So maybe I don’t know what I am talking about

An obvious ‘young Turk’ wrote to me some time ago and said he wanted to get into magic bartending. I don’t know if he was asking advice or what… but then he made the comment that my material was old and out of date. He then told me a few of the things that he was doing in his ‘act’.  I put quotes around that because the things he described were the of the ‘DVD of the month’ variety. I call a lot of this stuff as ‘assault magic’. it is all about the trick. This is not the way I think about doing magic. But he wasn’t hearing any of it.

So I suggested the following. Without the ‘sarcasm font,’ I am not sure he would ever recognize what I was really saying.

Doc Dixon has a rule of thumb for a lot of his material. “yah but can you do it for drunk people?” A good rule of thumb… Lotta guys stuff holds up under that condition… Heba Haba Al comes to mind, Jim Ryan, Mullica, Schulein, Everhart, Platt, Johnny Paul, Kryzk. Out of date? hmm. yah, maybe.

Most of that stuff is old. The latest and greatest DVD probably has more good stuff than these guys ever had.

Good luck with that. Seriously… good luck.

I might add that all the above names worked all the time for years. It is unclear from your posts exactly how much actual performing you have done.  It’s a big leap to think that you can jump behind a bar, sling a few beers and kill em with the newest and greatest coin creation or dvd of the week..

I might suggest you forget about jumping into the wonderful world of magic bartending for now. Maybe just work for a small wage and just get some magic chops. Ya might think about just working for some experience..see what actually works and what doesn’t… no better place to learn than a bar. You’ll learn real quick. But don’t expect a big paycheck. It’ll take commitment, perseverance and a certain amount of humility.

But you will learn a whole lot about a lot of stuff. At the top of that list is learning how to piece together a coherent act, not just a string of tricks.

Think (Malcolm Gladwell’s) ‘Ten thousand hour’ rule. If you spend ten thousand hours doing ANYTHING, you will be an expert. Flight time on your magic will teach you things you will never find in the instructions, a book or a dvd.

Seems like you are nowhere close to 10,000 hours of performing.

But let’s talk in 6 months and see what you think about it then. Just sayin’ …you might have a bit of a different perspective after doing that. ___________________________

I never did hear back from him. I really doubt he heard anything I was saying.

After all, what do I know?

I’m old and in the way.