Is Magic more enjoyable as a Career or Hobby? #164

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 164 of the Magic Guys. We're here, we're live, and we're badasses. We're the magicians that are here to share all the advice and things and mistakes we've made and just to share all the goodness to help you become more whimsical wizards. To my left, we've got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friends. Oh, yeah. And down below, we've got Doug Kahn.

Who should actually- Patience. To the kindred spirits and to the haters, how y'all doing? Oh, yeah. We need them all. And Doug needs more haters because all his last haters became fans. Come on, let's get- I'm ready for the whole ballgame. Isn't it ironic that the Aussies are above Doug? Like, we're meant to be down under, technically. So- Well, we are upside down.

That's true we are upside down and it's but we're in the future we're upside down but in the future so how's that for a mess about seven minutes in the future let's make this podcast go a little quicker that's it we were just talking about the timeline we were all we started a couple minutes late we're back yapping about timeline we were talking about brian saint last week who who was just killer. He's got this book that has some just fantastic magic in it.

And this moment he has with this timeline app, It's a killer. And not only that effect. And so also I wanted to bring up for those who didn't watch Brian Sainz episode last week, please go watch it or listen to it. Or if not, or if you did and you skipped over the part that he mentioned, he has a book, which is a PDF. You can download instantly from his website.

It has so much magic jam packed in it that I've never bought something where there's more than one thing I'm going to use straight away. There's three effects in there that I'm already using already in the last week. So just quickly throw that out there. The link to his book is in the description of this podcast. It's more like lecture notes. So it's not going to take you, it's 50 pages. It's going to, you're going to read through it quick and you're

going to, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. This is great. This is great. The dude is a legend and we're glad to have had him on. Most like the legends we have in the chat. Nick, who we got in the house tonight? I can see a lot of friends. We got a few regulars. It's good to have you here, friends. Friends, we have Tim Askin, we have Dragotear, we have Eddie, Scotty Link, Scotty P. What's up, Scotty? Good to see you here, friends. What's up, Scotty? And kill two birds with one stone.

That's right. A good friend, Thomas, who's very happy that we're starting a little earlier today. Thanks for being here again, Thomas. Look forward to giving you guys a good show.

I love Ed's comment. God damn you. The baldy bunch. And you son of a bitch. That feels like a thing. There's nothing wrong with that. story of a bunch of magicians. Adonis. I saw it. And they all try to do Saturday, Friday and Jackson square, New Orleans. Adonis was in my city. We took a picture. He said, hello. I was out there with the people doing my thing this weekend. You know? Yeah. I saw it. I love seeing those live videos of you, man.

Yeah. They're rare these days. It's a rare sighting of Doug con in the wild, but I was telling me your coins Coins Across is your, sorry, your Coin Matrix slash Coins Across. Maybe the best version of that type of effect I've seen. Is that, do you ever teach that? Is that a product you have? I do my members area on YouTube and, you know, it's a culmination of masterworks by David Roth, Mike Amar, Dean Dill, Homer Lee Wag, a little bit of me in there.

But when you combine all those greatnesses together, of course, it's going to be good. So yeah, I don't have this available for the public because of all the guys that are involved in it, but I feel like I could offer it to my YouTube members. So if you want that information, it's there. It's five bucks to join that membership and worth it. I'm joining. $5.95. I'm joining. Can I take like any money we ever make from this podcast one day out and use that?

Can I do an IOU? Wait till May 1st and join LearnSlideOfHand.com. I'm launching that next month. It'll have the work on that. I'm reshooting all that work. And actually, it won't have the work on that because there's a gimmick involved. No gimmicks on that site. Oh, yeah, it's coming for better or worse. I'm hitting the go button May 1st. All right. That makes a good conversation where we can actually have a chat about like gimmicks versus purists.

Yeah. When I decided it was learn slight of hand, at least to start, I'm just going to keep it that and you start mucking up the pond with, you know, gimmick stuff. And it's not as pure as it could be. I think we need to niche down as students with all of the information that's available, you know, and if you want to learn sleight of hand, well, maybe you don't need to read the whole Tarbell course. Maybe you just need the sleight of hand lessons that are in there.

And, you know, it's kind of the mindset I'm approaching this with. You need some structure, right? Like if you can learn the best knowledge of the sleight of hand, be a practitioner, then you can sprinkle some extra gimmickery later on. Right. You don't want to go the other way, right? I'm actively also making learn gimmick magic.com as well. That's an exposure site where I'll expose all the latest gaff works in an effort to drive everyone to the sleight of hand site.

Yeah. And that, and that will sadly get like the most views. Probably. This is when I become a rich man. I'm sick of trying hard and doing fighting, you know, with, with theory and history and crediting the giants upon whose shoulders I stand. I'm just going to go to the dark side. Yeah. Maybe I'll put a mask on so you won't know it's me.

We can do those videos where you're sitting, showing the trick and then I'm sitting behind you and then I jump in front and I pull it apart and show the string. Josh is on board. I got Norbito on the team.

Yeah. Yeah. I might come to the dark side. What do you think? little light exposure i i can't even think of the money we've seen it you see marie saw chuck i don't know man i make my money performing and i think that is the purest way of making magic you want to make money performing you know i feel like we can segue into our. Idol like i think so too so thank you everyone for for sending in your voice messages we love of them, please send them even if we don't ask for them.

The link is in the description as well. Speakpipe.com forward slash the magic guys. You guys sent in a whole bunch today. At the end of the episode, we'll pick one person who's going to get some sweet, sweet merch. So not to say that this guy wins because we used his question as the title of this video, but it definitely made for a provoking starting point.

So this first person, uh, Doug, what's this person's name? You you're familiar with this guy. Nick. Nick, Drago tier, right? Is that who we're going to listen to? That's right. Yeah. Yes. The kindred spirit, if there ever was one, we've been talking Marvel snap and our discord DMS comparing our nerdy digital collectible card game decks. So. Well, that really dragged on there, Doug. All right. I'm going to play his voice message.

Okay. Here's the magic guys. I've recently started learning how to do magic and I've decided that I don't think it's a career path for me. I think I'm just going to keep it as a hobby. So my question for you is, how do you feel about people learning magic as a hobby? Just performing for friends and family, not going out and doing gigs. Good question. Good question. I think it's initial thoughts. I think it's honorable to be aware that you just enjoy it as a hobby.

To be fair, it's probably magic is probably more enjoyable as a hobby. But for me, I don't think I would put as much time into it if it wasn't because I also do it as a career. I like that I don't have to spend time on a day job. I can spend the time on the magic, but there is a very fine line in making sure you still enjoy it. because there are definitely times where it can not feel like that.

And I kind of wish I just had a ton of money so I could just do magic and enjoy it and not have to worry about doing it for money, if that's my honest thoughts. I don't know, man. My thoughts on that is that most of the brilliant, brilliant magicians I know aren't professionals. The most creative, brilliant gimmick makers and they come at me with ideas that absolutely fry my brain, things that should be sold on Murphy's and Piper Magic and so forth.

Those guys aren't the pros, but they're guys like yourself who are just lovers of the game, who think about it and have more opportunities to actually just work on it and play with it. Because the main difference between being a professional and an amateur or just a lover of magic, in my opinion, is that when you're a professional, you don't need to constantly learn stuff. You don't need to constantly keep working on stuff. You have what is called

ultimately a working repertoire. And you take your work in repertoire and you can run it for years, sometimes as long as a decade, if not longer. And you just keep working on these, let's say, four to ten routines at most. And I mean, that's a mixture of close up and stage bits. And you just constantly polish these things and get them better and better and better and better as time goes on.

But when you have the luxury of being someone who has doesn't have to do it for a professional and has the time to spend working.

Working on magic and just reading magic and consuming it for no other reason than the pure love of the game i feel like you guys almost have a leg up over the professionals because you get to experience and learn and play with it and it doesn't matter too much that you don't do it perfectly because when you're a professional you can't risk doing it like not perfectly so as long as erroneous if you're amateur or professional so long

as you treat it with respect and you do it it with the intention to make people smile and not do it for the exposure or to be a dick or expose, you know, you do it for all the right reasons. It doesn't matter what you are being amateur, be a lover of magic, be someone who never performed, but just loves reading books, be all of those things, but do it correctly. Doug. Yeah, I get, I get the kids asking me about being a professional.

I tell them not to, cause really as a professional magician, your job is to be a salesman and unless you like selling stuff you're probably not going to do that well unless you want to work the family market like if you like doing kid shows and stuff you can just get those gigs but uh yeah it's a very challenging lifestyle for a professional like to be a professional magician those that do it well congratulations i'm talking to two of them right

now and you guys are top of the game and and role models for anyone interested in going that that direction. But like you said, Josh, and you were echoing the sentiments as well. Having money and then being able to enjoy magic for the love of it. There's a lot of benefits and in no way, shape or form does being a professional shape you as a magician per se. Nick mentioned that some of the greatest are not professionals.

You know, I kind of fit in that realm currently. Like I don't enjoy the lifestyle of a professional magician. I've lived it many, many, many years of my life. Not all the time. You know, I've worked at magic shops and street performed, but you know, I've done the contract works, the corporate gigs and all the standard closeup work.

And it's rough and something that I don't enjoy. And boy, I'm very happy to be in a point in my life where I can just enjoy magic on my own level and share, you know, this passion for the love of it. And that's what I'm doing right now. So I would suggest anyone interested in magic. Yeah. Just do it for the love of it. But if I can't talk you out of it. But buy all of Doug's products.

Not even that. I'm not about that. That is when people hit the like button on a video, just take one second from your like, and give me a little encouragement in my endeavors. I'm not looking to sell too much. Absolutely. So long as you're propagating magic forward for the right intentions that you share it to make people smile, you share it to, to extend the knowledge further. Like we all walk on the shoulders of giants.

It's so important to be able to do that. And I'm super encouraging whenever I meet an amateur magician, like even yesterday, I was performing for an amateur magician in this group i was performing for the the folks who are currently doing the Cirque du Soleil show here in melbourne that did a lockout function and so i was performing for those guys one guy there didn't did like he's like will you give me lessons like can we hang out and we do a thing i'm

like absolutely and in fact i was like i even gave him a deck of playing cards and i was like this is marco all the way from brazil making his magic debut please join me and everyone at the table went like wild and he did a really basic trick but we're all super encouraging and i think you should be man like if you guys anyone who follows my Instagram knows that as soon as an amateur magician does a thing I'm like you're doing a trick

I'm going to film this and put it on my Instagram for you like.

Super encouraging the world needs magic just do it for the right intentions because there's nothing worse than when you meet a magician who is an amateur will sit there with their arms crossed watching your professional act and be like i know that was done i can do that i'm a magician too i'm like no no you ain't shit because if you were a magician you'd be like hey man i got your back let's do something together like yeah let me let me pick that card and we'll do a mind read together that's

what a good amateur magician would do that's my favorite stuff when you get an amateur a magician that comes at you with an ego to be like, oh no, that was done. I'm a magician too. X. The problem. Yeah. The problem is in that state is a person will learn the David Blaine course, show a couple of friends, they freak out and think they're the best magician they've ever seen.

And now just through the ignorance of not knowing anything else than that, think that's where they're at and they're like, okay, they'll see you. And I go, yeah, I know all this really cool stuff too. And that's what can happen. Because everyone thinks, when you're young, everyone thinks they're the best magician, which is fine, because no one has seen any other magician, right? Because people will keep telling you all this stuff, all this, wow, that's crazy, that's the

best stuff I've ever seen. Like magic is really infectious in that way. And then it takes hanging out with a few magicians to tone that down and realize, okay, that's what happens to everyone.

That's how people react to magic and that's that's the thing about magic the most important thing to remember being an amateur or any or any sort of level whether from pro to amateur is that magic is such a strong form of entertainment that it will carry the weakest performer and we we know weak performers we could see like it's the reason why a seven-year-old can look like an absolute master jedi with a pack of playing cards because magic

is so strong so you got to keep that that in mind but ultimately like yeah to wrap it up the main difference between it doesn't matter right you can still be a great magician erroneous if you're professional or not so don't let that, deter you it doesn't make it any good or bad the difference between the professionals ultimately they make a living from it you know like that's is that that's the bottom line right like an amateur yeah

just does a lot of the game but they're probably 20 times better than any professional i know a pro makes a few dollars from it you know that's that's the difference most of the books and stuff that are out there i believe are from hobbyists because they have the time to really go in and dissect all these particular minute moves and things like that like i'm a part of of a Facebook group that I love memory work with cards. And there's this one woman in there named Jen.

I should see if she would come on the pod and she can, she has figured out some of the craziest. Algorithm shuffling stuff with cards that I just could never, I can hardly even sit down and like learn it, let alone have time to think of something like that. And she does it purely as a hobby. And that's, it's the ebbs and flows. But I would say, don't make it your, yeah, so we're just saying, don't make it your goal to do magic as a living.

We only do it because we couldn't fathom doing anything else, right? And that's kind of our kryptonite is we're kind of, we don't want to do anything else. So we have to, in a way. But if you can do it and just enjoy it, do it. This next question is kind of off the back of that, in a way, kind of.

This message comes in from Thomas Hadson from Sydney, I believe. leave. I saw on his Instagram, he has a photo with Nick because I think you lectured at a convention in 2018 and he got a photo with you. That's the only connection I was able to make quickly while looking. But otherwise, here's Thomas' question. Thomas from Sydney here. My question for you all today is that when we perform as magicians, do we create our own hecklers?

Because a lot of the time when we perform, lots of magicians tend to blame the heckler the heckler the heckler but what about us as magicians do hecklers already exist or do we just live in a world where as magicians we create our own hecklers great question existential okay doug what do you think first so for sure it's the the performer creates the heckler. They're always out there ready to come to play. The good ones know how to do it right. The performing style will ingratiate them or not.

Sometimes you're going to have just jerk offs who heckle you, but more often than not, it's a give and take from, you know, the performer who's ingratiating heckling and those are ready to give it out. For example, I rarely get heckled street performing. You would think it happens all the time. Who's going to heckle grandpa magic. What kind of jerk off you got to be to interrupt a grandpa magic show, right? So if you're portraying a character that does not invite such animosity,

you won't get it. Some people thrive on it. Come on, picture. That's just the quality of the picture. It's in 20 pixels. That's a photo of me in Bigfoot. That's exactly right. Yeah. I can't get it to not focus on my face. That's why. Oh, man. Doesn't matter. Anyway, we'll keep going. Now, look, hecklers are very- Josh is Bigfoot. Yeah. Oh, come on. I think.

For the record i think the bigfoot is actually blurry and it's not the cameraman's fault could be yeah it's just what it is heckler hecklers are an interesting one because, there's a lot of theories on this one of which is that hecklers actually want to help, like they think that them by piping up and and doing something that they're trying to helping you along and it's an interesting way to think about it and this was a very interesting thought thought process shared to me through conversation

and lecture notes that I had through Garrett Thomas, who's an absolute amazing worker in Buffalo. And it's interesting because if you just think about it, that this guy's trying to help you, just keep that in the back of your mind.

And I've been doing that for quite a while now, probably for five or six years since having the conversation with with garrett and it's interesting because people will you know maybe pipe up and try to do a thing and every now and again i'll just be like it's okay i got this and then they stop.

Like i appreciate your help but i got this like it's literally like i've said that and they go oh okay and it's it's very easy to diffuse that now unless you've got someone who is just hell-bent on ruining thanksgiving and ruining it for everyone that's that you know that's possible For a less seasoned performer and reverting back to the original question, I do think that magic itself is maybe more attractive to the heckler on its own.

Like these people are probably ready to go out of the gate, you know? So if you're not, uh, if you don't have a character that can control the moment, you're probably swimming with the sharks and should be ready. You know? Yeah. Hey, I don't, you know, I don't come to where you work and jostle the slurpee machine, you know, have some of those ready to go. Yeah. And it's those types of things where, you know, it depends on your audience.

Like some audiences tend to be a little more egotistical. Like some audiences I know are like terrified of doing sports clubs, football clubs, et cetera, you know, because they're quite, they're quite, you know, rambunctious and they try to like, you know, push each other around a little bit. Like I've literally done gigs for Australian football league teams where whilst performing, they're like hip and shouldering me, like, you know, like semi tackling me while I'm trying to to perform.

And then I still watch and I'm like right here, buddy. But you know, for me, like the worst audiences are.

Are teachers i think teachers are the or people in the education sector they tend to meet for me to be 80 of the worst types of people they just they they they spend all day with kids who are awful from shitty parents and they're probably just in a bit of a mood trying to blow off steam and they all get together like when there's a whole group of teachers together they're all just getting together exuding hate you're going over there trying to show love but what's happening

is you're showing them something that they have no knowledge of yet they are supposed to be the knowledge holders and i know this because this is no joke this is a conversation i actually had over the past three weeks i've been performing for a lot of education people and i literally just like dropped the fourth wall and said why is it you guys like the worst audience ever and i said like can we talk about this can we literally and i put my deck down and i just went the

fuck fuck is your problem? I'm not even joking. I literally said this. I said, is it because of this? Is it because of blah? And we literally had an open dialogue about it. And they went, I think it's because we do a sheet of kids all day. We've come here with an attitude. We're all pissy about talking about little Johnny who's been absolute butthole. And then you come along and you show us something that is something that we have no idea of. It's totally mind blowing.

And all the while we're sitting there going like, we should know this. We are the holders of all knowledge because we're teachers. And so...

We're sitting here we're all so smart and then you come over showing us how dumb we are and it's like well it's not about that and once you understand where it's coming from you know how to sort of combat that you know and i have lots of scripts that combat all that you don't get to get folks to calm down but yeah you know that's the thing when it comes to your audiences so some people you dumb teachers just pick a card or be done shut up you get heckles you

get you probably don't get heckled huh so my i think nick and i have a similar bravado when we perform although i believe nick's is thicker than mine is but with with their commanding this like he will literally tell an audience to it like i've seen nick teach an audience how to applaud mid-show like he's really like you're doing what i want which is great for me i have a ask of that because in the in the corporate gig scene

you're just always dealing with these alpha males and and that dynamic of the group where like you'll do an, so I'll always do an opening effect as people should and something that, that involves the whole audience and sorry, the whole group watching. And it lets me quickly pick out like who is going to be the heckler, who is going to be a dick, who's quiet, who, whatever, who just wants to eat food. And so I'll quickly like identify like who might be the problem.

But for me, I don't take myself too seriously. I will always break the fourth wall when something's happening and I'll just call it out. And so basically I will play with it. And, you know, that's why I'm grateful for things like card to mouth or card on forehead because you do it with the person being a dick. They want to call out that they saw where the card was in the deck. Believe Nick's is thicker than mine is Josh 2024. That's a t-shirt. Thank you for that comment, Scotty P.

I do believe he's a sticker. I didn't say... Longer. Okay. Anyway, we're talking about cards. Of course. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I, and I'm sure I have tons of clips out there of me dealing with hecklers. Cause I put out, you know, too many videos, but anyway, the corporate environment and nighttime gigs, especially where booze is involved does tend to kind of bring. All I'm saying is, yeah, I welcome it. I've done it so much now. I enjoy it because it makes it different.

And when you, and when you just annihilate that heckler with something simple, like carton forehead, head and they're the ones looking at the thing and they're like where is that card and everyone's laughing at them and then i've literally said like in in the right time right place that person's being caught out being a dick and i fooled them with something and then i'll literally say, i'll sit the fuck down and then i'll do that and everyone laughs at that how

many times is josh gonna say dick today sorry well let me just wrap that up by saying that But when you got, I'll word this. So it's the type of thing where people will come at you. That's all well and good. But some audiences think that if they can give you a hard time and you get through it, you then have their respect.

So keep that in mind as well. When you meet a bunch of tradies who by nature, like the young apprentice, they say the things like, oh, make sure you go get blinker fluid for the truck, you know, and they go, oh, I don't know where to get blinker fluid from because it doesn't exist.

Exist so they do little things to try and like all right let's see if this guy's he's one of us or if he's okay so take the challenge and be like all right let's go we got there here we go you know one of my favorite things which seems super egotistical is i'll turn people ago oh you don't know who i am do you oh i'm so jealous for you come you're gonna love this gather around i'm gonna turn your brain to mush and then

i literally just do that i go i take their brain rip it out of their skull beat it to submission put it back in there and be like how was that and they go that That was awesome. And I'm like, that was great. And, and they go, that was a positive experience ultimately. So some people think that they give you a hard time. You pull through, you made it kid. Good job. You have my respect. That's cool, man. Just bring it, bring it. Actually, great, great.

Go on. That happened exactly to me. I think it was actually in Melbourne as well. This law firm had just opened and it was a guy that I swear to God, he could have been a character on suits and he was just so, you know, carried himself really big, wore a suit. He gave me so much shit and he was with two lovely assistant looking ladies. And by the end of it, he tipped me a hundred bucks and gave me the hardest slapping high five I've ever received because I took everything in.

I made magic around what he was saying. Like he said, nah, my card was actually this as a dick. Sorry. I said it again. And then I would change the, I would change the card to the fake one. He had said like, oh, okay, well, I think you're lying, but if you weren't lying, you know, you are a lawyer, but look, I can make it that card anyway and whatever. And then he actually tipped me, gave me the respect. And I walked out of there like a King with 50 bucks. You earned it.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Speaking of hecklers and people on the street and busking and stuff, I was out doing some street magic the other week and I thought I, at the end, would just quickly ask the spectator just a couple of questions. Like I was curious. I have some three things and I was kind of curious, like to him, who's like the best magician he knows of and stuff like that. So let me just play this as a little segue right now.

What magicians do you follow? Dynamo. Okay. From a hometown.

Town David Blaine obviously I've seen the water tank they did like I don't really follow magicians but when something iconic comes out I obviously see it question number two what would be like the best street magic trick that you could see I think it's got to follow the the dynamo when he walks down the building so if a street magician walked down a building that would be like the best yeah that would be like okay question number three did

you know that Melbourne magician Nick Kay used to be in a band? Nick K. I've never heard of him, mate. I've literally only moved probably six months ago to Brisbane, so... So, no, you didn't know. I haven't heard of Nick K. No, but... Music.

Oh yeah, i love it it definitely counts as a as a drink dragon tear aka nick big nick i'm gonna try and start asking people stuff that i can play in the pod so if you guys maybe in the discord ask if If you have good questions, do you think I should ask people what you're set up there? You got a camera guy or you're on a tripod pod. How are you? I had my brother. Yeah. My little brother. Yeah. My brother was out there. I convinced him to hold the camera. Yeah.

And I was really adamant to just film some street magic because I hadn't in ages and it took ages to find.

I'm like, I'm, I don't want to take my fancy camera out and not have a guy, you know? So I ended up just using my phone, which the telephoto iPhone lens is fantastic, the wide angle. But yeah, you need a guy. All right. We've got Scotty P up next. Scotty P. Scotty P. With the speak pipe. Let's pipe some speak, Scotty. What's going on, magic guys? Scotty P, the mid-strength magician here. my question is if you could steal one skill, talent or piece of knowledge from each other what would it be?

I want Josh's skill with Lemuride's net. For sure, you're a beast you make miracles happen. Every time I see you work with the mem deck, I'm drooling and that's what I want plus the physique, might as well get that while I'm at it I want to be buff and mentally strong from Josh Norby Sorry Nick, but Josh gets my vote Yeah, no, I second that. I think everyone would be happy with Josh's physique. No, that's so wild. I want Josh's fiance. She's a fox. There we go.

Well, look, you can see more of her and me at onlyfans.com forward slash Big Josh.

Just kidding. Just kidding. Gigs are still going well. Stick gigs are still going well. I, you know, there's that, there's that classic joke of if I always said if magic didn't go well, I'd turn to crime, but now it's like, if magic didn't go well, I'd turn to OF, right? Yeah. So I think, I think it's changed. Yeah. Oh man. What wouldn't I take from, from, from my fellow pod masters?

I mean, just Doug's deep history and knowledge of magic. He just knows so much about, I would take Doug's brain for sure. And Nick's ability to like be creative with effects, I would take Nick's creativity and I would take Doug's brain. I'd put it together and I would just, you know, go do sit ups and then we'd, you know, be at a full time. And if we get the pull from each, I'm going with Nick's business savvy and performance hotspot. Like this guy is the monster worker. And that's true.

It wouldn't have to be poor if I had Nick K skills. Yeah. But that ability, that would mean you have to work now. Nobody wants that. I'm too old for that. You know what I mean? You don't want to do that. But if you have Nick's ability to do 10 hours of roving magic a day, you, you, you'd be fine because you'd have that ability. So, yeah. Well, let me tell you, I, you know, dragging my street rig back out for the first time in months was an eye opening experience.

You know what I mean? To me about how out of shape I am. Holy cow. It was like being in the sun again and stuff like a thing. Well, that's the thing I got right to the pitch. I'm already a little moist from dragging the rig, you know, a couple of six hours.

Blocks and then yeah direct sunlight for three hours and five minutes in i'm wet you know and it's like i also forgot my mic cord so i'm oh natural normally i'm mic'd up and there's a lot of ambient noise so it's double energy emoting and you know i came home just a little magic ball of i was melting into the couch by the time i got home that evening a thunday a couple i feel like i'm gonna edit a lot of sexual innuendo from this episode with all the

dick references and doug getting wet i wonder if you could put something sexy together.

100 that's got to happen yeah that's got to happen and yeah. Our last short that went up from having Bryant Saint on just a little fun thing. David Stone shared that reel. That's fantastic. We're just a little bit closer to, you know, being on his radar. Um, people are into that. Let me, oh, geez, I got this board game. It's in my way. This, have you seen this box one? Man, I would love to get my hands on that. That my wife has a big puzzle person

and a big board games. I got this for her for Christmas. Wow. Mangle here is of course, just a subtly match mentioned Neil Patrick Harris for the next ever until he graces us with this presence. Yeah. Should I tell the viewers why? Like what we discovered? Let's gloat a little bit. Let's just gloat about how cool we are. So the magic guys podcast is on Tik TOK. Surprise, surprise. We have our own channel there and I go there just to post the videos.

So it goes out to the interworld and people find us here. Some people started commenting, because I don't check it very often, but some people started commenting, oof, got the NPH follow. And I'm like, eh? And then someone else commented, did you know that Neil Patrick Harris is following you? And I'm like, what the F? So I go on Neil Patrick Harris's TikTok. He has 2.5 million followers, as he should, but he's only following 16 people. What? And the magic guy's podcast is one of those people.

Three of them. That's right. So really, yeah, really he's following 18 people, but we are one of his followers and I have no idea how that came about. I like to think that maybe he's sitting somewhere listening to this podcast.

But he is following wishing so he's probably just listening and just just wishing man if only i could be a guest on that podcast well neil consider this a an official invite fine you can come honestly it's not that surprising as a lover of magic which he is a former i think past president of the magic castle academy of magical arts and a great performer magician and why wouldn't he want to follow this wonderful fun magic podcast plus we've got two sexy beasts on here

i know he loves you both that's right we will send you a t-shirt i promise and it will be legend wait for it dairy oh thank you thank you we got there all right oh wow he's not he's not gonna come on now but uh that was nice question the the you would want you would want my creativity and doug's brain brain and my muscles your muscles blah i'll take your fiancee and doug's edibles done okay and i'll and and nick i'll take your house yeah just what i'll i'll be you know i'm not greedy

i'll just take one of your properties yeah one of them leave me with one thing buddy you're welcome All right.

Next up, we got Alex Gavattas, I think his full name is. I love his voice. Listen to this voice. This is great. Hello, beautiful people. I would like to ask, how do someone get booked for cruise ships? What is the process? I believe this is a well-guarded secret between entertainers, but if you don't mind spilling the beans, I would be grateful for life. Thank you so much. Peace out. Now, before we tell you, just remember, you said you would be grateful for life. Okay.

So, I mean, I know the, I know the easy answer. I'll just say it and then you guys add on top, right? So to get on a cruise ship, you need to go through a cruise ship entertainment agency. There are two that I know of for magic that, that deal with most of our side of the world, at least one is called Blackburn international. One is called gray boy entertainment. Google them. them. But the thing with cruise ships is people pay a lot of money to go on these ships.

So the ships want to always make sure that the entertainment on board is reliable and good. So you kind of only get one chance when you go on this ship, like you're getting reviewed every time you go on. So once you make it on a ship, you have to not mess up basically, or they won't have you on. Now to get on the ship, you have to have proof that you're good.

So you need to film your entire show and you need to send it to them so they can see that your show will work for their audience and is good and is clean and doesn't have anything that might be too dicey for an audience, like that people might complain about. So it has to be like, not a mediocre show. It has to be a good show, but it can't be too like, you know, playing over the edge with, with.

You know nudity or swearing or like putting a spectator in a compromising moment or anything like that it has to just be a clean nice easy show and you have to film it send it to an entertainment agency and that's how you get on a cruise once you're in the ecosystem you're good you can you can cruise till you drop and so that's my normal job but i had done cruise ships and then And I had sort of a bad experience with an agent, and I decided not to do anymore. But that's my experience.

Yeah, I'm like, old people die all the time on the ships. What are you talking about? Why are you worried about it this time? Yeah. Can I say off the back of that, that also keep in mind, Alex, that you need to have your show basically contained within two cases, two suitcases.

And you need to have two shows minimum on these ships as well because you might need to do as much as two or three shows and each show must be different so it's another type of mentality if you are going to go into this just keep that in mind that you want to have stuff that's going to pack relatively small and play really big for as audiences as big as 500 plus you know so you're not going to be able to rock up just cards and coins and rock people's

world obviously for a stage show so just keep that in mind when you are putting it together that it's not just about getting to the agency but having the material try keep like three shows in mind at least two yeah that's good advice for sure more than one because they're going to want at least.

Yeah yeah and a b and c okay just keep that in mind if you're going to start put this together you know and try get like as much time out of props as you can is the next bit of advice i I just want to share with you. If you can get six minutes out of a piece of rope, bring that piece of rope. If you can get 12 minutes at a cup's pole, pack your cups and bowls.

Like, think about it. It's amazing how these things change. Like, one of my good friends, Chip Romero, he used to drag six to eight major illusions on these boats. You know, him and his wife did a full-on illusion show with spikers and metamorphosis and the floating on the poles.

And it's like... yeah and now yeah he eventually when in his last run jip just recently retired i think he's working out of a catalog case you know and a large portion of his show this is worth noting is close up for the camera so one of his shows is a little more intimate and you can think along those lines in these modern times of doing some close-up magic we got guys like eric jones working disney john armstrong i think is more of a

stand-up guy now but he's certainly got the close-up mindset that yeah, absolutely. I, I, on the ships, people just love to have a good time. So if you can, like what Nick was saying, have a prop and get like 10 minutes out of it, where there's lots of buy play and laughter, like that's really what people want.

There was a funny moment where I had done a show, a hypnotist had done a show and we all were using spectators and then a violinist came out and he's like, and tonight's show will involve no spectators, tonight's show will involve no spectators on stage. And everyone let out this big laugh, like, oh, thank God we can just sit and watch. Because like, you know, he, the hypnotist brings up 20 people,

right. And me just to find six people throughout the show, this crowd loves to just sit in and watch. So if you have routines that have no one coming up or just one person, but you get a lot of mileage out of that person. Like Phil Cass does a great, such a great job at this. He'll bring up one person and, you know, do a third of the show and it's hilarious. And then, you know, yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I, yeah, I had to do two shows, one big theater, one more parlor.

And with, with a, with a camera and what will happen is if a entertainer is sick, well, you're the next person that has to fill that slot in the theater. So you may need a backup show again. So that's definitely. Don't be surprised when they ask you to call the bingo game either, you know, keep you busy doing some other stuff. And also a weird thing that I got told was, um, don't, don't offer too much on the ship because they'll take it and then expect it.

So like I was going to say to someone, oh, I can do some magic in the, in the library during this blah, blah, blah section of time. Cause they asked me like, do I want to sell any kits or do I want to run any magic classes on the ship? And if I'd said yes, then I would have been committed to it and they would have put it in the program and I'd be like locked into this thing. So they'll like, they will try to, anyway, that's, they're good problems to have.

Film your show, make sure it looks really good and send it to an agent. And that's how you get in the ecosystem. Because right now is actually a prime time for getting on ships. They are looking for entertainers. Have you seen what Princess is doing with the Magic Castle? No, tell me. There's a cruise. It's, I don't know. It's a, the name of the event is Spellbound. And it's the Magic Castle Academy of Magical Arts bringing that experience onto a cruise ship.

They have the bar, they have the piano that plays itself, they have intimate close-up magic, and then the parlor room where magic happens. It was last week or two I saw John Allen, Woody Aragon, and Mark. I can't remember Mark's last name. I can't remember everything. But these three people, it just opened up like a couple weeks ago.

And how cool is that? I think it's like an extra fee event. So if you go on a cruise, you got to pay an extra a hundred bucks to go to the Spellbound intimate experience. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. But yeah, there, there have been lots of opportunities that, that I've said no to as well, that for cruises. So it's just make sure you have a good show first. Don't, don't try to make a show to go on a ship, make sure you've got a show. You've done it a lot.

Then apply. Cause you'll kind of only get one chance if you audition for an agency and you show them a shitty video, like that's kind of it. They'll discard you after that. Scotty P says flash yet. Try not to flash in the, in the videos that'll help as well. Don't flash. That's right. All right. I wanted to bring up Ozzy wind on the Huberman podcast.

That's made sort of big news in the magic world. Oh, do tell. Doug, is this hit your ecosphere? I've been very busy the last week. What I miss. True. True. So Ozzy win went on a podcast that is followed by 5 million people. He's a scientist and I think he works for either Harvard or one of those reputable. Institutions, this Huberman guy. And he interviewed Ozzy Wind from scientific point of view.

Like how can you make people change a story in their own head or when they re recall a magic trick or like, what's the process of figuring out a method for a magic trick when you look at the problem and stuff like that, the, the, the The podcast itself is like two hours and it's great. Great. I love how Ozzy handles himself with this guy without revealing any magic. Gives him really good answers of the questions he's asking, but without actually screwing us, basically.

It's really interesting. But there's a separate clip where it's like, I think it's 10 minutes long and he's just straight up performing Ozzy Wynn goodness magic to him. And it's the exact type of magic that I freaking love to death. So watching it, watching him execute this stuff. Which is, has a very jazz feel to it, even though it's such high pressure of a moment. So good. So it made me want to go out. And so right now I've just, I'm so hyped up for performing magic right now.

So having watched it and then went and did this closeup show last week for 10 people, I just annihilated them because I was just so like excited to go and perform magic and do some of the, I'll be honest. I did some of the stuff that Ozzy Wynn was doing in this thing because it's the style of magic I like. can, you know, you shouldn't directly copy someone, but you know, it's 10 people. And I'm like, I know this is, this is just too good. So I recommend watching it, Doug.

Even just watch the magic. Doug Clark, what you were saying, I brought, I put it on my phone to watch later. So it has been marked for, uh, consumption in my brain. It's just so good. It's just so damn good. I think the people in the comments, they know what I'm talking about. I'm just trying to one. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, and it just rejigged my memory. Like, Ozzy Wynn teaches an effect which is essentially thought-of card to box.

Except now he does it into a wallet and there's a whole routine built around it. But it made me want to go back and relearn it because he literally has anyone name any card, like, out loud and eventually ends up in this box that just, it's crazy. Anyway, that's all. I thought you guys might have watched it a bit more to get as excited. But, um, but no, it was from my understanding, a heck of a book and one that I've never acquired.

Is this where you would learn such a thing as he went repertoire? Repertoire is a full book of acorns. Is that what it is? Mostly? Yeah. Well, I wouldn't say it's just a con. There are definitely lots of a con ish things, but there are lots of shade on this book.

I'm not clapping shade, but it is like, if you were trying to go, I really want to get some knowledge around a con like that is the book just consume it and there's like seven different versions on how to be able to achieve that like it's great yeah but then but then he also teaches in repertoire like his you know the vanishing built under under someone's watch yeah you know that one he does and double exposure is that in there double exposure is in there and so is this really

crazy principle on someone being someone being able to cut into the deck look at a card, And by you hearing them deal down the cards, you can tell them when to stop on their card. He has his principle laid into it, which is really clever. But the card to box that I'm referring to is actually purchased through his website. And he, it's like, he's got a Vimeo on demand product. So it takes you to Vimeo, you pay for it and it gives you access to information.

It's a video. Yeah. So it's a tutorial. Yeah. There's no gaffes or anything in this. Fantastic. Routine. It's just, it's good. Good stuff. Good stuff. Scotty P, there are no thumb tips in the book. Yeah, that is true. All right. We, we have.

Next speak part is from Matthew, the Christian magician, who's in the chat as well. Matthew Mosley. Let's bring up, I think this one, I believe I listened to it. Yeah. I think it's a story he has. What is the weirdest way you have ever received a tip from a spectator while performing? Well, my weirdest was about two weeks ago while I was street performing. Now, let me preface this a little bit by saying that where I street perform,

there's not much foot traffic. And so the majority of my day is spent performing my crowd draw to drivers by. And so occasionally I'll have a passenger of a vehicle yell out, hey, and they'll be waving a dollar or five dollar bill out the window. So I run out and get it. No problem. That's not out of the ordinary for me. I've done multiple times.

What is out of the ordinary is when a vehicle, because they're light-toned green, is driving towards me, and the first vehicle in the line stops on the crosswalk, yells out, hey, throw the $5 bill out the window for me to come around out and get. And so now we're both holding up this line of traffic until I pick it up, say thank you, and they drive off. I drive by tip. Who knew?

Hmm that's a weird circumstance hey man you should obviously be performing in the traffic to alleviate these circumstances if you got right in the middle like in between the cars this is where you want to be matthew you're missing out on tons of money opportunities by being on the sidewalk that's right go play in the traffic child and that's enough said.

What's the weirdest tip yeah well it's interesting i i admittedly will turn down tips while i perform because i get paid pretty handsome to do my job and i always ask if they want to leave me a tip or do something of really great value to leave a review of my performance on the venue so they'll go to i go they just jump on their phone jump on google and leave a review and leave a five-star review and i'll say that is far more valuable

than any tip you can give me that's worth thousands to me versus the 5 10 20 you want to give me yeah all right we've got we've got the righteous answer now but now tell us like what's the client giving you that you're like oh Oh, sheesh. Let me finish. Sometimes. Sometimes you can get tips not in the form of money.

And her name is. Oh boy. And that's all I have to say about that. I like it. Let me think real quick. Tips. What I'm doing. How do I not have a weird tip story? Like, I mean, we can talk about drugs people threw in my hat on the street, but that's hardly getting it. Might as well be saying dick all day on the podcast. Yeah. Big Nick dick. Oh no, sorry. Big, thick, Nick is from what we established earlier.

I, I turned down tips, but you know, sometimes people forcibly put it in your pocket or something and you'd be like, oh, you shouldn't have stuff it down and then keep going. Yeah. But yeah, so turn down first because that's my rule. Someone goes to give me money. I don't even look at it. I'm just like, oh, I mean, yeah. If it's a hundred, I probably am not going to say no to that. I'll just be like, oh, cause that's turning that down as almost an insult.

That's right. If it's so for me, if it's a, if it's a group and one person has gone out of their way to be like, Hey, this is for you, I'll say, Hey, it's totally not necessarily, it's totally not necessarily like they pay me well to be here, but if they still are like, please, then I'm not going to embarrass, like, I'm not going to make them now put it back, but I will definitely turn it down and I'll also be very gracious that, you know, they're so kind to do that.

And then I'll be like, Hey, at least let me show you. One more thing for you guys, you know, make it special, but definitely I'm, I'm never seemingly like going, ah, ha, see, see what he did. What's your deal with tips, Nick K? Do you like look for the tips you'd like? No, I never push for them ever. Like they come at me, I try to turn them down and say, no, no, you know what? Use this to buy a round on me.

And then rather than spend that money buying another round and go, if you really want to help either follow my Instagram or, or leave a review on the venue, that's just, there's There's a lot more value in that for me, as far as the long con goes. Yeah. There's kind of a mindset where you start taking, you know, what are they going to give you a five bucks, 20 bucks? Well, your 10 minutes is worth 20 bucks. So what's your rate?

A hundred an hour, you know, putting time to money versus there's that. I was given a tip a couple of weeks ago, but it was New Zealand. It was a New Zealand 50. So I don't know if he was like from ND visiting and was like, boom, or he was like, I'm never going to spend this.

Take this because i'm sure you see it as well like where you get international currencies as your tips i have a collection of yeah weird money i don't know what to do with i might be wealthy you don't know it i'm a millionaire in uganda maybe i don't know yeah so yeah i have a million dollar note from zimbabwe which is worth like i don't know two dollars here three bucks.

Yeah making a big time hey we got i wonder if we can we got one more speak pipe this is from a few weeks ago, Nick, that maybe we can still answer in this SpeakPipe session, but this will definitely be a Nick question.

It's from Cameron Leo from, I want to say Sydney. Hey, magic guys. This is Cameron Leo from Sydney, Australia. Just a quick question. What is the best way to experience the Melbourne Magic Festival? I understand it's not quite like Blackpool or Magic Live. So as a magician wanting to meet other magicians and see some cool magic and jam and spend a week in Melbourne, what's the best way to experience that thing?

Great question, Cameron. So the Melbourne Magic Festival, I wish I was a little more prepared for this, but you can see the dates if you look up MelbourneMagicFestival.com. And ultimately, it's two weeks of magic shows.

All right so they're in different locations one central point at the arrow on swanson in the city of melbourne so accommodation is really accommodating obviously like as millions of places you can stay all within a short walk of the venue and magicians are around all of the time so we all hang out there it's very rare that all us magicians are in one location any one time So as far as like hanging out and jamming,

there is a central hub inside where they have tables set up just for sessioning all day long. And there's people constantly performing, amateurs, pros, and we all just hang out where they're basically all day long. There is heaps of opportunities to perform as well. There is there's like a close up gallery. So there's like three performers each night at the end of the evening where they can go and do performances in that sense. and we always hang out and jam and get food before and after.

So as long as you're around... There's plenty to do and there's plenty to see. And there's always people willing to jam. As well as that, there is lectures. Hector Mancha will be lecturing, I believe, this time around. If you haven't seen his act, it is absolutely phenomenal. Pretty excited to see that. We've got a lot of really awesome international folks coming around this time, actually. So ultimately, how do you get amongst it? Just be there.

And you are going to make so many friends, including myself. Make sure you say hey. and you can see all the amazing magicians who are going to be there. In fact, we're showing them on the website right now. Yeah. Because it sounds, you know, essentially from looking at it from the outside in, as opposed to Blackpool and Magic Live, which is made for magicians, MMF is made mainly for the public to watch all these amazing shows.

So it's more behind the scenes where you get to hang out with people like Nick and Dom and all the guys doing the show. So I think you just go to the shows and by being there by association after the show is probably when the action happens with magicians, right? Yeah. That's the coolest. That's the coolest.

Like lots of magic shows to go see. And then the jams just happen naturally. That's exactly what it's like. We all get together and we all go out for food. We eat constantly. It's like the first thing we do. It's like food, food, food. Where are we eating? Yeah. And then we all just going like, just bored, you know, and we try find somewhere at, you know, 10, 11 o'clock at night, they can accommodate for 30 people. Is there a main spot people go and eat at night? The magicians?

There is a hot, hot place right around the corner from where we're staying. We, we do try to sort of frequent there if possible, but there are so many places like within a short walk of where we are, I'm talking like a three minute walk being on Swanson street. So it is, it's going to be a good time. Love it. Love it. And maybe one year we'll have the magic guys tent or theater or show. That would be fun. But the way we're trending, I think we should maybe mention

that, you know, we got some cool guests coming this month. Can we preview, you know, a little bit, like we're rolling this podcast, who we got coming up this month?

Yeah, look, I'll, I'll say the first one we have secured our buddy Blake Voigt to come on later this month. So stay tuned for that. I saw Blake at Trix. He was at this convention, rocking and rolling. His lecture is fantastic. His stage set is amazingly funny, creative. Can't wait to see Blake. and nick you want to let him let him know about your amazing guest one of my personal heroes and who i thought was literally the best part of being at magic live the amazing nicholas lawrence.

Yeah locked in later this month plus neil patrick harris is on the way eventually so you know that's right that's right that's that's a goal so and it's all you know because of you guys watching the pod and commenting and sharing.

And when I reach out to these guests, they see the social proof of people watching it and the other guests we've had on, we're building momentum and eventually we will have a magic guys tent that has one person in the center or one pole in the center and that's just Nick laying down and enough of that. So yeah, lots to look forward to this month guys in the discord, love seeing all the post and roast videos going on.

For those who don't know, you can post your magic videos in the Discord and we will all roast it in the best possible way. So you know you're coming there for the good fun. And yeah, I think, you know, lots coming up, lots to see. There's never enough time for these podcasts because we have so much fun. But you know what? I might, I might jump over to the discord thing that we do have to wrap up.

I might be there for a half hour or so. If you guys want to jump over, we can have a little hangout, talk some crap, do some magic. Yeah. I'll jump on there for fun. If you guys want to pop over. Cool. Yeah. Nice. Nice. And Doug, seeing as though you're a busy man, can we, can we get the final word from you today? Let's go. Is that okay? I got this. Let's do it. I'm going to harken back to the topic of the day, professional, hobbyist.

If you're just a scholar, maybe you're just a collector, you know, maybe you're just, you know, lover of magic who enjoys watching it. There's lots of ways to be a magician. Just pick yours and enjoy it. But if you do it for a living, just do it for love. Do it for love. And if you have to do it for money, well, God help you. That's your final word. I'm out. 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.