World Clown Association

Did you know that there was a World Clown Association? Neither did I. And yes, I'm assuming that you have no idea what the World Clown Association is so that we can start on the same level of knowledge. It was established in 1982. As it turns out, there is more to the world of clowns than I thought. There are many different types of clowns, there is even a clown president. To me, clowns are freaky. But to these people, clowning around is a serious business. On this blog I will take you deep into the world of clowning around, bringing to you a rich culture. But I will be very specific here: We are only dealing with the WCA here NOT the Clowns of America International or the International Shrine Clown Association. They are inferior when compared to the World Clown Association.


There are many aspect to the World Clown Association. Let's start with the purpose of the WCA which, according to their website, is:

"The world clown association exists to serve the needs of the members of the Association, to serve the needs of local affiliate clown alleys, and to promote the art of clowning throughout the world."

Now wasn't that confusing if you didn't know the right lingo? There may have been some terms that were in there that you might not be familiar with. All right, it was just the word "alley" that made me do a double-take. I know what "alley" means to the common folk, but I didn't really get what it was supposed to mean in the clowning sense. According to the WCA, Clown Alley used to be the place where clowns got their props and makeup applied when they were in circuses. In the WCA sense, an alley is a group of clowns performing a specific circus.


Their are alleys all over the world. If you have a phobia of clowns, I'm sorry. But if you want to hire some clowns in some of the following countries, well then you just got some hot information. There are clown alleys associated with the WCA in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Australia, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Scandinavia, South Africa, and Switzerland. As you read all of those countries, you might be thinking to yourself, "why not Mexico?" Well I was thinking the same thing. And the truth is, I don't know. There, I bet you didn't see that coming.


Well with all of those clowns all over the world, you would think that there would be some way for all of those clowns to get together to see who is the best at clowning around (Not to be confused with the WCA magazine "Clowning Around" [see below]). Well there is a clown competition and its called a "Clown Competition." But don't laugh just now; the clowns take this very seriously. Their online rules takes up a whopping 12 sections. For those non-registered clowns out there who think they would like to participate, you must be a fully registered and fully paid WCA clown in order to compete.


But there are restrictions to clowning around in these competitions that are beyond being just a registered clown. During makeup, judging, and when clowns are in public view, clowns are not allowed to drink, use tobacco, live animals (does not say if dead animals are okay), props that are offensive or embarrassing to the WCA, and pyrotechnics just to name a few.


There are four major categories to a clown competition. They are the Makeup and Wardrobe Competition, the Balloon Competition, the Skit Competition, and the Parade-ability Competition. Makeup and Wardrobe has six divisions to it. These are as follows: Classic Whiteface, Comedy Whiteface, Auguste, Tramp/Hobo, Character, and Junior Joey (Which is for clowns ages 5-15). Balloon Competitions are split up into Novice and Advanced (If you win the Novice, shouldn't you really be in the Advanced division?). Skits can either be in singles or groups. Parade-ability refers to competing for 30 seconds in front of judges promoting quality clowning. There is also an All-Around Clown category featuring all of the categories shown before. If you win one of these categories, you receive medallions, how clowny!


There is a clown of the year award given to the "clown of the year." That tradition started in 1991 when Richard Snowberg was deemed the "clowniest." In 2010, Julie Varholdt was given the prestigious award. (Note: there was no award given in 1997. Why? I don't know)


There is also an alley of the year award, but that has not been announced yet for 2010. Alleys had to fit the requirements of being a WCA clown alley, showing the impact on their community, clown education, conventions, grants, alley participation during International Clown Week (Please consider at this point that I am not making any of this up), total current WCA members in the alley, and why the alley should be alley of the year. The deadline for submitting a request to be the clown alley of the year is January 31, 2010. Applicants are reminded not to be intimidated by alleys that are larger than their own and not to send photo albums, just the application form. If you would like to submit your clown alley form, send it to Janet "Jellybean" Tucker at 334 New Hampshire Avenue, Hammond, IN  46323. You can email her at jb@jellybean-clown.com or call at 219-845-9019.


As mentioned before, the WCA has its own magazine known as "Clowning Around." It is a serious magazine for clowns (I just giggled as I wrote that). There is not much to be said about this magazine except for the fact that it is all about clowns the way Heeb magazine is all about Jews (For Jews, By Jews). I probably won't buy this magazine but I felt it deserved a shout-out.


There are many more aspects to the WCA such as the fabulous president Aurora Krause, the Junior Joey Program, and the Bo Dino Scholarship, but my patience for writing about clowns is very small and I feel that clowns, being very scary sometimes, needed to be seen as something more than just a Rolling Stones cover band (I'm talking about you Chuck-A-Roo). Some clowns have dignity and respect. You can find them at the World Clown Association.


The Daumenator has clowned around

Charmin

Today I saw something that I have never seen before. It was a Charmin commercial. You know, where the bears are going to the bathroom and they always want something soft on their behinds. Charmin toilet paper just happens to fit their needs. Well the thing that was different about this commercial is that the bears were no longer crapping on trees. The old Charmin commercials had those bears that just seemed at home with spreading their [poop] on the local flora. I had always kind of found this to be strange but it wasn't until a few days ago that I first really found this all to be strange. It was because, for once, the bears were inside and using a toilet (It was a western toilet for those of you who wanted the details). I still have not found out what brought up this change, but I am glad that it happened. I mean, I couldn't relate to the bears. Yeah, I would watch those commercials and think to myself,"you know, I can't empathize with those bears. I just can't feel their pain." Maybe it wasn't the toilet paper that needed to be extra soft. Looking back on previous history, trees can be pretty scratchy. Some trees have needles on their bark to ward off certain animals. How do I know that? Well I once was playing with a volleyball and the ball went just a bit out of bounds and... well, you get the picture. The volleyball was laid to rest and never seen again. But back to the bears and their dilemma, I definitely blame the trees for giving the bears discomfort.


But now we must look into the rest of the commercial. After using the western style toilet, the littlest bear (I know that this could easily turn into a Goldilocks story here, but I am going to ignore it) walked out of the bathroom and the Mama and Papa bear looked on in horror as they saw that he had toilet aper marks on his butt! Oh no! the shame! My issue with this is that, once again, they are not people, they are bears! People (most of the time) wear clothes that would cover up any embarrassing marks. At this point, I feel as though I am being a very biased observer right now and that I should just move on and state the facts.


Part three of the commercial showed the littlest bear with the new and improved Charmin toilet paper walking out and showing off his behind to the Papa bear, proving to the Papa and the world that Charmin leaves no mark behind. While I was watching this, I thought, "who really wants to brag that their toilet paper works?" To me, that just leaves images of all the wrong situations that I really don't need to know about. Even if they are bears, that kind of activity should best go unmentioned.


I personally have never had trouble with any types of toilet paper. If I had to make a recommendation, though, I would choose the Costco toilet paper. It comes in bulk and it is asbestos free.


The Daumenator has spoken

Moving Up and Down Buildings

Have you ever noticed that in a building there have been a maximum of three ways to go up and down floors: stairs, escalators, and elevators. People, it is 2011, we cannot sit back and just let a metal box pull us up and be satisfied! We need excitement to get us from the front desk of the building to the penthouse. But how are we going to do that? Well I have a few ideas here that will revolutionize the Up-Down industry.


Real-life M.C. Escher stairs: Yeah, you know, those stairs that you can feel like your going down from the second floor, but then all of a sudden BAM! you are on the six floor. I personally think people will go crazy over this idea (Literally crazy, do you know what this would do to someone's brain if you defy simple laws of science?). This effort to install these in your local mall might be extremely small because I don't think there is an engineer alive today that would even have a clue on where to start with these stairs.

"I could have sworn we were just one floor above the Build-A-Bear Workshop"

Moon Boots: I bet that got your attention. No they are not boots made out of rocks collected from the moon. They are... well, um... I don't exactly know what they are or what they are made out of but I'm pretty sure they have something to do with making gravity a little less forceful. They had them on the TV show Arthur so they must be the real deal.

If an aardvark can buy these for $20, then we can probably get them for less

Ginormous Mushrooms: Everybody knows mushrooms are bouncy, it's just that they are always too small for humans to jump on. But scientists on the Hidden Valley Ranch have mage breakthroughs in creating what they call Ginormous Mushrooms. These mushrooms have the capabilities of sending a human up at least one floor in a single bounce. Why scientists have been busy making these giant mushrooms instead of other, more important things like swivel couches, is a mystery to us common folk. Note: for those of you who are allergic to mushrooms, get used to it. Ever since mushrooms started appearing on pizzas, you should have seen this coming.

These mushrooms will also be featured on racecourses along with boosts and  gigantic bullets.

Helicopter Hats: This one really isn't limited to buildings. This type of hat can be worn and used anywhere. All you have to do is to spin the hat at an extreme speed and off you go. This hat will then jerk you upward and you will be flying through the sky and then fall gracefully back down until you touch the ground and then you can do it again. This article of clothing was recently seen in a Super Mario Brothers video game. If a little Italian plumber can find this hat on sale, so can you.

You can find this in a box with a question mark on it near you

Well that is all the ideas that I am willing to give to you at this moment in time. If you have any better ideas on how to revolutionize the Up-Down industry, oh wait, that would never happen. Until next time, or should I say, "same bat time, same bat channel?"


The Daumenator has spoken

Money to burn

Have you ever just had a crap load of cash that you just had the urge to spend? I mean, the normal thing to do would be for you just to hold on to it until something comes along. But what I'm talking about is that an evil villain is forcing you to spend over a certain amount of money that he gives you by 5:00 P.M. that day or else he will blow up a landfill, or something like that. And you, being the kind citizen, do not want trash everywhere after the explosion so you go out and buy something before the time runs out. But the whole time, you are thinking to yourself, "what do I buy in such a limited amount of time?" Here are some suggestions of mine for your purchases.

Boots: But not just any boots, I am speaking of the boots that come from Allen's Boots in Austin, Texas (A great place to go in Austin when you are out of things to do). They have many different types of boots that range from, alligator, crocodile, nile crocodile, leather, cowboy (not made of actual cowboys, just artificial ones), and goat just to name a few. But the most expensive boots that they have there are the Women's Lucchese Goat Boots. These boots end up costing the lucky person who buys these $2499.99. To me they just seem like they cost a high sum for boots.

$2499.99

At this point, I realize that there are numerous amounts of things that one could buy that don't really add to your value. The boots just caught my eye. They were just so gosh darn expensive when I first saw them. Toodley-doo to you.

The Daumenator has spoken