Paying The Cost Of Magic

This is, and isn’t, about magic. Stick around.

Last week I took my friend Robert Rose to my happiest place on earth (sorry, Mickey), The Magic Castle, a private club in Hollywood that is the world’s epicenter for magic. I’m starting to lose count of how many times I’ve been, but I think at least a dozen by now.

While having a cocktail between shows, we had a wonderful conversation about Hollywood, screenwriting, and of course, magic. I go very deep on magic. I’ve read a hundred books, watched thousands of videos, and even done a few tricks myself every now and then, but not often, and not for a while. Robert asked me a very good question: why don’t I perform magic? Of course, reading lots of magic books doesn’t obligate you to become a magician any more than reading lots of Shakespeare compels you to become a thespian, but I owed him something better than that.

So, I gave him an answer that was true, but not the entire truth.

The answer I gave was that I hadn’t really ever worked out my persona as a performing magician. As a frequent public speaker, I think I have my speaking persona down. But that side of me never really translated to performing magic. I like to think I am funny when I speak, but I despise 95% of “comedy magicians.” Magic is super difficult. Stand-up is super-duper difficult. Doing both at once is rarified air indeed. Derren Brown pulls it off with a quick, dry wit that I am endlessly jealous of. John Carney does it in a different way, but again, at the top of both crafts…