Reviews, stories, promotions and ideas about live variety today and in the future.
Mar 11
This gallery contains 37 photos.
I will be back at Monday Night Tease on May 7th, emceeing Diamond Lil’s “Gold Rush Follies” at the 3 Clubs in Hollywood. There will be magic, science, comedy, music, dancing and beautiful, near-naked ladies! Let us bring the 1890’s debauchery of the Alaskan Gold Rush to you, right here in the 21st Century! The Monday Night Tease […]
I will be performing and emceeing the “It’s Magic!” show at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara on Sunday, March 18th at 2:00 pm and that evening, Sunday, March 18 at 6:30 pm.
This show’s lineup also includes Murray Hatfield & Teresa, Michael Grandinetti, Victor & Diamond, Jason Andrews, Rob Watkins and more.
Tickets can be found here: http://www.lobero.com/calendar/index.php?display=event&id=753&returnto=list
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More information on “It’s Magic!” can be found at www.ItsMagicShow.com
Magic Castle Main Dining Room
I went to the Magic Castle Sunday night with Magill and John Collins of Weird Review. Everything is looking great, and everything but the Hat and Hare and Museum was open. That will open on February 6, Burns Night.
The recovery from the Halloween fire at the Magic Castle is moving along well. As you can see by this photo, the place looks even more beautiful than before.
This photo is by my friend and house photographer, Najee Muwwakkil Williams of Hocus Pocus Focus.
Lots more still to be done, but everything looks great. Things are more open and welcoming, and much brighter.
Great job by the staff and by the BoD and BoT!
Special thanks to Neil Patrick Harris, Erika Larsen, West McDonough, Jim Bentley, and also to the maintenance staff.
I look forward to working in the Palace of Mystery Jan 30th–Feb 5th.
Joe Franklin
Photo by Jim Herrington
Last week, I met the legendary Joe Franklin–once the undisputed king of Late Night television in New York City, and possibly the inventor of the television talk show. I was very impressed.
I was introduced to him in his office near Times Square by Alex Shlaferman.
What a charming and interesting gentleman Joe is! He welcomed us in to an ongoing discussion with two or three friends of his who are morning regulars in the office coffee gathering.
Franklin’s office is neatly stacked floor to ceiling with papers and tapes and vhs videos and other memorabilia.
He is extraordinarily friendly and interested, and knows everything there is to know about silent films, Tin Pan Alley and early show business.
Out of the stacks of tapes he found with ease a segment of his show featuring Bill Cosby and Kamarr the magician and popped it in a VHS player.
Kamarr was his good friend, he said, and had been on his show numerous times. In this sequence, he makes a stage size dove cage with three doves vanish close up at Cosby’s seat while Joe looks on bemused. Franklin said that he was the one who got Kamarr on Letterman years later.
I found this video on YouTube with Kamarr in Joe’s office:
From Wikipedia:
Joe Franklin (born Jose…ph Fortgang on March 9, 1926) is an American radio and television personality. From New York City, Franklin is sometimes credited with hosting the first television talk show. The show began in 1951 on WJZ-TV (later WABC-TV) and moved to WOR-TV (later WWOR-TV) from 1962 to 1993. After retiring from the television show, Franklin concentrated on an overnight radio show, playing old records on WOR-AM on Saturday evenings. He currently interviews celebrities on the Bloomberg Radio Network.
An author, Franklin has written 23 books, including Classics of the Silent Screen.
His 1995 autobiography Up Late with Joe Franklin chronicles his long career and includes claims that he had dalliances with Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and that Veronica Lake “threw herself at me, but I always refrained.”
He has appeared as himself in countless films, notably Ghostbusters and Broadway Danny Rose.
Frankin’s show was often parodied by Billy Crystal during the 1984–1985 season of Saturday Night Live. Franklin was also a pioneer in promoting products such as Hoffman Beverages on the air.
There is more information here:
Pop Haydn's Teleportation Device at the FAKE Gallery
Pop Haydn entertains at the Machine of Death Variety Show last night at the FAKE Gallery
Nancy Magill and I had a wonderful time last night at the FAKE Gallery on Melrose. It was a great event to celebrate the success of the Machine of Death (MoD).
There were lots of refreshments, magic, music by Lucciana Costa, games and actual operating steampunk contraptions, all in a wonderful environment, a trove of strange and interesting art and sculpture–what a fun time!
Video of the entire event here:
http://machineofdeath.net/mod-magic-variety-show
Machine of Death is an anthology of short stories edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki !, inspired by this episode of Ryan’s Dinosaur Comics. From January 15, 2007, through April 30, 2007, Ryan, Matt, and David invited everybody in the world to submit short stories for the book, without fee or prejudice. Hundreds of writers from five continents took them up on the offer.
Ryan, Matt and David chose their favorites from the nearly 700 submissions, and invested personal funds to pay each contributor. The manuscript was shopped for several years to agents and publishers who liked it, but were unable to sell a book full of material by largely-unknown writers.
Faced with this rejection, the editors self-published the book and, on October 20, 2010, announced that October 26 — six days later — would be MOD-Day, in which they encouraged everybody to buy the book from Amazon at once in an attempt to become, for one day at least, Amazon’s #1 best-selling book.
On October 26, exactly that happened. The book shot up the charts and hit #1 in all categories, staying there for approximately 30 hours.
On October 28, the editors got wind that Glenn Beck, on his radio program, called out MOD as being part of a “liberal culture of death” — for beating his own book (which had apparently been released the same day) to #1 on Amazon. We continue to find this hilarious.
On November 2, 2010, the manuscript was placed online, in PDF form, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 license. That means you can (and should!) read, copy, and distribute all the stories for free.
There is also an ongoing audiobook version, which is being released as a free podcast.
For more info, go here:
http://machineofdeath.net/about/
About the FAKE Gallery:
http://www.timeout.com/los-angeles/comedy/venue/1%3A6253/fake-gallery
Pop Haydn
My dear friends from Freakshow Deluxe.
What a wonderful bunch of Freaks!
This is from Kenny Raskin, who created this presentation:
“I created my piece (a version, filmed for Danish television, can be viewed on youtube) in 1981. Like any normal performer, I began putting it out there when I was gigging, but also at clown and mime festivals throughout the United States. So the great thing is, if it’s a good piece, people notice you. You get some good press and you build your reputation in the business. You might even get hired by Cirque du Soleil, which is what happened to me.
“The bad thing is, people begin to copy you, and when you are new in your profession, sometimes your authorship gets called into question. That is hurtful… It’s been a long time, and most people that came up in the clown world with me know the true story. I may not have been the first person to do a routine like this, but I didn’t see someone do one and then go out and create my own… My focus these days is more on teaching the craft, so my livelihood is not at issue here. But for those who I know saw my work and used it to create their own version — Tina Lenert, Sasha, Gayle LaJoye, Peter Shub, Jason McPherson — you are welcome…”
Great interview with lovely Heather Holliday, the Coney Island sword swallower:
Sophie Evans
The Magic Castle will be closed tonight, Halloween, because of a fire in the attic.
The fire started at 12:35 pm this afternoon, and was put out in just over an hour. No one was hurt, and the fire is out. The Magic Castle is okay with only superficial and water damage to the attic. The Castle will be closed tonight until the damage can be assessed. It will re-0pen as soon as possible.
More information is available here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/magic-castle-fire-damage.html
Sophie Evans has been performing all this past week with her amazing fire magic act and fire-eating in the Palace of Mystery–part of our Inferno at the Magic Castle Halloween week theme, and unfortunately will not be able to perform her last shows tonight.
Sophie, of course, denies any involvement in this unfortunate affair, and she looks perfectly innocent to me…
Click for Pop's Website
Sorry for your loss. They leave such a huge hole when they pass...
Thank you for this beautiful thought! I lost my Diamond Girl, black collie shepherd Lab, and feel he
Next week.
when are you performing at the Castle?
No, it was sold some years ago.
Reblogged this on Pop's Soapbox.
Happy Birthday Neil - We are planning on coming back April 17 to celebrate our Anniversary. My wife
Nancy Magill
Pop Haydn
Pop's Soapbox 