GRNDL

By the by it’s pronounced Grendal.

Aka- Chris Cromartie.

Home pitch; Vegas

He has toured up and down sidewalks all over America.

So I did a lecture in Vegas and GRNDL was in the audience and I was tellin people how to work small sidewalks. The next day I went out to some of the tuffest sidewalks I’ve  ever worked and  he took me to school….I should have attended his lecture.

The thing is on every pitch in the world there’s a busker who has mastered that pitch. I get emails and phone calls from a lot of people asking what to do, when there’s already someone in their town who has mastered that town.

My advice is ask that busker.

In Vegas GRNDL is that master, he works Las Vegas sidewalks like they all came to see him. It blew my mind.

The way it happened is I was working a spot I had scouted out, he came over tried a show and had a tuff time, so he told me that I should go to another spot…..but I’m stubborn, I kicked off some shows there and it was work to stop them…..hard work. Then I finally went to his and he was kickin them off effortlessly over and over. To my dismay I couldn’t even get one proper one off……

My lesson that day is that Vegas had to be learned. All spots have to be learned….but especially Vegas…wow.

Any way I managed to make enough to get out of there.

GRNDL knew on the strip, that folks there were inundated with people hustling them and would only trust a performer who had someone in front of them first, so he’d stop a person first then go into his show.

My method of course is to stop the entire sidewalk, this worked on Fremont street, but barely worked on the strip, the correction was to either not work the strip or to bally one or two people before I went into my big bally.

Anyway,

GRNDL is a real magician.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that to be a magician, it’s more than doing tricks, you need to be a wise man, knowledgeable about the world and the universe, and you need to hold yourself like a magi.

I am not going to go into it here but suffice to say he meets the criteria, no question.

We talked for hours about philosophy, history, the occult, religion, science, theater presentation and a host of others things.

The biggest reason I say, he is the #1 sidewalk magician out there is because he’s not doin huge amplified productions with the type of show you might see at a corporate event, he’s doin a gritty sidewalk show....every day all day.

 There is no question in the minds of his audience that they are watching a real street guy.

It is so hard to convey this to many club magicians who are thinking to go out to the street with their slick appearance and corporate marketing mentality…..but the laymen know what I’m talkin about. There’s something about seeing a real street character, who belongs out there.

When the other -street element people- out there see him, whether they be thugs, hustlers, gutter punks, liquore store owners, cab drivers, bums, cops, or even other street buskers, they know GRNDL represents the street like their king.

GRNDL is not trying to fit in by wearing some worn clothes with a $50 dollar hair cut…….GRNDL fits in because GRNDL is the street.

Of course any true street performers out there know I just gave him the highest compliment….but some dandy business  magicians won’t get it and they will continue to come out and plague us with their high maintenance behavior…..and they’ll never get it….but us street guys will…..and most of all the lay public will.

His audience’s faces are lit up, they are finally seeing something REAL in public, instead of a canned show, or an armature attempt, or a pure a hustle.

You see…..

When GRNDL works, his character is natural, his show’s atmosphere is vivid reality, and you could tell he loves what he is doing with his life the whole time.

He’s street grime regal….he’s my people.

it is no great mystery that when we all went the magician’s meetings and magi hang outs, it was GRNDL who dragged me and Sonny Holliday out to the parking lot to drink wine and smoke cigarettes while the indoor magi went on hobnobbing and being seen with the in crowd.

Thank gad for GRNDL.

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