Magic In The Outback! #191

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

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 191. We're so close to 200. Oh my god. I am one of your magicians today, Josh Norbido.

Up above, we've got Doug Kahn and St. John jr the third phd i love that to my other up above we've got nick k i thought you're gonna be like this is doug cat doug cat yeah it's the best one and that's adorable that's adorable and someone's just knocked on my door so my dogs are gonna bark for a second but welcome to the show where we talk about our lives as magicians give advice share shenanigans and all around just have a bit of fun and every now and then we have a guest as well.

But Nick, how you been? We haven't really chatted since the last episode. So how are you doing, man? Really good. It's been a busy week for both you and I, which has been great. You've been on the road. Anyone who's been scoping out Josh's socials will see that he's been flying about the country doing some really awesome stuff. Yes, indeed. It has been fun and I have many stories to tell about that escapade. Starting with a flight. Well, the flight will only allow me to have 10 kilos

of luggage and you got to do two 40 minute shows. So that's, that's, that'll be fun. But before we get into that, you know, want to recognize everyone that's here and a speak pipe that was sent into us as well. But I love how before the episode starts, cause obviously anyone listening to this post live, everyone's here for the real fun in the comments in the moment.

And I love jumping on in the morning and seeing thomas conga leave a pre-message before the pod so even though i don't reply to them tom i see your message about being excited for the episode and i'm sure it's nice to know you're out there caring yeah and you know what because we always joke about how we are the pre-show to kill tony look what's finally arrived in the mail for me the kill tony playing cards Yeah Did you open them yet?

I have not opened them yet This is still sealed I'm gonna make a video about it Like we were discussing on the last one And I love how underneath it It literally says Produced by the first card playing card company By Chris Ramsey What a flex for Chris. And it means, you know, they're going to be good too. So I, if anyone else in the chat has these as well, let me know.

Cause I feel like I haven't seen magicians using these yet. Cause it's a bit of a niche thing for a magician to be obsessed with Kill Tony. I think you showcase those cards properly online. You'll get a little extra attention for sure. You know, the popularity of Kill Tony is like there now.

I think you keep that deck sealed. it's worth a bunch of money in a couple of years you know so it's choices true maybe i'll order some more now the shipping's so expensive to australia it's like more than the decks so it's kind of ridiculous right i've shipped things to australia it's like 30 to send a couple decks of cards over there yeah yeah it's like i may as well fly to the u.s to pick them up yeah yeah i recently made i made a purchase myself which damn

near doubled the the product and it was the as you guys know the wonderful sean farquhar has released this documentary called lost in the shuffle and they finally released it like dvd and blu-ray so i ordered the blu-ray and yeah it just basically doubled the the price having that ordered and it's probably going to take like a couple of weeks to get here at least so you know yeah that's the privileges we got to pay for to live in this awesome country it is.

True and sometimes i wonder is it not just cheaper for us to physically fly there and buy a bunch of stuff but let me ask you this do you guys find it really funny that and this has been coming up on my social feeds recently and it's probably worth having a joke about especially because we have a foreign correspondent like doug and us two guys who actually live in australia i'm the foreign well i'm the foreign to us you guys were what about let me finish

let me finish so you can so that it has better context and what i'm getting at is that there's been a lot of stupid things that have been said on the internet where australia is not real and we're all paid actors and have you seen this type of malarkey doug no no no i can vouch for the foreigners that that is not a prevalent state of mind about australia.

We think you're all criminals, but that's all we think, you know. And we are. Criminals over there. We are. And the reason for that is that we were founded by British convicts. Effectively, what happens in the UK was they had a bunch of convicts and they didn't have anywhere to put them. They said, that's it, off to Botany Bay. And so they put them on ships and they sent them off to New South Wales in Botany Bay. And so it was basically a settlement for British convicts.

Yeah, and so that's what happened. We were supposed to go into jail. You ended up here and into the realm of hard labor, I assume. Yeah but also nick's a criminal because you know he goes to gigs and he'd be stealing women's hearts what oh you know what i mean when i get on stage i murder, oh damn damn man i remember when i used to be cool like that.

I had my day i used to go lost your audio oh now he's back sick, oh we're good oh we've lost him we've lost that's hilarious well while he fixes it we're going to go to a speak pipe this is sent in from nicholas nicholas gay thank you for sending in your speak pipe please go and send us in we love to to play them at the start of the episode so again speak pipe.com forward slash the magic guys or through our website it's on our main page the magic guys show.com all

right we're going to play this i have a telegraph in the closet that's still functional from back in the day if you want to come in that way i'm here for you if you can fax in a message to doug to morse code situation josh yeah so doug i'm gonna look at you just let me know if the audio is too high or low because this is coming through the bluetooth on my phone because we're professional and we i i jump on two minutes before we go live when these

guys are already waiting for me so let's be clear it wasn't two minutes it's literally 15 seconds that's true Here we go.

Hey guys, my question for you today is if you could do a piece of magic that was actually real, like for instance you could actually pull a rabbit out of a hat at any point in time, what trick would it be? Why? Would it be because it's easier to do it, or cheaper, or just because it would look cooler? Thanks, bye. Ooh, okay. Another question. Okay. You can do any trick but for real. And why would you choose that trick?

Yeah, I think I have two answers, but I'm curious to see what the other fellas have to say. Doug, what goes off in your mind when you think of that? Not that you don't already do real magic, but if you're choosing another one. The first thing I think is, wow, I wouldn't do any of the tricks I already do if I could do real magic. You know, the first thing that comes to mind, I would love to fly like Superman.

Man i don't know if that's the most practical magic trick in the world to just be able to take off producing money at will seems to be like the the the perfect trick for most people at least theoretically be careful what you wish for but how cool would that be yeah how much is that ow there you go good point yeah but that's probably a dangerous power to wield yeah and i'm seeing a, few fellas in the chat put things in like, Tom would like to be able to float anything,

levitation, that's kind of like what Doug's saying with flying, but yeah, if you can levitate things, absolutely. Scott says, oh, that's why I'm not allowed to be a Jedi. I think he's trying to say maybe. That's the cousin to the Jedi, which is a different thing, actually. Oh, all right. Scott's not supposed to be talking about the Jet-tie. He knows better. Wow. Gutbuster Mike said the one where you turn ones into hundos. Yeah.

And okay. So my two would be, the first one would be a real life thinker drink where you could just have a can of something and they name whatever drink they want out of anything and then they open it and pour it out and it's that drink like just at free will that would be awesome because that that trick gets such a big reaction when i do it as a trick but if i could do it on the fly anytime anywhere like that could literally be a show like you could travel around the world making

millions of dollars because you have 10 drinks set up and the audience just names I mean, you go see Steve Cohen, it's his signature piece at that millionaire magic show. Do you do a version of the Think a Drink, Josh?

No, no, no. I do just the one can and they've picked a drink out of a hundred different options and it's wrong. And then inside is the right one. And that's still pretty cool. Yeah, it's still very cool. But I would pay, I think I would pay a lot of money. I would pay, fuck, how much would I, I would give all the money I have, I reckon, to properly learn and be able to perform Steve Collins. Like if he was teaching me to do his thing a drink, no question.

Cause he, he, even though I haven't, I don't know the physical mechanics, but he still fooled me with it when I went to see him do it in his show. And so it was amazing. The very kind of banger version is Jim Steinmeier. He does it with a milk carton. You get four or five drinks out of it at the end, you tear the milk carton out up. It's a good one. You know, like most things Jim Steinmeier puts his name on.

Absolutely. I have seen that available too. And that's definitely, that's attainable at least, you know, if you wanted to do that trick, it's a good version. It's out there. And for sure. Yeah. But if I'm spending, yeah. So if I could just have real powers, it would just literally be, you know, so you could turn a liquid into any other liquid.

And then the other one would be, if i could just know whatever thought of word someone picks you could have an entire career just on that and in my in my head it would be like in my head it would be like i can see, the word they've just thought of written in like smoke above their head or something like that's how it reveals itself to me yeah okay it's that because if if you can if you can do that people would line up out i mean we're

getting close to that with some of the methods available to modern practitioners you know there's things out there that are like so scary close to. Oh yeah. And Nick, Nick, Nick and I are good friends with Brennan Dooley. He's, he's playing with some dark magic stuff. That's just wild for, um, a lot of words. Yeah. It's just, it's just like Banachek, right? Who does a lot of psychological subtleties, you know, where he's like walking the tightrope of what is almost real mentalism.

Yeah what are we what about like the the guys that that cure people you know what i mean that go into those big all the healers yeah like the healers like that would be awesome you know people come forward and they they're all they're all shamans we're all full of it but this notion of like oh i'm going to you know make your leg longer because you've got this situation you can actually just go forward and like i don't know slap someone in the forehead and then their false teeth

fall out and it's like you have real real teeth now so what nick's saying is he wants to become jesus because if you do that that is what is going to happen i'm magic come a prophecy.

Just like deadpool is my jesus i'll be magic jesus yeah the question i guess i was like just going off the rails with like if i could have real magic powers i guess if i you had to present it, theatrically in an entertaining fashion that changes maybe the mindset of what I might choose, more along the lines of think a drink perhaps but maybe I would pick someone could name any card and I can make it appear anywhere that's a pretty cool one yeah it's worth a great superpower Mr.

Movito all the question to that if you could really read minds and hear the thoughts of people around you do you think it would be a privilege or a curse so think about that because imagine.

All the things that we as really nice people don't say oh i think about horrible stuff yeah but it's like it's like hey man like how does this look like awful but you go looks great yeah got a good time everyone had the power i think it'd be cool because maybe you could manage it somehow, but if like you were the only one with that power, oh, no, thank you.

I think it would also freak you out because like, you know, when you look at someone and you never, it's just this little weird part in your brain that goes like, you know, if you front kick them out into that traffic, they'd be dead and get hit by that bus, you know? And then the, the, the logical part in your body just moves along and thinks of other stuff, but a psychopath might act on it. Right. But if you can read minds and you hear someone say.

In your mind. Oh, what if I just push that guy out into the traffic? Well, now you're paranoid and you think he's going to do it when he's just, you know, and then you're hearing everyone like over judge and over say stuff that obviously then they filter out by the end and don't do or say, I reckon you'd lose your mind. Yeah. Humans are horrible. You can't, no one could put up with that all day.

Yeah. Especially if you're a female, imagine being a female and walking around and having to hear everything a guy's thinking about you there was a sheesh there was a funny movie with what was his name the one from lethal weapon mel gibson and it was called like what women want and he was able to hear all the thoughts of women and there was there's a really funny scene in that movie where he's got like two receptionists and then he he walks

into the office and closes the door and the two of them are just sitting there and he hears nothing it's just blank mind he's waiting for this and nothing comes out and it's like wow that is kind of funny and and here's that's good that's funny here's another follow-up question what do you think the thoughts would be when you approach a table and start performing so let me okay let's let's be a little more specific you're at a table you're performing away everyone's having a great

time the girls are loving it and there's going to be the fellows that are like thinking what now that's pretty I'm going to make them look stupid. I reckon they'd be thinking stuff like, how do I sneak a fart out without them noticing? Or like, I need another refill on my drink. I wonder if this guy's a waiter. I think it's a little bit more...

Subtle than probably what we're thinking but also if you're reading real minds you're not doing table magic anymore you're like assisting presidents and stuff at like diplomatic meetings and stuff let's also offer general advice here if you are table hopping take care with those couple situations if you're coming up to a couple it's a man and a woman you got to treat that with care and really generally skip that table but if you're going to be there you better

make the guy look good right yeah a hundred percent let's just reiterate exactly what that means when you're at so if you're at a table and a couple are hitting it off you can't afford to walk away in a roving setting and leave them be but if they're in a situation where they're just on their phones and they're not engaging and you want to sort of break that and make a connection do whatever you can to lift your fella up because he hasn't gotten any game and he needs a little

bit of love but in the same breath and i've performed this many a times where i've tried to celebrate the gentleman, to make him look like he's got a skill set and that he's fun, but he's just hell bent on ruining me to make himself look good in front of her. He's done it to himself. Can we agree on that? Totally. Yeah. I mean, you can only do so much, right? And if there's any material you are looking for to perform in that situation, I would recommend John Armstrong's first Penguin Lecture.

It's a routine i still jump to and it literally is basically a test to see if that couple can find each other's cards and it goes back and forth and it becomes about them so it's like shuffle the deck okay you're gonna peek at a card now i'm gonna fend the deck out for you and you're gonna you know pick one oh let's see if you got it boom you nailed it wow okay let's try it the other way let's now you gotta see if you can read her mind this is not this is all on

you guys boom and then it's like the card that they name ends up in your wallet and it's like you guys are amazing this is meant to be and that's a really fun way to leave it so yeah John Armstrong's first penguin live lecture he performs and teaches it there you know what i do sometimes as well like i'll do a coins across thing where typically like i'll try to stick the coin back in their hand but rather than having.

One person hold their hand i try to put like the couples to put one hand on top one hand on bottom so they're actually doing this now together and like oh they're holding hands and even though it's a subtlety it's like well you've held hands already it might be nice to like hold hands while you walk back to the car yeah and even if you're gonna do double cross if you're gonna do double cross do it where they hold hands and you draw the x on like the guy's hand over here and it travels through

them to the world on the other side with with her hand closed at least do it like that you know again yeah so you can take most things and put it into about them situation i i just want to bring up this comment because this is perfect caden says i feel like magic would be ruined if spectators could read the magician's mind wouldn't that be funny an interesting hurdle to overcome now i'm gonna throw this back to nick what yeah would they hear if they heard the magician thinking what would

they hear the magician thinking do you want to know what goes on in my mind while i'm performing what they'd be hearing okay, hey.

On repeat, uh yeah yeah yeah it gets to the point and as it should that you know your routine so well that you're not thinking about the routines you're thinking about all the other things that are happening while you're just breathing i agree have you guys been in flow where you're literally like not even at the wheel you're just in cruise control watching some stuff unfold and the jokes are coming out and you're barely thinking about it it's just you know like i mean we we know

what it's like to be in flow right oh well too well i love you can be too much in flow if you're like too much flowing and not really in the moment like you're not using that extra time and energy to adapt and improve the situation to the best of your ability yeah now it's like the wrong direction right i'm gonna flash it back when i used to pitch magic in the mall i did the same, pitch six hours a day, right? 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes.

Well, by three hours in, I'm checking out the chicks in the mall. I'm not thinking about Rocky Raccoon. I'm looking at the right, you know, checking out the shoes, wondering who's going to buy the magic, you know, but I'm not thinking about the presentation or if they care what I'm saying, you know, that's not good. Perfect. I try to be a sponge and just absorb when I'm performing.

And one thing you could apply straight away is ask someone if you're in a group ask someone to name a card or just say all right someone name a card and then you pick one person but you listen to what this person said as well as a callback later and you can make it seem like you've just done this by pure magic so they say queen of hearts but you hear this this person say seven of diamonds you go all right great do a trick with that in the meantime you keep an eye on the seven of diamonds,

find the queen of hearts do a change put it sit it on the table and go alright someone else name a card oh wait what card did you want. Seven of diamonds. Okay. Bang. It's already on the table. You have a miracle. The amount of times the top change is like created pure miracles for me is pure beauty. And it's just by listening. I'll often do it with the same spectator where I'll have them name a card and I'll do nomonicosis, but I'll say, ah, damn.

And what would your second choice would be? And I let them half say it. And then I stopped them and I go back to the first card, but I know what that second card was. So when i ask them to name another card they say that second one that i already have ready.

And it's just so much fun the power of listening who you know it's a very advanced question very very advanced technique yeah it's the it's the good stuff but it only works if you know you know your routine in and out and you're relaxed and you can concentrate on that bandwidth you know all right we've got another speak pipe this one this one is from jimmy farrester it looks a bit long, so better be good, Jimmy. Let's play this one and Jimmy Farrister. Hey guys, it's just Jimmy.

I was sitting here thinking about my muse and of course it's my wife. We've been together 14 years and that's, I mean, I've been with her for a reason.

She gets my jokes she tests my jokes out she tells me what jokes to put into my magic and and even though she does guide a little bit but she is the inspiration so i do want you i i wonder what your guys's muse are i mean doug and josh of course you have the easy answer but why i mean what do they do and how can others find that i don't know and nick i mean do you have a muse.

And i mean is it yourself maybe is it your your your past experience in a band maybe, but seriously i mean not in there there's got to be something that pushes you and drives you and motivate you? And I'm just curious, and I would love to hear those answers. Thanks, guys.

Man good question good question i just what well do you want to just for the viewers summarize what the question is well mainly for me because there was a lot going on there and right so, creatively we we put a lot of stuff out there and we create right and typically in a creative sense i guess not not that it's always been applied to magic in itself but there is this notion that we have a muse and someone who inspires

us to create in my early days was my good friend jesse mark Whenever I had conversations with him or he was just around me, I would produce so much cool stuff. It was great. I couldn't – almost at a sankey level, I could create faster than I could actually build a gimmick. But it's really interesting, the question, who is your muse? Because I have to clarify, is a muse someone that you create for? Or is a muse someone who inspires? Question to the group. Doug?

I love that supports what I do. You know, I wake up every day and think how lucky am I to have this human being in my world and live with my best friend and, you know, to have this energy, you know, around me that even if like, maybe I'm not feeling like pulling myself up for the day that, you know, I need to do that for this beautiful person in my world. So I think this is probably the vibe Jimmy's feeling. I've met this couple, Jimmy and his wife. I know how he loves her and she loves

him. So I know that's the vibe he's talking about mostly. You could also love your cat that way. You know, if you're really into your cats, maybe not quite as much. Yeah, true. Yeah. So a muse is defined as a person who, or force, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. So that's really interesting because I feel that each routine is, if we're going to equate it to this, is your art piece, and there's different inspirations.

Like I'm doing a PK Tetris type thing that's actually inspired by my father. Because my dad to me is like, where I, the notion is that like pieces of me are pieces of them, pieces of my parents. You know what I mean? It's silly to believe that like the good in you is the good of your folks. The bad traits can also be like, come from that sort of realm. And, you know, I like to joke around. I like to have fun. My dad is a prankster.

That's where it comes from. My dad's the type of guy that will tap you on the shoulder. When you go to look, no one's there. And I think that notion of a PK touch phrased in that way is kind of cool. So my father's amused for the routine. So I guess the answer for myself is it depends on which piece of artwork I'm doing. Sometimes it's for the audience. Sometimes it's for yourself.

I certainly create pieces for myself because I find myself more than not creating pieces of magic that I want to see. Like I perform the type of magic I want to see. So that's a multifaceted answer But what do you guys think? Yeah, I get it. I think, you know, like the art itself is a muse for me. Can it be that? Like, you know, just the magic itself drives me unbelievably and has for 40 years. You know, I wake up and eat, drink and sleep.

I've been able to do that daily, you know, for so long. Can the art itself be the muse? Magic is my muse. That's a t-shirt right there. You know, there's no, there's no like ulterior motive except passion for the art, right? Hmm. Yeah. It's a discussion. I don't know. Experts just sitting there going, gosh, yeah. Yeah. It's a tough one. It's not a definitive answer. There's not a person I'm like, you know, I love my fiance, but I'm not sitting here going, all right, I have to create for her.

You know i need to make her proud or whatnot she's going to support whatever i do so i know like you know she's got my back but definitely yeah i'm inspired by the art i see around me the other performers everything stand-up comedy you know kill tony i love watching that and i go i love how they can riff off this in this kind of like tonality i'm like oh yeah i want to see what i can do in that way right and definitely definitely for myself and you know

i like to create work that i think would be fun and i haven't seen anyone do and then i, do enjoy watching my own work back i don't know if that's if that's egotistical but like i can appreciate it is but it's also reasonable because, your shit's fire josh norbedo i'd watch my shit too if i was you yeah well you know what maybe doug is my muse then i'm not joking everyone knows everyone around everyone here knows that. You got fire stuff. Yeah. Could I, could I say something that that's,

that's true to what Doug's, if I may. And that was like, magic is my muse. If you do love magic as a whole, I think you care about it enough to want to power through it. So one of the examples is I'll give you a couple of examples. Delgadier was doing a chat at magic live and he was sort of disheartened by an experience that he was having going to a magic club.

And he was basically engaged in conversation and, you know, trying to share a couple of thoughts and somebody was trying to eavesdrop and sort of steal from what he was taking away. He was like, I just want to know the secrets or tell me, tell me, tell me. And he basically turned to this person and said, you are killing the thing I love. And so when people's attitudes sort of kill what you love, and if you love magic as a whole, it's kind of important.

And it made me reflect on a moment when I decided I'm going to start doing magic. And here's the second part of the story.

I was getting into magic and I hadn't seen live magic yet and so i had gone and and it consumed so much stuff on youtube and in the internet and you know illusionist etc way way back in the day many many many years ago now and then i decided to go to the melbourne magic festival for the first time and i'm watching these performers do their thing and it was dismal it was dismal like it was i'm like watching this amazing magic

on the internet and then seeing stuff performed and there was this performer who did this bit and he had a deck and he shuffled it with the bottom facing towards the audience. And he goes, if I mix the cards and he peeled off four cards and you can see the cards counting off ace, two, three, four.

And then he does this, right? And then he goes, but if I was to reverse the process and then he counts them off the top and spread, you now see the deck is in brand new deck order and everyone clapped and cheered. And I looked around the audience and I went, I thought profanities. I thought, are you serious? You serious? This is the best that Australia has to offer. And I was really disheartened by that. And then Tim Ellis got up. He blew my mind. That's what Australian magic is. Fantastic.

Simon Coronel got up. That's what Aussie magic was. That blew my mind. Boris Wilde, a French magician, FISM winner. He performed his piece. That blew my mind. And I went, three of the 20 in this gala were fire and the rest were porridge. And so I went, I'm going to try and do something about this because I think I could do something that represents this. The year after I did my first show and I've been trying to propagate magic ever since and I've been mentoring kids ever since.

And I've been going to magic sessions that we've had conversations about with clubs where it's like, I don't get anything out of it. It's a waste of time. And it's like, well, it's not about me getting anything out of it. It's about me trying to help the next generation and the next group of kids, the next group that could be extremely egotistical and super douchebaggy. And you want to sort of go, hey, kids, check yourself before you wreck yourself, you know?

And I think that's what's important. If you do love magic, like Doug does, and it is why I think that what you're doing with the learned sleight of hand, it's all being done the right way. And it's all been done with the right intention to propagate magic forward. Preach. I love it. Try and do it right with respect. Thank you for that. I was thinking this like magic at its base is a craft, right?

So the craft can be your muse and through that express your art, which is where you get to share original creations, a unique point of view, change people's thought processes.

That's where the art happens. so maybe this is how we have magic as a craft and a muse to make art which can still be magic but it's a performance art where we really have the art in magic yeah and if and if if you really need some uh inspiration for making content because that can be some of that the heart one of the harder things to do is to is to drive forward and and make yourself make content when you already have a busy life.

Just watch some 2018 Gary Vee. That's what really fired up my engine was. I blame him for all the content you see me putting out. In the best way, I blame him because he really drove into my head that unless you're online in 2024, your business doesn't exist. You can be as good as you want, but you're invisible.

I also would put a good amount of, credit to him as well i have i have more than one friend that's an amazing magician and a little bit struggling right now because the social media presence is not as strong as it needs to be you know it's expected in this day and age if you aren't doing that yeah it's certainly something, professional should be considering a little tip i i've just started doing too is if you go to an event and you happen to make a little montage of the event

which i've started doing using the meta Ray-Bans because I can get these point of view reactions. I've been putting up a reel and then collaborating that reel with the event. And I just did it over the weekend. When I was away in the Outback, I made this just this little 10 second thing and collaborated with them. And they were so wrapped. They were like, oh, thank you. This is great.

And now their whole audience is seeing my work as a way to get myself out there from just putting up this 10 second thing.

When we went to Singapore for the formula one Sandy and I filmed this little montage of her in the hotel we were staying at because we have this idea that in the future we could send that as an as an example and be like hey you know if you want to let us stay here for free we'll give you this piece of content cheapest video you've ever paid for that value for the client it really is huge i couldn't agree more and and that hotel has since reached out and

said could we post that as our own piece of content on our hotel this is a big hotel in in singapore and the ridges hotel where we have our show i went and filmed one of the bartenders making an espresso martini and i turned it into this really nice slow-mo like, Wonderful to watch drink being made and collaborated with them on our Theatre of Magic page. They collaborated and now, you know, our video sits on the Ridges Hotels bars Instagram.

So just a little tip I threw out there. This collaboration invite thing is a really powerful tool. And what you do is you invite them to collaborate. Then you send a message to them, which will show up underneath it saying, hey, absolutely no pressure at all to accept this.

I just like to give you the opportunity to in case this video goes viral haha and then that's it and then it's not like they think they have to anyway that was a tangent that i just you know i think that might be helpful to someone have you considered offering that as a professional service you know something you put in a contract you know to provide clients is that worth doing i reckon when i have a when i have a bigger following i think it's something that could be a value

add for sure i don't know that it is seen as much of an ad at the but creating the content is extremely valuable especially if you're good at it you know and you are like you can really make about that expresso video looks great right yeah yeah 100 so that's a that's a huge value to any company that you know wants to be relevant especially if you're look offering to share it and collaborate that's multi multi views for them it's a win-win it's a very true how well will this show up this is

it only goes for like 10 seconds but you'll get the idea and this is just i made this in like you know five minutes i just grabbed the clips that i'd shot and just put this together there's like a nice little music track behind it.

And like yeah i want that you can see how that looks exactly exactly so i would encourage that so so you know a perfect perfect example you know for nick's company you know you could be performing at holy moly get a whole bunch of reactions collaborate with them boom now they've got content that's fire and now you're being promoted through their socials so it's i won't even voice how difficult that is on this forum but yeah but yes i totally agree with you and that's the thing leverage

is it's really good advice being able to leverage anything you know it could be something as simple as like oh we're looking for a discount on a on a venue on a whatever and you go like do you have videographers and photographers for the evening and they go yes great you give me all that footage i'll do you a deal then all of a sudden they go like sick and you might have dropped a couple hundred bucks, but in return, you weren't required to get your own person and you get all their stuff.

There's a lot of ways around this if you want to have that value add.

Yeah. And the classic secret for if you want to have a videographer come and film your roving for your promo reels, you just say to the client, you don't ask them if you can bring someone in to film your promo. You say, hey, I'm building my show reel at the moment.

If I pay to have a videographer come and capture me if you're okay with that i'm going to give you a copy of it as well and they'll be like hell yeah free content yes please yeah exactly that's it all right so can i tell you about this adventure yeah if anyone has actually done content seeing your socials on this amazing outback adventure should we jump into this give story realm absolutely Absolutely. Absolutely.

So the context is I'm called up. This event was originally going to, every year they hire a standup comedian, usually a female standup comedian. It's a three-day event out in the country. All the rural business owners that are females go there and they have this big ladies weekend, let their hair down. You know, enjoy luxuries they wouldn't normally get to have out in the country. Like they have hairstylists come and masseuses and they just get pampered.

And then there's speakers and they party at night. And it's a real, it's a really great thing they do and had a standup comedian booked in. They pulled out for whatever reason, a few weeks before it. So they found me because I'd done another rural country town event a little while back and they're like, yep, we want magic. They'd never had magic before. So they don't really know like what I might need or whatever. And I tried to communicate as much as I could.

They're like, great. How much luggage do you need? And I'm like, oh, no more than a standard 23 kilo, just one luggage. And they're like, okay, great. Because yeah, this private jet company sponsors us. In which they give the plane and fly over the speakers from Brisbane to here for free. But you're only allowed six kilos. I'm like, holy crap. That's quite a different from 23. They were so gracious to bump it up a little bit to 10 kilos. Wow. So thoughtful. But I'm like, I got to do.

And so they want me to both open and close their weekend. So I'm doing a show on the first welcome cocktail night. and the finale at lunchtime before everyone departs. So I need, I need, you know, basically 80 minutes worth of show and my normal clothes and, and, and toiletries and all that stuff to fit into 10 kilos. And at, at, in the beginning I was like, that's wild. So I started looking at how, how far is it to drive to this place?

And then that quickly became irrelevant because it was like 12 hours or something like that each way in out into the dirt desert where like you just that's not a good idea so then i really had to you know use the notion of pack small play big like the thing we all talk about like haha this pack small plays big i was literally like all right what in my room here is small and will seem big and so i can tell you i i i packed all of my magic into the bag that i think i could get away

with and i was very surprised i was able to get it down including the bag with just the magic i was able to get it down to four kilos whoa which allowed me six kilos for clothes and stuff to bring and so that consisted of three rubik's cubes all just standard cubes three decks of cards a clipboard with paper on it to to reveal stuff a magazine a balloon a twisting balloon and balloon pump flash paper which doesn't weigh anything a silk splash bottle gimmick and i want

to say some some paper bags and like a ball of yarn to do a bill into ball of yarn and that's pretty much it for stage props i did a lot of stuff that didn't need props like pk touch and you know and just banter and stuff and then.

I had my stuff for close-up but essentially it's that and when you look at that on a table it's like this much stuff oh and the thing you should never leave home without when you're going to do a show is one of these microphone holders these will save your life it goes around your neck and it's very sturdy and the microphone clips in right here i can do it probably with my lint roller and it sits right there while you're

doing the show and you can move it around for the audience to you know If your spectator is answering a question, you can turn it that way. You can turn it this way. And look, I can do all my magic, and this is not hanging down like a lanyard down here. This is like properly in your face like it should be. I think these are about a hundred dollars or something. These are the Dave Lord microphone holders. I believe he sells them on his website.

That's a magician. Dave Lord. Yeah. Brisbane magician. He's created a couple of things. And, but this is one that's just like every, every corporate magician in Australia knows to have one of these. And so this I took with me because obviously I couldn't take my own headset mic and I just didn't want to put the pressure on them for them to know to have a headset mic out in the app back just for me. So that was amazing.

And then the other thing that helped me was I, instead of taking my whole unit, my whole audio eight unit to control my music, I downloaded the go button app, which is the sound queuing app that a lot of us use for our songs. And I downloaded it onto my personal iPhone and queued up all the music.

And then I just had them plug this into their, they had a little dongle that would plug this straight into their system sat on the table and i just made them basic cues that i could just tap the phone to fade in and fade out so that saved me having to take that like one kilo little unit okay so but this is the this is where stuff gets a bit crazy because on the first day.

I'm kind of like i get my mind blown because i think i'm going into this well manicured like big marquee tent where everyone will be sitting down and like watching this show and you know be fun in the outback haha but i'm going to show you a video of um the conditions when i rocked up for a sound check so this is my this is my stage and this is my audience area just for the listener just so you know what you're looking at it is not even undercover it is maybe a foot

off the ground it is maybe large enough to fit a small vehicle on as far as dimensions go it's got a glorious pink backdrop that comes to what your waist height. Yeah. And, and, oh, this is my green room. This is right next to the stage. Wow. And, but look at the, especially look at the wind that, that's going past. Oh, that's going past this table. It's like. Oh, no, that's the worst. You know what I mean? Wind is phenomenal. You wouldn't be able to do a single car trick.

You would possibly struggle even keeping ball routine together. Like that is really something. And then the other problem is, so this is what happened at nighttime. And this is with like the light. This is with the camera lighting up the stage. It was actually like pitch black. Like they lit up the back so that their little, their wonderful backdrop would be seen. But it meant that everyone on stage was invisible. They were just silhouettes.

So I talked to the lighting guy and he's like, yeah, I'm going to see if I can get these two side lights so that the audience like should be able to see you. And I'm like, should, what do you mean? They should be able to see me. I got to stand up there for 40 minutes. Not to mention like it was arranged that everyone would be seated. I knew it was a cocktail party, but they said everyone would be seated for the show. And they're like, oh, look, we've had a long day setting up.

And I totally appreciate this and understand where they're coming from. But they're like, we've had a long day standing up, setting up. It would be a lot of effort for our guys that have been setting up every day to now set up 200 seats. So everyone's probably just going to be standing. There'll be a couple of people sitting. And I just had to fight on behalf of the audience that's going to be having

to sit and watch this. I'm like, on behalf of everyone here, like I'm only what I'm about to say is only because I want them to have the best show possible. Like you can't expect people to stand up for 40 minutes and give all their attention to me, especially not when they can hardly see me and we're outside this dust blowing around. Like you are, you know, we're kind of asking for a disaster here, especially when you paid me good money and flown me here on a private plane.

It will just seem like a joke is like, you know, so now I'm like, Oh my God, this is going to be horrible, but I just have to eat my, any, any, it's going to eat my ego completely. And just, you know, let something happen. So I work with the guys. I'm like, all right, let's take these two lights that you've used to, to put on the backdrop, just rip them out. Let's put them on top of the speakers far enough away that they're angled in.

So at least you can see me. It kind of look like a horror movie it kind of looked like a horror movie where you have a light underneath you and it's like haha but it was like that i was pretty blinded i couldn't see the audience because the lights were so close to me but at least like now they're seeing something this type of thing. I had to talk exactly that's that's pretty much what my show consisted of on the first night. And i had to talk to everyone personally i made.

A point to it wasn't agreed to like it wasn't in my contract to do roving magic but i knew i had to to get everyone on my side and to be willing to to move around a bit so i'm doing as much roving as i can the hours beforehand so that i could be like hey guys feel free to grab a chair like i'm going to do the show i would love for you to you know this is the area where you're going to be able to see the show because you're on the slides and the lighting's not going to.

Let you really see what i'm doing so because of that thank god everyone grabbed a chair and they all sat down like in front of the stage like you know you would normally do so the people did the setup then more or less people grab chairs and had a seat to watch your show that's right and just yeah i just had to strip it back and be like all right i know the basics here where if you grab one of their own bring them on stage they will watch one of their own be involved in

the magic so almost every routine had one person from them come on stage make it about them and somehow we got through this 40 minutes i don't know how but some way it worked in the end despite all the wind despite being outdoors despite there being like flies you know flying around in your head while you're doing the show and everyone thankfully gave me their attention and we got through it some people were like i couldn't really

see too much but i'm like you know i understand it was it was nighttime out in the country and then it was night and day The last show I got to do was in daylight. Proper stage, sound, all that kind of stuff. And we rocked it. And that was so great to close because there was no way. I was planning to do like my backflip routine, all this stuff on the opening night. No chance. No chance at night when I can't even see my hands from the spotlights, let alone do a backflip. Right.

Yeah. I'm trying to think what are the takeaways here? So the takeaways are just always have one of these with you. It's just going to, even if they say they've got a headset, Mike, even if you have your own still take this because there's times where they can't plug you as in. They have hold on one second. Cause I want to point people towards the gem crack here. This is one of the props that I've had recommended throughout my life.

The gem crack you can get for 20 bucks. it's maybe not as fancy pants as what you're you're showing but i wanted to put that out there for people that work with a mic gimcrack yeah and at a pinch you can make a holder out of a coat hanger a metal coat hanger or rope yeah rope too for sure at a coat hanger you can because it's already connected you can put it around your neck and sort of really mangle it up to to have a hole there to hold the microphone like if you really had to yes i

have something is flexible though right you can angle it away and towards the spectator and like that's yeah this one has like an actual clip so it'll hold on to the microphone no matter what size it is and yeah it will angle so it can face you and it can face the audience and also like like if you had to cough or something you could just turn it away or if you had to the the reason dave lord made this specific design is because he does a linking rings routine where he has to like

like cue the spectator to do something without the audience hearing and so he can just turn that away from him and say what he needs to say come back and and you're kind of good to go and it's easy to get off whereas like the lanyard ones it's sort of right in it and you've got to kind of jingle it out and stuff Or is this just unclip straight away? It's really like proper, like you'll use it. I've had this for years and it's brilliant. The other thing is, yeah, if you can, like...

Have your music queued up on your own phone so at least it's with you all the time at a pinch you could plug that in or bluetooth it to their speaker and you could run music and what would you use for that josh you just using like apple music albums or you have a yeah so if you use the app the go button app it links to yeah your itunes album so you can you would go on itunes and you would download the song like click download so it's on your phone yeah and then it

shows up when you're searching for music or you can download music onto your phone and you save it to the go button folder and it can recognize it that way because i have some custom songs and i keep them in a google drive so on the fly when i was there i downloaded it onto my phone add it to go button.

So go button is an app that just does like play stop real simple kind of action button for your, smart device i'm gonna show you right now so it looks like ignore the other apps they're all magic apps that we know of so it's this one here the red green and yellow button yeah that can i press it so you open it so i had channel country show which is the one i just did so i press that and it now so i've loaded all these songs and i've also loaded what to do when i hit end so

some of them it will know to fade out and play the next song some will just fade out and stop some i've queued to stop and then wait 10 seconds before the next song starts oh gary just sent in a speak pipe you know what we might listen to that before you finish so and there's just it and it just runs by either a button or if you have the audio ape you can just remote control it but essentially if i press this it'll play my like running on song i think i've just i've muted it all so you.

Hear it but see how it says fade out and go to two so that's what i programmed it to do so i'll hit that yep now my now my girlfriend's texting me great i'm trying to mention audio ape is this app specific to audio ape or you use it on its own as well i guess huh go button you can use this is part of the q lab yeah yeah q lab as well yeah it's basically just a sound queuing app but q lab is obviously the most one of the more professional ones go button

is perfect for just you know a basic show right that you're running yourself and audio ape just works with it so what audio ape does is the remote control will just press whatever the app that's open on your phone basically so if go buttons the one that's on it will just know to hit that green button to go to the next queue and you can also adjust your volume and i think the new audio ape that's out. You can also go back if you missed a cue. You can have special buttons that

are one-off. Flexible with other devices? The Go button, could you put another remote cueing device on it perhaps? Absolutely, yeah. Maybe your watch even, Apple Watch? I believe so. You can buy basic Bluetooth. I used to use a little Bluetooth remote that was like $20 off eBay. I might even still have it here. Yeah, that's the idea.

Audio Ape, it's a little pricey, right? you're talking a few hundred bucks for that solution yeah for sure yeah for sure but i mean if a client's paying you hundreds of or thousands of dollars it's it's you know obviously yeah but maybe you're a startup busker who needs a solution for their street act you know and they got a phone, absolutely yeah i mean you don't need any remote you can just press the button on your phone but definitely a little a little bluetooth button will work absolutely

absolutely there's many ways to to go with it but yeah scotlink is right go button is an apple app so you do need an iphone to use it. And yes all in all this outback event was was like it became a great success but it was very frantic in the beginning because i'm like how can i we didn't even have an iron so i'm like hanging up my clothes and like wetting them and hanging them up so you were dry and like.

Did you have to put the kangaroos and the snakes we did see wild boar that was pretty crazy you know wild pigs with with tusks there was like wild emus in that area yeah we did we did get a little brief about like not to just wander off into the outback yeah yourself y'all got some serious wildlife over there in the australia yeah absolutely so yeah just be prepared for anything and and do think of a show that you could do if you couldn't have much luggage with

you because one way or another whether it's because your luggage doesn't turn up or because you're going somewhere that you can't take much it it actually will come into play at some point and a magazine test is a great option because they're very thin and you don't need much and i use the one called true test which is worth looking up tru test yeah nathan cranza absolutely yeah all right shall we listen to gary speak pipe before we close off here i haven't i haven't pre-screened

this so gary you you better not mess us up here we go here we go hello gentlemen thank you for a great show just saw a thing on facebook last couple of days a guy was paying bills with a card no not a credit card a card out of a deck. Really good. I thought it was terrific. I'm wondering if anybody saw it, what your opinion was. So what he does, he fends a dick of cards. They ask to take a card.

Then he taps the card on the FPOS machine and pays the bill, tears the card in half and gives them the card back. Or words to that effect. Anyway, keen to hear what you think. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Bye.

Okay. That's very fun, Gary. And thank you for letting us know. I love, oh god what's his name that helped create the tko they created the tko yes jeff kaylor if people have watched his lecture he often talks about creating moments of magic in the real world and one of them is he would take a giant like novelty size credit card and swipe that to pay for something but it actually pays because in the very corner of that novelty thing is his actual card so when

he scans this massive one the real one does scan so that's a funny thing and then i always thought if you were to get because banks were at one point giving out those mini chips that you could stick on your phone so you could pay for stuff with your phone before tap pay came in and i always thought putting one of them in a magic wand would be brilliant for a magician because you can take out your wand tap it and pay for stuff but the idea to do it with a playing card now that's fun it's really

fun and i think if anyone was going to figure out how to do it it would be nick because i know you're great with your rf chips and things of that nature yeah do they have a deck i guess they are the poker players must because they have the they read the cards on the poker games so there must be full decks that have these things built into them.

Rf readers wondering what's what's a great app for that as a magician and i mean you could technically have your bank card and hide it underneath the playing card like you could have it riding underneath have them touch a card pull it out with the card underneath tap it steal it away as you tear it up and give it to them like you know you could do a sleight of hand version with this god damn it now that i say that maybe i might try that that's a great solution yeah,

right there yeah yeah yeah yeah there you go or with the coins that you're using you know something costs two dollars oh touch a card okay great oh you picked a two of hearts perfect and then pop out a two dollar coin why not to pay for him i do like the idea of having it in your magic wand and if you're at the cashier you're just like i'm gonna just there we go yeah yeah that's fun. Look, Gary, I love that. You know what? You've inspired me to try it.

And I wonder if I wear the Meta Ray-Bans, I bet I could actually film that experience. God damn it. So help me, God. You guys as my witness, I will film this and play it on the next episode of the Magic. Or be those on. Hell yeah. I think that was great. That was great. But, oh, we do need a final word. Who's, Doug, are you happy to do our final word for today? That I've just sprung on you? Sure. Here we go.

So if anyone was going to ask me what I was up to this week, I've decided to write a book. That produced another book it's going to be on the pinky count which is a move that's, largely ignored by many card men I wonder if Josh Norbedo does the pinky count with his fine memorized deck work so my final word is this it's important and don't wait for my book learn the pinky count you'll be gooder that's it, 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.