Originally written on Christmas Eve seven years ago and posted on Inside Magic. We’ve republished it by request. Definitely not one of our “light” or “funny” pieces.
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Our father, Li’l Tom Hardy, was a proud man who frequently tried to pretend we were not too poor for Christmas presents.
Usually around December 13th, he’d come stumbling back to the trailer just as we were getting ready to head to the next town and announce,
“You know, I was talking with this Jehovah Witless Guy and he convinced me there is no biblical basis for celebrating Christmas.Now, while I don’t accept everything they those old boys say, ‘specially the no-drinking or smoking stuff, but I started thinking about it and I think they might be right.
I’d hate to see our whole family damned to Hell just to get a present under some pagan tree.”
“You know, I ran into that guy that used to be a ringmaster with Stamster Brothers and he commenced to talking about how Judaism – in its strictest form – really had the whole picture together.
They were waiting for the Messiah and that’s got a lot to say for it. I disagreed with him on the whole no-drinking and dragging out their equivalent of Christmas for a week or whatever, but the idea that we should really anticipate the birth of our Lord is a good thing.
Sooo, I’m thinking we anticipate how he can come into our life without the week of candles and presents.”
Or the worst was:
“You know, I was down at the Stop, Drop and Roll (that’s Circus Talk for a booze tent or trailer – usually just off the parade grounds), and I was walking back and saw this guy with a gun. He was mumbling something about how people demand so much from him and stuff and he was pretty well-bombed. I didn’t want to get too close cuz he was drunk and had a gun but I walked up a little closer and thought he looked like a biker.
This just in from Inside Magic Favorite Ryan Swigert. He knows of what he writes. Be sure to visit his site and sign up for his newsletter and free tricks.
Mr. Swigert will also become a guest contributor to Inside Magic as soon as his agent becomes human and more reasonable.
Have you played around with any of the iPhone magic apps yet?
I just published a new blog post where I share some creative ways to stay in-touch with your audience using your iPhone (or any cell phone).
Also, in a few weeks I will be attending the invite-only FFFF convention.
I am planning to conduct various interviews and Q&A sessions there.
The actual attendee list is pretty hush-hush… I can’t share who will actually be attending this year, but it will be some of the top magicians in the world.
So what questions would you like me to ask them? Simply reply to this email and let me know…
In other news, the U.S. Playing Card Company is ready to print my “special cards”!
If you enjoyed my KickBack you will really enjoy what I have up my sleeve.
I plan on releasing this new trick to the magic community in the late Summer/ early Fall time frame.
I was in Orlando last week and showed magician Jason Wethington a sneak peek at it.
Due to the fact that I’m trying to keep this clean, I cannot print the words that came out of his mouth… Let’s just say he really liked it… :)
There is a maxim we follow — and we don’t mean the magazine by the same name. Although it is possible that the magazine Maxim actually has written about our maxim. Of course, we would never know. We trusted and apparently our trust was foolishly tossed to the four winds – three of which came from the person we trusted.
In fact, the more we think about that lying little creep, the more we become perturbed. She said she was selling magazine subscriptions for her troop. We’re always looking to help out any scouting activities and while we normally associate cookie sales with troop fund raising, we trusted.
And we gave her good money to go with that trust. We mean we paid for the subscriptions with “real money”; not a charge on one of our almost certainly over-the-limit credit cards or even proceeds from a cash advance or payday (HA!) loan.
Our intention was to use real funds to purchase subscriptions the great journals of our era; and help the local troop raise money for something.
Well, we learned the hard way.
We have not received a single issue from any of the top quality magazines we ordered.
Not one.
We paid over $422.12 for the subscriptions and received nothing. No cards falling out of the pages and cutting one’s lap or landing in the toilet. No poster-size images of the featured models in faraway places with a “come hither” or, in our case, “don’t bother,” or “stay there-ith” look in their eyes.
Yes, we were foolish to trust. We should have been suspicious and cautious. Did we already mention she wasn’t wearing a scout uniform?
At one time, we thought Criss Angel was doing great things for Magic and while we were not big fans of hanging by meat hooks as performance art, we respected his willingness to try new directions.
We were psyched he hired so many talented magicians as he readied his Mindfreak show. Johnny Thompson, Banachek, Steve Daly, Milt Larsen and others. They were the real deal, folks who know our art and have experience in big theaters and small close-up venues.
Yes, Mr. Angel’s use of the camera trickery was unfortunate but to paraphrase Chinatown, “It’s Hollywood, Jake.” We pretended not to care. Still, Houdini did not use camera tricks – even when he was filming his own stunts for the Houdini Motion Picture Company. There is no evidence that Robert-Houdin used video editing either.
There could be an argument made that David Copperfield has used cameras in a less than transparent manner, but his choice of a camera’s point of view or field of vision pales in comparison to the Criss Angel method.
We refused to contemplate too deeply the serial dating of starlets and wannabes proclaiming his undying love for each publicly with the abandon we normally associate with teen crushes. Continue reading Criss Angel – We’re Kind of Over It
We are proud of Nathan Kranzo We discovered him when we were a nobody. Yes, he was already well known and famous but were and still are a struggling (psychologically) virtual rag on a gas powered server with a small staff and rapidly spreading staph infection.
Now, some 10 years after we first met Mr. Kranzo in Las Vegas only to learn his home is about 23 clicks from our town of Mystic Hollow, MI, he is an international star of multiple magic disciplines.
Ironically, we initially received shock therapy for Multiple Magic Discipline Disorder until it was dropped from the DSM (The Psychology Bible on diagnosis and treatment) and our insurance refused to pay for our visits.
We read with interest and caffeine and nicotine based attention that his trip to our former owners, England has been more than successful. (More than successful in that we presume he not only received adulation, great reviews, and new fans but was also likely paid for doing so).
This from the essential read, Magic Convention Guide:
Northern Magic Circle 2010 – Gala Show Nathan Kranzo hails from Michigan and is a super talented close-up performer and it became apparent a very funny stage guy too, damn him! He opened with a great Paper Heart restoration, transforming it to a Heart Balloon, incorporating a very funny squeaker gag. His Mindreading Crotch trick was an hilarious Named Card to Fly, and finally Nathan closed his set with a Borrowed Ring to Lemon.
If there is one thing we know, it is that we have very limited knowledge about things. We tend to see things as perfected with little need or room for improvement. Hence our Ill-fated investment in the long-forgotten soft drink 6-UP.
Mr. Kranzo is costantly upping the stakes with improvements on his already perfect inventions.
We say, Bully for Him. Check out his blog and store at: http://www.KranzoMagic.com.
Originally written on Christmas Eve seven years ago and posted on Inside Magic. We’ve republished it by request. Definitely not one of our “light” or “funny” pieces.
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