Ep 565 - The Entertainer (feat. Steve Crawford)

Speaker 1 Wow! Wow, wow, Wes!

Speaker 2 Actor, magician, hypnotist, escape artist, television personality.

Speaker 3 There are a lot of parts to make up Steve Crawford.

Speaker 2 Steve and his team of experienced professionals would like an opportunity to tailor a program to meet your needs.

Speaker 4 Hey guys, welcome to Matt and Chain Secret Podcast.

Speaker 5 We're doing a little road episode. I'm in Ontario, California, recording a comedy special.

Speaker 8 What we are

Speaker 5 recording an intro for my newest special that'll come out eventually.

Speaker 8 And I met you, Steve. Steve Crawford, dude.

Speaker 10 Great to be here.

Speaker 9 Lifetime Entertainer.

Speaker 1 That was a crazy day we had.

Speaker 11 I mean, yeah, it was mostly you.

Speaker 12 You were doing stunts and shit.

Speaker 1 So, this guy, don't let him fool you.

Speaker 1 Wow, wow. You got actually

Speaker 1 got hurt a little bit injured. Your ribs are messing up.

Speaker 13 Well, that should be nothing to you. You're a stunt.

Speaker 14 How long are you doing stunts for?

Speaker 1 Exactly. That's the problem.
So now I'm all broke it down and soared. So I did Daredevil stunts on the road for 30, 40 years, and that was for State Fairs Festivals.

Speaker 15 How'd you get into that?

Speaker 1 You know, I was a kid. I had a childhood hobby of magic.

Speaker 1 My mother told me about the movie Houdini with Tony Curtis, and I watched this thing, and I watched him get locked in the water tank, and his appendix burst, and he dies.

Speaker 1 But something

Speaker 1 affected me differently than it did the other people watching, and it grabbed me.

Speaker 14 You watched the Houdini, so you saw him die in the tank, and you're like, I did.

Speaker 1 I'm like, oh my gosh, I want to do what this guy's doing. That is so cool.
I mean, if you're going to die, let's die in a water tank in front of an audience. Sure.
We're all going to die.

Speaker 1 But didn't plan to die and didn't die. But I was lucky.
I had a locksmith that lived next door. He taught me how to pick locks, and I really became a big Houdini fan.

Speaker 14 And your name, your stage name was Houseini, right?

Speaker 1 As a child, I went all the way in those days, actually all the way to college,

Speaker 1 Houdini names, you know, with somebody Eani, everybody Eenie. So I went with Houseini.

Speaker 1 Can you hold, my beautiful assistant is here. Would you hold the microphone? I'll show you one of the first tricks I learned.
This is a quick one.

Speaker 5 do you ever use mail? It's always women, why never like sexy voice for the assistant?

Speaker 1 I think you gotta hold it closer. Somebody told me that.

Speaker 1 That was you.

Speaker 1 All right, here we go. A little dollar bill trick.
Here we go. So, a lot of kids start with this stuff, which I did at the library.
Picture of Barbara Bush.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you can see that, or kind of looks like a barbara up there. I always thought it was a kid, anyways.
No, we we fold the dollar up in this trick.

Speaker 1 What we want to do is make it come out backwards or different or upside down. But in this case, it actually changes

Speaker 1 you a $99 difference you get a hundred dollar bill so uh money didn't really become the motivation to do it but it kept me doing it you got the you got the philosopher's stone you could do alchemy transfer the lead into gold we could do that it's true I will say I picked up many many dates as a child pretending to be a real wizard and I could do real magic and read her mind and you wouldn't believe it's magic is a great way to meet girls don't they

Speaker 5 wanted to ask you about that that seems I watched the reel of you.

Speaker 11 That was the Oklahoma,

Speaker 19 what was that, the hockey team, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, you saw one of my sports events during the losing.

Speaker 20 Yes, my question is, though, when you're a magician, because you're a magician, actor, stunt man,

Speaker 20 you do it all.

Speaker 9 You're a general entertainer, a real entertainer.

Speaker 18 Everyone thinks they're an entertainer now, but you are the real deal.

Speaker 21 40 years of locking in the, what, getting locked underwater, acting.

Speaker 1 You know, it was a funny thing when I was growing up, I was the only entertainer that I knew. And I mean, I met people who helped me in the business, but

Speaker 1 I did my shows.

Speaker 1 And now I look at social media and everybody's an entertainer. I'm like, I'm the only one on there not entertaining anymore.

Speaker 1 Your blood, sweat, and tears. It's in the world.
The world has changed. Everybody's entertaining.

Speaker 11 Well, here's a question.

Speaker 4 So with the magic, you're saying it's a good way to meet girls.

Speaker 22 When's the first time you converted magic skills into just some,

Speaker 10 I don't know how graphic you want to get.

Speaker 1 So often, well, I've got one true story,

Speaker 1 and it's a no joke there's a victim's protection order on file in oklahoma hold up bro

Speaker 1 on you or the person on the girl who had a fatal attraction and and it was it was it was this that uh in 81 i opened for alice cooper i was just his opening act we did some illusions and i was a good guy uh backstage i met with the people who won the radio passes to come backstage you know and friendly and the band members were sleeping with people and all that i didn't get any of that and one of the rules i hold

Speaker 1 how old are you back then? Well, I was very young. I was 18, 19 years old.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. But yeah, one of my earlier gigs

Speaker 1 back in college days, I was in college when we hooked up for that. But I had been meeting girls in clubs and telling them I was psychic.
So I felt bad about that.

Speaker 1 This even in high school and would read their mind. And of course, it worked.
You know, they're just, oh, we've got this connection.

Speaker 1 But I had a rule I would never go out with a girl that I met at a show.

Speaker 1 Because what they see in the show is not who you are. I mean,

Speaker 1 you're playing a role. You're a daredevil stunt guy with security around you.
I mean, you're playing this image, right? Or you're a funny guy in a show, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 So those people don't know you. And I made, I broke the rule one time.
And boy, it was crazy.

Speaker 1 Young lady, you can look up, it's still in the file of the court case. But yeah, she

Speaker 1 tried to come on hard to me to marry me all of a sudden. I'm like, what in the world?

Speaker 23 We just met.

Speaker 14 You gave her one taste.

Speaker 4 She lost her mind.

Speaker 1 And exactly. And I told her, her words to me were, you know, what she said, I should have killed you when I saw you at the state fair in September.
I'm like, what?

Speaker 1 And she grabbed the wheel of my little convertible that was icy out and crashed it and then broke in my house later, stole stuff. There were gas stoves in those days.

Speaker 1 I was a single guy and turned on all the gas, blew out the pilot lights, and

Speaker 1 then attacked me through the back door. So everybody on our city block there went to court and we won.
Bro. But I learned my lesson.

Speaker 23 How many times did you pipe her down?

Speaker 1 One time.

Speaker 1 It was once. She got to taste the amazing woman.
She's got a lot of world.

Speaker 1 And I just don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know what to say about it, except, you know, I don't think it's a good idea to commingle.

Speaker 1 That makes sense. That's kind of smart.

Speaker 22 You were that smart, that young, to keep it separate because

Speaker 5 that's a good insight to know. Like, dude, this is all glitch and glam.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. I learned the lesson.

Speaker 18 So I really wanted to ask you about that because doing the county fairs must have been crazy.

Speaker 5 Like, what were some of the stunts you, what was like the craziest stunt you did at like a county fair?

Speaker 1 You know, everybody had a favorite and so I

Speaker 1 at state fairs were primarily we did about 25 state fairs starting in September through November.

Speaker 1 West Palm Springs, Florida kicks off early February and Shreveport, Louisiana, not my favorite fair, but that's that was ran right into Thanksgiving. So there was a ton of fairs.

Speaker 1 And so we had ground acts, family shows, animal circus, kids' circus. I did circus sideshow, illusion.
So we had that going. Then I book a secondary act, which was the Daredevil stunt.

Speaker 1 So one of those was locked upside down in the water torture cell that Houdini inspired, strapped to roller coaster tracks in a straitjacket, had to dive out of the way right before it crashes through, you know, from a screen.

Speaker 1 And yeah, hanging from burning rope straitjackets in the air. But there were other markets for swimming pool events.

Speaker 1 I let people, anybody with a backyard pool, could hire me, bring their padlocks and chain me up to weights and throw me in the pool. And for five, if you had $5,000, I was available to do it.

Speaker 1 And some close calls, but we did. I've made it through that.
What was a close call? Well, there were a lot of close calls.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Speaker 1 I don't know what it was that was. So here's the question.

Speaker 8 There were some accidents. Someone hired you at their pool to escape and you died in their pool.

Speaker 14 What's the deal with that?

Speaker 1 I would sue myself. So I had a $2 million liability policy that if myself or anyone else was ever injured at one of my shows, that it would pay off.

Speaker 1 So my first step would be to sue myself because I was injured at my show. It's kind of tough.
That was kind of my plan plan anyway. Get rich off the accident.

Speaker 18 So what were the babes like at the county fair?

Speaker 5 Because I know Alice Cooper, obviously, you're probably crawling, but like at the county fair, what's that like?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 exactly.

Speaker 1 Use your imagination, you know, and the smaller the fair, the smaller the town. Yeah, I love small town.
I'm from a small town. So,

Speaker 1 but people are, to be honest, you know, we joke about that, and there was a lot of flirty, you know,

Speaker 1 horror types, I guess you could say, but there was a lot of very, very sweet people. And I mean it sincerely.

Speaker 1 My favorite guests, they came every year, every year, just really good people, honestly. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 1 That's cool.

Speaker 24 Because I always wonder about that, because that's like, and you kept it to the code that whole time.

Speaker 5 You just only broke once for that one lady.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. You know, I think it was my fingers.
I always practice with my fingers. You want to see a finger trick? You want to do something like that?

Speaker 1 We're talking about the host.

Speaker 1 It's another magic trick.

Speaker 1 All right. Lovely assistant.

Speaker 1 I'm going to have you lay your mic down. You got to do this one with me.
All right. Would you hold this for us? So,

Speaker 1 actually, magicians, we do use our hands to exercise a little bit to get our magic going. If you do this, hold your hands like this.
Clasp your fingers together. Now, wiggle your first finger.

Speaker 1 Wiggle your little finger. Good.

Speaker 1 You're very good, talented. You're so okay.
Now, separate. Now we're going to go down.

Speaker 1 Now, can you keep turning till you go all the way out? It's a little bit of a stretch. If you're watching this, try it at home to get all the way out.
Now, reverse your arms and lock on like that.

Speaker 1 Except, can I hold them up high? There you go. Now wiggle the first finger and the little and go,

Speaker 1 oh, oh,

Speaker 1 Linda Blair taught me that one, actually.

Speaker 1 What'd you do?

Speaker 1 Twist your arms around, right?

Speaker 11 Oh, I didn't do that. I couldn't do that.

Speaker 1 I didn't either.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I tried.

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Speaker 1 You want to hear a county fair story? Yeah, please. You got time? Would you come back? You're so good at this.
I love it.

Speaker 1 Tripped with a couple of jokers. And hold on.
We're missing one.

Speaker 1 We're used to

Speaker 1 standing up. What kind of comedian sits down?

Speaker 13 I told you I would stand.

Speaker 23 I have no problem standing.

Speaker 1 So I've got a story how I lost some money from a guy running a little scam, a little gambling game at a fair. And it went like this.

Speaker 1 I thought, being a magician, I'm going to win all these carnival games, right? Yeah. This guy had three cards at his game.
One of those was a Joker that he was using.

Speaker 1 He had a second card, and it was a Joker. And then he had a third card, which was actually

Speaker 1 an ace. He said, this is the money card.
Now, what you got to do is keep your eye on this ace. All right, here we go.
I noticed he made a shifty move. I thought he put the ace on the bottom.

Speaker 1 When I guessed the bottom, well, actually,

Speaker 1 I lost my first dollar. Now, then he said this.
He said, look, I'm not going to mix the three cards. I'm going to leave them in the same sequence, the three, and right now give you a second guess.

Speaker 1 Now, I said it was the top card, which cost me a dollar. I said, I knew if it wasn't the bottom, it had to be the middle.
And, well, that would cost me a dollar.

Speaker 1 I said, okay, now you're using more than three cards. He said, that'll cost you a dollar.
I said, you've taken the ace out of the game.

Speaker 1 He said, well, he said, that'll cost you a dollar. Anyway, I owed him five bucks.
Here's where he got me. He said, look, there's an ace.
Would you hold that one? Yep. He said, here's a joker.

Speaker 1 He said, if you can still tell me the name of the last card, if you hadn't forgotten it and all this, you win your five bucks, double or nothing. You get double your money.
I said it was a joker.

Speaker 1 He said I owed him $10. So

Speaker 1 I did learn, watch the games that you play at the carnivals while you're on that subject.

Speaker 25 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Yes, do you ever beef with any carnies? Because that seems like.

Speaker 12 You ever beef with any of the carnival folks?

Speaker 1 Nope. In fact, there was a little,

Speaker 1 what was the code? If you ever got in trouble with a guest, you holler out, was it Rufus? I can't remember. It's been a while since I've been to that market, but all the Carneys jump in and help you.

Speaker 1 Really? They do. They watch each other.
They watch your back, the entertainer's back. That was one of the first things I learned.

Speaker 1 This kind of a family. It's kind of cool.
Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 23 So what would you do then?

Speaker 16 So if you were on the road like that and you weren't

Speaker 1 taking advantage of the babes not in like a bad way but i'm saying they're like they're all they're plentiful i would imagine what would you do like you just chill all day and like do magic like you're talking about i'm sorry at the after the show yeah yeah what would you do there was no break uh at a fair you're we you know you open up in the afternoon you do some shows you run them into the night and and then you go back and you're just wore out you know you've been outdoors all day typically a lot of indoor events but yeah and go back to your room and hide really

Speaker 1 get some rest because you got to do it again the next day when the fair ends on a sunday night you got to pack your

Speaker 1 tear down, hire help. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Big tear down, load your trailers,

Speaker 1 head on down to the next one.

Speaker 4 So, what about the one thing I wanted to ask you when we started is like, what's the relationship like between a magician and a magician's assistant? That seems like it's an erotic.

Speaker 4 I don't want to keep hammering on this, but it seems like an erotic situation.

Speaker 12 Like, how do you handle that?

Speaker 1 Yes, it could be. It's all you keep it in the back of your head.
So, unfortunately,

Speaker 1 they never knew. They never knew my thoughts.
No, I actually very respectful. Yeah.
We'd hire dancers. We would hire people that

Speaker 1 were there for the art and did a good job. And honestly, we became good friends.
I never made a move on an assistant.

Speaker 1 But there were some I certainly liked. I think they liked me, but we just left it at that.

Speaker 23 You're professional as hell.

Speaker 18 I guess that's how you do it for 40 years, man. Otherwise.

Speaker 1 40 years.

Speaker 1 It was that long until I could get out of it. And I did comedy clubs in the 80s.
Does anything about that?

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Speaker 1 So I had three comedy club acts, and it was an agent that convinced me to do this. Keeping in mind, I'm an actor.
I wanted to be a comedian, but I never really was that funny. I mean, honestly,

Speaker 1 I didn't think. But so we developed three acts that we booked into the comedy clubs.
And one was a pickpocket comedy thing, and one was a monologue with some magic. And the third one.

Speaker 1 is the reason I got out of doing comedy clubs. I had a problem

Speaker 1 with myself doing this with anybody. I went right in as a headliner.

Speaker 1 I think a comedy club, you need people to start in the beginning, an opener, a middler, you know, and then you work your way up and you got real talented comedians out there.

Speaker 1 But I had an act that just booked the year up like that as a, right off the bat, went right in as a

Speaker 1 headliner because there was no choice but to put it there. And what Wyatt booked was the ticket sales and it's the hypnosis show.
So I became a certified clinical hypnotist.

Speaker 23 Oh, Oh, that's you majored in psychology.

Speaker 1 I was actually an acting, a theater major with a minor in psychology.

Speaker 1 But then I became a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, and I went into these sessions where we learned how to hypnotize people. And I screwed them up.
I messed with them.

Speaker 1 You had to work with real people, right? And tell them that their watch is gone. Well, I would really steal their watch.

Speaker 1 And then I would touch their eyes and then put my fingers here and say, I'm going to feel something touch you. And then I would touch with my other hand.
And I was doing magic on these people, right

Speaker 1 and then when we came out all the guests are sharing the stories of what happened and the certifiers are like what what happened he did what and you know even with kids we hypnotize kids make but honestly people are crying they're talking about their problems i thought i would never be a doctor i could never be a clinical hypnotist at the shows people would get hypnotized but in the shows i it was a animal so uh so yes a comedian to me is is not a hypnotist or vice versa that uh a comedian is a comedian and so here here we are in there booked as the headliner because you got to do a lengthy show you got to bring people up an hour and and it's got to be that in that spot and it was a very popular act so there was a change at the end of the 80s where there were less comedy clubs so i got in for commercial reasons again we and i like to switch things up because i get bored you know change the market some uh and we'd the clubs are going down and so i had an opportunity to stay on and i think i heard that jokers was one of the clubs we were working with wanted now their people to go with them full-time or something.

Speaker 1 There were some changes going on. And I thought, you know what? There's some great comedians that I met while I was out there.
And those guys, they deserved the comedy clubs. So

Speaker 1 I left it out. I got out of there.

Speaker 10 Principled man.

Speaker 14 So what were the shows? So

Speaker 14 you would hypnotize people and steal their stuff?

Speaker 1 So pickpocketing was actually a separate thing.

Speaker 1 But in the, what I was referring to, when we were practicing with real people and real problems, we would go into a room with them alone as part of your training to get certified as a clinical hypnotist to help you with problems.

Speaker 1 And I just couldn't resist. I'm like, oh my gosh.
You tell them their watch is gone and now they don't see it. And you show them a coin and you tell them it's a different coin.

Speaker 1 And they believe it's a different

Speaker 1 in these tests. Well, this is all through mental programming.
You relax a person. Hypnosis works this way.
You get someone in a very relaxed state of mind. They go to an alpha pattern.

Speaker 1 And now you can speak to the subconscious mind. You don't have to go to a clinical hypnotist to try some tricks at home.

Speaker 1 For example, if you're worried about remembering something tomorrow, a better word is recall because it's always in there, but you want to be able to recall.

Speaker 1 So you relax into this, like you're falling asleep, right? Very relaxed.

Speaker 1 And then you look and you picture the shower curtain and tell yourself, when I see this shower curtain, this thought will pop in my mind. So you won't forget it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And watch the trick to this is the fun thing about it is this. The next day, a year later, 20 years later, when you see the shower curtain, it will pop this trigger in this thought.
And you go, wow.

Speaker 1 Then you begin to realize, oh, this stuff really works. It's not all just a show.
I mean, a lot of it is a show, but that you can really do that. Or the subconscious mind is so amazing.

Speaker 1 Most of us have an internal clock in the subconscious mind. You tell yourself, I need to wake up at a certain time as you fall asleep.

Speaker 1 Watch if you don't wake up. Either at that time, sometimes on the minute, but usually just a little before, because you know you got to be up at that time.
Your brain will wake you up.

Speaker 1 So it's about relaxing and getting into the subconscious. Gotcha.

Speaker 4 What was like some of the crazier things you did hypnotizing people?

Speaker 1 In the shows?

Speaker 1 Well, making people rigid, laying them on two chairs and standing on their body.

Speaker 1 It was not a magic trick. It looked like one, but they're so rigid.

Speaker 1 And then a friend of mine, Dr. Roy Bellows, was hypnotist next.

Speaker 1 He's in court. where somebody came back later and said that they had some back injuries.

Speaker 1 Oh, stand on the back? I threw that one out. Well, you stand on the front.
You put their feet on one chair and their head here, and then you walk on their body.

Speaker 1 What? It's a classic. It's been around.

Speaker 5 Did you keep men on women or just men?

Speaker 1 Well, that depends on your fetish. I mean,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 27 I might try that tonight. I might try to jump on a lady during my hours, jump right on her belly.

Speaker 17 It's squisher.

Speaker 1 Hypnosis.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it's a lot of fun. They become space aliens.
They, you know, race

Speaker 1 fun acts in the shows, in the shows. Yeah.

Speaker 22 Were you ever tempted to use a hypnosis for like evil purposes?

Speaker 12 Not, not all women, I mean, guys, whatever, just like tricking people, getting like a clone army going.

Speaker 1 You know, what's really weird about that is people ask you, too, have you ever used your lock picking skills? Yeah, true. You know, haven't you ever been tempted to break in?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, you could take a brick and throw it through the window tomorrow if you really want to break in. It doesn't change you at all.
You're still who you are. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, every locksmith knows how to kind of pick locks.

Speaker 1 Well, sure. But they're like, well, no, I don't want to break it anywhere.
You don't need to pick locks to break in somewhere if you want to break in, but we don't want to break in anywhere.

Speaker 1 You really don't change it. And hopefully, the people that are, that do take advantage of their skills like pickpocketing.

Speaker 1 I'll admit, as a kid, we used to go down the street and take people's wallets and practice and stuff. And I'm like, oh, I'm not going to steal from anybody.
You know, I got to get their money back.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we wanted to practice on strangers and we did. I'm like, I can't do this.

Speaker 23 How do you pickpocket?

Speaker 1 What's the well? You don't have a. If you ever watch a, you ever watch on,

Speaker 1 do you have a buckle straw with a strap on it over there? I can't see what you, nobody got, so you know, like, give me your hand. And so somebody got a watch on here.

Speaker 1 You grab here, and you would literally pull back. Oh, you pop the shape.
The shank, and you squeeze it. And when you pull it away, they don't feel it.

Speaker 1 So you look for that style watch as a first choice. Yeah.
And it was in my comedy club act. I'd bring the person up and then I'd wave it in front of their face.
It's okay. I'm going to hypnotize you.

Speaker 1 You're getting sleepy. And then we'll try a post-hypnotic suggestion.
The watch is looking familiar to you. And they're like, oh, that's my watch.
You know, so it was an inherently funny comedy act.

Speaker 1 And then I would have him tie my hands behind my back.

Speaker 1 Um, and it's an old routine, Harry Keller, I think the magician invented where you pull your hand out and back in over and over.

Speaker 1 So, I'm flashing the guy's wallet behind his back and show it, you're flashing this and flashing that. Uh, so take it, and then return their keys or something at the end as a finale.

Speaker 1 We had an occasion in a comedy club once, which caused a real issue, is I added a new bit. So, I walked into the audience and I grabbed the proper watch and started picking.

Speaker 1 Actually, let me me go with you. Would you mind helping me? And took a different guy, but I had this guy's watch.
So the finale,

Speaker 1 the new change in this act was at the end, after I'm returning this guy's stuff, everybody laughs. I point the guy in the audience, hey, don't laugh.
I got yours too.

Speaker 1 And you get an extra round of applause, right? I forgot I had taken it. It was a brand new act.
It was in my pocket. And I left the place with this guy's nice watch.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh my gosh, I got it.

Speaker 1 So I actually had to call the manager of the comedy club and put out an announcement. And and somehow he got a call from the right guy.

Speaker 1 The guy, I was at that show and my watch disappeared. And

Speaker 1 you got your watch? What? And we gave him his watch back. So everybody thought it was funny and quite amusing.
I don't think they knew if it was part of the act or not, though.

Speaker 8 It is nice to know, you know, if you ever need to, you could be a master thief.

Speaker 14 Obviously, you wouldn't do that, but it's very true.

Speaker 1 Absolutely true. There's nothing, and there really is nothing, no lock that can't be opened or there's no item you can't escape from.

Speaker 12 Handcuffs. I know you can escape.
You said

Speaker 4 you said the record for escaping from handcuffs?

Speaker 1 Yes, sir. I wasn't going to mention it.

Speaker 1 But I have a world record. Well, that's boastful.
So less than two seconds.

Speaker 2 Came front page news as Steve broke a world record with the escape.

Speaker 25 We're ready.

Speaker 3 I've got the stopwatch. Okay, go, G.
Out, out.

Speaker 1 Whoa, yeah.

Speaker 3 Let me see these. All right.
Very good. Look at the stopwatch, Steve.
1.47 seconds, and that is less than two seconds is a record. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 And I only sent you one picture of, and I just want to share that.

Speaker 1 When I was stepping away from escapes, getting older, just a few years back,

Speaker 1 I started doing something unusual for law enforcement groups. I actually got a phone call from former chief of police.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he was in Oklahoma. And he calls me and he says, Steve, we've got a problem.

Speaker 1 People are getting out of the handcuffs. They're getting out of their jails, and they're escaping these things, and they're turning this stuff on the cops.

Speaker 1 They're leaving them for dead or, you know, killing them. One, we need your help.
And they had a budget, so they would pay me to come in and teach them.

Speaker 1 I said, well, I'll teach you how to get out of things. Not with just to show you how

Speaker 1 easy it is to do this stuff once you know,

Speaker 1 is I will show you how to escape from padlocks, handcuffs, and things with items around you. And then I'll do it after a search.
And then I'll do it without touching anything which is a matter well

Speaker 1 so uh we went with two things on the cop car and i've got some photos i can send you is uh the uh a piece of wire from the windshield wiper sometimes they put a person up by the windshield wiper and you take this flat piece of metal you can shim the cuffs open through the notches you're not really picking the locks wait so how do you get the piece of metal again where is it at uh off of a windshield wiper um so you'll see some photos i'll send you this later today of me holding a windshield wiper out in front of a police station and then actually with it in front of the cops showing them how to use that and then a piece of metal that I found in the back seat of a spring of a car if you could dig in to get it.

Speaker 1 And then another one was picking padlocks with the stem from reading glasses or glasses, which is actually two pieces.

Speaker 1 You get a shim, you get a and then there's something completely different, which is going through the shank of a padlock.

Speaker 1 So anyway, I'm doing this stuff and we go from local police to I was connected, put up with an organization that was with the criminal justice system and it was called the MacGyver 101.

Speaker 1 And it was a three-day weekend. They had a guy that was a narcotics, a federal bureau of narcotics there,

Speaker 1 another guy in weapons. Three, I was the only one that was a non-officer.
So I don't know if you can actually Google on YouTube, somebody put it on there once, the handcuff escape and a prison escape.

Speaker 11 How'd you escape from the prison?

Speaker 1 There are several ways. So I gave them one of the methods that with certain cells you can use,

Speaker 1 that people would take a shampoo bottle,

Speaker 1 toilet paper, remember it's things around you, and block the bolt hole. And when you slam some of those cells, it seems like it's shut.

Speaker 1 That's not the, I don't give away my best secrets, believe it or not. I really don't.
So this is the one I gave them. And I copy, oh, we had that happen.

Speaker 1 We actually had a guy get out of the cell that way. You know, this stuff's really going on.
Yeah. And that's why I'm not afraid to share it.
I think the best,

Speaker 1 but we we were shut down, and I will tell you this too. So we're doing these federal things.
And I know we got to go quick, probably, but I'm good. I actually

Speaker 1 told them I had a second hobby, and it was sneaking into places, testing security at places. So I was trying to make this a lot.

Speaker 23 I always wanted to do that.

Speaker 13 I always wanted to go to stores, like show them how much I could steal from them, and then go, here, here's how I do it.

Speaker 1 So if you really want to see this stuff, I'll send it to you. I was making this part of my business.

Speaker 1 We had some customers that I would show them how I could get through their security and and get past the bomb squads and some of these things were so easy uh you can get onto a plane you think

Speaker 1 that's what i was leading up through no big time big time story this is the story so i've got the photographs to show i told them in my observation the tsa at the airport is the absolute weakest security in the world and i can get and i i got an arsenal of stuff through it uh and i will show you i kid you not started with things like metal signs from, you know, about this large surfboard.

Speaker 1 And finally, a big metal sword, which I've got a picture of my wife angry looking at me. And it's not, not a fake picture.
She didn't know I did it. And I put it under my jacket.

Speaker 1 And so what was going on, there's a, and here's, gosh, I'm going to share this right now because I'm not supposed to share this. This is what ended my career with the law enforcement.

Speaker 1 I love this story, and I'm sharing it publicly for the first time, and it could get me in some serious trouble i kid you not yeah so here's what was going on i said i can i said okay first is i called it the magic trick we'd go to the airport i've got all this on video pictures and you've got all these tsas standing around right an abundance of them watching i want to get that number down when i say the magic words abracadabra all the a big group of them they all leave leaving a skeleton crew for me to work with and i it works every time abracadabra and they watch how this is what they were asking me at uh oh the

Speaker 1 how do you do? Is it hypnosis? No.

Speaker 1 So I would hide a bottle of water in a backpack or drop it in somebody's person while in line. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And one of my demonstrations I use, my nephew, which I, because he was in on it, but you can stick it in anybody. They get flagged.
These extra bodies are here just for that reason.

Speaker 1 You got a bottle of water. They're going to take you off.
And they're going to, so you can control, get these people out of the right. Now they're over there.
No harm, no foul.

Speaker 1 The lady or person gets to leave. It's just a bottle of water, right? But you get rid of them.
Now, the next step was this. There's this

Speaker 1 tray, this table where you roll all your stuff around and you put your stuff in, right? And underneath, there's nothing there.

Speaker 1 It runs right up to, I guess, what's designed to be a portable x-ray machine. It's got wheels on it.
There's a gap underneath this thing, right?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 this is blocking the view. You got the people on the computer looking straight down.
You got this guy over here telling you, you got to take your shoes off.

Speaker 1 You got that guy over here, make sure nobody needs help. And you got people crawling all over the floor, putting shoes on on the other side.

Speaker 1 So I would drop the item in the floor and kick it underneath the machine, right? And I take, and I'm snapping photos, which is illegal, I found out.

Speaker 1 I snap, and I've got a ton of these from like 20 airports, kick it. And we were showing them on the screen, showing how I got this, that,

Speaker 1 and try to get something done. So the

Speaker 1 MacGyver 101 team, the people I work for, they wrote a letter to the White House. I guess the criminal justice system did it.
We got a nice letter and I got a big certificate.

Speaker 1 Wonderful, all you stuff you've done.

Speaker 1 This is going to cause some changes.

Speaker 1 We want to fly you to Washington a certain month for this roundtable thing they do once a year. And

Speaker 1 my stuff would go right to the government. Suddenly, my sister, who lives in Hawaii at the time, gets a call.
I don't know why the guy couldn't find me.

Speaker 1 And I guess I didn't answer my phone, but it says, we need to find your brother right this minute. Where's your brother?

Speaker 1 She said, What's going on? He said, Well, they're coming to arrest him and go to jail. She's like, What? She said, If you know how to get a hold of him, you must find him right now.

Speaker 1 So I said, What's the matter with what you guys are talking about? You told me to call this number if I ever got arrested going through the airport.

Speaker 1 And you would tell, they said, Well, that's the thing. You know, we normally they work with this.
We tell them you're testing it.

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 1 we would, you know, talk to the judge and you're working for us, you're helping. Yeah.
And he said, No, he said, The TSA are pissed.

Speaker 1 He said, These guys, they say they're going to make an example out of you. What? You're guilty of several felonies.
Not only did you not work really, you're not a lot in law enforcement. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That you took pictures, you manipulated officers and bragged about it out of the area and endangered lives by showing people how to do this.

Speaker 23 Who'd you show, though?

Speaker 1 I put it all over social media. Oh, fuck.
Everyone. And I told him I was going to do it.
I said, let me tell you something. I'm not going to be part of a cover-up.

Speaker 1 I said, if we show the public what's going on, they'll change it. Yeah, for sure.
Because I am not so egotistical to believe that I am the only one on earth who's going to see that and could do it.

Speaker 12 That's pretty smart, though, to kick it under.

Speaker 1 They made some major changes.

Speaker 1 So if you look at my photographs of airports, or you have a good memory, go to the airports now, and they're all a little different. You can tell they're experimenting.
They've changed some things.

Speaker 1 They've got a wall they're putting now

Speaker 1 that runs further back so you can't control something right up to the to kick it under.

Speaker 1 They've got a machine now to bring the carts back around that they've made. They're finding ways to complicate this thing.
And I'm very thankful that that happened.

Speaker 27 Why did they arrest you? How'd you get out of that?

Speaker 1 So they were coming, they were looking for me. And my guy, he says, I need you to hide.
I'm like, what? He goes, I'm dead serious. He said, because

Speaker 1 if you get arrested, we may not know where you are.

Speaker 17 It's like federal stuff, too.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He said, it's a TSA. He said, these guys are not joking here.
He said, they are mad.

Speaker 8 They're never joking.

Speaker 1 So all these fucking grumpy stuff. He said, we're going to fight with him.
So he came back. He said, it's been resolved.
There's three conditions. One is we can no longer hire you.
You lost the gig.

Speaker 1 You know, no more teaching the officers that we got to end this. No more airports, no, no, nothing.
Number two, you got to delete all your social media posts, which I did not do.

Speaker 1 I still see some pop-up in memories, but somebody deleted some of them.

Speaker 1 And they said, and number three,

Speaker 1 they want to meet you in person. I'm like,

Speaker 1 why do they want to meet me in person? He goes, I don't know. They just wanted to see.
No. I said, I'm going to do everything but that.
Yeah. Because

Speaker 1 that sounds like a trap. Yeah.
Really? Turn yourself out. I'm not an idiot.

Speaker 1 But anyway, so no,

Speaker 1 I never, they said, oh, and he told that part of the condition. Not only can you not tell anybody what you did, you can't tell them why you can't do it anymore.

Speaker 1 This thing just has to go away right now. Yeah, just disappear.
So that's why this is the first time I've shared it. And I'm a little upset.
That's why I'm doing that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's kind of what I'm sharing.

Speaker 18 How big was the sword you got through? How big? What? How big was the sword that you got through?

Speaker 1 Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1 I should have sent you that picture. It was from the floor to here.

Speaker 12 What did you do with it once you got through the security?

Speaker 1 Well, I carried it around, but it looked like this.

Speaker 1 Did you play weird looks with the sword? Well, the photo that I'll send you,

Speaker 1 we're at the gate where my sister is flying one place, right, from one plane. And my wife's there.
My wife said, you can never do this stuff when you're with me, which I didn't typically.

Speaker 1 And so I had two versions, right? Some of this stuff I just carried on me and tossed it down. But I usually used a jacket, okay?

Speaker 1 And I would use the jacket to kind of drop it to get whatever it was underneath.

Speaker 1 And then when I'm down tying my shoes, I would retain. Sometimes something got stuck under there.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a sword, but I would just crawl over there and get it because everybody's on the floor fitting on shoes. This is the weakest thing I've ever seen in my life, you know.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 one of the officers even saw me once and I said, I dropped my wallet. It was just

Speaker 1 underneath the guy.

Speaker 1 But the sword,

Speaker 1 so we're done through, we got it through to the gates. And that's from there on, It's really no big deal.

Speaker 1 But I'm saying goodbye to my sister, and I'm holding the sword in the photograph behind my back. And you see my wife going,

Speaker 1 and I had somebody take the picture, right,

Speaker 1 of us leaving,

Speaker 1 saying goodbye.

Speaker 1 We're hugging and

Speaker 1 she's just going,

Speaker 1 so she's still mad.

Speaker 12 She knows you got that thing on you.

Speaker 1 She's very upset about that. So that's a real photo.
I will show you. I wanted to put it back on social media even after.
It was so funny. That's when some of this was going down.

Speaker 23 and you know my cocktail how long ago was this

Speaker 1 seven six seven seven years i think before i moved here i don't know why in my head i feel like if a crime happened seven years ago you're good so so and it was one of the reasons i left where i'm from oklahoma was that to move to california that was a reason your ambition just met its match with robin hood you play for the win not just on game day every day channel that drive into your money trade stocks and etfs apps options and futures all on one platform.

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Speaker 1 The fact is, I had studied acting in college and always wanted to be an actor. I thought you were a great actor.
You did great. Thank you.
I think I love doing it.

Speaker 1 It's really something I've worked on since a kid and I want to do it as a career. And it was one of those things where I was going to come out here right after college, but I couldn't.

Speaker 1 I got trapped in my career. Once you start booking annual stuff, now they're going to book ahead.
You're booked that month this year. So they book you the next year.

Speaker 1 And next thing you know, 30, 40 years has gone by, and you're just and so it really took COVID as well to shut everything down.

Speaker 1 And I said, I'm never looking back, you know, to go into acting full-time.

Speaker 13 Did you get any long-term injuries from doing like stunts and stuff?

Speaker 1 Covered with them. Are you really? Absolutely.
Yeah, covered with them. I did an air show stunt, did an escape, and I had a bad landing.
How high up?

Speaker 1 More than 10,000 feet. But it's not.

Speaker 1 It was an escape from a box, which was a thing where the audience thinks that they're going to... I was actually booked by a man named Etzel Ford.
He has an air show team and he came to me.

Speaker 1 He said, I know you do stunts. He said, can you do something for air shows? He said, we need a new act or something to go with us.

Speaker 1 And he said, in air shows, in most shows, you want people to think you're going to die in a stunt show, but in an air show, you want them to know you're going to die. I said, hmm, I had the idea.

Speaker 1 What if the audience thinks they're going to die? He said, even better. So in this effect, I drop in the plane in the box, and the audience is told it's falling out of control.

Speaker 1 So they take it up in a plane, and the audience can see the open. And they go, Steve was open to shoot.
He's carrying the box back over the drop zone.

Speaker 1 So now I'm holding this box, it looks like, till I get over the area.

Speaker 23 Wait, so are you releasing?

Speaker 21 You're in the air?

Speaker 1 I'm with a chute.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're strap. I'm holding the box, which is what it looks like, and then I release it and pull these toggles and land.
Well, the truth is, you can't hold a box when a chute opens in the air.

Speaker 1 So I'm wearing this harness we had made down in DeLane, Florida, by a company, real nice. They make tailor-made stuff for stunts and air shows and things.
And a strap attached me to the box.

Speaker 1 So I have this strap. And as I get lower, I release the box and would open my chute.
So the problem is anytime you get two lines, FAA-approved stunt is safe. I was angry at them.

Speaker 1 I said, you guys weren't honest with me. Anytime you put two lines in the air, you run a risk of danger, of line entanglement, which is exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 The chute came out, wrapped around the strap to the box. So I've got a chute there.

Speaker 1 Not the end of the world. I've got two chutes.
Cut away your left one, pull it on your right one, right?

Speaker 1 So now I've got this chute open with a strap and a box, which is what it's supposed to look like, but there's an additional piece there that shouldn't be there. The first chute.

Speaker 1 So it's causing you to go like this.

Speaker 1 As I go down, you can't look down when you're lowering. Skydiving is a weird thing.
You can't tell how low you are by looking down. You have to look at the horizon.

Speaker 1 So about 50 feet from the ground, looking out that way, you can tell where that is, you slow your descent normally, right?

Speaker 1 So in my act, I cut away and then slow my descent, right?

Speaker 1 So the horizon is just doing this.

Speaker 1 I couldn't tell, and I was, I couldn't cut it away because I didn't know who I'm going to kill, right? This whole thing could

Speaker 27 land anywhere.

Speaker 1 So I'm trying to focus to see where I am. And that's the last thing I remember.
I had a concussion.

Speaker 1 I've got the short socks, you know, the nerd socks. You can see the scar right there.

Speaker 22 Why are short socks nerd socks?

Speaker 1 I saw you in one of your acts. Someone in the audience brought that up and you showed them your socks.

Speaker 1 You don't remember that?

Speaker 1 It's on YouTube right now. It's on right now.
You're having to yell things out of the audience.

Speaker 1 And one of the guys says something about this short sock. Oh, it's a blue.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they were saying black ankle socks.

Speaker 1 So here's, you can see the scar right there, right?

Speaker 1 Damn. Yeah, I got one on both sides.
But I broke my hip. I broke that ankle too, but this one got crushed and most of the entire parts came out.
It took forever to heal from that one. Broke the jaw.

Speaker 1 I've got scars on my arm still from it. And so this was a long time ago.

Speaker 1 So it took forever to get well. But I had a shoot opener.
I'd be dead. You know, it was just what you'd say, a hard landing.

Speaker 1 And I tell you, you know, it amazes me. People of the old army, those guys never did have

Speaker 1 an opportunity to, you know, they had, they always came down hard. I don't know how they did it.
It's commendable that they would ever put up with that. But, but, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I had spikes through my body one time. There was a guy who'd hired me before.

Speaker 1 It was a thing where I used to get chained in a chair and we'd had a martial artist with a screen with spikes and he would come running down. I'm gagged.

Speaker 1 And he would kick through this thing after a 10-second countdown. And I would roll under him basically.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so this guy hires me and he says, Can you do this? act. I'm going to have people bring stuff to the show.
I'm like, you know, I'm exhausted. And he's got a pole in the stage, like a flag pole.

Speaker 1 He goes, we're going to wrap you around this pole instead. I'm like, okay.
And I said,

Speaker 1 we'll do a pair of handcuffs. Give me 10 seconds to get out.

Speaker 1 And then he has people bring stuff to the show and brings it up on the stage. I'm like, what in the world is he doing?

Speaker 1 He's the EMC. He had hired me 10 years before.

Speaker 24 Was it EMC?

Speaker 14 What's that? You said EMC?

Speaker 1 He was the MC of the show.

Speaker 23 Oh, MC of the show. I got you.

Speaker 1 And the promoter. He had hired several acts.
So he brought me back for this finale. And people were chaining me up.
And I'm like, okay, I said, I need a full minute to escape from this.

Speaker 1 He gags my mouth and they get the screen ready. And he says, how many of y'all think Steve can get out of this in the 10 seconds he originally promised? I'm like, hmm, whoa.

Speaker 1 Punchline's got to be coming, right? Got to be a punchline. And

Speaker 1 everybody applauds. And he says, put it in place.
And he stands up and he says, 10.

Speaker 1 I'm like, are you kidding me? What? And I'm like, I didn't have a chance, right? So I just turned my back to the spikes and this thing. And I've still got huge.

Speaker 1 What the fuck, man?

Speaker 1 Crush. And the sad thing, and I wish my brain had been in the right place to not move an inch, that the audience broke out into applause because they thought I disappeared.
And instead,

Speaker 1 I start moaning and moving and I'm stabbed, you know. But I wish I had not done that now.
I didn't realize.

Speaker 11 Well, if you didn't move, you would have been fine.

Speaker 1 They thought I was gone. The curtain would have shut, you know, into the show.
And everybody thought I disappeared. And then this thing starts moving.
They're like, uh-oh.

Speaker 1 you know so anyway i'm like dude why did you do that he goes i thought you were kidding and he said, man, I've seen you a million times. He goes, I thought you could just

Speaker 1 exactly.

Speaker 1 It's like, and you're out. I've seen you do it.
Yeah, it's kind of crazy to have you confirm that. Thanks, man.
How long are there spikes? Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 One of them, yeah, went right by my spinal cord. You know,

Speaker 1 I'd been paralyzed. What? Do we have time to do another magic trick or we don't?

Speaker 10 I think we have time.

Speaker 5 Well, the one thing I wanted to ask you about, we have a half an hour.

Speaker 11 We're good.

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Speaker 14 The one thing I wanted to ask you about, we'll definitely do some more magic.

Speaker 8 The used to be able to hold your breath for four minutes. Yep.

Speaker 14 And now you said you can't hold your breath that long anymore?

Speaker 1 No. And nor do I know what happened.
I've had,

Speaker 1 you know, a lot of things started to change.

Speaker 1 I used to be in, you know, very good physical shape. You might remember seeing some of the older photos

Speaker 1 for an audience, you know, and I,

Speaker 1 you know, I was starting to develop some intestinal issues, Crohn's disease, which I kind of hid and

Speaker 1 continued. Some things were going on.
But yeah, I started as a kid, holding my breath, and I was on the swim team.

Speaker 1 And they always hated it. I was horrible swimming on top of the water.
So I would always dive in and go all the way to the other side. And as soon as we come back, emerge, you know, to finish it up.

Speaker 1 So I'd get in there and they're like, What stroke do you do? What stroke were you doing? Oh, that was just a regular bicycle, you know.

Speaker 1 Oh, dude, they, you know, you would just be submerged the whole time. Oh, for the first run, all the way to the end.
And when I come back, I'd come up to give them a few, a little bit of fairness.

Speaker 1 But I was fast under that water.

Speaker 1 There was no rule how long you stayed under, right? So, I well,

Speaker 1 if there's no really rule in the books, how long you stay, but I practiced all the time.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 yeah, I was comfortable sitting on the bottom of a pool, shimming locks, picking locks, locks, manipulating them open that people would bring.

Speaker 1 And, you know, in all honesty, you get eight or ten locks. You don't have to open all of them.
People didn't realize that necessarily. You know, you open the key locks.

Speaker 1 But I was comfortable. And then I would spread this, pace it out.
I want to give the audience a good show.

Speaker 1 Somebody asked me when I was coming out of one of my water effects, which I could do the lake and the box and

Speaker 1 all these.

Speaker 1 You mean you come out, you're exhausted, you're coughing up water.

Speaker 1 Are you really suffering or is it all an act? no i'm really suffering but it's all self-inflicted i stayed would stay down there

Speaker 1 you stay underwater as long as you can until you absolutely can't stay under the come you're going to be really breathing underwater pass out underwater uh actually i did one time i did once too it was fucking terrifying yeah yeah absolutely how'd you get you get pulled out i don't know what happened uh we were at a ponkin theater in punk city oklahoma which was supposed to be a haunted theater and we had some weird stuff happen with the water tank an older water tank um when they were trying to pull me up a double double pulley system where I go up easy

Speaker 1 started fighting them they're pulling this thing they're trying you know we don't know what's going on right and and we got this on video uh they and they kind of get me up and it's this big a-frame i'm hanging upside down there's a roller thing i mean you got your your feet and these stalks right and then you got uh this thing that runs up to the top of this uh where they pulled you up and they roll you across was i they're having so much trouble and i think man this thing's gonna break something is wrong here so the minute we got up there i said get me over the tank quick because they're holding your hands.

Speaker 1 And I mean, the second I was there, it broke. The weird thing on that night, the break had nothing to do with the pulley system.

Speaker 1 It was a, it was a piece of steel that they would use for mountain climbing, right? They held the stalks and ones, but that thing just broke. It shouldn't have broken.

Speaker 1 And another place had nothing to do with the tension. So there was two issues.

Speaker 1 Really, three because the water was boiling after we put a little bucket healer in hours before because it was ice-cold water.

Speaker 1 Should have taken a day to heat it, but the water was like boiling hot when I almost went in it. And I'm glad I tested it.

Speaker 1 So this was like a haunted theater, and everybody's telling me all this haunted stuff's going on. I'm like, you know, I just hadn't believed it.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, everything starts going downhill.

Speaker 1 So when I hit this thing, I didn't get any air because I wasn't prepared, right? Yeah. So it's a one, two, three, four, fifth one.
Hold it, go in, and I'm good for a while, right?

Speaker 1 In this case, I was probably on the exhale and I went down. So when the stocks came down, they couldn't get the lid on because it fell so fast.
You got to hit it just right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And the guys are fighting with it.

Speaker 1 And I've got a guy sitting right over here who's a spotter who does nothing but watch me. And if he sees me make a signal, something's wrong, cut it.
Yeah. I'm like, cut it.

Speaker 1 I'm looking, where is he? He's not there. First rule and daredevil stunts.
Don't change anything. Don't improvise nothing.
This guy left his post to run help these guys get the lid on, right?

Speaker 1 So I'm trying to get my part to get out of this thing and i blacked out uh the next thing i know i'm in the floor so i i had fallen but i don't know what happened i literally don't remember jesus very peculiar experience for sure very very terrifying uh for sure

Speaker 4 yeah i was just swimming with my friends and we were like drinking and i think my i was using my kids goggles so they were super tight and they were just like i think cutting off like blood in my brain And I tried to go back and forth in the pool and I was coming back and I just, I don't remember.

Speaker 9 I like remember coming out of the water, just lungs full of breath.

Speaker 4 I somehow just propelled myself out, like kind of blacked out.

Speaker 5 And then I fell forward again, just hit my chin on the edge of the pool.

Speaker 1 Water is so dangerous. And even for an escape artist, and I, you know, I don't like to tell all my secrets, but I would do everything I can, you know, I could do to make these things safe.

Speaker 1 Like chained up, thrown in a pool is that

Speaker 1 I would have a signal, you know, to something's wrong. And we would tell the audience, well, they'll have to jump in and pull these heavy weights all the way to the shallow end to get me out.

Speaker 1 Well, the fact is we had a rope with a hook on it. But then I'm like suffering later.
And I'm asked my guys, because could you see me? And you know, I really couldn't see that well.

Speaker 1 You know, the water was chlorinated.

Speaker 1 I just couldn't see it. Or we're in a lake.
I almost died in a lake. I showed you a picture of this, I think, yesterday coming out of the lake

Speaker 1 that was totally unexpected.

Speaker 1 Wooden box was in a lake, and I did what I had to do to open it, but the wood had sealed. And I mean, it was a tough sucker to get out of there.
Once I got out, I'm exhausted.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to work my way up.

Speaker 1 Lo and behold, we've got quicksand or something underneath the water. When I get to shallow enough to walk, it takes me down.
And I'm like pulling.

Speaker 1 It's hard to get my wet, my head on, you know, wet shoes. They're gone.
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I'm fighting to get my feet out of this.
And my guys are coming out.

Speaker 1 So the photo, I may or I've got on my phone, but they're coming out to try to help me. And then they're sinking.
Oh, fuck. Five guys, ten guys are rescue guys.
they can't even get to me.

Speaker 1 And I'm just like, and I'm so tired. Uh, so water, yeah,

Speaker 1 it doesn't, it didn't scare me, but it's water didn't scare me like some things like height scare me, yeah, yeah, but but it's very dangerous, yeah.

Speaker 5 It is peaceful, though, underwater.

Speaker 11 I have little kids, and I will go in the pool, and every now and again, I'll just disappear from my whole family underwater for a good minute.

Speaker 1 It's just absolutely the best just to go underwater. I can't hear anything for yep, and that was my life.

Speaker 1 You know, circling back to a question you asked, uh, I would sit there underwater and comfortably do my thing and enjoyed the peace and quiet until it was time to come up. But then one day it changed.

Speaker 1 I just lost that ability. It's crazy.
So I went to a doctor and I said, we got a serious problem. I'll get bookings.
I said, listen, I got to hold my breath a lot longer than this.

Speaker 1 I can't hold my breath. I don't know why.
As much as I practice. And so they even did a heart test, massage my heart.
They said, this sounds like it's a heart thing. And no, your heart's fine.

Speaker 1 And they finally said, listen, whatever weirdness it was that you were gifted with to hold your breath for four minutes is just gone whoa you know your body's changing it's time for acting you know it's time to go to become an actor like i gotta survive the last so the thing that changed was i went from a comfortable performance because it's a show even if there's danger even if it's tough you know it's still a show a comfortable performance uh to put on a good show of fighting to against death, struggling, you know, to a real fight against death where I'm going as fast as I can and suffering every minute.

Speaker 13 Did you still keep doing them even after you?

Speaker 1 No, I didn't book anymore after that. I had to, but I finished my contract.
I mean, I had bookings. I, you know, had a religion about it that once the deal is made, you know, you don't pull out.

Speaker 1 If you, once you sign, you're going to be there.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I don't recommend this for everybody, but it's the truth. You know, I did a show with a broken leg once,

Speaker 1 not that break, another one of her roller coaster. I had to go do a second show.

Speaker 10 So don't you break your leg on a roller coaster?

Speaker 1 Well, that was a thing where I'm strapped to the roller coaster. I think I showed you those pictures.
The straitjacket, straitjacket, and we put a screen up and the roller coasters come in.

Speaker 1 I have to dive out before it comes through. And I did this a long time ago.
Yeah. Way back, Frontier, excuse me, Spring Lake Amusement Park in

Speaker 1 Oklahoma City was the first one I did. And that was in college, way back.

Speaker 1 Some other guys have done it since then, but it was my original act. And

Speaker 1 there was a way I knew that the roller coaster was so close, right? So you don't want to jump out too early or it looks boring.

Speaker 1 So you got to wait until it gets there.

Speaker 1 Did you caught your leg?

Speaker 17 What? Did your roller coaster caught your leg?

Speaker 1 You're saying, no, no.

Speaker 1 I thought it was closer than was. So it's like with

Speaker 1 flying that, you know, you don't trust your eyes. You got to trust the instrument.
So I had a way of knowing where it was that I didn't trust it. It sounded like it was there.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I don't have time to jump up and land on this platform. So I just went under, straight down under the tracks and dropped 15 feet.
Jesus. Broke the ankles again.

Speaker 1 My poor poor body, you talk about I had a total hip replacement last November.

Speaker 1 It got so bad I couldn't walk that you're the pain. And like, no, I'm too young for a hip replacement, doctor.

Speaker 1 But that's the best surgery you can get, boy. I tell you what, I'm, I'm, really? Yeah, I can't tell.
I've ever had a problem.

Speaker 1 I'm not as limber as I was, but I will say that, you know, because you're not allowed to stretch after six months or something. But yeah,

Speaker 1 we live with it, and I think it was all worth it.

Speaker 11 Nice.

Speaker 4 And the one thing I wanted to ask you about because I found this kind of fascinating.

Speaker 4 You were on, what was the TV show you were on, the cooking show, America's Worst Chef or something?

Speaker 1 Ah, that was very recent. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Last year, it was a year before. I lose track of time.

Speaker 1 I'm doing my acting thing, and there's a strike going on. And

Speaker 1 I was on a series, an Eli Roth Scary series, which was still on, Max playing an exorcist. And we were going to have additional.

Speaker 1 shows and we got shut down for the strike and I'm like, oh man, this sucks.

Speaker 1 And so I asked the union, well what can we do they said we can do reality shows so i am the world's worst cook i'm really horrible

Speaker 1 when i was single i would throw everything a bowl turn on the stove high as it would go the rest stir it up didn't care what it tastes like throw all the things that you need to eat your four front groups and eat them yeah and uh but i was on the road eating out yeah my whole life so then i marry a girl that was a great cook and she doesn't allow me in the kitchen at all period you know she i made a mess when she leaves to see grandkids or something you know yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 I've rent the microwave. I've done this.
But anyhow,

Speaker 1 so I auditioned and got on

Speaker 1 World's Worst Cooks. I think it's the pronouns that we say.
Yeah, yeah. It is Worst Cooks in America.
World's Worst Cooks. Season 27.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 27. Beautiful lady.
That's crazy. Chef Ann.
Ann Burrell, I think I'm saying it right. Yeah.
You know, she died here just two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 That's nuts, man. And it's just so sad.
She was a great lady. Yeah.
We had a lot of fun on the show. You know, of course, she's yelling at you.
And, you know,

Speaker 1 we're hamming it up.

Speaker 1 The bad cooking was all real. People think I made that stuff up.

Speaker 1 You know, we hammed up the performance a little, but it was

Speaker 1 all real. But yeah, we're really shocked.
And

Speaker 1 I had a great time, though, and some great memories. And sadly, she was going to take a break from the show, but she told me she wanted me to come back.
And so did the producers.

Speaker 1 They occasionally do reunion shows. The worst of the worst.
And they're going to have me back because we had such a good time. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back.

Speaker 1 I thought, is this really the image I want with my acting? Yeah. But now that we lost her, I'm like, you know what? If I'd known, I'd have definitely gone back quicker.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 27 Very nice lady. Yeah, it's a shame she died.
I didn't realize that show had so many seasons. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 Nor did I. I've heard it once or twice before that.
You know, yeah, I didn't really watch it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, because like Triple D's got to be at what, like 30 seasons?

Speaker 7 Like Diner's Drive-Ins has to be at least like 30-something seasons.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's got to be. I haven't seen that in years.
Is it still on?

Speaker 14 I think so.

Speaker 4 I think it's actually shot in like fucking 8K now.

Speaker 7 I think they really stepped up the production on

Speaker 1 D3. Interesting.

Speaker 11 But yeah, let's add some tricks, man.

Speaker 11 Let's close this thing out strong.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 You're on.

Speaker 25 Here he is.

Speaker 1 Sorry to make you wait so long.

Speaker 6 Oh, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Happy to heal.

Speaker 1 What made me think of this when you're talking about the spikes and cutting and a little bit of rope magic today? Okay. But you're going to be my assistant.
Oh, nice.

Speaker 1 Speaking of, I don't know if you can get this. We just stabbed my neighbor over here.

Speaker 1 Maybe you've heard of the famous trick where the rope floats up into the air, someone climbs the rope, that'll be you,

Speaker 1 disappears, and then the rope falls. Have you heard of this? No, the East Indian rope trick, very famous.
Well, that's okay because I don't know that one, but that would have been a good trick.

Speaker 1 All right, now I really do know some weird things with rope, though. For example, have you ever wondered what happens when you take the ends off the rope?

Speaker 1 You can actually get a looper of rope when you do that. But to do the trick I want to do today, I'm going to need two ropes.
They have to be exactly the same.

Speaker 1 This is where you come into the the trick. So would you hand me

Speaker 1 the center of the rope? Just got to give me the middle. Right here.
All right.

Speaker 1 Mr. Microphone, would you agree?

Speaker 1 If you cut it here, that would give us two of the same length. All right.
That's the spot selected. Very careful.
Take the scissors. Don't cut the fingers.
Just cut the rope. Grab the scissors.

Speaker 7 I'm going to give you a nice injury. Right there.

Speaker 1 Don't cut the white cord either.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 But we're a little off on the link. That's okay.
I'm going to have you even these out. Let me line them up straight and ask you to cut this off right here.

Speaker 1 That should do it right there where you want right there i think that should make them exactly the same length all right now we have two ropes

Speaker 1 okay we need two ropes exactly the same length would you mind cutting that right there just give it a good cut there we go right there it's a way to do it now we have two ropes exactly the

Speaker 1 have you ever had something called deja vu yeah

Speaker 1 have you ever had something called deja vu yeah have you ever had something yeah you heard that one coming i bet here we go this is the abragadabra Abercadabra.

Speaker 1 All right, we're just going to start all over. Here we go.
Now, to do the trick, I really want to do today. We're going to need two ropes.
They have to be the same length.

Speaker 1 That's where you come into the trick. Grab the middle of the rope and just lift it up, hand it to me.
And would you agree if we cut the rope? Here we'd have two the same length. Like pretty fair.

Speaker 1 Would you grab the scissors again, cut it just like you did before? Here we go. And

Speaker 1 we're a little off on the link. Would you mind cutting this? You know what?

Speaker 1 Rather than go through all of that again, I think if we just do the trick, we can actually correct the length so let me give you a good view you look like a good knot right hold on to the end of the rope real tight don't let go watch the knot

Speaker 1 you can let go now a lot of people think it's a trick knot

Speaker 1 that is

Speaker 1 why i always like to untie it come here so everybody can see it is indeed a real knot yeah all right now matt would you like to put two ropes back together yourself yeah i know you can do it big fan of yours you know i got a carpet named after you outside my door at home, too.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. All right, I'll get the sitters here for you.

Speaker 1 Always been a big fan, by the way. Thank you for having me.
All right, sure. I'm going to tie the ends of that one.
We'll give it a cut.

Speaker 1 And I want you to pick a rope. Do you want to use the one I just tied and cut or the rope I'm going to cut right now? I'll take the one you're going to cut right now.
Which one? This one? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let me give that a cut. I always give you a chance to change your mind.
Would you like to change your mind or keep the mind that you have? Okay, I'll keep the one that you have.

Speaker 1 I'm going to keep his mind. All right, here we go.
So we're going to tie these together for you, just like that. All right.

Speaker 1 Hold it on the end.

Speaker 1 All right. So you won't be able to do the magic wave because you've got a mic.
So instead, say the magic words.

Speaker 1 Alec azam. Alecazam.
Say, oh, what a great magician I am.

Speaker 7 What a great magician.

Speaker 1 You don't have a hand.

Speaker 1 Take it in your teeth.

Speaker 1 Pull the knot off like a real escape artist. Ah, you did it.
Hey.

Speaker 1 There we go.

Speaker 1 Good job, man. Hold

Speaker 1 You can keep that as a souvenir. I will.
It might be worth pennies someday, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, how'd you even do that? That's crazy.

Speaker 1 You did it. You did it.
True.

Speaker 22 Magic's in me.

Speaker 1 We can do another trick if you want to show you how one is done.

Speaker 9 No, I would never, I would never reveal.

Speaker 1 I mean, do you want me to show you how a trick is done today?

Speaker 23 If you want, I thought magician killed for that.

Speaker 1 This is a special show. It's the secret.
True, true. Yeah, show me the secret.
You got to show me.

Speaker 1 Can we take a little break and we'll take a break. Take a break.
All right. We'll be right back with the secret for the secret broadcast show.
Okay. Sorry.

Speaker 1 We're cutting back in.

Speaker 4 Let me know. All right.
We're back.

Speaker 8 The interview portion. I think the interview portion is concluded, but now we're doing tricks.
All right.

Speaker 1 It's a good interview. That was a great interview.
I had fun. Thank you.
Thank you. I had fun.
I will talk in the microphone, but we're going to give it off in a minute.

Speaker 1 But first, a little word of magic we promised.

Speaker 1 We're going to be doing some miracles right now, now many as they were done thousands of years ago maybe you heard of this one it's called walking on water thank you

Speaker 1 you know

Speaker 1 i was about to tell you you just got promoted we do hope both of these things now okay thank you so much

Speaker 1 lovely assistant and mr microphone so beautiful okay uh this is definitely one of the reasons we're not going to have a relationship with our assistant by the way

Speaker 12 this i don't know man if you put me around all those carnies it could get kind of weird out there

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 So, what are we going to do? Well, there's a secret podcast I'm going to reveal a secret for you.

Speaker 10 Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 Show you a magic trick, show you how it's done for this trick. You need a handkerchief, a scarf, and a left hand.
You put the handkerchief or scarf all the way in the hand like this. Okay.

Speaker 1 You make something called a magic pass. We know what a pass is, right? I'll go up to Mr.
Microphone and go, hi.

Speaker 1 Not doing that kind of pass. We've already established that.
A magic pass. You do this now we have an egg and the scarf or handkerchief has jumped into my pocket yo

Speaker 1 as promised all right you ready to see the secret let's see the secret actually i bought it by mistake if you ladies need some out there this is the secret you put that

Speaker 1 all right different secret all right yes the secret to the magic trick and this is a trick egg

Speaker 1 It's a plastic egg laid by a very sick bird

Speaker 1 and there's a hole in the back of the egg. Kind of a letdown when you see how these work.
And you need two handkerchiefs to do the trick.

Speaker 1 All right, here's what you do: you hide the egg in your hand, hold both hands the same, you come out in a natural way. So now, whatever looks natural, for sure.

Speaker 1 Take the handkerchief, wave it around like this.

Speaker 1 Actually, that depends on the company that you're

Speaker 1 you know, you don't want to drop it either. True.

Speaker 1 Anyway, sorry.

Speaker 1 You're getting paid, right? That's all that matters. Okay, here we go.

Speaker 8 He's actually really wealthy.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay, really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe we could renegotiate this relationship after all. You didn't tell me that.
Okay.

Speaker 12 So. He's in the top 3%, I would say, in the country.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 3% of what? Earners. Earners, really.
Amazing.

Speaker 24 Apparently, it's a huge dick. I don't want to get weird, but he didn't.

Speaker 1 He's got a huge dick, too.

Speaker 11 Oh, yes. Money, big dick.

Speaker 1 I guess you're getting a lot of fans right now.

Speaker 1 Gosh, I didn't plug my Instagram. You guys follow me on Instagram.
Plug it. What is it? Entertainer, Steve Crawford, Entertainer.
You type entertainer, I'll pop up. Why did I do that?

Speaker 1 Because I'm from Facebook country and I'm trying to get some new friends out here. So

Speaker 1 nice to meet you guys. Okay, so where were we? Oh, yeah.
You hide the egg in your hand. You hold both hands the same, come out in a natural way.

Speaker 1 Take the handkerchief and you start placing it in your hand. But we know it's going where?

Speaker 1 In the egg. In the egg.
It actually goes all the way into the egg.

Speaker 1 you know you make the pass you show them the egg and you tell everyone that the scarf or handkerchief has jumped into your pocket now there's a couple of quick rules i gotta show them the egg can't show the egg well you show them that it has turned into an egg

Speaker 1 but just a few tips he's got a point first of all you know don't show anybody the back side of the egg right that's important

Speaker 1 wow wow wes and make certain the handkerchief in your pocket is the same color as that one that's in the egg

Speaker 1 it just doesn't match that you're not going to fool them but what do you do if they see the back of the egg? I mean, where you guys are standing, you can see the red.

Speaker 1 Well, you don't tell them it's a handkerchief, you tell them you cut your finger, you're painting it, chicken banged his head trying to get out.

Speaker 1 I may be a magician, but as you probably got to feel for it, I'm an honest guy. I try to be honest.
So, here's what I like to do: make a real magic pass,

Speaker 1 peel the hole off the egg like that,

Speaker 1 crack the egg so everybody can see it. Hold on a second, brother.
Yo, you tricked us. That is a real egg.
You tricked us.

Speaker 1 Grab it.

Speaker 1 and that's what I like to do. And that's a magic secret.

Speaker 23 You tricked us, bro. You didn't give us the secrets.

Speaker 1 That's awesome. That's a good secret.

Speaker 1 I lie a lot, you know, right?

Speaker 1 But you know, it's a trick.

Speaker 25 All right, that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. Hell yeah.

Speaker 14 Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 1 Been fun. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Bye. Goodbye.
That was great.

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