2013-05 Famulus Newsletter

Next general meeting Wednesday, 05/15/2013 at 7:30 PM SHARP
I-HOP Kirkman Road
5203 Kirkman Road, Orlando, Florida 32819

Please join us for dinner beforehand

Lunch meetings in the McDonald’s at 7344 Sand Lake Road, Orlando. It’s two blocks WEST of the intersection of Interstate 4 and Sand Lake Road. We meet every Tuesday at noon upstairs.

Website: http://www.ring170.com/

F. A. M. E. is the Florida Association of Magical Entertainers
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Directory
Craig J. Fennessy – President – CraigFennessy@gmail.com
Chris Dunn- Vice President – Youngdunns@yahoo.com
Sheldon Brook- Secretary – mrbrook33@yahoo.com
Treasurer - Bev Bergeron - Bev@bevbergeron.com
Mark Fitzgerald- Director at Large - markaf1949@hotmail.com
Dan Knapp- Sgt at Arms - danknapp@centurylink.net
Stefan Bartelski – Editor of “Famulus”- Famulus@illusioneer.com
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2013-05 From The Editor

Many thanks to Dennis, Sheldon and Ian for this month's contributions. Remember, if you have any interesting magic news, please do share it with the ring through an email to me at the address above.

Your editor
Stefan

2013-05 Ring Report

President Craig Fennessey opened the meeting on time and introduced the Officers of
the Ring and a visiting guest from Manchester, England, Stephen Ablett. Phil Schwartz
commented on the recent Potter and Potter Auction of the personal property and
memorabilia of the esteemed magician, Cardini. The auction results indicated that the
participating public held Cardini in very high regard.

Dan Stapleton reported that he had performed at a very large private party in
Altamonte Springs during the past week. Wallace Murphy is continuing performing at
Gator's Dockside in Ocoee and Mark Fitzgerald continues his Friday night walk-around
magic at the Hard Rock in Orlando.

Mathew Wright was originally scheduled to lecture at this evening's meeting but,
unfortunately, had to cancel because of travel difficulties. Magic Ian, graciously,
filled in for him with a lecture - workshop. Ian has, over the years, contributed
and performed many effects for audiences across the Country. This evening he
demonstrated and entertained with effects such as The Spring and Ring, Coin Through
a Balloon, Flaming Coin and Match Pulls. The Rope Magic Routines he presented to
the Ring audience will always be remembered. At the conclusion of his presentation
the meeting was adjourned.

Sheldon Brook

2013-05 Make Arrangements Now

Some good advice from Magic Ian (Ed.)

If you have a magic collection, you may want to inventory it, gather up instructions and even price the current value of your items.
Case in point, when Roy Fromer passed away, his wife called me first. Told me to come and get the stuff because she didn't know what to do with it. I had Dan Dyer do that, as I was just too close to Roy to be an executor of his magic.
With Dan's help, he ran a lot of the Fromer pieces thru the Orlando club at the time.
There are a lot of "magic widows" out there whose spouses are alive and well. The term "Magic widow" is the wife of a magician who just doesn't know or even care about the husbands magic. She is a widow long before the magician passes. She (generally it's a she) will wind up calling a thrift shop to come and get it when her husband goes.
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A simple set of instructions and even appointed executor of your magic should be arranged.
I am in the process of arranging my collection which also includes a perpetual resale of manufactured goods. I am leaving production notes on how to prepare and package inventory still in demand and to give a royalty to my wife. Ring 258 just liquidated two estates of magic and held after meeting sales to do so. But, it takes that one friend to properly dispose of it.
Just a thought.

2013-05 Dennis Deliberations.... Editorial and Comment

 "The psychic business is a multi-billion-dollar industry today, in what can only be called, The Golden Age of the Con". -- Mentalist and Psychic Investigator Mark Edward. 

So the billion dollar psychic industry is fraudulent? Sounds pretty close to every industry gone big: could be military, tech, diamonds, government, academia, religion, education, insurance, finance… Greed, fraud, and deceit are rampant and infectious. Maybe I am just on an ethics kick when it come to magicians, but I am in the company of Houdini, Randi, Himber and others. 

Since I do a fair amount of psychic and mental magic-no need to lug the big stuff for that- I still get people who refuse to accept it as entertainment. They insist in believing in special mystical powers. That just bothers me.    I have mentioned several times here about knowing “Dr.” David Hoy. He had been a Baptist Fundamentalist Evangelist and gave it all up to become a stage psychic. I knew David during his ministry years because he used to do Gospel magic in his sermons. Following his rejection of the  pulpit, he was a smash hit on the Night Club Circuit and the Playboy Clubs. His book, The Bold and Subtle Miracles of Dr. Faust,  gave us mentalism classics and techniques such as “The Tossed out deck” and “Hurling the headlines”.  There seems something eerie and accurate about his stage name! 

Recall in classic literature the Faust legend: Faust ,in the classic German legend, is a highly successful scholar but one who was dissatisfied with his life who therefore makes a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many artistic works. Faust and the term “Faustian” imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success. That was Hoy!  He gave up his Christian faith and Baptist morals for fame.  

Hoy, in his later years did an enormously successful call in radio segment. When I was on WBT Radio in Charlotte, we carried his show as a feature during our mid-day program.  When I was filling in on the radio, I did the two-way bits with him. He would take callers and do cold readings and then give his address if anyone wanted advice on special personal issues.  I once asked him off the air what led to him giving up his Christian ministry and becoming a Psychic. He said, “Someday. I will tell you the whole story”  That day  never came. Hoy, who was massively obese, died of a heart attack , in 1981, long before his time. His story would make a great movie. Still within me is an anger over the evil that gripped him and took him to an early death.    

I know that any mentalist can enhance his revenue with stock market and love advice. It just galls me to know anyone would do that. I am all for baffling and mind-numbing magic. I just never want anyone to think that it is “real”. My students in high classes often ask me, “Is that David Blaine guy, for real?”  As P.T, Barnum is reported to have said, “There is a sucker born every minute”. 

DETECTING  FRAUDULENT PSYCHICS  

1. SHOW ME a psychic who isn't using his or her alleged paranormal talents to improve the financial health of others, and I'll show you a fraud. 
2. SHOW ME a psychic who isn't on the payroll of some police force or detective agency and being paid BIG BUCKS for their services, and I'll show you a fraud. 
3. SHOW ME a psychic who isn't making incredible breakthroughs in cures for all the world's major diseases (by divining all such future cures) and I'll show you a fraud. 
4. SHOW ME a psychic who isn't foreseeing all the major natural and man-made disasters of the world, and thereby saving countless millions of lives, and I'll show you a fraud. 
5. SHOW ME a psychic who doesn't have a stock portfolio that would put Warren Buffett's to shame, and I'll show you a fraud. 
6. SHOW ME a psychic who makes his or her living almost exclusively from doing readings, preying on the bereaved, selling books, hawking their nonsense on websites, and appearing regularly on Coast to Coast AM and other such squalid media outlets, and I'll show you a fraud. 
7. SHOW ME a psychic who has not been snapped up by the CIA or some other country's information agency, and I'll show you a fraud. 
8. SHOW ME a psychic who bluffs his or her way through life in order to avoid plain honest work, and I'll show you a fraud. 
9. SHOW ME a psychic who studiously avoids the many large cash-awards that are available to anyone who can scientifically validate their paranormal abilities, and I'll show you a fraud. 
10. SHOW ME a psychic who resorts to cold reading, lame parlor tricks, psychological game-playing, sleazy showmanship, and a heartless praying on the gullible religious and superstitious, and I'll show you a fraud. 

By Dennis Phillips  May 2013