Harrison Greenbaum: You Are All Terrible!
In this episode of The Magic Book Podcast, stand-up comedian and magician Harrison Greenbaum discusses his career from Tannen's Magic Camp to headlining Mad Apple in Las Vegas and starring in his off-Broadway show, What Just Happened? He shares insights on writing You Are All Terrible, emphasizing originality, and reflects on his own creative process, blending comedy and magic. Harrison reveals his most treasured magic books and previews new projects, including a one-hour comedy special.
Transcript
Coming up in this episode of The Magic Book Podcast ...
Harrison Greenbaum [:The whole lecture was about challenging your artistic process. So why wouldn't the book itself challenge the process of writing a book? Everybody owned Tarbell. During the pandemic I would see on Zoom everybody's office or magic room and every bookshelf had all eight Tarbells lined up. And I was like, "It'd be so funny if mine looked like the ninth so that anybody who owned my book had one extra copy." They'd be that much cooler than their friends.
Adrian Tennant [:You're listening to The Magic Book Podcast, conversations about classic and contemporary books that teach, illuminate, and celebrate the art of magic. I'm your host, Adrian Tennant, a lifetime student of magic and mentalism, occasional performer, and long time book collector. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the sixth episode of The Magic Book Podcast. My guest today is Harrison Greenbaum, a multi-hyphenate entertainer known for his work as a stand-up comedian, magician, TV presenter, comedy writer, podcast host, and producer. Harrison graduated from Harvard University in 2008, where he cofounded the Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society and was awarded 1st prize for his collection of magic books. Known as "the hardest working man in comedy," Harrison performs hundreds of shows a year across America and internationally. He's appeared on numerous TV shows, including "America's Got Talent," "Conan," and "Last Comic Standing."
Adrian Tennant [:Harrison was also the first ever stand-up comedian to headline a Cirque du Soleil show, performing in "Mad Apple" in Las Vegas. Today his solo comedy and magic show, "Harrison Greenbaum - What Just Happened?" continues to enjoy a successful run off broadway to rave reviews. In this podcast we'll be discussing Harrison's journey in magic and comedy, his book "You Are All Terrible," and some of his recent projects. Harrison, welcome to The Magic Book Podcast!
Harrison Greenbaum [:Thank you for having me. I can tell by the accent you're in Florida.
Adrian Tennant [:Of course. Well, I read in your bio that you discovered magic at age five. Can you tell us about your early experiences performing magic?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. I think the first magic trick I ever saw was my dad doing a simple card trick. He like riffled the deck, and it told him what card I had chosen. And, he wouldn't tell me how he did it. And I think that started an obsession in me to figure it out, to figure out how that could even be possible. And then pretty soon after I got a Hanukkah set, one of the ones that turned into, like, a stage made of cardboard, the whole thing. I think it had a cardboard top hat too. And I just started performing, and I always loved performing.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I was a big musical theater kid. My great aunt recently told my sister she's still talking about me in 8th grade as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." And I was like, I've done other things since then. I appreciate that she enjoyed that performance, but I would hope I've gone on to make her better things since my middle school production of "Fiddler on the Roof." It made her cry. And the sidebar is that might have been the first time I ever improvised a moment that got me a laugh. So I think it is somewhat indicative of where my stage persona would go. A set piece was supposed to come down.
Harrison Greenbaum [:The train station was supposed to come down, but they couldn't get it to come down. And I heard the guy who was, like, a shop teacher. He ran the stage crew. He goes, where the f*** is the train station? And it was so loud. The audience could hear it. Everybody could hear it. And I'm in the dark, but I'm silhouetted. And I just shrugged in character.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I don't know. And that got a huge laugh because I I was such in character that was, like, Tevye being like, "I don't know what a train station is." Big laugh. And I was like, "Woah, that's a really cool feeling." Like, hearing that kind of laugh snap back at you. I was like, "Oh, I like I like that." But yeah. So I was performing magic, performing theater.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And then when I was in middle school, I started going to Tannen's Magic Camp. And that was an unbelievable experience because for a long time, I was sort of the only magic kid. You know? I think most magic people are the magic person at their school or wherever they are. There's not many around you at the beginning. And to go to a camp with a 100 kids and 30 counselors and just to be surrounded by magic, it's a totally different experience, and you realize what a giant world of magic there is. And, yeah, it was a life-changing experience. Some of the friends I made in those first couple years are still my best friends now. So it it's truly a life-changing experience.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, not including the instruction booklet that accompanied your very first magic set, what was your first magic book?
Harrison Greenbaum [:My first magic book, I believe, was "Spooky Magic," which was a a magic book for kids. I think it was, like, purple, and it had a ghost on the cover. It was literally, like, Halloween-themed magic for kids, and it was in my elementary school library, number 6 school, it was called. And years later, I somehow I forget how I ended up back at number 6 school, but they were throwing out old books that they were just culling the collection. I think you can buy them for, like, a dollar or something. And I saw "Spooky Magic" on the table, and I bought it. So I own the first magic book I ever read. The exact copy still wrapped like it's in number 6 school elementary school rapping.
Harrison Greenbaum [:So I was very happy about that. So I actually have that very first magic book despite it being a library book.
Adrian Tennant [:You've been attending Tannen's Magic Camp as you mentioned, first as a camper and now as a counselor. That's 23, 24 years, something like that. How did Magic Camp shape your development as a magician?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Well, thanks for making me feel old. It is crazy how many years. Yeah. 23, 24 years. That's insane. Tannen's definitely shaped me because up until that moment, all of my education was from books and, to some degree, VHS tapes. That was the best technology. You would watch the trick and then have to rewind it and then watch it again and then rewind it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And if you wanted to skip to another trick, fast-forward. It was a nightmare. So books were easier because you could just flip to whatever trick you needed to. But that was how I was learning magic. It was pretty much on my own, self-taught through books and the handful of tapes. And then all of a sudden, I'm learning from actual people and people with experience. And the knowledge that they share at Magic Camp is not just the magic stuff, like how to do the tricks. It was career stuff.
Harrison Greenbaum [:You know? We could take a class on business. I remember my first contract, the template I got was from a counselor at Magic Camp. I was like, "This is what a contract should look like. You know, change some of the information, adjust it, but you need to send even a 1 page contract before you, you know, secure a gate. Get a deposit." I remember them walking us through, like, a phone call. So we had even the business stuff going on and seeing people who had made their living doing magic and seeing what that looks like. It looks different for every person and seeing, "Okay, that's what magic full time looks like for this person, and that's what it looks like for this person."
Harrison Greenbaum [:So it was really inspirational, and they gave me so many of the of the tools that I still use. There's a workshop called "Understanding Parameters" that Hiawatha taught, and you can only take that workshop after your first year. Or I think it could be a certain age. It was one of those workshops you couldn't immediately sign up for. So the first year camper couldn't do it. And so you kind of were excited for when you finally were able to sign up for it. And that was a class about figuring out sort of pushing your limits in a sense. The idea was if you show up at a show and your case doesn't get there, can you do a show? You show up at a show and the conditions are weird.
Harrison Greenbaum [:How do you adjust to it? And just also sort of creative exercises. And it gets your brain into a space of, like, you can magic problem solve, you can create magic. And there was this real encouragement, I think, this push towards originality. We had these competitions and people had to develop their own acts, and it started to push me a little bit. I think starting to realize, you know, being creative and realizing that magic doesn't look like one thing and seeing so many different kinds of performers and being like, "Oh, yeah. It can be weird and different." And, I think that was really exciting. So it definitely set me on a path for sure.
Adrian Tennant [:You attended Harvard University studying psychology and English. And while a student in 2006 you won first prize for undergraduate book collecting for your magic book collection titled, "A Uniquely Portable Magic a Collection of Treasures from the Conjuring Arts." So, Harrison, I'm really curious - did you have to write a dissertation?
Harrison Greenbaum [:I had to write a very long essay. Because I had to guess you might bring it up, I reread it. I I went through my old files to try to find it, and I was like, "Wow. That's actually - that was a lot of work!" I think it's, like, 20 pages or something or more. You do write a whole essay and then essentially an annotated bibliography where I worked my way through some of the signature books, let's say. The reality was I saw the listing for it. I figured very few people would apply and it was the prize was $1,000.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And I was like, "If I win this, I will have a $1,000 to spend on magic books. That would be so good. I would love to spend a $1,000 on magic books. All I gotta do is write about my other magic books." So I really it was a total flyer. I did it totally on a whim. I sent it off. And when I found out I won, I was so excited.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And then my I think it was my parents who were, like, "You're not spending $1,000 on magic books. You're putting it towards your tuition. The school's expensive enough." So they let me buy a couple of magic books. I think I bought "The Books of Wonder" with that money, which is money well spent.
Adrian Tennant [:Mhmm.
Harrison Greenbaum [:But then I think the rest of it went back into my tuition. So I didn't even get to do the full $1,000 magic book spree, but I was very excited to win. And they made a cool display. There was, like, a display in the library and covers of the books and stuff. So it was pretty cool, actually.
Adrian Tennant [:What was your favorite book at that time?
Harrison Greenbaum [:At that time, I think it's probably still one of my favorites now. Penguin Magic, at the very beginning, would do this, like, chat room trivia game show thing once a week. I think it was Penguin. And you would send in, like, trivia answers. Whoever had the most points at the end of it would win a prize. And I remember winning, and the prize, I think, was the first two volumes of "Art of Astonishment," which is a really genius business move because you're gonna buy the third. If you give them the first two, they're gonna buy the third that probably pays for all the full volumes, like, margins wise, they probably broke out even or whatever it was. But Volume 1 of "Art of Astonishment," I won in a trivia contest.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That book still to this day, that essay about what astonishment is, I just find it such a a really good description of, like, what the magic feeling is and why we do what we do. This idea that we box away all these different things and that a magician gives you something that you can't fit in one of those boxes. And so in a way, it brings you back to childhood. That whole idea, that concept is really powerful to me. The magic is also really good in the book. I mean, it's really it's interesting. Right? It's like, how do you put a leaf back on a tree? That kind of thing. It's like, that's the kind of magical thinking.
Harrison Greenbaum [:It's great when you write a whole book of card tricks. That's awesome that you have your own version of oil and water. Congratulations. But, like, give me a book where they're like, "Now I put a a leaf back on a tree." You're like, "Okay - now we're talking." So that book, yeah, I think that was probably my favorite at the time, and still one of my favorites now.
Adrian Tennant [:You also cofounded the Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yes. They actually just went through a name change. They were the Harvard University and now they're the Harvard Undergraduate Stand-Up Comic Society. So now they're HU SUCS ...which
Harrison Greenbaum [:is fantastic. It's HU SUCS? We do! And the funny thing about the name was when I submitted the you have to send a whole form, you know, "I wanna be a club. Here are my faculty advisors." We had the basically, the two people that taught classes related to humor, so it was great. We submitted the paperwork and everything, and it was Harvard Stand-Up Comic Society. So it was just Harvard SUCS was the original name. They never wrote Harvard SUCS.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I wrote Harvard Stand-Up Comics Society full out every time. I send in the paperwork. I get an email almost immediately from the Dean's office because that's where you send it being like, "We need to talk." And I'm like, "Oh god. This is not good." So I go to the Dean's office, and he goes, "We gotta talk about the name," and I'm like, "We're caught. This is not gonna happen." And they were like, "Yeah."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"It's actually for the undergraduates. So it has to be the Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society." I never changed paperwork faster in my entire life. I was like, "Oh, I can make that change." I sent it back. It got approved, and I don't think they realized that it was Harvard College SUCS until I applied for, like, a sweatshirt that just said Harvard College, and IT SUCS on the bottom. And they were like, "Oh, son of a gun."
Harrison Greenbaum [:And so I got an email saying like, "Okay. We know what you did. Now we know what you're doing, and, like, we're disappointed." And then years later at my 5-year reunion, actually, that same Dean came up to me. He was like, "I know officially we had to send that letter and say 'oh, we're mad,' but it was, like, one of the funniest pranks that's ever been pulled on us, so congratulations!" And the group is still going, which I find so cool, and I'm so glad that this club that I started back in 2000 ... I think, 2007 was when we officially had our charter. And it's still going. It's still going strong.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I actually was in Boston a few weeks ago, and I sat in on an HU SUCS meeting, and it was so cool to see all these students. And I, you know, I always am trying to make myself available to help the current class with whatever I can help with. At one point, they needed a spotlight because they've been renting a spotlight to use in the shows, and I was like, "I can buy that for you from B&H and have it shipped right to campus." So I did, and it became branded "The Harrison Greenbaum Memorial Spotlight." Which is like the perfect accolade. I was like, "Good - good work, students. Fantastic."
Adrian Tennant [:Rather than blending magic and comedy, you kept them separate for a long time. Why was that?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. So in college, I started doing stand-up. I obviously always had been a magic kid, and I get asked by a friend, "Do you wanna do this stand-up show that we do once a year on campus?" I was a freshman. Because he sees me do magic and sort of be funny while I do magic. And I said, "I can do magic, but it would be really cool to try stand-up." And he's like, "Do whatever you want. Like, it's open." So I wrote stand-up.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I sat down and wrote jokes. And so my first real stand-up performance was this show. I'll never forget it. It was just a high because up until that point, really, every time I did magic, I was wearing, like, a nice button-down and a blazer. I would dress like, you know, I was going to a country club. I was kept it very clean. That felt like a thing that was enforced even when it was only adults in a room. You had to be clean.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And, you know, the tricks were the tricks. Right? Like, I wasn't be able to express myself fully the way when you sit at a blank computer screen you can just write whatever you're feeling at the moment. So I did that first stand-up performance, and it was such a high. You know, I said the F-word. I talked about things I was actually thinking about, and I just was like, "Woah. Like, maybe that's what I've been working towards that, like, the magic in a way was sort of a tool to get me to this place." But I still loved magic.
Harrison Greenbaum [:So it was this weird thing where, "Alright - okay, I'm gonna pursue stand-up. I wanna set try to pursue that and see what that looks like." And at the same time, I got an internship for "Mad Magazine." Everybody else was applying for the coolest internships. They were like, "I'm gonna be at the Supreme Court this year." And I'm like, "Oh god."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"I need to do something." So "Mad Magazine" happened to have, you know, a submission. So I sent it in and got an email back. "Yeah. You're doing it. You were one of our writing interns." I was like, "Oh my god. This is incredible!"
Harrison Greenbaum [:So that summer, I was spending every weekday in "Mad Magazine" offices learning comedy from some of the greats. And it was really like comedy writing boot camp because I'm writing. They're basically standing over my shoulder. They're like, "Oh, have you thought about doing it this way, this way?" I'm seeing their process. So I'm learning so much about comedy writing and, you know, I couldn't think of a better sort of trial by fire in terms of learning writing than one of the best comedy magazines ever and one that I loved. Like, I've loved that magazine since I was a kid, and I love that voice and their approach and the anti-authority of it all. It's the best. So but then also go off and bark for stage time, which the just a term meaning literally stand on a street corner for 2 hours, hand out flyers, hope people come to your show, and then your payment for doing that is that you get 5 minutes at the end of the show that you're flying for.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And there are comics that still do that today, and I would do that even if it was raining or snowing, whatever it was, you know? This was the summer at the beginning, but once I moved to the city for some snow, yeah, I would hand out the flyers and I'd do the sets. And I just remember I was shoving sponge balls into my back pocket, and a comic was like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "Well, I'm also a magician. So, like, if the jokes don't work, I can do this magic trick. And it's that and this way, I know the audience. I'm gonna go out on a high note." And he's like, "You're never gonna learn comedy if you have this safety net." And he's right.
Harrison Greenbaum [:It was such an important lesson. He was like, "You really have to live and die by your jokes. There's a fight or flight that kicks in. And knowing that the only way you're gonna get out of this is by having good jokes makes you a really good joke writer-slash-comedian really fast. If you have the cushion of, like, okay, 'Whatever, however this goes, I'm gonna do sponge balls at the end.' It doesn't force you the way that these jokes, that's it. It's either these jokes or you got nothing."
Harrison Greenbaum [:And so that was a really powerful lesson, and it put in me at that point, this is freshman year of college. "Alright. I'm gonna keep them separate because the only way I'm gonna get good at stand-up is by learning how to be a good stand-up comic." That was such an important thing. The Comedy Cellar in New York is a legendary place, and I wanted to get past there as a comic. It was so important to me that they didn't know I did magic. Now they do later on. I was so important that I got passed on my own merits as a comedian. I don't want there to be a sort of asterisk, like, "Oh, but also he did magic too."
Harrison Greenbaum [:I wanted to get passed as a comedian there. It was so important to me. So there was that separation for a long time. I was still doing magic. I was still running off doing private gigs. I still I still had them, but I joked that, you know, it was like a preschool teacher approached her burlesque career - like, they keep them very separate, and you put your pasties in a duffle bag, and you hope nobody opens the closet. So just very separate and comedians definitely didn't know that I also had this other secret thing that I was doing of magic.
Harrison Greenbaum [:But I love magic and I, you know, I remember being like, "Hey!" to the guys at Monday Night Magic, you know, "I can host this show. Like, I have comedy chops." I was hosting a lot of comedy shows in New York City. I was like, "If anybody can host this thing, I know how to do it." And so I started hosting a Monday Night Magic and then that became the opener, then the middle, then also, over time, the headlining. So all of a sudden, I'm headlining a magic show and then running next door to do a a set at the Cellar, which was literally they're literally next door to each other doing completely different things. They're like, "Why do you have a suitcase?" And they're like, "Are you coming from the airport?" And I was like, "Yes. That's why I have a suitcase."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"It's not filled with magic props. Don't look in there." It becomes harder to hide when you're doing magic at the theater next door. I think at a certain point, you know, I was always joking that if I ever had to do a magic lecture, I would just put a screen up, and it would say, "You are all terrible." That was the joke because then they have to walk in and see a screen that said, "You are all terrible." Because as somebody who was, you know, doing lots of comedy, I was seeing the stand-up comedian process, which I think is the artistic process, which is you come up with an idea and then you figure out how to make it funny in the case of a comedian. And that was it. That was how you make art is you start with an idea and then you create art with it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And it was so important for it to be original and to be yours and to be unique and to do it in your own voice. And I was noticing in magic that that just wasn't happening. Like, you would see all these acts. They all have the same tricks, the same jokes, and that's not art. That's craft at best. It's weird to have an art form where 95% of the artists are cover bands, and they're all covering the same songs because if there's even 5% that aren't cover bands, they're the only ones who are generating anything original or unique. And, of course, the art isn't evolving as fast as the other art forms. Of course, it's not breaking through boundaries the way the other art forms are.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Stand-up is constantly coming up with new interesting cool things, and there's new cool interesting voices all the time because that's what you do. You strive so hard to be original and to come up with your own stuff. That's the artistic process. So that's starting to happen in me, and I realized I need to put my money where my mouth is. If I think that magicians should be approaching magic as a stand-up comedian, I should be doing the same thing. So I basically force myself into a goal, which is I email the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and I say, "Hey. Can I get a slot to do a a show, a magic show?" And there's a very lucky mistake, which is they send me the email back, and it's a spot for UCB East, which is a smaller venue. Their main venue was UCB Chelsea.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And I wanted to do the show in the main room. And I look at the thing and I go, "Oh, this is for the smaller room. I thought you said I was gonna do the main room." That they were they were like, "Oh, that's our bad. Keep that slot. We'll give you another spot later in the main room." And thank god because it basically gave me a a dress rehearsal. It gave me at least one show to put everything together because I remember putting the whole show together and then watching the video of it and going, "Oh my god."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"It's in the wrong order." And reordering all the tricks. And then by the time I get to UCB Chelsea, I'm actually doing the show in the order that it's meant to be in a much more reasonable order. But that show was me trying to build unique stuff in that method of idea first then technique. And I used my standup as the backbone for that. So taking jokes I really like from my act to try to inspire, some kind of magic moment in the show. And that's where "Harrison Greenbaum - What Just Happened, really started. And that journey is continuing. That's the genesis of the show that I'm doing off Broadway right now.
Harrison Greenbaum [:There's a lot of improvements over time, and we've added a lot of production value because it's an off- Broadway show now. But that's the beginning of that show. So that's a very long answer to say they were separate. I do them separately. You know, last night, I did a magic show in Brooklyn, and then I changed out of my suit so I was in something not a suit and then ran off into 2 sets at the Comedy Cellar. So sometimes they are sort of separate in that sense. I think everybody knows - the game's up. Everybody knows I do magic and comedy now, and I really enjoy to be able to put them together.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And I think the show that I'm doing off-Broadway should feel like a stand-up comedy show with magic. And I always say that as a point of difference, which is that there's a lot of magicians who do comedy, and I wanna be a comedian who do does magic.
Adrian Tennant [:Mmm.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That's the approach. But, yeah, that's I think I've answered that question and 17 others.
Adrian Tennant [:If you're enjoying this episode of The Magic Book Podcast, please consider leaving a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. It can really help other people who share our interests discover the podcast. Thanks. Well, Harrison let's talk about your book, "You Are All Terrible: For the Professional, Amateur, and Anyone Else Who's Terrible." You mentioned that it started as a lecture. How did it evolve into a book?
Harrison Greenbaum [:So I wrote this book backwards, I think, that anybody else would write a a magic lecture notes. Most people when they do a magic lecture, they write the lecture notes, so they have something to sell up their lectures. So they write the lecture notes first, then they get on the road. They do their lecture, and they go, I got the notes, and they sell them. And that felt backwards from a stand-up comedy perspective. From my, like, comedian brain, that doesn't make sense to me Because if I'm performing, I could say I approach the lecture as a performance. You write everything, but then you go on stage and you see how the audience reacts to it. "Oh, are they laughing here? Oh, they're not laughing at that? I'm gonna cut it."
Harrison Greenbaum [:And, "Oh, this moment is actually getting a really good response, but I didn't get into it as much. I need to get into that. That's where people are really interested." And so I realized as much as it financially is a terrible idea to not have lecture notes because they're basically pricing the fee that they pay you on the idea that you they they assume you're going to sell lecture notes. I was like, "No. I'm gonna lecture. I'm gonna take this lecture all around the world, anywhere that people will offer it to me. approach it like it's essentially a stand-up set."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"I want it to be funny. I want it to be entertaining. And every time I do the lecture, I'll change it, edit it, make it better, make it stronger, make it more resonant." And this lecture evolved over time. It was, thankfully, on a PowerPoint, so I can move slides around, and I could really tweak the rhythm of it that way. And it felt like a stand-up comedy performance. I wanted people to be really laughing really hard while they were learning about comedy. It felt weird to talk about comedy and not be funny because I've seen that before where you read a book about, like, this is my thoughts about comedy, and it's just deadly serious.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And you're like, "That's the whole opposite of what you're trying to do here." So that was the lecture was over time just doing it over and over again, fixing it, tweaking it, making it better. And then the pandemic hit, and I realized if I never get this thing down as a book, it's never gonna happen. And thankfully, I'd done MAGIC Live! right before the pandemic, and we had filmed both versions. They make you run the lecture, like, four times I think. So I had a videotape of it after the fourth time. So just a really just solid runthrough of the lecture at that point. So I had something to listen to, to hear audience reaction and be like, "Okay."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"This is how I worded things in Vegas." And then that became the book, and the challenge was to make it be funny the whole time. You know, if I'm gonna teach you how to be a comedy writer, I should put my money where my mouth is and show you comedy writing. And it just became such a fun, creative exercise, especially during the pandemic. And we threw everything at it. You know, there's gags. There is a foreword and introduction to the foreword. There's a final word.
Harrison Greenbaum [:There's all sorts of fun things, just making fun of what a book is because I think the whole lecture was about challenging your artistic process. So why wouldn't the book itself sort of challenge the process of writing a book? And then we got to do so many fun things. Like, I just love the idea of everybody owned Tarbell. We saw I during the pandemic, I would see on Zoom everybody's office or magic room because we were just all Zooming from our spaces, and every bookshelf had all eight Tarbells lined up. And I was like, "Oh, man. It'd be so funny if mine looked like ninth so that anybody who owned my book had one extra copy. They'd be that much cooler than their friends.|" And so that became the evolution of that idea.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And Adam at Tannen's did such a great job because I was like, "It really needs to line-up. Like, it needs to fit on that shelf and really blend in and look like the rest of the Tarbells." And Adam was so great at making sure that happened. A lot of other things too. Couldn't have done without him. And, also, he hired somebody to hand-letter the cover instead of doing it on the computer with a font because the real Tarbells, there were no computer fonts. It was all hand-lettered. So in order for it to look like the other ones, it can't be just on a computer.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And the fact that "Terrible" and "Tarbell" are so close, it felt like such a fun way to package it. So, yeah, that's where sort of the genesis of the whole book. It represents the end of a lecture process instead of the beginning.
Adrian Tennant [:Right. Well, as you've mentioned, the book jacket design does present as volume nine of the Tarbell Course in Magic. But upon close inspection, it's actually the "Tar-i-Bell Course in Magic."
Harrison Greenbaum [:Exactly.
Adrian Tennant [:And the jacket also hides a secret which references Criss Angel in an interesting way. You obviously had a lot of fun with the design and the layout of the book. What was your process for writing and designing it?
Harrison Greenbaum [:So the beauty of it was I had the lecture as an outline already. So I had the entire present. So at a certain point, I was like, "Maybe I'm just gonna transcribe the lecture and then clean it up and boom! Book done!" As I started doing that, I realized there was all sorts of other things to add. Most of them were, like, caveats and stuff where, like, I'd done the lecture so many times that I knew all the questions that would be raised. It was really funny. Somebody on Facebook actually was writing, like, a criticism of the book, and he was like, "I started reading this book, but what about actors?" And then somebody chimed in and goes, "That's literally the next chapter. You just keep reading."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"He literally answers that question." And I thought that was so funny because, like, that's how I wrote it was I did this lecture so many times. The people who would disagree would say, "Well, what about this?" And I would consider it, and I would go, "Well, no. Because this." And so those are in the books. So I'm hoping that as the questions come up, they get answered. And I I think too, like, the just the act of, like, sitting down at a computer and writing it, and a book is just a different format from a lecture. I can't perform it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I have to put it in this new format, and coming up with jokes that work for that format was just, like, a really exciting creative challenge.
Adrian Tennant [:For about a week after reading it, I was using an excessive number of exclamation points and emoticons in my emails to people. People who've read the book will know exactly what I mean.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Well, let me try to replicate speech to some degree because I realized I can't force you to read it in my voice, but I can use parentheses, exclamation points, italics to try to get your brain to do it in my rhythm, like with parenthetical sides, you know, and having more than one. It's how a joke would be performed. You do the joke and then normally you have punchline tag, tag, tag. And so there is the punchline and then parentheses, tag, parentheses, tag. It's almost me doing that thing where you speak over the laughter of the last joke. And so I'm trying my best to replicate my voice in the written word.
Adrian Tennant [:"You Are All Terrible" was also the first book published by Tannen's in 37 years. What's the story behind that?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. It's such a cool full circle thing in a way because I'm a Tannen's kid. I needed a publisher for the book. I did have been a situation where I had a book and nobody to publish it. And Adam reached out, and he said, "I would love to" - we were talking about it - "I would love to publish it, and I wanna give you full creative freedom. That's the point of the book.
Harrison Greenbaum [:"I'll publish it the way you want me to publish it, but we would be honored to do it." And, we tried to look up the last time Tannen's published a book, and I think it was "Midnight Fantasies" by Wally Reed, which is a Halloween illusion book. Kind of ironic considering my first book was a Halloween magic book, and that book was, yeah, published, I think, in, like, the Eighties or something. And, yeah, Adam killed it with the production value of the book. There's like gold foil underneath the dust jacket because we realized if you lose the dust jack some people have Tarbells without the dust jacket, and they just have the gold foil. So even if that's how you collect your Tarbells, you can take the dust jacket off of this, and it will still slot in perfectly. And then I remember him calling me and saying, "Yeah. We're gonna do the dust jacket."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"Are we printing anything on the inside of the dust jacket?" And I was like, "What? You can do that?" There's one version where we were gonna do, like, reversible. So it could be two different magic books. It could be Tarbell one way and then something else the other way. And I'll leave it as a bit of a surprise maybe. But, yeah, we print we definitely printed something on the inside of that dust jacket that I think lives up to the ethos of what's inside.
Adrian Tennant [:Mhmm. I would agree. Harrison, can you walk us through your creative process? How do you approach developing new material that's both magical and comedic?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. For me, I always start with the comedy. Usually, it's like a joke that's working in my act. I go, "Okay. This joke is really resonating with the audience. How do I create a magical moment from it?" So last night, there was this joke that I've been working on for a while, and it was getting a good reaction from the audience. And I was like, "I know there's a magic moment there. Like, I know it."
Harrison Greenbaum [:And I I did it last night, and it worked. It's such a great feeling. And it gives me a project because once it works and the audience is vibing with it, then I really get to hunker down. I get to rewrite it and rebuild it and come up with new moments. And that process, you know, of the raw materials of the trick and then getting it to somewhere where it feels polished or somewhat close to finish is such an exciting fun process. But, yeah, any magician can do it. You just have to decide that you wanna be a unique and original artist and not a cover band. You just come up with an idea.
Harrison Greenbaum [:It's freeing. It's I think it's really exciting. It should be a much more fun process than having to, like, go online and be like, "Let's see. Maybe this trick is gonna work in my act." Like, what are we talking about? Like, every other artist like, if you wanna write a song, you go, "I just had a really bad heartbreak, and I wanna turn that into something." And then they do. That's an exciting, fun process. You know, they didn't just buy a new guitar, and they're like, "This new guitar only does well when it sounds like this."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"So I have to write a song for it." Like, what are we talking about? So it's just about deciding to approach it from an artistic perspective, and I think more people should do it. I hope everybody starts to do it.
Adrian Tennant [:Besides yourself, among contemporary magicians and mentalists, who do you think exemplifies this approach to developing unique effects?
Harrison Greenbaum [:I've been really lucky because my show was across the street from Copperfield, and we would hang out afterwards. And, I mean, David is such a good example of somebody who's idea first and then comes up with how to do it and creating just really you I mean, "I'm gonna vanish the Statue of Liberty." What an incredible story idea, and then he did it. And that's just one of a million examples. He's endlessly creating. Penn and Teller too are also doing that. I mean, I think these are guys that, like, broke the mold. They really came up with their own style that has been very often copied as has David's, but those guys are originals.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Amazing Jonathan was blisteringly original. You walk out of that show feeling, I think, seeing something you had never seen in that way. I remember seeing his specials on Comedy Central and being like, "Oh my god. Magic can do that?" Because they've been so clean and pure, and all of a sudden, this chaos demon comes in. I think he'd be okay if he'd call it he was the Freddy Krueger of magic. Right? Unbelievable. So I think it's harder to see it in contemporary because I'm surrounded that it's like feel asking if you feel like you're taller because you're so in it. There are guys who are trying really hard to be original.
Harrison Greenbaum [:It is still unfortunately a extremely rare commodity. There's too many people who are just buying the trick and then adapting it, and that's just not the method. And I I don't think it's the method that you can really use to reach the levels that our heroes hit, the people that I just named. The reason they're as famous and well known as they are is because they're unique artists. And so I think that's the approach that we need to be having.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, the final chapter in "You Are All Terrible" was written by David Copperfield, whom you describe as a mensch.
Harrison Greenbaum [:A hundred percent.
Adrian Tennant [:Did you know each other before you worked in Las Vegas?
Harrison Greenbaum [:A little bit. A little bit. One of the things that, you know, always struck me was he's really funny. He's really funny, and he has a really great sense of humor. And I think that really came across in the final word of the book. And so I was very grateful to have that as the end. And, again, playing with format. Right? A lot of people have Forewords, but I thought it was really funny to have a Final Word, specifically where I, quote, unquote, "couldn't do anything about it."
Harrison Greenbaum [:So I think that was a really fun final edition.
Adrian Tennant [:You can be notified when new episodes of this podcast are published either by signing up on the website at The Magic Book Podcast.com or by following the Facebook page. Thanks. You completed a 650-show run as the first comedian to headline Mad Apple, a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas.
Harrison Greenbaum [:First and only because as soon as I left, they broke my set into to pieces. So I don't think anybody ever, again is gonna do that kind of full you know, I was about 30 or 40 minutes of it of an 85 minute show. So I think that would be the first and last time that happens.
Adrian Tennant [:What was that experience like for you?
Harrison Greenbaum [:It was ... it was a lot. It was really cool. I mean, I think everybody dreams of headlining a Las Vegas show. Or not everybody, but I think a lot of magicians, that's on the bucket list for sure. And having that opportunity, was really cool. It wasn't when I was really seeking out. I got a call on a Saturday night. I was coming home from a gig in, I believe, North Carolina.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I was on the bridge getting back to my apartment in New York, very excited to sleep in my own bed, and I get a call. "Hey! Can you be on a plane tomorrow morning?" So basically in, like, 8 hours. "Can you be on a plane? We need you to fill in for this new show that we're doing in Vegas. We predicated this whole show on on the fact that there'd be stand-up comedy and the Cirque du Soleil show, and our comic can't be there. Can you fill in Sunday night?" This was Saturday night. So I throw some new clothes in my bag. I grab a suit because they don't have a costume ready for me.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I know it. I have to bring my own stuff. I jump on a plane literally the next morning. I'm in the show that night. The only rehearsal I get is they show me how to go up and down the elevator in the floor because I had never done that. And they're like, "This is how you lose your fingers. This is how you lose your arms. Dead if you stand here."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"Dead if you stand there. Don't die." And then the show started. They sent me up through the floor. And I mean, literally, by the next day, they're like, "Hey. Tuesday, can you stick around? We had another show Tuesday." "Okay. Sure."
Harrison Greenbaum [:"I can find a show to do on Monday." And so Tuesday, I did another show. And then by the end of that week, they were offering me a year-and-a-half contract to stay there. And then, yeah, to be eventually the the the sole headliner of the show. And even on the website, it was "Mad Apple Starring Harrison Greenbaum," which ironically, the only time before that they've ever done that where they've named a a star was Criss Angel. Me and Criss, baby!
Adrian Tennant [:Your off-Broadway show, "Harrison Greenbaum - What Just Happened?" has been extended multiple times. I know this is an audio-only podcast, but I do see the poster behind you. So can you tell us all a bit more about the show?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. I've been doing this show for a really long time. Actually, I did stand-up mixed with a little bit of magic for the Cirque show, and those tricks were from "What Just Happened?" And so I've been touring this show for years and years. And when I finally got to come back to New York, I was like, "You know what? I just wanna do a run. I wanna do a real run of this show on a regular basis off-Broadway where, you know, the show's been building up to this regular run." And I found a really great partner in Asylum, which is this great theater that actually turns out not far from my apartment, which is very convenient. Not necessary, but I'm not complaining.
Harrison Greenbaum [:It's a great theater. They're a great partner, and we've been able to really add some cool production value. We have, like, a giant video screen wall behind me, and so we can do, like, virtual sets. So that's been really cool to have that additional tool, really, for the show. And just getting to do it on a regular basis because there's no better way to tweak and fix and add to a show than to just keep doing it over and over and over again. So we're finding new moments and adding cool little things here and there that really, I think, make the thing sing, and it's been awesome. I, you know, I hope it continues. You know, we have lots of cool plans for it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And if you're in New York City, just go to WhatJustHappenedShow.com. Buy tickets. We're doing it on a regular basis. There's some new exciting things we're about to announce with the show, actually. So make sure you follow me on social media too at Harrison comedy because we're gonna be coming out with some announcements very soon.
Adrian Tennant [:Exciting. You also recently filmed a one-hour special. What can we expect from this performance?
Harrison Greenbaum [:It was really important to me that I do an hour of just stand-up to show my sort of comedy bonafide. It's to be like, "I'm a real comedian that does hours on the road." It's such a beautiful shape, the hour stand-up special, of all what you can do, the callbacks, just how you can build that thing out. So it was important for me that the first special was stand-up only. We will be doing a comedy magic special, though. That's coming up. Stay tuned. Very exciting.
Harrison Greenbaum [:So that is coming up for sure. But, also, I'm running the off-Broadway show. So it's like, "Let me keep running it and tweaking it so that we really have this version that we're super stoked about." So, yeah, that's coming up. But, yeah, this special was partially a challenge. I had been putting off so long committing an hour to tape. I was supposed to do it March 2020. There was gonna be this, like, album recording, March 2020.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And then I forgot what happened, but I had to cancel [laughs] And then, by the time we were back doing live shows and I felt comfortable really doing an album taping with an audience or a special taping, I got hired for the Cirque show. And so all of a sudden, I was in Las Vegas doing ten shows a week there. It made it very hard to run the hour on a consistent basis in a way that I felt good than taping it. So as soon as I moved back to New York, the goal was, "Alright. I'm gonna put a date on the calendar for when I'm taping my special, and I'm gonna work my ass towards that goal." And we did. I asked the Cellar.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I said, "Give me a date." And they so kindly gave me a date in September, and I was like, "Great. That's the goal." And I just booked myself on the road as many times as I could running that hour, perfecting the material. And, yeah, a few weeks ago, we taped it. So now we're in the edit, which is a very exhausting process. Nobody likes watching themselves, I don't think. So just watching myself over and over again is a little bit of a torturous process, but we're, yeah, we're doing it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And then as soon as we have the, official announcement ready for where it's gonna be viewable and a date, we will let everybody know. But it will be viewable widely, and everyone will get to see it. And I'm very excited for people to see this whole special. And there's no magic in it, but there are jokes about being a magician or being involved in the world of magic. So there's definitely that magic flavor still in there.
Adrian Tennant [:Perfect. We talked about your magic book collection while you're at Harvard. Today, what is your most cherished magic book would you say, and why?
Harrison Greenbaum [:My most cherished magic book ... the oldest book I have, I think, right now is "Conjurer Dick," which I treasure because the cover is so funny. It is insane to me that there's a book called "Conjurer Dick." But of all the books up there that I treasure that's a good question because you could treasure them for different reasons. I'm in a couple of the books, which is crazy to me. Like, when Ken Webber came out with Maximum Entertainment 2.0, he added me to the book in a couple of places, and that is kinda wild to me. It's interesting. When people ask me what my goal is in comedy or in magic, there's a George Carlin quote, which I've never been able to re-track down the exact quote or interview, so I've always been paraphrasing it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:So I hope I'm doing it justice. But I believe his goal was when you write the history of stand-up comedy, you had to include his name. That was the goal. It's such a great way to think about it is when you write the history of comedy and or magic, I wanna at least be in a footnote at least. If I can't be a full chapter, at least let me be referenced. And that Vanishing, Inc. came out with "Neon Dreams." It's a book about the history of Las Vegas magic, and I'm in it.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I'm in it for a hot second, and so that felt really cool because that was always my goal with anything. So, like, "If I'm gonna go to Las Vegas and do magic, let me at least be a passing reference in the book about Las Vegas magic." So that that's kinda cool. I think that was, what was fun to see. And so that that sits up there on the shelf and is kinda nice.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, it's funny you should mention that because Lance Rich, the author of "Neon Dreams," is an upcoming guest on The Magic Book Podcast.
Harrison Greenbaum [:No! Nice.
Adrian Tennant [:You attended the 100th birthday of the first magician to ever perform on the Las Vegas Strip, Gloria Dea.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That's right.
Adrian Tennant [:The birthday party is captured by Lance in "Neon Dreams," which describes Rudy Coby emceeing a show which included Teller, Jen Kramer, Bizarro, David Harbour, Fielding West, Lance Rich, and you - Harrison Greenbaum.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yes.
Adrian Tennant [:Quote from Lance's book: "Who wrote an uproarious comedy roast, none of which is reprintable, tailored to Gloria," end quote. So, Harrison, come on. Can you remember the gist of what you said?
Harrison Greenbaum [:You told me to keep it clean and this will take us into NC 17 for sure!
Adrian Tennant [:Gloria comes across as quite a feisty lady.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yeah. So I got a call from Rudy saying, "Hey. We're doing this birthday party." And in lieu of presents, we were having everybody sort of present a performance as a gift. And I was like, "Oh, this is great. I would love to be a part of this." And I suggested the roast. I was like, "You know, the saying is you only roast the ones you love."
Harrison Greenbaum [:And he had told me, like, "Oh, Gloria has a really wicked sense of humor. She tells dirty jokes herself." So if there's ever a person that was, like, right to do this kind of comedy roast thing, it was Gloria. Because we all were so appreciative of this of this lady, and she had done so much. And I think it was it's really nice, you know, to celebrate people while they're living. Too often, people save this stuff up for, like, a memorial. And at that point, it's a waste. Let people know that you love them and appreciate them while they're alive. And so Gloria got to see how much her legacy meant to so many people.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I think that was what was so important was that she was able to be surrounded by love and see how much she was appreciated. So it was just, yeah, an honor to be a part of it and to, say some really dirty words in front of her.
Adrian Tennant [:Your book, "You Are All Terrible," has been out for over a year now, and you delivered the lecture, I think, in Blackpool earlier this year. So, Harrison, are you seeing any signs that the book's message is resonating with magicians?
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yes. Yeah. Thank god. Because otherwise, this would have been a really a waste of time to write this book into his lecture. I mean, I've been I've been humping around the world telling people, like, "Come on. Be original!" You see it a lot in the kids. Like, I have a counselor at Magic Camp now.
Harrison Greenbaum [:You really do see it in the kids because they're still figuring out their creative process. So if I can plant that seed of, like you can do it yourself. You can come up with the idea first and then come up with the technique and develop original magic. Do it now while you're still figuring out your process. So, like, campers and stuff are really good about incorporating that stuff. There was a funny moment where a former camper, he's now a a great stand-up comic, and I was working on some material. And I was running it by him going, "What do you think?" Because I I was like, I think this joke should work, but it's not getting the giant big snap laugh that I think it should be getting. What what's wrong with it? And he literally looks at me and he goes, it's missing on the clarity.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And he quoted 1 of the c's of comedy back in May. And I was like, that is awesome. That is so cool. And he was correct, actually. The thing that was wrong was I knew why the joke was funny, and the audience just there was a disconnect between what I was communicating and what I was thinking. And as as soon as I said what I was thinking and made it clear, huge laugh. Huge. Like, literally, like, night and day difference.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That was a pretty cool signifier to me that the book is working was that somebody quoted it back at me, and it worked. So I think that was pretty cool. You know, it's not definitely not appropriate for small children, but as, like, teenagers read it and they let that sort of settle, I definitely heard people buying that book for their friends and even comedians. I I I know a comedian who bought it for other comedians to be like, hey. Here's a really good guide for tuning up your jokes. So, yeah, I'm starting to feel it. I get messages. People email me and reach out to me all the time, saying that it had an effect, which is awesome.
Harrison Greenbaum [:And, yes, I think it's working. And, also, this lecture was written based on audience reaction. So this message was refined and worked on over time through the reception and action of people coming up to me and saying, "Well, what about this?" Or, "Oh, I really love this part. I wish you talked more about this part." So this thing was really built based on the reaction of the magic community. So my hope is that it as a result of that, it is very effective in communicating its message to the magic community.
Adrian Tennant [:Perfect. Have you read any good books recently, magic-related or otherwise?
Harrison Greenbaum [:I just started reading a book on Jean Carroll, who was really the first foremost Jewish woman comedian. And I didn't know her history as well as I would like, so I've started to read that. I'm a huge fan of Joan Rivers, obviously, Phyllis Diller, Moms Mabley. Those are stories that get told a lot. I think people know the shape of their careers and biographies. Jean Carroll has not talked about as much, and so I wanted to fill that gap in my own knowledge. And she's a fascinating, incredible female comic - I should say comic in general.
Harrison Greenbaum [:She's an incredible comedian. But what she put up with at that time as a female comic in what was obviously a very male-dominated field just makes her story that much more important and just really shows, you know, her strength of performance and character. And so that's it's pretty cool. I just started the book, so I really hope that halfway through, it doesn't turn out that she's a terrible person and me talking really nicely about her. They're like, "Oh, no. He didn't get to the part where she said that bad thing about the Algerians," or whatever. But I'm pretty sure based on my knowledge that she's a a positive fantastic figure.
Adrian Tennant [:Marvelous. Marvelous. If the listener would like to see you perform live, whether it's comedy or magic, what's the best way to find out more about your schedule?
Harrison Greenbaum [:I like the way you said "schedule." That was very exciting. I realize in Orlando, they say things different. But, my schedule's on harrisongreenbaum.com. Pretty easy to remember. Just click on 'Tour.' WhatJustHappenedShow.com is the official website for the off-Broadway show. And @HarrisonComedy is on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or X or whatever they're calling it nowadays.
Harrison Greenbaum [:So follow me on social media as well. And, yeah, I'm on YouTube. I put up clips from my shows there. Youtube.com/harrisongreenbaum. So I'm all over the place and, definitely follow along. Sign up for the email list. So many ways to get it. Tannens.com to buy the book.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That's the best place to buy the book, Tannens.com. They're the publisher. Then there are some copies available, and if you buy from Tannens, they're autographed, and they really I am really the one who autographs it. I slip into Tannen's when we run out and I re-sign a bunch of copies. And as they run low, I come back and I re-sign, so you can get a fun autograph copy. There we go. See, you got an autograph copy.
Harrison Greenbaum [:That was me.
Adrian Tennant [:For the listener who can't see, mine's very nicely from Harrison. It's in green ink. And he says, "Harrison, that's me." And then the star of David and note, "Jew."
Harrison Greenbaum [:Yes.
Adrian Tennant [:I in case we didn't know that.
Harrison Greenbaum [:I'm glad you got the green one. I was signing them in black and people thought that I had printed that into the book. And I was like, "Oh, no. No. No. I'm gonna get credit for this effort." It was switched to a green pen, so you knew I really am doing them by hand.
Adrian Tennant [:Great conversation. Harrison, thank you so much for being my guest on The Magic Book Podcast.
Harrison Greenbaum [:Thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.
Adrian Tennant [:You've been listening to The Magic Book Podcast. In this episode, we explored Harrison Greenbaum's journey in magic and comedy from his early experiences at Tannen's Magic Camp to building his book collection and developing his performing career in magic and comedy. We also discussed Harrison's book, "You Are All Terrible," on the importance of originality in magic with lessons magicians can learn from the world of stand-up comedy. Harrison shared insights from his experiences headlining a Cirque du Soleil show, his successful off-Broadway run, and his recent one-hour special. You'll find a transcript for this episode on our website at TheMagicBookPodcast.com. There's also a blog post with timestamps and links to resources we mentioned. If you have a question or would like to suggest a topic for future episode, please contact me.
Adrian Tennant [:Adrian@TheMagicBookPodcast.com. Thank you for listening to The Magic Book Podcast. Until next time, goodbye.
