Show off your unusual skills at the Thurston County Fair

Whether you’d rather be entertained or be the entertainment, the Thurston County Fair has acres of options.

For those who want to be entertained, the fair has added Seattle stunt comedian Matt Baker, a Guinness World Record holder, to its lineup of bands, clowns, magicians, cat costume contests and more.

Baker holds the record for catching the most bowling balls on his head in 30 seconds. He’ll show off that skill at the fair, along with juggling, telling jokes and doing all manner of stunts he invented.

Baker, formerly of the comedy and juggling duo Brothers From Different Mothers, has performed on “America’s Got Talent” and “Last Comic Standing,” on cruise ships and in shows all over the country — and at the Capital Theater when he lived in Olympia for a year in the early 2000s.

At the time, he was performing in Seattle but not making enough to afford an apartment there. (These days, he owns a house in Seattle.)

He was raised in Eugene, Oregon, he said, and Olympia was the right place for him to finish growing up.

“Olympia was the perfect kind of hippie, liberal town I needed to ease me into a being an adult,” he said.

Baker is also a former professional Hacky Sack footbag player and toured Europe playing — on a tour that advertised Snickers bars —when he was 17.

“Hacky Sack was the thing that started it all,” he said of his career in entertainment. “When I came back from Europe, I was like, ‘What other skills can I learn that I can build a show around?’

“There’s only so much Hacky Sack people can tolerate — about 30 seconds. I learned to juggle, learned to tell jokes, learned some weird skills, and the show just took off from there.”

Also new on the entertainment front will be roving jugglers and stilt walkers from the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts in Seattle.

And the fair’s Live & Local Series will return, showcasing string bands, jazz bands and cover bands.

For those who’d rather do than watch, old-time games invite one and all to show off such unusual skills as seed spitting.

“We wanted to find a way for everybody to be able to participate somehow and have a chance to win something,” said fair event coordinator Theresa Reid.

Even babies can get into the act with the Diaper Derby — though unlike the other old-fashioned games, the derby does require registration. Both fast crawlers and snappy dressers are welcome; there’ll be prizes for cutest diaper as well as the races.

Also on the schedule are eating contests, look-alike contests and a rubber chicken toss.

For those who’d rather bake pie than eat it, the fair is bringing back its popular open baking contests. For these, as for most of the old-time games, you don’t need to register in advance. Just bake a pie (or cake, or cookies, or cupcakes, depending on the day) and bring it to the fair. Entry is free for bakers.

While both pie baking and pie eating will happen Aug. 1, those who are willing to stuff themselves won’t be sampling the creations of the bakers.

“They are unrelated,” Reid said.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Show off your unusual skills at the Thurston County Fair."