When I was 28 years old, I had been out in the world making a living as professional magician Steve Trash for more than a decade. I was a good entertainer. I was a good magician. People enjoyed my show, and I worked a lot.
I had earned my stripes as a busker, or street performer, in New York City working in Central Park and Washington Square Park and South Street Seaport. I’d worked festivals in Japan, Canada, and Australia. I’d spent years getting my Trash Act together and polishing it to be enter- taining for people around the globe. The concept had started pretty simply: I’d take things people gave me, trash and found objects mostly, and I’d create illusions with them. I’d recycle old stuff into a magic show. I might transform pieces of paper into money, or make a wadded up newspaper ball vanish and magically reappear, or float a discarded old tennis ball in the air. I liked the theme. I enjoyed performing. I was making a full-time living in professional show business.
I’d developed an environmental theme that I thought worked, and because it meant something to me, it made me happy. I’d even created a persona that worked: Steve Trash, the guy in the patched britches with the Mad Hatter-style top hat doing tricks with trash. Things were going well in New York City, but my girlfriend was an actress, and she wanted to move to Los Angeles, so we did.
What’s in L.A.? The Magic Castle, that’s what!
The Magic Castle. The mecca of all magic-dom. The best of the best perform there. It’s THE place magicians work. It’s THE place people go to see professional magicians. My icon – my hero – Mr. Electric had worked The Magic Castle a bazillion times, and I’d be living just down the street from my own personal Magic Heaven.
So I submitted my audition tape to become an active member. I got the acceptance letter. I rehearsed. I prepped. I got ready. When the day arrived, I showed up early for my live audition.
I was ready to knock the socks off that audience. Standing behind a small fabric-covered table in a smallish room, at the world-famous Magic Castle, I looked out at 20 or so smiling faces, and I went to work.
My audition went very well. I was super happy. The audience laughed. They gasped. They applauded. My magic was clean and solid. I’d pretty much killed. I knew I’d killed because I’d just spent the previous decade as a working pro. I knew when I wasn’t good. I knew when I was good. I knew when I had killed. At the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, California, that audition afternoon … I had KILLED.
I was really happy.
The room cleared out, and three Magic Castle guys sat staring directly at me, blank-faced. For a moment, I couldn’t quite understand their expressions. I checked my fly. All good … fly not down. I’m thinking to myself, “What’s going on?” They just sorta stared at me, each one kinda waiting for the other to say something. Finally one of them spoke. “Yeah … We’re gonna take a pass. The Trash-Thing just doesn’t really work for The Magic Castle.”
My brain went into overdrive. This “cat” with the extremely bad hairdo was telling me my act wasn’t “right” for them. I tried to process, but my mind couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. I had just killed, and these guys had paid no attention to the reaction I’d gotten from that live audience. They were checking off boxes from a list I didn’t even know existed.
Regaining my composure, I responded politely, “Well, okay … Thank you for taking the time to let me audition.” I packed up my little show and left.
As I sat in my battered old van in the parking lot, I realized my childhood dream to work at The Magic Castle was dead. Even though the audience “got” me, even though they understood and enjoyed what I was doing, and I didn’t suck, The Magic Castle guys did NOT “get” what I was doing. They totally did NOT get me.
I had a different picture of what the world of entertainment was, and what it could be, and what I could be in it. I wanted something different. So I left the parking lot of The Magic Castle in Hollywood, California, and didn’t return for over 20 years.
20 years later.
Twenty years later, I WAS accepted as a member of the Academy of Magical Arts. Twenty years later, I DID perform at The Magic Castle. Twenty years later, my show was well received. Twenty years later – either “The Trash-Thing” was now okay, or the guy with the super-bad hair had simply moved on. Maybe I’d just gotten better. I don’t know. I can’t really tell you what it was. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter.
The worst rejection of my professional career made me stronger. I had to choose: either capitulate to their “idea” of me as an entertainer, or create the “thing” I wanted to create.
I chose the latter.
You can do this too. Have the courage to dream big. Have the courage to set goals. Create action plans. Do the work. Make adjustments. Get lucky. Don’t give up.
You might shoot and miss, or you might hit the target. There’s just no way to tell. If you don’t shoot, though, it’s totally IMPOSSIBLE to hit the target.
The Magic Castle – written by Steve Trash
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