Beyond the Blondes - Finding Magic in Dallas

Carl making killer jerky.

My latest stop on this Magic Life journey was Dallas, Texas where I stayed with my brother, Carl, a master of the smoked meats, especially his home made beef jerky....mmmmmmmmmmmm. He made me a whole batch to take on the road, but now as I ready to leave I've realized it is nothing but an empty plastic bag.

Dallas brings to mind beef brisket bar-b-que, blonde two-stepping divorcee's, and tall glistening glass buildings. I always see in my mind those longhorn statues, dashing through a fountain in front of those big shiny buildings. Perhaps you think of the most amazing professional football team ever known, (for cheerleaders in hot pants that is) the Dallas Cowboys. Not to mention a giant sized stadium filled with over-sized foam cowboy hats. But I often think of Dallas itself as filled with  cantankerous cattlemen or billionaire oil barrens, sitting around a Texas Holdem poker table, gambling more on a hand than we make in our lives. Betting those big glass buildings, as we would a stack of chips. Seems that most of those high stakes billionaires, for some unknown reason eventually become real estate developers. I was involved in real estate here in Texas and my younger brother Carl is a developer here in Dallas. I've seen many of those billionaire/millionaire developer types over the years.

This is a typical Dallas girl, so friendly.

Why do they become developers? I'm not sure. Maybe they do it so they can eventually dump the woman who gave them a wonderful family and "land" a beautiful blond trophy wife, whom they then can then buy huge... tracks of land. You thought I was going to say " fake boobs" didn't you? But it didn't really fit in the whole "land" concept now did it?

The real wealth in Dallas comes from the land, and not just from the oil. And one thing Dallas has is lots and lots of beautiful, build-able, flat land. And when I visit Dallas, I think of this land filled with wonderful buildings, and beautiful golf communities with lakes and amazing country clubs. I can almost hear the theme song to the show, Dallas  playing in my mind as I write this blog; with scenes of the famous South Fork Ranch, home to JR Ewing.  But Dallas is a huge place and has many magical things to offer.

One magical thing they always seem to have an abundance of is beautiful blond women. And they know how to flaunt it. With restaurants like, Twin Peaks, Hooters, and Bone Daddy's you can always find an over abundance of beautiful blonds to bring you a cold Lone Star beer.

Model Brittnay Lynn

I really hadn't planned what magician I'd try to meet in Dallas when I first decided to come here. Mostly I just wanted to spend time with my younger brother Carl and his wife, Steffany and their beautiful little girl. (No, not to chase those blondes) But THE MAGIC LIFE sometimes just hands me things out of thin air, almost like magic. And it did again.

Dallas is a home to two great mysteries of our times and both involve who shot whom? We may never know who really shot JFK here in Dealy Plaza. And we may never really know who shot JR either. But it was a different kind of shooting all together which led me to a Dallas based magician. It was a photo shoot of a beautiful model named Brittnay Lynn (in the previous blog) who led me to a young magician named, Aaron Stone. This is a good enough reason to put in another picture of Brittnay, isn't it?

I called Aaron and told him I'd like to interview him over breakfast and he was as amazing as those mysteries for which Dallas is famous. 

Dallas Magician Aaron Stone

Aaron, is a young professional magician here in Dallas and I can see that he is indeed a real pro. It doesn't take long in our conversation to see that I'm talking to one of "us" and not just some kid who wants to be a magician. He drops the proper names and talks good trick trash. Aaron has been performing magic for over 10 years. He reminded me of so many of "us" who started as a teen and found ourselves living with a deck of cards in our hands over a period of years, until finally we have a revelation, that someone will actually pay us to do tricks. He is young and is trying to look cutting edge. He had an eyebrow piercing and a dash of bright red in his otherwise black hair.

There is a point among magicians where one discovers that magic works not on secrets, but upon principles. I think it is around this time that we start discovering our own magic. Watching a magician perform something which he has created in his own mind and then mastered at his own fingertips is always a pleasure for me. Aaron showed me one of his own creations and I've chosen to share it with you on his video. 

But I wanted to delve deeper to find what made this guy, who went out of his way to apologize for his recently died red finger nails, (which changed colors when he colored the top of his hair) tick. How was he, so many years younger, and so different on the surface, so much like me.

Many of us grow up with family strife and relational issues in this day and age. Aaron was raised not knowing his mother. And the one thing which most professional magicians will tell you is that, "their father never supported their career choice." Here was something which Aaron and I shared. Both of us decided to become a magician in spite of our father's wishes. My father almost disowned me when I decided to pursue magic, and Aaron's father was no different. They offered no support and certainly would be reticent to come watch their son's perform.  I remember when I finally "forced" my father to come watch me perform and recall his eating crow, telling me that he had no idea I was so good at what I'd chosen to do. He said, "if I'd known you were going to be this good, I'd have told you to do it."

But Aaron's story takes the cake in this contest.

All boys want to please their fathers and receive their praise. Many of us spend years trying to please our fathers, and some of us, rebel against having to seek their approval. For Aaron, I think he really took his father's denial to heart. Maybe it was because he was the child of just a single parent. But Aaron, tells the story of how he put a special tribute to his father in his show: and no, not the good kind. During the show he actually tells the audience to give his father the finger, in a clever way of course, for not supporting his choice to become a magician. Well years after he'd used the line a hundred times, he gets his father to come to see the show. When he gets to the part in the show where he says to "give his father the finger," he paused and thought about whether or not to say it. He didn't tell his father to stand, or point him out of the crowd at least before he continued.

However, his good judgement probably derailed due to some emotional train wreck going on in his head, and he decided to go ahead and use the same routine. Maybe it was for a little payback, or maybe for his own pride, but he used his same routine and his father sat there and heard him ask the audience to "give him the finger." I'm sure it was an emotional, if not educational, moment for both of them. I can only imagine his father's hard swallow as that huge crow passed down his esophagus.

However, this story does have a happy ending, as his father was moved by the show and afterwards apologized for not believing in his son.  I doubt that my father would have been so generous, I think he'd have come back stage and hit me behind the ear with a two-by-four.