Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 268 - Justin Willman

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

This week Justin Willman joins us at the table! It's magical! Justin shares how he got his start in magic after breaking both his arms, how he builds out his tricks, and reveals if he plants audience members. Enjoy! Check out Justin's new Netflix special, Magic Lover - out now! Text PAPA to 64000 to get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. ButcherBox is offering our listeners $20 off their first box and free protein for a year. Go to ButcherBox.com/papa to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. -------------------------- 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:10 Patreon Shoutout 0:01:40 Welcome & First meeting 0:03:40 The Wilman black tee 0:05:35 Justin's new special 0:10:10 Debunking tricks and plants 0:12:12 Starting magic at 12 after breaking both arms 0:19:02 Starting young & Kings of Comedy 0:21:20 Overhearing magician hurting bird after bad set 0:23:48 Learning about human behavior from deceiving humans 0:28:54 Getting stumped 0:29:34 Magician influences 0:32:53 Rising up with comedians 0:35:14 IQ Bar Ad 0:38:07 Butcher Box Ad 0:40:34 Magic history 0:42:49 Traumatic kids bday party bird experience 0:44:30 Rabbits 0:47:48 Uncomfortable moment 0:54:00 Magic Castle 0:56:26 Coming up with a new hour 0:57:38 Lucky playing card trick 0:59:42 First magic Netflix special and showing the audience -------------------------- Tom Papa is a celebrated stand-up comedian with over 20 years in the industry. Watch Tom's new special "Home Free" out NOW on Netflix! Patreon - Patreon.com/BreakingBreadwithTomPapa Radio, Podcasts and more: https://linktr.ee/tompapa/ Website - http://tompapa.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tompapa Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tompapa Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/comediantompapa Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/tompapa #tompapa #breakingbread #comedy #standup #standupcomedy #bread #justinwillman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Pohiiiiiiiiiiiiii You're doing A birthday party in Burbank And in the back yard, beautiful day, made the bird appear. A little, little gust of wind. And the bird flapped and flew. I thought the bird, thought the bird knew what the deal was, not to fly. But it flew up into a tree and it's just chilling in this tree. And I'm trying to act like

that's normal. Behold, you know. And thinking that the bird would eventually try to fly again and get tired because he doesn't do this a lot. And kind of spiral back to. Back home. Yeah, because I did have another show to go to. And I'm going through the act. And I'm going through the act, bird's still in the tree, I make the bunny appear, all the kids are petting the bunny, and I'm kind of like, you know, I gotta, all right. So I tell the parents I'm going to come back after this show, and if you guys have a ladder, I'll climb the tree,

and I'll try to kind of prod him down. Yeah. And I came back a couple hours later, and they answered the door, not as excited to see me. They told me that right after I left, as they're singing happy birthday, a hawk flew in and ate the bird in front of the chipper. Yeah.

It's like, It's Breaking Bread. Hey, everybody. A great way to support the podcast and all of the crazy stuff we do around here is to join us at Patreon. Patreon.com. Look up Breaking Bread with Tom Papa

and you will have access to hanging with us when everything is over at our after show. You'll also get bonus episodes, stuff from the road, lots of cool stuff. Go over to patreon.com. We think you should join up because then we can talk more when all of this is over.

So great to see you. Good to see you. Did we do a gig in Vegas? Yeah, we passed like ships in the night and a gig in Vegas for what... Some corporation. What shady industry. Oh, no, it was booze. It was...

It was whiskey or it was big whiskey. Big whiskey. I think it was big whiskey. Big scotch. Okay. They were distributors of some things. Right. And we, I think you did an all-day part of it.

Right. I did a little in the evening and we high-fived in the hallway. Yeah, we high-fived in the hallway. Yeah, good times. That's right. In the Venetian, I think, where you have to walk forever. Yeah, right, exactly. It's like, yeah, or, yeah, one of those.

Palazzo. Yeah. Yeah. But I was thinking about it last night as I was watching your special, which is great. Thank you. We'll talk all about it. But I was thinking, I was like, why didn't we hang out that night? But I,

been working all day and had to leave in the morning. And you were coming in to do like the closer set. And yeah, but I would have liked to have hung out. I would have liked that as well. Yeah. We should hang out sometime. We should, I think, maybe do a podcast. Maybe.

That would be cool. You should do my podcast. You have a podcast? I do, yeah. Does it involve bread? Yeah, I bake bread for all of the guests. I bake it at my house. That's real.

Touch it. Yeah, it feels. It's kind of warm, right? Yeah? Yeah. Oh, it just came out. Oh, it is warm. I know.

Wow. You're welcome. You must live close. I do. I do. We did a charity event in St. Louis, too, several years prior for Barnes Jewish Hospital. That's my hometown.

Right. You crushed it. My parents were there at the show. And my dad, it might have been the hardest I've ever seen him laugh. Really? No joke. That's great. He was just, like, as if he'd never,

like, as if it was a borderline medical issue. He was laughing so hard. I was like, you okay, Dad? Like, he was convulsing. That's awesome. Yeah, it was great. And in, tell him, I say hello. I will.

And as a tribute, I wore the, uh, the Wilman special outfit. The black tea. Uh, yeah, you know, uh, Obama had a closet full of the same suit. Yeah. So we didn't have to have decision fatigue about what to wear. He did too? I swear I hear it attributed to Obama. I didn't know that he did that.

I remember Einstein did it. Napoleon probably did it. Probably. A uniform. A uniform. Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs definitely. Long sleeve mock turtle neck, you know.

I was thinking like jumpsuit, like just go all jump, like a bunch of jumpsuits. I don't like thinking about what to wear. I don't either. I go back and forth, but. But you know, I find myself now going in my closet, stressing about which black t-shirt to wear. Like some are newer than others. Some have the, oh, that little grease spot, that mysterious grease spot.

What the hell is that? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. It's just ruined forever. Or it's a little stretchy. Oh, yeah. My daughter's pulling the new one. Yeah, you know, so you're screwed.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's, do you wear this all the time everywhere? I, more often than not. Not, not by, sometimes I mix it up. Gray. Yeah. It's not good in the summer because you get all sweaty.

It's very revealing. Yeah. Heather Gray. She's a tattletail. Do you purposely not wear sleeves because people, the magic thing? There's something up your sleeve. And did the old-timey magicians in? put things up their sleeves.

Yeah. Sleeves are helpful in our trade, for sure. When I do wear a jacket, and I do, I roll the sleeves up, mostly I just feel a little constrained if I don't. But I think the sleeves down and just people's heads go to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking that last night, I'm like, yeah, I wonder if he does no sleeves intentionally because you put all your things in your pants.

Yeah. Yeah. A pants guy. A magician. Yeah. How long do it take to shoot this special? Because I've shot specials, and I just have to get up there and just talk straight. And as long as I'm done, I'm done.

But you have different things you have to reset. You're moving. There's like a lot of stuff going on. I'm moving. How long did it take? Well, to actually shoot it, we shot it over two nights in St. Paul at the Fitzgerald Theater. Love that theater. Love that theater.

It's a great one. It's where Garrison Keeler would do. very home. Good acoustics, I would imagine. I, you know, but I got there like two or three days ahead of time because it was just a lot of, you know,

with just, I think there's maybe six or seven different like looks, you know, in the show over the course of it. Versus just one, so I had to make sure all that felt good. And your angles, because you do some stuff that's close up, so you have to come up, when you went off to the side,

and then you have a screen. up the screen flying in yeah yeah but it was about a good you know year and a half of tunnel vision leading up to that just to figure out how to make the people on their couch enjoy it like the people do yeah when they're in the theater it's it's different with magic because there's just so much to get in your way of being amazed on the couch yeah yeah i know it's uh you do a really good job of There's not a, it feels, you feel very present in the tricks. In the, in the, do you call them tricks? I call them tricks.

You feel very present in it. Like, it's not like you're watching somebody just thrilling an audience that you're not a part of. Right. Right. And, and, you know, the picking of people, because I'm putting a lot of faith in these people that I kind of shooting from the hip just randomly call up there. I mean, they're, they're, you know, she's now the girl for this trick. Right. She's going to help me immortalize this trick.

I've done for 10 years. I've had so many great spur of the moment, you know, those things, the crowdwork things that happen. And you kind of got all that in your head. You're like, oh, man, I got some good gems. If this, you know, if this choose your adventure path goes, you just have to forget all that and be like, all right, this. Did you get, did you. Who's she? So you, oh, so you do it.

We shot two shows. We shot two shows. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get to choose which was the better person. Exactly. It was pretty much all night two. Oh, yeah.

Isn't that always the way it goes? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I always think it's the first show. I feel great about the first show. And then at the end of the night, everyone says how great the second show was. And I'm like, what?

Really. You shoot two in one night, though. Yeah. That's happened to me a lot. I didn't really do that. I am always like, oh, yeah, the first one. And everyone's like, yeah, the second one. I'm like, what happened on the first one?

I thought it was pretty good. The second one, we watched the second one. We were stressed during the first one. Right. Yeah, that is true. You find though if you shoot them both in one night. That is true. Yeah. All your people are just all freaked out.

All your people are all freaked out. And the second one, they're like, okay, we know what we're doing now. Yeah. What is Tom saying? They can actually listen. What about, like, if you're shooting two and one night, like, what's your window to debrief about, like, okay, anything we want to? An hour and a half, maybe. Uh-huh.

I blew it last time. I didn't blow it, but I met a person in between my shows. Uh-huh. And he was like a friend from his. And he came back and we hung out and took pictures and had like a fun time. And it was really nice meeting him. And I went back and did the second show without eating anything. Okay.

And I was like, that was stupid. Like I'm low on fuel. And all that adrenaline of the first shoot by the second, by the end of the second, I was like, I'm going to wrap this up just so I can go eat. Yeah. I'm just impressed that you would agree to meet somebody. He was so great. He was, I'll look it up. He was this kid.

He had this great account. And, yeah, I was like, yeah, it'll be fun. It was fun. It was a little jolt of joy and distraction. Yeah, exactly. Distraction's probably good. It was good, but I should have been eating like a bar at the same time. Yeah.

You should learn to eat and talk. Mingle and talk. So everybody for yours came from the second one. Except for one guy. Yeah. One guy, the Rubik's Cube guy. He was night one. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a tough call. But he was just. Now, when people watch you, They're all they're doing, and you do a great job of talking about the two different kinds of people that come to the shows. Everybody, people who love magic, people who, you say get brought by the person who loves magic, everybody's just constantly relentlessly trying to figure out how you did what you did and what you're doing. Yeah. Do people question whether the people are plants?

Yeah. You mean in the special, just in every show? It's just in general shows. Yeah. Because I've had that even with crowdwork and they're like, oh, that guy must, it goes so well that they're like, oh, he knew that that guy worked in a bookshop. Yeah.

It's right. Yeah, the people who just think everyone's in on it, but them. Right. They're like, they think this is the Truman show. That's a good way to put it. You're all following the script for my enjoyment. Yeah. Yeah, I try, I try not to, like, go to great lengths to, like, disprove.

I feel like that's a weird place to put my energy. But I put a little disclaimer at the beginning. that all the people are real and chosen a rant. I'm tossing frisbys. People think I'm some ultimate disc frisbee player who I can hit the person I want, you know? Yeah. But hopefully, you know,

that's the least important thing by the end that they're kind of... Yeah. What's the other thing that people always try and... Like when they're trying to solve it, what's like the repeating... To people say that you use tech or... Yeah, I mean, I don't wear like an Apple watch on stage.

I try to be very low tech in appearance. Yeah, that one time you pull out the ear of things that you're, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Just approve to people. Yeah. You know, like that printer trick where I ask, you know, I'm like, I'm trying to get somebody

to guess how they think I did it, you know, and I'll have, you know, like I want them to say it's a printer in the box. That is the correct wrong answer. But I'll have, you know, when I was doing shows in L.A. at the Magic Castle to prep for the special. People would be like, how do you do it? I'm producers. I think you have producers. What even does that mean?

You produce this audience. Yeah. It's so funny. Are your hands stronger than most people's hands? Oh, I mean, they're pretty strong. They're nimble. Yeah. They're well-worn.

When did you start doing it when you were a kid? When I was a kid? How old? 12. 12. Yeah. What was the first trick you nailed? Well, and it was very, it was all because of my hands.

When I was 12, I, one day, after school, put on my rollerblades, go to my buddy's house. And I get there and all my friends are there, but they're on bikes. No one's on rollerblades. I thought it was a rollerblade hang out, you know? So they're like, we're going to bike up. They're biking somewhere for, I can't keep up with them on rollerblades. So I hop on a bike with my rollerblades on. And we're heading to the grocery store.

wherever we would go, whatever, get candy. And I fell off, I was going down a hill, I fell off, broke both of my arms at the same time. Yeah. It was in castes for six months. And my doctor, when I got the cast off, recommended I learned magic as physical therapy. So he prescribed me card tricks, basically. No way. He gave me a little card trick book.

And so that became my thing. Really? Yeah. That's so great. Yeah. How are you trying to ride the bike? I was, I had, I, I, standard bike riding

with your roller blades on the little pedals you know but they're so their wheels they're going every which way you know when you're peddling too hard and your feet slip off and you're rack yourself yeah is that what they used to say yeah oh I racked my boss

so uh that happened and I broke my arms yeah double whammy oh just oh that's brutal how old 12 12 12 geez where were you in St. Louis Missouri in St. Louis Missouri

in St. Louis You a Cardinals fan? I'm a Cardinals fan. Circa, circa mid-90s. Like that's my, in my mind, like, it's still Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith out there, you know.

Do you still watch now? No. No. No. Interesting. How's Mark McGuire doing? He's doing great. Does he slugging it?

He's going against the Sosa guy. Is he still huge? Yeah, that's my golden era. And then I went to college in Boston and I kind of fell out of sports. So 12 years old. You start with it. That's so great.

Yeah. I remember getting like a magic, a book of card tricks around that age. Uh-huh. And it's so empowering. Like, it is the coolest thing when you can put together. Because you can do something that amazes your parents. Yeah. Like, you know, legitimately.

I mean, it's a lot of pressure on your parents because also, you know, you do a lot that does not impress your parents. Right. And they're confused. They don't know whether they should act like they were amazed. Yeah. Or they should tell you they weren't amazed so you know to keep working out. at it, but whatever the case, it worked. I also got a plastic top hat that had like buttons in it and stuff.

Really? There was like a, yeah, it was literally like plastic. And it would have like the handkerchiefs and stuff. Everything was stuffed into this hat. It was like a Swiss Army knife of magic for this hat. Go-Go-Go gadget hat. Yeah, and you had a wand and did all the tricks. Is there footage of this?

No, there's no footage of any of my childhood. Oh, geez. None? No, hardly. It's like three photographs. Your parents weren't early adopters of the video camera? No. The Betamax?

No. No? Uh-uh. Yeah, there's nothing, thankfully. So what, so did you like, I fell out, just, I got one down and was like, all right, I'm done. Did you have comedy aspirations yet at that point? Yeah, 12, yeah.

It was right around then. Because it's, like, I loved comedy first, you know, Johnny Carr, I would stay up late, watched Shaday Carson just to watch my parents laugh. Right. And to figure out what that joke was. Yeah. And Steve Martin. And then mad, but as it, when you're 12, like, you kind of, I mean, I didn't, I didn't

know how to craft a joke. You're just kind of, you don't have the life experience to do it. But magic is this thing where you're like, oh, I've got, like, there's a, I've got a, some beat sheet to follow, you know? Yeah. And a lot of the tricks come with the jokes. Right. Right.

That are also not age appropriate or, you know, you don't get them, but you're, you're, you're kind of like, all right, I'm, I'm Steve Martin. You know, yeah. How quickly did you put together an act? Did you have a little act? Yeah, I think by 13, I had at least two doves and a parakeet devoted to the show. That's some serious commitment. Your parents let you have the birds.

Yeah. My dad, I mean, my mom loved the, just the performance aspect of him. My dad loved the entrepreneurial aspect. I think when he learned that I could, you know, make money doing kids' birthday parties and stuff, he really liked encouraging the business. Wow. Yeah. So I'm sorry, 13 you got the birds?

Yeah, 13. So a year after your first card trick. Yeah. And then by 14, I was like competing in magic contests. Man, it took over your life. It took over my life. Amazing. Ever since then.

That's amazing. It's the only obsession I've had. And did you heal faster because of it? I don't know. I mean, I think it was grounds for malpractice for this guy to recommend card tricks. I do not think it aided in my, recovery at all.

Yeah. But it, I think it helped at least my parents think, like, okay, this is what the doctor said. Yeah. Let's buy him some magic kits. And you got the word out and did a couple kids' birthday parties at first? I had, I made flyers. Uh-huh. And this was like before any graphic design software.

So this was, maybe it was simple Microsoft word. I'd print out the words that I wanted to be on there. I'd hand-cut them, hand-cut a picture of myself, stick it all. all in place on an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper and then go to kinkos and then copy that. Right. With the little pull tabs at the bottom, you know, the tearoffs at the grocery store. Nice. At business cards.

Wow. You know, with some clip art on it. Yeah. And how busy were you right off the back? I mean, my mom gave me a stage name at age 14, Just Incredible. So I had that. That's great. Because I knew people mispronounce Wilman because I got called Justin Williams every day

my life. Right. People just see W I-L-L and then they stop. Oh, really? Reading. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Just Incredible was real catchy with a K. Just incredible with a K. Just incredible with a K. That's great. Throw a curveball there. And yeah, my parents would drive me around from birthday party gig to birthday party gig. They'd wait out front. Amazing. Yeah. And how long, how much time would you do at these parties? I would do like 40. I would do about a 30-minute show and then I would make balloon animals for everybody. I learned how to do that as well. And that, I roughly was way better for dexterity building than card tricks one. Yeah.

And it's a good time filler. Yeah. If you're ever short on material, bust out a bag of balloons. I'm sure you read Steve Martin's book. I did. There's so many similarities in that path. Yeah. Right?

Even the balloon handles. Yeah. Into my mind. The juggling. Yeah. And starting young and like really being serious about it. It was like a serious. It's a whole sub.

culture. You know, like growing up in St. Louis, especially, there's, you know, four different magic organizations in this, you know, random Midwest town that it has all this magic history. Yeah. So I would go to Society of Young Magicians meetings. That'd be like in a church basement on Thursday nights, you know, international brotherhood of magicians. It'd be like in the Denny's back room, you know, like the partitioned area for private parties.

Really? And it was just me and like 80-year-old men. You know, back when you could smoke inside. My parents would drop me off, pick me up two hours later. And what'd you learn, you know? That's so cool. Could have been, could have turned out bad. Did Justin Credible have an outfit?

He, he was flamboyant. He was not this. You know, I think I watched when I was in high school the Kings of Comedy special. Uh-huh. Big suits. And I just, Bernie Max's outfits, like the big pants, the zoots suit, look. And in St. Louis, you know, it's, you know, it's Red Fox Town, you know. It's a real comedy town.

There are those suit shops. So I would go there. And again, I'm just the only 14-year-old white kid. White kid walking in. And you city in the suit shop. And I, like, bright red pants and the plaid white and red jacket, I remember. Nice. Yeah, which I found years later.

And it still doesn't fit me. It's still too big. I would dress so large to hide the birds. You know? I had 14 birds. I had 14 birds. Let's say 15 birds. Let's just say I had 15 by 15.

So how many come out in a in all 15 are in the rotation or they're? They're a couple backups. Couple backups. Yeah, it was I thought at that time more is better. Yeah. The more life you can create. Yeah. In your set.

So I would pack as many birds as I could wherever they go. Wow. No more birds. Do you ever tell you this comedy magic story with the birds? I must have told you. I don't, maybe. We should tell them. We should tell us.

Comedy magic club. Great club. Great club. And they have a magician on every show, the comedians and the magic. And I went up, a comedian, a magician was up and was doing something with the birds. And it didn't go the way. way it was supposed to go. And he was upset.

And he was done with his set and it goes behind the curtain and then they introduced me and I come on the other side of the curtain. And when I'm in the front starting my act, the magician is in the back putting together all of his wares and going home. And he's pissed. And I hear, and it was a bird related trick. And I just hear banging. and effin' effin' bird.

He was angrily, I cannot say for a fact, he was abusing the bird, but it didn't sound pretty. It sounded like he was taking it out on the bird that didn't come out. Wow. Yeah. And I'm trying to do my act, and I just hear like, whoo. Oh, yeah. Oh, I really felt bad.

That's what it sounds like when doves cry, you know. Why are birds, is because they're squishy? she? Why birds? Why birds? Because they, I mean, they're magical, they're sparkle when they come out. Well, they, um, let's see. They're, they are beautiful creatures.

Yeah. They can fly. We wish we could. Yeah. They can do that. But I think they, they, they, when they are calm and, um, and, you know, uh, they can go into compact places and be comfortable there for a short length of time. Yeah.

When they appear, they flap their wings, they look like where could that fit? Right. You know, as long as you keep them, fly them, It's like, you know, expanded five times. And still at the Magic Castle, when there's a bird act, we call them bird acts, you know. The sound the audience makes is a different sound just because it's like they're just getting like, you know, just visually assaulted with impossible, like wonder, you know, when it's just a bird and a bird and then they're splitting into two birds. Like it's a crazy sound. It's alluring.

Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. It's got to be, I mean, human beings have not changed very much through the centuries. Like, we are all in awe and have, like, all of these same instincts of, have you learned a lot about human behavior from deceiving humans? That's interesting. Like, do you notice, like, maybe even when you're, like, at the store or something or, like, talking to somebody, and can you tell that they're more distracted in a way or, Well, I do find that the people who have the best attitude about magic who know that it's not real and who also know that it's not a puzzle to be figured out.

Yeah. The people who know like, I mean, I guess it is kind of a, it's a big ask for someone to know this unspoken thing, which is, I mean, the same thing that you know when you go to the movies. Like, we know that that's Tom Cruise and, you know, no one. was probably going to die in the do it. But you get swept away, right? Right. And there's no disclaimer before the movie that says,

this movie is best watched knowing that this is fiction. Like, we just know. But we don't know. People don't know that for magic. And I find that the people who like just have that attitude tend to be the like the brighter, smarter, like just better people. Like people who see it as a puzzle or they're intimidated about, Yeah, like the, like that bro, like there's, where's the bird come from?

Yeah. Like those people tend to be assholes. Like in real life too. Like there's something about that. Interesting. I do find that opposites attract often, you know, in terms of the magic, like that there's kind of a yin yang and some of these couples who come to the show where, you know, one is that magic lover and one's the plus one. and I'm trying to convert them by the end of the show.

I find people are a lot smarter than I wish they were. Like people are really hard to fool sometimes. I've learned the kids especially are just geniuses in their simplicity. Like I'll show a trick to my son Jack, who's six. And he'll just tell me exactly how I did it. Really? Yeah. Like I'll do it once.

and I might fool an adult with that. But I think they're ruling out the obvious, maybe inefficient way that I could do it. And they're trying to think of what's the really clever way. And he'll just calm me out. And I find that to be so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like he doesn't have as much baggage of things that have happened to his brain.

But I do think lately in recent years, I feel like people, the audiences are coming in search of joy and escapism, maybe more than they used to be. Or maybe more than I was ever ready to provide. But I do find now, like, I feel like it's a real, like I do feel like I'm, you know, I'm sure you do as well. There's like a bit noble, a noble service that we're providing. Yeah, it's interesting.

You know, just a night of joy, a night of connection with the person that they brought, the shared interest, a night of just laughs and kind of just happens. happiness, you know. It's interesting that you say that because I've been feeling that in a very big way. And I didn't know if it was just because of how long I've been doing it or if it's the culture is kind of asking for it. It's been more obvious. Probably both of those things. Yeah. Yeah. But there definitely is a, yeah, just entertain us. Just give us a good time.

I feel it more for these, you know, the theater tours than maybe when I was doing clubs. Comedy clubs always felt like a last minute decision to go to that show. Like, they weren't looking forward to it for weeks, maybe. It was like, what are we doing on Friday? Oh, let's go to the comedy club. But like when you're on tour and they've got this date that they bought tickets for ahead of time, like, there's a lot. And it's you. And they're coming to see you.

They know you. They're coming to you for a certain thing. thing. And that's a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is really interesting. It is funny to think of the people who aren't as bright thinking, I need the answer of this because if it's, if you don't tell me that you put the bird somewhere, then it's a magical force that I know nothing about. Right. There are other people that are, that are a mix of like the magic lovers and plus ones who can enjoy it, but also like just, like, want to know because they want, they, they, they know that they'll respect the method or whatever, you know?

Right. Yeah. And I feel like that's what magicians are. Like, the magicians love the feeling of watching magic. But as soon as you learn how that works, you'll, like, I'll never feel that way again. Do you get stumped? I love getting stumped. Yeah. You do.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And when I do, I try to protect that. I try to not know. I don't, I don't, I'm, if I could dig and ask some. buddies, hey, how does that thing work? You know, like Penn and Teller's bullet catch trick. Right.

There's a real stumper. Uh-huh. And I love not knowing. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Because it's, yeah, there's a few, there's, I'm sure, like, when you hear someone just make a great joke, that you're like, oh, my God.

Yeah. Clean. You probably don't pick it apart like you do your own jokes. Right. Right. Yeah. See the mechanisms in there. Right.

Who are the, who are the, George. Carlins Richard Pryor's of Magic? My George Carlin of Magic would be Harry Anderson. Ah. Big influence. Yeah. Big influence.

Because he was, I mean, star of Nightcourt. Yeah. One of the greatest sitcoms of the 80s. But he got his start as like a San Francisco Street magician. Right. And he was very funny. He, his comedy special, his comedy magic special, shot at the Comedy Magic Club. Right.

Hello Sucker. Oh, really? the first ones I ever saw. Uh-huh. And I just, like, Amazing Jonathan, also hilarious. Yeah. And, you know, on that Mount Rushmore.

But his, you know, his stick is that the magic, rarely, if never, was magical. You know, that was the joke is that he was, you know, like a coked out maniac playing the role of a magician and everything was chaos. But I always, it was a great act. It was a great act. That was a great act. I opened for him a couple times when I was. first starting.

Yeah? And just, yeah, the energy that that guy had and just blood everywhere and just stabbing himself. I'm sure the cleanup for the late show was extensive. He was the first guy I saw that had a press kit. Oh, yeah. He had a press kit, like a folder with all of his clippings and stuff. And I was like, oh, that's, this is a professional. He made you read it backstage before the show.

He was just an energy like that guy. Did you hang with him? A little like backstage. you know, but I was, you know, I was literally the opening act and he was the headliner. Right. He was, this is like the mid-90s, I guess. And he was, you know, he was killing it and probably partying like crazy and I wasn't going to like really hang with him. Yeah, he was a cool guy.

Yeah. We became friends. You did? Yeah. In more recent years, he passed away a couple years ago. But he was a maniac. He was a maniac. He worked hard, right?

Yeah. And a, you know, kind of a hoarder collector. Oh, yeah? His house in Vegas was just, he knew everything was, but it was just stacks of chaos and weird gadgets and... Really? Pranks and blood and vomit and, you know, just... It was wild. That's amazing.

Yeah. He lived up to his... The real deal. Yeah. But Harry Anderson, his magic was also amazing and he was funny, and he kind of created this persona that, you know, you felt like you... Like, I think in magic, like, magicians get away with not having to do kind of a lot of that early work that comics have to do, which is finding your voice and who are you, what's your point of view. And, you know, writing new material constantly, you know, magicians kind of can fall into the rut of like they've got their act. Right.

And their persona is they're a magician, you know, and that is enough in some contexts. Sure, you can probably work a long time that way. Yeah, yeah. But you're not going to be, you're not going to separate from the pack and be a distinguished act. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So Harry Anderson made me want to be funny enough to be called a comedian, but also really clever and amazing enough to be a great magician. Did you ever go up and do without the magic?

No. No. As a workout thing or? Ah, no. Yeah. Because you are very funny. and you're very quick. Thank you.

You have a comic, you have that comic thing. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I like hosting things. I've hosted a lot of things. Yeah. You know, I like, there's nothing I like more than being funny. I like that even more than magic.

I mean, I would like the compliment that you were really funny. Yeah. Before like, oh, my God, you're a great magician. Right, right, right. But, um. Well, it is an act. It's an all encompassing act. They go hand in hand to me.

But I, I, you know, the comedy side, like I went to Emerson College and Boston. Austin. And all my best friends who I kind of buddyed up with were stand-up comedians. Dan Levy, Daniel Kino. Oh, yeah. You know, Eliza Schlesinger was going there at the same time. So they would all be going up, you know, Dick Dorrities and, you know, the Hong Kong, all these comedy places. And so I would like come along and, you know, really quickly just by watching them, realize like, man, I'm my, I'm only 19 and my act is already like 10 years dated prior to the, you know, like it's all, it's just dated, you know, I'm doing kind of, like, like, I think that's what I, like,

you got stuff to work and it just, you just kept it. Yeah, I think I learned the difference between like, not every laugh is a good laugh, you know, like you'll get a laugh for a hack joke, sure, because it's designed to do that. Yeah. But they, you know, no one's, that's not resonating with anybody and they're not, you know, the audience doesn't feel good after every laugh. Yeah. Sometimes they're like, oh, God, I feel stupid.

I laughed at that, you know? And I kind of was able to start weeding out the cheesiness. It's amazing. That's the only way that happens is hanging around with other talented people. Yeah. And you all keep each other honest. And it's like, you know, when I would go to the comedy seller in the beginning and you just get there and it's Colin Quinn and Nick DiPaolo and Patrice O'Neill and all these people

and you're just like, oh, yeah. I mean, you could kill on the road, and then you come and will you put those jokes in front of these people? Exactly. And everybody does that to each other. And everybody rises up, and there's like an integrity to it.

It's only the other acts. It's pretty wild. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. Here's one right here. We're so excited to announce they've teamed up with Thomas Keller, Michelin Star Chef.

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Like, are there, is there? I love that. You do? I love magic history. Yeah. I, my mom was an interior designer and we collected lots of antiques. So I think I just grew up like liking old stuff around me. So, and Magic has this, you know, obviously incredible history.

Yeah. And it's got, you know, the props, the posters, you know, the posters are incredible. Yeah. And the stories. I just love, you know, if I had a time machine to be able to go back to see, you know, Harry Keller or Houdini, like in those early 1900s, like the Golden Age, before movies came in and ruined it for everybody. Right.

You know, just those, the live entertainment. of that time. I feel like it might be disappointing. Because Houdini, he'd get locked up in a milk can, and then they'd raise a curtain, and then 10 minutes would go by, and then he would burst out, you know. And I feel like people had a longer attention span, maybe.

Yeah. That is a very cool thing. I don't know, this is the way you were putting it, that you would, like, roll into town. Yeah. And that you are the guy who's bringing this otherworldly wonder. Yeah. And the posters, you mean, you want to check out.

They'd roll in, they would put their, you know, their team would put their street team, you know, slap those posters on the barns. And, you know, it looked, like I have, I collect old magic posters. I've got one that it's in my son's room and it's, it's a Howard Thurston poster. Thurston was one of the great magicians. And I could tell they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, you know, with the angles for the advertisement because it's just Thurston and his amazing pets. and it's just a picture of a horse, a donkey, some chickens, a monkey, and pigeons. Yeah.

You know, it's like, all right. They weren't so great with animals back in the day. Like the flying horse in Atlantic City that they would kind of like, don't know about that. They would kick off the flying, they were off a pier. They were just throwing it off a pier. They called it the flying horse. Would it swim to shore?

Yeah, I guess if probably, if, as, as quickly as its broken legs could paddle. Poor horse. I'm sure it wasn't the same horse. I had a traumatic magic animal experience. So when I moved to L.A., I was doing kids' birthday parties.

Still just incredible. Right. I had a, I trimmed the repertoire down. I had a bird and a bunny. Okay. So I would open with the bird and I'd close with the bunny. So I'd open with the bird.

I was doing a birthday party in Burbank. And in the backyard, beautiful day, made the bird appear. A little gust of wind, and the bird flapped and flew, right? I didn't like trimming the wings because it just looked prettier when they were. I thought the bird knew what the deal was, not to fly, but it flew up into a tree, and it's just chilling in this tree, and I'm trying to act like that's normal. Behold, you know.

And thinking that the bird would eventually try to fly again and get tired because he doesn't do this a lot, and kind of spiraled back to... Back home. Yeah, because I did have another show to go to. And I'm going through the act. Birds still in the tree. I make the bunny appear. All the kids are petting the bunny.

And I'm kind of like, you know, I got to... All right. So I tell the parents I'm going to come back after this show. And if you guys have a ladder, I'll climb the tree and I'll try to kind of prod him down. Yeah. And I came back a couple hours later and they answered the door, not as excited to see me. Because they told me that right after I left, As they're singing happy birthday, a hawk flew in and ate the bird in front of the children.

Yeah. Just screeching. Exactly. It's like, ta-da. It's terrible. Yeah. My daughter has a pet rabbit all of a sudden. All of a sudden.

Yeah. She's in college and came home with a rabbit. Wow. Yeah. Anything I need to know about this thing? Oh, boy. Boy. How'd she bring it home from college?

Where does she go to college? There's one airline. You can take it on the East Coast, and she could only fly on Alaska Air. They're the only ones that allow rabbits. Everybody else is, you know what, dog and cat, end of the discussion. Is it a service rabbit? No. She'd get a vest for that rabbit.

Yeah, that would help. It would help. Because I used to fly with the bunny, even when I started doing colleges now. until shortly after 9-11, I think it was my first trip after 9-11, I tried to take it to LAX, and they wouldn't let it through security because they said no rodents. And maybe that was always a rule. And they're like a rabbit's a rodent. It's going to chew the wires or something.

So I had to send it back to the Oakwood apartments in a super shuttle to Dan Levy to receive it because there were no Uber's that I had to still get to this gig. And just sent the rabbit on its own. sent the rabbit on its own. Mr. Levy, I have a rabbit for you. They do eat cords. They do two cords. I mean, they're pretty cool.

They're, you know, watching them just behave how they clean their paws. Are they smart? They can be food motivated, treat motivated to do smart-looking things. Okay. My bunny, mojo, you know, I'd make him appear and he would like leap from the pan to the table. And so he was smart enough to know, you know, that. Right. But he did, like in his old age, he did get a little nippy, you know.

And so I had, you know. What's old age for a rabbit? Like one year old or something? No. Two. I think he was maybe six or seven. Okay. Yeah.

So he kind of just, you know, I think he just was like, enough of this shit. These freaking kids. I want to take you out with me. Yeah. Because, you know, the whole appeal at the end of the show when you're doing a kid's birthday is the kids all get to pet the bunny. Right. The kids don't, they don't all know how to pet, so I'm sure he was, he was fed up. Just people pawing at them.

Just pawing at them. But I would say, I hope this bunny, I mean, they poop a lot. They poop a lot. They can be potty trained. Can they? Yeah? Yeah. You know, if you leave the cage open, if it's in the house, they'll go back there to poop.

You know? There's a lot of blankets drying out on the back porch. And I think there's a thing between my pug. We have a pug and the rabbit. I think they're both marking for her affection, for my daughter's affection. She was like the pug was her favorite. And now the rabbit's there. And I think they're like, she's mine.

And I'm going to shit in a pile to prove it. Yes. Yes. I could do this. My poops can be spherical. Right. You and I have known each other for a while, and we almost got to hang out in Vegas. We do a thing on this program called an uncomfortable moment, where we either find something that's out there already, or we find something that possibly you hadn't thought of before.

Uncomfortable between us? Could be. Okay. We'll find out. We're both kind of at the same spot in our career. We've been doing this a long time. We're out on tour. We do a lot of gigs.

We share the same agent. We do, yeah. And I see we do a lot of the same venues. I see you're either coming or going from where I just was. Yeah. And there's going to come a time when maybe things are going to shift. Maybe you're not going to want to be on the road as much. So I have a proposition for you.

Okay. One of us could be good at one thing. One of us could be good at another thing, but I don't know. I know it's kind of been done before, but what do you think of this? Wow. Sigreen and Roy are gone, but Wilman and Papa. Wilman and Papa, he, that he rolls off the tongue. This is unretouched.

Wow. Who can afford one tiger? Who's good at what? Who's the tiger guy of the two? I feel like I'm, I feel like you've got the skills. Uh-huh. And we have rapport. I kind of maybe play the bumbling idiot next to your magic.

Yeah. I don't know. We can work out the details. Well, you know, Siegfried was the magic one. Roy was the Tiger one. We all know how that shook out. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. I'm just saying, I just want to plant it. It's getting uncomfortable now because I feel like you're not in love with the idea. No, I'm in love with the photo, the stitch work here because we're in Vegas. I love that chest. We don't have to catch a flight. That's nice, right? We're just hanging out at the, probably the New Orleans.

The New Orleans. The Orleans. Off strip. Off strip. Dollar 99 buffet. Probably Wednesday through Saturday shows. That is a service cap right there. Probably two in the afternoon.

I've performed at the Orleans. Me too. I have a nice stage. I love that I'm very Christian. Not one, but two crucifix. You've got a lot of crucifixes going. I like it. You know, I did read that I think they're making a Siegfried and Roy biopic.

Are they? With, I think it's like Jude Law and Andrew Garfield. Maybe I don't know. Really? We fact checking this live. But, yeah. That would be cool. So it's in the zeitgeist.

They're going to want to see that in real life. Wow. We could. That's pretty great. And then we come in and they're like, yeah, the movie was good, but we've got the real act. We've got the real deal. Yeah. No one's done that.

No one's done a big cat magic comedy show. No. Right? It's got to be primed. There's so much tension. There's a lot of tension. I mean, that's a big part of the thing. It's like, is he going to eat one of them?

Yeah, he can eat one of them? And ultimately, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yikes. Yikes. Well, you got time. I'm allergic to cancer.

Cats. Does it have to be cats? Is it a deal breaker? Ooh, I don't know. I'll call it Cats' Deli. That'll be the name of the show. What's another animal that's big for magic? I don't want to get those little bird shit. Elephants are big, but they're a little too big. Yeah. They are too big. That's, that's... If you treat them well, or will people let not protest?

Like, Reagan and Brothers got mad at the... Yeah. People got mad at the circus because they thought that... But if you're giving an elephant a... job. Right. And he's like, he's a homeless. And he's a homeless.

And now he's a star on the strip. Yeah. What else would be, uh, rhinos maybe? You know, we're saving the rhinos. They're almost extinct.

Are they? Yeah. Uh, cats, a big fish. Okay. That'd be something. Us and a fish.

Uh-huh. I've never seen that. Too bad and a fish. Uh-huh. A shark. Shark would be. that would be something. Us and a shark.

It's going to fit in my jacket somehow. Did you ever go to Houdini's house there on Laurel Canyon? Yeah, I've done a couple gigs there. Gigs there. Yeah, I actually officiated a wedding there. Whoa. Is it as cool as it looks from the street? It looks really cool from the street.

And I love the idea of it until I kind of like researched and, you know, realized it wasn't really. his house. Right. Like he, there was a pool there that he would swim at and he would stay at a bungalow on the other side of the street.

Like rent it, you know, when he was in town, shooting those silent, this is before the talkies came along, you know, back in the silent days. Yeah.

But I guess they did get, they did dub it Houdini's house just because he would, he would always be renting that house and be swimming over there. Right. But there's, yeah, but because I don't think there's like

the original structure, it lost a bit of the mistake. of the mystique. Right. But it is a cool statue of Houdini holding the chains there. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever play around with that idea of like escape stuff?

I owned a straight jacket at one time. You did? Uh-huh. I never took it seriously, you know? Like I like the idea of comedy escape, you know? In Matro for humans, I escaped from a pinata once before the kids could beat the candy out of it. That's funny. You know?

Yeah, I think in Houdini's era, it served as like a deep metaphor, you know, for escaping the chains that bind you in this new country of immigrants, you know, rise up. Right. But these days, you know, chains and handcuffs and restraints just remind people of the bad stuff. Right. Yeah, that's not so great. Exactly. Yeah. Have there been trends in comedy where you were like, like, like two cool comedians?

In comedy or magic. I'm sorry, in magic. Like, you know, the guys that get a little too slick or bad boyish or... Yeah, I think, I mean, you have to be a really good magician to get away with doing it 100, just purely earnestly. Yeah. Without any comedy. Like, I'm trying to think of who. Shin Lim, great magician.

He's got a show in Vegas. Oh, yeah. You know, we won it like twice. And his, you know, his magic is very, like, without irony and without, and he pulls it off. Like, he's so good. He's got incredible hair. And he's just his sleight of hands wild. For me, like, any trip to the magic castle, like, sometimes I get really cringy.

Like, I can't enjoy myself there because I feel like I know that all these people who are here, this is probably the only live magic show they're going to see. maybe for 10 years, right? So I feel like my entire art form is being judged by this one-hour show. And if it's, you know, a little, you know, not as good as it can be, like, it just makes me really itchy. Yeah, yeah. So. Why wouldn't it be as good as it could be?

You know, you've got a lot of rooms to book over there, you know, they've got to please a lot of people, you know, sometimes. You know, this is when I'm in the audience watching some. I see. I see. When I'm in the audience at the Magic Castle. I've never been to the magic castle. Really?

Yeah. You got to do it once. That's what everybody says. It'll be the only magic show you see for 10 years, you know? No pressure. Yeah. Well. Your wife has never been?

No. She'd be asking you all the time, how do you do it? And you'd be saying, he's magic. God. Yeah. Yeah, I would like to go. That sounds like a fun night. I just never think about it.

You never think about it. Yeah. You think about it when you're cutting across Hollywood. When you're driving through Rover Franklin, you're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Magic Castle. How do they afford that place? Yeah, but it's been there forever. Right. Exactly. Exactly. This was really cool. So now this is the thing I was thinking on the way over.

It's like when we have comedians come through and they're like, I have to put together another hour of material and go out there and do my thing. And but for you, you have to come up with all new tricks. Yeah. You have to come up with all new mind-bending wonders. Yeah. That's insane. It is, yeah, it is insane a little bit. And then they've also got to be... Is it easy for you?

Funny. Am I asking a thing? No, it's not easy. How do you come up with an hour of materials? Like, that's what I do. Like, it's always, but it's always hard, right? Yeah. It's never good right away.

Right. Right. Yeah. But you know, like, when you got, like, a kernel of an idea, you're like, you can tell when something's going to be great. You're like, it's not good yet. Right. Like, I've got a, like, a bit that I know is going to be great.

but it's not good enough to even tell my wife about yet. Right, right, right. Because I don't want to, I can't explain it well enough. Yeah. You know that. Yeah, you don't want judgment too early. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Like, she can't properly take it in yet, but I know it's going to be great. But there's a lot to figure out. Right. You know, but I always, I'm always, I've always got some tricks with me. You know, like I always carry my, my lucky playing card here. Mm-hmm. Do you, do you have a, let me rotate this around? Do you have any lucky cards, Tom?

A card that's like my favorite card? Let's narrow it down. There's picture cards and there's spot cards in a deck of cards. Imagine in your hand, Tom, you're holding a deck of cards. Okay. There's picture cards and spot cards. Do you want to remove the picture cards or the spot cards? I want to remove it as and get rid of.

You tell me? I want to get rid of the picture cards. You want to get rid of them? Well, I was going to have you remove them and hand them to me. I'm going to remove them and hand them to you. Okay. So now I'm holding all the pictures, the Jacks, Queens, and the Kings, right? Ones with faces.

The ones with faces. Do you like the black cards, the clubs and the spades, or the red cards, the hearts and the diamonds? I like the black ones. The black ones. So we've got the black Jacks, queens, and kings. I'm going to give those back to you here. Thank you. Do you like the, I'll let you.

There's no more removing. You can pick which one you favorite. Do you like a black jack, black queen, or black king? I like a black jack. A black jack. Okay, so pull that black jack out. Great. Throw the rest away.

Fold that black jack up into quarters. Into quarters. Yeah, so it would fit into a little wallet like this. Okay. And just toss it my way. Let me get rid of my credit cards here. No credit card numbers are being seen. You got a lot of cards.

I do. I do. You said black jack. Which one? Club or spade? You said. Club. Black Jack of clubs. Tom, my favorite card happens to be the black jack of clubs.

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and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E-D-com slash Papa, P-A-P-A, for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash Papa. He's magic. How does he do it, Tom? That is very cool.

That's fun. So there's that, you know, there's a bunch of magic along the world. way. Interesting. That's not going to, you know, it's not going to make its way into the special. But, you know, I always got to... Are you the first person to have a Netflix? Magic. Magic show? Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Magic comedy special. That's a pretty, that's a huge thing. Yeah. I'm pretty excited. I mean, it's, uh, it's surprising that it's, I mean, Jeff Dunham has two Netflix specials, you know. He's the first ventriloquist,

but he's made multiples. Magicians got to catch up. He went through my mind when I was watching your special. Yeah. Were you thinking like, oh, man, the luggage. I was like, this is so much work. Right? No, that it can have that kind of an appeal. It has, because you involve the audience,

so we see more of the audience than we do in a lot of shows. We see a lot of them, and I'm watching them all enjoy it so much, and it's a step larger than comedy. This is like, this is, there's, this extra special thing that's happening and which Jeff has. It's like he's funny, but he's also got this other skill and these puppets and stuff and that has that appeal. And something about watching you with that same kind of dynamic and seeing the audience so enjoy it.

I was like Dunham went through my mind for a second. Yeah. Well, it's almost like I, because you know, like the the style these days with comedy specials that you don't see the audience at all. Yeah. And I feel like that was really important. like it's almost old school to like be cutting to the audience, but I felt like as if you were on the couch,

you need to keep being reminded that there are people there. Yeah. And they are amazed. So you should also be. Are they laughing, you know? It totally worked. And I have to say, I've always been an advocate for, we don't need to see the audience in my specials.

And it made me think, why not? Right. Yeah, it made me think, why not? I mean, because I love at the end of my show, I go out and sign books, and I love seeing the people. I love talking to them and seeing them and like, oh, you were in the audience. I had, you know, these types of people or whatever. Yeah, it made me think why not.

Yeah, I wonder why not. I mean, I feel like maybe it's a slight distraction when you're kind of like, what is she wearing, you know? Who's that guy? And a lot of times when you should go to the audience in a comedies, but the problem, I think, you got me thinking about it, It was a lot of times they'll show like two people. They'll cut to two people.

Invariably, one is enjoying it more than the other. Yes, yes. And that always bumps me like, why didn't that person like it? Now I'm thinking about those people and they're still talking going on to the next thing. I think, though, what was cool about yours, you had some of those tighter shots, but a lot of it was seeing a bunch of people. Yeah. All are kind of enjoying it. Yeah.

I think that would be a cool way to use the audience. in comedy. You know, because I have kids coming to the show too. You know, it's kind of like a mix of families and couples. Yeah. And it was tricky because I didn't want people to start watching it and then five minutes in be like, and see a kid in the audience and then subtly think like,

oh, should I be watching this? Should I be enjoying this? You know, is this like I... I hate that. You know, so I don't like that attitude. I didn't, you know, yeah. Really, I don't. I mean, I like that kids are there.

I love that they're there, but I kind of like made a point of not letting you not involving any kids in the show until the very end. You know, just, you know, like I, like my target audience is alive. You know, I've got a wide age demographic there. But I do find, like, sometimes couples will come who got a sitter for their kids, left them at home and are kind of like, I didn't even think we, I didn't even think about bringing the kids.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's, I think the, that's all in the hands of the performer. Yeah. If the performer calls it out and is like, what's, what's this person doing here or like makes a big deal out of it, then it is a big deal. And they just treat them. Like, you have a great young girl who does the dollar trick in the beginning.

Yeah. She's so cute. Oh, that face. That face. Yeah. She's just so, it's great. It's just endearing. Yeah.

Really, really great. For me, that's what's fun is to rewatch and just to see the maybe the faces that I missed, you know. Yeah. That was great. And to see how people kind of maybe check. change from the beginning of the show to the end of the shop. Because there is a little bit of a just change in people who kind of started like this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well done. It's really great special. It really is good. And I think, you know, if it was the combination of me being really funny and being able to do the magic, I think that's probably why you're the first. Because I don't know any of your peers that are kind of in that same space right now.

So really well done. Thank you. Uh, how, when you are, when us as comics are going out and putting together the next thing, you go to clubs and you do whatever and people come and see you work it out. Mm-hmm. I'm going to work. Yeah, I'm going to work it out. I mean, and for a magician working it out, it kind of, you at least need to have the magic worked out. I mean, you know, you can't do all, but you can do that at home.

You can limp through a joke, right? Yeah. And it doesn't have to work because we know you're doing new stuff. But if you're limping through a trick and then it's like, okay, anyway, here's the wires. Right. Everyone's kind of like, you know, it's like you drop your pants. Yeah. It's hard to recover from that.

So, but I'm doing a couple clubs. I'm going to do Bricktown and Tulsa. Cool. I've never done that club. I think so. And I'll do stand-up live in Phoenix just to kind of have, you know, production-wise, the expectations are a little lighter. Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can kind of focus on the material. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Well, well, done. This was really great. Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, it was very fun. Do we eat the bread? You can take it. get home and eat it. I do. Yeah. It's all yours. I have a little bag for you and everything.

Bread's magic if you think about it. It is magic. I literally was saying that the other day. How does it rise up? And then it freezes in time in its final position. It's just frozen there. Yeah. Bursting.

Beautifully. Tadda. Tadda. Thank you. Do you have another trick that you could do if we wanted to toss to our Patreon friends at the end? Oh, yeah. I could do a, yeah, I got a fun trick of working. When you were pretty, you had

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