Confessions of a Stage Hypnotist

The first confession is about the title: “Confessions” was chosen in an effort to grab your attention and lure you in.

So. If not confessions, what? Unusual, funny, amazing and--yeah, embarrassing--things that have happened on stage. On Wednesday, May 21, 2008, I will do a show for the Hershey High School Senior Class Banquet. It will be the thirty-second consecutive year that I have entertained the Hershey High School Seniors. (If you happen to live in the area, drop in and watch a bunch of great kids have the time of their life. It’s a big auditorium and the School always welcomes visitors. Just walk in and sit down. 8:00 P.M. Or let me know and I’ll send you a personal invitation.)

People repeat ably ask if I don’t get tired of doing the same things over and over and over for 32 years. Nope. No two shows are ever exactly the same because I do hundreds of routines and put them together in a multitude of ways. And I endeavor, not always successfully, to include one new routine in every show. More important no two groups of volunteers are ever the same and I almost always encounter in every show an action or reaction that I’ve never seen before.

For instance I did a show at Mercersburg (Pennsylvania) Academy a couple of week ago and told a guy that when I snapped my fingers he would jump up and beg for my glasses (the X-Ray glasses that see through people’s clothing routine is a dependable favorite).I was startled when this particular guy jumped up and fell to his knees at my feet.

It was only when I was on my way home that I figured it all out. He apparently associated being on one’s knees with “begging” and I had told him he would “beg for my glasses”.

I was startled. But not nearly so startled as by the young man in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, many years ago who put on the glasses and almost immediately jerked one of the women volunteers from her chair and pulled her down onto the floor.

With urgency, panic maybe, in my voice I called out his number, the cue for him to go to sleep. As I helped the woman to her feet I asked: “Do you know this guy?”

“He’s my husband.”

Which reminds me of the elderly gentleman in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who put on the glasses and with equanimity and seemingly little interest surveyed the crowd and with great calmness observed: “Why they’re all naked. Why there’s my wife. Why she’s naked.”

So much for now. I intend to continue these ramblings from time to time. Your reactions, suggestions and comments would delight me.

--December 16, 2007.