350: Hammer Time with Mike Hammer

For the past five years, Mike Hammer has been packing them in while headlining in his own theater in the Four Queens Casino and Hotel on Fremont Street, downtown Las Vegas. Mike has his own style, and it works for him. He is the "Don Rickles" of magic with a rather abrasive approach where he actually insults his audience...and they love him! The night I visited his show, the room was packed and afterwards I overheard some saying this was a repeat visit to enjoy his show. Two people had paid for return visits to watch his show over 30 times!

Some of you might remember seeing Mike on "Penn and Teller Fool Us" with his outrageously memorable performance using a blow up doll. If not, then you can view the video here on this blog.

In this podcast, we cover a lot of territory from how he developed his act, working in Las Vegas, routining, trick selection, getting out of bad situations when things go wrong, and keeping his performances fresh. This was a fun and funny podcast that includes a lot of sound advice with some great behind-the-scenes stories.

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#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!

164: Part 4 - My Week at The Castle 2014

Ready to eat? Enjoy your lunch break with Bob Cassidy and me as we have a little take-out from In 'N Out and talk extensively about mentalism and performing. Back at the Magic Castle later that night, I caught up with John Carney outside the Parlour of Prestidigitation before he was seated for Rafael Benatar's show. Much later that night, I sat down with one of the members of the old "Long Beach Mystics", David Deeble. He was one of my favorite performers from the 2013 MAGIC Live!

00:01:26 - Master Mentalist, Bob Cassidy, chats candidly during a take-out lunch from In 'N Out that we took back to the apartment at the Nirvana in his room, The Charlie Miller Suite. We talked about his experience at the "Beyond Brookledge: event that included many other performers like Michael Weber and other eclectic entertainers. He talks about his early experience at The Magic Castle, the importance of scripting mentalism, Derren Brown, Keith Barry, knowing your powers, predictions, consistency in your performance, pre-show work, dual reality, working with drunks, selection of volunteers, Q&A, David Hoy, and more.

00:32:17 - John Carney, chats about his recent video projects, past and present, including Carney 2013 that was a monthly video lesson throughout last year. He also talks about Revizzit, the password protected way of safely downloading magic content. Rafael Benatar also drops in for a moment to say "hi" before he starts the show. John talks about working theatre shows and his learning experience.

00:40:12 - David Deeble, one of the Long Beach Mystics, tells us what he's been up to living abroad in Germany or a few years, what he's been doing recently and where he's going. Among other topics he talked about the hard times on the road at comedy clubs, his serious accident on a unicycle and how it affected his life, grabbing the wrong bag from the airport, and of course he talks about being a part of the legendary Long Beach Mystics..