Jason Ladanye is reinventing magic. Performing mindboggling card tricks that sellout venues and entertain millions online. We talk becoming a magician, the hidden secrets behind his best tricks and why he owns over 12,000 decks of cards. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Jennifers.
Jason Ladanye: 02:00
Pointless: 36:10
Top 5 Jennifers: 01:05:33
Interview with Card Magician Jason Ladanye
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode magic, and Jennifer's,
Jason Ladanye 0:19
so something clicked in my brain. And I said that I want this power, you know, this is this is what I want. And I started learning from magic books. The point was, I was trying to fool my brother, that was my main goal, he got me, and I need to learn something I can get him back with. And that took about 15 years. Well, because there's subjects there, the subtext is I know something that you don't. And there's this, this word Wonderman. So if I put a card in your hand facedown, and then you name any card, and I say, look at it. And it is that card, there's, there's mystery, this one, like that's not possible, you're breaking the everyday rules, and that no other art form has that there are tricks that I have practiced for literally three, four years before actually doing them in front of people.
Nick VinZant 1:07
I want to thank you so much for joining us, if you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is doing things in the world of magic that have never been done, inventing new tricks, selling out venues and entertaining millions of people worldwide. What I think is really interesting about this conversation, though, is not just how the tricks are learned, or how the tricks are performed. And he does share some secrets about how he does it. But what it takes to become a professional magician, and what the business is really like. This is card magician, Jason le Danny. So do you remember your first trick?
Jason Ladanye 2:02
Well, yes, I do remember the first trick that was shown to me. And that's why I'm here today, actually. So my older brother, who was a much older, he's 11 years older than me. So he wasn't the rivalry. He was like the hero, you know, he did that trick where there's four jacks that go into different apartment levels. This jack, this is the robber goes into the first floor, the second floor, the third floor, and then one Jack stays on the roof as the lookout. And then when the police come you knock on the on the deck, and all the jacks come off the top. And my brain just, you know, at seven years old, you're just learning how the world you know, there's rules to the world. And he put those jacks in four different spots in the deck. And there's no way that they could just end up on top like that. So something clicked in my brain. And I said that I want this power. You know, this is this is what I want. And I started learning from magic books. And I don't my first tricks weren't anything even to write home about. But the point was, I was trying to fool my brother. That was my main goal. He got me and I need to learn something I can get him back with. And that took about 15 years. I'm not even exaggerating. For 15 years, I showed him tricks. And he would always just say value. That's how I saw it. That's how you you put on that card or show me show me the rest of the deck kind of you know, that kind of thing. And I was like, in my early 20s When I showed him a trick once and he just stopped. He didn't say anything.
Nick VinZant 3:33
It finally got it
Jason Ladanye 3:34
was dead silent. And afterwards, I was like, Yes. And then the side effect of that was I ended up becoming a professional magician.
Nick VinZant 3:43
How hard is it to become a professional magician?
Jason Ladanye 3:46
Well, I think I'm built like other people, I have this desire to, to just be the best to work as hard as I possibly can read as many books hang out with the world's best other magicians that have already done. The you know, Darwin Ortiz is my mentor, considered one of the best in the world becoming a professional magician is about creating good material that people can't figure out having a character that people like and going out there and sharing and performing and putting yourself out there advertising so people know, I will come entertain, and I'm going to be damn good at it. You know, you word of mouth, do a gig, have people come back and up business cards and just build that up. I did all sorts of things to help get myself out there. This is even pre internet really, you know what I mean? This is this is doing events calling up event places and saying hey, I offer this service do you have events that I can do would come entertain it? So you call up a convention center and talk to the person that does the events and that way when someone is holding an event? And he said oh by the way, would you like some entertainment for this event? I have a great guy in town, you know, that kind of thing. So word of mouth, honestly, that's what it was. And then in 2013 I published my first book And that really helps that put me on the map for some credibility. And then in 2018, I published my second book, but I went full pro in about 2009 or so.
Nick VinZant 5:10
Is it? Okay? Let me ask these questions, get it out of the way you closer to ramen noodles or mansions?
Jason Ladanye 5:17
Well, I make a very good living. Now when I started out, you have to climb the ladder, you have to climb the ladder, when my first corporate gigs were like 500 bucks back in the day. But now I do gigs for anywhere from five to $10,000 even more sometimes. So yeah, celebrities. It's, it's just again, getting your getting your word out there. Getting your content out there. Hitting a million followers on social media certainly helps. And like I said, celebrity endorsements, things like that. That's all credibility that helps a client want to hire you.
Nick VinZant 5:53
How do you learn the tricks? That's the thing that
Jason Ladanye 5:56
books and from other people, there's other magicians out there that release books that teach this stuff. And we all have a kind of a community that we share ideas, and then it's for me anyway, I like to put my own spin. I take what that person wrote in a book and say, How can I do this? How can I change this to fit to fit me. So that's an A very important thing, when you're authentic, instead of just taking someone else's material doing it. note for note, you know,
Nick VinZant 6:23
that that seems like such a, that people are so fascinated by it, but yet they never just read the book,
Jason Ladanye 6:29
you have to put in a lot of time to it. So it's kind of like nucular physics, we're all fan. We all wonder how does the Galaxy work? But do we buy all the books on it and read everything about deep space, you know, so it's a very similar concept. It's all it's all out there. But to put the time and energy into doing that is another thing.
Nick VinZant 6:48
What makes you good at it well makes a good,
Jason Ladanye 6:51
big difference between someone that just does cheap material, easy to figure out what goes on a magic website and buy some stupid little gimmick that does it for you, or someone that puts in the time, the hours stolen sleight of hand. So everything I'm doing, it's just a regular deck of cards, and I'm moving my hands faster than you can see. And I'm fooling you in that way. But in order to do it that way, it takes years and years decades to learn how to do that. So a good analogy is do you want to go to the gym every day and eat clean for years, or you just want to buy the t shirt that has an AB six pack printed on it. People are obviously going to have more respect for the guy that put the time in to do that. And no one is going to go wow, look at that T shirt. Where'd you get that? I mean, so online people can see that when I'm doing these videos. If I say the casino wash can't be beat. It's impossible. That's why casinos use it the casino shuffling procedure, and then I proceed to do the wash, do the same shuffle and then show the deck and complete new deck order. There is no gimmick that does that. You bet you can't buy that at a store. You have to learn how to do that over decades worth of practice, you know, so that's that's the difference. And I think people recognize that. And when they watch the videos,
Nick VinZant 8:04
you know, just because we're in it right now we'll do some like tricks, stuff like that later. But when sleight of hand, is there something that you could show me real quick? That's like, Okay, this is a basic sleight of hand.
Jason Ladanye 8:15
Is this a quick demonstration of sleight of hand a deck of cards, you can see that I'm shuffling. There's no doubt that these cards are changing because they're correct. Right, right. And so that's what your eye sees, but I'm pulling your eye. That's all looks like I'm really shuffling. But you see I can find an ace. Now let me do that. Again. I'm not even looking at that font. Yeah, I'll give the cards a cut just like the way they do in Vegas, you can see that that's a real cut cards come up top to bottom as a secondary. And again, two people are gonna say, oh, it's some sort of trick deck or something. No, you can buy my books and see that this is all done with sleight of hand. So I'll give the cards I'm gonna cut let me finish. Because there's a third one. There's only one more ace in the deck. So you know that this is the most difficult one of all. It's going to be the most difficult but I'll give the cards a card because I do believe the last ace is right about there. So that's an example of sleight of hands. There's no other races in the deck. That's an example of sleight of hand it looked like I was shuffling the cards. It looked like I was cutting the cards but in reality, I was doing something behind the scenes. Another way to look at it is live special effects. Right? I'm doing special effects for you right in person. So in a movie, you see them they they intrigue you. They're amazing. We saw Harrison Ford drive a truck and it blew up right. Yeah. But what's really happening is some movie magic to make it look that way because Harrison Ford really didn't get into a truck and drive it into a gas tank and have it explode. But it certainly looks that way. So that's a decent analogy for it looks like I shuffled the deck. It looks like I gave the car to cut and it looks like I found most Four aces do you have
Nick VinZant 10:01
to have for those kinds of card tricks or sleight of hand tricks? Right? Is there something that you need a physical characteristic? Right? Like, I've got to be able to move my hands fast? Yeah. Yeah,
Jason Ladanye 10:11
yeah, it's called independence and fingers. And a piano player, same thing. Anybody can play the piano, you just have to sit down and are willing to put in the time to learning finger exercises, scales, stay with it, the patients that continue to work at it, but unless you don't practice, it's going to take a long, much longer time to learn how to do that stuff. But any student that sits down and practice it's like learning another language. We all have that ability, you just have to sit down and do it.
Nick VinZant 10:38
I know, this is a big, broad, general question. But in that sense, like, Are most of the tricks that are being done? Are they super complicated? Or are they really just like,
Jason Ladanye 10:47
it's a mix, and I'll prove it at the end of our interview? I'll show you something very cool. And yeah, it will fool you. I'm sure. Well, will you be oh my god, that's amazing. And then I'll show you what happened. And you're gonna go, that's it. So you can but it's, they're not all that way. They're not all created equal. Just because a song is very good. Doesn't mean that it's complicated. You can have very good songs that are still simple to play.
Nick VinZant 11:10
Now is that is the job entail? A lot of traveling a lot of like, what kind of what is what is it like on a not a day to day, but like on a on a basis as a job? Sure. So
Jason Ladanye 11:21
any good business plan means multiple sources of income. So I keep my social media accounts cooking card magic by Jason is the handle for any of them. YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok are my three big ones. So you have to make content to keep those things alive. And that gets you more work because people see that stuff. And in the videos, I'm saying you can hire me live. So that's a huge advertisement, these videos get millions, there's one of mine that has 36 million views or something that is an advertisement. So hire me for your event that goes up to 36 million bucks that cost me what? Zero, it's a free platform. So that's a constant source of advertising your event. I also have two books out I have DVDs, I have downloads, I have all sorts of content for specifically for magicians, so you can teacher of mine told me years ago, if you can make learn how to make money when you sleeping, you'll be fine. So he's covered that for me there. So I can not do anything for a month and I still have income waiting for me. But the fun ones, for me, I don't care about getting up in the morning and making videos here, too. That's not the living I want. I want to go out and perform for real people. So that's, that's where I focus my energy. And what will happen is a client will reach out to me and say, Hey, we're doing XYZ event in in the Bahamas was the last fun one that I did on some cruise, you can come down and do Can you will fly down can you do an hour's worth of material for our guests. For that to my manager, my manager handles all the bookings, all the flights and all that. And next thing you know, I'm flying out of the country to do an event. And then that you just repeat that process. And that old school method I told you about at the beginning of word of mouth is still best still works today. That's not like it doesn't work anymore. So those people know people that have parties, and then you get another gig out of that. So my busiest season is October through like January or so that's where most companies are having parties and things like that. So I will just be constantly flying around and doing events. During those are all private events. During the summer months, I like to do public shows. We get a venue, we go to a theater and we say, um, Jason, well, Danny, here's my social media. Let's do a show. Look at this following. I'm gonna pitch my show at your venue. Let's get him here. And we do that. And last year we did la in Chicago, we sold out shows for two months or less, but four months, three and a half months. Bout two months in Chicago about two months in LA. And we sold out 80 tickets tonight. Two shows a week it was fantastic.
Nick VinZant 14:02
For people who kind of tried to make it and don't in the industry, where do they usually get bogged down.
Jason Ladanye 14:08
They are just not doing that they are I don't want to say copying. But they're not being authentic. They're just doing what other people do. And you need to find your own thing, your own personality and just do that. So if I just had a social media account of me just cutting to four aces every day in different ways to hip hop, Lo Fi Hip Hop track, who cares? You need to get out there and show people who you are. And my whole thing is look at me. I'm the best are pretty bold statement, right? But then I then I put content out there that proves it. Me. Like I'm gonna say I'm good because I know I'm good and it triggers people and they love it. But if I were just to do that stupid thing I did with you where I cut to the ACES by shuffling the deck. Okay, yeah. So you got to wrap it up in a You know, in a good way, you got to find a way to, to deliver that in a way that people like. And that's where people go wrong in this business copycat material and not moving the bar forward. I'm doing things that no one's ever done in in card magic.
Nick VinZant 15:15
Just just kind of from my perspective, right? If you were to say when you look at either yourself or another person that's kind of on your level, in terms of original stuff that you're doing, how much of how much like, what percentage of your show is that
Jason Ladanye 15:30
I have this, the name of my second book is called game changer for a reason. Because card magic has not moved in hunt in like 100 years. It's just people doing the same stuff. And magicians as a whole 90% 95% of magicians just keep doing the same thing. It's just this this was invented 100 years ago, and I'm gonna do it now. And the opening line is, this is the oldest trick and magic oh my god, leave it alone. Leave it alone move. Let's let's change it up. So I came into this industry and said, What's the new spin? You can? What is the new way to do this? And I've proved it in two books that are both there. Actually, the first book is going to be in its third printing soon, believe it or not, the second book is going to be in a second printing already. So that's why it's called Game Changer. This has been done a million years. But now let's up it and do it this way. And so when I do a show, 90 95% of it is is my is my ideas.
Nick VinZant 16:34
What Why is cards so why are cards in the most prevalent? Are they just the easiest to genuinely do sleight of hand? It's not
Jason Ladanye 16:41
enough for me. I'm a card guy. So for me, it's all I do in magic. There's lots of fields, there's lots of fields. But there's an accessibility to cards. I can go to CVS and buy this deck. But I can't go to CVS and buy a box that cuts a woman in half, you know, and so, so get the card magic. And anyone with $4 has access to becoming a card magician on the internet. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 17:06
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?
Jason Ladanye 17:09
Wait, are we allowed to swear? You can swear? Yeah, I
Nick VinZant 17:12
just it's
Jason Ladanye 17:13
the first question is why is this guy such a dick? Because I just my character, I play a character. I'm an actor, you know. So people think that I'm really this fool of myself. And it's just like saying, going finding Daniel Craig in a Whole Foods dance in Kingston. He lives in like an hour from here, magic going into a whole foods in Kingston and running into Daniel Craig and saying, you know, you killed that person in that movie. And you are a terrible person, because he had a fan. You know, like, he's an actor, like, let it go. So when I'm up there saying, in case you ever wondering, you know, like, what's the point of me trying to be so humble when I'm so good at everything. That's a humorous line that I say that? Yeah, right. But people, some people think that I'm a person that just says I am the best in the world, and everyone else is trash. And that's all they see in my content, every single video. So there'll be some people that don't understand that and write in like, you can't say that you're the best in the world. You're not allowed to do that. And it's like they're policing the internet. So that's why I was curious to see what kind of questions that you may have.
Nick VinZant 18:23
One of them may have been around that like God, good. I love it. Alright, you did you try out different personas first, though, before you kind of went through?
Jason Ladanye 18:31
Yeah, if you look at my material, from 10 years ago, very dry, I'm still doing strong card magic, the magic was most prevalent like that, that's my main focus. But the scripting around it was a little bit weaker, it was not weaker. It's just not as comp not as boasting my own ego and things like that a little bit, but not as much. And then once I realized the audience's really enjoyed that, I started to crank that up a little bit and have more fun. So in other words, the real me started to kind of come out where I just kind of say what I want. And I also my mentor, Darwin Ortiz, when you're learning it's okay to walk through the footsteps of your mentor. So I was doing things similar to him. But I grew out of his. So that's normal. If you're going to learn how to play piano, your piano teacher gives you Beethoven, you're not copying Beethoven to beat the next Beethoven, you're just playing a simple song that is already written for you. So I would do Darwin's material, Darwin scripts and act similar to him. But I grew out of that within a couple of years because I wanted to be me. I could see why
Nick VinZant 19:37
that that persona would work right though, because people would either accept it like yeah, that's the best man or it would piss him off. And either
Jason Ladanye 19:44
way is good. Yeah, online people get pissed off and have the right to do that at my shows. People love it. They're paying to come see me so that there's no at a live show. I never have anyone that's like, you know, do it with the cards face up or but you can't do this or, you know, it's like you're watching it live. If so you know it's real. And people just accept when I say, I'm the best in the world name any cards, you want to cut it out of the deck instantly and someone from the crowd says the Queen of Hearts and I cut it out instantly. What are you going to what are you gonna say? Well, you're right, I just proved what you wanted me to do. So you can sit down now, or someone in the middle of a trick will say, Let me shuffle. Now that's not an a heckler. That's someone asking a question. So I say, Sure. And they shuffle and then I do the trick anyway. What are you gonna say? So that's that Pete, the audience loves that. And it all boils down to this, I know, I'm good. I'm allowed to say that. And audiences love that when I do that stuff, and then prove it. They just they just love that. Here's a guy that's devoted his life to it. He's good. And no one's gonna get in his way. And there's something about that, that people really enjoy. What
Nick VinZant 20:54
do you think it is about magic that people really dislike have that visceral reaction?
Jason Ladanye 21:00
Well, because there's subtext there. The subtext is I know something that you don't. And there's this, this word wonderment. How did you do that? How is that even possible? So if I put a card in your hand facedown, and then you name any card? And I say, look at it, and it is that card, there's this mystery, this one like, that's not possible, you're breaking the everyday rules, and that are no other art form has that we can look at a painting and say, Wow, that's amazing. We can go listen to an amazing band. That's amazing. But it doesn't have the same feeling of wonderment when you when you're just completely lost. And how is that possible? That's a unique experience that magic offers.
Nick VinZant 21:40
What would you say? Like, is it more popular than it was?
Jason Ladanye 21:44
Every 10 years we do a valley in a peak, it goes away. No one cares about it. And then David Copperfield brought it back. And then it disappeared. Just went away. Nobody cared anymore. And then David Blaine brought it back. Remember the ABC specials? Yeah, yeah. And then it disappeared again. And then America's Got Talent. People started magician started winning, and they want over and over and over again. So it's just back. It's just, it's just like anything else? Remember the big poker boom in 2008? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was on. We were watching ESPN six, our shows of poker, you know, had this big boat. Now. It's just dissolved with no one cares anymore. But it will it so those things just kind of come and go. Where would you say in
Nick VinZant 22:23
terms of the magic hierarchy, right. And I don't even know what that means. But where is kind of sleight of hand card magic? You know, like I think of, is it below cutting people in half in the box above.
Jason Ladanye 22:36
These are just different genres did very different genres. You can say sports, whereas golf, whereas football, you know, it's hard to it's apples and oranges. So in magic, there's stage illusion. Right? That's the David Copperfield. That's the Siegfried and Roy that's making lines appear unlimited halfway. I don't do any of that stuff. That's not my thing at all. There is parlor magic, where you're standing on stage. And there's 100 people and you prefer 50 people or whatever. And you perform things with silks and doves and birdcage. That's not my thing, either. And then with their there's close up magic, and that means that you're sitting right there, like my perfect shows 20 people, you know, we're all just I have a table and there's 20 people sitting around me. And that's close up magic. And you can still do coins and cups and balls and things. But then a subset of that is card magic close up card magic. So that's exclusively just cards. So there's all these different genres of magic, and I just happen to be one of those. And it's difficult to rate, which ones on top, because they're all They're all different. You know what I mean?
Nick VinZant 23:42
Yeah, that makes sense. It's not kind of the situation of like, hey, I want to be the richest musician or the richest magician in the world. And your mentor would say, Jason, well, you got to do this.
Jason Ladanye 23:53
Yeah. What's funny is other magicians will preach. This is why I ended up doing what I'm doing. Other magicians will preach it. You can't make it as a card magician. In order to make money. You need to do all sorts of variety of things. I heard that one for decades, decades. But magicians love to put other magicians down, it's very big, any niche will have that. So I felt it was very rewarding to to shut them up and do what I do. In just cards and having a following this big, hitting 1 million followers doing just card tricks. I mean, that's unheard of. So but if you're good, you're good.
Nick VinZant 24:31
How many decks of cards do you have?
Jason Ladanye 24:33
I have about 12,000 decks that behind these only about 320-500-3000 decks. There is a particular brand of cards that is casino quality. They're perfectly made. They're the same ones that you would find in a casino. So there's no the quality control is great. There's no bad edges or miss cut cards and cards that don't lie. The finish isn't messed up and on and there's One particular maker of those cards, and they were made once and never to be made again. And I went and bought them all up, because I want to make sure that I continue to use that brand. And I'm comfortable with bicycle rider backs, they're, they're these, they're just really well made. And then some other companies are just poorly, they're just, they don't have the same quality control, which means you can get a defective deck or things like that. So that's why I honed in on one brand and just bought them all up.
Nick VinZant 25:31
Well, but will you run into situations where like, oh, man, if it's an old deck, or if it's not a well made deck, can it throw
Jason Ladanye 25:38
because I practice with those as well. So on that shelf is a variety of everything you're talking about? Behind me. The very top is like collected decks under that is semi used new but kind of used underneath that is moderately, like pretty worn in and then underneath that is completely destroyed decks of cards. And I practice with all of those so that I'm never in a situation where somebody hands me an old deck and I say, Oh, I can't perform it, then I've got experience practicing with older decks.
Nick VinZant 26:06
But if you only did one type of deck, like I only work with brand new if somebody gave you an old one would that could that throw a magician? Oh, no,
Jason Ladanye 26:13
no, well, most probably, but no, not because I just said I practice with all decks. I do my whole show with an old deck just to make sure that I can do it.
Nick VinZant 26:21
I'm assuming this has happened. So I'll ask this question in this way. But last time somebody figured it out.
Jason Ladanye 26:26
I can tell you it was June of 2009 was the last time somebody caught me red handed. I was performing for two women at an event. And I turned to this woman and I did something amazing. I made a card appear in your hands, you know. And I turned to this woman and started to do the second half of the trick. And in the middle of that this woman over here said something I won't repeat. Because I don't I just won't repeat it. It's not that it can be bleeped. She just said something sexual in nature. And it caught me off guard because she went over over the line quite a bit and I just turned back to her in disbelief. I said what? And the woman on my left reached up and said, What is this?
So palling is a thing you want guards. Palming is a magic secret, you see can secretly hide cards in your hand. And if you think about the design, I'm supposed to talk to this woman. And if I'm, if I'm turned this way, nobody can see the thing. There's nobody behind me is my body's nobody can see this card. But because I turned back to address, oh, I just want to get that out. Uh, yeah, no hesitation, she reached in and said, What is this? And it was great. It's I mean, I mean, what am I going to do get mad? You know, we all laughed, and it's hilarious. So that was the last time that I got really busted. Hard, like there's I have. But moving forward, people can say things. I think you did it this way. But that doesn't mean they're right. That's just a myth. That's just in their mind. So I don't have to worry about shutting people down. Like when I put a deck back into order people's always switch decks. Well, they can think that, but the rest of the audience is smart enough to know that those cards never went out of you. So it's it. It's very difficult for the audience to say, I figured that out. Because it's just a it's a theory in their minds. That's all. Yeah, if you don't acknowledge it, right, it's kind of the other thing, too, is it's reliably This is my favorite part reliably. When someone says that in the audience, the person sitting next to them or around them will always remind them of a condition that I had had done. They'll say, Oh, well, you had those cards in order, you set those cards up. And the husband says that and the wife says, But Bill, you shuffled them before you started. And then Bill got the job, whatever. He did my shelf. Yeah, like so. I when I told you about what the avenues I'm putting things in place that will ultimately prove this is impossible. That's my job. That's what I do. So when you try to reconstruct it, I've already taken care of all of that. And that's why you won't be able to figure it out.
Nick VinZant 29:21
Last time somebody thought you were really doing magic, like supernatural powers
Jason Ladanye 29:26
match. There's been a few depending on how much alcohol they've had in them. I've had a few people that just are saucer ride after the trick and put the cards down and say I'm not I don't want to watch whatever the hell you don't understand and they walk away that to me that is just great.
Nick VinZant 29:41
Man never had somebody like the devil get the devil.
Jason Ladanye 29:45
Oh my god, I have a YouTube com one of my favorite YouTube comments. Yeah, clearly you've sold your soul to be able to do the things you've done and I have pity on you and I will pray for you and all this and it's in the comments like this long. So I need they're going to pray at their church for me and all that because obviously Have I've, I've done in some sort of dark deal with the devil and because no one should be able to possess these kinds of skills. I mean, or it could be practice.
Nick VinZant 30:10
What's your personal favorite trick?
Jason Ladanye 30:13
That changes? It's kind of like, what's your favorite song? Or what's your favorite movie impossible to to answer that, because there's so many I probably know two 300 tricks total. It's about the tricks that get the best reactions. That's how I judge my tricks. I may love it for a particular reason, because it has a move in it or because it has concept or because it has rewarding sleight of hand to be able to pull something off in front of a person and get away with it feels like a heist, like you robbed the bank, you got away with it, it's very rewarding feeling. However, how I grade tricks is the reactions when people just flip out. And when I perform, I'm constantly bringing in new material and getting rid of old material or bringing back old material, like things I used to do 10 years ago, bringing them back, because I like those reactions. So I have plenty of performances on YouTube, that my Magic Castle set is on YouTube, you can watch a full uncut, it's all one take a full set 20 minutes where you're gonna watch me do tricks there. And the very last one in that Magic Castle set. So if you search YouTube search for Danny, Magic Castle, you'll find it and that last trick is just so much fun to do when it gets great reactions.
Nick VinZant 31:23
And love Danny is La DANYE. For anybody who's just listening to the audio version of it. Um, what's the easiest trick to do? What's the hardest trick?
Jason Ladanye 31:36
So the easiest trick I'll show you at the end when we get into the demo, so I'll show you something very easy. That's effective. And then, like I said, if you want to know the hardest, that YouTube clip at the magic castle at the last 10 minutes, they're easily the most difficult trick that I've got to do.
Nick VinZant 31:51
How much will you generally have to practice a trick? Like how many hours would you say that you put into it? It's
Jason Ladanye 31:57
terrifying. But there are tricks that I have practiced for literally three, four years before actually doing them in front of people that I can't mess up, my character doesn't allow for me to make mistakes, which means that it has to be it has to be perfect before it comes out in front of people. So I typically practice to for six hours a day, sometimes more. I take some days off from time to time, but it's a full time job, I sit there and go over old tricks moves. I constantly putting things online content, which means that I have to practice for that stuff as well. And then also I can watch my own content and see what do I need to improve like I could have done that better or things like that. So I'm always fine tuning that stuff. So that's for the last 35 years, it's been four to six hours a day.
Nick VinZant 32:51
Last question before we kind of get into some demonstrations. If some what would advice would you give to the next you
Jason Ladanye 33:00
mean miss things that I've kind of didn't get right, that kind of thing.
Nick VinZant 33:03
Things are like advice to somebody who wants to kind of get into the business like it, men
Jason Ladanye 33:08
rezones the don't, you don't have to share your ideas with everybody, I have a very tight circle of people that I share those secrets with that learn that I saw all the things that I'm doing on tick tock that are full of people, there's five people that know how that stuff's done. And earlier back in even 2015 2017 and that neck of the woods, I was sharing some of that material with outside people, I do a magic convention or something and share some of those ideas. And those ideas just ended up on their YouTube channels or their social media accounts without credit, that kind of stuff. So you don't have to this is a classic thing. If I invent the new car that runs on water, I don't have to go out and tell everybody and then pitch 10 years later that now everyone's driving a car that runs on water. You know, it's it's not. I think it's my ego, almost the gut that made that that made that happen. So that's what I would say once you start creating your own content, your own concepts, your own things, just keep to yourself.
Nick VinZant 34:14
But can you figure out any other magician's tricks? Like can you look at it and be like, Oh, that's how they're doing
Jason Ladanye 34:18
most of the time? Yeah, I can. There's only a handful of people that could fool me and their names are Mike Vincent, Tony coverall, Andrew Lyndhurst, Jack Carpenter, Darwin Ortiz. Those guys will cost constantly forming and I love it. That's my inner circle. Those are the guys that I share all my ideas with.
Nick VinZant 34:37
Is there somebody that you would say that that magicians is a hole right? You know, the Lebron Michael Jordan conversation they would say that's the best.
Jason Ladanye 34:45
Well, me obviously
Nick VinZant 34:49
was besides yourself, somebody that people would look at and be like, you know, there are there are
Jason Ladanye 34:53
a few names in our industry Mario Lopez and Danny D or D Ortiz. Fantastic. Fantastic. elastic performers that are constantly racking everybody's brains. And me included. Sometimes I see things that those guys do. And I'm just like, I don't know how what he's doing.