Respect The Balloon Animal...

I have seen amazing balloon creations in my life.  I saw a picture of a two story soccer match made from balloons in Germany.  

There is a group that makes a full sized haunted house. 

Its amazing.  

The first time I saw someone make a curly snake with a balloon, my mind was blown.  (so to speak)

My friend Greg does a simple routine in his stage show with a balloon and a kid spinning a ball.  The balloon is just a doggy balloon.  

Greg tries to blow it up, gets caught on his finger.  Eventually he gives it to a kid.  Huge applause.  

There is an amazing performer here in San Francisco; Scotty Meltzer.  

He does a comedy routine for 8 minutes with a kid and a balloon. He's a juggler.  It's a remarkable routine.  Super funny.  

I like balloons for the comedy they can give me.  This gets me in trouble though.  I carry this over to when I do events.  My goal is to make people laugh.  Doing balloons fast and creating a line is not my style.  I like the mess, the mayhem.  I don't like lines.  I want to create a performance space wherever I am. 

I figure, you'll remember the laughter or at least the feeling of laughter.  The balloon lasts 30 minutes. 

This is a hard one to write because I get hired all the time to just be a balloon guy.  I'm well above average in my skills but I can't do big sculptures, backpacks for the kids to wear, sharks out of balloons.  So I try to make it up with comedy.  

I think it's funny that balloons make a farting noise.  

I'm pretty happy not tying a balloon and watching the balloon fly around the room.  

Either way.  Comedy or if you want to be the most amazing balloon maker around.  Think

What's amazing about a balloon?

You can take a balloon and make it into something.  That is just so cool.  And it stays that shape.  That is so cool.  I make someone smile.  That is so cool.  They cry when it breaks. That is so cool.  

I mean sad. 

If you are doing amazing balloons.  Look at the eyes watching you.  It's sort of the same look people have with a good storyteller.  They are watching, eyes unfocussed, amazed, their jaws dropped.  

Can we capitalize on that?  I think so.  Just stay aware of what people are looking at what you're doing. 

For someone like me, if I see I'm becoming a balloon machine.  I can forget to tie one, let it fly around break a balloon in half, hand it to two kids.  Have a kid do a raspberry and puff up a poodle tail.  That makes the balloons amazing again. I also get laughs.

If you aren't going for the comedy.  Have someone hold balloon after balloon while you build the amazing super hero you are creating.  Put all the balloons under your arms, then you can't find any place to hold anymore, so you drop them all.  

If you are making a giant creation.  Give it out two steps before your done. Then pull it back, add that little extra balloon.  Pull it back draw the face on.  Pull it back one more time to correct the face.  

This bit is good for any balloon. Make a dog.  Start to give it away, draw a face.  Pull it away to put a mouth.  Pull it away to make the poodle tail.  Pull it away to put eyelashes on.  Deflate the poodle tail, then puff it up again.  Then let the kid do it.  

Fundamentally.  It's taking something everyone knows (a balloon) and making it into something entirely different.  Remember this when you find yourself just making balloon after balloon.  

My Battle To Get An Agent...

My fabulous commercial agent Mary retired.

Leaving me to fend for myself.

Usually when agents retire, they sell the company to someone working there.  One of the newer lower level agents.  I gotta figure, the company is worth a lot of money, what with all the clients and actors begging for work.

Mary retired.

I love Mary for one very important reason. She took me on as a client.  Later she took my son on as a client too when he was about 8.  It was pretty awesome.

I'm in this fabulous position of getting a new agent.  Of wondering do I even want an agent?  I've never been very good at booking stuff and I have funny looking hair and my headshots are old and I'm not all that good looking.

I used to be good looking.

Now I'm ugly.

Maybe I've always been ugly.  When I look at my old photos, I was pretty good looking but maybe that's just in comparison to the ugliness that is me now.

I have a wall of headshots in my office.  It's my version of Dorian Grey.  I'm slowly melting.

I'm very fond of myself 

I Worked on my resume all morning.  I created a snarky cover letter.  

I haven't done this (looked for representation) in over 15 years.

Here's how you you do it.  How you get an agent.

Find a list of the franchised agents locally.  It's pretty easy.  Unless it's NYC or LA there are usually only 4 or 5.  Do a search for acting/modeling agencies.

Franchised means they are licensed or "condoned" or "tolerated" by SAG/AFTRA.  The union.  

If they aren't franchised, don't bother, it's likely they are schools disguised as agents.  From what I've seen only the franchised agents get you auditions.  When you audition you sign in, next to your name you put your agent.  I've never seen a non franchised agency next to anyone's name.

You need a resume formatted to look like all the others.  An acting resume does not look like a work resume.  If it looks wrong, they'll toss your resume and picture out. It means you're an amateur they don't need to waste their time.  It's hard to get an agent, so just play the game.

Get a nice headshot.  Don't get a friend that's a good photographer take one.  Spend the money.  There is a format to these.  If you don't follow the format, they'll toss you out.

My headshot is old.  It should get me in the door though.  If I can get a new agent, I'll have to fork over the $300 to $500 to get new ones.  Ugh.

I have less hair now

Usually as a clown, you can get in for the specialty file all the agents have to have.

Even as I work through this I'm so not excited.

I was surprised as I looked through the agents. Most were old school, they still wanted you to mail in a picture and resume.  Easy enough, I'm just out of stamps.

When I started years ago, I got an agent and ordered 300 photos and brought them in every few months with my resume glued to the back.  I learned from a class don't staple them because one agent cut his finger on a staple and he was pissed about it.  So I just used mucilage.  Now I just print it on my printer on the back of the photo.

It's a slow process.  you mail all these then, you'll get a call in a month to come in for an audition.

Gawd.  I've got so much work to do.

Anyway.  That's the process.  Make a nice resume.  Have a nice headshot.  Prepare a 90 second audition and wait.

Don't call my I'm sleeping right now

Me Too Hits The Clowns...

I'm super sad about Grandma clown in the Big Apple Circus.

That is definitely a weird sentence.  Grandma Clown is a dude and one of the funniest funniest clowns I have ever seen.  Seemed like a super nice guy...

On the surface.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/nyregion/big-apple-circus-grandma-clown-resigns.html


Another...tough sentence.  I've met him and know lots of people that know him.  What he did to an underage girl and to her life is monstrous and unforgivable.  I used to love Cosby too.  Had a huge influence on me.  Ruined lots of lives.

Grandma clown talked a 16 year old acrobat in the circus into posing in her underwear for him.  He has admitted this.  She has never gotten over it.  He's a monster.

The great thing about the me too movement.  It's caused incredible heroism.  This young woman can maybe get closure.  He will never do this to another girl.  He will never perform again.

it's not getting even.  It's getting things closed up.

In my experience.  Getting even never feels good.  But being told you're right, it's not your fault  feels good it's a big start.

I see a lot of comments on Facebook (I'm full of clown user groups and former Ringling clown groups) about how this will ruin clowning.  Just what we need, another thing that taints our profession.

So lame.

This is one awful person and one brave young woman that stepped forward.  How selfish to worry about yourself, your career, the "profession".

I'm going on a limb and say what he did was terrible.  He's a monster. Wow, aren't I amazing.

This has nothing to do with me.

I'm sad this woman and all the others.  (how could there not be lots of others that were just too embarrassed they never said anything?)  What happened in their lives make them take a turn in their lives that is so unfortunate.

I think of my family.  The thing that hurts me about being a father is when there is a roadblock for my children.  I want life to be easy and a straight line.  Of course there are challenges.

Then there is this. This isn't a roadblock it's a never ending hair pin.  This victim was a young performer.  She may have continued and had her dreams fulfilled.  That's a simplified version but I'm sure she her dream was shut down.

How many other things did she not try or go for because she was hurt and afraid?  Even simple non-threatening things.  "Come over and watch a movie..."  Wouldn't you be afraid to go to someone's house alone after what happened?

My work.  My profession.  Clowning will all survive.

Films are still being made despite Harvey.  The country still goes on despite the president.  The today show went on without Matt Lauer.

But how much talent is destroyed because one man can't control his weird fantasies?  And talent is so delicate.  It's so easy to exterminate.  

Stuff I Do...

I can't eat an orange by peeling it and eating the little wedges.  I hate it.

But I love oranges if they are sliced but it has to be in 8ths.  I love oranges that way.

I only wear boxers.  I only wear boxers with images of the Simpsons on them.

Which has become a problem because they stopped making them.  There was a time you could get them at Target.  Now it's a specialty order.

I wear a T-shirt everyday but it has to be a v-neck.  Unless I'm going casual then it's one solid color with a little pocket over the left side.  I call these formal T-Shirts.

I cut my own hair.  I hate barbers and hair salons.  I just sort of gouge at the back.  Luckily, my hair is frizzy so who cares.

If I have a gig at a hotel.  I'll steal all the pens I can get my hands on.  If I stay at a motel, I will steal the little note pads and pens.  If I pass a maid's cart. My heart beats really fast and I'll steal 2 pens.

I only wear gold toe white socks.  I mean, sometimes, I have to dress nicely or perform, then I wear funny colored socks. If I perform I have to have long striped socks, even though no one sees them.

I hate jewelry.  I can't wear it.  I can wear watches, I hate the feel.

If I'm performing, I have to wear a watch.  It irritates me and makes me pay attention.

For my make up, I only use Johnson and Johnson baby powder because that's what they gave us at Clown College.

I shave in the car with my electric razor.  If I've got no place to be, I won't shave.  If I can drive, I'll shave.

I keep a toothbrush in the car.  I brush my teeth a lot while driving.  No toothpaste.  No place to spit.

I use spiral notebooks but only about 5 pages at a time.  I have them all over the house from classes I take or jokes I write.  I can throw them away in fear there is something brilliant in there.

I hate pencils.

I'm a germaphobe but I'll eat stuff off the floor if it will get a laugh.

I know how to light a fart but I haven't done it in 25 years.

And I've never fired a gun.

The King Of Lists...

I get depression...

Big time.

Sometimes hard to get out of bed.  I lay there playing candy crush on my phone.  My dog licking my face wanting to get emptied.

So...I make lists.  Tons of them.  This is how I get over myself.  Some people drink.  Some people exercise.  I make lists.

When the depression hits hard.  I time myself.  "I'm going to clean my house, go to the bank, do the dishes, make coffee for tomorrow, put everything in my car for my show this afternoon in .... 15 minutes".  "I'll do all the dishes in 4 minutes".  "I'll do my show contracts in 3 minutes or less"...

Side note:  it's very cool apple added seconds to the timer.  It's a lot more fun to time yourself doing dishes at 3:17 seconds.

This time of year, January, it's very slow.  Not a lot of shows.  So I sit around moping.  I'm making lists in order to keep moving...

I just noticed the title of my blog.  Boswick the Clown.  This isn't very funny.

I'll put it on my list to be more funny.  I can do it in 30 seconds or less.

Clown walks into a bar asks for a beer. Bartender looks him up and down and says ok...but no funny business.

Clown goes into a car dealer.  Dealer shows him a Smart car.  Clown says, I'll take it but I don't know what I'm going to do with all the extra room.

Clown goes into a shoe store.  Says got gimme 2 bananas?  Shoe salesman says, this isn't a fruit stand, it's a shoe store.  I know. I was looking for a pair of slippers.

I'm Motivated Again...Sort Of....

I'm going to give my love to Silly Billy right now.

I've met him twice.  I imagine he knows who I am because of the article in NY Magazine about me and he lives in NYC.

He sent an email a few days ago with a free tiny book to read.  I know it's promo and he wants us to buy his stuff but gd if he didn't hit home.

His 8 page book was about what to do in the slow times.  My work is so slow right now, I'm doing a whole lot of nothing.

It was as if he was talking to me.

-Go watch that magic DVD that's still in plastic (I have a DVD I bought 6 weeks ago sitting on my desk)

-Is your business card out of date?  Are you handwriting your new email on the back?  (My look has entirely changed, I'm still using my card from 10 or more years ago and I've changed my email)

-Is your web site out of date?  (I had a new web site done a year ago. It was never done right it's a mess.  My forms don't work, there are words on the top of my face.  I've just been living with it)

Silly Billy's email sat in my inbox for a week.  (I should read this thing...)

It has felt like my performing life is over.  It's been so slow.  I did a ton of work in December but a lot of Santas, take a look at my last blog post to see how I feel about that.

I want to do large shows for kids and their parents in a theatre setting.  I want to do a kids channel on the internet.  (So what are doing to further this?)

Not much.  Moping a lot.  That's something isn't it?

I spent most of yesterday talking to my web designer about my site and my new business cards.

Now, it's time to watch that DVD that's sitting on my desk....

It's time to read Silly Billy's book again.  (Seriously Silly.  Go buy it if you don't own it).