276: David Deeble - An Unnatural Talent

The "Long Beach Mystics" became an almost "mythical" group of magicians who grew to fame and notoriety in the magic world. Consider the names of some of these former members: Stan Allen, Mike Weber, Dana Daniels, Mark Kalin, Jonathan Pendragon, Kevin James and David Deeble, Wait...which name doesn't immediately pop out to you as being "recognizable"?

Well, in this podcast, you will see why David Deeble should be another name that you should add to the frontal lobe of your memory data banks. I admit that I had not seen David perform until the MAGIC Live! convention in 2013, but after seeing him there and later hearing his "story of recovery" at the MAGIC Live! 2015 convention, I became one of his biggest fans and it made me wonder where I had been for all these years.

David Deeble is hard to categorize but if I did put him in a box, I guess it would be a comedy juggler. But due to what could have been a life changing injury, he moved from being a conventional juggler. Perhaps that's why I had never seen him perform at a convention...okay, I'll leave the comedy to David.

Here is a taste of the humor of David Deeble recorded live at comedy clubs.

David Deeble tells about his time with the Long Beach Mystics beginning in 1980 when he was 10 years old. He also regales us with some fun stories "from the day" about some of the Mystics. He also talks about attending the 1984 Abbott's Get Together which, coincidentally, was my first Get Together, too. For a glimpse back into history, Click Here to visit an earlier episode of The Magic Word that contains the fun video discussed in this podcast.

Due to a unicycle indoor accident (when he hit his head on the door frame), he lost the use of one of his arms. As a juggler, a husband and soon-to-be-father, you can imagine how devastating it was and could have been on his career. But David decided to move on towards his goal and find other "unnatural acts" that he would do that no other jugglers were doing. In particular, he learned how to toss an olive into the air and catch in on a toothpick held in his mouth. Also, he tosses a billiard ball from his foot into the air and catches it in his eye socket!

David also talks about how he likes to be introduced, how to handle problems when something goes wrong in your act (i.e. dropping the juggling club, etc.), releasing tension with comedy, using "stock" lines versus writing your own lines, working on cruise ships, and more.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

213: Chicago Magic Bars & Lounges

Chicago has a rich history of magic bars within the city limits as well as in the outlying areas. The "hay day" of magic bars in Chicago ended around 1998 with the closing of the last magic bar. But Joey Cranford and John Sturk are pumping new life into an old concept with the new nightclub/theater called "Chicago Magic Lounge". This will be a recreation of the early 20th century, prohibition era lounge one night each week on the upper part of Chicago.

Bill Weimer is a local magician who was an integral part of the Chicago magic bar scene from the 1970's through the 1990's. He worked seven of the nine or so Chicago-land magic bars. He has a lot of stories about these clubs in their glory days and in fact, wrote a book about his experiences called "Now You See Them, Now You Don't".

00:03:18 - Joey Cranford and John Sturk talk about the newest venture that will open on March 5, 2015, The Chicago Magic Lounge. They talk about their vision of the Lounge and what they hope will happen. They will also encourage local magicians to come and hang our and create a "magic lab" where performers can try out new stuff.

00:40:56 - Bill Weimer talks about the history of Chicago-land bars from his perspective of one who has been there and done that having worked at seven of the nine or so magic bars within the city's boundaries over a 20 year period. Bill wrote the book on bar magic entitled "Now You See Them, Now You Don't". In this podcast, Bill shares some of the stories from his book and his perspective as a working performer.

Order your copy of Bill's book at his website http://www.magicbarbook.com/

107: MAGIC Live! 2013 - Day 2

This was the first full day of the conference and it was full of exciting shows and sessions. This podcast is not as long as yesterday's because I had more time to sit with friends to chat whereas today was more of attending events. This shorter podcast contains more comments and "registrant reactions" to the sessions.

The Opening Session was phenomenal and the sessions were good too but the international close-up show was outstanding featuring: Johan Stahl from Sweden, Simon Coronel from Australia, Denis Behr from Germany, Steve Valentine from the U.K , and Yann Frisch (FISM Winner) from France.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:08 - Rory Johnson, co-producer with Stan Allen, introduced the opening session and laid the theme of this year's event...Friends.

00:03:15 - Cameron Ramsay, one of my fellow podcasters with Dodd Vickers' Magic Newswire, and I talk about our thoughts on the opening session.

00:14:17 - As we await entrance into the session on creativity with Mark Settaducati and Lubor Fieldler, I chatted with Dick Olson and Raj Madhok about their assessment of the opening session.

00:17:48 - Jeff and Laurie Pearson talk about their opinion of the Mike Bent ("Bent on Deception") session that he attended and I gave him my review of the Creative Session that I attended. Due to there being three sessions, we could only select two. We both talked about the Writing & Magic session by Larry Wilmore & David Regal.

00:24:32 - Trixie Bond and Dick Olson give a wrap of the evening's international close-up show. I then followed with a quick wrap of the earlier evening show by the Long Beach Mystics.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file through FeedBurner or directly by Clicking Here then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here.