“Stick a needle in my eye” always has been a disturbing saying, but bizarre magician Brian Brushwood takes it one step further.
Brushwood performed his masochistic act in the Union Ballroom Tuesday night, an event sponsored by the Union Program Council’s Pop Culture Committee.
The show started with a video of Brushwood’s first magic show in 1983, and went on to show clips of his magic and variety shows in college.
Before he started any of his tricks, Brushwood made the audience raise their right hands and swear to never try what they were about to see at home, unless a lot of money was involved.
He kicked the show off with his famous fire-eating act, which gave him a chance to promote one of his three books— ”A Professionals Guide to Fire Eating.”
Brushwood did not seem to have a problem ramming sharp objects into his head — he drove a nine inch nail into his nose with a hammer, then stuck a small nail in his left eye and pushed it around until it came out of his right eye.
“I specialize in the strange and unusual,” Brushwood said.
For his “Human Crazy Straw Act,” which he has performed on shows such as “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Brushwood wrapped himself in a flexible pipe with a small straw connected to one end. He connected one end of the pipe to a jug filled with water, milk, soda and orange juice, and stuck the other end up his nose and hung it out of his mouth where he let the liquid flow through the pipe, out of the straw in his mouth and into a cup.
Brushwood’s last trick of the night was an attempt to beat Harry Houdini’s record of escaping from a straight jacket in a little more than two minutes. He succeeded and was free from the jacket in less than two minutes.
Brushwood said he started performing bizarre magic tricks as a side act when he was in college five years ago, and has since then turned it into a full-time career and traveled to 45 states.
He said he never imagined he would be doing magic as a full time career, and actually had a job with a computer software company that offered him a raise before he quit.
“I knew if I was going to get into magic, it would have to be bizarre,” Brushwood said.
Colton Fontenot, an accounting junior and chair of the Pop Culture committee, said the committee likes to bring fun and unconventional performances to campus.
“Events like this are good for broadening everyone’s perspective,” Fontenot said.
Brushwood said he enjoyed the diversity of the crowd at the University.
“The crowd was great,” Brushwood said. “They got all my jokes, and they came back for the second half, which is always great.”