So, as the mighty founder of the rogue mage dojo the House of Flying Cards, commanding armies of magicians at my disposal like Gengis Kahn to conquer crowds wherever we go, I secretly freelance at a 9-5 desk job every now and then. It's great! It's so laid back. I pick up the phone and ask people if they would like free movie tickets, as opposed to picking up the phone and convincing people to book our shows. I sit peacefully in an air-conditioned cubicle surrounded by movie posters, as opposed to standing under the hot sun in front of groups of strangers waiting to be impressed. It's low-intensity, and stable. I have tasted this world. It's humbling, and there's peace in low-brainpower tasks such as shipping boxes of movie posters and stuffing envelopes. I once read that a Buddhist monk from the Ching Dynasty fled the bustle of the imperial city to retire in the mountains, and chop bamboo. He achieved enlightenment this way. It's a change of pace, the 9-5, but the more I do it, the more energy I store up energy for my next run on the performance grind. I love the way things balance out: low-intensity office hours and high-intensity gig runs. I can appreciate the balance both bring to my being!

-antidote

One way magic has served me is by making time warp and pass forward, kind of like a good drinking session, but without the hangover. A performance moves my mind into the crowd, and far away from things that sting and upset me. I come out of one 15-minute set feeling different, and far away from where I was before the set had just started. An entire gig does me this favor many fold, and at the day's end, I'm looking around with different, and better, eyes. I had fought with the girl I love this morning, and got irrationally mad. There was no good reason to my madness! But in the heat of that moment, it made sense, and I rode that madness into a turbulent phone conversation and text exchange. She went to sleep in tears (she lives on the other side of the world, so the timezone is different), and I rode into my gig in a funk. I got out of it after the gig. The gig saved me! A few hours of doing magic moved my mind away from what happened, and when I came back to it some hours later, I realized how fooled I was to believe in my madness and act on it. I called her when I got home that night, and gave fully into my apologies and intentions to take better care of her and not get irrationally mad. I got off the phone feeling ten-times more appreciative of what we have. Thank you, magic. You serve me like a samurai once again, and cut down the bad in me that I wish to leave behind.

-antidote