Part One of Eight.

My life as a clown - by Jimbo

*The beginning.
I never imagined I'd earn a living being a clown. Not because I didn't want to. I just didn't think it was possible. People grew up to be butchers, policemen, lawyers, football players, fishermen. Being a clown was something I thought people did for fun.
Looking back now though, there were early signs that this was my path.
When I was seven years old at my local Public school in Sydney, I was auditioned with my friend Peter Danks to be the clown in a skit for our end of year play. We were sent outside by the teacher while he was selecting kids to audition for other parts. We were told to think of something funny. Peter was about twice my size. We came back in five minutes later. I piggy-backed him. The class and the teacher laughed. We got the parts.
Three years later I was at another School. Again, they needed someone to do a skit during the half time break for the class’ end of year play. The kids told the teacher that the new kid did impressions of Alan Seale. Alan Seale was a gardening personality on TV who did a few commercials at the time. He had a distinct lisp. I was pushed up the front of the class where I told them all with an exaggerated whistling emphasis on each 's' about, 'Lace bugs, aphids, beetles and yellow belly sap suckers'. I got the part.
Six years later in year 12, some students were putting on a roast one afternoon where they impersonate the teachers. I was selected to impersonate a teacher we affectionately called 'Shovel'. He was known for telling tall stories. I got the part.
Upon leaving school, I didn't really know what to do. Most of my friends were going to University, so I did too. I didn't have any idea what course I wanted to do, so I chose 'Commerce' at the Uni of NSW. Commerce to me seemed like something that left me, with options to go into any business afterwards. i.e. it gave me another three years to decide what I wanted to do for a living.
When I started it commerce, I realised I hated it. It just didn’t interest me. Binge drinking did though. It was heaps of fun, in only a way that spewing up twice a week can be thoroughly enjoyed by an 18 year old. After all, it was a sign that you'd had a 'top night'. Towards the end of first year Uni, I'd failed most of my subjects. One ‘macroeconomics’ exam was made up entirely of multiple choice answers. I realised five minutes into the exam that I couldn't even rule out one answer in any of the multiple choices on offer, so I went through guessing by filling in what I thought looked like a nice pattern of pencil marks on the a) b) c) d) and e) answer form. When I finished I had to change all the ones I'd answered e) back because I discovered there were not e)'s on the question sheet. I ended up getting 20% which was 5% below the law of probability for a multiple choice question with four answers. Like I said, I was finding commerce tough.
Drinking was easy though. And then in October I got sick.I think it was a combination of glandular fever, tonsillitis, and too much alcohol. I didn't have alcoholic poisoning. I think I'd just slowly run my immune system down. I ended up in hospital for a week on a drip. When I got out I decided drinking no longer interested me anymore. Or at least getting drunk no longer interested me. From there, my marks picked up and I dribbled through my exams with a combination of passes and pass conceded before choosing a marketing major in my second year. Accounting, finance and the other commerce majors seemed to involve right or wrong answers which I wasn't interested in. Marketing was based on subjects like sociology where there weren't necessarily right or wrong answers, just explanations. In other words, I figured I had a better chance of bullshitting my way to the end of my commerce degree through marketing.
In my third year of Uni in Feb 1990, I was up at the local CES again which was what the Australian ‘Centrelink’ job centre was called back then. I needed another part time job. I'd got sacked again from my latest job as a waiter for being 'too vague'. You need to be on the ball as a waiter not a daydreamer. The time before that I'd got sacked as a barman at my local bowling club. A guy of about seventy, who ran the bar, gave me a trial run. I'd gone alright until I pulled the rack of bourbon glasses out of the washing machine too far causing them to all smash on the ground. Then an old guy who had just came off the bowling green asked me for a 'Seven of Fosters' (back when Australian's drunk Fosters). I thought he meant seven schooners of Fosters. I found out after the sixth drink, I'd poured that a '7' was the term used for a small seven ounce glass. The manager then had to pour six beers down the sink, while apologising to the customer for ‘the new guy’.
The next time I turned up for work, the guy who managed the bar sweetly told me, 'Look Jim, you're a really nice young guy but every time I look at you, you make me nervous. I can't take you on here. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you'.
And with that and a long line of other part time jobs behind me from Pizza delivering to being a ‘brickies’ labourer, (all of which I'd eventually been politely faded off the roster sheets for each week), I went back into the CES looking for another part time job.

*First paid gig.
I was enjoying life but no job or anything I was studying, particularly grabbed me. One card on the wall at the CES took my eye in particular this day though. It said, 'Fire-eaters, stilt walkers wanted at a new nightclub opening up'. I took the cardboard slip up to one of the job centre interviewers and told him I knew how to juggle from when I played cricket at school and I told him also I somehow knew how to balance a chair on my chin which I promptly demonstrated to him and everyone else in the office. He then told me how this was an unusual case for him as he'd never interviewed a guy who could balance a chair on his chin as part of the job requirement before. He then shrugged his shoulders and sent me along to the job interview. The lady who ran the 729 club at St Leonards said she wanted a circus theme for the newly fitted nightclub. She thought clowns’ mingling with people doing tricks was a good way to build up the atmosphere in the recently re-launched club. I got the job and remember thinking as I nervously rocked up to the nightclub to do this job where I was putting on a clown suit and going up to strangers and trying to entertain them on the spot, 'If I can pull this off tonight, I can do anything'.
When I started and I soon realised though that I normally rock up to nightclubs on the weekends and run around being an idiot anyway, so there was no need to be nervous. And this way I also got paid $20 an hour to do it. Plus it was a good way of talking to people without having to have a drink in my hand.

* Jackson’s-on-George.
Within a few weeks the 729 club went broke again. The clown didn't work but I got my first positive written working reference out of it. I then hit the streets again looking for a bar job not even considering that there was another job like the last one in the world for me. That was until I walked into 'Jackson’s-on-George' the bar at the end of George St, on Circular Quay.The upstairs nightclub was called ‘The Luna Bar’ and the walls were adorned with old memorabilia bought from when Luna Park had recently been shut down due to a fatal fire in the Ghost Train in the mid 80's. Instead of asking for a bar job, I asked the boss if he wanted a clown to run around his 'Luna Bar'. I then showed him the only positive job reference I had. He said he'd never thought of having someone do what I'd proposed. I got the part.
For the next year I was running around the 'Luna Bar' as a clown every Friday night. I basically went up to everyone in the club trying to make them laugh with my jokes, banter and tricks as they discussed their end of week woes and joys with their colleagues after work, before the nightclub kicked in later.

* Advertising.
In the meantime I'd finished my University degree and landed a job as a trainee in an advertising firm called Young and Rubicam. I wanted to be a copywriter. I never knew there were people who got paid to sit around in jeans and write ads until I did marketing and I pursued this advertising job for the same reasons I pursued marketing from Commerce and commerce from school. It seemed like the easiest option and one that would still enable me to daydream as part of the job. I soon discovered though that life in an office, or 'the real world' wasn't like school, University or sport - where promotion happened on a plainly transparent merit system. Politics came into play in work environments.
I was a daydreamer not a networker. Soon I became bored of work which I covered up with outwardly docile yet very polite work demeanour. This impressed a production manager. I was given the job of going through the last ten years of filing of video tapes in the 'dub room'. The 'dub room’ was a dark room in the middle of the building which no-one ever went to. I didn’t care too much though; I still enjoyed my other job - running around ‘The Luna Bar’ as a clown on Friday and Saturday nights.

* Birthday parties.
One night while dressed up as a clown at The Luna Bar, a lady came up to me and said she ran a children's birthday party agency. She wanted to know if I did that type of work. I said, 'No'. She said that I should. All I'd have to do, for her to give me work, was learn how to do balloon animals and a bit of face painting. Which I did and I got the part. And in the process I soon learnt that dealing with drunks was easy compared to dealing with the verbal heckling you get from kids that are excited or the punches to the balls you got when they were bored..

* First death on stage.
While I was doing my nightclub work at Jackson's-on-George and kid’s parties during the day on weekends, I found another pub near the Uni of NSW in Kensington. It had a nightclub out the back called ‘The Circus Bar’. I dropped in there one day and asked the manager whether he’d like me to run around as a clown on Thursday nights, like I was also doing at Jackson’s-on-George. I then explained what I did.
He said, ‘No but we’ve got Tommy and Phil Emmanuel doing their guitar show next Thursday. Can you do a comedy act on stage in between their sets?’
‘Sure’, I lied.
I bought four of my mates along to the gig. I’d never done a stand-up show in my life but thought I’d give it a go. I prepared by collecting jokes I’d heard before.My mate Roger told me one, on the way in: ‘What’s worse than a bull with AIDS? The cowboy who gave it to him’.
When we got there the venue was full. Five hundred people were jammed in and rocking the place. Immediately Roger went into the crowd trying to hit on every chick he saw. His chat up line was, ‘I know the comedian who is going to be on tonight and I write his jokes’. I opened up with Roger’s gag. It got no response. I then did a few more jokes that went nowhere before people started yelling at me. I then went to a few putdowns I’d heard before at comedy venues, ‘If I wanted shit from you, I’d come down and squeeze your head’ or ‘Out of six million sperm, you had to be the fastest one’.
I managed for a bit but the heckling then started popping up like spot fires at different places in the crowd. Each one I tried to deal with another stock standard line. I thought I was going okay until suddenly the room literally seemed to erupt into one unified voice which was saying ‘Get off! Get off! Get off!’ I remember at this point thinking, it’s probably time to cut to the juggling. I picked up my clubs only to feel a yank on my t-shirt cuff. The DJ was literally dragging me off stage.
Roger didn’t speak to me for a couple of hours afterwards. He was too busy telling all the girls he’d spoken to that night that he didn’t really know me.

* Food fight.
I remember the second kid's birthday party as a clown I did back in late 1991. I was with 15 kids getting stuck into junk food around a table and having a ball. I motioned for the birthday boy at the end of the table to catch a Cheezel in his mouth which I was about to throw at him.
It hit him on the nose. He then threw one back at me, then the kid next to him copied. Soon they were all throwing food at the clown. Then they were all throwing handfuls of food at the clown until the mother walked in and yelled out, 'STOP. Everyone get out... Now!!
Then she looked at me. 'You too clown. Get out now!!'And I went out the back with all the other kids. We were in trouble.

*Clown Camp.
I soon became better at handling children's energy and the parents who booked me. I loved the job.If a kid was disrupting the show, I soon learnt that instead of getting upset or blocking them it was better to pull them up the front where I could simply use their energy for the show. If they didn't upstage me then in front of everyone they then morphed into my helper and if they did upstage me it made the show even better and I let them continue until the crowd was no longer interested. I later used this principle as the basis for my audience talent quest in my outback stand-up comedy shows.
Anyway, I started getting lots of clown gigs through word of mouth where parents told other parents that I entertained the adults as much as the kids. And as my children's party work built up, I left my 'dub room' job in the advertising company I was with. I had the confidence to leave my advertising career temporarily because I had an income on the weekend being a clown.This would give me enough money to keep me going before I re-entered the advertising industry as a copywriter once I'd had time to hock my portfolio around town. Or so I thought.
While I looked for another job in advertising, I ended up becoming the busiest kid's party clown in Sydney doing over 450 children's birthday gigs over the next year.I was still sure an advertising job would come soon, I thought as I flicked through an obscure juggling magazine one morning. It was there I noticed as ad for 'Clown Camp' as part of a summer holiday programme at The University of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA. I never knew you could actually go to a school and learn how to be a clown. It was next month. I looked at my bank account and booked my ticket the next day.
I got there a day early and was asked to stay with the president of Clown Camp's place while he hosted a dinner for all the other teachers. I was the only student clown. They said they were honoured to have someone from overseas come to their school. None of the teachers were in make-up or character. They were a homely bunch of people who looked more like they were respected professionals in whatever line of work they did otherwise. I found out that night, they were all full time clowns.
'Are you a white faced clown or an Auguste clown?’ they asked.
'I don't know' I said.
They then explained to me the difference. White clown are more what you'd call the straight person in a clown duo routine. Auguste clowns were the buffoons, the ones who copped the pie in the face or who ran face first into the wall to get the laugh. I was an Auguste clown, I thought. I then told them how kids don't laugh when you juggle four balls in front of them.
'You're just another big person then who can do stuff they can't. But when you stuff it up and drop one of the balls on your head, they piss themselves'.
They all nodded at each other and said I was an Auguste clown in between wiping the corner of their mouths with napkins.These people are clowns I thought but otherwise pretty normal.
‘Maybe I could be a clown for the rest of my life? I thought.
And from there at Clown Camp I learnt about the basics of the art: The history of clowning, make-up, magic, balloons and stilt walking etc. We even had a big pie throwing class one day. The camp was mainly full of middle-aged people who seemed to use clowning as a good excuse to mix with people and be social while earning a bit of pocket money on the side, rather than full time professional clowns -like the teachers.
A lot of the classes were for religious clowns too. In America there is a big market for Christian ministries to sell the message to kids via clowning.
One of the teachers there for the big religious strand of the course was an Irish priest. He was born as one third of a set of triplets. Apparently, he did his preaching at his popular parish in Ireland on Sundays while balancing from a slack rope and dressed as a clown.
'Howies' was the local bar where the clowns from the course socialised in each night. Hardly any of the religious clowns went there. The Irish Priest did though. And he was a phenomenal drinker. He always had a different drink in his hand from the one he had ten minutes ago and never seemed drunk. One day a couple of the religious clowns in his class came down to the pub and saw him. They went up to him and immediately started talking about the bible with him. Each time he told them, 'Look, I'm in the pub at the moment having a drink so can we not talk about the Bible or God. I'm trying to relax'.
To which there was a stunned silence. They then left him in peace to hang with the atheists.

* Clown College.
At Clown Camp, I then found out about Clown College which was a training camp for clowns for the Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey circus. Each town the circus went to they did auditions for clowns. After Clown Camp I went backpacking around America and planned to an audition Clown College when the circus I were both in Las Vegas. They audition 3000 people each year and the auditions also double as a good publicity story in the local papers where the circus is performing. They select 30 trainee clowns each year for an intensive stadium style clown training programme (unicycles, contortion, piling out of clown cars, hard-core slapstick) for four weeks in a town called Baraboo in the mid west.
They wanted performers with potential but also people who were single had no ties and weren't going to complain about having 'the experience of a life-time' while travelling around America in the 'Greatest show on earth' for $100 a week.
One of the clowns at the audition regaled us with road stories. He said the circus travelled by rail and above the women's showers he'd once put a big detachable bear's head which the ticket sellers wore when working. The girls at first thought it was really funny after grabbing it and checking it out. Then after a while they got used to it being there. He said he then stuck his head in that bear's head from outside the showers every night for four weeks until the girls eventually found out the view he was getting from inside the bear’s eyes. He then went onto say the biggest night he had in the circus was waking up one morning in bed next to a naked trapeze girl and a midget on either side of him. He said, still to this day he hasn't asked them what happened.
He said the midget was his partner in a routine they did while the trapeze apparatus was being taken down at shows before the elephants come on.
Clowning at circus’s apparently evolved through the need for a distraction for the crowd when sets were being changed. A bit like when I carried Peter Danks on to the stage in third grade while the trees were being put up for the next scene. He said his midget clown friend was a big alcoholic. One time during a performance at Madison Square Garden, he was doing the usual routine where he walks out into the middle of the arena with a bag and opens it to which a midget clown pops out to a big laugh from the crowd etc. He said on this particular time, he opened the bag and the midget was passed out with a bottle beside him. He then realised he was in the middle of Madison Square Gardens performing to thousands of kids and their families and the only prop he had to work with was a comatose midget. He was so angry, he lifted the bag and slammed it on the floor. The midget immediately rolled out, got up and kicked him in the shins. The crowd went nuts and they kept that bit in the show every time they went out from then on.I remember thinking most of my clown gags developed out of mistakes which got a laugh from which I then added into the next gig's collection of gags. And that's what I always loved about being a clown the most, I think compared to any other job. It was the only job in the world where the more you fucked up, the better you were at it.

* Vegas.
From Vegas, I did a tour to The Grand Canyon with about ten other backpackers. Afterwards we came back and hit the town. I drank Midori's all night, for some reason. Probably because the girl I liked was drinking them too. When I did a turd in the morning I thought I'd been eating plutonium. It looked radioactive and then I remembered what I'd been drinking all night.
‘I hadn't had a blow out like that in years’ I mused to myself.
I then sat down for breakfast with the girl I was with that night and she told me what had happened the night before to my horror.
She said that I'd driven her car to a drive thru marriage place where I then backed her car out saying to her, 'what the fuck is this place!? I had no idea! I only wanted to take you for a hamburger!'
I then told the attendant who let me out, 'I wanted onion rings not a wedding ring!
'I'd then driven her back into town while I told her how 'driving on the other side of the road in America is easier when I'm drunk coz that's the side I normally drive on when I'm driving drunk in Australia'.
Anyway, I made it out of Vegas alive without waking up with Mike Tyson's tiger in my hotel room and two days later I found out I'd been accepted into Clown College.

* Clown offers.
At the same time I'd been accepted into Clown College, I'd also been offered a job in Japan for a year from a Japanese agent at clown camp who noticed I was about the only clown who was young, single and not religious.
Clown College later came back to me and said it'd be hard to accept me without a green card. After much deliberating yet excitement over the fact I actually had two choices to keep working as a clown before me which were in different overseas countries, I took the Japan offer. My marketing degree and advertising career could always wait a little bit longer.Despite, taking the Japan option, Clown College invited me up and be a part of their opening day for the 1994 Clown College students that year. I was told to join the students as we walked in. We all instantly turned into wide-eyed kids again. The place in Baraboo was like walking into Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Smoke and music filled the big warehouse door we walked through upon arrival. We were then greeted inside by the most amazing array of circus props and memorabilia I'd ever scene. Going down that path in life as clown travelling around America with the circus would have been fun too, I daydreamed.
'Where's Jimbo gone?’ they would say back at the advertising company.
'He's run off and joined the circus'.
'I suppose dubbing tapes just wasn't for him', my boss would then reply as the next ten years of unmarked tapes piled up.

* Alaska.
My pre-booked plane pass from Delta airlines allowed to me to use an unlimited amount of planes in the U.S for three weeks. To save on accommodation I spent most nights sleeping on a plane and eating Delta’s food while I crossed the country in the air. One morning I woke up in the airport of Anchorage, Alaska. It was July 3rd in the middle of summer. I booked into the hostel where I was told that at midnight there would be a fireworks display in the local park celebrating Independence Day. I cruised down to have a look. The locals loved the display. I remember saying to the guy next to me, 'Not bad, but back home we light them when it's dark. They look heaps better then'.

* Central Park.
I then flew to New York. One morning I decided to take a day pack from my hostel and visit Central Park. Compared to Hyde Park in the middle of Sydney, this park was massive. I choose to start ambling along a road amongst all the joggers and bike riders in the middle of the park. I then started veering off onto a dirt path beside it which was in amongst some trees. Soon I was daydreaming again and not realising the dirt path had been turning away from the road for sometime and I was now by myself in what was a heavily forested bushland. I kept walking assuming it would bring me back to the path. A guy then appeared out of nowhere coming towards me on the path. I quickly glanced at his eyes as he walked past and got shivers. I wasn't too sure whether I was just being paranoid or not so I turned my head around about twenty metres on to find he had down a U-turn and was following me. I walked faster. I didn't want to appear panicked. Surely the road, some people or some civilisation would greet me soon, I thought.
Another 300 metres down the track I realised I'd walked down a peninsular that leads into the lake where there were a whole lot of ducks and people in paddle boats cruising around on. I turned around casually and could see the guy about 50 metes behind me on the track, loitering in the bushes. I didn't turn around again.Instead I sat casually on the bank of the lake in full view of all the boats and read my book. Twenty minutes later I realised my book was upside down. I knew I was okay at the moment but I had no idea how I was going to get back past the guy before dark. I then took out some balloon animals. Maybe I could freak him out with a balloon sword as I ran past him!?
I then blew one up and found myself making a swan which I pushed out onto the water. It looked pretty. I ended up making ten different coloured bright swans which I pushed out onto the glistening lake.
A father with his son in a boat saw them and yelled out to me that they looked cool. We then started chatting as he rowed in closer.
'Wow, you're Australian. I've got a cousin who works in a company in Australia', he said.
'Thank God, Americans love talking', I thought.
I then asked whether his son would like a poodle to which he said 'yes' and we chatted while my getaway boat was now only two metres away from me in the water. We kept chatting. I knew I had shouldn't ask to soon until I knew the rapport had been built up enough but I knew also knew it couldn't be too late either.
'Say, you wouldn't be able to give me a lift to the other side would you?’ I said mid-giraffe.
He hesitated and then said 'sure' and I hopped in. As we rowed away I turned around to see the guy for the third and last time standing where I was on the bank.
As my American friend rowed with me sitting behind me with his kid in front of him, he casually joked, 'Gee, I'd be really unhappy if you stabbed me in the back, while we were crossing'.
I laughed. Little did he know how happy I was to be on the boat. I then made his son another balloon sword before thanking them for the lift to the other side where I disappeared into the warm anonymous embrace of the New York hustle and bustle.

* Chimpo.
A few weeks later I was broke again but landing into Narita Airport, to a job as a clown (or 'crown' as they say in Japan) in the Korakuen amusement park, Tokyo Dome.
The job involved doing four walkaround 'meet and greet' shifts around the park each day with three other American clowns who were employed.
When I started working a lot of the Japanese kids would come up to me as I did my juggling and basic mime shtick. When they realised I didn't speak Japanese they'd ask me excitedly in broken English, 'What's your name?'
To which I replied, 'Jimbo'.
It always got a big laugh which is good for clown's self-esteem. Making people laugh is my job. After about a week though, I was getting confused as to why it was always getting such a big laugh. It was just my name, I thought. Surely getting a laugh in Japan isn't that easy.
Anyway, I found out later that 'Chimpo' which sounds like 'Jimbo' is the slang word for 'Penis' in Japanese. So here I was walking around an amusement park as a clown saying to little kids, 'Hi I'm Penis the clown!'
Despite it getting a laugh, I decided to change my name. I chose 'Bimbo' instead which I prophetically then found out was the Japanese slang word for ‘a homeless man who lives in a park’.

* Stilts.
I learnt a lot of skills in Japan which I practiced in my spare time including, cigar boxes, devil stick, diabolo and the basics of the Japanese Language. I also learnt how to walk on stilts. Working around an amusement park without falling on kids who are grabbing onto your legs is hard. Taking a piss during your break is even harder.

* Expo.
Way back in 1988, Mum and Dad took me and my two sisters to Expo in Brisbane. The only things I remember about it were the street performers. They fascinated me. Six years later as a clown performer working in Japan, I decided I should try street performing myself. The place I decided on was a popular walking bridge in a district called Namba in Osaka. I was up there on holidays.
My first go was fun. I did a twenty minute routine of all my tricks with all my gags in broken Japanese. I had about 50 people around me and just as I was coming to my hat line at the end, two Japanese cops came out of nowhere and hauled me off to the station. I was pretty scared. I thought they'd get back to the company who was sponsoring me to work here and perhaps I'd also loose my visa for doing something illegal. I was in a different country and didn't know what the rules were let alone what the two cops were yelling at me.
As I was being questioned in Japanese, a drunken Japanese couple who I'd made balloon hats for in my act were jumping up and down making funny faces at me in the window behind where the cops were questioning me. The cops eventually let me go. And as I walked out the couple in the window came up to me and gave me some coins for my act, which I bought dinner with.
I found out later from another busker that busking wasn't illegal in Japan. The cops were apparently just jealous after they'd heard a rumour that buskers were made more money than them. So what they did for fun on quiet nights was wait until buskers did their routine and then as soon as they were asking the crowd for money at the end during their 'hat line', they'd haul them away for 'questioning'.
Later on I did street performing in Shinjuku, Tokyo. After the third bald headed Yakuza guy with dark sunglasses and missing little finger approached me for a cut of my takings though, I decided to just stick to my job in the local amusement park.

* Showboat.
When I came back from working as a clown in Japan I got a job in Sydney working on a tourist paddle steamer that went around the harbour. It was called The Sydney Showboat. I had two shifts. One was during the day on Monday and Tuesday. This involved me cruising around to tables and talking to tourists who were admiring the harbour and also amusing them with a bit of patter, table magic, jokes and balloon animals for a few minutes - before moving onto the next table. I was also a bit of a bi-lingual commentator for the Japanese tourists who frequented the boat.
It was a cruisey gig and I was paid about $108 for each eight hour shift.
At night during the week, I also got gigs a doing the same on their night cruises which lasted three hours. I got $135 for these shifts.Anyway about six months later, I found out that the Award wage for a roving performer according to the Media and Arts Entertainment Alliance (MEAS) which I'd been a paid up union member for years, was about $18 an hour. This was under what I was being paid for my Monday and Tuesday day shifts. The Sydney Showboat was a reputable and profitable company. I assumed the award wage had just crept up over the years and they'd made an oversight and failed to adjust it, so I pointed it out to the agency who booked me.I was immediately not given any more shifts from them at all on the boat.
The agency that employed me was the biggest dancing agency in the country and employed the many dancing girls who performed on the boat at night and also managed them throughout their careers elsewhere. My main income however was from random Mum's and Dads who booked me at birthday parties on the weekend. I had nothing to lose and only the $1500 in back pay to gain I thought, so I asked the MEAS to pursue the money for me instead of staying quiet.
I was then immediately called into a 'mediating' meeting with the Late Bobby Limb who was the figure head of the company who employed me on The Sydney Showboat and the two agent ladies I'd dealt with for work. One was Di Heaton. There were also two MEAS representatives in this six person meeting. They all sat down in the conference room with folders in front of them. I'd been into a few meetings in office conference rooms while I worked in advertising years ago but only as a work experience kid listening in - at best. But this meeting was all about me. I felt like a proper grown-up and was excited!
I had only met Bobby Limb briefly a couple of times while on the boat and had no prior impression of him other than being aware that he won a Gold Australian television Logie for something in the 70's. I thought he was a decent, intelligent bloke until he mentioned to the MEAS people in front of me without looking at me in the eye, that I was sacked for being an alcoholic. I couldn't believe my ears.
I said, 'Excuse me!'
To which one of the agent ladies then took over. They'd obviously briefed him. 'Come on Jimbo, remember last shift when I saw you backstage, you were all over the floor'.
I racked my brains to the last time she saw me and remembered it was on one of my hour long breaks while the dancers were doing their show.
I said, 'I wasn't drunk. I was resting. That's how I always relax. I lie on the floor and chill'.
She then rolled her eyes and went back to shuffling her papers.
The meeting didn't last much longer and the Showboat people left, leaving me alone with the MEAS reps.I said to them, 'I couldn't believe what they said about me being drunk!
When he said it, I felt like I was an actor from a plot line from a really badly scripted B grade movie!'
The MEAS reps then said, 'yeah it was embarrassing to hear to tell you the truth, I could tell they were making it up as soon as they said it. They're obviously desperate. Don't worry we'll sort it out from here'. I left the meeting confident I was going to get my money and happy I no longer worked for The Sydney Showboat people.
The next day I was rung up about the MEAS and told they couldn't represent me in court like I'd expected.
I asked 'How come?’
He said, 'Well there's a bit of a political problem. Bobby Limb is affiliated with the board of MEAS, so I've been instructed that we won't be able to represent you because of a 'conflict of interest'.
I said a little shocked (but also amused that the plot line of the B Grade movie I imagined I was in, was getting thicker).
'Don't worry then.' I said, 'I'll represent myself. I reckon it'll still be an easy case to win. Just tell them I'll see them again in court!',
I said feeling even more like a grown-up now.
As I put the phone down the main concern going through my head was that the only suit I owned was a bright fluoro red colour.
The MEAS then sent a legal letter to me saying that The Sydney Showboat was prepared to pay me the outstanding money owed to me on the condition that I don't communicate with anyone afterwards about the details of the settlement.I thought about it and realised that it meant they could go on and keep slandering me in any way they wanted to anyone but I had then no legal entitlement to defend myself back, even verbally!
'Fuck that!’ I thought.
What if I want to include it in a book of amusing stories about my life 15 years later!!
I then told the MEAS, who now seemed to be representing The Sydney Showboat, that my offer still stood otherwise 'I'll see them in court!'
This was enough to call their bluff. I got the money off them without going to court or having to sign anything. I then cancelled my MEAS subscription.

* Bills.
Kids don't lie like adults. Especially four to five year olds. They're so stoked at the joy of using words to communicate that they haven't quite learned how to use them to manipulate yet. They do learn quickly though! Anyway, I remember doing a clown show at Five Dock primary school to over 100 kids in kindergarten to year six kid. I'd held them for forty five minutes of gags and shtick but then ran out of material. I was also a bit worn out so I decided to sit all the kids down and try and get them calm by just shooting the breeze with them with some questions.
I asked them questions I've often thought about. 'Kids, who wants to be older here?!'
Pretty well every kid put up their hand from Kindergarten to year six.
I then said, 'How come young people want to be old and old people want to be young?'
A whole lot of hands went up and I picked out one kid who looked like he was about five and in Year one up the front.I pointed to him and said, 'How come, mate!?'
He looked at me and then stuttered, 'Old people,.. old people,.. old people, don't like being old... because they've got bills to pay'.
I then said to him, 'What are bills?'
He said, 'I don't know'.
It then dawned on me that he had no idea what bills were other than they were what the postman bought his parents each day and as the parents sat around the table opening them up each night and then putting their head in their hands each night, all this kid probably thought was, 'Whoever this Bill guy is. He's a prick!'
For a kid who had no idea what he was talking about he knew exactly what most people don't like about getting older.

* Telling it straight.
One of my great friends is a girl called Yumi. She was my manager from Korakuen amusement park in Japan and often comes out to Australia. She was telling me once how she was at friend's place in Australia holding their five year old son on her lap when he looked up and said, 'Yumi, how come you've got such a flat face!'

* Jumping castle.
I once rocked up to a kid's party which I'd been booked weeks before. It took me an hour to get there. The Dad opened the door and then talked to me from behind the locked security grill door. His daughter was standing at his feet.
He said, 'Did you get the message on your answering machine?'
I said, 'no'.
He then looked down at his daughter and said, 'She decided this morning that she'd prefer a jumping castle instead of a clown'.
I thought he was joking until I looked down at Jessica who was nodding at me earnestly while her Dad patted her head. We all then just stood there in silence before I turned around and walked back to the car.

* Michael
I'd finished one kid's party and was waiting to get paid at the front door when a little boy ran up to me and grabbed my leg in front of his father.
'Daddy, Daddy, do you know who Jimbo reminds me of?'
'No' said the Dad.
'Michael Jackson!’ exclaimed the boy.
There was an uncomfortable smile between me and the Dad. Eventually he handed over the money and I left wondering whether I'd just had the best compliment in the life or the worst.

* Big shoes.
I remember driving to one kid's party. I was late and as usual in a rush to arrive on time in order to save the Mother from dealing with thirty dosed up and screaming kids. Anyway, the traffic lights up ahead went red. The car in front slowed down. I went for the brake but my over-sized clown shoe hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
The poor bloke in front of me! Not only was the rear of his car all dented up. But he had to go home and explain to his wife that 'some clown ran up the back of me', which I'm sure he would have then had to follow up with, 'No, no really honey, some clown ran up the back of me...'
When I first started clowning I used to dress up in full clown make-up. It not only made me look like I knew what I was doing but it also gave me a mask to hide my nerves behind. I don't know whether I became better at clowning or just lazy, a bit of both probably but eventually I stopped wearing any make-up or funny clothes. I was known as the 'jeans and t-shirt' clown who didn't dress up.
Some parents didn't like it others thought it was comforting having watched 'It' as a kid. Many people have phobias about clowns. Go to 'www.ihateclowns.com' if you do.
Most parents didn't care whether I wore make-up or not though, just as long as I kept the kids from destroying their house. No make-up also made it a lot easier for me to do my shopping, banking and chores on the way to and from gigs too. It also made it easier to drive.

* Fire eating.
I was doing my fire juggling routine to about twenty kids in a backyard once. They were surrounded by about ten adults who were watching with the usual beers and barbequed sausages in hand. I got up to the part where I say I'm going to put the burning fire stick out in my mouth. As part of my routine I then went to put it in a few times before retracting the burning stick at the last moment to build up the tension in the crowd.
Suddenly a boy yelled out at the top of his voice, 'Jimbo, Jimbo, just stick it in really quickly, it won't hurt at all!'
My love of hecklers started at kid’s birthday parties.
'Timothy', I said, 'Be quiet, this is a family show'.

* Pass the parcel.
When I started clowning, I used to do 'pass the parcel' to chew up a bit of time in my one hour gig. One of my gags was when a kid wouldn't pass the package on, despite when the music still playing, was 'Come on mate, are you deaf?'
Not a top gag but a gag none the less.
Anyway on this day, I yelled it out at a kid about four or five times trying to get him to pass it on until one mother came up to me and said, 'Yes he is'.
I was going to apologise and step out of character but then thought, 'so what? He's deaf!'
I then thanked the lady and picked the parcel off him while giving him a pat on the head and passed it on to the next kid, which I then did each time it came back to him when the music was still on.
I was stoked later when his Mum came up to me asked me to be the clown at his party the next month.I played pass the parcel that day with a dog whistle. The kids kept passing the parcel until the dog went nuts.

* Winfield.
In 1996, despite loving being a clown, paying my bills each week and living a good life, I still thought that what I was doing was a career detour which would eventually lead me back to advertising. The tap on the shoulder from ‘the real world’ would come soon, it was just a matter of seeing how long I could get away with it for.
When I was working in an office, I remember thinking once, 'Is this it for the next forty years?'
Now I thought, ‘surely I couldn't be a clown for the rest of my life?’
It was still very hard to get in the door at advertising companies just to see if someone would have a look at my portfolio. Perhaps my tits weren't big enough, so I decided instead to approach companies direct with my ideas. I approached several industries.One idea was for a condom maker.
I thought an ad with a picture of their product next to the slogan, 'Go and get F*****' would shift units for any franga on the market.
I had it all planned out. When the ensuing controversy happened with all the fuss on talk back radio they could then throw it back at the people who thought it was offensive by saying 'it was short for 'Frisky. What did you think it meant?' which would then give the product even more publicity.
None of the companies took my proposal though or even wanted to meet up.
One company that did show me some interest though was the tobacco company Winfield. I sent them off the idea for their little known cigarette rolling papers called 'Winnies' and suggested the idea that they do an ad which said, 'Winnies smokers would roll in their graves for one of these'.
I combined this with the idea of a dog up on all fours rolling a cigarette while an Aussie country farmer said to him, 'Bluey, I said Rollover not roll up!'
I also packaged it up with a TV ad idea of two guys in a Ute driving along until the driver swerves to miss a koala and rolls the car. While they're then upside down in their car on the side of the road, the passenger would then grab the rollies off the driver who was taking them out of his pocket and say, 'No mate, I'll roll this one'.
To my surprise, the marketing manager of Winfield asked me in for a meeting after receiving my fax addressed to him with no letterhead on it.Winnies was an inconsequential product in his marketing portfolio. He was even more interested though when I suggested what I thought was an obvious loophole for him in the market. That being that rolling papers weren't covered under the advertising ban for cigarettes and if they advertised their 'Winnies' rolling papers heavily (which was what everyone called their Winfield brand colloquially), they could slip through incidental advertising for Winfield cigarettes without being banned - at least for a while. He said the idea was brilliant as he stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray beside his desk which was literally as big as a bucket. He then said he was going to present the idea to his boss. He needed artwork though for the presentation and he asked me for a quote to get it done. I told him I'd get back to him and then rang around the biggest names in the advertising game I had the balls to call.
I wanted to know what was the average consultancy fee which advertising executives charged their clients - and I mean the top guys. I then returned for a meeting with the Winfield guy and bravely told him I was $250 an hour to which he replied to the best poker face I'd ever done in my life, 'no worries'.
I ended up billing 40 hours work including driving to and from the two meetings we'd already had, plus the time finding a student to draw up the storyboards and the time if took me to find the board and pens for her.
All along I thought, 'is this how business's earn their money?! This is bullshit!!'
I now loved smoking too. I didn't smoke but every time I saw someone smoking I thought of the $10000 cheque I had just received. This was just the beginning I thought too. If this guys boss approves it, I'm on $250 an hour until the shoot and ads have been made and that’s not even before I sell them idea which I'd copywrited. I asked around further and was told about the billions of dollars in advertising budget money cigarette companies had now with nowhere to spend it - except I now believed on rolling paper advertising at the football, cricket, racing cars - everywhere I daydreamed!!
In the end their lawyers scuttled the idea but the $10000 came in handy at the time and kept me going. Later on when I went into stand-up comedy I realised that copywriting for ads and writing gags were essentially a similar creative process. Set up punchline, gag - except stand-up had no product placement, was harder and was way worse paid. And more satisfying.

* Up a tree.
My record for doing the most kid's birthday parties was six bookings in one day. Six one hour shows at six different locations around Sydney driving at break neck speeds to get to each one in time. By the time I got to the last gig, I was buggered and completely over it. It was at my friend Jo's Plaster Master business where the kid's had been painting all day and were waiting for their parents to arrive. Jo was tired too and didn't give a shit either. The kid's however were all juiced up on sugar.
This last gig of the day, was a job of attrition - glorified baby-sitting waiting for the parents to arrive. I didn't have the energy to get on top of them and harness their energy with a 'bang bang punchline show' so I played a game where they had to chase me and catch me outside next door in the park. I then climbed a tree and for the last half an hour kept all the kid's attention while they threw rocks and sticks at me.
It wasn't that bad. Jo threw a helmet up to me. Most of the kids missed anyway.

* Bourbon monsters.
Dave is a mate whom I met clowning in the mid nineties. He also worked as a children's magician clown. Like me he didn't dress up like a clown apart from the hat. Anyway, we organised a tour together of kindergartens in the country and that’s where our friendship began really. The tour was really just an excuse to cut loose in the country and earn some petrol money along the way. If someone didn't take us home from the pub and give us a couch we usually ended up being woken up by sprinklers in the town park. We'd then dust ourselves off and head down to the nearest kindergarten where we were booked to do our gig for the day before heading to park and kicking a football or something.
One night we were in Wellington, NSW. We found a rugby club which was full of people. Wellington had just lost the Grand Final to a town down the road and were celebrating their loss and end of season party in one. Dave and I crashed the party and put on a little show and then passed the hat around. We then proceeded to drink the proceeds – all $30 of it. It was a big night though. I remember one huge guy at the bar eating a meat pie which he dropped into a full ash tray. He then picked it up, flicked a bit of ash off and proceeded to eat the rest.
'This ain't Sydney', I thought.
Dave and I at one point were carving up the dance floor with a couple of the local ladies. Midway through the dance one girl turned and spat at the handle of a nearby door.
'Missed' said the other one before trying to hit it herself with her own spitball.
Dave and I looked at each other and nodded. The night was late and we were looking to score some pot at the time, so we asked the girls next song. We figured if they were cool enough to spit on doors from the dance floor in front of the whole town, they're probably cool enough to ask some advice on where the nearest bit of bush weed could be found. Despite having had over ten bourbons the girls sobered up as soon as we'd asked the question.
'We don't do drugs. Who do you think we are?’ they yelled back totally insulted before storming off.
The next day, Dave and I rocked up to the local kindergarten to do the gig we had booked. It was run by the same two girls.
And for forty minutes, twenty kids sat in front of two clowns who were looking at the teachers behind them thinking, 'You're the two bourbon monsters who were hurling spit balls last night. Do you do that at work too?’And for twenty minutes two teachers looked over their pupils thinking, 'I can't believe these two drug addicts work as clowns entertaining children. Should we call the cops?'

* Injury
I did one gig at a primary school in Cronulla. These gigs generally go along the lines of a teacher ringing up and saying, 'Can you entertain 150 kids from Kindergarten to year six while we take 40 minutes off and enjoy your show too.'
This is alright but after 30 minutes of gags, I usually start losing the kid’s attention at massive school gigs and so ended the show with a big game of chasings. This also serves to wear the kids out before I hand them back to the teachers. In this case the teachers were smart. It was the last period of the day.
Anyway, in my chasings game I try and catch them first and do silly dives while missing them etc then finish the game off with them trying to catch me. At small kids parties I usually do this by evading them a few times which gets a laugh and then having them catch me followed by them all piling up on top of me.
By the time I realised this game was not a good idea with 150 kids it was too late. I was okay under the seething mass of bodies but I could hear that there were a fair few other kids who weren't. They were screaming and crying like they'd been stuck in a Chinese building in some far away province that had collapsed by an earthquake.
'Everyone get off!’ I yelled and yelled as they kept on piling up.
Eventually I got out and convinced the kids to stop piling on top and one by one I peeled kids away hoping there wasn't a death to be found at the bottom of the pile. Most of the kids were okay except one kid. He wasn't crying. I think he was beyond that. He was just holding his leg and his face was white. I grabbed him and lifted his leg.
'Phew. There was no bone sticking out', I thought.
The parents were coming to pick up their kids in about five minutes. This kid was sullen with pain. I got him up and I hobbled him to the nearby chair area.
I then pulled him out the front of 150 of his peers and said, 'Toby has taken some big hits under that kid mountain we created out there and he hasn't cried at all or complained. I reckon we should all yell out at the top of our voices, 'Toby is a legend!'
To which they did five times. Slowly a smile crept over his mouth in between a tear in the corner of one of his eyes. I then made him the biggest balloon hat I'd ever made before making the kids give him one more standing ovation. By then end of it, I think he'd thought he'd won an Oscar.
I then jumped in my car and fucked off.

* Club lock.
I remember one night going to a movie with my friend Mel. Upon returning I got in my car and tried to undo the club lock from the steering wheel.I somehow couldn't move it which I found strange because I never locked it. I just used it as a visual deterrent.I then realised it wasn't my club lock and it was locked.I looked around in the back seat to find my bags, unicycle and other stuff still there. My mobile phone was still in the glove box.Why had anyone broken into my car removed my club lock and then put their own on?
The NRMA guy who came out and sawed it off couldn't work it out either. Weird shit sometimes happens to you when you're a clown.

* Sega World.
In the late 90's, I got recommended by someone who had seen me at a kid's birthday party to work at Sega World which was a new amusement park which was being opened up in Darling Harbour. I ended up doing three, half an hour stage shows at Sega World every school holiday day for three years. It was a good gig. I came on before the Sonic the Hedgehog show. I also did a couple of half an hour walkaround 'Meet and greet', shifts on the floor.
One day I had a terrible head cold and couldn't face walking around making people laugh. So what I did was climb up on top of the lockers in full clown make-up (I put it on that day) just near the entrance where people came in, so that at the very least people would see a clown. I thought it was better than going to sleep in the change room. When I woke up half an hour later, there was a crowd of forty people standing around clapping and laughing at me.
'Don't take much to entertain you guys', I thought as I walked back to the change room blowing my nose.
The next week when I was well, I tried it again several times, thinking I now definitely had the easiest job in the world. But it never worked again. People only stopped to laugh that one time when I really needed the sleep.

* Trouble.
During all my kid's shows, I basically wind the kids up and then give them back to the parents at the end of the show to the teachers, parents or whoever owns them.I'd become quite good at it and became especially good at entertaining older boys who beginning to think clowns weren't cool anymore. My act now included whips, knives and a leaf blower... some serious artillery.
My Sega World show ended me with me on stage blasting the kids with an air blower which covered them in toilet paper and shaving cream.
I then disappeared as the kids stormed the stage looking for revenge. After one particular show, I noticed the stage exit door lock wasn't working, so I held it shut from the inside waiting for the kids outside to go away.Holding back twenty kids pulling the other way was tough though. The change room backstage was two metres away up a gangway to a room where all the dancers and performers had a change room. I yelled out to see if any of them were about but they weren't. I then tried to yell out to see if any of the teenagers who were working in the food court and walking backstage were around to intervene.
As a clown to a kid, I'm the antithesis to a parent or teacher. I'm not a role model in any way. I'm an anti-role model and that's why people like clowns. You can look at a clown on stage and safely laugh at the little bit inside you whom you identify with but can't admit to yourself let alone to the world.
And that's why clowns sometimes cry backstage. When we're misunderstood we can't explain why because we’d only then make you cry too – which is not what a good clown does!
Anyway, while I was holding on to the door, my hands were starting to cry in pain as the kids all pulled on the other side. And there was no way if I let the door open the kids were going to take anything I said seriously, especially two minutes after I'd nailed them with a barrage of energy, toilet paper and shaving cream which was still fresh up their nostrils. After my show the kids wanted revenge not instructions on how to behave.Eventually the door opened. I couldn't hold them back any longer. I tried to tell them the show was over but for them in getting backstage the show had just begun. I backed up the gangway to the change room trying to stop them getting up, knowing all the other performers bags and personal belongings were up there. I held them back for a minute on the gangway stairs and then they ran over the top of me. They were a mass of kids aged about 4 to 12 years old. Upstairs in the change room I couldn't do anything.
They were going nuts, yelling, laughing and screaming. Then one little girl came up to me. She pointed to the Sonic the Hedgehog suit on a coat hanger next to Sonic the hedgehog's head which was resting on a shelf.
She said, 'Who chopped Sonic's head off?'
I could handle that question coming out of a five year old girl but I couldn't handle the next question as she pointed to the suit on a coat hanger.'
And Jimbo… who skinned sonic?'
I realised things were now way out of control. The older kids were starting to steal while the younger kids were having a childhood stolen from them. And I was having to answer way too many tricky questions from young girls who's next question, I'm sure was going to be about Santa Claus. Something drastic had to be done.
So I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and started spraying dry ice at them. Within a minute I managed to flush every screaming kid out of the change room and back down on to the stage area outside. I closed the door. They didn't come back.I then sat up in the change room giving myself a breather.
'Tough show', I thought.
Five minutes later a young teenage staff member came up and told me that there was a little girl crying in the food court with her Mother because her skin had been burnt from the fumigation job I'd done on them.
I was on a good contract at Sega World. And I'd just signed a new lease for my apartment nearby in the city. I immediately jumped down the stairs in order to see if I could intercept the lawyers arriving.
I profusely apologised to the lady and then said, 'Can I take your daughter to the sick bay to get her leg checked!?’
'Sure', said the Mum.
In the sick bay area a member of the first aid staff rubbed a bit of cream on her leg and then put a bandage around it while I made the girl ten thousand balloon animals, cracked my best jokes and did my utmost to distract her from any pain she was feeling.
She seemed to enjoy it. She was laughing.I then took her back to her Mum, hoping everything would still be relatively cool and also hoping that I wouldn't be greeted back at her table by management wanting to have a word with me - around an office table with MEAS reps.
Upon finding the Mum I was relieved to find it was still just her and her other daughter there.
I then mumbled, 'Look, I'm really sorry about the burns to your daughter’s legs, there really probably was another way to get the kids out of the change room…'
The mother then leant back laughing, 'Don't worry mate, it's nothing, she's just upset that her sister is having her birthday today and not getting all the attention like she normally demands. Thanks for taking her off my hands for a while. She's been a pain in the arse!'

* Half Beard.
In 1999 I was shaving in the mirror one morning when I decided to just shave half my face to see what it looked like. For the next few days I kept on shaving just the right hand side of my face. Three months later I had a full half beard on one half of my face. I was a clown so there was no problem with it at work.
Socially things were a bit different though. I soon learnt what it must be like to have a facial disfigurement. To make other people feel more comfortable, I didn't look at people in the eye while walking down the street. And I started going to the same shops to get my food. Just so at least it no longer shocked them when I went in. I even managed to get a lease on a new flat while I had half a rug on my face. I think I freaked the estate agent out when I said, 'look I know I look a bit weird', when I was three minutes into negotiations. She in turn compensated for her embarrassment by giving me the lease without any more questions.
Lucky for me at the time, I had a shag buddy at the time from before I'd started growing the beard. Then a few months into the relationship she told me one lunch totally out of the blue that she was suicidal and had indeed tried to kill herself with pills before she met me (which was strangely reassuring on one level). She then went on to tell me over the Caesar salad we were both having that she was thinking about doing herself in that week. After lunch I then rang up the nearest shrink in the yellow pages and drove her straight there. I went in with her that afternoon found out she had bulimia and was suffering under the strain of looking after her widowed single mother who was bankrupt after some bad investment advice years earlier. There were big tears and I learnt more about the girl I'd been shagging than all the times we'd slept together.
After an hour, the psychologist took me aside and said, 'Firstly, this is not your problem and secondly take her down to the Manly hospital suicide clinic now. It's pretty serious. Here's a referral note. So I did. They basically interviewed her and told her to go home and take it easy. I took her back to my place. She was hysterical all night.
The next day I took her back to the hospital. All the way there she said, 'Look Jimbo just let me go so I can do it. People will be upset at first but in six months time they'll get over it. Pleeeease!?'
At the hospital, she wouldn't get out of the car so I carried her in on my back while making jokes about how I'm gunna claim my injury on compo. In the waiting room, she wanted to escape still. I didn't want the indignity to both of us in the mental health section of the hospital of me holding her down while she struggled to get free so I put my head in her lap and held on to her arm tightly while she patted my head talking to me until she calmed down a bit.
Finally two different psychiatrists greeted us for our meeting. We introduced ourselves and then went into a tiny consultation room. They both took a long deep breath and then looked at me and said, 'So Jim, what's been bothering you?'
I couldn't believe it.
I said, 'No it's her!'
The other one looked at me and said, 'How come you've got half a beard?’
I said, 'I'm a clown'.
And then the other said, 'Really! A clown! How did you get into that?'
At this point my frustration was tempered by the fact that my friend was now laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
'For fucks sake, she's about to top herself can you talk to her instead!' I pleaded.
Anyway, to cut a long story short. She didn't escape the hospital by getting me committed for being mad which she probably could have at that point if she tried and I'm proud to say now she got through her rough patch and has since gone on to achieve her dream of being happily married in the suburbs to a top bloke with four kids.
I eventually shaved the beard off. The catalyst was a girl in a pub who came up to me a month later. I'd just gone to watch the footy with a couple of mates who'd gone out the back for a smoke. The girl who came up to me didn't even introduce herself.
She just whispered into my ear, 'You're never going to get laid looking like that' before walking away.
That night I shaved the left hand side too.

* The Sydney Comedy Store.
In 1999, Sega World was about to shut down. Creatively and financially, I needed a new palate to work on too. My clown routine was good but I'd stopped writing new stuff and was coasting on the income from it. That couldn’t last, I thought. Plus stand-up comedy was what I was mainly daydreaming about doing now.
I was very nervous about doing it again after my first attempt nearly eight years before culminated in me being collared off stage by the DJ while 500 people yelled, 'Get off'.
I'd always wanted to try it again though deep down. Properly this time but I was still too scared. Even though I was a performer, I'd always used kids as my props to get laughs.
Then I thought, 'if someone who hasn't even had a performing background can get up at an open mice stand-up comedy night surely I can at least give it one more go.'
With that realisation, I knew it was time. I had to get back on the horse if for nothing else to shut the voices up in my head for not finding out how bad or how good I really was at stand-up.
So at 29, I got my set list out of now original jokes I thought was funny and headed down to The Sydney comedy store (where it was located then on Parramatta road) one Tuesday night. I got on the bill with all the other beginners to do five minutes. I was stoked. I'd been enjoying coming to see comedians here a few times a year, for years now. At least tonight I'd now got in for free, I thought.
Anyway, the only laugh I got that night was at the end of my five minutes when I said to the crowd, 'this isn't going well is it?’
As I walked back stage I heard the headline act say to another comedian, 'Yeah, I remember when I first started, I thought poo jokes were funny too'.
Comedians always say the hardest gig you'll ever do is your first. I found my second one pretty tough too.
Two months later I thought I'd have one more go. I knew that at the very least I had one definite laugh by repeating the same line at the end of my act if I went badly again.
Stand-up wasn't out of my system yet. I changed my routine. I re-wrote it all. No poo jokes. This time, I got some laughs. Not heaps but enough to be hooked.
Sega World went bust a couple of months later and I then lived off my savings from it while I went to open mic stand-up nights as many times as I could.Within six months of my first stand-up gig at The Sydney Comedy Store they offered me my first thirty minute feature spot there. The pay in stand-up comedy was way worse than clowning. Feature acts were paid about $150 a week. I was getting about a couple a week. This was still good for what was really a very small scene compared to overseas places like London and New York where there were 100's of clubs instead of the six that were in Sydney.
Another good sign was that the two main comedy agents in town were asking me to sign up.I then came third in the 'Sydney comedian of the year' competition.
I didn't sign with anyone though. I wanted to wait a bit, I thought.There was no rush. My material was very cute, observational and not offensive to anyone, which is why the agents where after me with their money mainly coming from TV, theatre and corporate. I then got offered a spot on James O'Loughlin's ABC variety show. I think not signing with anyone had a bit to do with being my own boss for so long too doing my own freelance work.
While I tried to make up my mind about which agency to go with as well as build up my material I started also chasing stand-up gigs further out into the suburbs where noticed I had to change my material to get a laugh.
My act became bluer and bluer and bluer until one night the manager at The Sydney Comedy Store took me aside and said, 'Jimbo, the people laughing at your jokes, particularly the Japanese flag joke (where I insinuate I made one by rooting a chick while she was on her rags) are getting people laughing really loudly but their laughs are drowning out all the other people in the crowd who are shocked. Tone it down or your banned'.
I had one more gig pre-booked at 'The Store' after this warning. The advice I'd been given surprised me. I had always judged how I was going on stage purely by the amount of noise that was being expelled out of people's lungs and coming back at me, not on what I was saying.
My attitude was if some people didn't like the act but there were big laughs coming my way 'Fuck 'em', I thought.'
Stay home and watch 'Friends' instead.'
I still took what she told me as a challenge though. So I diligently went through my set list for my next show cutting out all the jokes with sexual references and all swear words.
The gig went well and I did notice a more even and different laugh coming from the whole crowd. But it was a gentler laugh a more polite laugh. This didn’t give me nearly the same buzz as the big wooshka groin laugh I was getting used to though when I let it rip on stage.
I then started feeling more and more uncomfortable about the amount of pressure I was starting to get even from other comedians before I went on stage with regards to the 'risqué' content of my jokes. I hadn't imagined the stand-up comedy industry would be that conservative. I thought you could say what you want up there - and you were booked purely on the amount of laughs you got. And I thought every crowd member went in with an open mind with regards to hearing stuff that might possibly confront them.
In fact I thought that was the whole point of seeing a comedian. Punchlines were based on verbal and intellectual surprises. I didn't see the point in toning down my act by sign posting punchlines that were coming up. I also thought that if I’m going to say what other people tell me to say, I may as well at least do it in a job that pays better! In other words I thought everyone thought like me!!I also knew that despite what I promised I wouldn't say on stage from here on in to agents, bookers and other comedians, I was lying.When I walked on stage I didn't want people in my ear telling me what to say and what not to say. That was what I thought happened to you when you had a 'job' - which was something I’d worked so hard for years, at not having! And in turn my act was suddenly ‘wrong’.
In retrospect, my long, slow exile from the Australian mainstream comedy industry had begun way way, way before I realised it.It didn’t matter though. As long as the drunks at my pub gigs were laughing, yelling out stuff and running around like naughty children at a kid’s party, I felt I was on the right path.
To be continued.....