Death Clowns of California, Medical Clowns of Israel (probably different clowns)

The news has been full of clowns lately, and not just of the guy who got bit in the balls by his ex-girlfriend’s dog when he attacked her.  No, there are a rash of “death clowns” in southern California. According to the LAist, it started in Wasco, a small agricultural community north of LA, where some joker decided to dress up like a scary clown, carry around a bunch of balloons and a fake (or maybe not) axe. See picture. Some people in LA thought it was awesome.  According to Twitter (reposted on the LAist), Kimbox thought “that wasco clown is a fake bitch.” Correct Kimbox. Correct.

Wasco, CA clown - one fake b*tch.

Perhaps Kimbox knows about the death clown of England from last year, who looks just like this joker in Wasco, also dressed up like Pennywise (from Stephen King’s IT), who last year stoodaround with balloons scaring the crap out of people, until it stopped.  The English, known for their propensity and effectiveness at head-butting those that appear to be a threat, probably took care of it. Then there was the Staten Island Creepy Clown, who turned out to be a bunch of Brooklyn hipsters, who were just begging to be punched.  

 The people of Los Angeles are not known to be good at head-butting. They are known to be good at copy-catting, though.  So, another clown has sprung up in Delano, which is like the armpit of Bakersfield, which is like the armpit of LA.  (you’ve also got one in Bakersfield proper, keeping it real).  So you have a two-level armpit town with a fourth or fifth-degree copycat clown.  Sounds about right for Delano.  It’s scaring people, too.  It needs to be taken care of like the English clown, and head-butted.

At the same time, a curious study came out in the journal, Allergy, this week.  As reported in the Wall Street Journal (may be behind a paywall),  there is an outfit called Dream Doctors, that provides “medical clowns” to Israeli medical centers to accompany children and parents to testing and hospital visits.   This study tracked children who were  getting allergy shots, and found that those with a medical clown accompanying them had significantly fewer reactions to the allergens (when the doctor sticks the kids in the back to see what welts up) than those without the clown present. The clown relaxed the children enough that they were less susceptible to actual allergens.  Excluded from the study were children with coulrophobia – or the terrible fear of clowns. That makes sense for that study. You wouldn’t want to study the effectiveness of therapy dogs in a hospital environment around people who were terrified of dogs. What makes this interesting is that apparently in Israel, clowns are beloved.  Apparently, they haven’t spent time with Stephen King’s IT, or those “fake bitches” – as so eloquently by Kimbox – in Southern California, Staten Island and England who dress up to terrify people.  They also don’t have a history of clowns working as Cartel hitmen, like they do in Mexico.  

The WSJ report ends with “Caveat: The beneficial effects of medical clowns may e different in other cultures, researchers said.”  Right, like everywhere else, or especially Mexico with Cartel hit-clowns, and England, Staten Island, and rural LA where they have jackasses dressing up like scary clowns and trying to scare people. There, I’d imagine the allergy would be worse. My fix for that allergy would be to punch the clown.  Would take care of that quick.