Predict Tomorrow's National League Wild Card Game

Tomorrow night, the Chicago Cubs will play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card game to see who gets to continue on in the MLB playoffs. The game starts at 8pm Eastern Time and you are going to predict the result.

So meet up with some friends to watch the game, or if you don't have friends, which is likely the case, go to a sports bar and sit yourself on a barstool. Start talking to whomever is around you and say, "If I could give you the results of this game before it started, would you give me $20,000?" If they say yes, try and get 20 grand out of them. If they say no, then just be like, "That's what I figured."

Now give that person a sealed envelope that looks like this and tell them it's your National League Wild Card prediction. "You're going to hold onto the prediction for the entire game," you say.

Ask them to hold onto it throughout the game. 

You have two ways to play this. You can play it like a demonstration of magic/precognition. Or during the course of the game you can mention your "prediction" a number of times, but each time say it with a wink. In this case you're going to play it off like you've fixed the National League Wild Card game. If you decide to go this route, then at one point during the game you should make a phone call and let people overhear you. Say something like, "Everyone is on board, right? They got their money? I just want to be sure. There are going to be some very unhappy people if the... prediction doesn't come true."

When the game ends, let out a long sigh of relief and tell your friend to open the prediction. He opens it and pulls out a slip of paper that says, "A fun time will be had by all," or something equally meaningless. Or the envelope can be empty. 

Take the envelope back from the person and say, "Sorry, I didn't trust you, I thought you might open it before the game ended. And I figured you wouldn't trust me either and you'd think I would switch the prediction without you seeing somehow. So I made the prediction online Monday morning. But I wasn't lying when I said you'd hold onto the prediction for the whole game."

Take out a marker and modify the envelope, adding a URL and an underscore, so it now looks like this.

Tell your friend to go online and go to that account and they'll see you accurately predicted not only the outcome of the game, but the final score as well. 

[UPDATE - So this game is now in the past, and I have deleted the method to how exactly we did this. I deleted it because someone informed it was essentially the same as Tube 2.0 by Jason Messina. So, if you're interested in seeing how we predicted the outcome of the game a couple days before it occurred, check out that product.]

When it's done, offer to tell them the winner of the upcoming divisional series for $25,000. Just tell them whoever you want. You'll be right half the time (the other half of the time you'll have to leave town for good). Send me 20% of whatever you can take people for. 

Credits

You'll notice in the navigation bar above, a new page called Credits. I wanted to take this opportunity to recognize some of the people who have helped in some way with the creation or functioning of this site over the past 6 months. This post is an extended version of what's on that page, but that page is what will get updated in the future if need be.

Andrew Steele, AC Costello, Pat Hughes, Michael Sullivan - (The first two guys also go by Andy, but it gets confusing, so we use Andrew and AC.) These are four friends and amateur magicians who have helped me with the site since it was MCJ. They help with communication, technical support, inspiration, video shooting and editing, financial matters, trick testing, site maintenance, as well as identifying and working with some of the people below. Pretty much anything that is not the strict writing of the site, they help out with or take care of.

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Alex Printz is the artist behind the spot-on faux Penguin Live caricatures. He's great and I'm sure he'd be happy to do one of you in that style. If you paid him, I mean. He'd be sad to do it if you didn't pay him.

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Matt Dow created the The Love Theme From The Jerx which is used in a number of the videos on this site. 

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Colby Terry designed the mysextutor.com site from the post that started The Jerx. Check out his site to see what he can do when he's not mimicking intentionally bad porn web design.

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And, finally, I want to shine as bright of a spotlight as I can on my friend, Stasia Burrington.

Stasia created the banner you see at the top of this site based on the famous Jinx artwork.

I met Stasia through one of the Andys mentioned above who she had worked with on a number of personal and professional projects. Since then, I too have worked with her on a number of projects and she has never failed to exceed the expectations I've had. She has a very strong personal style that is cute/sexy but she is able to work in numerous other styles as well. I can't recommend her highly enough if there is a commercial or personal project for which you need an artist. Let her know what you're looking for, give her some examples of the style you want, or let her take the reigns completely. She's an amazing collaborator and completely willing to take direction, even though her instincts are probably better than yours.

[But please, and this goes for any of the people listed in this post, if you're going to reach out to them and say you saw their work on The Jerx, for christ's sake, please don't embarrass me by being like, "Will you do my wedding invitations for $40?" If you don't know what a reasonable price is to offer for a project, then just ask for a quote. I work with freelance artists/musicians/actors etc., all the time and 95% of them will give you a very reasonable rate. And the people listed on this page are definitely in that 95%.]

She also created the banner for mysextutor.com. 

Perhaps more interesting to those of you who don't have a need for a mid-2000s stye banner for a fake porn site, she has also created a hand-painted tarot deck for my friend Andy, and a hand illustrated deck of playing cards for me.

First here are some shots from her blog of the tarot deck.

I love The Magician. We may have to work on a Jerx limited edition print with her in the future.

And finally, here are some of the cards from the deck of cards she made for me. I sent her a blank deck of cards and a bunch of colored Sharpies. Yes... she did this with colored Sharpies. We are probably the only group of people on the planet who have an innate understanding of the nature of writing on playing cards with Sharpies and how unforgiving that medium can be. If I have to duplicate my own signature on two different cards I'm like, "Fuck that noise. That's impossible." But she was able to create a beautiful deck, some of which you can see below...

You can contact Stasia via her website. She also has a regularly updated etsy store.

Sundry Drive No. 14

I'm not even sure if I should tell you what happens in the video below. Actually, I think I have to, because if I don't mention it, you probably won't even notice it (I didn't notice it until the fourth time I watched it). It's the Masked Magician performing a card trick on some morning show somewhere. The card trick goes slightly wrong, but you would never know that because he covers it perfectly. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up performing it this way going forward because it's so much stronger. A real lesson in presentation from someone often derided in the magic community.

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There's a documentary called "Women in Boxes" that came out a few years ago. It's all about magician's assistants. I think it was pretty good, but I don't really remember. I know it was definitely a little too long. 

If you're looking for a shorter exploration of what it's like to be a magician's assistant, this video really will tell you all you need to know. You should probably not watch it if you're at work, but hey, who am I to tell you how to run your life. This one concentrates much less on women in boxes, and more so the box in the woman.

Reader, Joe Mckay, was adamant that I point out that he brought this video to my attention. He clearly wants you all to know his sick, twisted porn habits for some reason, and wants his name associated with this video any time someone searches it on google. Okay, Joe, as you wish.

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Here's friend of the site... well, actually, friend of a friend of the site, Jon Jacques, performing magic as part of a new series on Ellen Degeneres' video site.

I like how he asks, "Would you cash in your life's savings to open an animal shelter?" No. No I would not.

He also says he quit his full-time job in order to be a Periscope magician. I'm sure his parents were delighted.

There is no more 2015 thing to say than, "I'm going to do magic on Periscope for Ellentube." That would be the equivalent of saying, 30 years ago, "I'm going to get a new disease called AIDS and play Simon professionally." (I mean, like equivalent in it being tied to a particular moment in time. Not in what the future portends for both of those people.)

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Before I write up an idea I try and google the components to see if it's been published before. With the origami-crane necklace routine I wrote up earlier this week, I wanted to double-check to make sure I hadn't been inspired by something that I had read about 10 years ago or something. So I googled "origami crane" + "magic cafe" + necklace. This produced a strange result.

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Fixing the Magician in Trouble

Today I have a small tip on how to improve your performance of any effect with a "Magician in Trouble" premise. This type of presentation gets a lot of heat from other magicians because it's used all the time and it's rarely very convincing.

I have a theory as to why. I think a lot of magicians have such low self-esteem that they don't want people to think they messed up even for 15 seconds. So they say, "It's your card, the five of clubs." And when the spectator says that's not their card the magician's voice goes up a couple of octaves and he's like, "Whaaaaaa??!!!! That's not it? Damn it! Well maybe this is it. The jack of diamonds? Thank you." The question is why are you bothering going through the machinations of the Magician in Trouble ploy if you're not giving it any chance to register as a real thing? What do you think you're gaining over just revealing the correct card in the first place? Just knock it off. Be the magician who gets things right if you're too uncomfortable being the one who gets things wrong.

For the others of you who really want to sell this premise, here is my tip.

Let's say a Magician in Trouble effect has four parts:

1. The body of the trick
2. The fake climax of the trick
3. The aftermath of your mess-up
4. The real climax of the trick.

So often we think about how we should act after we've messed up -- part three. The standard advice is to have a mental script that you're going through. Not one that you're saying out loud, but one that you're thinking. In other words, the usual advice looks at Magician in Trouble as an acting problem as in "How do I act like I messed up?"

What I've found works best for me is, instead of focusing my energy on how I act after I mess up, I instead focus my energy on part two, the fake climax. Magicians will often not give this much thought because why would they? It's something that's meant to go wrong. But if you really want your audience to buy into the notion of you messing up, then put your heart and soul into the fake climax. 

If you just say, "It's your card. The jack of hearts.... oh, it's not?" People may or may not believe you screwed up.

But if you take your spectator's hand in your right hand, then wave your left hand slowly over the deck. And if, while you're doing this, you talk about the "magic" of human connection and your ability to locate her card via the bond that we all share as people. And if you pick up one card, then discard it and have your attention drawn to another and pick that one up instead and let a big smile come over your face and then say something like:

"When you tell your friends what happened here tonight, they might not believe you. These days, perhaps, we're all too old and savvy to believe in real magic. But you will know that it really did happen. And it wasn't some ethereal notion of 'magic' that made this possible.

It was our bond... [pause]

and the power... [pause]

of human connection!" You punctuate this last statement by turning the card over in a dramatic gesture and slapping it on the table.

It's the wrong one.

Yes, you will look like a huge fucking turd for a few moments. But if you really want to toy with your audiences emotions, expectations and experiences throughout the trick, then that's a good thing. 

What you do after that is less important. You don't have to "act." Just look through the cards or something. If you put enough passion into the build up, you will be embarrassed for yourself. Good. That's what you're supposed to be feeling in this moment anyway. 

Now when you bring the trick to a successful conclusion -- when you toss the cards in the air in frustration and their card gets impaled on a ceiling fan blade* and you say, "Oh right, that's where I screwed up. It's not the power of human connection. It's the power of ceiling fans." -- there is a genuine release of tension for both you and the audience. 

To put it succinctly, put your effort into building up the triumphant execution of the trick during the first fake climax rather then worrying about how you should act after you "mess up." People will be less likely to think you'd put all that effort into something you knew would go wrong and they will believe you regardless of your acting ability.

* Take a duplicate card and rip a slit through the middle of it. Then put that on the corner of one of your ceiling fan blades. Turn on the fan, if the card doesn't fall off, you're good. If it does, put some tape on the top of the fan blade to hold it in place. Invite someone over. They won't notice a card on a spinning ceiling fan blade. Force a duplicate on them. Do the Magician in Trouble gambit and let them think you fucked up. Spread through the cards as if you're wondering what went wrong. After a few beats say, "You know something? Fuck these gay-ass card tricks," and toss the deck in the air towards the fan in such a way that they scatter in the air. If people don't notice, bring their attention to the card on the fan blade. Sit back on the couch and lock your fingers behind your head and kick your feet up on the coffee table. "I was a Magician in Trouble. Now I'm a Magician at Ease. Thank you, The Jerx!" And give a big thumbs up to no one. 

Polarizing

Buy a Polaroid camera off of ebay for like $15.

Then search for "expired Polaroid film" and buy some of that. Once you have it in your possession, take it out of it's sealed wrapper and let it sit around for a few months in hot and humid environments.

Then put this film in your camera. The film will be usable, but the pictures will come out yellow and faded like they're decades old.

You can probably mimic this degradation process with new Polaroid film (which they still make) by actively fucking with the film. It's supposed to be kept sealed in a cool, dry place. So keep it unsealed in hot and wet places. Toss it in the oven for a few minutes on low heat, keep it in the bathroom when you're taking a shower. I've never really tried this, but it seems like it would work.

Why do this? There is great power in a printed prediction, there is also great power in a photo prediction. I think we all understand this. But I've found a Polaroid is an even stronger medium for exhibiting a prediction. Why? I'm guessing because we live in a time where things can be printed and photos can be modified with relative ease, but a Polaroid feels like something that can't be tampered with. If you're holding a seemingly old Polaroid picture you feel like it was a captured moment from many years ago. So if that moment ends up predicting something that happens in the present, there is a very strong and slightly spooky quality to it. Much more so than if you just showed them a prediction printed on paper, or a photo on your phone.

Above is one of the first pictures I ever took using aged film. When you hold it, it looks like it's 30 years old, but it came out of the camera looking like that. I use it as the finale of spectator cuts the aces routine, but simply substitute in these 4 cards for the aces. This is similar to the effect I wrote up during Presentation Week Part 4. 

There are a number of presentational possibilities as far as where you got this Polaroid and what it means to have access to such a thing, but for now I'll leave that to you to create.

One of my favorite uses of this is for the Osterlind/Thompson/Gardner effect where you predict the outcome of a tic-tac-toe game with your spectator. I saw Osterlind's version, Predict-Tac-Toe, on one of his DVDs where he used a picture as the reveal at the end. But to do it with a Polaroid of two little girls, in timeless dresses, playing tic-tac-toe in chalk on the street -- and to have this faded, old photograph, with one girl giving the camera an odd, intense stare, it just becomes a much stronger ending than a standard photograph.

I highly recommend considering this technique for use in any prediction type effects you do. The ideas you can have for this are really only limited by your imagination. So in your case you'll probably get half an idea.

Win A Girl's Heart With Magic

In this case I'm talking about an actual girl. Probably someone 6-12 year's old would be an ideal audience (although with some changes it could play well for someone of any age). Why would you want to win the heart of a 6-12 year old? Look, creep, what do you think I'm getting at? I'm saying this would be a great trick if you have a daughter, or a step-daughter, or a grand-daughter, or a niece, or a young family friend. Maybe you're dating someone who has a daughter from a previous relationship. Perform this for her kid and win both their hearts. If you, for a second, thought, "Hmmm, I hope this is a good trick to seduce a 6-12 year old girl." Please, go find a falling piano and stand under it.

It could also be performed for the birthday girl at a birthday party, or a kid at a particularly important table in a walk-around setting. I say "particularly important" because there is a bit of an investment each time you perform it ($5-$10) so it's not something you would do for every table with a young girl. I've only performed this once for the daughter of a friend of mine, but I will be doing it again the next time I see my niece.

I will kind of walk you through the effect, method and presentation all at once.

You tell the girl, "Hey, I bought you a necklace," and you bring out an empty chain.

Now, because most little girls are naturally sweet, she may be -- or at least act -- genuinely happy for this piece of nothing. However, if she's like, "This sucks, what a dumb gift," then I hope that's not your daughter or you're in for a life of misery. If it's the daughter of someone you're dating, then she learned that behavior somewhere, and it's probably from mommy. So your best bet is to say, "Deuces, bitch!" and run away and don't look back. 

Okay, so let's go back to the point that you pull out the chain. After a couple moments you should look at it and say something like, "Hmmm... this is kind of a boring necklace. I think you need something with a little more flare. I have an idea." You take the necklace back and at some point in the ensuing action (which can take anywhere from a minute or so to 10 to 15 minutes) you're going to switch it in your pocket for an identical chain with an origami crane pendant on it.

You pull that necklace so it hangs out of your pocket with the crane itself still in the pocket. In other words, you take the bare necklace chain back, put it in your pocket, and then pull out the chain for the necklace that has the pendant attached. You will probably want to have a wallet or something in that pocket to keep the two necklaces separate.

Now you have a few options. You need a small paper crane folded from flash paper. Here are the three options:

The Pragmatic Option
Just have one already pre-folded in your wallet and take it out. Let the girl examine it. 

The Magic Option
You're going to magically produce a folded crane. There are a bunch of different ways you could do this. The simplest is probably to have the crane "palmed" in your left hand, and a thumbtip on your right thumb. You bring out a piece of tissue paper in your right hand stroke it between your hands, dropping of the thumbtip into your left hand. Then poke the tissue paper into the thumbtip and steal it out of your left hand. When you open your left hand up, the paper has "magically" folded itself into a crane.

The Arts and Crafts Option
This would only work in a casual situation, but I think it's the best option. Instead of producing the crane in some way, sit with her and teach her to fold one. She folds one with a piece of origami paper, and you fold one with a piece of "tissue" paper (in actuality, it's flash paper).

Either way, when you're done you tell her about the symbolism of the paper crane which is a long life, happiness, and good luck.

You remove the chain with the crane pendant from your pocket, hiding the pendant in your left hand which is holding the chain from the top and allowing the rest to dangle freely (Dangle Freely is my porn name.). You take your flash paper crane and wind the tail around the chain (alternatively you can just crush the crane around the chain, or you could try and attach the back of the crane to the chain so it more resembles what it will look like after the transformation, if that matters to you). Light the paper and in the flash of fire, drop the pendant from your left hand, it will appear where the paper crane was moments before.

Give the necklace to the girl.

Two things:

You can find these necklaces cheap online for about 5 to 7 dollars each. Buy a few. Some people try and sell the same ones you can get for cheap for like $25 bucks. Avoid those people.

You can, of course, find nicer versions of these necklaces, and you could do this as part of a real gift for a woman of any age. I only recommend it for a young girl because 1) you can do it with a less expensive necklace and not feel cheap and 2) a young girl will be happy with pretty much any necklace -- 8 year olds don't have a well established sense of style. Just because you can give this gift as part of a trick, doesn't make it a good gift for just any woman. Does she like origami, birds, or Japanese culture? Okay, then it might make sense as a gift. Otherwise, get her something she'd actually like and quit shoving your magic where it doesn't belong.

Two Story Deck Tricks

Here are a couple updated ideas from my old Magic Circle Jerk blog for some fake story deck tricks. These will be good for anyone attending the Genii Convention this week.

Scam the Bellend

Go up to someone and tell them you're working on a new story deck trick that starts from a shuffled pack. This should intrigue them. Ask them to shuffle and hand you their deck of cards. This has to be done with a borrowed deck.

You tell them that you can create a story from any shuffled deck after running through it just twice. Spread through the deck and cull these three cards to the top:

The Jack of Spades or Jack of Hearts
Any 8, 9, or 10
Any Queen

Close the deck and act like you're thinking of stuff. Then spread through again and cull these three cards to the top:

Any Ace
Any Two
Any number card

So, from the top down you have: Any number card, any two, any ace, any queen, any 8-10, and the JH or JS. 

Now you tell your story:

Did I tell you about the time I went to that club on 5th street? [Name whatever number you happen to turn over as the street. Congratulations, your story deck routine is already as clever as every other one.]

While I was there I felt a rumbling in my stomach and knew I had to drop a deuce. [Turn over the two and drop it from a small height onto the table.]

Just when I finished wiping my A-hole, [The ace]

This pretty lady comes into my stall. [The queen]

But I quickly realized it was no lady, it was actually a drag queen [Drag the queen across the table]

And he only had one thing in mind. To take all 10 inches [Use whatever number 8-10 comes up here.]

Of his one-eyed trouser snake, and shove it down my throat. [Turn over the one-eyed jack and point to the one eye as you say this.]

Do you know what happened next? [Turn over the top few cards towards yourself as if you're trying to remember the order of what's to come. Wait for the person to say that they don't know what happens next.]

He shot his load all over my fucking face. [Spring the deck all over the person's face. Then walk away.]

A Card Mystery

This one is much easier to remember and perform. Again tell someone you have a story deck trick that uses a shuffled deck and ask to borrow theirs. Once you have it, cut or cull an Ace to the top.

"This is the story of an Ace detective [Turn over the ace] who was hired to solve the Mystery of the Bent Over Idiot. Do you know the secret to the Mystery of the Bent Over Idiot?"

Wait for them to say "no," then cut the deck into two parts and slowly spring the cards from each hand all over the floor while looking the person dead in the eye. 

"Mystery solved," you say, and walk away.

They might not get it at first, but as they pick their cards up off the floor they'll eventually realize that they are the Bent Over Idiot.

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Also, Genii Convetion-eers, remember to do this to indicate to others you're part of our secret club, and to find instant stooges without the need to actually speak to them beforehand.