Tech Wizard Trigg Watson Hangs Out With The Magic Guys! #166

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Well, hello friends, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to episode 166 of the Magic Guys. I'm Josh Dombito. To my left, we've got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, Magic Guys and Gals. Down below, we've got Doug Kahn. Bonsoir, bonjour, and I think it's good day. Oh, good day. Hang on. That's, that's a new one. I like it. Try that again. Good day, mate. How we doing? How'd I do?

You know, it passes. It passes. I was practicing. I realized I got all the Aussies here tonight, so I had to get the verbiage lined up. Good day. That's, that's amazing. G'day guys. Yeah. Look, we're on the pod. Doug is going to be overwhelmed with Aussies today, but, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't know it. We have a wonderful guest, but right before we jump on, Nick, how are you doing today, my friend? Just another day living the dream. I'm going to look at you while you tell everyone.

Oh, great. How are you? We should do that more often. Like the Brady Bunch. Yeah, if we do that, we need the Brady Bunch soundtrack on the podcast thing. That's right. And then every time, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. I feel like that's... Anyway, Anyway, and Doug, you've been busy recording your lessons for your upcoming... Yes, making that sweet tutorial content for the new endeavor. Man, I've been busting my butt this last week, and every day I get a little more excited.

It's getting close, and some of the advances I've made, technically for myself, sometimes the user interface on technology, I bet our guests can tell us about this stuff. It can be challenging. And yeah, so we... Talking about tech, we've found the right guy for the job. That's for sure. That's for sure. Well, look, let's, let's, uh, we don't want to waste your time in chatting about our endeavors.

We want to bring on our guests. This gentleman, look, he's been doing like in late couple of years, he's really surfaced in a lot of TV segments, but when we really deep dive, this guy has been doing his thing, smashing it for years, over a decade, at least on TV and stuff. His style of magic is amazing. He's amazing. He's innovating and taking rabbits, going to robots, augmented reality, virtual stuff.

It's the stuff that you just, you look at and you're like, oh my God, how do you even think about doing that kind of magic? So we're going to bring him on right now. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Let's chat to him and let me find the intro music. It's Trig Watson. Music.

What's up? Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show, Trig. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Oh, we finally made it. Now, you have to explain where you are right now, but why we were mentioning that Doug is overtaken by Aussies today. Because I don't think... Well, maybe I should have... Instead of saying what's up, I should have greeted with good day. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, but I have dual citizenship.

I am an Australian and a U.S. citizen by birth. My dad is an Aussie. I know, shocker confessions here on the Magic Eyes podcast. My dad's an Aussie. My mom's American. Lived in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia until I was 11. So, yeah, I have a little bit of an identity crisis. I don't know how to talk. I don't know how to say where I'm from. Because if I tell people I'm originally from Australia, the next thing they say is, well, you don't sound like it.

So, you know, I am what I am. Never would have guessed that. Like, no way. But we met because you moved from Australia, actually, to my neighborhood. Like, I'm in the New Orleans, Louisiana area. And did you move to Louisiana from Australia? I moved from cyclone and crocodile country to hurricane and alligator country. Yeah. Same, same, as we say in Australia. Same, same. So, Trick, how did your magic career start being in Townsville? Is that where you started learning magic?

It was, but it's not easy in Townsville, Australia. There's not a lot of options. I was at a kid's birthday party. My friend Carla Oliver, her stepbrother, was a magician, and he did a cups and balls trick, but he used plastic cups and minties. In the story, we have the little minty candies, right? Right. So I remember in my mind, I remember a minty banishing or appearing in my hand.

And I went to the library, you know, classic story. I got the seven ninety three point eight, you know, Dewey Decimal System books and started. You know, I love the circus. I loved art. I love making stuff. You know, and I really was just drawn to the arts and crafts aspect, I think, in many ways of magic and started learning.

But, you know, after I started performing, you know, by seven or eight years old, my mom had discovered that there was a local magic club run by a gentleman who's no longer with us named Ian McDougall. He had founded the North Queensland Society for Magical Entertainment and mostly retirees and then me. And we met once a month in like a Rotary Club Hall. And it was the best. It really nurtured my love of magic. I mean, you're like nine years old for this seven or eight, probably when I,

when I joined. What a great mom. What a great to have parents to support you enough to do that. I'm very grateful. Yeah. So we had a small little library that they had at the club, you know, of like Tarbell courses and, you know, other bits. And then Ian, you know, was a professional by day. He had a day job.

He was a, you know, in like software, but by night, you know, he performed professionally as a magician and, you know, was mentored a bit by him, but yeah, it was sort of a combination of of books library you know learning from club members and then just me making my own stuff and i'd perform as a clown and do magic and somewhere there are you know there are newspaper clippings of tricky trig the magic clown putting out a hat and juggling and making balloon animals and

doing magic tricks for people at the the sunday market in in townsville. So doing magic at such a young age, obviously, the amazing ability that you have now is to integrate the technology with the magic. So at what stage were you in your life when that then became an option to you? And what was the influence for that? Well, I've always enjoyed I've always loved the creative process when it comes to magic.

You know, I feel like there are some magicians that are just incredibly passionate about being as entertaining as possible on stage and their masters at that element. And for me, I love being a part of the show. But I also really love making, you know, getting my hands dirty and making stuff. So, you know, even though I wasn't playing with iPads and vision pros and TVs as a kid, I was absolutely like, you know, constructing my own cardboard square circle boxes and painting the prop.

And, you know, I really got into the costume and the props and all that stuff. So, you know, I think what happened, it wasn't so much that, you know, that I suddenly had this epiphany that, oh, I should, you know, start incorporating technology in my act. The world just changed around me. And I sort of maintained the same mindset of trying to create magic that made

sense to me. and because I felt like at an early age, I was pretty good about not being limited to what was in the magic catalog or being sold online. You know, the magic that started making sense to me, you know, wasn't something with a deck of cards. It was an iPad because everyone has iPads now. And what would we do with an iPad? Well, an iPad is kind of the same shape as a temple screen.

You know, that like trifold prop that, you know, kids show magicians use or stage magicians would use to produce.

And like, you know, so I started seeing these patterns patterns and more and more the stuff in my show had a tech element to it just because again it felt like it made the magic make more sense for the the world we're in and then there was a certain time you know later in my career when i really started just realizing you know every magician i looked up to you could really define their brand of magic whether it be through their mentality or their genre or the environments

they work in and i felt like a pretty generic generic, kind of funny, vanilla comedy magician, even though the magic I was doing was original, and I was proud of, it didn't have this like, oh, yeah, that's a trig thing yet. And I realized, okay, enough of my material has this sort of tech vibe to it, because it's the sort of magic that makes sense to me and feels like it belongs in the world we're in.

And that I sort of made a conscious decision, even though I resisted it at first to lead with being a tech magician. And honestly, if I had my choice, I'd rather just be a magician and do magic that makes sense. But the reality is, you know, in a world where we're all fighting for attention. Having something that's like a definable brand, you know, is helpful. So, you know, I decided to start marketing myself overtly with that theme.

And, you know, it's fortunately it's a it's a playground that's big enough that I think it's a place that I feel like I can play, you know, where I won't ever get bored. You know, the stuff I do. Do on agt one year ten you know five years from now people might have in their living room so it forces me to reinvent myself you know i'm not evergreen in that nature in that way so yeah i feel like okay i can i can be in this you know in this playground for a while it'll keep me energized.

And your background in this have you always been tech savvy do you have any sort of were you educated in it or anything like that or sort of production like how is it was it and was it your your dad you were saying your dad is a research scientist i think Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. So yeah, you know, for, you know, the truth is, I think I've always been a magician first, and then decided, you know, like had the idea of Oh, wouldn't it be cool if an iPhone could do this?

Or, you know, if a robot could do that, and then really working backwards, and then finding and educating myself on the tech that I need to learn to bring that to life, or finding people that can help me.

But I did. Yeah. So in university, I studied business and theater, I sort of referred to it as show business that was my that was the major those are the majors that felt like they could be useful if i could add a third major it probably would have been engineering even though your intent to be a magician still at that point were you in college thinking i'm staying in the magic field my intent was to be a magician i wasn't sure if i was gonna do it for a living.

First i knew that it was like always gonna be something i was doing there was a part of me that wanted to have experience you know i spent a lot of my teen years and a lot of my young young adulthood, doing a lot of things, not necessarily because I wanted to do all of those things, but because I wanted to prove to the world that I was the person that could do all of those things. You know, it sort of came from like a, like an ego thing to be the person that did it all.

And it got me some cool places. It got me an amazing scholarship to college because I, you know, I was this nerd that was in every club under the sun and, you know, did musicals and ran for class president and, you know, was in the theater, you know, the musical and all those those things. But it did, I think, dilute my ability to focus on one thing at a time.

But after college, there was a part of me that, again, my impulse to want to do it all, I wanted to have the experience of having a normal job. And I decided to do my backup first. I figured it would be easier to use my business major to get a job out of college and then quit than it would be to spend a couple of years committing to being an artist, freak out that that I'm not as successful as I think I should be.

And then I'd freak out, go get my MBA, and that would be the end of my artistic career. So I sort of knew myself enough to, I ended up getting a job as a technology analyst and then consultant for Deloitte, which is one of the big four accounting consulting firms in the world. And that was, yeah, sort of, you know, we were a little bit more software oriented, but that was sort of where I started truly working in tech, I guess. And, you know, aside from getting comfortable with, you know, how...

Just the world of tech and innovation and startups. And I just kind of learned some vocabulary that was really useful so that I could talk to a developer if I needed to. But really, more than anything, I think it gave me a leg up when it came to representing myself for corporate bookings. Because I knew I had worked in that corporate environment and I knew how to make my magic show relevant and solve a problem that existed within a company.

I knew how to define my value in a way that a corporate group would understand. So, yeah, that's my long answer to your short question. I work in tech, you know, but I wasn't certainly wasn't trained in I.T. And any real tech like true technical knowledge I have pretty much has come from having the impossible magic idea first and then trying to self-educate and bring the people into my world that I need to bring those ideas to life. life.

I would also say on, on top of you mentioning how you went for a career first and then to magic, like a professional career. One thing I found that that does, and I wonder if you did too, first, it gives you like the understanding of like how great the freedom is to do the thing you want to do after you've done a corporate job. Cause you know, like for me, at least I didn't really get into a profession that I fully enjoyed.

So like I always have in in the back of my head, I'm avoiding that pain of ever having to go back by making sure I put all my time into being a professional magician. But the second thing I was going to ask is... When it comes to the work you do now, and that's really great too, you know how to solve problems for these companies. Like if you're doing maybe trade show, trying to draw in crowds, like, you know what the customer wants.

They don't want a big show. They want whatever will bring in like new clients. So when you're offering like a show or you're offering like roving magic, are you bringing the tech into all of that? Or like, what do you find at the moment you're doing the most of?

Like because people hire you privately obviously and so yeah what is your sort of magic performing consist of mostly at the moment yeah i desire to tour more you know and sell tickets to my theater show but but that's that as as we all know is a steeper climb and it's something that i've sort of held back on i think i think because you know in part i was like well when i do agt then i'll be then i'll you know do that you know we

kind of create these artificial dreams and barriers of which I don't think is right necessarily. But yeah, I now feel ready. I have a little bit of credibility from a public perception standpoint, and I have a show that I'm proud of that's consistently a specific brand. So yeah, I'm looking forward to doing more of that. I've done one-off theater paying shows, but it hasn't been the bulk of my income or my professional focus.

So at the moment, I split my time. I mean, since leaving my day job 10 years ago, I have done done everything. I've worked cruise ships, performed on college campuses, do corporate events. Private events, consulted on some TV shows, maybe most notably, Justin Wilman's Magic for Humans. I've had a monthly show at a wine bar. I've done it all.

I can't, you know, I've done some theatrical consulting where I'm designing magic for, you know, theatrical productions through my, you know, background in theater. But the, you know, the bulk of my work are private and corporate corporate bookings and then and then college university campuses are a big market here in the US, which I know aren't it isn't such a big market in other countries. But the college campuses give me the ability to do my hour show. It doesn't have to be customized.

It isn't. It's a level of creative consistency that I don't have in the corporate field. Even though corporate is higher paying, you know, when I'm booked at a college, it's an audience that's there to have a good time. And as long as I'm doing my show, I have full creative control. And it's, you know, consistently about an hour. And I really love that. But, yeah, I'm still doing, you know, I just did a tech conference in Vegas last week.

And I was exclusively doing mingling close-up magic, but I've made a conscious effort to make sure that I'm consistent in whatever, whether I'm performing on TV or I'm on stage or I'm at a cocktail party, it is all magic that explores the future and incorporates tech. And I think this is an important point as a magician that a lot of us magicians will use technology to achieve our methods, you know, as a method, right?

Like a covert use of technology has been how magicians use technology since the beginning of time. You know, back when, was it Robert Houdin was using electromagnetism as a principle that you're about to, you know, win the war? I have chosen, for better and for worse, as a magician, to embrace technology as a theme, as a premise for what I do. And while in some ways that differentiates me, you know, there's only a handful of people like myself that kind of play in that space.

It also means that I have created a problem for myself, which is, you know, best summed up by Arthur C. Clarke's, you know, futuristic quote that any sufficiently advanced technology is is indistinguishable from magic. You know, it A, means that people are likely to suspect that what I'm doing can be explained away by some sort of technology.

And B, it means that they, you know, that depending on what material I choose, they might just write it off as like, oh, well, this is, I don't know how it's done, but it's just technology. You know, it's, you know, they explain it away that way as though that's an explanation for how I achieve what I do. So I am very, I have a very specific style of magic that I choose to perform.

I'm very particular on the sort of methods I use because I don't want my magic to just fall under the category of technology people don't understand. I still want people to have this no effing way moment of like, OK, I know how iPhones work, but like still, how did that thing pop out of the screen? Or, you know, how did that thing change in my hand?

Or like this is on my phone with my camera roll. Like I know how technology works, but like, you know, like I want there to be a level of conviction that this still is impossible. possible. And I don't think all tech magic does that in the South there. And I'm, I'm doing my best. I mean, it's, it's a tough line. I don't know. I feel like I don't always get the balance right, but you know, I am very aware that I, I I've created some problems for myself just by the playground I choose to play in.

And I I'm, you know, every day sort of actively figuring out how to, how to work with those constraints and, and embrace them. I think you've, you've found the way to, I guess it's, you're always constantly having to innovate. Beyond what people think technology can do, right? Like I was watching your Fool Us performance and you had a giant iPhone. And this is like almost 10 years ago now, right? Yeah, 2015.

2015. So 10 years ago, Trig was already doing tech magic, but it was very different because you had an iPhone and you did a prediction, but the prediction was like revealed on your shirt and things. Whereas now fast forward to AGT, you somehow have cards and cartons of drink drink coming out of the phone, still digital and only becoming real, like a meter away from the actual, like, so it's great. You're innovating, staying on top of it, which is amazing.

And we have a question that came in from our friend, Christopher Wayne, who, you know, as well, he's in the chat. He says, Hey, Trig Copperfield and Chris kind of love tech as well. And, uh, David's incorporated a lot of it into his shows. How, what, what are your thoughts on DC's use of tech in magic? Yeah, I think David gets it. I mean, we all know he's, you know, a legend for for so many reasons.

But yeah, I can't think of a tech-infused piece of magic that Copperfield has done that I haven't liked. I mean, he was the concept video to life of a thing happening on a screen and then a live performer interacting with it. I don't think it certainly doesn't originate with David Copperfield, but he was one of the first major televised magicians to play with that sort of concept. I'm recalling his interaction with Orson Welles, which he brought TV in the

early 80s. I don't know what would have predated that as far as interacting with a video screen. I don't know. Yes, Wilson created it, right? You know what? Mark Wilson was doing some video-to-life stuff. Was he? Yeah, makes sense to me. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But certainly Copperfield is one of those great... You know, I think Copperfield does it right in that, again, he's not presenting technology as magic. He is using.

Maybe sometimes he's used technology as a theme, but he's still bolstering it with practical magic effects that cannot be explained with technology. You know, if he produces if if he plucks a rose from the screen where his TV girlfriend, you know, hands it to him through a screen, the audience still says, well, OK, that's cool TV. And he timed it well. But where in the heck did that real rose come into his hand?

You know and you know that's that's sort of that's sort of why i resist you know sometimes i i resist or you know i have mixed feelings about choosing to lead with i'm a tech magician because i think if all magicians should be doing magic with the world we are that we exist in currently in 2024 and you know i don't necessarily feel like my material is even though i call myself a high-tech magician i try to make sure that the magic i perform never goes

too far into the future into to a realm that people can't cling to some of it and say, Oh, yeah, like, I've seen one of those things before, you know, it now method wise, I might be using something covertly. But honestly, the best methods for me are practical, like, I would much rather use a piece of thread to accomplish something. And sometimes I do in some of my routines to, and then combine it with an overt use of technology, so that the audience, the lay audience thinks.

Well, I bet he has a, i bet there's some sort of nanobot in that napkin to make it flow you know flick off when he flicks the tv screen and because they're thinking oh he's a high-tech magician he must you know so i kind of can lead people down the garden path of coming up with more complex solutions for how i'm doing what i'm doing when in reality i'm just an old school magician with a piece of thread and you know or whatever

you know it's got magnets he's got polarizing magnets in his hands and he's pushing the object with that how many times you must hear that oh my god yeah yeah but that's good It means I'm doing my job correctly because then when I make sure to cancel out those methods as I lead up to that effect, now they have nowhere to go, you know? So maybe one more question before we press on to the next segment.

But when you are this creative, I assume that there'd be every now and again that you sort of hit a brick wall or you'll find there's certain aspects that you need to create that you don't have the resources to do and you may need to outsource. I've seen that you've been obviously working with folks along the Netflix realm. And in some of your videos, you were performing alongside Carla Marlette, who's an amazing creator. What happens in situations like that where you get stuck?

Do you outsource? Do you have a hive mind that you are able to sort of lean upon and go, I have this idea. It's almost there. Can you help a brother out? And then they offer advice. Like, how does that process go when you're stuck? Yeah, well, I guess it depends in what way am I stuck, right?

You know, sometimes it's a writer's block or, you know, and then I would be much more likely to lean on, you know, a friend of mine who is really theatrically intelligent, you know, has some, has really good timing. I mean, you know, some of the best people, you know, the best people to help us solve our problems may not be the experts in the other things we're doing, but know a lot about that aspect of performance.

You know, so I would have no problem with reaching out to like someone who I see as like a genius, you know, comedy writer, you know, as a as a magician. If if I'm having trouble with the timing of a thing and I wouldn't necessarily go to them if I can't figure out why my robot arm isn't working, you know, so it's sort of figuring out, all right, what is the problem? And then, yeah, finding people that are smarter than me in that specific area

and picking their brain. And, you know, sometimes it's magicians. Sometimes it's not magicians. Sometimes it's someone who works in augmented reality a lot, you know, or sometimes it's someone who's more theatrically oriented. And it's just making sure I'm picking the right person for the job. Awesome. Cool. And I think that's a nice little segue for us to get into our next segment. What do you guys say that we jump into a gig story realm? Let's do it. Let's do it.

So gig stories is a section of the show where we talk about magical little stories, whether we're performing or just going about our day to day life. And we share those stories with you guys, our audience, starting this week with our guest, Trig Watson. Do you have a gig story for us, friend? Friend? Oh, boy. You know, sometimes I feel like I don't, you know, like I have sort of that fear of missing out, you know, where I feel like, oh, man, I don't have a good story.

You know, like magicians will be hanging out at a Denny's at 2am. And we start going to like, telling, you know, crazy road stories. And I've never really felt like I had like, a really juicy one. But as of a few weeks ago, I'm happy to say I now do.

And those who already follow me on social media, you may have seen this story. So forgive me for repeating.

But I, as you might imagine, travel with a lot of stuff i am not a pack flat play big performer by necessity of the magic i've chosen to lug around the world and i'm also really enjoying being able to take magic that i did on america's got talent and actually do it in front of a real audience because i think you know lay audiences there was a lot of skepticism of like oh well that's just for tv or i thought that was computer generated so like nothing is more fun than taking you know holographic

kind of magic effects that people just assumed were done in post and then putting it on a gymnasium stage in a. College in oregon you know and like doing it and then people going oh my gosh yeah because it's so much better you know magic as always will always be better life so for the past year i have been carting around this wow for our viewers that is an enormous size case of the triggs triggs armpits yeah and trig's nine feet tall so that is enormous yeah that is

a large case he's a large man it holds a television and sometimes it or you know mostly it doesn't break the television the yeah so i have this case that holds my tv and it's basically the you know it's the the main case that i used to hold my my acts that i did as an audition on america's got talent last year i, The act was created for the show, so it wasn't created with the intent to travel with it at first. It was highly impractical for a variety of reasons.

But I've been closing with it. At every show, I've been doing the audition act on stage, live for people, and it's really great fun to do. Well, I landed in Portland to perform for a big high school charity clubs conference. friends. And I booked an Airbnb the night before. And it was really late. And I was in a safe neighborhood, I thought. And I did what I would always advise other people not do. And I decided to leave my TV case in my car, in my rental car.

I thought, you know what, I'm only sleeping for a few hours. It'll be fine. I'm too tired to bring it up. And I paid the price.

I woke up the next morning to find that my rental car's window was smashed in and that tv case containing my tv and a bunch of equipment that i used to perform you know my agt act had been stolen out of the car all that remained was the lid to that case and you might be thinking what big you know i see i don't usually have the benefit of sound effects at these 2 a.m denny's conversation so you need You get a little squeaker or something or a dude with a harmonica.

So this I'm happy to say is the case that was stolen. So you might be thinking, Trig, how in the heck did that happen? Well, I was setting up for my show and I'd already run to the local grocery store to grab some styrofoam to do different like a mentalism revelation, just like trying to come up with something I could do in a pinch that wasn't my planned act. And I had this epiphany as I was setting up for the show. go, oh my gosh, I put an Apple AirTag in that case.

So forgive me, I'm getting over cough. So if I said water, it's building up the suspense. So I suddenly I take out my phone. I go to my Find My app and I'm looking through and I see it. It's moving around Portland. I see it and I think, OK, I've got like a couple hours to spare. I'm loaded in for the show. And I decide to go on an epic wild goose chase to track down this case. So, you know, as I'm driving, I'm thinking, how long do I have to tell this

story, by the way? Because there's any number of lengths of. You've got literally one minute left in the show, buddy. You've got time. All right. It's a good story. We're strapped in. OK. Buckle up. As I'm driving, I'm thinking, okay, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I'm just going to show up to where this air tag is. I don't know if I'm going to be knocking on a department. This is sketchy as can be. You know what I thought you were going to say,

Trig? You're like, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. So I decided to go buy a gun. That's what I was. I mean, yeah, maybe. I did go to an ATM cash point and take out some hundreds of dollars because I thought I might need to bribe somebody. Wow. or at least have some money to pay someone to help me find it in whatever way. So I went to the bank. I took out some dollars, and I turned on my find my location for some friends. Kyle, my friend, I gave him my location and my girlfriend.

And just to be safe, again, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. So I was like, I'm about to do something stupid, but I should be smart about it. So I arrive at the ostensible location of this suitcase. suitcase. Nothing's around. And then I realized, oh my gosh, it's moving. It's on the road. And I saw the case was moving down a highway in Portland. So I get back in my rental car and I'm driving. I'd already filed a police report, but the police weren't going to show up.

They just sent me to an online form to fill out. So that was taken care of, but I wasn't going to get my case back, let alone soon enough to fly away to do my next gig the next day. So my only hope to really get this back was to track it down. So I see that it stops at a highway, like in the middle of a highway. And I think that's weird, but I, I drive over there and.

I realize I encounter, I drive up to a highway overpass where there's a tent community of unhoused people underneath the overpass. And I think, okay, this feels right. If I was down on my luck or struggled with addiction or whatever, for whatever reason, if I needed some quick cash and I was stealing TVs out of people's cars, this might be where I would live.

So I take my wallet out of my pocket and I put my identification, my credit cards, leave it in my car because I didn't want to have too much stuff on me, you know, and I put some cash in my pocket and I try to act cool. So I'm kind of whistling down the street, kind of upside down newspapers, kind of looking around, trying to act cool.

And I see there's a group of people that are, they kind of, there's like a guy and he has a tent with a lot of possessions, like a lot of different, you know, couches and electronics and things. And I feel like, okay, this guy might be kind of, you know, somebody who knows something about something.

And he's talking to some other people and they seem safe and i think you know he might be maybe maybe he's you know selling stuff that's brought to him and i just kind of get a sense like he feels like he might be safe to talk to so i go up and i say hey man i am wondering if you're selling any televisions like i just wanted to see if he might have you know to to selling he was like no i don't have anything really i'm really looking for like a samsung tv you sure you don't have anything

like that i'm willing to pay because I'd rather, again, I'm not looking to get revenge or anything. I just want my case back because not only is there a TV in there, there is some custom welded TV. Like bars that I used to like mount the TV to the tripod. So it's stuff that TV aside, I can replace, but there's stuff that would be really annoying to have to replace. And I knew like, I knew it was only valuable to me. So, you know,

he says, no, man, I haven't seen anything. And I just feel like for whatever reason, I feel like I can trust him. I found out his name is Gremlin. And I say, Hey, Gremlin, I was an idiot. I left my, I left, I told him I work in AV. I didn't want to tell him I'm a magician. Cause that, as we know that often odds conjures up a whole bag of worms. So I, I say, I work in AV. I have a TV that I use for my events.

And I was an idiot. I left it in the back of my car. It was stolen. I'm just trying to get it back. There's stuff in there that's not really valuable to anyone else but me. Look, I'm willing to pay. I just want my TV back. Anything you can do to help me. And he kind of looked me up and down and was like, this guy's an idiot, but I feel bad for him. And so I could kind of tell that he was willing to, an idiot in the sense of

me leaving my suitcase in the back of my car. and he was willing to help. And he said, yeah, man, I haven't seen anything, but you're welcome to look around. So I do. And then he has another friend, his name, I forget, but she offers to ride around on her bike and like, try to see if they can find any sign of it. Incredibly generous of them just to, you know, help this help me out. And they come up with nothing.

And I, I think, all right, well, if you happen to see anything, I leave tomorrow, you know, for Dallas, where was my next gig? If you see anything, please let me know. Again, I'm willing to pay, you know, just to get it back. And as I'm leaving, I think maybe I should leave them some cash. So I do, I leave, I hand Grumlin a hundred bucks and I say, this doesn't come with any expectations. If you could just keep an eye out for me, it's worth it for me.

This would mean a lot to me. And he takes it and says, I got you, bro. And I leave and I go do my show and it goes great. The audience doesn't know what to expect from my show. Only I know my show. So I managed to conjure up a different ending to my act and it goes well. And as I'm going to bed tonight, that night in the hotel, I see that the location of the suitcase hasn't moved. It is still under the overpass in Portland in the same place. So I know, gosh, it's got to be there.

But my mother raised me not to go look under highway overpasses, looking for stolen TVs late at night via air tag. So out of respect to her, I waited till the morning. I woke up at 7am. And fortunately, I had a day in between. So I had a later flight. So I went back to my new new friends at the unhoused four or five highway community in Portland and saw Gremlin and some of his buddies chatting in the morning.

And, and he, I saw Gremlin kind of saw me out of the corner of his eye and, and he, he would sort of turn to a friend of his and he said, Hey man, have you seen a TV guys looking for a TV and a case? And, and this guy says, what color? And then he kind of welcomed me into the conversation. I was like, it's in a big black ATA case, green straps. And green straps. I've seen it. And he runs off. And I think, okay, all right. So, you know, Gremlin's like, you should probably stay here.

And, you know, maybe you step inside because you're kind of drawing attention to yourself. You know, I'm like this well-dressed guy about to go on a flight. And, you know, like, you know, I kind of probably look sketchy. So, you know, he kind of out of, you know, being considerate of me, kind of says, you know, step in a little closer. We'll wait for Nick. And, you know, anyway, so Nick comes back. I'm just kind of getting to know his friends.

And he's there saying that, you know, they might have some breakfast. And I say, well, I'm kind of hungry. Maybe I'll head out and, you know, can I bring you guys something?

He was like, oh, yeah, if you have like I really love the the smoked turkey sausage. If you could find that and bring back some tortillas, I'll make some breakfast for us. It'll be great. So now I'm like, all right, great. I'll go get breakfast while Nick is off trying to find because Nick isn't back yet. And then as Nick's coming back, he has the lid. No, he has the plexiglass cover, you know, that I use to protect the screen of my TV in his hand.

I'm like, yes, Nick, this is part of the this is part of the circuit. Okay, correct. But where's everything else? And he says, I don't know, man, like, I got it out of guy's tent. And I, you know, I don't know if he's there. And I, you know, I just want to be, you know, I don't know, he's kind of sketchy. And I'm like, All right, Nick, but like, I've got a flight in two hours. Like, do you think you can help me? Like, is there a chance there's more stuff back there?

And he looked at me, it was like, I got you. So he runs off again. Like, okay, all right, I'm just waiting around. And I think maybe I should go get some groceries, you know, bring back... The least I can do for all they've already done to help me out is bring back some food. So I head off to my car. To go grab some groceries for my new friends. And then I suddenly I see Nick. He's hauling the rest of my suitcase, like full of my TV, my cables.

It looks like it has everything. He's hauling it out of this person's tent. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I run up and it looks like everything is there. Even my dress shoes that I didn't have room to put in. Wow. I say, Nick, thank you.

Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. thank you thank you thank you so much and i hand him some money i say this means a lot nick is like to his credit nick is like no man i'm just happy to help i'm like no truly please take this thank you so much because nick you know like nick was taking a chance there he was ostensibly you know like taking something out of a neighbor's tent who wasn't there but still you know it was he was taking one for the team so i put everything

in my car and i think okay wait i i promised them breakfast i've still got to go grocery shopping so i'm like all right so i get my like i don't want to be driving around with this case so i drive back to the hotel and i take an inventory of everything in the case and i realize most stuff is there the tv is a little bit scrapped up but it looks like it's working what's missing though are the screws the hardware that i use to like mount these pieces to the back of the tv and the control

box that like controls the brain of the tv i have a tv where like you know the some of the brain of the computer part is is separate from the screen and that's not that's missing as well which i assume they just tossed away you know they were just trying to find scraps they could sell whatever so i'm like i'm really glad actually i have a reason to go back so i go to the grocery store i go to safeway nearby and i buy tortillas and eggs and i try to find i'm vegetarian so i'm

a terrible person to go shopping for turkey sausage but i do my best to find what might look nice in case it is for gremlin i come back. Or, you know, I'm leaving the grocery store and who walks into the grocery store?

But Nick, my savior from earlier, I'm like, Nick, what are you doing here? And he now has spending money, of course. He's gone to the grocery store to pick up some food for himself. And he says, I'm getting groceries. I'm like, Nick, but there's there's two things missing. You know, is there a chance that you could help me find anything else? Is there a possibility we could look around the tent and see if we can find these other things? And I was like, look, I will buy your groceries.

I will drive you back. Like, so I pay for Nick's milk and his Twizzlers. And then I put them in my car. I drive back to the under five unhoused community of Portland. And Nick, I say, Nick, all right, let's go search. And then I realized I have left my groceries in the grocery store. So I'm like, oh, Nick, I will be right back. Don't go anywhere. I get to go back to the grocery store. I'm clearly not thinking clearly at this point. I find my groceries in the cart. I put them back in my car.

I race back to the camp and Nick is nowhere to be seen, but I'm like, I'll find him in a second. And but I bring the makings of the quesadillas for my new friend Gremlin. And there's a few other people. So I'm just, you know, I'm like trying to just enjoy brunch with my new friends while I just sort of nervously wait for Nick to reappear. And, you know, they're appreciative and, you know, he's cooking up his skillet of eggs and tortillas and it's all wonderful.

But I'm like sitting on my hands thinking like just trying to be fun, but like friendly, but also where in the heck is Nick?

And eventually I can't take it on any longer. And I'm like, Gremlin, where is Nick? And he's like, oh, he's just around the corner. I'm like, why didn't you tell me? So I go over to Nick's tent. I'm like, hey, Nick, are you there? Are you going to help me? He was like, oh, yeah, man, I'll be out in a minute. And I'm waiting. I'm waiting. And at this point, my flight, I need to leave within 20 minutes or I'm going to miss my flight to Dallas.

Dallas so you know I'm trying to do this mental calculation I think you know what if if Nick can help me find these things if they're nearby this will solve so much a headache in the future that it is worth me changing my flight for like let me see if I can book a different flight so I I go in and I see yeah there's another flight leaving in two hours from Portland and I just book it just to be safe and eventually Nick comes out of the tent and we go looking at now

I'm part of the search like I've committed I'm gonna get blood on my hands as well so I'm like we are together looking through this person's tent who thank goodness isn't home for whatever reason they're out and about and we were just able to snoop around and see if we could find the missing items we find nothing and i thank nick for his time again and he even says like hey man if i'll keep looking for it like he looked actually i remember him saying he

looked at me and was like dude i will stop at nothing until i find these things for you and i think thank you so much like can i go i give him my phone number and you know i'm like here like text me like i will pay for you to ship these things and you know i found from nick when i was driving him that he's sort of got a his own story he's not you know he's taking care of his brother who's got is is in rehab but he apparently has

a nick apparently has a house in washington so he's just kind of here watching his brother's stuff he has his own story but anyway he has his his wits about him. And I'm just so grateful that he took the time to help and be so generous. So, you know, I pay him like, hey, man, this is for postage on the off chance you find these things. Thank you so much. I say goodbye to my wonderful new friends who are still enjoying brunch. I'm like, goodbye, goodbye. Thank you so much for all your help.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I fly to or I get to the Portland airport and I start thinking, OK. I have a TV. I have the mounting hardware. Like I have everything I need except for metric screws, which are not easy to find in the country of the United States. They're very tiny metric screws, very specialized screws that are used for the specific hardware item.

So I think, okay, if I'm going to try it, because here's the thing, there's some pressure here because I am booked to perform for a auto sales conference the next day, and I'm getting paid nice TV-level gig money because they want the guy they saw on AGT. So there is some pressure for me to deliver. Like they're not going to be so forgiving as the high school kids. Like you can't just rock up there and go, oh, it's sponge balls and invisible.

You'll get some styrofoam from the grocery. We paid for the holograms. Where are the holograms? Or at least that was what I was going through my mind. If I can do this, I would hate to have to go to the client and be like, remember that act you saw on TV? I can't, I'm sorry, I can't do it. It was stolen by a homeless man in Portland. Like that sounds like a dog ate my homework story. So I think, okay, I got to make this happen.

So as I'm in the airport and flying, I call up my friend Tom in Dallas, who I used to live in Dallas. So I've got some contacts there. And he told me, you know what? Ace Hardware is your best bet. Home Depot, Lowe's, for those not in the US, those are big box hardware stores. He was like, your best bet, you might be able to find screws at Ace Hardware. I'm like, okay, thank you, Tom. And then I book on the flight. I kind of figure out the schedule.

I buy the duplicate TV that I need because I don't have time to go to tech support and order a specific control box. I just managed to find a Best Buy electronic store in Dallas area that has the exact TV that I need. I order it for pickup the next day. I call Ace Hardware as my airplane is taxiing, confirm that they have the screws I need. And then the next morning, I go to Party City Home Depot to replace some hardware that I lost.

I go to Ace Hardware way to pick up the screws i go to best buy pick up the tv and i do my act and it goes exceptionally well the audience is polite they're you know they're just they're they were sales people that you know hadn't had a they they they had a sales event where they weren't serving alcohol which i didn't understand but so they were they were a polite audience they weren't incredible but nothing compared to the internal satisfaction of knowing that

i had triumphed upon above all odds to like bring my act from not existing to existing in the span of 24 hours. And that is my juicy road story that I'm very proud. Wow. You know... One of these days when we're not constricted by the podcast, I'd really love to hear the long version of that story. That'd be great. It's sort of ladder milk. It out as my own special, actually.

Someone suggested I could put out a whole show where I turn this act into a solo performance piece and then end with the performance of the AGT act, which shout out to Rob Thompson. It's a great idea. Maybe I'll do that. And you literally have a robbery story. So instead of doing ring wallet and watch, you could invent like the iPad, iWatch and AirTag and AirTag. Yeah.

Holy moly. I know that was a lengthy story. When you told me that I had as long as I needed to tell the story, I don't know how much. It could have been longer. It would have been longer. I didn't anticipate. I should have realized that a showman, you know, really can command the stage when you give them that opportunity.

But hey, look, that's great. That's great. but let's dive into maybe some oh yeah nick i have no regrets listen to that story no i love this i'm wondering what's up with air tags are they just not that good they're like here's the ball park good luck well they are that good it was literally but it was like i wasn't gonna i couldn't see it you know it was just a bunch of tents yeah no it was but yeah once it's in a tent over there somewhere we have one of your tags and all your luggage all

pros out there this is it's It's worth it. It saved me multiple times. And that's the best story of how they saved me. They've saved me in lesser ways. That is a pro tip. And we have one of our listeners and friends of the podcast, Scotty P is wonderful at turning our stories and segments into animations. So I'm going to put this out there, Scotty. If you can turn that story into an animation, it's going to go viral.

Cause that was a great, that's what it deserves. Scotty, I will make your life easy. And I will say that the story is already in five minute forum on Instagram. So if you go on my Instagram, you can grab that video and I would love to see your work with it. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. All right. So you kind of did talk about traveling with your show just then, but I mean, what is your main thoughts between like pack small, play big, or just pack big and play big? Like, is there a trade-off that's

worth it? What is like your thoughts on that? Worth it is subjective. What I travel with would not be worth it to many people. Right. But I selfishly want to see the magic show that I would want to buy a ticket to. And the magic show that I would want to buy a ticket to are the me seeing the ideas that I've, you know, brought to life on stage. So, you know, I, you know, I'm sort of a practicality be damned kind of performer.

For me, I accept that I might work twice or three times as hard to travel and unpack as performers that are equally, if not more entertaining than me, just because I want to do the magic that I want to do and I get joy out of it. So I do my best to be efficient and smart with what I travel with. But if an idea is good enough, I will decide to travel with whatever is necessary to bring it to life.

And I think magic has so many constraints already, you know, of like, you know, angles and the sort of volunteers we might be able to bring up and, you know, props that work and don't work that I want to make sure that I am not also sacrificing the level of astonishment I might achieve or, you know, being able to create something that doesn't exist before. I mean, a lot of magic that hasn't been done before is it's clunky because it hasn't been refined by generations.

You know, Doug is an is an expert at like, you know, like incredible close up magic. You know, Doug is, you know, from my familiarity with your work, Doug, is like there are a lot of incredible, you know, classic plots that you have honed even further. And you are standing on the shoulders of giants and you are just like the next step in the chain, just making it even more perfect.

And the benefit of that is that, you know, we're able to iterate in a way that, you know, when you decide to do something where a hologram pops out of a TV, like I am starting out at ground zero there and things are clunky and messy and not refined yet. yet. And I just sort of accept that I have to deal with an extra level of mess because it's new. And I know that 10 years from now, if I'm still doing the same act, it'll be more efficient. But the only way to make it better is just to work it.

And working it is messy. And I accept it. I accept that. What number in line are you for the Neuralink that Elon Musk is offering? You're going to get amongst that? You just take the magic to a whole new level? You just look at someone's face and be like, oh, this is your social security number.

And this is Because that would be- Well, that's the thing is that I am looking, like plots for me, a lot of magicians will recommend magical, like, oh man, have you seen this new mentalism app or this thing where you can get information from someone's phone? And for me, I am looking for overtly technical tricks. Tricks that you have the future and technology as a theme.

So it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, I like I don't really perform Mark Kirstein's wiki test, because I'm not a mentalist. I like visual tech themed magic. And, you know, wiki test is great, because people think, oh, it's a phone, we can't, there's no method there. It's just my phone, you know, whereas for me, if I did wiki test, people would be like, wait a second, I wonder if that's a real Wikipedia page, You know, they'd have this level of suspicion because of my overt theming.

So, you know, I think there is a world in which I would perform mentalism. And in my show, I perform mentalism, but through Alexa. So Amazon Alexa on stage is the mind reader because she is this all knowing AI, you know, and I'm playing with things with chat GPT. And when Neuralink gets to the point where it's common knowledge enough, yeah, maybe there's a world where I will do a wiki test, but I will hand someone a patch and I'll say, here, put this patch in here.

You know, this is going to allow me to connect with your thoughts and actually use it as a technological, an overtly technological theme. But I'm only going to do that, you know, until, you know, it's a it's I've got a premise that feels true to my brand. Are you actively developing ideas with artificial intelligence like ChatGPT within Magic? Yeah, I might be an AI right now, Doug. This may not be the real me. I hypothesized that already. I didn't need you to tell me that. Yeah, I am.

You know, again, it's so new that there's pockets of people that, you know, ChatGPT is something they're using every day. And there's a whole swath of people where it isn't. So, you know, it's less visual than I like. Like I'm a visual performer and I grew up, you know, doing visual stage magic, manip, you know, and and chat GPT is inherently a little less visual. So I'm trying to figure out what the trig version is of that.

And I've got some ideas where chat GPT maybe writes the end of my show or gets me out of a bind on stage. And, you know, so I've got, you know, I'm sort of playing with ideas, but I haven't put in ideas. You know, I haven't, I haven't landed on the right thing yet. Having real time voice communication seems to be a pretty interesting avenue, right? If you could find a way to make that to be a believable situation for a real time audience.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm grateful that in some ways my show writes itself just by watching, you know, what's on the front page of tech crunch, you know, and like, I can see what's I'll be like, Oh, that's going to be in my show in a year once, you know, it's mainstream, you know, it's sort of fun. Now, Trig, as this episode slowly draws to a close, you did make mention that you are a local boy, born and bred to some degree, here in our beautiful land of Oz, way down under.

And, you know, you kind of said, like, well, I'm not really that Aussie. And I was thinking to myself before the show, and Josh and I said, wouldn't it be funny to see just how Aussie Trig is? So what we thought would be fun as we wrap up the episode is to sort of throw some, I guess, idioms, is that what you call them, Josh? Some sayings, some Aussie slangs, if you will. And want to know if you understand or what you think these mean.

So I'll throw out the first one. We have a saying in which you'll chuck a Yui. Do you know what it means to chuck a Yui? I'm going to take a guess here. Now, I'm going to preface this. I said this before the podcast that I moved to the States when I was 11. So if any of these references refer to something that maybe you'd only have a reason to speak in adulthood, I'll probably fail. But I'm going to guess to Chucky Yui is to pull a U-turn when you're driving

in the middle of the road when you shouldn't. That is correct. That is correct for two points. I'm going to say, I wasn't even thinking that I would be having to ask the questions, but if you were to say, I'll take a Sanger, what's I'll take a Sanger? I'll take a chance.

That is incorrect. I'll take a... Sanger is our word for sandwich. So I'll take a sandwich. That's what that is. See, here's the thing. The person that was packing my school lunches was my mother. So she wasn't even giving me Vegemite. She was giving me like peanut butter and jelly, like a yank. That's because she loved you, dude. She loved you.

Okay. So if we're on a road trip and I say, let's just pop into the servo. What are we pulling over into? I guess we call it the petrol station or the gas station. Oh, sorry. Sorry. That is correct. That is correct. Yeah. Hit the wrong button there. I'm just so I'm so divulged into the, uh, to the game. Uh, sheesh. Another shrimp on the Barbie. That sounds like a very American attempt at a phrase. Cause I got bronze on the Barbie. Yeah. What is that though?

What is the shrimp on the barbie? Outback Steakhouse invention for the Americans. Here's another one. Here's another one, Tick. We're popping over to a friend's place for a barbecue. And on the way over, we're going to pop into the Bottle O. What is the Bottle O? Yeah, the liquor store. Well done. He's got us. He's got us, Nick. All right. Before we go, let's just ask a little bit about AGT. I mean, we can take up as much time as you have allowed for us.

But AGT, you know, magicians obviously see that as a big platform as well as all the other shows you've been on, Masters of Illusion, Full Last, you've done TED Talks as well. But with something like an audition show, like what is some experiences you've had where like it maybe was different to what you were expecting in the process of it and what actually happened? Like how was it through that process of like...

Auditioning for it, creating something for it, what actually happened from doing it? Yeah, I mean, this could be the subject of two back to back podcast episodes in and of itself. But I'll say that, you know, I've been dancing around the show for a while. I first auditioned for some lower level casting producers around 2015, I think. And then I actually did it again, I auditioned for the show and actually was part of my act was televised for a couple seconds in In 2021, I was also on the show.

So I've sort of been around the show enough to sort of go in with a pretty clear understanding about the process and what they're looking for. And I think that is a major advantage and something important to understand that, you know, you, yes, you're competing on America's Got Talent, but you are really being cast on a reality show that is pretending to be a talent show.

And if you go in with that mindset, suddenly things that bother you or don't make sense, through the lens of talent show makes sense under that perspective. So I think once you understand that they are looking for good TV and learning what that means, you can now craft your story and the way you present yourself and your act to give them what they want. And as a result, get more airtime, increase your chances of even your audition being on the show or going to the semifinals.

Once you have an idea of what the producers are looking for, Or, you know, it's like anything, like knowing how what corporate people are looking for, you know, people don't need a magician, but they do someone do need someone that can engage them, incorporate their message, and get people excited about, you know, their product. You know, if you know what problem you're solving in whatever market you're in, suddenly, you will be treated, you know, your chances of success are higher.

So that would be my biggest, you know, suggestion is, you know, really knowing, you know, what they're looking for. And I think, you know, just to be put it in bullet points, have a compelling story, stand out. You know, figure out why you are different than any other magician has ever gone on the show.

What, you know, they are selling the dream of, like America's Got Talent and all these other Got Talent shows, they're selling the dreams come true narrative, you know, where a rags to riches story where someone gets plucked off, you know, the streets, they're no name, no one's heard of them before. And then AGT discovers them or we know whatever show discovers this person and skyrockets them to success. So how can you give them peaks and valleys in your own narrative?

If you come into the show acting like you've already made it and you're already traveling around and performing and you're just sort of gracing them with their presence, that's not interesting TV. It's not interesting storytelling. They are in the business of telling a narrative and you are potentially the hero in that narrative story. So you got to figure out where is your hero going to go? And if you're already at the top, that's uninteresting.

Or if you don't have a story at all. Like if your story is I'm a magician, period, swipe. Yeah, yeah. Or also get in the door. Yeah, I think everybody has a story. And while you might not have one leg and be diagnosed with childhood cancer and have no parents like some contestants on the show, oh, I think they have such an incredible story that they might be also incredibly talented, but just their life story is amazing.

And not everyone has as an incredible backstory that writes itself, but everyone has people that love them. Everyone has struggles that they face in order to get what they are. And if you can figure out how to tell that in a very succinct elevator pitch, couple sentences, and pair that with an amazing performance that helps celebrate everything in your life leading up to this point, then your chances of success increase. And while it might be frustrating that that is...

What does well, because, you know, as artists, we just want to be judged for the work itself. That is the reality of what makes humans care about other humans. And I would argue that in the same way that, you know, what makes our theater shows transcend tricks, you know, is the same thing that makes people want to watch you on TV, albeit you have less time to, to communicate what you need to communicate.

So, you know, that's, that was the big lesson for me is just figuring out how to sell me and my story so that I could actually get people into a theater so I can give them the full experience. You know, that's really what it's all about for me. Do you think in an alternate universe that if you hadn't gone searching for your TV, that folks like Gremlin and Nick would have kept your routine and started working on it? Maybe they would have won America's Got Talent. They would have been,

wait a second, what's the pieces here? What's your story, Gremlin? Well, can you imagine that story? Or I broke into the back of this car and I found a TV with a bunch of magic in it. That is a great story too. But I think that's the massive lesson you just said. There is no what problem you're solving for the company or the show that you're going to be on. That's massive. In Australia, I was on like the Australia's Got Talent version. So just the version that the world doesn't watch.

And I got on because I did a three card fine. But because I was doing a backflip and I was dancing to find it, it added that texture they didn't have on the show yet. And so, like, I swear to God, I just got on the show because I could do a backflip, you know, because they saw 50 other amazing card tricks in their auditions. But yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, another tip is, you know, genius.

And I think, you know, actually, I've heard Copperfield, you know, communicate this in talks and things that like often the genius of something is combining two different fields and putting them together. You know, you brought backflips and brought them to magic. Dustin Tavella, who won AGT a few years ago, brought storytelling, incredibly heartfelt storytelling and magic. I would expect when Nick's on AGT, he will talk about being in a band and how that worked in his favor moving forward.

Absolutely. Oh, did we get there? Thank you for a reminder, John. It's a running joke we have that Nick used to always bring up being in a band, so now we just make it a drinking game.

What a wonderful way to end the podcast with that look I had to get it in we're all ready not going to be a band cheers so and just quickly someone brought up how well organized you are with your stuff behind you is that is there any is that magic stuff behind you or is that he has all the rice silk, oh boy yes thank you for noticing my shelf of magic it's a little crazy Do we have time? Do we have a few more minutes? We have as much time as you have.

Yeah, we have as much time as you have. What? Oh my.

Effect here wow look at that a lot of magic in like those are big containers i i generally have a bunch over here i use like small scale food containers to put all i'm a close-up guy i put a lot of bits like that and i i ran out just the other day and i bought some i'll check it out, that's a lot of thumb tips the great comedy of this is that i i moved into a much smaller studio apartment when i moved to los angeles because california rent is out of control and i knew Knew

that in order to keep all of my equipment and supplies that I need for all of my projects, I was going to need to get much more efficient with my use of space. So I decided I took the month of February 2020 to build this massive shelf and build a digital database for it, not realizing that a month later I would have all the time in the world as the world shut down to do this project. I remember getting at the end of February 2020 thinking, man,

that was so great. I love just like getting organized. I can't wait to take another month off. Little did I know. But this was my result. So every box has a QR code and a list. Holy moly. It is linked to an Airtable database, the Trick Magic Workshop, which for those of you who don't know, is sort of like a fancy Google spreadsheet, but it basically allows you to link records to each other. So I have, this is going to sound crazy, but I have photographed each individual

item. It has its own record. And if I wonder, hmm, where is the Velcro? I can type in Velcro into my app and my Airtable database. It'll tell me the container that it's in and the zone that it's in. So it's like a library where I can know that it's in container 1414 in zone B3, which is that middle section there. And I can grab what I need. And it sounds crazy, but in the long run, I have bought so much less stuff because I'm like, I know I bought that a while ago, but where in the hell is it?

That doesn't happen anymore because I know, you know, I've got it linked. And whenever a new item comes into my life, whether it's a pair of scissors that I bought or some glue, I actually take a picture and it takes me five seconds. I say what box it's in and it goes in and I can find it. So I do this with all my routines as well. Basically everything, any, every item in my life is like a crazy person documented.

That is unreal. And do you sneak air tags into them now? Now having had that experience from before into my suitcases into into like the expensive.

Containers like the props that are well i i put i i've just got a double lock on my apartment door and i hope you know people don't that'll work that'll work they just see oh unassuming downtown la apartment there wouldn't be like a crazy magic lab in here would there no of course no that's right wow well look trick thank you so much for coming on this this this episode you there's so so much we could keep talking about.

So I hope you are open to coming back in the future because that was awesome. And for some more stories as well. For the listeners, you can follow Trig everywhere. He's on all the social pipes and we've linked and listed them all below Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, his website, and we're going to keep an eye out on what's going on for you. But what we'd love to do is end our episode like we do with every wonderful guest, and that is to leave with the final word.

So Trig, thank you so much for coming on. We're We're going to leave you with the final word for our listeners and everyone. Just quickly, we'll see you next week with Blake Voigt is our next guest. A little pre-lookout for that.

And ladies and gentlemen, Tree Watson with the final word. I think the best magic happens when you work backwards from impossible. You know, have the confidence, have the bravery to start with an impossible idea. like, man, if I was really a magician in 2024, what would I be able to do? And then use the principles, your network, everyone and everything at your disposal to bring that idea to life and stay committed to that vision, because that's where the magic gets created.

You know, dare to dare to work backwards instead of, you know, taking what already exists and making it better, you know, while there's a place for that, you know, really dare to, to bring those impossible possible ideas to life. And it might be a little messy. But in my experience, it's incredibly fulfilling and worth it as well. 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.