The illusion, the comedy of Joooooooohnny Magic!

So, my good friend Jonathon Havir is a professional magician, and he's doing a month long stint down at Magic Island in Houston. I've been once before about 9 months ago when he got his first gig there, and decided to come see his show again while he's down there this time. It's spring break week for the majority of the loser-y college kids, so I thought it'd be a good time to go, and I could snag a couple friends to join me. So, Scott and Trey (friend from waaaay back in the Big Sandy days) accompany me to go publicly harrass Jonathon Havir (or as he's known by the rest of the world, "Johnny Magic". Not even kidding. Most people don't know his real name).

I work half a day Monday, then pack and head out with Scott, who arrived promptly at 12:05, before I even got home from work, and about 45 minutes before we left my house. I was pretty impressed: I told him such an early time because I expected him to be 15-30 minutes late. Ah well, it was good for his patience. We head off down the road, stop about 30 minutes later in Kilgore to eat lunch (Scott for some reason, gets given a ton of gift certificates for Christmas, and all to a majority of differing fast food joints, so we were always set for whatever place we wanted to eat practically). We take off again, and show up in Nacogdoches about 3pm (this is an hour and a half from where we started). This is where Trey lives, and we take off with our last person in tow.

We show up at Magic Island about 10 minutes to 6pm, which is exactly 10 minutes before the club even opens. Jon comes down and escorts us in for free, and gets us seated in the swanky lounge section while he practices for the show. The place is just awesome. You don't expect it when you see the outside, but the entire place is decorated in a very ... 1930's European mystery novel kinda way. All the furnishing is awesome: old chairs, an elaborate bar, curtains, rugs and tapestries, etc. Scott and Trey were very impressed, expecting much less interesting a place. Jon starts up a tab for us on his name, and we're welcome to drinks while we're waiting. While we're sitting and relaxing (the show wasn't til 8pm), the local tech guy there comes up and starts talking to us about anything and everything. Pretty nice guy, although Jon has told me stories about him that kept me on my guard with him. One story in particular that he told was that he and Jon had been fixing the "head chopper" (one of the tricks) earlier that day, and that Jon should bring it by tomorrow to have a little more work done on it. Jon then relates the story to us about how he's heard that there were stories of about 8 accidental paralyzations and/or DEATHS related to the head chopper in the history of the trick, and that they were all on head choppers that were the same brand as the one he had. No heads were actually chopped off, but the spinal cord was hit and painfully broken in these cases. Thankfully (for Jon, not the audience participant), he has a million dollar liability insurance policy just for things like that. Good story.

Finally, the group that bought out the show for the night gets done with their meal (it was a huge crowd of teenage band members or something .. pretty swanky band trip, I gotta say ... the prices at this place are extravagant), and head into the theater. We wait til they're all in, and then are seated afterwards (there were plenty of extra seats for the show, even with the buy out). Johnny Magic does a great job as always (I'm quoting the lines with him .. I've seen his show one too many times. So has Trey). Unfortunately, due to the newness of his dancers, he has to cut one of the big illusions, and really draw out some of the audience participation ones.

Sooooooo, you KNEW that the head chopper story would have to go somewhere. I'm going to tell the story and at the same time, tell you what people are thinking (cause we heard all sides of this after the show was over). Jon comes out into the audience looking for a willing participant, and goes right up to Scott [Jon's thought: "I was looking for someone without a fat neck. I've had audience members that I couldn't get their neck to fit in the stock correctly cause it was so fat."] and says, "You sir, would you mind helping me out?" Scott says, "Sure." and walks up to the stage with Jon. [Scott's thought: "I remember Jon saying there were only 3 audience participation tricks, and we'd already seen two, so I knew which one was coming up. Then I saw him heading straight towards me!"] They get up there, and Jon says, "What's your name?" [Jon: "I didn't even recognize him out in the audience! He had on black pants and a black shirt, and I just grabbed him. It wasn't til we got on stage that I realized what I had done, and by then, it's too late to send him back or it will look like you've staged something. I was just praying that he wouldn't let on that he knew me."] "Scott." "And where are you from?" "Gladewater, Texas." [Scott: "He had JUST gotten done telling us about how head chopper had killed 8 people, and that he had just fixed his today, and had to fix it some more tomorrow ... and I'm going to be putting my head in this thing?!?"] [Karl and Trey's thought: "This is priceless."] Long story short, Scott does a great job playing along with the trick, and Jon doesn't kill him. And Trey and I got a good laugh out of the whole thing. Oh, and much apologizing by Jonathon after the show.

Right afterwards, Joy (Jon's wife) needed to head back to Big Sandy to work the next morning, and Jon's dad was on the outskirts of Houston waiting for us. So, we fled the building, got her down there, and then headed back into town. Along the way, Scott, Trey, and I decide that Jon is the most maniacal driver we've ever had the displeasure of riding with. White knuckles all the way, no joke. We went over to Bennigann's for dinner and a drink, and were treated to green beer, which is the worst idea EVER. Wow. I don't care what they say about food coloring and how it's not supposed to taste like anything ... that stuff was nasty.

I get a call from Desirée. She asks how my day was. I tell her the quick oversight of what we've done that day, and that I'm out with the guys right now. She sounds really sad, so I ask her what's wrong. She tells me that she can't afford to come visit me next month like we had planned. I'm a little stunned. She tells me to go have fun with my friends, and that she's going to bed. I hang up and drop my cell phone into a puddle on the bar. The guys turn and ask me what's wrong. I tell them. They offer to buy me drinks. "You'll feel better," they tell me. I decline. If there's anything my stomach doesn't want, it's to be swamped in alcohol right now. (Good news: she's probably still coming out.) :)

We head back to Jon's apartment. Magic Island rents an apartment year round for whatever magician they have booked there at the time, so this is where we stay. The place isn't the most beautiful apartment in the world (mostly because it houses a bunch of crazy magicians all year), but it works out. Scott and Trey start watching a movie, but I'm all tired out, and fall asleep on the couch. Jon told me earlier that I could share the king size in his room, and eventually I fall out of the couch, and crash in there. Jon is already a goner, sleeping quite soundly ... fully dressed.

The movie is finally finished, and the apartment is dark. And then the real circus begins. The only bathroom is attached to the master bedroom, so there's plenty of traffic. First off, Trey comes bumbling through, and opens the closet, which unfortunately has a large bare light bulb that is ON for some reason. So all of a sudden, the light of a thousand suns is blazing into my eyes, and Trey laughs and says, "That's not the bathroom." I point one door away, and he thanks me and goes. Next, all is quiet and dark, and then I hear Scott come running through, and then that other horrible sound that I expected to accompany it: vomiting. Poor guy. Never eat late night ravioli .. I'm pretty sure that's what did it. So, he's in there a long time, and that's ok. All of a sudden, from deepest sleep, Jonathon bolts out of bed, and runs down the hallway to the kitchen, and flips on the light. Then I see him coming back down the hallway with his belt buckle undone. He jumps into bed, gets under the covers, and then pulls them all the way up over his head. I look quizzically at all this, and then ask the dreaded question: "Did you just pee in the kitchen sink?" "Mm-hmm." What in the world. I laugh and go back to sleep.

The next morning, Jon rolls over towards me with a grin and a "Mmmm" sound. I say "How YOU doin'?" to which he promptly opens his eyes wide and says, "Aaaah!" I'm pretty sure he was expecting his wife to be there and not me. Glad I said something. We wake up, turn on the TV, and I relate to him the pee story from the night before .. and he doesn't remember ANYTHING. Then he starts telling me some other stories about his horrible sleepwalking problems, and how this kind of thing randomly happens. No joke. He doesn't even know he got out of bed, or talked to me, or anything. He actually was kind of glad to hear what had happened, because he said, "I was WONDERING why my belt buckle was undone this morning." Gross. Upon further examination in the morning, he decided that all the dishes in the sink would need to be thrown out as well.

The rest of the day was a total waste. We drove down to the museum district, but there wasn't a free parking space within a mile of the place. I suppose that everyone was off for spring break and was going out and doing stuff .. just like us. The police were out in full force on every corner. They were in the intersections up and down the downtown area directing traffic instead of just letting the lights do their job. They were 3 cars deep on multiple roads just to block off entrances. I am not kidding. In a 2 mile radius, I probably saw upwards of 25 police cars. I'm thinking that 15 miles away would have been a good place to go do some looting and pillaging.

Finally, we just gave up on that idea ("glad I wasted $2 of gas sitting still" -Jon) and went to eat lunch at Freebird's Restaurant. Pretty much it was a Chipotle. I mean, it looked exactly the same. The same full concrete floor, strange pipes being used as gates and fences for the order line, etc. It might as well been the same place, cause the food even tasted the same. Nevertheless, it was very good, and my lips were burning from the innocent looking hot sauce put out on every table. Also, they had a couple of flying cars coming out from the wall above the drink machines, and for some reason, they were occupied by wax dummies of Willie Nelson, Captain Marvel, and Barbara Bush. Quite eclectic.

After that, we packed up and took off, leaving poor Jonathon all alone. We got back to Nacogdoches, and David and his wife (Jon's brother) called and asked if we wanted to come over and hang out. So, Trey and his wife, and Scott and I went over, and Diana (David's wife) pulled out some games to play. We ended up deciding on the Newlywed Game, and Scott and I played as a team. I wish I could tell you differently, but long story short, we ended up winning. Sad. I also learned things about David and Trey that I definitely never wanted to know.

Now that I'm home, I can finally relax again. And by relax, I mean go to work.