Tag: movies

Clown School Break Day 11: Poker?

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero hardly knows her. 

I played poker profitably today.

Once my comfort and confidence arrived in, everything clicked. First I made a $10 mistake. Then a $50 mistake. Then I found an edge and optimized the hell out of it. And I ultimately walked away $445 richer.

A poker pro friend, after reviewing one of my hands, put it perfectly:

“This hand is not GTO-approved at all haha, but sounds like you found a spot to hammer.” (“GTO” = game theory optimal)

I like to hammer. It’s fun.

Was this more fun than clowning?

Maybe.

Probably?

When I think back to the times I’ve “succeeded” at clowning — the moments of actually opening myself to the audience — I enjoyed those less than I enjoyed today.

However.

I’m not at clown school for myself. Not really. I’m there to learn (1) to be open, and (2) to play well with others. These are skills I want to develop for other people, not just for me.

And when you zoom out, which is the kinder pursuit: clowning and contributing to others, or playing poker to funnel money into your own pocket?

Clowning, clearly (at least to me). Poker is generally net-negative in pleasure: studies show that in most people the pain of losing outweighs the joy of winning.

But right now? I don’t care.

And that’s… telling.

Maybe it suggests my calling is less likely clowning than a poker-adjacent path. 

—

When I chose clown school, I was emotionally compelled. Drawn. Obsessed.

I’m still very interested — especially in bouffon next term — but I’m also open to this new signal.

Maybe my sister was right when I first told her I was “choosing between a one-month clown course and the full year.”

She said: “When have you ever committed to a year of anything? But if you did, it would be clown school.”

It would be very funny if I only did part of the year.

I’m such.
A.
Clown.

Clown School Break Day 10: The Arbiter of Fun

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero demonstrates he visited a casino today.

“The person on your left determines how much fun you have.”

A friend said this about playing poker at a casino.

In poker, the player on your left acts after you. So in marginal spots—hands that could go either way—they get to decide how much intensity to apply. They can re-raise you (the aggressive choice) or fold (the friendly one). Since the spot is marginal, it doesn’t meaningfully affect their win rate; it just affects your experience.

Improv works the same way. Your job is to give gifts to your partner. “Pimping them out” (putting them in a tough or absurd situation) is the aggressive choice. Establishing clear relationships, objects, or stakes is the friendly one.

Does clowning have a similar dynamic?

Maybe the parallel is playing at versus playing with. Playing at your partner is fun for you, but it’s not oriented toward maximizing their pleasure.

And in clowning, the audience is a partner, too. That’s one of the big surprises of clown school: realizing that you play with the audience just as much as you play with the other performers.

In clown, maybe the major determines how much fun everyone gets to have. Can the major establish a clear, joyful game? That’s their job. The minor can always destroy the game, of course, but it’s hard for a minor to create a bigger game than the major has already laid down, at least not without stepping on the major’s toes.

So in clowning, just like in poker, the person on your left might still determine how much fun you have. The difference is that in clown school, you might actually enjoy being the sucker getting hosed for everyone else’s amusement.

Clown School Break Day 3: Asked to Leave Clown School (Kind Of)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero exits and rizz returns. 

Clown School

I was asked to leave clown school.
While true, that’s… misleading.

The teachers said, “Given your foot injury and inability to walk, we recommend you get a refund and do the course later. But it’s your choice.” Then I chose to step away.

Still: it’s funny to have been asked to leave clown school.

What’s also funny is how much easier it is to connect with people now than it was 48 hours ago.

Rizz has returned. The joy is back.

Being playful with your average person—my former orthodontist, the woman at the deli counter—is somehow much easier than being playful on that stage. Why?

  • Because it’s an American cultural context I actually understand?
  • Because the stakes are lower? (No audience, no judges, no clowns.)
  • Because the people I meet day-to-day have normal expectations instead of self-selected charisma-sniper standards?
  • Because in the real world I’m not comparing myself to self-obsessed entertainment-optimizers? 

Either way, I have more rizz. And I enjoy it more. #RizzOut

Orthopedics, Act II

Second orthopedist today. Foot is still fractured. Maybe I could clown. But not with vigor.

No running or jumping for at least six weeks.

Still, relief.

The X-ray technician asked how I hurt it. I said “clown school.”
I said Borat went there.
He likes Borat.
He therefore understood what I mean by “clown”.

The nurse practitioner confirmed: full fracture. No impact activities for weeks. Healing should happen. I can return to clowning soon-ish.

Until then, I seek rest and rejuvenation. And a healed metatarsal. 

However much grow-y that school was… it wasn’t comfortable.

Somehow, a broken foot feels like less pain. 

Performers and Introverts

How many clowns are introverts? How many performers?
People who love to be loved, but aren’t naturally social otherwise.

Eddie Murphy comes to mind. I watched his new Netflix documentary yesterday. He’s a performer; an analyzer of entertainment; but not exactly a social butterfly. Offstage, subdued. Self-contained. Kate McKinnon as well. 

It’s surprising how many wildly successful performers are like that. As if they (we?) get the social nutrition required for survival from adulation, not connection. And then tend to ourselves in private. 

An interesting observation. What would I do with it?
Embrace my inner introvert?
On stage, perform? Off-stage, do bits as protection to avoid the normal boringness of average interaction? 

If that’s my fun, why not follow? 

Clown School Break Day 2: The Lost Game (¿and Found?)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero muses on clown/creative culture

I forgot the game.

The game is simple:

Give. Them. Pleasure.

No more.

No less.

You choose your pathway.

Jim Carrey: freedom from worry.

Eddie Murphy: deep, unshakable, cool self-love.

Steve Martin: “isn’t this ridiculous?”

Sacha Baron Cohen: “behold, the bouffon.”

Somewhere along the way,

I forgot the game.

A friend who once worked at Cirque told me my struggles aren’t moral or personal—

they’re cultural.

Theater-people culture has its own rules:

Smile and support, regardless of whether you actually like someone.

If you stab, you stab from behind—

and always with a smile.

Offer yourself to help, as a kind and generous act…

but only when it gives you more stage time.

Plans aren’t plans, either.

You don’t schedule someone—

you slide casually into their life.

Explicit agreement is too intense; the dance is in the implication.

A calendar invite for 4:30 doesn’t mean 4:30.

It means the text that comes later saying it’s now 5:30.

And the day-of update pushing it to 6.

(People actually show up at 6:20).

These aren’t gripes.

This is just culture.

In New York, people book three weeks out.

In L.A., you confirm the night before, the morning of, the hour before…

and still they might not show.

But in my current hyper-literal, emotionally-flooded state,

I couldn’t adapt to the culture

and so I lost sight of the game.

And the game is all they ever wanted:

Play

Pleasure.

Freedom from pain.

Excitement.

Delight.

Whatever I can give that gives them pleasure—

that is the work.

If you’re not playing the game,

there’s no need to play.

But if you are playing the game—

then play.

I didn’t come here for the meta.

I came to play the game of clowning.

To learn it.

And clowning,

I will learn.

And clowning,

I will play.

Clown School Weekend 3.2: This Place is Run by Clowns

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero concludes that brilliance is no match for a red nose.

About once every other day, someone at clown school does something spectacularly disorganized. I sigh and say, “This place is run by clowns.”

And it is.

—

Clowns are not, by their nature, particularly intelligent.

It’s not that they’re stupid.

It’s that intelligence and clowning live on different axes.

An intelligent person may learn the craft faster. But the desire to clown, the joy of it, might even be anti-correlated with intelligence.

Smart people tend to want control. Clowns surrender it.

Smart people tend to want power. Clowns seek to be laughed at.

And yet, in my March course, three of the 30 Americans were Yale graduates.

Plus a single from Stanford.

Just enough prestige to make the chaos feel ironic.

Of course, it helps to be rich enough to spend a year falling on your face.

Still, it’s a funny sight I observed in Thursday’s class:

eight clowns silently arranging themselves in order of intelligence.

The clown they insisted should be at the bottom later thought this was hilarious as he has a master’s degree.

—

Clowning is a craft.

Most work is a craft.

Hell, even medicine is a craft.

And mastery in a craft depends less on general intelligence than on dedication —

and on cultivating the right skills: openness, affability, lightness.

—

This is the first social hierarchy I’ve been in where people organize by skill in a single, very specific craft.

In college, you could be successful at any number of things — academics, theater, sports, journalism.

In elementary school, the options were fewer but still broad: maybe good at math, worse at English, class clown, or owned the good video games.

Here, clowns arrange by everyday charisma.

And charisma in life is decently correlated with charisma on stage.

Add to that: we’re learning charisma.

And the social life becomes pretty interesting.

It’s like a schoolyard where the only question is: how fun are you at play?