Dispassion, Thieves and Bullying

Okay, guys. I’m done talking about the ethics of receipt-based magic effects.

I’m going to be honest with you… I don’t find this sort of content super exciting.

When I was writing the Magic Circle Jerk, I was working a desk job, so I spent a lot of time digging around on the Magic Cafe and giving my thoughts on things going on there. That’s because I had no choice but to be at a desk for 8 hours a day and talking shit about magic dullards and their petty issues was a fun way to pass the time when I was stuck at a desk.

These days I work for myself. I work on magic. I work in other creative industries. I’m never just sitting at a desk with nothing to do killing time, waiting for my day to be over.

In this post, I discuss how I use the Magic Cafe, which involves checking in there once or twice a week and looking at the threads for tricks I’m interested in. That’s the extent of my interaction with the Magic Cafe. I’m not active on Facebook. I don’t follow the drama or the controversies in the magic world unless someone brings them to my attention.

There is a chunk of my time that I can devote to magic-related things week to week and my favorite thing to do with that time is show people a trick, or test out an idea, or think up new concepts or premises. I also like writing this site, because the supporters of this site afford me the time to do more of those things in the previous sentence.

Now, while I enjoy hearing about magic controversies and gossip, I have no real passion for these issues. So writing posts about them takes three times longer than writing a post about something I’m really excited to talk about. It reminds me of when I would have to write a thank you letter for the new shirt my grandma got me for Christmas. I’d write a sentence, walk around my room, flop on my bed, pet my dog, go get a glass of orange juice. Try to think of another sentence. And so on. Four sentences later, 90 minutes will have passed.

That’s what writing these posts have been like. It’s hard to write fun, interesting posts, while also trying to stay balanced. It’s easy to write wildly biased posts, but that’s not really fair to do when you’re dealing with a nuanced issue.

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The type of emails I get when I’m talking about performance ideas and presentational concepts are so much more interesting to me than the ones I get when I’m writing about these magic arguments. These types of debates bring a weird element to my email box.

I got a bizarrely unhinged email this weekend from someone who was pretending to be a fan of the site who was now angry with me for not hopping on the Weber/Petty fiasco sooner. Why wasn’t I reporting on Weber’s sock-puppet account being outed?

He said, “As someone who seems to know every move made on the Magic Cafe, it sure seems weird that you didn't mention the massive controversy going on there with Weber and Trono.”

Now, of course, it would be hard for me to comment on these things given that I hadn’t written a post since this “massive controversy” went down. My last post of the week went up on Friday, but it was written Thursday night (the sections on Picture Consequences and ISO were written even further back). This dolt literally thought I write the posts in real time right before posting them. He thought I had written 1500 regularly scheduled posts over almost 8 years and that there wasn’t any sort of planning involved. That I would write for an afternoon deadline that afternoon. And beyond that, he thought that a controversy would come up Friday morning and I’d write about it immediately without reaching out to the people involved. No amount of rational thought could convince this dumbfuck that maybe he was misreading the situation.

BTW, if you want to pretend to be a fan of my site, don’t suggest it seems like I “know every move made on the Magic Cafe.” Before this week, 2 of the 1500 posts on this site were specifically about something happening at the Cafe. I’ve written as many posts on how not to shit your pants.

This dude who wrote in had all sorts of fascinating theories. He believed I was paid to write negative reviews. (People are paying for that?) I asked him to tell me anything I’ve ever said about a product that wasn’t factually true or a reasonable opinion. His answer was the moron’s go-to: ”Let’s agree to disagree.”

He suggested that making a judgment about a magic trick after watching the demo would be like making a judgment on a movie after watching the trailer. When I informed him that’s literally the only thing people do with movie trailers, he jumped to some other weird criticism or conspiracy theory.

You know how when you argue with a dumb person and they’re like, “You tracked mud all through the house!” And you’re like, “You’re the only one who has gone outside today.” And instead of apologizing they’re like, “Okay, well. I guess we’ll never know.” That’s what it was like going back and forth emailing with him.

He was by far the stupidest person who emailed about this subject, but he certainly wasn’t the only one. When this week’s posts went up, I had more emails from people asking why I didn’t get into more details about “Craig Petty’s lies.” Or more details about “Weber’s bullying.”

Because I’m not the fucking magic police. Okay?

You want me to go after Craig Petty, or Michael Weber, or Lloyd Barnes, or Rick Lax, or whoever you have an issue with…it’s probably not going to happen. Because I don’t really give a shit about these issues the way a lot of you do. You think I’m going to follow along with a thread on the Magic Cafe about a trick I have no interest in… on a FRIDAY?!?!?! What kind of life do you think I lead?

I get that people like it when I step into the fray. I know it brings more visitors to this site. But this site already has too many visitors. I’m not looking for more traffic. I want less.

This site was built around me writing about whatever I happened to be interested in writing about at the time and that’s how it’s going to continue. I like talking about the beautiful aspects of this art. And for me, those are the aspects that come from performing for real people and experimenting with new ideas. So if I don’t happen to write about whatever squabble you're concerned with, it’s not because I’m on someone’s side or in someone’s pocket. It’s just because these subjects are generally not interesting to me.

“So you don’t care about proper crediting?”

No, I care very much about that. But I’m not an expert on the history of magic and crediting. And I recognize that frequently these issues aren’t all black and white. So if I were to comment on all the issues that came up, it would be a lot of, “Well, I can see both sides.”

“So you don’t care about bullying and threats?”

Hey, listen to me. I’m going to empower you.

You’re an adult. No one can bully you unless you allow them to.

Do you know what I would do if Michael Weber “threatened” me and told me not to release something because it was too close to something that was released before? First, I’d do an honest assessment and ask myself if he was right. If so, I’d agree with him and not release it. But if he’s making an unreasonable “threat,” then I’d tell him to fuck off. I’d say, “Beat it, Lurch.”

If you’re in the right, and you’re a reasonable person, you will find it nearly impossible to be controlled, bullied, or threatened by someone else. Not your parents. Not your boss. Not your spouse. All you need is to have a “fuck off” chambered. Just don’t play their game.

In magic there are no gatekeepers anymore. I got censored on the Magic Cafe 20 years ago. I told them to fuck off and now I’m the most widely read writer in magic. I never thought of Steve Brooks as a bully. I just thought of him as a douchebag.

How is Michael Weber or anyone else going to bully or control you if you’re in the right? This isn’t 1992. You have the means to make your case so everyone can hear it. Do what Petty did and make it public. If you’re on the right side of things, people will back you.

Here’s What I WILL Always Publish On This Site

I’m more than happy to shine a light on clear-cut cases of stolen tricks or other intellectual property.

I’m also very willing to call out genuine bullies who are pushing around anyone who’s powerless to fight back.

If you’re being unreasonably censored on the Cafe or somewhere else, I’m always happy to amplify your message on this site.

And if there’s a disagreement that both sides are willing to have me mediate, I’d definitely be down to do that.

Beyond that, I’ll comment on the disputes for which I feel I have something to add. But don’t expect me to have an opinion on every dopey debate in the magic community. Someone told me in an email that I have a duty to comment on these things because of the “platform” I have. Yes, I have a platform. But I built that platform on my joy of performing and experimenting with magic. I’m not going to be a truffle pig seeking out controversy so I can feign outrage over stuff that otherwise would never cross my mind. If you need that nerd-shit, seek it elsewhere.