Latest / The Magic Guys / Australia's Honest Con Man Nicholas J Johnson! #195

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Australia's Honest Con Man Nicholas J Johnson! #195 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 195 of the Magic Guys.
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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Lex Luthor. Over to my right, we've got Nick Kay.
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Hi, I'm Lex Luthor. Welcome to the show, friends.
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And to my left is my favorite minion,
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is lex luther number two i
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love it good to see everyone yes i'm
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josh libido and we are the magicians paving the
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way to share our lives as professional magicians
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answer your questions and all around have fun and shenanigans and sometimes
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we have guests on really cool guests and we were just talking about myself and
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then nick and our guest look like a progressive progressive timeline line if
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you were to stay at home forever.
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So my beard is small, Nick's getting there, getting the length,
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and then wait to see our guest.
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And that's when you know how wise you are is the length of your beard.
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Anyway, Nick, how are you today?
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I'm doing great, buddy. I'm sure everyone's super excited to actually not only
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see what our gorgeous guest and his magnificent beard look like,
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but actually hear what he has to say.
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So I say we jump straight into it and talk about a whole bunch of fun, shall we? Heck yeah.
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Let's do it. Friends, our guest is known as Australia's Honest Con Man.
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He is one of the most important people in my magic career.
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He's been responsible for so many opportunities that I've had.
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He's not only an amazing magician.
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He's also the author of many books, one of which I'm holding,
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which is Chasing the Aces. He'll tell you all about that in just a moment's time.
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The man is a one-man orgy. There's very little he can't do. So please join me
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in welcoming Australia's honest con man, Mr. Nicholas J. Johnson.
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Music.
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Welcome nicholas j johnson please tell our friends and guests who are you and
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what do you do my name is nicholas j johnson and i'm a professional bullshit artist,
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excellent let's go just keeping it real keeping it real if you were wondering
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why we brought you here today is because most recently our good friend josh
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he wrapped up last week's episode and we're super excited for him he'd literally
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said oh i've got an upcoming international gig were super excited for it.
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Sad thing was, it was actually a scam. And Josh made a YouTube video about it.
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And so Josh, tell him, tell him what happened.
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Well, I'm glad you brought that up because it is a sore point trying to put
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it behind me, but you know, what's better is talking about it on the pod. Now we did plan this.
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So yeah. And look, I made a video about this on YouTube. I think it's worth
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sharing, even though, you know, I look a bit silly and I got an inquiry from
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an overseas client, which I'd just done a gig in Singapore a few months back.
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So it's not unusual for me to feel like this is normal.
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And clients spoke very great lingo in terms of events. I done my Googling,
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their email came from the same email as the website. So it just,
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everything looked as it should.
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You know, I sent them my fee. They agreed it. They agreed upon it,
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which, you know, excites you and everything was fine.
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They sent me a contract and this is where I'm like telling my partner,
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I'm like, oh yeah, look in, you know, February, we're going to be going overseas,
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you know, let's start organizing the dog sitter and all this kind of stuff.
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And I'm looking at the contract and it just has this little detail,
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which is, look, we'll help you.
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Obviously, we'll pay for your airfares and all that kind of stuff.
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There's just one thing you need because, you know, when you travel,
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you need a visa, whether it's a work visa or whatever.
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But they had this other thing called a bond authorization form,
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bond authorization insurance.
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And they're like, if you don't have it, here's the travel agent we work with.
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That's very fast at getting them for people.
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And long story short, they wanted me to send $1,000 for this bond that you get
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back once you leave the country.
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And it assures the country that, this is all not even true, but what they're
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saying is it ensures the country that you have money to fund yourself while
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you're there and you're not going to try and stay longer and work and all that kind of stuff.
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Anyway that was so convincing and it
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wasn't until I had to just stop and go hang
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on a client would never ask you to pay money and what
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country needs you to pay a bond like they would be doing this millions of times
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a year it turned out to be false but up until that point I was really hooked
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in and I just don't want to see other magicians fall for that especially if
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you were to pay it and God knows what else could happen if you did.
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So that was my experience. Kind of funny to come out of it.
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You know, I'm a little bit wiser now and hopefully you guys are too,
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but it was a very like smart con that isn't a normal red flag.
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When you see the email, you know, it's,
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not legit. It really took two weeks of conversating with them for something to really prick up.
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So yeah, so that's why we thought we'd get the expert on in this field.
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He understands the psychology of how people can get sucked in.
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So Nicholas, I'll open up the floor to you. When you hear something like that,
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what sort of springs to mind maybe that
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the human mind does when getting pulled into
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a scam like that so the first thing
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i noticed is you you didn't get scammed and there
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was nothing there were really no red flags until they started asking you to
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pay this dodgy fee and that's when you went oh this sounds like a scam so you
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know it doesn't sound like you did anything wrong or anything silly or made
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any sort of cognitive errors at any point you you're presented with an opportunity.
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You did what, you know, your due diligence, like you said, you checked that,
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yep, this is all legit, this is all real.
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And then the moment there was a red flag to be spotted, you spotted it.
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The reason that this type of scam normally works, this is called advanced fee
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fraud, which is essentially pay us a small fee now and you'll get a larger reward later on.
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The reason why it usually works is one, there's the promise of a reward.
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So this small amount of money that you're going to be paying is just a tiny obstacle to get over.
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But also So because there's a real sunk cost for you. So you,
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like you said, have spent two weeks talking to these people.
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You've put all of this effort in already.
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And so you're basically now looking for the money.
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And the idea of then saying, actually, this is a scam and these people have wasted my time.
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And sometimes it's easier for our brains to go, I'm not going to think about
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that because I've already invested all of this time into it.
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And what will often happen is that sunk cost will then become,
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oh, you paid your $400 fee.
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That's great. But you also have to pay now this $5,000 fee.
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And there's numbers. They'll just keep asking you for money.
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And it will keep going up until eventually you don't have any more money or you stop paying.
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And I mean, it sounds like you got in at the ground floor and shut it down before anything happened.
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Thank God. I mean, thank God. I mean, the, the, the artist in me,
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like you just said, knowing that you're going to get paid this lump sum,
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as soon as you have this tiny detail, yeah, ropes you in.
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Is that also how people get quote unquote, like catfished when they're talking
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to someone that's not real and they're asking to be sent money.
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And even though one side of your brain probably realizes it's not real,
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the other side just wants that, like you're so far into it now, you just keep going or?
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Yeah, absolutely. I always think about it, particularly what you're talking
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about there is like a romance scam.
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So when it isn't a gig, it's a relationship.
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And people always say, I don't understand how these people don't realize they're in a fake relationship.
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Or they say, I don't realize why they sort of, once they've been told they're
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in a fake relationship, often the people just don't believe it and refuse to accept it.
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And I always say, well, it's not a fake relationship. It's a real relationship. It's 100% real.
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These feelings are real. The way you imagine this person is real, it's all entirely real.
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So I reckon it's easier in that context to think about it like an abusive relationship.
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You're in a real relationship, but it's with someone who is abusing you. They're lying to you.
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They're cheating. They're trying to take your money. It's financial abuse.
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And if you think about it in that context, you go, okay, yeah,
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people go back to abusive relationships.
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They go back to these people that they kind of deep down know good for them,
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but they're on the hook emotionally. And so they keep going down.
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Is what you're saying that I might not actually be in an online relationship with Beyonce?
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Is that what you're trying? Oh, no, that's real. That's 100% real.
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She rang me before and we were just talking about how great you were.
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And you should definitely send her that cash.
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You know, it's interesting, like to go down that route.
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I've heard stories of people who have gotten sort of, it's not a scam,
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but there's people who do prey on people of this nature. Like they will prey
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on people who have an addiction to this type of.
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I don't know fetish or lifestyle or you know
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and and they'll spend tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands
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of dollars like on these only fan models and so forth i've experienced
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this you know these stories with
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people that have actually been around me it's a very very gnarly time but
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like it's weird because like as evil as that
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is you're praying on people with addiction not quite a scam
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but you know not far
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out of the vein don't you think yeah it's definitely
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scam adjacent i think if someone is if you if you have someone who feels like
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they're in a real relationship with you and it is not a real relationship it's
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kind of like a parasocial relationship and then you take advantage of that i
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feel like that's definitely crossing some ethical.
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Boundaries in terms of whether it's a scam or not i'm
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not sure that it is because the person doing only fans
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is pretty up you know it's only fans people pretty up
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front about what it is and what it's about and you're
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you're saying you know if you give me money you will get
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this service and you get the service so it's
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sort of it's definitely it is definitely
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manipulative but i don't i think it's slightly different from a scam yeah i
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mean there's so many things out there where they they prey upon these addictions
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or these sort of wants of people scotty p in the chat just mentioned i had one
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where chris ramsey famous magician chris ramsey was going to send me a PlayStation 5,
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I just had to pay the postage. He hadn't fallen for it.
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I see this quite often. I actually are part of a couple of gaming groups and
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so forth through some sim racing that I do, and they'll say things to the effect
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of, I had this PlayStation, my son passed away, if anybody wants it, just let me know.
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And it's like, what's going on here? You know what I mean? You can just have it is the idea.
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I'm just going to give it away, but you pay the postage. Like it's a really
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interesting way to prey on people, don't you think?
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Yeah, 100%. And the great thing, I mean, choosing a PlayStation 5 is great because
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it is just expensive enough that it's got value to us where we want to leap on it.
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But it's not so expensive to maybe start hitting those red flags.
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It's just at that right price point of oh this
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is i want this but it's not so expensive that if
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i said hey look my kid died so you can have my
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ferrari you're going to be suspicious but if
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it was something that was a bit cheaper you might you know
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just go don't worry about i don't want to pay the postage i'm not not interested also
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with the playstation 5 less so these days but you
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know we had a solid is it like 12 18 months when no
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one could get a playstation 5 so this thing
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everybody wanted everybody wanted a playstation 5 and
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it wasn't even about the money the financial value of it
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it was just the scarcity so it's a playstation 5 is a is a good uh is a good
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thing to offer that's so true and if i may it's it happens in show business
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too when we post a sold out poster for our show on the theater of magic people
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will comment on that guy and hey hey,
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me and my husband can't go anymore in case anyone wants to get our ticket.
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Just message me and we'll do a search and that person is fake.
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Kidding me. Yeah. Yeah. And it happens quite, we have to, we have to patrol that quite often. Yeah.
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Wow. Yeah. That's happened to me a lot. Like I will post that it's a sold out
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show and people instantly will come in and try and get the tickets.
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What is interesting though, is that we, when we post on social media,
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hey, the show is sold out we're relying on exactly
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the same psychology in that we're going
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hey this show sold out which is
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everyone's oh the show's this show's selling out well i better
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get my i better buy tickets for it then because suddenly you've got
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scarcity so both the person making the
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post about their sold out show and the scammer are both
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relying on scarcity to try and make a buck now we're
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getting into the good stuff how do we scam people in the best way possible to
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buy tickets to our show is there a better way is there a guilt method is there
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a relationship you know real to pull them in what what should we be doing look
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so this is this is a topic where i feel like.
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If I pretend that I know what I'm talking about, I will be a scammer.
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I'll be conning you because I have a massive amount of knowledge on how to sell
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tickets to shows and I just don't do it.
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I just don't do the things that people should be doing to sell tickets to their shows.
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It's something that I don't do. The big thing, so one of the things though that
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in talking to producers who are successful,
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one of the big things is to have a show that is accessible to as many people
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as possible is to basically look at like removing as many of the barriers to
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entry as you possibly can for your audience.
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And only put in things which are specific about your show if you really know
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that it's going to affect the quality of the show.
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So if you've got a kid's show, make sure it's clear that it's a kid's show.
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But this is a thing that – because I always like to do a themed magic show.
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So I want to do a magic show, and it's also about board games.
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It's a magic show, and it's also about neuroscience. you know and the problem
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is that you then have an audience of people who want to see a magic show,
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and you have you have an audience of people interested in neuroscience but
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if you've got to get people who are in the middle of that venn diagram to come
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see the show so instead you say come see the magic show one of the shows that's
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really popular these guys in do really well in australia and it's the they're
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just the greatest magic show that's just what it you know it's.
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Oh man their names have just leapt out of my head and they would beat me up and i have a,
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justin justin williams and sam hume thank
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you sorry sorry justin and sam and and to me
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that's brilliant and when you look at their show like their poster they've
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got a picture of a guy who kind of looks like a magician he's got a top pad
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he's got a curly mustache and you go great magician let's go and their show
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itself is not that exact you know it's not that their show is more specific
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than that but they're not what they're trying to say is hey this is a magic
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show this is professional This is good. You're going to love it.
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Like you look at like the illusionists. It's literally just the illusionists.
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They're magicians. Come see. Yeah. Yeah.
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Be specific. Yeah. So this is interesting because a lot of the things we're
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talking about are very modern day things.
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They're examples of cybersecurity issues and scams of that nature.
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But what I'm curious about is like how far back does it go?
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You know what I mean? Like, I mean, scams have existed since the dawn of time.
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I don't know what the earliest...
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Sort of reported scam might be but i imagine
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it would be things in the streets things like the the monty and
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the so forth can we sort of explore the very beginnings of
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scams and maybe like where it came from the streets yeah sure so things like
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the three card monty and the shell game they're old but they're not as old as
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we would like people to to think you know like there's always that thing about
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oh you know there's hieroglyphics with people doing the cups and balls and pyramids
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and And it's like, no, there's not. That's not.
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I think that's baking is what they're doing.
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They've got their, like, it's actually bakers, but we like to pretend that these are much older.
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But the psychology of the scams goes back really far.
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You know, you see the principles that are used in scams are used over and over again.
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The advanced fee fraud, the idea, like, pay some money now and you'll get a reward later.
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You can see that going back throughout history. The Spanish prisoner is like
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a classic scam where people would approach.
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You know, their victims, scammers would approach their victims in,
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you know, taverns in medieval times and say, there is a beautiful princess who's
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been kept prisoner in Spain and we want to go and rescue her.
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We're going to go and mount a rescue operation. If you can invest in our operation,
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then you'll get money from the princess.
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And often the implication is that the princess will marry
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you as well you know because we're going to bring her back
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here and all of her wealth and people would would pay money and that is essentially
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exactly the same as the nigerian scams you know the nigerian email scam of like
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hey there's a you know i'm a nigerian prince and i need to get some money out
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of nigeria it's exactly the same thing so you know even though the scams themselves
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might be newer than we think the psychology just goes way back.
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I think that to me sounds like the plot of like a Mario Brothers thing where
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it's like there's a princess and some guy at the bar who's just tripping balls
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on mushrooms and then he's going like, yeah, man, I'm gonna go find this princess
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and he stumbles out the bar,
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falls into a pond and fights a turtle thinking it's Bowser.
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That's where my comedy brain goes immediately.
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Totally. But like, it's the reason why it's the scam and the reason why it's
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the in Mario and the reason why it's like the plot of, you know,
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like 100 movies is it's like these classic archetypes, these classic stories
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that we tell over and over and over again.
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And when you take those stories and you put it into a scam, it's like people's
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brains go, bing. Yes, I like that story.
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I want to be the hero of the story. He rescues the princess. was the
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cups and balls originally type of Monty-esque you
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know scamming game or was it always cups and balls I don't look I don't know
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I'm sure there's a magic historian would have a better better idea than me I
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do know that the cups and that buskers doing cups and balls variations.
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Were linked with con artists scamming people
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on the street you know from from pretty much as soon
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as they popped up there's a very famous painting of someone
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doing the cups and balls and the audience member
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is leaning in staring really you know
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closely you know utterly amazed and if you look closely
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you can see someone in the crowd is picking their pocket at the same time
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you know so it's sort of this you know
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the two are definitely linked but as far as you know
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the actual history you know and like they
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they are really quite different effects even
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though they do use three objects yeah it's different methodology and it's
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it's yeah it's not necessarily as as
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linked as i think it might be but i reckon there's a magic historian out
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there who'd have a better idea than me where's doug when
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you need him yeah now as far as
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like street scams go the three that come to mind for me i would
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be like the three card money in which you would have let's say
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a money card would be represented by like let's say a like
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a diamond ace of diamonds and two black in different cards like
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two court cards you mix them up and you have a one in
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three chance of getting it correct and should you do that you
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win you win some money as well as that there is the p and
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shell of which you have an amazing collection of shells right
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nick you have like hundreds of them yeah yeah yeah
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so the p and shell game little p under a walnut shell mix it around guess correctly
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win some money and then the less more common known which is the title of your.
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Second book fast and loose is one in which you put a chain in a particular pattern
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and if you hold your finger down and remove the chain it sticks to your finger
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if it sticks to your finger you win.
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I'd never seen that before you showed me how did you stumble across that one
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i the fast and loose so the reason why those three ones are ones that we've
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heard of is that they're three which are.
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Basically popular with with magicians
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you know that's really the reason why that you know we really
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know a lot about them fast and loose is actually pretty obscure
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i think i first heard about it from whit hayden is
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the school for scoundrels that he set up with chef anton where they basically
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train people in these types of scams so and one of the things they do is fast
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and loose but it's as a magic effect it is it's it's a frustrating one because
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the audience just loses over and over and over and over again.
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There's no lot of opportunities for storytelling or twists or turns.
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It's just no matter what happens, you lose, you're an idiot.
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So it doesn't necessarily, it's much harder to structure a routine from.
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That one is a very, very old, it's a very, very old quote.
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And it's, sorry, it's a very old name. In Shakespeare,
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he said, he meant someone mentions to play fast and loose
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with faith which is like from love's labor's lost
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and when we say fast and
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loose and we're talking about the scam it's not a reference to shakespeare shakespeare
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is actually referencing the scam in the play so when he says to play fast and
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loose with faith it basically means to gamble to and and also to gamble in a
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way in which you're probably going to lose so yeah it's crazy that something
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like that existed way back in those times yeah,
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and there's a few variations there's one with a belt where you sort of fold
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a belt you fold a belt in half and then roll it up and then you have to put
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your finger in one of the two loops are in the middle and you can basically
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choose who's going to win and who's going to lose.
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Yeah the the yeah fast and loose is is one
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that shows up you know a lot but like
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with a lot of these types of you know
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at both as magic routines and as scams is
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that the methodology so like how to
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get the p from one shell to another is pretty simple how
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to you know swap the two cards you know
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two cards win fast and lose also quite simple fast and
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lose to do the you know it's all pretty simple but what is hard is to get people
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to play the game and bet money and that is actually you know the real that is
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the real trick of these and in the case of you know magic it's like well how
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do we take these and actually make them entertaining that's that's the real challenge.
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So when you talk about like that's a skill in itself and I'm sure there's been
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people along the way is there any people that sort of come to mind who have been exceptional at,
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being scammers i mean like who would be your top three scammers
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top three scammers as in
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con artists yeah i don't know i mean
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look you know the boring answer is that there's probably
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people who've just made millions in some financial scam
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and it's it's they're kind of
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boring stories and the people who we think of
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as the greatest scammers of all time they're not people making millions
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of dollars but they're people who've got good stories to
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tell you know there's so like victor lustig
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was con artist and he sold the
24:22
eiffel tower on two separate occasions so the eiffel tower was originally meant
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to be a temporary structure was set up for a kind of world's fair type deal
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and people liked it so it stayed but some people like wait wait wait this is
24:35
this weird giant metal pyramid sticking up out of the middle of these beautiful
24:40
buildings what it no let's get rid of it.
24:42
And so he started to go into scrap dealers saying he was a government official
24:46
and saying that it was going to be pulled down for scrap and got them to bid.
24:52
And then he found this one guy who kept sort of, who he thought this guy's a bit dodgy.
24:57
So he went up to this one particular guy and said, Hey, you know.
25:01
I am, you know, just a government official.
25:03
I don't make very much money, but you know, so, and basically hinted that he'd like a bribe.
25:07
So this guy bribed Victor Luzdig. he said okay
25:10
you've got the contract then he took the money off the
25:13
guy as well for the job and then
25:16
this guy showed up to try and pull down the eiffel tower and he
25:19
was so embarrassed he didn't tell anyone about it and so
25:22
victor lost stick skipped town realized there was it didn't make the papers
25:26
went oh okay so he came back and did it again oh pulled it to do the second
25:30
time which is why you know it's why so great that you're willing to kind of
25:34
tell that story about you you know just and he's seen out of being scammed because
25:37
con artists rely on the fact that we keep that stuff a secret.
25:41
But that said, Victor Lustig, yeah, sure, he made a lot of money,
25:44
but the reason why we think of him as a great is because he's got a cool story.
25:48
And that's why Frank Abagnale, you know, the Catch Me If You Can guy,
25:51
that's why he is so famous is because he could tell these really incredible stories.
25:57
You know, the scams themselves were, well, I mean, the scams themselves were non-existent.
26:03
Everything that is in that movie is lies. None of it happened.
26:07
All the stuff that is in his book, all the pack of lies. He just, he made it all up.
26:11
The scams he was actually pulling were small scale frauds of his friends and family.
26:16
Just real real small scale sleazy manipulative bullshit but he wrote a memoir
26:22
where he's this dashing charismatic you know guy who's jet-setting around the
26:27
world taking down multinational companies and you know it makes a great movie
26:32
but he's you know he's just full of it wow.
26:36
That's i guess i mean like a liar lies right it is yeah that's it i mean that's
26:41
the thing like You get a lot of people who present themselves as being reformed con artists,
26:47
and you find that often what they're saying isn't true.
26:52
They may well be con artists, but they'll then create a mythology for themselves,
27:00
and then they'll write memoirs and give TED Talks and all this sort of stuff
27:06
about their time as a con artist and a swindler.
27:08
And they'll start giving advice that isn't actually good advice,
27:11
but it's just advice that helps reinforce the mythos. And some of them end up
27:16
going back to prison again.
27:17
There's a guy like Barry Minkow, who scammed a whole bunch of people in the
27:20
80s, set up this vacuum, this cleaning company, and basically,
27:25
through complicated means, became very, very rich by getting investors and not doing anything.
27:31
Went to prison, came out, became a a
27:34
preacher turned his life around started talking
27:37
about you know the you know the dangers of becoming a con artist and why he
27:41
got sucked in and you know and how god had changed his life and then ended up
27:45
defrauding all of the people in his church went back to prison again you know
27:49
so a lot of these guys who you know the reformed con artist are not quite not it's not that they're.
27:55
You know still committing crimes but the type
27:58
of person who becomes a con artist in the first
28:01
place isn't necessarily the person you want to go to for advice yeah
28:04
pro tip you know it'll fit a straight line
28:07
system yeah well it's fun because like johnson
28:10
and i you know we used to catch up regularly over coffees and so forth and one
28:14
time johnson scammed me and i got to share this just for the sake of fun stories
28:17
because it leads into another i was like cool man i gotta get going i'm like
28:21
cool you head off i gotta take care of some beers johnson takes off then i go
28:24
to i go to pay my bill and it's like oh cool so you're having this uh and the
28:28
raisin toast and i'm like,
28:30
scammer johnson didn't pay for his raisin toast left
28:33
me to pay it trust the con man to stitch me
28:36
into paying for his raisin toast this son of a bitch so
28:40
i was like i actually i actually went like damn he's good when that happened
28:44
i did that to a yeah yeah i did that to a friend a couple of weeks ago and uh
28:50
we're talking about we're just sort of talking about you know that weird thing
28:53
when you know when people really argue over who's paying you know we're going
28:57
back and forth you You know that thing where like,
28:59
you know, we're going to sort of just, you know, and then there's this big fight.
29:02
It's really awkward. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate that.
29:03
Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, me too.
29:05
And I go, and then later on, I go, oh, actually, can I, like when we go to pay
29:09
at the counter, can I, can I just try, can I just, can I just try something?
29:15
And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I go, cool. And so we go up to the counter
29:17
and, and she goes, now, now are you guys splitting this?
29:22
And my friend, like Pablo, he kind of looks at me, expect it because I said
29:25
I wanted to try something. And I go, no, Pablo's pain. And then just walked off.
29:32
And he was so, he was so like, like, wait, what just happened?
29:36
And he couldn't, he didn't, he couldn't, there was nothing. He just didn't have
29:39
it in him to argue. He just paid the bill.
29:42
That's great.
29:45
But one of the stories that you shared was this amazing story about a truck and watermelons.
29:51
It was a really cool story. Could you share that with our audience?
29:55
Oh, yeah. this is this is titanic thompson titanic thompson
29:59
is was a famous con artist
30:02
who was and also like a poker player but
30:06
he made his money mostly from small scale
30:09
scams and it was usually proposition wages
30:12
so like side bets and he would come up with
30:15
these little what seemed like really small
30:18
scams but there were actually you know
30:21
things that were were going to you know
30:24
end up making him a lot of money so he was basically a road gambler
30:27
and so he would do things
30:30
like you know he he once bet he was like a golfer and
30:33
he once bet someone that he could drive a
30:36
golf ball 500 yards using like a a wooden club so like at the time like a you
30:43
know if you had like a really good driver you know you could get like 200 yards
30:47
so this was impossible so he he made this bet with someone and then he He went
30:51
outside and drove the ball over a frozen lake.
30:56
So the ball just kept bouncing until it had gone 500 yards and won the bet.
31:02
So he did that kind of thing.
31:03
But the watermelon was essentially he was just sitting outside with this guy
31:07
and this watermelon truck kind of pulled up in front of him. And he just went.
31:13
187. And the guy says, what's that? He goes, that's how many watermelons there are. 187.
31:18
And he goes, there's not 187 watermelons. You can't know that.
31:21
He goes, no, it is. 187 watermelons.
31:23
And they keep arguing about it. And eventually goes, fine, I'll bet you.
31:27
And he bets this crazy amount of money, crazy amount of money that this is what
31:31
it's going to, you know, like $500.
31:35
And this is like 100 years ago.
31:37
And so they go and they pay the watermelon driver.
31:40
They say, we want to count your watermelons. you know five bucks let
31:43
us can't eat watermelons and that and he goes and i think they agree
31:45
that it's got to be within five and so it
31:48
turns out there are 186 watermelons he's off by one
31:51
and he wins the bet and it turns
31:54
out that he had he knew that that
31:57
guy was sat on that bench every day
32:01
and he knew that guy was a gambler and so
32:04
he paid someone to drive a watermelon
32:07
truck up around the streets and wait
32:11
for the guy and then made the bet so the
32:14
whole thing was set up the way he got the set up the watermelon he
32:17
set the whole thing up but to the guy who was sitting there if this was just
32:22
a small sale scam and the cost you think that is not actually that much you
32:26
know there's a guy watermelon you know truck guy deliverer you know you say
32:29
hey you know can you drive your watermelon truck and just park it here for me
32:33
and then we'll count the watermelons and I'll pay you $10.
32:36
So he's risking $10 and the reward is however much he can convince him to take the bet. Damn.
32:42
Isn't it great when you can orchestrate things like that? That's a magic trick. Yes.
32:50
And like with magic, I think that a lot of the time people fall for the trick
32:56
because they underestimate how much effort we're willing to go to to create,
33:03
you know to do something that's kind of dumb you know you've got this silly
33:07
this you know i've spent ages and ages i've spent years practicing this particular
33:12
move just to make it look like coins disappeared like people really underestimate
33:18
how much effort we're willing to go to.
33:21
100 you know casino seems to
33:24
be one of those locations in which they're constantly trying to crack down on
33:27
you know gamblers and scammers or anything of that nature is
33:30
there anything in your memory or knowledge that
33:33
has been successful as far as scams in casinos or
33:37
heists oh yeah no absolutely yeah there's
33:40
a huge number of them and they go on all the time but
33:43
the casinos keep it quiet there was one here
33:47
crown casino where it was in the
33:49
blackjack was in the private blackjack room and involved
33:52
one of the whales and the whale was essentially in
33:56
cahoots with someone who was on staff at the casino who
34:00
was essentially they were using the casino's security
34:04
system and using sort of information that
34:07
was gathered from security cameras
34:10
which the the you know the person working at the casino had which was then being
34:15
fed to the whale and they won this crazy amount of money wow and the whale actually
34:19
got basically kicked out of the country in the middle of the night and the whole
34:23
thing would have just been smoothed over except the.
34:28
Casino the next morning had had this media event which was the world's most
34:35
expensive cocktail and this whale this guy was going to buy the world's most
34:40
expensive cocktail and get his face in the in the,
34:43
you know, his picture in the paper. But when the reporters all showed up,
34:47
it was a different guy. It was some other guy.
34:51
And one of the reporters said, hey, wasn't it supposed to be this other guy?
34:54
And this guy said, oh, yeah, yeah, there was something happened with the other
34:58
guy and he got kicked out.
35:00
You know, just some offhand remark, which meant the newspapers then went,
35:04
oh, there's a story here and went and uncovered what actually happened.
35:07
But none of that would have come out, you know, if it wasn't for this situation.
35:13
No idea wow is it i'm just curious now
35:16
about this cocktail is it the most expensive cocktail because it's it's the
35:20
thing where it costs a thousand dollars but it comes with a room for the night
35:26
like is it that kind of because i know some places would do that you buy this
35:30
cocktail someone told me the story of a speed dating event that happens at a
35:34
hotel and the way you get around,
35:36
getting a room if you really find someone you click with at this speed dating is you order this,
35:43
particular cocktail and it costs $900, but it also comes with a room that they
35:47
just give you when you buy the cocktail.
35:51
Yeah. So this one was, I look, I think that it was in this situation,
36:00
it was a publicity stunt.
36:02
And so they made, it was called the Winston, I think.
36:05
And it was this very expensive, you know, it had just, you know,
36:08
1858 cognac, you know, that kind of thing, just a whole bunch of expensive stuff
36:12
thrown in there and then it was essentially this guy was going to,
36:19
his name is james manning was going to buy this cocktail essentially as a publicity
36:24
stunt and it was like you know it was like fifteen thousand dollars he was going
36:28
to pay for it the reason why it was fifteen thousand dollars was because that
36:33
was the price that they had put on the cocktail so they could call it the world's
36:37
most expensive cocktail,
36:39
and then the whole thing fell apart when they had to sort of fake it the next
36:43
day with a different guy because Manning hadn't shown up.
36:46
It wasn't there anymore. So it's a yeah, it was really just a sort of publicity stunt.
36:52
But that idea of what you're talking about, of like you're buying one thing
36:56
but you get this other thing for free, like you see that in I believe it happens in Japan,
37:02
where you'll play a game, it would be illegal to gamble but you can play a game
37:07
and win a prize and so you pay a game and then you win say a bar of soap and then.
37:18
Luckily, there just happens to be a shop next door that will buy the soap from you for $100.
37:29
Also, I found the article online. So it doesn't look like much right this second,
37:34
but this is the Winston cocktail. Yeah, that's it.
37:38
And if you type that in, most expensive cocktail called the Winston,
37:42
it comes up with that story from Melbourne.
37:46
And just quickly, the most expensive cocktail was sold for $12,970 and was made
37:53
by Jeff Heffernan in Australia at Club 23 in Melbourne in 2013.
38:00
And it was called the Winston, contained 60 mils of Croizets,
38:05
1858 cognac, and it made it into the Guinness Book of Records.
38:10
So that's kind of cool as a way to promote is to get the thing in the guinness
38:16
book of records that's definitely one way to do it,
38:21
so so the interesting thing is that like for the for the past you know 40 minutes
38:24
we've been talking about scams and they're basically done in a very negative
38:27
notion they're done to either deceive or steal or con people out of their money
38:31
i'm really curious if there's any stories.
38:35
Where scams have been used for good and are there many of those stories well
38:41
no not really i mean Ultimately, when you scam someone,
38:46
you're deceiving someone in order to make a profit.
38:52
The Catholic Church. Now, just kidding, everyone. Just kidding.
38:57
Well, yeah. I mean, okay, so that's it.
39:00
The idea is just, you know, we have this idea in movies where you'll have,
39:03
say, like a movie like The Sting where...
39:07
They will say, okay, we want to make the con artists the heroes,
39:10
so we'll make sure that the victim deserves it.
39:13
So we'll say, we'll pick this guy, and this guy deserves to be scammed,
39:16
and he is, you know, but he's still ultimately the victim of a crime.
39:21
Like, and so to sort of say, like, oh, this guy deserved it,
39:26
therefore it's a good thing, I would say it's satisfying, but it's like,
39:30
it's basically like revenge.
39:32
A revenge scam would be like the closest to a good scam.
39:36
The other thing to remember, I think, is that the people doing the scamming
39:41
will say, well, every scam is a good scam because we got paid,
39:44
you know, from their perception.
39:45
And they will often have justifications for why they do it.
39:49
When you talk about, say, you know, some of the scammers in Africa,
39:54
they will have built into the culture of scamming.
39:57
They will essentially say that
39:59
people from the West have been coming to Africa for hundreds of years.
40:03
They have the reason why a lot of African countries have such poor economies
40:08
is because of colonialism.
40:10
It is because of the action of Western corporations coming in and removing the
40:16
natural resources and destroying the country and making it unstable.
40:21
And so us scamming Westerners essentially is revenge. It's restoring the balance.
40:30
It's getting the money that was taken out of Africa and bringing it back again.
40:34
So from their perspective, not only are they making money, they are righting
40:37
the wrongs of the past. They're righting the wrongs of history.
40:40
Now, whether that makes it okay or not is a different question,
40:45
but from their perspective, they're good. They're the good guys.
40:50
Hmm it's really interesting like yeah i
40:53
just thought that if there was any kind of story it's like well these guys
40:57
scammed the corporation out of
40:59
their money back in order to be able to help their community whatever
41:03
it might be you know like yeah that's right they beat them at
41:06
their own game like that would be yeah how
41:09
that was sort of unfold yeah i know i just noticed someone in the comments asked
41:14
about operation mincemeat and whether that was a positive scam that was the
41:18
That was during World War II when I think the Allies got a homeless guy and
41:25
dressed him up as a soldier with some fake plans.
41:27
He was a dead guy, a guy who died. And so they got the body and dressed him
41:31
up so he looked like a soldier and put some fake plans in his satchel and then
41:37
made sure the body washed up at shore.
41:39
And then they essentially used the plans to try and spread misinformation.
41:48
I don't think that is necessarily – it's deception, obviously,
41:52
but it's not necessarily a scam because profit is not the – it's not about the financial profit.
41:59
It's more about, you know, deception, you know, in the case of war.
42:04
War games, yeah. Yeah, it's war games. Yeah. Yeah.
42:08
Yeah, in fact, we referenced some of the things that happened in the World War
42:11
in the episode we did, episode 187 on Jasper Masculine,
42:16
in which during that time they were doing a lot of just covert sort of ideas
42:21
where they would emulate inflatable tanks and dress up trucks and tanks as just
42:27
normal supply trucks and just that level of misdirection.
42:30
Like there was quite an interesting level, but I had no idea that they were
42:33
using like corpses, you know, to misdirect.
42:37
And it's an amazing way of thinking, right?
42:40
It's, you know, the reason I bring that up is that like from the conversations
42:43
we had earlier, you think about the psychology of the people who are taking
42:46
advantage of these folks and scams.
42:48
And you kind of look at them and go, oh, they're narcissistic.
42:50
But then when someone has a mind that goes, let's put plans on a corpse and see what happens.
42:57
I don't know what to call that person. i don't know if narcissistic like i wouldn't
43:01
call him a narcissist or a genius like i don't,
43:04
know it's a weird type of genius it's a weird
43:07
type of genius you know yeah you know
43:10
that the sickos are going to examine that soldier's body
43:13
for clues and they're going to find a clue that we've planted
43:16
like it's it's like the way
43:19
that magicians will pretend to
43:22
palm a card in the hopes that they will go
43:25
ah i know how you did the trick now it's in your hand you're
43:28
like i don't know what you're talking about yeah i mean
43:31
yeah like though you think
43:34
about with magicians like i remember sitting in a
43:36
lecture where the where the
43:40
magician who was lecturing spent 10 minutes talking about so you've got the
43:44
coin is in your hand or they think the coin is in your hand and now you're going
43:48
to open your hand and you're going to show that the coin isn't there and he
43:52
spent like 10 minutes talking about all the different ways in which someone
43:56
might open in their hand to show the coin isn't there.
43:59
To make it as effective as possible and and
44:02
everyone was like this is very interesting like you know you
44:05
never sort of open your hand fully up you always sort of go like one finger
44:08
at it you know you unravel your fingers a little bit you know you
44:11
do you sort of open it towards yourself and then turn your
44:14
hand or you know all of those different types of things that we you know put
44:17
all that effort into so i think it's the same here it's just it's just thinking
44:21
about people think about the details they think about you know exactly how this
44:26
is going to work out nick i think we should do a gig story how do you feel about that feel great sure.
44:37
So gig stories is a part of the show we like to talk about
44:39
magic moments or even con man moments either while performing or our day-to-day
44:44
lives starting with the story from our guest mr nicholas j johnson all right
44:49
i did a gig so i i got hired to do a gig for or at a function room at Parliament
44:56
House. So this is in Victoria.
44:58
This is like state government. And it was close to election time.
45:04
It was close to budget time, which meant security is quite heightened.
45:07
And I had not really thought about what was in my bag.
45:14
And so I took my magic kit and I stopped at security and they opened it up.
45:21
And it was full of like knives, fake money, like a hammer, nails,
45:28
like all of this sort of stuff.
45:30
And they were like, okay, what are you doing? I'm a magician.
45:35
And security was like, okay, well, what are you doing? And like,
45:40
I'm going to do a magic show and these are my props. Oh, okay.
45:43
And eventually they said, you can't take the money in.
45:46
It's like you can't take the knife in. Okay. And I go, okay,
45:50
that's all right. Because it's like there's knives in there.
45:53
That's fine. I'll just collect my way out. And they go, yeah,
45:55
I'm not sure you'll be able to do that. And I go, well, that's okay.
45:58
It's a cheap knife. Whatever. I understand.
46:00
And so I go and I do the gig and I come back out. And when I come back out,
46:04
the federal police are waiting for me.
46:07
Oh, wow. And I have to explain to them exactly what every prop is.
46:13
So essentially I've just finished the show and I have to go and do the show
46:17
again for the federal police, you know, and it's stuff like.
46:23
You know, I do the human blockhead, you know, so hammering a nail into my face
46:27
and, you know, like I'm doing this like really weird stuff and this,
46:32
they're not entertained.
46:33
They don't, they're just right. What are you going to do with that?
46:36
What are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with that?
46:38
And just one thing after the other and to, and at the end they just basically went, okay, you can go.
46:44
And that was it. And it was like, from their perspective, it was literally like,
46:49
this guy has to demonstrate how he uses all of these things,
46:53
because you can't take things into Parliament House if you don't have a reason to bring them in.
46:57
So I had to demonstrate each object one by one. They did not care I was a magician.
47:01
They did not care about the performance.
47:03
All they cared about is that I could demonstrate what I was doing.
47:06
And yeah, and then I got to go home what
47:09
was crazy was i did have essentially fake money that was
47:13
probably illegal but because i
47:15
from their perspective they weren't thinking about that crime just
47:19
they're like well what are you doing with it and i go magic tricks and they
47:21
go okay that's fine off you go bloody hell literally performing for your life
47:27
yes that's right holy crap all right i also had one where i had the opposite
47:32
situation which was you know instead of showing up to a gig and having all this
47:37
stuff that I didn't kind of really think about having.
47:40
I showed up, it was a kid's show and I showed up to do a kid's show with my box of tricks. And I.
47:46
It was like, you know, once we just, you've got your box, you walk on stage,
47:50
you put it down, you open it and you just start, you know, there's no, there's no setup.
47:54
And the kids were all sitting there ready to go. So I just walk in,
47:56
I put it down, I go, Hey kids, you gonna have some fun. Great.
47:58
Let's start. And I opened the box.
48:01
No magic tricks. It was the wrong box. And it was just full of like random stuff
48:06
that was not, it was just like paper. I sent just random bits of paper.
48:10
And it was, and I was on stage with literally no props, no props at all.
48:17
And I'd already started the show. And so I had to say, oh, no,
48:23
kids, it looks like I've forgotten all of my magic tricks.
48:26
What are we going to do? Can you help me make some magic tricks? And all the kids go, yay.
48:32
And it was in a classroom. So I was like walking around the classroom,
48:36
picking up objects. What do we need to do a magic show? And they say, you need a magic wand.
48:40
Okay. And so I get like a pen, you know, a texter.
48:45
That's going to be my magic wand. and like this
48:47
is going to be my hat and i'm like so i do like a cups and balls
48:50
and i do like some you know some sort of sharpie vanish type stuff and
48:54
feel like 50 minutes with this just pulled
48:57
out of my backside magic show and at
49:00
the end i went up to the client and said i'm so sorry about
49:03
that i really i'm really sorry i was really unprofessional and
49:06
she goes what are you talking about and i go what i forgot
49:09
all my magic and she goes oh i thought that was just what
49:12
you did i thought that was the show
49:15
that that was my vibe that
49:17
i just show up and make like she was just like yeah.
49:20
That was cool that you just made up all those tricks with the stuff and wild utterly
49:24
wild like max malini type stuff where
49:27
you just rock up with lint in your pockets and
49:30
pull out a magic show that's insane yeah yeah
49:33
i think for a kid's show particularly when your character is
49:36
like shambolic like oh i don't know what i'm doing and kids can
49:39
you help me if that's kind of your vibe it's much easier to
49:43
get away with you know like to walk on stage as a like
49:45
a mentalist you know who's very serious and to
49:49
be like rummaging around in people's pockets for things to do
49:51
magic tricks with you know that's a bit more of a challenge far out
49:55
yeah that's true all right i don't think i
49:58
can top that but i will just share a little anecdote from last
50:02
week's shows i noticed in my
50:05
show i get people to choose out of two bags
50:08
there's a bag that has a on it and a bag that has b on it
50:10
and there are genuinely two different routines in
50:13
there endings to a routine and i let them
50:16
choose so this kid i'm like which
50:20
bag will it be and i he flicks i see him like flicking him an imaginary coin
50:25
put it on his wrist and he goes b and i'm like that's a pretty good way to test
50:32
you know which outcome you want are you sure do you want to change your mind
50:35
he's like hang on let me check,
50:38
no. And by the way, like, why would a coin say A or B anyway?
50:42
And, uh, I'm like, is that a legit coin? Let me see it.
50:46
So this kid hocks over an imaginary coin and I catch it and turn it into a real
50:52
coin as if like, you know, as a magician would.
50:55
And the audience loses their mind because it's a completely off the cuff moment.
51:00
So just a little, you know, for us, it's nothing. It's like,
51:04
oh yeah, just put a coin in Ramsey's subtlety. He throws it to you.
51:07
But I tell you, the audience lost their mind at that. And then I just,
51:10
you know, shuttle past it and threw him back his invisible coin and he caught
51:14
it and did this and then kept going.
51:17
And it was just a fun little nothing moment that I didn't even film it because
51:21
I usually film every show. And it was just so beautiful.
51:25
And then we just kept going with the show, but everyone just was like
51:28
not expecting that surprise i guess is what it really
51:31
was the surprise that that was a very fun little
51:34
bit that happened that's cute beautiful yeah
51:37
that's great really fun i like when yeah i
51:41
like when kids yell like they yell out things they
51:44
want you to do and you can do
51:47
it like they yell and sometimes they yell out something they.
51:50
Think is really dumb or silly you know and they're
51:53
like you know a kid will go make a frog appear in your
51:55
mouth and it's like you've got like a sponge frog
51:58
sitting right there and you're just like okay you
52:02
know like they just lose their minds it's that great
52:05
it's so it's so beautiful that idea how
52:08
is it possible to manufacture those moments do you
52:11
think are there ways in which you can sort of you know.
52:14
Lead an audience down a path and make them
52:16
feel like they're seeing something special and unique
52:19
that only ever happened today or you
52:23
know like are they techniques do you reckon to kind of manufacture those moments
52:25
probably i mean there is there is
52:28
one i do in my show which is i ask them
52:32
what card they want in the deck and then i ask
52:35
them what would be the most impressive way i can
52:38
find it for you and i do that in my show
52:41
so that it just makes it fun for me but also like i
52:44
can film that part of the show every week and it's a new
52:47
thing but also but also
52:50
it feels like what you're saying it's
52:54
part of the show that no one ever sees because it depends on
52:57
what they say in that moment but realistically people only
53:00
say sort of five different things but to them
53:03
it feels like it's the first time like that's ever happened
53:06
because i'll obviously play it off like oh my
53:08
god no one's ever said to make it be at the top of the deck or
53:11
whatever and i think the more you can incorporate that the better absolutely
53:17
like if i could have someone have an imaginary coin each time to like decide
53:23
something and you know in hindsight maybe i should but yeah absolutely that's
53:28
when it becomes real magic.
53:30
Yeah totally seemingly yeah you can play that off if i just said like i want
53:34
you to imagine you're holding a coin give it a flip catch put on your wrist
53:37
it's going to be a or b what do you see and they go hey great and throw me the
53:40
cone thanks man and just put it in your pocket like.
53:43
You could probably well i mean
53:46
you do do that nick right with a card like imagine you
53:49
have a card and you fold it up and you know you literally can
53:53
do that already with yeah i think
53:56
sometimes you can sort of
53:59
you can almost visually prompt people to to
54:02
say something like i do the you know
54:05
like like i said before i do the human blockhead so you're hammering a nail in
54:08
and then you pull it out with the back of the you know like you
54:11
do you pull it out with the claw yeah and uh what i
54:14
tend to do is i hammer it in and then i got to take it out with my
54:16
hand and then i sort of pause like it's stuck
54:19
and i'll just kind of pause for a second and then
54:23
lift up the hammer just slightly because it's in my hand already and
54:27
nine times out of ten someone in the audience will shout
54:30
out use the claw and i go use the
54:32
claw and i go okay and then pull it out and somehow that makes
54:35
it more amazing and more disgusting and more incredible because it was like
54:40
so you know just a loose thing that happened in the moment that's cute yeah
54:45
those sort of little things but it's just yeah it feels um yeah yeah nick what
54:49
what is your what's your gig story do you have something i i had a cute moment on Sunday,
54:54
I was performing at a 60th birthday party and it was great.
54:58
It was very private function at this beautiful restaurant, a lovely, lovely family.
55:04
And I'm performing away and this kid's there and they're kind of following me
55:07
from table to table and I'm great with kids.
55:09
So it's the type of thing where they weren't eating or they weren't,
55:11
I'm like, come on kids, magic show, follow me, follow me. I bring them all back to the kids' table.
55:15
I do some magic for them and go, look, you got to finish your lunch if we're
55:19
going to do any more magic, all right? Because I don't want to get in trouble
55:21
and add this whole back and forth.
55:22
And I'm doing that. And I got a great rapport with the kids.
55:25
I'm only there for an hour.
55:27
But I remember at the end of the day, this kid's young boy, cute,
55:30
cute little fella, was just losing it, losing it.
55:34
And it was, I was in these sort of like, it was like a booth and he was like
55:36
trying to get out, but he was reaching his arms out towards me to like, to pick him up.
55:42
And he was just losing his mind. His mother ends up coming over and pulling
55:45
him out of the booth and the kid's still losing it with his arms outstretched to me.
55:49
And she's like, what's up? and I go, I think he wants me to hold him.
55:52
She's like, here. He didn't even think about it. Just went like, you take this.
55:57
And I grabbed this kid, dead silence.
56:00
Just stop crying and i was like all right
56:03
cool i just took it for a little walk and then i put it back to
56:06
the booth i guess you're my kid now yeah i
56:09
was just sort of like this is awesome like i
56:12
made a little friend today yeah i just thought that
56:15
was really cute because i don't know i i i think
56:18
i've held like a baby my whole life like i wouldn't even know
56:21
what to do with it you know what i mean it's because i love
56:24
kids but just when they're running around and swearing not when their little
56:27
bags of poop crying and just what's that wow wow
56:30
oh it's for you like you know yeah yeah when
56:33
they're running around and they're swearing and they got opinions and stuff
56:37
like that and they're like unreasonable i enjoy them at that phase that's for
56:40
me when they're the most fun when everything's going to be off the ground because
56:43
they're going to reach for stuff you know like i enjoy them at that level so
56:47
yeah it's when there's this little eating poop factory yeah,
56:52
thing it's like yeah they're like larvae you know what i mean before they become
56:57
a butterfly whatever you just sort of sit in there wrapped up with this kind
57:00
of like bundle of poop yeah.
57:04
Wow and then people say nah man you got it wrong that's really the best and
57:07
it's like well maybe i'll experience that someday when i become a dad but like
57:10
yeah but it was just a really cute moment i really it was like the best part
57:14
of my weekend being able to make friends with this kid or the kid had a nice
57:17
connection enough with me that he was like, I'm losing my mind.
57:21
Help me. Like, I just thought that to have that with kids, you know,
57:25
you know, I love those little moments where it's like, come on,
57:27
kids. And one kid grabs you by the hand.
57:28
It's like, come on, we're going to go to the table and you're going to play
57:32
with us. And it's like, oh, I made a cute little friend, you know.
57:37
Scotty P says, I'm going to ship my turd burger of a nine-year-old to you as we speak.
57:46
That's Scotty T. We've hit the hour mark, but I had one more thing on my list
57:51
that I wanted to ask you about, Nick, and it was this amazing product you released
57:54
some years ago, which was your three-disc Monty. Can we talk about that?
58:00
Yeah, sure. Three-disc Monty, so it's a variation of the three-card Monty.
58:04
It's the one that's actually still performed by scammers
58:07
it's the one if you go particularly into europe you'll see people
58:10
out on the street playing it and so i spent quite
58:13
a bit of time in europe collecting hidden camera footage and then
58:16
put together a documentary about it so
58:19
it explains not just the moves but how the con artists work and all the different
58:24
techniques they have for avoiding getting caught and so on and then and then
58:28
with a little routine for magicians and so So I released that about like a decade
58:32
ago and I still get people asking me about it and still wanting it.
58:36
So I'm going to re-release that shortly. We're going to have it with a download
58:41
option because, you know, that's now people tend to want that as well as still
58:45
the DVD and you get a little set of the discs.
58:48
I know there's some people selling the discs and they're very pretty.
58:50
Did they, are they, is it this kind of thing? Yeah, that's the one.
58:54
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
58:55
So there's a few of you look up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're like black plastic
58:59
discs with a white spot on one of them.
59:02
There's a few people who sell them as a magic prop and they're very pretty and
59:06
they're really, they look very nice.
59:09
The ones that I include are the ones, so the design is from a guy,
59:13
a French guy who uses them on the street. So they're not a magic prop.
59:18
They're the actual thing that is used on the street.
59:21
So these aren't like the hand carved shell game things that are in my collection.
59:26
And these are the things that the Conas would actually use.
59:28
So anyway, yeah, I'm setting all that up for digital download and getting the disks made as we speak.
59:35
Great. And that's going to be available on your website at some point? Yeah. Conman.com.au.
59:40
That is in the link in the description, Nicholas's website, 100%. Check it out.
59:46
Well, guys, I mean, I don't know about you. I could talk to the cows home.
59:49
I've had the best time, but the hour is up.
59:52
Mr. Nibido, is there anything we want to say before we wrap up and throw it to the final word?
59:56
No, look, I just think between last week having Mario the maker magician and now having Nicholas J.
1:00:03
Johnson, I just, you know, hope you guys are absorbing all of this awesomeness
1:00:07
that I've been absorbing.
1:00:09
And hopefully now we are a little wiser to look out for these scams.
1:00:13
And I think the best way to end this episode is by giving our guest the final word.
1:00:20
Important thing that I recently learned is don't touch people when you're performing
1:00:26
without asking them first, because they really don't like it.
1:00:30
Ask people before you touch them.