While soliciting donations toward the 1000th pie in the face expedition, I was asked whether I had documentation for each of the pied faces I’ve been claiming.
Yes and No.
When I pied the first face on April Fool’s of 2007 I never imagined I would be celebrating the 1000th now.
It took a year for things to get rolling. On April Fool’s of 2008 I set out to see just how many I could do in a day by bartering and bundling with other visits. [It was eight.]
Charles Shelan Pied on April Fool’s
My birthday is also in April, so I made pies available to guests at the party. Eleven more faces.
I brought a pie to a family member’s 60th birthday and thought ahead to bring extra whipped topping. Sure enough, FIVE more people agreed to accept pies.
After the birthday pieings
I (almost) always have people sign a waiver, and I (almost) always take a photo.
Problems with the Waivers
Problems with the Photos
I have sometimes had technical difficulties with my camera during a pie-ing.
It was the Fremont Solstice Parade of 2008 where the count got a little blurry. I estimated that I had done 15 pies in 90 minutes for a new personal best. It brought the total to ABOUT ~45. I estimated based on the number of dirty pie pans and empty canisters of whipped topping I had at the end of the parade route.
Let me tell you what qualifies and what does not qualify as a pied face for this count.
What Counts
What Doesn’t Count
I update the count on Twitter as soon as possible after each delivery. It feeds to Facebook. I then switch the count on Jusbytheclown.com.
I returned to Unity of Centralia today to deliver a message about Laughter Yoga and the Sacred Fool. It was full of hysterical stories of historical and prehistorical clown pie rituals. I also quoted liberally from Monica Drake‘s essay “The Clown Continuum” in which she describes getting pied.
I got 8 more willing faces to accept the sacramental pie including one woman whose birthday just so happened to be today.
SURPRISE!
http://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10200758068694049
In March, I came out to Elliot’s 7th birthday to pie his parents. He wasn’t interested in a pie for himself, but his friends lined up.
One of the guests was a boy named Malakie who was VERY into getting pied,
So.. his mother asked me to show up for HIS 7th birthday.
We did 9 willing faces, most of them LARGE pies, including his mom. Current total is ~873, almost a hundred more in less than two months!
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Also that way we can tag, share, & comment to our hearts’ content!
I got a call around 11 AM from California. A mom’s travel plans had fallen through, so she was looking to surprise her son with a pie-in-the-face delivery that evening. She used to plan elaborate theme parties for him, so when he had heard the news he remarked, “You’re not coming? What, no clown either?”.
Quickly google-ing, she found a clown offering “a twist” on traditional birthday clown services: C’est Moi!
Jonathan is turning 23. He’s a senior at Evergreen, my alma mater. He’s the proud father of a 6 week old. I asked him, “Is it too early to ask what you’re doing next?”
“Graduate school,” he answered without hesitation.
His mom originally scheduled me for a 6:30 delivery, but pushed it back until after 7.. which coincidentally had me arrive during the middle of another epic hailstorm.
First of May Intern, “Spontgomery” debuted today for a 3 hour party in rain and hail. He translated, juggled, and documented these 8 faces getting pied.
New Total ~792 Willingly Pied Faces
We arrived on schedule and were told to wait a bit longer, which is hard when you’re in clown and people can see you and want to begin interacting with you, so we unloaded as slowly as we could and began to set up the comprehensive equipment.
We were expected to entertain for a THREE HOUR PARTY, so it included:
A strange man asked if he could hit me in the face, straight on, with a pie. He said he was a clown, pies were his thing.
“Sure!” I emailed back, complete with the seemingly uncontrollable enthusiasm, perhaps a little forced, implied by an exclamation point.
“You’re a good sport, Monica,” he wrote.
His words unnerved me.
When I tell people about the story, I want to talk about the clown. I want to say that Jusby the Clown has a degree from Evergreen State College. A degree! He’s worked to forge “a bridge between Eastern and Western forms of clowning.” He’s interested in “the special healing role of the clown around the world” and “the organic link between the clown and the shaman.”
I want to build his credibility because that builds mine: I didn’t just meet a strange man in a park to let him smear my mascara in his whip cream in front of children. I opened myself up to a spiritual experience.
For the Full Essay Go Here> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/08/13/the-clown-continuum/
Jusby & Juliette partied with Blayke in Rochester last August and returned this year with Sweetpea… and the Photographer was also called Sweet Pea!
http://sweetpeaphotography-kami.blogspot.com/
(c) Sweet Pea Photography
The sheer genius of Chelsea baker!
Here’s the rough draft> How Ridiculous!
The more I look at her finished product, the more I like it. Best investment in indie marketing yet!
I recently jointed the Youth Enrichment Foundation as a Platinum Participating Merchant > You can now buy $100 gift checks through them toward my services. They invited me out to their annual Block Party at the Hawk’s Prairie Home Depot Parking lot. They had 60 vendors and shows every hour on the hour. I took the 2 o’clock spot and also offered to improvise during set changes with some witty banter. Since I was so close to breaking the 500th pie mark I played that up.
Clown campers, Smoothy, Memo & Checked the clowns showed up and helped with the show. We did 15 minutes of Laughter Yoga and then they handled pieing another dozen faces .
I stuck around until after the Kids at Play set. They had about 50 youth singing and dancing selections from Honk, the musical (based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “the Ugly Duckling”). I got it into my head that I would try for a new record of faces pied ALL AT ONCE. I figured that I’d get each kid to hold a mini-pie, and I could run down the line pieing them in a wave.
complete chaos and mass hysteria! They pied each other and then pied me! Oh, well. It guess I had it coming.
Is it more fun to give than receive?
Share your opinion in the comments
Campers also had the chance to do their own make-up or have it done by a counselor. Memo, Smoothy, and Monstro did their own; they’ve been trying different types of make-up each day in the same basic pattern. Mini-Silly had her face done by Miss Kate. Miss Kate did her own and created a new speaking clown, Curley. I recreated Checked’s checker-board face using grease paint instead of water-based face paint.
We reviewed the skills by rotating at 1 minute intervals through 12 stations:
At 1pm we were joined by an Olympia Parks & Recreation Camp and put on a show for them. We concluded by inviting counselors up to supervise several of the stations (stilts, hula hoop, parachute). We replaced the unicycle with the wagon and miniature bicycle.
Silliness wasn’t required – but it certainly was encouraged last week at one South Sound day camp.
Technically, there were only three rules at Clown Camp, according to instructor Justin “Jusby the Clown” Wright.
“Just be safe, just be supportive and just be challenged,” he said.
Cajun Carnival and Direct Auction at Fertile Ground Guest House benefiting the Eco Building Guild…
What’s in the jambalaya, Cajun Jusby? Chi-KUN… VegetaTION… CrustaCEAN
What happened to Amy Winehouse, Cajun Jusby? InebriaTION… RehabilitaTION… IntoxicaTION… ExpiraTION… CremaTION.
What’s this Carnival all about, Cajun Jusby? MissION… RenovaTION… Direct AucTION… DonaTION…
What else can people experience at the Carnival, Cajun Jusby? Zydeco AccorDION… Tell your ForTUNE… juggling CombusTION
Hire Jusby to provide the safe, appropriate, and profoundly memorable surprises at your event in Thurston County, Washington or the greater South Puget Sound region!
Call 360-888-2729 to schedule a visit before the date is booked.
