"You were great!" yells a voice from a small gathering of kids when Aaron Nelsen surfaces from a 14-foot-deep body of water after launching his body off a cliff and completing the sixth in a series of twisting, twirling dives.

"Thanks, so were you!" responds Nelsen, Casa Bonita's entertainment manager. He takes a moment to high-five the children at the water's edge and then scales a cave wall to retrieve three torches, which he ignites and begins juggling.

Not bad for someone who had never even dove until four years ago during his audition to become a Casa Bonita cliff diver.

"I came in, and during the audition, the guy said to do a one-and-a-half - without demonstrating it beforehand," Nelsen says. Though he didn't even know what a one-and-a-half was, the then-19-year-old stepped to the cliff's edge and "just did it."

Nelsen, now 23, finds himself charged with making sure that all shows and stunts run smoothly for one of the world's largest indoor restaurants - a place that could be considered an American landmark and was the subject of an entire episode of South Park in 2003.

After swinging from one cliff to another on a rope and performing some Spider-Man-esque stunts, Nelsen heads to the dressing room and emerges dressed as Black Bart, a no-good outlaw who is destined to have a run-in with the sheriff in the near future. On any given day, he could be called upon to portray the evil Black Bart, a sheriff, Chiquita the gorilla, a pirate or any of the other characters.

Nelsen travels from table to table in character as Black Bart and mixes it up with kids and adults. As he departs each table, he leaves in his wake clusters of excited children. His interactions with kids are perfect for him, he says, because he used to work at a day care center and wants to get his degree so he can teach elementary school children.

Nelsen escapes today's battle with the sheriff without injury, save the wounded pride of his character after losing the shootout, but he says he has witnessed and been on the receiving end of some painful on-the-job trauma.

He suffered a punctured eardrum as he entered the water during a dive and still can't hear well from that ear. He has seen broken ankles and bloody wounds caused by collisions with rocks during dives. Part of a sword (yes, they use real metal sabers) once broke off and hit a woman in the back of the head during a heated battle between pirates.

Nelsen mentions how he almost didn't take the diving job at the age of 19 - because being a Casa Bonita diver seemed like such an intimidating occupation. He "thought it was too big." Turns out that he probably would have regretted that decision.

"I've never worked at a place where I've worked this long or had this much fun," he says.