Answering your Speakpipes! #196

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys, ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 196 of the magic guys i can't believe we're here and we're here to have some fun with you guys to my left we've got nick k welcome to the show i to be in a band oh oh yeah and uh that was the wrong cue but that's fine and i am your friendly magician neighborhood magician josh nabito welcome to episode 196 and look this is the podcast where we.

As professional magicians share advice share shenanigans interview wonderful guests and we do this live with cool people like you nick who the hell have we got here today in our chat we have our wonderful regulars we have our good friend thomas congo our good friend nick dragoteer we have tim askin and of course scotty painter kaden good to see you all chris layton thanks for being here buddy friends we like to communicate with you guys as much as possible so by

all means light up the chat ask your questions more importantly send through your speak pipes which is exactly what today is all about so oh we have yeah an abundance of them to the point where i'm not even sure we're going to be able to get through all of them in the one hour we get to hang out today but yeah you guys really delivered i put out the i put out the call in our discord and you guys did not disappoint so give yourselves a round of applause oh yeah so should

we start nick i mean i'm ready man i'm ready let's let's chat yeah so right now we actually got sent one a week or so ago that just so happened to be in line with this big pipe day so this first one comes from our friend dave wyatt let's see.

What he has to say guys dave white here from cornwall england i was just listening to your spitballing episode and the part i've got my own take on the lucky lady book so I've took it back to the paddle move and put it on a paddle but my paddle I've crafted to be in the shape of a leaf. So this goes because in the tutorial, I can't remember the guy who created it, unfortunately, but he was saying that you need a justification to have the participant put their hands out.

And I was reading a nice story about a lucky leaf. And if you catch a leaf that falls from a tree, that that is lucky.

So I've created a paddle. i can use that as my story and then use the ladybug in the same way with the paddle move and just thought i'd share that with you guys anyway thanks very much and catch you around bye now can i just say off the bat lucky ladybug has got to be trick of the year if not one of the greatest tricks of all time i had an amazing moment was i was performing this weekend with it which i i would love to share if i could just derail the

conversation for just a moment because I actually ended up contacting Buck from Deuce Gala, who produced Lucky Ladybug, which was obviously created by Joshua Ray. A beautiful trick in which if you're not familiar with it, there's three playing cards and you do a beautiful moment in which a ladybug will appear on the back of a spectator's hands, which you gift them. It's a wonderful trick.

And if you haven't got it, you have to add it to your repertoire because I'm someone who doesn't do commercial tricks at all, but I do this trick non-stop. Like it is one of the most wonderful moments. And what I want to share before we jump into the leaf notion is that I was performing away and it was like a young lady's 11th birthday, one of my venues. And so I went over to the young lady and I decided to do the ladybug and I did it and they loved it. Now we're all super stoked about it.

Her mother pulls me aside and explains that her grandmother passed away a week ago and she loves ladybugs to the point where like they were just constantly looking for them like you know it's like they as they go to the garden like always keeping their eyes out for these signs from nana if you will and when i did that the lady was like teary saying that like it made me feel like grandma was here and that's it's just the strength of this routine and dave full credit to you for like

using this leaf and a paddle move. That is genius. I absolutely love it and I'm going to tell Buck all about it because the first thing I did after performing that gig was getting a voicemail and send him this information. So I think this could be.

A really really important thing yeah i mean you're just making it make more sense and it's a great variation and it seems like there's a lot more to explore with with lucky ladybug i think it's going to keep evolving right from all these magicians are experimenting with it and dave that was great.

And if i was a ladybug i i haven't tried this if i if i was a ladybug i would say, dave that was amazing thank you for creating that adaptation and that's my story all right shall we uh shall we move on obviously i'm playing some new tech today ladies and gentlemen but let me know if you like that all right we are getting experimental most definitely But Dave, that's so great.

That's so great. And if there's any opportunity for you to share a performance of that, if you do by chance happen to capture that, please share it in our Discord. We would love to see it. I think that's an amazing idea. Keep it going. Love to see it happen. All right. Let's keep moving. I love that. Our next one comes from just Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy. Thank you for sending in your voice message. Let's see what you are up to, my friend.

Hey guys was thinking of some questions to get some free loot and decided to go with the vulnerable route i had a wine party here not too long ago i was doing some tricks for the guest and my beautiful wife decided to heckle me innocently at the key moments of reveals or important times where i needed them to see something and i know this happens outside all the time for you buskers for even the key shows but what do you

do when the key moment has been missed by the spectator by either an interruption or whatever how do you do you get it back on track do you show it again do you start over i mean what's your what's your methods that's, that's a really good question jim that's a really good question because it's remarkable how many people have ADHD and won't wait for that moment. Or you're like, you're about to turn a card over and they'll like turn to you

and ask a question. It's like, you got to focus, man, you're going to miss the moments. And I know exactly what that's like, because I try to do routines that I open with and explain to people, like, you got to pay attention. It's like, you see the card go? You got to pay attention. It's under the box. And I go, look, I'll do it again. You see it go? No, it's back under the box. Guys, you got to pay attention if you're I don't enjoy this.

And I kind of like, I guess what I'm sort of leading to is that prevention is key, where you really don't want to miss the moment. And depending on the state of the routine, if it's the reveal, it does happen. People will talk over you, whether it be your wife or drunk spectators or just people in general, like people will do this. And sometimes when the moments are missed, you just need to move on and just like it's like just trundle on.

And the way I want you to think about it, Jim, is I want you to think about it like if you were performing and you dropped you dropped a coin.

You wouldn't go put a neon sign around it and be like oh you should have seen me while i was practicing because then you just put a big neon sign like i've dropped the coin blah but if you dropped it and just picked it up and moved on that moment that framing isn't as important so ultimately the way i see it is that you've done your best to frame a moment somebody can ruin it and don't get me wrong like sometimes i try to do beautiful moments for a child

or for someone who's having their birthday and there's always some dick bag who's trying to ruin it for them and i'm just and i've got to say like listen i'm trying to do something special for our birthday person like i need you to just a good back up like this is not for you this is for them like just let me do something nice for them be a nice friend you know and they're like shut up i'm trying to do something nice so yeah so i think that one preparation

and two sometimes Sometimes if moments fail, don't put a neon sign around it, move on, all they're doing is spoiling themselves. What you have is a gift and you're delivering it. And if they're not appreciating the gift, then that's on them. I think it's the classic case. What Jimmy's specifically mentioning is his wife, who loves seeing him perform, is accidentally heckling. I think it's the classic case of your friend knowing what trick you're about

to do, and they're kind of reacting. They're like pre-reacting. Or they're kind of reacting right before the moment, which is putting off the audience. It's like when you get the boss saying, hey, could you show them that trick you just showed me? And if you do do it, you hear them say stuff at the wrong parts of the routine. And a good example is at the Theater of Magic, I know Nigel's listening to this. So what's up, Nigel?

We had a meeting and it was my turn to show some magic to these people. Now, I just started learning this new routine that Chris So Nigel enjoyed watching me do, but the moment I did the move, which is invisible, these two start reacting and go, Oh my God, I can't believe that. While the staff are here just like, what do you mean? Cause nothing's happened yet. No revelations happened. And then I'm like, guys, they, nothing's happened yet for them.

You're reacting in the wrong part. And then, so because of that, the staff are now confused. And so by the time I actually got to the end, it did take away from the action a bit because these guys popped off and it was very confusing why, but ultimately it's just excitement. So Alex is saying that the- Get a new wife? Get a new wife. That's probably not the advice you need, but don't completely discard it.

That's not what I was saying. Let me say to your point There's certain things that the reveal Could be amazing but people can Dull it So a perfect example is.

You'll let's say you're going to reveal a card just for the sake of of explanation so you reveal a card and you say was your card the queen of hearts and they go maybe and it's like you need to tell my audience it's correct or this is very underwhelming you know and then you try to combat that and you say yes or no was your card the queen of hearts and they go maybe and it's like you're just you're giving people an opportunity to use to celebrate them and give them a beautiful moment

to be part of a show and they want to ruin it and it's like it's just so ridiculous how some people don't want to give you like an affirmation and i've experienced that a lot just in the past week and i think that's kind of what he's alluding to where it's like the reveals there but it's being weakened by somebody's interaction and how do you combat that interaction by getting people to, you know and and so so there's certain things that i do now to combat that where.

I'll like so for example i could say like was your card the four hearts and they'll go maybe or no, so what i do is i break up the revelations it's just something that you might want to try to help combat that let's say that a card was chosen you got to reveal it and you go tell me was your card a four yes but then you can say was your card a heart and they'll go yeah and then i'll go final question are you guys going to clap or what and the reason that's good to do is that i find people who

have been doing this and ruin the revelation when you say was it a four and they go maybe like that it's a kind of like i need an affirmation man they go yes good good it is now you you haven't actually dulled the step they've might have knocked it down a step but then you're kind of back to square one because they agreed yes it's a blah and then you get the next revelation which is the suit and then you can go for your applause cue.

So that's a nice little way to combat things if you are going to be around people who are going to be cynical and are going to have this sort of notion in which they're going to try and ruin it for you yeah there will never be there's always those people undoubtedly always and so yeah that's great advice from Nick. I think we press on and our next speak pipe is from, our next speak pipe is from Tim Askin. If you can come to aisle 22, we're going to play your speak pipe.

That's never going to get old. All right, Tim, you're up my friend. And he's in the chat too. So this is perfect. Hello, Magic Guys. It's Tim Askin from New York City. And Nick, I've been asking all my life, and I still don't have the answer. I don't really have a question for you guys today. Here in the States, it's time to give thanks. And I thought I'd express my thanks to you guys and everyone in the chat for making this my happy place every week. Keep them coming, boys. Oh, oh, oh.

Talk about the woman fuzzies. That's beautiful. Tim.

Yeah that was awesome tim thank you for the kind words buddy that is that's really sweet dude like that is really really cool of you and we're so happy to be able to be able to call you guys friends and you know and and say you know just hang out and chat like there is no show without you guys be very very clear about that so thanks for being cool as well by the way that yeah the which i can't do because i'm not good at those yeah yeah i love it beautiful all right well dude that was cool keep

them keep that coming tim we appreciate you next is kaden who's also in the chat as well right here uh kaden let's see what you're up to my friend today hey magic guys how's it going kaden here just had a question for you guys i was wondering if there's a magic effect that either you have seen or maybe that you guys perform that would be like your favorite magic effect just in general? Hope you guys are doing well. See ya.

Great question, Caden. Is there a magic effect? Is it specifically gimmick?

A gimmick effect? I think it's just saying effect in general. I guess what would be an effect that... You know what I love? I love things where it's like like David Regal, how he'll just pick up the deck of cards and roll it into a paper ball and throw it away. Or you'll see something like Garrett Thomas and Danny Garcia do these very clever things where they'll have a wallet and Garrett Thomas will just pick up the wallet and it's Play-Doh.

And he just sort of wraps it, just tears it apart and puts it away. I love seeing stuff like that. Danny Garcia did a thing at Magic Live in which he had a wallet, but it was actually a like a piece of paper like like he opens it up and then he actually opens up and it's like it's just it's made of paper and it's like there's a revelation in it there's just so much crazy stuff you can do like even the thing where it's like i stole your watch and it's not a watch it's just paper you because oh

it's not he just tears it up and throws it and i'm like these ideas like i was thinking about that this morning and i i personally love effects like that that are so left of center that you're just like, things that are hiding in plain sight that you don't notice. Like Blake Voight, when he tears apart that chair.

What's it called wizard war wizard wars yeah stuff like that i guess what he's saying i'm just testing my mic as well by the way ladies and gentlemen while we're check check check all right maybe that's better but he's saying stuff that you use so you know i don't have too many tearing chairs but i tell you the thing that i'm really enjoying right now just messing around with and it's not a trick but man is it fun to just get get funny looks from people is this one.

Pop stickle this is just such a funny bit and i i've started using it not not only on stage like in just those funny beats where people are shuffling cards and they take too long or whatever but now i'll even do it in close-up sometimes when when someone's really being, and not not annoying but when someone's trying to take a bit of the spotlight and they're like oh i'm gonna really thoroughly shuffle the cards and you're like all right cool well i

may as well just step back and relax and then you start eating an ice cream and it brings the the power back on you as if like you're ready for people to do this all the time so yeah popsticle from juice gala by pop hayden this isn't meant to be a promo but this like you just get i have so much fun with this yeah it gets so many funny looks i rate it yeah okay well i hope that answers your question in there bud thank you Caden yeah oh

and Scott Payne is also saying the the fake deck of card box that I use is is very cool too I do have one yeah the one yeah yeah you can yeah you can have it have it let me just reach over to it one second I the amount of messages I get from magicians. Because you know people should just be able to enjoy videos but everyone likes to go oh who's effect is that? Is it yours? Can I learn it? And that's fine. But so the amount of messages I got about this deck box is insane.

So for everyone watching that has asked, this is the actual product. So it's from Jeffrey Wang. He uses this in his Fool Us Act, but, and I think in his FISM Act, but yeah, it comes like this, but he only sells them in person at conventions unless you You message him really nicely on Instagram like I did. And it's hilarious that it comes, for those who do stack work, it actually comes with a nine of diamonds on the bottom and a spare four of clubs on the top.

But this is so well 3D printed because it's beveled so from far away. It's just, it is a deck of cards, but then it obviously opens up and you can have whatever you want inside. And he's also gone and made an extra layer, which is crazy, of basically black art within it. So if you flip this over and then open it, now it's going to hide whatever was on that extra layer. So he's actually really thought, so you could have seemingly nothing and then have a coin appear.

Like, or, or a card technically folded up or something. But anyway, that is what that is. And if you're, I'm so sorry if you're listening to this in audio and not watching it, because that would have just sounded weird. Oh, and here's a thing. And if you lift this up and there's that, God damn it. Anyway, we're talking about a box that looks like a deck of cards. Anyway, I digress. So there's that. All right. Should we, should we continue? We should.

Okay. Let's continue. now we have nicholas gay with a speak pipe here we go no not unique hey got a super easy one that will not spark any kind of controversy and you guys can just bang out in just a few seconds who goes on the magic mount rushmore four slots most important people magic history, and go that's a good one four people who belong on the magic of mount rushmore okay I'm going to spit out Copperfield, Vernon. The Maestro. Guantamarius, and the last one. Tricky.

I want to say like Robert Houdin. Oh, Robert Houdin. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I feel like there should be a coin guy there. Maybe like a David Roth, perhaps, you know, or Bobo. There, done. Bobo instead of Robert Houdin Alex Lamb says there should be Vernon Roth, Tamarez and Williamson that is a good call that's a great, imagine if you had the four of them teaching you magic as your upbringing, god damn, Bob Bossible thinks Doug should be up there, I'll second that yeah, 100% what do you think?

That's tough man, so is it just like who you think are the four greatest or the four that you'd want to have around you or the four you'd like to have teaching you or i guess i guess mount rushmore has four i think of the founding to my knowledge later the founding fathers of previous presidents up there right it's carved in the side of a mountain so if we were going to build a magic rushmore in which we were going to carve the faces of the giants we walk on.

Who would you like to have carved into the side of a mountain effectively is the question. I think we can't avoid. We've got to agree on Tamariz, right? Yeah. But we, I think, I think Houdini has to be in there, right? He's done so much for the world of magic in terms of everyone knows him still a hundred years later. Right. Okay. So let's go with Tamariz, Houdini. I think it would have to be like Houdini, Tamariz, Roberto, Dan. I don't know. I think Copperfield would outrank you Dan.

I think Copperfield would outdo him, right? Yeah. But in terms of people who like Copperfield is a performer, but he's not like have books and material out there of, of like learning from, I don't know. This is a, this, you're right. This, this is a tricky topic. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to settle on this. We're going to go with Houdini with Tamariz, Copperfield, Darren Brown.

Alright that's pretty magical because you've got escape you've got card work you've got illusion and you've got mentalism and I think that if that were a lineup and if you had to say this is the greatest of the greatest that I think would be Caden would like to give an honorable mention to RC Wynn I agree with you Caden that's a very good point, but that's different because in the, in the legacy of like the world of magic,

He's very niche and very important to me, but not like the general magic world. So that's where it becomes a bit tricky because if we're talking about the four pillars of people who have influenced us. All right. We've just had a comment come in from Scott P. Jason Ma has too much hair to carve. And that's why, is that why it's so easy to put Nick and I up there?

Because i think it'd be really great curve there would be his face and then his hair kind of it would be like a like a water slide you know where everyone's down it but there is there's so many people who there's so many people who deserve to be up there let's be very clear about that yeah yeah there's so many people okay let's let's go okay now it's the four pillars of like if you could just have four teachers of magic and they like you're in their empire and

it's the four people that are just every day going to be teaching you who are those four people living or dead it doesn't matter but it's a different question now just to be clear exactly okay yeah it's a different question i was talking about immortalizing people on the side of the planet i know it's a planet mountain what i'm so the question now is if you could have four people who would be let's say Let's go living. Let's change it a little bit. So let's go for living.

Yeah. Okay. Four people living. Let's, okay. Let's say you're going to have your own TV show and a tour around Australia or the planet. You've got four guys who can be in your corner helping you. Who are you going to use? No, no. It's the pandemic again. Okay. And you have unlimited money and you've just paid these four people to live with you for a year to like...

Inject you with superhuman serum like captain america of their not their magic who are those four people oh man okay so i think that like here here's where i feel like. Danny Garcia would be amazing. And Blake is so weird. Cause I was exactly thinking of him. Yeah. But I also think that like, like what would be amazing too? But then I think that like, you wouldn't have to hire him both because by extension,

you would get one automatically. Like if you get Danny Garcia, then he's going to talk to Blake anyway, cause they're best mates. So I kind of feel like there are two for one special. If you just get one of them, that's my first thought.

Yeah. I like where Scotty P is going. maybe one person per genre of magic like one card person one coin person stage that's that's clever yeah yeah yeah that's a clever we've got alex lamb coming in with his suggestions williamson daryl pig cake and michael amarr okay michael amarr's good one caden's going blake void ozzy wind teller and doug wow that see that is a very that is a strong lineup that's a strong lineup actually yeah we can't overlook teller to have teller giving you his wisdom

on what you're doing for a year being pretty insane also the same thing i have with tamarit's like tamarit azi wind is to me a modern extension of tamarise i agree with that i totally agree with that so i think by choosing ozzy wind is you're getting the greatness of tamarise that's sort of been extrapolated and maybe modernized for maybe the stuff i would perform so i would i would almost say that like by extension danny de ortiz would would also you know

would be as well although their styles are very different you know okay i've got it i've got i've got my four okay it's got to be definitely teller i can't. Overlook that now so teller arzy wind danny garcia darren brown damn that's a good one darren brown yeah so i'm the. Thing is i'm sort of torn as the mentalism realm so let's just let's just go by category mentalism yeah i want darren brown but also a part of me is kind of like.

Do i want the people who work for darren brown do i want peter turner or do i want luke jermaine right right right yeah so that's that's where i'm torn so i'm gonna go with peter turner for the sake of moving conversation along if we're gonna go for just straight up tv magic and jedi stuff gotta go for danny i don't think there's anyone better right like he's got that brain that's just yeah electric center and strong yep yeah i'm gonna throw out a really crazy one andrew main.

Okay yeah yeah i'm gonna throw in andrew main one of the unsung heroes and talking to him at magic live yes oh that's also a very good one you can only pick four right michael so it's like all right for the next year these guys are just gonna work on your magic work on you you know you're going to soak up their expertise yeah and peter turner yeah so what i'm getting at is i want to go for i want to go for the people who've created the jedis i

want to go like yeah who was responsible for elevating darren brown i'm going to go with peter turner and luke jimay so i'll go for peter turner okay you want to look at like who was responsible for elevating dynamo i'm going to go for danny garcia you know who was responsible for elevating derek dalgardio Michael Webber. So I'm going to say Michael Webber. Okay. I'm going to throw another name out there because of the creativity and who I know you being creative. What about Tobias Dostal?

Damn, that's a good one. Because he could help you create some crazy, hang on. He could help you create some crazy over a year. Scotty Painter is saying our Mount Rushmore is turning into the Swiss Alps.

Yeah, this is all right. We got to stop this question. you that's it and it remains we're not going to be at it we can't what have you done to us all right this is what i love is that that question was asked to be like it's just a quick one, yeah yeah you knew exactly what you were doing god damn it all right all right next one is from, is from johnny o now i haven't listened to this so we're going to listen to this for the first time okay cover your ears what have

you got for us today hi guys johnny o here first time on the speak pipe i was just curious as a magician when you guys do a ball vanish or a paddle move or just any move in general does the move feel obvious to you as a magician it won't fool anybody or anything like that i feel even if i record myself or i do it in front of a mirror when i try to do a paddle move or a ball vanish I feel like it's super obvious what I'm doing and I just can't tell if

it's because I'm a magician so I know what I'm looking for or if it's because the move is actually really bad so I was just curious on your guys take on this thanks. Okay, if I could speak first, if I may, when you say ball, I'm going to assume solid ball, and that it could also apply to sponge ball. I had a jam session with some guys recently with some sponge balls. I don't do sponge balls, but I just by chance found one at one of my residencies that one of the magicians had left behind.

And so it was rolling around in my close-up kit. I grabbed it, and he was like, can you help me do some vanishes? And I'm like, I don't do sponge, but let me have a go. And I just used coin techniques for those vanishes. And he was like, these are sick. But the point is that the ball vanish, I do ball vanishes with golf balls, so solid balls. And I actually have a really cool video where I do some color changes and vanishes and so forth on my Instagram, which maybe we'll post at some point.

You can scope it out for yourself. But I think that one of the best bits of advice that was given in a lecture by Tom Stone was if you could really vanish something, just do it and like drop it. So, for example, if you had a card, you would just want to, if you want it to look like that, focus on those movements and then try to identify ways you can actually make it happen.

Because that's what I did with my ball vanishes and stuff. I was just using economy of movement as taught by the great Dye Vernon, ways that you can actually just use your body's natural movements. If you look at people like Vernon or Slidini, their mannerisms help you do the vanishes. And you can use those ideas to just naturally get rid of stuff is my thought process. What do you think?

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's pretty spot on. I think when you watch yourself, I'm assuming it's when he's watching himself back that he's noticing it seeming very obvious the moves he's doing. Of course, because you know what you're doing, it is going to seem a lot more obvious than the public, but you should be able to watch that video like a week later, not remembering what you did. And it should kind of fool you. Like it should be a surprise.

Like, oh, I didn't realize that I was going to vanish that ball. It shouldn't be, you know, so you could, and my dog agrees. Now you shouldn't just be so critical. Like you shouldn't be so critical that, that, oh, I noticed that I was doing that. But if, if you like record yourself. And watch it a week later and then see for the first time watching it with fresh eyes, if it is still super obvious or, or not.

But yeah, obviously because we know what's going on, we have a very different lens to a lay audience. So don't think that, you know, this, you know, whatever, you know, dropping the cards a certain way is going to be obvious to a lay audience.

It's just you know we're a little yeah i mean yeah and if you wanted to look at some ball vanishes and that sort of work look at bond uh there was a gentleman his name was bond he's got a triple dvd set he does some really nice looking stuff that for me leans on the kind of like obvious but it looks like a move like if he's doing a vanish but it looks like a move that's the type of thing outside of that i would say look at karl clutier's sleeving dvds he's got

some really nice clever ball vanishes that I think look relatively natural and to that point I want to add a comment from our friend Alex Lamb who says hot take a natural looking but obvious vanish will always look better than a super clean but unnatural vanish every time that's a pretty good point anyone who's seen Tim Ellis's run around sue routine you can look that up on YouTube he's got like really cool vanishes with a squash ball or a racquetball or something i think it is.

And that's achieved using a gimmick so that's another thing to kind of think about. You can scope out the methods on that you know through his website and so forth but. Yeah it's it's it's good that you're being critical as well i kind of appreciate that because i'm the type of guy myself who wants to produce the magic that i would like to see, So keep the mindset, keep the mindset and work on it because there will come a solution.

It might not be immediately, but look for inspirations. I hope that the suggestions we gave will give you some sort of direction. And you know a great place to vet if your video, if your sleight of hand is good, is our Discord. We have a section called post and roast. You can post your video and we will roast it in a friendly manner as to if there are things that are noticeable or should be changed or if it is great. It's a safe space where just the magician's eyes will see it. We will see it.

And that's another alternative for you. now we have we have great listeners of the podcast much of which become friends and scotty p who's also in our chat has sent in three speak pipes oh wow okay so i'm not saying he's a better listener than the other listeners i'm just saying he sent in three so uh let's listen to the first one scotty p what's going on magic guys i like to use an out to lunch routine

that I've built into my business cards as a way of promoting myself as a magician and trying to get work. If you guys were challenged to promote yourselves as magicians and try and get gigs without the use of social media or websites, what creative ways would you do that? Okay. The first one that comes to mind for me, if I may, is I used to do a thing where whenever I finished a deck, I would kind of cannibalize a deck.

I actually thought about doing a whole lecture on this where when you when you're done performing with a deck want to retire a deck what can you do with it in order to repurpose it instead of just throwing it away there was a whole series of playing cards that i used to use the fours the sixes, anything that had like a decent space in the middle of it, right? And I've got a whole thing written about this. And what I would do is this.

I would get a stamp, and the stamp would have my details on it. And then I would stamp the card, and then I would spray it with a matte finish to seal the ink in because pigment inks can run on the canvas-type air cushion paper that we use for playing cards, right? I would then do an ambitious card routine where I would ask somebody to sign a card or put their details down.

And, you know, they could sign the card. And when I finished my ambitious routine, I would do a color change for the matching card. So let's say if it was a four of clubs, I would force the four of clubs, have them sign the four of clubs. And at the end of it, I would do a color change and then give them my details at the end of it. So that's one little magical way that you could hand out your business cards.

And it's very inexpensive. you can look up custom stamps you type it in i think mine cost me like 17 bucks or something and all i do is i line them up stamp let them dry spray them so they seal because otherwise the ink can run and away you go so that's a really fun way to be able to hand that out in the form of a magic routine anyway josh crafty i like when michael lamar just came in lecture he, and it's i i believe you can learn it from his penguin live lecture too he has

a pretty fun way to do a haunted deck business card giveaway. And basically he's built in, you know, he's got a little wallet for just his business cards and it's built into it. So he takes them out and then on his hand is just a stack of business cards. And basically it separates and one from the middle comes out and that's the one he gives away to them.

He resets it, puts it away and it's a cute way of giving out your business card via a magic effect it's sort of all self-contained and and i won't give away the method but it's very easy to rig up and make and it is very reliable it's in his penguin lecture but you know here and he has a bunch of different ways that he gives out his business card he has like himba wallets and stuff and all sorts of cool things.

But from my experience personally, by the time you get to that part where they're asking for a business card, they're asking for it because they've just seen you blow their minds. So sometimes it is just more efficient to be like, here you are, sir. And I'd rather pull one out and hand it to them, you know, the right way up. You always present it to them as if like, you know, it's a gift kind of thing, like something important rather than, oh, you got my card. Okay.

Like as I'm leaving, oh, do you have a card? Oh, well, do I sit down and let me entertain you with a, with a business card trick. I, these days it is kind of better to just give it to them, but. If I'm, in saying all of that, throw that out the window, because if I'm in the real world and I haven't shown the magic and they say, you're a magician, oh, great.

Now, whatever, whatever is getting married and maybe they need a magician, then I would do a magic effect in it, which for me is the card now app. So printing it out on your phone, that's kind of my quick go-to. So I will just quickly cop a business card to the back of the phone, open that app and go, well, let me print you a card right now. And it prints on the phone, you hear it printing, and then you can pull it out of the phone.

For me, that's like the quick snappy thing because it, to them in your head, you're doing something practical. Like, oh, I have to get you a business card and this is how you do it. And then to them, they're like, how the hell do you just do that? It's kind of like a Cabanera effect kind of moment. And then other ways, I mean, when I'm done with a deck, so Nick has a very efficient way to actually use all those cards.

For me, I do what's called the deck drop, which is I will write a little message on the box of cards, which is now incomplete or a little message that it's from me who's a magician and I will leave it somewhere in the venue, like outside in the street or something so that if anyone starts following me from that event, they'll go, oh, holy crap, that deck he was using he's left it somewhere let me see if i can find it and it's very fun to get messages from people showing that they found it

it's like a little easter egg for them that's a little marketing thing that's not really marketing but it's just a you know a little something extra to do yeah but yeah scotty's what he's really asking him is with no website or social media how would you get gigs yeah i just go out performing all day and give out my business card.

After i'd done it this just brute force that is what you'd have to do yeah scotty has a second question oh yeah please i'll just take a moment that a lot of people regret not asking for a card as well and and you hear still like for i i mean i get to experience that through the residences they go like somebody called up because they saw you and they forgot to get a card and they actually called the venue being like can i get that guy's number and i was just like yeah you know so

so if It's always good to, for me, I like to routine things in such a way that I can hand out cards in amongst that exchange, you know? So, or even just, or, you know, in the most basic way. When you're performing, it's been an absolute pleasure meeting you all. If it can never be a service, this is my card. Have a wonderful night. Walk away. Yeah. I go. Leave it on the table. Yeah. Perfect. I say, hey, thank you. It's been wonderful.

Let me leave my card for you in case you're trying to wonder who's this guy that's not letting me sleep tonight when you're trying to figure out how I did it or whatever. That's a good one. That's a little tidbit too. I think my exact lines are, let me give you my card so you know who to call when you can't sleep tonight. Is, is what I say. And then, uh, the other thing, yeah, I can't sleep. How about, how about you come around and for a, for a fee.

Um, the other thing too, you guys should do is on social media is, uh, after a big event, like a gala ball or, or some big conference or whatnot is like a day or two later, search the hashtag they've been using and then like and comment on people's photos that were at the event because then they'll go, oh, that's the magician that was there. You can gain a lot of traction that way as well.

So that's that. Scotty has a second question. Let's see. I think we might be able to get to his three questions. So question number two. Yeah. Here we go. What's going on, Magic Guys? It's Scotty P here.

I have a playing card reveal that I've created as a barcode that is scalable in size. Now, I know how I want to use this barcode moving forward, but I'm interested to know how you would use a barcode to reveal something in a magic trick. Scotty, you're in the chat, so I just wanted some clarification. The barcode to reveal something, are you saying they are, what are they doing? Are they scanning it like a QR code or is it something built into the numbers of the barcode that you're revealing?

Like the numbers written down, turned upside down and reveal a word or the date? What is it?

Just while you're answering that, I have done revelations before where we were doing magic exports and somebody handed in that bag of candy i don't remember exactly what it was i think it was m&m's we had to do a routine with it so we did a like torn corner thing appearing inside the inside the bag and then on top of that we did a thing where we had the spectator like throw cards into the air and then we snatched the whole bunch out that's and and then we

said like uh and and then those cards were the same numbers on the barcode as well so there's a few ways you can sort of go about to make it full circle but that's the ones where i've done it where it's just genuinely the numbers in the barcode excellent yeah that's great okay so we got an update so scotty says purely just a scannable barcode there's no numbers under it and i have it on the bottom of the card box all right so my initial thoughts

is to what nick's saying i did used to do an effect where i i would actually have our australian dollar notes gimmicked not gimmicked but change the serial numbers which.

Wasn't done with real money if the government's listening but then i would have like seemingly the audience give me a note and then later on like the cards that i have left match their serial number but right if if he's just saying if you can just have a qr code boom to reveal something i mean a video seems like the coolest way like a cool way maybe it's on your website maybe it goes to an unlisted page on your website and it's you either before the event because you

can just record a new video and embed it there maybe it's something like that like yeah boom oh hey it's josh i'm just about to walk into the sunny day gala event and i just had a feeling that someone's gonna pick this card or someone's gonna choose this picture or whatever and that's what i would do to personalize it and make it a scannable thing because then your website is left on their phone like if they just close their web browser that's

the last thing that will show up what are your thoughts nick well i i had a thought where you've ever seen those things it looks like a barcode but you've got to like tilt the thing and then all of a sudden it says a message like send me like dirty dog that's a great idea something like that could be interesting i don't know if you would be able to do it to the scale of a small barcode that exists on the bottom of a, of a,

you know, pack of cards, but just another thought where just like maybe through perspective, you can have a look at the barcode and it does a thing. If it was big enough, yeah, like tilt it and squint your eyes and it's actually a word. Yeah, that type of ooh. That's pretty cool too. Hmm. I like it. All right, we got one more. I'm going to think on that. We got one more speak fight from Scotty.

This is great. You guys are great, by the way. You know, keep these coming in because although in the next couple of weeks we actually have guests lined up, which we're very excited to. We won't mention them now, but we have some very fun guests coming up. But still, you know, send in the speed pipes. All right. So Scotty, number three. Hey, Magic guys. Scotty P here again. What's the most challenging location you've ever had to work in?

And in hindsight, what would you do to prepare for it better? Go.

I know. I love how he just knows us. He's like, all right, go. The most challenging location. Yeah, you've got to have some doozies. Yeah. It's not so much like the location is, I guess, okay, we talk about location, but I think environment is kind of what I'm going to answer to. Sometimes environments in which you're trying to perform, but it's like, you're going to stand here in front of like the buffet. And it's like, what? Everyone's like hungry, waiting

to eat. And it's like, this dickhead magicians is in the way of my food. I know that a lot of kids performers have experienced those sorts of difficulties where they, you know, it's like, They just see candies and cakes and you've got to stand in front of that table and the kids are just like chomping at the bit to get to it. I think those moments are difficult as far as locations go. Boats, you know, oh, windy, windy locations are tough.

I was performing in a venue on the weekend and it was quite warm here in town.

And as a result they put all of these fans up these very large scale they're like the fourth like a few feet in diameter and they're blowing wind like all buggery so those moments where like if you were a dedicated card magician you would almost not be able to perform anything like without cards flying off you would have to have the firmest grip on that which is why i would i would combat that by doing coin stuff thankfully i love coin stuff and i love sleight of hand which can be done in those

sort of moments do you also think that like in the cold and the wind things are tough but you can actually do coin magic with cold hands pretty comfortably have you noticed that josh oh it's perfect you actually want cold hands if anything right like especially for hand washes and you know just for it to slide and do its thing coin stuff is great in the cold. Yeah. So I've got two. Yeah. So as people are asking, like, yeah. And Nick's mentioning boats are bad.

People think it's a good idea to have a magician on a yacht or whatever. And it is fun, but God damn, is it difficult because it is windy. You're super worried about dropping stuff because it would just fricking slide and go overboard. And like people are rocking while they're like watching you. So their attention span is kind of gone. It's, it's kind of weird, but I have one to top it, which there's one scenario. and wind.

Yeah. Anytime there's wind, you know, I was just in the outback in this place called Macondra and meant to do a stage show and it's on fricking dirt and it's windy and they didn't have proper lights for me. That was weird, but okay. But, but the, probably the weirdest time and probably just shouldn't have happened was I was hired for a 21st and it was on a party bus driving from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. So think of a normal bus.

It's just that they've decked out the inside to have lights and led and stuff, but it's still a frigging bus with, you know, seats layered and they hired me to, while it's driving on the highway, entertain everyone. And that's weird because yeah, just go figure. Everyone's just in frigging rows. So you just walking up to the row, trying to balance. You're also going a hundred kilometers an hour.

So it's also kind of a hazard, but you don't, you ignore that and you're doing magic and yeah, that's weird.

I one time did it on a train okay it was like it was like one of those old timey trains like a steam train that you know went a fair while out of town and we went to like an old pub and then like went back into the city or like you know it's kind of one of those cool experiences and they said we want a card maverick so i got to dress up like a card maverick much like mel gibson in in the movie maverick and i just got to do card stuff which is

which is really great i've actually been really focused on trying to produce some really cool card stuff recently and when i say recently like over the past four months i've been heavily working on it so yeah like locations interesting i think for me heat is one of the worst things as well when you're performing in a location like you like you were in singapore like i was in malaysia you can be in these environments where you're just sweating so full

on and you there's a note there's a part of you that becomes self conscious because of that hot environment of course we all know that regular listeners know that we try to combat that with our non-sponsor the arctic cooling vest but which we mention all too often but oh yeah that you know there's certain ways to combat that so i guess if we just to synopsize everything we spoke about locations slash environments windy environments, Use coins. That's how you combat that.

You know, tight, close environments. How would you combat that, Josh? Like when you're on the bus. It's what did i do i just i mean i still did i think i i still did magic but just yeah i had to go to sort of micro magic like rubber bands you know they're not going to fly everywhere. Interact with without trying to then reach over and pick a card or whatever i think i was doing like liquid metal like with forks because that's just a bit more of they can watch it happen yeah.

I just stuck to like micro magic kind of moments that that's yeah yeah yes sharpie sharpie stuff yeah yeah cold environments coins are great because they just work better in your hands coins the get out of jail free card of magic yeah exactly hot environments man like what you just you're screwed there's not a lot of way out of it i mean combat that by maybe keeping a small towel like a like i keep yeah yeah every now and again

they're just a just a simple face wash and i might keep one of those in my back pocket if it's going to be and i'll just give it a quick one of those and you know in between in between sets from table to table or something like that, or on stage yeah if if if if i'm doing a christmas party during the daytime which which there's a lot of them right now i just will only wear a white waistcoat and shirt and no pants no i will wear pants,

but I won't wear a jacket, even though I don't feel as professional in some weird way. Like, you know, my, my wearing a jacket, wearing a suit jacket is kind of like a Superman cape. You feel like authoritative. So even though you kind of lose that, it is just going to help your magic be so much better if there's going to be heat. So I will roll my sleeves up. I'll wear a vest with no, I won't really battling proper heat.

And if you have an Arctic cooling vest, And obviously that's going to save you, but control your breathing, you know, just try and relax. Yeah. Have a, have a bunch of napkins in your back pocket or a towel like Nick has. And like, that's your best bet. I also, cause why don't you're sweating? Yeah, everyone where I work regularly knows that I have a particular glass, which is like an old-fashioned glass, so it looks like a real drink.

It's full to the brim with ice and soda water. That is it. That is it. And I just sip on that. And if anybody tries to buy me a drink, I'm like, no, I'm good. So that works really well for me. we should also take a moment to identify dark locations where the lighting is not awesome.

Which is great because you can do thread but sometimes it's really dark you know what i mean just because they want to have ambience or you know dumb performances where it's like oh they got the dj's now now coming in the middle of your set and if you're roving set and it's like great now it's 130 decibels of of noise and you got to try and combat that so the way i've combat that is effectively lean heavily into sort of the clowning that i would do and just perform the exact same stuff but just

deliver it in a different way and that's the way i would combat combat dark and loud environments and then there's underwater so if you cannot perform underwater okay you also need, not i mean a snorkel's fine but you will make things appear from that pipe which doesn't always go well i suggest getting a scuba tank and yeah getting the one that actually like not in your mouth but the mask and goes right around it it's a lot easier to function that way don't forget

to repressurize your goggles when you get down to i do remember thinking if i was to do a pool party what magic would i do and i remember i i bought it too i have bicycle brought out like a clear deck where it is plastic. So it has actual values on it. But it is plastic and it's see-through, but you can't see what the value is from the other side.

And it's basically waterproof. So I remember thinking, yeah, if I had to do a pool party or if I was to do a video where I'm doing magic in a pool or something, because it's kind of fun. If the pool is flat enough, you can sit these cards on the top of the water and they'll technically just chill there.

So there's kind of things you can play with. and then coin magic is still going to work in a pool like some magic because it's a coin it's not going to get damaged and then obviously rubber bands and you got mentalism you can you can actually do quite a bit of magic in water so you know could be a niche could be a niche market something to think about hmm that's interesting like yeah yeah i haven't had to do any pool parties thankfully although

i have done magic by a pool that's that ain't much but yeah what about a volcano how would you do that like well you know be cool you know that routine was a dynamo that did it where it's like you choose a card and then you spring the cards over the swimming pool and the only one faced up is their selection using you know double backers and so forth, the good thing about a volcano the good thing about a volcano is that you don't

need a lighter to ignite your flash paper that's handy that's really handy yeah that's gonna be great um where SPF 1000 Sunbluff. And yeah, that will be a little distracting. Oh yeah, Alex is saying linking water wings. I think he means linking rings. Yeah, linking rings will work in a pool as well. No, the water wings is what you put around your arms when you're a kid so you don't drown in the water. But if you can link those, that would be great.

Yeah. That's funny. Okay, I like it. Hey, look, you know what? This is crazy. Your speak pipes have taken up this whole episode, which is beautiful.

So look, this has been very thought-provoking. and i look forward to i'm still gonna think more on scotty p's barcode reveal and maybe we take this to the discord if you guys have other ideas put them in the discord as well but look i think that wraps up our episode pretty nicely nick anything else you want to add for today not a whole bunch thank you guys for listening and thanks for the kind words we really appreciate your support we love that we are a community and we love

that like you know as far as i know we're the only cats that do it like this we do it live we do it where we get to hang out as a group and we want to create this community where you guys have your questions and share your thoughts so please go to the discord if you haven't also scope out you know joshnebito.com and myself.

Nickkmagic.com and don't forget to look at our website so you can see what t-shirts and awesome things we have there make a great christmas present leading into the holiday season but as far as that goes thank you all for listening we'll give you a little teaser next week we have a magician we won't say the name yet but he has directly influenced both nick and i nick even more so his style of performing directly from this person and i also regularly use the same material that i learned from this

guy so we have someone that really has a lot to do with our repertoire but we'll announce that we'll keep it you know you might tell some of you it's gonna be a party it's gonna be a party next week 100 it's my birthday next week so you have to be there. So yeah 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.