Don’t try this at home!

Perhaps you’ve seen Fiasco on a street corner in Midtown or Del Paso. He’s a shorter guy, with brown hair and a striped shirt. You might have seen him lying in a heap of broken glass while someone was standing on his head. Fiasco, Sacramento’s wildest street performer and the star of Fiasco Sideshow, thrives on activities most of us would pay dearly to avoid experiencing. He recently paused from his busy schedule of setting things on fire to answer a few questions about his passion for mayhem.

How has Sacramento reacted to Fiasco Sideshow?

Pretty well. Second Saturday is guaranteed to be a cool show with cool people. It’s funny, I have a part in my show where I ask people to throw out any item, and I’ll juggle it. Invariably, they throw car keys, a lighter and a shoe. People think they’re being spontaneous, but it’s always those three things. So now I’m working on a special trick involving car keys, a lighter and a shoe.

What’s the weirdest thing someone has thrown?

A tattoo artist in Kentucky had an arm stand you lean on while getting your arm tattooed. It weighed about 35 pounds and had big crossbeams. That was difficult, but my favorite was a woman in Lancaster who threw her underwear.

Wow. You’re treading on Tom Jones’ territory there.

It was a show in itself—the underwear.

How did you decide on a career in broken glass and fire?

It’s more for my own sake than anyone else’s. It just turns out that the stuff I think is fun is good, exhibition-wise.

So, even before you were a performer, you were inclined to mayhem?

Yeah, I wanted to juggle. As soon as I could handle three oranges, I bought this wicked kitchen knife. I went around with bandaged hands for a few weeks, but I eventually got the hang of it.

What do you do in your show?

It’s pretty wild. I run around and break stuff. I throw my face in glass. I eat fire. People swing sledgehammers at me. I play with Tasers and rattraps—pretty much anything I think I can get away with without serious maiming.

Tasers?

I had somebody shock me every time I dropped something.

Did you drop anything?

Oh, repeatedly. [With the Taser], there’s some staggering, a little bit of twitching. I don’t think it ever knocked me down.

Why do you do this? It sounds painful.

Yeah, the stuff hurts occasionally, but I’ve conditioned myself to do a lot of things without getting seriously fucked up. It’s part state of mind, part physical preparation, part pushing the limits of what we’re designed for, part trial and error.

So, your tricks aren’t illusions with a secret, simple explanation behind them?

Oh, there’s a simple explanation: My face is really in the glass, and the heaviest member of the audience is standing on my head.

Do you have any grizzly stories?

The worst is when I get cut doing face-in-glass, and it bleeds in my eye and inhibits my juggling. I do that part toward the end of the show now. I don’t know if you should print this or not, but I actually burned somebody at one of my shows. It’s the only time anyone besides me got hurt. I was sorely out of practice, and I was spinning a torch in my fingers, and it just flew.

You don’t fear lawsuits?

I probably would if I had anything to lose or any wages to garnish, but what are they going to do? Take my unicycle?

Which trick are you most proud of?

Just for ballsiness? I had my face in glass, and my assistant broke a cinderblock on my head with a sledgehammer. I’ve done that two or three times now, and it doesn’t get any less scary. Skill-wise? I get on my three-tiered balance board, and I juggle a hatchet, a flaming bowling ball and a dildo, in high heels with lubricated hands.

What’s the public reaction to your show?

People have run away. Usually, they don’t want to watch but can’t look away. Morbid curiosity. I haven’t made anybody pass out yet, but I made somebody vomit.

Do you hope to inspire more vomiting in the future?

Oh, totally. I bring a barf bag to every show, hoping I’ll get to whip it out on somebody.

Do you actually eat light bulbs?

I just spent $1,700 on dental work, so I’m hesitant to eat too much glass anymore because it wears off the enamel on your teeth. I had a piece caught in my throat for two days once. I don’t know if I swallowed it or hawked it up, but I couldn’t get it to go either way for a long time. I was starting to worry. Eating glass is a severe skill, though, and I hate to let it go to waste on being a pansy about my teeth. It really is tricky to keep it lined up, keep it chewed just right. If I chew it up enough so it doesn’t hurt on the way down, it won’t hurt on the way out.

There’s nothing toxic about eating a light bulb?

Just that white stuff on the inside. Sometimes people bring me clear light bulbs, if they’ve seen the show before.

Readers shouldn’t bring you clear bulbs, now that you’ve invested in dental work, right?

Oh, if there were enough people around and I was feeling saucy, I’d do it. Just not every week.