A few months ago I was performing at an event with Ky Dobson and his Wagon of Whimsy. This is a pedal tractor that pulls a wagon that’s got a buttons that do all sorts of funny things, and he tells jokes and does magic and juggling. Ky is a trained clown, and very personable.
He wanted a something to do with an egg that was dinosaur related. This is what we came up with:
Ky had some dinosaur parts and for me the obvious thing was using the dinosaur head like Bob Farmer’s Little Hand trick. It’s a fun simple little trick that was getting great reactions from the kids!
I love magic history, and learning where things I did come from. I’m still working through the JP Vallarino book and got to Vallarino’s Ambitious Card routine.
In it he mentions the first place that the Ambitious Card was publish. It was in a french book called Recueil de Tours de Physique Amusante. That title sounded familiar, so I went to my bookshelf and I have that book!
Unfortunately I can’t read french, so I can’t confirm it’s in there. It was cool to be reminded of a bit of history that lived on my shelf!
Recently I was hanging out with some magicians working on some new magic and someone looked up and saw the cards on the ceiling and wondered who put them there.
I immediately knew, it was Cliff!!
In the 1990’s I met Cliff Gustafson, he was a Seattle magician who worked a lot of bars in the Seattle area. It feels like he worked 1-2 bars a night seven nights a week! He stood out, he wore a tuxedo with a bowtie and everyone knew him!
Cliff wasn’t the best technical or original magician in the world, don’t get me wrong, all the tricks he did were solid! What he excelled at the hardest part of performing magic, he was likable! When you watched Cliff perform, you instantly liked him!
Cliff was always really cool to me, and you can watch a short documentary about him that has some clips of him performing at: robhanna.com
Cliff passed away in 2016, and Seattle lost it’s hardest working magician!
I don’t know if Ricky Jay ever really published a book on the material he performed. It appears he published mostly historical stuff, and not so much technical “how to” material.
Here’s a notecard that I came across where Ricky Jay explains a cup and ball style routine that he did on the Mike Douglas show:
I did some internet searching and couldn’t find video of this appearance, if you have it, I’d love to see it!
One thing that really annoys me with magicians is when they post on social media that, “someone should make a…” and they list a prop that they’d like. Usually the prop is pretty specific and probably doesn’t have a wide appeal and that’s why no one has mass produced it. Sometimes it’s a good idea that has mass appeal, but that’s the rarity.
My response when I see that is usually, “Why don’t you make it?” and I usually never get a meaningful response. That tells me that those people are lazy and really don’t want the prop. I’ve personally invested tons of time and money into ideas that I’ve had because I wanted the magic prop to become a reality.
A year ago my buddy Matt had his first kid and I wanted to get a baby book for them. I wanted to get a fun, faux kids book for him to read to the baby about conspiracy theories, but unfortunately no one had written one and it didn’t exist. The lack of something I wanted prompted us to write that book!
This book has a different conspiracy theory for each alphabet letter and an rhyming description of what the conspiracy theory is. It took about a year to write and work with the illustrator from when we started writing to today when the book is officially available for sale!
The easiest way to get one is on Amazon, however I will have a limited number of hardbacked books that will be autographed by Matt and me. You can order them direct here and get free USA shipping:
C is for Conspiracy: The ABC’s of Conspiracy Theories $25
If there’s something you want to exist, put the time in and make it a reality!
In this episode we welcome in magician Jason Andrews. We talk about how growing up as a kid in Las Vegas gave him access to magic shows and how he was able to get a scholarship to magic camp.
He explains what it’s like competing in magic competitions and how he once competed against Louie. We learn about his career in magic and how he made the decision during the pandemic to give it up and follow a different passion. The best interview with a magician turned pilot to date.
One thing that drives me nuts is how performers use and treat the US flag in their show. I’m not the most patriotic person in the world, however one thing that stuck with me from school as a kid is when we learned about the US Flag Code. The Flag Code are rules that define the US flag, but also how to display and handle it. Once you learn it, you’ll see violations everywhere from flags hung backwards at the grocery store, to displayed on vehicles wrong (FYI, flying it from the middle of the tailgate of your pickup truck is incorrect).
Now let’s get to performers using flags. If you do the bag you put silks into and then that turns into the flag, technically you’re violating:
§ 8 (h) The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.
However using the flag as a receptacle isn’t seen to the audience, but does that make it right?
If you do mismade flag, its it neatly folded before you load it into the change bag, or do you stuff it in there? And then at the end of the trick, what do you do with the flag? If you put it in your case, do you make sure no other props get set on it?
A few months ago I worked with a band who had a flag hung from their singer’s mic stand.
Unfortunately the flag is hung upside down! This is a big NO NO for hanging the flag. There’s a very specific reason to hand a flag upside down and it is: § 8 (a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
If you use a US flag in your show, you should read and know the US Flag Code and follow it!
I do a card trick that I call “choices” where the audience narrows down cards by eliminating them until there is one card left and that matched a prediction that I have made. The overall presentation is about me making bad choices in life, and honestly from a presentation standpoint doesn’t need to be a card trick, it could literally be anything that’s narrowed down.
Since it doesn’t need to be playing cards, I was trying to think of what I could replace them with and decided to use postcards.
By switching props from jumbo cards to slightly smaller postcards I can add an additional way to show the postcards all to be different. I should note this routine at its bones is essentially Al Koran’s 5 Star Miracle. One of the things that I added to the postcards was to cut them short, so I can do a riffle display to show them all different.
This little bit allows me to show them a bit more freely. The postcards are soo visually different that if I spread them all in a face, I think the repeating pattern would be more obvious than with playing cards.
Now I need to make a choice and figure out if I want to keep the presentation as is, or try to write something new.
If you know me, you know I don’t believe the theory that you should do classic magic tricks because, “classics are classics for a reason“. You should do classic tricks like linking rings or whatever because they have a purpose in your show.
I do believe that as a beginner, learning and doing those trick has a purpose. However as you grow, you should grow out of them, or create a reason why they’re in your show.
Audiences are smart, and contrary to a lot of “advice” many have seen a lot of magic on TV and social media. With shows like Fool Us and America’s Got Talent, your typical audience has seen stuff and you just banging out the linking rings because “it gets a reaction” doesn’t cut it anymore.
If you’re doing a classic, figure out how to give it purpose in your show to move the story of you further and not because it fills time.
One of the holiday parties I did this month was a HUGE event with 1,600 people. One thing the event planner didn’t give me was any sort of credentials to get in and out of the building once the event started. I honestly didn’t think about it until after my roving set and I was going to move that gear and clothes to my car to make packing out after the show quicker.
Luckily the green room was for all the “vendors” and I happened to be chatting with someone from the security company. I asked if the security at the parking lot door would let me back in and he said no. His suggestion was to call the event planner and ask for a lanyard. With the event underway and an event this large (it took up two floors of the convention center!) they last thing I want to do is bug the event planner for a lanyard/badge. They’re probably dealing with a lot of problems, like catering issues or whatever.
Here’s the solution I came up with. I learned that the security company was all retired cops and they all knew each other. I took a picture with the guy I was chatting with and got his name and number.
When I tired to get back into the building I was stopped by security how pressed me about me not having a lanyard with a badge. I showed them the picture and told them to call Jeff and he’d vouch for me. As soon as they saw the picture, they let me in!
Sure, asking the event planner for a badge is 100% reasonable. However I try to be easy to work with and minor problems myself. That’s a big secret to success in entertainment, be easy to work!
