The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 486: Jason Ladanye—Nothing Up His Sleeve

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Mike sits down with master card mechanic and sleight-of-hand expert Jason Ladanye, whose impossible demonstrations of gambling moves and psychological deception have earned him a reputation as one of the best card handlers working today. Jason explains how a childhood obsession with cards—and an influential mentorship with legendary magician Darwin Ortiz—shaped his career performing around the world. Along the way, Jason shows Mike how magicians secretly track cards through a shuffled deck, demonstrates the art of bottom dealing, and reveals why the real secret behind great magic isn't fast hands—it's storytelling, conviction, and understanding exactly how people think. And of course, there are several mind-blowing demonstrations of his ability. Follow Jason on Instagram and see him LIVE at an upcoming show. Big thanks to our awesome sponsors PureTalk.com/Rowe Choose any plan for $15 per month for the first three months.   NetSuite.com/Mike Download their FREE business guide, Demystifying AI SkillsUSA.org/mike Join the skilled trade movement!

Hey, it's Mike Roe. This is the way I heard it. My guest today is Jason Ladani. If I sound a little nonplussed, it's because I know it's Ladani. I'm just, I'm saying for paying attention. I was totally paying attention, dude. Well, look, the first thing I do is apologize to the guy for mispronouncing his name wrong in my mind for the last two years. I think he forgave me. This guy, I guess he's a magician. Card technician. Mechanic. I think that's the proper term, yeah. Yeah, I stumbled across him on the internet on a lazy, rainy Thursday morning a couple years ago, just scrolling around. Yeah. And I saw him do something with the deck of cards. It just defied credulity. Yes. You know, and you play cards. Yeah.

And I play cards. Yep. And I know some tricks and whatever. I've seen the best. I've seen, you know, Richard Turner. And I've seen, I mean, I was just so blown away by his skill. Yeah. And his attitude.

Jason LaDaney, he's so mean to the people who follow him. To the skeptics who challenge him and say, you're cheating. You know, it's trick photography or whatever. But it's delightful because as abusive as he is to his many, many followers, he has their permission to be so because he's that good. Totally. I think the one I sent you, he tracked an ace and pulled four of him out of the deck in pretty short order while he was shuffling in between each extraction, which was great.

And insulting the person who sent him the challenge at the same time. So basically the challenge is, you know, I'll give you $250 if you can pull out four aces of continuous shuffling and blah, blah, blah, which of course he does. But what you don't know is that as he's doing it, as he's shuffling, he's also arranging the entire deck by suit in chronological order. Yeah. So when he finds the aces, you're blown away, and then he shows you the whole deck and everything is arranged and suited.

And he's done that without looking at them that you can see. He's just shuffling them, he's riffling them and cutting them. And insulting his audience. And insulting his audience, and then they're all in order. And it's delightful. Yeah. Anyway, that was two years ago. I sent you a clip and then I've sent you many clips since then because he's, you know,

he's in my algorithm now. Yep. And, you know, we're officially calling this episode, nothing up his sleeve. because I think it's apropos, but we could have just as easily called it the best 40 seconds of your day because that's about how much time I spend every day. Every day, me too now.

Watching him do what he does. So last night, I came down here to MicroWorks World Headquarters, and Chuck was in touch with Jason's manager, and he was doing a show up in Oxnard. So we took a road trip, and we saw this guy in person. Amazing.

And today, I was like, look, man, you got to come down and do the podcast. Bring your cards, you necromancer, you wizard, you dark art freak. Come down here and let's have a chat. And so that's what just happened. We just spent close to two hours. He showed us some stuff that'll make your head explode. But you know what?

More importantly, he was exactly who I hoped he would be, which is a version of his alter ego. He's a craftsman. He's a tradesman. There hasn't been a day in the last 40 years that he hasn't had his hands for hours on a deck of cards. It's become an extension of his fingers and the personification of his purpose here on planet Earth.

I don't know if anybody who's better at what he's doing right now, I don't even think he's in the prime of his career. Yeah, I think he's coming into it. I think he's going to be very well known very soon. It's going to be hard to say his last name, obviously. It's Ladani, and he spells it funny too. But card magic by Jason is what you're going to

I want to search after you listen to this conversation. And hopefully after you watch it as well, you know, we do these over on YouTube, and this is one of those episodes that you should find because he's going to do things with a deck of cards. Honestly, man, there were moments last night where I couldn't have been more gobsmacked had he just pulled his head off his body and set it on the table and had it continue to talk. Yeah. It's just, well, I don't know if you noticed it or not, but I literally,

made noises of like, ah, ah, yeah. And like, no way. You were gasping. And it sounded like some, you know, important organs were shutting down prematurely. We're shifting. Yes. There were facial tics. Yes.

There were, it wasn't a big crowd. That's the other thing I love about this, man. He's out there, like, without a net. He does big houses. He does small houses. Yeah, yeah. He's really very much on the comics journey, the comic circuit,

but he has a skill set, unlike Seinfeld. It's that plus this. And what you're left with is just a, look, it's just, it's marvelous. And it seems impossible. Yeah. And yet he does it with such ease

and a little bit of panache and a lot of snarkiness. Oh, man, he is an R-rated performer, and I love it, but this is PG-30. maybe even PG. Safe for the whole family. You're going to love it.

There's nothing up his sleeve, but there is a great deal of talent in his fingers. That's for damn short. That sounded virtually dirty. That's just really weird, man. You could have just left it with the... Well, whatever it is. It's right after this.

Jason Ladani. Dum! Well, people are still raving. Raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial and if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical.

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You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. All right. I should start with an apology, man. I've been mispronouncing your name in my head for the last two years. That's okay. It's Jason La Danny.

There you go. Like Danny Boy. That's right. And boy, oh boy, dude, you freaked those people out last night, man. It was fun to watch. Just doing my job. Do you think of it like a job? Do you think of it like a hobby that got out of hand?

I mean, you're just doing stuff, dude. And you can see people's eyes. First they glaze, then they roll in their head. Then you start, like about 40 minutes in, you start to notice, like the guys, I'm sitting, with have developed a facial tick, right? I mean, you're like you're really starting a cult. You're troubling. You're troubling people and amusing them at the same time. So is that really your job? Well, I had a similar experience when I was young and I saw magic for the first time. I was learning how the world works and there's rules and everything. So I experienced what you're talking about

myself. And I knew what that felt like. And I think in life there's this thing. I didn't know this when I was seven, but you have a, you have an experience and there's this thing that we want to share it with, oh, you have to try this. That's just how humans work. So I felt that. My brother showed me some card tricks. I was seven. And I just wanted to learn how that works and do that to other people. And then there was kind of a power in that I enjoy it. And fooling your father for the first, you know, these are in very impactful things. And fooling my brother, he was the one that showed me the stuff. And it's now my life's mission to fool him back. You know, it took, 15 years, but I got them. And then along the way, I got good at this stuff, you know. And so when you say,

is it a job, you know, everyone has, this is how I make money, but I certainly don't feel the word job, especially because when I think of that word, I feel like people, that the alarm goes off and you go, you know, and you go in and you try to take vacations from it. And, you know, that's not what this is. We're constantly going and traveling and having fun. So it doesn't feel like anything I need to get away from. but for some reason in me is always this desire to create even more. Even though I've got the show you saw, there's constantly new things I'm always coming up with to further that and make it even worse. Has there been a day in the last 40 years where you haven't had your hands on a deck of cards?

No, it's every day. You know, unless I'm in the hospital. And I'll say I was in the hospital, I still have cards with it. They all have somebody called. Do you take the cards in the bathroom with you? No, no. You've never taken the cards in the can. Yes, I have to, yes.

There is a deck in the bathroom. No, really, like a little table set up by the bowl. No, it would have the full table set up, but there might be a deck within reach. Let's put it that way. But in the hotel rooms, you know, after a show, if something didn't go the way it's supposed to go, I'll immediately. It might be two in the morning, but I come in and I pull the mat out and I get the cards out and work on that. If I have an idea, oh, this one's a curse. Yeah.

It's 3.30 in the morning and you just wake up at it for no reason, you know, and you're sitting there laying in bed. and you say, oh, damn, it's three in the morning, and you go. Now, if they shuffle, right, now wait a second, if they shuffle it, and then you take the deck back and do this and then that, that would mean I could, yeah, okay, I'll write this up in the morning, and then you lay in there and then you go, 15 minutes later, you're like, but also,

if someone does this prior, if you could use it from a new deck, if you start with a new deck, and then they show, and then next thing you know, it's 4.30 in the morning and you're out writing this up. Yeah. You know, that, you can't get away from it because your creativity starts and you, I've learned that you can't just say, I'm going to write it up in the morning because you wake up

and you're like, I had a great idea. That's the thing that pisses me off. You'll say to yourself, I know I had a good idea, but I can't remember it. Well, why do you remember that you had a good idea, but you can't remember the specifics of it? That's annoying. What is it about that? The sublimely frustrating feeling of having a thing on the tip of your tongue, I think it's universally torturous, but for creative people, right?

I mean, I've had the same thing in the middle of the story where I thought, okay, okay, that's going to be the turn. And then I, but I'm not quite there yet. And then I write to when I get there and I literally forget what I thought I was going to do. I think the trap is, and I have had this happen several times. And that's why I changed the rule now. But the trap is, this is such a good idea. I won't forget it. This is groundbreaking.

So this is going to change the world. So obviously, this is so impactful that I'm on board. And then it's gone. I'm like that. And I've tried ways to skip myself back into that same thinking to see if it'll pop back up again or whatever. So the lesson that I learned was no matter what, if it's three in the morning or whatever, if you're driving, you can use your voice phone, your voice notes and things, but you have to write those down immediately. How much of what I saw last night was really, I mean, I know it was choreographed and had to be, but how much improvisational flexibility

do you look for when you do these acts? Because you're super interactive with the audience, and there's no way you can predict a lot of what I saw happen. To a point. Yeah, we're human, so you can expect certain things. So it's a great question. Thank you for asking good questions. And by the way, that was right from my brain, not AI.

We have some AI generated questions. We might rely on later. We'll see how it goes. Okay. So, again, since we're all humans, we're going to react similar ways to things. We're going to see something and have similar reactions. So I can, based on all the shows I've done, I can kind of rely on a certain way.

But it may fall into five or six different categories. Either they're going to do this, or they're going to do this, or they're going to do this, or they're going to do this? And over 40 years of practice and 20 years of shows and everything, what happens is you have 10 responses ready to go if they go this way. You have 10 responses ready to go if they go this way. And you can vary these. Is it the crowd, do I need to wake them up or are they fun or they rowdy or whatever? So depending on if they fall into, if they do category B, I have four responses and I can choose the level at which I want to respond and have some gag ready or something like that. So is it

improvisational? Yes, but it's kind of like guitar licks. You know, I'm not inventing them on the spot, but I am putting them together in a new way in that moment. You know, I've never played that guitar solo exactly that way. Are you musical? Yeah, of course. I've toured for, I started piano and guitar when I was the same age. What do you mean, of course? What do you mean naturally? I mean, like, is a musical background? I thought you knew. I thought you knew. I did kind of know.

I knew you played the piano. I didn't know you played the guitar. But my question, if there is one, is, you know, what kind of advantages does a musical background bring potentially to a magician? The technical, for sure. So piano is all about scales. And there's so much a kind of empty technique where you don't have to think. You know, you just do the scale. You push these buttons.

There's no creativity. Just do this. And that built up so much dexterity. in your fingers with independence in hands, right? So the normal person, we use this, or thumbs and into everything. We grab a fork, the coffee, we're never using these fingers. We're just got this like this. It's all we ever need. You get into an elevator to do that.

And all day long, from the morning to the night, you're just doing this, or possibly this, or grabbing something. So there's no reason for you to have independence on this finger, let alone hands doing opposite things at different times. So piano player pushes you right into this new thing where you're opening up new parts of your brain. It's a shared tendon, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like your ring finger and your finger in your hands. pinky only has the one. Well, yeah, but you have to develop independence in those fingers. I can just lift my pinky or just by ring or just by middle. So my brain is talking to these fingers and they're doing what I want them to do. So at seven, you're not thinking at that. You're just saying, this is what my piano teacher wants me to do. You know, and through repetition, you get good at it. But what I noticed when I met Darwin, and we're skipping around the timeline and everything, but when I was in my 20s and I met Darwin. That was your mentor. Yeah, he's the one of the best. Ortiz was it? Darwin Ortiz. He's one of the best card guys ever. He just understood magic on it.

entirely different level. And he would give me purely technical. Same thing with piano. We didn't get into creativity and all that. We started just with technical work. You need to do this and this and this. So mindless study. But I noticed that when he would give me something, he'd say, this don't, you know, just prepare yourself. This could take three years to five years to learn how to do. And we're going to break it up into steps. You just have to do this. And this is mechanical. It's not going to look good. It's just mechanical. And then the next phase would be deception where we try to make it look good. And then after that is the polish where, you know, the person looking swears they saw the actual opposite. You know, it's not just that you can fool them.

That's the fun part. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that can take five years to do. And then I'd come back like three months later and show them and you'd be like, well, that's, you know. It's pretty quick. That's pretty quick. You know, so we both figured out that because you had all that is independence in your fingers already through piano, that I was able to kind of fast track through a lot of the card

moves because I didn't struggle having to lift my ring or be able to pull down with this finger on that side of the deck without moving this finger, where a regular student would really struggle with that because they didn't have, you know, 15 years of piano lessons under the belt. Before I ask you to bark for your fish or sing for your supper and, you know, show us some stuff. And by the way, I don't want you to do your act or anything, but I do want the viewer to see some of those basic skills you're talking about and maybe how they apply from the keyboard to a deck of cards.

Because I'm thinking as you're talking, like, who's your favorite pianist? Well, I'm cut a little different because most piano players really are classical, classically trained, and jazz players. And, you know, I can name Keith Jared and Oscar Peterson and guys like that. Have you seen David Cavett, Dick Cavett, interview Oscar Peterson? Yes, that's one of my favorite. He's a genius. The guy's a genius. Yeah, yeah.

That's believable. I've sent clips of that to my friend Tony Cabral, who's the same as he's a piano player and a card guy. No sense to me was Rick Biotto. I don't know if you watch Rick. He does a thing called What Makes This Song Great and a lot of others. He's a, he's the ultimate docent in the Museum of Music that we all wish we had. And he sent me that because he wanted me to see what a great interviewer looked like. Well, it's great.

I agree with that. Yeah. There are great questions and how it works together to go, but you have the genius of Oscar. And he breaks it down to a point. You're just in awe of how simple he's making it sound, but it's not. This is what I want you to do if you're up for it. Just like some of the rudimentary things that most people don't even notice that you're like, you never stop shuffling. You've been shuffling cards every day for 40 years.

Like, never stop shuffling. So, you know. It's an instrument. It becomes it's, yeah, it's in your. So as we get into it, you know, I'll be Dick Cavett. You'll be Oscar Peterson. Oh, and sidebar. Have you seen Peter Benz?

No. Okay. And I think I mentioned this before. I've been locked in a room shuffling cards for 40 years. years. So you're going to name some names, and I'm going to say, never heard of them. Well, if you brought Keith Jared and Oscar Peterson, I mean, that's 19... I actually didn't finish that, because I was going to say that you asked me my favorite piano player. And oddly enough, I say most piano players go refined with classical and then the jazz

greats that have that classical training. But I was the rebel. And my piano teacher always said, we're going to do classical technique. We're going to learn classical, you know, technique through classical tunes and all that. And I'm like, man, Otis Span. It's not my jam. And Johnny Johnson, that old blues, that just clunkin blues, they're just so, the technique is just all over the place. But the feel, I want that feel that those guys are getting. And Otis Span, and then that got me into the old blues guys, too, with Otis Rush and B.B. King and Albert King, and they're so sloppy, but it was so powerful. Albert King's solos are three-note solos.

He plays three notes. But he's flooring you. And I knew that there was so much power there, you know? Is it true? Like, if you're in the pocket, you can be sloppy and get away with it. It's all about feel. Right. It's not about the, that's what gets me about these shredder guitar players.

Okay, you're playing a billion scales. Good for you. Great. But where's the feel? You're not saying anything. D-d-d-do-do-d-d-d-d-dum. If you're running a business today that's generating a million dollars or more, I'd bet you a million dollars or more.

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It's an eye opener and it's free at netsuite.com slash mic. That's net suite.com slash mic. That's net suite.com slash mic. You've said a billion notes and he didn't say a word. And Albert can play one note and you are pushed back into, you're just like, oh my God. And it's so apparent when Albert would have another guitar player on stage with him who would take a three-pass solo, shredding, you know, playing or whatever.

And then the band breaks down and starts doing the stop time hits, and Albert comes in with one note. And you're just like, that's it, man, that's it. Show me your, I almost said show me your instrument. Given the tangent you took last night on stage, I'm not sure we want to. We can cut that out. No, we don't get anything out. Hey, Mark is here with us too, by the way.

My manager, my partner in crime. Yeah, Mark is the reason I just show up and do card tricks, and Mark makes this whole operation. That's him sitting in the shadows. As any good manager would do behind Chuck, who is sitting quietly at his desk, as any good producer would. This is great. The power, workers.

That's it. That's it. It's basic division of labor. So that's what you call a bicycle deck of cards there with 50s. Yeah, I like using the original bikes. I'm not a flashy guy. I like tradition. So these are the cards that been around forever.

And I also like using this deck because it's a normal deck that anyone can recognize right in CVS. You know, and these are. grocery store playing cards and if you have something fancy that that costs 20 bucks and it's all different and weird people look at that and go oh it's a special deck of cards no that's stuff i'm doing everything i do is usually as a regular a deck of cards it's all in the hands it's like the little black dress that audrey have burr made famous you know what i mean she didn't have to go crazy with the sequins or anything all right so uh some of the work i do called shuffle work the ability to control cards.

So I am shuffling the cards. That's really happening. And you just pulled the ace of spades out for those listening without even doing anything. Stop listening to go to YouTube. Yes, yes, exactly. You have no idea what you're missing. We're building the channel as we speak. Okay, here we go.

So eight of diamonds on top and the nine of hearts on the bottom. And if you know exactly where to cut by estimating cards, you should have no problem finding another ace. Now, there's nothing sticking out of that. Can you confirm that there's nothing? Do people say those bent cards or things like that? Let me put my glasses on, necromancer. No, there's nothing sticking out there.

No, of course. That's a legit shuffle. You can see that all the cards change. And that type of shuffle you just did is called a... That's a riffle shuffle. That's what they do in casinos. It prevents cheating. They do that.

There's another ace. Prevents cheating. Does it? It does, actually, yeah. You don't want to do a three-way cut. We talked about this in the show. See how there's a 10 on top and there's a queen on the bottom? If you do a three-way cut like this, see, the middle goes back in the middle,

so that doesn't get mixed. Top and bottom got mixed, but still, it's not going to stop. There's another race. That's annoying, man. So that's that's just card control. So that's like some basics. And also, you can make a lot of money if you do this in card games. That's where it all kind of, that was the motivation in the beginning.

I mean, that's a stupid question, but I mean, were you in a game? Yeah, yeah. So part of me, you know, because I have integrity, I said, if I'm going to learn this stuff do it on stage and be an expert in this field, how could I never really do this in a game for real? No, that was a real thing. It sounds like a joke and it kind of is funny. But at the same time, how can I take myself seriously? How can I sleep at night? I really did have this struggle because my teacher was a legit card. He had all the moves, but he would demo this stuff for casino pit bosses. He was the one that was helping write casino procedure. You know, you have to do this.

This is how card cheats do this. So we need to implement this structure. And he would go to these casinos and make sure that the casinos were following all the right procedures and everything and demo all these things so the dealers knew what to look for the pit boss is knew what to look for so he had to have his shit together sorry but are you allowed in casinos i am but if i sit down to play i'll likely be asked to leave because they don't want they don't know what you're capable of so it's safer to say not that we accuse you but we just you don't we don't you know thank you but here's some free dinner at then but i mean just i mean for people to understand you like nobody would ever hand you a of cards in a casino.

No, I couldn't. No, I wouldn't get the job. They vet their dealers. So if you have this skill set, you're not going to sit behind it. They're not going to give you. But how much cheating can you do if you're just sitting and playing the card you're dealt? Do all sorts of stuff. Yeah. So you can mark. Yeah. So this is how people don't know, you know, by nicking the corners of the cars, by bending the cards, by, you can have paste, this tinted paste that you put on the back of the card. And depending on where you put the paste on the back of the card, right? So you can do that. And then I would know that if it's further from the center, it's a lower card, closer to the center, it's a higher card.

kind of thing. So as the cards are going back into the shoe and being dealt back to me, well, I'm basically playing now playing with a marked deck. And you can bet accordingly. So the Phil Ivy scandal, sometimes this isn't a misprinted deck, but sometimes playing cards are just like money can be misprinted. So if you ever see a dollar bill and one of the borders is really wider, it's a little off-centered. Yeah. Cards do the same thing. So can you see how these are relatively centered? I don't know if you can spot it or not, but can you see that this side is just a little thicker the white border here it's just a tiny bit so that's this thickness and look over here it's just a tiny bit i'm gonna say yes although i'm going to stipulate it knowing you're the kind of guy

that would lead me to say like just to agree with you no no i wish i had a deck that so you don't you open them up no i don't just know i think you're right i think that border is oh we're talking test so yeah which means that if i turn this around it's now a marked card so you go through the entire deck let's say let's exaggerate it and say it was quite thick. You'd have these thick sides on the side over here. And then all the high cards, I would spin around like this. So there'd be a thin little border there. Now, when they're sitting in the shoe, they would look like this. And you would see the border down here. And as they're coming out of the shoe like this, once you see the thin card, you know, that's an ace or a tent.

So you can hit accordingly. So, you know, I'm just sitting and playing, but you're taking advantage of a misprinted deck or you're manipulating the deck yourself. All this will land you in jail, by the way. So you can go to jail for cheating. Well, here's the rule. If you change the outcome of the cards, it's a felony. So that means if I'm dealt an ace and I use a muck or a palm or switch to switch it to something else, I'm going to jail. But if I am manipulating the card and bending the corners, I'm going to jail. Because I bet based on something how I manipulated the playing cards, right?

And is this a thing they determine in real time or do they go to the tape? Well, yeah, what they'll do is they'll get you over time. So they set the case up. So they may know you do. Well, here's the real answer is this. Once a table goes the wrong way, you know, table eight is now $175,000 the other way, or $175,000 the other way, that's a pretty decent red flag because all night long casinos are making money and one table is now $200K in the wrong direction.

That's going to raise some flags. That's just, that's a no-brainer. But then they look who's there, and then if a week later, it's the same team, same group of people and the tables go in the wrong way, now they know. But that's not enough. So they let you do it a few more times. and then build the case. And now they've got all the tape. They've got you doing it multiple times. And now you're going to jail. Is the basic business of tracking a card? Is that like in the

rudimentary playbook? Is that one of the first skills? No, no, that's not definitely not a beginner skill, but I can go over some basic tracking. Believe it or not, it's easier than you think. So the ace, and right now this would be someone else shuffling the cards and you can still figure out where certain cards are. So let's put it fifth, for example. So after a shuffle, and it's a legit shuffle, that means the cards are interlacing like this, which means the ace would just double. So right now it's at fifth. So pretty basic math. After I shuffle the cards, where's the ace going to be? Ten. Or about. Well, I mean, if you shuffled them perfectly. No, we can fix that later. We can use other methods. But also, remember, if you have an idea that an ace is

going to come out within one or two cards all the time. That's an advantage you can take up overnight. So you don't have to nail it, but you know that if I know that a 10 is within four cards from the top and I'm playing poker and the third or fourth or fifth seat starts bed and head ball, the chances are I know who's legitimately got the ace. So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So we're nine cards worn off. But where is it now? It's nine. So where's it going to be after another shuffle? Probably 18. See what I mean? It's not that difficult. So I have a good idea from a legit shuffle deck that someone else shuffled perhaps and casino dealers don't shuffle clunky they shuffle pretty fair one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen

fourteen fifteen sixteen again i'm only a few cards off so now if i'm dealing and i know an ace is one or two cards from where i need it you can do second deals you can manipulate uh switch cards you can deal that card from that position and make it look like it really came from there so even though tracking is can be a perfect science if you clean up the shuffles but with someone else shuffling you can still be one or two cards off and still have a pretty big advantage. That's only one card as well. So if you have two aces, where's the first one? Six. Next one, 16. So where they're going to be? 12 and 30. Yeah, that's what I mean. Look at you, tracking cards. It's your first day. All right. So there's halfway 26, about 30. Same thing. One, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, twenty, twenty two, twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-five, right there, twenty-seven, twenty-tway, twenty-eight, 29, 30. So you're within two cards on each. Your first try. But you're not within two. Like you always get the one. Well, I can shuffle a little cleaner than the next. So now we're talking about this shuffle. So this is a perfect shuffle. So it looks just like a regular shuffle, but it's actually perfect. Perfect because every card's interrupted. It's alternating. No, there's no, there's nowhere in here that there's two cards. right and again just to shuffle it perfectly like the first thing you have to know is exactly where 26 is

and you just know this and then you got to push them together without any it's easier to see so the reason I did it this way when I dropped the cards is it masks that so when I'm doing my show or when I'm doing a gambling demo I want to kind of hide the fact that it's a perfect shuffle so when you drop it it just looks like a regular interlace if I do it like this it's much easier to see that that's quite literally a perfect split. How do guys hit free, you know, how does Tiger Woods sink, puts? You know, he made a deal with BELA.

Well, how do I split the cards at 26? Same thing. Yeah, when I was seven years old, I made a deal. I know a good deal when I see one. I could make money doing this. So I signed on the dotted line, and here we are today. But the point is, once you get the hang of it, splitting at 26 is just easy to do.

I can tell, I can tell from across the room if there's one card on the wrong side. You just see, for me, remember when I told you about the card with the border? Yeah. And you said, yeah, okay, I can kind of see that side's bigger over there.

It's the same thing when you split the deck. You can just see, and even though it's only this one card, you can just tell by looking at it because I look at it every single day, that's bigger. So I got to move one card from here to there. Once you get that,

the interlace is similar to a zipper. When you zip up, the teeth, you get the cards that just line up. It does take some practice. I'm making it sound really easy. But within 10, years, it's like a zipper. Anyway, you push the cards together and like a zipper, they all interlace. Just imagine two big picket fences. And they all have points like trying under a microscope,

a deck would look like that. And you're basically getting one picket fence. They're not going to stack up on the tips. They're going to fall into the, they're going to fall in like a zipper. And they line up. And then this happens. And then the cards are interlaced like this. And it technically is a shuffle. The cards are being mixed. Legit. You can beat the cut. We can talk about that in a second. But remember that tracking that we were one or two cards off a second ago. Well, now, since we're shuffling the cards pristinely, I might get some decent cards. Oh, two pair. Jesus. I got a pair of aces and another pair of bases. Now, that can be applied. That can be applied to other people's hands. And you don't even have to track aces. It can be very,

very rewarding for me when I was playing in these games. Not to worry about my own hands. I'm It was to give someone else a hand to see how they play it. As you may have noticed, the skilled trades are having a moment. Americans are finally coming to grips with the enormous skills gap in this country and what it means for all of us. And the incredible opportunities that are waiting for anybody who wants to learn a skill that's in demand and get to work. This is all great news from my friends at Skills USA, who are on a mission to serve a million members by the end of this decade. and help us close America's skills gap. Skills USA has hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country

and hundreds of thousands of students currently participating and competing every year in dozens of skill-based vocations. These guys are doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than any other program in the country, and you're invited to be a part of the movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers do more than just teach the trades. They help careers and strengthen the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. Join the skilled trades movement and support career and technical education through Skills USA. You can volunteer at a local chapter or you can start a chapter of your own.

It's happening every day. At the very least, go to their website and see the impact of this organization for yourself. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positive. positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. They have my support and I hope they'll have yours as well. Learn more at skills USA.org slash mic. I'm talking skills, US skills, US, USA. Oh, so you could give somebody four kings. Well, not even four kings. Just give them a decent pair. You just give them a set or something like that. And you watch how they bet. And you could just, it's so much easier to read people when you know what they got.

So in the first year in that game, I was just worried about my own cards. But then I really started getting devious and just learning how these people play and slow, and just read them like a book. Well, you play the man. Yeah, but it's much easier when you know what cards I got. So that was a lot of fun. But anyway, back to that original story we were talking about with. I want to do these under fire. And that also helps with being on stage and doing it.

You know, the first time I was in that game, I thought the guy next to me could hear my heartbeat. The blood was flowing through my ears. It was like the biggest adrenaline rush ever, you know. And then afterwards I was like, you know, I think I was watching the TV. He was watching the game while I was, you know, I'm like, well, that was easy. And then I'm like, and I made some money too. So after that, you know, within 20 minutes, I'm like, all right, this is pretty easy. But I kind of cut my chops there and got all this stuff to work and realized that it would work.

And then I felt like I was able to pull this stuff off for real. Have you caught many cheaters? Yeah, I had a great story I told on a different show. I found an amateur cheat. He was shuffling the cards face up like this. And I thought, look at this idiot. I'm going to take advantage. I'm going to be able to figure out where certain cards are, you know,

because he's doing this. And what he was doing was running cards like this. See how I'm running him singly? So he was running a good card like the queen to the bottom. And then he could put that to the back of the deck. And then he'd run until he found another good card, like another queen there. And then he'd put that in the back of the deck. And then he basically began building up his hands at the back.

And if there was four players or three players, whatever, he was able to sack him at the back of the deck. And if I'd shuffle two more cards at the back there, if I deal out three-handed, he was going to give himself queens, you know? So he was doing a very, very elementary. I mean, it's very amateur hour to shuffle the cards face up. But the game was so loose that nobody really caught attention,

nobody really cared. But I remember, I said, look at this idiot. And my ego got in the way because I said, oh, I'll take advantage of this, I can see the cards. And then he dealt himself queen two, diamonds. and then was betting pre-flop and in there pushing people around, and then the flop came out, three diamonds. But I had two pair, and I was thinking,

maybe I could get a full house and beat him, you know, but I didn't. But I paid him for it, and I lost like a couple hundred bucks. And then I realized, wait a minute, he's in there with Queen 2 pre-flop, like, bet pushing. That's not right. And then, sure enough, the deal came around to him again, and he's running up cards and he's running singles, and I'm like, oh, my God, I got beat by a complete idiot.

This guy, this is this. You're so bad you weren't even on the radar. And you're running up a hand. But I always thought, like, I'm the only guy in the earth that knows it out of cheat a car. But there he was, you know. So it was like a couple weeks later. And I told the host of the game, I said, you got a problem with this guy here. And if you want, I could, you know, I can do what he's doing.

A little bit more sophisticated. What the host say? Yeah, he said, I'd do it. He said, get rid of them. So what we did is I gave the hosts, trip Aces. I gave the cheat, Trip Kings, and by pure luck,

like I swear to God, sorry, Chad, by pure luck, this guy, Chad got Trip 7s. Anyway, it was pre-flop. There was,

everybody pushed in. There was 2,500 bucks in that pot, and it was like eight players, everybody was in. And my favorite part of the story was everybody turned up, the host took the money, and the cheat,

the amateur cheat said, who dealt that? And I could not stop. I was shuffling cards. And I was just staring at the deck. It was just like this big stupid smile was on my face because it was so rewarding. And I just couldn't have it.

He's like right here looking right at me. I'm just like, that'd be a La Dany deal. Wild. Whose turn is at the deal? I just couldn't hide the smile. And he knew. He must have known because I just was cracking up.

And then they got rid of him after that. That was pretty much the end of that. So you must have, I mean, you said before you had integrity. Not that I doubt you. It's just that I guess maybe you can use your powers for good. You can use them to cheat. You can use them to entertain. I go back to what I said to you at first.

That kind of crap right there is where the facial ticks start. Like when people realize they're in the presence of somebody. who can do something that not only they can't do, but that they can't conceive. Buddy of mine sat there years ago, the human calculator. I don't know if you've ever seen him. I've seen videos of people doing things that I can't explain. Scott Flansberg, yeah.

He holds a lot of Guinness World Records for just being able to manipulate numbers in his head faster than you can enter them in onto a calculator. And it's a neat trick, except it's not really a trick at this point. it's as reflexive and automatic to him as breathing is to me as this is to you. And when you're in close proximity to somebody who is doing something like that, you know, that's when you start to understand really how cults form, right? I mean, that's how you understand. Like when you look back through time and people are like,

you know what, man, the sun, there it is again, there must be a chariot, and there must be a god dragging it across the sky. There's really no other explanation. I'll black out the sun today at three o'clock. That's it. Once you figure out the eclipse, right? Now you're a god. You can run the Mayans.

Anyway, how much time did you really spend, like, thinking about what do I want to do with this level of skill once I own it? Well, I knew that my teacher was on the right side because he wasn't looking over his shoulder. And I knew other guys that do this stuff and they got to run away to Chile for, you know, they got to live in Argentina for, you know, they got to live in Argentina for. six months. And then those FBI will come in and they'll seize your bank and the IRS comes in. All your accounts are locked up and now you're living out of a suitcase in some, you know, in the middle of nowhere. And I didn't find that appealing. But also I was putting a lot of time into character and the entertainment value and drama, dramatic structure and how to progression, how to build this show that would constantly kind of keep you on the edge of your seat. So I knew

that that entertainment value was something I was putting a lot of time and effort into and how to get... I play a really edgy character because I'm a horrible person. The character is just horrible. Look, if you're not on his Instagram page, check it out,

and you'll see that he's cultivated a certain persona. I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but dickish. It's horrible. I don't know how to explain it. It's made up of a lot of movies from characters and things, but sometimes you hear a joke about some dark joke with a dark twist and I'm like oh that's that's that's what my guy would do I mean I take somebody's

wallet and it's bad enough just to take somebody's wallet and then you get him to agree that this is a good idea by saying look at the psychology you're a skeptic I asked for a skeptic he'd come running up on stage so you're obviously a skeptic so this is a safe bet there's no reason why you look at the opportunity you're giving out if you don't take this bet so you get you know the guy didn't agree to anything yet there's his wallet ready to just get lost And then you're taking this watch at the same time. The guy's car keys. And there's people are just putting all this up there.

And then you do this ridiculous thing people are going to know that you do. And you just take the money. And it's not, go have to sit down. You're done. It's just horrible. And then at the end of the show, you're throwing their wallet out into the crowd as a gift. Who has anybody want this guy's money? And you're taking the slinging the credit cards out.

And that guy's sitting out in the crowd going, that's my fucking wallet. I don't think I'm going to get it back. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, and I'm just laughing. And the car keys, too. And I just. laugh and walk off stage. And the people like it. Yeah. So you had to find that balance where people are laughing and enjoying that because, boy, there's a fine line. If you cross that line, you're kicking a puppy.

See, that's a very, but I put a lot of time and effort into how do I become this horrible person, but make people laugh and enjoy it? So George Costanza, I mean, it's not the same territory, but he's an awful person, but we love it. Larry David, you're an awful person, but people love that you're because they earn it, right? It's a permission. structure. Yes. Oh, you just said it.

You got it. Yeah, yeah. Right? So, like, your talent has to be commensurate to your dickishness. Yes, yes, yes. And if it is, then...

They go along for the ride. They like you. They understand it and they want to play along with it. And now it becomes very entertaining. And that's where it's weird because on the internet, people don't get that. They just see, who this guy's awful. But when you've been to a show, you get it. And then also longtime fans will start to understand.

Oh, it's a bit. You know, it's a big long thing. But it's this... do we agree to do this and then come along with me it's that kind of a thing and i really enjoy it and you're you're terrific in the show with the way i mean you come in pretty hot i think because there's an assumption that a lot of people well that's on purpose yeah right so like you set a bar but but but but that weird level of permission and trust it builds over the course of the hour yes yes but and i have to say there's there's a template i'm stealing here and that is a bond movie a good bond

movie. We learned in eighth grade, and this is all answering your question about why did I choose the good side of the dark, you know, I enjoy all this stuff. So if I can make great money entertaining and doing all the same skill set and even betting real, those are real bad. I have to catch the card. The chip has to land on the card. There's the real bets. So it's still that, but I can make money doing this without having to worry about somebody I took money or a casino coming after me or somebody that I took money off of, you know, hunting me down or whatever. So that's why we're talking about this. But anyway, back to the story. thing. In eighth grade, you learn the story arc, right? The story starts here and does this. We need peaks

of excitement. Ebs and flows. Yeah, but then we need the plot and then we build up again. And the next peak has to be higher than the last. And then we come down and have... The day of war. Exactly, we build. We introduce new characters. We have expositories, all stuff, and then it builds again to this peak. Any Bond movie does this. But we learn that in eighth grade, this thing. And that's what gets you to watch a movie where you're just at the edge of your seat the whole time, you know, just like, this is incredible. And movies that don't follow that, you're like... I'm lost. I'm It's 40 minutes and nothing's like, what is going on here? Like, who's this guy?

And what is happening? You know, but great movies will do this. And action movies are especially good because of fast-paced. So that storyline is the one we learned in eighth grade is this thing like this, but that's not exactly right. It's more of a checkmark. And Bond movies do this where it comes in hot. We come in it and there's cars. It's the Bond open.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We don't know what's going on, but he's chasing him, the Hitchcock thing where something's happening and I don't know what's, but I'm invested. And then it drops, but then it goes back up. So that's what I'm doing. I come in really hot and obnoxious, and it just establishes you right away. And then people know, okay, this guy's all right, it's real. I don't have to. He earned it.

Then we come down, but then we have to continually build up to the end. And we end on a whole, you saw the end of the show. I don't want to give it away, but you end on a tier where people are just like, what is this? And that's why people walk away, and I'm happy that I did a good show. That's where I want to put my energy, not into mucking cards in a casino and hoping that I don't get my knees broken. Good for you.

I don't want to talk about, well, the chip thing, since you mentioned it, and the controversy that accompanies that, like right now on, what is it, TikTok, people are just in a freaking lather. That, yeah, every time I post anything like that, the algorithm just goes nuts because the comment section, people just can't believe it. It's such a simple. It's such a stupid, the simplicity of it.

There's no complexity whatsoever. Here's the card, here's a chip, and there lands. But people in the comments love to our, argue and they say that it's not possible and they come up with the crazy theories, the magnetic strip in the card and the magnetic, you have a, oh my God, the theories, I just sit on my couch and laugh some days. Because they're so stupid, but they're so smart at the same time. He's got a fishing line attached to the ceiling and he found where the pendulum would, like, that's brilliant. Because if you swing a pendulum, it has to land in the center. So he does, and

they puts the thing there. And it looks like the chip is spinning. But all that's really, happening is the string is and then someone cuts the thing so it lands flat. Just so people understand. That's brilliant. It's diabolical. But so people understand. You're basically taking a poker chip and you're flicking it and it's rolling randomly over a bunch of cards.

52 cards that have been washed. And somehow or another, you know where it's going to land. And yeah, that's when the facial ticks at my table anyway turned into a fool on like grand mall. For some reason, that part of my branding almost, these things I've created, I've done it multiple times, and the card catch and the chip, that people

there's a weird suspense element to it, which shouldn't be there. Because you've seen it a hundred times, you've watched, you've shared it with your friends, it gets reposted every year, and you know the ending. But it's all execution. I know, you know the ending.

So we start out, we get all, here's my favorite thing to do when I do these kinds of tricks. because they're too short if you think about it. If I just said, watch here, pick a card, boom, there's your card. It's over. There's no dramatic structure. But by getting all of the skeptic garbage out of the way first, I haven't even done the trick and you're fooled.

By saying here, they're all different. You confirm they're all different. It's not a deck full of bases, yada, yada. And then you can see it's a fair shuffle. You can see I can't see the cards. So we're just cutting off all the avenues of possible methods before I've even done it. So in a weird way, the structure of the trick is just killing all of that first. So it's really sadistic if you think about it.

Because if I just did it, I would leave you all of these avenues afterwards that you'd be driving home saying, oh, he must have done this, or he must have done that, or he must have done this, because he has no control over anything. So it must have been this or this or this. So you can sleep at night because you don't know which avenue, but it must have been one of those. But if you get the person before you do it to agree that this couldn't be it, this couldn't be it, This couldn't be it. This is not it.

And you get them to agree to all that. And they sign on the, okay, I 100% agree. It's none of these. And then you do it. I'm sorry, it's so good. And then you do it. They have nothing. You already agreed that it's none of this.

So you can't go back. You can't go back on any of that because you agreed to it. And if my job is to find all of those and get them to agree. And that's just my favorite part of this whole job. Because what that does is it gives you an endless, kind of bubble to live in. Yeah. That you can replay.

It'll never be solved. Well, that's how you get them from a facial tick to full on incontinence. The cult, yeah, well, the cult,

but in between is incontinence. That's where they just, like at my table, that's when people started to soil themselves. And they begin to realize, we're not, you know, it's good to have an ear out in the audience

to know what's really going on. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. It was total renal failure at my table. It was a mess. And I know you delight. In that.

Because if I can go back to your mentor for a minute, I would love to know, like, when you realized you were in the presence of... Oh, my God. I can tell you the exact moment. I want to know that. And then I want to see the first trick. He showed you. Yeah, yeah.

I could do that. All right. So I, when I was like 15, remember, I was trying to fool my brother. So I was 15 or 16 years old. What's his name? Michael. And he showed me a real basic card trick. and I was going, I lived above a library.

That's a lot, I know, but we had access. Who lives above a library? It was in Kuxaki, Kikzaki, Hiramance Memorial Library in upstate New York. And if you lived above the library, and you maintained it, you got your rent, you had like cheaper rent. Is that near Hercimer? Yeah. Well, Hercimer is south, out 90, a little bit more west. My human calculator buddy came from Hercimer.

Yeah, that's, neck of the woods, but. Maybe all you necromancers are coming out. South of Albany, about 30, 40 minutes. Anyway, so there was book, card books down there, and I was checking these books out, which I still have. I checked them out, never returned him. So even at 7, I knew it was okay to just steal this book. But so I was fascinated, but the card sections were small.

So the book would be a variety of tricks, and there was a section on card tricks. But then I found this guy named Martin Nash, and suddenly he did nothing but card tricks. I'm like, wait, you can do that? Like, I thought a magician had to do coins and rings and silks and like that. That was your job. Yeah.

And maybe a few card tricks. But like I said, Martin Nash came along and I'm like, whoa, this guy tapped into just a card act. And it's all different and great plots. And he did nothing but cards. I'm like, that's amazing. And that led me to find more of that. I said, who else is doing this? And there was a guy named Darwin that just by just, I was looking through a catalog and

I was Darwin Ortiz card magic. And I'm like, all right, it's nothing but card tricks. Let's do it. But when I got Darwin stuff, I watched it and I just couldn't believe there he is. I was in the studio when that photo was taken. He looks like a magician. He's just, he's brilliant. He took this to an entirely different level.

So when I found Darwin and I watched these videos, you know, with other magicians, I could kind of see what they were doing. I didn't know exactly, but I could kind of follow along. Or I saw that palm or that shuffle's a little suspect. or something's going on here. That cuts a little hinky. But when Darwin did stuff, I'm like, okay, those cards are shuffled. And then suddenly like, why, you can't,

because you mix the, right? And then when he's cutting the cards, he's like, hey, that's a legit cut, you know, but nope. You know, like, what is happening here? And then he'd do a bottom deal. And I'm just like, other magicians, you could see all the stuff flashing around.

And with Darwin, it just looked like the, like, are you messing with me? Just clean. Yes, at an entirely different level. And he did like an overhand shuffling. And I remember thinking, okay, an overhand shovels, that's too sloppy. That's like, that's just garbage. You can't fake that.

Nope, sure enough. So he had technique on an entirely different level. So anyway, I agreed to, on the back of the book that I was reading was a phone number. And I thought it was the publisher. And I wanted to call the publisher and say, this is great material. And please put more stuff out like this because this is great. And Darwin answered the phone. So back then, you know, that's how you got the pre-internet.

Literally had his phone number on the back cover of the book. For business. call and you get work. So anyway, he answers the phone. I'm like, I'm like, I just, you're the guy. So after like 10 minutes of, you know, nothing but praise and you're the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. All I got all that out. He's like, all right, all right. And you're what, 15, 16? I'm like probably 18 or here because I'd studied the books. And then I'd read all the books, but the first DVD that I got was, it was VHS tape, actually, Darwin Ortizak card cheating. But that was when I saw, it wasn't just magic tricks. It was the gambling stuff where I just could

not see the moves. I'm sitting there. It's like, what is happening? How can I not see any of this? After all of this, I've 10 years of study, and I can't recognize one thing this guy's doing. So that's what hooked me. And it was on the back of that, what I called his number. So anyway, he agreed to do a lesson. And I went down there and I just, I learned some, I was, my hands were trembling. And I had a list of like 100 things to learn. And he said, let's just do two of those. You know, let's, let's, and I learned the hustler's triple cut. So this is my first lesson. The ACE is on top. And I did this in the show a few times, and you want to make it look like you're cutting the cards, but you're not. You know, and you can do it.

There's ways to cheat that and have it look like it's a three-way cut across the table. And you can add shuffles into that. You can do all sorts of odds and ends, and you can control those cards. So I saw him do that stuff, and I'm like, okay, that's pretty cool. But the thing that changed, the thing I'll never forget is I asked to see a bottom deal. And he took the Kings out of the deck, and he started doing a bottom. deal. And I'm watching him and I'm sitting just closer than you. Yeah. And he's doing a bottom, but I'm looking at it and I'm going, this old man, he's doing duplicate kings. He's lying

him. He's bullshed me. Because I can see the top card coming off the top of the deck. I can see it with my eyes. So what he did is he had duplicate kings in the deck and he's putting four kings on the bottom. He's pretending to do bottoms. And I'm thinking, you know, I drove eight hours and you're showing me some stupid, like, trick, magic trick or something. And then he goes, let me do it again. Let me get in stroke. And I'm thinking... Getting the stroke?

Like a golf swing. Let me get this polished up. And I'm thinking, that's weird to say that because this is like a fake pseudo-gambling demo. And then he shows me the bottom of the deck and there's no kings there. And I'm thinking, oh, that's clever. So he must have found a way to hide the other kings that he had. And the gears are starting to tick.

And he says, let me do it again. So he puts the kings on the bottom and he does it again. And again, I'm seeing the top card come off. So this isn't a bottom deal. You know, no. And then he shows me the bottom of the deck again, and there's no kings there anymore. And I'm like, so you must have four sets of that. That must be.

You're the guy in the comment section going, it's fishing wire. So that's what's happening. He has a deck of cyclical kings, and every fifth card is an indifferent card that he can show the bottom to prove that the kid. And I'm thinking, those are bottom deals? Are you out of your mind? Because in my world, a bottom deal is that you, when I first learned it, that you quickly pull the card out without the audience seeing what's going on.

But with a good stud, a good stud bottom, this card comes off. You see how's here? I sees that. And a second later, the aces. So you get all that time on that ace, that top card. Right. And it comes right off the bottom. So what he

was doing was that? Yeah. So what's happening? Well, I thought, because in my little brain at the time, I saw this come over. I saw the hand grab this. So at that point I said, that's the top card. Of course. But the retention

that I didn't know any of this stuff even existed, that your eye is fooled because you get this conditioning and then here you see that top card come off and everything about that and at speed,

you're never at a million years going to see those cards coming off the bottom. So I saw it two feet away from it and said, okay, this guy's messing with me because I can see the top card but it was just an entirely

different level of thinking because I thought a bottom dude was just pull it out super quick so the audience can't see it. Yeah. And he was doing it slow enough to show you the top card to show the hand grab the top card. Right. And then in the tiniest spec, there's one little moment you can't see when the bottom card gets drawn back, the bottom card comes out. And that just gets, your brain doesn't pick that up. So back to the piano. Is this analogous in some way to a scale? Absolutely. Because it's left hand. So believe it or not, I'm right-handed. But in piano, that doesn't

matter. Your both hands get developed. And especially with the music I learned with bass lines and boogie-woogie has a really busy left hand more so that you know boogie-wogie piano baseline is never stops yeah that's swinging ace and you got to be rocking all over to play so the left hand is this train that you cannot stop meanwhile the right hand can dance around and do whatever it wants you know so i had a lot of development of my left hand and card work is dominantly your left hand the right hand is providing a lot of cover and doing things and pointing at things or pulling chips around but the left hand is doing a lot of dirty stuff so um especially in the bottom deal if you want to peek under the hood here. I can't open these fingers up. That's the tell. When I open these fingers up,

people can tell. So these fingers have to move this way, which doesn't make any sense. And also, I have to be able to take this card out without those fingers moving. It's very complicated to do. And in order to push that cart out, you have to do that. So look how moving independent, these fingers have to move independent. These fingers can't move. If anything squeezes too tight, it doesn't work. So you have to learn how to hold a deck. So the saying is like light as if you're holding a bird. Yeah. You know, too heavy, it can kill it. Too light, it flies away. So this stuff took years and years to learn how to get down. Feel.

Yeah. Feel, feel, feel. It's just like a golf swing. There's so many analogies that you can come up with where you know what you just does it right. You have to do it and do it and do it and experience it and experience it and talk to someone else. I think the mentor thing is huge because you surrender and you don't fight back. You just accept that they've got 50 years on this. So when they give you a thing, just.

Was he mentoring other people when you met him? He was very picky about, he said something that changed my life because he said, if you're willing to put the time into this stuff, we can continue lessons. It wasn't like, sure, I'll give you a lesson. By saying if you work hard enough, that to me was like, if I don't impress, if I don't have the chops, he might not be able, he might just say I'm not interested in teaching you. I could see that this is what I want. So I needed to make sure some sort of weird, I mean, my father passed away when I was 14. So there was some relationship there where this is the person I need to impress with something. And if he, I can get that approval or something.

But the secret sauce in this that made it even worse was Darwin was not a social person by any means. He was a machine with cards. That's all he cared about doing was just card work and writing and building and performing. So there was never any small talk. You'd come in and he'd say, how was your, he? wouldn't even say that. He'd say, come on in, have a seat. What are we working on? You know, there was no, like, how was your ride down or how is this? So I'm like, oh, my God, you know, so the fact that there was no small talk meant that that approval was it, like, you couldn't buddy

up. Right. It was just work. So that made it even worse, because now I'm fighting for this, like, can you just say that was really good. But it, and then what I didn't know about the bottom deal and any of the stuff that he taught me, he's a fantastic teacher because he was breaking it up into tears that I didn't know about. So I would do the thing he said and say, look, I did all the finger placements, I'd relax my arms after this to sell that beat, do the cut, keep these fingers together, complete the cut, offset, and then, you know, and he'd say, okay, the next level. Now we're going to do this and add this to it. And I'd be like, well, you mean it's not done? Yeah. And then I'd do that next level. And then he'd say, okay, now we're ready for this.

Now add this beat into it, you know. So it was just never done. And we just fell into this cycle of I'd come down and learn something and then he'd take it to the next. And he had like a long-term plan where we're going to do these rudiments first. And then we're going to do this. And then we're going to move on to character and then entertainment value and business. You know, it was all. She's still around? No, we passed away a couple years ago.

That must have been hard. Yeah, that was. I had a show that. That was with Mark in the city. I had to do a show on the day he passed away. Wow. And it was interesting, too, because in a weird way, Your character is a mask.

I don't know if you slip into your, you have a persona that you wear, if you feel like you're you or not, but I certainly become a... And I felt it with Darwin, too, the first time we were having a conversation, and he showed me a trick, and in the middle, I'm like, who is this person?

Like, it's a complete, I could just feel. It was like a switch. He became a different person. Yeah. So when I'm performing, it is a different, it's a thing. And I was able to kind of hide in that and perform and laugh and do the jokes

and everything, even though I knew in the back of my mind that the world was falling apart. And then I finished a show and I just collapsed. I just fell apart. It was awful. But it was sudden, too. It was from COVID, complications from COVID, and it was just empty.

Mark, what did you do? I mean, as a manager, what can you do when your client is wrecked? Like that? Well, that was, you know, the first time I think I had a grown man cry in my arms. You know, he was crying. He was a mess. We just consoled him, and that was it. And it was a tough day.

Did you write a eulogy? Did you speak? I had a post. I did a big post with a bunch of pictures and in a lifetime of, you know, this is when I met him. And, you know, kind of a, this picture from this year

and this picture from this year. And this is the first time we did a show together. Yeah. I was on stage with him at this point. And I just wrote a big long thing. And the magic community, you know, really got behind it, obviously. But their family, just like how much of a machine

he was, and not socialist families are kind of the same way. So they just got a small, but there was nothing like that. But I've been back down there, and after he's passed, and I treat his apartment like it's, I mean, obviously he doesn't live there, but boy, it feels looking down that hall. It's really impactful. Can we riff on the C word that you just use? Community, like the magic community is fascinating to me, the way all subcultures are. and like last night

you know we were in Oxnard at a little club I don't know 50, 60 people maybe more Um Oh was it? I can't tell it was dark and everybody had a facial tick So it didn't seem you know

But you know I was just so struck Because so much of what you did reminded me of comics on the road Um like ventriloquism is its own community. Magic is its own community. Comedy is its own culture. You know, all of these things are really kind of blended in your act, not the ventriloquism so much, but that you know about that I know about.

But what like, it seems like magic in general now is having a moment, you know, you see these guys on America's got talent. You see a lot of, I mean, there's always been, I'm sure the Copperfield had an influence. Yeah, I saw him when I was eight. That was a big, that was impactful. Yeah. I remember a very specific, and I actually created an effect that kind of recreated that moment of seeing him on stage, he gets into a little cardboard box, and they lift him up, and I'm eight years old, you know, and he's suspended over the stage in a box. The box opens up, smoke comes out, and he's gone. And he's gone. And my mom taps me on shoulder, and I'm like, what? And she says, look, and I look over, and David Copperfield is two seats from me on a Harley, like six feet

up in the air, on a, like, like in my row. Yeah. And I'm like that, and that'll change your life, you know. Yeah. And on a Harley. Like, how did, like, you were, like, what? So that was quite impactful. Did you think about going in that direction?

No, no, for some reason, I'll tell you what happens, and it sounds so stupid, but it's, the word is practical. Because I would go to the magic shop, and I'd buy the cigarette through the quarter and the length, the rings and the silks and the, you know, disappearing, the records, you know, plastic, or a little vinyl record that you could make change color and all the polka dot then now there's no polka dots are thing and now they're not and just like all this stuff and and you know you're a kid but you don't realize it at the time but this is the guy just hawking the stuff that comes into boxes you know so he was great guy I had nothing against I was always amazed and the guy's name was Peter

Montecup and he really did teach me a very impactful uh thing that I use today when you get the magic trick like throw the directions away you know that's just one thing what are different what's I I mean, this tool was invented for this, but what else can we do and explore? So that creativity really came a lot from him because if you just follow the directions, you have one thing, but explore and say, oh, I could do this with it. That was a very interesting thing. But anyway, the short story is I had a giant box of stuff. And then I'm out.

Or, you know, you go to your family outing. You know, then Jay do it. I want to have my stuff. You know, or I go to school and say, hey, kids want to see a trick. And then nine kids rip the thing out of your hand and break it into a thousand pieces. you're a stupid, you stupid idiot, and you're left there with a broken piece of plastic. Yeah.

So I'm never doing that again. So this silly box of stuff, and nothing's ever ready to go. Oh, let me go into my little bag and gets, oh, you want to see a trick? Hang on. Okay, a perfectly ordinary box. You know, I just knew, ugh, what,

so I knew that with cards, I could do 30 minutes. Like, the deck is all, everything I need for an hour show is here, and I can just go one after another and do it. And I didn't need any stuff. And I'm not a birthday magician or here's an ordinary. It's just you could do gambling stuff.

You could do whatever. But so there was something cool. And I could tell that from the Bond movies and Steve McQueen. And there was something cool about when Bond's like at the card table, the cigarette with the cards and he's playing boxing. It was tapping into that. So even at an early age, I could feel that. I don't want to be taking polka dots off of a coffee can. And, oh, the dye is over here.

And now the dye is over here. And having that kind of kids magic stuff, it didn't appeal to me at all. So the practicality of just being able to throw this in my pocket and say, if I can do, I can entertain a whole party with this for an hour. That was the reason why I went with cards. I love that, man. And you said earlier, this idea of your mask and you become a persona. You know, for me, in a way, it was kind of the opposite.

Like, I had impersonated a host on TV for like 15 years. years. And with dirty jobs, the idea was, well, wait a minute. What if you're a guest instead? Like, what if you... Put it on its head, yeah. Yeah, like, what if you just let go the pretense of pretending to know things you don't and just be blisteringly honest about your own ignorance? And now the expectations get managed. And now you can be an apprentice and let somebody, right? So, like, the mask thing is really, really interesting to me. And the big gift of that show for me. was that I never had to pretend. Like the whole hook was,

stop, stop doing that. Yeah, yeah. Just be yourself and see if you can get away with it. I mentioned that to you there. It was seeing that through your eyes, but it was real. It was something so real about that show. Well, we never did a second take.

Well, that's what makes it feel that way. But I could just feel I was with you in the moment, observing and feeling all this stuff as it's coming. It could have been a voiceover of, look at what this. Now this happens. Holy crap, look at that. Right.

Now the person has to do this, like how things are. made. Now this, now, but it wasn't that. It was you discovering, whoa, and you captured that on camera somehow. Well, what I, if there's a parallel, back to Copperfield, like, you're not going to show up with your polka dot scarf any more than you are a motorcycle and a box that can, right? I mean, it's like, there's just no way. That's a spectacle. And so by the time Dirty Jobs came around, my, my working thesis was production, while necessary, had become the enemy of authenticity. And so the bigger the thing was and the more careful we were with our crew and Taylor knows he shot a bunch of them, you know, and I'm a nightmare out there because I'm constantly pushing back

against the beauty of the shot or the deliberateness of the thing only because I didn't think anybody else was doing it at the time. And that's why I love what you do on stage. You've got a couple of props that are pretty funny. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in the end, it's not about, it's really not even about the cards. Oh, God, no. No, no, no. It's the journey. You're getting to experience getting conned without actually losing your money. You're getting to experience all the suspense, all the comedy, all the entertainment.

So you should, when you leave that show, it should feel like you watched a comedy show or a play or something. This is just holding it together. Yeah, it's catharsis. It's the thing you talked about. The ebb the flow, the hero's journey, all that stuff. So, you know, the stage stuff, it's fun to watch. And believe it or not, I still don't know how a lot of that stuff works. That's a curse of being in the magic community.

you can kind of see through a lot of stuff. So the big stage stuff, I never explored, never, I don't watch any YouTube exposure videos or anything like that. Because I want, I could preserve that feeling of, you know, how did that happen? We talked about this on the ride back last night. You know, part of the curse of living today is that if you really want the answer, you can probably find information. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. Or here's another little interesting fact. You can find that information, but there's a chance. that it's just not even, it's some guy that wants views. Sure. Do you want to know how this? Do you want to know how to build this muscle? We'll do this.

And it's just some guy that came up with some new thing no one ever heard of just to get views, but it doesn't actually do anything. So when you're watching, you don't even know if this is the real thing or not. That's a fascinating thing too because it's the age of misinformation. Well, it's, look, I think,

you've used the word a few times, but at a lot in the show last night. You know, who's skeptical? Who's skeptical? Well, you know, every hand in the old. audience should have gone up because everybody should be skeptical because we're surrounded by so much bull crap online. I don't know why our default position isn't disbelief. Like, why would, what's the argument to believe anything you see online today? That's why I love the fact that you're online,

because you're lampooning that at the same time you're proving it again and again, messing with, just messing with trust. And the survivability of it is amazing too. Because you, think by now that people would say all right all right he's good he's putting out videos for 10 years he's got it nope i can open up a video today and 40% in the comments are saying no yeah so it's the dunning kruger thing it's that that person's circle of knowledge is this big and they're right in their world they are right so it's endless content because you just find that but we're not in their world we're in your yeah exactly so what i always find interesting is that person probably works where you know what is your expertise so why all the sudden you know why all the sudden is a plumber of 25 years

telling me how this works or how that works or there are suddenly there's expert in special effects and editing and i can see artifacts and they're like i'm sorry what do you do again for a living oh i'm a lawyer all right so what part of your law degree did they talk about you know special effects training or this so it's just funny but that's the internet that's the problem with the internet i say always say this quote i want to get it on a t-shirt the internet the internet is a bottomless pit of people that think they know what they're talking about. But what's also fascinating is you can watch a video on sheetrock. You can watch a video on sheet rock. And the guy's saying, so we do this, we put tape here, and then we do this, and then we do this, and then we put this down.

And 45% in the comments are, well, that works if you want, your walled fall apart two years. You know, and why would you do it that way? That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You should be sued. You know, you're going to hurt somebody if you do it down, because I'm F. Wall's going to climb. Everyone's an expert. And the guy that's leaving that comment works at a shoe store. What are you doing? Right. So that is the internet. Everyone, that's a bottomless pit of why do it that way. You should do it this way. Or is you're an expert or this is stupid or what? Because they want that clout of, I'm right. I got the top comment because I said this or whatever. But anyway, I just figured out how to monetize that. That is the thing that's holding the whole page together is

doubt and doubt is my it's like that that internet meme of some guy sitting in the chair glowing you know he's like his body is just becoming a glowing ball of light when i get doubt and skepticism bring it i've done everything with this for 40 years he can't get me with it so whatever doubt you have i'm going to do 10 times what you expect and then send you on your way who do you admire guys that are at the top of the game that are like iconic michael jordan tiger woods when tiger woods in in early 2000 when he was just sinking he and he can't He wasn't a golfer. He was a magician. And remember when he had that meeting, oh man, I can't remember he had the interview right before he like won everything. And the guy said,

no offense, kid. I don't know who that was. But he said, he said, I'm going to win. And he said, no offense, kid, but you're not winning your friend. And he went out in one. You know, that, that interview was just fantastic. But he should show that everyone said he couldn't do it and he did it. And those are the people that I really look up to. And Anthony Jessenik even said it in a recent video art monster. You know, you're just in it for the art. I just want to continue to explore and come up with new things and change the game. And when I'm gone in 3,000 years when the world is just a big pile of rubble, and there's

two people digging through the, hey, this used to be a library. And somebody's going to dust off a book and they're going, oh, this is the jail of Danny book. This guy was on the day. You know, I'm having that happens. And his numbers on the back. Let's call it. So, like, just somebody that came along. and just they put everything into it.

Like you said, I go to every day, I'm just, I can't get away from it. Even Seinfeld, there's another guy I look up to. It's a prison, but you like your prison. He's always writing jokes. He's always thinking you cannot turn it off. And Howard Stern said, that sounds like a prison. And he said it is, but I enjoy, I enjoy it. Well, what do you do if you're Seinfeld, you just walk away from a couple hundred million

dollars from the last season? You've mastered the form and you've mastered the medium. What do you do? He goes back on the road, does a documentary called comedian, and then comes out with comedians and cars getting coffee, which is proof that production is the enemy of authenticity. And if you're going to try and reset your thing, strip away anything but the absolutely essential trappings, and then reintroduce yourself to yourself, right? So, I mean, I love those answers. Do you know, do you play pool? I thought I was going to get into golf.

I play golf. I really enjoyed that. And I did flirt with the idea. But believe it or not, I felt like I was putting too many things. Because my upstairs neighbor actually had like an actual shark from the city come up. And they were like five hour lessons. You know, her version of Darwin. Yeah.

And she would, it was a girl. So she'd get hustled all the time. And guys would come up and be like and she would hustle. And, you know, she'd be like, wait, what's the English? What does English do again? You know what? Yeah, yeah. So that was appealing to me.

but I felt like between piano, guitar, and I, guitar isn't like a hobby. I'm transcribing old solos and I put my heart into that piano. I'm constantly digging through that. Peter Bentz, Mark, remind him. Game changer. Okay. I feel like I put my time and effort into all this stuff and I flirted with the idea,

but I said to myself, you know, let's, do I want to open up? Because I know my personality, and I'm going to have to find this and I'm going to have to, you know, explore and go and go because I don't like that idea of just dipping my toes. I'm going to go all in. And I said, I didn't do it. You're not asking for this, but I'm going to recommend anyway. Ephron Reyes.

Mark, write it down. Ephron Reyes. E-F-R-A-N. He's a greatest pool player who ever lived. In fact, he's called the magician. This is the stuff I like watching. These guys that just do things that you cannot explain. They're willing what they want.

This is why you're here. This is why the internet is not entirely, as you've described, although mostly. Oh, I focus on my, I said 40%. There's plenty of nice things and your career has, I am who I am because of the internet. That's right. But I just, what I was, the point I'm making to clarify was just, I'm using that piece to continually kind of, how can I do the same thing over and over again? Because I'm, well, I could want to ask you about your business. without getting too personal.

But not to belabor the point. I'm not saying it's noble. I'm saying that I don't feel cheated, ironically, or robbed, or I don't feel like my time is wasted when I watch your videos. It was a payoff. But I do, like if I'm just doom scrolling, I'm titillated, then the same way everyone is. But when I'm done, I can't remember most of what I saw.

and I don't feel in any way, in any way, improved or elevated. Your videos, abusive, though they are, they don't leave me feeling cheated. And I mean that as a compliment. Ephraein Reyes is the same way. You can watch this guy for hours do things with a pool cue that defy imagination. You're seeing behind you. What you're seeing is the subtext.

The thing that's not on the screen is what's behind it. That's what's making you just go. You're seeing excellence at the highest level in an area that might not get the acclaimant deserves. Look, I'll sit up all night watching freaking cornhole. Like if the best cornhole players in the world are draining those things, with the bake bean sponsor, I just sit there and watch. I watch the darts, like the dart championship. You see three in a bed four times in a row. You see guys.

It's like I don't really care if it's horseshoes, pool, cards. Show me somebody who's mastered their keyboard. Show me Oscar Peterson. I don't care. I don't care what the lane is. I'm just super interested in what it took to get to where you are. When you asked about my favorite piano players and who my favorite people are, it's all, we're all on the same thing.

there. It's just anybody that's devoted their life to something regardless of what it might be. I talked to Darwin about it because I asked these questions, what makes the person this? Yeah. And he said consistency. So you can see

a guitar player who you love, Lucky Peterson. I don't know if you're a blues guy. Lucky Peterson. Sure. It's a great singer, great guitar player, organ player, gospel. See him on a Thursday and he's drunk and he can't remember it a lot. He's just all over the place. So you don't know what you're going to get. But, you know, find me a bad clip of Stevie right one.

Every single clip I've ever seen of early 1990s camcorder footage, can't like shaky, can't forget a club. He is hitting every, he is putting everything into it, playing on 20, playing things he's never played. Because if you listen to, if you understand guitar, neck, and understand blues, and you can see guys got their pockets and they have all their signature stuff. But Stevie's like, every time you hear him at something, BB's the same way. He never hear like the same chop twice. you wonder. They have their sound, but they're not cop and cop and chops. They're not just cop and chops chops and playing stock solos of like basic, they're like exploring. And Ronnie Earle, like these guys are just playing things that are just on every album. So consistency was a thing. And if you,

if you're at that level and you're consistently there, you're going to be one of those guys. But if it's hit or miss, then you got to work at something's something's. And the internet gave us this. Like they, it gives you a portal, right? It's back. to the early, like you can, it's a tool. You can waste your life on it. You can waste your time on it. Or you can, you make it. You can use it. What I find interesting is with the internet is that I had no intention of listening to so and so today. But next thing you know, I'm listening to some junior wells or some buddy guy

from the early sick. I'm just like, where is this? Why have it? That's a treat. You know, you just, you're gifted it by, for no reason. Because you can like search, but that takes like work, you know. And then you might not even find a good clip because you're just searching. But the internet is interesting in the sense that you will find some of these people that you and I see and go, that's it. Just in your living room, just there it is. Here's the best 40 seconds of your day right here, you know. I like it too as a like a win-oer in the set. Like music's too broad. Don't tell me you're a music fan. Who doesn't like music? But to be able to geek out, right, on, I don't know, maybe it's accordions. Maybe it's, you know, I've been listening to this guy who I met years ago in the barbershop world.

How weird is this? It's like, talk about a community. It's like 35,000 diehard dudes who sing the old songs in four-part harmony. This guy's name is Tim Warg. He sings all four parts. He makes, he just sings with himself and posts it. I think I know you're talking about. It's so freaking good.

Is this the cornbread guy? Yes. Yeah. You've heard cornbread? It gives you goosebumps. You've got to be kidding me. Google Tim Warwick cornbread. It's just a ridiculous tag.

And he's singing a like a seat. That takes talent to do that. And to compose, you have to have your deep understanding of music theory to be able to move the appropriate chord tones around. He's singing in perfect intonation with himself. Yes, but you have to know,

it's, again, technique, but you also have the mindset to know where this is going to go and what tensions and resolves are going to happen. It's one thing just to hit a note, but to be able to compose all that and come up with it is, and then also,

How do you say the word cornbread and package what you know into that vessel to feed the internet? Because if he just did a song about whatever, you know, let's all go to the lobby. But to say a silly... Let's all go to the lobby. But to put it into the vessel of a silly word and next thing, you know, it's got 75 million views and we're talking about... And how many years later... And we're talking about it now, still. And you know what else I found out with Darwin said about consistency?

see is those guys that all that hit that level it doesn't matter how much time goes stevie's gone but we can still see where everyone's gone but we can still listen to that and still get all of that that that'll never go away that'll be as impactful yeah in 150 200 years that he's right it's look man it is what you call it again the internet oh a bottomless pit of people that want to sound like an expert in any craft i like uh hunter thompson wasn't referring to the internet when he said this he was talk, I think he was talking about the music industry, but he called it a long plastic hallway, a cruel money trench where pimps and thieves run free and good men die like dogs. Oh, this reminds me.

A teacher had a very similar, not as eloquent as that, but Bill Taylor was an amateur magician, was a super special effects guy that worked on Casino Royale, worked on a special effects guy that worked on another one of the Bond movies. And what was the other one? Oh, the score. De Niro and Ed Norton. He did all the special facts. This guy won Academy Awards and everything.

And they're on a message board. And somebody says that all the special effects in Casino Royale sucked. And like a 13-year-old kid says, oh, that was awful. Those are green screen garbage and blah, blah, blah. And then Bill Taylor, who did the movie, said, no, I was the guy. I'm the visual, this, my work, those were miniatures. And the kid says, nah, that was green screen. The kid won the argument.

You're talking to the actual guy that did the thing. That's the internet. That's the internet in a nutshell. Nobody had, the kid was as equal to the guy that actually did the effects. It's the great democratization. Look, okay, here's Tim, singing cornbread. You want me to play it? Yeah, play it, man.

I want to hear it. This is the internet. All right. If you get some audio on this crazy cat. Didn't think we'd be here today. I can't believe you've seen this video. Church. That's church.

We'll talk about that in a second. 35 seconds. Those overtones. Insane. Church. Can we talk about church for a second? Because in music, when I was telling my teacher would say classical music and you need to study Bach and I'm like, ugh. And I'd hear gospel changes.

I said, what is that? Why is that hitting me? I feel something in my body. And that's church. He's doing gospel structure to bring you through the scale with certain tensions. And then just when you think it's going to resolve, it adds more tension. Like a good suspense movie. That's exactly what you taught.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So, and then you think you're going to, it's this, it's, have you read the McKee book at all? He talks about this. Robert McKee. Robert McKee. Oh, yeah, I did a seminar, yeah. Yeah.

So it's, again, you create, I'm going to give you what you want right here. And we just get to it. He says, well, wait a second. Why don't we just introduce this for a second? Oh, you still want that thing? So in my show, I'm doing this all the time. Remember, squaring the cards up. They want to see that card.

And I'm like, oh, let's just square these up. You know, it's creating this thing so that when you finally release, it's a bigger release. The same thing happens when the audience starts to applaud too soon. I don't know if you caught this, but sometimes the audience will start to, you have to know, because if you go now, it's going to be less at the end. So anyway, with these gospel changes in piano, it's just that same thing where it's like, You're giving me this chord, and you're pulling me to home. You're pulling me, but suddenly, you play music at all, the five, so you're on the five chord.

Yeah. And then you got the flat seven and a nine and an 11, and there's that church chord. And then the one is just begging, and suddenly it's the four. You know, and you're like, oh, there's a church four, you know, the B3 comes in. And then you're still, okay, now comes to one. Nope, here's the major, the three over the one. Then the flat seven, you're just dancing around the one. Like, just give me the one.

And then finally you get to it. And then a B3 comes in. It's amazing. So what I've noticed, especially with all the music, and when I find somebody who's playing something, even modern, even we talk about modern music that isn't cutting it, but when it's something, somebody is tapping into it, it's got all the old blues influence.

It's got a little church in it again. This modern tune is working because they've sampled a church group or a blues groove from like the 60s. That's why it's good, you know? Well, it's just the idea that it's the same 88 keys. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or seven notes. That's the other one.

The well. My teacher, what I always says. Tempered claff accord. Seven notes. relax. I guess I'd say, why is it so confusing a, Jay? Seven notes, relax. Hey, it's 52 cards.

Don't get freaked out. By the way, I don't want to do anything you don't want to do. But I do want to encourage people to go where your Instagram, your TikTok. Yeah, you can, I'm really easy to find. It's card magic by Jason across all the socials. So we're really successful on TikTok, although the TikTok algorithm has been a bit weird lately. There's a lot of suppression and things that happen. with TikTok, just as a platform as a whole. But Instagram, that algorithm is great. We post

videos. People love it. YouTube's doing great. Facebook's doing great. So that's where you can find me. What's a big show look like for you? Because Oxnard was not Vegas. Well, we did Philadelphia. Was that Parks? Parks Casino, 1700 seats. We sold it out. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Now, I used to tour on the road as a musician. And we did the Gorge. I want to say West Oregon, maybe, West Coast somewhere. They set up the grandstands. are on the beach. Oh, yeah. So as the artist,

you're looking out, the waters here, the lands here, and there's 10,000 people. Right. That's a sea of people. I've walked on stage and I'm like, you know,

so we would do big festivals and those were usually, or arena, had they'd split the arena in half and we'd do those types of shows. So 2,500, $5,000, used to that.

Now, you know, when I used to do shows back in the early, you know, 2010, 2016, somewhere in that neck of the woods, was performing for 50 people or something. Now, Mark and I were doing

$300,500, and Parks was our biggest one. Yeah. When I walked out on that stage, I'm like, it was the IMAX theater screen behind me, you know, and we're doing tricks. So, and right now it's just me and a camera. And like I said, very minimal.

So I think a bigger show perhaps would be a, maybe a live camera that would, because you know how much interaction between me and the guests on stage and the jokes and the delivery and all that. If 1,700 people, they can't see my face in the background. So do you have a lot? live camera that's right because all you see now is this but people want the hands but if we had a live

camera that would be able to make sure that you're seeing what you need to see and seeing my face because honestly I don't know if people know if you haven't seen the show jokes and comedy is really holding a lot of the show together we enjoy that aspect of it so that's why having us you know while I'm doing all the comedy bits you're just looking at a dead screen so a little bit more production value there and also my teacher Darwin and I came up with this idea that to utilize the screen for some of the storytelling. So when you're talking about the card cheating moves

from the 50s, you could be looking at John Scarney and have more of a, I don't know what you would call it, but... Multimedia. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Just showing, and then like this, this, you know, this mob boss at this time did this, and you're just having kind of a little documentary going on behind you. That's the first card book

I remember saying. Scarnie on cards? Scarnie on cards. Yeah, I read that book. Did you? I've broken bindings on books. Here, I'll show you the trick I learned from Scarnie. Would you like the mat?

No, no, I don't need a mat. That's a very amateur kind of thing. I'm a professional. I need a math to help me with anything? My uncle showed me this when I was, God, probably 12 years old and destroyed me, absolutely destroyed me. So he's like, okay, Mike, here's how it works. I'm going to look at this card. And based on this card, I can tell you, with certainty.

you. That's the nine of hearts. That's good. Here, let me do it again. One more time. Because if I really want to be clever, I think I can force another one of these. If this one tells me nine of clubs, right? Oh. Now, my nine-year-old.

Yeah, I know the feeling. How in the world, man. And then he would do things like, okay, sometimes it gets a little tricky. You're like, okay, it's definitely a two. It's a black. I think it's a club. It could be a spade. I'm not sure.

Oh, it's a heart. And then I'd be like, oh, crap, now what are you going to do? And he'd be like, oh, here's what we do. Here's what we do. Let's just get another two here. If we can, if this lets us know, wait a minute. Is that possible? Sure it is.

Right? Yeah, your brain's melting. And then he does this. He's like, here's the thing, man. I don't even have to, I don't even have to look at him. I could tell you that that's a jack of hearts and that's a nine of diamonds. And the world is, like, I never got to it. I never got over.

Yeah, you won't. That's what I was talking about earlier. I never got over. Here's something interesting about magic. It will live in you differently than looking at a painting does. We can see, the closest I've noticed, is seeing a band. When I was 14, I think I saw Pink Floyd in a stadium. I'll remember that.

Because a full-sized B-52 bomber plane, I'm 14. Oh, that's the band I listen to sometimes at home. Yeah. Oh, there's a B-52 plane that is now 30 feet over my head, now flying into the side of the stage, blowing up into a massive fireball, and then they start playing run, you know? Wow.

And now there's two giant pigs, and there's a laser show, and then David Copperfields, or David Gilmore is doing his solo in comfortably numb, and a crystal ball comes out. But it's a size of a house. Okay, that's amazing. And now it's spinning.

And the whole arena is like this. And then, like, Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl. Then the thing opens. And there's a ball of light. I mean, I will never forget that in my life.

Now, what's amazing, though, magic has a similar thing where you, just like you're talking about, what is going on here. Yeah. We'll live in you like that. But looking at it, no offense against, you know, a painting, but I don't feel, I don't,

I can't, it's not, it's like impactful. It's great when I'm looking at it, but I don't sit at home and just go, oh. So, there's some art forms that just and magic just seems to have some thing in it that doesn't die

because you replay it. It's tactile. Like nobody puts a magic trick in a frame and hangs on a wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the end of the process. Here when you relive it, it's just as and that's what I know it's about the Pink Floyd thing. It's like it just as impactful. This is controversial. Well, I feel like the internet's going to eat me up because

painted. What does he hate against painters? Well, nothing against that. There can be amazing paint. There can be amazing I've been to the Smithsonian scene of amazing things, but magic for me, and that Pink Floyd concert, is just something that I can't. Well, here's a good place to land the plane with regard to art and music.

You know, Oscar Peterson, in the end, was a magician. Not because he came up with a new note. He just played them all better than anybody did. The way he danced, his bebop theory, and how he effortlessly just danced around the changes and also didn't seem to run out of gas is something that will never get old. I don't think so either. It's truly eternal. But in a weird way, so was Bob Ross. Oh, that's another great. Oh, that's another reason of magic is, I have these amazing memories of being seven or eight years old.

And his magic was the same way, because there's an empty thing there, and it's not anything yet. And my favorite thing about Bob Ross, do you remember when he had that big, come back on Twitch, I think. It took the world over. There was like 8 billion views on these things every single night. Made a movie about them. And that was so special because the world collectively came up with the same thing that I know I personally had when you would say, oh no, Bob, you ruined it.

Remember that? Yeah. He'd have this beautiful sky and this beautiful lake. And then he'd take that black thing and go, and I'd get home going, you just ruined it. But what was great about that Twitch thing, this was probably five years ago, by now. It was a live stream of it. And suddenly he'd do that. Ruined, ruined, it's just probably ruined it. Over. Ruined it. And then he would then turn it into a shed and then it would all turn to, oh, you saved it. You saved it. That's what you did last night in Oxnard. You made people think from time

to time that you might have ruined it. The failure. The failure is a big... You might have ruined it. Yeah. Yeah. But she didn't. The woman that dealt the cards the way that she wasn't supposed to deal. That's a great opportunity because that's out of my control. And if you can act, if you, but the big acting is a big part of what I do. You have to sell it because if you're good and you go, whoops, I've made a mistake. I don't know if I, oh no, you know, the audience is going, all right, do your thing. So selling failure is really difficult for me because you're portraying this. I'm a flawless thing. I'm invincible. I'm up there starting cults. I'm not going to make mistakes. But the moment that the spectator does something that's out of your control, you can really use that

as fuel. And if you can act, okay, when I said, oh, no, no, no, did you do two? Oh, you know, And then the audience, now it's now you take it. Now, yeah, the audience is really invested. And if you can act and play on those things, it sells that failure much more. But that's a huge part. And look at any Bond movie. What happens 20 minutes before a Bond movie ends?

He doesn't have his gun anymore. This is the, right? The villain has a huge up. He's tied down. He's half naked. The lasers come up between his legs. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing.

And in order for it to be a good movie, it has to be clever. So it has to be clever. Because in that Bond scenario where the lasers coming up, up if the villain's running out the door and he kicks the plug out of the wall and the laser goes off we're all not like oh thank god thank god bond got out of this one close one yeah no it's got to be the shakespearean thing where whatever the thing was used against him is the very thing that

is his demise so dr no with the steel that's his power well he couldn't hold on to the pole because of his steel thing and he dies so gold finger you have to but that's the you have to know your formulas to get this stuff to hit right. So it's all what you're talking about with all the craft and the work that goes into it, it's no coincidence the trick ended the way it ended because you had to find that it was my ego that got me in trouble,

but it's my ego that got me out of it as well. You know, it's, you have to be clever about that. It can't be, whoops, oh, I found your card by accident. There's some sort of weird twist. So I don't want to give too much of the show away, but there's a lot of moments in there that I'm purposely creating something that is my kryptonite

because apparently I don't have any. That's the biggest struggle for me. If you really want to get technical, I don't have kryptonite. So how do I create weakness for the audience to wonder, will this work? That's been a huge challenge to find that. Can I tell you, who else talks about this a lot?

Have you seen Reacher? Yeah. Well, the show or the movies? The show. I've watched the movies. I like the movies. Okay. And I've seen the first maybe three seasons, I think.

It's a big... Yeah. So the series is a much better portrayal of the physicality of the character, and Lee Child created Jack Reacher. He said the biggest challenge was, I wanted my character to be unbeatable in a fight,

but how do I create stakes with an unbeatable character? Exactly, it's very difficult. But he does. And that's a neat trick, too. Along those lines, that's what's wrong with John Wick, and I want to stir up the internet.

You don't like John Wick, what's wrong? No, it's awful. because there's 30 people come in the room and he instantly demolishes all of them. So where's the and then 30 more people come in and we see five minutes of beautiful choreographed fight scenes. But the

character was never in trouble. There was no vulnerability. So are you a fan? Do you know what's the movie called? Harry Brown? Michael Kane? Michael Kane? I'm Michael Kane. Harry Brown? You ever see that? No.

He's going up against the London Gang but he's 80 years old. I have seen it. It's the death wish formula where the crime is out of control. But he's old, frail, there's scenes of him in that movie. His wife's dead. The wife's passed away. He's in his kitchen eating.

And the scenes like two minutes long of him making toasts. That's it. And he's so sad and lonely and vulnerable. And you're just watching him. And he takes and he sips the coffee. He just says, sad old man. But then he's got to go out and fight like a mob of 20, like gang members. It's amazing, but the vulnerability is why we are on his side and wondering, will he make it?

But John Wick is going to just blow everybody up, and it's no fun. But they killed his dog, dude. And you know what? They've been dining out on that since the first. I don't know how that blew up like that did. I think video games is why that people enjoy the fight scenes, but there's nothing really holding it together. You need that vulnerability. And that's what I struggle with, too, is I have to make the audience genuinely believe he can't get out of this one.

Hey, was that real scotch on stage last night? A lot of it. You were great? Yeah. Mark and I have a thing where we have a, we like to go spend about a grand or $1,500 bucks on scotch, and it's part of the branding. And I want to say something, I don't know if this is going to land me in jail or not. Probably not.

But our tax guy, we're doing taxes, and I've never written off anything. I didn't think you could write scotch off. But because it's, listen to this, I'm going to be in jail by June. Because it's part of your branding. It's part of you, you have it on stage. It's now a prop. And it is consistently part of your branding. It's all over your social media.

You get brand endorsements with it. So having it there. And he said, you can't write it all off, but you can have a percent. There's a percent. This is a thing as part of your brand. How about that? So that means we can buy as much scotch and drink as much scotch as we want. That's what I heard.

I tell you what else it means. It means this episode, the way I heard it was brought to you by Noble, Noble, Tennessee whiskey. Bold, smooth, sophisticated. It's not scotch. And that was the first scotch I had in probably 10 years last night. It was great. Did you have the 21?

It's a 21? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. This is the best of the batch that I've got. This is the stuff named after my pop. It's a single barrel. It's a bourbon. It's not scotch, but you guys can take it break in case of emergencies.

No, it's my pleasure. I'd give you two, but it's the last one I have. Well, that means a lot. But you guys can, you know, split it on the ride home, I guess, or, you know, make it disappear. Is it okay to finish with showing you something? I'd be honored. Okay, let's do it. I'll show you something.

You know, when you work with the deck of cards long enough, you start to develop a sense. of the cards like you did earlier. That was really amazing. And you know what's great? People are going to watch this and say, how the hell did he do that? That's what's really great. And you were probably like,

I can't believe this guy invites me on his podcast. Maybe one of the greatest card mechanics living today and he shows me a 9-0-19-old. That's a testament to Scarnie. So earlier, you were cutting the cards, but this time I want you to cut for me so I don't know where anything is. Because if I cut these cards, you would say,

oh, he's tracking, and he knew where to cut and he would know the top card of the deck. So what I want you to do is give the cards a cut. And first of all, you can see they're all different And we'll take that right out of your mind And then give the cards a cut So I can't know what the top card is And complete the cut?

No, no, complete the cut. Just like they do in Vegas, right? You cut the cards in half, complete the cut. Now, you might think that Well, maybe they're marked cards or something. If they were marked cards, I could tell you what this card is. I could look at the back and read whatever. They're not marks.

But you might think that. So as a matter of fact, what I'll do is I'll turn my back and you cut again. So good, give them a cut? Full cut? Yeah. Cut half over, wherever you want. and then complete the cut.

That's complete. If they were marked, it wouldn't matter because I'm not even looking at the back. Right. I can't see it. Can't see. But you could still think maybe he's tracking. Maybe could he track two cuts?

How could he? There might be some way he could know what that top card is. So Mike, if you don't trust me, do you want to cut the cards again? What I'm not looking? Yes. No way I could track three cuts now. I don't think so.

It's not reasonable. All right, good. There you go. The suspense is already starting, isn't it? It's thick. Now, the cut is complete, correct? It is. No way I could know what the top card is, correct?

Well, I mean, it sure doesn't seem possible. Do you want to cut again? Chuck, how much time has elapsed so far? We must be close to two hours. Hour 40. Oh, yeah, I'm going to cut one more time. Fantastic. Good.

And I'm not looking. There's no way I could track five cuts by now. I'm not looking at the cards. It wouldn't have their mark. You satisfied those cards. I couldn't know anything else. I'm as satisfied as I can. Can you take the top three cards?

Don't look at them. Top three cards. Put them in your pocket. I got out of sight. Okay. Let me know when that's done. These cards are in my pocket. And you didn't look at them, right?

I did not look at them. And they're in your pocket. You don't know what they are, right? Nope. No idea. Good. All right, get rid of the deck. All right, here we go.

I want you to reach into your pocket and take, there's three in those. Just take any one of the three out. Well, not yet. It could be the one in close, the one in the middle or the one on the outside. I couldn't possibly know what it is. And I'm going to look away again. I'm going to turn the mic like this. But just take it out.

Don't show anybody. All right. Just yourself. I'm looking away. I can look at it? Yeah, of course. Okay. Don't say it. Are you looking at one of the cards?

Yeah, I am. I'm looking at it. Again, I've been handling cards for 40 years. You start to develop a sense for these cards. Is that, is that like a high-valued card? Like an ace? It's very much like an ace, yes. Uncannily sell.

I mean, you could have taken any one of the three out. That's the really confusing part. But is it a heart? so much like a heart that it's not even a diamond. It is, in fact, the ace of hearts. It is the ace of hearts. Oh, I got one. Yeah, you can put it face up on the table here.

Okay. Now, there's two cards left in you. Remember, you cut so many times. Five times, yeah. It wouldn't matter if the cards were marked because I wasn't looking. Wouldn't matter. And then you put three in your pocket,

and you didn't show anybody, so there's no way I could have seen it. Nope, didn't look at it myself. I know, yeah, exactly. Now, there's two left. You can take either one out. Just don't think about it. Just don't think about it.

Just going to take one out. Don't show them. going to show them. I'm going to look at it myself. All right, I'm looking at this one. I'm setting it down. I don't want to touch it. And I'm not looking at it. Right. So this, the first thing that that popped into my mind was that even though you cut five times, that it's a black, is it a black card? That's what I'm, yeah. It's the very picture of Ebony. Oh, now I might be getting a little confident here. Is it a club? No. It's not a club. That's starting to get too confident. I'm going to

go out on a limb and say that it's a spade. Is it a spade? Your deductive prowess is truly un-matched. See what happened? See what happened when I started to get confident? I got to take this seriously. It's a spade. Okay, so it's a spade. I want you to imagine a movie theater screen, and you're sitting in a theater by yourself, and there's a movie theater. And on that screen is one card playing on the screen. And that card, you're visualizing that? I got it. That card is a seven of spades. Is it?

Is it? That's in the seventh it's paid. We're all shocked. We gotta get my confidence back up. All right. Anyway, you got one card left, but don't take it out. No, I'm not gonna take it out. If you didn't look at that card, how could I know what that card is?

That would, again, involve a deal with old scratch. And you know what? What? Is this the devil's card? Is it the four of clubs? The four of clubs, the devil's card? Take it out. Before I look, why is the four clubs the devil's card?

That's just the nickname. the nickname it was given. It was a good deal. It was a good deal in it. A devil in my pocket. It was a good deal in me. Now, listen, the obvious question that comes to mind, Chuck, is, how'd you do that? But what's the point in even posing it?

Well, it's just skills. Name any card. Just name any card. Any card. Just say it out loud. All right, three of diamonds. 20. 20?

Oh, no. Come on. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twelve, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19. Do you cut these cards how many times? Turn that over. Thank you and good night. Wow.

Oh, God. Who's that other asshole I hate now? O's, that O's guy. What do you think of him? O's is great. So O's is doing something very similar. Magic has been around. Listen to this.

Magic has been around forever. These techniques have been around forever. You're reinventing, pushing the boundaries, forging ahead, and repurposing. And, you know, we have new media today. We have new things. And he has found a way to just get it out there and make it bold. And this is great that we can finish here because one of my absolute favorite quotes of all time of like that is just, I heard this.

And I said, oh, my God. And that's Steve Martin. Be so good. They can't ignore you. And that went into my soul. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do. Right?

I have the chops and you're going to watch them. And I always tapped into that. And I'm taking. we're doing the same thing where you just people watch and they just say what you're feeling and how is that how can this any of this be well i'll leave you with another steve martin bon mot with regard to articulation he said you know some people have a way with words and others not have way oh it's brilliant he's so brilliant hey man this was so much fun Thank you for last night. Thanks for your generosity, Mark. You know, thanks for, you guys are a great team. I don't know what your ultimate goals are, but you're going to be a household word. You're going to be a Scarnie. You're going to be, and somewhere Ortiz is looking down and going, pick a card. You know what's great is there was so many moments with being with him that he would fool me constantly and slowly I would have moments where I would show him something and he'd say, I don't know. And I'd go.

Yes. I got you. And I stood up and I was like, yes. And I look back and he's just sitting there politely. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Here's what I did. But I had those moments of doing that. It was very rewarding to be able to, you showed me these tools and I took them in,

was able to do this with it. So it's all about craft and life and learning and pushing forward. Peace of hearts, four clubs, seven of spades. And then a three of diamonds that you're going to suffer. That would hurt, man. You're going to suffer with that way. That's the Twitch. That's the Twitch.

The Twitch just started. Beautiful. A pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. Tell us who you are. And before you go, won't you leave?

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