Dennis' Deliberations

I got a rather sad note from England. Many of you may remember "Brioni" ( Brian Mills) a rather short and rotund older magician that visited with us a couple of times from England. At the last ring meeting he attended here in Orlando ,he did a "Cards Across" routine. Here is the note:

Dennis
I am secretary of the Chester Guild of Magicians in England. One of our members has been to your club a couple of times when holidaying in Orlando and has said how welcome he was made on both occasions. He suggested any magicians on holiday in the area should make an effort to attend.Unfortunately, he had a heart attack a few weeks ago and has now sadly died. His name is Brian Mills and went under the stage name of Brioni.I don't know if Brian had any particular friends at your club, but as he had spoken so highly of yourselves, I thought I would let you know this information about his death so you can pass it on.

Regards

Stephen Cooil stevecooil@themagician.demon.co.uk

I guess we never know how many people appreciate our Ring hospitality.
Rest in peace, Brian.

Brian did a good job for us in perfoming. He did jog loose an old memory for me.

Every once in a while all of us wand wielders sit though a magic show that is so awful, so revolting and so stomach turning that we leave the performance and want to rush home and burn our equipment. At best, we have to spend all the drive back home with our spouse explaining how the show wasn’t really all that bad.

One of my most memorable stories was when I lived in the Carolinas in the early 70s. Back then, a person could make a fair living doing magic for school shows, service club shows, Cub Scout meetings and birthday parties. The hills of Western North Carolina were filled with little mill towns and each town had its own industrial company and community spirit.

One such enterprising performer was a bit of a local legend in that area. For purposes of this story let me call him Luke Porter. That is not his real name because I have every desire to let the dead rest in peace. His wife was Opal. Luke was a rather rotund character with thinning gray hair on the sides and patches of hair in the middle. His face was deeply wrinkled and resembled fifty miles of bad road ahead. He had a pencil thin moustache. His massive hands looked like they belonged to a plumber. In fact, his whole personage resembled a country plumber and that would be complete with a big potbelly and a belt that allowed it to hang over. Luke wore a tailcoat outfit that had been homemade by Opal. The store-bought black pants did not match the shade of black on the tailcoat! The tailcoat had actually been constructed by cutting down a black suit coat and merely tacking on tails made from black cloth. Are you getting the idea that this was not a class act?

Opal was very grandmotherly. Her gown was homemade out of lavender satin and she barely fit into it. It was sleeveless and allowed a generous hanging slab of arm flesh to flop around. She wore loads of powder that accented her wrinkles and bright red lipstick that was the popular shade in 1954. Luke had a bit of a speech defect and could not say the sound of “r” very well. He also had a curious shaking in his hands. He moved like a plodding elephant. To his credit he did have a warm smile and enjoyed what he was doing even though he was clueless as to how bad he looked and acted in front of the audience.

Luke and Opal traveled to shows with their son-in-law, Theodore. “Theo” was very thin country fellow about 40 years old. He had a receding chin and a bit of an overbite. His eyes were droopy and nose long. He wore a baby blue velvet sport coat that was two sizes too big and white pants and shoes and a long paisley necktie. Theodore was a frustrated Pentecostal evangelist. He had all the hand motions and staccato speech pattern with a deep breath between every 3 words. Theo carried props on and off stage and did his own specialty act in the show. I will have more to say about that act in a moment.

They rode and carried their props in a converted step van, better known to most people as a bread truck. It had been painted white with a brush and not a sprayer. Luke had free hand lettered the name of his show on the side. It said, “Luke and Opal Magic Shows. The best in magic shows. Call 704- xxxx” (The numbers ran down hill, as did the whole lettering. It looked like a sign for a garage sale) .

Luke made almost every prop in the show. He must not have known about such things as sandpaper or a carpenter’s square or putting an undercoat on plywood before he painted it. He made an attempt at creating a fabric backdrop by using plumber’s pipe. The backdrop fabric had huge gashes in it. After the show I asked him about the gashes and he said, “It allows the wind to go through it so it doesn’t blow over when we do outside shows”. His stage lighting was a pair of outdoor floodlights mounted on a square of plywood that sat on the flood.

The show opened with a very scratchy instrumental theme playing on a phonograph record. Luke plodded out and tried to do the gloves to spring flowers. He tossed the gloves into the air and they fell to the floor as he was trying to get the spring flower packet to open. Bautier DeKolta, the inventor of spring flowers, would have had a stroke watching this. The show went downhill from there. With a combination of U.F. Grant magic and home built props, Luke managed to get more groans and moans than applause.

His audience participation bits with children were painful. When talking to the children he used “baby-talk”. This was not received well by a 10-year-old boy. Luke attempted to do Grant’s Devil Canister. Recall that this is a tin can about the size of a can of green beans. It had a wick with lighter fluid around the top inside edge. A secret metal tube was spot welded down the middle and the tube opened at the bottom. So to make a wedding ring disappear in the flames, you light the wick and drop the ring in the center of the can. It can safely fall down inside the tube into the middle into the palm of your hand where you could palm it off and load it to another prop. At least this is how it is supposed to happen.

This is the wrong trick to do with a 10-year-old boy. The kid did not have a ring and had to borrow one from his Mom. She was not about to let her wedding ring be used by the idiot
magician on stage. After arguing she relents. Luke lit the Canister and dropped in the ring and it fell out of his palm and onto the floor. He begged, “Opal, can you get the ring for me? Oh Opal!” The mother was furious, the audience was laughing and 65-year-old Opal was on her hands and knees searching the floor. Suddenly, we became aware of the flaming canister as Luke cried out, ‘Oh Jesus, is this hot!” Now the flaming canister fell on the floor as Luke winced in pain. Opal found the ring and Luke did a clumsy sleight and passed it off to Opal who loaded it into a gigantic sized nest of boxes -For a small ring?

Luke’s stage tables were 3 TV snack trays and a card table with one bent leg. After a few more fiascos it was time for a special word from Theodore. Theo came out holding an easel with a half completed cartoon. He began adding parts to the drawing with a magic marker. His patter seemed odd! “Friends, if you died tonight are you sure where you would be?” He went on to sketch a Christian Cross and give his testimony. As he talked his rhythm got faster, he began to sharply inhale between each word. “ And –uh- I –uh-am here-uh-to tell you-uh, oh glorah, that He can save ya! And I-uh- can tell you-uh that if your life is filled with alkie-haul- uh- and you need victory-uh…” I did not object to the sermon but I did feel it was inappropriate for an audience that was there to be entertained. However in fairness to Luke, this was in western North Carolina, just under the buckle of the Bible belt, and fifty miles east of where the snake-handling churches were. Theodore finished and dragged his easel off stage.

Luke and Opal and Theodore finished up their act with more Grant magic and a rabbit vanish. After the show, while Theo and Opal were backing the props, Luke came out to shake hands with the crowd. He recognized me from seeing me on the local TV children’s show. He grabbed my hand and almost shook it off. We exchanged a few niceties.

That was a different day and a different age. That type of magic show could not play today. Luke made a living. He stayed busy. To be honest with you, most of the people that watched his show were adequately amused and entertained. Their level of expectation was much lower than today with 500 channels available by satellite TV.

All the way home my wife kept saying, “Why do you drag me to these things? I deflected the questions with, “ Tell you what, honey, tomorrow night lets go see the new Paul Newman movie, “The Sting’.

These are some memories from so long ago.

Dennis Phillips