Bound And Gagged!

.:Unang Hirit Again!:.

Hi, guys! I’m guesting this Wednesday on Channel 7 for Unang Hirit. I’ll be talking about mentalism, so you know it’s going to be a very interesting time for everyone involved.

.:209/365: Broom Suspension:.

Whether or not you know how this is done, I personally consider this to be one of the most visually astounding illusions in stage magic, as it simply looks possible yet impossible, as opposed to a straight-up levitation, which just looks flat-out impossible, period.

There are many versions of this routine out there already, but even the basic mechanics of the routine are well-thought out enough to stand scrutiny. This illusion has a fairly storied history, although I’m very partial to the feathered boa version.

Overall, I do believe that this is one of those few illusions that still really baffles people, despite the fact that it looks less impossible than a flat-out levitation. The fact that it seems even remotely possible seems to make the illusion even stronger than it already is.

Project 365 magic, magikel, project 365 2010, television

.:I’m Amused:.

I had a brush with celebrity last Friday. Check this out. Heh.

So apparently, they aired one of my guest bits on the Front Act Show with Mike and Stanley, and you’ll see what happened around 1:45 on this clip…

Apparently, my skill with the ladies needs a lot of work. Heh.

It’s good to know that great things have been happening lately, though, as I’ve had an amazing show with Mike, Stan, and Uli last night in Grub, and of course, there are a lot more things that we can look forward to in the coming days as the machinery starts roaring back into full steam ahead. It’s going to be an awesome time, to say the least.

.:The POC On The Rise:.

My latest article was published on The POC recently, and it’s called “Beating Around The Odds.” I hope you like it, and you should check out what’s going on in the Sosyal channel as well, as my good friend Fabucelles continues writing about soap opera stars in the way only he can.

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.:Another Fine Night!:.

I met some awesome people at last night’s show in Taumbayan with Stan and Sir Ony. Look for us to be doing even more shows soon, though. Heh.

Tonight will be awesome too, as we take over Grub in Paranaque around 9:00PM. I’m sure it’s gonna be an awesome time.

.:Front Act!:.

Around 4:30PM, catch “Front Act” on Solar 9 with Mike and Stanley. It’s bound to be fun. Check it out!

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.:116/365: Penn And Teller: Bull$4!7:.

Okay, I’ll level with you that this isn’t really comedy per se on Penn and Teller’s part. Still, I wanted to discuss this since this television show is one of the most thought-provoking programs you will ever find on television.

Is the show so obviously slanted towards a particular agenda? Yes.

Is the show so obviously biased? Yes.

Is the show based upon flimsy rhetoric and strawman arguments? Yes.

Does this invalidate the questions the show raises? Absolutely not.

This show is one of those shows that makes you squirm at the sheer brazenness of their ideas and their conviction as they say it. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, and definitely makes for an intimidating proposition as almost all belief systems have already been challenged, and even atheists will find things to dispute when Penn and Teller tackle their pet scientific study. Some might say Penn and Teller do this to get a rise from people in general, but I’m more inclined to think that they want people to simply be more critical-minded and not simply open to anything and everything.

No matter what these guys do, they definitely challenge our sensibilities. And thank God for that. Even if Penn and Teller don’t think He exists.

Project 365 comedy, magic, magikel, project 365 2010, television

.:26/365: Phenomenon:.

Scripted or real? Too bad I don’t care about Criss or Jim. At all.

You could simply believe that mentalism has hit either an all-time high or an all-time low the minute television comes up with an American Idol-style reality show for them, all the while skirting the uncomfortable question: how is any of this stuff done, and do these people genuinely have powers? Despite that very awkward question that the show never makes an attempt to answer, it was still worth a lot of entertainment value, albeit for me, the whole program made no sense.

Essentially, you had eight mentalists come together to show everyone who’s the best, you put together Uri Geller and Criss Angel to judge the program, then after you crown your “Phenomenon”, what’s supposed to happen to him or her? This is akin to a really bad season of American Idol, where you don’t even know or care who ended up winning. I do know who won because I had a vested interest in the competition as a mentalist, but what about the general public? Did this program’s production team even bother to make it a point to market the winner of the competition. After five episodes, Mike Super came out as the winner of the whole thing, and nobody knows or cares about him, no matter how good he actually was.

Personally, I liked Mike Super’s performances. I think he carried himself in a way that made mentalism very fun and exciting and strayed from the traditional approach of contemporary performers. He was part mentalist, part game show host, and it really worked. I personally feel he deserved to win based on the strength of his performance style, although I’m a bit tired of seeing a million and one variations on the PK touch, and let’s face it: he was one of those guilty of that.

Overall, I believe that this show didn’t really achieve its objective of getting mentalism out there and having it more recognized in the mainstream. That’s too bad, although thankfully, the TV show “The Mentalist” managed to help ease that failure somewhat.

Project 365 magic, magikel, mentalism, project 365 2010, television

.:25/365: The Mentalist:.

Project 365 magic, magikel, mentalism, project 365 2010, television

.:Well, Well, Well:.

In what is the first of four dates where I’m slated to perform, it appears that the taping I was part of yesterday for Ruffa and Ai will be aired next Friday on Channel 2, around 11 or so in the morning. That’s August 28, and it’s in celebration of Santino’s birthday.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t allowed to get Santino as a volunteer. Something about Bro getting ticked off at me… heh.

Anyways, hope you guys catch the episode next week!

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.:JACK TV’s Animation Festival!:.

Pictures are borrowed from Azrael. Thanks!

Chokeslam! Bah Gawd!

Last Saturday proved to be a very interesting experience for me as I hosted Jack TV’s Animation Festival for their afternoon leg, and it was a blast, as I found myself co-hosting with Fatima, one of my friends in the cosplay industry. It was really fun, because I’ve been hosting far less often than I do magic gigs lately, and it was a welcome change of pace, seeing that I wasn’t only going to do voice overs and the like for raffles, I was also going to host a cosplay competition, albeit a small one, since there were only eight competitors due to the fact that there wasn’t enough hype for it.

Despite that, as you can see, we had some pretty good contestants, including Undertaker (excellent impersonation of the dead man), Carlito (as pictured above), and John Morrison from the WWE. Of course, the more elaborate costumes came from the LXB (League of Xtraordinary Beings) block of JACK TV’s programming, which featured:

Three characters from Marvel, two from DC.

Well, aside from that, it was pretty fun hosting with Fatima because we were just ad libbing like mad for quite a while during that day, what with the opportunities to poke fun at anything we could, and acknowledging the presence of people who were there, such as Louanne, Az, RG, Mark Cerbo, or yes, Chris. I was being incorrigible as usual, and of course, the audience was very receptive to our antics. I even ran into Doc Ronnie during the event, as Pinoy Toy Kollektors was actually there for the day.

In any case, much love going out to JACK TV for having us over, although here’s hoping next time, you also have guys who will join and cosplay as characters from your SACK (Superb Animated Comedy Knock-Outs) like Family Guy and The Simpsons…

’Til next year, we hope!

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.:The Second Go-Round:.

I did only Liquid Metal yesterday when I guested for a second time for “Ruffa And Ai”, but it was definitely well worth the effort, as the audience was clearly pleased with my performance, and of course, I’d be remiss not to mention Ronnie Mariano’s Snowstorm, which definitely wowed people as well.

That day, I also had the opportunity to teach a bit of magic to Ai-Ai, who did pretty well when she did the ring through rope routine. I’m definitely happy about this opportunity to have been featured on ABS-CBN 2 a second time, although I got a bit too tongue-tied when I ran into Kuya Kim, and didn’t tell him about my not-so-perfect experience with Matanglawin some time back.

Nonetheless, it was a very interesting run, to say the least. I’d love to be back there if the opportunity presents itself again, albeit a Kel and Jay appearance would be much more hopeful.

.:In The Interest Of Diversification…:.

… I have been working on this for a while already, and given how my nightlife lately has consisted of going to Mag:Net or Route to watch bands, or hang out with people like Sparks and Jenny and Pakbet, or to go to Mag:Net or Spicy Fingers or Conspi to watch the Comedy Cartel perform.

Thing is, I missed some awesome shows from Route last week, involving Project 2 and some acoustic nights for bands I never expected to have acoustic nights. Despite that, the tradeoff of having been able to hang out with the Cartel has been nothing but eye-opening to me, particularly when I went to Toyz for the first time to watch some members of the Cartel do their comedy there on an open mic night where they get together to try out new jokes and routines.

I like the band scene more than the club scene, so that explains my fascination with hearing people like The Ronnies, Itchyworms, and Radioactive Sago Project, but we know why I’m not trying to be part of a band or something, don’t we?

Well, since I can’t sing or dance for crap, I decided that giving standup comedy a try would be for the better, so with tonight’s Open Mic night in Toyz looming over me, wish me luck! I’m definitely stoked about it.

After a good conversation with some of the people from Cartel, especially Noel and Richie, I got encouraged to try my hand at writing some stuff here and there, so I’m extremely grateful to them for the encouragement. We’ll see where this is all headed, I suppose. I’m fairly excited about the prospects coming up, to say the least.

And speaking of the Comedy Cartel, wish my good friend, Stanley Chi, a happy birthday!

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.:Before Anything…:.

I’m guesting on Ruffa And Ai this Monday, 11 May, 2009, from 10:15-11:15 AM, Channel 2, LIVE!

Yes. I’m guesting again. This time, I’ll be doing mentalism instead of comedy magic. =)

.:TV Guesting Win!:.

My TV guesting on “Ruffa and Ai” went well even if it unfortunately wasn’t with my partner in crime, Jay Mata. I was on a total of three times, and I was definitely happy about the results. I performed in a rather rushed manner, but I still got to entertain the people in the audience, although the fact that they gave out my cellphone number during the show sorta made for very interesting times…

The entire episode is here, actually…

Anyways, I hope you guys liked it. It was a pretty great guesting, and the hosts, Ruffa and Ai-Ai, were very nice people. =)

.:The Cellphone Is A Crazy Thing…:.

So last year, I’ve been getting crazy text messages from random people who thought my cellphone was Giselle Sanchez’s phone, which resulted in a lot of hilarious moments where people declared their love and refused to believe I wasn’t Giselle Sanchez.

Anyways, it got worse after I guested on “Ruffa and Ai” last Monday, since my number was on TV, and the minute I stepped out of the studio (There was no signal there.), I was blasted with 50 messages, one after the other, and it was just unbelievable. My phone kept on getting

By my count, I had: one indecent proposal, one person asking me for load, one person inviting me to a party in Tondo, seventy people who wanted to learn my “secret for magic”, and two hundred sixty thousand people who wanted to be my textmate. Compare that to the five people who inquired about my services, and I begin to realize that my internet marketing has been much better than my mainstream media forays, promotion-wise.

However, I must say that this text message really just completely took the cake…

“Sir, napanood ko kayo sa Ruffa & Ai sa TV. U r a good magician. May hingi ako magic word pangkontra sa masama spiritu. Kabila bahay namin mahilig kulam kami sa kaluluwa. I wish u will help me.”

Let me make a few things clear…

1. I don’t do textmates. My cell number is a business number. Stop texting me in the middle of the night asking me if I ate lunch. Texting costs money, and I have better things to spend my money on than fielding every single “h3llur PoWh” message out there.

2. I am straight edge. Yes, that includes casual sex. So don’t even think about it.

3. I am a snob. I don’t like talking to complete strangers unless I have to. This especially means that I hate forwarded text messages from people I don’t even know. It’s bad enough from people I actually know.

4. I am a magician-for-hire. That means I don’t give away magic secrets.

5. I am absolutely not an exorcist!

Anyways, here’s hoping that I don’t get these crazy messages again next time I go on TV, but for now, I’m just mildly confused and amused at the deluge of messages I’ve been receiving.

.:Blogging More Some Other Day…:.

I’d have blogged more today, but my arm hurts like crazy. =(

When I donated blood for Cakit’s dad last week, I think the nurse didn’t do too well hooking me up, so the result?

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