Late Sunday, city and campus police responded to an armed robbery report adjacent to the local university. One of the suspects fired at an officer during the ensuing foot chase. As a perimeter is being set up, and other agencies are being brought in with tracking dogs and such, some brilliant kid decides to start a rumor of clown sightings on campus. Hysteria ensues.
Police are being pulled away from the actual dangerous situation to ride “suspicious noise” calls, and break up roving bands of collegiate vigilantes armed with baseball bats. At one am on a Monday, the campus chief of police is riding calls and making traffic stops, trying to calm the mayhem. City police are pulled away to Walmart, where folks are irate because they can’t buy ammo for Bozo hunting season in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, 2 of the actual criminal suspects were caught. The third is still at large. There are some unhappy cops in town right now.
I watched a Peter Gunn episode like that this weekend. A fake plot to assassinate the Governor took all the cops in town to the airport, and bad guys robbed a bank on the other side of town.
WTF? “Clowns” is becoming almost synonymous with “terrorists”. This is ridiculous.
Roving bands of vigilantes with baseball bats? Before all of this nonsense is over, someone is going to get hurt, and it likely won’t be a clown doing the hurting.
Damn, I read that as “Hilarity ensues.” I must be the last person in the world not creeped out by clowns. One alone amidst an expansive herd of rodeo bulls.
As I am reading “IT” for the fourth or fifth time, I’ve been trying to come up with a modern analog for the innocent but scary icon. (I mean, before that, it wasn’t such a cliche.) Ultimately, something that parents foist upon children but they detest or are terrified by. I think we are too careful these days, but I’m thinking…instead of the faux-jolly clown, a gentle, psychologically soothing character. Like Mr. Rogers, Barney, DJ Lance Rock, even Bob Ross. I don’t think we have such a common cult/culture anymore. But still, I think the -unexpectedly- scary one for the newest generations would be the quiet, accepting, socially-progressive live-and-let-live type. The typical scary guy would be a zombie, as those have been faddish for quite some time. Combine the two.
Clowns have been scary on their own for at least two generations.
