It's my birthday today (too old to count, not old enough to be in the way). We're not planning anything very exciting, so I thought I'd just say a little something about my husband the Perennial Presidential Candidate, and why he's NOT running this year. For a change. Because Barack Obama is there instead.
After we left an unsatisfactory past-life in science, my hubby went into professional clowning. I went into journalism, but still managed to make the costumes, keep the props, build the puppets, and write the skits. Very soon he'd enlisted our son and daughter into the act - son was the Best Juggler anybody'd ever seen, daughter has a degree in theater tech and is a heckuva set designer and puppet builder. It quickly became a family business, and we've done pretty well with it over the years.
But when we were first starting out, it was just my hubby and his silly ideas about what clowns are good for. He went by the name of "Dreadzo," picked up because that was a part he played in a theatrical production in Tulsa in 1983, called "The Poet." He had these orange yarn dreadlocks, a big multi-colored dreadsack, some awful white-face makeup, and some seriously mismatched outfits. When the show was over, we moved to Florida, where he quickly landed a role on the local Saturday late-night horror movie show as the "Clown in the Double-Wide Next Door" to the hopelessly rednecked host. There, on city-wide Saturday Night television, Dreadzo announced his candidacy for President of the United States in 1984.
I was working at a local print shop, soon had posters ready to staple up on area telephone poles and offer free of charge (for a SASE) through the TV show. He was candidate of the Party Party (birthdays, bar mitzvahs, company picnics) and his motto was "The Country Could Use A Good Laugh." It took right off as comic relief both through the local outlets and through his regular street performing gigs downtown. He had a couple of great stump speeches that cast Reagan/Bush in not very flattering terms, and everybody indeed had a good laugh.
He milked it for all it was worth, running well past the actual election and becoming a standard running gag. Then the elections of 1988 came around, and he was suddenly famous. He'd changed his name to "Fredzo" by then, but only because our niece couldn't manage to say "Dreadzo" through her baby-lisp. Fredzo was a little bit more standard as well, with a black bowler and black-and-white costuming (baggy pants with suspenders, white shirt and often a ridiculous tie), very minimal-to-no makeup.
The slogan that year was "This Time I'm Serious" and it was hilariously anything but. The Party Party held its "convention" at the beach one weekend, had a reggae band and a Grateful Dead cover band on hand, 'discount' (haha) drinks at the Crab Pot (the bar tender was campaign manager) all day long, cheap shrimp scampe. We didn't vote back then really, having given up on politics back when they kept killing all our best hopes (1960s) for being hopeful. Politics was just the joke my hubby had turned it into, in a very pointed sort of way.
...But by 1988 we'd extended our professional network considerably. We counted many friends in the Ren Faire and circus world, including Boss Clown at Ringling and some of the Cirque de Solil performers. Fredzo's campaign managed to get picked up by BBC, where he was portrayed in a humorous bit on American politics as a "Dark Horse" candidate. He got months' worth of great mileage arguing the difference between white-face and dark horses. For Christmas that year we got an official bit of mail from somebody in government (we didn't pay attention to who's who in those days) telling us he'd received nearly a thousand OFFICIAL write-in votes in the election! Seems everybody on both Ringling trains and quite a few in the Cirque had voted his way, along with some Rennies who didn't even know what century we're in!
Fredzo was going great guns early in 1992 toward the election that year. In an interview with the local newspaper I was asked about what I thought, I told 'em it was good that sometimes his campaign actually coincided with real political campaign seasons, but that he wasn't particular about that. Unfortunately for all, our son (and his clown partner) died that year, and we moved here to our mountain in 'retirement' from such crazy life. He dropped his campaign activities, and never took them up again.
Today we are both really excited by the prospects of Barack Obama's candidacy. What a change! What a hopeful development! My hubby Fredzo would love nothing better than to volunteer for Obama's VP slot, in case he finds that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and/or Bill Richardson are just too darned serious for the job. No "Dark Horse" here, Fredzo will provide complexion contrast to Obama and bravely brave the international (and late-night horror show local TV) press.
Or not. But this fun diary on my birthday will serve as fair warning to the Obama campaign that if he turns into a joke, it's gonna get some serious airplay for the next 8 years at least. So lighten up, have some fun, and think about the wonderful summit conferences we could stage on the mall, full-sized tents, banners and even a sideshow alley open to the public. Dancing bears from Russia, acrobats from China, fire eaters from the Middle East, some Swami rope-climbers from India/Pakistan. §;o)
Happy Obamamania Day, Kossacks!