Meet Steve Cabe | Magician/Mentalist, Storyteller, Mental Health Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Steve Cabe and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Steve, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I’m originally from Georgia but spent most of my life growing up in Michigan. Looking back it’s interesting to consider how growing up in a southern family in the northern part of the United States contributed to the culture and value system I was raised in. It was often steeped in tradition and faith, but also in ways that led to being unnecessarily critical of myself. Not to mention, I’m the youngest in my family, which often made it hard to find my individuality. When you’re a kid trying to find the unique parts of your identity–talents, hobbies, and the things that make you uniquely yourself–but you’re also the youngest, it can feel like all the good hobbies are already taken. I developed early interests in art and baseball, but my older brother also liked art and baseball, and I dared not claim the things my siblings liked first lest I be accused of being one of the worst things you can be as a child, “a copycat.”

I was first introduced to magic at age six when a family friend showed me a trick where a dime disappears under a penny. I was enamored and then proceeded to beg him for what felt like an eternity to a six-year-old (probably 30 minutes or so) to tell me the secret. He did and I was hooked, though, I’m not sure I actually fooled anyone in the first six years I liked magic, which is a big part of being a magician. However, when I was twelve a different family friend gave me a bootlegged DVD of a famous magician performing a challenging sleight-of-hand routine. I spent two weeks practicing almost nonstop and then when I finally felt like I had the routine polished enough, I showed my dad and I fooled him. I was twelve years old and I fooled my dad. That felt pretty good.

In regard to what parts of my upbringing impacted who I am today, the first (and most significant) thing that comes to mind is baseball. I played in city leagues as a kid and eventually asked my parents if I could change school systems so that I would get better coaching. It was the only sport I played in high school so I focused on it year-round and then it became a much more serious commitment when I decided to accept a scholarship to play four years of college baseball (split between Kansas and Indiana). During the 16 years I played baseball, I was blessed to have two really great coaches (my high school coach and my first college coach) whose commitment to excellence rubbed off on me. Likewise, in both high school and college, I learned what it meant to be a good teammate. As a result, I have a big commitment to excellence in my performances and I like to think that being a good teammate and being a good performer (when it comes to the relationship I have with my audiences) share a lot of similar traits.

All that said, when it comes to magic, I didn’t grow up around other magicians. I learned magic on my own by teaching myself from books. So, I pulled inspiration from wherever I could find it: baseball, art, music, my faith upbringing, TV shows, and other things you discover as a kid. I used to look back and be jealous of my magician friends who grew up around other magicians and how much easier it must’ve been for them. I have a few friends that grew up getting mentorship from some of the top magicians in the world, but that wasn’t the case for me. Now, I see it as a strength. It’s why my performances, ideas, and feelings about magic are different than most magicians and I like to think it’s why so many people have told me my shows are “refreshing” compared to others.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
It hasn’t been an easy journey, but I’ve learned a lot along the way that’s helped transform me into someone I’m really proud of. Along the way to getting paid to perform magic and tell stories, I’ve washed dishes, driven forklifts, moved kegs, and driven a taxi. I’ve also done some really amazing things like consulting for TEDx speakers and a number of other magicians. For a while, the thing that helped me through those hard times was the belief that my circumstances wouldn’t be forever. Now when things are hard the thing that helps is understanding that the thing I’m really after, sharing magic and telling amazing stories, is possible anywhere. As long as I’m interacting with others, there’s an opportunity to share magic and tell stories, sometimes you just have to look a little harder for them pending the circumstances.

It reminds me of a routine I wrote several years ago in which I share a story from my senior year of college baseball. In the story, I talk about how I got injured my senior year and how that took a heavy toll on me for several weeks. A few minutes later I ask the audience if there’s anyone in the room that’s had a hard week and I invite them to the stage to help with a trick. In the end, if all goes right, the person ends up standing on stage with everyone in the audience rooting and cheering for them; sometimes they even get a standing ovation. The point is, I’m using magic as a tool in my performances rather than as the focus of them. The goal is to remind people what magic feels like and tricks are just the things I’ve gotten really good at that I now use to accomplish my goal. If instead of magic I’d gotten really good at painting, then I’d be painting pictures to help people rediscover wonder, but it’s not. So, I use magic tricks.

That said, I’m currently most excited about my original one-man show, THIS IS A ROBBERY*, which premiered over a year ago to a sold-out crowd in Venice Beach. It’s a creative hybrid show that uses magic, art, and storytelling to explore the human experience of loss. Ironically, a week after I performed the show for the first time, I went through one of the most difficult experiences of loss I’d ever been through and it changed some of the feelings I had towards some of what I’d written for the first performance. So, instead of continuing to perform the show due to its success, I burned the show to the ground, picked a few good pieces out of the ashes, and decided to rewrite it with a new, deeper, more thought-provoking approach in mind. It’s an interesting thing to leave something when it’s already been validated as successful, but I felt it was better (and more authentic) to put the show on hold until it was rewritten according to the new perspective I’d found having lost something that was really important to me shortly after the first performance. All that said, I am finishing up the rewriting process and am hoping to have THIS IS A ROBBERY* relaunched in Los Angeles very soon.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Are you asking me to give away all my secret spots? Magicians are good at keeping secrets you know?

Jokes aside, where I take people when they come to visit depends on the person and the things they’re interested in. One of the blessings (and curses) of Los Angeles is that there’s an infinite number of things to do here, which means you’ll never be able to do everything. But that gives people an excuse to come back and visit again. Needless to say, the one spot I take literally everyone who comes to visit me is Little Lunch Coffee & Snacks in Venice. After that, it’s usually a combination of Culver City, Santa Monica Pier, Beverly Hills, Sunset and Hollywood Blvd, and the Magic Castle, which is a historic members-only magic club in Hollywood so you have to either be a member or know a member to get in.

I also like that I live within driving distance of Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, and Petco Park. So, if whoever is visiting is also a baseball fan and they come during the summer, I usually try to work in a visit to one of those parks depending on where our other explorations take us.

I’m also a huge fan of donuts, so there’s usually a trip to my favorite donut shop worked in there somewhere as well, but the location of the said shop shall remain my little secret for now.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are a number of people and things that come to mind that I have to thank for their influence on who I am and where I find myself today: A family friend named Stan who gave me my first magic kit and the bootlegged DVD that started this whole journey. Carter who has been one of the most consistent encouragers of my magic since college (that is after we stopped being each other’s arch-nemesis in magic and became best friends) and Ryan Smith for his encouragement. Alex Chin for his encouragement when I considered quitting magic in 2018. Nate Staniforth and his book Here Is Real Magic. Trino for believing in me and my magic at times when I found it hard to believe in myself.

Website: https://www.stevencabe.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve.cabe/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveCabe

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNNWHoaRcsdD0cML1ShV97Q

Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZoSWr0SsVq3you45WKxVI?si=bbfe63564eb84e68