Last night Wizard went in again. We put it up once in Vegas, but this was the first time in a proper show. We rehearsed it in the afternoon and it seemed pretty ready. I don't really have all the patter down, but I have the ideas and that's a good place to start. We didn't really take anything out of the show; we just added this 10-minute hunk. It's a card trick.

So, I'm on stage, and I'm rocking. I got in and out fine. The trick was perfect, and then I miscounted. I don't mean in the trick. I don't mean sneaky. I don't mean not skillfully. I mean, there's a place where I have to count a stack of cards, and I got messed up and I counted wrong! No kidding. Really. Idiot! It didn't hurt the trick. All the big, beats were there. I got the laughs and the trick worked, but there's this one little moment that I ruined. And I did all the skill stuff right. Perfectly. I did everything right except counting in public.

Do you know how hard it is to go through life with a great deal of skill, being very clever, but more important than all that being dumb as soil samples?

Penn

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