Bozo is dead. Long live Bozo. (1 Viewer)

That's terrifying!
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Man, I hope so :D

An when you walk over his grave, it makes that old car horn sound and you get sprayed with water and....

never mind.

Carry on.
 
Bozo the Clown Suffered for Your Sins
Trace didn't particularly care about clowns one way or the other but he liked Wags because she was also a good writer.

"The problem with clowns in a contemporary context," Trace told Wags, "is that they've been culturally marginalized, which is to say that the whole carnival and circus experience of our youth has also been marginalized and forgotten."

He took another sip of his second glass of Molson Ale to clear his dry throat.

"Hell," he said, "the circus experience today is all about dozens of Lippizaner stallions with Frenchmen in black tights dancing on their backs."

Wags had asked Trace about coulrophpobia, the clinical name for fear of clowns, and he had gone off on a tangent. He signaled the bartender for another beer and regrouped his thoughts.

"People are afraid of clowns because their true emotions are concealed behind that painted on smile and big red nose," Trace said.

"And then there's John Wayne Gacy," Wags offered.

"Indeed," Trace replied. "Here -"

He reached into his briefcase and extracted a manila folder containing a few notes he had collected for Wags on clown phobia. Just for kicks, he also brought her two DC comic books and one graphic novel featuring Batman in battle against The Joker.

It was a dry mid-winter afternoon. Trace and Wags had agreed to meet at Jax Bar and Grill in the center of the Glendale Business District for drinks, a little socializing, and, more importantly, for Trace to act as a sounding board for the new book that Wags was writing, a roman a clef about her experiences as a birthday party clown for the children of L.A.'s rich and famous.

Trace had arrived for the 12:30 meeting at noon, aware that by 12:30 the bar and tables and booths at Jax - famous for its nightly jazz seven days a week "” would be overflowing with smart young men and women in their pressed suits, the legions that swarmed out of the high rises and onto the city sidewalks to prowl for lunch. By 2:00 the buildings would swallow them up again and downtown Glendale would be returned to the Armenian populace.

He grabbed a stool at the bar, laid his briefcase across the next stool to hold it for Wags, and ordered a Molson on tap from the attractive young bartender. She had shoulder length blonde hair and the name tag that was attached to the white shirt at her left breast said her name was Kirsten.

The beer was good. He hadn't eaten anything all day and probably wouldn't eat when Wags arrived unless she insisted on it. Psoriasis and its accompanying ailments left him with little or no appetite during the day. Only at night, while under the influence of a bowl or two, would his appetite rear its head.

As the bar began to fill up with suits and skirts and people with healthy skin and wide toothy smiles Trace sipped his beer and leafed through the research he brought for Wags. He thought briefly about a woman he loved once who was a guest on the Bozo the Clown television show in the 1960s when she was a child. She went to the taping convinced she was going to win one of the Schwinn bicycles that Bozo gave away every so often. When she was sent home without a shiny new bike she seethed and burned and developed a hatred of Bozo the Clown that lingered well into her mature years. In fact, Trace was convinced she would go to her grave with the reassurance that in death her thoughts would never again be plagued by images of Bozo the Clown, the Great Bicycle Cheater.

Trace returned the research notes to the manila folder. That's when he noticed that he was bleeding. There was a small crimson stain on the folder near the tab. He examined his hands in the dim light of the bar. There was blood all over his left index and middle finger. His right hand was similarly stained with blood.

Shit, he thought, I'm bleeding.

It was an old psoriatic joke: A man walks up to a psoriasis patient and says, "Excuse me, do you know you're bleeding?" The sufferer smiles and says, "Of course. Can you be more specific, please?"

The bar was now Standing Room Only. Wags wasn't due for another five minutes and Trace needed to get to the bathroom and staunch the bleeding from wherever it was coming, probably somewhere on his face, a deep scratch from a pitted and deformed fingernail. But he couldn't leave. Someone would swipe their stools.

Trace was relieved when Wags arrived at 12:30 on the nose. The first time he ever saw her was on the dust cover of one of her books - she was, among other things such as wife and mother and part-time college instructor, an accomplished author of mystery novels. Trace thought she was cute, a wry little pixie on a slender frame with dark eyes, curly dark hair, and a hint of mischief about her that he couldn't identify. He wondered what she looked like in clown garb.

"Excuse me, Wags," Trace stood as Wags took a seat at the bar. He always called her by her clown name. "I'm bleeding from somewhere and I have to go see what it's all about."

Wags smiled, nodded, and ordered coffee.

"We're drinking alone today," Trace muttered to himself as he leaned on his cane and fought his way through suits and skirts to the small men's room at the back of the restaurant. It was rare for him to drink in the afternoon, anyway, except in social situations. Wags couldn't drink that day, Trace knew, because she had to take her daughter to the orthodontist that afternoon. No one wants to be around an inebriated clown/novelist/mother/wife/college instructor, particularly not orthodontists.

One quick glance in the dirty bathroom mirror and Trace saw the source of the blood. A scratch on the bridge of his nose was oozing pustules of blood. Trace staunched the flow with a handful of tissue he fished out of his suit coat pocket and considered the delicious irony with a soft chuckle.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"Pustules of blood" makes no sense.

Pustules = # A small inflamed elevation of the skin that is filled with pus; a pimple.
# A small swelling similar to a blister or pimple.
# Something likened to an inflamed, pus-filled lesion
 
R.I.P. BOZO

You were the soundtrack to
many a 1980's "early" breakfast
with Irish coffee, burritos, and
performance art-level TV shit
that Pennywise ignored then too.

Kabuki motherfucker
fuck you
but R.I.P.

- WGN
(and Staff)
 
for some reason,
grown men and women wearing suits always scared me as a child,
Clowns scared the shit out of me, Santa included. Magicians, priests, police officers,Snow White, politicians, nuns, a surgeon, a chef, Ronald Mac Donald, a dental assistant, in fact anyone with a smile unmatching the look in their eyes.
If I think about it now, as an aging adult, they scare me even more.
I just don't get it. In fact I am not sure if I can relate to people laughing at all.
Sorry...:eek:
an epitaph for a clown should be " I was only trying to fool myself"

Anyway, Bozo is gone right?...
 

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