New cinema release: "The Con (man and woman) juRING$

[Uecker_seats]

Well, just when you thought that idiotic people will believe in fairy tales, along comes the late Ed Warren and his gifted, psychic wife Lorraine with a movie destined to be a true blockbuster, "The Conjuring". So, pack up the family in the car, get your ten dollar movie passes, along with a big bucket of overpriced popcorn and $5.99 for a 8oz box of Sno Caps, and sit back and enjoy the biggest farce since the Amityville Horror, kids! I write of this dynamic duo with a little bit of knowledge of stage trickery, magic, socerism, etc... Back in the early high school days, I was a aspiring semi professional magician, the fascination starting years earlier as a starry eyed kid entering the novelty store. Little did I know that my early exposure to whoopee cushions, fake dog poop, hand buzzers and dribble glasses would affect my later childhood and adolescence. A year later when I turned 10, my dad bought me a cheep magic set, and I was hooked from there. I did shows for kids birthday parties, Cub Scout banquets, and even had a gig one summer doing tableside magic at a restaurant, that was quite the experience. Along the way, I joined both local magic societies, the International Brotherhood of Magicians Ring !, and The Assembly of American Magicians, Assembly 8. Along the way at meetings and conventions over the years got to meet such heavies like the late Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and James Randi, who I'll get back to here in a minuite. Turn back the clock to 1983, and as a young aspiring general studies college student attending a small state school in southeast Missouri (SEMO). Halloween that year featured the "Famous Ghost Hunters, Ed and Lorraine Warren", proudly presented by the SAC. Being a small school and town, and since this was befiore all the good parties started anyway, a bunch of friends and I who worked for the on campus radio station, KRCU, decided to check it out. Ed and Loraine turned out to be quite the draw, selling out Academic Auditorium. I remember the night being a charade, with the famous ghost hunters doing their presentation, showing doctored polaroid's on the overhead projector, and playing audio of their encounters with "evil spirits" over the years, most sounded like a poor Mel Blanc cartoon voiceover. At the end of this fascinating, occult presentation, Lorraine told the crowd that Halloween was a "evil night", and for everyone to go straight home, and no playing with Ouji boards when we got back to the dorms. How sweet of Lorraine. There were some comical times during their Spook Show, with ghostly cattle calls from the audience. I assure you that I was not involved in such adolescent pranks for a serious presentation like this!. Afterwards, students were invited to stay after and meet the Warrens. Knowing that my cold Busch cans would be there when got back if my room mate didn't want a serious case of whoopass if he drank 'em. I walked down the stairs, and headed towards the stage to meet the famous ghost hunters. Here is where James Randi comes in. Randi has virtually spent his life debunking frauds aphonies like the Warrens, Uri Gellar, psychics, and other assorted pieces of flim flam trash that rip people off. I think Randi was inspird by Harry Houdini on this kind of stuff. Anyway, when when I asked Ed about James Randi, boy did he get pissed off. "OH THAT GUY, BLA BLA BLA BLA!!!". He didn't want to talk to me any more, so I didn't ask him how full of crap he was saying that the stress of investigation the Amityville Horror had caused him a heart attack shortly thereafter (this was well after the time thatAmityville was a giant hoax designed to make money, like Ed and Loraine bilking unsuspecting college students of $3 to see all their fake spirit chasing stories) Since I didn't have a Ouija board at the dorm, the Busch was welcome refreshment after seeing this big scam. Enter March of 2008, I'm gettin' excited to heading to my favorite adults AI resort in Cancun, and needed some spending money. I went down in the basement, and got out
my old trunk of very used magic tricks, many antiquated. Chinese linking rings, silk scarves in different stages of deterioration, trick decks of cards, a little bit of everything. I have a fake rabbit with a spring in it, to make it appear lifelike, and all the fur was worn off of it, I kept that as my only magic phase memento, couldn't part with that. So I go the the monthly magic meeting for S.A.M. later that week to sell this stuff, and actually got like $160.00 and some change for all the magi appiradi, not to shabby. The thing that got me, is that I hadn't seen allot of those magicians in well over 30+ years, when my magic fascination dwindled heading towards college, when it became more apparent chasing girls and drinking beer was more fun. I did get to present my comedy stand up act my frshman year at the "All Campus Review" hosted that year by a cheep bourben smelling George "Goober" Lindsey, who MC'd and read his jokes from index cards. I got to tell you, that most all of those guys (only a few remembered me) were still as just OBNOXIOUS as I remembered them 30 years ago! Sad thing is though, with the way things are now with the internet and computers, magic and magicians are a dying art. And unfortunately, it's probably going to die in that room where I sold all of my magic stuff back in 2008. Sad.

[webmaster]

When you mentioned psychics Randi immediately popped up in my mind... so much stupidity that goes around, like Spielberg and his UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle, they love to cash in on all the pseudo science and quacks, easy money while you can.

Greetings

Mogens