Milk-a-bilia

By all the saints in freakin' Beulah Land, guess who's got his own Pinterest page! Yes, that's right: His Satanic Majesty, Milky the Clown.

Milky keeps coming around in my life like a chronic disease, with horrible outbreaks followed by deceptive remissions. Here he is again, looking none too well himself - in fact I'm not even sure that's really Milky, he looks so sallow. Hung over, perhaps. The pictures on Pinterest were about an inch square, and the only larger ones on Google were from my own blog. Harrumph.

Yes, I know I've run this one before! The Milky the Clown Ash Tray. Don't you want to see it again? You wanna make something out of it?

Milky says: WHAT? "Is we not zee Super Race?" It could be anything.

One o' dem games where you put the little balls in the little holes, though it looks vaguely like a sack of flour to me. Or some weird sort of pencil sharpener.

Now, I know this is original. It's a tennis ball with a clock built in. It lasts for one serve. Either that or it's a stopwatch of some kind, set to stop when the world ends.

Pretty slimy stuff. 

Milky with a boy scout. I apologize for the poor quality of these. They were made with a camera obscura in the 17th century.

When I first saw this, I swear I thought the Milkster was doing lines of cocaine, but it appears, on closer inspection, that he's blowing up a balloon.

Somebody's idea of fan art.

Never trust a clown with a social disease

His Satanic Majesty, the Milkster, is back. All it took is one mis-reference in my last post (i. e. the title of a Harold Lloyd movie, The Milky Way) to trip off the awful synapses, releasing the nightmare miasma of my Milky memories.

Though Milky never actually inspired a suicide cult, he could have. You could just as easily put cyanide in Twin Pines milk, couldn't you? Actually, it might even be more pleasant to take. And there's something else about Twin Pines. . . 

IT'S MAGIC.

No one has figured out yet just HOW secretions from a cow's udder could have this sort of paranormal power.  No one has figured out yet, either, why anyone would have kept a festering old milk carton from 1962 which obviously has mold growing on the top. 

I have no idea what this is or how it got here. It just appeared like boils from a plague. It could be a very, very stained old tshirt, but why leave us hanging with such a motto? "Milky" Says - WHAT?? Maybe you turned the shirt over and it said "blow me".

I always suspected Milky had superior mathematical skills, and now I know it. Just look at this fraction here, it's unbelievable, isn't it? Never mind that it looks like his mother made that suit out of an old bedsheet. He was on a different system from all the rest of us.The system of clowns whose  brains had been eaten away by social diseases contracted during their low-budget Shrine Circus days. The system of hot dirty canvas and heaving sawdust and straining ropes. The stench of animal dung and the screams of little children.

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Oh rapture!: New Images of Milky the Clown

It's not every day I find a  new image (new to ME, I mean - these were likely taken 50 years ago) of the source of my childhood nightmares, Milky the Clown. Milky was the surreal symbol of Twin Pines Dairy, sponsor of Milky's Party Time and other lactitious Detroit children's programs.

This one I haven't seen before. Like a nun's habit, Milky's costume covers everything but his face, which is thickly plastered with white greasepaint like something from a movie made in 1917. And his hat. . . his hat isn't like any other clown's hat, unless you look back about 100 years.

Milky wasn't a clown of his times. This was why he was so scary. He seemed like the nightmare reverse negative of an old Betty Boop cartoon, jumping not out of an inkwell but a vat of Twin Pines milk.

Was this magic, or a form of sorcery? Was his baggy monochromatic white costume and dead-white face a deliberate attempt to mimic the ancient itinerant carnival clowns depicted by Leoncavallo in Pagliacci?

Well, maybe. Except for the pompoms.

And this one is no less than Enrico Caruso, the most famous tenor of all time. Wearing Milky's costume, or a close approximation of it.

What's the magic word? . . . Twin Pines! ("But that's two words," I used to protest, provoking offended stares.)

And never mind that Pagliaccio, upon whom Milky based his classic white pointy-hatted costume, murdered both his wife and his romantic rival, leaving a pile of bodies on the stage. The little tykes won't know anything about that, will they?

We hope not.

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-glass-character-margaret-gunning/1117863913?ean=9781927068885

Thistledown Press

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Chapters/Indigo
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%

Milky-abilia: the archaeological dig

Everybody knew that Milky the Clown was in the dairy business. I suppose it could have been worse, but what do we really know about these Twin Pines guys (posing here with His Milks himself)? The girl is sweet enough, and her pleated skirt reads, "Mary Lou". Pierre (with a giant TP on his turtleneck, presumably for Twin Pines) is wielding what looks like an enormous loaf of French bread (but at least he's not wearing a beret). The friendly milkman is just that - the friendly milkman, the same kind of milkman I knew as a child with his glass bottles clinking away. Except that when I was a kid, the milk was delivered by horse and wagon.

Amazingly, these little hand-held games can still be had on eBay. It's sort of like a maze where you have to get little balls in the holes. They were given out as prizes on Milky's Party Time, in which they had a feature called Stars of the Future (baton-twirling, juggling, etc.) This was as forerunner of America's Got Talent.

Closeup view.

I don't know why this is posed on snakeskin. Looks a little ominous to me. I should look up the price on eBay.

Milky on a (milk) glass. Looks plastic, but they didn't really have plastic glasses back then. Cheers!

Milky's Fan Club official button. I never was a member, not much of a joiner.

Yes, you're seeing this right. It's a Milky the Clown ashtray. The little beggars had already seen Fred and Wilma Flintstone sucking on Winstons, so what harm could it do?

Then again, maybe it's a hoax, like my Scully and Mulder fridge magnet in the shape of a flower.


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SMACKDOWN: Battle of the Creepy Clowns!

OK, I KNOW I post too many gifs. I'm of an older generation that still thinks they're Magic, and besides, I've learned how to make my own from YouTube snippets. And I'm bored and it's Friday and so what. If you don't like these, and you probably don't, don't look at them. Though my view count is at an all-time low, I am not the kind of social media prostitute that froths up business by wagging her ass. There, I've said. it.

This is Krinkles the Klown shilling for some cereal. Maybe he had aspirations beyond prancing around in a polka-dotted suit and wearing a doghouse on his head. He is plenty creepy and his makeup is classic clown, but the problem is, besides breaking through a big piece of paper, he doesn't DO much.

Milky, now. He was the bane of my childhood and star of his own show, Milky's Party Time. Like Krinkles, he was flogging a corporation, Twin Pines Dairy. Only one rare clip survives, showing him pulling a large object like a tumor out of  Little Nancy's face. Then he seems to shove it back into her face again, which I like. The clip is from some benefit for "crippled children", which is why poor Nancy must stand there on crutches for twenty minutes or so instead of sitting down comfortably. Milky looks like some ghastly vision of Pagliaccio, ready to slay his rival with a butcher knife. His costume has always reminded me, most disturbingly, of the KKK.

Like I said, Krinkles mainly just sits there and talks. He talks about how the cereal makes him "krinkle". I wonder if he is some strange forerunner of Krusty on The Simpsons. And there's that damned ruffle again.

I just noticed this (after 50 years): what's that on his head? A funnel with a sort of handle on it, I guess.

This is where it gets WAY weird, the thing with the sausages. He keeps rummaging around in his pants for some reason. When you look at some of the body language (i. e. his face getting closer and closer to the sausage, which is provocatively curved), you can see this is something that would not be considered appropriate today. And boy, is Nancy getting tired! It must hurt under her arms. And let's hope Milky's breath isn't too bad. Circus performers are notorious for their booze-and-tobacco fumes.

Ah, the taste test! How many takes did it require? He may have chewed his way through a few boxes of that stuff. But wait! Can you really SEE the spoon? Is he (like Milky) a genius at sleight-of-hand and thus able to ram the spoon into his clowny white face with no cereal on it? If so, unlike Milky, he wouldn't have to put anything in his mouth at all.

Would you want this clown pulling sausages out of your child's ear? You can sit down now, Nancy.

POST-POST: In my haste to present these macabre magicians in all their frightening glory, I forgot the most important thing.

WHO WON??

Which clown was the vilest, the scariest, the most sinister? Who pulled the most incomprehensible pranks on poor unsuspecting children?

I didn't even need to count your votes.

I give you. . .  The Victor.

I have put together this merry montage to express my personal feelings about Milky. Now for a few candid shots. . .

Milky enjoys the finer things.

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I hate clowns

 

 

I hate clowns, I hate clowns,  I truly hate clowns,

They always depress me and drag my soul down.

 

 

 

When somebody puts on such strange things to wear,

The human condition is truly laid bare.

I ask, what's the point of all this tom-foolery?

It triggers in me a deep incredulity.

 

 

 

 

Now here is a clown who caused me great dread.

In childhood this creep rented space in my head.

His name was Milky, which was awfully scary,

Just clowning and whoring for Twin Pines, the dairy.

 

 

 

 

Before John Wayne Gacy came ambling along,

There was this guy here. And he was just wrong.

He wore stars and stripes for some unknown reason,

Though flag mutilation's a high form of treason.

 

 

 

Back when I lived near old Detroit town,

I saw a strange act performed by a clown.

When he mounted his friend, to my child's mind, 

of course he

Was riding on Bozo, just playing at horsey.

 

 

 

 

When I saw this old photo of black-and-white clowns,

I climbed on a bridge and just threw myself down.

There's Milky and Bozo, the two that were lovers,

Jingles, and Whatsis - who cares, they're all mothers.

 

 

 

 

 

This clown guy I mentioned, and those of his ilk

Did a lot of hard-selling by sucking down milk.

In Milky the dairy thought they would invest - right?

Then found out that he was a flaming transvestite.

 

 

 

Twin Pines weren't aware that they'd started a fashion.

Soon clowns 'round the world drank their milk with a passion.

And poor Pagliaccio was filled with a rage,

So he drank milk, then  killed his poor wife right on-stage.

 

 

 

With hijinks like this, some dark force was released.

The ringmasters shot themselves: all were deceased.

Clowns threw nasty fits, banged their heads on the wall:

These Komedy Kapers weren't funny at all.

 

 

 

 

If this gets much weirder, I'm going to be sick.

I've never laughed once when a clown did his trick.

I can't speak for you, but I think this is rude -

I never knew clowns were this nasty and lewd.

 

 

 

 

Milky is dust now, and Bozo is dead.

Their romance still haunts me and lurks in my head.

I hate clowns, I hate them, I'll never be free,

They never will get one guffaw out of me.