THE THIRD CLOWN

It's Valentine's Day. Day of love and chocolate and cards and kisses. And that is far out and groovy. I hope you all get some love, give some love, and bask in the glow of being alive in a world with other humans, music, theatre, movies, nature, and your own sweet self.

We are magic, strange beings, but I think we have potential.

I love the human race. I really do. 

I also find it very trying at times.

We do so many contradictory, fucked up, glorious things, on a regular basis. 

I often think of think of the opening monologue of my play Some Unfortunate Hour, where this guy named Tom bemoans the world, saying there are two choices for him: either be Asshole Happy Clown, who expects the worst from humanity and often gets it; or Idiot Sad Clown, who holds out great hope and is continually heartbroken.

Of course, there is a secret, third clown. 

The Balanced, Brilliant Clown.

That clown knows that we have our flaws, and a long history of terrible decisions. But she also knows that there is knowledge gained by those experiences. She knows that evolution is slow, but always happening. She doesn't believe in science. She knows science. She doesn't believe in magic. She is magic. She has found the great key to dealing with her fellow human beings: forgiveness.

And she is smart enough to know that forgiveness does not mean giving cruelty a free pass, or sitting idly by while atrocities are committed.

She is a warrior, a healer, and a mystic.

She is the Third Clown, and she is your spirit guide, waiting in the wings for you to make your entrance. 

I use the metaphor of waiting in the wings because it fits, but also because I took a really cool photo yesterday at the final performance of The Wizard of Oz I directed down at the PACE with my company Sasquatch Productions. There was this kid in the show who would watch as much of the show as she could when she wasn't on stage as a munchkin and/or poppy. She just loved the show so much, felt the magic so strongly, that she had to soak in as much as she could.

I would often see her, standing in the wings, reveling in the glory of being backstage during a performance, experiencing fully the show. So I took this photo:

There's a bit of the Third Clown in that. Hope and mystery and wonder.

So Happy Monday, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Third Clown Day.

If you feel so inclined, you can find the whole monologue, plus a few more of mine, in Contemporary Monologues for a New Theater, by clicking HERE.

I am off. Scripts, productions, and a house to clean this glorious day.

Here's a song. It's the English Beat doing a cover of Smokey Robinson's Tears of a Clown.

 

TRUMP'S INFINITE PLAYLIST AND THE SECRETARY OF THE WHACKNESS

I dreamed I somehow created a Wombat with human level intelligence. I was part of this group of madcap adventurers, very Doctor Who, and we were in NYC to save the world, which was apparently something we did often, saving the world. We were in Union Station, and I declared that the solution was for us all to go into the world of the Lottery. Not the novel by Shirley Jackson, but the cheesy games that each state has. There were four of us adventurers. One of them was Prue Leith from the Great British Baking Show. We lined up on this catwalk above the throbbing masses, and leapt into these portals. I was transported to a world I could not comprehend. It was all lights and shapes that made no sense. How long I was there I have no idea. Somehow, I came back to Union Station, and had saved the world. But I had also, through some feat when I was in Lottery World, brought about the creation, and transport to our dimension, of a huge talking Wombat. His name was George. And he informed me that he very much liked being alive and had no desire to not exist or to be forced back to Lottery World. He made a good argument, and we all decided he could stay.

Then I woke up. I think it was the milk man that woke me. Or maybe the thought of being able to create talking wombats. I thought "must put this in the blog", and went back to sleep. I was tired. Stayed up far too late, watching Good Omens, a documentary about myths and heroes called Myths and Heroes, and then The Midnight Gospel, an Adult Swim type of cartoon about this boy in the distant future who takes trips through time and space to interview people for his podcast, which has one follower. It's trippy and hilarious, full of dialogue that made me think of Richard Linklater's Slacker, a sort of stoner existentialism.

That's a lot of fantasy. I guess I needed it. High minded fantasy with large ideas, exciting characters, non-sensical plots, and compassionate humor. Maybe I should figure out a way to hang out with our POTUS during this crisis, and talk some sense into him just by hanging out with him and discussing the unbearable lightness of being, the strangeness of life itself, how improbable it all is and how we still strive to find meaning. Maybe, instead of watching Fox or whatever it is he watches, Trump should become a Doctor Who fan. It couldn't make it worse, could it? The guy has no humor other than sarcasm, no sense of irony, and doesn't seem to have much sense of wonder at this glorious and bizarre universe. He's limited. And that is sad. Maybe we should all make him a playlist of songs that lead you on paths of discovery and joy. Maybe, if we sent enough, he would break down and listen to one. Maybe he would then show up at one of his strange briefings, still in his PJs, with a large cup of coffee, and announce that he needs to let the love in, that he was going through some things, and that  he was appointing Sufjan Stevens Secretary of the Whackness, and that he was going to let the scientists in the room run things in regards to the virus while he took some "me time". Usually, I would not want the leader of the free world to take some me time, but I would be cool with this.

Here is a song. It's the English Beat's cover of Tears of a Clown.