Performer delivers record-setting comedy
BRANDY MCDONNELL
Features Writer bmcdonnell@oklahoman.com
Matt Baker holds three Guinness World Records that he has reasonably high expectations of keeping for a while.
One is for most bowling balls kicked off his foot and caught on his forehead in 30 seconds. One is for doing the most leapfrogs in a minute while juggling three objects, and the third is for the fastest time juggling three objects while taking his clothes off.
“I pretty much came up with tricks that no one is
dumb enough to try, so I will be the record holder forever,” he said with a grin before a performance on Friday.
The stunt comedian is doing a variation on one of his record-setting
tricks during his shows at downtown Oklahoma City’s Festival of the Arts, where he is this year’s official street performer. He is performing three 30-minute shows a day in Bicentennial Park during the festival’s run through Sunday.
Since the festival is a family-friendly event, Baker is skipping the trick where he juggles while disrobing. But for festivalgoers who want to see someone kick a 7-pound, 6-ounce bowling ball in the air and land it neatly on his face, he is eager to oblige.
“Essentially, my show is like one giant dare,” Baker said with a laugh. “I’m trying to develop stuff that’s unique, that no one’s ever seen. The problem is I also do jokes, so the trick not only has to be interesting and entertaining to the audience but also has to have some comic value to it . ... It has to be a balance, so I come up with as much weird stuff as I can.”
Unusual tricks
Father and son John and Bennett Meyers, of Oklahoma City, watched as Baker unpacked a huge trunk. The Seattle-based performer sorted through a small drum, a fishing net, a set of clawed gardening tools and more.
“He’s got all kinds of stuff,” John Meyers said. “That’s a kite string.”
“No kite, though,” his son observed.
During his half-hour Friday lunch-hour show, Baker used a variety of props in unusual ways, while keeping up a nearconstant stream of selfdeprecating jokes and witty observations. Along with his signature bowling ball trick, he wowed the growing crowd with his lightning-fast manipulations of a Chinese yo-yo. He balanced a doll chair on a tall pole clenched between his teeth and tossed a doll with knives glued to its hand into the tiny seat.
He capped the performance by juggling three hats off his head, around his shoulders and up and down his arms, which Bennett said was his favorite trick.
“And the bowling ball trick was cool,” Bennett, 7, said. “I kind of liked the whole thing.”
Baker said he develops his array of ever-evolving routines through trial and error.
“My basement is just a dungeon of failed ideas,” he said with a laugh.
Sweet start
During his first Friday show, Baker even revisited his childhood roots with some hacky sack tricks.
“When I was 17, I got offered a job to tour Europe and play hacky sack by Snickers candy bars. They were doing a promotion using hacky sack, so they toured me around Ireland and the Czech Republic … and I just did demos at shopping malls and corporate events and schools,” said Baker, who grew up in Eugene, Oregon, not far from where the hacky sack was invented.
“That was my first job, and when I came back to the States, I was like, ‘I don’t ever want to do anything other than this for money.’ So, I had to figure out a way. … It’s been the only job I’ve ever had since I was 17 years old, so that’s 19 years.
“I know, you’d think my show would be better at this point,” he quipped.
He moved to Seattle and started doing shows on the street for donations while he developed his craft. Over the past two decades, he has performed in more than 17 different countries and appeared on the TV shows “Last Comic Standing,” “Tosh.0” and “America’s Got Talent.” He has played everything from comedy clubs and halftime shows to corporate events and street fairs.
“I actually don’t do a lot of this stuff anymore. I don’t do a lot of, like, street performance, so it’s kind of nice to come back and sort of get back to what I did in the very beginning. I mostly perform on cruise ships, so it’s more of a captive crowd. This makes you work a little harder and keep your edge a little bit more,” he said.
“What I like about it is it’s always different. The show is always sort of unique based off the crowd and circumstances in which you’re performing. It’s fun. It doesn’t get stale.”
Evolving routines
Baker isn’t a newcomer to Oklahoma City’s Festival of the Arts. He played the event in 2005 as part of the duo Brothers from Different Mothers, a comedy and juggling act he used to do with fellow performer Alex Zerbe.
“I come every 13 years here. That’s important. That’s every three leap years,” he joked. “The shows were great last time, and they had been trying to get me to come back for a few years now. And it just worked out with my tour schedule to come this week, and it’s been awesome. It’s a good city, good food, good people."
Jennifer Shoop, of Edmond, was buying lunch for her family when she heard one of her sons' names being called over a loudspeaker. With his grandma’s blessing, Isaac Shoop, 11, had volunteered to provide the dramatic drum roll for Baker while the performer kicked a stick horse — or "equestrian kebab" — into the air and caught it in his teeth.
“It was kind of cool because I got to bang on a drum,” the boy said after the show.
“It was hilarious. I loved it. It was great,” his mom added. “We love the arts festival … and this will be a fun event that we always remember.”
Hosting an official street performer is a longstanding tradition at the Festival of the Arts, which showcases a wide array of art.
“To me, it shows just a third-dimension of art. Some people think like, ‘Oh, it’s painting or it’s music.’ No, it’s anything from painting, music, juggling, magic, dance. There’s so many different types of art forms in the world that, to me, having a street performer here is just another way to really illustrate that. It’s all art” said Chase Kerby, the Arts Council Oklahoma City’s staff liaison to the festival’s performing artists.
“This is creative, and it takes drive and passion and talent, just like every art form does.”