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Lightning Rod Gets The Zot
The Poet's Eye ^ | Lightning Rod

Posted on 10/23/2010 5:17:52 PM PDT by Lrod

A character like Christine O'Donnell presents a unique problem for a humorist. Few elaborations are called for since the caricature is self-embodied. All that is needed is a dead-pan Jack Benny look. You know, the one where he just stares blankly at the audience without saying a word and eventually someone titters and before you know it the whole place is in hysterics? Her very existence as a major party candidate for US Senate is the kind of comedy which arrives ready-written and would only be spoiled by embellishment. I mean, what can you add to rabidantimasturbationtarianism, rats with fully-functioning human brains and her famous Witches of Eastwick campaign ad that looks like it was produced by Tim Burton? I had fully intended to leave Ms. O'Donnell to the other comedians and the pundits who were wearing her out on cable TV. But then came the most recent revelation that she has claimed that her father was Bozo the Clown. Here I had to break my silence, not in the name of humor, but in the cause of veracity. This is a subject I happen to know something about.

Long ago, for one magic season, I was related by marriage to Bozo the Clown. I'm not making this up. My father was a semi-notorious lothario in the television and advertising business. Sometime after he turned 50, he married the 17 year-old daughter of one of his professional colleagues, Larry Harmon, the guy who owned the franchise to Bozo, the Most Famous Clown in the World. He was Bozo Primero, not one of the many FauxZos who were franchised in every major media market. I was much closer to the power center of the Bozo world than Ms. O'Donnell ever dreamed of being. It gave me an intimate glimpse into the backstage life of clowns. I knew little of the inside workings of the clown business in those days. Like a naive child, I had assumed that, you know, Bozo was Bozo. It never occurred to me that there was a school, like a Bozo boot-camp, where imposters went to learn how to walk like a Bozo and talk like a Bozo and draw the red rictus of a smile on their faces with greasepaint. It was like learning a dirty family secret and it was a big disappointment. When you go to see Bozo, you want it to really be Bozo, not some guy dressed up in a Bozo costume.

I hadn't thought about my brief inclusion in greasepaint royalty for years until Ms. O'D surfaced with her claims of actually being a blood relative of Bozo the Clown. The marriage between my father and Princess Bozo, which was chronologically challenged to begin with, barely outlasted the honeymoon. They had about as much in common as Christine would have in common with the 99 other US Senators. Suddenly the whole subject bubbled from my subconscious and made me wonder about franchises and politicians and the authenticity of clowns.

Since John Quincy Adams carried forth his father's political legacy, American politicians have campaigned on the richness of their family's past public service. Roosevelt and Kennedy and Bush all represent minor dynasties and it is entirely in keeping with this tradition for Ms. O'D to claim descent from Bozo. Clowning is as present in the current of American politics as populism, liberalism or conservatism. But in light of Ms. O'D's penchant for resume enhancement, she fibbed about her college career and has downplayed her wiccan studies, her claims to clownly ancestry are also suspect. While she seems like a natural and can certainly get a laugh and works well in the side-shows, one has to wonder if she is really ready for the Big Top, the center ring.

The US Senate is the Big League of Buffoonery. Even pros like Colbert have trouble hanging there. It's a tough room. Notice that Al Franken, even with all his years of practical comic experience, has been keeping mum in deference to the mime-masters of the Senate. These clowns can juggle, ride unicycles, do pratfalls and get shot from cannons, all with the perfect dead-pan of their painted-on media faces. They are consummate clowns adept with all the tricks, the seltzer bottle, the pie-in-the-face, the filibuster. I don't want to get all Stephen King on you but these aren't nice clowns. Ms. O'D should think twice before she alienates her witch constituency, she may need some strong juju to avoid the dunking stool. They'll make her the senator-punk-clown. Every troupe of clowns has one, the smallest clown, bottom of the pecking order, the one who all the other clowns slap and when there is no smaller clown for her to slap, she turns to the audience with her out-turned palms and pitiful Emmett Kelly frown and says, "I am you."

Two of the greatest Senatorial Clowns, Lloyd Bentson and Dan Quayle, in their famous vice-presidential debate in 1988 demonstrated the type of cut-throat comedy these jokers are capable of. When Quayle set the joke up by comparing his inexperience to the inexperience of Jack Kennedy, Bentson spiked it with this punch-line, "Senator," he said, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

The Poet's Eye would like to say to Christine O'Donnell in this same spirit, "Ms. O'Donnell, you say your father is Bozo. Well, I knew Bozo. Bozo was briefly my step-grand-father-in-law. Christine, your father was no Bozo."

Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you, and I’m wondering what it is I should do. It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face. Losing control yeah I'm all over the place.

Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right! Here I am stuck in the middle with you. ---Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty

Visit The Poet's Eye


TOPICS: Government; Humor; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: bozot; christineodonnell; clownzot; hater; humor; kittychow; molassesmiasma; odonnell; ozone; penguinhumor; satire; sionnsar; thepoetseye; troll; vikingkitties; vikingkitty; zot
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To: SandyInSeattle; sionnsar; Anoreth

I’m sure Anoreth is having a great time (/s) and dreaming of Thailand or Anguilla.


701 posted on 11/09/2010 12:40:18 PM PST by Tax-chick (The alligator ate my friend. He will eat your friend, too. Then he will eat Tom.)
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To: Tax-chick

I saw Megamind the other day. It was hilarious. Yet again I was the only person laughing for half the jokes, but that was because ten-year-olds are not familiar with Superman anymore, I guess. Or Nirvana.
Then I went out with the usual people and we got extremely drunk. I probably had hypothermia, cause it was raining and cold, but it was still a good time.
Yesterday I felt like crap, but I saw Due Date. It wasn’t all that funny. Ah well.


702 posted on 11/09/2010 12:42:53 PM PST by Anoreth (....a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement....)
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To: Anoreth

I thought you said you had a coat. Sionnsar liked Megamind, too. Your dad and I watched “An American in Paris” the other night, Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Good show!

Time for the next batch of swimming lessons. Any word on when you’ll go underway? Call USAA and mail me your birth certificate!

Did you get the November “First Things”? It has a good section on what it’s really like at various colleges that might interest you.


703 posted on 11/09/2010 12:47:17 PM PST by Tax-chick (The alligator ate my friend. He will eat your friend, too. Then he will eat Tom.)
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To: Tax-chick; ColdOne; sionnsar

Laundry is laundry, no matter where one goes. I’m not afraid of it any more!!


704 posted on 11/09/2010 1:29:00 PM PST by Monkey Face (42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot.)
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To: SandyInSeattle
You stepped out?! I’m hiding in my building. Cold wet things are falling from the sky.

What color are they? I am home now to pack -- it felt like winter out there!

705 posted on 11/09/2010 2:01:20 PM PST by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: sionnsar; Tax-chick

She isn’t very vocal, which seems odd.
She’ll watch movies with you, hovering over your shoulder to look at the screen.
But when she is vocal, it is a hoot.


706 posted on 11/09/2010 2:30:36 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Monkey Face

Good luck.


707 posted on 11/09/2010 2:32:27 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Tax-chick

I did get November. Been reading it in my truck when I don’t feel like reading how the ottomans and the Spanish slaughtered each other for a hundred years. Interesting book. Lots of gore.
However, I am.becoming less and less interested in doing college in the states. I mainly want a degree, not a religious awakening or a 4-year lecture on atheism. Ah well.


708 posted on 11/09/2010 2:49:57 PM PST by Anoreth (....a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement....)
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To: Darksheare

Wish I didn’t travel so much...


709 posted on 11/09/2010 2:55:19 PM PST by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: sionnsar

Yes, something can be said for relaxing with some tea or hot chocolate with a fur beast purring away nearby.


710 posted on 11/09/2010 3:05:51 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Anoreth

You could get “just a degree” at a lot of state universities, especially in the Midwest. Oklahoma or Missouri, Texas or Wyoming ... especially the branches other than the “flagship” campus. You could go to Truman State in Kirksville and live at the house in Leonard, with petz, and get a cool diploma that says, “Truman State”!

Gail says hi - she was at the pool with her granddaughter while Pat and James were having their swimming lesson. Pat can swim the whole length of the pool (25m.). I didn’t exactly recognize the stroke, but he was hacienda el nadar all by himself.

I finished “Pirates of the Levant.” Lots of blood and death. I guess they’ll go to Mexico next to see Angelica and more blood and death.


711 posted on 11/09/2010 3:09:36 PM PST by Tax-chick (The alligator ate my friend. He will eat your friend, too. Then he will eat Tom.)
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To: Darksheare
Yes, something can be said for relaxing with some tea or hot chocolate with a fur beast purring away nearby.

There's a lot to be said for it. Dogs too -- I miss our old coyote-shepherd mix, passed on some 15 years ago.

Tea and hot chocolate... darn, I won't even be getting over to glühwein country this winter. Oh well.

712 posted on 11/09/2010 3:18:37 PM PST by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: Tax-chick

I guess. Angelica is boring. It would be better if they went to England instead or something.
It would be cool to go in Ireland or somewhere. I could get a degree in medieval history. Might have to live off my writing talent afterwards, but since people keep telling me I could pull that off, it might work. I could take actual writing classes and get better. One needs more than a good eye for composition.


713 posted on 11/09/2010 3:19:09 PM PST by Anoreth (....a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement....)
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To: Anoreth

Yes, you need to be able to plot if you’re going to be a successful writer. You’ve got description, dialogue, and characterization ... it’s just putting together a whole story that you need, for fiction.

You can get into law school with any kind of an undergrad degree plus a good LSAT score, if you wanted to go that way.


714 posted on 11/09/2010 3:23:42 PM PST by Tax-chick (The alligator ate my friend. He will eat your friend, too. Then he will eat Tom.)
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To: Tax-chick

I was thinking political commentary maybe. I could get into radio. I’m good at talking.


715 posted on 11/09/2010 3:28:24 PM PST by Anoreth (....a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement....)
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To: sionnsar; LibreOuMort

I bet your wife wishes the same thing!


716 posted on 11/09/2010 3:30:39 PM PST by Monkey Face (42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot.)
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To: Anoreth

You could get into radio. Work on a bright, lively voice, though ... you wouldn’t want to put people to sleep like David Attenborough.

A large university will have a radio station, and you could audition for a show.


717 posted on 11/09/2010 3:32:21 PM PST by Tax-chick (The alligator ate my friend. He will eat your friend, too. Then he will eat Tom.)
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To: sionnsar

Tiny, a Husky... uh.. something mix.
She had markings similar to a Shepherd, or maybe one of those black collie breeds.
She was a hoot, she didn’t mind cats at all.
She seemed to think she was a cat.


718 posted on 11/09/2010 3:32:42 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare

I had a little dog who refused any name we gave her. In desperation, I looked at her one day about two weeks after we got her and said, “Well, doggie, if you don’t come to a dog’s name, maybe you’ll come to a cat’s name. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

Her ears perked up and she came on the run with a big ol’ smile on her face! “You found my name! You found my name!”
Yep. That was her name: Kitty. All four pounds of her.


719 posted on 11/09/2010 3:37:54 PM PST by Monkey Face (42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot.)
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To: Tax-chick

I have a calm, vaguely sarcastic voice. Works just as well.


720 posted on 11/09/2010 3:38:32 PM PST by Anoreth (....a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement....)
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