“Mad Chad” Taylor, professional chain saw juggler and actor in a Progressive commercial, performed in the SCCC/ATS Showcase Theater on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 23.

Taylor began the show by conspiring with students to create a louder, bigger entrance than his first, asking students to hold up signs he’d handed out, and even asking one to throw a bright red pair of women’s underwear at him. He then continued the show by juggling his skateboard and cellular phones.

One of his first questions after that was something along the lines of “So how many of you want to see me get hurt?” Half the students raised their hands. After juggling some pink balls, he moved onto larger objects. A black light, shot put and a raw egg, and then three 10,000 volt cattle prods.

“I thought it would’ve been funny if he would have dropped a chain saw, but you want to see him do good too,” student Tanner Thompson said.

Bringing Thompson and fellow students Megan Armstrong and Willy Blais onto the stage, he asked Thompson and Blais to hold onto a unicycle while Armstrong placed a carrot between her teeth.

Swinging the machete in his hands, he proved to the students that they were real before giving them to Armstrong to hold. Then he jumped up onto the unicycle with the help of Thompson and Blais and juggled the machete and an apple.

“I was scared, nervous to be up there,” Thompson said. “I didn’t know what he was going to have us do. Just holding a unicycle wasn’t too bad.”

As students chanted “Eat it! Eat it!”, Taylor took bites out of the apple while juggling the machetes. Soon, he moved on to the main event, what the students had been waiting for – the chain saws. From one chain saw and two balls, he moved up to two chain saws and one ball, and then finally three roaring chain saws were being tossed through the air to a silent, nervous crowd. Surviving the chain saws, he caught them to applause. Taylor called the students a “good crowd.”

In an interview after the show, Taylor recounted one of his most embarrassing experiences during a performance. “The worst thing that’s happened during my performance, well, I don’t know if it’s the worst, years ago I was performing on a cruise ship, and it’s totally gross, but I was on the stage, and I had food poisoning but I told them I could still do the show. I said, ‘The show must go on! Put me on!’ and I did the show. But 10 minutes into the show I had explosive diarrhea that I had to deal with. So I went running to the back. Backstage there was a restroom that I knew where it was. I said ‘Sorry guys!’, waved to the cruise director, and I ran back there. And the funniest part was my microphone was still on. The sound guy muted it so the crowd didn’t hear it, but he recorded it so he could have blackmail later.”

— Interviews by Crusader reporter Franklin Guillen.