Clownmommy

In the tunnel underneath 14th street I pass a man offering his wares; 

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On my way to the F/on my way to W4/ to change to the A /passing a young guy on a bench with his little moleskin journal and his black backpack and his mustache and his shadow of a beard waiting for the L to take him to Williamsburg where the hipsters live/A Chinese man reading a Chinese newspaper/Another man listening to headphones reading an article, “New Designers Worth Investing In”/Essence Music Festival swag bag on the shoulder of a young woman and a drum encased in a GORE-TEX travel case/The woman changing from ballet flats to ankle boots readying for the next event of the night/Red lipstick and black Bettie Page bangs/I hear piano music, where is it coming from, is it a tape?  Oh my God there’s a guy on the opposite platform sitting at a wooden upright piano. How did he get it down here?  Did some friends of his, out of work stage hands and grips bring it down for him?  Is he planning to play all night?  Is he just waiting for a train? With a piano?

On the subway a man and a woman who look to be security guards talking about changing jobs and 401K’s, the second conversation I’ve overheard today about career benefits and advancement in the industry of keeping the rabble away from the rich.

The skin tones of most passengers going home on this midnight train are darker than the ones who ride home in time for dinner during rush hour.

What was I thinking about?  Oh yeah, clownmommy.com 

I’m a mommy and today I am a clown:

7:00 am up and out on the train to school by 8:30

Coffee and writing at Joe’s in the West Village.

Lunch with The Husband near his office in Rockefeller Center.  He’s been busy and we haven’t had a chance to talk through some of the logistics of life including but not limited to the fact that My Sister is in town on business and My Kid has ALL NEXT WEEK off from school.

A little shopping, there was a big sale at Tristan which happens to be in the building where The Husband works.  Just trying to look a little more like I belong in Rockefeller Center.

Then I go to a Duane Reade drug store.  Whenever I’m in a new show I buy something at the drugstore on the way to the theatre on opening night.  It used to be because I needed a color for the show different from my real life palate or I forgot to bring bobby pins, or my old mascara had dried out.  That is still true, but it has also become a personal opening night tradition, a good luck gesture.  It is the beginning of my preparations to go in front of an audience  before I even get to the theatre.  It’s a ritual.

Gotta get on the train again and go collect My Kid from her after school robotics program.  The kids haven’t come down yet.  I talk to other mothers about the winter break.  J is going on a family ski trip to Utah.  M is taking her kids to Florida.  Working parents without a winter break register their kids for one of several available mini daycamps.  I’ve registered My Kid for the two days I need next week.

 ”Come on honey, we’ve got to go into Manhattan.  Mommy’s got a show.” 

“Sure you can have money for something from the YMCA bake sale”, anything to keep us moving steadily towards the venue for the 6 o’clock call.

Get on the train.

Get off the train.

Here’s the deli, need water, Odwalla Super Protein, and that Greek yogurt that tasted so good yesterday.  This is mommy’s dinner.  You’re going to eat with Daddy.  Vanilla milk?  OK, sure.

Here we are.  There’s the stage.  Now lets go upstairs.

Hi this is My Kid.  My Kid this is Everybody.

Jef doesn’t want us to put on too much makeup.  He wants us to look natural.  He’s worried we’re putting on too much makeup  Does he know we (the women) all wear makeup to the clown labs?  We do.  He’s just never seen us put it on.  Just because it’s not as drastic as his Slava Snowshow makeup doesn’t mean we’re not wearing it.  He worried that would be too much or that my lips will be too red (therefore making a comment on the red sweatsuit in a way that presents an unintended stereotype).  I’m not doing that. (If I did I would have deliberately spent time at the drugstore choosing a lipstick that exactly matched the bright red of the clothes wear in the show.  I had the chance and I didn’t.)  He doesn’t know how many  mommies reapply their lipstick just before picking up their kids from school.  (My mom always used to apply fresh lipstick before going to the grocery store.)  This is normal and the lipstick I use is one I carry on ordinary days.

AND THEN he goes and hairsprays and blow dries Drew’s hair into some kind of sculpture!

The eyeliner and mascara is just to look awake.

“If Mommy’s looking in a mirror and applying eye makeup, that’s not a good time to jump on her back.  OK, honey!”

“OK please let go of Mommy’s legs.  Mommy is trying to change clothes now.”

“Let go of Mommy.  My cellphone is ringing.  Can you find it for me in my purse?”

“Hello Daddy!  Are you downstairs?  Good!  I’ll bring her right down.”

OK DADDYS HERE BYE BYE

“Have a good dinner.  Do your homework.  Please be asleep when I get home.”

Warm up in the space.  Feel the vibrations.  Can’t go to the bathroom now.  The house is about to open.

Jef Johnson’s CLOWN LAB

presents

Clownical Trials

In situ modulation using perception action coupling 

and combined object vectors

1st PUBLIC INTERFACE

02.12.09

In the “white box” of the THEATRELAB  studio/gallery/performance space at 137 W 14th St, New York City, we present for the audience something that to my mind would feel comfortable at the Guggenheim Museum.

It starts with all of us crammed behind a flat making choreographed entrances and exits.  We move around each other fitting into the small space like Tetris blocks in a video game.

Then the entrances and introductions and improvisations

shhhhhh

masks

and exit

solo, solo, solo, solo, solo, solo 

each with objects

I am  third

group effort audience participation

Thanks for coming

Wine and cheese upstairs

talk of clown and Seattle and video editing

Getting tired, remembering tomorrow is a work day and a school day and a busy day.

Good-bye.  Good-bye.  Good-night.

Home at last.  I come in the door, set down my keys.  Hoping against hope, I look for the valentines–still in the box (Wall*E this year) neither addressed or signed and the lollypops, still sealed in the bag, are not attached to the valentines with the scotch tape that is just right there!  Supervision of such is my job and I wasn’t here– I was off being a clown.  Well at least I had the foresight to buy these supplies a week ago, there is still time before school tomorrow morning.  

It’s so late and I’m so tired, but the fact of the makeup, (though minimal), and the hairspray, and the bare feet require a shower before I can get into the bed.

In bed checking my e mail on the laptop.   I forward to the class list an e -mail regarding deadline for the art  fundraiser.  There is a reminder about registering child for spring soccer program (must have talk with My Kid about how much she wants to play)…last chance for discounted family tickets to RBBB Circus…   Did I follow through with that other mother about pick-up and drop-off?  Is my child supposed to bring something to her Brownie Troop meeting after school tomorrow?  Where’s my cellphone charger?  Are we out of milk?   Did I hear a mouse???

Tomorrow… is… another school day… another show day… another busy day…

Everyone’s asleep…but me!

During the campaign, Barack Obama reached out to Native People and was adopted in a traditional Crow ceremony by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle of Lodge Grass, Montana.  They were introduced as grandparents to Malia and Sasha. Obama honored his Black Eagle family by having them brought to Washington DC and given prime seats to witness the Inauguration Ceremony.

His mother Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, would have been proud.

I have been a weepy mess, tearing up  several times a day, ever since Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger ditched a US Airways jet safely in the Hudson River last Thursday. The cinema-cheesy symbolism went straight to my core and I am convinced that the United States of America is an airplane and Barack Obama is the cool, calm Carey Grant/Sidney Poitier/Jimmy Stewart type genius pilot who is going to save us all. Or not.  Everything makes me tear up.  Boats. Airplanes. People asking me what kind of coat I have because they need to buy a warm one before they leave for Washington, DC  for the Inauguration. Twitters from friends who are on their way to DC or already in DC.   Martin Luther King Day. Fresh snow.  Civil Rights Movement veterans on CNN.   My husband telling me Obama chose a Nobel prize winning physicist as his energy secretary.  Listening to “This American Life”.  Miley Cyrus in a grown-up red dress.  Malia and Sasha Obama taking pictures of Miley Cyrus.  My 8-year-old rolling her eyes because I am tearing up because I am watching both my kid and  Malia Obama mouth the words to the Disney tween songs they both know by heart.  Reading the Inauguration Parade lineup that includes both the Crow Nation of Montana and the Brooklyn Music and Arts Program.  I’m just sitting here with my seatbelt on looking out the window at the water putting all my faith and hope in the pilot as my life flashes before my eyes and I pray for a safe landing:  Ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethynamethykingdomcomethywillbedone-onearthaseitisinheavengiveusthisdayourdailybreadandforgiveusourtrespasses-asweforgivethosewhotrespassagainstusandleadusnotintotemptation-anddeliverusfromevil-AMEN

I am always conflicted; playing with my child vs housework.  Writing vs performing.  Exercising vs volunteering at My Kid’s school.  Creativity vs getting a real job and on and on and on.  So it wasn’t out of character for me when Jef started to talk about being in the theatrical space, I caught my mind wandering and had to bring it back into the room three times.  The first time I realized I had gone off topic was when my mind came back into the room  after I learned that Saturday’s workshop is 3-6 instead of 11-2 as I had thought.  This lead to a working out of numerous scenarios for My Kid’s weekend schedule as I had made tentative  plans with another mother to take the kids to see a movie on Saturday afternoon.   The second time I lost concentration was when in the course of developing an improv I fell into a bit of a reverie about Bush falling through a trap-door at the swearing in ceremony and Obama coming down from the sky in an airline pilot’s uniform…  The third time my mind wandered away from the studio work at hand, I thought about a handbag I used to own and wondered if I could use any found object to develop a relationship with up to and including grief and loss and weather that would be a good clown piece for me to work up.  I’m tired and wide awake  from several cups of coffee and several cups of green tea and my mind is still full of meaning of life, good work, and competency vs heroism thoughts that arise from the safe landing of a disabled plane in the Hudson River and timely rescue of all the passengers by local boat crews and the preparations for the upcoming Obama Presidential Inauguration.  There’s a clown lab scheduled for Tuesday, but I will not go.  I already know that my head and my heart will be in Washington, DC where I would rather be at this historic time. I moved from Montana for a post-graduate job in my congressman’s office on Capitol Hill and  I auditioned for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Clown College  in the center ring of the arena between shows while the Circus played Washington DC. I hope to spend Tuesday evening drinking champagne  at home with my husband and watching the recap of the Inauguration Day on TV.

Last year I was such a good mommy helping My Kid sell her Girl Scout Cookies to the neighbors and the folks at the diner and showing others who didn’t even want the cookies how to avoid the calories by sending them to the military troops overseas (so My Kid could get her Girl Scout Cookies for The Troops badge). This year I have done nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Squat. Nothing.

Therefore my kid has sold nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Squat. Nothing.

Sooooo. The sale ends this weekend…. Yikes!!!!!

I am scrambling to find out the price of a box of cookies. I am that out of the loop!

Bad timing. The sale started in December not long before Christmas break. Need I say more…

My sister came from LA for a visit.

We went to Hawaii for a conference and My Kid missed the first week of school.

Our return was delayed and we took the red-eye from Seattle arriving back in Brooklyn at 6:30 am Monday morning. The Husband stopped at home just long enough to take a shower before going in to the office.

My Kid got to school on time so she could touch base with her teachers and classmates on the last day before the @#$%^! No Child Left Behind 3rd Grade English Language Assessment Two-day-long Standardized Test!

The Husband was too busy and too new at his job to let anyone know his household contained a cookie pusher and take orders at the office like I wanted. Last year he took orders from his team but by the time the cookies arrived the company had been sold and the staff had scattered and we were left with a lot of extra cookies. I don’t want to do that again.

And now the sale ends in 4 days! I don’t want My Kid to sell NOTHING!

Just trying to sell enough to get the participation patch…and maybe the cookies for the troops patch…

As for the Girl Scout incentive prizes; pajamas, beach towel or USB Band and iPod Nano (for selling 1000 or more boxes of cookies) Fageddaboutit!

We walked in the door. Their Older Kid looked at My Kid and My Kid looked at their kid and they both asked, “Why would I know this person?” We told them we had photographs of them in the bathtub together, when they were babies. She was afraid to walk on grass. He used to crawl through the dog door. They looked at us like we were crazy.

We ate and talked of the city with the theatre where we’d all worked and started dating and had our weddings that were a month apart. The kids talked of Lego’s and watched videos.

My parents used to take us to meet other families in strange cities. We would look at their kids and their kids would look at us. The adults who were complete strangers would look at us in the eyes and say, “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby!”

We’d watch TV or play in the yard with the kids we didn’t know. Our parents would tell us we’d bathed together in a tub with these strange children. We’d roll our eyes in disbelief.

Our parents would hug each other and talk about long ago nurses training, college and weddings.

It was weird.

Now we are putting our kids through the same thing.

Last night, Jef organized a workshop with Chris Lynam, a clown who is in New York for the Broadway run of Slava’s Snowshow. It’s always good to meet new clowns. After the workshop, there were three conversations at once around the table at the diner. Jef and Chris were talking about working with Slava and working on their own work. I was talking to the only other woman from the workshop about writing and the other guys were talking about guys being goofy.

Walking to the train at the end of the evening, Chris mentioned another clown, Thomas Kubenick a Czech clown who has his own show that he tours around the world. It’s good. I’ve seen it. I met Thomas for the first time at Movement Theatre International in Philadelphia in 1990. He was at that time assisting Boleck Polivka who taught a workshop. I met him again when he showed up at the workshop I was taking with Ctibor Turba at his studio in Nectiny, Czechoslovakia (right before it turned into Czech Land–that’s what the locals called the Czech Republic–and Slovakia) I’ve been around a while, but it’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve gotten a handle on what may be my particular style…

I’m pretty much the opposite of Amy G. Chris took a call from her about a gig at a club. Organizing and coordinating are so not my thing that the passing mention of a woman I know putting together an evening of acts apparently caused me to have a nightmare. I had a dream, last night, about running a theatre space–like Annex where Allison Narver, Andrea Allen and Gillian Jorgenson have all been artistic director or the Brick where Audrey Crabtree is the face of the organizers of the New York Clown Theatre Festival. In this dream which was more like a nightmare, brought on perhaps by conversation about successful theatrical clowns and the women behind them, (I was reminded of the organized women behind the careers of monologists, Spalding Grey and Mike Daisey and cartoonist Gary Larson, not to mention the countless women who work as personal assistants, executive secretaries and stage moms (The Husband, My Kid, My Sister and I all saw Gypsy this week.) These passing bits of conversation caused me to have a nightmare about being in charge of an art space like Celebration Barn, currently run by the Amanda Huotari. In my dream there 4 toilets on the second floor that were all overflowing and unusable. The Marley dance floor in the rehearsal hall had been scrubbed with Comet by someone’s helpful visiting unsupervised mother and was now ruined… It was a nightmare.

Now, disorganized person that I am, I’ve got to hurry and help My Kid, (who is alternately yanking on my body an falling on the floor to prove the point of gross parental neglect) get dressed in a manner appropriate for both ice skating with her aunt at Rockefeller Center and hooking up at the Museum of Natural History with old Seattle Annex friends and their offspring, who are visting from Chicago.

Gotta go.

We went to the Big Apple Circus, yesterday, My Kid, the Husband and I.  It is our holiday tradition.  Although on the way to the circus tent I pointed out to my long-limbed daughter the well dressed crowds coming out of The Nutcracker matinee and the posters advertising the upcoming production of Coppelia.  My Kid rolled her eyes and grunted in disgust.  Damn!  She looks so much like a ballet dancer too.  Oh well she is on the robotics team at school and this week plans to be a computer engineer like her father, I’d better not guide her towards a career that  one of my friends calls a long and painful road towards a job as a fitness instructor. * (see note)

Anyway.  The Big Apple Circus this year, “Play On” was a tight show, thanks to the direction of Steve Smith.  He was the director of Clown College the year that I went, and his two page description of the rehearsal process in the program sent me into a reverie of all that was good and pure and Steve Smith-y about Clown College when I was there.  For the circus program he wrote a description of the rehearsal process;  “Knowing the first day of rehearsal sets the tone for all the days to follow, we filled the practice ring full of enormous helium balloons, musical notes, flowers, ribbons, hopes, dreams, uplifting music, and artists from all over the globe.”  

He did that for the first day of Clown College too. The acceptance letter came filled with confetti.  I remember a huge balloon rainbow over the ring on the first day of clown college.  There were quotes posted everywhere around the arena, things like “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”—Goethe.  That makes me think of Clown College so much and the (…at this point I was interrupted by my offspring and I no longer remember the thread of the post I had intended to craft into a lengthy homage to Steve Smith’s fiercely and intentionally crafted positive energy… and I was going to mention my friend Mark Gindick who was in the show…)

 I will have to write about how wonderful Clown College was another time.

I did get my application in on time for the 5e Festival Internacional de Pallases d’Andorra 2009.  Who knows if they will choose our show or even if Lorraine and I can afford the time or money to go to Spain.

 Tonight I will attend a Modern Clown workshop with British clown, Chris Lynam.  

Little by little…hope…ambition…luck  and fierce, intentional positive energy!

* (note:) Steve Smith also told us “Cynicism is an easy choice. Don’t make it!”