About
How a 10-year-old magician
became 47 years of stories.
The long version. Pull up a chair.
The short version, first.
I'm a comedy entertainer, magician, storyteller, and children's author. I've been at it professionally since 1986 — and unprofessionally since 1979, when I was 10 years old, and the only audience I could find was my parents and the occasional neighbor.
10,000+ shows later, this is still the only job I've ever wanted.
The Origin Story
I was trying to be Doug Henning. It wasn't working.
When I started, the famous magicians of the day were David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Siegfried & Roy. Big illusions. Big animals. Big hair.
I tried desperately to be like them. I wasn't. At all.
What I actually loved was telling stories, doing comedy, getting kids involved, and making adults laugh harder than they expected to. Sometimes for the kids. Sometimes for the adults. Always SUPER CLEAN.
Then a balloon beat a tiger.
One day at a talent showcase I was one of three magicians. Each of the others had a real animal — a show stopper. I couldn't bring a tiger. I had a balloon.
I twisted the balloon into something silly, told a story about it, made the kids scream, made the adults snort. The balloon won. Mr. Twisty was born that night, in 1997.
He's been at it ever since.
Some of the rooms.
Headlined in the Family Arts Theater at Zygofolis / Zygo Park in Nice, France. Did five years on Radio Disney AM 1460 — introduced the world to the Jonas Brothers, ran the only kids' talk show on satellite radio, hosted pre-shows for every Disney star of the day. Performed on Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live. Toured fairs, festivals, libraries, schools, weddings, corporate parties, fundraisers, after-dinner gigs, and exactly one nightclub at age 16 that I will tell you about in person and only with a glass of something nearby.
Then I started writing books.
After 45 years of doing this for kids in the room, I noticed something I wanted to put on the page — about big energy, self-regulation, kids whose brains move faster than the room. That became Sit Still. Be Quiet. (A Wiggle-Friendly™ Picture Book). From there: Birthday Buddy, the Wizard of the North Christmas books, Little Lily and Eddie the Earthworm, and a few more on the way.
Nine published. More wiggling around in the notebook.
And the worm farm. Yes, really.
When I'm not on stage, I run BioSoil Farm in Glenville, NY — a worm farm producing soil and natural soil conditioners. It's part of why Little Lily and Eddie the Earthworm exists. Earthworms are excellent at their job and I think we should talk about them more.
The point, if there is one.
The job is the same as it was when I was ten in my parents' living room: get an audience, tell them a story, make them laugh, make them feel something they didn't expect. Twenty kids in a backyard counts. A cafeteria of second-graders counts. A ballroom of adults at a corporate dinner counts. 10,000+ shows in, that hasn't changed.
If you've got a stage, an audience, and a reason to gather them — let's talk.
Same job since 1979.
Still the best one going.
The laugh is the greatest paycheck. The other kind's also welcome.
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