Albuquerque’s KOB-TV reports that magician Paul Cochrell a/k/a “Tall Paul” has been in the birthday party biz for more than 20 years. Usually the birthday party is a cause for celebration and fun. Nice people hiring magicians for a nice gift for a son or daughter. We never performed for an angry crowd at birthday parties.
Mr. Cochrell saw the other side of humanity when someone broke into his car and swiped his props.
“It’d be nice if people weren’t terrible. I mean I guess the weirdest part is they don’t know what they took,” Cochrell said. “Yeah there’s some puppets and some sound equipment they may recognize but the rest of it—they don’t know what to do with.”
The good news is that he has found the car and replaced the window shattered in the break-in but was not able to recover the stolen items.
He particularly misses his puppet, Vern the Bird. “He’s like family. I’ve been using him for over 20 years,” he said.
He hasn’t given up on people though. He sees this incident as an aberration rather than the rule.
“Bad things happen, but people are good so you know I haven’t lost faith in humanity,” he said. “Just bad things happen occasionally so just gotta pick yourself up and keep moving forward.”
Mr. Cochrell set up a Go Fund Me page to seek help from fellow magicians and fans and anyone who cares about helping with the victim of crime. You can visit the page here.
You’ll even have a chance to see Vern the Bird right at the top of the page. He has a goal of $3,400 and has already raised close to $2,000.
There really are good people amongst us – even non-magicians.
You can read the full article on Mr. Cochrell and even see a video of him performing on the KOB Channel 4 website here.
And be sure to visit Mr. Cochrell’s website here.
No related posts found...
Zoom Magic Sought by Inside Magic

We have seen some wonderful Zoom magic shows recently. We realized we only knew about them because friends (we’re not…
Inside Magic Review: David Copperfield’s History of Magic

We have been a fan of David Copperfield since his early days. We anticipated his television specials with the same…
Thank you for sharing. It’s the support I’ve gotten has been amazing. Olive Oyl told me about your blog. I look forward to reading more.