Floor Plans vs Magicians #159

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 159 of the Magic Guys. That sounds right. 159. Oh, yeah. To my left. Well, to the left and diagonally, we got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friend. Oh, yeah. And up and then up diagonally to the right, we got Mr. Doug Kahn. Valuetations to the kindred and everyone else in between. Oh yeah. Are you, are you sober yet, Doug? I feel like that weekend's got to still be

running through you. I don't think so. If I'm being honest, I'm not quite completely hasn't all course through the liver yet. The Mardi Gras and then kindred spirit, Jimmy Farrister rounds me up for a night out Saturday. We overdid it. Oh, he's here. There he is. Oh yeah. So if I'm not up to par, it's his fault tonight. I feel like we should have introduced you. And fresh out of rehab, Mr. Doug Kahn. If you don't know, it was just Mardi Gras in the New Orleans.

Always, you know, a gauntlet of partying. I tried to take it easy this year, but like last Monday, last time, last Monday, I'm out in the thick of it, you know? And then so I'm getting older and I don't drink so much and stuff lately. So I have a question about Mardi Gras, the, the beads.

I know this is really prominent. Is there like, is there a sort of thing where the more beads you wear, like the drunker you are or the cooler it is, or is it just because it's all the above, you know, I've been, I get the younger, I, I think the younger mindset enjoys the pursuit of these trinkets. Truthfully, truthfully, all you really get is a pile of trash and a sore neck.

You wake up in the morning and it's like what am I going to do with all this, that's what you get my neck is sore but really you end up if you do really well and collect 5 or 10 pounds of beads you're not used to wearing, I'm going to wear a neck brace and then disguise it prepare. With neck wraps I'm going to give Mr. T a run for his money that's what I'm going to do with the amount of chains I'm going to be wearing if I ever do Mardi Gras.

One last question. Does it happen frequently or is it once a year? What's the deal? Once a year it's kind of a religious-based holiday, actually. We do it, I don't know, with all the dates but that's what it revolves around, Yeah, I don't know. I just know this. They tell us when, and then we go have fun for a couple of weeks, and then we feel bad for a couple of weeks.

But did you work it? Did you do shows? No. You know, over the lifetime of living in New Orleans, I've learned it's a horrible time to street perform because so many other street performers think it's a good idea to come here and do it. And in addition to that, all the other riffraff, like the street preachers and, you know, This city fills up with a bunch of, you know. I guess it's kind of like the Adelaide fringe that's happening right now.

When I watch Mika and Jason's vlogs, it just shows like how many buskers all come to the city. And of course it's got to be great because you can all hang out and it's a time to build that camaraderie. But like not everyone gets to do shows every day because they have the, what do you call it?

The draw. draw everyone puts their name in get to draw out and then you see who gets to do shows and like so yeah well it's gonna be crazy there's a few ways of doing it they used to have these stages that you could perform in in the garden of earthly delights etc and i think in another sort of particular larger scale hippie little town i think what they're called now i haven't been there for many years but outside of that you could also perform at rundle mall and i remember performing

at one like that actually that'll be my gig story today that'll be a good story is that where you're just like crashing the festival and you know working the fringe of the fringe well yeah they basically set up a busking space in the middle of rondel mall which is basically just like an open space but what they do is they give you opportunities who for those who are part of the festival to do your show or do a portion of your show almost

like a gala and then you can promote it hand out flyers etc etc and yeah that works out really well yeah well speaking of speaking of of which we had a speak pipe come in a couple of weeks ago from Dylan Lim. Thank you, Dylan, for sending it through. And we wanted to wait until Doug was on here before we played it. Cause it actually is asking about busking, but I'll let him take it away. And Nick, I'm going to look at you for the volume here.

So let's see what Dylan's question is. It's about a minute long. Hello everyone from the Magic Guys. I'm Dylan from Malaysia, Penang. I got one question is about busking. In my hometown here, Penang, Malaysia, Penang here, we didn't have any busking license or any busking activity at all. So I was thinking about wanting to help the government, the state government to set up this busking program. Maybe by using chatGVT or something to write down the rules, like everything, something like that.

But got something I was concerned about because I don't know anything about basking and maybe got some hidden rules between basker like, When some people perform me, we cannot do one or something, something like that. So it's easy to answer. Like you can just tell me everything about busking. Just teach me. I want to know. That's all. Hope you reply it. It will be a big help. That's all. Thank you. That's a great question. Thank you so much for sending that through.

I have some thoughts on this, but Doug, I think that you might want to take point on this with your expertise. Yeah, I think Doug's going to be more well-rounded. And maybe it's a, it's a, it's a long form video on Doug's channel that, that this becomes, or I don't know, but it's also not that. And here's why is because it's all going to be region dependent. This young man's in Malaysia. I don't know anything about Malaysia. I do know this. I was just recently rewriting my lecture notes.

I do have a segment on in the notes on, you know, figuring out what to do, where in this day and age, what a great resource.

The internet is where you can if not find the you know the in the states would be a city council guideline and if you can't find that you could find who to talk to that way but but beyond that here's the here's the busking credo in general ask for forgiveness not permission if you're not sure about what to do, I would recommend approaching it as though it's perfectly fine to do so. And I would say so, especially if you're not going to aggressively ask for money.

And if you're working a new pitch, I would recommend that you make the money secondary while you break the pitch in so that you don't break any, you know, tax rules or any, you know, know, vending guidelines for sure. So that's my advice. Go ahead and get going. Then you don't, maybe don't make it about the money first and, you know, use the internet to your fullest advantage.

Yeah. Great advice. Up the back of that, if I may, we have an organization here in, in Oz that's run by your good friend, our good friend, Doc Andrew. And what they do is they use the information that's basically part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival or just the laws for streets. So we use that as a basis. So if you can take it upon yourself to look up what happens in Edinburgh, Scotland and what their rules are, that is like the base of what.

Most of these things are about it's going to cover things like there's certain areas you cannot perform in so they don't want you to perform around certain locations like we have like it's a we're like the sports capital here in melbourne we don't want you busking in all the sections where people are trying to get into venues and stuff like that so there's certain no go zones of that nature there's also little things like do not perform with your back up against the shop because that's

how the blind people walk about the town they use a stick and they hit against the the walls and so forth as they walk through through town and that's how they so there's just little legalities and safety things that are based around that and they're all predicated from what's taught in edinburgh now i know you made mention about getting like the government and councils involved by all means get involved with them but also really hold fast and try be self governed try be self-managed

and don't put too much on them because when they take control troll they tend to ruin it true story yeah so it's the type of thing that a lot of times they'll they'll say they'll do things like we're holding a festival and we want we're gonna we're gonna send security it's like no no we'll manage security ourselves we'll do it ourselves they can be there if they need to like legality wise but we'll manage our audiences we'll manage our crowds

we don't want people walking through the crowd and ruining our show and whatever else like like doing security. So like educate yourself, but do everything you can to create something in which you guys are all self-managed and try keep the government out of it. Anti-establishment punk rock. Bam, bam. I used to play in a band. Y'all take a drink. I'm going to take over the controls just a second and put the spotlight on one of my friends who does a great job about educating the

modern student about busking in general. This is Jim talks a lot. It's blog. All you have to do is care and you can go there and learn how to be a street performer. There's so many great lessons. You know, there's crowd building. You could go there and learn about that general discussion.

Magic and equipment he publishes here regularly on substack and jimmy talks a lot substack and i could recommend a hundred ways to go you know i could suggest you go to cosmos real magic magazine and that's seven bucks a month you can get the cellini stuff there but yeah that's jimmy's substack and there's an endless resource of educational materials ready for you now you know what i love the most about this speak pipe as well other than it being

a fantastic question The very fact that we have friends in, where was he? Singapore? Malaysia. Yeah. Malaysia. How cool is that? It's nice to have friends all over. And speaking of our friends, let's give them a quick shout out. In the house, we have a good friend, Ed. We have Scotty. We have Tim Askin. Them questions. Johnny Prentice, who gifted me the most wonderful thing this week. John, we were listening to your song right before the show.

Johnny Prentice wrote a song about me playing in a band, and it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And I once like high-fived Dave Williamson so like that is how wonderful.

Shout out to Johnny big love to Patrick to Jimmy thank you for being here friend and we have a new face here Ronnie Ronnie Lido nice to meet your friend Thomas good to see you and everyone else by all means we got we got a bit to talk about today but if you have questions fire them up and we love to hear what you have to say so, Are we ready to roll out of this busking chat? We're going to talk mentalism now, right? It's not on the books. Mentalism 101.

Yeah. I can't even, I can't comment on the busking on the bus. Cause it's just not my forte. You know, I have a great story that, that revolves around busking. When I, when I was at Adelaide fringe festival, it makes for a good gig story for me rolling to gig stories. All right, let's do it.

It's been a little while but the gig story section of the show is a little part of the show where we like to talk about little moments of magic either while performing or just our day-to-day and share them with you guys our awesome audience starting this week with me one time when i was doing adelaide fringe festival super fun time i was staying with a friend of mine and i was training into Adelaide.

And I remember it so well because I was doing my thing and what was the most pretty girl got on the train that I was on. And I was by myself. She was by herself. And, and we had this little like exchange of hello. She's like, hello. And that was it. And I, by nature, outside of being Nick K, like, which is a total beast in itself, I'm quite shy by nature. And I get quite quite nervous around pretty girls. So I just kept to myself and that was it. I get to town and I start doing my show.

I'm doing my show. I got my audience. I'm about three or four people deep in my, in my show. I'm doing the cups and bowls is my big finish. And the girl sees me and I see the girl and she's like, Hey, and I'm like, Hey. And so I then say, Oh, that's a really pretty girl that I met on the train today.

I wanted to go over it and say hello to her, but I was way way too nervous, but hi there, you know, anyway, and, and, and everyone's like laughing and she sees this and I'm like, yeah, I wanted to go over and introduce myself and give her my number, but I'm just way too nervous to even do that. So, you know, here we are. So anyway, she then joins the show. I finished my show. I had it. Everyone does. I do my hat line. Everyone pops money in there. She comes over. She's like, hi, I'm Elizabeth.

I'm like, hello. And I didn't even speak. I was just like dumbstruck. I was just like, hello. And I just nod like, she's like, do you want my, do you want my number? I'm like, and I just gave her my mobile phone. She put a number in there and I'm like, she's like, okay, call me. I'm like, uh-huh. I will. And that was it. Tell me you called her oh hell yeah i called her.

And and i am a gentleman and i will say no more i will say no more i've got a similar gig story from the street here we go doug arrives in new orleans in 1989 and i'm out there doing my shtick you know like i had a mullet back then oh do you have a picture oh man you know what i do have a picture oddly enough yeah send it to dylan send it to dylan so we can put this in hold on because.

Scott link actually messaged me this picture this would have been right before i left to hit the street can you see boy look at that there's not a lot of pictures of me and you can even see i'm I'm losing my hair at age 19 there. Wow. You haven't aged a day. You were like a fine bottle of wine, Doug. We are looking at a fresh-faced, like, 18-year-old-looking Doug with slick hair and, like, the waistcoat of a king. And the timestamp on this on the YouTube Live is 15 minutes and 50 seconds.

If you're listening to this in Audio Land, jump and have a look. You look like Larry Bird if you had a mustache. dash. You know, I got that a lot. Yeah, I've got that a lot. Anyway, let's not leave this, you know, old dark picture up too long, but thanks Scott link for sending me that blast from the past. I just happened to have that literally on my Facebook messenger from yesterday. Sometimes Scott watches, maybe he's a, there he is. Oh, there he is.

That man's responsible for that piece of history. Thank you, Scott. So anyway, this young man's out there street performing. And I asked this pretty young girl if she's ever seen a magic coin. She watched my little magic coin routine. The end of it, she asked me if I'd met the jugglers. What? Yeah. Have you met the jugglers in the square yet? Turns out this, you know, pretty gal was a friend of the street performers.

She introduced me to all of the main players. I had just newly arrived in the city. Within four months, I was living with this woman within a year. We had a children, we had three together and now I have four grandchildren. My middle daughter is getting married this weekend. Yeah, it was a crazy ride, but yeah, that's my street story. That phone phone number turned into three children and four grandchildren and we're still going now. Wow.

Wow, man. So are you, when you go to your daughter's wedding, are you like a magician there? or are you like the father? Yeah, not so much. You know what I'll be at this wedding as photographer more than anything. I'm bringing all the gear to get everything recorded. I was going to say, you should perform and hat the show and help to pay for all that shit. At the reception, I'll maybe do some things, but it's my kids. What do they care? They grew up with it.

They like it. They'd like their friends to see it, but it's not like my kid is going, Dad, be sure to do some magic at my wedding. Also for Americans, the wedding magic thing is not a thing. Like it's not a common gig for a magician in this country to work. Like.

Starting to gain a little traction but do you do weddings in australia yeah i do absolutely yeah yeah it's i wish it was more prominent it's just that the you know i'm trying to i'm trying to break the code but i kind of feel like there is like a certain order in which you do things it's going to be like okay we get the venue we get the photographer we get the flowers we get the blah and we're done and it's like where in that line does the magician

come in you know what i mean like it's gotta you gotta sort of try and interject that so what what i'm trying to do is penetrate the venues and so if the venues are going like oh but so this is what happens in the venue you have your ceremony and then there's like an hour and a half that everyone stands around while you take photos in our beautiful garden have you thought about entertainment for your guests and they go no that's it yeah that's what you got to do to break that market it's

going to be the wedding planners or the yeah or the venue or just you know people who have seen you before i mean anytime i've been booked it's because like someone's seen me and they've gone on, Hey, this would be good for this. And this is what's important. I think that other wedding people see magic at weddings so that it can become a thing that brides are comfortable with having, you know, I just don't think it's happened yet in this country, but it's starting to, and it's ideal.

It's an ideal environment. The other thing that, that we got to take into account when we've had wedding magicians come on the pod from the UK, weddings are very differently ran in the UK. It's a entire day and night event and they have to fill. Like they have the ceremony, they have lunch, they have a break, they have stuff, then they have the dinner, then they, there's so much time. And, and they were saying that like, there's two different parts they can entertain.

They can entertain in the break between lunch and dinner, or they can entertain like at the dinner. So it's like, no wonder they're trying to fill stuff with, with entertainment and things like that, which is different. But speaking of which I am doing a wedding this weekend, but it's very rare that I would, I'm doing like maybe one a month. Is that similar to you, Nick? Or are you doing less or more? I probably do less than that, man. It's normally between. Actually, yeah, it probably is less.

Basically, weddings happen until April and then it's wedding season's over. But yeah, Ty Daly was asking, do you have wedding expos that you could rent space at? And the answer is yes. I actually do it alongside one of my good friends who's a wedding singer. His name is Jefferson Smith and he's a crooner and he's an amazing singer.

So you go out and promote it at an expo you'll go to these things yeah they hire me for a wedding yeah yeah so i try to do it alongside people that sort of thing that's actually where i met like like my tailor as well you know like at this particular expo that's where i you know and then this guy's been making my suits for the past sort of decade so this is a great idea in my opinion buddy up with someone who knows the thing and then you can you can benefit them with the

magic right because you could do stuff the booth and get extra attention generated rated yeah and what so what we did was it was the type of thing where it's like we'll give you a discount if um so magic so like music and singing is this magic and bizzo is that together big discount we both get to perform together like we're best mates why the hell not right yeah time, we've targeted quite a few things but it would just be great to be flat out

with weddings it would be phenomenal yeah there's a lot of them right you could break into that market you should should be able to stay busy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to find very quickly a photo of, cause I did do a wedding, a wedding expo. Expo. Thank you. Don't know why I lost that word. You said it like a few moments ago. Yeah. I did do a wedding expo when I was first really hustling to make it a, a.

Full-time career. And so I did like the whole entire day, you've got a booth set up, you're just performing, performing, performing. And I got to say, I got zero bookings from it, but I would say the thing I did get from it is the connections with some venues.

And I made friends with a wedding supplying company and like, I did do things with them, but yeah, the thing I actually got out of it was the suppliers meeting them but but i got to say like an entire day of like and i blew minds of of of um brides-to-be and stuff and just like none of them inquired and i i think it's because it's a different doing magic at an expo is just such a different environment to what like the wedding is so like

they're getting entertained here but like they're not yeah getting understanding understanding the same vibe i think yeah and to your point like what also happens is they typically don't get to really see the magic because what will happen is it's while they're away doing photographs and more that sort of stuff and it's their guests they get to see the magic so you might hang back just a little bit to show them something before they walk into the you know everyone gets announced and

it's like please welcome the you know the groomsmen blah blah and they let people a walk in in that respect when you're marketing yourself at these events maybe it's best that you not perform and maybe run a video and say this is what happens at your wedding when i'm performed.

Yeah and i and i had i had a a promo video running behind me of course but definitely i should have had more of a wedding specific one definitely but i had i did have a montage of people reacting and that kind of thing okay knowing i mean and saying that that was this was like eight years ago that I did it, I would probably maybe approach it differently now, but yeah, weddings are just a funny thing in Australia. It's like benefit.

And specifically you gotta give the bride the benefit. You have to convince the bride that you're going to make her special day even more special. Yeah, that's it. That's what the video needs to be. You know, here's how we can make your day more special. All right. I, I, I have a gig story from Jess this weekend. And I want to say as well, for the first time, I finally got to perform the lucky ladybug effect that we, that we love. And we had the creators on the podcast a few months back.

Man, it's a fun effect. Basically what happened was like. The owners of the company hired me and I flew to Sydney to do a show for their awards night, but they've hired me before and both times their daughter, who is now six, so she would have been even younger back then actually. But anyway, she was like, oh, you're hiring a magician. Oh, do I get to see magic? Cause like she didn't get to go to the event.

So they asked me really nicely, like, would you mind showing our daughter something like in the foyer of the hotel that we're all staying at, at some point? I'm like, yeah, of course. So the morning after the event, I go down and I'm like, okay, this is like the perfect time to actually try out this ladybug effect. And so when the ladybug disappears from the card, this girl freaks out. And even that's like, awesome. What does John say? That's how time works. Is that because I'm saying like

the next morning? No, somehow she was like even younger. And then. Oh. Yeah, John. Thank you for. it. Yeah. Hang on a second. Let me just turn the hourglass upside down. So we know what time it is. If I can just work out how to get younger, that would be amazing as well. But I digress. Anyway, very fun experience doing that trick. She freaked it out at when the thing disappeared, waves it over and just like, Oh my God, so cute. She keeps it. She like puts it on her shirt. Very, very fun.

Thank you for creating that effect. I'm going to save it for that, that exact interaction moment i think when i'm showing someone's kid they've asked to see magic that's great yeah okay nothing better than when you sit with the kid and you say you know what every time i wave it goes away but it takes a really special person to bring it back i think you're that special person you wave and then it comes back and it's like see like i said it's a special person to bring it back because

you're the special kid you get to keep the ladybug and the parents just go oh yeah seems to me like everyone get viral video you just start filming I'm assuming that every time you do that, how does that not go crazy? Hmm. I like it. Great trick. Yeah. Yeah. I rate it. Anyone who's looking for that, that one-off effect for, to make an impression, that's it, man. Deucegala.com. Deucegala.com. Yeah.

So, but the actual event is why I called this episode Floor Plans vs. Magicians. So there's this thing where when you're doing a stage shot at an event, like the way the stage is set up to where the audience is, how far away they are. Is there a dance floor? Are they closed? Are they spread out? Is there stuff on the tables to block their view? All of these things notably make a big impact on how the response of the show goes.

And simply from a bad setup in a room can make it seem like your show is bombing compared to you doing the same show but having the audience as close as possible, nothing to distract them. That same show can just be a roaring success. success. So we always try to control that as much as possible. You know, we ask to see a floor plan and things like that. So I've, I've done, like I said, an event for this, this client before.

And the last time they had a bad setup, but it was like a last minute gig. When I flew to New Zealand, the borders had just opened up. It was like a whole thing. And I didn't have time to control it. I was like, you know what? And sometimes you just make it work.

So at the time, the band had all their stuff on stage so I couldn't even like do my show on stage I had to do it on the dance floor the audience was split so that there's actually no one in front of the stage it's everyone's to the side and to the side it's like a long room it's horrible it's awful so at the time what I did was I made the show shorter so I only did 15 minutes instead of 30 and I just did effects that could be done surrounded and like

we got through it I guess guess it was good enough that they booked me again because now over the weekend I was back and I remembered that horrible setup so I clocked it and I asked her like can I see a floor plan of this venue because the last one was the worst one a magician could ask for she's like okay so then she emails and I said all the things that would make it the best possible setup like no dance floor preferably the audience

would be as close to the stage as possible nothing kind of blocking blocking their view. That's the idea. Anyway, I get an email going, oh, I'm really sorry. It's all the things you said you didn't want to have happen. So, and she's like, but can we, is there a way to make it work? I'm like, oh my God. So, but I have a video to play because there's an extra layer of something I didn't realize could happen at an event to make it even more distracting, which I'll play in a second.

So again, big dance floor, no one in front of me because it's a long room. People are this way and this way. And the back tables actually really have a blocked view of the stage. And I'm just like, oh, great. And there's a band on the stage, but this time I made sure like I need at least like like a meter deep and like two meters wide stage room. So please, when you're not on, like set up the drums back there, you know, move the mics. And they did that and that was amazing and they were great.

So I get there and I'm like, okay, whatever, we'll make this work. So again, I prepped only material that could be done surrounded. And I had the footage from the vlog I made when I last did an event for them. I was able to watch it from three years ago and see what material I did so I could make sure I didn't do the same thing this time. That was so helpful and fun. To be honest, they probably wouldn't have remembered anyway. Yeah. If I just done it again, but it was very cool to know.

Okay. So I got to do this event now. It's not dark yet, which normally wouldn't matter, except this was a glass wall behind the stage. Because we're at the Sydney Opera House. And of course, guests want to be able to see the, the Harbor Bridge and everything and the water. So there's, you know, there's the Sydney River. Is that what you call it? Sydney River? river, whatever, right behind and like, you know, wonderful scenery, but it's still daylight. It's like six o'clock right now.

Sun's not down. So I'm trying to do a show and you can see everything out this window. Plus everyone's to the side of me. So what I, so what I've tried to do as best as possible is do surrounded, surrounded material, shorter show. I went and did close up to the back tables first, blew their minds and then said, Hey, I'm going to do stuff on stage.

Stage if you can't see it bring your chairs bring them to the dance floor or come and grab your drink and come and stand so you can see it so i've done like i've sort of like done everything i could you've totally done everything right totally yeah but what i didn't what i didn't account for now there's no no audio on this so i can i can just play it but look what happens when i'm doing my show and i don't know this is happening but what's a thing to distract the audience when you

have a a giant yacht just sailing behind the stage.

And so I had no idea this was happening, but yeah, Yeah, how's that for misdirection? I'm trying to perform. And you can see all the band's gear and stuff on the stage. But basically, I'm standing in front of no one, the dance floor. And then those little heads you can see are like the first tables, like to the sides. It was quite funny. However, at the end of the day, the show actually went really well because it was an intimate enough group.

There's only about 100 people. So there's 50 on each side. It's small enough that you can kind of command the room and by bringing, you know, one of their own on the stage, you can take the piss out of each other. And it's funny, but it was just like a moment where I'm just like, this is, this is just too funny. And that's my gig story. So it did go well. I tried to do everything I could to make it good. But sometimes, you know, what are you going to do?

Like, no, you can't have your event at the Sydney Opera House. Like that's obviously why you've picked that place. Cause it's an iconic landmark that people are going to travel from around the country too. But question, oh boy, were you backflipping on that little patch of stage that you had? So I did a backflip at the last time I did their event on the dance floor. So if I do that routine and it's that kind of stage, I'll just do it on the dance floor. The backflip part.

Do you know, I was performing on Saturday and I was doing my thing. It was like a group of girls in the residency, and it was like an 11th or 12th birthday party. Three girls were having their birthday party at that time. I finished up, and I was like, all right, kids, let's go inside and play, you know, because it's under the Hijinx Hotel. And this one chick raises her hand, which is adorable, and I'm like,

yes, sweetheart. And then she goes, can you do a backflip? And I'm like, that's my mate, Josh. That's his thing. Oh, really? She asked me if I could do a backflip. I'm like, no, that's my mate, Josh. I do a podcast with him. He's a great guy. And she was like, oh, okay. And she just went off. Wow. Oh, hell yeah. Okay. Normally I'm getting people comment about Jason, about Jason Ma. Like, oh yeah, yeah. I watched this guy online do magic. I'm like,

oh, and does he say, that's got to be worthy of a like and share. Yeah, that's the guy. People love LaDanny. I get a lots of like, Oh, I love card. Have you seen that guy? Yeah. If he hadn't have blocked me, I would still be enjoying his content. He blocked you dude. Didn't we? I think we brought this up. Yeah. I made, I made a one video that went viral on YouTube. Uh, sorry on Instagram.

And, uh, it was a, it was a card cheating video to Neil deGrasse, Neil deGrasse, Neil deGrasse Tysons, uh, explanation of, of how crazy of combinations there are to shuffler deck of cards and, um, after I made that video blocked me on all socials for summary, for note, like the video had nothing to do with him. You're not alone. He you're in good company. Some people are weird. Yeah. Like I wasn't using his techniques. I didn't like, he didn't make that video to Neil's video.

I don't understand. People are weirder than others. Yeah i will say a lot of people tagged jason in that video and i think that might be why.

Okay yeah i like ladani i like him too i just won't let me watch his stuff i have a photo with him when he came to the assembly yeah we had a great time hanging out with him you know when he came down and lectured he just released his book i forget what it's called game change i was called game change a great book um i have his dvd sets here like i have all this stuff he just won't let me watch his content so wow no so uh it's what it is right i comment on stuff it just blows my mind i have

no idea what he's doing even my friends who study people like steve 40 and you know all that really finger-breaking type of card magic they'll just go i don't know man like he's doing stuff none of us even know what he's doing like it's just staggering for that i blocked him for that reason he upset me one too many times now i've blocked him before he can can block me. So yeah, But for different reasons, just because he was fooling me. So whatever.

Joining us next week. I imagine. I've got a special guest coming. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. I imagine that's why he blocked me too, Doug. Get it? Because I was fooling him too much. Anyway. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I didn't get that at all. My friend. Moving right along. We was talking just the other week. And we had a really funky idea to come up with a new segment. It was basically the accidental brainchild of a good friend.

Please remind me of his name. His book's on its way. Taylor Hughes. Taylor Hughes. We were jamming with Taylor Hughes. And we just ended up kind of freestyling this crazy idea, making up magic ideas on the spot, quite literally spitballing, if you will. And I'm very excited for his book. I just got an email this morning saying that it's on its way from Amazon. So make sure you scope that out. The book is called Misdirection. Shout out to our boy. Yeah. And we had.

You're going. Yeah. Cause we, we got feedback from you guys telling us that you really liked that segment. And I think it was RB that really sent a nice detailed message about like his, how it was nice to hear the, the brainstorming happening in real time about creating an effect or just have an idea. So we reached out to our boy, Scotty P, and we're like, Hey, could you make an animation for this new segment? And should we, what do you reckon, Nick? Should we give them our first ever world?

I'm excited. I have an idea. Let's do it for the very first time. Okay.

Spitballing oh yeah spitballing just a moment that intro was composed by nick k performed by josh nabito and perfected by our good friend scotty p so thank you friends for uh everyone chipping in so this is going to be a new segment called spitballing we're just going to be spitballing some ideas of what we have and i have an idea i want to throw out there because i was was performing.

I'm performing a lot at the moment for universities. And in particular, this group called the Uni Lodge, in which all the university students stay in this accommodation. And basically the idea is like, hey, we're going to put a thing on. There's going to be some food. There's going to be me entertaining, fairy floss, et cetera. And I'm just there to break the ice and hang out with these guys. I've been doing these events for many years now.

And what had happened was each one of these tables where people were chilling was different things. There was like like checkers and chess and whatever else, but there was a pack of Uno cards. Now I assume that Uno is known all the way around the world. Doug, you're familiar with Uno? Yes. Great. I don't want to sound. Yep. Now they had handed me a pack of Uno cards and went, can you do something with this? And I was like, yeah, just give me like 30 seconds question.

What would you do with Uno cards? I know what I did, but I'm going to ask, what would you do with a pack of Uno cards? Yes. Okay. So let's identify what the Uno cards are firstly. So they don't have suits, but they do have colors. They have colors and they have numbers. As well as that, they have multiple of the same color. So, you know, what I mean is that like green cards, there's more than one, two, there's more than like one, three, for example, as far as the value goes. Yeah?

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. So, yeah, you've basically got duplicate cards within the deck for each color and and draw for and things like that yeah yeah okay first i'll say uni lodge great company i used to do their welcome to the new tenants in brisbane and they would have like, 50 freaking pizzas for everyone yeah they'd have like a wildlife demonstrator magician love it yeah there's like eight venues here around around melbourne

town i'm doing every single one of them it's great fun i do it every year i love it i love that so you know okay i'll just say what i would would do i'm not saying this would be the best stuff but like in the moment if i was like they just gave you the stuff i would either do a signed card because then you can do a million things because it's signed now so you can manipulate the deck and do card to pocket and that kind of thing obviously it's going to ruin the deck but if they don't care here's

the thing that deck a full deck is basically two decks high it's two decks high it's quite quite a big lumpy deck so are you going going to use half the deck and leave half the deck on the table? Okay. I reckon probably. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to essentially just make it a deck of cards. So that would be my first thought. The other thought would be there's a routine I like doing with, with eight cards and it's essentially, okay.

It's the invisible string by Helder Gamiris. If you're familiar with that one, Nick. I'm not. And it's essentially four cards on each side. And it's kind of like, it's basically like those cards are able to switch one at a time. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, four cards, four cards. And it's like, if I move the ace over here, all the aces jump across and now all the kings are here. So maybe I would do that with like the red, you know, like red cards and then blue cards. That could be a thing.

They're probably the two that i'm that i'm gonna bust out as like impromptu well ed made a great suggestion which is actually being homage to doug which is the an oil oil and water routine first things that came to my mind and then i thought you know what i thought actually i thought that i thought oil and water doc dailies any packet trick it lends its wealth like you can do a killer jazz aces because of the dupes are the same game and out

of this world here out of this world would be good that's a good choice and here's why.

Uno is a trick about matching things so if we can make the effect a game about matching things if we can make the effect match the game it's going to make more sense to the spectators so the one i was thinking of is known it's really david britland's zenorism there's been a hundred versions released but it's this i'm going to put a card down and you try and match it and i'm going going to put a card down and you try and match it and you do this with three or four or six or

ten and it depends on what version you're doing and then at the end everyone is matched so that would be a good uno trick to me because it matches the game right do you damn you're so smart doug all right do you want to know what i did what'd you tell us a coin show because it's a game about exactly i was like what do i have here i identified okay okay it's a game about matching things need need to match. There needs to be some kind of matching.

Cards Across was a good idea. I thought about doing Cards Across as well, where like, small questions, 10 cards, that kind of thing. But I'd already done that trick, which is why I didn't do Cards Across, right? But I'm like, what are the pillars of what makes a Uno game? It's like, cards got to match, and everyone's got cards, but everywhere else, I'm like, cool. So the deck was too big, so this is, like, it took a massive stab in the dark when I did this, okay?

But it was kind of genius. So I was just like. Take half the pack. And she took half the pack. I'm at a table just for reference. I then look through the deck. I was like, yeah, you just say like, give it a shuffle if you need to. And I just wanted to find two cards that were the same. The first cards were a, like a green three. And I managed to find two green threes. I culled two green threes to the top. Okay.

And then I was like, great. And I just said to the person opposite me, I said, just grab any card random.

Don't look at it. Cause it's gotta be random. Otherwise you're like, you might go, Oh, I like the color red you might favor red so just any random card and just pop it on the table and and she did and i did the same but only i forced one of the three green cards because i have two i put it on the table and i said great what i want you to do pass it to me under the table and then i'm going to the table and then she and i swap cards but whilst i'm under the table i also do a top change so

i've given her one of my threes i've then done a top change so now we both have the the same card and i've gone cool so hold it up like this everyone can see all right and then when i say go drop it on the table see if and we'll see what happens three two one go smack on the table match and like what and i'm like yeah and i go all right this time you put a card down i'm gonna okay but i'm gonna try and read you and i just i reckon it's this one and i just

kept doing this one ahead principle with a top change under the table and we did it again and And again, and again, and then I was like, damn, there is something in this and I need to play with it differently because what you could do, right, is you can make this a multi-phase routine now. So hear me out. Even with a normal pack of playing cards, you could have two decks of playing cards, for example. And you might say, let's just go for like a small common ground,

okay? Just put something underneath. It doesn't matter which one, okay? I'm hoping that it's going to be like a picture card or a number card, okay? Boom. Okay, two number cards. Great. Let's go a bit deeper now. Let's try to go like the same color. It's either going to be red or black. And then you go red or black. And you keep building it up and try to get common. So then you go, boom, red and black. Great. great, let's just try go for the same suit this time.

Boom, you get the same suit, then the same value, then the same card. Now you've got a multi-phase routine because the hardest thing to do when you're doing this effect is to get one ahead on someone's card. But if you're doing top changes underneath, you don't need to handle their deck, top palm one and steal it away to add to your pack because you're just trying to go for like a red black.

And so it's a really good bit of kit when you do this top change sort of number and fool around with it like that so from what came yeah yeah question i'm reflecting i'm trying to recall what it was the exact name of the routine larry jennings had a great one ahead routine that used three different methods for each of the one ahead so like one was a curry turnover one was the optical optical toss and so each method was different than

the one before them and it was a regular deck of cards i think it was impromptu And it was match, match, match. And generally the effect you're saying, it's in the classic magic of Larry Jennings by Mike Maxwell. Yeah, that book, go dig it out. I like what's happening here. And Tim mentioned, and I think, I just can't remember the effects, but Tim mentioned there are some marketed effects with Unicards. I do remember seeing something similar to how, similar to how.

Our friends that do Scarlet magic have the Pokemon cards, right? As an effect, there is something with unit cards I have never purchased or know about it, but it just seems like a logical thing, right? Like just like, just like how at home, someone might have a Rubik's cube at a house party, impromptu magic with that. Someone they probably going to have, you know, cards before they have like playing cards. Will the cards match the speller with two packets of five cards?

Will the cards match? That's an easy self-working trick that would slay with Uno cards. Will they match? Yes, they're Uno cards. That's good. That's good. So thank you, Ed. I love this new segment. I love it. Well, hey, if you guys have ideas that you aren't, haven't completed yet, or you need it to be spitballed, send it in as a SpeakPipe. I'm going to be doing that. I've got a few. I need you guys to work on for me. Yeah. Yeah. Speakpipe.com forward slash the magic guys.

We're basically offering free consulting at this point. It's actually going to be a good time. So yeah. This is my ballpark. I play here all day. If you let me come on, make it 100%. Let's go. How did it take us three years to, to just figure out this is a good segment idea. I have a couple as well. Great. Yeah. Send them in speakpipe.com.

It's in the link in the the description of the video but speaking of effects and stuff we haven't had a proper uh piper magic review for a little while correct we've just been so back to back with flat out really awesome interviews and people coming to visit and this this week is an absolute banger you might even say a bangerang oh boy here we go. Music.

This portion of the podcast is sponsored by our good friends piper magic australia's online premier magic store now friends if it's two things i love in life it's sandwiches and nicholas lawrence nicholas lawrence it is nicholas lawrence latest effect is a sandwich effect unlike any Now, for those of you that don't know what this latest release is, it's Bangarang by Nicholas Lawrence. And in this effect, a card is chosen, lost in the deck, held by a spectator.

Two jokers with large holes in the center of them are removed from an envelope and shown front and back. Now, without even being near the deck. The selected card materializes between the two jokers. And just as easily as the card appears, it visually vanishes in the blink of an eye and teleports itself reversed in the middle of the deck. Or you can have it appear anywhere inside a box, a wallet, anywhere you can imagine. A really super cool effect.

Now, what you get in this product is you get a bangerang gimmick, you get two jokers with holes in them, and a 32-minute instructional video. Now, as far as difficulty goes, it's not a difficult effect in the sense that it's like a knuckle buster or that you got to be able to.

Pinky count cards or anything of that nature it's not at all all that matters is that you understand the handling because there's a little choreography in order to be to handle the gimmick it's not something you would have seen before but i promise you the gimmick is ingenious, and you're going to have a lot of fun with it now as far as pros there are so many to mention so i will keep it pretty shorthanded but it's very easy to do there's multiple versions and handlings

taught so you can do sandwich effects you can make it appear you can make it vanish because there's even a penetration effect which you can put your finger through a playing card it can be done in the hands on the table you can do it close up walk around it is stellar stellar for social media and the gimmick is really really well made and it's also made by hand and totally undetectable you just cannot gauge that it's hidden there as well the jokers can be inspected and

as far as like magnets and black art there is none of the sort as far as cons go cons go the the gimmick can break but it only takes seconds to repair all right and nicholas lawrence explains exactly how to maintain your gimmick so it lasts for a long time and that being said this is really awesome about this gimmick is that the more you use it the better it actually is for the effect.

It just makes it much easier to do. And the only other con that I can spot about this particular product is that the Jokers are a little off color. But it's for a reason. The notion is that the Jokers are from an old deck. And so there is a very minor off color, whereas like the reds in a normal red back of bicycles is quite bright. And these ones are a little bit more on the burgundy side.

But it's not a big deal because if you do genuinely want to make your own cards with the holes in them, there is in it's all shown on the tutorial to how to do that and the reason is is that you might want to do this type of effect but not with two jokers you might want to use it as part of a sort of vanishing queen effect that might be between two sevens or between the kings or whatever it might be so whatever you can think of nick lawrence has

basically thought of it already and has given you the tools to do that now as far as cost goes piper magic have this for 63.95 which is about 40 us dollars. When I asked myself, is it worth it? Well, for the quality and the craftsmanship of the gimmick and the knowledge in the tutorial and to have a fully fleshed out routine that is like crazy, crazy fooling, I'm going to say that 60 Aussie dollars is a small price to pay for such a strong piece of magic.

And it's even better value, of course, when you use the discount code, which we'll give you shortly. Now, when I think about who is this for, I think this is for any card magician who is looking to perform an extremely fooling practical piece of card magic. I think whether you're a beginner or a professional, Bangerang has a lot to offer.

So if that sounds like you, by all means, scope out pipermagic.com.au and purchase Bangerang from Nicholas Lawrence and make sure you use discount code PIPERGUYS and use that discount code for all of your Piper Magic purchases. Piper Magic Purpose. That was 98% perfect. I haven't screwed that up in a long time. I'm fucking cut. You can use it. Sorry, sorry. You're still going. Keep going. Yes. All right. No, you see, you are still going. No, I'm just mad about it.

Use discount code Piper, guys, for all your Piper Magic purchases. Fuck. Music.

Oh yeah we're gonna sell i'm convinced i got me one nick oh, that was an honest good review i'll agree with that uh i'm happy to have this in my hands spent my own hard-earned money on it and yeah i've got some fun ideas for the socials i think it's ideal deal for social media like it's not that it wouldn't be good in the real world but nice you know you know it'd be good nick i'm just thinking off the top of my head here is obviously you

don't want to put a performance of it you know trying it live for the first time or whatever on the pod but maybe you could chuck a short like general performance maybe up on the discord for the guys to see like how it how it looks when a real person's doing it not like the trailer is doing it you know well i was kind of thinking about doing an all-around jam session on the discord cord i feel it's something that we should sort of cultivate a bit more if you guys would be up

for having a little jam session like i was just kind of curious like when would we even do that when would it be sort of like a good time for people right after the podcast would not suit anyone here, You know, Doug, you've got your amazing Discord, which you need to... I set that up because it suits me, but it's evening time in the States. You know, I'm not opposed to moving my thing around a little bit because it does kind of make sense, but I don't know.

I'm flexible. Or we did a fortnightly so that you could have a week off every week. So one week you can go to Doug's, and then the week after you can come to Magic Guide, and we bounce around in a ping-pong fashion. Who knows? But if it's something you guys would be interested in jamming and sharing ideas, or just having a bit of fun or a laugh, we can put an hour aside, I'm sure, and have a bit of fun. But we'll figure it out.

If it's something you guys are interested in, just give us a heads up. If you have time, why don't you chill in the Discord right after this one, just in case. People go to Doug's, but maybe some people will also flick and see what Nick's up to. How's that sound? It would just give people a chance to jump on there and see what's up. I, of course, won't be there. So I have no input in this. Yeah. It's actually happening. Shut up. Gosh. I have everyone things to do in my app. God damn it.

Anyway. All right. Forget that. But I just saw our friend, the Christian Magician, just joined the server. Yeah, boy. Thanks for joining. Awesome. Every person that joins the fairy gets its wings.

You know? Well, I just, I mean, truth be told, I didn't know anything about Discord and I'm still still getting my head around it you know trying to make fun with rooms we got one room on there where we just like to share all the awful green rooms we have to perform in like yeah and that's just for us yeah i i was i was in a discord of a business group and they have it's for like youtubers and they have a channel in there called roast my videos and they also have one

called roast my thumbnails but i thought we could start a channel called roast my videos in there so people People can put videos up, but knowing that people are going to like give the feedback of like.

Why it's not doing well if you know what i mean like what do you what do you think doug doug's given a few nods there yeah i love that idea actually so you you post it knowing that you're going to get roasted but that's what helps us make better videos essentially i mean you know that could go either way you could end up with a bunch of crazy nonsense or you know honestly you know both things you know yeah like we've talked about doing watch parties so

many times on the pod that maybe that's something we should do in the discord because a podcast is obviously a sort of entity that you would listen to i know that i you know i live on podcasts and every time i go for a run or clean the house i have my headphones in and i just you know devour podcasts non-stop so maybe when we're doing more visual stuff we can do that on the podcast just while we're spitballing that too for

sure for sure let's let's work on it i might create that channel so So there's a place where you guys can post videos specifically if you want people to watch it and give feedback. But yeah, look, Magical Times. That's a great idea, Scotty. Did you hear that? Post and roast. Oh, that's what it's called. Man, Scotty, you have the ideas, bro. You came up with the spitball and animation and now you've got post and roast. I'm finding more and more that our listeners and viewers of the show write the

show for us. And it's just the greatest thing ever. Like it's just happening more and more. It's going to be great. Yeah. Wow. Look at everyone joining the, the discord right now that you guys are, you guys are great. I might be in the wrong discord right now. Nevermind. It's just still just one. That's still great. Goddamn. All right. So look, we've done reviews. We've done this and that. I mean, what's left Nick. What's what's happening this week?

Well, look, as far as the week goes, I I'm performing at the pink VIPs this week. So I got quite a bit going on. We've had the contract.

We've had the contract for that where we've got 20 dates all around oz and nz and our magicians through the omegan agency are performing in all these venues so that'll be my friday and saturday night performing for their vips and i get to see pink which is great i'd already bought tickets to the show because it was my sister my sister's birthday so i've got killer tickets for it anyways but she's going to be doing four shows here in melbourne alone so that's super

cool but But I'm really hoping to solidify a relationship with this touring group. And if it all goes well, it would be amazing because, I mean, Live Nation, who do these events, they bring massive touring bands frequently. So the idea to have maybe three or four of these a year would just be phenomenal for our business and for magicians in general to be performing for these pretty affluent people, in truth. These are not cheap VIP tickets at all.

And customer experience is key. But other than that, yeah, we've got quite a bit going on.

Writing a few more history episodes. If you guys are enjoying those, leave us a heads up. I'm doing Mulaney as one further down the track. But man, that guy had led a life. And I'm devouring the book that Steve Cohen had written about it as well. And I'm just trying to synopsisize it in basically a one-hour show. So yeah, maybe we'll do a history pod next week. All right. I like the sound of that. And Postum Roast is now in the Discord.

So go ahead. I wonder who's going to be the first to put that up, put up their video, but I'll be, I'll be keeping an eye on that today. So go ahead and yeah, let's have some fun with that. Awesome. Well, look, now that Doug's back, I reckon Doug leaves us with the final thought of the day and we're going to see all you fine folks next week.

Hey, I found that Larry Jennings trick over on the Conjuring Archive. So what you're going to be looking for is Synchronicity by Larry Jennings from the classic magic of Larry Jennings. And if you don't know what the Conjuring Archive is, well, go on the Google and Google up those words, Conjuring Archive. And you can find any magic information that you might need, like Larry Jennings Synchronicity.

This has been your final word. word and yeah salute 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.