Jim Rose is famous among connoisseurs of the bizarre as ringmaster of the world's more extreme freak shows. Lately, however, he's been wondering if he hasn't been upstaged by George W. Bush.
Disgusted by the way his native US is going, the Las Vegas-based performance artist and professional poker player has gone into artistic exile in Europe -- bringing his latest frontal assault on good taste with him.
"The Jim Rose Dubya World Circus of Freaks," which opened yesterday in Bristol, in the west of England, includes among its many eye-popping acts Big Mak, a contortionist who tips the scales at a whopping 205kg.
Besides twisting himself into knots, Big Mak stuffs himself on stage with unseemly quantities of doughnuts and hamburgers -- a living symbol of the obesity epidemic gripping the US today.
"Certain incarnations [of Rose's circuses] in the past have definitely centered around freaks of nature," Rose, 47, said as he slumped into an orange swivel chair, battling jetlag, at his publicists' office in London.
"This year's show high-lights freaks of nurture," he said. "This is an anti-George Bush show, so we give you a mirrored reflection of what's wrong with American society -- and we bring what could be considered typical Americans who can do amazing things," he said.
"This 450-pound kid wouldn't turn a head in the United States, but he's a freak of George Bush's society. He's a freak of nurture ... and he'll make your jaw drop because he's the world's fattest contortionist."
Other acts include SuperDelinquent, an ex-crack addict with dollar bills stapled to his body; Mighty Konn, a native American who gets his testicles smashed with a sledgehammer ["a hysterical high point in the show," a press release says]; and a guy who swallows a Rubik's cube, then regurgitates it -- solved.
Held over from earlier Jim Rose circuses is "French nationalist" Bebe Aschard, whose speciality is blowing fire out of her vagina in what Rose calls a "bush-burning" act. Off-stage, she's Mrs Jim Rose.
Strange as it sounds, Rose enjoys a devout cult following, not only in North America where he hosts a weekly TV show, but also in Europe where he was five times a hit draw at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
His "Dubya" spectacle is set to play 16 cities until Oct. 11, including Amsterdam, Barcelona and Paris.
Rose said he originally conceived the show for US consumption, only to discover that with the US presidential elections in November fast approaching, promoters didn't want to touch such hot political content.
"So we're going to live in Europe and the United Kingdom until George Bush is out of office," he said, and in the process introduce Europeans to a more twisted side of his homeland.
"Europeans have got a Hollywood view [of the US] for the most part, glamor from movies and TV," he said. "There's a whole America out there that they're only vaguely aware of. We're going to go ahead and put it front and center."
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