I recently received a press release alerting me that Kiss 108 was holding an online contest to determine “the sportscaster, weatherman or columnist in the city with the best sense of humor.” Finally, I thought, I would get the recognition I deserve. There was only one problem: I wasn’t on the ballot. Those curs, I thought, they must have overlooked the Improper Bostonian. Then I noticed my co-worker Jonathan Soroff listed among the nominated kings of comedy. I flew into a fit of rage, smashing my America’s Funniest Home Videos tapes, deleting my “You know you’re a redneck when...” e-mail files and tearing up my Family Circus wall calendar. None of it seemed funny anymore.
    I called Jonathan to see if he would be willing to give me humor lessons, but he was busy sipping white-truffle-and-caviar martinis with the exiled princess of Mongolia at the benefit for the Young Friends of That Fenced-Off Patch of Grass in Louisburg Square That No One with a Net Worth Under $100 Million Is Allowed to Walk On. So I turned to an alternate source of comedic inspiration: professional clown Bello Nock, who was in Boston to promote the arrival of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at the FleetCenter.
    There was originally talk of Bello hosting clown auditions at Faneuil Hall, but the idea got nixed on the premise that not enough clowns would turn out. So if any clown recruiters are reading this, here are the main points of my resume:
    •Apprenticeship under Bozo. Responsibilities included keeping hand buzzers wound up; filling squirting-flower reservoirs; prestretching balloons.
    •Traveled extensively (via cannon).
    •Implemented car-pooling program, allowing 16 co-workers to share a single vehicle.
    Bello’s Faneuil Hall performance centered around a trampoline, upon which he spent about 20 minutes performing normally inadvisable maneuvers such as diving head-first down between the springs and folding himself up into the thing. The highlight of the act, in my opinion, was when he bounded especially high, did a backflip and whipped off his pants. I’m sure Mrs. Nock is familiar with that move.
    I wanted Bello to teach me some clown tricks, the better for me to become a Funny Media Personality, but as it turns out most of his stunts wouldn’t be very funny in my hands, since they would include my death. “I’ll go up 90 feet on a sway pole,” he told me. “I would walk a wire between any two buildings. I’m learning a double back somersault on a BMX. I do it over a flaming hoop. I’m like a cross between Evel Knievel, Harpo Marx, Jackie Chan and an Olympic athlete. Any extreme sport or circus act, I’ve done it.” And here I thought maybe he’d show me how to make a little doggie out of balloons.
    Other than Bello having much bigger bellos than myself in the derring-do department, he’s also a bit more outgoing. He always wears his hair slicked straight up in a six-inch follicular facade. Out in public, he often wears a jacket emblazoned with his likeness and the slogan “Bello made you laugh.” As we’re talking, he repeatedly pauses to hail passersby with greetings. His need for attention reminds me of a more extreme version of my younger brother, who used to enjoy walking up to strangers at the mall and asking if they’d share their ice cream. “I get paid in laughs,” he says. “Because for money alone, you couldn’t pay me enough to risk my life 20 times per show.”
    I did get a chance to talk a little shop with Bello about the whole humor thing. “Humor with respect is tough,” he says. “That’s the hardest thing—being funny while trying not to offend anybody.” As someone who faces that same challenge, I have to say, What the hell do you mean by that, Bello? Are you just saying that because I’m white?! I hate clowns!
    While I enjoyed Bello’s antics, I suspect they wouldn’t much help my quest for Funny Media Personalityhood—although I might work on the trampoline pants-removal thing anyway. It dawned on me that maybe I should be looking toward a less physical, more cerebral mentor: The Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown. As Krusty says, “I used to do a lot of tumbling in my act but I’m phasing it out for more dirty limericks. ‘There once was a man named Enos...’”*