Latest / The Magic Guys / Greg Dubin's NYC Secret Clockshop Magic Show! #233

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Greg Dubin's NYC Secret Clockshop Magic Show! #233 · The Magic Guys

• 0:00
  They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
• 0:09
  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 233 of the Magic Guys.
• 0:16
  Can you believe that? 33.
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  To my left, we've got Nick Kay. I'm Nick Kay and to my right,
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  Josh Navido. Josh Navido!
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  Fism winner, Josh Navido.
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  And for this episode, we bring you an hour of trivia.
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  No, we're just kidding. We're going to work on that and bring it back even better
• 0:44
  than ever. But that was a fun episode. Hey, Nick.
• 0:46
  You betcha. Yeah. Thank you for your feedback. A couple of people were like,
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  you know, it's a bit fast and hectic.
• 0:53
  Well, we say we're fast and hectic.
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  We strap in, bitches. So deal with it. No, we go horrid.
• 1:00
  We go. That's right. That's right.
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  We love to try out different themes and different guests, which we'll get to in just a moment as well.
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  But firstly, if you're in Melbourne, you got to get yourself to the theater
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  of magic in Melbourne this week.
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  I think this deserves anyone listening to this in bed. Cover your ears.
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  Nick, how pumped are you for this weekend? Super pumped.
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  It's been a very different experience for myself, which is why I'm super excited
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  to meet our guest today, because I've gone from being this private function,
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  corporate function guy for the past 17 years of my career and seldom do I do
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  public shows and now I'll be doing them on the regular. And along with that comes a lot of anxiety.
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  Am I going to sell tickets whenever else? Thankfully, Theater of Magic is doing really well.
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  The evening show has only one ticket left, whereas the earlier show at 4.30
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  has a few tickets left. So you guys might want to join in that one if you guys want to come along.
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  So I, in the spirit of that, have lots of questions for our guests today.
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  Before we press on, let's shout out to our friends here in the chat.
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  We have Gary Davis, Scott Link, Tim Maskin, damn questions adonis we have seth
• 2:10
  and our good friend scotty p gentlemen and friends thank you for being here
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  of course if you do have any questions for greg you can pop them into the chat
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  we'll of course present them to greg i want to pick this guy's brain are we ready to begin,
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  let's bring him on new york city magician all the way from nyc has his show
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  which is taking Seeing New York by Storm, the close-up show Magic at the Clock Shop,
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  we got so many questions and we're going to start by actually bringing them on.
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  So please welcome, it's Greg Dubin.
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  Oh, yeah. Greg Dubin you sexy beast thank you for being on our show please tell
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  our friends who are you and what do you do hey guys my name is Greg Dubin and
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  I do magic close-up magic I'm a magician I,
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  I like you I've been doing corporate private all kinds of stuff for the last
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  20 something years and now I have my own space and my own theater so you're
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  living the life man you're doing it Living the dream.
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  That's so good. What was it like when you were beginning, starting to do gigs in New York City?
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  Like, how old were you then? And was it pretty, is there a lot of?
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  Competition? Is there a lot of like, what are clients even like in New York City?
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  Well, so, so I've been, so I'm 52 now. I really started when I moved to New
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  York back to New York when I was 30 is when I really started performing.
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  So, and I wasn't doing private and corporate events. I was doing a lot of public stuff.
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  I'll have to go back a little bit. I was always into magic as a kid.
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  I was living in San Francisco in my twenties, or I was taking acting classes. I did an acting program.
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  I was going to, you know, starting to get back into magic as from a childhood.
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  I think, you know, largely from, you know, David Blaine's special came out and
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  I was like, oh yeah, I know that one.
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  And I started going to the magic shop there, Misdirections. Everyone knows Joe at Misdirections.
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  And, you know, I was doing magic as like a hobby and it was like a secret.
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  And I was going, I started going to, to lectures and,
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  you know, I saw like Jay Sankey and, you know like this
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  is in 90s you know not knowing who
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  these guys were really and then so quickly
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  then I did a program at ACT I did a clowning class there
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  and at the end of the the program you get like you do like at the end of the
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  two weeks of the class you do a little presentation and I did something where
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  I vanished to silk and she goes magic yes and it was like then when I go oh
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  I can be performing magic I don't have to be trying to be an actor and that's
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  about when I I moved to New York when I was about 30,
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  which felt so old at the time and now still sounds so young.
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  And in New York City, there's a vibrant kind of, I didn't get into the magic
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  scene as much as I got into the variety arts scene.
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  So I was working with a dance company that was like a cabaret company.
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  We're very burlesque adjacent, still am.
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  So I started doing anything I could, any kind of spots that I could.
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  Until eventually I was working at the Slipper Room, which is,
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  I've been performing there for probably the better part of 15 years,
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  which is kind of world famous kind of burlesque and variety.
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  And I started doing gigs in that time frame where I was like,
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  you know, when I was 30 doing my stuff, I was looking like kids that are looking
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  back when you're like 15 or 20, you know, I was, I was looking very circusy
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  and clowny and I was the great Dubini.
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  It's hard to shake that off. A lot of people still call me Dubini.
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  I mean, that's the pretty good Dubini, but you know, then I just started doing
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  gigs for 50 bucks for 150 bucks for 75 bucks for no bucks for,
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  and then for 500 bucks and then 750, you know,
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  and then, and then I, and then I got a gray beard and then suddenly I was like an adult.
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  And then, I mean, that's the quick version.
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  Is that what happens? We go gray and we grow up. Fuck that. I'm out.
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  No, but everyone else thinks you're an adult.
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  So i was always doing a lot of you know stand-up stuff and parlor stuff and
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  i have a lot of five minute acts seven minute 12 minute 15 you know i can i can do all that so now,
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  i got to the point with all this all the corporate and private stuff that i felt,
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  pretty bulletproof like i can go into any situation i
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  don't even need to know what it is you know it's like because you
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  know sometimes you go in and they go oh can you do 15 minutes
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  up you know the and yeah i'm like yeah i'm ready
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  to do an hour if i need to or i'm ready to do a
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  room of 30 people for three hours you know it's like
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  and you know i'm doing
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  all these different things and i'm doing all these different shows and i'm
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  realizing like you're never going to really be happy until
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  you have your own thing and now i
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  have my own thing and it changed everything but there
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  is so much to unpack there that from what you said no no
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  it's great no it's great no no i love it because sometimes you
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  got to see like you're trying to get words out of an interview and you're like trying to
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  like ring a dry sponge whereas you just have this like wealth
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  of knowledge and obviously you know you've been doing this for a while but what
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  i love about your acting background is you know it was actually robert houdan
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  who said something to the effect of like where actors playing the roles of magicians
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  and was that robert houdan who
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  said that pretty sure i might I'll double check. You're probably right.
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  My history is bad, but yeah. Yeah. We're active.
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  Listen, I always say this. The two things that made me a better magician more
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  than anything was bartending and improv classes, acting classes too. Yeah.
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  But bartending, waiting tables, I was thinking about it as I was like,
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  because I've, listen, also, thank you guys.
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  This is my first time ever being asked to do anything on any magic, anything, podcast.
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  You guys and one other, Benny from Atlanta, I was supposed to do his the other
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  day, but this is my first time.
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  And I don't, and you know, ever since I opened the shop, I got a write-up in
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  Genie Magazine, which was like mind-blowing.
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  So this is the first time i've gotten any kind of a magic attention uh which is great.
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  What was i what was
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  the question i was i was interrupting not at all well i just to just to clear
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  up the the quote is the quote in its entirety is a conjurer is an actor playing
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  the part of a magician that was said by jean-eugene rebert yeah so i was thinking
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  about this leading up to that.
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  And I thought, what was the best, you know, what made, what prepared me for this?
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  When a, I was a little kid and I always loved magic and I always had a thumb
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  tip and I always had a, I always had one card trick that my mom taught me.
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  And I always had, you know, and you know, when you, when you're a little kid
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  and you say, I like magic, someone buys you a magic kid. And then your parents
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  start saying he's a magician.
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  So I've been a magician my whole life, but, but when I was in college and I
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  had my first waiting tables job, I, I could barely walk up to the table, I was so nervous.
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  And then, you know, my first taste of any kind of celebrity was being a bartender
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  at a busy bar and being able to just, you know, talk, boom, boom,
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  boom, and approach people.
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  And then the improv classes, which make you realize that there are no mistakes
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  kind of, and that everything is a gift and to not be afraid if you fuck up,
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  it's just, I mean, it is very important and it's, but at the end of the day, it's just a magic trick.
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  And if you fuck it up, you move on and they'll misremember it as long as you
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  have something to follow it with.
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  I feel like that should be the next quote.
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  Like Robert Herdance quote is good, but that quote should be good as well.
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  If you fuck it up it's okay because in five
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  minutes they'll misremember it that's awesome
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  like how important do you find improv to
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  be now like having done that improv work those classes in your magic because
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  i feel like that's something that should be a requirement for roving should
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  be a requirement for any performer should take long form improv not not these games that where you,
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  where you dress up long form improv, where you have the yes.
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  And, and everything anybody says is a gift.
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  Look, I hate to toot my own horn, but listen, and I didn't, and I never went far in improv.
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  I never got onto one of the teams. I never got, I remember writing an email
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  to the guy who ran the school saying improv has helped me in my acting.
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  It's helped me in my magic. It's helped me in my life. The only place improv
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  hasn't helped me as an improv.
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  So I got out of it because i wasn't
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  i guess good enough to just do straight improv but
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  but i had i was at a gig a few months ago and i
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  had this new table it was my first time using it and the
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  whole the leg broke the whole fucking thing fell over
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  it was it's the worst possible thing that could
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  happen right and it was at things and it was at like a
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  pretty well-paid gig where they were selling tickets you
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  know they had three magicians in three different rooms and and later
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  that night one of the other magicians my friend andy gersh was bumped into a
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  couple of girls that had a couple of women that had seen and they were convinced
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  that it was that she's like how did he get that table to fall over they thought
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  it was part of my act wow and i was right remote controlled.
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  It just felt so good i was like so the worst possible thing that could happen
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  to me is that all your props go flying off of a table i'm doing cups and balls
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  at some point All my shit's in a, in a servant behind it.
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  And they, they thought I did it on purpose.
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  So that means, so that I don't remember the details of what I did or what I
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  said, although it's on video somewhere.
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  I could never have recovered from that if I hadn't been an improviser and hadn't
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  been cutting my teeth doing shitty gigs.
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  There's no shitty gigs for any up and coming young magicians that are watching
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  this, who are whose hands still tremble when they do a card trick.
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  Or you go to the gig and there's three people in the audience.
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  That is giving you armor.
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  I think of it as your teeth getting sharpened on the cement.
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  You know what I mean? You're getting sharp.
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  Every time you bomb, savor that moment, man. Because if you're not bombing, you're not doing it.
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  Yeah. That's what I think. That is some New York advice. That is going to keep you alive.
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  I will give you New York advice all fucking day, man.
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  Because it's listen i'm
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  in brooklyn i'm in brooklyn right and now i'm finally
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  having the best success of my career in in magic
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  and i'm two blocks from my house or my apartment i'm in like this italian neighborhood
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  i'm like a little old italian lady who never there's people that never leave
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  the neighborhood it's like living in a small town i go to the city to go see
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  broadway shows and that's it so it can happen for you anywhere and it's not
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  just because it's new york you know,
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  well let's let's talk about how we got there because both josh and myself perform
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  uh regularly at the theater of magic and we have this constant notion of like
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  ticket sales and everything else.
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  Promotion what i'm curious about is that this is a secret show like it's a secret
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  and thus i say it's a secret yeah like air quote secret yeah so i find that
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  very interesting because it's like secret show but then,
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  And obviously folks know about it because they're coming and they're filling the house.
• 13:54
  Look, man, I don't know. I got, I don't want to say it's luck, but a lot of it is luck.
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  It's also, it's a combination of, I've been doing this forever.
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  I've been living in this neighborhood for 22 years there. I live in a neighborhood
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  called Carroll Gardens.
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  I jokingly say it's one of the nicest neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
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  It's very, you know, back people.
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  I don't know if you'll get this reference, but people that live here say,
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  but it used to be like Mayberry here, you know, like Andy Griffith show.
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  Like it was like, you know, and there's, there's restaurant down the street
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  that people literally come from all over the world for.
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  There's a pizza place, Lucali, people come from all over the world for there's
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  Smith street tattoo parlor.
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  A lot of people come from Australia to come here for 10 days to get tattooed
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  by these guys. They're my best buddies.
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  So there's, so I have that here. I happen to live here.
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  I my space is actually in. It happened to have a, its own facade.
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  I've been, I've been daydreaming about having a clock shop facade with a magic
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  shop behind it for 15 years, you know?
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  And then it all came together when I was doing magic on Mondays here.
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  So, so I have all that behind it.
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  Then it's March. I'm putting this show together.
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  I'm turning down gigs in April, freaking out, thinking I might have to call
• 15:12
  my brother and borrow money at the end of the month.
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  Cause I'm like, it was looking like April was going to be a really good April for me.
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  So, and I'm saying, no, I'm doing Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 7 PM.
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  That's it. Those are the, of course, all the gigs I was getting offered.
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  And I've built this facade. It looks really great. I think, but it was really
• 15:31
  just a sign that looked like an old leaf, you know, gold leaf sign,
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  some shitty clocks that I had from my apartment that people gave me.
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  And then I could hear people walking by saying like, Oh, is this what was here before? is this what was.
• 15:47
  When are they going to open? And by the way, this was inspired by when I first
• 15:52
  moved to this neighborhood, I went out of town and I came back and I saw this
• 15:55
  antique shop and I was like, oh, I never noticed this. It's right on my block. How did I miss it?
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  And I'm looking in. And then it turned out they were filming Spider-Man in my
• 16:04
  neighborhood and they had some set designer built this.
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  It went back like four feet, but it looked like you couldn't see all the way
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  in. And I was like, that's so cool. So that was the idea.
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  That's what sparked the idea for me way back then.
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  And, but so I only had, I had, I decided in March that I was going to do this
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  thing in April. It was only supposed to be for a month.
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  And I could hear people walking by saying that because it's right there.
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  And then I thought, all right, I got to do something. them
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  so i i ripped a piece of brown paper and i
• 16:37
  did this thing that i mean i don't know if they do it everywhere but
• 16:40
  in in my neighborhood in brooklyn my landlord especially they
• 16:43
  write nasty notes who do you think you are parking your fucking car here that
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  kind of stuff so i wrote do not give this guy your watch in big letters with
• 16:54
  a sharpie and then underneath it i said because it's actually a hidden close-up
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  magic parlor and i taped it to the to the window like get like someone just put it there.
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  And within like three minutes, I saw somebody like walk by, look at it.
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  Read it and go, and I went, ah, shit.
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  And so in that first month, people just from the neighborhood were just going and then sharing it on.
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  And I never would have believed this Facebook groups were huge because there's
• 17:22
  not a lot to do in this neighborhood for adults without their kids.
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  So anyway you get into facebook groups instagram
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  whatever and and we did
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  well enough to say let's extend into march the guy
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  who who i'm doing this who has the space said all right let's keep
• 17:37
  it going and i got lucky
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  i mean i also was emailing
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  it's called the gothamist it's a website that about 350
• 17:47
  000 followers i had been emailing one
• 17:49
  of the writers to you know okay we'll
• 17:53
  try blah blah blah and then my ex-wife they they had
• 17:55
  their a different secret theater in the city it's a thing you
• 17:58
  know she sent anyway eventually
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  this woman wrote the article and then i went from three
• 18:04
  shows a week to eight shows a week the ticket sales
• 18:07
  went like this wow wow so
• 18:10
  in complete that end of it is
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  luck and then right when it was puttering out i got
• 18:15
  a story by secret nyc which has 2.1 million followers and now i'm now i'm here
• 18:22
  for indefinitely i'm here i know what you mean because like i've been prospecting
• 18:28
  to a lot of folks to come write articles and stuff we have sort of the equivalence here in in oz and.
• 18:33
  Like I'll try one email, follow it up, no response, a different email or three
• 18:37
  or four different emails.
• 18:39
  And then just like nothing. So I think you think you're right in saying like,
• 18:41
  sometimes it's just luck and you've just got to have that persistence.
• 18:44
  And what I love about your story is exactly what you said. It's like,
• 18:48
  you're really going to cut your teeth.
• 18:49
  You've got to do the hard yards. You've got to have the heartbreaks.
• 18:51
  You've got to like really thicken your skin.
• 18:53
  This is all just part of like building your character and building the show
• 18:57
  and building the legacy in a sense.
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  And here's the thing. and this is another thing it's taken me
• 19:03
  years to be able to say this comfortably but here's the thing people came
• 19:07
  but then people started coming back so people
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  are not just coming and saying oh it's cool the space is
• 19:12
  cool as shit i'll say i'll i'll say that it's you
• 19:16
  know i did it all by myself it's all kind
• 19:19
  of organic a lot of the shit's from the walls of my apartment but then
• 19:23
  the show's got to be fucking good and then people have to go was so
• 19:26
  good i loved it i want to bring i'm going to bring my mother-in-law back
• 19:29
  i've had i've had people come three times i'm not changing the
• 19:32
  show up no people come i've had
• 19:35
  people come and then bring their and then bring
• 19:38
  their office i've had people come so it's like
• 19:41
  that's what you have to really that's where
• 19:44
  the actual show yeah that's where
• 19:47
  the talent actually takes over like you can have like marketing
• 19:50
  will only give you so much runway right publicity until
• 19:54
  you actually have to have a good you have to have a
• 19:56
  good shit as they would say in new york and then
• 20:00
  it keeps it going and it seems like that's wow
• 20:03
  so from what was meant to be a month is now all the way up to september now
• 20:08
  i've had i've had over i did the math the other day i've done about 120 shows
• 20:14
  let's say i haven't sold them all out they see 21 tickets i've had up to 28
• 20:19
  i've had a couple of shows where there were five people so let's say 15.
• 20:22
  I don't know what's one 20 times, times 10.
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  If I had 10 in a show, I've had 2000 people here, you know, or 1500 or something
• 20:31
  like that. See my show. It's crazy.
• 20:33
  I have 800 emails now. Yeah.
• 20:36
  That's the people that bought tickets i just did a you
• 20:39
  know because usually this time of year i'm getting heavy into my into
• 20:42
  my marketing for the holiday season shout out noah
• 20:45
  babbins or jonah babbins like i did his
• 20:48
  program for a year i highly suggest anybody do it but like yeah it changed my
• 20:53
  life because i started doing the you know doing the doing the outbound email
• 20:59
  campaigns and i don't know and now i'm not doing it as hard this year because
• 21:02
  i have this as my backup and people are finding me through this.
• 21:06
  So now my rates have gone up and I have 800 emails that I can now send to people
• 21:11
  who have seen my show and say, Hey, if you want to come over here and do the
• 21:15
  thing at my space, you can do it, or we can do it at your space.
• 21:19
  And, and like you, like you have to be, you know, it's, it's tough to be like a,
• 21:26
  you know, if you're a show business person, an entertainer, you have to,
• 21:29
  if you don't have someone doing the business for you,
• 21:32
  you got to do it all yourself and i don't you know i never had a
• 21:35
  manager or or anyone helping me
• 21:38
  with that stuff so you know it's fun i like it and
• 21:42
  you have to always keep that in mind though you always have
• 21:44
  to be making the calls like i'll take it
• 21:47
  personal that they don't call you back it's just put it on a
• 21:50
  schedule and do it because a lot of times they go oh
• 21:53
  man i've been meeting we've been meeting you know with secret nyc i
• 21:56
  i hit them up like four times and she
• 21:59
  goes oh we so sorry i just walked by there we've been
• 22:02
  meaning to stop in and they stopped in and they were so
• 22:05
  nice they treated me like i was their client they're like the
• 22:08
  video's almost done we'll let you know like they could have
• 22:11
  just come and put it out two months later and not
• 22:13
  said a word to me about it but it was like everybody's been it just feels like
• 22:18
  everything's been going like the way it's supposed to you know so yeah i think
• 22:23
  i think you make a good point saying that like show business is literally two
• 22:26
  things it's the show and the business and we have a question from someone in
• 22:29
  the comments regarding the show.
• 22:31
  It says here, I have a question.
• 22:33
  What kind of routines work in a cabaret style environment or what type of routines don't work?
• 22:39
  Do you mean cabaret style environment, like a standup kind of like,
• 22:43
  I think how you were mentioning, if someone at a gig said, Oh,
• 22:49
  could you do five minutes on stage?
• 22:51
  I think that's what they're kind of referring to. Like the cabaret,
• 22:53
  like, you know, 50 people in a room and you're doing like, okay.
• 22:56
  Or like, uh, or maybe even like the slip room, there's a 50 or a hundred people.
• 23:00
  Look, I think I personally am, I'm of the school of thought of like,
• 23:04
  whatever you do and that you like, you can make it work on stage.
• 23:07
  The things that i've that i've had a lot of success with are like cards across
• 23:13
  needle swallows you know coin product like i do like a a short coin production
• 23:19
  thing a bottle production.
• 23:21
  And like i you know a lot of people when they see me they go you should do stand-up
• 23:26
  and i'm like or you should do comedy i'm like did you just see my act i am doing
• 23:30
  con they separate it in their mind if you don't say i'm a comedy magician which
• 23:34
  i purposely don't say because i that evokes something.
• 23:38
  I said, I already do comedy. So my line has always been like,
• 23:42
  I do, I'm not the greatest magician in the world.
• 23:45
  And I'm not the great, I like lean on the magic so I can do the comedy.
• 23:49
  And I lean on the comedy so I can do the magic. I love them both. I love to be on stage.
• 23:53
  So I do a lot of crowd work and like magic is built for crowd work.
• 23:58
  You know what I mean? It's like, you're bringing people up, you're having fun with them.
• 24:02
  So, you know, that's a, that's like a tough question because anything can work in that environment.
• 24:08
  You have to make it work. You could do a rope routine.
• 24:10
  You could do a card routine. A cards across routine. You could do French kiss.
• 24:16
  You can do a version of French kiss. You can do...
• 24:20
  There's guys that do a silent... Alex Boyce does a dove act.
• 24:24
  I'm not going to do a dove act.
• 24:26
  That's beautiful, but you can do that. I don't know.
• 24:29
  You can't get doves. Get fake doves. I don't know. Make it a comedy routine.
• 24:33
  You can do whatever you want.
• 24:36
  Oh, silk to egg. You don't like sucker tricks. I love them.
• 24:40
  I always forget the name of it, the mentalism routine where everyone draws a
• 24:46
  picture and then drawing duplication at the end. I don't know, dude.
• 24:51
  I don't know, man. You got to do what you love and then adapt it.
• 24:55
  Well, let me ask a question with regards to sucker routines because we had a
• 24:59
  little chat about this backstage and reviewers have said that your type of magic
• 25:03
  is the type where you like explain, but then pull the rug out from underneath
• 25:06
  them much like you would a sucker trick.
• 25:08
  I actually been like myself, I said like, your magic is gaslighting because
• 25:12
  you think you got something and it's something different.
• 25:15
  Now, in my opinion, I'm just trying to like go against the audience expectation.
• 25:18
  Right. Yeah. And I don't believe that you would expose anything.
• 25:22
  Like there is a sort of satire that comes along with like exposing and protecting
• 25:25
  secrets. But what are the nuances of that, of being able to do things and pull, you know?
• 25:32
  Well, the truth of the matter is I don't expose anything. I do.
• 25:35
  My opening routine is soaked to it. It's my little version of it.
• 25:40
  It's a shortened version.
• 25:41
  So that's, you're not exposing any, I mean, you are, you're exposing the fact
• 25:45
  that that egg exists, that egg with a hole in it.
• 25:48
  Everybody knows about the thumb tip. So like I use a thumb tip all the time.
• 25:54
  My favorite time to use a thumb tip is when people go, man, I had this one thing,
• 25:59
  you know, that plastic thumb with the piece of, you know, with the red silk.
• 26:03
  And I'm like, yeah, while they're saying that I'm
• 26:05
  putting the thumb tip on and I'm going that's that's for
• 26:08
  kids you got a dollar on you and then i do the when
• 26:11
  i do a hundred dollar bills in your face that's my
• 26:14
  favorite thing to do so so the
• 26:17
  silk to egg you're i say i'm going to show you guys
• 26:20
  how it works and then i immediately pull the hole off and
• 26:23
  i crack the egg i don't go through the whole explanation anymore but so
• 26:26
  and i say there and and then you know
• 26:29
  i tell them and what i did there folks is i didn't teach you shit because i'm
• 26:33
  a liar but i'm an honest liar you know it's like that but now i'm thinking about
• 26:38
  if it's okay with you i'm gonna say i'm a gaslighter but i'm an honest gaslighter
• 26:41
  that's yeah that's good that's like the modern version that's the modern take
• 26:46
  on that that's so funny like when you said that before.
• 26:50
  Gaslighter is like you know it's like because people look people gaslight people
• 26:56
  you're here at a magic show you you know unless you really think that i'm making
• 27:01
  the balls i do cups and balls.
• 27:03
  You know, in my show, I, I, I have three short acts. I say the first,
• 27:08
  when I introduced the first act, we're going to do the classes.
• 27:11
  Ooh, I do silk to egg. I do a card routine and then I do the cups and balls class.
• 27:16
  Second act, I go bizarre magic. M-A-G-I-C-K.
• 27:20
  It's a genre. Look it up. And then, and then I do, what do I do? I do needle swallow.
• 27:24
  That's a classic. You know, I do a voodoo card routine that I adapted from the
• 27:29
  English, what's his name? Uh, the English guy. Anyway.
• 27:32
  No, no. Drawing Room Deceptions is the book. Oh, Guy Hollingsworth.
• 27:36
  Guy Hollingsworth has a voodoo card routine in the intro to that book.
• 27:42
  And he says, most people aren't going to read the intro. So I decided I'd put
• 27:46
  this card trick in there. It's for them only. I hope that's not exposure.
• 27:50
  But I took that and expanded it out for when I was doing speakeasy magic because
• 27:55
  I I had to fill a 10 minute slot and I wanted to do needles,
• 27:59
  but I couldn't do that for 10 minutes in a closeup environment.
• 28:02
  That's a good example going back. I do the needle routine. I started doing that.
• 28:07
  As a sideshow stunt for Ripley's, believe it or not. I did it on stage for years.
• 28:12
  I can do that on stage for seven or 12 minutes, but you can't do that for 12
• 28:17
  minutes at a close-up magic show where there's a noisy room because you got to talk.
• 28:22
  We want to get, so I did that.
• 28:25
  But they're both classics. The third act, I said, journey into the mind,
• 28:28
  or is it? And then I go into how mentalists are the worst liars.
• 28:32
  No one can read your mind. I'm going to show you a bunch of things that look
• 28:35
  like mentalism. I'm not going to expose them.
• 28:37
  Then I do a bunch of mentalism. And then after all of that, I'm going to,
• 28:41
  I, I'm going to read one person's mind.
• 28:44
  I'm the only guy in the world that can do it. So it's like, and then I just do all class.
• 28:48
  It's all at the end. The real illusion is like, they're all the classics, everything I do.
• 28:53
  So I don't know. I don't expose anything. I just, they think,
• 28:57
  they think that when I'm explaining a false transfer and I keep the ball in a finger palm position.
• 29:01
  And then I, next thing you know, I pull up a full size tennis ball out.
• 29:05
  They think i've exposed it yeah i exposed the false transfer
• 29:08
  but like everyone knows you know it's like not really
• 29:11
  because then i go ahead and do it again afterwards and they don't catch
• 29:14
  it so you're letting them like relax which which you know then to their peril
• 29:21
  yeah 10 tennis when they're relaxed you can punch them in the stomach much lighter
• 29:26
  and they'll feel it more yeah that's what i was trying to say i just couldn't
• 29:29
  think of the words i guess that's the brooklyn version of it I'm not really,
• 29:34
  I'm not really going around punching anybody, but the gut punch magic.
• 29:38
  That's a great, that's a great headline.
• 29:41
  I puked all over the table. Yeah.
• 29:45
  Gut punching show. My favorite is when people go.
• 29:49
  You know, this is, to me, this is one of the hard things to get used to.
• 29:53
  You know, when you tell a joke, it's like that Pete Holmes routine.
• 29:56
  You tell a joke, there's a natural biological reaction. You laugh.
• 30:01
  You do a magic trick good, and there's just stunned silence.
• 30:06
  And, or a lot of times. Sometimes you get a person that goes,
• 30:09
  oh, my God. And that can be too much, too.
• 30:11
  So the hard part is getting used to the stunned silence. And then I feel like
• 30:15
  the vocal version is that people will go, oh, wow, that's pretty good.
• 30:21
  And I know what they're saying. And they're saying, holy shit,
• 30:24
  that was amazing. But they're like, that's pretty good.
• 30:26
  So I'm always, you know, I'm always like, pretty good. Cool.
• 30:30
  Can I use that as a quote on my website? And they're like, no,
• 30:32
  no, no, no, no, I'm saying. And I go, I know what you're saying.
• 30:35
  So it's going to be, I've always found that odd. Like, cause you can,
• 30:38
  you can amp up the comedy, like the riffing and get the bigger laughs and instantaneous.
• 30:44
  And then you switch to magic, which sometimes because it's serious, does that.
• 30:49
  Does that ever in your brain conflict? Like, oh, I should be,
• 30:53
  let me jump back to a joke to get something or like, you know,
• 30:56
  that balance is so bizarre to be okay with.
• 30:59
  I always get that note. And I think the reason I get it is because.
• 31:05
  The note I always get is you went too long, you're going too long,
• 31:09
  you're taking too much time because I think sometimes I go back to like doing
• 31:14
  bits when I should just stick to the routine, man.
• 31:19
  Keep it snappy. You know, the note, I was just talking to my buddy the other day about it.
• 31:26
  He's a magician, one of the few that have come to the show. And he said,
• 31:30
  my only real note, make note for you is keep it moving.
• 31:34
  You know, move a little bit faster. So I feel like if you have a director,
• 31:38
  the two notes that you're really ultimately going to get are speed it up or slow it down you know,
• 31:43
  i have i have moments that i
• 31:46
  need to speed it up and i have moments where i should really slow it down but
• 31:49
  it's really usually the the speaking you got
• 31:52
  to slow down and then but the pace of the show keep it up that's my note and
• 31:56
  i think i've never thought about this until you just asked me but i think it's
• 32:00
  because i lean back i try to i sometimes get that moment of like the stunned
• 32:05
  silence and i go fuck they hate me shit why is that why is that guy looking away fuck,
• 32:12
  He saw, he knows, he's leaving. You know, I hate myself. I tell people all the
• 32:17
  time, this is all false bravado. I hate myself just as much as you do.
• 32:20
  I just do it into my pillow at night instead of here.
• 32:26
  Let's have a discussion about how to combat that. Because a lot of times,
• 32:29
  like, you perform and everyone, you know, will lose their minds.
• 32:33
  And what I used to say very early in my career is I'd go, like,
• 32:35
  and the crowd goes, you know, and I try to talk him through it.
• 32:39
  And I go, I go, what I'm seeing is a lot of this.
• 32:41
  And I show like a stunned face, like, but what I need is this.
• 32:44
  So I know you're having a good time. Okay. So let's try it again.
• 32:47
  And then you do like the routine again or something like that, the phase again.
• 32:50
  And then all of a sudden everyone claps. And it's like, it's almost like demanding
• 32:54
  applause, but I don't like, I don't like thinking about that. I don't force it.
• 32:58
  It's just educating them on how to communicate.
• 33:01
  I feel like I've, I've gone back and forth on that because I did a bit of street
• 33:06
  performing when I, there's another thing.
• 33:08
  I never became a full-fledged, like really good street performer or busker,
• 33:12
  but I did it a lot just to do, just cause I didn't have gigs.
• 33:16
  And I was like, I live in New York city.
• 33:19
  Fuck it. I should go down to central park. And some days I'd go and,
• 33:22
  and then leave, be scared. But I, I have a good friend of mine,
• 33:26
  magic Brian, who that he is.
• 33:28
  That's, that's what he did his whole, you know, he's, he does festivals and everything.
• 33:33
  And so I know in that world, it's a requirement. It's part of the art form is
• 33:39
  to get people applauding and you have to tell them and they have to applaud. Yeah.
• 33:44
  Because when they applaud, it attracts a crowd. When they freak out, it attracts a crowd.
• 33:50
  The hard part is you don't need applause in a show, in a closeup show at a theater.
• 33:57
  You don't need it. I mean, your ego needs it, but you don't need it for the show.
• 34:03
  So and and believe me i'm saying this like i'm like i'm like it doesn't matter i know that that.
• 34:09
  When they don't applaud or they don't, you know, especially when you have one
• 34:12
  audience that is applause and one audience that is very quiet,
• 34:16
  you feel like shit, that second show wasn't good.
• 34:20
  But I think we, I think a lot of us get full, like I'm trying to say,
• 34:24
  put this kindly to be kind to myself too, is that just cause people are reacting
• 34:29
  loudly and strongly doesn't mean it was that good.
• 34:33
  It can't. I mean, sometimes it's like, I've seen some shitty fucking magic and
• 34:39
  seen, And people, a few of the people in the audience freaking the fuck out
• 34:43
  and then going like, what?
• 34:45
  And then, you know, that person who has been me, I know, leaves thinking like,
• 34:50
  I'm fucking great. Do you hear the way that guy was reacting?
• 34:53
  Holy shit. They loved me.
• 34:56
  I don't know, man. It's, it's, it's tough. You know, it's like,
• 34:59
  you have to be, you have to get used to it.
• 35:02
  Like I comment on it now, but I, instead of saying like applaud,
• 35:05
  I say like, I'll say things like hold your applause till the end.
• 35:09
  And then they'll go, I'm like, no, no, no, don't, don't do anything.
• 35:12
  You don't want, I don't want to force you to do anything, that kind of stuff.
• 35:15
  I don't try to get them to applaud anymore because you don't need it in a,
• 35:19
  in a, especially in this space. I have 20, I have a, you know, I can't show you.
• 35:24
  I have a table with 21 seats or with eight seats around it.
• 35:28
  It's hard. I'll show you after, but, and 15 around me.
• 35:31
  So I don't need the applause. My ego needs it.
• 35:34
  Yeah, that's right. And people sometimes will feel in an intimate setting,
• 35:38
  self-conscious to make a lot of noise, you know, they're, that would take up the whole room.
• 35:44
  Sometimes you just need one or two people in there that know how to react.
• 35:48
  And then that cues the rest of the audience. But I mean, here's a good note for people.
• 35:53
  And, and I know like a lot of, a lot of us are like some, some form of undiagnosed, you know,
• 36:00
  autism, we're all on the spectrum, but like a lot of
• 36:03
  people have trouble making eye contact and are just
• 36:06
  looking but you should be looking at your audience's faces
• 36:09
  yeah because you can tell a lot because if
• 36:13
  someone's not reacting audibly or or
• 36:17
  you know you can tell usually by their eyes or by you know you know you can
• 36:23
  tell like when there's magicians in the audience or magic geeks because they're
• 36:27
  they're like the the the little like tweaks that you've made on your cups and
• 36:31
  balls routine or the little thing that you do,
• 36:34
  you can see them react. You can feel them react.
• 36:37
  And it's not always with, like, they're not reacting like that,
• 36:40
  but they're going, like, you can you know, but you can only see that if you
• 36:44
  can see it. You know, if you're, like, two like this,
• 36:47
  That's why you got to be able, that's why, you know, when you're practicing
• 36:49
  all your stuff, you're, you're learning to not look at your hands.
• 36:52
  Cause you got to be looking at their eyes, you know?
• 36:55
  And, you know, it just depends on the environment as well. Sometimes,
• 36:58
  you know, I did a thing recently where this company that like had a really good
• 37:02
  corporate culture and, uh, they were really stiff and I made friends with this
• 37:06
  bloke and I was just like, everyone's pretty stiff, huh?
• 37:07
  And he goes, we just been bought out by another big company and they've taken
• 37:11
  away all the stuff that made us us.
• 37:13
  Like we used to have a bar like in, in the, in the kitchen, like in the kitchen,
• 37:17
  we had like our own bar with like a keg they removed all of that they've
• 37:20
  killed our corporate culture and now we're among all these strangers and
• 37:23
  so everyone's too afraid to know how to act and they were bummed
• 37:27
  and yeah and everyone's they were half bummed that they've had all this like
• 37:30
  corporate change they were half bummed that like oh you know like i want to
• 37:34
  clap and have a good time i'm on a few drinks but like i'm amongst the higher
• 37:38
  ups and i don't know how to behave around them so you never know like why people
• 37:42
  are going to be repressed in their in their enjoyment but Look,
• 37:46
  however they're enjoying it, as long as they're enjoyment, I think that's the important bit, right?
• 37:50
  Hey, as long as they're enjoying it and telling their friends about it and sharing
• 37:54
  it. That's right. You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 37:58
  Tell your friends. Equally as important. Yeah. I mean, the fact that people
• 38:01
  are coming back, like you said.
• 38:03
  Blows my mind. Yeah. I mean, I've been booked by like engineers are always the
• 38:09
  ones I, whenever I get booked for an engineering firm for a party,
• 38:13
  I know I'm going into it with this stunned and silence,
• 38:16
  quiet audience because their brains are like magicians.
• 38:19
  They like to see stuff and then try to deconstruct it.
• 38:22
  And that's the space of time people normally applaud, but I'll get rebooked
• 38:26
  to go and do them again. And they're like, we want to book you again.
• 38:29
  I'm like, why? You had that last show.
• 38:33
  They're like, no, everyone loved it. I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. Engineers. Yep. Great.
• 38:36
  And you can use that knowledge against them, like particularly for engineers,
• 38:42
  for anyone listening, like people that are stunned in silence.
• 38:45
  If it's because they're just really soaking in what you're doing,
• 38:49
  you can you can play with that as well.
• 38:51
  It doesn't have to be out there. Let me throw this out there to you guys.
• 38:56
  Just recently, I said this to a guy I was working for. I go,
• 38:59
  it's a lot easier to fool smart people than it is dumb people.
• 39:03
  And the reason I say that is this. A dumb person believes their own bull crap, like full on.
• 39:10
  They're like, you've got nine magnets and some chicken wire and a thingamajig,
• 39:14
  and you've got surgically implanted
• 39:16
  magnets in your hand, which is why you can do them up to your hand.
• 39:19
  Yeah, no, you see this? Yeah, that's not like your lines. That's a surgical
• 39:24
  mark. and you put magnets in there and that's how the coin goes from hand to hand.
• 39:27
  That's how you muscle pass. And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 39:31
  Or I get like, you're the devil a lot. And it's just like, bro, calm down.
• 39:35
  I think smart people think before they speak typically and they go,
• 39:41
  you did it or they couldn't have.
• 39:43
  Oh, he must've. No, that didn't work either. So when you construct your routines
• 39:47
  in a good way that you have these notions that can cancel it out,
• 39:51
  logic traps as I call them it's great but dumb people just,
• 39:56
  also minds but also smart
• 39:59
  people if you're also emotionally intelligent
• 40:03
  know that even if they figure it out sometimes people just figure shit out they
• 40:07
  have the mind like a magician and they go oh he must have sometimes they say
• 40:12
  you must have had two cards with the same signature I mean there's just people
• 40:17
  that get that automatically see it that used to bother me,
• 40:21
  yeah that's just the way the world works that guy will
• 40:24
  probably go home and like find you know maybe
• 40:27
  we'll start doing magic like that's the way i look
• 40:30
  at it now so like you just gotta
• 40:33
  you just yeah and there's also the the thing too where sometimes when people
• 40:38
  do have a little bit of magic knowledge it makes them appreciate what you're
• 40:42
  doing way more as well because they can tell what you're doing is if you're
• 40:47
  a smart person or a skill yes but if you're a dumb person it's Like I got a magic kid as a kid.
• 40:53
  I know everything that Copperfield does. I can't. But what I was going to say, what I was going to say.
• 40:57
  I was going to say, if you're smart and emotionally intelligent,
• 41:00
  even if you do know exactly how it works, they're the ones that don't go,
• 41:04
  that don't blurt it out because they know not to be an asshole.
• 41:07
  They know, like, if I yell that out, it's going to make me look like a dick
• 41:11
  or make them look like a dick.
• 41:12
  And I like when those people come over afterwards and go, dude,
• 41:16
  I saw what you did, but it was fucking beautiful or like or some version of that.
• 41:21
  I feel like dumb people just aren't like dumb people
• 41:24
  do what like what kids do sometimes when they go
• 41:27
  I saw you your hand had it even when
• 41:31
  that's not what you did but they're positive that's what
• 41:33
  they saw they're just making up something they thought you
• 41:37
  did and then saying they saw it you know what I mean people do
• 41:40
  that all the time and when an adult does that I'm like okay
• 41:43
  you if you saw that then then that's incredible
• 41:46
  because that didn't happen I'm thinking that but you know that's
• 41:49
  what dumb people do i think that's where i become the
• 41:52
  gaslighter because i'll do like a false transfer and i'll put it in my
• 41:55
  eye and be like yeah and then they're looking at my hands being like it's up
• 41:58
  your sleeve and they're pulling up my shirt and i'm like no keep looking you'll
• 42:01
  figure it out but i'm looking for a coin but this big let me know when you see
• 42:04
  it yeah and i just and i'm just like this the whole time and then they go like
• 42:07
  are you prick and i'm like yep i'm that guy so yeah by the way i just noticed
• 42:12
  that we're all wearing black t-shirts.
• 42:14
  I i was wearing a white one before but i wanted
• 42:17
  to fit in so that's what we magicians do right
• 42:20
  we all wear black a hat now i'm getting a hat god
• 42:23
  damn i particularly and greg noticed that i particularly put
• 42:26
  my and my my new york hat on coming into this episode yeah someone made a joke
• 42:31
  at magic live all magicians wear black because we're you know we're trying to
• 42:35
  hide that we're slowly putting on weight as we get older and so it's just you
• 42:39
  know it's fashionable not wrong I I often wear just a white t-shirt too so.
• 42:47
  Great. Great. Is it a tall tee or is it like a slim fan? I'd rather not go into that.
• 42:53
  I told Nick that I knew what I was talking about. My fashion clothes.
• 42:58
  I'm not talking fashion. I like it. All right. Well, tell me about... Can I find this one?
• 43:02
  This is from Whistler. Magic shows in New York City real quick.
• 43:04
  Like, obviously, there's a lot of shows there.
• 43:06
  I mean, I remember when I turned 30, I particularly went to New York to go and
• 43:10
  see Chamber Magic, Steve Cohen's show.
• 43:13
  Excellent show. Yeah, it's amazing. And similar, similarly, he did at the time,
• 43:19
  you know, very little marketing of it, at least to hit Australian markets.
• 43:25
  But I just kept getting told about it from people.
• 43:27
  And I feel like that's a similar vibe of what's happening with you.
• 43:31
  I mean, look, when I first moved here, there was Monday Night Magic that I know about.
• 43:35
  There was Monday Night Magic and there was Chamber Magic, right?
• 43:38
  I don't even know if that had started yet, but that was basically it, right?
• 43:43
  Then there was, what else was there? then noah levine started doing his show
• 43:49
  at tannins it's called what's it called oh shit it's a wonderful show he's a
• 43:55
  great magician he was a demonstrator at tannins for a long time,
• 43:59
  and then of course was speakeasy magic first then speakeasy magic came that
• 44:06
  was created by todd robbins with the producers of sleep no more one of the best
• 44:12
  magic shows you'll ever see.
• 44:14
  I did it for a long time for a couple years then there
• 44:18
  was dan white and his show there's now
• 44:21
  there's a ton of magic but back then there was wasn't much
• 44:24
  you know there was monday night magic and i was not
• 44:27
  i was not one of those guys hanging around monday night
• 44:30
  magic trying to get into it because i wasn't i didn't feel
• 44:33
  ready you know i was afraid to perform
• 44:36
  our own magicians back then yeah and
• 44:39
  just quickly noah's show was it called magic after
• 44:42
  hours yeah magic after hours it's in tannon's magic
• 44:46
  show yeah wow it's great
• 44:48
  he's uh he you know noah's noah's like
• 44:51
  one of these guys who's like a historian he's very
• 44:54
  smart he's i think he's he he's at genie
• 44:57
  magazine now i think he's the editor of genie
• 45:00
  but you know that show's amazing there's
• 45:03
  gary farrar has a show called nothing here is
• 45:06
  real do you guys know gary ferrar no he's
• 45:09
  a worker he's a guy he's a guy like that i don't
• 45:12
  know how well known he is in the magic world but he's a worker he's like
• 45:15
  really really good i saw his show and i was like shit you know when you see
• 45:20
  magic shows you either hate them because they suck or you hate them because
• 45:22
  they're so good i was like i hate you man so good we have 69 atlantic down the
• 45:28
  street for me have you guys heard about 69 atlantic no not i don't know i live
• 45:33
  So I live in Brooklyn. This place opened.
• 45:35
  It's his name. God, I'm friendly with him. I can't believe his name is.
• 45:40
  I'm 52, man. I forget all kinds of Adam, Adam.
• 45:44
  Dan and Dave Buck, those guys, they have a store called The Art of Play,
• 45:48
  and in the back, they have a 20-person theater.
• 45:50
  I didn't even know they were opening it, you know? And then I was like,
• 45:52
  shit, that was when I was like, all right, I'm opening my own space. Fuck this.
• 45:56
  I'm at Speakeasy Magic. I'm a backup guy there.
• 45:58
  It's not my show. I love that. I love that environment, you know,
• 46:03
  performing at a table with people around me.
• 46:05
  There's a magic theater, a magic store opened in my neighborhood.
• 46:09
  It was called the Brooklyn Magic Shop.
• 46:11
  People started texting me, you opening a magic shop? i immediately
• 46:14
  thought it was a bar you know with a but it's they
• 46:17
  teach kids magic so it's not really a full magic shop but
• 46:20
  it's in the zeitgeist man i don't know and then 69
• 46:23
  atlantic opened up you know they're selling tickets for 120
• 46:26
  250 they're bringing in acts from
• 46:29
  all over the world you know they're bringing in like dave williamson and
• 46:33
  and and they're and he's selling out five nights
• 46:36
  in a row and they're bringing in you know and i'm going like
• 46:38
  people are are doing this i'm like i gotta do my thing
• 46:41
  now so those that that venue inspired
• 46:45
  me i had the only reason i haven't been to 69 atlantic is because when
• 46:48
  they first opened i couldn't i'd go to buy a ticket and
• 46:51
  they'd be completely sold out imagine if dave
• 46:53
  williamson came to your town for four nights
• 46:56
  do you think he'd sell four nights out yeah he would
• 47:00
  i don't i didn't know people know him outside of the magic world unless he's
• 47:03
  gigging you know right i see what you're saying yeah i i figure just with magicians
• 47:08
  alone like if he was in a 20 seater or even a 50 seater yeah yeah you're right
• 47:13
  conditions alone you know so you know it's like i was like you know.
• 47:20
  There was a quote someone quoted me in the first article where I said to her,
• 47:25
  I see all these other venues opening all over the city, and I was like, fuck it.
• 47:32
  My time is now. Because if them, why not me, right?
• 47:37
  There's 8 million people in this city, right?
• 47:41
  And everybody, there's so many people. So many people that come to my show are
• 47:46
  like, oh, we've been to Speakeasy Magic twice.
• 47:48
  We've been to 69 atlantic what else shows what
• 47:51
  other shows oh oh no a levine show yeah so
• 47:54
  it's like we're not in competition with each other we're
• 47:57
  really like you know it's good
• 48:00
  that they're you know i wish that you could open this same
• 48:04
  setup in every borough in new york and
• 48:07
  i think it could do well because people like
• 48:09
  to go to weird places here you know and there's just a
• 48:12
  lot of magic so like so we have monday night magic we have
• 48:15
  chamber magic we have damn white shows back
• 48:18
  on which i've also never seen steve cohen's
• 48:21
  show is amazing there's urban illusions that's uh
• 48:24
  forgetting his name too another really nice guy a
• 48:27
  lot of guys are doing their own thing now some guys
• 48:31
  did out in the hamptons it's called the 20 seat.
• 48:34
  Theater or something there a lot of people are doing this small
• 48:37
  little venues it's like i want new
• 48:40
  york to be like tokyo well yeah i was actually gonna
• 48:42
  bring that up i was gonna say that like the close-up scene between
• 48:45
  like new york and tokyo that's i was just sort of
• 48:48
  seeing some correlations like what do you have you seen the tokyo scene
• 48:51
  and you know i went to tokyo once and i
• 48:54
  went there to i was there to perform but not as a
• 48:56
  magician i went with this company that i used to dance perform kind
• 48:59
  of dance with they're like we did a nutcracker rated r we did that for 10 years
• 49:04
  that's where i met my ex-wife and i was in that show and and that's the first
• 49:08
  time i did any kind of magic consulting because i created a i basically created
• 49:12
  the the dollhouse i built a dollhouse illusion because we turned a toy rat into
• 49:16
  a live dancer rat. So we put the.
• 49:20
  It was like a i was proud of it it was a gingerbread house
• 49:23
  where we put a stuffed rat in and then she pops out
• 49:26
  and and does a whole number but we got someone picked
• 49:29
  us up and brought us to tokyo so i didn't really get
• 49:32
  to see much magic there or any magic because we
• 49:35
  were performing the whole time but i saw some street magic but i
• 49:38
  looked it up the other day there's there's a there's a there's a ton
• 49:41
  of little tiny close-up magic theaters and
• 49:44
  in tokyo shit's like on the eighth floor of an office building you
• 49:47
  know it's like so you know i
• 49:49
  think that could work i think in any city because people
• 49:53
  want to support you and and really another thing that was happening to
• 49:56
  me is i'd be at gigs you know you get to a certain point with these corporate
• 50:00
  gigs you can walk right into them you know exactly what works you can you can
• 50:04
  suss the crowd out all right like we were just saying like all right these guys
• 50:07
  are engineers these are the sales guys they're going to be dicks you know like
• 50:10
  but they're going to be loud so i'll hit them first and then you know what I mean?
• 50:14
  And that's the boss. And, and you're like, and then this guy I'm going to walk away from.
• 50:19
  And, but the people that were loving it, we're going, where can we come see you perform?
• 50:23
  And I go, well, I perform at speakeasy magic, but I never know when,
• 50:27
  cause I'm a backup guy and I do the slip room, but that's like once a month.
• 50:31
  And you know, I got one in August 12th and I got one in September 23rd and you
• 50:37
  know, I'm going to do a show here and I might do a thing, follow me on Instagram and I'll let you know.
• 50:41
  That's why I was like, just in just in like
• 50:43
  handing out my my little flyer to
• 50:46
  people to be like come to my venue you have
• 50:50
  a venue well it's a little i do my show there so just in
• 50:53
  in in that as a way to showcase yourself
• 50:56
  for corporate clients it's a great thing
• 50:59
  to do if you can find a tiny space and maybe share
• 51:02
  with a couple of guys like i want everybody to do this i
• 51:04
  want other performers to do this it's like let's
• 51:08
  cut out the fucking producers that use us and
• 51:11
  don't tell us what's going on and don't give us contracts you
• 51:14
  know like fuck them all i want to
• 51:17
  do it all i want to do is perform i want
• 51:20
  to just do my thing you know yeah sorry i
• 51:23
  mean yeah you said it and also i think it was adam rubin is
• 51:26
  that the art of play theater you were trying to remember the rubin very sweet
• 51:31
  guy very smart guy i met him performing at speakeasy magic and but here's the
• 51:36
  thing you know when you do when you're at speakeasy magic i don't at least for
• 51:40
  me we don't see the other performers no one.
• 51:44
  Auditioned me you know todd just was like all right you're in yet you got a
• 51:48
  tight 10 boom no they they hire you if they know you can do it at least in my
• 51:53
  case so i never i've never seen Rubens at the Rubens act there.
• 51:58
  You know, I saw I went once to kind of just to see the show.
• 52:03
  But other than that, here's a piece of advice I'll give to young people,
• 52:09
  not even young people. I was old.
• 52:11
  I wanted to do that show for so many years. I was reaching out to Todd all the time.
• 52:17
  I'd love to do the show. We'd love to have you. I'd love to do the show.
• 52:20
  I'd love to have you. And then I got into this space of like,
• 52:22
  those guys, forget about that. I'm not going to that show.
• 52:25
  And then one of my business coach was like, hey, we're coming to New York.
• 52:32
  Want to check out that show?
• 52:33
  If you want to come with us. And I said, hey, you know, I could probably get
• 52:36
  you some discount tickets because I get emails about them, but I'm not going.
• 52:40
  Why not? I'm like, ah, because they don't want to use me. And he goes,
• 52:43
  all right, so you're not going to the show because they don't want to use because
• 52:47
  they won't use you and you expect them to use you.
• 52:50
  Okay. And in that instance, instant, I go, what an idiot I am.
• 52:56
  So I wrote to Todd and I said, hey, Todd, I got some magic buddies coming into
• 53:00
  town. I'd love to get them some discounts if they're available.
• 53:03
  Actually i've never seen the show either you know
• 53:06
  let me know and then when he responded i you
• 53:09
  know i only read the first line in the email and it said i apologize
• 53:13
  but there are no discounts available and i'm
• 53:15
  like see this motherfucker god damn it and then i
• 53:18
  opened the email and it says however there will be
• 53:21
  three comps waiting for you at the dole and i'm like oh
• 53:25
  right i'm the asshole you're it's
• 53:28
  always you you're always the asshole so yeah
• 53:31
  like get out of your get out of your way no one gives
• 53:34
  a shit about you unless you're you know
• 53:37
  unless it's like go do the thing swallow your
• 53:40
  pride go in and you know what happened i went they treated me
• 53:43
  so well everybody welcomed me with open arms they
• 53:46
  came over and said hi and top goes we
• 53:48
  got to talk about your future with the show and then then the next
• 53:51
  week i was doing the show so it was like it's like
• 53:54
  just go go see the show go do the
• 53:57
  thing don't don't get in your way and and and like i have learned that in the
• 54:03
  last five years more than anything to just be like no one cares about you it's
• 54:09
  none of your business what anybody thinks of you all you have to do is do your
• 54:14
  thing get good at it put your nose down.
• 54:17
  Like i told you guys i never got any recognition from the magic world and i've
• 54:21
  realized now that I'm getting, not, look, they did a little write-up about me and Jeannie.
• 54:25
  I'm doing your podcast. I'm doing a couple other podcasts.
• 54:28
  It feels great. But now I realize it doesn't really matter.
• 54:32
  Like you guys are, you know, like we, we can geek out on magic all day,
• 54:37
  but you're not coming to my shows cause you have shows.
• 54:40
  I don't, you know what I mean? Like we're performing for people that want to go be entertained.
• 54:45
  Some want to be entertained by magic. Some don't, some people hate,
• 54:48
  You get those people that hate magic and their wife surprised them or their
• 54:52
  husband surprised them and said, we're going to a magic show.
• 54:54
  Yeah. I always say when...
• 54:57
  No, go ahead. No, maybe you're going to say the same thing. I always ask at
• 55:01
  the start of the show, like in our parlor show, like who's seen a show before,
• 55:06
  who hasn't seen a magic show before, and who didn't know they were coming to this show.
• 55:10
  And you get like three or four like husbands or wives or girlfriends.
• 55:15
  And you're like, all right.
• 55:16
  I don't ask it, but when they go, he didn't know what we were doing.
• 55:19
  And I go, because if you told him, he wouldn't have wanted to come.
• 55:21
  That's like my thing, which is usually not true. Usually they surprise them
• 55:26
  with it because they love magic.
• 55:27
  But you know i'm self-deprecating anyway and
• 55:31
  i know people are a lot of people say you shouldn't be self-deprecating about
• 55:34
  magic and it lessens the art form come
• 55:37
  on we can self-deprecate if you're a doctor you
• 55:40
  can do that i mean it's like no one don't be so
• 55:43
  precious you know it's like i'm i'm here to perform and have
• 55:45
  a great time and if i can do it on my own
• 55:48
  and and you know and like
• 55:51
  and you're killing it and it's day job is this
• 55:54
  show now it's like i it's great i love
• 55:57
  it i can't believe yeah and you said you're doing eight shows
• 56:00
  at the moment like well no at the
• 56:03
  moment i'm i took i took these two weeks off because it
• 56:05
  was so dead but i went from three shows a week so i was doing shows wednesday
• 56:09
  thursday friday saturday at 7 p.m and i purposely did seven because i thought
• 56:14
  maybe i'll add a late show at 9 30 instead of 10 otherwise i'd start at eight
• 56:18
  and when i knew that this piece was coming out. I said, all right,
• 56:22
  let me add the, this is what I did.
• 56:23
  I added all the late shows, but, and I marked a bunch of them as sold out.
• 56:28
  Like I marked all the Thursdays that sold out because I just figured no one
• 56:31
  was coming on Thursday as much anyway. Yeah.
• 56:33
  And then as soon as the article came out, they started going,
• 56:36
  and I, and I opened up all the Thursdays and they all sold out.
• 56:40
  And then I added Sundays or then I added Wednesdays, just one show on Wednesdays.
• 56:45
  And then I added Sundays and then I realized, all right, this is too much.
• 56:49
  I can't, I need a, I need to have one day of the week where other people are
• 56:53
  off and I can like, I love a Sunday.
• 56:56
  So I got rid of the Sundays and I also got rid of allowing kids in the show
• 57:01
  because I I originally had on the website, it said an asterisk at the bottom
• 57:06
  and it said, the show is intended for adults.
• 57:09
  However, if your kids are cool as shit, and I put that in all caps.
• 57:19
  And that gives them, that's a vibe that tells them what the vibe is going to be. Right.
• 57:23
  And, you know, it's different. New York city kids. I hate to be that guy who's
• 57:27
  a new New York city, blah, blah. They're just smarter.
• 57:30
  They see more shit. It's a little more liberal.
• 57:33
  You can, you can say shit to New York city kids that you can't say to other
• 57:36
  kids, you know, you can tell them to shut up and they know that you're kidding,
• 57:40
  you know, but, but also, you know, they're shitty kids.
• 57:44
  So they're, and the parent and a parent that would bring their kid to that show,
• 57:47
  to the late show has got issues and it sucks for the other people in the room.
• 57:52
  So then I had to add, and please dress them up.
• 57:56
  No shorts. Cause I had kids coming, you know, and it all sweaty from their soccer practice.
• 58:01
  Then I, then I said, all right, no, no kids only on Sundays.
• 58:06
  And then on Sundays I had four kids and I go, that's it. No more kids. It's just not for me.
• 58:11
  Yeah, it's an interesting choice. Yeah. Because sometimes they can sell extra
• 58:17
  tickets, but at the end of the day, we're adults trying to entertain adults with magic.
• 58:23
  And for everyone listening to this, by the way, we've been very broad with how
• 58:28
  to see your show, but I've just put up on the screen precisionclockandwatch.com
• 58:32
  is how you can learn more about the show. Get the tickets, check it out.
• 58:37
  We're going to put it up in our Discord as well for those in the know there.
• 58:41
  But go and check it out precisionclockandwatch.com it's
• 58:44
  in the show notes of where you're watching or listening
• 58:47
  to this episode as well but look greg
• 58:50
  it's been great to see you just absolutely killing it from afar like we got
• 58:54
  introduced through a mutual friend who just saw this thing you know this this
• 58:59
  powerhouse you're building and went and saw the show and spoke highly of it
• 59:02
  and great guy we're going to send now we're going to send many more magicians
• 59:07
  to go and enjoy it as well.
• 59:10
  I think, look, we're going to end our episode like we do every week.
• 59:14
  First of all, thank you for coming on and you're welcome anytime here.
• 59:17
  So much for having me, man. Like I said, this is my first time being on a podcast about magic.
• 59:23
  I was on a podcast before called Hey Poopy where you described incidences of shitting your pants.
• 59:31
  I should go on that show then. I might hit them up.
• 59:36
  Everyone's done it i know you have a story about it but uh
• 59:39
  but but thank you guys so much for having me because it's really
• 59:42
  it's i love to talk about this stuff and because
• 59:45
  i'm like you know i call myself like a lone wolf
• 59:48
  i'm not really you know i have magic buddies but i don't
• 59:51
  get to talk about it that as much as i'd like to and
• 59:54
  and this was really nice so thanks for having me appreciate it well
• 59:57
  buddy i hope you feel like you've gained two more buddies at least so you
• 1:00:00
  know absolutely well i do let's i do please and
• 1:00:03
  and yeah we like to get we'll have to get an update you know in six months a
• 1:00:07
  year time how it's changed and grown and even more so and hopefully we'll get
• 1:00:12
  over there to see it ourselves it could be gone by then i don't know like i'm
• 1:00:16
  just taking it day by day you know maybe i'll be in australia doing a show there who knows
• 1:00:20
  hell yeah i'll hold you to it all right well my friends we're going to end our
• 1:00:24
  episode like we do every week with giving our guests the final word.
• 1:00:30
  Thank you guys so much for having me. It's been a blast. Yes,
• 1:00:33
  please go to precisionclockandwatch.com.
• 1:00:36
  At Dubin Magic is my Instagram and precisionclockandwatch. I know I have branding
• 1:00:40
  issues. There's a lot of things to do, but my last word will be this.
• 1:00:45
  Just do your thing, get out there, get good, get better, and then do your own
• 1:00:52
  thing. Do it and do it well.
• 1:00:56
  Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
• 1:01:02
  But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.