Archive for June, 2007

Backstage at Knott’s Berry Farm

Friday, June 29th, 2007
Here’s a few pics of the goings on behind the scenes at Knott’s Berry Farm…

Here’s Kevin, brave stuntman in the cowboy stunt show.  I think he’s getting knife throwing tips from his girlfriend over the phone. 

And here’s the practice target setup.  He and the rest of the guys have been throwing knives between shows backstage.

TNT.  Fun stuff.

Negative reinforcement on accuracy…

Here’s our brave stage manager, the lovely Lisa (Gimpress on myspace), of Calico Jubilee doing her thing between shows…

And lastly, here’s me with Crista and Ashley, a couple of the lovely and talented dancers in C.J.  Ashley is one of my two target girls in the show.

  • Share/Bookmark

JACK KNIFE – CUCUMBER SLICE

Friday, June 22nd, 2007
Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I can post a video of it online.  Albeit, a poor quality video (hey, I was using my digital still camera).  And turn down your audio, ’cause for some reason it sounds like “Alvin and the Chipmunks” on crack.   Dunno why it did that.

Anyway…

This stunt, which I’ve dubbed the “JACK KNIFE – CUCUMBER SLICE” (clever, huh?) is something I’ve been doing locally since last December.  People at CIA have seen it.  But I finally unveiled it in a more public arena, at the Northeast U.S. Knife Throwing Championships in New Jersey last weekend.

In a nutshell, I’m the first knife thrower in history to “BISECT AN ITEM OFF THE BODY OF A PERSON WITH A THROWN KNIFE, BLADE DOWN”, and do it live on stage.  In layman’s terms, I throw a knife, and cut a cucumber in half that’s laying along the inside of my assistant’s arm.  And leaving her completely unharmed in the process (that’s the tricky part).

Check out this poor quality video of the JACK KNIFE – CUCUMBER SLICE (I’ll get a better one up soon), but be warned, it’s not for the faint of heart!

Pointedly yours,

Jack Dagger: The King of Fling

  • Share/Bookmark

Pics from the MTV Movie Awards

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

This was taken right after “The Kiss”.  Starchild hung in there a little longer than I did, though.  The look on Jack’s face is like, “Uh, did that dude just kiss me?”

  • Share/Bookmark

MTV Movie Awards

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
Here’s how the MTV thing played out…

If you taped or TiVo-ed the show last night, you’ll need to pause/slo-mo/rewind the thing a few times till you figure out which shape is me on the stage.  During the opening monologue, when Sarah Silverman mentions, “if the producers had their way the opening of the show would look like this –” and she turns on a large prop switch, about thirty of us rush on to stage.  I’m in the back of all the dancers and other performers (for safety reasons ’cause I breathe monster fireballs).

Unfortunately, the ENORMOUS multimedia wall at the back of the stage was also showing explosions and flashes and fire, so my personal fireball kinda blends right in.  But it’s there!  ;)

Then we all freeze frame while Sarah starts singing an ultra-vulgar song to test the censors (this was broadcast live).  She then flips the switch again and we all start moving.  If you listen carefully you can hear me cracking a whip at the back of the stage, and at certain points can clearly make out my “body shape”, center stage at the back.  Can’t quite see my face, but if you’ve seen my pirate outfit, you know it’s me.

A short while after we left the stage we got to meet Jack Nicholson and take a photo with him.  Super laid back guy.  Really nice.  Our group leader, a beautiful dancer friend of mine named Starchild said, “Ooh, one more pick ’cause I wanna kiss him!”  And as she leaned in to plant one on Jack’s face, I jokingly said, “Wait, me too!” and also planted one on him.  Everybody thought it was pretty funny.  And hey, I’ve kissed Jack Nicholson on the cheek.  Who else can say that?!  ;)

A little later we abducted Robin Williams for another photo op.  Once again, uber-friendly, and he’s exactly the same off stage as he is on.  Always the energetic goof ball.  He never did tell us why he was wearing a kilt.  But he had some groovy chain mail stuff on his sporran, which was pretty cool (I used to make that stuff in college instead of studying, ya see).

Overall:  Cool experience, and a step in the right direction for my career.  Now I can bill myself –> Jack Dagger: The King of Fling (As seen on MTV).  Aw, yeah.

JD:TKoF

  • Share/Bookmark