Travalanche Turns Ten Years Old!

Say “Happy Birthday” to Travalanche, which turns ten years old sometime between today and tomorrow! Travalanche is a Leap Year Baby, born on February 29, 2008. The first post was a review of the Off-Broadway show The Beebo Brinker Chronicles by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman.  On April 3, 2009, I launched my Stars of Vaudeville series with this post on George Jessel. In some ways that day marks the real birth of the blog as people have come to know it, for it’s when I began posting some of the fruits of my research for my 2005 book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous . We’ll be certain to mark that occasion as well, and in much higher style.

Over the past ten years I’ve added over 1,100 vaudeville profiles, and hundreds of articles on other performers, clowns, comedians, burlesque performers, Hollywood actors, sideshow freaks, and much much else. The categories are all available in a pull down menu on the right hand side of this blog. And there is a search function — if you’d like to know if something is on the site, why, don’t ask me, do a search! At present there are over 4,000 posts on the site. Folks from all over the world read it: researchers, fans, and — most rewardingly for me — often the descendants and other relatives of the stars themselves. I’ve done all of this work, thousands of man-hours, strictly on a volunteer basis. BUT. That’s getting old, especially in light of the fact that Travalanche’s author makes his entire living by free-lancing. But now there is a way you can help Travalanche go on. By joining my Patreon for even a small amount (say, a buck) each month you’ll be supporting the effort not just financially but metaphysically. A piece of Travalanche’ll be yours and you’ll be putting some wind in the sails of this inveterate blowhard. Pretend you are Travalanche’s elderly aunt — give it a small monetary gift for it’s tenth birthday. Won’t you? All the entertaining details are here.