#275: Gazpacho Borracho

Gazpacho wasn’t always a bad clown. He came from a long line of successful clowns, and clowning was in his blood. He was once a member of the famed Estrouberry Troop in the Circus Atayde, the world’s oldest traveling circus, until Mexico banned the use of animals in live performances and the circus was closed. He ended up back in San Diego as a sidekick on a kids’ morning show for a while, but was fired for his outspoken political views, which the producers didn’t think were consistent with their brand. He sat for an entire day in a Starbucks thinking about giving up on clowning altogether. He had an undergrad degree in mechanical engineering after all, and was only three credits short of a minor in philosophy. But after seven or eight Americanos and several blueberry muffins, a fully-formed worldview just came to him. Just like that, like it fell out of the sky. Clowning was not the problem. Clowning was the solution.  Being a clown was more than a metaphor for the human condition.  It was the ideal human condition. So he ran for Mayor on a Transhumanist Party ticket, preaching his philosophy that mankind should merge with technology for the purpose of eliminating its baser instincts and preventing age-related loss of innocence. In this way, humans could return to their natural state and end this eternal suffering. The Democrat incumbent derided his “plan for a race of Super Clowns” in a debate that aired on public access TV. Lenny had picked up a few points in the polls from fringe supporters who thought the whole thing was funny, but ultimately he lost in the greatest landslide in San Diego mayoral electoral history. And he stopped being funny. He couldnt find steady work. He was still able to book a few gigs at birthday parties, but word began to spread about the crazy clown with the wacky political views. He wrote several op-eds for the San Diego Union-Tribune about Clown Transhumanism, which they declined to publish. His erratic behavior, including his steet corner lectures in full clown costume, became worrisome to authorities, who detained him several times as a public nuisance. He began to drink. He never broke character, wandering from watering hole to watering hole in his wig and sagging pants and oversized shoes, which led, inevitably to fights he didn’t necessarily initiate. That is, the only thing he initiated was a conversation about the soul-healing benefits of clown philosophy, which was not, as a mater of course, met with a reciprocal enthusiasm. After enough of these altercations, the SDPD gave his clown name a nickname and began to call him “Gazpacho Borracho”. One day, in the drunk tank, he awoke to find a cellmate named Jin who’d been picked up for overdue parking tickets. Jin taught him the ways of the Buddha. Lenny had never been religious, but Jin’s spirituality was appealing to him in a distantly familiar way, and the Buddha himself seemed to him a kindred soul, and soon Lenny began to see a more constructive worldview that addressed the goals of his Transhumanist Clown agenda without all the technological intervention, or the eyerolling.  So when Lenny got out, he sobered up, emptied what remained of his bank account and set off on a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, where he spent two sweltering weeks deep in mediation, until he collapsed from dehydration and was taken into a nearby monastery and nursed back to health with ginseng and green tea. And that is where he remains to this day. This was three weeks ago, so I mean he’s probably still there.