By Stephen Ablett
You've been a close-up magician for two years and can't find any work so you're like:
You decide you'll become a children's entertainer to pay the bills - you ask someone for advice and they say:
Finding a client is like:
You build yourself a website using a free Google sites template:
On your website you write 'Award Winning Magician' when in reality its like:
But you are confused that you only appear on page 37 of the Google search engine.
You pay a fortune to some marketing company and they get you to the first page of Google.
But then after a day, you see yourself on page 2, then on page 3
You then realise that there are 30 other magicians who have also paid to get to the top and so it changes daily.
You make posts on Facebook thinking that might work, but comment on someone's photo instead.
You tell everyone you've been phoning restaurants to find the work, when really you've been:
When your wife walks in, you're like:
When really you were:
Eventually you decide to send out some letters.
But the phone is still not ringing and you feel like:
Then at 7am in the morning, the phone rings and thinking it's a client you pretend to be like...
But the caller wants you to do a free charity show to save her Goldfish and you say:
Then you get another caller wanting a free gig, and another, and another and you feel like:
And you say it again.
And you just keep saying:
You look at your e-mails the day after advertising in the Yellow Pages and suddenly you're unindicted with spam.
And you just keep going:
And you want to do this to the book:
The phone rings again and you're like:
But it's an actual client and suddenly you're like:
You tell the client...
They ask if you have lots of experience working with this age group and your like:
They say they have to check with their husband and will call you back. So you wait by the phone.
After a week, they still haven't called back and you're like:
But just when you've given up hope, they call again and book you and your like:
and
and
Two weeks later, you arrive at the birthday party and the children ask:
You dressed looking like this:
But the birthday child only sees you as this:
And upon seeing you, they start doing this:
You start the show and the children are like...
and
You tell a joke that worked great for adults, but the kids go:
and
You feel like your drowning and just want to run away.
But you keep going, pretending you know what you're doing.
Then this happens:
There's an annoying kid on the front row.
He starts screaming this at you:
And inside you feel like:
And you do everything you can to stop from going:
You want to grab that kid and just do this to them:
But you carry on and with your never-done before by anyone, ever, original colouring book routine.
But that annoying kid won't stop and he sneaks around to the back of your table and does this:
The boy's parents look at their child misbehaving and just do this:
You seconds away from being like this:
But you bite your tongue, pretend to smile and act like this is all part of the show.
And you think to yourself:
Part of you even wants to:
The parents at the back of the room stop talking for a moment to see you performing the Head Guillotine Illusion on the birthday child.
But you look at the kids and they look like this for the first time in the show:
You pass the blade through the child's head and there like:
But you did it; you made it through the show.
They do the birthday cake and the kids look happy.
But every time you look at the parents there like:
You ask people what they thought of the show and they say:
And so inside you feel like:
But what they really thought was:
You start a thread on The Magic Cafe about the show and your like:
But then you get a response and you feel like saying:
You get told that the Head Guillotine Illusion is not suitable for a children's show and your like:
But then you get attacked by someone else and your all like:
You spend the next three weeks defending yourself until you realise:
But everything feels better after:
Then the phone rings again for a wall-planner they want you to advertise on, and you suddenly realise that answering the phone is now your entire life.
You sit back, and say to the world:
Your life as a children's entertainer has now begun.
By Stephen Ablett
With thanks to Nathan Bransford who inspired me to write this after reading 'The Publishing Process in GIF Form'