Dad to Son: Two Kinds of BizarreInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Some Kind of Bizarre

My father, Li’l Tom Hardy, America’s Foremost Psychic Entertainer, used to say, “there’s two kind of bizarre: the kind you’d pay 25 cents to see at a sideshow, and the kind of bizarre that you would pay $30,000.00 to buy a house in a different neighborhood to avoid.”

Home prices have gone up since then but his saying still rings with the resounding dong of a bell that is built to make a “dong” sound.

In today’s Magic News we have the ends of the spectrum of bizarre magic. One end you’d pay for, the other you’d pay to avoid.

Read On . . .

In Mount Vernon, Illinois, William E. Smith a/k/a “Dr. Strange” of the famous “Dr. Strange’s Magic Show” was arrested for illegally videotaping juveniles. The local authorities say they are not familiar with Dr. Strange’s act but “have learned that he travels with the act to wherever he can get booked and may have performed out of state as well as in other parts of Illinois.”

The Evil Eye

Dr. Strange was arrested in June by the Saline County Sheriff’s Department after the family who took him in and gave him a place to stay discovered his freakish videotaping habit. According to the Sheriff’s Office, one of the members of the family was a magician and took pity on the 56 year-old man after learning Dr. Strange had lost his home.

An adult in the household found the video camera and tapes. “They knew him, they thought he was a nice guy,” Deputy Jones said. “And then this happens.”

No sexual acts appeared on the tapes confiscated by the sheriff’s department. Dr. Strange was released on bail. A raid of his former home produced tapes but they did not depict “specific sexual acts” but do show more than one juvenile and are being called “improper.” He said it isn’t clear if the juveniles knew they were taped.

The Sheriff’s office did not comment specifically on the tapes’ contents but “said it was ‘pretty disgusting’ to have to review them. He said he did not want to reveal yet how many juveniles were shown on the tapes. The review of the tapes is incomplete, he said, but so far no adults have appeared in them. The investigation continues.”

Mount Vernon police are asking anyone with information about Smith or these charges to contact the detective division at (618) 242-2131 or (618) 242-0215.

Read the full article here

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Some Kind of Bizarre

Home prices have gone up since then but his saying still rings with the resounding dong of a bell that is built to make a “dong” sound.

In today’s Magic News we have the ends of the spectrum of bizarre magic. One end you’d pay for, the other you’d pay to avoid.

Read On . . .

The Evil Eye

An adult in the household found the video camera and tapes. “They knew him, they thought he was a nice guy,” Deputy Jones said. “And then this happens.”

Read the full article here

“You Want Bizarre?!”

Brian Brushwood is the good kind of bizarre. In the Richland Mirror today, he says affirmatively that he prefers the term. That, in and of itself, is bizarre. The 29-year-old professional magician from Austin, Texas brought his “bizarre magic show to Richland June 22 to kick off the 2004 Tri-County Fair.”

Brushwood has been pro for about 10 years and enjoys his work as a Bizarre Magi. He believes it was one of the best decisions he made in his career.

One man’s bizarre is another man’s strange. Brushwood performs the old push a nail through your eyeball and out your mouth routine. Sure, we’ve all seen that one advertised in the back of Boy’s Life but never thought to perform it. Here’s someone who has. He also busts a concrete block on his head, runs a tube through his mouth and out of his nose to pass fluids and then shoves a skewer through his tongue.

In keeping with the rules for good Bizarre Magic, he warns the audience to not try these effects at home. Mr. Brushwood received great reviews and his talents have even taken him to a guest appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Read the praises for Mr. Brushwood here.

Then there is the kind of Bizarre that you might miss if you don’t watch carefully or if you unsuccessfully tried to shove a nail in your eyeball.

The Las Vegas Mercury is usually a pretty harsh critic of entertainment in the town and on the tube. They essentially tore apart the recently debuted T.H.E.M. but with one exception.

The reviewer seemed genuinely amazed and smitten by Lisa De la Vega’s quick change routine:

Lisa de la Vega

“But the coolest trick is when Lisa de la Vega goes shopping, asking fellow mallgoers if they don’t mind giving their opinions on some outfits she’s trying on. With total smooveness, she flits into the fitting room–which is draped with only a cloth–and emerges fully changed in six seconds! All her newfound shopping friends freak, keening in that mallgirl dolphin language that says something like, “Rally with ye torches! This unclean warlock must be cleansed by fire!'”

Check out the review of the other cast members and the criticism of the method in which the special was photographed here.