Finding my teacher

I spent an hour today trying to find some way to contact my old teacher/mentor in magic. His name is Frank Brents and he lives in Bronx, NY. Frank was the very first person that spent time with me and taught me magic. We spent many days together back in the early 1990's at a place called Ruebens in New York City.

I met Frank on a cruise ship when I was only 13 years old. He was the nicest guy and opened up his brain to me. I picked him clean that week... 8 hours a day with the guy... and he answered every question I ever had about magic. Looking back I was so lucky to have met him. It changed the course of my life and gave me a burning interest in magic. I did not get off that ship the whole week. My family was visiting exotic locations and I refused to leave Frank's side. I knew that the opportunity to study with a true master of magic would never come along again.

Frank was the first guy to do a duck act. He was billed as "Americas Black Magician"... which today seems ludicrous. But back in the day, he was one of a tiny number of African Americans that could make a living doing magic. He told me stories about some of the discrimination he dealt with back in the day. His life is an incredible one and I think someone should write a book about him.

What about his magic?

His show was incredible. He produced doves of many colors, changed them into ducks, handkerchiefs, and featured the $1000 challenge at the end of his show. He would invite spectators on stage to try to figure out where the duck went after he put it into a box and vanished it. There was a $1000 prize if they could figure it out...which no one ever did. But that was a ballsy thing to do.

I saw a video once of David Copperfield. David was commenting on seeing Frank's show and said something like, "The ducks were really great... what a great idea to use ducks in your act."

Not more than six months later, Copperfield had put a routine into his show featuring... a duck! In fact, it was a big part of his show back then. I can't remember David's duck's name....

Frank also did all the classics in magic: Linking rings, 6 card repeat, etc. He was also a master card guy... most people don't know that about him.

If anyone knows his number I would like to have it... so I can see how my old teacher is doing.

*****************************************

I've been getting requests to post some videos of my show online. Funny thing is... if you just go to Google and type in my name you can find all kinds of videos of me performing. Here's a couple that I got from youtube... enjoy.