Franco Pascali hangs out with the Magic Guys #207

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

Ladies and gentlemen out of a puff of smoke we are the magic guys welcome to episode 207 of this shenanery i can't believe it to my left konnichiwa we've got nick k oh. Because he's in Japan, people, that's why. That's why. Down below, we got Doug Kahn. Banzai! I don't know what they say in Las Vegas. Or a lot of the magic Doug has might be from Japan. I've seen a nice collection. You never know. And I'm Josh Nolbedo. Welcome to the show where we talk about the life of being a magician.

We interview wicked guests. and we do this live so that we can get instant questions from you guys which let's be honest we do it live so you don't have to edit the thing post you know it really saves you know what it really saves so much time you know people ask me like have you had to edit all 207 episodes well look well i used to i used to spend an hour and a half to two hours editing but now i hit download on this StreamYard, I upload it to AudioLand,

and there's an AI built-in feature that will cut out for me these breaks in silence, enhance the audio. When people talk over each other, it edits it out. Like, watch this. I'm going to talk now, and I'm going to talk now. That was five seconds, but you'll never hear that because it was edited out. Anyway, Nick, how are you doing? Except for our live viewers.

We're having the least experience right now. to the live viewers that sucked but uh but before we dive in nick how you doing you're traveling the world you're in japan at the moment what's the latest last week i was reporting from somewhere in british columbia canada it was awesome and cold and i've now migrated to tokyo where it is also, cold it's about two degrees here and strangely i'm feeling the cold here a lot more than i am in canada i don't know why but it's it's a different type of

cold it gets to your bones, Like in Canada, you go through the cold, but in Tokyo, the cold finds you. It's pretty great. But there's an abundance of a wonderful drink called sake. And if you drink enough of it, you will be fine. You know what it probably is? Maybe it's the humidity. That's what it is in New Orleans. The humidity and the cold get you. So if you're around water, and most of Japan is. Yeah. And it seeps in. Yeah, right. Well, food for thought. Science.

That's what we're here for. Weather and science.

Weather and science people hell yeah look let's dive into it this i'm going to introduce this guest now and it's a real pleasure i think the perfect way to describe this guy is he's like bridged the gap between cardistry and magic but in such a like finessed high frequency way like he's coming up with magic he's coming up with cardistry i just like art like magicians if you've heard of the judo flip cardistry move, that's Franco.

He might call it the Tokyo Rose part two, but I'll let him explain that. And he was a Magic Castle junior. He has early memories of learning magic from the age of four, doing coin magic to now being 27. So that's so much time for such a young guy. He's worked with Theory 11. He's worked with all sorts of high-end events. He doesn't have a corporate website, which I'm so intrigued to ask him about, even though he's so busy.

And he has the Carter Logo brand, which you can learn magic and get his cards from. Let's bring him on. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Franco Pascale. Hey, we're live now, right? We are live, buddy. Thank you for being on the show. So please tell everyone, who are you? What do you do?

Fire away. my name is franco pascali and i love card magic magic in general but definitely heavy on cards you know so every day i sit and i think and maybe plan for a show if i have a show or try and create something or cardistry or practice and this is my drug of choice to stay at home with a deck of cards that's interesting out of all the disciplines in magic why what's the affinity with cards do you think why are you so drawn to that was it somebody who

influenced you to do that or you know is it just something that you just have a proclivity for you know my father would have card games at the house every week so i grew up with these old heads just cracking jokes at each other and drinking and playing this card game called truco which is an argentinian card game i believe.

And i just say that to say that i think i liked cards before even magic before anything i just liked cards you know all it took was seeing one riffle shuffle and i'm like well i want to be able to shuffle like they do you know i want to shuffle like these guys my hands was a little too small at the time but i got really into that you had to wait till you were five to start the shuffling, well you know it's funny i think so what you were talking about learning coin

magic when i was four i got i think i was five my mom sent me this this footage.

And we were in the cook islands and i'm like trying to pull a coin from my ear but what's crazy about this is it's i saw this footage recently like two years ago i didn't know it existed before that so i was just like holy that's what you play when you go on the ht you know when you get on the forest did you do right i've seen you on there, no no no no magic there's a young man come on what's what you're waiting on is that a yeah is that a creative choice or just not something you've been,

like what's your thoughts on on that trying to like hitting the mainstream versus not i i i like i like all these shows i like it all you know i have no distaste towards them but i also am like a control freak and i like to do it like my way even if that's delusional the time so if i think to myself like oh there's this amazing piece i want to show off i'll probably think of how to do that through like my own way or network before i think about going on one of the shows but it's not for

dislike of the shows i watch you know i watch penn and teller foolish all the time even agt i've never particularly wanted to do that but um i still like to watch it that's for losers. It sounds to me frankly like you kind of want to stay in your own lane if that was the case like if somebody were to hire you for a performance, for example, what are they to expect? Like, what is the style of Franco?

You know, through my network in LA, and I do perform a fair amount in LA, much more than I travel. I don't want to say they like, no, I'm like this artsy guy, but there is kind of the vibe. Like you said, I don't have a corporate website. So people that find out about me are either through word of mouth or they saw me directly at the castle or somewhere else. So I think the people that hire me, my favorite thing to do is close-up shows.

Somebody's house, find a big table, just pack everybody around and go for, you know, 45 minutes or so. So I think they're just kind of like, there's this like artist guy who's like really, really good. People say he's really good and he's going to be here tonight. Kind of like that. It's nothing too crazy and too specific, but there's, I think, a specialness to a close-up show. So I try to get people on that.

Totally, totally agree. So when you say artist, I know that in some things I've read about you prior that like you're into music and an abundance of other things.

So outside of magic, what are the sort of things that you are into that influence your magic and how oh hell yeah, so heavy on magic and i never get bored of it so even when i do something else it's not because i'm bored of magic it's just to get something else out of me but music for instance i just love music my brother is a musician by trade he's amazing his name's cali mosa you can check him out on spotify he has some banger tracks he has like this hip-hop funky sometimes psychedelic

sound it's just amazing and he's really good so i live with him and i hear him making amazing things all the time i've been listening to rap music for a very long time and it kind of started with my best friend and i just sitting on this couch and freestyling just the dumbest things that you could possibly imagine you know all right challenge stephanie on nabito give him a beat quickly nabito give him a beat do it nabito no there's no i'll pick you off i'm out i'm out all right all right,

one four o'clock nabito done playing man.

No there's no way no but it is funny like for instance my brain is in a completely different world when I'm doing music you know so I get to be more.

Free and in some ways less like myself like when i do magic i want to be as much like myself as i can or heighten my favorite parts about myself to a performance level and when i do music there's none of that i don't need to please anybody i don't need to anything so i kind of have like a blank mental head space and then just try and get something out of me that normally wouldn't exist you know that's the way i feel when i do thimble magic yeah it's a whole different part of my world

that no one gets to see so much oh yeah all right i have a question i i was just listening to another interview you did and you asked a question but you asked it about cardistry and i'd love to ask you the question but about magic and the question you asked but i'll rephrase it for this podcast is if you had a magic button and you could press it and it changes three things about all magicians in the world what would those three things be let me let me start you off they should shower okay very

smart that's showering is a great subtlety not a lot of people talk about actually this is true and i'm not going to cast shade but i could right now on a show i was recently added a professional establishment in las vegas where you know one of the magicians had maybe not the best odor and he was one of the professionals on the bill. It's like not cool. It's not cool. It's not cool.

I would say I would want the, there's basic things like i think practice everything three times more than you're already doing so it's almost like if we could press a button and people's base level of what a lot of practices gets much higher because i always say you talk to some guys you're like oh how much do you practice like oh i practice all the time and that could mean two three hours a day and two three hours a day is a lot to practice something every day of your life

but there's other guys that are doing five six hours a day right and there's other guys that are doing nine ten so like how much is a lot of practice is relative so i would say bumping that up and the other thing i would want to change is the way we observe what is strong magic or what's a good effect right hopefully at its best we get this data from performing it and sensing what's the strongest thing that's the best way to do it right but beyond that i would.

Like people to directly see the link between how much you actually love and want to do the effect will make it stronger so it's almost like i want everybody to do the strongest stuff but more important for me i want everybody to only do the effects they want to do because they love it and they want to right because i even when i do gigs sometimes you know i might do venom cube and at the end of the day it's not really because

i want to do venom cube it might be because i've worked out as many you know i've done it on stage many times and it fits you know but a majority of the things it's just radiating the fact that you really are excited about what you're about to show them i think that is important and then the third thing cop out answer.

Would be for the card magicians out there to learn cardistry because cardistry and magic yeah they're different things but they're similar and i'll tell you what i've never met a single person in my life that like was taken like that found it weird i did cardistry i think if you look at a magician as a superhero and we go what are all the skill sets a magician would have it's like a telepathy and the ability to read people and maybe make things appear and the ability

to change things and card tricks. And within the world of cards, cardistry fits so naturally into that equation that it's a shame we don't see it so much because... Well, let's explore that because there are so many different theories on that. And what I find is that the older generation tend to slander it and say that it's not necessary. Or if you do...

You know cardistry it kind of shows that like oh like of course you can do everything with cards like it's look look at the way he shuffles them and it's like i don't think that detracts from the effect but you kind of need to take a moment and just go like i'm like you got to see their point is what i'm trying to say yeah i would i would say the the what i found to be funny is.

To solve all of this it's not even like a difficult rule it's just like don't do cardistry when you shouldn't be doing it, right? There's some effects where clearly why the hell are we going to do cardistry, you know? Some performers will have a style that don't need that action-packed stuff, but it's ridiculous to think that a skilled practitioner could not exhibit competence with their prop, you know? Or competent, not even skilled, but yeah, you're a magician.

Of course I know how to fan cards, duh, you know? Correct. That's true. Yeah. And I think there's also, do you find this, Franco? You'll do something that does look knuckle-busting, and that can actually heighten a piece that you do where you're completely not even holding the deck anymore. Because they've assumed that's how you do everything, but now you're not touching it. What the hell?

Oh, you're so spot on. And when it comes to, I mean, I do, I can do all sorts of magic as we all can, but obviously my love is card magic. So you kind of go, okay, Franco is kind of in this narrow field of doing magic. So then I go, well, if I'm going to do card magic, I want to take them to every corner of the universe. I don't want to say no to anything. I don't want to say no to cardistry. I don't want to say no to a gambling style.

I don't want to say no to a more comedic style. Like I want to show them the whole universe.

Like the older I get, the more I find reasons to say yes than reasons to say no, you know, because I see people going, I like a cans, but I don't like transpose or like, I like visual card magic but i don't like dealing based stuff or i i don't gambling routines are not for me like i'm the guy that comes in and i'm just like ready to try it all and find a way to implement that you know well if you were going to offer advice to anybody who's looking to blend both the skill

set of cardistry and magic into a routine yeah what advice would you give as a sort of starting point so for example i believe in flourish routines and i think that for for me personally my multiple card select is a perfect example of where you can implement the well yeah because you it's the way i frame it is i explain that i'm just peaking and every time i'm and as i'm cutting the deck i'm going i'm just looking for your card but you're cutting the deck 10

000 ways and doing fancy and oh i just found it and i go start on top or bottom but somewhere in the middle and then i find the card by launching it in the air and catching it in my mouth for example so those flash routines have a place but i haven't really thought about where else.

Cardistry as far as being applied to effects would be a good place do you have any tips for anyone else looking to sort of blend the two skills oh my god totally so one thing i will say is just like magic people talk about like what's a practical move right so this we also have to think about this in cardistry meaning the best techniques in magic are not only the best because of what they achieve, right?

But they're also the best because hopefully you can do it when the pressure's on, when there's a room full of people, lights, camera, action. So when I look at that lens, even me who's done cardistry for over 10 years now, when I'm live in front of people, the reality is I'm capable of this much, but really I can only do this much live because I need to be a professional about what's really going to stick the landing and so on, so on, so on.

So for me, I start close-up shows with 45 seconds to one minute of cardistry. It's not a lot, but even that's something to work towards. How does that perform, Franco? Is it music, silent? No, I speak through it. Yeah. Speak through it. I sit down and I say, I sit down and I say, you know, I love cards. I really do. And I've learned how to make them jump and dance in all of these different ways. So this is called an aerial technique because a card just jumps through the

air. But there's other ways to do aerials, like from the back of the hand all the way home. And I just kind of talk through it like this, right? And another thing is the adequacy to speak as your hands are moving resonates pretty heavily in their eyes. Because ultimately, to me, what's happening here subconsciously, it's two things. One, I want to look like a badass without the badass persona. I want to have a friendly, welcoming persona while looking like a badass doing things.

And then two it's a way to show them that they're in good hands fairly quickly both metaphorically speaking and literally speaking right because to show an audience that they're in good hands right away is something we all focus on and this is a very important thing to do we can do it with a quick routine we can do it with a joke we can do with multiple jokes we can do it with an immediate surprise at the start so for me you know i kind of like to get a certain message across with cardistry and

yeah you even get people after the show by the way a very common comment if i take some time and talk to the people they say man i could watch you shuffle cards forever you know love that and i love that yeah there's something there's something interesting about that too where people generally currently watch a card effect once but they can keep re-watching the same It's like ASMR maybe where the, you know, it affects the subconscious.

I have a question for you, Franco. So say you have a modern student interested in cardistry. Where do they start in 2025? It's a good question. I think if this person is already a magician, which at the time that I started cardistry I was, I kind of skipped straight to the trilogy, the Dan and Dave DVD. I mean, yeah, that was the hot stuff, what, 20 years ago, though, right? Yeah. Would you say that's still... I would say that's a good one because most of the time you just have to like

man up and spend 50 hours on your first move. Like the first move I learned was this. This started everything for me. The worm, huh? My friend taught me this when I was, you know, 15. And from this point on, I looked at the trilogy and then I tried to learn Pandora at the time and it was really hard and I couldn't do it. But then there's the molecule cuts and those were simpler where it's more something like this. And actually, the Buck Twin did just put all that material like they made it

public domain, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? Yeah. So for those listening, the young guys who are unaware of this, there was two brothers called Dan and Day that released a Buck's trilogy. I think it was just called The Trilogy, wasn't it? The Trilogy. Yeah. Back in the day, it retailed like 150 US dollars. And I got it. And, you know, that's where you learn things like Under Pressure and other really beautiful slights.

And as well as that, there is also a really good section of that trilogy in which they have effects, actual magic tricks that are heavily, heavily based in the art of cardistry, which is why I had to ask Frank of the question earlier. Yeah. You know, and speaking of questions, we have one from from Tim Askin. Now, it's a very broad question. He is asking, who were you influenced by? So let's let's let's break it down by each portion. So you perform many facets

of magic. I know card magic is your main love, but I also know that you like mental style effects as well. So let's start with the card game, venture into the mentalist game afterwards. Yes, card game. So I saw David Blaine one day and that was like, you know, as a kid, I mean, come on, you can't beat that, right? So my dad was on the couch and he's like, oh, let's watch this guy. Like, you'll like this. And we sat and we watched the guy, right?

And Blaine's doing the two card money and the tournament restored transpo and this, that. And I'm going on the internet and looking up how these tricks are done So what I enjoyed About David Was You know when I was six or however old I was When I first saw Blaine you know Was that, When I saw another magician, I had so many questions as to how real it was. And to learn it felt so unattainable. Like, for instance, you see Criss Angel.

Go to a random person on the street and slice that person in half, right? And I'm going, well, what does this do for me? This does nothing for me, right? Because as a kid, I'm just trying to like learn the trick and show people. So when I was able to learn Blaine's repertoire, there was an interesting understanding of like, The magic is in the persona and the method and the effect. And there are things we can do to make things stronger.

And I really liked cards doing that. Now, the early years, like let's say before 11 and younger, I'm going on Penguin Magic. I'm learning from these O's Perlman instant downloads. And I'm going on Illusionist. And I'm learning from that. And I'm going on YouTube and how to do card tricks. Because I was going to the playground, even second grade, third grade.

I had my cards in hand and i'm doing the work on kids right they had fun no teacher had any problem nothing you know i still have stories of kids telling me like remember you used to switch cards back when we were in school we were just kids used to tell me what number i was thinking of you know so it was just like i just really liked that street magic style that was my early. Formative thing and then when i got into the junior program at 14 that opened up a whole world of other stuff.

You know, I think, uh, in terms of subtlety versus force, I learned a lot from Danny to Ortiz where he opened my mind in terms of, oh fuck, I've actually been working a little too hard. It's actually not that difficult. It's more the attitude. And would you say that's a recent development for you because his magic is really just started to kind of get out there. Yeah. I mean, you tell me the, when he did Utopia, the Luis de Mato Yeah.

Great. That was unbelievable, you know? Yeah. About 10 years ago, probably. Yeah, that sounds right. And so would you say that you were like, as you become more of a professional performer and those style of routines interest you more now that you're in the wild performing more as opposed to just practicing in your room? Yeah. I mean, all those have influenced me in some ways. I still take notes out of Blaine's book.

I still take notes out of denny to ortiz book and i loved well i love still love woody aragon a lot you know just seeing that guy i've learned so much sitting with him talking about genius that one yeah there's a lot of you know i've been lucky enough to meet a lot of magicians and there's something to learn from everybody i really i really believe that so i'm like a hybrid card magician i have some spanish style in me some elegance some you know. That's great. Love it. Go ahead, Josh.

Another question we've got here from Ed. I'll read it out for our audio listeners.

Franco, is there a trick you debated on putting into an act because you weren't sure how strong it was and then it actually turned out to be a banger? Yeah, probably. I'd have to think though. But I feel like that happens fairly often, you know? Maybe just not in the act, but just like, I'll come up with something. I'm like, I don't know how this is going to work and it either works or it doesn't, you know?

But yeah yeah i do believe that you have to try things to see that's i do believe this you got to go show a bunch of dudes bunch of humans one at a time two at a time three at a time hopefully a room full of people because we could learn a lot from these scenarios right more of a professional setting but yeah that that's definitely happened if you're looking for specifics i'd have to think i can't i can't rattle one up well well let me ask you this how many times

does a trick need to be sort of like reiterated or like improved upon before it becomes a permanent act in your working repertoire so i'm very risky and i will just go for it even if i've never done it before in my life guilty i'd rather go hard the first time and then figure it out after because at the end of the day how bad could it be and in terms of structuring a close-up show or doing any show for that matter i'm totally the guy that's going to do 70 80 things i've

done before and then i'll play with that 20 evaluate risks and well let's let's let's explore that for a minute so that it's really important to have environments in which you can try new stuff and and afford yourself the liberty of failing. My personal thought process on this is that you like, it's not very polite.

If someone's paid you like a huge corporate rate for you to be working on new material per se, in what environments do you refuse to try new stuff because of the privilege they paid for versus other environments that you wouldn't mind sort of going like, well, you know, let's just say it's like, it's a simple roving gig or it's a one hour rove and I've got it running the pile of my hand. And I go, I got something new I'm working on. You guys want to see it?

And you put it right in the middle so you can hammock it between two awesome effects that you know are going to crush. Like, what's your advice for the folks listening? So first, if I'm unsure that a trick will work, I probably won't do it. But if I know it's going to work, I'm just unsure of how it will play. I'll do it every single time. Like, that'll never scare me. If I could sit and just, like, do the math in my head and go, well, this works.

This will work. We just now have to see how well it plays. Like, I normally take those all day, every day. I'm never scared of that because it's only going to be one, two new pieces at the end of the day. When I'm strolling, I'm a maniac. I'll do anything.

I'll pull things out of my ass. I'll make it up on the spot because there's going to be, like, you know, five, six.

Beats that i'm going to hit per group anyways but when i'm like strolling i do a lot of random and a lot of interesting effects have come from like being in a strolling environment i do i stroll with two decks so i have two decks in play all the time and just things start popping in your head a good question about now i'm thinking about this when i'm strolling if i have somebody doing something with another deck and i'm explaining some process

to them i might be doing cardistry with a deck in my hands for no other reason than I can. And I might not even look down, but I like that they know I am, you know? So sometimes it's like a peripheral kind of thing that's going on. So basically, if it's strolling, I'll take much more risks than if it's a show. But if it's a show, I'll still take some control risk. This is what street performing is good for.

Street magic at all. Just take it out in the wild and throw down if it messes up, who cares? Yeah. Yeah, I guess in that environment, it's the type of thing where it's like, you're on my time which means i can do what i want but when you're hired you're on their time because the privilege they've paid for and so it's like well if i'm on your time and yeah yeah, that's a really healthy way to go in about it yeah it looks like we have a question from scott.

Scott it says yeah oh you got it because i can't see it from where i am franco scott says franco what is your mindset when you're performing you always seem so positive and open which i would What is your mindset when you're going to perform close-up for a group of people or during a stage show? Nice. Scott is awesome, by the way. He took some lessons with me in the past. I see him at the magic shop as well. Love you, Scott, first of all. Yeah, Scott.

Close-up? Frank goes to get that plug-in that he gives lessons. Open. Professor is open. Every magic guy needs a Scotty. We got a Scotty P. That's right franco lessons but i think i need to raise first could be.

Mindset while doing a close-up gig so loving the material is a big part of the mindset because that helps me relax and the more relaxed i could be before the show the better. I'm genuinely trying to relax and ease my mind as much as possible. And that comes easier the more you do a show. But it's just really important because when I, especially when you're at somebody's house, I don't get an introduction.

So what does that mean? That means you have to be comfortable with sitting at the table while everybody's gathering around and everybody's figuring out how we're going to do this thing. You know, I'm not hiding while that's happening. I'm just out there.

I'm just chatting with people. by the way perfect time to do cardistry in these moments right many times i'm at someone's house i'm sitting at the table while people are just coming in and sitting just talking to them and doing this and then they go whoa and then i'm like oh you like and then i just do more and more it just kind of like helps so i do go for relaxation and just love and just try and smile at people because i'm genuinely want to be there you know yeah how much are you,

how much is your how much of your ears trying to absorb the stuff people are saying and like to improv off the situation i mean we know how that goes hopefully we're listening a lot right hopefully we're listening a lot and one thing that comes with relaxation as i'm saying now is the ability to do what you're saying more right because you're right like part of the reason why i want to be so relaxed is so i could free up more of that brain space for like the little other things going on.

I think because that's when the real magic happens when you can be in the moment which we're talking about you do so much, you're a crazy man when you're doing roving that's because it seems like you're able to actually absorb the surroundings and so that's probably something else that comes with doing stuff that you've practiced so much so your brain CPU isn't being used by okay how do I do this trick you're just now thinking of,

Yeah, when you're doing the magic, you don't want to be thinking about the method or the presentation. That should all be like breathing because there's going to be enough to worry about. Absolutely. Yeah. 100%. Well, look, you mentioned lessons with Franco. And I think who just mentioned that? Oh, yeah, Scott just mentioned it here. Franco's lessons are incredible and it made me a better magician.

So could you talk about that a little bit? Like what made you decide to go down the teaching routes?

What does it sort of consist of and like how are you kind of finding that that endeavor so i love to think and talk about magic and if i feel like i can help somebody that makes me feel good i also particularly think that one-on-one you can be most effective and i haven't done many lectures really ever not that i'm against it i would love to i'll probably do lecture at some point right you'll see me somewhere but just when you're

one-on-one i get to examine each person and give them a lesson plan that I think will really help. And I've gotten all types of people, all skill levels, even some working pros where it's like, I know they really are wanting more to chat. And for them, it turns up, it ends up becoming more like, here are some routines I do professionally in the show, in context. Let's talk about this, you know. But for newcomers, like you just, you kind of see where people are at.

You see if people have an affinity to sleight of hand or not. And I enjoy it. I enjoy always custom tailored lesson plan. You know, it's not the same for everybody and only card magic because although I love all magic, I see someone wants a lesson. What do they do? Find you on Instagram. You don't have a website. DM me on Instagram. Do you do other social media? Is it mainly Instagram? Mainly Instagram. Yeah. For now, you have a card to logo YouTube,

but we're going to put some videos in the near future. It seems like I've been seeing you on social media for, I don't know, longer than you've been alive. When did you start putting stuff up for public consumption on the internet? I'd have to really think about it, but pretty damn sure it would be right around I got into the Magic Castle Junior program. So, 10 years ago? 13 years ago, 13 years ago, where were you doing that guy?

I was, was it like magician's video network? Were you around for that? Or what do you mean? What's that? When did you start publishing the video online and where were you doing that? I think on Instagram, you know, a lot of these, yeah. A lot of these I've gone rid of and archived, you know, I don't want to cringe at myself, but I think I'm pretty sure most of the time it was Instagram. Yeah. or collaborating with other card brands that do stuff for their things, you know?

Yeah. You've been in the social streets for a while. Yeah.

Talk a little bit about the group you mentioned. You called it Carta. Carta Lago. Carta Lago. What's that jam? Just my main project where I want my magic publications to live and the playing cards that we print to live there.

And even a gallery of unique videos you know just like that let's call that home base you know i think that's where i will cultivate and release most of my artistic projects so you produce decks as well you have some hard copy as they say yeah yeah i have two decks of cards i think for me the most important thing is if i can perform with them yeah that's important and do cardistry with them but USBC feels good so any deck from USBC

will be great for cards pretty much yeah so yeah it's funny because I was recently designing people have asked me about what I'm going to do for the third deck of Cartelago for a while been asking me and two things one.

It's hard and expensive you know so that's, true but I make a lot of decks and I'm like wow this deck looks so cool and I like this but it's a one way and I go I hate that it's, like i know cardists would like it and i would like it too but i will be so annoyed if i order a whole thing from the factory and i'm not even doing my close-up show with it it just won't feel right you know so i'm just kind of really trying to make a deck that's just

simple enough but totally usable for magic not too busy nice on the eyes and i love that well cards are the one thing where we can we can actually go on our own supply yes.

Yeah yeah people like that too by the way when i have a gig you know i bring them my cards at the end of the show i will two things that i frequently yeah bro that's a power move that's a business card you do the show or at least what what i would recommend if it works for your show because i don't even at like a close-up show i'm fairly gaffless i don't have any gaffer things like this right so also a power move that actually leads into a question but for here from ad,

he was actually asking, do you utilize any utilities, gadgets, or anything that are always on you? You're saying you're just sort of gaffless and straight up? Most of the time, yes. Most of the time, yes. When I do strolling, not so much, because even though I like to be a madman and try different things, there's a level of commercialism that I do like to hit, you know? So I do have some gadgets on me strolling and some little things. Consider the universal smoke watch. the universe.

Check it out no I gotta get plugs in here the boss isn't happy yeah, while I'm in the magic shop if I mention things we sell occasionally, brilliant I just mentioned the universal smoke watch let me put it away and show everyone quickly look it's this little thing and it goes right in here it's got a remote control.

Magic reveal no it's on it's on the freaking i know i know i know but sorry frankie you were saying about the decks that you give away at the oh yeah so i'll do the act and there's two things i'll do, which is one i'll bring extra decks for the host even one deck by the way i'll say i probably make these cards and wanted to give this to you but the other thing i like to do that's like a little more maybe poetic is if i ever see somebody that's just really like

taken aback by what had just happen at the end of the performance i give them the deck i used yeah so i say by the way these cards are normal i want to give these to you as a gift and i'll just give it to a spectator that seems particularly touched by what has happened or the show yeah that's such a beautiful way to do it instead of just giving it to like the last person that helped in the act or whatever especially if it's your deck like if i created these here enjoy them you know that's a

really strong yeah moment yeah because by the way in all fairness i've done it with bicycle cards as well, i think it means it means a very similar thing to the spectator being given them by you back in the day i used to give away a sock every time i would just at the end, you know, and, but it didn't seem to have the power that the cards. Yeah. I have card socks and pizza socks. They're always nice socks. Alex Boyer in the chat is saying, I do this, but with my underwear.

Alex got that for me. He saw me do the sock thing and he just, you know, ramped it up a notch. Yeah. I think you can buy them from a vending machine here in Tokyo. What I'm curious though, Alex, is what happens when you have two gigs that day? Nowadays we give away the paper to pants another plug.

Wow i pulled this off the shelf to prove we have everything someone's gonna love doing this trick it's a paper tear that turns into it looks like a g-string i haven't opened it up and done it yet but i was like paper to pants we do have a trick supply you know of could be a big market for that effect you know i remember i mean i when i was doing when i was doing my first show i was you know using flash paper to produce a pack of cards and i was going to do one

more effect for the evening and i do a flash production and i produce this enormous pair of underwear and and it gets a laugh and i turn to the to the person on my left i'm like are these yours and and i'd be like no and then i pull a deck of cards out of the underwear i'm like oh these are mine and that's excellent water let's go stupid franco we do a segment normally called um gig stories where we bring up like it's usually

because we're always gigging it's something that recently happened but like a crazy story at a gig where it was just something wild happened or maybe like something miraculous that made it a miracle with magic happened or like you know a crazy person was a spectator there so many yeah what what yeah do you have a favorite or a recent one that was super bizarre? Yeah, I'm thinking more recent. There's definitely some that are very interesting. Starting with...

Well, in stack, okay, sometimes people name cards next to each other, and this could be helpful, right? The last time I did the Magic Castle close-up gallery, I had somebody name a card, somebody names another card, my brain is understanding, oh, it's next to those two, somebody names a third card, and it's next to those three, and then somebody names a fourth card, and That's never happened in my life.

And they were all right there. It was like a run of King of Spades through Ten of Spades or something like this. It was like the king that, and I was just like, are you fucking kidding me? So that was pretty like, that was pretty, pretty intense.

That's on like the magical miracle side. But in terms of, let's say more work professionalism stories, crazy thing that has happened recently is I did a gig in Vegas a few months back. By the way, next time you're here, look me up, bro. i gotta i gotta hit you up doug yes i'm sure we'll have fun oh yeah i gotta go by the show you gotta show me the paper we'll go out to the club we'll go to the club i'm down.

So i'm doing this show and we had a deck of cards for everybody in the room that we were going to use for an effect and specifically it was a pellegrino and aquapana thing okay i'm not sure exactly how those tied in but those people from their team and whatnot and you can tell the client sometimes every detail and sometimes it really seems like they're going to listen but sometimes you show up and nothing is done right yeah so

that day my friend max i don't know if you know max major who's uh awesome and he's a total he really saved me here because i'm like will you help me do this show like there was one little bit like i needed help with i'll give you money it'll just be fun like you just need to help with it he's like oh for sure he's like the man right so we go over to this place and we had.

It's here right max is in vegas isn't he that's right yeah yeah okay sorry we had these ai printed cards with everybody's face on them right of the people yes everybody's face on them and it was put in a deck of playing cards and we had told them that we don't know who is who so all you guys need to do is like for like the gifts that everybody gets everybody got like a little gift bag or something we had to have the name in the right deck for the right person basically basically what's your

name oh here's your gift bag and we get there and not a single one was done and the shows in like two hours so that was like oh my god like this is really bad at this current moment now luckily they understood that they messed up and we had like a whole factory of like five workers on day rent me and max just sorting through all the deck and we finished like 10 minutes before showtime and then we did the show and it went great you know but sometimes

you have to you have to really think on your toes you know where it's just like client is like you know here's another one client's like oh do a close-up show i'm like amazing she's like what do you need i send her like five reference photos of what i need for the table layout real simple i'm like look i need a big table just as nothing on it entirely cleared off make sure. That everybody sits around they're like perfect we got you you show up and it's like not.

That at all and then you're just like oh shit we got to do this anyways you know so there's there's tons of craziness both on the magic side and just the. Logistic side of like pulling things off you know well are there other examples where you've gone to these crazy great lengths for an event? Like you just mentioned that. I think you mentioned Theory 11 helped out with that, right? That particular one. But are there other examples where you've.

Like, do you have a team with you that's behind the scenes? Like, all right, let's make like this wildest thing happen because they just never expect that we went to that great length. I don't really have a team, no, but... But, you know... There's, you know, there's... I don't want to say too much, but for like... There's some... So the answer is yes, I can hear it. I do some behind the scenes stuff, you know, with some close-up shows that just might help.

If depending on the people that are there, maybe I know some people that are going to be there or maybe I could find something out or, yeah. Great. Yeah. So, yeah, it is a helpful tool to have in the kit sometimes for the experience of the guest, right? Like, I've always thought it would be cool to be in a show and then the spectator you pick, you, like, make something vanish and it appears, like, stuck to their front door.

But like maybe they don't see it till they get home or like you have someone their video calling to show oh that is my actual house and you know like that that not like a magical thing but just like you've gone to the efforts to figure that out and now it becomes magic because they're, being like how the hell did you know where i live that how do you know i'd be thinking about it's already there and then when they get home it is there and like it's you know they'll talk about it for the rest of

their life oh my god totally the ai cards feels like a similar thing like no other event have they gone to where they were gifted a deck of cards and the jokers have their faces on it you know it's insane. Well, that was a great, that was actually a great, I, I, someone mentioned, I wonder if, cause that happened at the castle, the four cards in a row, someone jokingly said, I wonder if they all just knew the stack.

But even that. Oh my God. So that, you know, I'm thinking that, but no, there was just, there was just no way, you know, I was shocked, like mouth. I'm like, this is great. It's like, you know, this, this happened to me once this way, but I go name any card, two of hearts. And then I go, do you want to change?

Four clubs right and then i'm just like ah this person's done this person's done right yeah so there's things like that where you just you wish that it was being filmed i have a friend who says my friend antonio says he wants to ask god what were the strongest tricks he's ever done like the ones that were never filmed like he just wants to see the show reel of like what's the strongest things i've ever done and how does well the bit i can't believe this was filmed and then we'll move on.

But we had, Penn and Teller were just touring Australia. And in Brisbane, we have a show that we do every Saturday called the Theater of Magic. And Teller came to watch the show and I'm doing the closeup act. And the guy that I bring up on stage, I just remember him saying it was his birthday.

And that's why his girlfriend brought him tickets to come to the show and i go he's holding the deck i say name any card he says eight of clubs tell his front row at this show and i look at him go and you're here because it's your birthday like yeah how how old are you 33 and i had done a film and it was the best moment ever and say no more to do that while teller's in the audience is insane. Just kidding. Yeah, that's how I felt. But the hardest part is, you know, acting controlled.

This happens in every show. You know, I'm not excited. This is, you know, how it always happens. A hundred percent. All right, let's go. Stefan says, are you planning to go to any conventions and or to lecture? I think we were just bringing up lecturing. Yeah, well, will you be at Magic Live this year? I'll be at Magic Live for sure.

We'll see you there all right yeah and then there's some i don't know if i should announce yet but i think i'm going to be performing in spain for something in july with some awesome guys yeah so yeah what about magic live i go all the time yeah i've always wanted to see matthew writes he's got a theater there matthew right doesn't he the chamber of secrets right is that what it's called i i don't even know who matthew right is i'm sorry i'm not even sure are you Are you saying in Vegas?

No, no, in Spain. In Spain. So Matthew Wright is a UK magician. I think he placed a fism a couple of times as well. Yeah, and he's released an abundance of effects through Murphy's and so forth. He does an amazing three fly where the final coin, the final destination it's called, and the final coin floats across from one hand to the other. Maybe I have, that's ringing a bell almost. You should look him up, But I know that he has a theater there that he started off with his partner, Alana.

He lectured here in Melbourne a long, long time ago. And he seems to be doing pretty good. I saw on his Instagram, he jumped in a Ferrari 458. That's a $400,000 car here in Australia. So I think he's doing okay. So yeah, so maybe look it up. Maybe you got to talk to Matt. Yeah, you got to talk to this guy. Yeah. And what about Cardistry? like are you going to Cartopia or Cartistry Con or any of those.

Not to my I might go to Cartistry Con you know not confirmed but I think it'll be in New York so I might try and go to that yeah yeah nice one.

Yeah and at magic live for anybody oh sorry no no go for it we're here for you oh no i was just gonna say for magic live anybody that's going i sit at a table with my friends and we taught card tricks for three days straight and that's it so feel free to say hi like we're we're very easy we don't i don't i go to just relax honestly i just sit at a table and enjoy you know that's the stuff that's the stuff it is yeah hell yeah i mean half the

time people like come to magic live don't actually buy a ticket to the convention but just hang out that's me that's yeah for like the past three four years you know yeah that's the way to do it it's where the good stuff happens, that's where the magic is man we had another question here from from stefan which is an interesting one seeing that i'm on vacation to avoid this he says here in regards to burnout.

In regards to burnout what is the one thing that keeps you going is it performing or creating or something else do you ever burn out do you ever get tired of magic and need a breather, i have tried to practice the art of not getting burnt out and although that is an insane claim to have i don't have any answers for this but i can tell you what i do and has helped me so the first thing i always say is there's like i think there's a base of five or six things

you can do for me because i'm a magician and cardist so those would be try to create something new.

Refine something you already know or created or have learned or try and learn something new so the big three so that applies to cardistry so in a way if i get burnt out of learning new cardistry i could jump to i'm trying to be careful not to flip you off i was about to put the wrong finger down i could uh you know i could jump from okay i don't feel like creating cardistry but maybe i can learn cardistry oh i don't want to learn okay maybe i could

refine and move i already know same with magic so constantly jumping between those like do i want to sit and be a thinker today do i want to absorb information or do i want to refine the information that already exists in my head so i'm constantly looping between those and when it comes to burnout another great thing about cardistry is it's so different from the creative magic process it's the same in terms of your neurons are working the neuroplasticity helps both right

just being creative helps anything creative in general i firmly believe this but they are very different and like for instance i posted.

Fair amount of cardistry moves last week i believe on my cardilago account those are all moves i kind of made that day you know like just seven hours eight hours ten hours on the couch with normally a friend is doing the same thing and i put those up and it was just fun to do put it up, so now this week i'm feeling more magical you know and maybe i'll spend some more time on magic i'll still do that but constantly shifting

and then if i'm sick of those six things which almost never happens maybe i'll try and get a friend over and he'll make a beat and i'll try to make a song that's what the thimble magic's for franco yeah you haven't started the thumbles yet.

Gotta get some pimples well i i love i love the phone i love that you avoid burnout on magic by doing more magic that's the best yeah that is a different area it would be like i like to go hiking and i like to go i like to oh i take a break and i eat some ice cream you're like you know when i'm burning out of magic i do a little bit more magic i feel like i've done a little bit more magic i like to watch magic and when i'm done watching

magic then i like to teach magic like to teach when i'm done teaching magic i just grab a book and i smell it i just and my favorite book to smell is tarbell, spicy yeah like do you know what i did to avoid burnout i fucked off to canada for three weeks.

Well played i'm snowboarding on mountains and and you know visiting dispensaries do you have cards with you there do you have playing cards with you in canada cards right now in japan yes in general yeah absolutely i'm asking nick k who's they're always on me they're always on me yeah yeah yeah i actually keep them in a jacket pocket right now you do franco i was like whoa yeah what do you mean hey franco i'm curious do you do you keep decks everywhere in the

house and this is a very serious question do you genuinely keep a toilet deck that you just leave in the toilet, Oh, that's funny. Like you don't take it with you. I don't ever take, I mean, not ever, but I don't do toilet decks. Good. Now, I'm looking at about 15 deck of cards that I'm not going to turn around because my place is a mess. So there's always cards everywhere. I see some bicycles. I see an attack on Titan deck for some reason.

Some anyone checkerboards, a red Fournier, another pack of bikes, my friend's 1902 decks. Yeah, there's cards everywhere. It's a disaster. It's a disaster. Nice. Separate question to that Marquise has asked What happened to your song Mystic And will you release it on Spotify?

Oh that's so funny I don't know I could I just took it off Because there was a part of that instrumental I wanted to like use for something else, But I'm actually kind of shocked That he noticed that To be honest with you, Do you ever find Is there any crossover where people get confused What you do? Like by having these different artistry interests or not so much? Like what do you find? Because you obviously dabble in different things, artistry, magic, music.

Is there anything like that? People know I think I'm a magician. At least my whole friend group are the people here. And by the way, if I'm at a studio with some artists, I'm showing them some shit. Like for sure. It's a great environment to show people shit. People are already energized and trying to have fun. And musicians very quickly see the artistry in everything we do very quickly, you know, so it tends to be enjoyable, but yeah.

Do you have any advice for magicians wanting to do magic full time? You have a very unique approach by word of mouth, by performing at the castle, and obviously your connections in LA and through Theory 11 and stuff, but is there anything you've observed, that you would pass on for magicians to think about if they want to do it full-time even? Should they? Should they? It's a hard question because what I do, I do a little of everything. I teach a little bit.

I help people with their projects as they need. People need photos. I can help with this. i release my own ebooks and i do the playing cards so the only thing that keeps me going is a combination of a little of everything obviously i don't do it for the money i fucking love this if i were doing it for the money i would be pretty dumb you know but i would say if you want to be a professional magician just like very basic advice but you do have to kind of start asking yourself,

is this worth my time at every given corner, even when it comes to a slight you're practicing, a routine you want to put effort to?

I think the whole thing of professionalism is just like, you're kind of adding these lenses where you're evaluating what it does for you, like really, you know, like if I work on this routine for a week straight, because it's going to turn into a showpiece that's very valuable, you know, but if months go by, and I'm learning a grip of a bottom deal I'm never going to use that's kind of the opposite of professionalism although you could learn things from that process either,

you just got to be hard on yourself as all performers are we're all our harshest critics. And film yourself doing magic and look at the footage even if you don't show anybody because you will shock yourself at what you see I know a lot of magicians who haven't really filmed themselves and really looked at it. When you film yourself and you look at yourself, that's like you get to see how you come off and how to tighten the screws.

On the business side of things, I'm a terrible person to ask, like in terms of strategy and whatnot. But I will say like, sometimes you can take things into your own hands. Like you were asking, how do you practice new material? I hit up a friend who had a spot, a little clubhouse. It was part of this hotel. And we're like, let's do a magic night. Can I film it? He's like, yeah.

I'm like you'll get the people there he's like yeah and then i did four close-up shows 19 minutes each you know i mean not 19 people each it was like a 45 minute show but that was not a gig i just kind of made a gig for myself for the opportunity of filming it and looking at that footage and trying out new stuff honestly and it's amazing people come out to a night it's just drinking the same magic you gotta sit there there's no stakes nobody's like oh you're to

disappoint the client you're just kind of doing your thing so taking things into your own hands anytime you can you know you know see we're almost out of time but i'd love to one more question if i mean i think it would be cool to know like you said a lot of do's and it's all been really good advice what are some don'ts that you have for magicians out there what sort of advice you're like don't do this don't be that person don't approach it this way i think the biggest don't is

don't be replaceable so like across the board the best magic i've ever seen in my life i'm looking at whatever it is and i'm thinking to myself what a special thing this woman or this gentleman is doing right like this is what this person does and this person's doing that but if i leave feeling like it could have been anybody in that room doing the same thing i think this is really bad you know and there's a lot of ways to not be that and there's the simple things we can do which is like.

Mean this is a whole nother debate but i don't do double cross not because it's not an amazing trick but it's really because i don't feel it fulfilled really when i do it and believe it or not i've been at gigs and i go i've seen this one before like for somebody like me who tries to be like artsy fartsy that i've seen this one before is like a stab to my heart i wish it wasn't this is like a flaw of mine you know because i really take it personal and i'm like well i'm a

idiot it you know why did i why am i doing this thing right so definitely find any way to not be replaceable and listen to everybody but only really listen to yourself so it's like taking all advice without getting upset at people for it let people say everything they want to say and take it all in and consider everything but at the end of the day you just got to listen to yourself for sure for sure yeah great advice great advice thank

you for asking that question nick because franco that was like maybe the best source and it was like right near the end of the episode. That was a killer a couple minutes for sure yeah franco given the testimony, sweet wow well so we've we've put as nico alluded to in a second we put franco's links below you'll find everything starting off with his instagram you can find out how to contact him to learn from Franco.

Then he has his other channels for cardistry and his private account for sharing magic ideas. And then Nick, carry on from there, my friend. Well, just a big thank you for being here, Franco. I've been an admirer of your work for so many years and it's so cool for us to finally set up a friendship and thank you for coming on the show and allowing us to share you with the rest of our world. So as we wrap up, we'd like to leave you with the final word.

Everyone else in the chat. Thank you for your questions. We'll be here again next week. You can scope out all of our links below, as Josh said. But I think it's time for our good friend Franco to take it home with the final word. The final word is, if you love what you do, they will love seeing you do what you do. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.