Live, from Peoria, Illinois, it’s a hypnotic Saturday Night, starring this week’s host, The Lariat Steakhouse with special guest stars, Greg Batton and Terry Grawey and featuring the Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. And now, please welcome this week’s host, The Lariat Steakhouse!
Here we are at The Lariat Steakhouse, one of Peoria’s oldest restaurants. It’s been standing here since the 1940’s and it’s a classic Peoria dining spot.
These are the two pretty hostesses for the evening, Abby and Dara and yes, they are joined at the hip!
Tonight’s going to be a little different than most of our usual dining out Saturday evenings. There’s a show that I’m going to that features magic, humor and hypnotism. And yes, I’m going to get hypnotized, but first..
I think we need to get a beer and here’s bartender Matt serving up an ice-cold Budweiser. Perfect!
This is Diane and Steve and they told me they’re regular readers of MBIP, which I always love to hear. I hope I have their names right, I didn’t write them down, so if I screwed up, just let me know in the comments and I’ll correct that! It was great to meet them. And now...
It’s almost showtime! The show is taking place in this back room, let’s go through the doors and take a look...
Wow, nice room! The stage is empty for now, but that’s where the hypnosis is going to happen! As you can see, there’s a good crowd here!
And here’s the two stars of the show, Terry Grawey and Greg Batton! Most of you know Greg from the Greg and Dan morning show on WMBD, which I’ve been a guest on several times. Terry Grawey bills himself as a Hypnohumorist and he’s going to be doing the hypnotizing portion of the show, which I’ve volunteered to be a part of. The evening’s show is a benefit for The Penguin Project and you can read more about that right here.
Here’s Terry with his wife Eileen and his daughter Alice.
Greg’s going to be doing a standup comedy routine before the hypnotism show and here he is with his beautiful wife, Yvonne Greer. Yvonne’s a certified personal trainer and you can read more about her by clicking right here.
I ran into Mark Burdess who I haven’t seen for decades! Mark’s been in advertising for years here in Peoria and his company is Burdess & Associates. Great to see him and catch up after all these decades!
Here’ the table I’m sitting at, that’s Cory and Angela who’s sharing the table with me. I was going to meet three of my friends here tonight, but sadly they all had to cancel out for reasons beyond their control, so I'm all alone. Sob! I’m friendless!
Suddenly...snacks!
At the top of the post I told you there would be magic going on and here’s the guy supplying that magic is, Josh Meador! Josh warmed up the crowd by going from table to table performing magic and card tricks. Josh is also a hypnotist and you can read more about him here at his website.
Now it’s time for the humor portion of the evening and Greg Batton has taken the stage. Greg’s standup is more of a running monologue with hilarious stories about his family, his weight, his marriage and his huge head! He was really funny and the crowd was in stitches! Here’s Greg doing his standup at the Jukebox Comedy Club.
After Greg finished his standup, he introduced Terry Grawey to start the hypnosis portion of the show.
Here’s Terry explaining to the crowd how the hypnotism show works.
While Terry was explaining to the crowd what was going to happen, I engaged in a little dueling photography with photographer Greg McNeil. Greg’s also a magician and since I was going to be a volunteer for the hypnosis show, he agreed to take photos of the show while I was on stage. And so now it’s time for me to exit to...stage left!
Before I took the stage Greg made me bow before him. I hate it when he does that, but what are you going to do? Terry had ten volunteers and he was able to hypnotize three of us. He told me later sometimes everyone falls under and sometimes just a few do. As you can see I was one of the three. And for the record, I had only had two beers, so Terry truly did hypnotize me and I’m not just passed out on stage!
Terry’s sister, Tracy took these photos of us on stage. I had never been hypnotized before and Terry gave me a hypnotic suggestion that whenever someone asked what my name was, I’d spell it out instead of pronouncing it. He also gave me a suggestion that I would tell everyone that I was, “the star of the show.” I don’t remember any of this and once again, the blackout wasn’t alcohol related! Tracy also took this video of me coming off the stage while I’m still hypnotized.
He had us put on those shirts on stage and I finally snapped out of the hypnosis when I went to the bathroom when the evening was ending and saw myself in the mirror. It was really weird because I had no idea how that shirt got on me! I went back to the room and Terry and the others told me what I had done while being hypnotized! It was really a fun evening, what I can remember of it! Thanks to Greg and Tracy for taking the photos and the video so I could recreate the evening here on the blog!
And speaking of Tracy, here she is! Terry, Tracy and I all went to high school together and it was great to see her again after all these years. Tracy’s a fiber artist and last year she was a contestant on an online show sponsored by Vogue Knitting magazine called, The Fiber Factor. Here’s a link to the shows on YouTube. Tracy won the competition, congratulations, Tracy! Here’s another video link of a “Knit Along” for one of her winning designs that she hosted and here’s the announcement of her winning on Vogue’s website. Tracy is currently working on a knitting book that will be published by Soho Press in 2017, we’ll keep you up to date on the book as the date gets closer!
And just to prove that I actually do have friends, the other Amber and Marty met me at the bar for a few beers after the show. Amber and Marty own a great restaurant in Washington/Sunnyland called, Amber and Marty’s Fillin’ Station and last year my friend Amber and I went out there to meet the other Amber and Marty! It was great to see them again and Amber and I will be stopping by The Fillin’ Station soon, so stay tuned for that! Thanks to Terry and Greg for a fun evening and a great show...I was the star of the show! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Posts: Saturday Night @ McMahon’s Pints and Plates, The Silver Dollar Tavern and Ulrich’s Rebellion Room.