🎭 One Court Jester’s Story

🎭 One Jokers Tale

I became Ray Cycle—the joker who always comes around. For 45 years, I’ve played the court jester of resource saving, mocking how the consumer is consumed by our affluent waste. Only the fool can mock madness without losing his head. But these days, even the jester must dodge the trash compactor.  

I meet tragedy with comedy now. The comic can change; the tragic cannot. The jester decodes insanity, reframes unbearable reality. Satire is my alchemy—turning sorrow into survival. Laughing is better than crying; otherwise, despair wins.  

It all began on April Fools’ Day, 1988. In full jester regalia, I appeared on the Capitol steps. My Republican congresswoman sponsored the act—and even showed up at noon to watch.  

My first live comic act of resource saving? A line that bombed on the Capitol steps:  

“You’re not dealing with a full deck when you throw out the joker! Recycle our nation’s capital.”  

I called it a FUNeral. The crowd wasn’t dying laughing—but I nearly was, from stage fright.  

Blowing my frugal bugle with the gift of thrift, I was a loud boy—racket in hand, bad humor but better intentions.  

My father, a Capitol Hill staffer, founded the Hill’s tennis team. I played too. But at George Washington University in the ’70s, I saw oil slicks curling before a D.C. water treatment plant. The Little Falls watershed once caught fire—like Cleveland’s river in 1970. By 1980, I was a national Earth Day coordinator.  

Soon after, I testified before Congress on the 1981 Used Oil Recycling Act—after helping launch a major oil reprocessing plant in Alexandria, Virginia. The two backers later revolutionized golf cleats with Softspikes®, ending the agony of metal spikes. (Or as I called it: de agony of de feet.)  

At the District of Columbia  Energy Office’s grand opening, I introduced “Ray Cycle,” handing former Mayor Marion Barry a bag of municipal sludge. Ray would present six “recycled papers” at national conferences, and by 1990, share his trademark with the State of Connecticut.  

By ’82, at Virginia Tech’s Symposium on Applied Behavioral Science, I presented Waste: A Comedy of Errors. Behavior modification, or B.M. Teaching the serve in tennis I always say: you gotta get the first one in. My potty-training humor is filled with crappy jokes—you have to take with a grain of sludge.  

Later came the Trash Pirate, as recycling manager for five towns on the end of Long Island. The day the Berlin Wall fell, I was hit head‑on by a van of 16 immigrants from the Southampton cleaners. I was given an Easthampton retired police car that did not start that day. When the supervisor lent it to me, he called it a wreck. Searching for buried treasures in garbage, I tried to negotiate with the Mafia with my two broken knees. I found a few town supervisors more criminal.  

In 2002, I created Noah U. Water. I donned a watering can on my head and told kids I had water on the brain. At a rural water symposium, I wore a talking toilet seat around my neck to warn what not to dispose of in septic systems. Teaching the serve in tennis, I always quipped: serving is  like toilet training—you gotta get your first one in.  

Because behind the jest lies resource saving. The fool does not perform to amuse but to warn. In 2010, I created Less More—LESS STRESS, MORE TO BLESS. Less attitude, more gratitude. Yes, less will become more.  

All human beings must become conservative—or there will be no resources for the future.  

Historically, jesters had the license to say what others feared. Today, that license must be renewed.  

I grew up with the crying Indian of Keep America Beautiful. Now I believe we must have more fun to get this message across. Laughing and crying are a similar release—but I’d rather do the first.  

https://youtu.be/pjwPg25BkOE?si=yuXuJLfoyjF91qZc