Latest / The Magic Guys / John Michael Hinton Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #231

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John Michael Hinton Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #231 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys,
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i want to do that too here we go,
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oh yeah ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 231 yes of the magic guys i'm
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josh nolbedo and i'm in a hotel room today more of that to come but to my left
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we've got the mega star who is It's Nick Kay.
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That's right, folks. Josh has been evicted for putting horses in his lounge
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room all the time while he watches The View.
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Guys, I'm Nick Kay. Thanks for coming to the show. We have an exciting guest today.
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But before we fire up, we've also got some friends here in the comments.
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Let's give them a shout out, Josh.
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Oh, yeah. On the box. That's a new one.
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On the box. Thank you for being here on the screen today.
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We got Adonis, Gary Davis, Thomas Conger.
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StreamYard Oh no, that's just the company And so Doug isn't on this episode
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But there's a reason why And we're going to tell you at the end of this episode
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Because you are going to see Doug on the pod today But not this pod But more to come about that,
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I'm super excited about this We met this gentleman at Magic Life in person But
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Nick, you know You've been doing a bit of deep diving,
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correct because i was actually really looking forward to meeting this
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gentleman that we have on our show today and so all the folks
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in the chat today don't be afraid to put your questions in there
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because whilst we're there anyone knows who
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has been to magic live it is a convention of constant interruptions and
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what that means is you'll be chatting to a friend and then somebody will
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walk up and be like hi josh nabito i love your content and just
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interrupt your conversation and that's very much what it was like trying to
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meet this gentleman here but i said please come in our
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podcast we can chat and get to know you because our guest today friends is a
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magician and storyteller he's performed on pen and tellers full ass as well
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as live performances all across the country notably the the knack theater so
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please join me in welcoming mr john michael hinton.
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Music.
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Buddy thank you so much for being here i'm so excited to
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ask you questions but before we do please tell our friends who
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are you and what do you do yeah my name is
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john michael hinton i'm a magician i'm a speaker
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storyteller and also a redhead yeah that's
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i think that's what a show off what a
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show off it's just a wig guys so if
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you want to borrow it he's the jessica rabbit of
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the magic realm he is super sexy for those
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listening on the pod and if you want to see it in person you can
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scope out the episode on youtube yeah but basically like your hair is like the
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same height as your head is like from chin to head is the same distance of head
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to which brings me to my first question the first question is john what is your
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height on your license and what is it including the hair.
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And where do you and Colin Cloud get your wax from?
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In a very single time, I see Colin and Shin or anybody like that at Magic Live or whatever.
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We're always taking another hair picture. Literally.
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It's funny you talk about my hair. I actually had a client, he's booked me,
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I don't know, four or five times.
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And on the fifth time when he booked me, he said, are you allowed to change your hairstyle?
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And I said, I don't know. like so many people know me because of the stupid
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hair uh now then right yeah i think that there if there was a mount rushmore
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of like awesome hair it would have john michael hilton rudy kobe,
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who else colin cloud colin cloud for sure shin limb shin limb's got some carrot
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carrot top carrot top 100 on the box that's really funny that he just said you
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had to put up on the box He's either upside down or he used the vacuum as a comb.
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I actually do put my head upside down to blow dry it. He's just got half of how it happened.
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Is this another Dennis Kim illusion? Because we had Dennis Kim on and he did
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the whole episode through a mirror looking at us. And we didn't know till the end.
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And so are you actually secretly...
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Upside down this whole time just so that yeah it's just like
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the snl thing that i'm gonna tell her did forever
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ago yeah so if i make stuff float it'll float.
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Right out of the screen so things
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dropping is the impressive part yes so john
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it's my understanding that you got into magic at the ripe age
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of four years old tell our friends what
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actually sparked your interest at that age yeah
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it wasn't magic that got me wanting honestly it
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was just every single stage I've ever seen I
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wanted to be on and magic if I'm honest was
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the Halloween costume that I put on to get free candy it
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was I think what Steve Martin said if you
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can't sing or act or dance you
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do magic so I mean I could hopefully maybe
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do a little more but so can he but literally my
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dad is was a hobbyist he still is a hobbyist if
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you are under the age of eight man he's gonna blow your mind
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because or honestly if you're just on an elevator with him he
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might pull a sponge ball out of your suit lapel like that's him
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and so I was kind of born into I was like sure I can
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do that and be on stage let's go so he started teaching me.
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At four and then I actually got
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a passion for magic so yeah what's most
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unique about your style is that you do and you
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do this exceptionally it's the storytelling now there's very few
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people that I actually do storytelling alongside magic
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in such a beautiful way and what made
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you sort of go that realm as opposed to being like the crazy flashy type
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magician and actually doing things that have a little more meaning yeah uh
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you know i think art should
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come out of the artist often magicians are not artists we're often people who've
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got some cool gimmick that we want to show some other people i'm not saying
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that that's not fun that can't that be performance art whatever but honestly
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pen and teller really inspired me even though our faiths are completely opposite,
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I love Jesus, they obviously don't.
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The way they preach atheism and what they believe so beautifully.
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Made me go, man, they can preach what they believe so beautifully through an art form.
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Shouldn't I? And shouldn't I want to share what I believe? Then I'm not just
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talking about my faith. I'm talking about all these different things that I believe.
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Honestly, one of the big things in my whole show is I ask everybody to be my friend.
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And then I give them the sticker that says, John is my friend,
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which let's be honest, a 40 something year old dude asking a bunch of people
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to be friends and then giving him stickers is it's either creepy or weird or
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really cool. Hopefully, it ends up being cool.
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But that all came out of a big thing of me getting tired of insult comics.
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I think there's a place for it. People like to insult and make fun of their people.
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But it's just not me. And I hate it when I go to a show and people are like,
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I don't teach you to sit in the front row.
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No, everybody that comes on
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my stage is my friend. Everybody that's hanging out with me is a friend.
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So yeah, everything that I believe, it should be an extension of an artist.
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So therefore, you start storytelling.
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Another person, if you want to look up, who's doing amazing at this is Taylor Hughes.
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The way he's able to tell stories through stuff is just incredible.
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So yeah, that's my goal. And I think at the end of the day, what separates me
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from other magicians is we all have the same tricks.
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I create my own stuff, but eventually somebody's going to see it.
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They're going to copy it. They're going to figure out something new.
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The John Mike Linton experience, no one else can do.
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The Mario experience, Mario the Maker. You could even build robots and you're
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not going to be Mario the Maker.
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So how can you as an artist share
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and that's it there you go storytelling yeah yeah it can be if magic can become
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just the tool you're using in that particular instance but it is you that they're
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coming to see then therefore it's replaceable irreplaceable sorry not replaceable
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yet we can't clone each other that easily but um.
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That's fascinating. And I totally agree with what you're saying there.
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And again, we actually had Taylor Hughes on the show some while ago,
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back in episode 157, for those who want to scope it out after this. And Mario as well.
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And Mario as well, indeed. Yeah. And it's really interesting because there's
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certain tools that you use in order to tell these sort of stories.
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And it seems like your brand of magic is often with everyday objects.
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Now, how does one do that?
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Well luckily for us i i think that magic is
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in the golden age of close-up magic like yeah we still
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have a few people doing the illusions big illusions but for me honestly i had
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the whole parlor show my dad had all of the cheesy birthday party tricks that
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all of us have and left in our drawers hopefully but i moved away from college
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and i lived literally a four-hour plane flight away.
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I only could take what was in my suitcases. So I brought decks of cards and
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I brought coins and Rubik's cubes.
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So all of those were stripped away from me. And in college, it's like,
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if I'm going to do something, it better be interesting with a deck of cards.
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It better be interesting with coins.
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And so when technology got to the point where it is now with live video feeds,
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like I always perform at the live video feed now, so
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that I can use anything and everything that people at home have it's it's not
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a fancy box with a dragon painted on it that was apparently really cool in the
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70s and 80s i don't understand but i mean good on them but you know it's like
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i bet if i own that box you could i could do that amazing go to magic convention you'll find out.
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So yeah it honestly i think growing out
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of that and going man okay what do i have okay i
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have this I have this and now honestly I've tried to put classical stuff into
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my show like once I wanted to do something with a magic wand and somebody literally
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my wife literally went nope not allowed what she's like you could use a sharpie
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you could use a pencil I don't care don't you use a magic wand that's not you so yeah,
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your wife is an absolute superstar like with the direction she and you know
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everybody just needs to watch your full ass act in order to appreciate her most definitely but.
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Before we get to that, I want to talk about this video feed because it's the
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type of thing that people are utilizing rather poorly or not doing it the right way.
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Could you share your knowledge that you have with regards to doing it wirelessly
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or do you prefer to have a camera plugged in? What camera do you suggest?
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Yeah oh man there's been so many different
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ways that i have experimented and also i mean
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trid watson he knows way more stuff
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than i do uh chris funk also a
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very very giving guy if you ever meet chris
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funk so nice and he's helped me out a lot but
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honestly the guy that i learned the most from his who
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is my magic mentor life mentor and honestly now best friend talk
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to i'll talk about him later in the show Danny Gray he kind
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of pioneered the way for me and I have played
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around with a bunch of different things now I always have
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a wired camera I I can do the
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wireless I can even do my phone through Qlabs you can
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use your phone and you can do it through Qlabs I love Qlabs
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it's what I use for all of my video stuff and
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then I use something completely different for my audio because when I ran my
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audio through Qlabs and my video through Qlabs even though
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I had a really powerful computer things got weird and
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so now i literally use a separate audio ape i
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don't know are you guys sponsored by any of these people um yeah but
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we're working on it so like so plug them up exactly so
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yeah i use audio ape for all my audio stuff q labs and then i always always
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use a wired camera because then every time i've used a wireless camera oh yeah
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this is great i was just at a big dimension that had it was my it's not a magic
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dimension it was just a big conference 7,000 people.
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And they were like, well, we're thinking about using this wired camera.
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I'm like, do you guys remember last time you had me and you use that wireless camera?
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And they said, oh, yeah, they got digitized. I said, is it hard to run a wire?
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And they went, no, we got the cable. Like, let's just run the cable.
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Let's, let's run the cable.
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As far as cameras go, I am not a fan.
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Of gopros i know trig uses them i
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know a lot of people use them and that's fine i don't
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like their shot quality it's okay to me
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it's it's good it's just it's not
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what i would want so i use a prosumer camera
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just honestly if it's good prosumer personally
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i like a full hdmi out and then also big thing
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is always a handheld this is a thing that
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danny and i both discovered the small little bit
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of movement that your your cameraman is
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going to have it's going to add so much life
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if you have a stagnant on a tripod video camera
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unless it's a conference or a big crowd of 1500 or more people lose interest
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and even with those like when i had 7 000 people i still had my cameraman on
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stage because that little bit of a movement it makes it feel like a reality
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show it makes it feel like they're on stage where if it's a stagnant shot i'm
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watching tv and so i've Literally,
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as soon as I get that movement in the camera,
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I have people leaning in and people come up to me afterwards.
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I felt like I was on stage.
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I felt like I was there. I was right there with you.
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Yes, because of the movement. As soon as you have that stagnant shot, same thing's true.
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Josh, you're going to know this. I'm sure you can speak to this on Instagram
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videos. You have a stagnant shot. It's not as interesting as movement.
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100%. And you're the second person in a few weeks to mention this too.
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We had John Armstrong on, and he mentioned as well, always have an actual,
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if when you can, a cameraman actually operating it. And that's so true.
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They're in the show, and if it's locked off, a locked off shot,
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they're watching TV. That's so interesting.
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But, okay, be real with us. Obviously, any form of magic, any effect that we
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do, right, can go wrong and will go wrong at some point.
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And the same is true with tech. So I'm curious...
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People are hearing this and like, yes, great. I can do my closeup magic in a stage show.
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But obviously there has to be times where that doesn't work, right?
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Because the client has stuffed up the connection or, or you're still learning
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or power issues, whatever.
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What, yeah. How often does it happen where you have to switch to your B show
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where you like can do stuff without a screen?
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Is that a thing? Or do you like, you know what I'm saying?
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I, that asked, I actually was
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talking to trig wasson about this at magic live because he's like yeah my entire show
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is tech and it either i either works or
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it doesn't but it's worth it when it works uh that
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trig and i are in different camps because to
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me it has to work usually if i have a plugged in
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camera it's going to work i mean i may i will go to
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crazy i will i will get rid of like q
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labs was great i love running it through q labs but
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as soon as we run through q labs you have other
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problems so if it's having any problems in tech
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rehearsal i will unplug it from q labs and plug it directly into
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their system okay because i'd rather have that
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than having any cool anything else up
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there on there so but yeah it things go wrong my camera will lose this battery
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all of a sudden it says battery battery battery and you're like oh so i always
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have a second battery on my camera person and i show them beforehand because
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sometimes usually for a bigger stuff it's somebody that i You know,
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sometimes I have to train the person.
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And also, maybe it's just in the type of my show. I have ADHD.
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I don't know if you can tell that yet, but yeah, it's a character in my show.
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Like I talk about it. I'm like, who else has ADHD and didn't take their Adderall?
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Hey, I can tell. Okay, here we go.
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I've had people say, and actually I'm trying to work it into a trick right now.
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Oh, when the camera went out in your show, I thought it was part of the act.
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And I was like, oh, I was dying inside, but I'm glad you, oh, it made it real.
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It was cool. And then you got it back. we all cheered and it was awesome i
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i have that already sort of feel in
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my show that's just who knows what could happen so i can't
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i think i can roll with it but also i'm
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doing everything i can to make sure i have cut a couple shows but like there
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are certain tricks that i know go well i do blake boyd's vanishing stools i
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know i can do that without cameras that's in my second show you have two shows
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if you do cruise ship or anything like that you have to have two 45 minute shows.
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And yeah, there are certain ones
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that I know I can do. I do a really big shuffleboard that ends really big.
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If nobody sees the cards on the table, I've done this in front of,
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500 plus people shuffleboard on a
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table with cards and it played because of the ending because the
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ending had nothing to do with the cards it had everything to do
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with the people reacting and when they react
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huge on stage everything's good so i always have that but
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like you know one of the tricks i open with
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and i open every time because i love my camera is i open
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with matrix art where you move the holes around you could
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never do that on the stage show i do that i just did
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it in front of 7 000 people and i'm like right here
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with the camera as if i'm on instagram and i'm moving the holes around and
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they are flipping out they're losing their minds and then
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i give away the card at the end with which also because i have such a tight
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shot for two seconds and here you go here's the card i don't know who's watching
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this i don't know if muggles are watching this or if it's just no no they're
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not watching they're not watching we understand yeah they're one of hearts there's
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a moment of time delay from camera screen because of the.
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Close-up shot so so what i'm hearing from anyone sort of
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taking this in to consider is you will start
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with what you want regarding tech
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in your show and if there's any glitches you will just downgrade to
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a more basic tech and like you said you could
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even go from your phone if you had to
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at a pinch so you will still
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use tech but you'll just change to a more
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basic version and then if it cuts out during the show
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you have set routines that can work without
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it so you know you you've got a bit of running strip for
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them to fix change the battery or whatever before you have to yep bring it home
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okay i love this what i love about this is that we've been talking about how
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the magic is done and how to do it but i think one of the things i was sort
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of curious about is why it's done because in your show you kind of say in a
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previous uh youtube video you You say this, you say,
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a magic show is just an excuse so that you can share the message you matter.
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Could you tell us a little bit more about what that underlying mission is?
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Yeah. Again, it comes back to this sticker of John is my friend.
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I, when I'm growing up as so many creatives, I grew up in Saudi Arabia,
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first through eighth grade.
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If you are watching this on YouTube and you see my red hair,
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my blue eyes and very, very pale skin or reddish skin because I have no other pigment.
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You know that not too many people look like me over there in Saudi Arabia.
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I was bullied so hard. First through eighth grade, it was just,
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it was, I mean, I have major stories.
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In my show, I talk about how there was a war in third grade in the middle of
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Saudi Arabia going on. And I had a bomb laying within a mile of my house.
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I was in a drive-by terror shooting and I carried a gas mask to school every
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day. And yet that's not why I was scared to go to school.
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It was because of my peers and what they were going to tell me and make fun
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of me for. And I would literally beg my mom not to send me to school because of that. And.
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And so if i can be a friend to somebody like even
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if it's simple as hey come to my show be
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my friend and it's amazing how much we all need to
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hear that i was at keller's a year
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ago i actually i was doing this thing and
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just i loved that i had this
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this these couple of girls that were very much
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like sorority party girls i had it came up
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to me like almost with tears in their eyes just like thank you so much for telling
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this i had this older these two beautiful
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queens they came up to me and they were they these guys
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were just like man you don't know what this means to us growing
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up and the struggles we've had and then i had some
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other people that were very midwestern i could
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tell who they voted for i don't know if that you guys are not
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from exactly from there but they also were there
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and if i can tell all these different
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people through doing some stupid magic trick
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that they matter and that they are
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on this this earth for a purpose i like
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what that's so much better like hopefully we
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can let them laugh too because that's also very purposeful is laughing and being
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amazed and everything like that but man i could talk about this forever i i
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i feel like i'm dominating the conversation sorry that's that's the whole point
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man that's the whole point it's an interview not a conversation per se yeah
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if you can if we can talk about the off the back of that,
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which I feel kind of leads into it. We spoke very early about your faith.
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It would be interesting to have
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a discussion about how your faith and creativity intersect in your work.
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How does that come through in your performances? Could you share a little about that?
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Yeah. I love Jesus. I actually, if you look into my stuff, you'll find out I
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was a pastor for a while even.
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And here's the thing about faith in Jesus. Actually, right after I graduated
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college with a degree, planning to be a pastor.
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My dad said, John, what if you mix the message and the magic? Like what?
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I mean, like Andre Cole and people like that. And I said, no, that's so cheesy.
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Because often whenever you force a message into art or you force art into a
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message, everything is either cheesy or horrible because it feels forced.
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I mean, if you pick up, and I don't want to be mean to any of my people,
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my magicians who are trying to sell this crap, maybe that you shouldn't buy it.
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Yeah, you can say it. But gospel magic is either gospel or magic.
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Right. Do you guys remember that viral video of the head chopper,
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the gospel head chopper video?
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No. I'm going to find it after this and I'll put it in the discord.
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But this guy has like a very expensive head chopper illusion and basically says,
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if you believe your head won't get chopped off, basically.
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And these carrots are sinners and they're through the little holes as the examples and they get sliced.
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I'll find the video. Anyway, this is just a foreshadowing. the
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tree of hearts or the king of hearts or the three of
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no but it's always been cheesy and so it it bothered me right what i do i mean
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i talk about i'm not scared to talk about my faith i talk about the faith all
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the time but also i'm gonna have incredible magic i'm gonna have incredible
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comedy i'm gonna have incredible incredible stuff and.
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I'm if when I talk about my message, I'm going to talk about it and I'm going to be real.
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I don't need to say just like this stupid magic prop represents this.
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Honestly, it's it's it reminds me of when we say I have these four jacks.
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We're going to let them be robbers and I'm going to put them on top of the deck.
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And then these people came on and they you have four jacks. Just say,
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watch, I'm going to take the jacks, put them in the deck. If I snap,
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they come back to the top.
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Way cooler than some stupid robber story that has been recycled over and over and over again.
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Same thing's true with me and again my inspiration i
23:27
don't know if they would love that i that i was inspired to do the opposite of
23:30
them or maybe they would be i haven't had this conversation but they
23:34
talk about atheism so beautifully darren brown
23:37
talks about his story so beautifully and
23:41
it's because you can you can sort of
23:44
weed it but mostly it's i feel like my audience is smart enough
23:47
that if i do something that talks about i give i
23:50
have something be somebody's phone number never been
23:52
done in magic but somebody something winds up with somebody's phone
23:55
number and i say by the way this wasn't a mistake your phone number was
23:58
supposed to be here just like you're not a mistake you're supposed
24:01
to be here and now i could talk about how they matter i don't
24:04
need to connect the dots or if i do then they were not it's not going to make
24:08
sense to them anywhere so like either they connect the dots they don't connect
24:12
the dots now we're on this but talking about how how do you do that i actually
24:16
have a buddy eric casey which if you're at all in magic you should know eric Casey,
24:22
Poker Test 2.0. He just released the Princess Test.
24:25
He's one of my best friends in magic. But he said, John, my theory on this is the Scrubs theory.
24:31
He made this idea. Do you guys remember the TV show, The Scrubs?
24:34
Yeah. Have you guys ever watched that? Yeah, yeah.
24:36
Okay, so if you ever watch Scrubs, they will be the most hilarious,
24:39
irreverent, crazy, out there humor.
24:42
But at the end, there's like this deep point to it.
24:46
And he said, I think if you are crazy, crazy, crazy, then you can swing the other way.
24:51
And kind of wherever you're willing to go on one side is the same place you're
24:56
able to go up on the other side.
24:58
But if you're kind of a chill guy that's kind of in the middle of the whole
25:01
thing, you probably can't go that deep in your message.
25:04
But if you watch my show, I mean, things are exploding. I'm going nuts.
25:08
It's, like I said, if the camera goes out, people think it's part of the show.
25:11
That's how crazy my show is. And so I'm way up here.
25:14
So when I swing and be like, hey, if you have thought about killing yourself,
25:18
I just want you to know that there are people here that they care.
25:22
Like, I can go there, which sounds a little weird. I'll let you see it in my
25:25
show, but my wife was like, she saw me go that, but she was like, what?
25:28
Did you just go from crazy, crazy, crazy to don't kill yourself?
25:31
Because imagine if somebody who's just chilled the whole time goes, and your card is on top.
25:37
By the way, if anyone wants to kill themselves in this moment, don't.
25:41
Like, it would not play to any sort of effect. That's amazing.
25:49
Yeah, but, you know, it's just amazing where creativity comes from.
25:52
Like, he's referencing a TV show.
25:54
And it's so true, like, with being able to swing between the polar opposites, you know what I mean?
25:58
And that's why it's good to have this dynamic character, in a sense,
26:01
you know? I was creating something recently where I've always wanted to do a
26:04
Q&A effect, but it's just not my bag, personality-wise.
26:09
And so I was really hung up on this particular song where the lyrics go,
26:14
where do wishes go when they're tossed in the well?
26:16
It's like, where do wishes go when they're tossed in the well?
26:18
Are they screaming for help?
26:20
And I think I should finally go and fish them all out and claim them all for myself.
26:23
And I loved that phrase. And I thought to myself, well, how about we do a Q&A
26:27
where it's like, I just set the premise, where do wishes go when they're tossed in the well?
26:31
And then you take out an envelope and you get your vibes and you not point anybody
26:37
out, but there's just a little moment of saying like, I think this person's wish is this.
26:41
And my advice to you is that, and that for me is a way better way to do a Q
26:47
and a, or to have a connection with an audience member than to be like,
26:51
this is a question. This is an answer. It's like, what's your wish?
26:54
What is your wish? And why not go chase your wish? You know,
26:57
like, why not go chase your dream? I think that is the thing,
27:00
you know, and you can sort of tie it in with the whole thing.
27:02
Inspiration of that song and deliver a very
27:05
beautiful piece of art well and also
27:08
that came out of you because you were inspired by that right like that's the
27:11
thing we have to do something that comes out of your character and when i say
27:14
character most people i think magicians often especially young magicians get
27:18
confused with the word character because we think that oh so i'm putting on
27:22
something oh okay it's like a character in a play no it's not because you're playing
27:26
yourself unless you're lucy darling which that's
27:30
a whole different conversation most of us aren't we
27:33
are trying to be ourself and be
27:36
more of ourself and i don't
27:40
think andre cole by the way i just saw whoever said i used to
27:42
i don't think andre core full force anything sorry i
27:45
wasn't trying to put him in that i was trying to put the king of
27:48
hearts different love andre hung out
27:51
with andre i saw you will sorry i don't want to address that because i
27:54
saw that what was i saying oh but it comes out
27:56
of you it comes out of who you are and like
27:59
if i think something is fun it's great but also then on
28:03
your same thing i loved punk and ska music growing up and i was classically
28:07
trained like a opera or musical theater and i either had to ruin my voice to
28:11
sing ska or punk or realize that it's just something i like to listen to mentalism
28:16
for me when i see it done correctly i kind of have to just listen to it and enjoy it yeah,
28:21
So, yeah, like I do mental magic. I can't do mental though. I can't pull off the constipated face.
28:28
Yeah, I mean, yeah. Playing a character, playing your character doesn't mean you're pretending.
28:34
It just means you know what your character can and can't do on stage and the
28:38
limitations and the vibe and the messaging and where it's coming from.
28:44
Now, up the back of the creativity, I know that your book, Imaginate,
28:48
is based all about creativity. Now, I was very regretful that I wasn't able
28:52
to get a copy of it to read it before this interview, so I could ask better questions about it.
28:55
Would you kindly just tell us what the book is about with regards to creativity?
29:01
Yeah, it has nothing to do with magic. So if you're like, oh,
29:04
he has a magic book? No, I don't. Maybe someday.
29:06
But I'm definitely more of a performer than a creator when it comes to that.
29:09
I create, hopefully, through storytelling and the experience. No, it's about that.
29:16
I mean, if we're jumping in my faith for two seconds, and this isn't trying
29:19
to offend anybody, just this is who I am, is that I think that God,
29:24
if you read the Bible, and the first thing that God tells us about himself in
29:28
the Bible is it says, in the beginning, God, which is a plural of the noun.
29:33
It literally means the Godhead. It means plural, gods, not in the sense of Roman
29:38
or Greek mythology, but in Christendom.
29:41
And the second thing it says is created so it
29:44
literally says that in the beginning there was this collaboration that
29:48
creates that's the first thing that the the
29:51
god of the bible wants us to know about himself is that he is
29:55
collaborative unit that creates
29:58
stuff and then what did he what was one of the first commands he
30:01
said well man can't be alone because if they're going to be like us they
30:04
have to be collaborative so then
30:07
man and woman and what does he tell them to do he tells them to go
30:10
be to procreate like that's one
30:13
of the first things which hallelujah for all that that
30:16
ensues but also literally it's let's
30:19
go create and let's go do and let's be creative and so it's all about man how
30:25
were you created and i think that all of us were created with a purpose to create
30:29
beautiful things in this world to to bless other people to show love to other
30:34
people and if we can do that, I mean, man.
30:38
I'm not going to stand here because I know as soon as you say Jesus,
30:42
people get scared, people get weird. But...
30:46
And I think a lot of Christians haven't acted very Christ-like,
30:49
and that's why we have such a bad rap.
30:52
We haven't ever. But I think if we truly believe in this God who wants us to
30:57
create and to love him and love others, then we should be some of the most creative people.
31:03
And the closer we are to God and Christ, the better creators we should be,
31:08
especially creating incredible love and joy and excitement in this world.
31:12
Some of the best art was commissioned by the church back in the day.
31:15
I mean, sit in the Sistine Chapel.
31:18
Actually, here's a random story. This is what inspired the whole book.
31:21
My wife and I took a trip to the Sistine Chapel. Just me and her,
31:24
we got in early, which by the way, if you're going to go to Rome.
31:28
You can pay a little extra and you can be one of the VIP early people.
31:32
So instead of being in the Sistine Chapel with like however 700 to 1,000,
31:36
however many people are there, you're in there with 50 other people.
31:40
So like we got in there at the very beginning. We woke up way too early. It was amazing.
31:44
And so my wife and I are sitting there And I don't know if you realize this
31:46
from the Sistine Chapel.
31:47
It's the depiction, the ceiling is the depiction of the seven days of creation.
31:52
And so we're studying all this. We're listening to an audio guide that's talking
31:56
about all the different things and how Michelangelo painted it and all this other stuff.
31:59
And then my wife leaned over to me after two hours, I'm not exaggerating,
32:03
two hours of us staring up and our necks are hurting.
32:05
And she said five words that changed how I view God, how I view creation, how I view everything.
32:10
And she said, it must have been fun.
32:13
And I said, what? What do you mean it must have been? Wow.
32:17
Did you hear how he was drawing it? And she said, no, no, God,
32:19
when he created the world, it must have been fun for him.
32:23
And I went, well, I'd always pictured God as this stoic, white bearded dude
32:28
being like, let there be light.
32:30
Let there be this. Let there be.
32:33
What if he, when he said, let there be light, he created all of the,
32:37
all of the colors of light.
32:39
Like light has all the colors that we could see through a prism.
32:42
And he said that, and all the angels were like, whoa, that was awesome.
32:46
He's like, Ryan, that's so cool, look at that.
32:48
Like how we get excited about the creative process that sometimes we even fall
32:52
in love with more of the creative process as magicians that we have to step
32:56
back and make the trick actually make sense.
32:58
I think when he was like, ooh, let me create flowers. And then the angels were
33:01
like, do you see that flower? Yeah, no one will ever see it.
33:04
It's gonna be in a dense rainforest.
33:05
What? It's just for me and you. It's fine, right? Like that's the creative process.
33:11
And if I'm creating out of that, what?
33:14
Like, my magic has to be creative. My performance has to be creative.
33:17
Everything has to be creative.
33:18
So, uh, buddy, I love that. That's such a great story. Thank you for sharing
33:22
that. I love that. Like in a thousand ways.
33:25
That's so great. The other thing that I really want you to share,
33:29
because we had a little chat beforehand and we have a couple of Christian folk
33:32
that actually follow Christian magicians who follow our thing.
33:34
You were on the set of The Chosen.
33:37
And there was a very interesting story on how they went about hiring the particular
33:42
people who perform and produce the show.
33:47
And I think it's a way too cool a story to not share.
33:50
Could you please reiterate what we spoke about the show?
33:53
Yeah a lot of christian art over the years is
33:57
cheesy and i'm not trying to put anything down i i've i
34:00
think there's some been some great art put and even i
34:03
said something earlier that somebody in the chat was like ah and i was like i don't
34:06
want to i don't try to step on any toes and and the
34:09
people that we get to stand on their shoulders we should never look
34:13
down on them right like they were doing the best they could with the materials
34:15
they had but something i do love and I have I have friends that are they know
34:22
a lot about the chosen because well I just I've worked with them I work for
34:25
them not the chosen people but the people that are connected it's hard to explain
34:29
but what they said was different is that the chosen they want to hire the best people.
34:35
To tell the story. That doesn't mean the best Christian people.
34:38
Often when we get in the realm of faith and art, we only want to have people
34:43
that are only believe what we believe.
34:45
And as soon as we do that, we stop the creative process. We stop this,
34:48
we stop this, we stop this.
34:50
So The Chosen, there are some people, I mean, I'm actually watching,
34:53
if you want something about faith and art, Jonathan and Jesus, it's on Prime.
34:57
It's like all about the guy who plays Jesus. It's a four-part miniseries documentary
35:01
that is fascinating in how he is dealing with being an artist,
35:05
an actor, but also playing a deity, and people are getting confused with the
35:09
deity, but also he is trolling with all this.
35:12
I just watched it, but they just said, we want to tell the best story possible.
35:17
One of their main art people is a Jew who doesn't believe in Jesus,
35:21
but he finds Jesus' story so fascinating.
35:23
He's like, well, yes, this is the story that needs to be told.
35:25
A lot of the disciples, the apostles on that show, don't have a faith.
35:31
I mean, some of them actually have found a faith through the show because they heard it.
35:35
But what's interesting about that is when they're hearing Jesus say these words,
35:38
they haven't read them in the Bible.
35:40
So they're hearing them for the first time like the apostles would have heard
35:43
them for the first time when Jesus walked on earth and heard them.
35:46
So it's really, they want to show the best light possible. The people,
35:50
the creators, the writers, they have a faith and they're sharing it.
35:54
But then they're saying, how best can we tell this story, this epic story of
35:59
this person that we love so much?
36:00
And they don't have to have all agree on exactly this piece of theology and this piece of theology.
36:06
They agree on, we want to tell Jesus' story the best way possible,
36:10
which is true of whatever story we're trying to tell, in film,
36:14
in live performance, whatever, we should want to tell, if it's epic enough that
36:18
we want to tell this story.
36:19
We should tell it as best we can with the best tools we have.
36:23
So, yeah. In fact, they've even got, I know the Chosen have gotten in some trouble
36:27
over the years with some very conservative people who have been like,
36:31
oh, I can't believe that hire that type of person.
36:33
They were the best at it. So we are going to give them that role.
36:37
Yeah that's an amazing creative choice man like to actually get folks who have
36:41
no faith in order to do that because that's a pretty decent depiction when you think about it right so,
36:46
that's amazing yeah so one thing that that i'm super curious about is the fullest
36:53
performances now of course you had two attempts at it the second one you crushed
36:57
congratulations to you buddy.
36:59
Nobody saw that ending coming like honestly can we like can i just say for if
37:06
you need go see it if you haven't already it is unbelievable and just absolutely
37:12
genius let's talk about that,
37:15
yeah the first one first time i got on it
37:18
was for ruby's cube stuff because ruby's cube stuff was just finally breaking
37:21
that we could do more than just the pooler douler cube enchanted cube josh knows
37:26
way more about cube stuff than i do i think uh watching you you see you do so
37:30
much i'm such a fan of you by the way uh you're killing it with all your stuff
37:34
i'm such a fan of you stop it no i I remember like,
37:37
dude, my intro to you was watching a Henry Harris tutorial and then seeing you pop up to,
37:44
I think it is the effect you did on Fool Us, right? Is he? Sticulous.
37:47
And I was like, the first time I saw that, I was like.
37:50
Oh my god there's something else you
37:53
can do with a cube that's not solving it this is
37:56
crazy and then i think you saying it please don't perform this i'm just showing
38:00
you something creative well no i i said please perform it but not on tv oh that's
38:05
what you said that's what you said because i didn't want it to be honestly i
38:07
wanted to be when you perform it that it's amazing and no one's seen it outside
38:11
of my foolish yeah i've worked hard honestly to not a i released it for
38:16
I didn't get one dime off releasing one of the only two effects that I've ever created.
38:21
I've created three. But two effects I've released, and I was like,
38:26
I don't care about any money.
38:26
I just want to put something out good that hopefully, don't put it on TV,
38:30
don't put it in videos so that we can show this amazing.
38:32
The only other person that's made a video of it that I'd let do it is Rune out
38:36
of oh, if I say the wrong place, he's going to hate me. It's so, I can't.
38:42
Rune, if you're seeing this, I love you. Where's Rune from?
38:47
Rungfarlson yeah uh from i just saw a thing of his pop-up the other day,
38:53
anyway um if you say yeah yes if
38:56
you say the country next to it he hates he like makes fun of those
38:59
people and his wife's from there so like it's a whole thing sorry right right.
39:02
But worked hard so when i did that what's interesting was
39:05
really hard for me because they didn't know
39:08
how the stickers got on the cube but they didn't feel
39:11
feel feel fooled and i
39:14
was like but but the trick was that the
39:17
stickers got on the cube and they're like yeah we didn't feel full and we
39:20
know how we saw the switches of course you saw the switches the
39:23
switches were horrible the switches literally we
39:26
made them so bad that you don't see
39:29
them on tv because they weren't interesting enough to
39:32
leave in the tv edit if you
39:35
want to edit yourself out on tv this isn't i don't
39:38
think it's cheating because people can rewind on stuff and that
39:40
might get me in trouble in the chat but literally we
39:44
made it so boring that they cut it out of the tv mix
39:47
so when i was going back i was working with
39:50
brent brawn which if you don't if you know anything about tv and brent
39:53
brawn is the number one consultant also a good
39:56
friend and when i went to him i was like i want to
39:59
do something else on fool us i want another chance and he's like john i
40:02
don't care about fooling them and i was like right because he
40:05
brent cares about having an amazing tv spot having
40:08
an amazing thing that you put out into the world and we'll also try
40:11
to fool them but that first and foremost i'm like yes he said so
40:14
what's your idea and i said well i want to
40:17
kill a rubber ducky on national television and have everyone be
40:19
excited about it by the way this came out of i don't know how much time you
40:23
have on your podcast but this came out of oh not david stone man i have too.
40:28
Many french magician yeah david stone david stone jv demas had this idea that
40:33
he wanted to put a gun to a puppy's head on Franscott talent and say.
40:37
If I can't find your card, I'm going to shoot the puppy.
40:40
Which he did on France Got Talent and it's a bang gun and it comes out and the
40:44
silk falls down and it has the guy's card.
40:46
He didn't actually point a real gun. It was a, but I thought American audiences
40:49
not ready for that. So I was like, rubber ducky, we'll do that.
40:53
We'll cut the head off a rubber ducky.
40:54
And so I thought, okay, that would be hilarious. Let's do this.
40:56
And then Brent said, why? And I said, I don't know.
41:00
It's got something inside of it. He's like, okay, so we have an impossible location.
41:04
How are we doing it? And I'm like, I don't know. That's just my idea.
41:07
Which, by the way, I think is a better place to start because often we start,
41:11
we'll have this cool method and we end with the trick.
41:13
We have to start with what's interesting, what's the effect.
41:16
And so we started there. Okay, it's going to be a borrowed ring.
41:20
All right. Well, Brent said, well, the only way to really fool them is to use the secret assistant.
41:26
But as soon as you use a table that does not look like one of their tables,
41:30
Heller leans over to Penn and says, they're using a secret assistant.
41:34
Like anytime you use any stuff. oh my table looks no it doesn't it's not one
41:39
of their tables they know what their tables look like they've seen how many
41:41
magicians come on this show right right secret assistant and brent said i in
41:46
this we actually dropped the idea wasn't going to happen we started working
41:48
on something else at 3 a.m he said yeah man i still like the idea of cutting
41:53
the head off a rubber ducky,
41:55
but yeah we like i said you unless you set that table on fire or you drown it
42:01
and that's how we came up with it.
42:03
Wow. Because Adonis is asking here, was the end of the method actually like
42:08
legit or was it a pseudo method?
42:10
Oh, 100%. That was the method.
42:14
That's 80% of the method. We're keeping 20% of it to ourselves,
42:18
which I've told a few close friends, I'm not going to say publicly, but it was literally...
42:23
My wife, which originally was going to be Brent Braun, he was too tall for the
42:27
tub because the bigger tub, it was obvious.
42:29
And so I told my wife, like, would you be able to do it? She said,
42:32
don't even ask me. That is no.
42:34
So in February, she starts training.
42:39
Because she literally came to me. She came back. She was like,
42:41
it would be a better story if it was me. I'm like, it would.
42:43
But I can't like. And she actually told me. She said, if I'm training to do
42:47
this, you're training to do this. So I can hold.
42:49
I can do the same thing she did for 40 minutes so that she was willing to do it.
42:54
We went through so many methods so that she could stay underwater for that long the crazy thing is
42:59
at the end of the day if you actually watch you pause you could see it's a snorkel
43:03
with a duck on the end of it i'll tell you that much which teller thought was
43:06
the most hilarious thing he's like don't force you hit a snorkel with a duck
43:10
on the end of it this is brilliant like he if you know anything about teller
43:13
afterwards he's he gets more excited about the method yeah and so,
43:17
it's but the thing is when you're snorkeling your face is always down and
43:21
so if there's any water in the goggles they pull on the
43:24
front if you're on your back like she had to be it
43:27
the water sits on your eyes like straight on your eyes
43:30
so those we had super tight goggles because the
43:33
big thing mass didn't work we had a nose plug and she
43:36
breathed through it because we tried compressed air we tried all these
43:39
different ideas but breathing natural air is the
43:42
easiest you don't have to worry if the tube works going back to technology that
43:46
what if all of a sudden all of sudden you have all these bubbles why are there
43:48
bubbles in the tank oh they're the secret assistant So she's literally breathing
43:52
through a tube She catches the ring She opens the box Shoves it into the duck
43:57
Then when I put the net in there She puts it in the net And the 20% is how did we get the.
44:04
I'll tell you the original method First there was an idea of a change bag that
44:09
opened So she could only grab the one duck That went weird It never felt right,
44:13
Then there was one that we would make it so that all the ducks,
44:16
when we went like this, if you haven't seen it, we make it so that they say,
44:20
go ahead and start, that's way too many ducks, start flinging some out.
44:22
And so she's mixing the ducks.
44:24
Ducks are flying everywhere. She gets down to about half or 40% of the ducks she originally had.
44:28
And I, originally it was going to be all the ducks except for one,
44:32
but that's pretty obvious that, okay, so that duck had a magnet in it because that's the only way.
44:36
So how do you get down to, we had to keep one duck in play, but also we wanted
44:40
other ducks. And literally two hours before we went live, Brent said, wow, this is stupid.
44:47
What if, and we said, I said, oh, but then because of that, because if you listen,
44:52
I ask Brooke, I say, do you see multiple numbers? And she says, yes.
44:57
And I say, pick any number you want. And she says, okay, 15.
45:01
And she picks up 15. People think that because of how it was edited that we changed it.
45:05
No, that was put on a shelf, full view of the audience, full view of Penn & Teller.
45:10
One dirty thing i did do was i tried to send them
45:13
on the wrong path by reaching behind
45:16
to grab the net because that's when i would have ditched the
45:18
ring and put it into the box which if that would have been
45:21
a red herring and been against the rules if the ring was going to end up in
45:25
the box on the shelf it never ended up on the shelf it was always in the duck
45:29
and so they said yeah that's fine because you're sending them down a path and
45:33
that's the path they went so when we opened up the box and it says the wrong
45:37
name and it says Kill Ducky, they're going, wait, where was the duck?
45:40
I'm going to get that down. Now they're going back there and they're done.
45:44
Yeah. So there you go. Spotlights on the shelf, perhaps. Yeah.
45:50
Yeah. Wow. Also, if you listen, I don't think Penn was convinced he was fooled.
45:55
Because when they came up, I looked at Penn, I'm like, are you serious?
45:59
And he said, yeah, if you didn't palm it off and then switch out the duck, then yeah.
46:03
And he's kind of mad until my wife pops up out of the tub. And then he's like,
46:07
okay, that was awesome. Yeah.
46:11
That is a phenomenal level of creativity, man. It's so nice to be able to just
46:16
jazz those ideas with a cohort.
46:18
You're so fortunate to be on your side of the planet where you have all those
46:21
people around you to do that.
46:23
Do you consultant with the same folks when you're doing things for like.
46:25
Good morning america or or stuff at the knack theater
46:28
is it always collaborating yeah i
46:31
think collaboration is key because i start falling
46:34
over my own ideas and i mean henry harris
46:37
you don't have to even have it on your side of the planet i talk
46:40
to henry about about almost every effect and he sends me
46:43
stuff all the time about all of his effects he's in hong kong
46:46
we're in different time zones usually if i'm going to bed or i'm
46:49
staying up way too late to like two in the morning he's like oh this is a great
46:51
time to talk i'm like dude i gotta go to bed like uh but
46:54
oh what about this you know or if i'm like it's a good hour
46:57
for me he's like okay we'll try this and talk to
47:00
me about it later i'm going to bed you know so like even though we're on opposite
47:03
sides of the planet brent brown and i i honestly unless
47:06
i go out to his place it's really or i'm seeing him in a magic mission i'm
47:09
usually just texting him but then i have certain people that
47:12
yeah we get on phone calls and i think you have to
47:14
find your people but also sometimes you have to go outside of that this year
47:17
at magic live i did something really cool and crazy i i
47:21
told people i i brought a friend who wasn't a magician and
47:24
i took him around the dealer room and i said if you see anything that you think is
47:27
cool i don't care if i like it i'm gonna put it i'm gonna
47:30
get it and try to figure out a way to put my show because i'm not
47:33
my show is not for other magicians to be like wow you're awesome i mean if they
47:36
think that that's an honor and everything but my it's truly for the lay audience
47:41
so yeah and it's hard to keep those people to be muggles because as soon as
47:46
they watch a lot of magic they're no longer a good resources and I had to find new muggles. Yeah.
47:52
Well, I feel like this is slowly leading in towards telling stories about actual
47:56
performances and actual gigs.
47:58
Josh, I think it's time for a gig story. You're in? Let's do it.
48:06
So gig stories is a section of the show. We like to talk about moments of magic,
48:10
whether we're performing or our day-to-day lives, starting with a gig story
48:13
from our guest, John Michael Hinton.
48:16
You said you had a great story before the show. I'm dying to hear it.
48:19
Fire away okay so 60 of what i do my gigs are in churches faith-based organizations
48:25
churches conference christian conference next week i'll be at a christian conference all week long,
48:30
this one the pastors it was
48:33
a bunch of pastors and staff of a church big church in san
48:35
diego i shouldn't have said where it was if you can bleep out san
48:38
diego please do i'm not gonna say the name of the church but
48:41
man this is i can't believe i'm telling this on the
48:44
air so they had a thing before me that
48:47
said anybody any staff member that wants to try to a magic trick will give you
48:51
a gift card so like it's just people are doing stupid tricks one person they
48:55
were a good magician and they actually did a really good trick everybody else
48:58
stupid tricks absolutely dumb just to be stupid and be around and then the last
49:03
lady who was going to perform before me,
49:05
she got up and she started telling her testimony and that she told and it was
49:11
a long testimony and I mean, incredible testimony, but how she had been strung
49:15
out on drugs, how she had tried to kill herself.
49:19
I do remember when I really cued into the story was that she said,
49:22
when I took a thing of vodka, a whole bottle of vodka and a thing of pills and
49:25
down the whole thing trying to kill myself.
49:27
And I'm standing next to the senior pastor who looked at me and we're both like.
49:31
It was supposed to do the magic trick like what it's going
49:34
and then you
49:36
got to the point that now she loves on people there
49:40
that are in these crisis pregnancy centers that
49:43
you know they're she's trying to show them love and trying to help
49:46
them they are pregnant somehow they didn't
49:49
expect it to or whatever and they're you know in this thing they're
49:51
trying to decide what decisions they want to make all this stuff and she's just
49:54
trying to love them and she said and that brings me to my magic coloring
49:58
book where are we going from here
50:00
boys what she said
50:03
you know when i talk to the youth about stis
50:07
sexually transmitted infections i use
50:10
my magic coloring book because some infections are very colorful like this oh
50:16
my god but some infections you can't see them coming very much there's there's
50:21
there's a few symptoms but they're kind of like this for their black and white
50:24
and some are completely invisible and that's my magic coloring book and I followed that,
50:30
what a tough act to follow oh my god he did a great job he thanked somebody
50:36
was incredible but it was,
50:39
she was great and he transitioned well and now we have the guy doing a bunch
50:43
of super magic tricks hi everybody watch this hole can move in a card yeah hey
50:49
everyone do you want to be my friend that's exactly.
50:53
By the way that was really really really clever with the
50:56
way because you frame that you
50:59
want everyone to be a friend i thought it was really cool how you probably
51:02
had the only intro of allison from
51:04
fuller saying i want to introduce my new friend and yeah
51:08
that's that's really cool too that's a wild story man that's
51:11
wild you know what that reminds me of like the segue do
51:14
you remember that bit at magic live where rick
51:17
merrill was emceeing and he's like what do you call those things you kind
51:20
of stand up on them and you hold it and you lean forward i kind of take
51:22
you around what are they called john segue oh speaking
51:26
of segues and then like are you
51:31
telling the story am i supposed to answer uh yeah it's like that's what transition
51:37
was i love it well i got i got a really short i got a really short gig story
51:41
i um i went and did a wedding event last weekend and i I after the show,
51:48
I was hanging around with the tables, doing a bit of close up.
51:51
And the son of the groom comes up to me and he's like, oh, I got a magic trick
51:57
for you. And I'm like, all right, do you want to use my cards?
51:59
Like you can use 21 cards. Like, what do you want? He's like, no, I've got zip ties.
52:03
I'm like, you have my attention. And he's like, I'm going to tie you up.
52:07
And then I'm going to link the two zip ties together, even though you're zipped up. And I'm like.
52:13
Okay, it feels like you're just going to trick me and just tie me up and then
52:17
run away. He's like, no, no, no, no, no.
52:19
And I'm like, no, that I can't see how this is a trick.
52:23
And he's like, no, no, just let me. And it was his constant persistence for
52:27
about two minutes of me saying no, him saying no, let me, that I was like,
52:31
okay, maybe there is something to this.
52:33
And the table of people around me, I'm like, is this a good idea?
52:36
And they're like, half are like, no, half are like, yeah.
52:39
I'm like, all right, at least we're amongst friends. Like if he ties me up And
52:43
I'm like stuck at least like I'm not getting mugged or something.
52:48
So anyway, so he starts with them linked. Oh yeah.
52:51
He said he's going to be able to unlink them without my hands having to come out of it or whatever.
52:56
So he links them together.
52:59
He's like, put your hands through. I'm like, okay. I put my hands through.
53:02
He zip ties them together. I can hardly move.
53:05
And then the kid runs away and it's hilarious and it's everyone laughs and it's very funny.
53:10
And the magician is tied up and and that
53:13
was it and that was the first time that's ever happened to me but luckily
53:16
like he had planned he had thought about this and he came back with wire cutters
53:22
which why the heck does a 13 year old have wire cutters and zip ties but he
53:27
came back and cut my hands free and then we and then the game became became
53:32
can how many other people can we convince,
53:36
to be zip tied up and i pretended like he did
53:39
the trick so i actually now became his confidant it
53:42
was like he did this crazy thing you got to see this and he
53:45
would just zip tie up drunk family members and this is
53:48
at a wedding this is at a wedding yeah and playing this i bet why you have wire
53:53
cutters don't worry about it dad zip ties and wire cutters this sounds like
53:59
the next trick of magic live like tobias's trick of magic live this year i don't
54:03
know if you saw that one Oh, yeah, we should do that. This year.
54:06
We should genuinely do that. Like, we should genuinely type in.
54:08
Like, no, no, no, no, I'll link both of you, and then you just leave them there.
54:13
Absolutely. That sounds like the perfect magic. Let's do that next Magic Live.
54:18
100%. And Nick, you're always running into crazy circumstances. What's happened?
54:24
Okay, I had a good one. So I was performing on Sunday, actually,
54:28
at one of my residencies. There was a kid's party, seven-year-old birthday party,
54:32
and everyone was having their Minecraft cake.
54:34
And I remember seeing this very same kid because I'm kind of good at remembering
54:37
names and whatever else.
54:39
And he comes over to one of our staff members and he's like,
54:41
is there any nuts in the cake?
54:43
You know, it's like, you know, like it's just to make, I'm assuming this kid's anaphylactic.
54:48
And I'm like, oh, he's like, nah, you got to check with the mom.
54:51
She brought the cake. And it's like, there's no nuts. That's all good,
54:53
right? So anyway, all the kids are sitting down having cake.
54:55
They're all nice and chill.
54:56
And I'm like, okay, I'll go in there and show them something.
54:58
I'm like, hey, guys, blah, blah, blah. Do my intro. Like, you guys want to see magic? So yeah.
55:01
And I'm like, do you want to see stupid kid magic or awesome grownups?
55:03
I'm like, stupid kid stuff. I'm like, sec, you know? So I'm doing like a simple
55:06
coins across whatever else.
55:08
And I'm doing my thing. And they're all like just bombarding me at this point.
55:12
And little peanut kid comes and sits right next to me, right?
55:15
And he's basically like over my shoulder.
55:17
And I'm like, that's cool. So I get down on one knees. Everyone can see better. They're all kids.
55:20
I'm doing my thing. But then I just hear this like bang.
55:24
And I look behind me and it's old mate on his side, eyes rolled back and he's
55:31
doing one of these convulsing numbers.
55:33
And I look down, I'm like, what is this? And I don't know what it is about me,
55:38
but I don't freak out in situations like this.
55:40
I just don't. it's just not me and so
55:43
i'm like oh dang it and i'm like i just popped
55:46
my head out i'm like guys i'm gonna need an adult come in please and i
55:49
go to put him in recovery position and he just springs back
55:52
up again he goes ha gotcha and i'm like oh you're
55:55
okay he's like yeah yeah i'm fine and i'm like oh you were just joking around
55:58
he's like yeah did i get you and i said bro it
56:01
wouldn't be the first time a kid fainted seeing my magic you're okay yeah
56:04
all right let's get back to it like i just i gave him nothing i
56:07
gave him nothing and he was so disappointed because he does it apparently that
56:10
he does it all the time because even the kids are just like he does
56:13
this all the time don't worry about it yeah because imagine how much that would
56:18
actually freak people out like imagine you're there to do a show for the kids
56:22
while the parents have left for example different situation and one kid does
56:26
it someone could freak the f out in that absolutely yeah and this is how i produce snappy pen,
56:34
yeah yeah next time just get a really big syringe here we go.
56:42
Yeah seven seven what a brilliant
56:45
kid seven yeah right i kind of kind of adored him for that afterwards and then
56:49
afterwards i just put him aside and i'm like hey man you fell pretty hard are
56:51
you cool he's like yeah are you sure like do you need any ice or you're like
56:54
i'm all right as long as you're okay buddy like i actually sat him down i was
56:57
like you're okay and then i was like all right and i gave him a little fist
57:00
bump and i was like all right nice to meet you kid and And I didn't get mad at him or nothing.
57:03
I just thought, good hustle. That kid's going places.
57:09
Imagine you were able to make an EpiPen appear and then you commit to freaking him out.
57:17
I know you're joking, but just in case it's not joking, I'm still going to stab him.
57:23
Imagine I screwed up and I took out my gaffed Sharpie and I'm just stabbing
57:28
him with X's. and he's just got all these X spots all over him and supposed
57:31
to be doing this one right.
57:34
Oh, well, guys, we've hit the one hour mark and we're about to wrap up.
57:38
But before we do, I think it's important that we talk about what's next for
57:42
you, John Michael Hinton. What's next? What's coming?
57:46
Most creative thing I've been working on, which is doesn't make any sense to
57:49
be working on because I have a great show.
57:51
I don't say that lightly. Like I'm not trying to be like, oh,
57:53
I'm awesome, but I have a great show.
57:55
I have two great shows that I perform all over the place. But a buddy of mine,
57:58
Danny Ray, I mentioned him earlier, and we were on a cruise ship together and
58:03
we're like, wouldn't it be cool to do something together?
58:05
And he said, yes, but I have a big thing. He said, often one really good magician
58:11
plus another really good magician equals about...
58:14
A toss of a good magic show because often if
58:17
you ever try to push two magicians and if you've ever seen god of
58:20
the magic castle propeller this often happens and it's kind of awkward
58:23
it's like you know i'll be honest i probably would have just enjoyed one
58:26
of their shows more than them trying
58:29
to push their stuff together and it being awkward and we
58:33
said okay so one plus one has to equal 100 or we don't go
58:35
forward and honestly the first thing we did was we
58:38
just did a show kind of together kind of a whole glomerant
58:41
just to see okay first of all does our chemistry work together
58:44
it did and so now we're running a whole new show that
58:47
literally it's it's not oh can we do this together
58:50
it's no this requires two people to do this trick requires two people to do
58:54
this trick requires two people do and if we didn't have two people it would
58:56
not it's not like oh i'm just letting you do this because no this trick requires
59:00
two people to do and so yeah it's called magic and mayhem the only magic show
59:03
with a splash zone which isn't true but it's really good for marketing.
59:09
And you're like i own splash zone yes i know lots of
59:12
other people do and but yeah we're just doing i mean some of the stuff is just
59:16
crazy we are i mean we're having things explode we're having cards explode we're
59:21
having people throw ping pong balls at us it's just a ton of fun and it's the
59:25
most creative thing that honestly doing a show with your best friend sounds really fun and it is,
59:31
but when we're gonna get paid everything that i would have gotten paid is cut
59:35
in half now so So again, this is not the best idea, but man,
59:42
it's creative and it's fun.
59:43
And if it takes off, we actually have already, we're booked at four different places.
59:47
We have two other people, two other venues currently talking to us.
59:50
We're looking at a third and fourth venue. Like we're just trying to start something to do it.
59:54
Like it's very different probably than the cool shows like The Illusionist where
59:59
they went out and shopped and they know how to do it.
1:00:02
And I think if they want to pick us up, somebody like that wants to pick us
1:00:05
up once we have legs, this thing sounds great.
1:00:06
Blow us up but it's literally we wanted to be we wanted to do something creative
1:00:11
and fun and we thought man this would be great and i'm i probably should be
1:00:16
thinking about things like that i bought at magic life for my own show but all
1:00:19
i'm doing is thinking about things for this current show so yeah good.
1:00:24
Uh, that's, oh, I look forward to seeing it somehow, some way, one day.
1:00:28
Maybe it's going to be at the magic castle in November. If anybody's going to
1:00:31
be there, if you're in Southern California or Texas or going on the love like
1:00:35
you mean cruise, those are the four places we're booked right now. But yeah.
1:00:40
Well, friends, we've hit the one hour mark and it is time to start wrapping up the show.
1:00:45
But before we do, just a nice reminder that the theater of magic is launching
1:00:49
here in Melbourne as well.
1:00:51
You can get your magic.com as well as that. There is also a convention kicking off in Sydney here.
1:00:57
So you got the details for that one. We'll post that on our Discord.
1:01:01
Anyone else who might want to come?
1:01:02
Josh, any other news before we go to the final word?
1:01:06
Well, do you want to mention the reason Doug is not here?
1:01:10
Okay. So the reason our friend Doug is not here is because he's having an early
1:01:15
night. And that's because he needs to get up very, very early in the morning
1:01:18
to interview our next guest. So we'll be interviewing the Annex guest at 11 p.m.
1:01:24
Melbourne time, 6 a.m. Vegas time. So in 12 hours from now, we're having an
1:01:32
actual exciting second pod.
1:01:34
But if you're listening to this on Spotify and iTunes, you'll see it pop up
1:01:38
in a couple of days just to space things out to let John's episode breathe and
1:01:43
soak it all in. But stay tuned. 12 hours time.
1:01:46
Shortly, you'll see. Are you teasing who that's going to be?
1:01:49
Like, I want to know. I want to come. I want to listen. You're not teasing.
1:01:52
You'll see. I can't wait.
1:01:54
Let's just say it's an amazing daredevil from the UK. We'll say that.
1:02:00
And with that, we will jump to the final word.
1:02:04
Hey guys, thank you so much for letting me join you for this incredible podcast.
1:02:09
Again, John Michael Hinton. If you want to follow me on Instagram,
1:02:12
YouTube, anything like that, I love answering people.
1:02:15
So if you DM me, I will do the best I can to talk to you. So hopefully we can
1:02:20
be friends and it's been an honor being here. Thank you guys so much.
1:02:25
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
1:02:31
But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.