Spencer Horsman Almost Died!

How's that for a clickbait title, huh?

There's a video going around showing escape artist Spenser Horsman (no relation to BoJack) being rescued from an escape gone wrong. I remember him from a few seasons back on AGT. I liked him, and he seems like a capable performer. Too bad he didn't go further on the show.

That said, I doubt the legitimacy of the footage and the story behind it. That's my PC way of saying I think it's shady as fuck. According to some of the comments, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Again, I have no knowledge one way or the other, this is just my gut.

I think it's just a little too perfect. You've got the show a couple days before opening, trying to generate some buzz. You've got a weird cellphone video of a rehearsal that I would assume would be a closed set to begin with. You've got Criss Angel heroically climbing the chains and knocking something free to get the box open (which incidentally, as an escape, should be harder to open right?) and then an abrupt finish with no word on his condition.

I mean, it's dramatic as hell and it certainly got me talking about the show so I guess as a publicity stunt it served it's purpose. I think the main thing that's got me smelling a rat is that I've recently been toying with a similar idea to draw some heat for a future project. Again, I don't know for sure that's what this is, but there's enough there to make me question it.

This is a good lead in for an article I want to write about escapes, but I think I'm going to save that for another day. A brief teaser: The audience knows you're not going to die and a capable performer is not going to put themselves in danger. This above all else is why I feel this whole thing is just a sham.

I could be wrong. I'm probably not. Either way, I hope Spencer's doing well. He seems like a nice guy, and I wish him luck on the show or more fake drownings or whatever he's up to next.

Come back next week for a post on thirty ways to write your own clickbait titles! Number seven left me speechless! This one weird trick will triple your readers! Bloggers hate him!

-Andster

Edit: Upon further viewing of the video, it appears the lid to that box is made up of a metal grate. How the fuck do you drown when all you have to do to breathe is tilt your head up? That makes me feel like this whole post is unnecessary and nobody in this world took the stunt seriously.

America's Got Talent episode 5

Watching my recording of AGT and live blogging again. Let's see where this goes.

Oh here we go, Oz Pearlman is up. This should be good.

I really liked this! It went over very well with the judges and the audience. The thing I liked best is that even though the methods seemed to be straight out of Corinda and could be easily overlooked by people wanting the latest and greatest, it still killed to the lay audience. Just goes to show you that classics are classics for a reason and you shouldn't always be focused on what's new. I need to take my own advice and start mining my magic shelf.

Not sure if there's going to be any more magic or anything worth mentioning in this episode, but I'll ride it out.

I'm sorry, but if this bird lady goes through I'll shit. She's talented, yes, but is anyone going to watch this for an hour? Oh good, she got nos.

I could be wrong, but I feel like there's not as many acts being shown this year than there were on previous years. It could just be poor memory, but I don't think it used to be come back from commercial, show one act, go to another commercial. Maybe this has something to do with them not bringing people on solely to make fun of this season which I appreciate.

 Not magic, but I liked this guy. I'm a sucker for danger acts, if for no other reason than it's something different than the usual singers and dancers. He went through to the next round, so hopefully we'll see some more of him in the future.

I almost shit myself because I accidentally closed this tab. Thankfully this autosaves drafts, so I didn't just get pissed and not write today.

I know it probably wasn't the goal of the act, but the Juggling Taxi (or UGGING TAXI as his hat said) made me laugh my ass off. Especially when Danny ran out of steam and just started doing a little soft shoe and a little hat balancing.

That's another show in the books! Next week's show looks pretty entertaining, but I again question the ability of doing high jumps and exploding cars as a Vegas show.

I've got my festival this weekend, and will be back next week (or before, but probably not cause I'm working a ton) with new stuff.

- Andster

Upcoming Show

Falling off the posting bandwagon already. This doesn't bode well. I've been working my ass off lately, although I know I can't complain because my two jobs are easy and fun and it sure beats real work. Still sucks when you've had two days off this month. Anyway, no personal bullshit.

Next week I'm booked to perform at a festival doing some busking. The past few months I've been getting stuff together and have a decent routine worked out. I haven't done dick about a script though, but I have a general idea of lines I want to hit and where to work them in. I'm hoping to find time in the next few days to actually get it written down and see how it flows.

I will do a full recap of how the shows go next week, but I'll warn you now: Lower your expectations. There will be nothing groundbreaking, there's nothing that's gonna fool a magician, it's all pretty basic stuff. You could probably go to your magic drawer right now and do pretty much my whole act. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I don't care about being a magician fooler, I care about being entertaining. I think I'm doing pretty good in that regard. We'll find out Saturday.

- Andster

America's Got Talent Ep. 4

This week's show is the extreme episode, featuring danger acts. I'm watching the recording and kinda live blogging along, so we'll see what comes up. I've always been a big fan of the danger acts, mostly because it's something different. That's why I get kind of annoyed when singers and dancers start moving up in the show, there's a million other shows for that. AGT is, in my mind, for variety acts that don't have a place to go. I'm sure there are singers and dancers that I've liked (I will admit I'm a very big fan of multimedia dance acts) but I'd rather see weird shit than an opera singer. End soapbox.

One thing I've noticed this season is that there seems to be fewer acts that they bring on just to make fun of how bad they are. I appreciate that. I used to think that these auditions were basically open casting calls and delusional people showed up in front of the judges and got told no. Then I found out (really, embarrassingly, late to the party on this) that you have to audition in front of producers first and they call you back to audition in front of the judges. Which makes a lot of sense, but then I feel bad that these people that just suck are getting told by producers to come back and they've got to be thinking "Wow, I really am good! I can't wait to tell everyone!" Then they come on in front of judges and get told, basically, "You suck, we brought you here to laugh at you, go home." As much as I like the show, that aspect of it sucks.

Second commercial break just ended and they called for magicians!

Aiden Sinclair is the first magician up tonight. I liked his trick, although I'm not 100% buying his reformed conman shtick, especially when Googling for a bit of background info on him brought me to his Facebook page where he talks about changing his public image from a paranormal magician to a more general magic image. Anyway, the trick was cool. I was expecting it to be an invisible deck but it doesn't seem to be which is pretty neat. Question is though, is his method, whatever it is, any better than just using an ID? Hard to say.

Uzeyer is not a magician, but this act is mesmerizing as hell. I really liked this, don't have much to say about it. Just wanted to make sure people saw it (if anyone reads this dreck) and say how much I enjoyed it.

I might have misunderstood the theme for this week. Oh wait, Nick is saying the next hour steps up the game. Let's do this.

Damone Rippy makes this look easy. I had two thoughts while watching this: 1) I wanna do this so bad, even though I'm almost positive it will end with me drowning. 2) This is gonna be hard as fuck to do at Radio City if he gets through and harder to make a Vegas show out of.

Not a lot of magic this week. Makes sense though, not many magicians fall into the danger act category. I figured there would at least be an escape artist or something.

Not gonna bother linking the video, but isn't BASE jumping going to be hard as fuck to do in a live show too. And for that matter isn't jumping out of a helicopter, by definition, not BASE jumping? I think at that point it's just low altitude skydiving. Splitting hairs here, cause I'd still never fucking do it.

All right, Dr. Danger is on and there's about 6 minutes left so I've gotta assume this is about the end of it all. Interesting night, but lacking on the magic end of things. I think the danger acts themselves were kind of a letdown based on previous years. Hopefully there's some more in the weeks to come.

Tune in next week for another AGT recap!

-Andster

Card Trick for Couples

This is gonna be a quick one. I've got a handling for Be Honest, What Is It or Two Card Monte, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I use it when performing for couples or if someone mentions an anniversary, or pretty much any time I can steer the conversation towards marriage. I'm not claiming originality here since I just mashed two previously thought of things together, but I also haven't seen anybody else do this. Granted, I haven't looked too hard, but still.

I don't want to give away the entire trick, so I'm going to be intentionally vague. Those of you in the know should be able to fill in the blanks, those who want to be in the know can learn the trick and go from there.

You're going to be showing the two of hearts and the ace of diamonds, and changing them into the ace of clubs and the ace of spades. Set it up to your preferred handling.

The patter is as follows: "Marriage begins with two hearts in love and a diamond. As the years go on, the diamond stays strong but the love may fade, leaving you wishing for a club and a spade."

Look, I'm not saying this is gonna set the world on fire, but it's cute in a cynical way. Give it a shot, let me know how it goes over for you.

- Andster

Escape Gone Bad

This is something I've been wanting to write about for a couple years now, and was actually what first made me realize my other site was down.

Back in 2013 I was working at a bank. My branch manager was (probably still is) a member of the Masons. There was some sort of charity event where the lodge was open to the public and had entertainment, singers, comedians, etc. He knew I was a magician and asked me if I would be willing to do something for the lodge, and I agreed.

I had a couple months to think about what I was going to do. I knew I wanted to tie it in to the Masons somehow, not just do some card tricks. While doing some Googling, I found out Harry Houdini used to be a Mason, the date he was sworn into his lodge was within a few days of 90 years from my performance, and I had a full view mail bag escape I bought from Cannon's years ago that I loved to perform but rarely did. Perfect.

Normally the escape is done by having a spectator create their own 4-digit combination on the lock and "figuring it out" through the canvas bag. To streamline the performance, I set the combination to Houdini's day of death (1031) and focused the presentation on figuring out the position of the dials through the canvas even though I knew the combo. I had a set of leg irons and handcuffs connected with chains attaching to a chain padlocked around my waist. I used a paperclip as a tie clip to pick my way out with, and I was all set.

Getting to the lodge I noticed two things right away. First, there were a ton of people. Many, many more than I expected. Nerves kicked in a bit, but I was okay. I figured the escape was a good way to go for a good sized crowd. The second thing I noticed was that it was fucking hot. The lodge was in the upper floors of an old brick building with no air conditioning on a hot summer afternoon. Even with windows open and fans on, I was sweating like crazy just sitting still. I was a little concerned about that since the bag gets hot quickly, but I figured I could get out quickly and be okay. We all have to suffer for our art, right?

The event was already going on when I got there, so I found my manager found out when I would be on, and got a bottle of water to sip on while I waited. I was going to be going up last, right after an historical impersonator. He was dressed up as an historical figure and was supposed to give about a five minute talk in the first person about this guy's life. Instead, he went on for over a half hour, taking us from birth through death. The audience was getting restless and as soon as he finished, a good two-thirds of them got up and left.

Fantastic. Here I was ready to go on and most of my audience has walked out and the ones that are left are just oozing with "Oh fuck, there's more?" Oh well. I got introduced, said my piece, got locked up and locked into the bag. Then the trouble began. Almost instantly I was drenched in sweat. That bag was hotter than hot and it was almost hard to breathe.

I figure if you've read this far, you deserve to have the curtain pulled back a bit. It makes it easier for me to explain what's going on without spilling the beans too much, too. The paperclip does nothing. Although I can pick cuffs open with a paperclip, I had a handcuff key in my pocket. I got out of the cuffs quickly, popped the lock holding my belly chain (self gimmicked to easy open), opened the cuff on my left ankle, then dropped the fucking key.

I felt around on the bottom of the bag for it briefly, but it wasn't readily available and I was way too hot. I decided to forget about it and just get out the bag, taking the one cuff as a loss and trying to spin it somehow. The lock holding the bag shut it a very clever gimmick. There's something you can do to it from inside the bag that lets it open, regardless of what the combo is set on. I did what I needed to do, and the lock wouldn't open. I tried again, still nothing.

Now I was starting to panic a bit. I didn't want to admit full defeat so I punted for a plan B. I managed to force the cinched top open just a hair and was able to swing the padlock up and maneuver it inside just a bit. Fortunately I knew what the combo was this time and was able to open the lock the traditional way. I dumped the lock, opened the cinch, and climbed out drenched in sweat and gasping for air.

I did get a heavy round of applause from the people who were left, and my manager had an ice cold bottle of water waiting for me. I used my paperclip to pop open the cuff on my right ankle in full view of the audience which got me a little more applause. People mostly left after that, but I did have a few people come by and shake my hand as I was packing up and tell me it was good.

Since then I've discovered that the lock basically works when it wants to. The best I can figure out is that once you open it the gimmicked way, it needs to be opened the regular way before the gimmick will work again. But that's not always the case either, so I have no idea what's going on with it. If anybody has experience with this effect, shoot me an email because I'd like to talk it over with you.

I had a lot of fun with the performance and the escape. I wish it had gone a little smoother but I think I managed to take something going bad and turn it into something decent. It's like using an Invisible Deck as a backup during a card trick: Might not be what you wanted to do when you started, but the audience doesn't know that and they're still entertained.

- Andster

America's Got Talent Magic

I am a big, big fan of America's Got Talent and am extremely happy that a magician finally won last season. I've wanted to talk about the magic acts they featured for a long time, but I haven't had the platform. Now I do, so strap in. I'm commenting on the first three episodes from memory, so if I miss someone it's not on purpose.

Piff the Magic Dragon is back, doing mostly the same act he did on Penn and Teller Fool Us. I absolutely love Piff. I love his humor and would probably watch his act even if there was no magic in it. His byplay with Heidi was hilarious, especially his line about "No, I can't find it, the will to live."

Wayne Hoffman had an interesting take on the Russian Roulette plot. I liked him on Phenomenon and I've seen him live before. He's a nice guy, but this particular piece didn't really do it for me. I might just be looking at it through magician eyes, but Russian Roulette effects aren't my cup of tea. They go over well for audiences though, and I have done one myself, but I just find it lacking something.

I met Derek Hughes years ago at Monday Night Magic. I don't remember anything about what he did. but I do remember he was talented and funny. I really liked his act here, the judges obviously did too, and I think he's gonna do pretty well.

I don't even know where to begin with Stevie Starr. I'm not even sure if I would classify him as a magic act or not, but I want to talk about him so he's here. Stevie is interesting, to say the least. I think I like his act, but there's only so much you can watch someone swallow and throw back up. The problem I have is that I'm not willing to suspend my disbelief enough to believe some of the things I've seen him do in the past. Like most of what is in this act I could plausibly see as real. Except the sugar. But things like solving a Rubik's cube with his stomach or unlocking a padlock with his stomach can only be a trick in my eyes. And that leads me down the path of, if he's using trickery to do that, what else is he using trickery for? It'll be interesting to see where he goes.

Xakary was interesting. I personally haven't seen a sawing in half that doesn't use a trained assistant, but it's probably just because I've been living under a rock. I liked it well enough, but I wonder if he got through more on the gimmick of cutting a judge in half than actual good magic. I'm interested to see where he goes from here and if he can keep it up.

Michael John was pretty good. At first I was kinda bored with the card trick since it seems that everybody is doing it nowadays, but the second part was pretty neat and unexpected. I feel like he's going to do well in the voting (depending on who he's up against) because he hits all the notes that people seem to like: young, good looking, in shape, sensitive. I feel like women are going to vote for him in droves.

Well, I think I hit everyone. Now that I'm caught up with the first three episodes, I'll try to get a magic recap done soonish after the new episodes air. I don't watch them live so it may be a couple days after. Bear with me.

- Andster

Smoothini

This has been bothering me for a while, and I really want to address it.

I can't recall all the details, but I remember somehow finding that Smoothini was going to get run over by a truck if he didn't raise a certain amount of money. I found that to be the dumbest thing I had ever heard, and I was rather vocal about that. Smooth left a rather detailed comment on my post, and I ignored it and hid from confrontation like a little bitch.

I forgot all about it until last year. I was watching America's Got Talent and saw him walk on stage, and instantly it came flooding back. I even told my wife, "Oh my God, I know him. I talked shit on him years ago, and I feel bad now."

Smooth is the prime example of what I said in the last post. I formed an opinion of him quickly and without all the facts and I was wrong. I knew nothing about him, his life, or his magic beyond the little blurb I found about his stunt. Seeing him on AGT was the first time I had ever seen him perform. It showed me he wasn't just some asshole, he actually had skills.

I still don't know that I like the idea of "If I don't raise $X, then I will Y" as a publicity stunt though. I may talk about that another day, but even though I didn't like one aspect of one performance of his, I shouldn't have trashed him like I did.

Bottom line is, Smoothini is doing much more in magic and in life than I probably ever will. He's out there performing and going on AGT, while I'm sitting here on my couch feeling guilty and writing about it. Even if he legitimately sucked, he's at least out there doing his thing. More than I can say about myself, and more than can be said about a lot of magicians.

I really enjoyed watching him on the show, and even thought about emailing him to apologize personally. Ultimately I decided that he probably didn't remember me or didn't care and an email would do more harm than good. Hopefully that was the right decision and I didn't fuck up again by airing laundry that would have been better done privately.

I don't know that he'll ever see this, and I don't know that he'll ever care, but Smooth, I was wrong and I apologize.

I feel better getting that off my chest. Enough of this self-referential stuff though. Let's get back into talking magic tomorrow.

- Andster

Mea Culpa

There's something I need to get off my chest: I used to be a dick.

I mean, I still kinda am, but I also think I've mellowed out a bit, I'm not trying to make excuses because I know I said some awful shit, but I am trying to give some context to it.

When I first started blogging, I was in my late teens/early twenties. I was more interested in drinking beer and (unsuccessfully) chasing women than I was in thinking about the effects of my words. I can't say I necessarily stand by everything I said, but I also don't necessarily apologize for all of it. Anything I said I meant, at least at the time. 

I have always been a passionate person, quick to form an opinion and not necessarily the right one. However as time passes and I get older, these opinions may change. Maybe not, though. I'm still not a big fan of Criss Angel, though I probably don't have the venomous hatred that I used to. 

Let's be honest, we've all done or said or felt really dumb things in the past. Hell, I used to think Hanson was the shit when they first came out. I was wrong about that, I can be wrong about other things too. I do know that if you give a hotheaded seventeen year old free reign of a platform with a worldwide audience, things aren't always going to go well.

I know I said a lot of shit and made some enemies. I also know I'm a gigantic pussy and wouldn't have said a tenth of that to people's faces. In person I'd probably say, "You know, it's not really my style but I can see where you put in the work and other people enjoy it." Online it was more, "Fuck you, you suck, douche-bag, go kill yourself." Which, again, at seventeen I thought was funny and I was hot shit. Now that I'm knocking on the door of thirty, I see that it isn't funny and remembering doing that makes me cringe.

As I remember things that make me cringe or I've changed opinion on, I'm going to discuss them here. I would also like to extend an offer to anyone who may read this: If I have said something about you, or you remember me saying something about someone else, email me with the highlights to refresh my memory and I'll revisit it here. Give me the chance to say "Hey, things changed, I was wrong."

Normally I hate when people apologize for things they've said and I know it's hypocritical for me to do so. Just remember, I have no advertisers or sponsors to appease. This isn't someone trying to save his job. I'm just a guy who, after having a lot of time to reflect, realizes he said some douchey, shitty things when he was young and is genuinely embarrassed and sorry for that.

- Andster

Mission Statement

For the moment, andster.com is no more. We'll see what the future holds, but for now it doesn't look good. With a new blog and a new address comes a time to refocus. One regret that I have about the old blog is that too often it got bogged (blogged?) down with personal crap and lost its focus as a magic blog.

Above all else, this is a blog about magic. It will contain my thoughts about magic in general, product reviews, magic on TV, and stories from my personal magic life.

What I'm going to try really hard not to do is write about family, friends, relationships, jobs, what I did today, etc. unless it's somehow tied in to magic. I used the last blog as kind of a brain dump which was good for me, but not good for the blog. You come here to read about magic, not how tired I am. I might do a personal blog or journal or something in the future, but I sincerely doubt there's enough interest to actually publish it.

I'm also going to make a concerted effort to not write about what I'm going to do (yes, I realize the irony here), but what I have already done. Too often last time I would find myself writing that I plan to do A, B, and C and then never following through with it. I think a big part of that was that I wouldn't update for weeks on end, then feel compelled to just write something to have content. These first few posts are going to come sporadically, but when things settle down I'd like to get onto a regular posting schedule. Not sure what that's going to be, but that's my intention.

I've been really torn about keeping the Andster persona. When I first started blogging, I was pretty adamant about staying anonymous. I still value my privacy so I don't think I'm quite ready to "come out" just yet, but I also know there's enough information about me out there that would make it pretty easy to get doxxed. That's my own fault, I know. Andster kinda bled into my personal life and things commingled and now here we are. I'd still rather not broadcast all that information through here, but I figure if you want to know badly enough, email me and ask.

I think that's all I've got for now. Check back tomorrow for more. Now, I'm going to enjoy my birthday.

- Andster

I'm Back

Happy birthday to me

- Andster