Originally posted to Twitter.

Recently, I became fascinated and a little bit obsessed with Cepillín, a Mexican clown. He died recently at 75 and I’d never heard of him before his death.

I’m an editor for a big advocacy group, and he showed up in the obituary section of our Spanish-language website. It’s unusual for us to have Spanish-only obits, so I assumed he must have been somebody really meaningful. Down the rabbit hole I went.

Turns out Cepillín was AWESOME.

He started out as a dentist who found that children were easier to treat if he dressed as a clown. (That’s where he got the stage name: ‘Cepillín’ means ‘Brush’ in Spanish.) That led to an offer for a TV show — called, of course, ‘El Show de Cepillín.

And from THERE, he became a children’s singer who sold millions of albums!

And things kept happening! He was in the movies! He FOUNDED A CIRCUS that ran for decades! He was putting together a farewell tour after 50 years in the biz!

An obit I read says he was asked about death at his last news conference. He said he would not be wearing clown makeup when he died because Cepillín was a living character. “I was born without paint and I leave without it,” he said.

I APPLAUD YOU, SIR. I APPLAUD YOU.