Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Wes Barker picked up magic at the age of 19 while working on City of Surrey Cruise. He's practicing his magic in his truck on brakes. And then he quit at the age of 25 when he was offered a promotion. And in 2015 he fooled Penn and Teller on fool us. And in 2021 he co starred in TruTV's Big Trick Energy. His YouTube channel has surpassed 160 million views and. And his social media is in the billions.
Okay, Wes, I gotta tell you, I just love magic and I'm so intrigued about magic. I always sit there and try to figure things out. But before we get into some of your tricks and what you do, it's. You've got an amazing story like you were working for the City of Surrey and practicing magic in your truck. Tell me about that.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I, it was, it started off as like a summer job when I was in university.
And you know, it's a good job for the summers they'd hire you on and you could make really good money, put yourself through university. Great. And then I'm in university six years, changing majors, you know, just switching whatever. I like, I like being in school. It didn't really bother me, but this job was like, I was getting really good at it. It was becoming super boring, a lot of sitting around your truck. So I was like, well, I saw David Blaine on TV and I thought, well, maybe I could learn some card tricks at work. It seems like something you could do, you know, when you're just bored in a truck.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Okay, hang on a second, hang on. So as a kid you weren't practicing magic. This is just, you're on the job, you're apparently up for a promotion.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that happened a little bit later. That was like, well, basically, I don't know, I literally thought, I'm like, maybe I'll learn some card tricks, pass some time with my partner at work. Maybe I'll bring it to the bar and meet some girls. That's not what happens.
But, but I did, I did entertain my partners pretty, pretty well at work. And then, yeah, after I stopped going to university, they gave me a full time position at the city and I was like, okay. Then I was like, I don't want to do this rest of my life. And then when they're like, hey, you can have a promotion, I knew like, oh man, I'm just like settling into this concrete, you know, like, that's how it happens, right? They catch you with just enough money here and there, then you know, 40 years down the road doing Something you didn't even ever want to do. So I was like, I quit. I'm going to be a magician. And this all happened like, so, like I went from literally just loving card tricks from about 19 to 25, just loving car tricks in my truck at work, doing them at the bar. And next thing you know, I tell my boss, I'm out of here and I'm driving away from this job I've had for a long time,
[00:02:33] Speaker A: which probably is a pension that you're driving away from to be a magician.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: You know what, to be honest, because the way the, the retirement structure works for like a government job out in bc, at least it was like your years of service plus your age. If that equals 90, you get full retirement. So in my head I'm like, well, if I got, if I came back to this job at 40 years old and worked till I'm 65, I could still retire with a full pension,
[00:03:01] Speaker A: right?
[00:03:01] Speaker B: So I was like, I have until I'm 40 and then
[00:03:03] Speaker A: I have fun.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And then if, worst case scenario, I go back to this job that's 15 years. I just turned 40 now, you know, so like it's. And I would never look back now. It was only three. The only, the first three years I was kind of like, oh, is this a good idea? You know, like starving artist style. Right. Bad. But I mean, I'm a hustler. My dad's a salesman, my brother's a salesman, my grandfather's a salesman. They taught me how to cold call. And like I literally just started hustling for work right out of the gate.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: A very quick favor before we continue. A large percentage of you who watch or listen to TPL Media every week aren't subscribed yet. Our simple commitment to you is that if you find value there, if these discussions make you think, if you want our uncensored debates, deeper dives and extended sit downs, head over to TPLMedia CA and subscribe there directly. It takes just five seconds, costs nothing, keeps you informed. So thank you. Now back to the show.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: I love it. Now, you mentioned to me off camera that you've been married 10 years. What's the support like there? Is your wife like, yep, go for it. I like this idea.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:04:09] Speaker A: continue doing magic.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: I think we've married 10 years, we've been together for 15. So
[00:04:14] Speaker A: she watched you go from.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: We started dating the month after I quit my job.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Hey, nice to meet you. And I don't have a job.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: I don't think she cared right away because you Know, she. When you start dating someone, you don't think you're going to be with them forever necessarily. Right. So she's like, yeah, this guy's a magician, whatever. Right. And then it was only, like, as it grew. But no, she. The support from her is insane. It's so good. And like, you know, I'm touring half the time or more than half the time. And then on our spare time, we're making content like, for Facebook and stuff. And. And that we do together. Right. So she's in all of the social media side of it, and. And that is a whole other income stream. Right. So we're. We're in it together big time. It's.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Let's talk about the social media for a Second, because your YouTube channel has surpassed 160 million views,
[00:05:02] Speaker B: for sure.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: That's insane.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It is. It's. Yeah, it's. It's. And it's literally probably my least viewed social media. My Facebook probably has 2 billion views.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And my Instagram probably, like. Yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands as well.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: So you're always
[00:05:18] Speaker B: 100 million,
[00:05:19] Speaker A: obviously, creating content all the time, and it's magic. Yeah. You know, I
[00:05:23] Speaker B: do one a day on YouTube, one a day on Instagram, four times a day on Facebook.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay,
[00:05:29] Speaker A: so that's a job in itself.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: So I, again, as I mentioned earlier, I love magic. And I'll watch. There's a couple of guys on. On Facebook that you'll see them showing you how the trick is done. What's your feeling on that? Is that like, guys, you know, come on, let's not show our craft.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: I'm not too precious about it, honestly, because the. The more I've been in the magic industry for, you know, 20 years now, the more I realize that every time you show people how stuff works, they just get more and more interested. You create more magic fans that way. So sometimes it's annoying. Like, you'll get guys exposing, like, someone else's trick that they spent their life, you know, like, it's like a big staple of their career. And that's kind of a crappy thing to do, right? Like, exposing someone's, like, big moment, you know, like, you go and like, oh, this is David Copperfield's signature trick. Let me expose it. Like, what are you doing? But all the other stuff, I think it just builds more magic fans. Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: The little tricks, like, you know, disappearing pen, and it's kind
[00:06:27] Speaker B: of. Yeah, exactly.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Taped to your finger because if you turn it this way, you can't See, exactly. Camera, which, which is simple and it gives people like me a chance to do it at parties.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Totally. You literally just make more fans that way. And anyone who, like, even we had the masked magician a long time ago was like a popular TV show and he was exposing all these tricks. But there's always more than one way to do a trick,
[00:06:47] Speaker A: right?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: So if you expose it, then people think they know, but then they go watch an even better magician do it a different way, and all of a sudden they're fooled all over again. They're fooled harder because it didn't work the way that they knew it worked. So I think, I honestly think exposure is good for magic in the long run.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: I like how you use the word fooled because we're going to talk about that. Can and Teller.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:07:07] Speaker A: I watched that show religiously and how magicians and illusionists come on the show and try to fool two of the greatest all time magicians and illusionists of all time. And you did that?
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: You were there and you did it. Tell me a little about that experience.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: That was crazy because I was like, I was on. They did one season in the UK and then they shut it down for like four years and then they rebooted it in the US and I was on that first US season.
So when I went down there, I was, it was, it was a fresh new show and. And I became one of like the first five or six people to ever fool them, which just changed my career. But going down there, like, I've been on America's Got Talent and stuff. I don't care what Heidi Klum thinks of my magic trick. That doesn't matter to me. Right. Like, she can love it or hate it, it doesn't really matter. But what Penn and Teller think of your magic trick, that matters. So, man, I was like,
[00:07:58] Speaker A: were you nervous?
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Oh, I was so nervous. I was day drinking with my brother at the pool. I was like, he's like, you better slow down. You got to do the show tonight. I'm like, I don't know what else to do. I'm going to bundle the nerves right now. He's like, well, drinking won't help. But he was wrong. It really helped.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Oh, awesome.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: And then I took a huge nap in the afternoon and I felt good when I got up and I went down to the studio and I, I fooled the two greats. But, yeah, they were. It was a trick I created from scratch and had some really old principles of magic in there. And yeah, it was meant to just entertain the world. I'm a very funny magician. I wasn't worried about fooling them. It just so happened that it snuck by them because it was an old school principle that they just sort of overlooked. And, man, it was pretty cool. I mean, I was literally downstairs afterwards. I was the only one to fool them. That day we were filming. They filmed like 12 acts. I was the only one to fool them. I'm just downstairs. Teller was telling me how great it was. As soon as he leaves, I just burst into tears. I was like, holy crap. It just like my whole life, like my whole career changed right there.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: That's amazing. Thank you for being so transparent about this. That is super cool. Now afterwards, because again, this is how my mind works. Did you, like, go out for dinner with the guys or did you have a drink with the guys? Anything like that? Or like, okay, you fooled us. Get out of here.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: They, they, yeah, they. They went their own way, but they're like, you know, they invited me back to like, pick a date on the calendar. You want to come back and you can open for us at the Rio in Vegas. Oh, no way. You get to do that. Yeah. Which was really cool. And then I got to hang out with them there more. But on the show day, no, but there was another Canadian magician there that was on the show with me named Chris Funk. He's out of Winnipeg. And he was. Everyone else was mad because they all tried to fool them and didn't. Right. And same with Chris. He tried to fool them. He
[00:09:31] Speaker A: didn't.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: But he's a buddy and he and. And Canadians stick together. So he was like, let's go for drink. So him and I went out for dinner and stuff with my brother and that was a. That was how we celebrated, which was really classy of him because I know he wasn't super thrilled about how his, you know, performance was on the show. Right.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Would you have been the first Canadian to fool them?
[00:09:48] Speaker B: No. Sean Farquhar, he flew to the UK on the 1st season and he fooled them. And Sean Farquhar's two time, you know, Fism champion of magic, and he's out of Vancouver. He's all time legend as far as his magic goes, especially for Canadians.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Now let's talk about that. As a Canadian, how do you make a living edge? You can't just stay in Canada, right? You're all over the world.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm all over pretty much. Magic's good for that, you know, they'll hire you wherever. For me, I really rely heavily on my, like, I'm Very stand up comedy magic. So I can't like very well go to Asia and do shows or I have, but it's not like those guys are like more set to music type type magic. If you can do like a, a non speaking magic act, you can really tour everywhere. But mine's very like wherever the comedy can work, then I can, I can tour. But yeah, I tour in the States and Canada mostly. But I will, I go to Australia, I'll go to the uk,
[00:10:41] Speaker A: anywhere they call
[00:10:42] Speaker B: anywhere. But like, you know, magic's a weird one because it's like less people in it than say comedy or music. For sure.
There's just, you can demand a little bit higher price, it's a little bit more rare and it is more accessible to people. Like if you go to a comedy show, sometimes if you bring eight people, maybe two of them won't like it. Depending on who you're seeing, you know, magic, a higher hit rate of everyone leaving feeling good. Right.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: And, and with your credentials, it kind of helps.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The only, the only thing I struggle with is like when I tour, just trying to convince people not to bring kids because I just don't do a family act.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: I can and I will if it's like a specific reason to do it
[00:11:19] Speaker A: and the payday and
[00:11:20] Speaker B: the. Oh yeah, for sure. Convince me.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Hey, listen, we want you to do my kid's birthday party and I'm Drake.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, Drake kid. No problem.
But yeah, I know I, I do the cruise ships and those are always family friendly, so that's always fun. But yeah, mostly a lot of guys stick with the cruise ships. I am at a position now over the last few years I've just been touring and just comedy clubs and small theaters and yeah, it really works for me. Canada in the US It's.
Staying in Canada is tricky because, you know, the cities are too far apart. But I do 5050, you know, and you could make a living just in Canada. I have friends that make a living, a good living, without even leaving the Maritimes.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: So it is a bit of a myth that you can't make a living. I'm sure it's different for comedy and for music, but for magic, at least with that higher price point you can charge, I think you can, you can do it. It's not bad.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: On another note, let's talk about our country a little bit here. Is there anything that kind of ticks you off about Canada?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: I think in the entertainment industry at least, I think it's A bit frustrating sometimes how we don't have enough of our own.
We don't have, like, a celebrity system here at all, you know, And I understand why our proximity to the States is too. It's too much. But if you go to the uk they have a whole tier of their own celebrities and stuff, and. And you can't.
You just can't. They have their own shows and their panel shows and their own sitcoms and stuff. In Canada, we just don't do it, you know, not. Not in any kind of way. That is, no one. No one in. No Canadian artist has anything on their goals list that is related to Canada, right? No. No one says, I'm going to get a Canadian TV show. Right? Like, I'm gonna get it.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: They're gonna be on this talk show. It's like, no, no, there isn't one.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: There's just like. So, yeah, that's. That. That breaks my heart. But again, I understand the economics of it, so it's hard to be too mad about it. That's the only thing that ever really frustrates me. But it has, for me, been kind of a cheat code, though, because you can sort of, like, get.
You can convince people in the States that you're one of the best in Canada, and you're barely lying. And they also have really no way of checking because it's not like, what are they going to. Even with the Internet. It's like, what. How can you even figure this out so often? I feel like it's not like I'm trying to figure it out. There's like. There's no, like, Tonight show in Canada.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Right?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Where. Where the. If you. If you go to the States, they can't be like, well, he wasn't even on the Canadian Tonight Show. Why would we put him on this Tonight Show? We don't have one. So you just go, I'm one of the best. And they go, oh, get him on it's. And, no, I'm making. I'm making it sound too simple, but I really do feel like it's. It's a. There's a little bit of a. You can play a gray area in Canada, in the U.S. so you can maybe even leapfrog a little bit past some of the US Guys if you play it corre. Correctly and you're in the right niche.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah. You'll see so many artists that do their first appearance on, like, Letterman or something, and then they just skyrocket to fame, because that changes their life
[00:14:15] Speaker B: totally. And I. I think all the TV shows I've ever been on. I know it was just some production person that it was like just googling, you know, looking for people. And I mean, if you're gonna, if you're like, all right, let's get like a Canadian guy down here. If you Google magic in Canada, I'm gonna make a very short list because there's not that many of us. But if I was in the States, I would just be in a sea of a thousand other guys. It would be hard to get to the top. But to get to the top of the list in the Canadian one, I literally think that's why I've been on so many US Shows, because they're looking for other acts internationally and my name just rises to the top much quicker. I would get buried in that. 400 million people living in the States. So it can be in the right niches. A superpower to be Canadian.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Oh, I like that. I like that. Now. Life changing. David Blaine.
Anybody in particular I know? Penitellar, of course. But I know you've, you've done some stuff with David Blaine.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Well, I, I, I've actually never even met David Blaine.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Oh, I thought you
[00:15:08] Speaker B: did. No, no, no. I, I, I'm a huge fan of David Blaine. He really did, like, get me excited about. So he
[00:15:15] Speaker A: was your inspiration? You didn't meet him, but he was certainly your inspiration.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: No, and I have a lot of friends that work closely with him. When I had a TV show, I hired David Blaine's team to be my consultants as well. Right. Because he wasn't shooting anything at the time. So I literally had his, his guys behind the cameras developing my tricks and stuff for, for our TV show. And yeah. So it's like he, you know, David Lane's the best and we share a lot of mutual friends. I've just, yeah. Luckily or unluckily, haven't haven't been in the same room. But yeah, I've met Copperfield a handful of times. Less of an inspiration to me because it was just slightly before I was really interested in magic.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Right. But you know, just like one of the all time greats, so getting to go down
[00:15:56] Speaker A: big with theatrics.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Getting to go down and see his show in Vegas. Even though it's not at all the kind of magic I like to do, I was like, you know, it is, it is like, whoa. But David Blaine, also not the kind of magic I like. Right. And that's kind of what I think is cool about magic, is we haven't explored enough of the Options yet, you know, like, I'm probably closer to like Amazing Jonathan. If anyone remembers, you know, Amazing Jonathan was kind of like a prop comic slash magician, you know, crazy guy. So I feel like if you draw a line somewhere between Carrot Top and David Blaine, then you're going to hit onto what I'm more doing.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Okay,
[00:16:30] Speaker B: that's kind of. Yeah. So it's really hard to find heroes in magic in a certain way because we just don't have enough famous ones.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Right. If
[00:16:37] Speaker B: I asked a random person to name six famous magicians, good luck. Like, it's not easy for a lot of people to do.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, just some kind of random person. Because you ask me, I got a good list because I really enjoy it and we're going to get to it a trick in just a moment. But let's dive in a little more about you. What, what is changing in your life outside of magic?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: You know, I, I turned 40 this year and I'm, my career is in good shape and I'm, I'm really enjoying that. My, my marriage is in good shape. Everything's, you know, everything's coming up west right now, which feels good. I, I think all I'm prioritizing is spending time with my wife and seeing the world and, you know, trying to stay creative with magic. But yeah, outside of that, we don't have kids.
You know, I'm close with my family and my brother and my parents and stuff and everybody's still happy and healthy. So I just go out and visit them and you know, they're, they're between B.C. and Alberta. And yeah, I honestly, I'm in a good spot right now. So I, I think a few years ago when I had a, I had a TV show on TruTV and, and so it's an American cable show, went for 10 episodes and then, you know, whatever the, that that was executive gets fired and then they can our show,
[00:17:55] Speaker A: right?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Then you all have all the politics that goes into the Hollywood and the TV stuff down there. You're like, okay, so I'm not getting a second season. That was kind of devastating. I looked at my list of goals. I realized, man, I didn't even write any more goals. That was the end goal. Get a TV show here. I'm 35 and I have my TV show and I'm like, I didn't even plan any this. Like, and then I felt like I was really in a real spiral. So there was like a six month period after that that I was in a huge funk.
And then I came to the other side of that. And mental health is good. And I feel happier than ever. I threw myself back into social media because what an amazing place.
And talk about, like, leveling the playing field. Talk about no borders.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Right,
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Right. Like, I mean, it's hard to.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Do you.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Just make it and put it out and. Yeah, so I make a ton of stuff. I have so many videos that have gone crazy viral, but that's maybe one out of every 20 videos I post. Maybe, maybe one out of 40. I just post a lot and I, I just, I think that's the key. So being busy makes me happy and it keeps my mental health good. So outside of magic, my wife and I are doing couples content and riddles and travel content and just whatever, you know, like every year we mean, we do like a crazy compilation of funny Halloween costumes and we post those and we just sort of, we stay busy. And it really, it makes me happy, it makes us laugh, it gives us something to do. And it's not at all magic related. So sometimes most of what I post, I'd say half of what I post is for sure not even magic related. It's just silliness.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Makes me happy.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: I love it. Okay, how about a little trick?
[00:19:36] Speaker B: We could do a trick. I think we could probably do a trick right now. Let me think. What do I got here?
I'm trying to figure out if we should start with a.
I'll show you the very first trick that, that when I saw David Blaine do it, it really made me want to do magic. Okay, I will show you that trick.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Okay. I'm excited about this.
[00:19:54] Speaker D: Hey, before we go any further, please hit the subscribe button right now. If you want the raw debates, the full uncut conversations you won't see here, head straight to TPL Media, CA subscribe and lock in your membership. Trust me, you don't want to miss what happens behind the paywall. All right, back to the show
[00:20:12] Speaker A: and to our viewers. What we're going to have is your contact information in our description of the show. So if they want to get a hold of you, that's where they can go. And I'm going to let you plug your social media. Oh,
[00:20:22] Speaker B: for sure. Thank you. So the.
Yeah, this is such a neat trick because I don't do a lot of card tricks, but. But
[00:20:30] Speaker A: you started with cards.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Everybody starts with card tricks in the truck. Yeah. So sometimes I'll be doing card tricks now where I'll be like, how does this even work? I, I literally, I'm on stage so much that I just forget sometimes how the card tricks even works. And
[00:20:43] Speaker A: it just. But it's just.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah, muscle memory. I
[00:20:45] Speaker A: was just gonna say
[00:20:46] Speaker B: hopefully. So I.
What I was doing just a second ago was looking for the queen of hearts and the queen of diamonds, which I found.
Okay, Rob, you have to take the queen of diamonds.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: And you got to hang on to it like this. Thumb on top. Yep. Now we're gonna test your memory. What card did I give you?
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Queen of diamonds.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Have a look. Make sure. Have a look, make sure. Okay.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Queen of diamonds.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: You got a good memory so far. I remembered one card.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Censored.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Yeah. These are my custom decks of cards.
Put a little censored bar across the mouth.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know why I did that. It made me happy.
Okay. And I have the queen of hearts. Gotcha. Now, this is the most similar card to the queen of diamonds because they're both red. And this is what we're going to try and do. I take the queen of hearts. So we're going to test your memory by switching the cards. So now I have the diamonds, you have the hearts. And I pretend. I pretend again. I still have the diamonds. Pretend one more time. You have the hearts, I have the diamonds. Which one's on top? Which one's on the bottom? That's the big question.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: The queen of hearts is on top. You think, oh, no, the queen of hearts is on the bottom. The queen of diamonds is on top. Because I've got the queen of hearts.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: That is what it would feel like. Now if you take. Turn them both over, you'll be able to see. Oh,
[00:21:51] Speaker A: I didn't.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: The two black aces.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: My finger did not leave that card.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: I distract you with my good looks.
So I remember David Blaine did this in the Dallas Cowboys locker room on one of his specials, like one of his first street magic specials. And it blew my mind so much. I just couldn't get over how cool that is.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: That is super cool. And
[00:22:09] Speaker B: I knew
[00:22:10] Speaker A: I'm right here.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: And it doesn't even use the whole deck. It just uses two cards and a little bit of distraction, a little bit of sleight of hand. And then you're like, where's the, you know, the queen of hearts, queen of diamonds? Where do they go? They always land under the coffee cup every time.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Ah.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: So then you take the coffee cup, and then you can easily show. Queen, diamonds, queen of hearts. And then.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: This is why I love magic. Look what reaction you. You made my day.
My brain is turning. It's trying to figure things out. I didn't even see that happen. I'm sitting two feet away from you. I love it.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Close up magic is, is one of the greatest things ever because it does happen in your hands. It doesn't get any more personal. You're like any skepticism you have is gone because you're holding it, you're touching it, you're thinking about it.
I love being on stage because I started stand up comedy the same time I started magic. So I'm addicted to that. But doing close up magic is just such a beautiful thing. I love it. Even if you don't want to be a professional magician and you just want to like a hobby, learn some close up magic, learn some card tricks. It feels so good. You can go to a party and just bust out three or four card tricks. Oh, man, you'll get addicted quickly.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I do a couple of, just like coin ones and stuff like that at bars. Like, nothing major. But my buddy will know because he'll be in on it.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Because he's going to scratch his head when I come over the coin that the person touched when I wasn't looking. And we'll just be random randomly out. This is before I was married.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: And he'll be, hey, okay, I'm gonna do this. And, and you know, to pick. You
[00:23:41] Speaker B: got a signal, you got a code.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So much fun. For more information, where can people find you, especially your social media?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I am, I mean, just type my name into Google, everything's gonna come up. But I, I go by stunt magician on Instagram and stuntmagician.com because I used to do a lot of more big stunts in my, in my show. And I still do, I still do all the escapes and all the craziness.
One more thing is, let me grab this right now. If anyone, if anyone's interested, I, I wrote a book. It's called Abracadumbass and it's a magician who can't keep a secret. And this literally tells the story from when I quit my job to when I got my TV show. It has all the anecdotes, you know, famous people, whatever. But it actually teaches eight tricks in this show. And this trick is eight tricks in the book as well. But yeah, I literally go behind the scenes on everything. Penn and Teller and my own TV show, everything. It's, it's a real tell all super fun. Oh,
[00:24:32] Speaker A: I'm definitely getting that.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: And literally you don't have to read it A to B. You can just open to any random chapter, whether you want to learn a trick or hear a story. It's all broken down really well like that. And I honestly, I hate pitching stuff to people, but I think people are going to love it. So, yeah, you can get that at. At Westbarker Dot Shop, or you can get it at Amazon. Audible. Dude, the audible is insane. Because I read the book, you know, so people can listen to it. I hadn't read out loud since I was 11. You know what I mean? So I realized I'm at home in my little studio trying to read. My wife's cackling in the other room. She's like, you sound like you can't read. You sound illiterate. It. It's. It should. It only plays like. It's like six or seven hours of actual, like, playback time. Took me four days. Four full. Like, like 36
[00:25:15] Speaker A: hours. Just.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: I just couldn't read aloud, man.
Anyway, so please get the audible. It's worth it.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, man. From a pickup truck to stardom. Wes Barker. Yeah. Look this guy up, buddy. Thanks very much. It was a pleasure.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Thanks a lot.
