Ed. note: I don’t know quite where to begin with Poingly… over there, maybe. Look, he’s not wearing pants. Poingly is an artist, performer, provocateur and musician who resides in Brooklyn. He once played an acoustic set in front of my roommate’s couch. This ranks among the top 10 live performances I have ever seen. He has this song called “I Think You’re Cute” but it sounds like he’s saying “I think you’re Q” and Bryan and I sing this song to ourselves, and sometimes to strangers in public, all the time. Poingly is sort of like a rash or an infection; once you get it, there is no cure. We have been trying to interview the artist known as Poingly for ages, and the other day he told us he’d like to write a story instead. We said that was fine. Visit Poingly’s website, download his new album for free and go see him live if you can. Trust me. -Mary

I KISSED A CLOWN
tellmeyoulovemedotcom by Poingly
Story by Poingly

Clowns are scary. This is an unmistakable fact of the universe. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“tellmeyoulovemedotcom” is based on a diminished scale or key or something. There is also this long bridge thing where I’m neither singing nor playing the guitar. A long time ago, I tried to decide what would make the perfect Poingly solo. Keeping with the sexy, sexy image you KNOW I have and I KNOW you want, I decided to make out with various audience members to substitute for a solo. I did this trick off and on during this song for a year or two (generally depending on my comfort with the crowd or my relationship status). After being unceremoniously dumped, I was in the mood to add this song back to my set.

The show was at this place called Galapagos, a club in the uber-hip area of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Because of the high rents in New York City, Galapagos was infamous for booking two or three events a night–charge a few bucks for the first two hour event, shoo everyone away, and then charge a few more bucks for the next couple hours. On this particular night, the first two hours were a bunch of bands followed by some sort of weird variety show. I think there were five bands were crammed into that two hour spot; I played, like, four songs. One of these songs was “tellmeyoulovemedotcom.”

I don’t think a single friend came to my show that night–I knew the set would be short and probably not worth their money–so I had to find a stranger to be my target. Bolting into the crowd at the beginning of the “solo” I saw my victim shine through the dim lights of the club–dressed in black, short, cute, pale–sort of my type at the time. I put my lips to hers and we started going at it, making out full on. Usually strangers are somewhat shocked by this, but this girl was ready for it. It was pretty hot, and I knew I had to find her after the show.

When I got backstage I was surprised to see her standing there already. Apparently she was part of the post-band performance that evening (some type of variety show). She was reapplying her makeup that I had smeared in our makeout session…HER CLOWN MAKEUP. It was subtle (unnoticeable out in the dark club), but painfully apparent in the bright lights backstage. Let me tell you, without a doubt, clowns fall under the category of “unsexy.”

That song has been mostly stripped from my set ever since, and the few times it has appeared since then have been solo-less. I was never afraid of clowns as a child. I am now.