The Clown is Funny; Eight Different Liams Offer Perspectives on Hilarity

by Liam Eagle

BABY LIAM

The clown is funny. His outrageous appearance is more than my undeveloped baby-brain can comprehend. The bright colors and exaggerated shapes of his oversized, multi-colored afro wig, unwieldy shoes, painted face and striped jumpsuit combine to create an image that simultaneously stimulates and blows my infant mind.

TODDLER LIAM

The clown is funny. His jerky movements and elaborate "tricks" fly in the face of my fragile understanding of the way grown up people behave. I laugh at the clown, as much to calm my shaken nerves as out of genuine amusement.

CHILD LIAM

The clown is funny. He lures me in close with the promise of a secret, then sprays me in the face with his trick lapel flower. I am thrilled at being a part of the joke, feeling at least as important to its execution as the clown himself. I just wet myself.

BITTER TEENAGED LIAM

The clown is not funny. I'm going to go smoke cigarettes.

IRONIC TWENTYSOMETHING LIAM

The clown is funny. Clowns are funny. Remember clowns? Remember when you were a kid, and you'd have a clown at your birthday party. That was so great.

POST-IRONIC ADULT LIAM

The clown is funny. More specifically, the man behind the makeup is funny. An adult who has chosen to exist, like a criminal or wolfman, entirely on the fringes of normal society. I refuse to believe that under your makeup, clown, is anything but a clown.

CYNICAL MIDDLE-AGED LIAM

The clown is funny. Or not even the clown, really, so much as the fact that he's sleeping with my neighbor's wife. And it probably doesn't hurt that I'm shitfaced.

BILIOUS ELDERLY LIAM

The clown is funny. This is entertainment the way it used to be, and the way it should be. A grown man dressed in a ridiculous and downright creepy costume, talking to children he doesn't know in a bizarre voice. And balloon animals. I just wet myself.