The following story isn't something I've told very many people about and it wasn't until recently, in telling them this story, did I realize that I suddenly left it all behind.
Once upon a time I was a magician. I performed at parties, restaurants & corporate events. I even helped start my hometown's first Magic Club.
Magic was something I had always been interested in, primarily due to my parents going to Vegas when I was young and bringing back magic tricks for me to learn from popular magic shops in Las Vegas.
About 20 years ago my mom & I went to Vegas and I was wandering around visiting all the magic shops on the strip (mostly Houdini Magic Shop locations). After visiting one location in particular (I believe it was the Flamingo Hotel) over the course of multiple days, one of the magicians told me about a Las Vegas magic club that they were apart of and invited me to it. I was told to make sure I dressed nicely as there would be other popular magicians there. Today, I can't for the life of me remember what the name of the club was, but holy hell, what I didn't expect was who'd I meet there.
Needless to say, my mom was very skeptical of the invite but I was old enough to go out on my own and after some convincing I was allowed to go. Arriving at the location (off the strip) and meeting up with the magician that invited me (you couldn't get in without the person inviting you & being there to escort you). We entered a room where several magicians were mingling and then I saw them... Siegfried & Roy (just a few months pre-tiger incident... RIP) & Lance Burton were talking. I couldn't move I was star-stuck. I just remember the magician that invited me laughed when they saw my face (ugh, I wish I remembered their name. Damn my memory). I just stood there, stuck, taking it all in. I was ushered over to meet some of the magician's friends, as they were closer to my age and then they finally convinced me to say hello to Lance Burton and the other magicians he was talking to. I'm pretty sure I said "haaaiii, sdfgvhous dfasd fasd" or rather I just stumbled through everything. They chuckled, shook my hand and started chatting. Not just about magic, but life. It was so cool to see these people just being human. After some time we entered a theater to view a set of performances and then it was time to return to my hotel.
I truly wish I could remember more, like the name of the magician that invited me. I owe a lot to that person - for actually taking interest in something I was so passionate about. Their actions lit a fire under me. It's ultimately what fueled me to make a change in how I performed - from just performing to friends to performing professionally.
Up until about 2 years into College, I started to have other interests and concentrated all my free time into film making and magic got a back burner. Soon it fell off altogether never to look back at it again. Throughout the years I've had family members and friends from that era ask me to show them a trick and I usually refuse, because I'm embarrassed that I can't remember anything anymore. I always enjoyed watching people 's faces as I revealed their card or surprised them.
During the time that I was performing magic, phones with cameras weren't really a thing (I had a fairly large Nokia with Snake on it when I made my visit to Las Vegas and no, no camera on it.) I however did have a camcorder that I'd often video tricks that I learned, including a sponge ball routine that was my primary trick - it was what i was known for. But again, my bad memory strikes again and I literally have no idea what that routine was. I hope that I can find it one day, hopefully already digitized, sitting on an old as hell hard drive from the early 2000's.
