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Have you ever seen some complete noob try to perfrom a trick and have it fail miserably? Or have you ever seen a professional's act go to pieces before your very eyes? I wanna know about! If you are lucky enough to have video, please supply it!

Yes... I've been to many SAM and IBM club meetings

Here's me screwing up the cups and balls last night

http://one.revver.com/watch/234329/flv

I'd realized halfway through that I'd forgotten my first load and had to backtrack a bit, throwing me off

Ahahahaha, oh, my God the squeeker bit was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

That squeeker thing was absoloute class lol.

lol really funny dude!

lol--that's a Gazzo innovation. I saw that and rushed out to buy some dog toys to rip the squeakers out

I'd say Gazzo is the greatest performer of the cups and balls I've ever seen, so I take a lot from his presentation. Others that I enjoy watching include Penn & Teller and Dai Vernon.

Video of Gazzo here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... +and+balls

More squeeking toys and less cups and balls .

did you learn from gazzo's DVD?

RobLaughter wrote:Video of Gazzo here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... +and+balls

I actually saw him perform at Faneuil Hall in Boston! I can't believe a video of it showed up here. That's why I love living outside of Boston. No matter what people saw, it's the greatest city in the world.

Back to the original topic...

Youtube comes to mind. It's an endless well of a source for lousy b***p***ing; horrible, canned patter; bad passes, and much more. But, honestly, I can't complain. We've all been newbies before. Hell, in mentalism, I still am. One thing I don't understand, monker, is why you care to see bad performances. Roblaughter's goof wasn't a sign of "noobness" at all. Just a little mistake. We all make them. What you were asking for, before the mention of Gazzo pushed this thread to digression, had no good reason to be asked. No one wants to see horrible performances. Maybe little goofs for laughs, but not bad ones.

Mikey.666 wrote:did you learn from gazzo's DVD?

No, I actually learned from the video I just posted. That's how I pick up most of my magic.

sleightlycrazy wrote: One thing I don't understand, monker, is why you care to see bad performances. Roblaughter's goof wasn't a sign of "noobness" at all. Just a little mistake. We all make them. What you were asking for, before the mention of Gazzo pushed this thread to digression, had no good reason to be asked. No one wants to see horrible performances. Maybe little goofs for laughs, but not bad ones.

We can all identify with making huge mistakes, it's fun to look at people who were in our position a few years ago. I thought it would be a good nice topic to reflection on ourselves as magicians. Everybody's made mistakes so we can all laugh at them.

It's hard to laugh when you see a pro's show "go to pieces". I'm sorry if I'm interpreting your meaning wrong, but your phrasing makes it sound like you take pleasure in watching others fail.

In my art class, a kid (who's older than me) asked to borrow my cards. He was going to show a trick to a girl sitting across him. He didn't know that I liked watching people do tricks. It occasionally teaches me a thing or two. Anyways, he had a card selected and blatantly cut it second from bottom. No false shuffles or cuts after that. The girl noticed too. My left eye twitched. He flashed the bottom, indifferent card and went on to do the glide. No patter, no sense. Twitch. His little finger was behind the deck instead of at the side (as it should be for the glide to work) and his hand looked crumpled. Another big twitch. After arbitrarily placing cards on the table, he managed to genuinely lose the card. The girl made it clear that he looked like a goof. I took no pleasure in watching that. I didn't laugh.

Since he already knew of the glide, I decided to follow Penn and Tellers' advice regarding laymen and tricks. I taught him the glide thoroughly. He wouldn't eff that part up from now on. He asked to see a trick. I figured "Invisible Palm" (PH) would work nicely.

I have to admit, if I had a terriable performence I would never show lots of magicians on a magic fourum!