Moment of Fame Doused by an Unforgiving Critic

Note to Andy Warhol: I just had my 15 minutes of fame.

In the center ring of the 121st edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which opened Wednesday night at the San Diego Sports Arena.

I was one of four people drafted/dragooned/dragged from the crowd by headliner-clown David Larible for his opening routine. Darkened arena, spotlight only on us.

Trust me, this was not some media setup job.

The best I can figure is that the routine requires a bald guy, a large guy and a hot-looking young couple. I’ll let you decide from my picture which description fits me.

“Not to worry,” Larible whispered. “Is not problem.”

That’s easy for you to say, pal. You’re from a famous Italian circus family; I get nervous just watching audience participation shows on television.

The gag is that Larible pulls some saps from the crowd and makes them dance, prance and play catch with an imaginary ball, all the while scolding and prompting them and making them stand in funny poses.

The saps, of course, act awkward and embarrassed. It was the role I was born for. The crowd, if I do say so myself, loved it.

At the finale, Larible, a marvelous mime and acrobat, mussed my hair and pulled up my shirt. You haven’t lived until you’ve had 10,927 people laugh at your exposed belly.

Still heady with acclaim, I ventured to the lobby at intermission. People pointed at me, talked to me and demanded to shake my hand. My fans.

“You’re really with the circus, aren’t you?” asked a woman in the concession line.

Right, this columnist gig is only my day job until I hit the big time.

Not that there weren’t dissenters to my debut.

My wife tells me that, while I was center-ring, our 4-year-old son, Wesley, kept whispering, “Sneak away, Daddy, sneak away.”

And an exceedingly grouchy (and wrong-headed) review of opening night in a Competing Newspaper sneered at the circus’s “subjugation of animals, women, nations, even hapless victims from the audience ... “

Alas, negative reviews. The bane of us show-business folk.

Real Men Would Go Alone

Coming and going.

* San Diego’s Capt. Sticky--Destroyer of Evil--is back, with a new gig: “The Real Man’s Mid-Life Crisis Tour of Thailand.”

Sticky, nee Richard Pesta, gained notoriety as a crusader against substandard care for the elderly, which he parlayed into a radio program and comic book.

Now he’s 46 and organizing “real-men” tours: heavy on the eating, drinking, fishing and wenching, including a trip to the infamous Kangaroo Bar in Pat Phong, “one of the world’s five sleaziest bars.”

Price for the two-week debauch: $3,500. The first tour goes in October.

* The Shore Patrol is cracking down on weightlifting Marines sneaking in bulk-building steroids from Tijuana. They’re treated like any other drug offender.

* Inquiring minds want to know.

Donald Van Ort’s news conferences on the lawn of his Olivenhain home bring the full radio-television-newspaper corps running.

But the best question recently may have come from a 10-year-old neighbor boy who saw the media mob, rode his bike over and piped up: “Do you feel your life is in danger?”

Answer: “Yes.”

* Chargers owner Alex Spanos is scheduled to accompany President Bush aboard Air Force One next week from London to Athens.

* The National Enquirer is offering $500 to anyone who knows what Deputy Michael Stanewich’s dying words were.

No names, no questions asked.

Eclipsing the Competition

The scene: Noontime Thursday on the San Diego waterfront, near Anthony’s Fish Grotto.

Several T-shirt vendors along the Embarcadero have tables displaying their wares. Most don’t have a single customer, but one vendor is doing a booming business.

His come-on: He’s allowing buyers a look at the eclipse through a cardboard box with a pinhole in it. Buy a shirt and get a peek free.

“It pays to know the market,” he explains.