Clownmommy

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners.  I wish someone had told me.  All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.  But there is this gap.  For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good.  It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.  But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.  And your taste is why your work disappoints you.  A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit.  Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this.  We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.  We all go through this.  And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece.  It’s only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.  And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.  It’s gonna take a while.  It’s normal to take awhile.  you just gotta fight your way through.  –IRA GLASS

It’s true.

I’m going to give myself the challenge of writing a new gag every week starting with the appliances in my apartment.

I’ve got quite a lot of material already from this morning’s exploits with the steam valve of our espresso machine.

The costume will be the perfect 50′s housewife dress…

Did I mention I love Anne Taintor.

It’s rainy and grey outside, so we check the website to see if the games will be cancelled.

Nope!

ALL GAMES FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 WILL BE PLAYED AS SCHEDULED

If the games are rained out during the day… parents pls. take down your goals!

Have fun!

Yeah!

My Kid loves to play in the rain.

I love to stand in the rain.

Not really…

Well sometimes…

It depends on who else is standing in the rain…

And what kinds of slips and falls the kids do on the wet astroturf.

It’s all clown!

I’ve just gotten my confirmation for a creative writing workshop that starts next week.

It’s an advanced class and I was worried that I wouldn’t be to carve out enough writing time.  But now I can!

This is great!

I enjoy rinsing the creme rinse out of my daughter’s hair using a grey plastic elephant shaped watering can that I bought as a prop in South Paris, Maine during that summer when I studied with Avner Eisenberg and Julie Goel back in the last century when Hilary Chaplin and Stanley Allen Sherman were there too and a milestone was acknowledged when Avner realized that this was the first summer session at Celebration Barn in which every single participant had an e-mail address.  Wow.

Back to school.

Back to work.

Back to whateveritisthatido.

We ate breakfast then we had to get on the road.

We are New Yorkers after all.

But first, $10 for half an hour of Segway in a parking lot–worth every penny.

On the way home we stopped in New Bedford, Mass to have some Moby Dick moments.

And now we’re were back in Brooklyn.

A walk on the beach.

The whale watching charter was cancelled because of the fog so clowns with kids went to Bass River Sports World for mini golf and arcade games.  Hey we’re clowns!   It’s all good!

A swim in the indoor pool.

Tonight is the dressiest night.

Dinner.

Roasting Steve Smith–like a marshmallow!

Followed by the auction–and somehow we end up with baskets of plastic circus crap AND Marvin Martian!

Greg DeSanto’s International Clown Hall Of Fame and  Research Center deserves all the support it can get!!!

It was so great to see and catch up with my RBBB Clown College classmate Lorraine Gilman, now a puppeteer based in Boston, and to learn all about the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity at the reunion hosted by our Clown College classmate Jay Stewart to which I have less than six degrees of separation because Chuck Jones came to visit our Clown College class in Venice, Florida…  Life is Good!

We’ve got the rental car. We’ve packed our bags. My Kid has her bear and her doll safely strapped into toy car seats and we are on the road–on the way to Cape Cod for the Clown College Reunion, hosted by none other than the great and powerful Jay Stewart!
Wheeeee!