Clown College

When I was first getting into magic, and desperately looking for audiences to perform to, I spent six weeks conversing with a guy in the south of England.

He almost had me convinced to travel down to spend a few days with him, learning how to be a clown, and learning how to perform for families.

I was almost completely signed up. I was prepared to go to him, spend a huge amount of money and then travel home and work as a professional clown, under the name he gave me. This was before I had a car of my own too, so I would have been travelling to gigs, in full clown costume, on trains and buses. Oh, and he would've taken 25% of my fee for each show.

And I thought this was fine. Because I didn't know any other way.

Luckily, because I had been cutting my teeth with card tricks and the like, in pubs, to real people, someone eventually asked me to perform at their wedding, and the very next night, someone asked me to do a show for their nephew's birthday party. These two separate requests came almost together, and both just in time to stop me from clowning around. Who knows, I might still be stuck doing that, if I never learned otherwise 🤡

I didn't want to be a clown, but at that time it seemed like my only option.

So as easy as it is to get excited about something, or thinking that this is my only option, take a minute. Pause. Look around. And then decide what path to take.

Don't be a clown (unless that's what you want).