History of a Long Shirt

I was introduced to the long shirt gag my first year on the road with Ringling Brothers. As the biggest member of the troupe inside the clown car, I had to lay flat on the bottom while the other clowns piled on top of me. When it came my turn to pop out I was immediately grabbed by the traffic cop, played by Tim Holst, and hauled off to jail. Except that as he pulled on my shirt it just got longer and longer -- until it spanned the entire length of the arena. At which point it came off of me, my pants fell down, and I toppled over the ring curb. That was the blow off.

The simple elegance of this sight gag has always pleased me. It requires no gadgets or fiddling with -- it’s just a long tube of cloth with arm holes and a large opening for the head. Someone working for the Marx Brothers thought it was a great gag, too; for it’s used to great effect by Harpo during the football match in their film ‘Horse Feathers.’ I’ve never seen it used in any other slapstick comedy movie. And I have no idea who first thought it up. It’s probably as ancient as the toga.

Years later, after I had left the Ringling fold, I described the long shirt to my wife Amy, to see if she could sew me up one to take on the road with the next mud show I was scheduled to join in the spring. It didn’t sound too complicated to her, so we shopped around for some suitable fabric, finally settling on a long swath of an elastic nylon/cotton blend that had both stripes and polka dots in red, blue, and yellow. She stayed up all night cutting and stitching, and in the morning I was the proud possessor of a 25 foot clown long shirt.

It was rather bulky to wear, but that turned out to be a good thing. The show I went out with had two other clowns -- the Calabozo Brothers from Brazil. They were rough and tumble performers, who did a slack wire act and blew on whistles as loud as they could while they pummeled each other with broomsticks. They liked to pummel me as well during our clown entr’acte, but with the long shirt providing lots of padding I never felt a thing. The Calabozos were unfamiliar with the long shirt, and eventually grew tired of heaving on it while I got all the laughs. So one day when I wasn’t looking they cut halfway through my long shirt near the top -- the next show, they gave it a perfunctory tug and the long shirt came apart, with most of it still around my waist. We still got a laugh, but it was only a titter -- not the satisfying belly laugh the full unfolding of the long shirt usually created.

Infuriated at their callous and lazy tomfoolery at my expense, I took the sundered apparel to the wardrobe mistress -- a Catholic nun from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart that volunteer world-wide with circuses. I explained what happened and implored her to bind up my broken long shirt before the evening show. She was glad to do so, and even reinforced the whole thing to make it harder to snip through. I offered to pay her for her heroic efforts on my behalf but she gently refused -- her order took a vow of poverty and never accepted payment for services rendered. After that I kept my long shirt with me at all times -- I even used it as my pillow at night. There was no more trouble from the cursed Calabozos.

That long shirt stood me in good stead over the following years. The material was so durable that it outlasted all of my other clown wardrobe. And it was always good for a laugh, no matter what clown gag I stuck it in.  In fact, I had a business card printed that read, in part, “Dusty the Clown. Have long shirt -- will travel.”

We weathered several years of grassy lots and muddy sinks together, that long shirt and I. And then one winter’s day during the off season while I was enjoying a leisurely game of Scrabble with my older kids, Amy took my long shirt into her sewing room and cut it apart. She then made nightshirts out of the material for me and the kids.

At the time I didn’t understand her action or reasons. She hadn’t asked me if she could do it -- she just did it, silently and swiftly. Now I know it was her way of telling me to quit traveling with the circus once and for all. But I didn’t parse her meaning back then; I put it down to female whimsy.

I’ve still got that long shirt nightshirt. I wore it this past winter, even though I’m in a subsidized apartment where I don’t pay for utilities -- so I can have the heat up as high as I want at night. I like keeping it cool so I can put on that sturdy old piece of material -- rubbing it like a magic lamp to conjure up the memory of happy trips and tempo of years fled past.

California’s Deluge of Rain Washes Away a Homeless Colony

The Golden State is flushed with rain.

The Homeless there must move again.

The riverbanks where they once hid

Into the rapids now have slid.

Wrapped in tarps, a sad memento

On the streets of Sacramento.

The rushing water doesn’t care

About the homeless anywhere.

And people, like the H2O,

Turn their backs and let them go.

Perhaps another drought will teach

Them more compassion in Long Beach.

The Holy Ghost

“The Holy Ghost binds us to the Lord.”

Ronald A. Rasband

A nudge from the real Holy Ghost

Leads me to pray, not to boast;

To work quietly

For God’s own glory --

And never become too verbose.

My Favorite Martian

SYRACUSE — Why have sightings of unidentified flying objects around the nation more than tripled since 2001? Why is July the busiest month for U.F.O. sightings? Why did they spike in Texas in 2008, or in New Mexico in September 2015?

And how in the world, or out of it, has Manhattan racked up New York State’s second-highest tally of U.F.O. sightings in this century?

These questions and many others emerge from the first comprehensive statistical summary of so-called close encounters: 121,036 eyewitness accounts, organized county by county in each state and the District of Columbia, from 2001 to 2015.

From a story by Ralph Blumenthal

Martians in the Midwest; Selenites upon the shore --

The outer space contingent has arrived; and what is more,

The Feds don’t want to hear it, since the Condon papers broke

The government’s slight int’rest -- now they treat it like a joke.

The Condons, though, have toted up the numbers -- and they show

That aliens from Betelgeuse vacation here below.

Their numbers are increasing -- and it’s wiser not to grouse.

Because I think we’ve got one now ensconced in the White House!

Le Pen Again

In France they are fingering Bren

As one way to stop Ms. Le Pen.

The Center and Left

Are not very deft --

They’ll poke her like she was a wen.

New Orleans Begins Removing Statues Commemorating the Rebel Confederacy

New Orleans is in a sad state
since Robert E. Lee met his fate --
pulled from his piling
he's no longer smiling --
and where will the birds defecate? 

Marine le Pen? What's that -- a writing system for fishes?

A French election is to me a mystery complete.

I do not understand how someone wins, or meets defeat.

Their platforms are a puzzle and their slogans must be Greek.

I think they beat each other on the head with a large leek.

And when the voting’s over, why -- they vote again, the nuts.

And then the country goes on strike (or maybe gets haircuts.)

And all the time they guzzle wine and pick at cheese and snails.

I wish the Russians would attempt to mess with THEIR emails!

Bernie Sanders

Despite being the most sought-after Democrat in the country today, Mr. Sanders is actually an independent and self-described democratic socialist animated chiefly by class uplift.

From the NYTimes

No Democrat is Bernie Sanders.

He’s giving their party the glanders.

He goes his own way

While Democrats pray

He’ll avoid any more Marxist slanders.

Be Ambitious

“In our lives we experience trials, but if we are ambitious for Christ, we can focus on Him and feel joy even in the midst of them.”

Kazuhiko Yamashita

I do not seek for tribulation -- trouble comes to me.

I am a magnet for disaster, now and constantly.

Whether by my own hand or because my fate is fixed,

I often find my plans upset -- my worthwhile goals are nixed.

But since I work for Jesus and for him keep plugging on,

I never feel I’m just a clueless unattended pawn.

I cannot move a mountain -- even molehills are a strain;

But if I stay determined then my life is not in vain!  

Dusty the Clown Speaks!

Schooled at the Ringling Clown College in the virtues of silence, I was always loath to give voice to anything except an occasional roar or howl of pain during clown gags. I even went so far as to leave the show for one season to study pantomime down in Mexico with Maestro Sigfrido Aguilar -- after that refining experience, I took a vow of silence like a Dominican friar.

Imagine my horror and chagrin, then, years later, when circumstances placed me on a small but very peripatetic mud show racing through the wilds of Nebraska -- in which I was required to speak! It was like Harpo Marx being asked to give the Gettysburg Address.

It came about this way -- Dave Royal, the ringmaster for the show, who doubled as a magician, offered to let me share his trailer when my elderly van, in which I lived, dropped a piston and became just another piece of wayside junk on Interstate 80. His kindness saved me from having to invest in another vehicle -- something I desperately needed to avoid if I was to keep sending the weekly paycheck home to the wife and kiddies. I told him how much I appreciated his kindness and hospitality -- and that’s when he sprung his trap . . .

He had noticed, he said, that my silent clown gags were not going over very well. Before I could puff myself up like a blowfish and dispute his heinous charges he blithely continued on as if nothing was amiss; he was prepared, out of the goodness of his heart, to share the spotlight with me with some surefire comic patter that would bring the house down.

What could I do? I needed a place in his trailer so I could keep the dingoes from my family’s door -- so I swallowed my pride (and a good deal of bile) and consented to his demands.

His routine was so ancient it must have been exhumed by an archeologist. It’s called ‘Pencils’, and here is the version we fobbed off on unsuspecting circus audiences for the next several months:

The ringmaster begins an important announcement when I come bumbling into the ring and interrupt him with an importunate request for money.

“Been gambling again, hey?” he booms at me. I meekly nod, then hold out my hand for some baksheesh.

“Tell ya what I’m gonna do . . “ he says to me, all the while winking at the audience like a randy owl, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you can answer all my questions with the word ‘pencils.’”

“You’re on!” I howl gleefully. The contest begins.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Pencils!”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Pencils!”

“What do you use for brains?”

“Pencils!”

And so on . . .

I’ll give Dave this -- the kids ate up the routine like it was cotton candy laced with opioids. I used a high-pitched voice, somewhat like Ed Wynn’s, mixing in a little Pinto Colvig and Mortimer Snerd. After a few weeks of this my tonsils began to constantly throb and I had to gargle with buttermilk to keep them from going on strike.

The denouement of this fossilized piece of Vaudeville comes when Dave holds out a ten dollar bill to ask me “Well, looks like you’ve won -- do you want the money now or later?”

“Now!” I shout eagerly -- thus losing the bet. As Dave smirks I pull my derby hat over my face in extreme chagrin and trip over the nearest ring curb as I exit. To applause, usually.

I might have gotten used to becoming a talking clown, except that Dave became just a wee bit jealous of the bigger laughs I was getting with my lines than he was getting with his. I mugged shamelessly, of course, and did everything within my power to keep the attention focused on me. I juggled foam rubber hot dogs during the routine and balanced an ostrich feather on my nose -- none of which had anything to do with the routine. But what else is a clown supposed to do -- stand around with his hands in his pockets?

Dave began stepping on my lines, killing the laughs, and then he stopped putting the mike in front of me so my lines could not be heard beyond the first four rows of bleachers. I didn’t complain -- I was still sleeping in his trailer every night. But at last I got fed up and retaliated, even though I knew it would end our cozy living arrangements.

The boss rigger had a bullhorn he used during teardown, when the crew were rather deaf from exhaustion and the local moonshine. I asked if I could borrow it for the show. He agreed, and so the next matinee when Dave began cutting me off I simply pulled out the bullhorn and blasted him and the audience with my comic gems. The crowd thought this was hysterical, but Dave, as I had strongly suspected, was extremely teed off. After that matinee he gave me an ultimatum -- either lose the bullhorn or move out of his trailer. I had been expecting this, and steeled myself to call his bluff. No, I said calmly, the bullhorn is a natural laugh-getter -- I’m going to keep it in. I’ll just have to find someplace else to bunk for the rest of the season, won’t I?

I didn’t have to wait long for his response. It came in the form of a series of interesting anatomical descriptions of me and my ancestors as he threw everything of mine out of his trailer. There wasn’t much, just a sleeping bag, some socks, and a paperback edition of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Everything else of mine was in my clown trunk, which was carried on one of the tent pole trucks.

There is not much more to tell. I was allowed to sling a hammock in the cook tent, which was kept up overnight so the roustabouts could be served coffee, tortillas, stale donuts, and refried beans early each morning. Dave suddenly decided that the Pencils routine was beneath his dignity as a ringmaster and part-time magician, so I went back to all my old silent routines. Truth to tell, they never did get quite the shouts of laughter that Pencils had generated. But somehow I felt more comfortable without words when I was in makeup. The best comedy comes from the heart, not from the mouth.