Aw, Screw It, Here's Another Hot Rod Idea
/An email I received earlier today…
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the famous Hot rod stick.
I really like your handling with the imaginary die and the hand move.
However I’m still thinking on the motivation of this trick, the hook ?
how would you justify bringing out the stick ? What would be the motivation or maybe you think motivation isn’t always needed ?—KQ
Yes, motivation is definitely lacking here. I think the force I described makes the trick stronger, but it’s still just a meaningless exercise. It’s a little visual treat for the eyes. And I’m fine with that for a 30-second trick. This is the sort of thing I know someone might have a good reaction to, but I don’t expect them to be thinking about it months from now.
Even if you contextualize the Hot Rod, I don’t think anyone really believes it. If you say, as I used to in high school, “I stole this from the guy who was selling class rings. It was meant to show the different color options,” that sort of gives some justification for why the stick exists, but does anyone buy it? And if they do, it’s still something foreign to them, even if you’ve given it a justification. So it’s not like they think, “Oh yes, the old class ring sample stone plastic rod… just like my sweet mamá used to have!”
In general, my belief is, if you have a weird object, don’t try to sell it as something normal to your audience. They’re unlikely to believe it. Instead, frame it as something special or unusual or strange.
The Birth Date Gemstone Hexad Detector
[Speaking to someone I just met]
“Oh, actually, it’s perfect that I met you. I wanted to test out this thing I just got with someone I don’t really know.”
I dig into my bag and pull out the hot rod.
“Have you heard of the birth date gemstone hexad? Yeah, most people haven’t. So, you’ve heard of birthstones. Like each month has a different one. Well, the birth date hexad, is a series of six stones that are assigned to the days of a month. (A hexad just means six things, I think.) So for example, anyone born on the 8th of any month will all have the same stone. If we were born in the same month, our birthstone would be the same. But our birth date stone might be different depending. There’s only six total stones. And they’re distributed unevenly throughout the month. I think it’s based on the positioning of Saturn’s six largest moons… or something.
“Anyway, your birth date gemstone is supposed to be very lucky for you. I got this thing which is a Birth Date Gemstone Hexad Detector. It has the six stones on this side. And they’re on the other side here in the same order. They look the same, but they’re not exactly the same. One of these is the control side, and the other is the detector side.” I flip it back and forth a couple of times. “Uhm… I don’t really know which is which, but it doesn’t really matter. Here, hold it in your fist.”
I give it to them to hold in their fist so all the stones are covered.
“What day of the month were you born?”
She says the 23rd.
“Okay… I think that’s… I’m not 100% sure.”
I open my phone to a numbered list entitled Birth Date Gemstone Hexad. I show it to her. At the 23rd is Ruby.
“Oh, I thought that might be it. That’s cool. That’s rare. Only one other day has ruby assigned to it.”
I scroll through the list to show that while all the other stones are repeated multiple times, ruby only appears on the list twice.
“That makes you pretty rare. Let’s see if it worked. Open your hand.”
They open they see all rubies. (Or, possibly, they open their hand and the stick looks the same. “Maybe that’s the control side. Turn it over.”)
Method
This was the trick I originally started performing a few months ago when I reintroduced myself to the Hot Rod. A version of the Hot Rod that not only eliminates spelling… but also counting!
It uses a standard Hot Rod and the Digital Force Bag app to put Ruby (or whatever your force gemstone is) at your spectator’s birth date position.
So you’ll make your list in DFB with the other 5 gemstones repeated frequently, and not in any particular order. So it might be
Diamond
Diamond
Amethyst
Sapphire
Amethyst
Citrine
And so on.
I like to put the force stone only one other time on the list. This makes it seem less likely that the stone would be picked, of course. And it has the added benefit of maybe making them feel like it’s mildly special that they have this stone on their birth date.
There’s one problem with this trick, and that’s the fact that I meet a lot of people who:
Believe in astrology
Believe in crystals vibrating at certain frequencies
Believe they give off a unique energy due to when they were born
So, if I tell those people, “I have this special stick with stones on it that change color depending on when you were born due to the energy you’re emitting,” they think, “Hmm… of course. That seems reasonable. Just more evidence that what I believe in is accurate. Thank you for validating my science.”
The strength of it as a magic trick is inversely correlated to their belief in crystals, astrology, etc. But because it also hits hardest for someone I just met (and therefore couldn’t know their birthday) I never really know what their beliefs are.
So now I present it like this, as I remove the Hot Rod.
“Do you know your Lucky Hexad color?”
I don’t just ask them if they know their “lucky color” because then they just name their favorite color and then I have to talk my way around that. By giving it a proper name, they’re certain to say “No.”
I inform them about the Lucky Hexad—six stones that are said to be the most lucky—and how each correlates with a person’s lucky two-digit number. And how this little detector can sense someone’s lucky stone just by them holding it.
They hold the hot rod. We look up whatever they tell me their “lucky number” is (or just a number they like or has some significance to them) on a list.
“Okay, 66 is correlated with the ruby. That’s the rarest, actually. I think the ruby only correlates with 3 or 4 numbers on the list. Let’s see if this worked. Open your hand….”
The benefit here is that even people who believe in “luck” don’t expect to manifest some physical proof of the concept. So it definitely comes across as magical regardless.
And while it’s possible for you to research someone and know their birthday, there’s no obvious way you could have determined their lucky or favorite 2-digit number, unless you know them really well.
So this works equally well for believers or non-believers (in luck or in anything of a similar nature).
In fact, the strongest reaction I’ve gotten with this was with a total “rational” asshole guy I met. I introduced the stick, told him how it can detect someone’s Lucky Hexad color… blah, blah, blah. I asked him for his lucky number, and he said, “I don’t have to tell you.”
I was like, “Oh, okay. But then we’ll never really know if it worked.”
I had him open his hand, we saw that the detector side had turned red. “Hmm, it must be a ruby number then. That’s rare.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“Your lucky number must be correlated with the ruby hexad stone. I can’t say for sure because you won’t tell me what it is.”
“You’re supposed to tell me what it is,” he said.
“I don’t know where you got that idea from.” I said.
“Okay, it’s 34,” he said.
“Let’s check.” I opened my phone to my list of Lucky Hexad Correlations and showed him the list as I scrolled down it. Next to 34 was one of only three “Ruby”s on the entire list. “Yup, looks like it worked,” I said. “Crazy how it knows.”
He was kind of amazed by this. But then seemed to get angry that he was amazed. It was funny. He would think about it and try to figure it out. But he would just come back with stuff like, “There’s no such thing as a Lucky Hexad Stone!” Yeah, no shit. The last thing he said was, “How did it know?” I consider that a victory. Even if he didn’t really believe it, Mr. Rational was forced to consider that somehow this stick “knew” his secret number.
People will ask you to do it for someone else, or people watching will ask you to do it for them. I just say that it takes a few weeks for the detector stones to return to their normal state. Problem solved.