The Jesus Mimes

I'm a little distracted and sleepy right now as I have a lot on my mind and didn't get very much sleep last night, but maybe a little writing exercise will put me in better form.
Well, another strange snippet of a memory just came back to me. As is usually the case with these sorts of recollections I can remember a few highlighted seconds and I have a loose web of vague impressions holding them together, more or less, into a sort of situation or short series of events. Well, it may not sound like much, but great events from the ancient past have been chiseled out of the marble of history using considerably less. Maybe with a little deductive reasoning and common sense I can flesh this one out with a certain degree of reliable accuracy.
This happened back over 30 years ago, between '81 and '83 I believe. I was at Santa Monica  beach. I don't recall who I went with, who was with me, but I usually went with someone else. I did upon rare occasions go all by myself, but I don't recall that this was one of those times. I may have gone with my sister, but I don't think so. It was most likely Frank, either just Frank or Frank and a small selection from that garage band crowd of mostly jewish musicians he used to hang out with. Anyway, I remember breaking away from my companion(s) and watching the silly antics of a troupe of mimes performing on the pier. Damn, mimes  are fucking weird. Aside from Marcel Marceau I can't think of any well known mimes. I imagine mimes and clowns were the same thing at one time and at some point mimes evolved and broke away from the clown main steam. I can think of a small number of clowns off the top of my head right now, "Bozo", who I was a big fan of as a small child, "Claribel" from my mother's generation, and I guess "Koko" who was twice removed from reality as he was not only a clown but a cartoon character from those old scratchy, B&W Betty Boop cartoons from the 1930's.


Well, as I said, I imagine mimes extricated themselves from the society of their fellow clowns at some point in circus history and took a vow of poverty, judging by their aversion to props, preferring instead to pretend they have the required items for their skits, like that shrinking box they pretend to be trapped in, random walls to casually lean against, and even imaginary tea cups to imbibe from.
Along with their vow of poverty came their well known vow of silence. I think that this particular mime troupe I stumbled upon at the pier was one that was actually taking a vacation from their monastery because they were miming for Jesus. Yes, it was a Christian mime troupe. They were out to harvest souls too. Strange way to win converts since most people that would stop to watch mimes would likely be tripping and stoned off their ass, or, as in my case, a young cynic with an unconventional sense of humor and a heightened sense of the absurd.
Well, since I supposed they were fellow artists (sorta) I treated them with professional courtesy. I don't remember what happened next, but I ended up just talking to one of them, some guy in a bowler hat from Australia, judging by his accent. I guess a lot of these born again types initially get very excited talking to me because I have such a profound understanding of Christian theology, and they mistakenly interpret this as meaning I'm receptive to it. Well, I'm really not. I understand all religions but I can't say I believe in any of them. No, I'm not an atheist. I'm open to the idea of a spiritual realm that has it's own physics and may even at certain times and under certain circumstances affect our carnal plane, I just have suspicions concerning organized religions. For instance Christianity where you have to earn the promotion into heaven, or reincarnation where one has to slowly improve one's self to step up the ladder of progressively more sophisticated life forms before achieving Godhead, well, these all sound to me like humans imposing earthly corporate or academic processes on the divine, which I doubt is explainable using our worldly references and analogies.
I recall I was being very stubborn and I may have even been enjoying myself by politely, but sternly, and always with a mocking undertone, repelling his spiritual advances.


At that time in my life I was a hard core evolutionist, reading all the books I could find on the topic. Everything from Darwin, Raymond Dart, Robert Broom, the Leakeys, Johansen and any and every other oddball title I could dig up related to the topic. Well, as you can all imagine I was a most difficult nut to crack. As is usually the case in such instances the guy was genuinely likable so one has a natural desire to be cooperative, but I was raised in the church and was right in the middle of my independent and rebellious phase.
Anyway I can distinctly remember him on the pier in the late afternoon shortly before sunset, looking down forlornly in his pancake make up looking like he was suffering the weight of the world on his shoulders because this little fish slipped through the net.