Inky The Clown

by Sarah Litvin
February 20, 2008

The pink-and-blue (Calvin Clown designed) striped arms disappear beneath the table, drawing forth a plain-looking hardcover black book. “You don’t mind if I read?” Inky asks casually, waiting a second for my surprised, affirmative nod before opening his book to unleash a flame blazing from the page. “Jeepers!” he cries, shutting it with a start. “Must have been a cookbook.”

Growing up in the suburbs of Boston, in Ashland, Mass., Inky the Clown (aka Jeff Roebuck) taught himself to juggle in his backyard at age 15. Soon after, Inky and a few friends formed a group called Playgerism, and began performing their—or really others’—stunts for tourists on Boston Common. Inky first took to clowning soon after when he got a job for a printing company, standing on the highway waving to cars.

“It was a beautiful thing,” Roebuck remembers. “I was a blue-afroed scary clown.”

When he first arrived in Jackson in 1982, Roebuck held jobs as a security guard and “libations chemist” (bartender), but for the past seven or eight years, he has focused exclusively on his profession as Inky the Clown. A tramp character who can juggle axes, torches, rings and plates, Inky manages to win over even the most trepidacious youths. His never-ending supply of giveaways includes magic wands, stickers, balloons and clown noses. (I walked away with several of each!) But he says the trick to good clowning is really quite plain: “I’m just down on their level. Basically, that’s the only trick—you don’t talk down to kids. … That’s why some clowns never get past the scary deal. I’m their buddy. I’m basically a seven-year-old when I’m as a clown. When I’m not as a clown, I’m more like an 8- or a 9-year-old.”

Saturday is the “gold mine day” for clowns, Inky says. “I usually can pack every Saturday of the year.” You may recall the familiar, white, red and black face from just about every major Jackson event, and probably your kid’s birthday, too. Inky performs annually at Jubilee!JAM, the Agriculture and Forestry Museum, summer reading programs across the state, KidZone, and the Jackson Zoo, not to mention a large number of parties a year.

When I ask how he keeps the same gags and jokes fresh the thousandth time over, he takes my question with proper gravitas. “The main thing is,” he pauses as he begins inflating a long, blue latex balloon, which he uses to nudge the ears of the unsuspecting woman at the table behind us, setting her off giggling, “Hit the laugh.”

 
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