Attempting to Humor the Humorless

There’s a long history of clowning for social justice. We need more of it. Thank you Felipe.


Send in the clowns: the new guard of activists combating the right, by Morgan Jerkins, The Guardian, September 16, 2026.

A growing cohort of performers ‘clown’ as a means to innovate traditional protest and create social change

On a humid morning on 15 July, Tillie the Clown, a Brooklyn-based drag performer whose real name is Taylor Horne, was waiting to be let inside a New York City council meeting. Horne had started getting into character at 5am, for a makeup and clown-costuming process that would take two hours. It would be another 10 hours before Horne was allowed to address the city council about the passing of Romanch’s Law, which would phase out and ultimately ban New York’s horse carriage industry.

Read whole article here.

Trump Checks!

The Bank of Trump is pleased to announce a $5,000 gift to every American! Get yours on joeyskaggs.com.

Is it legal? Who’s going to stop him?
Will it raise the national debt? Who cares?

You can pay him back in November. Vote Republican! That’s the deal.


Print it, cut it out, and fill it in

RIP Yayoi Kusama 1929 – 2026

Remembering Kusama: In 1968, artist, Yayoi Kusama joined Joey Skaggs’ Hippie Bus Tour to Queens. In a satirical ironic reversal, the group toured neighborhoods and snapped photos of suburbanites mowing their lawns and washing their cars. When the group stopped at Hillside’s Nirvana head shop in Queens, the “Group Image” band played while Kusama painted polka dots on the naked dancers.



Read The Guardian’s Obituary here:
Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who became a global superstar, dies aged 97, by Tim Jonze and Sian Cain, August 26, 2026.

 

Viva la France??

Why you don’t take your guillotine to a gun fight…


Man arrested after guillotine is found in pickup truck near Capitol, by Kyle Stewart and Raquel Coronell Uribe, NBC News, August 25, 2026.


In 2024, Joey Skaggs’ New York City Annual April Fools’ Day Parade featured “Democracy at the Guillotine” on a mobile billboard truck, therefore avoiding a showdown with the law.