Frank Garcia on David Susskind

[MaxNY]

My God are you guys in for a treat! I have uploaded the first of FOUR segments from Frank Garcia on the David Susskind Show. This aired in the Winter of 1983. David found Frank entertaining at one of those legendary Ace Greenberg Thanksgiving Dinners, and brought him on to the show.

Please be patient with me, as I will post only one segment per day, for the next four days. I try and keep the quality as strong as possible, and these are taking forever to upload.

http://youtu.be/D4mwOMl0XEs





Richard Kaufman HAS A POSSE!

[Richard Kaufman]

Max, that's great.
Frank at his best!

[Bob Farmer]

The move that Frank uses to straighten out the deck at the end of the Triumph routine was invented by Richard Kaufman and Bob Farmer, independently. It's called the Drawbridge. I showed it to Frank at a convention in Toronto. I think he eventually published it without any credit.

Boy, he was a smooth operator.

[Richard Kaufman]

Yes, he did publish my Triumph method (which appears in CardMagic, 1979), but I did not have a fancy name for it like Bob. I'd say that if Bob and I both thought of it, then Frank might have done the same.

[Anthony Vinson]

Wow. Wonderful to watch. Thanks for uploading, Max. Looking forward to the rest.

Av

[Chas Nigh]

Thanks for this wonderful treat. Frank was one in a million. I still have all of his card books. Most every trick is a worker.

[Jim Martin]

Thanks for posting this, Max!

[Tom Gilbert]

Thanks a lot Max, great seeing this again, and with good quality to boot.

[Matthew Field]

This is so great, Max. Thank you.

I worked in radio in New York City, in midtown, and when I could I'd spend lunch hours at Tannen's magic shop. Lunch time, mid-week, not too many people were in the shop, so I got to spend a lot of time with Frank, who was a demonstrator there and was tops in just about every way.

I've got some wonderful memories.

Matt Field

[Joe Hanosek]

Really fun to watch -- thank you!

[MaxNY]

Part 2 of 4 is up! Shoot, Lip Sync is off. Damn, this will take me days to correct, sorry. (Let's just see if I ever get around to fixing this!!!???)

http://youtu.be/0pguHPpM6Go

[Smurf]

I enjoyed the 1st segment very much though the heavy use of filler before the coin purse reveal was unsatisfying. All that work for a "miss" and then a reveal that had nothing to do with all that work.

[Chas Nigh]

Who released the date book?

[Brad Jeffers]

I would think that the datebook used by Garcia was a unique item, made for himself, and not a commercially released product.

It is an interesting coincidence however, that the date chosen (January 20) had the two of hearts, the same as with Paul Green's commercial item, Fortuneteller's Book of Days.

I like the idea of having the card in the envelope. Direct and to the point.
Quite a different approach from that of Elmsley's Fate's Datebook, which is in essence a variation of The Trick That Cannot Be Explained.

[Leonard Hevia]

I love Garcia's poetic patter:

"Please give the deck a perfunctory perusal."

"I'm just shuffling and cutting the cards, not thinking about what I'm doing."

"I make tiki tiki."

Garcia cases the deck "In a veil of darkness."

"The Ace is called the "bullet" in gambling parlance."

Fascinating how his patter and presentations for these effects match his books. His presentation for the rainbow deck is straight out of SSCM.

[Richard Kaufman]

Frank was well-known for the ridiculous use of language in his patter. Whether he did it to be funny or not, I don't know. But he was a well-loved figure in the New York magic scene despite his faults.

[MaxNY]

Part 3 of 4 is up...


http://youtu.be/rKrJINjUMmE

[IanLand]

Great stuff. Susskind seems pleasantly oiled.

[MaxNY]

Part 4 of 4 is up....I will go back and clean up the audio from Segment 2 this weekend. Max

http://youtu.be/ikiklEtsAdc

[El Mystico]

Thank you for these.

[Leonard Hevia]

Frank was well-known for the ridiculous use of language in his patter.

Yes, Frank's patter lacked that contemporary flair of the language we heard from that renowned street performer:

"Hey! Ya wanna see somethin? Huh? Ya wanna see a card trick? Huh? Yeah?"

[MaxNY]

A better Part 2 is now up. Sorry about the Lip Sync, it is now fixed. Max

http://youtu.be/P8rLRshBHKw

[Evan Shuster]

Thank you, Max! I appreciated this when you first posted, and it was very kind of you to go to the extra effort of cleaning up the sync issue.

Cheers!
Evan

[Steve Bryant]

Thanks so much. What a lot of air time he was granted. Hard to imagine anyone getting that much today.

[Richard Kaufman]

It's hard to imagine anyone getting that EVER. A full hour on a nationally syndicated show devoted completely to one person doing close-up magic? Did that ever happen again?

[MaxNY]

In all fairness, there was one 7 or 8 minute segment where Frank gave an impromptu tarot reading for Susskind. It was pretty boring, Frank was maybe even making it up.

Close-up for an hour? Slydini on Cavett (PBS), and Ricky Jay on (HBO)

Tomorrow I will try and post the very first time David Blaine gets on national television! This happened over 20 years ago on the MTV Jon Stewart Show. I was in those studios back then, and put it to tape! Jon announced today that he will be leaving his show at Comedy Central.