SEARCH: Lithuania and Rokas the Magician

Lithuania and Rokas the Magician
by Kay Tracy

One of the great parts of doing what I do, is that when I travel, I often have the great fortune to meet a variety of interesting people. Rokas, a magician from Lithuania, is one such person.

I was in Las Vegas for a magic school and had the great pleasure of seeing him perform. His wit and humor, as well as skill, was entertaining and engaging.

Rokas has been to the U.S. several times, and has even performed on the show Penn and Teller: Fool Us, winning the Fool Us Trophy! He is a gracious, and delightful entertainer.

His home country, Lithuania, is located along the Baltic Sea and has an amazing variety of things to do and see. If you like amber, Lithuania might be a place you will want to visit, as they have what is called the Amber Road along the Baltic with shops, tours, and opportunities to hunt amber yourself. Lithuania also participates in the Eurovision Song Contest, something that gets overlooked in the United States.

While the official language is Lithuanian, English is common and accepted as the language most tourists speak, so travel there should be friendly…

Read more about Lithuania and Rokas the Magician from Kay Tracy in our Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: The Crooning Comedian

The Crooning Comedian

by Elliot Thorpe

In August 1969, Billboard declared Dean Martin “The Total Entertainer.”

While that’s not entirely true (he never performed live theatre nor starred in Broadway musicals), Dino owned his own restaurant, his own production companies, had shares in a Las Vegas casino, did hundreds of sell-out Vegas shows, regularly topped the music charts, starred in hit movies, and headlined his own ratings-busting NBC show. In 1968, he purportedly earned more money for that year than anyone in the history of show business.

Of those who knew and worked with him, we would all say the same thing, he was a perfect gentleman, respectful of his peers, and exceptionally hardworking. He just made it look easy! While music was the career that made Dino very rich and was a path he’d always longed to go down back when he was a busboy and a croupier in Steubenville, his natural flair for comedy was what brought him to the attention of millions.

He, of course, began his comedy career with Jerry Lewis. When I co-wrote the biography Dean Martin Recollections, I referenced a line spoken by Jason Statham’s character from the movie Transporter 3, where he insisted that Dino was the funny one, not Jerry, and he could make people laugh by just holding a whisky tumbler and a cigarette…

Read the rest of The Crooning Comedian from Elliot Thorpe in SEARCH Magazine‘s Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: Author Spotlight on Michele Roger

Name: Michele Roger

Location: Michigan

What do you write?: I’m a Horror and Paranormal Romance writer. My writing works include The Conservatory, Eternal Kingdom: A Vampire Novel, Agent For the Orchestra, Her Immortal Beloved, The Telephone Booth, and most recently, Terror Under the Lupin Moon (available on Kindle Vella).

You’ve written for every issue of SEARCH Magazine since the beginning, which we really appreciate. What else do you do?: When I’m not writing stories or the music column for SEARCH Magazine, I’m writing music…or playing it.

Learn more about Michele Roger in our Fall 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: My BFF is a Bad Influence

My BFF is a Bad Influence

by Tim Reynolds

What can you do when your BFF is a troublemaker and a bad influence? What can you do when your mother doesn’t like your BFF and cringes whenever their name is mentioned?

What can you do when your BFF is a dragon puppet who wears a striped turtleneck, work boots, and size 6X OshKosh B’Gosh coveralls festooned with buttons that say “Why Be Normal” and “I Love My Dad?”

You do the same thing I did when Benny came into my life. When I say “came into my life” I don’t mean he walked in the door and sat down on the couch with a beer, I mean I created him as an assignment in Children’s Drama Class in college. As soon as I gave him a voice like an articulate Cookie Monster, though, he became his own…presence.

When I say “presence” I mean he got invited to floor parties in residence and the girls loved him. How much? Let’s just say that Benny got kissed more in college than I ever did…

Read the rest of My BFF is a Bad Influence from Tim Reynolds in SEARCH Magazine‘s Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: Rekindle Holiday Joy

Rekindle Holiday Joy

by Emerian Rich

Cascade, Colorado

Like most little kids, Christmas was my favorite holiday. I mean, who doesn’t like two weeks off school, piles of presents, and being allowed to eat countless sweets?

When I was five years old, my parents held my birthday party at The North Pole, or as we used to call it, “Santa Claus Land.” It didn’t matter that my birthday is in June or that it was a sunny day with not a lick of cold to speak of. At The North Pole in Cascade, Colorado, Christmas is a state of
mind.

Located 7,500 feet above sea level at the foot of Pikes Peak—the highest summit of the Southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains—The North Pole amusement park opened in June of 1956. By the time I visited for my fifth birthday, it was 20 years old and…

Continue reading in SEARCH Magazine’s #KeepLaughing themed issue.

SEARCH: Stand-Up and Succeed

Stand-Up and Succeed

by Tim Reynolds

Humor is such a vital part of our lives.

We all grasp at moments of humor when they float by, desperate to raise our serotonin levels with a smile, a chuckle, or an outright, belly-splitting guffaw and tears. Sometimes it’s hard to see the humor in the situation or the world around us…and that’s why we need professional humor-makers—especially stand-up comedians—whether live on a stage, in a Netflix special, or on YouTube.

For six years I treaded the boards and stared into the spotlights as an amateur comic willing to grab any time on almost any stage. I have performed for Baptist church groups (they don’t like jokes about farting dogs), lawyers and accountants (the more they drink, the less intelligent the jokes have to be), and I’ve had the rare honor of MCing a six-hour show featuring live music and burlesque acts, which is where standup comedy started—entertaining the audience while the stage hands reset the stage between acts of exotic dancers. Although, no matter what words were coming out of my mouth or what ears they were going into, there were basic rules I learned at the workshops given by working comics every Wednesday…

Read the rest of Stand Up and Succeed from Tim Reynolds in SEARCH Magazine‘s Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: Baked Cauliflower Buffalo ‘Wings’

Baked Cauliflower Buffalo ‘Wings’
by Brian and Patricia Dake

In my younger days, I’d often entertain by holding study groups, small gatherings, dinner parties, and always throwing at least one large open house every year. Recent times have made that more difficult, but whether you are entertaining family, friends, or just yourself, this recipe is a delight.

Cauliflower has become increasingly popular in recent years. No longer just a steamed vegetable or an addition to a veggie combo, it’s used for everything from pizza crust to a cauliflower steak main course. With this recipe, it makes a fabulous appetizer and—as we all know—appetizers go great with binge-watching your favorite new television shows.

Cauliflower, as we know it today, was manmade through a long process of selective breeding.
Although it didn’t start being cultivated in the United States until the 1900s, it was grown across Europe in the 1500s, and introduced to India in 1822 by the British.

Read the full recipe in SEARCH Magazine‘s Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue.

SEARCH: Winter 2022 Table of Contents

Read our Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue!

Table of Contents

• #KeepLaughing: Rekindle Holiday Joy at The North Pole
• #KeepLaughing: The Dancing Flower Girl
• Humor: My BFF is a Bad Influence
• Author Spotlight: Michele Roger
• Music: The Crooning Comedian, Dean Martin
• Travel: Lithuania and Rokas the Magician
• Stand Up and Succeed with Tim Reynolds
• #KeepLaughing: Mary Tyler Moore
• Food: Baked Cauliflower Buffalo “Wings”
• Fitness: I’m Still Using the Wii
• City Spotlight: Pullman, WA
• Autism: Sharing a Laugh
• Poetry: The Lighter Side

Read it all in our Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing issue

SEARCH: 2022 Winter Issue Editor Letter

SEARCH Magazine Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing

Comedy is a bit like French cuisine. When it’s done poorly, you’re left looking at ingredients and wondering how anyone thought they could be appetizing. It’s repulsive. When done well, it is a mind-blowingly fulfilling meal, and incorporates elements in ways you never imagined. You seek that thrilling perfect bite forever after.

Sure, dramas and action films receive the majority of accolades. In books, it’s the painful autobiographies that book clubs covet. However, humor is by far the trickiest of topics. The skill exhibited by good comedians and Rom-Coms are underappreciated. It takes wit to entertain so lightly. The most clever people I know aren’t politicians or philanthropists, it’s the comedian who can face down the reality of our world and present it with a chuckle.

Perhaps the reason humor isn’t awarded as frequently is because, like taste, humor is subjective. When you find an author, comedian, or film that fits your sense of humor, is there anything better? Delight derived from entertainment that makes you laugh can be enough to turn a gloomy weekend bright. Whether your taste runs more Douglas Adams, Robin Williams, Dave Barry, Dean Martin, or P. G. Wodehouse, there’s good reason to seek out humor. Just ask
Tim Reynolds, our resident humor columnist and occasional stand-up comic. In this issue you can also learn a bit about Lithuanian magician Rokas, and enjoy our Mary Tyler Moore retrospective.

There’s a reason we refer to comedy as “a sense of humor.” Like other senses, it is an impression we experience and react to at a visceral level. Find something that doubles you over with involuntary laughter.
Cry with mirth, and appreciate the subtle skill or the whack-in-the-crotch that got you there. Either way, we hope this issue hits the spot, not your funny bone.

Heather Roulo / Editorial Director

SEARCH Magazine Winter 2022 #KeepLaughing

SEARCH: Creation

Creation

by Oksanna Normandeau

I watch my baby
Take the paintbrush by storm.

She does not think
About where it goes.

She lets the motion
Of her energy flow,
Like she already knows
This is not for a performance
Or to romance another.

It is purely for the feeling
Of a blissful summer color mix
Or dancing to the beat
Of a drummer
As the music sways
Her hand to switch…

Read more of Oksanna Normandeau’s poem in SEARCH Magazine‘s Fall 2022 #Homemade issue.