Taylor Hughes & His New Book "Misdirection" #157

They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys. Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? Welcome to episode 157. How do we keep doing these? I have no idea. But to my left, we got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friends. And down below, we got no one because Doug is not here. Doug, what's going on? No, Doug's busy. He's a busy man. And today, replacing him, we have a guest, which we'll get to in just a second. But Nick, how are you, my friend?

Dude, I've had a mega week. Absolutely awesome week. It's been really fun. A whole bunch of really gnarly gigs. I keep having these really fun times when I'm performing where I'm meeting non-English speaking people, but there's always one person who needs to translate for me. And I just have way too much fun with that person because I make him say stuff they would never say.

What? what i start performing like this is nick k and they go oh he's an award-winning magician one of the best in australia and they say all this crap and then i'm like i also think he's really handsome and i'm like and i look at me and look at me i'm like say it and they go i think he's really handsome and then they go did they just say that like that's so cheeky so i love fooling around people how was your week busy busy okay yeah look we

opened the theater of magic at the new venue at at the treasury hotel on Saturday. How good's that? Mate, it was a dream come true. This room and no doubt this year, Nick, you're playing this room, but it's like, it feels actually magical.

Like you're in a Hogwarts room because it's this heritage listed venue and so, so nice and audience gave us a standing ovation at the end of the first night in this show, so, you know, I can't even find the, applause button on my own soundboard but but we had that on saturday yes it was it was it was very nice and that's that was pretty much my week the podcast and that and and now here we are well speaking and also greetings i was gonna say let's do a

quick shout out to all of our friends here in the house we have thomas we have a friend house to the end i am the flash 101 we have johnny prentice tim askan you guys better be asking all those questions because we have an awesome guest on today We also have Tom. We have Blaise Sierra. Come and be a guest, you son of a bitch. We also have Johnny Prentice, my good friend Neil Allen. Neil Allen is one of the most wonderful people I know, a non-magician who regularly listens to this show.

I also got a message from another non-magician today. Shout out to Grant Middlemiss asking, hey, what time is the show on? So, Grant, hope you're listening and good to see you, friend. And we have Mark Thompson, guys. So, again, thank you for being here in the chat.

We have an amazing guest on today. today and so if you have any questions please throw them up we would love we've had an amazing chat already spending time backstage and I can't wait a moment longer to bring him on what do you say Josh. Look, we got to do it. And for those who are real OGs of the pod,

you've seen him on an episode before. But when I dug back to the last time this gentleman was on the podcast, so we're at episode 157. I should have planned this and him come on two weeks earlier, but the last time he was on was episode 55. So 102 episodes later, we finally got him to come back. And he's been, he's been a busy boy since then. And I wrote down just quickly, like he had his first comedy special, Chasing Wonder, which I think was out when we were first chatting.

And you can still get that on Amazon Prime or on YouTube movies, we were realizing. And he now has a second special called Enjoy the Ride, which is available on YouTube for free for everyone to go gangbusters and watch. He has published a book, but today, very exciting. And he's been giving us a little goss in the background. round, but he has a book coming out called Misdirection, A Magician's Guide to Spotting and Avoiding Manipulation in Your Life.

It's on Amazon for pre-order and it's going to be coming out on Feb 13th. So without any further ado, let's introduce Taylor Hughes. Music. Wow wow cool okay that

first of all again that red carpet rollout like the can we can you just put a course together for every corporate mc of like how to introduce you when you come out have you done the corporate where they're like read some interview they found of you online and tell everything that's not important man if only there was a course on emceeing that that would go through stuff like that that was not that was not why bro because taylor does have an emceeing course

just so you know on on how to be a proper master of ceremonies let me crash the party look at this Thank you so much for being here. Now, for those that don't know who you are, you wonderful, wonderful creature. Tell us, tell us who you are, what you do, what makes you tick. Go. I am a magician, which is why I'm on the magic guys, but I I'm based in Los Angeles, California. About 80% of my work is corporate entertainment and the other 20 is a mix of

theaters and some other fun projects I put out. I just put out my second special. Hey, John says, welcome back. Hey, Hey, John. Hey, Tim. Just put out my second special on YouTube. So I love making stuff. I like making projects and putting them out. I've made one project for magicians with David Stryker, the Cuban bottle project. But other than that, everything I make is just stuff for the general public. So I've got a couple of books and a couple of specials and a couple of kids.

So those are the things I've made. Jeez what a talk about juggling that tell us about this cube and bottle project tell us more about that yeah so back in like man maybe eight eight or nine years ago david striker i worked with him to release his uh mystery cube which is just a root like an impossible bottle with a rubik's cube in it which is now at disneyland you can go buy them there which is crazy wow i'm no longer involved in the project that's a lot of money after i left and man.

David and I grew up at the Magic Castle in the junior group together. We've been buddies for years. And so we worked on a project with his Cuban bottle that Vanishing Ink put out on how to put the cube in the bottle, how to make these impossible bottles you can give away at corporates. And then a routine I put together that's a matching audience mixes up a cube and it matches the one that you've had sit on stage in a bottle.

And then at the end of it, you solve the cube in the bottle so that's that's the cuban model project yeah damn our our friend uh our friend brennan dooley is a big advocate of this and he buys them in freaking boxes so much so that he figured out the shipping was less if he got it shipped to me in australia instead of him in new zealand and he would have me individually post like four at a time to him and it worked out better but you know now he gets them direct i

think to him wild that's wild yeah it's that was a fun that was a fun project and that routine is there's actually a video that's from the first special but there's a video of that just that routine on youtube if anyone wants to see it yeah just kind of a i have i have seen that routine actually and it was brendan dooley himself that brought it to my attention because it's such a beautiful piece of magic like thank you so much for sharing that you know so well speaking of sharing magic like

the these specials right like how do you i gotta ask a big yeah yeah i gotta ask a big question very controversial and i think i know the answer but you know you went from the first special being on amazon prime yeah so now youtube where it's it's uh open source everyone can go watch it what what's the the thought process yeah i mean for sure yeah that was that was just it the first special we put out i filmed in january of

2020 and then that got released it did great on amazon because everyone everyone was sitting home watching stuff. And then this next one, I just, I'm trying to just put out more content so people can see what I do. And then maybe when I turn up to their town, they'll buy a ticket to come. So that's, it's not a, it's, it's nothing original or unique.

It's essentially what my comedian friends have done for years is you, you write a show, you do that hour for a couple of years on the road, and then you put it out either on, you know, audio or video. And so I just thought, well, Hey, what if you just did what.

Comedians are doing but do it with magic that's really interesting because you know i guess magicians by nature are so secretive and will hide their routines and not want to share jokes and share things of that nature how different is the magic realm from the like comedic stand-up realm you know it's it's interesting there's yeah that is that has always been a thing traditionally you know years ago you could make a 45 minute or a 60 minute act or i mean back in the 60s

a nine minute act and you could make a living doing that act all over the world world. And that is a great way to do it if your business model is I'm going to borrow an audience, which is that's the big difference between magicians and comedians. Magicians, we borrow an audience. We don't have our own audience. And so we get a corporate client or a house party or a wedding, and we borrow the audience that belongs to that group for the night.

But that means you You have to wait by the phone for someone with an audience to invite you to come. And my comedian friends have a totally separate business model. It's I'm going to put out content and travel around the country and do all these shows for next to no money so that I can get my own audience. And then once I get my own audience, I can just make stuff for them and have

200, 300, 400 people turn up when I come to town and buy a ticket. it. So if you think about, if you think about every famous magician, we know that's been their business model, right? Every, every famous magician that people who aren't in magic know David Copperfield, David Blaine, Chris Angel, Penn and Teller, Lance Burton. It's all Justin Willman. It's all because he created digital content and put it out and then people could come see them live.

So, and then I feel like you're burning less marketing fund in the long right you're not just burning all this money for a town that's never seen you to try and fill seats right it's and it's like you know typically i think that's and that's why magicians you know grow up making a living from the corporate world because right they don't have to be known and like they get this put in front of them audience but what question

about your audience so we're talking about sharing content for example i mean is it that if you're going to follow this this idea This is a brilliant idea, more importantly. Would you avoid sharing content that's going to be within the show, for example? Like, let's say that you did, I don't know, let's just say that you made a monkey appear on stage. You wouldn't do that on your social and then expect people to...

To do that like it would you like what is the line drawn like do you do stuff in the show or do you do stuff to draw them into the show that i see totally new stuff i think what he's saying nick is that you always are putting out the stuff that you used to do in the shows and now you have a new show you're touring but you're showing the tour you did the year before yeah i mean that would be the idea people are going to be doing this for the first time you know

what i mean like if you're you're gonna oh they're there okay so you're gonna be doing this for the first time what do you do do you throw stuff within the show or do you show other stuff to draw them into the show oh that's interesting yeah i don't think it's i i used to be like when i first had the idea for the first to do the first show and put it out i thought well i can't do that material anymore.

And i don't think that's the case i think that if people watched it and they loved it it's kind of like going to see your favorite band you're hoping they do something old but you also want to hear the new stuff. So I think the challenge is for magicians is we go, Hey, I'm doing a show and people come and they love it. And then, Hey, I'm doing a show.

They might come a second time, but if it's the same show, they're never going to come again because they're going to realize, Hey, I love that guy, but I've seen everything he's got. And so again, if you're working mostly in the corporate market or in house parties,

I don't think that that's, I don't think for most people, this is an issue that they need to be concerned about. But I do think if you're interested in making content that like kind of direct to your audience and finding that audience and curating that audience, I think, I think the only way to do it is to make things and put it out for people to see. And if they see that and like it, they might want to see the next thing.

So, yeah. What, what, um, what, how, what percentage of the show has to be different?

Do you think like oh so like right now let's see we put that special out two months ago and right now in my current show if i'm doing an hour about about half of it is brand new i'm still doing some things that a couple things from the first special a couple things from this this last one so it's not all like one or the other but then march i'll do two weeks in in tahoe in march and the purpose of that run is that show from then on is brand new.

So all the stuff that I'm doing that is on one of those videos is not going to be on stage anymore once that show comes. Yeah. Wow. And all right. Help the magician brother out. How do you go about...

Putting like filming a magic special what's your kind of process and also you put it on youtube and you're obviously spending a lot of money to have it produced yeah so yeah yeah how do you go about that yeah it is i mean it's it's not cheap to make things making making a book's not cheap making a special is not cheap but again you mentioned marketing and i think a lot of times where our thoughts are oh i'm gonna do a lot of facebook ads or i'm gonna do you pay for gig Gigmasters

or whatever it's called now, the Bash. We have different Google AdWords and things like that. I just tend to direct all my marketing budget to making content that will exist in perpetuity. So when I made the first special and that came out during the pandemic, I spent a ton of money on it that I did not make back from selling the special. But I made back the money because when a corporate client is looking at three different magicians and they go, here's three performers.

They're all, they're all working the magic castle. They all do comedy. They all do magic. Oh, this one has a special on Amazon. That's how I made my money back off the first special. So I just, yeah, I think, yeah, I think, I think that's, that's the big thing. You asked about like the logistics of of doing it. I had a buddy who asked me a question and this is, I think, regardless of whether you want to make a video or you want to do something else, this question is huge.

He said, what's one thing we were sitting in a diner in Nashville and I see him like twice a year, but we're like great friends. And he goes, what's one thing you know you need to do, but you haven't done. And I started telling him, Oh, I'm going to make a comedy special, you know, magic special. It's going to be this and that. It's going to be like when I saw Harry Anderson do it and all this of stuff.

And he just listened nicely. And then he went, you said the same thing a year ago, like the same thing you just told me you said a year ago, when are you going to do it?

And he took out his phone and he said, when's your next open time? And I said, January, this was like August of 2019. He goes, hold on. He booked a flight from Nashville to LA. And he said, I'm spending that week with you. Now you got to figure it out. And the second, the second that I had a deadline on the calendar, then it was just like, well, well, I guess I got to book a theater. And I knew some friends who ran this beautiful theater in LA called Dynasty

Typer and I reached out to them. They're like, yeah, you can use a theater. And I was like, oh, well, I guess I got to get a camera crew. And so you just, once you commit to doing it, and you put it on the calendar, then you just start working backwards and going, who do I know? What can I, what, what favors can I ask for? What's the checklist to make that happen? So it's like, okay, got a theater, got a camera crew, got an audience, got a show. Like, is that it?

Yeah. I mean, so I worked with two different crews. The first special was a friend of mine out of the East coast and actually flew his whole crew out to do it just because we had worked worked together on like 100 different corporate events and so i had watched these guys who were not like it's funny to be in la and to hire a camera crew from outside of the state is kind of the dumbest economic decision but i had watched these guys you know they're getting hired by these corporate

events to capture the event and to show a recap video the next day and they never miss the shot because they're just used to like they know in their head what we got to get and they'd also also seen the act I was doing at the time, you know, a hundred times and, and I didn't have to explain here trying to accomplish. So yeah, so that was, that was working with them. And then this last special, my buddy, Chris Ruggiero out of Atlanta is a beast

and he, he, I just love his aesthetic. He does like all my video content now. And yeah, I just said, Hey man, you want to try to do a special? And we just, yeah, we just kind of set it up and picked how many cameras we needed and what angles we wanted and brainstormed different shots. And, you know, at that point, the show, I'd been doing the show on the road for a couple of years. And so I knew these are the routines I want to put on there. And yeah.

So was it one show that you filmed? We shot two shows for both of them. Yeah. If you're going to film a show, you got to, I would pick, do two performances of it. Because what's going to happen is you're going to go, ah, we need two in case it doesn't work. And then the first one, you're going to go, oh, that went, that went pretty good. I think we got it.

And then the second show you'll use like 80% of it from the second show, because what'll happen is once you feel like, oh, the pressure is gone of like having to get something on tape, that's good. Then all of a sudden you relax and you come up with stuff that's actually really great. So I think for both specials, about 80% of it came from the second show we shot.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. So when you, cause you probably do the first one, sorry, Nick, you probably do the first one and you think that was good, but then you do the second one and you're like, okay, that was good. Yeah. Well, I really do think it's a matter of like, you're so there's so much pressure on it.

Like when I did the first taping, I literally walked out before the show and I said, I have had my friend michael rainer a variety artist he came out and did some juggling to open the show but i walked out before him and i said hey everyone this is not the show i just want you to know like we're filming tonight if you if you enjoy this make sure you react and let us know if you don't enjoy it don't feel like you gotta fake it but my kids are literally selling posters in the lobby

because i've spent their college fund on this so we need this to go well like yeah so So, yeah, I think once you relax and you're like, okay, great, we got through one, then you can just be yourself and get something that you'll feel more comfortable with. So, David Ung asked the question here, which says, how did you get flight time with an hour show before filming it?

And I guess that you were saying that two years before you did the first one, is it the same sort of process where you go through years of just like doing the routines in your corporates and so forth? Like, what happens? Yeah. So I do, like I said, I do a mix of corporates and then I do, there's some theaters that I do. So like the loft in Lake Tahoe, I'll do a couple of weeks out of the year there.

When I do the loft or I do the magic castle or house of cards or places like that, you're doing between 30, you know, the house of cards, you're doing like a 30 minute show five times a night. And what I would do when I would go there is I would plan the sets as two separate 30-minute shows. So I would plan my hour-long show, and I would do the first show, the audience would see what was essentially half of the special.

And then the second show, the next audience who didn't see the first one would

see a different show, but it would be the next half of the hour. And so if you currently right now are booking events where you're only doing 15 or 20-minute sets, I would just start doing separate 15 or 20 minute sets to build up the time until you get an hour on stage. When I do the loft in Tahoe, it's 70 minutes twice a night. And so you have all the time in the world to throw a bunch of stuff in and just kind of see what fits.

I think magic tricks and routines are kind of like, it's like trying on clothes. You might see it on someone else and go like, Oh, it looks great. I think I could do something with that.

And then you put it on you you're like ah this just doesn't fit me and so i think just giving yourself the space in your in your show to try out stuff makes a big difference yeah so when you're creating these 15 minute blocks so to speak what's the key to making a good special like is it the opener is it the closer like is almost every routine an opener like what it's the key that's interesting you know it's funny is when we taped the first one i realized afterward what

worked on video was different what What flowed better on video was different than what flowed when you're live in the audience. And so if you watch the first special, it's not in the order we shot it in. The opener was the same and the closer was the same, but the other pieces got moved around because I just realized like, oh, it kind of felt better in the final edit.

But yeah, I tend to, I tend to just look at individual, individual pieces and then you kind of plug them in, you know, but I, I, if you're building a show, the person who is the best at this and he's working on a book and we'll eventually put it out is one of my best buddies in the UK. His name is Mark James and Mark is a beast. He's got like two or three penguin lives, but just a brilliant thinker of magic.

And he has a whole grid system that he's put together that is like different styles of different types of pieces. So it'll be like, here's a piece where you're on stage by yourself. Here's a piece where you have an audience member with you. Here's one where you sit at the edge of the stage. Here's one that happens in the audience. Here's one where the audience members on stage and you're on the seats. And he basically creates all these different, you know, this one has background

music. This one has no music. This one has only music and no talking. And so as you're building a show, you use these little ideas of, you know, to, to take these routines and to kind of create texture in the show so that people are kind of leaning in the whole time. And, and so when I'm putting together an hour, I try to look at like, okay, what am I doing? That's, that's really leaning into storytelling. What am I doing? That's, that's really magical. What am I doing? That's really funny.

What are the things you want people to walk away with? And then just make sure you're doing those kinds of bits in the show. I guess you can also do versions of those routines as well, where you have one version of a routine that doesn't have any spoken parts and one version that can just. I really like this. I've never really heard someone put it so eloquently.

A lot of things you're saying are blowing my mind. And I'm so thankful that you're sharing this information with us genuinely, like saying things like it has texture.

No one's ever said it, put that in my thought process before, not once, you know, the notion of a borrowed audience like this is all yeah new concept in this game for 16 years and you know genius like yourself to to share it like oh man yeah well thank you and also sorry taylor go on go on oh no go ahead i was gonna on on the same kind of deep questioning and in thought process david asked what's your cheap food when you're on the road oh man after a gig oh my

gosh it's so bad David I I hear okay so we have I'll tell you I'll tell you this first of all I have a problem because she I it's it's it's right now the food is so bad that I'm eating all the time that anything anything that there's nothing that feels like a cheat it's just like oh what's the next one, you got that uh magic magic special money no no my I I tend to be like a late night like,

like, Oh, do really good all day. And then after the show at like 1130 at night, I'll be driving home and be like, I'm going to drive through Taco Bell or Del Taco or something. Just, yeah. People keep bringing up Peter in this, in this channel. They're having a pizza party. What type of pizza would you do? You get, do you have a favorite?

This is when, you know, the magic covers it. They're like, I don't want to hear this guy talking about magic well this guy can't can't give me anything i love all pizzas i'm not you know what this is controversial i'm not a pineapple pizza guy i'm kind of like yeah i know shut the front door look someone needs to say it josh this is the hard-hitting content you only get on the magic guys but yes what he doesn't he doesn't talk about this in his book people so you

can can only get it here. That's what I'm talking about. We can wrap it up. We should probably talk about the book. Now, this book on manipulation in your book, tell us what the book's about, friend.

Yeah. So this book that is coming out on February 13th is the whole premise of this book. And this is not a book for magicians, but it's a book written written by a magician for the general public. And the whole premise is I've studied how to deceive people my entire life for entertainment, right? Like we've, we study how to take your watch off without, you know, and we study how to get you to look over here so we can do something shady over here.

And that's cool because people sign up for that, but people don't sign up for that to happen when they go to work on Monday morning or when they sit in a church pew on Sunday or when they go, you know, into, into a booth to vote politically. And so the book is is all about how the same techniques we use for entertainment has kind of snuck into how we treat each other in every other aspect of life, from business to politics, to marketing, to religion.

And so the book is called Misdirection, A Magician's Guide to Spotting and Avoiding Manipulation in Your Life. And here it is. And what I do is I teach a simple magic trick, like a simple magic principle, kind of general magic stuff in every chapter. And then I teach how that same thing has snuck into how you treat each other in the office if you're not careful.

So it's, it's really a book about asking questions about how we can look out for one another and treat each other kindly and not allow ourselves to kind of get the wool pulled over our eyes by someone who, you know, is being, being shady. So that's, yeah, there it is. We, yeah, there is a link to purchase the book. I literally purchased mine backstage minutes before we went live. I'm so excited to get a copy of this. It's a gorgeous looking book as well.

The design looks awesome. And I'm looking, looking forward to reading it. Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. And we put supplemental. So there's video links in every chapter where I explain a simple trick like, you know, and it's simple stuff like the salt shaker through the table trick. But I'll explain that principle and talk about how the way the salt shaker vanished is I got you to think it was all about the quarter, that all my attention was on the quarter.

When I never had any desire to do anything with the quarter, I just needed you to think that was the most important thing, and then you wouldn't notice what I was doing over here. And so 1984 for 2024, that's amazing. And this is not, it is definitely not like, this is not like a conspiracy theory book. Like, they're all out to get us. Oh, we are. We are very much we are very much the conspiracy guys on this.

Secondary channel right is the conspiracy guys yeah yeah no yeah no the book the book is just like how to how to ask questions that will keep you from getting taken advantage of so and i totally agree with that i can't tell you how many times i see stuff on the tv where it's like oh they're allowing like i remember how many times i've seen stuff like we're allowing gay marriage i'm like that's awesome that's so cool

and then another part of my conspiracy brain went What are they distracting us from? Because they could have done this ages ago, but they waited till now. They waited till now. And I did this to distract us from something. You might be a conspiracy guy, Nick. I don't even know. I don't even know. That's why I shaved my head, because my long... I used to have hair all the way down to my butt, but it kept getting stuck in the foil hats. Oh, is that what it was?

So funny. Of all the lessons in the book, what's your favorite?

What's your favorite lesson in the book that you like to share? Oh, man, my favorite lesson in the book. Gosh, that's a really good, I should probably know this. Like I should have it in a holster or something. Um, for me, so I, my faith, my favorite section in the book.

And again, this book is, I, I, I worked with a lot of editors and a lot of friends to make sure that I was right in this, like right down the, like not trying to talk anyone into anything or out of anything, but in a past life before I was a magician, I worked at a, I worked at a church and things Things went really sour at this place that I had been at since I was eight years old.

And, and I was kind of shocked. I was like, dude, I'm the guy who knows, like, I know how to recognize what's real and what's not and deception and all this stuff. And in a place that was supposed to be safe, you know, our family got taken advantage of. And so I'm just excited for people who have found themselves in a similar situation and feel kind of like they're the only one who's dealt with that to number one,

not feel alone. And number two, to realize like, hey, if something feels off, guys, ask more questions. And so that's kind of my favorite chunk about the book there is literally. Yeah. When you ask questions, you get pushed back from this like toxic tribalism that tends to happen sometimes. And the safest thing, and I say that quite literally, the safest thing is to just back down because you ask questions, but you just greeted with like such hostility.

You know, is there any is there anything in the book that sort of talks about how to manage that? that? Yeah. I mean, there's a whole section in the book called misdirection in the neighborhood, which is about like family relationships and community.

And what do you do when, when, you know, you don't see eye to eye anymore with certain people and how do you have those conversations and how can you, you know, set safe boundaries for yourself to make sure that you're not getting run over, but also be, be respectful and, and firm in the fact that like, Hey, this is what I see the world to be in kind of how I'm choosing to live it. So yeah, there's some, some good tips in there for that.

So he was saying like within the family or within the neighborhood, I think that's really interesting. How much techniques do you use to, in your family and day-to-day life? I mean, I don't know how old your kids are. Yeah. I got a 15 year old and an 18 year old. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So like growing up, you know, this whole thing of like, take a bath. No, it's like, you know, like what techniques would you have for like the family realm?

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of conversation in there just about about communication and how to communicate in an appropriate way and in a careful way in a clear way because that's the that's my that's one of my biggest concerns with this book is when you're teaching techniques for manipulation so that you can recognize them to avoid them i don't want someone picking this up as a manual and going like here's how i can get everyone at the office to

do what i want them to do yeah right right here's how i can get my wife to react the way i want her to you know so it really is uh the biggest thing is like asking like i said asking big questions and so my wife and I with our kids have always just been like all right are we doing this the right way you know what what what else is out there that we don't know about that maybe we should learn about that can make us better parents or better

people and I think the minute we start to feel like and magicians are great at this we're so good at like constantly questioning everything. What's possible what's not what's real what isn't what what what could we achieve on stage you know know, what technique do I need for this or that? And so, but I think in, in most of life, we kind of put things into categories of, Oh, I already got that down.

I know it, you know, when you're a little kid and you sit down and you learn how to tie your shoes, you're like, so you ever watch a little kid try to tie their shoes. It's like make the bow and they're so intent on it. And then we get to a certain point where we go, I know that. And we never think about it again. And that's great with shoe tying. It's not great when it comes to like how we respect other people or what we think about the world or how, you know what I mean? All that stuff.

Like we just want to always be growing and learning and realize like. I don't know. I spent too long feeling like I had all the answers and I needed to give them to someone. And I, I found that like, there's more help in just asking big questions. Yeah. You don't have it all figured out, you know?

Yeah. And it's remarkable because I think that, you know, given the generation between like gaps, I should say, you know, where, you know, back in the day, we didn't have a phone in our pocket when we wanted something, we had to actually like get in the car, go to the mall, purchase the the thing instead of having the comfort of just from my mobile like i literally from my phone within a minute bought your book now which i'm grateful for that technology yeah.

No i get it man it's like it's yeah yeah but 20 years ago and even now to this day you would have to if you want to do it the old-fashioned way so to speak you would go to the mall or to the bookstore and then you would go look at the shelves and they you wouldn't find it and then you ask a person at the counter and say is this book here and they go no but it's in another store and you go to the other store and they go, sorry, the inventory was wrong.

It said, we have a copy and we don't. And you go, well, can I order one please? And then you've got to wait six weeks. And like, this is like how it was back in the day. And it's so different. And the reason I bring that up is that I guess we didn't have this notion of instant gratification like we do now. Right. And do you think that plays into this whole notion of misdirection, like through your book?

Yeah, I think because, and there's a section in the book where we talk about the fact that that sometimes we're misdirected by other people. Sometimes we're misdirected by ourselves, right? And it's, you know, we all know the three shell game or three card Monty. And I love, man, I, have you ever gone and watched somebody like hustle on the street? Like not a majority, like a guy who's doing the technique, but just purely to win the game and make the money.

It's, it's wild to me. Cause, cause part of you feels a little bit bad. You're you're like, man, this guy's taking advantage of people. But if you watch, it's the person who gets up there and wants the get rich quick. It's the person that gets up there and want, you know what I mean? In some aspects, we're allowing ourselves to be misdirected and manipulated. And it is the instant gratification. And so I think, again, it's good to ask what,

What is it that I want out of life? And, you know, as a magician, sometimes it's like, oh, I really would like to have a new show. Well, you know, are we, do we really want that or, or do we want to just do what's easy or comfortable or the thing that we know works? So I'm just, you see how I brought it back to magic, Josh. I love it. I love it. You know, I was just thinking, I was just thinking all you had to do to sell it to every magician is add a book test within the book. I know.

If you had a book test in it so that would be it well you see if i wanted to make money from magicians i would write a magic book because here's what i think is funny like my profit will be like four dollars on a book if it's a paperback for everybody book but if it's like a nice beautiful man he was like oh you make 80 bucks a book you know yeah where's nick gone imagine if his book's been delivered already someone someone just said well it was all that talk about pizza i

think it's finally arrived can you imagine that would be amazing so like what you know we've been we've been in the full-time magic game for a while you you you know much longer than me as well but like what's your relationship with magic these days like you still enjoy it do you what's what's that like for you it's a balance i find but yeah yeah do you feel like you go through waves with it like totally sometimes i sometimes i absolutely love love magic and sometimes like

i mean we joked earlier i was like sometimes i'm packing for a shower going man if i was one suitcase funnier i just tell jokes and stories and leave what is what what just happened taylor just said oh his pizza must have arrived i don't know who did this.

So we've been talking about pizza and then this bit my doorbell rings i run downstairs and i'm like, I'm like, that ain't me, bro. You want to check the address? He's like, yeah. And it's like, it says here, like, Nick K, your address, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. What the actual fuck? Whoever the listeners of the podcast, you can't see this right now. I just ran back. I'm now holding 10 pieces from Domino's.

Wow that's amazing wow, okay whoever sent that i'm gonna put my address in the comments everyone put your address in quickly, damn it i guess no one knows my address to god damn it terrified that people know my address you haven't opened the boxes yet that might not even be pizza who knows.

Wow what the actual this is the weirdest podcast i've ever been a part of, and you just you don't know what will happen that's amazing that is that is wild what the hell from dominoes listening to the pod is that what happened, can you imagine we better let's plunge dominoes safety dominoes i didn't even know dominoes is is early open this early right oh it's an hour ahead for you it's 10 40 here a.m oh my goodness wow adzi says they're our new sponsor you're sponsored,

wow that is unreal i got the right yeah that's magic thank you so much there goes the the kilo i just lost a kilo this week i was so happy.

I was finally able to fit into our merchandise for a change and now i just got 10 pieces like ah thank you thank you so much and if it's someone from domino's who listens to the pod thank you domino's for uh the 10 the 10 pizza isn't imagine if that just imagine if that just becomes a weekly thing now yeah this is just mid-podcast yeah okay it'll be it'll be pizza night every tuesday night at nick's house for sure like that is just yeah oh my word the

detective in me wants to say who was the first person to bring up pizza in the chat i would guess they're the culprit oh i mean a lot of these listeners are a lot of these listeners are from the u.s, Do you always talk about pizza on this show? I mean, it's not uncommon. Normally we talk about Nick being in a band, but this is a first. Because you play some instruments, don't you?

I do. I do, yeah. Not with anybody, really. I was in a band in high school, and now I just play in my little tough shed in the backyard. But, yeah, there's always stuff. They got stuff everywhere. They got ukuleles and guitars. and anyway once again the hard-hitting magic content everyone came for.

What's your relationship with magic right now josh are you loving it are you hating it are you what are you feeling right now you know i used to be a full corporate guy like love corporate gigs you know and always have the website looking schmick and the promo reels and and everything thing and in the last two years i got to start doing some some theater shows yeah and for bigger audiences and i just it opened my eyes so much to how much like people actually can enjoy magic

when they're you're the event like when they're coming to see magic not you being put in front of a cold audience and from doing that so much and now having this we have this weekly show that It, it's a parlor show for 45 guests in a, in a casino here. Yeah. And, uh, I just enjoy that so much that I'm starting to not, not that I don't enjoy corporates, but I've just found a, a, a higher level of enjoyment. And so I want to find a way to just be able to just do that stuff more.

Oh yeah. So that's where I'm at right now. Yeah. That's rad. How about you, Nick? Where are you at with magic? I mainly, I love it so much, man. And it's really funny because like, I just love the close-up realm far more than I do the stage realm. And I really enjoy doing the bars and clubs that I do on a regular basis. I have four residencies that I do on a weekly basis where I perform close-up, just going from table to table or just people standing around.

And it's just so great because Because I have this opportunity to create and run in material all the time. And I just quite literally say to people, like, I'm just here to try a new material. Can I try some new stuff? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We love it. We leave our table. And then they love it because one of the biggest benefits for the venues that hire myself is that in return, they're like, oh, can I give you a tip? Can I give you a tip?

And all I ask is that you just leave a kindly worded five-star review and mention my name. And then they do that. And so they get in these five-star Google reviews in their venues.

And it just makes all the managers look great it makes me look great and i just go like nicksworth is his weight in gold you know and um yeah yeah i just super thankful for that you know so in between that i do private functions corporate functions roving is my main jam yeah i do enjoy stage a lot i really really do but yeah you know i still treat it as if those people are standing within a few feet from me even though there's like a massive distance between the stage and and

everything else you know like it's great i can't help i can't help but feel whenever i perform that they're just like like i'm hugging my entire audience you know i just think that's well i just it's just that like when you love magic and you perform it you i don't know like you just kind of for me i just feel like i'm nothing without an audience right you know and.

I i perform stuff and people say like how like how do you do that like what the hell this and that like how do you even practice that and it's like i practice it with my people with the people i perform half the stuff i do you cannot practice like you just need to do it and yeah i'm just so grateful for that you know that's awesome man that's rad that's really cool yeah i'm i'm right now because we because i just put out that that

material online i'm right now just doing a bunch bunch of different stuff that I've been playing with for a long time, but haven't like, hasn't been the main thing in the show. And I'm loving it. Like, I just, I love that moment of like building a show from the ground up, you know, and, and going, what's it going to be? So I'm kind of, I'm kind of back in the honeymoon phase with magic right now.

That's awesome. Well, how do you do it from the ground up? So do you, do you write routines and then just piece them together? Or when you say, okay, I have an idea, like what comes first, the routines or the show? So I have, I always have a list on my phone of pieces, types of effects, or, you know, a thing you saw that you thought, oh, that could be, I can maybe do something cool with that.

The benefit that we have as magicians that comedians don't have is comedians aren't waking up every day with five emails from different magic, different comedy companies going, here's the 10 premises you need to get started today. But every day we wake up Penguin and Vanishing Ink and Theory 11 are like, here's a bunch of cool new visual stuff. And so I just have a list of all these random ideas I've always wanted to try or things that are different than I'm currently doing, man.

I also keep a list on my phone of like, what do I want to say? Because my stuff is always story driven. It's always, what am I trying to, you know, what's, what's a personal thing that I want to add into this?

I tend to start with that and then go, what trick would justify me telling this story in a way that, you know, is, is, is genuine and doesn't feel like contrived you know so i love it can i share a stupid idea that i just entered my my psyche the other day i love it i had this okay so when i when i perform right normally at a table or i'm in a circle of people and i literally get everyone around me and i

like if there's someone i'm like come here come here come here and i'll put my arm around like i want them to be able to smell me effectively right yeah what's happening is that as you're performing away it becomes a a spectacle for everyone to see what's happening and i really like that and i thought to myself like how crazy would it be if you had a type of show where you just allowed people to like like there was table let's say there was tables right some of the tables

are actually on the stage. You know what i mean like those are the hundred dollar seats and you you see the magic like like i stand on your table you can look up my skirt and we perform the magic like that you You know what I mean? And then even some fortunes, like they can go sit in the corner. You leave them be like maybe someone brings them drinks or something and then you go sit in the corner, you do your piece to camera, for example, and then you can go back.

But there is people on the stage all the time, you know, like that's interesting. I just had a wacky idea. Yeah, I had a I'd never even thought to act on this, but I had a. Similar ish wacky idea where I was like, what if you did a show where people there's two types of tickets, they can sit in front of the show or they can actually sit behind the show and watch like, and what if you were able to make a show that entertained both seats?

Like if they're sitting behind, there's parts where you can kind of look at them and be like, ha, they're not going to see this, but then maybe there's an effect built into that where it's like a sucker trick where actually that isn't what happens to them.

What if what if the whole show is about perspective and how we're not nobody's doing the same thing you know and and what if your show based on where you sat you literally saw a different show, wow wow you know what i mean like you could do a dual reality so you could be holding up a card that people think is a is a regular playing card but this side's looking at a face and they're looking at a face and they see it and then they can literally come to the show

twice sit in a different seat and see a totally different that'd be fun man wow coming to josh's residency.

Wow that is actually that's so deep that's fun man would you ever come to australia, oh my gosh i'd love to i'd love to come there's many opportunities i mean you have your fringe festivals of course but we also have the melbourne magic festival if you're ever interested we love having international guests and we love folks who like to lecture as well so if you have and you know be a great opportunity to push the book and anything else you may have in teaching magicians and so

forth so let's do it man let's make it happen i'd love to do that that'd be fun how's that pizza nick it's good, what i want to see is nick just chain eat all those pizzas right now like preferably.

Only the first wave has arrived, though, right? Oh, shit. Yeah, man. There's some multimillionaire here listening to the pod is like, this is going to be funny. And he just keeps sending pizzas every hour on the hour. Meanwhile, you're like, support the Patreon. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. A pizza Patreon. That could be great. We have to spend whatever it earns. On pizza? exclusively on stuff that we'll eat on the podcast oh that's great, and by taylor's book of course oh my gosh.

Yeah so are you how heavy is your emceeing schedule are you still because i mean i think last time we talked that was something you i don't know was that something you wanted to not do so much or yeah it's kind of stepping away from it i have i have a one mc gig this month and then I got one in Phoenix and then I got one next month here in California. But yeah, I went from doing, I was doing like 30 weeks a year of emceeing to now I'll do like maybe four weeks out of the year. I'm seeing.

Wow. Yeah. Right. Really? That was, that was because, because excuse me, that was because I was wanting to do this shift away from when you're an MC, it's a great gig, but to be a good MC, people will end up thinking you work for the organization. And so it's great for the paycheck you get then. It's really bad for people thinking about you outside of that place.

And so if you're trying to kind of build an audience who might turn up to a show or buy a book or something, those gigs aren't the best for generating that. At what point did your mindset go from the paycheck to the audience? Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's, that's really good. I'm trying to think of questions, the big questions here at magic guys. Right?

Yeah. No, I mean, it was probably, it was probably about five years ago that I, that something clicked and I went like, oh, we have magicians have the worst business model in the world. Like, like, like the whole, but the whole idea of borrowing an audience, like the whole idea of your livelihood is dependent upon someone else wanting you to come and do the thing. Right. And, and, and, and, and not just that, but like you go to a corporate event

and you kill it for this company and they love you. They had you at their Christmas party or whatever. Right. Well, maybe they're going to bring you three years from now to come back and do their holiday party, because even though they loved you, they need to do something different next year. So you know if that's your business model then every show starts to feel like a first date.

And it's like oh man maybe maybe this date went amazing but we're not going to see each other again for a while you know everything every job feels like a job like a job audition and kind of like josh what you were saying like there's a difference between people who are like you're the pleasant surprise they got to know and that's great but you spend 20 minutes kind of getting their attention or waiting for them to finish their meal.

You know, it's, there's a difference between that and people who come to your residency who are like, we came to see Nick, we came to see Josh. Like we came, we bought a ticket with your name on it and we planned to come see you. The, the connection you can have with an audience like that is so different. So yeah, I just love that kind of stuff. I tend to, I used to be annoyed at my corporate stuff. And maybe the last time we we talked, I was a little bit bugged about like,

I don't really want to do that. And now I just kind of look at it as like. Kind of like Robin Hooding, like, like I'll go and I'll, I'll provide this service, which, which I'm very confident in. And I know I do a great job and they're going to be happy. And then I'm going to take that money and it's going to fund my family so that I can then go, you know, do a show for 30 people. Yeah. If this new market is something that'll work, you know, Well,

what I've now found helpful is when I go to my corporates, I take the camera that I'm streaming with right now and I film, I get content from those events so that I can take something that will live on past the event. So I'll use it to put out clips. You're so good at that, Bob. Thanks. Thanks. So good. So that's what I try to do now. So it's not just a paycheck and that's it.

Like I get some joy out of knowing I'm going to go crazy because like someone's something's going to happen that's unique and I can use that. And that's my kind of approach now moving forward is like, I'm more about what can I capture here that will live on past it. Yeah. Right. That's so good. Yeah. Well, I mean, to your credit, Josh, I mean, you recently had a reel that did extremely well. Have you told the folks about that?

Yeah, I mean, TikTok's a questionable place for going viral, but it did happen and it does count. But yes, I think it's my first video to get over a million views. Popped my M cherry. What was the old video?

I'm so happy that out of any clip to go viral, it was actually a live performance clip. So it was a performance at the Theatre of Magic, our weekly residency. And yeah, we're doing this, this, I was doing a cube routine, but within the cube routine, I do a paper balls over the head moment, but with the bag. So take the Henry Harris bag, crunch it up. That happens, goes over her head and then Krista Boyan comes and brings it back.

And you see this whole moment of perspective where she, this woman is fully immersed in the magic where she sees absolutely none of what's happening around her. So, I mean, you guys know the premise of Pables Over the Head, but she just gives like the perfect, like astonished face that I think really hooked everyone who's watching it. Because I think online people love to watch people reacting to stuff in real life, unsuspecting people.

So anyway, it was a clip of that and it just, it just went to the moon. Yeah. That's rad. Went crazy. Went crazy. It wasn't, you know, an invisible stool or anything cool like that. It was just a bag disappearing. hearing but the invisible stool does not have that many views on it.

Although that's crazy like yeah oh man that's my buddy blake blake came up that blake voight came up with that as a beast man that dude isn't that stinking genius the stuff he comes up with is phenomenal how how often how much input do you get from your magic friends for like your specials and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I've got a couple guys that were always bouncing. I think you need friends who you can call really quick and be like.

You know, Hey, tell me if I should put any more time into this idea or if it's dumb, you know, and you need, you need friends that you trust and, and who know you and know what you're trying to create and what you're trying to do with your work to go, to go like, man, that's great. But that's not, that's not a, that's not for you. It's like, you know what I mean? Like it's cool when someone else does it, but that's not going to fit your vibe or what you're trying to make.

So yeah, I have a couple of really close friends that I'm, I'm constantly constantly talking to you about that kind of stuff and i think we all need that we need people who are gonna help us workshop this stuff well look i'm happy we're happy to give you some advice what do you what do you what do you need to know like our friends we'll give you a hand okay what idea is like fresh stuck in your mind what you need help with right now spit it out go oh my gosh i have

a new trick well you want to see my new trick that i'm working on you're not going to believe this oh please you're not gonna believe the new trick that i it came today said like a true comedian you ready yeah.

Topsy-turvy bottles anyone oh my word word what oh fresh off the off the shelf look at that these are these are vintage fresh off of ebay oh wait oh whoa you just went from america to australia in one upside down look at that, oh here's so here's this is dumb i have so much crap in this shed yeah taylor we have a great idea for the for the presentation are you ready So do you have video in your show? Yes. Okay. We should pre-record a video with Josh and myself, right?

And we're like, hey, my friends, I have friends all over the world. I travel the planet and I do all my magic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some of my best friends all the way in Australia. And you do it to the video or it's like, send that beer over here and you go, okay. And then every time you do it, it turns upside down because we're upside down when we, so when you get it, And we won't even charge that much to use our likeness in the special.

Right. So that is funny. I I'll tell you what, I, I, I, I think I came up with something. I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it yet. Cause I got to work it out. If, if this works out, I'll show you, I think it's going to be, I think I'm going to do the topsy turvy bottles and it's going to be a, a mind blower.

Hell yeah. But don't trust me on that. I think I'm the only magician to not be on Penn and Teller Fool Us. If I had to guess, I would say you're going to do it. Then you are going to, on stage, levitate and twist upside down. And then open the thing. And now the bottle's also the right way up. And then you're going to float back. That's so good. That's a good one. Thanks. I'm going to workshop that. That's why I have no specials. You should do a costume change where your pants.

Like so what you should do is you should have your underwear on the outside of your pants but but the way you do it is you put an extra you put an extra put an extra pair of pants over that so that you just like as you walk behind the table to do it you got everything upside down everything's inside out and when you walk around though like when where do you do you have like an elusive trick that you work you spent way too long on this trick and then you eventually were just like this is not

a good trick did you do you have one like that well i have a premise and i've talked to Ozzy Wind about this. I've talked to Steve Cohen about this. No one can give me a good. Is it about publicly or is this like a, you got to keep it under wraps? No, no, it's just an idea. So I was a gymnast in all of high school, right? So I have a few skills I can do that, that maybe not. Right. So the backflip in my show, I wanted to create a routine using my handstand abilities.

Cause I can handstand upside down for a long period of time. Okay. And so I was, I did, uh, Ozzy Wynn did this five week thing where you're all in a zoom call and everyone could ask questions. And I was like, if you were consulting for Blaine and he could do a handstand, like, what would you make a trick out of that? And so he really started thinking a lot. He's like, all right, so you're seeing everything upside down now, like blood rushes to your head.

Like he was really analyzing it, but couldn't give me like an answer. He's like, maybe you see stuff upside down. So you realize something in the room is upside down that turned, but no, it couldn't really, nothing really clicked. And then I asked Steve Cohen, he's like, well, what you should do is do a hand, do a one-handed handstand with your legs split with like fire on you. I'm like, whoa, I think you're taking this the wrong way.

But he was like, if I could do a handstand, it would be in my show. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. So the only thing I've come up with at the moment is the effect where you have someone spread out a deck, they move a card.

And then by me doing the handstand, so I've, I've like looked at the spread and then later on I do the handstand and I can see like what card's missing or which one's been moved, like while I'm upside down and I did that with three, three cards so I could tell like which ones were missing and then the third card ended up being on my foot. So I like bend my leg and the third one was on my foot and it was okay, but I don't want it to be a card trick.

And so that's where I'm, it's just stopped. I just, I just stopped. Nothing comes to mind. Okay. That's a good idea. I had an idea because I used to play in a band. And so. Whenever he says that, the chat has a shot of something. That's great.

Yeah. So I had this idea where everyone, like, you get the audience to think of a song. Or, like, you just choose people at random. And, like, they just, like, look at a song, think about it.

Or you know something of that nature where they're thinking of a song but i'm holding a guitar while i'm doing this and then i'm just trying to i'm trying to like read their mind of what song they're thinking of and then i'd start playing the song they're thinking of um i just feel like it's a little too procedural and not kind of huh it just didn't feel right i tried it a couple of times and among friends and it was fun you know with a series of forces and stuff but But I, yeah,

I mean, I mean, I think whenever you're combining, this is, this is the problem with like, I do a lot of storytelling magic. And if you think about storytelling magic, it's always, it seems like a bad story and a bad trick and you put them together and you think it's going to be good. So I feel like you're going to combine a skill with another skill. Those both have to be great on their own. And then the fact that you're doing

together, you know what I mean? So like I would do something if you're going to play guitar, I would do something like legitimately really fun and good on the guitar and then combine it with a trick. Yeah, like your your handstand. Here's what I think about. There is a. It depends. Do you want this to be a super magical moment or do you want this to be a really funny moment? Or, you know what I mean? Because like, I'm open, I'm open to ideas.

I mean, there's the, I, the classic thing I think about is like physical comedy is like when a juggler gets on a big unicycle and the way they get on it is by like climbing up someone like they've created this really awkward physical scenario.

Hmm. What if you built up to a trick and it could be like a card in shoe, but where you have a guy on stage, you pick it up and you say like in the next 30 seconds i'm going to reveal you know within the next 30 seconds i'm going to reveal your card in an interesting way unique and interesting way right, and you have him hold the cards he throws them up you do a handstand all the cards go everywhere and you tell him while you're on the hands and you tell him to take your shoe

off but you rig your shoe so it can't come off like you tie it so all right so so then it becomes this this physical thing of your because you can do a handstand for a long time but for most people would be like that's excruciating or really hard and you created a scenario where the guy can't get your shoe off but the whole audience is waiting for him to take off your shoe to reveal the thing or like he takes the shoe off

and there's another shoe yeah or what if he takes he finally gets the shoe off and then you're like oh it must be the other one the other one or like he goes to under do the shoelaces and they just pop off like they're just a magnet bow sitting on is like. Right. What's the one where you have the rope and it's up your sleeve and then

it goes down your other sleeve and your pant leg. And that might be fun to do upside down. Cheers. Professor Cheers. Yeah. What about this, Josh? Okay. So here comes the question. How, how do you feel about pre-show? Do you ever do any pre-show stuff or are you against it? Yeah, no, I'm open to it. If it's, if it's like bed is the show, like I'm not opposed to it. So if you found a guy before the show and you said, we're going to play a joke on everybody.

Right. Right. And you had him, you taped a shoe inside, or you taped a card inside his shoe, right? Right. But listen, but listen, during the show, you actually have someone sign a card, vanish it and do sign card to his shoe, but kind of like, like a Kennedy card box. So it would still surprise him because how did the signed one get in there?

You know what I mean? So it's, yeah, my thing with pre-show is it's gotta be a trick for the person that you did the pre-show on and for the rest of the audience but 100 i just think it'd be so funny if you create this whole scenario where like wow so the whole there's this whole by play of it not being in my shoe and then it turns out actually it's in your shoe and he's supposed to take you off now you got both your shoes off you're like i don't know man the trick

the tricks you know when i was learning this trick they said it would end up in the shoe and my both my shoes are off and then you look down and he's got his shoes on you'd be like dude do you maybe it could be a um it It could be the next vanishing bandana premise, like a voiceover, you know, it's like a voiceover, like learn a trick. And I'm like, and then I'm doing the hand thing. Cause it says to, wow, I'm going to save so much money just to having a friend.

That's the shoe inherently is a very funny object as well. I do it a lot. I use that kind of his name, the, the, the magician or Roni. Yes. He has that book maelstrom. I forget his name though. And he does a lot of what's his name. name just tom stone tom stone wow the reference having that yeah that's crazy name any other magician name any other magician die vernon and terry seabrook okay.

I purposely always have my left shoe really really loose when i rove so that i can just bend my leg up to my right hand and then produce it behind someone's ear like yeah that's funny, it's weird and i just and i do it like repeatedly like yeah when they when they're losing their minds about like how did it get into the glass how did it get into the box and it's like how did the shoe get there weird and yeah so if you did not well now i'm thinking josh if you did like if you

pulled like a bottle out of your shoe or something like did like a quick gag where it came came out of your shoe. And then you, like, I just think if you built up this thing to where you're like, got the Epic music playing where the audience gets, it's like supposed to happen at this moment. And then you're standing in your head and the guy that to me is funny. Dude, I'm going to work on that. That is not work. Well, I think you've reignited something in me to, to continue this journey now.

That's something new to play around with. I will say Raymond Crowe actually had a good idea too. He said totally different. He said you should have like 10 shoe boxes on stage, had the audience member put their shoe in one of the boxes.

And then by your handstand walking over it, your nose can detect like which box the shoe is in. Ah. That was his idea and then he's like and then you can take it up a notch by putting a peg on your nose and somehow you can still do it and he's like you know that was like his that was his contribution which is funny but that's a great idea what you're suggesting is very very visual slapstick funny difference have you thought i don't even know if this is possible this

is dumb this is just another idea i'm trying to think like like what like things where people walk walk across stuff so like like a walk like walking on glass could you do that with your hands yeah i don't need my hands for anything particular i mean why wouldn't i do i mean look you and i were just like my but you know what i mean i should learn to paint with my hands being in a handstand on the pad maybe i can paint like a reveal of something yeah maybe i've i've

tried a lot lot of stuff i'm like can i solve a rubik's cube in a handstand by swapping one you know it's very, difficult being up there all right look we're getting carried away we're just gonna have to have taylor back i think or maybe even like just think about your feet doing what your hands were supposed to do or something like that like that chick at magic life who did a dove back with her feet amazing i know i know

i was gonna do that but she's already done it so yeah that's it you You know, I just realized at this very moment that there's public comments here where I didn't realize that. Hey, hi, everyone. Hold on. Let's just go back to the beginning. So Thomas was asking. Yeah. Well, look, the good news is Taylor's Instagram is in the description below. So you can go and follow him there and you can reach out to him and bother him about stuff and give him feedback about your book.

His book, Misdirection, comes out Feb 13th. 13th. It is in the description below as well for Amazon. Go and grab that. And Nick. Absolutely. And just a quick shout out to our sponsor, Piper Magic. This week we reviewed Evoke by Craig Petty. So the link to that product review is in here. Just for the sake of time, we won't mouth off about it, but it's a really kick-ass trick. I implore you guys, scope out the review, scope out the product.

It is super duper cool. Now to end the podcast, Taylor, we give it, we give our guests the floor to give, to leave us with the final word. So it can be just a sentence of...

Something you know as inspiration or just some advice it can be whatever you want it can just be a word even but i'm going to play this little stinger here and it'll be just you and once you're done you can stop and then we'll i'll end the pod but sorry you had something before i do that it can be a word if you want yeah or it can be like a word it'll be one word all right we're gonna go for one word i'm ready thank you for having thank you for watching thank you for coming on the show,

Taylor, and we'll see you next week. But here's the final word from Taylor Hughes.

Pizza. 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.