Objective independence/non specific outcomes/ and flow state as performance objective.

 

Objective independence

Is a psychological envelope of sorts, a state that sportspeople, artists and musicians among others enter into with no preset objective in mind typically to arrive at a flow state for peak performance in whatever it is they're engaged in.

The best street performers I've met used some variation of a gifted, can't be taught, cultural/social near perfect pitch quality to their shows, linked to some activity window in. Like unicycle, juggling, puppets, balloon twisting...it doesn't matter what. The skills are vehicular. The shows enter a flow state that becomes a celebration for participants and observers, in the internet's case even observers after the fact. It's the blueprint for most special street performers and a handful of bloggers who have lucked into the conceptual envelope. There are shared street theatre/internet variant tools. Both 'touch' their audiences for example with some version of the 'shoutout' note Marcus Veltri [gets like 4mil views in 3 weeks for his latest content] I'm not even sure he truely knows what he's doing. He recognises the person, the room, the environment, the props, people. Sets that picture, that's his form of near perfect social/cultural pitch. He's gifted enough that he uses his musical perfect pitch as an 'In' and then produce an objectively independant monologue for the moment. Then he improvises his audiences musical memory and it's quite undeniably emotionally powerful.

In my case it was people working out I was I was doing an in the moment [Objectively independant] social commentary and promoting a flow state.

Objective independence is a fuzzy term and I might be misremembering it from whatever psychology thing I was reading and I'll try to come up with something more descriptive but it's being in, or entering behaviours for which there is no distinct predetermined outcome.

Sports-people and artists utilize it, either trained or instinctively because it's a passage towards a flow state.

In a performers framework it's then also about transmitting that flow state to an audience.

We know what it is, everything goes away and you are just 'there'...and so in their own strange and briefly liberated way..are the audience.

There's no 'outcome' larger than what's contained within the envelope.

There's very few purists but typically technicians recognise it on some level above what the briefly hypnotised do. Livingspace Stickleback, Hoopal, Hilby etc, folk who are most likely to admit it's not about the money. I've written about the spectrum before , The exploiters and the ingratiators.

The look at me's and the look at us's. The overdressed and the naked.

There's also the aspect where a lot of good performers have gifts that are biproducts of coping mechanisms hard wired to combat anxiety on some level and that to get to a flow state of any sort is the only time the voices stop.

or the hamster gets off the treadmill and goes and lounges on the deckchair and soaks up laughter instead of sunlight.

The street theatre youtube interface.

 Some essentials of street theatre are the production of a sense of wonder, general entertainment, a sense of engagement , spontaneity, and the backend requires inbuilt financial self sufficiency.

I love how he touches people, he unleashes their own unguarded bliss. It's a pure child reminiscent happiness that's nice to be reminded of. I think it touches people because it validates them at their core.

The internet is in my opinion among other things the worlds largest boulevard, it's full of ambling pedestrians.

The same dynamics that are used in street theatre, to create an audience, perform, entertain and earn appreciative recompense can, with minor tweeks, apply.

Given it's an entirely new form there are many angles and attempts being made.

The most initially successful were an echo of salon culture and I think it's evolving.

The salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century, which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

Salons in the tradition of the French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries were carried on until as recently as the 1920s in urban settings.

These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate"

It is from this that we get the branch that includes the concept of a 'raconteur' and the internet has provided varying examples of this also. Led by stand up comics who are raconteurs by definition.

A notable reversal was Bo Burnham who started online as a mere stepping stone to the larger gestalt. [well maybe not but I just really like the word 'gestalt'.]

This boulevard's bursting with raconteurs, shiny happy ones who drown your natural defences via quick edits and put you in a fugue, historians, gardening enthusiasts, I'm not going to list them, I'm not paid by the word, [I'm paid by the state as it stands]

What separates, what filters out the noise to the discerning is not the concept or front brained definition but the 'feeling' of authenticity.

In a world where most people never fully satisfy themselves with one true purpose the folly of singular passion can be quite arresting, passion's hard, requiring self belief and sacrifice and commitment and a singular bullheaded application.

It's hard to counterfeit, authenticity touches us, on some level, we make ourselves vulnerable in recognising it, being open to others enthusiasm and wanting to part of their world requires trust...unless they just cut through all that and hook us emotionally.

I'm a sucker for authenticity

This was back in may, he's mellowed out a bit since but not by much.🙂

 more later...concerning what can't be reproduced online, Live spectacle.......

20 years ago was the start of the peak street theatre decade.

 Windsor Festival Report (2001)

Windsor International Buskers Fest, Windsor, ON

Never has so much love, indifference and sweat been invested in a carpark. Ken sets it up, his wife Patty's role is to help him avoid a mental breakdown and this year Robert Nelson's wife Kumi stepped efficiently and unasked into the role of onsite programmer. It's really hard to vent your spleen at a diminutive non-paid Asian whose day-job involves serving you coffee at altitude without poaching your genitals. And really there was nothing to complain about. Same couldn't be said for various staff members of various service establishments at various times. We left ashen faced chambermaids, simmering bouncers and fragile front of house staff in our wake but we tend to traditionally tip heavily and apologize profusely so it all worked out in the end.

Ken had to stand outside some offices like a naughty schoolboy forging doctors notes that explained which of us suffered from Tourettes. And that's because we're all highly strung individuals, so creative, so generous with our gift of producing laughter in others that we sometimes digress from society's norms. It has to be understood that this is just a natural side-effect of our genius and whats more, to be honest, we're really not much good for anything else. Ken understands this.

Checkerboard Guy
Alakazam
Reid Belstock
Hotnuts and Popcorn
Dado
Davio
Stickleback Plasticus
Cowguys
Chalk Circle
Anti-gravity
Nick Nickolas
Lee Zimmerman
Mad Chad Taylor
Marie Claude

Alakazam's subtext and chosen quest relates to physically manifesting an arcane sexual statistic. It is said that one ejaculation contains enough sperm to impregnate every female on the planet. Al's chosen hobby is to do the same thing the long way. Obviously that's a great many people. If any woman reading wants to bump her name up on the list and get seen in the next 10-20 years rather than later on when he's all wrinkly and jaded, I've heard he sells priority sessions on e-bay. Al's act involves juggling, micro bike riding, pole balancing and being a cheeky young scamp that woman of all ages want to sleep with.

Checkerboard guy is this guy. And the checkerboard thing is like a marketing ploy that grew like a particularly vicious virus until it devoured him whole. He has a great big cuddly juggling show that he can perform in 15 languages as well as 7 obscure Afghan dialects.

Reid Belstock is a clown who has a rare gift of being as funny as himself as he is in character. He's a hilarious mass of contradictions too large to list here. He's the sort of person who, at a meeting, you just focus on the wall and wait for him to ask a question so that you can be entertained by the way his brain works.

Dado looks like Zippy the Pinhead and sounds approximately Irish and spends his career attracting rainfall. Probably a really sad person to be but a really funny guy to watch.

Davio is French Canadian, and if that weren't strange enough he speaks passable English and balances on women's bottoms before climbing a pole and striking impossible poses that last for 10 seconds and take years to master. Sometimes whimsy frightens me.

Hotnuts and Popcorn: Slick, sick and pass the schtick. Barely clinging to their sanity, every risk dynamic conquered, the only challenges left being general social norms and in-jokes. If they don't get rescued and taken off the street soon they'll either marry and breed or join the foreign legion. Pulled off a 3 peaker 90 minute late night show masterfully so there's still gas in the tank.

Stickleback Plasticus. I paraphased them last year well enough. In fact this paraphasing stuff might well stop soon. Don Kings of ballroom dancing plus all the spontaneity and guile of street theatre purists.

Cowguys: Brian and John have a sort of bovine burlesque that involves juggling and the sort of hideous puns that really should only be used in wartime. They have classical training and it's like Shakespeare and Bozo were put into a meat shredder and they've made sausages out of it.

Chalkcircle: Bev and Ulla are two Australian woman who sit in the blazing sun scratching the surface of the planet with coloured sticks. Patterns form and then they leave. I've never understood Australians.

Anti-gravity theatre... What can I say? A cynical panto-sham with a drinking problem. The only redeeming fact being I don't have an ounce of self pity in me.

Nick Nickolas is one of those freaks of nature science is still struggling to understand. When small organisms were discovered living in unbelievably hot volcanic flues deep in the ocean, scientists actually called them nickyboys until they were forced to change it to something suitably latin. Nick has been credited with many things and discredited about twice that often. He is the reason for childproof caps and also for Mormons' special underwear. He is a magician and juggler and a sophisticated urbane raconteur. Even so it is advised that even if he asks you nicely, don't pull his finger.

Marie Claude is a face/body painter whose work and its quality carries her from major festival to major festival. She unleashes animals from the faces of small children and then sets them free. And that's apparently a good thing.

Mad Chad Taylor should be an ambassador for real Californians because he is in fact very real. It's a bit of a shock really; enthusiastic chainsaw juggling, genuine, upbeat, thoughtful. Freaked me out when I first met him. He's the kind of guy who can go to a strip club and it doen't seem dirty. He's what Alakazam could be with the right dosage of saltpeter.

Lee Zimmerman is the other sort of Californian... sort of Randy Newman, rock and roll show with puppets; deadpan, ironic, self taught, highly skilled and witheringly articulate. Had this great monologue about being the bottom feeder of the festival, with the elevated jugglers being the sharks at the top of the foodchain and him being the only performer who really was risking his life rather than it just being a line because if he went home with no money his wife would kill him. I could write what I like because he never comes to performers.net, but this plus last years paraphrase, I'm done.

A challenge known well in advance that's unique to this festival is that it, more than any other Canadian festival, (with Halifax coming a distant second,) is a tourist draw as much as it is an opportunity for a community to celebrate itself. It's Windsor and it's just over the river from Detroit. Every weekend, American tourists pop over in large numbers to exploit the slightly cheaper goods and services of their northern mini-me in a sort of 'living beyond, but within our means' sort of 'more bang for your buck' sort of a way.

And before I'm deafened by foaming reactionary flacks convinced in their own tediously facile way that I am anti- American, I can admit that Windsor depends on it. It's just another example of the dynamic of a border town. Copenhagen has the same thing with hordes of Swedes arriving every weekend to drink a cheaper kind of beer and have sex with a slightly different kind of blonde.

Now at this festival (which, in my opinion, is a two and a half day fest held over four) the mayor steps up to the mic and in his immaculately kept, politically astute and faultlessly jovial way, opens it and thanks the sponsors without whom none of this would be possible and to whom we're all exceedingly and sincerely grateful. (Sung to the tune of- 'We are the world, we are the sponsors') He really was remarkable. All the performers were crying and the sponsors and spectators alike were rushing up and hugging one another. One elderly woman was so touched she there and then donated all her worldly goods to nobody in particular and walked naked into the river. Bear with me, I have a disturbing habit of coming to the point when you least expect it...

My point such as it is, is that the Windsor fest is as much about getting Americans over the bridge to open their wallets at bars and casinos as it is to reward the local townsfolk with a festival that brings them together to celebrate both their diversity and ours. It tries gamely to do both and I think succeeds to a degree at both. It is sponsored for example by both the Casino (tourists) and a mental health organization (locals.) Lots of others as well but those two sum it up for me.

At the majority of festivals, even though there might be significant numbers of tourists, the performers are generally aware that they are bringing something to the community and that that is their prime function. While at Windsor (though good hats are made and undeniably good times are had) there are times when after strenuous efforts and much laughter, a show ends and at least two thirds of an audience turn their backs and insensitively head off to the next piece of free entertainment. Why? Because they're tourists who owe Windsor nothing more than making their money last as long as it can before they head home.

There was one world class performer who held it in for an hour or more until safely away from the site before slowly subsiding into tears and as some of you will understand, it had nothing to do with the money. Just tired and spent and undervalued and used.

Ken's great; and more than a producer. And it's neccesary that Robert's there and the locals who turn up year after year as volunteers to support it and others who bring the whole family to laugh and cheer and celebrate are the reason most of us attend. But just because we're romantic doesn't mean we're stupid and the tourist showcase thing just might have to be addressed. (At this point Martin's name gets scratched from every festival casting list in North America because it equally can be argued that the performers make as much as they do anywhere else or else they wouldn't be there.)

Oh but the moments make it all worth while, and really that's our strength. We can take tired old formulas and create beautiful original irrepressible moments. I'll just list one or two.

Moment
Pee Wee and Em were starting their show with a couple of hundred people gathered in the daytime, just mucking about creating atmosphere, character and focus when Em notices three children in the crowd, seated and staring intently at the ground. So she makes her way over and asks in a stage whisper "What are you doing?" The children, serious as only children can be, point to three bugs on the ground and state, "They're not moving." Em considers this and then asks, "Are they dead then, do you think?" The kids nod solemnly. After another brilliant pause, Em asks, "Shall we bury them, then?" They nod. So Em picks up the dead bugs and the kids follow and they walk through the stage and up onto the grass bank behind the stage and they dig a small hole and bury the bugs with all the respect accorded the moment and then walk back down and the kids sit down. The moment is over and the buildup continues.

Moment
The festival is over; cancelled early by a sudden downpour. Performers have been milling on the covered stage waiting for Robert's decision... on or off; now it's off. There's another tent in which 100 or so public have sheltered hopefully. Nick can't help himself. He cobbles a show together in his head that is not the show he's been doing all season but just bits and pieces he remembers along with whatever props are at hand and wanders over. He asks everyone whether they want a show and of course they do although they don't completely trust him at first because he's a bit loose and weird and he's standing on a table thats not too stable. It doesn't take long and it's all ripping along and even though the first two thirds of the show was uphill, we're over the hump and Nick's juggling three balls while trying to strip from the waist up and finally he's done it. His slightly less than pristine body is exposed all sweaty with seismic cutaneous waves sweeping across what years ago might have been a tight form. He's juggling and exclaims, "Ladies and gentlemen, the body of a god." and I swear the kid was all of 6 years old and quick as a flash he yells, "Yeah, Buddha."

Moment
John from Cowguys is handicapped by the fact that he's such a nice guy and such a good sport and just by existing in our midst reinforces all that is cruel and unfair and hilarious. He comes up to the busker's area from the public area of the bar and brings with him his dinner and a pint and sits at a table with Pee Wee (judge), Lee (jury) and Nick (executioner.) One of them addresses him while he's eating and as he casts his eyes back to his meal he notices his beer is missing and Nick's suddenly right across the room with a half heartedly innocent look on his face and a suspicious pint in his hands. John laughs good naturedly then makes a critical error. He says, "You won't misdirect me again." Nick returns and replaces the beer, but then in a rapidly moving, spontaneously planned and co-ordinated series of events, John, with his arms protectively across his plate, manages to have the contents of his dinner disappear, item by item (I think it was steak, vegs, mashed potato but it really doesn't matter) from underneath his eyes while 'never being misdirected again.' He's befuddled, sitting there with an empty plate while Nick, Pee Wee and Lee weep with laughter when the unthinkable happens; food starts re-appearing on his plate. The humour at this point strayed dangerously close to potential aneurysm and John finally started to get a bit pissed off as he realised that Nick had actually grabbed his nicely prepared steak off his plate, in the millisecond he wasn't focused on it, with his grubby little fingers.

It may have its downsides, but what we do to the public and what we do to each other and the skill and laughter that go with it are reason enough to meet up regularly and Canada really does lead the way in this area.

If I've offended anyone, sorry, if I haven't offended anyone, sorry. Thanks for the moments.

Paris Arrest

 

Paris is in France. Which is a country at the northernmost border of Europe where civilization ends. (Near where Britain begins). I had driven up after working in Barcelona and Ibiza, a lovely drive except the one night spent low on gas parked outside a closed gas station in the middle of the Pyrenees (mountains between Spain and France). It was very cold and being the wide-eyed optimist I am I owned nothing but thin shirts to stave off the temperature which to put it mildly, was a tad frosty. 

That in itself would have been problem enough but the hitchhiker I had with me was some Latin dude who had the strangest affliction in that as soon as he fell asleep every ounce of viscous fluid in his body immediately made its way to his sinus and the back of his throat such that hideous unearthly mind-bending noises burst from him at volume. I’d wake him up, he’d apologize go back to sleep and, seconds later the imitation of close quarter military jets taking off and landing would resume.

It was a measure of my desperation as I sat there next to the most horrifying snorer in the world while shivering uncontrollably that I tried to knock myself out by bashing my head against the steering column. The first blow was definitely committed and stars swum but sadly I was still among the living so before I could regain what miniscule sense I originally had I mustered my stupidity and had another go…..It was unsuccessful and now I had added a raging headache to the twin discomforts of noise and temperature to create a memorable French trinity of woe.

The rest of the trip was comparatively uneventful. Arrived in Paris, earned the hotel money the evening I got in and resumed my Paris pattern of daytime pitch a block from the Pompidou and night-time pitch in the Latin Quarter.

The daytime pitch was my own; a series of arches with apartments above formed the entrance into a large square. The edge of the square used to be a lane as was still labeled with a street sign. (More about that later) In the middle of the square was a dry fountain where junkies hung out and the arches themselves formed a passage for locals and tourists to pass to and from a nearby subway entrance, various lanes and side roads towards the square and a large underground shopping center beyond. It had a good flow and I would work there a couple of hours a day, the crowds impeded no one and all was well.

I would do my thing, which consisted of outfrenching the French in the distain dept and being for all intents and purposes just a wee bit dour.
They lapped it up and one of my better memories was an old woman on the 3rd floor of the apartments above me opening her window after a show and lowering a 20 franc note that she had stuck on a peg and tied onto the end of a long string.

This was towards the end of the season, round October and what I didn’t know then was that many European countries do immigration sweeps about this time to clear their cultures of summer straggling cling-ons who would otherwise add demands to their sospamspamspamspamspamspamt but finite social welfare systems. 

Over the heads of my audience, approaching in the distance I spotted a gaggle of French Guardia, 8 in all with a couple of muzzled dogs and a guy hanging behind wearing a Clouseau overcoat who was obviously the semi-singular half-brain behind the operation.

The Guardia are the utility overalled Dobermans of the French police force who are selected for their single-minded zeal and unquestioning obedience. (Much like low-level gangsters or Orks)
I suspect that at the training academy they hang bright shiny objects at the entrance on recruitment day and select for the Guardia those found transfixed by them who additionally have ‘HATE’ tattooed on their knuckles. ADD and amphetamine addicts are especially prized.

They were darting about snorting and peeing on posts, the junkies scattered, still they caught some, handcuffed them and made them sit on the ground. They were a bit of a distraction actually as my audience kept glancing over at the competitive drama.

From about 100 yards away they turned and looked at me then as one turned to their over coated keeper who nodded.
They rushed towards me, their knuckles bleeding as they dragged at their feet, the audience parted with an indignant distain and they surrounded me barking a threatening gibberish I could only presume was French.

‘Gibber gibber’ they barked…I stared at them…’Gibber gibber gibber growl’ they barked louder, (one of them had dropped to all fours and was licking another’s testicles while whining)

Remember earlier I mentioned that where I was working had been a road and still had the street sign? Well the sign was just feet away so I tottered over to it and smiled and pointed.

‘Avenue du Innocents’ 

Well I thought it was funny and so did my audience but unfortunately it sent these guys into a furious apoplectic rage.
Howling, they surrounded me and in a stunning piece of improvisation pushed me over.

Two got in front of me and four got behind and the two in the front pushed and the four at the back caught. 
(It was like being back at clown school doing a warm fuzzy trust exercise accept it was half a world away from home and being done in public by evil intentioned state Orks)

Mercifully the four at the back actually caught me and lowered me roughly to the ground.

They still had a couple of problems; I was 12 foot long and couldn’t understand a word they were saying. 

Inaction to these people is like sunlight to Vampires however so one of the catchers stomped round in front of me and grabbing a stilt, tried to simply yank it off.

I moved about 3 feet. He tried again. I moved another 3 feet. My audience were muttering darkly. I obviously speak no French but remembering how much is shared by common cultures I tried saying ‘Impossible’ with a heavy French accent, ‘Empossaabeelle’ I cried as he pulled at my leg a third time. (With diminishing enthusiasm I had to note.)

The audience had at this point become brave and abusive having had to watch their clown being dragged around the pavement by morons. 

The semi-singular half-brain Clouseau-clone now entered the fray in a sort of “try and nip this surrealism in the bud” way and in halting English asked me for my passport.

Now that’s a simple enough request but unfortunately I lead an impossibly complicated life.

I did in fact have my NZ passport on me but I had entered the country with my British passport. 
Therefore my NZ passport would have no record of me having ever entered Europe and as such I thought it best to answer, ‘No, It’s at my hotel.’ Which it was.

So I was encouraged constantly and quite vocally to get my legs off. 
As I was unwrapping the gaffer/duct tape one of the Guardia pulled out an evil blade and slashed at the top of my stilts helpfully.

Carrying my shoes (no time to put them on apparently) my stilts, my gear and still with my makeup on I was led, surrounded by my honor guard to a grill windowed bus parked round the corner that was now almost full of what looked like Algerian refugees.

We headed off to the main Parisian police station where I was first put into a single cell and searched. They found my NZ passport and told me that if I’d shown that to them they would have left me alone but now as I had already entered the system they were obliged to process me and having got my hotels ph number they would ring them and put me in a holding cell till a copy of my English passport was faxed to them.
(At least I think that’s what they said)

So I was then chucked into a room full of swarthy, Algerian, junkie neer-do-wells still with smeared whiteface and shoeless. A few of them recognized me and tried to chat but sadly we had nothing in common but our criminal records. Still I was unmolested and sat quietly which was probably one of the best things to happen to me all day.

Eventually it was all resolved, the police said that the hotel had stuck up for me sending a copy of my passport and additionally giving me a bit of a character reference. I put my shoes on and left went straight to my night pitch to make up for loss of earnings and the next day I was back at the Avenue du Innocents.

The Legend of...The Best Ronald MacDonald EVER!

 

Once, well over 50 years ago there was a Ronald MacDonald in America.

Well there were several really, the country was divided into various Ronald zones with a Ronald for each, the USA was effectively the United Ronald States of America at that time.

However this particular Ronald was considered by MacDonalds as THE BEST RONALD EVER!

He had executive privileges and at one point a rather large bonus plus had been given an extension on his contract that secured his employ quite dramatically.

It was a close call for this Ronald though because just before his recognition as THE BEST RONALD EVER!

He was about to be fired.

He was about to be let go for health reasons ostensibly.

The fact of the matter was he drank too much, he tended to teeter on his totterboard, tossed them back when he should have tibbled , he was an elbow bender of some repute.

Word had got back to corporate headquarters that this Ronald guzzled, gulped, chugged glugged, slugged, quaffed and swigged entirely too much, not to mention the unverified accounts that he was also a slurper.

A decision had been made, it was merely a matter of time. Time required for a new Ronald to seamlessly replace the old. It in these crevices between decision and action that middle management exists and let us take a moment to cheer for their crucial role in the world today and in this very narrative for Ronalds sake.

Spare also a moment to reflect on the pressures brought to bear, the psychological and philosophical burden bourne by a clown in the late 20th early 21st century whose vocation is to release people from their everyday and to experience joy while factors like an increase in a collective hopeless malaise is all apparent and the world itself becomes an increasingly unfunny place. 

[we're talking funny Ha Ha here.]

No wonder he drank.

On the day he ascended into legend he was descending, his costume impeccable, his red yak-haired wig donned, in a Helicopter towards a MacDonalds carpark to highlight the festivities taking place in that franchise and give the children the climax to the event that could possibly equal and overcome their sugar saturation levels.

The children had gathered at the entrance to the Macdonalds, a safe distance away from the landing site and we can imagine them peering at the approaching dot in the sky excitedly, perhaps even keening. Certainly vibrating with gleeful anticipation.

Perhaps also the Helicopter did a flyby with Ronald waving from the opened passenger door, presumably contained in some sort of harness for insurance purposes.

This is all conjecture but what we do know is that at a certain altitude on the approach to the landing the Helicopter malfunctioned, lost power, spun around for a bit and then smashed to a final halt in the MacDonalds carpark in front of a large audience.

Of the Pilot and co-pilot one was killed instantly and the other seriously injured.

Ronalds support crew, the event manager, the PA etc undoubtedly received injuries also, fractures, concussions. The crash site was littered with debris.

The onlookers were in shock, things had most definitely taken a turn for the worse, in short shit got serious.

The children faced some very real and existential questions.

Had they just witnessed the death of Ronald MacDonald?

Was Ronald MacDonald dead in their local carpark?

The broken blades of the demolished vehicle had barely stopped rotating when out of the wreckage staggered a seemingly unscathed Ronald.

He waved, he smiled, he wended his way across the rubble in his large clown shoes towards the onlookers and upon reaching them carried on, inviting them to join him around the other side of the building, where the festivities could continue as scripted until he could be extracted for examination and he could, before that time, in some small way help heal their psyches.

He became Legend that day, there was a media blackout of the event generally and the story was only before now passed down among the Ronalds.

That my friends is the story about The Best Ronald Ever!

More storage--first2000 words, Letters to Rocky outcrop. first burst, waiting for next, puffed

 

1

I am a violently enthusiastic taxidermist who works with rare and endangered species as well as creating bespoke creatures from various spare parts and leftovers. I have for example a Polar Bear with seven Marmoset heads and a half goat half motorbike. 

Today whilst stuffing a rare lowland bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) surrounded by my resplendent menagerie of mute vestiges of lives well lived as the data dense dulcet tones of Mr Outcrop crooned comfortably away in the background I was astonished to note that the vast majority of my stuffed collection had somehow swivelled their heads towards the laptop on my bench as if to peer, it appeared adoringly, towards the Scottish rendering within. Imagine my surprise, doubly so since this was mid morning and I never take mescaline before noon. It's a rule.

I am not embarrassed to admit I am still quite confused. I experimented, as both Curran brothers are also apt to do, with arbitrarily cutting off the volume of the podcast and in fact I noted that while the initial movements had ceased and my creatures were now simply keenly transfixed towards the new source of their seemingly collective fascination.Miraculously it could be observed that while still a certain light in their eyes would wax and wane in response to the volume being available and then withdrawn.

I surmise and suspect this has something to do with charisma and am devising whatever intricate ploy I can wherein I may entice Rocky Outcrop surreptitiously to the closest or largest mausoleum in Edinburgh to chat loudly with me so I may further my thesis that he is uncommonly regenerative.

It is altogether all quite confusing and as Irvine Welsh himself once said.

--That, eh, likesay, seems a bit eh, fucked up like man. Ken?

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

2

The exclamation 'Gazooks!' can only partly portray the immense pride I felt witnessing your rendition of my humble comment towards you in real time on your last podcast and so I will add, 'Jiminy Cricket!'

I noted also the small ejaculations of pleasure evinced towards me from the side chat thingy.

I was quite overcome and had to set aside my  rare lowland bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) momentarily as I examined myself within.

I am but a simple man who labours under passions and over my own impediments which include verbosity, reanimating animal corpses and what some might call an overfondness for hallucinogens.

Even so I was invigorated by the attention and the smattering of applause and whilst I am wary of it, considering the laughter and attention from others an opiate in it's own right having seen others dragged down to depths such that some would even sell toothpaste on television.

I will continue to pen brief comments in my short darjeeling breaks between rearranging the innards of  both predator and prey, of the thoughts and observations that occur, and personal instances too, that I occasion while listening to your podcast.

If for no other reason other that perhaps small doses of absurdity may inoculate us from over-rationalisation in these tumultuous times 

and a good subtext is never a bad thing 

and as Irvine Welsh once again reminds us, "You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.“

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

3

Goodness gracious! and in addition Crikey Dick!

I veered dangerously close to a conniption at my mention live on air again by Rocky Outcrop on his show yester-morn.

Patterns form however I live to be gleefully disappointed so enjoy the moment.

I trust nothing but the dead which is why I'm a taxidermist and also why I have a fetish for Insensible meter maids. 

Inevitability intrigues me. Which is why  Rocky Outcrop, GME and the collective Curran phenomenon attracts.

For whilst we are all simply motes of dust momentarily illuminated by a shaft of light inside lifes cathedral there does exist certainty.

..and I certainly like Rocky outcrop!

now I must return to my rare lowland bongo 

(Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)

Til tomorrow then

“I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechism.”

― Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

4

Today I'm handing over the Rare Lowland Bongo 

(Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) to my client.

I am much sort after and can afford to charge fees any reasonable person would find offputting.

I choose my clients with a certain delicacy. Being who I am I strive for consistency. 

Thusly I rigorously examine my prospective commissions and hold interviews.

Many might say I am humourless. Professionally I am dour and glacial.

Subterraneanly  I do giggle often, you'd never know.

Humour is subjective and so we denote scales by which to particularize ourselves.

In hue my humour could best be described as 'vantablack'.

I have one criteria by which I select clientele based on the wise words a famous clown once told me.

"Whether you are a clown or not your number one priority in life should be to keep yourself entertained."

Subsequently  the only people I will entertain in any professional capacity as a taxidermist are clients I've screened thoroughly and deemed

to be dead inside.

I, and apparently my entire menagerie, enjoys Rocky Outcrop immensely because he is the antithesis of this and......

But wait, there's a knock at the door. I must hasten.

“The Man Who Couldn't Stop”

― Chester Brown, Ed the Happy Clown

yours in virtuous servitude etc...

5

Well THAT was interesting.

My client arrived, [my discretion is assured so I will merely extrude the initials KG]

His pallor and expression was startling, it was as close to rictus as rictus could be whilst still containing a heartbeat.

His eyes, usually unwavering and unusually dry, were darting hither and thither seemingly seeking purchase like an overpowered luxury SUV departing an exclusive ski-lodge at speed.

For reasons of my own I had prearranged my menagerie facing away from the door so he was faced by a succession of various buttholes.

I pride myself on my attention to detail.

The only exception being the  Rare Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)

That took pride of place framed side-on in the middle of my studio.

He carried a small attache [a case not a dwarf diplomat]

I presumed the final exorbitant downpayment for services rendered were contained within.

He scuttled to my fastidious bench and opened it, briefly dabbing at the sweat on his brow I noted, and withdrew a manila envelope stuffed with cash and additionally a small pouch, made of some synthetic material and containing himself as best he could he informed me of a change in plans.

It interested me to note that unlike our previous encounters wherein I was merely a provider of a service and he, a titan indulging in whimsy, a dedicated folly. I now seemed strangely to be the new centre of gravity in our arrangement.

He explained the pouch was a small faraday cage and the contents some data  he wished to be placed inside the Rare Lowland Bongo  (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) for safekeeping and that additionally he would provide a destination for it's delivery upon completion at some later date. And with that and some brittle alacrity he turned on his heel and departed.

I pondered as the door swung closed...What an infantile strategic bungle.

I'm sure Mr Outcrop you have your own life to lead, containing as it does measured altruism, stoicism and a certain choreographic grace.

But don't you find all this a bit strange?

anyway it's past noon, time for my medicine.

“He is as crazy as bedamned, an incontestable character and a man of ungovernable inexactitudes.”

― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

6

I have previously elucidated a description of myself as violently enthusiastic.

It would be remiss of me not to admit in the past the inverse was formally true.

For as a state employee at the highest levels a proclivity towards enthusiastic violence was once as they say 'My Jam.'

For better or worse back in the day a cornerstone of my character gravitated towards a good bash. 

One pearl within my ex-profession is that if you cannot be overestimated you cannot be killed.

I was almost tediously aware that as the only pawn aside from the king aware of the hiding place of  what could easily be surmised to contain KG's cold crypto wallets containing vast amounts of liquidity within the Rare Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)

 I was a node where insecurity could be seen to fester.

So shortly after reopening the Bongo and installing the pouch deep within its chest and withdrawing with stealth and almost microscopic stitching I considered precisely my options while and after activating various concentric defences . 

Rocky Outcrop in the background soothed me with his reiterated certainty. My mind temporarily drifted, perhaps one day I would visit....Gift him my contemplative Ocelot, another favourite, my bald alopecia-ic chimp with the transposed yakuza tattoos I'd stolen from that museum in Tokyo. Or the ultimate gift, nothing at all. I carefully set aside my mind satchel and returned to the matter at hand.

My client had appeared to be in a weakened state, his every move scrutinised from tens of thousands of angles. All reports suggested he'd awakened a digital eye of mordor, perhaps the most keenly perused person on the planet..in it's history.

I had an idea, the solution so simple and elegant while primitive that I doubted myself briefly for having thunk it.

My clock, an arrangement of moving parts and a dead Rainbow Owl, struck 12.

Owls in many cultures are harbingers of death, their hearing so acute they can hear your heart stop it's said.

I took a pill, what the hell, I took two.

“It is nearly an insoluble pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities, a snorter.”

Flann O'Brien , The Third Policeman

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

 

 

7

My hands gripped the antlers of my Nubian Ibex-electric motorbike hybrid.

I was speeding stealthily aiming my goats head adroitly through sparse traffic in the hour of the wolf 

"The hour between night and dawn. The hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghost and demons are most powerful." 

I was tripping Balls.

I feel a large wave building, within and without. Apprehension and exhilaration, usually insoluble, have melded into an entirely new emotion.

Novel, like a deaf person introduced to scratch and sniff movies.

I wore a Swedish leather tank helmet, not for protection but for  je ne sais quoi.

Which if you were to think about deeply, [and I'd advise you not to]

Is its own armament.

I was running cold, I'd scanned my goat for anything transmittable and carried no communication devices of my own.

I locked the back wheel, sent the flank of my vehicle sideways, countersteered, then applied wheelspinning torque to whip myself around a corner and into an alley and up to a large industrial rollup doorway as my old motor sergeant whispered defeated obscenities in the background.

I'd arrived...at the end of my transitional interlude..

“You can only do what you can no matter how you try.”

― Kōbō Abe, The Box Man

yours in virtuous servitude etc....

More clown notes for eventual collation

 I was explaining to someone the legitimate basis rather than manufactured trope about why Clowns are to any degree scary.

Clowns predominantly create worlds and invite audiences into them. Fraser here is an example of that. The act of stepping out of your reality and into someone elses requires degrees of trust and bravery which I think is the genesis of the legitimate fear and is itself as old as the form.

I myself don't create alternative realities, I might use the occasional illusion, if something blows past I'll pretend I have telekinetic powers for example.

My reality building is creating a world where I have permission to exist. I made a psychological disfunction, wherein someone shames or embarrasses everyone as a means of shoring up self esteem via externalised anger, into a clown character....and people laughed because they recognised themselves. [and I got to do it guilt free which is an ultimate luxury] 

This guy adapts to his surroundings and improvises creative moments to share and I'm convinced it's the same thing essentially as the late great Rob Torres having to creatively improvise his way out of this. The audience, one live, one online, react I think in the same way....in a way....

https://youtu.be/fGghPkWaqHE?t=137

Its interesting because some youtubers tick the same boxes with the live versions of their productions. [they have a non street theater advantage in that their content is permanent] but while it's live they interact with viewers, banter, viewers add creative impulses, I'm watching the melding of various forms, the live interactive/online interactive classes and something I don't think anyone else has noticed yet, the potential that was very rare on the street but did happen. [I saw it in Paris] that could and already is happening to a tiny and unrecognised extent IMO which is 'Salon' culture.

It's starting to form online at it's earliest stages right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

Because when you disconstruct a street show it's essentially a communication forum based around props and the production [usually] of punctuative crescendos. Underneath every unicycle show or jugglers show it was simply more a monologue than a conversation but the best had an interactive element designed to at best allow the creation of unique interactive 'moments' where everyone was illuminated in a new shared experience.

This Kills the Canary

 Now you're probably going to need to brace yourself for this....

I follow [quite proudly] this fellow and altogether he's one of the most erudite, articulate, authentic and para-politically ambitious people you're likely to meet.

He is prone to passionate outbursts when persistently stupid people try and disrupt the conversations being simultaneously in his chat-box as he live blogs about trading.

In this instance some individual had been unsuccessfully attempting to disrupt proceedings in the background chat for about 30 mins.

Before this happened.....

My version of events. let me set the scene

A rare daft toon had been intermittently interjecting in chat.

The local residents, a mixture of sarcastically sincere pedestrian crossing guards brandishing open carry weapons unused and the adjacent scornful schoolchildren themselves had been toying with the duffer some extended period before the vocal eye of mordor even noticed.

Better more important subjects at hand. Nuggets to disperse.

A well reasoned and calm summation followed.

A brief well intentioned and if anything overly sincere rendition of concern for a raft of discrepancies of character and miscalculation of method and modes of modular enunciation were evinced.....each a shiny bauble or tasty tit bit left in a luring line towards the witches cottage in the wood or the bears den.

An extended silence followed, peace returned to the glen, the creatures there began again to dart and flit as they do.

And then this mad dodger stumbled up to the door again and knocked, hoping to run away tittering before it opened.

AND HELL RAINED DOWN!!!

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgxYQ2GEKltx87yQTWB4AaABCQ

I used to be a clown...I still am...but used to be too.

 I used to be a clown…I still am…but I used to be too.

Firstly…what is a clown
"a comic performer, as in a circus, theatrical production, or the like, who wears an outlandish costume and makeup and entertains by pantomiming common situations or actions in exaggerated or ridiculous fashion.”

That’ll do.

I specialised as a street clown. I thought they were the purest, the bravest, the hardest to be but also the most free and if successful the most pre-industrially romantic.

I was successful on my own terms.
That said my self contained definition of both Clown and success radiated towards commercial interests who dangled fees and so I also worked for nightclubs in Ibiza, Suntory, Panasonic, Coca Cola, Camel cigarettes, international festivals, private parties with James Brown and Aretha Franklin with a 300 strong choir, Ron Howard movies starring and sharing dialogue with Tom Cruise, retired Japanese starlets 21st birthday parties and pensioners picnics.

My point being I studied clown and practiced it to the extent that the world at large went…”Yup..he’s a clown”

So I don’t have to get too far into the weeds of self analysis to marry my idiosyncratic definition of the vehicle I used to express myself with the general clown definition.

What made me laugh internally was my ability to manifest my depression comically and commercially as a unique coping mechanism.

I was/am a disgruntled, unhappy, dissatisfied and entirely disappointed individual and given I primarily stand 11 ft tall in public places pretending I’m better than everybody I’ve done remarkably well manifesting the general jungian contradiction as it applies to modern men and women [or even more nuanced variations] as everyone identifies with my/their unhappiness and admires the ridiculous lengths and honed expressions I use to spark recognition.

Thats my take anyway.

But here’s the rub.

I’m kinda paralysed at the moment.

I’ve had major mental and physical injuries I’ve overcome, catatonic depression and terminal cancer. TA DA!

And I have all the tools honed by over 4 decades of work from makeup to stilts to the props that I use and let's say conservatively the wisdom of over 15 000 shows.

And I’m fortunate enough in my 60 year old street clown dotage to be in NZ.

 I don’t mind admitting I’m terrified.

I’m in Wellington NZ and in all my years working Wellington's the only place that I, who have always been proud of my slow build crowd technique, based on the strength of my clown character, have worked for 30 minutes without gaining a single interested person.

It’s a psychic bruise.

So the choice as I see it it to go out and commit clown suicide, [which to be honest I’d rather do in private]…. Accepting that everyday life’s now too insular to admit commonality and laughter. Or to risk again…like every shows a risk, that I can pan sluice gold from the muck of overwhelming defensive indifference…and create laughter.

It’s a big ask and NZ’rs for all their cute accents and practical wholesomeness are nevertheless provincial fucktards easily lead and deeply insecure.

So I could do the catholic thing and go out and be ignored as penance and die quietly.

Or I could evoke my patron account, that’s had 2 contributors, now post Covid one, [I don’t even know who’s sending me $10 a month!}

To pay for someone to film my success or failure to anyone interested in feb march of 2021.

I’ll do it anyway. But having an international audience would make the success or failure so much more wonderful.

 

https://www.patreon.com/join/thisneedstohappen/checkout?rid=0&cadence=1