Art Ricker, the Yama Yama Man, and Sesame Street

Ringling Brothers was a publicity juggernaut. It never played a town without first inundating the local media with press kits, posters, advance performers, and billboards. While the show was in town the PR remained relentless, starting with the parade of animals and performers from the train to the building in the early morning hours before the sun licked the dew off the streets.

One of the prime publicity stunts was the guest clown; usually a reporter or some important local bigwig like the mayor. It’s hard to say who the very first guest clown was with Ringling Brothers but it goes back to at least 1917, when humorist Robert Benchley wrote about his experiences while embedded in clown alley for the New York Tribune Magazine.

Art Ricker handled the clowns for publicity. He was, in Western movie parlance, a tall drink of water. Towering over most of us, this balding, cigar-smoking Svengali inveigled various clowns into performing outside of regular showtime hours in order to go visit children’s hospitals or appear on a local kiddie TV show (usually at some ungodly hour like 7 a.m.).  He it was who arranged for guest clowns to submit themselves to our tender ministrations. Our feelings about guest clowns were ambiguous. On the one hand, if they kept quiet and brought us donuts we didn’t mind babysitting them. On the other, if they were sneering know-it-alls who tried to tell us how to do our jobs and didn’t bring any treats for the alley we couldn’t wait to get rid of them.

Either way, they were made up with an easy makeup that we called ‘B.A. Clown’ and dressed in a green satin Yama Yama suit. ‘B.A.’ stood for ‘Busted Ass,’ because they were given a huge red mouth that suggested a . . . well, you get the picture. The Yama Yama suit was green with age; a one-size-fits-all jumper with black pom pom buttons that had its roots in a 1909 Broadway play called ‘Three Twins.’ That show featured a song called ‘The Yama Yama Man’, in which chorus girls cavorted in Yama Yama suits while a soubrette sang about the creepy Yama Yama Man -- if you want to see an authentic Yama Yama suit and hear the disturbing lyrics for yourself just watch the movie ‘The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle,’ which stars Ginger Rogers singing the song in costume.  

As noted earlier, if the guest clown were docile he or she was treated without prejudice. The boss clown would give them a simple clown prop like an oversized foam rubber mallet to play with, and then one of the First of Mays would be detailed to escort the guest clown around and see that he or she did not get crushed by an elephant or peed on by the tigers (who have deadly aim up to twelve feet away). If the guest clown proved recalcitrant, wanting to go off on his or her own in order to get a scoop or chat up the showgirls, harsher measures were used. Squirreled away in one of the clown prop boxes was the ‘killer kangaroo,’ a diabolical sight gag that consisted of a foam rubber kangaroo stuffed with a large inflated exercise ball. The victim sat on the back of the kangaroo and bounced their way around the arena. It was an exhausting workout; a guest clown who managed to make it all the way around the track would stagger back to clown alley afterwards on the brink of cardiac arrest. That usually put paid to their disruptive nosiness for the rest of the show.

My first year in clown alley I started out as an eager beaver when it came to publicity. A rube from the wilds of Minnesota, I was delighted to get my name in the newspaper or be interviewed on an early morning radio program. Ricker took advantage of my naivete and gave me all the crap PR assignments. I went up in an Eddie Rickenbacker special to do a radio traffic report, in makeup and costume; the pilot decided to impress me with several loop de loops -- which ended in me yacking up my blueberry muffin all over his leather jacket. I was tapped to do a solo performance at a school for the deaf and blind. And Ricker had me handing out pamphlets between shows, in makeup and costume, detailing how well our elephants were treated, when PETA decided to picket the show.

I finally wised up, like the rest of clown alley, and whenever the click of his dress shoes echoed along the corridors near clown alley and the noisome stench of his cigar warned us of his approach, it was all hands abandon ship and devil take the hindmost. We scrambled through the thick blue curtains that separated clown alley from the prying public to scamper away like rabbits. The veteran clowns had no worries; they had paid their publicity dues long ago and were immune from normal requests. They only got the plum assignments, such as interviews with reporters from the New York Times or Chicago Tribune. They also did all the network TV. I still recall fondly the time Prince Paul was asked to do the Phil Donahue Show. He kindly asked me to accompany him, so I could be on national TV. When Donahue inevitably requested us to ‘do something funny’ Prince was prepared with a large shaving cream pie; he ground it into Donahue’s face without a moment’s hesitation.  

I’ll say this for Art Ricker; he never held a grudge. Even though I had taken to hiding out whenever he was in the market for another victim, he still tracked me down when we played Anaheim so I could be in a Sesame Street segment, featuring the Ringling clown car.  It took several hours to film, and I missed lunch for it, but it was worth all the bother. I recently discovered that clip on a website and shared it with my grand kids. Even though you can barely make me out, they were duly impressed. I don’t know how long I’ll remain a big shot in their eyes, but it’s a mighty fine feeling while it lasts.

The Rules & Regulations of Clown Alley

Before its demise this coming May, the clown alley of Ringling Brothers Circus had already become neutered with a stifling number of regulations. The free spirits that once inhabited clown alley were weeded out in favor of a homogenized crew of goody two-shoes. The crude slapstick dwindled into cute set pieces created, performed, and enjoyed exclusively by mollycoddles.

I’m sorry to start this reminiscence with such a negative assessment, but when I think back to the  Rabelaisian characters I consorted with over forty years ago in clown alley, I begin to wonder if it isn’t all for the best that the Big Top is finally lowering its colors. Authentic comedy demands a lusty and deranged mindset; otherwise a mild whimsy creeps in that exterminates belly laughs. Comedy comes from chaos, not from consideration.

Take, for example, the rule imposed on the Ringling clown alley in recent years that forbade members from ever appearing in public between shows in makeup and dressed in civilian clothes. Granted that there is a certain mystique to the gaudy-faced buffoon that should be guarded from public exposure; yet this senseless ukase kept the clowns virtual prisoners inside the arena from noon to midnight each day. Worse still, many new clowns who knew of this draconian decree deliberately designed their clown faces in a style that I can only call ‘Clown Lite’ -- a touch of red rouge on the nose, a dab of white around the eyes, and a trace of black over the eyebrows. This is easy to wash off and then reapply, but it is also a weak and ineffective makeup. Something for Renaissance Fairs and Pee Wee Herman movies -- not for the bold roughhouse of the American circus.

Back in the day, clown alley basked in a benign managerial neglect for the most part. As long as you showed up fairly sober and were not tardy for the production numbers, circus management, as personified by Charlie Baumann, didn’t give the peel of an onion what you did. The boss clown, LeVoi Hipps, was an amiable Southern cracker who never worried about his charges unless they threatened to keep him off the golf course. And should you invoke his wrath with some egregious monkeyshine, such as punching out a townie or riding the show’s llama down Main Street at 3 a.m. because of a bar bet, he could be quickly placated with a carton of Titleist golf balls.

When the show played Chicago there was a chophouse down the street that served magnificent slabs of sirloin, with a huge baked potato and corn on the cob on the side. I can still remember the price for this carnivore ambrosia: $4.75. Between shows several of us clowns would put on our jeans and flannel shirts to hike over for a good meal, never bothering to remove our clown makeup. The proprietor, a flamboyant Greek, was delighted to have our business. He insisted on throwing in a free bottle of house wine (which I warily sampled only once, to discover what they do with expired turpentine) and personally wheeled the dessert cart to our table. The waiters hated our guts because he insisted that no tipping was necessary; it was a great honor just to have us in his establishment. The food was so good and plentiful that I would have gone broke just by eating there every day if it hadn’t rained a good deal, discouraging my forays outside.

The drawback to eating such a fine greasy meal in makeup is that the food wipes away a good portion of your makeup around the mouth. Each bite must be small and be taken daintily to minimize the damage. That's why if you ever see a gaggle of clowns taking tiffin in makeup it will appear to be as restrained as an English tea party.

I went out in makeup to buy money orders to mail to my bank; to eat; to browse in nearby bookstores; and sometimes, when the weather was nice, just to sit on a park bench and wait for girls to come over and talk to me. Truly, it was a different world back then.

“What are you all made up for, an early Halloween?” a comely blonde would inquire, sashaying up to me with hip action that would turn Elvis green with envy. I made a point of wearing my glasses whenever I went out -- no need to miss the local scenery.

“Nope. I’m with the circus” I would reply nonchalantly, pulling out a pencil balloon and making a poodle with it.

“Ooooh! That must be so cool! Do they have girl clowns?”

“Not very many, no. It’s very physically demanding.”

“Is that for me? Thank you so much! Can I have your autograph?”

“Of course. Where do you want me to write it?”

Sadly, they always had a piece of paper handy, so I never got to sign any girl’s, um, purse. And also, very sadly, this was back before cell phones, so I couldn’t ask her if she wanted my phone number, too. That’s about as far as I ever got with these flirty pieces of fluff. Lack of follow up has always been my besetting sin.

Other clowns, more forward than myself, did not scruple to invite young lovelies back to the arena for a personal guided tour. You would think this would lead to many a romantic tryst, but no; Backdoor Jack, who guarded the arena backdoor with the fury of a Cerberus, was quick to spot interlopers, even svelte blonde ones, and order them out in a voice that combined nails on a blackboard with gravel sliding into a culvert.

And of course there were the serious drinkers, who used the time between shows to fill up on hooch at the nearest watering hole. They never took their makeup off, and had no qualms about smoking as they downed their beer or shot of whiskey. This didn’t upset anybody. Occasionally an unsteady co-worker had to be bedded down for the night in one of the clown prop boxes, missing the evening performance; but we had ways to cover for him. A few bucks slipped to the men’s wardrobe head and the snoozing clown’s show costumes were pronounced full of moths or in need of immediate fumigating, which satisfied Baumann the Performance Director. And we knew each other’s parts for all the clown gags (it’s not like trying to navigate a nuclear submarine).

What discipline there was in clown alley came from within. Respect for the genius and artistry of someone like Otto Griebling or Lou Jacobs kept the most clamorous clowns in line. When Otto needed a nap the alley tenderly tiptoed around and made sure he stayed tucked into his Hudson Bay Point blanket. There was also the impromptu kangaroo court of the older, veteran clowns. At one point during the season a sneak thief began removing spare change and food items from out of our open trunks. Swede, Otto, Prince Paul, Mark Anthony, Dougie Ashton, and Lazlo Donnert went into a huddle about the situation. Their decision was that a certain young clown was the guilty party. I don’t know what they based their surmise on, but when they confronted him in a body, in blistering language that melted my ear wax, he confessed and agreed to pay back the money he’d stolen and spring for pizza for the entire alley as recompense. Problem solved. Without resorting to some aloof rule book.

Hope

“When we trust in the Lord that all will work out, this hope keeps us moving. Hope is a characteristic Christian virtue. I am glad to practice it and to recommend it to counter all current despairs.”  Dallin H. Oaks

With our current despairs we are able to cope

When we practice good faith with a parcel of hope.

Dilemmas will shrink, apprehensions recede

As we trust in the Lord to take care of our need.

Though Christians must suffer along with the rest

If we do our part well we will surely be blessed.

Three Ring Ruckus

At Ringling the clowns were allowed one five-minute center ring gag. This was the only time during the show that the clowns were spotlighted in center ring.

The year I joined the show in 1971 the center ring gag was a bakery riff, featuring a clown bride, a clown groom, several clown bakers (including me), a towering foam rubber wedding cake filled with shaving soap, and an exploding oven. There was no storyline as such; while the band tootled “If I Knew You Were Comin I’d’ve Baked a Cake”  there was much frantic and confused action centered around the wedding cake, into which the hapless bride was eventually thrown, leading to the blow off when the stove erupted into a fumarole of sparks and black powder smoke. During those hectic five minutes I was slapped half a dozen times, took several pratfalls, was slathered with soap and doused with flour, and finally propelled over the ring curb by the oven’s pyrotechnics. It was a crash course in the rough and tumble of slapstick for me; the first few weeks of the season I was covered in bruises and limped around like Walter Brennan in “Rio Bravo.”  I thought about asking for combat pay.

In the course of time I wised up, learning to go limp when I fell and to jerk my head back before a slap actually connected with my face. I also learned how to protect myself from hazing. Dougie Ashton, an Australian clown, enjoyed rubbing my face in a bucket of Old Spice shaving soap suds during the gag, an unscripted improvisation that took off most of my whiteface makeup. After the blow off I’d race back to clown alley to reapply my makeup, which would take a good fifteen minutes. This, in turn, made me late for the next production number, which would infuriate Herr Charlie Baumann, the Performance Director. His teutonic growl followed me all the way from clown alley to the curtained arena entrance, threatening demerits and fines if I continued to hold up the show.

After one particularly thorough dunking by Dougie I decided to put his makeup back on, instead of my own. Ashton used a basic character makeup -- just black mustache and eyebrows with some rouge on the cheeks. I was able to show up on time for the next production number, which made Baumann happy -- and gave Dougie a conniption fit.

“That bahsterd is using me makeup!” he complained to Bauman. When confronted by the Performance Director, I innocently explained my predicament and how I had solved it. Charlie barely suppressed a smile as he listened, then turned to Dougie.

“Vhat you vant me to do? He must be on time for der next number or I fine him, yah?”

After that, Dougie left my clown face intact.   

  

Keeping all three rings filled with entertaining action for a full three hours was no walk in the park for circus management. Even with dozens of top flight acts from around the world to keep things going, we clowns were called upon to display our waggery a half dozen times or more during each show. We were required to fill all three rings with tomfoolery, as well as parade around the track with ‘walk-arounds’, which are portable sight gags. And when you fill three rings with a total of thirty professional clowns, each ring competing against the others for attention, you create a tumultuous bedlam that makes Chinese New Year seem like a Presbyterian funeral service.

The veteran clowns, naturally, were awarded the center ring for their shenanigans. The rest of us riff raff were assigned the two outer rings. One of the outer rings was always given over to a table rock routine, a chari vari demonstration, or a juggling display. You needed real talent and skill to participate in any of those routines. Which I did not possess. The other outer ring was used as a catch-all for those clowns who didn’t juggle or do acrobatics; we untalented hacks generally hurled buckets of water at each other and ran around the ring like lunatics, chasing each other, dropping our pants, and firing off blanks from starting pistols.

When presented with three rings of slapstick, an audience’s attention will naturally gravitate towards the ring where there is the most noise and fire. Artistry goes by the board as the decibels increase. The jugglers switched from Indian clubs to fire torches. The center ring clowns, those sly masters, used blank shotgun shells to punctuate their gag -- that particular season it was a balky Model T that refused to start without squirting water and smoke in all directions. Our ring of misfits fought back with a small bore canon purchased collectively from some Civil War buffs in Pennsylvania. It not only created a sound wave that could knock you down at thirty paces and make your ears bleed, but produced an impressive smoke ring that billowed out over the audience, causing them to “ooh!” and “aah!” like crazy.

Mark Anthony, known as Tony the Happy Tramp, was producing clown that year. A producing clown gets paid more in order to supply all of clown alley with an adequate supply of gags. Mark knew every clown gag there was, having clowned with circuses since the 1940’s. As one of the veterans in center ring, he did not appreciate our Civil War artillery. So he pulled out the ultimate  attention getter: Rocket balloons.

Rocket balloons are four feet long and sausage shaped when inflated. Mark put a little cardboard doohickey in the mouth of each one, which allowed it to slowly expel air and sail majestically above the heads of the audience in a magnificent arc before landing in the very back row. He sent a dozen of these babies out into the audience during the Model T gag, which created a shrieking pandemonium that effectively ended the competition for laughs and attention.

Admitting defeat, the outer rings went back to quieter skylarking. Mark put away his rocket balloons. After all, he told us with a grin, those balloons cost a hell of a lot and were not in the clowning budget. And my tinnitus eventually cleared up.

Cameron Harris

Cameron Harris repaid student loans

By posting a whopper that rattled some bones.

His blog was a fake, but believed by the mob

Who swallowed it whole as a tasty snow job.

He huffed and he puffed and he blew the truth down,

But nobody spotted this internet clown

Until he had gathered more money than many

Make in a year when they save ev’ry penny.

Cameron Harris regards his deception

As proving his awesome and useful perception.

Horsing Around with the Circus

Ringling Brothers was always identified with its elephants. But just as prominent were the show horses. And let me say right up front that I never met a horse I didn’t hate as a clown.

Circus historians are agreed that the first real circus was created by Philip Astley in England around 1770. Astley had been a cavalry soldier, and he doted on horses. His show was mostly horses, and was so well-received that eventually it went on tour as far as Washington D.C., where the Father of our Country took in a performance. (The historical record is silent on whether or not he was able to chew a bag of popcorn with his wooden teeth.) As other circuses popped up around our lusty new nation they all emulated Astley’s, featuring horses by the dozens -- and even the clowns had to have a mule to jest with. Elephants were a much later addition, starting around 1880.

My feud with horses started right at the beginning, during my first ‘Spec’ performance. Spec is short for spectacular. It is the parade-cum-bacchanal that ends the first half of the show. That first season I began the Spec parade in a rhinestone-encumbered marching band costume, complete with a shako that weighed no less than twenty pounds; it relocated my center of gravity, putting it near my Adam’s apple.  

I tottered behind a pair of Clydesdales that had every appearance of docile gentleness. But they had it in for me. As they clopped around the arena with me behind they dumped a steaming load that I didn’t see in time to avoid. My brand new fancy ballet slippers were engulfed in a fragrant loaf that left its mark and odor for several months after.

But that was not the end.

After marching around the track, desperately trying to keep my shako from toppling me over like a bowling pin, I had to make a quick costume change and come back out to the Spec promenade dressed as a girl rabbit, complete with checkered tutu and a huge papier mache head that narrowed my vision down to a tunnel of light obscured by a fine mesh screen. All but blind, I was led by one of the horse handlers to a spot in front of a fine pair of milk white Arabians and told to hold their halters and lead them around the arena. When I attempted this the nags threw a hissy fit; one of them bit my rabbit head, taking off a goodly chunk of ear. And the other one head butted me on the shoulder, sending me spinning into a guy wire and then onto a metal elephant tub. Badly shaken, I gamely got up and tried to lead those creatures again. This time they reared up, ready to squash me like a bug; only the timely intervention of a horse handler saved me from a permanent quietus.

“I guess they don’t like your costume” he said nonchalantly as I waited for my heart to cease beating out a rapid tattoo. “Just walk over by the llama and wave at the kiddies.”

I took his advice with alacrity. I’m not sure of my zoology here, but llamas must be related to horses, since the one I sidled up to greeted me with a gob of spit the size of a golf ball. I realized at that moment that quadrupeds and I were not fated to be good buds.

45 years ago Ringling had around forty horses on the Blue Unit. They were caparisoned with ornate blankets and saddles, to be ridden in parades by the aristocracy of the circus. The show featured several dressage acts, stately and synchronized down to a nanosecond. The days of Poodles Hanneford and his rowdy horse shenanigans was long gone. Those horse trainers and handlers considered themselves the ‘ancien regime’ of the circus world, their position of superiority usurped by parvenu lion tamers and trapeze artists. They lived in a world of their own, mostly British-flavored and so horsey that even the roustabout who shoveled out the horse dung carried a riding crop.

Tommy Tomkins, who had headlined on the Bertram Mills Circus in England as a lad, was the head equestrian handler. He sported a huge Colonel Blimp mustache and is the only person I ever knew who actually used a monocle. His riding breeches were high, wide, and handsome. He appeared to be perpetually ready for a fox hunt; going so far as to gulp a generous stirrup cup of Pimm’s No. 1 Cup each morning, and repeating this fine old English foxhunting tradition several more times during the day, and into the evening, until his ruddy features took on the glow of a blast furnace. He addressed every clown the same way: “You there, fellow.” His manner was so baronial I had to resist the urge to knuckle my forehead when in his presence.

The trainers and handlers all enjoyed some special perks with the show. Horse lovers flocked to their side before, between, and after the shows, to discuss the evils of boxwalking and who was running at the Preakness that year. These tony visitors always brought large hampers of smoked salmon, imported cheeses, a large selection of digestive biscuits, and plenty of wine. More equestrians came down with gout than were ever injured by a horse while on the show. In return, several of the dicier handlers sold the visitors the cream of the crop for amazingly discounted prices. When the buyer would show up on moveout night to collect his or her bargain, both the handler and the hayburner would be long gone back into the bowels of the circus train. As the concessionaires were fond of saying, “Yez pay yer money and yez take yer chances!”

I attempted detente with those blasted horses several times, trying to bribe them with apples and carrots. But their lustrous eyes never held any sympathy for me. Halfway through the season I got too close to the back of an Andalusian and was kicked in the chest so hard that the imprint of the horseshoe lingered like a bad tattoo for several years.  

During all my years with the circus the horses continued to nip at me and try to step on my clown shoes. They shied when I was near and shook their manes at me in a disparaging manner when I was yards away. I learned to give them a wide berth. To this day I won’t approach a horse, not even a Shetland pony, without wearing a Kevlar vest and carrying a halberd.

In Bhutan, Happiness Index as Gauge for Social Ills

From the New York Times:  Mr. Ura, 55, is perhaps one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, at least as seen through the lens of development economics. It has been something of a preoccupation for more than two decades as he has developed and fine-tuned Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness indicator, a supplementary, sometimes alternative, yardstick to the conventional measure of development, gross domestic product.

Happiness cannot be rated

without many standards debated.

Perhaps honesty,

or a sugar daddy.

(A pizza would make me elated)

To Reason Out the Gospel

Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face.

Doctrine & Covenants. 50:11


To reason out the Gospel takes a humble attitude.
Not shouting or oppressing; there's no room for being rude.
A man may study many years the doctrines of salvation;
but if he can't be reasoned with, he's headed for damnation.
Reasoning together is a duty that the Lord
has given us in lieu of forcing others by the sword.
A gentle tone and artless smile are angel's tools indeed,
by which from prejudice and faction we can all be freed. 

Bill Ballantine, Wheat Germ, and Me.

(Uncle Bill is in front, sprawled next to the circus logo; I am on the back row, third in from the left)

The noted writer and illustrator Bill Ballantine was invited by Irvin Feld to run the Ringling Brothers Clown College in Venice, Florida, during its formative years. It was my good fortune to matriculate under “Uncle Bill,” as we students called him.

He was, for the most part, an easy-going and flexible administrator.

Except when it came to yoga and wheat germ. In those two areas he was an implacable fanatic.

Our curriculum under Uncle Bill consisted of makeup, acrobatics, juggling, pantomime, and a basic grounding in all the ‘schtick’ or ‘lazzi’ of staple clown gags. How to take a slap; do a pratfall; do a double take; drop your pants; and make your hat spring off your head (as done so often and so nimbly by Chaplin and Stan Laurel). There were optional courses in playing the musical saw, balloon sculpting, and clown prop construction (the last taught by the kindly George Schellenberger, whom I have written about elsewhere).  

No one can dispute that these kinds of skills are essential for professional clowning. But to this intriguing smorgasbord Uncle Bill added an hour of yoga each day in the late afternoon, and mandatory evening lectures on the importance of yogurt, wheat germ, and other dietary curiosities.

I found the yoga class impossible to get through without falling asleep at the halfway mark. The hard physical work of practicing a human pyramid and wobbling around on a unicycle prior to class, the dozy Florida afternoon heat, and my own extreme boredom with the instructor’s chanted monotone of “Breath deeply, in and out, in and out” worked like hypnotism to put me under. I would spend the last half of the class sprawled on my bamboo yoga mat like a corpse, inanimate and senseless.

Uncle Bill kept an eagle eye out for yoga slackers; more than once I was awakened from my coma by the not-so-gentle tip of his sneaker against my rib cage -- “You going to sleep away your chance for a lifetime of serenity, Torkildson?”

Our instructor was a yoga teacher at the New College in Sarasota. Her age was indeterminate; like many other contemplative crackpots, she had an ageless aura of granola about her. She dressed all in black. I never heard her laugh, and her smile was a chilling whole grain rictus. She had us do breathing exercises and stretching exercises and sitting exercises and wanted us to stand on our heads. It was my opinion then, as it is now, that if God wanted man to stand on his head he would have put a large cushioned suction cup on top of it. I toppled over with depressing regularity when attempting this stunt.

Uncle Bill, on the other hand, spent an hour a day up in his office, standing on his head, dressed in nothing but a loin cloth that often failed in its duty. He regularly called students in for a chat while in this position, and invited them to join him in the topsy turvy position. As far as I know, none ever acceded to his invitation, and several of the younger girls bolted out the door a few moments after going in.

To this day I am not exactly sure why he insisted on having clown students learn yoga.

“It purifies the body” I remember him saying. He was also fond of intoning “Mens sana in corpore sano,’ which is Latin for ‘A sound mind in a sound body.’ Today there’s probably dozens of ‘boffo’ Buddhists out there doing stand-up, but forty-five years ago if you were pursuing a comedy career, inner peace was not a good motivation -- you needed those inner demons to be active to drive your sense of humor.

I think Uncle Bill, as a writer, felt that yoga helped him concentrate and focus, and that he thought this would be a good thing for embryo clowns to learn. But it wasn’t. The best clowns have always had the attention span of a mayfly.

As soon as we hit the road with the show we all pretty much forgot about deep breathing and the lotus position.

From day one at Clown College Uncle Bill insisted we eat lots of Kretschmer’s wheat germ. This is a sort of gravel that food faddists have been foisting upon the American public since 1936, when the Kellogs up in their sanitarium in Michigan began torturing patients with it. Uncle Bill kept us supplied with it, free of charge, and suggested we eat it with yogurt or sprinkle it over our eggs. Since I was still the complete Minnesota naif back then, I honestly tried to choke the stuff down every day for several weeks before giving it up as a bad job. Not only did it taste rotten, it made my bowels as frisky as a lamb in springtime. I had to keep a bathroom within a hundred yards of me at all times.

Uncle Bill was also big on bean sprouts. He force fed us bean sprout sandwiches on whole grain bread for several school picnics. Washed down with spinach and blueberry smoothies. As a stubborn Scandinavian raised on meat and potatoes and Wonder Bread, I found this dietary tyranny intolerable. I vowed that as soon as my clown salary kicked in I would glut on White Castle sliders until they came out my ears.

There were also raw carrots and radish leaves and a host of other unprocessed foodstuffs that Uncle Bill insisted would keep us funnier than the old veteran clowns, who, apparently, subsisted on canned chili, beer, and 7-11 hot dogs. They were not long for this world, prophesied Uncle Bill sadly; but when they had kicked the bucket it would be us, the Young Turks, who would take over the merrymaking and live to a ripe old age with our bones intact, our lungs clean, and our ‘sans corpore’ or whatever the heck it was running at full steam ahead!    

There were other culinary outrages perpetrated on us during our two-month stay at the Clown College. Cider vinegar tonics. Dried apple peel chips. Lecithin wafers. Tofu butter. It was, if you’ll pardon the half-baked pun, a bitter pill to swallow. And swallow it we did; for it was hinted in no uncertain terms that those who followed the wheat germ trail with fervor would be rewarded with a circus contract, while those who continued their hedonistic dance with burgers and fries would soon be cast into outer darkness where they could gnash their greasy gums in despair.

I was never more than a lukewarm acolyte to Uncle Bill’s dietary philosophy. I could stand bean sprouts in egg foo young or chop suey, and yogurt wasn’t so bad if you slurped it down fast. But I harbored unholy dreams of msg-drenched tater tots. So it came to pass that the night diplomas and contracts were handed out I did not expect to be hired on as a First of May.

But I was. Years later I discovered that the main reason I got a contract was simply because I was so thin back then that I could fit into any of the expensive show costumes already created -- thus saving the circus the expense of having to make new costumes for their elaborate Opening, ‘Manage’, and ‘Spec’ displays.

As for Uncle Bill, he and I stayed in touch over the years. When I was around him I would dutifully order a tofu burger and swill wheat grass juice. This charade pleased him, I think, and when he wrote his magnum opus, entitled “Clown Alley,” published in 1982, he included a flattering drawing of my clown character and wrote that I was “one of the zaniest kids” he’d ever had to deal with. I felt that was high praise indeed, coming from such a distinguished and intelligent writer and illustrator. So what if he had some hobby horses he liked to ride? Who doesn’t? I’m still on a quest to find the perfect anchovy pizza!

Lindsay Lohan

Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan has fueled speculation that she has converted to Islam after deleting all of her posts on the social media platform Instagram, simply leaving her account bearing an Arabic greeting.

from the Jerusalem Post

When Lindsay her posts all deleted,
with bushwa her actions were treated.
She's now LDS
or wears a headdress,
or has the marthambles untreated.