Latest / The Magic Guys / Jay Alexander has 1,658 google reviews! #261

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Jay Alexander has 1,658 google reviews! #261 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. Magic. They are the magic guys.
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Oh my god no one told me i had to bring my drugs to this episode yeah hey guys
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what's up welcome in welcome to a drug-induced episode of the magic guys i'm
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so sorry for our guest already episode,
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261 this is uh we're glad to have nick back we're glad to have doug back but
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nick has been under the knife so to speak and but he's made it that's his commitment
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that's right friends it is my first episode as a woman thank you.
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It'll be the same it'll be the same but we might
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talk a bit more anyway great to have you guys here i'm josh
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nolbedo to my left obviously is nick k hey
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guys i'm nick k back from my tonsillectomy i'm
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doing great thank you for everyone who reached out on the discord and was like
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what's up but right now i sound like steve-o from jackass oh yeah yeah and of
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course joining us at paparo's home everyone say hey daddy what's up y'all happy
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to be back making his millions at trick supply,
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we actually had our best week in a year like
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how how satisfying is that for me to i've been here in a year so the first week
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i was there we did 100 bucks and last week we did 101 and 25 cents so wow oh
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i bet you didn't get a 500 donation though man talk about a week to miss That was good No,
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we've been killing it at Trick Supply Thank you everyone for coming in these
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doors But stay away the next hour So we can have this a smooth sailing episode
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That's right Please everyone,
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calm your boat for a second,
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We're excited to have a guest Another great guest on today And we've got the
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trio for it as well We're all excited hearing that we're having this This guy
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just making it Like longevity and magic He still looks so young as well And
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so many questions and I guess we just roll straight into our guest unless there's
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any other news we've missed.
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I don't think there is. No, I'm ready to rock. Nick's a woman.
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Let's roll. That's it. That's the news. We're rolling.
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Let's give our friend the respectful intro, you guys, because friends,
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he's a really special guest.
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I've had the pleasure of befriending him some weeks ago, and his kindness has
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been absolutely phenomenal, and the knowledge he has is even more phenomenal.
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So this is someone who's not only mastered magic, but has built an entire career
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around personality, storytelling, and connecting with an audience.
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He's been a staple of the San Francisco magic scene for decades.
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He runs his own theater in Union Square.
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He's delivered TED Talks and has performed for some of the biggest companies
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in the world. But what I love most about this guy is that he doesn't just do magic.
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He truly understands people. And it's my pleasure to share with you this evening.
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Please welcome the one and only Mr. Jay Alexander.
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.
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Jay alexander hey guys friend please
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tell us who are you and what do you do thanks for having me who am i magician
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manolis based in san francisco originally from texas moved to san francisco
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over 30 years ago for college and to street perform and most of my career has
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been spent during corporate events i worked for the band the rolling stones on three U.S. tours.
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I worked for Robin Williams for many times a year for 20 years.
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And nine years ago, I opened up my theater, the San Francisco Magic Theater
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at the Marrakesh in San Francisco.
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And where I'm there now, we do, you know, five to six shows every week.
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Wow. There's a lot to unpack there. That's amazing. So I guess let's make a
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smaller question. What don't you do, buddy?
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Now this is all I do. It's all I do.
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Yeah yeah time for much else yeah let's let's roll back let's roll back tell
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us about the stones tell us about rubble millions and tell us about street performing
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please well street performing actually is still even though i don't do it it's
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been decades since i've done it i feel it,
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influenced who my character and who i am on stage so much and and i i'd watch
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super performers and And to this day, I feel like some of the best performers
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in the world are street performers.
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Going to Edinburgh French Festival to watch people from all over the world,
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you're like, oh my god, this is the best show we've ever seen. And,
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And I always felt, when I was young, I'm like, how do you clean this up and put it on a stage?
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Because you'd see some acts that were amazing on the street that can't transition.
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Right. And then, you know, but then I look at my favorite acts.
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They're all people that transition that at one point did street shows.
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So, you know, and I look at, you know, Harry Anderson and people that were just, even Penn and Teller.
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But for me, at my age and who I followed, it was Harry Anderson that really was, that was the thing.
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I watched him like, this is it. this is what I want to do. Yeah.
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Yeah. But my celebrity stuff and performances, I was moved to San Francisco.
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I was 18 years old. And about two years later, I met Bill Graham,
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who was a big concert promoter in the sixties from the bands like the Grateful
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Dead, Janis Joplin, all the, those big bands.
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He was the one who kind of, he had a venue called the Fillmore,
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both in California and in New York, but he also managed a lot of bands.
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And he, he saw me perform. him
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and i was just you know at that point i'm 19
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20 years old when i met him my hair's down to my waist i was like this rock
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and roll looking kid who was putting my hair back on the weekends and doing
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kids birthday parties but and then doing street shows during the week and then
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he saw me do some magic and it wasn't like i was good he just i had a look and
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a style and i was good enough and yeah,
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Whenever a band would sell out one of his venues, he had three venues in San
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Francisco, a club that's like a 1,000-person club, a 3,000, and the stadium
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where they have the big, huge concerts.
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Wow. Every time if they sold out, he would have me as the entertainment.
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Usually it wasn't even that nice to me. He would just, but I would get booked for these parties.
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And one time I get a call from a person who works in his office saying,
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hey, we need you to be at Pier 23.
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Three it's a yacht cruise at 10 o'clock in the
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morning i'm like great and they would never see
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who it was and i wouldn't ask i didn't care i just
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wanted the performance and you know do the show and i get there i'd find out
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who it was and i get to the pier and
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there's not nobody there and it's pre-cell phones i'm
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waiting around i don't know what to do and i finally have somebody a car
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drives up and they go oh yeah it is postponed for
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two more hours and then it's postponed another hour and
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by the end of the afternoon they and i'm
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like i'm getting really pissed off because he never
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paid me that much i was a young kid who needed the money and and i'm just waiting
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around and then all of a sudden a yacht comes comes up and and they end up getting
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people on from a different area and i walk on i'm like that's mick jagger that's
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keith richard and it was just like
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i'm like what am i doing here and end up spitting the afternoon or the rest of the afternoon.
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Performing for them and it was like two hour cruise on the
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san francisco bay and i hit it off with
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ron wood the guitarist and he he he says
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what are you doing later i go nothing and he goes oh why don't you come to the
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hotel we're gonna have a little party i'm like okay and he ended up going going
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to party that night and we're in the room and he says you know I'm an artist
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and I go you know what would be really good.
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If you would do paintings of me and that I could do magic in the galleries,
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the museums, as you're showing your artwork, I bet you would help both of our careers.
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And I'm just being just this one ass punk and he takes out a thing and he ends
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up doing a painting of me and gives it to me.
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And it was just like, and he, and we ended up hanging out there until four in
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the morning and he invites me to the concert the next night and go to the concert.
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And he says, Oh, what? You should come to LA with us.
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I'm like, I can't just go to LA. I couldn't afford to just go to LA at that point in my life.
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And he's like, oh, no, we got it. You know, and the management hated it.
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They were like, we don't need a magician as part of our entourage.
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But it didn't matter. I was a dancing monkey, and I knew, you know,
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that's my position there. And I was absolutely fine with it.
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So I went to LA. That turned into...
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Three u.s tours with them after that and what happened
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was they realized that it took
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the pressure off the band and everyone up backstage
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people are all having fun back there anyway but the
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first one i did was it was the voodoo lounge tour and i was like the voodoo
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magician and i'm just there performing for people and making creating all this
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excitement backstage that they weren't used to people were having fun backstage
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but they didn't have people screaming and yelling And to this day,
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I still take, if I'm doing close up,
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I perform close up like I'm street performing where it's all about how do I
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build a crowd, build a bigger crowd, build a bigger crowd.
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There's just no pitch at the end, but it's like, I want people screaming and
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yelling and, and amazed.
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And so that just turned into three tours to this day.
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All of my best clients that are in both
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the corporate world and rock and
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roll world all came and are celebrities in general from the same thing it's
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like a tree with vines i could and i'm just like everyone everything can be
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tracked back to bill graham and in the stones it's i end up meeting you know
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my first gig for the for robin williams was for somebody who knew.
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It was new the williams family personal their home manager they had a manager
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for their house and and booked me for a party and like everything for the most
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part can be tracked back to that,
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what's it like performing alongside an absolute like whirlwind tornado personality
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like robin williams like is
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it it's i'll tell you it's easier than performing for b-list celebrities,
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A-list celebrities, I feel, are so much easier because they've got nothing to
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prove. They're there just having a good time.
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It's the B and C-list people that are looking over shoulders to see what's going on that's better.
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And it is pretty weird that I fell into performing for some of the biggest stars in the world.
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It's not like I try to. To this day, when I think I want to do more of these,
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I'm like, I don't know how to find, find those kinds of clients.
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You just, they fell into my lap there. They met.
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And part of it was I never went to the press and when things would happen,
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I never used it in that way.
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So it's just like, you show up, you'd be a good guy. You keep,
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you do the job and you get more work from it.
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And once they know you're safe, your name gets passed around.
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I think a lot of the celebrities I've worked for, they're
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so scared of people taking advantage of them and happened so often that
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i think it's that's why
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you can't market to that you just have to end up falling into it i
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feel like more youth should know they can market their magic to you know bands
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and things like that what a great gig man it's like and it makes sense there
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too like you said you're the life of the backstage kind of right yeah and a
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lot of times they don't need it but the stones were big enough that they,
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and they actually didn't need it.
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But once I was there, they saw that it was fun and it worked.
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You know i i i'm so curious why
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i don't see like high scale high
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level comedians with magicians
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comedy magicians opening for them i think that would be such
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a smart idea i think it is and i did
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i got to open up for robin not in his big shows but before he do go on a big
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tour he would play small venues just to work on material he actually just called
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it working on material and I got to open up a few times and what I think he
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loved about it was, I'm not competing with him.
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It's just something so different that he really did appreciate it.
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I think so often though, the comedy club world, especially back in the 80s, and there was,
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They thought of magicians as prop comics. They didn't think we're funny.
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And they would see so many comedians coming in in those days doing the exact
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same tricks. Vanishing Bear Bottle.
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Today, still people are doing the same tricks. But it's so much of the same
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thing and the same gags that they thought all magicians were hacks.
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And the reality is, and I think most comedians are hacks. They're doing the same premises.
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But this too, at the comedy clubs, especially back in the day,
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those hack acts would get top billing over the comedians who
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were actually good because it was a novel thing for the comedy club
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so the comedians don't like us too much you know yeah no i understand i if i
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was in their position i'd feel the same way yeah absolutely i got it it's but
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it it's kind of funny because the hate it would have towards magicians yeah
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and i have a lot of friends now that are stand-up comics but it's the,
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it took a while to to realize it's like oh you know i'm it's a they see me working
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on the craft and building and how I build an audience and take them on a journey
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that they appreciate it. Yeah.
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If you're good and they're good, everyone understands it's good.
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But if they're good and you're bad, they hate you and they hate magicians.
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Yeah. Especially when you are in the top building or they see killing,
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you know, like really he's on that joke. So four guys do the same joke. Yeah. Right.
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Yeah. But the benefit of being a magician is we can all copy those hack lines
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as well. You know, it's, it, the other hand, you know what I mean,
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it's, yeah, it's a tough place to be.
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All right, so you rock and rolled the world with the stones,
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and then how'd you end up where you're at now?
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Well, you know what happened was, I was doing that, but that's not like it's
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that much work all the time.
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I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dot-com boom was starting,
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and I could not have looked the way I did since my hair was really long back
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then and wore these wild suits.
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I couldn't have looked that way and performed in corporate America at the same
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time, other than being in San Francisco. Being in one of these.
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If one of those commonly saying I don't know what that is.
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We're off the rails it's all good I don't think I could have performed doing
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corporate events anywhere else in the world other than San Francisco or in the
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high tech companies where they wanted something hip and new,
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and so at that point I just I saw that there's a market I started doing sales
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meetings and trade shows and just,
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even with the trade shows I would see other trade
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show magicians are like you can't come dressed like that on the
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trade show floor and i'm like back then
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everyone looked just like a salesperson from the from the company
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and i'm like i'm not going to be right
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for everyone it was before people were talking about branding but
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i i knew in my mind i'm not
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gonna be right for everything but what i'm right for i'm gonna be perfect for and
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i just loved that yeah and so
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that's kind of the way i kind to live my life the whole time was just like I
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want to work I'm going to find those places and put myself out there and hustle
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like crazy towards them but I'm not going to be doing medical you know back
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then I was like I wasn't going to be hired for a medical conference but I knew
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with the tech tech companies that was the thing.
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And as I get older, I also look at, I'm thinking constantly of like,
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all right, how do you grow, age gracefully doing this?
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So you're not now not, I'm not the guy that they don't want anymore because
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I saw where I came in and they're like, people were leaving.
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And I'm like, yeah, same thing at some point is going to happen to me.
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And it's like, all right, how do you just keep aging gracefully that you just
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always are always in demand?
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Do you find that in the corporate world, you almost have more authority?
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I think we mentioned this once before, but do you have more authority the older
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you get because you're sort of the same age as like the CEOs, for example?
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I don't know. I used to think that when I was younger that I'd get more authority.
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And I think that was the case.
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And as now, at these tech companies, at Google and Facebook and all the,
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you know, Airbnb and all these companies that are the Bay Area,
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you know, San Francisco Bay Area kind of companies, I think
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there's everyone's so young that that's not a thing anymore I don't think people
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used to have this blind respect for their elders and I don't think that's quite
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the same and when I was younger I thought that shouldn't be like you should
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have respect for it but I don't know I mean I don't think.
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How do I put this? When I was a kid, I wanted to know what bands my favorite bands listened to.
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I wanted to know the magicians my favorite magicians looked up to.
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Now, I don't think if you're young, you look at it the same way.
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I think there's some people, not to generalize too much, but they go on average,
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that's not a thing the same way.
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It's like you got the information really quick on YouTube or online somewhere,
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and you're out doing it, and you don't care.
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And that's why you see magic tricks that people are reinventing the original
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way to do it because someone else took it, changed it, sold it,
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and then someone else thinks, I'm going to do it this way now.
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And it's like, well, that was the way it was originally done.
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Nope. Yep. And the original.
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Okay. So, right. So, well, that explains why you look so youthful and full of energy.
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You just, instead of doing the, you know, slowly aging gracefully magician,
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you're just staying young and energetic in your show, it sounds like. I just, I love what I do.
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Yeah. That is the key. Yeah. It is.
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I really do think it's the key. And I think there's a lot of people that will
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come in that are younger that ask me advice.
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And I think they, their advice is always wanting to know about stuff so they
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can go out there and perform. but I think they like the concept of being a performer
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more than the idea of what it really takes to do this for a living.
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And what are all the parts? It's not just the magic trick, but it's the,
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you know, how do you connect? How do you, how do you show up at a gig before you even perform?
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You know, I think those are all important things. Yeah, you know,
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you're on stage the moment you get out of your car.
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Or the moment your car pulls up, you're technically on stage because people
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are making assumptions of you already. They see you.
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Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah.
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My buddy Tim Ellis has a mad hatter. I agree with that. Says the guy who shows
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up on a skateboard. Yeah.
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But that's my brand. but you know like so
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my buddy tim ellis has a uh mad hatter character and he will
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purposely park his car two blocks away so that when he
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leaves the party they just see him wander off because i think if you you know
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leave the party and jump into like a hyundai xl you kind of break the illusion
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you know what i mean like absolutely you know what's funny is i remember being
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in like fifth or sixth grade and they had an entertainer come and it was like a singer to my school,
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and I remember being so excited walking out and spying and seeing what kind
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of car he got into and it killed the illusion for me.
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Right. Of like, who the guy was. You know, let's play a game real quick because
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I remember I redid my branding some while ago and we're having a conversation,
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about a friend of ours who just bought a car.
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I was at one of my residencies and they go, what do you drive?
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They go, I have a Tesla. They go, that's so on brand.
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And I asked her, I go like, I never thought about like what I would drive as a brand.
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But then I asked my buddies and my cohort, like, what should I be driving?
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They all just went, you should be driving an Aston Martin. And I'm like,
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yeah, man, I should be driving an Aston Martin.
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So what would be on brand for Jay Alexander to drive is my question.
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I've kind of had those vehicles, some of them.
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I had, but I never went to gigs in them. But like I had an old motorcycle,
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the sidecar. I've had crazy vehicles.
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Because a lot of times when it came time to get a vehicle, I would think I'd get something,
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you know, normal and dependable. Like it's something really cool and different.
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And usually got the stupid thing that ended up costing more in the long run.
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But you know, but it's, and then I had kids and then during that time I was
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driving a minivan and everybody would be like, what are you doing?
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That looks so weird that you're driving a minivan.
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And I'm like, it's my car. I don't care, but I feel, I feel like Doug Collins
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should be rocking up in like a hot air balloon.
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I mean, I like it. I always think there'd be something dorky like that.
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I don't know. You just trying to reference the movie up.
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The grandpa going up in the house I remember doing a trade show years ago and
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this guy comes up to me a magician from Florida and he says.
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The trade show happened to be in San Francisco and I go up and I go hi I'm Jay and he goes hi.
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He's like where are you from and I go here and so he took that as he's a real
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performer because he's traveling to perform and I'm in my early 20s and he just had such an attitude.
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And he made some comment as we're talking about the car
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and how important as he drives up the look of the
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car and i were thinking you know
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so few people see the car if
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you had a nice suit and your shoes are polished and he had
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a montblanc pin if that's the status you want to give off the
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montblanc pin is a better investment than your fancy car yeah you
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know and and honestly like the suit
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isn't as important as a condition you keep it in one of the best bits
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of advice i got from a sales coach called brad lee he
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said what you have and i think this applies
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to life so i'm going to say it like this what you have in life
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is not as important as the condition you keep it in it's great and i think that
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and it's true it's like you know so like what good is your three thousand dollar
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amani suit if it looks like you know mothballs holding hands you know like it's
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you're better off having a $200, you know,
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cheap suit that is brand new and looks the part.
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And, you know, I think it's tailoring. It's like get a cheap suit and tailor it.
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If you can't afford the suit and tailor it's. And I, and I go back to,
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I'm a big believer in constantly editing and editing and editing and editing.
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And it's like, whether it's your script for your show, getting out every word that's useless.
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Taking in it for every joke it's like i really
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do feel every word said on stage should be the setup of
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a joke the you know the setup the punch
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line or setting up a trick and hopefully more than one
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and you know it should be
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taking care of two of those at the same time right so i'm
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always like get rid of those words you don't need in a
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show and i also think that goes
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with the props on the stage that goes with your promo that goes with your
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dress like you know tailoring is
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basically editing yeah i think i even look
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i take it to the point where like i even dislike wearing a wrist watch when
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i'm doing magic because to me a single ring is a sleight of hand on this rings
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bracelets anything of that nature is like it's just a distraction like i actually
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shave my arms like so there's no hair on them when i perform like to me pulling
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up your arms and having those hairy,
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rubbing your arms is a distraction in itself.
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You know, anything that detracts from that should just be eliminated.
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That's why he shaves his head. Like he actually has a really thick head of hair,
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but it's a distraction from the magic. He's a tapro.
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I'm going to have to see my therapist after this episode. I drive a shitty car
24:21
and I got hairy arms. Jesus Christ, fellas.
24:25
You're the one that made it to Vegas. So, you know. At least I got the high
24:30
score in years. I don't know. That's it.
24:33
So, Tim Askin asked a good question. And maybe it's some of the things you've just said now.
24:37
But he said, what is something that you would tell your younger self that you
24:42
know now? And that could apply to anything.
24:45
The magic has to be good. But the magic is so just a small part of doing it for a living.
24:54
And it's such a small part of it. And I'm also like not somebody who there's
24:59
people that only put too much energy into the marketing and don't have a good show.
25:03
And those people can bother me more when I see someone that's actually getting
25:06
work, but they're just getting work one time because they've hustled like crazy
25:11
and gotten to work, but never get hired again.
25:14
And then you're not getting hired again because of that guy. Yes.
25:18
Do the work, guy The thing I would have told myself Years ago,
25:23
which I do now Is videotape Every show.
25:28
Watch it, take notes And when I heard David Copperfield Would watch every show
25:34
I don't know if it's true or not But I remember hearing that when I was younger
25:37
That he had every show And he'd be doing three shows in a day at times He would video them,
25:42
he'd watch them Oh, you know he will, yeah Yeah, and I always thought,
25:47
You know, I don't like the way I sound.
25:49
And this is the thing you hear everyone say that it's like, I don't like the
25:52
way I look. I don't like the way I sound. It's just so hard to watch it.
25:57
And I don't know who Alex Ramone is. It's one of my closest friends.
26:00
And he has a show in Tahoe and he, at a casino and we will talk a lot about this. It's like, if,
26:07
how do you expect someone else to watch you if you're not willing to watch yourself?
26:12
And that is, to me, it's like, that's what it comes down to. It's like, watch it.
26:18
Nothing's going to get you better than really doing it. And it's sometimes hard
26:22
because you're so into, you know the show so well that you're not going to watch
26:28
it the same way as if you watch it six months from now.
26:31
But it's still, because you know every word you're saying, you know the tone.
26:36
But at the same time i do think watch it and the thing i would have said my
26:41
younger self also is fine mentors i was way too much of a person that did everything
26:48
myself i wanted to make the promo i even sell my theater i've every post on
26:53
the wall i've hung up i framed them like,
26:56
it's pretentious but i look at my theater i think this whole thing's one art
27:01
piece and i love that because it's, it's, if you like it, great.
27:06
It's, you like me. And if you don't like it, you know, you don't like me,
27:09
but it's, it's all me at the same time.
27:14
I now know I would have got a lot further if I did have built a team around
27:19
me and was better at, at doing that.
27:21
I, that's what I would tell the younger self. It's just like, get a team.
27:26
Do you have a director for the show team. You do still do too much yourself.
27:30
What'd you say, Doug? Do you have a director for your show or is that something that you used?
27:36
And a little bit, not as much as I should. I definitely, I definitely.
27:41
I think that's the best thing, a really great thing to do. And,
27:45
but, you know, I've studied with, I've taken like workshops with Bob Fitch and
27:49
Bob Newt eccentric, but they're more like workshops. It's not like real come
27:53
in to a serious directing of my show.
27:56
And there's something to be said about watching your own show is somewhat a
28:01
directing, like having a director, but it's obviously it's you,
28:04
but you are able to put eyes on what you're doing. Yeah. You'll be as critical.
28:09
You'll be as critical as ever. Because let me tell you, you'll notice things
28:14
like, why do I walk to my bag to put that thing away when two seconds later
28:18
I walk back to get another thing out?
28:20
Why don't I just hold on to it and deliver the dialogue and then edit that whole
28:25
movement out that's unnecessary?
28:27
So many little things you start to discover. And I guess maybe it's when you
28:31
have done all the editing you think you can do of watching yourself before then
28:35
maybe you bring someone in to watch.
28:37
Yeah. It's also important that when you do that for the younger people listening
28:42
to this advice, you look at it and go like, well, it still worked.
28:46
That's not what it's about. It's quite literally about like.
28:50
Doing things to that level of professionalism where it's so clean and you just
28:54
save milliseconds here and there.
28:56
Like I treated it as formula one. You look at first place and 10th place is
29:00
0.02 seconds between first and 10th, you know?
29:03
And if you can find 0.0 something of a second to be better than the next guy,
29:07
that's how you become one of the best.
29:09
And I think that's- And just knowing to stay, you know, keep watching people.
29:13
When people just go into their case and look in their case to grab things out,
29:17
it's like that drives me nuts.
29:19
After a while of like it used to be cardboard now i've gone to like a laser
29:24
place and edit it or made my very nerdy but kind of my whole case is i can look
29:30
at my case you know exactly,
29:32
everything's set ready to go um because there's
29:35
a place for everything but also i could just reach over
29:38
my hand with my hand goes right to the to the
29:41
places and i really do think those little things
29:44
make it feel so good and it's and it's
29:47
the transitions when you're younger you think a lot
29:50
of times you think it's all about the trick and oh man
29:53
the best trick and it's and it's like yeah the tricks are so important being
29:57
doing good magic is really i love but also that finishing one and getting to
30:04
the next and having that transition be smooth it to me is crazy important and
30:10
that's just like what i'm talking about is nothing magic.
30:13
Yeah, it's like, what are you doing between the space that the spectator's leaving
30:17
the stage and you're starting the next thing?
30:19
Or when they're coming on stage, you know? Are you just standing there going
30:23
through a case with nothing happening? Or are you playing music?
30:27
Or are you saying a joke, setting up a punchline?
30:30
You know, that's the fun stuff.
30:33
I mean, like Jay said, every line for him should be setting up a punchline or
30:38
delivering a callback or something important in the effect.
30:42
What what do you spend more time on now do you think the comedy writing or the magic.
30:49
Routine it's it's all it's all in there together but it's and sometimes it's
30:53
the premise you know first for me it's the coming up what is the premise of
30:57
what i'm trying to say and do,
30:58
and then you know finding the trick and there's been lots of tricks where i'm
31:03
like oh my i think this is the best thing for me and you get it you're like
31:06
that's stupid and i can't i just can't make it work.
31:09
And other times it gets something I put in the show that night,
31:12
which I know I shouldn't be doing, but I'm like, I'll try one thing every so often.
31:17
Well, I'll just put in the middle of the show something bad.
31:20
Someone told me years ago, and I think it's great, was once you have your show.
31:26
Have a place in the middle where you could try something new and and
31:30
in those days i felt like i don't want to do something to
31:32
make the show worse and so i my show stayed
31:35
exactly the same way too long and it
31:38
was good because performers change their show too often
31:41
and you know i think there's a lot of performers do
31:44
it too often i was keeping it so where i
31:47
felt like i had a great show and it stayed at that
31:50
place they're like no put something else in it's not going to make your
31:53
show that much worse but it will maybe make it
31:56
that much better so love it you know
31:59
and it don't do with the whole show but that one thing every so
32:02
often they can do and you know put it
32:05
in and then just try to figure out why why does this work why is it me
32:08
there's tricks i love that just don't fit to
32:10
my my character and you know
32:13
so it's it's like yeah you don't have too many
32:16
powers i'm a big believer in especially with doing mentalism don't
32:20
have every power in the world right and when when
32:24
you're performing at the magic theater as opposed to at
32:27
on a corporate stage yeah how different do you perform like does your core does
32:34
any of your corporate material also appear in your theater show or are they
32:39
a lot of it's the same how i do it is quite different and then in the theater
32:44
i In the theater, I have a lot more production value.
32:48
And even though it's a small theater, it's 45 seats, we still have a lot of lights and sound and...
32:58
The pre-show music to me, even for corporate shows, I think a lot of performers
33:03
don't think enough about you're setting the tone for the show before the show starts.
33:08
So in a corporate event, if you can control what is the pre-show,
33:12
the dinner music that's playing before you go on at a gala, that builds the energy.
33:19
And so if you can have control of that, I want to have all that control.
33:25
But at the theater, I have so much more and I know there's people that are young
33:30
that come in, they're like, oh, you can't do it without...
33:33
They've seen the show, they're like, oh, you can't do it without all that stuff.
33:36
And I'm like, oh, actually, I can.
33:38
My whole concept is, you want to have to be the best damn acoustic performer
33:43
you can be and then you start adding as much production as you can because I
33:49
want people to leave the theater being like, what the hell did we just see?
33:52
Like the greatest rock and roll show in a small theater is what I want that feeling to be for me.
33:58
And I want people leaving with me, building the energy on it.
34:01
You know, I want people going through lots of emotions.
34:04
Do they, you know, they laugh, they cry and all those things.
34:08
I really do want that. And it's.
34:11
A nuanced question. Pre-show music for the Magic Theater.
34:16
Instrumental or with lyrics? With lyrics, but not, I don't use music that people know that well.
34:23
That's just my own personal taste. my friend alex
34:27
he uses all top 40 music because they
34:30
go he's younger and he kind of goes with his thing and and i watch people in
34:34
his audience dancing around all excited before the show because it's their favorite
34:38
song and and i feel that the music's getting the credit not me at that point
34:44
and it's pre-show so in some ways i'm like i get it it completely works for him.
34:50
I want it to be, I use a lot of just old jump swing that music I like, but it does have a build.
34:58
So when I come out, it, you know, there's, there's energy in the room,
35:01
but I'm also able at my theater, I'll tell you the whole like user journey of this in my theater.
35:08
People show up and you walk off the streets of San Francisco,
35:12
you go down the stairwell to candle at stairwell.
35:15
My venue was the first Moroccan restaurant in
35:18
the United States was in my space so it's
35:22
completely tiled they don't really have
35:24
speakeasies in Morocco but it has this feeling of like a Moroccan speakeasy
35:28
it's all tiled and the ceiling is stamped metal and
35:32
so you feel like you've walked into another world almost like
35:35
Walt Disney would you know if he takes you
35:38
from the outside the inside you transition into a
35:41
whole new world the once inside
35:44
and i take it very serious of even
35:47
how my doorman welcomes the person as they
35:50
come in they walk down the stairs when they
35:54
get downstairs i i welcome them i'm the they i'm
35:57
there at the bottom of the stairs like you know
36:00
hi welcome to san francisco magic theater by marrakesh we're
36:03
having food and drinks in the lounge you'll see some close-up magic then
36:06
we'll go to the theater for the show and and then
36:09
i i'll take them in get them seated then i'll bring someone else and they'll
36:14
sit them you know two seats over third person comes in and and i always have
36:20
kind of these smart ass kind of remarks but not too over the top or it'll be
36:25
things like as i bring them in instead of in between the two parties i'm like.
36:29
People on one side of you are really nice. The other side, they're not nice.
36:32
You're going to have to figure out which is which.
36:34
And I walk away. And it's not like this great joke, but it's enough that it
36:38
gets them talking and people saying, oh, they're the nice ones.
36:42
Or, oh, we're the nice ones.
36:43
And it tells me a lot about people's personalities of who's later,
36:48
of who's playful at that point.
36:50
So there's so much going on that I'm setting up now that's going to happen later on in the show.
36:58
So you just see who's talking and so when
37:00
i leave they're all talking to each other and so
37:04
by the time i take everyone from then so
37:07
and i have food and drinks in the lounge by the time i take people from the
37:11
lounge into the theater the entire room knows the people next to them and they've
37:16
been talking and having a good time so i don't have to warm up the audience
37:20
they're warmed up and I do go back in. I do close-up magic with people.
37:26
In the lounge, it's definitely magic because my show is, for the most part,
37:32
completely minimalism.
37:34
Some people would say you can't mix the two. I feel it's like that's the first
37:38
experience. This is the next experience.
37:41
I don't have a problem with it, and I feel it works. I don't feel putting very
37:46
magic-y things like I would take a deck of cards out in my show once the show starts.
37:51
I feel it's two completely different things and they've walked one world.
37:55
I've taken them into this, to another world.
37:58
And so they've throughout the night, they've had multiple experiences and then
38:02
they see the show after the show, they're, they go back and through the lobby
38:07
and we do photos and kind of do photo ops.
38:11
And I'm willing to hang out and talk to people as long as possible.
38:14
And I, I think I first saw that with Penn and Teller.
38:17
I don't know if anyone else did it before them, but that was the first place I saw it
38:20
where you start realizing that time is
38:24
so unbelievably important i feel to
38:28
create super fans it's like they saw the
38:30
show they're my fans but now they get the things they know
38:33
me and that we're friends and they're not
38:36
going to hire ever another magician there's no
38:40
choice it's like i'm not competing with a magician they're competing
38:43
i'm competing with just it's they're going to hire jay
38:46
alexander and i want to build that thing of and without
38:49
sounding pretentious it's like no they're hiring me that's the
38:52
thing i have a fun question for nick without looking i just looked up how many
38:58
five star google reviews jay's magic theater has knowing how we operate it at
39:04
the theater of magic and we have like a few hundred reviews what would your
39:08
guess be of google reviews.
39:11
1,287. 1,287. You wish, baby!
39:17
1,658 five-star Google reviews.
39:22
The next lot of reviews are four stars, and that's it.
39:29
I mean, he's walking us through their experience, but that, for example, speaks for itself.
39:36
I mean, that's got to feel quite rewarding to see the reflection of what you're
39:41
trying to create that experience and what people are saying. It absolutely does.
39:45
When people say don't read your reviews, I'm like, no, I read every single one of them.
39:50
I'm mad if there's a four-star review and I'm kind of like, all right,
39:55
there's something I could do better.
39:56
It's like, why did I not get that four-star review?
39:59
Yeah. I'm hoping you'll talk a little bit about the food and beverage part of the show.
40:03
It's something we haven't really discussed in a theater experience with magic
40:07
and what do you provide and what do the people expect?
40:11
Yeah, so I partner with a restaurant that's above me.
40:15
If I did it over, I would want a piece of it. Yeah.
40:20
It's all the food and drinks are served by them. It's a Moroccan restaurant above me.
40:25
What happened was the original one was in my space. It got so popular, it moved upstairs.
40:30
It's not the same Moroccan restaurant, but it reopened as a Moroccan restaurant
40:34
years later again, and upstairs.
40:36
And so they do my food and drinks and so
40:40
if the service is bad it reflects on me
40:43
so but it's i i get no part of it and if i was starting over with a theater
40:49
i would definitely want a part of it even though i don't want to own a restaurant
40:52
or bar and i i fight with this a lot this idea of if i did someplace else would
40:59
i want the bar license and i think it's like,
41:01
Stupid not to. There's a lot of money to be made there. The flip side,
41:05
I don't want people drinking that much.
41:07
I'm always like, I want them having one drink, maybe two. I definitely don't want three.
41:14
But if you own the bar license, you're like, yeah, of course you want them drinking,
41:18
because that's how you make your money.
41:20
And so I'm always fighting with that of like, can we do that?
41:24
And if it's up to me and I had someplace else, it depends on where I'd be.
41:28
But I love the idea of having, I was in Singapore. They had gourmet milkshakes
41:34
at this place. And they were like 24, 25 bucks each American dollars.
41:39
I know what that is relates for you guys.
41:40
I was just like.
41:44
They were selling them nonstop. And I thought, I want a place with milkshakes,
41:49
high-end milkshakes. Yeah, I like it.
41:52
But it's... Y'all do any food and beverage at the Theater of Magic,
41:55
Josh, Nick? You guys got anything there?
41:57
The hotels offer food before people come in.
42:01
Like, separately, they can have dinner, at least in the Brisbane venue.
42:03
We do allow people to bring drinks into the theater.
42:07
I know some places like Steve Cohen's Chamber of Magic, you can't bring anything
42:12
in, but they do have themed...
42:13
Cocktails you can have like in the bar beforehand but
42:16
yeah and that's always a tricky thing too that
42:19
we play with in the late show controlling or
42:23
just being aware of you know when you see someone come in and
42:26
they've double parked with like two massive drinks yeah like you see those three
42:30
friends come in with two drinks each and you know they've drunk before they've
42:34
come in and you're like oh boy yeah i don't like the free gaming thing it's
42:38
just like and i thankfully i'm the experience they're coming to,
42:41
so they don't have that much. They don't usually do that.
42:44
But it's, you know, like tomorrow night, we have a buyout.
42:48
And for every time we have a buyout, I love that we're having a buyout because
42:53
it's, you know, it's more money.
42:56
It's another show. It's guaranteed. It's guaranteed.
42:59
The flip side is, it's now their party, not my party.
43:02
When you come to my thing, and I don't look at it that I'm the star of my show.
43:06
I look at it as, I am the host of this crazy experience
43:10
you're about to have and i'm we're gonna take on this journey
43:13
and afterwards they think of me as the star but and they got to know the star
43:18
but i try in my mind put that out it's like nope i'm not the star i'm the host
43:24
i'm gonna give you this great time and yeah that's not just kind of you know
43:29
my vision of what i want from it is that.
43:32
That's right. Let me just read off one of the reviews just so people get a gauge
43:36
of why they need to travel to San Francisco.
43:39
A week ago, this was left. A really excellent show made even more intimate with
43:44
the pre-show table magic.
43:46
Clearly a man that loves his magic as much as his audience as he put in a lot
43:52
of effort to create a show that he performs seamlessly.
43:55
Does that not just sum up everything we've just been talking about?
43:58
Like, you still love your magic.
44:00
They can tell you've made the show seamless and that you care about the audience.
44:05
I mean, I do care about the audience. I think that's written by Jay Alexander.
44:14
Yes, I thought I switched my account when I wrote that. But there's like,
44:18
I'm like flicking through and there's like, you know, 20 reviews just from now
44:22
and last week. Like, that's awesome.
44:25
So you can really tell you're really in it. You're not just phoning it in.
44:28
You're not like, yeah, it'll keep going. You're like, really like in it.
44:33
Wholeheartedly every week. I'm constantly trying to figure out how do you make
44:36
this better? How do you make this a better experience?
44:41
And my wife's working on a book right now. And when we first met,
44:44
we talked about this stuff a lot. And it's,
44:47
creating experiences. And, and one of the things we talk about more and more is,
44:54
you know, before they get there, once they're there and, and even afterwards,
44:59
how do you put the memory of the experience and give them things that they're
45:03
going to remember afterwards that they want to keep talking about?
45:07
Like in the introduction, you mentioned being a storyteller.
45:11
I have this, this thought that keeps coming to me of like, I don't want to be
45:16
a storyteller. I want to be a story maker.
45:18
I want to give a story, make stories for people to tell that,
45:22
you know, when they go away, it's their story, not mine.
45:26
And, and I think, cause we all want to care, but think that we're the important things in this stuff.
45:32
And it's like, no one's bought needs to go to a magic show.
45:35
They want to go to out with an, on a great date night.
45:38
They want to go out with their friends. there's so much of their own
45:41
bullshit that's in their own head when they're
45:44
doing anything yeah so magic
45:47
you know we're just putting on magic shows because that's what we do but that's
45:50
not what people need to buy and so many young magicians i think when
45:53
they're like even older magicians they think they're selling
45:56
a magic show and i'm like you're selling
45:59
hospitality we're in the hospitality business you know
46:02
and yeah we're selling customer
46:05
experience yeah and that's why your
46:08
name isn't on the name of the website right
46:12
San Francisco Magic Theater it's not
46:15
the people want to find someone have a great time not like that we need to see
46:19
this specific magician and I follow that a lot because you know we do our egos
46:25
get into it we do want it to be on there yeah it should be and I probably wouldn't
46:29
have been in business with you know There's probably two shows that would have made this happen.
46:35
I never thought of Steve Cohen as much respect as I have for him.
46:39
Might have still done this without steve cohen but you know
46:41
all of us that have short small shows owe a
46:44
lot to steve cohen kind of he studied the way of doing that and
46:47
but and ricky j let's not forget ricky
46:51
absolutely but for me it was in maui
46:54
there was my god warden annabelle's and it
46:57
was and it was in maui and it
46:59
was a small theater like mine and i went to it and
47:03
i was like it's the best show i've ever seen to this
47:06
day no show comes close to
47:10
his show and and i saw him pulling
47:13
threads of making jokes with this person and
47:16
this person he had so many of those jokes that felt like they were just happening
47:20
that night and then you see the show a second time you're like oh all those
47:23
improvs were definitely you know not improv but it felt that way so much and i'm just like that's,
47:34
and we were talking earlier about street performing.
47:36
My favorite shows are those kind of shows that can create those moments of,
47:40
man, you're in the room and it feels like that's only happening that night. It was a happy show.
47:48
And one of the difficulties I find is that like when you invest in your audience
47:53
that much, it's like, you can almost feel like the show isn't that great because
47:57
the audience isn't giving you enough back.
47:59
Because one of the new premises that I'm putting, I'm running a new show at the moment.
48:03
And the premise of it is that like magic isn't something I do at you,
48:06
it's something I do with you. Yep.
48:09
And that's why everyone gets involved. And it's made in a very personal way.
48:13
So like rather than going like please give me a number i'll ask someone
48:16
like what do you do for a living how long have you been doing that
48:19
for 14 years great then i use number 14 how many
48:22
kids you got how old your favorite one then you know
48:25
it's like i need that input from people that investment from
48:28
people for that reason it's it's interesting because
48:31
i feel like this this personal level
48:34
that you that you connect on in almost
48:37
every routine or everything that you do it's like it's it's very
48:40
intentional and i don't there's not really a a
48:43
guide with how to do that right so
48:47
how did you learn that i think jay's wife's
48:50
new book coming up yeah i mean part of it was that i've been thinking about
48:55
it for years that's what when i first met her you know we would talk about this
48:59
stuff because quite often and that would come up all those type of things and
49:04
i think it's just keep looking at stuff.
49:07
And I do, I've always looked at, if I buy a book, it's either a magic book,
49:13
a marketing book, or hospitality book, or now there's more books on experiences, but it's the.
49:18
25 years ago, I bought a book and it was the experience economy,
49:23
which seems like the perfect kind of book for today.
49:26
And the guys talked in the book about if you had an extra $5 per person, $2, $1 or a hundred,
49:36
what extra little thing would you do to make their experience that much better? And.
49:44
And as magicians, half the time, we just want to buy another trick.
49:47
But it's like, no, is there something you could give them or do with them or
49:51
the photo memory afterwards or whatever? It doesn't matter.
49:55
And so I just think I've been constantly breaking down the show and figuring
50:00
out each part of it. How do you make each part better?
50:04
And how do you make the magic better? It's not like I don't care about that
50:07
at all. I strongly care about it.
50:11
Do you have back of room sales or you sell any merch or magic pricks or anything
50:15
like that yes and i love i love it so much because i feel like a a carny in
50:20
the best and worst way yeah,
50:24
with with so necessary evil right well it's it is years ago i had a friend that
50:31
was doing a big theater show and he's like i just want him i just want people
50:36
i want to make money from doing magic
50:38
That's all I want. I just want to make money from doing magic.
50:40
And he felt that that was kind of a sleazy thing, trying to sell stuff.
50:46
I'm like, it is if you're trying to sell crappy stuff. And now he's a plumber.
50:50
Yes. And it's, but my, you know, he, no, now he's, now he bought a print shop
50:55
to print his own stuff because he's selling so much stuff that he now can print
50:58
his own shirts himself or have his company do it.
51:02
It's a little, it's insane, but it's the.
51:06
No, I love, we have, we have like six things, but it's only two of them that I really try to sell.
51:12
And because I have souvenir coins, which I, souvenir coins.
51:18
Do you sell any magic tricks? I'm curious. I used to sell a magic set and I stopped.
51:23
Yeah. I had a magic set and I had like a kid's mentalism set.
51:28
And I stopped because they were too, the quality wasn't good enough.
51:33
Yeah. When I finally opened it up, I went to make a video of them. And I'm like, yeesh.
51:38
I just thought when I saw it, I'm like, they're so bad. I don't want that.
51:43
So I sell a, I've got a really good deck of playing cards.
51:47
It's a regular deck, but I, I have like a 52, one in 52 and one card on it. And I.
51:54
Couple other tricks built into the deck that you can use a
51:57
regular deck and it comes with a really nice video that
52:00
i made of six tricks so we sell
52:03
those for twenty dollars and i have souvenir coins this
52:06
is an older one but they're just oh yeah
52:10
and the and there's two tricks built
52:12
into it so there's the old 1089 trick built into
52:15
this one so the end the
52:18
date is 1089 and the back
52:22
of it is a impossibilities trick from jim steinmeyer.
52:25
That with the clock and that my
52:27
newer ones which i don't have here i'm trying
52:32
to see what i have on the table they're silver dollar
52:35
size this is like a half dollar size and it has playing
52:38
cards and it's a really cool trick built into
52:41
the coin that's based on a different jim steinmeyer
52:44
impossibilities trick that i changed up and made
52:48
it my i hate thing i made it my own but uh it doesn't
52:51
look like the steinmeyer trick but it's still the steinmeyer trick
52:54
he should definitely get the credit i just
52:57
made it look i redesigned it to look
53:00
different and love it so your people can buy the
53:03
thing for the magic or as a souvenir they
53:06
can enjoy just normal exactly and those are the two
53:08
that i try to sell i've had t-shirts then it got to the
53:11
point where i'm like i don't want to do what the size is there's not enough
53:14
markup on it it's a bit of a pain i have
53:18
magic water bottle i have water bottles that have old
53:21
magic posters printed on them we have a few other things so it looks we have
53:25
some books so it looks like a full gift shop but all i'm pushing is the cards
53:30
and these coins yeah love it and the coins and i i'll what if anyone who watches
53:36
this does pitches and after the show.
53:40
It's one of my favorite things. It's an old carnival pitch. And I don't say I'm selling them.
53:45
I say at the end of the show, hey, if you enjoy this show, we have these souvenir coins.
53:50
Picture on me on one side, a bunch of playing cards on the other.
53:53
If you take the yellow card that's next to it, you're going to find it at the
53:56
archway of the box office on the counter and on the table next to the door as you leave.
54:00
Pick up the card, pick up the coin, go to the website on the card.
54:04
There's a video of me doing two tricks that'll blow your mind that are built
54:07
into the coin that'll teach you how to do it. if you like a souvenir coin,
54:11
they're normally $10, throw $10 in the jar or five or 20. I don't care.
54:15
I'd rather have one than not.
54:17
And if you don't have cash, we take Venmo. And I don't know if in Australia,
54:21
if you have Venmo, but it's, and it's, and I go, I go, it's an honor system, whatever you want.
54:26
And we also have, and I do the pitch of the other stuff.
54:29
But what happens is people think, you know, it's like I'm giving it to them
54:34
and now they're giving you mean money.
54:35
And I feel like it's when like the Hare Krishnas used to be in a airport and
54:39
they give you the rose and you felt like then asking for the dollar or,
54:43
or even for your talking to you for the time you would, you would give them that exchange.
54:48
I don't think if I was saying these are $10, I would sell very many of them,
54:52
but because of the pitch, you know,
54:56
you know, we make a couple hundred dollars a show and I don't even have to take
55:00
the money from the person because I do feel even though I will take the money
55:04
from the person as a performer, I don't want to be doing that transaction after the show.
55:09
If that's the last memory of, of me is dealing with money.
55:13
Yeah. It's like, I just worked so hard to give them this great experience.
55:17
So that's, You know, one of those things with the coins I love and then the
55:21
cards we have for sale and they can buy them.
55:24
And either I'll sometimes take the money and sometimes the person works for me, does it.
55:27
But it's not, that's still not the experience I want from them.
55:31
I just don't have enough employees to at that point be dealing with that part.
55:37
Well, but smart. It is. It's really clever.
55:42
That just opens up like 50 more questions, you know? Like, it's so amazing.
55:46
Do you find that performing at the theater kind of ruins the fun of corporate magic a little bit?
55:54
Like the joy? Yes and no. Yes, absolutely.
55:58
I used to pride myself on loving doing corporate events that I knew I'm going
56:03
into a situation where half the people were really a magician.
56:07
And nowadays, magic's changed drastically over the years.
56:12
Now there's a lot of people excited. I take out a deck of cards and be like,
56:15
oh, yeah, it used to be you're even a walk around gig. People are like, God, really?
56:20
All right. Show me the trick. And you'd have to win them over.
56:23
Now I feel people are won over already by that.
56:26
But at corporate events, you sometimes get that attitude right in the beginning.
56:31
And I love that. I knew give me five minutes. I'm going to own the room.
56:35
Like, I love that feeling.
56:38
Now, after the theater where it's like they're come to see me,
56:41
I don't have to win them over. I just have to lose them.
56:44
You know, it's kind of like working at the Magic Castle or any of those places
56:47
where it's like, they're coming for this. You know, you've got to suck to do a bad job.
56:52
And so now I'm so used to that. When I have that little bit of that attitude,
56:57
half the time I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, I don't want to deal with this again.
57:03
So, yes, it does ruin that feeling for me a bit of like, I'm like,
57:07
do I have to play this game again?
57:11
Yeah, it's so fun and rewarding. and obviously you have their attention straight
57:15
away and you can create the stories with them and it's just so much fun.
57:20
And I know I don't have the loss of focus where in my theater I have 100% focus
57:25
because the lights change, all those different things that keep the focus constantly.
57:31
You don't have, every so often you do a corporate event and the bar is still
57:35
open in the back of the room and you don't have any of those other distractions.
57:41
I just remember where I.
57:44
Least favorite gigs when I was younger where I was like, oh,
57:48
I'm going, it was in Reno at this casino. It was my first time even though I
57:51
was in a casino gig. It was at a casino and I was so excited. There's 500 people.
57:58
And I get there, I go to do the show and right before the show starts,
58:02
they go, well, dinner service is over or dinner's over.
58:06
We're about to have a little magic show and outside the bar is now open again.
58:10
And you and it was salespeople that
58:13
were all young straight out of college first time
58:17
traveling to an event sales meeting
58:20
for them the whole thing left and
58:23
i went from 500 people down to like 20 scattered around and i'm like bring your
58:28
chairs up come on up wow jesus um i mean you go through it all yeah we're about
58:36
to wrap up but i really really want to ask this question because it's seldom, you know,
58:41
doing these shows for arenas, like for basketball games at halftime and so forth.
58:48
Now, I really want to touch upon this because it's seldom that we get to meet someone who does that.
58:52
So I'm curious, like in that seating situation where you're basically surrounded 360.
58:57
What's that like? What advice do you have for anyone who does get a purse to
59:00
do these types of gigs in the future?
59:02
Okay, yeah. So for the people that are just on this that didn't hear,
59:05
know about this, I've been doing NBA halftime shows.
59:09
And so my thought on it is completely different than any magician that's ever
59:15
done in the past, or maybe not any, but that I know of.
59:18
Most people come in and want to do big illusions. And the problem is a big illusion,
59:23
a zigzag in a stadium is still a postage stamp.
59:27
My whole thing is go smaller in some way.
59:31
So I always do two parts because you only have five to six minutes to kill and get off.
59:36
If you're past six minutes, you might not be done.
59:39
You're, you're off there. They're like, they're pulling you off this off the court.
59:43
So I do usually about three minutes of closeup magic.
59:48
I try to get them the team to find a local celebrity or two.
59:52
And I do a choreograph With the cameraman You're going to go to my hands here
1:00:00
Up to their face Back to my hands here Back to their face It's all about them
1:00:05
They go to a two shot of both of us.
1:00:08
Cause I, I know the beats and I, I basically will walk through multiple times
1:00:12
in the afternoon with the cameraman, what it is.
1:00:16
And I go to close up it cause I feel just like on television,
1:00:19
a coin when it's close to the screen is becomes like a, a, a big illusion when it's that close.
1:00:27
So I just go with quick visual stuff.
1:00:31
I normally wouldn't even do that type of just bam, bam, bam, machine gun magic.
1:00:36
In that first part but want their
1:00:38
face to be dropping and then i do an interactive
1:00:42
trick with the entire audience and so for
1:00:45
me that's been the way i've been playing it was i want
1:00:48
stuff that happens in everybody's hands or using
1:00:51
the screen but it's um and you
1:00:54
know so i've come up with a couple different things so at the end and so i always
1:00:57
end with like you know if this happens a standing ovation
1:01:00
would not be out of line it's what happens and so
1:01:03
now you have the whole stadium stand all the person that
1:01:06
knows that booked you is oh my god everybody was
1:01:09
standing we've never had entertainment do that and it's like i asked for it
1:01:13
it's and a lot of places i would think that was cheesy and don't do that and
1:01:17
those kind of situations i feel it's the right thing to do because it's all
1:01:21
about that energy because they only want you for five to six minutes and tops.
1:01:27
And so that's how I've been playing it. So much wisdom today.
1:01:31
Man, it's been a learning experience for sure.
1:01:35
Thank you guys for having me. I love it. Look, we're going to end.
1:01:39
I feel like this whole episode has been this segment, which is the final word,
1:01:43
giving some advice or anything you else want to mention. I feel like this whole
1:01:47
episode has been full of those.
1:01:48
But one last final one. Now you can follow all of Jay's work or go see his show.
1:01:53
All his links are below, wherever you're watching or listening to this.
1:01:57
And thank you for joining us today in this episode wherever you may be listening to this.
1:02:02
So we're going to end today episode 261 in the way that we always do,
1:02:07
which is by giving our guest the final word.
1:02:11
My final word. My final word is just get out and perform.
1:02:15
I really do believe so many performers, especially when they're young,
1:02:18
they're like, I want to make money.
1:02:20
They have all these other things in their head. And if you want to be a musician, perform.
1:02:25
That comes first. Money will follow if you're good and you keep doing it.
1:02:30
That's the most important part.
1:02:33
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
1:02:40
But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.