remembering jc wagner

By Gene Urban

This past week my old friend and mentor JC Wagner left this Earthly plane. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in late 2009 and recovered enough to spend several quality months enjoying his family, friends and greatest love… magic.

I met JC Wagner when I returned to San Diego after college. I think the year was 1978.  I was newly into the art, just 4 years, and JC was the lead magician at a new magic themed bar called The Magic Lounge. I would hang out on my nights off from the bar I performed at and watch “the master.” People flocked from all over San Diego to watch this funny man fool the heck out them. Then they would bring their friends back and watch the same happen to them. it was an amazing place.

JC took me under his wing and taught me how to WOW an audience, plus much about clever card magic and entertainment. These early years were filled with many hours of practice, nightly performances and more practice… a great combination.

After the Magic Lounge closed its doors, JC and I discussed opening a place in downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp district . We realized it was probably too early in the project’s development and choose not to move forward.

I moved to Phoeniix and became a bar magician at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in late 1984. I didn’t see JC much for the next couple years, although he helped me out  by phone when I was asked to create Scottsdale’s first magic themed bar/restaurant, James Place. He knew a lot about how to best stage a magic bar and kept me from making too many mistakes.

I believe it was 1988 when JC called and asked if I wanted a room mate and to possibly open another magic bar in the area… the owners of James Place had sold the club a year or so before. I was thrilled.

Soon, he and his girlfriend Patty were at the house and life was rock and roll. All night jam sessions were the norm. Kenton Knepper and Brother Paul West, two of the James Place magis, were living there too and soon the “house on Turquoise” was the hang out for visiting and local magicians including Bob Sheets, Shawn Greer and Bob Kubota. I don’t remember sleeping much but the magic and parties were amazing.

Besides our jam sessions and play time, we did get to live out a dream… the opening of a magic bar. We got a short term lease on a place in Fountain Hills, AZ. Soon, the Magic Lounge at Club Mirage was open for business 5 nights a week. JC and I traded off sets of magic and made two of the nights “Game NIght” where part of the time was spent playing Balderdash and video games on an Atari system… the state of the art at the time. We had a lot of visitors at the Magic Lounge and a very special night when the master of rope magic, George Sands, made the trek and gave a special performance.

When the bar’s lease ended, we only had it for 6 months, JC and Patty took to the road for a long lecture tour and an era ended. Yet those days live on as some of the most special.

JC had a photographic memory, a staggering knowledge base and an eye for detail  that was often intimidating. Needless to say, much of who I am today is the by-product of this time.

Thank you JC Wagner… keep them laughing in heaven and I hope you finally find Lucille.

Gene Urban

___________________________________________

For those who never got to see JC work at the bar I’ve included a bit of video for your entertainment pleasure.