It all comes to a head...

And as well all know, head rules.

Anywho, first our Mudderload contest info. I won't make it easy on you however. I am going to ask you a question about this journal. You are the first one with the correct answer, then you geta cookie.. er.. wait.. no.. you get EVERYTHING we here at Fire Cat Studios has for sale. Helter Shelter DVD and book, and many e-books. The Marked Man Lecture notes, Cheat Damn You pdf, and even the hard to find Banned in Texas notes. (of course if you already have some of these you'll just get the stuff you don't already have.) There is even a little surprise gift as well that is not on the market as of yet. However you only have a week to answer so on Dec. 18th, if we have no proper answer, then all is lost. You can only answer once, so think about it very carefully.

So here it is: What common thread do most of the posts on this journal share?

Finally, the last Rant. Never before seen by the public. Un-edited for your amusement and mine.

Why am I stuck In Magician Hell? #5
Written by: Bizzaro. The Optical Illusionist
"Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb."

Thaaaaaat's right kids, DJ Bizzaro here spinning all of your favorites! This next one is a special request you should all know and love. It's called, "Copyright law. What a fickle hooker that is." by.. well just about EVERYONE!!

As many people who have looked into it know, you can't copyright a magical device, merely the intellectual property of the script or routine. (With very few exceptions. Did you know that with the proper patent number you can look up the device Coppi the Sex Wizard uses to fly?) There are vocal Nazis when it comes to giving credit in magic about who created this or did that. A good example of this was the Shapeshifter change DeSouza released a while back. Many people were like, "That's Oscar Munoz's trick. You just blah blah blah grrr and stuff.." The Axis change comes to mind as well. They even said "Well this was someone else's, but they did it like this and I just moved my arms down here." (Mind you there was a reason it was done the original way. But hey who cares, it wasn't "street" enuff.)

"My name is Bambi and my pet peeves include smokers, people who talk during magic videos, and performers who don't respect who owns what." There is a Playboy interview you'll never see... and for good reason. Outside of magic, NO ONE CARES!! If you claim to have invented Ambitious Card, the mundanes will not remember nor care. Magicians might get bent out of shape about it (Even tho' 3/4's of them couldn't tell you where it originated anyway). You want to terrorize someone for a while? When they show you something new you've never seen, tell them it's a Vernon or Marlo effect from some obscure date. Nothing puts a knife in you faster than to hear these words, "It's in print".

So what happens when two independent sources produce the same effect, same method, etc. Do the two parties say, "Hey kool, congrats. Great minds think alike"? Not usually. It's more like "This was mine first! I'm gonna rip off yer head and..." You get the idea. As magicians, we are taught that our power lies in our secrets. Once those are gone we have nothing. When someone impedes upon this frayed touchy nerve, we go all guano on people. Some people do blatantly steal another person's ideas and get more notoriety for it. It happens (Now you know how Bruce Springstein felt about Roamer in the Dark).

Putting something in print however does not give anyone carte blanche to go all crazy ex-girlfriend on someone. If another magician comes up with something removed from your idea, there isn't much you can do about it. (Aside from getting a cadre of ass clowns on a message board somewhere to flame said perpetrator.) They say if you want to hide something, put it in print. Technically once it's published it's yours. Can't really prove it tho' as a card trick in a court of law will only cause them to laugh at you. Afterwards they'll sentence you to hanging by a noose made from a rice silk for wasting their time... but I digress.

Personally I think it's getting out of hand in some ways. There are fanatics in every religious cult, (You heard me. Look it up), and magic has no shortage of asshattery when it comes to ownership. Don't get me wrong. I think it's good to know where SOME things come from. Triumph is Vernon's. Gotcha. Healed and Sealed is Anders Moden's (that he foolishly let be performed on TV by the Asshat). Right on. We all know it. Does that mean we can't perform it if we don't buy the books or instructions they appeared in? That depends on your morals or lack thereof. (The same could be said for downloading torrents of magic videos and whatnot as well.) Where do we draw the line? Should I start berating people for not giving credit to who created the double lift or biddle grip in their videos or print? NO. That would be silly and I'm NEVER silly.

So it all boils down to which side of the line do you stand on? The uptight fanatic brigade who has nothing better to do than catalog everything in magic... or the sane free thinking world where real people don't care and if you don't want people doing your stuff don't put it in freeking PRINT!!! What's more important to you? Artistic integrity or recognition for your *koff* genius. Everything in moderation kids...

Including moderation.

Bizzaro.