155 - Chainsaws, Pumpkins, And Philosophy w JellyBoy the Clown

A chainsaw mounted to a sword. Seventeen pumpkins in a minute. And a philosophy that says a show only becomes real when the audience completes it. That’s the ride we take with Jelly Boy the Clown—writer, record-setter, and sideshow artist who turns chaos into craft.

We start with the surprise aftermath of America’s Got Talent: millions of viewers, zero promotion allowed, and a door opening from an unexpected direction—Guinness World Records. From there we go inside the workshop, where ideas live first in a sketchbook, then on a bench with bolts and cork, and finally on stage. Why pumpkins beat watermelons, how to create negative space with pitchforks, and what three points of contact do for stability when the saw is humming in your throat. It’s engineering, rehearsal, and risk management wrapped in clown logic.

The heart of the talk is presentation. Tools are level one; meaning lives in timing, character, and framing. Jelly Boy shares how he disarms fear—pairing eye hooks with Careless Whisper, mixing menace with sincerity—so the audience leans in. We dig into act architecture: the tennis racket routine evolving through constraints, failed slapstick reappearing later as the perfect chaos engine, and why variety beats repetition for laughs and suspense. Along the way, we trace his films—from a B-movie to a raw fire-recovery doc to Dark Imagination Party—capturing how the pandemic pushed the work from stages to cameras and back again.

Threaded through is our host’s upcoming book, Facing The Other Way, a philosophy of showmanship that frames performance as a three-part system: performer, audience, and attention. Without a witness, magic isn’t magic. That idea lands as we talk edits, cuts, and voice—how slicing fifty pages can reveal the core, why a unified tone matters, and how community and small presses help art find its people. If you care about live arts, circus, clowning, sword swallowing, or the creative process of turning rough sketches into resonant moments, this one’s for you.

If the conversation hits home, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your attention is the spark—help us keep the fire bright.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Guest Setup
• 2:04 AGT Aftermath And Book Goals
• 5:46 Guinness Record And Chainsaw Concept
• 10:05 Prototyping Fruit Cuts And Safety
• 14:20 Mechanics Of The Chainsaw Sword
• 17:00 Practice, Records, And Iteration
• 20:10 Presentation Beyond The Stunt
• 23:10 Clown Stereotypes And Disarming Fear
• 26:10 Origins Of The Racket Act
• 31:20 Building Layers: Comedy, Chaos, And Structure
• 36:40 Remixing Acts And Masked Burlesque
• 40:20 Films, Fires, And Recovery
• 44:20 Around The World To Dark Imagination Party
• 48:20 The Book: Facing The Other Way
• 53:10 Audience As Co‑Creator And Pandemic Lessons
• 57:20 Drafting, Feedback, And Editing Deeply
• 1:02:20 Cutting To The Core Story
• 1:06:20 Community, Publishing, And Promotion
• 1:10:30 Title, Scope, And Voice Refinement
• 1:14:00 Ending Notes And Listener Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:11

Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo, and I will be your host and your guide along the way. And uh today we're talking to Jelly Boy the Clown. What has he been up to? Uh and in terms of myself, what have I been up to? Well, this year has been a lot of travel. I've been back and forth to America twice. I've had the pleasure there of working with uh Matt Apple, as I've said many times. That is such an excellent thing, 'cause it combines two um two things for me. One is that for I mean, I have to miss my family uh because I'm away, but that opens up the time for me to get up in the morning, make my coffee, and then just start writing. So uh I have been writing up a storm, and as you will hear today, because one of the most enjoyable things about talking to Jelly Boy, apart from hearing about all of his stuff, is to talk to another person who writes about circus and freak show and this kind of stuff. So um really nice to talk to us another fellow performer who has ventured further than me into the publishing process, and we talk about that quite a bit. I've also been to Australia this year, so uh for two months with uh Paul Lebec's London Calling, which was also totally awesome. And on that note, I've also recorded an uh interview with Paul, who's an old friend of mine, and those of you who've heard some me talk about uh the plate spinning act that I uh did, they've heard of him at least then. And I maybe heard of London Calling as well, uh I've mentioned on the podcast. But anyway, without further ado, let's uh uh let's get cracking on talking to Jelly Boy the Clown.

SPEAKER_03: 2:04

Since uh we spoke last, I guess uh you did all of your uh amazing new stunts at uh at uh on the America's Got Talent.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

Yeah, yeah, I did I did that. Uh that was like I guess that was last year. Um and it was uh it was pretty intense. I mean I I had come out with my book, which is what we connected on.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:33

And um because the book was out, I I really wanted to reach a wider audience, so I kind of went for broke and just was like, ah, fine, I'll I'll go on I'll go on TV and see see what happens. And you know, it didn't really do what I thought it was gonna do.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:51

Like it didn't like sell books, for instance. But it did a whole lot of other stuff that I didn't expect.

SPEAKER_03: 2:58

That's really interesting. Well, uh I was just thinking it's I would be amazed if it uh if it sold books. I don't know if it's just in my mind, but it's like the the general audience of America's Got Talent. I don't know if they oh I wonder, do they see any depth to us who come on and do crazy things? Do they just think it's just it's like, oh yeah, the guy came on, he swallowed the sword or whatever, and then and then they think not nothing more of it or whatever, because or or um sorry I I don't know, um it doesn't surprise me that it didn't generate book sales.

SPEAKER_01: 3:38

Right, exactly. Yeah, I I thought that that somehow, you know, go on, do something intriguing, be be a wild character, and then maybe there'll be a handful of people out of the millions of people that watch you who Google you, and then they you know go down the rap pool and kind of take a little dive and and find that, oh wow, this person is an author and they wrote a book. Maybe I'll order it, you know. And I was I was thinking like, okay, well, if like millions of people watch the show, um maybe a hundred people might, you know, take the little dive.

SPEAKER_03: 4:15

And but uh anyway. But uh um I for I think that it's also like they never I I or I can't now remember. I did watch your clips, but I can't remember. Did you say that you were allowed to say that you written a book?

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

I guess they No, I wasn't I wasn't allowed to say I wasn't allowed to say that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:34

No.

SPEAKER_01: 4:35

And I wasn't really I wasn't allowed to promote any anything.

SPEAKER_03: 4:39

No.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

Yeah, I wasn't allowed to really promote myself or um Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:46

I mean, I guess all of us have this love-hate relationships with these kinds of gigs. You you get your face and your name out there, but I don't know. It it's it's kind of odd that they they they have their format of what you do, and then whatever stuff you can get from it needs to be fully extraneous. You can't sort of have any it's it's a kind of funny give and take where I feel like they're asking a lot and not uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:18

I mean it's it's a lot like working in a show where you have a producer and a director, and you know, they're they have a vision and they're sure they'll take your character and they'll put it in their formula, and you you've you know, so you're still you and you're still doing what what you do, but it's like you know, in that brand.

SPEAKER_03: 5:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:46

But you you mentioned some good stuff came out of it, or or something did come out of it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

Uh well the b the best thing that came out of it was the uh Guinness Book of World Records uh show. Yeah. Called me up and um said they they always saw your chainsaw sword on America's Got Talent. We want to make a world record out of it.

SPEAKER_03: 6:07

Because you chopped the was it you chopped the wood uh at the at the um talent show? Well, I chopped a lot of fruit. Fruit. Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01: 6:18

Yeah, I chop wood uh with with with the chainsaw. Um I I chop uh yeah, it's okay, you can c you can come through. Come on through. Alright, yeah, but now I mean I do chop wood. You do chop wood, yeah, yeah. Uh with the chainsaw attached to the sword. But um on America's Got Talent, I chopped a a watermelon. Yeah. And it it wasn't like fixed to the table and it like fell off the table, and I had to chase it and I got on my hands and knees and you know, with the sword down inside me and and chopped it on the floor and and it was awesome. Yeah because chaotic.

SPEAKER_03: 7:04

It's great, it suits your character. Jelly Boy, it's the kind of stuff that you would um now that it has happened, where you go, oh okay, well, I guess it's pretty risky to walk around all that much with it, but uh yeah, but still it's uh it's a it's a gift from the clown gods when you're crawling around it because it's completely demented with the chainsaw running in front of your face and Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:27

And and then afterward I slipped in the juice when I was like running up uh a swallow at the flamethrower sword in front of the judges. And it was just so funny because I was like, wow, I'm on my I'm on my ass. And then I and I just got up and I knew then you know everything was was fine because it was like all the things that went wrong were just like so hilarious.

unknown: 7:51

Yeah. And and and so what I guess World Records wanted me to do was um they were like, How many watermelons can you cut in a minute?

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

Of course I do. Yeah, and so I said, like, I have no idea, but I think at least, you know, at least ten. I'm sure I could cut at least ten. You know, and so they were like, All right, we'll set the world record at uh at ten. And so then I I started experimenting. And that's part of like the creative process that I wanted to talk with you about.

SPEAKER_02: 8:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:25

Like, you know, when we're when we're making a stunt or an act out of props and and stunts. When we're like coming up with that and and brainstorming, like there's the technical aspect that are part of the creative process. You know, um so so for instance, like, you know, how do you mount a piece of fruit that you're gonna cut with a chainsaw? You know, what's what's the best way to do it? And there's trial and error and and all that stuff. And anyway, I I decided to go with pumpkins instead of watermelons, because watermelons are like really messy and really juicy and really sticky. And I thought if I did if I ended up doing like, you know, more than 10 watermelons, it would just be like so gory.

SPEAKER_00: 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

So it's all gonna be gory anyway. It's like with a chainsaw. So it was around Halloween that I was doing the experiments, so pumpkins were readily available, and um I decided to uh try. And I had a whole bunch of pumpkins, and I had them on on this table, and I lined them up all around the table, and I and I took the the the chainsaw just to see how many I could go I could cut. And and I thought that they wanted me to just cut them, like cut into them pretty much all all the way, but then I realized like, oh, it could hit my chainsaw could hit into the table.

SPEAKER_02: 9:57

Oh yeah, that's bad.

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

And it could be kickback, you know. And and then they said, Oh yeah, oh, we want them, we want you to cut them completely in half. There has to be that they are completely cut in half and fall one end falls down. So then I realized, like, oh, I have to put these pumpkins on spikes or pitchforks or something. So I had some pitchforks that that I could was mounting because we were working on a bed of pitchforks at one point, and so I had these pitchforks in the basement, and um I decided to use those and was like, hang half the pumpkin off and have half the pumpkin on the spike and have some negative base underneath so that if you got the chainsaw, you could cut the thing completely in half, and the chainsaw could go all the way through and down the bottom.

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

Um that was the first big kind of eureka moment because at first I was just like, oh yeah, you put the piece of fruit on a table and then you come at it with the chainsaw, like Gallagher comes at it with a you know, hammer. Like you're just destroying fruit.

SPEAKER_03: 11:10

Yeah. It's so interesting though, like you because I often have it there the same way. You I start out and then you think, oh yeah, I have the measure of this problem or whatever, and then you go. So I did something similar when I was gonna I do a sword swallowing act and I chop some fruit or whatever in there, and I had this idea of going, well, it would be funny to have a melon on my head and then chop the melon whilst it's on top of my head. So you just swing it. Uh so that was the initial idea. And then I was going, Well, how are you how are you actually going to do that? How are you going to attach that melon to your head? Like, is it going to be on a strap under your chin, or like what's what's it going to be, or whatever? And I thought, oh, maybe one of those little facir beds, like a better nails that you use for flower arrangements. I thought maybe I could get one of them and put a strap on it and uh uh Yeah, so I ended up in the end uh changing it to a cucumber and changing it um to put it into a fez that had a strap around uh under my chin.

SPEAKER_01: 12:19

Yeah. So the flat sorry. You have to mount it, otherwise it would just go flying.

SPEAKER_03: 12:27

Yeah, yeah, that's right. So then the initial idea was that I was gonna do this and then I would do the sword swallow, but then once I started sort of playing with it, it'd also go sort of go in a little anti-climactic. You'd chop it, and then you I take a bow and the thing slides off, and that was alright. But the then I went, oh, if I do a cucumber, then I can uh chop it several times. Yeah, that was like then you can kind of uh so that was like the next step of of that kind of act, and so there's always a transformation that happens from idea to when you actually then get the props, like you're going, okay, well the watermelon, it's clear that you hadn't tested it quite enough before you went on, so that it just stuff happened that you went, oh my lord.

SPEAKER_01: 13:16

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, because a lot of my ideas they just come like into my head, and I I always keep a sketchbook. And and I I draw little cartoons and I write things down, and and then from those cartoons the I I build the props, you know, or or I'll I'll get together with a friend who I know's got a good uh tool workshop in their in their basement or something like that, and uh and I'll be like, oh, I got this idea, and maybe you can help me uh put it together, you know, and I'll sit there with it with a friend and put it together from the sketch, from the cartoons and stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:57

And and the chainsaw idea I had for many years, but I never did anything with it. It was just in an old sketchbook. And um I was talking to one of the producers of uh of the show, America's Got Talent Show, and and and they were asking me, like, well, what's the third thing that you can do? Like, I know you got the flamethrower sword, and you know, I know you've got uh Tesla coil lightning machine, but what like what third thing can you do? And I said, uh they're like anything, just just say whatever wild idea pops in your head. I was like, well, I always wanted to swallow a sword that had a chainsaw attached to it. So I'm like, well, that's it. That's it. It was a chainsaw. So then it was then it was like, okay, well, how do you attach a sword to a chainsaw? And how and how does it feel when the chainsaw is running and and like you know, there's some kind of um when you hit into something and you have like a kickback? Like what what what is that kind of a sense feel like? Is it is it really dangerous? Like is it gonna vibrate and like you know, lacerate your your throat or you know.

SPEAKER_03: 15:09

Well how did you like how did you go about uh making the because I've seen a couple of different solutions to how to put juggling handles onto how did you actually solve that? Did you make a kind of shoe for it that sticks on the outside of the straight of the of the chainsaw?

SPEAKER_01: 15:28

Yeah, well that that would that would be a good a good thing uh to do. What what I did was I I mounted a um a piece of wood uh to the chainsaw. Kind of like took the chainsaw apart, so we're able to get inside and and bolt a piece of wood to the chainsaw and then put the chainsaw back together with the with the wood on it. And then that piece of wood um allowed me to put some some screws in in it that I could uh bolt the sword to. And then there's like a chin guard. So there it just is like a thing that rests right on my chin with some uh cork. And and that and that, you know, keeps it quite stable because with with the chin and with the sword in in the throat, and then I'm I'm holding it with one hand, and then I got the other hand for the trigger, it's three points of contact.

SPEAKER_00: 16:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:27

So it it it does stabilize the the chainsaw, but then the thing that you're cutting has to be really stable, otherwise things get all get all wacky.

SPEAKER_03: 16:36

Yeah, it can yeah, so there's a lot of uh a lot of potential for it going going pear-shaped, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 16:44

Yeah, there's a lot of potential.

SPEAKER_03: 16:46

Yeah. So maybe not the not the act for the for the general show. Or do you do it?

SPEAKER_01: 16:54

Uh well, I I can do it. I can do it a lot now. Now now I've got the practice and I know how the mechanics work and and I and you know, I ended up doing 17 pumpkins in one minute.

SPEAKER_03: 17:08

You didn't you didn't think about because I know those uh Guinness Book of Records and stuff, they'll have you on again to break your own record. You never thought that you might want to do like 12 or something so that you could come back and break it again.

SPEAKER_01: 17:21

I should have. I just wanted to, I just went kind of berserker. I just was like, alright, I'm just gonna see, because there was 20 of them on the table, and I was like, I'm just gonna try my hardest to get straight to the end of the table and do and do all 20. And we'll see what happens. And a lot of times when when the show happens, I kind of lose myself.

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

And you know, I I should I should have just been like, yeah, I'm just gonna cut it off at a certain point, or or like, you know, kind of ham it up at a certain point. But I was just, you know, horse blind.

SPEAKER_03: 17:57

Chances are now that you have uh practiced it too, is that you could probably do 18 or 19.

SPEAKER_00: 18:03

Yeah, I see.

SPEAKER_03: 18:12

Yeah, I had up.

unknown: 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:14

Center cut it again.

SPEAKER_03: 18:16

You had to cut upwards, that's right. I remember that, and I was like going, oh my god, that is just such a terrible uh situation. You've you've because I don't know, I when I'm I don't I'm not as an accomplished sword swallower as uh you, but uh to me, like I can't um when I swallow my samurai sword, I can't flip the sword and have the bend go the other way. I mean I guess it kind of could, but it's but that would make me really uncomfortable. Like I the different swords cutting opposite would make everything push in a different way, and I'd yeah, it pushes in a different d in a different way, in a different direction.

SPEAKER_01: 18:56

And so I had really get into like this uh style of breathing while while the sword, so it's like this kind of circular breathing or or at least breathing in with my nose.

SPEAKER_00: 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:10

And sure that no no kind of um saliva g goes down my uh throat while while I'm doing it um with with the cutting and stuff, and so it becomes a little bit more uh like second nature.

SPEAKER_03: 19:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:28

Um tricky really. And and what was the the problem was that the the pumpkins ended up being a lot bigger than I thought they would be. Um because I my my chainsaw is only a certain length, and the chainsaw, if it's gonna make a cut in a pumpkin, it has to be bigger than the pumpkin that it's cutting into, otherwise you have to cut it twice.

SPEAKER_00: 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:56

And it had to come up and cut it a second time uh in with with those. So if I had smaller pumpkins that were like smaller than the blade of my chainsaw, I could probably do more. Um you know, and it's what about putting a longer blade on it? Well, I could, but then then it would be heavier. Uh the chainsaw would be heavier. So I I thought, okay, well, now I've practiced with this smaller chainsaw. I could get a big chainsaw and just, you know, look crazy, you know, your giant chainsaw on your face.

SPEAKER_03: 20:34

Yeah, but I mean but we could also split the difference. I mean, because I the when you take the chain off or whatever, it's relatively easy to take that sort of blade thing out. And can you have a s because you don't need a big engine on it? You don't need a di never needed a big bigger engine to cut the pumpkins, but like just that I don't know what it's called, uh the blade. The blade kind of before you put the actual chain on, but that did does the actual just the blade come in in different sizes or so because that's kind of a um the mechanics of of of like you know how to change out um that part of the chainsaw. Yeah, we've been with my father-in-law, we did that quite a bit, take that off, and when you're cleaning the chainsaw, that's relatively easy to take that blade off, as far as I remember. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 21:24

And then you would like buy another chainsaw and no, it was never broken.

SPEAKER_03: 21:30

When you they get we'd uh sharpen the sharpen the thing when right chopping uh wood, he lives off the grid, so he chops all of his own wood and everything in his own forest.

SPEAKER_01: 21:41

Well he probably has a really good like gas-powered chainsaw.

SPEAKER_03: 21:44

He does, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:47

This one's an electric, this one's like an electric chainsaw. And and you know, they're they're not quite as um uh great of a machine as some of the uh gas-powered chainsaws, you know. It's truly battery powered.

SPEAKER_03: 22:03

It's part of the capitalism's idea of um making you need to buy a new thing and not be able to fix things when they break. It's like on, oh, that uh little bit is broken. Oh yeah, that's easy, you just buy a new one. And it's like, well, it's this tiny little bit that's that's broken. Why don't we just replace it? And it's so hard to get replacement parts to all this stuff, so I can understand that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:25

Yeah, you'd have to get them on the internet, uh, you know, like from somebody who just has a passion for taking things apart and putting them things back together.

SPEAKER_03: 22:33

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, that's a when you were talking about it, the um the with the chin guard and everything, it reminded me of back in when was that though? Maybe it was 2002 or three, 2003 or something, we made a thing for the Space Cowboy, Shane Holtgren. Uh he d swallowed a um we saw the a sword kind of like bayonet length uh thing. And that also, so we and we welded that to a uh a metal that had a chin chin uh so he could lift weights with it, wasn't it? Yeah, well he lifted actually yeah, it was so we could lift weights, but he we lifted um gas bottles because we'd used that previously. We me and him did uh did a nipple lift with uh with a beer keg. And beer kegs are just so great. I mean when they're empty, the ones, the big ones that we used, they're sort of about 11 or 12 kilos or something. So not so much, but you could easily not so heavy, but really big and impressive. It's just a big solid metal thing that when you you take it in, you put it on the ground, a little theatrical, but with a hollow stage or whatever, you just go gank and it's a impressive thing. So that was what set us on the uh idea of using the gas tank. So we did that first, and then first we did it without fire, and then eventually he went on to have uh like fire squirting on the end and just like turning with this. So then he could swallow it and he could have the additional points of contact by holding on to the actual bar. Oh, he didn't spin it, not that I know, but that would be cool. But because first, when you said, Oh, I put the wood on the chainsaw kind of underneath, and then put the blade under, and I was wondering whether that would put the saw sort of off balance or so, but I guess once you're holding onto it, you can counteract that.

SPEAKER_01: 24:28

Yeah, and once you're holding onto it, it's like the chainsaw is up here, and if it's balanced on the chin and it's at a certain angle, I could even take my hands away. Yeah, wow, and and I can still hold it swallowed.

SPEAKER_03: 24:43

Yeah, and I can balance almost uh so I mean that's pretty awesome to but just swallow it down and do the present, put your arms out as it's a thing, and then and then go, okay, let's go do the counter and then grab it, then go for the chop. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. It's a it's an interesting thing too, because it's like, yeah, you are swallowing a chainsaw in a sense.

SPEAKER_01: 25:07

It's like you're in that territory where you're like it's like you're not, of course, swallowing the blade, but it's still that like you it's a impossible balanced on your face, and the vibrations are going through you, and and their vibrations are going through the the blade that's inside you, and you know it's a it's a different experience.

SPEAKER_03: 25:29

Yeah, that's true, but it's it's an interesting thing of um because when you when you're uh designing uh uh stunts or so, then that's often where it ends as well. Like for so you go, okay, I'm gonna swallow the chainsaw and cut something, and then you're doing this process, you adapt uh adapt and solve the problems of swallowing of mounting the sword and then learning how to swallow it, and then learning how to cut it. But when you're doing sideshow stuff, and to to to my most of the stuff that we did with the Happy Sideshow as well, it was like that's what you did. What you saw, what you see is what you get, and we're and the lot of the patter or or or spiel that uh Chef Huntley would do was like here we have uh one of these, and uh the this is the this is the dingo trap. It's used as a tool on the farm, but it's like it uh squeezes at 200 pounds per square inch, or so you're sort of explaining everything, what happens, and then and I'm gonna put my arm in it, and then you put the music on, and then then we would do it. So that's kind of what I feel like it's almost like level one of kinds of presentations that you can have. It's like a magician. If you don't know what to say, you can go, here I have a deck of cards. You can see they're all different. Now I want you to take one of your hands, stick it out, and then pick one of the cards out of the deck, look at it, and you go so you're basically narrating what you are already seeing or or whatever. So it's uh but you have this interesting character and stuff. Do you like when you cause because first thing we think of a of a design of a trick or a stunt or whatever that we're gonna do? And then like how far do you go into into further, into styles of presentation, or like uh like is there a metaphoric resonance with what you do that would uh that would excite the audience, or that so that you go, you do one thing that is it's a clear, solid image, but can you what or do you do stuff that then points at it so that people go, oh, there's something more going on here?

SPEAKER_01: 27:36

Yeah, yeah, that's that's what we that's what we try, we try to do is pr present the character and and present some kind of a scenario or a story that that goes along with the actual stunt. But at first, of course, you're presenting your your object that you're gonna use. And you want people to see it and know what it is very clearly, like not to use it so fast that that they don't get a sense of uh what this thing is or what the the odds are or what's you know at stake. And then of course, when I present myself, I I try to be confusing at first. I try to be a little tricky. It's like, oh, you you know, you you think I'm you think this is what I am, but it's not what I am, you know, and then I'll I'll I'll try to pull them in like that, and then once once I've got them, I'll be like, oh, you think it's scary, but it's really not scary, it's actually quite silly, you know. Or or you think it's really silly, but it's actually like the most dangerous thing that that I've ever done. You know.

SPEAKER_03: 28:50

Right? That's interesting to have this sort of reversal or so. Yeah, I I like to play a lot with doing something that is seemingly silly and say or do, or in some way point at it so that you look at it in a more sublime kind of way, or you go, oh, this is much deeper than what I actually thought. So you're presenting it and it might be silly objects of a giant dye or the or a or a my claim of having an invisible egg, and it all starts out and it's very silly and it's very stupid, but then as it as it goes uh goes on, you actually go, oh, this is actually quite beautiful, and and I have a child out that uh helps with it, and then it becomes about imagination and believing in things that you can see that others can't see, that you then can make into reality and make other people see it as well. So yeah, I like I like that as well. Like where this sort of twist, and I like it in the clown, of course. The clown, you come out and people's immediate image or so is the clown comes out and is silly and you And we're laughing. But I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 30:02

Or they think, like, oh, this is the most this is terrifying. This guy's like one of those clowns that's gonna eat my soul, or something like that. And then you then they then they realize, oh, I can actually feel safe with this guy.

SPEAKER_03: 30:15

That's really interesting. So that that stereotype, you must on being a sideshow clown, you must face that more. Like what what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01: 30:29

Well, um it happens a lot when when I'm out because I don't take my makeup off. Um and I just and you know, it when I'm doing a lot of shows, I generally like I'll ride the subway in my clown makeup, or I'll you know, be out in in real life, out and about, not in the theater setting. And um, you know, they get some wild reactions. People scream or they know that their friend is afraid of clowns, so they'll they'll like uh you know motion to me to like sneak up on their friend or something like that. And you know, that that that I know that people are are scared um just because you know they'll they'll physically have a reaction. Like some people will really like run away. And um in some audiences too, there's like people in the audience that as soon as you you come out, you know, there's that kind of gasp. And and I and I know I have to do something funny or or um kind of i ironic um to to to get their attention. Like, like for instance, when I do the i hook act, yeah, you know that's like a horrible thing to to watch.

SPEAKER_00: 31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:45

Um but it's also very uh inspiring and intense to to see somebody push their eyelids to to do a strongman act. So I always do it to uh George Michael uh Careless Whisper to to make it like you know more accessible to people, more, more, more, more comic.

SPEAKER_03: 32:10

That's right. You gotta when people I mean it's me, when I say I'm gonna do a dislocation, I say it very soon after I've entered the stage. Then people a big part of the audience kind of go, I don't actually want to see that. If they're there to see me, then they're all excited. If there's a tattoo convention, they're like, yeah, if or like if it's that kind of audience, but there will be when you're performing for I'm performing with Cirque du Soleil here, and that's very general public, you know. So they I say that I'm gonna do it, and then they go, I don't think so. I don't feel comfortable about this.

SPEAKER_01: 32:45

But then it's actually like hide their face.

SPEAKER_03: 32:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seven, eight, nine, eight minutes until I actually gonna do it. But I leave it there as this element of unease, and uh my comedy and that sort of I think of it as disarming them. They come out and you say it first, so it's there as a thing, but then over time you get to like me as a character, and then you start to trust me or whatever. But I warn them straight in the beginning, and it's always there as that element underneath. So with you as well, you come out and then they go, Oh my lord, it's a clown, and uh and that and they have their reaction, and then you somehow have to sort of disarm or diffuse this tension and go, it's going to be safe. Yeah, exactly. When did you when did you start uh doing the do you think of the face as being jelly boy's face what you call jelly boy before the face came? Or did that they come at the same time?

SPEAKER_01: 33:43

Um well I was jelly boy before I knew anything about clown makeup, but I but I was jelly boy the clown, so I was a clown without makeup at at first.

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:53

I had clown costumes and I had you know weird hair, and I I even had like a clown nose, but but I didn't have any uh makeup at first.

SPEAKER_00: 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 34:04

And I was uh a rock and roll musician, so you know I was singing and um writing songs and playing with a band, and and we were turning our band into a variety show. And so we wanted to be like a like a full-on theatrical experience all set to the the live music, so we invited other artists in, and uh one of the other um performers that came in was like a into being a magician and also had a clown character and was into sideshow, and he taught me about clown makeup. And so when I made my clown face, it kind of just I it stuck, and I always I always put put that on. And it's slightly changed over the years, but um it's it's generally stayed pretty steady.

SPEAKER_03: 34:57

Yeah, I mean uh when you've done it for a long time, it's like your face underneath the mask, my face, has changed as well from when I started doing the rackets, if we just use that as an example, started doing that in 1998. And I looked like much more like a boy then, you know. And then things change along the way, so I guess it's fair enough that your uh that your clown face at least subtly changes over time.

SPEAKER_01: 35:27

Yeah. Yeah, we don't change over time, but um yeah, how how did you get started with the tennis racket? Was it something you'd seen somebody else do, or was it something that you c came up with on your own?

SPEAKER_03: 35:42

Um it was uh actually like I probably said that on the podcast before, but I was doing shows in Edinburgh, and I used to do some contortion stuff with some handcuffs, and I would do contortion bending my arms around with the handcuff, handcuffs on, and then in the end I juggled and ate an apple standing on top of something wearing the handcuffs. That was like my street show. 1998 I was in Edinburgh, went out, did my crowd build, got my crowd ready to start, turn around to grab my suitcase to get my props and get started, and someone had stolen my suitcase from behind me, walking by on the sidewalk. So um next day was a very big day, fringe Sunday. You could go and set up down at this big sort of carnival style thing where you could just set up, find a spot, and then just finish a show and do another one. So I did six shows that just on back to back. But I didn't have any props, and that day was coming up the next day. But uh I had a straitjacket in my backpack that I wasn't using in the show, and my friend suggested I should um do some of those contortion things that I did with the handcuffs, but use a coat hanger, one of the wire coat hangers, which we had in the van that we were staying in. So I was like, and some of the stuff that later on ended up being in the rackets are there from that first day of six shows with spinning the arm around and uh and uh doing the gut suck where I take my stomach in, which used to be a staple of the show, uh or so so some of those were there. So that's that's how it started. Then that same year I was um approached by a guy called John Kikaze that ran the kamikaze freak show back in the 90s, um, and he asked me if I wanted to be the rubber man in the show, in his show. So when the others left to go back to Australia, I stayed on in Edinburgh and did shows and performed with those guys for two and a half years or whatever. And and he was the one that said, uh, yeah, the coat hanger is alright, but uh you can't really see it, you know. You have it and it sort of digs into your skin and everything, so it's got that kind of uncomfortability with oh, I must be comfortable, uncomfortable, because it's like a the wire has it has its own thing. But he was the one that said you should go through a racket. Yeah, which I knew that others had done, but I I don't know if I have a I don't have a like a full recollection of seeing somebody doing it.

SPEAKER_01: 38:10

Right. It's it's kind of like it's it's kind of like one of those things that I'm not sure what the origins of it are, yeah, but but it's like a it's like a staple that that a lot of people use. And but but your act it is specifically your your own and and and very well, you know, honed and and developed, and also has a lot of room for it. Seems like it has room for improv, though a lot of the improv seeming moments might might be um, you know, at this point like uh choreographed and have come from old times when you did accidentally do it and it worked, and so you kept it in the show.

SPEAKER_03: 38:43

That's right. I've been doing it so much that it's uh in the beginning there was more impro and more repetition. I would do because people laugh. If I fall, they laugh. So then I do like three or four falls or whatever, and do or whatever. But then uh because there were several steps as well to the development from going through one thing that lasts just a couple of minutes, and you go through, and there's a couple of points, and you go through to how it ended up being two rackets and all this stuff. Uh, but uh the thing that really fleshed out the act and made it what it is, I mean, two big things. Was one was that um like the the I started doing two rackets, I bought another racket that that was going to be a spear in case the other one broke, but knowing so little about it, I bought it and it was too big. Brought it on tour anyway, and then at some point later on, backstage somewhere in Belgium or Holland or something, I was playing with that thing after the show and went, I can put my leg through, and then the other guys in the show said, Ah, it's not as impressive as doing the small one, it's still better. Oh, okay. Put it in a case, and then I think it took another three months before I had the idea that if I do that, put my leg through and everything, and I start by doing doing that, then the second one can go follow the other one, so that one goes off and the other one. So it took took me a few months to sort of come up with that because I like the idea, but I was also going, like, it's kind of weird to go, now it's gonna go through one racket, and now it's gonna go through one which is smaller in a different way. And it's like sort of going, ah, we already saw that. I mean, in one way, that's sort of what sword swallowing is, too, I guess. Is now I'm just gonna swallow this and I'm gonna swallow something else. So it's all in how you did it. Right. But when I then sound like that was the big step. Okay, now it's two, and then okay, that's great. And I did that for a while, and then I was doing another tour, doing something else. I was actually uh wanting to do a microphone uh chaos routine whilst trying to play the saw. I play the thing, and then in the end, they put on, they was going, put the music on, and it's a beautiful track comes on, but then I've got to stop it, and all that, and then next time when the music comes on, it was this drum and bass track that I played on top of, and I dropped the saw and cut one of my fingers off, and turns out it was my dick, or like it's like so that gag was in. So all those gags have been used in other things, but I practiced a lot with the mic stand to learn a bunch of gags, but as it was, I just could not make the at that point. This was in 1999, could not make, or at the time didn't have the chops to make the microphone chaos look uh like it was real, so it just fell completely flat. So I removed the mic thing and just played the music as the opening of the show on the saw. Uh but then on that same tour where I've gone, okay, well, that doesn't work, so I'll just play the saw because that's nice. I had a real sort of carnival-y waltz-y track, and that was great. So I just had that as the opening of the thing, played the saw, had a couple of little gags, but laid off the microphone stuff. But I'd done all the rehearsals with it. And during that tour, whilst standing on one leg on the stool, like I do, speaking in the thing, uh speaking in a microphone, doing the routine, some of those things. Just then it just I was standing there with a mic stand, and now, whilst standing on one leg and I started to do the chaos with the mic, now they believed it. And it started to be funny immediately. I didn't think of it the first day of the show, but I had this practice and these gags and these things that I wanted to do with with it. None of them actually that was like because the other act was sitting down, the starting and whatever. But anyway, so then that sort of found its way into the next act. So in a certain sense, it's like it's a stand-up comedy kind of act. I do a bunch of comedy, it's like I say a lot of stuff. A lot of the act is talking, so there's that. I have the confetti that goes all the way through, which is another sort of layer that has its own sort of journey. Then I do a contortion act where I squeeze through the two rackets and all of that. And then so that was already kind of a lot going on. It wasn't it didn't feel like the act was a thin act before I added the slapstick. But then I added, it's almost like you added the slapstick to it as well. So now there's many layers. So that's one element, and the second element that really solidified this from it not just being impro and going on, because sometimes I did when we were doing the happy side show. There was times when it took 20 minutes, and they just went outside and had a little number outs at the back and just like waiting for me to finish. I'm like, guys, I'm done! Where are you? So uh then I joined Circus O'S and they went, Oh, we need it to be this length, and I kind of think maybe I did 13-14 minutes or something there. And then I went joined La Clique, and they wanted it shorter, and I did this 11 and a half minute thing, and that I did that then, that 11 and a half so 12 minutes with the intro and the exit. I did that for 12 years. Not allowed to add any length of time, but I could add whatever I wanted to within it.

SPEAKER_00: 44:25

Within that break.

SPEAKER_03: 44:27

That's where it is there's no not four falls. One fall is on the stage, one fall is off the stage, like when if that is at all possible to fall.

SPEAKER_01: 44:36

Yeah, everything has to be special everything.

SPEAKER_03: 44:38

Yeah, so that each of the things so that you get the maximum variety of chaos, and not there's no indulgence in where I do the same thing again and again or or whatever, which has its own uh comedy, like you try three times and then you can make it or so. But I've sort of removed all of that sort of stuff to go for the maximum amount of variety within it. So so that's the evolution of that act.

SPEAKER_01: 45:02

Yeah, the freedom that you can get inside of a structure like that. Yes. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03: 45:09

Yeah, like when I was not really really proper impro anymore. Because it's it's it but I that said, there's new material in it now that has come out whilst just since I started performing here in Vegas with Mad Apple.

SPEAKER_01: 45:24

Yeah, that's cool. That's how you that's how you know that the act is actually alive.

SPEAKER_02: 45:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:30

That it's it's it's evolving, always evolving, and you could see a video of yourself doing it years ago, and you'd be like, oh, I used to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:39

Or you know, that that kind of thing. And I've totally uh got a few of those acts that have it come together. Oh, they're evolved into something crazy late like that.

SPEAKER_03: 45:51

You just froze. You got a few acts that have worked together.

SPEAKER_01: 45:56

Uh come together out of improvs of like where where I'll do these kind of one-off acts. And the the the one-off acts uh go away, but there's elements of those one-off acts that that I kind of collect that I think are the best parts of them. And then I put them in like the I've got this one act that's um I do to uh Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath, and it's a it's a burlesque act. But it it starts off with like I'm in a black cloak and I've got layers and layers and layers of costumes on underneath that cloak. And it it's all leading up to this mental floss routine with with a glass of wine. But at first, I've got um almost like a lampshade on my head underneath the black cloak, and then the lampshades like underneath that is a a monkey in a wig with you know aviator goggles on, and then under that is um Batman with a clown mask on, and underneath Batman is uh the devil, like dressed as an old woman, and then the devil turns into me, and then you know, I'm dressed as a man, and then I take off my my clothes, and I'm dressed as a woman, and then you know, I take off those clothes, and I've just got these pink underwear on with fish nets, and and I reach into my underwear and pull out the fish tube and then stick it up my nose and you know go crazy with the fundamental flaws at the end. And then drink the wine in the end, and and and make sure that I drink the wine perfectly on time with like the ending of the song, you know, like it's like a race against time to get to the end of the song and drink the wine and and and the audience is all invested that it's gonna happen, and then you know, it happens. And but but those masks they were they were all from different acts, and then you know, one day I just had the idea to combine all the masks and make one big crazy burlesque act.

SPEAKER_03: 48:05

This is an important element of my artistic process and artistic processes in general. I think it's the you know, they there's they say the the harder you work, the luckier you get. So I was like I was working really hard on a routine, and then I went out and the audience told me, uh that's not gonna work, we don't like that. And then I was salvaged as you do, because you're like doing a couple of shows, and I was going, Oh, that's really dying, and it was the opening act. So I couldn't have that uh flatness for the start, because then you can't win them back or whatever. Uh well, like it's hard. So now this was in as a sort of as a as a possibility, like it was floating around as a possible that hadn't actualized itself. And you've done all the masks and you started to do the so you you have the you have these things around, and then once you think of, okay, well I'm gonna change, because that's a thing with burlesque, most burlesque or most uh stripping or whatever, it's the face stays the same. So it's an innovation in that way. Like you go, oh actually, what is it, what would it look like if it's if if that also changes? If all you can kill my face, yeah, like you so you could it's a natural extension, and in one way when you say it, you go, oh, it seems so obvious, but it is not obvious at all. Yeah, but it's great when you put that on, it's like you you're transforming like one of those animal.

SPEAKER_01: 49:36

Yeah. Yeah. And and so, yeah, and then and then I was thinking about um as far as the creative process goes, like we we have these acts, and then a lot of times as an artist, you want to do something bigger. So, you know, you want to make a make a whole show or you know, at a with a collection of acts, or you want to write a book about you know your philosophy of showmanship, or you want to write a book as a memoir, or you want to write, you know, some kind of fantasy story. And in in my case also, we we wanted to make um movies.

SPEAKER_00: 50:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 50:13

Because my my brother um uh who I do shows with all the time, he he went to film school, and so he's always been into making movies, you know. So we we made a horror movie. At one point, it was like a sideshow horror movie called uh the um Freak Show Apocalypse, the unholy sideshow. Yeah, yeah. And and and that was like a it's a very B movie. It's it's it's not a great movie, but in that it's it's a cult kind of a movie because it's like so bad that that's good. But then we made documentaries. Like the the first documentary that we made um was about how I was trapped in a burning building and and got all burned up, and it's called the clown's recovery. It's about how you know I survived this fire and then recovered, and my brother started making a documentary as soon as I was in the hospital. And it's like I was supposed to perform at Ripley's Believe It or Not the next day and Coney Island, but I didn't make it to either of those places. You know, in Times Square, Ripley's Believe It Or Not with Albert Cadabra, and then we were supposed to do this like um memorial show in in Coney Island. Um, and I just never made it to those shows because I got burnt too crisp, and I ended up, you know, on life support, and and then eventually the circus community like found out about it, and everybody did these fundraisers, and it was just like so beautiful, but I was in a coma, so I didn't know. So that was that's kind of like what the first documentary was. And then the second one, um, when I got out of the hospital, I had the idea that I always wanted to see Asia, and I had never seen it. I had never been to Asia, so so one of my things when we first got out was like, okay, well, we have to go to India and we have to go to Japan. And so we we ended up planning this trip around the world where we we started off in America, we went through Europe, and then we flew to India, and then we went to Tokyo, and you know, there's street music street magicians in India that we met, that we got some amazing shows from them, and they they showed us some cool magic, and then they sent us up to the Himalaya Mountains, like where they had connections, and just you know, showed us a real good time. We took a bus like like from Delhi all the way up to uh Kulu and Manali and the Himalaya Mountains, and it was just wild. We went to Tokyo, did all these performances with with like vampire people and you know, just weird Tokyo freaks and stuff, and then um ended up going to California right after that, where we had our bus, somebody had driven our bus from Philadelphia to California, and so our bus was there, and we toured up all of California and back to Philadelphia. So we went completely around the world, and so we made a documentary about that in uh 2018. We put it out. It took us from 2012 when we made the documentary to 2018. Like, was that six years to actually make the thing and put it out? And so then when we put that out, I was working at Coney Island in the sideshow, in the grind show, and there was a um a filmmaker from PBS, um, and he was making a documentary about Coney Island called uh Keeping a Dying Art Form Alive, and they were interviewing everybody in the cast. His name's Steve Thompson. And uh so Steve and I became really good friends like in the process of making this Coney Island documentary, and I told him about the other documentaries that we made, and I said, you know, in 2020, I really want to make a documentary where we go to every continent, including Antarctica, and just take our circus to every continent of the world, just to, you know, one up our around the world documentary, you know. And he he was like, sure, I'll I'll go with you, I'll I'll do it. And so we started doing it and we started preparing it in 2019. And um, so when 2020 came, we started our tour, and we went all through Europe through seven countries, and we started filming this documentary, and we're like making all the plans how we're gonna go to Australia and we're gonna go to South Africa, and you know, we're gonna go to Argentina and then we're gonna go to Antarctica from there, and you know, anyway, and the pandemic came and after our big tour, it was like everything dropped off, and like we just kept making the we just kept making the documentary. And so now, you know, it's 2025, and so you know, six years since 2019 when we started, we're almost done making this documentary, and it's called Dark Imagination Party. And it's just like it's it's about like when things go wrong and you just keep going.

SPEAKER_03: 55:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:26

You know, you just make something totally new. And um so uh, you know, it's it's on the final stages where we're like we've got a big edit of it, and we're just trying to like hone it and like really get other people's opinions and trying to make it trying to make it really shine. And um, you know it's weird when you're working on a book or like a big movie or something, and it's like you've taken it almost as far as you can, and then you need that outside eyes. And I think that's where you're at right now with with the um with my book project, yeah. With your book.

SPEAKER_03: 56:00

Yeah, but did you change the name of of the book? Well the the the name uh is uh who knows what it's gonna be when it actually comes out, but at the moment it's called facing the other way.

SPEAKER_01: 56:13

Right. It's not called Way of the Showman, it's called Facing the Other Way.

SPEAKER_03: 56:16

Yeah, well, it's called Facing the Other Way, subtitled Towards the Philosophy of Showmanship. Right. Which means that when you read those two things together, it says facing the other way towards the philosophy of showmanship.

SPEAKER_01: 56:30

Right. So And what does it mean to face the other way to you?

SPEAKER_03: 56:34

Well, I believe it is the foundational uh mode of human relation that a performer it takes part in. We stand in front of a group of people, and when I'm looking for what is the what is the most foundational um thing we can say about what we do like a performer, because you you so easily get lost in all the details of well he could do magic or she could do uh burlesque or she could do uh do acrobatics or he could do sword swallowing. But all of those are less than what it is. I was looking for the kind of archetypal performer or whatever, and I was looking for what that was, and then um I was anyway, then I do I found this piece of text that I had written and uh and that was in it, this thing. A showman is someone who faces the other way. Because when I say that, there's I so because I did it as a poem in a show uh in twenty twelve. Right. Was twenty eleven, actually. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 57:41

And I can see that. I can see that so clearly because you are facing the other way from the audience.

SPEAKER_03: 57:46

So when I say that, I say it in a poem because also like I wanted to create a uh a show where I wanted to really this stuff that I was talking about before about pointing to what I do in such a way that you look at it with different eyes, to do something really ridiculous, but by the framing of it make you think that there's something more deeper going on here. And I wanted to do that in the I did uh some acts first to get them laughing and everything there, and then I did I say I did this poem, and I want to as and and it starts with that line. What is a show? What is a shaman? A showman is someone who faces the other way. But what does that mean? I mean, this is a shaman. Oh like I turn around and I turn around with my back towards them, and I just say, Well, this is not a shaman, but this, and I turn around, I put the big face on this is a shaman, throw some confetti, and then they laugh and they crap, uh, and then the poem goes on, or whatever. But that image, I'm then asking, what is what does that mean? Like what 'cause it's not just us who do that, teachers do it as well.

SPEAKER_00: 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 58:56

And in almost any kind of religious um connection or a religious religious um project, you also have often one facing the other way.

SPEAKER_01: 59:11

Right, and yet the the best the best ones are also entertainers, they're not just lecturers or you know That's right, like teachers, priests, or something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 59:21

So now you are immediately tuning into the richness of this image. Because from that you get, yeah, but we are if if it because as soon as I as soon as I thought that, and I I thought, okay, well, show me to someone who faces the other way. Um, then the poem goes on, and I don't need to go into all that because it's so much whatever detail, but just that initial image, like and you and and immediately when I looked at that, they go, well, in that case, well, my first thought was also, well, in that case, then it's no different than a teacher, or no different than a priest. So I'm going, that's not good. But then I'm actually going, no, it that is actually really good. Because I also believe that the Roots of what we do can be found in shamanism. I believe that that thread is there. And we have the power. So then I go, this this figuration here of the showman, one facing the other way, has the capacity to utilize these different elements. What the religious is doing for people, we have that as a potential lying in us. We don't all actualize it. The person making balloon animals in a shopping center don't lean into the spiritual aspects of what we do. But it's there. Before our character separated out and became just the entertainer or just the teacher or just the whilst they are all springing from the same thing and we are dealing with the same stuff. A general talker or presenter is not just it's just not about it's not just about saying something. It's about how you say it. Some are incredibly popular and some have great information, but you need to really want the information to get it. So so then we should start from this simple picture. You also go, well, if all these are showmen in some person, a human being with something to show, somebody who faces which has something to share with the others. Because as the poem goes on, he calls for attention and has something to show when he gets it. It's like if you just call for attention 20 times and you have nothing to show, you will eventually be shunned or attacked even if you don't have anything because you're asking for un you're breaking other people's attention by whatever means and it's undeserving. Yeah, undeserved attention. Yeah. And if you're in a tribe, that will be remembered, and you're going, This guy is f is is really annoying. He's always going, hey guys, look at me, look at me, and then they look at you and you got nothing to do, and then eventually you're cried wolf and they don't look at you when you need it. Yeah, you lost respect. So yeah. So this actual image is sort of where it where it's it's and I have this quote from Goethe that he goes, it's like it about finding a pregnant point which from which much can be derived. He was talking about botany at the time, of like he he saw this thing of the the shape of flowers that taught him a whole lot about nature or whatever. And I feel like this image of the one facing the other way, so the so the book is an evolution of that. The book is actually taking the ten kind of verses, if you could call it that, of this poem, and I'm unpacking all of those ten. And in a sense, my the reason why it's called facing the other way was that I do have the feeling that if you talk about what the way of the showman is, it would be more connected to Um How to Be Something or what it is like to be it in life. Whilst this book is so specifically philosophical that I feel like the title, The Way of the Showman, is sort of how to be a performer in the world. That that that that's some somehow I feel like that could come be another book.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:08

Uh yeah. It also seems to have a double meaning, you know, facing the other way. It's it's it's not just you know turning the other direction that the audience is, it's it's like a lifestyle. You know, where you're almost walking your own path, you're facing the other way from you know you're going off the beaten path and you're you're going down this whole other road, living out of a bag, and you know, having your adventures as a showman and gaining wisdom on on that path. And and and and also I think um all those things are connected by this storytelling that people have always done some sense prehistory. Yeah that unites us, you know, in our imagination. And and the whole idea of um of playing as as art and all that is is is there. So I I see that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:08

So you know, and then I talk about what the show is because he talks he he first he calls for attention, and then it it says a few stances about what the show is, and then I talk about what is that? What is this mode of relation which we human beings can do so that we we it's a show, it's not wholly me. I present some stuff out there, but the people who make it uh come alive are the is the audience. There is a non-trivial difference between me practicing in this empty room and what happens because my art is kind of not there, and in in the chapter there I talk specifically sort of about magic, because that's kind of the most speci the within our sort of allied arts. It's the one thing that if there's no audience there, there isn't actually any magic happening. Because I know what's going on. If I put the coin in this hand or pretend to take it in this hand, but it stays in the other one, there is no magic because I know what's going on. So I don't experience the magic. So there needs to be somebody there for so that's that sort of element where you like it's the same in storytelling and all the other things, but in magic it's so clear that of course I know what's going on, so there's the method and the effect that I'm still always seeing the method, and the effect just sort of it is not actually there until we're there. And so any any artwork, I believe, actually that is the case. It's like if you the painting is hanging there, if nobody's looking at it, it is it's art in potential. It gets actualized and comes alive as an artwork doing the work part of the art, which has been done when I'm looking at the painting and letting the image come alive in me and make me feel emotions, makes me makes me think thoughts, makes me want to change my life or whatever. Like you go, oh my god, this has changed how I see things. So that's the work that comes, and as soon as I turn away, I now bring that with me and it and that interaction, like an interaction with any human being or whatever, that that comes with me. So now it is alive in us, in a way. Uh much like our shows just disappear. Once we're finished, then the show is gone. But it lives on in me, one part of it lives on in me, and the other part lives on in the people who saw it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:31

Yeah, and it's alive. And and we found out during the pandemic that um you know the audience is so much more important than we could have even believed, even though we know how important they are when the audience is gone and we're you know trying to do a virtual show uh in our living room, you know, to to an audience that maybe is on Zoom or something like that. It's like, wow, this is a totally different thing. And and when we were making our documentary, we we were doing virtual shows, and and it was like we figured, oh yeah, we'll put some of these virtual shows in the documentary or at least make it like you know part of it. Um, but it kind of led to, oh, we don't have this live feeling anymore, so what are we gonna do? So we started making these like short films within our little bubble of people that that could interact. We would, you know, go to abandoned buildings and start playing around and making making movies and it it was it was pretty cool, but it but it's definitely not um not the same as that electric live show with a big enthusiastic audience. You know, you go into the darker, the darker side of uh of yourself sometimes uh when you when you don't have that outlet, um sometimes like you know the the ghosts and the demons in your head kind of catch up to you when you're when you're just sitting there you know like waiting for for to do your thing. But it's cool because a lot of times you you need to to have that space to to to be faced with some of your traumas so that you know you're not running from them, that you can you you can actually face them and then try to make some art uh out of that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:38

Um Absolutely. I mean the first draft of this book which I put out like uh the ideas in it, they're completely transformed now in this book that I'm writing now. But this is the manuscript of what is the season two of my podcast. It's a 20 2030 episodes or so where I'm talking through all of these ideas, but they're sort of at that point, they're more sort of like here's one thing and here's the next. There was, of course, a structure to it in my mind at that point too. But I wrote that and it was a big document and there was a lot of stuff, and then I got feedback from things from from people listening to the episodes and all that. So many of these ideas are at least as germs already in this podcast from episode 23 uh till about 40 or so. I can't remember the exact number, but uh there's these these episodes come out and I'm talking about these ideas, so then I have reframed it all and boiled it down and made it more clear, like um what it is that I'm thinking. So but but my point being there was that all of this happened during the pandemic. So I was thinking these thoughts. So then when I was thinking about the role of like, well, because from that simple starting point, you get the showman and then you get the audience, and then in between them somehow, you have the show, and then the whole thing is being comes alive with them paying attention to each other. So you have the show, and then you have the showman, and uh, and then you have the eye that is looking at it, and then that's that because that's the logo, the logo the triangle with the eye inside it, which is part of the logo of the of the podcast. So that's the thing with the thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:37

And the podcast that's your that's your creative process right there to to to work on your ideas, to hone them into a book.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:44

Yeah, yeah. So that's so but that's uh but but it's but the fact that I was not getting to meet my audience, any audience, then, made it so clear the important role that they had. Because up until then, there was always an audience here and there, and you sort of it it changed the depth of how much I appreciated and missed and wanted and saw what their role in who I am. So I now no longer I think that the showman is actually just a part of a process. I am not the sole lone genius just delivering my art. It's like I'm actually nothing if I'm not part of it. Like how some wood kindling comes together with some kind of ignition, and then you get a fire. Each one of those on their own are nothing. Like I mean, they are. Each one is a thing in itself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:40

There's something, but they're not.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:42

But when you come together, they become something else. It's like you get the three, the showman, the audience, and then you do the show, and one or like the attention, and then you get the show as an additional thing, which is not like anything else that exists in the world. So, yeah, anyway, I think but then and then this is the artistic process again. It's like you're coming back to that. What are the aspects of the artistic process that that happens again and again? And and I think it's it is this constant revising or so, but like you I work really hard on something. I work really hard on one of the verses of the poem, which is one of the chapters of the ten chapters, and then I work really hard on that uh and to to make the pieces and to make that, and then I work on the next chapter and the next chapter, and the next like you or the sentence and sentence and page, and and then once I've done with that, I go, Okay, you've written your first draft or third draft or whatever, and you go, There you go. I've just f I've just gone through it, it's done. This is sweet. And then that happens with the whole book, but then you look through it and you go, Oh, this is like, oh, this doesn't, and this hang hangs. Does it make it make sense?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:53

Doesn't make sense, or like it's does it have the connections that you want? Can everyone understand it, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:00

So then you you gotta go back and you gotta rethink it, and you gotta and then there are mistakes in there, but sometimes the mistakes or the or the confusion that I didn't see was there makes me see, well, this page and that page, somehow in in the span of these five pages, I have slightly changed what it was that I wrote about. Like as you start on the stream of consciousness and then you tune it, and because it takes so long to write each page, it might be you wrote these previous pages three days ago, or like, well, so you tuned it and then you realize, oh, there's actually a little bit of discrepancy here. Not like you start writing about apples and then you by the end you're writing about oranges. It's not you've changed the subject, but you're into a subtly different thing, and then I might look at it and I go, Well, this is kind of a mistake, but you also go, but they both make sense. So now there's five more little details that need to find what's their relationship, or how did this happen, or whatever. So sometimes the actual writing process is me reading, I write what I think I'm saying, and then I read it back, and I'm going, like, oh, there's more here. And then when you do the next and the third draft, you sort of try to make it seem like you I thought all of these things from the beginning, but some of it comes from the process of engaging with my own work and m mistakes or whatever, and then you make some changes, and I sometimes have novel recombinations too, where I just go, Well, I wrote that to be in here, but actually, this is has an element of audience in it because it doesn't fit in a place, these two pages or whatever, and then you go, Oh, I can put it in here, and then you gotta slightly rewrite it, and then whole new things comes out of out of that. So I think there's those are all kind of elements that I think are part of the creative process of working really hard on something and then let it go for a while, and then you go back and revisit it, and you and you get more ideas, or you start to actually see what it see stuff that is clearly what it's about, but that you didn't know, well, that wasn't your instigation for writing it, or so, and mistakes and then recombinations that all this is part of the process that all of a sudden when I'm writing something, you just go, Oh, this is similar to this gag that I used to do, and then you see sort of how that mirrors it or whatever. So it's as much as the process is like you sit down on a blank page, it's never that because it comes with your whole history of failed and successful and one-offs and or whatever, so that you bring that into the writing process.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:38

Yeah, there's there's a lot of unconscious stuff that that comes sort of floats up into what you're working on. And that's why, you know, stream of conscious writing and improv and things like that for live performances is is really important. You know, you can't rely on it 100% because the there's going to be imperfections in it, you know, so if you're trying to make a greater work or, you know, something like along the lines of a monument or something like that, you you you can't have these these little imperfections in it, and and you know, but those imperfections they they really make the thing entertaining.

unknown: 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:18

And so you don't want to lose that. You want to kind of keep this this cool stream of consciousness feeling to your philosophical uh writing, but you want your writing to be like on point. You you know, that that you don't you don't want any mistakes in it necessarily. So that that's that's the hard part about making making a greater work.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:43

Yeah, and when you make writing uh I mean writing as we both are doing, it's a different kind of thing too, because it's uh it's a you write one object and then that that object is the artwork, so to speak. And that's a little bit different than the than the shows, because the shows are constantly evolving because I have to actually be there and do it for it to come into being. So the act that I do is is not any one one in each act, each time I perform, it's another incarnation of the same thing, because it doesn't actually exist unless I do it. But the book in a different way sort of lies there and is an invitation for the performer or the for for the for the reader to to engage with with what you have to share or whatever. So you have to put more work into it being like a the definitive version, in a sense. Well, it's the performance you can always go, oh that's a good idea, add to that. So we see the act two years later, it's uh it has all the additional stuff in it or the changes or whatever. But the book, some that needs to sort of I mean you can do a rewrite or a re-edit or whatever, but sure you could. But but normally it's sort of like you move on to write another book that tells a different story instead, or or like that she has different ideas as opposed to continually rewriting the same book to make it reflect how you are now or whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:19

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But but that that thing is supposed to stand the test of time, and you know, it's uh supposed to be something that you know you're you you you look back at and you're like, wow, that's exactly what what I meant to say. It's not like um an open mic night. What do you call it? I'm I'm getting some interference here. Hold on a second. I worked it out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:44

So interesting to talk to another person that actually writes as well. I mean, as you were going through and writing uh your book, uh in one way you sort of think, oh, it's uh it's uh it's a different process to write the book because it's like it goes from the beginning to the end. In some story. But uh straight through. But uh and when I'm writing about my ideas or whatever, you need to find a different kind of framework. But at the same time, your book also has like a framing device, and it's like it's it's not just a random, like it tells the stories, but each time when you tell a story, you can tell it with an emphasis on something different.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:26

So Exactly, and I had to find the beginning and the end. That was also a big challenge because sometimes you start writing, you know, in the middle and you don't even know what your conclusion is going to be because it's just a story that you're that you're writing and you hadn't really even considered the the ending. And if it's a story about your own life, and that ending hasn't even happened yet, because you know the story takes like 20 years to write, eventually you have to be like, hey, there's a point where this story has to end. Yeah you know, I I have to find the conclusion, you know. And and in my case, it was it was like, okay, the house fire and the recovery from that and the idea of like getting ready to go around the world was the end of my book.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:20

It was like, okay, I survived and now I'm going to try and do my dream that I had when I was in the coma, you know? And the beginning of the story is obviously like, you know, I I get carried away with the spirit of the circus sideshow by random encounters with other performers, you know, and and they bring me into the world, but it's like how how do you how do you get that hook? How do you start the story in a way that's gonna bring everybody in and want want to listen to to your story? You know. Um and then then there's other problems, you know, like uh like who who's my audience, you know, how am I gonna get people to read this this book, or or is it just gonna get a life of its own and I'm not gonna have to worry about that? You know, it'll just kind of happen. That those are other parts of the creative process. It's like, what do you do after the book is done? You're writing the book, and it's taken you so long, and it's such a thing that you always think about and go back to, and then you finally get it there. And then, you know, you get past all the editing and and all the the fine-tuning and everything, and you're like, okay, I've got a book. Now how do I launch it into the world? You know, like what what's what's the next step and and how do we promote it? And and what's what's gonna happen there? And and and you have to be creative with with that as well and have fun with it, because otherwise it becomes this big chore.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:56

You know, and it can really drain a lot of your um enthusiasm if you if you don't think about it the right way.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:04

Yeah. So how have you been dealing with that uh uh for the last uh 'cause it's been more a year or so.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:12

It's it's been about a year, yeah. And and what's cool is um uh the publisher uh Outside Talker Press is the name of the uh publishing company. And um they they've they've done a pretty good job. Of course, I always think we could all do better at like getting the word out and and selling the the the book, so to speak. Um but uh they've done a really good job at making like a collection of books, you know, because the first book that they put out is called Um The Rise and Fall of the Sideshow Geek. And it's all about the history of geeking and everything. And then and then and then my my book came out, which is Memoirs of Coney Island Clown, Jelly Boy's Sideshow Saga. And then a third book came out, which is all about natural-born um freaks. And it's called uh Natural Born, The Art of Being Human, and it's about the modern uh circus movement uh embracing the the uh natural born as you know a main element of of sideshow and and how to navigate that through the controversial history of it and how to celebrate uh the freakiness of sideshow and natural-born sideshow performers. And and I was uh I was in that book, which is cool because the because the writer um had asked me me to help them find some of the people, and I knew um a lot of natural-born uh freaks from working at Coney Island. And when I was casting director there, um I had like five natural-born freaks in the cast. And so, you know, that that so that book came out and um I got a little chapter in it. And then I was also in this other book this year about sword swallowing that Dan Mayer um wrote, or Dan Meyer. Um To the Hilt and he To the Hilt, yeah, he made that with Mark Hartzman and um who did the sideshow Encyclopedia. And uh and so it was cool to like be in these other people's books. And and so that's one of the things I've been trying to do is like get into the world and talk about my book by being interconnected with other um artists, you know. So I want to be on podcasts like like like the this one, for instance, and and uh the To the Hill podcast and and some some other ones that that I've been on this year, and be in other shows and other people's writing and stuff like that, and like be a part of a movement, you know, because it's it's almost like you can't just do it alone. You have to be a part of a greater community if you want to get the word out. Otherwise, you're just in your own little bubble.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:07

So in that way, I think that's a lot of fun. It's so fun the social aspect of it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:13

Yeah. And it's uh, you know, I am I um have enough anxiety that I just sort of am happy to be in my bubble and having these conversations with people on the podcast, and every now and then when you go out into the world, you meet other people who have listened to a bunch of the episodes or ardent followers of the way that they listens to almost everything. And I a different someone uh meeting them maybe for the first time, but the conversation that you get into is just next level. Like I was uh last year I got to go together with Nick DeFact. We went to Los Angeles and met up with Mike Cavany, which is an incredible magician, has got a great career of doing magic and uh very funny and very cool that stuff that he does, but he's also a publisher of magic books, and he is uh uh historian of magic, and so I knew of about knew about him and his uh lovely wife, uh Tina Leonard, who is also an incredible artist, who did an act that I saw one that I had on happened to have on VHS uh because it was recorded off uh TV or whatever. So I had her act and I could see it several times, and then I was there in their living room and we were just chatting or whatever, and uh I started saying some story or whatever, and then she goes, Oh yeah, I remember you said this on your podcast. And then turned out they were both both listened to the podcast and knew some of the stories, and it changed my life. And then I was staying there a few months ago when I was in LA again, staying at their beautiful house in Pasadena, and then he was showing me something in his workshop, and then in the workshop taped on one of the shelves or whatever, I was was one of the stickers so my logo was on the was on the wall and inside there, and that just stuff that you go you you meet someone and they already kind of know you a little bit by having listened to it. And I need to do what you're doing as well, going to take in seeking out these people and going, hey, you guys should uh talk to me on your podcast, uh, because people are interested in uh definitely like when when the time comes, you know, when when your book is is ready, you you should totally be doing that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:45

Um good point. And I think I'm I'm sure you will. But and and and the book is probably I would imagine it's almost ready to like within this year, maybe in 2026, we might see it come into the world, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:02

Yeah, yeah. My hope was that it was gonna come out this year. Uh but uh things just take time. And then I got to Jay Gilligan, my friend, who is and who is who knows how I think and everything, so he is taken on he has the cap somebody who is as good at juggling at that, it's like he has the capacity to really delve into and look at. And he, of course, is a native speaker as well, so I need help with uh certain parts of the English language or whatever, and just to have somebody that reads it, takes it seriously enough and pays attention to it to ask you the questions and all that. So he's gone above and beyond, and he we we did a lot of work on it, and then he read it all the previous actually the draft that I sent to you, and then he read he was the first one, I sent it to just three or four people, and then he was the first one to actually finish it and and engage with it is sort of that going through it like that. And through some lengthy discussions in the night, we were like, um I I realized that I I needed to change the voice a little bit and also like through these conversations narrowed with him, narrowed the book further down to what it's actually about.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:16

Which meant that when you go sorry to one voice instead of sometimes you have several voices that you write in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:24

Yeah. And the different topics or whatever that I go, oh, they're all interesting topics, but that doesn't mean that in a boiled down t uh you you want to have the book say one thing, because the book is like an act. There's not, even though I think about lots of things and lots of skills and whatever, not everything fits into one act, and not everything fig even fits into necessarily to one show. You might be doing it in a certain so I'm having to learn that now. I'm going, yeah, but I love this thought or this section. And then I realize going, yeah, but it is actually straying outside of the what department. So now if I promise you that in the beginning, that that's what this book is, we need to adhere to that, or else have very good justifications for why this project goes off on a tangent. Like if any tangent is gonna happen, it needs to be justified or whatever. So going deeply into it with him as my editor has been really good. And the book is now I'm gonna flip it up right now, it is sixty-seven thousand words, two hundred and seven pages, and that's down from when I sent it to you. It was eighty-six thousand, so it's now twenty thousand pages, no, twenty thousand words less. And uh it's um and it's uh uh almost sixty uh it's like fifty-three pages shorter at this point.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:56

Right. Yeah, I thought I had fifty pages out of my book, which I think kind of painful to to do in in in a way. Um but sometimes you have to make those those big decisions because you know if somebody if you have a 400-page book and somebody the publisher says, Hey, you know, this book would be a lot better if it was 250 pages and you aren't having to cut that much out, you really have to make those hard choices and and say, Oh, what is the story? Yeah, and what's what's the tangent? And what tang and what tangents are worth keeping, and what tangents do you have to kind of you know say goodbye to, and uh what characters are worth keeping, and which characters are kind of secondary characters as cool and and as much as you love them, sometimes you have to be like, Yeah, I really can't include that, because it takes away from from the flow of of where the story or is going.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:52

Yeah. Because you start to write it, and then you have an idea of where it could go, and it's in your mind, it could be anything, but then as you write it, the story starts to it like it's not just like random shit in a row. Everything is connected. So once you've said A and you've said B and you've said C, then you can't just say random other things. You there's certain things that it that like the story actually becomes a thing in itself, and and what you're what you're telling, and and the project is is in a I'm in a uh reciprocal relationship with it. Because I read it and I'm going, ah, now I see this doesn't belong or whatever. And you end up with a gem because it starts out as this unformed raw diamond or whatever, and then you cut the you you you cut the facets off, and after a while you start to see the pattern of it, and you're going, oh it needs to be like uh shaped uh round on this side too, because I've what made it round on the other side. So you you start to also see the thing as a thing in itself, and it's also guiding you a little bit, telling me what it wants to be.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:00

Right, like what's the shape that the words are creating, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:04

So that's interesting. You I'm writing in all these thoughts that you have, and you go, Well, I'm gonna write one book and everything is gonna be in it, and then of course it can't be. So You can't. So that just opens it up for the next act, or the next show that you have to make, or the next book that you have to write, or the next conversation or podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:22

Yeah, yeah. All those all those little things that are still on the shelf. They they could they're on the shelf for a reason, you know. They they they might get discarded and thrown to the the trash heap, but they also might just sit around with with all the uh other weird odds and ends that you've got.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:40

And like my failure at doing a um a slapstick um uh microphone chaos thing, that turned out to be the best thing that I could have done. It wasn't actually a failure, it was just that it didn't belong in that act. When I don't put it in during the same season, it was the wrong place or whatever, and then it turned out to be the greatest mistake-made uh triumph that I've that I've done. Because that was the bit where it went from being a funny contortion routine with jokes and whatever, to being the physical comedy kind of thing that it is now. That is basically been how I have made my career. That's like my greatest hit or whatever. So, for as much as you can say, well, that was a failure, it kind of wasn't, because I know that thing existed as potential, ready to find its way into the world in a new form, and when it did, it was a good thing. So, all of the 50 pages that you took out of your book that I haven't read, I'm looking forward to reading it. And also, outside Talker Press, as you're talking about those other books, I'm like, God, I'll get right on the internet and order those. I want to know about the rise and fall of the geek, and I certainly want to know about the the book writing about natural-born freaks at this point in time where where that issue is so complex or complicated, or so so so um, and great for you to be in that sort of uh popping up in the other books because that I have loved that from when we were really talking about last time talked about freaks on fire. That book how mentions people that are found through that, and how uh in the beat generation, how Alan Ginsburg and William Burroughs and uh uh um and Jack Carack are all kind of connected, and they lived in a flat at one point, and then they go and have a big party, and then the Hells Angels come to the party. But at that party, writing a book about the Hells Angels is some young journalist who's taken time off to write a book about the Hells Angels. So at that same party with all of these people here is Hunter Thompson coming in, and those two books, his book, Health Angels, writes about this party, and Ken Keasey, the electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, they both write about that same party, but they're both writing about a trip that they're on that coincides and that sort of stuff. That really gets me excited. And you're on you're you're doing that now, like weaving yourself into these books, making a mark.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:12

Right, and we don't know you know who it's gonna affect, whose ears it's gonna reach, what's what's gonna happen, but you know, we're we're we're all doing it at the same time, and it's uh it's happening now. Who knows what's gonna happen in history, you know, yeah fifty years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:28

Oh, that's exciting. Hey man, I'm gonna start getting ready to go and uh do some uh shows face the other way to a whole bunch of people.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:38

Perfect timing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:38

My battery's about to die, so I think hey, thanks so much for uh for uh reaching out again. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in in real life at some point.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:52

Yeah, one of these days we we've got to really cross paths.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:55

Yeah, we want to go to Iceland, uh so uh we should maybe make that happen. I got some other friends there as well, so it would be great to great to see you one time, maybe maybe there. Or, you know, if you come by Norway.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:09

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:13

Oh yeah, it would be excellent to go to Iceland. I haven't been there for a very long time. Since 1994, maybe, when I was writing my uh last year's thesis on uh the ancient guards of the Scandinavian guards, uh then I went there. But um lots have changed probably. Ah, it'll be good to see. But anyway, um uh thanks for following along this far. If you've already gotten all the way here, then as a reward you'll get to be able to click subscribe for free. So you can get my podcast down into your app. Because nothing makes me more exciting um well actually it makes me more excited than when I see the subscriber episodes going down so that I know that there are people out there who catch on straight away. That's uh so exciting for me. And um yeah, if not, then uh sign up to click on YouTube. Uh well actually you can't click on YouTube, but you can find the episodes on YouTube. I've been struggling for some time to make a the way of the showman um uh channel, but I've had some issues with verifying that I am indeed uh who I say I am, uh and so at the moment uh all 150 plus episodes can be listened to on YouTube, and I know there's a few people who listen um on YouTube, even though the majority are listening to the adjuster words. So um there's lots of ways to find a way of the showman, but the best way possible to find a way of the showman is if you tell someone you care about and say, give us an endorsement, say that we're good, tell them to check us out. Some of the people we're gonna talk about uh coming up next have uh arrived as guest uh guests on this podcast through the referral of a friend. That's how Matt King arrived as a guest on the podcast, and that is how uh Clay Hillman or will tell us the stories of KC Bonkers and we'll d dive into the mysteries of play. All that, you know, through a friend saying you might enjoy this podcast, and the next thing you know, they are converted into the way of the showman, following along every episode. So, until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.