A possible home for "In Restless Dreams."

I know I've talked about my show only a little bit and if vague terms. Mainly this has been simply because much of it was still a bit to nebulous for me to want to commit anything to what was at most a long term vision.

Well, it's come a little closer now.

One of the things that has been a hold up is finding a theater space that meets my needs. There are not that many theater spaces to begin with in the area and limiting my choices by a specific set of criteria made those choices practically non-existant.

No, let me rephrase that. My choices were non-existant but largely due to a certain level of ignorance on my part. Ignorance that it seems a very large number of my friends could have cured me of since they all knew about it.

See I spent some time yesterday afternoon searching around for information about possible venues, with several of the ones I was already familiar with in mind, to try and find out greater details (rental rates, stage plans, etc etc), and I found a place called "The Actors Theatre" in Santa Cruz.

On a lark I swung by there yesterday afternoon while waiting for my usual Thursday night activities to start and was lucky enough to run into the production manager for the space. I got a quick tour and then sat down and had an excellent conversation with the business manager there.

It's a small space, intimate which I like. 88 theater style seats as well as two wheelchair designated spaces, so basically 90 seats. The stage space is about 20'x25', they provide the lighting and sound systems (I provide the techs), and I get featured on their webspace and newsletter. The rates are very reasonable.

One of the things that has kind of held me up has been the thinking it takes to design a show when one doesn't know anything about the space it's going to be in. We've been doing that kind of thing for years with the Golden Stag Players but doing it for a magic show introduces it's own level of problems.

Now that I have a space in mind, the desing process has already been picking up and I feel like "In Restless Dreams" may have found it's first home.

How long?

It's been a while since I've written anything here and for that I do apologize. I imagine that there might not even be anyone reading at the moment but really that is okay.

Where have I been? Around. I took a long break from magic mainly because I got a regular day job. As much as I love doing magic professionally the economy combined with a mortgage isn't always easily sustainable on a humble magician's earnings.

I haven't been inactive though. I've spent time working with the lovely Daya on magic for her forthcoming musical tour as well as developing some new material of my own. I hope to have a full scale stage production written some time soon and from there will begin the process of finding a place to perform it and pulling together the funds to properly produce the show.

The process has been long, finding the time in my otherwise busy schedule to stoke the creative juices and produce something, but I have done a number of things lately to bring that creativity back to life and it is working.

So thank you for your patience. If all goes well it may not be to far in the future when you will see my theatrical presentation out there on some marquee.

Rainbow Weddings doesn't respect their vendors.

Okay, look, at this point I think it's pretty clear that I am indeed "gay and lesbian friendly." I have offered my magic services to "gay and lesbian" weddings and other functions. I'll work with virtually anyone.

Well, there is now one organization that is "gay and lesbian friendly" that I refuse to work with and I'm going to explain why.

Rainbow Weddings. If you are someone who has a service to offer to "gay and lesbian weddings", seriously consider doing so on your own instead of using their advertising services.

About two years ago I purchased advertising with them. I was totally fine with it. A little on the expensive side but I felt it was worth giving it a shot like so many of the other advertising venues I've tried. I did it to see if it was worth it. And like any half way decent business person I kept track of my ROI with their advertising.

Zilch. I bought a years worth of advertising and never even got a query let alone a gig. Now I'm not bitter about that. This is just business for me at this point. I spent the advertising dollar and gave it a reasonable amount of time to show me if it was going to be worth while or not. If I had gotten a query or two that would have been sufficient. A gig or two would have been great. In this case, nothing.

Well, at the end of the year I got the expected emails saying "Hey, your account is about to run out. Time to renew." I told them "No thanks" and then had the expected exchange of messages asking why. I explained that financially it didn't work for me and that my ROI didn't justify continueing to spend money with them. There is one other reason which is, simply, that I'm just not doing as much with magic these days and that what I want to focus on where my magic is concerned is the creation of my stage show.

Now at this stage I would have thought that I would not hear from them anymore. Contract done, etc.

No.

I started getting advertising emails from them. Special event notices like wedding expos and such. No automated means of getting off their lists so I sent messages asking to be removed. Nothing. More SPAM. More requests to be removed. More SPAM.

I called them. I spoke to them on the phone and politely asked to be removed from their mailings. Got promises. Got more SPAM.

I called them again. I spoke to them on the phone and more firmly asked to be removed from their mailings. Got promises. Got more SPAM.

Notice the pattern here?

Well, today takes the cake. I am getting the same fucking message I got originally asking me if my services are "gay and lesbian friendly" and how would I like to advertise with them.

So, here we are.

People at Rainbow Weddings, you clearly have no respect for your vendors and I will not only not be doing business with you, but I am informing everyone I can that you don't seem to be very trustworthy.

"Scrolls" is now available!

Well, the time has finally come. My book, "Scrolls: A Book of Story Telling Magical Theatre" is finally available for order from Leaping Lizards Publishing.

"Scrolls" contains routines, essays and a one-man show of magic based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe entitled "Poe's Grave."

Effects include "The Devil's Suicide" (my version of the six card repeat), "The Eye of The Seer" (a spooky approach to The Egg Bag), "Reincarnation - The Broken and Restored Thread" and many other effects.

And if you order before August 1st you will receive a bonus CD of effects as well.

For a sample from the book or to order please visit:

http://www.leapinglizardsmagic.com/scrolls.htm

Enjoy!

Doing Demo Videos

Well it's taken a fair amount of work, but I've managed finally to put together my first website demo video. It's not much, but I rather like it for a first effort. Once I get a better handle on how to do this video editing stuff I can make improvements until I get the kind of thing I really want all together.