It’s been another week full of excitement. Despite the lack of sleep and missing home, this job has been more fun in the last two weeks than I can ever remember. This will be a long entry – hang with me!

I wrote about last week’s shows and the absolutely amazing crowd at the University of Northern Colorado. This week took me to Indiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.

I started by driving to Kokomo, Indiana for a show at Indiana University – Kokomo, which is a 100% commuter campus. I sometimes get scared about performing at non-traditional campuses like this because you never know who will show up and the audiences can be so different from the traditional 18-22 year old audiences that I’m used to in colleges. I started the day performing close-up for a BBQ outdoors.

Turned out that we got a fair size crowd to the show (for a commuter campus on a Thursday night) and I had a good time. Even the Chancellor of the University came to the show with his wife. Here’s a photo of the show at Kokomo.

More photos from Kokomo are here.

After the show, I drove 5 hours to Cleveland. Before the Cleveland Air Show, however, I had a performance in Paxton, Massachusetts. So by the time I got to Cleveland, I got about 2 hours sleep before getting on a plane to Boston. The show at Anna Maria was cool. The people were a blast. My host for the night was a student named Danielle who was about as big as my pinky but was a firefighter – pretty impressive.

The auditorium at Anna Maria was perfect for my show – a great size with a red carpeted stage. Some enthusiastic guys from the bball team came and sat in the front row. They freaked out a lot. It was great. More photos of the show here. After the show, I drove back to Boston where I stayed and slept a few hours before getting up EARLY for a flight back to Cleveland.

I’ve been getting HD video from EVERY show so hopefully one day I’ll edit it and put it up somewhere where you all can see it.

So I arrive in Cleveland early Saturday morning and was ready for my day with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels at the Cleveland Air Show. I was given the best treatment by these guys – sat in the VIP section, hung out with them – you name it. There are lots of photos up at Flickr, but here are a few:

After the airshow, it was a late night at a western bar with my new friends and then bright and early, it was off to Florida.

I flew into Ft. Lauderdale airport and didn’t have a show Sunday night, so I headed out to Ft. Lauderdale Beach to spend the day. The water was AWESOME and beach was beautiful. It was REALLY windy and there were a lot of people kite surfing – something I hadn’t seen people do before.

I ended up sitting at a little beach cafe enjoying a plate of fresh snapper for dinner as it started to get dark.

On Monday I had lunch at an AWESOME Chinese Buffet called “Crazy Buffet’ in West Palm Beach. One of the nicer ones I’ve ever been to. Then went to the beach again – this time at West Palm – and then got ready for my show at Northwood University.

Northwood is a small business school with a fence all around it and a moat. After being stopped by the gatekeeper, I wondered how welcome I’d feel until I saw this:

So nice of them. We had a good turnout at the show — it was a really nice venue for a show my size! Photos here.

Before the show started, I had to get a beer bottle (the one that I break in the show), so James – a student showed me how to “break out” of Northwood. Because of shopping cart theft, they literally had to build a wall between the local shopping center and the college. So students climb the wall to go shopping, go to the bars, hang out, etc. Not to be denied the full Northwood University experience, I happily climbed the wall to get my much-needed show supplies! I wish I had a photo of that!

The next day I flew to Philadelphia for a show at Penn State Abington. PSU Abington does noon shows, so I like to fly in the night before to make everything easier. I spent some time at the King of Prussia mall which was AMAZING. I had raw oysters for the first time and did some power shopping.

The show at PSU Abington was great – this is one of the best noon shows a college performer can do. The students are eager to come to the show because they’re on a common break and the performance space has windows all across the back so other students can see in and become interested.

We had another record crowd – something like 215 or so – standing room only! The show was a fun one – one of the people throwing the deck of cards hit the ceiling pretty hard and scattered the cards everywhere. I ended up completing the trick with a 4-card deck. During the “improv magic” bit, someone yelled something pretty nasty, so it made it funnier when I decided we should probably just do the bit with a piece of rope instead of what they yelled.

I appreciate all the facebook and myspace adds I’ve been getting lately – it’s really been incredible. Keep in contact with me – I love hearing from people.

Tomorrow I perform at Ohio University, then at someone’s wedding on Sunday! Then another week of shows and traveling after that! I’m sure I’ll have more photos and more to talk about!

peace, love and blue angels,
mk

I know I’ve left some of you wondering about the new show that I’m excited about.  I was asked by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron to do a performance at their home base in Pensacola, Florida!  Many of you have seen the Blue Angels at air shows or on television.  Personally, I’ve been a fan of them since I was a kid and as a bit of an aviation buff, this is a huge thrill for me.  I’ll also be hanging out with and doing magic for the Blue Angels at the Cleveland Air Show in August!  Don’t worry, I’ll be getting plenty of video!  Here’s a clip about them that you’ll enjoy…

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/v/54ZfP1kZupM&hl=en&fs=1″]

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer! Things here have been great. I’m in the process of moving my blournal to WordPress instead of Myspace. Most readers of my blournal read it as an imported Facebook note anyway, so it won’t matter! If you’re interested, the feed for my blournal is:

http://michaelkentlive.wordpress.com/feed

For me, summer means that my schedule slows down a bit from touring colleges and I performing a slightly less rigorous schedule of private performances for corporations and what not. My last performance was for the Ohio Clerk of Courts Education Committee which turned out to get a little crazy. There was drunken heckling involved and we all had fun.

I got a very exciting phone call this week for a future performance. Here’s a hint, the person/people I’ll be performing for are a household name and are seen by 15 million people a year.

The Fall College Tour is really shaping up, but there are still some available dates if your college or university is interested! We’re also booking into Spring 09. Here’s a preliminary Fall Schedule:

FALL 08 SCHEDULE (all dates subject to change)
Jul 17, 2008 Columbus, OH Private Corporate Event
Aug 17, 2008 St. Louis, MO Private Corporate Event
Aug 18, 2008 St. Louis, MO Private Corporate Event
Aug 22, 2008 Clarion, PA Clarion University
Aug 23, 2008 Greeley, CO University of Northern Colorado
Aug 25, 2008 Bexley, OH Capital University
Aug 29, 2008 Kokomo, IN Indiana University – Kokomo
Aug 30, 2008 Cleveland, OH Private Special Event
Sep 01, 2008 West Palm Beach, FL Northwood University
Sep 04, 2008 Philadelphia, PA Penn State University – Abington
Sep 07, 2008 Hilliard, OH Private Event
Sep 10, 2008 Manchester, NH St. Anselm College
Sep 14, 2008 New London, NH Colby-Sawyer College
Sep 27, 2008 Rindge, NH Franklin Pierce University
Oct 02, 2008 Chattanooga, TN NACA South
Oct 03, 2008 Erie, PA Mercyhurst College
Oct 04, 2008 Chattanooga, TN NACA South
Oct 09, 2008 Edinburg, TX Univ. Texas-Pan Am
Oct 23, 2008 Lyndonville, VT Lyndon State College
Oct 24, 2008 Lancaster, PA NACA MidAtlantic
Oct 25, 2008 Lancaster, PA NACA MidAtlantic
Oct 30, 2008 Peoria, IL NACA MidAmerica
Oct 31, 2008 Peoria, IL NACA MidAmerica
Nov 1, 2008 Peoria, IL NACA MidAmerica
Nov 6, 2008 Hartford, CT NACA Northeast
Nov 7, 2008 Hartford, CT NACA Northeast
Nov 8, 2008 Hartford, CT NACA Northeast
Dec 06, 2008 Celina, OH Private Corporate Event
Dec 12, 2008 Pensacola, FL Private Special Event
Dec 13, 2008 Zanesville, OH Private Corporate Event

Let me know if I’ll be in your town & I’ll make sure you can come to the show if possible!

Originally Posted on 4/15/08