Like clowns at the bow of the titanic setting their hair on fire they give us something to be grateful for in dire times.

 

My 6th Chinese adventure and the mental breakdown that proceeded it.

 

I was in Hawaii, my mind fractured, I ended up on the street with my stilts and costume tucked under bushes covered in tarp.

Been in underground lava-caves with marine batteries running cosco widescreens, elite street folk.

I learnt from the other street dwellers the choreography required to get into rehab and put my head down and did that little dance and ended up being accepted into a rehab with a farm attached called Bridgehouse. I immediately began growing tomatoes because deep in my worldly goods were about 25 packets of Heirloom seeds I’d bought from a seed bank when performing at a site specific performance festival in Petaluma in what seemed like an earlier life.

I was two or three months into it when I got an email inviting me to perform at an event in China with Dado and Jonathan Freddes and others so went to the rehab boss-man and said,

“Hey, China wants me to go there and I want to go there but I promise I’ll be good and come straight back.”

He said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re ready.”

And I said loudly with a plaintive tone.

“But it’s part of my journey!”

He shrugged and said.

“Well it’s your funeral.”

I fly off and do the gig. It’s about my sixth Chinese excursion and I know to expect it to be surreal on any number of levels.

The venue was still under construction, the road we drove to the green room was incrementally more paved each day.

It was a blossom festival and most of the trees had been transplanted a week or so prior and each had what looked like colostomy bags attached leaking blossom inducing fluids but the timing was wrong and they were all still bare.

I danced with some locals https://youtu.be/gqDz7mr1d1Q?t=68

Dado was the cameraman and he was to pull the plug on me later in the day.

Dado is a demented hunchback clown, good cameramen to have. It is known.

So I look at it as a little give and take. I partake in Ethnic dancing,

then I demonstrate a traditional laconic NZ form of comedy.

Later on at the main stage the seats filled up with elderly civilians and a significant number of senior military folk in full kit.

I decided to attempt to play 9 inch nails, ‘closer’ and sell it like a happy song betting on none of the audience being able to translate the lyrics over it’s bass and my silly stilt dance.

Part of the chorus includes the lyrics “I want to fuck you like an animal’

I had them all smiling and clapping til halfway through the second verse Dado pulled the plug.

To be honest he probably did it to defuse a potential international incident.

I’m on one leg balancing when the sound cuts out, I play it off and bow and exit.

I had so many elderly Chinese ladies on my side smiling and clapping. It was contextual comedy as far as I was concerned.

I made it work and I was wearing a camera on my head so may have footage. I've since searched high and low, footage illusive.

No other footage ever showed up so I think I was right in my guess, this audience was old enough to be pre-phone.

They were compliantly entertained. But I was livid.

I think Dado had a panic attack on my behalf.

And that’s OK. The rage bled out.

I got a verse , a chorus and part of the next verse into my bucket list

Part of the sociological charm of this clown vehicle I’ve constructed is its defiant unhappiness is allowed to freely experiment with societal norms.

As long as everyone’s happy that’s the main thing.

I went back to Hawaii and the farm afterwards..

In passing.

 

Sitting between shows once at Circular Quay in Australia I came across a very strange man.

I was sitting with my stilts on, full makeup, on a fence next to the sea resting when I saw him.

He was brightly dressed with multi-coloured patchwork trousers and a glowing green sweater.

That was just the beginning, as he walked along his eyes were constantly darting about, never at rest. His head would flick from side to side as his eyes rocketed about in their sockets.

As a pantomime I knew the Portuguese specialised in eye movements and had dabbled however if you try this exercise yourself, obviously in the privacy of your own home, you will quickly become aware how tiring it is on your eyeball muscles.

But this guy was doing it all the time.

It wasn't an involuntary twitch. It was a conscious sort of exercise he was doing.

I watched him walk towards me and thought that perhaps he had decided that if he never gave anything in the world any more than a moments notice then nothing in the world would ever give him anything but a moments notice.

It was strange. It was as if he, brightly dressed as he was, would be invisible as long as he kept moving his eyes quickly from place to place, person to person.

He was constantly muttering to himself cheerfully.

I watched him approach and waited for him to spot the stilt man staring at him, thinking one way or another I would be able to test my theory by his reaction.

He saw me and stopped in his tracks.

He couldn't stare at me [I thought] without breaking the rules but what he did was glance at me, then away at something else then back at me about 15 times in 10 seconds then surprised me by taking out a small hand held mirror and giving me a long stare, eye to eye, person to person, through it.

So what I think it was , was he feared, for some reason direct eye contact with people and so had invented a method where he defensively glanced around until he found anything or anyone of interest.

Then. using his mirror to remove himself from a direct link, he would stare at it at his leisure.

I had this theory reinforced about a week later as I was walking through a mall and saw him standing with his nose almost touching a mirrored pillar outside a shop.

With his back to the passing people he was staring unimpeded at their reflections in the pillar as they passed.