To Be a Clown...

The Beginning:

When I told my teenaged kids I wanted to be a clown they said, “Dad, you've always been a clown!”

I was on my way.

I signed up for a clown class which culminated in the children's ward of a local hospital. Seeing the transformations those sick kids went through in the company of clowns sealed my fate. I was a clown forevermore.

Background:

Why would anyone purposefully make a fool of themselves?

Mark Twain's words are better than mine:

"The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like everything.”

And this one can be a challenge:

"Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.”

Bio:

Having gotten my feet wet (nose reddened?) with clowning in the early 1990s I decided to pursue whatever might improve my performance ability. Since then I've been an actor, director, writer, storyteller, and general nuisance to the stiff-necked crowd. It's been a fun, wonderful trip.

Why Clown?

In my lifetime clowns have been seen mostly as caricatures; loud, bombastic creatures within a circus or good-hearted, well-intended people in costumes outside of it. History tells a more complex story. All cultures across the globe have had some variation of clown figure, from the native American Kokopelli to medieval jesters.

If you could make a general statement covering all of them it would be ‘to puncture pomposity’. The serious attention required for many ritualized social functions easily becomes pompous. Someone transparently innocent has to yell, “The king has no clothes on!” Thus, the need for popping the balloon of self-aggrandizement falls to the clown.

How does this happen in our modern, materially grasping world? By showing another path. How often are we allowed to show wonder, innocence, vulnerability, openness to creative solutions, absolute fearlessness in the face of our own outright failure, and still be ready to try again joyfully, with no loss of enthusiasm?

The world needs clowns. It always has. Perhaps even more so in this profit and promotion driven age the clown is called forth - to save us from ourselves.