I was riding home for dinner tonight and this old guy laughs and goes, “when you’re good, you’re good!” I thanked him and then further up the hill there were these two punks. One of them goes, “You should be a clown,” and laughs at me. I said, “so should you.” He stopped instantly and got offended; “You making fun a my face?” And his friend, who I think I’ve talked with before, reprimanded him. Mostly the kids around here are pretty cool. I usually wish my uni was smaller so I could let them try it.
Anyway, I’m normally pretty quick witted around friends, but when someone yells “where’s your other wheel,” I am always so confused or worried that I’ll botch the comeback that I usually say nothing at all. “The other unicycle’s on my training wheel! … I mean…uh…”
-g
Ya know apart from cartoons I’ve never seen a clown on a unicycle, funny bikes yes but unicycles never. Am I alone on this one?
Anyway, this may be the start of a witty comeback future for you gauss, there’s been plenty posted here of which hardly any I can remember at the appropriate time (not that anyone speaks to me, why?).
Gary
i picked one response per comment and am sticking with them
that way i don’t get too confused when it comes time to appear quick witted
(‘i started on a tricycle’, and ‘this IS the other wheel’ being the responses of choice at the mo’)
can’t say i’ve seen a clown on a uni with the exception of a friend from nelspruit i got into uni’ing
he wears a medieval jester outfit and paints his face so by the widest of definitions, i guess he counts as a clown
once again we face the dichotomy of reality vs perception of reality
if we happen to have a circus historian on this forum, it would be interesting to find out if any clowns have used unis in their act and why this perception became so fixed
my guess is that we wont start seeing the end of it untill muni is recognised as (at least) an olympic demonstration sport
We’ve seen them…only thing is that the clowns were my boys and their friends, Will and Aaron. Check out our Yahoo gallery http://photos.yahoo.com/yoopers98 under “My Photo Album”. The boys have performed several times now as clowns on their unicycles and have another performance this Saturday for a Circus-themed birthday party.
Bruce
I don’t mean to be overly negative on this point, but I suspect it will be a lot longer than that. It does not seem to me that since Ballroom dancing has made Olympic status that the general impression of it has changed that much. Nor has the public view of acro-gymnastics (or whatever it is called when you do tumbling with those props) as the lesser cousin of “real” gymnastics been altered that much.
And if I may be even more controversial, I think the Olympics includes too many sports already. Sports included in these games, in my opinion, should be limited to those that demonstrate universally performed exhibitions of speed, strength, and agility.
I don’t argue that unicycling doesn’t demonstrate them, but that there are already more common sports that do. Track & field, bicycling, weight lifting, gynmastics, skiing, etc are done the world around by millions of people who can relate to them. Unicycling is and likely always will be (otherwise we’d lose so many like UniDak) a fringe sport. Unicycling should have it’s own local and global events, perhaps even combined with other types of sports (formally I mean), e.g. mountain biking, etc.
My two cents. (Please only throw fresh fruit!)
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
for your unicyclig vs ballroom dancing analogy to work, comparable levels of awareness of the two pursuits must be present
i believe they are not and only some form of ‘mainstream’ exposure will allow more people to realise that it is not a clown machine
i dont want to reopen the whole ‘will increased popularity be good for unicycling’ discussion here
i would like to see the public awareness increase and the perceptions change
Yeah
When i started uniing, i made a promise to myself. That promise was that i will never be a clown, or stand to be called one. Just because im on one wheel, that doesnt mean im a clown. I have no offense at clowns, im just not that type. I might learn to juggle though, but i will NEVER be a clown.
scott
As some of you may know my stance on clowns already I’ll save the time on the soapbox for something else.
But as I said before I have worked to hard to be a clown. I am an atleate and wish to be respected as one.
And I think your right Gary I dont think I have ever seen a clown on a unicycle other than in cartoons and in Bruce’s pix.
Chex
SHIELD YOUR EYES!
Warning: Avert your eyes if you wish to be able to continue to make the above claim.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: SHIELD YOUR EYES!
And this one:
would love to see the guy at the bottom ride up to the wall in the backround and do some hideously difficult trially kinda stuff, mimmicked by the monkey
could break down some floating preconceptions
Ok, here is some, perhaps, really bizaare logic, but go with me on this one.
Think of the fight against unicycling clowns as the “drug war” and think of the above clown as a peasant farmer in Colombia growing coca. He knows that there’s a demand for his product and no matter what anybody tells him he knows that he’s going to do better than growing anything else.
This clown knows that he is going to make a living unicycling as such. We don’t have any idea what he thinks about what he’s doing, but he knows he can make a living at it.
We could outlaw clowns riding unicycles, but sure as you know what, speakeasies are going to pop up in basements where clowns will, in defiance of the law, appear riding unicycles.
The DEMAND is there. If you want to change the perceptions you will be beating your head bloody against a wall to try to go after the supply.
Now, I know Dave, you just expressed an off hand wish. But if you really want to change perceptions no amount of clown bashing will accomplish this. You must go to the root of the matter and offer the entertainment consumer, in this case more likely the entertainment consumer’s children, an alternative.
But remember, while you’re at it, your actions could have a profound effect on the entertainment industry’s economy. You better first put in place at least job training programs for out of work unicycling clowns; state funded MUni and trials training, for example. Also probably subsidies for trials parks and set asides in National Parks for MUni. And don’t forget about all the polka-dotted garment manufacturers; their interests must be accounted for as well.
And so it goes.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ