"Being In The Newspaper-Being on TV"

I have been on the local news umpteen times and I get in the paper a lot.

Here's the big secret, treat a camera like an audience member. I get on the local news because when I see a camera pointed toward me, I look straight into the lens and have a particular trick I do right to the camera. My trick? I juggle and hit myself in the head with my juggling clubs.

This action works because it's a quick clown story. You get the clown world in a fraction of a second. The camera people are coming up to me because every street faire or festival says "food, fun, clowns"

They do a one minutes story on how thousands of people went to the asparagus festival (real thing!). So my little bit always lands me on TV.

Those little TV appearances do nothing for my career by the way. I usually am reminded that I was on TV when my mother or my mother in law call very excited that they saw me on the news. I have never had a customer call or send an email saying they saw me. Nor has anyone ever hired me because I was on TV. But it's cool. Only only one TV appearance made me lots of money and boosted my career.

Same goes for newspapers. My go to move. I usually get in the paper again for juggling or for looking straight into the camera lens, crossing my eyes and making a swirly animal balloon. It's a good visual.

Now this move, did make me many many thousands of dollars. I was on a TV commercial for the yellow pages and this move got me on. They had a lot of different performers doing things on camera for the commercial. Most didn't make it into the final cut. They got paid to be there. I had a strong move that got me on screen. The rule for commercials, if you are on long enough to be recognized, you are payed royalties.

You should have something in your clown arsenal that says clown in one, two or three seconds...literally! Snap a balloon in your face and get mad. Have your little puppet scare you. pretend to eat a giant hotdog and enjoy it.

If you send me an email I will give you ideas as I hear about your character.

"Why I Love Barny"

Want to get a reaction? Say you love Barny in a group of adults. Want to get a really strong reaction? Start singing the Barny song to a group of 7 year olds. They will try and overpower you with "I hate you, you hate me, let's all kill Bar neeeee"

I'm just amazed that this character that is nearly universally loved by the very young is thoroughly hated after 1st grade.

This is what we can learn from Barny. Be accepting. Be forgiving, Be pure love.

To a 3 year old and please remember, Barny is for 3 year olds, what they crave, what drives them are hugs and love.

Barny was a phenomenon because the inventors put many elements together that children desire. Some would think this crass. I think it's nice and if it were easy, everyone would do it.

I remember a study of a little monkey that got no love, no touch no other monkey interaction. I saw pictures of this poor little monkey in a class I took in college, probably psychology. The experiment was pretty basic, deprive a young monkey of all interaction. The monkey was fed by a nipple.

The monkey clung to a pole for comfort. It needed love. The little monkey went crazy, never had a chance.

So look at Barny in a fresh way. Children need love, acceptance in it's purest form. They cling to it, long for it.

Our most enduring characters are of the same mold. Santa. The Tooth Fairy, Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, Barny. No judgement, no scolding just, you are a good boy or girl and I love you.

In performing, you can channel these icons. What is it about Santa that makes him so enduring? It's pretty powerful stuff if you are dealing with 2 and 3 year olds. To this age, they are unquestioning that a clown is fun, silly and their friend.

When I'm dealing with this age group, I think, what they crave is love, they can sit on my knee while I do magic.

Now the question why do older kids turn on Barny? Because with self knowledge comes judgement. As we judge we get embarrassed, even if a part of us still remembers how we felt about Barny. Who wants to be uncool and say they still like him?

For adults...Children do not sit around watching old Seinfeld episodes, it does not feed their needs in any way. Switch it around, we are just so far removed from Barny we are disgusted by something so sweet. Get over it. Look into the eyes of your child, they see magic.

"Special Folks I encounter!"

I encounter some of the most giving people doing what I do for a living. I wanted to write about Sabra, a woman that's been hiring me for many years.

The second Friday evening in December I reserve for Sabra. Sabra puts on a holiday bash at Kaiser in Santa Clara. The thing is she doesn't work there.

The party is for the kids that have cancer, their siblings, their aunts, their uncles, their grandparents, the nurses, the doctors, former patience, administration... This is a big party. Some of the kids are pretty sick but you wouldn't know it from all the happiness in the room.

Sabra works as a 911 dispatcher for the city of San Jose. She raises funds all year long through the police department so she can throw a holiday bash for 200 people every year. There is arts and crafts, presents for every child, Santa, food, drinks, ginger bread houses, decorations, The police bring in the trained dogs and do a demonstration for the kids and I'm humbled because somehow I became a highlight of this event. Hugs and screams of laughter.

Sabra throws this party because her daughter had leukemia. I've met her daughter, her daughter has children now of her own, she's probably 35 by now. Sabra made a promise to God that if he saved her daughter, she would take over this party every year. I don't know a lot about the details but Sabra has been doing this for probably 25 years.

Now that's a promise.

People think it's pretty neat that I work with kids. People think it's neat that "I do what I want" for a living. But you know what, it's pretty neat because I meet a lot of people like Sabra.

"The Kid Warm Up..."

Audiences are part of your show, as such they have to be organized. An audience is like another character in a play.

A lot of performing problem come from a disorganized audience. All performances organize an audience in some ways. When you go to see a play, lights dim, an announcement about cell phones and a curtain rises. The audience is all focuses on one thing. A comedian comes out, pauses...says, how's everyone doing tonight...as if I care. A circus ringmaster blows a whistle, the circus starts.

Clowns tend to be in more casual arenas, someone's living room, a classroom, a park. these are not performing areas, so it's incumbent upon us to really train an audience.

With children, part of the organization is often teaching children how to be an audience. We can have them clap their hands in unison, do a simon says sort of game or shake body parts. This focuses the kids and hopefully while you are doing one of these "games" they will learn when to talk out and when not to. You can even go over audience rules with children. I think we can be more clever than that and do rules in a fun way.

If you do a clever warm up, you can also return to it when you need. I like the body shaking (shake your hands, shake your face etc). When the kids are losing attention or get distracted by an airplane, there is a distracting child. They already know about the shaking from the beginning, I just return to it, it's an instant organization tool.

"What Was It Like To Become A Clown?...

Auditioning for Clown College was a focused crazy roller coaster for me.

I heard about the Clown College auditions in a local theatre magazine called "Theatre Bay Area". It had notices for auditions for plays. I showed my girlfriend, who later became my wife the notice, she thought I should do it.

The audition was pretty straightforward, movement, clown walks...things I had done in classes in college. By this point in my life, I knew I wanted to be a clown. I thought I wanted to be a stage clown. I was mad about Bill Irwin at this time of my life. He had won the Macarthur Genius Grant and he was from San Francisco I wanted to be just like him.

I received an application to fill out. Lots of questions, tiny boxes to fill in my answers. Plus, I had to have pictures of me. One picture in a bathing suit. I think about how confronting that might be to a lot of folks but clowns put it all out there! I took pictures in my boxers pretending I was naked!

I took the application process more seriously than any application I had ever done. There were question like what is your favorite move, why? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Pretty personal stuff. I made a copy of the application and spent nearly 3 weeks pouring over it, answering, then rewriting.

My favorite question and I almost missed this one, It was in the regular vital statistics section (age, height, social security number), a box to mark if you had served in the military. I had everything completed, when I noticed it said, if you checked no, why?

I loved these people. Because I had to really think about why I had not entered the military. It was one of the greatest questions I have ever been asked. Like they were paying attention. And I needed to really think about that one. I'm not a person against kids joining the military but why wasn't it for me? How do I say all my feelings in a sentence or two? That's clowning, how do you get a lot of story and emotion in a sentence of two?

That little moment of nearly missing that tiny question has framed my clown life. Number one, I tend to miss little details in my life and it's very frustrating for my family, I'm pretty oblivious to things around me. Two, I love thinking about odd details. Clowning is a never ending question for me of tiny details, how to stand? How to walk? How to enter a room? How to leave a room?

The day I learned I was accepted to clown college, I had stayed out late the night before. I was working in a theatre box office in San Francisco, I worked until the plays were done then hung out after. I was sharing this apartment with maybe 6 or more people paying $190 a week (ahhhh the days!). I was awoken by Steve Smith dean of clown college, saying in his wonderful voice, "congratulations, you've been accepted to clown college!"

Here's the hard part. I had also applied to a theatre clown school in Northern Northern California called the Del Arte School, a school that trains in the style of Comedia Del Arte. My heart sank a bit, I had to think about this. I stuttered thank you, I'm waiting to hear from The Del Arte School too before I know what I'm going to do.

Knowing Steve Smith's love of all things clown, this probably cemented me in his heart whatever I chose to do. I think it was obvious I was very serious about my training.

I went to work that day, talking to everyone, saying "I'm going to join the circus". It was perfectly weird for me. Perfect. It was a strange and exciting time, one way or another my life was changing for sure. From being on the fringe of the stage, college, box office, to being asked to train with Ringling Brothers. Wow, life was getting cool. I was really going to be in front of people performing.

When I returned from work that night, in my mail was the acceptance letter from both, clown college and The Del Arte School...

Talk about serendipitous!

Clown College had a fun envelope, it was filled with confetti. It was asking me to join the party. Del Arte, was more straight forward, an acceptance from a school.

I thought for a day and accepted Ringling. It was a gut thing, it was a money thing (Clown College offers free training, you just pay your food, lodging and transportation), biggest, it was that being part of the party! It was an elite party, few were asked to attend.

I really get chills writing about this. That phone call and letter shifted the direction of my life. I was thrilled and told everyone what I was doing, I didn't quite know that letter was The Good Witch saying "follow the Yellow Brick Road".

I was finding little bits of star confetti in that junky little apartment for months, I'm sure it still turns up. I can't see Mylar confetti without a very strong feeling, knowing something wonderful just happened.

Thank you Steve Smith, Thank you Ringling Brothers for a 23 year walk in Oz!

"Words That Will Get Kids Crazy!"

Here is the most cool part of kid's performing. Children listen. And they listen hard.

Kids have a tiny vocabulary but they are absorbing umpteen words a day, so all words are fun and the sillier the better.

I love Doctor Seuss. I loved reading Dr. Seuss books to my kids. I always think of him as more of a poet, his simplicity of language tied into his art is wonderfully surreal. I used to read the books wondering how many pages we would go before he made up a word. We don't get very far...

You can misuse words, you can make up words you can use words in the wrong order. The rules aren't in place. Children are still practicing please and thank you, they get verb tense wrong, it's ok, there is someone there to correct them, just don't let it be you.

There are words that are just funny. Poop. Well let's see, it's funny because you are saying poop. It's funny because it's got a popping sound to it, so it's funny. It's funny because it's taboo. It's funny because it's an easy word to rhyme. Blue-poo. Boot-poop. Goo- poo. Root - poop.

I know I stretched it a bit in there but so what.

Words are fun. I play with kids names. "what's your name?" "Michael" "Bicycle? Someone named you bicycle?" "Gracie" "Crazy? Really, your name is crazy?" "Paul" "Shopping Mall. Can I give you my credit card?"

When I do this with kids they start raising their hands in excitement, "do me, do me!" Drop your adult sensibility about making fun of names. Don't be mean, have fun with it.

I also turn it on myself. "My name is Boswick. What's my name?" Kids shout Boswick. "Buzz light year? No Boswick, say Boswick" kids are howling with laughter. They shout out Boswick. "Bob? No Boswick! say Boswick!" Kids can hardly sit up straight by this point.

Off beat rhyming. Similar sounding words, huge to kids. And guess what, it's stretching their brains, it's developmentally appropriate. Rhyming is getting these guys to be better readers. You get the laugh, they are going to do better for the rest of their life. I think that's a win win!

"Hey...I Just Do What I do..."

There are days I can't figure out why I do this crazy thing for a living. It doesn't pay all that well, most everyone I knew from high school or college or even the circus days, makes way more money than me.

There are days I just think I'm pretty self indulgent. I'm a middle aged man that dresses up for a living, I get upset at things like my whoopie cushion having a hole, so it doesn't work right. Or the price of balloons went up, or I would really like to grow a mustache but I can't because it would look weird under my make up.

I have no real choice in the matter when it comes down to it. My life's motivation is about performing. I imagine having lots of money...so that I could have a better show and a really goofy car to show up to events in. All lots of money would do for me would ease money tension but as much as I tie together my performing and what I charge, I would do it for free.

I bristle at being called an artist. I just do what I do. Artists are really cool, they change the world with beauty. I can't be an artist...I just do what I do.