So, I’m watching the cinematic game changer knows at “Belly 2” the other day on BET. Needless to say, it is titillating my senses like no other film before it (just kidding it makes “I’m bout it” look like a Fellini film). Anyway, while watching that debacle , I see something during the commercial break that really catches my eye.

It is a commercial of a clown who does kids birthday parties. Oh, but he’s not any old birthday clown. No, he’s an urban clown. He may offer all the same shit every other shitty clown on the planet does but he adds a little swagger in the mix.
My initial reaction to this commercial was “What the fuck did I just watch?”. Well, to answer my own question, I just watched a grown man with a mohawk lite , become the living and breathing version of fingernails on a chalkboard.
It’s not just this guy. The fact that being a clown is still something people do in this day and age is both mind-boggling and somewhat inspiring (for delusional people everywhere). I mean, I get the interest n clowns back in the day…before entertainment was actually entertaining. The court jester was basically the original clown. Somewhere down the line, the career path road forked and I suppose people who were in the court jester business had to make a choice (or had already been murdered by unimpressed monarchs who weren’t feeling the medieval equivalent to Gallagher). One path metamorphosed the court jester into what would eventually be the stand up comedian we know today. The other path seemingly detoured into clown-dom*.
After the court jester faded out and circus’ became the norm (I did no research. this could be a couple thousand years apart) ,I’d imagine this was the time that clowns ruled the roost. They were the pinnacle of low bro comedy/comedy for children. Kinda like a Blue collar comedy tour but with balloon animals and shit.
I’d be willing to guess being a clown held it down for decades, if not centuries, as one the foremost comical art forms**. Well, as it happens, times change and so do people right along with it. Flash forward to the 60’s and 70’s and humor as we know it has taken humongous strides from the days of pulling an endless handkerchief out of your sleeve or making a dove fly out of a napkin. And that’s just the 60’s/70’s. Think about how far the boundaries of comedy have stretched since then. So, my point is, why do clowns still exist? They are, by all accounts, outdated on every level. Even for kids. But, most importantly, who the fuck likes clowns? Have you ever in your life met a person who went to a circus cause he/she wanted to see the clowns? Of course not. The thing is, as corny as magicians are, they still do magic. Magic, especially to children, can be pretty awesome. About 12 years ago, I was at a show and an unknown David Blaine was there doing card trick to random people. Assuming he was just like all the other herb ass magicians on the planet, I eye rolled my way through a trick he was performing. However, in the end, he pulled some seriously crazy shit and I felt like I had just met Jesus. So, even though it is bullshit, there is value to magic on an entertainment level. Magicians, in a way, get a pass. But clowns? Sure, they do magic. Kinda. That’s the thing about clowns. They do tons of different shit but they do all those things on the most mediocre level ever. That’s not entertaining. That’s a dude who wears face paint and has a childish hobby.
Clowning has been so flagrantly played out for so long, that they’ve even tried to keep up with the times. Doing stunts. Steve-O from JAckass is a certified clown. He went to school for it and everything. From what I’ve seen, it taught him all sorts of cool balancing tricks. This alone, is not very exciting (walking on stilts. Woopty do, bro) but when thrown into the mix of Steve-O jumping off a trampoline in those very same stilts, into a pit of live cobra’s, all of sudden, we have entertainment magic. Mere clownery could never achieve that kind of result.
So, basically, enough with clowns. At best, they’re mildly entertaining to a new-born and at worst, they’re next level boring***. I don’t even wanna get into this cornball in the video above and how he’s pretty much raping the soul of hip hop with every Melle Mel shaped balloon animal he blows (pause). I dunno…somehow I feel like Puffy has got to be involved with all of this. He has to be, right?

*I suppose there would be a third pathway that led to performance art but let’s just pretend that bullshit doesn’t exist for the sake of humanity.
**Even a dude like Charlie Chaplin came from a Vaudeville background , which is , without question, influenced by clowns on some level.
***At REALLY REALLY worst, they rape and kill on some John wayne Gacy shit.