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.

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

#200 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Last year we brought you "The Night Before Christmas" read by a handful of popular magicians. It was so well received that I asked a few more guys (and gals) to read "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas". See if you can pick out the voices of: Boris Wild, Bob Cassidy, Docc Hilford, Tim Ellis, Tim Trono, George Tait, Rocco Silano, Eric DeCamps, Mandy Farrell, Ice McDonald, Steven Bargatze, Marc Salem, Rick Merrill, Richard Osterlind and, as the Grinch, Eugene Burger.

As I attended several magic conventions over this past year, I took aside a few guys and gals to chat on the podcast. But many of the people graciously agreed to record something special just for this very special podcast. I hope you enjoy hearing their reading of this Doctor Seuss classic. This was one of the most difficult podcasts to edit and took the longest time to gather all the voices to do this one which ended up being one of the shortest ones, too.

This special podcast is my Christmas gift to you for listening for these past few years to the previous 199 podcasts. I wish all the best to you and yours for this holiday season.

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. (please note: this RSS Feed subscription system may not work with Android systems). Remember, you can download it through iTunes. See the preview page by Clicking Here.

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Magic & Martinis Thursday...with the Grinch!

155: Day Three - F.F.F.F. 2014

More fun and more magic than you can shake a wand at, Day three saw a few more people arrive for the weekend and the afternoon and evening shows were outstanding with many acts that drew standing ovations.

The official activities on the morning began with the Pat Page Memorial Workshop, hosted by Mike Powers, that featured "Tricks from Before 1950". For a PDF of the tricks taught, you can Click Here to read it all. The afternoon show, "World Gala Sho" was hosted by Buddy Farnan, followed by the second afternoon show, "4F Friends, Old and New", emceed by Oscar Munoz. The evening show "Friday's Finger Flicking Frolic" compered by Meir Yedid. The evening's show was divided into two parts with a brief intermission that was punctuated by repeated standing ovation. There was no lecture during the day' however, lots of learning went on everywhere throughout the hotel.

Time codes for this podcast:

00:00:15 - FISM Winner, Soma from Hungary, gives us an update on the status of his book about using music. We last talked in Bristol on May 13, 2013. This will be an invaluable source for all magicians from close-up to stage.

00:10:35 - Rocco returned to the F.F.F.F. after a four year hiatus while he has been performing all over the world. Rocco talks about his experiences working at the Crazy Horse in Paris to theaters in Russia, China and many other places around the world. Rocco will be delivering what may well be his last lecture ever. on Penguin coming this July. More details at Penguin Magic. Rocco also talks about his D'Lites and the future of his products. One such product is his stage version of Slydini's jumbo Linking Safety Pins, among other items available through his website at http://DLitesNext.com or http://TheMagicOfRocco.com By the way, the magician from Spain that Rocco and I talked about was Mario Lopez from Spain.

00:28:48 - Guest of Honor, Shawn Farquhar, talks about his many contests he has competed in over the years and the multitude of awards he has received. Shawn will be the incoming International President of the I.B.M. later this summer (at the combined I.B.M. and S.A.M. convention). Here he talks about what he plans to do during his term in office.

00:50:50 - Richard Hatch, formerly of H&R Magic Books, talks about his recent injury and recovery following a fall that resulted in some stitches (thanks, Raj Madhok, for removing them here at the convention).