the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
151 - Creating Your Own Voice in a World of Borrowed Tricks with Nick Diffatte
Ever wondered where the line between inspiration and appropriation lies in performance art? Captain Frodo welcomes comedian-magician Nick Diffatte for a candid exploration of originality in magic that will resonate with creators across all disciplines.
Nick takes us behind the scenes of Tannen's Magic Camp—an intensive gathering where 120 young magicians (ages 10-20) immerse themselves in the craft under the guidance of working professionals. You'll feel like you're wandering the Hogwarts-like halls of Bryn Bawr College as Nick describes the transformation these young performers undergo when they realize they're not alone in their passion. The teaching methodology is fascinating: forcing students to perform on day one breaks down barriers, creating a safe space where they can be vulnerable enough to truly learn.
The conversation shifts into territory rarely discussed publicly—the ethical questions performers face when developing material. Through the lens of what Nick calls "the Elvis analogy," they explore how performers can honor magical traditions while still finding their authentic voice. When does a borrowed trick become truly yours? How much must you change something before claiming ownership? The answers aren't simple, but they're essential for anyone who creates.
Most compelling is their shared vulnerability about their own creative processes. Captain Frodo confesses his insecurity about performing routines developed by others, while Nick reveals his struggles publishing instructional material that walks the line between teaching technique and sharing complete performance pieces. Their honesty strips away the mystery often surrounding creative work, revealing the human questions that haunt even the most accomplished performers.
Whether you're a magic enthusiast or simply someone who appreciates the creative process, this episode offers rare insights into how art evolves through generations while remaining true to its roots. Subscribe now and join the conversation about what it means to create something truly original in a world built on shared traditions.
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Good to do this fellow travelers and welcome to the Way of the Chowman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. Hi, I'm Captain Frodo, and I will be your host and your guide along the way. And as this uh episode is coming out, I am in Las Vegas. I'm in Las Vegas performing at Mad Apple Sector Soleil show at the New York, New York Casino. And one of the wonderful things about being in Las Vegas are the people that are there. Of course, it is absolutely astounding. I never thought in a million years that I would be in Sector Soleil, but as it turns out, Mad Apple is just a wonderful fit for me. But it's also all these other friends that I have pulled up and MacKing, which I have gotten friends with and Nick de Fat, which is the subject of the episode today. Because um when I'm recording this episode here, I am actually in Norway, but it will come out in a couple of weeks. So um I've just finished doing this uh festival in Norway where I have been doing a show together with my family, and in that show I did uh two half-hour shows. Some of the acts were done by my daughter, some by my wife, but all of the material that we presented in that show that I did was uh brand new. And uh in this is actually recorded these conversations with Nick DeFat. The last time I was there was just uh in July, and I was trying to get my head around why I was feeling the way that I was about my so-called new quote um my new material because it is I was doing basically a uh sort of card sword, card catch effect where I used uh where I catch a card with my foot and um which is a marketed effect, and then I used it together with the this um the poster that my father has made as a card fountain. Anyway, I'm taking little bits and pieces and putting it together and I haven't created it from scratch in the way that I did with uh cans stack balance or with my pen brackets or so far. And um in my questioning of all of this, I uh decided to talk to Nick DeFet and uh get him to enlighten me a little bit about uh this car. And uh as it always is when you're talking to friends, it becomes a meandering conversation about many different topics, but uh this was the heart of it. So if you like this kind of conversation to continue, please uh click subscribe, that would be awesome. And if you got some goodness in your heart, click five stars on iTunes and maybe even leave a little review. Say this is the way whatever you want to say. So let's uh jump into me uh questioning Nick the Fat. Sitting in the wonderful uh uh castle or uh man cave of uh Nick the Fat. Messy living quarters, yeah. Yeah. You have some great stuff, man. Great art, and we got this sweet sewing and half illusion. Is that like is it just sewing the arm off?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, vivisection of an arm. Uh if you if any listeners want it, it's it's up for grabs. I'd love a desk so we could free up some space. Uh but yeah, that was a uh Paul Kozak did that in comedy clubs. He had a show that was kind of more in that vein. And I think he'd like cut the middle of their arm off and then give them a tattoo or whatever and put it back in. So that's pretty clever. Or he would blow a bubble with the middle of it, so like pull out the middle chunk of their arm and then dip it in stuff and blow a big red bubble.
SPEAKER_00:That's funny. Kind of clever.
SPEAKER_02:But it's uh it's an amazing looking thing, it's very serious, very serious uh saw blade and everything. It's a big prop to be touring around with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it breaks down, still 90 pounds or whatever, but it breaks down. Fits in a case, fits in a fiber case. So it's like pretty cumbersome to get around. I don't know why I own it, but I do. Well, it's like if uh living room piece.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a living room piece. Clearly a conversation piece.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So what I was talking thinking of talking to you about, uh we should probably see if this is. Do you want me to turn the aircon off? Maybe we'll turn the aircon off.
SPEAKER_01:I'll turn it up pretty much. I don't know what else we have to stop it and uh let's just do it to an astronomical level where it'll never get to. Yeah. I mean it'll get it'll be 80 degrees in here soon. We're all good.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, we've talked about uh many things, and uh I would like to again talk about um teaching magic, learning magic, and this practice of using other people's uh material and all that. So that for sure uh and uh maybe we'd start off by going about you have just uh recently been at Magic Camp.
SPEAKER_01:Just yeah, barely recovered from Magic Camp, seven days of uh Tannin's Magic Camp. We did the it was the 52nd year, which is crazy. I've only been around for four of them because I'm young. But uh but they're you know, it's it's incredible. It's like all real acts taking a week off and coming in and doing this thing. People they some of the kids come with material, some of them are like complete beginners, some of them are working already. Uh and it's you know it's intense. Yeah. It's pretty age range of the kids is ten. I mean, ten is like we even we had to have a discussion this year where it was like nine and ten is like too young.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, but they'll give little exceptions here and there for for serious kids. But uh, but I think it's usually like I'd say average is 14 to 18.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And there might be one that's 20 and one that or two that's ten or whatever, like or a few, like, but that the bell curve is in the middle, but maybe a little over.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, maybe fifteen or sixteen is the highest. But but yeah, the I mean this year we had a lot of like, you know, there's a bunch of kids that I'd uh seen really grow in four years, and now this was their last year. Really crazy, because they turned whatever, 19 or 20, and it's crazy. Crazy, crazy.
SPEAKER_02:So then like and who was it that was there this year for as teachers for them?
SPEAKER_01:Uh or like a few. Matt King, Suzanne from Minneapolis, Derek Hughes, um Alex Boyce from New York, Rachel Wax, Mark Calabriese, Matt Schick, kind of he runs like all the technical aspects. Hal Schulman, Ian Flynn, great dude from New York, who's like a he's such a fucking jam to have on staff because he's like a lifelong camp attendee, right? Like he came as a kid, very serious into you know, magic person, and then became a professional counselor. And so now when he comes back and is a counselor there, it's like, you know, if we have a kid who's having a hard time, or there's some like, you know, there's kids have real stuff going on at home. So like to have a guy there, because I I've always joked about it's not a great, not a great vibe to just have like some kid that's going through a crisis, and then it's me and Zabrecki and Derek Hughes being like, You're fine. I can worry. Yeah, do you want a bottle of water? Yeah, check out this Elmsley count. Do you want a bottle of water? Like I'm not built for that, so he's such a a gem to have there. Um, but yeah, I think it's like it's just a really special place. Like people, you know, for the most part, people leave their ego at the door and and just want to teach and learn and do cool stuff. And so cool. The shows are unbelievable, too. Like, I I would I've always said ever since the first year I went, that the some of those shows rival magic convention shows.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, wow.
SPEAKER_01:Like by a mile. You know, we get Mark Kalen and Ginger come in and do illusions, or the Ebons come in and do their like real, you know, mentalism show that they do for corporate stuff. And it's like, you know, Derek Hughes and I are doing 40 minutes sometimes. It's crazy. Matt King came in this year and did his hour. Like it's the coolest thing. For 10-year-olds.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and what's special as well? It's like the camp environment. Like describe, is it just in a in a hotel and or is there an outdoor component and no camp?
SPEAKER_01:There's no like people go, okay, but then at you know, at 11 you guys go kayaking, or what? It's like, nope, this this one is special because it's only magic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We go outside, you know, but there's no like there's no lectures or street magic outside. No, we're not playing. We don't play kickball or whatever. No, no, none of the kids are bringing a football just in case.
SPEAKER_02:Like no, because there's a reason why these kids are at the magic camp. It's because they don't go to football camp.
SPEAKER_01:Some of them go to real camps after it, too. You know, they just the this is one of the camps that they do in the summer. But it's it's certainly but it was so it's held at a uh place called Brynmarr uh College in in uh Pennsylvania that's beautiful. It looks like Hogwarts, right?
SPEAKER_02:Castle vibe. I guess that's what I was actually hinting at, as opposed to saying is there an outdoor component. Maybe what I should have said is like exactly that architecture, and that you're in a place that so when you're inside, it's not just like a glass and shiny surfaces hotel where you're sitting in a conference room, but you're immersed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, it's I don't know if they were seeking out a place that looked like that, but 20 years ago they certainly nailed it. Like if you were looking for it, is an it's an important element to that camp, I think, is is being in that kind of like, you know, we go one of the nights is formal night, so everybody's all dressed up, and then we go over and there's a party, and it's in this like grand hall with big paintings of people that even people who work at the college have never heard of. Like, you know, it just looks like a Harry Potter thing. And so to have and then the kids do the strolling magic competition in that environment. Oh, cool. So it's like just badass.
SPEAKER_02:Who else are in? Oh, so when they're doing strolling competition, is it just the other attendees that are sitting at the table watching the counselors? On counselors.
SPEAKER_01:So Mark Calabries coordinated it this year, and it was really great because instead of just like having judges that you know are the judges, it was all secret. So it was just uh a number of counselors that he chose to be like undercover judges. So the the goal was just hey, hit everybody in the room, you got an hour and some change, and do your three-trick set, and this, this, that, you got this much time, whatever, you know. Do what you would do for real people, go do it in this room. Yeah, pretend this is a real party or whatever. Uh and that that's always a cool part of the week. There's another, there's a stage contest, which I think is always a highlight too, because like, you know, it's on the second day of camp, and so all these kids come in with their grand ideas, and you know, some of them totally bite it, and some of them really succeed, and then throughout the week they get critiques from us on those uh competition acts.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:If they choose to do so.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because it takes a while, because there's you said 100 and 120 or something.
SPEAKER_01:But only maybe 30 are gonna be competing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01:So and they sign up beforehand and whatever. But it's it is uh But it still takes it takes a while.
SPEAKER_02:You're gonna talk to 30 and you they're kids, and you want to somehow not just go, you got an A plus. You want to talk to you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think it's tough because if you're like when I was there my first year, I go, I you know, I I I've taught magic a little I had taught magic a little bit one-on-one. Like if somebody in town said, Hey, I want help with the transfer or with whatever or with this stage trick, I've sat with people and taught magic, but I'd never like been around 120 kids who are all like in the sponge phase of trying to learn magic. So it was very new to me to be like giving critiques to kids who actually want to be talked to like an adult. Yeah. And but you've got a 12-year-old in front of you where you're like, I need to like you know, scrambling. You know, I'm a fairly I can be abrasive with the people that I like. And so I think trying to find a way to give notes in that environment was tough for me, or an interesting new kind of challenge. Like and it's different too.
SPEAKER_02:When if you're giving me notes, it it it never, whatever you say, it's not gonna impact on whether I'm gonna maybe do this trick or not, whether I'm gonna stop performing or so. But you slam a 15-year-old and it might just hit them in some kind of, you know, they're f and so you you there's it's a bigger kind of responsibility, or so you can't go, yeah, have a glass of water and uh take a joke and keep those chairs in the back.
SPEAKER_01:We need to go get Ian if you're gonna be like I mean we have I've had tears in the critique rooms for sure. Because it I I there's a little bit of like, and I think it's one of the coolest parts of camp, is that they come in, they're in an isolated community. You know, they live in whatever. I'm just gonna name a play, Kansas, right? And so they don't know any other magicians. It's something that you hear every year. I've never met other magicians, especially not magicians my age. Yeah. And so they kind of come in thinking they're hot shit sometimes, which is awesome because they can come in, do what they did, do what they think is phenomenal, and then see 10 other kids that are like, oh yeah. But that's just the world, and it's cool to see it.
SPEAKER_02:How you go forward. It's like remembering that from juggling or whatever, when I was just me juggling at home in my town, then you have one speed of development. It took me so long. I was just talking with Adam Cookley yesterday about this saying, oh yeah, he because he got I mentioned mentioned Professor Confidence, or they have to begin and then come. Because I read that book and I'm going, yeah, and it came with a little little plastic Ziploc thing in the back with three scarves. And I learned as a 12-year-old when I uh when I started juggle, or was it a little older, 13, whatever, but reading the book, yeah, trying to work out what these things are supposed to do. And it's a really tricky, really tricky thing. It takes a long time, and yeah, but then when I then moved to into another place, Oslo, and met all these other people, like I had high skills to a certain degree, but then when I met these people, then quickly it escalated because you you just practice in a different way and you go, oh, this is possible, or whatever. And I think community uh lifts the bar of it. So these guys who arrived, and or guys, I'm saying, was that what's what was the ratio of girls to girls?
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, 25%. It's a quarter girls now, which is amazing. Oh, that's amazing. Uh yeah, I think to this year was a record for sure, which is very cool, and which was a great, you know, it was a great uh I almost said excuse. It was a great reason for me to be able to reach out to someone like Suzanne, who I've always, you know, looked up to as a kid and been like, we have a quarter girls, let's get you know the female magician with unbelievable chops who is working four or five nights a week doing this for real, like, and she's fully willing to jump on an airplane and come in and do it with two weeks' notice. It's like pretty awesome. It's unbelievable. And they were blown, their minds were blown out their asses. Suzanne came in and like absolutely rocked it. It was crazy. Even the the we had the the like older, you know, like let's say 18 to 20. I'm sure there were some younger ones in there, but like the advanced slight of hand classes.
SPEAKER_02:And and and I don't think that personality-wise or anything, you don't get any more adult and advanced and cool than when you are like between 16 and 18.
SPEAKER_01:When you're the 20-year-old guy at a magic camp and you basically know everything, yeah, yeah, and then slowly you know less. They got slammed so hard by her, it was awesome. They came all came up to me at lunch and were like, How have we never seen her work before? How have we not like you know, they think they knew cups? That was the comment that I kept getting over and over again was like, I thought I knew cups and balls, blah blah blah blah blah, but she and it's like, of course she did, but but uh to have it happen in person like that and all happen within a week is such a you know, these critiques are going on, and they're seeing acts that they've never been able to see in person, that's a huge thing, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:This in-person thing, that was I I dropped that ball but saying so. Mac comes in and and uh you see one hour. So like if the if they were in Vegas or what at the magic convention, there's a chance they could see Mac, but then the kids would not have that kind of access to him.
SPEAKER_01:So they don't get back go back to the same dorm with him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, so he's staying there and uh he's hanging out then because he was saying you you and him did a did like a workshop or a session like for hours on and you just did one one uh sort of coin vanish or one.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, that was our so the just to give you like a tiny bit of context, you do like a morning class. It depends. So, okay, most of the counselors have like a homeroom. So Adam Rubin and I uh that's another that's a person I forgot to list in that first list, but it should have been one of the first people I named. Uh but he's you know an incredible children's author, great magician, really funny guy, like, and it just total badass. Um but he and I usually teach together, and so we have those same let's say 13 kids or 14 kids for the whole week, every day in the morning. So you're you have that two and a half hour chunk before lunch or whatever, and that's your that's the kids like uh regularity throughout the week. And so we can pick something and work on it for seven days, which is badass too. So this year it was mostly like you were saying false transfer stuff, or whatever they wanted to learn a couple card tricks, so we tossed that in too, and then when you get guests in that class, like Mac or Suzanne or Danny Garcia or whatever. That's another name I forgot, Danny Garcia.
SPEAKER_02:Also one of the bonkers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It's like literally better lineups than most IBM conventions in the last 20 years, but like the uh so you have a morning homeroom thing. So Mac came in for a couple days and taught with our class, and yeah, this year, I mean I had probably my favorite homeroom class I've had in there because they were so down to do stuff. And I one of the things that always made me uncomfortable taking group classes and doing like I would have fucking shriveled up at a thing like a magic camp, I think, as a kid. I don't think it's conducive to the way that I function, you know. If it's like I I used to do Tyler Erickson in Minnesota would teach these group classes, and I benefited a lot by just being in a room with four or five people and having to do the thing, right? So it's like everybody has to go around and do the move or do the whatever we're working on or do the trick for the person next to you, everybody pair off and do the thing a couple times. Doing that was so beneficial in a weird way to just like break that social barrier of learning or of being willing to be really shitty at something. And so, like now, every time I get that class on the first day, I go like, hey, I know this is weird, let's just rip the band-aid off. First, everybody go around, say your name, say where you're from, whatever. We'll get that out of the way. Easy stuff, right? Try to remember everybody's name. Awesome. Now, do anything. Just everybody's gonna go around. You can stand up, you can stay seated. I don't really care. Just do a move, do a trick. If you can't do a trick, just talk about a trick you like, but you have to do something. Everybody at the table, like we're all sitting in a circle at a big, you know, conference kind of thing. Yeah, it's like getting that out of the way is so helpful to me. And I think and you can see it in them. Yeah. And like this year, they were all down for it, which is so cool. Yeah. So, like the first day, you know, and you get kids that are just like, I like it when Harry Anderson was on this show and he did this thing. It's like, great, okay, so you did something. And now when you're learning a move, you're down to like turn to the person next to you or pair off in a different way or whatever, or stand up and is anybody down to stand up and try the thing we just worked on for an hour? Yeah. It's hugely beneficial. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And rare, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's so hard. Uh but it's also like in the and that kind of feeling as well, and knowing when you are talking magic with someone when you can just you can show where you're actually at. You don't have to impress. Like that is uh where you're going. We are in this to upskill, yeah. All of us, whatever level that we're on, including me.
SPEAKER_01:Like, the that's the cool part is that I think you know, Mac and I taught this thing on the first day, and then two days later, so well, just for to give you the exact example, it was the Al Schneider false transfer, which like I was taught as a kid, you know my deep interest in his work, and so I have all I've read all his books and I continue to study them and whatever, and his approach. Um, and and Mac does the transfer, and then two days later, Suzanne came in and like was able to get to tweak what we had shown them and correct things that we were doing wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so they've been working on this particular coin move and all of the naturalness and knowing exactly how the real motion is supposed to look, and then learning all of the moves that you have to do, all the skills that you need to do to and then practice the actual move as opposed to the actual transfer. And so you've done that for hours and then a few days go. Just drills leading up to that. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, like and then Suzanne comes in and goes, Okay, so now you guys have worked on placing one coin into the other hand for five hours. So uh now let me clean it up and help you guys to get where it needs to go. It's amazing. But that's all is the ongoing thing of everybody, isn't it? You keep thinking that you're there, and me and Jay, when we were uh uh making reflex, we'd been uh listening to um uh In and of Itself, Derek uh now standing up with me still, Del Delgadio, and in the and he'd just been talking about oh, and then I had done the show 150 times, and then I had this epiphany going like, ah, this is what the show is. But then I did it 300 times, and now I was like, how could I do it up until now? Because now I know what the show is, and I think about that. I think that goes all the time. Like I'm doing doing the rackets at Matt Apple at here now, yeah. And there's all these little extra jokes and little things that I'm doing where I'm going, like, oh why has this not been in the act? Yeah, but doing this.
SPEAKER_01:How did I not feel this space? Yeah, like that I I get that constantly with the spoons thing or with the structure of the show, or like whatever. I add some new, like a full new trick in, and I kind of go, like, what the fuck was the show before that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it did, you know, now I've got texture. It's like you added texture 20 years in, yeah, which is so concerning.
SPEAKER_02:I love that it is like that, and it's great on that level that the kids are getting that already, that they're getting okay. So remember, yeah, because you because in the beginning, like you got okay, you're practicing just the actual how it actually is when you actually put the coin across, and then it's unbelievable how long I was doing working on that move, but no balls this morning, and how then I was listening to some music, and I was trying to do just the move in the beat with the music, and how like when you actually do it 50 times in a row, how it changes your thing, and then do it 50 times in a row just with uh and doing it kind of fast and doing like it it is incredible, and then even by that point, when I'm then gonna do it for you now, yeah, it's so cumbersome and because as soon as I'm showing it to you, I deteriorate in uh right.
SPEAKER_01:It's like the it's the juggling at home and getting to the level where you can nail a trick versus nailing a trick on stage is like two completely different skill sets.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's right. So that's great. Getting them straight up, having all the kids sitting there for the two and a half hours at the first session, you get all of them, they have to do something or have to break that ice, and then do you keep track then of who hasn't shown something? And we just go in a circle. Yeah, but I mean in that first session, but then now you know, okay, well, there's these three kids who had nothing to show. Sure. And these are the kids who are like these are all right. Like there'll be a chunk chunk of them who goes. And they'll help the other area somewhere else. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01:And they'll help the other ones too, right? So there's ones that'll pick things up quick that I can kind of like I go, free labor. Like now I I know they'll pick up what I'm doing and they can show the two people next to them what's up. Uh and they're also just there's gonna be every year, I don't know if it happened, this might be the first year where I didn't actively have to do it, but it you'll move kids around in and out of your class from different skill levels, right? So the the that morning class is pretty much broken up by uh ability or knowledge or whatever, right? There's kids that are like still not great, that are just older that end up in in a different class. But it's fascinating to me kind of the the the habits that we have to correct that are things that I ran into as a younger person. Uh and like it all of it is such an interesting thing if you've never broken it down in that way. Like where you go, oh, you know a false transfer. Or you say you know a false transfer, okay, could you please do it? And then it's like they do something, but it there's no way it could be used in the context of what you would actually want that move for. You know, they just picked it up on YouTube or they picked it up from a teacher that doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about, which there's plenty of that in magic. And and so now we're correcting something when they're 16 that we like. I just did a survey today for Tannins where it's like, is there anything you would change? And I don't have a fix for this, but I wish that there was more of a standardized, like hey, if you're teaching in the beginner room, you know, here's a thing that we could avoid six years in the future if we nip it in the butt now. Like habits and whatever. Yeah, like um curriculum or without having to make a curriculum. Because I don't think we need that. No. No, and it's and I also say I we do goals too at the beginning of the week and the end of the week. Of like what you know, I check in on like Thursday and I go, hey, is there anything that we talked about on that first day that we haven't even touched? Like, you know, some kids uh every year one of them will be like, I want to learn hypnotism. And I go, Okay, well, you should talk to this person or whatever, and that kind of can can get rid of it. But then, but they you know, they if it's something that'll benefit the whole class, show me a stand up card trick that I can do with. With no extra gimmicks or anything that I can like borrow a deck and do five minutes in front of a crowd. It's like killer goals that some of these kids come in with. I want to be able to do cups and balls proficiently, or I want to learn a stand-up trick, or I want to write a script for a coin trick. That was a great thing that we did, right? This year it was like learn a coin trick from Suzanne on day whatever, and then come back a couple days later, and like kids had scripts. Kid had like a great thing about, you know, uh uh he had a washer and a dollar. This was fantastic. It's a trick. I did it for you yesterday, that expansion to texture thing, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. So just coin through handkerchief. Coin joins another coin and handkerchief. Great trick. But he had a washer and a half dollar, and he was like, he goes, Oh, you know, I have this script for this thing. We were walking from breakfast, and I was like, he goes, I have an idea for a script, but I don't know, it's about me and my dad and this thing, and I don't and it I didn't really know if he had any of it together, but I was like, would you just try and walk through it for you know 12 of us in class? Like, there's no pressure. If you're if you're like absolutely no, then that's fine. But I think maybe benefits just from saying it all, and we can even talk about it as a group, then must have been. He comes in, did it, knock that shit out of the park, like talking about him and his dad and their relationship and how they're a little bit different because the dad is the washer, you know, he works in the garage more and he's the half dollar. And I was like, shit, like right, making these connections that adults never make. Uh and then by the end of the week, he had like a thing that he learned, could perform proficiently, and had an original take on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. It's like crazy. So this is this is real key in. And I bonkers this is something that I uh I would maybe even say that I struggle with it in relation to the magic that I do because you're talking before about oh, this part of my show, like in magic-wise, that's weak or whatever, but that act is so strong. But I'm constantly kind of confused uh by spending so long on working on the rackets and they sort of emerging out of nowhere. Yeah. And they're like, there's this there's stuff that happens along the way, but each thing is so idiosyncratic and so uh uh uh original to me because I didn't see any of those things. It's like I bought the big rack racket that was bigger by mistake, and then I had it in my bag, and then with blah blah, and then I did the next thing. And that kind of organic process. So when I then go in and take a trick um like my invisible egg, which is not mine, which comes from uh from uh Christopher T Magician, the the book he started the the whole structure of that is is is um from him. Oh wow. And uh and and uh but I have a different uh the it's my spiel and and the stuff that I say in the end that changes is it and stuff. And but that is how so much magic is. It's like you do this and go on, okay, well, and then I introduce a real egg in the end, and I have a way of doing that, and where the beat comes, and there's a whole sit-down thing where the kid comes up to me and I talk about what you want to do with your life, kind of or whatever, and the kid may and that whole section is to me the the clincher of it, but all the comedy and everything comes like it's the set stuff that's set up, and I've added my own lines and whatever. But uh, like this thing I think makes me when I'm talking to other magicians feel like I don't have anything in a way. Like, because you go, 'Cause oh, I'm doing this trick and I've done it hundreds of times, but it isn't my material, and I'm have a different relationship towards that than I do towards some of the things that I've really eked out from scratch. And what's the like I mean, because that's uh related to teaching. You're teaching someone your routines, and you've hinted on before, you know, you don't write down all of the jokes and all of your material and in when you when you're writing down the routine. Like you might hold back on certain things or whatever. Well you're saying like for the for the public when you for instance in publishing or even when you're teaching or whatever. Like you sort of because you're teaching them how to a certain structure of it, but the what makes your routine unique to you? You don't want you want to hold back on some of those things because it also is what what makes it unique to them. So you just mentioned it. This kid now comes in, learns a magic trick at the beginning of the week, then has a talk to you, uh learns how to actually do the trick, and then starts to add his own thing on top of it. Yeah. And I guess my question is like, how much do you have to change something or so for it to be yours so that you perform it? And and then when could you lecture on those things? Or like Yeah, that's a real gray area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's tough. But I'm always fascinated by it. It's like the trick of Thessius or whatever. Yeah, but uh for me, I always got real irked out by the same thing that you're saying, where like there isn't really anything in my show where I didn't feel like, especially in the stand-up show, where I didn't feel like I put like a real mark on it, or at least you know, made it uh I guess the the qualifier for me, like with the people that I write with, is we talk about having an El is it an Elvis song? Like the Elvis never wrote any of his own songs for the most part, or ever, I don't know. Yeah, but he knew instantly, like you hear some gospel song and you go, like, I can sing that, or you hear whatever, and he goes, that's within my, you know, that's the brand. Yeah. Uh and so I think about that a lot. But there's things where I don't know what a good example is, but like the I'll tell you one that's in the show, and then one that I'm struggling with. The Velcro trick in the show is a thing that was given to me, right? So that is somebody's act that they did for 30 years and then gave to me.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you dress up in a ridiculous velcro suit and someone throws balls at you. That's that. And then it's predicted. And it's predicted, yeah. Yeah, so that's the trick part of it. But it's the it's it's it's uh it's a completely ridiculous uh predicament to get yourself in. Oh, yeah. Put that thing in. So just to sort of shape what the velcro actually is. And it's it's which is amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it, yeah. I but so I loved it when I was a kid. I got to know it's Chris Kenner's trick, and so I got to know Chris, and then over years, blah blah blah, Chris retired from doing the stage show and then gave me that. And so it's cool that I get to do it. But I when he was giving it to me, he was like, Do you want he goes, Homer can rip all the footage of me doing it, and you'll have like you can learn the jokes or whatever. And I asked to not do that in the initial stages. I actually still don't have the footage, it's been years. I should probably get it just for the archives or whatever, but but I purposefully didn't want to just take the structure that he had put out, right? And so there's one joke in there that's in his original routine. Because you remembered it from when you were a kid and I was like, I can't like it's so fucking perfect. Uh but then the rest of it is all kind of that's all been evolution of like what do you do with these props put in front of you? How do you it was cool because it it took a while to develop it too, right? It was like I put it in the show to do it, I think my first Disney contract or something, first Disney Cruise line thing I started doing the Velcro because I needed more time. How long was that? I have no idea. I haven't done one since it was years before the pandemic, and I haven't done one since. So it's a decade almost or something. Yeah, it could be maybe it's seven or eight years or something. Um but I it's gotta be eight years. But um yeah, now I feel like it has really become its own thing. We just taped it at that at a thing in LA, and it was I looked at it and I was like, damn, there's a lot of jokes in there. Yeah. Like we really it feels it feels like I came up with a enough of a thing to not be embarrassed by I think initially some of it too was like magicians were shitty to me because he gave me that act. And so I got a lot of flack for like, well, it's you know, Nick is getting these little successes because he was given somebody's you know, give somebody your show, you could just if Captain Frodo gives somebody the rackets routine, they could be successful.
SPEAKER_02:But but that is in a sense though what people do with their books as well. Like you do so, but but of course, I mean some people will also just be shitty just in general. So like you can't please everybody all the time, and sometimes you go to a convention and all those people are there at the same time that you can't please.
SPEAKER_01:Some of the most successful people in magic are people doing stolen and copied material that's not even close to what I'm trying to do with something like the Velcro, where it's like, I love that I took this piece from the late 80s, you know, that I remember seeing the late 90s, early 2000s, and then turn it into something new and modern and have jokes and whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Not that it was was dated or anything, but I don't know, but it but you're also making it your you're uh when you're updating it, you're also just updating when you're taking an old routine or an old trick is also to make it relevant to you now. Right. Like, I mean there might be a world where you are doing a routine as it is because you think that's like funny or whatever, sure. But most of the time for it to read authentic and for it to be funny, which then it need you need to put your own stamp on it. I think so. Which is why it's so important, like when the kid goes, I'm gonna say these things, and then you go, actually, more important than whether you have the right script written down. Yeah the fact that you are even going into this territory as somebody who is less than 20 and you're already doing these things, yeah, is already putting you on the path to being one of the guys that will be on the bill later on. At some point, we are in some convention or we're at uh doing a gig and you're on the program, and I'm also on the program.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. And we're getting, I mean, I feel like I've run into that a lot more now. We're like, and I'm booking campers to like work on stuff, you know. Like one of them was working for Mac for a minute and worked for me at that taping in LA, and then now he works at Tannins and does all this. It's like you they're crushing it. Like but it's because they were ahead of the pack in getting into it. Like, I don't think I would have any sort of like I don't think I would have the same base knowledge or interest if I didn't get into it when I was like six. Right. It's just a it that's a given. It's like you go into that crazy sponge phase and then uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well it's like Roman says, is like, you know, I am 78 years old. I got into magic when I was six. So I basically wasted the first six years of my life. Right.
SPEAKER_01:And as a as a father, he was a really great magician. I think according to great tricks for his kids. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But um yeah, so uh we left off of no, so I'm good just going back to Migo and just using that routine of the invisible egg, which comes from his wonderful book called Beyond Look Don't See. Uh and and that's like that's one of those things that I keep thinking when I'm then going, okay, so I'm gonna buy this magic book now. It's uh 125 bucks or whatever. Wow. Oh no, no, no, no, not that one, but you and me at the magic store and I'm going, oh, I'm buying this magic book is oh, it's really cheap, it's fifty dollars. Or this magic book, uh Steinmeier Illusion book is like 150 bucks or whatever. And but the one time when I buy that book and that becomes uh and there's one trick in there now that is gives me six and a half minutes of solid stage stuff with my jokes and with and the structure, then it it's worth spending any kind of money on those things. And books have so much in them. Yes, you buy one and you read it all. But but uh but the fact that it is in the book too, you're talking about getting this act and you don't want to see the video and get the jokes. But the fact that you read the book, I've never actually seen this guy do a show. So um so I don't know anything about this person, and I've had that previously where I have gone, oh this is cool, from this book, and someone else going like, oh, I don't know about that guy. Yeah. And I'm going, well, I don't know about that guy either. But is it this book is good? This is a is a this this is making sense to me. So maybe they aren't an awesome performer, but they are an awesome writer. We've talked about that before. But anyway, the translation process of me reading the trick and then getting up and trying to do it, and I've had this, I knew about that trick and I thought about it, and we've talked about it before. I had the raising tie for another routine, a necktie that can go up and down when you want it. So I was using that for something else. Then I read that book, left it behind, and remembered the routine about the invisible egg, and it was someone's birthday, and uh Mario Queen of the Circus goes, Can you do some magic for the kids? Yeah. And uh I was like, Oh, I should do that thing. And then I did a version of that thing and then couldn't remember all the stuff because I didn't have the book with me, so it sort of evolved, and then I went back and read it again and went, oh, that's good stuff. But it's all this sort of translational process, and now it is uncertain in my mind what was in the book and what uh what is new for me. But there's a part of me that feels like, oh, it's probably nothing, basically. It's just what's in the book. But I know that there's more of them all of that. So that's just where I'm going. Like, we're like I could because I can't quite shake it then, that you're sort of having this, ah, but maybe that just has to do with a certain kind of confidence or with an understanding of that material, because I know that is also the the norm, and it is partly what I like so much about magic too. It's that we then you end up with with this routine, and then you go, well, I don't like this bit, and then you can have a talk with someone, or you can go through your books and you can find what are other ways for a handkerchief to disappear, or okay, well, if you can't do the twirl vanish of the ball and the thing, but I'm teaching my daughter, what is something that can do, and then you can substitute, and then that thing is already starting to put your own spin on that act. And I mean, I'm guessing uh I don't have a specific question, but it's just that struggle of wanting to know like when when are you okay to share it with another magician that won't just go, oh okay, well that's uh Well then there's like guys derivative.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Which that's always been I mean it was drilled into me as a kid, I think. So I think I I have this weird, like I have a ton of weird shit for a magician, right? I don't do any card tricks in the show. I've always been like uh, you know, very whatever. I've always been really cautious about the material that actually makes it into the act, like I would hope anybody is, but I always got really uh somebody would teach me a trick, and then it's like, I gotta make it different. I gotta go, it's gotta be, you know, I change the prop or change the whatever, it gotta be original. Then there's an Al Baker quote about like I'm gonna mess it all up. I wish I was better rested, and I remember this quote because it's phenomenal. But like uh he talks about being different isn't always it's never almost, you know, it's not that's not being better. You're not improving a thing by turning it into a cup instead of a bowl or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when you look at there's guys like Jared Kopf, where if you just said Jared Kopf is doing cups and balls and linking rings and some card stuff, and talk about it in that way, you'd be so fucking wrong that it's offensive. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Like you've seen because you think as when you go, okay, he's doing the linking rings and uh and uh cups and balls, then you think you have the measure of them because like you go, the kids say, I thought I knew the balls, and then I saw her do it. Sure. The cups and balls, I mean. And then that's the same with Jared when I saw him when he was doing it, which from what I understood was not necessarily his finest thing, but I was blown away. That's what he said.
SPEAKER_01:That was his own words, just to clarify. I believe there was a joking about it. Yeah, he goes, There's uh one ball under the cup, now there's two. Anyways, here's some oranges. It was like uh and I've seen him do their routine 40 times.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But but yes, but he he was nailing it before he had even gotten any balls under those cups. So that's so that's of course the thing where you go, where I sometimes have said that about like going, oh, so what do you do, or whatever? Like, oh well, it's it's a band. What's the band? Yeah, but one place the guitar and one place the bass and one place the drums, and uh, and uh and you're like, but that's every band, yet it's uh but anyway, but it's constraint though, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's it's putting constraints on what you're doing and making active decisions, and so I now I'm like so okay, this is a good example. So I'm struggling with I'm teaching, I'm I'm putting out a booklet on a technique, right? Yeah, so I uh it's a center tear.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know how openly you talk on here about magic stuff, but like I I can talk as openly as anyone because there's only industry people on that list.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. No one that goes to a psychic that thinks they're gonna that's like that's why that bitch is a good thing.
SPEAKER_02:It won't push anyone's dreams. I mean based on what's available on YouTube on magic, you've got like having a verbal description of a method that exists. Yeah, but anyway, so it's very exciting. You're publishing a new uh booklet for talents.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that so it's super cool. I'm excited about it. It's a technique that I came up with for me that I didn't know if anybody else would ever benefit from, showed it to some people, they dig it. Now a lot of people like it, and we're doing it as a book to teach it.
SPEAKER_02:But Teller likes it. What's that? Holy goddamn teller likes it. Holy goddamn, Teller likes it. It's gonna be on the uh printed on the top part of the book, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:I if I want to pay rent, I'm kidding. Yeah, so like, you know, it it it uh uh so people don't look to me as like the center tear guy. Yeah, right. Because you don't do really not a mental mentalist.
SPEAKER_02:No, anyway, don't really do mentalism in your uh I mean I guess your sports balls is well clown gag to mentalism level. But but yeah, yeah, you're not known as the Max Maven of Comedy Magic.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no. I almost said something much worse there. But the who I am of comedy magic. I've made many jokes about that. Uh but so the um but so it's a weird thing, right? Where I'm going, I'm not selling you the song, I'm not selling you the Elvis song. I'm selling you a tool. I'm selling, let's take that word out. I'm teaching you a thing. Yeah, yeah. And the hope is that you have the attitude and the thinking behind what you know, you know why you want this technique if you're gonna use it. So SantaRe, it's a means of obtaining information to then reveal back to somebody in a secret means, right? Secret way, whatever, whatever. Uh so they write something down, it gets shredded and burned, and then you read their mind or whatever. Uh but so there's been a million approaches to this thing. I just had to have this discussion again today with somebody who's a mentalist who was like, I don't know what people will think, you know, because it is out of my norm. And I use a center tear in a trick in the show. But a lot of people wouldn't even uh call it a mental. If you read the reviews from the show I was doing in Pittsburgh, it's like Benny smelled a woman's bottle of antidepressants and told us when they expired. You know, these aren't thing so I've got the song that I do with this tool. But so I'm I'm teaching you how to use a saxophone, not even play it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's right. In this pamphlet, that's what you're doing. But then with that uh picture in mind of music, I would say that then your uh book, off beat, there you have songs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there I'm giving you my attitude, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you're given like you're like but just sticking with that thing now, you're giving them a way to play whatever instrument you're doing. If you do it in this way, and that center tech could be could be that for you. But that your other book, offbeat, and the most magic books, or a lot of magic books have at least that element that they have full routines. They will say 12 full routines and a bunch of slides and two essays or whatever, which is like basically your your book as well. It's a bit like that. You sort of go, here's my routines, which is often then arguably the meat and potatoes of the book. It's like in in a magic lecture or in a song. You want some sort of thing that you go, okay, this is the real deal here. Now you have a whole five-minute thing you can do or whatever. And then so those are if you can think of those as songs, and if you then think of how many musicians there are who are not the writers of music, just thinking Elvis just using that same thing. And then that way, also now talking to myself here, because not all of these things have I developed myself. Like my change bag thing, for as much as I have developed everything in that routine, and I am getting 13 minutes out of a change bag and one piece of rope, apparently. Yeah, like uh uh it's still not something that I'm like, oh this this is something that I got to share with the world. Yet all of those beats of how I got a sewing thread between two of them to illustrate that one piece is missing, right? It doesn't make any sense, but the kids and the families and in the show, it works so great. And that's then my own take of it. But then somehow I feel like that's a more original routine because it wasn't inspired by anyone yet. When I then take that song out of someone else's book and play it in my own way, so that there's no one like you can't tell that that's somebody else's routine when I do it. Yeah, it looks like it's like this is just something that it makes complete sense to me. But how many books have I read of magic and how few routines have I actually lifted? And how many songs did Elvis hear? And you know, yeah, and maybe the Elvis thing is a bad example.
SPEAKER_01:So for the first time I will say uh This is the thing that's in my note with Elvis. We don't have to credit ourselves with Elvis. Well, speak for your fucking self. I mean, they both like the wrestle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And they do have a Velvet Elvis on the four-foot velvet elvision. You do have a big picture of Elvis on your wall.
SPEAKER_00:So and uh strand of his hair. Or no, that's uh no, that is a strand of his hair.
SPEAKER_01:I have a s a piece of a concert, last worn concert uh scarf in my road case. But other than that, I don't equate myself. I also shoot stuff. But uh no, so the the the the analogy that I use in my that I've had to put in my notebook, I've never vocalized this, but it's interesting, is I need to be more willing to take other works and turn them into something. Like that the sanitizer routine, right? Yeah, I had to I kind of had to start with like a pre-existing trick. I'm not gonna design a methodology for knowing three numbers. And it felt dirty like buying a product or a booklet and learning a thing, and like how much am I changing this? Obviously, changing it a lot. It's it's its own beast. But so my thought was, and I'm a lot of really shitty books have been turned into great movies, and that's the thing that I keep thinking about. Like, there are people that buy, you know, there's so many famous screenplays that are like kind of subpar books, yeah. And not even that they need to be bad, but like, but the idea that that's a possibility is interesting to me, right? I buy these booklets from the 40s, these like magic ink booklets, and you read a trick in there, and it takes a page to explain not only what the effect is, but the materials preparation and all the sequencing. You know, it's like it's all explained in 200 words, 300 words, and it's like kind of reads crappy, but then I know I could take that thing and like you know, duct tape it to the back of a disposable camera, and now it's a pretty good trick or whatever, and do it in my own way. Yeah. Like there's there's tons of things like that, little simplistic things that that you would never think would be a stage piece, but but also but but uh I think that there's and not even in the like steal like an artist sense, right? Or any of that kind of more trendy stuff. I think that there's just a lineage in the arts of okay, so there's a routine that I love and the guy was dead before I was born, but I'm friends with somebody who was friends with him when he was in his 90s, and it's this juggling thing. And I was like, somebody should do that, and he's like, Yeah, you should do that. You should because you would never do it the same way he did it, it wouldn't even be recognizable. And he's like, No one's doing it. He didn't he taught some other stuff of his, but he never like you know, didn't pass the mantle of it on to you, but also like it's a juggling thing that you would do so differently that if the guy was still alive, he would probably be thrilled that you even gave a shit enough about this thing to want to do some form of it or keep some form of it alive.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh and so I struggle with a lot of that stuff. I do too, yeah. It's tough. And also, I'm like, if I was dead, what would I think?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I probably told me to be a good one.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, and even when I'm alive, yeah, that's now I'm a born. I was talking about this, like, even if I somebody was doing my rackets and I taught it to do for someone, yeah, we would not really be in competition. Because a lot of those gigs that would call me to get me to do it, yeah. And I know that because I did that for a very short period with uh Brett Pfister. Oh wow, I didn't realize that. So he has done my act. That's crazy. I can't remember, maybe only ten times or something. Ah funny. But for audiences, but we practiced it and did it, and he did, and the idea was that he was gonna but then so this is so long ago that then he was asked to come to Vegas, so it's before he came here. Funny. So I was getting a lot of corporate gigs in the UK, and I had to fly from Australia to do them, and it just was killing me. And he we'd spoken about it, and then so that was kind of the first actual comedy act that he did. Wow. And then he went on to develop his whole sort of yeah, his whole thing, which was great. But uh that's wild. But I know from that time that it is not an easy sell to say, hey, I have somebody else to do my act.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure some people I know that do that. Yeah. Uh I have a friend that's struggling with it, I think, or I think it's been tougher than expected. To sell the to be like, yeah, to be like, it's okay, it's the show. Yeah. You know, he's doing the show, and it's the same fun that we would have if I was there. But it's like people know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and but it's also like it's so But so that was just to go so we we both agree it is not an easy thing to say, hey, there's another guy doing mine now, so you can get him, because they don't particularly want that. So my bottom line is there, even if I taught it with my blessing and I tried to sell it in, we would not be in any kind of competition with about the same gigs. Because those people who know about me who want who have any reason to connect me to it, uh then they would uh it would be difficult. So in that sense, me and that person who did it wouldn't be particularly in competition for gigs, because they would be getting a different kind of gig. Yeah. At whatever state they're in or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:It is a different level though, where that that level to me is something that like before I was in a position that's similar where we're like, when people call us, they're asking for us, right? Not to loop myself into that, but like, yeah, you know, I don't think I get booked for a lot of stuff where they just want a magician.
SPEAKER_02:No, they can pick a guy that hits like it's a much harder to squeeze through a racket and they say, hey, we only have a hundred bucks, right? Then I'm going, well, that's great. And they go, well, we have people who can do it for that. And then great. Well, then you should get them, because I'm not the guy that's standing in the corner and doing that. I need it to be different. So then you're not after me. And I rarely get those calls though.
SPEAKER_01:Not anymore. But for a minute, I'm sure you dealt with plenty of that shit. And so what I'm I guess what I'm getting at is like that is a the idea of it not being competition is totally a thing at a certain level. But I think prior to that level, like if I go, okay, I'm gonna teach somebody, I'm gonna be cool with somebody else doing whatever, just like the ring as an example. I'm cool with him doing it, but if it's that we both work in Minnesota working in a different market than what I work in now, then it's an issue. Yeah, I think. But if it's like then it's not Blue Man group. Like I think Daredevil Chicken has gotten it so fucking right, right? Like they've had how many couples do the act, do the bananas, and like really crush? Like a bunch. Oh, I don't know. A handful of different shows. Like they've you know, I feel like they've been able to have the kind of blue man thing work where they don't I didn't know that they had the people spitting bananas. Oh yeah. I've in different spiegel shows. Oh, and so to me, well they have here in the past, yeah. And so that was that was in my head always the example because I saw it. I remember seeing them, and then one night I was like, oh, if that's not them, you know, I was yeah apparently younger and dumber, but I was like, wow, that you know, that's a thing.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. There are people who license their acts here and all that, but I guess what I'm was I what I was aiming at there was also Yeah, I'm probably talking on the whole thing. No, no, no, but uh no, because we're talking about the same thing. But I was I I was also thinking that it's in forms of if I wrote my act down, yeah, and people would read it and read all of the details, all of the thinking that goes in with it, then this is good because of that. And this is this this is what this act part of the act does. And then you hope that someone not just gonna go do the whole thing as it is, but even if they do, I don't know how much of a competition we're actually in and how bad it would be for the general thing. If you're like the TV or you're doing that sort of stuff and they're they're famous or whatever, then that's one thing. But we see it with magicians, where the fact that uh Jared Kaufkin do the cups and balls and the rings, and and Marlon Nilsen as well does the cups and the rings. Yep. And Marlon is totally awesome, and so is Jared. Different shows. And it but and you know, if you're putting them on a bill, you don't particularly want to put them in the same show with those tricks, but then you go, okay, he would do that, and she would do this, or you could because you don't want necessarily repetition within the one show. Right. But that is unbelievably rare that it would happen.
SPEAKER_01:So you you sketch that out, but but um and that's every discipline, I feel like. If you've got I mean, if you uh I guess there's but jugglers as well, like situations where you're booking two jugglers on a show, yeah, or two magicians or so, unless it's a magic show and then uh like it's or a juggling show.
SPEAKER_02:But even then, you go, well, you want one guy to do the Diablo, you don't want five Diabloists, right? Like that's like well, whatever. So you you want variety in in the show. But I guess my point is also like for all the people who make a good uh living as a hobbyist or as a professional, and they're doing the colouring book and they're doing The Professor's Nightmare, like it isn't it it still baffles me the fact that we go, oh, here's this one, this old thing. Right, and then you go out for the general public and you are the first magician they have ever seen live. And it happens every show to how big of a percentage? Right. Like, I mean the majority? The majority of it. It's like 70, 80 percent of the people who are there, if even more, I see in a magician for the first time when you're in Minnesota at a family event for uh whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Run into people that have never been to a live show. I'm always shocked by that. You go on the road and you talk to somebody at a comedy club or whatever, and they're like, oh my god, this is great. Like, I've never been to a show before. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, we cut that conversation short so that but fear not, fear not. Nick DeFat will be back next episode uh coming up, and we continue on talking about these things, and he's got so many great insights, just an all-round good guy, and I'm so happy to uh count him amongst my friends and have him here on the podcast repeatedly. So until next time, take care of yourself and all of those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.