The Turning Of The Clowns

Steve Stajich

Mirror Contributing Writer

   A writer friend pitched a movie idea to me not too long ago, an idea that involved ‘street performers’. I can’t reveal the plot, but it reflected something less than a warm feeling for al fresco jugglers, robots, and singers. Let’s just say that if they made a new ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ and one of the flesh-eating corpses was riding a unicycle while balancing a ball on what was left of his nose, you’d have the basic idea. 
   From this we might safely conclude that not everybody loves free-lance ‘balloon artists’ and ex-hippie mimes shouting ‘I live on your donations!’, especially when they have become a mine field one must negotiate just to get some khaki underwear at Banana Republic. 
   Street performers contribute to the texture of the Third Street Promenade and they are a big part of the allure of one of the most successful outdoor spaces in America. With a visit to an amusement park costing three days’ pay for a family of four, I would never begrudge anyone the free carnival that is the Promenade on any weekend evening. And we must remember that there are young people who have never seen a former accountant sing ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’ through a four-inch portable amp speaker. 
   But street performers are an acquired taste, and not every merchant on the Promenade is in love with their zesty flavor. This has resulted in yet another battle in the undeclared war of ‘Retail versus The Right To Juggle.’ The city has put in place an ordinance that requires street performers on the Promenade to change their location every two hours, moving 120 feet in a north-south direction. It’s roughly the same schedule I try to maintain on weekends around the house. In this case, the idea is to keep storefront-blocking crowds from gathering repeatedly in front of the same place of business. 
   At first glance, you’d think this would make everybody happy. The movement would give the performers new faces to play to, and the healing miracles of the Psychic Cat wouldn’t be confined to any one area of the Promenade. But the street performers are upset, and they’re organizing protests. Activist /street performer defender/idealist-about -town Jerry Rubin is fasting as a way to be heard on the issue. (I believe it was Gandhi who said, ‘When The Man oppresses your Michael Jackson dancing routine, stop eating and the pigs will beat it, beat it, beat it.’)
   I think the rotation could become a featured event that pulls even bigger crowds from around the world. German tourists would tell their freunden, ‘Oh, you must go to the Promenade and see The Turning Of The Clowns. Bring your camera, and some spare gelt.’
   What is disheartening is that once this particular episode of wrestling with the street performers is over, another is sure to replace it. Then one day, with little fanfare, someone will propose a more permanent solution. And that should be avoided. 
   Not unlike Santa Monica’s other street person issue involving the homeless, street performers are often without a home for their work. If you want to reach people with a public performance art or talent, you have to have access to the public. Not everyone can join Cirque du Soleil. Believe me, I know. For years, they have ignored my offer to perform my stand-up comedy act as a kind of breather from all that "no talking’ circus business, even when I agreed to do the punch lines in French. I even had custom material like ‘These two European clowns go into a brasserie…
   There are never enough ‘gigs’ in any line of entertainment, and you can well imagine that street performers have it pretty tough. Sure, there’s been an explosion in Renaissance festivals the last few years, but not everybody integrates into that format. How do you logically present ‘Ye Olde Juggling Chainsaws’ or ‘The Foole Who Dost Lip Synch To TV Theme Songs?’ 
   There is the occasional ‘Grand Opening’ of a mini mall or car dealership, but too often the folks at those events have over-medicated themselves with free hot dogs and can’t focus on your act. Or worse, a ‘Baywatch’ star is supposed to be there signing autographs and they keep asking you where that person can be found just after you've filled your mouth with kerosene for your big closer. 
   Street performers should have a home because they do more than entertain us. They have a kind of bravado and chutzpah that can be very educational for children. Youngsters consistently fear having to get up in front of class and present themselves. Imagine the inspiration a child gets watching someone stop their entire family dead in its tracks to demand that they all watch as he or she fashions a giraffe out of balloons. Years later, as president of Coca Cola, that child will close his presentation to the stockholders by saying, ‘Binkles The Clown taught me to never to be afraid.’
   Street performers also build a child’s desire to do math. When someone holds you spellbound for 10 minutes and then fills a bucket with dollar bills, you feel compelled to calculate the number of buckets per hour and then multiply that by the number of nights per year you could balance a chair on your head. Who knows how often math of this sort has caused a young person to decide that law school was a huge waste of time?
   We must keep street performers on the Promenade, but I’m afraid they will ‘protest’ their way right into some kind of final zoning move meant to replace them with one of several very unpleasant alternatives. 
   The first move of this sort would replace the real street performers with fake street performers. The differences are subtle. Spend some time at Universal City Walk and you’ll learn to make the distinction. Fake street performers do a tighter show with snappier patter. But in-between the smooth caramel of their routines is bitter sadness. Because ‘Star Search’ didn’t work, the ‘Tonight Show’ audition went badly, and the ex-wife just got a five-year contract with the Bellagio in Vegas. And throughout the bumpy ride they kept telling themselves ‘If Shields and Yarnell can make it -‘ 
   Another worst-case scenario is that street performers would be replaced with entertainment that is somehow ‘booked’ and programmed by the Promenade. That’s right: Hello puppet shows. Nobody wants that. Even puppeteers don’t want that. 
   There’s also the possibility that street performers would disappear from the Promenade altogether. That would create an opening for the kind of improvisational one-man shows that haunt the subway cars of New York. If you’ve ever been trapped in a moving train car with one of these jolly presentations, you know that hell can always present a fresh face. Albeit one with a beard and potentially flammable breath. Whatever Broadway tune might be getting mangled, the theme of these shows is usually ‘I Stopped Taking The Blue Pills Last Week.’
   So I put it to the street performers and the Promenade merchants the same way a wise man said it not long ago: ‘can’t we all just get along?’ Nothing good can come from the struggle to juggle, so let’s have both sides give the rotation concept a try. 
   And in the meantime, Santa Monica citizens can do their part to alleviate the commerce-blocking congestion around street performers. Sample the performers, then trust your instinct to move on. If the little girl singing has totally won your heart with the theme from ‘Titanic,’ then your heart has had all it can take. Feel free to ease on down the Promenade. Try tipping the performers before they start their routine. If someone in a felt hat is standing before you with juggling pins, get in there fast and give him five bucks to just hold still. You know he’s going to pick up that gear and start juggling. Maybe one will drop, maybe many will drop. For five bucks, we can all avoid the tension of waiting to see how it turns out. 
And talk to your children. Parents often believe that a child is enjoying the street performer’s routine, even as the jokes spin into frothy double entendre and the act begins to include the swallowing of light bulbs, snakes and knives. Bend over and ask, ‘Would you rather look at some corduroy pants at the Gap?’ Your child may willingly rotate on to the next event.