Filming David Blaine Doug McKensie

Doug McKenzie: The Wizard of Williamsburg

For three years, the dentist cringed at the cigarette burns in Doug McKenzie’s mouth. Lucky for him, he was a quick healer, and eventually, albeit painfully, he accomplished one of his life’s goals: mastery of his favorite magic trick.

That trick is just one of the many that make up McKenzie’s mind-blowing act. He lights a cigarette, breaks it in half, puts part of it, still lit, in his mouth, and makes it disappear. Magically, he can still blow out the smoke. It’s a stunt he likes to pull at nightclubs that ban smoking, just to see the look on the confused bouncer’s face. “The character I try to portray is a guy with a lot of dangerous knowledge,” he said. “I can tell when you’re lying. I like when people are a little uneasy with me.”

McKenzie, a Williamsburg resident, is David Blaine’s consultant and television producer. An illusionist and street magician, Blaine is best known for feats like the “Dive of Death,” during which he hung upside down for 60 hours in Central Park and then took a dive, and “Buried Alive,” in which he was buried in a plastic box for a week beneath a three-ton, water-filled container. Blaine made McKenzie his producer after meeting him at a party and impressing him with tricks. They have now been working together for seven years.

The two magicians perform weekly at the NYU downtown hospital, a veteran’s hospital, and at Crossroads, a juvenile detention center. In addition to entertaining the patients and teens, they also teach tricks to their audience to take their minds off their troubles. “This one kid I taught magic to at NYU had a brain tumor,” said McKenzie. “He was really into math and magic so I taught him magic based upon mathematics. He was super into it, and his parents sent me thank you e-mails. Every year NYU puts out this book of artwork and poetry. He did this really great poem called ‘Ode to Card Tricks.’ I have it on my fridge.”

McKenzie said that teaching magic to veterans, patients, and juvenile delinquents helps bring them out of their shells. “For kids in a hospital, it’s a way of getting superpowers. They can forget they’re sick. For veterans it’s a social thing. It’s a good way to talk to people. For kids in jail, who see eye contact and certain ways of communicating as aggressive, it’s a way to teach them that they can develop a character and be anyone they want to be.”

When not producing Blaine or assisting with his charity work, McKenzie gigs solo, mainly at private parties. His signature moves are pick-pocketing (he’s stolen watches from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Paris Hilton), taking cell phone pictures of people’s faces and making them appear on dollar bills, and having guests roll dice behind his back as he guesses on what number they will land. “I personally think he’s amazing,” said Erich Berendt, who works in digital ad sales at NBC and books the magician for events. “He goes beyond what you think of as traditional magic. There is a lot of sleight of hand and he’s really able to confuse people. They find it entertaining and hilarious, especially when they watch it happen to other people.”

McKenzie also has a marketing business and offers brand performance to clients. For Absolut Vodka, he and his partner, Ryan Oaks, developed a campaign in which 60 magicians traveled to bars around the country, doing magic related to the vodka. “The product is the star of the show,” he said.

Because magic is a relatively common hobby, McKenzie said it sometimes gets a bad rap, affecting how some people perceive him. “A lot of people haven’t seen good magic. There are so many people who call themselves magicians because it’s easy to get into. But there’s a big difference between someone who devotes their life to it and someone who dabbles.”

Since it’s a risky career path, McKenzie wasn’t sure he’d be a professional magician. “It’s not like I planned to be a TV magic producer,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I am extremely happy with what I am doing.”

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