Send in the Clowns
It's not funny, not any more. Clowns have been labelled perverts, loners, drunks and even scary child killers. They have suffered a bad press for years now and it's no laughing matter.
I love clowns me, Monkee's drummer Mickey Dolenz as Corky in the 50s TV series "Circus Boy" was friends with Uncle Joey the Clown and that seemed to me like a perfectly acceptable relationship between a young boy and a middle aged man covered in face paint.
Again, I love clowns I do, with the possible - and hateful - exception of Ronald McDonald (Maccy D's cynical attempt to hijack the character to sell extruded meat patties to an unsuspecting generation of children), this bit part actor / imposter faux clown is possibly the only one that should be locked away, but there may be no need now, they seem to have sentenced him to solitary themselves because they too understand that the clown character is going through tough times and he ain't gonna sell no quarter pounders. I also get the Juggalo, Insane Clown Posse thing, that's artful rap music, or "It" The incredibly creepy Stephen King book and movie. So enough with rubbishing this hallowed art form. With one further exception: any painted portrait of a clown, for some odd reason they always make me sad.
I have a French pal called Pussy who is a clown, a qualified one, he went to L'ecole des Clunes. He was actually born a clown as so many of them are, he has funny bones, something in the way he moves is intrinsically humorous it cannot be denied. His heart is pure and he is deadly serious about the craft, he would never dream of attending a children's party, this would be below him. The most accident prone and graciously clumsy person (after yours truly) that I have ever met, he accidentally walked into a pair of sliding French windows once and unconsciously did the most comic series of pratfalls and theatrics which made me laugh non-stop for about a week.
When I was last in France I visited an old-school small circus, you know one that still insists on pushing three or four tired old elephants round a ring and girls on horseback that on close inspection will never see 55 again, (I bunked in - rolling under the marquee with my out of work clown buddy, Pussy - as you do) and was immediately hit by the raw, rich odour of straw, animals and that low lit, dusty air that you only get in a circus tent, and it took me straight back. There with my dad at the Hippodrome in Soho, in 60s. I remembered seeing Coco scanning the crowd for a wide eyed innocent to throw his bucket of water/confetti that he swung around menacingly. I remember praying that it would not be me. The feeling of fear and trepidation was almost too much to bear. but it was not fear for the man but fear for the anarchy that he might create, this was no grown up, this was a clown, no, more than that, the king of clowns, and who knew what he might do next.
Whenever there is accident or disaster at the circus the call would go out "Send In The Clowns" the purpose being to distract the audience whilst the broken body of a trapese artist or the bloody remains of a lion tamer who had lost authority was spirited away under averted spotlights. So please, can we find it in our hearts again, innocent love for the "Auguste", he can teach us a lot about life, about how to live, laugh and cry and misbehave, let's bring our innocence under the canvas from out of the rain, it's been too long and kids need him more now than ever. Send in the clowns. Just don't buy a used car from one.
"Send In The Clowns" sung by van Morrison.
Photo: David poliakoff or coco the clown as he was better known.
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