Random Clown Clips Clowns of the West to Smokey

The first Random Clown Clip is Clown of the West soon to be a Youtube classic, Enjoy. And by the way yes all clown have permits to carry.

The next clip is Tears of Clown by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. This is one of my favorite songs. And no it is not because my clowning has turned me into a bitter and self loathing person. That was my time in Nam. I wasn't in the war just a really bad packet tour of Ho Chi Min City.

Well back to the main point of this little rant. Smokey Robinson is a music Demi God. He should be elected President. No he should be ruler of the world.

Just for the randomness this is a Reggae Band name The English Beat and their version.

Now for even more Randomosity here is BASSIX's version.

And believe it or not this is my favorite remake of this song. Yes you guessed it the Kids Incorporated version.

By the way I play all four of them in a round. Do not do if you have a first grasp on reality. It has been proven to call insanity in normal mortals. Only clowns may try this. Ot it could just crash your computer.

I just couldn't help it. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Working on Books and Funny Stuff

This last week has been super busy. I have decided that I am going to dedicate 20 minutes a day to writing this blog as sort of a diversion. All the other blogs I am involved in have other people that are posting stuff. So I do not feel guilty about them. Guilty is not the right word. As I ramble {like I am now} I feel bad about the people that read this. Perhaps if I ramble less I would feel better about writing this thing. Then I would have to edit and pay attention to what I am writing.

Anyway We had a Production Practice building sets for the show. We took some vids of what we did . Those will be going into the manual project for the clown brigade. I will get into the vid project when I have made a vid.

Anyway there will be stuff from the practice when it makes sense. So it might be a while.

After the practice Walk and I went back to his place and rebuilt his motorcycle shed. This took several hours. Fortunately we had my wife to make fun of us as we messed stuff up.

Anyway this is you basic Rubbermaid shed. I had no idea Rubbermaid made sheds. There are

like 5000 jokes that I could say about the Rubbermaid Shed. That fact that this thing has repeatedly fallen down in several wind storms.

Moving along we used some metal strapping and screwed the thing back together. It only took 20 minutes once we snapped it back together. It took us two hours to hammer the silly thing back together.

Well this is us happy when we finished it up.

On other subjects I have been working on several books. The sci fi book, clown manual and other writing projects. Well I have to go help fix my mother's lawn mower.

Have a good day and keep your stick on the ice.

Random Stuff you learn at 7:00 AM

Long time reader will know that I am a fan of the science fiction. So much of a fan that I am writing my own science fiction.

Being that I could not sleep. You know me I only sleep five or six hours a day. I was playing around in my office. My office as you may or may know is a big pile of stuff in milk crates in the basement of my house. Anyway next week my pile of milk crates is going to be host to the Clown Brigade's Manual Writing Committee. So I figured that I should clean it up. There is even a small chance that I might post pictures of it if I get it looking presentable. Don't hold your breath though.

Anyway there is all sorts of foolishness that goes on in my office. First there are all of my books and a fair amount of yarn. Prized among my books is the beginning of my collection of Leather Bound Books. You know them they are the classic books sold at Boarders make to look old tyme. I firmly believe that you should have a good set of some important books. Spakespeare, Twain you know the books I am talking about. It is one of those things I can leave to my kids. Meaning they will sell them at a yard sale after I amdead.

My library such as it is does not have tenth of the books that I think it should. There are a ton of history books. These center on American, Scottish, English, Ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian. I have recently become enamored with Hawaiian history. So thee are a couple of those popin up.

Of course there are fair number of books on clowning. These cover all the major clowning subjects, magic, juggling, puppetry building funny stuff and oddly enough in my own mind several books on knitting.

There is also the stuff that helps me write the science fiction books (you thought I forgot about that). Dictionaries, Thesauruses, The Elements of Style, Jane's fighting ships and bunches of Legos. Legos you say how are they helpful. Well I do not have the budget of Star War or Star trek. So when I want to build a new ship of star base I can't farm it out to a model building company.

So all in all my office looks like that of an insanely brilliant five year old. Oddly when I started playing around with these stories in middle school I collected a lot of this stuff to help me back then. I still have my first Roget's Thesaurus which was a 1964 version I bought with my own allowance money. My old dictionary finally gave up the ghost. It was a gigantic Funk and Wagnals that was several decades out of date as well. I suppose modern writers use the Internet thing or have their dictionaries on a disk or something. Well I don't have that kind of time to be learning knew things like that.

I thought I was pretty out there as far as things go. I am after all a clown that is called to be a minister and feels he should be able to write books. And I suppose I am a guy who knits quite a bit. It strikes me that some might think I am fairly out there. This is something that I have grown accustom to. So I am really not that bothered by it any more.

I forgot to mention my two black cats that believe my office is their personal domain. I am reminded of this because Abigail is trying to help me type.

Retuning to the subject at hand which has me thinking this AM. And you may not have guessed what this is leading up to but here it is, Fan Fiction.

This has been the subject of some disturbing conversations I have had recently. I will not get into them, still, they were bad.

Well I was taking a break from figuring out why my Robert B. Parker Books are mixed in with juggling books and and books on growing bonsai trees. So I was tooling around the You Tube watching the decline of Western Civilization. I come across something called USS Farragut. I am nothing if not a big fan of our Navy. My Grand Father Stiles was in the Navy during WWII in the pacific. That was back when being in the Navy was really really hard. I am sure it is hard now. Back then we were fighting wars that looked like we were going to loose for a while. I am sure that added to the stress.

I also dislike mines. I don't even play mine sweeper because of my dislike of the mines. Admiral David Farrgut was the one that said, darn the torpedoes full speed ahead. Yes he used stronger language still those were times for stronger language. And the torpedoes he was talking about were actually mines.

So I click on this thing expecting to see a historic naval battle or maybe something on the new Burke Class Destroyer. Lo and behold what do I see but computer generated version of the the Star Trek Enterprise. Someone created a computer generated version of the Enterprise and called it the Farragut. As the clip played on it became apparent a bunch of people had gotten together written a script and made new episode of Star Trek on their own.

I was amazed by this. How can people do that? No what are they thinking. But how do you make up a computer generated star at home. They had sets and all the stuff actors have. How is that possible. It there a feature in media player that I missed? I was feeling proud of myself for throwing together the Yarn N'at Vidcast. Then I find out there are people that make up their own TV shows. I am just blown away. And if any wants to clue me in on how that stuff is done I would be happy.

Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Some Random Visitor Stuff

Bosnia and Herzegovinia stopped by this week. Always nice to be able to add a new flag.

I have been a bit remiss in moving people up the list. The United States has had over ten thousand hit to this blog. That is either really cool or very sad.

Canada and the United Kingdom has also bumped up several hundred.

Good times

The Lucy Dolittle Hat

You have heard me go on and on about the Dolittle scarf. Well what is a scarf without a hat. This is the dolittle hat stretched out. Bellow is a pictue of it tucked up. Which is how it is going to look when it is being worn.

There are still four more ruffled that need to be added so that it matches the scarf.

Well I just wanted to check in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Redoing an Old Blog

With the Brigade doing so well I decided to give the Brigade blog another shot. I made one up last June and we never really used it. With a couple new clown and more people on line we figured to give it another shot.

Well this is the blog The Steel City Clown Brigade. It is where we are going to put up vids of the practices and bits from the shows. We are still playing around with it.

Amoung other things we found a nice little daily devotional type thing. The new blogger draft type thing is kind of neat. They have ways of making the little gizmos on the side bars. My HTML is not what most people's is. Still, I may be able to figure it out. I have no idea what kind of gizmo I might make.

If anyone takes a look at it and has suggestions let me know. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Random Stuff Again

Painting has begun at the Zeeppo House Hold. Every bit of this and that needs to be thrown together for licensing of the Day Care. I am switching the wood work in the kitchen to a light brown. It goes better with the cabinets.

I spent the other half of the day typing composition books into the computer. My typing skills are still not what they once were. Still, I muttle along. I have out intrepid Blue Squadron to Planet 5. This is good because stuff starts blowing up soon.

The Brigade had it's first Sunday practice a couple days ago. Because of everyone work schedule we can only get together mostly on Sunday and Wednesday evenings. Wednesday practice are cut short while youth programs are going on during the year. In the Summer we can start earlier and go a couple hours. This is good because it looks as if we are going to be busy this summer. Any way on the Sunday we were able to go for three hours without interruption. We go a ton of stuff done. We have the script in the bag and just have a couple props to make. We have even decided to build an actual set for the Spring Campaign. All and all things are looking up on the clown front. We are even thinking of using the blog that we were playing around with last year.

And on a Random note why haven't they made a sequel to the Will Smith Kevin Kline Movie Wild Wild West. Horse and Giant spiders, that was a great shoot them up movies. I suppose I should look it up on the internet to see what they are doing about it.

Well just wanted to check in Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Spring Campaign and Sci Fi & other random Army stuff

It has been a busy week. I have been working on the book and the script for the Spring Campaign for the Clown Brigade.

Starting off with the sci fi book that now has a name. I have decided to call it The Salvation Navy. I have also finished enough of it that I have a clear idea of what it is going to be and the plot is set. And being that I am such a patient person I am going to stick the first chunk of it on the internet when I have it finished. My editing being what it is that will probably be sometime the beginning of next month.

For those that don't know I have a rather antiquated writing style. I write everything down in composition book before I put on the computer. That is everything except for this blog. If I did it might more coherent, but I digress. Anyway the first several chapters of the book are in a collection of red composition books. They only need typed in. Which is the major part of my editing process. By typing the stuff I have already written I find nearly two thirds of the mistakes. The rest of them have to be hunted down by my long suffering wife.

There is some sort of way to publish thing thing on the internet. After i get this stuff shaped up I will figure that out and put the old thing out there.

Anyway I feel comfortable enough about the book that I can talk about it on the old blog thing. This book was the original short story where John Jefferson met Katherine Mason in an effort to save an enslaved planet from their overlords. Jefferson was the husband of an ex Salvation Army Officer and Mason was a Salvation Army officer from the future. They saved the day and everyone's souls was saved.

I wrote it for a high school writing assignment and got a B on it. As I recall it was a b because of my terrible spelling and grammar. That is why I have the convoluted way of doing things now. If I make any money off it I might higher someone to type the next one. And I would like to apologies to that poor soul in advanced. Perhapses, I should just dictate it.

Anyway that story was foolish rah rah rah stuff. There were good guys and bad guys and the United States Navy carried the day. It was less complex than a war flic written by the Pentagon. Still, I like the basic idea of the time line. Mason was a Salvation Army officer from the future trying to protect the time line. The original story was mainly from her point of view.

She came back in time to a point where the United States Navy happened upon a bleeding planet for the evil Followers of Vral {Vral is an alien God of War if you are keeping score at home}. The Navy does battle with these naredowells and save the oppressed alien slave. In later stories this planet and the aliens join the United States.

The story is set a hundred and fifty or so years in the future. The Christian Church and general is on it's keister. The Human planet have be the victims of unspecified religious wars that have turned people away from God. The idea of long drawn out wars against religious ideologies sounded silly at the time. The Salvation Army in Jefferson's time also seamed improbable. Jefferson's Salvation Army was slowly turning away from God. The whole idea sounded a bit out at the time. Oddly the events of the last seven year make me think that kind of future might be possible.

Anyway I gave up on this for a good long while. I liked the character of Mason so i wrote about her time. What happened in Jefferson's time became the historic foot notes of Mason's time. I did finish off a couple books on Mason. I like them but none of them are ready to be published. Last year a started on a book that would have been the back story for how the time that Mason lived in what created. It was going to straiten out the story from Jefferson's time and reconcile it with the present day. Oddly current events played in the fictitious time line that I have set out. After three chapters of an uninspired tome that narrated how thing came about I gave up.

So at Christmas time i just decided to write the series of stories that revolved around the Five Planet. I kept the main plot line but threw out many of the details and gave people the depth that Mason's stories have.

In the current version we get into why the church is messed up and why there are slaves. We also give the Crel {they are the enslaved people} some background in interaction with Humanity before this fateful event. There are a hand full of Crel Freedom Fights that have been fighting the good fight for centuries. The Crel in bondage have an idea that some of them are free and all they know of Humanity are some smuggled movies and Bibles.

When the initial planet is freed the Crel expect to join their Christian Brothers ans sisters in freedom. They are horrified to find out that the fleet that liberated them is indifferent to God for the most part. The notable exceptions are Commodore John Jefferson his wife Lt. Evangeline Jefferson {she is one of the Last Chaplain in the U.S. Navy} and his father in law James Booth.

Mason is no longer the center of the story and she is mostly a mystery. She shows just in time defend Jefferson's fleet from a group of Polytheistic time travelers. For the first book she is his defense against these unnamed evil doers.

For those army folks out there you will note that Booth is the name of the founder of The Salvation Army. James Booth is intentionally given that name. He is descendant of the founder through Ballington Booth. He is part of a branch of the family that rejoins the Army some time in the future.

In this book The Salvation Army going through unspecified bad times that are distracting it from it ordained purpose. At the beginning of the story Senator Stone approaches the General of The Salvation Army. He asks his to send missionaries to the slave planet that he knows will soon be liberated. The General refuses to get involved.

Senator Stone has been fighting the Followers of Vral for hundred of years. He himself is over eight hundred years og age. He has lived through the reformation and the entire history of The United States. He is some impressed with Humanity that he takes a Human name and later bases his nation on the United States. For centuries he maintained his fleet on a secret base on Oahu near under the modern Naval Station Pearl Harbor. In his time on Earth he chooses to know some of the most influential Humans in history.

The rest of the Universe is dominated by polytheistic Empires. Free thinkers and being that beleive in equal rights for all are outcast or hunted. Stone uses his time on Earth to learn what a nation should be an teaches his follower the best of everything Humanity has to offer. In government he comes to believe this is the United States. In religion he comes to believe The Salvation Army is closest thing to a church that Christ would have wanted.

Senator stone has formed a government in exile that is based on the United States government. He also command a powerful fleet the Navy needs to help hold these planets. He is outraged that Army wants nothing to do with his people in need. He also knows that his people need a proper missionary. He tells the Navy that he will only join the fight if they send a proper missionary team to help his people.

The United States desperately needs to capture The Five Crel slave breeding worlds. So they dispatch Jefferson and his wife and the Blue Squadron of the Second Exploratory Fleet. They stumble on the Vral advanced guard and presto The United States has a war of liberation.

With the main fleet the Navy sends James Booth who is a retired Salvation Army. James Booth knows that is he takes up this mission he will be thrown out his church like his daugher and son and law were six years before. As a younger man he was a Lt. Commander who served as a Marine Corps Chaplain for a couple decade of the unpopular religious war. For political reason they make his a Marine Corps General and the defecto Ambassador to the worlds they wish to acquire. He object but takes the posting.

And that is the first ten pages of the story. I also blow up some stuff, it is science fiction after all.

On other fronts was have chosen the scripture for the Spring campaign. It is Mathew 20:17, the faith of a mustard seed one. Actually Walt picked it out. Last Thursday he and I sketched out most of the stage show. At least the broad strokes. I have them types up and ready for out meeting later today. Good grief it is 4:30 in the morning. I really need to think about sleeping sometime this week. Well I will sleep good tonight.

Anyway what we have so far is a good solid stage show. It should stand up nicely. I would like to thank Walt for his time on Thursday. A great deal was accomplished.

Bellow are some random videos. Yahoo has fixed up their video site nicely. I even through in Bubley for you Walt. Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Random Stuff

I finally have figured out how to get a good copy of the vidcast. It is still a bit rough and will probably take a couple more episodes to get it close to right.

I spent the day out at Presbyterian Hospital. Nothing major just hanging out at a hospital. I am begining to like hospitals. Lord help me I like the food and the enviroment. Oh Well what can one do.

I did miss the South Hill group again tonight. Well what can be done. The men's nights at Natural Stitches are now every other week. So I should be able to be there next time. Good Times

Just checking in Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Next Episode.

Finished taping another Yarn n'at. It is even better than the first one. It should take me a couple days to put togeher the video thing.

This edition will have a yarn review, news and an interview. Good times. I threw it together this evgening and it is saving as I type this entry. It takes an hour to save the thing and then even longer to upload the thing. If all goes well it will be up on the Vid Cast Blog wednesday.

We had a great time at Ravelry Night. And the Dolittle hat crawls along at a super slow rate.

I will keep you all posted. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.