RICHIE: I love being a clown. I'll always be a clown and that’s just, that’s what I love.
That’s what I believe in, you know.
RICHIE: If I live my life how other people want to live, I want to be who I am.
RICHIE: I’m Richie the barber.
RICHIE: I’m a permanent tattooed clown you all mother flowers.
RICHIE: I’ve been a clown by modification wise for over ten years now. What I enjoy about the lifestyle of a clown
is that I can be silly, I can smile. I can laugh, I can juggle, I can fall. It's just; it's just a party.
I like to live my life as fun and exciting, and a journey, an adventure.
RICHIE: When you have a business, you have to promote yourself you know, you have to promote yourself in
different ways and you have to stand out a lot. So when I see somebody that’s like, you know, I don’t know, maybe
they’re famous you know, they’re like, “Hey you got a business card clown?” I'll be like, “Ok cool.”
When you open this, it's a gigantic poster of this. You know what I mean? But it's in a present. I’m like “Oh yeah,
open it up right.” It's a huge, huge poster. It's gigantic and then they can't, they gotta take it with them you know.
RICHIE: Everybody always ask me, “Why did you become a clown, why?"
My grandfather took me to the circus, Barnum and Bailey’s Ringling Circus. We went backstage, I saw this
clown on a bucket with his back towards me. Creeped up, told me, “Turn around”, he’s all, “Shush, don’t be
scared, you like clowns?” He started juggling and I was fascinated by this clown. I’m like, you know, what is this
clown? You know what I mean? I saw happiness from a clown. I saw like, joy, just being goofy. A lot of people are
serious and it's like, you know, why are you so serious about life? Why don’t we just like, you know, laugh, smile
you know? Like, just be whoever you want to be. That’s what I saw from the clown. So I got silicone implants
underneath my skin to make the clown ridge pop out more and my smile done because I like to smile.
My clown nose and also my tongue split. Right here it says, love, light, energy. I got my barber pole, I got roses,
for my grandma, because she had a rose garden. Got love my eyebrow because I love, I love everything. I love
people, I love life. Umbrellas to catch my tears you know, when times get tough. Third eye, consciousness,
awareness, it's not the Illuminati. Got LA, you know, a little skyline because I love Los Angeles baby.
The most painful I would say, around my eyes, the nose because like you sneeze a lot. The vibrations, the nose,
it's just very, it's not pleasant. The forehead, you know what I mean like, the eyebrows, I mean pretty much all
the face is really painful.
RICHIE: I love cutting hair you know, and there are, there are people out there that you know, they love the
experience, it's something different you know.
RICHIE: When you come to the barber shop, the clown museum here, you get yourself some whiskey, get some
beers. Drink with the pinky out.
I’m no Brad Pitt here you know, like I know all these women are, not all women like clowns but what they do
like, I think is you know, personality. I’ve got my best friend George. Look at George, he lives in my hat.
RICHIE: Yeah I feed him every once in a while you know. I’ve had many, many girlfriends leave me for tattoos but
that’s not going to stop me from doing what I’m going to do, what I want to do you know.
I live my life, I do it the way I want to do it.
RICHIE: My way or the highway baby. What the heck?
RICHIE: If someone doesn’t accept me, they don’t accept me you know, but my friends right now,
they really accept me and they love me, they support me.
Take a seat, take a seat come on. Hey Chris, how do you feel about me being a clown?
CHRIS: I just feel like I’ve had so many real moments with you where it hasn’t been a factor.
RICHIE: Does this mean you’re looking into my eyes? CHRIS: Yes.
RICHIE: You look into my soul? CHRIS: Yeah, he does wear this outfit most of the time
but he wears a hoodie and you know, normal pants sometimes.
RICHIE: Yeah, sometimes I do, I put the hoodie on. CHRIS: Yeah, sometimes he doesn’t want to be noticed,
which is rare but sometimes. RICHIE: Yeah, what I like so much about being a barber is,
it's all about the customers that come in and you get to meet new people all the time and different experiences in
their lives and transforming them. Hey it's ok to laugh here all right. It's ok to laugh, it's ok to cry, it's ok to fart.
Whatever you want you know, have fun. LADY: It's the freak show.
RICHIE: It's the freak show baby, where’s my bell at? There it is. I sometimes clown around too far and yeah,
people are just like, “Yeah bro, can you just hurry this up?” It's hard for me to like, talk and cut hair so therefore
the haircuts take for like, two hours.
RICHIE: Like, I’m almost done I swear, I’m almost done don’t worry, I’m almost done. What do you think Daniel?
What do you think about this?
LADY: Looks pretty sassy except for the back. RICHIE: I like the sassy, don’t talk about the back.
RICHIE: So my daughter, she’ll be 13 this year. We don’t really talk about it like, we haven’t talked about it.
We just, it's just, I’m her dad you know, this is my dad you know, it's either going to be black or white. She’s either
going to be like “I don’t, I don’t love my dad, I don’t want to be around my dad, he embarrasses me" in the future.
Or she’ll be like, “That’s my dad, I love him”.
RICHIE: I’ve never regretted any of my face tattoos because it's a lifestyle. I love being a clown, I’m a clown,
I’m a clown for life. It's not just like im a tattoo clown; I just look like a tattoo clown. No, I’m on the unicycle, I’m
juggling, I’m throwing confetti, I’m doing magic tricks. I’m doing, it's a whole lifestyle. It's a whole world that I created.
RICHIE: For all you clowns out there, all the advice, what I recommend is, have fun being a clown, it’s fun.
Clown around.