kooza & the clown
the other night i got a call from a friend of mine who performs in the cirque du soleil show ‘kooza’. the show is currently in the irvine area so she called to offer me a pair of tickets. i jumped at the chance knowing its an amazing show i quickly called my friend steven and our plans were set.
we met up at the show around 8pm, walked up to will call and grabbed our tickets. we really had no idea where we would be sitting and honestly anywhere would be just fine. as we entered the tent the 1st usher said “head down those stairs” and pointed towards the front, we walked a few steps down to another usher who looked at our tickets and again said “keep heading down” the 3rd usher said “follow me” and walked us down to row #5. we looked at our seat numbers and were dead center row #5. amazing seats! right up front so we could feel the action.
the show started and we were glued to our seats. act after act left us shocked. i kept leaning over to steven “can you imagine doing that? can you imagine doing 1/2 of that.” back flips on stilts, toss a girl around while you ride a unicycle, bending your body in half while holding up another girl that is bent in half, or the wheel of death (just google it there are no words to explain) every single moment of the show is amazing. if you have never seen a cirque show i definitely recommend doing so.
in between the different acts there are 3 clowns that entertain the crowd on a humor level. they follow along with the story line of kooza but also play with the crowd, act a bit perverted, and pull pranks on one another. they are definitely funny as i myself laughed out loud a few times. at one point in the show they pick an older man from the crowd to come up and dance with them. before they let the man show his moves they tickle him which leads to humping his leg.
there is a point in the show where some dancers come out and the music begins to build. some performers bring out huge cannons and they shoot confetti into the crowd. people are running around everywhere, yelling, singing, shooting confetti…the clowns are also running around. in the middle of this i got a text from my sister. i wanted to write back and say “hey im at kooza its amazing” but as i was looking down at what she had sent me (unknown to myself at the time) one of the clowns was standing infront of me on stage yelling “put your phone away!!!” not only was it extremely loud at that point but as some of you may know i have terrible hearing. i didnt hear him or notice what was unfolding. steven noticed a bit but for SOME reason decided not to tell me. i started to reply to her text when all the sudden someone (the clown) was practically ontop of me yelling in my ear “WHO ARE YOU CALLING? WHO ARE YOU CALLING??” i turned around really fast because it scared the crap out of me and he just kept yelling “CALL ME!!! CALL ME!!!” i busted up laughing 1/2 because it was funny 1/2 because i was embarrassed. i was “that guy” in the crowd getting picked on but for good reason. im sitting in the 5th row and have the audacity to use my phone at a very climactic moment. a few people around me turned and looked and laughed and for a few moments longer i ducked my head. that clown made a great move i would have done the same thing.
about 5 minutes later i decided to twitter about what had happened with the clown. i made sure to look up as much as possible so i would not get caught off guard again.
after the show we met my friend and she took us back stage to see how things are done. we walked around looking at all the props and costumes then ended up near the dressing rooms. as we stood and talked once again up from behind me came that tricky little clown. he poked his arm towards my face and in his hand was his phone. he said “i caught you on your phone” and he laughed at me. i looked at his phone and there was my face!!!! he had my twitter message about him scaring me on his phone???’ this was like some vortex’, i thought to myself ‘what is going on? who is this guy? how in the world did he have my tweet??????? before i could really say much he ran off. i just stood there looking at both my friends with confusion all over my face. we talked about it for a moment then started talking about the show again. we stood and tried to pick out who was who with out their costumes and makeup on. then out came the guy who sort of leads the story along, he looked at me, looked away, looked back and said “o you are the guy who tweeted” what!!!!! how does he know? where am i? i felt like the truman show and a light was about to fall out of the sky.
moments later the clown popped back out of the dressing room and i stopped him. i said “what is going on here” he said “i am all knowing” i said “tell me!!!” finally he said when you mention something specific on twitter like “kooza” or if someone tweets about “hooligun” you can look up ‘tweets involving a specific word’ and it will show you every tweet involving that word. he had done just that during the intermission (kooza) and read my tweet about him scaring me. oooooooookkkkkkkk its all coming together now. all the creepiness was going away and i was cracking up.
i had a great time at the show and being called out by the clown will be a memory forever. sometimes when life can be embarrassing you just gotta laugh at it. life is to fun to worry.
the clown (jimmy slonina) sent me a tweet back so i found out who he was. he seems like a great guy and has some funny stuff online so please check out his page. http://www.jimmyslonina.com
