Hypnotism. Jedi mind shit. Bollocks. Whatever you want to call it, and whether you like it or not, former UA student Flip Orley can control your mind.
In a "FUN-raiser" (irritated groan) to support the Catalina Foothills School District, Flip Orley will be performing his stand-up/hypnotist one-man-with-volunteers-show at Crowder Hall tomorrow night at 8.
Wildcat: No one ever says "I want to be a hypnotist when I grow up." So, how did you get interested in hypnotism?
Orley: It's kind of a weird path that I took, and it was kind of an accident. I was one of those kids, that when I was growing up, girls liked me a lot as a buddy. Which is fine, whatever. But by the time you start getting into later elementary school and junior high school and you start going to co-ed parties and dances and whatnot, every time I would ask someone to the dance or a party or to be a girlfriend, they were always like "oh, I like you too much, blah blah blah," whatever. So, I ended up running across a book called "How to Pick Up Girls With Hypnosis." Every time I hear it come out of my mouth it's a little embarrassing, it sounds a little bit horrible. You know, I think honestly it would be worse if I were telling you I was 20, and I got that book and I was trolling the elementary schools.
Wildcat: So, did that work for you then?
Orley: No, it was horrible. So I tried to get this girl to like me more than just a friend, and she ended up kicking me. And, I actually do mean that literally. This girl dropped me on the playground. At that time, girls kick guys where they know it's going to have an impact - and it did.
Wildcat: What are some things you make the volunteers do while under hypnosis?
Orley: Sometimes I have people playing different members in a band from the '70s or '80s. And they're getting back together for a reunion tour, and they're doing a "Behind the Music" slash sort of "Legends." And literally, everything they discuss is created by them. They'll come up with a band name and tell stories about different band members who were intimate with each other, or didn't get along, or the songs they wrote and how they came up with the songs. Sometimes you'll get people on stage literally doing songs that have never been sung before, that will never be sung again, and will actually be pretty creative.
Wildcat: What's the funniest thing that someone's ever done on your show?
Orley: One night, I'm in San Antonio, Texas, and it was a big stage, and I had a bunch of people under. I do, occasionally, this thing called "regression." Regression is more than the ability to remember the past. It's the ability to actually move back through time and relive the past. So, you actually don't think of being a 6-year-old, you actually become a 6-year-old. So, I'm doing this bit, I have all these people on stage. And this guy, like 30 years old, raises his hand and says, "I gotta go potty." Not thinking, I say, "Sure, go ahead." So, I'm busy doing the show and then like 15-20 minutes later I start realizing that his chair is still empty. I'm thinking "Where's the – what the – is that guy coming back?" And all of a sudden the manager comes running up to me with a note, and on the note – I swear to you I'm not making this up – it read: "Your volunteer is in the bathroom, in a stall with the door closed, screaming 'wipe me.'" (The manager) looked and me and was like, "What are you gonna do?" and I said, "What do you mean what am I gonna do, I'm on stage with 20-30 other volunteers. You have to go back and you have to help this guy." The manager was furious. So, after the show I said to him, "What'd you do?" and he says, "Well, I wasn't going to physically help the man out. I just stood outside the stall and sort of tried to talk him through it."
Wildcat: What do you say to people who are skeptical of hypnosis?
Orley: People think they know what's real. And I don't think that's possible. I think that all we know is our perception of what's real.