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Friday, April 13, 2007

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Job Files: Mime

Mark Wenzel, mime extraordinaire.

On this week's Job Files, we find a mime who's not giving us the silent treatment for once.

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  • WEBSITE: MarkWenzel.com


  • MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: For some reason mimes are among the most hated workers on Earth, but hey mimes are people too. And on today's Job Files we give a Mime the rare opportunity to speak up.
    MARK WENZEL: I'm Mark Wenzel. I'm 56-years-old and I'm a professional mime.

    I was a theater student and I thought well, as a mime, I can go anywhere in the world. I can do shows in Japan, China. I worked a circus in Switzerland.

    I was doing some work at Universal Studios theme park and they'll have a line for the tour that's in Japanese. They'll have a line for the tour that's in German. And so they would just send me down there and I could do all the lines. It was kind of cute what I did there. I had a beret on and an ascot and I was a silent movie director. Theme park humor is so rich.

    You do get a lot of 'hey do the box, hey do the box. Pretend like you're in a box.' A lot of it is trying to explain to people I'm not like that. No, I'm a good mime.

    THOMAS: That installment of The Job Files was reported by Apryl Lundsten.

Music From This Show

  • Where the Streets Have No Name U2
  • Biyo Earth, Wind & Fire

Marketplace Confessional

"Chris Farrell calls this a 'blue-collar recession'. According to journalist Nan Mooney and professor of financial law Elizabeth Warren, the white-collar middle-class may not be losing jobs, but they are falling behind in earnings and growing in debt, so are feeling -- and are -- less secure than their parents. Job loss, wage stagnation (or retreat) for white-collar workers, job insecurity . . . really rankle when we see the top 1 percent continue to grow richer each year, and often because today's business practices squeeze the rest of us till we bleed."

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