City of Pasadena position available: The Court Jester is a journey-level professional position designed to highlight absurdity and make frank yet witty observations about civic life in the City of Pasadena.
Essential Functions:
Court Jester performs the full range of humor using hyperbole, metaphor, and timing to administer satire (with an emphasis on blatant inconsistency), farce, and slapstick. Must have facility with ambiguity, paradox and misdirection; “wise enough to play the fool” (Shakespeare). Keeps abreast of current events in the City of Pasadena and maintains ability to deliver bad news to the Mayor and City Council that no one else dare deliver.
Qualification Guidelines:
At least 18 months experience as a licensed fool mocking and reviling in an absurdist setting (local government or comparable) and within a racially-charged environment. Have successfully completed “Ha-Ha House Traffic School” within 12 months of application.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Basic knowledge of humor techniques, Pasadena political history and current events, and peccadilloes (including sexual) of public personae.
Extensive knowledge of jokes (including knock-knock and all those “walks into a bar” jokes), riddles, puns, limericks and the occasional Odgen Nash poem essential. Ability to take a joke at one’s own expense mandatory. Juggling, clowning and musical skills highly desirable. Possess the ability to establish and maintain working relationships in a variety of cultures; well-versed in the Urban Dictionary.
Possess the physical endurance and mental ability to participate in City Council meetings without surreptitiously using a Blackberry while making fun of those who do. Ability to lift bruised egos (up to 250 pounds), bend in all directions that may result in laughter, and work through all kinds of weather at the Rose Parade.
Examination:
Applicants who appear best qualified based on their application and supplemental application submitted will be invited to any combination of blogging, speechifying at City Council, or participation on a city commission to further evaluate their job-related moxy and panache.
Probationary work test period is one year. Over-reaching is grounds for immediate dismissal.
Vacancies occurring in the Office of the Mayor may be filled from the established eligibility list (though there really isn’t one; we just say this as subterfuge for nepotism).
Special Requirements:
Successful candidates are required to agree to be free of rank partisanship and maintain a clean bill of mental health as a condition of employment.
You are invited to leave additional qualifications in the comments.
Sources:
Humor Through Absudity
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090319005040AAqJ0R5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester
All photos copyright Tim Down. Do not copy without written permission.
West Coast Grrlie Blather 
We had one but we chased him away.
If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.
King Lear
(I don’t know what this means. My Shakespeare prof would get very excited about this phrase, and grab the podium, “So who wears the coxcomb,” he would shout. But I was busy trying to sketch my hand at the time.)
I nominate Dormitas!! He fits the bill to an AP!
Oh hell, wait…I can nominate de D since that’s you WCGB, isn’t it?
Oh well. Someone will appear when we’re ready for it.
I hear Pasadena can be murder on humor. Tar, feathers, dunking stools, character assassinations; a thousand ways to run “fun” out of town. I prefer gay Perris
Why does the applicant have to have “successfully completed ‘Ha Ha House’ Traffic school?” Wouldn’t just having gone be enough? What if one flunked but at least went?