Is Tik Tok Vanishing? #203

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 203 of the Magic Guys. I know, I know last week I said 102. Thank you for the comments to remember I was 100 episodes behind. To my left, we've got Nick K. It's good to know that people are actually listening. It is very good. And down below, we have the return of Douglas. Look, I found my way back. What's up, y'all? Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, and, you know, salutations to the kindred spirits.

Absolutely. It's good to have you back, man. We've heard about Daddy Doug. Everyone was just like, where's Daddy Doug? I was like, you had to buy a pack of smokes and kind of never came back. No, that was the appropriate vibe to have. It was a challenging holiday season for yours, truly, but, you know. Insane. Ebbs and flows. We're here in Australia watching just all of this crazy shit happen in the U.S. This country. This country. Bloody hell. I mean, it is pretty gnarly.

So, I mean, at the time of this recording, because people might listen back to this, like Los Angeles is on fire. And like, it is the most expensive billions of dollars that have been damaged and houses that have been burned. Like he did his house burned down, which he's stoked about. Mel Gibson's lost his house. All these mansions have gone up. I'll tell you, the magic castle was this close.

I was watching it. i'm thinking because of their you know maybe their notoriety and also their locale which my understanding they allowed some staging to happen for the fire departments there it's now a distribution point for you know people that need help or was and.

Yeah whoa that was a close one you're just tragic it's it's so and our hearts our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who's been affected by it most definitely i actually caught up with simon coronel now the fism winner and i saw him yesterday and same thing i was just like are you okay in la and he's like it got close man it got really close and he's flying out in two days to see what the sort of you know and yeah for god's sake be be safe and you

know we wish you guys well everyone in la so yeah and then outside of that the inauguration everyone's been asking me about that like hey what do you think i'm like i've not even gotten around it not once or watched it or anything but the main thing that people are talking about outside of that is the whole tiktok game going on because supposedly we're supposed to have been shut down but then i believe it's been extended for another 90 days yeah doug give us the lowdown

what happened when you first heard about it like actually going to be banned so you know i followed this since trump wanted to shut it down in 2020 and it's been a roller coaster ever since and they released some news about four or five months ago, I told my wife, I said, they're going to shut it down this time. And sure enough, they did. Is there an extension? No, not really. Trump wants everyone to think there is and that he saved TikTok.

But in the bill that was passed, this 90-day extension, Biden was prepared to grant it, but pushed it to Trump, allowing him to do it. He hasn't done it yet. So, you know, right now it's all kind of in limbo. And even when this extension happens, it's only saving TikTok if it is sold.

So speaking of it being sold, I did see a video earlier today, and Thomas Conger just mentioned in the chat that mr beast is buying it i literally saw a video of mr beast famous youtuber mr beast on his plane going i'm on my way to make an offer i can't say what it is but wish me luck type of thing and i was like that's a great social media clip huh that is you know at the end of the day it's 200 billion dollars value and there's only a few people

that could do that trump has friends that are that person but you know what is the problem china doesn't want it to be sold. ByteDance doesn't want to sell their, their, their business. So.

I think I really expect a ban in 90 days. I don't know that it's going to survive past that. But I also have faith in the shenanigans of the American government, and they'll figure out a new lie to tell us that'll keep it going. I was listening to a podcast with Gary V, and he mentioned something, which is Vine. Were you ever on Vine, Doug? I wasn't making videos back then. You know, I watch my kids play on it, but I was kind of late to TikTok even.

So Vine, for those who might not know, was the first short form video platform where it was six second videos. And that's it. You can only make six second videos. And that is where most of the famous YouTubers and social media stars you see today started.

David Dobrik started there. josh peck started there logan paul started there like the list goes on they all started there and then one day they said oh in 24 hours vine is going to be deleted and what happened was everyone like freaked out i think because they weren't paying the people that were the social media stars that were on that platform vine didn't want to pay them so they were like well we're going to make videos elsewhere they weren't

making money now because there weren't viral videos being made on there anyway they went and people jumped to places like youtube and instagram and stuff this is before tiktok and but the thing is when elon bought twitter he also then it also meant that he bought vine so vine didn't like it's still an entity and it's still a machine that exists but it's turned off. It's part of the Twitter empire, the x.com family. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. So Gary was saying, what if...

Elon waits till tiktok is gone and then all of a sudden decides to push the green light and launch vine again wow how about no and i don't want to get too political ever in my life but after elon musk's shenanigans today how about we don't do anything that supports his products well.

I can we can we roll it back for just a second because what i'm what i'm trying to understand is now admittedly i don't i don't tinker with this stuff a lot and in fact i i'm gonna very openly say that like my knowledge of this whole social media game is very poor i mean i don't even manage my own socials i got somebody does it for me very well and the first thing i want to sort of establish in this chat if i may is what are the

motivations for getting rid of tiktok is it the fact that it's information going to china and there's some sort of spy element let me speak on I am an expert on the matter, studied it in depth. So when Trump tried to shut it down years ago, they said that it's the security that's the problem. So TikTok said, how can we appease you? And America said, how's the American data on American soil owned by an American company? So now in Texas, under the Oracle brand, which is an American company,

all of the American data is there. So they accommodated them in that respect. Okay. big, but yes, it is a considerable threat to have all of this information of Americans available to the Chinese government F they so choose to get it. There's been zero proof. They've done so generally in this company, in this country, we give the burden of proof, you know, to the accuser, not the innocent and that they were going to penalize the company.

Maybe they would be found guilty of something. They haven't been right. So there's issues in that respect.

So just to reiterate we're talking about tick tock a platform in which people mime songs poorly and shake their hold on no we're talking about a platform where i get important news we're talking about a platform where i connect with like-minded individuals and reach reach tens of thousands of interested fans on an hourly basis i get recipes on there i watch my wrestling stories yeah sometimes I'll put a dancing girl in my face and I'll swipe by it. But there's everything on TikTok.

It's all there. It's a wonderful platform. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the media that comes on there, the government doesn't like the Americans to receive. Some news that they would prefer filtered through the major media conglomerates. There's only five big ones in this country. We get drip thread. Here's some news. TikTok gives it all to the country. Yeah.

So that's the other thing. That's the other thing that Doug's saying is that America well apparently America feels like they can't control the content that is flowed to the Americans on that channel I'll explain it briefly I was telling my wife for example if a train goes off the tracks in Mississippi and the chemicals land in the lake and pollute the lake maybe the major media can contain that story and then there won't be lawsuits against the corporations and so on they

can keep making their products but this kind of news gets out everyone knows about it and And this is just a small example of perhaps, you know, the kind of media that, you know. The at least corporations which really control this country, they pay the congressman to do what they want. And this is why I don't talk politics too much. Passionate about it. Well, good. I just want to establish that as a base, man, because like I wasn't sure if it like so it's a it's national security in a sense.

It's not really sort of information to be leaked in the Chinese against us per se.

But it is just information that can be shared freely, which to my knowledge, other people slander Elon a lot. He is for free speech. He is like, do what you want to say. That's a freedom that everyone should be afforded. But by shutting it down, are we saying that Trump, and is it Trump's administration, just to keep it broadly, like is all about controlling information in that sense?

I would think his hope, he's publicly stated his intent. If you listen to Donald Trump quote that his intent is for America to buy 50% of TikTok and control it that way. Right. Because that's going to stop the Chinese from getting that information that threatens the country. It's ludicrous that he makes statements. America is going to buy TikTok. Yeah. So you're saying that like, that's what he's proclaiming.

But really the underlying notion is that he can control everything being shared to Americans.

If you're the company that controls like the algorithm and maybe yeah theoretically you could you know censor some of the media that comes through there well let's not talk about theories because there's great facts we can talk about you know oh well you know so look if it gets banned again or whatever's happening i guess people already don't trust it now so they're probably not going to invest their time in it where's the next eyeballs going do you think doug like do

you think everyone's going to move to youtube reels instagram reels from my point of view the best alternative currently is youtube shorts but honestly i think the best move and one that will probably grow the most is blue sky once they need to integrate some video features to kind of let this happen but they provide a platform that lets the content creator own own their content and also the technology that interacts with the blue sky platform is much more open source and flexible than anything

that's come before it what is the elevator pitch of blue sky this is the first time it's twitter it's twitter but not controlled by you know. Okay you know.

It's it's it blue sky was developed by the former owners of twitter and they're just doing it you know it seems to me the right way so it's is it text-based currently text photos i think small videos maybe it's limited to a minute so it doesn't offer all of the flexibility of tick tock and and youtube and ultimately the tick tock conundrum is that this algorithm they developed really works so well to provide the viewer with what they are seeking like i

said before i watch my wrestling stories there i get gaming content and and what my wife watches is 100 different i'll look over there and it's puppy dogs and kittens and babies you know she sees something completely different than me and this is the challenge to replicate that really can't be done so you say is there an alternative not one that i see but maybe it's from the ashes the interest-based algorithm has been so freaking world-changing isn't it

that any video can go viral because it's just if that individual video is good not the creator i've noticed but i mean i have noticed the same thing with even instagram reels are doing it now like in the well they copy tiktok they would you know if you look at the recent update it very much is tiktoky yeah and days ago they're.

Like we're tiktok now yeah exactly what you just described with your wife i'm the same like i look at sandy like my feed is a lot of uh podcast clips and like motivational clips occasionally magic hers is like people farting in public like dogs being cute and she's like Like she can't get enough of it. Like cringe comedy. I'm like, what planet are our phones on? Like, it's so smart. So smart. Go on Facebook Reels and see what you get.

What I'm curious about, gentlemen, is that there is a very vast amount of people on TikTok who rely on this for their income. I mean, that's their main source of income. What's going to happen in that regards? Like, what does it mean is what I'm asking? Imagine being one of the 7 million small businesses. There's a few people. You know, I think the number is 300,000 earn their living.

And then there's 7 million small businesses like me that count on maybe the TikTok income to pay their internet bill or whatever, you know, I'm making a big difference in my life, but I don't have that money every month. It does make a little difference the other way, which no one can afford these days. And then all of a sudden you wake up and maybe your business is big. You know, what if you're doing hundreds of thousands of dollars on the TikTok

shop and they rip it all the way because of fear and, you know, no facts. Yeah. Or response. Let me state one more thing for anyone that's listening. The way this bill was passed, it was part of a larger bill that was sending foreign aid money to Ukraine. This bill was destined to pass. There's no way it wouldn't. So if you were going to vote for the foreign aid bill, you had to vote for the TikTok bill. They'll tell you it's a bipartisan bill that passed through for flying colors.

Of course it is because everyone was going to vote for this other thing. It's an underhanded, underhanded American past laws. They want to push through. And that's how this happened. We didn't get a voice as the freedom, the land of the free American people never voted for this. And I don't think it was ever made clear that your representative might be voting that way for this topic. So you.

Yeah no one got to say they just slipped it in amongst this other stuff that was being voted imagine that happening and your big business goes away because of that well just circle back to that question of like my business my income there's there's individuals who have sponsorships through products or whatever else and like mention my product and we'll give you x amount of dollars a month for example those guys are effectively now having their entire incomes cut yeah dead in the water,

like go work a fast food.

Well, that's, let's go into magic a little bit here. And then we can segue in a little bit. One of my dreams and hopes for the last year was to open a TikTok shop. I've done some affiliate things. I've looked at some options. I've talked to some people and that dream was ripped away, you know, last week. And now I have another potential dream.

My future employer left me a message today that we're going to open a TikTok shop, and we'll talk about maybe where I'm going next but I have the ability to open this stream and gosh darn it you know what I have to do now is do this for 90 days to see if they're going to let me keep it or not when you know I have no choice in the matter and it's all based on fear it's sad it is sad and it's the best place to be able to like just magic wise like to be able

to go live for a long period of time connect with live viewers and have your product linked on the live by now, you know? Yeah. There's nothing like that happening. Amazon has some options, but that's not what I'm talking about. You know, there's a lot of folks in the chat who are saying that, like, it's not going anywhere. They're pretty, you know, TikTok. Now, dude, do you think this could just possibly be a kind of strong...

Bluff strategy, if you will, to which, all right, look, we'll, we'll bend, we'll bend the knee and we'll give you your own servers. You can have your own Tik TOK and the rest of the planet can have this. So it was signed into law. The president signed it. It was appealed. It went to the Supreme court. The Supreme court said there is reason to have concerns for security risk.

And this law is valid these same supreme court members i'm sure are close friends with you know i'm going to start talking about the people that contribute to mark zuckerberg and his lobbyists in congress that pay them to vote the way that they want so that the meta products get the views instead of when tick tock goes away and their stock goes up more you know it's all about the money it's all about the money it's made of wins if tiktok goes away zuckerberg just gets

richer and we all have to watch reels you know if you don't know how to find schwartz does he even does money even even a thing to him anymore i think you know once you get that rich money's like no it's all about control and having power same thing though right right right i wouldn't mind a bit of money and power just give me a little bit no i just want to pay my bills that's all that's exactly right that's right we just want to be able to live you know it's the type of thing where i mean

if we can just talk about the state of things in australia you know we say things to the effect of well unemployment's up to four percent now right and people are complaining it they have the audacity to say like oh but we're generating all these jobs and it's like yes you are generating all these jobs but there is a vast majority of our population who have to work three of them just to make ends meet nine to five is not a thing anymore you need to have multiple streams of income,

if you are going to have anything or build any sort of future that you can actually take a step back and go, you know what. I think I might be able to live off my superannuation or my 401k in your sense. So the world is a state. Yeah, I had a relative comment about how great things are in America, like all of our stock prices are and everyone's making money. But you know what? There's still 40 million Americans living below the poverty

line. I think there's a lot of wealthy people and a lot of them are winning right now. And they're having a little bit of a, you know, if you're wealthy, it's easy to smell the roses, right? But if you're struggling, you know, if you're, it's just, you know, there's 40 million Americans that can't afford to pay their bills. Well, you know, there's something that was said to, I saw it in a video and it's really hit me because I'm guilty of this.

And what it said was that like, there's a lot of bad things that are happening effectively. And we're not doing anything to stop it or to change it. All we're trying to do is become wealthy enough that it doesn't affect us.

And that was exactly what i was doing and i went who am i i'm one guy and you just realize that you're sort of beat by the system and it's so much bigger than all of us i i don't i'm hoping one of the one of the fat cats get smart and start sharing the wealth like all right 400 billion's enough i can spread around 100 billion of it to the people give everyone a little bit man how many billions you need 500 billion a trillion i have a trillion just lower the lower the cost of gas for

god's sakes we gotta buy eggs right now they're ten dollars a dozen in the grocery store granted there's something going on with eggs but even when they're on sale at normal price it's five bucks for a dozen eggs used to be a dollar i don't even why is that happening doug why is that like what's happening that well i think there's a bird flu thing right now limiting eggs but what about five X. And what happened is after the pandemic, inflation raised all the prices and

the corporations never lowered the prices. So our minimum wage is still $7 an hour, but everything costs $25 an hour to live. So speaking of pricing and stuff and costs of living in certain areas, and then the LA fires happening, Doug, that's sort of helped you have a awakening moment, right that sort of leads us into this fun discussion looking about las vegas i i am.

Of the universe affected this decision it's mainly the result of me butting my head against the wall for you know several months and watching my wife work really hard and have to pay more than her share of the bills these days and i've had a i've had a dream really since i came to new orleans about 35 years ago i was going to the west coast i came here for the winter and i was just going to keep going west and stop by las vegas and then go to california

and so on so i've been speaking with this gentleman who has a store in las vegas tricksupply.com this man is wolfgang wallet what a jimmy is i've enjoyed every time i've spent with him. If you've been in America, you've seen his booth at all the major magic conventions, Wolfgang's always displaying, if you're going to MagiFest, he'll be there. Stop by at MagiFest, tell him Doug said to say hi and buy something.

He tried to talk me into working for him a few years ago, but because I had my own retail situation, it was a conflict. And as I've winded down my retail endeavors, I'm able to have this conversation with someone that might be able to use my skills.

So I'm moving to Vegas. oh sunday temporary airbnb for a month we'll be easing into this store and opening the brick and mortar and blowing up the socials that's what i'm doing that is insane moving a magician moving to vegas is like every bloody kid's dream yeah hell so here's the here's the beauty of this store. Wolfgang has been in business for over 20 years and he accumulates magic a number of ways. One of them is buying estates. So he's got a large inventory of everything.

And my requirement will not be to be to sell the latest, greatest thing that everyone thinks they need. But when someone genuinely, genuinely wants to improve their magic, I'll be able to help them. You know, what do you do? And I won't have to say, oh, I have, I'll be able to say, yes, I know what you need. I can help you and so looking forward to having a new point of view for my social media audience, my YouTube viewers, my shorts viewers.

I've got so many interesting plans to educate you as I get educated with all this magic that I'm not familiar with, right? I don't know how the, all the Macamay wood stuff and the parlor magic. So I'm going to get an education and share all that as well. It's just, I couldn't be more excited.

Plus I'm in Vegas with the best magic in the world.

Excuse me hey man you're gonna fit right in if that's the case right i'm three hours from the magic castle now how about that much more attainable to go do that gig that's insane now am i lagging by the way just quick check because you guys were lagging but you were both no i haven't shut up for 10 minutes no we're good okay sweet sweet i think it was the amount i think it was it was probably actually elon trying to tune in and and stuff up our stream for a second but yes we're

on the radar now we will prevail how amazing and now that's gonna you know people will have another reason to go to vegas magicians will maybe go to magic live the shop is near the airport so when you get off the plane you or when you're going home stop by trick supply and come say hi to me you know oh he's gonna be appointment only during february this will give me a chance to learn the inventory learn all the stuff and i also gotta move so once i get

uh i'm there temp for a month and then the wife's coming out in march so that'll happen in march and then we'll have the doors open rig wow it's all happening real quick yeah well that's incredible what are you going to miss about new orleans you know i've been here so long it won't be much it'll be my my girls that's about it right now i have some very close friends here that i'll miss a couple.

Food the freedom this there's no freer city in this country than new orleans if you want to come enjoy your life however you'd like this is the place to do it but man it's hot man it's stupid it's been getting stupider and there's hurricanes and i've done everything there is for me to do here i really am not interested in street performing anymore and been medically advised not to be in the sun so it's like that shouldn't be a primary focus of my life.

And yeah, I think I've found my current calling and I'm going to follow it. He called a few years ago. I should have just gone when he called the first time. Yeah. I think Vegas is going to be pretty excited to have you, man. I think that once you, I just imagine you, for whatever reason, you're just going to connect immediately with Bizarro and it's going to be like, Hey, I messaged him yesterday. I said, Biz, I'm coming to town. I knew it. Yeah.

It's going to be like, great. We go back a ways, you know, like he was staying at my house in New Orleans 20 years ago so yeah you know we're uh we're bros yeah yeah and and that's awesome and that guy's down with everything like he's got you know the the whole business with um escape rooms and so forth that he does and well he's a message to him like one of the first yeah yeah i'll be in apparently i'll be in jeff mcbride's neighborhood as well paradise valley where the rbnb is

and i've been eyeballing the townhouse apartment right across from the shop so maybe i'm walking to work even and near Jeff McBride. So maybe I'm mystery schooling sometime. So great. You've got to do that. So many things, man. All the shows. Go to the West Coast. Watch Frank DeVille work Santa Monica Pier. Get in line there and tell them. That's crazy. West Coast Lecture Corps. Been on my list for years. For us listening, this geography isn't amazing of the States.

I know where Vegas is. It's kind of on the West Coast, right? Where's New Orleans? It's a two-day drive. If I drive it straight, it's 29 hours nonstop. So to drive it, it's going to take two days. Is it in the middle? Where is it? New Orleans is southeast compared. It's like near Florida Panhandle. If you were to look at the Gulf of Mexico, we're curving into that.

The mississippi river dumps into the gulf of mexico right as we hit kind of mississippi florida there okay like what is it like the ball sack of peen of the the florida penile extension.

So just for a bit sorry how far is you from texas in badges yeah i'm in houston in three or four hours i think that's okay yeah now now i can sort of gauge what that is but yeah you haul all the way there and i think we're gonna pot it get a box here put everything in a box and they, it's like a big shipping box oh yeah nice will yeah will you guys have a presence at magic live out of curiosity ask me later probably i would i would assume

he does but maybe having that storefront in town means he doesn't so and i don't know okay it's like this every time i've onto a convention at the sam i saw wolfgang at the taom i saw wolfgang he's them he's setting up at the magi fest you know he gets around so i'm assuming he does the magic live but i'm not 100.

Yeah nice well you would have seen him last year nick if if that was the case yeah but i was booth and 100 other dealers so exactly yeah i'm certain i actually just googled the website us were chatting real quick and i'm like i guaranteed i i was i was there and i'm pretty sure i bought stuff as well so wolfgang's wolfgang's one of the the booze where he's not maybe demoing a specific product or the latest greatest thing but he has a plethora of amazing items you know

picked up maybe one ofs and books the the bins of lecture notes you might go through, you know maybe a bargain bin of tenue stuff and then some higher class items you know shining in the back got everything so i'm great yeah i'm trying to slide of hand.org we're gonna have a new sponsor whether you like it or not.

Bring it yeah because i've i've been trying to track down a david p abbott book that was released about eight nine years ago it's like the final workings of that i'm and i was just perusing the website once that was happening. There was only an X amount of them made, I think 400 copies made. So yeah, I've been very curious about that book. So... Doug, when you move to Vegas, is LearnSlideOfHand.org still operating?

100% keeping all of that ship rolling. You know, I'm leaning towards a different model of distributing this information, even considering making most of it free just so people have access to it. Absolutely part of my business model. I'll be able to introduce people to my products at the store, and that will be valuable to me, you know, in that respect. Oh, you like Slide of Hand? You might like this. Take my card, check me out.

Things like that. oh that's beautiful like yeah but you might yeah great buy these props and whatever but if you're really getting serious boom yeah and then today i was thinking like maybe an episode is you know maybe one of my learning sessions is all the you know the accessories that a sleight of hand performer might need and now because i'm in this space i have all of them so i can literally show students everything they would need where now i'm limited to what's in

this room and if i I want to order it and spend money. So, yeah, I feel the library, all the books, you know, so now when I'm referencing a book, maybe I don't have, I can pull it off the shelf, show it to the people, and then maybe they buy that book. So everyone wins. You learn. I learn. Wolfgang sells stuff, which allows us to learn. I really feel it's a good mix.

I totally agree with you, man. I mean, it's, you know, I say this with all respect, how you are the senior statesman of our podcast here, but it's just like you never want to stop learning. You just don't. Not when it comes to magic. Consuming magic is one of the greatest things, and I've just been ripping books off the shelf this week as well as we did our New Year's resolution last week. I'm sort of learning a new trick every week.

Maybe not performing it, but just reading it, studying it, and I'm enjoying a lot of theory right now.

I'm revisiting Darwin Ortiz's Strong Magic because I just felt like I didn't absorb it well enough before reading Designing Miracles, so I'm reading that, yeah you've you've got it you've got to absorb that a lot you gotta yeah you gotta soak it in yeah but i just i just cracked open oh it's right here actually so that's that but i was reading dark uh the dark corners by ben hart with the really crazy idea with the matchbox and performing a trick in the dark who thinks

of that it's the first trick in the book and it's very simple it's like you have it's pitch black you give someone a box they shake it they identify it's a box of matches ask them to reach in take a match out and light it once it's lit you can then turn the lights on blow out the match and away you go.

Not an amazing feat of magic in itself but where the magic is is when you open the box and tip out its contents they lit the only matchstick that wasn't already burnt yes and all the other ones are and it's like that's great and and and and like i've never thought to myself like if i have to do a trick in the in pitch blackness and make it magical you know what i mean like that's the Who thinks of that? Who thinks of, oh, what effect should I do with all the lines? It's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's just, it's so fun to have that knowledge and stuff. And I think that'd be great. And I think it would be a great value add to the listeners here as well, you know, and it's great that we can direct them to the shop.

Yeah. I also like his, um, I like his plot on Russian roulette where there's five envelopes, but instead of there being like a spike for the magician or just like one of them has money or whatever it's like one of these envelopes is loaded with confetti like minute miniature little glitter it's like a glitter bomb like a glitter bomb and we're gonna each one you choose we're gonna cut open above your bag like the lady's bag that's come on stage so the goal is to not pick a glitter

bomb that you're never going to get out of your bag ever again so they're actually like invested in the trick it's you know just a fun different plot whimsical plot and he has a great way of thinking. Yeah. Absolutely. And yeah, so that, and the beauty of having things from the estate, is it's not always about the latest and greatest. And a lot of people seek that.

And just while we've stepped away from a TikTok idea, i penn and teller are in town we had a great conversation yesterday we did a performance at the laneway theater which is tim ellis's theater who's been on the podcast prior and they both came and we put on a show of like 13 magicians doing five minute sets and it was awesome but we're having lots of conversations about new was this just but you gotta slow down a little bit you just start

dropping penn and teller in the convo here so penn and teller in.

Australia turing and yep came to tim ellis's theater just to see you guys was it a show going on anyway yes no just to hang out so we're gonna we're gonna put in a show anyway and we extended the hand of friendship to tell her and said we're doing a thing do you want to come and hang out with all our magician friends and he was like absolutely you guys are like my most wonderful friends he considers us friends as you said in the car ride so i picked them up

from his hotel we went there we had a wonderful feed of beautiful italian cuisine had an absolute laugh pen arrived a little bit later they watched the entire show had a lot of skips the magic he's like i'll be there after the magic's over yeah i had a laugh and a half and away we went but he was saying that like a lot of the ideas and thoughts that he sort of pulled together he pulled from old school burglas books and it's like that's where the treasures are man and i

think it's um well there you go yeah there's a photograph for those that watching on youtube right now of all the guys that were involved um yeah and we had a wonderful time so you see coronel there dom chambers was there chian io is another amazing card magician from there anthony demazi lawrence lung a good friend teller's in the shorts he's like i'm just gonna wear the shorts to this yeah he actually messaged he was like it was like given the weather is it is acceptable to wear t-shirt

and shorts and And I said, yeah, and if you really want to fit in, wear thongs. Sorry, I said flip-flops. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they start performing as of today. So it was basically their only day off, and they came to hang out with us. So we're deeply grateful for their time. That's so cool. Come on. Super lovely. All the cool stuff they find, like the Wacka Teller routine and so forth, it's in these old school books.

And I think it's so important that if you have an opportunity, Doug, to find those ideas and bring them to light. Even if you just go, I'm going to crack open one book, find one cool idea, and talk about it. And go, if you like it, it's in here. Boom. I would watch the crap out of that if you did that. You know, one of the things that breaks my heart in my current situation is I don't possess the library that I have owned in my life. I've managed to lose a couple of considerable large libraries.

Katrina took a big chunk. And when I was young, I lost one when I moved from my house. Now all the books will be there. So I'll have my own library to say, here's what you need to know. And yes, I'd love to do Doug's book reports and so on.

There's so many so many possibilities now yeah yeah well okay so what let's talk about that let's talk about like what are we to expect in the months to come once you've established yourself in in vegas and you're now working with trick supply what are we to expect you. Wow. So first and foremost, for me, it's got to be to understand the business, right? The lay of the land. He's got hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory. I can't imagine what that warehouse looks like.

So February, we'll be learning, you know, that in Las Vegas for me. And then moving forward, like I said, I got the message today. He wants to do a TikTok shop and I wanted to do a TikTok shop forever. That will take considerable effort and learning what's appropriate for that medium. We'll figure that out. and then also developing the brick and mortar which you know is going to be.

You know figuring out what days to open probably friday saturday maybe thursday friday saturday hopefully all the days it'd be great if we could do that setting up a new studio and getting a new point of view really for everything that i'm doing and i was looking to change everything anyway as far as the you know my current production we've all seen this for enough years let's let's look at it from a new way. I'll give you one brief example today.

Like when I think about how am I going to demonstrate tricks from a trick supply, you know what I want to do? I want to film the magicians that come in the store and have them share their favorite piece of magic that maybe we offer. So now you're not looking at me doing it. I'm giving other guys, you know, a spotlight if they want it.

And I think that's an example of how I might be able to share magic in a different way and benefits people well to think about how great that would be because i mean so many people release things at magic live long before they ever ever hit you know the the airway so to speak you know morton christensen's jumbo card was a perfect example of that and how cool would it be if like magic lives in town hey man this is our platform why didn't you come by it's only a stone throw from the airport you're

in town anyway yeah come and do a little thing on the camera we can share it to everyone and give an opportunity you know and this should be something that creators find desirable because i'm pretty good at social media i'll make you look good and you know now more than ever am i you know because it's not just for me now it's for another business that's entrusting me with their products so i'm going to dial it up even more and be you know as best.

Will the studio be set up in the shop or will you still be operating so i very much intend to do everything I'm doing currently, and I'll be doing shorts for myself. I'll be doing a weekly live for my own channel, YouTube, Doug con, and I hope to do some educational content, continuing to teach, you know, the noobs on YouTube, how to do it. Right.

So yeah, I hope to find time to do all of that. And some of that will be from the shop, but I do intend to build a studio out in Las Vegas and, and yeah, just continue to offer what I've been offering. I like it. We got a good, I made so many friends now, you know? It's like, I can't stop now. I got bros. Yeah. Maybe we could pop in when Magic Live comes around and we can actually do a vlog, Josh, so we can sort of show.

We're getting enough space to host guests, for sure. That's one of the reasons I want this townhouse. It's three bedrooms. Three bedrooms, three baths. Yeah, nice. Three baths. That should be enough for Nick. God will never wash my head in the same water. My balls are pissed. Morning, afternoon, night.

Yeah, yeah. yeah you know what else i could see happening doug is if you build a studio for shooting content i don't see why the other vegas magicians that have shows and stuff wouldn't come to your house that's the other thing like i got some cool guys here in new orleans that'll come say hi you know steve reynolds comes over jimmy talks a lot sometimes guys come through in town but guess what in vegas they're all there yeah hey what are you doing right let's go say hi probably not

to shin them but maybe someone else yeah for sure the tutorials filming tutorials in your in your studio would be amazing but what i'm what what i also mean is if you know because the thing is i've seen a lot of the the vegas guys putting up their own content and it's all not shot well like it's all just literally off a phone or whatever like matt franco makes a lot of videos just off his phone it looks like from his phone you know and so if they know they can just roll up

to doug's studio you know hire that setup can i just say to that to to your point exactly that i i've been exploring the open prediction plot for a while and peter turner and pick cake released a thing recently so i purchased it just to further my knowledge and the way that was filmed was the most generic two camera at his place in the uk where it's cold it was just so.

You know what i mean and for the 40 aussie dollars it cost to purchase it it was like okay like this could have been done better for sure it's good enough you know it's fine but like to your point exactly that sometimes people will be doing two doors and go sorry my phone just died so i have to be quick you know like your phone you're filming a tutorial on your phone okay like yeah i think a lot of maybe magic consumers

don't realize how how involved a good production is like it's not easy to get something good on video, especially if you're doing it like an in-depth tutorial. I think we approach suppliers and say, we have this infrastructure and you should be coming to us to do your video work for you. That's what I think. Or the other thing is, you know, as an added value point is, when you buy this new hot trick from Trick Supply, you get the tutorial, but you also get the Doug Conn tutorial. Right.

You know on the list.

We'll see yeah yeah but like exciting stuff bloody exciting and nick just had yeah hung out with penn and teller we've got penn and teller coming to brisbane next week i think or the week after something like that sandy bought my ticket they've already they'd already like almost sold out so sandy bought me for christmas like a single ticket because there weren't any sessions left where there were two seats next to each other sandy likes magic as much as pen does she's like i'll see you after the

magic show yeah she's totally fine i can tell how much she supports magic but doesn't attend it in that we've you know i've been performing at the theater magic for 15 months now and she's come zero times to watch sounds like our ladies would get along marvelously i think so yes yes but okay look doug has his year carved out and i can see the enthusiasm like he's pumped i am pumped come on yeah yeah so what's what about nick what's nick pumped up for this year what's what's

happening my vacation that's what i'm pumped about yes yes Yes, I've done, I am a workaholic by nature. I get that, but I haven't, I've traveled. Yes, I've traveled, but it's all been magic orientated. It's always been either to perform or for a convention. And I've done nothing of leisure in a long time. And I, after an incident at a gig, I think, I don't know if I mentioned it, but like, I never told the story where like a guy died at my gig.

A guy died at my gig. Yeah. Oh no, a long time ago. But the notion still sticks. So the venue that this thing happened in, we're like, there's a psychiatrist. We need you to go see. It's just part of our duty of care, blah, blah, blah. And when you're suing us with post-traumatic, whatever else, please go chat to our person just to make sure that you're okay with the guy dying in the parking lot after you were working for us.

And I was like, no problem. So I had a chat with them. And I sat with this psychiatrist. We had a lovely, lovely chat. She was like, you are so solid. You're a super solid guy. This doesn't affect you. I can tell you put it together. you're this and that there's only one thing i have to say about you and it's that downtime.

You treat it as a luxury and you need to treat it as a necessity and it's okay to stop it's okay to relax and not work so much like that's that's the only thing i can say about you and anyone who knows me and knows my work ethic knows yes i'm flat out i get it right and i prioritize i do my notion is i do too many things so i'm never doing nothing, And I have too many people to take care of. So I'm never taking care of like, I'm seldom ever taking care of myself.

So yeah. So the vacation is something I'm looking forward to where I'm just going to be on a mountain in the snow with probably poor reception. And I'm just, that's going to be me, man. That's going to be me. Just three weeks of two weeks in Canada, one week in Japan, and then I'll be home. It is just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to be gone. Good and proper, but I intend on bringing

my mic with me. And if there's an opportunity that we're having a snow in day that I'll, I think that it falls around 4 PM. I think if I'm in Vancouver, so might be able to pop on and hang with you guys during that time. So I will be prepared, but that's what I'm looking forward to right now. And yeah, a long, long flights and books. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of me by necessity the last few weeks. Now you haven't seen me.

It was like my whole universe said, Doug, you got to not do everything all the time, every day all day long worrying about everything magic magic magic magic do this do this do this and literally my body brain and universe said pause yeah um then look what happened.

Yeah nick asked an interesting um question our friend drago tear he says my wife asked if you guys really want your significant others at your gig to support you or do you feel like you would be too nervous to perform because they would never let you live it down. Yeah, that's what my wife does is make fun of me after my gigs. Slash the pass, the top change is sock, your double lift needs work, and your cups and balls is weak.

So the way I see it going down, it's like you flashed your double, your palming's bad, you left the socks on the floor, you didn't put them in the basket, you left your coffee mug in the back. It just turns from being your magic about being personal. That's funny. You know, I have no nerves when anyone comes to see me perform.

Like it doesn't affect the way I perform, but when I do get nervous is when I get a phone call while we're driving and like I get an inquiry on the phone while we're driving and Sandy's sitting next to me because she is a customer service ninja.

So me knowing she's listening to me trying to sell this client, that's what's nerve wracking because the moment I get off the call, I know I'm going to hear something like, Like, oh, you could have given them more energy, or you could have been nicer to them at the end, or you could have had a bit more chitchat before you got into the actual meat of it. I'm like, so that's what's actually nerve wracking for me, that the sales call, if she's in the car listening, I can perform all goddamn day.

But that I'm like, I know she's going to say something about this. Truthfully, I've had this experience with Erin. We've been on lecture tours together. So she sat and watched the events. And then that's what happens is I get constructive criticism, some good feedback post event. And genuinely, it's a good thing to have them around. I never really, Nick, answering your question, I'm never nervous about having her there.

It's always a benefit. And, you know, if you get a chance to have your significant other around at the show, it's probably a good thing. Yeah, they'll see stuff that you don't see, like they'll see how the audience is watching you or whatever. Yeah, right.

Or that was funny. do that again and then also if something stupid happens you can commiserate about it after the show and as opposed to having to like try to express it to someone who wasn't there you know someone that was there you can yeah i remember watching a video of um vin yang a lot of magicians will know or remember maybe remember encyclopedia of magic when he launched that but you know he built up his career to being

a keynote speaker that caught in australia his fee was ten thousand dollars Australian to hire him to give a one hour keynote. And at the time he was signed by the biggest speaking agency in Australia called Saxton's. So he's doing like half a million dollars in. Keynote speaking a year, like gross. And so he's like flying here, flying there, giving these talks. He gets standing ovations because he's just so good at it. Anyway, his wife, pay one, like, you know, she's just, he is her husband to

her. Like that's just who he is. He's not this. So one day he finally gets a keynote in Adelaide where they live. And he's like, oh, I'm so excited for you to come and watch me speak.

And he's just, he's donating his time to speak for like a local entrepreneurs group or something like that anyway he freaking gives it all because he knows his wife's in the audience and then he he's filming while they're driving home he's like so pay one like were you proud of me like what did you think of my talk and she's just like yeah it's very good yeah good job you know but i think you need that you can't have like some like your partner can't be fangirling over right your work

then it's a bit weird you know. Here's your reality check you're not all that yeah well you know what i'm curious about you know how we say like do we get nervous and whatever else like do you guys remember when you would perform things and you'd get away with it like you'd get away with a watch steal or something like that and you'd feel that adrenaline rush of like you did something really really wonderful those moments are kind of few and far between like now it's just like it's just

what i do like for someone else experiencing it it's like wow but you know when you go for kind of those miracle like oh just look at the card you see one and then you have somebody point to a deck and then all the and it all hits open prediction stuff whatever it is like i kind of feel like those moments are now few and far between you know and they're more scary than they're more scary than they are exhilarating is what i think yeah you need a vacation what is it so you need a vacation,

should we do a quick gig stories have you been doing any gigs nick i've done a lot but i have a gig story that a friend told me yesterday and i'm gonna keep their name out of this equation but you guys need to hear this story it's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard in my life are you ready for this let's let's well let let me roll the clip.

So gig stories a section of the show we like to talk about gig stories either from from our personal lives performing or in this instance from a friend this particular friend of mine i've known for many many years and we've been working alongside each other and supporting each other in the magic realm for a very long time this person since then has now evolved into somebody who does ships, or should I say did ships.

So The cruise director was asking for their blurb, and that person wrote their blurb. But this person has quite a sense of humor, quite a sense of humor, and wrote the whole blurb. And then in the last line, wrote something rather inappropriate and wrote just 9-11 was an inside job. And the person who read the blurb and went, funny, deleted that line and then published it.

As time passed they got a new director they got a new director and they were like oh i need your blurb again please that person said not a problem they copied it posted it still including the 9-11 was an inside job the new director didn't proofread it and ended up printing this blurb in over 300 pamphlets that went into every room of the cruise ship. Oh, no. But it was an inside job. So then what happened? You squashed TikTok. Who's at fault here then?

The director or the magician? well i think there's got to be a shared blame the american government.

Well it's got to be a shared blame you know what i mean like yeah so what they got fired, well you know there was a that they had like he like this person was like you need to go and pull everything back out of these rooms and reprint it immediately and and it was just sort of like well look at this problem you caused for me if you just weren't it weren't a dick and so i mean that that could be a good test to see how many people are actually reading the pamphlets they

give you on the ships every day like and i think it was that person's sort of motivation it's like i bet you don't even can read these i'll just say whatever and then like what's it really gonna do yeah but when this person told me that yesterday i was like that is like that's funny right and i and i said i need to tell that story i go but i'm not going to mention your name, and they were like yep appreciate that so the job to be clear i well yeah you know i i don't know,

sort of what ramifications came from that or what sort of you know like, There's obviously some sort of paper trail of what this person was like working with this person and so forth, I imagine. But what I'm getting at, I think, ultimately is that, hey, mind your actions because they can follow you around. I've made mistakes for sure, but I'm also a very private person as far as my personal life for sure.

But as far as my working mentality, it's like it's entirely professional and no squeeze is worth the juice.

You know what i mean so be easy to work with be talented be on time if you're looking for yourself there's some wiggle room to get a little weird but yeah if you're like hired by another company to represent their brand squeaky clean right yeah yeah all right well i got a not a not a dicey story but just a cool thing that happened for me that magicians might appreciate that do stack work so we had a lunch on sunday for the

management of the hotel that the theater of magic runs at so this they the husband so the lady that that runs the events at this hotel her husband is like a top chef like he's amazing cooking us food there obviously we're magicians so before we leave like. It gets brought up in conversation. The lady's like, man, I watch all your Instagrams. Like, how do you even know how to just find someone's card in two seconds? Like, it's like, they're just saying a card, like the seven of diamonds.

And then you're able to just like somehow find it in two seconds. I'm like, well, it's funny you ask that. And I just sit a deck of cards on the table and they're like, no way, no way. I'm like, yeah, let's just see. And I like, they see me shuffle the deck, sit the deck down. And I'm like, so you want the seven of diamonds or do you want to change it?

And her husband leans over to her and is like, when magician says that you should always change your card i'm like do it so she names the three of hearts instead okay now for anyone who does in the monica knows where the seven of diamonds is and where the three of hearts is and i'm like okay great so go ahead cut the deck in half like cut it like to the middle and she cuts the deck and sits it on the table and i know that she is two cards away from the three of

hearts like there's two cards on top of it but there's also two cards on top of this first pile to where the seven of diamonds is from before i'm like this is too perfect so i just look at the guy next to her the their daughter's boyfriend i'm like name a small number and he goes two i'm like i'm like this is inside i'm like god damn it why am i not filming this i'm like all right take two cards of both piles they do that i'm like now you could you at the start you just said seven

of diamonds then you change your mind to three of hearts let's let's see what the cards are that are left on these two piles boom seven of diamonds three of hearts i walk out of there like a fucking gangster that's the bomb. We signed it you know we're signed for another 10 years.

That's a close it was it was insane i i given i was probably more excited than them because i know like i couldn't replicate that but to them they probably like he does this all the time which is the the beauty of that jazzing did you play it cool or were you like a high school girl it worked no no i was just like yeah yeah i don't even know how i do it which i literally don't know how that all just happened but but it was great it was great that's that's when you

have a magic effect where there is even like it doesn't literally have to be but there needs to be a perception of maybe it was a little bit of luck like the moment that happens their brain like that tries to figure things out just goes that's just ridiculous yeah and because the notion i let them with, I was like, what's really going to annoy you when I leave is what if you had not changed a mind? What if you had cut the deck anywhere else? What if you had said any other number

than two? Like you did all of that. I didn't touch the cards. I'll just leave you with that. And, you know, I'll probably still get questions about that when I see them this week. Like it's right.

Leaving things to luck and it working is so untraceable backwards, unless they listen to this podcast in which case i'm screwed but i'd highly doubt that yeah yeah that was fun that was very fun and look we're we're rolling we've been made it to the end of a another fantastic episode you guys have been great listening to us complaining about social media platforms that are free for us to post on anyway but you know i feel like the attention will is just

going to get redirected but hopefully you know it all plays out and youtube shorts i think that's a good one you still doing lives there norbita you do vertical lives on short still yeah look given i haven't done one in a couple of weeks now but my i'm i'm like 200 subscribers away from hitting 20 000 subscribers on on on youtube which is for me insane oh man way to go.

Over there in a while you that's that's very nice there's quite a tribe starting to build over there which is, I'm so thankful for. And like, I'm getting people saying, I'm planning my trip to come and see you at the theater. I'm like, you got a seat if you make it. And what a great way to grow organically, right? You're plugging that every night at the theater. Let's go.

Yeah yeah yeah so it's wild over there i i love doing lives i just on it just it's so hard to find like i've just seen them more on the shorts feed like they're coming up right you know vertical live streaming on youtube is alive and well and yeah it will have some of my attention moving forward for sure 100 it's on it's on the it's on the board maybe it's just i'm live streaming the shop when i'm demoing stuff maybe it's just on there you know that's a great idea live from two to four

and watch Doug demo stuff like that maybe I don't know, document don't create right yeah I love it you should do a live tonight if you're not busy well hey look don't tempt me with a good time I may just do it, yeah all right ladies and gentlemen look let's leave we're gonna give Nick the final word today and then we'll see you next week.

So the final word today, friends, is that we know that TikTok may or may not exist in the times, in the weeks ahead, but erroneous or whatever they are, it's not an excuse to stop doing your magic. And we will always find other mediums to do that. We have this podcast, we have our discords, we have Instagram. And I think that as far as TikTok affecting the magic community, we'll find a way to shine through. So stay positive, test negative, keep doing magic.

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.