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The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The April 2012 entrée: Doug Brewer » » Early days... » » TOPIC IS LOCKED

Steve Brooks

Manager
Northern California - United States
4201 Posts

Posted: Apr 24, 2012 11:32pm

Doug,

I'm sure many here would be interested in your early days of performing, myself included.

That said, who were the people you looked-up to, admired and wanted to learn from and more importantly, why?

Looking back, do you feel you made the right choices, or given a chance, would you go down a different path?

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See you there!

doug brewer

V.I.P.

1100 Posts

Posted: Apr 25, 2012 7:01am

To be honest, I wish I knew what I knew now, and was about 10 to 15 years younger (that would put me in my early 30s - a great age). I think I would be more willing to go full-throttle on being a full timer and perhaps take a few more risks on my career. Not to say I'm not happy where I'm at - I truly am blessed. But when you're being "responsible" you don't want to risk too much especially when you have a family to take care of.

I started "obsessing" about magic at about 8 years old. I was kind of a loud, outspoken kid and had a performing streak in me even at an early age. I did theater in junior high and high school, which seemed a natural off-shoot of magic performance (being in front of people). I talked my parents into letting me get a couple of doves and I produced them using a dove pan. I was completely green on using dove pulls and the like. I know I would have gone that direction if I would have had a mentor. I actually did paying shows for neighbors and the church up until I was around 16 then I pretty much fell out of magic focusing on school.

This is going to sound odd, but I really loved Doug Henning back in the ‘70’s and he was a major influence on me wanting to become a magician. His style nowadays might seem a little hokey, but at the time I thought he did pure magic. I was just a little kid growing up in Kansas at the time but I never missed a TV special he did. I was also heavily influenced by the Bill Tarr book, Now You See It, Now You Don’t, which I studied from cover to cover. Unfortunately, books were hard to learn from back then as they had limited illustrations, and the writing was a little old fashioned. Tarr’s book was heavy on illustrations and had easy descriptions to follow. I was sorry to hear he died awhile back. I would have liked to let him know his influence.

I've thought about where I'm at in magic many times and I often laugh at just how this wacky world we live in works. It's amazing isn't it? One little decision can have a cascade effect on us for the rest of our lives. I moved to Los Angeles with my (new) wife right after college from Fargo, North Dakota. I was starting to dabble in magic again, but nothing too serious, just messing around with Roth's book and Br. John Hamman's book, and the routines in there. Just having fun. Then, I saw Johnny Ace Palmer performing at a bar across the street from where I worked as an engineer. I mean, completely random chance I worked nearby and someone in my office knew I dabbled in magic and recommended I go see him. I had never even heard of "walk around" magic, which is what Johnny was doing. I walked in thinking I was a veteran of magic and that he wouldn't fool me at all - I walked out feeling like a child and KNEW I didn't have a CLUE about ANYTHING. He blew me away - just a bam, bam, bam of magic over my skull. I was literally dazed. He did his coin magic, ring and string, card in shoe (killer) and his cups & balls (destroyed me). All I knew is that I wanted to be just like him and practically begged him to take me on as a student.

From that (after a year or two of study) I started to do the competitions. I won some local and regional competitions but wanted that national title - not that it was that important, but it gave me focus, which is what Johnny wanted for me. I eventually won in 1998 at the SAM convention in New Orleans. I was exhausted, and decided right then and there to stop competing. What I discovered, ironically, is that competitions are simply another genre of magic - and a competition act does not necessarily translate into a commercial show you can sell or even want to do for a lay audience. I had to start over, practically from scratch, on a new act. I was also about the same time I started developing my walk-around material, because I was having trouble finding commercial coin magic that you could do walk-around.

There's more, but you can see that "where I am" had no bearing on what or where I thought I wanted to be. I didn't even have the knowledge base to know what I wanted to be. So, I have to say, I'm extraordinarily happy with where I'm at - I've gotten to travel and meet people, and see a part of this world I would have never seen without my involvement with magic. I remember several years ago my first night in Hawaii for my engineering job. I had called Curtis Kam and he picked me up and we went over to this very large family gathering of people I had never met. I was invited in like they had known me forever. I was sitting there in these peoples' house, eating their food, and enjoying their hospitality, doing magic for them with Curtis. I was laughing (inside, where it counts) because I thought "how would I have ever met all these wonderful people had it not been for magic". Good times. Mahalo . . .

www.dougbrewermagic.com

Steve Brooks

Manager
Northern California - United States
4201 Posts

Posted: Apr 25, 2012 1:49pm

Thank you Doug - that was very insightful.