Sam goes to Bimbos

[Kent Gunn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45msXohAREY

It's not Sam the Bellhop.

I started out trying to come up with my own sequence for a story-deck trick. This sequence sort of wrote itself, once I started thinking about a bus ride to the magic shop.

The addresses are all dead on, Chosse really did work at the shop I visited as a kid.

He did show me the first version of oil and water I ever saw. It wasn't the one in the trick though!

KG

[Dustin Stinett]

I cant see it where Im at right now, but is it about Bimbos 365 Club?

I quote a Herb Caen piece in my book about Milo and Roger (who appeared at the famous nightspot). He wonderfully describes it as being a place with,

Jugglers, dance teams, stand-up comics, crooners, chantootsies, Stage Door Johns, a proper band in proper uniforms ... Multi-course dinners, Red Sparkling Burgundy in the silver bucket, and a nice-bucketed lady in a silver fox stole topped by a gardenia bought by a pro in the mens room.

Gotta love it!

Dustin

[Kent Gunn]

Dustin,

After you watch the video . . .

I actually lived behind Bimbo's 365 club, after we moved from Telegraph hill. I've gone through many incarnations of the story you saw. The first one mimicked the Frank Everhardt patter pretty closely. It just used 365 as the mantra.

Played with it some more and moved the story's origin to an earlier address. I do give Bimbo's a mention though. I used to do card tricks for the owner. He was our landlord as well as running Bimbo's. Nice, older Italian gentleman. I just couldn't wrap the story around him.

Trivia:

Why was it called The 365 club, when it's not in the 300 block of Columbus street?

The club moved there from 365 Market street where it started out.

Hope you like the trick Dustin. It may be the only full fleshed-out script I've ever managed to put together. I've thought for a long time that Sam the Bellhop needed card tricks within the story.

KG

[Jonathan Townsend]

Any thoughts on doing a story/numbers dealout trick with one of those double packs (thin cards) where instead of dealing them onto the table and leaving them there you scoop them up after each display and put them into a hat or pocket?

*Sideways - seemed a cool premise for a card manip act to do all those productions into a hat, produce the box, drop that in and taking a bow, tip the hat over and catch the box now full of cards. :D

[Dan Magyari]

Kent, that really hit home with me - loved it (I'm going to have to count the steps, however).

And, Dustin, my office just had their holiday party at Bimbo's - it's still going strong and still run by family members of Bimbo.

[DrDanny]

That's the place with the live naked mermaid over the bar, right?

[Dustin Stinett]

It's the "girl in a fishbowl" ("Dolphina"). Their logo is Dolphina, naked, riding a goldfish.

Kent, I had the answer to your trivia question becuase I researched the place when doing my book. I have photos of M&R in Bimbo's 365 Club folios; the kind the club photographer would take of patrons and then sell to them. These, of course, are performance shots of them. That's what led me to the club, its history, and when M&R appeared there (early January, 1963). I bet a small book could be written about that place (if one hasn't already).

I'll check out the trick tonight (they block YouTube where I'm at...for good reason!).

Dustin

[Pete Biro]

Anyone know who built the Girl in Fishbowl for Bimbo's??? Another trivia at the Giants' old ball field, the distance to left field was 365 and they turned down an offer to put "CLUB" AFTER the number.

Hint, magician was Hungarian. Answer tomorrow.

[Chas Nigh]

I saw Tony Marks act there and realized what it meant to watch a consummate pro. Another time I went to the restroom and ran into Carazini just as he was dumping the gaffs from his smoking routine.

[castawaydave]

Kent: thank you for that. :^D

Speaking as a guy who was practically weaned on Herb Caen (admittedly not a pretty image but True);

--a guy who spent at least some part of most of the best dates in his life on the steps--one side or the other--of Telegraph Hill (here's one for those who remember: The Shadows);

--a guy who spent x-number of afternoons in that teeny shop on Chestnut listening to Buma grouse about all the damned amateurs;

--a guy who got to correspond with "Card Maestro Chosse" (as Patrick Martin refers to him)--I must say you made my day;

--But MOSTLY as a guy who has never been able to stand "Sam the Bellhop": Well done!
It's hard to imagine a presentation that has more personal appeals for me than that.

I'm now going to toast you with a dose (or 3) of vitamin V!

"There is no way to give up San Francisco, once you have fallen under its spell. You keep looking for the magic, and now and then, when the wind and the light are right, and the air smells ocean-clean, and a white ship is emerging from the Golden Gate mist into the Bay, and the towers are reflecting the sun's last rays - at moments like that you turn to the ghosts and ask, "Was this the way it was?" and there is never an answer..."--Herb Caen

Ain't it the Truth?

[Kent Gunn]

Dave,

I'm stealing that Caen quote to close with.

Thanks.

Oh, I'm glad you liked my rap. Once it gelled, for me, it had a resonance that surprised me.

KG

[Dustin Stinett]

That was very nicely done Kent. Thanks for sharing.

Dustin

[KHC]

Great job Kent...brought back great memories of my home town, in form of a card trick no less. It would be nice if you were able to work in the much missed, Magic Cellar (below Earthquake McGoon's)on Clay St, a place I frequented often in the 70's.

Kurtis

[Jonathan Townsend]

Sam the Bellhop as written by Armistead Maupin. A magic shop in the back of a bar featuring mermaids. Could work. Might have to put mustaches on the Queens.

Just thinking.

Thanks for bringing some life to the trick Kent, here's two fingers of gin.

[Tom Frame]

Good stuff, Kent!

[Jeff Haas]

Somewhat-related story...

The first time I visited Magic, Inc. it turned out that Jay Marshall was there. When he found out that I was from the Bay Area, he asked if Bimbo's still had the girl in the fishbowl over the bar, and was happy to hear it was still going strong. He then turned to a friend of his and said that it was the best girl in fishbowl he'd ever seen. Apparently Jay had played Bimbo's years ago. Or maybe he just drank there, it wasn't clear.