Lawrence.com

The Wicked Liars are Robert and Valerie Wolf. They juggle knives, do a bullwhip act, swallow swords, play with fire and a lot of other things. Valerie can move a double-edged razorblade around in her mouth. Robert once appeared on a stamp issued by the island of St. Vincent as part of a series commemorating great circus performers. They have been married for 13 years and live in Lenexa.

How'd you get started?

Robert: I got started in magic when I was fairly young, like 6 years old. It's the classic story of getting interested in magic when you're little. I was fortunate enough to have some really great teachers. This was in Denver. As I got older, I got interested in carnivals and the circus.

You took classes as a kid?

Robert: My dad was nice enough to spring for magic lessons at this place called the Action Magic Academy in Denver, run by a gentleman by the name of Bruce Spangler. It was in the basement of his home, but his basement was decked out. He had all this old, antique magic apparatus on shelves on the walls. This was back in '74, and he had a video studio set up in his basement, which was just unheard of at the time. He used to videotape everyone, and he'd actually run credits and all this kind of stuff. So you'd get to see yourself perform. He had classes on everything you could imagine. It was just awesome. I used to get the catalogues when I was little of classes I could take and dream about taking these different classes on magic. It was a total dream come true for me at that time.

Anyway, I got interested in the circus and carnivals and wanted to start doing what I call real magic, versus illusion. I thought that the juggling and sword swallowing and the bullwhip cracking, because it's a real skill:if you swallow a sword, you're really swallowing a sword. Magic is definitely a skill. It takes a lot of skill to do good magic. But you're creating an illusion. That's how our show has progressed throughout the years. What we do during our show is a mixture of magic and sword swallowing and juggling and fire eating and dangerous Western bullwhip cracking and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of a bizarre little variety show of our best stuff. Because we can do full hours of each of those. I wanted to make sure I was good at those before I put them in the show.

Valerie: I'm more of a recent addition to magic.

Robert: We met 13 years ago. We've been married 13 years.

Valerie: We met in a magic store. How'd that happen? (Laughs.)

Robert: She was classically trained in opera and was auditioning for the Metropolitan in New York and met me, and we kind of shot off together.

Valerie: We eloped and had a party later.

Robert: As far as the buskering goes, I started doing busker shows, which is street performing, in Boulder, at a place called Pearl Street Mall, which is very friendly to buskers. That was the place I got my chops, learned my skills as far as performing, handling people. : I used to perform in comedy clubs for a while and got into improv comedy as well. That really taught me to improv during our shows.

Were you a prop comedian?

Robert: No, I was straight stand-up. I originally started with a little magic in the comedy clubs, but I decided to work on the comedy stuff. I started the street performing to work on the crowd control and learn how to form a show that will really grab people. Because if you're in the streets it's really hard to stop people during their day, and get them to stop and watch you, and actually like what you're doing, and then tip you. That's a challenge. That's why street performing is very important to me.

Say someone yells, "You suck!"

Valerie: (Laughs.) I don't think we've ever heard that.

Robert: I've never had anybody do that because I try to make sure that our material's strong. But it's not like we don't ever have problems with people. I have had problems with people in the past. We just did a show in the Power and Light District. We were doing it for a client down there, and this crazy guy comes up to her and starts yelling obscenities at her.

Valerie: He's like a foot away from me.

Robert: There are certain people that have that crazy look in their eyes. I call 'em the crazy eyes. The only thing you can do with them is to make sure that they think you're crazier than they are.

Valerie: It worked.

Robert: It does work. For instance, there was a guy that was yelling stuff during one of our shows, and it was just completely insane. It made no sense. And he was getting in people's faces.

Valerie: I didn't believe that this worked until I saw him do it, by the way.

Robert: I was starting to lose my crowd because this guy was so crazy. If they're not being violent against people, they're just talking crazy, this is what works: I pretend that I'm crazier than they are, and my ramblings have to be even more incoherent than what they're saying. I can't even remember what I said but it was total gibberish. It can't just be (makes motorboat sound). It has to be sentences that don't make sense. So I started walking toward him, and he's like, "I'm cool man, I'm good, I'm cool, it's OK." And he left 'cause he thought I was crazier than he was. So whenever you have people in the audience that are just completely off their rocker, you have to make sure that they think you're crazier than they are.

Valerie: I think nine times out of 10, we just might be.

Robert: Most of the time though, when people say something, who knows why they say what they say? But I'm able to turn it around. I rarely make fun of them, necessarily. Sometimes I'll just point out what they say.

Valerie: I would have to say usually they're just wanting to participate. Especially in the variety arts or street performing, people don't have a lot of access to that in a live situation. I haven't found that anyone's usually meant anything-

Robert: Actually vile toward you.

Valerie: Once you bring it up or you repeat it back to them, they're like, "Oh, that was kind of:"

Robert: Or when people yell stuff when your buskering, it's because they've been drinking and they're with their buddies. Sometimes if you just point that out and make fun of that, they're all good. They know they're drunk off their behinds and they think it's funny. The whole crowd will get a giggle out of it. So I rarely have problems with crowd control. Plus it helps to be a big guy (laughs) that carries around swords and bullwhips and fire.

Have you been able to make your living doing this?

Robert: The street performing is not something we do a lot anymore. I've done the Denver International Buskerfest, I've worked certain spots across the country that are friendly to buskers, like Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. There's places in Atlantic City, New York and California that that are friendly to street performers, but it can be a difficult way to make a living because you're never sure what you're gonna come home with.

And professionally, with who we perform for now:the answer is yes to your question. We make a very good living doing what we're doing. But we have corporate clients now. We have celebrity clients now. The street performing was never a goal for me. I didn't want to be a professional street performer full time.

Valerie: Although I have to say it's been quite the asset when you're working on new material or you're getting the itch for a live, up-close audience.

Robert: We've done halftime shows for the Kansas City Chiefs, the Royals, the Wizards. We've also done stuff for the Broncos, lots of different sports teams. It's really weird being in the middle of a giant stadium and the audience is really far away.

Valerie: You can't always see 'em. You can hear 'em, but you can't always see 'em because they always have the lights down.

Robert: I'll be throwing bullwhips around, we'll be juggling or doing whatever it is they've hired us to do, and we'll be having a conversation that has nothing to do with what we're doing there. Because they can't hear us. We're smiling and we're posing.

Valerie: We're juggling. "Hey, so what do we want to do tonight?"

Robert: It's very far removed from the audience. It's a very odd feeling.

Valerie: It's very surreal.

Robert: One thing I was going to tell you. I don't think you'll want to print it. I have this little collection of quotes we'll never be able to use. We've opened for a lot of big-name rock stars, like Ozzie Osbourne, Alice Cooper. When we were opening for Marilyn Manson, we came off stage and we were heading along the side by the barriers. These guys came over to us and this guy yells to us, "You guys are great! You guys are fantastic! That was awesome!" He goes, "You guys are better than live porn! And I've seen live porn! And you guys are better!"

Valerie: He made you sign a card.

Robert: Yeah, he got my autograph. He'd gone to some live sex shows in Vegas and New York. That's one of my favorite quotes, but it's not something that we could ever use in promo material.

What are some good experiences you've had? And bad experiences.

Robert: I hold the world record for fire eating. That was done at Community America Ballpark.

Valerie: That was a good and a bad experience.

Robert: It was as many individual torches as you could eat, one at a time, in 60 seconds. I ate 42 of 'em. It was during a T-Bones game. : That's a good and bad story because I broke the world record but I ended up with second-degree burns in my mouth.

How did you end up attempting it?

Robert: What happened was the T-Bones were having World Record Day.

Valerie: So we literally got the phone call, "Hey, can you break a world record?"

Robert: I said, "Hmm, let me think about it and try to figure out what I can come up with." And I thought, "Well, fire eating. Maybe I can eat the most torches at once or something."

Valerie: We were gonna have 15 minutes prep time out on the field.

Robert: We had two. Everything was not set up the way I wanted it. It wanted to be able to dip the torches and let them air out a little bit so they weren't dripping wet with the fuel. That wasn't the case. So I got fuel in my eyes. I got fumes in my nasal cavity. At one point, I think in between torch seven and eight, I come forward with one of the torches and the fumes have built up in my nasal cavity. They go "pfff" in my nose. I ended up with first-degree burns in my nasal cavity, chemical burns in my mouth.

Valerie: You had a chemical burn in your eye from the fuel.

Robert: I had a lung infection from the fuel. It was not cool. I don't know if I would want to do it again. I would have to do it on "The Tonight Show" or something.

How much did you beat the old record by?

Robert: The original record was set in Finland and it was 36. He was inside a studio where the air wasn't moving.

Valerie: The cool part is his torches, according to their records, were like a third of the size that we usually use.

Robert: You have to go by guidelines by Guinness, for them to consider your record, and the torches were tiny compared to ours. Ours are pretty big. So that was nice.

Let's see. I'm on a stamp.

Valerie: (Laughs.) We didn't know he was gonna be on a stamp. We just started getting emails from random people around the world. These stamp collectors. We were like, "What is going on?"

Robert: I was down in Jamaica and I decided to hit the different islands down there. St. Vincent was one of the islands I hit. Long story short, they put together this stamp collection of people who've made their mark in the circus with their skills. So I kept getting these calls and emails from stamp collectors. I was like, "Why are these guys emailing me? Why are they contacting me about stamps? I have no idea what's going on." Through them, we found out that I was on a stamp.

Valerie: They took the picture off the website.

Robert: It's a set of stamps that they put my image on. Without my permission, but I'm not gonna complain.

Did you get some copies of the stamp?

Robert: Oh yes.

Valerie: They didn't give them to us. We had to buy them.

Robert: They're considered currency, so they can't just give them away. Why would they, even if you're on the stamp?

Valerie: The only bad stuff I can think of is if you're working for an agent and they forget to negotiate for a break room or something, and you end up by the trashcans or in some random room. As far as performing goes, I'm hard pressed to come up with something bad that's ever happened:I cut myself with razors that one time. It wouldn't quit bleeding.

Robert: She does razorblade manipulation and she eats razorblades.

Valerie: Double-edged razorblades.

What do you do with them?

Valerie: Manipulate 'em with my mouth.

Robert: We did an adult freak show at Worlds of Fun last year for Halloween.

Valerie: They gave us almost free reign, so that was kind of fun. It's not often that you do that.

Robert: But during that routine she cut herself with razors.

Valerie: You have to take them and push them together at one point so you can set them down in preparation for putting them in your mouth. It was cold out and my fingers weren't feeling much. I didn't realize I was cut 'til it was dripping all over me. My only regret is that I didn't have the brainpower at the moment to smear it on me or something to make it look really cool. Of course, later we found blood all over all of our equipment. It was all over his crystals and his sword, because we handle all the stuff, and it would not stop. 'Cause it's really sharp and it gives a really clean cut, like glass would.

Robert: Speaking of cutting yourself, I actually cut this finger (right index) almost all the way off. This was during the Colorado Renaissance Festival. Working a renaissance festival is a little like buskering, except it's a little more structured, because people are there to see shows.

I went through this weird purist period of my performing. If you've ever seen somebody jugging knives, a lot of times those knives aren't what you would consider really sharp. They're dangerous, but you could probably hit yourself with them and they're not going to cut through your skin. So I went through this weird purist stage where-I know, I'll juggle really sharp, really heavy knives on stage.

Valerie: And the audience will know the difference. (Laughs.)

Robert: I got ahold of these German blades that are these big meat-cutting blades.

Valerie: We still have them. They are monsters.

Robert: They use them for making hamburger and they are literally like half of a yin and yang symbol. The entire edge of it is sharp and you have this much room (holds fingers a few inches apart) when they spin to grab ahold of them.

Valerie: They're really heavy.

Robert: I was juggling these during the show because I thought the audience cared whether or not they were really sharp. I felt this bite right here (top joint of finger) and it actually cut right here. You can still see part of the scar. It cut right on the joint there. I don't know how I got so lucky. It cut this right here, so it was hanging there, and I'm bleeding all over the stage. Of course, I'd make an announcement before the juggling bit that if I cut myself the show would end early. I never really meant it because I never thought that would happen. Sure enough, I got bit and I had to stop the show. People started laughing at first because they thought it was funny. 'Til they watched me walk off and disappear. Then they're like, "Oh, I think he really got cut."

Valerie: Except for that one lady.

Robert: I had this woman come up to me as I was trying to leave. She goes, "That was incredible! How much would it cost for me to have you do that at my party?"

Valerie: As he's getting into the ambulance.

Robert: I'm like, "Uh, ma'am, I really cut my finger off." (Laughs.) People, they don't care. They want to be entertained. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore. It's not worth it.

Valerie: Yeah, you just swallow long blades. Whatever.

Robert: The sword swallowing is interesting because you have your ribcage on the outside of your body but when you swallow a sword it goes down your esophagus and into your stomach. There's no ribcage there, so sometimes you'll bump your heart with the sword blade. It'll rub up against it and it feels really bizarre. It hurts sometimes if you do it wrong. I don't do that very often, fortunately, but it's a very freaky feeling.

How do you like working around here?

Valerie: It's turned out to be a nice hub. It's been making travel across the states easier.

Robert: Because of what we do and because of my performance background and history-I don't want to be like, "oh, we're big-time performers" or anything-but it's kind of the fish big in a little pond scenario, because there's not a lot of professional sword swallowers, period. There's only about 30 to 40 professionals. There's about 100 practicing, but I would have to say there's probably only 30 to 40 professionals in the world. Some of the guys that are just practicing, they live in India, or in some village somewhere. There's not a lot of us around, so that helps a lot to keep us rare.