2020 took many things from us. And many people. But Dr. Evermor is a hard one for me. 

He had an interesting niche and perfect timing. And he’s got a great story… 

Born Thomas Every, he was a scrap guy. A demolition man. People paid him to scrap stuff.  He would deconstruct things and that was his business. Come with a crane and a crew and some trucks… take a building down, haul it away to the dump. But he didn’t trash all of it…

The choicest pieces he put in a meadow behind his friends business: Deleny’s Surplus. The stuff just sat there for a few decades. Some old trucks, tons of steel and the scraped remains of the industrial revolution. Thomas Every scrapped power plants, beer vats, Victorian elevators, steam systems and railroad cars. And kept the beautiful parts and pieces from a time where form and function were both held to the same high standards of beauty. 

Then he started working for a guy named Alex Jordan. He was a billionaire in the 70’s. Who knows how much cocaine was involved. Alex was building a house. On a rock. Thomas helped him. For a few years. Alex stiffed him. Thomas lost everything. His house. His business. His wife left him and took the kids. Who knows. It was bad. He ended up living in a shipping container behind Deleny’s. In Wisconsin. In the winter. Alex’s House on the Rock became a huge hit, a tourist destination for thousands and thousands of people. Thomas became bitter and angry. And decided to kill himself. 

And he went about it in the most fascinating way… 

He became an avatar: Dr. Evermor. And he built a copper egg rocket to blast himself to the heavens. He built a viewing stand for the king and the queen to watch the event. He needed power to blast off, so he pointed 16 Tesla Coils at the egg, powered by Juice Bugs… there was a whole spiel, I can’t remember all the patter… it’s been a while… 

This “set” of his suicide took him like 8 years to build. He finished in the early 90’s. I found him in 1996 on tour with the circus. In a very odd way… you see, Doc has the Guinness Book for “world’s largest metal sculpture.” Someone brought a copy of the Guinness Book on the circus tour. While hanging around somewhere, I picked it up and was looking through it, wondering if Guinness Book just charges people to be in it (they do!). And I saw that entry: “Baraboo, Wisconsin: World’s Largest Metal Sculpture.” I figured it was a grain silo or some shit.

We found ourselves at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, ancestral home of the Ringling Brothers (actually the Rungling Brothers, but who cares). We got in free, so we did the tour. It was horrible. Cringy, full of themselves commercial for their circus. We couldn’t leave fast enough. But when we did, we were turned around: tornado. Cops said we had to drive back east, find shelter. We drove down Route 12 and something caught my eye on the side of the road. And it all clicked. He put a few sculptures on the side of the road, with no sign or explanation. I pulled over. “Where is the book!?” I read the passage again. Sure enough, Route 12, Saux City just outside of Baraboo. Drove up and down. Finally just pulled over and started walking into the woods. When it revealed itself to me, I straight-up-no-bullshit-100%-absolutely fell to my knees. 

He was sitting there. Leaning on his cane. Drinking lemonade. He asked me, without any greeting or whatever: “What did you do today?” 

He was impossible. Hard to work with. Spoke in riddles. Cranky. But he had more talent than could be managed. He was just a visionary. His skill in welding/fabrication was unparalleled. The bird band is made of lawn mower parts and shears for wood planes… His relationship to time was scary. He cared nothing for his health, any practical maintenance, current events, politics or your feelings. He was crazy. I loved him.

I’m going to spare you all the rest. His sculpture park became more celebrated than the House on the Rock, of course. His wife sort of came back to him, his children love him, he won awards and grants and took on students (hello!) and had all the bragging rights. It ended well. A life well lived. 

He died April 2020. He was 81 years old. 

He called me a few weeks before he died. I was driving my RV with the family going to or from a camping trip. He was yelling: “Chickenjohn, why don’t you do it? Answer me that?” I tell him it’s good to hear his voice, and I tell him that I miss him. “You’re just fuckin around with, just do it or don’t do it. I can smell that jerk-off indecision stuff from here. Ya hear me?” You could hear him. Anyone in the RV could hear him, he’s a yeller. “Yes sir.” I meekly reply. “I gotta go now so you take care. Power on.” And that was it. 

2020 took so many people dear to us. I could do a list but it feels bad to demote someone to a single position on a list instead of having their own woo woo. It’s like 12 people. People who were numbers in my phone. People who held positions that filled needs. People who were the experts of that field in my world. People in my shows. So many at once, it’s just brutal. Cancer, alcoholism, Covid, old age, suicide… combined with the shutdown, the science deniers and the election, it’s just too much.

The grief I feel every day can make my legs feel like lead. It’s just so sad, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning… but like Doc says, you have to Power On. There can be no spring without winter. I’m looking forward to a post-Trump, post-Covid, post-decimated small business time. Weather that’s spring or summer or fall or whenever. If a man can take discarded scrap and turn it into a magical nirvana of wonder and whimsy and become a top folk art destination even though it was designed to be an execution stage, then there is still some mystical energy left in this world yet. The trick is to find something or someone that gives you power and dip your ladle into that well, and offer yourself munificent dispensations of its manna… 

Reflect, heal, be wisened and never forget…      chicken

I met Justin at an open mike night at the Nova Express in Los Angeles in 1994. He was 19. He lived in a one-room apartment with his mom. He told me, woozy drunk swaying back and forth, that he worked in a parking lot. That he spent his days drinking coffee and making sure that every car in the parking lot had a yellow sticker on the windshield, and that if someone parked there without the sticker he was supposed to call a number written down on a piece of tape on the wall by the phone in the little booth by the driveway entrance of the lot.

He worked there for two years and never called the number once. He wrote poems and stories in a notebook he carried with him everywhere he went. He dressed oddly, a mixture of cowboy and Goth. I told him I was throwing a circus, and if he wanted, to join. That I was going to go on a tour that would traverse the continent, and that he should come up with an act. He said he always wanted to be a magician. If you met him for five seconds, you would know why this is so funny. 

Justin is clumsy. Less now than when he was a kid, but not like with him body as much as with his mannerisms. He’s naturally funny, whimsical and authentic. He’s charming. But he bumbles. And he drinks. A lot. Which amplifies the charm, the bumble and the clumsy. To say it can be amusing would be downplaying it. The guy is a natural born clown. It’s perfect. How he met me was just by chance. But man, did that work. He was buying 100% of what I was selling. He chose the name Jarico Reese as his “Magician” name.

I gave him the moniker: “If it’s magic it’s a miracle!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Jarico Reese!”

His magic act with the circus started out getting an audience member to cut their own shoelace in half with a scissor, which he would then duct-tape back together. Wearing a glittery turban and a red cape, he would levitate a Styrofoam cup (by jamming his thumb through it) as the audience groaned. He was the only person who lasted in the circus through all the tours. Actually, Dammitina as well, but I digress…

He was always helpful, cheerful, positive. He was super young, but willing to learn stuff. When he came to me he didn’t know how to use a screwdriver. By the last tour we used his bus and he was a decent mechanic. His act got better too. At the end, it was the best act in the show. Besides the dog, of course.

He would come out on stage and start to explain what he was going to do, and the band would interrupt him with a musical TA DA! He would turn and yell at them, explaining off mike (but you could still hear) that they had to TA DA! after he produced the magic act. Not before. Magic, then TA DA! “Got it?” The band would agree. Then he would continue to describe the act to the crowd. And the band would interrupt him again, the drummer blaming the bass player, the bass player blaming the horns, everyone pointing at everyone else. He would yell at them, tell them to smoke more pot. Tell them to get over themselves. Ask them what restaurant they worked in, that kind of stuff. The band would either blame, apologize or look aloof.

He would finally, after like 12 excruciating minutes of this interrupting, do a “magic” trick. No Ta Da!, no nothing. The band totally silent. The drummer was gone, the bassist was reading a newspaper, the horns were playing cards, the keyboard player was trimming his nose hairs in a mirror. Jarico would storm off the stage. I, your host, would slowly meander back on stage confused, and then just introduce the next act. It was SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE. And absolutely funny. Just brutal. 

One night, after his act, Jarico was backstage punching a cement wall and verbally frustrated. He had been drinking. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that the band “Just pisses me off.” I asked him what he meant. He replied: “Every night, it’s the same thing. They just fucking interrupt me and they think they are such hot shit. Fuck!” I explain to him that this is the act. That’s what they are supposed to do, it’s funny. I remind him that he isn’t actually a magician, and that he can’t actually produce feats of magic. He replies: “Yea, I know. But it just pisses me off!” That’s some Method acting right there!!!

After the second tour, Jarico moved to SF. I got him a job at Ace Auto, and he became very dirty. He loved it. That year I invited the Hard Times Bike Club to join the circus. They only lasted two weeks, but they left all their bikes. Jarico took up the mantle, and bonded to the bikes. After the circus, I did the Odeon Bar and Jarico did the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo. He led his own troupe of misfit toys around the country, it was fantastic. 

Jarico also did some modeling. Totally! Here is a fashion shoot he did! Didn’t see that coming, did ya? 

Well time does go on. And Dammitina turned sweet 16 about ten years after the last circus tour. I decided to do a reunion show. I made the calls, booked the venue. We planned on doing a rehearsal at my house the night before, to go over the material and work some stuff out. I invited Jarico to come to the rehearsal of course. He came an hour late. Drunk.

“It’s time to practice my act!” he declared. We had already gone over it. The band knew what to do. But Jarico insisted he teach them how to do it. “OK OK OK. Here’s how it works…” he said to them, swaying back and forth with a cigarette between his lips staring intently at a styrofoam cup he was holding. “Here’s the beginning of my act, I come out on stage and” TA DA!! the band interrupts him, perfectly. “Hey, just stop playing for a minute, I’m trying to explain how the act works! Now. I come out on stage, then you guys” TA DA!! The band interrupts him again, he’s starting to get mad now. “Quit fucking around, man! You’re not listening to me, you gotta” TA DA!! The band keeps doing the act, perfectly. Amazing timing. But Jarico is too drunk to understand what is happening. And gets really, really mad… “Fuck this, I’m outta here! It’s the same shit! Ten years later, nothing has changed! Same fucking bullshit!” And storms out of the building. 

We laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. It was the single funniest thing I witnessed in my entire life. It was perfect. Thank you for that, Justin. I will never forget that night. He made the show the next night, we didn’t talk about what happened, he just showed up, did the show. He was great. Dammit did her act, jumped through the hoop, bit the bubbles… she still had it! We all did. Timothey was the best looking temporarily tattooed man we ever had. Look at this hunk:

Chuckles danced with her rat friends. All was right in the world…

My favorite photo of me and Dammitina is from that night:

Bonus: The Email Invitation to the 10th Anniversary Reunion Show… 2007

Well, Jarico is doing alright. He has a son with his wife Linda and is thriving here in SF. Still the same jovial soul, always has a smile on his face.

Here is a Flickr album of photos of Jarico
and some of his artwork I have collected over the years.

If it’s magic it’s a miracle!