Transcript: Are You a Showbiz Clown or Monkey?

Or third option: Are you the 60-year-old wearing Supreme?

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.

This is apparently true: Circus monkeys, deep down, are mean.

A former circus clown once told me that a decent circus monkey is only good for about seven or eight years until he decides to retire, which can come at any time – hanging around the other monkeys, in the middle of a show, whenever it occurs to the monkey that he’s had enough of the carnival lifestyle.

No one ever knows when, exactly, a monkey suddenly says to himself, “Okay, had enough” but when he does, here’s what happens:

He begins, I was told, by stopping in the middle of whatever he was doing. The monkey freezes, heaves a tremendous sigh, and then begins to wave his arms slowly in a criss-cross fashion above his head, sort of like a member of the ground crew at an airport. Except instead of guiding your flight to the gate, it’s a gesture of surrender.

It’s also a warning. Because when he monkey stops waving his arms, he attacks.

Yes, attacks. Something inside him snaps, I guess — all those years of silly hats and tiny vests and hopping around for the crowds, the performing and traveling and years in a cage — all of it just wells up in him and the minute he’s done, the minute he says to himself, “yeah, um, not so much of this anymore” the pent-up rage comes pouring out of him in an immediate and frenzied cascade of shrieking violence.

A lot of us can relate to the feeling. But here’s where it gets sad:

The person he attacks, mostly, is the clown on stage with him, the person who more than anyone was his closest human friend, his partner in show business. When the monkey is done, he’s done, and the one who pays the ultimate price is the poor clown who never sees it coming. Loyalty goes out the window.