I became obsessed with magic tricks when I was ten years old. This was back in 1974 and the only magicians I’d seen at that point were cartoon versions in Bugs Bunny or Popeye cartoons, and their ilk. It’s not like my parents took us to vaudeville shows for entertainment. We had a TV, and whatever was on TV was good enough for us.
So where did I even get the idea for doing magic tricks?
Consumer advertising, of course. Like so many trends and lifestyle choices in America, the carpet-bombing approach to selling stuff—commercial after commercial, day after day—slowly made me want to “do magic.” Marshall Brodien, a so-called magician, put together a set of crappy tricks so stupid even a seven-year old could do them. He advertised during the cartoons and re-runs we watched after school, and I fixated on how this guy made rabbit-shaped bits of foam disappear from the table and reappear in a plastic cup with the tap of his magic wand.
I guess Marshall Brodien was a decent magician, but he probably made a lot more money as a huckster pitchman than he did pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Performing the tricks during the commercial, he made it look easy. He said I’d amaze my friends, and that I’d be popular. All I had to do was purchase his boxed-set of 25 tricks (currently available on eBay for $60 and put in the time practicing.
I got some money for my birthday that summer and went to the Cunninghams Drugstore at the Biddulph Plaza and bought it. That, alone, was memorable, because I felt silly making the purchase. Part of me suspected I was being played by Marshall. Another part of me didn’t like shopping for “As Seen on TV” crapola at a drugstore. I couldn’t help thinking that the clerk thought I was a sap, both for wasting my birthday money on this cheap set of tricks, and for aspiring to be a magician.
I gave it the old college try. I practiced those silly little gag tricks, and tried them out on my brothers and parents. You’d think they’d be an easy crowd to please, but I assure you my brothers didn’t put up with a lot of my bullshit. And my father, if he seemed pleased with the tricks, was probably just relieved that I wasn’t playing with dolls anymore (GI Joe action figures, but dolls nonetheless.)
The reason I’d quit playing with my GI Joe dolls was because none of my friends played with them. The one time I suggested it, I got such a look of horror and revulsion that I never mentioned it again. Social norms are a bitch.
To digress a bit more, it was that same year, 4th grade, when I’d been invited to a birthday party. I brought a model airplane kit as a gift. Nick, the celebrant, was polite but not impressed. He had moved beyond model airplanes, and had invited a few girls, two of whom were in 5th grade. Nick and Mark spent the bulk of the party trying to kiss the girls and get some alone time with them. It’d be another eight years before I conjured the courage to try kiss someone.
So maybe the life of a magician was really the best path for me. I kept practicing hiding the foam rabbits and making a pencil disappear (the hard way).
Soon, I had enough tricks for an act, and plans were made to put on a show at the next family party. My mother found a top hat somewhere, and enlisted Aunt Olga to make me a cape. Uncle Steve came up with a name for the act: “The Great Sardini and His Fishy Tricks.”
On the day of the show, right after a family meal of stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, and mushroom soup, I entertained our extended family. The tricks went about as well as I could have hoped. I know a couple failed, but this was family, and my uncles and older cousins were pretty drunk, so the mood was upbeat.
The most memorable moment of the show was when my younger cousin, David, kept approaching the makeshift stage (an old school desk set at one end of the unfinished basement) to see where the plastic balls, foam rabbits, and #2 pencil had gone to when they disappeared. To shoo him away, I used W.C. Fields line, “Go away, boy, you’re bothering me.”
The laughter was hearty.
The humor I’d tapped into with the quick ad lib was because David, being the youngest of all the cousins, and being a bit clumsy and naive, was often the butt of jokes. I’m not proud of that joke if only because it was punching down, and the great role of humor in society is to punch up, speaking truth to power. It’d be decades before I understood that principle; in the moment, I was flush with the high of a satisfied audience.
With that small victory of my performance, I continued my interest in magic. My father surprised me with two books on magic, which I read multiple times to develop my next act.
Over the coming months, I focused on a particular rope trip that demanded a swift, dexterous sleight of hand. Once I figured it out, it never failed to impress.
That next school year, we had to deliver a speech in front of our classmates. Not just a class of twenty or so, but the entire grade in an assembly. It was a brutal introduction to public speaking, and I was terrified.
Despite my propensity for being a hambone, and being quick-witted in class, shouting out jokes and getting laughs, I all but had a heart attack worrying about standing up in front of my peers.
Thinking I could amaze them and get through the speech with an easy hack, I decided to perform the rope trick. I had to pad out the setup to get to the required time for the “speech,” but it all seemed to work when I rehearsed at home.
At the assembly, kid after kid went up there and mumbled, stumbled, hemmed and hawed their way through crappy speech after crappy speech. Awaiting my turn, the worry grew until I considered pulling the fire alarm to escape.
But I went up there. Sweating, red in the face, and knees shaking, I mumbled and stumbled through the set up. As I performed the rope trick, I screwed it up and it didn’t work. There was no way to save it, and I didn’t want to start over, so I stood there, frozen. Then the laughter started.
Once again, my act got a hearty laugh from the crowd but this time I was the butt of the joke.
That’s when I put away my dreams of being a magician.
It would be another 30 years before I conquered that form of stage fright. In fairness, I was able to perform as part of a one-act play in eighth grade, and delivered other speeches through school, toughing out the terror. But I’d changed the entire trajectory of my life because of that one incident. I would never be a magician.
I need to tell you one more story about my cousin David and the path his life took. He was never much of an academic, and focused on playing bass guitar through high school. He tried his hand at being an auto mechanic, but mostly seemed adrift and dissatisfied.
He joined the army and made his way into the 82nd Airborne. There he finally found his footing and thrived, serving in the motor pool, and earning the rank of sergeant. The young kid who was a bit clumsy and naive had gained the trust and respect of his peers. He was a good soldier.
Deployed to Iraq, he led his team on a mission one day to rescue a squadron disabled by an IED. As they approached the Humvee, a secondary device was detonated and David was killed.
I’d give anything to have kept at magic long enough to learn the trick to keep him alive, but that’s not how life works. We follow our path, taking this fork in the road or that, and do our best along the way. If we gain the trust and respect of our peers, that might be the greatest achievement possible because that’s one of the few things we can control.
Maybe You’d Like
This week, I’ve teamed up with authors for a group promo called: Not Too Young to Solve the Case: An All-Genre Giveaway for Young and New Adult Mysteries
https://storyoriginapp.com/to/yfAB8dr
Next Picayune
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune. I’ll be back in two weeks with more stories, book news, and maybe recipes for the cabbage rolls and mushroom soup.
All the best and thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune.
—mickey
P.S. Order my book!