David Copperfield | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

welcome welcome welcome to armchair expert experts on Expert I'm Dak Shepard I'm joined by Monica padman hello hello this is an exciting one for me as you love magic so much I had no idea the scope of my love I guess no I was pretty aware of that I remember you going to New York and you were inconsolable you were balling during them so much no but I had no idea the scope of success Our Guest David Copperfield had I did not realize he is the number one live solo entertainer ever yeah it's Bonkers amazing David Copperfield is an Emmy award-winning Illusionist with 11 Guinness World Records he has a new book called The History of Magic which profiles 28 of the world's most groundbreaking magicians while also pulling back the curtain on his longtime secret project a museum preserving the history and art of magic where he was at during the interview yeah so we got to take a little peek peek in the background very interesting please enjoy David [Music] Copperfield okay so you're envious of my chair which is a quite a compliment so my question is why don't you own one well I probably should send me the link okay yeah all fired over are you seated in your museum is that where you're at I in the entryway which is the replica of the magic shop where I started my career at we actually recreated it you know the whole brick and mortar magic shop is kind of becoming less and less because of the internet for better for worse so recreated this here and you know magicians come here and they cry when the lights come up and they see oh it's the Lost World of of actually going to a place to be see magic demonstrated and and learning in that way does Exist by the way but we kind of recreated the old school version that I had when I was a kid Monica is I guess I don't even know what word would describe best her I love magic like on a cellular and Celestial level yeah I love a magic show well you got to come to Vegas when you come to Vegas you'll see the show and the museum which is uh what this book is about you know the book is kind of a tour of a a museum that few people get to see because of all the secrets so Scholars get to see it and co-hosts of podcast famous podcast most importantly how far out of Vegas is it is it a hike for you no it's about 10 minutes the MGM where I perform it's about a half hour from my house yeah okay I had some um fantasy of you being at like Area 51 or something uh because of the secret nature but okay that's good you didn't drive 3 hours to be where no but it's it's disguised though it's disguised as a as a men's clothing store where my my parents pass kind of recreating stores this magic shop but also the front of the place is a men's clothing store so it's my secret entrance well I was going to say yeah your father was a habid daser which is I don't get to say that often in fact I don't think I've ever got to say someone's father was a habid daser I don't think he ever said he was a habiter actually he owned a store the internet says he's a habit asery that he owned a habit asery so I guess in that way a men's clothing store Town and Country corby's men shop and that was in New Jersey yeah and uh it was a matou New Jersey where I I was born I grew up there and then the mall came in menow Park Mall Meno Park was where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb but uh it was good it was about that was about a half hour away from where we lived and how far away from New York was that or New York City specifically I was about 45 minutes to an hour away from New York so I had the best of both worlds I I grew up in Mayberry basically um the town was a really small town just very very um homey everybody knew each other and U but I could get on the bus and go to New York City and there was Broadway and the magic shops and all that there so I had really The Best of Both Worlds you know and my parents let me go to New York City I was 12 years old and this is the time where there were commercials on TV it's 1 p.m. Do You Know Where Your Children Are but my parents let me go there for some reason I don't know I guess they wanted to get get rid of me or something like that this was like what 1966 is or something or yeah yeah yeah exactly in that time period yeah much different vibe big different it was deep throat and Behind the Green Door and you know just yeah you'd walk away from the buildings for fear of being sucked into the buildings by somebody You' walk right on the edge right by the street and you'd walk fast look down look around and you kind of learned how to keep your defenses up but it was really awesome because the Broadway was amazing so were you going there at 12 because you had gotten admitted to this magic Academy is that why you were going into the city or was that elsewhere well going to the city early wasn't because you're talking about the soci of American Magicians would had meetings in New York the parent assembly in New York which was really cool a bunch of old old dudes and they let me in when I was 12 years old but going in the city I would do two things I would second act Broadway shows Greece was playing and Adrien barau was Rizo and Jeff Conway was Danny Zuko oh wow yeah yeah and Travolta was like a small part so they kind of Switched when the movie thing came along they kind of Switched drolls but this is the time where I wouldn't see the first half ever because I didn't want to pay so come out of the theater to smoke their cigarettes when smoking was healthy back then yeah yeah they smoke their cigarettes and I'd sneak in with them and I'd see the second half of every show that had a second act A Little Night Music show called over here with the Andrew sisters and I used to I loved it so much I love theater and I started to hang out with Bob FY believe it or not when I was a kid got to spend time with Bob FY and Ben verine because it was a show called Pippen that really inspired me cuz they had a whole opening scene called Magic to do which I uh kind kind of help them a little bit with the magic in it that's how you met Bob I was going to say how do you get introduced to Bob FY well I kind of go go backstage and I hung out with Ben verine who befriended me and through that I made some suggestions on the Magic in the show and Jules fiser the brilliant brilliant lighting designer did a whole number this magic Todo number and so it was kind of my way in to kind of hang out with those guys and and watch and studying and you were 12 well hold on no The Story So Bonkers it almost feels apocryphal cuz this is hard to believe but at 16 you you taught a course at NYU in Magic is that is that possible how does that come about it was possible though actually the owners of this shop that has been recreated here Irv tanan suggested that um I teach it I why you they got the calls in the magic shop we need somebody to teach a course in Magic and they recommended me you know I was 16 at the time and all the kids were older than me and I called the course the art in Magic that was very o the art in Magic not of magic yeah oh I wish I could have taken that there's imagine though I got to imagine being like a 19 20-year-old and you walk into your college class and here we got a 16-year-old guy he's going to run this thing that's got I literally just said the other day cuz we were watching this 60 Minutes thing about this random college and there was a little kid and it looked like she was a professor and I was like G can't trust any institution where there's a kid as a professor but not true not true well let me ask you I have a stereotype in my head about a lot of artists particularly guitar soloists guys who get incredibly good at guitar solos or or women who do that's going to require Untold hours in a bedroom by yourself you can't acquire that skill without that and Magic I would say is the same you really got to put the time in in your bedroom by yourself and so I have a bit of an idea of why in the bedroom why are we going to the bedroom with this well cuz you shant want anyone to see you as you're learning and you don't want to be embarrassed you want to just you want to get great and you don't want anyone to see you and so would you find that that personality type is kind of consistent through magic I also had some magician friends in my life and they were pretty introverted as kids they spend a lot of time in their room and I was wondering if that is true for you yeah I think so I found I wasn't good at anything else and Magic was my way of of being accepted and I was a pretty good inventor of magic I went to the public library and I'd get the magic book and on the first page it would show the effect what the audience gets to see you know the ball will disappear this way and I wouldn't turn the page to see the method yeah and I would try to make my own method figure out what to do to accomplish that goal and a lot of times I invented my own thing when I turned the page it was something new I like that process that was good when I was 12 years old I invented a piece of magic called mopen because it was a mind reading penen and it was in the Tarbell course in Magic which is a very from the 1920s on the esteemed kind of Encyclopedia of how to learn magic by Dr Haron Tarbell and my effect my creation got accepted so I was I was a published magic invent when I was 12 again my baseball sucked and my hockey sucked I had no other skill but that for some reason I was good at that I'm interested in your life you were good at you know your personality and theater and so forth when you found your way both of you I mean you both are so good at what you do did you suck at everything else too um what's the deal well I think what we're doing here the skill set is people getting to know people being able to connect with people and so that allows you to be good at a lot of things I think because in life that's kind of the whole trick right well I would say Monica's a master assimilator like so she was not among many brown kids in Georgia and so you become a master assimilator you start to read people and see what they want from you and need from you and can be that yeah for me I found that magic is my way of communicating my way of getting accepted the sport thing wasn't so easy for me I did it but I wasn't great at it but we're all trying to find our way right in life we're all trying to find that way of communicating from a magician a great magician has to be curious like a scientist or a physicist you have to be curious about things I'd rather be interviewing you honestly than than this but it's really true cuz I really like to learn learn things like the sponge but I think in your description of being an assimilator magic was my tool Monica what was your tool to assimilate hold on before we move on for that I do have to inquire is it that I don't really feel comfortable selling myself David and I don't really even want you paying too much attention to David but I have all this happening in front of me and that is the thing that you're going to pay attention to and that's the thing I can control I mean was there any sense of that I think that's pretty wow I should be on a couch lying down that's the goal maybe yeah maybe I think we find our crutches we all have our crutches for you it was comedy and being funny for me when I I started as a ventriloquist I was a crappy ventriloquist but the kids liked me when I did it and I wasn't very very good at it but I knew it wasn't good but I found maybe there's a way of having people accept me and when I did ventriloquism the kids liked it it was like bizarre and uh I suddenly went wow you can get in front of people and they'll accept you by having a prepared something I got a reaction out of preparing something and I think I said Okay that was a system a formula that made me feel that I wasn't just some some idiot with nothing to give okay now I do want to hear Monica's answer but I just didn't want to leave that cuz I I find also musician we talk to musicians sometimes that too the guitar becomes that thing so the the guitar is between them and everyone else and so and I'm going to do something so exceptional on this intermediate between us that that's what you're going to focus on and without it they feel naked so it's like if you don't have your props and your things and that you're doing your gag with then it's just you and I think so much of great art comes from the insecurity of like I need something other than me to present that can be why you want to act that can be why you want to be funny fascinating yeah Monica you're up H uh oh how did you manipulate all these people into liking you I mean I guess weirdly there's some parallels like curiosity I think uh directing energy towards that person as opposed to making it about me asking them questions falling into their world a little bit I didn't want them to know too much about me cuz that was the part I was trying to escape from yeah I think that's it I mean well yeah if you say if you start and say What's your favorite band and they say flock of seagull it's really easy to go like oh yeah they're fantastic you make a mental note like yeah I got to check out flock of seag but but if if they ask you first and you say wh and Jennings I mean it wasn't manipulative it wasn't like it was lying to people like yeah I like what you like it was all happening very naturally but I think I just made it about the other person but listening is good listening is good I think listening and hearing what people people have to say makes them feel like you care about them and actually if you really do care about them then you're really winning then if you really do care about that Flock of Seagulls or you don't and this is before you had the the Google machine to really turn your back and figure what the hell you're talking about this is it really had to go to the library remember libraries wow yeah I think for me as a artist I listen and one of my good things is I listen to the audience I really listen to them I fig what they want to hear it's not about fooling them or amazing them it's about listening to them what are they really and all my magic is really rooted in life experience and relatable stories and all that it's not unlike what you do listening and that doesn't exist in Magic very much by the way it's the guy with the props you know they just lead with that I don't feel naked without the props I don't wa how about originally though like now I mean my goodness there's never been a more successful magician so now I would imagine there's a level of confidence but from the get and this dovet Tales into one of my questions which is we've we've had many performers that we've interviewed that went to Camp as kids and have they not had that experience where they went somewhere and everyone was kind of similar and they got to really be confident and learn how to be confident and learn how to feel it included and I wondered knowing you had gone to Camp like is that a brick in David I went to a camp called Camp Harmony it was a day camp and they did something that was really impactful to me when a counselor would have to go on a 2E vacation Indians would come out of the forest you can't say this today back in the day when that was unfortunately okay yeah we've learned from our history right but at the time Native Americans came out of the forest and kidnapped the person and we spend the next two weeks trying to find that count oh wow aside from the unacceptable learning experience that we learn today sure but the story element of it having that story was a really amazing thing being immersive theater basically changed my entire path and it stuck with me so those little anchors that you have in your life that inform your work and your art that's one I could tell you learning how to swim okay that was pretty good but not as fun as finding the kidna counselor you know that was more immersive the Island Experience now is informed by my Camp Harmony thing I do James Bond events there where helicopters appear on the beach we do laser tag like that it's immersive if people want that it's all elective there's a mad nurse there was old story about The Mad nurse that where she would eat people's flesh and uh if people like that we have a mad nurse that comes around we've got yetis that come out of the thing and it snows on the beach so it's taking this is an acid trip without the acid this is like a no drugs don't do drugs no but you the hard way every single thing in my childhood I've used it I'm not certainly not alone in that you find what made your draw drop as a child or made you want to get up in the morning and say okay that was good how do I use that in what I'm doing today and you have all these moments on The Ed Sullivan Show there was Topo Gigio you guys are too young Topo anything get your Google Mach don't know don't know America was captivated by this it was an Italian mouse that would be his little tiny character and Ed Sullivan you know Ed Sullivan right Ed Sullivan oh yes yes the Beatles right so right before the Beatles would come on too would come on magician or too and you watch this and it's amazing how it moves and how amazing Ed Sullivan who's kind of a stoic not a lot of Personality there but he came to life with this little Italian mouse oh wow and it moved with about six people behind him making this this maybe 8 in tall Mouse move in amazing ways and you you would like watch the screen and Life Magazine would would show how it worked America was like wrapped with this thing so that was something as a child W and some of your older listeners will remember this Italian mouse it still exists actually so that inform my I do a little thing in my show that's sort of based on that based on that memory of that you know you search for what's going to be good what can I really invest my time in to really make something special out of and that was the seed of a thing I do in my show it occurred to me how does a kid learn magic because The Magicians never give you the secrets so I guess now I kind of got a little bit of an answer there were some books available to you in the library but in general how does one learn something that's kept secret cuz if you want to do something you can do it if you can dream it you can do it as corny as that is it kind of is true if you search now we have the internet you search in the internet you can find all kinds of things back in early 60s it would be going to the library and then discovering this magical magic stor when I walk into this place that I'm in now I thought I was in heaven it was like Wow and when I take magicians in here they get really wrapped up in that cuz that memory of opening a door that you believe that if you were able to afford to buy this prop or that prop you could be on The Ed civan Show too it's not true it not exactly happened but it was kind of a false comfort so many magicians actually are cover bands they kind of do what other people have done before I made an effort since I was a child to be different and invent new things and unfortunately people don't know the difference Layman public doesn't know the difference if it's uh something you've invented uh something you've created or something that you just bought in a store because it has the element of fooling you comedians have the same radar and you know and a lot of great comedians have taken material a lot of great ones have and they get called out and and they pay off people and so forth but in comedy you kind of start to know about it there's words you're not misdirected by being amazed mhm yeah I guess the person's the product more in comedy right yeah yeah it's not about props and so for and I try to not make it about props I try to make about me or the story or really truly about them the audience they're the most important thing I've lasted so long because of that I really do care about what their dreams are and I try to replicate their dreams as part of the show but being amazed is a very powerful thing is a great gift that magic gives and the famous Arthur C clarkk quote I'll get it wrong but basically it's saying that every piece of new technology is Magic mhm any new technology that looks amazing is indistinguishable from Magic and I think that's a great amazing thing that gets abused by magicians but also used by magicians properly okay so I would imagine again back to my really overgeneralized stereotype that going from the room to me I can't imagine the scariest part is the illusion you're going to perform but it's having a stage presence so I'm curious what was harder for you cuz at 18 you go and you do the magic man and you're singing you're dancing you're doing magic and of those three things what is the scariest and how did you bolster yourself or find your confidence to be on a stage as the lead well Doug Henning came before me do you know the name Doug Henning no okay there you go he was a gigantic star on Broadway he did the show called the magic show Ivan wman you know Ivan wman from Ghostbusters and so forth they were kind of college friends and they did a show in in Canada called uh Spellbound and that got brought to Broadway and it was called the magic show and the magic show uh music by Steven Schwarz who wrote Pippen and wrote Gods spell and wrote a million Incredible movies did the music for it he was living my dream because my dream was to be an actor magician I wanted to be Jan Kelly I wanted to be Fred aair I wanted to be frank SRA I was good at Magic but I wanted to tell stories with my magic I wanted to move people like Sinatra moved people I wanted to transport people like Jean Kelly uh orison Wells who did Magic by the way but Citizen Kane this is what I focused on this is my dream but I was good at Magic well this Doug Henning guy comes down here who can't sing can't really act but did decent magic some of it store-bought but very good magic and they did a whole Broadway show about him and I hung out with him backstage is around during the Pippen time and he told me I I was going to be his understudy and he's my buddy and so forth behind my back he went to the producer who was Edgar Lansbury who is Angela Lansbury's brother and said don't hire David Copperfield because he's too tall for this stuff I'm not as tall as Dak Shephard but I'm you know I'm I'm six feet and he was he was so too tall anyway that kind of backstabbing thing that happened really fueled me it was a very positive thing I really respect him for doing that in a strange way because hearing that finding out about that really lit my fire and I found my own path to do that so the good thing he did was he opened a big door for me in another way he had big success on TV he had a special his first special had a 50 share a 50 share oh that's unimaginable that is that means that half of everybody watching TV watched that that's and years later The Two Hosts of the show don't know who the [ __ ] he [Laughter] is I'm gonna tell you really quick we had Leno on we had Leno on and he was telling a story about doing a stand up in Vegas and he saw three workers carrying this Elvis statue and he goes uh what's going on you you going to repair that or something and the guy said oh no no one really knows who Elvis is so they're having us take it and he was like well that that should tell you everything you should know about your own celebrity like if Elvis's statues coming down no one's going to [ __ ] remember me at all there was this a big film director went to Inner City schools and asked about who Muhammad Ali was to kids in City Schools they didn't know you know how is that possible the point is really what makes you last I don't know what makes your legacy last to me at the end of the day it's got to be good work is all that matters anyway just do good work and what happens happens do you care about a legacy real quick cuz I don't at all I won't be here to enjoy people relishing in my accomplishment so why do I even care I'm not going to observe it so if I can't enjoy it then why do I care I think that's very healthy okay well it's just selfish I'm just saying it would be one thing if I could sit above everyone and watch them like me but I won't be able to watch it so why do I care I think that's good math I think it's well-crafted logic I can't say that I don't care about it I do care about it I'd like to make some kind of a Mark that moves things forward I do I'm motivated by it a reason for you I can argue a reason for you that I wouldn't argue for me why well a you've written this book The History of Magic right Houdini like Houdini represents something to some people that set them on a path for life and so probably the benevolent notion that you might be one of those people that younger Generations learn about and excites them to a path that has the utility I don't think I was ever a big enough comedian or a big enough podcast or anything that I'm going to inspire people in 50 years but Houdini did so there is some notion that you could achieve houdin and that's relevant well you have I think I mean well time will tell but yes he's certainly very well positioned to who knows I think when you're good at something you try to find a way to use it to make a difference in some way maybe that's a false hope but I've tried to use magic in therapy there a project magic program use magic in therapy so how do you make a difference there so I work with doctors and and it does work and it really is a real thing that can actually help people with motivation coordination and fine motor skills and gross motor skills and with communication skills like we've been talking about with socialization skills magic is a great device to transfer into learning how to get dressed again for example if you had a stroke mhm a rope trick on motivate patient to tie their shoes again in a head trauma patient that has been in a motorcycle accident can get to know their family better because they have something to share that was a thing and it does work I'm working with Scientists now to find ways of taking a lot of the prototyping of Humanity's future that I do I'm faking what the future will be on stage every night and trying to make it real and a lot of magic history has made a lot of Technology real that things that you use today were magic effects to begin with the smart home that existed was a magic trick when doors opened by themselves for the grocery store that was a magic effect that roer houdan did automatic horse feeders was a magic effect there would be no chips movie if there was not a magician doing the thing David did his homework he did his homework you're right when I look at those early Edison things it's a carousel moving with some light and it gives the illusion that this horse is running in front of them and that's like one step away from film yeah and it that is an illusion stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare when guo Del Toro came to this Museum he got very emotional when he saw the melier stuff I have if you saw the movie Hugo which he did not direct scor say he directed it it's about George mes and movie was a magic trick in a show a magic effect you go into a magic show and you see a train come at you and they whoa like this in fact Copa used it in the dracular movie where the draca goes to a magic show and the train comes at you or or horses will them that's all movies were movies were was a magic effect and George mes did a lot of special effects stop motion and all this stopping the camera and all kinds of layered Optical things that he started but he his real contribution to me was he said we're going to tell stories with this magic effect and do Cinderella we're going to do a trip to the moon we're going to do those things so movies became a movies from a magic effect which was yeah so that's for real that's a big contribution that magicians made to the cinema yeah they have kind of a parallel role with science fiction writers scence science fiction writers are crazy on the surface and then they become uh strange Angel they start JPL so it is it's interesting for that the creative Visionaries to think of a concept previously unthought of that then later Engineers figure out how to execute it's like there's a pivotal role in it 100% but you go back to Da Vinci Da Vinci Drew airplanes and helicopters they didn't work they didn't but you have to credit him for starting it it took 400 years to make the airplane to get off the ground for a few seconds like the r 400 years later but if if you didn't do that original drawing where would we be who knows and I think I'm certainly not comparing myself to Da Vinci but a lot of things that I can do on stage might plant a seed to be real and it's happened over and over in my business my art and I think um whether it's myself or like you said a science fiction writer who creates all these impossible things we do make them real they event become real a young person reads it and becomes obsessed with making that a reality that's true it get really it just gets really headyy about like what is real right like when you are doing an illusion and people are perceiving that it's real like it's not you know it's not but I don't know it just gets very it's real except for one part it's the one Illusion part I'm very very lucky that people bring me technology very early on before most people see it I get to see it early and I get to use it I get to hide it and disguise that techn the new technology in my show and 5 years from now I can't use that stuff anymore because it'll be in your house but for five years or so I get a window of time where I could use that to be really amazing in the process I've also invented with my team new technology that I like to keep for myself for a while because I can have people enjoy it and then hopefully be inspired by it and then eventually that new technology that we're creating is real it'll be in people's homes in music you compose a song on a piano right they use that piano or guitar or keyboard to create that thing in Magic I have to create the piano each time I have to build the piano first it's really hard it takes a long long time on that I have to imagine you would have been an incredible engineer so that's really what you're doing right at the end of the day every single one of the Illusions is has a mechanical component sometimes mechanical sometimes mathematics sometimes physics sometimes psychology sometimes sound everything's important and you take those things and you have something that's amazing and it's not enough it's like Pixar they can make amazing clouds they'll spend years have a bunch of making clouds or water be amazing but then you can't stop there you have to make the music right you have to make the story right yeah really quick it's overwhelming once it occurred to me do people often tell you you look like Andrew Garfield all right now that I've said it you're not going to be able to not see it Monica I've just pulled an illusion I've planed to see but but do people tell you you look like Andrew Andrew Garfield I've gotten it he's going to play me in the movie you know oh he is I'm Jing I'm joking let start that rumor and then it'll all happen he'll be grateful for that yeah it's not bad I'll take unny yes I'd take that any day oh yeah so I want to kind of try to just uh speed through in an economical manner your career which is really really unparalleled and just to give some context to that you would hate me saying this stuff but I'm gonna say it oh I want you to say it I want you to say he's trying to build a legacy here David has won 21 mems oh he has 11 Guinness Book of World Records he sold 33 million tickets totaling $4 billion it's the most of any solo Entertainer in the history of entertainment wow so I think it's worth wow touch stoning a couple of these moments that led to that because that's the most rarified ERA if you're number one television played a role in that that maybe previously obviously couldn't have played a role in Houdini and I also would hope for you to tell me comparatively how big was Houdini in his day like who would we compare him to is his legacy bigger than he was was he the biggest thing in the world how big was Houdini and then what role did this medium play in your success television okay Houdini I think was extremely uh vital in the sense that he knew about publicity really well everything he did was based on publicity he would always show up for for everything he'd be there on top of it was he the greatest magician ever no but he was probably the greatest publicist ever he was a magician he did fine but what he did find out he started escaping from things and escaping things was a very relatable thing to escape people could really go wow I wish I could get out of a jail I wish I could get out of handcuffs it's wish fulfillment I don't actually wish I can trick you with a card but God knows I'd love to get out of handcuffs someday that's right yeah and you may need to you know but the thing is that he found that Avenue is what captivated attention when he produce flowers or an elephant meaningless nobody cared nobody wakes up in the morning and dreams of that people do dream about escap thing so he really did that and he was very copied and was a great publicist he was a PT baram publicist for sure and I mean he died on Halloween give me a break he's going to die going to die on Halloween that's great publicity right you know pretty perfect I think in my museum and also in the book we talk about him a lot and I think he discovered that thing I think thiren was a better magician Keller was a better magician I've done lots of escapes all the stuff he didn't do I did I went over Niagara Falls on a raft he wanted to do that I escape from an imploding building what and it's at a time remember remember that's a time where everything was hidden except the straight jacket Escape he would Escape in front of thousands of people on the street for free from a straight jacket upside down that's an escape you can actually see if you want to see my version of that again his is really great but our version was you can Google fires of passion it was kind of making it very filmic and make it so they see every single detail I was hanging for ropes that burn for example and one by one by one the ropes would burn away and cut your finger off is this no a different different okay I knew it involved ropes okay these are giant ropes fire is a passion check it out it's pretty good it's very cinematic so Houdini lived in a time where the audience would be very patient it wasn't an audience waiting to what's the next piece of sugar going to come at us and people would stare at a curtain with him escaping behind the curtain for an hour oh wow really that wouldn't work today right but we still remember the name Houdini which is pretty amazing because of his ability to kind of capture the the iconic imagination of people and um it's got to you have to give him a lot of respect for that like would we compare him to the Beatles to I mean was he enormously in his time I think in his time you remember his time was chaplain time chaplain been around Sarah burnhard would be there when he got a picture of Sarah burnhard that was a big deal for him but we still know him because of the mystery of it all I think I think that that is the the mystery of it and the name is a good name right even if he would have grown old maybe that diminishes how much we remember him in some bizarre way had he not died tragically well that plays a part of it I'd rather go for the old age thing myself yeah yeah me too I just want to quickly go through so at 18 you have got the lead role in Chicago and the magic man and then 19 you start headlining your own show down in Honolulu well let's go back to that the show I did where I sang and danced and acted when Doug Henning had this giant show in New York and it was answered by these producers who produce Greece on Broadway did the show with me called the Magic Man in Chicago I had about 12 songs at the opening of the eight-month run and by the end of the run I had a half of a song they gave all my songs to the other people who could actually sing that is not the direction I thought you were going with the story that was wonderful I can't sing well I did okay but they kept giving the professional singers and actors other stuff my magic was good and the show ran and I thought my career was going to be great I thought okay I'm set I'm a big star in Chicago great I come to New York starved for a year and I started doing industrial shows corporate events as you call today and they paid for my Illusions and they paid for to build all the the props to tell the stories I wanted to tell at the time and it was kind of an MGM musical world at the time I would cut a girl in three pieces as a date with a magician there was a series of movies at the time called that's Entertainment yeah yeah yeah yeah that's Entertainment was this giant success and it's all the clips of the MGM musicals totally inspiring to me so I did a date with a magician I did the Keystone cop number with an escape I would float my assistant up in the air to American in Paris I would do my salute to Jean Kelly so it was all very kind of story-based magic that kind of had context because my Idols weren't magicians my Idols were the all the people that did everything else but magic that's what got me discovered I guess by a guy named Joe Kates Phoebe Kat's father oh wow gave me my big break he was producing specials for Johnny Cash specials and Robert Klein specials and circus specials he put He put me on TV on ABC and Fred Silverman put me on the show introducing the all the fall season and it was me and how and Cindy Williams and the Kate Jackson all the Charlie's Angels people and I didn't know what to do with my hands and I really was on and Donnie Marie would walk on there and they knew exactly what to do with their hands and their bodies they knew exactly how to control the camera and at the time they look at a camera lens they would know when the camera was on close-up for them because the camera lens would move closer or farther but at the time they would know exactly how big their movement should be you oh my God these people are so talented and I knew nothing I was 19 years old again it's a very mechanical format more than people would guess it was at the time now it's whole another thing but I learned a lot I learned a lot by failing if you watch that special I don't know what the hell I'm doing and they didn't know what to do with me and I learned to direct really quick I learned to light really quick because I didn't want to look stupid for the next one well and I'd imagine your Illusions have to be filmed in a very specific Manner and you're aware of that yeah well we' developed lots of camera technology and that's why the Emmy Awards come from that we really had a a crew that won a lot of awards for their cinematography and their camera work and all that stuff because we cared so much and um I put my money into it I didn't make any money from this stuff just to get it right so it would last with something that was decent looking stupid is a really great lesson oh yeah it's a big motivator and you're talking about how people are motivated on stuff I got to fear is a real motivator it's amazing the fear of looking dumb or getting it wrong and I've gotten it wrong a lot and I've learned a lot and I continue to learn every single day yeah I say the path of a director is basically you you go into it understanding it and then the only way to truly learn is to [ __ ] yourself over in the edit to get into the edit and go oh my God I shot them against the wall oh my God I didn't do a closeup oh my that's when you really learn directing is when you when you can't solve the problem you created right right right and you know that Mel Brook says shoot the clock shoot the clock roll camera on the clock so you can cut away why cut away to the clock to get you out of trouble it's like oh my God and for me I spent lots of time in the editing room also to make sure even though the magic itself has to be in one shot without cutting away and the shots have to move we developed lots of stuff as far as making sure that the audience at home feels like they're in the theater in the theater you can move your head to the side it's the old palansky shot with Ruth Gordon where she's halfway off the screen and the cinematographer saying to Roman plcape well she's she's not centered she's behind the wall he says don't worry about it just shoot it and then at the scw SC first screening they play that scene in Rosemary's Baby and the whole audience cranes their head around kind of like that and they say okay and now I now I see what you're talking about so it's like thinking like that like learning that how do you make the magic work at home yeah it's much harder than people would probably imagine of course I know it coming from Comedy so if you have a written bit of material and you're doing standup that has a certain expectation but when you see improv when you go to see improvisers take a suggestion everyone feels the stakes of it they feel the impending failure of it so that when it's even if they landed at a seven it feels like a 12 because you've broken the tension of this eminent failure in front of you and I have to imagine magic has the exact same appeal but on television you're removed from it and so to to recreate that feeling must be hard you have to make up for that you're totally right magic is a live medium in essence because people at home know you could do anything and today really anything so how do you make them really believable and get invested in the reality of it well you kind of show mistakes you show the mistakes yeah and also just you kind of have live people there it's a real interesting exercise and we did a a good job of it on TV it communicated the idea people really felt like they were there as best as you could certainly a live medium there's nothing like it like your analogy with improv improv certainly the stakes in a live theater the stakes you know that somebody could drop dead on stage any minute and on on TV well guess what we would probably leave it in if that happened you know what I'm saying today we leave it in I'm doing impossible things so every effort every chance to humanize it is better to not look like the the eyebrow rais perfect picture to make it so it's human and show your flaws and show that you're like them makes the magic even stronger yeah cuz I guess as a viewer on television you actually go oh my god let's say you're in a you're in water and you're in a straight jacket the wiser part of my brain goes well he doesn't die or it wouldn't be on television they're not going to air this guy dying but when it's live this guy might die it's just totally different mindset people do suspend their disbelief on TV they really do they do get invested even though cly you do know that there is a positive conclusion usually but in a movie certainly you know you've seen people on Tik Tock so you know that that actor made it out of the helicopter crash but you still invested in the movie aren't you you still go with it you know you suspect well but I would argue that big element of why Game of Thrones was so successful is they killed this our lead immediately and then when they did that they told us anything's possible in this show it was so profound and it carried out through all the seasons you go I don't know who they'll kill they kill Jon Snow Yeah that's possible I just want to talk about one of your specials which was the Statue of Liberty and not so much about the the illusion itself but I kind of dug what I learned the impetus was like what the message you were actually trying to send I think is kind of cool and I and that had blown over my head in the day but we'll need to know what the illusion is to have that he made the Statue of Liberty disappear in a nutshell not to jump to the punchline but no to go backwards what happened was I was doing all the story magic and theater based magic trying to make that work as I was my contribution making it make it personal and make give it a soul a reason for being and on one special a pretty good special I vanished an airplane so I did all the story stuff and I vanished an airplane and I it was a good really good piece of magic but it had no reason for being and the next day the vanishing airplane was viral before viral around the world people were talking about this thing Johnny Carson never booked me on the Johnny Carson show he didn't like me for some reason I don't know why but he talked about that he was like oh my God how so is like it really was an amazing thing the impact of the big idea and I didn't expect it and I was kind of mad about it I didn't like it I said you like that I worked so hard in this other stuff and you like this B this big thing that had no personal investment in it there was no soul to it most magic is that most magic is a you vanish but to me magic shouldn't be that should be much more than that anyway that got ignored I was I was taught a lesson that just having a piece of magic if it's really strong and really big would have an impact and I said I got to fix this somehow and the next special I wanted to do a big thing that had meaning therefore the Statue of Liberty my mother told me about the Statue of Liberty when I was a kid when she was a kid she came on the boat past the Statue of Liberty oh there's a statue over there here's what it means young lady she's from Russia from Israel oh father is from Russia but the same like got to leave life's going to be bad here there's going to be problems let's come to this place called America where streets are actually paved with gold they told they really believe streets were going to have gold on them and of course they had cigarettes instead and gun and horeshit probably and some of that too but anyway she comes by in the boat and they statue oh my god there it is and the new life happens and the new life includes something that didn't exist where she came from which is this Freedom stuff so I went to Frank Kaa Frank Kaa was one of my Idols also Frank Kaa Mr Smith Goes to Washington It's a Wonderful Life all the movies we watch in Christmas and so very and uniquely American kind of St he was that really really that and I went to Frank kaer and I said your company is called Liberty films back in the day I'm going to vanish the Statue of Liberty I say will you help me he say yes I will help you on one condition that you fail when you try you will try and fail oh wow and the point is yeah and he says the point is Liberty can't disappear it's too strong it cannot disappear and I said well I don't think CBS will want me to do you know spend they can tax to pull that trick off cuz what I wanted was to talk about my experience in a compelling way my experience my mom's experience showing that Liberty is a fragile thing that if we can make it disappear how we take it for granted imagine if we didn't have it imagine if the Statue of Liberty wasn't there but it was more than that it was like imagine if our freedom didn't exist and how our our future of our kids would change if we lived like some countries right now live and so that was the point the illusion was okay I think the airplane was better honest but people really remembered that Statue of Liberty thing they remembered as an idea probably because of that underlying subtext of it and it was really flattering that shows like the Americans fantastic show great love it's incredible incredible so they did a whole episode with the Statue of Liberty the idea was that takes place in fact these two Russian spies in America during that time during the ' 80s during that time and it's the family watching this Russian SP and their kids watching uh me Vanishing the statue and talking about Freedom so they use that as a kind of iconic moment of that time that's flattering very flattering yeah so it's cool I have a technical question so I know your techniques are well guarded as they should be I know that you have some nickel inscribed disc that's going to the moon or is already on the moon with the revelations of how you did all this stuff so my question is knowing just to establish how important it is to you how on Earth do you have a crew of presumably 150 people to make the special that are getting privileged access three can keep a secret if two are dead how on Earth does that not get out of the bag they all sign ndas you hope you have a relationship with them to uh be part of this team that's creating this cuz I'm not a oneman band yeah you want to give them ownership so they want to protect it as well I'd imagine that's a really good way of doing this they feel part of that team so 20 years later 30 years later they go you know I was part of that and we haven't talked they take pride in not talking about but there's a couple [ __ ] out there of course guys down on their lock yeah so what do you do what I do is you know I I'll reveal a secret here today on the internet we have exposure videos that people are exposing my magic and you can go looking how does David Cel do this what you'll find the top rated ones are the ones that I created m oh so is this like I heard recently that I think it was Rayban discovered that there was some billion dooll Market of knockoff rayb bans and they had been fighting for years to try to conquer that and eventually they just surrendered to it and said you know what it's going to happen we should make the billion dollars and they're making the knockoffs I mean I could have some of the details of that wrong but in general that's I didn't know that and that's an interesting decision in the retail business that's interesting decision but you have to really weigh how do you balance out how it hurts your brand you know yes of course but for me I guess it is similar in a way before they do it I mean Houdini go back to Houdini for a second when people started copying him so many people copied him doing handcuffs things he came up with books of how to escape from handcuffs to to try to destroy it and kind here's how I do it to kind of quash it down a bit so I would imagine for me it would be like okay yeah if you guys are going to unveil this I would like to be kind of at least in control of How It's unveiled like I'm going to be violated so let me at least come up with the best version of this thing I don't want to do my thing is a bit different because what you see on the internet is my explanations that aren't real oh oh wow okay okay so disinformation 100% and really well done okay okay so another plausible way and I take him down David Copperfield takes down the fake stuff and then it comes back again they redo it and I was the culprit to begin with so there you go oh okay okay what's your favorite Magic movie my fingers are crossed that we have the same one cuz I think there's one of my top five movies of all time is a magic movie huh there's been some really good you know Christopher Nolan did research here for the prestige The Prestige yeah it was really good The Illusionist I think is really well done with Edward Norton there's been a lot of movies that I helped with then Now You See Me movies I was the co-producer of the second one and the first one was inspired by one of my Illusions the author came to my show and saw me transporting myself and someone to a deserted island or you know and said okay we can make a movie out of that idea if magic is that as opposed to slight of hand we can make a movie out of that so he wrote a Ed reort is his name and he saw my show and I used to transport people again trying to push the envelope I used to reunite people by transporting them to uh other countries during my show and make ited and make it credible believe it or not that was the start of the Now You See Me movie St Monica's about to explode I don't know if you're checking in with her like her body uh her physical cues here but she is literally on the verge of exp like your assistant or audience yeah you should go see it's you can look on YouTube you can see portal illusion called portal it's me and a young man go to a boy yeah with proof and signatures and Polaroids and all that stuff it was amazing live but on TV it's not so bad actually yeah portal oh wow this is crazy so what you're telling us is you do have the technology to teleport and you should go ahead and release that cuz I want to teleport it would collapse every known industry we have real estate fuel transportation we would get that and then the the entire world economy would be gone why the [ __ ] do you need to live in Manhattan if you can work in Manhattan eat in Manhattan walk around Manhattan and then sleep in your house the country Manhattan real estate worth nothing tomorrow boom I had a script idea about a guy who discovered teleporting and all these Titans of Industries conspired to kill him because it would ruin everything well it's fake I let me live let me live how oh wow but I'm not sure that's right I'm working on stuff with very smart people that are is real stuff that is based on making the future better we'll see what happens but I think the job of that the real win of that illusion is if some kid in the audience to watch me do that that motivates them to really take our atoms and be able to reform them mhm when you're watching The Prestige yeah what is your favorite Magic movie that you yeah the prestige I think that is a masterpiece on so many levels cinematically it's so gorgeous when he goes to visit Tesla and he puts that light bulb in the ground I mean there's so much Beauty in that and then the darker side to me the fascination I have is kind of the maab aspect of magic of course there's the Dark Arts and there's people trying to harness the powers of Satan to perform magic like I'm more interested in maybe the occult version of Magic the male character to me represents like what one could possibly do in pursuit of this thing and I I don't know I I just loved it but I do Wonder so here's my bad example I'm watching outbreak well I majored in primatology so right away see this monkey leaving Africa but it's got a preh hensil tail and I go well that can't be there that's a capo and it's supposed to be in South America and I can't even enjoy now the scene so when when you're watching The Prestige are you able to enjoy it are you so conscious of the sausage like what's happening yeah well I think being taken out of any piece of theater is definitely a thing all of us were content creators and for that content to really communicate and to really resonate with people few things to take people out right Joel gray I did the Mike Douglas show this is years and years ago John Lennon did it one week and I did it the next week believe it or not I don't know why I didn't know what I was doing and I was a kid but Joel gray just after Cabaret was on the show and he was gigantic star won the Academy Award for Cabaret and he's rehearsing and he said um he's watching the monor he's rehearsing and he said don't take that back shot of my head because I'm losing some hair back there and it's going to be about that yeah it's going to be about that yeah and the point is you have to get as much right as you physically possible can do whether it's on stage by rehearsing and doing or the editing room for me that movie was just beautiful both those movies came out at the same time and both of them respected magic they didn't make it hokey or cheesy they both respected magic so I love that Christopher Nolan came here to do research to this Museum and a lot of things that you see in that movie are based in pictures that he shot with his camera his research team did and of course we welcome this Genius of a guy he's amazing to the museum and I think he got he got it really right as far as the storytelling and and all that stuff of course you take a sideways path to make the story go forward you don't not going to be exactly accurate for things if you're accurate you're going to be the expense of the what the audience experience is I think he went for the supernatural thing yeah as he does yeah yeah as he does and that as a person who's thinking logic logic logic to find mechanical and psychological things that is much harder path to get right as opposed to saying it's a supernatural thing even though I think the movie was great although Supernatural grounded in a theoretical science that as you just said perhaps isn't on the horizon if we I mean ultimately right that's what Tesla's machine was doing is it was teleporting that was his ultimate illusion right spoiler alert we're going to find out you know we're going to find out but I think that we are in a world of taking possibilities that a magician could do or a filmmaker can do do anybody is creating Illusions illusion in the cinema or Illusion on stage with a magic show and hopefully it becomes real in the distant future in the not too distant future a magician George MZ we talked about him before did a trip to the moon we saw a a rocket land on the moon less than 70 years later we actually landed on the moon so the time between dreaming and reality is getting shorter and shorter I mean Elon Musk is taking rockets and Landing them straight down on a pad holy [ __ ] that's really really amazing going into a Tesla having just sensing what's around you and all that stuff it's not quite there yet we can't really be handsfree yet totally it's getting close really close and all the scary robot stuff I've got a robot in my show that's pretty amazing oh really but all the robots were watching the Boston Dynamics and all that all that stuff that's kind of a little bit kind of scary oh God yeah there's just like a torso with legs but if it's if it's used correctly and monitored so it's not used incorrectly it's going to change our world we're watching things that are amazing right now I'm really inspired stay tuned for more armchair expert if you [Music] dare is is there anyone you watch as a magician and you're amazed you have moments of it there moments and then your brain starts going in then you know if you can get that one moment even for 10 seconds there was a coin trick that a a guy did where coin appeared in my hand and for that one moment it was like oh my God and then of course my brain did the horrible thing of destroying that thing but that moment of Wonder is a really important moment and that's what I do as my job is to do that with people to give them that kind of that reason to live for that one moment to realize there something great out there Einstein talks about it how if you can't be amazed at something you might as well be dead it's like that I'm saying all these quotes very badly but but but it's it's the importance the importance of dreaming and the importance of future reality that's really something that is beyond what we know right now is very very important I agree okay my last question has the potential to be a depressing one but I'm G to ask it nevertheless you've written this book The History of Magic I think you have great great passion and true love for the history of it the people that have progressed it and I think you've brought obviously to minimally 33 million ticket buyers the thing you just described which is like is there more to this world than I know and that's so thrilling it's basically you're giving them optimism Mo there might be more to this world than I know as I've had my own experience in life and I'm looking at your Museum I am curious if your sense of nostalgia in recreating all these things is that all because the funnest part of this ride was the boy dreaming of this ride no I think that there is obviously more to life than we know there is we're discovering this every day I salute all these men and women amazing women magicians Adelaide Herman people that really inspired other women to do things that they're not supposed to do in quotes and there amazing women magicians today which are really inspiring to me I really focus my time on taking all this knowledge these Giants on Whose shoulders I stand upon and figure out what do we do to inspire people to really show that future in a unique way so they can really move us forward and Magic has that power to prototype Humanity's future to kind of do it for real except for one little part which is the Illusion part that I have to do and then that hopefully will inspire people to to go forward this Museum will be endowed by me at the end of the day you know I'm working hard to save all my money to keep this alive and to have it as a living breathing thing after my time is gone but hopefully the real message is not to make people go wow it's to make people go wow what if what if this could be real what if we can make that happen as Da Vinci did as melas did as all these people people who Who Loved magic did and so in my humble way I'm trying to find a way to take this ability to dream and to think about possibilities as Disney did a lot of things that Disney kind of brought forth to look towards the future and that have now become real and I think magic can do that and the world I live in this art that I live in can accomplish that and that's what I'm working on okay I guess my positive spin on it would be this I've been working now consistently for 20 years the apex of the experience was while I was at the ground Lings Theater in LA and there really wasn't going to be an outcome to it I I wasn't getting paid but people weren't recognizing me that Pursuit at that time the pursuit that that was the thing that was going to take me to the place the reason it's worth pointing out and you might not agree on this and this would be fine but I guess my message would be if you're listening and you're young and you have a beautiful goal please know that this ride is The Sweet Spot and it's not about the goal is that true for you yes I mean we do say that enjoy the ride enjoy the journey for me it was like it wasn't the journey wasn't that much fun it was like the fun was the result of each step okay in improv and in theater the interaction with talented people there's a joy there you're getting so much feeling from interacting with people who are as good as you and better than you right you're learning and you're going in my world it's not like that my world I'm having to solve problems they're coming up against walls each time so the joy Mo The Joy moment is when I finally get it right and the audience goes yeah that's pretty good that's my joy moment so it's a process of torture and then finally getting it right and you okay and then you think all right next time I do this it's going to be easy cuz it was so hard the last time yeah yeah and then that's wrong because the next time it's just as hard and you keep doing it but there is the joy of the next thing so I think the analogy the difference is in theater in improv you're getting the the joy of the interaction of the duet I think my analogy with you is making a movie well I was just going to say that but I am of the opinion that you will never control the outcome of the movie so it should be about the experience of making the movie because I've had movies that came out and tripled what they cost and I've had come out and just be stagnant and so what I have to do while making it is like oh no I love making movies I'm not doing this for the result on Friday and it doesn't sound like though when you're making these elaborate illusions that it's such it's a joyful experience and maybe because it's more solitary or something not solitary I'm working with people and we hit our head against the wall and it's you go home really upset but then finally it works finally you get it to work that Joy is got to cover up all the other stuff yeah in movies though when you make a movie the sun's going down you're going to lose your light yeah oh my God and did you get the shot oh my God you go to bed at night and I don't know how you get a joy certain directors I think JJ Abrams told me that sorry dropping names it's a joy for him to shoot the stuff somehow he's able to handle it when I'm doing a TV special I was in China in the middle of the streets in China and we were shooting a scene with a an old man who crashes his bicycle bicycle's wrecked and I've got to magically restore the bicycle so it's me and this old man this little young boy in the scene and behind the barriers is 10,000 people watching us because because as movie lights they've never seen this this is many years ago and they're showing up I mean climbing on top of each other the trees watching us shoot this solitary scene and it's a night scene and I'm looking at the clock and there's not enough time to shoot it there's not enough time and I was co-director of the show and this older director said what are you worried about why are you like so nervous and he says what but the sun's going to come up we haven't got the shot we're losing light the camera's moving the thing where the lights are going to work it's going to ruin the illusion he says you're in China you wrote this this is your dream you've got a staff of 100 people who are paying you to do this you should be enjoying this he was right but I couldn't understand it I didn't I didn't understand it you obviously can understand it I haven't figured it out well let me just say I think my particular Kink is I actually like solving problems that's what I love I love the challenge of [ __ ] losing the light here oh the sun was supposed to be on this side of the street so now we got to shoot on this side we don't have a permit for that like that's actually what I love can I take this seemingly impossible situation and execute and then when I do the burst of self-esteem that I have played My Hand the best I can is the joy that I get now I would say as a writer it's more that I sit in a [ __ ] hotel room I'm lonely I'm miserable it's impossible to crack the third act and then it's finally done and that's it when it's done I'm happy but not dear the writing but you're saying on the street when you're solving the problem look I should know that I'm going to solve it cuz I eventually do solve it I should know that right but in the process not being able to solve it I'm not capable of thinking back saying it will get solved because my history is of solving I think maybe this is the one time where I'm not going to solve it and I've got this 100 people 200 people there waiting to shoot this thing and I can't solve this thing so you'll have to teach I like that that means you're not arrogant well but you already said too you find to be a great motivator so if you've identified it then I I would not argue you should eradicate that from your process but I have the benefit of having journaled for the last 17 years so when I'm about to start something three days out I'm like they hired the wrong person I'm incompetent how the [ __ ] I get myself in this position but then I read day one of filming of everything whether I'm acting whether I'm directing the day was perfect like I can just go back and oh I have a pattern I will learn from you I know no I think it's really important important for people coming up in any field to be like the very best is still scared and not all that confident like that's important because people feel like oh if I'm here I should feel like this and you don't you still have insecurity I think that's great well it's good to know that in a positive note it does finally work it does I mean I'm proof it does work it does but it's not easy and I'm really not alone in this there a lot of great director who are storied famous people that go to their room after shooting putting in terms that you live in and they go to the room crying every night and they've got copala yeah May I'm sure you've watched hearts of Darkness like to know that he was coming home after these scenes in Apocalypse nownow and saying I don't know what movie I'm making is encouraging weirdly Francis did my Broadway show Francis and I did a Broadway show together and Copa Spielberg you just talk to these guys and they go it's like all the same it's the same thing but at the end of the day it's worth it it is worth it and um you have to find the strength somewhere and uh for me again the difference is I'm starting with a blank real truly a blank page unless I copy what everybody else has done that's no fun well David this has been uh incredibly interesting Monica's going to have to take a couple cool down laps uh to get her heart rate back under 140 I want to come see your show I can't wait it's fine I'm doing magic in a really different way it's not card tricks and girls coming out of boxes it's dinosaurs and spaceships and and family and aliens and uh it's really trying to change the language of magic so it's not what you expect at all wait I have a question about the bringing the person to Hawaii so does that does that person think he went to Hawaii like if that's a real life person walking around now does he say to his wife like yeah like he can't answer that I will answer one part people that you bring up from the audience usually are totally amazed by something usually are totally amazed certain times I've broken the rule and they've been partially amazed to get an effect for the audience so they kind of learn something on stage but still would go home with amazement you know what I'm saying they'll know part of it but they'll still be able to tell their friends I have no idea how he did that so I do take a lot of pride in making sure that when they've become part of the show in a way that they still have amazement and they still have a value The Experience so cool oh this was uh this was really interesting so for anyone that is interested I can't imagine someone more qualified to write the history of magic David copperfields History of Magic is a book you should buy read and tell your friends about so grateful to have you on it was great we are definitely going to come see you in Vegas I'm going to say that this is something we will do and I would love to Snoop around this Museum and you will I'll get a tour and I love both your work just so you know I did do my uh my research um and and the book is an amazingly valuable Christmas gift I must tell you it's a beautiful book and it's really really a great thing on your coffee table that you can last for Generations a really great for that and do you think what would be the youngest age who could maybe comprehend it is that a tough question the whole thing is just a beautiful book showing beautiful pictures beautiful stories of people that did famous and Infamous things from Houdini to Keller to thirst to Alexander to David cotkin from aachi New Jersey that's me uh Deo the boy magician and it's is a beautiful Coffee Day B it's fun to read in little sections it's not like a big offputting thing it's not homework it's fun and the stories are really accessible and it's just a great thing to have yeah awesome David copperfields History of Magic David thanks so much for being on the show and uh you'll see us in the audience let me know let thank you we'll do all right thank you so much thank you [Music] and now my favorite part of the show The fact check with my soulmate Monica [Music] padman uh this is our first unedited fact check CU oh my gosh down to the wire no safety now so scary well what if people found out that we were only clever like one minute out of every 40 it might happen okay it's okay if that happens I will edit it still let's start by saying I've really missed doing fact checks cuz we haven't done one for a minute I know we've been out of town on the vacation of our well my I'm going to speak for me vacation of my life what we had so much fun there were so many variables there were so many events generally when we vacation uh which is lovely we go to a house and we sit there which is great we play cards we go swimming this one was action-packed this was it soup and nuts a barn burner of activity we were in Austin uh with the F1 race oh man very limited edition very exclusive and there were events boom boom got to be here at this time got to be there at that time and just the notion that we bookended the trip was Salt Lake Salt Lake out in Driftwood yeah we got off the airplane we went to the rental houses straight to Salt Lake first meal in Austin your favorite restaurant there and it's not I'm not look I'm not picking any barbecue fights I'm not saying it's the best barbecue in Texas but I'm saying when you add up the atmosphere the vibe the smoke pit right in front of you all that stuff together it's my favorite restaurant it's really fun we had so much fun there and it's a great place to be with 23 people nine of them kids cuz chaos is welcomed that's true they handled us really well in fact the whole city handled us really well except okay let's pin do you want to put a pin in our grievance okay okay we'll keep it positive at the beginning here okay okay so first day so first day we land you know we go to Salt Lake fantastic next day let's let's go to Barton Springs favorite place to swim right in town if you've not been it's incredible big grassy slopes into like a I don't know half mile long pool and it's not even a pool the sides are cement but the Bottom's a river it's a creek yeah go there it's closed for cleaning and we that a big oops and we got 23 people showing up mhm so think on your feet go and swim on the other side uh where the dogs are welcome the Riff Raff The Misfits um Jess called it acid spring and I think that was that's a great accurate yeah a lot of people were um having experiences down there which is great the thing was great cuz my oldest daughter when we walked to the car she was like I kind of feel like I was in um fight or flight for that last two hours and I said well good that that's an appropriate response to that many people that are doing that many weird things that you've never seen before it's like that that's not a wrong response it's like who who's who's legitimate crazy and who's just like eclectic and colorful we were joking that cuz Charlie was there too and we were saying he was in fight or fight fight or fight mode and then there was so much pressure on Eric because listen some guys were swimming in their jeans this one dude got bless him I I hope he finds his way back to recovery but he came up to us and he was saying he is a friend of Bill meaning he's also sober and then but I could see immediately this guy is [ __ ] pan out of his mind yeah out of his mind hi and so I'm nice and kind and blah blah blah and then he pulls Aaron to a side he knows him and he says you know how do you feel about weed and pills in in AA and he's got a tremendous amount of weed and pills again I'm the last person to be judgement all of this I just don't really want to interact with someone who's pretending they're sober when they're [ __ ] to the gills and really won't stop talking to us won't stop this is kind of a funny story actually so I was I would say very very generous and nice to him about five interactions but I could tell our whole day was going to be talking to this guy and it was so scatterbrain he was you know he's got a five pitch deal at Amazon he inherited a krillion dollar car collection he you know just one thing after another and finally I said to him really nicely I'm like brother it was great meeting you but I flew here to hang out with my family and my friends so have a good one you know I was very I was very nice then he came back yeah so sorry you know you know after that then and I said finally said brother I'm not hanging out with with you I'm hanging out with my friends and then then it flipped so then he went over to Aaron he said this guy's a [ __ ] [ __ ] he thinks he's too famous well I've been in front of the camera and behind the camera and I got a podcast that's not the punchline he then spent the rest of the two hours we were there going up to groups of people pointing over at us explaining to them Dak Shepard was around and that he's a [ __ ] [ __ ] that he swam across the creek went to the other Bank of the river and we just watched him he was just going going through every group of people we'd see him point over at us for a minute and we knew what was coming so he I think he was trying to like rally maybe a uh you know some kind of a a rabble against me yeah sure sure just yeah put together a troop and take us on yeah and unfortunately he was like one of the least God what's the word cuz I can't cut anything out right you don't want to offend anyone here um you know hair raising okay characters sure sure sure he was yeah what what would you give him out of 10 for fight or flight I would give him I would give him a three cuz I wasn't I wasn't actually scared of him right there were there were some people there that I was I was nervous um what's going to happen right now one was swinging a golf club randomly is that one of your guys yes and that he was particularly strange cuz he seemed kind of athletic no well well I don't want to take away his athleticism I don't yeah yeah maybe he was an ex golfer but he seemed um at face value normal yeah not on drugs right but then he clearly was on drugs by the way he was swinging that golf club and I was like oh okay this is making me nervous cuz what where's that aggression going to go well I was going to that golf ball L yeah but what if he decided we were the golf ball well that's true that's true I will say though all in all it had a similar Vibe of many of the street corners I would be on in Detroit when I lived there yeah so you you have some experience well but I will say it was it was way more peaceful so it was like yeah people were blown out man some people were having some like 60s level acid trips where they were seeing huge insects and stuff one guy was just like kind of touching his nose repeatedly I think to make sure it was like still there of course yeah yeah you can get nervous that it went away anyways the long story short it was actually a great time all those little speed bumps uh taken into consideration like uh the girls were going down the little the little waterfall that was coming off the dam and they were getting real adventurous and it was really fun we left we go to Guero that's a party yeah best cheese dip I love a cheese dip as soon as we landed well okay I'm going toy I'm going to call it a cheese dip okay because I don't know that it's fair to the people of Mexico to call it queso cuz it's heex Mech sure obviously I don't even know if they doo in Mexico no they do but they it's like a it's like almost this like hardish cheese like the cheese on top gets hard like a french onion soup delish yeah yeah oh wow um but TexMex which is what I also grew up on yeah I love the cheese dip yeah it's fantastic cheese dip so good time there uh go home blah blah blah next day now we're going to go to Barton Springs proper and here's where the grievances start so if you don't like to hear people complain might want to skip ahead uh 30 seconds time no you need to hear this okay guys I I want to preface this by saying it's literally my favorite place to swim on planet Earth and I'm a big swimmer and when I go places I always search out local swim holes I mean this is my spot it's it's my Mecca I look forward to it so much and I've been there 40 50 times and had the best time always okay we go yeah again 23 people 23 people let's own our you know AET a huge huge play like this is the place to go with 23 people yes absolutely it's a huge grassy null uh but you know it's kind of hard to get it like there's um you have to pay but the those machines weren't working all that well so that was kind of hard and we all figured that out finally then they told us to put masks on as we walked in which was really interesting cuz everyone else walking and didn't have a mask and everyone walking out didn't have a mess and not one human being there had a mask but it was very important that all 23 of us find a mask and they said you can take it off when you cross into the grass which was 6 feet away so we're like okay that was a little un Barton springy from my memory like everyone's going to dig out and it took a minute to get nine kids mask and [ __ ] yeah okay go ahead so then we go we go we get sh that off we're shaking that off we're shaking it off it's great putting out our towels getting out our coolers um get and uh you guys some of the guys go down they start getting wet yeah get wet get it wet get it wet and we're there for I would say six minutes oh it it happened that cuz I immediately yeah news reached me probably 45 minutes later cuz I had swam to the far end yeah okay so 6 minutes in six minutes in um the what I now know was the head guard wait you how do you now know that oh because she told okay you don't know some of this thing oh okay okay so this woman comes up she's in charge she has an English accent she does okay and she said is that alcohol and she looked at Erica who had a beer but she hadn't drank it yet it was out okay and she was like oh yeah it is MHM being very forthcoming sure nothing to hide no and she said okay we don't we have a very strict policy we don't allow alcohol uh we don't allow food and if I see it you got to go so I'll give you guys a few minutes to pack up and mind you it's really important to say nothing was opened correct right uh oh are we fibbing well the beer was open I don't know because I don't really know that much about the beer I think maybe the beer was open but wasn't drank and then there was wine that was not open that she saw okay in a friend's bag she said and I see your wine I already saw it you got to go okay got to go and we were like what what well everyone was quickly like oh my God so sorry that makes sense we'll just go put it in the car we'll throw it away we don't need this what and and no already saw it already saw it if I saw it you got to go yep and we were like well is there anything we can do we just got here we have all these kids you know we we don't need this stuff nope nope nope I can lose my job and then o okay so then Erica was like well can I just go then I'm the one with the beer yes and then and then that's when she saw Laura's and she said oh I saw yours too and then they were like well we'll just go and she said okay that's fine and then I also had an open bag of cheese so I was a culprit as well sure sure a mouse with cheese I can't put to find a point on that this you're sitting on a grass football field yes okay just and there's no you know we were we were really uh it's clearly a picnic area but go ahead oh yeah and we were really picking this apart because I we were like why how how can you not allow food at a place like this like unless they had their own food service that would make sense absolutely no outside food got to buy the food here would love to but if you're taking children to a public pool for the day what you want we have to have Jess come on at some point and do his impression of her cuz it was so amazing he kept saying Yeah kids starve here um anyway so so we thought okay you know we'll let her cool off we'll pack up we'll go I I went with them and and we'll try to convince them her again when on our way out yeah so we we go up we see another woman Professor oh yeah yes and we said you know hi and she she knew immediately what was going to happen she kind of rolled her eyes not at us right okay and she said she said yeah you know that's the head guard um she she's really strict and I said well you know nothing was really open can we just throw it away or put it in the car and she said well that should be fine just go talk to her oh boy y okay we go back up to her you know we're so sorry we did not know she said it was on all the signs which it was on the sign of the machine that was impossible to use so obviously no one is reading that machine cuz everyone's too busy trying to make the machine work well I also want to add you know it smells like weed everywhere people are smoking weed yeah people are nude people are drinking like there's a lot going on which by the way awesome well they shouldn't be drinking they should have been she should have saw it well that'll that'll get into my I have a chapter two of this okay okay so then yeah so and she was just not budging she just kept saying I'll lose my job I already saw it already saw it and then um so we left so we had to leave we went into downtown Austin walked around a bit went to a jewelry store I almost bought really expensive earrings but I didn't oh right right that's theable you shook it off you shook it off uhhuh so so now I'm left there I find this out oh my God they booted I'm like oh that's so weird I that's not the people I remember I now get to our encampment and um there are two people now just stationed staring at us yes this is going on for 10 minutes 15 minutes and finally I'm like this is [ __ ] yeah I go up to them and I said listen you cannot stand here and stare at my group the entire time we're here I love this place it's my favorite you're making this a very unfortunate experience for all of us if you're going to put troll at least go make it seem equal exactly I don't know what you're talking about we're not posted up here and I go well you've been standing here staring at us for 15 minutes what what would you call that I'm just doing my job I said oh your job is a single out a group and then it escalated right y sure sure and then uh yeah this bozo James was his name so he he bounces they bounce finally like it was it thank God it was like obviously as uncomfortable for all three of us they they they were like we're not going anywhere all right and I left and then they did leave and then they they didn't come back so I kind of thought okay good we push back a bit they know like stop [ __ ] with us yeah leave us alone and then oh my God cut to a plain closed detective now oh this 19-year-old she was in she was a a spy yeah she was undercover my God all of a sudden there's just this plain closed Gale um 19 I would come to find out leaning next to my backpack out of nowhere I'm like who's this person she goes you have broken glass and blood all over this place and I go what are you talking about you have broken glass in blood right here at your bag blood I go I broken glass and blood I look she's spying deep into my backpack where she sees a jar of jam that I have in my backpack because I have [ __ ] kids and I have food and we need to bang out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I go that is jelly nothing's broken she's like you got to you got to throw all that away you got to take that to the car and then she starts repeating this is a federally protected area this is a federally protected area on the ninth time she said it I said listen I heard you it is federally protected you don't need to repeat that again yeah she goes you're going to give me a 19-year-old a bunch of attitude oh my when I'm doing my job and I was like this is madness I started wondering like did they have some team meeting yeah prior to the weekend going look gang formula 1's in town you know those people are crazy we got to run a tight ship or we're going to lose complete control of this place so she's now going absolutely app a she has lost her mind entirely she can barely talk when she keeps repeating federally protected area and I'm like you know what and now everyone in the group's like well just leave I'm like no 's leaving I'm taking this food out to I'm going to take this [ __ ] jam out to my car put it in there and we're going to continue to swim cuz it's been a big hurdle to get in there yeah so I'm taking it out and on the walk she says federally protected like seven more times I I I can't I mean wow what an experience get to the and then she decides on the walk she's throwing me out you got actually you got to go oh wow okay and when we get to the front of it there's this taller dude that worked there that I had already interacted with on my swim like Good Time Charlie like I was chatting him up and he was friendly yeah and she's like I'm taking them he's out of here and he goes oh what happened he has food okay was they they were eating food no he but he has it and I go I go hey brother yeah I had some Jam in my backpack but I'm just going to throw it in the car and then come back and goes yeah totally that's cool well that made hered in front of me uhhuh I I got to tell you I I was like I've never seen anything like this is this the thing I know it's that person's not even a millennial at this point but like the level we can't do any of that no no no we can but I don't think that can be because of her age like I felt like she was saying you like I felt like I was in one of those college campus things where she's like you're triggering me and in fact when I stepped towards the tall dude to tell him I was going to take the food out I stepped towards her she jump back she said sir don't you come don't you come near me and I was like oh my God she's pretending I'm assaulting her God oh Jesus oh is it maddening I go through the food in the car I come back she's there I walk back in and now the whole group's leaving I've lost it but no one wants to deal with this anymore so our whole group is packed up and I'm like I'm still going to go for a swim cuz I love it there okay so me down yeah well now I'm in a for real power struggle clearly and I you know I regrettably and embarrassingly am the perfect person to get in one of those struggles with I would have stayed there the entire day and talked to them if I could have cuz I just couldn't surrender this insane policy so anyways we swam for another 10 minutes and then we left and then I did stop on the way out and I said to her hey I was curious is is this area federally protected oh my God and she goes yes it's federally protected and I go it's federally protected and she goes it's on the sign over there and I said that it's federally protected and and I said them uhoh I must have said federally protected wow 20 times I just wanted to experience what I had experienced it reminded me a lot of these um cell phone calls I've told you about them on Stern where they call people in the South because their theory is people in the South will talk to you on the phone forever right by just saying hello so they're like they just go hey hey they call a stranger hey and this woman answers hi hey how you doing oh good good good so you're doing good yeah good good that's great so you're doing good and this can go on forever so at any rate I was kind of doing that and then finally I said well that's well great it's ferally protected thank you and then I split but uh yeah what a what a bummer of a trip to Barton Springs it was rough I will say when it was happening uh the first iteration of that that my my part I said out loud I'm just just don't go down there don't tell Dax what happened I don't want this to a thing he's going to get really upset it's going to become a thing so just let's just not I'm glad he wasn't up here then then part two yeah yeah it was meant to be yeah I let him you know that one where they were denying staring at us for 15 minutes that when I lost my goal you think I'm [ __ ] absolutely stupid is that what you think yeah that I don't recognize were the only people that you are posted up in front of okay [ __ ] that so that we watch we just just said hell that we're going to wipe that clean from our slate that was Friday yeah Saturday was qualifying went to qualifying it was so much fun and then Sunday big race day big race and Monty had a great time it was so fun we got to stay in the Red Bull Lounge yeah which was so nice I felt guilty why cuz we were in the Red Bull Lounge and I was wearing a McLaren you know I was wearing a Danny shirt I was I was very proud to wear a Danny shirt but I also felt a little like oh they're being really nice and and I'm obviously betraying them I to be honest I think it would have been more of an issue if you were in there wearing all Mercedes stuff that's who they're battling in the Constructor Championship so it does you know I don't think they're all that worried you know that you and I had worn a Daniel shirt the day before in there yeah and also Danny like really early on I think like passed someone or something and and everyone in the Red Bull section cheered oh right yes yes he P he passed sign yeah and everyone was really happy and then I was like oh everyone loves Danny here this is great everyone loves Danny period I know he's so likable but I gotta we got a okay so this is going to be the first of many shout outs that we give so uh Jeremy and Dan holy [ __ ] smokes they made that experience incredible 20 times better than it could have ever been on our own it was they were so helpful and wonderful and I'm so in debt to them for that weekend they gave us and you tell you got to go down in the whole in the pit right now that's shout out number two Blake friend Blakey I love you you are just the sweetest human being and yes he got us a few grid paths is for from McLaren so we got to go in the McLaren garage we got to watch them pull out of the garage and we had the headsets and we were listening to what they were talking about you and Aaron and Aaron and Kristen and I yeah and it was incredible we were on the grid row and there was Shaquille O'Neal and I thought poor Shaquille O'Neal that guy could wear a hat and a face mask and sunglasses that's Shaquille O'Neal you don't really need to see anything other than just the height it's exactly it's so impressive yeah so anyways he was getting a lot of heat which I was grateful for because everyone was really focused on him by the way can't hide when you're him you you see him from a quarter mile away yeah of course yeah anyways that's neither here nor there but that whole experience was incredible I was geeking out so much it was so fun I was having so much Nostalgia for uh college football all right sports events like that where everyone's just so excited and everyone's rooting for the same thing and it's really lovely and then um ver stappen so we always want Danny to win of course but in the event Danny can't win for me it has to be verstappen yes and it was an incredible race because right at the end um the two people that we were rooting for the most were were experiencing major challenges verstappen with making an early second pit stop and his tires running out of grip and and Hamilton catching him so tons of anxiety there and then uh Carlos signs catching Dany having a little more pace and then they had a full-on dog fight and Danny was Victorious there was some contact there was a broken arrow and then Carlos started dropping down he started slower laps so Danny was in the clear switch it over to Max it got so intense at the end but Max Held on so we got everything we wanted so fun and he since he won and he's on the Red Bull team uh champagne exploded everywhere we're in a shower of champagne which was really fun it was great it was great I can't even believe the whole trip I just thought we are the most spoiled human beings on the planet and I'm going to take it I'm going to take it um then just to cap off a perfect perfect weekend uh Danny and Blake like what should we do on Monday we have the day off after the race I said have you ever been tu mean suggest two being on the San Marcos River so I don't know how many were of us were there 30 people we had 12 maybe he had 12 maybe it was like 24 people yeah something oh yeah get on the river with 24 people and float down the river um everyone's drinking and having a blast I'm jumping off Bridges everything's Heavenly it's so enjoyable even you are having a wonderful time I so much fun why even me definitely me well because it's kind of out of your you're not like one that's gonna look up tubing somewhere because you don't like to be in the water per se exactly but I was I'm setting up that you were actually having a really great time which made me happy I was checking in and you were loving floating around it was great it was great and then and this is this is my fault uh I've been on the San Marcos River a couple times and I thought we were on a section that has this very gentle little Spillway uh cement smooth you just Coast over in your tube not a [ __ ] deal that's what I believ we were coming up to mhm so I've got Delta on my lap and we're first to go through and right as we cross this this kind of drop off oh this is these are just big rocks it all is funneling into this rapid it's a shoot yeah it's a yeah there's a a natural shoot so we go through first we come off the tube I'm holding her above my head so that she won't go underw but there's a point where I'm now getting sucked under water so if I don't let go of her I'm going to pull her under water so I let go of her and then shoot back up it's like a river rafting movie I see her paddling I swim over and grab her and then I get her to the shore she's not super stoked at what just happened she's crying loudly she's crying loudly um I'm bleeding excessively uh knee whatever doesn't matter and then my of course my very next thought when I've got her on the Rock is I Monica right yeah we're as we've talked about in here we're not sure that you can swim anymore we just don't know we just don't know we just don't know um yeah so when we're in these tubes and we're coming we see you know from from a distance still the little the drop off the easy drop off Christian says well we should go that way cuz we can't go down those Rapids and and our fearless leader says says of course we can and so we're like all right and then but boy also this whole time I'm Molly and I our tubes we're holding ourselves together by our legs and it's really fun and but I'm backwards then so then I was like she also has Lily at that point or do we have doia and Lily okay great right and uh two kids with us and um on their own tubes four tubes okay and I'm also holding on to Kristen as well so we're all like in this thing exactly and uh all of a sudden we're getting closer to the area and Kristen's like Delta's crying uhoh Delta's crying and then Molly's like oh Delta's crying and then Kristen leaves and starts paddling very quickly to to pass it uhhuh to go to the shore to go to the shore exactly so she so she would miss the Rapids and I was like wait I want to do that I want to do that I do not want to do this I do not want to do this I was really panicking and I was also backwards I was like wait should I focus on now moving or should I try to get out and then and can I just got to add I'm on the Rock staring at you yeah cuz I know there might be problem and I see before you've gone over the Rapids all hell's already broken you you were off as I recall you were off your tube before you even went over I was yeah because one of the kids was like no I do want to go and I was like get out of the everyone get out I have to be I oh my God I can't and then I was like I'll just swim I'll get out of the tube so I got out of the the tube and I was already there then you just went over the falls pulled in immediately in no tube I I thought I was like but I don't know if I can swim yes and I'm like I'm I'm just watching the whole thing and I'm thinking like okay I'm gon to I'm going to need to jump in like for [Applause] sure and you make it pretty quickly to a a station of rocks yeah and you go immediately I didn't like that and I was like oh my God I fell I mean like you and your soulmate Delta you had both had the exact same experience I just felt so heartbroken the I didn't like that I don't even remember saying that so I guess that was just a gutteral reaction also not to mention my boob was out it it it came out my boob came out everything was completely scatty wed I hated it so much and really was like I knew it I know myself I know it like I this is why I can't be peer pressure because I know when I can do something and when I can't and when I can push the limit and when I can't were you mad at me no not at all but I should have been way more clear I don't want to do that yeah you don't want any Adventure on the water I didn't no I barely want to float right but then that was so fun so I was like yeah it just was I was it was so scary but here's where I want to applaud you um you turned it around yeah you got back and I thought I based on what you know the situation when you got to the Rocks I thought [ __ ] she's done like and understandably so she's this is a rap for her and we're not really to the pickup Point yet I so starting to compute how I'm going to do that then Delta went and go down the rest of which were gentler so I had to figure out how to I had to swim back up around that fence to walk her to the end blah blah blah blah blah blah it was a whole thing then just randomly they're doing some kind of Civil Works project and they've kind of got these inflatable uh catchers that are crossing the whole river which we then have to lift everyone's tube over that to continue on anyways yes it was spectacular day it was I I still look at it as a net positive okay good good good good good good CU I didn't die you didn't die but I almost died and then I and you didn't get any cuts no I did I got some cuts and a lot of like lot of soreness okay okay like you had had a seizure at night perhaps I don't know um but it but then I felt it was felt so embarrassed yeah but no one had saw no one saw except for Molly and I yeah but it was just really embar I just was like why can't I just like do anything and but then when we met back up with Danny I was like did you how was did were you fine on the Rapids he said no I almost died I said oh oh okay yeah all right I felt a little better knowing I wasn't the only one and he's very accomplished yes he's a daredevil you know I I was thinking after the trip um you know one of the other times he hung out with me I took a motorcycle riding and people were crashing off the side of this mountain and he was coming and I thought you know McLaren would be smart to put it in his contract to hang out with me like they should really consider that they've got quite an investment into him and it might be time for them to exclude me from his life I I I don't disagree then we went to saltlick again again at another incredible meal in fact this time the brisket was even better so good oh what a trip I it was it was like I kept just getting overwhelmed with like the the amount of oh one other shout out there's really two other shout okay one other shout out is um Matt okay Matt Collins Matt Collins hair what's his that his Instagram um stylist stylist Matt cinin stylist Matthew Collins stylist so prior to this my full extent of of of Matt's driving prowess was he had come to the sand dunes once and I put him in a razor and he did well yeah but I also knew from you that he drives kind of slow generally if he's just cruising around town so before we left be so mad no he's not this whole thing I'm going to blow his pants off right now so right before we left the house and it's you know going to the track on race day with 150,000 people also going to the track I asked him before we pulled out cuz we were in two cars what is your what level of aggression are you comfortable with one out of 10 and he said whatever one's required and I was like wow okay and it started slow with some Lane changes this and that some dancing some disco and he he was never got more than three feet behind the bumper and then it just escalated from there and he was over curbs and in residential neighborhood and he was an assassin I would compare his performance to Steve McQueen and bullet he he it was amazing I was very impressed I was very scared for him uhhuh and he rose he rose to the occasion and dominated and it was mind-blowing everyone was very very happy and impressed okay that's one shout out another shout out is from the beginning of the trip so what we realized a little too late is that obviously it's F1 weekend in Austin obviously you cannot get a car cannot Rent A Car can't rent a car can't book a car can't do anything Ubers are available out by where we're staying exactly there's so there's some Panic of what are we going to do we have we have one vehicle Chrysler God bless you Chrysler another shout out Vince I Love You Vince yep Vince had some pacificas down there for the race because of Alfa Romeo he said are you going to need one I said oh my God if I could be black on black on black yes please so so we had 22 people in seven passenger vehicle yes and then Laura thank goodness shout out number 20 she talk to her friend who lives in Austin who knows someone who has a dealership or like a car rental car I don't even know what he has he used car garage I don't know he had cars he did and he we don't know this guy we don't know anything about this guy no he's in Laura's phone as Danny Car Guy okay yeah and this beautiful person he dropped off four cars cars at the airport this is unreal I know so when we landed we walked into the parking garage there were four cars for us with the keys in the cars he wanted he like refused money right we're like definitely were're pay we want to pay three times what it would costed a rented cars because he bailed us out and we're happy to pay and his name is Danny Gomez Danny Gomez and do you know the name of his business unfortunately not [ __ ] but if anyone in Austin walks around and meets this Danny Gomez please buy him a a drink on us yeah on we'll pay you back we'll venmo you if you can uh put a receipt in on Instagram to prove it and I Danny Gomez Danny Gomez single-handedly saved our trip it was going to be a [ __ ] disaster I don't even know how anyone was getting to these houses they were 30 miles from the airport we had two houses too that weren't next to each other no they're out in the country people would have been so miserable like okay well everyone pull a number what six people get to go in the Pacifica out of this house it the what a short I'm I'm embarrassed too cuz I rented those houses six months ago like I was I was ahead of it you were I had already secured tickets I like I was so ready for this trip I had the van and then it just occurred to me like I should look into other Reynolds Just for everyone else Gone Gone Gone what an oversight I hadn't I would I was not thinking about that at all I never would have thought about it we have just got there but [ __ ] oh my God anyway so that is the major shout out of the trip Danny Gomez for real like wow and then I've have one more shout out okay so um you and Kristen had to go to uh Waco from Austin to do press for hello bello we opened a factory did you see pictures they're gorgeous so fun we're pulling up it's like an industrial complex in Waco there's a bunch of humongous buildings and we see a quarter mile long diaper virtually yeah in the distance and I'm like could this could they have possibly decorated a 300,000 ft building which they did it's all of our patterns it's amazing it's so cute oh my God can't believe it's a factory so so cool okay so yeah we went there for that okay so you guys did that Jess and I traveled with the girls back the kids and they were great everything was fine except you know the airport was a little crazy again I was like Tuesday that should be fine but it was it was hectic yeah and then we get so we get through we get through security everything's great they've done such a good job and Lincoln says there's a Starbucks there Lincoln says can I get a cake pop and I said of course so of course well they had just you know done a really good job they deserved a reward so I said of course and and Delta was like me too I was like yeah so and you needed a mug you already had a mug I needed a mug they didn't have them okay sry so then we walk up we see the Starbucks line is incredibly long and I said well let's just look and see if they have them so we walk up and we're like you know kind of talking about it like oh do they have them do they have the cake pops oh and Link's like yeah I see one I see a cake pop so we get up and there's one oh boy and I was like okay well there's if there's only one we can see if they have any in the back but if there's only one like we'll have to split it and then Delta of course is like she can have it and I was like okay great so I almost died yesterday I have a new gratitude for life so we get in at the end of this really long line it was going to but it was fine was like well wait a it we'll get the cake Pock but it was a little fear of like well if that someone else in this line gets for a cake yeah we're standing there for like 10 seconds and this incredibly nice man comes up hands me a bag and says I was just really worried that somebody would get the cake pop before they got there and I was like oh my go what yeah people are so nice Austin in particular we keep getting these impossible miracles last time it was Houston Street with a pontoon boat this time it was Danny Gomez with these cars I don't know how many signs the universe has got to send us to tell us to get down there permanently it was really sweet I thought that was just the nicest thing ever that is so um that was the trip so nice man if you bought a little girl a cake pop okay if you guys see that nice man please buy him a drink on us we'll VMO you yeah um we'll cash app you yeah so that was the trip trip was great um and and we're home now and this was David copperfield's episode which was so fun because I love magic I just love magic and I do have some facts real quick so let's just blow through those okay yep okay so you said his dad was a Hab aasher and he said his dad never said that and it uh reminded me that my first line in my fifth grade play ever was here is the Hat your worship ordered and I was the habiter and Taming of the Shrew I remember that yeah yeah uh Butch people are still talking about that role that performance yeah it's kind of legendary it was small but I made a big like big impact there's no small roles only small actors I was I was both small role and small act um okay habiter in British English a habiter is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing dress making and knitting such as buttons ribbons and Zips in the United States the term refer refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothing including suit shirts and neck ties his father did do that exactly that yeah his father was a habit whether he wants to acknowledge that or not um is menalo Park where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb yes great the Arthur C Clark quote he said every new piece of technology is Magic he said he messed it up what's the real quote real quote is any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic there we go it's a long word indistinguishable yeah really good good good good uh well there's a game that we'll tell people about but not today next time okay um we would call that a verbal dump like a photo dump on Instagram uh that was a verbal dump of Austin yeah you're right um one thing I just have to say our friend Anna her dad got disappeared by David Copperfield no yes when did you find that out on the trip well I forgot that she actually did tell me that a long time ago then she brought it up again obviously when I said we interviewed him and I said well what what does he say and he he's he'll never said he never says that's right he says he disappeared that's right he vanished mhm I couldn't find the rayb ban knockoff Rayban story because obviously when I'm Googling it it's just trying to send sell you some that's right yeah um and that's all well I love you and uh I hope you enjoyed this live performance of a faction without any editing see you next time fight Us in the Buns bye bye