Keep Austin Weird

As part of my trip to SXSWedu I'd been going out and seeing the sights of Austin with one of my coworkers.  We'd been to several restaurants, visited some historical sights, and people watched with the best of them.  We thought we were just about done with sight seeing.  Until I started checking out Yelp under Things you can't miss.  That led us to earlier tonight when Mindy and I exchanged the following texts:

So, do you want to get something to eat?

Not sure.  Not really hungry.

Ok - do we want to go out and see anything?

Museum of the Weird.

I'm in!

We headed back down to 6th Street and straight to the Museum of the Weird.  It certainly lived up to it's name.  A shop of curiosities - there were all kinds of shirts, banners, posters, games, and stuff that was just plain weird.  We quickly realized that the reason we were there was to take a tour of the truly weird museum at the back of the store.

We saw it all.  Shrunken heads, fossilized Big Foot prints, wax figures from famous horror movies. This place was just crazy.  As we ended our tour through the exhibits the final show was about to begin.

Richard, a local performer, asked if we wanted to see the rest of the show upstairs.  Normally, I'm not one to head upstairs with strange people, but curiosity got the better of me.  I'm glad I went.

In the loft of the museum were several additional movie props, including a huge figure of King Kong.  Very cool.  The real highlight was Richard himself.  He was a personable fellow who immediately engaged us in conversation.  Upon learning we were from Utah he proclaimed:

UTAH!  I love Utah!  You must be Mormons.  I love Mormons.  I want to move to Utah to become a Mormon.

It's not everyday you hear someone say those words.  Turns out Richard has performed at the Utah State Fair for several years and is completely taken with our clean city and style of living.  We encouraged him to come on out and become a Mormon in Utah.  After a little more small talk Richard took to the stage to perform.

He pulled out a large black case.

Opened it.

And removed a two foot sword.

A real one

And then...

You guessed it.

He swallowed the sword.

No gimmick.

Down the hatch.

It was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed live.  He did it twice and both times I couldn't close my eyes.  It was incredible.

The Museum of the Weird certainly lived up to its billing.  Although I think the weirdest thing was meeting a guy who wanted to move to Utah to become a Mormon.