He’s bought some methods up his sleeve – Orange County Register

Anybody who has attended the Aquadettes’ Aqua Follies over the previous 5 years will keep in mind Jerry Langford, the grasp of ceremonies, who additionally occurs to be a radio present host, an illusionist and a mentalist.

“They invited me to their present due to my radio work and my voice,” Langford stated in a latest interview, his voice deep and resonant. “It feels pure for me to talk for the Aquadettes.”

Langford is the morning host at KSDW Radio in San Diego and Riverside County and Ok-Wave in Orange County. “Radio opened the door for me to do magic as a result of I’m additionally very inventive,” he stated.

To advertise his radio exhibits, Langford arrange cubicles at live shows, conferences, seashore occasions and county gala’s.

“I might stand in our sales space and other people would stroll proper by,” he stated. “Then I considered a inventive strategy to make them cease by doing close-up magic (card methods, sleight-of-hand) and stored increasing my repertoire.”

He realized his craft at on-line magic outlets, hanging out with different magicians, studying and exchanging new methods and approaches on the best way to current them.

“It began out as a passion and is now a much bigger enterprise than my radio work,” he stated.

Together with emceeing the Aqua Follies, Langford has accomplished magic exhibits within the Village. His subsequent one is for the Saddleback Church of Laguna Woods on Monday, Nov. 14. He’s up for rent for extra occasions within the Village. Contact him at 949-292-2624 or writejerry@gmail.com. His web site is jerrydoesmagic.com.

Langford, who can finest be described as an extrovert pushed by high-octane creativity, was more than pleased to point out off a number of of the methods up his sleeve on the 19 Restaurant not too long ago.

In a single trick – extra mentalism than sleight-of-hand – he  handed patron Julie Dickman a e book of roughly 600 pages (“The Finish of the Hunt,” by Thomas Flanagan).

“Rifle by means of the pages randomly, see that it’s an actual e book, no methods,” he advised her. Then he requested her to select any phrase out of the e book, write it on a bit of paper after which crumple it up. Dickman watched as Langford did some writing of his personal, developing with the phrase “lead” – precisely the phrase she had picked out of the e book.

In one other trick, Langford requested this reporter some questions on pets – earlier than appropriately guessing the title of the reporter’s miniature schnauzer combine.

“That is truly extra magical, extra mentalist,” he stated. “It packs a extra highly effective punch than pulling a dove out of skinny air and requires no tools.”

Langford begins his exhibits with stage magic to amp up the gang after which circulates among the many viewers. He’s bought sufficient methods, he stated, that he can do two or three exhibits with out repeating any.

His viewers has included individuals from each stroll of life and all ages, from children to seniors, and he tailors his materials to maintain all of them enthralled.

“I’ve carried out for teams from 50 to 200, altogether 3,000 to five,000 individuals … I’ve misplaced rely,” he stated.

Venues are as assorted — he’s performed at church buildings, synagogues, company occasions, financial institution openings, metropolis occasions in locations like Fullerton and Laguna Niguel, every part from nightclub occasions to children’ birthday events.

“I don’t hesitate to incorporate some corny jokes for households or occasions like Aquadettes,” he stated. “I like to depart individuals smiling and laughing and making an attempt to determine how I did it.”

At the start of his magicianship, Langford traveled all through California, he stated, however discovered that transporting tools proved a downside.

“I do lots of stuff with fireplace, and people supplies couldn’t be introduced on a aircraft, and it grew to become too massive a problem to get tools from one place to a different intact,” he stated.

Nowadays, every part has to slot in his automotive. That swap, he recalled, led him to carry out extra mentalist demonstrations such because the e book/phrase trick.

“Mentalism seems easy and simple, nevertheless it has energy,” he stated.

A few of his most memorable exhibits have been those he carried out in Tanzania, the place certainly one of his daughters as soon as was a social employee.

“When my spouse and I visited her, (the daughter) lined up magic exhibits in a jail for juveniles, a few colleges, orphanages and even a village church. I used to be stored busy for 2 weeks,” Langford stated. “She knew that I get pleasure from assembly and entertaining individuals, and he or she reminded everybody that (my) magic was not witchcraft however phantasm. She advised them in Swahili that phantasm is a trick of the eyes.”

Langford, 63, was to not the manor however to the magic born, so to talk.

“I’ve led a fairly weird life. I drove limos and met celebrities and labored as a slapstick comedian,” he stated. “I had left house at 16, and once you go away house at an early age, you need to survive.”

He bought into the radio/information/discuss enterprise impressed by his grandfather, Ernest Bennett, an Related Press photographer.

“My grandfather took me alongside to the San Francisco Chronicle constructing the place I bought my love for information,” he stated, including that he began his 30-year radio profession in Texas and moved again to California within the Nineteen Nineties.

Langford developed an curiosity in magic whereas in his 40s. He attributes his joyful 44-year marriage to the truth that his spouse is supportive of his many stints on the highway and on stage, which has numbered greater than 100 exhibits this yr alone.

“My exhibits are booked into January of subsequent yr,” he stated.

Father of a son and two daughters and grandfather of 4, he’s additionally an avid poker and blackjack participant. Enjoying poker two or 3 times per week and making an attempt out new magic methods on his buddies bought him by means of the pandemic, he stated.

“Magic is a tool, a method to an finish to entertain individuals, to make them snicker, to attach,” he stated.