2011-04 Dennis' Deliberations

The calendar showed that we are in the spring season but the snow storms continue. I am referring to real snow and not the classic messy magic effect! I am writing this on March 29th and we are due for 3 inches of snow tonight! It is not really bad. They plow and sand the roads and are prepared. Wes Iseli a local fulltime professional seldom loses shows due to weather. If they do cancel, they reschedule.

David Seebach, the Milwaukee area illusionist and Midwest magic legend, just gave details in the March MUM about the Owen’s Chinese Tea for a Potentate illusion. The column was at the prompting of another Milwaukee legend , our own Dan Stapleton. Of course, in the early 70s Dan left the Milwaukee area to move here to warm and sunny Central Florida and create a career as a theme park and cruise ship entertainer.

Seebach is an old friend and on his tours to Florida he would stop in and visit my illusion warehouse and costume factory and store. The theme of his MUM story was about his love affair with brightly decorated and exotic looking Oriental Props and how he acquired a rare and difficult-to-perform illusion. In typical Seebach style, he themed the illusion with costumes and sets, added music and performance elements and made it an intriguing stage illusion. It was one of those illusions that “was created for the paint job”. In other words, the effect was not that strong but the visual eye-candy made fun to watch. I have a couple of those in my big show, the Color Changing Plumes, my large blooming flower trellis and my rose-petal snowstorm.

When I was a kid, I also loved brightly colored props with strange designs and especially Chinese words painted on them. I think we all did! I also bought lots of magic because of the paint job.

One day, while I was a college student, I was painting a big mirror box and I copied some Chinese Letters (不要在巷子里小便) I saw on a street sign in a Chinese newspaper that I had picked up where my mother worked. She worked as an assistant manager at the Chinese Restaurant in Bowie, Maryland. I was so proud of my artwork and the lettering on my Magic trick, so I showed a Polaroid photo to Mr. Chin, the owner of The Golden Pagoda Restaurant. When Mr. Chin saw the box in the photo he started laughing! Chinese people are very reserved and rarely laugh like he did.

He said in a thick accent as he pointed to my artwork, "Do you know what that says?" I said that I didn't but that I just liked the Chinese letters and that I had found them in one of his Chinese newspapers. Still laughing he said, "This says, 'Do not pee in the alley’! "

That is what I got for not knowing what I was copying!

A year or so later, Mr. Chin had expanded his restaurant to a chain and he hired me to be his event and advertising coordinator. I did several Chinese New Year celebrations for him and I did all his print and radio commercials. I also learned to read some Mandarin characters and speak enough Chinese to get along. I still have a soft spot in my magic thinking for Chinese magic and design.

Locally in Harrisonburg, President Eddie Tobey did a spectacular job on his magic radio debut. Eddie joined Hobart at 7:45 in the morning in the WQPO “Q101” studio and did some magic.

I have been helping Eddie with ideas for magic-on-the-radio. Many of you know that I work for VerStandig Broadcasting which owns Q101 as well as WSVA and “Bob Rocks”. Carson, the morning man at 105 “Bob Rocks” is a magician and visited Ring 320.

Eddie did a trick I gave him and since it is appropriate for this year (2011) I will share it with you. It requires a build up! This is 2011, the year before the Mayan calendar ends and the year that all things come into convergence. The convergence number is 111. Remember that number. Almost everyone is in the convergence! This is the only year in a hundred that has 1/1/11 and 1/11/11 as well as 11/1/11 and 11/11/11! Here is how you can check to see if you are in the cosmic convergence: Take the last two years of the year you were born in. For example if you were born in 1948 take the “48” and add it to the age you will be on the birthday that you have in this year. If you have already had your birthday, use the age you are now. If you are going to have a birthday this year, then use the age you will be. Again, add the two numbers in the year you were born and your age. Hum “111” ! You are a part of the convergence!

In my last year in college in Maryland, I needed a female assistant for my magic gigs and there was a tall thin student who always dressed covered up like a Victorian and she always acted like she was really stuck up. I would smile at her and most of the time she would wryly smile, raise one eyebrow like Max Maven and look away. She was not in any of my classes. Sometimes I would walk with her from the parking lot in the mornings or see her in the student union at lunch time. She was friendly but distant and fearful.

All the guys thought she was hot but would not approach her. One female student said, “Yea, you should have seen how she was in High School! She’s changed”

She used to come to school made up like a model with false eyelashes and would always wear clothes that covered her up. I remember her walking to class with a tight long gray maxi-coat and always a neck scarf and black stiletto heels (out of fashion at that time in the early 70s) with one foot paced in front of the other and walking in a straight line. Her hips would sway and turn every guy’s head. Her face looked very much like Bernadette Peters.

I could tell that she had been to a finishing school because she walked and stood with perfect posture and her fashion and makeup were professional.

I was in desperate need for help with my magic show so I went over to her in the student union where she was sitting alone. Her maxi coat went almost to her ankles and she was wearing high heel black boots as she sat on the couch. I walked over and said, “Pat, you look and walk like you would make a great magic assistant with me. I have some shows coming up. Do you want some work?” She got a real sour look on her face and spit back, “Oh go away!”

Instead of accepting her answer, I plopped down next to her on the brown leather couch and took her hand, squeezed it and puffed up my chest and got about 6 inches from her face and said, “I need your help, Pat!”. Her eyes darted wildly from side to side and she pulled back and some sort of look of terror filled her face and her pupils fully dilated and she took a deep breath, her eyes rolled up and she moaned, “YES!”.

Her father was an Air Force Colonel based at Andrews Air Force Base and her mother was a tall stately woman who looked a lot like Grace Kelly. I went over to her house and insisted that I talk to her mother who was very supportive of Patty helping me.

While Patty was upstairs getting into the show costume (borrowed from Chuck and Shirley Windley, illusionists who lived near us), her Mom brought out pictures and explained how Patty had been fat, clumsy and teased in School with no interest in how she looked. Her parents spent a fortune getting her top-notch training and direction in all aspects of female beauty.

Patty came down the stairs with a bathrobe covering the show costume underneath. The costume was a bit like an Esther Williams swimsuit with some rhinestones and bead work and fringe. Her Mom and I stood in the living room as she slipped off the bathrobe. Patty again had a real sour look on her face. “This is ridiculous!” She protested. Mom chimed in, “Now Patty, be kind, listen to him and don’t be embarrassed.” We were pinning her on the sides and  got to her middle and it was solid like a sheet of steel. I thought, “she has on a girdle!” It was to firm extra skin from the weight loss. She had a birthmark on the side of her bust just at the line where the costume top ended. So I did the old trick of cutting up a band aid and sticking it on her. In my makeup costume kit, I always carried Band-Aids and other things needed for helping someone look good on stage. If you see Preparation H in my makeup kit, realize that a dab on the face removes crow’s feet and tightens the skin! It is a professional model’s trick.

Her Mother was thrilled, “Oh Patty, you look so good!” She continued to be sour and said, “Please don’t make me do this”.

She blurted out to me, “You may as well know that I used to be a fat slob and now I am all strapped together.” That comment sort of put me in a tough psychological spot. Women often do that with statements. If I said, “Well, you look good now!” she could say something like, “All you care about is my body”. If I said, “I think we can work around it”, she could say, “See, you think I am a slob too!”. If I say, “This is about a job and if you can function in it”, she would get mad at that. Nothing I could say is going to not get me in trouble. So I did what I thought would be the least area of verbal exposure. I just ignored her comment and said, “You have to sit crossed legged in this Doll house illusion so I needed to see your range of movement”. She shot back at me, “You are like all men, and you ignore what any woman says!” So I repeated what worked in the student union. I took her hand, squeezed it and puffed up my chest and got about 6 inches from her face and said, “I need your help, Pat!”. Same response: Her eyes darted wildly from side to side and she pulled back and some sort of look of terror filled her face and her pupils fully dilated and she took a deep breath, her eyes rolled up and she moaned, “YES!”. She fit the illusion fine.

She was a good assistant but a little sour with an effective sneer. It was actually kind of sexy on stage. She would get an aggravated look like Pam Thompson only Patty’s was real. I played off of it with a deadpan and double-take and it got laughs. I never could get her to show a joyous smile. Her ballet and dance training helped a lot. She knew how to walk and stand. Her Mother and I used to talk about her psychological problems. They even sent her for psychological treatment.

In 1971 no one had yet identified Bulimia but she would purge after eating. We would stop to eat on the way back from a show and she would empty her stomach. Her parents spent a fortune on dental work to keep her teeth looking normal from the stomach acids that eat away the teeth enamel.

She was one bundle of psychological problems but still a good assistant. Today medicine has a big tool chest of drugs and techniques to help with psychological problems. Still, in show business you have to learn to deal with all types. We do have strange ones!

Dennis Phillips