Nonfiction Pizza Party
No matter how longwinded or unoriginal the account, I will devour any essay about
1. The Dream Team2. David Foster Wallace3. Juggalos
Juggalos are the fiercely loyal fans of the Insane Clown Posse [ICP], a duo who raps about sex, murder, booze, drugs, magnets, God, and clown mythology. I forgot to mention, ICP paint their faces like clowns and sometimes so do Juggalos, and Juggalettes, their female counterparts. Juggalos spray each other with soda, yell “Whoop Whoop!” as exclamation, and chant “FAM-I-LY” in support of each other. And they call one and all “Ninja” as a sort of stand-in for the n-word. And the F.B.I considers Juggalos a “gang,” which is both correct and incorrect. And ICP are quite bad at rapping, but as you can see by now, that's beside the point. (I will stop here so that your brain doesn't explode.)Each year tens of thousands attend The Gathering of the Juggalos, ICP's summer music festival, and each year writers try to make sense of the place, which is kind of like adult Disney World, on acid and on fire. Or “the scariest place in America besides jail.” Whoop Whoop!In 2010, Camille Dodero of the Village Voice wrote the definitive account of The Gathering. As a narrator, she stays out of the way and is funny without being dismissive. On the habit of big name acts like Method Man getting pelted with rocks: “Juggalos throw things. They just do.”And: “”¦En masse: ”˜Whooooooooooop whooooop!' It sounds like a flock of horned owls.”The next year Emma Carmichael went undercover as a Juggalette for Deadspin. She burrows into the misogyny (women are constantly asked to flash their breasts) and drug trade (no police allowed) to write about identity: “I do not make for a good Juggalette. The incredible thing about the Gathering is that this fact did not matter. This is a testament to the Juggalos' general openness and understanding, and to the basic power of greasepaint. No one cared why I was there. Everyone assumed that everyone else had a good enough reason.”The most recent JugalEssay is the most ambitious of the group, and even though Kent Russell's “American Juggalo” doesn't always hit, it gets closest to the Truth. The essay explores race, class, horror as art, and is reminiscent of John Jeremiah Sullivan's “Upon This Rock” (again, on acid and on fire.) “American Juggalo” appeared in n+1 and is now a Kindle Single.Near the conclusion, Russell writes, “You can be a Juggalo or you can be white trash—the first term is yours, the second is somebody else's.”This is why Juggalos make for fine literature. Yeah, Juggalos do things that you (yes, you with the fake glasses) and I wouldn't, but they also do things you and I couldn't. I read every word because sometimes I'm too scared of what people think to do what I want, too neurotic to indulge my impulses, too shy to hug a stranger and call him “FAM-I-LY.”--David Bersell