0:10 [SPEAKER_02]: I was tell people that I graduated from the hardest school to get into that was in existence in the United States at that time. 0:22 [SPEAKER_02]: They had statistically more people who would apply for college. 0:29 [SPEAKER_02]: and certainly much smaller pool of a class than Harvard or Yale, or any of the big Ivy leaks. 0:37 [SPEAKER_02]: So it was the hardest to get into, and I graduated from that, and then they were like, what? 0:44 [SPEAKER_02]: They're really brothers clown college. 0:48 [SPEAKER_03]: You may remember Jo Lee, from our conversation on the life and legacy of Eva Quar, who's story Jo told in a graphic biography, I picked up at the Holocaust Museum. 1:03 [SPEAKER_03]: The book is called forgiveness, the story of Eva Quar, survivor of the Auschwitz experiments, and I can honestly say that it's one of the most memorable and engaging things I've ever read. 1:18 [SPEAKER_03]: I learned at that time that Joe was also a professionally trained clown, and while that wouldn't have been an appropriate part of our conversation, I wanted to circle back at some point and learn more about that part of Joe's life, and that is what I'm doing today. 1:38 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm very curious because I've never met someone who used to work in the circus, but how did you get started in the circus? 1:44 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I did a book called The History of Clouds for Beginners. 1:49 [SPEAKER_02]: And I have a little section there where I talk about being home sick and watching Captain Kangaroo as a little kid that he used to be on every morning. 2:01 [SPEAKER_02]: He would occasionally have 2:04 [SPEAKER_02]: performers on their and he had vaudeville performer. 2:09 [SPEAKER_02]: So who is not a young man by any means called the banana man. 2:15 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the banana man did this performance. 2:20 [SPEAKER_02]: that was it was incredible where he would come out in a big coat and a suitcase and he would reach into his coat and he would bring out bunches of bananas and musical instruments and all of this and he was like wow and so I realized he was a clown in the best sense of the 2:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I always had it, I mean, the back of my mind, the tree. 2:53 [SPEAKER_02]: That would be kind of a fun thing to try, some tag. 2:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And what was funny was that he was later, and this is after the circus and all that, and I put this in this book, I got a call from a professor in North Carolina. 3:11 [SPEAKER_02]: who was teaching about performance and the history of performance and was actually an expert of the banana man. 3:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And he said to me, he said, now I'll just ask this because I'm sure that this is the case, but this is exactly how you remember his the banana man's performance. 3:32 [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, yeah, and he said, I have to tell you, you've gotten a lot of it wrong. 3:38 [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, I remember he's something that I saw when I was six or seven or eight years old. 3:44 [SPEAKER_02]: But he asked if he could put that section of the book, he has a website devoted to the banana. 3:49 [SPEAKER_02]: And then he said, you look up, you had to be careful when you look up banana, man, on the web. 3:55 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you go to his website, you can actually see archival footage of the actual performance I saw. 4:07 [SPEAKER_03]: These days, as Joe has suggested, if you look up Banana Man online, you're going to find men, and they're going to be holding bananas, but it might be something entirely different from what you're looking for. 4:21 [SPEAKER_03]: I've gone ahead and located that video to share some of the audio here. 4:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, in the garden of the captain's place, everybody's favorite. 4:34 [SPEAKER_01]: He has oranges and grapefruit and pineapples. 4:39 [SPEAKER_01]: He has a violin and a clarinet. 4:48 [SPEAKER_01]: and a railroad train, and he has bananas. 4:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, does he have bananas? 4:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks a lot. 4:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And more bananas! 5:05 [SPEAKER_03]: That's why he's known as the BUDN-Man-A-Man. 5:11 [SPEAKER_03]: Joe's book, a history of clowns for beginners, is now out of print, but you can still find it at places like Amazon. 5:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I keep trying to find another publisher for it, because I never thought the title was really good for the book, because it should be tricksters, fools, and clowns for beginners, because I was, as a little kid, 5:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And that also spurred that on because I thought I can't clunk around an armor, but hey, maybe I can be funny. 5:50 [SPEAKER_02]: And then just got interested in the whole history of this performance, which actually goes back. 5:57 [SPEAKER_02]: maybe older than even the old, the world's oldest profession, and it was a ritual and religious, and still these days, some of the clown gags that are done, if you see, the old dead and lie where somebody, they, it's like, Riga mourners has said in and they, and you push their legs down and the torso comes up, and then you push it, and you go through all that, and some of the 6:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So, this is a praise to me, so I still do some performance, in fact, on April 1st, right, suitably, I will be doing my Jungle Joe's Free Circus, where I explained that in the fleece, the Free Circus is an old form of entertainment, and there are two basic types of 6:52 [SPEAKER_02]: that tries to convince you that they're used to please. 6:57 [SPEAKER_02]: So I always let people guess which one thing is that I do. 7:01 [SPEAKER_02]: But I still do some clowning too. 7:03 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's one of the saying it's just exaggerating your own personality. 7:08 [SPEAKER_02]: So how old were you when you were trained? 7:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I was, I graduated from college. 7:15 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think I went to clown college. 7:21 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I worked for Ringling Brothers State, a theme park for a while, and I was going to go from there to one of the big shows, but I went off and stared on some smaller titshoes, like King Brothers Cole, Circus, and Oxie Brothers Circus, and worked with them for a few years. 7:40 [SPEAKER_02]: where you're working directly with the audience, which is the really fun part, being so separated from an audience, where they're sitting up and stating, seeing it, you're down in this ring, it's not as good as being able to walk into the audience and do whatever crazy stuff you do. 8:00 [SPEAKER_03]: So what's the difference between a stand-up comedian and a clown? 8:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, there are some stand-up comedians that I would say are crimes. 8:10 [SPEAKER_02]: P. We Harman is a great example of a crime. 8:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Probably Emoth Phillips, and so a crime basically is you have developed from your own personality. 8:24 [SPEAKER_02]: There's 8:26 [SPEAKER_02]: easily identifiable hair. 8:29 [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, when you think in movies, people like the Marks Brothers, moral and hearty, buster key, Charlie Chaplin, though they are all clowns in the truly classic sense. 8:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And you wave commenting on, like a stand-up comedian commenting on current affairs or something. 8:51 [SPEAKER_02]: if you work that into an act where you're that isn't exactly what you're doing. 8:57 [SPEAKER_02]: But you can make all kinds of political commentary as your character, but it isn't just saying this is talking about a president or something you're talking about in more general terms. 9:09 [SPEAKER_02]: But it's you're easily identified that personality. 9:14 [SPEAKER_03]: If the reason I asked because I know a lot of stand-up comedians do have alternative personalities, even though most people don't aren't aware of it. 9:24 [SPEAKER_03]: For example, like Larry the cable guy, he actually has a college education, he's very well educated, but his on-stage personality is nothing like what he is off stage. 9:36 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I would say that is certainly where clowning and stand up comedy dovetail. 9:42 [SPEAKER_02]: But clowning these days has gotten a bad name, it's with movies like it, and there being sure of fewer kind of clowns and makeup in evidence in the world. 9:55 [SPEAKER_02]: these days. 9:55 [SPEAKER_02]: So people don't know clowning. 9:58 [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I always, I think if you watch something like, he, we speak adventure. 10:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, it is always like a clown Bible. 10:06 [SPEAKER_02]: He, uh, of all but this incredible things that are traditional clowning, they just get put into the mix without I think he would even be aware of it. 10:20 [SPEAKER_03]: If you were a kid between the years 1986 to 1991, you'll probably remember P. We Herman from the Morning Television Show, P. We Herman's Playhouse. 10:32 [SPEAKER_03]: And now that Joe's made that connection for me, it occurs to me that P. We may be the most successful clown act of the last 50 years. 10:42 [SPEAKER_03]: He was so popular at one point, the U.S. government commissioned him for a public service announcement to kids on the dangers of drug use. 10:53 [SPEAKER_00]: This is crack, rock cocaine. 10:57 [SPEAKER_00]: It is in glamorous or cool or kid's stuff. 11:02 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the most addictive kind of cocaine and it can kill you. 11:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So every time you use it, you risk dying. 11:13 [SPEAKER_00]: It isn't worth it. 11:16 [SPEAKER_03]: Ultimately, the only thing that slowed P. We down was being arrested in a public theater after doing his own version of the banana man in 1991. 11:28 [SPEAKER_03]: Following that scandal, the P.W. 11:30 [SPEAKER_03]: character went dormant, but as recently as 2016, he was still making successful movies like P.W.s Big Holiday, which has an impressive 80% score on Rotten Tomatoes. 11:47 [SPEAKER_02]: The then deck suit of the Marks Brothers is another great example of clowning. 11:57 [SPEAKER_02]: And I always wore a minimal makeup, just enough to express and to a character and to project it. 12:08 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a really good point that clowns now aren't looked at the same. 12:16 [SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder why that is. 12:19 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think your point on movies and shows looking at them a little differently definitely didn't do them justice. 12:27 [SPEAKER_03]: But in my mind, also I have a true crime podcast and I'm a true crime fan. 12:34 [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm very familiar with John Wayne Gacy, who did not do clowns justice at all, so that's definitely a thing that's out there as well. 12:47 [SPEAKER_03]: For those of you unfamiliar with John Wayne Gacy, he was a part-time clown in the Chicago area in the 1980s, who also happened to be a prolific serial killer. 13:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And by the time he was caught, Gacy had assaulted and murdered, at least 33 young men and boys. 13:12 [SPEAKER_03]: The remains of 26 of these victims were found buried in the crawl space under his home. 13:21 [SPEAKER_03]: True horror stories like this one, in fictional ones, like Stephen King's iconic novel it. 13:28 [SPEAKER_03]: Have forever changed the way the general public looks at clowns. 13:35 [SPEAKER_02]: you mentioned that you're going to be doing your flee circus now do you go do that at a bar or where do you do that this is out down here in Bloomington we have the notice festival which is an international music and arts festival but in the spring there's one devoted primarily to school kids. 13:57 [SPEAKER_02]: which is the lotus blossoms. 13:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a lotus blossoms family day. 14:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'll be a performer at that I'd perform numerous times with the lotus blossoms. 14:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And then there are things like Wonderland which is a science kid science museum down here and I've done my flea circus there and I do it for a bud fest, which is at Hilltop Gardens. 14:23 [SPEAKER_02]: So for all bags you ever want to flea circus, 14:28 [SPEAKER_03]: Now you mentioned that you went to clown college. 14:32 [SPEAKER_03]: Now was that your college experience or did you go to a different college and then you went to clown college? 14:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, I am a graduated by you with a BA in history. 14:44 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh okay, so you have a BA in history. 14:47 [SPEAKER_03]: Now, what was your parents' response when you told them you were going to clown school? 14:58 [SPEAKER_02]: I have to say my father was actually at the end of the pressure right before World War II. 15:06 [SPEAKER_02]: He actually rode the rails as a hobo out to California. 15:12 [SPEAKER_02]: and he worked for Carnival, the craft 20 big shows out there, and it was, and of course, as a little kid, dad telling stories about that, and the Carnival business is very different, then, circus, but they're both outdoor entertainment, and they cross paths quite often. 15:34 [SPEAKER_02]: I think he was a guy that he appreciated somebody who was, 15:39 [SPEAKER_02]: I had a different way of entering their work life, and what was clown college? 15:46 [SPEAKER_02]: It was over two and a half months or so of training, where we would learn everything from juggling, to some stage magic, and acrobatics, and then you would develop your own character. 16:02 [SPEAKER_02]: from that. 16:03 [SPEAKER_02]: But of course, you can't really develop that character until you're working in front of an audience and you really get an sentiment. 16:10 [SPEAKER_02]: But it ended with a big show that we had worked on for weeks and weeks to put together that the circus management would come and watch. 16:21 [SPEAKER_02]: And the show was basically an audition for Ringley Brothers. 16:26 [SPEAKER_02]: And let us say, I've got 16:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but it's out now. 16:35 [SPEAKER_03]: Do you have your IU diploma on the wall too next to it? 16:38 [SPEAKER_02]: No, he's hey there. 16:42 [SPEAKER_02]: I always tell people that this is one of these funny statistics that I graduated from the hardest school to get into that was in existence in the United States at that time. 16:57 [SPEAKER_02]: They had statistically more people who would apply for concrete college. 17:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Then, and certainly, much smaller pool of a class than Harvard or Yale, or any of the big Ivy leagues school. 17:13 [SPEAKER_02]: So, it was the hardest to get into, and I graduated, and then they were like, what? 17:20 [SPEAKER_02]: They've ring me brother's clown college. 17:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Are they still open? 17:24 [SPEAKER_02]: They closed it a few years ago, it's probably. 17:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Gee, it must be that the official school that was at their winter quarters, it probably 20 years ago, that they stopped that, but then they still had the crown college that would dog from town to town. 17:42 [SPEAKER_02]: They changed the whole way of crowning, from getting people who already had certain skills. 17:49 [SPEAKER_02]: and that that was always a premium as well but they would get them on the show and then nurture them in that but it was in a different performance style and we really worked on. 18:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a favorite clown? 18:06 [SPEAKER_02]: I have to say that there are all kinds of great full stories and that are associated with various court gestures, and stuff that are great. 18:16 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a great British, full name Skoggen, and Skoggen got in trouble with the King. 18:21 [SPEAKER_02]: He went too far, and the King vanished him on pain of death that he could never be on British soil again. 18:32 [SPEAKER_02]: So, Skogan went off to France, and then he came back to England, and so the king heard about this. 18:39 [SPEAKER_02]: He was arrested, he was brought for the king, and the king said, I pronounced the death sentence if you ever step foot on British soil again, and here you are standing the form for me. 18:54 [SPEAKER_02]: And Skogan said, well, not on British soil. 18:57 [SPEAKER_02]: and the king was flabbered as to what Skogan took off when it was shoes and dumped out French dirt. 19:05 [SPEAKER_02]: And so, he wrote, which is a great way to do that. 19:07 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think Otto Greenland, who is a lesser-known tramp clown, then he worked at the same time Emmett Kelly, did an Emmett Kelly, was sad. 19:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Great corn is well, but Otto was very given to a certain kind of absurdist, 19:24 [SPEAKER_02]: surrealist humor in ways where one of the gags that he would do is he would come out at the beginning of the show and this was it wringly was still under canvas and he would come out with a little plant in a little pot and he would just quietly go around the entire circumference of the circus and say hi for Mrs. Jones. 19:45 [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't for Mrs. Jones and of course he was part of his costume during that was as a delivery man. 19:51 [SPEAKER_02]: He could on a delivery cap and jack. 19:53 [SPEAKER_02]: And then he would come and he would go out. 19:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody would claim the plant. 19:57 [SPEAKER_02]: He'd come out and then later the plant was a little higher. 20:00 [SPEAKER_02]: He would come out and walk around. 20:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody claimed the plant. 20:04 [SPEAKER_02]: And it continued throughout the entire show until when people were leaving the tent. 20:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Here he was with a huge plant. 20:14 [SPEAKER_02]: And still, in its part, six, seven feet long, and as people are leaving, he said, I have to resist Jones, I have to resist Jones. 20:23 [SPEAKER_02]: And so he is a wonderful kind of continuing gag. 20:27 [SPEAKER_02]: But he would also do things like sending the audience and need a sweater. 20:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And the sweater, which was never finished, but reached 20 or 30 feet long, 20:40 [SPEAKER_02]: And he just stood through that, but I always think he really said a kind of tone. 20:47 [SPEAKER_02]: He died shortly before I got to come and call it, or I would have had the chance to meet him. 20:53 [SPEAKER_02]: But he was, by all report, incredibly gracious, and given him and be, so it would have been nice to have actually met him, but there are so many great clowns. 21:09 [SPEAKER_03]: when people know that you are clown, do they expect you to do funny things? 21:15 [SPEAKER_02]: That has happened, and always think, should I keep a few little magic things in my pocket or something? 21:22 [SPEAKER_02]: It came to me, I would have to prove that I have some comedic ability, but I would say this, it may not have gotten me a lot of jobs outside performance or anything, but it certainly is one of those things 21:40 [SPEAKER_02]: People might call you in for an interview. 21:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Just to see, who is this guy? 21:46 [SPEAKER_03]: Do you show up with those interviews with a clown nose? 21:50 [SPEAKER_02]: No, in fact, my clown nose is pointed. 21:54 [SPEAKER_02]: It's, and the, the powers, the be it wrangling, they said, you can't have a point to knows. 21:59 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a little pointed nose. 22:00 [SPEAKER_02]: And they said, kids are going to think you're a witch. 22:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And all the years I've been doing this, nobody has ever called me a witch. 22:08 [SPEAKER_02]: What they will do is say, you Pinocchio, or they, if they're a little more astute and a little older, they often wonder, are you saying no to birth your act? 22:19 [SPEAKER_02]: because I also often speak with a French action. 22:22 [SPEAKER_02]: And they're the whole story behind that, but it's much too long to go into it. 22:26 [SPEAKER_03]: That's funny. 22:28 [SPEAKER_03]: Among the people that work here, we have our own studio clown as we will say. 22:33 [SPEAKER_03]: There's a guy in here named Nick who likes a little wild factor or a shock factor. 22:40 [SPEAKER_03]: He probably went to clown school himself. 22:43 [SPEAKER_03]: Anytime we think that we're going to have a serious person in the studio, he'll show up and address or something just to throw us all off. 22:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, especially in Europe, it's burgeoning in certain ways that 20, 30 years ago with this, what they called New Volkville, that people like Bill Irwin, who was the first performer and a graduate of Rangling Brothers, who won a MacArthur of Genius Award. 23:14 [SPEAKER_02]: And he has a show, I think, you might be able to, you can certainly see clips from the 23:23 [SPEAKER_02]: that was he did off Broadway and then he kept working on it, did it on Broadway, wonderful show. 23:30 [SPEAKER_02]: I just came across a female crown named Luke E. Cornish, who was with Cirque du Soleil, and came across this clip of it. 23:41 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a promotional clip from her show, and I think she's doing some great stuff. 23:46 [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't steal some of that stuff, which I think is the highest compliment you can get a performance. 23:52 [SPEAKER_02]: You steal a bit then you do it in your own way. 23:56 [SPEAKER_03]: Sure, here, local to Wavash nearby is Peru, and they always call Peru the circus capital of the world. 24:03 [SPEAKER_03]: I've never been there, but I know that there's a big circus venue there. 24:08 [SPEAKER_02]: There is, there were several circuses that wintered there, but they, and they started, I, 56 years ago, doing this youth circus, which I have to say, I've only seen it once and keep waiting to get back there. 24:25 [SPEAKER_02]: But the youth circus that they do in the summer, I think it's an end of June, beginning of July or something. 24:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And do it for a week, they have a special, 24:37 [SPEAKER_02]: auditorium, silk for this, and you get to see things like the famous act, the Walendas, did their seven-person pyramid on the high wire, and they fell to tragic consequences, but these kids are doing the seven-person pyramid on the wire. 24:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Now they're all wearing safeties, fit and thank goodness, but it's as far as I know the only 25:07 [SPEAKER_03]: As I mentioned, Peru and Diana, the circus capital of the world, is about 20 minutes west of me. 25:15 [SPEAKER_03]: And in the near future, I'm going to visit the Peru Amateur Circus to focus more on the history of County and also on the circus more generally. 25:26 [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to thank Joe again for joining me today, and I'd like to thank all of you for listening.
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