What other hobbies do we as magicians have? Practitioners of our art tend to be a generally strange lot, I am curious to find out.

I Myself collect monkeys (I have hundreds of them), Martial art weapons & memoribilia of the band kiss. Please reply, I am very interested.

Ichazod

Fencing, gourmet cooking, wine collecting, Guitar playing & collecting, song writing, trapeze flying, swing dancing, art collecting.....oh yeah, chasin’ the ladies



Tom Cutts

I love spending time with the family, I like to collect different things. Cook, Fight Fire, and run ambulance calls. I also love to read and you can almost always find me at the library.

Ventriloquism, music (vocalist, harmonica and just taking up bass guitar) writing, reading, movies, hanging out with friends.

I guess I should add some of mine to the mix:

Collecting hour glasses, rabbits in hats, old magic props, posters, etc. Especially Carter the Great items.

I am facinated with history, especially the American Civil War. I also enjoy archeology, and astronomy.

Other hobbies include playing guitar & drums,
Website design, Playing Chess, Video games, Collecting music cd’s (I have over 800), Watching & reading Scifi, Writing, and my biggest one, Graphic Arts. I love to watch good comedy, and probably would have been a comedian if not for magic, so I combine the two.

I play and teach guitar, bass, mandolin & banjo. I played guitar professionally for 15 years before magic. I have played for Donny Osmond, Steven Tyler, Michael Jackson and others. I also owned my own music academy for a while before magic took over. My own CD got some nice drive-time air play here in LA.... 7 years ago. I also worked as a "40 man" (electrician) in the film industry for three years.



Mostly I love to spend time with my wife and my son (daddy’s pride & joy) I use to collect sci-fi toys, STTNG, SW, Aliens, Terminator etc but don’t really anymore. I have a collection of magician autographs on cards, 8x10s and mag covers.



I really love to spend time with friends playing games like trivial pursuit and movie trivia. And I LOVE to be at home watching my DVDs with the 5.1 cranked WAY up!



Wow, I just realized how boring I am!



It is amazing how many magicians are also musicians!







_________________

Thank you,

John Zander

***************************

The Award Winning Comedy

Magic of John Zander

http://www.ZanderMagic.com

http://ArtofMagic.8k.com

***************************

Not me John. I can barely play a radio without some help.

I’ve always wanted to play the guitar though.



Outside of driving tractor trailer I don’t have much time left for anything else. I do like to collect Full Moon figurines like the PuppetMaster series, odd toys like the Original Furbys, and Todd McFarlane items like the new Tortured Souls line.

I’m also looking for the first set of 7 Living Dead Dolls (at a decent price - not the over inflated e-bay prices).



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I was also a guitar teacher before I got into computer game design, which is what I do now.

There seems to be something that draws magicians to music and vice versa.

I remember a thread on another board about pro magicians that play guitar. There were loads of names mentioned.

I’m not into sports, as I get worn out running the bath.



Apart from collecting dust, I also collect Cocktails and Cocktail Shakers.



I’m running the Oldham Magic Club, and am the worship leader at the Church I go to.

What a combination.!!!



_________________

All the best

Cliff

Reading and watching science fiction and some fantasy. (Why isn’t Disney optioning the Edward Eager books!!!)



Lately though, I haven’t been reading as much as I should nor practicing/rehearsing/performing as much as I’d like... I’ve just been busy fighting clinical depression!





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"A good magician never reveals his secrets,

especially when he’s not to sure himself!"-Tigger

I don’t know whether this hobby of mine has anything to do with magic. I love balloons (round and non-round balloons. I’d always try to find ways to create new ideas on deco and twisting. I guess some magicians out there might have the same interest as me.

I'm into Football, (that's the English foot kind not the US hand kind!), Ju-Jitsu (purple belt-currently in hibernation), and music. Like many of you seem to, I play the guitar. I guess we're all desperate to perform and entertain on some level!

My other interests include photography, video production, sports, reading, woodworking, and football officiating (High school-32 years)!!



And of course the important outside interests--a eleven year old boy and a 13 year old girl and house maintenance which almost precludes doing any of the first things I mentioned!



Q: "Don’t you think it’s more fun building a fence than sitting in the neighbor’s garage watching football and drinking beer?’



A; "NO!"











________________

Ray Banks

Nice to hear a little more about you Ray! After seeing you post here and on the Visions forum, I almost feel I know you!

Geez, it's good ta see I ain't alone in this multi-talent department. Besides magic I sing and act. Too many professional credits to mention. The most recent and the one I'm most proud of is my own full variety show, Jump, Jive & Swing.



I have worked professionally as a comic book artist, and illustrator. At present, art is just something I enjoy doing in my spare time.



I love comic books, so when I'm not performing I can be found reading comics. I have probably close to 15,000.



When not reading comics I'll be either watching movies (I'm an addict), playing video games (rare these days), or working on websites (I build them).



I do like some sports. Baseball is the only team sport I watch. I don't play anymore, but every now and then I like to go to the batting cages and see if I still got it. I love wrestling (pro & amatuer), martial arts and boxing. I've studied and competed in all. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a Golden Gloves boxing championship. Although I did wrestle competively in High School, I never won any titles (although I did beat the State Champ in an exhibition shortly after he took the title).



I think that's it. Well the major stuff anyway. Sheesh.

I'm a spell checker







Mya

I'm confused. Are you Mya Angel or Ima Spellchecker?



Tom Cutts

In addition to magic and escapes, I collect Peanuts gang stuff. I was in mourning for two weeks when Charles Schulz died. Most of my friends say I’m obsessed with Peanuts stuff. I mean, just because the Christmas tree has nothing but Peanuts decorations, I wouldn’t call that obsessed! The pride and joy of my collection is an autographed picture I have of Mr. Schulz holding a giant Snoopy.

Of course, before any of that, I’ve got two young men who are the absolute light of my life! Benjamin is 9 and recently achieved the rank of Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. Ryan is 4 and loves to see how far he can test Mommy before she brings out the big guns.

Speaking of guns, I target shoot as a hobby. I own two handguns and target shoot with both of those. Before anyone has a heart attack, when not at the shooting range, the pistols are unloaded and trigger locks are on them. The boys also don’t know where they are kept. I never bring them out if they are around.

I do not have a regular 9-5 job. I have a custom design t-shirt business that I run out of my home, in addition to doing the magic. Of course, a lot of people think that because I don’t have a ’regular’ job, I don’t have a job at all. Before I decided to do this, I worked construction for ten years.

So, between my boys, my work, and magic, I don’t have a lot of time left over for too much. But, I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything!