Actually, I started as a ventriloquist and my music teacher said, "Why don't you emcee the talent show?" My act was out of the back of Boys' Life magazine-they had a whole series of jokes in the back of Boys' Life magazine for Boy Scouts. So my act was jokes with my ventriloquist figure, and it was really bad, but I walked into the classroom afterward and the kids went, "Wow, you're cool." I wasn't cool at all, but I thought, "Well, this is a pretty good deal."

There was another guy suggested. He was a tall and dark-haired and Jewy, and I said, "No, he's too close to me." It ended up being Jerry Seinfeld.

Demonic figures and occult themes have disappeared from modern magic.

I used to fly around the stage without strings or camera tricks. That took seven years to create.

When the time came to say, "Mom, I want to do this as a job," it was brutal. She was really against it. There were screaming matches. Some people are shut down by that and get defeated by it, and other people are empowered by the negativity. My father kind of encouraged me through that.

I was an only child. We were so poor, my parents and I had the same room.

We all possess the need to dream.