It isn’t every person's dream job to slap on some crazy makeup, paint their nose red, and get laughed at, but it is for Matt Merritt.
Matt is a traveling entertainer and rodeo clown, and he feels pretty lucky to do what he does for a living, "Really getting to travel, and see the sun come up in different places, I get to see the stuff that songs are written about,” says Merritt.
Twenty years in the making, Matt didn’t search out jobs as an entertainer, the rodeo clown gig just kind of found its way to him.
He says, "Growing up where I did in Louisiana, rodeo was sort of normal, and I just fell in and to be honest with you, where I could get a paycheck every week.”
Now here he is in Nampa, for the Snake River Stampede. He left home about a week ago, and is on a 48-day world tour, off to Oklahoma, California, and even Australia, to name a few. For now, he is really impressed with this rodeo in the Gem State, "Kind of blows my mind that we're here for six performances, and some of them are in the middle of the week, you know, Tuesday night, who goes out on a Tuesday night? 7,000 people do! The Snake River Stampede is just kind of awesome!”
And while he seems pretty friendly, don’t let the face fool you if you happen to have a run-in with him at the rodeo… “If I look for volunteers, and you decide to come into the arena and join me, just go ahead and expect to be made a fool of.”
You can catch Matt, and some of his jokes, at the Stampede through Saturday.
