Welcome To Technomania Circus

        Technomania Circus is a law unto itself. Before the show started, Dr. Techno read our minds, entertained us and most important of all, made us laugh. We all knew from the title of the show that we would be traveling through time, but when you are at Technomania Circus, most things are not always as they seem.

        That being said, I once again I found myself in the audience of Technomania Circus and once again I was amazed by what I saw. For this performance of the Technomaniacs, we took a journey through time, a journey that went through millions of years of history, and we laughed the entire time. We, as Americans do not have a sense of history that that goes beyond 1776, when we became a country. Most of us have no idea what the world was doing before that, but Technomania Circus does, so they educated and entertained us by reminding us what happened before, during and after the mighty United States of America was an idea, a reality and a ghost.

Dr. Techno At Technomania Circus

        Something I’ve never mentioned before is the personal guarantee that Dr. Techno gives each and every member of the audience: “You will enjoy the show or I will clean your house.” There are never any takers because everyone always loves the show.

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth

        Our journey begins somewhere around 25,000,000 BC, when dinosaurs and talking Tyrannosaurus Rex’s where a force to be reckoned with. Just look at his tiny little hands!

Cavemen

        Depending on who you ask and what part of the United States you are standing in when you ask, dinosaurs and people either co-existed OR where separated by millions of years of evolution. This particular dinosaur spoken fluent English, so right now I’m thinking that people and thunder lizards were contemporaries of one another. Of course, biblical scholars would disagree, but they disagree with everyone.

        As we continued to move forward through time at Technomania Circus, we met some familiar faces. Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble demonstrated the the first automobile and the need to invent a back seat for a car. Wasn’t the Flintstones an awesome cartoon? What a great concept. The cartoon came out in the 1960′s and applied 1960′s technology to the stone age. I would be very interested to watch a remake of the show that is updated to for 2010 technology. I think watching the the Flintstones deal with stone age computers, social networks and coffee shops would be incredibly funny. Anyways, after the Flintstones came the Egyptians, and King Ramses. As you can see from the photo above, Ramses was very pleased with his volunteer on his blue ball.

The Pharaoh Ramses Balances On His Big Blue Ball

        As we progressed through time we learned that even pharaohs like to have fun. Time travel aside, this really was quite a feat of balance and concentration. Walking on top of a giant rubber ball back and forth across a see-saw is a very exciting thing to watch!

Jesus Hubert Christ!

        Jesus Christ arrived 2000 years or so after the the golden age of Egypt, and when he did arrive, he rocked the house. What was his first number 1 single? Stairway To Heaven, of course.

Henry VIII Is Entertained At The Palace

        Henry VIII had 6 wives, two of whom were beheaded, so it is easy to understand why the court musician would try very, VERY hard to keep the King of England entertained. After all, if Henry would lop off the heads of his wives, what would he lop off a lowly court musician?

The Wild West

        After Henry VIII came an American gunfighter. This particular gunfighter chose to balance on a ladder and shoot balloons from a hand-held target. He had a very steady hand and never missed.

        The photo above, on the left reminded me of a line from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, spoken by Chevy Chase, “That’s a great place for a pearl necklace.” Ahem, as we continued forward through time we got to hear a remarkable song by Albert Einstein that ran through every element on the periodic table. It reminded me of the Nations Of The World song performed by Yakko Warner of the Animaniacs.

Space Pirates!

        Dr. Techno, the leader of the Technomaniacs was the operator of the time machine throughout the show. The time machine was a gigantic, mechanical contraption that only had enough juice to take us BACK in time. However, Albert Einstein produced an unspecified quantity of OBTAINIUM, which allowed the good Dr. Techno to take us into the FUTURE with his time machine. The first thing we encountered where space pirates.

At Some Point In History We Discovered Fire

        I began to lose track of where I was and WHEN I was, but The Welderman jumped out on stage to show me the light. I was at Technomania Circus, and I was in the very distant future. I have mentioned many times in previous posts that fire is my favorite part of the show, so I like to think they closed out the show with fire just for me. I know that’s not the reason, but it could be. It could be!

Technomania Circus Presents The Time Travel Show

Technomania Circus Breathes Fire Over Barrio Logan

        Their next show is March 20th, 2010. It is the Fire & Blacklight Show and it is incredible to watch. To see photos from last year’s show, click here.

Jugglers Warm Up The Crowd

        Technomania Circus is fun to photograph cameras are welcome. For better pictures, don’t use your on camera flash. Instead, raise the ISO on your camera, have your aperture wide open (smallest f/#) and use shutter speeds between 1/30 & 1/100th of a second.

Dancing, Balance & Feats Of Strength

        This was shot at 3200 ISO with a Nikon D5000. I am really liking my new high ISO and what I can do with it. The dancing pair above are always fun to watch and are very friendly before, during & after the shows. HE, is also the fire breather from the first picture in this post.

The Fire Appears

        200 ISO, 1/50th, and f/1.8 cracked out this shot of the fire as it was first brought onstage at Technomania Circus.

Burning Man at Technomania Circus

The DJ Spins @ Technomania Circus

Burning Man Parody Up Close

        Before the show even began, the DJ entertained the crowd with music from the late 20th century, warming us up and setting the mood for “The Parody Show” at Technomania Circus. This was the first show for 2010, and The Technomaniacs pulled out all the stops, including fire, burlesque, juggling, Elvis Presley, blacklight theater and Lady Gaga even made an appearance, as did Martha Stewart. For The Parody Show, the cast of Technomania Circus made fun of just about everyone, including the audience, themselves and Tiger Woods. This was three hours of fun and satire and it closed with a fast moving awards ceremony honoring many of the most talented performers in San Diego. The show is so easy to get to, especially on the orange line trolley. Technomania Circus is located at 2438 Commercial St. San Diego, in Logan Heights, right across from the 25th & Commercial Orange Line trolley stop. Trolleys come by every half hour, and the schedule can be seen here. I was fortunate enough to be using a borrowed Canon T1i for the evening, so I shot every frame at 3200 ISO and a shutter speed of 1/15th for almost every frame as well.

Dr. Techno

Martha Stewart & Lady Gaga

        Dr. Techno started things off with his guitar playing balancing act and was also our host for the awards show that followed the performance. The cast were all presented with trophies that varied from a small statue of a three headed dog to a diorama that contained a hula dancer and shrunken skull. You just never know what will happen at a Technomania Circus show.

Sarah Palin Going Rogue

        Lady Gaga took cooking instruction from Martha Stewart, and one of the rhyming orders by Martha was something like: “Lady Gaga take this please and bake that bitch at three fifty degrees.”

The Cast Of Technomania Circus

        The entire cast was all smiles for this show, and rightly so because most of what they did was very funny, with several moments of outright hilarity. Their awards ceremony, which wrapped up the evening was just as funny as the show itself and even a lucky audience member won an award.

Fire At Technomania Circus

        Fire is my favorite part of these shows, and the cast always makes sure to add extra elements of danger. You’ll want to take note of a few things in the photo on the left, including the spaceship in the background, the fact that the left performer is balancing on a two point ladder, the juggling pins on the stage and the woman in the center wearing a bathrobe with possibly nothing else underneath. Saturday nights that hold a performance from Technomania Circus are just so easy to attend and are so much fun to watch. They are full of energy and engaging for the audience so the more you cheer the better and funnier the show is. Next time I will bring a tasty beverage because after three hours of cheering, I was feeling a little parched. Their next shows will be on February 13th & 23rd, with the doors opening at 7pm, pre-show at 7:30pm and the show starting at eight. The show is entitled “A Mob Show: Happiness Is A Warm Tommy Gun.” See pics from previous shows: The Fire & Blacklight Show, and The Wild Wild West Show .

San Diego’s Technomania Circus Cast & Crew, January 9, 2010

Beautiful Indian Being Played With Behind Fire

        Once again, I found myself at Technomania Circus, for some live theater entertainment. On this particular Saturday night, Technomania Circus put on a Wild, Wild West Show, complete with gunfire, indians, cowboys, trapeze, fire and blacklight. I arrived just as the show was starting, and was actually led into the theater by the cowboys, as they made their theatrical entrance. While this made for some initial excitement for me, it also meant I did not get my usual spot at the top of the stadium seating. Not a big deal for watching the show, but terrible for taking pictures. The two keepers I shot are presented to you in this post.

Technomania Circus Presents The Wild Wild West Show!

        This was a great show. For those of you that are not Technomania Circus Virgins, your will recognize the Indians of this show are also the fire performers from the Fire & Blacklight show back in July. It was so much fun, and the crowd cheered and encouraged the performers the entire time. Technomania Circus is simply the best, cheapest, funniest, most retro night you can spend in San Diego!

        You can see my post and photos from their Fire & Blacklight Show, which was presented back in July 2009 by clicking right here. I love Technomania Circus!

Everyone Is Welcome At Technomania Circus!

        The Blacklight & Fire Show @ Technomania Circus is the natural result of our high-tech and brightly lit world.  Welding masks hide the faces of musicians playing fire dancing instruments; a beautiful woman tames reluctant flames, men breath fire as if they were dragons from thousand year old European lore.  Leave planet Earth on an interstellar chase through a galaxy of bold colors and infinite black with the 3D optical illusions of blacklight.

Kidnapping, Magic, Galactic Travel & Dancing Reunions

All are welcome, with 21 & up encouraged.

Arrive 30 minutes early and you can sit anywhere you want.

If you bring snacks, reusable containers are better than foil & plastic bags.

Take the trolley to 25th & Commercial – It’s a piece of cake, don’t be scared.

Bottled water is free and the bathroom would make Louie XIV jealous.

The more you cheer, the better the show.

These Fire Gods Make Their Creations Sing & Dance

        The metal strings, brass buttons, horsehair strung bows and hide covered drums we know as the only way to make music are volcanically replaced with fire and gas by these blind, carbon based beings.  They are obviously minions from the center of a superheated star, with fire itself ready to leap at the flick of a wrist.

This Is The Fire Show!

        Believe it or not, you don’t need a tripod because the fire gives you arches of instant, one of a kind light, so bring a camera because every shot is gold!  Fire, an element, a realm of the gods, a WEAPON of the gods is flung before your very eyes and then recalled and made to dance.  It is an unbelievable site to watch fire as a slave to a flesh & blood mortal.

You have got to see the music filled world of the Techno-Gods and their amazingly colored world.

Find out what is going on with Technomania Circus for yourself.

Just walk around to the back.  Go ahead!