844: Joe Devlin - Matador In The Arena

Known as the “Matador of Magic,” Joe Devlin has lived what, for most, would be several lifetimes full of magic. He has performed around the world aboard cruise ships for 37 years; he has created and performed unique, original illusions; he was one of the performers in NYC at the Magic Townhouse and Mostly Magic; he had long term engagements in Atlantic City and in the Bahamas; his wedding was the subject of a one-hour “reality” show; he appeared on “All My Children” daytime network television; he has been a consultant tor Criss Angel’s show “Magic of the Stars” and others, and; he was a featured performer on Criss Angel’s “Amysitika” show in Las Vegas.

In this week’s episode, Joe talks about his amazing history of performing, creating and consulting magic over the years. His fast-paced style and on-stage choreography reminds one of the moves of a flamenco dancer and also of a Spanish bullfighter in the arena. This week he chats about a lot of what he has accomplished over the past 40+ years including a bit about taking care of the Houdini Memorial in New York. He had two touring illusion shows, but since the death of his wife/assistant, he has focused on singular performances and consulting.

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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.

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Magic & Martinis Thursday...with the Grinch!

157: Jim Sisti - On The Menu

What was he thinking? Why would someone start a bi-monthly magic publication in the early 1990’s? Desktop publishing was in its infancy in 1990, and I mean dot matrix printing and tractor-fed printers. And when I say low resolution graphics, I really mean pixilated clip art. Wow! And then to make it even more arcane, focus on a small segment of the magic society: restaurant magic. Even at its peak, they only had 500 subscribers. What was he thinking?

But Jim Sisti had a passion and created something that will live as essential reading for the restaurant magician as the Bible of Restaurant Magic. The Magic Menu started with the September/October 1990 issue that carried on for 11 years and eventually bound into two hardback volumes. I believe Jim has a plan for the last couple year’s worth of issues to be bound sometime.

The Magic Menu led the field in educating magicians in how to be a restaurant magician. It remains the longest running and only regularly published newsletter exclusively for the performing restaurant magician. The Magic Menu included advice, tips, tricks, brilliant articles and more for the restaurant magician. Contributors included all the top workers of the day including Al the Only, Michael Ammar, Michael Close, Jay Sankey, Simon Lovell, Paul Green, Doc Eason, Eugene Burger, just to drop a few. I was pleased and honored to have been one of the regular columnists for The Magic Menu for a number of years. I was also the one who designed the artwork for the masthead for the later years of the publication.

Jim was recently an adviser for Criss Angel’s “MindFreak” TV show and now works with Richard Osterlind and seen on many of Richard’s instructional videos. Jim is not only a close-up magician but also a skilled stage performer as well.

In this podcast, Jim talks a little about The Magic Menu, but more extensively about restaurant magic and some of the ideas gleaned from this publication. Jim talks about the real secrets and talks about facts, figures and money.. In addition to talking about the genesis of The Magic Menu, we discussed Bulletin Board Services (BBS) and other early iterations of how magicians congregated online in the days of "dial-up", which was long before the internet.

If you are interested in performing in a restaurant or in a corporate strolling environment, then this is a "must hear" podcast.