In the Shadows of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

I shouldn’t be writing this. If they ever find out, my family could be in grave danger. But what’s the point of living if the secrets keep me from sleeping? Whistleblower? Maybe. Hero? Your words, not mine. In any case, the truth must be above all else. That’s why, in the face of what could be an unspeakable retaliation, I pen this so that you, Earth, know exactly what life is like as a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

When they got their grips into me, I was a temporary employee in the Macy’s legal department. I was fresh out of confidence, and had little to show for my twenty seven years on earth. And the whole “temp” situation wasn’t exactly helping. “I see here you have two Bachelor’s degrees and are working on a Masters. Terrific. Now if you’ll just move these century old case files from this room to that one over there, I’ll be more than happy to sign your time sheet.” I had been there a week when I developed a bond with a friendly paralegal. What I didn’t know at the time was that this “friend” had a second life. She was a “Clown Captain.”

The job of the Clown Captain is simple. You walk around the department, trying to convince coworkers to give up the first half of their Thanksgiving holiday. In exchange, they get the privilege of marching three miles in potentially disastrous weather, dressed liked the village idiot and pimping the Macy’s brand to anyone who’ll listen. While most of the lawyers balk, it’s an easy sell to ambitious newcomers and the lonely. Me? I was a temp, with no work family to call my own. New to the Big Apple and vulnerable as hell, I was a sitting duck. Before I could spell “cornucopia”, the Clown Captain had me ready to sign away my life, or at least the first nine hours of Thanksgiving. I was now one of them. Another nameless member of their sacred red nosed fraternity. I was a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Clown.

Until now, the inner sanctum of the parade volunteer has remained locked away in a Green Zone of secrecy. The truth? Exactly where they want it, smothered under layers and layers of white greasepaint. The outrageous hours. Empty, false promises of reform. The hierarchy. Oh yes, the hierarchy. Surprised? Don’t tell me you thought a bunch of volunteer, corporate-sponsored parade clowns would be any different? At the bottom of the food chain are the balloon handlers. You’ve seen them. Bravely struggling against the harsh city winds, desperately trying to keep Homer Simpson’s visage squarely in front of the network cameras. In my experience, these sad souls are the chattiest, friendliest members of the group. Of course, this cheery disposition may be a survival instinct of some kind, developed over years of suffering inside those brightly colored coveralls. The job is pretty simple, rendering even the brightest of handlers interchangeable. Because of this, they do exactly as they’re told. “Turn right.” “Turn left.” “Spin.” There’s even something called “Balloon Practice” the handlers are forced to attend.

Last year, I met a petite, elderly woman of fifty from New Rochelle who was charged with guiding a scary-big “Abbi Cadabby” through Times Square. The terror buried deep in her eyes still haunts me to this day.

At the top are the “special” clowns. The “talented tenth” of the Clown race. The ones who bring to the parade a little something more than just sensible shoes and high spirits. Acrobats. Stilt-walkers. Rollerbladers. In another era, we’d laugh and call them freaks, make them sit in the back of the tiny clown bus, but in the world of the parade, they’re top-dog. The first part of any clown’s day is the costume line. While most of us wait outside the New Yorker Hotel, easy prey to whatever lurks at that predawn hour, the special clowns jump to the front. And of course there’s the media attention. If you’re NBC, why cut to commercial with a boring, every day “Keystone Cop Clown” when you can have one that’s nine feet tall and can shoot confetti out of his nose? Of course, the great equalizer here is that to be on top, you have to admit, before millions of people, that you’re really good at something as stupid as rollerblading. I mean, really good. Expert-good. The Parade Department only takes the best. The last thing Macy’s wants is for some rollerblading clown to be the next “Epic Parade Fail” video on YouTube. If you’re not good enough to wow the disco burnouts who run that sketchy, poor man’s skating rink in Central Park, then you’re not parade material. Maybe next year. Right now, you’re just not lame enough.

The bulk of the parade is made up of us regular clowns. The middle class, if you will. Were you to walk into a house full of Macy’s parade participants, we would be the ones sitting around the kitchen table, worrying about bills and our clown-child’s education. There would also probably be a six-pack. Mostly, we are a happy, proud people. The envy of the handlers, and the disdain of the “specials”. Rising before the sun on Thanksgiving, we humbly put on our comically over-sized shoes one at a time before converging on Midtown, crusty eyed and ready to serve our corporate master. Then we wait. The costume line is long, and in bad weather, unforgiving. Some years can be brutally frigid, but with the promise of smiling children ahead, we manage. We manage.

Prior to mid-November, the clown does not know which costume he or she will sport on parade day. “Keep the people guessing.” Looks like someone read 7 Secrets to Starting a Cult. That it will be some variation on “clown” and that the smell of last year’s participant will remain are givens. What is up in the air is, well, everything that matters. The first year, I wore an unwieldy inner tube and swim cap as part of the “Silly Seaside Clowns.” Last November, I walked with New York’s bravest in “The Fire Brigade Clowns.” A long yellow slicker. One red foam hat. A bucket of confetti and imaginary ladder our only tools against the destructive scourge of the urban fire. The costume was, in a word, underwhelming. But if I can take any pride in of these past few years, it was two parades ago, when as a part of the “Happy Birthday Clowns”, I became the first member of my family to dress up like a giant slice of yellow cake and march down Sixth Ave. From poor Southern farmers to big city temp wearing a plastic candle as a hat. Not too shabby.

This year, if you look closely, you’ll see me again, as you probably have many times before, marching through New York with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I haven’t been assigned a costume yet, but the look of fear of retaliation for this letter will be unmistakably splattered across my face. My friends ask me, “If it’s all so bad, why don’t you get out?” I wish it were that easy, but let’s face it: I didn’t just receive two Macy’s Friends and Family 20% Off-coupons because I’m handsome. And in these dark economic times, with a growing family and an incomparable sense of style, you tell me: do I really have a choice?

Matt Roberson | Contributor

Matt Roberson is a writer and works in the theatres of New York. His work has appeared on McSweeney’s, and he is a frequent contributor to Nytheatre.com. He is currently writing a history of the 1983 production The Gospel at Colonus.

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• www.mcsweeneys.net/2010/5/25roberson.html
• www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/reviewerinfo.php?rev=72