I’ve now had time to sleep on it and reflect on NASA bombing the moon and I think it is okay in an Armageddon sort of way. I mean, I can accept all sorts of awful hardships in my own life, so long as they make a good story later. Why should I hold nation states to a higher standard?

NASA decided it would be awesome to bomb the moon, because a circus clown told them it would be a green thing to do, as the world needs clean water. Not just any circus clown though. A circus clown who is into acrobatics and very very very rich. All totally logical. If a writer pitched Batman having to stop the Joker from putting explosives on the moon, the idea would be dismissed as too ridiculous. Allow me to recap: NASA IS BOMBING THE MOON BECAUSE A CIRCUS CLOWN TOLD THEM TO. To discover ice water humanity already knows is there. Toss in double digit unemployment, the meltdown of much of the world’s economy, record bankruptcies, record foreclosures, banks and insurance companies looting the United States Treasury among others, the hunting of albinos, and various atrocities around the globe and you’ve got a cyberpunk noir too dark and too implausible to sell to any publisher.

Speaking of water, the Mayans were innovators in plumbing, built ground level aqueducts, and are believed to have had the first conduit drainage systems on the American continent. Mayan astronomers worried that the solstice moon and the Milky Way seemed to get closer together each year. The Mayan calendar has the world scheduled to end in 2012.

I’ve been looking forward to Zombieland since the Comic Con Zombie Walk sponsored by the movie. Finally got to see it and it did not disappoint. Zombieland is not destined to be the kind of cult classic Shaun of the Dead is, but it is still damn funny.

Sure, it is a horror movie and has a lot of black zombie blood spilled, so it is not for the squeamish, but Zombieland is really more of a comedy than a scarefest. A very gory disgusting blood-splattered comedy with very funny makeshift weapons. Woody Harrelson’s badassery and Jesse Eisenberg’s fearfulness play off one another to laugh out loud effect. There is a cameo in it that was almost as awesome as Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so that is all I’ll say on that.

Here is a fun fact to know and share: Jesse Eisenberg, who plays the most frightened person on earth in Zombieland is menaced by a zombie clown in the movie. I think that is some sort of internet double whammy getting clowns and zombies in the same place. The amusing trivia on that, though, is that Jesse Eisenberg’s mother worked as a professional clown for twenty years. Hopefully not a zombie one.

I feel like I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be afraid of clowns. I think some folks I know only get uneasy if they go to the circus or something and some get full-on nightmares about being chased by axe-wielding harlequins or crushed to death in a small fuel-efficient vehicle with too many clowns inside. Coulrophobia is the technical term for extreme fear of clowns (in case you were looking for a vocab word of the day.)

Of course, by corollary, if there is something which makes some people crazy, I will also know people who love that thing largely because of the maddening impact on others. So I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be turned on by clowns. The extremely fabulous sex educator Dr. Ducky DooLittle even has a Knockers the Clown performance art character she does and I admit just last week I came across film proving I once bought a cake for the sole purpose of seeing Ducky stick her ass in it (a la pudding on MTV’s The State.) Entertaining though Ducky’s performances all are, I can’t say I am kinked for clowns.

People often take their children to circuses where there are clowns or invite clowns to perform at kids’ parties. Sad clown makeup used to trouble me, but it did not frighten me. I never found clowns remotely funny or scary as a child. I was going to say most physical humor misses me, but I find comedians like Steve Martin and Chevy Chase hilarious and there is a certain amount of physicality to what they do. So I guess I am just kind of unmoved by clowns specifically.

So I was looking at this half naked photo series of model Apnea for Apneatic and Deviant Nation which featured clown makeup and balloons and other tropes of soubrette clowning and it brought the vital question to mind: Are clowns scary or sexy or are they sexy because they are scary?