Latest / The Magic Guys / The Magic Live Debrief #182
Transcript
- 0:00They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
- 0:10Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 182 of the Magic Guys,
- 0:15where we share our experience as professional magicians and all the whimsicalness that goes with it.
- 0:21Up to my diagonal right, we have Nick Kay.
- 0:25I was at Magic Live, bitches. And up to my diagonal left, we have Doug Kahn.
- 0:33I've been glued to Nick K's social media for the last five days,
- 0:37watching him be at Magic Live.
- 0:40Yes, as I think we all have in our live chat right now, if you're watching this.
- 0:46Thomas Conger, holy crapola. That might be a new tagline. I like it.
- 0:50And we've got Scott Pease. Oh, he's changing from Scotty P to Scott P.
- 0:54I like the nuance there. He's pro now. He's got to have that pro.
- 0:59That's right. You do a gig. Just how Colin Cloud went from Colin McCloud to Colin Cloud.
- 1:04Now we've got Scott P. I like it. We've got Fahrenheit.
- 1:07Clever name. Clever name, my friend. And Dragotea. Look, the list goes on.
- 1:11We're just, I mean, actually that is the end of the list, but Dave Nicholson.
- 1:16What's up? Yes. Magic Live, the dream one day. Well, there is one man who lived
- 1:20that dream and he went to that live magic.
- 1:24Good to have you back, Nick. Nick, how are you feeling? It's good to be back, man.
- 1:28A lot of people have been asking how is the jet lag and so forth,
- 1:32but the reality is that when I go to Vegas, I never truly adapt to the native time.
- 1:37I basically run on Melbourne time the entire time I'm there. Oh.
- 1:42I never go to bed before 4 a.m., just hanging out and jamming.
- 1:45I sleep three or four hours.
- 1:47I go to a morning session, and I'll tell you guys all about that experience. Okay.
- 1:51As it goes along but first how are you guys i missed you i'm
- 1:55sad i've been depressed all week looking at your social media that
- 1:59i wasn't in vegas with all the cool stuff i'm not
- 2:01fully mentally well today it's not
- 2:04just your fault but if i don't make it to magic live next
- 2:07year i know this i'm not turning facebook on the whole
- 2:10damn week i don't need
- 2:13to see the pain well i can i can
- 2:15highly recommend it man like it was so great and you're
- 2:18among such good company the entire time you're there it's like walking
- 2:21into the internet almost you know what i mean like it's it's really wonderful
- 2:24it's like a live instagram feed except
- 2:28they're really there that's a cool way to think about it
- 2:31holy moly well you'll be glad to know we we held the fort while you were gone
- 2:35nick we did an episode and we played your voicemail that you left us thank you
- 2:39for that showing off all of the already cool people you'd met before magic live
- 2:44had started i gotta ask well you know I'm sure you're going to tell us a lot about a lot,
- 2:48but did you have much of an interaction with Dan White?
- 2:51He's someone I've always wanted to meet and never been anywhere near.
- 2:56Only in passing. He's a very kind guy, just very quiet by nature,
- 3:01but he was typically three or four people deep in conversation.
- 3:04He was surrounded by Danny Garcia most of the time, Peter Turner,
- 3:08mentalist Peter Turner was also there.
- 3:11Just hogging the Dan White.
- 3:13Yeah. And it's, it's to be expected. And I'm not somebody who likes to fight for attention.
- 3:17You know what I mean? I, I look, I'm very opportune in the moments I have to
- 3:21talk to people and I ask if it's an appropriate time to do that just respectfully.
- 3:25And I can tell you what those interactions were like. black and then you
- 3:28know and then after you say hello to them do you say
- 3:30now do you want to see my coin stuff my card stuff or my award-winning
- 3:34stuff uh and
- 3:38well you know i also sorry before you take off as well
- 3:41you know who your your connection would have been to to meet
- 3:44them like was um dennis kim said he was there at magic live and
- 3:47is shocked that he didn't run into you so didn't see him
- 3:50did not see him anywhere i can't understand
- 3:52that happened like i mean there's 1500 hundred magicians there
- 3:55right do you feel you saw everyone there yeah now actually it says here andy
- 4:01uh we did meet so i was fortunate enough to meet nick gay so i was catching
- 4:08the elevator out that morning and andy was like hey i'm like yeah he's like you used to be in a band.
- 4:16Yeah when you proceeded to do shots in the
- 4:19elevator vayner excellent that
- 4:22was great it was really great so look i'll tell you what i was
- 4:24there for several days prior but i'll mention
- 4:27what what my adventures were like if you guys are up for it because it was something
- 4:30kind of special what happened whilst i was there now penn and teller whilst
- 4:34touring australia and especially in melbourne i had the pleasure of setting
- 4:38up a friendship with teller lovely lovely fellow that he is so i dropped him
- 4:42a line that i was in town while I was prior to Magic Live.
- 4:47And he kindly invited me over to his home.
- 4:50And so we went to his home, a very secret destination, heavily guarded and heavily fortified.
- 4:57And he invited both myself and my business partner, Nathan Hedger, to hang out with him.
- 5:02And his home was such an experience in itself, right?
- 5:08It was wonderful. It was very welcoming. He's very kind.
- 5:13And it's very eclectic. He's got a home where almost every wall has next to
- 5:20no space because it's all just compassed with photos and just magic memorabilia and signed things.
- 5:30Yeah, his house, indeed, his actual home. he was kind
- 5:33enough to invite us over and we had some cornbread with
- 5:36custard and blueberries and some hibiscus tea
- 5:39and so we had a very very fun you know fancy
- 5:43fun time and i can go into to the details about it but in truth it's almost
- 5:48very difficult to recreate what his home is like because it's built like a maze
- 5:51and it is just secret room upon secret room upon secret room to get in and out
- 5:56of everything you know hilarious like hilariously there was a table that he
- 6:00had They kind of expanded to make it like an eight seat table.
- 6:03And beneath it was a, was a skeleton.
- 6:05And as you extend the table, the table screams in pain and the skeleton.
- 6:11And, and then he was like, Oh, hang on a second. This is, it's just the three
- 6:15of us having tea, right? You can probably make it smaller.
- 6:17And then I, I it's like a giant wheelhouse, like from like a boat.
- 6:21And I start to unwind it to, and it's going, Oh, it's better.
- 6:25Like just, you know, alleviate in that. So we're having tea in his kitchen and it's just,
- 6:30surrounded by all of this memorabilia from
- 6:33his time at the on the
- 6:36big bang theory and also he's a very big simpsons fan
- 6:40and so you know we had out we had our tea and we
- 6:42cleaned up for the evening we grabbed our teas and we we sort
- 6:45of pressed on to the library and you know
- 6:48he's like this is some of the library and as we're sort of going through the
- 6:51books and he's showing us everything he's like oh and naturally bang he pulls
- 6:55a book and then the library opens into his oh wow come on so we then enter into
- 7:02his office and we're sitting around a round table and he's just sharing.
- 7:07Stories upon stories about history and it
- 7:10it's such a privilege to to get
- 7:13into i think i have goosebumps right now just
- 7:16for the record yeah it doesn't get much better than that
- 7:19right it doesn't it doesn't like you're sitting in the
- 7:22man's home where he creates in his office and you
- 7:25know i was asking questions about and we were talking about like
- 7:28the you know the indian mango trick and how he
- 7:31saw it for the first time and how it's done and other experiences and we're
- 7:34talking about all these different methods to make pot plants and things appear
- 7:38and one of the most amazing bits was he goes what would happen is because he
- 7:43knew the history so well he was like they would they would play this song and
- 7:46he would leap out of his chair and go to his computer and he would play the
- 7:48song and then run back to the table and describe what was happening.
- 7:52And, and, and, and as he's doing this, like he's, he's so in it.
- 7:56And he explained what it was like when he first saw it, you know what I mean?
- 7:59And, and, and as he's doing this, like he's got tears coming out of his eyes.
- 8:02What? As he's telling the story, like he's just reliving that moment.
- 8:06And he's sharing it with us, you know, he's sharing so much.
- 8:11There was this giant crucifix in the, in, in, in the office.
- 8:14And in that office was like, it was basically a piece of memorabilia that the Houdini had used.
- 8:20And it was a means of sort of escaping from that. And I won't get into like
- 8:23the secrets within that, but it was really, really cool.
- 8:27And what was even cooler was that he was explaining that, you know,
- 8:30he stayed with some friends and he was working on the cups and balls while I was quite young.
- 8:34And he was like, oh, I was just working on cups and balls. was like what do you take those cups
- 8:37there in this blue bag and it was like i've been practicing with those those were
- 8:40the cups that belonged to hoffs and sir oh my god come
- 8:44on yeah and then and then he's like here they
- 8:47are and he puts them on the table and i'm literally handling hoffs and
- 8:49sir's cups you know it's staggering
- 8:53doug there was a gentleman and
- 8:56and i'm trying to recall his name i was i was racking my
- 8:59brain but with the the lack of sleep i've had over the several
- 9:02week or so i can't recall but there
- 9:05was a gentleman who who who basically had
- 9:08this routine a lot of beautiful routines using cards coins whatever else he
- 9:12also did a thing with the kettle where you would listen to a kettle do you know
- 9:15this gentleman i'm talking about is don something perhaps from from the past
- 9:21or a modern performer yes the talking tea kettle who Who did that trick? Hmm.
- 9:29Well, we're talking about the mythology of this person and how his works would
- 9:33have got lost to time and how Teller basically saved this guy's works.
- 9:39You know, they went back to this home where, like, it had been sold on and the
- 9:43new family that were there, it was like, you know, we were looking to do some
- 9:47history on this particular magician.
- 9:49And I'm so regretful. I can't remember who it is because I didn't know who he
- 9:53was, but he shared this. David Abbott?
- 9:55David Abbott. it. Thank you. Yeah. I Googled it up. So there we go.
- 9:59I'm pretty good with the sleight of hand references, but you give me some actual
- 10:02magic history from like that. I'm lost with the stage things.
- 10:06So with all the Abbott magic and all the sort of things, like he was talking
- 10:09about how they went, went through all the difficulties of trying to like save
- 10:14his works and maintain it and all the beautiful things he created.
- 10:16And they came across, um.
- 10:18Copies of his books and his notes but all of the figures were
- 10:21missing like all of the pictures that accompanied the explanations
- 10:24all gone but then they managed to find negatives
- 10:28of the actual photographs and they're like great now
- 10:31we got to figure out which applies to which and they went through all this
- 10:34time figuring that out and then just most recently they managed
- 10:37to find the full original with all
- 10:40the original notes and the original pictures and everything in
- 10:43there that's going to be coming out that that level of
- 10:46work and the thing is it got this close to being destroyed in
- 10:49a fire and they managed to save it all this
- 10:53work is thankful like thankfully to
- 10:56tell her like doing this and and putting these
- 10:58efforts in is absolutely amazing but yeah
- 11:02it's it's absolutely amazing this is wild and this
- 11:05is all by the way this is all before magic live
- 11:08has even started even begun correct and
- 11:12so you could have come back to brisbane uh
- 11:15sorry you could have come back to melbourne and been perfectly fulfilled with
- 11:19that experience it sounds like honestly after like the first day of magic live
- 11:25before like just on the day of registration i'd had so much fun that i was like
- 11:28if i had to fly home tomorrow i'd be like this is great like that's That's how
- 11:33content I was with all my time that I was there.
- 11:36I just Googled Teller's age. He's 76.
- 11:39How amazing is that, that you can still have such passion for your art and share
- 11:44it and love it so much in 76 and still so active. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
- 11:51He's in, he's in great shape. He's, he's, you know, taking care of himself.
- 11:54He has had his issues in the past, but he seemed to have gotten on top of that.
- 11:57As you do, you sort of, you know, the wheels come off.
- 11:5976. I just hope I can get out of bed. That would be my goal for the day.
- 12:03Get out of bed. That's it.
- 12:08But he's doing great. And with how many staircases and things in his house,
- 12:13you need to be in shape just to get around that thing.
- 12:16So after spending a lot of time there, what was wonderful, he handed me this book.
- 12:20It was a very, very, very old book. And he explained to me that this is a copy of,
- 12:26of the book where the first magic trick was ever printed in this.
- 12:30And it's a book on like discovery of witchcraft. You held the discovery of witchcraft.
- 12:35I held it. I held it through it.
- 12:38I, yeah, it was basically like a, like a knife through tongue type of thing,
- 12:41explaining how it worked in there.
- 12:43And yeah, yeah. But I, like there was the OG copy, like, there you go.
- 12:47Wow. Wow. There can't be too many of those on the planet.
- 12:50I can't imagine there's more than, did you get a number?
- 12:53Did he say, no, I didn't dig into it that, that far, But erroneous,
- 12:57it's pretty special for him to just be like, check this out.
- 13:02Did you touch the book? You actually touched it? Yeah, absolutely.
- 13:05Man, I think that book's staying under glass if it's in my house.
- 13:09Well, I asked him, I go, don't I need gloves? And he goes, no,
- 13:11you don't need to because the way the paper is made with the wax and the blah,
- 13:13blah, blah, it's not an issue.
- 13:14You can use it all you like. That's why the book's so old and it looks great. Wow, cool.
- 13:19Staggering. Absolutely staggering. Yeah.
- 13:23And so we're talking about all this sort of stuff. we're talking about
- 13:26pictures and stories and he's like this is the thing and
- 13:29that's where the crucifix was in this particular photo and this is when houdini
- 13:32was doing this escape with this particular thing and it was
- 13:35amazing one of my most favorite moments was when we first arrived he explained
- 13:38he's like this is a photograph it was you know
- 13:41it's like it's really cool it's like this guy from wherever he
- 13:44was from it was like belgium he's like he takes these photographs but in x-ray and
- 13:48it was an x-ray photo of a rabbit in a
- 13:51hat but it was like an x-ray so you kind of see
- 13:54the rabbit in the in the hat you're like oh you know
- 13:57this is really cool and and then it was like yeah
- 14:00i love this photo i kind of love the idea of like the rabbit jumping out at
- 14:03some point i think i just think it's cute i'm like it is really cute so we
- 14:06do the whole tour and then as we're leaving he
- 14:09stops and stands there for a second and he says he says a little something and
- 14:13then walks away just enough for us to notice that the rabbit has left the
- 14:15hat like oh
- 14:19lee but he plans so many beautiful bits of
- 14:22magic for us like we he's got this giant metal
- 14:25bear he originally saved it from i think like a like a
- 14:29nature reserve and so forth and then put it in his backyard
- 14:32and then put a speaker in it so when you go down it's like.
- 14:35Hey nick how's it going thanks for coming to
- 14:38visit and you know he does a card force and
- 14:40it was like you're thinking of this card like he just he put so many
- 14:43bits of magic around the house for us to experience as we walked
- 14:46about so it's like a very very magical tour of
- 14:49his home and it's just just
- 14:53to sit opposite him just to high-five him would
- 14:56have been enough you know like it was.
- 14:59Yeah such an epic experience we sat in this room for a while and we talked about
- 15:03all things magic we talked all history until eventually it was like okay let's
- 15:08let's move on you know and and so we we go on through the tour and we go through
- 15:12a few more bits and he shows us other bits of the house and bits of history
- 15:16his partner gene has a very big
- 15:18love for movies and so forth.
- 15:20He's got so many signed copies of Gone with the Wind.
- 15:25And, you know, costumes from that era and from those movies and so forth.
- 15:28And Clark Gable, you know, played the lead role, the male lead role in that
- 15:33movie, like signed pictures of him and they're all over the wall.
- 15:36So just experiencing that was just so cool, man.
- 15:38Like it was just so cool as well as all the books in the library.
- 15:41And it was just staggering, you know, and there's a couple other bits that I'm
- 15:45not sure if I should even mention because it was just so crazy and wild.
- 15:48And I feel like he led us into this realm that was so private that I don't feel
- 15:52like it's respectful to sort of share what I, what I'd seen,
- 15:55you know, like in his, in his gym and in his swimming pool.
- 15:59And I'll say that much, you know, but it was just such an amazing experience
- 16:03and his level of kindness and the design of his home is, is very unique.
- 16:08It's very, very cool. Very functional.
- 16:12Yeah. It's just, just a remarkable experience. I'm so happy for you.
- 16:16Yeah. Fuck! Yeah, I'll be for you.
- 16:22We deserve this, Normanda. We deserve every bit of it. I know. I know. Yeah.
- 16:28So after we hung out and we did a wonderful tour and was just really educated
- 16:33on these beautiful stories, very personal stories about his life and his birthday
- 16:37parties and so forth, you know, like the coffin.
- 16:39There's a coffin in the hallway, and there was a whole experience and story as to why that was there.
- 16:44You know you know even just the time being on the tv shows
- 16:47time with the simpsons all the other things he was into it was
- 16:50just it was just wonderful you know to hear it from his mouth
- 16:53to my ears and so once that wrapped up he
- 16:56was kind enough to say you guys will be guests at my show at the penn and teller
- 16:59show tonight at the rio so we said thank you kindly and he had to get a haircut
- 17:03and get some things done and so we we parted ways that evening and then we went
- 17:09home washed up and then went to go see the show and you know we hand in our
- 17:12tickets and they said oh you know,
- 17:13when the show finishes, don't leave, just stay put.
- 17:16And then we'll go backstage and hang out afterwards. I'm like, that sounds wonderful.
- 17:19So as I'm walking through, Javi Benitez is there in the front row.
- 17:24If you don't know who he is, he's done some of the most wonderful work on palming
- 17:28that I've ever seen an amazing Spanish magician.
- 17:31And to me, probably the strongest performer of the entire magic live.
- 17:36Wow. Wow. Like he was so strong. Like he opened Did you do Spongebob magic on
- 17:42Penn and Teller? Is that correct? Or am I wrong?
- 17:46That was Gabriel who did that. He's sending me an escape to be right now.
- 17:50But he was here recently in Melbourne for the Melbourne Magic Festival. He was phenomenal.
- 17:55Lovely, lovely guy. And strong magic. You know, that whole Spanish realm.
- 17:59These guys are all sort of mentored by Miguel Angalgea, who's one of my favorite coin guys.
- 18:06Miguel was there, but I was too scared to sit down with him.
- 18:10You know when you don't want to meet your heroes?
- 18:13That's Miguel for me. Like, I don't want to sit there for too long.
- 18:16Like I had a polite conversation and even it's that sort of thing with teller,
- 18:19but like, I guess I've spent enough time with tellers as time has gone on that.
- 18:23It's like, I'm okay to sit with him now, you know, but yeah,
- 18:26that fear of meeting those people.
- 18:27So anyway, back circling back to the show, he's there with a bunch of other
- 18:30awesome Spanish magicians. We're sitting down.
- 18:32Then I ended up sitting next to a Martin Christensen, who was the 2022 FISM winner.
- 18:38And Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you say his name?
- 18:42Martin right yeah i this
- 18:46is the he's from one of the first denmark
- 18:50i reacted to one of his full-loss videos and i
- 18:54was so blown away by his creativity if anyone
- 18:58hasn't watched it before he goes into what nick's
- 19:01about to go into like he basically starts with
- 19:04a video a performance of like whatever happens to this
- 19:07picture will happen to me or whatever
- 19:10happens to me will happen to this picture and he does just some really creative
- 19:13stuff that you don't expect to see happen and i'm
- 19:17just saying that to foreshadow you going to watch it that's all but um
- 19:20he seems like a really nice guy on film
- 19:24so what was he like so lovely so
- 19:27lovely like he you know
- 19:30when you meet people and they just sort of become part of your magic dna like
- 19:33they influence you in some way or another other it was like
- 19:36that being around these guys you know like you have
- 19:39these conversations and their words matter to you
- 19:42you know when you got people like that that you care about and
- 19:45they say stuff it really hits you and you kind of it
- 19:48becomes a part of you and i it's a weird way of saying it but i've met so.
- 19:51Many like so many people that i did bump into they're like that guy's
- 19:54my part of my magic dna like things that he says i
- 19:57believe and i carry that with me in my magic
- 20:00ethos now and it was really nice
- 20:03having a chat with him because denmark is such a small place he's
- 20:06like like he's like name three denmark magicians like rune and
- 20:10who else him wow it's like yeah like
- 20:13i can't think of anyone else and you know one of the conversations we had was
- 20:19kind of like you know the the strangest thing is when you meet people you know
- 20:23and then they think like oh i'm like you and it's like i'm a magician i'm just
- 20:27like you it's like well you're not like me because you know,
- 20:29like I've said it in the past, it's like,
- 20:31I'm not a cover band, you know, I'm not doing other people's stuff.
- 20:33Like I'm creating all this stuff from scratch. And I'm saying,
- 20:36and I loved it because I said to him that when you see these performers and this level of like.
- 20:42Manipulation and, and these techniques to like levitate playing cards and all this kind of stuff,
- 20:50you know, and I'll touch upon some of the things that I saw as we,
- 20:52as we touch upon magic live, and we'll try to wrap this up, but it's just this
- 20:56level of creativity that you're really going to appreciate because it's not
- 20:59taught anywhere. It's not in a book.
- 21:01It's not anywhere. They just gone. I'm going to figure this out.
- 21:04And, and he goes, that's what you got to do. You You don't wait for it.
- 21:09You don't look for it. You just figure it out.
- 21:11Don't fool around. Just figure it out in your own way.
- 21:15And it's a scary place to be because I remember going into that realm myself
- 21:18where I was like, I really want to do this thing, but I can't find it.
- 21:20Or I found that when I was creating in my early days that I would create something,
- 21:25but then it already existed.
- 21:26And then I got to the point where it was like, I've created something.
- 21:29Now I need to go find where it exists.
- 21:31It doesn't matter, man. It doesn't matter. You came up with it independently, and out it goes, right?
- 21:38And then when you do find out that it does belong to someone,
- 21:40you can say, I came up with this myself one day, although it does already exist, credited to blah.
- 21:44You do the right thing in that sense, but you don't need to validate everything you create.
- 21:49You don't need to do that, okay? So I digress.
- 21:52But my interaction with him was absolutely wonderful, and the story doesn't end with him just there.
- 21:57But I got to sit with him, watch this show, which was absolutely brilliant.
- 22:01They did some extremely fooling magic.
- 22:03I finally got to see the cow vanish, which is a river, a very,
- 22:07like a rarity to be able to do at the Penn and Teller show. It's a live cow vanish.
- 22:11Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, I say it's a cow. It's actually a pygmy elephant.
- 22:17That's right. Yeah.
- 22:19It's a pygmy elephant that makes chocolate.
- 22:25So brilliant stuff. They did this whole routine and I don't want to give anything
- 22:28away in case you see it, but it's this whole, thing that you're like, what is going on here?
- 22:33And then it circles back quite literally. And it's like, this is genius.
- 22:37Like it blows your mind how clever this, this is.
- 22:40I absolutely love this. So show finishes, we're all hanging about and it's just
- 22:44myself and a bunch of other Spanish magicians and a few other, few other cats.
- 22:48And we all get invited backstage and Penn's there and Teller's there and we're
- 22:52all shaking hands and Penn's talking about music and we're all just circled around Penn.
- 22:56And he's just talking about like Bob Dylan and touring and everything else and
- 22:59and all their level of creativity, and playing bass, and music, and.
- 23:03It was really cool. We got gifted some show bags with some stuff for being there.
- 23:10This is ill before Magic Live. Yeah, this is before Magic Live.
- 23:14How was the show attendance-wise? I know the Rio is kind of on the down spiral.
- 23:20Is that showroom still filling up?
- 23:22I believe it was their first show in three weeks or three months.
- 23:29They've been gone for quite a while. Okay. And so it was basically like their
- 23:32first show is like, we haven't performed in X amount of time. He explained.
- 23:36So, yeah, so we might be a little rusty, but they were great.
- 23:39They were absolutely brilliant.
- 23:40So it might be rusty after performing for 50 years together.
- 23:43Yeah, exactly. You know, so was the theater full?
- 23:47That's what I was kind of asking to the brim packed house. The brim.
- 23:52Absolutely. Not surprised. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was.
- 23:55I've heard bad things about the Rio recently. like
- 23:58it's not the best vegas resort to
- 24:02stay at well okay i
- 24:05don't know about that but it was my first time visiting there and i i liked
- 24:08it i thought it was cute like walking about there there
- 24:11was the funny thing was there was also a star trek convention
- 24:14oh fascinating wow so that's
- 24:17awesome that was fun a bunch of people all dressed up in cosplay mucking
- 24:20about like the nerdiest of the nerds convened on
- 24:22vegas in the same week star trek and magic yeah
- 24:26i mean hedger and i ended up going to like a guy fieri
- 24:30taco like mexican restaurant and just you know making space for all these trekkies
- 24:34who were just trying to get a feed and i was like oh we got some space here
- 24:37guys if you want to sit at the bar and i was like oh great we're sitting with
- 24:39these these lovely ladies you know they're probably like in their 60s and 70s
- 24:42all dressed up to the nines with the blonde hair like you know yeah all this
- 24:46sort of that that seems like that that's like
- 24:49the perfect scenery for shooting street magic, like,
- 24:53I'm sure there was plenty of street magic shot. Magic guy shows Trekkie the Jedi force.
- 24:59This is all wrong. That whole sentence is wrong. But you know what I mean?
- 25:04Magic guy beams up card to his hand for Star Trek. We're never going to get
- 25:10to the actual convention tonight.
- 25:13We're on day one of Nixon. This is going to be a three-part series, okay?
- 25:18Look, we'll plow through the rest of it. What ended up happening after that was we finished up.
- 25:23Hanging out with everyone and you know these lovely spanish
- 25:26magicians we all set up a friendship and we wanted to get a bite to eat so we
- 25:29ended up going to fair fremont street which i'd never been to before that place
- 25:34wild right yeah it is wild if you guys scope out my instagram which is nick
- 25:40k magic all one word you can see some of the bits of us walking about with martin
- 25:46and everyone else through Fremont street.
- 25:48It is wild. I never seen anything like it.
- 25:51So yeah, we did that until stupid hours of the morning, then called it a night,
- 25:55you know, and then basically checked into curious.
- 25:57If you saw any street performers, I know it's hot that this time of year,
- 26:01but I know there's guys working Fremont. Did you see anybody?
- 26:04I didn't see any magicians, man. That was the thing. There was no magicians
- 26:07there, unfortunately, but I saw it. They're all at magic live. I mean, probably.
- 26:11Yeah. Or preparing for it or about to go there type of thing,
- 26:14you know, but it was brutal.
- 26:16To do magic in 100 degrees, no matter, right? I mean, it's just...
- 26:21Brutal yeah i mean for the aussie listeners i think it
- 26:24was like 34 degrees at like two in
- 26:27the morning damn zero relief yeah that
- 26:31is that is my recollection of the time i went to
- 26:33magic live was you just freaking stayed in the hotel the whole time unless you're
- 26:37going to the pool because it was just disgusting pool time was great time absolutely
- 26:42so yeah so you know that was it and you know it was a wonderful night i appreciate
- 26:47teller's kindness and and trust to allow us to to go into his home and experience
- 26:52something so wonderful.
- 26:53And I hope I didn't break any rules by explaining how wonderful it was or upset
- 26:57him, but like it, it was, it was great.
- 26:59And I'm memories there, man. Talk about a lifetime memory. Wow.
- 27:04Yeah. Yeah. Well, he will be back in Australia come February.
- 27:07And he said, you got to organize some stuff, whatever you organize,
- 27:10just count me in, just do it. And I was like, we can do that.
- 27:12So yeah, that's right. He's touring. He's touring in January.
- 27:16What are the chances we can meet up together and do like a
- 27:19live interview with him or something like put some like
- 27:22a like a double camera live pod something
- 27:26to think about we got a few months see if i can push the
- 27:29friendship but let's start now we've sort of
- 27:32hit the halfway point with magic live all right so i wanted to make sure that
- 27:37i don't sort of forget everything so i have a copy of the program and everything
- 27:41that was covered so when you finish at magic live in the last night there's
- 27:44a great big party and they hand these out you have like a little token and you
- 27:48claim one of these things.
- 27:49Cute book. It's kind of, for those listening, it's a book that's kind of shaped
- 27:52like a oval, like a half circle.
- 27:54And inside is all your lecture notes. So everything that you saw and read and
- 27:57which is good because you weren't always able to catch all of the sessions just
- 28:01because of the time restraint.
- 28:03There was typically two groups. There was like a blue, sorry,
- 28:05a red group and a white group.
- 28:06And you weren't always able to see the same things, other people.
- 28:09And sometimes you were forced to see shows at like 11 o'clock at night.
- 28:12So what I thought I would do just to make sure that I don't miss anything.
- 28:15So to touch upon everything at Magic Live. So when you arrive at Magic Live, pretty typical stuff.
- 28:21You rock up, you get your badge, you get everything signed in.
- 28:25They also give you a backpack, which is dope. They give you like a full backpack.
- 28:29There's a bunch of program stuff in there explaining what the sessions are about.
- 28:32It's in this book here that I'm showing to screen.
- 28:35And just some of the bits that are going to be in there, the magicians,
- 28:38where the food is, things like that.
- 28:40So it's just your diligence in that front.
- 28:44Front but then you get all your bits in this so you can go put your
- 28:47lecture notes in buy your merch etc and just load that up so everyone's
- 28:50just walking around with these backpacks which is just just awesome that is
- 28:53awesome that's a great it is when you're asking big bucks for a for a convention
- 28:57you provide that kind of swag it's well played guys yeah yeah i think the year
- 29:03the year i went or that you were there too nick i think it was a hoodie or something but a backpack,
- 29:08so much more fun yeah they gave you a jumper they gave you a jumper in vegas yeah with like a little,
- 29:14little yeah yeah yeah we went straight to
- 29:17goodwill you know like i had no business yeah
- 29:20yeah it does look like a google play button you youtube that that actually is
- 29:25a youtube play button yeah yeah the square is the play button from from what's
- 29:31it called well and and that's a great question so dragotea did ask why does
- 29:35it look like a google play button that's because the theme this year was play.
- 29:39And so it's all about like play, play with magic, get like, get around it.
- 29:44And I'll touch upon the first session that sort of digs, dives into that.
- 29:47So the first session, so my program was like waking up in the morning and at
- 29:5010 o'clock going to these morning sessions.
- 29:53So it started off with a gentleman called John Cox who ended up finding a diary from Harry Houdini.
- 30:01And basically it was just before he went kind of large in 1899.
- 30:05And he basically,
- 30:07basically studied this thing to the point where he was able to decipher Houdini's
- 30:12rather poor handwriting and explore upon that and what they all meant.
- 30:17And there's entire pages that are blank. And basically this small book,
- 30:21it's a very, very small book,
- 30:23which was his diary is now being
- 30:26sort of interpreted and then
- 30:29going to be put into a coffee table book for those
- 30:32history buffs out out there who are big fans of the amazing harry houdini
- 30:35you have that to look forward to and it's basically pre-famous that's
- 30:40cool that's real magic show bits and what he got paid and then you know he sort
- 30:45of writes down in his diary when he started making the big bucks and things
- 30:48like that like it's very very fascinating so i really enjoyed that yeah there's
- 30:54another gentleman there which was curtis hickman the step beyond reality if
- 30:57you guys are familiar with the void it's a vr VR experience.
- 30:59And if you remember in the, in the lectures past, he talked about how he uses
- 31:04magic and VR to give him a sort of better experience.
- 31:07And he was talking about how he allowed, like how magic is used in conjunction
- 31:12with VR to give him experiences.
- 31:14So for example, if you're standing on a podium and it's like an elevator,
- 31:18you push a button, you want to make it feel like you're going up.
- 31:21So what happens is you push the button and then the button goes down, which gives you
- 31:24the feeling that you're going up in the vr world and
- 31:28it just basically explains all these different ways you can experience things in
- 31:31virtual reality which is super cool nick defante was
- 31:34the guy who was focusing on the playing and he explained that
- 31:37everyone got a a yo-yo with
- 31:41their actual show bag for lack of a better word and he was explaining how like
- 31:47just playing with this is kind of healthy even to take a break from magic and
- 31:51use the yo-yo to sort of inspire things he He did a very hilarious thing where
- 31:55he actually got a person to dress up in like a full red,
- 31:58almost like green screen outfit, but it's red.
- 32:01And he had like a ribbon and he was explaining with this person how to do tricks
- 32:04as a yo-yo with the person playing the role of the yo-yo.
- 32:08Hold on. Do you have this yo-yo with you?
- 32:10Yeah. Can you do a little walk the dog or a rock the baby for a dragoteer here? It says do a trick.
- 32:17I remember learning. I haven't unwound it. It's still got its little sticky
- 32:20bits on there and so forth. And just for the sake of time.
- 32:23But apparently it's a good one. It's a spinner. It's like a proper spinner,
- 32:26like one of those sorts of numbers. Are you a yo-yo guy, Nick?
- 32:30I was. I was sort of just for kicks. But yeah, I got some friends that are deeply
- 32:35into it and actually do it in their magic tricks.
- 32:37You know, like they kind of throw cards in the air and then it ends up stuck
- 32:40inside the yo-yo type of thing.
- 32:42My friend David Chu does that. I'll be seeing him in Malaysia very soon.
- 32:46I'll say quickly as well. I've always thought, so for Trick of Day May,
- 32:50I used a yo-yo for a trick once. And because when you unwind a yo-yo, it's a string.
- 32:56And so I did that and then did a cut and restored rope with the string.
- 33:00So you take it out, cut it, then restore it again, back to normal,
- 33:03bring the yo-yo back up. I'm surprised people don't.
- 33:07Start exploring with yo-yos, my friends. That's all I'm saying.
- 33:09But now, you know, 1,500 magicians now have a yo-yo, so I'm sure someone's going to do something with it.
- 33:17But you've basically got a rope that makes sense why you have a rope now,
- 33:21you know? Yeah. Anyway, something to think about.
- 33:23No, that's great advice, man. I'll sort of base through this relatively quickly
- 33:27as far as these sessions go, right? We'll go through all the morning sessions and power on.
- 33:30Well, just as well, it's also like the stuff that happened out,
- 33:35Now, you know, the shenanigans you got up to, I think, is what everyone wants
- 33:38to also hear about. So please don't leave out those details.
- 33:42For me to live vicariously through you. Okay.
- 33:45Absolutely. So there was a couple other bits. Young and Strange,
- 33:49the amazing UK duo, they were hosting this particular session.
- 33:52We did a tutorial on how the Baby Spikes works.
- 33:56For those of you that don't know what the Baby Spikes illusion is,
- 33:58it's effectively a very large cardboard box. And then you have close to 20 odd
- 34:04dowels, long wooden sticks of dowel that are sharpened at each end.
- 34:09And you basically put your assistant in the box. You stab the crap out of the box.
- 34:14And the person in there is stuck. They wear the white flag. Typically,
- 34:18everything gets pulled out. They come out unscathed.
- 34:21And they explain that illusion. And that whole tutorial was called like the
- 34:24$9 illusion because the box is $9 and away you go.
- 34:28So very, very cool trick. And it was very cool to see. I've seen it many a times,
- 34:31but they actually showed it with like an overhead camera on what's involved
- 34:34with actually achieving that illusion, which is super duper cool.
- 34:38The next, another morning session was Adriana Cabron, who's responsible for
- 34:42the end book test is probably one of his most recent, amazing feats.
- 34:47And he basically did a creativity class, which was super cool.
- 34:50He's a great creator, Angelo Carbone, man, like he doesn't miss,
- 34:55miss. So yeah, I'm sure that was great.
- 34:58Yeah. And thankfully what he also did was he basically had these like three
- 35:01wheels that you would spin just for the sake of creating.
- 35:03He was kind enough to make one
- 35:07in such a way that it's online and you scan a qr code
- 35:09and you can like do your own spins and and
- 35:12do that i don't think it would be to share that we might share that on
- 35:15the discord for fun you know so you guys can have a bit of a creative tinker
- 35:19with it you know so yeah so we did that we had the auto shaping perceptions
- 35:23by gabrielle wehrlein that was pretty cool and then there was a children's magic
- 35:28one that actually got cancelled so yeah mike is talking
- 35:32about my favorite lecture which i will mention shortly now in
- 35:36the next general session there was master pain who was hosting the whole thing he did
- 35:38a very good presentation on how to present this was
- 35:42probably one of the one of the better general sessions that day
- 35:44because it was all about presentation and so forth but for me the standout person
- 35:48in that one was actually john armstrong oh john armstrong spoke and man brilliant
- 35:56and and what the most important thing And just so you get the most value out of this episode,
- 36:02this is what you need to take away from John Armstrong's lecture or his talk.
- 36:08Close-up magic is conversational and stage magic is presentational.
- 36:15Okay? Say it again.
- 36:19Close-up magic, conversational. Stage magic, presentational.
- 36:23When you understand that it just makes
- 36:27so much sense why someone like myself
- 36:30who can chat to the cows come home crushes it in the close-up game
- 36:33you know in a roving sense because i can do that and i can you
- 36:37know but yeah when people think they can just translate this
- 36:40conversational skill set to the stage they're doing it
- 36:42wrong because you need to present in the cleanest
- 36:45most direct most appropriate way you know
- 36:48so he covers all that and the many different methods
- 36:51in order to do that and how to recent book published on
- 36:54kind of that whole subject i think winning is
- 36:57that the name of the book on yeah it might be right magic to
- 37:01the stage and yeah so one of
- 37:04the things he touched upon thanks for bringing that up doug because what he
- 37:06actually said was you know
- 37:07it's like oh how did you go on stage like oh i killed it i killed i killed the
- 37:10audience because we don't kill the audience we win the audience we win the audience
- 37:14right you know what i mean so how'd you go did you win i won i won them i won
- 37:18their affection i won their respect i won them so So when you think about that
- 37:22concept of winning your audience over, very important stuff.
- 37:25So then there was a gentleman who, who from the CIA, who was talking about how to profile people.
- 37:31So you can choose the most appropriate spectator. That was wild. Um.
- 37:36Emily Robinson, who did this amazing Akon, Carter, any number on Fool Us.
- 37:43She explained how that works.
- 37:45Is this the one that everyone was like, it was com what's the right word?
- 37:50It was Confederate. Confederate is what you're thinking.
- 37:53Controversial where they were like, you know, yeah. With the,
- 37:57the one that had the handheld mic, right?
- 37:59Correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Controversial. Why?
- 38:04Well, people thought that, wasn't there a thing going around?
- 38:07Oh, she just, well, I don't know if I want to say methods, but it was like, she just, you know.
- 38:11I love it when people accuse magicians of cheating.
- 38:19Yeah. There was something about like, she just dubbed his voice or something
- 38:23or rather, and is that fair to, you know, to do in the show or whatever, whatever. I don't know.
- 38:28But it was great because it made people talk about it. So, you know,
- 38:30it's not a bad thing. It's just what I remember hearing about it.
- 38:33It was great. It was very good. Andrew main.
- 38:35There's a name you haven't heard in a while. Yeah. I saw a picture of him. Yeah. How fun was that?
- 38:40He was awesome. It was so great to sit opposite him. This guy,
- 38:44his brain is too big for his head.
- 38:47Is he still active in magic? Dude, you know what he does? What does he do?
- 38:51He's like one of the top guys for like chat GTP.
- 38:56Wow. That's not surprising. You know, he's smarty.
- 39:00So yeah, like chat GTP for, his name's there like he was like and remain did this stuff like the guy.
- 39:07Genius and also for chat gpt as well or just chat gtp whatever it's called but
- 39:15that whole come on now you know what we love it i keep equating it to like car
- 39:21racing because i'm that guy but you know i'm talking about yeah chat r2d2 did
- 39:25you race cars did you do that
- 39:27while you were there i didn't do race cars we'll move
- 39:30on with the con then i didn't think it i didn't think it was appropriate with
- 39:33the lack of sleep that i had during the day i felt like being at the wheel of
- 39:37a four hundred thousand dollar supercar with three hours sleep was a bad idea
- 39:41so i decided against it so the other cool thing above that was dynamo was a guest speaker.
- 39:49Oh yeah and so he did a a talk about how he's sort of rebranding from the dynamo
- 39:55name to the steve name. That's going to be hard.
- 39:59Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's gone through some stuff. He's gone through some health
- 40:01issues and so forth. And he was very open about that, which was cool.
- 40:05Yeah. So that was super cool. The next focus session, there was.
- 40:10Javier Benitez, who did his stuff, super funny stuff. He does this bit with, like, false teeth.
- 40:16God, it's so funny. If you watch my shorts on my Instagram, you can see some of that stuff.
- 40:22Christian Engbaum did some stuff with rubber bands and whatever else.
- 40:25And then Chris Philpott and Steve Valentine, whom I love, did some acting for
- 40:31magicians stuff, which I thought was very important because a lot of people
- 40:33don't think about that. Very important stuff.
- 40:36Over the last year, I've become the biggest Steve Valentine fan.
- 40:39Man. Like he's such a pro, such a lovely guy. And he has this ability.
- 40:43I don't know how he does it, but like when you, when he says hello to you,
- 40:46you feel like the most important person in the world.
- 40:48You're like, nothing else matters. He just has this like gravitas.
- 40:52It's amazing. He's a beautiful human.
- 40:54The next session was like interviews one after the other, where they had more
- 40:57team Christensen, Danny Garcia, Christopher Hart, Taylor Hughes,
- 41:01Eric Tate, and Rachel wax.
- 41:02And they basically, every time somebody finished an interview,
- 41:06they then became the interviewer and then the next person became the interviewee.
- 41:11And I just kept swapping over like this.
- 41:12You're doing what, like 10, 15 minutes each? Is that what it is? Yeah. Move on? I like it.
- 41:18That was basically it. And I think that it's not mentioned here,
- 41:21but in that session, I do recall that Mike Cavney got up and did some talks
- 41:26about learning magic online and so forth, in which he also brought up Dave Liamson.
- 41:30They talked about Dave Liamson's slide school and all the different platforms
- 41:33in which you can learn magic online and through proper schools and through good
- 41:38tutelage and sure enough the amazing dog con his school got a.
- 41:43What learn slide hand.com the magic
- 41:46is parked about you bet oh yeah do the blatant plug there we are that's right
- 41:53learn slide a hand.com got a great big plug in front of all the magicians at
- 41:58magic live and yeah yeah looking forward to when that all comes to fruition
- 42:02the other thing outside of that was Miguel Angelgea did a lecture.
- 42:06I was struggling to stay awake for that one just because of,
- 42:09you know, it's just Wednesday, the third night in.
- 42:13Probably one of the best lectures. I think my favorite lecture,
- 42:16somebody did ask, which is my favorite lecture?
- 42:18It's pretty much between Javier Benitez and Miguel Angelgea.
- 42:24They're both sort of out of the same vein, but I think collectively those two
- 42:28were the biggest influence for me.
- 42:30I took the most out of those two brian brushwood
- 42:33was there i actually had a bit of an embarrassing interaction with
- 42:36brian brushwood because i was i went to his stand to say hello and i
- 42:40was just sort of about to fall asleep mid-conversation and
- 42:43i was like i'm gonna pass out and i was like oh you have to excuse my manners
- 42:46brian i think i drank too much coffee and i haven't had enough sleep i must
- 42:48i think i need to hydrate maybe excuse me it was like yeah yeah go like i just
- 42:52felt like it was a rude way to end the conversation with him because he was
- 42:54so polite a good way to get out of a conversation actually yeah i need a glass of water i'm gonna.
- 43:05So I had to bail on that one. And then outside of that, there was a close-up
- 43:07clinic. Typically, these are where they have multiple tables.
- 43:10And these guys sitting at each table, and you sit with them,
- 43:13and they talk about things to teach. And you basically go between each one learning some stuff.
- 43:17Now, this close-up clinic consisted of these magicians.
- 43:20It was Norman Beck, Kent Gunn, Laura London, Jeff McBride, Gary Plants, right?
- 43:30Gary's a gem. Oh, isn't he just? Yeah. He really is.
- 43:35Yeah john wilson and paul wilson
- 43:38so that was really really cool to talk about all those guys did
- 43:41you get to see kink guns cups and balls did you see that okay
- 43:44no it's brilliant so happy to see him getting
- 43:47the spotlight on him this cups and balls routine is
- 43:51quite unique but yeah you know
- 43:56there was it was hard to fit everything in yeah right you know and in between
- 44:00that and even just from that getting to the dealer room damn near impossible
- 44:03but there's a few more things we'll touch upon which is basically they had shows
- 44:06each evening right so one of which was a show called tanto t-a-n-t-o with these
- 44:12two amazing magicians which was paco agrado and.
- 44:17Giancarlo scalia i love giancarlo scalia oh my god he is incredible well this
- 44:24this act was so brilliant so unique it was a full card show that played to i
- 44:30think maybe like it felt like of 300 people in this room, maybe more,
- 44:33with one table, one stage,
- 44:36and one screen, and it was brilliant, my friends. It was absolutely brilliant. Yeah.
- 44:44Just staggering. I don't toot my own horn a lot, but it's hard to fool me with a deck of cards.
- 44:51This guy smoked me over and over again at will with his travelers and palming.
- 44:58It's like, are you kidding me with what I'm seeing?
- 45:01It's the cleanest type of magic, and it's so impossible that it's just really staggering.
- 45:05So their act was absolutely brilliant. That was one of the most wonderful experiences
- 45:09we got to have in the show.
- 45:11As well as that, we also had another thing called the Close-Up Experience.
- 45:15The Close-Up Experience consisted of Javi Benitez, who opened the show.
- 45:20And I got to tell you, man, he was such a strong opener that nobody else could
- 45:25like hold a candle to his performance.
- 45:28He came out like so strong and so funny and so mind-blowing.
- 45:33Then he went like, and now to be serious for a second, and then closed this
- 45:38beautiful like FISM-esque type routine,
- 45:41which I think he may have done on Full House with some beautiful palming and some bits did
- 45:44all that and then like called it
- 45:48a night and then the next act came out the next act being danny
- 45:51garcia oh he came out and performed whoa
- 45:55he hasn't performed like years he said he hasn't done like actual performances
- 45:59in years so he's out there he did a show at tricks he was on the bill there
- 46:03in november that's a minor lie he and he crushed he kills well just words from
- 46:10his mouth he's like i haven't performed in like 10 years i was like oh Oh, okay,
- 46:13cool. He probably says that every time he goes on stage.
- 46:15Probably. Smart guy. Smart way to go about it. I might start saying that at
- 46:20every corporate gig. Yeah. I only performed like 10 minutes.
- 46:24Yeah. So it was him, Christian Engblom, which was great.
- 46:30Really fooling stuff and also Miguel Angel Gaya
- 46:33who closed the evening and rightly so like he covered
- 46:37everything he did in that show in his lecture and
- 46:40it was just staggering just geniusly staggering so that was that was really
- 46:44good another big and well I'll get to the juniors in just a moment because those
- 46:49guys were absolutely brilliant and I got to find out who these kids were because
- 46:52man can we can we can we also find out about the dealers hall absolutely there was a lot
- 46:57of you know now post magic live there's a lot of hype
- 47:00about tobias's liquefy or liquid
- 47:03i mean and and obviously he's he's
- 47:07tempted us with that routine in a lot of his videos in the
- 47:09past but now they're actually a product did you get to see it
- 47:12or did you buy one what's i
- 47:15thought about buying it but i was like it's just not what
- 47:19i want to do like i i want to do something original
- 47:22with a ring and i haven't quite tapped into
- 47:25it yet but i know that's not what i want to do but it's a beautiful effect if you
- 47:28haven't seen it where you can take a piece of metal or a ring
- 47:31and you dip your finger in it and it looks like it's turned to liquid and
- 47:34just by spinning it around your hand it turns into a ring
- 47:36on your finger it's very cool you know if
- 47:39i got one it'd be just as a utility to keep in the shelf but it's not something
- 47:42i want to perform immediately but i do think it's very cool is it because it's
- 47:46not something you would keep on you at a gig like is it yeah it was kind of
- 47:52a feeling it was that type of thing where it's like i get it but it's It's not
- 47:55going to enter my work in repertoire.
- 47:57Right. You know, but I would do it for like a piece. Sure.
- 48:01It's very cool. You get multiple colors, multiple different things to do.
- 48:05It's not just like one thing. So it's a very good kit for this effect.
- 48:09And I think it's totally worth it. Yes.
- 48:11Little big show was great. It was, you know, this way, Christian Morton performed
- 48:15his Fism act. Absolutely brilliant.
- 48:17There was Christian Hart, Rachel wax. We went over that. And these guys were absolutely brilliant.
- 48:21Okay. But what I want, I want to just give a quick plug to the juniors.
- 48:25So the juniors did their act. I actually think the juniors act was stronger
- 48:28than the actual close-up gala.
- 48:31It was hosted by a good friend, Taylor Hughes, and four amazing juniors who
- 48:36performed their acts. And it was just brilliant, man.
- 48:38Like I won't, just for the sake of time, I won't get into what their acts were
- 48:41like, but you know, one kid was a theater kid who performed his bit and absolutely slaughtered.
- 48:45There was the opening act who did a beautiful manipulation act where he had
- 48:49like a rose and did some stuff.
- 48:50And then the music stops and then you hear rain and then it's raining on the kid.
- 48:55Like he's just got rain running down his face and all over his suit.
- 48:59And he's just like producing water from places. Like, and he's a kid who's like,
- 49:03he's like 17 or something. Look, that's not easy.
- 49:07Magic with liquid is insanely challenging. Yeah.
- 49:11And he just did all this beautiful minute, you know, all these guys were brilliant.
- 49:15These other kids, Zach, he did this act with a headphones, like multiplying
- 49:19headphones, a very cool street esque type routine.
- 49:23Just like, I mean, You see that and you just think like, oh,
- 49:26thank God, magic is in safe hands. You know what I mean?
- 49:30So just absolutely wonderful. So that effectively covers everyone we needed
- 49:36to, like that's the little diary we was talking about.
- 49:38But with the remaining time that we have, I mean, we can talk about this for
- 49:42ages and ages, obviously, but I think we should touch upon the dealer's room
- 49:46because the dealer's room is always epic.
- 49:49I bought some bits. I didn't get too carried away. Okay.
- 49:52But I bought some bits. You didn't buy any drones this time.
- 49:56I didn't buy any drones this time. I did get close, but I was,
- 49:59yeah. Yeah, so I found this Jumbo Jumbo coin, and I was super happy to do that.
- 50:03Wait, where'd you get that? Where'd you get that thing? I got this from SEO
- 50:08Magic. SEO Magic. That's like a nine-incher, huh?
- 50:12Yeah, let me measure that. Is it plastic or metal?
- 50:16It's plastic. Yeah, all right. Which is good because... Nice.
- 50:20Yeah. The other thing is I wouldn't want to hand this out to the kids.
- 50:23The kids will snap it in half. You know, like it's the only thing.
- 50:26You know, you can hand out your normal Jumbo dollar, but this is a giant yeah
- 50:30that's gonna be good i was also gifted some old vintage magic from
- 50:35some friends up there so i got like fantazio candles
- 50:39like in full brand new condition those are right yeah like and and my friend
- 50:44and you know taylor hughes was like oh i know all this stuff and he showed me
- 50:47because wow it's so rare these are like fully brand new like they're never been
- 50:50used and i'm like yeah you've been wanting some of those like i love that gimmick the vanishing candle.
- 50:56Yeah. Actually, the appearing candle is the way to go because it goes both ways.
- 51:00Yeah. I don't even, you know.
- 51:02Yeah. I was also gifted an old vanishing birdcage because I...
- 51:07Playing with a bit of an idea with the old vanishing bird cage type of
- 51:09thing you know and you can oh yeah yeah like yeah and
- 51:12so i'm trying to think with that i got like
- 51:15a bunch of other like i got like a metal canes like full og metal
- 51:18canes from the 90s look at to me there was
- 51:22this really cute bunny like it's kind of like a rocco thing like a
- 51:25like a rocco raccoon but it's a little bunny you know
- 51:28what i mean i think oh yeah cool i think this
- 51:31i just had to have i just think it's so cute look at it i think that
- 51:34was that was a drunk buy i think maybe you hadn't slept much
- 51:37when you bought that you get a drunk buys this shot glass
- 51:40by tcc magic that's a good buy that
- 51:43is on the way that is on the way to me currently what is that what does that
- 51:48do basically you have you you you have a silk you show it you know front and
- 51:53back very very empty like hands totally like this you know and then you just
- 51:56shot glass it's a it's a new it's a new holdout for a shot glass Is it what it is? Okay.
- 52:03Okay. I bought a notifier from Illuminati Magic.
- 52:08I used some of their products already, and I just wanted to be able to slowly
- 52:12build upon a couple more ideas I had.
- 52:14They were very kind and spent a lot of time with me there. That was very,
- 52:17very cool. What is a notifier, Mr. K?
- 52:19It's basically for anyone who exists within the Illuminati ecosystem.
- 52:24You better finish that sentence.
- 52:27The Illuminati ecosystem. ecosystem,
- 52:29there is a lot of things that sort of communicate from with that.
- 52:33And basically this is a little miniature screen that can communicate to you
- 52:37either by, by, by vibrating or by actually showing certain entities that you might want to know.
- 52:42It might be something to the effect of like, take a card and put it under your
- 52:44seat and you can see what it is, you know, little things like that.
- 52:48Yes. Miracle class stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very clever stuff.
- 52:53I didn't, I've never had a thumb But I decided to get this one,
- 52:56which is called Epic Rider.
- 52:58I've sort of packaged it up because the package was quite large.
- 53:01Is that a Sharpie? No, it's actually a pen. A pen. It's an actual pen.
- 53:06And I liked that. I was like, this is good. So.
- 53:10Yeah, the LEDs are like sketchy at best, hard to control, and not something
- 53:15really anyone generally uses these days.
- 53:17That I really liked. I really, really liked that. So now there is,
- 53:22I also bought this from, this is the jumbo card trick by Martin Christensen.
- 53:27This is apparently it's just a very comedy based routine and it wasn't expensive
- 53:31and there was two left. And I was like, I'll take it. And then I was like,
- 53:34Hey, there's no tutorial.
- 53:35You got to teach this to me, my team. And he was like, send him an email.
- 53:39That's in a tier. I'm like, okay. So.
- 53:42And then after you left, he put another one more on the table. I mean, two left.
- 53:48I reckon that's how they get you. I got this amazing gimmick.
- 53:51I asked Bizarro to make this for me where you have like a jumbo coin and you
- 53:55just sort of peel back the chocolate and you can eat the chocolate.
- 53:58I saw, Pix, you were hanging with Bizarro too, right?
- 54:02Well, I've had a lot of good times with Bizarro.
- 54:05Bizarro was actually, well, he's very good friends with Doc Andrew. Yeah.
- 54:12Bizarro hasn't been on the show yet We need to get Bizarro on this show I'll
- 54:17reach out to him, man And ask him, absolutely He's got some stuff coming out,
- 54:20so I may as well sweat him for it Look, he should just come on We go way back,
- 54:23me and Bizarro Yeah, and so.
- 54:27When I first went to Magic Live He was very kind and took me To some cool places
- 54:31to eat And then took me to the What's it called?
- 54:35The Pinball Museum This is a
- 54:38pantomime yeah it's a pantomime yeah i
- 54:42bought this book from joshua j called the particle
- 54:44system and this is based off a new stack type
- 54:47work that he does i don't do
- 54:50a lot of stack work and i've been spending the past few weeks getting it around
- 54:53your monica and i thought hey why not let another stack that you don't
- 54:56know why that why that system can you give
- 54:59us uh i've not read in depth enough
- 55:01to know about it but from the very little that
- 55:04i read on the flight home and i i flew home at midnight so i
- 55:07didn't want to be that guy with the light on yeah getting everyone
- 55:10around him right but there is basically just a
- 55:13lot of cool things about it where within two shuff like two pharaoh shuffles
- 55:17it's it's within like you're in that stack and you can achieve all these types
- 55:20of things that's super easy to remember you can do a couple of things in which
- 55:25you know with a couple of cuts and shuffles that it basically goes back to like
- 55:30the new deck order type of finish and.
- 55:32Things like that yeah so even
- 55:35william fisher is saying like i wonder why you don't do more stack work
- 55:38i know i get it i get it because the stack is an index i
- 55:42get it you know so yes i am working on that but there was this thing here this
- 55:46is called gravity clips by vanishing ink and i wanted to give us a quick shout
- 55:49out because i don't know what to do with it just yet but i just know i had to
- 55:53have it and what it is it's a i'll describe it for the listeners out there but
- 55:57effectively it's It's just a bunch of bulldog clips on a string, okay?
- 56:02But what's cool about it, right? And in fact, maybe I can give you a quick demonstration
- 56:06as I sort of, I'll give it, as I circle back, I'll circle back with a demonstration in just a second.
- 56:12But a couple of other things that I saw was there was this particular deck that
- 56:17I bought from a gentleman called Peter.
- 56:20And it's the Invoke deck. Oh, I met that guy in Texas. That's a killer marked deck. Oh my God.
- 56:29Imagine a mark deck on steroid yeah that's
- 56:32true it's like mark like eight ways or something like
- 56:35that right it's it's it's insane yeah i
- 56:38and you know because the way we we we spoke about
- 56:41it was i was sharing ideas that i had and i
- 56:44had this idea for an effect and i
- 56:47was like i don't know how to do that and he was like i got you my guy give me
- 56:50a call and and that was
- 56:53literally how it went and so peter is an engineer who's now
- 56:56released this deck and he's trying to get it out there into to the market you
- 56:58know what i mean so yeah i would love to find a way to be able to help him but
- 57:02i'm going to show you this gravity clips thing as i slowly got set up as we're
- 57:06chatting away so the idea is is that you can kind of have a whole bunch of things
- 57:10sort of hung and i like this idea because you could probably have this in your
- 57:13apartment just holding photographs and stuff maybe some socks.
- 57:17And then they can are doing this correctly
- 57:20i think so and they can like make a choice and
- 57:23let's say that like hey choose one of these and and
- 57:26i go okay now just say drop and then everything drops
- 57:29except for one what oh my word
- 57:36that is exciting to see that
- 57:39and so i had to share this because
- 57:42i just feel that like i don't know what to do with it yet i've
- 57:45i've thought about a couple of things it's something that i
- 57:48haven't tapped into yet but i saw this and i just went there's something
- 57:52there there's something there it doesn't have to be cards anything
- 57:55the clip holds yeah and then the clip holds it could be anything it
- 57:57could be you know like and and then i just love the
- 58:00fact that it like it's not expensive i think it was 40 bucks wow nice
- 58:04can the spectators hold it is this something that can happen yeah you could
- 58:09have a spectator hold it but just keep in mind if it goes under tension that's
- 58:13what releases it so okay all right okay so i mean i don't think it's bad to
- 58:17expose it yeah because i i believe that just by showing this to this wonderful
- 58:21audience that you You guys will probably get around it.
- 58:23Yeah. So I have a feeling there's a, there's a, an old thing you do with.
- 58:31Like if there's five objects and, you know, you get them to think of one and
- 58:35then move, you know, a certain amount, depending on what number they're on.
- 58:39And you can basically force what they end up on. I feel like the starting point
- 58:42would be something like that.
- 58:44Yeah. You've got the audience now thinking about one object and then only that one stays hanging.
- 58:49Like maybe that's something to start off with. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways.
- 58:55I think, I don't know. I just, I feel like there's, there's something there.
- 58:58Like, I don't know what it is, but. It's just cool.
- 59:01And it's just cool. And I was like, I need that. So I'm going to scope out the
- 59:05tutorial. I think later on today, which I'm not going to show,
- 59:07but it's there and see what that's about.
- 59:08I also bought this thing here called emotions. I love this idea.
- 59:12This is a, basically a mock deck and in this deck on the, in,
- 59:16in between each one, there's like a list of emotions on there and you can get
- 59:20people to think of one and choose one and so forth.
- 59:22And you can basically identify what emotions they're thinking of.
- 59:25And I love this because I was like, there's an idea there. I have this idea
- 59:29of being like, you know, I'm 40 now and guess what? I'm very proud to announce
- 59:32I finally have a girlfriend.
- 59:34Why? Because I'm able to understand and read their emotions without even knowing
- 59:36a single thing. I'm going to prove it to you.
- 59:38I just have this idea of like presenting it in this very comedic,
- 59:42fun way where it's like you're thinking of a word and it's just like,
- 59:44you know, I'm like, just invoke that emotion. I go, you're either constipated or you're angry.
- 59:48I'm going to go with angry. You know, I think it's like a fun moment there that
- 59:51I can play with in my presentation.
- 59:53I got some amazing decks from Xavier Spade. I've got this thing here,
- 59:57Duality Pro. This is probably my favorite purchase.
- 1:00:01Duality Pro. Duality Pro by Cobra Magic. I wanted to buy a lot of stuff from Cobra Magic.
- 1:00:07They have this chair that's a gaff, and it's like it's structure balls as well.
- 1:00:14And I wanted that, but it just had this function that I wanted that it didn't have.
- 1:00:19And that's the only thing that sort of dodged me. But Duality is...
- 1:00:24Good. Like it's very good. It's basically the ability to do a prediction, a video prediction.
- 1:00:33So the effect, if I can, if I can describe the effect, okay.
- 1:00:36I had my mobile phone and I explained that you had to choose.
- 1:00:40I knew you're going to choose that number because before I came out,
- 1:00:43I made a video, let me play the video. And then I play the video and I say,
- 1:00:46Hey, I'm just backstage, blah, blah, blah.
- 1:00:49And there was a, this is how I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it like this.
- 1:00:51I go, I'm going to film this guy in the front row, that cat there.
- 1:00:54He's going to think of this, like, he's thinking of a number.
- 1:00:56I'm guessing it's going to be this. I'm going to, like, before I show you,
- 1:00:59like, think of the number. And, like, I knew you were going to say that.
- 1:01:01And you can show that it's written down, like, on a piece of paper.
- 1:01:04But you do it live. So I can literally do this and go, like,
- 1:01:08show you a video and go, Doug, name a two-digit number. And you say.
- 1:01:1232. Terrific. And then I just do this. And I got 32 written on the wall behind me on a piece of paper.
- 1:01:18Wow. That's cool. Yeah. It's a very, very clever piece. It's not cheap.
- 1:01:25Retail's a 400 US, but they were doing a special on it. So I bought it.
- 1:01:29But man, they only had two left. Yeah.
- 1:01:34Copeland coins have this amazing gaff, which I bought in the Eisenhower setup,
- 1:01:43to do what I think is probably some of the most fooling matrix work.
- 1:01:46I don't do matrix work. I wish I did. I don't particularly like it,
- 1:01:50but I saw this and I was like, I could use this for so many things that I decided to buy it.
- 1:01:56Big fan of Copeland Coins. I love Jeff Copeland and what he's doing over there.
- 1:02:00Those two boys, he and Sean, Roy and Sean, I have all the time in the world. I love them.
- 1:02:06I have all the time in the world for them. They're absolutely brilliant people. Yes. Good folks.
- 1:02:11Yep. I bought this thing called the AI system, which is basically a one-man
- 1:02:14show. You can cue your show from it using your phone.
- 1:02:17That was a very handy piece of kit. Who was selling that?
- 1:02:21That was also Cobra Magic. Cobra Magic, huh? Cobra Magic, yeah.
- 1:02:24Control your show with your phone, huh?
- 1:02:28Yep. So you have like a 30-day free trial on this one. Is that Bluetooth then? Yeah.
- 1:02:33And it comes with this remote. Okay, there we go.
- 1:02:38It's about the size of a half dollar circular remote and you can cue your show
- 1:02:43from that. What are they selling that for?
- 1:02:46It's a subscription piece. Oh yeah, you said that. Five bucks a month or seven
- 1:02:51bucks a month, depending on how much you commit to.
- 1:02:53But Copeland, All the time in the world. Really nice people. Really sweet folk.
- 1:02:59There was the stranger, which was a product by Jonathan Levitt.
- 1:03:04And it's a thousand dollars for this product.
- 1:03:07He marked it down for the, for the what's it called? He's charging for that. Yeah.
- 1:03:14It's beast of a product. The modern wizard.
- 1:03:18It's, it's staggering how good this thing is. A thousand dollars.
- 1:03:23Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ouch.
- 1:03:26Yeah. No, I didn't.
- 1:03:29I didn't, but it's on my radar. Like if I have the capacity to perform it more
- 1:03:34often, yeah, I would do that. Yeah.
- 1:03:37Yeah. I have no beef about that. I think it's worth it. I'll say that much,
- 1:03:41but man, it's really something.
- 1:03:46I would love to actually invite him on the show to talk about the depth of it.
- 1:03:49You know what I mean? I'd love to invite a lot of these guys,
- 1:03:51Cobra Magic, to come on the show and say, let's talk about your products. You know what I mean?
- 1:03:55With the time, seven minutes over time, we could talk about this at the cast,
- 1:03:59come home, as well as the cool gaff decks and stuff that I come across, or this beautiful gift
- 1:04:03that I got from Teller, which is when I'm dead, all this will be yours by Joe
- 1:04:07Teller, a portrait by his kid Teller, which he signed for me on the inside.
- 1:04:12Yep. There is it. There it is.
- 1:04:15To Nick from your old pal and fan.
- 1:04:19Oh my God. You bastard.
- 1:04:22Well, look, with all of the magic live wisdom ensured in you,
- 1:04:27let's take it out with the final word from Nick. I reckon. Let's do it.
- 1:04:36So one of the cool things about magic live is not only
- 1:04:39just seeing amazing products being
- 1:04:42part of amazing lectures and so forth there is a
- 1:04:44very important second part of that which is outside of
- 1:04:48the actual lectures and the convention itself it's the times you sit around
- 1:04:53the table making friends with strangers it's the time when you're sitting down
- 1:04:56in the cafe having a slice of pizza and you see a magician sitting by himself
- 1:05:00and you extend the hand of friendship and they come and sit with you and they're
- 1:05:03an amazing talent, an amazing person.
- 1:05:05And it's those memories that I think are far more valuable than actually being
- 1:05:09part of Magic Live in itself.
- 1:05:11It's the friends you make, the friends you catch up with, and it's the connections
- 1:05:16you make in that sort of process.
- 1:05:18So I think with that being said, you don't need a convention to experience that.
- 1:05:23Extend the hand of friendship, do it kindly, play with your friends,
- 1:05:27play with magic, and enjoy. Thanks for listening.
- 1:05:32It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
- 1:05:36But we'll see you again on the next episode of the Magic Guys.