The sordid spectacle of the Jim Rose Circus has been a hotbed of oddities and freak entertainment since the early '90s. It's not exactly family-style fun, unless your family enjoys watching a cinder block hang on a chain from a man's pierced genitalia. That would be the Amazing Mr. Lifto. Then there's the Torture King, who walks barefoot up a ladder made of razor-sharp sabers, piercing himself with needles and meat skewers. Circus members eat worms, drink stomach bile, split tongues, crush their balls, and escape from straightjackets. Through the years, Jim Rose and his band of mutant merrymakers traveled the world, shocking, sickening, and causing crowds to wince, and they became rather famous for it.

Rose isn't as crazy as you'd think, though. He may lay down onstage with his face in a bowl of glass while someone stands on his head, but offstage he's reserved, calm, and exceedingly intelligent. Rose saw that society wanted to be horrified, so he formulated a shock-spectacle circus, and it did well. He's shared the stage with some of the biggest bands in the world, been on the cover of the Wall Street Journal, represented Microsoft and Dos Equis, been featured on television shows and video games, and authored two books. In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer runs away and joins the Jim Rose Circus as the "Human Cannonball."

Rose will go down in history as a sadomasochistic ringmaster. A next-level P. T. Barnum. He's a wily provocateur, a cult impresario, an ambassador for the bizarre, but most of all, he's an entertainer. Rose embodies the antiestablishment, punk ethos. He saves us from our overgoverned selves.

When did you know that the circus sideshow was what you wanted to do?

I worked at the Arizona State Fairgrounds, and I learned stuff like the Human Blockhead there. But my real goal was to be a motorcycle daredevil. I looked up to Evel Knievel. I got pretty damn good actually, but I got injured. I attempted to jump 27 cows.

Tell me you cleared the cows.

I cleared the cows, then went wobbly. Must have landed on some spent cud. That's why, as I speak to you, I have the posture of a jumbo shrimp.

Talk about the Amazing Mr. Lifto.

Lifto had a piercing through the head of his penis and would lift things with his shaft.

Say there's a guy out there who wants to get into lifting things with his dick. What advice would you have for him?

Be aware of what is humanly possible. Lifto's penis, it's legendary. The thing was huge. He could lift incredible things with it, but he worked his way up to it. But there was a limit. There was a mishap. We were doing a photo shoot where all my circus was in a shopping cart, and he was pulling it with his penis, and he fell. He fell off the stage. And there was the tip of his best friend on the other end of that chain hanging on the floor.

The end of his dick got ripped off?

Unfortunately, yes. There were doctors quickly on hand, though. And we froze that thing up and took it in. They took skin from his butt and grafted it back onto the shaft. Now he says every time he scratches his ass he gets an erection. He never did fully recover from that one. It maintained its length, and was identifiable because it was between his legs, but if you just saw it on its own, out of context, you'd think it was very large dog's chew toy. Or a half-crushed, flesh-colored beer can.

When he was at his peak, what was the most he would lift?

Give or take, 30 pounds.

What are you doing right now?

Actually, I'm convalescing from a liver disease. If I died today, they'd bury me in two coffins. One for me, and a bigger one for my liver.

Sorry to hear that. How do you feel?

I'm okay. There's days when I feel flu-ish. But today's not one of 'em. I'll be okay in about four and a half months.

That's nothing compared with sticking your face in a bowl of glass and having someone stand on your head.

I'm loving it. Bring it on. I need to figure out how to sell tickets to the world's largest liver. The right side of me looks pregnant. Yeah, I haven't been spinning as many jokes around this one. I think sometimes I get lost in translation. As generations go by, maybe more so. I was never really the guy in the show who was into pain. I was the guy who sort of made fun of those that were. A lot of the stuff I did involved laws of physics, or illusions. It wasn't "Look at me, look at me! I can take pain." It was about lighting the comedy around those that could.

You enact that old-school Harry Houdini vibe.

I gave my circus the "ta-da." I think what separated my show was that I didn't do the "Step right up" with a waxed mustache thing; I articulated that kind of show for an era's youth. I talked to them, and not at them.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Oregon. Then I was a military brat. I did most of my growing up in Phoenix. Phoenix is the absolute worst city.

What's the trick to escaping from a straightjacket?

You gotta pop your shoulder out. If you're willing to do that you can do it. Shoulders can pop back in pretty easy. After you've done it a few times, it's an easy thing to do.

In all the things you've seen in your life, what's the most disgusting thing you've seen a human being do?

I was doing the Downward Spiral tour with NIN and Marilyn Manson. Trent Reznor and I used to get really drunk. Trent's like my best friend. Manson was the opening act—he was unknown; we still called him Brian. I was the middle slot. We'd get bored waiting to perform, and groupies by the hundreds would be there. Strippers loved dancing to that "Closer" song. We used to think of little weird things to do, and one night it was give the girls water enemas and see how long they can hold it in. So they all lined up, and had their butts up in the air. You could see them holding it in. Little drips would start to form, and then they'd squinch up. Finally one girl couldn't hold it any longer, and lost. We had placed bowls of cereal on the ground at various distances, to catch what the girls would be projecting. Anyway, liquid ended up in some of the cereal bowls, and one of my circus members ate the cereal.

Holy shit. I'm actually still thinking about what would have happened if you had landed your motorcycle on those cows.

Then we got bored with the girls holding in the enemas. These girls were competing. They were athletes. The next city we decided to do it again in, we changed the rules. It became who could shoot it the furthest. Let's get to the action.

Speaking of action, weren't you incarcerated in Lubbock, Texas, because of the Mexican transvestite wrestlers?

That, and my women sumo wrestlers. They said the transvestite wrestlers were simulating a sex act. I guess they were confused by the rules of the sport. And they said that the sumo wrestlers showed too much "buttocks."

And they threw you in jail.

Yes. I've been thrown in jail a few times. That comic Carrot Top bailed us out. They kept me in jail overnight. I get to the next venue in Austin, and there's more cop cars there than I'd ever seen. I'm thinking, "Fuck, I'm in trouble again." The captain comes up and says, "Can we get a photo with you?" I didn't want another night in jail, so I said, "Yes sir." The guy gets his whole fucking police force behind me, and in the picture, they're all flipping a bird at the camera. He said, "We just want something to send back to Lubbock. Have a good show."

What was your involvement with Dos Equis beer? Please tell me you did something with the Most Interesting Man in the World.

I took out the Jim Rose Most Interesting Show in the World, and it was Dos Equis funded. The premise was that this was the entertainment that the Most Interesting Man in the World and I came up with. We did huge parties for, like, 15,000 people a city. They didn't charge an entry fee and everybody got free beer. Have you seen those commercials?

Oh, yeah. I like the one where he's feeding baby albatrosses with a dropper on the side of a cliff.

Here's one that will never run: "I don't normally fuck whores, but if I did, it would be your mother."

That one's probably not seeing production. Wait, so did you do stuff with that actor—the Most Interesting Man in the World dude?

Oh, yeah. We did lots of stuff. He's an actor.

Maybe you could just have him sitting there and you could milk him for his sperm.

Could be good. You know, one time I took a girl out on a tour, and we would do the radio shows in all the major markets. We were telling people she was on a semen-only diet for 30 days, and she was running low and we were asking listeners to bring it in. Of course it wasn't true. Every DJ wanted to talk to her. Dudes would be showing up at the station with stuff in the tip of a plastic bag.

You are also a light bulb eater. What's it like to eat a light bulb?

Glass is made out of sand. Make sure you chew it up a lot and get it back to sand before you swallow.

And how do you put your face in broken glass and have people stand on the back of your head?

It's skin coupling, and the ability to distribute the weight of your head on the glass so your skin is going straight down on it. It's like holding a razor blade between your fingers—you can push down pretty hard and nothing happens. But if you move that razor blade a fraction of an inch, watch the cuts happen. You don't want anyone getting wobbly up there standing on you. I think it's important for me to say that I'm not encouraging people to try this stuff. It's dangerous.

How did you get to know David Bowie?

David and Trent [Reznor] are very good friends. Trent gave David my book Freak Like Me as a gift for his birthday. I was doing a show in London, and during the show, one of the other performers told me to look in the wings, and there's David Bowie fucking standing there. We became friends. We would hang out at a place called the Groucho, with an artist named Damien Hirst. Bowie did a show in Seattle around 2001 or 2002, and he had a setup for me on the side of the stage with a sofa and speakers. His policy is that you can't watch his show from the side of the stage, but he gave me special treatment. They pulled the curtains back, revealing me to the audience, and he sang "Scary Monsters" to me. I didn't know that was going to happen.

Any Axl Rose stories from your Guns N' Roses tour?

That was just last year. They hadn't played in the US in four years, and I hate to say it, but they sucked. They were horrible. I don't really know how to quantify Axl's inability to get it together.

And the cornrow/dreadlock hair is not helping him.

I'm not going to say it right out, but his head is getting steroid big. Pretty soon he's going to be poppin' 70 homers.

Where do you want to take the Jim Rose Circus in the future? What new acts and feats and Liftos would there be?

I've always been interested in aquatics. Where the show could take place in the aquarium. A guy could stick his foot into a running boat motor or propeller. Handcuffs and straightjackets underwater. Everything underwater.

An anaconda.

Underwater. Frankly though, I prefer just showing up and doing storytelling in front of 600 people. I don't need the attention that bad anymore.

Storytelling underwater.

With an anaconda. I like that.

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