A STORY
My friend Gorilla Bob Kearns ran a program called Song and Story at Espresso Joe's in Keyport, New Jersey. Song and Story presented performers who sing a song, tell a story, sing a song, tell a story, and so on, for 90 minutes. The trick was that the stories had to be as substantial as the songs, which is no small trick.
Gorilla Bob invited me to perform at Song and Story, and despite having no stories to tell, I agreed. I had some time, though; this was in November of 2016, and he wanted me for March 25, 2017. I got busy writing, and managed to write and memorize enough songs and stories for two 45-minute sets. It was a great experience; I'm very glad to have done it, and very grateful to Bob for inviting me.
This is the story that came out the best. My thanks to my good friend Barbara, whose father was, in fact, the Official Magician of the City of New York.
My grandfather was the Official Magician of the City of New York. This was a long time ago, of course; anyone looking at the city now can tell they don't have an official magician.
But this was back in the '30s, during the depression. My grandfather and his twin brother George were the oldest boys in a large Irish family in Queens. They got into magic as kids, and, like brothers, they did it together and were at the same time very competitive about it. Everything was fine until senior year of high school, when my grandfather ran up against an old Irish tradition, which is that if a family has a lot of kids they're expected to give one of them up to the church. My grandfather, being the oldest boy – oldest by five minutes, but still the oldest – was chosen.
He hated the idea, but George, his brother, thought it was hysterical. “You'll be a great priest,” he'd say, “because you're a natural-born con man.” And that last part, at least, was true.
So graduation day comes, and George goes off to CCNY in Harlem, gets a degree in accounting, marries a pretty Italian girl and moves to Washington, DC. My grandfather goes to the diocesan seminary in Yonkers, gets 95% of the way through the training, and washes out.
Now he's out of work. It's the Depression. He has no job, no trade, no union. He's doing magic tricks in bars. But he does have an older sister, and she has a boyfriend, and the boyfriend works in the Parks Department, and he comes up with the Official Magician idea.
“Look,” he says. “We do events with kids all the time. You could be the entertainment at these events. We'll call you the Official Magician of the City of New York, and I can throw some money your way.” And my grandfather says, “I'll do it.” They even gave him a proclamation signed by LaGuardia, which was hanging on the wall in his house for his whole adult life. And quickly, as you might imagine, he becomes the most popular adult in the neighborhood, among the kids at least.
Soon George gets wind of this down in DC. He goes to visit a friend of his at the State Department, and while he's there he steals some stationery. He types up a letter which proclaims that he, George, is the official magician of the United States of America and signs, on the bottom, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” And the two of them fight about this for the next 50 years.
It's always the same fight, and it always happens at Thanksgiving. We're all sitting around the table. This being the old days, the mothers and aunts and grandmothers have cleared away the turkey and mashed potatoes and all and are in the kitchen making coffee and getting dessert ready. The men and the kids are still at the table. George leans over to us kids and says, “You know, your grandfather thinks he's a magician.”
“What do you mean, thinks he's a magician? I've forgotten more about magic than you'll ever know.”
They go back and forth like that for a few minutes, and then my grandfather leans over to us kids and says, “Did I ever tell you about Amalia?”
And we all say, “No, never,” by which we mean, “Yes, a thousand times, and we want to hear it again.” And he would tell the following story.
It's the day after Thanksgiving in 1933. He's sitting in his chair, reading the New York Times, having a cup of coffee, and one of the neighborhood kids comes to the door. Her name is Amalia, and she's about 11. Amalia and her family are from Haiti. Amalia speaks English, and goes to school, and has American friends, and she's trying her best to be an American. The rest of her family, from Grandma on down, are trying their best to live the way they did back home in Haiti. This is what Amalia has to say.
Amalia has a cousin who is five or six, and the cousin is sick. Coughing, fever, headache, can't breathe, can't sleep. Amalia has American friends with American mothers, and she's pretty sure that all the cousin needs is cough syrup, but nobody will listen to her – she's just a kid, after all, and she's American. The grandmother is trying to cure the child the way she would back in Haiti, by appeasing the spirits. But it's not working. And the reason it's not working, Grandma decides, is that she only knows the spirits in Haiti; she doesn't know the local spirits in Queens. She needs a local expert to consult with and who does she choose? The parish priest.
She goes to the priest, and he listens for about 30 seconds, and says, “Jesus Mary and Joseph! I don't talk to spirits! I'm a priest, not a magician!” And he sends her off.
Grandma gets home and she says, “Well, I talked with the guy, and he says we don't need a priest, we need a magician.” Amalia hears this and says, “The Official Magician of the City of New York lives right around the corner. I'll go talk to him.” And that's what brought her to his door.
My grandfather loves this. He knows that what Grandma needs, what she expects, is magic. So he goes to his file cabinet and he pulls out a gag that he used in the bars to turn water into whiskey. Then he and Amalia talk a little bit and work out a skit they're going to do, and he sends her home.
She gets there and says, “The magician will be here at sundown. We all have to be here, and we have to turn out all the lights and everyone has to have a candle.” So they turn out the lights, and they gather in the living room, all fifteen of them, and pretty soon it starts to get a little dark and gloomy and they all light candles, and then suddenly it's sundown and my grandfather is just there. He's standing among them. It's like he appeared out of nowhere. They're all stunned. Of course, Amalia had left the door open and given him the lay of the land, and he just picked his moment and stepped into the room. You can learn a lot at a seminary.
So there he is, and the first thing you have to know is that my grandfather was a big guy, six foot five at least, and that point in his life he probably weighed 260 pounds. Massive guy. And he's wearing his cassock from the seminary, so he's all in black, and he's carrying something in his hands but no one can see what it is because it's covered in a red velvet cloth. He just steps right into the middle of the room and they all gather round him, and now he's in a circle of candlelight, and he says, in a big voice, “Where is the child who came for me?” Amalia steps forward and he says to her, “Fetch me a glass of water, child, and stand by me.” Which she does.
With one hand – the other is still covered, holding whatever-it-is - he holds the glass of water up in the air, and they all instinctively raise their candles so they can see it, and it sparkles in the light and everyone can see it's just clear water. Then with the glass still held high he scans the room and says, in his deep voice, “Who among you has seen Death?” His eyes light on Grandma and he beckons her forward.
Grandma is tiny – 4 foot 11 or so, but this is what she was looking for, so she's ready. With the glass of water still held high, he reaches his other hand to her. She understands what he wants, and takes the mysterious object from him. She still doesn't know what it is. Then, with a flash and a bang and a puff of smoke he whips away the red velvet cloth, and they all see it – it's his chalice, a solid gold goblet that is the most magical-looking thing Grandma has ever beheld, much less touched, much less held in her hands. She's transfixed, and trembling, and everyone has drawn in closer with their candles so they can see it, too.
Now my grandfather takes both of Amalia's tiny hands in his big fist and holds them over the chalice. He says a few words in Latin and pours the water slowly into his hand, and from Amalia's hands, wrapped up in his, a thick black liquid drips slowly out into the chalice.
When the water's gone, he holds up the glass in the candlelight again so everyone can see it's empty, and that's Amalia's cue to faint dead away. He takes the chalice from Grandma and hands her the glass. Then he pours the thick, black liquid – the cough syrup – into the glass. Another flash and another puff of smoke, and he has a shot glass in his hand. He gives that to Grandma, too, and says, “Once at sundown. Once at midnight. Once at dawn. Once at noon. Four days. All will be well.” And he walks out the door.
Two days later – Sunday after Thanksgiving, 1933 – he's sitting in his chair, reading the New York Times, drinking a cup of coffee. There's a knock on the door and Amalia comes in, and she has Grandma with her. Amalia is all smiles, but Grandma is deadly serious. He can tell by her look and her demeanor she's still in magic land. She's wearing rings, earrings, necklaces, scarves and a hat, and she's smoking a pipe. She comes right up to him in his chair. Remember, he's 6 foot 5 and she's 4 foot 11, so they're eye to eye.
She says, “You are not what you appear to be.”
He says nothing.
She says, “You claim to be a magician of the city of New York. But the city of New York does not concern itself with strangers or their sick children. So I do not believe you are a magician of the city of New York. I believe you are a magician of the Queen of the Spirits.”
Amalia says, “No, Grandma, it's the Spirits of Queens.”
But my grandfather likes it the other way better, and he says, “Enough! You must tell no one.”
Grandma nods, and doesn't say another word. She takes a necklace off her neck and puts it around his neck and walks out the door, with Amalia dancing after her.
And at this point in the annual Thanksgiving telling of the story, my grandfather reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulls out the necklace, and holds it up so all us kids can see it. And we can see that there's a medallion on the necklace, hand-painted, and on one side is the Virgin Mary, and on the other side is Death. After he's shown it to us kids he holds it up in his brother George's face and says, “You may be the official magician of the United States, but I am the Official Magician of the Queen of the Spirits.”
George says, “Well, you've got me there.” And then dessert and coffee come in, and the two old brothers do tricks for us until it's time for bed, and all is well until next Thanksgiving.
Gorilla Bob invited me to perform at Song and Story, and despite having no stories to tell, I agreed. I had some time, though; this was in November of 2016, and he wanted me for March 25, 2017. I got busy writing, and managed to write and memorize enough songs and stories for two 45-minute sets. It was a great experience; I'm very glad to have done it, and very grateful to Bob for inviting me.
This is the story that came out the best. My thanks to my good friend Barbara, whose father was, in fact, the Official Magician of the City of New York.
My grandfather was the Official Magician of the City of New York. This was a long time ago, of course; anyone looking at the city now can tell they don't have an official magician.
But this was back in the '30s, during the depression. My grandfather and his twin brother George were the oldest boys in a large Irish family in Queens. They got into magic as kids, and, like brothers, they did it together and were at the same time very competitive about it. Everything was fine until senior year of high school, when my grandfather ran up against an old Irish tradition, which is that if a family has a lot of kids they're expected to give one of them up to the church. My grandfather, being the oldest boy – oldest by five minutes, but still the oldest – was chosen.
He hated the idea, but George, his brother, thought it was hysterical. “You'll be a great priest,” he'd say, “because you're a natural-born con man.” And that last part, at least, was true.
So graduation day comes, and George goes off to CCNY in Harlem, gets a degree in accounting, marries a pretty Italian girl and moves to Washington, DC. My grandfather goes to the diocesan seminary in Yonkers, gets 95% of the way through the training, and washes out.
Now he's out of work. It's the Depression. He has no job, no trade, no union. He's doing magic tricks in bars. But he does have an older sister, and she has a boyfriend, and the boyfriend works in the Parks Department, and he comes up with the Official Magician idea.
“Look,” he says. “We do events with kids all the time. You could be the entertainment at these events. We'll call you the Official Magician of the City of New York, and I can throw some money your way.” And my grandfather says, “I'll do it.” They even gave him a proclamation signed by LaGuardia, which was hanging on the wall in his house for his whole adult life. And quickly, as you might imagine, he becomes the most popular adult in the neighborhood, among the kids at least.
Soon George gets wind of this down in DC. He goes to visit a friend of his at the State Department, and while he's there he steals some stationery. He types up a letter which proclaims that he, George, is the official magician of the United States of America and signs, on the bottom, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” And the two of them fight about this for the next 50 years.
It's always the same fight, and it always happens at Thanksgiving. We're all sitting around the table. This being the old days, the mothers and aunts and grandmothers have cleared away the turkey and mashed potatoes and all and are in the kitchen making coffee and getting dessert ready. The men and the kids are still at the table. George leans over to us kids and says, “You know, your grandfather thinks he's a magician.”
“What do you mean, thinks he's a magician? I've forgotten more about magic than you'll ever know.”
They go back and forth like that for a few minutes, and then my grandfather leans over to us kids and says, “Did I ever tell you about Amalia?”
And we all say, “No, never,” by which we mean, “Yes, a thousand times, and we want to hear it again.” And he would tell the following story.
It's the day after Thanksgiving in 1933. He's sitting in his chair, reading the New York Times, having a cup of coffee, and one of the neighborhood kids comes to the door. Her name is Amalia, and she's about 11. Amalia and her family are from Haiti. Amalia speaks English, and goes to school, and has American friends, and she's trying her best to be an American. The rest of her family, from Grandma on down, are trying their best to live the way they did back home in Haiti. This is what Amalia has to say.
Amalia has a cousin who is five or six, and the cousin is sick. Coughing, fever, headache, can't breathe, can't sleep. Amalia has American friends with American mothers, and she's pretty sure that all the cousin needs is cough syrup, but nobody will listen to her – she's just a kid, after all, and she's American. The grandmother is trying to cure the child the way she would back in Haiti, by appeasing the spirits. But it's not working. And the reason it's not working, Grandma decides, is that she only knows the spirits in Haiti; she doesn't know the local spirits in Queens. She needs a local expert to consult with and who does she choose? The parish priest.
She goes to the priest, and he listens for about 30 seconds, and says, “Jesus Mary and Joseph! I don't talk to spirits! I'm a priest, not a magician!” And he sends her off.
Grandma gets home and she says, “Well, I talked with the guy, and he says we don't need a priest, we need a magician.” Amalia hears this and says, “The Official Magician of the City of New York lives right around the corner. I'll go talk to him.” And that's what brought her to his door.
My grandfather loves this. He knows that what Grandma needs, what she expects, is magic. So he goes to his file cabinet and he pulls out a gag that he used in the bars to turn water into whiskey. Then he and Amalia talk a little bit and work out a skit they're going to do, and he sends her home.
She gets there and says, “The magician will be here at sundown. We all have to be here, and we have to turn out all the lights and everyone has to have a candle.” So they turn out the lights, and they gather in the living room, all fifteen of them, and pretty soon it starts to get a little dark and gloomy and they all light candles, and then suddenly it's sundown and my grandfather is just there. He's standing among them. It's like he appeared out of nowhere. They're all stunned. Of course, Amalia had left the door open and given him the lay of the land, and he just picked his moment and stepped into the room. You can learn a lot at a seminary.
So there he is, and the first thing you have to know is that my grandfather was a big guy, six foot five at least, and that point in his life he probably weighed 260 pounds. Massive guy. And he's wearing his cassock from the seminary, so he's all in black, and he's carrying something in his hands but no one can see what it is because it's covered in a red velvet cloth. He just steps right into the middle of the room and they all gather round him, and now he's in a circle of candlelight, and he says, in a big voice, “Where is the child who came for me?” Amalia steps forward and he says to her, “Fetch me a glass of water, child, and stand by me.” Which she does.
With one hand – the other is still covered, holding whatever-it-is - he holds the glass of water up in the air, and they all instinctively raise their candles so they can see it, and it sparkles in the light and everyone can see it's just clear water. Then with the glass still held high he scans the room and says, in his deep voice, “Who among you has seen Death?” His eyes light on Grandma and he beckons her forward.
Grandma is tiny – 4 foot 11 or so, but this is what she was looking for, so she's ready. With the glass of water still held high, he reaches his other hand to her. She understands what he wants, and takes the mysterious object from him. She still doesn't know what it is. Then, with a flash and a bang and a puff of smoke he whips away the red velvet cloth, and they all see it – it's his chalice, a solid gold goblet that is the most magical-looking thing Grandma has ever beheld, much less touched, much less held in her hands. She's transfixed, and trembling, and everyone has drawn in closer with their candles so they can see it, too.
Now my grandfather takes both of Amalia's tiny hands in his big fist and holds them over the chalice. He says a few words in Latin and pours the water slowly into his hand, and from Amalia's hands, wrapped up in his, a thick black liquid drips slowly out into the chalice.
When the water's gone, he holds up the glass in the candlelight again so everyone can see it's empty, and that's Amalia's cue to faint dead away. He takes the chalice from Grandma and hands her the glass. Then he pours the thick, black liquid – the cough syrup – into the glass. Another flash and another puff of smoke, and he has a shot glass in his hand. He gives that to Grandma, too, and says, “Once at sundown. Once at midnight. Once at dawn. Once at noon. Four days. All will be well.” And he walks out the door.
Two days later – Sunday after Thanksgiving, 1933 – he's sitting in his chair, reading the New York Times, drinking a cup of coffee. There's a knock on the door and Amalia comes in, and she has Grandma with her. Amalia is all smiles, but Grandma is deadly serious. He can tell by her look and her demeanor she's still in magic land. She's wearing rings, earrings, necklaces, scarves and a hat, and she's smoking a pipe. She comes right up to him in his chair. Remember, he's 6 foot 5 and she's 4 foot 11, so they're eye to eye.
She says, “You are not what you appear to be.”
He says nothing.
She says, “You claim to be a magician of the city of New York. But the city of New York does not concern itself with strangers or their sick children. So I do not believe you are a magician of the city of New York. I believe you are a magician of the Queen of the Spirits.”
Amalia says, “No, Grandma, it's the Spirits of Queens.”
But my grandfather likes it the other way better, and he says, “Enough! You must tell no one.”
Grandma nods, and doesn't say another word. She takes a necklace off her neck and puts it around his neck and walks out the door, with Amalia dancing after her.
And at this point in the annual Thanksgiving telling of the story, my grandfather reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulls out the necklace, and holds it up so all us kids can see it. And we can see that there's a medallion on the necklace, hand-painted, and on one side is the Virgin Mary, and on the other side is Death. After he's shown it to us kids he holds it up in his brother George's face and says, “You may be the official magician of the United States, but I am the Official Magician of the Queen of the Spirits.”
George says, “Well, you've got me there.” And then dessert and coffee come in, and the two old brothers do tricks for us until it's time for bed, and all is well until next Thanksgiving.