Why Jrod Illusion is an A-hole

Sometimes “working” magicians are pieces of sh*t. I posted a video of a trick with bills on TikTok, and Joe Rodiguez (Jrod Illusions) decides to post how he thinks it works. That’s part of TikTok’s game with magic videos for amateur magicians and I understand that and am OK with that. But when a supposed working magician exposes stuff, it’s makes me want to post on all of their videos how they do stuff. I won’t because that gives them engagement, which is TikTok gold.

OK, so here’s the video:

@louiefoxx The Eighty Dollar Trick! #magictrick #money #twenty #magic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Ok, you’ve seen the video, now here’s his comment:

Joe Rodiguez (Jrod Illusions)

Here’s the problem with his comment…he’s 100% wrong. Like a beginner magician should know there are no magnets involved in the trick…and he calls himself a professional. It really makes me wonder about the quality of the material of his show based on the lack of knowledge displayed in that comment. While I haven’t seen his show, I would suspect it’s pretty much garbage tricks done poorly by someone who doesn’t understand magic. I could be wrong, and that’s just my opinion.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Joe Rodiguez (Jrod Illusions).

-Louie

Money Across

In playing with the fake “Movie Money” another trick I wanted to do was something like a card across where a selected bill travels from one packet to another.

This is the solution that I came up with:

@louiefoxx The $400 magic trick! #magictrick #money #moneymagic #trick #400 #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I like how this trick turned out, it’s got a less packet trick feel to it that many of these other tricks do. I think it feels very similar to Phil Goldstein’s Shinkansen, but has a different method.

-Louie

Interactive Virtual Shows…

The other day I paid $15 to watch someone’s virtual magic show. It was interesting to see what other people think “interactive” means. I was disappointed that the guy that I watched and what he thought interactive meant.

He did a lot of do as I do tricks where when you follow the instructions you end up finding you own card sort of things. In my opinion you can only do one of this type of trick before it gets old. The dealing of cards is gives away the method as procedure if you do it more than once. The other problem with doing many of this type of trick is that if you don’t have a deck of cards, or only one deck and multiple people, you’ll probably be bored as YOU can’t do the trick in your own hands.

The bigger issue I had with how he interacted was that when he used people in the Zoom meeting room, their function was to simply pick a card and that was it. He never talked to them and to me, it really didn’t seem like he gave a sh*t about them. They simply said stop while he was dealing and that’s it.

Here’s a clip of a new bit from my show after I’ve introduced my producer, she’s waved at the audience and I’m explaining what her role in the show is:

At the end of the clip, you’ll see I’m talking to someone in the audience, without unmuting them. I’m engaging them and talking individual people in the audience. This is more than just when I’m specifically someone to help in a trick. I think this gives more of a live show feel, I can talk directly to or about people. It makes the show less of a poorly produced TV show and puts it into its own “live show” category.

In your virtual shows, look at how you are interacting with people, are they simply a prop or are you living a moment with them?