How Clown Saved Me (4/4)
and How I'll Save My Clown
Aloha!
If you haven’t caught the earlier setups for what is about to follow, please do! Parts one, two, and three of this series are available in The Skinless Grape archives. In part one, I begin my journey to clown through the doorway of my dreams, or nightmares, rather– dark stories roaming my mindscape, fertilizing distrust and confusion. Why? For that is where my quest to resolve my trauma began and clown is ultimately where it took me. While some folks are traumatized by clowns, others work through their trauma via clown. Many, in fact.
For their origins are of healers.
In part two of this How Clown Saved Me series, we get into how clowning relates to shamanism and peep varieties of our sacred clown archetype. How did you like them apples? Surprised? Charmed? Or did you feel resistant to these interpretations? I would love to hear about how this news engaged you in the comments or via email!
In part three, I introduce you to the reigning clown community in Los Angeles, growing by the nose-full. I have been very devoted to this community which has given me much. Well, that was all pre-2020. While I still claim and love my idiots, there is a reason I haven’t been reunited with my people on stage here in LA, why I haven’t been seen at clown open mics or thoroughly involved in variety shows or debuted my solo show. I miss the play with these people. I really do, and I miss being live-directed, offering my audience, and activating my sacred clown in places like The Idiot Workshop’s Hippodrome. I used to look forward all month to Hippodrome, the 12 opportunities a year I’d get to play in this particular and unruly way with the greats.
Alas, I haven’t been to a Hippodrome in some years. As things have re-opened here in Los Angeles, The Idiot Workshop has chosen to enforce a vaccination mandate for all who enter their spaces. Unfortunately, the queer and clown scene here has been shockingly one-dimensional in their stories and takes on what has been going on across the globe, socially and politically. While it has only become clear to me in the past year, this has been the case for some time. That case is toting a non-conformist brand while only representing mainstream narratives. In this case, The Idiot Workshop and Clown School, among others, are not only holding one perspective of the pandemic and health rights above all but also omitting any other possible artists and storytellers from their world entirely. This has been seen in much larger corporations like SAG-AFTRA when they made a deal with the Producers Guild of America to mandate vaccines and boosters for all zone A employees (primary actors on set). Still, even they have small (very small) windows of opportunity to apply for a religious or medical exemption.
No, not even such a reasonable accommodation is being offered by these clown organizations. I admonish these larger corporations for their decision to advocate exclusion but am not exactly surprised. I am, however, absolutely shooketh to also see this atrocious obliteration of any variance in belief and lifestyle by a community who claims to be die-hard proponents of free speech and challenging the status quo. By casting out anyone who has abstained from the Covid-19 Vaccines for any reason, the leaders of the alt-comedy scene in Los Angeles have exposed themselves for the ego-maniacs they are. While rooted in the beauty of clown, the trees themselves are being grown to cash in– for fiscal currency as well as the social currency of influence and resources– rather than contribute to a more truthful and accepting world.
The virtue signaling has ne’er shined so bright as when to lure the lifetime alliance of young hearts hoping to heal.
I believe that in every organization there are problems, but in every one, there is also much to learn. If you have the chance, learning from any of these groups may bring much-needed medicine of ineffable value. Just don’t go taking it for so long that you forget to hold your integrity above being included in the cool crowd, the accepted crowd. Exclusion is not eradicated from even the most fringe of societies. I am so grateful to have had my time with the idiots and clowns of Los Angeles before this blatant segregation and mass exodus of all socio-politically unique creators from LA took place. I am moving on now. Saying farewell to this city and hoping that by following my truth, I will meet others who advocate for what is right over what is comfortable.
Alan, aka Bluffles, and I are leaving come July! My birthday month will kick off a new chapter in Texas. And, oh boy, I am SO excited to expand into new horizons, share space with bold and caring hearts, and fully let go of the cherished expectations I had for this coastal city. Onward and upward!
So long, Los Angeles.
