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Me Me posing somewhat
Holes and Scratchings
Tattoo Designs
Capoeira: Love this, dunno if I'm getting it or what though.
Piercings
Septum piercing 1: The needle about to go in
General Pictures of Yours Truly
Me: Me
Oooooooooooo
All from the mouth
2007/07/16 12:46 Tonight, tonight!
On stage again tonight, first performance of my new show Dr Wu's Fabulously Expensive and Utterly Unique Casino Experience; fingers crossed it goes according to plan. I always feel criminally under rehearsed for anything when I go on stage, but I've been practising and rehearsing for weeks now. Bah, anyway, it'll be all right on the night...
I hope.
I've created a few new magic effects recently, not for the show but for general use. Latest creation is a magic square type effect that demonstates how easy it is to fall under the influence of demonic suggestion, with a litle bit of pyro magic thrown in for scary effect. Just need to iron out some of the kinks, make sure everything works and get some props and I'm well on the way to having a fully fledged bizarre/weerd magic effect in my own name :D
Go team!
Wish me luck, the waiting's killing me...
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I lost my cunting keys
All from the mouth
2007/06/28 11:32 Arse burgers.
Really annoying thing is they had a key ring off my missus I really really liked on them, and a handy led torch. Oh, and my house and car keys.
Fuck bunnies.
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EDIT: I found them. All is good.
Magic Theory
All from the mouth
2007/06/15 13:55 I've just written my third extended essay on the theories of magic. So far I have
Jack of all Trades - don't do you or your magic injustice by thinking you aren't good enough or that you will never master an effect or sleight; mastery comes with specialisation and to reduce all the magic you could do to one effect would be useless. Revel in the fact that magic is many things at once and you learn and retain many skills through it
Impossible is Nothing - sell the impossible nature of your magic and believe in your own magic and you will improve your performances and in turn your reactions many times over. Also, ignore the fact that your dream effect may be impossible, the great thing about magic is that this does not matter one bit
No Skill Required - other than sleight of hand there are a great many skills the magician should be learning or should have learnt to some extent; acting, audience management, misdirection, performance skills and public speaking come high on that list. To suggest that their is a quick and easy path to magic is to deny yourself any lasting enjoyment and pride in what you do, take the time to learn all the skills you can and when using magic that requires no sleight of hand, focus all this spare attention onto your other skills; your performance will become even better if you do so and your reactions even stronger
I'm thinking I'm going to keep writing as the mood takes me, go through them with a fine tooth comb and make sure they all make perfect sense and are good, get some outside feedback on them and then maybe, just maybe, I'll start recieving letters of rejection from places that publish books. Who knows.
I might put up one of the essays as a taste of my writing, if you ask nicely enough. Watch this space!
2007/06/12 23:49 Not the best of days today. I was outside at work watching over one of our littler ones (she's 5) wheeling herself up and down the path on this little wheely thing with a rope for the pulling attached. I was turned away looking to see where one of our older girls was off to, turned around and stood on the rope as it passed under my foot. Stopped the wheely thing dead and the little lass whent completely arse over tip, landed on her face, then her hands and back and that, and really cut her face up badly. She was all dusty from the concrete, with bad grazes running from her forehead to her chin.
So I was feeling rather harsh on her because accident or not, it was mostly my fault she fell in the first place. I went round to Sam's where I was in need of a little cuddling and ended up getting almost told off for being too touchy-feely. So then I felt bad cause I pissed her off without meaning to. And then I felt bad because when I said sorry and explained I realised that I was being stupid feeling like I done wrong. Which made me feel stupid.
We sat and watched some telly afterwards like normal which was nice, but I do still feel a bit silly. I hate it when I get like this, cause what pisses me off the most is I know that my getting like this must annoy other people, and I hate annoying other people. I don't want to cause a fuss or what not you know? I just wanted to sit down with Sam, get comfy and watch Hot Fuzz, which we did kinda; just my comfy wasn't her comfy tonight.
Argh!! Is there a psychologist in the house?
Tomorrow will be fine, I'll be over it and me and Sam will be just like yesterday (real yesterday, not tomorrow's yesterday); sitting together, chilling, chatting, watching shit telly/shit film, sharing space without being lay on each other. I just need to sleep tonight.
2007/06/07 22:57 Up at 6am tomorrow for picking up cars from bloody Bradistan. Not that it's far away of course, just up to and including two hours motorway driving. Oh, and then work at 11. And Sam said she'd see me tomorrow cause she'd had a tiring day at work today. Not seen her since Saturday, we'd agreed to see each other tonight, I remembered it was capoeira but figured hell, I can go Sunday I take the night off to go see her and she didn't want me to. So I was a bit pissed off about that too.
I'll raise my hot chocolate to getting up before the fucking sun...
[/emo mood]
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P.S. I've half decided to write a book. I know, madness! It'll be a treatise on how I see magic, what it was is and should be. Don't expect to see it in Borders anytime soon of course but watch this space.
Mahjeek
All from the mouth
2007/05/23 09:28 Or
How I performed a magic show in Leeds Monday night and fucked up two perfectly easy tricks
Seriously, there I am on stage telling the audience how I had a dream and predicted a number the sum of three spectators would randomly come up with, I do all the necessary and get the numbers over to our spectator with the big pen over by the big paper and he adds them up. The second the wrote the first number down I knew I was wrong. And I shouldn't have been wrong. At all. It's not even a possibility. It's a dead cert I get the number right. Apart from Monday when I did the most idiotic thing a magician can do - I didn't double check things before I started...
STUPID!
So I realise it's not going right and prime the audience with words like experiment, I'm not sure and the like. We reveal the prediction doesn't match and it's a non-issue. And it would have been a non-issue if it wasn't for the fact I then went on to do two perfect tricks and blow them all away, and ruin my own encore.
Basically my nerves got the better of me and I forgot half of what I supposed to be remembering. Which sucked.
There's a moral to all this though:
Always double check your predictions!
I'm pleased with the way the show went, even if my throat is a little gravely (imagine the day after a heavy drinking sesh) from shouting as I can't use the microphones, I've roadtesting some material I'd be happy showing to another audience again, and I've decided to go back in two months time with my brand new "Mind Over Matter" show which consists of psychokinesis, telekinesis, suggestion and persuasion, and pain management and body control. Expect bending of spoons/forks, spectators' spare/unwanted keys, moving objects with my mind, psuedo hypnosis and Brown/Jermay/Nyman style suggestion and persuasion type effects and hammering a nail up my nose (amongst other things yet to be decided). I'm gonna see how well it all goes down and if it's a good reception and it looks like it might be viable I'll make any necessary tweeks and see if I can't take it out on the road a little; although I'll have to check out the audience first - Hangout is a very giving audience there for experimental performance and expecting a bit of the bizarre, take the show to a more conservative audience and it might go down like a lead balloon...
Basically it's not a show one can do for old men in the local Liberal Club. Nor is it something you can take to little Timmy's 4th Birthday Party. It's something that will sit very nicely as part of a variety performance, or a talent show type affair, or even as a show on its own with some other performance around it. Maybe I should look at organising our very own Hang Out type night here in Manchester and use it as a platform to do it here too...
Sam said she missed me over the weekend. It still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy all over when she says these things; made all the more special by the fact that she very rarely opens up like that. Not that she doesn't open up at all, it's just not quite so soft and soppy :D and she normally takes the piss out of me if I say (like I did when she'd gone Lond-d-don) things like that. But I guess that's just one of the many reasons I love her.
2007/05/20 09:35 Got back from the Manchester BJS meet last night with a couple of pints in me, a tired voice and a shiny new nipple piercing!
I'm a very happy bunny. Although it's stinging today.
As will be discussed in the pending experience, the whole piercing wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting. But this morning I woke up covered in blood with huge clots either side of the nipple (in between the balls and the flesh), trapped hairs in the blood and had to clean myself up; how painful?!
Anyway, other than that and a quick whinge about how I shan't be seeing Sam all day today even though I really wanted to and had already planned to because my Mum dropped it on my last second I was transporting my sister back to University today, all is good. I'm shitting my pants about Leeds tomorrow, but at least I got all my props and what not sorted, so all I need now is to practice practice practice. Oh, and check my eBay, see if I'm still winning my Luke Jermay DVD.
Axé
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UGH
All from the mouth
2007/05/15 23:49 I got back from Sam's a little while ago; man I fucking hate having to come home sometimes. Like today. If there was a night I would given mostly anything to be able to spend it with my love tonight was that night. Short story:
I told my Mum about my plans to get my nipple pierced on Saturday. She got all pissy at me and used words like disappointed, deform and the like, seemed to think that I was intent on piercing my penis even though I've answered that question before (the septum incident for those that remember) and even went as far as saying "And what does Sam think about it?!" as if I had the very cheek to defy my girlfriend (I should point out here that Sam's offical comment on my nipple piercing Saturday was "I don't think you're deforming your body. It's a waste of money but I don't care.").
So now I'm sat in my house feeling like utter shit because of one simple piercing I've wanted for about 3/4 years. An hour ago I didn't feel like shit at all though, oh no! An hour ago I felt loved and happy, resting my head on Sam's shoulder watching shit telly on C4. And then I had to come home because she needed to go to bed. And it's not like she likes kicking me out, she's said that to me before, it's just she needs the sleep and it's hugely impractical for me to stay there; lack of bed to sleep in for a start, plus she's gotta get up and get ready and all I'd do is be there waiting for her to wake up enough to say see you later.
I wanna be able to stay over more often though/have her round here. She makes things right. She makes me feel so happy, and loved, and so very word-that-means-able-to-be-yourself-completely-and-utterly-without-any-worries-or-cares-or-ego-yet-not- meaning-comfortable-in-a-negative-lack-of-emotion-way.
I wish my Mum would just be nicer about these things with me. She's very lucky I didn't have a massive go at her about it; the stuff she was saying was proper getting under my skin. I'm gonna have to work real hard to hold my tongue if she starts again...
2007/05/14 01:27 Went to Sam's to play house yesterday/last night/this morning. And what a time I had!
She cooked us delicious tea, we sat and watched shitty telly (Space Jam followed by Eurovision, although the latter is a little bit of a sore point at the moment...) together, went to bed together, and woke up together. If I wasn't already absolutely sure I wanted to live with this woman I'd be sure after this. It was so nice knowing it was just us, that we had free reign of the house, that we could leave a mess in the front room (well, as much of one as Sam would allow) and not have to keep the volume down so we didn't disturb Sam's mum.
I've ordered all my songs on iTunes (all 6837 of them) and I'm listening from A to Z, skipping allowed. I've listened all the way from A Bed of Roses by Queen Adrena (who are quite awesome live and shouldn't be missed) to A World So Cold by Mudvayne.
If you've never tried something like this then do so now, I can't convey how amazing the contrast and variety is when you lsten to your songs in alphabetical order.
Do it...
(I just looked up the Z list and found out that my finale will be Zwitter by Rammstein!! Made my night that has...)
2007/05/07 13:00 I need to keep my leg straighter. Well, actually straight to be honest. See, it's making my meia lua de compasso rubbish; my leg's all crooked and it sucks.
Saturday was lovely, spent the day out in Manchester with Sam (even if she was late picking me up so we got to town a lot later than I thought. Still, there was no street roda to miss in the end anyway, so nothing to be annoyed about), then came back to mine and folded out the double downstairs which we shared. It was absolutely beautiful. I'm so soppy it's ridiculous but it was lovely. Time I got a double in my room...
I've decided to have a go at basic Brazilian Portuguese. See, you can learn karate or jiu jitsu and not learn Japanese, you can learn muay thai and not learn Thaiwanese, kung fu and not learn Chinese but if you don't speak even a little Portuguese you're going to be hampered in capoeira. See, you need to become more than just a competent fighter to become a good capoeirista; you need to learn the music, the songs, the history, the traditions. So, when you're in the roda playing and singing away, you're obviously singing in Portuguese. So, when you sing "Dona Maria coma vai você" how many people do you reckon know that means "Holy Maria how do you know?"?
You learn the basic language you'll meet face to face within the art and you can join in on a whole new level.
When I was at the Batizado I heard Mestre Labâo change the song he was singing when something happened in the roda. This caused a little ripple of laughter from the Brazilians amongst us, as well as a couple of other people. Later on I overheard a conversation between two of the people I went with and found out what was funny; Labâo had starting singing a song about a capoeirista who had too much to prove and how his game wasn't beautiful and how he needed to remember to play beautiful and not be too eager to prove himself. Maybe not hilarious to read now, but at the time it really drew the roda together and told the mestre in the game off without breaking the rhythm or energy.
Anyway, I guess that I want to be able to be a little more 'capoeira literate', and to be able to join in on as many levels as possible.
