I don’t even know where to begin. I’m so tired right now that this is probably going to come out all jumbled and I’ll have to go back and fix it tomorrow.
I was up until just after 3am getting things ready for my shows. My biggest task was editing my business cards to include my cell phone number and get rid of references to my old shop and the land line there. I ended up getting labels and printing my number on them and sticking them on my old cards, which didn’t look the greatest, but still didn’t look bad. Microsoft Word decided to be a cocksucker and not cooperate with me when I tried to format the labels, so I had to fight with that. And get the printer installed on two seperate computers. And then I had to actually peel and stick labels on over 200 business cards.
So I got up this morning at 7:45, forced myself to get in the shower and get dressed, grabbed my gig bag and went to the school. I was one of 8 stations that the kids were going to be visiting that day, and they showed me to my spot under a tree. It was raining slightly when I got there, so they delayed the kids in the hopes that the rain would pass. In the meantime, I’ve been sick for a week and I’m standing under a tree while the sky spits at me, with no coat and a nice breeze. I could feel the germs dig in deeper.
I decided that my shitty 15 minute set was going to consist of a trick where I make the chosen card appear on a kid’s back, spongeballs, another card trick where you sniff the card out of the deck (it’s in Mac King’s book, but I can’t remember the name of it), and closing with making candy appear from my dove pan. On the way out of the house, I had grabbed my ropes just in case the opportunity presented itself for an escape. I’m really glad I did.
The school provided me with a desk to use as a table, which worked out well because I could put my props inside it. This protected them from the rain, and also gave me a little “backstage area” to get things set up in. As I was waiting for the kids to show up, I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t going to be as bad as I imagined. I told myself the first 3 shows would suck until I got warmed up, and after that it would be gravy. It almost worked out that way.
I learned quickly that my little act wasn’t working out as well as I thought it would. During the first show, the card I loaded onto the girl’s back became readily visible to everyone when she spun her whole body around to show her selection. During the second show, three or four kids moved to one side to get a better look at what I was doing (I don’t think they were snooping, I think they just wanted to see better) and totally saw the card.
The kids liked the spongeballs, but I only performed them twice. They had to go, and they had to go fast. My main problem is that I didn’t have a good routine with them. It basically consisted of, “Hey, here’s a ball in your ear. Look, now I tore it in half to make two. You hold one, I hold one, mine’s gone, you have both. Now you hold both, and look there’s four. Now go sit down again.”
For my third show, I stuck the card to my own back, dropped the spongeballs altogether, and finished early so I could have time to breathe and adapt. (A brief side note: Because of the way these things were set up, I was having kids come up back-to-back, literally non stop. I was resetting inside my desk, while trying to talk to the kids and get them warmed up. At one point I was selecting my first volunteer while reloading my dove pan.)
Another thing I forgot to mention: These little kids loved my candy. As soon as I made it appear, I was bum rushed like I was a comedian in a candy suit. (Celebracadabra reference. Get it? Get it?) So during my break, I made a few changes to the show. I stretched my rope out to create a barrier for the kids to stand behind, more clearly defining my performing area. I dropped my first two tricks entirely, opting instead to do one from a video that I’ll cite later (someone remind me) where a chosen card kinda flies out of the card box and card to mouth. Finally, I realized I had to make it a point to tell everyone to stay put and that I’d bring the candy to them.
After my break, things went a lot better. The magician in me didn’t really like doing 3 card tricks in a row then closing with a dove pan, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. I finished off the rest of the younger kids with that set, and then broke for lunch. During lunch I decided to make more changes. Stylistically, I didn’t like the fact that I was wrongly guessing a card in the first trick, only to find it in a cool way, then wrongly pulling cards out of my mouth only to find the chosen one in a cool way for the second trick. I also didn’t like taking the cards out of the box, putting them in, taking them out, putting them in, deck switching, and taking them back out. Something had to be done.
I realized the deck had a duplicate in it, so I made my first trick be a transposition where a random card ended up turning into their selection. I kept card in mouth as my middle trick, but I changed the plot a little. Before, I would pull three or four cards out of my mouth as though I thought they were the selection, before giving up and looking through the deck, fake coughing, spitting out the card. In the afternoon, I changed it so that I told them I would be finding the card using only my mouth. I wiggled the cards around in my mouth a little bit, let them all slide out but one, saw that it wasn’t the selection, then took it out and slammed all the cards down on the desk, as though in anger. Then I’d stare the kid down as though they did something wrong, which got a lot of laughs. After milking that for all it was worth, I’d open my mouth and eject the folded card, all without changing facial expressions, which got gasps. They really loved that.
I had a group of 6th graders all but eat me alive. They weren’t responsive, didn’t want to see the magic, heckled, talked, challenged me, tried to explain the tricks. You name it, they did it. I ignored them as best as I could, plodded through the longest 15 minutes of my life, and got them out of there. Funny note: After thanking them for being a great audience and telling them how much fun I had with them with a huge smile on my face, I turned around to look at Buzz (who showed up just before lunch to check things out) and mouthed “Fuck that.” He laughed.
Right after I had my volunteer sign the card for card to mouth in my second to last show, it started to rain. Hard. The kids had to go back inside, and the teacher asked if I would come finish the trick for them, so I did. I finished my set in their classroom, got compared to Criss Angel (I had a deck of cards in my mouth at the time, so I responded with a muffled “Mindfreak!” and struck a pose), and was asked to go to the only class that didn’t see me to do my act there. It went over well, nothing big to report except that I was glad to be inside so I didn’t have to yell to be heard over the fucking DJ who amounted to nothing more than a van with it’s doors open playing the radio. With that on top of being sick, my voice was gone by the end of the day.
So what did I learn? A lot. I learned that doing magic for little kids isn’t so bad, although I still don’t want to be a children’s entertainer. I learned that, although you can’t blame all your problems on your audience, there comes a point when you’ve done all you can and you’re just stuck with a shitty group. I learned that, although it wasn’t ideal, I can entertain using just cards. Although I can’t help but wonder if that was at all detrimental to me getting bookings elsewhere, with people wondering “Is all he does card tricks?” I’ve learned that the next time I make half a week’s pay in one show, I’m not going to work immediately following said show. I’ve learned that, although kids are grimy and nasty and dirty, when you’re already sick and performing in the rain, you’ve got nothing to lose when you decide to shove a deck of cards into your mouth.
I’ve learned that I can write a fucking novel because I have to include every last detail.
Andster
