Allow me to apologize in advance....I hate mimes, or pantomimes if you will. I'm Sorry....sort of....this loathing is followed closely by clown-hatred
I know it is not a rational thing and with some serious counseling we could probably get to the root of the issue....but these days I am hesitant to pull on any of the loose threads of my personality for fear of what might come unraveled, and Mime Hatred is not on the top of the triage roster of self-improvement initiatives. So I have made my peace with the demon of Mime Hatred that I carry in my head....to the point where I have Googled "Mimes" and found that I am not alone...there are others, this is comforting. witness:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=mimes2This fellow understands, apparently there are many of us who do. I am pretty sure that Mime Hatred isn't yet classed as an official hate speech crime so I will speak openly until then. Also I don't plan on slashing any early-era Harlequin Picasso's ,,,I do keep my pathology in check.
I once witnessed a Street Mime get clocked in the nose.
It is a treasured memory. Street Mimes feed off people...they use your obvious traits or characteristics to amuse others. I am from the school that only gives people I know or love or simply trust and like...the permission to take a poke at me for laughs.
A stranger in greasepaint and tights attempting to make a fool of me for the amusement of other strangers is not on the list of allowed individuals.
Back in the early 1980's I was working in Lower Manhattan over on Broad Street...in the nice weather we would go over to the pier at the end of South Street at lunchtime to get buckets of beer from Jeremy's Kiosk on the wharf. It was before "The Seaport" was finished becoming the official GA-Rated Disney tour it now is. Yes there were lots of tourists but the area still had a few more raw edges to it than it had boutiques. Sweet's Restaurant was still a cash-only enterprise...
The hot, humid days of mid-summer would ferment the raw stench of the Fulton Fish Market next door to the Seaport, the odor would waft down the narrow cobblestone streets permeating the area with an authentic smell of old 19th century NY waterfront...and, like the fishmongers who worked the market, it added the right element of residual forgotten-zone seediness to the area.
Manhattan has pretty much run out of seedy forgotten zones, there used to be so many and I miss them
Anyway, I was walking down Water Street one summer day and cut down South Street to head under the FDR to the wharf to get my lunchtime beer ration. A clump of tourists was gathered halfway down the block. In front of them was a Street Mime performing...yup black tights, harlequin shirt and white grease-paint...ugh
As I walked past him and his audience I tensed up.
I have social anxiety..big time...it runs in my DNA and as a consequence I have had to develop more masks and persona's than a make the beast with two backsing mime or a sociopath could ever wet-dream up.
I had to, in order to survive in the world, but behind all of my fronts, is one really self-conscious gnome operating the controls. I can impersonate just about anything I need to and it has worked quite well...
but let me tell you if I am cornered into being the center of attention for more than 4 or 5 people I will try to dig through the floor to escape....a violinist coming to my table at a dinner is like an eternity of damnation....a restaurant room full of good natured patrons joining into a Happy Birthday ambush on me....well someone please shoot me...someone on stage looking at me too long...forget it....or worse an entertainer looking to buttonhole volunteers will have me diving for the floor
I am not timid by any stretch...actually I can be rather terrifying when I need to be...but there are some situations in which I just internally disintegrate
Anyway, the Mime sees me and decides to use me for the crowd's enjoyment...he falls in behind me as I quicken my pace to a forced march.....imitating my walk from behind and then beside me, turning his head and staring theatrically into my face....I am make the beast with two backsing dying...a whole squadron of people are watching my humiliation...and laughing at me...I keep going, with a sphincter tight enough to crack walnuts open... eyes locked onto Jeremy's Kiosk over on the wharf....it was now a four 1-quart bucket lunch before I would be sufficiently numb enough to wander back across the road onto South Street.
I stood a safe distance away from the Mime nursing my bucket of beer and indulged my hatred...watching him work the crowd of tourists...and passers-by....oh how they laughed and applauded him with their make the beast with two backsing out-of-town cloddish senses of humor.
I think the half-drunk bile and hatred I was generating caught the attention of the Gods of NYC....they heard my prayer of indignant rage and responded...they smiled upon me that day.....
"Real" New York was on its way to greet the Mime and the tourists...the authentic New York that lives below the surface public relations veneer
"Real" NY took the form of a stocky fellow trundling down South Street at a furious pace. A short dark Italian guy, maybe late-30's, oily hair, sweating, pissed-off face; in a hurry and in an expensive suit that stretched across some scary muscles...this guy was about five foot-five inches short and heavy-set but you could see that it wasn't fat, his arms were like my thighs and they rippled, his legs were like my torso
This was the Brooklyn equivalent of a Sumo wrestler,,,, in a high-roll collar. His hands were the size of those prosciutto hams hanging in an Italian Deli....and this guy radiated an energy field of menace that set-off and sent out danger signals to anyone even remotely familiar with trouble.
Clearly he was a mob financial consultant, a professional Leg-Breaker on his way over to the Fulton Fish Market to collect on some markers from the fishmongers for his shylock boss. On a mission and already adrenaline-pumped for action. I knew this guy was danger before I could even see his eyes...and you don't sustain eye-contact with this type...they really react poorly to that...they figure you are sizing them...sustained eye contact is a direct challenge and it can provoke a potentially painful confrontation. If he ever showed up at your door asking for you by name you would instinctively know you were very make the beast with two backsed for doing something very wrong to the wrong type of person.
The Street Mime seeing this near-caricature of a Sopranos/Godfather Goon humping down the cobblestones was oblivious to the threat...clueless...all he saw was an opportunity to use this guy to amuse the crowd...much in the same manner as he used me.
So the Mime fell into stride next to the Angel of Vengeance, half-crouching to get to the same stature while imitating the trundle-walk of his muscle-bound victim. The leg-breaker kept his pace and kept his eyes forward while the Mime, walking next to him, craned his head around to look into his victim's face imitating his deadly serious expression.
I saw the prosciutto ham fist come up..... it was lightning quick...a short jab...it hardly seemed to require any movement...a blink and you would have missed it
The Mime stopped walking and suddenly stood upright, dazed...his face then exploded in gushing fountains of blood, squirting from a fully flattened nose......all over his white greasepaint face...
his legs literally became like rubber and he collapsed in such an exaggerated wobbling mime-like manner the crowd laughed and applauded thinking it was part of the show...
and the make the beast with two backser was moaning in pain on the cobbles, his crushed white face a puddle of bleeding flesh...yes,,moaning...breaking some sworn oath of silence that I am certain Mimes must take
The leg-breaker passing me didn't even break his pace to rid us of the Mime...he glanced at me for a moment to see if I might be an undercover cop or some other form of additional trouble...and in that millisecond of eye contact I said to him "Thank you."
He nodded and said "I hate dose make the beast with two backsers" as he passed me, eyes returning to forward
I replied "So do I"
Already past me, he just said "everyone should"
Well wherever he is..... I want to thank that Leg Breaking Mob Financial Consultant for collecting the marker from that Mime, the debt owed for borrowing people's dignity and paying nothing back to any of the hapless people used as brunts for the amusement of others....
I hope this written remembrance of that act of kindness on behalf of Mime Haters everywhere, repays my debt to him as well.
For surely he was an angel sent by the Gods of NY to strike vengeance for us all
I have an odd assemblage of unsung heros, that guy will always be one of them
