The News Beat I Was Born to Cover

This is the first installment of Freely Shuffled — my column here on Conjurly.

Here is a bit of background to kick things off.

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother owned and ran a small town newspaper in Bonner Springs, Kansas. My grandmother worked for them. Then my father followed in their footsteps. So that makes me a fourth-generation newshound — which goes a long way toward explaining why I ended up here, behind an editor’s desk. Journalism wasn’t my career path — that took a long detour through Wall Street — but it was always in my blood. Now, with Conjurly, it has finally become my daily work. The generational chain remains unbroken.

When I was a kid, Dad was the managing editor of the Camarillo Daily News — the local newspaper in Camarillo, California. (like so many small-town newspapers it no longer exists. But that is a lament I’ll save for another day.) He wrote a weekly column called Sense and Nonsense  sharing his musings about the news, the community, and occasionally a personal tale or two about parenting my sister, brother, and me. He called his column “Sense and Nonsense.” I’m choosing “Freely Shuffled.” Different names, same general enterprise — an editor dealing out random sense and nonsense for anyone willing to read it.

That is the journalism side of the story. Now the magic part.

The magic bug bit me firmly at age six and never let go. Dad couldn’t pull a quarter from behind a kid’s ear to save his life. His knowledge of magic was strictly as an observer, which left the local library as my main resource. I can still smell the musty pages of the five volumes of Greater Magic Library I discovered there. As a kid, my nose was persistently glued to those books.

That’s where my magic journey started. Sixty years later it continues.

I share all of this to give you a glimpse of how I ended up living at the intersection of magic and journalism — and just how long ago it all started.

It feels almost predestined that I would wind up here, where magic and journalism meet. My story was foretold over half a century ago when Dad wrote a Sense and Nonsense column about me. He titled it “John Wayne and I Help Magician.” The yellowed clipping is pictured below — zoom in to read the whole thing if you like — but I’ll give the short version.

There was a monthly meeting for young magicians held at Berg’s Magic Studio on Hollywood Boulevard. Joe Berg’s shop was a destination — one of only a handful of professional magic suppliers in all of Los Angeles County at the time. For a kid deep in the grip of a magic obsession, it was a sacred place.

Dad had driving duties that particular Friday night. He dropped me at the studio for the meeting, then faced the practical problem of killing two hours in Hollywood. His solution was to walk a couple of blocks down the street and catch a John Wayne picture. “Big John,” as he called him in the column, took exactly two hours and ten minutes to drive a herd of cattle to market. Which worked out just about perfectly.

While John Wayne was wrangling cattle, I was at Berg’s soaking up secret knowledge. Joe Berg was generous with his time for kids who were serious about the art. Of course, he made more than a few dollars vanish from our pockets only to reappear in his. But with every trick purchased from Joe came a bonus of coaching, tips, and encouragement to master the craft.

Dad noted in the column that I picked up a piece of rope about 36 inches long for $7.50, which struck him as an outrage — until I made it stand up like an Indian rope trick. Back in 1970, $7.50 was worth considerably more than it is today. That’s the equivalent of about $63 now.

What strikes me now, reading that old column, is how different it was from most things he wrote. Those little columns were an escape valve from his usual routine. They were written with a looseness, wit, and genuine warmth for his subject — even when his subject was a magic-obsessed kid dragging him to Hollywood on a Friday night. Most of what he wrote or edited was strictly bound by journalism rules and standards that he applied rigorously day in and day out — just like my family members before him.

Those same standards shape how I think about journalism and how the news section here at Conjurly will operate. Clearly defined editorial standards will govern everything published  — from how information is verified to how corrections are handled. You can read them in our formal Editorial Policy. This is not a rumor site and not a content mill. The news area of Conjurly is a journalistic publication. It will operate by the appropriate standards. You, the reader, deserve that. Magic deserves that.

However, there is an exception to the rule. When I write these Freely Shuffled columns, anything goes. Just like Dad, I need a place to have some fun and run free. This column is that place.

My father is no longer with us. He moved on to his heavenly beat, asking questions and taking notes — pestering St. Peter and probably even the big guy — to get the scoop and write it up. To close this inaugural installment of Freely Shuffled, I will end with a promise to him — and to Conjurly’s readers: I will always try to live up to your high standards of what it means to be a journalist, Pops.