MW: So what happened once you joined the Jim Rose Show? Do you remember your first performance with them?

MF: Our first real show was in New Mexico. In that first show I did shaker cups, and Jim took that out right away. The act evolved pretty well though, to the point where at the end the only thing we had to worry about was costuming. I ended up closing the show for them.

 

MW: I'd think it would be hard to put a juggler into such a hard driving, cutting edge, freakish show.

MF: lt worked because we pushed the danger aspect. My stage name was "Mark the Knife." I opened with fire swinging, and I also did fire eating. We tried out a bunch of different things. At one point I was flipping a bottle up to catch it on my head, and another time I was throwing up a lead ball and catching it on my head and doing head rolls.

 

The lead ball and bottle were phased out in favor of bowling ball juggling, ending up with bowling ball head rolls. I might have done club juggling at one time but it evolved pretty quickly into knife juggling. The hardest part of that was back crosses, because they come down right at your eyes!

 

MW: As I understand it you juggled silently while Jim spoke as sort of a barker from the sidelines, right?

MF: Yeah, he did all the lines. I wrote the lines for him. I always felt it was a good arrangement because I hate to have dead space on the stage even if it's just music going on. Part of the fun of this show was that it was so fast. It really moved from transition to transition, there was always something going on, something being said. The most important thing I learned from the Jim Rose Show was how to fill up the dead space and just keep it rolling.

 

MW: Back to your act...

MF: I also did knife throwing around Jim's wife, Bebe. That's all just a matter of practice and confidence, and respect for the trick. You've got to warm up, keep your mind clear, and don't push your limits. Because it's not you that gets hit, it's someone else. People ask me if I ever miss and I say, "Every time!"

 

Some shows I juggled five machetes, and that was a rush! But it was inconsistent, so I usually just did three and only did five once in performance. I did double-double-double, triple-triple-triple and then a quad finish with three. One night the quad hit my finger. It wasn't sharp, of course, but it hurt. I kept going , and didn't realize I was cut until the machetes started sticking in my hands and I started getting spattered with something. I didn't mind cutting myself, because it showed it was all real, and it felt good to go "on with the show." But I had to finish the act with the chain saw and lawnmower, and the the switch on the lawnmower failed and ruined the whole thing. It was one of those fluke things because we had tested it earlier. That was a strange night.

 

It ended up bleeding for three days, which sort of scared me. I didn't want to tell Jim because I didn't want to worry him, so I just left it as it was. But then I had to eventually get stitches and he said "Oh, you should've told me! We could've gone to the hospital and had this big ordeal." He was thinking press, press, press... He was always thinking of ways to get press. Jim's just a genius in hyping the show, in making people either intrigued by it or fearful of it. Sometimes, though, he went too far. We were banned from some places in England and Australia.

 

I followed the machetes with two machetes and a chain saw. People always ask why I didn't do three, but you'd have to be Lou Ferigno to do that. I could do a few throws with three, but it bothered my tendonitis. Three is so heavy it's really just a TV stunt.

 

After that we did a chain saw "football" segment. A group we called "The Jim Rose Chain Saw Stunt Team" ran out into the audience with running chain saws in the pitch black scaring people. We would all scream and some of us would squirt people with squirt guns to make them. think someone was bleeding. Then four of us would throw two chain saws in a box pattern. Then we'd put one down and Ufto hiked a chain saw to Jim, who passed it to Rubber Man, who we all tackled onto the floor. Rubber Man's job was to keep everyone from getting cut!

 

We carried six chain saws on the road, and it was my job to keep them running. Sometimes it was a pain finding the right oil for them.

 

Then I always finished the show balancing a lawnmower on my chin and throwing a head of lettuce up into it.

 

MW: Was that trick original with you?

MF: Well, I didn't get it from another performer. I was looking through a Ripley's book and saw a guy balancing a push mower on his chin with two others hanging from that one. I thought that was cool and started working on balancing a regular gas powered lawn mower. But to get them to run upside down you have to reroute the carburetor, and that's a lot of trouble. So I decided to go with the electric. The sound isn't as good, but at 42 pounds it's just about as heavy.

 

Before too long I started practicing with my neighbor throwing lettuce, eggs, tomatoes and stuff up into it. But I never performed it until I got together with Jim. I put tape on the blade so you could see it spinning from the back of a 10,000-seat house easily. And when the lettuce heads start hitting it, there's no mistaking this for a fake lawn mower! They just blow up when they hit the blade and scatter everywhere!

 

The lawnmower trick is being done by at least four people now. I don't really think too many people blatantly steal tricks, sometimes they just come up with things separately and simultaneously. I'm trying to get away from it now and create something else. But it's just so hard to be creative.