Remembering Mike Gallo: A Magical Legacy #190

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

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 190 of the Magic Guys. To my left, I got this cool cat, Nick K. Oh no, we can't hear him. Nick, you gotta fix whatever you just pulled out. Down below, we got Doug Kahn. Oh, he's back. What's up? Hey, y'all. Nick, how you doing? You back, Nick? I'm back. I don't know what's being so problematic. We invest in the best equipment to give you guys the best show possible. And there has been some updates to the stream software we use.

I chose not to name it then so we don't slander anyone. So it is good to be here. It is now working. Are we good? We are good to go. And it's great to see all our friends in the chat.

Yeah, we've had such a roller coaster. So this, the first half an hour before the podcast goes live is pretty wild, but you know, and we see some of our friends in the live chat before even live, which is cool as well. Cause if you're listening to this post stream, you could have been here live and you could have inputted your questions and feedback and comments, especially today.

I'm hoping we're going to get a lot of comments of people having learned from this person and, and seeing this guy work, but you know, Nick, who we got in the chat today? What friends? Well, we have a starter from a tippity top. We have a good friend, Thomas Conger, Scott Link, Tim Askin, them questions. Our good friend, Scotty P. Good to see you all here, friends. And it's always good to see you too there. We have Chris Layden and good friend, Gutbuster Mike.

Guys, if you're in the chat, say what's up and ask what questions you have in the story. I did do my diligence. I didn't include every single thing we found. The report got kind of long. So I peeled it back on the person that we spoke about today.

Now, I did want to mention this last week, but basically that when I went to bed that night and we were interviewing last week's guest, which was Samuel Osborne and a great street performer from the UK. The news that one of the greatest coin guys in existence had passed. And that, of course, that brilliant person is Mike Gallo. I didn't choose to bring it up on last week's episode out of fear of pulling down the excitement of us having Samuel on there, but a week has passed since then.

And I felt pertinent for us to take a moment to celebrate the wonderful life of Mike gallo and the beautiful magic he sort of inspired now doug before we jump into the report the gallo name has been in magic for a while yeah man i'm flashing you say that and i'm like thinking about like micah mars encore two i think lou gallo had the gallo pitch in there of course mike's father lou gallo known as the underground man kind of kind of the way mike was too right

he's like maybe not the most mainstream name, but if you know who Mike Gallo is and what he does, you know, he does it all, does the stuff. Anyway. Yeah. He's been in the Gallows had been in my universe from the beginning. That's 40 years for me. And, uh, my, her 30 of that.

Wow. Yeah. And I'll also touch on as well. We're going to go through what, what Nick has, has so lovely gone and reported, but I did also see the YouTube channel conjurer community put out a wonderful session talking about Mike Gallo's work as well, which is worth checking out. And I might even link it after this in the description.

So you can really speak on that. Cause I was at that full session for the conjure community and you'll find some excerpts from the event on YouTube, which is what you're going to link to. It's actually a multi-day lecture that Mike did for this group.

So this is a membership site conjure community. And if you're a member there, You have access to this two-day lecture each lectures seven two to three hours long It's all the great mike gallows stuff and this was like about a year and a half ago Maybe two years. So what a joy it was for just to see him do all that stuff, but a great resource to see Mike's later thoughts, his most recent approaches.

How amazing is it to have video form now where you can capture people's thoughts and you can see their little nuances on routinings and performing to last on forever? Amazing. I was lucky to see him a couple of years ago too. This is his 2022 lecture. He was at the Golden, the Gator Gate Gathering. And yeah, these are some of his notes. These are not card magic. So this gives you an idea. Like this is all like ball and vase, dice magic, teacup routine.

Does that say, does that one that you're holding in your right hand say pizza? Coin magic for pizza and smokes, you know, and soda. Damn. I got to know what pizza magic looks like.

That's what happens at 3 a.m at the sessions you know at the gator gate gathering it's also what happens in the middle of a podcast when 10 pizzas get delivered to your home yeah i hope that's happening today here not the last episode whatever that one was yeah all right nick take it away my friend i'm keen i'm excited let's begin mike gallow born october 1st 1955 was an American magician best known for his mastery of close-up magic, particularly in coin manipulation.

Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, he was introduced to magic by his father, Lou Gallo, an accomplished magician. Growing up in a magical household, deeply influenced magicians, Sorry, growing up in a magical household deeply influenced Mike's trajectory in the world of magic, and he quickly became a renowned figure revered by peers and students alike. Now, Mike's father, Lou Gallo, was not only a magician, but a pioneer in sleight of hand, especially known for his Gallo pitch technique.

Lou's passion for magic inspired Mike to start learning magic tricks at a young age. And under his father's guidance, Mike honed his craft. And by the time he was a teenager, he was already performing in magic circles and developing his own style, which focused heavily on close-up magic. While much of his early knife remains private, Mike's dedication to magic and the craft was evident from his young years, leading him to become one of the most influential coin magicians of his generation.

Now, what I wanted to touch upon there is that he used to kick around with people like David Roth, Jeff Lada, and Mike Rubenstein. So that's the sort of realm he kicked around in. And if anyone knows CoinMagic and knows David Roth, those guys were like, those guys were homie. Does it make sense? I'm peeking over at Conjuring Archive for some credits here.

And Mike Gallo is listed in the Encore 2 books I mentioned earlier. So indeed, his influence does go back to those early years. What was this? Encore 2 1981, it was published. I might've been reading it in 1984. So yeah. Wow. And yeah, in these same issues, you will find, you know, these, these encores have all the contemporaries you're talking about. And as a segue too, cause Nick, sorry, you go Nick. No, I was just going to say like, I was born in 1984 and Josh,

you would have been what? Sperm? I was still, yeah, I was still sperm. I was just a little spermy boy. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do anything. Couldn't palm, couldn't JW grip, nothing. Just a little swimming boy. But we segued, you talked about the Gallo pitch and that's the thing that I know about Mike Gallo is that the Gallo pitch that Doug was saying his father Lou invented is the thing that, that goes around in my, my head when I hit Gallo. And we were just talking about it earlier.

Doug hasn't done it for a while, but he's definitely studied the work. How do you feel about demoing? I feel horrible about it, but put me on. I'll tell you what I know about it. It's kind of a handling of the Hang Ping Chen, which the Hang Ping Chen is a popular coin move that involved this kind of action of showing coins and throwing them to the table. It works, but it's a little bit unnatural and this is not kind of the way that

you handle coins. So Lou Gallo devised this pitch technique where you'd show a couple of coins here and then like a couple of coins here. Bloody hell. I'll try it again. So it's working from palm up like finger palm styles. And we're going to throw this way and this way a little bit. So you would show these here. And then as you imply to throw these here.

And that is the nature of the Gallo pitch. unrehearsed and it's probably been about 15 years since i've even tried that but can i can i just say like we talked about this earlier and doug's like oh no i can't do it give me a second i'll practice it and you just like for my eyes that looked perfect on video it's a great technique right it's not like it's hard to do it's more of a timing thing right so it's not like physically challenging

i think the term is simple but not easy yeah right and if you're listening to this it's worth going to watch just this portion of the pod to see what Doug just did. And where, like, do you know where someone can go and study that, Doug? I'm thinking those encore books must have been where I learned the Gallo pitch.

I'm not sure that's the first place they were printed, but there's also Lou Gallo's book, The Underground Man, which Richard Kaufman published. And honestly, I don't recall having read this book. I don't know why, but it's one of the rare Kaufman titles. I haven't read, but I bet it's in there. It's Luke Gallo's book. Okay, love it. One of the things as well is that Lou was really into doing things on video, and we'll cover that body of work that he released in DVD format and so forth.

So we'll touch upon that a little later on in the story. But talking about these sort of influences, let me tell you guys a little bit about what I know about Lou Gallo, Mike's father. So Lou Gallo, Mike Gallo's father, was a highly respected magician known primarily for his contributions in close-up magic, particularly in coin magic. He played a significant role in shaping Mike's career, both as a mentor and a source of inspiration.

Now, Lou Gallo, like many magicians, began his career at a very early age, and he was deeply involved in the magic community and quickly built a reputation for his innovative slider hand techniques. While much of Lou's personal life remains private, and that's some of the difficulties I had in my research, there was nothing about his wife. I mean, the only reason why I know he has a wife, Linda, is due to a post, which I'll mention later on, but his main life in focus was the magic.

His dedication to magic is well documented by those who knew him and by the legacy of tricks and routines he passed on for the next generation of magic. Now, one of Lou Gallo's most significant contributions, as we just spoke about, was the Gallo pitch. This technique became widely known in the magic community and was considered as a cornerstone for coin manipulation. The Gallo pitch involves a visual illusion where a coin appears to be tossed from one hand to another.

While it is secretly retained in the first hand it is a brilliant example of misdirection and sliding hand allowing magicians to control an audience attention and create a convincing illusion this technique remains a staple in the repertoire for many coin magicians today.

And i think that for what doug you displayed i think it'll look gorgeous as well like there i saw a couple other videos of magicians performing it over the past week since his passing and so forth and i think yours is the best i've seen so far so thank you for sharing that with our audience now thank you i'm poking around the interwebs trying to find the first place it was it was in apocalypse volume one number four that's where

lou gallo first put that in print so if you have the harry lorraine apocalypse books or you know the bound volumes go digging in there for lou gallo or the book yeah. Now, moves aside, Lou Gallo was not only an influential performer, but a mentor to many, including, of course, his son, Mike. He taught Mike many nuances of close-up magic, emphasizing the importance of smooth, natural movements and seamless sleight of hand.

Lou's influence on Mike is clear in the younger Gallo's fluid, effortless style.

And anyone who's seen videos of Mike Gallo will contest to this, because this echoes in his performances today. Lou also influenced a broader circle of magicians, particularly in the areas of coin magic and close-up effects. He was known for his willingness to share and to share his knowledge with others, a trait that Mike inherited and continued by teaching and releasing instructional materials for magicians worldwide.

Although Lou might not have been as widely recognized by some of his contemporaries, his contributions to the field of close-up magic were profound.

His techniques particularly the gallo pitch are still studied and used by magicians around the world the remembering of the remembering the magic of lou gallo dvd set that was released by mike gallo himself and it preserves and showcases lou's routines allowing the future generations of magicians to still learn from his body of work so lou's legacy lived on through his son and the Kelton's magicians who continue to use and build upon the technique which he pioneered.

His impact on the magic community is lasting and his influence can be seen in the seamless coin magic that continues to captivate audiences today. And I think we can all agree with that. I can agree with that. As I was looking through the credits of Lou Gallo's work, I just ran across one of his versions of the hotel mystery, which is off. It's an odd number transposition, like three Queens change places with two Kings.

And I used a Lou Gallo method for a short within the last couple of years for this wonderful plot. You don't see a lot of people do the hotel mystery. Yeah. I look up Lou Gallo's version. It's a good one. Okay. But yeah and i think what i love the most is like this whole notion of like smooth.

Clean movements a lot of things you see out there even things that are published and i've read a lot of books and it's like do this move and it's like it's so jarring oh man like mike gallo's magic is complete naturalness yeah never you never suspected like you know anything dumb was happening you know it's all like it's just happening the magic's just there yeah exactly Exactly. And there's a couple of things that I want to touch upon that I think I might want your input in.

So with regards to Mike Gallo, his career in magic spanned several decades. And his expertise in sleight of hand, especially with coins, made him a predominant figure in the close-up community. Throughout his career, Gallo performed at various magic conventions, magic clubs, and private events. And he became well-known for his smooth, natural style. Apart from performing, Mike Gallo contributed immensely to the education through his lectures, workshops, and instructional DVDs.

His performances at venues like Eddie Factor's legendary Folks Hotel in Buffalo, New York, were pivotal, as it was a hub for magicians who specialized in close-up magic.

Now, to my knowledge, the Folks Hotel in Buffalo was the precursor to the Magic Castle.

Hmm so that's that's where they operated from that was basically this is a weird like that's on the opposite coast of the country but i could see how that might happen the larson boys seeing what's going down at the forks and then thinking we could throw it down better in la yeah yeah yeah and that was basically like the like they existed prior but it was just one of those hubs you know what i mean like i guess that the magic castle would be a hub as far

as the us is concerned it's like if you perform there at the hub there we're all connected there in some way.

Right that's for the east coast it's been that for you know what how how many vectors have there been 50 or 60 close up finger flinging frolics yeah yeah all started by guys like gallo and you know vector at the forks yeah a whole bunch of them in fact the guys that kind of started that ended up doing a convention which i'm going to mention in this body of work of his so i wanted to sort of touch up his works because a lot of people might have an opportunity to see what he does.

So I wanted to touch upon this little body of work because Gallow's instructional DVDs were really significant and to me, a really big part of his legacy. So each of these DVDs provide magicians with detailed tutorials and signature of his signature routines, including like these really expert slides of his and the way to actually perform them. So the first one that I was not able to actually see where you can actually purchase this was called The Dynasty Continues.

This DVD was one of Gallo's most well-known works. It focused primarily on coin magic and focused on the variety of routines that was demonstrated by Gallo's fluid, natural slider hand. The Dynasty Continues was more than just a tincture tool. It was a dive into the intricacies of coin magic. Gallo broke down each technique and routine in great detail. Providing aspiring magicians subtleties needed to perform the tricks really convincingly. And I think, I wish I was able to get a copy of that.

Like I actually searched it, I was hoping that I might be able to purchase it and speak my experiences of it. Unfortunately not now the next body of work was a really interesting one and i kind of fell down a rabbit hole with this one and it was to do with the new york coin magic seminar.

Now this began in 2002 and was created by a group of leading coin magicians including, david roth mike gallo michael rubinstein and then later jeff lada with the goal of preserving and passing on the art of coin magic to future generations. The seminar quickly became a central resource for magicians interested in learning the intricacies of coin magic. So if you're not familiar with these names, David Roth is widely regarded as one of the greatest coin magicians of all time.

David Roth, his contributions were invaluable. His techniques for routines such as the tuning fork, his famous hanging coins routine using the downwards palm were taught in this series of DVDs. Roth's focus was on smoothness and precision, and his teaching style helped countless magicians refine their technique.

I have several of his books already, as well as his DVDs. Now, another magician there was Michael Rubenstein, a prolific magician and co-founder of the seminar. Michael Rubenstein contributed a vast array of original coin routines and techniques. He also played a key role in organizing the seminar, and guided their direction.

Rubenstein's teaching focused heavily on the practical aspects of coin magic, helping magicians understand how to incorporate these routines in their professional repertoires. As well as that, there was Jeff Larder. His most recent body of work after his passing was called The Last Goodbye. It's a wonderful book, which I have mainly coin work at the table, but really clever stuff. Though he joined late in this sort of realm, Jeff Lada's contributions to the seminar were significant.

Lada was deeply influenced... Sorry, I'm getting a knockback. Is that okay? Oh. That was me. That was my cat. That's Doug. I'm doing cat stuff. I'm sorry, because I'm reading this, I can't see what's happening, so I apologize. Just being disruptive. and the disruptive one. Let's roll back. Now, Jeff Lada, though he joined later, Jeff Lada's contributions to the seminar were significant.

Lada was a deeply influential coin magician known for his techniques, prowess, and creative approaches to slights. His work in the seminars expanded the range of advanced material materials. Available to all the students. And his emphasis on the theory behind the magic was a valuable addition to the seminar. Now, the idea behind the seminar was to create a structured, intensive learning environment where magicians could dive deeply into coin magic techniques.

At the time, there were very few dedicated resources for coin magic, especially ones that went into in-depth. While card magic had numerous books and numerous videos, coin magic was more often sort of underrepresented in the broader magic community. So the founders of the seminar wanted to change that by creating a series that focused exclusively on coins, allowing students to access the specialized knowledge and masters in the field.

The seminar started as live in-person events. There were magicians who could attend and learn directly from the creators.

The events would focus on lectures demonstrations interactive workshops where the attendees could get hands-on instructions from these experts the goal was not only to teach tricks but also to impart a deep understanding on the theory the psychology and the practicing of the coin magic recognizing the broader demand for this material the organizers decided to document these seminars and release the content in a dvd series the first dvds were

released shortly after the live seminars began and they were they quickly became a very popular within the magic community the series grew over time expanding into multiple volumes each which focused on different aspects of coin magic the seminar series of dvds stopped holding live seminars in around 2008 while dvd production continued a short time after that the final set of dvds were released in the early 2010s so the The live seminars ran from 2002 to 2008, sorry, 2008.

By the end of the seminars, it had become a comprehensive resource for coin magicians, leaving a lasting impact, even though the seminars themselves had normally continued, which I thought was really, really cool. Now, Doug, do you know anything about this particular coin seminar? Nothing like that exists today. Yeah, I've seen a couple of those DVDs, but I don't know a whole lot about what was going on there.

It's like the graduate course in coin magic i've seen the contents list for these things it seemed like someone was offering the compendium recently like you could get it all wow a lot man's like.

But that you reminded me lot is on there i want to go back and at least watch a lot of i don't know yeah but i think what you said is important that there wasn't events that were coin centric and wow look how much coin magic has grown since those days so maybe without those cats waving the coin flag we don't have guys like jeffrey wang now you know so yeah does anything like that still exist like a coin coin sposium or you know what i think the guy waving that

flag is just folding up this week and copeland coins he. Has run a coin centric business successfully it's and he's closing but not like he's failing it's just is he really i saw that post and i hung out with them in vegas and bought products and yeah yeah like well when you're on the pitch you're.

Not talking about what's coming up but yeah so yeah but that's this is an example and also example of how challenging it can be to run a retail business in a modern era because if anyone had formula for success jeff copeland and like like i said it's not like you failed just like you know to operate the highest end businesses and and really you deserve the best for yourself when you're doing that if you don't get to that point maybe you

need to move on to something else so i think that's what's happening for jeff guessing but yeah you won't find a more positive person or really a great producer of products and a positive influence in the magic community have we yeah we had jeff on here didn't we or was it just me regardless whatever he's going to do next i was posting earlier i said well whatever door is opening for jeff copeland is going to be huge and great you know we had we had rick

holcomb on but we haven't had oakland on yeah okay i had i had jeff come on to my youtube channel and talk a bit about what he was doing this would have been about nine months ago at a different time in his business yeah gotcha you know chris just made a comment saying that coin magic is small and i don't know why.

I know why it's hard it's hard it's hard man that's why people don't want to practice i'll tell you and the it wasn't until like my confidence in coin magic severely grew once i knew how to do a hand wash yeah it's such a weird thing but uh any coin video you see me do i'm doing a coin wash because you know the moment you do a retention vanish their brain goes okay where is it like it must be in the other hand because like where else can it be but the moment i learned to do

this as i'm talking and i see their heads just go i just see them go oh what the hell now i'm like all right great now it actually has vanished in their mind so the moment i learned that my world for coin magic opened up but until you learn like how to handle a coin naturally and to pitch it or ditch it or whatever it's so nerve-wracking right because you just think people know exactly where it is. It's a physical item. It's not like you can hide it under another card and shuffle it.

They do for the most part. That's another negative to coin magic. And not only is that game at foot immediately, you know, once you make that first coin vanish, the audience is now.

Playing ping pong right unless you're just afraid of i mean you should be in the in the theater of magic i whether i'm doing close-up or a stage show i always open with a one coin routine and i end that routine if i'm i always end that routine with coin under watch and maybe a just a single bloody coin can get so much reactions and i preach all the time it's the most important it's the most important thing for a magician in the one coin routine 100 and ending with

a coin invading someone's personal space under their watch and that moment is just you know i don't you know i'll burn all the double crosses in this planet to to still just be able to do coin under watch like it's amazing i mean nick yeah you know you have one of the one of the great one coin routines i've seen you're you're able to actually ditch a coin in your eye which i can't do.

My eye socket doesn't allow me to i gotta work on my eye muscles or something yeah going from kennedy's to morgan's and going to the eye socket was an adjustment for sure but like i i love coins beyond every discipline in magic it's my favorite thing because what you what's true for coins is true for almost any product you pick up any item you pick up a you know an eraser a pen a a rock You know what I mean?

So for me, being able to do sleight of hand with small object, coin or not, it just opens your world up. So I love that. And the only thing I can think of with regards to a kind of dedicated realm where people can hyper-focus on coins, or if they were obsessive like myself, I would have to shout out Danny Goldsmith, who is a brilliant coin guy and comes up with some of the craziest stuff. I am subscribed to his good advice to his mastery magic mastery.

I think it's called his course. They do cards and stuff and everything else just to keep it broad, but it is primarily coins and it's wonderful. And his thought process is insane. Like the, the creative level that he does on a weekly basis is just like phenomenal. So shout out to him. Maybe we should reach out to him and ask him if you would come and help shed some light and celebrate coin magic a little bit more.

Come on, let's go. It's going to happen. Right. Yeah. here from danny gold all right i'm gonna write that down let's let's let's all let's all hit him up and if you guys hit him up as well saying please go on the magic guys podcast maybe he can't hit up to join us let me let me cast a vote for some old school here i was talking to a student last week about real magic magazine cosmos thing curtis cam has the bobo video dissertation where he goes through the whole bobo's coin magic and breaks that

down one chapter at a time so curtis cam one of the best coin magic guys ever one of the greatest mad magicians living and we could talk to curtis maybe to write him down i maybe curtis would come say hi i love yeah that bobo's modern coin magic resource at real magic magazine what's up guys well worth your seven bucks a month damn i mean the the first real work i put into learning a one coin routine is and i go back to this all the time was was david stone from real secrets of magic.

I went back to my illusionist.com membership. Like, you know, everyone has a login that they've never used for a million years. And I went back into it and I can still access all the real secret downloads from it that I purchased. That I purchased like 12 years ago. Because although I'm pretty sure they don't sell it on their site anymore, I can still watch it having purchased it. That's awesome. That was a really fun treat to find. And he, yeah, he has a very...

It's a pretty technical one coin routine, but it's easy enough to follow along and it just looks like just. That might be one of the best instructional videos ever. Like probably a top three, if not like number one. Do we just appreciate how good David Stone's classic palm is? Like it seems like he can palm a coin and his hand is wide open, like flat. He uses tape. He doesn't like that people don't know this, but he uses tape. Please tell me he actually does do that. I just did.

But like, is that real? Do we need to fact check that or that's a joke? I'm just casting shade on David Stone for no good reason. Cause it really does look like it. Like if you look it up anywhere, it really like mine's like this. And if I angle it, maybe I can go far, but he's really like this.

The only tell is like his thumb, his thumb is like a tiny bit. It's so crazy. David Stone, please come on this show. I know you've liked our stuff before when we shared one of our reels mentioning you, but we got to get him on too. Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of other awesome bits of material, let's jump back into Mike's buddy of work because he actually released a DVD called Magic of Mike Gallo. And in Magic of Mike Gallo, Mike demonstrates various close-up routines beyond just coin magic.

And the DVD focuses on his original coin tricks and card magic and other close-up effects. Making it a really well-rounded collection of his work. Gallo's approach in this DVD was focused on teaching the nuances of the routines, emphasizing both in the technicalities and the psychological aspects of performing magic. As well as that, he released a DVD called Remembering the Magic of Lou Gallo, his father. So in this DVD, Mike pays tribute to his father.

By showcasing some of Lou's signature magic routines and techniques, This set not only preserves Lou Gallo's legacy, but also allows magicians to learn from one of the most innovative magicians of all time. So Mike offers personal insights to his father's techniques, giving viewers a rare glimpse into the workings of one of his magical unsung heroes. Come on, that is cool. How great is that? Yeah, a lot of material which might have died gets a chance

to stay alive through a project like this. Yeah, yeah.

You know do you ever think about your body of work fellas and who who might carry it on or, he's really talking to you doug because you're the one with the body of work well i kept having children hoping for a male child because that was my best hope and then i taught my my youngest daughter some the some magic you know she does a good sphingali pitch in the cups but that's about as far as we got yeah so i guess i guess with i guess with magic it's more the

students that you have or people you mentor over time that are the ones that carry on i'd like to feel i'm doing a pretty good job of that my life right now and maybe i got half a chance of someone talking good about me 50 years from now that'd be cool that's what i'm that's what i'm thinking right like people will be mentioning your book and obviously learn sleight of hand and interesting Interesting fact here, my book, written by Paul Cummins, Fast Du Press.

One title was released under Fast Du Press. Paul was writing the second when he passed away. Lord knows how far he'd been working on this book, maybe a decade, the Mike Gallo book. Knowing the detail that he put into this, I can only imagine that. What this book is. I don't know who has the files. I hope someone has it. And I hope someone's going to put this Paul Cummins project out. You know, he left us too early and he left that book unfinished on a computer.

I have a feeling that these lecture notes I have, have like some of that material in there from this book. For sure it does. You know, it's Mike's work, but man, that's what's missing. You want to talk about the videos that Mike has put out and so on.

And my vote goes to the collected almanac you want a good gallo you get that collected almanac from Kaufman it's all that early 80s work it's got loose stuff in there mike stuff in there things like the ball and vase routine is in there is that on your is that on your yeah can we can we talk about that real quick let's talk about the ball and vase so he released this dvd set along with a gimmick called the ball and vase okay it's a unique dvd of gallo's. Presentation on the ball and vase, okay?

It's focusing on a specific routine using the classic prop, the ball and vase. I'm sure we're all aware of it. If you haven't, please look up ball and vase. And if you want to see a brilliant version, look up Mike Gallo's one. Because this routine highlights Gallo's mastery of misdirection and sleight of hand. And the DVD breaks down each move step-by-step and instructional sections provide magicians with the tools needed to perform the routine with precision.

While also teaching the broader lessons of performance and timing. But the presentation of this is the most unique that I have ever seen. And I will say, wink, wink, it's nuts when you see how it works. There's a little punchline for you. So are you familiar with this, Doug? So, yes, I have put ball and vase routine on short form media, influenced by Mike Gallo's routine. Not what he's doing because I didn't feel like I could do his routine because it's so him.

Now maybe that he's left, I can consider playing with some of the notions, He does a great transposition in the middle of it, and certainly the large loads that he uses. I was looking through my email because last week I ordered a couple of those little plastic ball and vases. To do his routine, it kind of needs that little old-school plasticky vibe.

So inspired by Mike's memory and watching some of the things last week, going over material of his, I reordered some junk ball and vases to start playing with Mike's routine again. It's so good.

And no gaff he doesn't use the gaff it's just it's all sleight of hand no uh he doesn't use the shell it's an interesting side bit there oh i didn't know that pure sleight of hand great techniques yeah because the way he dumped it out i was thought like oh i must be retaining it some oh wow it's in the collected almanac it's it's amazing yeah so i mean look buddy of work that we've just absorbed i mean there's so much more we could

talk about but like the all in all mike ellis influence on the magic community extended far beyond his performances and his dvds as a lecturer and a teacher he shaped the careers of many magicians who continue to practice and evolve the art of coin magic today. I tried to research, you know, the students he might have had. And I wasn't able to find anything, but I do know that I've had conversations with people who influenced my magic, one of which is Eric Jones.

And I know that Eric Jones spent some time either with him or studying alongside him. And he would share a lot of techniques being like, this is a Gallo idea and so forth. So, I mean, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, right? And I would love to know who else had the joy of being able to be taught directly by him and have those thoughts. I mean, you could just say that like, yeah, you probably experienced the same things in the books.

But I think we all know that when you're having one-to-ones with people, it's totally different. So I digress.

His approach his approachable teaching style and willingness to share the knowledge made him a beloved figure among both aspiring and professional magicians now as you know, mike passed away and what i read was this post that was cut and pasted and sent to me and this was a post by michael rubinstein and it said this i just heard mike's wife I just heard from Mike's wife, Linda, that Mike passed away this afternoon at home.

Mike was suffering from lung cancer and heart disease and had been on oxygen. Last we spoke, he sounded good. And he said the treatment was going well. Another coin legend gone. Damn. That's upsetting. Now, despite his death, Mike Geller's legacy will continue through his works and contributions with countless magicians who have been inspired by his magic. Mike Gallo's life and career exemplified dedication to the art of magic.

From his early days learning from his father to his extensive career as a performer and teacher, Gallo remained committed to advancing the art of sleight of hand. His instructional DVDs serve as a lasting testament to his skill and generosity to sharing his knowledge with the world. And I hope magicians everywhere continue to benefit from the techniques, routines that both Mike and Lou Gallo perfected through their lifetimes.

And through us we can ensure the magic lives on inspiring and enchanting generations to come and that's the story of mike gallo friends i think we give him a round of applause i think so yeah i'll be doing my part i'm i'm actively relearning some gallo stuff his work on the wild coin routine is in my practice repertoire right now i as i said the ball.

Based stuff also i don't know if you saw bill centino's clip with gadabout coins and bill was one of those guys was in the coin magic seminar over and man mike's work on the gadabout coins is really practical and really good and really fooling yes so those are routines that i don't currently use much but mike's version of the wild coin is the most practical and he uses a coffee cup which i'm prone to use occasionally in my coin work so yeah that's awesome i i

was just watching just this morning a routine i'd never seen done where he was getting the spectators to say stop and each time was an ace and just his way of handling like naturally to display like the ace and be like you know if you'd stopped here or here or one less or one more he would and missed and then but he does it for all four aces and just i'd never seen that for example and that was not even his coin work that

was yeah his card work is stellar yeah the killer oil and water i was looking at not too long ago as well i have a set of card notes that goes with those three i can't find right in a second.

Yeah, you know, it's like that, right? Like we're at a point in our career where magic is at the forefront. We get to see a lot happening. Like it's so weird that like you go to Magic Live, Johnny Thompson's there. He's got a moon boot on, he's on crutches. He's selling his book. He's high-fiving people. He's taking photographs. And then six months later, it's like Johnny Thompson. Hey, Nick, your mic has changed again. Just while we're still here, get that good mic coming back.

Yeah, Gallo had invited me up to the 52 convention last time I saw him. And I get the vibe a lot of those vectors guys don't care for what I do on the internet. So I'm not privy to be at those gatherings so much. But Mike was sure to offer a kind hand to come hang out. And sadly, that won't be happening now. I'd love to go up there and see some of these New York guys. I don't get to see because of preconceived notions, but whatever.

Yeah, wow. A personal sadness for me. well we just yeah i mean we got to keep the magic going we're going to keep it alive and i and i'm inspired now to go and learn this gallo pitch you know so it's something i think is gonna keep, anyone that's using the hang ping chin in your in your life should definitely consider the gallo pitch also if you're not gonna do that you should read that my my.

I lost words that this book will tell you how to do the hang ping chin properly if you want to stick with that but the gallop pitch is more natural yeah, nick you're on the opposite of fixing things nick you're completely underwater right now It's like you're literally in a bathtub talking to us. I don't know what's happened. It's just his computer is so overwhelmed. Oh, we might have you back. I don't understand. You're back. Don't move the muscle. That's the problem. Don't move.

Oh, Gutbuster Mike brings up an interesting point. Now, how to do the pitch without a table. Have you played around with doing it in the hands of spectators at all, Doug? One of the coins across I used to actively use was the, as a handling of Paul Harris's HP PDQ.

And I would do it into the spectator's hands using hang pink ching, but not the, not the gallo pitch. That would be interesting. Cause I'll give you a brief demo here. If you want, it'd be all these dollars. I have a, you know, a spectator has their hands outstretched. You say here, hold out your hands. And what I'm going to do is make the coins fly from hand to hand. And you have to catch them as they fly across. Got it. All right, here we go. Here's, here's the first, Oh, a little slow,

a little slow. You missed that one. I'm going to do it again. See if you can catch the second one. Remember it's going to fly across. Oh, that's number two. Oh my God. You're doing the Hank Pinchin into their hand. You say, that's the third one. And here comes the fourth one. And so that's how you could use the Hang Ping Chin. Because the Gallo pitch has this crossing action, I don't think it'd flow so well as the Hang Ping Chin. Look, I'm going to stop while I'm ahead after I did it earlier.

Well, I'm not going to do it. You did it really well. Yeah, really well the first time. That's awesome. Okay, so that is when the different applications can work in different places. And then Scotty P is mentioning there's an effect with a peanut using the Gallo pitch from Jay Sankey. is that do you know stuff about that doug oh i don't oh we've got him.

If it's in a sankey book before the year 2000 i got it but anything that's been published after that sankey has like 8 000 things i gave up right right i threw in the towel after a hundred percent he's saying he went it's two two empty shells turns into one full peanut okay yeah so i could see that so you have like a peanut coins yeah you snap it in half you do oh you know what you would only need half a peanut so you have a whole peanut and a half a peanut so there's my

peanut you break it in half show this half here gallo pitch that half and then bang put it back together so that's probably damn and if it's not that's going to be in my next book yeah because now you're using that coin method to do like what seems like impromptu like real life yeah yeah just make sure you do that routine with an epi pen because you're going to be like here we go in the next certain steps i can breathe again of course i travel with an epi pen at the ready always,

You need to, man. Honestly, everyone's like. You can't be throwing peanuts at people in the middle of whatever. Like if you're not allowed, if the peanuts aren't allowed in primary schools, for example, you shouldn't be throwing peanuts at people because they'll die.

That's true. So yes, Scotty P just said, that's it. So you just nailed the routine, Doug. So that's, there you go. Dang. I was hoping I had a new item for my book. Oh, well, well, you could just change the item and then I'm going to do that. I'm going to make it the edamame restoration. I'm going to use a pistachio. I'll show you. I'll show all of you. I'm going to 3D print it and sell it through Murphy's.

When Michael Amar was here lecturing in Brisbane and he performed the night before, he did essentially a larger version of that, which was a cut lemon to do bill to lemon.

But then he restores the lemon and repeats the bill to lemon a second time by restoring the lemon, talk about bloody magicalness but the but you need a bit more there's a bit more going on to do that than just a gallow pitch but i like mike's idea here you could do a sweet tarts or candy and like you could like break it in half pull a candy out and then restore the candy back together that's fun now we're talking what you know they're coming up to christmas soon can it be done with a Well,

Halloween, more importantly, because like if you look at Michael Kodinsky's routine where he takes like a Skittles packet, right? And then he peels off, tears a corner off, dumps candy into your hand, puts that corner piece back onto the thing and restores it. And I do it myself. That's one of the best uses for a thumbtip ever. Like it is just. Yeah.

Yeah if you haven't seen it well look up mike gadinsky's penguin lecture and and you'll see that performance on there it is so good okay yeah i like where we're going with this this yeah.

Hmm you guys got halloween gigs you do anything fancy for halloween normally i gotta dress up or go get painted up like a zombie you know what i mean and that always takes a long time because i'm bald so i've got a bigger canvas than the average bear so they gotta paint the whole situation you know what i mean so and some people love it like oh i love it we got all this canvas because my head's enormous and yeah it's just the worst thing about it is when people want to paint you up for gigs

that it's like you can't do two gigs in one night it's like you finish the gig, and then it's like oh you're done by seven o'clock it's like oh great i'll just go to it i can't because i'm it's going to take me two hours to get all this paint off my face.

I i find it funny that you know the the agencies think it's such a great idea to theme us by putting us in a different costume or painting us but like at the end of the day no one react any differently to the magic we would have done in our normal i disagree they act worse because you're not doing your normal skit you don't know how to portray the character and people don't know how to receive it even even more so because it's gonna be weird yeah i guess

what i'm saying is it's not really necessary but it's it's funny that we that that you know we will do it obviously so often the agents sell the sizzle and not really the magic it's not like they're trying to sell good magic. They're trying to sell the image of the magician, you know. Yeah, but my dogs are ready for Halloween. I, that's probably super loud. I am, I am doing a show on the 26th at the Theater of Magic. It's, you know, we'll do some spooky stuff, but that's the closest to like the

Halloween date that I'll be doing the show. Yeah. Personally, Doug, I expect to see a couple of Halloween themed reels coming out from you. Is that in the works? I don't know. You know, what's exciting this week is as of tomorrow, YouTube short.

Is bumping their time limit up to three minutes so let's ride that wave i heard that yes that is exciting there's you know the hardest thing is making a video for instagram and it's 90 seconds and then going how do i trim this down to 60 for youtube and it still be good right so i've probably got a bank of a couple of 10 or so videos that that i just didn't put on youtube no doubt i've got a bunch of them i've been doing you know long ones for a while now another thing i heard is

someone in my atmosphere was talking to was talking to facebook so youtube and facebook and they were saying that if you post if you repost an old video that's from more than six months ago meta will treat it as a new video in the algorithm it won't suppress it because it registers it's been posted before it'll it'll still pump it out as normal so that's why on my Instagram, people may have seen a couple of videos that I put out a year ago,

because now I have almost double the amount of new followers. So they, no one's seen it. Um, and it's, they've been doing well because yeah, if it's over six months, it can.

Do it all again in the atmosphere replay that shit replay that shit josh yeah that's right you know because imagine you know over the years i mean doug how many reels would you have now from since you started putting out this high quality content you know probably hundreds yep according to youtube there's 900 videos up there whoa that's a lot right that's a few that's a few i think i'm at 700 but that's because a lot of them are old before

when i was doing my 100 vlogs challenge but same here i got 2006 content you know so i wasn't a busy boy back in the day but i've got some stuff up there it's been around a while yeah it's exciting everyone's competing still with the platform to watch shorts and stuff aren't they i think that you know magic wins with this time expansion because 60 seconds just is not enough to do a good magic presentation i'm not saying it's the best for the shorts platform but it's the best for good

magic on the shorts platform and maybe give some actual performers more of a chance of doing the real performing versus trying to cram something into 60 seconds it's insanely hard to do well and i i have found.

People's attention spans starting to to grow now yeah youtube wouldn't be doing it if they weren't you know exactly that's exactly right i've i used to trim the video so fine that it was just full of like straight to the yeah bloody point and now you can let it breathe a bit and add the humor bit especially for live clips of course the premise has to be clear straight away but you can really like play it out and like on on instagram my video that's going the

most viral right now is the magician verse heckler clip and it's not even a magic trick it's just me like putting a heckler in their place when they want to check the deck it's not even a trick and so but like two years ago that wouldn't have worked it has to be it has to be like in the studio like watch this you know watch this and boom and it changes and see i think that's not working as well now as you know the more genuine approach

like you go try on the tricky tricky dicky stuff and now people one more act to be like, ah, tricky dicky. Yeah. From, from Mike's, from what I'm observing, it seems to be the videos, a lot of the videos that look like they're filmed from someone else having captured. Yeah. And it's not posted by the artist themselves. Yeah. Like, uh, yeah, a fellow magician in Australia, Jackson aces, right. Post, posted the bowl of Rama.

Yeah performance but it's filmed from someone in the audience like just on an iphone on an angle and the bolorama video got i don't know what he's up to now i want to guess five million views on instagram for bolorama that guy does pretty well for himself actually he's got a good eye for what plays on social media definitely and he's got an eye for it and he and he has a show playing at the sydney opera house oh no that's great yeah yeah he is doing big things but the fact that like even he

was surprised because he just it's a it's like a 15 second video it's just like yeah he's just finished drawing the thing it falls out it doesn't even fall out well like it falls out and he kicks it in the audience because he doesn't even stop it but like it just went enormous because it was filmed from like what looks like a sort of hidden camera ish you know like this audience filming it yeah and then you've got xavier mortimer which just defies all odds and just kills

it but yeah zach king level good even maybe surpassing that it feels like real magic when you watch a xavier video yeah and what a weird format because he explained to us it's like highly produced and obviously even the spectators are sort of booked to be to come into the set to be spectators but they they don't know what the trick is that's going to happen so even though, so it's like it's weird it's almost like it's a TV show and they know they're coming on to watch magic but.

They don't know what the magic is so it's still like a genuine ish reaction. It's an odd one it's a good way to do it, Yeah. Yes, I agree. I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to start hiring plants. Come hang out here in the studio and be my yes man. Yes. And pretty soon we're going to have, you know, I don't think Nick's microphone is working at the moment, but it's pretty soon we're going to have Nick's video challenges coming back soon, I'm sure.

Where you can challenge Nick to create an effect. Because I really like that series. And so I know it's time consuming because you've got to come up with the method and then you've got to film it and you've got to do it, making sure it's good for camera. But start hounding Nick with challenge ideas of videos for him to film. For sure. What great. Thanks for the extra work. We can basically right now, yeah, we can talk Nick into doing anything right now because he can't rebuttal it. No rebuttals.

You guys can come up with anything. And we'll reward him with pizza deliveries. So I think that's only fair. Pizza magic challenge. That's what I like. Gutbuster Mike saying, we want to see a pizza magic video. So Nick, I think that's going to be the one they see next is a pizza magic challenge. I want to see it personally. So maybe it's multiplying pepperonis. I don't know. But something's going to come out. I think we're wrapping up this episode slowly. Yeah, I feel like we're done here.

That's right. look look out on the channels uh for all our content throughout the week i've certainly learned an immense more about mike gallo which i'm so appreciative of even though it's our own podcast it was it was really a pleasure to learn more about him and i'm going to continue that.

Doug and and nick already had a pretty good amount of knowledge and nick went to the efforts of actually researching and writing this essay which is which is amazing and just quickly doug what's on for you this week you're in the uh the learn sleight of hand uh world this yeah yeah today i filmed an epic session where i delved into the top 10 small packet handling so i'll be editing that tomorrow and talking about maybe that on my youtube live wednesday i'm gonna do a harry anderson tribute

show with some giveaways this wednesday afternoon so it was his birthday week we remembered his birthday yesterday so harry's on my mind i got some giveaways that's happening Wednesday at four o'clock YouTube Doug Kahn joined me man Doug you're like the busiest you've ever been I would say right in your life magic wise like bloody happening Nick what are you up to, talk and oh yeah kicks real work real work yeah same i i gotta fly out to a

country town this week which they've told me might not have any reception but they're gonna put up their own.

Starlink tower to get some wi-fi happening so no doubt i'm gonna have some stories about that i have to go on a plane that has 10 seats and they literally because of the weight have to limit how much fuel they can put and therefore we can only have 10 kilos of luggage and i gotta do two separate shows when i'm over there so this is literally the epitome of pack small play big for an event because i'm literally not allowed to take much big stuff super cool

so i'll report back on that break a leg thanks yeah so that's gonna be fun i'll leave that as the final word Paxmore play big is literally going to be my mantra for this weekend. You guys have been great. We'll see you next week for another episode of The Magic Guys. 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.