Clown Class Orientation

"The clown walks on stage intending to succeed, and fails."

The clown is a metaphor. Some people will need to know this right away because of the fear.

You are, however, reading a newsletter that is now called Clown Class.

Once upon a time, when I was an actor, I took a twelve-week-long clown class. This was not a Barnum & Bailey sort of clown class; this was a fancy, French type of clown class called “Personal Clown” that I hoped would expand my acting technique.

The tagline for the class on the acting school website sold me.

The clown walks onstage intending to succeed, and fails.

Yes, yes, what an opportunity for growth, I thought. I feared failure so badly. This would loosen me up. We were going to be uncovering the essential clowns we each had stored inside us, every clown unique and deeply personal to our being. Our clowns would be an expression of something epically true about ourselves. What a journey of self-discovery. YES.

And we were supposed to fail! If you failed, you were doing it right. What fun!

You know. You know already that it wasn’t fun.

How unfun it was, though.

____________.

!

Unfun enough that I’m building a whole newsletter around the memory.

My initial problem was that I couldn’t sense my clown. We were advised to go costume foraging, find one look that was the look for our clown, and maybe we’d catch the first hints of our clowns that way. I had no idea where to start. I couldn’t feel a clown stirring.

For our first couple of classes I tried wearing a gigantic white men’s button-up shirt with a yellow wrap blouse on top and a poofy, floor-length red skirt beneath. The look didn’t mean anything. I thought it had a happy, clownly vibe and I also felt chic in a premature Advanced Style way. I definitely wanted my clown to dress cool. As an actor I didn’t always get to look nice in my costume. One of the pitfalls of the field.

Who might I be? I wondered in my cute outfit. Was I an overly enthusiastic kind of clown? Like a fun, loosey-goosey, goofball clown?

I tried this kind of clown out in a few exercises. No. Not funny. Didn’t take.

Okay.

I buttoned up the men’s shirt to the neck and tied the yellow blouse even tighter on top. Could I be some kind of uptight, fussy clown? Like a super-concentrated cartoon Virgo?

I tried some more exercises in this mode. No, no. No no no. This wasn’t it.

I was, unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, getting warmer in the search for my true clown because I was starting to fight tears in every class. I was failing to fail right.

New outfit. Back to the drawing board.

Given that I was starting to dread clown class, that I was never in the mood for clown class, that I kind of hated clown class already, I went for all-black. Black turtleneck, long black nightgown, black feather boa around my neck. Hair in a ballerina bun up top, pinching me a little. And a red nose. We all had to wear a red nose.

The red nose functioned like a precise little theater mask, gave a clown some distance to play behind. The red nose signaled that the clown was present now and there was no dropping character while it was on your face. We all applied our noses ceremonially at the same time.

The all-black outfit was my final outfit. I would, for the purposes of this class, be buried in it.

One day we had to present our clown name to the rest of the class. This was homework we’d prepared in advance. One by one we got up, noses on and in costume, and told the class who we were.

George, our teacher, had veto power over our names. If a name didn’t have *it*, whatever *it* was, George made you make up a new name on the spot.

IMPORTANT NOTE: George was great. For all that my memory of clown class remains nuclearly bad, none of this was George’s fault.

A woman whose real-life name I forget—a lovely woman I grew to resent for reasons which will become apparent—got up in her sleek silver leotard and tutu and told us her name was Eva. George agreed right away and her name was approved. (Eva was a joyful, athletic clown whose failures were perfect. PERFECT. She always gave herself the right-sized challenges, cleverly contrived, and then she failed thrillingly at them, curtsied, and beamed on her way back to her seat.)

A man named Bryan got up and I forget what he said his clown name was but George gave his prepared name the bzzt and asked what his name really was.

Bryan was a delightful guy. He wasn’t a super-serious actor, just a chill guy out to have some fun in a chill class. His clown wore baggy shorts, a big t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap.

When George asked him what his clown name really was, Bryan stood there thinking about it for a second. Then, with a magical delivery I could never properly explain to you (shambling? bashful? mischievous? pleased?) Bryan said, “Juice.”

JUICE.

The class erupted into cheers and George roared his approval. Juice! Fucking Juice! Chris Farley could have said “Juice” that adorably but no other clown could have. What a genius! And he wasn’t even trying.

My turn came after the triumph of Juice. I might not have gone directly after him but all aprés-Juice spots were cursed.

I shuffled in front of the class doomed in my stupid black nightgown. Said my homework name, Flippa, which I’d kind of liked pre-Juice.

Bzzzt. Veto. “Flippa. I don’t know, I don’t think that’s your name,” said George.

Fine. Fuck. Now what. “Flip…tippa,” I said.

WHAT A STUPID NAME, UGH, NO, GOD. LET ME GO AGAIN.

Approved. Fliptippa was born.

I hate that name so much.

The Tears started in earnest as soon as I sat down. I cried on the spot, yes, but I cried in every subsequent class for the whole term. I cried driving to class. I cried in exercises. I cried watching other clowns work. It was truly a phenomenon. I really brought down the mood.

I didn’t know why I was crying. I was crying because I couldn’t. I…couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. It, it, just it. Everything. Anything.

I was also crying because everyone else could. They could do things. They did do things. Not just in clown class. Everywhere. Everyone.

Ultimately I was crying because something burned beneath my control and made the tears move and there was nothing I could do about it.

At one point when George and I were talking privately after class, he said something along the lines of, “It’s not just you. This is a real thing. Happens to someone in every class. They’re the sad clown. You know, the sad clown is a genuine archetype, and it’s important. Life is a comedy but also it’s tragic, and the sad clown insists that we remember that. It’s a beautiful thing to be. Keep coming to class.” I was trying, of course, to drop out. George talked me into staying. I went all twelve weeks, didn’t miss a class, cried, cried, burned with shame, completed it.

Welcome back to the present day, to the current moment, to this new newsletter with its new name.

What I am, what my clown was, what many of the people I love the very most are…we’re strugglers. We struggle in an essential way against ourselves.

I don’t know if you’ve seen Jonah Hill’s documentary STUTZ on Netflix but I recommend the hell out of it. Phil Stutz is Jonah Hill’s longtime therapist, and he talks about a phenomenon in the psyche that he calls Part X, which sounds to me a lot like the Shadow.

Here are my notes on Part X that I jotted down during the film:

The antisocial, judgmental part that wants to block you and fuck you up

Gives you limited information about who you are and what you can do

Wants you to fail, is the villain

Says you’re a victim, you got screwed, there’s no reason to be grateful

We need the negativity of Part X or we can’t grow

Strugglers, how I think of us, have a supercharged, extra-pernicious Part X. We’re halting in our movements through the world because of all the fevered tugging from below. We’re at war harder with ourselves. We can’t agree to succeed and just do it. The Part X we got loaded with is too scary.

Sometimes we get to know why Part X is such an intense presence for us; there’s obvious trauma we can point to and verify for ourselves. Is this lucky? From certain angles, maybe.

Sometimes we do not get to know exactly what’s fucking us up. Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe it’s nothing. (It’s not nothing.) Maybe we were born to battle ourselves. It’s a dumb feeling, whatever it is. It’s embarrassing to be a struggler.

Life on Earth for a struggler is perpetual enrollment in Clown Class.

We’ll grow, at least. We have that going for us. Opportunities for growth. So many obstacles, such a workout.

We may succeed! We may even succeed a lot in certain realms.

We may not, also. We will have to find ways to deal no matter what. We can be proud that we keep going to class. It’s terribly awkward to be here. Some of the exercises of Clown Class: Earth are fun if you just do your thing and don’t look at what Juice and Eva are doing.

Every Wednesday I will publish a straight-up Clown Class post. We will meet amongst the struggle and I shall speak about different sorts of struggle.

And here’s a very new thing:

Every other Friday, Clown Class will be an advice column. I will be the advice dispenser.

I’ve tried a lot of kinds of struggle these last few decades and if I don’t have something to offer by now on that front…by god, I don’t know what.

I thought about the form of address for this column. Considered “Dear Clown” and “Dear Sad Clown” and “Dear Fliptippa” (gag) but to hell with all that. My true clown name is my own name. Tina. Also, I’m only a clown in this metaphor. I’m not a clown on the streets. I don’t want to hear “Dear Clown” and “Hey, clown” and “What’s up, clown” all the time.

Here are some thoughts for you if you decide to trust me with a question:

If the locus of the problem you’re thinking of is outside you, i.e. “I’m the competent/good person in this scenario and I’m surrounded by jerks. What do I do?” then I think there are a host of other advice columns out there that would better serve your needs. (God, I love advice columns. I love how different they all are. That’s what gives me the confidence to go for it. Mine will merely be *some* advice. Not *the* advice.)

For this newsletter, though, the struggle wants to emanate from within. If the kernel of your problem is “Why can’t I just _____? I want to _____ or I want to stop _______ but I can’t do it!” then we’re in hot Clown Class territory and I would love to see if I can help.

(We must all understand, always, that I am not a mental health professional.)

To submit a question, hit reply to any Clown Class email in your inbox. These will always be anonymous unless you clearly state that you want to declare to the world “I, [Pat Smith or whoever], am the problem and here’s why,” which is perfectly fine and even kind of noble.

The first advice column will be out this very Friday.

Thank you for your kind and patient support as this newsletter changed form! I’m feeling good here in this new idea and I hope you are, too.

If you know any strugglers who might like to follow along, please share this newsletter however you like to share things. Forward the emails, share the posts on your social medias and such. (I can tell that this idea is a keeper because self-promotion doesn’t seem so ugh-inducing to me here. Is my Part X napping? Everyone, for the love of god, tiptoe.)

And if you’re into what I’m saying, do throw down with the likes and comments since that helps people find this newsletter organically on Substack. Don’t keep it a secret in your heart. I mean, it’s great if you secretly like this newsletter in your heart but make your fingers get in on it.

Your friend in struggle and your personal clown,

Tina Rowley