1. THEY'RE HERE, AND THEY'RE LOOKING FOR A VENUE. The Rok'um Sok'um Tour and Got Midgets? Comedy Show stars up to eight midgets, who joke, rassle and bleed. It started in Chicago, eked its way up and down the East Coast, and now they've decided it's our turn. Producer Joe Arrivi moved to town a couple of months ago, and his crew of little people plans to follow as soon as they line up a regular gig. They were set to play Gilley's in late January, but New Frontier's corporate office cancelled the show at the last minute.
2. CALL THEM WHAT YOU WANT TO. Little people is the accepted, politically correct term, and these guys are anything but. "I don't shy away from using the word midget. I'm proud to be a midget," says Puppet the Psycho Dwarf. "And little-person wrestling, nobody's going to show up. Bloody midget wrestling, they show up." Other options offered by the thesaurus include bantam, dusty butt, dwarf, gnome, half pint, homunculus, knee high, manikin and Tom Thumb.
3. THESE MIDGETS HAVE STANDARDS. This is a midget-empowering sport, taking midget-tossing out of the hands of Brobdingnagians and nestling midget wrestling in the hands of Lilliputians. Mad Mex, who's 4-foot-10 (the maximum height allowed to qualify as a little person), defied his family's expectations when he got into the business. "My family told me, 'You can't do it. You're too small. You're too little. All these other guys are going to take you and just toss you.' Midget tossing, dwarf tossing. And, in a way, to me, that's kind of insulting. Some guys will say, 'Hey, it's money, I'll do it.' Some have standards. I have standards."
4. DON'T EVER, EVER SAY WRESTLING IS FAKE. Just look at the purple X's across Puppet's eyes and wonder what kind of swelling and unnatural colors he's hiding under his knit cap. Touch the blood that comes out when a beer bottle is cracked over their heads. Or look at their medical records. Mad Mex rattles off his injury history. "I've cracked my ribs, I've lost a tooth, I've cracked my sternum, dislocated a shoulder, bruised my lungs, jammed my spine, fractured my tailbone, and I just keep on doing it because it's what I want to do."
5. THEY'RE ALL MAN. Or at least Puppet is, and he understands why women want him. See, his arms and legs may be short, but his torso's the size of an average male. And that means Olympic-style action if you catch him in the mood. "My ding-a-ling-schling is on my torso. My inseam is only 13 inches. So when I get excited it's like I'm pole-vaulting down the street."
6. EN GARDE, FRAT BOYS! As an "extreme" venture into comedy and sports, the show, the blood and the spectacle don't appeal to everyone. Chances are, if you like your beer in a koozie, dine at the Waffle House and respect Girls Gone Wild videos, this is your kind of entertainment. All others, take heed. "At one point the midgets had the crowd chanting 'midgets and tits what more to you need?'" notes one woman who saw the show in Chicago. "It was horrible." Another observer seemed less scarred, but still unimpressed. "I would describe it as a Burning Man festival for the fraternity set. A lot of hollering, beer-drinking and expenditure of testosterone," the young man noted, under the condition of anonymity. "Actually, I'm surprised it's taken this long to hit Vegas."
7. DON'T EXPECT THEM TO KNOW THE CORRECT LYRICS TO THE OOMPAH-LOOMPAH SONG JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE LITTLE PEOPLE. In the midst of Puppet's explanation that as a midget, he's a star, he breaks into a monotone rendition of the little-person song in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, not quite getting the words down correctly. "Midgets are the true stars of this country. And the reason is, the day we were born what did the nurses and doctors do? When I came out they stopped and stared. When I was a little child weeble-wobbling down the street, oompah, oompah oopity do, what did every one of you long-legged individuals do? You stopped and stared. It's OK to stare."
For future reference, it's "Oompah loompah doopity do."