Bozo's Lament

By now you no doubt realize that a new series occupies what was Met's Song of the Week slot. I realized that Wednesday was the only day without a post, and since Elphaba is preoccupied with her precious fanfiction I thought I could use it. Ever since I wrote Octopus, I thought I should do a story to accompany all of Coulton's songs (With a few exceptions. I can't see myself writing anything for a certain song detailing celabratory illicit activity in May). My hopes are that Met will continue his hiatus until the day God stops dreaming. Then I can place these stories on Saturday, where they belong.

Bozo's Lament would be the first song of Coulton's I ever heard, but for Still Alive which led me to the artist. I always thought it was one of his better works, because it shows the side of clowns we never see. I wanted to give Bozo a story, built on JoCo's framework, and inspired by Len's drawing. What I had was a clown, who smokes, and who dreams of a dead human cannonball every night. He gets pie in his face five days a work week, which makes him angry. The most important information - that which I could not forget - was that it sucks to be a clown. I began with his waking. The choice to make it first person seemed obvious, as it is Bozo who is lamenting. I decided he would be hungover because he would try to drink the pie away. It was about at this point I found profanities sneaking into the story. I was shocked at my finger's betrayal. a rather pleasant site is not a place where profanity belongs in the posts (in the comments I couldn't care less (Only idiots say could care less)). I edited all out when I was finished, and the narrative was actually diminished. I now realize that Bozo wrote the tale, through me, the way he speaks, and that is in the manner of a disgruntled circus employee. It's common knowledge that disgruntled circus employees use obscenities with shocking regularity. But I digress.

I realized, as I neared the conclusion of the first or second paragraph, that I wouldn't be able to work in the dream. I needed to add a new starting paragraph. I tried to make it real, until Artur's flight, so that the realization of the dream melded into the waking. My challenge was communicating how Bozo dislikes this repetitive dream, so that I could end the paragraph with the phrase It sucks to be a clown. Every paragraph ends this way. It is key. Regardless, my next task was to explain why he dislikes the pie with such intensity. It seemed obvious. He worked so hard on his appearance only to be ridiculed. The lion tamers were twins because there had to be two to laugh at Bozo, and twins usually come in groups of two. Here, too, I try to show his smoking habits. He smokes an entire cigarette between the trailer and the tamers. He has a gift.

I had to work in the first verse of the song somehow; Bozo needed a past. Thus I made it part of his final look back. The tenses were messy near the end, and they still irk me. Nonetheless, I think Bozo needed to answer Arthur's question, and this was the way he would. I just think I may have gotten the question wrong, and it may have been about Arthur himself. He may have asked "Do I fly or do I fall?"

Every Saturday I take off my nose and say "Nevermore!" Pie in my face. Five days a work week it's in my face. Pie in my face. It sucks to be a clown.