path that led him to become the first person under the age of 21 to be given membership in the Academy of Magical Arts at the famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. He's a total sicko:he cajoled an innocent woman into some sort of deviant foot-worship ostensibly to verify that he was not using any sort of gaffe to execute his remarkably painful-looking schtick of prancing around and jumping up and down barefoot on a pile of broken beer bottles. The guy eats lightbulbs. It's no trick. He unscrews the thing for a common fixture and lets the audience pass it around, taking care to exterminate any nasty-ass bacteria that might have jumped on board before he devours it. There are pretentious idiots out there that call this sort of thing "performance art" and expect public funding for it, but Robbins is crazy enough to be honest in a crooked world and merely presumes to entertain. He does well. In many unenlightened corners of this world, he could easily be a cult leader like that Anthony Robbins guy of Werner Erhard. Swallowing cockroaches might conceivably acquire him to a devoted following right here, if the market crashes.

He has a fairly demented rant about trust that he runs down as he persuades his hapless litigable audience volunteer to hold the animal trap he jams his fingers into. It resonates. If there's one goddamn lesson to be learned from watching the X-Files, it is that trust is a very limited natural resource and we should be hyper-vigilant and overcautious in dispensing it, particularly in an election year.

Todd Robbins is the kind of lunatic we need, not merely as entertainment, but in the way of a role model of our youth. A man who derives his income by hammering nails into head with his own boot is vastly more important to the future of our society than the professional lampreys of Wall Street. Perspective and timing are the most essential assets of the coming weird times.

- - Alan Cabal