Clown Artist Philosopher

Clown Artist Philosopher

The ocean years

I was given the most remarkable childhood. My Dad was drawn to Australia by the prospect of owning a sailing boat. This led to him becoming a lighthouse keeper. I spent a portion of my childhood growing up on little islands off the coast of South Australia. Althorpes was a cliff in the ocean with a white lighthouse. We got our supplies bought to us by boat and had to winch them up from the jetty by flying-fox. Then came Troubridge, a patch of sand with a red and white lighthouse. I did my first year of schooling here by school of the air. Santa gave me zap gun that sent out sparks and sounds when up pulled the mechanical trigger at a party for School of the Air kids in the Flinders Rangers.

But there was no future in the lighthouse service as it was being automated, the era of lighthouse keepers was coming to an end. So we headed to Whella where we got a boat called the Jabberwocky. I learned a lot of valuable life lessons in that boat: how to triangulate my location on a map, how to use a rudder with a compass, how to row a dingy. And spiritual lessons like realising my own mortality: it was rough wether and Mum & Dad insisted me and my sister attach our harnesses to the hull of the boat, we protest. But then I see the power of the waves, they could knock me overboard so easily, Mum & Dad couldn’t rescue me in that storm.  I was a strong swimmer but I couldn’t swim that far even in good weather. Would I drown first, or would the sharks get me first? The reality of how fragile my life is; no reason or not doing this – but a good reason to shackle myself to the boat.

California dreaming

Then came California – WOW! We had so much more money and so much more to spend it on. things were pretty basic in Australia at that time and California was so modern. Restaurants, icecream bars, theme parks, better schools, better houses, better cars. We saw snow for the first time, saw the Space Shuttle land, went to Disney Land and saw places in our neighbourhood on the TV shows. We were so happy being white privileged middle-class Americans. But something went wrong with the immigration and we were in Alice Springs. That was a tough move; I did my twelfth birthday in Los Angeles thinking “next year I’ll be a teenager in California, the best place in the world to be a teenager” then I was celebrating my thirteenth birthday in Alice Springs, the middle of bloody nowhere, no shops and hanging with the black fellas across the Tod River! Finally it was to Darwin to experience the tropics. The idea of the tropics seemed so exotic coming from temperate climates up until this date. “I wish they all could be California girls.” Reminded me of the dances in the schools and the pretty girl friend I left behind. That made for some rough teen anxt.

An extraordinary childhood with lots of great life lessons, ups and downs, thrills and spills good times and bad.

Clown

I did my first clown gig in class for a Gong Show afternoon in California in 1983 in California. An escape artist that gets all tied up then can’t escape and gets dragged off stage. I get onto the debating team in high school and get a feel for having an audience: the kick of: having their attention, controlling their energy and the exchange of energy between the audience and myself. I got a particularly good Drama teacher in year 11 and threw myself into every opportunity to perform. I won an Eisteddfod for presenting an Australian Poem. I got myself a radio show at the local community radio station, where we produced skits inspired by: The Goons, Monty Python and Douglas Addams. Later I joined an amateur theatre company and did lighting. Finally, after my first psych hospital visit where I was assured there was no supernatural force forcing me to work in trades, I registered Klutz the Troppo Juggler in Darwin on April first 1998, I managed it so it was Aquarius rising.

I did parties, festivals, public events and busking around South East  Queensland and Darwin until 2005 when a circus turned up and asked me to join. Regular gigs and a life on the road appealed to me so I was a genuine circus clown for over a decade. Until 20017 when the ring master sold his tent and moved back into his house to get into local politics. He has had a life dealing with clowns and monkies so he is right at home in Queensland country politics.

It dosn’t look like any other circus is going to hire me and I’m just too crazy to go out at it alone. I can’t convince John to sell the line up I have at the price I want. There just isn’t enough money in busking to make it worth the risk. Now I don’t have the overwhelmingly powerful urge to get drunk; entertaining drunks seems much less attractive. I did have three years of fun with busking in Darwin and The Valley Mall – but I think it is time to put the clown behind me and  go for something more gospel.

Philosopher

I was bought up an atheist “religion in the opium of the masses” my Dad would maintain. “The church has been keeping the working class in there place for generations.” I believed there was a God but was happy with “the answer to life the universe and everything is forty-two” Then I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and my philosophical mind was opened. My philosophical journey needed to be part of a geographical journey, so on to London then StIves, a coastal South Cornish village with a vibrant modern arts scene. I had a summer of love immersed in modern art. I worked out post modernism and got to tell the artist exactly what I thought of it.
Then came sex, drugs and philosophy in Bristol. I did A levels in philosophy, English literature and performance art. I really got into Plato’s Republic and Descartes Meditations. It was like being in The Matrix after reading Descartes. I developed a morbid need to understand Nietzsche.

I continued to read and discuss philosophy, keeping a philosophy blog: The Rants of Yogi Rasputin.

Then I joined a Christian cult that liked to sober up criminals and homeless people. While living and working in ministry I enrolled in a batchelor of Liberal Arts at Christian Heritage College. The Milis Institute was dedicated to all that is good, beautiful and true. It was a fellowship of students and academics – joined in the pursuit of wisdom through study of the Western Cannon. A line of books that go back to the early Bible and Homer. The founding wisdom of our wondrous Western Liberal Democracy. Hard going books that question basic assumptions and examine the principles that guide our moral code and how we understand the world around us. This makes for great leaders. There i learnd about the ancient Greek ideal of a life of leisure, a life free from the burdon of labouring and dedicated to self improvement. I studied part time for five years and got a diploma in the Foundations of Wisdom and about a third of a degree.

Artist

I was bought up to believe in the value of working hard in a good reliable working class job. My teachers and other adults in my life said I should pursue the arts. I had got good grades for my art all through school and was showing a lot of promise in public speaking. But Mum didn’t believe in the arts – in the same way people don’t believe in the tooth fairy. And my Dad maintained the arts was strictly the realm of the middle-class. If I got a middle-class education they wouldn’t give be a middle-class job after because I was working-class; that’s the class system. I was thinking arts was a good hobby, but a lousy way to earn a living. I wanted something I could rely on for money. No trade – no  job, no job – no money, no money – you don’t go anywhere or do anything – you just sit at home doing artwork no one cares about. I waisted eight years trying to make it in trades: chef, baker, production line worker and TV antenna installer; it didn’t do me any good.
In 1993 I quit my ten hours a day six seven days a week job working on rooves in tropical heat. To walk away from my parents view of the world and follow everyone else’s advice and try to make sense of the arts. I set out to learn a good reliable trade because I didn’t want to do the struggling artist thing. But found I had to do the struggling artist thing but with the thought I wouldn’t be struggling nearly so much if I had just started out there in high-school.
If I had followed the passion of my childhood I would have became an Engineer. If I had followed the passions of my youth I would have become an entertainer. But I followed my parents ideal of a good reliable working-class job – as a result I get the pension. Don’t make my mistake, if you have a passion pursue it. There are plenty of good reliable workers, people of inspired passion are hard to come by. Go for you’re passion while you’re young, you can always settle on a regular job after you’ve had the education of pursuing something that inspires you.

Author

I have just published my first novel:
A Fool’s Errand – A tough nut’s guide to roughing it in Australia, by Tommy Alan Robinson. It is a story that would appeal to Christians and others that believe in miracles of recovery and people that deal with mental health issues. It should be compulsory reading for mental health workers. It has been an exciting journey getting to this point. I have been writing short peaces for years and started on this novel in 20022. I am waiting for the filal proof to come off the press the final work can be ordered from The Xlibris Bookstore.