About a year ago I came across a little-known independent film, written, directed, and starring Scott Prendergast called KABLUEY. The film is brilliant for no other reason than it drags the viewer into the hot, smelly, humiliating and frequently surreal world of professional mascotting.
Prendergast plays Salman, a loner, loser, sad-sack of a cipher arriving on the doorstep of his sister-in-law to help care for her two unruly boys while his older brother serves in the Middle East. Salman has been misled; room and board are not part of the deal. To earn his keep he dons the oblong-headed mascot costume of a recently collapsed dotcom and stands for hour after hour along a vacant rural Texas roadway distributing flyers for rental space in the company’s (now equally vacant) corporate headquarters.
No one knows Salman in this stark little town, no one recognizes him in or out of the big blue head. If he wasn’t before, Salman is a complete non-entity.
Salman also becomes an impromptu voyeur, privy to parts of people’s lives he wouldn’t be without the suit, and as this silent, featureless, creature of blue felt he makes friends and connections he’d be incapable otherwise. Salman’s affection-starved nephews so quick to abuse him before, now race to embrace him.
If Prendergast did not have a history as a costumed critter, color me shocked because he captured that whole reality so incredibly well it inspired me to take a look back on my life in a fuzzy suit.
An actor will take on any number of humiliations in pursuit of their art or, at least, in pursuit of their rent masquerading as pursuit of their art.
Opportunities for an actor’s self-inflicted debasement abound and for every other star that reaches a zenith, there’s a file of smutty photos or tasteless promotional efforts ready to be unearthed. In that light, the notion of dressing up in a big head and four-fingered gloves isn’t so bad.
There’s really very little written on the subject of professional mascoting or mascotry, but years ago a friend mentioned an article by Ned Zeman, printed in the December 1990 issue of Spy Magazine entitled, ‘American Kabuki.’ Between viewing KABLUEY and Zeman’s examination of the moist and reeking underbelly of costumed critter work, many things began to finally gel for me.
Mind you, much of Zeman’s discussion keeps tongue laid gently up against cheek. This was Spy Magazine, after all.
“Throughout history,” says Zeman, “every great culture has made its own singular, profound contribution to the performing arts. What is the singularly American art form, the ingenious method of expression that says to the world, and to history, Experience this art form, and you will have experienced America? It is, of course, American Kabuki—the art of performing in big, furry costumes.”
During my tenure as an American Kabuki, I donned oversized, fuzzy heads on two occasions. Strangely enough, in the broad pantheon of American Kabuki, a spectrum that ranges from dogs and wolves to ethnic caricatures and waterfowl, fate twice gave me the likeness of a big cat; a black panther in high school, and bobcat post-college.
According to Zeman there is only one reason a relatively sane human being would be compelled to wake up each day and ceremoniously put on 40 pounds of synthetic animal fur…the theatre.
Perhaps, but I’d argue there was far more to the lifestyle than just theatre.
And before we go any further, I’d like to stop and point out that my experience, and the insights found in Zeman’s article, derive from those dim days before the full onslaught of the Internet, before the all too diverse cornucopia of fetishes and aberrant sexual practices of everybody and his dog (and everybody with his dog, for that matter) became public forum. It was before Furries.
Never heard of Furries? Do a quick Google search, and come back.
***
Yeah, I fluttered my hands about my face trying to fling off that icky sensation as well.
Moving on…
When I wrapped up my first Bachelor’s degree in 1989 there wasn’t much for me in the way of career tracks. Jobs were everywhere, but not a one that fed my interest. My acting skills allowed me to interview well, but once hired each subsequent employer seemed to really enjoy firing me.
“You’re just not learning fast enough.”
“You don’t seem engaged in what you’re doing—you look like you’re bored”
“You’re just making too many mistakes.”
“You’ve been on the job three weeks, you shouldn’t still be asking me these questions.”
Two things sustained me during this period of perpetual McJob flux; community theatre and my regular gig as Captain Bobcat.
Bob’s Burger Express no longer exists. It was a modest local hamburger chain started by Bob Corey back in the 1960s. The restaurants ranged up and down the I-5 corridor between Salem and Eugene, OR. They weren’t big or flashy. They weren’t fast food juggernauts like McDonalds or Burger King, but they had a solid and supportive local following and they had a fairly astute marketing department. And they had a mascot.
Captain Bobcat’s costume wouldn’t win any Tonys. His huge head was made of fake fur and cotton batting stretched over a wire frame, and the head was so big I carried it around in one of those medium-sized drum cases. His face was broad and flat, more Persian than feral, to be sure, with simple facial details, plastic see-through mesh for eyes, and a broad, flat vinyl nose. His garb wanted desperately to be a mash-up of 1970s disco god and an extra from Sid and Marty Krofft; white gloves, glittery silver cuffs and spats, red satin party pants and (in my case) a knee-length cape, finished off with a garish, sparkly pull-over top emblazed with a bulls-eye pattern at the center of which hung the Captain’s emblem.
Captain Bobcat (CB) did public appearances at malls and county fairs, drove his tiny go-cart in holiday parades, appeared in local TV ads and radio spots but, most significantly, gave safety presentations to kids.
Being Captain Bobcat required some real performance skills beyond the average costume mascot’s job description because, unlike his fuzzy-headed brethren, CB broke a cardinal rule of the American Kabuki; he spoke.
According to Zeman, there are certain rules one must follow in order to lead a righteous and fruitful lifestyle of an American Kabuki. After inscribing the rules in his article Zeman leans upon them as Asimov did his Laws of Robotics…
1. Never Speak.
2. Never Remove Your Head in Public
3. Never Reveal Your Identity, Particularly When in Costume.
4. Be an Optimist.
5. Don’t Just Play the Character, Be the Character (This is Key).
Shameful it is to admit; during my years as CB I broke each and every tenant of the American Kabuki rulebook at least once.
Not only did I speak but also my head was removed in public --though done so with the assistance of a handful of over-bred, semi-rural twits at a local county fair.
It was just another hot summer day at the Marion County Fair, circa 1987. Cue the canned calliope and the aroma of cotton candy and deep-fried elephant ears. The crowds were dense and there was that pleasant general burble of crowd noise upon the air, but it didn’t prevent me from hearing the trio of pimple-faced dinks plotting at my back.
It was a not unfamiliar scenario at this point of my mascot career, so as casually as possible I continued handing out balloons and coupons for free fries while I gradually inching myself away from the gibbering pack, hoping to relocate myself among the throng of passersby and remove the culprits clear run at their target.
It was a fruitless effort. I was the lame gnu about to be picked off from the herd by a team of giggling hyenas. No one noticed my peril. Why should they? In my huge fuzzy head and red satin cape I wasn’t a person, I was a cartoon character.
If anything, they probably thought it funny.
Upon donning the trappings of an American Kabuki you learn instantly your identity is no longer your own—it has been dissolved, and even the most innocent of privileged, adolescent semi-rural shit-heads who say their prayers by night and never play hooky will foist all manner of abuse upon you because when you’re in that costume you cease to be a human being.
The three punks encircled me. When the tallest of the trio grabbed my elbows, locking my hands at my back, the shorter kid grabbed CB’s head. When the head came free I felt a gust of fresh, clean air hit my face. I recall my matted hair falling over my forehead and through the sweaty strands I fixed that rude little bastard with the darkest stare I could muster. When our eyes met he visibly blanched and his jaw dropped.
I’d been at this gig long enough to know he and his pals hadn’t the wherewithal to contemplate a world beyond yanking off that head. They probably thought they’d have a laugh, run off with the big fuzzy thing tucked under one of their arms and perhaps even goad me into a playground-style game of Keep Away.
They didn’t reckon on how that person under the fuzzy head would feel, or that he might just be psychotically pissed off.
Were I a teller of taller tales I would now describe in detail how the little wretch soaked and soiled himself through and through. But I’m not and he didn’t …but it would have been wonderful had he done so.
From over my shoulder, the kid holding my arms saw his little buddy’s slack-jawed gape and released me. The middle kid, the most clueless of the lot, began calling to the smaller to toss him the head. The smaller just stood there, shriveling under my glare. He mumbled something apologetic and tossed the head back into my arms.
I slung the head back upon my shoulders, went to my pick-up, and took an extended cigarette break.
The Disney Corporations contract American Kabuki work around their parks in pairs, one in costume, the other hovering about as bodyguard. The pair trades-off wearing the suit, one in, one out, in half-hour intervals.
I would spend two or three hours at a stint in that smelly old suit and no one to shadow me. I was mobbed, tackled, shoved, punched, kicked, and decapitated. But for all the abuse I received, I got numerous hugs, pats, ear scratches and Thank You’s, both verbal and written--the best of which I received in crayon pictogram.
AND I erred volumes against Zeman’s dictums. I’ll spare you the tedium and instead share one other anecdote, a moment of personal revelation I would not have experienced were it not for Captain Bobcat.
Please step back in time with me. It’s about six years before I donned to big, fuzzy head. It’s the early 1980s. It’s high school in a rural Oregon town, a place yet to discover the notion of cultural diversity.
In 1984 my graduating high school class numbered around three-dozen people, only a tiny handful of them people of color. Perhaps their number was merely a matter of ratio to that of any student body in the region at that time. I couldn’t tell you. Rural is as rural does.
Regardless, there was the inevitable tension between the pinks and the tans and the tiny handful of browns and beiges.
There was a young woman—we’ll just call her “N”, short for Nefertiti, because my crush-bound heart saw her sharp, angular features reminiscent of that ancient stone bust depicting Egypt’s lost queen; the swan-like neck, the almost almond-shaped eyes and light coffee and cream toned skin. I thought her stunning above all others. She had poise and she had grace, and a class that transcended any other young woman in those lonely halls. The quality of her character had nothing to do with the color of her skin.
I remember once confiding to a female classmate of the touch of a crush I had on N. She flinched saying, “But she’s black. Don’t you have a problem with that?”
Of that, little more need be said.
I always treated N with the utmost respect, if not deference. But one day the classroom windows all but blew out and I was the unwitting cause. I recall sitting at my desk, a row behind N, recounting some story to someone beside me. Who knows what I was talking about, all I recall was describing a scene that included uttering the words “ghetto blaster,” a term once coined in reference to portable stereos or boom boxes. N whirled on me and in so many words called me a bigot—“ghetto” was a racist term, she snapped, the implication made all too clear I was a racist for using it.
I choked, stuttered and blanched as only a naïve-but-well-meaning-pink person and would-be liberal in the heart of rural Oregon can. I struggled to form some kind of apology, but N shut me out and turned around. Nefertiti had spoken and the little pink burbling guilt-creature never mustered the strength to speak to her again.
N didn’t graduate from Central High. Within a year I noticed her absence in the halls and classrooms. I heard she’d enrolled at a high school in Portland--more metropolitan, to be sure, and hopefully more tolerant.
I never got a chance to apologize or explain myself. I wanted so badly to prove to her I had never intended to make a racial slur, but the opportunity was past. In the years to come the universal dilemma of this incident became the fodder for many a debate in my college Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, Asian Studies and African American studies classes; where do you draw the line between racist condemnation and simple naiveté?
If you get blasted for a boo-boo, what do you do-do?
It’s a much more loaded issue than one would anticipate. All I know was that once I had a big-time crush on N, and in one waggle of my tongue the hope of love fulfilled was decimated. But I also think I got a crucial peek into how isolated she felt and how pent up those feelings had become.
I secretly wondered that my culturally adverse peers and me had created in N distrust, if not hate, for pink people.
Now we take a big bobcat leap about six years from then into the future. I’m back in the fuzzy head, passing out balloons at the local mall. The Captain is in ‘silent running’ mode. Though doing the safety presentations for classrooms packed with kids was fun, especially when it came to seeing their eyes bug when the costumed being before them actually spoke, sometimes it was less draining being dumb, especially for longer gigs like mall appearances.
But for all the jerk-wads there were kids and adults who knew the Captain on sight and greeted him with great appreciation. Kids would dart out of the crowd and hug me or stand at my elbow and tell me all kinds of wonderful things. Sure, there are the requisite screamers and runners—big fuzzy heads are scary to little people, but there were others simply bursting with unbridled, unconditional affection and the urge to express it.
It was one such moment while handing a string of a helium balloons to a nearby parent (no mean feat in white cotton gloves, let me tell you) that a small, two-legged missile rushed at me from beyond my limited peripheral vision. He was a little guy, reaching to just above my knee--creamy brown skin, a curly thatch of jet-black hair and a pair of stunning golden eyes. He glommed onto my leg and gave it a mighty hug. I looked down and silently stroked his head.
These are peak moments for the American Kabuki. Crossing paths with people, most often those very small children fortunate enough to see the world as a place of wonder and warmth and kindness.
I heard someone call to the little boy and he twisted his face from where he’d buried it in the Captain’s pantaloon.
His mother’s long legs entered my crosshatched line-of-sight and I was given a gut-kick hard enough to hurtled me back in time. There was N. She didn’t look all that different. Perhaps she stood taller, perhaps there was more confidence in her stance, but it was undoubtedly she and I was looking right at her and she had no clue.
Her little boy disengaged himself and reached for a balloon. “Come on, honey, daddy’s ready to go.” I methodically tied the string to the little boy’s wrist and looked up to see Dad’s approach. He was as pink as pink could be. Pink like me.
She took the guy’s arm with one hand and Daddy lifted the little missile into his arms. Nice. Nice picture.
So, what’s my point?
Had I not been in the Captain Bobcat regalia, it is entirely likely a moment this significant would have been missed. N hurt me when she accused me of being something I was not—or did not mean to be, but it was a safe bet her outburst came from a place of isolation and disenfranchisement. What I learned from the seclusion and anonymity of that big, ugly mask, was whatever she felt about the world in high school was now settled and gone.
I’d held onto that ugly little moment for years and it was time for me to let it go.
She looked happy and as she walked away I could only hope that happiness would last and last.
I held onto the CB gig for another year, but eventually I went back to school to pursue my Masters Degree in, yes, Acting. It was a rough road, and there were moments when I got so weary of the constant ‘constructive’ criticism and 15-hour days spent on campus there were times I actually missed that hot, smelly costume and its power to wipe me (albeit, temporarily) from the face of the earth.
