The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #138 I Want My Mommy with Matt The Knife

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

Magician, Mentalist, Comedian and Sword Swallower Matt The Knife shares the downsides of ornithophobic audience volunteers, the difference between a short con and a long con, the comedic sensibilities of China, and what deserves a standing ovation. Also watch the episode on YouTube to see him do a magic trick on me at the end!! You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Matt the Knife on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube See Matt the Knife in a city near you Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's bi-monthly show in NYC Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram See Russell in Titanique in NYC! E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Dave Columbo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the downside. My name is Tremarcus Horazi. This is a podcast. I'm working on getting this intro to let people know for the first time listeners, this is a place, and for the guests to understand the premise, this is a place where you can be negative. You can complain, you can bitch, you can moan about your co-host taking a sip during the big intro part right by the mic. You brought the coffee to the mic as if you wanted to really ASMR it. I heard an ice shake. They gave me a lot of ice. Too much ice they gave me in this coffee. You walked up and you were like, more ice. Yeah.

I really want to piss off my co-host. So for first time listeners, you know, it's like every other podcast. But this one, we encourage people to be negative. Not have to be like, oh, but I am thankful for that thing. No, you're not. You're putting on a show. We also do that at the end, though. At the end, we do do a segment where we say what we're thankful for.

Thank you. We do do that. I am here with my co-host. You're allowed one. Yes, exactly. Russell Daniels. Hi. Who just got back from Hawaii. You were doing

an accent of like a local Hawaiian shut up no I wasn't wow we're starting off with the cancellations immediately and we're here with our guest a magician illusionist comedian mentalist

all the above Matt the Knife welcome to the podcast thanks for having me it's going to be fun I want to start out with a complaint of my own and then we'll get to all your shit it's been a while we just had a little bit of time off so if I repeat a story guys I apologize

I was on 8th Avenue which 8th Avenue Midtown is actually one of, in my money, one of the scarier parts of New York. I don't know what it is. I think it's just like the. We're talking Penn Station through like 40. Yeah. That's just that's. Penn Station through like 50th.

That's usually what I'm talking. And I think it's because it's like the dregs of Times square or like it's it's like like you have the the tourists aren't fully there or that's where the dumb tourists are so i was walking down 8th street and there was there was a man uh and he looked like he'd been homeless for a while which is fine but he he had he only had a nub on on one leg okay and it was like sticking out on the thing and he sees me and he starts he like looks at me like this and he starts rolling at me trying to touch his nub trying to hit me with his nub and like for the first time i thought i thought it was pretty sure that's good luck i i thought it was like an unfortunate just an unfortunate like he was he bumped into me but

i swear he's looking like this was he wasn't saying anything yeah and he was like he was he bumped into me but i swear he's looking like this was he he wasn't saying anything yeah and he was like he was like doing this his energy was shifting back and forth oh no and he conveyed all he needed to and i'm sure i could have it's one of those deers and headlights moments i had not prepared myself for this i'm sure i could have just like turned around but instead i truly felt trapped yeah and in my mind i immediately all i all i saw was this TikTok. Someone starts recording right here. Get the fuck away from me with your nub.

Yeah. And that's all that goes online and they don't see the context of it. I think there's a world somewhere between you yelling at him, screaming at him and you just fully allowing him

to touch you with the nub. I don't think, there's somewhere in between there that you could have, you know, if I had the moment to sit down in his chair, maybe it's very big. Were you in, where were you?

It was, I think it was, I was about to cross the street. I don't mean to be rude, but I bet you could outrun him. Sure. Yeah. I'll roll him out,

run him. I'm sure I could do anything. What happened? Uh, he, he like kept doing it kept doing it? were you stationary not moving?

I was about to cross the street and my mind it's like my mind shut down I couldn't take a left I had to go this way and he was coming at you yeah and you okay do you understand the mechanic? do you want to draw it out for you?

I'm just saying mechanically, couldn't you wait till the last minute until he's right next to you and then... And to do basketball? Listen, I've been in enough relationships to know. I think he just wants you to like empathetically listen. Yes, okay. And understand where he's coming from emotionally.

Not question the logistics. He doesn't need you to solve the problem right now. You're right, you're right. You're right. I could have done better. Okay, so what happened? See, we got to get to you. I ended up like getting away a little bit.

And I said, I think I was like, fuck, get the fuck. So you did scream and get the fuck away from me. I didn't know. I didn't fully say it. I could have said, get the fuck out of here. What a cool nub. That could have been where it was going. I don't think you need to comment on the nub.

And I don't mind the nub, to be clear. I have a feeling that our listeners have more nubs than the average podcast listener. Because this is the downside. It's not about the nub. Yeah. It was just. He was being chased. Yes.

And he was. You were being chased. It's scary to be chased by anyone. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But he didn't say anything? No. The look.

The look was just like he was mischievous. He was mischievous. And this is the weirdest couples counseling session I've ever been called in for. It's my dream to get a couple. Maybe that's how I'll do it. They'll be the guests,

but there'll be a full session. I've just been replaced. That was it. guests, but there'll be a full session. So that's me. I've just been replaced. That was it. Oh, I hate you do tricks, asshole. Here's a better idea for a guest. Do you heal? Do you heal? And Russell, you doing okay?

Hawaii was good? Hawaii was great. You know, it was just what I needed. Just four and a half days, not doing a show, laying out, sleeping. Are you just beaching every day uh beach pool some walks you know yeah the thing was you know i only went off the resort one time i want to go to resort uh it was good uh definitely great um but it was such a short amount of time it takes so long to get to white that's the thing you really gotta want it that's i would if when i go back i'll plan like an la

trip around it so you're flying from la and doesn't feel the the 11 hour flight from here to honolulu and then a couple hour layover and then another 40 minute flight it's just a long time that's what my mother does she she hates the long flight so she always takes a two-day layover in la because i think it's only like five or six hours from LA it's not a bad flight that's not bad and I feel like I would plan it that way because it's just a long flight if you're

only there for like I used to do the same thing when I was flying out to China a lot is like stop somewhere on the way because otherwise it's like a 23 24 hour flight with layovers no that's yeah you really to want to go but yeah it was beautiful perfect I felt like come back this weekend

and doing the shows I felt so much better and so much like so yeah it was a really nice trip you know the I feel bad sometimes you go to those places it happened when I went to Bora Bora too where they

I don't know if it's the resorts. They tell people to say the phrases over and over again like the mahalo. And you're like, do people in Hawaii say this much? Or is it the resort has been trained? What do you mean they're telling you to say it like every time they see you

they go mahalo? Mahalo. They start and end everything and your interaction with that. And on the airline, Hawaiian Airlines, they're like, Mahalo. Like every,

and you're a little like, so maybe I'm wrong. Like, I don't want to like, like you never actually hear New Yorkers say like, I'm walking here. I'm walking here. Like every time you go to a New York resort

and they go, Hey, forget about it. Hey, your family. The gym is this way. Hey, forget about it. Yeah, so I couldn't tell if that's like if it's really said that much or if it's like a weird resort thing. I like that idea of whole New York resort experience.

Yeah. Because if you took over New York, New York and and Vegas, it would be a totally different experience. Yeah. Yes. Like, there'd just be a guy with a nub chasing everybody around the lobby. Oh, my God. And it would be like an actor with a full foot,

but they added a fake nub over, and then we'd get in trouble. That's how you get in trouble. That's how you get in trouble. I, I... Well, because I had a bit. It's about when you fly Hawaiian Airlines, they play a video that's, like,

welcoming you to the island. Yes. And my joke was they need a video for the plane right back to New York City. And it's like, yeah. Well, they did. They played the same video. You made your choices.

They played the same video again. And I was like, I don't want to see this now. You know what I mean? Oh, when you're leaving Hawaii? When you're leaving Hawaii and they were like, here's what you missed. It's like this propaganda thing to enjoy Hawaii. I already did it.

I don't want to see this again. I'm going back. You know, like, yeah. But yeah, great trip. As you look out the window and part of the city is on fire. You're like, oh, the riots. Nice.

I'm home. Now, I feel like you must travel. It's just your industry. Because it's not completely bound by language differences. I mean, you're doing shows with no talking. So in anywhere where they speak English, which is like US, Canada, England, like Germany, because they all speak English.

So you can just do it. So like certain places and I'm thought of on stage is usually so I have kind of two shows, main shows that I do. And one is I call like a standard show and one is sort of a scary show it's like it's like based in horror stuff yeah um but that one aside so we'll push that one off because that one i only really do in the u.s um or the uk but um the other stuff so here i'm often thought of as funny and very animated and things when i'm on stage for my standard show uh but it's weird like

so if i go to like japan i'm not because i don't speak the language and i don't try to convey and humor is different like so like in china like like i was doing this i was doing this thing with guinness this tv shoot out in beijing and before we went on they were like oh my god you should we're you're so funny when you're in english i was like oh thanks they're like so we want you to be funny in china and i was like okay and they were like um so and i was doing this escape i was bringing this guinness world record and it was this underwater escape thing and you can die if you fuck it up so uh they were like so i'm like mentally genuinely mentally preparing like okay i want to do this and i don't want to die and uh this is gonna be great okay this is gonna be really good and we had you know tens of millions of viewers and we were going to do it live for a portion of it and so it was like

it's kind of a big deal and we had at the you know they had their like the chinese olympic swim team were literally my rescue divers and so i was like okay like we're in this this olympic training pool that they just so it's a series of multi-camera shoot where they're you know underwater camera and so it's a lot of money put into this like you gotta understand like you guys have done tv here in the states like you know that if you're doing like a live studio audience it's not very big it's it's it's i mean like i remember like chelsea lately show is what like chelsea hillary show is like 40 people it's like a classroom yeah and they go up to like 200 ish right sure so like in china like their small groups start at like 600 people

and they can go into the thousands in the live audience. You can be like, oh, we have two and a half thousand people in the live audience tonight. Yeah. They're just, so. I think Corden had eight.

So, so, so. And one was his mom. And so, and so. Not false. Not false. And so what happens is he, it was really weird. They had two directors,

which I don't know how that works to this day. And they did not agree on anything. So they would argue with each other. And what I would do is I would just pick the one idea that I liked better. I'd be like, I think we're going to do that one. And the other guy would kind of pout. And I like that.

Yeah. He's got it. Then the next time I'd be like, I think it's his turn. And so we were, we were doing this thing and the guy goes, uh, all right, what I want you to do is before you go in,

the host is going to ask you, Matt, how do you feel? And we want you to say, I want my mommy. And I went, no. And he goes, it's so funny. And I go, okay. And he goes, it's so funny. And I go, okay. And he goes, Chinese people love this. And I was like, Matthew doesn't. They love that phrase?

No, they just like, they love slapstick comedy. So they love goofy. Okay, Russell, in your mind, what did you think just now? That the phrase, I want my mommy, is like the comedic slogan of China? I don't know. It's like, that's what she said of China. Maybe. I want my mommy, is like the comedic slogan of China. I don't know. It's like, that's what she said of China. Maybe. I want my mommy. The crazier things that happened.

I don't know. Maybe it was a famous... Crazier things that happened. Believe it or not, that is why the communist premier always starts every speech with that phrase. I don't know if you know this. This is true. One of my degrees is in political science. That's actually a true fact.

And that is what I learned was from my degree is that that is the opening line. That was every... I think it goes back to Stalin. Yeah. It goes back to Stalin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Lenin had the idea, but he didn't institute it.

You fucking idiot. This is for the ice. So that is what you've presented. That is a... I understand that conundrum on a smaller scale. Yeah. But so in your mind, I imagine this is a good gig.

Oh yeah. This is a, this is a good gig. Yeah. This is, who's, are they in charge? Are you like,

where, where do you stand? Yeah. It's really weird. So like TV out there, it's CCTV, which is funny because they think it's, that stands for closed captioning television,

but it's, that's their television. It's called CCTV. So it's Chinese television and it stands for closed captioning television, but it's, that's their television. It's called CCTV. So it's Chinese television and it's technically owned by the military. So it's a government channel. I say that line. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to, yes, I want my mommy. And so they, they, no, I was, that was a hard line for me. I was like, no, I said, no, I said, I know. And he was like, you, you, you need to. And I was like, it's not going to, and so right before we, the camera's about to go live. You have a lot of power right there. Because what are they going to do? What are you going to do?

What are you going to do? You want to do it underwater? So we kind of went back and forth three times. And I went, it's OK. I can just walk. I was like, I just don't have to do this. And the other thing was, they had already paid me in advance. So I was like, well, I want to do this.

But I do have the money. And I do definitely in this moment like this was the wrong time to renegotiate yes um yes you really have said it so quickly we both would me quicker than you i would have been like let's find a way if this there's no way to make it work really the first time i ever maybe undercutting it a little i was shooting work really the first time i ever maybe undercutting it a little i was shooting a tv yeah would you do it how would you do it let's see if you had to if you had to do it i don't think there's a way to do it but like without doing it big i don't think so do you are you gonna go i want my mom because that's what i do i do it i was thinking like really small i like i like how you do it.

I like how you demurred to it too. There was a physicality for both of you. It was nice. So yeah, that was a hard line. I said no. They were very disappointed. And later they were like, after the shoot,

the shoot went great and it was awesome and the audience was great. And I went back many times after that doing more television because of it. That was the first time I worked out there. And they, but I remember afterwards,

the director was like, like quietly to me, privately in the green room was like you could have been funny like you had your chance now you're just serious but so that's the thing is so to your question like it's weird like in japan and china and a lot of other places like in europe and things like they think i'm maybe a serious performer because I just know that I'm, if you can't be comedically well-timed, it doesn't really, to me at least, it doesn't really matter how good the joke is. Like, you miss something with it

and I'd rather just not even try. So yeah, I'm usually just not funny. If you could be, because I feel like with magic, again, I love magic. Awesome, me too. I don't know a lot about the world. That's why I'm here.

I went to a summer camp. Did you? I went to like, and it was like, there was the only time there was magic teachers there. So there were like two real magicians. You know they have magic summer camps. I wish I could have got, I wish I had. But they like, you know, I bought the first two Tarbell books. Oh yeah.

And I got really into it. But it was, I feel like with Magic. The four people that are listening to this that understand that are like Tarbell. And the other people are like, what is he talking about? You could have just said the four people that are listening to this. But no, no, no, no. But I feel like there's cool. One of them is Corden's mom.

Yeah. Cool, sexy or funny is Corden's mom. Yeah. Cool, sexy, or funny. Oh, my God. So this actually is one of the opening things that I wanted to complain about. Oh, please. So I believe that magic suffers from itself. Your problem is that most people, when they think of magic, think of, like, the flamboyant Vegas style or the kind of like creepy grandpa. And yeah, and there's a few that are kind of like

the cool sexy, but those are like the minority, right? Yeah. And so you, and I'm not, I'm not flamboyant style. I hope I'm not creepy, except in the scary show, but that's like a different kind of creepy. And then- It's not like, am I touching your boob? Yeah, right? yeah right not touching

you look you're pretty you know it's it's not that it's yeah it's scary not creepy yeah and so anyway but because of that that you you're constantly like when you're being booked one of the things i would always hear is this like after a show the book would be like wow you're nothing like what i thought you were going to be. That was really good. And I was like, that's a weird thing to say. Did you think I was going to suck?

Like, I guess I'm glad that you booked me and I'm glad that you enjoyed it. But that was a weird anticipation that you were like, oh wow, it's not what I thought. It was really good. Yeah. Like,

oh, people say to me, that was actually funny. And I'm like, what the fuck dude? Well, I think people, A of all, I don't think, I don't think, maybe they do. But magic show isn't something you go to as regularly as you see like movies or things, you know?

So I feel like people sometimes can connect it with something that doesn't end up being cool or fun or interesting. And so, and same thing with stand-up. People don't always go and they're like, oh, wow, I thought this was going to be like. The problem is, is right. They don't see it usually at a professional caliber. Yes, yes, yes. And the professional caliber they do tend to see are those Vegas style shows. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing.

I'm not like downing Vegas style shows. It's just not my style show. And so it's weird. I mean, I went to Vegas last year and is it considered the magic capital of America? I would argue it's like the magic capital of the world. It is a weird place.

My buddy Lou Soisi can't swing a dead cat around your head without hitting a magician in the face in Vegas. Yeah. It is a weird place for an art form to grow the shows are weird they're for like a lot of times

the worst imagine like family I have to perform for Times Square groups but we're talking family shows and 3pm and 1pm and I just feel like it would make an art form it's a struggle to like grow something interesting and unique in Vegas. Same with stand-up comedy.

I mean, it's just like, let me play the theme music. This is The Downside. One, two, three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gian listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. By the way, if you're listening for the first time

or you're a big time listener, please join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. Bonus episodes are live episodes and exclusive access to my clean comedy special, The Wraths Are In Me, patreon.com slash downside. Remind me at the end, I need to plug a friend's special, please. Okay.

He's mine. This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg

alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. So what's your experience with magic? You don't, you can be honest. You're not a magic fan. I'm not, not a magic fan. I wouldn't probably think of myself as someone who would automatically seek it out,

but I could see myself enjoying it. I've seen it. I'm trying to think when I've seen it. I've not probably seen like a, I've not seen a Vegas style. Like, I don't know if I've seen a big professional. I feel like stand-up comedy there's bubbles and bursts and and ways where like magic is part of the zeitgeist yeah and magic is like i and i feel like the so uh we're back to the downside i just uh bad-mouthed one of the

most famous magicians for about 45 minutes and i have been requested to not include it to shut up in the episode no i saw you i feel like you could tell right yeah you could tell because i saw uh what assistant is that the title we're using no no she's a rep yeah she's my agent well forgive me agent yeah she's not adjusted the shirt I thought you're a good agent. I didn't want to give me a shit. I could have a mustard stand on my goddamn shirt. But I saw you, your hand go like this. And I thought, oh, wow, she's laughing real hard at my jokes. But no, I could see soon.

Horror. That was horror. We'd lose this leg of the tour. Yeah, that was like the night before. Last night, it was like, these are the things you can't talk about. And I was like that was like the night before like last night she was it was like these are the things you can't talk about and i was like okay and she was like no seriously and i was like no no that's you're right this is why you're here this is why we go over these things because if i'm left to my own devices i'll just say whatever i want and i was like if it gets it's

fine though if anything gets out of hand like just give me the look and and her expression was just not only did she give me the look but i could tell in her mind this isn't a mentalist this is just like i know her she was like this god damn durley in the conversation well listen i didn't i noticed when you're talking about china i didn't ask your opinion on taiwan that's true do you understand i'm a little bit cognizant yeah yeah yeah yeah i appreciate it. It's all right. John Margo loves editing. I will make a compromise, though. I won't use anybody super famous,

but I'm sure before this podcast is out, I will trash talk in vague... Like, I won't say their names, but I'll, you know, on camera. But Magic, it is, I'm sorry to keep comparing it to stand-up comedy.

I'm more interested in how different, how like the similarities. It's more about like a niche. It's about an art form that lives off touring and then a couple hubs and theaters. It's fascinating. The art form I compare it to the most is actually music, I think is the closest to it.

But no, I think everything you're saying is right. I don't disagree with any of these statements of how- But it's smaller. Yeah, oh yeah. It's smaller. Smaller than music, smaller than comedy, smaller than, I mean, it's bigger than mime. That's about it.

Yeah, it's, oh my God. Don't worry. Crackling. No, that's not it. Listen. Oh. Okay. So, okay. listen oh okay um so so okay so so walk me through the the the beginning of

becoming a magician were you a theater kid no so one of the things i actually hate too is i i do not understand how so many entertainers and people in the industry will just either say yes to anything they're asked to do or even something they want to do we'll see us do zero research on sure so like we say no and i will get to your question i'm sorry but we say no to most things uh that i get because i just believe that like you kind of have to curate your character and where you're going that's just i i think it's and i've done enough tv and i've done a lot of it over the years that kind of like now, like when people like exposure, I'm like, I don't care. I was a question on jeopardy. Like, you're not going to be like, oh yeah, you're going to be bigger than that. I'm sure, you know, it's just, doesn't matter. So, so now we, I really only

choose things I like. So like, she'll bring things to me and, uh, so my agent brings things to me. And so she, uh, really likes your stuff your stuff and and so she was like hey you know like i think this guy's really funny you should do his podcast like he was he asked if you do the podcast and normally i'm like i don't really care for podcasts being on them it's just a lot of time going out to a place and of course yeah but then so no so what happened was so but then uh yeah so she sent your stuff over and similarly, I was like, one of my complaints about comedy has been in the last few years, I feel like it's like become everybody's one man show. Like there's a lot of standup tragedy where I'm like, Oh man, remember when

I used to go to a comedy show and we'd laugh. That was crazy. And, uh, and I have no problem with like one man shows and things, but if I, if I go to a comedy club, like I want to, I want to see comedy. And so, and, um, so she sent me her stuff and i was like oh it's really funny and like really funny because i'm not a guy who would like i mean one i wouldn't be here if i didn't think it was uh but two i i'm i am a person who will usually not like say bad things about somebody sure but i won't say nice things either yeah how was the show? That was definitely one I have seen. I have seen shows before, and that ranks as one of them. So if I actually give a compliment, I mean it.

So yeah, but because of that, and then I say, yeah, and she sends over research. She'll be like, these are, so she'll do some research on it and go, this is the deal. This is what they're like. So I actually, and I think it's crazy when people show up here and they're just like, what is this show about? And I know that they do that.

I know people do that. Of course. So, yeah, I know you are very much a theater kid at heart. I know, for example, she had just shown me a piece where you were just singing your guts out at what appeared to be a comedy show. I knew it was at Moontower Comedy Festival. They have something called the Comedy Jam and full band. And I did Piano Man. Yeah, I saw.

And man, I really gave it my all. So I feel bad in telling you I was not a theater kid at all. Like, I mean, the closest was right. Like, you know, when you're in high school and you take that test of like what you can be when you grow up. And I had done that because I really wanted some direction. You know, it's right before you graduate and you kind of like, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Exactly.

Like I had a vague idea, but it seemed, it actually seemed quite impossible, but I wanted to do this one thing. It didn't seem like it was going to happen. So I went and took the test and they came back and the thing said, he was like, wow, the guy goes, and this is not me trying to toot my own cause I was not happy about it at the time.

He goes, wow, I've never seen this before. And I was like, what do you mean? The guidance counselor goes, it says you'd be good at any job you chose to do. And I was like, that is an incredibly unhelpful test. And he says, well, there is a top. That sounds like you, like they accidentally put the paper into the shredder.

Right, right. And it came out and they said, wow. I was like, anything like shoemaker, shoot Baker, like all the president of the United States. So he goes, there are,

there is a top three though. He said, these are the three that you'd be best at. And I said, yeah, yeah. Tell me. And he says,

okay, number one, number one would be if you're taking, can I take these off? Oh yeah. Yeah. You can take them off. Sure.

I just took it off. Cause if you're going to take these off. Oh sure. So I'll keep sure i just took it off because if you're gonna take these off oh sure so i'll keep them on so that's okay you look beautiful yeah so uh in anything you wear all right so what happens is they give me this list and the list is number one mortician i was like oh i was like okay uh I could do it. And number two attorney, I was like, that's a bit of a shift. And number three entertainer. And I remember getting number three and being like, that's bullshit. I was like, I could definitely dress a corpse, but there's no way I'd ever be an entertainer. Like I was like, that's dumb. Your test sucks. Um, so later when I kind of, I fell into it through an indirect account, I don't know how much you know about my background, but, um, it's sort of a reapplication of an unusual skill set.

So when I was very young, I did, I was going to ask about this. So when I was very young, uh, I, I wanted to work in clandestine services. I read the James, I was a big reader. Still am a big reader. I read the Ian Fleming novels with James Bond is based on when I was a kid and, uh, got really into that when I was like eight or nine and was like oh my god when I grow up I want to be

I want to be a spy and my parents were like weirdly supportive and they were like okay and my dad do you think you fully understood no

it was like it was the Hollywood version of a spy yeah oh yeah totally and that was actually that's the real accident right

was so I was like what can James Bond do James Bond can cheat at cards and pick pockets and he can mentally manipulate and read people and he can pick locks and get restraints. And a lot of sex. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, I mean, yeah.

Oh no, I mean, if it's my cross to bear, if it's my cross to bear. But like at nine, you can't practice that. I mean, maybe you can and good on you. But no, so that's the thing is that like, so I was like, mom, dad, I got to do these things. And they were like really, really good about like weirdly good or bad

depending on your perspective, right? Like getting me things. So it was like, so my father was a well-known attorney. He was a defense lawyer and he would take things in trade. And so like one of the guys he had was like a used book dealer and they the guy had like owed him money. And so what happened was he would get me these like out of print books like expert

the card table go ahead and pick them sharps and flats so yeah like these like different like technique style books about because i was like this is the stuff that you need to do to be james bond and it was like card cheating books and things like pickpocketing books and things who who can forget the scene where james bond kills the bad guy by going pick a card any card and then shoots him through the day. No, no, no. The very first novel was Casino Royale. It was like the 30th movie, but that's the first novel

was Casino Royale, which is about him playing cards in, I think it was, was it Backrack? But I don't remember. I was nine when I read it. But so he's, but he's playing cards. Yeah. And I was like, you know, and he has to win.

And I was like, you know, it'd make it easier if you could cheat at cards. I was like, I'm just cutting out the middleman. So like these were skill sets that I was just like, oh, that's what I'll do. And so I learned these weird things. Okay. Flash forward, I'm like 14 years old

and I want to start dating and going out on dates with women can be expensive, and so I had a very tiny allowance, and I needed to get a job. So I got a job, and it was in fast food, and it was terrible. And I decided... Wait, how old were you here? Like 14? Is that legal?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can work 20 hours a week. Yeah. So it's part-time, maximum 20 hours a week, and the jobs are terrible that you can get. There was some video recently on Twitter. Someone was at like a Wendy's and they asked his employee, how old are you?

And he was like, eight. And they're like, oh, no. 14 is the cutoff. 14. 16, you can go to like full-time. I think some places are trying weirdly to get younger kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's really crazy is there's places where they're like in like poultry factories and things that are very dangerous. This is not a dangerous job. That said, they did end up putting the wrong cleaner on the floor and I was working the line and the owner was like, hurry up, go faster, go faster. I literally was

running back and forth and because the wrong cleaner was on the floor I slipped and landed on my tailbone and like my back kind of went out at like 14 and so my dad's response being an attorney was like we're getting uh you know i'll just say we're getting a kfc and uh and so uh i was like that's a cool dad that's a good line and i was like i was like yeah i don't want anything to do with that i was like i'm just done i don't want to do this so i i stopped working there and i so i quit and like it was like two weeks later i was in a uh like an off-brand best buy like a best buy not a best buy yeah yeah and i was getting followed around and i was offended uh because i think it was because it was like an all black and i was like a teenager you know sure and you know but

i probably wasn't offended the way you guys would be offended the average person would be like how dare you think that if i chose to steal from you that, excuse me, how dare you think that I would steal from you? Whereas I thought, how dare you think if I chose to steal from you that you would be smart enough to catch me? So I went back two days later as a man with a plan and him for about two, three grand product. And I went, this is better than working. I think I was just far around because, you know, teenager and all black. I mean, I wasn't like a goth kid or anything. It was just not that there's anything wrong with that.

But it was just, I came from an Italian mob lawyer family. Everybody wore all black. Like the line in the family was, you know, oh, why do you guys always wear so much black? Well, as soon as we find a darker color, we'll be sure to wear that. You know, like that. Wait, so, okay, so you were stealing stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it started off as a shoplifting ring and then, but it was easy and boring. And I felt- What kind of stuff are you stealing? Whatever we could fence. And how are you stealing? It started off as a shoplifting ring, but it was easy and boring. What kind of stuff are you stealing? Whatever we could fence. And how are you stealing? Like it's smaller things?

No, no. It depends on the product. Okay, wow. It was really more about like, so you fence. How to. That's what I'm asking for. We live in New York and we need to. Wait, have you ever stolen anything in your life? When we talked about this on this podcast,

I told you I stole a muffin recently. Wow. You are a monster. But not really. I'm going to go. And I said, I think I said, I've never, I'm way too scared. Twice I've borrowed a roommate's thing and left it in my closet. I paid over $75 in other food

at the same time and I just threw the muffin in that's how I justified it that actually is the common theft especially nowadays with the automated you know you walk up in the grocery store and you have to scan your own food usually it's the opposite

I'm going to scan one muffin and it takes $75 there's a lot of that I definitely get that urge especially when it's something that like won't scan. If I do it like three times and I'm like, I'm like, and no one can acute. I didn't see like in my mind, I come up with the excuse for the car. Yeah, sure. So how, what made you good? Tell me the how to, what do I do?

Uh, so I mean, so I had this, right. It's a reapplication. We're not condoning that. Please, I'm not. This is not an educational seminar. So it is, it was, and like this is out. Like it's like people know, like I've been on like CNN and the History Channel talking about it.

So it's like, I've done stuff for Amazon about this. Like it's not like people are like, oh, really? Like, and now I, and I should know. I do have a company now that does like consultations on this so we do many of the people that we like used to rip off we now protect let me ask you this if you found out that your whatever this company is

help them catch a 14 year old you is there any part of you that goes like fuck I'm the man now no because if the 14 year old me was better than whatever existed at the time there's probably still people that can rip off you know but they have to adjust i don't judge like i really don't like i'm not like oh like there are a lot of guys who are like quote

unquote reformed who are like um like oh what i do is so wrong i don't sit around and be like like i don't i don't i don't, stay up at night about it. But I also don't, like, it's not like I feel good. It's not like I'm not here trying to brag about it. Like, it's not something I really talk about that much unless it's connected to my work. Like, it's not like a thing.

But I don't, like, also, I don't look back on it and be like, I was so bad. I was like. Do you identify a part of you as a thief? Like, a physical part? Like, my esophagus is the thief. Like I'm an actor.

No, I guess not. I guess there is a little part that thinks grifter. I don't like the term con man. It feels like a classic. I do think of myself as an artist in general. And so I do think that if you do anything well enough, it can be an art form sure um so what was your technique back then well so hold on so let me just walk you through it so

what happened was it starts so this isn't really complaining so this this what happens is it starts off with uh the the the the the kind of shoplifting thing and it felt really beneath me and i didn't really like just like i don't like theft um yeah and and so that but it did lead into like uh i don't really remember which came next out of the two but it was uh there was a card cheating and there was um uh pickpocketing and uh and i ran rings involved me in both of those and then cons and i really that's what i liked was the short and long cons i really liked and that's sort of what I identified most with all of the four.

And this all as a teenager? Until about 21-ish. Running rings. Sometime between 20 and 22. Yeah. So what happened was I still, by that time I still wanted to work in an espionage. I wanted to, you know, be a spook.

And so- Wait, is that the cool term for a spy? Yeah, yeah. A spook? Because you're a ghost. Oh. Yeah, yeah a spook because you're a ghost oh yeah yeah spook yeah if you want to know the term so like nobody in the cia calls the cia they call the company do you think it's because your dad was a lawyer that you were less scared of getting absolutely okay i was absolutely i mean we kind of like laughed it i mean at the time it was kind of did he know you were running rings?

No, no, no, no, no. In a way you got to like have training wheels. My father to this day like thinks all of this stuff is exaggerated. He's like, yeah, that's what he says for like marketing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that. And then there are other people that like grew up around me that were like, okay. They're like, that's where my cufflinks went.

No, I would never. So I had to know, but I'm very serious about this. So I had, I think everybody in life has sort of their own code that they follow whether it be like absolutely unspoken and we all have our rules that we're like that's wrong and other people like that's fine um and that that code so one of the things was I would never ever take for anybody who I cared for who was a friend of mine and I also like didn't ever take from anybody and I'm not trying to sit here and be like oh I'm altruistic I just know what it made me feel guilty but i didn't like so it was like a robin hood thing but i wouldn't take for anybody who i thought was nice so like if it was a mom and pop shop i was like

i'm not gonna take anything from a mom and pop from like a good person i'm uh you know but like if you're a multinational conglomerate who is destroying the environment i'm like oh no i took five thousand dollars from you. Like, I don't, oh, you want to go home and cry about it? Like, I don't care. Like you just got a half a million dollar fine from the EPA and you're still dumping things. Take it out of the CEO's bonus. Yeah, yeah.

I just don't feel bad about that. Like I don't, yeah. So there's no part of me that like feels guilt in that regard. When you say a short con and a long con, help me understand what's a long con. What are we talking about here? A short would be something really brief that would be maybe like a bar bat.

So it would be like, you want a really stupid one. In New Orleans, you hear this one all the time where people walk up to you and they'll be like, this is dumb, this is a dumb example, but you hear it a lot. They walk up and go, hey man, I'll bet you $5 I can tell you where you get those shoes.

And you go, okay. Do it, Russell. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And they pause. They go, on your feet. Oh. You got them on your feet.

Wait. And then they give you the- And they go, and look. Would you give someone $5? No. Some people laugh. They go, yeah. But that's a dumb con but there are also but there are better ones that are like bar bets that are like kind of like proposition bets for you like i bet you i could do this thing and which

you the trick for like a bar bet is you need to get them to put the money on the table so you can't be like if you if you have the money in the pocket i've got to be like give me the five dollars whereas if i'm like all right put the money on the table if you've got to be like, give me the $5. Whereas if I'm like, all right, put the money on the table. If you take $5 out or $10 or $20 out and put it on the bar and I do the bet, as soon as I win, boom, I'm taking the money. And then it's kind of like whoever has the money. People don't tend to argue you. And also you size up the person. Like you're not going to like pick a guy who's going to punch you in the face. You kind of go, well, that's what I was going to ask. Cause I'm like, a lot of guys are gonna be like cool, clever answer. A lot less than. No. A lot less than you think.

A lot less than you think. A lot of people pleasers. Just one is enough to deter me. The thing is, is that like, so do you know what con man is short for? No. Confidence man. Did you know that? Yeah.

I didn't. It was from here in New York. It was from a newspaper, I think in the 1800s. If you care, I'll get you the dates. But it was, there was a guy in Times Square who used to walk up to people and shake their hand and go, excuse me, madam, could I have your confidence? And then he would tell them the sad story about how, oh, my God, basically it is now the con, right? Where it's like, oh, I lost my phone.

And I mean, it wasn't my phone back then, but I don't have my money. And you travel. Yeah, because you just spend like $10. I'm stuck under this car. Please help me. And so many people gave him money that finally when he was arrested, the newspaper headline was

the confidence man caught or captured or something like that. And that eventually got shortened to con man. But the point is, is that like, it's all about confidence. It's all about having the chutzpah to walk up to somebody and go, yeah, I think I can get the money. And so if you don't have that you can't do that neither of us have that yeah no that's a trait both of us do yeah so and that's the thing so that's the thing

that you see a lot with spies right like if you want to work in that there's they the most important thing is that like charisma element where you can connect and talk with people and you can control a room and if you don't have that, that's the kind of thing. They cannot train you just everything else they can train you in, but that you either have it or you don't. So I was doing this stuff, viewing it as like, Oh, okay, well this is onto the job training for me. Cause I still want to do that. Like now I knew what it really was. It wasn't James Bond. It was combustion services.

And so I was looking at how like a spy master runs rings. Like if you have different like individual spy rings and what you do is, is you turn people, you make moles. And so I would run them the same way. So I'd run each crew separately. Yeah. I was trying to each crew separately.

So that way, if one of them collapsed or one fell in on themselves, they couldn't bring the rest of my network down. They would just implode individually and they couldn't tie it back to me. You're taking a cut of what they all get. I'm training them and taking a cut and selecting people and, and mind what was going to happen the one day you'd you'd you go home and the queen of england was sitting there and said we'd like to no no i went to college we've heard of your moles uh no i went to college to work in it so i was going to college uh i really but when you

were applying to college did you say hey you should let me in i run a huge uh no theft organization i said hey i have good grades and a lot of recommendations you should let me in so like in my normal day i was a regular person like so this is one of the problems with magic right this is one of my complaints is that like when people meet you as a magician i mean it is how i define myself like that is who like, like in your heart, you're still like this theater person, right? And so would you say a comedian is secondary? I change. I vacillate.

Okay. But in my mind, my conception of what a comedian is, is that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally get it. Oftentimes people say one of the old definitions of a magician is like an actor who can perform miracles. You're playing a part of a miracle worker.

I like that. Yeah. Because you're never really doing it, right? Uh-huh. And so that said, for me, I do define myself as a magician now and a mentalist now like those are the things like when i'm which one is better more prominent for you a mentalist or magician when i'm booking it or like for real for real mentalist interesting yeah yeah that's that's that's my passion out of all of it is mentalism and another thing called bizarre magic which we can talk about after that's kind

of scary stuff it's sort of this like sub-genre but mentalism in that and oh your eyes get big on that one yeah yeah i love all of this yeah oh that's great i mean that's why we're here right so you can learn about this so what happened was but just to finish this out so i always so even when i guess when i was doing the crime stuff right in my head i was still viewed as a spy but when you're meeting people they kind of and so i do define myself sorry i went off i do define myself. Sorry, I went off. I do define myself as sort of a mentalist magician. I usually say magician. Cause it's just the word that people understand. A lot of people don't know what mentalist is.

And I don't want to have to explain it. Also like the word mentalism for mentalist in the UK means a crazy person. Yeah. So like, I can't even sit, you have to be like, I'm a mystery entertainer is often what they'll say. In my mind,

if I'm being honest, mentalist to me sometimes makes me think it's going to be the dull version of, Oh, you saw the number they wrote on the paper, which is why I don't like to use that definite. I don't like to, I often don't say mentalist. And for example,

like I'll also, I don't think of myself as an illusionist because in my mind, that's like big boxes, something in people in half. And that's not a thing I do. I find that it's just not for me. I find it boring. And so when, but I will still say illusionist in our promo

because it's not really about my definition. It's about your definition. It's about conveying that thing. And that we've spent a lot of time over the years to convey like for the longest time, I wouldn't say comedian. Like, because, but because I was like, I'm not a comedian. Like what you do say comedian uh like because but because i was like i'm not a comedian like what you do you know you guys are comedians i'm not a comedian uh i'm i always said like there are comedy magicians but i've always found that

they are kind of light on the magic and kind of more heavy in the comedy and i am like and it's sort of almost like at times almost like a crutch whereas i'm a magician so you're gonna come you're gonna see a lot of magic and by the way way, you're going to laugh a lot. Cause I, I would always say I'm a magician who happens to be funny. But what happened was we would find, we would try to explain that in promo

and then people afterwards would go, you're really funny. And I would go, cause the show is really funny. And I would go, thanks. And, and I'd be like,

yeah, that's why we explained that. And they're like, why don't you just say you're a comedian? And I, I actually thought it was disrespectful to comedians. Sure.

Is the thing I was like, well, I was offended. There you go. Great. Perfect. That's what i'm aiming for i think again it's like why i think it's so interesting it's like with stand-up comedy and what do the worlds perceive people say skits all the time yeah it's always the internal joke of like can we call them sketches yeah but it's like no one gives a fuck yeah no one gives a fuck yeah but it's also like at some point maybe someone will will do that there will be a famous show called the sketch but it's also like at some point maybe someone will will do that there will be a famous show called the sketch show it's like the way that our internal real

vocabulary and how the world just views it and marketing purposes it's all and then there's always a jargon a lexicon within the industry so for example like like we so they're like was like 13 forms of magic plus the allied arts so So there's like individualizations of them. And then from each one of those, then we have like terms for each thing and moves. And then like even for like, so like non-magicians, there's a word for non-magicians. It is not muggles, but there is a real word.

What is it? It's laymen. And like sometimes that can be almost like derogatory. Like, oh, they're just a layman. Like they don't get it. But it's also like, you know, it's originally intended as a non-derogatory way

of just saying like a non-magician. So like, because like what you do for magicians, like if you're performing for magicians, it's probably different than what you do when you're performing for, of course, you know,

your crowd. And so, and it's also like a lot of stuff that I love that I just kind of do for myself. But anyway, I'm sorry. I feel like we're tangeling off. So I,

wait, I have a question real quick. When comedians hang out, sometimes there's lots of bits going on. People trying out in different material. You're hanging out with a bunch of magicians. Is that kind of thing happening? Where'd my fork go? Harrison, give me my fork.

Or do you run like, I'm thinking of doing this kind of thing. So here's the thing. This is one of the notes, right? So one of the issues I've always had was I came to Magic very late. I'll finish out that story and then tie into this if that's cool. Yeah, that's great. So what happens is, so I sort of internalized as sort of a spy. And that's what I went to go work in was that.

That's what I went to college. So I was like a regular good student during the day. Yeah. So I was, and when I was in in college like i was a model student so double major double minor student senator ta in like four classes like it was like you would be like oh yeah he's great like he's you know dean's list and all that have you stopped the theft at this point no no no and that was that was my night gig yeah like that's like do you understand like there's your day job and then there's your night job like that was like like, so that was day work, Matt.

And then the other thing was like nighttime, Matt. And so I would go and do this, but it was never intended to be a career choice, right? It was supposed to be this like temporary thing that I kind of fell into a rehab. I always say a reapplication of an unusual skill set. So yeah, I ended up getting out of it when I was in my early, very early 20s, still in college, finishing up, went to go to a program, went to go still do that, was on the fast track for it. Everything was in my early very early 20s still in college finishing up went to go to a program went to go still do that was on the fast track for it everything was going great I had put some money aside like 50k ish just to kind of cover some expenses and things so I didn't have to like work a normal job because you guys know how that is like once you don't work a normal job for a

while you're like it's hard to go back yes and so um i went to europe for the first time and the problem is is that like it's like going to a casino what i would do like you don't really look at money as money uh-huh so like it just becomes this thing you have to go get to like we used to joke uh like the the pickpocket guys we used to always laugh like hey uh you know you you never really had a money you just have to to hit an ATM. And every motherfucker in here is an ATM. And so and so because that you never really like you'd go to the bar and you like buy drinks for me and drink all night. And then you'd hit the bartender and pay him like a giant tip with his money. And he'd be like, you're so thanks so much.

You're welcome. Oh, my God. Wait, that's something you did. I mean, it's something that has been done. So. So. So how did you buy people?

In terms of the, you just wait until he looks away and you're good at being smooth yet? No, like there's like a real art form to it. It would be too that could be like the whole podcast. That's so interesting. And when he, when that bartender would be like, oh my god,

that's what I made tonight already. Amazing. Thank you so much. You wouldn't like do it to the exact number. You wouldn't be like, let's calculate this out. Like, you know, you, but did you feel, and I'm, this is not a judgment thing. Do you feel any empathy? Well, it was, it was usually a guy who we thought was an asshole is the thing. Like we wouldn't be like, oh my God, this is a really nice person who really needs the money.

It was like, think of it this way. It's almost like walking around with a loaded gun at any time. And that like, if anybody really, the last person rubbed you the wrong way, you're like Robin hood, but you steal from the assholes because they're assholes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the Robin, I don't like the Robin hood thing. Cause it makes me more altruistic. Cause it gives the implication that I'm going to go give it to somebody else. Cause there's definite times where you get annoyed with someone

that you're like, if I had that trick and did it, I would do it. And then I could see 10 minutes later being like, that person's really nice. And I was just like, oh, you're in a bad mood. Well, the good news is you can also reverse pickpocket and you can actually give it back. Yeah, there is a technique for that. You can give it back.

Yeah, that's true. Do you ever just fuck with someone, just move the watch from one wrist to the other and then back to the other yeah there's actually a funny story i know of another guy there was a hypnotist uh who i'm not gonna say his name because i don't know if you'd run the story up but there was a guy who was he's famous he's a well-known guy in the industry uh he's performing here in new york and uh he had he was photographing with this uh photographer and what happened was the photographer, like, goes and shoots a bunch of stuff with him.

And then he goes to leave. And as soon as he left, he, like, had this insane urge to get a Coke. And he, like, stopped at the store and, like, downed a Coke. And which is weird. He doesn't like soda. He hates soda. And he downs the Coke. And all of a sudden, his phone rings.

And he goes, hello. And it's the guy. And he goes, did you enjoy the Coke? Like, just a mess of them yeah so yeah people do but that's like all in good fun and so yeah totally have i done that yeah yeah absolutely but like not i'm not i don't take from people anymore i can't stress this enough i don't like to be mean about it i don't get any joy out of it like it's really is it's sort of a slippery slope and that like what it's almost like being an alcoholic like i viewed it as like once i'm out

of it i'm out of it, I'm out of it. Because if you just do it, like, I'll just do this one time. Obviously, you're like, all right, well, just two more shots. Okay, let's mess it up tonight, guys. And that's like, it's just too easy. Are there anonymous groups for thieves? There must be some version of that. I mean, probably.

But so anyway, I feel like this is getting away from the magic. So let's finish this up and I'll get to your point. So what happens is we get to, so I get to this thing and i find out about how um uh so i i go to europe and i spent a lot of money was the point is that i didn't really understand the value of a dollar because i never had to worry about it and i blew through like i think it was like 35k or 37k in like 32 days oh my i think it was like 34 000 in like 32 days fun month it was an awesome trip uh it was still one34,000 in like 32 days. It was a fun month. It was an awesome trip. It was still one of the best trips I've ever been on. But cause I was just at the time I was like,

what if I never come back to Europe? What if I just never go again? I was like, I shouldn't say no to anything. I should just do everything, which is hysterical now. It's like, I'm in Europe every six months. But back then I was like, what if I never, so I bought everything. I did everything. I had an amazing, amazing, amazing time and came back and was like oh no I spent a lot of money What do I do and so I didn't really want to get a normal job, and I had I? Had heard about this guy Who had who was a former card sheet turned? Magician what happens he is a former he was a card sheet like during World War two and he made a bunch of money out there like

Pretending like any time there was a downtime any soldier will tell you like this he made a bunch of money out there like pretending like any time there was like downtime, any soldier will tell you like, the worst part of war is actually the boredom. You'll have like these intense, terrible times and then all of a sudden days of just nothing to do and they'd be like, let's play poker. And so he made all this money, came back and said to his girlfriend,

Annie, he said, Annie, baby, I love you, marry me. And she said, oh, I love you too, but I'm not marrying you, damn card sheet. Get a real job and we'll talk. And he had been doing this since he was like six or something. It was crazy. He was in his early 20s. And he said, I don't know what to do.

And he thought, well, you know, I'm kind of good looking. And I'm kind of funny. And I'm quick with my hands. Maybe I could do magic. And that's what he did. And he ended up becoming very successful. And he went on to his life. And he retired to North Providence, Rhode Island,

a town over from where I was living at the time. And I heard about this guy. And I met him a couple of times before he passed from cancer and i thought maybe i maybe i could do this because i heard it through the kind of community because there we have communities yeah there are like like there there are communities for criminal things so i heard about this guy and so i went maybe i could do this and i thought about it i was like this is a reapplication of an unusual skill set right so like i could cheat at cards and pick pockets so i could just sleight of hand and like most magicians I could cheat at cards and pick pockets so I could do sleight of hand.

And like most magicians can't cheat at cards. And so I was like, I guess I could do sleight of hand. And I could mentally manipulate and read people. So I guess I was a mentalist. And I could, and that was a very big focus and interest in my work was things regarding interrogation and counterintelligence. So, and then I could pick locks and get out of restraints. Oh, I guess i was an

escape artist i didn't mind dangerous situations i guess i could do stunts i'm not gorgeous but i'm not like painful to look at yeah i'm pretty funny i said screw it i bet i could try this and i was like i'll just try it a little while and what happened was i started doing like just to like pay the bills um to like make sure i had like beer money mostly it was like i went and would do like sorority and fraternity parties, just doing closeup stuff. And it wasn't anything crazy. It was, and it really also started because somebody was like,

before I had heard about that guy, I forget about this, was somebody like had, was describing a magic trick. They saw like a TV or something in a show. And I was like, I could do that. And they were like,

no, you couldn't. I was like, yes, I could. And they're like, you don't even do any magic. Do you do any magic?

I was like, no, but I could do that. And they're like, we'll do it. And they got a deck of cards. And I was like, okay. And so it's magic. Do you do any magic? I was like, no, but I could do that. And they're like, we'll do it. And they got a deck of cards. And I was like, okay. And so it's like bugs and insects.

Not all bugs are insects, but all insects are bugs. Not all card cheats, excuse me, not all magicians can cheat at cards, but all card cheats can do card cheats. It's one of the highest forms of sleight of hand. And so what happened was, yeah, everybody loves you to think that they can everybody can shoot a card it's like because you don't know you don't know yeah and so they just all act like they can and you know there were guys who and i'm not saying like i'm oh i was the best card sheet in history they're absolutely guys who are way better at than me but like there was a line from a guy who actually i was here in new york uh hanging out one time and there was a guy who was like oh i heard you were a card sheet and

he knows a lot about the stuff and i was like yeah yeah and he was like were you any good i was like good enough and he went you were a card sheet. And he knows a lot about this stuff. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was like, were you any good? I was like, good enough. And he went, you're only going to be better than the guy across the table from you, right? And I went, that's it. I said, I just need one thing better than him to make sure I win. And you don't have to win every hand either. You basically want to win one large pot every hour. The rest of the time, you can just lose your antis. So you want to be middle good?

If you're the best guy at the table, people want to put you back. And you're the worst, you're the fish. So you want to be like middle good? Like if you're the best guy at the table, people want to put you back. And you're the worst, you're the fish. So you want to be right in that middle spot. As long as you're that, like that's, that's you just need to like pick your moments and know enough. So anyway, so I was doing that and I went to go work in, in that I was in, in for the government.

That was my channel. And that was, I was, I was, I was, I was out of the crime stuff, and I was told, look, when you go to do this, just be up front about it. They would rather that it was a hard truth than an easy lie, because if they find out, you'll get fired, or they won't hire you, and if there's something to find out,

they'll find it, and they will. They will find it. And so, you know, I was going to be candid, but at the time, the direction the government was going in and things was a little sketchy and the things I had friends that kind of went to go do it. And I knew some of the things that they were being asked to do. I was like, I'm not super comfortable with this.

And it just made me feel like, God, like I don't, like I got out of the crime stuff because I didn't like how it was making me feel anymore. It was kind of way in my conscious. It was starting to make me feel like this was supposed to be like, when you're a teen, you can kind of rationalize it off. Like I'm a teen, I'm 16 and I'm stupid. And now now i'm like i'm like 21 and i'm like a grown-ass adult and people respect me like before it was like i couldn't get a good job so this is what i'm doing now i'm like people are offering me good jobs i'm like that sounds like a lot of work

um yeah and so in your mind is any of this equation the fear i'm gonna get caught really that's all i would be thinking about every second of the day. Actually, I should say that is, was it a percentage? Yeah, but it was not like the leading cause. What it was is like that comes up because you're sitting there thinking. The trick to poker, if you're playing it straight, right, is knowing when to get it from the table. Like if you walk away on a high, then you win.

But there are too many people that win big. You see this in the casino all the time. They'll win big money, and they'll stay at the table. And then eventually, they'll... Happened to me the other fucking week. Yeah, so the trick is that, yeah, I mean, I was held but never charged. But you're right. I'm not saying that I was...

I would love to be like, oh, my God, I never got a call because everything was skilled. No, it was as much luck as it was skill, I'm sure. And at some point that luck does run out. And the older you get, the worse it is. Also, if you're caught when you're like 17, they're like, don't do that again, kid. If you're caught when you're 22, they're like, time to go to jail, cowboy. So, yeah, so that was one of the aspects of it.

But either way, I didn't like it like do i want to like have a family like have a wife and kids and be like okay daddy's gonna go to work you know that was like i was like i was starting to feel like a piece of shit in a lot of ways and i so so that wasn't a problem to get out of it like mentally for me but but then the problem is when i went to go do the government work and it was like i I was like, oh no, this is going to give me the same feeling. Yeah. And this is a thing I've done, worked for my whole life. And now, and now this is where I've ended up.

I was like, no. So I left that. And then I was lost because I was like, oh my God, I've basically been doing this since I was like nine years old. And now I don't know who I am or what I am. Like, how do you, you're not an actor anymore. You're not a comedian anymore you're just whoever is left yeah good luck define yourself yeah oh you know that all that money you just spent on that education all that time you wasted you know your life yeah uh so like what are you gonna do now you want to just end up in like a boring you can move watches from people's wrists side to side that was just yeah well that was

just like i wasn't a magician. I didn't define myself as a magician. That was, like, this thing I did in passing. What happened was I got a phone call from somebody while I was, like, in, I was sort of in this, like, year sabbatical is what I viewed it as. It's like, well, I'll just sort of, like, find myself and figure it out. And my money was running out real bad now. And I was, like, lost. And my parents were very much like so like what are you

gonna do with your life like where is this going there's a lot of pressure all the time like yeah so what's going on with you and um i got a phone call from somebody who's like a friend of a friend who once saw me at a party a couple years earlier and she now worked for some corporation and they were doing a corporate event and she was like hey i got your number from such and such are you available for this week and i was like for what she said will you do magic right and i was like yeah kinda i guess and she was like well um we had we have a magician for this event but he dropped out the last second it's in like three weeks if we would fly you and a guest out and we'll pay you just have to do two shows, one at the beginning of the week, one at the end of the week.

It's all expenses paid, and we'll pay you X amount of dollars, and it's the same show twice, and it's only 45 minutes. It's like the adult Disney thing. I would kill for this gig as a professional stand-up comedian. Tell me I need to be in Manchester

in three weeks. I would love if you had three weeks to come up with a 45- minute magic show for like 50 grand. I would pay a thousand to do that show. It wasn't like crazy good money, but it was like an amount of money that at the time I was like, they'll pay you that much to do magic tricks? It doesn't meet my corporate price now, at the time i was like wait what and she goes do you have a stage show and i went absolutely but i did not i did not have that at all and but i had three weeks to come up with one yeah and so in by the end of that three weeks i was like i

guess i'm a magician now and so what happened was we i flew down i took my best friend and he and i flew down and he was like my helper and we did the first show and it went all right. And we tell me all right. Like how, how all right. Oh, they were happy with it. They were totally happy though. I think that was great. And I felt like that seemed fine, but I was like, but look, what's kind of nice about this is terrible to say now, cause this is not how I view it now. But at the time as a magician, people come up to me all the time they're like that was the best magic show i've ever seen i always secretly in the back of my head want to go how many have you seen because if i am the first magician you've ever seen live i am i am the schrodinger's cat of magicians and

that i am simultaneously the best and worst magician you've ever seen because i'm the only one you've ever seen yes like when a cruise director or somebody or somebody who like a vegas booker comes up to you and goes, you're the best magician I've ever seen. Like those are compliments. Like one of my best compliments I ever got was this guy who used to this old time. He used to work for Frank Sinatra and he was, he was involved in all this corporate stuff down in New Orleans. And my friend dragged him to my show. He did not want to go. He clearly did not want to be there. He did not laugh at a single, the audience was in tears. I was killing it that night they he was not laughing at a single front row center just dead-eyed not a single laugh not a single so i'm doing miracles i was like jesus himself could show

up to you and raise lazarus and he'd be like i've seen it done better and so afterwards he waits in the line says like the meet and greet and i'm signing the autographs and he's waiting and he waits to the back and everybody goes and he walks up to me and he says one of the best things ever he goes hey kid i go yeah he goes you substantiate your bullshit and what he meant was by that is every magician you ever read their thing every magician on earth is award-winning everyone is the best everyone is is. But he was like, I read your bio and you substantiate your bullshit. And I was like, that is a good. So that kind of thing.

Because that guy has seen a lot, right? He's seen some things. Whereas like, so they seemed happy enough. But I don't. Looking back, it was fine. It was fine. It was good enough. Of course, it couldn't be more than fine. It was a crazy thing. Like, let it slide

but did you make changes between the the beginning of the week and the end of the week i didn't make changes in the material but i was tighter right like you just knew it now i felt comfortable with it once you're comfortable with your material your material is better so and are you at this point you are you studying is it is are you reading tarbell like who are you looking to no so um i to be honest. I don't really remember. I mean, a lot of it was like I had the techniques already. I just didn't apply them in that way.

Again, a reapplication of unusual skill set. You weren't doing big illusions. No, no. I was on stage. No, it was like stuff on stage. I was doing things on stage. Yeah. I had to do a stage show.

Because I think one of the reasons I stopped. I mean, one of the reasons Magic is really exciting. Like now nothing. There's no cards in my shows now. Sure. But like, it was part of the excitement is like, you can buy things. Like magic, like especially when you're starting out, you're like, dad, can I buy the $400? Or you get like, you get like the cheapest like swords in your neck.

It's like a sword that's like this wobbly. You know I'm a sword swallower, right? Oh no. Oh yes, I do remember. So there's only like 70 of us in the world and those drive, those of us who can actually do it for real, nuts. No one was believing this. The sword was like this. And so you put it here and it basically goes in and like tin foil like goes around your neck and out the other side.

Right, right. Yeah. So it wasn't store-bought things. Like I made stuff. Like I created some stuff using techniques. Sword swallowing compared to all the skills that you've just shared. Yeah. To me, sword swallowing has nothing to do with that.

Technically, you're right. So it is an allied art. We can get into that in a second. Okay. Because I still got to answer you. So I'm blowing these up in my head. All right. So what happens is I go and I do the second show.

It goes great. And at the end of the night, and this is the big moment, the show just didn't matter. What mattered was after we were done, I remember we went over to the House of Blues. They're in that downtown Disney section not downtown Disney, Pleasure Island that's where we were because it was at one of the hotels or something so we went down there and we were hanging out and there was a bunch of people

from the event at the bar and they just kept sending drinks over to us and I remember we were sitting under those kind of like hanging lights and I remember in my head just thinking God this, this is what life should feel like. All these people were patting me on the back. Oh, man, this show is great. It just felt really good.

And people buying you drinks. It was always sort of what I craved with my skill set. But I could never tell anybody. These all seem unconnected. The spy stuff, the crime spy stuff the crime stuff the magic stuff but there is one thread through all of them which is a secret knowledge which i have and you don't yeah and but in the other two versions i can never tell anybody that's why it was good was most con men get caught because they want to brag about it they want they want you to know that there's one of this guy in the room

yeah and so i was i knowing that i couldn't talk about it wouldn't but killed me inside. So this was for the first time ever where I was like, I can just tell people what I'm doing, and they're thanking me for it. Now, before if I showed up in any of those other versions, even for the government, I was probably giving somebody a bad day. Whereas now if I show up, I am making your day better. It was a really nice feeling to feel like I was doing good.

And so I thought to myself, this is what life should feel like all the time. In my head, I felt that. That's what I felt after the first time I masturbated as opposed to doing a corporate masturbation show. That's how I feel every time I do it. I feel that way after every time you masturbate.

I feel that way after every time. I was like, oh my God, he just finished, didn't he? That's how life should be. I just get a tingle. And so the, the hairs go up. You know your story about the guy drinking the Coke? The guy comes to the phone rings. Did you? Pretty good.

It was solid. Were you thinking of me? So, so it happens as I'm sitting. No, but as I sat there, my friend, there's like a pause of silence. We're just kind of enjoying the moment. All of a sudden my friend looks at me and goes, you ever feel like this is what life should be like all the time and he said the thing the exact thought i was thinking i went this is it i said this is what i'm gonna do this is gonna be my job from now on i'm gonna be a magician i'm gonna be a mentalist i'm

gonna do stunts i'm gonna give it a year and if it works this is what i'm gonna do for the rest of my life and if it doesn't work screw it i'll go back and I guess I'll work for the government. Yeah. And within a year I was doing TV and touring nationally within two years, like internationally. And so, and that was it. And so, um, so yeah, that was, that was the direction I went in and I developed my own first show, which was a mental is all mentalism show was like, cause that's always been my real passion.

And so, yeah, but that is now to your question the problem is is that because of this i came to magic very late um and it's made me very different than other magicians i found so most magicians pick it up as a kid it's usually a male thing it's usually a power thing uh they'll take a kid who feels isolated and it's a way to like make them feel kind of authority and a sense of urgency over others and unfortunately i find that in many ways it becomes a crutch for a lot of people and they then they don't social they don't learn like social skills beyond that because the magicians are not exactly i mean there's a joke with comedians of you know they they couldn't make their virginity disappear like there's there's a view yeah no it's also like you're... Just thinking about it now,

I don't think of tons of magician shows where there's multiple magicians on the lineup. It's usually an isolated thing. You're doing your show. Yeah. So it's not like you're hanging out in tons of... People say back in the day... But they do hang out.

They do. They hang out all the time. And I say they because for me, it's like a bit of a separation. So do I have friends who are magicians? Yes, but I'm not the normal magician. I don't have a lot of magician friends. I have way more comedian friends or agent friends or actor friends or musician friends

just because I think it's because they kind of think differently. So when magicians get together, yeah, the answer is they are constantly showing each other tricks. They're constantly talking about tricks. They're constantly talking about tricks. They're constantly talking about technique. Whereas I tend to prefer to hang out with people who like talk about performance. So I usually way rather hang out. Like I would way rather hang out with comedians who are like, let me tell you why that bombed or let me. And that's nothing is this.

There's sort of this ego thing with a lot of them. And I know you guys know comics really sweet. They always have to be like, oh, everything's good. That's why I love the idea of this podcast. That was the media thing. She was like, you're going to like this podcast. And she goes, you're going to like this podcast. You're not going to talk about anything good.

You're going to talk about things you hate. I was like, that's brilliant. I love every element of that. And so, and I heard like, I mean, I listened to a couple of segments that you guys had. And like you guys had Roy Wood Jr. on. We did. And so I knew Roy way back in the day as an acquaintance.

So yeah, when he was in the college circuit, because I make a lot of money in the college circuit, and so I remember saying to him a long time ago before he was famous, like, you should be famous. Like, your stuff is so tight. He used to just bit about this bracelet for white people. I don't know if you've ever heard this. Which bracelet? Tell me. It was this thing like he was like, I'm not saying like for white people i don't know if you've ever heard this which bracelet tell me it was this thing like he was like i'm not saying like all

white people are bad he was like there are some white people i know like you're great people you're allies you're not racist you're really fun to be around you do like when you say i have black friends it's because you really do have black friends and he was like i just feel like black people should all get like like maybe like three or four bracelets that we can like hand out so when people are like no no i'm one of the good ones and you just like show the bracelet i was like oh my god he was so funny and he was so so good i love that yeah so he just so i was like so like when i hear and you're like i don't know roy i haven't seen roy in a decade but i'll tell if he said hi i'll text him right after this i mean look show him this because i remember saying like i walked in like i said i i will be polite

like if somebody comes off stage and i don't like their saddle big good set you know but if i'm like that was awesome you're really funny you should be famous it's because i'm like you should be you are so much bigger than your talent is and i remember like how hard he worked like i think his license plate used to read like no sleep and it was just so you know when i edit this i'm gonna cut out a clip where it's you looking at me going, you should be famous. You know, I'm listening to it. I'm just like, I feel like I'm going to pander to this person. No, no, no.

Look, I told you in the beginning, though, I would not. One of the things I said to an agent was I was like, there are so many. Oh, God, this feels like some trash talk that I don't really want to throw up or whatever. There's so many comics now. I watch this stuff. I'm like, God, you're not funny. Like, do you you want to maybe stop it to take a moment to tell a joke like i'm like really like wow you've just wasted an hour of my time and you have told three jokes an hour i'm like

and now i kind of go almost like now when i put like comedian on my family people laugh through my whole show yeah like these are they're laughing're laughing because they, and with my show, like, if you go to a comedy club, look, you put the low ceilings, you stick them in nice and tight. You use all the tricks.

With me, I'm in a big theater, high ceilings, and I'm still going to make everybody uproariously laugh. I'm like, I've got to work for it. So I'm like,

if you get every reason to succeed at this and you still suck or you're getting those, like, you know, like, you know how there's like standing ovations

you've gotten where you're like I earned this and there's other ones where I'm like you guys just like standing for stuff there's so many times where I like watch a show in Titanic oh savage every Broadway show but that was a Broadway etiquette thing it used to be like extraordinary yeah I have

stood for I think five shows in my entire life and I see a lot of live theater. I will be the one guy who sits while everyone is around me. I sit a little longer, and then I go... I always say, when I see, because there's sometimes people in the front

row that don't do it, I always do, I have a little thing that I do with my cast member, when we come over for our bow thing, and I go, let don't impress them. 10.8.

You better not stand. So, so, I don't know. I'm not going to say what it is, but the show we saw last night, we were the only two people who didn't stand. We just sat.

Was it a musical? Was it a play? Was it like the hits of Celine Dion? I'm not going to say what it was. I liked the show, for the record. I did like the show. I will tell you privately afterwards because I know people involved.

It's very hard. Listen, I've always wanted to be like a little bit honest shit talky. But as you get older, you're like, I just worked with them on Sunday and they were really nice to me. I would say this, like I absolutely had a good time. I absolutely thought it was worth the ticket price. I would recommend the show.

Sure. It's just, I've stood five times. You're not going to be my six. Like I wasn't like, oh, my God. Like, I wasn't brought to tears. I wasn't moved. And it didn't mean the show was bad. I just, like, I think, like, and I feel the same way.

Like, sometimes when people stand for me, I'm like, I was good tonight. I wasn't great. Like, I know that. Like, you know what I mean? But there were times, too, where they haven't stood and I'm like, bitch, you should stand. Like, I was killing it. What show did you see? Did you take a nap in the middle?

You know? So yeah. So because of that there, but jumping back. So there is this thing where, because they don't have these social skills, right? Like when I, there is still sort of an emotional disconnect for me. And also I'm like, I am too weird for most magicians.

Cause like, so the horror stuff I do, like I'm into horror things. It's just like a thing I enjoy, but it also the sideshow stuff, this ties in perfectly I do. I'm into horror things. It's just a thing I enjoy. And also the sideshow stuff. This ties in perfectly with that. Sword swallowing. So I am a sword swallower. That's extremely rare, period.

Never mind in magic. That's technically not magic. It's called an allied art, which means it is related to magic, but because it's real, it's not technically magic. And there's a bunch of things I do in that that I really like.

And I think it enhances my magic. And the reason is, if I go and in that, that I really like. And I think it enhances my magic. And the reason is, is if I do, if I go and do a show, so my standard show is it mixes things that are real, that seem fake and things that are fake, that seem real. Yes. I hated how people would leave a show and they would have a conversation about how tricks were done. Cause I think it's a very boring conversation because y'all never know if you're right. If you were right, if you were right, no one can tell you. And if you're wrong, what's going to do is you're going to be, you're just going to decide you're right. If you were right, no one can tell you. And if you're wrong, what it's going to do is you're just going to decide you're right. And you'll be self-satisfied with that and go home with that.

That is boring. A better conversation. I don't really, I never watch a magic show to figure out tricks. I go and I turn that lizard part of my brain off. Because I can dissect them and I can figure them out. But I just click that off. Really, you can. Oh, absolutely.

Because stand-up, I sometimes can't disconnect. And I go click that off really you can oh absolutely because stand up I sometimes can't disconnect and I go okay I see that if it's bad if it's bad I'll go sure that's true if I see millennia I'm just like enjoying it yeah yeah so when so because of this right I will turn off this little part of my brain I will just sit and enjoy the show and

I want to be I want to feel that childlike wonderment that like Doug Henning used to talk about but when but they're really fast interested in tricks. And so this becomes like an emotional disconnect for me. So it's hard for me, um, to like talk about that stuff with these people. So I tried to change the conversation to, um, I don't know that it works. You know what I mean? I don't know that people do this. I've heard it sometimes. I'm sure it's still talking about tricks a lot, but anytime I hear somebody do it I'm like it makes my heart happy is that instead it's like well this one was definitely fake but that one do you think that

one was real and I'm amazed often how how many times people come up to me and they go when you did this I knew that was total bullshit but this I could like feel you and they're totally wrong the thing they think is bullshit was absolutely real the thing they think was real was total bullshit I love and I think that's really I think that's fun and that's why i mix both of them that's why because i just want to do i would argue that like anything i can do on there that feels miraculous or impossible that i then make you question your reality in a moment that's magical and so that's what i try to deliver in in any format and but my problem is is that when i meet these other magicians,

because they come from such a different place, so I'm too weird. I'm too weird for normal magicians. Normal. Too weird for magicians. But I'm too normal for sideshow people. I look like somebody's dad showed up. They're like, oh, look at that family man.

Or horror people. A lot of times, I don't have any tattoos. I don't, like there's nothing about me that you would, like if you just saw me on the street, you'd be like, you wouldn't be like, oh, he's a reformed criminal who now reads minds for a living and has like, you know, and has like horror movie props from original films, like scattered about his house.

Like you just wouldn't expect. I do get that. Like with actors, I always feel like I'm far too cynical. With some actors, they're in that lofty place. I was like that in high school. I know. Yeah, it's very interesting. So I understand what you mean about just in between niche worlds.

It's tough to find the right. With stand-up comedians, I'm too good looking for most. No, but yeah. I wasn't going to say it. I thought I was going to say it. I wasn't going to say it. Well, okay. Since this is the downside, I'd love to hear,

whether it's swords or magic, share me something that went wrong on stage, something that did not go as planned. God, yeah. I got so many of those. I literally made up a list where I was like, what are the worst shows? so many of those i literally made up a list where i was like what are the worst shows and so um

miami or uh or oh long island long islands okay so you should give a hard nod on that uh so what happened was i so i do a lot of colleges i'm very popular in the college scene I enjoy doing colleges. They've gotten a bit more prickly over the years. Content-wise? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely, definitely, definitely. And so kind of everything's gotten toned down a lot, but that's fine, that's fine. And so I was doing, I got hired.

So this was not a show in like a Midwest evangelical region or the deep South. Like this is a long, I'm not going to say who, but a Long Island university. Okay. So you can get there on the train. All right.

Like, yeah. And, um, I got hired to do two, uh, I don't remember if it was welcome weeks, orientations.

I think it was two orientations. So they hired me to come in. Yeah. It was, it must've been orientation. I came in one week, went home, came back the next week. Right.

To do the same show twice for two different groups. Like 500, 600 students at a clip. So I show up for the first one. And I do the show. And the show goes great. I think I get two, maybe three standing ovations. I mean, like, everybody's super happy. We talk to the assistant advisor. You know, the people who hire you are the campus activities board,

and there's the advisor and assistant advisor. So the assistant advisor comes over, and they're like, oh, my God, that was fantastic. And when we show up, we got an email a couple days later that was like, we put out, like, comment cards to kids. Like, if you go on a cruise, they do this too. And they go,

you know how you were rated and you received a 99.9% positive rating. And the show was a little weird though. Um, so, but so like we got like these great reactions and they said, we've never had anybody that happy. So we're like, this is fantastic because the people really make me money.

Aren't the ones who book us one time. It's the people who book us every year. You don't even have to spend the time and energy into renegotiating contracts. Yeah. And you know, we'll even give you a discount if you, we know you're coming back.

And also if you're easy to work with, we know what we're getting into. You guys get it. Like, you know how it is. It's so nice. So we're like, Oh man,

if we can do two or three of these, and it's to me, that's local. Like I'm in rhode island long island is still local like i don't have to get on a plane i can hop on a train and just be there that day you know it's so easy way better than like flying to texas or something yeah so so but the show was a little weird so like at one point we have this girl up on stage and it's a piece uh i don't really do much anymore but i take this box and i and i kind of have this build up around this bot and it's like kind of like ripped up and it look it's been wrapped by tsa like 40 times because tsa always thinks it's a bomb literally and like now it's like a thing that is known now in airports like

i travel so much like you said yeah work that that like a lot of airports know who i am the tsa guys because i've had weird stuff and they'll be like, hey Matt, and I'll be like, hey, they're like, is the box you this time? And I'm like,

yeah, like in the bottom, like, we'll be careful with it. I'm like, thanks. And I literally, they now have like over taped it

because they know the bit I do with it. So they've intentionally over taped it to make it look even worse. So it's great. So it's got all this TSA tape all over it. I just got to start working with magicians because they get big bucks. Hey,

I've heard of the spy background. I mean, I am for hire. I'm, I'm, I'm a whore start working with magicians because they get big bucks. Hey, I've already got the spy background. I mean, I am for hire. I'm a whore. You get the money, I get the time. If he killed us at the end of this podcast, we'd show this to him and say, destroy the footage. We're just going to have a black bag team come in and take you guys out. I don't handle that stuff.

We have people for that. We'll just make a call. Yeah, we actually just text out. It's really nice. They're on Instagram. And then you look at her by, it's like, they shouldn't have talked about that one.

That one thing. That one thing. Okay. So what happens is, so I get this girl up on stage and I put this, this box kind of goes into her lap. Now, oh,

there's also an issue because what happens is basically at one point, she kind of, I have to have a person like for this bit, it's weird to explain without details, but just bear with me. i kind of have her like jump up onto my back and i kind of carry her at one part on the back yeah and it's fine but the issue is is the the joke was like something like oh i need somebody who's um i need someone who's uh shorter than me i need someone who's uh weighs less than me i need someone who's over the age of 18 and then the line is like what i need is a lady but i do it like very cheesy so it's

clearly tongue-in-cheek but really what it is is i need someone who's not bigger than me because i you'll mess my knee up and i'll fall that's really what it comes down to is like it's a weight issue yeah i just don't want like a seven i'm not like a super tall. I just don't want a seven-foot... I'm not a super tall dude, and I don't want a seven-foot 275 guy who's like, me! I have to be like, sorry, sir. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. So I do this joke really. It's really just a stupid line.

So somebody... So we'll get back to that. You get more specific, like, I need someone between 105 and 107. At the most. Let's say a B cup. So agent just went, no.

So what happens is, no. But what happens is, I don't really care who it is. I just need someone, one who's willing to do it, and one who is not bigger than me. And actually, I don't care if it's a guy. It's just so many dudes are like, oh, they'll come up on stage and be like, that's gay. And if I'm like, get on my back, I don't care if it's a guy. It's just so many dudes are like, oh, like they'll come up on stage and be like, that's gay. And if I'm like,

get on my back, I don't care, but I don't have the time to like debate you on stage. And a girl just won't care. That's what it comes down to. Sure. So, so I get this girl.

And so what happens is before that happens, I put this box in her lap and I kind of like build up a joke about what do you think is in there? And, and she all of a sudden looks terrified and goes, is it birds? And go huh and like if you look at the box you'd be like there aren't birds in there if they are they're dead there's no way and i go huh and she goes it's birds isn't it and i go ma'am i go it's it's i go i, I promise you it's not birds. And she goes, I think it's birds.

I go, look, lady, it's not birds. So now I'm trying to like move on. And she's like panicking. She's like shaking. She's like, I'm afraid of birds. I'm afraid of birds. I was like, okay, it's not birds. She's like, if a bird flies out of there, a bird won't.

Listen, I'm telling you, if a bird flies out of there, I will be amazed. I too will be like, this is incredible magic. Cause I didn't put any birds. There's no, and then now it's like kill the joke because it's like a joke but i go into it it's nothing it's just it's just this like irrelevant thing i go open it up i like this amazing mentalist being like it's not shut up so and she goes and i go are you seriously afraid of birds and she goes i'm terrified of birds and i go where do you live afraid of birds? And she goes, I'm terrified of birds. And I go, where do you live? And she's like, when I'm not in school, I live in New York City.

I go, there are a lot of birds there. I was like, okay. I go, how do you live your life? She'd just be walking out going, there's that pigeon again. He's eyeing me. So the show was kind of weird. And then, so I used to do this other piece.

I didn't have a scary show then. But I did a piece that was about voodoo that was kind of scary. And I really liked it. And it was pretty cool. And a tiny contingent of the people who worked there, not the students, but the staff. And this is like, again, like, this wasn't even like a late night show. It's like a six o'clock show. Yeah.

It's it was in such a big space. It wasn't even like we could the lighting sucked there. So you couldn't even like make it moody. So it wasn't like they were so scared that they got up and they left. And then my agent went out to be like, hey, are you guys OK? And they were sobbing. Remember, again, not Midwest. Not even, like, this is Long Island.

They are openly weeping. Some of them are praying. They're like, that's demonic. It's evil. It's real. Was it a super religious school? No. But there's weird, like weird conservative parts of Long Island.

But if you're leaving the mad show crying, you're not going to finish college. Hold on. I would also like to point out, this is only the staff. The students are going, this is great. It was the most popular piece of the night. They were like, fantastic stuff, Matt. So we finished the show.

And so they send us some notes. So the assistant advisor is like, that was great. She was one of the criers. She's like, that was great. We got the reviews back, 99.9. We're like, that was great. She was one of the criers. She's like, that was great. We got the reviews back, 99.9. We're like, okay, cool. Because as I view it, I was like, look, everybody was happy. And they were like, hey, could you maybe not do the scary piece?

And I was like, no problem. They go back, could you announce before the show there's no birds? There's no birds used in this. So we cut the scary piece, and they were like, we didn't like this. And I'm like, okay. So we changed them. And normally I will never change material, but this one I was like, uh, you know, and at this point in my career, especially this is a few years back, but at this point in

my career, I'm just like, get the show. You don't get the show. I don't care. Yeah. Like the thing I can do is I can do a clean one or I can do a dirty one. I just put a different battery in, but I can do a clean one or I can do a dirty one, but I'm not going to like change the show on that. And so,

and the dirty one's not even that dirty. So, but we, we had gone back and they, we did, we made all the changes they want. And the woman was still pissed. She,

the, the advisor was like, yup, you're like, and they wrote like this terror. It's the only bad review I've like ever gotten. And I got this terrible inner light. It said he, he only did three tricks and he, and he scared everyone and everyone hated it.

And what was the other thing? It was, um, everyone hated it. There was another one. Weird. Yeah. There was another thing where it was like, everybody hated it. And, uh, Oh God, there was one more thing. Oh, and we told him not to do the scary thing and he did it again anyway and i was like no i did it like this

is so weird like it's so weird so i was like oh i guess we're not so that one was pretty and and that is actually the reason uh the one thing that came out of it is one of the main reasons i ended up doing a scary show was because i stopped doing that bit. Cause I went, Oh my God, like people are getting upset by it. Yeah. And the only way I could then do it was I, I liked,

I had a few other scary things that I, cause I like horror stuff. So I usually do them around Halloween. I would just like change out a bit and people loved it. So it was, they were both, we found the most popular and also most complained about pieces I had. So what happened was I had to make a whole new show

that was just horror stuff. And that way, if somebody's like, you were scary, I'm like, that's what you paid for. Like, oh no, I'm sorry you went to the haunted house. You need a third one. The bird show. The bird show. Yeah, yeah, really scary.

Well, let's go on to our, this has got to stop because people get mad when I skip this one. It is right here. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. Oh, you didn't hear this one. It is right here. This Has Gotta Stop. This Has Gotta Stop. Oh, you didn't hear the music. There's music up there. I believe you.

So tell us the thing that's gotta stop. Can be magic, can be regular life. This is, because there's two bits, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a blessing bit after this. Okay, so this is the one that's, hold on, let me look. I have a note. Yeah.

I don't remember, actually. Russell, do you have a This Has Gotta Stop? I i do um okay so sometimes on the subway you'll you see this probably once a week tourists will get on and there'll be a group of them and the train starts moving and the woman's like whoa and like falls over into someone and it's always like this cutesy like i can't believe i didn't know how a train would work. And I fucking hate it. Know how to stand on a moving train. I don't care if you've never been on a subway before.

You know how trains move. You have to hold on to something. It's not cute. I don't like it. Stop. That's got to stop. I think that if we could, if we had like, we've found clips of you complaining before Titanic and before like after being in an off Broadway show,

that your feelings about like dealing with people in the world, you've become more hateful, more intolerant. What does this have to do with Titanic? He said no, but he said no like you're right. I feel like you've just like, you have to deal with like like you've just like, you have to deal with like tourists all the time now. You have to deal with people

and now you see them on the train ride home and they're the same people that weren't standing for you for your show. Now they're standing on the subway. 99.9% of people stand. Are there birds in your show though? That's what I need to know. It's the people that are afraid of birds

that are not standing. I do have mine now. Yeah. Okay. You go. You do yours. Okay. So because I travel so much

I'm always on planes. Yes. I average like 100 flight days a year. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Can we please just leave

our shoes on when we go through security? Like one guy Oh sure. Like 15 years ago or 20 years ago or whatever it was Tried and failed

To blow up a plane You gotta be TSA PreCheck You're TSA PreCheck though I am not You Wait Matt No

I will tell Wait You're traveling 100 days a year And let me tell you why So I got a few reasons One is So you know

Are you guys TSA PreCheck? Yeah Oh yeah I'm everything Did you get fingerprinted Probably I had to go to The thing

So a guy who was Doing the kind of work I did That is not worth Skipping four minutes In line Are you out of your mind Like I save so little

So Why You said you're done doing it So here's the thing What Doing the thing Oh It's still ingrained in you.

Like, it's still like a, you don't just give up your personal data. Another thing is that, like, so I get automatic first class upgrades because of my status. So I still get the priority line. So I can skip everybody. I just have to take my shoes off. Like, that's the only thing I still have to do. I think it's so funny. Don't you judge my half to stop.

You're like, but then Sherlock will catch me. I don't know if I did get fingerprinted for it. I'm pretty sure I did. I had to go to JFK and do an interview. There's a digital reader. Oh, maybe I did. I just don't remember. There was a digital one.

I was like, take it all. I gave a semen sample. I don't even mind the interview. Anything to keep these shoes on. $300. There you go. I'll blow you in the back. That's incredible.

Why was his fine and mine's not? I feel judged right now. No, it's surprising that you're traveling. Sometimes you're saving a lot of time. Because I skipped a line anyway. So the only thing that is, that is the only thing. But you won't do anything that involves your fingerprints that's what's interesting to me yeah fingerprints that's a deal breaker for you i won't do a dna test you shouldn't do that either yeah that is fascinating

well wait why have you done a dna test i've not i don't i don't think so so if you read the fine print they actually also are allowed to they now now legally own the data of your DNA. Like if you read it. So they can like make a clone of me. You know what? The answer is they don't know, but they figure at some point they can find a way to market that material at some point.

They're just getting ahead of the game. So that's part of the contract that you sign when you do it. So there's like all that stuff that I just go, why? It's not like they were like, here's $10,000. They're like, you get to slip. You don't have to slip your shoes off. Like I'll just wear loafers it's fine but yeah i don't

like it's just stupid it's no other country in the world does it yeah like if you go so it's just security theater like if you go to france of course it's all shoes off they go what are you doing put your shoe they look at you like you're such an idiot like it like if you're if you're out in thailand and you're gonna take your shoes off in line, they go, look at this moron American taking his shoes off. You know, nobody else does that. It's only us. We'll be fine, guys. I agree.

I agree. Well, apparently you do now. You didn't a second ago. We had a hard time. It was just funny to think, like I tell all my friends, get TSA pre-check. And I never was like, unless you're thinking about a life of crime later in life. What about the other one where they do, I forget, it's not TSA pre-check, but it's the other one. Clear.

Yeah, they do a retinal scan. Yeah, I gave them my retinal scan. You don't think that's creepy? Because one day the line was a minute shorter and I said, here's my eyes. You know what? Take my eyes. Hey, so listen. You know how I-

Oh my God, I'm fucked. I'm going to be in some galactic prison someday. You know how I got a fuck. I'm going to be like in some galactic prison someday. I used to be a con man. Yeah. Yeah. I just want you to know if you had a lot of money, you would be a beautiful target for me. I just want you to know that you're looking

at me going, especially if he's in a rush. I like how he's looking at the guy who literally owns a security and fraud prevention company goes, Matt, what do you know about security? Once I got scammed in Italy, someone got on the bus and they said, like, I'm a policeman. Did you have the special pass? And I was like, no. And he said, 50 euros.

And I gave it to him. I was 21. I was 21. And he's like, hey, he's like, no. The cop goes, another question for you. Where are your shoes right now? We talked about it on this one When I went to Amsterdam

And I didn't hire a sex worker for sex Because I was too scared of STDs But they said they put on a lesbian show for me And it was a series of escalating Once I gave them the 50 Then they said, so you want the Little lesbian show? Medium lesbian show? Big?

And I said like little and she took out i'm telling this story again but she just took out one nipple and then she just talked with her friend and i was like what is this she's like you want me to get the vibrator i was like sure and she said i have to put the condom on the vibrator and in my head i was like condom on the vibrator i don't think i don't think that's a you could have watched that vibrator before and she and so i was like and then i did this i all i had was 100 it was 20 for the kind of vibrator before. Yeah, I need it. And so I was like, and then I did this. All I had was 100. It was 20 for the kind of vibrator. I said, oh, could I get change for the 100?

And I handed her the 100. Never saw that 100 again. Listen, have you ever played three-card money? I tried to outsmart it once. Hey, I bet today's your day. I got some cards in the bag. Today is your day. We got some time before I go catch my train.

On camera, you were able to con both of us during the podcast. Yeah, I love it. Just at the end, I woke up, I was like, thanks so much guys. And you're both like,

where are we? Where are we? Um, my, this has got to stop. This is when men come up to me when I visit outside

New York and they go, New York, Mets are Yankees. Mets are Yankees. And then I have to guess which one they want me to say. Yeah. Because I don't want to engage in some little Yankees why don't you just say neither

I don't really follow it you're right just pick one and commit to it but it's amazing how you can fake it if I get it right if I'm like Mets they're like Mets looking good this year you're like oh yeah old Pap looking good this year. You're like, oh, yeah. Old Papi is doing good things down there.

Big swings with that bat. Big swings. Yeah. Ball's going far and high. First base, second base, third base. Whoa, it's out of the park. I love that. It's a sketch.

Some guy really going along with all the language. Oh, my God. We got a real shortstop over here. Some guy really going along with all the language. Oh, my God. We got a real shortstop over here. Babe Ruth reincarnated with this fella over here. You should just really lean into it. I played in the minors. You know what's funny is if it's two guys and they're both faking it,

so they both keep escalating it for each other and no one knows to call the other out because then they're saying something stupid. I love sports balls. Oh, yeah. Swing and a hit. Home run. All right, let's go on to...

You better count your blessings. You better count your blessings. Don't worry, I texted him. Since we did play this beautiful music, Douglas Goodheart, our good buddy, member of Uncle Function, we're about to tape a live episode that will be coming out. It's not the 1st of May, which has already passed when this comes out, the 1st of June with Dr. Lisa Lipman.

And Douglas Goodheart is going to be the co-chair, co-host, co-chair. And if you want to listen to those live episodes, you can come to them live if you're in New York City. We release longer clips on the feed, but if you want to see the full thing, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. Let's say something we're thankful for.

We got some good complaining in there. Russ, what are you thankful for? I'm thankful for Bob Foss, my father-in-law, for the lovely trip to Hawaii. It was very nice to let us stay and he has a timeshare there and I'm very grateful for it.

Here's my question. It was a very much needed restful vacation. If I ran into Bob Foss and I say, hey, Bob. He knows you. Oh, I know he knows me. Okay. But if I said- He's like, people know me. Yeah. If I said into Bob Foss and I say, hey, Bob. He knows you. I know he knows me.

He's like, people know me. If I said, you know, I do a podcast with your daughter's husband. What's the name of the podcast? I don't know if he'd know. He's seen the clips. He is on Instagram, so he's seen the clips. I think he would. I don't know if he'd know the actual name.

By the way, no way my dad would know the answer. 100%. I don't know if he'd know the answer of the downside, but he knows that we're on a podcast and he's seen the clips if i asked lindsey elizabeth hand's mom yeah the name of my podcast yeah she'd say you want episode titles oh wow she's wow that's sweet yeah i'm pretty sure that my parents couldn't find a podcast like how do you get that that's nice though yeah how do you yeah Yeah, there is an advantage to it, I suppose. There's a trade-off, yeah. Bob Foss, very thankful for you. I'm thankful for Dave Colombo, who edits these clips. And he's also a very good stand-up comedian.

He opened for me in Grand Rapids in Michigan. I'll be there in three weeks. Yeah, I saw. What venue? Not Dr. Grin's. No, no, no. There's a bunch of corporate events and things that hire me. I just did an event for Not Dr. Grin's. No, no, no. There's a bunch of like corporate events and things that hire me.

I just like, I just did an event for the mayor of Grand Rapids. Actually, I did their holiday event actually. So yeah, I do a lot. For some reason, I do a lot in Michigan. I don't know why. Yeah, Michigan, North Carolina

are like big spots for me. Interesting. The Carolina's a big city. So part of it is like for me to bring an opener on the road, I'm still not making that much money. And so it's if I can get a hotel room for the opener, that feels like when I make the offer.

But so we had different flights. Like, you know, I booked it all and then he booked it after. So his flight got canceled Sunday morning. There were no flights, no other flights for him to come back to New York. So he stayed an extra night in Grand Rapids. And then the next day, flight was canceled again. Oh, my God. flight was canceled again oh my flight was canceled again and like let me tell you if i was stuck in grand rapids for two more days you're buying hotel room you buy a hotel room if you wouldn't want to speak to me i'd be i'd be like i'd be i probably would cry the second night the second night that i was staying in grand

rapids so i i wrote him and uh this is how i want to just say like how sweet of like a human being he is um shit shit shit shit shit so you know if if i texted you from the airport i'd be like fucking delta i'd be tweeting fuck delta fuck the ceo his name is this this is where his kids go to school and instead i i i wrote him the first the first day i said oh my god why did they cancel he said uh one of those vague unforeseen circumstances things it was really okay i just felt bad for the clerk who helped me who was really overworked and couldn't find me another flight and had her supervisor really on her ass because of how long the line was getting

it was a stressful morning for her he's either very kind or doesn't fly enough. Sure. To me, I'm like, oh, I'm a bad... Maybe you learned something today about yourself. Don't even pretend. Don't even pretend that's who you are, Russell Daniels. Don't even pretend. Every time I go to Grand Rapids, I swear to God,

not every time, but one in three times, I do get stuck there. It's the only place where I get canceled flights, and I don't know why. It's usually for no reason. And I'm always like Rapids, I swear to God, not every time, but one in three times, I do get stuck there. It's the only place where I get canceled flights, and I don't know why. It's usually for no reason. And so I have a friend who lives out there, and I call him, and I'll be like, okay, I'm flying out tomorrow.

He's like, all right. And then he'll see his phone ring, and he picks it up just laughing, like cackling every time. He's like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And he goes, you got to buy property here, buddy. You're never getting out. It's like an awful Twilight Zone episode.

I'm dreading it this next time. I'm always like, oh, my God. It's usually the last show of the season before I go on a break, too. I'm going to have a month off. This is going to be great. A lot of times, I'll be like, oh, pick up one extra show. I do one more show, and then I'm like, why did I do this? And I've been stuck there before for two days.

Two days extra. Do you know what there is? two days, like two days extra. Do you know what there is? There's a lot of beer there. So like, but you can get drunk solidly for like one day. And then day two, you're like, what do I do now?

And did you text your agent? I just feel bad for the worker at the front gate. That's who, that's where my mind is right now with her and her family. So you're plugging his. So I'm saying he's, first of all, great standup comedian and just

really good human being. If you're in New York, book him on your shows. He deserves to be even more in the circuit than he is. Was there another plug you wanted to make? Oh, yes. Thank you. That's the plugs. This is the blessing. He was a blessing.

Do you have a blessing for us? I do. Tiny backstory before, so it just makes sense. So I have like one of the largest curiosities collections in the country. Okay. Like, you know, like Ripley's, believe it or not, if you've ever been to like one of their museums. So like a portion of my office is, is built like that. And I have like one of the top 25 largest in North America.

Yeah. And there was a piece I've wanted for years. And it's just hard to come by. It's this tribal piece. And it's rare and really cool and usually very, very expensive. They're like in the $10,000 range. From where about? What area of the world?

Okay. But most of them were destroyed. Because the way that the tribe who had built them would use them is they were actually an act that would often destroy them as part of the tradition.

So not many of them survive anymore. Interesting. And so I found one at an auction in the Netherlands that was going for like

$500, which is, yeah, it's insane. And this is a museum quality piece. So many of the pieces in my collection, I actually loan out to museums. And and it's what like the horror show is semi-based on

the collection so uh-huh um so anyway i they would only ship to within the eu and i couldn't get it shipped to me though the auction house doesn't ship outside of the eu and i was like oh no that's one of the reasons i think it was going so low is people just didn't know what it was. And so I was like, but I, and I found out about it 12 hours before the auction went on. And so I was calling everybody I knew like quickly to be like, and it sounds like you're a drug dealer. Be like, can I get a, can I get a package sent to you?

You don't have to open it. You just have to put a new label on it and then send it to me here in the US. Like, so people like, they're all like, huh, what is this about? Your house will be haunted until i pick it up and so um but and a lot of people like people i knew were like oh i'm in thailand right now on vacation another one was like i'll be back if you can have them hold it for a week like i'll be back in spain and and then i finally found a couple of friends in england who were like yeah we can take it and so i went to do

it and come to find out because the uk left the eu they were like oh we won't ship it to england i was like you gotta be kidding me and i had like an i had like a half hour left and a friend of a friend uh got somebody who i i met her one time in passing and she was like she lives in the netherlands and come to find out we found out like she like lives down like 20 minutes from the auction house yeah i was like could you and? And she was like, yeah, totally. I'll pick it up. And she went and picked it up. And it's heavy and it's big.

And she dragged it to the post office and packaged it up and shipped it to me in the States. And I just received it. And it was super awesome of her. And her name is Eowyn. And I really don't know her well. And she just kicks ass. And I owe her big.

And that made my heart super happy that's a killer blessing i gotta say we haven't had a blessing that cool so it's it's usually just like my father-in-law thanks for the time share um so this is coming out May 16th. Is there anything you want to plug? So yeah, we've got, so yeah, right. Touring, touring's always good. Just check out, I've been told I need to be more active on social media. And I have not. It's gotta be tough.

Like, you know, I post jokes. I write new jokes. Magic is, punchlines in a way, there's a certain degree of like the surprise. Yeah, oh, absolutely there is. But with magic, I feel like it's even a certain degree of like the surprise. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But with magic, I feel like it's even more so. Well, the real problem is that I find is that with, with comedy and music, like people will like comedy.

It's kind of funny to me. Like I love seeing a show, but like once I've seen the show, I don't really want to hear that joke again. Like I know where it's going. Yeah. But a lot of people are like, tell that joke again. Like, so you do all the time. People are not like that with magic they're like oh I saw you do that oh I'm sorry was that miracle not good enough I want to see it

again so they can catch you do this yeah that's the thing is like what do you do so you constantly have to make new material so because of that I don't really allow filming at my shows sure I can do short clips I don't really post a lot of stuff and you can either do that or you can do personal life stuff. Feels a little invasive. Like, I don't like that I have to, like, you either, like,

you either have to give so much of yourself up or performance. You were about to say that, right? I saw one of my favorite magicians, David Blaine, had a great show in Las Vegas and you had to put the phone in the box before the show.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, I think that's the way it should be, right? Like, that you shouldn't really, and also I believe that, I'm a guy who's very much like, do a meet and greet photo, do a photo before the show,

right after the show, but like put your phone away during the show, just enjoy the show. Like I hate how everybody, I mean, I'm sure you guys feel the same way. I mean, my God, in the off-Broadway shows, I can't believe they take phones out.

I'm like, seriously? Like we're all, sometimes it's part of the marketing. It's hard to get, you know. It's the thing though, at the same time, it's a double-edged sword. I mean, like, I know, look. And you know a double-edged sword. I mean, like, look.

And you know about double-edged swords. I mean, you guys are going to get a clip here. And the clip will get more views than the podcast, more listens than the podcast. But that's what makes it famous. I mean, that's how I see your stuff. So I do get it. And so I've kind of been, like, pushed to be like,

hey, you need to start doing more of that. So, like, I don't, I have not been posting a lot on YouTube and on Instagram. I don't do TikTok, but I do YouTube and I i do instagram if you really want to show me some love sign up on those and i swear to you i will start pumping out more content because i just have to so and what's what's the name of the channel just uh if you just uh mtk show is the Instagram for Matt, the knife people. I'm amazed how many people like, what does MTK stand for? I'm like, Oh wow. Uh, MTK show is the Instagram.

And I think it's the MTK show. You know, Google Matt, the knife, go to the webpage. You'll see that you'll see the little boxes. Click on the little boxes. Instagram and YouTube are the ones to care about that. Those are the ones I care about. If, and if people actually DM me, I am the one who responds. Unless you're super creepy. Uh, and it just takes me a while if I reply, but yeah the ones I care about. And if people actually DM me, I am the one who responds unless you're super creepy.

And it just takes me a while if I reply. But yeah, check out a show. That's really what it comes down to, is check out the shows. But really, I'd love it if more people got to me on Instagram, because then I'll have a reason to actually post more, because I've been pretty bad about it, especially since COVID. Sure. Yeah. Russell, what

do you want to plug? Follow me on Instagram at Russell J Daniels and come see Titanic at the Daryl Roth Theater amazing amazing for me I'll be headlining comics Mohegan Sun May 18th through May 20th going to my brother's graduation

then coming out to my brother's graduation then I will be at Cleveland Ohio at Hilarities, May 26th and May 27th, and then the weekend after that in Indianapolis at Helium, June 6th, June 2nd, June 3rd. And I'm trying

to plug some more of my friends, my stand-up comedian friends. Jason Salmon, who did our amp show on Amazon, he has a new special out called Biscuits and Gravity. It comes out April 13th, so it's already out. It's for free on YouTube at 4X3.

Jason Salmon, S-A-L-M-O-N. Link in the description. Fucking A. Man, I hope we have you back. I have so many more. I want to hear about sword swallowing and so many other things. But thank you. Thank you.

Can I just tell you real quick? When that thing came out. You can always bring me back another time. If people like it, bring me back. They'll love it. Or else. Those magician tapes that came out when I was a kid in the 90s. Magician reveals all the secrets.

Is he someone magicians would kill if they could? Yeah, a lot of people were really, really mad at him. But here's the funny thing is that so not all of it was real. Like some of it was lies. So like some of the techniques, like there was like a couple of techniques where if you tried them, like, oh, that wouldn't work. Like it's really, some are like really obvious to you. You kind of go, wait, what? Like if you just thought through it, you'd go, that can't be right.

And it's not. Like some of them were absolutely right. It wasn't everything that really bothered. I mean, obviously it wasn't everything that really bothered like that. I mean, obviously it wasn't old enough then, but like now if somebody has to go watch it, like people like, Oh,

I've seen those. I'm like, okay, it's just nothing I do. So I don't care. Sure. Yeah. Um,

his excuse at the time was something like, um, what was it? It was like, Oh, I'm trying to like push the, I'm trying to push the magic industry forward we've relied too much on old magic but really i think he was paid like a million bucks or something

when i was a kid i owned them on vhs yeah yeah yeah okay uh just just to sign us off real quick uh for our final thing could you just really say uh i want my mommy i'm gonna have to make that a hard line and say no. This is the downside. One, two, three. That was awesome.