Nothing yet
But still cautiously optimistic(?).. Again.

Here is the Facebook message about whats been going on with him if anyone cares to read.


Today marks the start of Lunar New Year and in China they call it the ‘Year of the Horse’ – what better day for the re-birth of your favorite four-legged friend animal?
I know I’ve been quiet for a while and I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you what I’ve been up to.

This weekend everyone will be watching the big game. I won’t. Even though I come from a family of sports fanatics - (‘go Giants!’ whatever that means) – I’ve never been a fan of for some reason. But, I do love Superbowl Sunday – for some reason, this weekend gets everyone extra excited and eats more junk food, gets drunk and yells at their tvs. So I’m completely on board even though I don’t like football and I don’t even own a TV – I just like yelling at it when I’m drunk.

I do like watching YOU get excited and since you 5000 guys are my supposed to my friends, your excitement is contagious to me. Surprisingly, I do feel like I know most of you – there are about 5000 others on the waiting list that are mad at me for not ‘friending’ them that that are also my friends. (if someone here can explain in an email or give me a call how I can add these patient friends to the existing 5000 – along with opening up the waiting list again since there are too many – then I will buy you a dinner in LA TONIGHT. Do I have to call this a ‘fan page’ – which makes me look like a ******bag – or can I actually keep this where it seems like we’re all talking as friends? Write me at rudycoby@me.com and I will make you popcorn at my loft today.

So on this esteemed super day of days, I’ll be making a couple of BIG announcements here to my favorite people regarding your friend Rudy Coby – but for right now I want to clear the air and explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. Then I’ll give you a couple hints about the exciting stuff that I’ll start announcing later today while everyone else is getting drunk and watching guys in helmets crush each other’s skulls. Since I’ve never been able to fit a protective helmet over my awesome hair, I’m hoping that this will serve as an excuse for the brain damage exhibited here.

WHAT HAPPENED

“What happened?” asked Stan Allen, Editor of MAGIC Magazine about a book of my mine that has been famously delayed the past few years and a few magic convention appearances that I cancelled at the last minute. Only recently have I realized that the answer was staring me in the face.

This last year has driven me crazy. I’m not saying I’m writing this note from a mental hospital, but close. Closer than you think. I live in a converted mortuary in Downtown LA, so I’m halfway there already. Alfred Hitchcock was cremated in the room I sleep in every night of my life (for real!) and he famously said, “Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” That’s what I’m going to do now with you, so strap on your seatbelts.

I have been doing Magic since I was 9 years old – nearly four decades ago I got a magic set under the Christmas tree from my Mom and it inspired me to one day become a world-famous magician and travel the world. My life’s work has been trying to inspire others to do the same – if I can do it, then anybody can.

The truth is I haven’t been feeling very inspirational lately. I’m going to get a little personal in the next couple of paragraphs, so please feel free to skip to the bottom to hear about the fun stuff – right now I’m going to turn into the only Magician without any secrets.

My Mom has been increasingly getting closer to dying these past few years and for some reason it has been devastating to me. I grew up in odd conditions and having my Mom die without having things resolved was killing me inside. Then, I read Steve Martin’s advice in his book BORN STANDING UP:

‘A friend whose father had been killed crossing the street and whose mother had committed suicide on Mother’s day advised me, “If you have anything to work out with your parents, do it now. One day it will be too late.” The thought nagged at me and I began a fifteen-year effort to reconnect with my parents.’

Wow. Too true and you should read Steve Martin’s book to see how he changed his life by working that out – his act inspired me to be a performer, but his heartfelt book inspired me to be a better human being. Buy it.

Anyway, my Mom was on life support with tubes down her throat when I flew home to talk to her. Not only did that make it difficult to speak, the doctors were trying to make me and my heartbroken brother make the decision to take her off the machines to let her die in peace.

Not inspiring.

The other major relationship in my life has been even less inspiring. There’s no need for a blame game since I like and admire this person very much, but the biggest mistake you can make as a creative artist is to embroil yourself in a relationship that has drama in it. It’s a creativity killer. There are two sides to every story and I gladly accept my half of the blame, but it all adds up to one thing: it has to be fixed or it has to be ended. I tried to fix it for too long and my creative output has declined steadily these past few years since ‘Magic vs Science’ at the Magic Castle. Biggest lesson: never mix personal relationships with your show. Ever.

Plus, the recent past been littered with what seems like EVERY one the people closest to me being struck by illness – my friends and family young and old all seem to have been visited by every form of cancer that exists on the planet. Completely depressing.

That’s what happened. So what’s changed?

My Mom got better. After years of slowly dying and being kept alive on machines, she begged my brother and I to take her off life support one night when she was perfectly lucid. The doctors told us that once we did that she would have hours to live. They removed the breathing tubes, pulled the tracheal tube from the hole in her neck and, believe it or not, she miraculously got better! Unbelievable. Similarly, all my friends who bravely battled their cancers on a daily basis came out of their months-long treatments looking better than ever! I also ended the toxic relationship that I was involved with on a daily basis and, even more miraculously I came back to life with a vengeance.

I realized that my problems pale in comparison to the brave people I love. I’m going to stop letting stuff like that get me down. The last year or so has been terrible. **** you 2013 and the horse you rode in on. 2014 is the ‘Year of the Horse’ and we are going to gallop over your dead ass.

So what’s in store for this year? I’ll be detailing each of these projects starting in a couple hours while the rest of you are watching football – but the rest of you nerds should be watching this space for exciting news.

THE BOOK

The lecture book was finished years ago. I even took pre-orders from a limited number of fans right here on my page who have been more than patient and are going to be rewarded with what they hear about today. The first printed versions were all ready to go back then, but a funny thing happened on the way to the post office: I read a copy of my first lecture notes, HOW TO BECOME A WORLD FAMOUS MAGICIAN and realized that my second set just didn’t compare. Believe me, they were just as good as any other magician’s lecture notes out there, but the childlike enthusiasm of making you jump out of your set and wanting to create RIGHT NOW wasn’t there. I tossed the box of books into the dumpster behind my loft and vowed to re-do them in the next few days when I felt more enthusiastic before I sent them out. Right around the time when my life when real life started draining all enthusiasm out of me.

I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of pages over the past few years – all solid advice and different examples of material – that I’ll publish in a big book or maybe just give away for free as blog posts on RudyCoby.com. I re-wrote the notes in just a few days when my life took a turn for the better a few months ago and hoped to hand to Stan Allen in person on the last day of MAGIC Live convention in Las Vegas and say, “Here’s what happened.” Car trouble on the way thwarted that plan, but I managed to sell the first hard copies last week at the first Magic convention I’ve gone to in years and I’ve used the past few months to try and get my life back in order.

For those interested in what made the difference, I decided to put effects right out of my own shows that I use to make a living with – complete with the exact scripts out of my live and TV shows. This is stuff I never thought I would give away, but I thought I would make up for wasting anybody’s time waiting on me. Don’t mistake this as a sales pitch for the book – I’m not sure I’m going to bother selling any more beyond the copies that were ordered from those few people who ordered them in advance. My very first book I only sold in person and it was unavailable for YEARS when I left Magic – even my friends had to order there copies on eBay for upwards of a $100 bucks a pop. I was never a person who sold tricks or books to make extra bucks – I make my living onstage – and the reason I never did is because I don’t want to be the person sending stuff out. If you ordered anything from me in the past and you didn’t get it, you need to contact me directly at rudycoby@me.com and I will personally make you very happy for waiting. But, that will be it for a while until somebody calls me who wants to distribute these things for me because I hate going to the post office – I’m not making excuse I’m just explaining that things fell through the cracks because I tried to avoid this in the first place.

Ps – the people who pre-ordered are getting an unbelievable deal – DVDs of all my shows, one –of-a-kind original Labman comics signed by Emmy-award winning artist Andy Suriano, various Rudy original collectibles and a free ticket to my show forever. Anybody who took a chance on me just got the Rudy Coby-version of Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket and I predict this ‘thank you’ package will sell for 10 times what someone paid in the next couple years. Those people are invited to stop at my loft anytime they’re in Los Angeles and will perform the Four Legs personally for them, make them free popcorn and take all the photos they want.

This is not something you can transfer to others – if you’re displeased with this, just email me at rudycoby@me.com and I will gladly refund your money. There are only a certain amount of these available because the extra stuff is all originals and there are only a certain number of them – any extras I’ll be giving away to friends or putting on eBay myself to help pay the bills around here. I may also have to cancel certain orders because the shipping alone on these packages to places around the world is more than what the original notes cost and because this turned out to more of a BOOK in the end because of all the extra material I put in.

Again, if you’re one of the lucky people who order the notes – or anything else that you’re unhappy about – just contact me directly instead of spazzing out and yelling at me public. I’m sorry you waited and I’m trying to make good on my word.

And, now, let’s ready to be inspired together. Thank you for being there for me.

All best,

Rudy

www.rudycoby.com

rudycoby@me.com


ps – Don’t bother going to my website looking for anything because right now it is shut down for the next few hours – I only managed to get my domain name back after many years of an *** squatting on it (someone we’ll be having fun with here in the near future)

Also, for you people who didn’t order the stupid lecture notes and want more exciting news – here are a few hints to what we’ll be excitingly detailing in the next day or so:

This was posted a while ago.. Since then, several members of the Café (myself included) have sent Rudy messages.
I got a reply to the first email I sent him - but nothing since.
As mentioned above - I am still cautiously optimistic.. Checking the mail box everyday.. So far, nothing but phone bills and an Ikea catalog..

He is slated to do a lecture for Penguin Magic. The exact date escapes me but his name was on the list.

Cheers,

Bill

So.... anyone receive theirs yet?

Sadly.. Not yet
My last emails went unanswered and it appears as though nobody has received the notes since the latest promise was made..
I still have my hopes up..
I have a wager with my wife.. I say that the notes will indeed arrive sometime soon; she says that I will never ever see them.. I am hoping she is wrong. Just for the record - she has never been wrong yet.. At least that's what she tells me

Wow. I will certainly not be buying his Penguin lecture.

Well..... looks like a bunch of empty promises, AGAIN. Ugh... I hate that I got my hopes up again..... So now its time to eat a gallon of ice cream, curl into a fetal position, and cry myself to sleep........ Or I can just not care like I have for three years and get on with my life.....


What a shame though


Judah

I hear you! In the long haul scheme of life - Rudy's notes are not of any real consequence.. But the repeated promises with no follow through is not cool.
Oh well - I wonder if they will be promised again? we should start an 'office pool' to see who can guess when the promise will re-surface..
I was really wanting to believe that he would send it this time.. It really is a shame.

Really it is a shame. Promised AGAIN? How many times before people understand? It might never happen. I'd write this one off...

Doug

He will be performing at the Magic Castle April 21-27th.

Perhaps someone here from the board will be able to ask him about this.

I to have been waiting a looooooong time for the notes and DVDs. I have been promised these items for a long time . I guess its time to give up

The new notes I received from Penguin are riddled with typos, page
out of order, and a section that is completely missing. These belong with
the ones in the dumpster.

I never received mine either!

[image]http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/4717604/chris-morris-jumps-out-window-o.gif[/image]

Well, nevermind!

Well, still nothing in the mail, and I did email Acar at the address he noted, with a copy of my PayPal statement, and never received a response. It's been about a week now, which is certainly less time than it's been since I placed the original order. Has anyone here had luck receiving a PDF?

Yes, you need to set up an account with Penguin, if you haven't already. Then he'll put it in your account and you'll be able to access it.
I emailed Acar afterwards telling him that it's riddled with typos, page out of order, and a whole section missing. His response was maybe it will
be updated. I'm not holding my breath. Not worth the money I originally paid, but then again I ordered both old and new sets. Rudy may know about
performance character, but he knows squat about real character.

Well, I do have an account with Penguin, but the only thing listed there are the lectures I ordered. The email address is the same as the one I emailed Acar from, and ordered Rudy's notes...maybe he'll see this? We'll see...