Norman Beck tells stories—“biggin’s,” even if they’re not “whoppers.” No “Texas brag,” just “Texas fact.” But it wouldn’t be hard to confuse him as an “Okie,” which, of course, he is. You could pick him out anywhere. To hear Norman tell it, he’s “got a Southern accent with an Oklahoma drawl delivered in a Texas twang.” But he’s no shiner. Jamy Ian Swiss explains, “Thank goodness Norman Beck is on the side of the good guys. A lot of magicians like to think they have the skills to be a professional con man or psychic. Precious few actually do, but Norman is one of them. Behind that slow-talking, dull-witted Okie mask lies a clever-like-a-fox mind and one of the best friends a man could have.”
Just press him, and Norman will let on about a million-dollar gamble on a single roll of a dice he’s presided over, not once but several times. Or, after consulting with the shoeshine fellow, the time surgeons pulled a baseball-size tumor out of the side of his head over at Medical City, and he lived to tell the tale in his first national TEDx talk. He may be a “northern” transplant, but Norman Beck is a Texas legend in the making and one of magic’s hidden gems.
I had met Norman sometime after the turn of the century at the Monday Night Magic evenings at the Bennigan’s restaurant in Arlington, Texas, where he would come, every once in a while, to hang out. Within a week or so Norman called to ask me to help him clear out of his apartment, as he was moving in with his lady and needed to get rid of some magic. Later, when I accepted the weekend post as house magician at Main Street Magic and Fun Company in McKinney, Norman would always drive up to meet me for lunch. We ate Texas BBQ every Saturday for 11 years until the shop lost its lease.
Fresh from a talk on how gamblers think, delivered to staff of the self-driving car division of General Motors out in San Francisco, Norman joined me for an early lunch over at the Roy Hutchin’s BBQ station, a classy joint in Trophy Club, just a little west and a yawn away from Dallas. Norman is a connoisseur of barbecue brisket and a scholar conversant about the best beef dives across the state. Mark, the manager and co-owner, sidled out of the kitchen to talk shop, and, for the next few minutes, I took a back seat.
“So, it was a good gig in California?” Mark asked.