Bio-Vlog

“Sitting together at an upper-class night club is playboy Jim Flect, and Dr. Richard Drake. I hear you both have adventures of a different sort. If you would, please share them.” “Yeah” Jon,” Fleck says, “Rick and I went for a walk on a hiking trail and we came across a rattlesnake. Rick wasn’t going…

Mime-Magician, Armando Lucero has joined the Lamb’s Players troupe. As we first meet, our interaction is initially tentative and non-committal. This is pretty much par for the course for me, since I try to keep a low profile because most of what I do is geared more for the card table than entertainment. But he…

I expand my mind-control experiments by creating diverse exercises to force my brain to separate the movement of one hand from the other, so they can work independently of each other.  For example, I would draw an imaginary four pointed square in the air with my left index finger while simultaneously drawing an Isosceles triangle…

I am hanging out with bartender Ed Houlihan, who says with an undertone of slyness, “I knew a Chicago magician who could roll two coins in opposite directions across the fingers of one hand.” I ask excitedly, “Wow that sounds great! How’d he do it?” Eddie says in an artful manner, “I don’t remember; figure…

First, I pick up a coin and determine which hand feels more comfortable doing the roll, and it is my right hand. But, because I want to do it with both hands, I place the half-dollar in the opposite left hand and begin the maneuver from there.  Mary and I have to go run some…

I like to hang out at a club in my home town, El Cajon, where Eddie Houlihan is the bartender and performs close up magic nightly. (Eddie has even performed at the world famous Hollywood Magic Castle.)  I sit at his bar with a free glass of water with deck in hand. Eddie says with…

We interact as an engaged couple, and eventually, inexorably and impulsively, we canter to our wedding ceremony in May of 1974.  She joins the Lamb’s Players. As performers in a nonprofit theater company, we are what people call starving artists, and we are dirt poor. Our apartment has a few chairs, an old beat-up coffee…

Weight training, performing and card play all have their satisfactions but there is still one thing missing, and that is a girl. Every guy needs a girl. One of my high school friends is Mary Cobbs. Mary has long, soft, copper-colored hair and brown eyes. She is a straight-A student and both a gifted artist…

Word gets back to Jim Blowers that the woman standing behind me noticed when I uncut the deck.  Is that true?” Jim asks me. “Were you cheating?” “No,” I lie. I don’t think Jim believes me, but I don’t care. In my mind it’s okay to cheat drug dealers – that every penny I take…

As I play, I’m thinking, “I hate drug dealers!” From a few hours of their marijuana smoking and (likely using other drugs) I notice how loosely the play is from the stoned, stupid-sounding gamblers, and I’m easily able to gather a pair or trips and stack them.  I offer the deck to be cut. Now…

“Seated at my table again is Lori, karate Master John Douglas, stuntman Bobby Yerkes and writer-actress Kerry Jo. Can you all please share those crazy shuffling stories?”   “Yeah,” Jon, Lori says, “Growing up my brother would have me pretend to be a member of his audience. He would perform his magic tricks and card moves…

Kevin says to me, “Pull up a chair.” These guys don’t know how poor my eyesight has become. For the druggies that don’t know me from the past, I use my fallback excuse for holding my cards so close. “I’m extremely farsighted and can’t see a damn thing close up,” I say. “This morning I…