Latest / The Magic Guys / Jon Armstrong Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #228

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Jon Armstrong Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #228 · 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 back to your FISM's favorite podcast.
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I'm going to have to say that in every episode now. Guys, welcome to the Magic
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Guys podcast where we talk about our lives as professionals.
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We interview amazing guests and we share
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the shenanigans we get up to to my left we got
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nick k hi guys i'm nick k and joining
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us this week is also what no
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intro daddy doug here i am oh you like the daddy doug now i'm not owning that
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i just you know but just so you know we'll be a magic live this week and i'm
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just gonna scream from across the casino floor whenever i need you i'm gonna
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be like papa and you'll be like what.
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To any and to anyone who commits and gets the tattoo daddy doug as a tramp stamp you get,
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50 off at a trick supply okay i'm sure but you have to have the website underneath
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daddy doug it's got to be tricksupply.com okay we could probably do that yeah
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that yeah because i'm trying to think it's got to be you know beneficial for
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everyone yeah absolutely but look this is episode 228.
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And as you know, we do this live. Nick, we got some friends in the chat today.
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Indeed. Good to see you there, Thomas Conger. We have Scotty Link,
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Tim Askin, Ed. Good to see you, friend.
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Now, ordinarily, we would do this tomorrow, but seeing that we are going to
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be catching planes and flying over to the US so that we can take part in what
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I think is the coolest magic convention, we're doing it a day early.
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And Adonis, good to see you too, friend, which is why we're starting a day early.
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And thankfully, our guest today has also agreed to come on early as well.
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And I have so many questions.
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Can we please bring him on and get talking already?
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Oh, 100%. I've been very excited for this. And we're lucky he's on land at the
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moment to be able to absorb some of his goodness.
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People know him from, I mean, a lot of people younger will have maybe first seen him on Fool Us,
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but he's one of the big influences on
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MyCardMagic and how to actually make it entertaining and he's one
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close-up magician of the year and just recently parlor magician
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of the year as well pendulette said it's
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the most original card trick he's ever seen when
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he was on fool us he's been he's on netflix with the magician series special
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and he consults in movies the mentalist ant-man what doesn't this guy do and
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he's one of the big headliners on disney cruise lines amongst everything else
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in the magic castle a regular performer there all the time.
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Guys, get ready. This is Mr. John Armand.
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Music.
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Ah thank you john armstrong welcome
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to the magic guys podcast please tell our friends who
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are you and what do you do my name is john armstrong i'm
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originally from orlando florida cultural center of the world land of opportunity
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if you're a roller coaster you probably guessed that i grew at a scene park
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and the theme of that park was trailer i currently live in burbank california
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and have been living in the West Coast for about 25 years.
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And I make my living as a magician, mostly now doing stand-up magic.
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But I would say that my first part of my career was I was a close-up card magician.
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You know, I have questions. I'm just going to jump straight into it,
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John, because we only have so much time together. And I'm so excited to finally have you on the show.
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And it's basically, like you said, you were a resident magician at the Epcot Center at Disneyland.
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Disney is known as being the most magical place on Earth.
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So i'm curious whilst you
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were there did you get to see anything backstage that was
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kind of like that the they call what they call like the imagineers there's
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like engineers but imagining engineers like anything that was
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just so gnarly that you were never able to like talk about
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but now you can't well i mean there's the the weirdest
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thing is like that you would see like
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these extreme like the princesses and like the
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the characters whatever their heads off or like
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you know the princesses like smoking and swearing it was
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that was it was the best you know like you
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know that's that stuff happened backstage quite often but like
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as far as like the imagineering imagineering really doesn't like they don't
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operate the theme parks they just design it and let other people do with
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it so i never really saw many of actual you know
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the imagineers walking backstage with the atmosphere
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performers that's relatable to my my first gig
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was carowinds amusement park oh wow you know i don't remember who we had it
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was b-level cartoon characters but yeah they come back throw the hat off soaking
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wet and sweat oh yeah no seriously this they're the people who are that fur
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i i feel oh man that's some work yeah.
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Do they not have any cooling devices underneath like what
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they're wearing because i mean they're surprised they wear ice vests sometimes
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depending on the the heat level index and
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they're out there for very small amounts of time so usually when you see the
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character it's like three people playing one character and they like like oh
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we need to go back real quick and then one comes in and one comes back out you
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know right where did you once connect cop were you outside in that heat no so
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i I was in the Rose and Crown pub in the UK Pavilion.
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I had a really, really terrible fake British accent.
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And I did that. And you're it? No, you're not.
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You're never in my life. I've been in that for a long time ago. And so I did that.
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And then I would also, I don't know if you've ever heard of my mentor,
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the guy that I saw when I was 14 years old. And I said, that's what I'm going
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to do for the rest of my life. His name is Terry Ward.
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And Terry performed at Disney for 33 years.
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He's still there, actually. that he's been doing stuff this the summer but
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i saw him i was like that's that's the guy he became my
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teacher and so when i got my job
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at epcot which i only did like a basically a couple days a week i was opposite
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of a piano player like a pub piano player anything on property that terry couldn't
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do i would be the guy that would do it i would sub in for for terry and so i
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got to do the diamond horseshoe show which was like a stand-up like western
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review show i did the bus for walk busker show,
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which was again, a more of a street performing type show. I did like a sphere.
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I did all the, all random sort of conventions and things. And because of that,
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my time at Disney was like basically the best five year education for energy
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could have ever been, you know,
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working with Terry Ward and getting all those reps then no wonder you're on
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Disney cruise boats these days.
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Yeah, no, I mean, without Terry, I wouldn't be anywhere. Yeah.
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It's a fact. Well, I don't know.
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You seem to be a devoted young man, so you might have got somewhere.
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Maybe. Who knows? But I had a very good mentor. He's like a father to me.
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So that's good. Yeah. I guess he would have been instrumental in helping you
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transition from close-up card geek to like being more of a stand-up guy.
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No, not really. I mean, obviously, moral support, and again, we speak quite often.
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But no, most of that stuff was stuff that I sort of found on my own,
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and I was sort of moving in that direction.
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Yeah. But we can get to that later. Yeah. Pretty early on. I'm sure of that. Yeah.
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Yeah so from going to like to the actual theme parks themselves you've now evolved
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into being on their cruise ships how different is is that environment going from like land to sea.
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Well you know i started in ships like general cruise ship
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stuff about about about 10 years ago now and
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i you know i worked like luxury lines and things
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like that and then when i finally started working for disney it was
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very easy for me because again like it's in my blood like
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not only am i a fan like i'm a fan of all that
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stuff i love theme parks and i you know and marvel and all
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that and but i also like i grew up
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in orlando like i went to traditions like which is like you know i had my my
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after school job before i was able to do magic professionally was working as
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a person who said how many and put you in rides you know at epcot right like
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i so that all that stuff like you know the disney branding and how they think
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and the five keys and all the stuff that you know
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if you know anything about disney traditions like that was already
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there so when i got on the ship and i was like look
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i'm going to build this show with all of
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that knowledge in place they were like wow because you'd
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be very surprised or maybe you wouldn't be but acts that you know acts that
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you love acts that are amazing it would work anywhere else will die on disney
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because they just don't understand the that particular audience now john you
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gotta excuse my ignorance you sit Five keys,
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I've, I personally don't know any of like what.
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So really quickly used to be four keys and then I was five keys,
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but essentially it's, it's courtesy, efficiency, courtesy, efficiency,
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show a safety and diversity.
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And so the concept is like, you should be always at all time promoting these
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things, you know, through what you're doing on stage and on stage is when you're
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interacting with other Disney guests. Yeah.
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You know with that knowledge i mean you you
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are you still chairman of ama no no i
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i i was chairman of the chairman of the trustees but i
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know i know i termed off in like 2016 it's been a long time okay
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so because you do so much consulting and
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you've been in these positions of authority i've always been curious like do
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you with all this knowledge like with these five keys and so
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forth do you sort of project that with regards
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to influencing others now with like these modern
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magic in modern magic culture do you kind of have this
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notion where it's like we still need to carry these old school yeah absolutely
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i mean like what i well plug in my book
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but like in my book i talk about these five things they're
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not based on the five keys but like the five things that i noticed when
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i was reviewing my shows over and over again and that if i
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was doing these things the show was better and the
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show was more impactful and the show was more remember memorable right
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so it there's a difference in my opinion that
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you can be good on a surface level and
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entertain them while they're there but then you become a distant
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memory very quickly or you can impact them on a deeper level where they feel
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like they matter where they actually felt like they they them being there changed
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the course of the show and then that show then will have a far better impact
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or far longer impact on them than just.
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Well, I could have seen the exact same thing if I was at home in my pajamas
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because he just talked at me.
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He didn't, he didn't bring me into this world.
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Yeah. I see that a lot. And I think Josh probably be about the same with some
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of the acts that have come through our towns.
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And, you know, eventually when they sort of achieve that level,
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they end up performing at the theater of magic. Yeah.
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Magicians all too often make the mistake that our role is to make people see
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how cool we are and the cool, cool stuff we do.
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And that's part of it. But it is what John just said at its best.
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That was so good, John. we and
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it's the book is called how to win and it's uh good good
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yes yes about it let's talk about it like yeah so
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the book is still available yes you can get the book
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through me it's actually they have it in magic shops
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i know as well but you get it through me and essentially what is me what's the
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website card john.com c-a-r-d-a-o-n.com and the the the the main part of the
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book is my journey from close up to stand up,
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all these things that I learned on the way and these tools that I learned,
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that I realized, discovered,
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I don't want to say invented, I discovered to allow me to really have a far
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better impact on the audience and without getting into an entire lecture on this.
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Why I feel people enjoy or talk about close-up magic so much is that it's engaging,
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and it's personal, and it's conversational.
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You feel like you're part of it, right? And so most stand-up magic,
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when you're on stage, is presentational. You're presenting too.
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You're just out. It's all out only. It's not a two-way street,
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right? And so my goal was to try to make all of my presentational magic as conversational as possible.
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And these techniques I discovered to allow that to happen without it just being,
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you know, people just shouting out random stuff and it being a mess.
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And to feel like that they actually had a voice in the show.
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So to give you a very basic idea of this, imagine I had an ultra mental deck,
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the invisible deck, and most times you would ask one person,
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you know, you do all the gags, the Don Allen gags, and then you would,
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they would say a card and that would be the card reversed, right?
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So one person got to experience, had an impact on the show, right?
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Right. Right. And if you do that in close up, right, one person will be probably
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a little more impressed by the trick than the other three or four people who
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are watching it. Correct?
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Right. Now you're multiplying that by a thousand when you do it on the day.
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Yeah. so most people then will do
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something like well you think of a high card and you think of the
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you know a suit and you think of you know and they split it
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up a little bit but again you are now still
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not hitting everybody so as opposed
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to just asking one person the name of card i could
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get one person to say you know do you want it to be high or
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low which high card you want it to be great and now everybody think
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either clubs hearts spades or diamonds just think club hearts
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spades your diamonds and i'm gonna say each one
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of the suits and when you get to yours applaud the
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one with the most applause wins wow now everyone applauds and at you know let's
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say say at hearts and then now everyone feels like they have stake in the game
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to that reversed card well you just made that effect involve the whole audience
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you made a card trick involve the whole audience without people having to tear them up.
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I'll give you another example. So, dude, I mean, I'm sure you've seen like John,
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Jonathan Levitt's Stranger Thing and other types of things where you're calling somebody.
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The basic presentation of that, going back to the Ultra Mental deck,
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is to have somebody, call somebody, get somebody to get someone to call somebody
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and then ask them the car and that's the car that's reversed in the deck or
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you can use a MemDeck or whatever, you know, there's different methods that...
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What if you instead had everybody take out their phones and ask them to all
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text somebody who would text somebody who would text back the name of a playing card?
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Yeah. So now everybody is using their phones to ask somebody to text a person.
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And now you randomly throw a ball out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, catch.
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Did you get somebody to text you? Great. Come on stage and ask the person who does it.
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So you see what I'm saying? there's a bigger stake and everybody that has a
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much more participation in what's going on.
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You know, I've been exploring a lot of my material recently because I'm trying
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to apply things more to a theater environment.
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And the first thing I've been focusing on is scale, which is exactly what you're talking about.
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We have a question by one of our listeners here, which is what is the average
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size of a cruise ship audience?
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It depends on the ship, but on Disney, i'm working in
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either a anywhere the smallest theater is 950 seats
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the largest theater is 1200 seats okay which
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is remarkable because what you're talking about would work in a bar as much
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as it would work for an entire theater or even arena and that level of scale
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is so fascinating what are you working you got like the zigzag and a couple
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of tigers out there yeah i got it i got yeah i'm doing my full illusion act
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no i'm doing stand-up magic that i've designed you know you you know,
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on the shoulders of giants, you know, the,
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you know, the Whit Hayden's, the Alan Shaxton's, you know, on those,
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on those giants. Alan Shaxton, huh?
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Alan Shaxton closed his show with hydrostatic glass and would get a standing ovation. Man.
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That's how I learned about Alan Shaxton. Yeah. That's how powerful he was able
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to make that presentation.
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And I'm not joking from the beginning of the trick to the end of the trick. It was 93 seconds. Yeah.
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And that's how he was able to build all that ramp up into that effect.
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And so if you learn, and anyway, I, so I spent a lot of time researching that.
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And then I, uh, the only thing I do close up with a camera and a screen is the
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plunger because come on, I can't not do it. You gotta do it.
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You know, cause it's, it's the law. So I do the plunger, the camera and the screen.
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I, I show the Penn and Teller clip of them saying nice things about me.
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And then I said, you want to see what they're talking about? and then i do that with
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a bunch of kids up around me and i do that trick
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that is the only thing that i need camera imac for
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the rest of the show plays to the thousand seat theater without
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any sort of amplification wow when when just quickly for magicians because i've
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i've been asked this question a lot but you're the the real pro using a camera
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at the moment like when it comes to using a camera on screen in a show what's
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your go-to on that do you bring your own camera i have a lot of.
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But I mean, my main thought on this, if, if you can, if that,
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if it is, if it is available to you, you should work with a cameraman.
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There should be a live person who is there with the camera in their hands being
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part of the, of, of the routine.
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And I'm very lucky that with my, how my contract works on Disney is that I have that available to me.
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Right. And so I, I can rehearse with this person who will do,
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who will be able to not only get the shots that I want them to get by moving
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and panning and zooming and all those things you do with a camera,
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but also becomes part of the scene, like a character in the camera,
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because part of what's going on.
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Because I don't want people feeling like they're watching TV.
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No one wants to dress up to see a show to sit down and watch TV. Right.
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And so I need that to feel like a fun experience and not like a fixed locked off camera.
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Now, if you don't have the ability to use that, then hopefully you would work
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with a camera that can move automatically by, again, a remote control type thing.
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That's the second that's the second layer down and
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then the third layer down is if you have to lock off a camera that
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camera should not be in front of you straight down
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the middle like this it should be over your shoulder down
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this way so a camera shot down this way that way you can then if you wanted
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to take the camera and tilt it back and forth to the guests and bring it back
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down which would be here which would be awkward to do here if it was in front
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of you i'm saying here and it's a podcast,
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I should actually talk. Grabbing in front of you and grabbing a camera.
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But by grabbing behind me, I can do that. And I can also then tilt.
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Rotate to the side and do something directly to the camera as though I'm talking
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directly to the audience and not to the spectators I've brought on stage.
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And so that would be my suggestion. And when it comes to cables and wires,
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that would be a long, very boring conversation.
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But let me tell you, I got it all down. I know I have every dongle,
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everything, how to troubleshoot anything.
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But I'm very lucky that the line that I work mostly and what I do mostly,
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they take care of all that for me. So I don't have to worry about it.
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Okay. It's amazing. You've also got the Holy Land wireless.
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So you don't have to have the cables. Yeah. So when I do a corporate gig,
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what I actually have behind me is it's a full-size Sony camcorder.
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Because I want the 4K to be able to come out and then the opportunity that if
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that can't broadcast in 4K that I can pump it down by literally just hitting toggle switches.
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If you use an iPhone or if you use a GoPro, you don't have that ability to really,
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you know, to focus in on things.
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And then also, then I would have a direct output to the camera system so that
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I don't have to worry about it being interfered with like, you know,
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Bluetooth and all this other stuff, which could fail because all that stuff could fail.
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And the worst thing it could happen is you're in the middle of the trick and
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they need to be staring at what's going on. And the camera blinks out for two
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seconds and that two seconds you're done.
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And so i need to make sure that hardwire is going to stay there
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the whole time so that's that's that's what i bring
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with me and so i i recommend getting like
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a two to three hundred dollar you know you know
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camcorder like you know that are about like you know about
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the miniature type camcorders the sony ones and that's
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that's what i've been using forever and i recommend that to the
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people who ask me about this on ships and they all think i'm
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right so there you go yeah all right you know while we're
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on the topic technology sorry while we're on the topic technology tim's
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asking uh with regards to music and audio cues
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what are you using in your show so i
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use go button which is an
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app that is basically baby cue lab i am
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in the process of converting to cue lab
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but i will admit that i am very slow in that process
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and i'm still using go button more often than anything else.
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I'm using audio ape to trigger
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those cues and i'm still using an audio ape
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1.0 that i got back in
22:13
the day right it still works because i'm not triggering
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usually from like far far away
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like normally my unit is is plugged
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into the di box right there on the stage so
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it only has to trigger from like maybe four
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feet right so i'm not
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worried about distance really and if i do need distance then
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it still seems to work but but yeah and then i in
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my opinion in my opinion the current
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version the only version you can buy of audio ape
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especially the app isn't that is a little
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over engineered and maybe not necessarily everything
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you need to be able to do that if you can get a hold of
22:53
a media monkey and run qlab that's what
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i would do if i was if i was you you know
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there is so many out there at the moment we should actually do some
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diligence and present different options like purely tech episode because yeah
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um do you know why do you know you that site wire cutter do you know what i'm
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talking about wire cutter they basically take like one product and then find
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every version of that product and then like test them all and then compare and contrast them all,
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you totally could do that with just the audio systems, whether it be show tech
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or audio apron and so on and so forth.
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Yeah, like there's so many out there, and I know that Jonathan Levitt's releasing
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something of this nature called Nexus, which he'll be presenting at Magic Live.
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And so I'm looking forward to sitting opposite him. I just want to see what
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it's about. And you've seen Solo, right? Have you seen Solo?
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Yeah, oh, yes, by Cobra Magic?
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I i'm i'm not exactly sure but it's the one it's
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the one where basically you pick up a prop that
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you have an rdf tag on and it triggers the
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song based on the actual movement of the
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rdf tag not a cue on your wow
24:00
not a button yeah yeah i have a friend of mine using that
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bernie hatton used that in his show he was trying to keep it Scott
24:07
pepper who i know from uh magic saloon he's
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uh he does that too so that's the thing and i feel like if we
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probably did our diligence we'd have some really cool opportunities to present
24:15
this to to a lot of people but i mean the tech thing could be kind of scary
24:19
if you don't know how to use it but if you rehearse it enough i'm sure it's
24:22
fine in fact we have a question here from drago to you who's asking do you get
24:26
to rehearse the show in its entirety on the ship or do you have to rehearse
24:30
it elsewhere and then just pop it on the ship
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you have to definitely it's the latter you have a tech rehearsal where you would
24:36
be able to go in and make sure you have sound levels and audio.
24:40
And that's where I would actually do the rehearsal with the tech for the camera and things like that.
24:45
But no, you would not be able to like produce or rehearse like an entire show.
24:50
You need to be in and out of there in about a half an hour.
24:52
What sort of tech limitations do you have on a ship when you are away from Wi-Fi?
24:57
You are away from cellular coverage.
24:59
Like, is that a factor? I mean, I don't really use anything that is like,
25:05
that was requiring that.
25:07
Anyway so i don't you know i mean i'm not
25:10
worried about that and as far as the the the tech
25:13
stuff that i have it's all based on just what they have in this the
25:16
actual thing which is again the di box and the go button running
25:19
off an ipad and all stuff like they're ready to go with that so i'm not worried
25:23
about like like and not to not to keep talking about levitt but like you know
25:28
i'm not going to use the stranger because am i you know a phone call at sea
25:32
is very expensive right but i I mean, I don't do that trick anyway,
25:37
but you could possibly make other ways to make that work.
25:40
I know there's guys that do that trick at sea. I just, that's not me. That's all.
25:45
Yeah. Understood. So I have more questions. Yeah. Oh, I'm ready. You go first.
25:53
It was amazing. Yeah. So many things go through my head right now.
25:58
Yeah. So if I could follow up on one, change gears. The comic book realm.
26:03
You've not only consulted on like Spider-Man 3 and Ant-Man and a couple other
26:07
creative bits, which is super cool, but you also have your own line of comic
26:10
books, which is smoke and mirrors, which a lot of people may not know about
26:13
that. We talk about smoke and mirrors. Tell us about it.
26:16
So I'm very good friends with a comic book writer by the name of Mike Costa.
26:21
And Mike, not only is a comic book writer, but he was one of the writer producers on the show Lucifer.
26:26
It was on netflix and and he we
26:31
worked on this idea of a magic of a comic book that
26:34
that had magic elements in it and really took like our
26:38
type of magician not like people who have real
26:40
magic powers like dr strange but like our type
26:44
of magic and took it seriously in the in that type
26:46
of medium of comics and the idea
26:49
was that the comic would do like magic
26:52
for you could use it both as a trick do it for your friends
26:55
and then as you read it it would do magic for you like we
26:58
use like things like the princess card trick with
27:01
a page turn and stuff like that you know was actually in
27:04
the book and we did six issues of it and it
27:07
was it collected into a trade it was actually very well received and the artist
27:12
on his name is ryan brown he recently not recently he's been very successful
27:16
for a while but he recently his comic called eight billion genies got bought
27:21
by amazon It's going to be an Amazon show. He's a very prominent now.
27:25
And so we got the rights back for the book, and we are now going to continue
27:31
forward moving. We're going to do volume two.
27:34
We're going to do an expanded edition. One of the coolest things that we had
27:37
in the original issues is we would get magicians to write essays about the parallels
27:45
of comics and the graphic medium and magic.
27:51
And those were all collected in the connection as well. Jimmy and Swiss wrote
27:54
run, Jim Steinmeier, Max Maven.
27:57
So I'm very proud of those essays in there and then I, in the Omnibus,
28:02
I went through the entire book and it did like an annotated thing where I explained
28:06
every single magic reference we had in the comic.
28:11
So it was super fun and I'm looking forward to I think we're going to start
28:16
working on that early next year to get that out. So
28:19
That's amazing. We have a question here from Stepon. Sorry, Doug, go ahead.
28:23
I always wanted a comic for back of room, either even busking or Ren Fair work,
28:29
stuff like this, where people, you suggest a nice donation. And if they give
28:33
a certain amount, they get something like this.
28:35
I always thought day in the life of a street performer.
28:37
And, you know, people get to read about what it's like to be a street performer
28:41
and then learn some tricks, you know, teach something from the coffee shop,
28:45
teach something from the act. And so they get a comic, a souvenir,
28:48
and a little bit of magic.
28:50
I, you know, what a great, do you use the comics? Is this like a back of room
28:55
sale? Have you done that?
28:56
I, I, the only ones that I have are literally sitting in, which either in frames
29:01
or, you know, back there.
29:03
So these were for, we sold, we here, I miss y'all. I'll grab it.
29:07
These were produced more for the magic community though. Right.
29:12
Or no, this was, this was, this was absolutely a book.
29:16
For the public this had this had fantastic there's
29:20
it was not designed in any way you know
29:22
i mean obviously magicians i know magicians collected it but it
29:26
was not designed as a as a for magicians only thing it was definitely for the
29:29
public and so i mean at one time when i had a lot of them i would sell them
29:33
in shows and things of that nature yeah i know i uh i have not been able to
29:37
do that a very long time because that first those initial print runs went like
29:41
that so wow what about what What about plunges at in Disney cruise,
29:46
like even non-magicians, I imagine kids watching you do this amazing show,
29:50
want to have a piece of the show after like, is that something that's happening?
29:54
So I, I sell a, like a little magic sort of online kit that includes this,
30:02
which is a member of the tiny plunger fan club button.
30:06
Oh, so you would get that, but I do not sell the plungers and I, I, I, I do.
30:13
And I don't want that because I want it to be special.
30:18
I don't want it to be like, this is any, you can, he's one of many,
30:23
I'm going to have a thousand, one of millions.
30:25
This is just this one guy who could do this one thing.
30:29
And so I never wanted to like merchandise the plunger itself.
30:33
Now I have plunger merchandise where I'm like, you know, there's little like
30:37
tchotchkes and the buttons and things like that, the pins.
30:40
But no, I don't, I don't sell the plungers to lay people.
30:44
That's actually, that's a great, that's a perfect way to think about it.
30:48
He's the one. He's a character. Like, yeah.
30:52
Yeah. And then with Disney, again, with my conversation with Disney,
30:56
like they're based, you know, very character based. And so like I have my own little character.
31:00
Right. and this is very like literally
31:03
in your contract that we're not allowed to like incorporate
31:06
mickey mouse or you know whatever in
31:10
our shows because they don't want us to you
31:13
know do stuff with their intellectual property right
31:16
and so the fact that i have that i'm
31:19
doing what disney does to their characters with my own
31:22
character that completely works
31:25
within their brand and makes sense to the that disney
31:28
audience so talk about this online magic
31:31
kit what's going on with that skit it's basically
31:35
like a series of videos set on a
31:38
site they go on there it's me teaching
31:41
them you know your standard basic you know
31:44
jumping rubber band and you know your classic you
31:47
know teach a trick type things and then they they
31:50
go through the they go through like the 10 lessons and that's pretty
31:53
much it man is this a pitch item
31:56
in like you do it in the show yeah that's the thing i sell so
31:59
like a little kit is a couple postcards a
32:02
the button and and then like a like i
32:05
autograph that's pretty much it yeah so that's why you don't want to like it
32:08
for the show yeah you don't want to throw in your your vanishing master class
32:11
or your penguin magic list yeah they're not gonna get any of that you give the
32:15
pdf of how to win and everybody yeah exactly before we not before Before we
32:22
stop, not talk about this book again,
32:24
I just wanted to mention that I saw you lecture.
32:27
Right after this book was published.
32:29
It was at TRIX a couple of years ago. It just came out.
32:33
Heller lecture and then you brought this
32:35
all to life with your stand-up performances and in
32:38
the lecture uh there's there's routines
32:41
in the book right i'm trying to remember you did this
32:44
you did the version of whack your pack that was so
32:47
good oh thank you the paul harris handley is
32:50
that in the book by chance no that is not described in
32:53
the book but that's in my master class the vanishing ink master class that
32:56
is fully explained there so basically it's about
32:59
yeah i took a bunch of different things together and put them and
33:01
put them together as a full stand-up uh it's about like
33:04
a 12-minute routine and yeah it's it's
33:07
a combination of a card stab like a bag card stab the.
33:11
Drink production which is an idea of bill abbott's my work
33:14
on that which now bill teaches in his thing if
33:17
you buy the recent version of shab samson he teaches my
33:20
work on it and then that's combined with this repeat
33:23
card under watch and the idea is that oh yeah and
33:27
then i get it again and then i get a third time so
33:30
i basically hit somebody and it's my idea was
33:33
to take the same kind of feeling that you get from
33:37
from carden or drink and put it
33:39
on stage yeah well when you do
33:42
like a because i'm not the first person to do card or
33:45
watch or anything or you know like that on stage or
33:48
in parlor but being able to hit it repeatedly is
33:52
is a lot of is a lot of fun and uh the closest thing that
33:54
i i saw that before that was uh when ozzy win would sometimes
33:58
do the second hit with this uh time is money thing yeah
34:02
now you're just gonna figure out yeah sorry you just now
34:05
you just need to figure out the ending of having the whole deck under their watch yeah
34:08
exactly you can.
34:11
Do a 52 on one card yeah exactly yeah
34:14
yeah so so i did so that and what's nice about
34:17
is that because i have all these other tricks in it it doesn't
34:20
it's it's a full like it's a it's
34:23
a nice running gag that the the card is underneath the
34:26
watch over and over again so yeah that's all
34:29
on the master class huh yeah definitely a little
34:32
more before we
34:36
press on to the next portion we have a couple of questions from stefan here
34:39
he was asking your favorite comic book character and then
34:43
as well as that your favorite super villain that's it
34:48
okay so i'm batman guy even though you've seen
34:50
a lot of marvel right here i'm a batman guy i still think batman
34:53
is the best character ever written in all fiction my wedding ring best batman
34:57
movie i i'm a dark knight guy i like the nolan stuff i think that's very that's
35:02
a very cool stuff i'm looking forward to what james gunn does with with that
35:06
stuff is the best can you pick the best can you pick the best one of the trilogy.
35:13
I think the dark knight is the the best of the three dark
35:17
knight movies but i think but i love begins you
35:20
know you're good so my white wing is actually the
35:22
dark knight utility belt from nice from uh
35:25
the moa films and i uh i
35:28
so batman's with a guy and uh but my favorite villain of
35:32
all time actually is actually a marvel villain and that's dr
35:35
doom really yeah i love
35:37
doom i think doom is so complicated i love the idea that
35:40
he wears a mask because he uh he thinks
35:43
he's so hideous but there's a good chance he only just cut himself slightly you know
35:46
like that type of thing and the the vanity
35:49
the power the mixture of like being scientists and
35:52
also uh all that seems
35:55
uh very cool so and i i'm again a reader
35:58
right people that you know ask about the robin jr thing
36:01
and i'm not worried about that yet i i'm talking about
36:04
the guy that i read in comics all those years and that's that's that's
36:07
what i'm a fan of yeah and the joker probably is a close second because i
36:10
mean come on the joker is amazing let's extend the question to the
36:12
rest of the guys josh doug who are yours who are
36:16
your favorites yeah batman's up there like i i'm more service level with my
36:21
knowledge i mean john just spoke about the new superman movie which now i'm
36:26
super keen to go and see the fact that you went and saw it four times you know
36:30
i'm sort of up there i like I really enjoyed Suicide Squad,
36:33
actually, which is, I don't know if that's counted in this.
36:35
More Fido going in left field with the Suicide Squad pick.
36:40
Yeah, that was great to see, you know, like what are meant to be villains,
36:44
but they're doing good work.
36:45
And so, really cool conflict there. But what about you, Doug?
36:50
Man, I collected comics when I was 12, 13. I was pretty serious about it.
36:55
Marvel fanboy, I couldn't pick one. If I had to pick five, it'd be maybe Spider-Man, Daredevil.
37:01
All the X-Men titles are great.
37:04
Here's one, Deadpool. How could we not love anything that has his name on it?
37:09
The comics, the movies...
37:11
I'll pick Deadpool. Yep. See, my favorite is probably the worst movie, which is Green Lantern.
37:19
I love... Really, that's a great character, though. I mean, he's a huge history
37:22
in the comics. Yeah. So Green Lantern's amazing. And the power's, like, phenomenal.
37:27
There's, like, depending on what level you can get to, you can travel back in
37:30
time. You're basically, like, impenetrable.
37:32
You can do all this stuff. And it's limited by your imagination,
37:34
which is what I love the most about it.
37:36
Like, the creativity level is just phenomenal. So when you're watching these
37:40
fight scenes and how creative they can be with this green power that they have, it's phenomenal.
37:45
But as far as villains go, I think the best villain is Darth Vader,
37:51
especially in the comics, especially in the comics.
37:53
Well, I mean, you're kind of slightly out of your genre there because he's not
38:00
really a comic villain in any way because he was originally created for Scream.
38:05
And maybe there were some Darth Vader comics because they actually did Star Wars comics.
38:09
But so I'll give you a pass, but that's not really a compliment. I appreciate that.
38:13
Nick, you must feel like a fool. No, this is why you are the Gordon Ramsay of magic.
38:19
And then like to bring it back to magic, you know, I think why we like superheroes
38:25
and villains is because their like powers are very defined, like in their character.
38:30
Is that like, how important is that in magic? Like choosing what power?
38:35
Oh, I mean, that's something I've harped about for years. I genuinely believe
38:38
that what is interesting to an audience is not only what you can do, but what you can't do.
38:47
And i think showing vulnerability
38:50
having those things that where
38:53
it's obvious that like my powers only work this way allow
38:57
there to be far more ways for them to relate
39:00
to you because what's more relatable an all-powerful being or
39:03
someone who messes up things because they don't always they don't
39:07
have these the skills to be able to do the thing they want to
39:09
be able to do right that's that happens and so
39:13
like superman though i'm i'm now become
39:16
quite a superman fan because of the james gunn film but before
39:19
it was really not a character that i
39:22
cared much about because he's very powerful right
39:26
i mean they literally had to create kryptonite later
39:29
in the run of comics because they needed something to stop
39:32
the guy right and and i think
39:35
like that is a really hard character to
39:38
write because because of how powerful he
39:41
is but a character say like the flash who
39:44
really you think about it can just run fast like trying
39:47
to find ways to creatively use that
39:50
power month to month the month in a comic is the same way that you can then
39:55
take think about your magic and how can i do stuff with this limited amount
40:01
of my my power ability and then again make it entertaining and interesting and
40:05
whatever and I think that brings people in like I think that
40:09
helps you bridge the gap that sometimes magic has which is I can do this and you can't ha ha.
40:16
Hmm. That's amazing. Yeah. So like, well, John Armstrong on stage,
40:20
what are some things he won't do?
40:22
Like he won't do like levitation or yeah, I can't float anything.
40:25
I have no ability to, uh, my, my power set, if I was to describe it is that I'm just very clever.
40:33
Like everything that I'm doing in my show is about my,
40:38
is, is really about my cleverness or things that
40:41
I have discovered it is not about me having
40:44
god-like abilities of mind reading or whatever
40:47
like i literally at one point like i do sort of a mentalism-esque thing
40:51
in some of my shows but i will say uh this is this thing where i can fake it
40:54
where i make it looks like i can i can read your mind okay and i fake it so
40:59
make it look like i can read your mind not because i'm a disclaimer or skeptic
41:02
thing but just because that is more predominantly attached to my character than
41:07
being able to say, I can read your mind. You see what I'm saying?
41:10
I don't know if you make a comment here that's kind of in that vein where he
41:13
said, I heard a mentalist say something in the lines of, for me to read your
41:16
mind, I need to touch something that you have put some thoughts on.
41:20
And that's an interesting concept. That's cool. Yeah. I mean,
41:23
again, grounding your power so that it is limited and not seeming as though
41:28
it is, again, completely omnipotent and overpowered.
41:32
I mean, how many times have you heard about like video games or even comics or,
41:36
you know, know movies wherever that somehow some character comes in
41:39
and it's overpowered like it's okay right you've heard that right and
41:42
so that being able to say yes i
41:46
can make things float but only if i'm looking
41:49
at it and only if my hands are
41:52
in this in this jazz hand position and that's
41:55
the only way that i can you know like that's that's
41:59
far more interesting than like yeah i can do
42:01
it you know yeah yeah yeah wow we could talk about that forever i think nick
42:08
you were you were bringing up the uh magician's documentary from netflix and
42:13
it was funny backstage because nick had just watched it so he had just watched
42:17
it and then been like i need to know the follow-up yeah.
42:23
Let's be very clear it was a documentary time has
42:26
passed since that movie was filmed yeah so about 10
42:29
years ago thereabouts a documentary was released that followed
42:32
a lot of amazing magicians including billy mccomb who you made mention earlier
42:35
and your story john and it was amazing to watch what you do in a day-to-day
42:39
performer through lecturing and whatever else and in that you got married and
42:44
it was wonderful and it was like oh how great look how good his life is and
42:47
then also in that story it just it ended your story with the with you separating and i was like,
42:54
But now what? Like, now, what's, is Johnny okay? Like.
43:00
I'm going to start sending kids to watch this documentary when they tell me
43:03
they want to be a magician.
43:04
I'll be like, all right, your first homework is to go watch Armstrong.
43:09
There was controversy around that documentary because people were like,
43:13
you know, it was depressing.
43:14
And I'm like, no, the premise, the thesis statement is, even when you're living
43:20
your dreams. Because what?
43:21
What the childhood dream is, I want to grow up and be a professional magician.
43:24
Great. I'm a professional magician.
43:26
But even when you're living your dreams, life can still be hard.
43:30
I mean, that's genuinely what this is about. And the struggles that a performer
43:35
who, again, is living their dreams or childhood dream of being a professional magician,
43:40
what obstacles they have in their life that they have to deal with that get
43:46
in the way of this pure magic life.
43:51
And yeah, so, you know, I met and through the five years they were filming me,
43:55
I met, married and was divorced from my first wife.
43:58
And when the movie actually came out, I was with dating my current wife.
44:02
And we've been married now for many years, seven years, just celebrating seven years.
44:08
I have a five-year-old daughter who is adorable and I love very much.
44:13
And another major thing that changed in my life between that film and now is
44:19
right around when that film stopped filming me is that that's when I made my
44:24
transition from close up to stage.
44:28
That's when I decided I was going to put all my energy into being a stand-up performer.
44:32
And it's genuinely one of the best things I've ever done because not only just
44:36
financially, but creatively. I feel like now I have a far greater space to play
44:42
with because I can always go back and mess with close up. And I trust me, I still do.
44:46
But I now can do cool parlor things, cool, big stage things, you know, cool.
44:51
You know, and I have a greater realm to be able to play with than back when
44:55
I was just doing, you know, close up shows over and over again.
44:59
Do you still do close-up gigs? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't pursue any of it.
45:04
Like, it's never something that I put out for.
45:07
But there are people who know me for that.
45:09
And they will hire me. And money's money. And if I'm in town and I can do it, I'll do it.
45:16
And I'm sure you all do the whole split thing, the end-of-the-year banquets
45:21
where you do the hour of walk around and then a 30- or 45-minute show after dinner or whatever.
45:25
Everyone does that, right? So like, so like I, uh, I do that,
45:29
but it's really not where I focus my phone.
45:31
I like the idea now that I'm in a position in my life where I want to do gigs,
45:36
where I am the name on a ticket that they're there to see me.
45:41
So what's the next level now? It seems like you kind of.
45:45
I'm doing performing arts centers is, is I've been moving into doing that. I've been trying fully.
45:50
I'm very clear. I don't want to get ahead of myself. I'm still,
45:52
still getting my feet wet, but I've been moving into that. And so far,
45:57
I've had a little bit of success, not a lot, but a little bit of success in
46:00
that market. And that's it.
46:02
Genuinely, that's where people are literally buying a ticket for the show that
46:06
they've been advertised on their mailing list.
46:09
Because that theater, you know, they needed a weekend filled between,
46:12
you know, Hamilton and the next production of Guys and Dolls.
46:16
And I'm that fill-in and the gray hairs that are on the, you know, the subscription list.
46:21
They need to bring the grandkids to something. and so it seems
46:24
to be a really good thing for me and and going back
46:27
to the merch conversation when i do those gigs where
46:30
i'm really making the money is from merch right there i
46:33
can bring tons of merch that i can't bring on the ship and i can
46:36
really sell all that stuff out so that that's that's
46:39
where it's coming from but i i like that i
46:42
like being able to be a commodity in that way and not the commodity where i'm
46:47
the exact same level as the table settings the catering you know and all the
46:52
things that you do when you basically are a gigger you know yeah sure as nick
46:56
would say it's a bar you're coming into a borrowed audience as opposed to the
47:00
people who come to see you.
47:02
And one of the things that really made me decide that
47:05
i was going to move into being a stand-up performer was
47:07
i got sick of doing these two three hour long close-up
47:11
gigs where you're constantly having to reprove yourself every six
47:14
minutes can i can i say that
47:17
i'm exactly at that point in my career
47:20
john like the stuff you're saying to me is like hitting me so
47:23
hard in the feels and it's only
47:26
now that we've got some new developments where there's going to be
47:29
you know a theater or magic opening up here in in melbourne that
47:32
like that's amazing there is it's so perfect and i'm creating stuff that like
47:37
it's stuff that you know it's for me creatively it's like i could work on this
47:41
stuff i could spend all this time on it but i'm never going to have a forum
47:43
to do it so i could spend all this money on this idea to get it going but i'm
47:48
never going to perform it so it's like ugh, you know? Because the...
47:53
And the majority of my work is going to be in the roving settings and it's just
47:57
in the close up settings.
47:58
And you're just like, so now that I finally got this theater,
48:01
like I genuinely turned to my girlfriend when I, when it was announced and I
48:04
just like when I was first prospected for it.
48:06
And I said, I can't tell you how much of my happiness is predicated on me getting
48:09
this theater because there's just so much that I want to create and share.
48:13
And I kind of feel like I'm right in the precipice of what you've been talking about.
48:16
So I am asking you now, as I go into this realm, what do I, what should I keep
48:21
in mind as I go into this, as I'm creating brand new effects that are,
48:24
that I think are pushing the boundaries of like presentation and so forth.
48:28
What should I keep in mind?
48:29
Is, are you, are you increasing your scale? And what I mean by that is,
48:32
are you going from being more of a closeup type performer to more of a parlor
48:36
or stage performer? Is that what you're talking about? Exactly right.
48:39
If you are increasing your scale, the way that I, my, my biggest piece of advice
48:43
I can give to anybody is to create a 20 minute parlor act.
48:46
It doesn't matter what size venue you want to work, create a 20 minute parlor
48:49
act and make that parlor act, have a definite beginning, middle and end and,
48:54
and, and make that show as tight as it possibly can be.
48:57
And I'm using the magic castle as an example, but you don't have to be working
49:00
at the magic castle, but magic castle, 18 minute parlor show,
49:05
you know, beginning, middle, and not just an assemblage of tricks,
49:08
not an assemblage of tricks, something that feels like it has a thread, a, a flow to it.
49:13
They get to know you, all those things.
49:16
And then once you have that, start expanding.
49:20
Start building new material to put in the slots in between and let it to go
49:26
out and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
49:28
Because then you always have that core.
49:32
You always have that fixed show that, again, but now as opposed to going from A to B to C,
49:38
now you're going to go from A to new trick to new trick to B to new trick to new trick to see.
49:47
And you can add those things in there and then allows it to expand out.
49:52
And the other thing that I would say is that magicians have a tendency to use
49:58
the audience way before they need to.
50:02
And what I mean by that is that they need to understand who you are and what
50:08
you're about before you go and bring people into your space.
50:13
Because when you bring people into your space, the audience relates to itself.
50:19
Thus, when you bring someone up, you are now the second most interesting person
50:23
on that stage to those people.
50:25
And if they have no idea who you are, what you're about, how you react,
50:31
then one, you might get resistance to not wanting to come stage
50:34
in the first place which once you get one no boy treading someone on stage is
50:38
impossible but secondly if they know who you are they are far more interested
50:44
to come up and play with you and now the dynamic of who you are on stage becomes
50:49
apparent in the relationship to the spectator.
50:52
And then that way it becomes a much more memorable experience as opposed to guy that did stuff.
51:00
And the other thing that i'll say is that like
51:03
and this is not as hard and fast rule i want to be very clear
51:06
but in my mind sort of a working sort
51:08
of like a bullet point is that in a 45 minute show i try to spend at least the
51:15
first 15 minutes of it in one and what i mean by that as i'm doing magic completely
51:21
in monologue speaking to the audience where i do not need to get anyone on stage,
51:29
now i can have them inspect things or i
51:32
can borrow things i get them to vote in invisible deck
51:34
you know you know things i can get them to participate in fact
51:37
i want that but what i don't want them to do is
51:40
to leave their comfort of their space until they have a good idea of who i am
51:46
first and then now i can start engaging them yeah i believe a strength in numbers
51:51
like when you allow them to like if you need an input for a trick you don't
51:54
have to bring somebody up to choose a card you You can have somebody sitting
51:57
in the audience and say stop and dribble some cards.
52:00
But it's like the audience has been represented by that one person, but it's one person.
52:05
Where everyone feels involved. And I think that's where the scale that you made
52:08
mention earlier is such a good idea to get people involved in that way. Yeah.
52:12
And because you're starting with a parlor show, notice I said parlor show.
52:17
Parlor shows, to me, stand-up magic is basically an umbrella term.
52:21
And stand-up that errs towards close-up is parlor.
52:26
And stand-up that errs towards stage, where you need amplification,
52:30
lights, music, so on and so forth, is platform. That's how I describe it in the book.
52:36
And if you use those terminologies when you're looking for material,
52:39
it'll be much easier to figure out what you want to put into your show because
52:43
you're like, well, this is not going to work because it's not going to play
52:45
and it's not too small or whatever. It's easier to figure it out that way.
52:50
And then the other thing I would suggest to you, and this is just me sort of
52:53
regurgitating stuff from the book, is that those five things I was telling you
52:57
about is that I believe you need to unite the audience, you need to engage the
53:02
audience, you need to respect the audience,
53:04
you impress them as much as possible, and then you train them to do what you want them to do.
53:09
And if you're doing those five things at all times, not at all times,
53:13
but a good amount of your show, you will notice that they are then participating and coming back to you.
53:18
Again trying to take the presentational and make
53:21
it as conversational as you possibly can because if you
53:24
are used to doing close-up nick here's what's going to happen
53:27
to you and i guarantee this is going to happen to you you're going
53:30
to take some of the similar material you're going to scale it up a little
53:33
bit and you're going to do that same trick
53:35
that you've done a million times for other people in the past and they're
53:39
going to react to it completely differently and it's going
53:42
to freak you the fuck out what's going
53:46
to happen is when you if i take 10
53:49
people and bring them around me standing next to me right
53:52
and i do a card trick and they
53:55
will react demonstrously and engaged and all that you know oh it's amazing oh
53:59
man you know that's great you know you know all that sort of audience thing
54:02
take the exact same 10 people sit them in chairs in front of you and you stand
54:08
in front of them and do that exact same trick and they will act far less demonstrously.
54:14
They will be far less willing to go crazy because they know they're in that
54:22
position and you are staring at them.
54:25
And so that fourth wall gets built and it changes how those people feel and
54:34
they still like the trick just as much. I'm not saying the trick is bad, bad.
54:38
No, I'm saying it's the, but their response to it will be lesser because they
54:44
don't feel, feel as free to be able to just be in a conversation and talk and
54:49
react. Do you see what I'm saying?
54:51
Absolutely. And, and, and if you, you, if you know this in advance,
54:55
if you know that's going to happen to you in advance, you can then prepare for it.
54:59
You're then willing to you then, because one of the cruelest things that happened
55:04
to me when I first started doing this is no one told me this.
55:08
And because no one told this to me, I would then work on stuff that I thought was great.
55:12
And then they would you know on stage and
55:15
i was not getting the response that i thought i was going to get from tricks
55:18
that i you know basically had just sort of scaled up that i've been doing for
55:21
years and i thought wait a minute i know i know i know i'm good at magic what's
55:25
going on here what's what's going on here and it took me figuring that out and and engaging with,
55:34
that particular thing to allow me to then really build up the show that i i
55:40
currently now do you know i i feel like i just i really need to get a copy of this book.
55:48
How to win yeah that's it
55:51
the link is in the description of wherever you're listening or watching this
55:55
as well how and i'm very and i'm very and i'm very i'm just very proud of this
56:01
quote but here we go from ken weber the guy i wrote maximum entertainment i
56:05
love this slim volume has more useful advice than a stack of theory books put together,
56:11
and and there are people who get standing
56:14
ovations in their shows every single night but far more than they used to because
56:21
they've taken my advice and they've applied it to their and to their shows and
56:25
i this all comes from doing exactly what you're doing right now nick.
56:32
And, and I, I, I want, I want you to be successful, successful on your journey going, moving up.
56:38
Well, I'll tell you this much, John, I think that like you've come at it like
56:41
the perfect time in, in my career and your words have just been immensely heavy.
56:46
And, you know, when I look up to you as much as I do, you know,
56:50
you're 20 feet tall to everyone here in our magic community.
56:52
Like we all look up to you, buddy.
56:53
And so your advice is definitely going to have some weight to it. So I
56:56
think that I will definitely be absorbing that book and
56:58
I will gladly report back on on how well it's
57:01
helping me if you're not a book person the the the
57:05
basic idea the of what i'm
57:08
talking about is in is the way that i have formatted my
57:11
vanishing ink master class my vanishing master class
57:14
is a straightforward how to become go from close up to stand up that is what
57:21
the master class is on and i've always felt the five things and this and my
57:27
idea about being in one and something else that I refer to as the bridge effect.
57:33
Which really quickly is between going from complete in one to getting people
57:41
on stage, I believe two things need to happen.
57:45
I think there needs to be an effect where the audience members are getting primed
57:50
for that type of participation that's going to make them get out of their seats.
57:54
So an example of something that might work very well for that Is the toss-out
57:58
deck Where they're going to stand up They're not going to get on stage But they're
58:01
going to stand up And because of that,
58:03
you're getting them used to this idea It's a bridge to that And now,
58:09
I will do something that most people don't do Which is It is very, very, very A strong move.
58:17
To stand on stage And say, you sir Would you come up here please? Yes
58:23
That is a very authoritative position to be in.
58:27
It is far nicer and far more ingratiating and far more conversational to go
58:32
down to them off the stage, extend your hand and say, hi, what is your name?
58:38
Would you mind joining me up here? And you walk with them onto the stage.
58:42
And so the first person you bring up, I always do that because that bridges
58:48
that gap that I'm talking about.
58:51
Yeah. Well, just like the masterclass, we're going to need a volume two of this
58:56
at some point. Sorry, guys.
58:58
I just can't. I just yap all day, man. No, this is perfect. If you had a podcast,
59:05
it would win FISM as well.
59:06
That was amazing to take in.
59:09
And it's shown by all our live comments that have come in at the same time.
59:13
I think you're going to see a good few book purchases come in today,
59:16
me and Nick included. So, John, thank you so much.
59:20
The link to everything about John is cardjohn.com is in the description.
59:25
But if you're listening to this, it's card and then j-o-n.com.
59:29
The right way to spell the name. Not Jahan.
59:32
J-O-N. John. That's right. That's right. That's right. We don't want to give
59:36
cardjohn any work. The rocker bomber spelling.
59:40
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
59:42
And the link to John's socials are in the link below as well.
59:46
And he does a lot of consulting that if you want him to just dissect and rip
59:51
apart your show, depending on his availability, I'm sure people can reach out
59:55
to you for that kind of a thing as well, John.
59:58
Yes. Yeah, I've been reviewing about like two or three acts a week now.
1:00:02
It's kind of nice. And people seem to listen to what I have to say.
1:00:05
I can see why. So we're going to end our episode the way we do every time,
1:00:10
which is to give our guest the final word.
1:00:13
So we want to thank everyone for tuning in and we're going to give you the final word.
1:00:20
So go out there and do good magic, but mostly make people feel like they matter.
1:00:28
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
1:00:34
But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.