The 20th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the season goes to the George Carlin.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Even though I don’t agree with all of what George Carlin believed, it never stopped me from laughing wholeheartedly at his comedy. Carlin was an atheist, and I believe in God, but I’ve always found his comic sketches about religion hysterically funny, and painfully true.  Pointing out hypocrisy has been the role of clowns and fools throughout time.

In an NPR interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2004, George Carlin said one of the most spiritually profound statements I ever heard, without a hint of religious dogma.

“If it’s true that we are all from the center of a star, every atom in each of us from the center of a star, then we’re all the same thing. Even a Coke machine or a cigarette butt in the street in Buffalo, is made out of atoms that came from a star. They’ve all recycled thousands of times, as have you and I. So, if that is true, then I am EVERYWHERE in the universe, in an extended sense. And therefore, it’s only ME out there. So what is there to be afraid of? […] The trouble is, we have been separated from within that universe by being born and given a name, and an identity, and being individuated. We have been separated from the oneness and that’s what religion exploits, that people have this yearning to be part of the overall one again. So they exploit that. They call it ‘God’; they say he has rules and I think that’s cruel. I think you can do it absent religion.”

Paradoxically, the Latin root word for religion is “ligare,” which means to link back to the whole.  Just don’t let your karma run over your neighbor’s dogma.

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The 19th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the season goes to the infamous Koch Brothers.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

If anyone suffers from clown-a-phobia then these guys should be keeping you up at night. These billionaire brothers, and their shadowy friends are preparing to spend a billion dollars on the 2016 election cycle in an attempt to buy the Senate, House, and US Presidency.  The only option is to shine the limelight of the circus ring on these clowns.

Mark Twain said, “Against the assault of of laughter nothing can stand.”

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The 18th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Mark Twain.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Mark Twain is one of the most important comic voices that America has ever produced. Born in the tumultuous 1800s, his humor helped heal a divided nation, and was a vital comic lubricant as America suffered the birth pains of the 20^th century.  Twain believed, “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away.”

The genius of Mark Twain is that he exposed the folly in everyone, including himself. Twain once wrote, “I have no race prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”

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The 17th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Uncle Sam.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

As I posted yesterday, Uncle Sam’s signature goatee, top hat, and red, white, and blue spangled costume was modeled after 19^th century American circus clown, Dan Rice. Below are Rice’s famous costume pants.

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The 16th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Dan Rice.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Dan Rice is the most famous person that you’ve never heard of even though his goatee, top hat, and red, white, and blue spangled costume became the model for Uncle Sam in the 20^th century.

Rice was a contemporary of English music hall clown, Joseph Grimaldi, but instead of imitating Grimaldi, he developed a uniquely American comic voice that influenced Mark Twain as a boy.

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The 15th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is George Fox.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

George Fox was one of the most famous American clowns of the 19^th Century. He was a contemporary of Englishman, Joseph Grimaldi, and like Grimaldi he never performed in the circus ring, but was a star of the stage in New York. When the Civil War broke out Fox immediately volunteered and fought in the First Battle of Bull Run. Afterwards he returned to the stage until 1875 when he began losing his mind. Tragically he died shortly afterwards at the young age of 52. It is speculated that the toxic lead in his white make-up caused the insanity that led to Fox’s early death.

I guess that’s the professional hazards of being a clown.

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The 14th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Joseph Grimaldi.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Grimaldi is considered the father of the modern clown.  He was the first to wear the classic clown make-up of white with red grease paint smeared on his lips and cheeks, as if he had just eaten a stolen cheery pie. Today all clowns are called Joey in honor of Grimaldi,

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The 13th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the season is Heath Ledger’s Joker.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

The clown as a monster is the least understood, and most frightening aspect of the archetype. In ancient mythology the trickster traveled between heaven and hell to deliver vital messages back to mortals. Unfortunately, America doesn’t have its own myth of the clown’s origin. Because of this vacuum we have developed a fragmented perception of the clown as either a bad children’s entertainer, a pitchman for hamburgers, or a monster.

To help heal this rift I wrote my own mythic origin story of the clown for the American imagination called, The Land of Clown. This year I was awarded a Minnesota Arts Board grant to adapt The Land of Clowns to the stage with the help of master storyteller Kevin Kling, premiering April 1, 2016 at Open Eye Theatre.

Stay tuned…

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The 12th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Jon Stewart.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Jon Stewart’s commentaries on The Daily Show shined a beacon of sanity on our crazy world. His wry wit illuminated whatever hypocrisy was infecting the daily news cycle. He served as our comic antibody against the corrupt corrosive elements in government, the media, and all power centers that he directed his razor sharp satire.

I miss you Jon…

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The 11th Emergency Clown Nose® pick of the Holiday Season is Donald Trump.  In this series I’m exploring the noble as well as ignoble clown.  Each day through Christmas look for posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, of a different public figure that either delighted in playing the clown, or that the public has unfortunately chosen to paint as a clown.

Trump takes the prize for the greatest ignoble clown of our time. I stopped laughing at “The Donald” the day Jon Stewart retired. I posted to my blog that day, Now that Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show the only hope for America is if he runs for president. Without his daily voice there is no sane person left on television to stop a Trump presidential win.

Today, I renew my call for a Jon Stewart presidential run. If Jon doesn’t heed my call then everybody better get used to hearing, President Trump.

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