Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 90

llOllllMltl irwiiMlKMIMl'M GALLERY, Big top- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 More Insane Entertainment. www.edmontonjournal.com and click on Online Extras of the bizarre i From an article by Houston I Chronicle reporter Ken Hoffman Where's Jim Rose now? He's put the circus on hold mm a to i I i i 'rt Don't call 1 I I If 4 i- What do you get when you combine a mousetrap, a power drill and Insane Entertainment performers Ryan Stock, AmberLynn and Powermann? Well, we don't know either but it looks like it hurts. At top left, Stock's "Meathead" stunt; bottom left, AmberLynn uses a stapler to make sure she doesn't lose her money. At right, Powermann bends steel rebar with his belly fat. to play poker professionally in Las Vegas.

"But I'm thinking of putting the circus back together and going on tour at the end of the year," Rose told the Houston Chronicle last month. Rose promises to bring back Rupert (Ryan Stock) the performer who stopped the show two years ago. "Rupert followed us all the i 1 i I It way to Houston from his home In Edmonton, Canada, to audition. I hired him on the spot," Rose said. Hiring Rupert was a no-brainer.

His act? He swallows a 11 Rubik's Cube, gurgles it around in his stomach, and when he vomits it back up the Rubik's Cube is solved. It's the most amazing thing, ever, in the history of show business. I mean, I cant solve a Rubik's Cube with my hands. "He's working on another routine," Rose added. "He balances a running lawnmower on his chin, facing the audience, and lets people throw lettuce at it.

By the time he's done, the stage looks like a salad bar." www.houstonchronicle.com Insane Entertainment can be booked by contacting them at 435-9325 or reached by e-mail at twistedoddityhotmail.com. They can also be contacted for all sorts of entertainment needs, from adult party balloons to wandering 1 1 i 5 i i 1 1 magic tncks. The trio will be performing with the Street Performers Festival tonight at about 10 p.m. at Squires Pub and Wine Bar, 10505 82nd Ave. the work at the shows.

Thanks to Stock, Powermann had his first Jim Rose appearance at a show in Tulsa, them a sideshow. This circus troupe just likes things that arc i When Rvati Stock sees a When jF lawnmower fie doesn't think about yard- work. He thinks about balancing it on his chin and having people throw lettuce into its spinning blades. That's why it's one of 350-plus stunts that Stock and his fellow performers have designed to shock, impress, or gross you out And they're always coming up with more. There's the human meathead where I put a meat hook through my head and lift things," a trick Stock invented about a year ago.

"We've only been performing it for about eight or nine months," he adds. The circus prodigy with a penchant for putting things up his nose performs these feats of insanity with the (appropriately named) Insane Entertainment, formed with the limber AmberLynn, Stock's beau and assistant, and a 450-pound contortionist who goes by the name Powermann. Stock was a 13-year-old aspiring magician when he was introduced to the world of stunts by a family acquaintance, an old Bar-num and Bailey performer who did fire-eating and trained hons. The circus veteran taught the wide-eyed teen to eat fire, and with the first spark Stock's passion for stunts was born. AmberLynn also has a background in magic, but since meeting Stock at the Fringe Festival one year, she has become an a little twisted accomplished contortionist and stunt-woman.

"When we met, he asked me Can you fit through says AmberLynn, who can squeeze herself through some tiny objects. "And that was it." The third member of this odd trio was another Fringe discovery. Billed as The World's Fattest Contortionist Powermann is a 450-pound, part-time standup comedi- beat out the Jackass team in the stupid trick department. Instead, the group plans to use training, polish and a good sense of humour for an entertainment package they hope will be different than the average circus-type show. One sketch they have planned is called Try This At Home," involving household items and how they can best be abused.

"We take a coat hanger and bend it out. I swallow it like Fd normally swallow a sword and then AmberLynn bashes me in the back of the head with a toaster and it bends the wire in my throat," says Stock. And just for the record they don't actually want people to try it at home. Even without the group's focus on creating an entertainment package, their stunts are impressive, if not record breakers. Thanks to some injuries from gymnastics, AmberLynn can pull her body through a wire coat hanger without bending it, which she claims beats the old record of someone squeezing through a tennis racket.

"We haven't gone to Guinness, but the dimensions are smaller," she says, adding that it's more difficult to get recognition for dangerous stunts than it was before. This is especially problematic for Stock, who holds a number of unofficial records. "Fve got a record beaten for having eight steak knives all the way up to the handle in my nose. Four in each nostril," he says. Even Powermann is a contender for the record books.

"As far as I know not only am I the fattest, I might be the world's only fat contortionist. I am not the best contortionist in the world. I mean those Cirque du Soleil people can do stuff I can't do but, Jesus Christ, eat a sandwich," says Powermann. "Every day, I live in dread that Til turn on NBC and see some guy doing contortion saying 'I'm 800 pounds' and the dream will be over." Not surprisingly, they've worked with the famed Jim Rose Circus on more than one occasion. Rose is known for having revitalized the sideshow phenomenon in the 1990s and gained notoriety when he was included on a Lollapalooza tour.

Stock got involved with Rose's circus after talking to him after an Edmonton show a few years back. Within weeks of meeting him, Stock had started with the circus as a performer and has since taken on a great deal of an who has always been "a little bendy." Tm not exploiting my weight, I'm using it as a supermodel uses her beauty," says Powermann. Tm not saying look at me Tm so fat no, wait I guess I am. But I am not say- ing it's disgusting. Tm not an Uncle Dom.

That's Dom DeLuise. He's done nothing for our people." All three are busy preparing a new show to demonstrate their circus-inspired tricks and stunts. While others might refer to it as a sideshow or a freakshow making them one of two in Canada Stock doesn't Uke those names. "I like to call it entertainment," he says. And what does their entertainment consist of? Stilt walking, sword swallowing, piercing, glass eating, glass walking, shoving power drills up noses, fitting through coat hangers, contortion, bending bars with body fat the list goes on, ad nauseam.

Also sometimes nauseating. "It all always sounds really disturbing when you hear about it, very masochistic and sick, but when you actually watch the show, it's not what you picture and it's very easy to watch," Stock says. But then AmberLynn pipes up: "It depends on what trick, because the stomach Traditional family entertainment it's not, but the troupe isn't aiming to be the Gross-out Kings of Edmonton, nor do they want to just a few months ago. They'll even be touring with him this September. "Jim has said that if I was a little younger he'd adopt me, but that's only because he wouldn have to pay me," jokes Stock.

Truthrully, Rose might be the land or dad you'd expect Stock had growing up, rather than the Baptist pastor that is his actual father. "My parents are really supportive. Probably because it started with the magic and they came to all the shows and as it progressed they stuck with it. I don't know if they necessarily like it. But the Rose show has to wait for now.

First, they've got a performance to do at The Armory dance club during the August Fringe Festival. In preparation, they're already working on a new trick called the Human Wrecking Ball. It consists of a bowling ball, hanging from chains attached to Stock's ears, released from the top of a ladder by AmberLynn and flying towards a cinderblock held in front of Powermann's crotch. Needless to say, they're all excited about it. Adds Stock: "It's gonna be fun." James Erford uIegotarecordbeatenforhming eigfasteakknivesalltheway up to the handle in my nose.

Fourhi each nostril. Ryan stock I During the Fringe Festival, Aug. 12 to 22, Insane Entertainment will be performing nightly at The Armory dance club, 1 031 0 85th Ave. EDMONTON JOURNAL 7 cd 1 SATURDAY JUL 17, 2004 EDMONTON JOURNAL.