For some reason, there’s never been a stable population of Insane Clown Posse fans in this city. Actually, we’re not even sure there’s ever been any. Maybe it has something to do with the price of rent or the local soda culture, but the closest we’ve got are those Latino Slipknot kids who used to hang out around the sex shops on Sixth Ave, and even they’ve been kind of no-shows lately. (The Astor Place kids too, has anybody seen them? Have we just not “been around” enough these days?) Anyhow, we’d always just taken it as a given that NYC ‚↠Down with the Clown, but Saturday Night we were proven wrong. And at an Early Man show no less.

Early Man were playing with a bunch of other metal folks in Brooklyn to the usual assortment of beards and skaters when, like Mick Dundee parting the tall grass, this immaculate juggalo poked his face through the crowd and crazystepped his way to the front of the stage. It was like the end of Close Encounters: flashes were going off like crazy, people were alternately frozen in awe or completely losing their shit—if there had been a tiny blond girl in the crowd, there’s not a doubt in my mind she would have nervously walked over to him and raised her index finger to make contact.

Then the moment passed and we were left with the question: Has Juggalodom finally made its way across the Hudson, or was somebody’s cousin just in town from Akron for the weekend? Please let it be the former.

PS: Yes, our first thought was also “Oh some dude’s wearing a juggalo costume for a laff.” That was before we noticed the braided goatee (which was shaved down around the dreads), the playing card tattoos, and the platform slip-ons (remember what we said about shoes?). Ninja’s a juggalo.

Photo by Patrick O’Dell