Every kid is interested in magic. My dad could juggle, and he could make a mouse out of a handkerchief. That was probably the first “magic” that I saw. I also remember watching a movie on television where a character was on a locomotive train engine. He was producing cards from the air. But it wasn’t until I went to college that I became interested in learning it myself.
I lived in the dormitories during college, and in my freshman year, we played a lot of poker games—of all different kinds. I was a struggling student who could not afford to lose money. One evening, we were playing a penny-ante game called “Blood and Guts.” This particular game had a feature that caused the pot to rise quickly, even though everyone started by anteing up a penny. In two hands, I lost 30 dollars, which is about 230 dollars in today’s money. So, I decided I needed to learn about gambling.
Well, in the college library, there was a section on poker and gambling. It also had books describing ways people cheated at cards. And right next to that was the section on books about magic. I checked out a bunch of books and was hooked. It helped that another student in the dorms was also interested.
For four years, I read whatever I could get my hands on and practiced—mostly with cards, but also with coins. Remember, this was all before the internet and even before magic videos on VHS tapes. The only way to learn was to find others and trade tricks.
I kept dabbling, and when I went to work for Floating Point Systems, I met another person who was interested in magic. He told me about the magic store, Callen’s, in downtown Portland.
Most magic stores today have gone out of business or mostly sell online now. But back then, they were magical places—books and tricks behind counters with salesmen giving demonstrations. If you were lucky, you might find more advanced magicians shopping there. At Callen’s, I was shown a one-handed shuffle by a well-known magician (well-known in the magic world) named Jerry Andrus. I made friends with other Portland magicians.
Eventually, I started doing magic at social gatherings, mostly for family. Then I filled in for a magician friend named Jim Pace, who was a salesman at Callen’s and did restaurant work at Huber’s Restaurant in Portland. I filled in at Huber’s. Restaurant magic is close-up, walk-around magic—using coins, matches, playing cards, napkins, etc. That got me gigs doing private parties. My highlight at Huber’s was when I was entertaining out in the hallway where people were waiting to get in. There, standing in line, was Charles Barkley, the basketball star.
Jim and I would sometimes work Huber’s together. Then afterward, we would cross the street and “jam” at a Lebanese restaurant named Al Amir. Eventually, I started doing magic there. It was a great environment for magic, with just the right lighting. They had a fantastic trio of musicians that I loved. They essentially made me a member of the band, joking with me as we all performed. One night, they asked if I would attend their “band meeting.” I didn’t realize that was their code for going out after work to a strip club with pole dancers!
My highlight working there was the night I performed for a table of business-people—the boss and a bunch of his sales team. I really impressed the boss, and after each trick, he would yell for everyone to tip me. I raked in a bunch of $20 bills each time. Later, when I counted it, I had $400 in tips from that table!
But all good things come to an end. The band had a disagreement with the owners, and the atmosphere changed. So I stopped performing there. I was also busy with my day job, traveling all over the world. Wherever I traveled, I looked for local magic shops—Davenport’s in London, a small shop in Paris, a shop in Tokyo, Tannen’s in New York. These shops were unique subcultures.
I remember performing magic on a street corner in Tel Aviv for a trio of young people. When I looked up, I had a crowd of about 20 watching me. I was on a subway train, late at night, in Washington D.C. when a group of three young men approached me. They were rough looking and I couldn’t tell if they meant trouble. So I pulled out my cards and ended up teaching them how to play 3-card Monte, the classic street scam. In Tokyo, I was invited to join a company’s employees on their annual retreat. At the closing dinner, the owner suddenly yelled “Bob-san” and motioned for me to go up on stage. He wanted me to perform magic for everyone. I can’t remember what I did, but it’s almost impossible to perform magic for a crowd on the spur of the moment.
Then there was the time I was vacationing in Costa Rica with my sister. It was near sundown and I was on the beach with my tripod and camera, taking photographs. Two men approach me, neither of whom speak English, and I don’t speak Spanish. I have quite a lot of expensive camera equipment and not knowing their intentions I was naturally a little worried. The seem interested in my camera gear and I let them look through the view finder, I had a long telephoto lense on the camera. They didn’t seem like they were going to walk away, so I pulled out my deck of cards and started doing card flourishes. Suddenly they had big smiles and one of them yelled to a young kid who was down the beach.
In Costa Rica the teach their children English in school, so the kid became a translator. I showed him some tricks and before I knew it they were inviting me and my sister to the house that was next to the hotel. They were part of a Concrete company based in the capital city, San Jose. They were there for a company retreat. Sue and I joined the party and enjoyed the food they were making and I performed magic for the employees and their children. Juan, who was the owners son, was interested in magic, and when we returned back to the states I sent him a magic book as a gift. This is just one example of how magic opened doors that I would not have otherwise had opened.
In India, I performed magic for some hotel employees, but I stopped when I realized they actually believed I had magical powers. I do remember teaching a lovely young Indian woman a trick with rubber bands.
I was in New York on business once, and took the opportunity to go to a night club in upstate New York that had a dinner magic theater. I was alone and while waiting for my table, another couple without reservations came in. I asked them if they would like to join me. They did and it turned out that they were studying television production at a nearby college. They invited and arranged for me to go to the studio and tape me doing magic.
Another time, Jim Pace and I went to L.A. He was going to audition for the Magic Castle. While we were waiting, we sat at a table by the upstairs bar. We both pulled out decks of cards and started trying to one-up each other. There was a couple sitting at the bar, and we motioned for them to join us. It is always better to have a real audience. So there we were, Jim and I running through the tricks we knew, and I looked up to see a very large crowd watching us. What was really cool was that there were some very well-known magicians in the crowd watching.
At some point, Jim wrote a small book on doing restaurant magic, and I provided some photos for it. We also co-authored a book of tricks—half his and half mine. I illustrated the book, so technically, I’m also an author—another secret I have.
As my career progressed, I found less and less time to do magic. I did do some trade show magic for one of the companies I worked for (Aptec), but the number of performances was dwindling. It takes quite a bit of practice and performance to keep the skills sharp. Also, Portland is not a Mecca for magic. If I lived in L.A. or New York maybe I would have kept up at it. Now, I mostly do magic with a deck of cards, and even then, most of what I do is related to card cheating techniques, such as stacking the deck or doing false deals.
