Watch the fiasco I

Watch the fiasco II

Eating fire and juggling bowling balls, dildos and barbed-wirecovered hatchets, while balancing on a rolling log-typecontraption: sounds like a scene from a sick cartoon, but thesestunts are part of everyday life for the Sideshow Fiasco.

Sacramento State student Brent O’Connell, who is taking thesemester off, is an art major with an emphasis on painting. Believeit or not, his works of art are just as outrageous as his shows.

O’Connell got his start in high school, putting on crazy acts atlunch time, entertaining crowds of students who began throwingmoney at him as if he were a street performer. His act graduallyevolved from there into a full-blown show that is readily availablefor booking, by anyone who will take him.

The Sideshow Fiasco is completely self-taught, and his tricksare all devised in his own mind. The stunt lineup includesdriving a five-inch nail up his nasal passages and asking a member of the audience to pull it out with pliers, walking across andeating freshly broken glass and laying face-down in glass shardswhile asking the heaviest member of the audience to stand on hishead. This list is only a sampling of the ever- growingnumber of risks that O’Connell takes.

Audience members react differently to the show. Some people havepassed out, vomited or left. Those who leave the audience area seemto linger in the background, satisfying their morbid curiosity ofwhat is going to happen next, without allowing themselves to givethe Fiasco their full attention.

O’Connell is working on expanding his current show and may beadding a unicycle, a skateboard and a one-man symphony to theact.

The Sideshow Fiasco is definitely one of a kind, which isprobably a good thing. The world may not have room for another showlike his.

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