I'm A Magician, Not A Singer.

Everyone Was Talking About Having Airplanes Disappear. And I Said, "wait, Wait, Wait. That's What You Like? I'd Tell You A Story About Something Like My Girlfriend Leaving Me, And The Magic Was Really Hard. The Airplane Thing Was Comparatively Easy, And People Liked That Thing?" I Realized At That Moment, The Power Of The Simple Idea.

I Really Wanted To Succeed. I Wanted To Be Accepted. I Read Every Magic Book That I Possibly Could, Studied Every Move, And By The Time I Was 12, They Really Accepted Me, They Embraced Me.

Everything That You'd See On The Ed Sullivan Show Was At The Tannen's Magic. You'd Think That If You Could Afford A Trick Like Doc Nixon's Dove Vanish, Then You Could Be On The Ed Sullivan Show As An 8-year-old Kid.

I Was 16 At The Time, And I Came Backstage And Started Hanging Out With Them. I Said, "well, Maybe You Can 'vanish' The Silk This Way." The Opening Was A Black Stage While The "magic To Do" Song Started Playing. All You Saw Were Hands, Lit By Jules Fisher, And Then Ben Vereen Would Appear Beyond The Hands, And At The End Of The Scene He Would Vanish A Silk. The Spotlight Would Hit A Red Spot On The Floor Where You'd See The Silk On The Floor. He'd Pull The Silk Out Of The Floor And It Became The Entire Set Coming Out Of The Floor.

When I Was A Kid, People Wanted To Be An Astronaut. Today, Kids Want To Be Famous, And That's Totally The Wrong Approach. You Have To Have Authenticity In What You're Doing. You Have To Really Care About The Core Message Of What You're Saying, And Then Everything Else Will Fall Into Place.