Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A Couple of Old Friends In the Kirkham Magic Album

It has been a while since I have posted regularly. Just busy, but I did not want to go too long without an updated post, so here are a couple of quick pictures and Stories.

David Alexander

 David was one of those young guys that my Dad encouraged and he became friend with. I remember him visiting us at the house in East L.A. and driving an Opel, which looked a little like a shrunken Corvette. He seems to have been an outsider with the L.A. Magic community a bit like my Dad. I came across a not so nice note reprimanding him for some incident that was embarrassing to Bill Larsen Jr.  I have no context but it seemed as if they wanted to drive him out of the Magic Castle over it. That sounds like some one my Dad could get along with. I do know  that like most of my Dad's friends, there were a couple of times when they were on the outs with each other, but they usually got over that. I had tried to contact him when I started working on this blog, but he passed just a couple of years ago. I remember speaking to him on the phone after my Dad had died, and he told some great stories. He encouraged me to write about my Dad. I wish I had started all of this earlier so I could check in with David for the inside scoop on some of this.
 This is a postcard he sent to my folks when we were living in Alhambra in the Midwick Track. He was one of the early performers to work regularly on cruise ships. As you can see, he was on a Mexican Cruise when he sent this note. I appreciated that he sent his best to my Mom and us as well.






Piet Paulo


I think I have mentioned Piet before. He was a regular at my folks apartment in the 1970s and early 1980s. We built a Mismade girl and a Zig Zag for him in that time frame. I remember going with him and his girlfriend at the time, down to the Sports Arena to see the Ice Capades show we had built. Later on, he married another girl that worked with him in his act, her name was Lexie. At one point he was working at Knotts, doing a show and they left their sleeping baby in the car when they went in to pack up their equipment. It turned into a big deal because someone saw the baby in the car and called the cops. It was night time, and they were only gone a few minutes but it was a big stink. Now a days, everyone is much more conscious of those kinds of potential dangers, when it happened (1981 or 82) we thought it was much ado over nothing. This shot is in front of my folks apartment, around the bicentennial. I had that flag up on the wall of the room I shared with my younger brother. After I moved into the other bedroom, we put the flag out on holidays. I don't have it anymore but I do still have the flag my Mom put out on a pole at the front of the building. I don't know what ever became of Piet, I did get a card or two after my parents were gone, but as to his career, I have no idea where it went.

No comments:

Post a Comment