Hi, my name is Mark I. Jacobson
And I’m here with my good friend,
Ariann Black.
Now, Mark, you’ve had a long career as a writer
and I’ve been performing magic all over the world.
I think between the two of us,
we have definitely heard it all.
I remember one day we had a conversation
about stupid things that people say.
Well, yeah, we did.
And we realized that there was a whole lot we could talk about
because, you know what?
People say a lot of stupid things.
Do a lot of stupid things, too.
Let’s talk about some of them.
You know, when I see photos of stars
and they’re like, oh, look how ugly this person is.
And I’ve always, always thought, no, look how real that person is.
Because maintaining that look 24/7 is unrealistic.
And so a lot of stars, just recently, on Instagram,
have started posting the no makeup photos.
And tagging them and saying, look, this is me with no makeup.
And I think that that is fantastic and wonderful
because it makes regular women like myself go, they look just like me.
Just like me when I’m, yeah.
And it makes, you know, like Dove used to do that whole thing of, you know, real women.
But for me, Dove didn’t push it enough.
They didn’t send those women on advertising junkets and talk shows and stuff to talk about
being a real woman and promoting a product.
I wanted to know more about those women and what they did and who they were
and, you know, how they, how they got picked.
And, you know, I want to know more about real people.
And I think I’m not the only one.
No, I think it’s strong.
I mean, no woman and since we’re talking about where I’m not excluding men because men are just as that.
But no woman can be the car show model 24/7 with the hands going and everything’s perfect.
It’s not that way.
Neither can men.
I saw a website the other day.
It was interesting because it was a website of beautiful models posing.
And there’d be a shot of this beautiful model posing.
And right next to it would be another shot taken a minute later, turning her body in a different direction.
Delighting was in as perfect and it was two different people.
Yeah.
I felt like two different people when I performed on stage.
And it was exhausting.
It has to be.
Yeah.
And, you know, like we talk about stupid shit that people say, but you know, when people say, oh, you should smile more because you look more beautiful.
It’s like nobody thinks to say that to a man.
And let me just say that as a woman, it is exhausting to smile and be pretty 100% of the time.
That’s right.
And I only know one person who ever smiled 100% of the time and no one ever told the Joker he should smile more.
No.
And it’s so like I went and saw Barbie the other day.
You know, I wasn’t going to because I thought, oh, it’s Barbie.
And then somebody said to me, no, it’s not the movie that you think it is.
So I went and saw it.
And I love that Barbie was all sorts of different women.
I was sad that they didn’t represent magician Barbie who I have one.
You do have magician Barbie.
I do have magician Barbie.
She’s still in the box.
But I never figured out how to get out of the box.
She, you know, she wasn’t the assistant.
So no, she did not figure out.
Yeah.
Just a part there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, I just for a second, I just got this thing that you have her in the box.
And then you wake up one morning and she’s on the co-next to you.
That’s creepy.
Yes.
At the beginning of that movie was the little girls playing with baby dolls.
And I, when I watched that, I was like, oh my god, that’s me.
I hated and refused to play with baby dolls because I didn’t see that for myself.
And, you know, when I was really young, it was still in the 60s.
And that was expected of young girls.
It’s like, oh my god, if you don’t play with baby dolls and you don’t want to be a mother at the young age, there’s something wrong with you.
And there was nothing wrong with me.
No, we were just being put into these little cubby halls of Bush, who we should be.
Yeah.
And, you know, you were really lucky because you had parents that didn’t put you in a cubby hole.
Well, they tried, but I always figured I’d had to open the door.
Sorry, it never really worked.
But, but you know what I’m saying.
Yeah, people would come to the house and they go, where’s Mark and they go, who?
And so there’s that element of, what are we teaching children?
What are we teaching girls?
And so when I walked out of the Barbie movie, I was like, most of the dance numbers were done by the men.
Which I loved.
And if you’ve ever been around show business as you have and I have in different ways, you know that most of the choreographers who do the dance numbers are not women.
Yeah, they are men.
My choreographer was a woman.
But most choreographers are men.
And I’m like, I wanted, for my show, I wanted that female perspective.
I spent an entire lifetime as a performer dealing with the issue of they’d say, oh, you’re a performer.
Are you a dancer?
No, I’m not a dancer.
You do not want to see me dance.
I have two left feet.
Well, then what did you do on stage?
Like, there’s nothing else that women could do on stage.
And so when I told people that I was a magician, my answer would have been, I make people disappear here.
I mean demonstrate.
Yeah, I mean, you make myself disappear.
But you know, when I would tell people that I was a magician, they’d say, oh, what magician do you work for?
Like, it’s impossible for somebody to think that a female would be the magician.
And I, when it’s funny, when, when you could travel with your luggage, like, when I could travel with all my magic props.
Yeah.
I’d be going through customs with like seven large boxes.
And they’d go, oh, what do you do?
And I’d say, I’m a magician.
And they’d go, oh, really?
What instrument do you play?
And I would look at my magic props, these huge giant boxes.
And I would turn to the person.
And I’d say, I play the piccolo.
Yeah, because I’m like, it’s the smallest instrument I could think of.
And it was my way of saying you’re an idiot because that’s the dumb shit that people friggin say.
Exactly.
And think about it.
I mean, they didn’t see you as a magician because all magicians were men.
Right.
But what they didn’t realize was that magic, I hope I’m not blowing anything up here, magic is an illusion.
It is.
And anyone can create an execute an illusion.
And to be honest with you, women are much more methodical and oriented towards achieving that goal of a men are.
So women look at magic very differently than men.
And female magicians look at magic very differently from men.
Most male magicians look at magic as look at me fool you where as women look at it as let me entertain you.
Yeah.
And people are so ingrained to watch magic and, you know, be fooled that when they see somebody do magic as entertainment, there’s there’s almost a disconnect where people are like, oh, wait a minute, I don’t know what to do with this.
We get hard work.
We grow up.
We just certain preconceptions about how things are without working beyond what it takes to create us.
I mean, just for a moment, just to get back to the choreographers, I’ve never been a dancer.
Obviously, anybody who knows my podcast, for me knows that I can’t dance.
I’ve never been played a dancer in television.
But here’s the point.
Dancing is a very, especially the dancing you see on stage is a very physically demanding profession.
You have to see in shape.
Yes.
And yet when they see a male choreographer, the immediate thought that comes to most people’s minds for most men, I don’t know if it comes to the same with women is he’s a little offended.
He’s a dancer.
Or, you know, look how dainty that ballerina is. Well, that ballerina is making moves that most football players couldn’t move and couldn’t make it.
You try standing on your toes for two hours.
Yeah, they couldn’t do it, but they don’t see it that way.
We have these blinders on it say, if you do this, you’re this, if you do that, you’re that.
Yep.
And neither the twain should meet. It’s, it’s just an, it’s an amazingly incredibly stupid way of looking at things.
So hey, thanks for listening to stupid things people say.
Now it’s your turn to tell us about the stupid things people say.
And do, except that you switched the parts.
I thought I’ll leave it. That was you.
I’m, I’m me. You’re you.
You got to remember that again stupid shit that people say.
So I’d like to say thanks for listening to stupid shit people say.
Now it’s your turn to tell us about the stupid things people say to you.
If you have unique and absolutely riveting stories, we get a $10 Amazon gift card.
And thank you.
And really the card is more important than thank you.
But if you have something to say text us at 702 509 1424.
And don’t forget to keep coming back to our stories, but Mark, I got to run.
I have stupid shit to do.
Well, then you do your stupid shit. I’ll do my stupid shit and we’ll talk later.
See ya.
Bye.