Resolutions and Chimp Magic
As we end 2011 one of my resolutions is to once again re-acquaint myself with the magical arts. In the past year I haven’t really been practicing at all. At the same time, early last year there was a joke where I mentioned the phrase “Magician 24/7” and it turned into a thing that led to the picture you see at the top of this article. On the other hand I learned a lot about how I can be practicing that will bring the joy back into magic. I got this insight from my study of improvisational comedy.
What does this mean? It means in the coming year I am going to attempt a regular magic vidcast called JAMM Live. Where as the posts on my blog have the meaning of JAMM be Just Another Magic Monday the JAMM in JAMM Live will stand for Just Another Magic Meeting. This is because I don’t believe Mondays will be a good day for me to do these on any sort of regular basis. I will figure it out in the next few weeks so keep an eye out for the vidcast. Also, look for more, regular JAMM posts on Mondays for this blog.
[ad#Ellusionist]What about the fun? Well, since I am known for my interest in magic I do get interesting videos sent to me from time to time. So this week I leave you with a bit of Chimp Magic. This guy really blows the socks off of a chimp who just loves his act. Given that chimps process things differently than us, and as such don’t have the same expectations, that is pretty dang cool. Enjoy… the chimp did.
For those who don’t see the connection of the video and my point on resolutions, remember that 2011 was the year that Rise of the Planet of the Apes was redone. Just kidding, just bringing the fun back to magic. Do you have any fun magic you’d like to share. Let me know in the comments below.
Billy Quan – Enter the New Year
My Sunday Funnies posts are usually posted, you guessed it, on Sundays. However, with January 1st being on a Sunday I decided to post an early version of the post as a New Year’s service announcement.
I have posted a few things from Almost Live! in the past. With 2012 being the year of the dragon (or at least it will be on January 23rd) I thought I’d provide the message via a psuedo-Chinese themed skit they often did on the show, Mind Your Manners with Billy Quan.
This episode of Mind Your Manners features Billy (played by Darrell Suto) getting ready for a New Year’s Eve party. Suddenly a party crasher (John Keister) comes along and ruins his party before it even starts. Billy then proceeds to teach him some manners, Billy Quan Style.
Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled by request on this video so you’ll have to watch it over on youtube. I hate that setting but at least the video is worth the extra click.
Its getting real…funny
I’ve been itching to write a blog post for a while. However its been a busy time as I’ve moved from San Jose to Seattle. Well now I’m getting settled and I’m ready to write about something I’ve found funny for a few months. If you have shopped at any place similar to Whole Foods the song and video for ‘Whole Foods Parking Lot’ should at least have you break into a chuckle.
You’re the most annoying dude I’ve ever seen bra
Could you please move you’re right in front of the Quinoa
So here’s a little taste of that humor in video form
Not one to miss humorous music I also came across another song by DJ Dave and company. Following his hipster trend we saw in the previous video he follows with ‘Yoga Girl’. It has some silly lyrics in it as well that a white boy like me (or anyone who would make fun of a white boy like me) can laugh at.
You wanna meditate with me?
I’m like…o/uhmm
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Also there is some pretty crazy yoga poses in this video.
And you haven’t had enough of the boys of Fog and Smog there is one last thing I’d like to show you. It seems they did a little spot for Hyundai that is right in line with their same rap humor. Also, ’tis the holiday season and this video is from a holiday promotion. Nice!
Hyundai Holidays feat. Fog and Smog from David Wittman on Vimeo.
I’m a big fan of humorous music. I follow Wierd Al on Twitter, he’s funny there too. Do you know some other funny music I should check out. I’m all ears.
My farewell show at Comedysportz San Jose
As you may have heard, from recent posts, I am moving to Seattle for a new job. They wanted me to start October 31st but I wasn’t having any of it. Not because it is Halloween, though I did love Halloween at Gaia, but because I had an improv show to do November 3rd and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I have had a great time training at Comedysportz San Jose and had a blast with my fellow improvisers so I had to see how we’d all do at a honest to goodness Comedysportz formatted show.
For your information, we did great. Also, my wife got some shaky video of most of the show. So sit back, relax and have a laugh at my expense.
BTW – 80′s bands should have been my category. Next time I will not falter!
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my previous show that I posted here during the summer. That is long form improv but still quite fun.
If you enjoyed this please tell all your friends by tweeting, posting to facebook, google plus, tumblr, myspace whatever. If you didn’t enjoy this…shhhhhh…no one likes a whiner. 
Seriously, I’d love to hear what you think of the show. If you have any samples of your own improv and/or stand up comedy I’d love to see them as well. Good alternatives for the game of 185? 80s bands that I should have said(this could be a long list)? Post them in the comments.
Halloween themed? – Just Another Magic Monday
In honor of Samhein and/or Halloween I wanted to bring back a classic from my favorite magician, Jeff McBride. Why Jeff McBride? Well, because he is best known for his mask routine. Many who have already followed my JAMM posts have seen his most popular mask routine but I need to show the one that floored me way back when. I couldn’t find that original post (it has been removed by the user) but I found another performance from TV that incorporates it.
So here it is. Jeff McBride’s early Mask routine in honor of All Hallow’s Eve:
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Do you have a favorite magic routine for Halloween? Do you perform it? Do you have a video? I’d love to see/hear about it in the comments.
Under the mask but I didn’t ask – Flash Friday
Masks in the flash IDE are an interesting thing. You may have noticed that masks created in the IDE are not found in the normal “mask” property found on a movieclip. This is because it isn’t a normal mask. The mask is working on a layer instead of on a single DisplayObject. This little quirk causes some interesting behavior that you may never have noticed before.
If you have a MovieClip with a mask as a top layer of the timeline there is some strange behavior when you addChild to that MovieClip. The added content gets placed under the mask. Wait! What? The added content gets placed under the mask. You may not have noticed this behavior in the past because you may never have done it, you may not have your item cut off by the mask or you just might not have been able to figure out why you couldn’t see your item. However, it is happening.
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Another twist on this phenomenon is that if the mask isn’t the top layer but your remove the items that are on the top layer then add a DisplayObject. Well, in that scenario your new DisplayObject is also placed under this “Layer Mask”. I found this out today when I had a top layer above a mask that was a TextField. For a localization project I’m working on I had to wrap the field in a wrapper class that then gets added back where the textfield was. I was trying to figure out why the textfield was now appearing like it was under the mask. The answer…because it now was.
So how did I deal with this? How can you deal with this if you find it happening? First off, it might be an easy thing to just restructure your timeline so the mask isn’t on top. If that isn’t possible, the hack easy fix is to add a blank MovieClip symbol to the layer above the mask layer. That is what I did for this asset and all is well.
I haven’t extensively tested this but my guess is the quirk may exist if you add something to any layer right above a “Layer Mask” it will placed under the mask. Is this something you have experienced? How have you worked around it? Have you used it for any type of effect?
I don’t believe you really want to count on this behavior for anything as I don’t believe I’ve seen it documented anywhere. Someone at Adobe might read my blog 
and decide this isn’t appropriate behavior they might fix it in Flash Player 20 or something.
What’s your thing? – Wednesday Warrior
As we get nearer to the year long deluge toward the US Presidential election, I’m reminded of a conversation I had during the 2008 elections with a friend of mine. I’m fairly political outspoken, especially during election cycles. I think everyone should get involved in their community at some level. A friend of mine at some point said she didn’t like politics because there is too much to worry about. She got overwhelmed.
Do not get overwhelmed!
There is no reason to get overwhelmed and do nothing. All you have to do is find your one thing. You do not need to do everything. Just one thing, and then you can pick up more stuff as time goes by. How do you pick that one thing?
Start asking yourself questions. Is there anything that affects you personally? Could something change that would improve your community? Is there a news story that has been making you angry? Any of these questions could lead to your one thing.
For me it was my sons diabetes. Once he got diagnosed I realized, that while I was able to take care of my son there are many, many people who are in much worse spaces than me. Single parents on low wages who might have children with diabetes or other chronic diseases that require constant management. Also, what happens if my situation suddenly becomes worse?
Insurance will not cover prior conditions, at least not well, so I’ll have to have a job with great insurance for many years to come. Then there is the lacking of research. Some people may not like the idea of “socialized” anything. However, a socialized medical system allows research and data to be gathered across the country. Many countries that have socialized medicine are able to put this kind of data together. Blah, blah, blah…I’ll talk more about all this stuff in future articles.
It was this line of thinking that has me focused on my thing. You may not agree with it and I may not agree with your thing but I believe it is important we all have our thing and fight for it. What is your thing? Do you have more than one thing? I have more than one thing I stand for but very few things I can really put energy into. But by focusing on one thing we can put more energy in to making a single difference and build up to a larger amount of accomplishments over time.
Who we f’ing need right now – Just Another Magic Monday
I follow a lot of different people on Twitter. One person I follow is David Copperfield. Recently he retweeted a post from someone else.
In these tough times, who we need now is David F**king Copperfield: bit.ly/qL4C0P #amen
Being intrigued, I followed the link and took a look at the premise of the post. Here’s a little taste of the premise of the article.
These are dark times we’re living in, kids. Wall Street is occupied. The current GOP presidential “frontrunner” thinks was totally kidding when he said we need an electrified fence between the U.S. and Mexico. “Whitney” got a full season order. Yes, our collective mood is just short of “F*** this noise, we give up.”
What we need is a pick-me-up. What we need is a who, someone to come along and lift our spirits and make us smile, even if what we’re smiling at is an illusion.
Who we need is David Copperfield.
The original poster is right. In these tough times we do need David Copperfield – or someone else like him. Do you remember when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear? Walked through the Great Wall of China? Well the original poster does, along with quite a few other bits of business he performed.
Here’s a link to the full article.
This article has links to the following great tricks and illusions:
- Making the Statue of Liberty Disappear
- Walking through the Great Wall of China
- Vanishing the Orient Express
- Death Saw
- The Fan – on Oprah
- Cocoon
- Interlude
- Flying
- At home audience participation
- Ghost
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All of these are great illusions that David Copperfield brought to us in the past. I loved watching all of them. However, in the comments, there is a hidden gem. In the comments someone mentioned a parody of Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood that he did as a routine. It is quite an entertaining bit of magic. The quality is low but it comes across fine.
Here it is, David Copperfield parodying Mister Rogers.
So what are your thoughts. Do we f***ing need David Copperfield right now? Is there someone else you’d like to see take his place? In my opinion, these performances stand the test of time. He is a true master magician. There are new, younger performers out there but can they produce timeless classics such as these? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Sunday Funnies – Seattle
So a few weeks ago I made my way to Seattle on a top secret trip. I went, I saw some sites, met some friends and family and top secretly went to a job interview. I kinda hated the secrecy but things are the way they are in the job world. To make a long story short, I got the job and I’ll very shortly be moving back to my old home of Seattle.
Since I think of Almost Live! when I think of comedy in Seattle (for now anyway) and I need to be reminded about how to live in Seattle the following playlist is my comedy for the week. I thought about breaking this up into several weeks instead of a playlist but the move is coming faster than I think.
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So here it is. Almost Live!’s Guide to Living in Seattle
I am really excited about my move but even more excited to get involved in a new improv scene. Currently, there isn’t a ComedySportz in Seattle so I’ll need to check out Jet City Improv and Unexpected Productions.
High-Five’n White Guys – Sunday Funnies
This past weekend I got to revisit my old home of Seattle, WA. I wanted to do a Sunday Funnies post in honor of that trip. When I think about Seattle and humor I think of one thing…Almost Live! Anyone who was in Seattle from the late 80′s through the 90′s probably already knows about this show. For the uninitiated, Almost Live! was a show that came on before Saturday Night Live so thus they were Almost (Saturday Night) Live. It followed a similar skit comedy format with some recurring characters.
Lately I’ve had people bring up high fives, especially high fiving yourself. I have shared the following video.
Do you remember Almost Live!? Did you live in a city with something similar? Do share your thoughts. I love myself some comedy and I look forward to finding more.
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