Sebastian’s First Magic Show

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Doug
Sebastian’s First Magic Show
(My Grandson)
 
Of course I have to record this. Sebastian did his first magic show in my living room on Sunday, January 13, 2013. In attendance were his parents, Chris and Lynette, Great Grandma, and Trudy and I. He did four tricks and did them well.
 
His first trick was to make a bouquet of flowers from thin air !   Sebastian took a tube and looked thru it and asked the group if they could see him. Then he made the comment, “nothing up my sleeves” which drew a laugh because he was wearing a short sleeved shirt. Sebastian placed a scarf over the tube and quickly removed it to produce a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
 
His next trick was the magic coloring book. He showed a coloring book with just the drawings with no color. Then he had us rub our clothes and toss colors at the book. He opened the book and all the drawings had been filled with color. Sebastian opened and closed the book and made colors appear and disappear.
 
His next trice – Sebastian had a cage on a stand and there was a large silver tube in the cage. He removed the tube to show the tube empty and the cage empty. Sebastian was to pull a rabbit from the cage but pulled our a scarf and then a rubber chicken. Finally he pulled out a stuffed animal rabbit.
 
The final trick. Sebastian showed an empty pan and threw in magic sugar (from thin air), magic butter, magic water and magic coloring. He put a lid on the pan and then covered the lid with a scarf and said the magic words. Sebastian then removed the lid and  produced a pan filled with Christmas Candy Canes. He passed out the Candy Canes and bowed to thunderous applause.
 
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Magic at Ryan School

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Doug

To me the easiest part of magic is the performance. The more difficult task is deciding what will be the best tricks for an event and the packaging and unloading of all the tricks.

I did a show for about 150 kids at Ryan School and it was so nice because I park right next to the stage door and there is amble space to unload. Because there were not that many kids I decided to not use the stage for the performance but I did use the stage to lay out the magical props.
 
On the stage there are items laid out and I simply work from left to right- so there is no wasted motion and the show comes across as seamless and natural. You can see on stage a shiny metal bucket which is part of a comedy routine where coins come out of a child’s ear and arm…the there is my ‘magical educated duck’ who can always find the missing card (even blindfolded !).  You can see a hand chopper with a hand sticking thru it from the last ‘victim.’  The big spiral disc is used to hypnotize the kids so they think that I am really a good magician…

In 2013 I will be doing more school events. My plans for 2013 are the large kids shows, Senior Homes, Church and Social Groups and Sales Seminars. There is different magic for all of the events and that is why I use the phrase ‘Magic for All Occasions.”

 
 

 

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New Testimonials

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Doug

I have seen Doug perform magic in both formal and informal situations and he just outstanding. He is entertaining, funny and his illusions are amazing. I have seen Doug perform in front of a wide range of audiences including adults only, kids only and a mixture. He has the uncanny ability of tailoring his wide repertoire of magic to his audience. What I truly enjoyed was his ability to engage his audience. I recommend Doug for anyone who has a need for entertaining magic.
Brian Q.

Doug is amazing and I am grateful that every time I have requested Doug for a magic show his performance is so entertaining that it also makes me look good!
Doug has performed magic shows for my community group, Office holiday party (over 200 guests), birthday party of a friend and his ability to entertain all age groups is wonderful. He always has new tricks, draws in the crowd while doing his magic keeping his audiences engaged. Thank you Doug!

Fz C.

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I found a marketing flyer from 1995

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Doug

I just found an old marketing flyer and here is a partial list of clients from around 1995.

Catholic Charities American Savings California Dental Labs
The Salvation Army The Sans Institute CAMB
YMCA Contra Costa County Calif Escrow Association
Parents Helping Parents Valley Medical Center Western States Dental Labs
St Leo’s School Korean Times Oakland Children’s Hosp
Boy Scouts of America The Capital Club University of Santa Clara
RWC Fire Department Hispanic Real Estate Board Bank of Walnut Creek

And some Testimonials on that flyer

“Last year we paid $2000 for a famous author for our event and only 20 people showed up. We booked Doug and the crowd overflowed at 350+. He became our most successful fund raiser event.” Gloria Martin PYA Hayes School

“I booked Mr. Magic from a Silent Auction and it is my best silent auction buy ever!”
Susan Bowman Washington School

“…one of our most fun events ever, even a standing ovation.”
Jim Ashley JayCees International

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A Visit with John Calvert

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Doug

I visited the Oakland Magic Circle with my wife Trudy to see John Calvert. John is 101 years old and still travels as a magician. Mostly now he visits magic clubs and meets the magicians and talks about his life. John is called a real life Indiana Jones. He traveled the world with his magic troupe in his own plane and yacht. John has performed in 150 countires. He has had an amazing life.

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Magic at NetApp

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Doug
I did magic today at a company called NetApp. I had never heard of them and when I got there – Holy Moses. There were 16 large buildings and my show was in building number 16. When I returned I looked them up and found out that they have 12,464 employees; that is a big company.
 
Anyway the person who contacted me for the magic works for Price Waterhouse and she is housed at NetApp. The event was a group meeting for about 35 computer programmers to celebrate a birthday of one of their co-workers.
 
The magic tricks: The Hypno Disc – this is a trick that uses a spinning hypnotic disc and then the group looks at my head and depending to the direction I spin the disc my head either gets very big or very small.
 
The big bag – I use this trick for kids and the kids become a magician and make a white silk scarf turn into many large colorful scarves. For some reason today with an adult the scarves turned into many very large colorful bras. The birthday boy was dressed with a magician hat and a scarf – we pulled the scarf to do a thru the neck illusion but instead of going thru the neck a bra came out from under his shirt ?
 
I did a wooden egg trick where the egg kept appearing and disappearing at odd places. Then I turned 5 one dollar bills into 5 one-hundred dollar bills. Then I did 4 card tricks with the last one giving someone a chance to win $1000 (but I had my Society of Conjuers And Magician Insurance policy with me (SCAM)
 
It was a fun event and there were many laughs which is the sweetest music to my ears.
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Birthday Magic

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Doug
I never thought I would do it !
 
Most of my magic falls into two categories — Expensive for Associations and Business meetings….for a 45 minute show normally the charge is $4000 +/-. I am lucky in that I get several of these each year.
 
Then I do magic for churches and small group holiday parties and that is very inexpensive $250 and then I do a lot of magic for special events that I deem worthy for free……
 
But I have never done a  birthday party for kids…for pay.
 
A lady called me and I thought she was someone else calling for another reason. At the time of her call I had (business) alligators all around me and I finally determined that she was calling for me to perform magic at her son’s birthday party. I agreed to do a show for her son this Saturday evening……….I am anticipating a lot of fun.
 
It is interesting that most magicians will start their magic with birthday parties. I guess I am going against the trend but apparently this is my next magic step. I say apparently this is my next magic step because I have never had any magic ambitions…I did not go seeking magic, it came after me. So, I determined to follow it where it takes me.  Who knows? I may end up really liking birthday magic…I like people and I like festivities so this could be the start of something wonderful.
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WOW

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Doug

Each month I attend an Ethics meeting with a group of friends. For some reason the group wants me to open each meeting with a magic trick. That cracks me up; I am invited to lie, mislead, and connive. I get permission in an Ethics group to lie and make people feel good about it !

A young lady freely (really) chose a card and I did not know what card was chosen. She placed that card back into the deck of cards and I told her that I could look at her and simply tell what card she picked. I told her that she was so transparent that I produced a transparent piece of plastic and I would find her card and place it into the transparent plastic so that I could not manipulate the card.

I picked a card and put it into the plastic wrap so that she could clearly and continually see the card. She said it was not the card that she had chosen. Then I told her to watch closely and gently waved the plastic and suddenly the card in the plastic began to change and it changed into her card !

Wow. Actually that trick is named Wow by Lance Burton

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Magic Update May 22, 2012

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Doug
I did magic for the San Jose Kiwanis Club at the Flames Restaurant in San Jose yesterday and today I am doing magic for the Campbell Kiwanis Club at noon at Hobee’s Restaurant.
 
Tonight I am doing magic to open a Financial Planning seminar at the Campbell Community Center in Campbell.
 
The magic I am doing for service clubs is basically close up magic and telling  about funny events that have happened along the magic path such as a person forgetting his name on stage (nervous)…
 
Next week I am doing magic for a 3rd grade classroom for one of my customers. I have not done kids magic in awhile and look forward to this. The magic is different and the faces are so refreshing.
 
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Why I am a Magician

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Doug
People ask me how I got into magic and when on stage I have a funny and off color answer. The answer gets laughs and groans.
 
The truth about how I got into magic is that magic found me. It came looking for me. I was helping teach a class for a sales class and we taught our students to use showmanship with their presentations. I surmised correctly that magic could fit a sales presentation perfectly.
 
So I went to the local magic store and Steve Dawson taught me a money trick. That worked well on two fronts; (1) It was something that fit the sales training and (2) since I have always worked in finance it certainly worked well for my own sales. I always appreciated Steve because he could quickly determine what bit of magic would work well with a sales presentation. I appreciated him more because he would only sell items that the magic or wanta-be-magicians could master.
 
So over the years I became a magician. A real magician doing lots of shows all over for all kinds of audiences. Even though I have become a pretty good magician I so frequently grumbled to God because I wanted to be a musician, not a magician.
 
I was not passionate about magic but magic is passionate about me. Just as Moses saw God in the burning bush I saw God in my magic today.
 
This morning I did a show and talk about magic to a breakfast group. The group was sad because only a few days ago a young member was suddenly taken from life. Obviously the meeting was not rah-rah and great glee. I have done magic long enough to know to closely match my energy level to the crowd but in this case I had to bring them up just a little. I feel it would have been improper to go ‘over the top’ in this situation.
 
I started the show and long time speakers and maybe some magicians will know what I am talking about. But, I started the show, and my body was doing the magic and interacting with the crowd but I was in the soul of the group. I could watch them and I could watch me. I noticed that they began to lean forward. They begin to gently smile and their hearts started to tilt toward joy. I could feel them relax and begin to feel that ‘Everything is OK’. Don’t make too much of this because I don’t know how to express myself as well as most writers… So, don’t make too much of the words but I saw God in their souls. I saw joy. I saw happiness and I saw love. Something happened.
 
It struck me that for a few minutes–perhaps 30 perhaps 40 – but for a few minutes I help people be the best they can be. What is the best a person can be? Relaxed, comfortable, feeling gentle and safe, and feeling that all is OK with life. For a while I give people the space to feel that way.
 
I am grateful and will never grumble about magic ever again. I now see it as a great gift to me and to others and I am humbled and grateful.
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