Who Ate The Rabbit Magic - Welcome to MusicAndMagic's New Website!

Welcome to MusicAndMagic's New Website!

Ash K's Blog - all about the San Francisco Bay Area's 2nd Funniest Magician

Boo!

Ever wonder about how a variety entertainer prices their work? Typically, there are six factors:
- Night of week (holidays & weekends are more)
- Travel Time (of course)
- Size of Audience (TV of 30 million pays more than fundraiser of 500 pays more than home party of 25)
- Audio/Lighting Provided or We Provide (nothing more irritating than not being able to hear/see the entertainment)
- Length of Performance (e.g., four hours of strolling mixing magic, or a 10 minute, hi-tech show, or normal 45 minute show)
- Number of Performances (most of us discount if you sign up another party, or contract several performances)
Nothing shocking here - but good to know whether you're booking Ash K. or one of his colleagues for a kid's party here in San Francisco, or hiring him for working your table at a trade show!
New Pics!

More to come later, but my chum Pat Johnson did his usual incredible work.

Getting Ash to behave for the whole session? Another story!

Cheers,
km
Ash K. Gets to Play at the Sausalito Art Festival
Ash here! Kevin is doing data entry or something tedious, but I just wanted to write about one of my favorite gigs this year, the Sausalito Art Festival. Look - these folks even have a groovy logo:

The performers are all top notch, and the staff is SO helpful. They're eager that all of the visitors will have the best performances possible.

And truthfully, I LOVE the work of the visual artists who show at the festival - the competition is tough, so the quality is high.

As for my show, I had all sorts of misadventures, including the kids pulling my underwear from rather than a rope through my torso. Their favorite trick though was when a high wind came up as I was counting down, knocking over two of the tables full of props.

Of course, I MEANT for it to happen. (So I said. I don't think the adults bought that.)

And how about this break area? It doesn't get much nicer than this!

OK - off to practice card tricks for grown-ups!

AtPG
It's not Macy's 150th Anniversary.....

....but I tell you I couldn't be more thrilled with my new web site, designed by my friend in Vienna, Dr. Robert Hauk.

He is the only physician/web master in my broad acquaintance.

Thanks Robert, and enjoy looking around folks!

Cheers,
Kevin

p.s. I took this pic when taking my nephew around town - we went to see the free, outdoor showing of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

* * *

"I knew I'd have to go to work in real estate or something else or I could never finish my novel." - Judith Rossner, novelist

"Kevin, this is Ash. If you don't finish the editing on the damned web site and get it up by Tuesday, you're fired." - Ash K., termperamental magician
How I Came To San Francisco
Gentle Readers,

Here's a bit about how I got to be where I am today: an English major who does magic for a living.

It is a typical Sunday morning on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe, and mom & dad are reading the serious parts of the San Francisco Chronicle. My sister and I look at the ads and the comics.

Besides those colorful sections, the other stand-out portion of the paper is the "Pink Section," which lists all things arts and entertainment wise in the City. It is "The City," and I know this because that's how my father refers to it, and when I'm a bit older, that is what Herb Caen calls it, so it is even an even more infallible fact.

We have been passing through here for some time, my kin. Above is what might be a picture of my Great-Grandfather on a ship. The photograph simply says on the back, "Tiburon Island."

And here he most definitely is with his crew:

on the back is the list of the men's names, and the phrase in a blue pencil, "My Comsy Crew San Francisco Ferry boats Bars & Restaurants."

Great-Grandad has been dead for three quarters of a century, but some of the DNA that sat on that chair many years ago courses through the veins of the fingers that type this love note to my adopted city.

My father lived here for about six months between his two marriages in 1960. A few years ago, with my oldest brother and his family, we walked by the house where he had lived on Pacific Avenue, and where my brother had once visited at the age of five. The hills which threatened to flip the car over backwards, and the girl-friend's Rice Krispy treats, and preparation of this odd vegetable called an artichoke, impressed him tremendously. I didn't tell him which house it was, just that we'd be walking by it at some point.

He pointed it out, without prompting, almost a half-century since last seeing it.

On another weekend when I am about seven, the four of us come to the City. I have never seen anything like it. I can't sleep - behind my home are woods, not cars. I hear what sounds like garbage trucks doing their work, all night long. My sister makes a perfect ring of rice around her high-chair at the expensive Chinese restaurant, and my parents consider a suicide pact to appease the Gods that have been offended by a son who finds everything yucky, and a daughter with such a fine decorating sensibility.

On another long weekend, I am about ten, and love things that little boys love, like practical jokes, gimmicks (I still have the Spy Pen), and magic tricks. A man at the magic shop on Pier 39 makes three pieces of rope, of different sizes, turn into three that are clearly the same size, when they have never left sight, and are no where near his body. I am transfixed. I buy the first of what is to become the largest collection of anything I own, save perhaps sheet music.

A friend from work found for me, in the fall of 1999 when people are spending weeks of their lives competing for the right to fork over their rent to landlords, this place from where I now write. I decided to stay - I have always been told that I am a city mouse, and San Francisco will be the fourth great city where I have lived, after Paris, Vienna, and Boston.

The desk was a gift from someone at the Symphony trying to get rid of it; on the wall is a print of a painting from that artist with whom dad lived here - she's gone on to be quite famous, as happens to some people. In her instance, deservedly so.

Today, I shall meet a new magician friend, and work on tricks and rudiments. I will eat, drink, and be merry, though my vegetarian teetotaler ways would no doubt have puzzled Great-Grandfather Charle (no 's'). ("Why in the hell do you live here if you're not going to eat all the great food, and drink all the great drinks, son?" asks the ghost of my imagination.)

Save for this posting on these modern, paired miracles of the computer and the net, my life will not be remarkably different from those of my ancestors. That being said, I will walk the streets that fascinated my hero and honorary San Franciscan Mark Twain, and be within a mile from where the Charter of the United Nations was signed.

We sit here, we San Franciscans born or adopted, at the edge of a Great Nation, on the eve of a no doubt complex and fascinating century, at the edge of a continental shelf that threatens to rub against another at any given moment, wiping us all off of the face of the earth with an indifferent shrug.

And I wouldn't miss it for the world, and there is no place I would rather be.

***

"I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more--I could have gone earlier--it was suggested." - Mark Twain
Momma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Musicians!
From today's email bag:

Dear Kevin,

This jazz trio wants to charge me $1,200 for just TWO HOURS! Isn't that incredibly expensive?

Signed,
Anonymous Economist

Dear AE,

This is always disheartening to hear from folks. But today, I thought I'd write a thorough response. It's a little testy, but I hope it's useful for people to read.

The question above is one professional musicians hear with some frequency, and represents an implicit view: that playing music is a hobby, and not a viable profession. You might be right, but if you don't mind, here's a bit of analysis:

If the trio's leader is paying himself for doing the job of marketing and managing and contracting the equivalent of one person's income, that's four persons who need to get paid. Let's say it's the piano player (who by the way is bringing his own, $2k setup (keyboard, speakers), and he also runs the gig, start to finish. Making all the phone calls to find those musicians - you follow? And managing the musicians, from advising them of the attire, to making sure they get fed.

So that's $300 each, ergo $1200. As the guy doing all the extra above tasks, the leader would walk with $600.

And is that really for two hours? Not so much. That's two hours of performance time. But not work time. For me, from the time I packed the sheet music, sound system, instrument, and drive there, unload, set up, play, and then the reverse, no gig is less than six hours of work. I only got paid for two of them, and apparently, at that, too much.

$300 is what many of the better waiters at any good restaurant makes in SF every night, five nights a week. They didn't spend $20k learning to do it, nor 20 years of practicing. And they got paid while they were learning at a lower rate.

And they work every night.

If that doesn't make the fee seem a tad more reasonable, how about this: you are offering grown adults the same wage somebody makes in about three days at a minimum wage job (when you factor in health care), and that most lawyers in San Francisco bill for hourly.

Hope this gives some perspective, and some insight into some the awkward silence that ensues when asking adults to work for insufficient compensation. It is, forgive the pun, quite maddening.

Best of Luck,
Kevin
Doing Close-Up Magic for Families at the Top of the Mark
Two postings in two days - it must be the new book about how to stop procrastinating.

I'm going to finish it one of these days.......

Anyway, by far one of of the most fun gigs Ash had last year was being the magician in residence for this remarkable restaurant which occupies the top floor of the Mark Hopkins hotel atop Nob Hill. The staff and I designed a new kind of show in which patrons would come onto the stage, and sit in front of the table for a 20 minute show of close-up magic with cards, coins, and everyday objects. By doing it this way, patrons got a quality experience, and as is always the goal, both the parents and the kids had a ball.

I also found some great give-aways for this Magical Holiday Tea program, and every kid went home with a really good quality collection of magic tricks. Hopefully, the amount of pleasure it generated outweighed the amount of pieces stuck in the vacuum cleaners of patrons after a day of play.

For Ash, he always began his day with the steep hike up Nob Hill in his tux, carrying his microphone system and case of magic equipment. He told me his favorite part was getting to have a cookie or two (or in his case, three), as management was quite generous with their pastries. I got to try them too, and think that the chefs there make the best holiday pastries I've had.

In San Francisco, that's a high standard! The goal was a magic show as intimate and extraordinary as the venue, and I think we succeeded.
2008 - Sheesh, Time to Write Some New Articles!
Greetings all!

My father was either terrified of me chopping of a limb, or was an evil genius, in that he forbade me to use an ax until I was about ten years old. The taboo made it irresistable - I'd sneak off to hone my technique, and then once I was allowed, I would happily chop for hours.

For whatever reason, though I often enjoying writing, I have a dreadful time doing it for the people who matter most - my customers! So I'll try to get some long over-due news up here on the blog.

My favorite outdoor gig last year for Ash was on the Family Stage at the Sausalito Art Festival, where he performed his show, "Ashkenazi the Pretty Good’s Kids & Jaded Adults Magic Show." Both and the audience members had a great time, and he did four shows over the two days that he was there.

That was also one of his last performances with that name: Americans have a hard time remembering or even saying his name, so the poor fellow has had his moniker reduced to the utterly utterable, "Ash K. the Pretty Good."

Here was his other unusual outdoor gig - with the other entertainers here, he was flown out on a private plane to a ranch to entertain guests for the day!
Joe Zawinul, 1932-2007
I have just learned of the passing of the World's Funkiest Austrian, the keyboardist, composer, and band-leader extraordinaire, Joe Zawinul.

He got that title from his first noted American employer, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, the jazz saxophonist, who made famous Joe's Gospel-based tune, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy."

I got to meet him once, outside of Yoshi's in Oakland, the night that Princess Diana died. Her death was just recently marked, and I thought to myself that for my interests and cares, how much more Joe meant to me. I greeted him after the gig, briefly, and said in German that people often ask me why I went to Austria instead of Germany, and I said, "Daß is wo der Joe ist!"

"That's where Joe is!" He smiled, politely.

Mr. Zawinul went on to work for his most famous band leader, Miles Davis, and there met the man he'd collaborate with for a large section of the rest of his life, Wayne Shorter. The two giants formed there group "Weather Report," which some of would argue remains as the most influential group of serious musicians from the late 20th Century. And they're funkier than shit.

Joe wouldn't mind me using such vulgar language.

Throughout the rest of his life, he continued to help fuse together musics to make something better, always tracking down monster musicians from all over the globe, particularly Africa. On that night ten years ago, I learned that that thumb piano was an instrument instead of a toy, because Joe hired one of its masters to play it.

I miss him already. Go hear what you've been missing, and hear what how a boy from Vienna went on to change the world of music.

To his friends & family: I'm so sorry for your loss.

Pax,
km
The World's First Magic Trick for the iPhone!
Gentle Reader:

Many inquire as to how I spend my time when I am not

a) doing paperwork
b) practicing
c) doing paperwork
d) making phone calls that will result in
e) doing more paperwork or
f) screwing around

This week's answer is a novel one. I was helping out a buddy of mine who was creating the first magic trick for the iPhone: iBeer.

The world needed "iBeer," and Steve brought it to the world. The video you see here was produced in its entirety by Steve, albeit with heavy amounts of swearing, laughter, duct tape, stacked chairs to hold the lighting JUST right, and a little beer splattered - everywhere.

Go to to see the video. If you have an iPhone and can't stop laughing, download it via iTunes.

San Francisco in 10 min.

Stage Show

Magic Up-Close

Master of Ceremonies

The Online Home of

Ash K.

the Pretty Good

German Spoken

French Spoken

Client/Media Login