I’m sitting at a bar with a buddy and his girlfriend, a Bic lighter in my hand.   My buddy motions to the patrons sitting to my left and says, “Dude, show them a magic trick.”

I turn to the girl on the stool next to me and tap her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me.  I’d like to show you an illusion,”  I say, as I position the lighter in one hand and prepare to deftly make it disappear with a slight pass of the other hand.

She looks over at me, then at the lighter, and responds.

“Bones?”

It seems that the legend is growing.

. . .
I’ve been thinking a lot about magic lately.  We all have, I’m sure.  But you see, I’ve been thinking about it with a slightly different point of view than before.  For the past year now, I’ve been perfecting my bar magic skills,  trying out new and improved variations of sleight of hand, ironing out my magician’s monologue, even working out some team tricks with my buddy Golden John and our new traveling troupe, The Troublesome Two (tagline: “Up to no good”).

But, just like how I’ve been going out for a jog three nights a week for the past 6 or 7 years and have not noticed even the slightest increase in endurance or distance traveled, I fear that “perfecting my bar magic skills” equates to “continuing to exhibit my lack of bar magic skills” and “new and improved variations of sleight of hand” means “one sleight of hand trick… one really shitty sleight of hand trick”

Yes.  It is true. I’m not a very good magician.  I’m not ashamed.  No, not in front of you, dear lovers, I’m not ashamed.  For I have learned to embrace my weakness.  Just as I have learned to embrace you, all of you, in the most sensual of ways.

For my last New Years Resolution I decided that I was going to “improve my clown skills.”  Basically, I wanted to have a whole bunch of hidden talents that I would occasionally and subtly showcase while at the bar.  If I found myself standing next to a pool table, for instance, I would casually grab three of the pool balls and, all of the sudden, kick into a brilliant juggling routine.  Or, if sitting at the bar next to a group of strangers, I’d grab the salt shaker or the coaster or the dollar bill off the bar and use it to perform an impromptu illusion.   Or… well, you ever seen a guy who’s been sitting alone at the bar fiddling with a cocktail napkin for the last half hour, and when he finally gets up to leave, you notice that he’s left behind the napkin, folded together into a beautiful swan?   That guy. I wanted to be that guy.  But, along with leaving behind some intricate origami, I’d also leave behind a balloon animal shaped into a badass broad sword.

Juggling, sleight of hand, origami, balloon animals -  I had intended to master them all.

I wasn’t going to make a big thing out of it.  Wasn’t going to pull out all my stops in one visit.  To be a one-man big top was never my inclination.  It was going to be subtle.  Just a single trick every now and then.  To the casual observer, I’d be nothing more than a guy with a unique talent.  But for those who were really paying attention, they would eventually conclude that,  “Umm… Bones seems to have all the skills of a clown.  A very very drunk clown.”

That’s it.  That’s all I wanted.  For the occasional viewer to have a sudden epiphany:

“I have just met an off-duty clown.”

Unfortunately, to master these skills, one must possess four very important traits – patience, perseverance, coordination, and ass-loads of free time.  I have none of these.  And so, instead of being a Clown at a bar, I’m merely just some clown at a bar.

But fret not, my dear friends, for this story does not end on a sour note.  Because, you see, upon tempering my expectations just a bit, I soon realized that if there’s one thing funnier than a clown at a bar, it’s a really shitty clown at a bar.  If there’s one thing that can garner more reaction than some kickass sleight of hand, it’s some very poorly executed sleight of hand.

And now, when I’ll walk up to a stranger and say, “I shall now make this quarter disappear,” I’ll try just a little less hard at actually trying to palm the quarter.  And when the stranger exclaims in disappointment, “The coin is right there in your other hand,”  then I’ll look up at the stranger with a wide-eyed look of  “Umm… You weren’t supposed to see that.”   And then I’ll try again.  And again.  And again.  And finally the stranger will stare down at me, her face torn in an uncomfortable mixture of sympathy and disgust, and tell me that, “You’re not a very good magician.”  And then my eyes will fill with hurt, my jaw will drop, my shoulders will sag.   And I will slouch away, my dream dead.

And I then will laugh.  Job well done, old boy.

Since my latest self-discovery, I have annoyed many a man and woman with my failed attempts to make a coin disappear.  I have put a bic lighter on a table, waved my hand over it, and then, with painful obviousness, moved my other hand up onto the table to move it out of view. No one is fooled.  Golden John and I, The Troublesome Two, have mastered a terrible team trick where I’ll use sleight of hand to make a coin disappear, then wave my empty hand in the air to distract the viewer’s attention from my other hand that is passing the lighter under the table to John, who will then hold the lighter up to the viewer and proudly ask, “Looking for this?”   The viewer will always reply, “I saw him pass it to you.”  I have been known to hold up my iPod to a group of strangers and dictate a Gallagher-esque intro about “digital media” and it’s lack of tangibility.  And after I make the iPod go away, the strangers will rudely ask me to please do the same.

Go away.

Dork.

I can see it in your hand.

You’re not a very good magician.

Put your shirt back on.

These responses, these always negative responses…  They are my thundering applause.  My standing ovation.  My stage covered in roses.

For I am the world’s shittiest bar magician.

And I have found success in failure.

…

Now, in the arena of full disclosure, I feel that I must go back to the beginning of my story, and that young lady whom I sat next to at the bar.  The one who recognized me when I performed my sleight of hand.

“Bones?”

It wasn’t the magic.  No, after we talked for a few moments, I remembered that she had worked at a restaurant that I used to frequent back in the day.  My infamous tricks have yet to make me famous, it seems.

I would have preferred to have taken poetic license on this one, and for the story’s sake, allowed you to believe that it was my trickery, and not my love of hanging out in the same place over and over and over, that made me recognizable.  But hell, if I’m gonna be deceitful on this blog, then  I might as well just full-on lie.  Dear Blog, last night I went to a killer orgy, and all the wives said that I was the best.  I can’t do it, though.  I’m not a liar.  I am a magician.  An illusionist.  But yet,  one who does not even attempt to convince you that his trick was real.

Because I am an honest magician.

Because I am a shitty magician.

And apparently, I am not yet a famous shitty magician.

And so there is more work to be done.

Godspeed Bones.