Vanish Magic Magazine VANISH MAGIC MAGAZINE 71 | Page 7

FEATURE STORY SOCIAL MEDIA BY MARTIN STEIN He threw himself back in to his work... The Power of Social Media Jackpot, Nevada, is just about anything but. The town rests near the Idaho state line and consists of fewer than 1,200 souls, a school, a post office and a public library. And because it’s technically in Nevada, it has casinos. Five of them, to be exact. Cactus Pete’s is one of the oldest, with the opening of its doors considered to be the town’s founding, and by all accounts it’s a decent enough resort, with a swimming pool, a steak restaurant for those whose luck is hot and a buffet for those whose it isn’t. And it has the Gala Showroom, which has in the past seen the likes of ZZ Top and Willie Nelson grace its stage but today more often sees all-female Led Zeppelin tribute bands. And, that’s where Murray SawChuck found himself on a cold October night in 2015. Formerly a magician with a show on the Strip, Murray now found himself as far away from Las Vegas as you can get while still staying in Nevada. Literally. His contract at Planet Hollywood hadn’t been renewed, his wife of three years had left him, and his father -- to whom he was especially close -- had passed away, all within the same year. “It was a lower point in my personal life,” Murray reflected honestly. In order to take his mind off his troubles, he did what he had always done: threw himself into this work, accepting any gig that came his way. He also looked back to advice he had gotten years earlier from his mentor, the famous Mr. Electric, Marvyn Roy: to look for what people are into and use it to your advantage. Mr. Electric, together with his wife, was a famous magic act from the 1950s all the way through to even the ’90s. His gimmick was light bulbs, pulling lit strands from his mouth or magically filling a giant bulb with milk. Around the time that Murray began to perform professionally, the music industry was making the massive transition from cassette tapes and vinyl albums to compact discs so it felt like a natural move to design his act around CDs the same way Mr. Electric used light bulbs. He made them appear from scarves, multiply in his hands, change color and size, breaking and restoring 12 JUNE | 2020 JUNE | 2020 13