Reminded me of the clown theme party I was invited to way back in the early 90's.
It was in this beautiful old oak floored warehouse with enormous steel wired ceiling douglas fir girder beams.
The coloured lights were encased in arched metal sombrero art deco shades and were set on low.
Garish coloured tent fabric festooned the walls.
Somehow the host had managed to purloin a working Calliope, clowns are noted thieves, after all they often steal our smug complacency.
Sitting at the keyboard, a feral-toothed Beethoven clown was working on a Barry Manilow medley.
I was sporting an old purple 1976 disco shirt, wine-coloured bell bottom pants and powder blue platform shoes.
Of course I also sported a red ball nose and a carrot topped wig: as the fashionably late are known to do.
But judging by the decor and some of the elaborate outfits, clearly I was underdressed…to a clown party no less.
There was a large industrial wheeled fan at one end, hum-effusing us with the smell of popcorn, candy floss and face paint.
Recorded chimpanzee calls competed with those of the peacocks and gibbons.
“Oh wow,” I said aloud.
It was a sensory overload until a conch called our attention to the main ring.
Silence filled the room.
The spotlight, manned by Ronald McDonald himself, focussed on The Ringmaster — imagine a pink-permed Rhett Butler in black tux and tails.
Rhett blew the conch once more to quiet the hush...the Calliope trilled down to conflicting harmonic chords: think Tooth-fairy meets Shrek.
Was the Ringmaster really standing on sawdust?
He held the conch up high and intoned...
"You know, ladies and gentlemen and children of all shapes and sizes...my mother, Grendel the Great, used to tell me that when you placed a seashell over your ears, you could hear the mighty sea itself."
He then placed the conch over one of his enormous ears, Clark Gable did have large ears, and as he leaned into the pink folds of the conch, he made the ‘finger-to-lips’ quiet sign and grinned.
Golding, he of 'Lord of the Flies' fame, would have appreciated the symbolism.
"No, when I place the conch over my ears, I hear…why I hear not the sea, oh no, sorry mummy dearest, but I hear it call my nameeeeee!"
His laugh?
It was a laugh of which Hyenas would be envious.
It was a laugh the likes of which could silence a pack of Coyotes in mid-full moon desert howl.
It was a laugh which I swear could bring the intra-dimensional Sasquatch back to our realm for a nice nighttime forest visit.
I became instantly aware of every vertebrae vibrating up my spine…using of course the morse code of the dead.
Then some of the more exotically dressed clowns, each holding a helium filled balloon by the neck, stepped into the limelight, released the gas into their mouths, took deep huffing breaths and then joined the Ringmaster with a sustained chorus of their ‘laughs’.
This was a high school of the damned cheerleading squad, as taught by dolphins, and I imagined that only a clown football team could possibly be more intimidating.
I wondered how the other team would feel after every scrimmage, their hands covered in face paint, their opposition always smiling at them, the defence transitioning by arriving on the field and getting out of an impossibly small car.
The Ringmaster brought me back. With a small hand gesture, the laughter stopped.
" I hope you enjoy the s-s-show!"
Ronald then directed the spotlight to a pair of trapeze clown artists swinging back and forth above thank god a net…I remember thinking, I hope they got someone else to apply the greasy face paint.
Their act proceeded while "Born to be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez was blaring away. Beethoven joined in on the Calliope. Always wondered about the title of that song…I mean, what else are we born to be?
As I starting dancing with myself I thought, hey happy feet, maybe I wasn’t so underdressed after all.
However, I noticed that none of the other clowns were dancing and instead many seemed to be staring at me.
‘Check out the dancing clown’ their glares seem to speak. I looked down at their enormous feet…of course how insensitive of me.
I stopped, thinking what words could I possibly use to better describe my growing unease: peculiar or eerie or phantasmagoric didn’t seem to suffice.
Instead, I stiff walked my way over to the ‘refreshment table’. There were Magic Mushroom Candy Apples, marijuana-infused corndogs and ‘enhanced cider’.
Apple scented hash-tobacco 'kif' had been placed in the many hookah pipes strategically placed atop elevated Persian-carpeted tables. At some of them, red nose Moroccan clowns, each adorned with a matching fez, were happily puffing away whilst reclining against fluffy Arab pillows.
Huh, so clowns can lounge.
But it was the laughter coming from this one large ‘room’ at the back — think office dividers decorated with enormous freak show posters — that drew me in and finally spat me out back on the street.
I sidled my way in, snort-giggling in order to not attract any attention.
Not to worry as I found almost all of the clowns were laughing and pointing at a large screen.
On the screen?
I eventually got close enough.
Clown porn.
Perhaps I was too locked into my own history of clownish behaviour to appreciate what I was watching, perhaps I was not yet mature enough to appreciate the phrase ‘whatever floats yer boat’ or perhaps I was still thinking of the clown as sacred trickster brought to tame to want to stay for what was next on the Ringmaster’s agenda.
So out into the cool early autumn night I went and with that sigh of relief that often accompanies those who have escaped to rarified air, I removed the platform shoes and socks, put red nose and wig in pockets and turned my back on that circus and walked home, bare-footing it the whole way through the dewy grass night.