Fism Winner Mortenn Chrisiansen Hates Magic #183

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys, ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 183 of the magic guys over there wand whistling doug khan in the building oh oh yeah to my to my other shoulder we've got nick k Okay, welcome to the show, friend. The beautiful, bald, I want another B, beast of a man. There we go. I'll be. I'll be.

And I'm Josh Dombrito. Welcome to the show where we as professional magicians chat to other professional magicians and talk about our life and the whimsicalness that goes with it. Great to have everyone here already. Tim Askin is ready in the chat. He's good to go.

Adonis making my landing. landing i is he going for a poop before he watches is that what he means and we've got i'm not i'm not that hip with the the newest lingo you know you just always go to toilet humor that's all that's what i'm known for you know what else can i yeah what is well what is making my landing mean i mean he's got a dab emoji next to it anyway doesn't matter good to see you guys What an episode we had last week. It did some high numbers on YouTube.

Everyone was very interested in particularly Nick's... No, talking about Teller and going to Teller's house and the shenanigans and the sort of inside look on that. Very, very cool. Nick, have you sort of decompressed fully now from Magic Live? Do you feel like? I have, but the cool thing is that if it wasn't for the kindness of Teller and us going to the shows, I wouldn't have met our lovely guests coming on. Oh, very true. Very true.

And before you dive into that, because that's what we're here for, really. Nick and I caught up last week in person, which was very cool. And you guys have seen a couple of vids coming out from that already, but there'll be some more. And when I got home, my girlfriend was just so creeped out about how similar we look, both wearing the Magic Eyes shirts and having a clean shaven head.

It was kind of funny. funny but well i'm just asking i can't say anything now and then doug makes it three and what a party i wasn't gonna suggest that but whatever look we'll save that for my degenerate mind in the gutter yeah well look it's good to Keep this fucking podcast wholesome.

Oh boy. So, but you're absolutely right. It's, you know, one door opens and that opens another door and that, you know, creates just, crazy opportunities like today so nick lead us in what what are we in for today well to lead you guys into it whilst away in vegas and and having a fun time with teller he was kind enough to have both myself and and nathan hedger as a guest to his show and as we arrive to the show we're lining up in all these booths and we go past all these amazing people along

the way you know javier benitez was there and so forth and i see this lovely gentleman sitting there in a booth by himself and we'll rejoin his group and so we get the conversation and super lovely guy and as we're just engaging in conversation we set up a friendship only to find out that not only is he just a lovely dude he's also a fism champion from the year 2022 in comedy magic and over the days the reigning fism champion of comedy magic exactly right and not only that i had

the pleasure of seeing his act, of which he was very humble about because it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. And he was kind enough to come and have a chat with us here on the pod. So please join me in welcoming, all the way from Denmark, at a very, very late hour that he woke himself up for. He's pumped himself full of caffeine to give you guys a wonderful interview.

Join me in welcoming Morten Christensen. Let's begin. Music. All right round of applause tiger woods for this one yeah, morton did i get your name right yes do you want to explain what what was your feeling watching last week's episode when nick brought you up i i listened to the last episode just to yeah to know what the show is and hear nick's version of magic live and then he He mispronounces my name seven times. Asks, Morteen or something? Morteen?

I'm like, what, dude? We met each other and it's Morten. Well, in my defense, I have this habit. I have this habit. Whenever I hear something, when I learn it, it's like that's how I hear it, right? So, for example, YouTube. YouTube is YouTube. T-O-O-B. Because that's when I first heard it and I kept saying it. YouTube.

It's tube with a chair it's just i don't know if it's part of my learning disability or whatever else but it's like i get it also and they hear me say my name to you and you heard my name being presented on stage loud the next performer morden christiansen and you still chose to say, morty mortine i feel he told me his name was mortine and keep me we hung out in very loud environments at magic shows we went rocking out down fremont street where people

were trying to whip you that was a fun time but before we get into those stories please tell our audience who you are and what you do oh my name is morden and i'm a magician i'm from denmark and i do mainly like comedy stand-up parlor stage magic and i'm pretty decent. When he says decent, he really means he's very decent. No, it was really weird when I first met Nick at the Pantella show. And he's like, oh, you're also a magician because of Magic Lie was starting

in two days. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And he asked, oh, dude, should I know you? And I'm like, no, because I don't have an ego. It would be weird of me to be like, yeah, you should know me.

And he's like, yeah, what have you done? done and i hate being the guy that has to say oh i've done this and this so you have to pull it out of me like oh have you have you heard about fism yeah okay yeah i'm i i sort of i sort of won and i'm sort of the world champion like at first place i'm the best in the world it was so and here's here's my trophy yeah so yeah he took he we took a selfie and he had and he he texted it to a group friends and he's like you know

this guy and then he got a response like oh yeah more than he's cool so yeah he had to be convinced yeah but still it's more team so that's great yeah yeah you, can just call him nike for the rest of the episode i'll take it. Uh but okay well geez there's so much to talk about in such little time okay how does how does FISM happen? Is that something that someone sort of taps you on the shoulder and they're like, Hey, we think you'd be good for this. What happens? Like, no,

specifically like, is there something that you said? I am going there. I have intent. It's going to happen. Or was it kind of like, I fell into FISM because I feel like you're the type of guy that like falls into all of this. Oh yeah. Pretty much. No, I've always competed in, in like local competitions that we did a Danish championship at one point. And I always liked the deadline of having something to show in a competition because I always make my own stuff.

So I did that when I was growing up in the magic world. And I'd always loved FISM. I loved the idea of somebody doing their best eight minutes. And I never thought I ever would be good enough to even compete. And because I'd won a few competitions here and there.

And fizzum was postponed a year when i was doing when i was going to do it and i had a friend that was like hey you should do it you're the only danish magician that will ever have a chance and i'm okay fine and i i got they they extended the deadline for the for entering the competition and and then my club sponsored me and i went and i did not expect to win i didn't like i thought okay I might have some decent original stuff, but yeah, I did not expect the very...

Now, you won for comedy. Did you enter for comedy, or is that something that is chosen? So there's a comedy contest. Yeah, there is a – they have the category for that. But nobody's won it for – 12 or 20 other comedy acts on a contest bill? Is that how that happens? Yeah, so at FISM, they shuffle all the acts, So you see somebody in manipulation, you see somebody on in illusions. And so you don't really, you don't just see 12 acts in comedy in a row.

That's gotta be brutal because if they're not coming up after six duds. Yeah. And usually a lot of the comedy magic is like a parody of magic and like dumb. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody's won the comedy category for 10 years when I entered. Interesting. Because you still have to earn the points to call yourself the world's champion. Because of the point system, nobody's gotten the points in that category for 10 years. And I even think the last guys that won, I think they were moved over into comedy.

I'm not sure, but I think that's what happened. Because FISM will move people around if they feel like they fit better in a different category and they can get it. That's kind of why I ask. I got the sense that maybe people weren't competing in a comedy contest. But now I understand more about the... The act that got the second place under me, they were actually in illusions. But they were moved over into comedy because they were funny and they had enough points to earn a second place.

But I entered specifically into comedy because I'm a stage performer and I didn't fit in manipulation and illusions and all this stuff. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to do comedy. If they had like a close-up comedy, I would have entered that one. So, yeah. Yeah, wow. So cool. I feel like, you know, you could have done manipulation if you had done your bag act. That is hilarious. A clip I've seen of you with, you know, talk about a nest of boxes. I mean.

Yeah. So you've been competing for, you've done a few of these, right? Leading, this isn't your first rodeo. Can you talk a little bit about it? It's my first, like it was my first like big international competition because I'd done like, we had a junior convention here in Denmark, which I, which I did when I was a kid. And then I did the Danish championship a bunch of times. And then I did the Scandinavian, like the Nordic championship. And that's like the only international thing I did.

It but that competition is with like they don't play by fism rules so the point system is not the same so i didn't know when i when i went to fism what is my points like i had a few friends that have done international competitions so they knew where they what level of points they would usually earn and they knew what to work on and i had no idea like i didn't know how good or bad my act was within that point system so when i won i was very surprised what

are some of the criteria of those points that it's based on is it like entertainment value is it originality do you know what the fact is yeah it's all of that yeah yeah yeah at some point i did it's like six things and it is it is like yeah originality the magic atmosphere the technique stuff like that but i I didn't know because like I like my act is there's a lot of misdirection in my act and it's a difficult thing to like, because that is a technique, but it's how would you judge that?

Where if you see a manipulator use, you can see the technique because we know what to look for. But in misdirection, like if you were not fooled by the misdirection, does the technique work or do you have to pretend that it worked or so? I didn't really know what I was getting into. But yeah It worked but I'm still surprised That I have a FISM first place Trophy on my shelf. I'm as good as all the other guys. Me and Sean Farquhar and Nobè Ferrer and all these people, we're the same.

We're there. I love him so much. Yeah, he's the greatest. And I'm as good as him, clearly. Eric Chen, I'm as good as Eric Chen. I know I'm two times as big as a little Chinese person. That was not supposed to sound like that. I'm the same. It's funny because We had a conversation about that, about folks coming to me and saying, oh, you do Magic, I do Magic. We're the same. And you're like, no, we're not.

Yes, we are the same. But that's what I mean. I'm not as good as – I've never met Eric Chen, but he's so amazing. And people like that – yeah, I have a trophy that says I have the same points. I'm at the same level, but we're not the same. And it's weird, like, being in that club that all of these people, I love these people. Like, Nobe Ferreira is amazing. And, like, Sean Fakwa has won, like, the Grand Prix in first place, second place, third place.

Like, he's been at the top for years before winning. And I'm just this dumb kid from Denmark that's like, oh, I can do misdirection pretty well. Maybe I can win. Yeah. Well, we just got to think about it like a different styles of music. Okay. Comedy is one style of music. It might be the punk rock of the music realm. You know what I mean? It might be like the heavy metal. There might be the Britney Spears, you know, I don't know what Sean Farquhar would be.

He would be like the Michael Bolton of magic. You know what I mean? They're all brilliant in their own way, but I don't think that, you know, one makes Michael magic. Is that where you go? Yeah. Michael Bolton with Magic? You know, like just a great classic, absolute bangers. You know what I mean? I just feel like he lives in that realm. And I do believe they're both from Canada. So that's why I brought that up. But I wanted to circle back to originality. I can see that. Yeah.

Okay, well, he's a Celine Dion. He's a Celine Dion of Magic. Is that better? Okay. I like that better, actually. I wanted to circle back to your originality because if anyone who has seen your act, it is entirely original and brilliant. And one of the things that I found really awesome is that a lot of the techniques that when you see things of FISM quality, it's that they're using techniques or ideas that haven't been created before or aren't available on a shelf somewhere.

And I was hoping we could do a bit of a deep dive into that realm because you do some stuff that I don't know where it comes from.

I just know it's brilliant. brilliant and and what does your brain do does your brain go hey wouldn't it be cool if and then you get pen paper double stick tape fishing wire and and a chicken and make it happen like what's the deal yeah i don't know like i've i like magic and i've always been interested in creating things like not to be like look what i've made i'm i'm so original but like just making stuff of building things whenever i got into magic and bought a gimmick like

for some trick i would always try and remake it to understand that gimmick more and to also know if it broke i had the ability to make another one so i'd always just made my own things and i don't like doing other people's stuff on stage it feels so weird and fake to me to get credit for something i didn't do and magic is weird in the beginning like getting credit for like look I'm the greatest magician in the world and maybe the secret is oh you lifted two cards at the same time.

So that part I've always like struggled with. And so see, and seeing people go on these Gatan shows and just with the trick they bought for like $15 and you're the best magician ever. Like I, I, I, I hate that. I, it feels so fake to me getting credit for something I didn't do. So I've always just made my own stuff and my fism act is yeah. Everything in it is pretty much something I've made from, from yeah.

Nothing. thing has that been the case for all of your competitions that you've done have you stuck with the original material yeah yeah i i've i've i never perform anybody else's material on stage i i i literally get like feel sick doing it it feels so weird getting credit for something i didn't make or say or like invent or something even though i know that's pretty much how our business business works you buy a trick you put a little bit of your own spin on it but you you're still,

for me, you're still just lying. And especially if you throw on a bullshit presentation of, oh, my dad once said this and blah, blah, blah. But it's okay to have Michael Bolton singing classics wonderfully, right? You know? Yeah. It's maybe not the tier that you want to equate Sean Farquhar with, but we can have this art existing in the world. Yeah.

Just play a little devil's advocate so everyone in Magicdom doesn't feel bad right now because i mean oh they should feel bad i'm feeling bad originality is the way no doubt about it a million percent but we need to let you know we need to have room for you know yeah really well room for room for everybody because this like this hobby or this art of magic is so big that can be the guy that just knows a few tricks and that's fine and but

that's also why it's difficult me and nick talked about this that we're not all the same that because if you just buy five tricks and like magic you can call yourself a magician but you're not the same as that's me or you guys there's there's a difference but we just use the title magician, so yeah i i want to do stuff that i've made otherwise i don't see the point of being on stage it could just be the other people like the the the other guy going to the magic shop and buying

five tricks and and i see that i work in a magic shop i see how easy it is to spend two hundred dollars and you can have an act and i know people and i think it's embarrassing and for for them and for the art that they have spent two hundred dollars and they have a show and they do cruise ships they do things all over the world and like this is so embarrassing.

Well, it's interesting for sure. I think, you know, if we play devil's advocate, isn't it still nice that the world is seeing beautiful magic, even if it is them as a cover band for someone else's effect? Yeah, but is it beautiful to see somebody just do a trick they bought and taking the credit? And the whole cover band thing, I think, is an interesting comparison. But the problem is that the people don't know they're seeing a cover band.

If I see a cover band, I know, oh, this is a song by this person, but they do it beautifully. Where in magic, they don't know that, oh, he didn't invent this. They will just assume that, oh, this is yours. And especially on those talent shows or whatever, they'll just assume, oh, you're the greatest. Oh, you came up with this. You're so good, creative. So I think that's a problem. So what should be, and I'm only saying this stuff because I like your thoughts on this.

What should be the barrier where it becomes it should only be original material is it when you're on tv like what level is it should you stop because obviously you have to learn from the people before us but at what point do you think the level should be okay from here on it has to be your work oh i think when you're doing it professionally yeah yeah if you were setting something up like a business of being a magician or setting up a public show or doing stuff on tv i

think that should be your own stuff if i could choose in a world where i decided everything that is how i would do it so i knew like if i saw a person setting a show up i know oh i'm gonna see his act what he made but that's just not not how it is like so many people just do instagram magic or do tv magic and don't know what they're doing and i i i. Yeah i'm i don't like that but yeah i get it because we're in this this art

of yeah you can buy a thing and you can have a show and i so because i work in a magic shop i see whenever, people are gonna put a show together like if a let's famous actor or comedian or somebody's gonna put a live tour together a lot of them go to the shop and it's like oh i'm gonna i have the live show but i want something a little bit different can you can you can i buy something and they will buy an illusion or they'll buy a trick and and suddenly there's a magic act in

this show from a guy that's known as an actor or comedian or something like that so i'm i'm sad that our art is something you can just purchase and do okay tim well tim makes it if sorry yeah if i could can just bounce off that as well because because i was in a band myself crap i would often say that.

Thank you i would often say that you know this is a this is a cover song by whatever else and i feel that magicians should be able to do the same where it's like this is a wonderful routine that i learned from eric jones it was taught to him by mike gallo and it's it's a beautiful piece can i share it with you guys and they go yes it uses four coins and you do the routine i think it's cool to do Rod Stewart will do that in a very intimate setting,

and I think everyone should be able to do that and present their, share the magic by all means. But it's just when people boastfully say, I'm this, and I create this, and I'm blah, that's where the lines get blurred. Not because we shouldn't be performing other people's magic, but just because it's a little bad for the ego. Because the ego will tell itself that, no, I'm this great because I purchased something. thing. But what happens is when the ego is fed too much, it kills growth.

It kills your growth as a person. The relationship between ego and growth, it's a tug of war between the two. And the only way to kill ego is to focus on growth. So if you try to focus on growing as a magician and getting better and creating your own stuff, the ego gets crushed. And it's only through creating your own stuff and growing that you'll end up being someone like Morton who who can lecture and share their thoughts.

I lectured last night at the Magic Circle with stuff that I'd created to help other people. And it wasn't even me saying, do my stuff. I said, here's a blueprint.

To a routine i do and you can make it your own just inject these four things and it's now your own routine so that's kind of important if you want to actually propagate magic forward but, outside of the originality and the copying you do comedy and we all know in the comedy realm that people copy jokes as well and so dragoteer asked an interesting question where, when it comes to comedy magic what comes first the magic or the jokes and then furthermore what happens when folks copy jokes like at

least in the the circles i run that comedians are way better at like stopping people from stealing because comedy is stand-up comedy especially is so honest and so vulnerable that they just have the jokes so if you steal somebody's thing they will they will stop you and they will won't give you a spot or they like you'll be be shamed. So people don't steal. And that's how I got into performing.

I started as a kid wanting to do comedy, stand up comedy, sketch comedy, like being an entertainer in that way. Magic was never my intention to be put on stage. I had magic as a hobby, but thought, to be honest, and I still feel this way. I think magic is really boring because. If you take the secret away, so many magicians have nothing left. They're bad performers. They have this small thing they hide behind that makes them be like, oh, look at me, but they don't really have anything.

And I think if you close the ball magic shops tomorrow, 80% of magicians will stop because they, oh, I can't buy the nearest thing. They can't invent anything themselves.

That's fine. yeah i think if you write your own stuff i think if you just made a double cross disappear overnight there would be yeah 10 less magicians yeah because a lot of magicians and i'm guilty of this will like to buy toys because oh i get a new thing and you play with it you show it and you get credit you show it to your parents your girlfriend your friends strangers and you're like oh look at this and you you get credit and you get applause or

whatever for something i'll tell you a big that is a nice feeling the magic community itself the clubs and the conventions kind of inbreed this vibe of we need new material every month to show our peers and it's really a bad process i mean i guess it's it's nice to have a goal to develop material and such but yeah looking Looking towards a professional viewpoint, what happens in the magic clubs is not the most beneficial towards reaching

artistic goals like you speak of. No, no, no, no. And hanging with magicians is usually not that great for coming up with stuff because it's just a lot of like a shoulder tapping like, oh, you're great and this is good. And we all ignore this is this is the double. Keep saying that. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's something glad-handing. Everyone loves everybody, and everything you do is great. Yeah, and nobody wants to tell, oh, you flashed, or I saw this.

We all just pretend, like, oh, I see what you were going for, and don't tell them. Let's just tell them they're boring. Yeah. That was a boring performance. There's no hook. There's no joke. I've been in that situation so many times where I like to be better. I like my friends, my colleagues to be better. So I'll tell them like, oh, you flashed here. I saw this, but they will take it as an insult. Some of like most of the times they'll be like, oh, yeah. And they won't listen.

And when I got into magic and especially doing the competitions early on, I have a lot of stage fright and I really hate doing new stuff. But I never felt that when doing a competition. And I know many people will feel the opposite, that they don't like performing for magicians. But I really liked it because performing for magicians, I'm not afraid of flashing. I'm not afraid of it going wrong because it's in front of my friends, people that will help me. They will say, oh, you flashed here.

And then I can make it better for my actual audience. But most magicians will take it as an insult. And so hanging with magicians is not really the best way to go because they won't give honest feedback. And I've done this all the time. I will ask for notes, I'll ask for feedback, and I will do that.

Now it's just a habit i'll do it after pretty much any show when i have a friend or somebody i know even the audience i'll just ask the audience if that person comes up and say oh great show whatever i'll say oh what what was your favorite part what didn't you what was the part you didn't like or whatever or did you see and i'll ask my my perspectives if they came up to me and like oh great show and they clearly want to talk because they enjoyed the show they like me as a person whatever i i

can easily just ask them oh did you see something you shouldn't have seen which is also a friendly way of like letting them know that this is not i'm not god it's not oh i'm so cool you can't you can never figure this out if they if they have a note even if they think i have a trick in my show right now which which i'm closing with and i asked like oh how do you what you think about this and the guy just said oh because it was just it's such a strong ending but he just assumed

it was a different method because he he couldn't figure anything else out and he was like oh maybe you just did this and suggested a worse method but i'm like oh if he thinks that could be the method i then have to change so he can't even suspect that even though that's wrong but if he thinks that's the method that's good enough for him to think he figured it out so getting feedback back from magicians people you trust and lay people very important and and i will take that and and speaking.

About like getting better and ego i don't have an ego i just want to do my best so i i'm always working and it seems weird that like i'm the fizzle world champion best magician in the world whatever and but i'm never finished with that act i'm still.

Refining it changing small things which i didn't need to do in if like because i've won the biggest competition in my field i have no reason to make that act better or change anything because it is it has done what it should be it is pretty good but you can always do better always change something i just did a trick i've been doing for 10 years and a few weeks ago i find a found a way to make it so much better. And I hate myself for like, oh, it took 10 years and I've even put it out on video.

I've published my work on this trick and I just figured out oh, this is much better handling of it. So nothing is ever done. And I think telling yourself something like that, like, oh, this is done. This is, that's what stops you from being creative. You're never done. Never. Exactly. Because you always get better and yeah. There's always something to be done. You're never finished.

Getting back to the jokes and comedy and stuff, I think I don't know what comes first because I'm just, at least in my opinion, I'm just a really funny guy. No, but the stuff I make and the stuff I do in my daily life, I'm just the funny guy. I will look at things in a funny way. So for me, comedy magic is the most natural thing for me to create.

And it's not necessarily here's jokes or here's whatever because usually comedy magic becomes a parody of magic you're making fun of the magic and some of the things that i value very highly is that magic is never the butt of the joke that i'm not making fun of magic because i really love magic i love practicing on like really dumb skills they will never see so making fun of it is weird why would i go up on stage and be like oh look i know magic oh

i'm so weird why did i do this like that doesn't fit and i will never i'll never sacrifice a trick for a laugh like and it never becomes prop comedy magic like oh look it's just whatever it's an electric deck isn't that funny like because it's not my style but you can do that if you want, so I always make strong magic and then make it funny but if you're not a funny performer don't try and do comedy magic because that's really awkward if you're not funny why would you want to force it,

but like at least here in Denmark Rune Klan very famous comedy magician and he's like famous and he's like famous.

Everybody knows him and that also makes every magician wanting to be like him so for a while for years everybody was trying to do his they were sounding like him they were doing his stuff what he did on tv they would buy and then years ago a guy became really famous as a mentalist like darren brown style and then everybody wanted to be like him and again if you're not a funny guy don't try Try and be a funny guy. And if you're not a mentalist, don't do that. I can't pull off mentalism.

I've read a lot of mentalism and I like the field. I can't pull it off. I'm two meters and look like a goofy idiot. I'm just funny looking. I look like a giant baby. So I can't pull off mentalism. Oh, I will now read your mind. How creepy is that? Yeah. Well, what I don't think anything comes first. If it's the joke or the trick, that's just the feeling of the trick. In my opinion, what I make is always just a funny trick. How does one find their personality? Do you think Morton?

So for example, I've, I've had guys that have asked me for gigs and I've employed them and put them in my residencies. And then I've, I've got the worst feedback about them. Like, Hey man, like it's just, you weren't bringing the vibe and they go, no, I'm trying to be more of the debonair type guy. and I just want to be like really still and stoic. Tell us what it's like to fire a magician. Yeah. But it's just, you know, they want to be something and by nature they're not.

Do you think it's interesting to just say like, I want to create a character or just to be yourself or be a higher version of yourself?

But it's a weird situation because a lot of magicians, and I know I'm going to piss people off, but if if you get angry i'm right because you you got hurt a lot of magicians is just shitty people not in that way but like you get into magic because you get a hobby you get you suddenly oh i'm the magician guy and you you get a lot of positive attention maybe from like women or whatever it is you you it's a thing you suddenly just bought a personality which means saying your

character saying your thing like oh this is what i'm going for yeah but you don't have a personality without the magic so yeah so a lot of people don't have and i not that i'm better than anybody else i'm not like i'm i can find so many reasons why i'm shitty and i will work on knows, I promise. But I struggled with that for years. Like, who am I? What am I going to... Why am I getting on stage? Why not anybody else? Because I care and want to be the best person I can be.

I don't just want to clap and get people like, oh, like me, please. So the whole thing of developing a character and going for a certain style is a weird thing to do if you don't know who you are. So the character I play, if I, let's call it that, is just who I am, how I would naturally act. and then I've changed a few things to make it an act. But I also have that one character in reality that I can play.

I can't be like, oh, I'm going to make an act where I'm Darren Brown and I can just look at you and I know everything about you because even though, yeah, I could learn all the tricks, I could make the script, it'll never play for me because I don't look like that. And I can't, I can't, I can't live it. So having a character is really difficult.

Even, even Darren Brown himself talks about when he first started magic, he didn't know who he was and he thought he had to be a serious closeup performer. And he would walk around the restaurant, like giving everyone that the nod. He's still evolving though. I think, I think he's still an evolution of him.

Absolutely. but even performers will do that 100 i think yeah it's an ever-evolving discovery right but i think and i think like a lot of people we've had on before and and it sounds like same with uh with with uh morton nick morton is that you sort of draw from your life experience then that sort of should be what comes into your acts like with stand-up comics they're they're running themselves themselves yeah unless you like unless you're like a good actor or

like i like a lot of comedy which is just weird like the the one-liner guys that just says weird shit and you don't know if they mean it or not but it's that's a difficult thing to pull off unless you you are that weird in reality which some of them are because i know a few people but it is it's difficult to have a character. And again, I think if you take away the magic shops from people, there's a lot of magicians that don't have anything left.

And if you take away the secrets, there's nothing. I once was... Somebody was telling me the story about like how like an audience would like judge magic and, most people would just look at the trick and be like oh the trick worked he must be a good magician that that is what the only thing they judge the performance like oh the trick worked oh he was pretty good then this is this formula for the cw masters of illusion show that's been running for 10 years in America.

Yeah. Trick, trick, trick, trick magic show. Trick, trick, trick, trick, trick. Yeah. Magic is not that entertaining because magic is just, look what I can do that you can't. Oh, you can't figure it out. I'm better than you. That is magic. And it's not entertaining. That's why I didn't start out wanting to put magic on stage because it is, look, I'm going to show you something that you can't do and you can't figure it out.

And I'm better than you. i have this wonderful view of morton of you because morton works in a very prestigious magic store in denmark but now i just have this very comedic vision of you working the magic shop and they're like i would like to buy this invisible deck and you're like why don't you learn some he's like the stupid that's for you.

Come back when you have a presentation I'm really bad at selling magic I'll be like yeah sure you can buy that but I will talk people out of it also because I don't care if you sell stuff that's not my problem but yeah I'll talk people out of buying it and be like oh this is not that great, one of my mentors Cellini said there should be four magic shops one on each corner of the globe run by grandmasters that's it that's how you have magic,

but yeah but if you take away the secrets from so many people they'd have nothing left where if you because if if i if i if somebody let's say a shitty magician just think of somebody and he was doing table hopping and i walked behind him and told oh he's doing a double lift it's in his pocket it's in his palm whatever. First of all, I'll be a jerk and I'll ruin the performance, but also he has nothing left.

If everybody is as smart as me, as a magician, if you audience, if we assume the audience is as smart as magicians, there's nothing left. That's why it's so boring for us to see a magician at the local magic club because he brings nothing to it and he flashes all the moves. And if that's the way the lay people look at what we're doing, we have nothing where if you were a good performer, you didn't need the secrets.

You just had, oh, look, I can also do this, but I'm also a charming person that knows how to act as a person. And that's why I'm sure all of the people you look up to, all the people I look up to is people that does not need the magic.

Magic like williamson is that we all know williamson is the best and i i don't care about him doing a trick because he's a nice guy and he's funny like tom mullick is my favorite magician of all time and i don't even know what he's doing if you ask me name three tricks i have no idea the cigarettes and that's it i've seen his as the the showtime at the tom fruley like thousands of times i have no idea what he's doing because he's just funny he's a clown he's good at performing where

that comes to mind of one of the great theatrical modern original and i don't know what he does but i've seen him perform and he's great yeah i don't care about what he's doing you know there's also it's like he's not going like tricky trick trick trick it's it might be three tricks in 45 minutes yeah yeah but there's also the other side of that way you.

The other side of that is when you're among other magicians who you might be sharing something a technique and they go you just you don't need to do that mate what do you you know you don't need to do this side still you could just do a double and a double undercut and a this and a that like there's some people who are actually trying to be very restrictive on magic developing or just it might seem unnecessary to some degree to them but you know it's like

for example you know you're going to quit it's like a clip shift it's like i do this it's like oh why do that for when you can put it here then do three cuts to the table and then do this and it's like oh yeah you i'm gonna Like that is one of my things I hate. Like I hate magicians. The worst thing a magician can say to me is like, oh, this is good enough for like people.

Or something like that because they don't want to work harder so it's just like oh this will fool like people and i hate the way of talking down to your audience that way that you're like oh this is good enough to fool those idiots yeah but like two days ago you didn't know how to do magic you bought the secrets why shouldn't they be smart i don't i don't have an education i dropped out of school after sixth grade like i don't like i'm sure they're smarter than me i just spend a lot of of time

at home having no friends building a little card gaff but yeah of course they're smarter than me so saying oh it's gonna fool late people it's good enough no it's not that's the first of all it's insulting to them and it's just lazy not being better and one of those things is now let's let's mention i i put out a trick with vanishing ink it's gonna be out it doesn't matter but that specific trick if somebody buys it at

one point is trick i showed it at the magic club Yeah, Morden's Jumbo Car Trick by Morden Christensen. I made that trick, and I brought it to my local magic club, I don't know, five years ago or something. And I had this concept for a trick and for a method and for what I wanted to do with it. I showed it to the club meeting. And again, there's just a lot of magicians. They're not any good performers. It's just a bunch of people, I think 10 people at the time.

And I showed it, and the feedback was very much like, yeah, why don't you just do a force? Yes. And I'm like, you're missing the, you're missing how, first of all, like I made a thing that's original that I'm proud of that I want to show, but also you're missing the point of how clean it's going to be, what the feeling is. Oh, just do a force. Yeah. But then we just stop now and never create anything new if it's just like, oh, the force is good enough.

So I hate that way of thinking. king and and also i i stopped bringing stuff to the magic club meetings because that's not a nice feeling of oh okay i'm i'm hanging out with people that doesn't care and i'll just do a force yeah but that's not the trick if i just did a force i wouldn't have stood up and be like hey can i show you all something but this was because i had a new thing so i always wanted to do better and have stuff i'm proud of because otherwise

i don't need to do it it kind of reminds me of fuck magicians that's you know what that's what that's what we have to title this podcast.

It's lovely to hear some you know some you know cold hard truths and it might be a little harder than a lot of people want to hear and if you are a hobbyist to be that enjoy your magic club enjoy your kindred spirits and that part of magic we can enjoy magic so many different ways but if you're going to put yourself on tv if you're going to enter a magic competition if you're going to to present yourself as a professional to the paying public then take the time to do better just

try please to do better and especially these days you know with social media you're very exposed where if you think you're amazing because you've just put out a video of a product you've just bought and then someone sees you do it they're like oh that's great and then they scroll and then they see another five magicians doing the same thing it becomes a little weird that they're seeing all these other people do the thing that they just saw you do.

And I think originality is what helps you. It's the difference between like. Being able to make a living from magic, doing corporate gigs, but then actually being able to sell out shows and do festivals and things like that is what the difference is between, I think, actually doing original magic and building an audience. The truth is, we can sit here and be like, oh, be original. It's so nice somebody's finally saying, fuck magicians.

But also the truth is all of what i'm saying is not like you you don't need to listen to me because you can do what you've always done buy tricks put like an instagram video up and make a lot of money i'm i'm not even a full-time magician and i'm poor like a lot of people are like oh you won fism you're the world's best yeah but i'm also a struggling artist in that way that i i'm not in it for the money and for the fame or for anything but if you want to do that you

can just buy the newest tricks put them up and and do nothing so there's no reason to listen to me which is very sad and i realize that so you have a choice you have it you have a choice you can be you got that a trophy brother yeah i would imagine you could be a magician i could sell my soul and just.

Yeah i'm so bad you have a choice everyone you can be a struggling artist that's original or you can be a really rich wealthy cover band all right yeah but it's up to you there's no reason to listen to me because if you for like it is also just because i can't handle showing Showing somebody else's tricks. Like I physically don't like the feeling of showing something I didn't make. So when people are like, oh, you're good. You're amazing. Ugh, I can't handle that.

Well, if you can, if you can stomach that, you should do that. Because why listen to me? I'm just a big, dumb Danish guy. But where do your influences come from if you're not sort of looking at other people's performances or other people's stuff? Do you not look at a technique?

You know like the if i could touch upon something i don't know if i should say or not but there was a very so a lot of cool stuff where pockets were vanishing for example you know yeah i was seeing that quite a lot it seems to be like it seems to be like the new flavor because even no i think it was i think it was just because of those two acts were booked at the same time and we have different works on it but when i when i saw we were booked i'm like

oh okay because even though i'm i came up with it for some reason and he came up with like yeah i usually if i work on something and i see somebody else have something like it i will put it down. I'll work on something else because that's what you do if you have a joke in it. Like as a stand-up comedian, you're like, oh, you have something on that. I'll just do something else because it's not difficult to come up with stuff.

You just have to be willing to do it. But a lot of people come up with one thing and they'll cherish that too much. So, yeah, I see, of course, I've worked in a magic shop since I was 14. I've been there and seen all the magic. So I've seen everything.

Everything and and i will just soak it all up and learn from it but because i know that i will never do something just because i saw somebody else kill with it i i learn from it and just have it and then i change everything and just bring all the methods in my toolbox because my methods are not necessarily original because you can always be like oh is it is it this is it this yes but the way I'm using it, the way I get into it, the prop that does it now, that's original.

So the method is never the important part for me. But being a performer, showing something original, that is what I'm trying to do. Do you find yourself sort of avoiding, I find myself avoiding magic sometimes, not wanting to watch it online or not trying to learn it because I don't want it to influence something unoriginal. Do you find yourself doing that as well?

It's weird. like when i got into magic and i saw everything and i have seen everything i i because i like following what people are doing also know what no like what not to do because oh this is very popular like i i worked on something with a rubik's cube 10 years ago and i when that got popular i threw my rubik's cubes away just because i know knew oh this is everybody's gonna do this it's not exciting anymore and i was right it's become a new like oh you do coin tricks you do

card tricks you do rubik's cube tricks so yeah very good josh very good like so just being willing not to work on something because oh there's a different way of doing it and but i've seen everything and i use that to then create something for myself but yeah i i have a i i i whenever i see good performers i will always feel like oh i'm so shitty i have nothing to offer for so how do you feel when you when you how did you feel when you met nick

then did you feel pretty good about yourself or did you feel threatened he seemed like he had his life together so yeah yeah he does, But also, he asked me very quickly. He was like, hey, you want to be on the podcast? And I was like, hey, wait till you see my act. Because you don't have to book me to do this just because you like me. Please watch my stuff. And then I saw the act. And as I'm leaving, he's by the door being like, thanks. He was like, it's all right, yeah? It's good?

And I'm like, yeah, it's really, really good.

Right please yeah do you get an opportunity to perform your act in public venues in your country and such are you uh working as a professional no denmark is so small i think since fism which is pretty much two years ago i think i've performed in danish 10 times and like comedy clubs and small things and here and there there's no no places really to perform and especially not like a a fism act in a in like a variety show setting nothing like that so i pretty much two years

ago shifted to perform only in english making all my props when i in my fism act the stuff that says something so i the props all made up in english and i didn't i don't even have a set for in Danish and I was supposed to do it at a convention two years ago and I realized like an hour before the performance everything was set up in English and I had to remake everything so yeah I don't perform here that much which is fine I my English is good enough

to perform so well speaking of props and and maybe out of the Danish vein what is the mystery surrounding the two ducks. Yeah. Oh, it's very dumb. So my whole branding or whatever you want to call it is I am Morton with two ducks. And it is so dumb, because it is just a word play on my name. And it's it's not a good one. So, so in Denmark, and and I'm also trying to get it to stick when performing in English that I am Morton with two ducks.

Ducks but so the thing is i will enter the stage always and i did it in my fullest performance last year holding two plastic ducks yeah we have a photo of me with two ducks so we'll hold these two ducks and i'll walk on stage and in danish i will do this joke which is i'll say it's difficult to explain because it is if i say the sentence hello my name is morden with two n's because my My name is spelled M-O-R-T-E-N-N. If I say, hello, my name is Morden with two N's, it sounds the same as if I

was saying, hello, my name is Morden with two ducks. And it is so dumb. It is a dumb wordplay on my name. And also, that is a wrong way to spell my name. Nobody in the world spells Morden that way. That is completely wrong, having the double N. And I've legally changed my name to that so I can do that joke. And I have to explain it every time I pick up a package at the post office that it's not a mistake. That is how it's spelled. And it's so awkward.

That's how you end up people calling you more teen. They think you're some kind of weird. They read it completely wrong. And it's like, oh, was it two N's or two E's? And I, more teen? Yeah. Yeah. It's very dumb. But I keep, so I have a lot of props with ducks and stuff like that.

And i and so on fool as i walk on stage and i'm like hello and i look i look very awkwardly at the ducks in my hands and i say oh i now realize this only works in danish and yeah it is so dumb and i i've done shows where people have to ask like is is there a joke in danish or is it just dumb like that there's a joke but it's also dumb people are asking could you could could you say it in danish i think they want to hear

you say duck oh so in danish it would be like if i say hello my name is morden with two ducks it'd be like hi hello morden i'll do me to inner inner ah there you go and that means means multiple ducks. Yeah see that's funny it's so dumb this i have a joke and a whole brand that is made for one very small country. And it is also a joke that will get that reaction of.

Because it is so dumb like it's like oh i'm forcing them to like this pun oh it almost seems more clever it almost seems more clever in english when you then say your line of i just realized this only works in danish because now to us it means you're so clever that you've like explained to us idiots in english that it's a funny joke in danish even though it might not actually be that funny but it's so dumb because the ducks are very like they take up so

much space in my suitcase but i insist on having them like being on fool us last year i think that's what got me on because i sent them a video of the trick and they're like oh okay it's fine and they're like can you send it to us like in a performance and then michael close saw the performance and he just died laughing when seeing the duck thing because it didn't make sense right so yeah i'm i'm forcing that into everything that i'm more than

two ducks as this episode is slowly drawing to a close well A couple of things I want to touch upon is the products you've released. I know you released a really awesome product with CardShark, which you can touch upon as well. And obviously, the new product. Nope. I did not put anything out with CardShark. No, fuck them. Oh. Yeah. It's a long story. Technically, there's a trick with my name on, but he completely screwed it up and made it something different.

And don't buy it because I don't make any money here. Oh, God. Nope. Nope. Oh, that's funny. Do we need to dive into this? I don't think we have the time. It seems pretty clear. Three years ago, I put something out, and we made a deal, and he then fucked me over and put it out without my permission and changed everything, and I'm very angry about it. But not anymore. I've gotten over it, clearly.

But yeah, then I've done a masterclass with Vanishing Ink, which you can look up and see some of my stuff. It's not... Like, if you want to see what's in my apartment and the dumb shit I'm doing, you can do that. Again, I don't make any money off it, so I'm really bad at business. And then you have a trick, Nick, which I put out with Vanishing Ink.

It was just pre-launched at Magic Live, and they put it out, and there's no instructions for it yet because they they didn't do that so hopefully when you're listening to this in the future there will be instructions for it and and it'll be out sometime this year and it's a pretty good trick it's called morden's jumbo car trick by morden christensen and that is me i love it all right so look this is this is such a great intro to morten's world

but for anyone who's listening who maybe hasn't seen much about morden other than obviously his his force act and his fizzle follow me on instagram absolutely so his link yeah his instagram is in the bio now morten to end every episode we give our guest the final word so you've given us many words today and i i love the flavor of it it's very refreshing so we're gonna we're gonna pass them on so once again thank you so much for joining us and i hope it's not the last time hopefully we can we can

catch up in person one day and yeah for sure ladies and ladies and gentlemen we're gonna leave morten with With the final word. Be better. Don't settle. Don't just do stuff. But then again, nobody cares. And you shouldn't listen to me. I have nothing. I have no money. I have no friends. I live alone. And I'm in Denmark. It's not a very nice country. Okay, I'm lying. It's a very nice country. But, yeah, don't listen to me. But then maybe I think you should. But you shouldn't.

Because why would you? But I think you should. But again, I am nobody. Who cares? Like two years ago, I was nobody. And now I'm just nobody with a big fucking glass trophy from FISM because I'm the fucking world best. So please listen to everything I've said. But then again, you shouldn't really because I'm just a big dumb guy. Like I look at, I'm nobody. But please listen. But then again, you shouldn't. I'm sorry.

Thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.