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Dec. 1, 2015 - Art Bell

02:22:32

Art Bell MITD - Todd Robbins Master of the Macabre

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44:39

todd robbins

01:16:23

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be, in the world's 25 time zones, covered like a warm blanket by this program, Midnight in the Desert.
		My name is Art Bell, and I'm here to do whatever damage I can do.
		All right, we have simple rules for the program.
		Really, really, really simple, no bad language, and one call per show, maximum.
		That's it.
		I would like to welcome KUJ in Walla Walla, Washington.
		That's right.
		K-U-J, hello in Walla Walla.
		Nice to meet you.
		This is a show that you're going to have to learn to love because, you know, like pickles, you might, when you first taste it, go, huh.
		But after a while, you'll figure out if we're not doing what you like tonight, probably tomorrow night we will.
		Tonight is going to be really weird.
		Todd Robbins is really weird.
		And I say that as a weird person myself.
		He's really weird.
		Anyway, you'll find out.
		Let me talk about a couple of news-like things.
		The United States military will deploy a new special operations force to Iraq.
		We'll step up the fight against the Islamic State militants unleashing violence in Iraq and Syria and determined to hold territory until they have seized virtually everything across the Middle East.
		So we're getting more in the, you know, the fight.
		And I saw a grilling up on Capitol Hill earlier today that was worthy of repeating, but I won't repeat it word for word.
		It was a military general, forget his name.
		And they were asking, have we made any progress in winning the war?
unidentified		And the general said, we will win the war.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But have we moved ISIS back at all anywhere?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We will win the war.
unidentified		That's the answer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are we winning the war?
		Well, we will win the war.
		That's kind of how it went.
		I'm still scared to death of what's going on in Syria.
		The Russians, you know, with the missiles now and their own jets and everybody's missiles, and it's, you know, a shootdown by Turkey of a Russian jet.
		Really serious stuff.
		And we got into a conversation last night about NATO.
		And today I got a whole bunch of, I guess, kind of disturbing emails in a way to me anyway, my age, I guess.
		And everybody said, oh, don't worry, Art.
		World War III can't start over there.
		Look, if Turkey did something stupid, the U.S. would pull out of NATO before they ever did anything.
		Well, you'd be surprised, I think, those of you of middle age, how many of those I got.
		NATO's going to dissolve.
		You don't have to worry about NATO.
		NATO is a treaty organization.
		And basically, you know, skipping through all the legalese, it says, if you attack one of our NATO partners, as in Turkey in this case, it would be the same thing as if you dropped a nuke on New York.
		And everybody in NATO would respond in kind.
		And that has kept, you know, kind of kept the beast at bay.
		But our younger generation, they don't know about NATO.
		We better get them educated about NATO.
		Or could they be right?
		You know, you thought about it.
		Well, yeah, maybe we would not go to war over Turkey, which means we would not keep our NATO promises, which would mean that once that happened, NATO would indeed, as they point out, dissolve, and the United States would lose a very great deal of its power and influence in the world.
		And the Great Days would surely be behind it militarily, anyway.
		And I don't know what it would lead to.
		But some of you parents out there, better talk to your children about what NATO is.
unidentified		Oh, no, we wouldn't participate in anything like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me repeat.
		The rule of law, as it were, or treaty in this case, says that an attack on, say, Istanbul would be the same as a nuke on New York City, requiring a similar response.
		That's why I'm scared about what's going on over there.
		But then again, maybe the younger generation is right, and our current president would say, no, pull out now.
		You know, I don't care about red lines.
unidentified		I'm not going to war over Turkey.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of the president, he is in Paris now talking about the global warming problem and what should be done.
		He would like the rule of law, in essence, to apply to what is decided, but it seems to me that would take Congress.
		Trouble in Chicago, of course, Rob Emmanuel sought for months to keep the public from seeing a video, the awful one, that shows a white police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times.
		Little overkill there, huh?
		It was horrible, horrible.
		Now, I guess they're going to use more body cameras.
		I mean, in this case, it wasn't like they didn't have video.
		They had plenty of video.
		They just didn't release it, right?
		The feds now will investigate the Chicago PD.
		The chief of the PD, the chief there has been fired.
		Emmanuel did that, but he may be next.
		The people in Chicago are not happy campers.
		And I think that the political body of the chief isn't going to do what they want, Emmanuel.
unidentified		We'll see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, turning to things more interesting in some ways.
		The anomalous referring to, I don't know if you've seen it.
		It should be on my website.
		It was on my website, but things get pushed down.
		We found a shot of a dome.
		To me, it looks exactly like an intelligence built this dome.
		And I believe they did, frankly.
		I mean, this is on Mars.
		You can look.
		Take a look yourself.
		You know, I'm not generally amazed at rocks, nor do I try to form things in my imagination about what those rocks are.
		But, you know, in the case of this dome, what the hell else could it be?
		It's an intelligently made dome on Mars.
		Now, that's sort of serious.
		Anomalous said, alien hunters say the structure was built by ancient, some ancient civilization on the red planet.
		But honestly, we're going to throw some common sense aside for a moment, and just for the sake of argument, we're going to disagree.
		It seems they have a sense of humor there.
		It doesn't look like a man-made structure.
		It looks more like something organic, in fact.
		In fact, it looks like a hive.
		Well, a hive.
		A hive would imply, if not intelligent design, it would imply instinctual design, at the very least, right?
		So if it's not up there, please put the dome back, the Mars dome.
		It's just too perfect.
		I just cannot believe that that occurs in nature.
		Nor should it occur on a planet without, to speak of, an atmosphere.
		Okay, again, welcome, welcome.
		K-U-J in Walla Walla, Washington.
		Glad to have you on board.
		Coming up in a moment is Todd Robbins.
		And he is a New York City-based performer and creative artist who has spent decades now specializing in arcane forms of popular entertainment, off-beat amusements, and intriguing deceptions.
		Throughout his life, he has been immersed in the dark worlds of sideshows, magic, con artists, and seances.
		In addition to being a featured performer, Todd has often been called upon to speak as an authority on, well, all things unusual.
		That would be us, right?
		And has been a consultant on numerous TV shows and movies.
		He has appeared on more than 100 shows, including Masters of Illusion, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, A Thousand Ways to Die, which I'm embarrassed to say I watched many episodes of,
		Good Morning America, currently host of True Nightmares on Investigation Discovery, a show presenting bizarre true tales of mayhem that all have an ironic twist, possibly one that could, well, happen to you.
		So, Todd Robbins is very weird.
		You have no idea how weird, but you will.
		Do you know anybody who eats light bulbs for real?
		Eats light bulbs for real?
		Crunch, crunch, crunch.
unidentified		Take a walk on the outside of midnight.
		From the Kingdom of Nine.
		This is Midnight in the Desert with our fellows.
		Please call the show at 1952-225-5278.
		That's 1952.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I love that song because of the words, right?
		And how quickly your yesterdays will become your tomorrows.
		It sort of gives me a chill because, you know, I remember when I was like 12 years old sitting kind of bored at my grandma's house with this giant radio.
		This radio was as tall as I was at that age.
		And I would sit and listen to it.
		It had shortwave on it, you know.
		And I would sit and listen to shortwave stations from around the world.
		And that was when I was 12 years old.
		And I remember that, as it were, yesterday.
		And today I'm 70.
		So, yeah, when they sing about It'll Soon Enough Be Your Tomorrows, listen real carefully.
		Here, ladies and gentlemen, is Todd Robbins from New York City.
		Hi, Todd.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Art.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's an honor to be on the air with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's an honor to have you on, although that is yet to be really determined as the night rolls on.
unidentified		That's true.
unidentified		It's true.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Let me just say that it's an honor to be on with you because you're a true original.
		But I have to say, it is one of the greatest honors of my life that the fact that you find what I do weird.
		You that have encountered everything and have met everyone and have been to the four corners of our world and found all the strange things, to think what I do is unusual, I find that a high honor, high praise indeed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, then definitely feel honored.
		I mean, what you do is weird.
		A lot of it is just, you know, really, really interesting and write down sort of the half that I travel on a nightly basis.
		But yeah, some of what you do is weird, Todd.
unidentified		You've got to admit it.
unidentified		Yes.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I like to jokingly say it's a pathetic plea for attention, but it gets it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I watched A Thousand Ways to Die.
		You know, I'm kind of curious about that show since you had apparent involvement with it, huh?
		Okay, so A Thousand Ways To Die was pretty brutal stuff, and usually it showed or reenacted these horrible, horrible, horrible deaths.
		I remember one where this guy was cutting in the ceiling.
		I can't remember.
		He was going to spy on somebody, I believe it was.
		He was cutting and cutting and cutting around and around and around.
		It was in the bathroom, right?
		So we could spy on this girl, I guess.
		And what happened is he cut too far in the bathtub fell on him.
unidentified		Killed him.
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's just amazing the depths of ridiculousness that we find in human behavior.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And depravity.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Often hand in hand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, indeed, I'm sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you are originally from Southern California, is that right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, that explains why I, for a lot of people, why I do the unusual things that I do, but it goes a little further than that.
		I grew up in the Long Beach, California area, kind of on the outskirts of the town there, sort of on the border with Orange County.
		And Long Beach was a mixed town.
		The downtown area had kind of seen better days.
		And it sprawled into the former farmland.
		The reason it was called Orange County was because of all the orange groves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know, but who moves from Southern California east to New York?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you, obviously.
unidentified		You did.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I did because, you know, that was part of it.
		Growing up there in the suburban area, it was exactly what my parents wanted.
		They grew up in the Depression.
		They fought in World War II, and they were looking for pleasant.
		They were looking for something that was clean, it was safe, it was quiet.
		It was, you know, the American dream was what they had fought all their lives for and dreamt of, and they had it.
		And growing up there, it was pleasant.
		It had everything you could possibly want except character.
		Everything was sort of manufactured, and the lawns were all manicured, and the landscaped, and then the houses were all uniform.
		And, you know, there's a reason that out of this environment came things like grunge rock and excessive drug use.
		For me, I didn't turn in that direction.
		But what happened was I was just always interested in kind of older things, the things of the past that people had forgotten about and sort of discarded.
		And what happened was I was fascinated by old show business.
		I would often have bronchitis when I was a kid growing up and would stay at home.
		And the local stations played these wonderful old black and white movies from the 30s and 40s.
		And they often repackaged some of the silent films and put a soundtrack and sound effects to it.
		And so I ended up growing up, you know, watching Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd and Loyal and Hardy and W.C. Fields and the great comedians and all the great classic films.
		And I just found this more interesting than what was coming our way at the local multiplex.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hey, look, it's more interesting than most of what's going on radio today.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, very much so.
unidentified		Very much.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I mean, when you get into radio, because this is the medium of the imagination.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You're painting word pictures in the minds and hearts and souls of people as they're listening.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know, but a lot of that's gone, Todd.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's gone.
unidentified		Oh, it's true.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Replaced by formatic radio.
		Everything's the same.
		Anyway, yeah, so you went from...
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And I went in there, had never been in any place like this.
		And there were these shelves filled with unusual paraphernalia that were specifically designed to deceive the senses, to create illusion.
		And I just found it was great.
		And I would go there on Saturday afternoons and take magic lessons, learn sleight of hand, and buy tricks there.
		And I'd hang out.
		The thing I enjoyed most is it was almost like a little clubhouse.
		There were a bunch of old-timers that used to hang out there, and they would sit and do card tricks for each other and smoke unfiltered Cameled cigarettes and swap lies.
		And these guys, these guys were ancient.
		They were like 40 years old.
		And, you know, here as a kid, just kind of just taking all this character in.
		And it instilled in me a desire to really find real magic in our world.
		And so I saw all the magic I could.
		And I would watch all the variety shows, which, you know, the Ed Sullivan and Hollywood Palace and even the talk shows like Merv Griffin and things often had variety performers on them.
		And I would wait to see the magic acts.
		And then I would see whatever I could live.
		And a carnival came to our neighborhood.
		And there on the midway between the rides that had been approved by bribe safety inspectors and the games you couldn't win, there was this large white tent with colorful banners out front that depicted strange, unusual people doing remarkable things.
		It was the sideshow.
		And there was a guy standing out front, the outside talker.
		People call him a barker, but the correct term is outside talker.
		And he would literally talk people into seeing the show, buying a kick and come in.
		And one of the acts he was talking about and pitching was the magic act.
		So I went in and see the magic act.
		And it wasn't that impressive that, but the guy swallowing a sword, someone eating fire, someone lying down on a bed of nails.
		These things captured my imagination because this was all real.
		There was no deception here.
		The sword was real.
		The fire was hot.
		The nails were sharp.
		And it was extraordinary ability beyond the capabilities of the average person.
		And if you think about that, that's a pretty good definition for real magic.
		And so I went back to the local magic shop after seeing this and was all excited with all this because I was not only amazed by all this, but I had a desire to learn how to do it.
		And it turned out one of the guys had worked in a sideshow and he could teach me how to eat fire.
		And I learned that.
		And I also learned a wonderful act called the Blockhead Act, which is the ability to take a large nail and hammer it into the center of your nose, right into the nasal passage.
		And, you know, my doctor said I needed more iron.
		And I learned how to do that.
		And I also wanted to learn all the backstory.
		I wanted to know where he learned it and where it came from and all that.
unidentified		So I started kind of thinking.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		I don't even know where to stop you with the nose thing, for example.
		Yeah.
		Okay, so you drive a nail into your nose for real or is it an illusion?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, it's real.
		It goes straight back into the nasal pharynx.
		It goes into the air patches into the top of the throat.
		It looks impossible.
		And it's all based upon principles of anatomy.
		And since most people slept through anatomy, it seems like a miracle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if you get it wrong?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, you get it wrong.
		That's all, folks.
		That's the thing.
		There's a risk in all of this.
		And so I was very fortunate to learn the proper techniques.
		Because there's many places that nail can go, and there's only one place it should.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No doubt.
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		So you have to really learn the technique behind it and learn how to do it from someone who knows what they're doing.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It is very much the old style of mentor and apprentice.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How many beginners get it wrong?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, the sad fact is there are a number of people who have seen me on the internet do it along with the other things that I do and they just decide, oh, I'm going to do it.
		And I get emails from people saying, okay, I want to hammer a nail into my nose.
		What should I do?
		And I say, you know, that you should stop because they don't know what they're doing and they're going to end up hurting themselves.
		It's one of the reasons I started up a sideshow school in Coney Island many years ago to pass these techniques on so that people, these traditions are carried on and they're carried on properly so people don't hurt themselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it shows how bad I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There are some people I know that if they were about to try that, I'd say, yeah, cool.
unidentified		Go for it.
		That's right.
		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You know, well, it improves the gene pool a little bit there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So what is the Magic Castle in Los Angeles?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Ah, the Magic Castle is a private club for magicians that is in a beautiful Victorian house that's on the hillside there in Hollywood, right above the old Chinese theater, the room which was originally Groman's Chinese theater.
		And right above that, the next block up on the hillside is this great old house that was started up in 1963 by two brothers who were sort of amateur magicians and had a great love of it.
		Their father was a magician.
		And they started up the Academy of Magical Arts.
		And it is just this wonderful place that you go in, this little tiny room, and there's a receptionist there to make sure everyone is properly attired.
		You have to wear a coat and tie for men, and women have to be in very dressed up, preferably dresses.
		But, you know, it's a little more flexible these days.
		And then once you make sure everyone's over 21, you go over to a bookcase and there's a little ceramic owl with glowing eyes.
		And you say to the owl, you whisper, open Sesame.
		And a bookcase slides back and you enter this wonderful world where anything can happen and it usually does.
		It's been going on for about 53 years now.
		And it is just an amazing and wonderful place.
		There's theaters all over it.
		There are magicians doing car tricks for each other.
		There's a little music room, a little parlor where they have a piano.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's magicians only?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's magicians and their guests.
		You have to know a magician member to get into the place.
		So it has an exclusivity quality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because one would assume that secrets are being revealed.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Not so much.
		I mean, there are magicians that kind of get together in session, which means they'll sit off in the corner and they'll do card tricks where you'll then show it.
		But they don't normally reveal it to the laity, to the general public, because really all magicians have is their secrets of how they create their illusions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
		What was the recent movie about magicians?
		The Illusionist, I believe, wasn't it?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there was The Illusionist and also The Prestige was the other one.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		There were two of them that came out about the same time about the Victorian era of magic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then magicians really are very competitive, very secret, and so forth, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes, because, like I say, it is that wall that they insist upon putting up.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And when I do magic, I do the same thing because you don't want to see behind the curtain because often the illusion is much better than the reality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so I've got to ask you then about the TV shows that have been on that specialize in doing nothing other than exposing how a magician does what he does.
		How do you feel about those?
		I imagine not well.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I don't really, I don't think it has any impact because the fact is that people don't have a real good reference point for it.
		I look at those things.
		I know exactly what's going on, the mechanism behind it.
		But people forget details.
		And it's often kind of disappointing.
		And the fact is that when the Mass Magician special came about 15 years ago, everyone was like, oh, my goodness, this is the worst thing.
		It's going to bring magic to end.
		No one's going to want to see magic.
		And the irony of it is, the first one got great ratings.
		The second one got lesser ratings.
		The third one got far fewer ratings before you know it was all gone.
		Because people really don't want to know.
		They like a mystery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're right about that.
		They like a mystery.
		One real quick question for you.
		Is there any such thing as real magic?
unidentified		Ah, that's a whole long topic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, we're coming up on a break.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you think about how you want to answer that.
unidentified		We'll take a break and be back in about seven.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're listening to Midnight in the Desert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ron Robbins, my guest.
unidentified		Rhythm carries all the access.
		Midnight in the desert is a wild trip across the day's divisor.
		Get your ticket to ride by calling 1-952.
		Call Art.
		That's 1-952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm serving you up a stern warning.
		You're going to hear about a lot of things tonight.
		You know, like driving a nail into your nose, eating light bulbs, recipe peanuts coming up, and a lot of things.
		You're going to hear about all sorts of things.
		Do not try these things.
		That's as stern a warning as I can think to give.
		Maybe there's a way to say it.
		You may die if you do some of these things.
		That's pretty stern, I guess.
		Todd, welcome back.
		Thank you.
		You know, we've got to really say that, huh?
		Because you get enough thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.
		You say something like this, and somebody's going to take that nail and give it a try.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, to a certain degree, you know, on the flip side of it is, I don't want anyone to give this a try that doesn't know what they're doing.
		If they're really interested, they need to search out some sources.
		And then, number, we can get into those later where they can look if they're really seriously interested.
		But just, there's no flail factor in any of this stuff that I do when it comes to the old sideshow skills.
		You do it wrong, you end up hurting yourself, and everyone that does it for any extended period of time does end up hurting themselves to some degree.
		But hopefully, if they have learned properly, it diminishes the danger and the risk.
		You can't completely eliminate it, but you can diminish it.
unidentified		But you have to know what you're doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the craziness.
		So what I asked you before the break was, is there any real magic?
		Now, I investigate the paranormal.
		Every aspect of it you can imagine.
		I have come to believe that a great deal of it is true and some of it's baloney.
		But if I ask you about magic, have you ever encountered real magic?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I've encountered many mysterious things, coincidences, or whatever, however you want to define them.
		But there have been many, many strange things that have happened through the years that make you wonder.
		And I love mystery.
		That's one of the reasons I love this show and have listened to you for so many years, because I love mystery, because it's just things yet to be understood.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's true.
		Well, how do you define magic?
		As that, as things yet to be understood?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, exactly.
		Because though we may love a mystery, people want answers.
		And that's where the problem comes in when you settle for easy, comfortable answers that feel good, but might not be true.
		And there's a number of people out there who will be more than willing to deceive you, to take your money on many levels and provide you with answers.
		And then that's where we get into a whole area.
		Now to just kind of scratch your head and say, why, why are people believing this stuff?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I say it all the time.
		I really do.
		But I still have hopes and some understanding that a lot of it really, I mean, it is real to the degree that you said that we don't understand it.
		I've had things happen in my personal life completely beyond, you know, any random chance for happening.
		They were real.
		Not many of them, just a few, but enough to know that there's substance here somewhere.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		And that's what keeps me going is wondering what tomorrow is going to bring, what new discoveries and advancements.
		What you're talking about at the top of the show, about discovering something that looks like a dome on Mars.
		Let's find out more about that.
		There'll be plenty of people who will give you an answer.
		And you go, well, okay, and why do you think that?
		Well, let's find out more.
		Let's investigate.
		Let's go further with this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you seen it?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I haven't, but I'm going to.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to take a look at that as soon as we finish here tonight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so you don't have a computer in front of you right now?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, I unfortunately don't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Well, you're a very rare American.
		Almost everybody else is.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I do have a computer.
		It's just not right in front of me.
		I'm here in the living room because I want to be nice and comfortable and enjoy this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good, good, good, good.
		All right.
		So this Magic Castle, apparently there's a ghost in the Magic Castle that plays the piano, does even request occasionally, that kind of thing, a ghost that plays the piano.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		That's the illusion that they create.
		Her name is Irma.
		The story they tell, and it's always not a good story, that there was a family who lived in the house that hated music, except for this one daughter.
		And she would go up to the attic to play the piano that they had sort of thrown up there and hidden away.
		And when the Magic Castle was open, they found that old piano up there.
		They brought it down.
		And we're going to have someone to play it.
		But they discovered that the ghost of Irma, who passed away many, many years ago, is more than happy to come down and play requests for people.
		And she, you know, you walk in there and say, Irma, it's so good to see you.
		How are you feeling tonight?
		And Irma plays, I feel pretty, oh, so pretty.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, we seem to be in a good mood.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And she'll play Make and Whoopie and say, oh, well, who is it on the other side that you're getting your ectoplasm with?
		And she plays, I am just wild about Harry.
		And so it's fun that way.
		It's really, it's a lovely, lovely thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yep, sounds like fun.
		All right.
		Now, my producer, when she got hold of you, she told me, Art, Todd Robbins eats light bulbs.
		I said, yeah, right.
		I said, you know, Heather, those are made of some sort of sugary substance, just like the windows in movies that break so easily and look like they're real.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Candy glass.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Candy glass, that's right.
		And she said, no.
		No, no, no, no.
		Todd actually eats light bulbs.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I said, you mean like a Phillips or a GE standard old 60 or 100 watt light bulb?
		She said, yes.
		I said, I don't I actually said I don't believe it, Todd.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's true.
		I can give you a little background on this.
		It's an old stunt that goes back to the Fakirs of India.
		I have to be very careful saying that word on the air.
		The Fakirs of India and those amazing high holy men that did things like being buried alive and sustaining themselves underground or lying down on a bed of nails or doing all kinds of things that just push the limits of what the body can do.
		And one of the things they would do is they would take glass, and even before there were light bulbs, they'd take panes of window glass and bite into it and chow down on the broken glass.
		And this is something that in the early 19th century, a troop of, they used to refer to them as Indian jugglers, but not jugglers in the modern, what we think of jugglers, but they were these performers that were doing things different than traditional sleight of hand magic.
		And they came to England, and they were a huge hit there.
		And then the members of the troop broke off, they taught other people, and little by little it got passed around.
		So by the middle of the 19th century, it found its way into the dime museums, which were the sideshows of their day.
		P.T. Barnum had the most famous one here in New York.
		And they would demonstrate strange abilities, such as taking a sword and shoving it down the throat, and eating glass, and swallowing fire, putting hot fire on it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, let's deal with one at a time if we can.
		And this is eating glass.
		Now, there's just no way.
		I can remember once working in Las Vegas, this was years and years ago, and I would bring my coffee to work at the radio station with me in a thermos.
		And one day I poured my coffee as usual, and apparently I had dropped something because it had all this flaky stuff that looked just exactly like glass, and I had been drinking it, and I thought, oh, my God, I'm dead as a doornail.
		I've been drinking glass.
		It really wasn't glass.
		It was just that flaky stuff.
		Maybe some of it was glass.
		I'm not sure.
		People called me and said, for God's sakes, eat bread.
		Quickly, eat bread.
		So here's a question, Todd.
		When you eat light bulbs, and I'm told you have eaten more light bulbs, actually, than anybody else in the world, is that right?
unidentified		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		5,000.
		So it's not a trick.
		It's not an illusion.
		You really eat them?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, like so many of the things, this is all based upon principles of physics and anatomy.
		And with anatomy, it's amazing how adaptive the human body can be.
		There's a way of chewing up the glass.
		The great thing about it is that, you know, like we were talking earlier, a magician does a trick and go, how did you do that?
		How'd you make that, how'd you know what card I selected?
		And they'll say, I can't tell you.
		But this stuff, I find it's more interesting the more you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Again, I'm not trying to encourage anyone.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sort of explaining this, but I'm not instructing people on how to do this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, God, no, don't do it, Koso.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, there's a way of chewing up the glass and swallowing it so it doesn't cut up the mouth and throat.
		There's a diet and regimen I go through every day that keeps the glass moving through my system.
		It takes about two days to go through.
		So the first part of it is I want to, as I take a light bulb, I bite into the metal part and spit out that, the little threaded part that goes into the socket.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So that's where you bite, right above that.
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And that's actually the most dangerous part of doing it because I have no real control of how that's going to break.
		And that's often where I'll get a little cut on my lip or gum when I bite into that.
		But once it's broken, then I can kind of gingerly bite into the glass and start chewing it.
		And I keep it in the soft areas of my mouth and on the tongue because there's a lot of elasticity there.
		You can take a knife blade and actually press your flesh into it.
		It's the lateral movement that actually cuts it.
		But putting pressure on a sharp edge will not cut unless you put just so much it's going to penetrate the flesh.
		But it's amazing how much pressure you could put.
		It's the same principle as lying down on a bed of nails.
		But anyway, so I will take the glass and I will chew it up.
		And here's part of the risk is that as I chew it up and I'm going to swallow it, if I chew it up too fine, it's possible that it can get powdery and get into my blood system, into the blood, and cause all kinds of harm, including the possibility of a stroke.
		But if I don't chew it up fine enough, the pieces are too large and they'll go through the intestinal tract and it can lacerate.
		So what I'm doing is while I'm joking and trying to keep it moving and entertaining, I am judging how fine the glass is.
		And then once I get it to the consistency I want, I then take water and I basically flush it down because I don't want my throat constricting on this because it can, that's where you can get cuts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in no way are these light bulbs fake?
unidentified		No, no.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's getting harder these days because incandescent bulbs are becoming rarer and rarer.
		That's a true statement.
		And the CFLs, those squirrely little things that you probably write above you, and the LEDs are not consumable.
		There's a great deal of mercury in those CFLs, so I'm not going to be biting into those because of that.
		I can, if I'm very careful and don't inhale the gas, I can do that.
		But the wonderful standard Edison bulbs, as they call them, I can do those.
		And so I've been stocking up as I do this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you're actually buying extra bulbs in case they someday become antiques.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And the irony of it is you can still get them here in New York, but they're now being manufactured in Mexico and places like that because they can't do them here.
		There is actually a company that still has received approval to do so because they're still needed in certain areas, certain trades.
		They need incandescent bulbs.
		They cannot use the CFLs or LED bulbs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, originally I didn't like the new bulbs because they didn't provide a nice warm light, but of course they've got that solved now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, the days of incandescent probably are numbered.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think so.
		I think so.
		However, you know, theoretically, you have to be careful with disposing of these because of their mercury content.
		And thousands and thousands of these are going to our landfills.
		And the question is, you know, someone said, well, you know, there's more mercury in the air that comes out of the power plant.
		We're going, well, okay, but that doesn't discount the fact that these bulbs have mercury in them, and they're going to our landfills, and they're breaking under the pressure of all that trash.
		And what is that going to do down the road as that starts to seep in?
		Is that going to lead to the zombie apocalypse?
unidentified		I don't know.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		So getting back to incandescent bulbs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, unlikely.
		You're trying to keep the art of the sideshow alive.
		And that is what you do.
		And that's got to be pretty tough in this day and age.
		You've got to almost transfer what you do, I don't know, to the internet or how do you do it?
		How do you do it?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		The fact is, the sideshow, you know, in its natural habitat, which was in circuses and in carnivals and amusement areas like Coney Island, is all but dead.
		There is a sideshow out in Coney Island.
		It's a not-for-profit performing arts group called Coney Island USA.
		There is the Venice Beach Freak Show, a little wonderful storefront operation in Venice Beach.
		It had its own TV, reality TV show a while back.
		But the carnivals aren't carrying sideshows anymore.
		Circuses no longer have them.
		Because the old days, people would spend, it was the highlight of their year in the rural areas around the country, that when the circus came to town, there'd be the parade in the morning and they'd all follow it out to the lot there.
		They'd watch the tent go up.
		They'd bring a lunch and they'd watch them feed and exercise the animals and then they're there and they need something to do.
		So there'd be some games and they'd have a sideshow, which you'd see before the main show.
		And that would have the guy swallowing the swords and the fat lady and the tallest man in the world, the smallest woman and so on and so forth.
		Strange, unusual people.
		And it just was, it was something unusual.
		It was something beyond your everyday life.
		It was extraordinary.
		And that's all gone now because you can find this on the learning channel.
		Any given night is a freak show.
		And so it comes into your living room now.
		You don't have to wait for the circus to come to town.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's why I said you're weird.
		You eat light bulbs.
		So, you know, that makes you extra weird.
		And for those of you who doubt for one second what I'm saying, I'm telling you right now, go to rbell.com, click on Todd Robbins, and then you're going to have the opportunity.
		Actually, you don't even have to click on him.
		You're going to have the opportunity.
		Yeah, you do.
		You're going to have the opportunity to see a video.
unidentified		It lasts about how long, Todd?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, about two minutes or so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, it's actually five minutes and 34 seconds.
		Okay.
		Yeah, that's right.
		There you go.
		In this, without any question whatsoever, they show Todd eating, I believe, a 60-watt standard light bulb after it's been.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I used to eat 100-watt bulbs, but I'm on a diet now.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was one of the things.
		Right.
		But you absolutely do do it.
		Now, a few questions.
		You mentioned the consistency, and I'm wondering, how do you know that all the pieces reached the consistency that you must have to survive this?
		Well, before you swallow them.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		That's the second part of it.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I want to make certain when I talk about diet and regimen, there are things I do every day that kind of all my intestinal tracts happy with fiber and little lubricants and things like that so that everything keeps moving because I don't want anything to stop on its way.
unidentified		I don't want anything down there doing it.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I want it all moving along.
		And then before I do a light bulb, I will end up eating usually a decent meal.
		And if not, I will ingest as much starchy foods as possible.
		Someone said eat bread.
		That was actually a very good thing that they suggested there.
unidentified		Really?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Let me tell you a little quick story.
		I was doing a show about the sideshow off Broadway in New York about a decade ago.
		It was called Carnival Knowledge.
		And it was about my experience working out in Coney Island and the love of the sideshow and the history of it.
		And a writer for The New Yorker decided he was going to do a little profile on me, and he was going to bust me.
		He was going to prove it was a trick.
		So he brought along one of the heads of gastroenterology at New York University Hospital and Dr. Cohen to see the show and interview me afterwards because he was going to bust me.
		This guy, if anyone would know that it's a trick, it would be this guy.
		And so we sat down and I talked to the doctor and I revealed everything.
		I'm in much more detail than I'm going into now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, hold tight.
		We're at a break.
		It's a short two-minute break, Todd.
		We'll come back and find out how that turned out for you.
		We have the video on my website of Todd eating a 60-watt GE bulb.
		It's a little hard to watch, and you're cringing as you watch.
unidentified		Now I stand here helplessly, we know.
		Hoping you don't get into me, I have so into you.
		I keep thinking of this.
		Want to take a ride exclusively on the Dark Matter Digital Network?
		This is Midnight in the Desert with your host, Art Bell.
		To call Art, please dial 1-952-225-5278.
		That's 1-952-Call Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, please don't do that yet.
		Todd Robbins is my guest, and we're just sort of getting into what he does.
		One of the things he does is eat light bulbs.
		He has, in fact, eaten more light bulbs than any human on the planet.
		Thousands, thousands of light bulbs.
		Real light bulbs.
		It's not a trick.
		I guess in the strictest sense, it's not magic.
		To me, it's magic.
		Anybody, if anybody had told me you could eat an entire light bulb and survive, I would have said it was either magic or it was a trick.
		But no, no, no, no.
		I'm going to mention this because, you know, my producer said, oh, hey, Todd, can you keep a light bulb on hand?
		And I haven't made up my mind about that.
		We'll see what the audience says.
		But you know what?
		There's a video on my website, which is artbell.com.
		If you click on Todd, you have the opportunity to see him without question, without tomfoolery, without any doubt.
		He eats a 60-watt PE light bulb.
		And you cannot watch, you just can't watch without cringing.
		And I think Todd said in the video, one of the things he enjoys most when he eats light bulbs is watching the expression on people's faces.
		And I get it.
		So totally get it.
		Because you should have seen mine.
		I didn't believe it, Todd, but you really do that, huh?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
		It's actually, I think it's a wonderful thing because it shows empathy.
		It's as if I'm making you eat the glass.
		We're sort of one.
		So there's a strange bond there when people experience this.
		They don't just watch me do this.
		They experience it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And they do.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and that's part of the power of all this.
		And then it fills them with wonder.
		And that's a glorious thing because finding out what's possible in life is what drives people to do great things with their lives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It fills you with a lot of little ginzu knives.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it something that you can toughen to?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, it's just something that the body does naturally.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's just pretty remarkable what the body can endure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I've got this question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever seriously hurt yourself while doing this?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Not doing the light bulb.
		And I should just say that I know what I'm doing.
		We were talking before the break there.
		This doctor, this gastroenterologist, came and saw me and interviewed me and asked exactly what I was doing.
		And I told him all the precautions I took.
		And he went, you know, I should recommend this to my patients.
		So he understood it was completely feasible what I was doing.
		And doing one light bulb in a show is not a problem.
		But out in Coney Island, when I was working in the sideshow there, I would eat 10 to 12 light bulbs a day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Five days a week.
		And so, you know, our season started right around in the springtime, right around Easter, or would run until the beginning of October.
		So you do the math on that.
		And that's a lot of glass.
		And that's when you start to notice it.
		That's when it starts to come through.
		It takes about two days.
		And that's not terribly pleasant.
		I'll tell you right now.
unidentified		You mean the...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can imagine.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm just about him sitting down when it happens.
		Let's just leave it at that.
		We'll let the imagination go with that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Listen, when I eat hot tacos, you know, I okay.
		So I can only just barely imagine.
		But have you ever had to go to the emergency room?
		I guess not.
		You're saying not, huh?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Not for this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or to a dentist.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's funny in that when I go to the dentist, my dentist often has interns or dental students that are observing.
		And he says, come in here and take a look at this guy's teeth.
		And see the wear pattern.
		What do you think caused that?
		And they go, oh, he grinds his teeth at night.
		No, no.
		And then I explain.
		And in the old days, I would say, and this is what I do, and I underscore light bulb and bite into it and shout out on it, which would definitely get their attention.
		The worst thing that, well, there's two, I've kind of hurt myself twice.
		One was swallowing a sword.
		The cardinal rule is you're having trouble, you stop.
		You just stop.
		If you're eating fire and the wind comes up and it blows the fire, you stop.
		The problem with glass eating, and one of the reasons I don't encourage anyone to do it, and one of the reasons I don't teach it when I've taught people how to do things, is because once I swallow it, I can't stop it.
		And if it goes in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm in trouble.
		I've been very fortunate, But I don't really want to encourage anyone else to give this a try because it's a risk I'm willing to take.
		But I really don't want to encourage anyone else.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know how when you eat sometimes or drink, it goes down the wrong way?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, you have to be very careful.
		You have to be very, very careful.
		Once in a while, I've had a little piece get stuck in the back of the throat, and that's not pleasant, but it's very rare.
		The strangest thing that happened eating glass was on...
		But it's the kind of thing when you meet professional performers, whether they're actors or magicians or anything, when they get together, they tell war stories.
		They tell about not the great shows they've done, but the terrible things that have happened that they survived.
		They lived to laugh and joke about it.
		And this is one of them.
		It was the 4th of July, about 1993.
		It was a Friday afternoon at the sideshow.
		We were doing a performance, and we had done about four shows and had about another four shows to go.
		And I bit into the light bulb, and I cracked open a tooth and lost a filling.
		And I had an exposed nerve.
		Well, now the show must go on.
		So I ended up doing the rest of the shows that day, chewing the glass on the other side, washing it down with water, keeping it all on the other side as much as possible.
		I then called my dentist, who wasn't in, was out of town, and I couldn't find anyone.
		So I ended up doing 10 shows the next day, 10 shows the next day, and then about 8 shows on that Monday of that extended weekend before I could get to a dentist on Tuesday to get that tooth fixed.
		Yeah, yeah.
		So when people go, oh, you know, I'm a Broadway actor and it's so tough.
		I do eight shows a week.
		Boo who.
		When I hear about movie stars, oh, we had such a tough shoot.
		Boo who tried doing, you know, 30-some shows with an exposed nerve eating glass.
		Show business.
		It's a grand thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a grand thing, yes.
		All right, so my producer, I want the world to know this.
		She's the one behind this.
		Not me, and not any message that I'm getting on the computer.
		I'm getting some messages on the computer, but my little nice little Heather back there, right?
		You talk to her.
unidentified		Yeah, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very pleasant little girl.
		She wants proof.
		In other words, she wants you to eat a light bulb on the air.
		Now, I don't, I'm not sure I see the value in it, Todd, in that we have this video of you eating a light bulb.
		And for you to crunch, crunch, crunch here on the air would be kind of interesting, but I'm not sure that it's proof.
		I mean, you could have the sound of crunching glass on the phone, and that wouldn't be proof.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It wouldn't be proof, but if you there's nothing that can be done for anyone that is listening at home to really prove to them, other if they see me do it live in a performance, really, and even then, they may be suspect about it.
		I always light up the bulb in a work light so people can see it's real, because if it is candy, you know, that bulb burns for a while, and candy would melt if it gets that hot.
		And I'd hand out the bulb and let everyone examine it.
		It's very funny because years ago when I was doing colleges and universities, I had a poster that said, I'll give you $10,000 if you can prove this or any of the other things are fake.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you got a smartphone?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have Periscope on it?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You know, I don't have it installed.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I apologize about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's too bad, because, you know, we could sort of get you on Periscope.
		I mean, come on, folks.
		Just the sound of crunching here on the radio, I don't think, I mean, this video is way beyond anything we could produce on the radio, save, you know, something going wrong and you quickly having to head off to the emergency room.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, having seen the video, now this is going to be done specifically for you.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		So if there's any moment here, this is, you know, this is being done live.
unidentified		Oh, yeah, Art for you, anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but then after you've said that, now I feel doubly bad.
		For me, anything.
		All right, so if you suddenly get it wrong.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Say nice things in the memorial service, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would feel so guilty.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's come back to this, okay?
unidentified		I haven't made up my mind on this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So what other things?
		I mean, you mentioned, for example, somebody who can lie on a bed of nails.
		Now, you see, that doesn't seem right to me.
		You say the skin can take a lot.
		I've got pretty sensitive skin when I think of a bed of nails.
		And that's the difference between some sort of magic show and a sideshow.
		In a sideshow, these people are actually doing these things, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		The thing about a bed of nails is that if you were on a single point, the pressure would be so great, it probably would cause a puncture.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, sure.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And so it's counterintuitive.
		You're thinking that if you have 100 nails or 300 or 500 nails, it would make it 500 times more difficult and more dangerous.
		And it's just the opposite.
		Because the fact is now your weight is spread out over all those points.
		And so there's not enough weight on any given point to cause a puncture into the skin.
		And you can even take it a step further and have someone stand on top of you.
		I know a performer, a friend of mine, who does, he has seven people stand on top of him while lying down on a bed of nails.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you know what?
		I kind of get that one a Little bit.
		In other words, the weight is, of course, distributed among all the nails.
		So, okay, maybe that makes sense.
		I bet it still hurts, though.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's not the most pleasant thing, but you know, the irony of it is it causes a great deal of stimulation, the irritation of the nails in the back there, and it causes a flushing of the blood.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And if you have a bad back, it actually can cause increased circulation and help relieve back spasms and things like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I have a really bad back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A really bad one, Todd.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I might, we have to get together one of these days.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But not that bad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Todd, no, I wasn't lie on bed.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Embrace the unknown.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, right, right, right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The other ways to get flushes, you know, you don't have to lie on a bed of nails.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You know, the funny thing about it is I worked for a number of circuses, and there was the Russian acrobats who were, you know, doing these things.
		This one guy would have, you know, two, three people stand on top of him, you know, on his shoulders.
		They would do a two-high or three-high in part of the thing.
		And he had a bad back, and he brought out this thing, and it was a little portable bed of nails that he would lie down on and just rub his back into that to get the circulation going to help sprained muscles and muscle spasms and things like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		Carrying around a little portable bed of nails.
		Good conversation starter.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		If people don't flinch at that, then you might have found the right person to spend some time with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My producer follows up with, I get messages, you know, during the show.
		She says, yes, let him do it.
		You know, how old are you, Taunt?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		57 years old.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		57, and you've had how many light bulbs in your life?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Somewhere around 5,000.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		So it's time for 5,001.
unidentified		What have you got there?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I've got a.
		What is the brand here?
		This is a Sylvania.
		I usually like a G-E-Bulb because, you know, GE stands for good eating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any difference in taste between the brands?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, no.
		The ones I used out in Coney Island were mass-produced.
		They were a little cheaper.
		And everyone, really what a lot of people worry about is the coating on the inside, what causes the frosting on the inside, because there's a belief, the misconception that it's some sort of phosphorus thing and it's toxic.
		The reality is it's kaolin.
		It's basically a white clay that is shot in there and coated on the inside to give it the soft white, and it is non-toxic.
unidentified		It's very possible in the years past.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But swallowing glass is toxic.
		I mean, if done in slightly the wrong way.
		I guess this is something you can never hurry, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you have to, again, do it and do it right, because if you don't, you can be in big trouble.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		All right, so you're willingly going to do this.
		I'm not in any way pushing you or anything else.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm not ready for my actions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it's only radio, so people, you can back this up by watching the video if you want, but I mean, what you're about to hear, I'm not responsible for in any way.
unidentified		Exactly.
unidentified		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fine.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Shall we?
unidentified		Eat.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		You can hear the middle part.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And here we go.
unidentified		Oh.
		Mm-hmm.
		Oh.
		Mm-hmm.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		This is my favorite part.
unidentified		Don't put yourself in any danger by talking about this is the most dangerous part.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to wash all this down with New York City water.
unidentified		here goes what's that All gone.
		There you go.
		All right, so you washed it down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You said with New York City water.
unidentified		Ha ha ha.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Funny, dangerous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then I heard another crunch.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because it's hard to get it all down in me in one swallow.
		So that was pretty fast and everything.
		But I still got a few little pieces in the teeth there.
		I know.
unidentified		So there you go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was really fast.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, really fast.
unidentified		Yeah, well, life is short.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I'm thinking, how do you that quickly get to the right consistency?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I know what I'm doing.
		I know what the teeth are going to do.
		I know what the front incisors and the molars do.
		And I can basically move things along.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Apparently so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was actually much faster than the one you do on video.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because the other thing about it is there's so much shock value to this.
		And when people see, the natural reaction is to pull back.
		And so I've got to really work at keeping them engaged.
		Because the last thing I want people to do is to think he should stop.
		I don't want that thought.
		I want to keep them laughing.
		I, you know, joke about the glass when it goes through, what, you know, that's all about.
		And, you know, it's sort of answering questions as they're coming up in people's minds.
		So that's why that thing took five minutes to do, because I was yammering away and kind of giving all the backstory and all the things you need to know so you can appreciate it on a deeper level than just an idiot guy.
		This is not, you know, there was a TV show on MTV where they did all kinds of stupid stuff.
		This is not that kind of thing.
		I'm not just doing this just to prove what an idiot I am.
		I think this is just fascinating because, again, it's an expansion upon reality.
		It's reality.
		It's most amazing that someone can actually do this.
		I'm just happy it's me.
		I'm carrying this on, this grand and glorious old tradition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who taught you to eat light bulbs?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I learned it from an old guy named Red.
		Red Garland was his name.
		And he worked, and he did an act.
		He was known as the human garbage disposal or the human ostrich at times.
		And he did a whole act where he would light a cigarette and talk and throw the matches in his mouth and eat those and then take the cigarette and eat that.
		And he had a big little pot of a little vase of water, a clay pot, and he would drink some water and then say, well, I'm still hungry.
		And he would go on and he would take razor blades, the old metal razor blades.
		You probably remember these.
		The steel razor blades.
		He would chew those up too because they were very brittle.
		Now, when they went to aluminum, they became much more flexible.
		But the old pot metal steel razor blades were very brittle, and he could break those in his teeth and chew them up like I'm doing with glass.
		And then he would take a light bulb and he'd break it, and he'd eat the glass.
		I started doing the technique of biting into it and spitting out the metal part and chewing it back about 20 years ago.
		And that's basically how I do it these days.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Will there come a time in your life when you will say, at my age, whatever that is, I must stop eating white bulbs?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You know, when they stop paying me, and if people no longer find it amazing, I will stop.
		And who knows as I get older, if I start developing health problems that often come with just old age.
		Who knows?
		Who knows?
		But I'll keep doing it.
		You know, one of my mentors was a great guy named Melvin Burkhart, who in the year 1929 took this torture stunt from the Fakirs of India of hammering a nail into the nose, and he made it into this joyously gut-wrenching act that when Robert Ripley, Ripley's, believe it or not, saw him do it in the 1930s, he said, Melvin, you're a human blockhead.
		And the name has stuck ever since.
		Melvin's last performance was at my wedding back in October 8th, 2001.
		We did a performance at the wedding as part of the whole ceremony.
		We had burlesque, we had puppets, we had musical theater, we had magic, we had a Wild West guy doing roping and whipping, and Melvin did his sideshow act, including hammering a nail into his nose.
		He was 94 years old, and it was his last performance.
		He died one month later, November 4th, 2001.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Which had nothing to do with the nail?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, I mean, he had been doing it since 1929, and he just had such joy at doing it, and he set the form for it of if you can make people smile and laugh, it takes the stink of the shock value off of it, or diminishes it.
		Still there, but you play against that because that's what makes it interesting.
		You don't make it more, you don't get into people's faces and do this and go, ooh, look at this, look how gross it is, because people will faint, so they'll run away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		That's not good.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You want to keep them there so they can really appreciate it.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Because like I say, this is just reality at its most amazing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, most weird.
		Yes, I guess.
		What do you classify as the strangest performance you've ever done?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		The strangest performance I ever done was actually a kids' magic show.
unidentified		Oh.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		It was many years ago.
		I got a call from an agent here in New York saying, you do a kids' show?
		And I go, yeah, and I was doing traditional magic.
		It wasn't even the sideshow stuff.
		And it was, you know, just kind of comedy magic, and it was all very fun and everything.
		And I'd done birthday parties and things like that.
		And I say, yeah, and it's, okay, well, here's the date.
		Here's the address.
		It was the Libyan embassy in New York City at the height of Muammar Gaddafi's rule when he was saying death to America.
		I go there, you walk in, and there is this huge picture of one of the freedom fighters, a guy holding an AK-47, a scowl on his face and the turban and the whole thing.
		Right there as you walked in, and I thought, you know, well, if they don't like me, what are they going to do?
		Kill me?
		And went upstairs, and it was for the embassy, the kids.
		It was some Libyan holiday.
		I don't even know what it was.
		But they hired me to do a magic act for all the kids of the people that worked in the embassy there.
		And it was interesting because all the wives were in the full burqa, and they were behind a curtain and I could not address them.
		I could not make any contact with them whatsoever.
		But the funny thing is they kept peeking around the curtain to watch what I was doing, which I found very strange and very amusing.
		And I was doing jokes.
		They all spoke English.
		And I'm doing jokes and I'm doing all this kind of physical comedy with the kids.
		And the kids are rolling and laughing.
		And then these women, you know, head to toe with just the eyes, you could see them laughing, belly laughing under the burqas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They were just shaking.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And you could hear these high-pitched laughs from these cloaked figures.
		And it was very strange.
		I was happy it went well.
		I was glad to get out of there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you still feeling okay?
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You sound like you are.
		I just, it's like so hard to believe, Todd, and yet I know it's true.
		And for any of the rest of you who did it.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		The fact that you say it's hard to believe, that just pleasures me vitally.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is hard to believe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, but to me, whether you have ground glass or you've, well, tongues are obviously worse, but ground glass is still, for example, when it goes through the intestinal tract, I don't care what sort of good foods you've consumed, has a potential to, it seems to me, to eviscerate you from the inside out.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It has that potential, yes.
		But I took some precaution before we went on the air here, and everything is going to be going through like a broken glass fritter.
		There's an image for you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thanks for that.
unidentified		You've been doing this since what age?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I started learning stuff when I was about 13, 12 or 13 years old.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, 40, 42 years now, 40, 40, yeah, something like that, 45, about 45 years now.
unidentified		45 years.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And I'm going to keep doing it until I get it right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder how many thousands of watts or more you've consumed.
		I mean, if you actually added up the light bulbs by wattage.
		Yeah, that's true.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's usually a 60 or 75 watt bulb, so I can make the joke about I like eating 100 watt bulbs when I'm on a diet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any difference, by the way, in the wattage of light bulbs?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In terms of your ability to crunch them and consume them safely.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I was just saying I would use the cheaper bulbs out in Coney Island because instead of coating them, they would sandblast them as part of the process.
		And it would hit the bulbs on the inside and make the glass a little bit thinner and a little bit easier on the teeth.
		But that was about the only thing.
		But as I was telling you, there's one funny little story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, funny little story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hold on to it.
unidentified		We'll get back to it.
		Yes, good.
		Midnight in the desert doesn't screen calls.
		We trust you, but remember, the NSA.
		Well, you know.
		To call the show, please dial 1-952-225-5278.
		That's 1-952-CALLART.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to sample some of what's been typed to me while all this has been going on.
		Todd Robbins is my guest.
		If you would like to call the show, my number is, national number is Area Code 952-225-5278.
		That's Area Code 952-CallART.
		Simple, huh?
		Or you can call on Skype, of course.
		In North America, America and Canada, we're M-I-T-D-5-1.
		M-I-T-D-5-1.
		In the rest of the world, it's M-I-T-D55.
		Now, Todd has much more to talk about.
		Here he is.
		But if you want a chance to talk to him, you better get to dialing or Skyping or whatever.
		So there is a lot more ground to cover, Todd, or people are going to think you just came on to eat a light bulb.
		And you're here for more than that.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, I've done a number of strange things throughout my career.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, have you encountered things in your career that you could not explain?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's all sorts of strange coincidences.
		There's one that perhaps is just a coincidence, perhaps.
		And I'm not terribly proud about this, but I'll make this rather quick here.
		I have done a lot of entertaining through the years, traditional magic walk around at corporate events.
		And it's a challenge, especially in New York here, because I will go in to an event and I'll have a deck of cards in my hand.
		I'll walk up to a group of people, corporate event, and say, good evening.
		I'm Todd Robbins.
		I've been inviting you to add a little fun to the evening.
		Could I do something for you?
		And they'll look at you and go, no.
		And I will say, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to do something anyway.
		And if you don't like it, I'll refund your misery.
		This one event was many, many years ago.
		It was for a financial firm.
		I don't want to mention which one.
		It was for a financial firm, and I knew I should be in trouble when I walked into the room and there were 300 men and 20 women.
unidentified		And these guys were all bros.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		They were smoking cigars because part of the entertainment at this holiday event was they had a cigar roller and they're smoking their cigars and they're talking and they're just jocks.
		And I go up to a group and I say, good evening, I'm Todd Robinson.
		Bit of idea to add a little magical evening.
		May I do something for you?
		And one of the guys, the alpha male of this group, said, yeah.
		And he grabbed the deck out of my hands.
		He said, yeah, I want to see a card, Trick.
		Here, Jimmy.
		And he turned to his friend.
		He said, take a card.
		And Jimmy took a card.
		He said, show it to everyone, but don't show it to this.
		And I won't say what the name he called me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not a nice name.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It was Part of the anatomy, let's put it that way.
		And he said, This guy.
		And so he showed the card around and he said, put it back on the deck.
		And he shuffled the deck and he shoved it back in my hand.
		He said, Now find his card.
		And again, used a different little phrase.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
unidentified		And I was like, what the heck was going on?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Who are these people?
		And I'd like to say that he was unusual, but they were all like that.
		Later on in the evening, I was doing a little demonstration of an old street con called Fast and Loose.
		It's the endless chain.
		And I preface it by starting off by saying, this is a scam, it's a con, it's a game you can't win.
		And let me show you how it's done.
		And I would lay it out there, and I would throw money down and say, give it a try.
		And they would lose.
		And I would let the money, I would throw down $20, and I'd throw down another $20.
		And I'd show them and make it simpler for them to win.
		And they'd still lose and still lose and still lose and still lose until I get to the end and reiterate the theme of it, which is, this is a scam, it's a cons game, you can't win.
		As soon as I finished the demonstration, a guy came up to me and said, you know, I can beat you at that.
		And I said, well, no, I guess you didn't hear that it's a scam, it's a cons game, you can't win.
		And he goes, oh, you're chicken.
		Now, again, he didn't say chicken.
		He used a stronger phrase.
unidentified		Okay.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And I looked at him like, what?
		And I just said, well, okay.
		You got any money?
		And we played for about 10 minutes, and I beat him out of $150.
		At the end of it, I threw it back at him and I said, it's a scam.
		It's a con.
		It's a game.
		You can't win.
		Three hours this went on.
		I was engaged for three hours to do this stuff.
		And it was a torturous affair from beginning to end.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All little kings of the world, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, so much so that when I walked out of there, I had but one very dark thought on my mind, which is if I woke up the next day and found out that everyone there was dead, it wouldn't bother me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now that's a rough audience.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a rough audience, yes.
		And here's the quirky little thing.
		This is sort of like what we do on True Nightmares, a strange tale that has an ironic twist to it.
		All the guys in that room were working at their little cubicles there in their office at the top of the World Trade Center about nine months later.
unidentified		And all those guys are now dead.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When you found that out, after having had that thought, it must have troubled you some.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It gave me pause, to say the least.
		It made me wonder, and I don't wish harm to anyone.
		And, you know, that's just a strange, strange coincidence.
		You know, you talk about dark matter.
		That's about as dark as it gets.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pretty dark matter, all right.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Don't mess with me, Art, because I'm a very powerful man.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, True Nightmares.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have not watched What's It All About?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, Investigation Discovery is one of the Discovery channels, one of the networks of Discovery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And it features true crime.
		And they wanted to do with something a little bit different, something along the lines of The Twilight Zone, or Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
		And so I am the host.
		I am on camera introducing the stories, and the stories are all true.
		In each episode, we do three stories.
		And they're all about murder and mayhem, very quirky, that have an ironic twist to them.
		And the fun thing about it, the darkly fun thing, is you'll see a scene in which a man and woman are sitting there, and they get into an argument.
		She picks up a knife and is going to stab them.
		And the camera pulls back from the table they're sitting at.
		And at the other side of the table, eating a salad is me.
		And I'll look up at the camera and say, and this is where things took an ugly turn.
		So it has this very dark, wry humor about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wry humor.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		That hearkens back to people like Alfred Hitchcock.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And again, you need that humor, don't you, when you're doing this kind of very dark stuff.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		And the thing about it is people run to investigationdiscovery.com to find out more about these stories because they think they can't possibly be true.
		And then they Google them and find out they are true.
		And we did six episodes.
		This was our sort of our test season there, our premiere.
		The episodes have all aired.
		They do show up on Investigation Discovery.
		They are on Investigation Discovery on Demand if you have that as part of your cable service.
		Or you can go to InvestigationDiscovery.com and go to TrueNightmares and they have full episodes there.
		And the stories are wild.
		There's some things about serial killers.
		There's some things about this quirky fate.
		There was one story that happened a number of years ago about a woman who went for a lovely day at a community pool.
		And she didn't swim very well, but she saw the kids going down the slide.
		And the water was very murky that day.
		There was a problem with the filtration system.
		It was safe, but it was all, it was cloudy.
		And it was one of these perfect storms of everything coming together in a strange way.
		Then there was very dark results.
		She went down the slide, went into the deep end there, and she drowned.
		And what people don't realize is when people drown, they usually don't flail about saying, help me, help me.
		They just go under the water and they kind of submit to it and they drown.
		And she sunk to the bottom.
		And because of the cloudiness in the water, her body was in the pool for three days and no one noticed.
		The pool was open for three days.
		Kids swimming back and forth.
		Families cavorting in the water.
		People having a great time.
		And there was a corpse in the deep end.
		Finally, after three days, again, quirkiness is that some kids broke in to the pool.
		They climbed over the fence to take a midnight swim.
		And they were swimming around.
		And by that time, her insides had bloated.
		There was gas.
		And her body floated to the top.
		And they were swimming around.
		they bumped into something.
		And when they realized what it was, well, let me put it to you this way: they're not going to be breaking in and swimming in pools ever again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, a lot of these things are like you're eating a light bulb.
		You can't unhear that.
		Now, the range of comments is astounding.
		Astounding.
unidentified		Worst thing you ever did, Art, turning off your show, first time ever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		WTF.
		Then that's awesome.
		Radio Gold.
		Oh, my God.
		That's so not okay.
		And, you know, it goes on and on and on.
unidentified		It's either Radio Gold, God, that was great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or, you know, I'm going to turn you off and too late, buddy.
		You can't unhear that.
		Or if you go to the website, you can't unsee it once you've seen it.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it's what you said about pickles early on, you know, at the top of the show.
		It said, you know, if you tune in tomorrow night, and, you know, there'll be something different.
		I guarantee it's an ever-changing landscape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's for sure.
		That's what we do here.
		So why do you like the dark and the mysterious and the stuff that you can't ever unsee or unhear?
		Why?
unidentified		Well, because it's, you know, you were talking about this earlier.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's things, when things become homogenized, it just loses such character.
		And where the character comes from is really the darkness, the strange, the unusual things that happen.
		And this is, I think, is defining.
		As a matter of fact, one of the things I'm working on right now is another series, which is going to be sort of a travelogue of me going around and telling the stories about locales all across the country that these are the stories that the Chamber of Commerce don't want told about the history of places.
		But they're the ones that really define the terrible things that have happened there.
		And again, the fact that we've overcome these and survived says a lot about the human nature.
		And we become, you know, it's the whole thing about that, which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
		We learn from these.
		We grow from these.
		It's not our successes.
		It's not our triumphs.
unidentified		It's the tragedies.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It is the disasters.
		These are the things that are fascinating.
		And people are, you know, you see it every time you drive down a highway and there's a long line of people because there's an accident.
		And people just want to take a look.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
		They want to see it.
		I know, I know.
		They don't admit it, but yes, they want to see it.
		Now, I want to bring this up, Todd, because Discovery used to be a really straight-lace network.
		And it was almost like, you know, a size channel.
		You see it on Discovery.
		It's got to be true.
		Discovery, in recent years, very recent years, has turned to horror attainment.
		Right?
		But you're right.
		You're absolutely right.
		And the people out there listening to me know it right now.
		You can't turn away from it, can you?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you can, but I mean, the truth is that most people decry it but watch it.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, there's darkness in us all.
		And if you acknowledge that, Carl Jung said that the best way to understand the darkness of others is to come to grips with the darkness in yourself.
		And I think if you understand it's there, that's the best way of dealing with it.
		So you don't go down the road of these dark people that we chronicle in true nightmares and that you see doing awful things all around us.
		It just reminds us that we all have that potential and we should celebrate the fact that we haven't gone down that road and we haven't made those choices.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you fairly sure that that's the effect that it has, that it doesn't cause people to, I don't know, go off the deep end?
		We live in a pretty weird society these days.
		I wonder how many people watch something like that and then emulate.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think that's the case.
		When you look in the profile of people who are doing dark things, there's usually a great deal of repression there.
		There's a great deal of sitting on top of all this and feeling that the world has wronged them.
		And so therefore they grab a gun and go off and do something very, very dark and awful to their fellow man.
unidentified		They do.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Whereas if you have a little bit of a release valve by watching this stuff and knowing that you would never want to go down that route, it maintains sanity as opposed to encouraging insanity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, I hope that's right.
		But it seems like we're facing an increasing amount of this in society right now.
		Really crazy stuff.
		Or, I don't know.
		The media just chooses to cover more of it, but now there's more of it going on, I'm pretty convinced.
unidentified		How about you?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a tough thing.
		You know, there's so many changes in our world, and people find change so threatening that they want to, many people want to revert to fundamentalism in many flavors.
		And that's fine.
unidentified		That's fine.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		If that's what you want, you have that freedom.
		But when that festers and becomes the desire to destroy those which are different from you, that's when you run into the real problems.
		And that's what we see bubbling up because there have been people who have made a great deal of profit by spouting hate.
		And that's a whole Different thing than what we're doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you say, apparently, that there is no such thing as the truth.
		Now, when you make that statement, what do you mean?
		No such thing as the truth?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, when you hear someone say the truth is, or the tell, and let me tell you the truth, I find more often than not, what you're getting is one of two things that have been mislabeled as truth.
		You either get fact or you get opinion, which is people's reaction to having experienced fact, their interpretation of what fact is.
		And fact doesn't require any help from anyone else.
		The facts are facts, and they stand alone.
		And opinion is, like I say, people will try to put more weight behind it by saying it's the truth.
		And so, like I say, when someone says this is what the truth is, chances are you're hearing either fact being presented or opinion.
		And now, having said this, the question is whether it is fact or opinion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Having said all we've said, is there anything you can think of that truly frightens you?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		Really?
		Yeah, the IRS.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's pretty scary.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there are.
		Power is really frightening.
		There are people out there that will use fear and they will use influence and they will use whatever they can to manipulate.
		And those are the things that frighten me.
		And we see so much of it going on in the political realm these days.
		And people that just, you, I, Let's bring out the real candidates for the presidency.
		Come on.
		Okay, enough of the joke.
unidentified		Let's find, let's bring out the real candidates.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and how did that go over?
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, people, you know, they laughed about that, but it's kind of sad that, you know, it's not about leading a country.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's more about appealing to people to get the vote, enough votes to get in office.
unidentified		All right.
		Hold about.
		All right.
		Hold it right there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We've got a quick break.
		Presidency is an interesting topic.
		I'm Mark Bell.
		This is Midnight in the Desert.
		Join us as you will.
unidentified		Welcome to the National Anthem.
		This is Midnight in the Desert.
		To call the show.
		If you're East of Midnight, call 1952.
		Call Art.
		If you're West of Midnight, call 1952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, dope, everybody.
		Here it comes the mini talk and then underway we go.
		If you would like to uh if you'd like to speak to my guest and ask a question, Todd Robbins.
		Um the national number, once again, is 952-225-5278.
		That's 952-CallART.
		Or, of course, you can call on Skype at MITD51 in North America and MITD55 in the rest of the world.
		And I guess I just, I have one more question, then we'll go to the phones for Todd, I promise.
		And that is this, Todd.
		You said that, well, you've attended seances, right?
		And so have you ever seen a seance that you regard as legit?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, actually.
unidentified		Really?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and it was an amazing phenomenon.
		On my 30th birthday, I threw a party.
		I wanted to play around with some table tipping, which is sort of like a large version of a Ouija board.
		And so I was going to gather some people together and just put them around a table and put them in the right mood and see what we'd come up with.
		And the word got out, and before I knew it, I had 50 people who wanted to come.
		So I rented a room and set up all these tables.
		And I just put everyone in the right mood, candlelight the whole thing, and extinguished the candles one by one as I was telling them what to expect and what could happen.
		And it was an amazing phenomenon.
		What people experienced.
		The tables moved, people saw things, and people had imagery come to them of dead loved ones.
		And it was a very, very interesting and powerful experience that had no trickery, no deception to it whatsoever, other than what was going on in the hearts and minds of the people there.
		And people were still talking about it, and that was almost 30 years ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How do you come out of something real like that without being a very changed person?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think you do come out of it.
		I think you are changed.
		That's the great thing about it.
		It just, again, it ties back to the mystery of what was going on in that room.
		And I don't really have answers for that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, look, I would like to let some people ask questions, so let's do it.
		You're on the air with Todd Robbins.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		Good evening, Art.
		I just wanted to say welcome back.
		We missed you.
unidentified		Thank you.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		You're welcome.
		And also, I have two questions for Todd.
		Todd, first of all, I live here in the Bronx, New York.
		My name is John.
		And I was just wondering, first of all, where do you appear generally?
		I mean, do you have shows that you go on regularly in the city?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		I had a show we did off Broadway called Play Dead.
		And that closed down, and we've toured that around.
		We're actually going to be opening that in Las Vegas.
		But in New York, I'm one of the regular performers and actually one of the producers of New York's longest-running magic show called Monday Night Magic.
		It is every Monday night at the Players' Theater in Greenwich Village.
		You can find out more information at MondaynightMagic.com.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		All right, great, great.
		Now, one other thing, I was with the NYPD for about 25 years, and I do agree with what you said regarding people having macabre part of their, you know, internally, definitely inside them, because I've been to enough accident scenes and everything else where people just want to look and see everything that's going on.
		How horrific it looks.
		But the other question I had for you was, basically, do you have any, do you ever get, just in general, stomach issues in general?
		Because I know I had food poisoning a few months ago.
		And, I mean, you're eating glass and you don't get sick from it.
unidentified		Is there anything else?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Food poisoning, you'd think you're going to die.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's that.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, when it's, yeah, food poisoning.
		And I've had a few strange things happen, but nothing related to the glass, remarkably.
		Because part of it is I have to stay on top of it and keep everything healthy down there as much as possible.
		So I've been very fortunate.
john in new york ▲ ● ▼		Ah, that's great.
		Well, thanks so much, and keep up the great stuff.
		I mean, you made me cringe with the chewing on the glass plate, too, so it's definitely worth it.
unidentified		Totally.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But the fact of the matter is, you can do this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And at home, you cannot do this.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Folks, and that's the big one.
		I always worry, and I'm sure you must too, Todd, that somebody will try it at home.
		And even though what you do is real, people have to understand that if they try it, well, they could do it wrong.
		Could they die?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, it's similar to watching Nick Walinda walk on a wire across a canyon.
		If you try that, you're going to die.
		If you watch someone do a triple somersault, or any dangerous stunt, it is a stunt that I know how to do.
		And if you try it, you could end up hurting yourself severely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I do appreciate the fact that what you do, which you call sideshow, is real.
		In other words, it's not trickery.
		Even though it's bizarre, maybe hard to watch.
		You'll something you remember for all the rest of your life.
		It is real.
		So it's not Hokem.
		It's not baloney.
		You've really done something that has, in some way, probably changed somebody's life.
		All right, let's go here, I think, to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, maybe.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Hey, Art, this is Eric from Clements, North Carolina.
		Okay.
		Just bedroom community of.
		Comes off that exchange.
		Listen to you on my tune-in radio app.
		And I'd like to say good evening to my friends at the Midnight Fans Forum.
		They're all chatting away right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a way to do a plug.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By the way, if I may, please, as you listened to that light bulb being eaten here on the air, how did it hit you?
unidentified		Like I was, I'm pretty good at visualizing.
		I could actually see him.
		Yeah, it made me cringe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		All right.
		So even on the radio, I was wondering, you know, I thought bad enough to actually see it, but to hear it, well, that's now I realize that's also bad.
		Anyway, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		I had married into a showbiz family.
		My wife's grandfather was the past president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, so Charles Roscam.
		And one of my best friends growing up was a guy who had been, he traveled with the, what was it, the amazing Keith and Jeannie.
		And they were actually one of the top ten traveling magic acts.
		And as I got to know him, he would never tell me how the trick was done.
		But if I figured it out, he'd say, yeah, you're kind of close.
		And it just occurred to me that even if you know how it's done, it's still magic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but you know, again, I want to draw the line.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is not magic, meaning there's no trick here.
unidentified		No, this is like a total, like the blockhead, you know, like the blockhead act and the geek and all that.
		Yeah, the real physical thing meant to make you cringe.
		I have a lot of respect for what he does because that's a whole art form in its own right.
		Did you appear for the, yeah, Stodd, did you appear in an episode of X-Files years ago as a blockhead?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, that was my friend Jim Rose, who had a troupe that performed the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		They performed the Lollapalooza tour and opened for rock and roll bands.
unidentified		They did OzFest years ago.
unidentified		That's where we did it down in Charlotte.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You'll find sideshow in rock and roll venues these days more often than not.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		They're often paired with burlesque performers and things like that, but that's usually where you'll find sideshow troops.
unidentified		Well, there were so many attractions.
		I'll put it that way.
		Attractions just walking around the general crowd.
		I've got some piercings and some illustrations, but that's all some walking around Ossets.
		I didn't have to pay admission to the true university.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's a challenge to put people on stage that are stranger than the ones that are watching it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I can imagine.
		All right, I forgot to give out a number, by the way.
		We do have a first-time caller line.
		I'm trying to give that out now every show.
		So if you're a first-time caller to the show, it's Area Code 775-285-5800.
		775-285-5800.
		And If you can't get through there, you can try area code 575-208-7787.
		I've got a lot of lines.
		I might as well make use of them.
		Let's go to, I think, West Virginia.
unidentified		Howdy.
		Hi, this is Kevin.
		I have a real quick story to share, and then a question for your guest.
		Sorry?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		This is back whenever I was about 10 years old.
		We were at a party for a friend, and my cousin was with me.
		He was about 19.
		And they had a magician doing card tricks, you know, standard pick a card, that kind of stuff.
		And whenever he came to us, he didn't have us pick a card.
		He just kind of said, think about a card, right?
		So I thought, oh, pick something weird, like, you know, four spades, something not very common, you know, not ace of spades or whatever.
		I didn't know what my cousin picked, and, you know, he shuffled, and he's talking, and, you know, going through all that.
		And then he hands us each a card, and he says, turn them over at the same time.
		I turn mine over, and it's, you know, it's the card I thought of.
		And my cousin, when I see his, I'm just thinking, like, that can't be real.
		Because it was the information card that they handed out on, like, the bicycle decks.
		You know, the little all that.
		And I thought that was just bizarre.
		And I can't think of how that could have been a trick.
		We never touched the card.
		He never asked us anything besides think of a card.
		And my question is, have you ever encountered something like that where you can't even conceive of a trick?
		Like, it just has to be something weird?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's a card guy in Sweden named Leonard Green, who worked as a night watchman.
		He's a doctor.
		And he worked at a night watchman in an insane asylum and would be there all night long with all the patients having been medicated.
		He had nothing to do except watch the monitors, making sure nothing was happening.
		And he would spend six hours a day or night practicing card tricks.
		And he can do things.
		He does a thing called the laser count, which he will take a little laser pointer and put a little spot on the table, and he will deal cards into that little spot, and they will vanish right before your eyes.
		It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That sounds like somebody in distress.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that...
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		He'll be fine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's go outside the country to Daniel.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Daniel.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		Hey, I'm in London at the moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		London at the moment, okay.
unidentified		Yeah, just away from my bus and having jacket on the way to work.
		Anyway, just a quick one.
		I'm getting really annoyed with the fact that people are still falling for the cup and ball trip in London with money.
		So I was just wondering if you knew any way to psychologically kind of trick them into losing.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you can't win those kind of con games because it looks like one guy doing it, but chances are there's a whole crew.
		So even if you know what they're doing and you pick the right P, you find where the P is under the shell, chances are you're going to walk, if you do walk away with money, you're going to walk around the corner and you're going to be roughed up.
		And they will end up taking your money back because you just can't win at those games.
		The best way is to walk away.
		It's also tough because you see people playing them and you know they're a scam and you want to enlighten them.
		But you really can't.
		You have to be very, very careful because I've seen people try to, you know, smarten up people that are playing these games and get punched by the guy who's about to lose his money saying, you know, I know what I'm doing.
		Get the hell out of here.
		Forgive the language there.
		And so it's a no-win situation.
		The best thing you can do is just find a local cop and say, look what's going on and try to chase them off and hopefully they'll go away.
unidentified		That's exactly pretty much what most people do.
		One of my great entertainers at the moment is Darren Brown.
		And I was just wondering what you think thought of some of his stuff at the moment.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, I like Darren.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Darren's a wonderful entertainer.
unidentified		And by the way, in his current show, he's eating glass.
unidentified		And you'll never guess who taught him how to do that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You did.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
		Because Darren has done it in the past on a little one-off basis, but on a regular basis, in the show.
		So we had another lovely Skype session in which we talked about all that goes into it.
		And he's a wonderful, wonderful guy, wonderful performer, and just a great fellow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Does it take a long time, Caller, thank you, to learn how to safely, if there is such a word, even eat glass?
unidentified		It was something I kind of worked up.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It was a step-by-step thing.
		Again, I'm not instructing anyone how to do this, but I kind of got used to biting a little piece of glass, chewing it up, and then spitting it out, and then eventually working up, getting more aware of what was going on, and then going into the swallowing of the glass.
		So it took a little while, but really, once you learn how to do it, you just do it.
		It's not like sword swallowing takes a long time to learn because you have to really train your body and have proper alignment.
		And all that takes a great deal of training.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you said that you can put pressure on more pressure than you think on skin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But when you're swallowing a sword, you are sliding by skin with something sharp, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, the thing about it is the swords usually are not sharp, but they are solid.
		And you have to overcome the gag reflex and you have to have proper alignment and just know what you're doing because there's so many things you can puncture down there.
		Yeah, it's just there's, it is with...
		Along the lines of glass hitting, it is the most dangerous thing to do.
		The thing about it is that if you do it and you're having trouble, you can stop.
		Whereas once you swallow the glass, you don't have that option any longer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's a rumor that Anton LeVay, founder of the Church of Satan, and I've had somebody on from that church, has sent you a fan letter?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I did an instructional video.
		There was so much bad information out there about sideshow stunts that I, many, many years ago, I did a video clearing up some of the misconceptions and instructing in some of the simpler of the sideshow skills and also giving a little background about the history and all that.
		And I was approached by a guy who wanted to do, had some questions about a sideshow stunt that I had originated.
		And he was asking permission to do it.
		And he said, can I do anything in trade?
		I am a performer.
		I really haven't originated anything, but maybe there's something else in my life that I can be of benefit to you.
		I do this.
		I run a haunted house.
		And I'm also a deacon in the regional director of the Church of Satan.
		And I go, oh, stop, stop right there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, stop right there.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Really?
		And he goes, yeah.
		And he said, oh, by the way, Dr. LeVay is a big fan of yours.
		I go, what?
		He said, I visit him every year, and I always like to bring him a little gift.
		And last year, I gave him your video.
		And he watched it, and it reminded him of his days working in the carnival because he had that background.
		And he liked it so much, he sent me this lovely note.
		I said, can I get that?
		I was, sure.
		And it was just, it was thanking him and saying lovely things about what I did and how much he admired it and how much it reminded him of the days of his youth when he worked in the carnival.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe he liked, you know, the, I don't know how to put this, the mood that you put people in as they watched you devour blacks.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		That might be part of it.
		He, you know, people that work in the carnival and sideshows and places like that, there's a little phrase called with it, which means you're with it for it and never against it.
		And once you get involved, it's very much like being in the military.
		Anyone who's ever been in the military, whether they're, you know, World War II or any of the other conflicts or even if they never went to war, there's a bond, a bond with all people in the military.
		And it's the same thing with the carnival, that once you are of that community, you always have a bond with anyone else that is part of that.
		So I think he saw that in me, and it reminded him of his days, and there was that.
		And I had an invitation to meet him, but I didn't get a chance to get out to San Francisco in time, and he had passed away.
unidentified		Oh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's go to El Segundo.
		Is that right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Ah, yes.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Lavish El Segundo.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello?
		El Segundo.
		Hello.
		Going once.
		Going twice.
		Gone with the wind.
		Wilmington, North Carolina, your turn.
unidentified		Hello, Art Bella.
		Yes.
		All right.
		I've listened to you for a long time, listened to other show, but I never called before.
		Yes, sir.
		Let me give a shout out to the end of the internet website.
		I'm user Philip TV.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The end of the internet website?
unidentified		Yeah, the secret website.
		Okay.
		And the guest was talking about how he swallows blast and gets it to his throat.
		But coming to the other end, do you have a technique for that?
		Or don't you worry about getting cut or something?
		Or what do you do?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess no more than going through.
		I mean, think of it.
		It goes through your whole intestinal tract, right?
unidentified		You don't feel it going through your body or anything?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that is a good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you, I mean, have you spent days ever in bed, just with clutching your stomach, going, how?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, like I say, one light bulb isn't really a problem, but when you end up doing it, when I was doing multiple light bulbs on Coney Island, it would get a little grumbly.
		It would get a little, there would be a little irritation.
		But, you know, it's just bumping around down there, and there's a lot of it.
		But it all happy ending.
		Yeah?
		Yeah.
		Basically, I have no porcelain left on my toilet bowl.
		It's been sort of saddled out of the way.
		We'll just leave it at that.
		There's an image for you.
unidentified		All right.
		Thanks.
		I love you, Art.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much for the call.
		Take care.
		That's another image that I just won't lose soon.
		Well, there you go.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm a gibber.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What can I say?
		Yeah.
		Do you actually ever go to these so-called seances, the ones that are not the real McCoy, and you've articulated, you've seen the real McCoy, which is also something, by the way, and bust them?
		You know, actually.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, no, because again, it's, oh, I'm going to get into trouble.
		But there's, you know, so much of the people that are out there these days, they aren't doing physical phenomenon as they did in the old days.
		You don't see ectoplasm flowing forth.
		You don't see tables floating through the air.
		You don't see ghosts walking around.
		You get message services, which is people getting a message from the dead and bringing it forth for the living.
		And that's the majority of the stuff that you're going to see these days.
		And with that, you kind of wonder whether they're really feeling that they are getting something or if they're just con artists that are just saying things that people want to hear.
unidentified		Exactly.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And even the ones that are blatant frauds, the people that are sitting there are so happy to hear what they're saying.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I know.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		There's no win of standing there and saying this is fake.
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Because they don't want to hear that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do get it.
		I really do get it.
		Even if it's fake, if it's comforting to that person.
		Yeah, that's what they want.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And that's the essence of con artistry is that you have to understand not only what people will believe, but what they want to believe.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And then feed that to them, and that's where you can make a profit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
		I get it.
		Let's go to Honolulu, Hawaii.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
		Hi.
		This is Nisa from Dino's Group, Art Bell into the Night.
		Welcome to the program.
		I'm really enjoying the show.
		And Ms. Robins, I wanted to know, you know, I freak out just swallowing a fishbone.
		And here you are shooting all these glass bits and whatnot.
		What happens to your tongue when you're eating?
		I mean, you know, when we eat, the tongue kind of like mingles with the food and stuff like that.
		And I just can't wrap my mind around all those bits.
		How do you not get it shredded?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, that's the great thing about it.
		The tongue is very, very rubbery.
		And, you know, one little piece of glass can actually get lodged.
		But the irony of it is that when you have a big pile of glass on your tongue, it kind of holds together in such a way that it doesn't cut up the surface there because there is enough give to it.
		And then when I drink the water, I wash it all down, and it all flushes very quickly.
unidentified		And so that causes, there's no real problem there.
		Wow.
		I'll never see the same again.
		It's amazing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is amazing.
		And this is not, again, a trick.
		You know, people look at this, and I didn't believe it.
		When I was told that he ate light bulbs, I just didn't believe it.
		And now he has eaten more light bulbs than anybody in the world.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Actually, Rip, believe it or not, for having done that.
unidentified		Are you really?
		Yeah.
		Wow.
		Okay, since he ate all those light bulbs, could you remember the very first one that you successfully ate?
		Now, you know?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Your first one.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Again, I was being taught by a guy who showed me, he broke a light bulb, he took a little piece of glass, he said, just take this and bite it, chew into it, and spit it out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why not begin with a little night light, you know?
unidentified		Yeah, he can say Christmas tea lights.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You know, they're like little appetizers.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It was that, and then a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more until I was up to doing what I'm doing now.
unidentified		And appetizer, man.
		I'm still cringing, but thank you for the experience.
		Thanks, Arch.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you're very welcome.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		My old friend Melvin Burkhart, that 94-year-old, he used to, as he was hammering a nail into his nose, says, you know, he'd beat working for a living.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, does it really?
unidentified		I mean, hammering a nail into your nose.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		He also would say it's a hard way to make an easy living.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, you really can't afford to be distracted when you're doing that, right?
unidentified		No.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, you do need a great deal of concentration.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they actually tell me how this is done.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You take a nail and hold it where on your nose, please.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Right into the nostril, straight back, not up, not down, but straight back.
unidentified		Straight.
		Really?
		That can't be.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		If you just Google me, chances are you'll see me with a nail in my nose.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, wait a minute.
		Hold on here.
		If I just take the end of a pen, ugly as that may seem, and I hold that straight into my nose, there's no way.
		If I drive a nail in there, it's going to be air passage.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's how you breathe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, come on.
unidentified		Straight back in the top of your throat.
unidentified		Well, I can see that if it's going up.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, it's actually straight back.
unidentified		Straight back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't seem like that would be possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then they, what, hammer it with a hammer?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's technique for moving it, you know, so that when you do it, you're not getting the full force of the blow of the hammer.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		That's the one little trick, little finesse of the thing, but it's very effective.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so the nail is still going back there.
unidentified		Mm-hmm.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And when it gets the back of the throat, you stop.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Because if you keep going, you go into the brain, and that would be a bad thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't anybody out there do any of this stuff?
unidentified		No.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		This is Coney Island.
		If people go to ConeyIsland.com, they'll see where the sideshow school is there, and they have lessons and will teach people how to do things.
		Not the glass eating, but the blockhead and sword swallowing and fire eating and things like that.
		It's the only real place you can learn in a classroom setting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain fire eating?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		What was that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain fire eating?
		That's another one.
		All right.
		Hold on, hold on.
		We're just a break.
		Feel free to join us, folks.
		Fire eating's up next.
		952 call art or Skype.
unidentified		North America or outside North America, up to the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Feel free to join in.
		A nail.
		A nail in the nose.
		Not for me.
unidentified		Not for me.
		Dove in the door.
		We've got to get right back to where we've got a dorm.
		This is Midnight in the Desert to Coke the Show.
		If you're East of Midnight, call 1-952-Call Art.
		If you're West of Midnight, call 1-952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the number.
		Either way, Todd Robbins is my guest.
		He, among other things, eats light bulbs.
		Lots and lots and lots of light bulbs.
		And let me give out the other numbers.
		Our first time caller line, if you would like to avail yourself of that, if you've never called the show, area code 775-285-5800.
		That's 775-285-5800.
		I guess I need to get to Ross, right, and have him do some more for me because I don't do them that quickly.
		And then, of course, our Roswell line, if you want to come through the Roswell dimension, that would be your code 575-208-7787.
		And the respect that I have for Todd is that he's not, how can I put it?
		He's not doing tricks.
		You know, I understand what tricks are.
		They're not real.
		What Todd does is real.
		It's kind of like...
		As a matter of fact, he said he was in Ripley's, believe it or not.
		And Todd, I am a big fan of con movies.
		There is the short con, there is the long con.
		These people doing short cons frequently get beat up, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you have to be very careful when doing that kind of thing.
		You know, the great con artists, and I use great, not really as admiration, but as fascination, work on such a level, like Bernard Madoff, that people, you know, fight to give them their money, and then when they take it from their victims, the victims thank them for taking their money.
		It's amazing.
		But, you know, there are cons that go on, small cons, that people don't even realize a crime has happened.
		There's a thing called the bottle drop, which happens.
		I guarantee it was happening tonight in New York City, in which you're walking along and someone bumps into you and they drop a plastic bag and you hear glass break and you kind of go on your way and they grab you and go, you know, you did that on purpose.
		You knocked that out of my hand.
		That was a $35 bottle of scotch that I was taking to a friend's party, birthday party, and you knocked it out of my hand.
		I'm going to call the cop and you go, oh, I'm sorry, here.
		And you hand them money and you go on your way and you realize you've been conned.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, today they're updating it to things like, hi, I'm from Microsoft.
		And you know, the last time your computer booted up, we noticed that you had a terrible virus.
		And then this comes from India, by the way, Todd.
		And by the time they're done with you, you do have a virus if you follow their instructions.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's no longer your computer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's their computer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They actually own it until you pay up.
		It's horrible.
		Absolutely horrible.
		And people fall for it every day.
		Hello there.
		You're on here with Todd Robbins.
unidentified		Hey, Todd, how are you doing?
		Have you ever come across anything like this?
		I've seen videos on demonic magic where I don't know if you've seen Zendris videos on YouTube where these guys are doing magic that just can't be explained.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Demonic magic?
unidentified		Yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I'm not exactly clear.
		I mean, there is a kind of a dark form of magic called bizarre magic, which often affects people on a kind of a different level.
		It's not about polite applause so much.
		It is drop-jaw awe and often dread because they're doing some really, very dark things that are more shocking than really entertaining.
		So if that's what you're talking about, yeah, I do know of folks that do that kind of stuff.
		But demonic magic, I'm not quite familiar with that.
unidentified		So, Color, what are you talking about?
		Well, there's just certain things that they do that just can't be explained.
		I don't know.
		Cell phone in that bottle.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, yeah.
unidentified		I mean, that's a darn good trick.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Let's put it that way.
		And there's some really creative minds and magic, some young guys that are taking things and taking things like cell phones and bottles because everyone has a bottle of water and will do things where it is amazing because that's their job.
		But it is, at the end of the day, they're not affecting anyone's worldview on this.
		It is for entertainment purposes.
unidentified		When you eat the light bulbs, do you have a meal or a base that binds the glass before you do it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, what helps?
		What helps?
		I mean, you mentioned you have a special diet.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, that first year out in Coney Allen, I put on about 15 pounds because there was a little Italian restaurant around the corner, a family-owned place, that would deliver.
		And I would eat pasta almost every day for lunch.
		And it's part of the perils of doing glass eating is that you have a tendency to put on a lot of weight because of all the pasta and things that need to be eaten to the bottom.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not the light bulbs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Light bulbs have no weight to you.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, no.
unidentified		Roughage.
unidentified		How about neon bulbs?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you can, you have to be careful with like fluorescent bulbs like you'd find in office and things like that because the gas inside there is toxic.
		So it's the same glass as you'll find in an incandescent except that it's filled with that toxic, noxious gas.
		So you have to break it and they kind of let it air out before you buy into it.
		A couple of times I've done that.
unidentified		Does that help you, Cohen?
		Yeah, I had a guy, I ate a light bulb once, but it was lit.
		Do you ever do lit bulbs?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		No, as soon as you buy into it, it's going to go out.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		But you still have electricity flowing through there, and It can be a little, I like to make it shocking for the audience, not shocking for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I'll tell you a story.
		I'll tell you a story, Todd.
		And this is the truth.
		When I was pretty young, after I got into the Air Force, I went to work for a while as an electrician's apprentice.
		And I worked for this older guy, and I swear what I'm about to tell you is true.
		He was a kind of crusty old guy, and he could take two fingers, lick them, and put them across 110 volts and tell me, okay, that's 110, lick them again, put it on the next one, that's the 220.
		He could do that.
		And I said...
		And he said he could do it with 440 as well.
		And that's just creepy.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, I've known a couple of electricians or older guys.
		And there is an old act in the sideshow called the Electric Girl Act.
		And you sit someone in a chair and you shoot, use a high-frequency generator.
		It's high-voltage but low amp.
unidentified		Right.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And it causes skin effect, and you can light up neon tubes in the hands, and sparks jump from the fingertips and stuff like that.
		And I often would bring someone up from the audience and have, and they would, you know, someone would hold a coin, you touch it, and you get a big shock.
		And I got one guy up, and he just held it there, and it was arcing like crazy in his finger.
		And I turned to him and I said, you're an electrician, aren't you?
unidentified		And he goes, yep.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, this guy's coming up here, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, the thing about what this guy could do, though, Todd, is that it wasn't low current.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yo, I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is really high current stuff.
		Now, he's smart enough not to be taking it across his heart.
		You know, right finger, left finger, then you're probably dead because it's going across your heart.
		But he could do it with two fingers, something I would never even think about, not in a million years.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, it amazes me.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		They know enough about how to be grounded and everything so that the shock that that guy was getting, which would probably knock most people back on their butts, but he could take it, and he knew from the level of the sensation of how strong that current was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's right.
		Anyway, it turned me away from the whole idea of becoming an electrician.
		He said, you'll get to where you can do that.
		It's a lot easier than carrying around a voltmeter.
		I went, I don't know.
		I like voltmeters.
		All right.
		Ithaca, New York, I think you're on with Todd Robbins.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		Hi, Art.
		How are you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pretty well.
unidentified		Okay, go on, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, everybody asked me how I'm doing.
		So a little arthritis.
		The back is sore.
		You know, anyway, go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, Todd, I'm curious about something about history that maybe you know.
		That sometime in the, I think in the early 60s, there was a gentleman who had a kiosk on the sidewalk, not too far from Nathan's, but near Mermaid Avenue.
		And he would do magic tricks from there, and people would queue up and watch the tricks in the queue, but then eventually get to participate in one trick when their turn came.
		And this magician had an assistant who was a little songbird, not a parrot, but a little songbird.
		I don't know what kind.
		And this parrot would deliver props from shelves to the magician or people in the audience who were participating in the trick, and then would return the props to the shelves again when the trick was over.
		And sometimes the bird would pick a card out of a hand of cards to generate a random number used in the trick.
		And I'm wondering if you knew anything about this man or this bird or what kind of bird it was or the name of them.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I've heard about this performer and I don't know who it was.
		I'm sorry to say, but I have heard about this.
		I also heard that they would also do fortune-telling.
		That you would write a question, the bird would go and then bring back an answer for the question that you asked.
		And there are a number of people who have done trained bird acts like that.
		And it takes a great deal of patience.
		But when it's done and done right, I have an old friend who's an English ringing master named Norman Barrett who has, basically, it's like a dog act, which you'd see in a, except it's with budgies, it's with parakeets.
		And it's just amazing what he's gotten them to do just by training them and spending endless hours.
		So I don't know who that was offhand.
unidentified		Do you know what kind of bird it was?
		It could have been a cockatiel.
		Well, this is not a parrot.
		This was like a regular songbird.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
		Finches are pretty good, pretty smart in regard to, you can train them.
		But I couldn't say offhand.
		We actually, we did a show, as I mentioned, Play Dead, and it's ghost stories and stuff like that.
		And we're going to be doing it in Las Vegas, opening up sometime in the next year.
		And they want to expand a little bit.
		So we're talking with a guy who wants to train a vulture to do basically that same kind of act behind the bar so that when a guy needs some sort of thing, the vulture will jump down and bring him along the bar whatever he needs and then will jump back to its perch.
		So we'll see if that ends up being a reality or not.
unidentified		That's pretty cool.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Again, it's a trick, though, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		It's just, you know, animal behavior.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just animal behavior.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, just, you know, spending countless hours of you have to take, you find what the animal does and does well and what the animal likes to do and then mold that into some sort of a trick so it can be done on cue.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then I guess if you lose your animal, you lose your act, right?
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		But the good thing about it is as an animal is getting older, you usually bring in a younger animal, and that animal will watch the other animal work.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And emulate it?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		And emulate it, yeah, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
		So, where are you going to be?
		You said you're going to be in Las Vegas.
		When?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Well, it hasn't been set up, but it'll probably be sometime, probably sometime in the summer, early fall, we'll be opening.
		Again, the show is called Play Dead, and it's a lot of fun.
		If people go to my Facebook entertainer page, the Todd Robbins page there, I always post stuff over to my website, which is ToddRobbins.com, or follow me on Twitter, which is at Todd Robbins.
		They can find out more information about what I'm doing and where I'm doing it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		I can try and answer a Skype call here, but their microphone is on mute.
		So, Skype caller, if you want to say something, you're going to have to unmute your microphone.
		Go right down to the lower right-hand side of your taskbar, and there'll be a little speaker-like-looking thing there, and you can unmute it and talk.
		Otherwise, we're not going to be able to take your call.
		Giving you five seconds, four, three, two, one.
		Forget it.
		Not going to work.
		So, Todd, you're going to be in Vegas, you're doing television, you're still doing nightmares on investigation discovery.
		And I want to ask about this.
		How do you like television, doing TV?
		Is it fun to do?
		Because I did TV, and I must say I didn't much like it.
		Everything was hurry up, hurry up and get it done, that sort of thing.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, there's never enough time and enough money to do everything exactly the way it should be in television.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		But if you know what you're doing and you have a pretty good image and vision, you can get, you know, it's sort of if you can't love the one you want, you can.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, somebody else on Skype.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, it's Michael from New Jersey.
unidentified		How are you doing tonight?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doing fine, Michael.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What's up?
unidentified		I had a couple of questions for your guest.
unidentified		One is, has he ever said Macbeth inside a theater?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I've said Macbeth.
		I've whistled.
		I've said good luck to people just because that's the kind of guy I am.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		And my other question was, did you see the Jack Cassidy episode on Colombo where he played the great Santinity?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		That's a wonderful episode.
		And it was set in a place that was like the Magic Castle.
		It wasn't the Magic Castle itself, but it was set in a nightclub that was very similar.
		And that was a great one.
		And that was a lot of fun.
		And I believe one of the members of the Magic Castle, one of the early members, was a consultant on that and helped them script that.
		But I remember him doing that because he was just a wonderful actor.
		And it was perfect to play the role of this grand and glorious magician and murderer.
unidentified		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Colin.
		Thank you very much.
		Let's go to somebody who carries a handle of Danny.
		Hello, Danny.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
		Yeah, good morning, Art.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I wanted to ask about the magic in his show and how much magic is in there.
		And I'm sure he's a very physical person, but there must be an element of magic in his show.
		Nobody could do a show like that without a certain element of magic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When you say magic, do you mean magic tricks or do you mean magic magic?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are you talking about?
unidentified		No, I mean there's a certain element that all humans understand.
		There's a certain element of things we don't understand and things we can learn.
		And that's exactly what I mean.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, when I it depends.
		I try not to mix because I want people to appreciate when I'm doing the sideshow stuff that it is all real.
		It's all based on true ability.
		So I stick my hand in an animal trap.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I swallow swords.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		I eat fire, eat glass, hammer a nail into my nose, walk over broken bottles of my bare feet, and there's no trickery, there's no deception in any of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, last thing, just very quickly, I want to get it in because I did ask about it.
		That is eating fire.
		How do you do that?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		You put it in your mouth and you close the mouth and cut off the air.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you have it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then it goes out, right?
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, then it goes out.
		You deprive it of oxygen, and that's how you extinguish a torch.
		Don't do it because if you breathe in, you cauterize your lungs and you die.
		And that would be a bad thing.
		I don't encourage anyone to give it a try.
		But that's the basic principle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I've seen fire eaters eat fire and then pull it back out and it's still on fire.
todd robbins ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's a lot of finesse that you can do in terms of retaining the flame in the mouth, spitting fire.
		There's all sorts of things.
		But the basic extinguishing of flame in your mouth is about closing the mouth, cutting off the oxygen, and the fire goes out.
		And there's enough moisture in your mouth to keep the mouth from being barbecued for a few seconds.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Todd Robbins, thank you for being here.
		We'll do it again sometime.
		Incredible, incredible stuff.
		Thank you, Todd.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Art.
unidentified		Good night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's certainly a first for me.
unidentified		Good night in the desert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All those 45 time zones out there, I'm Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good night.
unidentified		I've been looking for the answers.
unidentified		All my life I felt you there.

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