Must have special talent

Performance art doesn’t pay, unless you’re second name is McCarthy or Abramovic. Paul McCarthy said he gave live performance up as there was no money in it and he was worried about his psychological state. I know what he means. I have spent five years developing my alter-ego pig nosed clown Dirty Honky from an obsession with graffiti art, Leigh Bowery and the punk street hustling prostitute Valerie Solanas, as portrayed by Lili Taylor in the film ‘I shot Andy Warhol’. Honky has never paid the bills (he is a hobo grotesque), which is why I left the art circuit to whore him out in the wide world and earn his keep.

The actors and entertainers section in the Job centre always have an excellent variety of jobs on offer which is handy for a pig nosed clown such as my alter ego, Dirty Honky. In between jobs for sumo wrestlers and adult web cam models (must be comfortable with nudity), I spotted an audition for Dr Haze’s Freak Show, down in the depths of Dorset. ‘Must have special talent’, the advert read and I jumped at the chance. Well nearly. The deadline for the job had passed. I was a day late, but still went, thinking they could only say no. It was a long train journey from London so I decided to get changed in the toilet. This was a mistake. I missed the last stop and ended up heading to the train depot.

In full clown regalia I knocked on the train driver’s window and was met with the world weary look of a network rail train driver. I got him to reverse the train and dump me at Salisbury. After a horrific £40 taxi journey I managed to blag my way in to the Dorset steam fair, located in a huge field and made my way to the freak show. After watching their anarchic freak fest of perverted dwarfs, fire eating Mongolians and Polish sword swallowers I finally met Dr Haze.

“You’re a day late!” Dr Haze bellowed. “If it was on Friday I'd be a day early!” I retorted. He immediately liked the grotesque look of me and gave me an audition. I had to grace the stage in front of a tent full of professional performing freaks. The pressure was on. I got busy break dancing in a body bag, singing badly and snarling at the audience of assembled freaks. I then persuaded Dr Haze to get in the body bag and began to make him his own custom made personal tomb (the concept of my stage show was you have to be prepared for death so why not practise?). I got his favourite dwarf into the tomb with him (to take to the freak show after world) and sealed them in with clingfilm.

It was going ok but I desperately needed a freak show finale. The dwarf on stage before me had been able to open a bottle of beer with his eye socket and thrilled the audience by attaching a hoover to his cock. I desperately searched for a hoover on stage. In the end I picked up the sword swallowers blades and banged them in the floor behind Dr Haze to make it look like I was impaling him. This did the trick as the Polish sword swallower jumped on stage with Lizard Man and started shouting in my face to leave the expensive props alone and get the hell out. I was thrown off stage. The audition was over. I had failed miserably. Brilliant!

I asked Dr Haze for some feedback, and like Simon Cowell, the original freak show ringmaster, he gave it to me straight. I didn’t have a special talent, or an end product they could use. I was a washed up, pathetic excuse for a freak. I walked out feeling wretched and humiliated. The Polish sword swallower waved a bacon kebab in my direction as I left. The humiliation continued outside as a gang of rural, hoodie wearing teenagers threatened to cover me with ketchup from a huge squeezy bottle. I desperately needed cover. I stood next to a family with a pram thinking the bumpkin thugs wouldn’t risk it. They did. They let me have a huge blast of ketchup with mustard, which also hit the pram. My human shield pushed me away in disgust, to receive a second blast. I was a walking hotdog.

My luck continued as there was a fatality on the only road to the train station. Luckily a taxi driver dropped me in Poole for another £35. During the journey he opened up to me and told me he had lost both his legs in a lorry accident. I got back at midnight. The trip to the freak show had cost me £100 and Dr Haze hadn’t called.