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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Dick Oslund has been "around" a long time! (Some say: "too long")--Hee Hee! He did his first professional show at age 13 on October 24,1945. He made $25! (grossly overpaid!)"Except for Navy & College and a few years as an executive for the BSA, he has been a full time pro. (part time pro.in Navy,college and BSA) He made enough money doing shows while in Navy, that he never had to cash a Navy pay check! He "specialized" in school shows (about 20,000)but like any professional, he took "whatever came along" (shopping malls, club dates,hospitality rooms,corporate banquets, even a FEW trade shows, ETC.)In his late teen years,he did magic and fire eating in side shows. Years later,in summers, he managed carny side shows (GIRL TO GORILLA) and a PIG RACING SHOW. He also booked phone promotion shows (KRAMIEN, CONKLIN,and his own small illusion show.--He also managed the phone rooms for these dates. For a few seasons, he booked and promoted Franzen Bros. Circus and Circus Girard. --Oh. he also fronted Dailey Bros. Circus. --And,he put on a "face" and wore big shoes and a red nose with Franzen!
He has lectured for magic clubs across the US (one in Canada!)Abbott's (twice)the SAM Nat'l Convention in 78,and the Magic Castle twice. Also worked the Castle for a week.--and to steal Jay Marshall's line: "When I can afford it,I'll work it again!" For about ten years he was a "regular inhabitant" of the "Charlie Miller Suite" at Magic Inc. While "there" he contributed to "KID STUFF FIVE" and the "SUCCESS BOOK". He also served as an advisor to the publishing of Martin Gardner's "ENCYCLOPEDIA OF IMPROMPTU MAGIC".--And he helped out behind the counter,too. He has mentored several young men who are full time pros. He is a 62 year member of IBM, a 37 year member of SAM, a 37 year member of the SHOWMEN'S LEAGUE and a member of the SECRET SIX~~~(membership #6 7/8). Now retired (at last, his friends say!)he accepts occasional spot dates. At Jon Racherbaumer's urging, he is writing a book about his "adventures" playing the "knowledge boxes on the kerosene lamp circuit". Jon "threatened" to never show him another card trick, if he didn't start writing. (oops--a split infinitive) That's enough about Dick Oslund (it's about time!!!) --He still enjoys a good discussion about the business. "...DOWN THE ROAD!" Dick "...DOWN THE ROAD!!!!!"
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Dick:
Let me be the first to Welcome you to The Magic Café!!! The members here will definitely benefit from your wisdom!!! Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Oslund is a LEGEND......and is THE MOST EXPERIENCED SCHOOL ASSEMBLY MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD. He is also my friend and Mentor!! Welcome Dick!!! |
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Jim Sparx Inner circle Far Out, Texas 1144 Posts |
I'll be 75 in May, hope to get to 81 and beyond. Any magic secrets about living so long?
I was 7 years old in 1945, I remember the ending of the war and how simple life was in the 40s. I'm an Indiana clown like Red Skleton This big nose says, "Welcome to the Café."
Et tu, Spartacus?
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/chispadeelpaso.html |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Ave Spartacus! (Ave = Hail)
I guess it helps to have good genes! As of Dec. 11, '12,I'm "working on 82! I was "winter quartered in PERU, INDIANA for a short time in 1966-67. Have you seen my friend Tom Mullica's show? Tom does a great impersonation of Red, who once lived in the BEARSS (spelling??)Hotel in Peru. Right~ (simple life in the '40s)!!! If only I knew then, what I know now! As one old "auguste" to another: (hee hee in advance) Maybe you should consider getting a "nose job"!!!!!!!! --Ouch! Sorry! I couldn't resist using that old line! But,old clowns are stuck with old jokes! What corner of Indiana do you inhabit? I have friends in West Lafayette and Indianapolis whom I occasionally get to visit. Remind me to tell you a little anecdote about Red when he was doing college concerts in his last years. Down the road~ Hokey --My clowning was rather 'hokey', so that's how I got "named".
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Jim Sparx Inner circle Far Out, Texas 1144 Posts |
I am from Worthington, In Greene county, 75 mi. south of Indy, and not that far from Vincennes. My adapted mother taught psych at Vincennes univ. Population of Worthington was 1200 at the time, a farm town. I also have relatives in Calvertsville, and a relative with the Calvert name, don't know if we are related as John Calvert was from another area along the Indiana Ohio border. Also the name Sparks, as in Sparks bros. circus may ring a bell, as well as Bailey, my adapted mother, actually a first cousin on my mothers side, was her married name. Don't know if james bailey is from the circus family. Most of my relatives were coal miners around Linton, and cow and corn farmers. I led a sheltered life. We consider ourselves educated hillbillies. I hear Heaven is a time machine and you get to go back to the place and time where you grew up. I look forward to going back to the 40s. My father is buried in Lafayette, his name was Neill, Delmar Neill, I was a James Neill, now Spartacus (sparks).
My grandmother lived south of Indianpolis close to Southport, she was a maid and babysitter for the Vonnegut family back in the 30s. The Vonneguts owned a hardware business and their son Kurt became a writer. So may famous people in my family and I just a poor clown... snort.
Et tu, Spartacus?
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/chispadeelpaso.html |
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Jim Sparx Inner circle Far Out, Texas 1144 Posts |
For people unfamiliar with circus history, the Sparks Brothers (not their real names orginally)sold out to the Ringling as in Ringling, Barnum and Bailey) before going going out of business.
http://www.circushistory.org/Bandwagon/bw-1964Nov.htm
Et tu, Spartacus?
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/chispadeelpaso.html |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hey Rube! I think that you qualify (at least by adoption) to having 'SAWDUST IN YOUR SHOES"!
As far as I know,I'm the first in my family to be in show business. (Ancestors all had "respectable jobs"--I can only go back about two generations. My paternal grandfather came from Sweden in the late 1800s and married my grandmother who had come from Norway. On the maternal side, there are a "whole bunch" of adoptions due to early deaths, etc. My great grandfather on mother's side was wounded in the Civil War, and shook hands with an old Illinois/Indiana farmboy by name of LINCOLN. Thst's about all the "fame and glory" in the family. Magic was a hobby. (Saw Stanley Susan's school show when I was about 6, and it's all his "fault" that I'm a magician today.)A few library books helped. When I was about12-13,I developed a mild speech impediment (under stress, my speech would "lock up". The other guys in my class were all "jocks" and I had little interest or ability in athletics. The impediment "disappeared" after I was asked by my teacher, Sister Clarence,to do a "show and tell" sort of magic show in class. There were no speech therapists in a small town Catholic school--but, I think she may have recognized my problem. My classmates apparently now realized that I could do something that they couldn't do. I haven't shut up since! I was about 7 years old when PARKER & WATTS CIRCUS played Escanaba, Michigan. P&W was a little mud show. In those days,all shows paraded. I was up close when a cat cage came rolling by, and I was "baptized" by a tiger! I wonder if that counts like "sawdust in your shoes"! Kurt Vonnegut is definitely a familiar name. You have knowledge about some of those old mud shows! I saw my third magician in the side show of the Bud E. Anderson Circus on July 4, 1941. He did the Chinse Sticks, the vanishing square knot in two bandannas, and a blade box. I guess I'll never know why, but he taught me (9 year old)the knot trick. It took a few years to master it--age 9!--but I have used it in almot every show since I learned to do it. Young magicians call it the Slydini KNOTS, but it "goes back" to 1500s and Scot's "DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT". I just looked at your link and enjoyed the history of the SPARKs show. I noted Ira WATTS, name. I would guess WATTS was the other half of PARKER & WATTS. (I believe the "P&W" show was only out about 2 seasons. (1938 was an awful year for the circus.) Before this turns into a BOOK, I better do a JOHN ROBINSON! See you on the next lot! O
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
To the RAINBOGUY>>>
Hey! Thanks for the kind words! Regarding "wisdom" ::: I was once (or twice) referred to as a "wise guy" (!) so maybe someone might benefit from some of my "wizardly wanderings". I would certainly hope so. A wise man once told me that I should never confuse KNOWLEDGE with WISDOM. He continued that he had known a man who could speak 12 languages--but lied in all 12! "Legend' is another term that can be easily misused. I knew a magician who was a LEGION IN HIS OWN MIND! I constantly remind myself of that thought. (It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice! But, it is certainly nice to be "praised in public"!!! Thanks again. Whit Haydn and I must have had the same mother! (We think alike)His pop off knot routine and my cut/rest. routine have many parallels. I didn't steal his and he didn't steal mine--it's just a case of two minds achieving parallel thought. In the '70s,I put together a combination of ideas and techniques from KEN ALLEN, Slydini, and Dennis Loomis. My pal Ken had sold in the 50s,a routine which he named (I think) IF YOU LIKE IT, I'LL DO IT AGAIN. It used concepts and techniques from Karl Germaine,Edward Victor/Dr. Ervin,et al. Slydini had a method for cutting a rope into three apparently equal pieces,but the cut actually produced a nightmare set. LOOMIS and I worked out a very simple bluff restoration to apparently one piece of rope. This was before CONWAY'S idea came out. The rope bit ran about 3 minutes and was an excellent opener for my high school show. I used it for about 5 years. I only phased it out because I got tired of the Germaine set up. At the end of a season, I would trade a "bushel" of nightmare set ups to Fran Marshall for coils of new rope! Ha! Mike Finney recently sold "scraps" of rope from his routine on the magic exchange. --But Dick Oslund did it 35 years ago! LOL! I am enjoying the "GENII" too. I'm especially enjoying rereading old friend Charlie Miller's column. --I should!!! I stayed in "his suite" at Magic Inc.longer than he did. See ya "down the road"!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Mary Mowder Inner circle Sacramento / Elk Grove, CA 3659 Posts |
Hi Dick,
We're friends through Jim Jayes in Sacramento (just in case you don't recognize me in my "dolled up" photo). I was just watching some fuzzy old video of your 1987 Oak Grove School Show a couple of days ago (good stuff!). I'm still doing the butterfly rope trick "WHEEEE!!!" (but I don't use your line). I'll guess we'll see you in the "Little Darlings" forum unless you're too shy to offer an opinion. LOL -Mary Mowder |
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Mary Mowder:
I've only been trying for TWO YEARS to get Dick on here at The Magic Café as a member. (smile) The man's too humble..........Dick, along with my friends Johnny Thompson and Marshall Brodien, are, quite literally, living encylopedias of Magic knowledge and practical know-how, and their advice to me has been invaluable. Maybe Dick might want to start on the Little Darlings by reading and responding to the guy who asks about doing fart jokes for kid shows. Here's the link: http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......um=17&35 I'd LOVE to see what Dick says!!! |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
I had two paragraphs typed and they "went away" (self destructed)
Hi Mary! forget you? Never! We had too much fun in those years when I toured the west coast. I do read occasionally the Sacto Ring reports in LR. Sure are a lot of new names! Happy to hear that you are using the MOSQUITO. If my hokey lines appeal,feel free to use. I'll check in on the 'little darlings'link that Rick provided. It doesn't sound like too thrilling a topic though. I'm fairly sure that the rainbow guy already knows or can guess what my thoughts will be. Hello to Tom and anyone else out there who might remember me!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Dick:
Charlie Miller did the best version of The Rising Pencil I have ever seen. The man knew how to take a trick and milk it for all it was worth. He was a fun guy and I miss him. |
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Jim Hand Regular user Ocala,Fl. 137 Posts |
Greetings from sunny ( but cold) Fl...Welcome to the Café...I have always enjoyed your work and if anyone qualifies as a legend YOU do.
Also it nice to see some "mature" guys around here. Mature means someone older than me, I'm 70...I did my first speaking stage appearance in 1946 with The Ross-Martin Comedians...It was a very small tented 'rep' show. I did " I'm a SMART Little Kid" ( I had a whole dollar and traded them for TWO quarters,because two is more than ONE and traded my TWO quarters for three dimes because three is more than TWO and traded my three dimes for four nickels because........................). I didn' get paid anything because my parents owned the show. They did feed me and let me sleep in the trailer with them... And to cut to the chase...I've have been around circus/carnivals/magic shows since then...been a contracting/general agent, sideshow operator,phone promoter,circus manager and owned a tent circus for several years. Somehow after all that when you say my name to some people, they ALWAYS say "the painter". As you say I was always looking for something to keep busy...had no choice..my wife and I had two kids and I HAD TO WORK. If you would like to see some of my paintings visit me on facebook... http://www.facebook.com/circuspainter Once again a hardy W-E-L-C-O-M-E to the Café...I think you will like it here. I do. And , Oh,Yes...I do magic ,too. |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Rick>>I just spent a half hour replying to your thoughts on Charlie Miller. I was wrapping it up when the whole !@##$ thing disappeared into cyber space. I'll try to pick it up tomorrow.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Jim Sparx Inner circle Far Out, Texas 1144 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-12-17 19:03, Dick Oslund wrote: It flew by here on its way to Mexico, what did you put in it? Nyuck, nyuck... :giggles:
Et tu, Spartacus?
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/chispadeelpaso.html |
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Rick! --I'll try again!
Early summer of '71, I planned to visit family in Callifornia. Fran Marshall suggested that I do some lectures while out west. I said that I didn't know anyone out there, She said: "I do!" So, she got on the phone and booked me in Denver,Oakland,the Castle, and I forgot the other place. Hijacking planes to Cuba was "in" at that time. I had lots of fun telling the airlines that I had a BLANK STARTER PISTOL in the luggage! Jim Robertson, a ranking member of the "Dick Oslund Fan Club" (which met annually at Abbott's Get Together)contacted me from Los Angeles, and said,"No motel! Stay with me in the DOUG HENNING "SUITE". (Doug was a member of the fan club. He had spent some weeks with Jim while Dai Vernon shared wisdom.)Jim is/was a castle member,so he chauferred me around Hollywood, etc. At the castle, we were in the bar near the Harry Blackstone "corner", and Charlie Miller walked up. Jim duked me in, and we were getting acquainted. In the middle of the conversation, Charlie brought out "the" pencil. I got the impression that it was his favorite close up bit. With just the right amount of build up, he did it. I had never seen anyone actually DO the thing. It was good! Jim and I had a dinner reservation, and Charlie had other plans, so the session broke up. I had really enjoyed our too brief meeting. A couple years later, I was on a tour for the Bureau of Lectures & Concert Artists (Kansas). Wichita IBM Ring had a weekend "convention", and Charlie Miller was coming. I drove an extra hundred miles. Charlie did an excellent lecture on "Impromptu Magic". I picked up several worthwhile ideas. I was invited to Charlie's room along with Conrad Haden for a session. (Con, Haden was an old timer. He made various gaffed coins,Tarbell rope gimmicks, breakaway wands,etc. (all good items)We spent several delightful hours--and never did one trick! We discussed stagecraft. I remember a good half hour on "how to pick up a prop that had fallen to the floor"!!! A few years later Joe Stevens put out a couple VHS tapes of Charlie. On the tapes he performed the AL BAKER RICE BOWLS. It was great! He had done the bowls at Wichita on the evening show, and KILLED with them. A few years before, Jay and I had watched DE YIP LOO do the KUMA TUBES in Chicago, and we both had reached the same conclusion: NO ONE ELSE SHOULD BE "ALLOWED' to do them! After seeing Charlies "rendition" of the Baker Bowls, I felt the same way! More on Charlie,later when I refresh my memory. You are quite right. Charlie knew exactly how to get the most out of basic props. It's time for coffee............. Down the road!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Spartacus::: This infernal electrisch peckenclacker did 'it' to me!!! I plead stupidity! and throw myself on the mercy of the court!
Oops... THE FLAG IS UP! --and I'm hungry~~~
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Dr. TORA Inner circle TURKEY 1439 Posts |
Hi Dick,
I am delighted to see someone on the stage more than two decades ago I was born ! I predict that you will be a goo addition to us. I am sure that there will be a flock of fans around you especally from the young magicians. Let me welcome you to our beautiful Café. As you have noticed it is one of a kind;unique.Absolutely the best the best place about magic ever.You will find this as a invaluable source that you can not buy even with money. The people are so friendly as well as being helpful.The Café is such a the unique place for Magic. It is ever expanding and has over 52.000 members throughout the world. It will make a great contribution to your magic perspective. Do not forget to post often. You will find many new friends and many new ideas here. I predict you will like the Café.Please grab a chair and begin to type your next post while you have a cup of strong Turkish coffee on my bill. We are glad that you have joined us.
Magically Yours,
OZLEN TUNCER /Dr.TORA Have you visited my new Website in English, yet? www.magictora.com or www.torasmagic.com |
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Dick:
Tom Mullica is another "Wisconsin Original", and was born in Waupun, Wisconsin, just down the road from Beaver Dam! I saw Mullica in Colon In August, got a chance to spend a bit of time with him....he's doing well and seems happy doing his Red Skelton bit, and did a Skelton Tribute Spot at Abbott's 75th. I hadn't seen Tom since 1987 when I went down to Atlanta and visited with him at the Tom Foolery. When I was with Tom there, he told me about his desire to shut down the Tom Foolery and "Get a Life" so to Speak, as a "Free to Travel and Do His Thing as a Magical Entertainer (which was SPECTACULAR I must say. The next thing I hear about Tom is that he's doing a spot at The Crazy Horse in Paris France, DESTROYING the audiences, and making HUGE BUCKS! I mean REALLY, REALLY HUGE BUCKS!!! In all sincerity, Tom has MORE RAW TALENT as an ENTERTAINER, than anyone I have ever known. Tom's autographed photo to me is on my "Wall of Fame"...right next to Norm Nielsen...another Wisconsin original! |
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Hey Dick:
Speaking of Wizzo....( I guess I'm speaking of Wizzo now, huh?)...maybe YOU can contact him and get HIM on here!!! There's an idea!!! I don't know what kind of "computer guy" Marshall is, but, man, talk about stories!!! Marshall Brodien's GOT 'EM in Spades....and they're true!!! |
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