Week 4
Before the police got involved, before he was punched in the face for showing a magic trick, here’s how Jake got involved in this whole mess.
_
Rewind about 15 years. After David Blaine launched his first magic special. The age of Nokia phones and Blockbuster.
About eight months before he died, Chase IM’ed me on AIM:
ImperfectTruth: Hey Vlad, I met this kid Jake. He’s only 16, but he’s really good at design and coding
BowB4Darkness: Hey Chase. do u think we need a kid helping us code the website?
ImperfectTruth: Kid? He’s only 2 yrs younger than u. You did ok with the site, but it doesn’t look great. Not like Ellusionist. What do u think?
BowB4Darkness: Okay, whatever
And that’s how Jake and I met.
I was helping Chase, a young and creative magician from Indiana, build a little online magic shop. This is before ecommerce was a word. My remedial HTML skills helped code a PayPal ‘Buy Now’ button into our storefront.
We were selling a single coin trick, and sales were skyrocketing. Before the word ‘startup’ existed, back when you still had to dial up onto the internet, Chase and I accidentally became startup co-founders.
We’d hit our technical ceiling, and we needed a third partner to level up the shop. And that’s why Jake came into the picture. I knew he was a good kid, and his design skills were next-level, but I didn’t like him.
I was threatened by this 16 year old kid from Kentucky.
Then, none of it mattered. Because Chase went and got himself killed.
On a Friday the 13th, 2006, around 10 PM, I was ending my shift as house magician in a TriBeCa restaurant. I’d stepped out and saw a missed call from Jake.
His voicemail was a gut punch to my soul: “Vlad, it’s Jake. Chase was in a really bad car accident. He’s on life support and it doesn’t look good.”
I’m crying as I write this.
Chase passed away in the hospital the next day.
_
It was the beginning of the end for our magic empire. More painfully, it was the first time that I’ve faced death so closely. The cruel world where a 17 year old kid gets killed in a car accident.
I was shocked. I was lost. And the only other person going through the same shock and loss was Jake.
Suddenly we became close. Really close.
Before Zoom, there was Skype. And on Skype video calls, Jake and I would stay up late talking about life and magic and how the hell we’re gonna cope with this mess. We’d never met in person, but at that point, he became my closest friend.1
_
Fast forward >> after cell phones become smart phones, as podcasts were starting to take off. Just as Blockbuster was breathing its last breaths…
Life happened.
Our online shop closed. Jake and I slowly lost touch.
He became a computer engineer, and I was a mailroom guy.
I was tired of pushing a mail cart for a living. Trapped and depressed, I remember going to my parents house for dinner because I couldn’t afford to eat that night.
As I left, I saw a missed call and a voicemail. For the first time in five years, it was Jake calling me:
“Yo Vlad. Get ready to quit your shit job. We’re launching a business again. It’s called the Dapper Collective and I’m gonna bring the best magicians I know to create something that hasn’t ever existed. You in?”
He had me at ‘shit job.’
I called him back, and we talked for hours. We brainstormed, we dreamed of our next empire. I went from lost and broke to hopeful and alive again.
I could see a path out of the mailroom. To finding the magic in life again.
Then Jake went and disappeared. Poof, radio silence.
Calls, texts, private messages.
Months later, I saw Jake posting pictures with his family on Facebook. Wholesome pictures. Parents, siblings, that kind of thing.
I tried messaging him, but no reply.2
_
“Yo Vlad, it’s Jake. I’m coming to New York. Come hang bitch.”3
It was Fall of 2019 and The New York Times just finished declaring the year as “the best year in human history.” This was before anyone had heard of a distant little virus from Asia.
We’d met up at a bar, meeting for the first time in person, nearly 15 years since Chase
connected us. It was mostly awkward for the hour that we spent together.
We caught up on life since the Dapper Collective call.
For my part, I did eventually claw out of the mailroom. Eventually ended up working as a Director of Operations for a startup. Eventually I lost that job and was back to being broke and down on myself.
That was why I only had an hour to hang out that night. I couldn’t afford more than one drink.
Jake had some wild eventualities too.
Soon after his recruiting call for The Dapper Collective, Jake quit his job, bounced around the country and maxed out all of his credit cards. He ended up in jail, and eventually his family had to intervene and force him into a mental institution.
Like Houdini, he ended up in a straitjacket. Unlike Houdini, it wasn’t by choice.
He’d had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and when we spoke, he was in the middle of a major manic episode.
To me, he sounded like the next Steve Jobs, brilliantly recruiting for the magic version of the Apple 1. To the rest of the world, he was a nut bouncing off of the walls.
Thanks to his family, Jake got the help that he needed. He hasn’t had a major episode since, and has gone back to a successful life as a computer engineer and part time magician.
We drank to Chase, said goodbye, and a few months later, the world shut down.
_
One year ago and three into the pandemic, when I had an adorable one year old baby, Jake called me:
“yo Vlad, come to this magic convention. It’s called MagiFest, and you’re gonna love it.”4
Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but I said ‘yes.’
Fast forward, and I’m on a winter flight to Columbus, Ohio. To MagiFest, the oldest magic conference on earth.
Jake and I end up grabbing breakfast about ten freezing blocks away. We’re doing card tricks to each other, and a nearby table is watching.
I comment that we should probably show them a trick. I go in with my playing cards, and they freak out. The kind of reaction that David Blaine used to get on his TV specials. Jake goes in with his rubber band tricks. Same reaction.
It’s such a wonderful high.
And in that moment, the seeds of the magic challenge are planted.
“What if we performed every single day for a new person?” I asked. “How good would we get?”
We both laughed it off, and decided not to do it. But neither of us could get the idea out of our heads.
Two months later, at 4 AM in a NY bar, we were sitting there talking about life and magic and all the messy things in between.
“The magic challenge,” was the hazy answer to a question we didn’t even ask.
_
That’s how we end up in the fourth week of our challenge. Jake and I both had perfect streaks up to this point. Not a day missed.
He was in a big lobby inside of a mall, and approached a group of six teenagers looking bored. The kind of group that David Blaine would have approached back in his old TV specials.
All but one person were reacting really well to his card tricks. But the one guy really didn’t seem interested. In fact, he seemed actively disinterested. So much so, that he walked up to Jake and punched him in the face. Suddenly, three other guys jumped in and tried to steal his bag of baked goods.
It was kind of like a pickpocket routine, but backwards. And violent. Jake abandoned his bag to the wolves and ran for it, through the mall. They ran after him while hundreds of passersby ignored the movie-like chase scene.
He was shaken up, bruised and couldn’t chew right for a few weeks. But most importantly, he completed the magic challenge.
And that’s how Jake got punched in the face.5
Postscript – before hitting publish, I had Jake read through the post and provide his feedback/approval. Below are his comments, along with the his recounting of the punch incident.
1 – “you don’t have to get into it but the drama behind us having preorders for a product and us coming together in this dark time to pull the pieces together. definitely played a role in our connection”
2 – “I quit magic for 3 years after my manic episode. at one point my sister told a friend, “he’s a magician.” and I corrected her, “I was a magician.” that moment stuck w me. anyways yeah magic just brought me bad feelings for a long time. felt like I embarrassed myself in front of everyone I respected in magic”
3 – “come hang bitch sounds so stupid do I sound that stupid?”
4 – “I’d texted you about magifest for 2-3 years before you finally took the bait”
5 – “so succinct lol”
Getting punched, by Jake Dapper:
I was on a roll, I’d done my magic challenge and was doing more performances for fun. I think it was my 4th performance of the day. It was gonna be my last one. I was riding a high bc I was getting killer reactions and good vibes. The Levee is like an indoor/outdoor mall area and it was surprisingly good weather on a Saturday. The place was packed.
I was looking for one more group and you know I’m super cognisant about not interrupting anyone doing basically anything. There’s a big lobby area inside with a bunch of tables. This group of teenagers were all sitting around one table, on their phones looking bored, seemed like prime targets.
They were not children, they were tall, athletic prolly junior and senior age. I wouldn’t be able to take any one of them alone.
I approached them, “Hey guys, sorry to bother you, I’m actually a magician and I’m doing a daily magic challenge, is it cool if I show you a quick card trick?”
The group was split. There were a couple of confused glares, and a couple of them got visibly excited. One in particular was very hyped and dropped an emphatic “yes!” So I went into it.
Red deck. I had someone pick a card, show everyone, lost it in the deck, showed it was blue. When I turned over the blue card and it was theirs, it got a huge reaction from the whole table. It was going great.
And then it wasn’t.
I had someone else pick another card, but right after the guy directly to my left, future attacker, said “hey can I see those?” Pointing at the cards. I thought he was into the trick, and it was the perfect time for him to ask, bc I just forced a card. I was way ahead. “Yeah, sure!” Handed him the cards. He immediately took the deck and chucked it straight up as high as he could. This is a 3 story tall open area inside the atrium, no ceiling to stop, the cards went high and rained ceremoniously down all over our and the surrounding tables. I stayed cool, I just said, “Well, that was a dick move.”
Funny thing is, I was so far ahead, I didn’t skip a beat. Those cards didn’t matter. I still revealed the blue card, and got a great reaction from maybe 3 of the kids that were still caring.
During that though, dude to my left picked up my bag of pastries I’d bought from a bakery in the mall. I sat it at the end of the bench near me when I started the trick. I asked what he was doing and he said he was just seeing what I got in there. I reached for it and he handed it to a guy across the table, monkey in the middle style. The guy across the table was oddly… Nice? But still playing along. He stuffed his hand in the bag. I again asked what he was doing, he was like, “I’m just seeing what you got, I’ll give it back tho.”
And he did all of that. He opened the 2 things in the bag to see what they were, and gave the bag back.
I was respectful AF still, I said thanks when he gave the bag back.
I said “a dick move” exactly twice in the encounter. The attacker said, “Man I don’t like this guy, he keeps calling me a dick.”
Literally dude next to the guy that gave the bag back said, “No shit, maybe cause you threw his fucking cards!”
I continued being respectful AF, didn’t say anything else to the dick and was just like “Alright well I’m sorry to bother you all, thanks for watching.” One kid was just laughing at the awkwardness of the situation.
I walked away with my bag towards an exit. The exit was very isolated with a wall in front of a big square area, then 2 doors to the exit, both with no people. As I was leaving one of the dude’s was Facetiming with his girlfriend while following behind me, pointing the phone at me, giggling and saying “he’s gonna beat your ass!”
I just expressed confusion like, ‘why the fuck would he do that?’, and was turning to keep walking.
That’s when he blindsided me in face. He got a solid hit on my right cheek, his fist planted just to the side of my nose.
I barely had time to react.
I stepped back and had a few seconds while he regained his balance to consider my options. I noticed more of the crew had gathered in my peripherals. At this point it seemed they were there to watch. I didn’t know how many of them were around me, but I knew there were 7 mother fuckers at that table.
Logically I darted, running past one of the dudes watching. Running outside wasn’t an option, there weren’t many people and I’d definitely eat concrete. The atrium was fucking packed. Every one of those tables were surrounded by people. Multiple shops had lines out the doors, and families were standing in between, the place was totally packed. Broad daylight. Prolly around 2pm.
I ran back into the atrium, I figured maybe I’d see security or at least be among other people. Before long, 3 or 4 of the guys were chasing me through the atrium. I was literally pushing people out of the way that were in line, and they were crashing behind me. I was dodging children.
At one point I shouted “is nobody going to help me?” And this one ginormous prolly 6’4+ and mega fat wall of a guy looks over with a huge dangling chin, we make eye contact for a moment, and he let out a long and very breathy “No.”
At one point the guy closest behind me got a hold of my shirt and I felt him pulling me back. But I slipped free. Since I had no help I exited the other side of the atrium leading to the outdoor mall portion of the levee. I knew it was on the security route and I knew there was a receptionist stand typically stationed with a levee employee ahead.
I ran toward the stand, but as soon as I exited to the outdoor mall it seems all of the guys that were at that table split. They were walking the bridge crossing over the Ohio/Kentucky state line to go home.
I talked to the receptionist, who called security, who called police. Weird thing is most of the kids at that table came back to the levee. The dude that punched me didn’t come back, but everyone else did. They knew they were invincible. The security did talk to some groups of teen thugs and awkwardly brought a couple of people to me to ask if it was them. Weird position to be in. Police report was taken. No justice was served.
I made out okay, could have been worse. The cheek that was punched was sore to the touch for a couple of weeks, and I felt pain in it when I chewed on stuff. I lost all feeling in 4 of my teeth for weeks and my dentist worried they were dead, but they seem to have recovered.
After that, I was much more strict about judging who I approached. Couples, families, people that clearly have and are spending money. Those tables had free phone charging plugs. Don’t perform places with free phone charging plugs.
Be First to Comment