20 Questions Magicians Argue About! #214

They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 214. That's it, 214 of the Magic Guys. To my left, we have Nick Kay. Hi, I'm Nick Kay, and to my right, I have...

I'm Josh Norbedo! And we are your fellow magicians today, bringing you the goodness, where we share our experience as professional magicians, talk about shenanigans and sometimes have wonderful guests, which Doug has a wonderful guest, which he is not here for with us live because he's out having some fun with Bizarro, the magic genius that he is out in Vegas.

He's living the vegas life doug is he he's he knows all the who's who and where all the parties are and the secret tours and this guy's we better have some crazy hookups when absolutely man like.

It's like vegas could not be more excited to have doug and the moment everyone knew he was going there everyone was just like let us know so we can do cool stuff and so he's out there going to museums that are invite only and hanging out with copperfield and going to secret rooms that bizarro has designed and so i we should probably go down a week early when we go to vegas to do magic live that's what we should probably do and just go doug show

us around vegas baby but move of course whatever shenanigans we get up to we'll fill you guys in as we go along but today you guys are joining us for a little bit of a chat which is super cool thank you for joining us friends it's good to see we have jesse we have gutbuster mike and making waves that's a new one i haven't seen you before welcome to the show friend and of course tim asking them questions and my good friend scotty hey who says i am looking

forward to this one so are we man we actually had a good laugh about it and we're actually want to kick the episode off by we received a couple of speak pipes which we absolutely love getting from you guys so please make that a habit we love it we like helping you guys and we love hearing from you so who's the first person who sent us the speak pipe today, Josh?

Yeah. So the first one is from our good friend who you got to meet at the assembly, who we talked about briefly too. Mr. Gregory Lee sent us a speak pipe and let's see what he's been up to. Hi, this is Gregory. Although I'm from Australia, grew up in Brisbane, I spent the last 30 years living in the United States. And I just realized coming back here that doing magic with the polymer bills uses a bit of trouble, just because they don't bend easily.

I'm just wondering what kind of magic you do with those kind of polymer bills. Like would you do extreme burn? I heard there are issues with the different size of the notes and the windows that we have in the bills. And what about things like bill to lemon, sign bill to lemon? Would you do that kind of thing? Or is it possible to do that with Australian builds? I'm just curious what other tricks you'd do with our currency.

Thanks. Great question. I'll answer quick because I only have a little bit of info and then Nick can take it away because he regularly customizes and does magic with notes.

But basically, in my experience, Build to Lemon is fantastic because the builds don't get destroyed like paper money and well done nick that was a good one and our the amazing nigel at the theater magic does build a lemon with borrowed notes every single show and the great thing is all you have to do is wipe them off and you're good to go so that's all my knowledge i don't personally do any build changes and stuff like in my working roving sets so i'm gonna hand

it over to nick for the rest of the goods yeah look i there's a video that i posted recently where i was sent a video from an old friend of mine from high school whose child messaged saying, I like your magic. Can you please do a trick with a bill? And in that, I have an original piece of magic which I created. I call it splitting the bill. And you're right. Folding bills is not great with our currency. That's just why I thought I want to do a bill change in which you can see the

entirety of the bill happening. Like it happens without it being folded a bunch of times. It's not to say it can't be done. If anyone has seen the. And it's a variation of what Richard Sanders does with a particular folded bill where he shakes it and it changes at the fingertips. Simon Coronel has a version of that that is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Yeah, that is amazing. I haven't seen that for ages. Yeah. So he'll do it with a 5 to a 50.

Now, when he does it, it's folded very specifically and he quite literally will iron with a hot iron, press it. So the folds are absolutely perfect with the bill. So borrowing a bill, that option isn't great. Using an existing bill, you can probably iron it into your appropriate size. Also keep in mind that you can roll a bill up.

You can roll it up into a, I mean, my brain went somewhere I shouldn't have, but now the point is that you can do that exact same roll up and insert that into certain things. Our good friend Brendan Dooley does it in candy bars and so forth. So I think that as far as what kind of effects you can do with that, look at a bill to an impossible location. Look at possibly even ways that you can manipulate the bill. One of the things that is a great convincer is obviously the serial number.

Now, we're very big on the notion that you can't sign a bill in this country. So one of the things that I think is a great thing to do is that if you take a piece of acetate, like a clear, There's a better word for it than acetate. What's the word I'm thinking of? Magic. I don't know. Okay, we'll call it a transparency. You can get these from your, our office works, probably the American office max. And it's basically like a clear sheet that would normally put on projectors

and so forth. You can print on those. So you can actually print something that's palmable. And then what you can do is you can fold that bill up and then put that transparency on top of the bill. Right. In a corner that it doesn't have the serial number.

But what you do is you then ask somebody to read as you fold it up you go read the serial number and write it down and do you actually just putting a transparency on top of the bill so that's a really good opportunity for you to do something of that nature where you can actually do like use a duplicate in an impossible item as opposed to having to fold it up in advance and insert it you know what i mean because then you're

just going to do a vanish and then that can go to the impossible location because you've used the transparency as the convincer for that acetate was right. Thank you, Tim Askin.

So I hope that helps you out, Greg. And of course, if you need to chat about it further, drop us a line or we'll talk about it in the Discord. Thanks so much for sending that through. We hope that helped. We're going to keep it moving because we have a lot of questions to get through today in our debate, but we do have one more speak pipe, which will fly through. This one came through from, it's a very, it's a sexy name. I just, I think it's Aurelian.

Aurelian let's see what he's been up to this looks like a new hey guys thanks for what you're doing with this podcast this is really motivating for me i'm an amateur magician and uh yeah trying to get my first gigs and i was wondering if you have any tips to pitch to restaurant i just tried that this evening and yeah I ran into a guy who obviously had no time to speak to me so yeah I wonder if you have any good practice for that. Thanks again and yeah keep up the good work.

Okay yeah perfect i mean i can sum that up pretty quickly so basically you just went at the wrong time like if you go in when they're busy they just you know they got to make money and also you only went into one so like that guy just could be an office like he's always trying to catch up you got to go into like 50 and then read the room but you did it so that's first of all, commendable so commendable for actually going in and doing it that's so hard

everyone just wants to stay at home and send their little emails and hope something comes up. But you actually went in, which is the best thing. And they said no. So you know what? That's the worst that can happen. Who cares? But to be tactical, what you want to do is go in during their quiet time. So typically during the start of the week, and you want to go between their services.

So you want to go like between when their lunch and dinner starts so that there is that downtime and go and have a meal there with your friend even. And then that way you kind of have an in because you're there enjoying their services already. Or, you know, if you do want to email them, at least have a meal there and then email them to compliment them. Like, hey, we had a meal there. It was so great. You know, the da-da-da was amazing.

By the way, I'm a local magician. I'd love to come down and just introduce myself. When is a good time that I could just pop in? Like something like that would be a good lead in. Anyway, I think we need to press on with our questions. But was there anything that you wanted to add into that, Nick?

You know what? Because we're in this debating mindset right now, here's where I kind of feel about when people ask about, I want to do more gigs. My mentality is this. Are you good? Are you good? because people are so quick to be like, I want to do my promo. I want to this and that. And they polish themselves up. And then when they do the gig, they crash and burn.

And the reason I say that is that do your diligence on making sure that you know how to perform and that you know how to handle a heckler and you know how to navigate a restaurant gig. It's so important that you're not distracting from people who are at the menu. If they're looking at a menu and they're about to order, leave them alone. Let him order. If anything, have you finished ordering yet? Great. Please put your order through because I'm dying to show you guys some magic.

Your job is to help make them do their, make their money. So just, it says those little things that like, I'm sure you can do magic and restaurant drink seem cool, but understand that like you are part of an ecosystem to help them when they're busy and to help, help them make money and to get a table to buy an extra round of drinks when they wouldn't ordinarily. When you go to a table and you see, you finish a trick, you go,

Oh, I see you guys are empty. Let me get somebody around to take another drink order.

And then you send somebody across to get a drink order and just try to do everything you can to do that so it's not just about like going there and doing magic and i say that with love because people are so quick to go i want gigs then they do the gigs and then not only do they do it poorly they do it to the point where that restaurant owner's like i'm never gonna book a magician again so coming from a different

angle but equally important yeah now aurelian don't let Nick Skeiwoff because he's, you know, coming from a different viewpoint. What you're saying is you didn't even get the time to show the guy. So I think a restaurant is a great place for someone who's learned their magic and now needs to learn how to work to sort of start, but just keep going. There is a playlist. There is a video on my, on my personal YouTube channel and just send me a message on Instagram if you want.

And I sort of walk through it a little bit longer. It's a private video that i made that i send to magicians when they ask me about restaurants all right oh and gregory lee's in the chat glad you made it my friend all right all right we uh there's no chance we're getting through 20 questions now just seeing how we that's okay whatever we don't finish we'll do it nick took his you know breath with those answers so um in the chat

how vote what numbered question you think we're going to get to by an hour because we're going to try and get through all of them.

I'm guessing five. That's what I'm guessing. I'm going to rant. I've been drinking. No, I'm kidding. Okay, so these are, 20 questions that magicians argue about, they're kind of an A and B answer. Like you have to choose one thing or the other thing for most of the questions. So if you're playing along live, which you should be, put your answer in the chat as well. You don't have to say why your answer. You can just put what your answer is or you can give context. We'll see how we go.

Yeah. Or if you're driving, just scream at a traffic. That's fine. Share your opinion. That's what today's about. Uh, that's right. Nick, are you ready? I'm ready. Question number one. Then let's begin. Oh, that was a bit loud. All right. That's a really good one. I like that one. Thanks. Question number one.

Is magic an art form or just entertainment? And the subtext, is magic a true art that deserves the same respect as music or painting, or are we just performing tricks for a crowd's applause? Ooh. Yeah. Now, I would have kept saying it's an art until it said that last bit. Or are we just trying to get a crowd's applause? God damn it. Well, we, yeah. Now, look. Now, there's 20 questions. So, like, we don't have to.

Yeah. Look, I wish it was acknowledged as an art form because there are so many people in our country that can get these things called art grants in which the government goes, Oh, you want to write a play because you went to VCE and you did a thingamajig and you studied drama?

Here's 10 grand. go do a play and they go and do a play about someone getting their period and no one buys tickets to it and it's not entertaining and it doesn't change anyone's world it's just this self-loathing piece of crap but they got 10 grand worth of money from from the government right plus, that i think is i guess we can call it art but i guess we can also call it bad art.

I think that if magic was nourished in the same way we could make art I think magic can be art Scotty P will tell you it can be art but, It's more entertainment than anything. I'm going to say. Yeah, like what I would, would you rather be called like a great entertainer or would you rather be called a great artist? I think I would prefer to be called a great entertainer, which is why I'm going to do that. I think so too. And by definition, Australia doesn't classify magic as an art technically.

So. Correct. Great. All right. Question number two.

Style versus substance what matters more would you rather be unforgettable or technically, flawless that's a good one damn unforgettable okay can we just can we just uh confirm unforgettable in a good way yeah so like you rock the stage you know you you have a great character and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, or you're that book that everyone refers to because you have like the most solid, flawless techniques ever, you know, or like you're at every convention because you do the most,

the world's best retention vanishes, you know? Yeah. People in the chat are saying unforgettable, but I don't know. Man, it's interesting. Like we'd all like to be both in everything we talk about, but we've got to, aside, okay? So I think that like. Being unforgettable. Okay. Here's where it's key. I would prefer to be unforgettable. And the reason for that is that like everyone can perform someone else's material, right?

Some can do that better than others. Everyone can go out and sing sweet Caroline by Neil Dime. Hold that thought because there is another question that will be more pertinent to what you're saying right now. Right. So hold on to that. Cause that's going to be really key in like two questions time. Yeah. I would rather be, because here's the thing, I've sat, I mean, we just did the assembly. I've sat up with a guy who have the most amazing second deals I've ever seen.

Yeah. But, okay, but. So that's what we're saying. Like, would you either be the best technician or the best, like, showman? Best showman. That's what we're saying. Best showman. Best showman. That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. And that seems to be unanimous in the chat. Scotty P saying unfigurably flawless, which is impossible. Only our girlfriends can be unforgettably flawless, so that's all. All right, let's move on.

Question number three. Oh, boy. Comedy versus serious magic. Who wins? Is it better to make them laugh or leave them speechless? Okay. Look, I'm going to share something that was said to me when I first started doing magic. Scotty Painter says comedy. I appreciate that. Now, here's the thing. When I first started doing magic, I billed myself as a comedy magician and a friend of mine pulled me aside and he says, if you're going to be a comedy magician,

you're supposed to be bad at both of them. And you're good at both of them. Yes. And you're good at both of them and you're ruining it for the rest of us. And I went, okay, bro, I'll change my title. So I changed it to professional mind blower. Now I like comedy. I think that some people who do comedy magic don't understand comedy also, right? I believe that you could be funny, but you could do something that blows someone's mind.

I would always prefer to be yourself. If you are funny by nature, comedy will happen. If you try to force comedy and tell people, I'm going to be a comedy magician. I'm like, bro, you ain't funny. Okay. You're not funny.

That's hard to happen, right? now but who wins like the funniest person is performing and then shin lim is performing okay so here we go all right shin lim not funny arcy win not funny well arzy win is situationally very funny he's not situation not a comedy magician thank you situationally i don't consider myself like a comedian or that i can write a joke or write i can go and do like a set on kill Tony for one minute.

I reckon I would totally like crap the bed if that was the case, but you put me in a room full of people or a bunch of hecklers. I'm going to destroy. I'm going to get a laugh every 10 seconds. No problem. Situationally. Yes. But does that make you a comedy magician? Nay. I don't believe it does.

I, and got past the mic makes a good point. Funny equals money. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so if I can interject here, we're not, by the way, saying one is better than the other. We're just being made to decide, like, in this debate, which would be better. It's a would you rather. Yeah. And what I will say is in comedy, like comedians, the ones that rise to the top, like there is room for many top comedians because people can go and see all their different flavors.

Like I can watch a comedian tonight. and I can happily go and watch another comedian tomorrow night. But the general public probably isn't going to go watch a magic show and then go watch another magic show the next night necessarily. However, the thing with comedy is, I don't know the real brain analysis here, but when you laugh, most of the time you actually forget. Your brain doesn't lock the actual stuff that happens into your brain when you laugh. You just remember that you laughed.

So like, I'll leave an hour special when I went and saw Andrew Schultz laughed my ass off. I got home. I couldn't recite, like I could only recite like two jokes to my partner because I don't remember what the hell happened, except I remember it was really funny. However, if I watch an insane, like when we watched at magic live, that insane dove act. Yeah. We remember every frigging detail. So there's also something weird where serious magic will, in a way, be remembered easier.

Whereas comedy actually doesn't let you retain the actual content as much rather than just like remember that you had all these endorphins let out. I think you make a great point. And I think that there's, depending on your character, one might take precedence.

But if we have to make a decision in order to move on to the next question i'm going to die on this hill i'm a magician before i'm a comedian i'm a magician yeah before i am everything and thus the effect must be the priority over the comedy and that's why i'm going to prioritize blowing minds over being funny nice well what hill do you die on what's your what's your vibe yeah look i think like comedy is probably an easier way

to make a living like in the corporate world for example because it you know but yeah it's tough man i would rather as an artist like be just like yeah known for being just doing the best magic obviously oh boy so we where did we get that. So that's question three. Hell yeah. All right. Now, wait, hey. Now we're going for question four. Now, this is the one I spoke to you about, Nick, to hold your horses on. Originality versus execution. Which do you value most?

And the subtext is, is a new idea worth more than perfect technique i'll be interested to see what the chat has to say about this too okay this is going to be a lengthier answer i think this is like you know the starving artist versus the commercial success okay kind of debate i originality versus perfect execution yeah of of existing stuff i think probably to clarify so you buy all the stuff off penguin you do it really well you put little fun twists on it great or someone like morton who,

creates and builds and makes every single thing that he uses in his shows including the bag and everything right well i mean like i mean just as the chat is blowing up you know we have tim askin saying that originality is king we have scotty painter says the same thing same thing with tim askin he's like you know the storytelling is probably a little more important but i'm gonna to go. Okay. So here's the thing, right? Here's the thing. When we say originality, let's just be very clear.

I, let's take one effect like the ambitious card. Okay. Pretty staple. I don't, I think that everyone should have an ambitious card, but I think they should do it the way they do it. Now, I still think you can do the ambitious card originally is what I mean by that. Because the way you do it is different to the way you learned it when you bought the Daryl DVDs and so forth. So I'll be very clear about that.

I also think that you can go and learn a coins across and do it the way that everyone does in the gregory wilson dvd set which i don't remember right now off the cuff or whatever it is.

Or you can do the coins across because i think the premise even though it's not original you can do it original so with that being said i think you should be original because you will never be that magician who goes to a convention and lectures doing other people's stuff it's just stupid like what like it it doesn't make sense to me but if you have something that you are inspired by and you go he does it this way what i did was i changed it and here's

how i do it now and they go that's revolutionary i never thought about doing that you know yeah i think look i i agree so i don't think there's too much of a debate like i think originality is what we notice more like we always talk about the mid like oh have you seen this guy do this routine we don't we don't go like oh have you seen this guy do daryl's 27th phase of ambitious yeah you know i think that is i think that's it by the way that's only that's only question four yeah all

right happy to keep moving because originally wins all right yeah question number five scripted or improvised what always what makes a stronger act and the subtext is do tight scripts kill spontaneity or do they save the show. I think tight, tight scripts. Yeah. You know what? Tight scripts. Like if you have to choose. Yeah. What's. Yeah. Scripts are going to be more reliable, but I will say just to play the advocate here from listening to many a podcast lately.

And I've been watching a lot of, a lot of magician, magicians. Comedians have been having this girl on called Lisa Gilroy, and she's like an improv queen.

And watching her riff on an hour long podcast is the funniest thing ever right and i've been able to watch like every interview she's done because every time it's improv and riffing and it's new every time so i'm not like hearing her say how she got started her upbringing what her break was like i'm not hearing the same thing and even though it's a different context i have found improv to be really fun so although i would never do it for a whole show because that would be insane as

nick knows like i do it specifically in like portions of my show but it is very fun and i think it's pretty easy to get very bored of a tight scripted show like yourself as the performer but let's see what the let's see what the chat's saying gut bustle mike have a solid script and be present great dom saying uh scripted and then learn to present to your environment scotty saying agility riff off a script that's good scripted and be ready to go off script i

mean that that is ideal but here we're being kind of made like you have to improvise everything or everything be scripted scripting with a room for unknowns okay so script so we can be in the moment okay look i i jazz i jazz hard i jazz hard and. The thing is i have scripts for what i say but i also there's certain things in my script that i choose not.

To say because i've read the room i could there's a joke i can say stuff i don't and sometimes i want to say the joke but somebody's interrupted in some capacity whether they've spoken over me or a waitress has come in whatever. It might be and the opportunity to say that line is now gone the opportunity is gone now i do like to jazz which i do a lot in fact i came up with this awesome trick at easter which i'll share with you guys a bit later now here's the thing,

I remember teaching a young junior at Institute of Magic. I was helping him write their show. And this kid turns to me and says, oh, I'm just going to jazz the way you do. And this was what I think is some of the best advice I gave the kid. And I said, you have not been bad long enough to be this good, is what I said.

And that's what it takes. there is no way joe rogan from day one was getting up on mics and performing for three people in a beat down comedy room and slaying no way i guarantee you every single hero of yours they all started playing their bands in a garage okay they all started doing this stand-up comedy at open mics where nobody laughed and nobody listened you've got to be bad for a really long time to be that good in order to rift. I guarantee that the young lady was saying a moment ago.

Lisa Gilroy. I guarantee Lisa Gilroy that you mentioned a moment ago, she would have bombed for ages before being as good as she is. I guarantee it. So, if you're gonna jazz, learn to play, baby. I think in an ideal world, like, roving magic would be where all the jazzing happens, and then stage if you've got a paid audience like you've scripted that you have scripted that out okay let's keep going I'll be freestyling on stage no yeah,

Every one of these questions could be its own episode, by the way. 100%. Maybe we just get Dylan to make 20 shorts out of this because like every, okay. Oh my God. All right. This gets even more anxiety building with every question. All right. Question number six. I need a proper. Question number six.

Gimmicks or slights? Which is more powerful? Is it cheating or just using the best tool for the job i kind of want to kill just about 30 seconds to see what people think because as a young magician you were like no gimmicks no gimmicks never use a gimmick and then you get all purist i'm a purist and i'm a great magician and my Technic nominal How dare you give me marked cards How dare they No I will take some queen slippers That have been in the drawer since 1984 Yes,

Then you get older And you're like oh my god I can just put it in the pack And steal it from the back This extractor gimmick Oh my god where have you been all my life The deck will make the card vanish by itself, Right So, Oh, okay. So, Scotty's saying slights, right? Of course, he's young. What a nerd. Tim's saying whatever tool gets the job done. Dwayne Andrews saying it's all cheating, which I like. That's correct. Jesse Champlin, I love my slights, but the invisible deck beats

me every day. Boy, you should report that. And Dwayne Andrew, again, Bizarro wrote a book called Cheat, Damn It.

Gutbuster mike slights are less embarrassing when they fail okay so that might be where my brain goes i i enjoy so the reason why i do a lot of flourishing magic i shoot cards out and whatever and all that stuff is if someone figures out how i did it they're still impressed so i guess that's a weird debate like if you get caught and it's because the thing just has an extra thing that opens up then you're kind of like god damn it but if they catch you and it's

because you're able to do this impressive thing like should that matter it shouldn't matter but for some reason some of the things i do do matter where i'd rather learn a hard way to do it without needing an extra thing oh god this is going to be the last question i know okay no but to begin with okay yeah you want to learn slice to begin with but then eventually you you want to create magic that It looks so clean and so impossible.

And the type of thing where the gentleman had that, that the line in the middle of the table with the white, the white line, and then he would put the card through the middle. It would change colors, you know, and that's obviously a gimmick. Okay. But, but. You could do a top change and change the color, or you could do a diamond change, change the color. What looks more magical, damn it, your slice or a flap gimmick, you know what I mean, on a card?

Like, I believe that when gimmicks are involved, there is a knowledge which other people don't have and can't figure out.

And thus you eliminate this move of palming or whatever like technique you would ordinarily do to achieve the effect allowing the gimmick to do the work for you and thus producing, really mind-blowing clean super awesome magic come at me yeah it's tough man like slides are cool because then like you can do all the stuff like i think why we like collecting moves is like anytime we can do that thing like we don't need that gimmick but you're right it's whatever's going

to look the most magical and if you can bring it in like a ninja and yeah it not raise.

Alarm bells yeah but but okay look you got it you got a gun to your head you can either do the best friggin slights in the world for the rest of your life or you can do no slights but you get access to the best gimmicks in the world to you know look the best magic what are you picking bro i'm you can't touch another you know loop again in your life what what what what are you picking i think i i think i might pick the slides but really what would you pick you pick the gimmicks like you know how

much sleight of hand i do bro like my like i am the knuckle buster like as far as especially with coin magic and with my sleeving techniques and everything else that i do like slides are my jam but if i had gimmicks that would do the kind of work for me where it i'm not i'm not doing the actual slides but the gimmicks are doing the work for me and it just looks crazy crazy clean that i believe would elevate the magic and i think that's what's most

important to me so i'm gonna just for the point of indifference i'm gonna say give me gimmicks okay yeah very good let's press on that was a good one number seven cards coins or some other everyday object what's king are audience more in wait are audiences more impressed by a signed card.

Or a borrowed Sharpie. I think they kind of got this wrong. It's basically saying like if you had to pick just one object to be able to perform with forever. Oh, yeah. Coins is my favorite discipline in magic, I'll say that much, because that's where a lot of the sleight of hand comes from, concealments, and whatever else. So when you learn a great knowledge in coins, you then apply what you learn from that to whatever you need to.

But cards is so versatile and such a larger prop that can be used in a higher capacity.

Whereas if i was doing coins in a in a darker location it would be difficult the only the only thing i have to say bad about cards is that everyone everyone does cards so if you're going to do cards you got to really be like up there tim mason's got the right opinion safety pins you just go to punk rock shows and you go to everyone's jackets and be like i'm gonna link there was a time where I was really considering only doing roving gigs with everything but playing cards and uh

and I could definitely do it now but you know cards are just so fun as well and people you know there are believe it or not audiences that like seeing card magic like before you've shown it and so I was watching watching one of Gregory Wilson's lectures and and obviously I was just trying to emulate him he said the thing i've been doing lately is doing strolling gigs with no playing cards but then he brings out a double blank deck and teaches an ambitious card with a signed blank card and

it is a card trick but it's not with playing cards but. But then you just kind of feel like you've left one of your big tools at home for this job. Yeah, it's tough. Anyway, but look, people are, obviously the default is, yeah, you can do an hour roving gig with just cards. But, um. I mean, did they tell Picasso no brush? Did they tell Magician no cards?

Yeah. but you know if i was like really to put time in it an audience might get a lot more out of, everyday objects as in like you rock up and you have to borrow this stuff from people and do magic with the things their ring a coin an australian coin if they have it whatever they have that is kind of more memorable but then you might have the case where they don't believe that you've given their ring back and they they call security and okay okay so okay so let's just to wrap

up this discussion let's let's make a choice we have cards coins and borrowed objects okay let's set it down to these three you've got to commit to one i love cards so much but i think i would go for everyday objects i i think i would have to do that because like what you said cards are just, i've seen that one or you know i think i'd have to go with everyday objects, i'm gonna go with my heart on this one and my heart.

I'm gonna go with my heart and my heart says if i had to give up every single discipline in magic, and commit to one for the rest of my days until i join all my heroes in heaven, I'm going to go with coins and I'm going to say that out of respect for my good friend Curtis Cam who just passed away that's why I'm going to say coins. That was a good answer thank you that was a good answer yeah rest in peace Curtis Cam yeah.

We lose too many heroes god damn it I know I miss Doug Doug yeah well he's still alive oh good he'll well I don't know he's with Bizarro who knows what the hell they're getting up to All right. Question number eight. Look, we might be a little biased. All right. Question number eight. Mentalism versus sleight of hand. What hits harder? What hits harder? Do people want to be amazed or believe that you read their mind?

That's tough. They're like two different schools. Well, yeah, they're polar opposites in a sense. And for me, mentalism is a 30-second routine being crammed into 30 minutes, you know, like, you know, and I'm like, right. And I, I, Oh, it's nice to hit him in the brain really hard. You know what I mean?

Like when you do psychological things, like, okay. So what I mean is like generally this, like if I do a type of thing where it's like, just look at a card, you've got one in your mind and then someone chooses it. And to me, that's a mentalism effect. As in like, there's, there's a mental, there's a mental notion towards that. Yeah. Eliminate that from your card root, from your card repertoire.

Oh, that's upsetting. You know, that's really upsetting to get rid of like the mental aspects that I use in my, like heavily my card stuff so like that's really upsetting for me but would i trade it well i trade it hang on let me finish would i trade it for the hyper visual card stuff i do. No we there we go we're going hyper visual yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean if you are guaranteed that people really do believe that you have read their mind, that's pretty special.

Like if you engineered your own way and didn't tell anyone your methods and you really could every time knock it out of the park and everyone believes you can read their mind, then maybe we can talk. But yeah.

Until then, it's, yeah, it's probably sleight of hand. But then even Jeff Hobson in his lecture when he was in Brisbane, he explained like, yeah, he has dabbled in mentalism stuff before, but it wasn't until he saw, he worked with Colin Cloud that he really understood the power that mentalism has on an audience.

Even though, you know, he doesn't do any of that in his work, but he like understands and respects it but to know what hits harder is really messed up like when people say like who their favorite magicians are it's either someone really crazy visual like dynamo or something or they say derren brown like yeah it's really comes down to taste but it hits you in the feels i mean like sean taylor performed at the assembly and scotty painter who was there said that

like sean taylor makes me consider mentalism for the answer and rightly so it's very strong mark brown said i've had more people give me specific memories from a mentalism routine than any card trick is seen so there's a lot of truth in that right now as what what's stronger slight over mentalism mentalism done well obviously we've seen it done very poorly, just as we've seen slides done poorly, but mentalism hits you in a way that slides don't.

However, I can't walk into a environment where I've been booked to entertain and the DJ is playing at 140 decibels. Which is the same volume as a private jet and expect my words, which you 100% need in order to do your mentalism to overcome me being able to perform silently and perform strong visual magic. And that's why I'm going to say slights for the win. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I agree. Slights for the win. Look, there's also technically another category, which would be comedy mentalism,

but we will not go there today. You've got to use your words. The fact still stands. you got to use your words absolutely yeah okay yeah and everyone has sort of slightly different opinions in here as well all right all right let's see we can get through all these number nine all right props okay i'll explain this one props on stage is it magical or messy are big boxes and silk scarves charming or outdated what's.

You know what yeah they are when i yeah when i when i read this the other when i first was looking into this question it was more like is having big tech and led and flashy stuff in your show distracting or good to have man i don't know like when you see a single stand like it's just like almost like a bar stool maybe even just like one one leg and then like a flat top and a hat and then someone comes out and they just start doing split fans and dropping things and you just see that level of

like beauty from that simplicity on stage it's i think it's like oh oh gorgeous then you see some kid performers and they bring out road cases you know it's like all over the place and so yeah you know and they just operate out of the road case do the trick throw it back in and it's kind of great because it does fill the stage so it does have its benefits, yeah but what do i prefer how do i prefer to work i prefer a clean stage personally.

Yeah i think so too i think but you know you work with what you have if you're a one-man show and you have to have your different routines set up in different parts of the theater stage go do it I think this is not really a big dividing question here, but it is nice to fill the stage as well. It's a judgment call. When you see someone like our good friend Jackson Aces did a really beautiful trick on a morning TV show recently. Shout out to Jackson Aces.

And he's got this innocuous looking box that he puts a woman and cuts her up. Beautiful illusion. But to anyone else, it's like.

That's a trick like it's a trick box it's a something you know what i mean but if you just rock up and you're you're doing this and you got your two hands and like these are my weapons and you're just going and you're producing coins and that sort of thing i will say jackson handled that, exact thing you're saying pretty well like he did he says yeah before he does it for those who haven't seen it he does a big illusion breakaway box kind of thing illusion with a girl in it But he says,

normally I do sleight of hand, and I always thought these big illusion boxes were so cheesy, but then I got one. So here it is. And he does it. He like explains the obvious. It was well done, Jackson. So you're right. He didn't. Yeah. And he could have just come out and done something amazing with the host that wasn't a big.

What and carrying that big prop in like why would you what is the thought process to take that big chunk of hunk thing in just to do that when you could have anyway but now you got the clip so that's great okay let's keep going okay uh but great great great points number 10 oh boy DIY versus store-bought magic which deserves more respect is building your own prop more noble or just inefficient, I'm going to go with DIY.

And the reason I'm going to go with DIY is because there is more grounds for originality and we both agreed earlier that originality wins so. Let's keep going then. That was perfect. Boom. Mic drop.

Yeah. Number 11. I wish we had Doug here for this one. Street, stage, or close-up, which is the truer test? Where does real skill shine? In your hands, on a mic, or in the wild? I'm going to say street. I think it is street.

The reason I say that, you know, well, if I may explain, the reason I say street is that you could have the audacity to get on stage and say you must pay me ten thousand dollars to get on your stage even though there's only going to be 50 people at your event and they go oh cool that's what you think you're worth great and then you put the same cat on a street when you put your hat out the world tells you what you're worth and that is one of the most craziest awakenings of any performer can have

trying to had a show is is is insane and being on street is one of the most interesting experiences you can have and you know you're you're in their world it is i think that is the most difficult performing situation to be in and if you can do that yep it is like yeah it is extremely humbling it is the most difficult, if you survive on street you can survive anywhere i think it's unanimous everyone in the chat is saying the street it

can be really humbling it's where people are most honest they'll call you out yeah if you want to test a magician take him to the street and you will find out i'll close on this in the street you get good or you go hungry there's your options nice and obviously nick is very, very good. What a fat joke, you son of a bitch. You know, we do what we can. Carmody. Number 12.

Let's see if we can rapid-fy these ones. Or we can leave some. No, let's try and get through them all. Or just save them. Or we might save them. Number 12. Stage names versus real names. Which is better for branding? Does the amazing Nigel still work or does Authenticity win now? I think stage name. What do you have to choose? I have a stage name because my very long Greek name doesn't play very well. It's a little bit too ethnic. Some people get on stage and it's like, I am.

Angelo Tredopoulos. Now try to put that on a billboard. You'd need two billboards. That's a very big name. Okay, so. Yeah. But you know another really long, can't even spell it name that people know exactly how to say? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Absolutely. And the fact that you knew that means there are, but obviously there are just some, you. What am I trying to say? Look, there's totally, I totally support that. There are some outliers is what I'm saying.

But I think, yeah, let's keep going. I think stage name, yes. I wish I had the foresight when I was younger to come up with something that's easier for people to remember. But, you know, it doesn't. Yeah. Is it Norbido or Nibito? Exactly. Norbido. How do you say it? How do you say it? Yeah, I know. Norbido. Norbido. What even is that? What's that background? I don't know. Poop. It's Italian.

Okay. All right. Silent acts versus talking acts. Who makes a bigger impact is the question. Who makes a bigger impact? Is music-driven mystery more powerful than patter and personality? That's a tough one. That's a tough one. Silent acts, you can travel the whole world that doesn't even speak English.

Or yes god damn it okay if i if i could okay i'll answer it this way if i could trade my voice and somehow have a magical power that would allow me to perform silently with the same, veracity and the same you know gusto and the same giving me the same experience but keep my mouth shut bro i would i would literally go mute tomorrow if it meant that i could produce the same amount of awesomeness silently, I would give my voice tomorrow and you would never hear me speak again and I

would be doing this sort of thing on a podcast that would be cool. Yeah I'd love to watch a Charlie Chaplin podcast with Teller.

Okay yeah I think silent would be my choice as well if I could choose both great acts and yeah absolutely okay classic effects classic effects versus new plots where's the future should we keep refining the old stuff or push for something no one's seen before classics are classics for a reason boom yeah yeah they are classics for a reason bro that's a tough place to be yeah what's a new you can't really yeah you can't really choose like yes seeing a show where

it's all new plots is very great but we all come from first learning the classics anyway so you can't cancel one out yeah let's say i'm gonna had to yeah yeah no you're not wrong and i'm gonna say this that i'm not gonna say like new plots go away but if i'm gonna say what's more important i believe in history and i believe you need to know where you came from to know where you're going. And that's why you should be learning classic plots first.

Excellent. Let's keep going. Magic for magicians versus laypeople.

Who are we really performing for?

Are you trying to fool the crowd or earn respect backstage? We've both seen what happens when we perform to just magicians in a mixed magician. Yeah.

What are you more proud of, though, if you did a show at the Theatre of Magic, for example, if you did a show at the Theatre of Magic and the audience was like, mediocre applause but then the magicians could not stop raving about you or the magicians all saw you do stuff they all know how it works but the audience was fried and applauded what well i did what are you going to sleep feeling better about well i did perform at the theater of magic and i did slay both audiences so well

that's the nick k experience but is yeah but here here's, here's one thing i will say i i open actually open my lecture with this and i say to people stop trying to impress magicians they're not going to hire you focus on doing whatever you can to impress the lay people they're the ones that are going to be hiring you and so if i'm going to be preaching that i think i need to say perform for the audience not for the magicians.

Yeah it's tricky because yeah and then the the other side of that is magic lovers come to see magic show but the people who love magic the most are the magicians like that's why we became magicians because we love magic and we love being fooled so it is kind of tricky and a good example is so steve cohen chamber magic in new york right it's been running for 25 years now yeah and the reason i went to see it is because growing up i had three separate magicians in

different instances rave on about how good his show was and that made me want to go fly for my 30th birthday to see his show in new york and then he fried the pants off me and then i told like i mean i'm still telling people about how good the show is so there is something just to throw it in there about, being able to fool magicians as well because they will rave about your show the most good or bad like but they are going to tell the most people about your show so,

I personally wouldn't fully write them off, but also fuck magicians. Okay. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Okay. But let me, let me, can we just finish on this? Just, just just for a no. Do you think there are some routines that you, that have been either created or, or whatever else, or that maybe you come up with? Yes. Yes. That were made for magicians. Only for magicians and you wouldn't show it to lay people. Yes or no?

Yes. Okay. There are definitely card plots that magicians find way more interesting than lay people. Yeah. 100%. Okay. So look, there's only five questions left. How about we just... Let's go on over a second.

Yeah. But can we just like 30 second them? I'll do my best. Okay.

Does magic belong on TikTok? talk is is meaning is visual bite-sized magic the future or the death of wonder it's not the future but it has a place yes it does have a place it has nowhere near the same feeling that magic has when you see it but it definitely has a place yeah i think at the very least someone it inspires inspires all magic inspires i look at good magic and bad magic all of it inspires and it might inspire me to write a whole routine it might inspire my son someday to

do that you know what i mean like it's it has a place and that's why it has a future so if we have to say if it has a place it does have a future is it the future yeah that's the future people in the chat good point scotty link it's a teaser for more gutbuster mike says boo tiktok tim askin says what's the future Yeah, look, I think it's part of our world and it needs to be. But that leads on to the next question, which is exposing magic. Is it a necessary evil or the ultimate betrayal?

Is education helping magic evolve or just ruining the art? There's a very clear distinction between educating and exposing. Very clear. Right? And it's intent. It's intent. Education, yes. Exposure, nay. Yeah. Because the people who expose things aren't teaching. They're just exposing and they're doing it poorly. Yeah. If you are teaching because that's what you believe the algorithm will give you more views for, then shame on you.

That's what we're really saying. But if you're doing it like Doug, because you are trying to pass on your knowledge to the next generation, you know, send the elevator back down, help, like what does Denzel Washington say? First you learn, then you earn, then you return. Like, then it's okay.

Okay, great. 18 live shows versus virtual shows which offers real impact is zoom magic a clever adaption or a pale imitation of the real thing i think we can agree that live shows win live shows rule but also you have to appreciate the medium that has come through the zoom realm was it good was it ben steidman who was doing that phenomenal piece of magic in that theater was it no so it was kevin it was kevin oh and kevin yeah yeah ben did a great one yeah kevin yeah

yeah absolutely yeah a few yeah kevin kevin blake yeah and yeah there have been some amazing zoom shows helder gamirez i believe did an amazing zoom show dan white made a killing of his zoom show definitely places for it eventually i'm sure it will become its own proper world when you have more augmented reality stuff normalized in society and tech catches up 100 okay 19 should you tell oh oh should you tell people you're a magician they're saying i'm a magician open doors or trigger eye rolls.

Yeah i tell people i'm a magician i tell people i'm a magician but don't get me wrong like i remember one time i said i'm a magician and the guy was like oh and then it was like oh you do do something like yeah i was polite and you know borrowed a deck from someone did a thing and he was like man i thought when you said magician you were like oh balloons dickhead right yeah yeah you know that sort of thing is i wasn't expecting this

and i was like yeah well it's it's good so it's so important you represent magic you know like if you're gonna say you're a. I ain't telling people I'm a magician. Like, unless they ask what I do, I'm not going around trying to make sure people know a magician just came into their cafe. Like, you know, I'm not swinging around a deck of cards and stuff just so that everyone knows I'm a magician. Like, I am very comfortable just being Josh, talking to people, not doing magic.

Like, so often I'll go to parties. No, I don't go to parties, what am I saying? But if I do, like on a personal level, yeah, I'm not doing magic and I'm totally fine with that. I will, like if someone asks, but I don't need to show people stuff to like, which goes on to the next question.

The last one, the magician's ego, confidence or cringe? Are we bold? All right. And that's the magic guys. Thanks a lot and good night, everybody. Yeah. Are we bold artists or just insecure show-offs with a God complex? Oh, that's, they're fired. There is definitely a fine line between like, does this person have ego or they're just confident? And, you know, I guess it kind of comes down to like, is your show good? Because like, if your show is not good, then like you're kind of screwed.

And people will think it's cringe no matter what with how confident you are but, i'm going to push back on that and say there could be a good show but the execution can be cringe certain people can do things in a certain way that makes it cringe and that's that's where the confidence needs to be equal to the competence of it if you are a competent performer then you will crush but overconfidence, can lead to ego and be presented as such and that's not an easy pill for any audience to swallow.

Agreed? Well said, my friend. Well said. And I cannot believe we made it through all 20 in only an extra five minutes. Holy moly. Well done, bro. Air high five. Oh, wait. It would be this way. This way. Awesome. Wow, I felt that. Guys, let us know if you enjoyed that. If you have any follow-up dicey questions as well, send them through in the SpeakPipe, which is our voicemail system.

And thanks for joining us this week. I think, look, all of the words of wisdom were kind of thrown out within those 20 questions. So I'm going to just give Nick, you got to say just one word for the final word. Like we just literally want the final word to take us out. So let's play our clip and then we will see you next week with a guest. Kindness. Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.