Send In The Clowns...

You know what ticks me off? OK, I'll tell you. These terrorist clowns. Clowns are wonderful. The world needs clowns. They are ambassadors of joy and levity and fun. They are the embodiment of good.

I get that Stephen King and Hollywood (and, OK, John Wayne Gacy didn’t help) did their parts to twist the beautiful clown persona into something dark and treacherous.  But, like all bad examples, they are the exceptions to the rule. 
 
For those who are unaware of the current news trend, for the last several months, creepy clowns have been popping up in unexpected places, displaying creepy behavior, scaring the hell out of children and parents and building into a bit of hysteria with more and more “sightings”.  I use quotes there because I’m willing to bet that most of these sightings are fear-induced illusions.

So today, I got a voice mail from my kid’s middle school principal, followed by an “assuring” email from the school board, letting us know just how aware our school administrators are of this threat and they promise that our students will be protected.  Seriously!?!  Clowns.

When civilians and police are killing each other in the streets, when nations are at war and children and their families are being displaced by battles in their homeland, when bigotry and hate speech is coming from every news outlet, I’m supposed to instill distrust of CLOWNS into my happy little girls?  Nope.  Not going to do it.

I’ve talked about this before, but I love clowns.  I love what they represent and, had I known that it was an option in my younger days, you can bet I’d have chosen the Ringling Brothers Clown college after high school.  It may be my one regret in life that I didn’t know it was possible.

Clowns have been around for thousands of years.  Historically, clowns, jesters, and comic entertainers have been welcomed for their ability to deliver satire, comic relief, and stress release during serious times.  Emperors and kings enlisted them to break ice during tense periods.  As the circus culture rose, clowns were vital to the show – not only to deliver lighthearted laughs - but as a distraction between acts.  Without the clowns, people in the audience would be forced to watch the poop cleanup after the elephant parade.  Think about that for a second.  If we have ever needed clowns, now is the time.

Look – I’m not pretending that some jerk didn’t put on makeup and a clown suit and terrorize people.  Then another jerk saw that and thought it was a great idea.  So now there’s a string of copycat jerks who are seeking their own moment of spotlight by scaring people.  That’s all real enough.  But jerks have been around since WAY before clowns were born.  Terrorists have existed forever, and that won’t ever change.  Here, in this moment in time, a band of terrorist assholes have chosen clown costumes as their uniforms of choice.  That doesn’t make them clowns.  It makes them terrorist assholes in clown suits.

Meanwhile, much scarier things are happening all around us.  There are steaming piles of elephant poop that need to be cleaned up.  That family up there on the tightrope is about to fall.  There’s a hole in the tent and it’s starting to rain.  Quick!  Send in the clowns!

I trust the lions take care of the jerks looking for trouble.