Editor’s Note:

He finished his last show at Dead North in Danville nearly four years ago and then disappeared into the night. Until today, nobody knew where he’d been.  But the man known as Jingo The Dark Clown is back in St. Johnsbury, preparing to perform at the Belly Dance Circus, at Catamount Arts on September 26. He sent this note.

I’m back…but I’m not sure why. But here I am.

I can tell by the scene unfolding on this old Emerson TV in my dressing room tonight that a lot has changed in this country since my departure four years ago.

I was without a television for most of that time, working two shows a night in a Cairo nightclub frequented by local bureaucrats, off-duty Blackwater guys and several of the lesser Mubaraks, second and third cousins mostly.  Losers, mostly.

I knew Obama had gotten elected but not much else.

When I left the United States, the Republican Party was run like a machine, by a cabal of skilled operators that demanded loyalty and obedience from its members.  In Congress they spoke with one voice, staying on message at all times, marching in perfect unison.  They crushed the Democrats, year after year after year.

Now, this once powerful machine appears to be run by a group of lecherous, ham-handed and vastly inferior men.

It’s true. The GOP was once so powerful that it rolled without apology, blitzkrieg-style across the American electoral landscape, devouring Democrats like Hitler took Poland.  Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Trent Lott, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove. These were men to be feared. Dominating in a street fight, deadly when backed into a corner, always a step ahead of their opponents, they were Rommelesque in the strategic deployment of wedge issues.  They seemed to never lose, and if things did get bogged down in the mud, well, there was always a self-destructive Democrat like Bill Clinton around to smooth things over. No worries.

But those guys are gone now and their replacements appear to be a decrepit collection of second stringers, coat holders and bad poker players.  They are the backup quarterbacks of conservative politics.  And the most bizarre part is that they’re all still strutting around like they’re the Party of Reagan.

I saw it all, playing out right there on my dressing room TV.  There’s the Prez at the podium, talking about the need for health care reform. He’s on a roll, he’s got the good stuff working. He’s painting the corners and heading for a complete game, when an irrelevant douchebag back-bench Republican Senator from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, delivers his now infamous line.

“You lie!” he shouted from the cheap seats.

I’m just guessing here but I figure Delay, Rove and the rest of the legends must find it incredibly painful that the once vaunted Republican troops are now being led into battle by the likes of Joe Wilson – AKA – “The Heckler.”

I know a little something about hecklers. I deal with them all the time. It’s part of the job.

There are fun hecklers and they are a lot like happy drunks.  These are guys who just want to have a good time, even if they do it sloppily.

Then there is the angry heckler.

He’s easy to spot but, like landmines, he’s difficult on the surroundings.  It’s usually a middle-aged man seated alone at a table, in the back, beyond the shadows.  He’s drunk, agitated and pissed-off, talking loudly to no one in particular and about to get shut-off.  He’s been hooting and hollering along with the crowd, but then doesn’t have enough brains to realize that the rest of the crowd has suddenly become quiet.

“You lie!” he shouts, and everybody pauses for just a moment.  It’s too much, it’s at the wrong time. It’s not funny. Who is that guy?  For a brief moment the mystery man is King. But nobody knows his name and the act continues on and the angry heckler goes back to being…no one, a lonely, dark figure in the shadows. And that is the saddest thing of all.

Let me be clear.  I’m not saying that Congressman Wilson was drunk, or even lonely.  I don’t even know if the man drinks, and I really don’t give a damn, but I can tell you from personal experience that booze likes to do a lot of talking, and it certainly makes sense if the whole ugly scene began with the seductive charms of a nearly-empty bottle of cheap Kentucky whisky.

But if it wasn’t alcohol doing the talking, what was?  Is he just…that…stupid??

This “spontaneous” outburst – as he called it – occurred right in the middle of a speech where Obama was calling for a civil debate on the health care issue.  And in one simple moment, the man from South Carolina did more to help the President than Ted Kennedy ever could.

It also helped Wilson’s democratic challenger, who, thanks to the Internet, suddenly found himself about four hundred thousand dollars richer in campaign funds the very next day.

I suppose the whole thing could have part of some secret strategy devised by Republican National Chairman Michael Steele…no, never mind, forget I even brought it up.

No, this is not the party of Ronald Reagan, no more than the Democrats in the 1980’s were the party of JFK or FDR.

Maybe it’s just a South Carolina problem?  After all, the Palmetto state’s governor, Mark Sanford, is a super visionary guy who figured out a way to combine lies, infidelity, sleaziness and a secret trip to Argentina into a kind of credit default swap of public disgrace.

And…he’s not resigning. Wow. Those are some big balls. At this point he’s probably just banking on the fickle nature of the press and public and praying for some other elected schmuck to get caught doing something embarrassing….

….News Flash! Tick Tick Tick Tick…Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the show: California State Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall!

Duvall is the guy who was caught on tape bragging about all the kinky things he did to a couple of lady lobbyists – neither of which was his wife.

Good news for Sanford…but uh-oh…Duvall has just resigned!  Bad news for Sanford.

But Sanford’s lucky he’s a member of the New Republicans, because if this were the old days, the late, great political strategist and formidable guitar player Lee Atwater (also from South Carolina…hmmm) would still be alive and Sanford would already be gone, either voluntarily, or with Atwater’s Fender Telecaster wrapped around his unbelievably red neck.

That’s the way those things were done back in the day. You screwed up, you were gone. The Party and The Fight were simply too important to allow the B-list guys to ruin it.

But now it’s everyone and their potty mouths and their mistresses and their back-of-the school bus bravery and their full ride government health insurance benefits for themselves.

Screw everyone else.

So I’m back.  I’m here.  Please come to the show at Catamount. And if you can’t make it, please send liquor.

More ice.  Now.

Jingo