by Steve Spill
Kind of a catch-22. I understood the necessity of the spectator shots—otherwise my routine might look like half of a phone conversation. On the other hand, when costumed camera-aware extras reenact their comments and reactions to a magician—and it looks fake and/or rehearsed—it can be jarring to home viewers and make the extras look more like shills than a real audience.
Watching the special at home I was impressed to see how all the shots from three different performances and nine or ten different audience members were boiled down and cobbled together into a coherent whole that looked live and unedited.
But I was disappointed. It seemed to me that the funniest audience by-play and ad libs were missing, and most disappointing, the entire pee sequence had vanished. I, like all immature adults, thought that pee bit was funny. As far as I was concerned, my goose had been flambéed.
Not long after the show aired, its producer, Troy Miller, hired me as a magic consultant for a short film called Dr. Goldfarb, Physician-Magician, which was a show within a show broadcast on the then-young FOX network. Being on set gave me the opportunity to ask Mr. Miller what happened to the pee. He told me that the network approved all programming and the cut was made because it was a violation of a thing called CBS standards and practices.
Amongst the magic I consulted on the FOX show was a shot of the physician-magician pulling a string of credit cards from a patient’s posterior. So I casually asked Mr. Miller how that could air but pee couldn’t? He answered honestly saying that the big idea at the FOX network was to air content you could normally only see on cable.
Recently I saw part of a sitcom on CBS. In 1990 CBS was CBS. It didn’t look like FOX, which looks like ABC, which you can’t tell apart from NBC like today. This is a new and brighter world. I’m certain, nowadays, were a goose to pee on broadcast or cable, it would be rerun five times in slow motion and celebrated.
I have fond memories of doing that Magic Castle TV special and it helped me out many years later. Without my advance knowledge or permission, in 2008 a guy in merry old England produced an instructional DVD featuring the Mind-reading Goose. The fact that I had done it on television back in 1990 established a definitive copyright for my routine.
The producer of the offending DVD was informed that if he were sued for copyright infringement and didn’t come from the UK to defend himself in a Los Angeles court, he’d lose the case by default. The consequence being that a lien would be put on his passport, preventing him from entering the USA without first resolving the dispute. Said producer claimed to be unaware his artist was unauthorized to perform the bit; having been informed, he graciously recalled the DVDs and issued a sincere and heartfelt apology.
Not the usual outcome when dealing with bootlegging pirates, even unknowing ones. Throughout magic’s first million years there has been a ton of intellectual theft, but I know of only two controversies where the injured party prevailed by legal means. My buddy Teller won a lawsuit against a Belgian who copycatted his poetic and stunning Shadows trick, and David Copperfield’s lawsuit against a French magician who copied his flying routine. Lovely anecdotes with which to end this chapter, don’t cha think?
CARTER’S MAGIC CELLAR
Back to 1973, the one place on the face of the earth outside of the Magic Castle or a magic convention, that afforded me the opportunity to do a formal close-up show on a regular basis, was in the basement of a jazz club in San Francisco by the name of Earthquake McGoon’s. The story of the basement and how it became a venue for magic goes like this . . .
A musician named Turk Murphy owned and appeared nightly with his jazz band at Earthquake McGoon’s on Clay Street. Turk and his partner shared a warehouse with the nephew of a famous Roaring Twenties era illusionist know as Carter the Great. One day the old brick warehouse was condemned by the city and ordered demolished.
In the warehouse, Murphy and his partner stored foreign classic cars, which they imported for fun and profit. Next to the cars, Carter’s nephew stored his Uncle Charlie’s magic show in fifty-one old theatrical trunks. The nephew couldn’t, or didn’t want to, find a new home for the trunks and they ended up with Murphy.
The unused basement of Earthquake McGoon’s was decorated with the contents of the trunks, Carter the Great posters, vintage illusions, props, and costumes. Carter’s Magic Cellar opened on the weekends starting in 1972, and beginning the following year, one Saturday night a month, I performed my close-up show there.
I would have gladly performed in the Cellar every Saturday night, but I couldn’t afford it. I was paid $25 a night, out of which I had to pay for gas to make the 800-mile round trip drive from LA to San Francisco, a room at the YMCA, food, gratuities, and city, state, and federal taxes (Okay, truth be told, I never paid the taxes. Hope the statute of limitations is up on that). With penalties and interest accrued since 1973 that could add up to a pretty penny, and counting.
My name was hand-printed with a marker on an index card at the top of the stairs that led down to the Cellar. The audiences came from the jazz club upstairs; they would filter down to our basement location during the band breaks. Although I did many of the same tricks at the Cellar that I did in the Close-up Gallery at the Magic Castle, the audiences here were closer to the ones I encountered doing my stand-up in the Hollywood rock clubs, and I adjusted my San Francisco presentations accordingly.
When I opened the box, as I took out my deck of cards, a joint fell onto the table. Sometimes a member of the crowd grabbed for it; either way, the joint flew back into my hand. The bit was a fun opener and always got me off to a great start. I did it with what magicians call a reel, also sometimes sold in gag shops as a Money Snatcher, because it is commonly used with a dollar bill.
The fake joint was secretly taped to the end of a two-foot piece of black silk thread. I held the Dollar Snatcher reel, which was about the size of four stacked quarters, in the same hand that held the card box, so it was hidden underneath. I accidentally dropped the joint as I took out the cards, pressed the button, and whap—the reel quickly pulled the joint to me. It was simple and ridiculous and got laughs.
The Quaalude, a large round flat pill, was a fashionable new designer drug of the day, and head shops—what we used to call stores where you could buy pipes, roach clips, and bongs—sold candy replicas of them. Known also as “Ludes,” I used the candy ones in place of coins for my trick, Ludes through Table.
I showed four Quaaludes in one hand, tapped the table top, and immediately, the pills were spread to reveal that only three Ludes were left in what was a stack of four. Showing my other hand empty, I reached beneath the table and brought the missing Quaalude into view—it had apparently “magically” penetrated through the tabletop.
This feat was repeated with the remaining pills, one at a time, until all four Ludes had passed through the table. Before reaching under the table to produce the final one, I said, “Did you see that last Lude go? No? It was big enough.” Then I tossed a huge saucer-sized Lude on the table. This trick was particularly impressive to members of the audience that preferred real Quaaludes to the candy ones.
The Gymnastic Aces, a trick that worked well for me at the Castle—as part of a presentation about how different experts from around the world can cut any cards desired from a shuffled deck—was even more of a pleaser at the Cellar when I renamed it the Dick Trick. The cards were examined and shuffled by a guy I’ll call Dave.
I said, “Dave, we’re going to pretend this deck is your baby maker.” I shuffled the cards by repeatedly drawing cards off the top, from the ends of the deck, the shorter sides of the cards, instead of drawing them sideways as with the overhand shuffle. It’s called the Hindu Shuffle, supposedly named after Hindu magicians who were unfamiliar with the usual shuffling methods. Whatever its origin, it looked exactly like I was masturbating the deck.
I cut the cards in half and weaved the short ends together so the deck looked twice as long as it normally did. “Oh, wait Dave, this is supposed to be your fl
esh flute.” I pushed the cards together slightly, making the length of the deck a little shorter. “Dave, I see you’re getting excited.” I started to shake the deck. “The moment of ecstasy is close . . .” Suddenly all the aces ejaculated out the end of the deck. Yes, I was very proud of my close-up show at Carter’s Magic Cellar.
PART FOUR
FUNNY BUSINESS
COMEDY CLUBS
Shortly before I moved to Aspen, the Magic Castle completed a remodel job that included the addition of a hundred-seat showroom, named the Palace of Mystery. My Los Angeles vacations to visit family and friends always included a one-week engagement in the Palace. On a 1978 visit, the talent coordinator from the newly opened Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach was in the Castle audience. Thereafter, I was also booked in Hermosa for weekly gigs when in town.
From the start, among the things that made Hermosa unique was that it featured magicians with comedians, another being that the location catered to very responsive audiences as opposed to the more jaded industry types one might encounter at Hollywood’s Improv or Comedy Store. Perfecto, plus there was pay and free eats. At Hermosa gigs, I appeared with and admired the talent of consummate pros such as Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Garry Shandling, before they hit it big. Actually, I think Jay Leno still appears there on Sunday nights.
By the time I moved back to LA in 1985, comedy clubs had popped up. It seemed that a brick wall and a microphone were available everywhere. As a result of Hermosa being my home club, bookings materialized for me at other local venues like the Ice House, LA Comedy Club, and Igby’s, as well as comedy spots throughout the USA and Canada.
The great thing about comedy clubs, not unlike the Jester in Aspen, and unlike practically all other gigs, was that they were a safe haven to develop new material. They were places you could experiment with untried and untrue bits between your sure-fire opening and closing, something you could never risk performing at casinos, dinner theaters, or corporate events. It was not unlike the rock club process when I developed the Highdini act.
Winning a comedy club audience right away was important. As a magician it was essential to have a great opening to establish the funny, yet differentiate myself from straight stand-ups. A number of them were tried before settling on a keeper that established what I was going for and was a crowd pleaser.
The cliché symbol of a magician is the rabbit in the hat. I held up an empty hat, and there was an explosion. Boom! The flames burst up in an orange ball of fire and a cloud of black smoke erupted from the topper. The smoke cleared, and out popped a skeletal, smoldering, blown-apart bunny. “It’s not a real bunny rabbit, but it used to be.” Now that was my idea, at the time, of comedy magic.
Have explosives, will travel.
Hidden in the hat was a flash pot, a device consisting of a short, open-ended lead pipe stuffed with gunpowder that was ignited with a battery operated switch. I traveled thousands of miles across the USA and around the world to make people laugh with that bomb. It was completely illegitimate, but I felt it was far better to plead for forgiveness than to ask for permission, and never once did I have to ask for forgiveness. Keep in mind, this was long before 9/11, and airport security wasn’t what it is today. Now, just to perform that trick on stage, legally, would require a permit, a fireman, and a licensed pyrotechnic expert.
The closing was just as important as the opening, and I often finished with my version of the classic East Indian Needle Mystery. I would appear to swallow twenty to thirty sewing needles and three feet of thread, and bring the needles up threaded. At the time, this was an obscure outdated unseen sideshow stunt I’d resurrected with a humorous slant. A few highlights:
A volunteer was handed a flashlight. I opened my mouth and had him take a look down my throat.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Last night the guy said hemorrhoids. I was surprised he could see that far.”
The helper inspected a number of stainless steel sewing needles. Each needle was nearly three inches in length. He handed them to me one at a time, and watched me swallow them. To insure I wasn’t hiding any needles in my mouth, after each swallow, aided by the flashlight, he looked inside my mouth, under my tongue, the top gum, bottom gum, and the sides of my mouth.
The situation and jokes built until a bunch of needles had been swallowed along with some thread. I claimed the thread was “a little al dente,” and at this point I reiterated that “all the needles and the thread had passed to the stomach through the fallopian tube.” As the volunteer did his duty, at my request, the entire audience loudly chanted his directives.
“Inside the mouth! Under the tongue! The top gum! Bottom gum! Sides of the mouth!”
“Who said the nose? Don’t make me laugh—I’ll tack you to the wall. Actually I went in for a nose job; they told me it would be cheaper to make my face bigger. Oh good, you’re smiling now. If you suppress your laughter it comes out the other end.”
The volunteer stood to my right and his left hand held the flashlight pointed toward my mouth. I had him put his right hand on his waist and asked him, “Do you know the song ‘I’m a Little Teapot’?”
For the finish I had the audience do a drum roll on their tabletops and brought up the threaded needles to thunderous applause.
On the road, club owners and their audiences loved the rare funny magician, juggler, ventriloquist, or musical act that brought variety to shows. Some stand-ups, however, were not so welcoming to performers who used props, dummies, guitars, or gadgets, even if they were other comedians. More than once I got the cold shoulder from pure monologists who felt that appearing onstage with anything more than a microphone was not to be tolerated in a comedy club.
The guy who got the most heat by far was Gallagher, who had an eleven-foot pole for people you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, glasses with windshield wipers to be worn when eating grapefruit, and whose Sledge-o-matic routine was very popular with audiences in the 1980s. The more successful Gallagher became, the more certain comics ridiculed him.
Ofttimes I’d have a revenge of sorts on the purists when my laughs and ovations hit a level that were hard to follow, and club owners would swap me from feature to headline status. Revenge can be sweet, but a headliner demoted to the middle of the show was not generally a happy camper who instantly became my fan or friend.
On the other hand, if you are a headliner and you get a mediocre response, compared to to the act right before you, who absolutely kills, it doesn’t feel so good. Perhaps not a brutal beating, but more like a swift slap to the ego. That happened to me in Arizona where my shows as the headliner were a comfortable cruise at The Comedy Boat in Phoenix, until political satirist Will Durst dropped in to do an unexpected guest spot.
The native San Franciscan was in town to soak up the sun and watch the baseball Giants go through their spring training paces. Will was a Giants fan and the Giants and company were Will fans who packed the club that night, laughing and cheering their man to a decisive comedy victory over yours truly. Following him on stage was a nightmare. I was desperately hoping there would be a disaster that would put an end to my agony and clear the club. Nothing malicious or arrogant about Will Durst—he didn’t murder me deliberately, of course. The audience just liked him better than me.
When a show went well I felt completely exhilarated, but if I’d just finished a show I wasn’t happy with, like the one where I followed Will Durst, I would console myself by imagining the sound of a cash register ringing. At least for a little while I could rationalize my unhappiness away with the fact that the pay was okay. But, of course, I liked it the other way, when the show worked well, the audience liked it, and I felt I’d done my best work.
The majority of comics I worked with were gracious, supportive, and good company. As a rule, accommodations were generally in economy motel rooms or apartments, called comedy condos, where road acts roomed together. Living and breathing the same rarified offstage air as some
of these talented professional funny men often gave me an insight into their unique characters.
Bill Hicks, the bad boy comedy outlaw, was my roommate and co-star in Atlantic City at the Comedy Stop at the Trop for a week. Onstage he was angry, explosive, gleeful, evil, and very funny, with all-knowing grins igniting his face. His words were violent, obscene, wise, astonishing, appalling, liberating, and blasphemous. Offstage in the comedy condo he was a nonstop free association stream-of-consciousness conversationalist; nightly we talked into the wee hours. We crashed at dawn, woke at 5:00 p.m., and that was our breakfast time. I didn’t catch up with my body clock until the Atlantic City gig was in my rearview mirror.
One trick I did at the time was disguised to look like mental telepathy. That bit got us talking about metaphysics and the possibility of real telepathy, which I didn’t and don’t believe in, but which Bill thought he personally experienced on a regular basis.
In my pseudo-psychometry routine, audience members secretly put various personal items such as a watch, lipstick, comb, or lighter, into a bag. Without knowing what belonged to whom, I would reach into the bag, take out an object, get some vibes from it, and tell something about the object’s owner, like, “Your birthstone is plastic, you have no future.” The magic part was that I returned each object to its correct owner. No real telepathy, a trick pure and simple, and Bill knew that, of course. But that trick was a discussion starter that propelled numerous conversations throughout our week together about Bill’s “real” telepathic experiences.
There were a lot of them, but personally, I chalked them all up to coincidence, and told him so. Bill was most impressed by two incidents connected to deaths. One was when his watch stopped at the exact time a distant relative passed away, the other time was when he was staring at a poster of John Lennon on his wall. Then the picture wire broke. The large glass-covered poster fell and almost knocked him unconscious; it was the day Lennon was shot. Bill said he also experienced other sorts of phenomena connected with deaths.