Patrick Ferri's WRECKAGE-O-RAMA!!!

I had a show this past Sunday out here in LA ( Pasadena ) that went really well.  I will be in another ahow next Wed. as part of the same improv and sketch group ” The Chaotiques “. Below is a flyer for the show :

I spent the past week working for John Gaughan : a master illusion and magic prop builder for everyone.  Here is an article the New York Times did on John a while back :

MAGICIANS ASK : WHAT IS UP HIS SLEEVE ?

Natasha Calzatti for The New York Times

HE’S NO FANTASY John Gaughan with the Turk, a chess-playing automaton with a legendary background.

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Los Angeles

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Man of Wonder

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Natasha Calzatti for The New York Times

 

Enlarge This Image

Natasha Calzatti for The New York Times

WHO GOES THERE? Stepping inside John Gaughan’s studio with its 18th- and 19th-century magic props and human-looking automatons can be disconcerting. Even Mr. Gaughan says, “It’s pretty spooky at night in here.”

CHANCES are you’ve never heard of John Gaughan.

He doesn’t advertise. He doesn’t have a Web site. There is no street entrance to his workshop, a former 1930s aircraft school alongside railroad tracks on a dry, industrial stretch of road that straddles the city limits of Los Angeles and Glendale. Visitors must drive around back, past stacks of steel beams and cans of spray paint, toward a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

That Mr. Gaughan, 68, is not easily found befits an artisan who has spent most of his life creating large-scale illusions for many of the world’s most famous magicians and illusionists: Siegfried & Roy, David Blaine, Criss Angel,David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Mark Wilson, Ricky Jay.

He has also created stage illusions for enchanters of a different sort: Jim Morrison, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper, Barbra Streisand, Cher.

Yet while Mr. Gaughan’s artistry has, for instance, helped Mr. Angel seemingly jump through the body of another man, Mr. Gaughan doesn’t get the glory. In the world of legerdemain, his are vital but unseen hands.

“You know, in the old days of comedy there was a Charlie Chaplin and then there were the rest of the comedians,” said Milt Larsen, who in 1963 founded the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the clubhouse of the Academy of Magical Arts, which promotes the art and history of magic. “In music, there was Irving Berlin and then there were the rest of the composers. There’s always some king of the pack, and as far as I’m concerned, Johnny Gaughan is the king of the pack.”

In online forums, where science and magic buffs debate how illusionists seemingly defy the laws of physics, there are those in the know who succinctly answer: “All I have to say is John Gaughan.”

Follow Mr. Gaughan out of the sunlight, beneath an arch of iron griffins and into his warehouse. He shares it with a pair of shrieking parrots: Luther (retired from a circus in Buenos Aires) and Max (who used to wow the crowds at Busch Gardens). The space is filled with satyrs’ heads, masks, handcuffs used by Harry Houdini, a glass box penetrated with swords, a videotape labeled “floating heads.”

Discomfortingly human-looking automatons, frozen at a chess board or on a trapeze, peer from dusty corners.

“It’s pretty spooky at night in here,” said Mr. Gaughan, winding across uneven floors toward a little office practically wallpapered with 18th- and 19th-century magic props (wands, wooden hands, tiny cages, a spirit bell to conjure the dead).

In the digital age, when magicians have slick rock-style television programs and their illusions are on YouTube, Mr. Gaughan runs a low-tech operation. Three men work in his shop, and much of what is there is from another era, when a magician could send a chill through an audience by simply evoking Mephistopheles (as opposed to having himself run over by a steamroller like Mr. Angel has done).

“The way we do it here, we just get a piece of plywood and just start cutting and whaling on it,” said Mr. Gaughan, who in the abracadabra industry is known for “big magic,” such as levitating and morphing a beast into a prince in Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast.” “We don’t even draw pictures or anything because it has to be built for your eye and in all different directions.”

He helped create illusions and props ranging from the trick wheelchair that concealedGary Sinise’s legs in the film “Forrest Gump” to levitations at the Kabuki-za Theater in Tokyo. For a television show with Mr. Blaine, Mr. Gaughan worked on an illusion in which a woman’s watch vanishes and reappears down the street in the display window of a jewelry store. Mr. Blaine then picks up a piece of newspaper, holds it to the store window and pulls the watch out without cracking the glass.

Mr. Blaine said in an e-mail message that Mr. Gaughan is “a magical genius.”

Mr. Gaughan said he admires Mr. Blaine’s integrity: “He doesn’t use any stooges at all.”

Stooges, or audience plants, are commonly used by magicians and stunt performers. “That’s kind of the assumption,” Mr. Gaughan said. “You know, I can’t really say one way or the other because of — I just shouldn’t.”

Keeping secrets, not only from the public but also from other illusionists, is essential to Mr. Gaughan’s reputation.

“The reason people come to John is that they trust him,” said Jim Steinmeyer, an illusion designer who has collaborated with Mr. Gaughan. “They would stop coming to him if they didn’t.”

Mr. Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy, through publicists, declined to comment for this article. A publicist for Mr. Angel did not respond to interview requests.

Nowadays Mr. Gaughan is one in a circle of elders of magic. But growing up in Dallas he was just another boy who hung around a shop called Douglas Magicland.

“I was the demonstrator and he was the kid who would come in,” recalled Mark Wilson, 79, the magician who produced and starred in network television’s first weekly magic series, “The Magic Land of Allakazam,” shown on CBS and ABC in the early 60s.

Before long, Mr. Gaughan, then 14, began working for Mr. Wilson and his assistant (and wife), Nani Darnell. “He would help us put magic kits together that we would sell in department stores,” said Mr. Wilson, who has taught the likes of Cary Grant, Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Carson to perform tricks.

In 1961, Mr. Gaughan followed Mr. Wilson to Los Angeles, where he also studied industrial design at California State University. As Mr. Wilson’s star rose, he opened his own workshop in a house on Venice Boulevard. During the Watts riots, Mr. Wilson said, “Johnny went to the house and stayed all night to be sure everything was safe.” (Mr. Gaughan said he was perched on the roof with a fire extinguisher.)

Eventually, Mr. Wilson moved his operation to the space that is Mr. Gaughan’s shop (though he is relocating to another site about three miles away).

Mr. Gaughan is also a top collector of magic memorabilia, restoring antique devices and replicating lost creations such as the Turk, a famed 1700s chess-playing automaton that rarely lost a game, trouncing Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte, according to legend. It was destroyed in a fire in 1854. Using a couple of pieces that survived the fire, Mr. Gaughan succeeded in building a working replica of the automaton after some 25 years.

“There are 8 or 10 people that build illusions,” said Mr. Steinmeyer, who is the author of “Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.” “To me, what’s unique about John is his interest in historical work.”

Mr. Steinmeyer and other professionals credit Mr. Gaughan with unraveling enduring mysteries and reintroducing them to modern magicians. “What’s a shame is that secrets fall out of fashion,” Mr. Steinmeyer said.

 

IN describing Mr. Gaughan’s abilities, his peers point to a 20th-century illusion called “Impossibilities” created by Dr. Samuel Cox Hooker, which, as Mr. Wilson described it, has “fooled every major magician in the country.”

Mr. Gaughan acquired the illusion from Dr. Hooker’s estate, cracked its secrets and performed it twice at the Los Angeles Conference on Magic History. Playing cards rise and lower at his command, and a disembodied teddy bear head floats off a table.

Mr. Wilson had read about the illusion and thought: “Well, of course if I see it I’ll understand it. I’ll know how to do it.”

But that was not the case.

“He just fooled the hell out of me,” said Mr. Wilson, quickly apologizing for his enthusiastic language. Even so, he said, “I don’t think I want to know how to do it because I enjoy being fooled.”

And Mr. Gaughan enjoys fooling. Standing beside the legendary chess-playing Turk, he said: “There’s been over 800 different books and articles and plays, even films, about this piece, and no one ever got it right. The way I got it was I found some letters in one library written to another guy that was in another museum and put them together and it kind of told the story.”

The resurrected automaton has been on tour, including to Hungary, the homeland of its builder, Wolfgang von Kempelen. “It still fools people,” Mr. Gaughan said.

 

 

Every single thing Runs Out.

If I did not have to worry about food, clothing or shelter let alone a car payment ;  if I could ski all winter , as long as I wanted and then play on my trampoline, ride bikes, play soccer all summer;  if I could take all of the vacations to all of the places that I ever wanted to visit ; if I could be with all of my friends and family as much as I wanted ; if I could get every wish that I ever wished …  IT WOULD RUN OUT !!!!

Only LOVE never, ever runs out ; and oddly enough that is just what most people are out of and looking for so desperately.  What a Paradox !

It is my gut feeling that Love’s opposite but far from equal counterpart,  fear is the cause of that.

I have a show coming up in Colchester , Vt. on Feb. 4th as part of Colchester’s Winter Carnival.  I will post more on that soon.

I have been skiing everyday at  Horseshoe Resort  up here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada and getting signicantly better at my Skating Style. I also joined  The Vertical Zone Trampoline Center where I am bouncing again and fixing some of my style laziness. Lately I have started learning physics again and I am starting to apply them to acrobatics and skiing.  Very Cool !

I will have some photos of Cousin Gordy ( where I am staying in Barrie ) his wife Elsie and their kid’s Matthew, Michael and Mason, soon.  As far as the “M” for the first initial, let me say that Elsie’s sister’s names are Ellie,  Elvie and Ellen.  Who boy !

I have been busy in the south.  Why is it that so many northerners come south and so few southerners come north ?  The cold ? Southerners like their homeland more ?  People are nicer ?  Not sure.  It just seems to be.

Let’s see …  I have started writing again finally.  I have an upcoming show in Atlanta that has got me working again.

I have even entertained the idea of unicycling again for the first time in 2 months. However, I am waiting on new shin guards and I am getting smarter about taking stupid chances.

I found a gym down here that has an adult class on Wed. nights.  It even has a tramp with a hot bed.  Oh boy !  Watch out !

Thursday morning I went skating in Franklin with my friend Chuck and his brother Joe.  Joe was the head ice technician for the NHL’s Nashville Predators.  We figured that it was been 28 years since the 3 of us have all been on the ice together at the same time.  Joe gave Chuck and I two tickets to the Nashville Predators home opener against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Joe feeding pucks

Sweden puck. Don't ask.

Predators tickets

Chuck and I at the game

Face off

Bridgestone Arena video

They lost 5 -2.  At the game we met a former hockey  teammate of Chuck’s and he invited us to fill in a league game that night.  So we ended up playing until midnight.  Awesome !

I'm in red

Friday night I met up with another guy I went to high school with , Doug Lawlor, who moved down here years ago to pursue a music career and we saw the Martian Denny Orchestra; a combo of great musicians featuring Eddie Angel ( Albany, NY ) of Los Straitjackets and Jim Hoke ( Schenectady, NY ) .  The show was at Puckett’s ; a place that has to be experienced to be understood.  Great music and it turns out that Jim Hoke also rides a unicycle.

Martian Denny

And speaking of great musicians I recently met Steve Cropper.  What a good guy.  I always liked his playing.  I knew him from the Blue Brothers Band and that led me to Booker T and the MG’s. But I did not know that Booker T and the MG’s was the house band for Stax Records !!  Oh my god, the songs that Steve Cropper has had a hand in creating is staggering :  Otis Redding’s “Sitting On A Dock Of The Bay”, Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” , and Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man” to name a few.  He has a new album out ; a tribute to The 5 Royals.  Check it out !

Tomorrow is another busy day so until there is more to write about enjoy the pictures and the videos. One last one of me and a Buffalo on the Natchez Trace :

Bison and me

Hello,
I just finished 2 full days at the Saratoga Family Fun Days at Saratoga Raceway. It was a lot of unicycling and a bunch of gags around the “bouncy house “; very fun.
I got to work alongside Colleen Mahar( stilts) and John Green (clown / magic ) plus practice some always important inprov skills.
I also just finished coaching at a 2 week circus camp in Colonie, NY with Sean Fagan’s Circus Theatricks. Sean and I put together a new Keystone Cop, unicycle, bank-heist act that is really great. The kids were just amazing!
I will be doing a Saturday Night Liv Show on Friday, September 12 8:00 PM at the Basilica Industria in Hudson, New York.
Hopefully I will have a new bit ready that has at it’s heart a meteorological music conductor. We will see.
There is also the possibility of doing the “restaurant skit ” with Dave Cox on Saturday night at the same location.
I am trying to get back out to the Portland Juggling Festival in Oregon at the end of the month and maybe teach a physical comedy class there. It is a great time and a unique city.
One last thing; there should be some new photos, new video and a “Those Two Guys ” website up and running in the next few weeks.
‘Till then, be well,
Pat.

Hey You Guys,
Sorry it took so long to realize I had a guestbook. Pete, not only do Monkeys play hockey but “old time hockey”; Toe Blake. That commercial, I do not think, will air. What a strange way to phrase that ! It was made with Marty for a conference in Seattle. It might die there … if it is not picked up by “Ozzfest”. Do not laugh ! I did a commercial years ago with Marty and it was on the big screen at “Ozzfest”. You cannot make this stuff up.
James, refresh my mind on our meeting at the Portland Juggling Festival. I traveled a long way and met a bunch of great people; thats why I will fly to Portland, OR and not drive to Ithaca,NY for a convention. That and the fact that I do not juggle that well.
Bill those lights are awesome; have to get more theatrical gigs to put them to use. If you and Karen want to volunteer your services as a lighting designer give me a holler.
There are new shows coming up; PS 21 in July. New circus camp dates. A new manager I have started working with ( let’s face it; the first manager I have ever worked with). Plus, possibly a director to help me get a new show together and dress the old Wreckage-O-Rama up. More to come, Pat.

Here’s a list of upcoming events at which I’ll be appearing:

November 12-16:
MotionFest | A variety arts conference in Baltimore, MD

December 27:
Claverack Library | ??? | 7:00 PM

December 29:
Steamer #10 | Albany, NY | 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM with Sean Fagan and Circus Theatricks!

December 31:
Saratoga First Night | Saratoga, NY | 9:00 and 10:00 PM.

A whole bunch to relay!

I recently returned from Portland, OR, and the Portland Juggling Festival. What a blast!!! I took a bunch of workshops including hula hooping, advanced unicycling (with Rob Brown) and whip cracking, where I managed to snap myself in the fingers, leg, and left ear twice. For anyone interested in whip cracking safety, please wear goggles, a fullface motorcycle helmet and a winter parka.

While in Portland I got to see two great shows, and rub elbows with some of the funniest and most talented people in the Northwest. Next year I hope to teach a physical comedy workshop as part of the festival. Let’s keep those stinging fingers crossed.

Lori and I also spent a night at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. The lodge was built by the WPA in 1936-37, and is just an astonishing structure! For anyone who has seen Mt. Hood from an airplane or otherwise, it is also an astonishing structure.

Anyhow, we left Portland (which was 50 degrees and raining), and traveled the 60 miles and 7500′ elevation to arrive at Mt. Hood in a snow storm on September 30th. Awesome !!!

Meanwhile my October trip to China did not pan out, but I am still confident I will be able to perform there in the new year.

Oh, yeah! Another big recent event is the completion of my German Wheel. I had a lot of help from Tom Gonsalves, Dave Cox (of Those Two Guys) and Vaughn Clark. After a slow start there is a good group of people willing to try it and bust themselves up real good. When my shoulders finally heal next year I “really hope” to be able to use it in the act. Let’s keep those crutches crossed.

I am heading to MiniFest on November 12th in Baltimore to take workshops with physical comedians Tom Murphy, and Randy Judkins, as well as Bob Fitch, who has helped me with my material in the past. While down in Maryland, I hope to catch up with my old acting friend, Jed Duvall. He is a phenomenal Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash tribute artist!

What else ? Oh, yeah! I will be posting new show dates. A fundraiser for the Saturday Night Liv Variety Show with Dave Cox. A show with Sean Fagan of Circus Theatricks, Saratoga First Night, and a few others. I will get that info up soon.

Take Care,
Pat.

Saturday night’s show with Dave Cox went great and we both had fun performing at “The Tent”. PS 21 would like us to come back next year and do a matinee as well. Judy and Warren at PS 21 are playing around with the idea of doing a mini festival ( 3 different acts) of variety entertainment and physical comedy. I will try to keep the information coming. The Friday night shows in Schenectady went great too. I went with very little set gags for a change and just used the material that floated up from the crowd; plus a bunch of unicycling.

One last thing. I have a chance to perform in China in the fall and I am keeping my fingers crossed. It is for a clown festival in Liou Zhou City. I am sending the selection committee big cartons of my secret General Tso’s Chicken to bribe them.. I will let you know if it succeeds.

Anyhow, Thanks again for Saturday night if you were there. If you were not, I hope to see you next time. Pat.

May 24, 26, 31 and June 2: Saturday Night Liv Variety Show at the Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, N.Y. 7:30 PM

June 10: Hudson Flag Day Celebration, Hudson, N.Y. 2:00 PM

June 11-17: Montreal Fringe Festival, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

July 20: Schenectady Family Day, Schenectady, N.Y. 5:00 PM

July 21: with Dave Cox P.S. 21 “The Tent”, Chatham, N.Y. 8:00 PM