Latest / The Magic Guys / Las Vegas Magic Shows! #288
Transcript
- 0:00They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
- 0:11Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? Welcome to episode 288 of the Magic Guys.
- 0:18Did you just eat a veggie straw? What are you eating?
- 0:23For those listening, yes, I did pull out a little banana stick.
- 0:30This is a sweet. This is not a plug, but this is the Big Boss Banana.
- 0:35It's like when you used to get those fake cigars, except now it's just like a banana flavor.
- 0:41And that's a little useless fact for you guys to know today.
- 0:44But we're glad you're here for episode 288.
- 0:47To my left, we've got big boy Nicholas Kais.
- 0:52That's right i'm an enormous child almost can be considered as an adult and i'm nick k,
- 0:57and here the elder statesman of the group is i know i shock myself that i'm
- 1:02in my late 50s i still think i'm like 23 and then sometimes i hurt a lot but yeah i'm doug hi.
- 1:12Yeah. And we're here. We're here again, my friends, after a banger episode.
- 1:17We've had two great back-to-back guest episodes, like having Stuart McDonald
- 1:22and then Hilda right after that.
- 1:25You guys have really enjoyed those episodes. Those two and Bizarro,
- 1:29all recent episodes have all like popped off. I've seen, like looking at the
- 1:33back end of the stats and everything.
- 1:36Rightfully so. They're bangers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Bizarro,
- 1:41Bizarro's had the most views within like the last month and I wasn't on that
- 1:46episode so I'm noticing a trend here. Yeah.
- 1:53And I love it. It means I don't need to be here for it to be good.
- 1:56Yeah, we've had a real good run of interviews and I think we've got another
- 1:59banger planned for next week which will keep us as a surprise for the listeners
- 2:03out there and still got a whole bunch more that I am working on.
- 2:07I've just got to constantly remind them because they are keen to come on board.
- 2:11But it's just like, don't forget about me. And I'm like, I'm going to keep hassling
- 2:15you because you're going to come on the show.
- 2:16So yeah, it's kind of cool. Like it's only taken us five and a half years,
- 2:22but now finally, like we have cool guests, you know, willing to be on the podcast.
- 2:27Like, for example, people might not know this, but Helder was such a great honor
- 2:31for us to have because we love him.
- 2:33But it was his publicist that reached out to the Magic guys.
- 2:37It's like we wouldn't otherwise have thought we could get him on because he's
- 2:41quite like secluded as an artist and he's not like hanging out at all the magic gatherings.
- 2:47But yeah, because of the pod, because of you guys listening and supporting,
- 2:50like it showed up as a worthy place for him to come and promote a show. So we got to have him on.
- 2:59And thank you, Tim Askin. You're the Josh of the glue that keeps it all together.
- 3:02Well, yeah, you know, glue's like, you know, not sexy, but it is necessary,
- 3:06I guess. So that is, that is a good point.
- 3:09Josh, with that question, is the glue. And that's why he has so many horses.
- 3:14Kudos to both of you guys for busting your hump to make this thing work.
- 3:17I just show up and be a goofball. So I know Nick's on the ball getting guests
- 3:22and writing episodes and Josh organizes everything. And lucky if I'm on here
- 3:26five minutes before the podcast. Yes. Thank you, John.
- 3:29You know what it is? It's like this. It's like if we were a race team,
- 3:32it'd be like Josh is like the pit crew who keeps all the cogs moving and changes
- 3:37tires and make sure everything starts when it's supposed to.
- 3:39And when the light goes green, everything works.
- 3:41And then I would be kind of like the race engineer slash like,
- 3:46you know, planning things and like organizing the race. And then there's Doug.
- 3:51Yep. I'm the grizzled veteran driver who goes off track sometimes and tries
- 3:56to keep it in lane so that we can get to the finish line once a week.
- 4:00Doug's like the- That's when I show up. Doug's the pit girl.
- 4:03He like shows up right when we're about to start and he waves his flags in the
- 4:07bikini and he's like, go.
- 4:09Go boys. He's just all NASCAR. He's like, I'm gonna go real fast and turn to
- 4:13the left sometimes. Yeah, buddy.
- 4:17So let's kick it off with our audience, with our listeners. We have two SpeakPipes,
- 4:21which we haven't really gone through for a while because we've had guests.
- 4:26But as always, you can send in audio messages for us to play on the podcast
- 4:31using the link speakpipe.com forward slash themagicguys.
- 4:36You can ask a question, tell us something cool that happened,
- 4:40tell us your gig story, and we play it live and react to it.
- 4:44So this one is from long-time listener, fellow friend of the podcast, Scotty P.
- 4:51And I believe this is a gig story. So we're going to sit back and listen to Scotty P.
- 4:56What's going on, Magic guys? It's Scotty P here. Quick little story.
- 5:01I did a gig for a 50th birthday party and there was a girl probably around eight years old.
- 5:07And i've been trying to figure out how to work purse frame into my gigs so,
- 5:15i did a spongebob production from the purse frame to get into a spongebob routine with the girl,
- 5:23and all was good after i did the spongebob routine she said is there anything else in the purse,
- 5:28so i had this sort of pre-prepared i produced a battery from the purse frame,
- 5:34and explained that they also make batteries for children and use spellbound
- 5:37to turn it into a lollipop.
- 5:39And the lollipop was the battery for children, which got a bit of a giggle.
- 5:43And the night went on. I went and performed for the rest of the adults.
- 5:48Two more families arrived with a total of five kids. And what do you think the
- 5:53first thing the little girl went and told her cousins was?
- 5:56There's a magician over there handing out lollipops.
- 5:59So I had to very quickly figure out five unique, ways of producing and handing
- 6:05out lollipops not sure if there's a lesson in all that but just be prepared for kids to blub.
- 6:15Absolutely love the idea of putting a battery on a stick and giving it to a
- 6:18kid. I don't know, man. You're a kid.
- 6:22For me, it was like, this just in, there's been a fatality of five children
- 6:27that have swallowed battery believing they were lollipops. What the fuck?
- 6:31Yeah, so good. Yeah, true. Wondering what the other kids got.
- 6:35Did they get anything? Like, here's some razor blades from the stage act for
- 6:39you. This is a fire wallet.
- 6:42The Fantasio candle lights up. Yeah. let me let me put this uh yeah you hold
- 6:48on to these sponge balls and just think of the one thing you want in life.
- 6:55And you're going to jail yeah hell yeah it's funny the story they tell right
- 7:01like you did this magic and
- 7:03the thing that's the most surprising is that they got a lollipop like that's
- 7:07the most joyful thing so that's the thing their kid brain,
- 7:12will tell everyone else They didn't say, you transformed this thing into a lollipop.
- 7:18They're like, you gave me a lollipop.
- 7:21Kids don't care about magic. They want candy and, you know, they want to scream.
- 7:27Yeah. That's what kids want. Screaming and candy. Yeah.
- 7:31But in terms of, like, different ways you can produce a lollipop,
- 7:35I mean, the classic, obviously, you could just pull them from behind their ear
- 7:38and they're happy days. They're like, great, lollipop. What else do you think?
- 7:43It's interesting how kids perceive magic. Firstly, I love the idea because I
- 7:47would not have made that connection between like battery and like energy from
- 7:51a lollipop to keep a kid going, you know, being full of beans.
- 7:53So I kind of, I just want to commend you on that one, Scotty P.
- 7:55That's actually quite a very interesting, creative, you know,
- 7:59segue, if you will. But I will say this, I did a show yesterday.
- 8:03It was a very last minute booking that I got a call around like two o'clock
- 8:05being like, they want this show at seven.
- 8:08Can you go do it? I was like, yes, super last minute. And I booked it in right
- 8:11and it was an absolute like earner if you will nice it was two eight-year-olds
- 8:18a five-year-old and a couple of grown-ups that's it,
- 8:22interesting okay paying my full rate to just with them in in the lounge room,
- 8:29for 45 minutes oh that's awesome wait it's a zoom show.
- 8:34It was just it was just me at their house just oh at the house man i need that
- 8:39i need a gig like that tomorrow,
- 8:41yeah and the lady who booked it who told the agent said yo like she's very specific,
- 8:47don't do kids stuff like these kids are really smart like you need to bring
- 8:52your a game don't you bring balloons don't you bring this don't you bring that and i was like oh,
- 8:58you know like thank you stupid kids stuff you know and be like,
- 9:04where is it gone it's in your hand no it's not you know i was gonna do that
- 9:08real fun call and response stuff they're just like don't don't bring that here
- 9:11don't bring that here you bring your a game,
- 9:14and it was just like stunned silence the whole time like it was just you know,
- 9:18and they were good they were cute kids they were pretty wild.
- 9:22Yeah it was for an eight-year-old and a five like it was,
- 9:26yeah it was just it's so interesting wow it is so surprising sometimes where,
- 9:32people will book you and you just like had you known about that,
- 9:37it was like three kids and an adult in advance you'd you'd just know they were
- 9:41going to say no to your feet like in your head you know and it's like sometimes
- 9:46they like really surprise you.
- 9:49Something something i'm really surprised i would love to know as well is there
- 9:53there was this gig available it must have already happened it would have been
- 9:58last weekend and some agents were trying to track down a magician,
- 10:03did i talk about this already on the pod i don't know that so i got inquired
- 10:07about it and i know two other people got this same inquiry and it was to fly
- 10:12on a plane to entertain 14 kids from Sydney,
- 10:18to Bangkok.
- 10:20And it was a private chartered plane and they were looking for live entertainment
- 10:26to keep the kids entertained for this eight-hour flight or 10-hour flight,
- 10:32whatever it is. And so...
- 10:35That blew my mind because now you're paying for an extra person on this charter,
- 10:40to go from one place to another then you got to fly them back again obviously,
- 10:44and an ipad just doesn't cut it where you actually want to send a human being,
- 10:50on the kick as well but also like imagine trying to be responsible for entertaining
- 10:55these kids on this 10-hour flight,
- 10:58on a plane like this this the dynamic itself is not set up very well for like
- 11:03performing dude how good would card on window be on an airplane that yes,
- 11:09you know what i mean like how that'd be a good one yes i was brainstorming with
- 11:15with our friend duly and i think we were saying stuff like imagine if you make
- 11:19a card vanish and then like the pilot comes back out he's like and he like coughs up the card.
- 11:25Just like silly things like that,
- 11:28anyway i charged an absorbent and i quoted like a large amount of money because
- 11:32like yeah you know gate and bloom did an intercessor routine,
- 11:37to the same effect where he he gave them a card and said like flush it down
- 11:40the toilet and then when when they got to their room like the piece was there so you know,
- 11:47okay that's funny yeah that's it like you know when you know people who know people,
- 11:53yeah i low-key like it would have been a terrible gig but i really wish i had
- 11:57gotten it just for the gig story like to tell you what happened being locked
- 12:01in a sardine can for 10 hours with kids trying to do magic,
- 12:06but i know a magician out there got it so if you're listening to this and it
- 12:09is you tell me because i want to know how the hell it went that's right put
- 12:14it on our speak pipe and let us know,
- 12:17if you like jumped out of the plane before it ended like please you know you're
- 12:21obviously a pro magician listening to the best magic podcast out there so don't
- 12:26be shy say hi scotty p thanks for sending that in buddy and well done i commend
- 12:29you on your creativity good job yes
- 12:32next up we have a speak pipe from,
- 12:36patrick yeah,
- 12:39so patrick we're going to play your speak pipe and it's a minute 20 so i'm going
- 12:43to guess it's a geek story but let's see.
- 12:47Hi guys it's patrick hope you are well,
- 12:51i had a question about the guys who are doing stage shows parlor shows,
- 12:57i've been really inspired recently by some of the more popular magicians and
- 13:04metalists out there darren brown i went to see piff the magic dragon and pen gillette very recently,
- 13:11and while i'm a stage technician and have worked in theater and that kind of
- 13:18space before behind the scenes,
- 13:20i wonder what creative process you guys go through in order to storyboard or
- 13:27to create the flow of a show,
- 13:30often i would pick up halfway through after the creative process was already
- 13:34done we'd add our technical cues to it and then run the tech rehearsal and then
- 13:38show time but I've never been at the very beginning from an artist point of view.
- 13:44I've got a very good idea of what I want my show to look like technically,
- 13:48and I can do that stuff in my sleep.
- 13:50But when it comes to being the guy that creates the very first seed of creativity,
- 13:58uh, from a performance point of view, I'm pretty stuck lads. Got any advice?
- 14:03Can I just take a moment to remind the folks that we did do an episode at the
- 14:07start of the year, I think it was where it was how to write a show and we shared
- 14:12the lecture notes in the discord as well.
- 14:16So you will find some information in there on that episode.
- 14:21So first thing, scope that one out as a starting point. Obviously it's just easy thing to listen to.
- 14:26In fact, I'll let you guys speak to it while I dig up the episode number for our listener.
- 14:31Well i know for me like i actually do it probably not the right way but i kind
- 14:36of do it the way that like a stand-up comic would which is like.
- 14:41I have the effect idea that i want to do whether it's just something i bought
- 14:44an effect or i've like worked on if it's a sleight of hand thing and i just
- 14:48do it and it's like bare bones,
- 14:51and it's only through doing it a hundred times at the theater of magic that
- 14:55i start to realize what to take out what little bits what bits people find funny,
- 15:00what things they think of that I didn't think of.
- 15:02So I say it to make it more fooling, add extra bits in. That's when I start
- 15:06to realize what like filler moments of magic to add in between it to make more funny.
- 15:13Like, you know, I used to do a Rubik's cube sequence that was literally just,
- 15:18here's a Rubik's cube, boom, now it's solved.
- 15:21And now to get from here's a Rubik's cube to now it's solved is like five minutes
- 15:26of laughter to get to that moment.
- 15:28Cause I just realized things would happen that were funny from the audience
- 15:32and then i realized i can make that happen every time and so it's only so basically yeah i like
- 15:37my shows just happen because i like just do a bare knuckle version of it and
- 15:41then i just like build it out after that,
- 15:44but if we look at helder last week helder said think of like,
- 15:49what the thing is you want to say or like who do you want your character to
- 15:53be perceived as on stage and then work out backwards like what effects would actually work in with,
- 16:00this character you're trying to portray to the audience or this thing you want
- 16:03to say or this theme you want to have.
- 16:06What about you, Doug? Yeah, you know, I do what you do.
- 16:10You know, being a busker, I get to go out there and do reps and see what works
- 16:14and doesn't, you know, 10, 15 times a day sometimes. So that's kind of my recipe as well.
- 16:20I think there's, you know, for sure that's a great approach.
- 16:22If you can find somewhere to suck, you know, and do it over and over again and
- 16:25then listen to your audience and build a show that way, that's great.
- 16:29If you want to be a high artist like Helder, then yeah, you have a,
- 16:33like he said, he's got a director. He's got a, not a linguist, but a dramature.
- 16:39You know, he's got other eyeballs on the show and you treat it like a true theatrical
- 16:43experience. You know, I was reflecting like even oddly on just a lesson that
- 16:48I learned from Jim Cialini. He was reflecting on the lesson he learned from Slydini.
- 16:54And the first lesson he had with Slydini, he said, no tricks.
- 16:58I just want to see how you walk onto the stage.
- 17:01So, I mean, we could start there with the smallest of moments.
- 17:04There's so much to write like how do you enter the room what do you want your
- 17:07audience to see feel is it a magic trick are you introducing yourself is there,
- 17:13you know there's a lot going on right so.
- 17:16I've noticed something with exactly what you're saying doug and it's taken me 10 years to notice it,
- 17:22for the for like almost all my career i've done a bottle production because
- 17:27it's one of the most magical things i ever saw,
- 17:30yeah watching a stage magician so therefore i'm like let me give that feeling
- 17:34to other people so i've like anyone who's seen my magic enough has seen me do this production,
- 17:39and i love doing it however,
- 17:42it means every time i come on stage i'm walking very safely and slowly yeah
- 17:48to not knock this bottle out of my jacket,
- 17:51and recently at the theater magic.
- 17:55Some people were like starting to come back a lot and i wanted to film my show
- 17:59but i didn't want to like reveal the splash bottle so i like i took it out of the act,
- 18:05and i noticed the show and i put a different opener in and the show went,
- 18:11just as great like it didn't feel like it was lacking because i didn't do this
- 18:14bloody ta-da moment but i was able to like run out with the enthusiasm and it
- 18:19made such a difference that now i'm like oh my god,
- 18:24this makes such a difference and so now like i've almost taken it out,
- 18:28so like in my corporate gigs now i can like run out with like energy rather
- 18:32than like you know really slowly in one slow motion as if i'm hovering come out,
- 18:39it makes it such a big difference and it took me i just never noticed it until
- 18:43i tried it without the bottle and I could just like run out.
- 18:47Yeah. I think, I think what's going to happen for any new sort of performer,
- 18:53I think most people start off doing shows and there's a difference between it
- 18:56being a theatrical experience.
- 18:58And what I mean by theatrical is where there's themes and storytelling,
- 19:02or there's a bit of a emotional journey. One of the things we talk about in
- 19:06that episode is just so you're aware, if you want to go back can listen to it.
- 19:10The episode is 251 and it's writing your first magic show. So give that a listen.
- 19:14And one of the things I explain is that basically like draw a straight line,
- 19:18which is the timeline of your show, the routines that go in between it that
- 19:21you have, or that you're thinking of doing.
- 19:23And then what the emotional response is going to be above and below.
- 19:26So it could be happy, sad, scary, happy, happy, happy, and just draw like a
- 19:30line of what that emotional journey is going to look like if it's a positive
- 19:33or a negative and what that's going to look like.
- 19:35Cause you might want to have like a sad piece, which is still like an emotional
- 19:40experience, but you want to end it on something positive, you know?
- 19:43So you have these like net positive emotions on a, on a line that's been plotted
- 19:46along. So that's one of the things you can think about when you're creating this type of thing.
- 19:51I think that the, the, the main thing you got to sort of think about is the
- 19:55way that we kind of perform in settings like corporates, like private shows and theater magic.
- 20:00It's not always going to be this theatrical experience where you can have control
- 20:04of like all lights and this and that, and have vignettes playing in between.
- 20:08And so it'll rarely be that as a professional magician, it'll rarely be that
- 20:13it's, it's hard to get out of the trenches to do high theater.
- 20:17Correct so let's just like you got your own theater you're doing your own festival
- 20:20show your own thing at edinburgh magic festival there's a magic festival whatever
- 20:26it might be until you sort of enter that forum,
- 20:31you're doing what i kind of call concerts like you're just doing concert magic
- 20:37it's like yeah it's a performance not a show right like i heard helder say it
- 20:42he's like yeah at the castle i was doing a,
- 20:44performance and then the geffen playhouse brought me in to do a show yeah right.
- 20:52And that's the difference like i got a tech question something has been on my
- 20:55mind as i think about formulating a more formal show in a theatrical environment that's lighting like do,
- 21:01you guys have a specific lighting cues and things that you need to hit in actor
- 21:06that you look for when you're doing your show,
- 21:09i'm i'm not that cool so yeah i don't but nick may have more info than i yeah
- 21:15look in my shows i i have but i run everything off a q lab.
- 21:23Yeah i have this thing called an ntech dmx converter that goes out from the
- 21:27laptop and then executes my lighting cues from there,
- 21:30So the answer is yes. But when I'm doing... So you can show up to a theater
- 21:34that has this technology integrated into it and be like, here's my show, plug it in.
- 21:39Yeah, it's not even that easy, if I'm being honest. It's the type of thing that
- 21:42if I'm going to be doing a run of shows for five days in this theater,
- 21:46then I'm going to have to program these lights and then execute them from this software.
- 21:52Because it depends what lights they have, where they're situated already. Correct.
- 21:58So what the DMX plotting is, all the above. so unless you're entering the same
- 22:03environment with the same lx setup with the same lighting bars the same same
- 22:07same lighting fixtures because,
- 22:10we can do a whole episode on lighting or a quick like crash course on lighting but lighting
- 22:14like they're like little robots and they have multiple channels and let's just
- 22:17say that there's five channels real quick so one channel might just be how bright
- 22:22you want it to be so when you so when you have this volume go up to 100 and
- 22:26down it's like, I'm bright, I'm not bright.
- 22:28And then you've got like red, green, and blue.
- 22:31And so by adjusting each one of these volumes will give you a different color.
- 22:36So, you know, blue and red will make purple and so forth. All three of them will make white.
- 22:41And then you might have this one, this last channel, which is like your effects.
- 22:45So that might be like how fast you want it to strobe. The more,
- 22:49the more up you put this, right, is like,
- 22:53the faster it's going to strobe because you might want a strobe effect,
- 22:55for example. So that's like what a five-channel light could look like.
- 22:59That's a lot going on there.
- 23:02Right. But now we're talking about, when you want to talk about moving lights,
- 23:06it could be a lot of channels.
- 23:08So, because you've got a light that's moving up, down, left,
- 23:12right, brightness, gobos, things that spin.
- 23:17It makes boxes, you know? So you might set these lighting cues and then your
- 23:21QLab app would switch between the lights. That's the idea.
- 23:25Yeah, as opposed to having somebody go through each one. You have the control of it.
- 23:31Yeah, it's basically like when you go in and program it for the first time,
- 23:36you would have a trigger that like when I hit this button, it's going to play
- 23:39this track for my next routine. And it also knows to trigger the lighting to
- 23:44change to a spotlight, you know.
- 23:46But what i think i think the right way to do it is like you just hire a light
- 23:50engineer like there are people whose jobs it are to do that yeah a lighting
- 23:55designer and so like i i feel like every theater would probably have a lighting designer,
- 23:59and then you work with them i just happen to be.
- 24:04Yeah i was at the magician's room the other night i look over to the lighting
- 24:08guy's table i'm like holy cow there's a lot going on there i wonder what i need
- 24:11to know to get on that stage to make the lighting work it's like and I,
- 24:15I wonder now with AI how quickly you could make it all happen if you plugged in yeah everything that,
- 24:23It's available to you at the theater. If you were able to plug that in,
- 24:26I wonder if chat would understand it and then be like, okay, put this into QLAT.
- 24:32What you can do is there is lighting software out there that correlates with
- 24:36particular boards, right?
- 24:37But what it allows you to do is that you are able to see, for lack of a better
- 24:42word, a kind of 3D render of what it's going to look like on stage when the
- 24:47lights are doing their thing.
- 24:49So you can actually program your shows to the music, to the stuff,
- 24:51and actually see it happening in real time so you can plot your whole show from
- 24:55the comfort of your of your desk your office and then go great,
- 24:59here's the lighting plot you give it to the appropriate lighting guys they number
- 25:03it do what they're supposed to do you plug it in and away you go so like all
- 25:07these things are options and again like i've had an audio business for,
- 25:11you know a couple of decades so,
- 25:14yeah yeah so yeah i myself i still perform by candlelight i just upgraded to
- 25:20the bic lighter to get those things going. That's my current situation.
- 25:25I'll get to that other skit one day. You would have thought with all the lighting
- 25:28in my background that I would be the lighting guy. But...
- 25:32I bet it was a lot easier to be a magician when it was like,
- 25:36light the candles at showtime.
- 25:38You know, thread work was readily accessible.
- 25:41Yeah, you're not wrong. Black art was popular.
- 25:45But speaking of black art and lighting and fancy shows, Doug,
- 25:49you've recently been checking out every, you're like on a mission,
- 25:53right? To go and see every magic show in Vegas.
- 25:57I came to Las Vegas to do the thing. And the first year I was here,
- 26:02the only thing I did was work at a magic shop for the most part.
- 26:05I did get out and see a lot of cool stuff. Don't get me wrong.
- 26:08But now I'm doing the thing. So yeah, I'm getting around town,
- 26:11seeing all the shows I've missed over the last year, and starting the process
- 26:15of vlogging. So I'm documenting my trips out to the Las Vegas.
- 26:20Not just the shows, but the magic community, because it runs deep here.
- 26:24There's a lot of weird magic stuff to go to in Las Vegas. So anyone who's interested in that.
- 26:29I'm going to Enlighten Universe YouTube, Doug.
- 26:34Are there many people doing regular vlogs in Vegas? I feel like it's such an
- 26:38opportunity, but I don't see any. You know, I see a lot of short form, like vertical.
- 26:43I think that's just what people do now with it. My dumb ass showed up to the
- 26:47party a couple of years late, but I think it's the way to showcase these arenas.
- 26:50And I do think also tying in a little short form reel, I've been doing that,
- 26:54throwing a little quickie up and saying if you want to learn more,
- 26:57you know, you can get a five or 10 minute longer video on YouTube.
- 27:02Yeah. Are you still doing vlogs? What is it? Vlogs? Someone yelled at me for calling it a vlog.
- 27:08Vlogs? Vlogs. Yeah. All right, Douglas Connors. Yeah, vlogs are a funny one.
- 27:15I, you know, back in the day, I did a challenge to film 100 vlogs documenting my magic.
- 27:23And it took me three years. And I blamed Gary Vaynerchuk for it. And I made 100 vlogs.
- 27:29And at the end of that I realized not that many people were watching so I was
- 27:34like all right let me try something else and then,
- 27:37you know started hanging out with you and Jason and you guys are doing short
- 27:41form and I'm like this is good I like this I can show off my magic
- 27:45and then now like whenever I did a vlog I just noticed that the thing people
- 27:50really wanted to see is the actual magic within the vlog,
- 27:53right so i guess for now that's why i've just been putting out clips that are
- 28:00magic like clips that i'm proud of they get a good reaction something different
- 28:04that happened and i put that out and i tag it to like the longer version of,
- 28:09that set rather than a vlog but also it's because like vlogging is so hard like
- 28:14it takes so much more time right because you can testify when i decided to do
- 28:18this i didn't realize you know,
- 28:20the next day is 10 hours of editing if you're doing you know doing it on any level but.
- 28:25Like the artistry of making it entertaining is fucking a process.
- 28:30So I think also for time, it's way easier to put out, you know,
- 28:35a seven minute uncut clip of me doing magic than it is to like snip it and cut
- 28:40and, and yeah, even yeah.
- 28:43And just watching other, so I, but I think what you're doing is great because
- 28:47people do want to see what's happening in Vegas.
- 28:49Like it being in yeah i think there's a need different but yeah.
- 28:54I think for you like if i know i can see what the latest thing is happening
- 28:58on doug's channel like that's what i'm going to do you know and if you get access eventually
- 29:04if you're not already you'll get access to like premieres of new shows and and that's like an,
- 29:09ongoing very popular thing and so i think the vlogs in vegas is like a cool thing,
- 29:15and will probably help with tourism as well like if you know you already have
- 29:18a popular channel but if people are now,
- 29:21tuning in to live vicariously through you living this vegas life there's like
- 29:25a really good opportunity for it but yeah long story short haven't done vlogs for the moment but i,
- 29:31am very curious to get that,
- 29:34vlogging camera you've been using because it does appeal to me it's badass if
- 29:39you watch my uh the vlog i posted today it's all from the dgi osmos camera wow,
- 29:45so it's a really good piece of gear and i still am new at it so i don't know
- 29:48everything it does you know getting dialed in still it looks it looks great
- 29:53because i normally would carry around my big zve1 full-frame camera to vlog because it just,
- 29:59yeah it looks way better than a gopro but that looks really good so yeah it's good enough for sure,
- 30:05if anyone would like to send me a thousand australian dollars i would love to
- 30:09buy one and vlog and i'll i'll write your name on my forehead when i do it,
- 30:14but yeah it was a big gulp, but when I decided to do this, I knew it was the
- 30:18right tool for the project. Right, right, right.
- 30:22So yeah, Magician's Room was yesterday. I went out to see the Levitate Lounge
- 30:25over there. They got a new formal close-up experience they're developing.
- 30:30I'm assuming we're kind of segwaying into talking about Vegas shows.
- 30:33And do you know about the Magician's Room? What's going on over there?
- 30:36First of all, I couldn't believe you put out a list of all the magic shows,
- 30:39and there was 25 magic shows existing in Vegas right now.
- 30:44Yeah, and those are the shows you can buy a ticket to online.
- 30:48You know there's other shows that are niche and sub rosa and weird shit you
- 30:53know but like shin them chris angel matt franco matt king david copperfield
- 30:58he's not here now anymore but you know all the main ones,
- 31:02yeah and what what the hell is copperfield doing right now is he just on his island,
- 31:07i mean i've heard rumors that you know he's planning to come back but you know
- 31:11who am i to talk about copperfield rumors now that i'm in vegas i gotta be careful
- 31:15about my copperfield rumors because he's got guys he's,
- 31:18gonna knock on my door and be like what'd you just say.
- 31:22That's true mr con come with us okay copperfield is so chill now that he just
- 31:30hangs out at magic live convention in a in a hoodie,
- 31:34just walking about him and his little his chill ass posse He walks two meters.
- 31:39I bet he's not chill at all. I can't see him as being the guy who's doing nothing.
- 31:45Why not, man? I mean, what's he pushing now? 70?
- 31:48I mean, he's still got the moon to vanish, and my guess is that he wants to
- 31:52die on the stage because that's where he lived his life. I don't think he'll
- 31:55be happy anywhere else. I don't know.
- 31:57But we have lots of things to talk about besides David Catterfield tonight, so.
- 32:01Yeah, so tell us about The Magician's Room. Tell us.
- 32:05All right, so it's a venue that is home to multiple shows. There's a couple
- 32:09of really strong core shows there. Last week, I saw Feral Dillon's sleight-of-hand comedy show.
- 32:15This show is great. it's a matinee show and if you're looking like to see some
- 32:21great sleight of hand magic and laugh your butt off go see feral dylan that's
- 32:25not what you told us backstage just kidding.
- 32:31A couple of the other shows that are holding down the fort right now,
- 32:34The Conjurers are back in town.
- 32:36They were in Australia not too long ago. It's the duo at The Conjurers,
- 32:40and they found a home in the room. I haven't seen their show yet,
- 32:43but I have seen Late Night Magic, which is a hilarious show.
- 32:48That's the one Bizarro's in.
- 32:51And it's an ensemble cast with the Shocker, Holly England, and Lefty.
- 32:56And sometimes guest performers. It's one of my favorite shows over there.
- 32:59And then, like I mentioned, they also have the Levitate Lounge.
- 33:02That's the close-up venue. There's a bar. They serve food.
- 33:06And, yeah, it's a cool spot. You know, it's an immersive joint.
- 33:10You enter through a game room, and then you go upstairs where the magic experience happens.
- 33:15It's a reasonably priced experience, and I highly recommend it.
- 33:19Go see one of the shows I just mentioned. You won't be sad.
- 33:23It's interesting how the bigger the world gets with technology and and connectivity
- 33:28that the thing that's starting to do well and pop up are these more intimate,
- 33:33style yeah all my favorite shows in vegas have been the smaller shows i mean
- 33:37there's some i've seen some great big shows but man when you know when i think
- 33:41about a show like kent axel doing ghost stories,
- 33:44that's one of my favorite shows in town over at the mandalay bay prohibition
- 33:49bar that's so interesting.
- 33:52And like still to this day, Steve Cohen's Chamber Magic show is,
- 33:55is one of the most fooling shows I'd, I'd seen. And that's, that's a hotel suite
- 34:00with 60 chairs in it. You know what I think it is, man?
- 34:04You know what I think it is? It's so difficult to achieve a large scale show.
- 34:09You just quite literally need millions of dollars backing you.
- 34:13And it's just not accessible for the percentile of magicians who love the art form.
- 34:20I mean, you can build your, I mean, even just having access to the knowledge
- 34:24of how to build illusions, there's
- 34:27not a great deal of books out there explaining all that by comparison.
- 34:31You know, is it JC Sum who does all those really awesome volumes of illusions?
- 34:37Is it him? Yeah. Asian cat who does that beautiful thing with the blade that
- 34:40you go through, you know, all those illusions. Franz Harari. He's another one. Yeah.
- 34:47Yeah, but it's literally down to like a dozen people at most.
- 34:50And even then it's so difficult because you can purchase an illusion, right?
- 34:56You could spend the tens of thousands of dollars to do that.
- 34:58Right. But then you perform that illusion for what it is. It is a soaring in
- 35:02half. It is a penetration. It is a, I appear elsewhere. Yeah.
- 35:08But to make your own, right, is staggering.
- 35:13And what I mean by that, by comparison, you as a close-up performer,
- 35:17my version of Coins of Cross will look different to your versions of Coins of
- 35:20Cross. There's still Coins of Cross, but you can proudly say it's mine.
- 35:24But when you're going to do something like a table of death,
- 35:27everybody wants to do Clidius one because that is the bomb and it looks the
- 35:31best. Like it is the most beautifully made one out there.
- 35:34So that's the thing where like illusions and large-scale stuff can almost be like,
- 35:40are you doing the one that that guy did oh you guys just all buy the same tricks
- 35:43and just do them i feel like you're at risk of doing that so unless you're like
- 35:47a france harari unless you're a copperfield
- 35:49yeah unless you're that amazing duo those two dudes i forget their names but
- 35:53let's go the ehrlich brothers i saw them here at the orleans that was one of
- 35:57it's really one of my all-time favorite magic shows great show
- 36:00but those guys are doing like full og crazy super it's in sand It is truly insane. That shit was crazy.
- 36:07Yeah. But like before, before the type of person who doesn't have the budget
- 36:11to create their own magic. And the reason why it's hard to create is that like
- 36:14to buy an illusion, right? I think like to buy, uh.
- 36:18Something like the appearing chopper motorcycle made by mike michaels you know
- 36:24i think that's like a 30 40 000 illusion,
- 36:26right and it is perfect it is made amazingly it is beautiful right well the
- 36:32early the early brothers said in an interview their monster truck that appears
- 36:38in their arena shows cost them a million dollars what,
- 36:41to make the truck the monster truck,
- 36:45so that's definitely true that sounds a million dollars to build a trick,
- 36:50like to make a monster truck a physical size driving monster truck and then
- 36:56to make it appear yeah man.
- 36:59And then but then also like the clips in my head that i remember seeing show
- 37:04up online of the early brothers are not their big illusions it's like them walking
- 37:09in the audience with the three leg or the four legs or whatever,
- 37:12and like the audience is reacting or one of their best segments actually is
- 37:16their bill change routine you know one of the brothers commanded the audience
- 37:19for 10 minutes with a thumbtip and a bill you know the 5 000 people in the orleans theater so,
- 37:24when i went to see copperfield you know what the most so first of all the thing
- 37:29that sandy liked the most was the floating rose routine,
- 37:33yeah baby and then seeing copperfield do the floating rose that's the thing
- 37:37out of the whole show, the whole million dollar show she remembered.
- 37:41And the thing that I enjoyed so much because I'd never seen it before was him,
- 37:47popping the balloon that's inside another balloon that's inside a Perspect case
- 37:51that's fooling the crap out of me.
- 37:54Amongst this million dollar show yeah right it's like not an illusion that was
- 37:57the most memorable thing yeah and then I think of like yeah Dynamo when he did
- 38:03an arena tour in Australia,
- 38:06he did you know disappearing on the stage appearing at the back of the audience
- 38:12he like levitated in the air he like made a car appear
- 38:16but the thing that I enjoyed the most was just watching him do his phone in
- 38:20bottle routine but a live practical version that he could do in the,
- 38:25like in front of everyone in real time not on a camera and that's a close-up trick so like,
- 38:30what the hell do we need illusions for is what i'm getting at,
- 38:33i think we're in a time like the audiences don't need the boxes anymore they
- 38:37i think it's hackneyed almost to be wheeling out boxes and scantily clad ladies
- 38:42getting in them you know a question to the group right
- 38:46do you think that the experience is something that,
- 38:49you can have entirely different because of the audience.
- 38:55What's the word i'm looking for the audience dynamic hear me out when you're at a,
- 39:01arena show whatever you're watching you could be watching pink or madonna doesn't
- 39:07matter you're just like one what about what about guns and roses is,
- 39:11that it can i watch guns and roses i i did their vip party i saw them they are
- 39:15amazing right but you're like this one little entity that's like lost in a sea
- 39:20of people but when you have this small scale thing and there's only 50 folks and you have this,
- 39:26this ability i think we just take a second to just identify this the smaller
- 39:30the group the easier it is to create intimacy agreed,
- 39:34yeah you're immersed in it way easier right yeah so copperfield does it very
- 39:39well with his show not that it's an enormous show like his theater is i would
- 39:43say with smaller than chris angel's one right,
- 39:46chris angel's one was like two or three times bigger when i when i saw it last.
- 39:51Yeah. Depends. Right. Yeah. But the intimacy in order to create it is like,
- 39:57we've got to make everything pitch black and we've got to let people like,
- 40:00and then, and not so that don't engage with everyone.
- 40:02So it's just like, it's just you, everyone be quiet. But if you're in an environment
- 40:05where it's loud and it's noisy and there's lights everywhere,
- 40:07and you've got like just people on their phones the whole time and they're talking
- 40:10and this and that, like that,
- 40:12that dynamic is so different to a, like a 20 seat theater where you can make
- 40:18eye contact with every single person.
- 40:21You know at least once a minute and you know like it's the dynamic that allows
- 40:27you to have this level of show that's like so cool and so personal,
- 40:31i think that's why i like kent's show so much kent xl it's so tight man he's
- 40:36he's right there in your face the whole time,
- 40:39yeah yeah or even.
- 40:42One of my favorite things to do is when i'm doing the show right and some chick
- 40:46is having a great time and having a laugh and some egotistical
- 40:49dude next to her is like leaning into her trying to explain how it's done he's
- 40:52like oh there's mirrors and there's this and there's that and there's blah blah
- 40:55and he's just talking she's like trying to watch the show and he's just going
- 40:58like oh i bet he's got like nine strings and i just literally go to the guy
- 41:01i go hey man stop talking to her just trying to watch my show,
- 41:04stop talking to her i just tell him stop talking to her she's trying to watch my show,
- 41:08and he goes and then she and then this is and you know what my favorite moment
- 41:11about that is when she does this,
- 41:14when she whispers to me she leans forward and she whispers thank you and i'm
- 41:19like you're welcome lady don't date that guy he's a douche yeah yeah.
- 41:26Yeah, so I think we're all on the same page here. I mean,
- 41:30yeah, the best illusion I've seen, the best box illusion performance I've ever
- 41:34seen was Kaelin and Ginger in The Illusionist because they had actual showmanship
- 41:39throughout the routine where there's funny stuff happening.
- 41:42She's hitting on the guys that are like strapping her up. It's like a whole
- 41:45show. And then she disappears and it ends up behind the stage.
- 41:48And you're like, that kicked me because I was just enjoying the routine so much.
- 41:53So I like an illusion. that's not an illusion like the like matt franco does
- 41:59the decolta chair but you know the guys is i'm not gonna watch cover me up i'm
- 42:04just gonna use my hands you know so you don't see it coming doesn't look like a box,
- 42:09yeah nice so we yeah i mean so we're talking about vegas shows and i guess what
- 42:14we're really asking is doug when can people come and see you at a vegas show
- 42:19that's what we're really getting to here,
- 42:21i've just started knocking on doors now so we'll see you I'd love to weasel
- 42:24my way into the magician's room and work that Levitate Lounge.
- 42:27They got 25 seats. I would crush it there. So, you know, I had a meeting with
- 42:32the owner last week. Maybe I'll have another one this week. And maybe sooner
- 42:35than later, I'm working there.
- 42:37And if not, maybe my theater is Fremont Street. We're getting there soon.
- 42:40I might just be out there throwing down with the locals on the cobblestones
- 42:45of Las Vegas. I'm fine with that as well.
- 42:49What's the show going to be about? Is it going to be about, like,
- 42:52your life story that led you to Vegas?
- 42:53And that you're able to, and you can thank them for it.
- 42:56Like that would be kind of my. Kind of that actually.
- 43:00It's, it'll be a story of life lessons I've learned as a magician,
- 43:03you know, a little bit of knowledge about how to have a good life with magic in it.
- 43:08And so on some level, it'll be inspirational. It'll be deeply fooling.
- 43:12Of course, it'll be fun and funny and maybe, maybe moving as well, you know.
- 43:18Yeah you know what if the show opens and it says you know when i was 16 years
- 43:22old i ran away from home to be a magician that's why i'm here with you today
- 43:26like that's a pretty good start to to a show yeah,
- 43:31my advice is don't run away from home but we won't learn that right away well
- 43:35it depends what you're running from that's different you're running,
- 43:39you know you're either running from something or running towards something and
- 43:41i think that that is a nice but you ask like what the show would be about like,
- 43:46that's maybe a moment, you know,
- 43:48maybe my first magic moment and why that, why that first moment of magic can
- 43:53be so powerful and why everyone should know a little magic.
- 43:56Certainly every grandpa should know a little magic. I'll talk about that.
- 43:59You know, I'll talk about my mentors that taught me and why those could be great.
- 44:04We could talk about my whole theoretical performance or we can go back to Las
- 44:08Vegas. No, we're writing your show. We're doing it live.
- 44:13Yeah, I think, like the people are saying in the comments right now,
- 44:16it's only a matter of time. Like, if you're putting this energy out there,
- 44:19it's only a matter of time, and I can't wait.
- 44:24Yeah, I'm buckled up. I mean, I came here to do stuff. I'm doing stuff.
- 44:28So, and I just, I'll keep doing stuff.
- 44:32Do you want to write your show right now, Doug? Do you want to write it to your
- 44:34live? You know what would be kind of interesting is if the show... Let's do it.
- 44:41What would be interesting if the set design for doug's one-man show is literally
- 44:45like what we're looking at right now like it looks like you're in your studio
- 44:50at home yeah as you're telling the story and like so your props are kind of already there so
- 44:55it looks like a home but it's like,
- 44:57you know the audience is in front of you seated yeah be kind of cool,
- 45:01kind of that's kind of what sean farquhar is doing up there the hidden wonders experience.
- 45:06Yeah and that's doing pretty well that's a that that,
- 45:11sean is for sure a role model for all magicians and what they can do build your
- 45:15own jam work hard do good magic invite people to your party and they'll show
- 45:20up now it's yeah it's crazy yeah so yeah i mean,
- 45:25hear me out doug what if we did an episode where we wrote your show like we
- 45:28just jammed your show live i'm like live in the air,
- 45:31i mean i'm down for that it's it's a lot let me get let me let you talk to my
- 45:36people i'll have to get back to your people it would be an Aaron,
- 45:39I have to talk to you later.
- 45:41Yeah. It would be an interesting episode, I think, to see the,
- 45:46how, like, what our thoughts start like and how they end like,
- 45:49like, the procedure of it and brainstorming, I think, because people could use
- 45:53the same kind of thinking with their own shows.
- 45:57And then if they want to see the final product, they got to come and see it live, you know? Yeah.
- 46:03I reckon there's a world where we can do that episode and then find a temporary,
- 46:09space for Doug to hire and put on that show.
- 46:13That show just, you know, we brute force it on our own. Let's do this.
- 46:17Let's write the show live.
- 46:20We're going to do it on the air. Okay. We're going to like, we're going to have
- 46:23one, we're going to, we're going to share one session, one creative session.
- 46:27So you get to see what it looks like. You're working with, with a director and a lighting guy.
- 46:31And we'll just, it'll be like a one hour session because it takes more than
- 46:35one session to write a show. And then what we'll do is this.
- 46:38We're going to work on it behind the scenes from then on.
- 46:41And then at Magic Live, we're going to do it at one of the suites.
- 46:46At magic live if they're lucky enough to see it,
- 46:50yeah no no it's gonna be a private it's gonna be a private show in one of the oh that,
- 46:54and here's what we do it'll be in the magic guy suite right yeah,
- 46:58and here's here's how i think we make enough money to afford that private plane
- 47:03nick for to fly us to vegas we make it the entry to see the show is a lottery,
- 47:09so you pay fifty dollars to enter the lottery and as many thousands of people
- 47:15can enter that as they want cha-ching but we pick,
- 47:19you know 20 of those people at random to come and see it in the suite you know,
- 47:25but in the meantime we've all made bank and we can fly and um well if we make
- 47:31enough money we can hire a magician to work the air flight the plane ride over
- 47:36for the show to entertain everyone on the flight over.
- 47:39I love that. He's so cool. Hiring. I love the idea that we're hiring a magician
- 47:44to entertain a whole plane full of magicians. Man.
- 47:49You know who we hire? We hire the guy who I'm not remembering his name now. God damn it.
- 47:56Never mind. It's too early for Albert. I'd want someone like Jack Grady doing
- 47:59ass magic or some shit like that. You know, something that's out of the box.
- 48:03I don't know. By the way, he's at the magician's table. I'm real happy to see him.
- 48:06He's working the magician's table show with my buddy tom frank up in cleveland
- 48:11right now if you're in cleveland go see the magician's table watch jack and tom.
- 48:18Do you think he needs to prepare it like he needs to prepare his butthole to
- 48:21do ass magic so that like he doesn't get that swamp no jack he probably needs needs to but doesn't,
- 48:29He's probably, you know, he's at least doing butt clenches every day because
- 48:33he's got to be able to hold the bottle with the cheeks, you know?
- 48:37Yeah, like imagine having to do it in Vegas on a really, really hot day and
- 48:41like the air con broke and it's like, all right, I'm going to do ass magic and
- 48:43it's like, this is, this is going to, you're going to notice this.
- 48:48This is one of my Vegas prize possessions. The Jack Grady ass magic,
- 48:52but it's signed. What the hell? That's actually a thing?
- 48:56Signed by Jack Grady. He was in this room.
- 48:59Wow. that's amazing we went we went running around fremont street together for
- 49:03a little bit wow he got recognized on the street on fremont someone's like jack
- 49:09grady that's magic what a guy what a great guy,
- 49:14wow and congrats he got engaged recently so congrats to you jack grady so cool yeah okay,
- 49:20all right how do you think you propose jack jack's doing shows he used a change
- 49:25bag like like he just used a change bag yeah well he is young right he probably
- 49:31just learned about it but um.
- 49:35No, I mean. But it's not about the prop. It's how you use it,
- 49:38right? I guess. That's what we're learning.
- 49:42Okay, what about this? What about the set design for Doug's show?
- 49:45So one option is it could be the set design you're literally seeing behind him now.
- 49:49Or it could be that it's a busking setup. So he's got his table.
- 49:53But the audience is seated in a semi-circle around him.
- 49:58So it's almost like a busking set. But you're immersed and actually sitting down and relaxed.
- 50:04And you know they're not going to walk away because they're already seated gut
- 50:07buster mike typed out my vision a little bit you know there's videos you know
- 50:11behind me that kind of you know pictures and stuff that shows the locale and
- 50:15that scenery changes as i tell different stories,
- 50:19and at the end of it i fall and break my ribs doing the invisible deck,
- 50:23which is a story that actually happened yeah that's the the lesson there is
- 50:28don't climb on high stuff after age of 50 while you're doing magic tricks,
- 50:34okay this is good oddly enough i have enough crazy stories that one probably
- 50:38doesn't make the list but whatever hmm.
- 50:42That reminds me i have to i i have a question to ask you off air about i have
- 50:47an idea for an invisible deck not using an invisible deck and i feel like doug
- 50:51would know the answer to the last piece of it i'm thinking about,
- 50:55Anyway, that's going to annoy some people because I'm not talking about it here.
- 50:58I was just thinking how clever it would be to be an expert pinky counter.
- 51:02And if you have the memorized deck, and then all you would have to do is do
- 51:05Marlow's future reverse from the middle.
- 51:08And then so now you could just pinky count and reverse in position.
- 51:12That's your invisible deck with the memorized back. I don't know if I've read
- 51:15that in print anywhere, but.
- 51:17I feel like that would be something that our friend who's been on the pod,
- 51:22Blaze can do, right? With one hand.
- 51:24Do you pinky count? are you doing this oh yeah that's right blaze sarah's already
- 51:28bypassed that idea yeah but i think with two cards even that's right your ladies
- 51:33can do it but and then he'll take it out and then he'll reverse it like this
- 51:36and then like put it in yeah
- 51:38no one does that except him do you do it,
- 51:42erica sai might do it have you seen i've seen him do it with two cards like
- 51:46any named two cards it's just not fair it's not crazy yeah,
- 51:53have you seen erica sigh are you familiar with this young female card worker
- 51:57yes yes i think she does his stuff like but maybe that's,
- 52:03her card work is maybe some of the best going right now it's great yeah i can
- 52:08tell she is another student of uh,
- 52:11ben earl's the family oh i've seen her uh commenting on stuff and i can tell
- 52:16some of the subtlety she does is like stuff that he teaches like this little
- 52:21like convince her. And so I'm like, okay, I see what's going on here.
- 52:25She does everything. She's doing everything. It's fucking unreal. Anyway, moving on.
- 52:30I wanted to ask you guys, you've been to Vegas. You've seen some shows here.
- 52:32What do you guys like in Las Vegas?
- 52:35I mean, what have you seen that you like in this city, the time you've been here?
- 52:40Right. So, you know, there is, like you said, there's a whole series of stuff
- 52:45like, you know, let's call it like the strip shows.
- 52:48The stuff on the main strip, the stuff that you'll see, you know,
- 52:51at Harrah's and so forth, you know.
- 52:54You know, I think the weirdest one for me was like, not the weirdest one,
- 52:57but as far as the staging went, like the room, Colin McCloud's room was a very, it was a great show.
- 53:06And the room was so interesting. It was so long and ordinarily would be like
- 53:11a nightmare of a room, but it's perfect in one breath as well,
- 53:15because you've got the volume and you've got the line of sight because it is so long.
- 53:19Like it's not as if like you're so far back that you can't you know do what
- 53:23you need to do and uh josh and i with a bunch of others when i saw it was bo
- 53:27kramer and a whole bunch of others we had a great time.
- 53:30This is a good example of how to add production value to a mentalism show which
- 53:34is often missing i think sometimes the mentalists don't put the work in to make those things happen,
- 53:39and wow that show is just firing on all the cylinders yeah yeah it's really
- 53:44good really strong, no doubt.
- 53:46And then you've got, so the thing is when I, when I first saw like shows,
- 53:50the very first time I went to Vegas, I kind of did it progressively going up.
- 53:53So I think I started with Matt King's show.
- 53:57I thought, let's go. That's a great place to start. So I started with Matt King's
- 54:00show and I saw it and it was funny and I enjoyed it. Right.
- 54:04And then I went and saw Matt Franco's show next.
- 54:08I saw it and it was, it was cool. And the room was gorgeous.
- 54:13I had all these beautiful like floating candle light sort of thing that looks
- 54:16a bit like hogwarts in the place where you you know um and and it was good and,
- 54:22it was very cool original effects and the story was very simple and not you know like,
- 54:29the show was great for like, you know, like it was interesting.
- 54:32Like, I think it was great at the time that I saw it some many,
- 54:36many years ago, probably over a decade.
- 54:38I imagine it's changed immensely since then, but I will say this,
- 54:40it's like, like for what it was, it could have worked anywhere.
- 54:45That makes sense. It didn't have to be one room in Vegas.
- 54:49When Matt won AGT, he showed us that we could take close up magic,
- 54:53bring it to the stage, absolutely crushed with it and then after winning that
- 54:57competition 10 years ago or whatever it was he brought that concept to vegas and
- 55:02yeah that's what he does he does close-up magic on the stage you know and then
- 55:05the culture chair it might be his only reason exactly
- 55:08yeah and then in between that we had a night,
- 55:11at mcbride's place wonder.
- 55:14Ground wonder ground baby that's one of my favorites,
- 55:19and was there front and center had a great time visited a couple of acts and
- 55:23everyone was there that night as well yeah that's the thing it's a community
- 55:26experience it's the it's a monthly magic party,
- 55:30it's great yeah yeah and it was just a bunch of different acts you know and
- 55:34lots of like belly dancing and other weird stuff and you know in like and it
- 55:38was and that was so that was a cool experience you know but like what for me
- 55:41made it cool was that like you're hanging out with like rudy kobe and,
- 55:46you know every other hero last month mind to mind did an impromptu set at the
- 55:51close-up table after, you know, we did a set there.
- 55:53And they're like, by the way, Mind of Mind's here. They're going to do a set
- 55:55for y'all. Let me tell you. Holy shit.
- 55:58They are so good. Yeah. Even unprepared, they just crush so hard.
- 56:04Yeah. And that's the cool thing about like, oh, so there's this different little
- 56:08niche thing, which is like almost like in a parking lot slash strip mall type
- 56:11vibe. Yeah. It's out there.
- 56:13It's weird. And then from that, went and saw Chris Angel and...
- 56:21Epic show. Epic show. The one I saw. All right.
- 56:24It was, he was at the Lux at the time. And it was, it was epic.
- 56:30Like, you know, he, he did a dove act, which effectively was a ripoff of Lance
- 56:35Burton's as far as everyone else is concerned, you know, but,
- 56:38you know, but when he made.
- 56:40We made, he made like a hundred birds appear out of nowhere and fly over the
- 56:43audience and then back into a little pigeon hole at the back of the room.
- 56:46Like, like he does this thing like this, and then all these birds fly out over
- 56:51your head and they're all trained to go over the audience and into the back
- 56:55corner. To be clear, that's also someone else's moment. That's Douglas Levkovich's finale.
- 57:00And that's the, I mean, so everyone's got beef with him because he's doing this type of thing, right?
- 57:05But for the punter, yeah, for the punter that comes all the way from whatever
- 57:10and wants to see him because you've seen him on the TV or whatever else, like it's a sick show.
- 57:14It's a sick show, right? I talked to a lot of people who saw the Criss Angel
- 57:18show Cause they come in the magic shop when I was working at that.
- 57:20Yeah. We just saw Chris Angel last night. It was great. I never really heard
- 57:23anyone bad mouth the show.
- 57:24Maybe a magician, but not the lady.
- 57:27Here's what I will say. Magicians will bad mouth him, but they won't bad mouth
- 57:31his show. Cause his show is dope. It is. Cool. It is. Cool.
- 57:35So let's. I haven't seen it yet. I'm looking forward to like checking it out, but. Yeah.
- 57:40I don't know how different it is. Like his levitation act, you know,
- 57:43other, you know, sort of Copperfield flying around, you know,
- 57:46that $200,000 flying rig.
- 57:48It's so good, man. It's so pretty. And he does it exceptionally well.
- 57:54He does an upside down escape, you know, spinning around the whole time.
- 57:58Like it is visually unbelievable. It is like a proper rock show.
- 58:01And he screams and yells and everything else. Like it's, it's dope,
- 58:04man. He's like, he's like a, he's like a rock star in the show and having like
- 58:07guitars on stage as they cut people in half. It's nuts.
- 58:11Good show. Then I finished with seeing Copperfield.
- 58:16And I went, and it's funny, because I have a buddy of mine who reminds me of
- 58:20this all the time. He goes, my favorite moment in magic was Copperfield doing his thing.
- 58:25And he just turned to me and was hitting the table like, this, this is magic.
- 58:31This, this, this is magic, this, you know what I mean?
- 58:36And as far as my emotional journey, going through all this was really inspiring.
- 58:42You saw and then and then you see copyfield do his thing and you think to yourself,
- 58:47i need to get out of this this it doesn't get any better than this is you can't
- 58:52beat this you can't beat this i should just quit,
- 58:56And that was like, you know, you see all these acts, you're like, I could do this.
- 58:59I could aspire to be like this. Then you see Copperfield and go,
- 59:02I have no business even thinking about that. There's a large gap between,
- 59:06say, Matt Franco and David Copperfield, that's for sure.
- 59:09And there is galaxies between them.
- 59:12There's, you know, there is. Well, you know, fucker's older than me and he's
- 59:16been working stages his whole life. He better be good at this point. Yeah.
- 59:20Maybe a little weathered. You know, credit when credit's due is my point, you know?
- 59:24And so to answer your question, it's like when you experience this journey and
- 59:29you look at what you go through, when you see the goat, he's quite literally
- 59:34that. It is Copperfield. He wrote the book.
- 59:39Let me tell you my favorite goat because we're already over time.
- 59:41And there's one guy I want to mention, my favorite show I've seen in Las Vegas.
- 59:45There's a couple of shows at the Planet Hollywood over there.
- 59:48Jerry McCambridge does The Mentalist. The All Stars of Magic show is really
- 59:53good. This is a five magician ensemble cast matinee experience three days a week.
- 59:58Jason Burns in that show and he also does the V show, but the show that's over
- 1:00:02there, if you don't mind a dirty joke or 20 dirty jokes, go see Grant Freeman's rated R magic show.
- 1:00:10It's the most original magic experience I've seen ever. And it's freaking hilarious.
- 1:00:15I was crying in that audience.
- 1:00:18If you're in Vegas tonight, he's performing with the late night magic crew.
- 1:00:21So if you could run over, if you're listening in Vegas, go to late night magic
- 1:00:25tonight. He's one of their guest stars, but great show, funny guy, young talent.
- 1:00:31He's a rock star. Grant Freeman.
- 1:00:33You heard it here, folks. You heard it here first. Thank me later. Go see it.
- 1:00:39That's nice. All right. We only talked about 10 shows out of 400 or whatever
- 1:00:44my list was, but that's fine. Yeah.
- 1:00:47And we look forward to seeing you explore all of them in your vlogs.
- 1:00:50In your vlogs, Doug. It's going to take a while.
- 1:00:53Yeah. So for future episodes, let's definitely explore the shows that you see.
- 1:00:57Let's work on your show and be sure to tune in. We've got a good interview lined
- 1:01:03up for next week. if all goes well. So stay tuned. Also scope out our merchandise, Josh.
- 1:01:08Yeah. Don't forget to review us.
- 1:01:11Oh yeah, I haven't checked. I don't think we've had a review yet.
- 1:01:14Someone said they were going to review.
- 1:01:16Yeah, I think people asked, how do you do that? And I think what you do is you
- 1:01:20go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and there should be like a review the show section.
- 1:01:25If you click on the page. We're doing our part. Y'all do your part.
- 1:01:28You can find the review. We don't have to tell you where it's at.
- 1:01:31You can do it. You're the listener. Do the listener thing.
- 1:01:35And we'll do this thing. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, yeah, you can scope out the
- 1:01:38merch, themagiguysshow.com. You can. And we don't mention this very much,
- 1:01:43but you can book one hour Zoom sessions with us, with each individual of us.
- 1:01:49If you want to work on your act or learn slides that you've seen us do,
- 1:01:54but don't know how to do it, whatever.
- 1:01:56We've been doing a couple of those lately. Or if you want to just talk about
- 1:01:59like dinner, we could talk about, you know, what's for dinner. That's cool too.
- 1:02:03Yes. It doesn't have to be magic.
- 1:02:06Nick's, you know, moisturizing regime, whatever you want.
- 1:02:10It's all possible at themagiceyshow.com. This is a weird ending.
- 1:02:17But we're going to come back to you next week with a guest, so stay tuned.
- 1:02:21Or more Vegas Magic Part 2. It depends on the guests.
- 1:02:25That's right. Depending on their actual ability to turn up, it may be Vegas Part 2.
- 1:02:32Only that mystery. Another impromptu banger. Yes, absolutely.
- 1:02:38All right. And also the discord and all that good stuff. And we're just going
- 1:02:43to see how long we can keep Nick from peeing.
- 1:02:46So let me just end with this very long story. You know, 10 years ago.
- 1:02:51This amazing magic guys, coffee cup. You can purchase from magic guys, show.com. Hell yeah.
- 1:02:57And tell your mom, we said hi. Hi.
- 1:03:01Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
- 1:03:06But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.