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Clown Makes Splash At County Fair And Loves Every Minute

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By TOM JACKSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

DADE CITY - The squall line that blew through Central Florida on Monday couldn't have had lousier timing. Not only did it declare, in soaking fashion, a startling end to a week's worth of chamber of commerce weather, it did so in lock step with the high school bands marching down Seventh Street to proclaim the start of the 61st Pasco County Fair, reducing their traditional trumpeting to so much brass-plated gargling.

Across town, Mark Mundy didn't need to see the turbulent end of the front to know it had arrived. Parked among the other mobile aluminum boxes that form the Wade Shows caravan 10 months of the year, Mundy's small trailer rocked with the wind, and thrummed to the beat of pelting rain. His mood ran the gamut from gloomy to sepulchral.

So much for the promise of an early summer. Where do the global warmists get off, anyway? It was wet now, as Mundy downed a modest lunch. It would be cold, achy cold, before dinner. He knew it. He could feel it.

Forget the Weather Channel. All the forecast Mundy needed was in what used to be his left knee, the one that no longer pivots, the one that was surgically fused after he was run down on Fletcher Avenue in 1991.

Besides suppressing the first-night crowd, the turn in the elements would little affect the rest of the troupe. They'd grab a sweatshirt, maybe add a second layer of tights if they had to spend time on a high wire. But the rest of the troupe wouldn't begin getting ready for work by wriggling into a wetsuit.

Mark Mundy, a jack of assorted trades, is the master of precisely one, and - it says here - it makes him the star of midways from Lake Okeechobee to central Michigan to the assorted corners of Oklahoma. At 51 (today is his birthday), Mundy belongs to a small but vital carnival fraternity whose members spend their careers perched on a hinged bench above a tub filled with water.

23 Years In A Cage

They constitute the society of dunk tank clowns, and at the moment, Mark Mundy, whose leg provides a distinctive nickname in a culture known for aliases, he - "Kickstand" - is its self-anointed king, with 23 years observing the world through orange steel bars.

Seven nights this week he'll be working his shtick near the carnival's northwest corner, luring pitchers of various styles and abilities with a rusted-chainsaw delivery that cuts all the way to the next ZIP code. "Where's all the ballplayers?" he rasps when the crowd thins. Spotting an unbalanced pairing worthy of "Knocked Up," he calls out, "That your date, pretty lady? ... What happened? You lose a bet?" He likes his joke; his laugh is a pneumatic hammer.

It's not like he hasn't tasted more conventional occupations. He's driven trucks (he maintains a commercial driver's license) and sold furniture, but found them lacking.

This, he says - perched on the collapsible bench above 5 feet of water growing colder by the minute, swathed in greasepaint and barking insults, rapid-fire, into a live microphone - is the life. "You wanna see someone who loves coming to work? You're lookin' at him. I wouldn't do nothin' else."

Taunting With Good Humor

Kickstand is rightly proud of his work. Delivered from the days when clowns riled crowds with cheap invective that was often X-rated and racist, Kickstand thrives in a PG-13 world.

A large-boned teen with thatched blond hair, wearing a powder-blue polo shirt is "a big ol' blueberry muffin." A Latino teen in a red shirt, draped in heavy gold chains is a "Ricky Martin reject" wearing "a Mr. T starter kit."

Large ears. Large noses. Large bellies. Physical extremes are all fair game. "Where's your hat?" he demands of balding men. As the outgoing mayor of Dade City watches his kids fling at the target, Kickstand acknowledges hizzoner's orange and blue jacket.

"Gators, huh?" he says. "You know what that stands for? Get Another Team Of Rejects!" Hutch Brock winces, grins and shoots him a thumbs up.

At the approach of a pair of Pasco High softball players fresh from an afternoon of thumping Hudson and still in uniform, Kickstand is gleeful: "Here come a couple of Wal-Mart shoppers. Buy one, get one free."

The ladies smirk in reply. Ten dollars goes on the counter, and Peggy King, the attraction's proprietor, responds with 20 rubber-coated baseballs. Colena Lazar, arguably the Nature Coast's top prep softball pitcher, and Megan Newsome, her catcher, go to work.

Lazar winds up. Kickstand keeps riding. "Just a couple of Double-Mint" - her first throw drills the Quarter-Pounder-sized red target - "glub!" Newsome splashes him with her second throw, and he's barely had time to reset the bench when Lazar drops him again.

"Colena!" Newsome scolds, "let him get set up!" Lazar shoots her a "but-I'm-locked-in look." The fun has just begun. Lazar misses a couple, boosting Kickstand's confidence. "You done lost your" - bang! another bull's-eye, drowning the punch-line.

With blond curls captured in a red bow at the crown, Lazar is the picture of competitive femininity. Kickstand calls it "a bird's nest." Splash. In a moment, she is finished, notching five dunkings with 10 throws. "It's great just to shut him up," she says.

"Probably the best game up here," says Newsome, who scored three bull's-eyes and vowed to return.

It's all music to Kickstand's ears. "You know you're good when they keep asking for you," he says. If there were justice in the carnival world, his name would be on the marquee on State Road 52.

One week only! Kickstand the Dunk Tank Clown. (County Fair Included).

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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