#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!

170: Day 5 - IBM/SAM Combined Convention 2014

It's here...the final day of the Combined Convention. This brought us the long awaited results of the days of competitions. But first, the I.B.M. hosted its annual Order of Merlin breakfast which honors those who have 25 or more consecutive years of membership in the organization. Lupe Nielsen was the guest speaker who showed us slides from Norm's and her massive collection.

The afternoon included a lecture by Dani DaOrtiz before the buses loaded for the evening gala show, "The Magic of Korea". Afterwards was the awards presentation back in the hotel. First of all, The FISM Close-Up champion was Shin Lim and the Stage champions were Trevor and Lorena Waters. The representatives who will go forward as the representatives from North America for stage will be: Trevor & Lorena Waters, The Reed Sisters, Tim Wright, Trent James, Trigg Watson, and Christian & Katalina. The Close-up representatives will be: Shin Lim, Alberto Lorenzo, Reuben Mooreland, Chris Hannibal and Michael Dardant.

The I.B.M. winners for Close-up was Alberto Lorenzo in second place and Michael Dardant in first place. The stage winners were: Den Den (from Japan) in second place, and Hun Lee (Japan) in first place. There were no Gold Medal or Gold Cup winners announced for the I.B.M. this year. First place in both categories included a cash award of $2,000 and second place received $500.

The S.A.M. close-up winners were: Reuben Mooreland in second place and Seoul Park (S. Korea) in first place. Winning the Silver Medal Award of Merit for close-up was Seoul Park. In the Stage competition, Hun Lee (S. Korea) took second place and Den Den (Japan) took first place. The Silver Award of Merit for Stage went to Hun Lee. I believe that the S.A.M. cash awards were the same as for the I.B.M.

The highest award from the S.A.M. for stage is the Gold Medal Award of Honor which has only once before been awarded. It went to George Saterial. It was awarded for the second time this evening to Den Den (Japan)

And the People's Choice Award, along with a $3,000 prize for each went to Shin Lim for Close-up and to Hun Lee for Stage. Congratulations, one and all.

And speaking of money, there was both a silent and live auction for select memorabilia from Joanie Spina, They raised $5,500 which all will go to help offset some of the astronomical medical expenses for Joanie.

Here are some photos of a small part of the Nielsen poster collection that I took in 2007 while Dick Olson and I were visiting with Norm and Lupe Nielsen in their home.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:01:58 - At the Order of Merlin (25+ years of consecutive membership in the I.B.M.) breakfast, Lupe Nielsen was the guest speaker. She allowed me to record and broadcast her speech on the Neilen poster collection.

00:35:19 - The new National President for the S.A.M., Kenrick "Ice" McDonald, tells us his vision for magic and what he hopes to achieve during his one year tenure as President.

00:39:28- Eugene Burger and Larry Hass chat after lunch about fine tuning your act, the importance of scripting, and more.

01:04:32 - Stan Allen, editor and chief of MAGIC Magazine, tells us about M360 and how it has evolved as well as a little about next year's MAGIC Live! convention plus the Magic Summit planned for this coming Fall.

149: Day 3 - East Coast Mind Jam 2014

Day Three of the East Coast Mind Jam was a little off schedule due to a travel problem for Marc Salem from England. But the day began with an interesting lecture by Joe Atmore on The Amazing Dunninger. that included some fun, old videos from Dunninger's television show It didn't hurt that Joe bought a few dozen doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts to entice better attendance at this early hour. After lunch we were visited by Tony Spina. Eric Citron, organizer of the Mind Jam, presented a "Lifetime Achievement in Magic Award" to Tony followed by several people who gave testimonials and recollections of their time with Tony.

This flowed directly into a special edition of "Now You See It with Scott Wells", a talk show that featured magicians from the weekend: George Tait (Patrick Redford), Joe Atmore, Ted Karmilovich, Bill Gladwell and Richard Osterlind. This took us right up to the time when Marc Salem arrived. The stage was struck and Marc began his one man show. That followed with his lecture that included some explanations of tricks from his working repertoire.

I apologize for the buzzing sound in this podcast but the microphone was near speaker which had an annoying buzz that I could not take out. Time stamps for this podcast:

00:01:24 - Tony Spina, former owner of Tannen's Magic, accepts an award plus several people tell stories of their influence by Tony.

00:17:57 - "Now You See It With Scott Wells" with George Tait up first.

00:30:50 - Joe Atmore tells some great stories about working with Uri Geller

00:4:41 - Ted Karmilovich talks about performing at a casino

00:53:30 - Bill Gladwell chats about how he got his one man show in Gatlinburg, Tennessee

00:58:30 - Richard Osterlind recounts a story about David Copperfield

01:06:03 - everyone on the couch tells their story of a highlight performance from their careers.