252: Day Two - T.A.O.M. Convention 2015

The first full day of the TAOM was chock full of activities, some of which required you to choose what to see and what to miss. For example, the Bob Fitch lecture was opposite of the close-up competition. The day kicked off with Ken Scott talking about working Library shows while in another room, Mica Calfee taught how to make a home made "Card Fountain". Keeping with the kid show theme started by Ken Scott, Oscar Munoz performed then taught some ideas for a "School Show".

Next up was Bob Fitch who gave us some practical advice on how to improve our acts. After lunch was a special tribute to our veterans complete with live music and a color guard. Five magicians gave abbreviated lectures including Doug Gorman, Oscar Munoz, Scott Wells, John Cornelius and Diamond Jim Tyler all capably compered by David Hira. The professional close-up show followed with Suzanne the Magician, Peter Samelson, John Carney, Jay Scott Berry, and Robert Baxt.

The evening gala was an all "women" show hosted by Ali Shelley and featured Margaret Steele, Amanda Eve, Rachael Dunn, Jesse Pattersson (a hula hoop expert who drew the first sustained ovation that turned into a standing ovation), Tiny Bubbles, and closing the show was Jade.

Late night activities started with Robert Baxt talking about comedy followed by another lecture named "Two Extra-Ordinary Women" lectures by Randi Rain as "Vamp-IRA" and Steve Daly aka "Tiny Bubbles". This lecture competed with the traditional "Roger Klause Midnight Madness" show hosted by Jamie Salinas. This show always featured some of Roger's friends performing their one pet effect. Jamie continues this tradition by hand picking his friends to do just one thing.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:12 - David Hira and Suzanne the Magician talk a bit about their thoughts on the previous days magic activities

00:10:19 - Diamond JIm Tyler tells about his relationship with Brian Brushwood's "Scam School" and how he became the most frequent guest.

00:17:39 - Past President of the T.A.O.M., cover boy for Genii and and former Guest of Honor for the T.A.O.M., Ramon Galindo, talks a bit about his illustrious career as a tailor and parakeet magician and how Siegfried changed his life.

00:25:12 - From Las Vegas, Nevada, Steve Daly, tells us about his Abra-CORN-dabra convention in Iowa and what it's like to work a popular, sold-out show in Las Vegas.

00:33:59 - Multi international award winner and creator, John Cornelius, tells what he's been up to the past sever years and tells us about working with Doug Henning and Roger Klause.

00:45:32 - Ray Anderson has some surprises in store for the attendees tomorrow night at Esther's Follies and he might have tipped a little of it between the lines in our chat.

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245: Day One - MAGIC LIve! 2015

For the first day of a four day event that had no scheduled activity until 7:30 p.m., there sure was a lot of meeting and greeting of old friends.

In this first day update, we have some time to chat with many of the friends we ran into. With nearly 1,800 registrants, it's hard to get around to have quality conversations with everyone. But it was great that some people gave me some great quality time albeit short due to the veritable whirlwind of magical luminaries swirling around the casino. Monday will bring us the first full day of activities so I probably should get a little rest. I;m still on Central Time so it is nearly dawn in Texas according to my body clock.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:25 - Charlie Randall of H&R Magic Books joins me at the airport for our flight from Houston to Las Vegas

00:07:17 - Chris Philppott and Steve Valentine, mates of mine from the Magic Castle are the first ones that I got to chat with after I checked into the hotel. Steve talks a bit about his presentation that he will give on Monday and Chris talks about his marketed effect, "French Postcards".

00:11:46 - R. Paul Wilson talks a bit about his movie, "Our Magic"

00:13:25 - "The Evil Twins", Dave Cox and Bruce Gold

00:15:20 - Steve Bryan talks about the Little Egypt Gazette and Randy Wakeman joins us to give us a health report on SIMON Lovell

00:22:44 - Kyle Knight and Mistie talks about their current and future schedule also about their performance on "Wizard Wars" and "Penn & Teller Fool Us".

00:31:35- Jeff and Tessa Evason are joined briefly by Gil Eagles and Ken Weber

00:39:26 - Justin Willman is getting married soon and he talks about that. He is also joined by Sean Popp and Shep Hyken.

00:44:38 - Dustin Stinett talks about the upcoming Genii convention

00:52:26 - Ray Anderson, star of Esther's Follies in Austin, Texas talks about the upcoming Texas Association of Magicians convention and his appearance there.

01:01:47 - Dennis Watkins talks about the return of the Houdini play in Chicago next summer for a 15 week run starting in June 2016.

01:06:52 - Steve Chezaday and Carol talk about Abbott's Get Together that just ended and he flew straight to Las Vegas

01:20:11 - Tom Mullica talks about his late night tales he told by his headstone in the graveyard at Colon, Michigan at Abbott's Get Together last week.

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/

252: Day Two - T.A.O.M. Convention 2015

245: Day One - MAGIC LIve! 2015

213: Chicago Magic Bars & Lounges

The Magic Word