My Real Memoir
I cracked me up. And by second grade I’d discovered I could crack other people up, too. Note the key word there: crack. As in that which produces a rush of pleasant feelings and is highly addictive. But like the drug crack, being funny was also illegal. Unless the teacher wasn’t watching.
Or unless you were good enough to make a living at it. Like the Marx Brothers had, or my first literary hero Mark Twain had. Or like my favorite TV star Dick Van Dyke did, or my favorite musical spoofers, Allan Sherman (“Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda”) and Tom Lehrer (“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”) did.
Around the time I turned 13, there was a growing satire movement. It showed up in the mock seriousness of Stan Freberg and Bob Newhart, and in the cultural and political lampoons of Jules Feiffer and That Was the Week That Was. I was a creative schizophrenic: I wanted to write and perform seriously (still do), but I also kinda wanted to make fun of all that seriousness (still do).
And so, with the departure of my uber-serious first drama teacher Mr. Baxter, I decided to join the ranks of professional class clowns. I’d gained a bit of a funny-guy rep after my first play performance. And so, building on that, I created an absurdly serious poet character named Roger, who was in-fact a Feiffer-esque tribute to Mr. Baxter.
Hungry for free entertainment, a student committee booked me to perform in the cafetorium during lunchtime. Accompanied by an overzealous bongo player, “Roger” starts with the words “Limonada running down my vest,” and continues with something like “I must grow legs, I tell you, must drink and eat off my chest until I am standing behind you and yet always in front of me…” It’s pure stream of consciousness nonsense. But Roger the Poet, who considers it quite profound, grows increasingly agitated as the bongos drown him out, and finally storms off stage in a fit of angsty rage.
The audience roared. It was pure, undiluted clown crack. My ego swelled to three times its normal size that day. So much so that, right after the school year ended, I auditioned for a community theatre production, got cast in a lead role, and then quit because I didn’t think the other actors were good enough. Steel-spined Mr. Baxter would have slapped me six ways to Sunday. But genteel Mrs. Bonner, the drama teacher who took his place that fall, had a spine made of crepe myrtle, and was completely ill-equipped to handle…
A professional class clown.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
Mitch Teemley 
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For me to tolerate a class clown as a classmate, his antics had to be very clever and not mean. Worms in the pencil sharpener? Not cool, Jimmy Outlaw.
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Ew!
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Exactly.
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“I was a creative schizophrenic: I wanted to write and perform seriously (still do), but I also kinda wanted to make fun of all that seriousness (still do).” I like this a lot.
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I’m afraid I never had the talent to be a true class clown. But I always admired those who did. I was usually content to be the “friend of the clown.”
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The one who drove the tiny car they didn’t fit into? ;>)
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All my early heroes were funny or fun-loving. You mentioned some and I’m sure you’d recognize my others. You know more than most that to make people laugh is a huge gift!
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Clever clowning had my admiration. Idiocy tried my patience…. We had several class clowns. All of their clowning involved mockery and meanness. In high school there emerged a comic who used wit and words to tickle the brains of all who could understand!! I had a crush. But he never looked my way – I was too serious.
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I married a serious girl; also smart and beautiful–this clown was no fool.
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The class clown is usually the most depressed person.
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Must have been true for my classmate Kenny. I wonder where he is now though , he had a way of laughing through pain and making us all laugh.
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I always love your posts about your childhood, Mitch, and this one didn’t disappoint. (I also figured you were the class clown.)
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;>)
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I’m not surprised you were the class clown! But I suspect you weren’t the type who bullied other kids with his humor, and that means you were one of the good ones!
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I was (and am) far from perfect, Ann, but, no, I was never a bully.
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That’s what I figured! We were all immature once and did/said stuff we shouldn’t have, but I do think that our basic personalities are formed when we’re young. You’re a kind person now, so I figured you had a kind heart then too!
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❤ I have have a couple of good friends, both compassionate and godly men, who went through a bullying phase when they were young.
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You were born to entertain-to act, to write, to speak. And you appear to have always done it well.
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Aw, thank you, Nancy.
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Thanks
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🤣 at one of my schools , class clown was risky, asin the other class gets one stroke of a cain , you get ten. But i so loved Mark Twain back then , his funny sad stories are still amazing. Ooh and i even loved the huckleberry Finn adventures. Who doesn’t want back what once was !
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Mitch, you have written about this often, and it always makes me smile. I wanted you to know that when I read aloud Charlotte’s Web to my class every year, I always think that Avery (Fern’s older brother) is you. Well, he really is. 🙂
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;>)
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