Traveling Magicians #177

They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Oh yeah, what's up everyone? Welcome to another episode. In fact, this one is episode 177 of the Magic Guys. To my left, we got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friends. Oh yeah. Down below, we got Doug Kahn. What's up, y'all?

The real DC of the internet. internet and i'm your boy josh nobito coming at you live for some magic goodness and we're here it's just the boys episode this week the boys speaking of the boys doug you've been catching up you've been watching season four no first of all all i've been for the last week is a code person i've been programming websites i told my wife last night i wanted to watch it and she's like well you watch it then me she didn't care

so i didn't watch it she was not enthusiastic i'm gonna have to power through without her i can do that but no is the answer okay so you haven't haven't delved in yet wanna haven't right but i've been doing that for what a year and a half with that show now so maybe it'll never happen you know admittedly i i never even heard of the show but when i first joined the pod you guys were talking about it like incessantly and so now i then through your influence started listening

to the show and i'm hooked and that, The thing I find most perplexing is that apparently the actual printed media, the comic books themselves, are worse than the TV show.

Holy. I need to read that zing. Holy. Well, yeah, if anyone listening to this, we're talking about a season called The Boys. I think it's B-O-Y-Z. I watch it on Prime.

Prime videos, but I don't know where else I've heard of it. original it's like an amazon program right and it's essentially if people had superpowers but weren't good people like what would happen in real life you know if you were using your superpowers to the advantage and it's rated r it's so gruesome and weird and like for example this one guy can split himself into seven other himselfs and so imagine a giant centipede of people but it's all the same person it's

it's just so weird like superheroes with corporate backing yeah and if like superman wasn't a good guy and now the whole world's worried that he's gonna just destroy the world you know that kind of stuff it's great it's so good also i i think i've talked about this before but i'm wearing one right now these are so good if you wear caps just to have these on your hat because you just can get reveals out of them from nothing.

So for the listeners, what they are, you know, you probably see in those typical stylish hats, the flat caps that I typically wear, there's always that super cool gold sticker that normally just says that it's a brand of something. Josh Nobita had some stickers that actually have revelations of cards on there. Yeah. So it usually just has the size of the hat. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I've started sticking these basically at card reveal.

And the first time I used it, I had a seven of heart. You get three different reveals. And twice in that one place when I was performing, people named that exact card and I could just kind of go, oh, it's like, for anyone listening, it's like when you had the Sharpie with the seven of hearts on it or whatever and you'd give them the Sharpie and you would have, it seemed like the word changes from Sharpie into the reveal.

Well, now you can do the same thing, but with a hat that you're already wearing. So anyway, just want to plug that. It was like a, it's a Penguin release and it was so like under the radar, But my friend sent it to me and I was like, this is so genius.

Because I wear hats all the time. It'd be cool if you had 52 outs about your body. You know, you have the three of clubs tattoo and you got a card in your shoe. And, you know, there's one on your nipple ring. Is there one on your nipple ring, Robito? I'm missing both the ring and the nipple. No. I used to have a nipple ring, just one.

And I was saving the next one. But I actually got tore out. Oh. I'm going to say I got torn out in my sleep because I don't know how old the people listening are I don't understand purposefully poking holes in your face oh okay.

We'll save this for after the chat Nick's going to get weird, there's people here that I want to hear about Nick's nipples and those people are the ones in our chat thanks for joining us friends we have Tim Askin, we have our good friend Nick Dragotier here we have seth howard good to see your friend scotty p jimmy's here good to see you bud now thank you all for being here if you do have questions and so forth by all means pop them through it's good to someone's tattooed

their butthole no i have your name i have your name i have your name tattooed on my bum that's really really funny that's funny it probably does have that literally your name is what i'm assuming that's funny if you were gonna get tattooed as a reveal. How would you guys do it? I know how I would do it, but have you guys given it any thought? Because I'm happy to share my thoughts. Hang on. Say that again. If you were going to have a reveal.

A reveal with a tattoo. Because- There is some gaff cards where the pipped corner is kind of hidden as you hold it, but you can put it in your mouth as if you're like peeling it off with your teeth and then show that that corner has now got a different revelation, but it's printed in such a way that it looks like you've just sort of peeled off a layer of paper, so to speak. But I love the idea of doing that and then pulling back your lip where it's

the tattoo is of the previous card. So it's kind of like a transposition.

What about one on each eyelid? lid i like teller did the contacts but you close your eyes and have three of clubs and then boom there it is you have to perform like this with your eyeballs open the whole time and be like are you thinking of a card are you thinking of a car and then just drop one like a pirate or you would have to have an eye going through my bags of swag when people buy stuff from my little magic shop condor.com i

send them things one of the things i ordered last week was some tattoo stickers so i got these three clubs i thought these were i ordered them to be card size and they're just a little bit smaller i think if you know you had this tattooed on it looked like playing card and i know these are commercially available heck penguin magic might have them.

But if you're a good customer at conjure.com this kind of thing you get in your bag sometimes for free so look i got a handful of them boom yeah it would be cool to the revelations of like thought of celebrities and stuff of that nature that would be kind of cool you know i mean because ultimately when when a prediction is written down in no matter what format it's it's a cool thing. Whether it's written down on a piece of paper, written down on your Instagram,

written down on a sticker that's on your hat or a tattoo on your person. It's kind of a fun thing.

Jimmy shared something interesting here where he said, by the way, Jimmy, you got a tattoo. I know you have some, I put one in your bag. It's coming your way. So Jimmy said, I have a squash stick figure with blood on the bottom of my foot. So I might as well put a queen of hearts. Okay. That's it.

You can test it. You can test drive the idea. you might be at your mailbox this afternoon the funny things you learn as time goes on we know our our buddy uh adam axford has the corner of a card on his elbow so he'll do angle zero but then at the end he'll actually you know make it appear on his elbow then they take the card and then and the corner piece actually matches up with the the pc tour that's that's cool you You know what I like is, what's our, what's Uri Geller.

I love that Uri Geller has a spoon tattooed on his arm. So when he bends his arm, he can, so when someone says, can you bend a spoon? He can just pull out his guns and go. That's, and he actually has that, which is fricking. This was a picture I took on Bourbon street. The guy had the sleeve of, this is the squeezer deck from us playing card company.

It's an old deck they used to put it out and he's walking by I saw that in his arm I was like dude, what is that you got the squeezer deck on your arm he said yeah my grandma used to play cards with these all the time so I took a well speaking of tattoos Alex Lamb asked an interesting question saying do you think playing card reveal, as a real tattoo is too perfect, I think it's presented so for example if it was like,

It would be too perfect if I just said, name a card, and they went four of hearts, and you pull up your shirt, and it's there. You put it back down again. You go, name another card, and they go seven of hearts, and you pull it up, and it's changed. Like, that would be too perfect. I think who was I talking to about changing tattooing? I think it was Bo Kramer was working with methods that could do that, but obviously maybe a little bit more discreet.

Maybe it's just like, you know, an eight to a two, or I don't know. I've seen who had the, the rising card tattoo, I think it was B Smith put that out. Have you seen that? Man, when that came out, that was insane. Yeah. Like the drawing one, like how do you graph it on your skin? That was one of the first. That has conviction, right? You see the tattoo and then magic happens and then it's altered permanently or it appears that way.

I think that's not too perfect. Cause it's like happening right before their eyes.

That was insane. saying when i first saw that come out as a product the version where you draw the card on your own trick but then the two of hearts comes out and it's got red ink on the heart i thought that was like the bee's knees if i could do that i would be sure to have you know world fame and then i bought it and i bought the you know liquid cement all the sorry rubber cement all the stuff to do it and then i found out that not all magic works for every person and i was like Like, fuck,

my skin isn't stretchy enough to actually do this effect. It was full of too much muscle. But I was like, damn it. Skinny eye problems. I could do 10,000 revelations on my bitch tit alone. I'll just be like, look at that. And you know what? Speaking of weight, actually, here's a funny thing. Like, we have a guest coming up soon, actually. Frank Carey will be joining us. But he and I are in a race to lose weight.

And i was down a whole three kilograms from starting this expedition but over the past week as titled in this episode traveling magicians i've been lecturing in new zealand for the past week and catching up it's been great and i've been hanging out with other magicians and haven't run an absolute muck i put those three kilos back on in a single week really these are traveling problems man but will you lose it just as quickly i mean i put your mind to it you get rid of that I hope so,

man. I really do. Like, yeah. Were you drinking a lot? You were boozing it up with the boys? Absolutely. I drank a lot. Yeah. You got to stay warm. It's cold over there. It is cold over there. But you know what? It's not even like we were drinking to excess. It was just when you're a good friend, Brendan Dooley, who we've interviewed on the podcast before.

He mediated everything for me to come over and do a masterclass and do basically three of my best lectures and teach the magic clubs and anyone else who wanted to be a part of it, all of my secrets and so forth. But in amongst that, he actually organized this really awesome six-bedroom Airbnb. Really cool, big place right down on the water. Turns out it was sold the year before for like $3.8 million. So you can sort of just imagine how nice this place was.

But what would happen is we would finish doing our lectures for the day. And in true Nick K fashion, it was like, everyone back at my place. And so anyone who wanted to come could come. But it was effectively just a small handful of super, super talented people. I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman called Greg Chapman. I don't know if you know this name or not. By God, what a cardsmith.

Like he is the king of the most obscure principles in card magic. And he taught me so much about how to run off cards and stack things in real proper gambling environments. Environments as well as that like a whole bunch of information that stuff that i've never ever explored before because i've never explored dice have you guys ever messed with dice before.

Not not personally no i'm pretty sure i've seen doug do a lot of dice dice work i've got a sub minor graduate degree in dice manipulation but i don't often use it was seeing the real work like the real work it was phenomenal we talked about throwing control like controlling the of throws or pattern moves or stack and dice what we do two in the hand one in the pocket none of the sort of the type of stuff that you would lose you

would lose empires with if you were to gamble at the table those types of moves none of this sort of like look at this magic trick none of it was magic tricks it was all just like are you kidding me yeah it was all just like you are going to lose your money and i'm going to show you how like it was so amazing you know Interesting enough, card man extraordinaire Ed Marlowe published a great book called Shoot the Works.

It was one of his early books, and that has a lot of information on that subject matter if people are interested. Learn how to make money at the casinos by controlling your money.

You know your throws like that i learned something i learned something really interesting about ed marlo so one of the people that i was hanging out with whilst there is a guy called chihan yo and chihan is he wouldn't consider himself a professional magician but his skill set is because by day he's a lawyer and he is one of the best card guys i know and the guy just devours books like he's constantly learning constantly teaching and he educated me on that trip that

you can do like ripple stacking in the hands and not in the table. And so I, my brain erupted. And in the days I was there and on the flight home, because he and I sat together on the flight home, I was like, does this work? I got an idea. And he's just like, trust you to take one idea and just run off into the forest with it and like create a whole new colony.

But one thing he told me as we're kind of walking about the lovely city of Auckland was apparently Marlowe had this habit of stealing material, they would say.

And when I say stealing material, the way Chi-Han explained it to me was if he saw something and figured out how it was done, he'd publish it in his own way saying, I saw this thing and here's how I do it and publish it. But what would happen is when people were showing him stuff, he had a towel. When he figured something out, he had a towel. And what would happen is the hand he was holding his cigar in would shake.

And so Marlo gets all excited. excited yeah he gets excited and his hand shakes in the same so what would happen is it'd be the equivalent of this i show marlo something and if he doesn't know how it's done he doesn't shake and i can just stay quiet about it but if i show him something and then his hand starts to shake the first thing you say is let me show you how it's done because then he can't go and publish it, so he doesn't come up yeah right it's my method i thought you're gonna

say his tell is you see it in his next book but uh that's a longer tell oh jimmy right is that was that was that um was that your experience with ed marlow doug back at school i when i met ed marlow i was too busy shaking to notice what he was doing hey ed you want to see a card trick yeah.

And he did like one trick for me but i did find the trick that i showed him published in marlow magazine six huh, Oh, right. I'm making up stories. I'm insinuating he stole from me when I was 18. Like, that's even possible. Hey, well, you know. Yeah, but it's the fun thing. You're a wizard, Doug. It's a fun thing you learn in your travels, as we are traveling magicians. And of course, you've been traveling a whole bunch as well, Josh, which I want to jump into in just a moment's time.

But I was sharing this on my lecture, and I actually gifted my good friend, Brennan Dooley. So Jimmy asked a question, which says, serious question, which is why we have to address it.

Nick's your guy jimmy he's got how do you guys prevent sweat from pouring down our bold heads jimmy great question and here's how i do it i'm holding up a product to the camera it is called no sweat face antiperspirant there is a three sorry there we are there is a 3m1 which is a gel it doesn't work as well as that one this is one if you just look it up i'm not sure depending on where you're located, where you can get it from, but ultimately there are facial antiperspirant type

of things you can put on your face. I rub this over my entire melon and my face and everything, and it keeps me dry when I'm performing on my head. And it also minimizes the shine, which we will have if you are greasy or sweaty on stage. Sometimes those spotlights can be very, very hot and heavy and you will perspire.

And on top of that, it just gives you that little little bit of confidence as well knowing that you're not sweating it in front of people when you are under pressure so i highly recommend no sweat face antiperspirant so i hope that answers your question now josh you were on the road as well yeah you could also wear a hat and with the hat brim and the sweat absorber in the hat and not take the hat off in your back pocket and just mop it down that's what i did because i sweat more in a hat,

I'm just saying there's options. Like I have a couple of street where the hats that, you know, hold up well in the elements and they have good sweat brims. It takes them eight hours to dry out when I get home because of all this sweat. Right. Yeah. But that's an option. You know, if you have a sweaty head and you're a bald guy, you keep that thing on. I keep two hats. So I don't take that hat off to collect. It collects the sweat. I pop a top hat out and then bang, collect that way.

Yeah. Imagine you take the sweaty hat off.

Sometimes i forget the top hat and i've had to you and it's not fun right yeah like i think i yeah i i think if you're working on if you're working the streets that's probably the more likely version to go with but also pro i wear the same hat pro you know yeah or i have pro hats for pro work that don't go to the street but they collect the same sweat of course you know i i used to have a watch that i would make a joke with my girlfriend that i only wear this watch to gigs that are over you

know a thousand dollars or whatever so it was like it was just a little tidbit like it meant nothing but we're like i wear this if i'm wearing the watch you know it's because i'm doing a a good gig you know anyway but and so i'm lucky i don't sweat wear this i mean i'm new to the bald universe but like still i guess but i don't get beads of sweat coming off my head definitely I do get a bit of a shine and I've said this a billion times

but translucent powder will save your day just putting that on my head and face on stage stops the light bulb effect anyway, Yes. Do you do that every show? Are you back there? When I'm on stage. It's in your bag? Yeah. Say that again. What is it? Translucent powder. You buy it from makeup stores, like your general, you go in and ask for it and they'll give it to you. It's just a little powder that you put on your face.

You can't see it, but it adds a matte to your skin so that it will absorb a bit of, it absorbs moisture, but it also just stops the light refracting off the gleaming sweat. Wait, it all hit the mat and not shine and stops you from looking like a white. Yeah, yeah. You can still see the definition on your head and face on a camera projecting on a screen or whatever. Very helpful. And so, yeah, last week we did some shows with Showman, the ultimate magic spectacular.

Big stage shows? Yeah. So this, yeah, the ensemble, there's five of us and we got to have a female performer in this run named Ash. Ash Roper, she's like a world level, like Cirque hoop artist and contortionist. So she was fantastic. And so we had a show, it's funny, we haven't done a show in together for a year. The last time we did a show together was when we got to perform in QPAC, which is like the biggest theater in Queensland. It's where Penn and Teller did their shows and stuff.

So our last show together was this massive place. And then our first show back was a local place called the Redlands Performing Arts Center. And it's a much, it's like a 500 seater kind of theater instead of a 2000. The dregs. Yeah, we were like, okay, cool. And it was like a, it was like a 2 p.m. show on a Wednesday. Really? That's weird. It was weird. Yeah. It was a school holiday edition.

Edition so our first show back together was a weird vibe because it was a wednesday 2 p.m kind of like hey kids let's watch something before you know we go to dinner and go to bed at night like on a wednesday on a weekday it was very it's very it's way too many kids for my liking but like it was fun still to do the show and perform for everyone yeah that's on your ballpark like i don't see kids in your videos ever right you're always you always got those fancy adults you're working for yeah

and also i think well i think with video i don't know you have to be a bit more conscious of what kids are in your videos and are the parents okay with it and you know if i'm if i'm i don't know do you yeah there there is there is legalities that you can't just be posting photos of kids without at least parent permission like i feel like i mean do it you know you just do it right but it's easier i guess i'm just not i'm just less worried about

adults in the states my my presumption that the legality is if you're in public you can film you can be filmed, I think that's the, yeah. Why don't you try that at a, at a kid's playground and see what happens? I'm talking about street performing. Like if I'm filming, you know, like I'm doing a sponge balls for a kid. Yeah. Is someone going to sue me? If they do, they're going to be disappointed. Yeah. Oh, look, this is a good topic, right? Yeah. And we should check the legalities

on that properly, but for, to my knowledge. It's probably different too, depending on the country and maybe even. Yeah. Sorry, Doug. I think doesn't YouTube, every time we upload a video, YouTube asks us like, are there any minors in this video or, you know, as though I pay attention to that either. Yeah. No, I don't think anyone really cares in reality. Like as long as it's in, in good context and you know, like it's a kid reacting to magic, that's adorable, you know, but I would, yeah.

You know, I just find it easier to have adults because like I enjoy performing to adults more and I can heckle adults and I can have their head explode at the end of the video and a kid's, head exploding might not always be seen as the best ending and artistic choice. But anyway, to my point, so we did that show, we got that out of the way.

Then we did fly to Townsville, to the Townsville Entertainment Convention Center, which is a much, much bigger theater, which has felt a bit more extravagant and fun and and just like surreal and that show was was a banger to perform for a bigger audience and trying to think of any weird stuff that happened it was.

There's probably just two i'm probably i'm probably just still decompressing from that but certainly i'm sure there's some weird stuff that happened so uh you're getting the band back together here and doing more of these or what's up with the showman you know what's tricky in Australia right now is it's actually tough to book theaters because so many shows are booking in their shows. So you got to book like a year in advance to get a slot.

So I think what's happened is these particular theaters reached out to showmen and they, cause there's two ways you can be in a theater. One is you can reach out and rent it yourself and market and stuff like that. And sometimes theaters will buy an act to fit in this calendar month themselves. So you get a guaranteed fee and they do the marketing. So it can be one of two ways. And it was that way for these two shows.

So that's how we were able to get in. But I think Showman is probably a little bit a while away from appearing again because they've had to book in theaters that it just, it's just so far in advance. You have to. While you're talking about marketing, I was thinking about this earlier because we didn't have like a whole lot to talk about. I was going to ask you about how you're marketing your new location for the theater of magic show. Assuming that's still active.

Oh, yeah. It's still active, all right. Yeah, I'm working it. Yeah, yeah. Look, fuck, where do I even start? So I'm really fortunate that I get to do it with two amazing dudes that have their own crazy brains, right? And one of them is Christopher Wayne, which has marketed, he produces and writes and markets lots of shows. So he brought a lot of the marketing genius to the table. Right. And so, yeah, so I mean, as a broad statement, a good place is wherever the attention is.

So like Facebook ads, if you do a good Facebook ad, that's great, right? Like we had that guy from the San Francisco magic show and he talks about how his marketing team are just spending, you know, thousands of dollars a month on Facebook ads, but it's making sure that his shows are sold out every single week. So that's a massive one. But now we're sort of playing with like influencer pages that have a lot of reach in Brisbane.

So having them come to the show, you know, make a video of their experience, just sort of different avenues like that. Look how smart that is. That's where the people are. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're playing. Yeah. We're just playing with that. And that's brilliant, man. Talk about next level approach.

And that's, yeah. And we're just playing. We just, we haven't really cracked it, but we're sort of, yeah, tinkering with that, but definitely, yeah, paid ads, you know, if they bring in tickets, then it makes sense to do it. And yeah, we've got a few campaigns in the works that, that are, you know, we're just trying lots of stuff basically.

Yeah. But it's working. It's, you know, I wasn't even at the theater of magic last week and the two shows were sold out. Explain the new locale. You're in a, you were in a casino, correct? Yeah. Yeah, right now we're in a casino. Yeah. So first we were at this place called the Elizabeth picture theater.

Then we moved to the treasury hotel, which is where Nick, we had the pleasure of having Nick come in and, magish our muggles in Brisbane and, and that's been going awesome and now this treasury hotel is actually going to close in a couple of months because it's being sold because we have a new casino, but they're only dealing with events over a hundred people.

People so so you'll move it doesn't so we're moving again now we haven't released it publicly yet so i can tell you guys off air but we have found the next location that's just as beautiful for we move the show to a different place but it's going well yeah it's definitely not showing any any it's showing no motion of slowing down which yeah that's what i was curious about because like mark selling it in one place is different than selling it in another place and so on so So, you know. Yeah.

Well, every time we've had to move, we've made sure it's been for a benefit, like that it's improving either the show or location or ease for people to get to. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's all exciting stuff. You know, there's actually a show that opened up in Vegas recently that's of a similar nature in that it's a close-up show. And it's called Legend of Mane. Is it the Cabin of Curiosities? I don't know about that, but I know it's called Legend of Mane. And it is with the guy that hosted Magic Live the year we were there, Nick. Jonathan Lovett.

Love Jonathan Lovett. Love him. Yeah. He's one of the main magicians doing close-up at this new theater they've opened up there. I would imagine the potential for Vegas to have breakout spots for that. I know there's a couple going on. Dick Losander has a spot. Does he really? I don't know. Yeah, he does a regular, relatively close-up show. It might be parlor size, but he's not booking out a big area.

There is that one. They just started up the Wonderground shows at Area 51, Area 15, whatever that is. Yeah, I was going to say, I went to that show, and it was so rad.

Like seeing mcbride do his thing all the ballet dancers and stuff in between all that and it was just a night to be there steve valentine was there rudy kobe was there maybe like everyone was just there like they weren't even performing but they were just there having a drink and they were the most valentine's so good man he's such he knows so many things he's such a great performer.

It's staggering he has this ability to make you feel like even though he's just saying hello and how and where you're from and whatever he makes you feel like you were the most important person in the world it's like it's like i don't even know if you can teach it like he's just he's a superstar the actor the whole thing you know what i mean the chance to be around steve valentine go do it literally yeah jump at it he's such a superstar his penguin lecture was freaking.

Brilliant yeah i really enjoyed it he's he's he loves to riff with like he'll have an effect like that card to wallet, but then you'll have all these different variations of how he'll get into it if someone says this or changes their mind or whatever, or use that as an out or really enjoyed that. He's the one who has a teaching platform. Wish I could bring the name of it to mind, but he has over 900 videos on this educational space. Holy crap.

Yeah, that's a lot, right? I mean, they might, you might get 10 on the egg bag as it's him going through the Mardo bag and the Tarbell bag and the Malini bag, trying to figure out which bag and educate you about the bags. And it might be a little bit overkill, but this is how deep his knowledge is.

And that's just the stuff he made videos about right you know that's a very curious thing because a lot of people when they do want to learn is it going to be just that i just want to know how it's done or i really want to know the history i feel like the way what you would describe kind of covers it all doesn't it it's like the more knowledge you have the better i just love learning, everything about this world of magic and there's so much i don't know you know even to the terms

of history like that's why i love us doing these history lessons like i mean i didn't know anything about keller and how amazing he was until i did my diligence on him you know i've been trying to learn all of magic for 40 years now and i'm still not even i don't think near the tip of the iceberg so it's just a wonderful art form that's so deep right i totally agree and i was performing the other night so after

i did a whole series of lectures and then we did a show that night and And then two shows the next day. And this lovely gentleman came over to me, very old in stature, with a cane, hunched over, 91 years of age. And he said the kindest words to me in that exchange, to which I said, you're 91 now. And you've been doing magic since you were a young boy. Like, did you learn anything from my magic? Because I learned so much.

And you did so much stuff I'd never seen before. So it's the type of thing that you never truly know everything. And that's the way it should be, right? We should be constantly evolving and getting better. And blessed that we can grow old with it, too. That's something I'm certainly looking forward to as I'm getting to be an old guy. I was reading Genie. The last Genie had a little snippet about Tanan Asaka and his wife. They run Magic Land in Japan.

They're both in their 90s, and they're still running this shop. She demonstrates the tricks, and he's still there, lucid. How, you know, come on now. You go in there and see Mama San do a packet trick.

She's 90 wow she is the counter person and has been forever his wife how amazing is that yeah do you think that some people go i'm too old to get into magic now or anything like that do you think that people you know i i have touched base with a lot of older people and i'm happy to see that people get into it later in life you know i'm kind of teaching magic now so i find out who the students are and i have a large number of not just middle age

but even you know hey i'm just 60 and i'm retired and i'm looking to do something or i want to have fun with my grandkids and well you know i can't remember who said this but uh like percy diakonin or perhaps fitsky but there There was this theory that how old you were when you got into magic is the mental maturity you have as a magician.

So what I mean is that if you got into magic when you were six and you saw that kind of stuff, that typically those guys stay that way and become the children's magicians and so forth as they go along. Now, I got into magic when I was 23, relatively adult. As a result, my magic sort of just came out a different way. Hey, do you think there is some truth in that statement that the age you start magic is the sort of mental maturity you have with it?

Because even Josh himself, you didn't get into magic until your later teens. Is that right, Josh? Yeah, man. I would say, yeah, 17. The classic story is like I got a magic set when I was 10, right? But there was just one card trick from that that I remembered and carried out throughout my life. And then I was lucky to get on this TV production as, as a robot when I was 18, I think it was 18 or 19. So being on a TV set for six months, I would just show the crew this car trick every day.

And eventually they got sick of it and they're like, what else can you do? And I was like, that's it. And then I started diving into other stuff from that moment. So really it was like, yeah, 18 or 19 was when I really jumped down the rabbit hole. And so, yeah, I would say that that probably is like, I mean, in my brain, I still feel like an 18 or 19, right? Yeah. But as far as community goes, do you see that to be true, Doug, with your students? Do you see that to be true as well?

I think children these days have an advantage in that they can learn advanced material on the Internet instead of going to the magic shop and being force fed the material the demonstrator there wants to give them.

You know i was young it was you know a young magician is probably going to spend more time floundering and maybe the youth today have a better path it is interesting that i i do hear that a lot even from our members in the podcast that when i mention a move or routine or something they go oh cool cool yeah i'll check that out on youtube later. Phoenix in the chat here he might be 11 now i've known him since he was nine and he He was doing palms then. He does passes.

He's working on snap deals, and he has no fear of anything. His knowledge probably matches or exceeds the average club member in this city, and he's the future of magic. That's what I call him. So we're blessed with Phoenix. How are you doing, Phoenix? And by the way, Phoenix, you get a tattoo. It's in your bag. Oh, look at that.

See if he's still here. I think also the younger you are, probably, I think, the more you soak up, the more new stuff you soak up in magic because now definitely i'm sort of jaded where i don't have time to soak up as much as i wish i could that's a really good back wall you know i i really agree with that like so for example when i i was into magic for some time but the jw grip wasn't on anyone's radar you know like the jw grip to be able to hold your hand like this

and then produce a coin so like just to show your hand super empty and then you know like that That didn't exist. And now all this stuff is being brought forward. So it's kind of great because it now gives people an opportunity to pick up magic where I am at, you know, nearly 40 and they can be practicing and doing the same techniques that I do at the age of 14. That is really cool when you think about it, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I have Eric Jones to thank for introducing me to the JW group in bloody Metal 1, probably. You know, fun story. Eric Jones did the Melbourne Magic Festival, which Alex has a question about, which we'll touch upon in just a second. But when he did it, I arrived at the festival and he was there and I shook Eric's hand and I said, you're the reason I do coin magic. Thank you so much. And he just said, I'm really sorry about that.

And, So the question here was, Alex was asking, and we have touched upon this, and we have explored it, and it's not out of the question, but Alex was asking, why don't you guys do stuff for the Melbourne Magic Festival? So personally, Nick has done stuff with the Magic Festival every year, right? Correct. Over the last however it's gone, you've always had your one-man show playing in the gala night.

You've been so nick is heavily involved because he is in that city but if you're referring to the podcast in the scheme of things the podcast is still pretty new right but now that we've had the director tim ellis on the podcast that may or may not be our sort of you know way of trying to get more involved so we had him on he knows about the pod and we talked about it off air a bit right Like, and more importantly,

to bring Doug to the land down under, because, Doug, there are so many people dying to meet you. Like, it is staggering. You know? You don't have to talk me into this. I'm ready. The wife's ready. The wife has to come with me. That's the deal. You don't have to pay me or anything, but the wife has to get a plane ticket or something. I'm not paying for that. Yeah. So, look, this is all out. This is our master plan.

So you just wait and see. Yeah. Yeah, so it is in the cards and we will try and formulate a plan and execute it in such a way that not only are Josh and I there, but Daddy Doug comes to Melbourne town and has the opportunity to actually tour around Oz. I think that'll be a good time for all. No doubt. You're going to say that so much that one day Doug's just going to get that tattooed on his chest. Daddy Doug. Daddy. No. If I get a tattoo, it won't be that. I might get that squeezer one though.

Oh, right. Not the spoon. Not well, maybe on the other arm I'll do that way. I have a whole routine. I have a skit. Maybe card tricks and mentalism.

Yeah yeah well that really blew our minds now we're lost for words aren't we what what else is happening well okay so obviously we're talking about the notion of the notions of traveling so i'm sure that in our travel right i'm sure that in our travels we've probably done some interesting performances doug you've traveled far and wide doing fair upon fair and experienced some really cool stuff and probably been in scenarios where you know petting zoo animals have run amok and so forth is

it worth exploring a gig story related to traveling i think so we got to do it right traveling gig stories this isn't pro when it's a magic it's a magic story i've worked in the florida magic florida magic convention this was what early 2000s and no airport so i had to take a bus in gotta take the bus in from new orleans this was an 18 hour bus bus ride. What? Yeah, I guess I could have flown to a city closer and taken the bus. But you know, when I was 20 years old, I didn't think that deeply.

I just said, I'll take the bus. I'll practice on the way. Full reference. That's how long it's going to take for me to fly to Vegas. So yeah, it's an insane amount of time to spend on the trip. And then doubly so when you miss your connecting bus. So now you're stuck at the bus station on the way to the convention where you're going to lecture the next morning and the next bus there does not arrive until 6 a.m.

And your lecture slots at nine, you have to spend the night in the bus stop station, waiting for that bus to arrive, not sleeping in your hotel and then continuing on to the event where I killed it. Oh my God. And that's that, that's that travel story. I'm surprised that you wouldn't be like, oh crap, I'm stuck here, but I go do some street shows.

Truthfully, I think this was the second, you know, know what i did enjoy it was miami that they spit me out in i had a good time and got some cubans and wandered around the city i didn't plan on you know but you know nine hours later it wasn't fun anymore. But I was young and resilient and, you know, got a little story to tell on the Magic Guys podcast now. That's what it's all about, man. Life is all about the stories you can tell at the end of it. So here's a fun airplane story, if I may.

I was flying to Vegas for Magic Live. I think I was in L.A. for a short while and then bouncing out from L.A. over to Vegas. And as I get on the plane, in the very front row in business is the late, great Max Maven. and I see Max and I'm like, oh, Max Maven is like, hello. He was actually doing the Mel Magic Festival earlier that year. So he was familiar with my face and it was good to see him and so forth.

But if anyone's flown to LA to Vegas, and I might say this is a broad term, but I will say from my personal experience, every time I've flown into Vegas, it is a rough ride. There is so many high pressure systems and so forth that you're going through that the The turbulence is just crazy as you go through Death Valley, appropriately named, because you feel like you're about to die. Now, this particular time that we were going to Vegas, the plane was thumping

up and down like you would not believe. And everyone was freaking out and screaming and crying. My student was next to me. She was crying as well. And I just turned to her and I said, relax, man. If the plane was going to go down, Max would have seen it. Yeah. Good stuff. And so we laughed about it, right?

We land. Everything's great. and i wanted to and then max you know like just jetted off and i didn't see him afterwards but when we flew in they actually lost my luggage it was a whole thing and you know i'm sitting there at the at the alligator bar and people are coming i'm in my pajamas mind you because i was traveling in in my uh like tracksuit where everyone's coming over being like oh flew four hours to get here and i was just

like i will headbutt you so hard about the two hours that i've been in the Yeah. So, yeah. Like, so after all that. Yeah. Oh, dude, it was a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the 20 hours to get there, whatever it was, but I was talking about the turbulence and I said that like the whole story, blah, blah, blah, Max Maven, Max Maven, for those who aren't aware, one of the, probably one of the greatest mentalists and in, in the world or ever existed.

And one of the most knowledgeable magicians to ever probably the most knowledgeable and a big time wrestling fan.

Wrestling fan. You like the theater. together oh wow that's cool so yeah anyway so that was like you have to tell him you have to tell him so i ended up bumping into him again during magic live and i told him and he laughed real hard and he was like you know in that beautiful voice he has is like i'm going to put that in my article type of voice that he has um of course sheesh well you know every time i don't know how you guys like to do it going to vegas but every time i go to

vegas i land in lax and then I rent a car, like a Mustang or something, and I'd drive through the mountains and stuff to Vegas. I've always wanted to do that. Is it awesome? It's awesome because it's just a straight fucking road. Like three hours, right? It's probably quicker than taking the flight. It's less messing around, I feel, and it's just three to four hours because you'll stop and whatever along the way. But yeah, you just cruise on in.

It's just something nice about driving up to Vegas and seeing it in the distance, and seeing the Luxor light. And first you drive through that sort of fake Vegas, like the crappy version. The first time I drove to Vegas with friends, I was like 22. We were like, we hit that. And we're like, we stayed there for quite a bit, like getting photos and stuff. We're like, is this it? Hey, I think that's a good spot for some people. Reno, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, so that's, yeah, three times I've been to Vegas guess in all three times I've driven from LAX and I recommend it. It's, it's very fun. Okay. Story, gig story. So travel, travel story. I feel like I haven't told this story in like a hundred episodes. So I feel like I can say it again. And it was my time going to India to do a corporate gig. My one, one little flex of ever getting paid to go to another country.

That's not like, you know, near australia and this is like five years ago and it was just a happenstance because it was through an agency that particularly got hit up by this company that wanted an act to come from overseas so they could say that we have an international performer or whatever so in in mumbai there was these two billionaire brothers they're holding this tech event they want a magician now i didn't know this at the time but the year before they freaking had leo sashad.

Flown in to do a mentalist act and if you ever look up his stuff you know he's his profile is pretty damn high so he would have been paid a lot to be there now they paid in like it was like i'll just say it's like in the five figure range right to to get me and my partner over there they're paying a lot of money considering they got to also you know mess around with flights and visas and just orchestrating this whole thing so i'm like all right i want to do a great job for these.

I'm going to do this, you know, this new stuff that's going to really wow them and. Rising tattoo ready to go. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, are the, are they okay with Pierce nipple revelations? I don't know. And it was a whole thing. I made a vlog about my India trip that's on YouTube somewhere. And it was a whole experience just going to another country in the beginning. You're like, is the audience going to know English? Like, am I assuming anything here? Like, what's it going to be like?

So we're staying in a five-star hotel. So you go in the hotel and it feels like you're at like a corporate gig in the Gold Coast. So that was pretty cool. But it was a whole thing. Like they had an, they had a team literally building the stage that day. Like the stage that they use didn't exist anywhere in the hotel. They literally brought in planks of wood and the coating and paint and everything. And they nailed.

And there was a guy with no shoes on using one foot to hold a piece of wood still while he sawed it with his other hand, like no shoes on. There's like a barefoot here and a saw here. It was insane.

Same late later in the later in the night when the stage was built there was like i could hear this noise and i looked under the stage and there was a guy just sleeping because he'd been there building it all day he was just asleep that's not so so suffice to say like it's a big deal for this event they've spent a lot of time making the stage they freaking i've traveled from the other side of the world to be there to do this show it's all building up they've just had

this bollywood Would superstar chick go up and speak as well first? And then there's this little guy who works at the hotel and he comes up to me and. And he's like, oh, you're the magician? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, okay. Yeah, we don't have a clearance on your visa, so you can't do a show tonight. And I just laugh at him. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's funny, man. Like, I don't get your humor. You're a bit weird, but that's cool.

But he doesn't walk away from me. I'm like, wait, say that again? He's like, we don't have, like, the green light under your name on our computer, so, like, you can't do a show until that changes. And I'm just like, and by the way, it's like half an hour till I'm meant to do this show that I've rehearsed all day and stuff. What's happening? And I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like everything is. So anyway, so I go to the guy that's handling me being there and I'm like, Hey man, can you talk to this guy? And so they just started doing these visas, these temporary visas electronically instead of physically. physically, and that's how I got my visa to be able to go over there and work was this electronic visa.

But there was a delay in it syncing with the hotel system because the hotel has access to see like anyone who's coming to work on site has this clearance because you get big fines and stuff. If I was to say I'm on holiday, but then I do something, some kind of paid work. So now there's half an hour before all these important people are meant to be getting entertained and I'm told I can't do anything. Now the organizer's like, holy shit, like this is an actual problem.

So they go and tell the billionaire brothers of what's going on and they freaking call the owners of this massive hotel. Of course, they're friends with, it's like a Hilton or something, you know, it's like a big chain, but they're like, we know who owns this place and they call them. It's a whole thing. It gets to the point where they're like. It's like five minutes before I'm meant to do my show. They're like, we're so sorry. We can't get clearance. So we're not going to do your show.

Let's take your mic off. Let's, you know, you don't have to worry about it anymore. And in the back of my mind, I'm kind of like, well, this is going to be a crazy story. But, you know, I know I'm getting paid because I come all the way here. But fine. So I take everything off. I'm starting to forget about the show. Just like, whatever. Two minutes before the show, they've run back to me. Oh no. They're like, put the mic back on. We've come to a compromise.

You're not allowed to do a stage show because they still can't see the green tick. But technically, if you do your show from the floor, it's not a stage show. So let's do that. So they decide that I can still do the show, just not here. I can do it from here.

It's so stupid. They have a camera projecting me onto the screens so that it still, it still plays, but like I have to ditch, you know, I was doing a, like a prediction box thing and there's all this stuff I had to not do anymore, but I still did a show, but on the frigging floor, which made no sense. And, and it was just a, such a whirlwind of an experience.

And that's my story. That is quite an Epic story, man.

Like considering they could they considered the thing that was being you know by barefoot tradesmen a stage very very funny you know like like what legality says that's a stage you know what i mean like that is that's the thing but you allow the guy sleeping underneath the performers but not the performers themselves people can use their barefoot to saw wood in half exactly you're worried about me i saw a video of a guy sawing chicken with his toenail i saw man what yeah

and have you seen the one where the chicken he was cutting it with his toenail he's got he's got this toenail and it looks like he's a velociraptor and he's just oh bro there's a song behind it and it's like washing my hands in your food washing my hands in your food and he's it's just all indian street cuisine being done and they're just washing their hands into all the rice. You don't need the knife.

But his toenail is so sharp and so weird that he's just cutting chunks of chicken with it like this. I'm sure that Dylan's going to end up making a video about it. You don't want to buy? Or Scotty P could jump in here. Oh, it's epic. I'm on the topic of traveling. Do you guys have any pro tips for when you are traveling link, As a magician, whether you're going for fun or for, for, you know, a gig. I'll tell you what, my number one tip for the plane is one of these bad boys.

If it will let me. Come on. That's a doodad that holds your phone? Yeah, man. So you sit it on the tray table and you can watch all of your, it's not even, it shouldn't even be tracking my face. Yeah. So you can sit it on the, on the tray table and your phone just clicks into it and you can watch all your shows.

Saves your uh saves your wrist from getting sore from doing this all the time that's one tip but that's not magic related is it but it's definitely a tip um i'm talking about travel tips you know sick so that that's definitely a travel tip that and a power bank those two things you know change your life when you're traveling nice i think neck pillows are really important for long distance travel even short travel any opportunity to nap you should take and i couldn't find

my neck pillow it's probably like tucked away with all my snow gear but i was and i didn't have the capacity to pull everything out and dig it up just with the time or strength i had so i just went and bought another one but that neck pillow is the most wonderful thing it's basically like when you see those people from in car accidents and it like holds them in a full neck brace it's that that's yeah air tag everything pro tip from drago tier one aka our good friend nick that is

oh alex lamb you nailed it buddy noise cancelling headphones pro tip when traveling that is a very good travel tip just having your silence and your space i think because by nature most musicians tend to be outgoing introverts. You kind of need that little quietness. What's a jumper? A hoodie, a sweater. A hoodie, a sweater. Aussie talk. You don't call it a jumper. No, it's a hoodie. I don't know jumper. What's that? Do you call it a sweater? A hoodie, a sweater, yeah.

You've never called it a jumper? Never, no. I thought he might have a friend he brings on the plane so they jump out instead of him i don't know what a jumper is but dude you gotta jump i'm not going you gotta just in case make sure you bring your parachute buddy bring a jumper i don't even know what that was what about when you're doing when you're going for gigs do you always keep like stuff on your carry-on that you could

do a show with in case you do lose your luggage or it's i will do everything i can to keep all of my show on the carry-on i will do everything i can to keep it in there. Yeah. I've mentioned this once before, but if you were traveling to two locations in a 24 hour space, cause I would did, I had to do one show in Adelaide and then one show in Townsville. And these were, these two locations are like, you know, like a two hour flight and then a five hour flight.

So, but what happened was if I'd put my show in my check-in luggage, the check-in luggage went straight to Townsville. It was going to go straight to Townsville, but thankfully Thankfully, the lady, when I was checking myself in, she goes, does this luggage need to go to blood? Does it kind of go direct? And I was like, oh, and she goes, well, just so you know that this is what normally happens. And I was like, fool, thank goodness.

Because if my show was in there, I'd have been in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Risky. Yeah. All right. What would you do if you have nothing and you've just landed somewhere and you have time to go to a CVS or a dollar store or whatever? What would you grab to be able to do a show? Maybe let's go roving and let's go if you had to do a 20-minute stage. Okay. Roving, I would just need three coins and one pack of cards and I'm good for three hours. Done. That's easy as pie.

I'm on that train. Same answer. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you throw me in some rubber bands, even more so, but there's very little else I need as far as roving goes. Any, anyone else? No, I agree. I think we can find things and even having your iPhone on you, you know, you can do a million things. So, okay. Good stuff. I put one of these on my roving set. I would miss this. That's going to be inflatable wand, but whatever. A six foot magical wand. Yep. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Yeah, the guys are saying shoppy. What would you be looking for for stage, Doug, if you were doing a set? Find me some rope if I could, for sure. If I get me some fruit, I could do a bill and lemon and probably at the end of a cup and ball routine. Maybe I buy some solo cups, some aluminum foil to make the balls out of, you know, just cards and cups.

You know i could do a good 20 maybe 30 minutes with that but i could get some rope and use a little phone magic and maybe some minimalism with a some paper i could get by it could you rig a could you do a bill and lemon with just not having anything on you already and going to buy the lemon yeah you know i used to shine on carnie's fruit cup routine which is a bill and lemon very much much at the bar you know you just jam a hole in a lemon and stick a bill in there,

torn corner and it's like a chop cup style cup and ball that ends with the fruit production, i'd probably go multiple cups for stage and you know drag that out a little bit longer yeah i have a friend gareth bell who will only do borrowed objects for his cup and ball routine. Like and and he's got feeling stronger that way certainly in an impromptu it is environment.

Entirely impromptu i think he i think at most he might donate like the balls for the routine and have the wand but i'm pretty sure that everything else he takes but he told me stories of like.

Like you know like so there was like a whole stack of like beautiful teacups chinese teacups and it was like a thousand dollar set there was like a whoopsie and a break but i might be exaggerating the amount or whatever else but like it was or it got close to breaking or something but i remember him telling me that story some some long time ago i think he's in the chat actually he does sound busy karen he's one of my most favorite people ever but yeah i think that if i had to i mean here's

the thing it's a good way this is a very good way to think because i know there's many times where you've packed your stuff or thought you packed your stuff then you get to the gig and you crack open your kit and you're like oh crap i forgot my gaff book that i was going to use for my book test you know yeah but i think that like you said good piece of rope fruit yeah an envelope a notepad yeah an envelope would be good and i also think i genuinely think with it with just

if we collectively made a list of the things we've either spoken about or interviewed or possibly even reviewed phone magic yeah we could do a show out of our pockets pretty comfortably. Yeah.

Actually, I'm pretty excited. It's not locked in yet, but I spoke with Google yesterday about an event they're doing on the Gold Coast next month and it's in regards to phones. That could be fun. Well, Josh, go. I might be calling Nick again a little bit later. Oh, that's the other thing I didn't bring up was doing that bloody ice puck appearance. And doing, you know, I had to do the puck drop, ceremonial puck drop for this local ice championship, ice hockey championship.

And I was asking Nick about a few different ways I could go about making this puck appear and Nick has some amazing ideas. Things with like Play-Doh, turning it into a solid park and all these kinds of things is awesome. Then I realized when I went down to check out the ice rink. It's so cold and your hands hardly work. I'm like, oh, okay. How weird, man. What's it called again? A what rink? Yeah. And, and an ice death rink. Oh, and I was like, holy hell.

And, but luckily I tested like that flash paper would still work and it does. It just, if anything, it, it burns like maybe 5% slower. It's not, it was nothing to worry about. So that was cool. So I just went with that. I mean, anyone who's seen my videos would have just seen me plaster it, but, um, It looked great by the way. Kudos. I thought it looked fantastic. Sometimes going with just like the obvious solution is reliable because yeah.

And I also, what they didn't, they kind of said like I had time to do whatever I want, blah, blah, blah, but really it's like a walk up to the middle of the rink with the two opposing captains facing each other and you just got to.

Make it appear like, and that's kind of it. it like people aren't there to watch you do magic they're just there to watch this game but they were pretty happy with me just quickly turning fire into a park anyway just wanted to say that and thank you dragoteer that was the coolest thing i've ever seen thanks man it was fun it. Was fun i thought i'm friends with that team and yeah it.

Was it was a cool i was very nervous leading up to it because i'd never been in that environment before so there was lots of alarm bells going off in me like just tell them i can't do it just tell them i didn't think of anything just say i'm booked for another gig but i was like you do it you pussy because this is the thing that helps you advance you know your life uh is making yourself uncomfortable and hey that's the last word say it again josh what'd you just say imposter syndrome

go for it and wrap it up guys thank you for joining us taking it out with the final word on imposter syndrome don't let it take it home josh so you get that feeling you you get asked to do a show a new show or maybe it's the first time you're going to go on stage or you're going to go on tv and you just feel like i shouldn't be here i'm underprepared i'm underskilled i don't know what i'm doing and that's what i felt going into this

ice hockey situation i wanted to find ways to get out of it But I know deep down inside that making yourself uncomfortable and going through with it anyway is the way that we exceed.