Send in the crown,

how Caroline balances the otherwordliness of Jumbo’s on her slender shoulders.

When you walk into Jumbo’s Clown Room, it is alight with wishes. Beguiling girls in plastic skirts hang from the ceiling, like Stellaluna. Low lights dot the wooden finishings; it’s how I imagine Texas in the seventies. It’s a strip club, kind of, except the dancers are wearing tiny costumes & miraculously, the audience is brimming with lesbians. Beautiful lesbians to the left, right, & center. This place is a queer mecca not only because stripping is sexy (& homoerotic). It’s because of one person, a girl named Caroline Blaike.

I met Caro ages ago at the McDonald’s next to Akbar. Two sober young women in a sea of wasted half-strangers, we were wearing long wavy hair extensions that flowed beyond our bums. “I’m like, so gay,” she confessed to me. “Me, too. I’m really, actually gay,” I offered back, “like, I have a heartbroken ex-girlfriend presently.” She smiled, then whispered, “I have an ex-wife.” 

When Caroline is onstage, she is everything. She could be the one you’ve loved since you were in kindergarten. Clowns have existed in cultures across the globe for thousands & thousands of years. Perhaps the most archetypal is Pierrot, of commedia dell’arte in seventeenth-century Italy. In his loose blouse with wide-open eyes, he observes the ever-elusive human condition (an idealistic sufferer). In some countries, the roles of priest & clown are held by the very same person. People whose existence make the world more gentle.

Caroline is this kind of infinite container. She blends in with the morning. She is cozier than your childhood bed. She will check your location. She will stay on the line as you cry about the wrong lovers. She will listen, until you are in love again. She is Cinderella’s translucent slipper. She is every color at once. As I trade a $20 bill for ones with the silver-haired bartender who tells me quietly that I remind her of Penny Lane, I understand this otherworldly economy. I understand the regulars that come to this glowing cave Saturday after Saturday, even when they aren’t lonely. Even when they’re celebrating.

Coming to see this group of sirens that, rather than killing you, will bring you back to life. Some people are so special, it feels surreal. Like a storybook (like a fantasy). Like a birthday party. Like a dream.

However, I have found it is with these ones that everything is exactly as it seems.

You can look here to come & see Caroline dance, or take her brand new class.