Latest / The Magic Guys / LJ Magician hangs out with The Magic Guys #179

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LJ Magician hangs out with The Magic Guys #179 · The Magic Guys

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Rolling.
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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. How's that one?
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Hello, friends, and welcome to the Magic Guys podcast, episode 179.
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I'm your host, Nick Kaye, and joining me this week is the illustrious,
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entirely amazing, very happy to be here, daddyofthepod.com.
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So excited for tonight. night man we've had so many good podcasts
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lately and everyone seems to excite me more than
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the last they're guys but we're
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gonna be off the rails but nobito's not here so who knows
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how this is gonna go correct friends so for those of you watching if you're
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wondering where our good friend mr nobito unfortunately he is a little under
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the weather and has been for the past two days and i said you know what give
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me the keys and i will drive this machine and i'm gonna do my my very best to
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not drive this thing into the ocean and drown us all.
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So wish me luck. Thankfully I have a wonderful, well, I have a wonderful instructor
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here, but I feel like very much like the child with his learner's plates on.
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And then daddy's like in the driver's seat or the passenger seat.
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Well, I'm got the wheel and you're just like, yeah, I'm the kind of dad who
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gets the bike started and just shoves you down the road.
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You know, we just watch the, you know, ride the roller coaster and see what happens.
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Yeah. Nowadays we wrap up our kids in bubble wrap and then send them down that
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now where it's like, Yeah.
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Don't you miss those days where like helmets went a thing and,
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you know, bringing my eight year old brother home with the bloody chin.
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Cause we were driving bikes down the hill and ramping them up into the,
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you know, and we got to go get stitches.
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Cause you know, and that was four blocks away.
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Mom's like, what are you going to do? Boys go ride your bike.
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We're going to ramp. We're going to ramp. Okay. Have fun.
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I mean, yeah, that's what I did for fun. I would, you know, no headgear, no pads. Yeah.
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See, it's remarkable because now kids, I'm surprised they make it through puberty nowadays.
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You know, like it's just, they become soft.
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You know, the cool thing about the kids growing up nowadays is that we actually
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have a wonderful person coming on board who I've had the pleasure of knowing
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since he was 14 years old, since he was actually in high school.
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And through the years, he's come up through the ranks.
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He's become not only one of the most wonderful magicians I know,
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but one of the most people I know.
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And I'm dying to introduce you all. please join me in welcoming one of my very
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very good friends mr lj so cool hey guys how's it going.
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Lj i was saying i kind of stopped what i was saying
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about how many great guests we have had and how
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exciting i've been to be part of these
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podcasts but today my excitement has even
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surpassed them wow we've talked about it
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pre-show but thrilled to be here guys thanks a lot for having
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me yeah it's um it's it's great to be on the show sadly
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obviously josh you know yeah i've given him too hard of a body slam and now
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he can't be on the show anymore sorry he's all buff and no stuff you know yeah
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those guys can't take a bath right gosh i don't know so lj for those of you
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that don't know who you are and the amazing skill set you have please tell us
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who you are tell us what you do.
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Okay. All right. Let's have a look at this. So I'm a former street performer.
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I'm a magician that now works every single weekend, thanks to the lovely Nick
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K up there and a whole bunch of other amazing projects that I'm working on,
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like my new shows that I've just debuted last week.
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I am a professional wrestler of seven or so years in Melbourne here in Australia.
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And yeah, Yeah, it's pretty cool. I feel like when I tell people what I do for
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work, they're kind of always like, it's not always just like,
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oh, hey, show me a trick. It's more so.
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What the hell is going on there? Where did your parents fail?
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You know, that's, that's the vibe.
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But as soon as they find out a little
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bit more about me, then it gets more intriguing and more intriguing.
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Oh, that's ridiculous, man. I think that if you were my kid,
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you know, we would be entirely proud of you.
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And reason being is that most recently friends, AJ did a run of shows at the
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Melbourne magic festival. You're thinking of AJ Styles.
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That's the, I'm the other, I'm the other J I'm the LJ.
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Yes. The LJ. Now, thankfully I'm trying to compliment you, dick brain.
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On you winning your award, which was the Magician's Choice Award at the Melbourne Magic Festival.
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There it is, friends. If you're wondering what kind of award that is,
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as he holds it to screen, it's for the listeners.
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What this is, is it's an award that was created by the amazing Nicholas J. Johnson.
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What we did was we basically did a whole season of shows and then we just swept
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the stage and everything in the dustpan went into that jar.
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Iconic stuff iconic stuff like there is
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all bits of magic from everyone there's pieces of all
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manner of magicians i even think there's like bits of like eric jones in there
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for all i know you know possibly better than some dumb piece of plastic exactly
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that it's there's nothing prosthetic about it where it's like i went to a shop
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got it off the shelf like that is quite literally parts of the festival there's
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always parts of the festival going in that jar it's a very special
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award so and the way you're awarded that is ultimately all the magicians got
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together and said who gets it and out of everyone there all the magicians voted
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your show working class magician the winner tell us about the show lj okay so it's essentially.
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Imagine WorkSafe. Doug, you probably don't know WorkSafe. It's an Australian concept.
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It's when you become a magician and they put you on food stamps because you
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can't afford to feed your family? Not quite, not quite. That's an American program.
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It ends up that way. It's pretty much the corporate sort of group that makes
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sure that everything is safe in all of the industries out there.
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And WorkSafe Victoria is the branch that I was parodying because we're here
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in Victoria and Melbourne. and I created a new division called Magic Safe.
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Custom embroidered, you know, vests and everything and run a seminar on how
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to perform magic safely at the Melbourne Magic Festival.
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I made a fake ad and everything and I'll be uploading that on my socials today
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so people can check it out.
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And it got, yeah, like we had a whole bunch of magicians appear in it saying
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that they perform the magic safe way, that kind of vibe.
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It was very much piss take on corporate bureaucracy bureaucracy.
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And there's this character in the show who interrupts the show constantly trying
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to, you know, edit how I perform.
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Yeah. It's, it's really funny and I can't wait to develop it even more.
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Yeah. Just for reference, Doug, like the work safe notion is a bit of a joke.
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Like they don't do a lot to, I mean, like, yes, they do things to keep us safe.
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Like the guys who are out there, you know, the blue collar, well,
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the boys are the blue collar, blue collar folk who are digging holes and everything else.
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But ultimately what it comes down to is someone Someone who's never worked in
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the field coming to your place of work, your digging site, your building site,
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and them saying, Oh, I don't know what you do for a living, but my clipboard
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says you're doing. Yeah.
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I was going to say, they issued a clipboard and telling you how to do it the wrong way.
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Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much the whole gist of it. Yeah. The chat's pointing
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out the word OSHA. That's the, what they have in America.
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That's the one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. I mean, what was the inspiration for that? I mean, this working
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class notion where you know it's what i really love is this
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i mean when when i first joined the magic scene i wanted
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to break the mold instead of us trying to prove that like oh we're magicians
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and we're debonair and we have all these beautiful women you know
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this is the first time i've seen anyone take this notion
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of like no we're just we're working class just like everyone else we put on
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our high viz jackets we put on our safety goggles
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and our helmets and we go to work what was the inspiration for
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that that's a really good question i think it came together
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the like over a long course of yeah sort
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of strategy behind it and a lot of different people had
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input in it i think the main person who helped
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me come up the i come up with the idea of magic safe itself was probably you
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and i's friend jordy jordy douse he's another fantastic magician here in melbourne
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who did his first show in the melbourne magic festival as well this year and
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yeah while brainstorming with him because i had the show name but i didn't know
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what i wanted into doing it when we,
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You love the heart of my hair? That's great. Yeah, no, it is a stark difference
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from the usual from this show. But, you know, look, I'm just trying to represent.
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Hold on. Hold on. You pointed out the hair comment, and then we glossed over
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it. For those of you not, LJ's hair is four feet tall off the top of his head.
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That's how I get bills. When I was a kid and had hair, I went to the barber.
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I took a Rod Stewart album to the barber, and I said, I want my hair to look like this.
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And they told me to put sugar water in my hair.
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Is that what you're doing? I mean, how do you get your hair to stand up like that? Or is it just you?
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It is kind of just me. I mean, I woke up like this and I kind of brushed it
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a couple of times and it's stuck up like this.
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What about you got some hairspray up in there or something? I do use hairspray
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when I'm going out at night, like if I just have a shower and stuff.
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But this is the state of things in the morning.
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Like, it's not as nice on this side. It's nicer on that side. Natural born talent.
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It would give Rudy Kobe a run for his money. Like, that's like Rudy Kobe height.
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Like, it's not far off. I think that the only person who's beating me would
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probably be, like, maybe, like, Nick LaCoppa or Murray Sawchuck have the tall
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hair, but that's about it. I can't think of many other magicians.
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That's remarkable because maybe it's, like, a short guy syndrome,
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but you're actually quite tall by nature.
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You're, like, six-ish, like, about nine. You could even be, like, a big-time wrestler.
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Yeah, yeah, especially considering I got chunky during COVID.
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That helped make a bigger impact when I land on someone.
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so please, like, I mean, we definitely want to talk about
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the wrestling. Let's circle back to the inspiration of what the working class
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magician was about and Jordy's influence.
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Yeah, so it all started with like, so I came up with the show name Working Class
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Magician. And I just thought, that's a really, you know, great concept for a name for a show.
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Obviously, Working Class Man Jimmy Barnes was the inspiration there.
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And I just thought, wouldn't it be funny if I, you know, tried to pretend like,
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you know, this suit wearing magician was, you know, one of the people,
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you know, and then it ended up being that I was one of the people.
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And yeah the show started taking shape after I did it in Adelaide Fringe earlier
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this year at the Adelaide Magic Theatre that's yeah that's where I first did
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the show but it wasn't anything like what it was here in the festival and it
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just developed and developed and I wrote down.
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Pages and pages of like concepts for the show and how the tricks fit into it
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as well and that that whole idea just stemmed from me making that logo from
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WorkSafe into MagicSafe I think I can, I think I've got it on my phone and my folder here.
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It sounds to me like you've been a theater guy for a while.
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Did you do this in school as well? Like theater productions and such?
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Absolutely. Yeah. I grew up doing drama school, theater productions,
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musicals, that sort of thing.
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And I was really fascinated in standup comedy from a young age that that then
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sort of ended up feeding into the magic.
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And now that's who would have been your influences in that genre and stand up?
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Well, the initial one was a very physical comedy duo from Australia named Lane
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Owen Woodley. I'm not sure if you've heard of them, but I know Nick would have.
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Yeah, so Lane Owen Woodley in Australia, they're very, very well known,
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but they're not so much sort of like an international headline act.
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But yeah, they're very physical with their comedy. They did a TV series,
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they did stand-up shows, and it was all a little bit before my time.
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They broke up in like 2006, and I caught up as I grew up,
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and they were a huge influence on me in that sort of
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performing realm who were other ones
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i guess another one was probably nina conti she's one of the
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best friend trilla quests in my world in the world in my opinion
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yeah just the way she communicates on stage and her humor was really influential
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to me and then once i started getting into magic then the influences grew and
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grew for people like raymond crowe and you know tim alice and the initial person
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who brought me sort of into to the industry, Doc Andrew.
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He was my early days mentor. And then, yeah, it all snowballed from there.
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And lots of people have had fingers in this pie proverbially.
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What's beautiful about that is that like you were really like influenced by
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the things that were indigenous to you, like the people that were around you,
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like quite literally everything you've made mention is going to be so like unapparent
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to the American listeners that we have here today.
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Cause you're quite literally like, Like, I mean, I don't know how to equate Jimmy Barnes.
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He would be like the what? He would be like the.
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Some sort of folk singer. Hold on now, because I know Doc Andrews,
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a busker of renown, and he's in Australia now.
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He's spent time in the States. Yeah, he's been living here for my whole life, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah. You mentioned you did street performing. Did he kind of ingratiate you to that?
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Absolutely, yeah. He was one of the first people who showed me the ropes.
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Yeah, Springsteen, you know, yeah, Springsteen of Australia is a good comparison there.
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But, yeah, so Doc Andrew was one of the first magicians who I saw on the street.
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And then from there my parents were like
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I'm an only child so my parents sole focus was on
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you know trying to sort of yeah get me
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down the right path and there's no other real sort of entertainers in my family
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so the concept of me going and doing street performing in the city by myself
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as like a 12 or 13 year old was just alien to them so yeah I had to build up
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that confidence confidence with not just myself, but also in their trust.
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And yeah, that ended up coming together over a not super long amount of time.
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I think the first street performer I ever saw was Mr. Marmalade.
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He's another fantastic Australian magician who just did a brand new show in the festival as well.
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And yeah, we sort of jammed a little bit and he showed me a couple of tricks.
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But yeah, my influences in magic have been really varied.
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There's no sort of one person to thank for the mess you see in front of you.
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That's probably a good thing. Now, so just most recently, we went to a lecture
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on Sunday at the School of Confidence, Magic School of Confidence run by Anthony
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DiMasi. And we had a lovely dinner afterwards.
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And you were telling some good stories, I think, straight out of the vein about
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being in performing on street.
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Would you like to jump into a gig story and tell us that really hilarious story
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about that speaker box that's just like the boomerang speaker box?
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Yeah, it brings up a lot of trauma for me. but I see what you're doing here.
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So yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it for the show.
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You know, you're paying me handsomely, so I'll do it. Okay. Let's do a gig story.
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So gig stories are moments of magic that we like to share either from our personal
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lives whilst performing or even just our day-to-day.
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We want to share those stories with you, our audience for posterity.
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Starting with this week's story by LJ.
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All right. So I believe this all transpired But in the early to mid 2010s,
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so like I said, I would say about 2013 or 2014, this would have happened.
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In the span of one calendar year, probably even six months, my big $600 Street
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Cube speaker, it's a Roland speaker, really great thing. I used it for years and years.
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For some reason, I just kept on losing it and it kept on coming back to me like
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a boomerang. It was incredible.
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So the first time that this happened, the speaker, I was taking the speaker
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to school and I left it on the bus that I take to school in the luggage rack.
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I walk off the bus. The intention was to go to the train station later on,
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head into the city, do some street shows after school.
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And I realized about halfway through the day, hey.
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When I came to school, I was holding this big heavy thing in my other hand and
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I realized my speaker was gone.
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So I called up about three different bus companies and all three of them said,
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we don't know where it is.
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We haven't got it. We don't know. And I was like, fantastic.
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So I was under the impression that, yeah, I've just lost my $600 speaker, my moneymaker.
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And yeah, I was heartbroken. About two or three days later, I'm in class and
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someone walks into class holding my speaker in their hands and just says, hey,
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because everyone in school knew I was a magician for better or worse.
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And yeah, they just came up to me and said, hey, I think this is yours.
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Like that's your sticker, right?
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And I was like, what the hell is going on? Yes, that's my speaker.
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And they said to me, yeah, I was catching the bus earlier today and it was in the luggage rack.
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And I looked at it and I thought, I think that's LJ's, that's Liam's.
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And yeah, so it turns Turns out that the speaker was traveling on the same bus
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for about three days and no one touched it.
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No one made anything with it.
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And some fluke, someone found it who knew that it was mine. That's crazy.
16:59
That's not a dedicated school bus, right?
17:02
That's like the public. No, no, no. that's a one publicly accessible bus
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that goes around like i mean i would say easily like
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30 k's you know back and forth a
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day you know yeah so it was just absolutely unbelievable and the funniest part
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was the person who gave me back the speak like they didn't even really know
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me very well so imagine this you know kid walking through school every day you
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know having having this speaker in their hand you wouldn't make it one block
17:28
in new orleans yeah i'll just then.
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Maybe someone out doing a show with it by the end of the afternoon.
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Well, on that topic, there's a second part to this story. So the second time
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I lost the speaker was not my fault.
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The second time I lost the speaker, the magician who I mentioned earlier,
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one of my best mates, Geordie Doust, he lost the speaker.
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So I entrusted the speaker with him while we were both out street performing together.
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And his phone died and he needed to call his partner.
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So he went to a phone booth, left the speaker underneath the phone booth, made the call and left.
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And I was in the shop at the time, just grabbing something.
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I come back, no Jordan, no speaker, no message, no phone call.
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I try and call him and his partner for the next half an hour and I get nothing.
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I go down to the police station. I say, hey, this is the situation.
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What should I do? And they said to me, well, there's nothing really you
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can do until you you get in contact with him little did
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i know the entire time while i was doing
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all that trying to make calls and stuff that speaker was sitting on
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swanston street underneath that phone booth i finally
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get in touch with him and he says to me oh yeah i'm so sorry man holy shit you
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know i left it underneath the the phone booth on swanston street right next
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to the pitch and i'm like okay bolt back to the pitch check underneath the phone
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booth it's not there i'm like man look it's not
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there and he's like oh my god i'm so sorry you know i'll
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buy you a new one when i get the funds together and i'm
19:05
like you know like once again heartbroken yeah that's
19:09
the worst because that is your money maker on the street and and if that's not
19:12
an easy replacement you know especially like 600 bucks like that's that's a
19:17
lot of money for for this for young liam but yeah the craziest part about this
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i went back in the next day because i'm like look i need to make some some more
19:26
money because I've cut my day short,
19:27
my speaker's gone, I need to get my mind off this.
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Come into the city and I'm performing right next to the same spot that I was the previous day.
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A friend comes up to me who I hadn't seen for a little while, starts talking to me.
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And then I see out of the corner of my eye, a couple of, you know,
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junkies, shall we say, walking down the street, carrying a big Roland Street QBX.
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I'm just like, okay, that's not a little Bluetooth speaker.
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That's, that's a, you know, that looks like mine.
19:56
And I kind of stopped the conversation with my friend and I go up to him.
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I'm like, hey, hey, hey man, how's it going?
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You know, I start looking at the speaker, kind of doing a little bit of a pickpockety
20:03
style thing where I'm like, oh yeah, cool.
20:04
Look at this. is and i start talking to him about the speaker and i
20:07
start asking him questions hey where'd you get the speaker from you know
20:10
and he starts making up some answers and i said oh i'm not sure if you know
20:13
this but that sticker there i put it there about a year ago and this is my speaker
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and i've got photos to prove it and he goes oh okay you know yeah sure mate
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good on you and he keeps on walking along i make a phone call to the police
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who are just down the road and he keeps walking direction towards the police.
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And as the situation continues to develop, I keep on going, look, mate, it's my speaker.
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They're going to give it back to me. This is not going to end well.
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You can just hand it to me now and we're all good.
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We get down towards the police station. They meet us out the front,
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two cops, and they stop him.
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And within about one minute of me showing them photos, they hand the speaker
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back to me and they're just like, yep, it's your speaker.
20:53
No worries they then take him
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in to the station because he
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had a whole bunch of drugs in his bag as well yeah and
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and yeah i got a little lick in at the end of just going like she just bloody
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handed me the speaker mate yeah yeah but yeah so that happened within the span
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of about like six months easily about six months and then yeah two or three
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years later i sold the speaker for about,
21:23
100 bucks less than what I bought it for because I took good care of it other than losing it twice.
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So yeah, then I upgraded and I haven't lost that one yet. So what'd you upgrade to the Bose?
21:33
Yeah, Bose S1 Pro. But lessons have stuck, you know, shall we say?
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Yeah, don't lend it to Jordan and don't leave it on a bus.
21:41
Well, they say if life's not a lesson, it's a test. And that's certainly something
21:44
like both entities were being checked there.
21:47
What rig do you use in your shows there, Doug?
21:49
I have a Samson Expedition. It's like a hundred watt amp.
21:55
It's pretty good. You know, it fits in a backpack.
21:58
Is it what? Is it bulky? Is it big? So that's why I bought this one.
22:02
It's a little smaller, fits in a backpack nicely along with the headset.
22:05
I use a Samson Airline 99 with it and it's all in one backpack for me.
22:11
And I don't do big circle shows.
22:13
I don't need necessarily to blow it out but the
22:16
boast yeah fair enough oh yeah so that's what i use
22:19
yeah i mean a lot of people
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don't appreciate how important that is when you're trying to do shows over
22:24
the sound of the street the street sweepers the trucks uh
22:28
the people walking by i when i was doing street shows
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when you're next to the footlocker as well like they play music so loudly
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like in that yeah yeah like that
22:37
was nuts i remember like we tried to build a relationship with
22:40
them so that whenever we were out there in front of those stores that
22:43
blasted music and had the big open doors you know
22:45
like like it's not a it's not a you know a double door that opens
22:48
and closes it's not a you know swing or anything like that it's just an open
22:52
store blasting music you know so yeah you've got to try and build up relationships
22:57
with not only the stores but you'd obviously have a few relationships with some
23:01
of the like the local the local life that's Some businesses love you and some hate you.
23:08
So, you know, hopefully the ones that love you are in the good spots.
23:12
Yeah. It's no fun to go to work and have conflict.
23:15
That's it. That's it. Yeah. Awesome. I have an interesting gig story, if I may.
23:20
It was such a weird thing. Now we spoke about this interaction,
23:24
LJ, over dinner, but I think I want to share this with Doug because I don't
23:27
know how to process what happened, but let me tell you what happened.
23:31
So I was performing at my residencies and I was performing for this particular
23:35
corporate group that were in our venue.
23:39
They were in superannuation, like in your 401k retirement
23:43
fund stuff you know and and and basically
23:46
very large group about 100 people and they're going between all these
23:48
people circulating and so i'm meeting different people every time i come
23:51
through the group each time as they're engaging in all the activities the venue
23:55
has to offer now i'm performing away and and and certain managers and so forth
24:00
oh please show some stuff to this stuff to this stuff said no worries i'm doing
24:02
my thing and then this woman comes over and she is just awful like the type
24:08
of person who puts out that energy that they would be unhappy in heaven.
24:11
And I don't get upset about it because my mentality is that those who hate need love the most.
24:19
So I'm just being polite and kind and everything. And she's just like,
24:22
I'm a cynic and I won't get into the details of how awful she was or what she
24:26
did, but just understand she was awful in every conceivable way to the point of grabbing cards,
24:33
bending them, tearing them, throwing them in the floor, just an awful human.
24:37
And, and I was just like, this is cool. Like, I'm not going to let it affect
24:40
me. I've had the best week. I've had the best day and whatever.
24:43
And, you know, she's sort of attacking me at one point being like,
24:46
I'm a cynic and you're full of shit and et cetera.
24:48
And I was just like, oh, look, I think that you should sort of take an adjustment
24:51
here and just understand that, you know, how I do things is not important.
24:54
It's why I do it. I do it purely just to make people smile and everyone's here
24:58
is having a great time. And that's, that's my job.
25:00
And, And, you know, I'm just a guy with a skill set who uses it to make people happy.
25:05
Just like I'm sure you have an amazing skill set, right?
25:08
And she was like, well, yeah. And I was like, great. What do you do?
25:11
And she was like, I'm in charge of media relations. I'm the media relations manager. Okay.
25:16
And I laugh and she's like, that's very condescending. And I'm like,
25:21
no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to be. I just, I just think it's funny.
25:24
She's like, what's so funny? And I go, just that you're in charge of relations.
25:28
And, you know, I run an agency with 50 contractors and not all of them have
25:34
their superannuation set up.
25:35
And I have to tell them, you got to set it up here and here and here.
25:38
And, you know, I could, I could have been, you know, had another business or
25:42
my superannuation could be in your company.
25:44
Then I can meet someone like yourself and I can go to your CEO and say like,
25:47
you know what, I'm taking all the super for myself and all my money out of your
25:52
business to put it elsewhere.
25:54
And if you want to know why, go talk to your, your manager.
25:57
I just think it's funny that like, you don't see every single person as a potential
26:01
customer and just treat them respectfully.
26:03
I just, I just think that's funny. And certainly if you're in a work environment,
26:07
right. If you're in a company function.
26:10
You're representing your company. You're representing yourself. you know
26:13
like yeah if you're coming across like that it's pretty bad yeah and
26:16
i just watched this woman shrink till about
26:20
an inch tall and she was just like oh
26:23
my god and she just shrunk inside herself and was like i've just i've given
26:28
myself the ick and i was like and then she's like getting teary she's like oh
26:34
my god i was just so awful and she was drunk you know what i mean and just like
26:39
I'm just like, oh, my God, I give myself to him.
26:41
And then she was trying to tell people, like, I was so mad to him.
26:44
I was such a bitch to him. And I was just like, no, it's between you and me. Let it go.
26:47
I was thinking to myself, like, shit, I don't want her to have a breakdown.
26:50
And then management goes, why are you crying?
26:54
The magician. And the magician is mad at me.
26:58
I'm like, I don't want to lose my job. Just imagine Patrick's first shift.
27:01
Oh, man. And I'm like, I'm not here to make people cry.
27:04
I'm not here to do that. But I just rattled this woman. And she was like,
27:08
I'm just looking at myself. I'm reflecting and I'm blah.
27:12
And she's like, I've just had the worst week. I'm sure you had a bad week too.
27:14
And I'm like, I've had the best week, you know, I've had the best week ever. Like it's been amazing.
27:22
Massive wake up call. She's like, why are you so positive? I'm like,
27:25
every day above ground is a good one. Oh, cut it deeper.
27:28
And she was like, how do you handle me being a bitch to you?
27:31
And I'm like, I live in a world where people bleed all over me and I never cut them.
27:35
And she, oh, cut her again. Again, like after another, and I'm just sharing
27:40
my little life ethos is, you know, at the end of it, she was like,
27:43
how are you so positive? What's your secret? I'm like, read the Bible.
27:49
Just hammering this chick. And she was like, I'm so sorry. Can I buy a drink?
27:52
Can I make it up to you? And I'm like, no, but you can leave a five star review. Thank you very much.
27:55
And I moved on with my life, but I just thought it was so weird.
27:59
That she took it like quite a bit. It was a happy ending.
28:04
It was like, she was a happy person at the end of the, like,
28:08
it seems like she needed that.
28:10
It seemed to me and I did it and I, and, and hand to God, I did not do it with
28:15
any beguile or attacking or any hostility.
28:19
I did nothing but treat her with love and it changed her.
28:23
And I just think that was like the most interesting interaction I've ever had
28:27
with an awful person. Hmm.
28:30
Yeah. Like, like, cause that can go one or two ways. There's only,
28:34
there's only two outcomes.
28:35
You know, it's either the answer is violence from their part or what you just
28:41
happened had happened, which is like the 0.01% chance.
28:46
And I don't know, like, yeah, maybe it's the fact that like,
28:49
she doesn't know you, you've just had this interaction with her.
28:52
So she's getting a completely you know sort of
28:55
what's the word unbiased opinion of
28:58
her you know and then yeah relating it back
29:01
to her work at a work function like yeah they just
29:04
maybe you just really chose the right words and it got i hope so i hope so because
29:09
a part of me just feels like like i didn't go out with the intention of changing
29:12
people i don't go out there to correct behavior and and fix people while i perform
29:16
it's worth noting though sometimes our job is not not necessarily performing
29:20
at people, but conversing with them.
29:22
Maybe, you know, they want to know about you. You're learning about them and
29:26
you just have a conversation sometimes. And I guess sometimes you become a therapist.
29:31
Yeah, no, it's valuable like that. You can put that on your rate card, Nick.
29:36
What's the therapy? Or if I get drunk, crazy women, do I just let them go?
29:41
That's really funny because I approach groups and go, okay, what do you guys
29:44
want to do? Cards, coins, borrowed objects of my award-winning stuff or therapy?
29:52
That's what oh right that's the new opener yeah that's my new opener it's like
29:56
you want to do card coins my award-winning stuff what do you guys want therapy what do you want to do.
30:00
Yeah, but I guess I guess I'm just putting it out there because like a part
30:04
of me feels like I almost did something wrong.
30:06
And I think it's just because I didn't mean to have such a profound effect on her.
30:11
And I feel I don't know what it is about it, but I feel bad and I don't know why.
30:16
You've been in the trenches too long to when these situations come up,
30:19
you'd rather play ball than to just let it go.
30:21
You know, the the the younger Magi would probably just be like, OK, so I'd bother you.
30:27
Him like oh really i can't
30:31
say that i would have done that any you know any differently
30:34
than what doug just said you know like i mean i don't i don't want conflict
30:37
and you know look to be fair there is some situations nick and i have spoken
30:41
spoken about this at length you know because we're working every weekend in
30:44
similar venues you know for similar crowds you know sometimes you do have to
30:49
educate someone you know just a little bit you know like you've got to be very careful but um.
30:55
Yeah i think that there's been a few situations that nick and i have spoken
30:57
about where somebody has come across like a dick and then
31:00
you've got to go hey that behavior is not okay you know
31:04
because i think yeah one thing that nick said a long
31:07
time ago i think it was something to the extent of like people don't
31:10
look at magicians as you know professional performers sometimes
31:13
they just you know don't know how to interpret us you know and then we get sort
31:18
of bunched in with all of the other you know all the other service industry
31:22
if someone doesn't treat them with respect they won't treat us us with respect
31:26
and you know you should do that for everyone but um it's fascinating like i
31:29
i've heard that story twice now and it's still really really.
31:34
Yeah perplexing how she's come to such a realization
31:37
after that conversation yeah well i certainly don't go out with the intention
31:42
of like correcting behavior when i'm when i'm existing it's not my intent it's
31:46
just i just be polite and and tell people that like i'm just here to make you
31:50
smile and you know if you don't want to see magic that's okay i'll go like you know.
31:55
Yeah as a professional you have to be ready for that because a
31:58
lot of your audience is going to have a preconceived notion that
32:02
you're stupid and magic's dumb and if
32:05
they're drinking it's even going to be worse because now they have no filter to
32:08
tell you about their feelings yeah and for sure
32:11
if you're going to work professionally be ready for this right well he
32:15
has a great idea from alex lamb and it's that you use peak
32:18
wallet to get a name and then you can say so tell me how
32:20
this person hurt you that's a great idea alex i
32:23
like scott links out just just start crying alex
32:27
is popping out some good ones you don't like magic my
32:31
mom hated it too my dad
32:34
wouldn't pick a card yeah well gut
32:37
buster mike also made a point saying that most people double down of instead
32:42
of self-reflection the fact that she you know self-reflected i think i think
32:47
that that you know it's it is a reflection that she is a good person but by
32:51
nature like and probably Probably a product of her environment that she became
32:55
a person that she wasn't proud of.
32:57
So I don't know. I would love to think – I'm humble enough to not have this
33:03
ego that, like, I changed her that day.
33:07
Like, I would love to think that it had something good. Like,
33:10
that she is better off for it or that she is happier for it or that she was like –.
33:15
You know, it's just like, I love magic because I met this magician and,
33:19
and we had this interaction and now I'm a big fan because I can't say many people
33:23
have said like, Oh, I used to hate magic, but then I've just met you. And this was so great.
33:27
I think I'm going to change my mind about magic. You know what I mean?
33:29
Like you got to represent.
33:30
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I was just going to say, you know,
33:34
yeah, it can also be a product of where you work and who you're around.
33:37
Like while I was, uh, while, while COVID was in the lockdown stages here in
33:42
Melbourne, I started doing other work because obviously I couldn't do magic
33:45
and I really didn't like performing online.
33:48
I just didn't connect with it. But I started unloading containers.
33:52
Mostly sanitary products, that sort of thing from containers,
33:56
big piles, and then wrapping around in Glad Rat, which was kind of poetic for
33:59
what I used to do on the street.
34:00
But yeah, it was interesting because all the guys who I was working with had
34:04
been doing the same sort of jobs their whole working life.
34:07
I'd just come in, I'm from a completely different world and the money was good,
34:12
but the vibes were terrible.
34:14
Like it just, it, like I came home every day that I was working and I just felt
34:18
crap because all these guys who I was working with were just feeling crap all the time, you know?
34:24
So yeah, I ended up leaving that job and I felt so good after I left it,
34:28
you know? So maybe it's potentially what's around her, constant stress,
34:32
constant pressures from work.
34:34
That could be a factor, you know, and she's come out and she's still got
34:36
to be on the money you know because she's at a work function so
34:40
yeah then she's not her guard is still up and
34:43
that's um that might be a factor i don't know i mean that's a
34:46
very good and that's a very good point you know like you're gonna
34:49
meet strangers and they might take their data out on you but you need to know
34:53
that it's got nothing to do with you it's just like whatever they're going through
34:56
and i think that that's like i said there's a lesson and a test and i think
34:59
that maybe we we both learned something that day in that nightclub and i hope
35:04
she's better for it because i I just want to make folks smile,
35:08
so I hope she's better for it.
35:09
But magic story done.
35:12
That went a lot better than what I expected to. Thank you guys for your input.
35:15
And yeah, thank you for you guys in the comments for sharing your thoughts as well.
35:18
Like, I think you're right. The gut buster, Mike, I think she was a good egg.
35:20
And I just said I had to remind her of that, that she's kind of lost her way.
35:23
But that aside, we've spoken a lot about magic.
35:27
But what we haven't spoken about is wrestling. Yeah, we put this off long enough.
35:32
My plan was to just focus on this topic, really.
35:36
This has my full attention, strap in, put your belts on, climb the turnbuckle, let's jump in.
35:45
You wrestle as this character. Yeah, the escape artist, Matty Wild. That's me.
35:50
I gave Nick some merch. What? The way that your wrestling character is related to variety arts?
35:59
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a magic wrestler, and I use that to my
36:04
advantage in matches to give you an idea.
36:07
Like, the wrestling doesn't come into the magic very often.
36:11
Occasionally, little bits and pieces, mostly from the physical side of
36:14
things like in my most recent show there's a point in the show where i
36:18
take a big fall right near the end
36:21
of the show because i made an unsafe working environment
36:24
for myself while complaining about the work yeah there we go oh man i want that
36:30
is it a great can i buy that shirt yeah yeah we're looking at escape artists
36:35
merch yeah yeah no i was absolutely thrilled with the person who that was a
36:40
magic shirt i wouldn't buy it but But knowing it's a pro wrestling shirt, I want that so bad.
36:44
Where do I get it, man? Where do
36:46
I get that? Well, I have stock here at my house. I can send it to America.
36:52
Find you in the DM. Send you $400 for shipping.
36:56
You know what? I'll bring one up to you coming to Magic Live, Doug.
37:01
Are you going to Magic Live? I'm not going to be there. Look how excited I am. It's Chris.
37:10
All right. right tell us more about this situation so uh
37:13
so to give you an idea as to the stuff that i do in matches
37:16
that relates to the magic i've used
37:19
flash paper many times to
37:23
blind opponents i've used appearing canes frequently to pop out of nowhere and
37:29
clobber someone in the middle of a match while the ref's not looking or clobber
37:32
someone who's an outsider outside of and interfering you know yeah i'm so i'm
37:37
predominantly one of the good guys but i have tendencies to to sort of lean
37:41
into cheating a little bit,
37:42
but in an Eddie Guerrero-style way, you know, yeah, a little bit more...
37:48
Like that, as opposed to heelish kind of ways.
37:51
But yeah, I've also, in a very violent match that I had, I told someone that
37:57
it would be a cool idea before the match if I like spray them with cards in
38:01
the face and then, you know, kick their face off.
38:03
And then after that, then at the end of the match, once they've beaten me,
38:07
they pick up a card and staple gun it to my head.
38:11
And that was an incredible visual. And it was very funny.
38:15
When I came up with that idea, idea I mentioned it
38:18
to the booker the guy who runs the show and he was like yeah
38:20
no I don't like it and then the person who I was wrestling he's
38:24
a long time veteran of the industry even back
38:27
then and we're talking like six or so years ago he goes hey you know Liam had
38:31
this idea to do this thing and the booker was like oh yeah great idea let's
38:35
do it you know how do you not like that I know I know it was really funny though
38:40
because it's just like oh yeah no we're not going to do that and And then when
38:42
I told it to the guy who I was wrestling,
38:44
you know, oh, yeah, they said no. Then they're like, no, no, no, no, no.
38:48
I got this. I got this. I'm going to go and I'm going to have a chat with them.
38:51
And we're going to do that spot because I want to staple gun you in the head.
38:54
And I'm like, hey, yeah, I'm getting a staple to the head.
38:56
But, yeah, so there's also been times where I've, like, pulled cards out of
39:01
nowhere and, you know, paper-cutting people and stuff like that.
39:04
Yeah, all that kind of chat. I feel before we continue to talk about this that
39:07
I need to talk about wrestling just a little bit. And me more than you,
39:11
because I'm an older guy who's been around the block, right?
39:13
You start talking about how wrestling should be respected. People are going
39:16
to think you're a nincompoop.
39:18
But I know a few things, and maybe I'm an old nincompoop. But,
39:21
you know, the art of wrestling, and I call it an art, it started as a circus
39:25
art, actually, if I'm not mistaken.
39:27
And it could be gladiator arts going back that old. It could be that old. Very tiny.
39:31
As old as magic is. But this is a theatrical art form. And if you think about
39:35
what it is, it's men or women in this day and age wonderfully using dramatics
39:41
and they're wearing their fancy costumes.
39:44
Sometimes they have assistants and all that. But more importantly,
39:47
they're using secret techniques in a live theater.
39:52
Asking their audience to suspend their disbelief. And they're doing this without
39:57
the traditional fourth wall that exists in standard theater.
40:00
And this is not something that is maybe exists outside of magic and maybe street performance.
40:08
I think like some juggling shows and things like that, street performers have the same vibe.
40:12
So I'm going to ask everyone to have a little respect for our discussion of
40:16
professional wrestling and the similarities it has with our art for magic.
40:21
And yeah, Let's continue. There is a staggering amount of similarities.
40:26
Is there something you have to add to what I said there as far as similarities go?
40:31
Yeah, I would say that you're spot on with the concept that magic and wrestling
40:36
have the element of suspending the disbelief with a crowd who we are engaging with.
40:41
There's no fourth wall that we're really breaking.
40:44
There's an amazing amount of production values that go into a wrestling show.
40:48
The lights, the music, the staging, the costuming. me
40:51
and this is another similarity i think to you
40:54
know lots of performing arts but certainly magic absolutely
40:58
and the closely guarded sort of secretive nature of the
41:01
industries that's the key right there you know
41:03
once you get in then you can find out a lot about it but also
41:06
just as much as you know we see people exposing how to
41:09
do tricks online is the same for
41:12
exposing how to you know wrestle a match and guess
41:15
what i'm stage you know it's the same thing and wrestling is
41:18
more popular than ever people know it's a
41:21
skit they know it's fake yeah okay we
41:24
can still enjoy this knowing these things are are you.
41:28
Know it's theater at its base level it's theater and
41:31
if you're able to connect with an audience on an emotional level and
41:34
make them feel something well you know it's
41:37
going to be good theater yeah if you look at if you look at the
41:39
common factors i mean what there's probably like an abundance of practice
41:43
and rehearsal and commitment that goes into the performance parts i
41:46
mean they've put in their bodies in the
41:49
line as much as you know all the skill sets
41:52
of a wrestler oh man are you kidding me at least
41:55
certainly comparable to any sleight of hand artist would
41:58
you agree lj yeah definitely you know
42:01
we practice it a similar amount it's just a lot
42:04
more physical you know but even then to be honest with you then there's
42:07
there's physical acts that you know have magic in it one act
42:09
that i just watched recently we had hector mancha in uh in
42:12
melbourne and his physimac from 2015 is extremely
42:15
physical you know so yeah we we have a
42:18
lot of similarities between both industries and i
42:21
think it's yeah once people do any more digging than initially just going oh
42:26
wrestling and magic yeah i don't know you know once they do any digging they'll
42:29
be like hang on you know you know max maven was a huge fan yeah i took his ear
42:37
off about at it when he was in town as well a few years back.
42:40
Max was a great guy. He was really lovely. He loved wrestling, right? Oh, yeah.
42:48
We have a question here from Farron and it says, do you practice with the person
42:54
you are going to wrestle?
42:57
Yeah. So I'm definitely sort of open to talking about it because even though,
43:02
yeah, look, it's a closely guarded industry, you know, I feel like that suspension
43:05
of disbelief is what keeps it alive, you know?
43:08
So, yeah, I'm happy to talk about it.
43:11
You know, I don't think it's something that, you know, you couldn't find with
43:14
a quick Google search, so you might as well hear it from me.
43:16
When we you know are sort of planning out a match
43:18
and we're practicing with each other you know before the show there's a
43:22
few different stages of that you know sometimes we go out with
43:25
a completely rehearsed you know match and that's why you know
43:28
you can get some matches out there that's really dynamic
43:31
you know using lots of um flips and and
43:34
and you know incredible perfectly timed sequences
43:37
that are really really hard to do and then you
43:40
can sometimes get matches that are a lot more story-based and
43:43
you know you can plan them out just as much or just as little
43:46
but yeah the most common way that i think is sort
43:49
of like a middle ground between not planning anything which is possible to
43:52
do that which we train for and then planning everything so i kind of sort of
43:56
leave a little bit of middle ground like the most recent match that i had this
43:59
past weekend we planned the start of the match we planned a couple of spots
44:04
in the middle of the match and then we planned the finish but all of that extra
44:07
flavor was up to us in the match so So we're communicating with each other secretly.
44:12
How often will you change what's going on with the audience reaction to the moment?
44:17
Is that something that comes into play if you feel like the heat needs to be more on the heel?
44:23
Yeah, definitely. I guess the heel usually leads the match. The bad guy. The heel is the bad guy.
44:30
Yeah, yeah. That's wrestler speak for the bad guy. So the bad guy usually leads
44:34
the match because, yeah, they're sort of more in control of it.
44:38
And if you don't have a bad guy, you know, in that match, if it's more of a
44:41
sort of good guy versus good guy sort of situation like it was this past weekend,
44:44
yeah, it's more of a whoever's more experienced, you know.
44:48
But also we can talk to each other throughout the match and,
44:51
yeah, find ways. Do you communicate a lot during the match? Is that going on?
44:55
It depends on how much you plan it. If you plan it a lot, then not so much.
44:59
If you plan it, you know, just a little bit, then, yeah, lots of communication.
45:03
And you just find moments to do that. you know you find little
45:06
breaks in in in the momentum where you can communicate with
45:09
each other but because you're also separated by the guardrail and
45:13
all the crowd is making noise and stuff like that it's quite easy to be able
45:17
to get messages from one to the other and sometimes we even use the ref as well
45:20
to do that okay there's certain tv shows that are leaning into this notion of
45:25
wrestling like glow which is
45:26
the was it the glamorous ladies of wrestling great show it's a true story.
45:31
Yeah. Do you think that the depiction shown in those shows is pretty accurate?
45:37
Yeah, there's also another one that's had Stephen Amell in it from the Arrow series called Heels.
45:43
And that one is also set in a similar sort of time. Here's the best one.
45:47
Watch The Wrestler with Mickey Lawrence.
45:49
I've got it down here in my DVD. Of course you do. Yeah, it's a great film.
45:53
Also, the one that came out fairly recently was Zac Efron about the...
45:58
Oh, yeah, the Von Erich movie. The Von Erich family, yeah. That was good.
46:01
That was a great film. Yeah, that was very, very similar sort of vein.
46:04
And, yeah, I mean, if you watch even true stories about wrestling through podcasts
46:08
and videos like this or, you know, people talking top 10 lists,
46:12
that sort of stuff, you'll learn a lot about the industry very quickly.
46:16
And it is a – for a long time, it was a very dark industry. And in some cases, it still is.
46:22
But, yeah, I think that the presentation in media is sometimes very accurate
46:29
and sometimes very inaccurate.
46:31
Like young rock for example there's a lot of inaccuracies
46:34
in there because they've tried to make it more palatable for
46:37
a non-wrestling audience young rock
46:40
being the show about the rock as a young man growing up yes yeah rock the dwayne
46:46
johnson as ollie davis calls him but yeah no so he's um he's a fascinating one
46:51
because he kind of likes to sort of try and appear more into that hollywood
46:55
style but just recently he's come back into the wrestling family to try
46:58
and rehab his image because of his failures in Hollywood recently over the last
47:03
few films he's made, you know, so he's come back.
47:05
That was an interesting revival of his character too, how they had to pivot
47:09
that situation, you know, from what it was supposed to be into something else.
47:13
And yeah, it's riveting. Yeah.
47:15
Can I, can I just ask, sorry, just for the sake of naivety, because I,
47:18
I haven't really delved into the wrestling world since maybe like the year 2000.
47:23
And, you know, maybe because there wasn't access to it, you know what I mean? It was always on,
47:27
like a cable TV would you have to pay for and so forth? You know,
47:31
I didn't really have access to that growing up.
47:33
You know, there's people like Sting that were very, very prominent during my time.
47:37
Stone Cold, very prominent. What's the kind of lifespan for a wrestler?
47:42
Is it the type of thing that you will time out on?
47:45
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, as a magician, I feel like you can keep
47:48
performing for a long time. Tell that to Ric Flair.
47:51
Well, that's what I was getting at. So is Ric Flair still in?
47:54
He just had his last match at like age 72.
47:58
No kidding. No, no, he's older than that, Doug. He's older than that.
48:02
And that match was for, you know, like I had a feeling. He had like a heart
48:07
attack in the match or something.
48:08
He was about to die. Yeah, right. And it was because he neglected his medicine
48:14
and he didn't hydrate at all before the match.
48:18
Yeah, and he almost died. Yeah, ridiculous. Ric Flair is the GOAT,
48:24
but not a role model for sure.
48:25
No. Go on now. To his credit, 75 years of age.
48:30
He's still going. This man doesn't have a pause button. He's still active,
48:35
sort of, but not wrestling active.
48:38
I think he's done now. No, he's marketing.
48:41
I think Viagra and weed now is his job.
48:45
I just found out that Sting, I just mentioned a moment ago, is 65 years of age.
48:51
I happily watched his last match at AEW. I bought that pay-per-view. I was not sad about it.
48:58
Especially because the best in the world was on there. Tell me who that is.
49:02
Was Punk on that show? No. Was he? What about Will Ospreay, though?
49:06
Yeah, Will Ospreay. Yeah, yeah. He was on that show. I was going to say,
49:09
that's not his moniker, but I guess it's sort of true. Oh, yeah.
49:11
Punk is the best in the world, but I'm talking about the legit best in-ring
49:14
performer of the modern era.
49:16
Yeah, I would say that Will Ospreay definitely has a contendership for that.
49:21
Yeah, he's on another level, man. Oh, my goodness. you
49:24
know how i was mentioning earlier that that athleticism that you can
49:27
have in matches where your choreography is like it's like
49:30
a dancer you know it's unbelievable and it is that
49:33
yeah it's remarkable what is going on all
49:36
these guys are like hitting 60 i'm just doing a quick google
49:39
search stone cold undertaker all
49:42
these cats are 59 30 60 the
49:45
smart guys you know the more
49:49
important thing is to be an entertaining performer and as
49:52
long as you're good on the mic and can generate the audience reaction
49:55
you can work a slow style in the
49:58
ring do some punches and headlocks and not have to
50:00
take a hard wet road right yeah no
50:03
there's definitely ways to to prolong the um the the the career but look here's
50:10
another example that we can all relate with teller for example you know his
50:14
body is shot these days and he's had a million different surgeries because he's
50:19
a very physical performer as he does his shows.
50:22
And, you know, he's had to tone it down a lot.
50:25
And obviously it's the same thing in wrestling. You know, if you work your body
50:28
out too much, the injuries will rack up. You know, it's a very physical industry.
50:32
So, you know, sometimes you're out early, sometimes you're out late,
50:35
sometimes you stay too long, you know.
50:37
Yeah, it's a varied, yeah, life expectancy for a career in wrestling.
50:43
I have another silly question.
50:45
Go for it. is it like there's like a Mexican scene of wrestlers and yeah there
50:53
is like a huge level of physicality that I've seen comparative to.
50:59
To to that is there a reason for that like when you see
51:02
them jump it's almost acrobatic it is
51:05
almost like circus acrobatic when you watch them like ray mysterio
51:08
i believe like he was so physical and he's
51:11
still going aerial moves like you would not believe like it why is what's the
51:16
influence of the mexican notion versus anything else is there a reason for that
51:21
that you're aware of yeah so i guess it's just you know look i mean it's the
51:26
same thing in magic I'll compare it to it every time if I can, and usually I can.
51:31
In Magic, there's a whole bunch of different styles of Magic.
51:33
Just like in Wrestling, there's a whole bunch of different styles in Wrestling. There's Lucha Libre.
51:36
There's more of American-style storytelling.
51:40
There's deathmatch Wrestling with weapons and blood and violence and glass and thumbtacks.
51:44
That sort of stuff is pretty crazy, and I've done a little bit of it,
51:47
and I'm probably not going to again. Some of those matches are just insane.
51:51
Yeah, no, I did one. one of
51:54
the gcw gwz what's the
51:57
california federation yeah gcw there's um
52:01
czw ecw was
52:04
the one back in the 90s and 2000s oh i was there for that
52:07
run the whole thing i watched every one of those shows i
52:09
think yeah that stuff was crazy that was all human federation
52:13
you know there was a mick foley mankind
52:16
who was a very unique character and crazy
52:20
i met him he's a nutcase he's awesome yeah he
52:23
gained a huge level of popularity i remember during
52:26
that time he had the mask on it was it was basically like a
52:28
very slipknot era if you know what i mean and i listened
52:32
to a couple of interviews during that time because you you send me you send
52:36
me wrestling stuff and i send you wrestling stuff on socials we have a bit of
52:39
a giggle you can put me in that loop you know oh yeah absolutely but what i
52:44
found interesting was that you know there's you mentioned there's a level of
52:48
communication that happens secretly during a match And I find that really fascinating.
52:52
And there's certain performers that when you do the moves or whatever you communicate.
52:59
Some wrestlers are worse than others or rough than others.
53:03
And apparently everyone who performed alongside mankind, they struggled and
53:09
he like, you would almost guarantee that he would be sloppy and do something
53:13
that would generally hurt you. Like was the, was the consensus.
53:16
Have you been in any situation where people haven't given you that courtesy
53:20
where you've been hurt by them because of their sloppiness?
53:24
Yeah, there has been a couple of times and look, honestly, it's sometimes it's just freak accidents.
53:29
I can honestly say for Mick Foley's style, Mankind's style, yeah,
53:33
Cactus Jack, whichever character he was portraying throughout his career,
53:36
like he had a very hard-hitting, you know, rugged style of wrestling because that was his character.
53:42
You know, that's what he wanted to portray because that was what made him stand out.
53:46
Yeah, but in terms of my in-ring stuff, I like to consider myself a pretty safe worker.
53:52
You know, I don't, you know, put anyone in risky situations.
53:57
You know, like I'm pretty well-trained.
53:59
I've been through a lot of different schools and I've, you know,
54:02
learnt a lot of different things and I keep that up.
54:04
But, yeah, there has been a couple of times where I've been in situations where
54:07
other people have had accidents happen and then that has hurt me.
54:11
Like I got a concussion and I got knocked out in the ring off a bad powerbomb.
54:15
So the guy who was giving it to me. So in the rings, there's a couple of different
54:19
ways that the rings will be put together.
54:21
There's one with metal beams that flex and then hardwood, bit of padding, canvas, right?
54:28
Right the other type of ring which is a lot less common now but used to be very
54:32
common uh is a spring-based ring so there's one predominant spring in the middle of the ring.
54:39
Wood padding yeah so yeah
54:42
that would be the prominent one why not anymore
54:46
yeah not anymore because the springs are a bit temperamental and
54:49
also the issue with the spring-based rings i'm gonna i'm gonna
54:52
tell you what happened to me i i took
54:55
a sit-out powerbomb you can look it up up online it's like the
54:58
you know dave batista famous hollywood obviously used to
55:01
be a wrestler his finish was the batista bomb where he would get someone
55:04
someone's head in between his legs he would flip them up so that they were sitting
55:08
yeah with their crotch right next to their face and then they would he would
55:12
slam them down and sit out with it at the same time now if you both land together
55:17
it's a it's a safe good easy bump you just got to tuck your chin and and smack the Matt,
55:21
the one that I got given was in a spring-based ring, and the guy who did it to me,
55:26
he was meant to sort of push me down a little bit, and then I take the bump
55:30
at the same time as he takes the bump on his ass.
55:33
He did not push me. So he landed with me on his shoulders pretty much in the process of coming down.
55:41
Spring goes down from his landing and then comes up into the back of my head.
55:46
Knocked out, concussed, bad. I wake up in the back and like carried out.
55:54
I've got the footage. It's hard to watch.
55:57
But yeah, so that was the situation that happened. And I later found out that
56:02
he hadn't really done the move before.
56:04
So that's a situation where like, look, that's something you want to practice
56:07
a training and make sure you're safe to do it. So that's, yeah.
56:11
That's the parody of magic. That's the parody. Like these are the common grounds
56:14
that wrestling has to magic.
56:15
I can totally appreciate like why now so many magicians are into it.
56:20
There's a lot less risk of injury in magic. But to be fair,
56:24
I mean, yeah, there is still a lot of risk, you know, not just of exposing a trick or,
56:29
you know, having a bad performance but yeah you can you can injure yourself
56:32
doing something stupid like if you're doing a razor blade swallowing act or a
56:34
needle swallowing act you could bloody kill yourself you know so yeah
56:38
same thing in the wrestling you just gotta practice and then
56:41
once you practice enough some people get the hang of it some people don't
56:44
just like in magic you know like i've got all this inside of my head it's just
56:47
gonna come out you know well i generally find it inspiring to the point where
56:51
like i would gladly start watching wrestling again like or even in a social
56:55
capacity where we all get together and get pizzas and do the type of thing that
56:58
as this episode slowly draws to a close,
57:01
I want to ask you, LJ, what would be the magic guy's.
57:07
Titles right so let's say doug's a
57:09
wrestler all right what's doug's name
57:12
and what's his finishing move okay and
57:15
that's that's an interesting one i was not expecting
57:18
that question and i absolutely love it that is just about
57:21
the best question i've ever been asked okay oh shit
57:24
okay while you're thinking about here's where i'm going if i
57:27
was to make magicians wrestlers for example
57:31
one time a reason would come out and his finishing move
57:34
would be like the symphony and he would come out and he
57:37
would play like the violin and then he would just bop your one
57:40
and then like you'd be out you know like it would be all over yeah like the
57:43
danny d.o.t's would be like i don't know like it would be something and then
57:48
he does some sort of like pile driver move you know what i mean yeah yeah he'd
57:51
have to do something big and and and and like big and impactful like a big power
57:56
move craig watson will just like go over to a monitor and rip the TV off,
58:01
then go back into the ring and just dump the TV on you.
58:04
You know what I mean? Yeah. I think Josh...
58:08
Yeah. Maybe like... Because you can use bits of your own name,
58:13
you know, like Douglas Condini or something like that, or even just a single
58:17
name like Condini, you know, something like that. The con artist.
58:22
I'm thinking here's a good one. The finishing move, the goshman pinch.
58:29
That'd be so good. That's a good one. Yeah, as in Doug just grabs you by the
58:33
neck or something, and you just drink. With the pinky.
58:37
Drink the pinky. Oh, he's got him in the gosh darn pinch, and he just goes down and falls asleep.
58:42
It sounds like goshman like was a wrestler from the 1920s you
58:45
know you know who was a wrestler is eddie fechter i don't
58:48
know if you know his name eddie fechter was a renowned bar magician from new
58:52
york and he started the effectors flicking finger for all like popular convention
58:57
here's a good one here's a good one mine's going to be the card stab and what
59:01
i'm going to do is i'm going to grab a dude i'm going to throw a deck in the
59:05
air and then i'm going to like
59:06
body slam him into the card somehow,
59:08
or some sort of like pick up and smash cards go everywhere.
59:13
And then you open his mouth and like, it's like a card in his mouth.
59:16
Like the death card. That's going to be my move.
59:20
It's going to be like Cosentino. You can do the, the, the sawn in half,
59:24
which is like a backbreaker onto your knee kind of vibe.
59:27
Yeah. And he's got, he's already got a bloody wrestling name.
59:30
Yeah. My wrestling, you know about, well, you know about Fantasio from WWE.
59:34
Yeah. Okay. I had one person say I should do that and I was just like no I think
59:39
I'm good I think I'm going to do cool magic yeah that was a travesty so what
59:45
I see I see Doug Kahn as in like Kahn man I would be a heel for sure I would be using sneaky tactics,
59:54
you're a Kahn man and you'd be bribing the referee to look while you're doing
1:00:00
stuff and then you would pick smart,
1:00:03
and then what you would do is like you would do like the peen shell game,
1:00:06
but you would just go like bang.
1:00:07
And then like the shells would be on the person's eyes and they're blind and
1:00:10
they can't see what's up.
1:00:11
You just throw a bunch of peas in the floor and then they slip and then fall on the piece.
1:00:16
Like, I think that would be hilarious. Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:20
I would, I would like my title as a magician to be smooth operator and come out in the suit.
1:00:26
You know what I mean? Yeah. And a smooth operator. Oh yeah. That's,
1:00:30
that's, that's got, that's got legs.
1:00:32
I like that. That'd be fun. And then Josh, what would Josh be?
1:00:37
Josh has just got to be a big man, right? Like he, you got to use that size. Yeah.
1:00:42
Got to use that. That would be, he big.
1:00:45
Um, I don't know. That's a hard one.
1:00:48
That's a hard one. If he was here, then I'd give him a wrestling name,
1:00:51
but he's not here. So I see Josh with like the title, just like hot Josh.
1:00:56
And that's it. Yeah. He's got the sunglasses and the hat. Sunglasses,
1:01:01
the hat. It comes out. The smallest Speedo available.
1:01:04
How small can we get this thing? Yeah. We'll need that to make his package look
1:01:10
bigger because it's not really. Yep.
1:01:12
Comes out with a can of V naturally. Takes a sip. Spits it into the air.
1:01:17
Runs, you know. Almost like he backflips into the ring. Yeah.
1:01:21
100% backflips onto the ring.
1:01:23
Yeah. I see that for sure. but geez that
1:01:26
hour has gone by super quick and i say that
1:01:29
we wrap this up with something fun i have this idea for a rapid fire
1:01:32
question are you ready for this lj as we wrap up okay
1:01:35
first question if you were locked in or
1:01:38
stuck in an elevator with any magician living or dead who would
1:01:41
you like to be stuck in there with ray crow nice
1:01:45
if you could be stuck on the show please yeah i'll
1:01:48
work on it yeah do it done what about if you were stuck in the elevator with
1:01:53
a wrestler oh either taker or maybe kenny omega nice who is the coolest person
1:02:03
in your contact list oh jesus.
1:02:07
I feel like it has to be probably like Tim Ellis because he's just got so much stuff.
1:02:15
Like you had him on the show, you know, and we know him well.
1:02:18
So, yeah, it's got to be Tim. Like he's got so much amazing knowledge.
1:02:22
All right. If you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be?
1:02:27
Unique. Nice. And final question, did you have a good time?
1:02:32
Oh, absolutely. Is that even a question?
1:02:35
Like I was grinning from ear to ear and laughing my ass
1:02:38
off the whole show I had a fantastic time well we
1:02:40
had the best time and unfortunately out of time we'll probably end up talking wrestling
1:02:43
a little while after this and we should probably make a night of it as well
1:02:46
to get together and watch a match every now and again but LJ thank you so much
1:02:50
for being on the show and thank you to everyone for in the chat who has been
1:02:53
here Randall Alex Kevin all you guys thank you all for being here I say it's
1:02:57
about time we take it to the final word and we'll leave it with you LJ.
1:03:06
Thank you very much to the Magic guys for having me on the show. Absolutely had a blast.
1:03:11
And if you're interested in seeing more of my work and upcoming shows in Australia
1:03:15
or elsewhere around the world, just look up LJ Magician and you'll be able to
1:03:19
find me on all your favorite social platforms.
1:03:21
I've got some shows coming up in October for the Melbourne Fringe Festival,
1:03:24
which is the same one that won
1:03:25
the award in the festival we just had in Melbourne, the Magic Festival.
1:03:29
And yeah, I had an absolute blast today. Thanks a lot for having me.
1:03:35
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
1:03:40
But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.