Smoke, Mirrors & Feathers: The Magic & Illusion of David DaVinci

Step right up and into the world of magic, wonder and illusion with a generous serving of wild! 

In this episode of The Silverwood Show Podcast, Sara Jean & Jordan welcome Silverwood's brand-new headliner and world-renowned illusionist, David DaVinci.

Known for his high-flying stunts and jaw-dropping illusions, David brings double the magic this season with not one, but two incredible new shows: the mind-bending Confusium and the wildly entertaining Parrot FX, featuring his families brilliantly trained exotic birds.

From traveling the globe to taking center stage in the Theater of Illusion with his talented wife and daughter, this behind-the-scenes interview is packed with surprises, inspiration and more than a few magical moments.

Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe for more episodes straight from the heart of the park!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Come Joined Up Fun, thrill make come joined up Fun,
Come tied up Fun.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi Jordan, Hi, Hey, this is Sarah and Jordan, your
host of the Silverwood Show podcast, and we are back
for another week of absolute fun and exciting things, eating
new things. I'm super excited about this episode. I thought
we were just gonna have one guest, but then I
might have finagled my way into getting two guests today.
Turns out it turns out Jordan's not super excited about it.

(00:35):
But you're going to see here in just a minute
when we introduce our guest of the week, David da Vinci.
That thrills the thrill usion.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Illusion is thrill thrill usion? How do you say that thrillusion?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh my gosh, wow, just take my word for it.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
The thrill what Jordan said. And he's putting on not
loll but two shows at the Theater of Illusion for
the rest of the season. We've got computers until until
Labor Day. Until Labor Day? Yeah, isn't that the rest
of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
No, because we're then weekends in September.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh okay, wait, isn't Labor Day the last weekend in September?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, it's the first weekend in September, the first Monday
in September.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Wow, okay, yeah, really okay.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I learned something.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Anyway. But yeah, he's got two shows when brands Fanka
knew this week, and he's going to talk about that.
He's going to talk about his family, his birds, and
all the things that you have to look forward to
here at the Theater of Illusion at Silverwood. So that's
coming up in our big drop, and we are back

(01:47):
with this week's very special guest. And David, I'm already
a big fan of you because you brought me your petals.
We have two special guests. Yeah, So we have David
da Vinci in the house. He is the magician here
doing confusium and the brand new parrot effects and you
can catch him in the Theater of Illusion with his
wife Jamie and his daughter Capri and his whole team

(02:09):
of animal loving humans, which is just amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
But I also have yeah, for those who can't see.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
If you can't see, we have Icy here in the house.
And and David tell me what kind of snake she
is again.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
So she's a ball python, yeah, and just a mix
between a blue eyed Lucy and what's called them a hoavey.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
So it's beautiful. So she's just this ivory color, just stunning,
and she's crawling all over me. Yes, so if you
hear distraction, you know why right off the bat. So yeah,
Jordan a little surprised today.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, she wanted one of your birds to come, and
I said they poop a lot.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yet she comes out into the theater She's like, all right,
So Jordan said, no birds, but let's get the snake.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, I ask for forgiveness, permission Jordan's learning boss and
so yeah, so fine, yes, because I se doesn't poop,
well I probably don't stop, but you know, if it happens,
I'll clean it.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Learning a lot here on the podcast, right to Educational to.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
A good Star. But let's talk about David here. So Confusium,
we've got that going. We've got paradop acts that kicked
off this week. Kind of tell us a little background
about yourself. I know some people might recognize you from
twenty twelve.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, so it actually goes way back.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
So I started my career in Spokane, Washington, grew up there,
born and raised, and then once I was twenty one,
I hit the high seas, traveled all over the world.
We've hit six continents. I stopped counting a seventy five countries.
I know that sounds pretentious, but like at some point you're.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Like, I don't know anymore yet.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Like it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
But we've been really blessed people to travel around and
perform and do all this for many, many years. In fact,
it even goes back further than twenty twelve. In two
thousand and one, I was seventeen and Shala Park High
School kicked me out because I was doing too many
magic shows and missing twitch school. So I came here
into seventeen shows a week during that summer. It went
off and competed, won a world championship, was the youngest
to win the gold medal in this competition for magic.

(04:02):
Thanks agetting to do so many shows here, that's awesome.
And then North Central was like, yeah, you can come
graduate here, And so I missed a lot of school
at North Central.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Still do my show.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
And sorry Shane all he missed out.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Not sorry Shade. We got that rivalry anyways.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, and then have just been able
to travel around performing And in twenty twelve, we had
just come off of a two year tour with Ringling
Brothers Circus and we were the headlining act of the
Magic Show. We did all the lower forty eight states
and each week we were in a different arena at
ten to twenty thousand people.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
We performed for Rod Stewart Shaquille O'Neil like it was
just it was such a whirlwind two years wow. And
then came off of that tour and we got the
call to come up here. So back then we did
the Magic Show as well as the old version of
Part Effects, and so when this opportunity came up for
this summer, it was it was a no brainer for
us to bring the birds, which is a passion. The
magic is a passion, and I know we're going to

(04:55):
dive into all that, but those are that's the cliff notes.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
So when you say world champion, yeah, I kind of
want to know that, Like what does that process look like?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Where do you go? How does that decided?

Speaker 4 (05:04):
It's like the nerdiest thing you could possibly imagine as
like a bunch of like magicians are socially awkward creatures, right, Like,
we don't become magicians because we have a really good
social life. So we're like so a bunch of like
just these kids that I classify as like I didn't
really have a lot of friends. I know, you're shocked.

(05:25):
And so we all go to this annual meetup and
we're like, who does the magic tricks better? And so
I had I was honing my dove act at the time,
and and and so the way the competitions work, people
would come from all over the world. The specific one
I won was a Pacific rim magic competition. I've heard
the full name at the moment, but it was it
was down in Portland, organ and people from all the

(05:48):
countries that in the world could come compete. And so
at seventeen I went on. And we would have an
eight minute limit to the act, and so it could
be music driven, it could be comedy, it could be
you know, speaking, it could be whatever. And you'd have
a stage and you'd have you'd kind of were in
like kind of a context of a variety show.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
So you'd have an MC and you're.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
Expected to be able to perform at a real world level.
So your props would ge wheeled on hopefully things didn't
fall apart when they move the props on stage. And
these are all part of the learning experience, right, and
it really prepped to you for.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
The real world.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
And so the judges are other professional magicians and they
would judge you on stage presence, how well could you
overcome mistakes, And so I would actually build mistakes and
on purpose, little stupid little things like they have these
things called a match poles. You pull a match from
under your lapel and it lights. Well, everybody does that,
so I pulled it, it didn't light, so I pulled a
second one, and like, Wow, that guy's really good. He
was like prepared. I'm like no, they did that for

(06:40):
the points.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
But yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
So there were little games like that that you could
kind of figure out, like and the professionals would look
at that as like, wow, this guy's got experience, he's
got the stagecraft whatever it was. And then the manipulation
with the birds and the magic had to have these
like they helped you structure the act of like a
strong opening and then congruent magic throughout the act and
then it closes with a crescendo. And so the duve
act that I do in Confusium very much started from

(07:05):
that early day of competing. And this is kind of
the third iteration of the act. But I've been doing
this particular act my whole life pretty.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Much as well.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
I can say this. At the first time Jordan and
I saw it, we just both looked at each other
and it was like pick your job, seriously, We're like, wow, okay.
And then when we went the second time and I
was with what are you looking at the same Tilo,
one of our entertainment managers. She also just I mean
just mind blown, you know, So here we are in

(07:35):
entertainment and seeing that and being that just mind blown
and that was just the kickoff.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well I appreciate the kickoff.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, that was just the kickoff. We're like, okay, what
are we in for here? So yeah, it was phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Well, thank you, thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
So going back now to twenty twelve, yeah, actually, let's
gope even even further back to Ringling Brothers. And so
how much did you learn from there that continues into
like your show that you see today.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
Oh my gosh, tons it. So when you are growing
up in entertainment, you emulate your idols, right, and so
it's really difficult to step away from that. And what
Ringling provided for me is one, first of all, like
we got to work with some of the best choreographers,
and like the team that they assemble around you especially.
They're like, hey, we're going to build the show around

(08:24):
your magic and your birds, and the whole tour was
built around my wife and I were.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Like totally mind blowing.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
So you could imagine the team that came in to
support us, And I think that's a really important thing.
Like it's not just me patting myself on the back
and like, hey, cool, our show's good, Like I feel
confident with the show, but the team is what made
it happen, right, yeah, right, And so they came in
and they would like give me I like to call
like an index of moves. Right, I'm not a dancer.
I'm not you know, I'm an entertainer who uses magic
as the platform. But they brought in the team to
fill in the rest. It brought me a vocal coach

(08:51):
that brought me all these different things. We had to learn,
different lifts and stuff which were still doing in some
of the magic. And you know, I'm a I'm not
an acrobat, but we're doing stuff that acrobats would do.
And so they brought the whole team together to help
shape what our show could become and they really took
it to a whole another level in showing us how
to get there. But then they also supported it in
a way that fueled the creative process for me to

(09:13):
be able to become a unique entertainer. So my style
is my style, and I can finally say that after
forty two years. But that's a really hard thing and
anybody entertainment, for sure can relate to that, whether it's
you know, in anything in life. Really we start by
emulating and then once you find that voice.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's it's helpful and you just move forward and tuck
forward and you definitely have your style, I mean, and
then you bring in all the animals. Animal Yeah, yeah,
I mean I've never in all my years of seeing magic,
and I love magic and I love illusion, but I've
never seen a show with you know, so I'm super
excited about Paradough Acts.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Well you haven't seen that.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
I haven't seen it yet.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
So it is where where did the where did you
start with like animals? Like, where did that come from?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (09:54):
So my parents had blue and gold macaw for most
of my child life. Prior to that, I remember we
had a budgy named Budgie. My parents weren't name and
we came back. I was six years old. We came
back from Hawaii, and this budgy seemed to crave attention.
And I need to be careful. Like with animals, we

(10:14):
try not to like anthropomorphizer or put human emotion to it, right.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
But yeah, for the lack of better words, he was
excited that we came home. Yeah, and he did.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
He would put his foot on the side of the
cage and he would do summersaults. And there's still a
family debate did he do ninety nine or a hundred?
But either way he was he was stoked for Ushbee home.
It were you know, every We must have sat there
for an hour while this bird did these stupid summersaults.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
It was the cutest thing.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
And there there's such great birds, and that the love
and the passion for animals has been there my whole life.
And it was nineteen ninety four and I saw a
magician on TV by the name of Greg Frewin which
goes full circle back to Niagara Falls. We can talk
about all that, but there was a show called World's
Greatest Magic and it came out every Wednesday night before
Thanksgiving and it was a two hour special and they
did this once a year for five years, and it
was like the pinnacle of magic. Copperfield was huge. Lance

(10:57):
Burton was headlining in Vegas. Chriss Angel and David Blain
didn't exist yet, thankfully there's some rivalry there. But it
was like the best of the best. And so I
saw a magician on TV used doves, and my parents
at this point had to make call. They had a
sound of gold parrot. And then the budget unfortunately had
passed by this point, and I had a box turtle
and I saw this magician do this dove act. I'm like,

(11:18):
oh my gosh. And I found a home for the
turtle and I got doves and I haven't turned back.
And it was like the passion there for sure happened.
And then once I won the gold medal that convention
hires the winner backed as a closing act for the
next year. I'm like, cool, I gotta do something bigger
and better. And so I was like, okay, well, maybe
I'll use my parents blue and gold and I'll vanish

(11:39):
the doves and then I'll produce the macaw. Well, it
turns out if you don't know anything about training a
parrot they're mean, And so I bought a book. It
was all written in scientific language that nobody could understand,
and we pieced it together and finally I was like, okay,
I can teach this burt of card trick. And it
was all reveal the secrets here all right there. We

(12:00):
would put a really big dot about the size of
a silver dollar on the back of a playing card,
and you train the bird to pick up the card
with the dot, and you add a second, a third card,
until like you could put a handful of cards out
and he'd always picked the one with a really big,
obvious dot, and then you made the dot a little
bit smaller, a little bit smaller, a little bit smaller
than eventually basically invisible in hindsight, I would have just
used a UV marker, because they can see the ultraviolet

(12:22):
spectrum and we can't. So there's which we actually use
that in paired effects to our advantage. They'll fly on
an off stage into black light which we can't see,
so it looks dark, but it's like lit up like
a Christmas tree back there for them. So those little
things like that that the play into the science of
in the you know, of the training. But so anyway,
I trained this bloom goldencot to find the dot on
the back of a playing card, and in the process,
I'm like, holy cow, he's nice. And so I thought, well,

(12:45):
how about I just filmed the whole process and sell
it to pet Smart. I haven't sold it to pet Smart,
but we have almost a half million YouTube subscribers now
that follow this, and and bird Tricks was kind of
born in that moment, which is our whole bird training
business outside of what we do in the magic world.
And I kind of recognized that you had to become
a professional bird trainer if you.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Just totally started in the mic. I see some tongues
like about to lick your elbow, just like.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
That would have that would have might have got me
because I would like.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Don't.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Oh man.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
I could just see the anticipation of like, I hope
you guys are watching this on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
That was great.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
But yes, I realized you had to become a professional
parrot trainer if you wanted a chance to get these
birds into a show. And so that's where all that
kind of started and evolved. And and what what I
really did from a young age was kind of decode
what the scientific language was and put it into like
real world use so that we could take the science
of operant conditioning or parrot training or animal behavior and

(13:51):
make it usable and like kind of package it in
ways that a normal human could look at this. And
it's like nobody wants to know what the anteced and
the preconceived condition was based on the the operant principles.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Like yeah, like I spaced out right there, and.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
So I'm like, the bird does the right thing, give
it a treat, right, And we simplified it as much
as we could, and there's there's a lot to it
and a ton of science that goes into it. But
you know, where we have these birds on stage with pyrotechnics,
and going back to Ringling days, we would have explosions.
I would appear with sparks flying all around me. The
birds have to fly through arenas while elephants are coming out.
I would hang upside down the street jacket over lines,
like all this stuff's happening. And these birds are expected

(14:31):
to perform at one hundred percent level every single day.
And the key to it is that if they don't
want to perform, they don't perform right And and you know,
in the industry, they said, don't ever work with animals
or kids, and I'm like, cool, I'm putting kid in
the show and I'm going to bring in like ten parrots.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
All the things.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
I love the challenge and it keeps it from ever
becoming not like I don't think I'm flexible enough to reach.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Okay, keep talking, yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Yeah, So so it's just continue to evolve. And the
amazing thing with these birds too is that like occasionally
we'd have a mishap with a bird would take flight,
and so we would have two sas, specifically one of
my Camelot, because there would be occasionally a missed Q
on stage in the arena, and about once a year,
he'd fly to the top of the arena and it's

(15:18):
like three hundred feet up and there's twenty thousand people.
So I'd go backstage, I'd change out of my costume, right,
so I'm going from like gold sequence and like fancy
circus costume to like shorts and T shirt. And then
I'd come back out to the arena and he would
see me out of twenty thousand people and fly to me,
even though it's not wearing the same thing were And
so we started to recognize like, oh my gosh, the
intelligence that they have is absurd and as humans, you know,

(15:40):
we can measure that. And I say in parad effects too.
Science has really proven recently in the last couple of
decades that African gray specifically have been the study, the
key study of this. I have the cognitive ability of
a five year old child. They understand life, they can
understand death, they can understand requests. I don't like the
term command because I've never command my birds to do something,
but I asked them and if they want to do it,
they can do it. And so we want to set

(16:01):
the conditions up so that they choose to want to
do it. And with all the different types of motivators,
you know, food is definitely a strong one, but it's
not it's not as much of a key is as
I think people perceive, you know, I think the common
perceptions like, oh, the animal must be starving to do that,
Like no, no, the BONDI like my my gala or
a rose breast and cocktoo, depending on the Australians their

(16:23):
glaws up here, we call rosebreast cocktoo's she would rather
get applause than a treat, and we did this on
for me and so we yeah, and then speaking on that,
like one of the other ones would prefer quality time, right,
and some of the others prefer food. So it's I
think that's a really common misconception. I want to you

(16:45):
know in the bud now is like it's not based
on hunger. You know, it would be the equivalent of
like we could all eat and then probably have dessert,
and we're giving the equivalent of what would be a
dessert a healthy form, but in the proper measurements. But
our birds are you know, obviously we had a lot
of conversation beforehand, how they are family there are They're
not just our pets. They really are family, and we
take care of them like their little athletes, and they

(17:07):
seem to really thrive in environments where they are able
to use their brains, and so we provide it through
the shows.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I also love that you free fly them.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Oh my gosh, that is.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Just the most incredible thing. So for those listening, I
was stalking his wife's Instagram and you go.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Ahead and drop that at bird Tricks Official Official. You
could tell I was like.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, yeah, and you could just fall into the rabbit
hole of all of these incredible birds that he's bringing
into Paradiffects, and I had to go figure out what
their names were, you know, So I'm working on it.
I can't tell the mccaus apart quite yet, but I
do know that one is Jinx, and I'm really excited
to figure out which one that is, because I feel

(17:50):
like that's my favorite.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I'm surprised it's not your favorite.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, Jinks, I like the whole Jinks doesn't like men thing.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, well on that note on that, no, Zip's missing
part of a toe, so just say so.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Maybe finger something in common?

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, and the toe actually just for for clarification that
that happens sometimes in the nest and that's what happened
with this particular bird.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
So interesting.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, sometimes the parents are like, hey, get out right.
Can you imagine if it was like that in real
life and humans?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I mean can in some cases left that doesn't snake
in a theme park? They did call me Carney as
a kid. Oh wow, I know the finger. But anyway, anyway,
I do want to talk about your birds a little bit.
Tell us a little bit about the birds.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
And do you have in parad effects. Yeah, so in
para effects we have we have a duck, a call duck.
By the way, if you if you fall down the
Instagram rabbit hole, like just look up call ducks. They're
the cutest thing thing. They're like a fat pigeon as
far as their body size, they're about the thickness of
a pigeon. But then they're little ducks and they're adorable.
So uh So we have Michael Quaxon.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's the I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
He's super cute and so he's in the show.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
We've got we have Alfhea, who's a blue throated macom.
And then I'm trying to like picture the show in
my head. We have Tusa and and comment they're the
Camelot mccause, okay, and then we have Bondy our glom
and Cressy the African gray and I'm and we have Icy,
she's in the show the snake and I might be
leaving somebody out of it, but we've got a handful

(19:23):
of parrots.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
What are the cute little ones all?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, Lily Lillie's in there with Phoebe and Lily.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
They're both son Conyer's and and you know, this kind
of goes back to the earlier statement of like I
don't want to command my birds and anything. Phoebe didn't
want to do the show, so she's not written into
the show. She's happy to.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Live at Silverwight. She just sends out just watching the
people in the water park, watch the people in the.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Field, just watching anybody that walks by, because it was like,
give me attention, give me attention. I'm trying to keep
my distance because obviously Jordan Morton me to behave and
so I'm back there with my arms crossed.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Like just that's that's totally not true.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
I saw photos that I recall, the five.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
It was the five zoom, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Swear it was I was behaving.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Got on the trail, cameras was here. Yeah, yeah, thumbs up,
Yeah that you were close. I was just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
I can't hope, but I'm just drawn to them, and
so I understand. It's just to be drawn to those
kind of creatures and they are they look you in
the eye and it's like they understand.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's really cool.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
I've I've been very blessed to get to work with
some incredible animals and and you know, outside of this show,
I got to work with a tiger that was rescued
and and she was the coolest cat, and she would
this is this is the sad part of zoos. This
particular zoo is a different country. They would breed the
tigers and they would use the cubs to draw people in.
But maybe tigers grow up and there's not always space

(20:52):
for them, and there's not a lot.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Of solutions for that.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
And so a friend of mine adopted this cat and
was like, all right, I'm gonna put he in the show.
And he had lots of tigers in the show already,
and he's so this goes back to Greg Frew and
kind of full circle, and he's up in Niagara Falls, Canada,
and he builds a lot of my illusions. Now we're friends,
and I go up and I do the show. If
he can't be there, I go up and fill in.
And and so I'm there to do like a six
week contract with his brand new tiger. So we take

(21:15):
the tiger out and we're walking the tiger and working
with her and trainer and she I swear she would
look through your eyes into your soul. And I believe
to my core that she knew that he saved her life.
And that humans saved her life. It was really unbelievable.
And I've worked with other tigers that wanted to eat you, right,
So it's just a different there's like a different approach
to your hands off and there's no you know, there's

(21:36):
there's no contact in those. But this one we would
walk around a leash, we would work with her. She
was super as far as like the best comparison being
like a dog. Like she's super affectionate and friendly like
a dog could be. Obviously heare him, Yeah, and they
they purr and they have like this chuff.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's like.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
And if they if they recognize you, and it's it's
almost like an affection. If you hear that, it's it's
a better sign than roaring.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
You're not going to get you today.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well the chances are less, but you know, it's like that.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
We rescue birds, and my wife and I have a
nonprofit called Project Parrots. It's a five oh one C
three where we basically bring on project birds or unwanted birds,
and we have to do an incredible moderation, but we
are very successful at finding forever homes for them because
we are so particular about which ones we take in
what the cases are and what that looks like. And
and those are the ones that they look into your soul.

(22:23):
They really do, you know, I do the analogy with
the tiger, but you're correct. I think that they really know.
And Zip is one of these. She was a rescue,
the blue throat with a part of the missing toe,
and she was a rescue. She was a foster fail
where she actually gets along great with our blue throat
jinks and she almost kind of like levels them out
a little bit. It makes him a little bit more nice,

(22:44):
a little bit more like nice isn't the right word.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
But just makeing.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, it kind of balances him out, and so he's
less moody, we'll put it that way. Yeah, so's she's
She's been a lot of fun and that story was
actually was great. We self produce a TV show back
inwenty eleven called One Day Miracles where we'd go into
people's houses and we would film the process of working
with the bird just over one day, and we're trying
to find some form of measurable success, whether it was

(23:08):
diet conversion, which birds are generally on terrible diets in captivity,
so diet conversion or learning a behavior or whatever these
things were. And so this one lady had had these
two blue throats in her dream was to free fly
them with us, and unfortunately her husband and her got
in a car accident. Her husband passed, and so she
has these two blue throats and she had some health complications.

(23:30):
She's doing better now. It was enough that she's like,
I can't keep these birds. And so we put Zoom
zip and zoom. So Zoom went to a free flight home.
We have a bunch of clients that we take our
birds outside and we fly them in different locations. And
and Zip came to us as as a project bird
and then ended up staying. And the cool thing is
that she's going to come out and join us on
a free flight trip and get to see I'd see
them both free fly.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Oh my gosh. Okay, And I love how your face
lights up when you talk about that immediate sparkle.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, And like I'm a little bit hear it up
for it. You know, It's like it's just so cool
to be able to give that not only to the birds,
but to the people that are like so physically, emotionally,
and mentally and financially invested in these birds. Do you
know they're not No, they're not cheap. You don't.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
You you know the sticker price to purchase one is nothing,
you know, There's so much more that goes into it,
just the care, the toys, you know, and which is
why we have bird Tricks. We sell consumables and we're
still training.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, exactly exactly. But by the way, go ahead and
drop that if anyone is interested.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, those are guys interested in learning a little bit more.
One of the best resources for us is you can
go to YouTube dot com slash bird tricks More, Instagram
is at birtricks official, and our actual website is bird
tricks dot com.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
We have tons of resources.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
If you have parrots, you like parrots, you think about
wanting to get a parent, Our goal is to talk
to you out of buying a part. Believe you're not
terrible business model, but if we can talk you out
of it, you shouldn't have had one. If we can't
talk you out of it, we will be your best resource.
And we have an incredible team worldwide. We've we've flown
down to Australia for training, We've we've gone all over
We were talking about working too much. We we booked a

(25:02):
tour in Australia and we had six weeks to tour
and we're doing two four hour classes a day and
it was all like hands on masterclass stuff of people's birds,
and and so my wife's like, let's just open up
all the days and we were. We did the entire
every major city except for West Coast's Perth, but we
did Brisbane, Melbourne.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Adelaide I don't. Yeah, adelaide I say, like all the
big questions.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, and well we we didn't get a day off
in six weeks selling out all of Australia for all.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Of our classes.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Wow, so he's ready for what we're about to put
him through.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, I can do forty seven days soever.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Okay, Jordan, you got to ask the next question, because.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Okay, you can fix well, going back to twenty twelve,
you're here parat effects. Talk to me about that show
and what people could expect compared to like what today's show.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Might look like. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
So you know, our goal in the Bird Training Company
is that hopefully the information we give is expired in
two years, meaning we're constantly trying to push the envelope.
We're trying to learn more and we're trying to do
better by the birds and the people and everybody whose
lives are impacted by these pet parrots and so very much.
The animals in our show are our pets, They're our family.
And we have learned so much more about the consistency
of there's different ways to train for allowing them to

(26:20):
have the we call them antecedents, but setting up the
condition so that they want to do the show more consistently,
because that's I mean, whether you're working with kids or
animals or or dancers, like, there's going to be inconsistencies,
and we've gotten much better at making those inconsistencies fewer
or last twelve thirteen years. But as far as like
what people can expect this, it's just a theatrical show.
So I'll give you a little backstory. When we had

(26:42):
done the two year tour of Wringling, I was so
burned out.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
You know.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
We were driving separately trucks and trailers, and we would
have like we did a show in Coney Island and
then the next one we were down in Biloxi, Mississippi.
It's about one thousand miles we had to cover in
a day and a half and then be up to
three thirty am for five am TV.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
I mean it was all that.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
It was just we were so burned out that I
was like, that's it. I'm done with magic. I'm going
to just sideline it for a bit. And so we
approach Silver and were like, well, let's do let's do
a bird show. And then you know, I ended up
doing the magic show on NIX days off and so
it ended up kind of like it was perfect. I
was able to get pulled back in the magic and
rEFInd the passion. But I was like, what would the
show look like if the birds did the magic. I

(27:20):
don't want to be the center of attention. I want
the birds to do it, so within as much possibility
as we could for the structure of how my entertainment
style is, the birds largely present a lot of it.
And if you notice in paired Effects, I don't introduce myself.
I don't introduce anybody in the show. It's the birds.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I come out.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
It's like, hey, welcome to paired Effects. It's not like, hey,
I'm Dave. Like it's enjoy the birds. And I really
like that about it because it's one it's a little
bit of a mental reprief for me. The pressure's not
on me as a performer. I mean it is, but
I'm not carrying the whole show. The birds are, and
I'm facilitating an ability for them to do that. And
it's theatrical. We brought in in addition to the lights

(27:57):
that Silver would already have.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
I came in.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
I was like, Hey, let's hire my friend from Spokane
who does all the concerts, and I'm going to bring
in all of my lights too, And I sent.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
A picture to lots of lights some of the management.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
And I can't tell you what was said in the
text because it was so like over the top, Holy cow,
this is amazing that it was like, it's as much
a light show as a it is a bird show
and just effects.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's really beautiful.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
It's neat and the birds, the birds are flying over
the audience too, right. And so the neat thing about
this is that when I was a child, and I
talked about this little bit in the show, I never
saw birds fly the blue and gold that my parents had.
It just sat on top of his cage and looked pretty.
And it wasn't until I was in Las Vegas. It's
no longer there, but they had Caesar's Magical Empire and
it was this amazing dinner show where you'd go around
and it was magic but dinner as well. And one

(28:44):
of the characters in part of the whole Journey experience
had a blue and golden maccoff fly over their heads
and land on them, and I'm like, what they can fly.
It's a novel idea, but you don't really think about
it until you see it. They're like, oh my gosh,
I've never seen one of these pets fly. And so
we really wanted to incorporate that in a lot of
different ways where people get to be close. Whether you're

(29:05):
holding the hula hoop and an African grave flies through it,
or you're sitting in the chair on stage and the
bird flies in and you're getting to take that video home,
or you're just in the audience. Some of our birds
like to go down real close and kind of buzz
the audience's heads. We talked about different reinforcements, and it's
not necessarily a pine net at the end of the flight. Yeah,
it's the reaction that they get from buzzing people's heads.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
We'd performed overseas in Saipan, and we had Japanese audiences
at seven o'clock and we had Korean and Russian audiences
at nine o'clock. And we would do this twelve shows
a week, and the seven o'clock show, the Japanese audience
is very reserved, right, and they don't clap during the
show because it's a sign of disrespect, which this was
weird as an entertainer to figure out that, and so

(29:45):
we'd always laugh, like once we understood the cultural difference,
we'd laugh because of the ending. We just did all
this amazing magic. We had two tigers in that show
and like six dancers. It was a huge show, lots
of parrots, and the thing that got the applause was
a confetti going off at the end. They were like,
let's just bring up more Confederate but it was it
was that marking the end of the show, and that
audience would like they were so contained that they would

(30:08):
burst right there, and the applause was insane when when
it was a culturally appropriate to do so. And then
the other the other ones was wild that the South
Koreans and the Russians together was like that was a while.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
So I'm sure the show polar office. Yeah, which is
neat to experience too.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
But the reason I'll bring all this back is that
this was like at the height of bird flu and
our show was full of birds, and so the Japanese
culture would show up in masks oftentimes and they were
somewhat afraid of the birds. Well BONDI my galaw. She
would appear and then she'd she would dive down over
the audience, and she kept getting closer and closer, and
then she'd go up to the back and go into
a little one by one foot hole and then she
would be reinforced there. And she found that it was

(30:45):
more reinforcing to dive bond the audience, right, And so
the Japanese audience would react very over the top, and
so with the so with the nine o'clock audience, right.
But then what she figured out is if she landed
on the stage, she'd put out her wings, her crest
would go up, and she'd run towards.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
The front row and screen. We had some fall out
of their chair. Oh my gosh. There's no reinforcement greater
than that. Yeah, I can attest to that.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Being a scary wood haunt actor like, that's my favorite too.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah, and so to solve it, we ended up having
of all the different dancers, we would have them roll
of dice. Whatever number was pulled, that person would pick.
You know, we'd make bond I appear and she would
come get the bird, and they had to be that
very they called variable reinforcement, and we had different dancers
come out, and so she was excited by who was
going to be there and that it was like they

(31:32):
had to be there at the right timing to not
scare the people out, literally out of their cells.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
That is that's what I pictured when you said that.
I pictured Jordan as a bird, like running out scaring
what he did yesterday when I was over there flirting
with He's that is an opportunity to take advantage and
try to scare me to that fair.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, scary doesn't start till October year round. Actually, little
do you know, I did see your desk. Yeah exactly.
I'll go to his office, is like heads, Yeah, like
what that's past employees.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
What happens if you do not behave when you ask
for permission?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, that's where this actually went. I don't know, Okay,
I do want to talk about your wife and your
daughter and the first time I got to see confusium
and seeing the children react to Capri. Yeah, she she
is such a light on that stage. Tell me a
little bit about how long she's been performing and a
little bit about her.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, so this is interesting.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
My wife and I we just celebrated twenty one years
of marriage, thank you, and.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
That was July tenth. Then we got the call July
twelfth to be here.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Okay, happy universary.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
I was returning my tucks actually when we went back
to Roch Harbor where we got married and we readd
our favorite photos. That's awesome anyway, But little insight, thirteen
years ago we decided we want a child when we
were working here and and so it's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
For Capri to get to be here for real this time.

Speaker 4 (33:06):
And so she's she's twelve, if you guys do the
math on that way. And she grew up kind of
like we raised her. The first four years of her
life was on a cruise ship. And we're very careful,
like we'd be home maybe two weeks a year, and
we're very careful to not call our house home. And
but that first four years that we shouldn't know any different, right,
And so the ship was home. Anytime we go back

(33:28):
home to resupply, we're like, hey, we're going to the house.
You know, it was never home. It was the house,
and the ship became home. And it was really cool
for her to grow up in an environment where anything
was possible if you wanted to be an acrobat, a singer,
a piano player, a dancer, if you want to levitate,
like the world was so open and it was not
that she has to be in entertainment.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Obviously.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I encourage her to figure out what she wants to Currently,
she wants to be a marine biologist, but she she
we asked her actually on our anniversary trip.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I was like, just what fulfills you?

Speaker 4 (33:56):
And I'm thinking gymnastics or yeah, and she not long
and hard about it. She said, hanging out with you guys,
hanging out with my friends and performing.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
And I was like what.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
And then of course this contract comes up right after that,
and I'm like, this is great. She's signed up for
seven days a week as well. Yeah, and so you
know she'll missed a little bit of school, which she's
following my footsteps there, and you know it's the education,
in my opinion, doesn't have to come strictly from a
formal environment, and we're really hands on parents about that
and teaching her things, like her schools do Mount Rushmore

(34:25):
and we're like, let's just drive by Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
On the way home from performing at this arena and India.
There you go the real thing.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
Yeah, exactly, And it was so cold her polaroid camera
didn't work. But anyway, she loves being part of the
show and it's really rewarding to watch her just like
embrace it in a way that we never expected.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, and I think she's inspiring other children to realize,
you know, I can do that.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
She saw such a big applause when, especially in Confusium
when she appears off the bat, like that applause like.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Amazing, unlike anything I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
But then the next time she she comes out for
the next illusion that she's in, it's that plaza still
remains for her. So I think it's pretty unique and
cool and it's it's funny. She gets the psychology of
it too, right, like she's around all this all the time.
We like we'll play a little because of the bird
training background, like there's a lot of psychology like games.
We'll play with each other and like getting Eleanor who's

(35:20):
kind of our understudy for other pair of training, and
she's in paired effects and her bird she's one of
our trainers through our bird company. She we call her
Skippy because she injured herself skipping and it's long story short,
you can call her Skippy, but good to know. I
wanted I got a five pound tub of peanut butter,
and I wanted to make sure that during our white
Elephant gift exchange, she got the five pound bucket of
peanut butter. Skippy peanut butter, right, and so I wrapped

(35:42):
it in macaw wrapping paper and of course hook line
and singer.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
She picks that present, stuck with it, right. So we
play these games.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
But Capri comes up to me and she's like, Dad,
make sure you get a boy for the for the
trick in paired effects or we do a magic trick
with some animal flash cards and stuff. I don't reveal
too much, but at the end there's a moment where
the kid can take a photo of Icy and I'm like,
the kids are going to be afraid. She's like, no, Dad,
pick a boy between six and eight, because I'm twelve.
If I'm holding the snake. They're gonna be too like,

(36:10):
they're not gonna say no, right, they got a man
up basically, and they're gonna.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Hold the snake up.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
And of course, like being a girl dad, I'm more
drawn towards picking girls because I know how to work
with them better like on stage than I do boy.
I don't have a boy, right, And so of course
I get a.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Girl on the show. And it was the funniest moment.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
I'll have to show you guys the video because in
the beginning she's her favorite animal. She talks about that,
and the snake appears, and I had already asked me
afraid of any animals. She's like, no, I want to
picture the snake. It was the hardest no.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Ever, Oh you said animals, And it was. But it
was so cute.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
And I love those moments, whether it goes our way
or it goes kind of opposite of what we were
hoping for, there's so many ways to like harness those
moments and embrace it. And so there's this great opportunity
where she's about six or eight feet away from us,
just kind of waving for the camera for a photo.
You just wouldn't get any closer. But also what a
cool experience, What a cool experience for her? And anyway
back to your main question with Capri, like it's really

(37:06):
fun for her to see that psychology in that game
and how we can kind of use it to enhance
the show.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Really yeah, well she does.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
So A little story about Capri is, so after the
first show of Confusium back you you ask like that
maybe we could get Capri one of the Cosmos Cantina drinks, right, Yeah,
So I took her. I took her back there and
I got her a drink. I was like asking her
some questions about how old she is, So, how long
have you been in the shows? She's like since I
was eighteen months. I was like, okay, you are a

(37:36):
professional and put pure confidence.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Oh yeah yeah, she's a phenomenal young lady.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
So yeah, and she really does. It's I like watching
the crowd. That's one of my favorite things. So to
stand there on the side and to see the reactions
from the crowd and honestly to see those little girls,
yeah that are looking at your little girl thinking this
is something I could do.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
We're doing origami and confusing, which is a by the
sound of it. She gets folded up and unfolded and
it's it's a cool piece. And and the ending, the
music's like really it's very choreographically driven routine. At the end,
she throws a high kick in there, and I was like,
she's like, what the hell reviewing the video and I'm like,
what the heck?

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Like that was.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Perfect, that was great, and she's like you like that,
I'm gonna keep it in. I'm like, cool, yeah, it enhanced,
it was great, and it's it's so neat to be
able to have a platform where we can give her
that creative freedom. And she you know, if it's not good,
we show the video. We film every show, and so
I'll let her watch the video and come to the conclusion, Oh,
that didn't look get that good. I got to fix
my toe here in it. I'm like, cool, this is
this is I'd love it. I just I want to

(38:38):
like fuel it as much as I can.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, well that's great.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
I mean, like athletes, you know, you're always watching film,
so I'm sure that helps you, especially with just like
the like how each show's different but also it shows
different and you're like, that worked maybe that didn't work.
How do can we use that and incorporate that into
those shows? So how does your show progress like throughout
a season?

Speaker 1 (38:57):
It progresses through mistakes.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
Don't give a great example one that I'm debating keeping
in and you guys will know in the next week
if I'm going to keep it okay. So when we
first came in, I was like, hey, the trick with
the bunny. We should have the bunny pee three times
and the series of three. This would be funny. And
so so I talked with Jordan. We figured this out,
and we're like cool this and like finding the things
we had to do to make this work great now.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So I'm like having a lot of fun with that.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
I produced the bunny and and EP's all over the
front row, and then without skipping a beat, I point
the bunny at the little girl on stage and half
the time she flinches and like ducks, and I'm like,
she's getting apeede on it. Well one of the shows
at the end, it's a lot to handle, and and
the bunny is kind of kicking sometimes, and and I
dropped the gimmick that that makes the you know, make
it look like the bunny pee. It bounces in slow

(39:40):
motion down the front steps, and it like it must
have bounced eighteen times as it slowly worked its way
all the way down to the front, and I was like,
oh man, I dropped the p gimmick. And then the
audience kind of like chuckled, and I was like, come on, guys,
it took me a long time to fill that with pee.
And then I did it a second show and it
got an even better laugh. And I'm finding the time
like I was just trying to cover a mistake for humor,

(40:02):
and I'm like, that's going to stay in yeah, yeah,
And that's the beauty of these shows. And when you're
doing three shows a day, you you get better through
messing up. And I joke on the on the headset,
I'm talking to the crew half the show, just like
at first it was giving cues and then it's like
kind of self deprecating humor, like, oh, that was awful.
I'll make a note that Dave should do that and
suck less and so so.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
We had oh man, I lost my train thought on that.
Oh no.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
So I was saying like every time I make a
little mistake that I noticed right, like, oh my gosh,
I rolled my ankle so hard on one of the
early shows.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
I watched the video back.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
It looks like I broke it and the audience, the
audience like reacted, and I'm like, we should put this
into a demo reel of all the fails throughout the
entire series.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
I I messed this up. I messed this up.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
I messed this up because one, I think it keeps
everybody humble, but two.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
It's funny.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
Is funny moments and there's stuff I've kept in the
show over the years that the audience is like given
a line that I'm like, oh, that's better than what
I was doing previously.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeaeah.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
So it evolves, and it's you know, if you saw
at the beginning of the season come back, it's going
to continue to evolve.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, ever, talk about quickly probably before we before we end.
This is just the mass chaos it took from you
kind of coming into first show, because like there's a
lot that happened within that you get that first show
up and running, which which show the Confusium Confusium.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Yeah, I mean, I'll give I'll give a little bit
the cliff notes here. There's there's first of all, I
don't think there's any way to really quantify what went
into it. And I mentioned earlier the team this team
is and I'm not just saying this, I've I've been
saying this the entire time. This entire team has been
the absolute best team I've ever worked up or worked with.
And this goes from from you know, if you look

(41:47):
at a hierarchy, and I don't mean it in derogatory,
but if you start with like kind of the lowest
of the total poll to the highest everything from upper
management to the janitors. However, well look that again, I
don't mean any any offense that the entire team, there's
on a single person that's in a loose end or
a heavyweight. It's taken. The entire team has been the
best team I've ever worked with my entire life. And
because of that, we were able to pull off dang

(42:10):
near miracle.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
I got a call on a Saturday saying can you
can you do the rest of the season And I said,
I said, well, how soon do you need.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Me to start? And Michelle says, can you come in tomorrow?

Speaker 4 (42:23):
And I was like okay, So we load in the
next day and I had just come back from my
anniversary trip. So we load in Sunday, we did the
lighting Monday, and then did opened on Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yeah, and then we did we were.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
Going seven, seven days a week. I did one of
the agreements. I was like, hey, I do have a
contract to Niagara Falls, Canada, which is like a twelve
hour trip to get to no matter like there's no
direct flights. I was like, I have this I can't
get out of. But if we can work around that,
which we found some ways aside from that, I can
do seven days a week, three shows a day, and
then you know, let's put in the bird show. Let's
do this, and we kind of came up with a
structure and it's I mean it's literally taken the entire

(42:57):
team thinking around the clock and working around the and
the production stuff's really interesting. In all of the shows
are in my head. But then it's like, how do
I translate that to so the team sees the vision right,
and that's really difficult. But again, this is the best
team and they're seeing the vision. And I think it
was more difficult with parired effects because that type of

(43:20):
show doesn't exist, It's ever existed, right, We did it
once twelve thirteen years ago. Thirteen years ago, I guess
I should get that number straight. So we did it
once thirteen years ago for a season. But other than that,
like this type of show just doesn't exist, and so
trying to put together magic show, it's like, oh, okay, if
we don't know, let's just put the prop center stage.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Cool.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
Well, this is like which birds flying in, and we
had to choreograph there's no crossover backstage, so the direction
of which birds fly in and where they go after
they're on stage, and where the crew goes and where
people enter an exit that's as choreographed as the entire
magic show. And just trying to figure out like where
all that is. It's just it's an unbelievable amount of work,
and if we do our job jobs right, nobody should

(44:00):
have any idea that it took any effort.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, and it's excellent.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm so excited to see it. So, yeah, I won't
lollygag out at the cages. You'll actually come into the
show next time and actually watch it. It's not even
a I shouldn't say that. That is not the correct word,
because he's got a beautiful aviary built for these.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, aviary costs my vehicle. Yeah, absolutely, imagine me.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah, I've never seen such happy birds before in my life.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Well, and maybe before we wrap we talk about not
only your birds, but you have a passion for flying itself.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
What do you what do we do? What do you do?
I mean I've seen your license flight like, yeah, yeah,
so you are a bird.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
I am so fascinated by flight that ten years ago
I decided to get into skydiving. Now I'm terrified of
heights still am.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
But I didn't like that. I was afraid of it.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
And one of the things that I like about fear
is that when you when you have a better under
standing of the thing you're afraid up, be it a snake,
be it being on stage, flying an aircraft, which I've
got about one hundred hours on a one eighty two,
would much rather jump out of them. But when you
understand what it is and how these things work, you
can work with your fear and don't I don't want

(45:16):
to say overcome it, because I think this is where
if as a skydiver, if you overcome fear, you become
a little bit complacent and reckless, and.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's where people get injured.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
Healthy respect Yeah, there's a healthy respect and there's a
the common theme I think with most skydivers is there's
a unique relationship with fear and so yeah, I got
into skydiving, and you have to have two hundred skydives
before you get into wingsuiting, and so I wing suit
a ton. I was actually trying to get a plan
to go jump a couple times on Saturday morning before this,
before coming in for shows. But I have some friends

(45:45):
with planes and sandpoint and stuff, so I'll jump up
there frequently. And in June I got to go just
north of Lake chaland in in Stahkon is the little area,
and so they would take us in a helicopter and
we'd exit on the backside of the mountain and from
the helicopter and then we'd wing suit about two and
a half miles to where we're gonna land, but we'd
have to clear the peak of the mountain and then
and then you have to once you're past the mountain.

(46:06):
You need to have a healthy respect for the terrain.
And I'm not one of these guys that you see
on YouTube that the difference between skydiving and base jump,
there's a big difference. Base jumpers and proximity flying there
they're going between the trees and those guys don't live
very long.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Unfortunately.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
I've lost friends to that. Yeah, and I have I
see the appeal, but I have noticed act where skydiving,
we're opening above twenty five hundred feet, we have two parachutes.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
If one doesn't work, we have a backup.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
Like there's there's huge margins of safety and it's not
as reckless as it sounds. But yeah, I actually I
got into it when my daughter was about to about
two years old. Sold the motorcycle because is too dangerous.
I'm like, let's get into wingsuiting and skydiving.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
And so you explain for any audience that might not
know what a wingsuit is.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, it looks like a flying squirrel.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
Yeah, so we basically we can instead just skydiving straight
down at one hundred and forty miles an hour. We
have extra fabric on and it inflates kind of comparable.
The best analogy I've been able to give is picture
yourself inside of an inflatable mattress. It has a certain
amount of like ram air, so the forward speed converts
into pressure in the wing and it you can actually

(47:11):
get lyft, you can actually go back up with enough
speed and then you stall on me. You have to change,
you know, your aerodynamics change. But yeah, so we control
our descent rate. We fall at about forty miles an hour,
but it's converted to forward speed of one hundred and
forty miles an hour.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
Wow, And so I've got it to go one hundred
ninety two. And we had my buddy Nick up in Sandpoint.
He runs Tamarack Air up there Aerospace and they put
winglets on citation jets and stuff, and so I'm like,
all right, let's get out.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
You you pull high.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
So he's in this bright knee on green parachute and
I exit a little bit later in the wingsuit, and
he's seven thousand feet above the ground and I exit
from about ten thousand feet above the ground, and I'm
looking for this ABD green dot in this guy. I
pretty much put on the afterburners and you can just
rip by him at one hundred and fifty hundred sixty
miles an hour. And this sound that it sounds like
a missile.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Fire engine plane going past.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, full circle. I mean, I love flying,
and it's taught me a ton about what I think
the birds are thinking, whether a bird's learning to fly
for the first time and their wings had previously been clipped.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
I've been there. I've jumped out of a hotter balloon
with eighty bitty wings. As you start with like a
little wingsuit and you work your way up to bigger wingsuits,
which have more range, you can fly instead of instead
of a half mile, you go three or four miles,
depending on the suit and the different characteristics. And so
balloon jumps are probably my favorite. And recently I got
to do nine mornings in a row jumping out of

(48:29):
a hotter balloon. We took it up to ten to
twelve thousand feet above the ground. But it was for
a project with First Form, which is an athletic company,
where I wanted to fly with a peregrine falcon.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
So I called my buddy and who's got a peagon falcon?
I was like, hey, you think your bird will fly
with me? And he's like, well, let's try. Oh my,
So jump seven. I would jump and I had a
camera guy with me. If you wonder why I'm saying, wee.
I would jump and then and then I'd flipped to
my back, and I'd watched the Peregrine and we had
I had a GPS on me, a GPS on the
camera guy, a GPS on this lure.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
So I had a bait.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Basically it wasn't alive bait, So just clarify that bait
on a string for the falcon and and I'd fly
my back and try to watch her come down. She
dived down, she turned like this tear drop and just
a hundred. She hit one hundred and ninety two as well.
So they can do they can do Oh my goodness, Yeah,
they can do two forty two miles pros a record,
and we're we have plans of like maybe eventually beating

(49:21):
the speed record for the Peregrins because now we have
the system figured out. But on jump seven, I'm doing
one hundred and forty miles an hour forward and I
look off my right wing and about fifteen yards away
is Scarlet was her name, and she's she's looking at me.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Not even not even flapping, not even in second year.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
And I have the suit fully like pressurized inflated stretched
out and I'm trying to keep like a predictable like
if I dove it, I can go faster, but I'm
like at a very efficient flat speed.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
She's not even she's not even trying, and she's just
keeping up with me.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
It was the raised a falcon.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Oh I lost, Yeah, yeah, I lost.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
There's any people can say that.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Not many problems. It was the world's first.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Yeah, but it was cool to get to to have
this project, you know, in the scope of it, like
you know, we think about like dog training or even
in the circus world, like the animals are on a
flat plane, but you add ten to twelve thousand feet
of elevation and then the balloon's moving with the winds.
So we would take off and we'd land thirty miles away,
and so this this falcon had to stay with us,

(50:23):
and it was the whole thing was just amazing. It's
actually if you if you go on YouTube and you
search flying with Falcons, we have flying with Falcons dot
com bell forward to that YouTube video as well, and
you can see the whole journey. It's really yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Well, and that's where you get the thrill illusionists, right,
Like that's handle.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Yeah, it's how I stay sane. If I'm not doing shows,
I'm jumping out of planes. Or balloons preferably, or helicopter.
The helicopter thing, I've only done six wingsuit jumps from
the helicopter out with that.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, I tried. I tried.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
In the negotiation here, I was like, all right, guys,
I'm good, but the one thing is Gary's got to
let me jump out of his helicopter. And the whole
table's like he just I'm.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Like, yeah, it looks like Gary by your helicopter.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, seriously, honestly, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
David. We're just so happy to have you here for
the rest of the season, and for any of the
audience who has not been out yet to see the
Illusionist and Confusium and parroent effects, you've got a treat
waiting for you at the Theater of Illusion. They're early,
Oh god shows, every show has been.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
They've all been packed. In fact, I was telling my
mom this morning.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
I was like, I if I could sustain it, I
would do four shows today and they would still I
think it would still be full. I think I can't
sustain it, but next year maybe no. But yeah, it's
it's been amazing. And yeah, the three o'clock always fills up.
The five o'clock fills up earlier in the seven o'clock
like people are there an hour early. Yeah, yeah, and
I will see too. On most shows we do a
meet and greet after the first and second show. By

(51:49):
the third show, where after you see the show, you'll know, like,
I'm pretty tired after it. It's full on, like thirty
five minutes of intense, really intense, but it's super fun.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
So it's amazing. Get out here, Yeah, definitely come out.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Don't miss it, Yeah, don't miss it. And what do
you say we wrap that up? I see is asleep
on my lap right now.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Now, I see that.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
I don't really want to disturb her. But hey, if
you want to come check it out. If you want
to ask any questions for David da Vinci, just write
us at podcast at silverwidthemepark dot com. Don't forget to
become our next loyal listener. We could be calling you
next at Silverword Theme Park Slash Podcast and we'll see
y'all next time.

Speaker 5 (52:25):
And that's a wrap on this week's ride. Thanks for
tuning in to the Silverwood Show. If you had a
blast to make sure to subscribe, leave us a review,
and share the fun with your fellow thrill seekers. Got
a question, story, or suggestion, send it our way to
podcast at Silverwood themepark dot com for a chance to
be featured in our mail Train segment.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Until next time.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
Keep your hands and feet inside the podcast and stay thrilling.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
God come time that fun