Am I just a clown?

Years ago, my wife asked me a question that I didn't fully understand until I was asking the same thing of myself on a stage in New Orleans.

DeeDee and I have been really silly with each other ever since we met as teenagers at church camp, and to this day, it’s a really important part of our relationship and family life with our growing, school-aged boys. 

One night a couple years ago, she was being especially goofy. I don’t remember exactly what she was doing, but she turned around mid-bit and said, half-serious, "Am I just a clown?" It wasn't really a question for me, though… it was more of a kind of existential introspection  about whether she was doing anything that mattered, or was just there to entertain. It was one of those serious beats that becomes hilarious a second later, but comes back to you later. We laughed it off, talked a little about the value of laughter, and moved on.

New Orleans, baby

Some years later, I was asking the same question about myself. I was in New Orleans with some of my closest friends, celebrating a couple of birthdays that called for special recognition.

After an incredible dinner, we ended up at a club on Frenchman Street where the house band was playing some solid New Orleans funk, the players clearly enjoying their regular gig. The place was full of revelers… tourists, bachelorette parties, a few locals, even. Everyone was there to laissez les bons temps rouler.

And the four of us were just kind of standing around, nursing beers. None of us were looking to meet anyone. None of us needed the night to change our lives. We were just out to have fun, but it was like we’d forgotten how.

For four older guys in a room full of strangers, fun is harder to come by than it sounds. You're not going to find it in the crowd. The band can be fun. Sometimes that's enough. But sometimes you want an extra spark and there's nowhere obvious to get it. But then the band announced a dance contest.

I don't think you're ready for this jelly

As soon as they said it, I knew. I was a little hesitant. The first contestant was a young woman who got up and twerked to the band's instrumental of "Single Ladies." The crowd went off. Then another woman, similar energy. Then a third — in a yellow tube top — who was, frankly, what everyone in a New Orleans club wants to see on a stage.

While that was happening, I was already floating up toward the side of the stage. Somehow I knew this was the moment to turn the night up to 11.

I wanted to create something my friends would remember, and a dance contest is the kind of thing nobody in my silly-forward nuclear family would pass up. Both of my boys have done improvisational dances at their school talent shows. We've had impromptu dance parties at home since they could move — sometimes silly, sometimes really feeling the music, usually both. And as my boys' father, as ridiculous as it sounds, I can't tell them that it's awesome to lay it all out on the dance floor if I'm not willing to do it myself. So when the opportunity appeared in front of me, I felt a responsibility to take it.

Before I could even find someone to ask how to sign up, the band called out that they needed a guy. I was standing right next to the stage. They looked at me. I was drenched in a spotlight. So I did what any responsible person would do and hopped up the stairs. Of course I didn't want to completely embarrass myself, but I did want to make people laugh. I'm confident enough in my ability to dance that I can tweak it toward comedy without it feeling like a loss. I knew my role.

I gave the audience what they were calling for — yes, I twerked — and then transitioned into a kind of strange wobbling situation that I can’t really describe. I will say that if I were to pick a song to dance to, this one probably would not be it. My friends lost it. There are videos. Against my better judgment, I'm including one. To any prospective clients reading: this performance is available for executive offsites, albeit at a significant premium.

Taking off the clown face

We left the club later that night, and somewhere on the walk back I realized I was asking myself DeeDee's question. Am I just a clown? Not in a heavy way. But genuinely — what is it about me that wants to provide entertainment for people? How is that important in my life?

I'm known to be easy to get along with. Good in meetings. I can diffuse tough situations while holding the line on what I think is right. I've always thought of that as a separate thing from the silliness, but now I realize they're the same thing.

Clowning, or whatever you want to call it — having a good sense of humor and knowing when to let it out — is actually a really great thing to have in your back pocket. Sometimes you gotta  lower the temperature, or raise the energy, or make people laugh hard enough that they remember the night ten years later.

DeeDee has that quality. It's a big part of how she is with our kids, with me, with the people around her... and we all love how she makes us smile (or fall on the floor laughing, depending on the situation). I've come to really appreciate that quality in myself too, and recently a stage in New Orleans and a meeting room turned out to need more or less the same thing. Neither DeeDee nor I are just clowns. We're people who understand the value of being able to laugh at ourselves, laugh with each other and who happen to enjoy making life a little sillier every day.