If you hit a mime, does it make a noise?

The answer to the question, if you hit a mime, does it make a noise, was answered for me in February of 2007.

My partner, Shelley, is in a band – they could be called a marching band, but party band is a little more appropriate. They play events and fairs in the San Francisco Bay Area mostly, but every few years they go on a trip, to share their music with the unsuspecting locals and leave with new fans wherever they go. In the winter of 2007, 100 members of the group (including family) made the trek to Hawaii. They had been invited (or maybe they begged) to play the Pro Bowl that year.

Whatever the reason, they were there, and it was a blast. However, it also meant that the streets were jammed pack at night with drunken football fans. This of course, created some interesting encounters, but none can compare to the one we witnessed one evening across the street from our hotel.

If you have been to any major city in the recent past you will be familiar with the street performers who paint their skin silver, wear silver cloths and stand still – that’s their shtick, they are living statues. Every so often they move, they will pantomime an action (usually that of giving money) and then they go back into their state of suspended animation. It was one of these performers that had decided to “play” with a passerby. The passerby in question was one of the many drunken football fans. He had a ball cap on and as he passed the living statue his hat was playfully knocked off. It didn’t take long for the drunken individual to turn around and push the street performer off his box (they stand on boxes; I might not have mentioned that). I guess that this performer, this mime, was pushed a few too many times that day and pushed right back – now let me explain, this was a rather small mime, he was skinny, short – the football fan was, well, much more like a football player. What followed was something that can only be seen in the movies. After some push for push measures, the pushes turned into punches, and the punches turned into kicks. I am not sure how or when, but the football fan’s shirt was torn off and as he started to wrestle the mime, silver makeup was smeared across his chest. It was really starting to look like an episode of Jerry Springer.

Eventually the mime was knocked to the ground and the football player was pulled into the crowd by his friends. The mime had a deep cut across his face and was bleeding everywhere. When the crowd parted to let the crazed, drunken football player through (more, I am sure to avoid getting beaten senseless themselves) was when I saw the craziest thing about this whole story.

The mime got up, picked up his large, heavy, and full tip jar and hurls it at the back of the football fans head; unsurprisingly it bounced off. The football fan turns around, looks down, and picks up handfuls of money and walks away. Not only did this mime get beat up, he got robbed!
Needless to say most in the crowd called the cops, who arrived just as everything had finished and everyone had departed. The mime himself wouldn’t even stick around for the ambulance that had been called – not sure why, I couldn’t really understand him through his thick Eastern European accent, but he was muttering something about being fed up as he collected his belongings.

When the cops asked for a description of the two individuals, it was quite easy to say “well, one was completely silver” but I realized that saying a large football fan would not narrow it down enough – I wanted to say “look for the Jerry Springer guest look alike” but then I realized that too wouldn’t narrow it down enough either. Instead I said, “Look for the guy with silver paint on his hands and no shirt”. Good thing it wasn’t a Raiders game.

So to answer the question – yes, a mime does make a noise if you hit them, and they have thick Eastern European accents to boot.

Until next time…