Cowboys, Carpentry, and Conjuring

Houston, TX

Nothing is more magical than being loved and admired. As I played my guitar and sang for my 10 year old niece, Sugarbean, I felt that magic. She didn't know I could play a guitar and I think she likes her ol' uncle Ace. I did have to take all the dirty words out of my songs though. But simply spending a couple days with my younger brother, Stuart, (my first partner in magic) and his wonderful family was magic beyond compare. One of the maxims in my book, THE MAGIC LIFE, simply states, "Enjoy the time you spend with family and friends." I truly believe this is a key success factor in creating a magic life, one we often forget. I want to thank Stuart, Shannon and Natalie, (Sugarbean) for a wonderful stay with them. Of course I need to give a plug to QuickPoles, his amazing invention, which is a magic trick in and of itself.

Now, as I sit in what is one of the largest Starbucks I've ever seen, here on Post Oak in Houston, I'm amazed at the diversity and activity. Of course it's big, cause everything's big in Texas. Big SUV's, pickups and vans pull up to the drive in window, filled with women with big hair, bigger boobs, and men with big boots, and belt buckles. There aren't many men wearing cowboy hats though, but it's filled with the big dogs, the movers and shakers. Right here in this Starbucks, so many people, all moving and shaking, perhaps from too much caffeine.

Houston, a place where cows and cowboys mix it up with oil barrens and metro-sexuals, is filled with magic memories for me. My father, John Starry, lived here after he and my mother divorced, and so I discovered this magical place during my summer visits as a teen. But it wasn't until years later that I adopted it as my own home. Over the years here, I met and made many fantastic friends, many marvelous magicians, and even a few wondrous wizards. It was a place where there were always opportunities for anyone with a drive and willingness to work to make it happen.

Building a John Starry home

We create ourselves and leave a trail of our creations along the way in life. My father chose Houston to make his mark and he passed away here a few years back leaving a trail,  a path, a proof of his life, so to speak, behind.

Same home front view years later

I was living in LA performing magic at Six Flags Magic Mountain, when my father who was building homes in a northern suburb of Houston called me. It was the end of the amusement park season, and he asked me to come and work for him. We built three homes that year all in the same neighborhood.

I decided to go find those homes which my father and I built years ago, just to see what memories they evoked. When I saw them, I teared up. My father, were he alive today, should be proud of his creation, of the trail he left behind. My father died not leaving much behind, but he did certainly leave his proof of life. Those homes all looked amazing, and the neighborhood, which had only a few homes in it at the time, now, just as Dad predicted was filled with beautiful homes. My life is so filled with wonderful memories of my magical youth in this amazing place spent building homes with my sometimes cantankerous father.

Sawing illusion built in those houses

Strait Jacket Escape

I remember standing like a wire walker on the rafters and nailing them risking a thirty foot fall (above.) I used the same tools to cut cabinets for the kitchens to build my sawing a lady in half illusion in the garage of that house on the weekends. And it was here in Houston, that I met a magician named Sam Martin, who owned a magic/novelty/costume shop he called "Just for Laughs." It was Sam who first talked me into doing a "hanging strait jacket escape from a burning rope." That was truly a defining moment in my magic life, it was certainly part of my proof of life.

What was meant to be a short stay ended up being a large chunk of my magic life.