When I went to Goodwill and saw THREE leering, staring clown heads, I felt…betrayed? Violated, even? I like to think that I’ve been basically good, that I didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this. And that’s really the first of the seven stages of reconciliation with clown. I thought, “Maybe they weren’t clowns.” Maybe they were, I don’t know, furries. Or a new race from Star Trek.

It’s not SO unreasonable. The one on the left could easily be some sort of badger, right? And the other one, well, I’ve definitely seen sillier things on Next Generation. Heck, it’s kind of got Guinan’s hat. But I couldn’t pretend. They were clowns. Maybe strange badger-people clowns, but nevertheless.

I understand the next few steps are anger and bargaining, and really, I got those over at the same time. I just let the clowns take the “anger” thing, and hoped they wouldn’t hurt me.

Maybe “confusion” should be one of the stages, too. I often get there when I’m trying to figure out a piece of clown-related art. Is it a planter? A toothbrush holder? The Grail? I don’t know. Why are clown heads so often hollow? I don’t know. Is someone, anywhere, cheered up by this? I DON’T KNOW!! It’s just…clowns…

Step five is depression. You can’t help it. You’re in Goodwill, there’s going to be clowns. It’s a fact of life. The employees put them on the shelf. Someone buys them, maybe. Or drops them on the floor. Or maybe they just appear there, in a continuous act of generation that preserves the average density of an infinitely expansive universe. Give up. You can go on to the other shelf, the other aisle, the next thrift store over, you’ll still find…clowns. Why are you so worried about it? The clowns aren’t. The clowns are…happy.

And then I gave up, and ended up buying a stack of 67 orange beverage coasters so the employees would stop staring at me. But the clowns are still staring.

I know.

Both miraculously found on the same unpleasant day, Goodwill on 183 and I35, Austin. And yet, still we go back.

It’s best to leave the manufacturing of clown paraphernalia to the professionals. They’ve got more practice, better economy of scale, and probably better lawyers. Really, the only thing worse than a ceramic clown with a ghastly paint job from some far-away county is a plaster clown with a ghastly, cheap paint job from right here.

Case in point.

I can’t shake that this guy reminds me of Homer Simpson, with an even more unearthly color scheme. No, I did not ratchet up the saturation on my camera–he really is that color. The bike? Also that color. The only time I’ve seen a face covered in that much lurid red was on a picture of a hyena after lunch. It, also, was happy. And on a tricycle, go figure.

If anybody’s got an idea what the weird little antenna on his head is supposed to be, I’m listening. Has the government been investing in remote-control clowns? I was wondering where my tax dollars were going. I expected something more high-tech. More “Stealth Bomber,” less “Bozo.”

I’m guessing the border patrol and enemy encampment wouldn’t even check to see if he’s dragging secrets or explosives or whatever in his little bucket. “No…you, just…keep going. Don’t stop. Please. Go on by. I don’t WANT to know.”

*honking sound, then accelerates.*

To reiterate:

Leave it to the professionals, seriously.

This next bit of DIY Clownery actually isn’t that bad–it was an unambitious paint job, really, they weren’t reaching beyond the standard color palette into realms of Lovecraftian madness.

Really pretty tame, I’m actually kind of liking the cool shoes, and the actual legitimate human skin tone under the white face paint is a nice touch. The only place where I’d point and stare is that his hair’s forming some sort of strange mesa or plateau for him to rest his hat on, but that’s being fussy for its own sake.

Except…except for the strange growth.

What you didn’t know about clowns? They reproduce through budding–explosive parthenogenesis. Every six to eight weeks they form a small, colorful nodule that eventually they release like a drifting spore, a precious gift to the world. These airborne children float like wisps of cotton candy on the air, distributing the clown through its natural habitat, until they eventually rest on a street corner, eventually blooming into a full-sized mime, harlequin, Scaramouch, or merryandrew.

Shockingly bright tricyclist from Goodwill on Parmer near I35; a budding juggler from Savers on South Lamar, Austin.

You wouldn’t want them roaming free, would you? Just the LICENSED clowns are bad enough. Maybe not everyone’s old enough to remember the “funny” old days, where you couldn’t walk two blocks without getting offered a cheap jape, drawn up into some sort of complicated mime situation (and believe you me, nothing slows you down on your way to work like an invisible box), or just tripping over a pair of bright red size 38Ls, their owner curled up on the side of the road around a bottle of cheap seltzer in a brown paper bag.

All the same, it does seem a little cruel. Though the little sign over the big metal gates saying “Send in the Clowns” was a nice touch.

Goodwill, bless their overly optimistic little hearts, has an auction every week. Usually it’s a few rare finds–an interesting over-sized painting, some antique furniture–one time we found an eight-foot beanbag chair, and that was a happy day, oh yes. But the down-at-the-heels GW up the road never gets the good donations–they have to throw things together in lots of collectibles. Nobody could possibly need this many clowns. Not all at once. That’s the FDA’s recommended allowance of greasepaint for like a year.

I’ll admit, I’m not really sure what’s going on with the guy at right. He’s kind of like the “Visible Clown” kit mom bought me when I was five, where you can see everything that’s inside a clown. It wasn’t really that interesting, turns out they’re mostly made of twisted-up balloons. But this guy’s just transparent–in a desperate bid for visibility, he splattered two streaks of greasepaint across his face, like runny smears left by a pigeon with impeccable aim.

The fellow at center though, he’s a piece of work.

Not every clown responds to “Comedy Camp” in the same way. Some stare out the bars of the gate, passively, desperately waiting to see if all the world really does need a clown. Others descending into tragic cavorting, deliberately making a farce. This one, maybe suffering from a blend of greasepaint fumes and Stockholm syndrome, is clearly trying to buy his way out of captivity with the only asset he has (and I promise, it isn’t comedy). Clearly, the camp does strange things to a clown. Things a clown…just can’t talk about.

Mime, yes, talk, not so much.

Other clowns turn to the release of violence, venting their desperation, fear, anger, on the only targets available–their brother clowns, if there can truly be any brotherhood among these creatures. Here’s the tragic–well, tragicomic–results.

On the plus side, they seem happy about it.

Parents–which one of these would you hire for your children’s birthday? Yeah, the one on the left is a bit more Disney, but they’ve all got their selling points. The guy in the middle, he works really cheap. And the Transparent Clown again…yeah, he’s kind of frightening, but trust me, it’ll be the one birthday your child never, ever forgets. Though they may painfully dredge it up in long, expensive hours of psychotherapy.

In the end, though, captivity’s for the best. Some of these creatures are just too weird for society.

This truly miraculous find at the Goodwill on I35 and 183, Austin.

…And so it begins, International Clown Week. Not surprisingly, you can blame Nixon for this. That is, you can blame Nixon for International Clown Week, not for the crimes perpetrated in the name of clowns.

Let’s get into the spirit of this thing!

So, clowns. They’re not really funny. This is an observation with all the revelatory power of someone telling Wile E. Coyote “That looked like it hurt.” But I think this little guy may be the poster buffoon for the sentiment.

We’re starting with a nice base coat of that uniquely foul yellow you only get by dipping something in the 60′s. That’s a GREAT start. I’m assuming this was originally a white plaster DIY Christmas Clown, but we don’t have no Christmas Spirit. The green of the tree? Baby crap yellow. The whimsical tufts of hair? Baby crap yellow. AND flesh-tone. Joy. More like horns shoved out of his temples than whimsical sideburns. The hat? Baby crap yellow, but at least there’s a little white poof to say “Merry whatever. Like I give a plum pudding.”

And…about that hat…I’m pretty sure it was stapled to the poor guy’s face and then dragged s-l-o-w-l-y up his brow. But in all fairness, he doesn’t really care. It’s just one more indignity after a seagull took a poop on his neck ruff.

I really like the little circles of his cheeks. “Paint them red and I swear, you’re taking this Christmas Tree antibranchwise.”

Merry Christmas. Happy National Clown Week. You do NOT want what I’ve got in this box. Trust me, I’ll be the only person laughing when you open it. But I’ll bet you my painfully-attached cap that it’s baby crap yellow.

Goodwill near 620 on Research, Austin

To celebrate Independence Day, this mischievous little merry-andrew has decapitated Founding Father and statesman Benjamin Franklin! Such a rapscallion! Last year he dressed up in the skin of Thomas Paine for a comedic reading of The Age of Reason. Comedy gold!

Don’t make eye contact. This one is so far down in the “Clowns Aren’t Funny” bin that the grease paint down there has solidified into a chalk-like layer of anti-comedy. That is not a face I’d want to see in a dark alley, not someone I’d want coming after me with a seltzer bottle. I’d expect to see, like, my pet cat floating in the bottle or something.

Why he’s japing around with the head of Ben Franklin, we don’t know. Maybe it went with his comedy version of Lincoln’s hat. And gods only know what he’s holding in that bag behind his back. Every pair of George Washington’s teeth? Or just the first pair?

Aand, from the Dubious Off-Shore Patriotism department, bobble-headed Uncle Sam.

Enjoy your picnics, happy Independence Day, and God Bless Amercia!

Awful the Clown, who is probably some sort of socialist, found at Thriftland on Stassney near I35, Austin. Uncle Sam at Goodwill on Metric and 183

It’s just common sense that most clowns are going to be hand-made by talented amateurs. No-one goes pro and makes whimsical clown miniatures, right? Don’t disillusion me on this one. I want to believe in a rational universe. If someone leans back, looks into the sky, and says, “I’ve got it, business plan: sell clowns,” you’d really hope their father or their accountant would Have Words.

Anyway, clowns.

What fun things could you put in a basket made from a clown’s head? Maybe a bottle of…something opaque…to drink away the whimsy? A thank-you note? Potpourri? Ashes of your loved one? Hope?

This might not have made the cut except for how brutal the head extraction process must have been. No-one killed the clown quietly in their sleep (it’s the best way, really). Probably didn’t use any of the normal humane methods of clown disposal. Nope, this was strictly brute force. Scrapes and bruises attest to the brutal, yet comical, final moments.

Though the big question comes down to “was the victim still alive when they replaced his ears with daisies?”

Even if we are to ignore the artistic medium of “basket made of ceramic head,” and assume that this is a clown in the Woeful Hobo mode, he’d still be a pretty hard-core hobo. How many clowns are dedicated enough to apply full sclera make-up?

Moving on…

We’ve got this reject from the cast-call for the all-clown version of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Or perhaps some strange mascot from a martial arts college with an unusually well-developed sense of irony–I’ve been looking at this guy for years, and have yet to work out the neon dots on his high, bald head. Maybe they’re from the snipers. Oh, yes.

My alternate theory: It’s actually an early rejected concept figure from ET: The Extraterrestrial. Evidence: Bold 80s color scheme, bald, wrinkly, and one glowing finger. IMHO, it’s a compelling theory. But Spielberg went with the coprokinetic puppet. You can’t go too wrong targeting the lowest common denominator.

You may not believe it, but there was actually a fadin the local thrifts for neon clowns in 2007. Terrifying. But the “artist” doing clowns of Papier-mâché and whimsical floral-print gift-wrap pants brings back the fondest memories, and won a special place in my heart.

Because we couldn’t afford jeans.