Sergeant enjoys ‘clowning around’ for children

  • Published
  • By Navy Seaman Ted Green
  • U.S. Strategic Command Public Affairs
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AFPN) --  At work, he is a supervisor in the Joint Intelligence Center of U.S. Strategic Command here. During his off time, he takes on a whole different persona -- two personas to be exact.

Senior Master Sgt. A.J. Johnson has two alter egos, and they both are a couple of clowns. Kleenax is a friendly drifter. Ever the butt of jokes, he still manages to keep a positive outlook on life. Splinter is a carpenter of sorts. An “un-handy man” by trade, he wields a bag of oversized tools, wears a brightly colored outfit and has wild blue hair.

Both are quite the magicians and can make various animals appear out of thin air at the request of their attentive audiences.

Sergeant Johnson’s life began with great difficulty. He was born premature, causing him difficulties as an infant that required extensive medical care. His family found aid in the kindness of Johnson’s doctor, a member of the Masons, the world’s oldest fraternity. Along with the Masons, the doctor helped raise money to assist the Johnson family with medical expenses.

Wishing to pass on the kindness bestowed upon him by the Masons, Sergeant Johnson has made it his personal goal to bring joy into the lives of the children he meets.

After becoming a member of the Masons, Sergeant Johnson joined the Tangier Shrine Clown Unit in 1997, a branch of the Masons whose goal is to make children of all ages smile. Together, unit members raise money to aid disabled children and burn victims younger than 18 in the 23 Shrine hospitals around the United States.

“The parents of these children pay almost nothing,” Sergeant Johnson said. “We pay to ship the parents back and forth (and) for the meals, and help their children get the different prosthetics they need as they get older.”

To pay for such expenses, Sergeant Johnson and the other Shrine clowns perform for donations that go directly to the hospitals.

“We’ll go out and do gigs and ask for a donation which will go to our clown unit and in turn go to the Shrine hospitals,” he said.

However, Johnson added, it is worth the work sometimes to do a gig for free.

“I was in Korea for a little more than 14 months in 2002 to 2003,” he said. “While I was there I entertained at 52 orphanages, about an orphanage a week.”

Sergeant Johnson said at first the children did not know what to make of a funny-looking man in orange overalls.

“Korean children aren’t used to seeing American clowns, so they were a little scared at first,” he said. “Once I started tying balloons however, they gave me a smile, an international sign for ‘I’m good to go, clown, tie me another balloon.’”

According to Johnson, being a clown requires more than floppy shoes and a big nose. Clowns have many decisions to make about their identity, which has a great deal to do with tradition, costumes and makeup.

Each clown must create his or her very own special face, establishing a character or personality. Once clowns create their face, it becomes their trademark, their personal property. No other clown may dress or use makeup exactly like them.

“I’ve been a clown for about seven years now,” Sergeant Johnson said. “My first clown was Splinter, the carpenter clown. You kind of pick your own persona, what you want to be. I like to do a lot of woodwork, so I picked a carpenter clown.”

Being a clown did not come easily for Sergeant Johnson. His first time out, he made an amateur mistake that made him a clown among clowns.

“For my first clown, because I didn’t know any better, I had red makeup all over my upper lip. A real clown will never put red above their upper lip,” Johnson said. Makeup on the bottom lip makes a distinct smile, makeup above the lip takes away from that. “All the other clowns made fun of me.”

Kleenax, Sergeant Johnson’s second clown persona, is a hobo. Projected to appeal more to an older audience, Kleenax was once “a somebody,” but he got tired of running the rat race.

“He still likes to look good, but he just doesn’t have the money anymore to afford it. He’s pretty happy just with life,” Sergeant Johnson explained.

Because all profits from performances go to the hospitals, money for transportation, supplies and costumes comes out of the performers’ pockets. Sergeant Johnson made most of Splinter’s costume by hand.

According to the sergeant, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to clowns. What kind of costumes clowns wear depends on the type of clown they are. What type of clown they are determines where they fall in the hierarchy amongst clowns.

“There’s more or less a chain of command among clowns,” he said. “Whoever’s lower in the chain is the brunt of the joke. So if a tramp is there, everybody’ll pick on him.”

At the top of the pecking order is the European whiteface clown, the oldest type of clown in existence. According to The Tangier Shrine, the whiteface clown has several different types or variations. The “neat” whiteface clown uses little color on his face but is costumed in white. The outfit is usually a one-piece garment with sleeves and pants tied at both the wrist and ankles. It is decorated with ruffles and with a huge pleated collar to complete the costume. The “grotesque” whiteface clowns exaggerate everything about themselves. Their pants, shoes, collars, ears and wig are bigger, wider or baggier than usual.

“They are the pristine ultimate of all clowns, but nobody likes to play them because they’re no fun,” Sergeant Johnson said. “They don’t interact with anyone, they just kind of stand there and be clowns. They act as the ‘straight man’ when interacting with other clowns.”

The auguste, German for fool, clown wears colorful, loose-fitting clothing, often mismatched and oversized. They have bulbous noses and brightly colored wigs. Everything about them is exaggerated from head to toe. The Tangier Shrine said this clown may let natural skin show, but should use splashes of color around the eyes or mouth to exaggerate facial features. These clowns do slapstick -- slapping and stumbling --throw pies, use seltzer bottles and tend to be more physical in their performance.

Character clowns are the most realistic looking of the clown types. They exaggerate usual facial features like beards, hair, eyebrows, whiskers, lips or noses to poke fun at themselves and the human condition.

“The Americans started doing the character clown,” Sergeant Johnson said. “That’s what my clown Splinter is.” Character clowns may impersonate different professions or lifestyles like cowboys, firemen or policemen.

On the very bottom of the pile sit the hobo and tramp. The hobo or tramp impersonation was also created in the United States. Dark makeup is used to suggest the need for a shave and tattered or patched multicolor clothing is worn to give the impression the clown is down on his luck.

“The tramp is the hardest clown to play because they’re the downtrodden tramp, they don’t speak, they don’t smile; their life just stinks,” Johnson said.

Johnson said good clowns do not just put on makeup. They have some sort of talent, whether it is magic, card tricks, juggling or tying balloons, they have to bring something more than themselves to the table to entertain an audience.

“I tie balloons and do some close-in magic,” Sergeant Johnson said. “I can tie about 72 different balloon animals. My favorite line to tell kids is that I tie 100 different balloons and they all look like dogs.”

Sergeant Johnson said although tying balloons looks hard, it is just a matter of practice to get it right.

“I’ve twisted thousands of balloons and popped quite a few of them,” he said. “You learn from other clowns and finally get it.”

Learning the tricks of the trade, however, is not the hardest part of being a clown.

“The hardest thing I’ve had to do is work at one of the Shrine hospitals,” Sergeant Johnson said. “You get to see who the real heroes are.”

Sergeant Johnson’s heroes are children born missing limbs. These children have constantly outgrown their set of prosthetics and have to learn to use new ones all over again.

“To go there and try to be a happy clown is hard. It’s probably one of the true challenges for a clown and I’ve done it four times.”

The sergeant confessed being a clown is not always what it is cracked up to be.

“I would be a liar if I were to say that I want to do it all the time,” he said. “Sometimes, I’m not in a really good mood, but the first time a kid smiles at you and is having a good time, it makes it worth all the time in the world that you spent putting on your makeup. You forget that you really didn’t want to be there.

“I’m not saying that this is for everybody, but if you like doing things for the community and you like doing things for the kids, this is probably one of the most rewarding things you can do,” he said. “I get a big kick out of doing it for kids. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be a clown, because it’s all about the kids.”