Some things I’ve learned from on stage…

People suck!
Yep, some do. Mostly it’s the males – the ones between 14 and 24. They travel in a pack. They’ll heckle and hassle and they’ll hurt if you give them a chance. They do it to impress the rest of the pack. My grandfather used to refer to them “as acting like a pack of wild dogs”. The term PUNKS is the right Carney term and they are nothing but trouble. Don’t pick them to come on stage and if you get one by accident, get rid of them! Period. No I didn’t get hurt but only because I was observant enough to recognize the situation I was heading into and deal with it early… I thought the long haired silhouette in the crowd was a 16 year old chick. No one else knew, not even the punk. But no way that jumpy showoff was going to stand on my gut on a bed of nails and listen to his pack of punks telling him to jump.

People are Great…
For the most part, they really are. They’ll quickly run to rescue a total stranger who is in agony from a stunt gone (apparently) terribly wrong. They gave me a good 5 second count down, then a three count up as I attempted “to safely trigger three painful animal traps” - - - “ONE”, Victor on the Tongue; TWO, Steel Jaw on the left hand; THREE, Steel Jaw on the right hand with me screaming through the agony each one. Then, waving my steel clad hands and flapping my tongue, while screaming “Thelp Thelp Wet them Oth - Wet them Oth!!! Three, would be rescuers rush to the stage to struggle with the traps on my hands having no clue how to help… They pull, I scream louder, “No, Thon’t Bull, It Thurts” as they try to pry the traps open with their own hands I finally relieve their agony by calmly releasing my self by stepping on the spring and removing the Victor. I thank them for their help, hand them a pitch card and take my bow. So nice that folks will rush to the aid of a stranger…

People are amazing…
The things some people have to deal with will simply rip your hart right out and put everything in perspective… There I am with a balloon threaded through both nostrils, played out nearly all of the act and need someone to pull it out. I see the silhouette of a small boy, about 8 – 10 years old and I call him up. He ducks the rope and I see he is approaching the stage on two aluminum legs. (The rest of the crowd fades from my brain as I now know my entire performance is just for this boy.) As he reaches the stage I see he also has no hands! (Reeling on the inside and racing through options so as to not place any undue stress or dexterity challenges on this boy, not knowing if he would use his teeth to pull it out or if he could grip the balloon in his stumps…) In a tenth of a second that seemed like a lifetime I rewrote the next piece of the act to include him in a personal moment: I got his name, introduced him to the audience, had him verify that the balloon was actually sliding in and out of my nose, that there was no trick, no faking, Thanked him for helping me, handed him a pitch card and clapped for him as he went back to his folks clutching the card between two stumps. I finished the act and did my best to go on knowing that I was no longer the same person that had walked onto stage that evening… hoping that I had added a moment of normalcy, inclusion and joy to someone else… a small boy facing a very difficult world.

And nothing else mattered.

This, ladies and gentlemen, has got to be why we do what we do!

All the best,

Gemeanii

Great observations! Thanks for sharing.

Mark.

Hey, man! From what I've seen of your show, pretty entertaining! It was good to see you and your family up at Red Robin the other day, and I'll have to come down to the farm soon.

As for the punks...screw 'em. Who needs 'em?!?! But then again, not ALL OF US are bad (myself - LOL!) ...but I know what you're saying.

Take care, and TTYL!
Steve

P.S. Off to Red Robin...we're adding on Thursday nights now...should be fun!