Village Idiot and the Big Underwear

If you've seen the film “American Beauty,” you'll never forget the scene in which Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey), having quit his job as an advertising reporter in disgust at the fact-massaging and brown-nosing expected of him, tells the manager of a fast-food joint that he's looking for a job with “the least possible amount of responsibility.” What's the point of having power or money, he's discovered, if you can't make them “stick”? Since your deeper dreams don't mesh with socially acceptable goals...take a lousy job, write off nine hours a day, and look for satisfaction outside work.

That's more-or-less what I'm doing, I realized the other day, here in Granada, Nicaragua – setting free my inner Village Idiot. Not for the first time, either; my initial attempt at learning Spanish came in the Dominican Republic a few years ago, when I spent a month in a village near Haiti with a family I met while volunteering with Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program (I lead a couple GV trips every year). Lorenzo had a huge number of kids – nine, I think – but hard to know for sure, because he'd been “married” three times (twice to the same woman), had adopted at least two children, and some older ones had moved out. I slotted in quite nicely, because two of the girls were mentally handicapped – I'm not sure how or why – and since Lorenzo had even more trouble communicating with me than these “special” kids, the girls and I had a lot in common. Yup, I was the new Village Idiot...an embarassing role, at first, but less so when I figured out – as Lester did in the movie – that the position comes with a free pass. Why be serious, live up to expectations, when you can act the clown?

Which brings us to – and I don't think they'd mind the appelation – an entire busload of Village Idiots, recently departed from Grenada in their blue-and-pink Bluebird ex-school bus with Oregon plates. It was parked outside the Cathederal when I arrived in town a few days ago, and on its arse was painted the slogan, “The Power of the Big Underwear is Everywhere.” Intrigued, I made a point of returning to the impromptu bus stop late in the afternoon, by which time the passengers had emerged, in various stages of costuming, to warm up. The phrase “New Vaudeville” came to mind – as did, of course, “Further” and “The Merry Pranksters” – but alas, before the promised 6 p.m. performance began, I had to return to my homestay for dinner because my “madre” here wondered, when I didn't get back until 6:30 the previous evening, whether I'd been “perdido.” Once a Mom, always a Mom....

And one further “alas” – I never saw the Underwear show, because by Monday afternoon, when I hoped to chat with the B.U. folk, the bus was gone. Fortunately, though, the Web provided rudimentary information about “Big Underwear,” most of it is outdated by a year or three. But from what I could gather – internet connections fade in and out in Grenada with aggravating frequency – one of the group's co-founders is a Rhode Islander named Brady Lee Bradshaw, and he has deeply held views. After writing that the Big Underwear Tour is “kind of like a circus, but it isn't a circus. It's kind of like a festival performance, but it's not a festival,” Brady (or possibly someone else, it's hard to tell) gives the following Big Underwear Manifesto...which doesn't go by that title, but read for yourself:

The Difference Between Underwear and Outerwear

• We all feel we understand something new when we can “dress” it in categories and words we already understand. We SEEK to understand new phenomena in terms of what we already know. This can lead to misperceptions when we try to force this new thing into "mental clothing" it doesn't really fit into. When this happens, we miss what actually IS by creating an abstraction...Apparently, it's sometimes easier to invent a fiction than accept lack-of-understanding (as John Lennon said in “Strawberry Fields Forever”: “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see”).
• When something is just different enough to challenge our categories, we are confused. When confused, the human mind's most acute need is to resolve the confusion. We are forced to assess the confusing stimulus. In every such case we subconsciously make a choice. Will we analyze this confusing thing with our senses (our Underwear), allowing ourselves to see it for what it really is? Or will we immediately start evaluating it, using the filters of our well-known past thoughts (our Outerwear)?...The philosophy of Big Underwear says, “Don't put on your Outerwear till you've taken the time to put on your Underwear.” To make judgments before adequately SEEING what you're judging is the root of much unhappiness.
• Clothing, whether actual or metaphorical, separates and divides us. When we fall for the common myth that “the clothes make the man"”we effectively “kill” everyone we see. We reduce people to dategories [sic]. And conveniently, we assign to them our judgments of those categories. Thus the real human beings we encounter hide in plain sight before our eyes. A most evil magic trick! The man in the power suit becomes "Importance" and "Respect," and we treat him so. The little girl, dirty and dressed in rags becomes "Unimportance" and "Scorn," and we dismiss her. We actually create a fiction of our OWN making. That “person” we see is merely the product of our own Outerwear thinking - NOT the actual human before us.

Brady's thoughts speak for themselves, don't they? And give me a new appreciation for clowns, and mimes, as well as idiots...not to mention that little girl. Although here in Granada, even the street kids seem pretty well-dressed – a tribute, at least in part, to the many non-profits in town. One of them – I kid you not – is the Granada, Nicaragua School of Comedy and Mime, which I'm guessing was responsible for bringing Big Underwear to town. I may not have seen the troupe in action, but I love the concept, and that Brady and his colleagues are flying its (under)flag all over the place.