Nothing Is Impossible: The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician (11 page)

I WAS NINETEEN
the first time I went to New York. I arrived in the Big Apple as ‘Steven, the-Hip-Hop-Magician-Kid-from-Bradford’ and left not only with the respect of my peers, but also with a brand-new name.

It was 2001, and I had been invited by the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) and the Society of American Magicians (SAM) to attend a four-day conference. It was, as usual with anything magic-related, shrouded in secrecy, so I can’t reveal too much. What I can say is that ordinarily, there are two separate magic conferences a year that take place in different parts of America. Because it was the centenary of the SAM, founded by the great Harry Houdini, the society had decided to team up with the IBM for the first time and hold a joint conference in New York as a celebration of the release of their joint Houdini commemorative stamp. It’s essentially a conference similar to that which you might get for music, art or business – but for magic. There are talks, seminars, demonstrations and shows. Because the IBM and the SAM had joined up this particular year, I knew that the cream of the crop would be descending on New York for those four days. I figured if I could get myself a spot performing there, it could have a great impact on my career.

if you have a dream, then New York is the place to make it come true

I wangled an invite through a magician friend who I’d met on holiday in Las Vegas earlier that year. Although I was welcome to attend, I would have to pay my own way out there. Luckily, even though I was young, I was doing OK and had built up some savings through my croupier job in the casino in Bradford. I made £795 a month and, living rent-free with my great-grandparents, I either ate Nana’s cooking (which was the best in the world) or had free meals at work because I worked nights. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, and I didn’t have a phone bill because no one had mobile phones back then. On the rare occasions I had to buy myself food, I’d go to my favourite curry house in Bradford, where you could get a meal for two for £5. It was almost impossible for me to get rid of my money so I was saving around £600 a month. Not only did I not have anything to spend my wages on, but also I made sure I saved because I had a goal in mind, an ambition to achieve.

I went to America four times that year alone, paid for by myself. I would go to Las Vegas to see the latest developments in the magic shows; I’d pop to LA for the odd gig and, towards the end of 2001, I took the opportunity to go to New York.

GETTING ON THE
plane I felt a nervous rumble. I’d been to America before to visit my grandma in Memphis, and hung out in Vegas with my magician friends. But this was different. Besides the fact that it was it a huge city with a formidable reputation that I’d never been to before, I’d also be going on my own.

I might have been anxious, but as I boarded the flight, I had a funny feeling that things would be OK. New York was the birthplace of hip hop and it was the setting for some of film’s most iconic moments. Many of my favourite rappers, actors and
film directors hailed from the place they called the Big Apple. I couldn’t wait to take a bite.

As the jumbo jet landed in New York, I glimpsed the city through the smog. It looked tiny from the plane and I wondered if it would live up to my huge expectations.

I collected my bags and jumped in a taxi into town. The cab sped through Queens and the nerves returned; the area looked quite rough. There were huge project buildings, run-down shops and dubious-looking people hanging out on the corners. Who knows, perhaps I passed a young 50 Cent up to no good on those mean streets! My butterflies increased tenfold.

When the taxi finally hit Manhattan after about an hour, the contrast was remarkable. We passed Grand Central Station and crawled through the rush-hour traffic. It was mind-blowing, like something out of a film. Huge buildings towered above me, yellow cabs honked their horns at the thousands of people hurrying past, their focus firmly fixed on whatever important destination they were headed to. I looked to my left and could just about see the Empire State Building. As a film fanatic, it felt weird to see these iconic landmarks in real life. New York was like one big movie set.

Although I’ve been to New York a lot of times now, I still have the same funny feeling when I first land there. It’s like anything is possible in that city; if you have a dream, then New York is the place to try and live it. Its energy is like nowhere else. The city truly never sleeps!

I HAD DONE
my research before going to New York and discovered that you could stay cheaply at the Hilton Hotel, where the magic conference was being held, if you were prepared to share with someone else.

My roommate was a tall ginger guy whose name I have since forgotten, and his assistant, who was also his girlfriend. It was a bit awkward, sharing a room with a couple, but we rarely saw each other. My roommate and his girlfriend had an act called the Quick Change where they would dance and do twenty outfit changes in three minutes. He would throw glitter in the air and the next thing you knew, her red dress would be changed to a glittery one. It was made famous by David and Dania, who did it on
America’s Got Talent
. It was a real eye-opener to share our ideas of magic and to be amongst all that creativity. Lying back on my bed the first night, I was excited about getting to the conference the following morning. I was looking forward to being exposed to new thoughts and the greatest magic I had ever seen. My stomach fluttered with anticipation.

As I had hoped, it was amazing. On the first day I saw Siegfried and Roy and watched a magnetic David Copperfield deliver a seminar about his life in magic; how he had fallen in love with magic as a little boy.

I was so busy running about meeting people I barely got time to see much of the city. I just about managed to visit Times Square, and the only places I went were within walking distance of the Hilton, which was on the Avenue of the Americas where all the skyscrapers are. Looking up at them, towering above me, memories of Spider-Man leaping from rooftop to rooftop and scaling down the sides of huge buildings came back to me. Finally, I was living in the movies – just like I’d always wanted to.

There were 2,000 magicians at the conference, so I made lots of friends, many of whom I’m still in touch with. It was the ultimate networking spot for magicians. I got to know an escapologist called Spencer Horseman, who was from New York, and a girl who, it turned out, was Houdini’s great-great-great-niece. Spencer was also recently featured on
America’s Got Talent
. Me, him and Houdini’s distant relation would go out each night when the conference was finished and find pizza on the not-so-mean streets of uptown Manhattan.

Coming from Bradford, where I was the only person that I knew doing magic, it was a revelation to meet people my own age who were into the same things. For the first time ever, I felt like I really belonged. We might have all been misfits in whatever town we had grown up in, but here, we were all like-minded individuals interested only in the pursuit of bigger and better magic.

I HAD NEVER
felt pressure like it. I might have been in the anonymous surroundings of a beige and brown conference room in New York, but I was encircled by magic’s most famous practitioners. David Blaine leant expectantly against a wall, while Aaron Fisher, a highly respected sleight-of-hand manipulator, jostled for space alongside Paul Wilson, the magician from BBC3’s
The Real Hustle
. We had gathered together to share our particular style of magic with each other.

As a musician or actor can testify, there’s nothing tougher than performing in front of your peers. Here I was, a teenager from Bradford with half-baked ideas about being a magician, surrounded by a ‘who’s who’ of modern magic. What had I got myself into?

As the host introduced me, I looked around the room at the gathered greats and pulled myself together. This could be my big break and I wasn’t about to blow it. I delved deep inside and went for it. The first thing I did was make coins disappear and reappear in people’s pockets, under watches and even under someone’s hat. It drew murmurs of appreciation, my next illusion, a gasp or two. As I grew in confidence, my magic got better and better. I was good, and I knew it. I had spent the last six years obsessively practising in my bedroom, waiting for an opportunity like this. The crowd may have been a hard one, but I was more than ready for them.

I felt Blaine lean forward as the buzz in the room began to grow. I paused to ready my recently invented card shuffle, inspired by the breakdancers of this very city. It was a risky strategy because, back then, I didn’t always pull it off. I danced with the deck, the cards coming to life in my hands before I stacked them on top of each other so that they came to rest perfectly on my cap.

‘This kid’s a f***king dynamo!’ a voice shouted from the fifty or so gathered greats. ‘
Dynamo
?’ I thought, but quickly dismissed it because, to be honest, I didn’t really know what it meant. I thought it was just some American slang word.

It was about a year later, when I finally turned professional, that I looked up the word in the dictionary. It said, ‘A small generator that gives massive electrifying results.’ It couldn’t have summed me up any better. I might be small, but I like to think my performances are larger than life. I still don’t know who shouted it out, but both Aaron Fisher and Paul Wilson claim to be the person who inadvertently named me that day. Apparently, before I had met Aaron, Paul had described me to him, saying, ‘The kid is like a dynamo.’ Aaron insists that he was the one to shout it out that day.