Cut out as many words as you possibly can, until just the funny part is left.
Be concise.
The Art and Science of Writing Strong Comedy to Improve Your Performance Getting More and Bigger Laughs During Your Show.
•August 20, 2011 • 2 CommentsSmooth Magic and lots of fun at ‘Wonderground.’
•August 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment
It has been quite a while since I last managed to sneak in a visit to Jeff McBride’s ‘Wonderground’ event, here in Las Vegas. Like fine wine and stinky cheese it just keeps getting better. The evening is much more mainstream in many ways than it was when it began but hasn’t lost any of the slight hints of the occult that always gave it an edge.
The restaurant that houses the event is now nicely divided into a stage and a close-up performance area and the once slightly manic course of events has become as smoothly integrated as an evening at the Magic Castle. However the joy of watching both Jeff McBride and Eugene Burger performing in the same night at the Castle is rather more remote.
There are plenty of up and coming performers to complete the entertainment fare, most of whom have the strong ‘Mystery School’ touch to their presentations. No shortage of old fashioned Beatnik poetry, dance and music to fill the evening up with BoHo enjoyment.
Watching Eugene Burger perform is always a joy and his (for my taste!) rather too short performance was a highlight. Keeping things moving at a fast clip is a large part of the success of the evening’ and even the central figure and natural centre of attention, McBride, was not close to being over employed in the line-up. Jeff also acts as the perfect host as he bops around the building meeting/greeting and welcoming all these guests into his new living room! With his larger than life top hats, Jeff, is a Willy Wonka figure–inviting everyone to explore his Magic/Candy factory.
You don’t even need a golden ticket to get into McBrides Fun Factory; ten bucks will do the trick. For the price of a movie ticket you can be part of the action. Whether catching up on gossip with Johnny Thompson or catching the show, it is a steal at that price. If you are in or around Vegas on the 3rd Thursday of any month you would be crazy to miss out on the fun.
For full details about the event check out Jeff’s website The venue is called the ‘Olive’ and it is a fully fledged Mediterranean restaurant with inexpensive drinks, good food and an impressive collection of Hookah pipes and exotic tobacco. You may even find yourself coming back to visit the ‘Olive’ on a non-‘Wonderground’ night.
Meeting up with Magicians. What fun.
•August 18, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I seem to have met up with more magicians in the last week than I have in the year before. A visit to the Magic Castle last Thursday gave me the privilege of catching ‘Pop’ Haydn performing in the Palace of Mysteries. What a great job he did.
I have known ‘Pop’ for quite a few years now but this was the first time I had seen him performing in his “Pop” persona. It is very, very clever and a real crowd pleaser. His 19th Century character who seems strangely stranded in another time zone is unique and beautifully thought out.
Haydn’s 20-minute set explored the limits and extremes of his teleportation device. In lesser hands it might have seemed like a duo of burnt and restored dollar bill tricks but with ‘Pop’ his unique props and premise turned it into something much different. The slightly deranged twinkle in his eyes turned Haydn’s performance into a series of jokes within jokes.
‘Pop’ is truly a consummate magician, carefully wedded to a well thought out and fully fleshed out comedy character. In that respect, he reminded me of John Carney, another truly standout contemporary performer. I can’t wait to see Haydn perform his full Medicine Show and suspect it will be something very, very special. I will look forward to writing a full review of his show at that point.
The Palace of Mysteries has never looked better and Stage Manager Bryan Lee had it humming and functioning as the first rate jewel box theatre that it has become. Mystina and Dan Birch completed the line-up in the Palace and the entire show delighted the audience from first to last.
Last Friday I spent many hours with Steve Mitchell, who is the Castle’s resident graphic genius and also the designer/editor of the
recent (and WONDERFUL) book, ‘Tales From The Uncanny Scot,’ by the late Ron Wilson. If you love Magic, the Magic Castle and Magicians then you need to own this book. There are a few copies available from the recent publication including, I believe, some limited edition and numbered copies signed by the Uncanny One himself. Check out the official site www.uncannyscot.com
I am happy to say that Steve has undertaken to take my various columns from Magic New Zealand, Linking Ring and other magic magazines and re-work them into book form. We are re-writing, expanding, re-thinking and revising all my various articles into a coherent book form. Sounds like a bunch of work!
in Tuesday I dropped in to ‘Magic Live’ here in Las Vegas and got to meet up with some of my dearest friends in magic. What a joy! Although I didn’t spend much time exploring the convention itself I was very impressed by the way Stan Allen put everything together. Stan makes the whole darn thing look so easy and effortless—a true feat of magic! His blindfold magic experiment was the talk of the convention and something I wish I could have experienced. Mark Nelson will be writing a full report for Magic Magazine so I won’t tread on his turf.
Tonight is Jeff McBride’s ‘Wonderground’ event at the Olive restaurant in Vegas. I always enjoy these events and the combination of a (almost) full moon and all the extra magicians in town from the convention should make this an especially great evening!
I understand there are still some tickets available for Paul Stone’s 100 years of Magic Extravaganza at the London Palladium. A chance to celebrate John Calvert’s 100th birthday party and see a great magic show— all while helping a great charity! Check it out at
Goodbye to a wonderful person……..
•August 15, 2011 • 1 Comment
It was very sad news that comedian Vic Dunlop had passed on. If you ever had the chance to see Vic performing then you know what a funny, funny man he was. He was famous for his ‘crazy eyed’ routine, with a 2 dollar set of phony eyes, Vic could keep an audience in stitches. Many more people will remember Vic from his any performances on ‘Make Me Laugh.’
I would never claim to have been a close friend of Vic’s, however just knowing him brought you into a a warm glow of fellowship and friendship. He was quite simply a gloriously warm and wonderful human being. The world is a much less enjoyable place to be without the chance of bumping into Vic and picking up on the conversation you were having the last time you met. He will be very much missed.
Carl Andrews…….magic man with the mojoapps!
•August 13, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I want to discuss the very talented Carl Andrews. I have never seen Carl perform but we work in many of the same venues and I have heard many great things about his show, usually from production managers and technicians who are pretty tough to impress.
Actually the first thing you hear about Carl is what a great guy he is, and that isn’t something you hear all that often! Everyone seems to have a nice story about Carl that contributes to his ongoing thoughtful and kind character bio.
It is amazing what you hear about other performers when you work with the same tech-teams and it usually isn’t as overwhelmingly positive as it is with Carl. In fact there are some really great magicians that you hear horror stories about on personal level.
As an iAnything junkie (yup, if you put a silver Apple on the side of anything I will buy it) it took me all of a nano-second to become an avid App collector when the iPhone first appeared on the scene. I currently have 1317 Apps between my iPhone and my iPad. This is where the other side of Carl comes in to play. He is also an elegant and world class App developer.
There are many magic Apps available through the iTunes store, some are amazing and some are really pretty dumb. You pay your two or three bucks and you take your choice/chances. Many great Apps are spoiled by silly glitches and incorrect details that very quickly cause you to delete the App and save a little memory and onscreen real estate presence.
I find it significant that each one of Carl’s magic Apps that I have purchased has stayed on my phone and stuck there like glue since the day I downloaded them. There is a reason; and it is a simple one, they are top notch Apps that have been well thought out, well written and carefully updated. Andrews is obviously a triple threat as a Performer, Thinker and Computer Wiz!
‘No Freakin’ Way’ is my very favorite way to make a fast, quick statement that proves I am a magician. It is a beautifully constructed App that blows away any telephone audience. It is as much fun to perform as it is astounding to watch.
On those rare occasions when I want to give someone a business card, I turn the moment into something rather cool by using Andrews ‘BizCard’. This App is a really great piece of iCandy that looks less like a magic trick than it does ultra new technology. Arthur C. Clarke, the great science fiction author once said, “All future technology that is sufficiently advanced will look like magic.”
I think it is worth making note that I am very, very sparing about how many iTricks I perform to any one individual. The top end of that sliding scale is two! Any more and it becomes painfully obvious how integral the phone and its many hidden talents are involved in causing the magic to ‘happen.’
Other Apps from Carl’s product line I always carry are; ‘Loose Change,’ ‘Magic Draw’ and ‘Any Card.’ I suggest you take a look at Carl’s website www.mojosoftwareonline.com
You might also want to take a look at his personal website www.carlandrews.com
A real honor……..
•August 8, 2011 • Leave a Comment
One of my greatest honors was when Milt Larsen asked me to act as host for the AMA Awards. Aside from getting to chill with Meat Loaf and Charlize Theron, I also got to present the Performing Fellowship award to my old buddy Billy McComb. Here is a picture of the happy event that I really treasure. Steve Mitchell was kind enough to get me copies of the photos that were taken. I appreciate it Steve!
Street Theatre—-slightly better organized than most clubs!
•August 8, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I was recently in Amsterdam and got to meet up with Mark Cmor. Mark is a very talented street performer who showed me a great deal about the art and politics of street theatre. Hailing from Toronto, Mark has spent the last ten years performing in Amsterdam.
I was really impressed at how the regulars in ‘Dam Square’ divide up the performing time and set their schedules.
The true art form was the performers ability to take a block of sidewalk and a raggedy bunch of passers by and turn things into a clearly defined performing area with an honest to God audience. Oh, then there is the fine art of getting cash out of the crowd! I have never done any style of street performing and it was a delight to take photographs and conduct interviews on the topic. I learned a lot and I am busy writing a full article about the process. Not totally sure where/when it will be published but probably not my old favorite Magic New Zealand as I have some very cool photos with it.
This picture is an Acorn attempt to combine the Street Theatre with my love of Street Art.
If it’s Friday…………
•August 5, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I was inspired by the 1.30 realization and that is was Friday! I decided to set my goals correctly and I created a new ‘Drink’ pixel-painting. It was inspired by the English tradition to finish the week early with a quick drink. A Corona and a shot of tequila are sounding good! This has been one of the fullest I remember…….. lots were attempted, and even more accomplished.
Great Street Art in Vancouver.
•August 5, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I DO Enjoy Visiting Vancouver!
While they may have certain anger management issues when it comes to Hockey—the citizens of Vancouver have a superb taste in the Street Art. A recent trip gave me dozens more items to add to my ‘Vancouver Files’ and I wanted to share this classic Diner styled image from a back alley in Vancouver. I have done some very cool other work with this image if anyone would especially care to see them.
Yippee! Getting jazzed about Texas.
•August 2, 2011 • Leave a Comment
I am really getting excited and looking forward to is my upcoming appearance at the TAOM Convention in San Antonio this Labor Day weekend. My performances at Magic Conventions have been very, very limited in the last twenty years; in fact they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Basically, I have been too busy working at non-magician events and so far it has worked out pretty darn well
On the other hand, a trip to the city of San Antoine with a side trip to one of my favorite spot in the states, Austin TX are just too good to miss. I am counting down the days to my first Lone Star Beer and that first bite of Texas barbeque. I am dusting of my favorite duster and cowboy hat—-I am dead serious about that, as I am a devoted faux cowboy.
The committee have organized a truly World Class line-up of performers and lecturers and I am honored to be amongst them. Just to give you a taste of the talent, Gaetan Bloom, Wayne Dobson, Tom Stone, John Archer, Nathan Kranzo, Jon Racherbaumer, Quentin Reynolds, David Acer, Kurt Miller, David Kaplan and Amos Levkovitch. Yikes. 
There will be three stage shows in the gorgeous Lila Cockrell Theatre, twelve lectures, close-up and stage contests and a late night Bizarre show. The HQ for the event will be at the Hilton Palacio del Rio, which means the always-exciting San Antonio Riverwalk will be in our backyard. If you want more details about the event click on their website www.taom2011.com
I hope any of you who have read any of my stuff will make a point of saying “Howdy,” to me at the event. It is always a pleasure to meet my ‘magical pen-pals’ and cyber-‘friends’ from Facebook in person.
REMARKABLE MAGIC 