Rodeo Clown Quotes

I didn’t really know who I was, but improv had taught me that I could be anyone. I didn’t have to wait to be cast—I could give myself the part. I could be an old man or a teenage babysitter or a rodeo clown. In three short years Chicago had taught me that I could decide who I was. My only job was to surround myself with people who respected and supported that choice. Being foolish was the smartest thing to do.

Zach glanced out the window to what had to be the quietest town he’d ever been in. “Big gang problem around here? Lots of cow jacking?” “We have all sorts pass through our little town, thank you very much. Bikers. Cowboys. The always dangerous rodeo clowns.” “Rodeo clowns?” “Don’t ask.” Zach shrugged. “I don’t want to know.” “Any other condescending questions about my town?” “Oh, I’m not being condescending. I’m very interested in your tiny little town, with its tiny little people. I bet you guys even have a movie theater.” Sara barked out a laugh. “You certainly are a charmer.

...heaven wouldn’t be like this earth, this tormented earth ruled by evil forces that tossed humanity to and fro like a slow clown in a two-bit rodeo.

As you are surely aware, our planet is turning on its axis around and around in space. It turns slowly, however, making one complete rotation only every twenty-four hours; and that's a good thing -- isn't it? -- because if our world turned as fast as Gracie's room appeared to be turning, the sun would be either rising or setting every fifteen minutes, astronomers would be as woozy as rodeo clowns, and it'd be nearly impossible to keep our meatballs from rolling out of our spaghetti.

An acting teacher friend of mine readies her students for auditions by telling them to imagine placing all the techniques and tools they’ve acquired into a barrel, and put it on like rodeo clowns do. Not to be glanced at or checked on anxiously, but to be with you and at the ready when the audition demands.

Fuck hope and all the tiny little towns, one-horse towns, the one-stoplight towns, three-bars country-music jukebox-magic parquet-towns, pressure-cooker pot-roast frozen-peas bad-coffee married-heterosexual towns, crying-kids-in-the-Oldsmobile-beat-your-kid-in the-Thriftway-aisles towns, one-bank one-service-station Greyhound-Bus-stop-at-the-Pepsi-Cafe towns, two-television towns, Miracle Mile towns, Viv's Double Wide Beauty Salon towns, schizophrenic-mother towns, buy-yourself-a-handgun towns, sister-suicide towns, only-Injun's-a-dead-Injun towns, Catholic-Protestant-Mormon-Baptist religious-right five-churches Republican-trickle-down-to-poverty family-values sexual-abuse pro-life creation-theory NRA towns, nervous-mother rodeo-clown-father those little-town-blues towns.

question. “Because girls weren’t allowed to compete in bull riding. But I did goat tying, and I was a heeler and breakaway roper, too.” Mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “And she was a rodeo clown. You know, the ones who protect the riders from the bulls.” Gordon, one of the bull riders on the rodeo team at Tech—a guy who was a real mentor and friend to me—had been gored by a bull and died when I was a sophomore. It hit me harder than anything had in my life since my dad left. Gordon was the reason I had taken up

NOW CAME OUR INTRODUCTION to Smiley, former rodeo clown, whose name outside the costume might as well have been Cranky as Hell.

Oh, Talbot,” Tracy said, falling welcomingly into my arms. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, burying her face into my shoulder. “There’s always the rodeo,” I told her. It was the first thing that came to my mind. She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at me. “You rarely think before you speak, don’t you?” “What? I think I’d be great, those guys that get in the barrel and everything.” “You know those are rodeo clowns, right?” she was telling me. “Clowns? I hate clowns. They are the root of all evil in this world,” I answered. “You honestly believe that, don’t you?” Tracy said. “There are zombies and vampires roaming this world, but clowns rule as the supreme evil being in your world.

Improvisation and sketch comedy let me choose who I wanted to be. I didn’t audition to play the sexy girl, I just played her. I got to cast myself. I cast myself as sexy girls, old men, rock stars, millionaire perverts, and rodeo clowns. I played werewolves and Italian prostitutes and bitchy cheerleaders. I was never too this or not enough that. Every week on SNL I had the opportunity to write whatever I wanted. And then I was allowed to read it! And people had to listen! And once in a blue moon it got on TV! And maybe five times it was something really good. Writing gave me an incredible amount of power, and my currency became what I wrote and said and did. If you write a scene for yourself you can say in the stage directions, “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD ENTERS THE BAR AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN TURN THEIR HEADS.

caricaturists and rodeo clowns be included in that special group of gifted performers?

Have you decided on your major?” “I want to be a rodeo clown.” He just looks at me. “How about underwater basket weaving? Is that a thing?

Red and Billy Don stopped first at their favorite hub of social activity in Johnson City—the feed store. “Don’t steal anything,” Red said as he opened the glass door. “Why do you always say that?” Billy Don asked. “Because it’s what my daddy used to say to me, wherever we went. It’s funny.” Red’s father had been a rodeo clown, and his sense of humor had been every bit as subtle as a big red nose.

In his book Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary, scholar Dennis Childs describes the scene of the rodeo: In the first event, a clown places a card table in the middle of the six-thousand-person rodeo arena, around which four prisoners sit and pretend to play a game of cards. A modest monetary prize is awarded to the man who remains seated the longest as a bull attempts to [gore] all four contestants. For the second event, a large number of stripe-clad men attempt to remove a poker chip tied between the horns of a bull. Prisoners are regularly tossed over twenty feet in the air by the two-thousand-pound animals. They also routinely suffer from broken bones, deep lacerations, and concussions as a result of this spectacle. One prisoner is known to have ultimately died from a heart attack resulting from his participation in one of the events.

Every time I look over, she escalates. When she sees me looking at them making out hardcore, she bends him over, spanks him with all her might then leaps onto his back like a rodeo clown. At this rate, she’s either going to take his virginity or his life.

If you ever see a clown somewhere other than at a circus, rodeo, or party, then either run away or kill it immediately.

All Brewton belonged to them. Crump wanted to stay around and cash in on that fact but Santo talked him into driving him and Mary Tate and Craig back to Birmingham. Willy, Ruben and Pi did stay. The last Craig saw of them they each had a gin and tonic in hand and were chatting to interested little groups of Brewtonites. This was at Seymour Hanes's barbecue after the rodeo, in honor of Santo-Crump. 'Stay hungry,' Santo told Willy as they were leaving. Willy was unhurt except for a bruised tail and a few glamorous abrasions on his face, but he looked like a different man. The clown had told Santo at the rodeo that Willy had wedged his hand under the rope with the left-hand glove. 'I love you,' he told Santo. 'Hang in there,' Santo said and poked at his belly. 'Peace,' said Pi. Ruben smiled. They took ten slabs of barbecue ribs in a sack and ate them in the car. When Mary Tate finished hers she leaned against Craig, tucked her legs under her and put her left hand up high on his leg. Her face was flushed and beautiful. 'I loved you today, Swamp. You had fun, didn't you?' Craig's head was already beginning to buzz. His thoughts were going soft and he wanted to sleep. She kissed him slowly and quietly and he saw a thought distract her, saw it ripple over her eyes. 'How come that boy said he loved you, baby?' she asked Santo. 'Huh? Oh. He didn't mean me exactly,' Santo said and went back to talking rodeo with Shorty Crump.