We’re settled into our new pad here in the southwestern quadrant of the Vegas metro sprawl.  The kitchen is in order (we can eat something besides takeout) and the bathroom is set up (we can bathe) and the office is humming (we can surf, write, make travel arrangements and pay bills).

While The Female Half of the Staff was surfing tonight, she learned of the premature death of Steve Dacri.  He succumbed to cancer.  He was only… well, he was just too young to die, let’s put it that way.

The Male Half of the Staff is forever indebted to Dacri.  When The Halves moved to Los Angeles in 1988, they set about trying to get on the various standup comedy shows that were on the air and on cable at the time.  One of them, Into the Night starring Rick Dees, was in production at ABC.  The talent coordinator was Steve Dacri.  He viewed a videotape of The Male Half and immediately expressed an interest in having him on the show.  He set up an audition at the Laugh Factory (just a formality, to show the other producers) and a date was set.  It was The Male Half’s first network television appearance.  And it was followed up with another a short time later.

Just after that second shot, the show was canceled.  Bummer.

Maybe not.

Dacri had other plans.  He was going to try his hand at management.  He was enthusiastic and encouraging.  He even set up a meeting (and actual “lunch!”) with TMHOTS– at Jerry’s Deli on Ventura– to discuss the possibility of being his manager.  This was a startling concept, as no one had ever proposed such a thing.

TMHOTS showed up at the appointed time… but there was no Dacri.  He waited… and waited.  Bummer.  He asked the host if someone matching Dacri’s description had been in earlier.  No, was the response.  But, wait… there’s another Jerry’s Deli… on Ventura, just a mile or two further down the road.

It seems that The Male Half had gone to the wrong Jerry’s Deli.

A few weeks (months?) later, Dacri got the chance to direct a small-budget movie in Florida.  His management aspirations dissolved instantly.  (Unbeknownst to The Male Half, Dacri had studied screenwriting and directing at the American Film Institute and Conservatory.  So, when film called, he answered.) TMHOTS lost a possible manager, but film gained an enthusiastic director.

It was just one of the many things that we didn’t know about Steve Dacri.  The other was that he was a kickass magician.  We knew he did magic and that was his entree into the entertainment business… but we had no idea just how kickass he was.

We also knew that, years after the Rick Dees experience and the small-budget film and everything else, he had settled in Vegas and had gig for a time at the Hilton, doing magic. (He did magic elsewhere as well. It seems that when you’re that good, you work a lot.) When we made the decision to move to the desert, one of the first people we contacted was Steve.  We made tentative arrangements, via Facebook, to get together for a drink when we finally settled in.

We were just a week or so too late.

Stop by this tribute to him. (We’d link to Norm’s column on Steve Dacri in the LVR-J, but the pricks who own that paper are suing bloggers who link to their publications and we don’t have the time or the money to deal with litigious cockholsters at this point in time.)