Clowns and Candy Butchers

In the Ringling hierarchy concessionaires were about a half-step down from the clowns, even though a real hustler could make tons more money than any clown.

Clown alley called them ‘candy butchers’, and we would have nothing to do with them. They bunked altogether in one train car; a hotbed of vice and debauchery that made Sodom and Gomorrah look like a Sunday School picnic. (Considering clown alley’s own shaky moral standards, this was a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.)

Prior to my advent, clown alley had dallied with some sales schemes itself. In the 1960's some genius in Detroit thought it would be a good idea to use a Ford Fairmont for the Ringling clown car and base all their advertising for that brand on the fact that sixteen clowns could be squeezed into one. Clown alley got a new Fairmont each year, and the clowns got some big spreads in glossy magazines like LIFE and Saturday Evening Post. At the same time the Coca Cola company became the sole supplier of soft drinks to Ringling Brothers, and several cartons of the ubiquitous brew were routinely dropped off in clown alley for everyone to enjoy and promote. Unfortunately, the clowns couldn't resist shaking the bottles and then uncapping them at each other. And the Fairmont was used to house several geese for a sight gag that involved them apparently pulling a chariot of clowns dressed as Roman centurions. Eventually the Mad Men caught on to the fact that clowns and commercial sales were not a good mix, and clown alley was left to its own daffy devices.

And, like all hierarchies, the pecking order became fluid where money was concerned. The candy butchers were banned from hawking their wares out in the arena during the show, as being too distracting -- except when the clowns were on. They had full reign to peddle their programmes and sno-kones while we cavorted in the rings and on the track, and they took full advantage of these brief opportunities to cry up their merchandise in tones that rang the welkin.

Granted most of our clown gags were already deafening; but when clowns like Otto Griebling wanted to inject a quiet moment of whimsical pantomime into a slap boxing match or the camera gag, it was spoiled by the raucous vendor cries of “Get ‘em while they’re hot!” and “Two for a dollar!”

During the pre show warmup, called come in, I was experimenting with a gag that relied on subtly and concentration. I stacked empty aluminum pop cans into a large pyramid that towered over my head; the blow off was that when I reached up to put the very last can at the summit, the whole thing came crashing noisily down around me. For some reason, which I am still not able to explain fully, the audience thought this was hilarious. But the cursed candy butchers kept yelling facetious comments at me during this delicate operation (you try stacking 300 empty aluminum cans without having them collapse until you want them to -- it’s not as easy as it looks). They would holler “Hey, gimme a beer out of that stack will ya?”, or, even worse, they would give it away by yelling “It all falls down at the end, hah!”

I finally put that particular gag on hiatus in so I could extract my revenge from those loudmouth hucksters.

Going into the audience to do meet and greet (shaking hands, signing autographs, etc.) I brought along clothespins, metal paper clips, and balloons. When I spotted a likely concessionaire victim I would wrap the paper clip around the spring of the clothespin, blow up the balloon, and hook the knotted end to the clothespin via the bent paper clip. Then I would sneak up on the candy butcher and deftly clip the balloon onto the bottom of his or her red and white striped blouse. Now they had a bright yellow balloon bobbing up and down on their keister. As they tried to sell their wares the crowd around them became too hysterical to buy anything, until they discovered the latex bladder that was making love to their own heinie. My strategy started to cut into their come in sales, which accounted for nearly half of their profit each show.

After a few weeks of this artful persecution on my part, the candy butchers surrendered en masse, promising to leave my come in stacking gag in peace if I would leave their behinds balloon-free.

A few years into my clown career I got a closer look at the candy butchers -- one of them, anyways. This happened because he became engaged to one of Tim Holst’s sister-in-laws. By now Holst was a big wheel on the show -- assistant performance director, no less. He knew as well as I the decayed standards of candy butchers, and he was worried that his sister-in-law’s nuptials would soon come a cropper -- and his wife, who had no circus background whatsoever, would blame him for it. So he asked me, as a friend and not as an underling, to keep an eye on the guy, Steve. If I could catch him fooling around with some other woman Holst could put the kibosh on the wedding.

Putting on a pair of gum shoes and swaddling myself in a trench coat, I began tailing Steve. During the show, of course, I was busy with other things, but after the evening performance I would slip up to his concession stand and keep a beady eye on him as he counted his money (an obscene amount, and candy butchers routinely reported but a fraction of it to Uncle Sam.)

Within a few days I discovered that Steve was a dedicated swinger; he had a harem of nubile young women who were far too affectionate to be cousins or mere assistants (which is what he told his fiancee whenever she popped up unexpectedly.) He must have been telepathic, since he kept coming over to me in my dark corner and asking if I thought I could cramp his style by spying on him for Holst. If I wanted, he said, I was welcome to any one of his paramours for an evening that would, in the patois of the times, ‘blow my mind.’ I stiffly declined his offer. He just smiled and continued on with his wanton ways. As soon as I had the goods on this lecher I reported back to Holst, who thanked me effusively and then tried to have the wedding called off.

But the affairs of Venus are beyond the control of mere men. Holst’s sister-in-law pooh-poohed his revelations about Steve’s depravity. She knew he was not perfect, but she would take him in hand and reform him. I was invited to the wedding, which took place at a rented Elk’s banquet hall in North Platte, Nebraska. The place was too big for our party, and the neon beer signs glowing in the cavernous distance leant a distinct touch of melancholy to the proceedings.

It was no surprise to anyone, except the new bride, when Steve borrowed Holst’s brand new Volvo to pick up some concession supplies down in Florida and never came back. The Volvo was eventually found in a ditch in Sarasota, completely trashed and filled with empty Cold Duck bottles.

And yes, Holst was blamed for the disaster by his wife, and his bereft sister-in-law. They ganged up on him until he began seeking the relative peace and quiet of clown alley. There, at least, the constant brouhaha was never directed at him.

Show Trump the Proper Respect . . .

Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting With Lawmakers  Headline in the New York Times

We MUST show a proper respect

for presidents, though they are flecked

with vices galore,

or what's PR for

and how could we dingbats elect? 

The Scammers of Vail

From the Denver Post:  Police in Vail are warning skiers and snowboarders of a trend of fraudulent lift ticket sales that has cost visitors thousands of dollars.

 A scammer can never go stale
when working the lifts up in Vail.
Most skiers are not
with brains really fraught;
snowboarders are clipped without fail. 

To pilfer another man's bread

Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!   

Doctrine & Covenants. Section 56:17 

To pilfer another man's bread
will make of the soul something dead.
Poverty's puzzle
does not mean to muzzle
deference to what God has said. 

A Clown Show for my Daughter

News of the imminent shuttering of Ringling Brothers Circus has revived interest in the big top, not just among the exalted media but even down to the local grade school level. Several of my grand kids have requested my presence in their classroom to demonstrate the old slapstick razzmatazz. I have informed them that I will take their request under advisement and have my social secretary get back to them as soon as possible. They all know that Grandpa Tim is an old bum who spends most of his time trying to sneak past newspaper paywalls while eating beans straight out of the can, and doesn’t even own a drugstore calendar, much less have a social secretary. So they roll their eyes at my playful evasions, wishing, no doubt, that this bumptious geezer would just say yes or no.

But it’s complicated.

On the show I was dragooned into appearing at hundreds of schools during the season. Or so it seemed. This meant getting up at an atrociously early hour like 7 in the morning to slap on the cold and congealed makeup with no chance for a warm and nourishing breakfast beforehand. Stein’s Clown White, the standard whiteface brand, needed to be rubbed in the palms of my hand vigorously before applying to my face, to warm it up and make it easy to spread. But no matter how much I rubbed it, that first swipe across the face was never a very pleasant sensation; it was like slathering your face with schmalz out of the refrigerator. And then facing dozens of howling youngsters in an overcrowded classroom or up on a gymnasium stage. It was no use doing a regular show, since the kiddies just kept screaming and wriggling like eels no matter what I did. So I marked time; juggling a bit; doing some balloon animals; playing my musical saw; and falling backwards off a folding chair at least a dozen times. When my twenty minutes were up I would bow deeply and trot off, hoping against hope that the local circus promoter would have the decency to provide me with some hot chocolate and a cruller. Dropped off back at the arena, what was the use of taking off my heavy whiteface just to put it back on again in a few hours? So I’d curl up in one of the clown prop boxes, snuggled up against the killer kangaroo, and try to recapture some of that blissful slumber I had been robbed of earlier.

There were some merry exceptions. I recall going to a grade school in Hershey, PA, with a bag full of discount ping pong balls I’d bought at a thrift store for a dollar. I spent twenty minutes throwing the ping pong balls out into the crowd of frenzied children and then dodging them as best I could when they were thrown back at me. When I took my bow I could tell the children were beyond any earthly restraint, and the teachers were biting their nails and nibbling on their lower lips in expectant terror.

That was a fun show.

Then there was the time I performed at the Bangkok International School in Thailand. I was in Thailand serving as an LDS missionary, but I'd brought along my clowning rig at the behest of my mission president, who wanted me to do some free shows to promote good PR for the LDS Church in Thailand. That particular show was held outdoors in the sweltering tropical heat. Halfway through the performance my makeup began to literally melt off my face. Rather than call a halt to the proceedings, I simply jumped into a convenient koi pond and began heaving water at the students, who returned the compliment by hoisting their math teacher into the air and depositing him next to me, sputtering and cursing like a shipwrecked sailor. At that point the students were hustled back inside and I was given an icy "Khob khun khrab" by the administration for my improvised performance.

But most of them were rather humdrum and inconvenient. After I married and began raising a large herd of my own anklebiters I vowed never to visit their classrooms as a rollicking merry andrew.

I kept to this noble resolve until my oldest daughter was in fifth grade. At the time we were living in Minneapolis, and she was enrolled in my old alma mater, Tuttle Grade School. One winter evening during the off season as the family relaxed over popcorn and a Disney video cassette, I casually asked her what her classmates thought of her dad the circus clown.

“Oh, I never tell anyone what you do” she said offhandedly. “I guess they think you’re a janitor or something.”

Blowing out a geyser of half-chewed popcorn, I stormed off to the bedroom. Imagine such ingratitude, I told myself; here I was knocking myself out (sometimes literally when the slapstick went wrong) as a professional circus artist, and my oldest daughter lets her chums think I’m a lowly janitor! By godfrey, madame; this shall not stand! After downing a restorative root beer float I rejoined my family in a much calmer frame of mind.

So the next day I walked with her to school and dropped in on the principal to offer my unusual talents, gratis, for her pupils. She was not immediately overwhelmed.

“Mr. Torkildson” she said slowly, “am I to understand that you work as a circus clown and want to do some kind of clown show here? What are you selling?”

Nothing, I replied indignantly. I just wanted to give the kids a little break from routine, a treat the likes of which they could not reasonably expect from anyone else’s father at the school. Besides, I added piously, it would be a way for me to express my gratitude to that wonderful old school where I had spent six wonderful years during my wonderful formative years.

She was not taken in by that last bit of eyewash, but still the offer intrigued her; especially after I pointed out that my own mother had been PTA president at Tuttle for three years running back in the early Sixties. Indeed, her dour features still glowered down from a row of JCPenney studio portraits on the back wall of the principal’s office.

So it was agreed that I would come in the next week, exclusively for my daughter’s class, to do a brief clown demonstration.

“It must be educational; I can’t justify it to the Board of Education otherwise” she warned me as I took my leave.

To say that my daughter was thrilled that her old man was going to show off his bag of circus tricks to her fellow students would be a slight exaggeration. Her exact words (or word) when I broached the subject to her at the dinner table were: “Whatever.”  

That is one expression that needs to be stricken from the English language PDQ. I'll be tweeting the President about it later today.

I’d like to say the demonstration went off without a hitch, impressing students and teacher alike. And it might have, if a certain daughter of mine had not been quite so mulish. I decided to use three students to demonstrate the three different kinds of clown makeup; the classic whiteface, the auguste, and the hobo or character clown. I chose my daughter for the whiteface, and she immediately set up a continuous thin whining and muttering that began to palsy my hands, making them clumsy in the application of the makeup on all three kids. Plus she kept twitching her nose, complaining the powder would make her sneeze. Her whiteface turned out rather like Boris Karloff’s death mask in the old movie ‘The Ghoul.’ The girl I chose for the august makeup, which requires a great deal of red and black, neglected to inform me that she was already wearing makeup. Since when do fifth grade girls wear makeup, for the cat’s sake? Her cosmetics proved to be an unhappy blend with my professional greasepaint, and her whole face took on a greenish tint that was offputting, to say the least. The boy I chose for the hobo makeup stayed as still as a statue, but his eyes began to leak when I was halfway through -- it turns out he was terrified of anything put on his face, but had been too shy to say anything when I chose him. So I left his makeup undone.

The strange results were displayed to the class, and then I opened it up for questions. There were none. I won’t say that crickets could clearly be heard in the background, but the silence was so profound that each crisp click of the Elgin wall clock could be made out distinctly. I packed up my gear, advised my three victims to use the baby oil I left them to rub off the makeup before trying to wash it off with soap and water, and stole silently away -- chapfallen to such an extent that I briefly considered retiring from the tanbark there and then.   

But time alleviates all lacerations, even if it doesn’t get rid of the scars, and it wasn’t long before I welcomed the Spring blossoms with a contract from the Cole Brothers Circus out of DeLand, Florida. The years slipped through my hands like a greased pig, and now my grand kids are clamoring for a guest appearance from Dusty the Clown in their classroom.

Will I go? If I go, what will I do? I’m too old and fat for pratfalls; my arthritis precludes me from playing the musical saw or making balloon animals. Should I try a makeup demonstration again?

I wonder if I can get away with just telling some tall tales with a W.C. Fields enunciation . . .

“Ah yes, my little nippers; twas many a long year ago when I invented the Spanish Web routine that made Alf Ringling the head plutocrat of the hippodrome crowd . . . “

Wo unto you rich men

Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!
Doctrine & Covenants. Section 56:16

When money the master becomes
all charity suddenly numbs.
Then sunshine departs
from harvest and hearts,
and nothing remains but the crumbs. 

Keeping it Clean in Clown Alley

Whenever the dwarf clown Prince Paul was in a reminiscent mood he would tell me about the old tenting days with Ringling Brothers when each clown was allocated no more than one bucket of water each day. This was for washing out costumes, and for bathing. And occasionally for drinking. I was appalled.

“How could you keep clean that way?” I asked.

“Schmutz Finger” he’d tell me, “it wasn’t easy. Sometimes when they were watering the elephants at night with hoses from the hydrant we’d sneak over close to them, buck naked, and catch some of the off-spray for our showers.”

“But what about laundry?” I persisted. “How could you ever keep costumes clean?”

Prince gave a massive shrug. “We didn’t. They stank like hell. Why do you think we all wore such meshuga colors and patterns? It was to hide the dirt.”

Later research on my part revealed that some clowns, like Paul Jung and Felix Adler, who dressed in a lot of white, simply paid someone in wardrobe to wash and bleach their costumes each week. Wardrobe people had unlimited access to water, in order to be able to keep the show costumes fresh.

When I first joined the Ringling Clown alley nearly half a century ago, all the veteran clowns paid one of the foreign idlers to do their laundry for them at a laundromat. By foreign idler I mean a member of one of the Hungarian teeter board troupes or Bulgarian acrobatic acts who had no direct connection with the performance -- an uncle or cousin brought along just to help move props or babysit. Every foreign troupe had at least one or two of these third wheels -- European circus families were very tight and looked after each other, so they were happy to bring along Auntie Schleppo so she could make a little money and see the wonders of the great big U S of A.

This service was available to me as well, but I balked at the pricing. It cost seventy-five cents to have a pair of clown pants washed. Shirts were fifty cents. Socks a quarter a pair. And they didn’t do underwear, period. Since I was only making ninety dollars a week as a new clown, I did my own laundry.

My costumes got dirty quick. The ubiquitous green rubber mats that were laid down throughout the arena were impossible to keep clean; the animal manure and urine were first sprinkled with sawdust and then hastily swept up during the show. This was a rudimentary procedure at best, so when I took one of my numerous pratfalls during a gag I inevitably picked up some of the remaining effluvium.

Without a car, doing laundry involved lugging my duffel bag of ripe clothes to the nearest wash-o-torium on foot. Usually a mile or more from the arena. Or, if word spread that there was a pleasant suburban laundry a few miles away, several of us new clowns would pitch in to hire a taxi to take us there and bring us back.

Back then laundromats were powered by nickels and dimes. Quarters were still serious money; you could buy postage stamps or a hamburger for a quarter. So each week I had to find a bank for a roll of dimes and a roll of nickels. I could have gotten my change from one of the concessionaires, but those usurers charged a nickel for a roll of nickels and a dime for a roll of dimes.

Before I joined the show and was living at home my mother did all my laundry; so I had no idea how to do it on my own. The first load of laundry I ever did solo, I figured I could use a bottle of Joy dishwashing liquid. Why not? Soap is soap, right? The resulting slithery foam bubbled out from my washer for a dozen feet or so, causing the attendant to curse me out in hearty Korean.

There were a few more minor glitches before I learned the laundry ropes. Then I became an expert at surviving laundromats. And believe you me, survival skills are necessary when dealing with the American laundromat; most are miserable sinkholes.

*The first thing to learn is to never load a washer and then pour in the detergent before putting the coins in the slot and pushing the button, First make sure the washer is working. Out of Order signs are a luxury that most laundromats can’t seem to afford.

*Never buy your detergent at the laundromat. Those little machines mounted on the wall that dispense packets of Tide or Oxydol are a fraud. They are either completely empty or take your money and then refuse to deliver, giving a tinny and unpleasant laugh as you bang your fists on them. When you ask the attendant (supposing you can find one) for a refund he or she suddenly develops a hearing impairment and can only answer in Esperanto.

*Bring something to read. The magazines provided at a laundromat make a dentist’s waiting room look like the British Library. There are only copies of Snuff Aficionado or religious pamphlets with titles such as “Is Hell Located in Your Cookie Jar?”

*Those big drum roller driers don’t actually dry anything. They just spin around making a hellish sound while you feed coins into them in the vain hope of producing some heat. Or else they become white hot in a matter of seconds, scorching your whites and shrinking shirts and pants to doll size in a New York minute.

*Never sit down. Those orange plastic chairs are molded to make your coccyx curl in on itself. Always check to see if they are approved by the Torquemada Council. Better sore feet from standing than sudden onset scoliosis from sitting!

As a cost cutting step I took to washing my clown socks in the men’s room of the arenas where we played. There was usually a soap dispenser that dribbled out some slimy concoction that could be considered soap by a long stretch of the imagination. And sometimes the sink actually had hot water that came out of the hot water tap. I then hung them to dry over every square inch of my clown trunk. They proved to be irresistible to Mark Anthony’s weimaraner, Zip the Wonder Dog. He chewed them up like steak bones. Good clown socks are thick and polka dot and expensive. I complained to Mark about his dog’s depredations, but he just laughed it off.

“He thinks your socks are rawhide treats” he said with a chuckle.

So I hung my socks over the thick blue curtains that surrounded clown alley for the purpose of providing us with some privacy when changing. But Charlie Baumann, the fierce German performance director, told me to pull them down ‘Macht Schnell’ because they made clown alley look like a ghetto.

I finally hung them over the sides of the clown prop boxes, where they remained undisturbed -- until I forgot about them one move out night. The moving crew simply threw them away when packing things up, and I had to wear my white cotton civilian socks for several weeks until my new red and green polka dot clown socks arrived by mail order from Pierre’s Costumes of Philadelphia.

As a whiteface clown I was expected to wear white gloves while performing, and those things got filthy faster than a parking meter expires. Plus they were flimsy, ripping easily. I got tired of washing them out in my sink on the train each night, and buying new ones at the Army Surplus store almost every week. So I began putting clown white on my hands, just to see what would happen. Nobody said anything, so I thought I had it made; but then the makeup started to make my palms itch like crazy; and the more I’d scratch, the more the clown white would flake off, giving my hands the appearance of something out of “The Mummy’s Curse.”

Swede Johnson, that wise old clown, finally took pity on me and gave me some advice:

“Hey pinhead” he said. “Don’t wear any gloves during the show, just save them for photographs.” I happily followed his suggestion, with splendid results. No more evenings spent slaving over a hot sink full of gloves!     

Early have I sought thee

. . . and they who have sought me early shall find rest to their souls.  
Doctrine & Covenants. Section 54:10

Early have I sought thee, Lord, amidst the dewy field;

In the sunlight and the rain I search to find thy shield.

At the quiet office long before the bustle starts

I seek for peace and understanding in my heart of hearts.

When the sable quilt of night begins to turn to day

I cannot lie abed but must needs seek thy golden way.

There is no rest in wealth or ease, nor in the raw desire

Of anything that is not cleansed by thy puissant fire.

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.