Think twice before accepting an invitation from Dr. Penguin to participate in a poker game. Dr. Penguin – magician, comedian, musician, actor, presenter, emcee, charity worker and artist – informed and amused the Pattaya City Expats Club members and guests at their Sunday, September 21, meeting.
Dr. Penguin entertained his audience with a few card tricks. There was one particularly dazzling trick, where he passed around an imaginary deck of cards for a few members of the audience to take an imaginary card from the deck and call out the card they picked. He then produced a real card deck with all the cards face down except face up in the deck were the exact cards that members of the audience had “pulled” from the imaginary deck. Dr. Penguin quipped, “We have poker games every Thursday, if you are interested; bring lots of money.”
Pick a card, any card. Dr. Penguin asks members of the PCEC audience to pick a card from an imaginary deck and announce what it was. Later, using a real deck, he showed that all cards were face down except the ones that the members had “pulled” from the imaginary deck.
He then talked about his recent trip to Mexico and southern California. He saw a number of magicians perform, including one of the best, Richard Turner, who happens to be blind. Dr. Penguin had met Richard before but had not seen him for 25 years. Mutual friends invited Dr. Penguin to attend a show he was giving and to pretend to be someone else, but Dr. Penguin said that Richard knew right away who it was, just by the sound of Dr. Penguin’s voice. A documentary on Richard Turner is being made now and is expected to be available in 2015. (For more information, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A6vSAW0BEs.)
Dr. Penguin explains his charity swimming event upcoming in late December and invites everyone to attend for some fun while raising money for charity.
Dr. Penguin recounted an experience he had in 1989 when he was putting together the Wild West Show for Safari World in Bangkok. Here’s the story, condensed from a description Dr. Penguin posted on his “Doc Penguino” Facebook page:
“We brought in really top notch Hollywood stunt guys who did the Hollywood western shoot out and cowboy tricks. One part of my job was to design and build the Wild West set. It was a great design with all kinds of trap doors and secret entrances, so an actor could jump in a well and come back out of a barrel spitting water! …
“I hired a nice painter, Somchai, who had painted my house… I briefed him on the set, gave him copies of the design layouts, even gave him a VHS of the Magnificent Seven, and told to be creative! …
“Only thing was I had to fly to Hong Kong for three days. But Somchai had been well briefed and knew what to do, so what could go wrong?
“Upon my return I couldn’t help noticing staff at Safari World were laughing when they saw me entering the park… The owner of the park asked me if I’d seen the set yet and I said no, he then accompanied me into the arena, and there before me stood the Wild West town set, all painted in shades of hot pink! I asked Somchai why he painted everything hot pink and he said he thought it looked nice! I informed him he’d have to repaint the whole thing and smiled the rest of the day, avoiding questions.”
What is that creature Dr. Penguin pulled out of MC Richard Silverberg’s ear as Richard was presenting him with the PCEC’s Certificate of Appreciation for his entertaining presentation to the Club?
Dr. Penguin also spoke about a project he is working on. He was contracted by the French producer Jean Chalopin to do a pilot for a possible TV series, shot in the style of silent movies. The shooting was done in Belgium and Pattaya. In the pilot, which Dr. Penguin showed on the video screen for the audience, the character he plays gets very excited about some of the well-endowed female characters in the skit. Dr. Penguin said that on his recent trip that he was told the project will continue, but without the erotic element as the new producer wants to make it more family oriented.
In concluding his presentation, Dr. Penguin mentioned that he is involved in a charity event that is being planned for Pattaya in late December. The event is called the “Thailand Long Distance Ocean Swim Charity Challenge 2014.” The idea is that women long-distance swimmers from New Jersey, known as “the Mermaids,” will swim from Pattaya Beach to Koh Larn and back again, a distance of 20 kilometres. The event will help promote swimming and boating safety in Pattaya.
The Mermaids who will participate in the event are Nancy Steadman-Martin, who swam the English Channel in 2004, and Michelle Davidson, who has completed long-distance swimming Triple Crown: the English Channel, Manhattan Island and Catalina Channel. All of the women who will be participating are at least 60 years of age.
Les Edmonds announces to PCEC members and guests that he has tickets available for the upcoming Pattaya Classical Music’s next sponsored concert at the Siam Bayshore Pattaya on October 26 featuring the Desford Colliery Brass Band.
Dr. Penguin said that he will be putting together a “magic circus” so that while the swimmers are doing their thing, we should be expecting wet magic, wet juggling, floating balloon animals, wet mime and more.
Dr. Penguin has presented at the Pattaya City Expats Club on several occasions. You can follow him on his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/doc.penguino.
Master of Ceremonies Richard Silverberg then brought everyone up to date on upcoming events and called on Roy Albiston to conduct the always informative Open Forum where questions are asked and answered about Expat living in Thailand, especially Pattaya.
For more information on the PCEC’s many activities, visit their website at www.pcecclub.org.
