The 5th annual Multnomah County Bike Fair was, as usual, amazing. All our favorite booths and events, with a sprinkling of new offerings, made it the gala of good, clean fun we all have come to love. Bike Culture at its finest.
Our clown set was riddled with technical difficulties, and in retrospect, I realize I should have told the sound guys, “Don't change any settings until our act is over, and please ask the band not to play over the top of us. But I hear we still slew, although I personally found some of our plot hard to follow, as I couldn't hear us. But that's minor, as critiques go, and I would still give the party a vigorous thumbs up.
Except for one thing.
There were no minors allowed in the bleachers where you sit to watch the show. No kids in the front row, squealing, “Look at the clown!” and “AAAHH! He's about to throw something at us!” They all had to stand behind a fence, where the smell of urine belies its use as an unofficial toilet, because the OLCC had decided to only allow a “closed beer garden,” and the beer was set up next to the stage.
Our youngest crew member is 12. He goes to every all-ages show, since he can't do any of the bar shows. And his dad, who considers it like Little League without the overbearing Sports Dads, is the best roadie we've ever had.
No kids. And here we were, our newest G-rated material loaded in our heads, trying to impress a bar crowd. Dingo was livid. He doesn't even drink. He said he was going to punch someone in the mouth.
For all you non-comedians out there, let me tell you what it takes to impress a bar crowd: Nudity. Obscenity. Gratuitous sex & violence. If you get all that out of the way first, then they'll let you get away with some actual jokes. Now, kids, on the other hand, love slapstick. A bumbling clown who can't seem to keep on his feet, and makes the kids feel real smart, will get their contagious laughter going, and then the adults will laugh , too. But just adults, in front of a g-rated set, Well, how many of you watch Sesame Street?
So what went wrong? Well, the poor gentleman who had to explain it to Dingo said that the World Naked Bike Ride had gotten hundreds of citations for liquor law violations, so the OLCC decided they would not allow booze at the Bike Fair. The organizers had talked them into an “adults only” beer garden permit, with many officers and inspectors at the event.
Bummer for all of us who went for the bikes, not the booze.
That got my dander up. As the Person In Charge over here at the Clownhouse, drunk cycling terrifies me. Any of these idiots could get killed, or worse, and their families could sue me. It's no wonder I'm such a wet banket. Plus, what kind of a message does it send to the kids who idolize us when we crack open a Sparks & climb on a tall bike?
So I was standin by the BBQ pit, at the Fair, lamenting about all of this to a guy I normally avoid, and wondering how it was that I was enjoying the conversation so much, when he told me he had been in drug & alcohol recovery for six weeks. I was psyched! Turns out he's not really an asshole, he's just allergic to booze & meth. Come to find out, we're in the same industry, and we have a lot in common.
Well, I wished him well, and I want him to keep his nose clean, especially since his program is paying for him to go to school, so I dished out a little sage advise that someone gave me, when me and Dingo quit being drunks, and hid it well, within a gory tale (cuz Bike Punks love gory stories, especially true ones,)
The advice is neither here nor there, unless you're the one facing the jones, but I'll tell you the story (cuz you like gore, too.).
I used to have a secret friend.
Like many a night shift baker, I have worked in the lonely kitchen with many a janitor. Some of those late-night types are a bit prickly, but then sometimes you get a co-worker who is really fun, and there's no boss at night, so when the cat's away the mice will play, and then crazy janitors who have to trap the mice play with their carcasses, and also have doughball-throwing contests, while they rock out to the Stones.
So my secret friend was one of those. Even though he was extremely cool, the guy whose band he played bass in was not so secure in hi coolness, and never really “played” with anything. He also required the band to live together, and dress all in black, 24/7. Oh, and they were not allowed to be friends with circusy queers like me.
So my friend told me it was nothing personal, and I could visit him at his other job, if I wanted, but the band was really going places, and he didn't want to clean restaurants for the rest of his life.
But he did clean restraunts for the rest of his life. Cuz his life ended that same year. He was biking home from the bar, and he got hit. The driver ran, and wasn't caught until the young man was long gone. Because he had so much booze in his blood, it all ran out of him before the ambulance arrived. Sober, he would have made it.
The bandleader tried to kick me out at the wake. His girlfriend stood up for me and his other “secret” friends, but I left without arguing. The last thing I wanted to do was guzzle a bunch of the stuff that killed him in the first place.
So listen up all you Drunk Bombers:
Kids look up to you. They'll copy what you do.
And people love you. Don't make them have to decide whether or not to go to your wake.
And one more thing: We're all in this together. Please try not to make the rest of us look bad.