A quick and surprising win, a theater story, a sort of other theater story, a story about dinner and theater, but not about dinner theater.

And I think that’s what the episode is going to be today, so let’s get into it.

This is only my second time recording the intro because the first time it didn’t work.

I don’t know why, but now it’s working, so let’s go.

Your Daily Lex.

Quick win.

As you may recall and know, I love magic, magic tricks.

I love it, love it, love it, love it.

And because I’ve bought magic tricks online, I get emails from various magic websites, two of them in particular, promoting new tricks or tricks on sale, whatever, and sometimes I take a look.

And I like, you know, casual stuff that’s easy to carry around that I can do a trick when I’m with friends when the opportunity comes.

I’m not putting on shows.

And I saw a trick that I thought was really interesting, and I was rabbit-holing on it a little bit.

And then I saw that the guy behind this trick makes a lot of tricks that involve iOS.

Like, he makes a lot of app-based tricks, and he’s made tricks that David Blaine has done on TV.

Like, he’s the real deal, a guy named Mark Kirstein.

And I was intrigued, and I was looking at all of his apps, and some of them were pricey.

Like, magic’s not always cheap, and he had a trick that I found really interesting that was like 150 bucks, and I was pretty curious about it.

But I couldn’t see what the trick looked like.

Like, I couldn’t see it in action.

I couldn’t find a demo video.

So I went to the website, I went to the contact form, and I’m like, Hey, I’m really intrigued about what you do.

I would love to try out this trick.

I mean, I’m thinking of buying this trick, but I don’t know what it looks like.

Do you have a video of you performing it or of anybody performing it that I could watch?

And not very long thereafter, like within 45 minutes or fewer, I got a reply.

And the dude was like, Hey, I was actually just hearing your name.

And as I’m reading this, I’m like, Oh gosh, it wasn’t me.

It was the other guy.

And the email continues, You know, I’m a regular listener of the talk show, and I believe Gruber was talking about you just a couple weeks ago, blah blah, and I used to love your stuff at Macworld.

I was like, What the heck?

So this guy genuinely knew who I was, and then he sent me a code for the app.

Like instead of sending me a video, actually he also sent me a video.

He’s like, I don’t really have a video performance, but here’s one that, like, shows part of it.

But he’s like, And here’s a code to unlock the app.

I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t believe it.

I certainly was not fishing to get the app for free.

I just wanted to see a video of it.

And this guy knew who I was, magically.

Magically, I just saw what I did there, and sent me a code for the app.

How cool.

So that was very exciting and delightful.

I sent him a code for Gnome, which is a $7 app.

What are you gonna do?

Anyway, that’s that story.

Theater stories.

I like the show Oliver.

My wife, Lauren Friedman, a whole human being in her own right, hates the show Oliver.

She thinks it’s anti-Semitic, which I don’t think.

I think it can be played that way, but I think that it doesn’t have to be.

If you’re not familiar with Oliver, I mean, you are.

Charles Dickens, you know it.

But the character of Fagin is meant to be Jewish and can be caricatureized, but I don’t think he has to be.

Anyway, I love the role of Fagin, and my favorite local theater is doing that show and is hosting auditions.

What’s the least obnoxious way to say this?

Not my favorite production team.

Maybe that’s not the best way to say it.

But anyway, it’s the team that did Elf.

And here’s what it is.

I think they’re actually very talented.

I did Elf with them.

I was proud of what we did.

Great director, great choreographer.

They’re also educators.

They do a lot of theater education for high schools, junior high schools, et cetera.

And they love to do shows that feature kids.

Oliver, by definition, features kids.

They like to emphasize the educational aspect.

I’m not doing shows for children’s education.

You know what I mean?

I’m doing shows for me.

So when they’re like, Hey, let’s not have any phones backstage, I was like, No, I’m gonna have my phone backstage.

I’m an adult.

I’m a grown man.

I have life to attend to.

If I’m not on stage, I’m gonna have my phone.

And they’re like, Well, we just want to set a good example for the kids.

I’m like, Great.

I’m an adult.

I wasn’t a jerk about it.

I’m saying it jerkily now, but, you know, like, that’s a micro example.

But anyway, rather than go and audition for them, I sent in a video because I thought I could do the best I could do there, and they could look at it.

And if they’re like, Yeah, we don’t work with that guy.

He doesn’t like that we’re educators, which is not my problem.

I don’t mind that they’re educators.

I just don’t like that they treat shows like they’re educational when they’re not, if you know what I mean.

But anyway, I sent in the video and did that.

I love when I do a video audition, which many actors hate doing, some actors love doing, I do one take.

Everybody else I know does roughly a thousand takes.

But I just want to get it done and then not obsess over it.

This time, as I told them, I did two takes because the first time the music didn’t work.

I couldn’t hear the backing track, which makes it pretty tricky.

I thought maybe it’ll be on the recorded video, which it was, but I was so far off from it that it made no sense.

So anyway, I did it twice, sent that in, so we’ll see.

Lauren has said that if I got the role I want in that show of Fagin, that she wouldn’t come because that’s how much she hates the show.

So good stuff.

Then there’s another show that I’m thinking of auditioning for.

It’s directed by the same guy who directed Same Time Next Year, which was that two-person play I did last year, or the beginning of this year, rather.

And that show is Noises Off.

And I had heard plenty of Noises Off, and I was familiar with Noises Off, but I couldn’t remember ever having seen Noises Off.

And there’s a movie, a movie that bombed, but it’s got great people in it, like a hugely stacked cast, frankly, including Carol Burnett and John Ritter.

And Lauren and I watched the movie, and I expected to think it was fine, and we thought it was great.

Like, we were laughing out loud.

So I’m excited about auditioning for that show too.

I have to come up with a monologue and then memorize that monologue and then do that audition in person.

Anyway, that’s theater story number two.

Boy, I’m going long now.

Theater story number three is last night Liam had a music rehearsal, and it was a little far away.

And Lauren was like, Hey, we have an old theater friend who lives in that area.

Let’s see if he’s available.

So we did, and we went to dinner with our buddy Dan, who we had done the show School of Rock with many years back, and that was fun.

That was my dinner slash theater story.

I think that’s all the stories I promised at the outset.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Thursday, August 6th.

I know I am.

Goodbye.

Lex.