Let’s get this out front:

I HATE JOSHUA JAY

He’s young, good looking, talented, single and doing exactly what he wants. In short, he’s everything I’m not and never will be.

Even in his very earliest writings, h’s shown an incredible ability, for someone of his age especially, to select quality tricks and sleights. This collection of 3 DVDs represents his favorites – not necessarily the best, of his columns from Magic Magazine.

There’s 7 hours, or so, of enjoyable magic. Moves, routines, tips etc. It’s always fun to see stuff in person that you’ve only read about. Most looks better – much better. Some doesn’t.

A few nits:

• Rick Maue’s Riding the Wave was tedious – so tedious I flipped over and watched the White Sox. It lasted two excruciating innings!

• One of the best tricks on the DVDs was by Paul Cummins and it was performance only – something I find inexcusable on a magic instructional DVD

• Some of the banter was sophomoric, but, then again, they’re sophomores!

• The usual L&L crowd. Josh, to his credit, actually made a few L&L jokes. Personally, they never particularly bother me and the women are certainly a pleasure to watch – so much so that I can tolerate the dork always on the front row.

• At times, I was so distracted by the gal in the short blue jean skirt – wondering if she would ever reveal the promised land (she didn’t) that I lost track of some of the tricks.

In summary – I’ll watch these more than once. Something I don’t believe has happened in 2007.

Well done!

Take care….

Steve Cohen’s Win the Crowd first went on sale 6/14/2005 and the publishers have already remaindered the final stock. They sure don’t wait long any more!

You can find new copies for less than $10, delivered, all over the web – half.com – ebay.com – bookcloseouts.com…..etc. I would imagine it’s also in the bargain bin at your local B&N.

Anyway, for those that are not aware of the book, here’s the publisher’s puff piece:

Would You Like to Become More Commanding, Convincing, And Charismatic?

In this book, Steve Cohen, master magician and star of the long-running Chamber Magic show in New York City, will reveal the secrets of all great showmen and magicians — how to persuade, influence, and charm, and ultimately accomplish the things you’ve always wanted to do. As Cohen writes, “You’ll discover how to take over a room, read people, and build anticipation to a feverish pitch so people are burning to hear what you have to say.”

Win the Crowd will teach you Steve Cohen’s Maxims of Magic, simple rules you can use to take charge of practically any situation, from on-the-job disagreements to dating to important cocktail parties. The Maxims of Magic will wash away insecurities and hesitations, and replace them with confidence, poise, and leadership. What’s more, Steve Cohen will show you:

• How to Create a Magic Moment. Capturing people’s imaginations and attention so they listen carefully to every word you say.
• How to Command a Room. Showing everyone in the room that you are speaking right to them, making them all feel unique — and completely focused on you.
• How to Read People. Learning to sense what people are feeling and thinking as you speak, what they want from you, and how to make them feel like they are getting it.
• Misdirection. The most important trick in all of magic — getting inside people’s heads, and directing what they are thinking at every minute.

When you strip away the sleight of hand tricks, magicians are essentially masters of attracting and holding attention and impressing audiences, exactly the psychological secrets you need to be successful in life and business.

It’s a good read. Admittedly Mr. Cohen (far be it from me to assume any familiarity) is a big fan, but you can’t deny his success. He’s shoving a whole bunch of pesos in his pockets these days. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I’ve already found several pearls. I think most magicians will find this money well spent.

Take care………

Drivel & Drool

Remember – Use your magic only for good!

Prodigies and exceptionally gifted people have NO idea how difficult things are for mere mortals.

Sam Snead, the greatest natural golfer I ever saw, was once asked how he made the ball fade (move left to right). He said it was simple, just think right. Of course, to execute a draw, one merely thinks left. Sure, Sam.

Ted Williams at one point tried to coach baseball. He couldn’t understand why a batter couldn’t see the seams as the ball left the pitcher’s hand, calculate the rotation and swing accordingly. Hell, most of us can’t even see the ball. Ted finally became frustrated and gave up.

Larry Bird tried to coach basketball and didn’t seem to comprehend that he could drop in the ball from 30 feet easier than you and I can hit an elephant in the ass with a 2×4.

What does this have to do with magic, you say? Well I recently had a chance to review Richard Turner’s Fans, Flourishes, and False Shuffles. It was OK, I guess, but over and over I felt the descriptions were woefully inadequate. For instance, the pressure fan description was basically, put the cards in the left and spread them from 4 o’clock to 8 o’clock. No finger positioning, no tips – no nothing.

It’s always enjoyable to watch a person as talented as Richard Turner perform – he makes some very difficult things look trivially easy, but I can’t recall a single tip to help the learning process. There’s always merit in watching a move done well and it is an aid in the learning process, but it is not teaching.

Compared to Richard Kaufman’s sleep walking exhibition on his teaching DVDs, Turner is a ball of fire — but, then again, who isn’t.

The DVD is priced at the lower end and if you enjoy watching him work, please feel free, but don’t expect to learn much.

Take care………

Drivel & Drool

This Month’s Disposable Douche

This month’s honored guest at the Cafe’ was Al Schneider. I’ve watched Al for 35 years in various venues and, let’s be honest, he invented Matrix. That’s it.

Sure, he writes esoteric crap and looks like he’s got terminal hemorrhoids, but most of it is just a tired rehash. In his Cafe’ appearance, he said he didn’t know who Ross Bertram was. I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. He did refer to him as the guy with the hair, when someone reminded him of the Stars of Magic.

Al seems harmless enough, although I personally, could do without his conclusion that he was better than other magicians because he drove a Jaguar. Obviously, his superior intellect was being rewarded by some sort of cosmic feng shui.

Anyway, at some point, Al mentions the derivation of a move and one of the Cafe’s greats and our award winner, Paul Chosse, steps in with:

I’m surprised to read your recollections of Larry and the Detroit crew above. I’ve spent hours with Milt Kort and Bob Stencil, and took tons of notes. They remembered things quite differently from what I’m reading here. If you’d like me to post some of those recollections keep revising history. We’ll put up both stories and let the cards fall where they may…

What’s the purpose here Paul? Is this just to embarrass Al or are you just a congenital bastard, totally incapable of keep you mouth shut?

I’ve been around magic a long time and, frankly, I never heard of Chosse. Apparently, he’s some sort of minor god that we should all listen to in hushed reverence. My first serious notice of him occurred during the St. Youell extravaganza. It’s interesting to me, that his holiness blamed some of his problems on people promising material and not delivering. I’m guessing our boy was one of them. It’s too bad we couldn’t have more of those exciting interviews. It was like reading toast.

I don’t know or care what kind of deal Chosse has with Brooks regarding his blog, but it’s been nearly 4 months since he posted. He certainly has plenty of time on his hands, based on the large number of posts.

Like the IBM Gold Cups we don’t award the i/m Disposable Douche very often. A person must exhibit exceptionally uncommon boorishness and a total lack of civility. This months recipient is highly deserving of the honor.

I saw this DVD advertised recently and bought it on a whim:

The DVD doesn’t cover a lot of flourishes:

• Ribbon Spread
• Ribbon Spread Turnover
• Double Ribbon Spread Turnover
• Ribbon Scoop
• Dribbling
• Thumb Fan
• Closing Fan
• One Handed
• Giant Fan
• Pressure Fan
• Split Fan
• Two Handed Split Fan
• S-Fan
• Corner Spring
• Middle Spring
• Sideways Spring
• Anti Gravity Spring
• Waterfall!

but it does a better job than anything else on the market. Moves like the hand to hand spring, dribble and pressure fan can actually be learned from this DVD. Interestingly, this isn’t aimed at magicians, but poker players. It sells for 30 bucks or so and your local dealer should have it.

Don’t miss out here.

Take care………

Drivel & Drool

Fuck me – I’m a magician

I’ll never understand why magicians are so prone to apologize for the lame, even criminally bad, treatment they get from various purveyors of magic apparatus, books and all other forms of selling secrets. Going back to my favorite Holy Man, Stephen F. Youell, to Cafe insider Tom Cutts and his AM/PM magazine, to Jon Racherbaumer and his unrefunded Hierophant, to the ongoing furor around the recent Martin Nash book, to……. You name it and magicians have had one shyster after another ram a dry one up their ass, yet they continue to apologize and even defend this shoddy treatment.

This isn’t a matter of turning the other cheek. That’s a noble thing to do. It’s just an unfathomable willingness to to accept liars and cheats into the fraternity and make no mistake – that is what most of them are.

Anyway, what brought this to mind was a recent post on the Cafe. You don’t have to read this blog for long to realize that I think Harry Lorayne is a world class ass – an egotistical, industrial grade tool writing way beyond the time when he had something to say. Anyway, his last last book was a rewrite of some of his earlier works. Actually, not a bad idea as the writing was somewhat lame and they could use an update. According to his advertising, the book was only available from him. OK, it’s his book and he can sell it anyway he wants. This means it will not be available from discounters and if you want it – pay the full price.

After Harry milked it for all he could, he gave it to a distributor and now you can get it EVERYWHERE and for considerably less than Harry was charging. Some guy wrote on the Cafe that he was disappointed that Lorayne had backed off his original release and wondered if anyone else felt the same way. No one, not a single person, took the time to agree. Two doo rags did write to say they enjoyed the screwing. It’s incredible.

Till next time—–
i/m

Over the years we all hear of moves which are performed so well by certain magicians that their name becomes synonymous with the sleight or routine:

• Albert Goshman – Spellbound
• Don Alan – Chop Cup
• Ken Krenzel – Classic Pass
• Chris Capehart – 3 Ring Routine
• Slydini – Lapping
• Steve Brooks – His Jabba the Hut imitation

You get the idea. Paul Cummins is a name that always comes up when the Side Steal is mentioned. His work with it is legendary.

Paul does Marlo’s Deliberate Side Steal better than anyone. It’s been honed by years of performance and practice. It’s practical and attainable. Last week Paul began shipping his new DVD – The Side Steal Declassified. I can think of no better way to learn this sleight than buying this DVD. I really felt like Paul gave us everything he has on the methodology. He performs about 6 tricks and explains the move and it’s variations very succinctly. Production values were better than most.

I don’t know if Paul will be distributing the DVD through normal channels or just his website at http://www.fasdiu.com.

I’m generally not a member of the camp that says if you get one good trick or idea from a book or DVD you got more than your moneys worth. Not me – I feel screwed. Be warned, there is not a lot of information on this platter, but if you want the real work on one of the most important moves in card magic look no further.

Take care………

Drivel & Drool

Things that really bug me:

Companies that spend a jillion dollars on a web site, yet the programmers aren’t smart enough to strip spaces, periods, dashes etc. from phone and credit card numbers

George F. Bush – 1 & 2

Police departments that have so much time on their hands they do “safety” checks. Can I hear a big Bull Shit!

The Patriot Act – like its going to catch anything.

Names for employees, like “associates” and “partners” OR my new favorite From Sam’s Club – “coach”. What really bugs me most is the places that use these feel-good terms like Wal-Mart would sell their employees body parts to slave traders if it would add .01 to the quarterly income.

“Disrespected” athletes making 8 figure salaries.

Big Oil – I guess everyone saw that Exxon just made more money last quarter than ANY US company in history! I recently wrote about their blatant thievery and some douche bag commented that it was a supply issue – China- India and other palaver spewed out by the American Petroleum Institute. I said then – just wait for the quarterly report. If anyone thinks we got rid of all the fucking bandits and crooks when Enron and Worldcomm crashed you’re fooling yourself. American business is corruption on corruption. We can no longer entrust our well being to “free enterprise”. It doesn’t exist.

Wall Street – speaking of crooks. The Exxon quarter “disappointed” the MBAs, CPAs and CFUs and the stock went down. What a joke our financial system has become.

Alan Greenspan – he’s screwed up more times than George F. Bush II and no one seems to know.

Escalades – the ultimate prickmobile.

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I see L & L is announcing 2 new video sets:

Richard Osterlind’s Mind Mysteries Too

Mind Mysteries Too continues on from the high-water mark set by the first Mind Mysteries series, one of the best-selling video sets in magic history. Transcending the boundaries of traditional mentalism and magic, Mind Mysteries Too completes the circle of Richard Osterlind’s life work to date. You’ll see Richard captivating and astounding a studio audience with his original material and then you’ll go behind the scenes once again, along with host Jim Sisti, as he explains every nuance of the inner workings of each effect. What’s more, each set of performances is arranged as a mini-show, demonstrating Richard Osterlind’s classical approach to routining, an invaluable lesson in itself!

If you enjoyed Mind Mysteries, as thousands did, you’ll love these Mind Mysteries Too!

L & L publishing proudly presents new DVDs Featuring Garrett Thomas

Over the last few years, Garrett Thomas has quickly become recognized as a major creative force in magic, so much so that luminaries like David Blaine, Marco Tempest, and many others have retained his services as a consultant for their television specials.

In this series, Garrett Thomas tips his mitt and offers the complete details on magic that he uses to make a living — amazing effects that have had magicians merely speculating about their methods.

Welcome . . . to the strange and wonderful world of Garrett Thomas!

I’m a real fan of Osterlind’s stuff, especially his magic items, such as Torn & Restored Post-It note and Signed Torn & Restored Newspaper. He also introduces mentalism within the reach of the magic performer. My only concern is whether we scraped the bottom for another set. We’ll see.

The usual warning about L & L should be observed. Announcing the product doesn’t necessarily means it is shipping. Call first.

Take care………