Fly Away Dove
Once when I was younger (I guess any story I tell would be about me when I was younger…) I had a show outside in a park. I always enjoy doing a full show whenever I can and I took the doves with me. I don’t clip my doves’ wings because I talked with Channing Pollock once in Las Vegas, (he basically invented dove magic in the 50’s), and he said he never clipped his doves. Just trim the tails a little and they look better if they have full wings. So that’s what I do. Plus I have a pretty good size cage for my birds and I like the fact that they can fly around if they want. So I don’t clip them. And I handle them a lot so they won’t fly away during performances.
Anyway back to the park. I produced a dove at the beginning of the show, and put her in the cage. A little later I was going to vanish the dove and have her re-appear somewhere else, so I got her out of the cage and presented her (very professionally) to the audience. The dove then simply took off. Split. Flew the coop. I just stood there watching her fly away. What to do now? I smiled and waved goodbye to the bird and took a small bow and the audience clapped. I then went on with the next part of the show. I guess they thought it was cool that I would give a nice dove its freedom. That’s the great thing about comedy magic – when stuff goes wrong you can laugh it off and move on. I now don’t take birds to outdoor shows. The rabbit is fine, but not the birds. I’ve had doves fly away a couple of times indoors but I always get them back. I never saw the dove in the park again and I hope she is OK.
Technorati Tags: channing pollock, comedy, comedy magic, doves, las vegas, magician
