On Feb 10, 2023, Eric Mead wrote:
A Real Secret

You guys are right. Michael Weber is Newguy. But, so was I. And so were a handful of other magicians whose names many of you would likely recognize (some no longer with us.) The original idea was to allow a few of us to participate in this community anonymously, primarily so the MagicCafe wouldn’t show up in web searches of our names by clients or muggles. We soon realized it had the nice side effect of allowing us to share ideas, information and opinions absent the air of authority (or lack of in my case) that sometimes happens when a recognizable name posts here. We thought that if we appeared to be a “new guy” in magic, we might side step a lot of the petty arguments and flame throwing that happen in all public magic forums, and that people would consider the ideas and opinions without being tainted by the reputation of the source—like Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman. I never knew which posts came from who, but I can tell you that I never posted as Newguy after the first time Michael Weber was unmasked here as “Newguy” way back in 2008. In fact, I rarely look at the Café except to research specific topics, and I had all but forgotten about Newguy until a friend pointed me to this thread. I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you there was no nefarious plan to deceive or con anyone, and no malice intended. Surely it's no surprise that many magicians have shadow accounts here and a desire for anonymity, so we didn't think it was any big deal. Perhaps we were naive.

We are telling you this because the Newguy account is useless now, and we don’t like seeing our friend getting beaten up by a half wise mob. My understanding is that the responses to Mr. Petty here were not made by Michael personally, but with his blessing and on his behalf, and only after Mr. Petty refused to communicate with Michael and Tim Trono about their trick Age Receipts--choosing instead to have Murphy’s Magic act as intermediary, and taking the situation public on YouTube rather than have what should have been a civil and private conversation. I have more to say about that situation, but Michael has politely requested that I stand down.

Newguy is dead. Long live "Newguy."

Your friend in magic,
Eric Mead

PS--Yes, I know what you really care about: It is our sincere belief and intention that the Conover books will go to print before the end of this year.

On Feb 10, 2023, brandonp wrote:
Picture the scene.

5 men. Sat at 5 computers on different parts of the world. All connected by the magic of the internet.

Michael Weber (newguy)
Eric Mead (not newguy)
Tim Trono (Mac_Stone)
Chris Rawlins (Mr. Blonde)
Aam Rubin (The Jerx)

Adam begins. “Fellas, this is the plan. A 3 pronged attack. On my blog, I’ll write two posts, one after another. The first will make people side with newguy and manipulate people against Craig. The se…"

newguy interrupts to. “Chris, you IDIOT, you’ve left your mic on and I can hear you cutting up cheap privacy film! This is why everyone hated Mr. Blonde! Sorry Adam, continue."

“… second post will be making light of using sock puppet accounts. Phase 3… A friend in need is a friend in Mead, if you catch my drift?”

Eric takes over. “This idea is SO bold that they’ll almost… almost not believe it. Have you ever seen the film Inside Man with Clive O…”

“NO!” Shouts Tim as Weber berates Rawlins in the text box. Trono continues “It won’t work. They’re magicians, not 4 years old! Believe me. Michael, just admit you’ve done wrong and say ‘Sorry’ it worked for me, it’ll work for you.”

Annoyed, with a short sip of air, Mead continues: “Clive Owen. It’s so crazy, that it’ll work. And at best, the confusion will cause people to look away and while they start the infighting, Blackpool will appear. The convention always has a drama. This year I think I could convince Rawlins to have a fight with a with David Penn. What do you say Blonde?”

“I like Crayons.” Says Chris.

Then it’s settled. Weber, what’s the password for new guy’s account?"

“I don’t… re…”

“Just say it."

“Ok…it's: Weberisgod1”

On Feb 10, 2023, sileeni wrote:

Joking aside, why would Weber tell Sudo that newguy was him? That would be very silly and potentially harmful if the account was being used by multiple people. A man as smart as Weber would have said “Hey, I use this account with some friends but if you want to speak to me solely then here’s an alternative contact.”

On Feb 10, 2023, Eric Mead wrote:."


PS--Yes, I know what you really care about: It is our sincere belief and intention that the Conover books will go to print before the end of this year.

On Feb 10, 2023, videoman wrote:

Well, we got an unexpected update on the Conover books so you can’t say that nothing good came out of this thread.
Although, considering every prediction regarding a printing date has been wrong, I wouldn’t put a whole lot of faith in the books becoming available in 2023.