Eak the Geek

Eduardo Arrocha (1962), also known as Eak the Geek, was a sideshow performer.
Early life
He was born in Mexico City on January 12, 1962. Eduardo's mother is of American descent and currently lives in Berlin; his father is an attorney in Mexico City. His eldest brother is a professor in Montery California, another is an actor and singer in Mexico City and his youngest brother is working on his Masters in international law in London, England.
Eak grew up in "La Altena I" in the Lomas Verde's Neighbourhood in the state of Mexico. Known to be a restless child, having an innate curiosity, and a poetic mind; he would often wonder in the hills around his home for days.
At an early age he observed the sideshows travelling Gypsies would put together in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, a fascination that would fuel his career.
Eddie, as Eak the Geek was then known, would repeatedly run-away from home during childhood, spending a summer in a farm in rural Mexico at sixteen living with the peasants, spending time with an uncle in Puyallup Washington (where he very briefly worked in a chicken processing plant, hence the beginning of the Geek story.)
As a teenager he moved the USA with his mother, first living in Albuquerque where he was hooked on the sideshow world when he observed the great "Popeye" do his act on the midway.
Career
After the end of a romance, Eduardo choose to live "the bohemian life to the fullest" he wrote poetry, provided vocals for various hard-core bands, worked as a street vendor, and eventually found his way to New York City. He began his life in New York as a street vendor, but eventually found himself working in the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. He worked in Coney Island for 15 years alongside some of the greatest sideshow performers of the time. He's covered head to toe in tattoos, the most painful of which is on his inner thigh.
Eduardo developed and act in which he would get sandwiched between two nail boards and place the two largest people in the audience on his stomach, he could handle weights of up to three quarters of a ton.
Eduardo has been part of the East Village Art Scene for twenty years, owning his small place in the East Village; as he likes to say: "I barely beat gentrification, get used to me!"
He returned to College after many years, finished his BA in Political Science in Marymount Manhattan, then doing a final year at the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan. While at Cooley, Eak stated he was studying law to represent the freaks but ended up with two years of law school debt and a dream unfulfilled. .
Personal life
At present Eduardo is working on new acts, poetry, travelling and planning his return to the East Village, Mexico.
Eduardo has been featured in many shows and magazines including; the Ricky Lake Show, the Travel Channel, the Discovery Channel, Bizarre Magazine, Beyond Race Magazine, CNN, and the New York Times.
Often know to remark, "hey ma, look I ran away from the circus to go to school."
Eduardo is regarded as a free spirit, is a deist, does not smoke or drink and regularly adds new tattoo pieces to his body.
He likes to say after every show: "There no freaks or geeks in the world, only human beings, be kind to each other, it makes for a better world."
 
< Prev   Next >