A True Story That Really Happened

I can’t believe we’re over ten years into this site and I’m just now telling this story.

I guess… well… I guess I was a little embarrassed to tell you all. It doesn’t reflect well on me. I was young and dumb (and yes, full of cum, as they say).

I was in my car, in the parking lot of a Papa John’s, when the cops rolled up and took me in. I was arrested on two counts: prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. (I was paying myself to masturbate.)

So they throw me in jail and say I’ll be there all weekend before seeing a judge. What’s worse, Monday was Labor Day, and Tuesday the judge had to get her dog groomed, so I wasn’t getting out until Wednesday.

The holding cell got crowded, so they decided to send me to state prison for a few days.

Now look… prison isn’t like the movies. The black guys are here. The white guys are there. There are sexual assaults in the showers. Prison riots. A wise old lifer who dispenses cryptic advice and mentors the newbies. An evil warden. A heartwarming game of football where a ragtag bunch of inmates beat the guards.

So yeah, you can tell from the details in my story that I really, truly know what prison is like, from first-hand experience.

Now, I knew I had to do something to make an impression on these prisoners, or risk them breaking my spirit and my anal hymen.

So I spot this group of black guys playing Spades, and I walk up to them and say, “Give me that deck.”

They say, “Uhm… we’re in the middle of a game.”

So I sit quietly for fifty minutes until the game ends. Then I say, “Give me that deck!”

I proceed to entertain them with card tricks for thirty-nine hours straight (one pee break) without repeating a single trick. To be fair, one of them was an eight-thousand-phase Ambitious Card.

When I finally finish, everyone claps and says, “Hooray for Andy!” They declare me an honorary “soul brother.” One guy walks up with a tear in his eye and says, “Your tricks taught me a little about magic… and a lot about life.” Then he hugs me.

They carry me on their shoulders into court Wednesday morning, and the judge says, “You must be the handsome boy-magician everyone’s buzzing about.”

“No,” I say. “You are.”

Then I set off a smoke bomb, and when the air clears, I’m in the judge’s robe up on the bench—and the judge is in handcuffs, sitting where I’d been moments earlier.

“The case against you is dismissed!” I shout, banging the gavel. Then I switch back with the judge, and after several hours of consulting law books, it’s determined they have to let me go because there’s nothing in the law that says it’s illegal to corporally switch with the judge and dismiss the charges against yourself.

Yeah, I guess it’s a pretty crazy story. But you can see why I was embarrassed to tell it—it makes me look so bad… winning over the entire prison population with my incredible skills and charm, etc., etc.

Some might say I’ve stolen David Blaine’s origin story.

But when it was pointed out to Oz Pearlman that he stole David’s story, he said, “Well, it happened to me too!” Which, honestly, makes it more believable that it also happened to me. A lot of things happen once. A lot of things happen a lot of times. But it’s really rare for something to happen exactly twice.

In fact, I’m guessing most magicians have their own version of that story: the weekend jail stint, the deck of cards, the black guys in the corner, the hearts won through sleight of hand.

Go check Thurston’s diaries; I’m pretty sure it’s in there too. (Though, fair warning, the words he used for “the group of black guys” probably haven’t aged great.)