Summer 2011/Week Two

Another week of Summer shows is finished. June is in the can, so to speak (meaning it's over). Yesterday was an interesting day. I had two shows in Fredericksburg, VA which went really well. Then I drove over to a car dealership and told the dealer I'd buy a car if they could get me OUT in an hour. Amazing how fast folks work with a little motivation, lol.

All jokes aside, the salesman and dealership were fantastic and my new car (see above) is fantastic. The $100 gas every time I filled up was killing me with my Van, so for the time being I'm going with a vehicle with better gas mileage. It's going to put a slight crimp into the size of the show I can travel with. Though very slight. I'll need to rent a vehicle for the big show, though in all honesty, that has pretty much been the case for a while anyone. Some of my illusions are too big even for my old Van.

In regards to Summer, a big change is about to take place next week. I'll either be doing Show A or Show B on the tour, no mixture of material any longer. It's too much to go into, but the material in Show A was designed for one show and one particular audience, as was Show B. They were not designed to be interchangeable, so there will no longer be a 'C' show that mixes material. In the long run it helps me keep track of things.

I expect the two shows to look drastically different in a few days, which will be good all the way around. Plus, more original creations going into show B!

Summer 2011/Week One

My first full week of Summer shows is officially over. It was an exhausting 15 show schedule which was also incredibly fun. I'll share a couple highlights and low lights.

On Monday, I debuted my new version of the Magic Tea Kettle, an effect  from the act of England's greatest magician, David Devant. My version actually was a far simplified version with a surprise ending. The concept is that any drink the magician wants can be poured from the tea kettle. In my version basically, several drinks are poured from the pitcher and tested out by audience members to prove they are the authentic drinks. In my case, these include iced tea, kool-aid, milk and other non alcoholic drinks. For the finale, I had planned to say something about the one drink that had me stumped, ORANGE JUICE. I explained how for some reason the orange would separate from the liquid in a most unusual manner. Then I would pour water from the tea kettle with orange slices, however, after a moment, the audience realized those orange slices were actually Goldfish! Pretty cool ending I thought. Most of the audience LOVED IT! But to my sudden surprise, two people who tested the drinks got a look on their face like they were about to throw up! I had to quickly let them know they did NOT DRINK Fish Water, lol! It was funny, and not funny, and then later still funny to me.

The Tea Kettle was pulled from the show after that until I could rescript the ending. By Thursday, it was back in the show temporarily, and this time out it delivered the punch I was looking for, without any fear of people wanting to vomit, lol. However, the Magic Tea Kettle is probably going to be pulled from the Summer show for another reason. It is too messy and difficult to set up and take down quickly. The Magic Tea Kettle will make a couple additional appearances this summer, but just not in every show.

Oh, also on Monday I got the 'summer welcome' by performing in a building which had ZERO air conditioning. It was actually cooler outside and it was 90 outside! Thankfully, that was the ONLY location like that this week.

This week was very successful, but I have to say I had an idea about twenty minutes ago about totally scrapping the current version of the summer show and starting all over. Not because there was anything bad about it, but I've got some other ideas and areas I'd like to explore. I don't think I'll actually scrap the show, but there are routines that are going to get replaced by some newer things. One in particular is a 'Magic JigSaw Puzzle. This is another one of my crazy ideas that has gone through numerous versions in my head, but I've not yet begun to build the props needed. I do have the puzzle, but I might even replace that one for something a little better.

This week was fun. I'll have more surprises for week 2!

My HOUDINI Artwork

Below are several paintings I did of Houdini. There are numerous styles here, all but one was painted with acrylic paint. The oddball is the black and white image which is water colors. This is not the complete group of Houdini art, but it's all I can find photos of.

 This is a water color painting. I believe I painted this in the late 80s or very early 90s.

This upside down straight jacket escape caricature was done around 1999 or 2000. At least I think it was. It's certainly an older painting though not as old as the water color.

The above caricature of Houdini is actually the second of this type. The first had different colors and I was never quite happy with it so I duplicated the drawing and painted it again with a different color scheme.

This was supposed to be just an experiment in painting eyeballs and I liked it so much I kept it. Because of the green tint, some people think it's the HULK but it's actually the eyes of Houdini.

Speaking of experiments, the above painting was not supposed to turn out. It was another experiment or exercise if you will. I just threw down a quick sketch and then wanted to see how fast I could paint the face. When I finished the face I liked it so much I decided to keep it. In fact, it was the first in a series of paintings that I call "The Magic Hats". This was a group of paintings of magicians all wearing different hats.

A totally different style of caricature and one that I thought turned out really well. It's one of my favorite paintings.

This was taken from an early photo of Houdini. I wanted to see how the whole thing would look in color rather than black and white. The sketch and thus the painting is slightly different from the original photo, but essentially it's the same layout.

The latest of the Houdini's. This was was actually changed slightly, but I don't have a photo of the updated image. It's still basically the same I just made one minor change. I personally was quite happy with "Stained Glass Houdini", though it's actually on canvas!

There are others but as I said, I had photos of these and I don't have photos of the others.

My Le Grand David Artwork

The original painting I did for Cesareo & Company

Cesareo Pelaez was very encouraging in many parts of my life, writing and painting were two big ones. These blogs are a continued reminder of his words to 'keep writing'. And with over 100 paintings devoted to magic, I think that speaks for itself. Among the 100 paintings though are several I did of Cesareo and David Bull. Three of my paintings hang in the Gallery at the Larcom Theatre in Beverly. Below are a few of the ones I painted and there will be more to come.

LeGrand David & My Folks

Mom, Cesareo, Dad

I just finished writing a little about my visits to see Cesareo and the cast of the LeGrand David Show in Beverly Mass, over at my other blog. Well, I thought I'd share with you some photos of a trip that I didn't take but was taken on my behalf. My folks went up to see Cesareo and LGD family. I'm sure part of the reason was to say thank you to Cesareo for the positive affect he had on my life.

Always Evolving

That title refers to my show, or shows. They are always getting tweaked, altered, changed and improved. It seems that the driving force for change is when a performance is good, above average, almost great, or the reverse, when you've had a bad show. I don't ever seem to learn much when a show goes GREAT! But when it's good, or above average or God forbid, bad, then I learn a lot.

I was driving home last night from a series of performances all of which went well. I received some incredible feedback from the shows. One gentleman came up to me at the end of the last show to shake my hand. His grip was firm, and his words were very heartfelt. I chose his grand daughter to help out in the show and it brought so much joy to him and his family that he went out of his way to let me know. It was beyond the regular thank you, but instead he wanted me to know for sure  how important it was to his family.

So while I was driving home, I was reflecting on this and a number of other things that happened. The choice of one volunteer in the show was wrong. It didn't seem to be at the time, but looking back, I made an error. No one would have guessed that. But I realized later if I had picked a certain person, or certain segment of the audience it would have been even stronger.

Also, there was a routine in my show that I've been toying with the script trying to get it worked out right. I feel as if it's close, but not quite there. Imagine my surprise as I'm driving home and I stumble upon the perfect delivery of the material. I had just done 5 performances and suddenly NOW I've got the perfect patter. Better late than never. The good thing is I have two shows tomorrow and I'll be able to use the newer version.

This is the way it goes. Very rarely is a routine a hit right out of the gate. There are so many elements that go into making a strong magic routine. This is why magicians get so angry when 'secrets' are revealed. The secret is only one element of a magic routine. There is the script, the blocking and movement, the audience interaction, the comedy if it calls for that, and many other things that go into the routine but when some idiot reveals a secret it often kills all the work that went into creating an entertaining routine.

For entertainers, what we do can always be improved, it can always be made better. The smart performer is always evolving.

UPDATE: The revised patter that I mentioned above was fantastic. I used it twice today and it played incredibly well!

Relearning a Show

I can't begin to tell you how many different shows I've developed over the years. I'm always amazed at how I remember every detail of the show even if I haven't done it for a while. That is, unless it's a new show that I've only done a few times. Such is the case this week. A new show I developed in the fall that I've presented a dozen times or so but not since December. So now I have to relearn everything. It's not the effects as much as the script. It's a very specific kind of show where the script is VERY important to the overall program.

As I looked over the notes I easily remembered about 80% of it but that 20% can make or break me so I need to work really hard to make sure it's all ready to go for seven performances this week. These seven shows may very well be what I need to lock it into my subconscious for good!!!