Today

Some days you are happy you got to live through, others, you are happy to survive.

I am very happy today happened to me.

Al Flosso, Master Magician

I love this guy. One of the greats I always wish I could have seen him live.

Loving Travel, Missing Home

I am enjoying being on the road and away from the troubles New Orleans has. I like the friends I get to see every year and it is really great to see the rest of the country but...

every night I check the web cams of Jackson Square and miss home...some days more than others but I do miss it.

http://www.nola.com/jacksonsquarecam/

The Eagle has Landed

I am in Cincinnati!!!

Long drive...started about 5:45 this morning and got here about 6:30 central time.

I have had the strange flu the Quarter has been getting, chills so bad that Wensday night I wore 3 shirts, sweat pants and two blankets in bed and still was shivering.

I have had about 16 hours sleep since Tuesday but....I am on a mission, there is magic that needs to be performed!!!

Sleep tonight, a friend is having a cook out for his son for his graduation and the food is going to be great.

Sunday, pull out the rig and get to work.

If feels great to be here.

Good Night.

Two Weeks till Lift Off

I had to move out of the place I have been staying for a few years, not happy about it but it came at a good time.
In two weeks I will start my summer travels and there is something very freeing about having everything I own locked in a 5' by 7' storage space and everything else packed in my Blazer.

Though I do have a few festivals and gigs lined up I am otherwise free to be anywhere I want to be. My travels end in Dec. when I work the Louisiana Ren. Fest.

I will be starting a mailing list for those who care as far as where I will be performing and I hope to add some pictures and blogs along the way.

In two weeks I will be on the road, I can't wait!!!

Life is good!!

Perfect Timing

Amazingly hot today. Wow, I mean really hot.

Big clouds started rolling in, black and noisy.

Anger lightning.

Grabbed a couple things at the store and drove home.

Walked in the door just as it started to rain.

My feet are up, computer in my lap and I am watching it storm in a cool, air conditioned room.

AAahhhh.

Nothing to Say

There has been bad Mojo in the air for days...I rear ended a car on the highway today. I don't even know what happened...it was just a bump but I was good and shaken up.

Half the Quarter is depressed and this oil spill is not doing us or anyone any good. We can smell it from time to time. This month is sick slow and there is limited work. Happens every year and you have to plan but...just feels different this year.

The Gym is my friend. Two and a half hours today. I am beat but feel good. Sometimes when you get that uneasy thing growing in you a great work out knocks it out.

So I am trying to get at least a bit on this blog everyday for the next...well...whenever. I feel like I have lost some drive and focus. I want to get out of the rut I am in so I have made moves such as changing my schedule, going through everything I have and getting rid of what I don't use or need. Transition isn't easy. I am hoping I don't regret cleaning too much...

Well, that was a babble blog. Not much of a point being made. Not much to report.

Some call it work

I will be heading out in two weeks to various parts of where ever and I can't wait. Get to hook up with some good folks and see more of the US. I love my job.

My tour job is about to end for the summer (by my own doing) and I am blessed to work for two companies that will give me work when I get back. One company will give me my exact shifts back. I guess I do a pretty good job.

I have had a few interesting tours as of late.

The one that has opened some doors for me was one that Nickolas Cage was on. The owner of the company got a call requesting me to do the tour. It seems that someone had been in St. Louis #1 checking out various tour guides and were very impressed with me. I have had two offers at other companies just because of this tour. And yes, he seems to be a good guy.

A French Quarter History tour I was doing was interrupted by some people yelling “someone, stop him”. When I looked up I saw a guy running down the street with a purse. I ran out in the street to cut him off, he ran up on the sidewalk behind a car and I trapped him as he was trying to run between a building and a car. I got him off balance, grabbed the purse and he went off running. I really wish I had gone for him and not the purse but purse was returned and the owner was happy. I will say, tips were really good on that tour.

The one that will stick with me for a while was one I did a couple days ago. A group of four were on the tour and near the end one of the guys ask if I thought it would be OK to take some of his nieces ashes and leave them in an area we had just past. I told him I felt there would be no problem and I am sure God didn't mind.

While he and his wife left the group to do this their friends told me his niece had always wanted to travel so when they went to new places they left a bit of her there. She had been 17, accepted to Stanford and Harvard and one day her parents found her dead. Suicide. No one knew why but they thought it was the stress put on her about the schools.

If you would have been next to me when I wrote the above you would know I just took a couple minutes to think about what I just wrote. Writing about her makes if feel so much more real.

My work is not serious, my life is not serious and over all it is a great trip, there are just a few solemn moments and those need to be acknowledged.

I wish I had asked them her name.

The Good, the Bad and the Hungry

Yesterday started very sad and ended reminding me that real friends are always there for you.

Crappy morning personally (the two left feet I call a personal life). Might blog about this situation at sometime because it bothers me but not today.

Anyway, gave a really bad tour because my mind was elsewhere.

The streets were bone dry so not much in the way of shows plus I think I was Capt. Grim at that point so I closed down and went to the gym...you are never sad to go to the gym. Run a couple miles and work out for about 2 hours and your mood changes....plus...a trustworthy friend there reminded me about a big shindig going on last night.

Flanagan's pub was doing a fundraiser and had a crawfish boil and pig roast.

The French Quarter is like a very small town so when something like this goes on everyone shows up. Lots of friends, pretty girls and food (and cheap drink for those who drink). Tons of folks showed up, even a couple of Saints players and some other well known folks that live in Quarter.

The Moral of the story is...there is no problem that doesn't get very small after a good workout, a pile of food and friends that care about you.

Life has it's sad moments but over all it is a pretty good dance.

New Computer

Old one died...this one I can't afford...but it has Dolby sound...Beethoven's 9th...Wow!!!

Last Day of the Month

Feb. is always a bad month, this Feb. I really hate. Go away Feb. 2010...starting in March....happy blogs or I jump off the nearest cliff...thank god I live in south Louisiana....no hills...no cliffs.

I think the Pogues wrote a song about it "It is the Worst Day Since Yesterday".

Will it end

Well, our hero is in a mess. Power crashed in our area and two songs I had finished mixing on the computer are gone!!! Totally and with out a trace.

This might be OK but...it seems I have been the jackass of the universe in the eyes of someone who only two days ago said they were glad to have a friend like me. They are no longer answering my calls or returning my e-mails. Shit,I have really screwed up from time to time but to top it off I have no clue as to what I did. The closest I can come is that I recieved an e-mail that really angered me and I responded with a bit of temper.
Past that I have no clue to what is going on. This really sucks,I hate being an ass though I can be good at it.I just wish they would at least bless me out so I could understand what the hell I did.
This sucks!!!

This month started out bad and is sinking fast.

Me or this month...one of us has to go!

Quote of the day

"In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing".

Mignon McLaughlin

A reset button for the weekend

Well now, this weekend was perhaps one of the worst weekends I have had in years...two friends in hospital, a friend (now ex-friend) ripped me off a couple hundred dollars that I loaned her trying to be helpful, a big misunderstanding at the home due to total miss-communication and a new friend that I really enjoy talking to seems to have an issue with me I don't even understand.

So I don't know why the thing I am writing about this weekend that is a very strange lunch with a lady.

We have gone out a couple times, we seemed to get along...in fact she called to go out the second time so I know she enjoyed my company. So here we are having a nice lunch when the conversation turned to motorcycles. As a man we know there are subjects that one must be careful around but I discovered motorcycles is one too.

Who would have thunk???

As with most of the weekend I seemed to miss the transition from “going good” to “fire and hell”. As best I can see it went something like...

“I thought you owned a motorcycle”
“I don't, haven't in many years, haven't been on one in years” (This is me by the way)
“I thought you owned a motorcycle”
“No, I don't”
“I only date men with motorcycles”

Now, I would like to say at this point...if I had a brain I would have gotten up and left then...once you see a plane crashing you don't get under it and try to stop it...I tried....

“I don't have any issue with motorcycles”
“I thought you owned a motorcycle”

I had to ask

“What do you want to do now?”
“I don't know”

We pick at our food for a couple of seconds and then I just took her home. I don't even need to wait till the end of the year to delete her number from my phone.

What is it with motorcycles?? What is it with this weekend or....what is it with me.

I fear before this day is done I will be deleting more numbers than I would care to.

Somehow I must have pissed off the gods.

I really wish there was a reset button for the weekend.

A Valentine I can not send

I saw a candid picture of her.
She looks beautiful.
There would be disagreement, she would go on about her hair is a mess and this and...

That is the point.
Beautiful never needs to comb its hair.

It just is...

A Simple Wish

I have been communicating with an interesting gentleman about magic and his approach. Never had a chance to meet the fellow but the internet helps us exchange ideas on magic.

He also writes.
He told me that he promised his lady that he would write her 100 poems that year.

I told a friend about this and she thought it would be wonderful to have someone care so much to write 100 poems to them.
I thought it must be wonderful to have someone so important that I would write 100 poems.

I think that will be my Valentine wish this year...someone I feel worth writing to...someone that will put up with all the bad poems.

Subversive Activities Registration Act

Hey boys and girls, this is one for you.
Lets just say you are a terrorist going to South Carolina, you will need to drop by the closest state building before getting your gang together. You need to fill out paper work. The fine political brain trust has made laws about subversive organizations. It is called the....drum roll please....Subversive Activities Registration Act.
That's right. Lets take a look shall we.

Section 23-29-50 states

“Every subversive organization and organization subject to foreign control shall register with the Secretary of State on forms prescribed by him within thirty days after coming into existence in this State.”

Good stuff, heck,to get the paperwork through the government mill will certainly slow down those subversives. Good thinking!!

Look, here is more.
Section 23-29-60
“Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him."


Yea...that should do it! Good job South Carolina!!! Why didn't the President think of that??

House Cleaning...sort of....

Technology has been zooming right along creating new ways to express ourselves with little smiley faces in our e-mail, short hand in texts and various new ways to get, sort and store information. I use to remember all my close friends phone numbers and would keep a little address book for business and other important information. Now everything can be contained in a pocket unit.

Between my cellphone and my computer I have the information for contacting who I need. The sad truth is I don't remember anyone's number anymore. I couldn't remember my sisters phone number to save my life. I do keep a notebook for information I may or may not use. If I find I am calling or e-mailing I add the address or number. I also go and clear out the clutter about once a year. I don't know if anyone else does this but it is becoming a tradition of sorts for me.

Start of the year I clear phone numbers out of the cell and addresses out of my e-mail account. I sort of go over things and see who is new and who is getting deleted. I hate to say that this year had more deleting than adding. Some are expected, ex-girlfriends, short term co-workers, companies I worked with for a short time. These we expect.
Then there are those we didn't expect or with we were not deleting.
This year seemed to have its more than it's share.
There are a few “friends” I am happy to delete but I have 3 that I am sad to say I am deleting because I feel I have tried to stay in touch and my effort is...well...it don't get results. This is the way things go, sad but true.

Then there are those who have pasted away. If feels strange to delete someones contact information when they have past. Sort of a final statement of loss. Of the ones that really hit me nothing hit me like the realization that I will not see Jim Cellini again. I had forgotten his e-mail address was stored on my computer.

Jim Cellini is considered to be one of the greatest street magicians of the past century, certainly of the last half of the 1900's. I had a chance to get to know him around the year 2000 when he was in New Orleans filming his DVD's about street performing. I know I wasn't his greatest friend and certainly I was not his student. At the time we became friends I was working on a very different style of magic. We did talk about performance and the nature of magic though and I did have a couple Christmas cards from him.
The last time I wrote to him via e-mail I had plans to visit Europe and wanted to go to Switzerland to see him. He told me his door would be open for me to stay with him. Last year he was going to be teaching in Cardiff Wales and I was going to try to get to the event. He had a stroke before he could go to Cardiff.
The whole magic community got together doing benefits, sending money and praying. He lived a few months but the stroke got the best of him. I think as a performer since he could no longer work he more or less gave up.
I had forgotten I had his e-mail on file.

I didn't delete it...not yet. I don't know why. I know I will but I can't do it...not today, not this week...I don't know when.

There seems to be something strange about deleting living humans and not the dead ones. Something lonely about keeping the dead contact info.

I wonder how Houdini's wife felt when she did his seance for the last time.

Maybe I want to get one last e-mail from Cellini...”Rosabelle, believe”.

Here is a video of Jim Cellini, one of the greatest magicians of our time...and a friend.

A quote

I overheard this a couple weeks ago..."I don't know if it was the Everclear or the Whiskey....."


Ouch!!