Everyone has a few favorite stories to tell. Here are some of ours!
by Michael Baker
Sometime around 1990, I was performing for a child's birthday party that was held at a park just off I-59 in Hueytown, AL. Directly behind me was a very busy stretch of road that was quite noisy. The harder it became for the kids to hear me, the more restless they became.
Realizing that I was watching this show fall apart right before me, I decided to make one very determined attempt to regain control of half of the noise, that being made by the kids themselves.
"If you are real, real quiet," I told them, "you're going to see something completely amazing!"
No sooner had I gotten the words out of my mouth, a car slammed into a telephone pole directly behind me, just outside the fence that surrounded the park. It was a loud bang! Needless to say, I had the complete attention of everyone present from that moment on.
by Michael Baker
From 1992 to 1994, I was the "House Magician" at Jake's Grill in Birmingham, AL, at the time, a local hotspot. One of the signature tricks that I performed was, The Card on the Ceiling, in which a chosen, signed playing card was lost in the deck, the deck wrapped with a rubber band, and then the whole arrangement thrown upward to the ceiling. While the banded deck descended, the selected card was seen stuck to the ceiling, where it remained for, in some cases, years.
After having done the trick well over a couple of thousand times (the ceiling was literally covered with cards), one particular night, the tables turned.
The usual procedure was taking place. The deck was customarily thrown upward, only this time it completely vanished the second it reached the top. It did not fall; there was no new selection stuck to the ceiling; the deck just seemed to vaporize! Everyone who saw it happen was completely amazed; what a cool trick! I, however, was absolutely blown away!
Only later that night, when the house lights came up for ritual clean-up was the mystery solved. Jake's architecture featured a 2-story high panel ceiling that was painted black. The place was also fairly dimly lit. One of the 2x4 ceiling panels was missing a small piece from one corner. During evening business hours, this hole was totally invisible to the naked eye. The deck had managed to be thrown precisely through this hole, where it stayed!
by Michael Baker
I'll tell you how someone else did.
Shortly after moving to Birmingham in 1986, I began performing in several area night clubs. One such place was Café de Ville. At the time, I was regularly performing a trick in which a chosen card is made to propel upward, spinning from the deck. It typically shoots 15-25 feet into the air and is caught as it descends.
The area surrounding the dance floor had a very high ceiling and was ideal for the trick. There was, however, an overhang extending from one of the bars that effectively lowered the headroom in that one area to about seven feet.
On this particular night, I was standing farther under this obstruction than I realized at the moment I flicked the card up and out of the deck. In less than a second, it ricocheted off the overhang and went directly into the shirt pocket of the man who had chosen it!
His interest in magic peaked, and he soon after joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians, including its local affiliate, and has been a member for all these years!