#ringlingbrothers

[nickdewolfarchive]

oakland, california 1971

"kisses $1.00" ringling bros. and barnum & bailey circus oakland-alameda county coliseum arena

photograph by nick dewolf https://www.flickr.com/photos/dboo/5509984171

[realsmileyclown]

Skills to pay the Bills!

In any profession there are certain skills that are required, or at least expected, of the employee in order to do their job correctly. Surgeons need to know how to remove organs, pilots need to know how to fly a plane and clowns need to know how to get hit by a pie. It’s hard to define requirements for clowns since a big part of it is about not conforming and mocking traditional thoughts but I think if a list existed it would look like the following:

Make up skills

Juggling

Balloon twisting

Unicycling

Slapstick skills

Acting skills

Comedy skills

I feel like this list is a pretty good list of the required skills and the most commonly expected skills for clowns too. The problem with only having these skills is that you will be an average clown since you have the average skills of a clown, and no clown wants to be average. The same is true for any profession. Being average is fine but you should always be aiming higher if you want to grow as a person or as a clown. If you want to be better than you have basically two methods. One is to improve those core skills to a level above everyone else who can do them too or the second way is to bring in other skills and incorporate them with the core skills. I believe that the second method leads to better overall diversity within the profession and most importantly is more fun so that is what I will discuss.

It might seem at first that a list for any profession is very limited in scope but if you try hard enough almost any skill can be applied either directly or in more of a training way. Again look at surgeons. They need good hand control to be able to work. So they could continue to do surgeries to improve but also play piano, juggle or draw. Now lets look at some ideas for clowns since that’s what would benefit us.

Musical instruments - playing any instrument can help hand coordination skills so i wouldn’t be surprised if that helped your juggling skills and balloon skills. Besides that you can easily take your instrument, assuming its portable, and make it look clownish. Maybe you play violin so get one that is white and add red polka dots over it. Now you can play it at events or if you are really skilled maybe play it while riding a unicycle.

Martial Arts - These can help you greatly in two ways. One it can give you more options in your slapstick. Where most clowns go for eye pokes and slaps you can incorporate kicks and sweeps whenever “fights” break out. the second is many arts practice how to fall even under extreme throws so now you could make your pratfalls even more ridiculous but still be safe.

Flexibility - clowning is a performance art and is very physical in nature so being able to move your body easier than others will help. This gives you options like when you slip maybe fall into the full splits and act like it hurt rather than just fall on your head and pretend it hurt.

Drawing/Painting - This can help you improve makeup application for yourself and for face-painting at parties since you develop smooth hand motions with practice. You could also take it further by doing caricatures at events. 

Crafting - If you are good at crafting then you can apply your abilities to making custom props or adding things on to your clown outfit. Both of these things make your character more unique allowing you to further separate yourself from most clowns. Think about how great cosplayers make their outfits look.

These are just some of the ones that stand out to me either because they are skills I have or ones that I feel many people have but don’t see the crossover. For the skills I do have I plan to make follow up posts about how I can incorporate them directly into my clowning. Whether you are a clown or not I hope you can see that your much stronger when you use your different skills together instead of separating them.

[crossbowstunts]

The Greatest Show on Earth - Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will close in May after 146 years! This photo of the 1932 company shows my grandfather, Ottavio Canestrelli, dressed in a black tuxedo on the left. Other circus greats are also present like Bombayo, who was part of the family troupe, standing next to my grandfather, and trapeze artist, Alfredo Codona. The end of an era indeed. #circus #circushistory #ringlingbrothers #circo #cirque #TheGrandGypsy #ringlingbroscircus www.thegrandgypsy.com (at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College)

[realsmileyclown]

5 reasons unicycles are better than bicycles

Most people in the world ride bicycles when they are little and many continue to ride them well into adulthood for travel or health purposes. Unfortunately many people neglect the fact that the bicycle is just a worse version of the unicycle! The unicycle is better in at least 5 ways and I’ll be discussing them in this post.

1. Unicycle’s are more compact. Since they have only 1 wheel that already means they are taking up half the space of a bicycle but since the rod that connects the two wheels is gone that means its more like a third of the size. Now you can easily store it in your home or car.

2.  Unicycles are unstable in all four directions not just two. Bicycles only need to be stabilized side to side but unicycles need you to balance front and back too. This will lead to you developing better posture and balance than those fools who ride bicycles.

3. Less people know how to ride unicycles. This means it is more impressive when you can ride them. This is because less people try to ride them but also because it requires more balance and skill from the previous point. Also if less people can ride them then less people will try to steal them.

4. 1 tire means less air is needed. This will save you time pumping up air into the tire. It also conserves more air than a standard bicycle so its better for the atmosphere.

5. You look silly riding a unicycle. This is by far the best reason to switch over to the unicycle. Now that you look silly riding one this means everyone you pass will point and laugh at you. Sometimes people tell me that isn’t a good thing but I can’t understand where the negative is. I love it when people laugh at me!

Now I hope you understand why you should ditch that bicycle and go get a unicycle today. You can thank me later when we cycle past each other on the road!

Also on an unrelated topic... April Fools!

[realsmileyclown]

How does one learn to be a clown?

Thanks for such an awesome question! I feel lile the simple answer here is one that applies to anything in life. Just get started and improve from there. So many people think I want to do this or that but don't know how so it never gets done. I've wanted to be a clown for probably 10 years now buy I always said that will happen someday. Finally one day I decided to stop putting it off and went online and started ordering parts I could use to make a costume. Now you can bet after all those years I had done some research so I knew what I wanted to be but that doesn't mean I knew how. I bought my first pieces and slowly built up over time and eventually after reflections made changes and improved. I could have waited to start this tumblr much later than I did but I started right away so I would be motivated to keep going and see my progress. So in short to become a clown spend maybe 1 week researching the topic of clowns and see how you feel about them. Then go and look for clothes and just pick what you like. After that keep researching and improving. There are lots of tutorials online for makeup application and plenty on certain skills like juggling. I will make a guide on this subject in the future that goes into detailing every step but for now just know that the best way is to pick one part of being a clown and get it done then move on to the next part. If you keep it up then it's only a matter of time before you end up just like me!

[realsmileyclown]

Clown Myths: Big Feet

One of the most common myths that I hear about Clowns is that we have big feet and I can see where this misconception occurs. Clearly people mistake the big shoes we wear with meaning we have big feet underneath those shoes. This is reasonable because most people never see clowns without our shoes on. Below you can see a picture of my foot next to my shoe.

You can easily tell that my feet are no where near the size of my shoes. Humans wear shoes that are just a bit bigger than their feet but us clowns wear shoes that are easily double the area of our feet. In terms of feet size its a safe bet that clowns have similar sized feet to humans that are the same sex and height as the clown. Now that you know the truth about our feet you might wonder why clowns wear such big shoes. There are a few reasons which I will list below.

1. Bigger shoes help people see us better at a distance.

       This is very important for events like the circus or at parades where spectators sit or stand quite far from us and regular shoes would not be visible enough for when we make movements.

2. Bigger shoes help exaggerate our motions.

       Any movement we make in big shoes not are only more visible because of the size but are also more visible because we have to move our feet differently than in normal shoes. Stepping around obstacles is also harder so that becomes a visual gag in and of itself.

3. Bigger Shoes mean there is more room.

       Having more room in your shoes make for a much more comfortable experience. It’s hard enough to walk in shoes all day while performing so big shoes where we can stretch our toes out is very nice. If you have any clown friends ask them to test their shoes so you can feel the difference.

4. Bigger shoes look sillier than regular shoes.

      This one is just a given. Clowns like to feel and look silly so anything we can do to accomplish this we will do.

All these reasons play an important role in why Clowns choose to wear shoes that are far to big for our feet. At least now next time you see a clown you will know their feet are not so different from yours.

[realsmileyclown]

New Clown Outfit!

Wow it sure has been a while since I last posted on here. I promise I’ve been busy working and improving. Trust me when I say clowns aren’t lazy, we just keep getting slowed down from all the tripping over our big shoes. I do have good news and this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I finally created another outfit. Check it out for yourself below!

I believe that the same clown should have many different outfits just like how normal people have a closet full of clothes. They don't wear the same outfit everyday and neither should Clowns. Many times you see a clown always wear the same outfit and when they finally wear a different outfit then they are actually a different character with different makeup and hair. I prefer to still be me but just wear other clothes.

I basically kept the same color scheme but flipped it where instead my shirt is now yellow and my pants are red. I also went from a bow tie to a tie and traded my bib overalls for suspenders instead. I like both outfits a lot and I even plan to create one more outfit. I want a full body jumpsuit one as well but currently haven't made any progress on that. I never want to just use a store bought one and prefer to find different clothing pieces to create a custom outfit.

I posted more photos of this out fit on my Instagram at the links below. I’ve been working on building other social medias to have as backups and as ways to keep content focused. Please look out for my post about all my social medias soon. Things are starting to settle down so more content is on the way.

Check out more photos over at my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BsL7ZO8gI8z/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

You can see a side by side comparison with this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvcaKZPA5oZ/

[realsmileyclown]

Thank you to over 500 Followers!

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who follows me. I just hit over 500 followers and I never thought anyone would take notice of me. I hope I can continue spreading laughter throughout the Internet forever!