Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #619: Broadwaycon, Part 2

Episode Date: March 15, 2019

My eldest daughter, Rachel, and I traveled to New York to go to a convention about New York theater. This is part two of a two-part series about that trip.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time I talked about a trip I took recently with my daughter Rachel to BroadwayCon. And one of the things, I got halfway through it last time, so this is the second part. One of the things that's really interesting is it is fun to go somewhere in which you get to see very passionate people, impassioned people, who are just, they care about something different than what I'm used to. You know, it's not, you know, I obviously have been around a lot of Magic fans, but this was like interesting to go somewhere where I'm seeing a different dynamic, but there's a lot of similarities. but there's a lot of similarities.

It's just cool to sort of see other sort of fan bases, if you will. So anyway, last time I talked about Fridays. We're up to Saturday at BroadwayCon, and what I'm trying to do is sort of talk about what happened and then kind of my takeaway, because this was a really interesting weekend for me as far as getting to observe things kind of as an outsider and then reflect back on kind of the magic community. Okay, so Saturday morning, the first thing we did is something.

We went to a panel on Broadway bounding. Okay, so for those who don't know, let me explain what Disney bounding is for those that might not have teenage daughters and such. So at the Walt Disney Park, there are rules in place that say that you, unless you're 13 years and under, can't dress up like a character. So for example, if you're 13 years or younger and you want to dress up like Belle, more power to you. Have fun. But if you're older than that, you can't. And the reason is they have people who dress up professionally and they don't want any confusion. They don't want someone seeing someone dressed up like Belle

and think that, oh, that's the Disney employee who's Belle, because they're very rigorous on sort of how their characters act and stuff. And so there's a rule that says, oh, you can't dress up like the characters. So there are a lot of people that came, or I don't know, a lot of people, but the people came up with this idea of, well, instead of dressing like Belle, or whatever character you want, I'm going to dress in normal street clothes, but I'm going to adopt the color palette of the character I'm trying to dress like. So, while I won't technically

be dressed as Belle, I have a lot of attributes that sort of remind you of Belle, that sort of feel like Belle. Or, I mean, I'm just using Belle as a sample character, but whatever character. And it started as a small thing, and it really kind of blew up. And I have been, with Rachel actually, to multiple panels on Disney bounding. This was on Broadway bounding. So this is taking the idea of dressing up like characters, but instead of dressing up like Disney characters,

you're dressing up like characters from Broadway shows. One of like Disney characters, you're dressing up like characters from Broadway shows. One of the things, if you're very into Broadway shows, is there very much is a color palette, and there is costumes that are worn. And if you really know the shows, there's a play called Dear Evan Hansen, and he wears this striped blue shirt. It's even in the poster. And it's a very recognizable blue shirt. Like, one of the days, Rachel dressed up.

She dressed up like Evan Hansen. And so Evan Hansen has a cast on his arm. He has this blue striped shirt and khaki pants. Anyway, the interesting thing here is the idea of how different fandoms borrow ideas from other fandoms, which I found very compelling. Like, Disneybounding was a Disney thing. It was a Disney, something that people did within the Disney world. But it got enough sort of notoriety that it started to drift a little bit, and that people

are doing bounding, if you will, of other characters and other things that go beyond of Disney. Even though the reason it all started stemmed from Disney, right? It was a rule of the Disney parks. But the idea gained such ground, it's become real popular online, that it's become something that people sort of bring into other things. And that's one of the reasons, for example, that I like exploring other fandoms, because it makes me realize maybe ideas that magic could do.

That one of the cool things about different fandoms is that you can borrow from other fandoms. And as you see things that are cool things, I will get to one of those today. Something that I really enjoyed that happened. I'm trying to figure out how to recreate that, but we'll get to that. Okay, next was a producer panel. So the producers on Broadway are the people that are in charge of the money and of overseeing things. I come from Hollywood, my background, obviously. And producers really are the people that sort of arrange things, make things happen, that coordinate things. And a big part of their job, but not the only part of their job, is raising the money.

For Broadway, for example, if you want to do a Broadway show, you don't just say, I'm want to do a Broadway show you don't just say I'm going to do a Broadway show it's like okay I want to make something with my goal of getting to Broadway and what I do is I do readings I pull a cast together you usually do a show out of town meaning not in New York somewhere else

and build some sort of momentum that you then use to get onto Broadway. It's very complex. It costs a lot of money. I think one of the producers said that like for the cheapest of cheapest Broadway shows, like a Broadway show that really is on the low end of things is like 13 to 15 million dollars. And that's a cheap Broadway show.

Forget like grandiose Broadway shows. They can go a lot more than that. And so it was... It's interesting because the... One of the things about magic that I always have to keep in mind is... Look, my goal is to make magic the best game it can be. My job as head designer is make magic awesome. Make people want to play magic.

But there is a business, you know what I'm saying? And one of the interesting things is that I can't ignore the realities of the business. You know, it's very nice to go, well, I'm just going to make the best game and ignore any realities of what business means. I can't do that.

And that one of the things about this panel is really listening to the producers talk about how, look, they too want to make the best possible show. They too want to do something fun and exciting. But they're the ones that have to think about the budget and the realities of what can and can't be done. A big part of the producers also is interacting with doing marketing and selling, you know, not just raising the money to make the show,

but then doing all the things to get people to come to the show. And that one of the things that I've realized is, you know, part of my job, yes, I'm a creative that makes things. But I also have to worry about, you know, the finances of making things in a way that's responsible. Or work with marketing of making sure people get excited to want to come to the set, you know. That there's a lot of, that magic isn't just, you know, it'd be nice to live in a vacuum where, like, I just make all choices solely independent on what is the most awesome thing and never worry about any ramifications of real life or business or anything.

But that's not the case. Now, a lot of what we try to do is figure out how to balance that so that we are meeting the needs of the business in a way that makes the best game possible. But it's interesting when I listened to the producers talk that, and it was really interesting because, you know, the producers that they had were producers that had done a lot of big Broadway shows and they were sharing stories about, you know, trying to get something there. Like the interesting thing to me is almost every panel I sat in that was about a Broadway musical where they brought in the cast and the creators of it was always about how it

was an impossible journey to get there that somehow they did that if you had asked early on nobody would have expected that this thing would have succeeded and how all along the way there were naysayers that say it couldn't happen. And that kind of reminds me of, I'm often trying to do new things. And there's not a thing that I've done that wasn't a little on the inventive side, you know, that somebody didn't go, really? No, no, no, you can't do that. Split cards, hybrid mana, double-faced cards. I mean, just go down the list.

Like, whenever I'm trying to do something that is new and different, you know, it's funny. There's an article I read. I joke about it now because it's almost like it's a template where it's like, I want to do this crazy thing. They said no. And then it's like the fight to get it made. Like, I finally did it.

And those stories always begin with, you know, some real resistance early on. And it's interesting to hear somebody else go, we too fought. Like, it's a very common story. The act of doing something different, especially. One of the big things going on right now on Broadway, and I'm really in media, but, is the majority of Broadway musicals right now

are based on properties you already know. So, for example, you know, Pretty Woman just opened, and Tootsie opened soon, and Beetlejuice opened soon, and King Kong, I think, opened this year, and like, so much of what's on Broadway is, oh, you know it, this. You know, usually things that are pulled from other places, movies especially. And it's interesting seeing some of the more original ones that are, you know, like I talked about the prom last time.

That's not based on anything. I mean, loosely based on a newspaper article, I guess. But I mean, it's not like a famous movie that it's based on. And even Be More Chill, which was based on a book, it's not a very famous book. You know, not like Pretty Woman or Beetlejuice, which were, you know, hit, hit movies. Okay, next was a Disney fan meetup. So fan meetups, the idea is, one of the things that's happened in the age of the internet is a lot of fan communities have formed online.

No surprise there. Magic has a giant fan community formed online. So one of the things that they do at BroadwayCon, and they did this at VidCon, and I assume, I mean, gaming conventions, I'm sure, do this as well.

It's just the idea of people who are fans of something all get together. So this was a Disney fan meetup. This was the biggest meetup we went to. Now, like I said, I talked about the Disney panel

last time. Disney's 25 years in. They've been doing a whole bunch of different theater. A lot of it has gone over really well. And they are a big part of sort of the Broadway scene. Like I said, right now, I think there's four Disney plays on Broadway, I believe. Anyway, Disney as a larger entity has a pretty big fan base. So it's not a surprise that Disney Theater would have a big fan base. So what happened basically is they

did a bunch of trivia. I actually answered a question correctly. I had been to the panel the night before on the Disney panel and they asked a question that the panel had said and I remembered it, so I won a little prize. And so they

videotaped a bunch of Disney stars that were in Disney productions who all said hi to the fans. They did some trivia. They let some fans talk a little bit about what Disney meant to them. Once again, there's this ongoing theme whenever you talk about fans and how they interact with the fandom,

is that time and time again, the thing is, I was having hard times in my personal life, and something about this fandom spoke to me and really helped me through. Whether it was a certain play you saw, a certain message, or whatever. Like, one of the stories that was told was somebody who was having real issues,

and they went to see Frozen. Frozen's on Broadway now. And that, there was just a message in a song on Frozen that just spoke to them, and really helped them tackle a problem they were having. And how it really bonded them with the show. And I just hear that time and time again, and that's just very compelling.

And as somebody who is a creator, that awareness that what we do interacts with people on a super personal level. And like I said, I talked about last time, I asked for letters, and I mean, I talked about last time, I asked for letters. And I mean, I've read a lot of stuff. And people write to me, even without me asking them to write to me. I get a lot of people telling me their stories.

And a lot of the stories are very heartfelt and really like, oh, here's how magic not just did something that I enjoyed, but really bonded me with a way that helped me. And I'm always happy. As a creator, it's always exciting to hear that you're doing something that's bringing people together or helping people cope or all the various things that stuff like magic can do. It's very exciting. Okay, next, we went to an interview with an intimacy director. So what is an intimacy director, you say? So you might hear what's called a fight coordinator. So if you're going to do a fight

scene in a play, you have to go get what's called a fight coordinator. So if you're going to do a fight scene in a play, you have to go get what's called a fight coordinator. You have to plan it out. So for example, when I was in my youth, I took a lot of what's called stage combat classes. And stage combat is basically fighting on the stage. How do I make it look like I'm fighting when in fact I'm safe and no one's being hurt?

So I'll give you one of the secrets as someone who's done a lot of stage combat. The secret of stage combat is the person who is the receiver of the violence is always in control of what's going on. So for example, let's say someone punches somebody. The person who punches somebody, in fact, does not punch them, merely does something that makes it look like they're punching them. And then the person being punched, it's all in the acting of reacting in a way that feels like a punch happened. And when you combine fake punch with real reaction to punch on the stage, it comes across like, oh, you punched him. And what I learned about stage combat is really it's a lot like dance. It's choreography. It's all about these things happen

in these orders. Like when you do stage fencing, for example, it's all about, I'm going to hit you upper right, lower left, upper right, lower left, forward, lunge. You know where I'm going to go so that you know where to put your sword. And so we are working together to make a choreographed scene. And then, like I said, it's a lot like a dance. Anyway, if you're going to do any kind of combat, you, I think, are required to get a fight coordinator. That's what they will do. So the idea of an intimacy director, intimacy coordinator, this is something pretty new, is the idea that if you're going to do anything in the thing that involves intimacy, nudies, sexual relation things, anything that sort of

has an intimate quality to it, the idea is this person comes in and just like the fight scene, they help everybody work out what is going on. There are consent issues. There are comfort issues. There are a lot of different things that in the past, it's been very common for directors to go, well, you two just work it out. And that has led to some uncomfortable situations. and that has led to some uncomfortable situations.

So three women formed a company and introduced this concept to Broadway and to Hollywood and it's really gaining traction. And so we talked with one of the founders and she talked a lot about what they do and how they do it. And anyway, it's really interesting. It's a very new and different thing, but it sounds like a pretty cool thing. Anyway, that was that next um we went and saw an interview with for the 15th anniversary of avenue q so for those who do not know avenue q is a broadway show that's in its 15th year

um that uh basically it's the best way I've heard it described is sort of Sesame Street for adults. And the idea is the show takes the sensibility of Sesame Street, where there's Muppets, or puppets, and humans interact with each other, and just that's the way it is. And no one questions that Ernie is a Muppet. Just he is, you know. And so the show is the show that does really adult themes

mixed with Muppets, basically. And the show, for example, won the Tony. It actually beat out Wicked for the Tony, which was a giant shocker at the time. And anyway, the cast was talking about kind of the unlikeliness of the hit that's Avenue Q. The creator talked a lot about sort of how he made it. And it's definitely one of those Broadway success stories that sort of like you never would have anticipated.

And a lot of the stories they shared was how they had this vision and how little by little people like, you know, bought onto the vision. And, you know, there's a lot of people did, you know, there was a lot of suspicion that this would never work. But the people who made it believed in it and really, you know, did everything they could to sort of follow through. And this reminded me a lot of when I'm trying to do something new, of trying to, you know, one of the jobs of a vision designer is to create a vision for the product, you know,

make a bullseye saying, we're about this. This is what we're doing. You want to get everybody in the same direction to the same task. Because if a lot of people are all working together with the same goal, they'll do cool, inventive things. But if people aren't working toward the same goal, they could work at odds with each other. In fact, be undoing each other's work or causing conflict.

So the interesting thing was about Avenue Q and listening to them talk was how focused they were on what their vision was. And that really drove the show and allowed them to make something that really brought to life what it was. And, I mean, it's fun listening to the stories. Like I said, it's, the show itself is kind of crude and, you know, there definitely is, it's a little shocking at first, but the, the, the sensibility and the fun of the show is really something that they, um, that I think they, that the audience really embraced

and why the show has been running for so long. Okay. After that was Pretty Woman. So Pretty Woman is a Broadway show that opened, I think, earlier this year. So what they did is the entire panel was all women. It was the producer that brought the show and then three of the actresses that are in the show, although not the Pretty Woman herself. She had some conflict. But anyway, and they talked a lot about the making of Pretty Woman. talked a lot about making the making a pretty woman and um the interesting thing they talked about was that when you adapt something how do you know what to bring along like we're making pretty woman what parts of pretty woman have to be in the play otherwise you go that's not pretty woman and they're talking for example there's a's the clamshell where there's a necklace and it shuts on her hand. Like, it's a very iconic moment in the movie.

And they decided, like, oh, we have to have that. Like, there's certain things that you just have to, certain lines you have to have. There's certain moments you have to have that if you want to recreate it. But on the same sense, there's some things that have to be different. There's some things that you're making a Broadway show. A good example, this is actually from Tootsie, not from Pretty Woman. Tootsie's also coming to Broadway. Tootsie made this choice.

In the movie Tootsie, when he dresses up as a woman to get a part, it's on a soap opera. But for the Broadway show, it's for Broadway. It's a Broadway play. Because that allows them to be more self-referential and make it more Broadway-ish. Broadway loves to sort of be self-referential about Broadway.

Have you ever seen a Broadway show? And so that little switch, you know, look, Tootsie's still a man dressing to be a woman and they're an actor, but it's in slightly different context in that one of the challenges they talked about in bringing something is trying to do that. And what it made me remember of is when we return to a world, how much of that world do we have to bring back to go, oh, that's that world? You know, we're going back somewhere and you go,

oh, we want the audience to go, oh, I feel like I'm back there. But in the same sense, it can't just be 100% the same, that you want something new. You want something to say, hey, I want you to come experience this. Not just go, oh, I've experienced it already. Oh, I've seen the movie Pretty Woman. Oh, but we want you to see the play Pretty Woman. How is it different?

What are we doing? And as they talked about the balance, it made me think about how much, like, it's interesting to see someone else have that same issue of you want some similarity and some difference, and how do you measure that so you can do it. Anyway, that was really cool. So the last thing we saw on Saturday was called the Blizzard Party Line. So this is the fourth year of BroadwayCon. So the first year there was a giant blizzard, so much so that a lot of the guests couldn't make it to BroadwayCon. So what they did is they got up on stage with a computer and they Skyped people.

They Skyped actors that weren't able to make it. And that way the actors could say hi to everybody. And it just became a tradition. It's something they do every year now. And so they just called some actors that were unable to come this year and the actors were able to say hi. And there's thousands of people in the audience

that could hear the message and stuff. And they shared stories and did stuff. Two things about that. One is the idea of being adaptable. The idea of sometimes good things come because you're adapting in the moment. And I talk a lot about restrictions for your creativity.

I think that there's things that sometimes we get to not because we meant to get there but because of different restrictions we have to go somewhere else. And then get there, but because of different restrictions, we have to go somewhere else. And then some of those things, we discover cool and amazing things that we might not have discovered.

You know, for example, the entire guild system of Ravnica came because when I tried to do a heavy hybrid set with 10 hybrid combinations, it was just too much and overwhelmed them. And it made me realize that I needed to, you know, I needed somehow to chop it up in some way. And that was part of what led us down the path

to get to the guilds. That, you know, it's not like we started and got to the guilds. Guilds were us reacting to. The first attempt at what we did didn't work and really was causing problems. And some of those problems led into finding the solution that got us to the guilds, for example.

The other thing that's interesting is the idea of tradition, that they did this once and then they bring it back, and it really has become this kind of fan-favorite thing. And that's something else that I'm always conscious of is what can we do? Like Fibblefip's a good example where every time we go to Ravnica now, we hide Fibblefip in pictures because Fibblefip's always lost, and it just becomes this little game that the audience enjoys

and it just becomes this tradition that's fun and that, you know, traditions really can be compelling. Okay, on Sunday, first we went and saw some of the

Broadway Family Feud. So Rachel had tried out for the game show but didn't make it. So it was interesting, they would ask questions of like a hundred people and then they would,

the audience members, I think there were three fans and two Broadway stars that were on each team. And then the host was a Broadway star. And anyway, it was fun. Rachel and I didn't actually get to watch all of it, but it was neat to see, and it was neat to sort of see somebody take a known thing, like Family Feud,

and then just switch it into a Broadway thing. It was very flavorful. Then we went to see a thing about how fans are changing Broadway. We ended up walking at the very end of Out on Broadway, which is talking about the role of gay roles and stuff in Hollywood, which was really interesting. There's a lot of discussion about how trying to make more opportunities and more visibility. And they talked a lot of discussion about how trying to make more opportunities and more visibility.

And they talked a lot about diversity and representation. And like I said, Magic has tried really hard to be better about diversity, better in representation. And listening to a group talk about how much representation means to them, how much seeing themselves in stuff, how empowering that is, and how over the years, for example, in Broadway it's gone up and up and up and really now the big thing they were talking about is giving more opportunities for gay actors to play gay roles. But anyway, very interesting. Okay, the next panel is called How Fans Are Changing Broadway. And so Broadway has a much older audience.

I mean, the average Broadway goer, I think, is in like their lower 60s or something. And Broadway was very slow to adapt sort of social media. And then what happened was the last like five years really has started rewriting things. Like I talked last time about The Prom and Be More Chill and that both of those were shows that like neither one of which was based on a real

popular property. I mean, Be More Chill was based on a book but it wasn't, it's not Pretty Woman, it's not Tootsie, it's not Beetlejuice and that really

what got both, like Be More Chill was a good example where they did the show off Broadway, I mean not even in Broadway, in New Jersey at a small theater. It ran for the summer.

They recorded an album, and they were done. And they thought that was it. That was all you would ever see of the show. And it turned out that the record became this big hit on the Internet, and really, it was the Internet that brought it back. I mean, the show just finished its off-Broadway run. It starts its Broadway run in a month. And all of that is due to the fans. And likewise, the prom had a lot of social media interaction of,

you know, there were a lot of people that really the prom spoke to them. And social media also helped them in their advancing on and getting to Broadway. So one of the things they were talking about is how much that the next wave of sort of Broadway fans are different. They're younger. They're more social media savvy. And that Broadway is really trying to catch up. It was a very interesting panel talking about

the importance of understanding social media. And that's something I've spent infinite amount of time on. I mean, obviously, I do all sorts understanding social media. And that's something I've spent infinite amount of time on. I mean, obviously, I do all sorts of social media. I'm always trying to figure out how to be better at what I'm doing. And, like, one of the things I'm talking about right now is, you know, I keep trying to add channels that I'm on so that I can just be in more places so more people can see me and trying to think about the kind of exposure and how we want to do things.

I mean, obviously, I'm all in on social media being important. But it was really, really interesting to see somebody else in another fandom doing other things talk about how, just time and time again, when they do the proper social media stuff, how much it matters. Oh, and the other thing they talked about that was really compelling to me

was how the audience really sort of certain small things that you think wouldn't matter really end up becoming something. Fibletips is a great example, obviously, of magic, where we

did it as something that was just fun. It wasn't when the art was made it was just like oh here's a fun thing and then as we realized the audience was connecting with it we started doing more with it and we made plushies and phone cases and we started right hiding him in other art and you know as the fans embraced it we embraced it and that's one of the things that i think is really important this day and age is your fans are a great conduit to do cool things and that part of I think being a savvy brand in this day and age is understanding how to interact with your player base and so um so it is really interesting watching like I said

watching somebody else deal with very different issues in a completely different context. Okay, the final thing I did at... The final thing I did at... At BroadwayCon is Rachel and I went to a Be More Chill fan meetup. So Be More Chill, I've talked a lot about this play. Rachel is a big fan of it. So we went so all the fans could meet up. And Rachel had met the two people that were running the meeting ahead of time and talked to them. So anyway, we were in it

and people were sharing stories and stuff and then maybe 15 minutes into it, George I think it was George Salazar, the guy who plays Michael in Be More Chill, which is the best friend, the best friend of the main character. It's a pretty big role thing. He shows up, he and one of the producers show up and the place lost it.

Lost it, right? Like here these are fans of the show and here's one of the producers show up. And the place lost it. Lost it. These are fans of the show. And here's one of the stars of the show walks in. And he sat down. He answered questions. And he answered the fans. And he talked to them and took pictures. And it was amazing to see.

One of the things that I would love to figure out is I would love to have that same moment where where is something where people don't expect me to be there that I could be there and I mean one of the things I definitely do is I like to find opportunities where I can surprise the fans and it is, it was really interesting being on the other side watching, you know what I'm saying like

I was in a room of you know, really very dedicated fans of the show. And when George walked in, they just lost it. It was so cool. It was really cool. And, I mean, he was really, I mean,

he impressed me a lot. One of the things that he is known for is doing a lot of social media. And that he is, as it was kind of blowing up as the show was becoming this big internet sensation he was being very proactive interacting with fans and being a very uh a presence there and on social media and um it's funny because there's a lot of parallels and that a lot of stuff he was doing i see similar stuff to what i'm doing where he was trying to

find more and different ways to branch out and interact with the fans. And anyway, that was just, it's one of my favorite moments of the whole Broadway con because it was a great example of sort of like the ultimate fan service. And by the way, I've been to, with Rachel, a lot of the different conventions that Rachel and I have gone to, we've gone to meetups.

Every VidCon we went to meetups and every, you know, like, I've been to a lot of meetups with Rachel. Never, ever. This is the first time ever that basically, you know, one of the people that the fandom is about showed up. I had never seen that happen before. Now part of it is

that BroadwayCon is a little bit smaller show. I know VidCon caused us some issues, had a lot more security precautions in place. I'm not sure what happened at BroadwayCon could have happened at VidCon based on sort of how they work, but it was just a really cool moment and really exciting. And it really hammered home to me the impact of the connection between sort of the two sides, the fans and the people making the thing. Anyway, that is BroadwayCon.

I did not expect this to go through the whole podcast. But, I mean, one of the things that was interesting to me and one of the reasons that I really do enjoy going to new conventions is that it's really interesting.

I mean, Rachel and I figured out when we were, figured out where we were i think we were on the plane that like this was either my like 20th 21st 22nd convention um are the ones i can remember it was the 20th conventions are the ones i remembered then i later remembered one or two that i'd forgotten but um that it is always interesting and always need to go to new conventions and sort of see like I love watching different fandoms deal with their fans and stuff and it was really educational for me.

I mean part of it was really fun because it's fun seeing Rachel in her element and sort of seeing Rachel so-called in and asking questions and stuff. It was fun for me also while this is a fandom that I'm not like seeing Broadway shows every week, I am very familiar with a lot of broadway shows i know

mostly music i'm i am a fan of broadway if not quite as dedicated i might not be the person that flies to broadway con on my own um but it is a topic that i do understand and i do enjoy um like i said i i answered i i was able to answer a few trivia questions over the weekend um and it's funny rachel dressed up in um cosplay cosplay I just wore I have a bunch of different t-shirts and musicals so I wore my t-shirt every day would be

my musical with my flannel and everything but I would have a musical t-shirt on and wore some of my favorite shows The Little Shepard Horse

if I hadn't mentioned is my favorite that's my favorite musical anyway I hope this has been interesting to you and I know I'm always

I'm always a little bit nervous when I do sort of non-magic topics. But in general, what I found is you guys seem to like when I veer off. As long as I bring it back to magic, you guys seem to like when I veer off into different things. Just because I obviously talk about magic all the time. And when I talk about not magic, I share stories I've never shared before. Just because they're brand new stories. Anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know

what that means. It's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to make it magic. I'll see you guys next time.