Troy, Michigan / April 1, 2010

Today convicted worm cheese smuggler and Michigan entrepreneur, Antoine Dubeauclard, announced that he would be re-purposing the 40,000 square-foot facilities that currently houses his website development firm. Dubeauclard, who was arrested this time last year <http://mediag.com/news/tag/smelly-cheese/> for smuggling over 60 pounds of Casu Marzu into the states, has declared that the large black building that stands at the corners of Stephenson Highway and E. Maple Road will henceforth be home to the largest clown college in North America.

Plans to remove the roof and replace it with a big top will get underway this evening.

“We aren’t going for the striped tent top just to draw attention to the new business,” Dubeauclard commented, as he adjusted his top hat. “Really fitting a trapeze and elephants on the top floor would have been difficult without the additional height.”

Learning to be a clown has been a life-long dream for Dubeauclard ever since he met Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst behind the hippo trailer during a Barnum and Bailey show back in 1999.

“Fred was a real inspiration for me,” said the coat tails-laden Dubeauclard. “He told me that my idea for starting an internet company was silly, and that I’d be better off as a clown. That really stuck with me. I’ve been looking for an excuse to trade my laptop for an organ grinder monkey every since.”

When asked whether the dozens of programmers, designers and projects managers would be out of work, Dubeauclard replied, “Lets just say they aren’t available for comment because they are waiting for the rubber cement to dry on their new noses [giggles].”

Clown colleges were the brainchild of Irvin Feld, the owner of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Feld’s original clown college was started in 1968 as both an effort to replace and aging clowns and as a PR move. The college still subsides in Sarasota Florida.

“Feld was on to something, but when he died in 84′ those idiots really ruined the art form,” Dubeauclard said. “I am here to bring purity back to clowning.”

Debeauclard was expelled from the Ringling Bros. Clown College in 2000, when officials there said he filled the clown car with sculptures of Fred Durst that he had molded out of worm cheese. Dubeauclard’s comments found on the paperwork documenting the discharge said that even in cheese, Durst was a better clown than the “hacks” he was in class with.

Dubeauclard removed the cheese from the scene before police arrived. When asked where the slimy red hat-clad cheese statues were, he only replied “Let’s just say I am pretty sure I know what inspired the lyrics to ‘Nookie’ [giggles].”

The First International Clown College of Michigan is scheduled to open doors next week. According to the school’s delightful new president, entrance exams will include tests on tumbling, flexibility, balloon animals, miming, wig combing, and general knowledge of songs written or preformed by anyone romantically linked to Brittany Spears.

Troy Police issued a statement that said the big top roof at The First International Clown College of Michigan might be considered a violation under the city’s strict roadside sign laws. The zoning department did confirm that Dubeauclard did pull a building permit for roof repair. Animal control officers will be on hand to monitor any unauthorized exotic animals that have been reported in the building.

At this time, police would not comment about any correlation between the opening of the clown college and the missing lemurs, zebras, elephants, and Dip n’ Dots machines at the Detroit Zoo.