Last Saturday I was having a drink at the lounge bar of a local hotel with a fellow magician. We noticed a guy walking around, asking whether people would buy him a drink if he does something they can't understand or repeat. We were both waiting for him to arrive at our table.

So some time later he surely approaches us and asks his question and begins a very short silk routine with a TT (with clumsy handling). At this point I had my TT ready (never leave home without it). "Amazed" I asked whether I could take a look at the silk and when he handed it over to me, I repeated his every move, vanishing the silk and making it appear. When giving him his silk back, I casually asked "So you´re gonna buy ME a drink right?"

Anyone else had anything like this before? We were both very amused.

And no, he didn´t buy me a drink.

Too bad about the drink.
A lesson here...don't be doing magic with the attitude that "I can do something that you can't do." It just leads to the wizard's duel. And that means someone is gonna win...and lose.

It always sucks to see that lonely guy who tries to pull the "look what I can do that you can't mess"! It gives magic a bad look. Magic should be about entertainment not superiority over another....ridiculous. I've never had that happen in person but you were lucky to have your TT with you and I'm sure if you didn't you could have pulled something else more impressive.

Funny story. What exactly was his reaction when you repeated 'his' trick?

His reaction was very non-verbal but the look on his face was worth seeing, as he´d just found out he is the next king of England. What makes it even funnier is that he was an immigrant and his Finnish was absolutely horrible and he tried to say something but just couldn´t find the words.

People were buying him drinks and we heard numerous "oos" and "aas", but I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. It is in a way cute that he did a simple trick (even though with serious flashing of the TT), but its obviously the only thing he could and he had bought the kit from a toy store (interestingly enough the best TT I have came from a similar kit from a toy store) and he was just using it for some quick free drinks. Which I find a bit disturbing, personally I wouldn´t perform at all if I didn´t love it, and magic in general. Of course I make money by performing, but the feeling is far more important. Magic is, after all, for most of us a thing of the heart.

Then there´s the other thing...he might go through all the bars in our city and the next time I´m having a show and doing my (even if I say so myself) much more fluent silk routine, someone from the audience might yell "He´s got a ******* ***** in his hand!"

Originally this was meant to be just a funny story I thought I´ll share, but it evolved into a more thoughtfull thing. If a mod sees fit to move this thread, please do so.

There was a jerk who used to go around the bars in Houston. He would do the TT silk vanish badly. The other item he did was to do tricks with a worn, dirty Svengali deck, make the card disappear and pull it out of a woman's cleavage. I was surprised he never got punched out.

Fortunately for magic ... he disappeared.

Don't make assumtions!
He very may well have been short of cash in a strange land. What better way to meet people and get some free drinks than with some magic.
He may not have been a magician at all, but a layman with a TT and some chutzpah.
His command of your language was poor you say. Then what you found as an insulting proposition may be a line he had learnt phonetically from a friend.

I always reward beggars who entertain!

I don´t think for a second that he was short of anything else except free booze. We don´t have beggars here in the first place, not like you have in London (great city, really love it). We only have a few local bums, and they hardly ever beg. And if we did, they don´t walk around in brand new designer clothes like this guy was.

Besides, you´re making assumptions Partizan, not me. I was there, in a very familiar environment, in my home town. Besides, I just gave a very brief outline of the situation, not a transcript of everything that happened.

And I sure hope he was a layman, because the handling of the TT was incredibly poor. Granted, I know what to look for, but I´m not blind to clumsiness.