Choose Your Own Tricks, And Take Advice With A Grain Of Salt.

-busking theory.

If I'm on an impossible pitch, I mean a spot on the sidewalk that no performer can gather a crowd on (no matter what they do). As a last ditch effort I will pull out my secret weapon and always get a crowd.

Every time, without fail, no waiting.

If I had to name the one magic routine that has made me the most money by far, made a name for me as a skilled professional, won me competitions single handily against better performers than me, and gotten me a crowd no matter what, it would be the very same routine that every performer or layman has told me to never do.

They have told me if I do this trick, I will not get a crowd, and people will avoid me like the plague.

They have told me it is the one and only trick in magic that nobody wants to see or be around.

They have told me that it is settled science, everyone hates it.

Intuitively, I myself have tried to pull it out of my show even to this day, because I see the negative reactions of the mere mention of it.

Yet this trick has gotten me my largest viewership online than any other routine I do.

It has paid my rent and bought me groceries for years.

It is also the most requested trick I do.

People who know it, always ask to see it.

So what is this thing that society supposedly hates so much, but will trip over itself to get to the front of the line to watch?

Brace yourself, because this will seem impossible.

It's a cigarette routine.

Here's the rub.

A cigarette routine in a show nowadays, is not like in yesteryear.

It is not a casual yet sophisticated habit that turns into a display of magic.

Today it plays as a danger stunt and act of defiance against law, safety, and common sense.

No other magic trick nowadays can do that, without actually getting the performer into real trouble, except maybe the hand in the steel trap trick.

The beauty is that after it has won over the crowd, it returns to what it was in yesteryear, just something cool again.

Magicians throughout the ages have had to spend time and money to sensationalize their effects, with outrageous hyperbole.

But the Cigarette has single handily done this all on its own.

The cigarette has had billions of dollars and endless negative media coverage given to it that no Magician in the world could even afford.

Rated "G" movies are even rated up to "PG" or even "R" with just the addition of an old guy smoking a tobacco pipe.

The truth is as much as society screams its condemnation, it knows deep down it's really not that big a deal.

So why all the screaming?

It's just the way democracy works. People will blow things out of proportion to get votes and laws passed, but when it comes right down to it, only weak minded people actually believe political diatribes word for word.

In the real world outside of politics, people like to be, just people, not hysterical fanatics.

Now of course I am not encouraging anyone to do smoking tricks, but I am encouraging the reader to make their own way, choose their own tricks, and take advice with a grain of salt.

Surely most of my readers here are going to take my advice with a grain of salt after this article, ha.

Just the same, I have told you the strange truth about cigarette magic in my life.

Here are some more reasons I have been trying to take it out of my act.

There are simply fewer and fewer venues that will allow smoking in the first place.

It may discourage potential clients to hire me for private shows.

Bums will interrupt my show in the middle of the routine, to bum a cigarette off of me.

Also, my act is really more of a kid show, or family show, so it doesn't really fit the bill anyway.

But if you are looking for the most "Street" of street tricks, it seems to me, smoking is definitely something that would be seen on the street.

And a big plus for street magicians, is it keeps the golden rule, it packs small and plays big.

One last important bit.

If you are going to do Cigarette Magic, then do Cigarette Magic, don't try and do it half way.

Be bold, and go all in.

Don't look awkward and apologetic, it will only invite negativity and you will lose rapport.

If a routine was designed to be done with a lit cigarette, do it lit, because if you don't, it will only take away from the effect, and worse yet, it will lose its danger quality.

Also don't use fake tobacco, because the effect will be lost to the spectators, they will be more interested in the unfamiliar smell then what you are actually doing.

Over the years, I have seen performers who don't smoke try these last three methods, because they know the power of the cigarette tricks, but they themselves hate smoking.

They want all the advantages of Cigarette Magic, but without the smoking, so they compromise, and I watch them crash and burn In front of audiences over and over again trying these compromises.

Which brings me back to what I and many other life long professionals have said over and over again:

A performer should strive to be authentic, and to stick to the tricks that come the most naturally to them.

P.S. if you think I have been advocating, glamorizing, or encouraging smoking, you have simply failed to understand anything I was trying to say in this article and you should go back and read slowly and carefully and try and understand what else I could have possibly meant, because it’s probably that.

Your Pal Jimmy.

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