Don't Pull Out Your Penises In The Park 6.2.97
I proposed a few months ago to some of the neighborhood boy children (ages 6-12) that if they would clean the street on Sundays I would take them on road trips: to Audubon Park (where I say--come on guys, don't pull out your dicks and pee off the jungle gym, go behind a tree or something. Or they call each other "motherfuckin' nigger" in front of the rich white children), or to the New Orleans lakefront where I supervise their illegal swimming until the park police come and bust them, or to that suspect strip of beach in Waveland, Mississippi where a carload of good ole boys drives by yelling out--"hey you niggers," or to an Uptown music festival where Shelton, 12, punches out Eric, 10, or this weekend to a festival in the French Quarter where Mandy and I went with three boys and came back with only one. Even knowing that all these boys roam the Quarters on their own and that they can walk or bike the distance faster than you can drive it didn't relieve me of guilt for leaving the two boys (after waiting several hours in one prearranged spot, which only one of the boys bothered coming back to) behind. And they know I don't mind, would even expect them to stray to Bourbon Street, to ogle outside the titty bars, as long as they check in once in awhile. So while Fermin hung close, got an outlandish balloon hat from a clown (who wouldn't accept my money but took everyone elses), got his face painted (also for free), and shared a po-boy with us, also a special treat because I normally require Mama D provide their baloney on white bread sustenance, Shelton and Eric disappeared to do god only knows what. When Fermin tells us he needs to be home to take medicine, we drive home, I drop him and Mandy, pick up two more boys, Glynn and Michael, and head back to the Quarters to at least make the pretense of a search. I centrally locate myself, next to that damn clown again, and send boys off into the Quarters. They go to the River, the French Market, Bourbon Street and back, get free balloon hats each (the most extravagant that clown made all day), and I say so you guys looked for Shelton and Eric to which they respond, oh yes, and we head back home. Shelton and Eric are there, leaning against the iron railing at Dumaine, and knowing I'll be mad try to sucker punch me with "why did you leave us down there," at which point I yell some grown up stuff at them (although not once did I call them motherfuckin' bitches as their guardians sometimes do), and banished them from the next Sunday's activities. To which they responded--what about the Sunday after that? I guess I showed them.
Verbatim excerpts from Death Notices, 3-30-03, Times-Picayune. By Gordon Russell, staff writer.
Perry "Perri the Hobo" Rlickman, perhaps the French Quarter's best-known street clown and certainly one of its singular characters, died March 22 in his apartment in Boston, friends said. He was believed to be 51. The cause of his death was unknown Saturday.
He was known as a consummate professional, always in full clown makeup and dress, who rose early and worked Jackson Square as hard as any performer in the past two decades. He was beloved by children.
But Mr. Rlickman also was loud, often inebriated and sometimes belligerent. He was frequently in trouble with the law and spent a good part of the past decade in various state prisons after being convicted on drug charges.
Mr. Rlickman was born in Bluefield, W.Va., the son of Jews who fled Germany in the late 1930s. Hoping to escape a life of mining coal, he joined the Marines in the late 1960s and served in the Vietnam War. After the war, he attended college at Wayne State University in Michigan, got married and began working as an engineer.
During a family vacation to New Orleans in 1979, Mr. Rlickman tried his hand at performing in Jackson Square and was quickly hooked. A year later, he divorced his wife, quit his job and moved to the Quarter, where he hustled tips for more than twenty years.
David Fry, a close friend, said there was a tender side to Mr. Rlickman that some missed. The clown had a special relationship with Fry's autistic son, he said, and he connected similarly with children everywhere he went.
Mr. Rlickman also struggled with alcohol and drug problems during much of his Jackson Square career. He told [filmaker Rick] Delaup that New Orleans police arrested him in 1991 after they found 17 pounds of marijuana in his clown box.
About a year ago, friends said, Mr Rlickman decided to remain in the Boston area. [He worked the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, Mass. during the hot New Orleans summers]
According to Delaup, friends in Boston visited his apartment after noticing that he hadn't shown up on the street for several days and discovered his body.
Someone just sent me this link from the Provincetown paper. I thought a minute and then realized "Hey, I know that clown!"
I guess he wasn't perfect but he was very nice to me and three of the Dumaine boys on that one day several years ago. He made a hell of a (free) balloon hat. One of the boys that day was MH from the first line of May Contain Doom. Thanks for the link.
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I proposed a few months ago to some of the neighborhood boy children (ages 6-12) that if they would clean the street on Sundays I would take them on road trips: to Audubon Park (where I say--come on guys, don't pull out your dicks and pee off the jungle gym, go behind a tree or something. Or they call each other "motherfuckin' nigger" in front of the rich white children), or to the New Orleans lakefront where I supervise their illegal swimming until the park police come and bust them, or to that suspect strip of beach in Waveland, Mississippi where a carload of good ole boys drives by yelling out--"hey you niggers," or to an Uptown music festival where Shelton, 12, punches out Eric, 10, or this weekend to a festival in the French Quarter where Mandy and I went with three boys and came back with only one. Even knowing that all these boys roam the Quarters on their own and that they can walk or bike the distance faster than you can drive it didn't relieve me of guilt for leaving the two boys (after waiting several hours in one prearranged spot, which only one of the boys bothered coming back to) behind. And they know I don't mind, would even expect them to stray to Bourbon Street, to ogle outside the titty bars, as long as they check in once in awhile. So while Fermin hung close, got an outlandish balloon hat from a clown (who wouldn't accept my money but took everyone elses), got his face painted (also for free), and shared a po-boy with us, also a special treat because I normally require Mama D provide their baloney on white bread sustenance, Shelton and Eric disappeared to do god only knows what. When Fermin tells us he needs to be home to take medicine, we drive home, I drop him and Mandy, pick up two more boys, Glynn and Michael, and head back to the Quarters to at least make the pretense of a search. I centrally locate myself, next to that damn clown again, and send boys off into the Quarters. They go to the River, the French Market, Bourbon Street and back, get free balloon hats each (the most extravagant that clown made all day), and I say so you guys looked for Shelton and Eric to which they respond, oh yes, and we head back home. Shelton and Eric are there, leaning against the iron railing at Dumaine, and knowing I'll be mad try to sucker punch me with "why did you leave us down there," at which point I yell some grown up stuff at them (although not once did I call them motherfuckin' bitches as their guardians sometimes do), and banished them from the next Sunday's activities. To which they responded--what about the Sunday after that? I guess I showed them.
- jimlouis 4-01-2002 8:10 pm
Verbatim excerpts from Death Notices, 3-30-03, Times-Picayune. By Gordon Russell, staff writer.
Perry "Perri the Hobo" Rlickman, perhaps the French Quarter's best-known street clown and certainly one of its singular characters, died March 22 in his apartment in Boston, friends said. He was believed to be 51. The cause of his death was unknown Saturday.
He was known as a consummate professional, always in full clown makeup and dress, who rose early and worked Jackson Square as hard as any performer in the past two decades. He was beloved by children.
But Mr. Rlickman also was loud, often inebriated and sometimes belligerent. He was frequently in trouble with the law and spent a good part of the past decade in various state prisons after being convicted on drug charges.
Mr. Rlickman was born in Bluefield, W.Va., the son of Jews who fled Germany in the late 1930s. Hoping to escape a life of mining coal, he joined the Marines in the late 1960s and served in the Vietnam War. After the war, he attended college at Wayne State University in Michigan, got married and began working as an engineer.
During a family vacation to New Orleans in 1979, Mr. Rlickman tried his hand at performing in Jackson Square and was quickly hooked. A year later, he divorced his wife, quit his job and moved to the Quarter, where he hustled tips for more than twenty years.
David Fry, a close friend, said there was a tender side to Mr. Rlickman that some missed. The clown had a special relationship with Fry's autistic son, he said, and he connected similarly with children everywhere he went.
Mr. Rlickman also struggled with alcohol and drug problems during much of his Jackson Square career. He told [filmaker Rick] Delaup that New Orleans police arrested him in 1991 after they found 17 pounds of marijuana in his clown box.
About a year ago, friends said, Mr Rlickman decided to remain in the Boston area. [He worked the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, Mass. during the hot New Orleans summers]
According to Delaup, friends in Boston visited his apartment after noticing that he hadn't shown up on the street for several days and discovered his body.
- jimlouis 3-30-2003 7:38 pm [add a comment]
Someone just sent me this link from the Provincetown paper. I thought a minute and then realized "Hey, I know that clown!"
- tom moody 4-08-2003 8:19 am [add a comment]
I guess he wasn't perfect but he was very nice to me and three of the Dumaine boys on that one day several years ago. He made a hell of a (free) balloon hat. One of the boys that day was MH from the first line of May Contain Doom. Thanks for the link.
- jimlouis 4-08-2003 3:24 pm [add a comment]