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Monday, July 7, 2025

Mandrake gestures hypnotically to many

by

20111111

My name is Kess and I am a grand il­lu­sion­ist. I'm sure my name, Kess, came be­fore Kes the Band's name, be­cause, since I been grow­ing up, a lot of peo­ple call me, Kess. But see­ing he's a lo­cal celeb, the pub­lic will know him first. My re­al name is Kesston Ricky Ro­driguez. I grew up in Mor­vant and cur­rent­ly live in the heart of Port-of-Spain. I just turned 21. Since I was small, I knew I was a bit dif­fer­ent. Things chil­dren want­ed to be-fire­man, doc­tor, po­lice­man-I nev­er want­ed to be noth­ing like that. All I want­ed to be was a ma­gi­cian. I'm glad that it came true. I have all my pass­es though. I don't have a day job. I'm a full-time il­lu­sion­ist. And it's a good thing. Be­cause I'm the on­ly il­lu­sion­ist in Trinidad so the mag­ic mar­ket is all mine: If any­body have any work for an il­lu­sion­ist, they have work for me.

My as­sis­tant, the love­ly Vanes­sa, is al­so my fi­anc&ea­cute;e. I met her at my first mag­ic show, ever. She was in the au­di­ence. I asked her to come up and do a trick and, now, she's do­ing many. That might be one of my best tricks ever. Michael Jack­son was my in­spi­ra­tion to be me and do what I want to do. A lot of peo­ple tell me they can see Michael in me and I think I did im­i­tate him un­con­scious­ly. Be­cause I re­al­ly looked up to him when I was younger. I can sing a bit. All my past jobs, I al­ways en­tered the of­fice ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion and I al­ways won. But I pre­fer mag­ic more, though. Why did I start­ed mag­ic? I start­ed mag­ic at the age of ten-years-old. What in­spired me? Watch­ing these lit­tle car­toons like Pe­ter Pan, Al­addin, Tin­ker Bell, all these things re­al­ly amused me. I was, like, "Mag­ic would be re­al­ly cool if it was re­al". And I start look­ing at ma­gi­cians and I said, "Yeah, that's the job for me". I did my first mag­ic trick at ten. And, af­ter I see how easy I could do it, I re­alised I was born for it. And I just nev­er stopped.

I did mag­ic for 11 years and no one knew. I kept it a se­cret and just kept prac­tis­ing. I wait­ed un­til I was good enough to come out in pub­lic. Rather than learn­ing with my au­di­ence, get­ting the trick wrong, drop­ping the card or what­ev­er. I love David Cop­per­field. I got my big break a year ago, when I got my own mag­ic show on a Caribbean TV chan­nel. The first sea­son is ac­tu­al­ly over and sea­son two is air­ing in De­cem­ber. I have per­formed over­seas. I did a show in Grena­da. And I'm look­ing to tour the Caribbean. When I land at an air­port, I put Il­lu­sion­ist in the oc­cu­pa­tion space on the im­mi­gra­tion forms. And they don't ask no ques­tions! I'm not just a ma­gi­cian: I'm a grand il­lu­sion­ist. I do a lot of big il­lu­sions, like meta­mor­pho­sis, es­cape acts and a lot of an­i­mal mag­ic. I have a lot of snakes, birds and these things.

My par­ents al­ways knew that I was weird so, any­thing I did, they were al­ways, like, "Oh-kay." They were very sup­port­ive. Any­thing I need­ed, mag­ic-wise, they would help me. If I do an il­lu­sion like mak­ing a glass float, and you re­al­ly think that I made the glass float, that mean the trick was re­al good. I have three tat­toos: the Black Wid­ow, which is known as an il­lu­sion­ist: they trick their mate in­to hav­ing sex with them and then the fe­male eat the male. And I have Mag­ic Man on my neck be­cause no one wants to say, Kess the Il­lu­sion­ist; they call me Kess the Mag­ic Man. The best part about be­ing a grand il­lu­sion­ist is see­ing the ex­pres­sions on peo­ple's face af­ter I per­form. And an­oth­er best thing that keeps me go­ing is my love­ly fi­anc&ea­cute;e, Vanes­sa.

I would not lie, there are times I want­ed to stop be­cause I think, "Ma­gi­cians have no place in Trinidad and To­ba­go and is best I quit!" But she is my in­spi­ra­tion and she dri­ves me. The bad part of be­ing an il­lu­sion­ist is a lot of peo­ple as­sume what I do is dev­il thing. But I learn to pass all of that. Ac­tu­al­ly, I like it when peo­ple think I'm do­ing a dev­il thing, be­cause it lets me know I'm do­ing a damn' good job! A Tri­ni is some­one who like to com­plain about every­thing. Trinidad and To­ba­go is all about love. Even though we all like to com­plain, at the end of the day, if there is a prob­lem, we all come to­geth­er. Most of the time, we share the same views. It's a very lov­ing place.

Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com.


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