FIRE! Flames. They've always told you not to play with matches. When you're in trouble, they'll say "you're playing with fire." But that's exactly what you'll see Rich do. Juggling huge lit torches, dragging fire across his skin without damaging himself and, of course, eating fire. These acts are EXTREMELY dangerous and you would have to be CRAZY to try them, and so Rich does them for you. Without exception, everyone who's watched Rich work with fire finds it amazing, rendering them speechless.
I perform with fire because of the almost mystical energy that comes along with it. The age old elements of life are Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. People use fire as a symbol, as a point of reference(how spicy a food is, how good a performer is), even as a description. Fire is all around us in our lives, but is rarely given the respect it deserves. You can use a tiny flame to light a romantic fire in a fireplace. That same flame can be used to demolish homes, or severely injure someone, possibly killing them. With all that in mind, one can wonder why more people don't perform with such an amazing element. In the same instant, you can realize why they don't.
I use fire because it's calming. When I work with fire, I set my mind completely on what I'm doing, because you have to. Everything else that might have been worrying me goes away. Also, I feel a one-ness with fire. It's obvious that fire has a mind and personality all it's own and so when I'm working with it, I'm not commanding or taming it. I ask it to work with me, almost like a partnership. Fire is a most beautiful thing.
First off, I remind you that I've been studying the correct and safest way to work with fire for a VERY long time. I've researched what materials I can safely wear to help protect me. I've researched what fuels have different effects, and are the safest. Now to the point of the question, I assume people wonder about my not burning myself when I swallow fire. I would love to tell you about it, but I think I'm going to let one of my heroes, Penn do the talking. The following is from the Penn & Teller website. This is part of what Penn wrote for the ending to Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular.
"You've got moisture in your mouth, and all that moisture has to evaporate from any given part of your mouth, before that part will burn. So you learn how to handle the burning vapors, then you gotta make it look good. Now if you've got a lot of saliva in your mouth (and that's at least where I try to keep most of mine), you rub your lips right along the cotton and pull that vapor off. Now the vapor's still burning, but if you breathe in a little bit , the audience can't see it, so you've got a beautiful surprise there. The you just wait until the time is right an just let it flow, like it was magic smoke. Then when you want to put the fire out, there's a move for that, too, and it's the move that gives it the name "fire-eating." Now, you're not actually eating the flame, but I guess they figure that "Oral Fire Extinguishing" didn't sound that butch. When you feel your mouth drying out, you close your lips tightly. That cuts out most of the oxygen and... [he snaps his fingers] the fire goes out. Now when I was being taught this, I got burned every time I tried it, and I still get burned occasionally, but the burns you get from fire-eating are for the most part extremely minor. They're the kind of burns you get--you know what I'm talking about--when you eat a pizza too fast, and that cheese'll snag you, or you gulp some hot coffee. Now I'm not trying to snow you. I'm not talking mind-over-matter jive. There's no such thing, it just hurts like holy hell. But it's not dangerous. The dangerous thing is something lay people don't even think about. And that is every time you do this act, no matter how carefully or how well, you swallow about a teaspoon of the lighter fluid, and that stuff is poisonous--that's why they write "Harmful or Fatal if Swallowed" right there on the can-- and the effect is, to a certain degree, cumulative. Now I say a certain degree: I do eight shows a week, I'm a big guy, that doesn't effect me. Carnies, the real boys, they'll do up to fifty shows a day, and in as little as two or three years that stuff'll build up in their liver and they'll get sick enough, they actually have to take time off and do another line of work in the carney while that liver regenerates, which, thankfully, it will do.
Now I take the time to explain all of this to you in such detail because I think it's more fascinating to think of someone poisoning themselves to death slowly on stage than merely burning themselves, and after all, we're here to entertain you.
I really tell you this 'cause this is the last bit in the show, and when you leave here tonight and you're thinking about our show, as I hope you will be, I don't want you to be thinking about how we did it. I want you to be thinking about why. So sit back and relax, I'm going to burn myself."