123: Roy Zaltsman - The Israeli Phenomenon

Roy Zaltsman is one of the world's busiest working mentalists shuttling from Israel to India to Spain to the U.S. and many countries in between for large Fortune 500 companies at their product roll-outs and company/customer meetings and training seminars. He was also one of the participants on the hugely popular Israeli television show, "The Successor" with Uri Geller, which spawned similar shows in other countries including here in the U.S. with the NBC show entitled, "The Next Phenomenon" with Uri Geller and Cris Angel..

Aside from teaching mentalism (and some really coo card tricks), Roy also offers magicians an opportunity to learn "inside secrets" through his "Unpublished Magic Tutorials" from some of the top magicians and mentalists in the world. You can subscribe to receive new video tutorials plus see archived videos by visiting his website at http://telepatia.co.il/unpublished

The video below is the most recent addition to the archives that was shot here in my recording studio at "Mystic Haven".

Candid photos of Roy during his lecture here in Houston.

Roy passed through Houston, Texas as part of this limited, yet nationwide lecture tour between appearances at the Daytona Magic Festival and the MINDvention in Las Vegas.

In this podcast we talk about the use of disclaimers before a mentalism show, how to keep a mentalism show from appearing as a series of predictions, stories about Uri Geller, how Roy became a mentalist, his development of Unpublished Magic Tutorials, and some of his philosophy on creating and what he teaches during his lecture.

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Magic & Martinis Thursday

For those who remember our chat with Steve Trash located Here), he sent me a link to his new song "The Green Houdini" which is perfect for this 87th anniversary of Houdini's death. Steve really is the "Rockin' Eco-Hero". Once heard, it's hard to get this jingle out of my head. Scary!

Halloween cheers from Roy Zaltsman and Scott Wells.

122: The Jon Stetson Dinner Experience

"Better than 1,000 days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.." - Japanese proverb.

Jon Stetson passed through Houston for a private engagement. While here, we met for some serious steak and serious conversation. The conversation starts off with a little noise in the background but that diminishes after about 20 minutes so please be patient. We talk about the importance of being yourself and finding magic/mentalism that is right for you. He also talks about the three most important "self" awards: self-reliance, self-respect, and self-awareness (know who you are). These are some important points that every one of us can benefit from and put into practice. He gives us some solid, real life examples and great stories.

Jon quotes Dai Vernon who said: "the greatest travesty in magic in the past century is the trivialization of magic based on contrived presentations." We discuss the meaning and impact of that quote. Among the many subjects, Jon also talks about why he attends select magic conventions, how he transmogrified from magic to mentalism, restructuring mentalism shows from looking like one prediction after another prediction, Tuesday Night Magic which he helped co-found, and he talks about one of his heroes, Ross Johnson, ethics in magic (buying versus stealing), among so many other topics.

During our chat, Jon talked about teaming up with Bob Kohler to present a Mentalism Performance Workshop after the MINDvention in Las Vegas in November. This Workshop will cover intensive Q&A training, new market opportunities, character development, unpublished routines, and more. This workshop will be presented on November 13-15, 2013. For more information, Click Here.

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Magic & Martinis Thursday

Here is a holiday idea for marshmallow Peeps. Put one glass dish inside a larger one then line the inside with Peeps of the season. Finally, insert a colorful plant arrangement. Peeps are available in assorted characters for many holidays like Hallo… — Here is a holiday idea for marshmallow Peeps. Put one glass dish inside a larger one then line the inside with Peeps of the season. Finally, insert a colorful plant arrangement. Peeps are available in assorted characters for many holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, Summer, Christmas and, of course, Easter. More information at http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/

078: Part 1 - The End of the World/Year Podcast

"This is the end, my only friend, the end. Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end. No safety or surprise, the end.” – Jim Morrison, The Doors.

Is the Mayan calendar predicting the end of days correct? Maybe yes and maybe no. But why tempt fate? When is the last time you said that you would do such and such, “if it is the last thing I ever do,”? Well, time may be growing short my friend and now could be the time to do that “last” thing. Whether it’s talking to a long lost friend, forgiving someone, or telling someone you love them, now is the time for all good men (and women) to do what needs to be done. But if December 21st comes and goes with a fizzle, then by doing that “last thing” will be one more thing you can cross off your bucket list.

But one thing is for sure, it is the holidays and I want to celebrate the season and also my one year anniversary of The Magic Word with 77 podcasts in the archive since August 10, 2011. Okay, my calendar is off and it’s actually more than one year. Maybe I have a little Mayan blood in me. So this extended podcast is my holiday gift to you.

This podcast is “Ginormous”, as my grand daughter, Sarah, would say. It is definitely epic with interviews with magicians from around the country, over the border and across the ocean. I talked with a sampling of 15 magicians whom you may know and some you may not. But the variety of topics and their perspective on each subject is more than just a little fascinating. I focused our short chats on their areas of expertise.

But it seems that I was more than just a little ambitious in trying to keep these “brief”. And in the end, I had nearly five hours of interviews. So, rather than uploading this in one long “Ginormous” podcast (at over 130MB), I broke it up into smaller bytes of five, back-to-back podcasts. They are mostly unrelated to one another; however, there is a thread that goes through some of the discussions: the importance of youth involvement in our art to ensure the life, health and future of magic.

To make it easier to locate the chat(s) with the people you want to hear, here is a time chart of where we start the conversations with the following people in this Part One:

00:02:12 – Richard Kaufman, editor and publisher of Genii Magazine, gives us a peek at The Genii Speaks column for January 2013 where he talks about the death of printed magazine and the rise of digital editions. Plus we talk about the rise and fall of desktop publishing in magic and its evolution into less writing and more talking and performing on videos on sites like YouTube http://www.geniimagazine.com/

00:28:58 – Marc DeSouza talks about the magic lecture circuit: the importance of what is being taught, the difficulty of going on tour, and the level of interest and attendance at lectures.

00:45:57 – Banachek discusses the state of magic and mentalism on television now and in the future. http://www.banachek.com/

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