A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

Since we wanted to try and see The Tonight Show again on Thursday, Ryan, Connie and I were on the road by 8:00 and hit the NBC studio by 8:30. But once again all we could get was standby tickets. We decided we would give it a try today anyway, since this would probably be our last chance to see it. We had to be back to the studio by 3:30 since taping was at 4:30.

From Studio City we made our way to Hollywood. It was pretty hazy out so you couldn’t see the sign in the mountains. We walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame and made our way down to Mann’s Chinese Theater. We looked for some key stars and ‘hand and feet’ prints such as the cast of Star Trek, Harrison Ford, and the characters of Star Wars.

Connie needed a dress for our evening at The Magic Castle so we spent some time at a mall called The Grove. After we finished up we headed back to the car and toured around some of the more affluent areas such as Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. There are definitely some impressive houses and properties to see in the Hills. We are pretty sure we saw at least one famous person’s house since there was a star tour bus in front of it and all of the passengers were taking pictures of it. We drove down Rodeo Drive, but didn’t have enough courage to actually go into any of the prestigious shops.

We had lunch at Canter’s, a famous L.A. deli / diner. I had a Fairfax sandwich that has a ton of corned beef and pastrami on it. It was good.

We killed some time before heading back to the NBC studio to get in line for The Tonight Show. There were a ton of people already lined up so we checked in with the other standby people. After about fifteen minutes the standby people were told to go join the lineups. There was a group that was entering the studio and we were told that they were special guests of Jay Leno’s. You’d expect there to be about ten or so guests. Nope, there were about one hundred. Jay has lots of friends.

There were pages armed with walkie-talkies walking up and down the line counting each person. But whenever they were asked how many people could fit in the studio, they would always claim that no one knew exactly how many could fit or how many would get in. So we’re not really sure what they were counting for. We just wanted to know whether we were getting in or not so we didn’t have to waste our time in line, but the pages loved their “power” and would give information to no one.

Shortly before 4:30 one of the pages informed us that no one with standby tickets would be getting in today. It was obviously disappointing that we would not get to see the show, but what really cheesed us off was that we didn’t need to wake up so early, and could have still accomplished the stuff we wanted to do. The one upside of not getting in was that we would not be rushed, or more likely late in getting to The Magic Castle.

There is a dress code for The Magic Castle and I didn’t bring a suit in my luggage. Luckily Ryan had a suit that fit me so we were in business. Since we didn’t want to be stuck in formal wear all day we ended up getting dressed in a parking lot on Hollywood Boulevard in the back of the car. The paparazzi only managed to get one shot.

We only had four blocks to drive, but it was rush-hour and it ended up taking nearly forty-five minutes to get there. It was insane, and funny at the same time, but we still arrived at the castle in time. Here’s a little description of what The Magic Castle is all about.

The Magic Castle is the private clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts, Inc, a very special organization devoted to the advancement of the ancient art of magic. The purpose of The Academy is to encourage and promote public interest in the art of magic with particular emphasis on preserving its history as an art form, entertainment medium, and hobby. Beginning with a charter membership of 150, the Academy has grown into a world-renowned fraternal organization with a membership of nearly 5,000.

You can only get into The Magic Castle if you are a member or if you are invited. At a previous visit with some co-workers, Ryan was invited back by one of the members. The castle is an old mansion with a restaurant and rooms for magic performances. There was also a haunted piano that played by itself, and took requests. We asked it to play Moonlight Sonata and the theme from Cheers.

The first show we saw after dinner was a close-up performance. In these shows there are 22 people in a small room and you are extremely close to the magician. The performer focussed heavily on coin tricks and it was real cool seeing it up close. Right after this performance we went to the main room which actually had a stage, and was a more typical magic show with lights, music, and all of that jazz. The room held about 100 people, but was still not very big. We sat right at the front.

The first magician in this room performed with his wife and was incredible. This is probably the best magic I have ever seen live, or on TV. It was so weird seeing this stuff from so close up. It really blew our minds. I participated in a card trick where the magician’s daughter picked a card I chose. She was about 2. His finale included him making his wife disappear while levitating under a sheet. He was wearing a vampire cape and wrapped himself completely up in it. When he opened it up, it was not him, but his wife wearing the cape. He was somehow at the back of the room.

The second guy in this room had a lot of humour in his act and was awesome as well, but I definitely preferred the first guy. Throughout the night we saw another close-up performance and 2 Prestidigitation performances. One of the more impressive tricks was when a magician had a person from the audience circle the page number and the headline of any story from a newspaper with a red marker. He opened up an envelope and had a xeroxed copy of that exact page - with the red marks. It was unreal.

We finished up at about midnight and headed back home. All I can say is that The Magic Castle is easily one of the greatest things I have ever seen. It’s one thing seeing these illusions on TV, but seeing them up close and personal is incredible. This may end up being the highlight of the whole trip. You can see more pictures of the day here.