Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Name is Dr. Todd and this is Magician's Workshop. And welcome to another in our series of into the Lucy Verse where we talk to the team behind the Lucy Darling phenomenon. Today we're talking to Chris Combs, who fans will know as the multi name Butler in the Lucy Darling universe. But he is so much more. He is the community manager for Carissa Hendricks and her character Lucy Darling, an acclaimed comedy magic Persona. In his role, Chris engages directly with fans across social platforms, helps foster the official online community and provides updates and support related to Lucy Darling shows and activities. He's also is, he also is a, he also is a musician and a well respected theater critic. Also notable that he is one of my favorite people to hang out with. I was able to catch up with Chris before his latest tour with Carissa Hendricks where we talked about so much that I had to split the interview into two parts. So here's part one with the brilliant Chris Combs.
Welcome to the show, Chris Combs.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Hi.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: So some of you know, some of the people that are into the Lucyverse like I am will know Chris as the unnamed butler, am I right?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Or the multi named Butler.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: The multi named Butler, Yeah. There's a, last time I checked, there wasn't, there was, there's no official, there's no official name as far as I'm aware.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: No, the bit in the show is every time the butler's called, it's a different name.
It's like, you know, James, I need to sing. Watson, I need a thing. Rebecca, I need a thing. It's fantastic.
It's really just for us.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I love, I, One thing I've learned is there's a lot of, there's a lot of great inside jokes that if you're following along you'll, you'll just really get a kick out of. Let me get your bonafides real quick. What's your, what's your background?
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Well, I mean you want it specifically is, is it's magic related?
[00:01:45] Speaker A: No, I want. So like I've talked to magicians. I mean what people don't know about you is you are also a fantastic, I don't want to say critic, but when you, you can watch a show and give really, really, really good feedback and, and I noticed that Lucy, that Carissa surrounds herself with, with creative people who she's not afraid to take advice from and learn and she is constantly working on the show. I'm sure that's, you're a huge help in that you can analyze the show and I think, I think I remember. Do you, you do a write up on like every performance or is that, is that something I just overheard a little bit.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: So for several years, every time I saw a magic show, I'd come home and I'd write like, I know 2,500 words on it, which is like six pages front and back. I think often fairly snarky. That's actually more to help me remember.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Things. Because then if I were to offer it as notes, I would rewrite it in a less snarky way.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: So, you know, just, it's like on the train ride home on my phone right now.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: How did you become, did you become a connoisseur and a writer of magic criticism?
[00:02:56] Speaker B: I think. Well, I've been a writer like all my life. So my, my degrees are in creative writing and linguistics. That's, that's what I did in, in school. Because why not?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: What, what drove you to, what drove you to that? What was the, where was the impetus to become a writer?
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I entered college thinking I was going to be a teacher.
And then everyone was like, why would you do that? You hate kids. And like, I was, you know, 18 at the time, hating kids. I was like, no, no, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't teach like second graders. I'd be like a college professor.
And then two weeks in the college, I just start, you know, who attends college, the high school students are in college. That's who goes to college. It's obvious now, but at the time, you know, I was like, oh, college. It's for the enlightened. Whatever. I was like, these are just the same kids I was in school with before, except now their parents aren't here to punish them when they do something terrible. So I don't want this at all.
So I'm like, I'll just be a writer.
And knowing full well you don't need a degree to write, I mean, no one's gonna be like, no, I won't publish your book cause you don't have it. So I didn't care what, what major I had. I just needed that sheet of paper after four years. So I started creative writing major. And I was doing that for several years. And I was taking all these other classes for funsies, which seemed like they would help. So in college. So I would take these classes for funsies, like phonetics and history of English language and phonetics for fun stuff like that. Speech pathology stuff. And in one of my classes, the, the chair of the linguistics department was the guest speaker, speaking on some Topic. And he was also pimping for his major. So he handed out these sheets of like, here's our course offerings. So if you want to, if you're undecided about your major.
And so I'm looking down the list, it's like, oh, I took that, I took that, I took that, that, that, you know. So I had taken a lot of these classes, so I could probably add it as a minor. I was like, it was at the end of my junior year, so I'm like, I don't have time to make this a major.
It probably fulfilled a minor.
So I went in to see him a couple days later and he looked over my transcript. He said, you're two classes away from fulfilling the major. Just for fun. You've been taking all the classes.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: That is crazy.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: And they happen to be the, like the intro course and the senior capstone course.
The very beginning and the very end are the only two I hadn't taken.
So I signed up for those. So I just added the second major my senior year and I got the weird idea of like, can I have third major? Let me see what else I've done. I was like, oh, I only need three more classes to do a lit major.
But I didn't have time for it. And also, no, who cares? Go around saying like, I got a degree, I got three majors.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: I've, you know what, Never been asked for my GPA by anybody. I mean there's.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Doesn't matter.
Yeah, yeah. So I didn't care for what I was doing. I just did things that were interesting to me, which turns out to have helped me out a lot.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: To help you become a jack of all trades, kind of. You have a little bit of, A little bit of all this literature and speech. Speech knowledge.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah, and also some tech stuff. So I'd always been like futzing around with computers, programming stuff.
I taken a few classes in college, but you know, the weird ones were fun. There was a COBOL class offered. There's two years of that. I took that.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: It was fantastic. But also, I mean, this was the late 90s.
I mean I could have gotten primo super jobs in just fixing old banks. Because of the Y2K thing. Yeah, because that was really prevalent in Cobol because my professor worked at IBM in the 50s and he told us the story of how it happened, which was all our clients would come to us and we were like, okay, well, because it was punch cards where your data was on and if you had a four digit year you would need Two punch cards to put a record together for someone's bank transaction, whatever. But if you use a two digit year, it was only one punch card so you'd save a lot of money.
But this program's only going to work for 40 years and then it's going to blow up.
And they told them that. And literally every single company says we'll have something new by then.
And none of them did. And they freaked out in the late 90s. So that's the story. It wasn't short sightedness the programmers, it was the, the clients saying, nope, we're not paying an extra point.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: The truth comes out. And that actually that makes more sense than anything else I've heard for that. So. Yeah.
How did you get into like writing on writing about magic shows like that? I, that's the jump that I'm trying to figure out.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know, maybe it's just something I did for. I think this was angry at seeing shows I didn't like.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Got it. I mean, yeah, and that's, that's ha. That's a lot of them. I mean.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So I just should say how I got into magic as an adult.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, let's, let's.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: What we don't have here is magic showing up. So I mean like, yeah, like, like many kids, like I had a magic kit when I was like 8 years old and you know, I would watch the Copperfield specials when they were on TV and stuff and you know, so I was into magic for a few years and then got out of it like a normal person, just fine.
Funny people are just.
The thing that I've always been bothered by is when a magician is asked, you know, how'd you become a magician? Like, oh, I got a magic kit when I was 8 years old and I was like, you know, how many people got a magic kit when they're eight years old?
That doesn't make you a magician because if it did there'd be millions of magicians out there. So something else made you a magician. So you need to dig deeper. So if someone answers that question like that, ask them to think about it a bit more. Dig deeper. Yeah, it would, it would be a better show, better interview. So I as a musician, I play ukulele primarily. I play any instrument you hand me, but none of them. Well, but you, you write a, I
[00:09:13] Speaker A: think you write a song like every day. Right? I mean you, you, you try to write every day.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: My 2024 project was to write a hundred songs that year.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Did you, did you did you meet that?
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: I didn't do well through most of the year, so by October 1st, I only had 35, 36 songs.
So then it was. I have to do one a day.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: When did you write the song about the dead thing?
So it's fairly early that I'm gonna put a link to that because I got such a kick out of that song. I laughed out loud.
It's. And I don't know if you meant this, but it's almost like they Might Be Giants coded.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: You sent me the they Might Be Giants the pill song, and that blew. I had never heard that, and that blew my mind. And I was like, this is so prophetic. Like, this song is perfection.
But tell. Can you tell me a little bit about. And I can always cut this out if nobody else likes it. But you said that was based on a true story. What's. What's the true story?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yes. In my kitchen, I was putting some food or something together, whatever, and I, like. A bug crawled on my counter, and I, like, smacked it with a paper towel or something, but then it wasn't there.
So I'm like, there's a dead thing. There's a dead thing somewhere.
Let me go record that.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: That's brilliant.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Because the thing is, if you're gonna write a hundred songs, you can't wait for the perfect song to come around. It's an idea comes. You have to do it. The purpose is, I used to be part of these writing challenges back in the early 2000s, the 50 song challenge, which was in three months, you had to write 50 songs. And the idea there was to be like, a Tin Pan Alley or like an advertising jingle writer. Those people had to, like. We had a song about coldate toothpaste. By the end of the day, it's
[00:11:07] Speaker A: like, all right, that's crazy. Yeah.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: And so it just gets you out of the.
You know, was it. The perfection is the enemy of good, that idea. So it's like, just write a song. So you. You write a hundred songs, you're not going to write a hundred good songs, but you're probably going to write, you know, 15, 20 songs that are good and are songs you would not have written if you had been just waiting to write those songs. But sometimes those weird songs end up being the best. So, like, dead Thing, like, everyone's favorite. So Forsa made it to the album.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that. That's.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: That.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: That's my standout. Like, that's the one I like the most. I'm just like, it tickles my brain in such a. Like, it. It's such a great way because it. It's.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: It.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: I. I could not be more in your shoes. When I hear that, I'm like, yeah, I feel it. I. It bothers me, and I love it.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: But you would be interested. Sorry, I just. I just want to say, would you be interested in finding Tupperware as a genre of music?
Okay, there. There's a YouTube video about it. I'll find it. I'll send you the link. The guy describes, like, this kind of music, this kind of geek rock thing that he decided Tupperware is the name of it. And he's. He's not. Like, he's got a chart, whatever, and, like, what's right. This is why it is that. And it's fantastic. So I'm like, okay, that's. So. On my Bandcamp site, Tupperware is listed as my. My genre.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Love it. Yeah.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: But.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: But why magic?
I'm still. I don't. I don't know if we got to that yet.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Dig deeper.
We keep having fun little side quests.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I love the sidebars.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
So as a musician, I wanted to improve my live performance because I'm. I don't consider myself a performer. I'm a composer and a writer. And, you know, one of my music goals is at some point, there'll be a tribute album and other people will record my songs, and they're gonna sound fantastic, and that's what I want. So that's why I keep pumping out songs is eventually enough people will be like, 15 people like one of my songs. So that's why I have to keep putting them out.
So. But I do perform in this ukulele cabaret in New York, Although haven't been in it for a while for other reasons, which we'll get to in a bit.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: You're a very busy guy.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: But I wanted to look into improving my stagecraft, but I did not want to read books on stagecraft. Like, I have a lot of friends who are actors, so we'll talk about the Stanislav and the Blah, blah, blah, whatever. I don't know stuff. I'm not reading that stuff now. I have to read Chekhov plays and stuff. It's like.
No.
But I did know that. Do you know this? Magicians are kind of bad.
Generally on stage, they don't.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Know what they're doing. And so books that are written for magicians are like baby's first book of stagecraft.
So I knew that was the case. And because I had you know, I had a background from when I was 8. Oh, yeah. I know what some magic tricks are. So they talk about the linking range or something like, oh, I know what that is. So it's like, I'll know that more readily than I'll know. Here's an example from this play from 1910.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Like, God. Oh, that is actually accurate. That is great. Yes.
Okay.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Or like this great Pete McCabe book right there is Scripting Magic, one of the best books on writing magic scripts. The only book on writing magic scripts that I've. That's purely script writing. And it's. They're both great. You can get them on Vanishing Inc.
Okay. Okay. So that's actually brilliant. So then. Okay, so you're. You're. You're reading books on magic, like Acting Wise or stagecraft.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yes. So I was picking up things like that or some of the Tamari's books. Yeah, did that.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: That's some thinking right there. I mean, for me, that's. That's the densest. That's the densest that I'm gonna read about magic theory. I'm not gonna. That's. I'm. I realist, like, okay, I'm good. I'm not. Even for me, that's. It's hard for me to read. So I just go, oh, I got.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: I mean, I would say the magic theory, probably. Yes. But as far as stage stuff, it's pretty basic, which is good. Which is why I want.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: I mean, that's. Yeah, it's. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not. I'm not, you know, in an acting class yet.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: So that's kind of how I got into it. And then, of course, I think the other side of it, why I can look at something critically is me having grown up watching Mystery Science Theater.
So, yeah, you know, like, people thought I was a film major.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: That's awesome. Like.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Like, my. So my. My parents, like, they ran a video store, and then customers like to come in and ask me questions about things, and I tell them about that. Like, you know, like, oh, you study? Like, they didn't even ask me. They, like, were talking to my mom. It's like, oh, that's pretty cool that he's, like, studying film. She's like, no, he's a creative writing major. He's got nothing going on in his life.
That's because I knew a lot about film. I knew a lot about how.
What makes a good film and what makes a bad film, because those are the kind of commentary that they would make it wouldn't. You know, there's one thing to make a joke about what someone's wearing, but they would make jokes about the framing.
I learned about second unit. Like, I didn't know that was a thing. Like you have an entirely different set unit. Like, the director of the film doesn't direct all the shots that don't have the stars in it. So if it's just a shot of like the building, the establishing shot, that's a whole other unit. You know, other people, like, they never see them. And I learned that stuff from Mystery Science Theater because they would make jokes about it.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: And so I have that kind of eye for things. But of course, I'd plot holes and stuff.
It's on the writing side. So I see plot holes in magic shows where you establish one thing, but then you do the opposite thing, but not because that's the nature of the trick. I understand. Like, there's switcheroo stuff, but I mean, like, you know, let me do a bit of mind reading, you know, and get the word that you're thinking of.
Also, I had it written down already. Okay. So is it not mind reading? It doesn't make any sense. And it's very confusing. And while some people may think, oh, that's like, you know, it's a kicker ending or something, it's. It's not. It's confusing. Confusion is magic. It's what I've learned from that. No, it's not magic. That's what the line is. So that's pretty. So whenever I saw that, I was like, I'm gonna write it down. And I shared a write up once as I was very angry with a performance.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Love that.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say much about it because I don't want to.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, we don't.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: We don't.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: In general, I'll just say that I was at an event that wasn't for a magic show, but someone was there doing walk around to drum up business for their show. And we're like, this person's terrible.
She's just doing. He's coming up and interrupting us. We were clearly.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Not wanting this, Kim. And I was like, they were so awful. I have to go see their show.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: So I went to their show.
Yeah. And I hate watch the show. And they're just like, whoa. Like, how.
How much do you hate your audience?
Seriously? Are you treat them like this? This is wrong with the show.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: How many people were there?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: I will not disclose what the show was.
I don't Want to giveaway?
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. No. Okay. No hints.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: This is the kind of thing where it's like, I will probably publish all this stuff in, like, 30 years when it doesn't matter. But my. My issue is because people love reading these reviews who I've shared them with, but, like, if I put them out publicly, it'd be like, you're just doing a hit list or whatever. Also, they're very. They're very exposure y, because I know a lot about magic. Yeah. So it's like, here's this, you know, and then you did this. You're like, you know, it's. It's two people doing a show together, you know, but they both did the same trick, even though it was slightly different. It's like, you can't do the same trick. And it's not like it was some variety show.
Yeah. Yeah. It's not like, oh, we hired three people and they all came in today. It's like, no, you put this show together. But I had shared that write up with some magician friends once, and one of them said, wow, can you come to my show and write something like that about mine? Because they wanted their show to improve, and they knew that I would tear it apart kindly.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: But find all the little nitpicky things that, you know, even if you don't really get it on a conscious level, like, something still bothers you. It's like, you know something about that. I know what it is. And I'm often able to find. Here's exactly what it is. Here's why you think church is weird. So some people, like, yeah, that.
That. That, you know, prediction routine. I didn't really. Something about it bothered me. I'm like, oh, it's because he thought he told you it was mind reading. Oh, yeah. That is why.
And so stuff like that happens all the time.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: How did you get involved with Lucy? The Lucy Darling Show? Carissa Hendricks. Because I knew you were on the. You worked with this Shazam podcast, which he was a part of it when it. When it started. And you're wearing the. You're wearing the gear right now.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I was the Shazam audio editor.
So that's how I met Carissa. And so she just had me in her back pocket as someone to work with. So when she did her virtual shows in 2020, I was one of the people working on that. So if you recall, it was Lucy and she had her two butlers.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: And then I was the secret hidden butler.
So I was never on camera, but I did Wear the uniform. Because I thought that was funny, that.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: No, really.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: And also because, you know, like, the.
Where she shot it, like, that room wasn't real. That was a set that they had built.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I found the same wallpaper, and so I also had it. So I was on the same set.
It would look like I was just in the next room or something. Or just, you know, turn the camera and you would see me. Perhaps is the illusion. Although, again, I was never on camera, so it didn't matter.
The fun thing there was that I first took a.
I made a virtual background of that. And so one week, I'm like, hey, look, I'm in the same room as you guys. Hey. You know, and it was clearly a virtual background. But then the next time we were on, I'm like, hey, I've got a much better green screen. And it looked really, really good, but then I touched it and it moved, and they're like, oh, that's real. I'm like, yeah, I found it. So I had the backdrop for a long time. Do I still.
I have one piece of it somewhere. So I'd worked with Chris on the virtual show, and then over the next few years, like, I would see her every once in a while, and I would offer notes and ideas whenever I could. The interesting thing about Carissa is that she very much wants feedback and notes. She's also, for me, very difficult to give notes, too, because my notes are all about.
You didn't really think this through.
Marissa thinks things through.
So there's not a whole lot for me to offer. It's more like, I don't know, maybe you almost flashed when you did this. Like, it gets to that really basic stuff every once in a while. I have a good idea, but it's not that often, so I don't want to take any more credit than any other.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: No, I mean, from. You know, when I took that one class from her, the small class that. That you could tell everyone in the room was blown away. And she's just like, oh, yeah, you just do this. And everyone's looking at each other like, yeah, we're not gonna do the. It's. It's like you're sitting in a room with Beethoven. You're like, oh, you just. You just write the song. It's not. You just write the song, and then you play the song, and the rest of us are with kazoos and be like, that's not dumb it down for us. Like, small goals. Because there is a. You know, there is a Big difference between what she's able to do and what an average magician is. Is able to do. And it's. It's wild.
How did we end up from you giving notes to, like, I travel around the country now.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: So I knew Carissa and had worked with her in the past, and she was doing shows in New York at the beginning of 2024.
And so I went to one of her shows, and I brought a friend with me. Hey, friend, let's go see Lucy Darling. I think you would like it.
So we go to see the show.
My friend liked it, good show. And then afterwards, I go to talk to her. I'm like, I know people. I can go meet her. And so we do that. And then she's telling me about this TikTok thing has happened, and she's, like, really popular.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: And she really needs someone to help with managing the community, just like I had done with the virtual show. And she's just saying all these words, and I'm thinking, I don't know what a TikTok is, lady. I'm pushing 50.
This is not my scene. You got the wrong guy.
And she's like, no, no, you're the right person. And like, I. I don't think. She's like, we'll have lunch and we'll talk about it. And Nathan is like, academically, irrationally. I know. She's saying the exact same thing that I had with. I worked at a company, a corporate company, for about 20 years, and my job kept changing. Like, I was it. I was an audio editor. Then I was like, the audio producer, like, running the thing there. And then I was a project manager, and then I was a software developer, and I was a database engineer. Like, there's no through line. That made sense. However, it was always problem solving, because the way I changed jobs was someone in some other department said, hey, you, could you come work for me and do the stuff you did over there? Here? I'm like, I don't know anything about anything that you do. Like, you'll figure it out every time they said that. And I'm like, I won't. And I would figure it out, and I would solve all their problems, and then someone else would be like, hey, I saw what you did with them, and them, can you come do it with me? So Chrysa was saying the exact same thing, and I recognized that, but I still didn't believe it. And so I'm waiting on the platform for the train with my friend after the show, and I turn to her and I Say, hey, I was being offered a job, wasn't I? She's like, yes, Mr. Been out of work for an entire year. You were being offered a job.
What's wrong? Seem like, okay, I guess I'll. I'll go have lunch. So Chrissa pitches this idea of keeping tabs on who all the people are online so that she can know what's going on. And if she sees them on a show, she'll, you know, I can do a gentle reminder, like, oh, that's so and so. You know, like, he says his name is Todd, but online you would know him as Liberty Blob 22. Like, oh, Blippity Blob 22. So it's like I was connecting real people to their online Persona. So often she would know. She said, oh, yeah, I have been talking to that person. But she doesn't know their real name.
So that's where that kind of came from.
Um, so I, I built a. A thing to collect the comments from TikTok and Instagram and et cetera. And so it's a searchable database of all that which apparently doesn't exist in the world. And every time we tell people about it, they're like, that's a game changer. I'm like, yeah, all right. When you were.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: When you were.
I can't believe that's the first time that's happened as far as I'm aware.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I've spoken to other people that are like social media managers. I love when they call themselves social media gurus, because it's like no one knows. No one knows anything about how social media works.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: No, it's a brand new world within
[00:27:28] Speaker B: because a lot of people had to assign, like, a score. It's like, oh, this post is doing well because it scored this. Whatever. We also have a score, but it's called the arbitrary score because we want it. Remember, we don't know what this means. You know, the app, like, we could figure out this is. Will be a good post because of this, but the algorithm can change tomorrow. I mean, as we're talking, I believe the TikTok is changing right now. That's what's happening today. So nothing matters. But we also kind of did it kind of in a backwards way because a lot of people, when they get a certain amount of celebrity, they want to like someone else, manage the social media.
You go in and you make the posts and you comment. You know, log in as me and pretend you're me and whatever.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: And then just tell me what's going on generally if something comes up.
Whereas that's not what Chrissa wants. Chrissa wants to be in there in the comments, but she wants to know where she has to focus because there's just so many now.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: So it's. It's. You know, when she was only getting, you know, 10 comments per post and that was a good day, it was easy for her to like, oh, okay, I'll respond to this person and that person. And now it's like a thousand on a post. So it's like, oh, this is. This is someone you should look at or someone you need to know about, or you should know that this person who commented here also made these other comments on all these other posts, which is not something you can do.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: That's crazy. Yeah, that's amazing.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Anywhere else think?
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's. That is a game changer when it comes to caring about your audience. Really?
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Yes. And it came out of me being lazy because as it was described to me, it was.
Read all the comments and, you know, get a sense of who's. Who is, what's. What. I'm like, no, how about I put them all together and you can search them yourself?
That. That was me. Just like, I don't want to do this. So it's very. And like, my friends who know me really well, when I say, like, what's. What's your job? I'm the community manager. Like, but you hate people.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: I know that's where you and I get along so well. Yeah.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
I should be clear, though, because I understand people may be watching this. I don't hate.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Not that many.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: I just hate people in general.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Yes. People in general are awful individually.
You know, there's some great people out there, some lovely humans, especially Carissa Hendricks fans.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: But I love the idea of a community that works together.
And so one of the things we've found is we're really trying to push that. And so one reason I don't especially like TikTok and Instagram is because for people to interact, you have to wait for your creator to put a post up.
Chris makes a post. Oh, now we can comment on it.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Whereas Facebook as that. As Facebook is in many ways. And that's. That's my neighborhood, but I live on Facebook. I'm not the other place. And so when I talk bad about it, I'm talking bad about my own.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: We're people of a certain age.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Yes, we.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: We cut our teeth on Facebook.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: But I do like the groups. A group on Facebook allows for a Community to be self organizing.
And you don't need to wait for one of us to post.
You can start posting. So some to be like, hey, I'm gonna go to the St. Louis show. Who else is going? Who wants to meet up beforehand?
Yes, do that. You all talk to each other. Because that's what we want. We want the community to be built. And Lucy is just really there as a figurehead facilitator.
So they arrive because of Lucy, but they find each other. Which is not dissimilar from the thing I said about Mystify. I said, like, if you could take away the mystify element of it and those people would still be a community because everyone just clicked with each other and that's what we want.
Good times.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: It's a vibe.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So I was putting that together.
And then when the larger shows were happening, Krissa wanted to make Astral Lucy more available because ask for Lucy to that point was there's little slips of paper and pens handed out to like the first two or three rows.
And then when asked Lucy, music starts.
Collects it in a bowl and then reads them off.
And that's fine. When you're in a place that seats 100, 200 people, get to 300 and it's like, well, sorry, should have sat closer. But when you're at a place with 3,000 people, it's like no one can participate. That's. It's. I mean, yes, there's 20 slips out there, but you may as well be. Nobody participates.
So we wanted to do a version where there's a QR code up on a screen. You scan it with your phone, you submit your question.
And now someone in the very back balcony can be part of the show because they are still randomly drawn. So I built the system for that.
And so the questions get submitted in the time before the show starts. So between doors and show start. And then a way of voting on it too, which is very helpful because then I don't have to look for the good ones. The people will tell me what the good ones are, which ones they want. So that's another way to participate is that, you know, maybe my question didn't get read, but that's the one I voted for.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: I love that. Yeah,
[00:33:09] Speaker B: yeah. So it is like, at that point, it's. It's Agatha. So we, you know, what's in the.
The jar is not the. All the questions, obviously, because I remember the first night we did it, we didn't expect to have like 500 submissions in like 10 minutes. Like they were hungry for it. And I was like, oh, that's. We are. We have to implement voting. Because that for show. I was like, I was looking for.
Because. So I can't put 500 questions in the thing. So there's only like 20, 25, 30 in there. Just enough to fill it because it'd be wasteful otherwise. Because she's only to read five of them.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: So do you. Do you print them out or do you write them? You have, like, a printer in the back.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: I have a printer, a little thermal printer. Although for the first show, it crapped out. And so I was handwriting fun. That was a great moment of team coming together where I was like, predator didn't work. I need to handwrite. And people are like, give me a pen. So there are three of one. It was just the stagehand at the local theater. It wasn't even a member of our team.
Wrote a bunch of them.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: You're so great. I also love that he was young. And so fortunately, it wasn't set up for half three people just write them. So I was like, reading them off to people off my phone.
And so I wanted to do about shorter one.
Like, okay, like, because he had written a really long one. So let me give you a short one to help you. Outer or skull.
And he looks at me, he's like, you don't know who those are. Like, okay, don't do that one because you won't have a scalding.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Oh, that hurts.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: It's like, I know you're a baby.
Like, okay, you have to do this longer one. I'll write molt or scull it. But the.
But. So there are 25 or 30. Typically the top 30. Although I do do a light curation that if it's a question that's been asked a lot, especially like, what happens is a video would go viral and people will really like that video and they ask the exact same question.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Like, got it. Okay.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Play Free Bird again. Like, we don't want to do that. So why are men really Common question that get asked. I never print that one out. Because women, we already. We already did it.
So here's a little hint. Be original.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: And then sometimes they're just. They're not even questions. They're just like, you know, thank you for coming to Cheryl. I love you so much. Like, cool, but not a good Ask Lucy question. And then some are. We call them intruders, where they. They break the fantasy. So it's like, tell us about the wig.
Lucy doesn't wear A wig?
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: No, that's Lucy's hair. What are you talking about?
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Exactly. I. Yeah, you know, that's sacrilege. There is no. That's her real hair. And I would appreciate it if we don't sully her. Her that with. With questions. That's rude. Never talk about a woman's hair anyway.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean, that was asked before and it was a fairly popular video where I just thought was what wig? But it's also. It's been done. And that's partially why we do the pre show talk back because it's.
You ask Carissa questions. So it's the same setup, but now you have to ask Chrisa a question so you can break.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Which is also something that I've never seen in a magic show. I don't know if that's common. It's to actually be able to get tickets to talk to the performer behind the performer. I mean, it's just. It's pretty good.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: You see that in theater a lot.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Where we'll talk about like, oh, what did the playwright mean when you did this? Or you know, what's the director's choices in this particular production? So it's a. It's a theater. Grand theater to. To magic. So anyway, so I will print out about 20 or so slips that are the. The generally the top. And then the top three are the top three voted. So those are always. Unless the AI. But so it gets filled with the top 20 or 30 and then the top three voted or top three voted. So at that point it is exactly like classical ascaloosi. So even though the questions are submitted before the show, Lucy does not see them, does not know what they are. They are apart from this top three, which are the top three, but they are randomly selected, so.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: It's legit. You know, there's no tomfoolery going on with that.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Good. That's definitely. That's definitely something I think people would wonder after watching those viral videos because they're so. First of all, if you don't know, she's extremely clever, she's extremely smart. She's an absolute genius when it comes to. Comes to coming up with comedy. So it's like you would think that she wrote those ahead of time, but it is it. I was there, I saw it. She does not know what those questions are. And it is funny as crap. It's so good.
But I do want to talk to what. What is it like? Let's go over to the now. Let's get back to, like, what's it like for you?
[00:37:48] Speaker B: That's why we're there. Because you're asking me how I got on tour.
Because I did the ask Lucy, and it's like, okay, well, I need to be at the show in order to do the printing and such. Or, like, I'm not 100% necessary. But for the first time out, let's bring the guy who built the thing and he can run it and get any further bugs out of the system. And so what happened was at some point, she realized someone needs to bring the glass out because they're coming from backstage, they're not coming from the audience anymore. So the glass has to be backstage and brought out. Abby should bring it because people know who Abby is. She was. She's already a known character in Tatak. Like, people know who Abby is.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: And Abby's like, but I am way far away, front of house. I can't do that. And so I said, well, I could do it because.
And because I already had the butler uniform that I was going to be wearing for the post show. The meet and greet.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: So then it was like, I didn't have anything to do. It's like, print out these questions and then do nothing for two hours and then do the meet and greet. And that's all my job was going to be for the show.
So I said, well, I could put on the butler uniform at the top of the show and I could bring out the glass. And me, I was just solving a problem with, you need a body to bring this out, I'm available. Here's a body. Dislocate us through the show.
That's what I think I said.
What Carissa heard was, you know, me, Chris Combs, speaking as someone who has a savvy eye in how magic performances should be kept consistent. You need an end universe character. So that's what I thought I said. What Carissa heard is I, Chris Combs, an astute observer of magic shows and how they should be constructed.
I think you need the in universe character to be bringing out questions. It should be the butler.
And so that's how I got put into the show. Like, now I'm part of the show. And so, like, that was that day.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: So, like, that was three hours before the show, and I wasn't in the show at that point. And suddenly, like, I'm a major character in this show, but, you know, there's just three characters in the show. So then it's like, well, we can't have him just do one thing. So it's like, keep coming on and off and doing this, and we'll do these bits with him. And now I'm doing his things with these cards at the end. And, you know, I was doing a magic trick in the first couple shows, which we stopped.
Made the right choice. Don't make me do a magic trick.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: I would have loved to have.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: That's also the weird thing to be, not being a magician. And it's like. Like this weekend, I performed for, like, 8,000 people. That's. That's more than some people who call themselves professional magicians.
Something's wrong. That's not right.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: It's more than I'll perform for the next four more people than I'll perform for the next four years. So you got that going for you.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So I don't have to do more magic for another decade or so. So that's how it happened. It was. I got tricked into it, I think.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Tricked into a lot of stuff. So now a typical day for a show. Here we are. Now we're doing it. We would wake up on a bus. We'll be in front of a venue. Tech crew would go on into the. In the morning to start doing throughs and enlightened sound and whatever.
I get to come in later. I think I get to come in even later in this next tour because I'm being treated more like talent than a crew member, which is cool or not? I don't know.
We'll find out.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Very cool.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: But, like, I typically don't have a lot to do through most of the.
The morning and afternoon.
So I do my other Carissa job, which is every morning. I do keep tabs on how many tickets have been sold.
Or actually, I would check out how many tickets are remaining.
So I log into, like, every single Ticketmaster site and count the blue dots and write down that number.
I don't do that with my eyeballs. I. I wrote a thing I would
[00:42:15] Speaker A: love to see if you. You actually count it there.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: There are a few. Uh, but I. I just cannot get the information automatically, so I have to count them. And I'm like, hey, we should really focus on selling the Richmond show, because I have to count it with my eyes, and I don't want to do that. So if we could sell that out, that'd be great. Thanks.
So let's focus our mark. Even though it's like, there's only.
Sorry, there's only a hundred tickets left, but seriously focus on that one. I don't want to count them anymore. I think that one's at 15 left now. Just.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I still have to count it with my eyeballs. Boo.
I'm gonna just stop, but yeah. So I'm typically kind of bored through the day. Carissa describes me as having two modes, Panic and boredom. And I also realize that boredom is just a form of panic because it's like I don't have anything to do. That's. That's me being bored. But then panic is when I do have something to do.
It feels like I have three things to do at one time, and so I not fun to be around. I don't think. I think I'm amusing. They think it's funny to see me going nuts. So that's one of the things we're gonna try to work on this year, is me tamping down my panic and the rest of the team not encouraging it because they find it funny.
Because it is fine. But I need to stop be like, hey, I need help with this, the thing that I do. Mostly why I feel like I have three things going on at once, because when I'm focused on something, someone will come up and be like, hey, can you do a thing for me? And for some reason, I can't. I don't understand the idea of put on your own mask before helping someone else.
So I'm like, sure, let me just put whatever I'm doing away and help you, and I'll do that. And then I'll be like, what was I doing? You know? And I find like, oh, I was literally 15 seconds away from being finished. And I get so mad at myself. So I'm trying to learn to say, cool, I'll be with you in one minute. And that's all I have to do. And I would not be upset if someone did that to me. So why do I feel like they would be upset if I ask them?
That's my particular thing I have to work on.
But then it ramps up about half an hour before the show starts, because that's when I'm trying to ask Lucy.
Selected and printed. I'd like to dem printed by the time the show starts, which means for, like, the last minute. I'm looking for a last minute. Like, oh, that's a good. Like I said, we use the voting to know which ones are the best ones. But the thing is, you know, someone got in an hour ago.
They've gotten a lot of votes, but someone could have written a real banger two minutes before the show starts. So I do Have a sort on it. So it shows me. Here's the latest ones. So this one. This one just came in. Zero votes. But it's so good it's going in now. It doesn't necessarily mean it's. It doesn't guarantee it'll be red because it'll be one of the randoms.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's. It's brilliant.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
And that gives people a chance. You did a better chance if you come in early. Just so you know.
Just then I will find it because people will vote it up. But I do try to look for good ones at the end of the thing.
Please don't wait until last minute. Don't.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Don't make him have to. Yeah, don't make him have to rush. He's got a lot to do.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: So I've got about, I think, like, 25 minutes before the Ask Lucy questions need to come out.
But I like to have that cushion of time for panic, because sometimes the printer is not working and it's handwrite time. I haven't done a handwriting one since the City Winery, but it always looms. But it's. That's been. Because Amber also has a printer, which is not a thermal printer. So we print on these sticker labels.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: So they're stickers.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: And so when Lucy tosses them out, she hopes that people realize they're stickers and they'll stick them all in the suitcase or something.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Oh, God, that's insane. Yeah, that's good.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
I don't know if anyone's caught on to that. And sometimes we see people, like, they'll pick them up, like, oh, good, they got a souvenir. But then they'll. They'll put it up on stage and return it. Yeah. So then we collect them at the end of the show, like, oh, it's fine. At some point, someone will realize, oh, those are things you could collect. So the new ones. So they.
I have some here that I'm throwing out.
So they used to just look like that. So it's just text, nothing interesting. But the new ones, they're in the bottom of this trash canvas, but they have a lucid Orlando logo and they have a little decorative filigree on it, so they'll look a little nicer. They'll take a little longer to print because it's.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: Plus an image, which is more. So why I want to have them ready to go.
Absolutely.
So for that reason, in that half hour for the show, I'm like, please no one talk to me. I need to find these questions. And start to print them and I don't feel good until I have two thirds of them printed. Then I'm all right.
And then she is probably talking to the. The people in the front row at that point.
And so a microphone ball, typically, ideally would be my job to go out there and hand it to the people in the front row. But it's often been Jack or James will do it because I'm freaking out.
Something's happened. I had to leave to go get a charger or find a wifi connection because it doesn't work on this stage for some reason. But that's that. I bring out the astrosy questions, take them off.
There's a couple other props I take on and off depending on the show because we do have three different shows.
So the you're welcome shows when I'm in the most and then Viva, I'm not in at all. I just take out Ask Lucy and we can. And simply, darling, I'm handing auto props.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: How do you know which show is going to be in what venue does it? Or do you. Do you cycle them a certain way?
That was part one of the interview with Chris Combs. Don't miss part two next time. And remember that magic begins with a story.
