4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2016
Crying inside? Creepy craze no joke for real clowns
‘It’s definitely
a scary
feeling
leaving your
house, and
you fear you
are going to
get jumped
because
you’re
dressed as a
clown.’
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Send in the
frowns.
This year’s nationwide
creepy clown craze has become
a nightmare before Hallow-
een for actual, working clowns,
who say their bookings at par-
ties and other events have
dropped sharply, even after
many of the social media-fu-
eled scary clown sightings have
turned out to be hoaxes.
Some fear going out with
their greasepaint makeup and
red noses will make them a tar-
get of police or even marauding
mobs who take to the streets on
so-called clown hunts.
“It’s deinitely a scary feel-
ing leaving your house, and
you fear you are going to
get jumped because you’re
dressed as a clown,” says Cyrus
Zavieh, a New York City hospi-
tal administrator who also per-
forms professionally as Cido
the Clown.
“You’re there to make them
happy, to make them have
fun, and now they are saying,
‘Aaaagghh!”’ Zavieh says. “All
of a sudden these stories are
putting fear into kids. ... Before,
they’d just look the other way,
but now it’s like, ‘You’re a
scary clown and I hate you.”’
Cyrus Zavieh
a New York City hospital
administrator who also performs
professionally as Cido the Clown
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LIF
Not new trend
Clown sightings, hoaxes
and pranks — especially
around Halloween — aren’t
new. In fact, they’ve become a
D RINK C OFFEE ...
ATS
The World Clown Associa-
tion — comprised of more than
2,000 members in 30 countries
— has been looded with calls
from scared performers. It’s
been sending out safety tips,
suggesting clowns consider
changing into their costumes
when they arrive at a party or
go with a handler.
Association
president
Randy Christensen says clowns
are also increasingly getting
requests for “modiied perfor-
mances” in which they enter-
tain without makeup and tradi-
tional clown attire.
This week, retail giant Tar-
get took the step of pulling
scary clown masks from its
shelves. And McDonald’s says
its signature clown charac-
ter, Ronald McDonald, will be
recurring staple of crime blot-
ters since serial killer and work-
ing clown John Wayne Gacy
was convicted in 1980 of kill-
ing 33 people.
In 2012, James Holmes
dyed his hair red as Batman’s
Joker when he opened ire at a
Colorado movie theater, killing
12 people.
Those high-proile cases
notwithstanding, experts say
it’s relatively common for
people to feel creeped out by
clowns.
“It primarily has to do with
the exaggerated makeup and
features. We recognize it, but
there is something abnormal,”
says Dr. Kristie Golden, asso-
ciate director of operations for
psychiatry and neurosciences at
Stony Brook University Hospi-
tal. “We can be drawn in by that
or we can be repelled.”
World Clown Association’s
Christensen says this year’s
clown scares seem to be reach-
ing new heights, and he sug-
gests working clowns repel
them the same way they always
have, by spreading a message
of happiness and boundless.
Bi
Ale r
Scared performers
AP Photos/Mary Altaffer
Cyrus Zaveih, also known as Cido the Clown, poses for a photo. A spate of scares involving people doing menacing
things while dressed in clown costumes has been no laughing matter for real clowns.
FOR
keeping a lower proile.
The fallout follows a phe-
nomenon in the U.S. involving
dozens of stories, many fabri-
cated, about clowns stalking or
attacking people.
In multiple states, people
have called police to report
being menaced by people in
clown costumes. In Kentucky,
a man dressed as a clown was
arrested after lurking in the
woods. Children in Ohio and
Texas have been charged with
making clown-related threats to
school classmates. A New York
City teen told police a clown
threatened him with a knife in
the subway.
“They aren’t clowns. They
are clown impersonators,”
said Wendy Pincus, who has
performed in New York City
for the last 20 years. “We’re
here to make people happy.
We don’t threaten people. We
bring joy.”
Pincus, whose clown alter
ego is “Crazy Daisy,” says she’s
seen a 30 to 40 percent decrease
in just the past few weeks.
C OFFEE G IRL
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