266: Wizard Wars Woman - Billy Kidd

Billy Kidd is a force to be reckoned with. She is a street magician (with a straight jacket escape as her signature trick), but she is best known to the general magic community as one of the Wizards on the SyFy television series "Wizard Wars" (produced by Rick Lax) in the second season. Born in Canada, she now resides in Bath Spa, England with Gazzo. So now you see her connection with street magic.

She actually came into magic later in life than most male magicians who generally get interested in their adolescent years. Billy was 21 when she first saw and was influenced by a stage magician. As a drama major in college, she was already involved with and had a passion for theatre. But she saw the potential of being her own person as a street performer and creating her own stage wherever she was. She met Gazzo who took her under his wing and mentored her in the ways of the street and, well...the dominoes fell.

Street Magician, NIck Nickolas, was the inspiration for Billy Kidd. You can get a sense of his style in this video. You can learn more about Nick at www.nicknickolas.com

Billy traveled with Gazzo on his recent lecture tour of the U.S. and stopped by as my house guest. I talked with Gazzo on a podcast with the intent of bringing over Billy to chat, too; however, Gazzo had so much to talk about that it filled the hour. I felt that Billy would have enough to fill another hour talking about her experiences as a female magician in our male dominated art and the challenges for a woman magician on the street.

I was not wrong.

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Not just a good read for the holidays, but a great read anytime with wonderful stories about magicians and Steve Spill's magical life.

264: Street Talk from Gazzo

With literally tens of thousands of performances over his lifetime, Gazzo is one of the world's best street performers. Don't just take my word for it. On multiple occasions he has taken top honors at street festivals as the "best" street performer. Gazzo resides in Bath Spa, England, but as a globe-trotter, he is really a citizen of the world.

During a recent nationwide lecture tour across the U.S., Gazzo stopped by Houston and visited my home to record a chat. Gazzo talked about his philosophy of life, working the streets around the world, differences (or lack of differences) in appreciating verbal humor among other cultures and non-English speaking audiences, and much more.

Support The Magic Word. Visit our Amazon Associates page and find something you'll love. Here is one example of something you'll really enjoy: Steve Spill's book about magic and magicians and no tricks: "I Lie For Money".

225: My Week at the Magic Castle 2015 - Part Six

As we conclude this six past series in Hollywood, California, we visit with some more of the "Knights of the Castle". This was a great week for me that could not be contained in one podcast. I hope that you enjoyed the multiple part series and the magicians who shared their time with me behind the microphone. I would love to receive your comments on whether this series was too long or too short, who and what you liked best in this series, and perhaps who you might like to hear on an extended podcast in the future.

Here are the timestamps for this podcast:

00:03:56 - Entertainment Director, Jack Goldfinger, gives us some pearls of wisdom and the "perils" of his job which preclude vacations.

00:12:15 - Tony Clark talks about producing magic shows around the country plus some new venues he is working on.

00:31:40 - J. Neal, of Jonathan Neal or Jonathan Neal Brown (take your pick) talks about his long career, what he's doing now (mostly cruise ships) and how he has kept on top of his game as the economy and the market changes.

00:45:02 - 35 year member of the AMA, Lee Delano, talks about his long career as an actor and how he kept busy for 40 years in the business. He worked with Sid Caesar for over 25 years. He worked with Lucille Ball and many other great comedians, plus he worked in the "Planet of the Apes" movie plus Star Trek and other TV shows and movies.

00:53:51 - Ray Pie.rce and Christopher Hart both worked at the old Hollywood Magic shop. They both tell some great stories from their experience in those old days