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Magic Mark is an enigmatic figure in recent Tulsa history, undoubtedly a controversial one as well. He was the sweetest man, and a good friend, but he was also a paranoid conspiracy theorist who packed heat in his waistband everywhere he went. In some ways, he was one of the last remaining cowboys of the wild west.
I know he traveled extensively working in music as a stagehand throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. At one point he found an ad in the classifieds for a St. John’s heart surgeon who wanted to become a traveling magician. Mark ended up taking the Doc on two European tours with his magic show. He showed me an article where the cops had picked up him and Larry Shaeffer (former Cain’s Ballroom owner) out in West Tulsa for shooting guns at night. They were high on cocaine and drunk on moonshine, but the cops had no charges to stick on them for some reason.
I first met Magic Mark in 2010. This was right before my first skate video, “Get Your Kicks,” came out. I remember hearing about his parties that he would hold at his studio. He lived in a warehouse across the train tracks on Cheyenne, which was much rougher then than it is today. Now I think it’s some fancy coworking spot.
I had heard about these parties for a while before actually being invited to one. Inside his space, I remember seeing magic doves, a gynecologist’s leg harness and table, mannequins, and dozens of weird, artistic, or magical artifacts. There must have been 30 or 40 people in this apartment.