2008-03 Dennis' Deliberations

Okay, Okay, I am a glutton for punishment. Did any of you guys ever know a homely, shy girl in high school or college? You looked at her and she made very good grades, was reclusively friendly and you thought she had some potential to turn from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Maybe if you could get her to ditch the cat-eye glasses, style her hair, dress in current fashion, you could help her out. You forced a few social dates on her and kept hoping she would blossom. You soon found out that she did not want to change.

I am beginning to feel this way about “Magic by the Bay”, the Tampa Magic Convention held the middle of February. I believe this was the 3rd year. It is sponsored by the local Magic shop in Tampa. Marty, the owner seems to be trying to create a springtime version of Harry and Irv’s Daytona Magic event. Last year Richard Hewitt was kind enough to take me over and support my attendance. This year, I rode with Dan Stapleton, Luciano and Chris Dunn for the Saturday night show and a glimpse at the dealer areas.

It seems to me that the whole convention is just not very well thought out and executed. I can not speak for the lectures and Friday Night show this year but last year, they were like the girl in the first paragraph, full of potential, interesting but lacking much. Last year, Rocco was a one-trick-pony. Nearly everything he did was sleeving, He was good at it, as was Sterling Steal. But, how much of it can you take? The Friday Night Show last year was little better than a local Ring banquet show.

I was told that Marty tries to run the whole show by himself, without adequate and costly help, and that can greatly affect the flow and execution of the events.
After supper at Sonny’s Barbeque on Dale Mabry we set off for the short trip to Thomas Jefferson High School. Dan, Luciano, Chris and I ran into our Ring President Craig Fennessey and Jim Green from Mr. G’s Magic and Costumes in Jacksonville.

The High School auditorium ended up about less than half full with about 300 in the seats. As was true with last year, the lighting and sound were abysmal. They must have hired the spotlight operator from Stalag 13 in Hogan’s Heros. He could not find anyone on stage. The microphones did not work and the sound that came from them was horrible. You would think that basic lighting and sound is foundational to any stage show but the show producer seemed unconcerned.

Last year and the year before the master of ceremonies was Ronald McDonald. May I speculate that it was a stoned Ronald McDonald? That Ronald was the most droll, monotone clown I have ever seen. He made TV’s James Lipton seem like a raging extrovert. Well, there was no Ronald this year. In fact, there was no Master of Ceremonies! To use a phrase from Jack Parr, “I kid you not!” Marty, in blue jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, came out and announced the intermission! For a moment I thought a wino had wandered in off the street and on to the stage. Just before the second act, some unprofessional dude with sloppy blue jeans and his shirt tail hanging out came out on stage and did an impassioned plea to not let young children see the following act with Eran Raven. Maybe that act was why Ronald McDonald was not on the bill this year. On the way back home we all were laughing in the car saying that we never believed we could have wanted Ronald McDonald back.

Okay, down to the show. At least the first half was a real downer. First up was Darren Rockwell. Rockwell is in his late 20s, I think he basically did the same illusion he did in Daytona two years ago. Maybe someone can explain what the whole thing is supposed to be. I get the crushing the girl part-yawn- but I missed what the set up was supposed to be.

There was no introduction. The curtain opened and the girl was in coveralls on an aluminum ladder with a couple of boxes and a trunk around her. The “music” was some acid-grunge collection of noise that sounded like Kurt Cobain in his last gasps of life. The girl twirled a bit and out walked Rockwell in faded jeans, untied sneakers and a shirt that was not tucked in. He helped the girl remove her coveralls and she was in a Marilyn Monroe style white dress. He put her into the Girl Crusher with what seemed like the Gerry Frenette moves as seen on Frenette’s sales video. Watch it on You Tube, maybe you can make sense of what he is trying to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70gId6yO5NQ That had to have been the high point of his act because we were then treated to 20 minutes of nonsense with a one-way deck.

He began this effect by going out into the audience to supposedly find a girl with whom he could establish a mind link. He went though several women asking them to say the first thing that came into their mind when he said a word. With each one that failed he seemed annoyed and told them to sit down when they did not fill his needs. There was no attempt at softening the impact. No compliment, just “Sit down!”… How about him saying, “You are really pretty and have a sweet personality but we need some more time together”. Then give her a rose. Nope, none of this! The way he handled the ladies made him seem arrogant and abusive.

Finally he found a girl and brought her up on stage. Catch this; we are ten minutes into the routine! Ten minutes to just find a girl to help him! Next he had a low coffee table. He opened a deck of cards and spread the face down on the table and then went to the other side of the stage with a giant drawing pad. He instructed the girl to push out any card of her free choice and look at it and then cover everything with a pocket handkerchief. Standing at the other side of the stage he opened the large drawing pad and begin eliminating cards by asking the girl personal questions about her life. Does anyone really care she has been with her current boyfriend of 4 months? “Okay, let’s scratch out the 4 of hearts!” After another 5 minutes or so of this type of stuff he finally revealed the card she had selected. Maybe he did not use a one-way deck but he could have and he also could have cut the whole bit down to one-fourth the time. I have a bias against anything but the most simple and quick card tricks. The audience has to be able to follow the action. Whatever it is, the card trick must be more than just, the fact that you figured out the card. Maybe Rockwell is just young. I hope he gets over the impression I get that he enjoys hearing himself talk.

The next act was the biggest disappointment of the night. They brought in Eran Raven who was one of the participants on the recent NBC show called Phenomenon.
If you recall from Episode One (that show went downhill from there) he was the mentalist with the Nail guns. The shtick is that he has air-powered nail guns on a table and someone from the audience loads real nails into only one and he puts all of them to his head until the final one. He hesitates between the last two and then correctly figures the one that is unloaded. Believe me; the Tampa stage version was far less exciting, in spite of the fact that he had a tension filled introduction. First of all, Raven must be having a bad season because his hair was not trim as it was on the show. He looked greasy and tired. His voice was much weaker than on the TV show. Also lacking was all the music backgrounds, the camera angles and especially the noise of the nail guns. His guns were pathetic sounding… a little small click! On TV they sounded like AK-47s.

One issue was the woman he brought up on stage to risk his life … I had seen her at the dealer’s market with her son. He was a cute little kid trying to do some card tricks for us. He looked like his Dad was Eran Raven! I can pretty much tell when a woman has had bust enhancement by Goodyear or Dow Corning. She was just too much of a babe to be at a magic convention with her son. So… the first act was over… I reached into my pocket and felt my folding money and said to myself…”Twenty bucks, huh…is this night gonna be worth it?”

The curtain came up on the last half of the show and the stage was filled with red box tables and props of all sorts. It looked like they moved the dealer’s room on stage.
But, to the joy of many present, we finally got down to seeing some magic. The magician was Dick Johnson. He has appeared several times at the Sanford Fun World Pavilion and is an old act that spent many years on the fair circuits. Dick has to be in his late 60s or early 70s but he is still energetic and has a gift of gab that is needed as a County Fair performer. He is a throw back to the old magicians you saw doing school shows in the 50s and 60s and at amusement parks.

At a result of his venues, all his props are out on stage to begin with and he shuffles boxes and bags and props out of his tables. We saw a very competent presentation of a number of Abbott’s’ classic tricks. One standout was his Crystal Coin ladder done as a Miser’s Dream. It was a solid crowd pleaser. He opened with several dove productions from props. He used a parrot as well as a duck and a guinea pig. The guinea pig was used in a sucker die box vanish created by Jack Gwynne. He ended with the Jig Saw version of the Visible Sawing a Girl in half. He made a comment that he got his rabbit at a county fair in Isle of Wight, Virginia. I have been to Isle of Wight, Virginia. Folks there still think that Roosevelt is president (Teddy Roosevelt). Hey, most of us are still doing stuff from the Teddy Roosevelt era! He did not do cutting-edge magic but he performed well. We all gave him a standing ovation when his act was over.

The final act of the evening was Roy Huston. I have known Roy since the early 60s. I remember seeing him at the MAES Convention in 1964, assisted by his mother. I always considered Roy a circus and carnival performer, but I could make the case that he was the legitimate successor to Bill Neff. Roy tried his hand, with some measure of success, in the fading spook show market before it came to a close in the late 60s. Many editions of the Abbott’s catalog had an old photo of Roy with his mother emerging from the Girl in the Drum illusion. Roy is a lot like Dick Johnson. He is an old guy with an old traditional act. But, just because the props and style are old does not mean that they still can not be entertaining. Roy did fine.

He opened with the Girl in Drum, his signature piece. The girls were in circus style costumes and Roy was in a brown and tan tux. He has a belly and stoops a bit in old age. Actually when he stands straight, his full mane of gray hair creates an imposing look. Again, because of technical glitches, his microphone did not work most of the time so we were treated to his soft and low husky cigarette voice, cultured by years of carnival work. He handled the glitches with the sound system with graceful humor. Roy followed his opening with the seldom seen, Rod through the Girl. He pushed a brass tube through the middle of the girl and then blew smoke through it. I recall Joe Smiley making this a real miracle by dimming the lights and running a lighted neon tube through the girl. His red-head assistant was a cute, shapely and trained well. Later I was told she was Phil Chandler’s daughter. He was an old circus magician. She was in contrast to the assistant we had next.

The curtains opened and Roy introduced another illusion. The illusion was a tip-over box with a set of rollers on top. The idea was that a “witch” got inside and he rolled her out flat, showed the box empty and then returned her to normal. The major issue was that the witch was in a very skimpy outfit and at least 50 to 75 pounds over weight as well as being pasty white! The woman did not belong in that dress. When she turned sideways, every guy in the audience prayed that she did not fall out of the costume.

Roy then went into a giant Hippity Hop Skeleton routine in front of the curtain. I liked his corny lines. One skeleton was white and the other was “Red Skeleton”. He was doing the “Graveyard Shift”. The routine ended with the sucker finish: the back sides were tomb stones.

The curtains opened and Roy explained that his next illusion had been a feature many years ago on the Blackstone Sr. illusion show. He said that he and Yip De Louis had revived it in 1970 when Yip made the first one for him since then days of Blackstone. There was a tall open cabinet with 24 long light bulbs. The girl stood up against the bulbs and Roy put a cover over the front with holes for the light bulbs to emerge. Two big roller shades were pulled on the side. He then pushed back the cover and squeezed the girl into the lit bulbs. It appeared than they had penetrated the girl. This was the one place in the show where they worked the stage lights correctly and when the stage went dark, with just the bulbs illuminating the cabinet, the effect was “electric” to say the least. Unfortunately, Roy never moved the lighted cabinet from side to side, so we were just treated to a straight-on view and some of the depth was lost to us. But I am happy to see this seldom seen and powerful illusion. I like the Yip de Lou version because there is no larger frame, such as Owens uses, to blunt the effect.

He closed the show with an Egyptian sequence. An assistant brought out a Safari jacket and a pith helmet and he dressed as “Indiana Huston”. The curtain opened and an Egyptian queen was produced from the Classic Mummy Case. She also needed a membership at LA Fitness. He went right into the classic Indian Basket themed as an Egyptian pyramid. The girl emerged unharmed and Roy and his crew came out for a final bow. The audience also gave him a standing ovation. Roy’s act brought back memories of the Friday Night Abbott’s Get Together shows in the late 60s. As I left, I guess I finally got my twenty bucks worth.

I keep hoping this Tampa Bay thing can turn into a nice springtime convention. It is not there yet and not making much progress but I will see how they do next year. Hope springs eternal.

Dennis Phillips