Smoothini

This has been bothering me for a while, and I really want to address it.

I can't recall all the details, but I remember somehow finding that Smoothini was going to get run over by a truck if he didn't raise a certain amount of money. I found that to be the dumbest thing I had ever heard, and I was rather vocal about that. Smooth left a rather detailed comment on my post, and I ignored it and hid from confrontation like a little bitch.

I forgot all about it until last year. I was watching America's Got Talent and saw him walk on stage, and instantly it came flooding back. I even told my wife, "Oh my God, I know him. I talked shit on him years ago, and I feel bad now."

Smooth is the prime example of what I said in the last post. I formed an opinion of him quickly and without all the facts and I was wrong. I knew nothing about him, his life, or his magic beyond the little blurb I found about his stunt. Seeing him on AGT was the first time I had ever seen him perform. It showed me he wasn't just some asshole, he actually had skills.

I still don't know that I like the idea of "If I don't raise $X, then I will Y" as a publicity stunt though. I may talk about that another day, but even though I didn't like one aspect of one performance of his, I shouldn't have trashed him like I did.

Bottom line is, Smoothini is doing much more in magic and in life than I probably ever will. He's out there performing and going on AGT, while I'm sitting here on my couch feeling guilty and writing about it. Even if he legitimately sucked, he's at least out there doing his thing. More than I can say about myself, and more than can be said about a lot of magicians.

I really enjoyed watching him on the show, and even thought about emailing him to apologize personally. Ultimately I decided that he probably didn't remember me or didn't care and an email would do more harm than good. Hopefully that was the right decision and I didn't fuck up again by airing laundry that would have been better done privately.

I don't know that he'll ever see this, and I don't know that he'll ever care, but Smooth, I was wrong and I apologize.

I feel better getting that off my chest. Enough of this self-referential stuff though. Let's get back into talking magic tomorrow.

- Andster