Happy had a fever and was worried he might pass out onstage. He was the final act in Tomas Medina’s Son of the Superfantabulous Variety Show at the Lakeshore Theater, and he didn’t want to let the audience down. Happy (ne Dave Haskell) can handle pain–in fact, he thrives on it–but a human pincushion must be in the best of health to stay focused.
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On the elevator ride to the basement, a hobo clown in a tinsel wig announced, “Ladies and germs, children of all ages: we will be going down.” I took a deep breath, expecting some sort of hellish Great Glass Elevator-style ride, but our car just chugged slowly downward, then the doors opened to reveal an elaborate production: skill-testing games with Victorian-era prizes like masks, little optical illusions on paper, and fake goldfish in baggies full of water; acrobats performing graceful feats on a floor mat; a pair of women dressed like ghoulish ventriloquist dummies with their wrists tied together, dancing sensually to aggro industrial music; a mermaid wriggling around in a boat while another woman played a homemade harp.
Mouse, his cute, ditzy assistant, came out in a corset and not much else. “You’re not wearing your mask!” the man, Alain Jens (aka Art Institute instructor Nicholas Lowe), cried. “I didn’t like it,” Mouse stage-whispered. “But look! I’m wearing a bow!”
Happy came out and Medina threw darts at his back. Every time one stuck, Happy turned to face the audience and deadpanned, “Ow,” only adding to our discomfort. He ran a spear through his cheek, laced a little mesh bag onto it, then pushed on the spear till it poked out the other cheek. Medina filled the bag with 16 billiard balls, and Happy took it with nary a drop of blood.
Finally the lights changed from red to blue. The Residents’ “Blue Rosebuds” came blasting on and a voluptuous woman in a corset, her magenta hair tied back with a scrap of black lace, carried out a tray of medical instruments like the kind some sick fuck would use to torture someone in a movie. She lit a bundle of sage, waved it around, assumed a coy position at the edge of the stage, and sat very still.
“Our society has become weak,” he says. “We’re emotionally and morally bankrupt. The Internet, fast food, microwaves–all the convenience has taken our souls. Society is a self-centered pile of mush.”
