Clown Army

Bizarro is brought to you today by Clowns That Kill.

When I was in elementary school in Oklahoma, I played all the sports that were offered. My least favorite was basketball, because we played with an adult-sized ball on and adult-sized court. Most of us couldn't even throw a basketball high enough into the air to hit a backboard, much less accurately enough to get a basket. It would be as if average-sized adults were playing with a ball the size of an airplane tire and the hoop was hanging on the edge of a three-story building. The final scores ended up being more like hockey games than basketball.

A couple of times each year in basketball and other sports, we would play the kids from the local military school. These kids were scary. They were gaunt, tough, bruised, nearly bald, and had the look in their eye of a man on death row who has nothing left to lose. Their gymnasium was cold and dilapidated, and the entire campus was out on the edge of town and felt like you were visiting the set of a teen horror flick. I don't think we ever beat the military school kids at any sport. I remember not wanting to beat them, partly because I felt sorry for them and partly because I didn't want them to tear my head off and spit down my throat.

But the kids from the clown school were easy to beat. They were always tripping over their big, floppy shoes, for one thing, so we had a big advantage right off the bat. In many ways, however, they were even scarier.

APPEARANCES

Time for a quick update of some public appearances coming up this month. Of course, I appear in public several times each week – popping over to the deli across the street, going to the art supply store – but I don't advertise it and nobody cares. The following are advertised appearances about which I hope at least a few people will care.

January 8 and 10, HAWAII!!! Yes, the one in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's a long flight from NYC, but you get a flower necklace when you get there so it's worth it. I'm doing a show for the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii. I'll do a song, some stand-up comedy, show lots of slides of my cartoons about diet and lifestyle and animals and stuff, and you will laugh. I promise.
Thursday, January 8, 2009, 7 p.m., Cameron Center, 95 Mahalani Street, Wailuku, Maui
Then I fly over to Honolulu and do it again on...
Saturday, January 10, 2009, 7 p.m., McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, Oahu

But, just when everyone is all hating me for being tan in January, I spend the week of 19 - 25th in INDIANAPOLIS!!!! Yes, the one in the middle of the snow. It's a short flight from NYC, but you get to freeze your (choose an extremity) off when you get there.
There, I'll be an "artist in residence," setting up my art supplies and computers at the Eiteljorg Museum all week and doing my regular work schedule (without the whiskey, cigars, chorus girls and cussing that usually accompany my work day) for people to gawk at like a monkey in a zoo. The only difference between me and the monkeys will be that I'll be fully clothed and answering questions politely.

On Saturday, Jan 24, there will be an all-day program with several other artists called Western and Native Reflections in Comic Books

On Sunday, Jan 25, I'll be doing one of my hour-long funny talk comedy lecture things called The Bizarro West with Dan Piraro, where I'll show cartoons I've done over the years about the Old West, Native Americans, Cowboys and Indians, etc. It'll be a shoot 'em up hootenanny you won't want to miss.

So I'll be around all week talking and being laid-back, working on cartoons, selling books and prints and trading cards, signing things, wishing I was still in Hawaii. Come on by and keep me company.