Quick recap: A man dressed up as a scary clown has been popping up here and there in the town of Wasco, California recently. This has caused residents to, justifiably, freak all the way out. The whole thing is what the man is referring to as “a year-long art project,” which means (a) art has gotten out of control, and (b) the town still has like 10-11 months of this to go. And it gets even worse!
However, it is unfortunate that the Wasco clown photography project has inspired some copy cats to scare and terrorize the community’s residents in Bakersfield, California. The latest clown sighting in Bakersfield that concerns police the most involves individuals who are chasing people and wielding weapons while dressed as a clown. [Inquisitr]
And…
The stuff of nightmares has hit the streets of Bakersfield, where police say they’re fielding reports from members of the public freaked out by clowns standing in public holding machetes and baseball bats. [LA Times]
And…
The latest after-dark sighting came Saturday, when police in Bakersfield responded around 8 p.m. to a report of a clown holding a firearm.
Officers searched but didn’t find anyone. [NBC LA]
Needless to say, we have a few questions.
Why?
Why?
WHY?
Has anything ever been scarier than this?
Like, in history?
I mean, say what you will about volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, at least none of them involve a machete-carrying clown loitering in a parking lot in the middle of the night, right?
What the hell is going on with all the scary clowns right now, between this and the season premiere of American Horror Story: Freak Show?
Remember this little slice of nightmare fuel from the credits?
WHO SAID THAT WAS OKAY?
What is more terrifying: a real machete-wielding clown or a naked stop-motion clown with a giant boot-wearing leg for a penis?
It’s close, right?
What would you do if you lived in this town?
Would you consider building a moat around your house to keep the clowns away?
Crap, can clowns can probably swim, huh?
And wouldn’t a soaking wet, angry clown that just swam through a moat and has its makeup running all down its clown clothes be even scarier?
What if you built, like, five moats?
Or would you take more drastic action like burning down your house for the insurance money and fleeing to Europe?
If you were an insurance agent and someone openly admitted to you that they burned their house down to escape gun-wielding clowns that were terrorizing their town, would you deny the claim?
Probably not, right?
Why hasn’t President Obama spoken on this yet?
Do you think he should?
Isn’t this a more pressing national issue than Ebola or whatever?
What if he interrupts Monday Night Football tonight to address the nation about California’s scary clown crisis?
If you’re a conservative talk show host, why aren’t you hitting this really hard right now?
What if Rush Limbaugh goes on his show today and starts blabbering about how Obama has always been soft on clowns and this is just the result of a failed policy?
What if it becomes the biggest issue in this year’s midterm elections?
Like, what if candidates start making attack ads using ominous black-and-white pictures of their opponents standing with a party clown at a child’s birthday party while the voiceover is all “Friend to clowns. Enemy to America”?
And what if the next session of Congress opens with a bill to ban clowns?
Is it even possible to legislate clowns out of existence?
Or do we need to take more … extreme measures?
I mean, you do realize this is basically a Dark Knight prequel, right?
Do you think one of them could turn into The Joker?
WHAT MENTALLY IMBALANCED VIGILANTE BILLIONAIRE WILL COME TO OUR RESCUE AND SAVE US?
Zuckerberg?
Oh God, we’re doomed, aren’t we?
Wait, can we just send in The Rock?
Isn’t he pretty much a superhero at this point anyway?
Do you think our nation’s professional-wrestlers-turned-action-stars have a civic duty to protect us during times of crisis, clown-based or otherwise?
Did you know there’s actually a WWE-approved book along those lines called Big Apple Takedown, and that it has the greatest Amazon summary ever?
December 2001: Vince McMahon steps out of a snowy night into a diner in upstate New York for a meeting with old friend Phil Thomson, now a highly placed government official. Thomson has a strange proposition: creating a new covert black-ops group using the Superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment. The WWE’s talented men and women are perfect. Highly skilled athletes with the ideal cover, they travel all across the country and the globe; no one would find it unusual to find them in a town one day and gone the next. The government would train and support the wrestlers in every way possible except one: no one must know the truth. March 2006: The Superstars have been handed their latest assignment – take down a commercial-grade methyl-amphetamine plant that is bankrolling terrorist activities in Europe. Their mission seems simple and straightforward, until a member of their team is taken prisoner. Now all that they’ve worked so hard for is in jeopardy, and one of their own might be killed . . .
WHY IN THE WORLD HASN’T THAT BEEN MADE INTO A TERRIBLE MOVIE YET?
No, but seriously, what if The Rock gives up movies to become a full-time, real-life crimefighter?
And what if we give him him a menagerie of gadgets and gizmos through a secret program funded by the Pentagon or maybe Mark Cuban?
Be honest … you’d feel a little safer, wouldn’t you?
How cool would it be to see headlines like “Gang Of Machete-Wielding Clowns Thwarted By The Rock” in the paper every couple weeks?
Pretty cool, right?
WHY ISN’T THIS A MOVIE, TOO?
OR AT LEAST AN EPISODE OF SVU OR SOMETHING, PROVIDED ONE OF THE CLOWNS IS SOME SORT OF CRIMINAL PERVERT, WHICH, LET’S BE HONEST, IS PROBABLY THE CASE?
Did you just picture Ice-T hunting a sexually deviant clown through the streets of New York and start giggling a little bit?
And then did you stop giggling when you remembered that there really are scary clowns terrorizing our largest state and NO ONE IS SAFE?
What kind of deranged person wants to be a clown anyway?