Latest / The Magic Guys / Magic, Improv, and Everything in Between with Michael Dardant #193

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Magic, Improv, and Everything in Between with Michael Dardant #193 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I don't believe this. We are at episode 193 of the Magic
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Guys. Up to my right, we got Nick K.
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Welcome to the show, friends. And on the other side, we got Mr.
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Master, Doug Kahn. Bonjour, bonsoir, and everything in between.
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How y'all doing? That was pro. I'm doing really well, man.
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And actually, no, I've been a little unwell, like just over the last weekend,
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just too much being a magician. It's all good.
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Yeah. But hey, I'm Josh Norbedo, one of your wizards today.
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This is the podcast where we chat about our lives as magicians,
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interview really cool people in the field and share our shenanigans.
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As we can see already in the chat, Nick, who is joining us on the live?
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Because you could watch this live. in the house we have
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our good friend thomas conger tim askin our good
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friend scotty p who is doing so well in the
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magic realm who's been oh yeah listen to our episodes regularly taking our
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advice reaching out to us for advice bro you are so good
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we are so proud of you so let me tell you what's happening fellas as we're a
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little low on attendance in the united states i don't think half our audience
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has figured out it's been time change and it's actually an hour earlier here
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now well in about 45 minutes everyone will roll in and be like what's happening.
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Yeah true and also in australia it's melbourne cup day which is a big day for horse racing so,
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everyone's like going out to some kind of luncheon event which
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nick i'm i'm assuming you're gigging somewhere for that
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today no no no i i don't
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want to say it as a slander i don't
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pay that much you can say oh those gigs don't pay that
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much i don't know what this is what upsets me like the
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racing industry horse racing industry is a
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multi-billion dollar industry and they
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can't fork out for decent entertainment you know what i mean well
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like it's the the actual venues putting on a
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spread for people to come and watch the game at
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least in brisbane they're coming to watch the game on
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a tv screen to watch the race yeah so
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it's not like it's the melding cart per se but it's these venues venues selling
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ticketed seats that yeah over here like over the years i would run through i've
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sort of ran through every venue and they've all just sort of eventually gone
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oh that's too expensive for whatever reason even though it goes really well
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and i'm in the same place as you so,
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Yeah, I know a lot of guys are booked today, but let me say last time I did
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it, it was a really good time.
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So I'll save that for a gig story a little later on.
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Yeah. What about the Formula One? Did they take care of you, Norbita?
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Dude, yeah, Singapore knows how to do it. Formula One paid me.
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It might be the most I've ever been paid for an event, you know,
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just to help help that fuel my fellow magis.
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And they also let me bring my partner, gave her access, gave us an extra suite.
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In the hotel to accommodate two people like that
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was great that was just really good a little bit different uh
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to to that's how you want your talent coming into
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the event comfortable you know not like oh
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we're making grunt money for this thing yeah and
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i have good news i i can't well i won't say publicly yet until
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i've signed the dotted line but it looks like i have another overseas contract
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for february next year and another place around the
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world which is cool but not surprised zero surprised that's
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not the goods that we're here for today doug messaged us
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a while back and was like hey i've got an in to this
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freaking cool dude that has a world of
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knowledge to to be able to share with the pod how did
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you get connected with this gentleman as i start talking about this man i'm
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a little embarrassed i haven't invited him on our skit before magic mike darda
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not that magic mike if you're on instagram i think that's his hashtag boy we
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go way back i'm going to guess about 30 years. That's how long he's been a professional.
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And I remember when I was managing Warpo's Magic Shop in the early 2000s,
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he was always hanging around that joint.
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We'd bump into each other at gigs back then. So we've been working shoulder
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to shoulder in New Orleans for nearly 25 years.
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And, you know, Mike's born and raised here.
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And wow, did he make things happen really over the last 10, 15 years?
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I can't list all the accolades. There's been so many, but he decided to attack
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the magic world of the contests.
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He started entering all the contests in the States and even internationally,
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even competed at FISM. He's accumulated over 30 awards.
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I read that on his website. That's probably a lie. He also lies a lot.
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That's Mike Dardenne's skit. I don't know. He'll tell us. He probably will just
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come on and list them all.
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So yeah, a true professional, the hardest working magician in New Orleans,
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an award-winning, international award winning act this guy is multi-talented
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he's going to tell you about his acting his improvisation school and classes
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that he does and juggles there's lots more let's bring him on so he can talk
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about it michael dar dad oh that's cool.
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Music.
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Gosh asked me he goes is this is this one okay i forgot you stopped buying your
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hair a couple years ago i should have put a different thumbnail for you right
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no but who's that picture for so long that it's like iconic but yeah i look
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at it and go like who's that guy right well let me just say what a wonderful
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problem to have michael now for the listeners for the first time please,
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well i am michael dardone i lie for a living like doug said and actually i don't
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know if he saw this on my shirt.
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Look what my shirt says. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.
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There you go. So now, now, you know, I, I, I think my, my biggest like asset
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is versatility because I'm not, I, I'm mainly a magician. That's like in the
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top there, but I've done so many different like aspects of entertainment.
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Sorry, hold on. My cord got stuck under my chair like that.
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I've got so many, I guess because of my ADD, I'd get bored easily.
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So while some people just kind of like have one field of endeavor i've
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i've sort of it's learned from
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all of them so like film production and script writing
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and improv comedy and acting and juggling and
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basket weaving you name it actually and one
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of my one of my favorites is that i'm a virtual ninja uh
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streaming like virtual reality on twitch which is
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not not every magician does that damn you're doing
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of what's the platform is it meta quest with
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well actually i use both quest and steam and
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because i have the two different systems so that
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i'm using and i have an entire green screen room behind
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me so that they can see me in mixed reality yeah you're
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like in it and they're watching you as though you were in the game i'm
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the game and so that's why i dress i dress up so that's one
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thing about like i've always been i've always
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been a stickler for staying in character and you know having characters i
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love dressing up like getting in character and i noticed
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that a lot of people were were in this mixed reality but they weren't dressed
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they're just in boxer shorts and i was like no no i'm gonna be the ninja like
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you're i'm the i'm the game character you're watching me now a live person do
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these things and it's funny because people tune in and you know the screen you're
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like this big on the screen right so it takes them a second to realize oh this isn't an.
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This is an actual person in a costume, right? Or as I call it, a uniform.
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I don't like using- Can we sort of explore character development?
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Because you have quite an exorbitant acting background and so forth.
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And a lot of magicians I talk to, well, this might be like a two-part question
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because character development is one thing.
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But I also find that as you evolve through your career, and thankfully you had.
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A very successful and long one, that you find yourself changing.
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Like the person you were performing in your 20s is very different
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to the person you're going to be when you hit your 40s and
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so forth so let's start with the question of saying
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like as far as character development goes what advice do you have
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for those who are starting and finding
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their character well i would say for
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me it was actually easier to develop other
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characters than to figure out who i was like
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what my own was i would say that that took
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years to master that when doug first met me I was
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just trying to figure it out and trying to you know just figure
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out how to make this trick work and and make it entertaining and
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not knowing how it was actually me or who I
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was and I feel like that took years whereas it was
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so much easier and more fun to just go like who's this character
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what kind of accent what's the name does he have a mustache like
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and that that is just easier and more fun and
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I've just always kind of loved like delving into
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the world of being someone else so like one of the main characters that
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i do is sort of an extension of myself which is cousin cajun
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mike who is since i'm from cajun country
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and i started realizing everybody loved that oh there you go there's cousin
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there's a program from the society of american magicians convention where mike
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produced a couple of shows um you did this one too the masquerade magic that
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was a good one but this is the one that showcases your character uh cousin cajun mike.
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So question about cousin Cajun Mike, is he is he your stand up character?
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Basically that it is a stand-up character in
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fact people have asked before if i could show up somewhere and
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do cousin cage and mike doing sleight of hand magic and it's
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so funny how okay i get their thought process but
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to me i was just like obviously no like what how would cousin cage and mike
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know anything about sleight of hand that makes no sense like that because it
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just doesn't fit the character he like basically i'm a couillon as we say and
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down south i'm a doofus and so like For him to all of a sudden be smooth and
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slick and fanning cards,
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what? That would not be his character.
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Now him messing up magic tricks or doing gags where he's trying to do magic
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but reveals it or whatever, drops it on the ground, that makes sense.
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Well, in his defense, Gambit's Cajun, right? And he's pretty swift with cards.
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Gambit is Cajun, y'all, and that makes it hard for him to be smooth with an
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accent like that. But I learned that girls love it because they'd be like,
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talk to me in Cajun. And I'm like, it's not a language.
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And I don't have to impress you guys with card throwing skills,
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but they used to call me Gambit in high school because as I was learning sleight
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of hand from 13 on, I would throw cards everywhere.
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And I have more reason to hate Channing Tatum than anyone because not only did
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he steal my stage name for no reason, he became my favorite character in the
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world. It's true. You were the first Magic Mike in this.
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You were Magic Mike before Magic Mike was a thing.
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No card tricks spoiler alert he didn't do a single card trick as magic yeah
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that is weird that is that is such a good play on words and opportunity you know but then he plays,
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well that yeah you got to give him that i mean you know he's that
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kind of makes him cooler than than any of us the fact that he
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gets to play gambit but i watched the whole movie and i
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thought well at least they're going to explain it like at some point they're going to explain where
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he got the name like did matthew mcconaughey make it up like we don't they never
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there's no reason like why isn't he dancing dave you know or stripping stripping
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steve stripping steve would have been better i would like that movie or or like
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don't like doug or something yeah.
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Wang wane there's so many where's the
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magic coming from actually that's the name they have a version
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of it that they dubbed in korean and i believe that's
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the title they changed the title up yeah let's go
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that's awesome so i'm curious
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mike your character your magic character which i believe
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is is you right it's not like you know like it's definitely
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michael dardant right yeah i would say that
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that's the closest to me that basically when i'm magic mike it's really it's
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really just me in my element of like i enjoy being on stage and here's here's
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my comedy timing here's what here's what i feel like is the way that i present
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and you know other than that the only difference may be that on stage, I never curse.
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And maybe when you meet me in person, and it's just really me hanging out without
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the hat on, then maybe I'll get a little more blue, but not even that much,
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because it doesn't fit me. Yeah.
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Nice one. And can I ask as well, so Doug was saying all these accolades with
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magic competitions, that's sort of a funny thing in the magic world.
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Like people are like, do I focus on trying to, you know, figure out how to get
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gigs as a magician or do I try and, you know, do competition acts?
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Like what benefits have you found to like committing to entering these competitions
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to like improve your act or like, do they differ to what you might do in the real world?
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Like what's sort of been your process? A lot of differences.
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That's an excellent point and great question because there is kind of a question of that.
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When we talk about who can represent the United States in FISM now and do a
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good job, well, the people that we think of, we go like, why would they? Why do they need that?
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Why would Lance Burton have to go back over to FISM? You know what I mean?
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And so the reason behind it, I would say twofold.
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One, I felt the need to prove myself in the magic world.
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But I think also that there really has to do with the second part,
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which is to prove myself to me. I feel like it really was about that I needed
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that to prove to myself that I can justify my price. I can justify my talent.
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When a client is talking to me, I can say, hey, look at the site. I did it.
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I have the accolades to prove that I can even stand out amongst my peers,
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that my own peers, they respect me and they appreciate what I do.
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And so look at the hair. and so you're having the first place international
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brotherhood of magicians trophy is that correct,
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yes and that was the first one yeah and
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then you just went on a tear and you ran around the world collecting all
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kinds of trophies i'm in your gallery we're looking at pictures on
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mike's so you did an act a comedy act
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here you are with kitty chaos and trixie manx
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each of which were featured in your award-winning show
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is that correct yeah so there was actually two acts that
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was the other thing that that i did was i i went like
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if i'm going to make these trips and i'm going to be traveling all over going
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to these competitions i may as well like double my chances of taking home a
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trophy so i was entering close-up magic and stage magic the whole time now most
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of the awards are in close-up magic so most people know oh hear me no i said smart i was pointing.
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I wasn't aware that you had done that, Michael, but that's super smart approach. Double down.
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Actually, in Quebec, there was no rules about how many categories you could enter.
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So the first time I've been to the Festival of Magic in Quebec, like...
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Maybe eight times and the first time
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there was five categories and i
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asked how many categories can you enter they're like
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that i did as many as you want i i entered all five with five different acts
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and took first place in two of them and because like in the first first and
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only time i ever won a mentalism award which is like i'm not i don't you doug
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knows i'm not really a mentalist but I won first place in mentalism because
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that's the act fit that category.
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And it was more of a just, you know, increase the odds kind of thing.
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Now that was a little crazy. I would say I would never do that again because
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basically for five days straight, myself and Shanna Forrestal, who was my assistant,
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were by the hotel pool rehearsing and rehearsing and rehearsing because there
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was five different acts for her
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to learn because she's an actress who had never done magic or anything.
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I just said, I need somebody. You're going to do this because I know you can.
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And she had to learn five acts in two weeks.
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And who is this? Shanna Forrestal, brilliant actress that I've worked with.
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A quick plug for a movie that I'm in called Trailer Park Jesus from a few years
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ago. And she plays my wife.
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Trailer Park Jesus is hilarious. I definitely recommend being on something or
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drinking something when you're watching it. It's that kind of flick.
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But the great thing is we're working on Sean Gerwin, And the director is working
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on the sequel. He's working on a script right now for the sequel.
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You won some awards for that, right? Or it's a winning movie?
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We won like, I think, 13 awards at comedy film festivals, at film festivals.
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And most of them like comedy related.
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Yeah, it did so well on the independent market. It's available on Amazon,
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YouTube. It's just never, you know, it's not a blockbuster. It's not an Avengers movie.
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It's, you know, an independent film that was filmed here in Louisiana.
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You're doing that. Is it just like a labor of love? You just get together with
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some, you know, fellow filmmakers and just put the best effort you can.
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For the most part, it is. In fact, to give you an idea, I framed the check.
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I didn't bother depositing the check I got. I framed it with a movie poster.
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So it's in there. Anything's possible, though. You're right.
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You make a good film and you never know. You never know.
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And the thing is, why would you want to get away with that?
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That's kind of one of the problems in that balance that you try to achieve in
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our industry is like once you start getting paid for it and you realize you
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need to get paid for it and you want to get paid for it, you kind of have to
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say no to when you're not paid for it.
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But when does it stop being a labor of love? And it should it.
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So that shouldn't stop you from making a labor of love.
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That should kind of always be the priority because that's what makes it about
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the art and makes you shine in what you do is the fact that they can tell you
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love this. You love what you're doing here.
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When we watched the, what do you
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call it? The screening of one of the many versions of Trailer Park Jesus.
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It was still seven versions away from the final. but there was a couple of the
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director's friends there watching with us and just like five of us on the couch.
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And, and at the end, Sean goes, what do you think? And the guy sitting next
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to me goes, Oh, I really love that Paul character, which is who I play.
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And I think he's like making a joke because I'm sitting right there.
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And he goes, I love that Paul. He was so amazing.
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So and he's going off and Sean realized, he goes, you realize Paul's sitting
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right next to you. And he looks over and he had no idea.
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And that to me was the best compliment I could get as an actor ever
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the fact that i'm sitting next to this guy why he watches me an
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entire movie not knowing that that it's me that
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that i'm him there it is yes so there's jesus
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turned wine and water into wine coolers in this
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movie jesus turns water in the trailer park jesus of
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course the trailer park jesus basically the entire i don't
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know if we can we talk about acid the unicorn by the way that's the
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the director the entire movies about this
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trailer park on acid is is essentially you know
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from the plot line there sounds all right yeah gee
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that's a really out there plot when i did check your some of the accolades and
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things you've been involved with want to see if i read this correctly were you
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in a movie called where strippers go to die yes i was i was and guess what you
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know what the answer is new orleans bourbon street.
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Exactly you figured it out i used to go watch them,
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literally yeah you could see it happen i feel like there's an in-joke there
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that us on our side of the planet we we kind of don't get what's the connotation
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there was sorry did you fill us in yeah so these guys are from australia so what a strip club is um.
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I'm not a strip club kind of guy, but I've ended up in a couple,
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a couple of times. And you end up in one or two here.
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That's the wrong joint. And it's just jaw dropping what they'll put on a stage in this city.
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It's really like its own form of entertainment.
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That's kind of the, I guess the dichotomy there, because that's not what the film is about at all.
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It's like a horror, like drama, murder mystery thing.
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But the whole joke about the title is the fact, yeah, it's, it was,
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it was very, it was a drama.
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It is not a comedy by any means in fact that's probably
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one of my only dramatic that's one of the only dramatic roles that i
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can remember and shanna forestall who i was just talking about
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was also in that was there and helped me through that because i
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was like i'm a comedian i don't know how to play this and she was amazing
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just in 10 minutes the acting instructor instructions she
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gave me is something that i'll never ever forget and
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that i've been able to apply to everything and but the
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joke of the title is that as doug said like if
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you've ever been you know if you've been to a strip club like you
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know that one of the best questions you can get on bourbon street is which
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one should we go to because you know you got your your
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ritzy high-end joints and then you got what we would call like you know your
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truck stop on the way to alabama where they can't even serve alcohol because
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that's too risky like that's there's a difference you know just like there's
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a difference in good like good magicians and bad magicians there's definitely the location.
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Location, location, location.
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Let's talk like a little transition from like your independent movie stuff.
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You do a lot of work in this town also on the professional television end of things.
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We're pretty busy here producing TV shows in New Orleans and you're always doing something.
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You know, CSI or whoever. Yeah.
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Yeah. I have had some interesting roles and I realized that they usually look
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for me for interesting roles.
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So that can work for you or against you. So like, for example,
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you don't really want, I want somebody to think of me for a role that I could
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fit and that I, if I look the role and I can bring some talent,
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not just because, oh, this requires juggling or sleight of hand.
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So I would say that a lot of times they think of me for specific
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reasons like for example i played the silverman in
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ncis where i was the the living statue that they
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knew that i had performed i had performance experience and i
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had been in new orleans they figured this guy could you know he knows
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something about street performing he could play this this role i
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was the only one that showed up to the audition completely in
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character which amazed me that's another
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another time when i was like no cajun mike doesn't do magic why
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would you not come to this audition painted silver it's right
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why would you not that doesn't make sense to me
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and of course and got the role nailed it but that
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you want to be kind of considered for you you want the challenge of
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being able to go to after after roles they wouldn't even think that you
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would be able to kill but you you kill it in the audition and
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i will say that i've been very very busy
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with auditions now how many
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roles do i do i land i don't even care anymore you know
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like i said labor of love you just do them send them off like
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little birds and like maybe it'll come back to me probably not and
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i i actually did the math because i keep all my video files
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of the auditions and it took a hundred auditions to nail the last one i did
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on disney plus so it was it was over a hundred so it was actually a hundred
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and so like how many people are going to play that numbers game you know are
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going to take it that seriously they're like consistency persistence can you
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talk a bit about that process?
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Are these online auditions now? Is that a common thing?
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It is now. It wasn't before. It used to be that every time you had an audition,
23:35
you'd have to drive somewhere across town and get in front of the casting director
23:38
and try to memorize it before you got there, have the sides with you,
23:42
figure out what they're going for. Since...
23:45
Covid we started doing online auditions
23:48
where it's you and your own camera in front of like
23:50
this screen behind me actually flips around and becomes a blue
23:53
screen so you want your auditions for a gray or blue
23:56
not a great screen and you you'd film you set up good lighting you try to have
24:01
somebody hopefully read with you because it's really difficult you know if there's
24:05
nobody there because normally the casting director would have a reader so if
24:08
there's if there's lines and someone's reading you know reading back to you
24:10
you can't really do that without so there is that challenge.
24:14
But it is, it does make it more accessible.
24:17
Like I've been able to, I don't think I would have been able to do as many of
24:19
those auditions every time I had to drive across town.
24:22
And so that accessibility makes it kind of like, why not work hard?
24:26
If some people like I might get the role because I got up early and did it.
24:30
And that's one of the things that's like, if you just get after it,
24:32
like these are simple, knock them out. Who knows what they're looking for?
24:35
Don't worry about the rejection. Who cares?
24:37
That was 99 knows to get one. Yes.
24:40
But that one yes was awesome and it was fun and it was worth it
24:43
and like the 99 knows were worth it too
24:46
because those were fun as well and those were different characters
24:49
that i had got to have the challenge of so when i get aggravated with
24:52
it i you know like i haven't nailed one in a while i just
24:55
remind myself of that that you know what who gets to get up have
24:58
fun playing a new character each day so just do
25:01
it just why not show them what you got and they can
25:03
reject you as many times as you want there's no limit that's the thing
25:06
there's no limit to the amount of rejections you can get no one has
25:09
said you can only get this much rejection you can do it all
25:12
your life it's great a lot of people fear that rejection and
25:15
fear like and assume as a type of failure do you
25:17
have any advice for people who who are too afraid to
25:20
to even try that sort of thing it's that's one thing i'll plug the the improv
25:25
right now because that's one thing one principle that improv comedy teaches
25:28
you is to embrace failure because where else can you just slam dunk the failure
25:33
which i guess is my phrase i don't know where to come up with this you slam
25:36
dunk the failure and you can still be a success because you're still entertaining.
25:40
When everyone knows that you were just thrown under the bus and you don't have
25:44
a script, then no matter what you do, as long as you do it and you nail it,
25:49
it's gonna work. It's gonna be entertaining because they're gonna love it.
25:52
So like if Doug and I are in a scene and Doug makes me a Russian character,
25:57
just calls me Boris for some reason.
25:59
Now I might have a great Russian accent. I might have a horrible Russian accent,
26:03
but either way, it's gonna be hilarious.
26:05
It's gonna kill. It's gonna be entertaining because they know that until one
26:09
second ago, I didn't know my name was Boris.
26:11
But when you work on that kind of stuff and you accept that,
26:16
it becomes so much easier to accept failure in any situation because you're
26:21
used to it and you've kind of like acclimated to that where you're like,
26:25
I got this. It's fine. I can fail. Yeah.
26:28
I want to touch base on what you're doing with improv before we get too far
26:32
along and don't and segue into this with one of the many things that you do
26:36
is actually teach improv.
26:37
You've been doing it for over a decade.
26:41
You want to talk a little bit about that? And then we'll talk about what you're
26:43
doing on online with it now.
26:45
So about maybe 12 years ago, Kate Arthurs, who is the theater director at Jesuit
26:50
High School and has known me as a magician for years because her father was
26:54
a magician. In fact, I've worked with her sister, Carolyn, for years and years.
26:58
So the family was very familiar with magic.
27:00
But she also knew that I incorporated a lot of comedy into what I do.
27:05
And so one of her students wanted to organize an improv team.
27:10
But they needed a coach. They needed a moderator. They needed somebody.
27:12
They needed an adult, quote unquote adult.
27:16
So basically, she asked herself, who do I know who would not be at a regular
27:20
job on Tuesday afternoon, Magic Mike?
27:23
And so she called me up. I said, I would love to do that.
27:26
And having no idea, I'm thinking, okay, this is a job to earn some extra money. This could be fun.
27:31
I had no idea how much I would learn that, how much it would teach me to be
27:36
able to evaluate this and process it and figure out the intricate details as
27:41
to what works and what doesn't.
27:42
And these kids talking with me after a scene, it's like, we can see the matrix
27:46
where we're like, yes, that's what would, that was beautiful.
27:49
That's why it worked. And it's incredible.
27:51
And, and then, so I decided, well, I've been doing that for a while now. I got my chops.
27:56
People started asking me, do you offer it anywhere else? And I said,
28:00
yeah. Well, actually, I didn't know how to do the online thing.
28:02
That's new. That first one starts tomorrow.
28:05
Hold on because you have, and I'm kind of showing your cred here. I think,
28:10
You have what you call a vodcast, which has a loose backbone of an improv as
28:16
part of this is your something up my sleeve.
28:19
Is this associated with the IBM? Yes.
28:22
So the International Brotherhood of Magicians approached me.
28:25
That was after the pandemic went because Harrison Greenbaum was doing an interview
28:29
show, but got really busy again with theaters and everything.
28:32
And they wanted to keep the online presence going. and I thought for years I
28:37
would love to just be a host because what more chance do you have to practice improv, right?
28:42
To like being somebody who interviews, well, you know, I'm talking to three
28:45
hosts right here. So you know how much fun it can be and how much experience you can gain from that.
28:50
And then I wasn't even thinking about the fact that, wow, what an honor it will
28:54
be to interview some of my heroes that I've had along the way,
28:58
like Sean Marquardt, Doug Kahn.
29:02
You had some real heavy hitters on there yeah lance
29:05
burton was one of our recent guests was incredible to
29:08
have you know like somebody that i watched when i was 13 years old
29:10
watched would i need to be an ibm member to watch these videos
29:14
or are they accessible elsewhere no actually they're making the whole video
29:18
like and and some like extra stuff is going to be accessible on their website
29:23
that members will be able to access at any time the rest of it though it's still
29:27
my footage and it exists on my youtube page so you can watch all of them but
29:31
i realize that you have to go to you probably know that you have to go to live.
29:34
Like if you just go to videos, they don't show up. You have to go to live.
29:37
So I'm now I'm reposting them as videos. But also I haven't made it a podcast
29:42
because I wanted to have enough set up so that I could stay consistent.
29:45
And now the goal is 2025.
29:48
It will be on Spotify as an audio podcast and repeat as a podcast as well.
29:55
But essentially we have 36 episodes over the last three years,
30:00
but most of them can actually be split into
30:03
two because i had two guests per episode so
30:06
you know for the podcast i'm gonna split those up and doug
30:09
was were you my first were you my first were you
30:12
the number one i think you i don't know i
30:15
think doug was my very first guest ever on something
30:18
up my sleeve damn yeah and it's because i
30:21
was like i know who to call i know who can make this rock i
30:24
i know right here around the corner so
30:28
was that was that before you were on the
30:30
magic guys doug that must have been about that same time
30:33
i guess i would have done some guest episodes and such
30:37
you know i inspired him he was like i gotta do this
30:39
yeah and somehow luckily we snagged him right yeah like it's fun you know you
30:46
come on and you're just hanging out with your bros meeting cool people and it's
30:49
you know this is very much as much of a social thing for me as anything so yeah
30:54
it's like that absolutely So question about the improv, Mike.
30:58
I think that practicing some of the techniques taught in improvisation is kind of important.
31:04
You can't exactly yes and by yourself. What sort of advice do you have for people
31:09
who want to practice their improv but don't always have people to bounce off?
31:14
Oh, that is a – oh, my God. What an amazing question.
31:17
In fact, what I tell magicians is that practicing improv is kind of like practicing
31:21
a watch steal or a classic force because you're not going to be able to do it on the mirror.
31:26
Although you can start to do it in your head when you really get the concept
31:29
and all of a sudden you'll have these moments where you're like,
31:32
did I just script that whole conversation that I had because it went exactly
31:36
how I thought it would because I kind of like forced that yes and along the way.
31:41
And essentially that's kind of what's happening in a classic force, right?
31:44
We're yes ending them. We're watching their movements and that's exactly what's
31:49
happening on a physical level.
31:50
And so one thing I point out to people is that when you don't have a partner,
31:55
first of all, that's why I didn't really know how to...
31:59
Claim these or name these principles is because I hadn't had the proper training
32:03
where like actual improv training, but these things were working for me along the way.
32:09
So as an individual performer, when you don't have somebody on stage with you
32:13
and you're the show, unless you're only performing like to music apparatus type
32:18
stuff, anytime you're interacting, that's improv because the audience doesn't have a script.
32:22
This volunteer doesn't have a script. You might think, you know what they're
32:26
going to say when you say, pick a card, but you don't necessarily.
32:29
And it doesn't always go as planned. And so those are moments definitely where
32:34
not only do you practice, but you store them because when something happens,
32:37
like just the other night, uh, there weren't supposed to be any kids at this show.
32:40
It was a big birthday party show.
32:43
I, they sent me what the invite was. And it said, please don't bring,
32:46
bring your kids. Cause this is an adult party.
32:48
Sure enough. There's three kids there and they're sitting in the front row when
32:50
I'm performing my magic show for adults. Right.
32:52
But it was great. I pulled this kid up and I told her from my kids show way
32:56
back, the magic words are yama, yama, yama.
32:59
Gotta love your mama. And that's just like some silly thing I learned a long
33:03
time ago. And it just works in kid shows.
33:05
She accidentally goes drama, drama, drama.
33:08
Gotta love your mama. And it was in 30 years. I've never heard that.
33:12
It was brilliant. And I was like, now it's stored.
33:14
Now I'm going to remember that. How do I make that happen again?
33:16
Or how do I use that if the situation comes up?
33:19
Or I'll say to the kid, like if they do something weird, I'll go like,
33:22
I said, yama, yama, yama, not drama, drama, drama. And it's going to seem completely improv.
33:27
And it's all because I stored that improv moment in my head,
33:30
you know, so I can make it real again.
33:32
Sorry, I hope that answered. I just kind of went on that track.
33:34
No, that's great. That's great.
33:36
I think outside of that, I love improv myself and I studied quite a bit.
33:40
My personal favorite book is probably Keith Johnson's book on improv.
33:43
And the first thing he says to establish in that book when you're doing any
33:46
sort of improv scene is established status.
33:49
Do you think that's important?
33:53
I don't know if it's, if it's, I would say it's the most important,
33:56
like the, from the get go, I feel that, you know, I, I say that I kind of switched
34:01
the order of the rules around.
34:03
So I, what I do is I talk about yes. And first, since it's the most important
34:07
thing, but that's because you got to get your mental state ready.
34:10
So that is the first thing, because before anything's happened,
34:13
you got to mentally know that this is how we do it.
34:15
We are going to yes. And the situation, and then you got to concentrate on saying
34:20
the first thing that comes to your mind.
34:22
And I think once you start to establish that, then what's going to make a scene
34:27
a better story is within the first three, four lines, once you've established
34:31
the relationship, the environment,
34:34
then you would move on to like, now what's our status?
34:38
Because that establishes character. And now we're not just watching two people talk.
34:42
Now we're watching two characters interacting and we can see what that status
34:47
is, which can lead to the problem and the resolution or a, status switch to
34:53
throw everything off unexpectedly.
34:55
So status is very important. Absolutely.
34:58
This all seems a little bit complex and something that someone might want to
35:03
have a four week training course to consume.
35:07
I don't think status should come up to probably week four.
35:12
So week four, we definitely should talk about status, but that is a little complex
35:15
for someone to remember when they're just trying to remember to not say no.
35:20
Yeah. Well, that's why I agree because he said it's the first thing you need to
35:23
establish and i'm like that's so difficult to do like or am
35:25
i the jester or the king in this scene like it's very difficult to try
35:28
and establish that if you're not told that you're
35:31
this character you know and so that's why i thought that's the question but
35:35
yeah i think that and different and difficult to portray because you might think
35:39
you have status but if it's within your first line your partner might completely
35:43
mistake that and they might take the status role you know like if i say if i
35:48
say you're on a planet out in space,
35:50
you might think to yourself i'm an alien but then
35:53
your partner becomes an alien before you can speak and now
35:57
you've got to adjust and realize and in a
36:00
sense that that might be considered a status situation but more of
36:02
like a character an opposite situation of like if he's an alien i should be
36:06
the astronaut you know and that i was going to make him the astronaut but that's
36:09
okay i'm going to go with it because yes and that is the truth he established
36:13
that truth the audience knows it's true so what do i do with it and oh and this
36:18
reminds me of one of my favorite moments when my students where I was just like,
36:21
oh my God, this kid gets it. It was an alien.
36:25
It was the same kind of thing where I guess they were on a planet.
36:29
Or somehow I didn't know that the kid was going to be an alien.
36:33
Somehow maybe it was a spaceship.
36:35
And so the kid didn't know he was going to be an alien.
36:38
I didn't know. And the other kid, his partner, makes a comment and makes him an alien.
36:43
Goes like, are you in it? Whatever. You must be an alien from another planet.
36:47
And his response, his yes and, he goes.
36:55
I lost it i for the next fight i
36:57
don't know what happened after that because i lost it
37:00
i that was one of the funniest moments ever and just like
37:03
in that simple movement yes and obviously i'm an alien oh
37:06
yeah i i don't know
37:09
where he got that that was just this brilliance that came
37:12
through i'm like how do you recreate that that was just incredible
37:15
that's that is solid improv right there all right
37:18
i can only see this going in one direction i feel like we should
37:22
on this pod try some kind of improv exercise now
37:25
where i would love that is there
37:28
is there a way to do this on zoom that that you're familiar with
37:30
michael well and we had and here's how we figured that
37:33
out and this is why i realized that oh online
37:37
improv courses weren't available five years ago it's something
37:40
that took a little like finessing because until
37:44
i was forced to do my classes for the j
37:46
troupe on zoom i i would i would have never
37:49
thought about what's going to work when you're not on stage what's going to
37:52
work as a video because it's a completely different thing
37:55
of when you have to you know figure out what's going
37:57
on with with the videos and people interrupting each other so what
38:01
we're going to do so i've established like what games will work what get
38:04
what games won't so one of my favorite opening games
38:07
so if can we start off simple i know you have some experience so
38:10
but we'll do we'll do one of my favorite openings which is
38:13
simple my presentation skills are limited to the.
38:15
Patter harry lorraine put in the apocalypse it's gonna
38:21
it's gonna be great for doug so the game is what are you doing okay and so basically
38:26
what's going to happen is nick is going to start and when i say pantomiming
38:30
it doesn't mean you can't speak you can use your words but we want to see action
38:33
we want to see activity so you're going to start go ahead and start pantomiming
38:36
and just doing an activity let's see you doing an activity physical movement.
38:41
Okay. So Doug, so Doug notices that it looks like he's shooting,
38:45
he's shooting a bow and arrow.
38:46
Go ahead and add a little dialogue of like, what would you be saying at that
38:50
moment, Nick? Go ahead and do it again and just add a little something.
38:53
Okay. The character, while you're shooting the arrow, you say something.
38:57
Practice makes perfect.
38:58
Eventually I'll hit the apple, but right now we keep hitting the guy's forehead.
39:02
Oh my God, that was beautiful. Nick, that was amazing. So Doug walks up and
39:05
says to you, what are you doing?
39:08
Okay. Now we all know as an audience, you're shooting bows and arrows.
39:11
But you're going to say something you're not doing. You're going to say something completely different.
39:15
So go ahead and start shooting the arrow. Doug, you do that.
39:19
That's the worst top change I've ever seen.
39:24
Oh, that was... I think you were meant to say, what are you doing,
39:27
right? Yeah, so that was great because Doug just represented what I mean by slam dunk the failure.
39:35
That was brilliant. No matter what, that was entertaining. No matter what,
39:38
Doug totally did not get...
39:40
I did not explain that's no that's my job as your coach i did not explain it
39:43
well enough because doug didn't get it the game is like god but that was fantastic
39:49
it's still fantastic okay so doug all your your line is what are you doing you're
39:52
saying to nick what are you doing.
39:57
Well what are you doing i'm playing guitar so now doug you take over playing guitar,
40:05
or drums so so now doug you're going to
40:08
start playing guitar because nick said playing guitar yep nice and see he's
40:12
already added his own improv because he picked up a prop and he has a wand so
40:16
so we have even more to work with because now it's not only a guitar it's a
40:20
magic guitar so doug just add
40:21
a line just say something to go with what you know i used to be in a band.
40:27
So this is such a great scene okay and so
40:30
then josh is going to go walk up to doug and
40:32
say what are you doing right doug you've
40:37
skipped your pills again what are you doing trying to
40:40
get everyone to drink on the internet you know i used to be a
40:43
fan wow so
40:46
now josh has to let's see josh portray that
40:49
okay yum yum
40:52
this is tasty stuff that was
40:55
perfect that was perfect okay so that is the basics of
40:58
the warm-up game what are you doing and as you can see there's principles in
41:01
there we don't have to go into them now but why you're definitely sending each
41:05
other and you're forced to but to make it a little more challenging what you
41:08
do is you get two letters and so whatever you're doing has to start with those
41:12
two letters so josh give me two letters two letters okay s,
41:19
t okay so obviously just like nick it looks like i'm shooting a bow and arrow
41:23
but the letters are s t so now when nick says to me what are you doing what
41:28
are you doing stopping traffic.
41:32
All right now nick is going to start stopping traffic.
41:38
And he's trapped in a box I love it And so now Doug is going to ask I'm stopping
41:42
traffic and allowing other traffic What are you doing?
41:48
And so now He has to say something that starts with the letters S and T I'm
41:53
slinging turds So now Doug's Got to sling turds He has to.
42:03
Doug What are you doing?
42:07
This is where you would in this tragedy of a podcast,
42:15
man i obviously need okay okay i need
42:18
someone's zoom improv so now i'm
42:22
trying to stop this tragedy of a podcast right stopping tragedy
42:26
that is fantastic good so and
42:29
that is gentlemen that is what are you doing and if
42:32
you would ask me what i'm doing i would say i'm serenading on
42:35
tinder that's what i'd be doing right now oh and anyway oh
42:39
and then then i would have to do that so yeah i
42:42
will swipe you i will
42:45
swipe you in one direction will i
42:48
go right will i go left let's
42:52
just see what i will do what are
42:56
you doing that was and that was okay well i
42:59
mean we could keep going around which would be fun how about
43:03
we uh nick maybe we should switch to a uh geek story segment that's a great
43:07
idea let's roll into gig stories but thank you that one so gig stories is a
43:12
section of the show we like to talk about moments of magic either while performing
43:15
or going from our day to day and who better than to start with with our wonderful
43:18
guest michael any cool gig stories friend.
43:22
As Doug knows, they're endless because, you know, when you perform in New Orleans
43:26
and especially with Doug's situation where you're street performing,
43:30
talk about an improv situation, you got to be ready for anything.
43:32
And if you don't go home with a story, then you weren't paying attention.
43:35
I have to guess that this town is one of the toughest, most challenging arenas
43:40
for anyone to perform in.
43:43
All the parties have alcohol flowing.
43:46
Everyone is in a party frame of mind. And usually my arch nemesis,
43:51
Rockin' Doopsy, is playing Zydeco music with the volume cranked up to 11.
43:56
And you can't talk over the music and everyone's drunk.
43:59
It's a hard town to work, right? Is this every gig, Mike?
44:04
Absolutely. We live in a town where everybody in your audience is dressed like
44:09
they're about to take center stage. And sometimes they do.
44:12
And and you know john goodman was quoted as saying i
44:15
would never open a comedy club in new orleans because everyone's so
44:18
damn funny i mean why go to why to go to a comedy
44:21
club if you can just walk down bourbon street and you're going to be laughing so
44:24
hard at everything you see because because everything's
44:27
crazy uh this situation where people are who they want to
44:30
be but i mean so much it's almost too much material
44:33
to work with really and so that's probably
44:36
why when when i think about like what gig moments have
44:38
happened there's just this barrage of craziness
44:42
that comes from the french quarter so one of the easiest ones for
44:45
me to actually bring up is something at a kids show which was
44:48
in kenner so once it was outside of the crazy it was
44:51
outside of the new orleans uh french quarter area i i
44:54
got asked to do this birthday party i get to the house and
44:58
the dad says i just bought her
45:01
a rabbit so can you could you
45:04
make it appear and and i realized like at that moment i realized wow humans
45:11
just have no idea what we do like they just think they really believe this guy
45:16
must believe in magic because he just thinks that that is a he just assumes that is a skill set.
45:22
Anyone who has like touched a book on magic in any situation,
45:26
even though I didn't show up with my own rabbit or maybe a hat,
45:30
which I didn't have a hat.
45:32
Oh no, I must've found a hat. This is going to work because I'm trained for this.
45:37
And then, and then I thought to myself, like, you know what? I am trained for this.
45:41
So I'm going to make this work because he wants to do this magical thing for his daughter.
45:45
So I found a hat. I put the hat on her head.
45:49
I did something with whatever I had with me. And then all of a sudden there's
45:53
a rabbit in the hat and I give her the, I say, guess what?
45:57
This is, this is for you because it's your birthday, which now every other kid
46:02
who was at that party is going to be really pissed when they realize it's not
46:04
a regular routine. And I didn't, I don't bring rabbits.
46:07
So at the end, uh, all the kids are playing the dad's, the dad says to me,
46:12
so where, where did the rabbit come from?
46:15
And I said, you gave it to me. like
46:18
i'm not taking it home right like you
46:21
know there's more to it there's no you don't have a magic
46:24
you have a cage not a magic cage right and so
46:27
he goes no no i mean like the hat was on her head and then
46:31
she she was holding the hat and then and the rabbit
46:33
was there and i was like oh oh that's what
46:36
that's what we call magic like oh
46:39
you're the grown-up so i get you're in my special club no enjoy the mystery
46:44
fool and you you gave me the rabbit you asked for this you asked for this so
46:49
like take it for what it's worth i'm not telling you if i fooled you then you
46:53
deserve it you shouldn't have bought a rabbit yeah you could have done it yourself you bitch ass,
46:58
if you had to do it but no yeah so that's how muggles think yeah it's kind of
47:06
remarkable they go like oh we want to make a car appear and it's like okay what
47:08
staging do you have oh we're just going to do it in my house I'm like you are tripping,
47:12
it's remarkable when you get those sort of inquiries.
47:15
But but you can get so much information because like they're thinking out of
47:19
the box since they know nothing about how anything's done.
47:22
We're enclosed based on our concept of what our science presents us of like this is possible.
47:27
You can't do that. But they just come up with stuff like you're like, huh.
47:31
And then all of a sudden you're thinking on an impossible level and a different
47:34
level and a creative level because you overheard some guy in the stall say that
47:37
I think I think he had the dove in his car the whole time.
47:44
You don't know what you know what they're coming up with yeah
47:47
all right um already uh in the spirit of improv if
47:50
you guys like please love it what's your key story well
47:54
because we we actually have a full improv show here what
47:57
we do it's called magic sports and it's effectively theater
48:00
sports but we perform magic alongside them so
48:03
there's many many games that we play one of
48:06
the most exciting ones that we do is make a trick and what we do is we have a
48:08
giant bucket in the center stage and everyone just throws random stuff
48:11
in and then we all reach in and we grab things out and then
48:15
we have to create a trick at the end of the show so while
48:18
we're backstage we're trying to figure out like what to do with
48:21
the stuff we have and there was this one time that a guy
48:24
took off his prosthetic leg and put it in the
48:26
bucket and so we had to make up a whole routine with the
48:29
guy's like prosthetic leg so we just came out like in this pirate theme
48:32
to do that so that was like one of the cool times we've done
48:35
that but another game that is one of my proud works
48:38
is we have a thing called three tasks and what
48:42
you need to do in this is you get three tasks written down on
48:45
a piece of paper and you have to do a routine and achieve these
48:48
three tasks without people knowing and the
48:51
last time i did it was extremely difficult because i had to take off my left
48:54
shoe without anyone noticing whoa so i did that i had to put a king of hearts
49:01
in a spectator's pockets without them noticing and i had to steal their watch
49:05
yeah and so the way i achieved that was i I walked through the audience and
49:10
as I was looking for people.
49:11
I just kicked off my left shoe with my right foot and I just left my shoe next
49:14
to somebody's like handbag and left it there.
49:17
So then I came back out and then I tried to keep the attention up here.
49:20
So what I did was in the action of them coming around, I thankfully have an index of cards.
49:25
So I just index as I got them to walk down, I just in the middle of adjusting
49:28
them, just put pocket them straight up.
49:31
And then I did a coin routine to keep the attention up here.
49:34
And I was doing like muscle passes and so forth. And.
49:37
Then I did my normal watch deal routine and sent them on their way in the action
49:41
of like, Oh, sorry. I failed the effect or around the way they go.
49:44
And then I said like, okay. And then I had to explain what the three things
49:47
were. And I go, I think if my shoe looks down and no one knows my shoes gone,
49:49
but it's next to this lovely lady over there.
49:51
And then I had to explain that I had to put a King of hearts in someone's pocket.
49:54
Please check your right pocket.
49:55
They take it out. And then I go, the last one was I had to take your watch and
49:58
I just take it out of my top it and I show them.
50:01
And so that was like one of the biggest challenges to do with these three.
50:05
That's my idea of an improv game. Come on. that's
50:08
fantastic yeah that's that's how you yeah that's
50:10
how you make magicians do improv which they don't know which
50:13
if they haven't studied it it's completely i study it i
50:16
study harry lorraine in the book but what i love about that takes bag of tricks
50:23
to a whole another level right this weekend actually is pcam in victoria canada
50:28
farquhar and billy shway alex seaman mike norton they started this bag of tricks
50:32
contest where you have like 10 items that you
50:34
to make a show with and you have you have like three minutes to
50:37
do an act but having these challenges along the
50:40
way is that's like a whole nother level and
50:43
here's what i love about what you said initially about how
50:46
you would you would make a trick with a prop but while other
50:49
things are going on you're doing these comedy sports and the whole time you
50:52
you're going like how am i going to use this false leg is that
50:56
forces you to be in the moment because you
50:59
can't overthink all the other things you're about to do on stage
51:02
you have to let that go and just be in that
51:05
moment which is exactly what you need to do in improv because your brain is
51:08
focused on the end it's focused on what am i doing with this leg can i do my
51:12
flamingo joke now i should be a pirate and so like the whole time and that and
51:17
and so you're everything else is going to be that much better because you're
51:20
not going to overthink it and let yourself get in the way,
51:23
Absolutely focused on. I think that's why ADD people are good performers.
51:26
Because it gives us something to focus on. Yeah.
51:30
Man. Oh, look, it's been a lot of fun. We've done ones where like,
51:33
it was called like magic shop. And we're trying to sell magic props,
51:35
just reaching into a box and pulling out random stuff and trying to sell it.
51:38
And, you know, these guys, they put these extremely chilly chips in there.
51:43
They were like somewhere from Asia.
51:45
And I was like, oh, a bag of chips. How fun. And I ate one and my face nearly caught fire.
51:50
So trying to improv all your faces on fire is
51:52
another one so yeah you do have to remember about real
51:55
life it's kind of like when i'm virtual reality and you have to like not
51:58
run into the wall also when you're improv you have to remember that
52:01
real fire burns and like stuff like like don't actually jump
52:04
off the stage even though you're in character because you might break your leg
52:07
you know like you have to remind yourself sometimes that's fantastic nick i
52:12
want you to like i'm hoping that enough magicians are interested in my program
52:16
that we can actually have one of just magicians and you got to come and like
52:19
host some of those games because that's.
52:22
Fantastic that i want to i want to play those i do
52:25
have a list like it's actually a pdf with all the
52:28
magic sports game in there i'll i'll dig it up it's i think
52:31
it might be on my old laptop this is my new laptop here but i'll afford
52:34
it to yourself so you can have a peruse through and well great like everybody
52:37
people have heard of comedy sports that's been around for a long time but magic
52:40
sports wow that's challenging yeah yeah well i gotta i got a quick story yeah
52:46
did a wedding gig last weekend and love weddings because everyone's in a happy mood.
52:52
You're not trying to break the ice between corporate, you know.
52:54
Clients and stuff like that.
52:55
And I start working the reception and I'm doing a few mind reading bits sprinkled throughout it.
53:04
And I've divined, you know, the names of two separate people that they're thinking of.
53:09
And the, the, So the mother of the bride, the mother of the bride starts hearing about this.
53:16
Oh, he can, he knows who these two people are thinking of.
53:20
I've done some card effects where I've guessed, you know, the card people have thought of.
53:25
So by the time I get to her, she's just heard all of this stuff of me reading
53:29
minds and she decides to challenge me, but as a classic spectator would in the
53:35
way that she did exactly what I thought she would do.
53:38
So she's like, man, I've heard you, you, you were able to read this person's
53:41
mind, this person's mind.
53:42
I want you to read my mind. I want you to tell me the card that I'm thinking of.
53:47
I'm like, oh, okay. Now I'm like, I'm just going to do the classic effect that
53:51
I would, which is to take a good guess and sit on her hand.
53:55
But then whatever card she says, like, I'm going to make it a joke that of course
53:58
I can't get that right, you know, and then magically make it turn into the card she says, but I
54:04
she then she then goes after i sit the queen of hearts on her hand because i'm
54:08
like you know you're the mother of a bride you've been drinking that's probably
54:11
the only card you can think of.
54:13
But then i i see her turn she's like and i'll even tell
54:16
my friend just so you know i'm not
54:19
like changing my mind i'm like okay and then the
54:22
fact that she is talking to her friend for more than like
54:25
a second confirms to me that it probably is
54:28
the queen of hearts because she's there for like long enough to say a
54:31
long card so i'm like this is gonna this is
54:34
way too good if this if this hits anyway so i'm
54:37
ready to just find a different card but i'm like and so
54:40
i've you know she's really built this up and i've sat this card on her hand
54:43
and i'm like a meter away and i'm like okay so i gave you so many chances to
54:49
change your mind you know this is only in your head what card are you thinking
54:52
of and she bloody says it the queen of hearts and she's like she sells herself
54:57
She's like, I changed my mind three times before I thought of it,
55:00
thought of queen of hearts. I'm like, okay, then you turn it over.
55:03
And there is a, a mother of a
55:05
bride out there that genuinely believes like not even as a joke or magic.
55:10
She like genuinely believes that I'm a psychic. And I don't know how I feel
55:14
about that, but it is, it is funny.
55:17
And I heard from the groom afterwards when he was thanking me, he's like, man, this,
55:22
yeah, my mother-in-law is like talking about you a lot since, since the wedding,
55:26
even though we got married I've been hearing a lot about you and so that's my
55:31
story there I am apparently a true medium out there so with great power comes
55:36
great responsibility but it's a good gig overall yeah can I tell you the two
55:41
things I love about that story.
55:43
One, the fact that he goes, he has years of stories to pull from, right?
55:47
Of the, you know, what happened on a gig. And he goes, so last weekend,
55:51
like, that's how, you know, you have a cool job.
55:55
It's like, you can pull from this. What happened last weekend.
55:57
That's why I'm like, pay attention.
55:58
You have a story every time you go home, but you can't prove.
56:02
Can you prove to me that you're not psychic? Like who thought of it first?
56:06
You can't. That's what those moments, they cannot prove.
56:09
But neither can you that maybe you actually did
56:12
read her mind and that's why you went that way because you're
56:17
right yeah i did definitely sherlock holmes her
56:20
and you know profile her to go all right you do
56:23
look like a classic queen of art so yeah you're right in that
56:26
sense that that is my intentional it's a skill and you know you don't know how
56:32
to necessarily how you honed it can i say to your point the profiling is a very
56:35
real thing i i did a show on friday night and I met this lovely Russian lady
56:40
who works in government and she specializes in profiling.
56:45
And she profiled me and I gotta say she
56:48
hit about 90% wow yeah like
56:52
yeah it was staggering like
56:56
she knew just by looking at me a lot
56:59
of my habits she didn't know my history she's
57:02
like can't tell you like you know because I don't think that you're this and that you might be
57:05
like I don't know if her only child or not like you know she couldn't sort of
57:07
gauge that but she was just like you're this you're very regimented you never
57:12
smell bad you take a lot of pride in your hygiene you're this you're that like
57:16
just things that you wouldn't think about that you would know about a person
57:19
you know she's like you change your toothbrush every month i'm like,
57:24
like yeah i do you're obviously not from perth you know.
57:33
I was in a band and the answer was she didn't she oh geez that was everyone
57:41
we have yeah that's the wrong sound.
57:45
Yeah that's that before i before there was so
57:48
many magic podcasts and i started listening to like magic podcasts and
57:51
other things like the ones that interested me the most of the like
57:54
was stuff about like fbi profiling that i love
57:57
that it's crazy it's crazy interesting stuff that and essentially
58:00
that's that's what you're doing you know like i walked
58:03
up to a table and i knew out of four people i knew like this guy's
58:06
going to be the alpha male i can tell right from his mannerisms he's
58:09
going to be the jerk or heckler i gotta deal with and right when
58:12
i walked up with my deck of cards he goes oh you
58:15
do card tricks let me show you this one and he just takes the cards
58:18
does some stupid trick and then just walks off and
58:21
it was like boy did i peg that and all the other guys are
58:24
looking i'm like that what a jerk and i just then i did my thing
58:27
like he wanted to be my opening act and and
58:30
it was just like later i'm going how did i peg that
58:33
how did i know that like of these four people
58:36
this guy was the one that was going to act that way
58:38
it's crazy actually can i can i share something with
58:41
you guys that happened to me before we wrap up the episode when somebody
58:44
does take your cards so i was performing away at my
58:48
residency on the weekend and there was this gentleman who was like let me do
58:52
a trick and i was like i would want to follow my act but go ahead and then he
58:56
has this woman choose a card and then he gets her to hold the cards and he's
59:01
getting ready to slap the cards out of her hand and i just went don't do that.
59:07
Don't do that and i just went i i just and
59:10
no we've had conversations on the podcast prior to this michael just
59:13
so just for for reference so we've just said like you
59:15
shouldn't slap things out of people's hands and we said like let's not do that
59:19
trick let's stop and i getting i see him getting ready to do this and for two
59:22
reasons one don't abuse this beautiful young lady okay because you're trying
59:25
to impress her don't do that number two i don't want my i don't want my things
59:30
on the floor yeah exactly i don't want to pick things that have been off the
59:33
floor and then have other people touch them.
59:35
It's just a point of professional pride and not a great customer experience that I want them to have.
59:40
Was I wrong or rude by just saying like, don't, don't hit those cards. Don't do it.
59:44
Don't do it. Trust me. And I, and I, I, I feel like I did him a service saying, don't do it.
59:50
Absolutely. People, well, first of all, people need to have respect for other
59:53
people's property and not just completely disrespect what is your essentially
59:57
prop, not just something you keep on the shelf at home that you don't care about.
1:00:01
And so I consider it extremely disrespectful if somebody takes anything that
1:00:05
I have on me and throws it in the water and a drink or drops it on the floor or rips it or whatever.
1:00:11
It's just like, why would you? got in the habit of doing if someone asked
1:00:13
me and i'm handing them the cards or talking about them doing
1:00:16
something i literally say as long as you're not going to whack cards
1:00:19
out of people's hands and oh yeah 90 of
1:00:23
the time they're like oh oh and we're
1:00:25
tired and the other reason that you know it's completely ethical
1:00:28
is we are tired of seeing the trick your uncle showed you
1:00:31
yeah nobody needs to see that anymore what
1:00:35
i say now more than anything is are your hands clean
1:00:37
go wash your hands and i genuinely
1:00:41
mean that i generally mean that because i i wash
1:00:44
my hands every hour when i rove i do three hours in my residency
1:00:47
and i wash my hands all the time and i just
1:00:50
last weekend alone yep just last
1:00:54
weekend alone i'll be very clear in saying this not one
1:00:57
dude washed his hands after using the bathroom i'm talking
1:01:00
he was on the can i can hear him on his phone
1:01:03
he flushed and walked straight
1:01:06
out and he wanted to touch your deck well erroneous
1:01:10
of that like i just i don't want people like go wash your hands you can touch
1:01:16
my stuff because i don't even want to shake your hand pal you know what i mean
1:01:19
like it's just yeah it's remarkable how gross some of these dudes are so they're
1:01:24
probably from perth yeah well Well.
1:01:28
On that note, friends, it's been a very fun and very quick hour.
1:01:33
Michael, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure to
1:01:36
set up a friendship with yourself and talk improv.
1:01:39
You know, do please hurry back. Should you have anything else to say?
1:01:42
Gentlemen, is there anything we need to say before we wrap up?
1:01:45
Well, in addition to, please, if you have the link to post, it starts tomorrow.
1:01:50
Of course, we'll repeat it later.
1:01:52
But if you want to jump in on the online improv course, go to the link right there on the site.
1:01:56
So you have time to do that because 7.30 Central America time,
1:02:01
we're going to be starting and kicking this off.
1:02:04
And it's a four part program, four weeks, 90 minutes on Zoom.
1:02:08
So we're going to get that going. And, you know, if that's something you it's
1:02:11
that's an easy like smash or pass.
1:02:13
If that's something you're into, it doesn't matter that it's last minute.
1:02:16
Like that's something you're looking for.
1:02:17
And in addition, the talk show I do, which I got to get you guys back so we
1:02:21
can reverse things. And I'm going to ask you as many questions as I can.
1:02:25
And that's called something up my sleeve, which, oh, I forgot to show you.
1:02:28
I do. Oh, I do have something up my sleeve.
1:02:33
And that is where I interview magicians. And we do, you know,
1:02:36
just kind of an improv talk show interviewing magicians.
1:02:38
It's been on the International Brotherhood of Magicians Facebook page.
1:02:41
And by the way, here's something else.
1:02:44
You can't even see something. Oh, wow. That's invisible.
1:02:48
What? Is that because it's green? Is that what I'm seeing? Yeah,
1:02:50
it's green. I'm totally green.
1:02:53
Holy moly. Yeah. Yeah, he just revealed the secret. It was magic.
1:02:57
Oh, that's right. It is magic. Yeah. It's something magic. Yeah.
1:03:00
Wow. So you could make your head disappear if you just put enough of that. Green bag on?
1:03:06
That's interesting. I mean, like, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
1:03:10
Nice. Wow, this is getting creepy. That's awesome.
1:03:13
So we're going to grab that link from michael so that will
1:03:16
be in the description of wherever you're washing watching watching
1:03:19
that's a new word watching slash listening to
1:03:22
this i also believe
1:03:25
michael on his podcast he interviewed a
1:03:28
guest that we actually have on next week which
1:03:31
is mario the magic maker i believe
1:03:34
you have him on at some point and i can foreshadow that by
1:03:37
on a tangent that we have him next week on the pod love
1:03:40
love him oh don't miss that one geez what
1:03:43
amazing amazing guy so fun and i can't.
1:03:46
Wait and so maybe yeah listen to michael's episode
1:03:49
as a foreshadow to then joining us next week look thank
1:03:52
you again so much for having us oh this this freaked him
1:03:55
out by the way mario as you know who can like build robots out
1:03:57
of cardboard i did this with i had a green
1:04:00
drink and i was like watch this and i was just kidding and he
1:04:03
was like what is happening like it
1:04:06
seems there's a mess he messes with cardboard not green screens and
1:04:09
he was just like and then everybody's laughing right his
1:04:12
wife's laughing and then he still goes i don't understand how did
1:04:15
he do that she's like i'll explain it to you later that was
1:04:19
wild interesting so that's his kryptonite is literally green
1:04:22
kryptonite becomes invisible oh that's
1:04:26
brilliant all right we're gonna leave it there my friends we could talk all
1:04:28
day and we will have to have michael back but thank you again for watching my
1:04:31
friends we'll see you next week thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear
1:04:39
now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.