• September 13, 1999
• Vol. 52
• No. 10

Spin City

What Makes the World Go Round? Chadd Lowe Would If He Could Find a Place to Stand While He Twirled It

Some people spin yarns. Some spin the truth. And then there's Chadd Lowe. He spins things on the tips of his double-jointed fingers—microwaves, kitchen sinks, even a flaming tire. Other than the tire, many of these objects were to be found in the Salt Lake City store where Lowe, vowing one recent afternoon "to spin anything that isn't nailed down," astonished fellow shoppers and made sales-clerks very, very nervous. By the time he had two VCRs in the air, security was en route—and it was time for Lowe to take his act on the road.

"Whenever I go shopping, I can't resist spinning," admits Lowe, 34, who discovered his unusual talent at 13 when he spun a basketball to impress some cheerleaders in his hometown of Butte Falls, Ore. (where his father was an inventor and his mother a nurse). "It just spun and spun—those girls were amazed," he says. "It helped me get a date to the prom."

Before long, Lowe, known as Dave Klemczak before he changed his name for marquee purposes, was branching out. "A few weeks later I spun two suitcases and rode a bike at the same time," he says. "It came naturally to me; I never needed a day of practice."

Lowe, who is single, does have a day job running a Salt Lake City hubcap shop, but spinning has taken him to Europe and Japan for appearances, and he has had his TV moment with both Leno and Letterman. "I guess the main reason I do this is because I can," he says. "But the other thing is, I really enjoy making people smile."