WHY ALCOHOLICS MAKE BAD CLOWNS
What an
interesting subject.
All the alcoholic clowns (not counting me) I know are quite brilliant, the
same sort of risky attitude that will leave your liver, over years,the consistency
and texture of a raw, three week steak can also be used in exploring comic
boundaries of form and content.
I agree that all alcoholic clowns could conceivably be better performers if
they didn’t drink, (I have and continue to experiment ) but I do think
that alcoholic clowns have one idiosyncratic form, a performance devoid of
their disease, in which they invest. To watch them work, you would have no
idea that offstage they were shuffling husks of their own unbridled adolescent
egos, inebriate, incontinent, surfing manic depressive swells, isolated and
at heart, self pitiful. (afternoon Anthony)(evening Pepe)
I admire people who create pockets of laughter (itself quite a powerful drug)
in which to briefly bask, relieved momentarily from a universal pointlessness
that would swallow them whole but for their one performance jewel which helps
fuel their self medicating lifestyles.
(afternoon Peter)
It is the ability to perform pathos with the right emotional credentials that
helps some clowns dredge comedy from unexpected sources. (themselves in most
cases)
I’m not suggesting it’s mandatory, Sad clowns really should stay
where they belong on biscuit tin lids. Having said that some of the saddest
people i know are clowns (and THEY pity ME)
I know others who don’t drink at all (mmm suspicious) and others who
are the very emblem of moderation. (hardly human)
Its trite to suggest that disfunction is a price to pay for creativity, but
I think it’s valid to suggest that creativity can sometimes be a self
induced reaction to disfunction.
So initially I would argue against alcoholics being bad clowns but would certainly
concede that their development would automatically be stunted by their condition.
Start out, create brilliant material, coast... (until physical and mental
deterioration sets in.) or
Start out, apply yourself to novel circumstances, exhaust whatever support
structure presents itself, repeat...
Start out, burn out. Start again, burn out, repeat.
Start out, make big waves, let your PR sell you for what's left of your career
(evening Jango)
You can combine these elements in as many ways as there are hangovers.
There's heaps of ways hard drinking clowns can destroy themselves.
(and only one way not to...and his name is Jesus Christ, apparantly. if your
an alcoholic, there is a god, step 4, unfortunately God/s† © ®
will no longer accept my custom because of my history of harrassment.)
I think the fact that some haven’t, that some survive themselves, whether
they are recovered,recovering or still bobbing about in their own waste with
permanently startled expressions and delusions intact is testament to who
they are, not what they are, or what they could have been.
Some of my best friends, have best friends who have drinking problems, as
we age I see some of them making healthier concessions but what is not lost
is the knowledge that on any given day, you will not recognise your surroundings
or situation on regaining consciousness.
Few would choose such a lifestyle but fewer could adaquately argue it wasn’t
more eventful on most dramatic scales than those of non alchoholic, non clowns.
To survive yourself, while producing entertainment, is a tight little dynamic
that beats most .