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Where It All Started / #NEXT364

Yesterday my son Gabriel tweeted, “Where It All Started” along with this picture of our family home. He has memories of being a small boy and helping his mom and dad assemble and seal Emergency Clown Noses® on our dining room table by the hundreds.

Now we have 10,000 Emergency Clown Noses warehoused at ProAct Inc., a sheltered work place for the mentally and physically challenged in Red Wing, Minnesota. I’m told that assembling Emergency Clown Noses is the workers’ favorite job at ProAct. When I visit them to drop-off supplies I’m struck by how everyone seems to be genuinely happy.

I’m not sure if Gabriel can claim that assembling Emergency Clown Noses for ten cents a bottle was his favorite job in life, but we sure were laughing together rehearsing his clown show yesterday. At the beginning of rehearsal he became frustrated with the new scripted material, and was itching to get to the Folding Chair Routine.

The Folding Chair Routine is the finale in Gabe’s street show. The routine begins with a couple of cool acrobatic hand balancing tricks, but then quickly devolves into a comic slapstick routine where Gabriel gets smashed and entangled inside the chairs folding mechanism.

This morning I will spend in my workshop putting the finishing touches on a couple of props for Gabe’s show. This afternoon we rehearse together again. The adventure continues….

The Next 364 Days / next364 #rednose

I am thrilled to launch my blog the day after America’s first Red Nose Day. It was inspirational for my family and I to witness the celebration of the clown’s art for a day. In this spirit I intend to write a daily post for the next 364 days on this site, exploring how the clown can be celebrated everyday.

I’m entering my 40th year as a professional clown. I believe I practice a healing art, because humor is rooted in our suffering, and the clown is one among us who is willing to take the fall.

My family is the creator of the Emergency Clown Nose®. The story began ten years ago when my wife Rosie first thought-up the idea. I envisioned that we bottle Rosie’s noses into medicine jars as a way to distill our mission together of healing through our art of humor. Today our Emergency Clown Nose® is sold in 48 states.

Now following in his mother and father’s footsteps we are proud to announce that our son Gabriel will be performing as a clown this summer. Gabe will be doing our family’s medicine show in Boulder, Colorado on Pearl Street Mall, which is a famous venue for street theater in the United States.

For those of you at this point who are concerned, Gabriel will be in good hands. Our close friend and master clown Arsene Dupin has agreed to mentor him for the summer. Arsene mentored Gabe when he was a young boy, and Rosie and I were delighted when our son expressed interest in working with him again this year.

Look for Gabriel’s daily tweets that he will be posting all summer @emergencynose #theother364 and follow Gabe on his adventures traveling to scenic Colorado to street perform as a clown.

The Other 364