The Adequate Blog

Every show seems to have pet names for the folks who come back to see them again and again. For me, it’s “repeat offenders”. I’m not entirely certain why, but this phrase leapt out of my face somewhere around 2002 when I first noticed people who had come to see my show in 2001 … had come back. And were coming back again and again!

“WHY? It’s the same show!”

… well, they kept coming back, so I deemed them “Repeat Offenders”. They seemed to like that, which goes to show you the kind of crowds I get at my shows.

I love the folks who keep coming back - the show itself, as you’ve gathered, plays a lot off the crowd watching it. While I have a number of people who come back, there’s always a large number of people for whom this is the first time they’ve seen the big loud fat guy with the weird mustache on stage. The fact that it’s a magic show just makes it more confusing, because…

The primary response to magic is trance. Quiet. Silence.
- Jeff McBride (quoting someone, I’ll look it up)

and my show is all about people laughing and cheering and making silly “OOO AH OH HUH” noises and the like. So people don’t know, from the get go, that they’re not only allowed to make noise but in fact encouraged to do so.

This is where my Repeat Offenders come in. My Shills.

SHILL
NOUN: One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle.
- Houghton Mifflin Dictionary courtesy of Yahoo! Education

I call them “Shills” but really they’re “audience helpers” - folks who have seen the show before and, well, do what they’re allowed (and encouraged) to do - laugh, relax, have a good time. They act as guides for the other folks who come to see my shows, letting them know that this isn’t like the other “magic” shows they’ve seen - they should feel relaxed enough to enjoy themselves.

And that’s why, whenever there’s a surpisingly strong outburst of enthusiasm when I say or do something, I always say…

“Thank you, shills!”

So, remember that Magic Contest I told you about? On Tuesday evening I found out that I had gotten a call Monday night… from Stan Kramien, the man who runs the contest.

The voicemail ran as follows:

Stan Kramien calling telling you you did a good job. You’re wasting your time - you should be in comedy clubs. You should devote all your energy to booking yourself in comedy clubs.

… I’ll just be over here going “eeee” a lot and looking up Portland area comedy clubs.