Greetings fellow Magicians

[Rozzerdog]

Greetings fellow Magicians,

My name is Steve although on all of the forums I go by the alias, Rozzerdog. Also, when performing or if I ever get hired to do a party, golf outings and hospitality sweets, my performing name was Anthony Stevens and still is to this day.

I am 26 years old and I have been practicing and performing Magic off and on since I was at the young age of about 10 or 12 years old, since it has been so long I cannot remember the exact age.

I have been performing close-up magic and all of its various sub-options such as: Card Magic, Money/Coin Magic, and I have also really been getting into Mentalism. I would have to say that some of my main influences for Card Magic/Money Magic would be: David Williamson, Carl Cloutier, Cameron Francis, David Forrest, David Blaine, Bill Malone, Michael Ammar, The Professor and quite a few more, and it would take up a lot of space and time to name them all. But without them, either by watching and learning from DVD’s or seeing some on TV during some of the rare Magic specials they had on TV years back. If it were not for them, I honestly doubt that I would ever pursue Magic nearly as much as I do right now in this point of time.

As for Mentalism, the single most, biggest influence in Mentalism would be Derren Brown, Banachek, Kenton Knepper and Max Maven. I still remember years back when they had “World Greatest Magic” show, I will never forget the effect that Max Maven did through the TV while I was sitting at home. Of course knowing what I know back then, I would have never been impressed and have influence to pursue Magic as a career option.
Derren Brown also has influenced me greatly thanks to all of his TV specials, the way he performed and all of his mannerism, definitely left a Mentalism mark with me and since at the time I couldn’t find any books about Mentalism that he wrote; e.g. Pure Effect and Absolute Magic (Derren Browns own take on Darwin Ortiz’s Strong Magic book). Which brings me to my next major influence and it is Banachek, and I purchased his Psychological Subtleties 1 (original version) and I fell in love with his approach to Mentalism, and then later when he released, Psychological Subtleties 2/3 and then the reprint of Psychological Subtleties 1, really helped me understand the way the human mind is almost programmed for certain effects/routines.

About 9 years ago there was just one single effect that was that I favored more than any other effect. It is my own personal take on another effect which I tried to find out, but never could so I was not able to ask for permission to use both the effect and my own variation of the effect. It has also been my favorite opening effect about 95% whenever I am performing my Strolling, Walk Around and Table Magic routines and not once has it ever failed to impress. So much so that I showed it to one of the Magicians working at a Magic Store, and he was speechless and told me that he had lost count of how many years he was ever fooled so bad by a card effect. Now my other two favorite effects to perform beside my own would be: Stephen Tucker’s Avalanche effect and Wayne Houchin’s Sinful a.k.a Signed Quarter in Soda Can, because it’s impromptu I love the fact that I can perform the effect whenever/wherever I feel like performing the effect.


Other than Magic I do have some other Hobbies that I have had for so many years I also forgot when I started practicing them, so here they are:

DJ / Music Producer: I have been spinning at all sorts of different venues all along the west coast near: Ventura, Oxnard, San Francisco, Bishop, Mammoth Lakes and so many other places. Unfortunately I have not bee able to spin at any sort of parties since all of my DJ friends who also had a killer sound system, moved away which then led me to become what is called a “Bedroom DJ” which basically means that I only mix and play music just for myself, and the music I spin is: Techno, Acid Techno, Drum and Bass, Jungle and Dubstep to just name a few. After spinning for a number of years, a friend of mine actually started to put together a makeshift studio so that we can produce Drum and Bass, Dubstep and some Hip Hop without being interrupted.

I absolutely love kittens/cats which was a surprise to a lot of my friends who all thought that a “MAN” shouldn’t own a cat and it should be a dog. But to be honest, since a family member where I am currently living because of a work related injury, happens to have a dog named Buddy. The funny thing is that my cat Tobi really loves the dog and they act like the best of friends, which also shocked my friends since they obviously live in the past where cats and dogs don’t get along.

After a long day of performing at multiple venues and all sorts of different people, I like to relax by sitting back and drinking Iced Tea along with my favorite pie of all time, Peach Cobbler! Although if the store happens to run out of Peach Cobbler, my back up pie of choice has always been Sweet Potato Pie. Which sort of tastes like Pumpkin Pie, but I find the Sweet Potato pie has a little bit more of a fresh taste and texture which I absolutely love.

Since I have been performing Magic off and on for so many years, I feel so left behind and struggling to relearn some, if not all of the sleight of hand and card magic that I used to perform. Plus there has been a TREMENDOUS amount of both new Magic Inventors and some of the older magician/inventors who have been creating and performing longer than I’ve been alive, has also been a challenge to find my niche again. I just really hope that when relearning a either a sleight or a magic effect, that it would be somewhat easy to pick up, much like muscle memory when you haven’t worked out for awhile.

There are so many different magic effects & items that I wish could afford even just a few to get me back on track. Not to mention all of the different types of decks having been released. I remember reading about quite the buzz about Dan & Dave’s Smoke & Mirrors v4 deck of cards along with quite a few others, and after asking around, it was brought to my attention that they will not be re-printing those particular cards. Though they did suggest some other decks that are still available and I am looking forward to receiving them. I have/had still use the good old Bicycle Rider Backs, but they have rough edges and no finish on them at all. Which made me wonder why I used such a cheap deck (in price and quality) but since they are the most widely recognized brand of playing cards, that I think I will stick with them until I can afford purchasing a brick of a different brand of cards all together.

That is pretty much me in a nutshell, but if anyone reading this ever gets curious about anything/everything else that I do, please feel free to send me a PM or any other way to get in contact with me.

Take care everyone, cheers.

[Alex Hess]

Odd, no one has replied, and you've done a very thorough introduction.

Welcome to the community man! Glad to have you aboard.

Good selection of favorite pies too

[Misjief]

I somehow missed Roz' first go around ... (Sorry) ... and didn't catch on till Alex's reply!

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Hi Ya!

Glad to have you aboard...

Mentalist are kind of rare, at least ones that actively communicate here on the forum. You are a rare find indeed!

Hope you enjoy your stay!

-misj-