silicon-filled
cheerleaders, and a suburb gorged with
teenaged heroin-seeking junkies.

Vegas just has more lights.

Since then he’s nursed this hellion of a
child to perform on some of the largest
stages - including the 2009 Pedal To The
Metal Tour - and the smaller smokedfilled
hollow-eyed bars of the deep American
South, which is where I first joined the
troupe in December 2009.

Brandon Thibodeaux