Frank and the host record a live, unscripted demonstration with mentalist O's, who performs a series of seemingly impossible mind-reading feats. The session begins with a tense moment when O's appears to gain entry to the building without knowing the code, sparking immediate disbelief. Throughout, O's guides the audience through a series of psychological exercises—such as guessing a person's phone contacts, first and last name, and childhood memories—each time the participant is left stunned by the apparent accuracy. The mentalist explains that these results stem from observing subtle behavioral cues, misdirection, and the way people naturally react under pressure, rather than supernatural ability. The performance leaves both Frank and the audience deeply unsettled, with Frank admitting he was more nervous than during any prior high-stakes experience. The host reflects on the power of mentalism as a form of psychological influence, noting that it works by exploiting human tendencies to focus, react, and unconsciously reveal information. The segment ends with a mix of awe and skepticism, as the audience grapples with whether the feats were truly spontaneous or the result of deep psychological insight. The episode is framed as a blend of magic, psychology, and personal vulnerability, showing how mentalism can feel real even when rooted in observation and manipulation. Sponsorships for Squarespace, BetterHelp, and Skims are included, with the show maintaining its signature mix of humor, personal anecdotes, and raw emotional reactions.
Welcome back to the basement yard. Today me and Frank are on the same side and that means that we have a guest. We have O's the mentalist here today. What's up in the yard, baby? He's in the yard. He's here to freak us the fuck out. Frank has been sweating profusely since I walked in the door for the record. Not profusely. I'm not kidding. We so we got here. We're recording earlier than we normally do and we got here and we're like joking around and they're like, "Oh, when he gets here, how's he gonna get in?" Yeah, it was great. He's like, "We didn't tell him what floor it was, what the door code was. There's a code to get into this building." And then we hear the elevator and the door opens up. He's like, "Hey, guys, how the fuck did he get in here?" There was a first test. There's no way he gets in without knowing the pin, right? I know everything. We joked around. We're like, if he does walk up because we heard the elevator earlier and Ant would just turn his chair and he's like, "Imagine he walks in right now." And then you fucking did that like five minutes later. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for joining us. We're equally parts excited and I am not kidding. I'm terrified. I was more, I'm more nervous for this than I was for MSG. A hundred percent. I don't know why. I'm like rattled right now. I'm, what am I fucking heartbroken? Well, I've never seen like magic or, you know, a mentalist up close. So it's like, yeah, I don't know what to expect. Dude, your brain is about to hurt. Tonight, your brain will hurt. And you also do a lot of things that I've seen online that I'm like, that's amazing, but I can't believe it until it happens to you. That's what everybody says. I like the comments. I like the comments who think they've Jedi mind tricked me where they go, "It won't work if you don't try it on me." I'm like, "Dude, you're one of like a million." I can't try it on every single person in the comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One dude's like, "What's my pen?" I'm like, "69,69?" He's like, "Oh crap." And I'm like, "How did you know that?" I'm like, "I looked at your photos, you pervert." Like that was not even mentalism. That was just me knowing you based on what you've chosen to share with the world. You famously guessed Joe Rogan's pen code on his show. I know. And he looked like not at pissed off. Was he like mad about that afterwards? You know, it's a three hour podcast. And that's like coming in real hot because I do that about 15 minutes in. So then you're like, "Oh God, we're gonna have to still be in the room for another two hours and 45 minutes." I mean, I can talk aliens for a while, but oh shit. I think we broke through it at a certain point, but I think he was weirded out. Because the best part is that you don't realize it, but in the moment, I'm like, "Oh, this didn't go so well, but it went so well." Because him getting mad is so real. He would be blown away. You expect to be blown away. But when someone's pissed, you're like, "There's no way that Rogan, hear me out, was in on it." Because like, what? I don't have enough money. I don't have 200 mil Spotify money to be like, "Joe, just play along here, bro." Second, he had no idea it was coming. It's not like if you set something up with him and said, "Joe, you don't think of your pen." There's no set up, dude. I came in the room and I thought we kind of shoot the breeze. Little Joe came in like, "Yo, dude." I'm like, "I feel like I'm nothing." He's like, "Yeah." He's got muscles on muscles, dude. And he's like, "Let's go in and do the pot." I'm like, "Oh, nice to meet you." And we just went right there. He's like, "Shake your hand and crush it." Yeah. I see. I tend to be more of. I don't know if skeptic is the right word, but like. I'm gonna get skeptic in the world. I mean, all bullshit. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's either I'm an idiot. Yep. Well, okay. No, no. All right. We got to the bottom of that, moving on. Either I'm an idiot or you're legitimately magic. And I can't fucking accept either of those answers. I'm an alien and we're finally disclosing that they are real. That's a good point. Are you. Would that be a great setup? That would. If I was an alien and they just brought me in and they said, "Do you know what? Let's get this guy to pretend to be a mentalist." Dude. Before we officially disclose. First of all, who are you? I'm like, "Bugonia is shit." You see, "Bugonia?" Yeah, "Bugonia was crazy." Yeah, it was a good movie, man. And if you are an alien, you expose yourself. Spoiler alert. When did you see it? I didn't see it until it happened. Yeah. Because it was acted perfectly. Crazy movie. I watch you on a plane. I kept looking at the person next to me. Just bump into someone on the plane and they'd come to take the order. They'd be like, "They want a ginger ale." Pretty much. I did that with my wife on our first date. And she was obviously not my wife at the time. And she was not having it. She did not like anything about it. And I did a trick. This was my girl. You were doing mentalism on our first date? Yeah, dude. Come on. You got to come in hot. Why do you think I learned it? 13-year-old loser. I'm like, "Girls don't like me." What will they like? They like magic. I did a trick. This was my go to at a bar because mentalism is hard when it's loud. Because you actually have to watch people. And you're learning a lot of reactions. And there's a lot that's involved with interaction. So if it's like loud club and dark, it's very hard to see people. But I had a trick where you have your straw and your drink. If it's a mixed drink, which is more common than a beer for girls. And I would look at the straw and I go watch this. And I would just go like this and it would spin around the glass. They're not sure they saw it. And then I would spin it the other way and then I snapped. And it shoots out of the glass. And it usually was the, was the, ooh, like the 29th point. Who are you? The only, exactly. Yeah, dude. I want to marry you if you did that to me. I don't know if I just got moist for the record. I don't know if I'd marry you or just like fucking run out because you'd be terrified. She was somewhere in the middle but she's like, can you please get me another straw? And I'm like, dude, what's going on right now? She's immune to my powers. Beyond is how many times did it not work before it worked? That trick is more of a magic trick. So that trick works all the time. That's more like in the realm of magic. Passing stuff and more of the stuff that I do now, the mentalism, is a lot of it doesn't work as well at the beginning. Or it's like really, it's like, yeah. Can you describe the difference between magic and mentalism? Mentalism is a form of magic. But it's almost as if magic evolved to a point where you no longer need props. So you know, like, again, this is, I'm not trying to rag on anyone. Some comedians will use props, which is still funny as hell. Like, caretops show, incredible. But as you get like a purity where you can show up with nothing. You show up with nothing and you can do a show at MSG for 25,000 people. There's comedians who just they show up. You guys crushed it. I don't know if you had props. Did you have props? Maybe. You tell us. So I feel like that's the most pure form of entertainment because you are the show. It's you. It's your IP. It's your thoughts. It's the way you conduct yourself being funny. So magic. You go see Copperfield. He's got like trailers of stuff, right? Boxes, and you saw one and a half and this elephant disappears. So mentalism is a form of magic where it seems like you're reading someone's mind or influencing their thoughts. And when you do that, the method, how I'm doing it, you kind of start to see the two combined. When you see a magic trick, you don't really know how I'm doing it. Do you see what I'm saying? You don't know how the card trick worked. You just know that somehow you pulled out the four aces after I shuffled. Right. But if I just tell you think of a card, well, how could you know the cards that don't have cards? Like, here's a great example. Joe, let's, let's mess with this. How many contacts do you think you have in your phone? Hundreds or thousands? Hundreds. Okay. I thought you were popular, but that's totally kind of. I'm really telling you. Someone else gets roasted for one. So, so grab your phone out. Oh, fuck. See, now here we go. This is where I'm going to get freaked out and forgive me if I curse it. Please, please. There's no possible way. Right. I've never, I've never touched your phone, seen your phone. There's no way I can know who's in your phone. Are we in like, just, they have to understand. I swear, I walked in here. I swear on whatever anyone wants me to swear on. So, right now, scroll around, scroll around. And this is spontaneous. Are you on context? I don't even know what you're doing. Yeah, okay. So, I like to say, imagine that we took a Post-it note off. It's a visual. And that on the Post-it note is written a name. Now, it's not really written. We're pretending. And I hand it to you and you look down and you can see a name on this Post-it note. You go, okay. And you search. You seek this one person. Now, scroll through. And this is somebody utterly random. And go ahead and find me the person who I just handed you in visible Post-it note with their name on it. Can you go ahead and find that person? Yo, I'm fucking petrified. I'm sorry. Okay. The longer it takes the better. Well, I don't know. I don't know it's been you an hour, right? Okay, I have it. I have it. This is absolutely a random choice. Is that correct? There is actually no Post-it note. There is nothing written. We're kind of making this up. Yeah. I think it's a guy. Is it a guy? Yeah. If it was a woman, there's always more of an excitement in the eyes. A twinkle. Yeah. You had picked a girl. All right. Again, the way you scrolled seemed like it was a conscious decision. And even though you will claim to your dying to that you picked this at random, I think there is a reason. Is it listed as a first and last name? Or is it different? It's the first and last name. Think of this guy's first name. Put your phone face down. I'm not near you. There's no mirrors. There's nothing I could see. Count how many letters in your own head. Not out loud. How many letters are in this person's first name? Counting your head. Okay. Okay. See. The eyes are the window to the soul. My heart is pounding. He's got good eyes. He does have good eyes. Yes. And so when people count an even number of letters, it's different than I. Just think of it like drumming. There's a beat. Did it? Four letters. The guy's name is four letters long. I'm literally going to end this matter. Right? It's four letters. Yeah. Yo. Yo. Now I can't feel my feet. If you -- Yo. Okay. Four letter names. Ah. Okay. One of the hardest. There are more four letter names. Do you check GPT? There's almost anything. Four letter names are five letter names are slightly harder. But four and five letters are the hardest by far. Okay. Because if you did like nine letters, not that many. It's like Alexander. Look at me. Think of any one of the four letters. Right now. Just any one of those four letters. See it in your mind. Imagine it gets like bright. Like a neon sign. It just starts glowing. Can you see that letter? See it in the word. Your eyes went to the last letter. I saw you. Jump to the end. You debated. But I don't think you did it. You're not thinking of the last letter. Are you? No. Because you went to it. And you went back. D. Are you thinking of a D? Yeah. You are, right? Yeah. All right. Close your eyes.
close your eyes oh I have to get up and leave I'm telling you right now I'm not I thought it was Dave I thought it was Dave the dude's name is Dave but you call him Dave because you catch kind of boys keep your eyes close are you cover your eyes with both hands people always say to me Frank they say that I write stuff after like that's the consensus I'm I cheated yeah are your eyes close Joe yeah everyone can see this this is written before he said a word he can't see it you guys all saw that right open your eyes swear to God bro I don't know you you don't know me you could have literally looked at any name in your phone right now you could have anybody what's this guy's first name I don't want to say you don't have to I could turn around but they're not gonna believe me tell me what is it what's the first name add and I swear on my fucking I swear on everything that I have in my whole life yo shut the fuck up I like I'm a stout yo thank you cool fuck you dude I yo oh my god dude do we have a fuck yo I swear to God I know people who are watching this are gonna think I'm full bro I would I I'm not this good at y'all I'm not kidding I'm gonna do you know how many atoms do you know two two two okay okay hold on how many how many way how many atoms don't say how many atoms do you know that he knows right now because you two are boys do you think you know one I only know one I bet it's the same one that he knows I bet it's the one you know better think of think of his last name there's no way there's no way all right Joe Joe just his voice shook like he's about to cry it's not it's not the one that I would know I don't think so all right look this way me look this way me think of the last name yeah what was the last time you played scrabble that's an old school game right it's been years so imagine that in front of you are tiles yeah and you know the tiles have points we're like that if you got a Z that's ten points that's a good that's a good letter right so see this dude's name as scrabble tiles in front of you okay all right I don't know what the scores are of all the letters but I want you to reach out count how many letters are in his last name in your head just count your head you know please take longer see you people could fake it they'll go oh but I can see in their mind it's like it's like I can see the off switch you counted but it was longer than Adam but not much longer five letters it five letters yeah yeah yeah all right you know how I can't yeah this is really happening to me right now pick up one of the scrabble tiles of his name but try and do one that's more worth more points like like I don't know that letter that feels good like look at the letters look at all five can I go what the four no do you just guess I don't care at all pick one up pick a letter up mm-hmm throw it to me I just caught it I looked at it all straight lines one line one line k is it a k yo sir say I'm not fucking around what the fuck is happening yo I'm I killed Adam wait is it kiltch am I saying the right Adam kiltch I barely know this guy's last name I don't know who that is who is this yo I'm gonna throw I'm not yo I'll be honest with you I was so nervous coming in I'm gonna throw up I don't know what's going on and yo I yo there's something in my throat too is that a thing I'm not even fucking we empty right now for Antonio and Frank Greg is over there throwing holy water at me he's suddenly very religious I honestly was so nervous when we were like starting to do it because I'm like he's gonna get he might get this because I'm like this is such a random person yo fuck you all right before we get back to our minds being blown by O's the mantelist we have some sponsors the first one being Squarespace Squarespace is a platform where you're able to build your website okay if you go on to this website they have these templates so if you you know have any commerce business or you have content you need a good looking website that's gonna 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basement yard that is better help dot com slash basement yard to save 10% off of your uh yeah of your therapy alright so basement yard better help dot com slash basement yard get that 10% you're welcome what's the what's the most like aggressive response someone is given to like something like this like is anyone been like yo I'm gonna beat the fuck breaks off really yeah yeah so I used to work I used to work at restaurants okay back in the day you want the chicken you want the shrimp I was I was doing magic tricks this is my come up when I was 13 years old I started doing magic kind of card tricks and what have you coin tricks stuff like that and then I was 14 my my hustle because I my parents were they broke up they got divorced and I couldn't I need to buy more magic tricks and you know there's like magic shows yeah former former kid too baby former former we got we're all divorced so everybody's there's a there's a hole in my heart I'm trying to fill with something so I was doing magic tricks and my mom was like these tricks are expensive magic tricks are like 50 bucks I don't know the kind of money and so I had to start working in search of do kids birthday parties I'm like well I don't you know how am I gonna get these gigs you know there's no I don't have a website this is not older than you guys and so I went walk down half a mile to this local Italian restaurant by me sweet talk my way into getting a gig where I was working three hours once a week and I would hand out business cards and so at that at these places what I would do is just I would start to do these what was a question you asked me because I lost my train so when I started doing that I advanced and in my 20s I kept doing this these restaurants and at one I used to work at some of that were mafia owned that were known in New York City so I grew up in Michigan but this is in New York and they would have these parties where these dudes would come out of jail after being in for like 20 30 years and I had one dude who came on to say I would do a trick where I turned one dollar bills into hundreds and he wanted to take the $100 at the end and I was like no dude it's just a magic trick and so right then when he was about to take them I snapped and they turned back to once and he was about to beat me up he's like where'd the hundreds go and he's like those were my hundreds I'm like no they were ones dude he's like no they turned 100 they became mine then I'm like uh uh no they're ones and he took them on my hands and he's like they're ones and he wanted to like pat me down I'm like you're gonna find them and so I had to like I had to find a very good way to sweet talking to oh you know let me show how I do it and then I turned one into 20 and I was like 20 bucks I'll give this guy just got to get beat up yeah that's fine because I'm not kidding like my my first reaction is just to be like what the fuck because it is so beyond my level of comprehension which might not be that high but like that is I can't focus I'm not even kidding I almost threw up I can't focus right now I really would like you to throw up at the next trick that would be very strong I'm not kidding yo I'm not kidding why should we need that the thumbnail I'm not I'm not can we have just me going like this in Frank throwing up that would be amazing does this now I'm gonna ask maybe this is like two inside baseball of me to ask but like does this help because I I'm a big comic fan and like me doing this yeah so like so like when I see when I see like professor I don't go like this is like some shit to about to go dance so like if you walk into a room and you just go I'm clueless like get down you don't see it's a it's a but yeah it's kegels he's got a truck like that to stop that all of you whoa I have a funny story like that so I had a I snore a lot and I can't breathe out of one side of my nose a little TMI but I had a septoplasty you know when they like try to open up a deviated septum okay so this is dude this is a throwback this like 16 17 years ago they they did that and you're supposed to not be walking around a bunch because your nose starts it's gonna reopen and believe they have like sutured and I had a gig I got a gig like two days after this happened and I was like I can't turn on the money I'm too greedy so I'm like I'm gonna go do this gig even though you're not supposed to bed rest so I go do this gig and I used to do I do a ton of bar and botnitzvets just a ton back in the day and I would do a trick where I would bend a spoon I can still do it it's great but I would take one of my kids favorites I look at a spoon and it just starts to bend like magneto style hell yeah and so I'm at this bar mitzvah and I'm making this spoon bend and this is two days after and I'm doing this and I'm looking at it and all of a sudden I've I can't have shoved in my nose because of. I'm supposed to and all of a sudden I'm focusing so hard that blood comes down both of my nostrils and you hear three kids scream. I bet you that is a core memory for these 100% right now when you said they're getting like a traumatic PTSD remembering of the magician at their bar mitzvah who was focused so hard that blood started shooting out of his nose while the you know if somebody sees this can they please write to me DM me if you were one of those kids at that party. It's like some stranger thing. It sounds like 36th and 8th. I swear to God it was so funny and they screamed and I was like oh no I'm bleeding sick. You should just play into it like I should have fake blood coming out I know is what I'm hearing. I think like if you could if whatever's going to help elevate it not that it needs any elevation because I cape. A cape? Yeah we're I mean the cape the hat you might as well I mean so that feels a bit Dracula style though. What's wrong with that? I don't know like whip the cape around or like a long dude if I had your powers I would be so what would you do Frank I want to know what you do I would be such a little bitch about it. Yeah I would like I'd have a cape and I'd fucking like was that cool you know and just like throw it and guessing people's shit like that is what so unbelievable I want to give you my powers like like like Spider-Man where you get the bite and then a week later you become a mentalist just to watch you just to watch you use your powers. It would be bad. If you make a video just Frank Alvarez aka the mentalist and just go around Brooklyn trying to read people's minds um yeah I don't know if that would be I don't think it'd be very good at that because just try I'm I I'm freaked out at you doing it if I figure out I have this skill I will believe that I'm a form of God yeah he will yeah it will immediately go to my head yeah I will I will freak out and then I'll throw up he'll use his powers for villainy probably I mean my powers for good you would just be rampant bathed. Yeah yeah yeah yeah I had a show on NBC like what was this like eight years ago now a little throwback and one of the bits we did it was in January so frickin cold everybody shout out to it's called uh O's nose so that's how you know my name because it rhymes and you're like it looks like I know it's but it's O's nose so it came out NBC pilot didn't get picked up I don't know how it didn't get picked up. Fuck you I'm seriously but we want an Emmy I'm an Emmy Award because of that so it came out and what we did we set next to a chase on Christopher Street and like seven I don't know that that corner the bills are yours were and I would wait for people to come up and we wouldn't even sign releases first they would know what was going on and I would say them excuse me we're shooting a thing for a news channel about cyber security in your ATM pin code have you ever shared your ATM pin code this is outside at ATM that people are coming up to it's outside they're kind of freezing and they're like no like did your husband know your spouse your boyfriend they're like nobody knows I go it's very important you don't do easy numbers I go swipe your card look at me and I did their code for them dude just the clips the reactions were so some people didn't understand what just happened there was very confused like wait how did you you know what and then other people looked at me and just just like just walked away one dude got scared and screamed and like left and then wouldn't sign a release but then in 20 minutes later when he came back he's carrying the devil dude it was so awesome watch that special but it was so funny it are you Frank just so we understand the takeaway Frank would have done that and then stolen all the money well I mean 16 year old Frank a thousand percent current Frank I have more but you got that YouTube money baby is it is it like are people just more predictable than we think we are people are more predictable people are also able to be like I'm able to influence your behavior so that certain people they'll get to a moment and you know what happened is they say I changed my mind the last second how could I even change my mind I knew you changed my I got you to change your mind based on the speed at which I was talking and when I slow down and when I did certain things and when I see how when I look there all of you both look there that's called misdirection when I just grab my water both of your eyes rewatching slow motion looked over here I'm looking at you now I'm looking at the water I'm gonna catch my eyes out it's subtle but a magician learns early on that the hand is not quicker than the eye you think it is but it's not nobody's hands are quicker than your eye but what happens is if I can make you look away at the moment I do the secret move you don't see it yeah right when an elephant is made to disappear the elephant didn't really disappear spoiler alert there's no real Santa comment sorry but what happens is they're making you look at the wrong place at the right time that's what we do so I'm doing that but less with your eyes and more with your brain so I know the way people think do you studying it for 30 years I was going to say have you taken like advanced psychological like psychology classes or like sociology classes or things like that to understand the human yes but they're mentalism classes so they're mentalism core concepts because psychology doesn't really help me psychology helps me with group dynamics where people in a group act very differently than when they're alone yeah there's certain tricks that I do that you be like oh man could you do that any time no I couldn't do it if we were alone you're like what why and I go because you wouldn't behave the same way you don't realize it but you will acquiesce to a group in a different way you will feel pure pressure you can get people to hurry their decisions they will feel pressure from people around you like the people that are hardest for me to do this on are people that are very drunk sometimes people that I know sounds really strange but on the artistic spectrum or that at very levels of like asked because they don't have social norms so their behavior and their reactions are different they're out of sync it's kind of like during COVID I would do tricks on zoom and when we have zoom that's out of alignment if you're going to riverside like one of those interviews on a riverside do you know what I'm talking about it's like zoom but it's a slow zoom that captures it I don't Greg knows it producer but it's like if you're doing a I don't have to explain it but it's like it's a zoom interview but it's not zoom real time because there there's a little lag it's almost impossible for me to do my job because I'm watching you it's like playing a video game with lag you're gonna suck you like I just got headshoted while I didn't see it so it's the exact same thing if you're out of out of focus or out of order I can't respond because I'm responding milliseconds I'm watching you every split second to deduce what you're doing or what you're gonna do and if I'm out of sync by a second it just it tanks I messed up on those before like doing that 24/7 no so it's something you could turn on and off fully you have to turn it on okay you ever meet another mentalist I'm like kind of have the battle so I was just like I was straight cat to the end of the alleyway and then just like huh what would you know like you saw each other you just sit at a table and either of us talk and occasionally laugh and occasionally make eye expression this day I just look at you and I just laugh and then they look at me and get serious again you're like good one you're like what you didn't say I guess that's kind of a good question no would this be something that you could like tag team if there was another mentalist that you felt comfortable working with could you guys do like gigs and stuff together or there's a couple that have done it if you feel like Penn and Teller are famously do it but it's not really a mentalist one but there's there's there's there's there's called codex there's a couple acts there's one called mind to mind we'll shout out for them they do it amazing where it's a guy in a girl actually happen to be married but you could be in a different room and she could be blindfolded and anything you hold her look at he says what am I holding right now it's like driver's license what's the number she's like eight five seven how are you doing this so it's it's it's it's an act where one person can send and transmit thoughts to the other I have the opposite literally I can't send my wife anything she's like I don't know what you're thinking any of the time you don't know what I'm thinking and I'm mad at you right now because if you're this good a mentalist why the hell didn't you take out the track well my brothers are twins and I I I know that yeah fraternal and this might be because I'm not very you know like woo woo or spiritual I think but like I do believe that there is some form of like twin telepathy because I think that's true they I'm not kidding there was a story when we were younger where one of my brothers like in the middle of the night had to go to the hospital and the other one like didn't know what was going on like there was no way that they could know my parents saw the story and the one that was home was just inconsolable for no reason didn't know the other one was like just and then as soon as they walked back in the door they were completely okay right and like that's where I believe like twin telepathy might be a real thing but it still freaks me out I so I can tell you it's a weird story so I had a twin who was who died at birth so like it's still born sorry to hear that thank thank you I didn't know but my my mom I appreciate my mom can only have twins in some strange condition I don't know how that like I'm not a medical person but that's supposedly it fraternal twins so I have twin sisters but nobody told me that I was a twin until I was 12 years old she never told me it's like kind of a big detail to leave out oh you're a twin so I always talked about like a imaginary friend having a twin and it was to the point of creepiness where could I have somehow gleaned this from a hearing store but I never knew it was never told to me because they didn't really know how to address it and they thought it was like too traumatic and so I would always talk about I have a twin I have a twin like I would tell people this but no one was told that I had a twin and so when she told me it like all made sense it was like a puzzle piece that just suddenly clicked and so I can't explain that the way you talk about twin telepathy but I like have you absorbed his mental powers I don't know I was I was a former twin so you and I are pretty much two in the same yeah yeah so like yeah I was there's not much of a difference between us outside of just so you a former twin the twin was gone I was at birth no it was it was pretty like it was like in utero in utero so mine was like until a week before the ultrasound was still might have been medical malpractors but we were like in the womb until it was a very shocking death at like they didn't expect it was yours earlier but so it was like to I even had a new name which my name means brave and strong in Hebrew because I was the one that survived my dad was like it's a battle of the wheels I'm like that's a creepy way to say it but yeah you you took them out and so my name was changed a brave and strong because I survived when the other one didn't kind of yeah wow I don't know the details I don't know we were going down this rabbit I know got real somber Adam Kilch just came in he's like how do you know me bro
I am honest. I'm not over that. I don't know if I want you to speak. You know, speaking of childhood childhood When can you pinpoint if I sent you a time machine back? Do you remember meeting Joe for the first time? I can pinpoint it to like a week. So you kind of know a lot when you back yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah adorable Joe's like I barely remember Yeah, yeah, yeah, you see you see you see you see you see you see, you see honestly, honestly How do you deal wait so so if you could go back in time? You ready now when I say to somebody pick a name. That's left brain. It's like mathematical seeing letters seeing numbers is left brain I'm gonna make you do this right brain close your eyes and you're gonna go right brain Here's what I mean by that. Okay, I'm not gonna see it letters or numbers I want you to start to see a face of Someone where you go back in time to childhood that if I said Guess right now Joe. I'm giving you three guesses to guess a kid from back in the day that Frank is thinking of Boom number one got it wrong number two got wrong number three. You don't even know how many guess it would take But he would never guess this kid within his first three guesses maybe even more. Okay, can you at this very moment? Try to picture this kid's face. Can you see them in your mind? Yeah question for you Do you know what they look like open your eyes? Do you know what they look like now? Have you hung out recently? No? So you don't even know how they look like now. You're kind of just going back to the memory bank. I mean I have a Draft I know it's like you're seeing whatever the eight-year-old kid with a beard like you. Okay now just he's gotten facial hair All right Is there any way because I like the haters the haters always say he did research before he got here He must have been googling them Yo, is there any way that I could have researched this in advance and found out who you would have thought of real-time Spontaneous I can't imagine there's a way you But even if we looked up everybody how can we know who this would be because you didn't know who you were gonna pick before I got here Correct I I have no clue how you know, so it's not like a researchable thing because you can't research where your mind's spontaneous to go Yeah, and I famously have a pretty crazy mind crazy mind, right? I mean famous episode who's talking about drinking pee like nobody's come on you know, uh risk gods all right Here's what I want you to I want you right now to think of this kid's first name Okay, now you before counted the letters and you say I narrowed it down because it's how I mean four letters then I got the name thing of this kid's first name. Yeah Think of his last name, okay Most people ask which one is more interesting they'll go last name because it's just normal. I think I Think you think the first name is more interesting am I right? Or not really you tell me which one's more interesting interesting and what regard you decide you're in the item hold Do which one's more interesting? I would say last name last things were interesting. All right. No wonder how come in the first name is Think of the first name. Yeah, and quick the same way he did it pick a letter in the name. Okay, think of the first letter Okay, change. Don't do the first. I do a different letter of The of the name. Yeah, first name stay with it. Okay. Got one. Yeah Change your mind again different letter in the first name Change it one more time. Okay. He's having trouble. See I he started. I wanted to see I wanted to see I wanted to see Joe You're fucking fired off. I mean cook it up But Frank not know what to do so like again if the name was really long you'd be like all right I got this I he started struggling the name right again is another short name. I want to I'm trying to feel it out Susit out it feels like it's five or six letters. I'm trying to feel this out five or six letters. Okay He walks through that door right now. You look him in the eyes. You're a dude. Where have you been? Come here shake my hand And right at that moment you look at Shane. Is it Shane? Gorman Shane Gorman isn't it Dude, dude what the fuck is going on in here Frank I was thinking of him. Yo, you shut the fuck up dude. Fuck you. How the fuck? How did it like yo? How was last time we saw Shane? Fucking no legitimately like probably second grade You're spit all over your face. Yo, I I don't know You got him. You got center you guys you guys flew off camera. I don't care. I'm over this way You know when you know when something pops in your head You have a wake up from a dream and you wake up from a dream and you go, dude And you forget it in like a minute, but right at that moment you have a dream and the dream is so weird and you're like Why do I have this dream? I got to tell somebody about this dream right now. Do you ever have that moment? You're like this is a crazy string. I want you to imagine right now. You're ready. I'm just like throw something out crazy that you Have you you see Shane Gorman now that he's in your head. You might have a dream imagine you have a dream Okay, and Shane Gorman you see this kid. I know you haven't seen him since second grade, okay, and in this dream You I don't know what's going on, but something crazy. You know you have crazy ideas for episodes in this dream You have the craziest idea for an episode one that's juggling around the back here and you go you wake up and you say to Joe You go Joe. I had the stream remember. We saw that mentalist. I saw I had this dream because I thought of Shane Gorman in in this dream We were and it's nothing weird, but like something that's an episode. Look at these please Please close your eyes. Imagine this is something that doesn't really exist. That's just in your brain close your eyes close your eyes Joe, you look you look come over. Can you see this? Don't see. I don't know about this. This is crazy and you go This would make for a great episode open your eyes Spontaneous off the cuff pops you and you go I didn't even know I would think about this it would make an insane episode what Happened in that dream. What were you doing say it? We were like hanging out in a bath. What was it? Just what's in the bath like clay or mud or something like what? Fuck out of here. You'll get the fuck out of here. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Fuck outta here. Yo, get the fuck out of here. Yo, yo, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but yeah I bet you're gonna get a DM from Shane Gorman being like bro I'll do a mud bath that you know I don't even I don't even see I can't tell you like there is I don't I don't there's literally no explanation for that there's no explanation that's absurd because even if you have like even if you have these like tells or whatever you're given first last name how the fuck yeah I don't know how you did that I shook your hand and I didn't feel anything that's when I stole your soul what you were thinking Shane Gorman - yeah why I don't know I don't know I don't know bro I'm not in control anymore I don't know bro this isn't saying all right I was like because you're like think of someone or whatever and I was just trying to think of an example like playing along in my head and you know it's weird I met him the same time that I met him that I met you because remember how he started off with like you guys met can you pinpoint it down to yeah and it was within the parameters of when we met there's layers to this one there's layers you need light over there dude I'm letting you unpack all this what the like the idea that like like the way that I can kind of like make sense of this is like a sick amount of research and then you know obviously the tells with the whatever but that name I don't even I don't even know if I could find him like I don't know if I don't have a mon Instagram I don't either I haven't I haven't seen or spoken to about anything with this kid you know this is like there's no explanation there's no explanation but how would we know that you would have thought of him and then the craziest thing is you said I'm gonna pick somebody he'll never guess either and then jumped in both your heads at the same time yeah I mean I don't I don't literally I don't like all right I'm back we have some more sponsors but I can tell you already this episode is out of control so we have skims okay skims another sponsor of ours skims they make underwear okay it launched initially to my knowledge and it was just for women but now they have a men's section as well so if you're looking to you know get your boyfriend maybe a gift or something or you know you're a guy and you want to just refresh your underwear you can do that with skims okay they have good underwear here stretch five-inch box or brief that's the one that I have all right but I like I like skims it's a it's a good material it feels like it's gonna hold intact for a while you know sometimes I don't know for the reason men have a hard time letting goes underwear there's holes in it and whatever doesn't feel like this is gonna happen with this type of underwear it's very strong but it's not like too tight and it doesn't hurt after a long day where you like Jesus is underwear is digging into me or something like that it's a it's it's nice and breathable also so you're not gonna like sweat like hell in it so it's good and if like I said I
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Did you bring holy water or something? Because the devil is in the room. I'm literally-- I'm thinking about peeing in my jeans. If you piss your pants, I'll do it with you, in solidarity. Stand up when you do it. I don't know if that would solve anything, but I am-- I mean, good work. Where do we go from here? Great question. Where do we go? I am at both-- I am scared and impressed. And a little like, I want to beat you up. Can you-- I cannot run you as the issue. First of all, you look like a runner. Yeah, you look like your runner. I saw that. You do marathons and altras. And you did bad water, right? Any bad water? Do you know what that is? I do know that. That's hot. What's bad water? Bad water is a great segue here from Shane Gorman. But did you guys pee your pants? I was waiting for that. There's going to be bad water in my jeans a little bit. I'll tell you that. That was hot. That was bringing that in. No, no, no, no, no. I don't know what you're going to take. I don't know what you're going to take this. Dude, those are knuckles. Touch, I get the rest of the info. So bad water, Shane says hello. 135 miles. So it's kind of a little-- What the fuck? Yeah, it's like five marathons in a row. More than that, in the hottest place in the world, which is Death Valley in the middle of the summer. So when I started the race, it was 124 degrees. So when you think of Phoenix or Vegas and you're like melting, that's 110. That's cold compared to this. And then you're running on a road so that the heat-- they take the gun that measures how your temperature, they do it on-- You can melt rubber on your shoes if you hold them against the road. The black asphalt gets over 200 degrees. You can cook an egg on the hood of your car. It will cook. So you're supposed to run on the white lines to not melt your shoes. And you run 135 miles. So you do stuff like that. You keep yourself in good physical shape. I assume. So like, does that help mentally? If you're not feeling well, you've got a cold or something. Is that going to hurt what you do? You mean for performing? Yeah. I don't think so. This immune system is strong. I have five children. 100 children. The disease is just-- Five kids? Holy shit. I mean, 135-- how long can I take you to do that? A 20 hours. Non-stop. I slept for about 10 minutes. Why are you just saying that? I just wanted to say that. I just said non-stop. How do you even do that? So how old are you both? 34. 34, yeah. I knew that. So this might be beyond your time. This is your just like five years more, but old-school NES Nintendo. Oh, I got one in my house. Old-school Nintendo. The cartridge is not working. So you've got to take out. You have to blow it and put it back in. Do you know that move? Yeah, of course. So I liken it to that with my brain. So I at night, and my friends all make fun of me and call me like a big pussy. Because I get very loopy at night if I don't sleep versus I have friends and ultras who can go like two days without sleeping. It's not necessarily healthy. But they don't, I just become a total bitch at like three or four a.m., or like, oh, I'm so tired. Dude, just keep running. So I have to-- if I sleep for even five minutes, it's the Nintendo. Put it back in. My brain reset. Yeah, yeah. So it does this weird reset where I get up and I feel better. And then if you ever-- which I doubt you'll do, but if you ever sleep for a day, a night, and then into the next day, the next day, your circadian rhythm kicks in. And the next morning, you kind of feel better, even though you haven't really done anything. And then the next morning, I feel much better to run, to continue running. That's insane. When did you do that? I did that race a long time ago. Pre-kids, you got to fact check this. I think 2010 or 11, but I tried to do at least 100 mile a year, put my career has been super busy lately. So it's like, but I always do a marathon or a few marathon. I'm surrounded by runners. Oh, surrounded by his runners. First of all, I ran seven miles yesterday. That's pretty nice. This is great. Yeah. So it's just 35. 135's cool. You ever do it in the desert? You don't think it shoots? In Death Valley. You're like, as you're coming up behind someone, like you're going to pass them, you're just like, oh, you're a high school boyfriend. So I was like, what the fuck? You did four years ago. I ran around Central Park more times in a day than anyone ever had. I broke the record. I did 116 miles around Central Park to run. Probably the children of that, right? Yeah, you know that you're running from something. I am. Oh, deep, deep, deep. Deeply. So I did that. It made the front cover of the New York Times. I had this thing framed pretty awesome. And the takeaway here is when they were writing that story, shout out to my buddy Adam Skolmick, who wrote the article. Another Adam? He called me at mile 84. Okay. So mile 84, I've been running for, I don't fact check it, like 12 or 13 hours. And he calls me while I'm on FaceTime with him. There's about 10 people behind me. I guess the name of his first crush while running at 13 hours in 84 miles. And he's freaking out. I was like, how did you know her name, dude? And I'm like, put that in the article. I was like, I'm scared of you right now. How are you doing? While running. Nothing in his first crush. His wife was in the background. She was like, who the hell's caught ya? You know, he's like, what was the inspiration behind doing the loop? So that's, I'll keep a long story short. But I was going to run this race in North Carolina. And I've been training, and I was all fit. And then, dude, this billionaire calls me. He was a client of mine. And he goes, he called me two weeks before this, I'm supposed to run this race. My two of my buddies are coming from Chicago to cheer me on. And I signed up and everything. And he goes, you know, I want to hire you for a gig that night. And like, can't, you know, my man is like, can't. He sees book, he's doing a race. He's like, how much can I have to pay him? I'm like, no, no, he's not going. Pung up the phone. This dude did not like the word no. Calls back with a new offer. Calls back. At this point, he became a power struggle. Hell yeah. Of just, I don't like hearing no. So then I tell my manager, tell him this amount. And she's like, that's obscene. You know, you're going to ruin the relationship. I'm like, but I want to go run the race. My buddies are coming, it's all planned. So she ended up charging half of that amount, which is still, was the biggest payday I ever gotten to date for going in an Uber for 10 minutes. And right within 30 seconds of her texting him the number, he said, yes, I'm like, damn it. So it's like, the worst feeling to be annoyed, but also the best payday. You're like at the same time. You don't have to struggle with that. So a couple days later, buddy of mine, who actually, Liz and Willie is very broken, said, Tom Knight goes, you know what, man, you're so fit. Why don't you run around Central Park and try to break the record? I know that was a thing. But I looked it up and a guy named Robbie Boundjard, a good friend of mine now, had the record of running the most loops. So this is like a thing. People do this to see how many loops you can do while Central Park is open from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. and then it closed the park, cops kick you out. Anyways, I decided to do this. I decided I'm going to do this for Cherry for Save the Children. I put up a thing. I've never hit people up for money before. Money piles in, man. We raised over $116,000. Wow. Amazing. Didn't you also run 116 miles? I knew that would happen. Yes. I broke the record and I put this all came together where I said I'm so fit. So I did this a week later. It was exactly four years ago and I need new challenge, man. That same year, I ran from Montauk to Manhattan and I broke the record of crossing Long Island by foot on the hottest day of the summer, August 4th, I believe it was the single hottest day of the summer. 10-10 wins interviewed me and they were like, dude, you know it's going to be like 90 degrees literally the hottest day of the summer. They go, are you going to quit? I'm like, quit. I'm like, that makes it so much better. You know, like something's wrong with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with 10-10 wins. But now, anytime my kids are complaining, if we drive from like Montauk back home, like, dude, this ting's long. I'm like, you know the half of the pro when I was a kid. Yeah. I ran. Yeah. You're like, don't wash with that probably worse. I used to walk two miles uphill. You're like, I ran 136 miles. Well, you said you started doing this around like 13. 13 is what I started. So, were you just like cheating on tests? I can either confirm nor deny these allegations Frank Alvarez, uh, I was like 13-year-old Frank. I am fucking cheating on every test that I have. I'm every single one. You like, look down at this question, A, B, C, D, and then you look at the teacher and you say, oh, can you just look at these tests for me and look at me? Be kind. I got it. You know, I came up with B in my head. What? I said B when he was at A, B, C, D. All right. Well, this is, this is, I'm just like astounded, honestly. - I am, do you run every day? - I don't run every day.
there's people who have streaks and they do that. I have too much, there's the between career remaining married while traveling and not, you know, juggling five kids and it's very, and I have two kids that are still in diapers, even though my two-year-old is being potty-trained right now. So we have like a just a staring match of me staring at her, being like, please don't crap on the rug. I know we have 11 month old and a two-year-old. Oh wow. There's just a lot of kids. So the short answer is once the kids are sleeping, I get back into a rhythm of like running in the mornings and when I travel shockingly, I run way more because I'm gone. When I'm home, it's hard to sneak it in. Like this morning, I got back yesterday at 1am, I was in Austin, Texas for a gig, another podcast, and then I got back at 1am, I was like debating, can I wake up at 5.30, but it just didn't happen to go run. So I feel like I feel like a loser this morning, Joe. Thanks for bringing that up. You wake up at 5.30 to run. I woke up at 5.30 to play MLB the show. There's a clear, there's only so much similarity, so many similarities. We're pretty much the same person. Yeah, but how many miles will you do like on any human day? I would love my like my comfort run is like going to run 20 miles. Like that's mode I enjoy the most. Fuck it. I like to run minimum 10 miles or I don't feel like I really did anything, but that's everybody's different. Their bodies are different. Do you consider yourself like a very disciplined person and does that have to do anything with your so rapidly ADHD, but the running takes my mind and it slows it down and right now because I have so much media. When is this coming out? Do we know? You tell us, you tell us. So depending on when it comes out April 25th, I'm hosting the White House Correspondence Dinner. Congratulations. And so President Trump is coming for the first time ever while in office. He's never done it while president. And so it's it's it's going to be hopefully big. He's going to lose his mind with you. Yeah, I hope he throws up like you are about to. This is gross. What was I going to say? I need time to come up with stuff like our finale. The thing I'm going to do for you at the end. I came up with last night on the plane from Austin at 11.30 p.m. Where it just the puzzle pieces came together. You're watching the usual suspects. Yeah, classic. You know when he like drops the glass and it says Kobayashi and like the whole thing Kaiser Soze and Kevin Spacey. Just like he stops the limp. Sorry, everyone who hasn't seen the movie just ruined everything. And he just you realize and your mind both. That's what I like. I like those moments where your mind is blown. You're freaked out. Oh my God. But then at the end there's this shock ending that you can't believe. That is that's like my chef's kiss when it comes to mentalism. Has anyone ever like offered you money to to like you to tell them how you do it? Many people like the FBI. Oh yeah, you could be a great like with the CIA or something like that. I can't really say whether the CIA is reached out. I'm not going to say it publicly, but FBI law enforcement. Many, many lawyers. Do you think that you could actually like you would be an asset there? So okay, so I it's very important because I what I do it's very important ethics like to write off the jump and I usually say this. I am not supernatural. I don't pretend that psychic abilities. And the key ways to know that is that what I'm doing is learnable, repeatable. And it's based in science, which means there's a method I could explain. Now it's important to understand why I'm saying that. Learnable means I could teach you to do mentalism. There are books or videos. Most psychics cannot teach you how to be a psychic. There isn't a workshop that's like, okay, now you can talk to your dead grandma. It's not repeatable. Right now, talk to my grandma. I want to ask these three questions. Give me these three answers. Very rarely can any psychic do that for you effectively. And then lastly, what's the science? I don't know the science behind being a psychic. Am I telling you that psychics don't exist? No. I'm being agnostic because I think I'd be like a bit of an arrogant prick. If I said no psychics exist because a lot of people have experiences that I can't explain. But when I've been around most psychics that I've seen witnessed it myself, I can explain how they're doing it for the most part. Like I can see the tricks that they're doing that overlap my tricks. Now there may be psychics that when you tell me they do it and they do it and they're doing a real thing and I don't know how. But I can recreate many of what psychics do with what I do. Does that make sense? Yeah. So that's a long answer to give you like a disclaimer and asterisk of these are not superpowers as much as Frank wishes they were. Could I help you if you're an FBI agent, profile people? I think that it could help you with certain things that aren't what you think. They wouldn't be micro expressions. They're not body language reads because I'm doing my thing in a very specific situation built on entertainment, not built on giving away somebody who committed a crime that might kill you in a different environments. But the same tactics that I use of building rapport, building trust, incremental changing, then moving you back, watching benchmarks. So the way people behave if you observe them over and over and over. That's why I like interrogations. You do them over and over and you wear people down. You can start to see patterns of what works and when they're telling you the truth are lying, the same thing applies in what I do in a certain way, but not for nefarious purposes. So could I come in and help the FBI in a certain way? I believe that maybe I could, but the percentage isn't what you think. You'd be like, oh man, you're going to solve crimes. I'm going to give you 90% advantage. I might give you single digit percentages because I'm bringing it from a different lens of how mentalists work, which again is done for entertainment. I am not claiming to be the world's best body language reader and a lot of what I'm doing is deception. But a lot of what hostage negotiators do is also built on deception. Of course, we're going to get you a jet. Of course, we're going to get you this. You want pizzas. We're sending them in. You're lying in a certain way to get people to believe you establish trust and then come. I'm an honest con man. Like when I guess a Jane Gorman, I'm not stealing money out of your bank account while I'm doing it. I'm just giving you a fun moment that has you throwing up and Joe peeing his pants lightly. Honest con man. That's con. What about I guess you could you kind of answer that question. I was going to say like I think famously there's a story of a guy that like forgot his Bitcoin password and it's like been trying to do that. I can only do that if he knows it. Gotcha. Yeah. That was you answered that question. No way that I could get it if you don't know it because that wouldn't be the skill that I have. But you legitimately if you ask someone to think of something, you can like read it. Typically yes, like within parameters, but like it's not like anything. But I like to lean into what people like. Where are we at, Jay? Are we entering finale territory? Yeah, I'll be down for a minute. I don't know. I can battle off a few more questions. Let Frank. No, this is this is really interesting because I can't like you. I'll hit you with my best shot. Dude, just don't I have a full transparency. You have a question. Oh, okay. What's Antonio? What was it? Love that. What was the like weirdest thing someone attributed your power to? So I like to do things what really shout out to Greg by the way who has a book over here. Gonna pick that one up. But I have a book. I'm not trying to hawk it, but I want the reason I'm telling you this is because the book tells you a lot of the core skills that I use because if you're watching this, you're entertained. I hope. But the reason I wrote a book had nothing to do with teaching you how to be a mentalist. There's books on that. There's videos. That's not like that's a.0001% of the population. There are certain skills that I have that even if I quit being a mentalist tomorrow, I could use in any career that I that I have because there's certain overlapping skills of like how do you win people over? How do you become memorable? Right? How do you have superhuman confidence? Walk into a room. Performers run a 13,000 people at MSG, right? You 20 years ago would have probably crapped your pants. Frank still occasionally craps his pants. No, let's make it very clear. I don't. You know, shirting is totally within the realm. Why am I shirting? He's right. He has to. He doesn't know. I don't charge. He's right. You're wrong on that. I can detect this after him from a mile away. That was a hard sneeze earlier. Wet sneeze. So when you ask me and you say that question of like say it again, I was what do they attribute the skills to? Yeah. So I the skill is the same of guessing a number of name, but I repackage it in a certain way. So here's what I'll do. I will do something memorable that the other person will always talk about. Talking about your childhood best friend is way better than if I told you pick a card and I guess ace of diamonds. It's just not the same level of emotional connection. I will meet people and they're pregnant. Like a woman's pregnant. I'll be like, do you know the name? You're going to name your child and she's like, oh, and I will guess the name before they even do. And they'll literally keep it and put it in a scrapbook. And I've met people who 10 years later, like, this is Dylan, you guessed his name and I'm like, I know that. And I look at him like, Dylan, you were almost about to be Trevor. And she's like, how did you know that was the other name? Right. And she's like, and the husband's like, dude, get away. Stay away from my wife and my kid. And so those types of things, they're attributing a power to something that's different than what I'm actually doing. Also, never underestimate the power of guess, which is you miss every shot you don't take. So I've done certain things that I can't explain. I don't know how they worked. I don't believe I'm psychic. I don't believe it's super natural. I don't think it's twin telepathy, but I've I've iterated so much and I've done stuff that sometimes I get a feeling and I trust my instincts. Do you play ping pong ever? No. So the reason I mentioned ping pong is when you're in a good rally, you're not even thinking. You're just acting. You're just like, dude, I don't even make that shot. If I made try to make that shot again, a hundred times, it wouldn't make it. But right there in the moment, I just made it. So there's that weird thing where you get in this flow state where I can sometimes nail things that I can't explain to you later. I don't know how. How confident are you going into like this this last trick that we're going to do? How confident are you that you're going to get it right? I'm not 100%. There's too many moving pieces. Right now everything I've done so far is like I can juggle three balls that not in you and don't like just I can juggle three and I can juggle four. That's like the amount of clown tricks I can do for my kids. I've tried learning juggle five but it's like really tough and I miss or closing your eyes and juggling three. Right now I'm going into territory of closing my eyes and juggling three because you're going to see this. Watch this.
I like scenarios scenarios are interesting because that's where your mind starts to go now You guys are both into sports. Yeah, right? How did I know that he's wearing a jack's hat? He's like, how did you know that? So when I walked in here how much time we have we had like two minutes when I walked in you're all freaking out You're like did you give him the door code? I didn't give it to him. How's else in here legitimate and we talked about while we were getting Mike up I want them to know the the precursor field goal earlier like oh is this setup? There's no setup I got here right before but you mentioned that you had thrown a pitch at the at the Padres game, right? We're talking about you should throw a pitch. We talked about it a little bit We talked about how bad my pitching skills might be I Want you to imagine because the conversation always goes you have sports TV SPN who's talking about who are the greats? Who are the greats of sports all different sports dead or alive and you start comparing you start doing the in my day Would this person how would they size up? So here's what I want to try. I want you to imagine Okay, that you're gonna go first. Okay, and and I'm going down the gamut of sports I football basketball baseball hockey soccer like all different sports Bit boxing like I'm watching your eyes trying to react, but one of the greats Walks through the store you see this person walk up right in front of you I'm giving you a marker and I want you to hold it under the table So there's no way I can see in right down his name. It's a guy right? It's a guy right down his name But don't don't let Joe see it. Okay, I'm gonna turn my eyes But I want you to write down Who you went with that you physically saw going through? Oh, I'm gonna close my eyes right down under the table first and last name Joe make sure there's no way I could see this You can't see either can you Joe? No, I don't know Okay, and and as soon as you're done keep it in your lap or better yet put it against your chest But so there's no way I could see it or put it in your lap just so we know you can't change your mind Okay, I'm good and swear to God above that this was an absolutely random choice It's swear that you made I did not tell you who to pick right I we had all those sports But you could have chosen from any of them dead or alive. Hold on now Joe Joe at this moment I pose the same question to you, but you don't decide who walks in this room until I snap my fingers You don't decide until that moment deal. Okay, okay? You do not know who it's going to be. I do you know Okay, watch watch. It's only when I snap my fingers right now you look through and right there snap That's when you make the decision you see this guy right there and you oh my god now in your mind Look at this person look at me Okay, all right Think of his first name think of his last name now he now knows how I do this stuff with the names how long the names are So he kind of has oh look guys get intense. He's like oh God What do I do? Don't you he doesn't know what to do. Joe's just mad. It's like I don't know to do it my hands All right, think of the first name that felt short and quick that felt felt like one syllable jump to the last name Two syllables. I said dead or alive dead or alive dead or alive Think of the last name Just last name think of the first letter last name Go to the second letter the last name The last reaction when you say a vowel. I won't understand the vowels are five of them A E I you When you say a vowel you have to open your mouth fanatically some of you reads lips, you know they watch you have to open your mouth watch A E I you can't try to say an E without opening your mouth. You can't do it You were trying not to the last name the second letter because I was watching you. It's not a vowel is it? It's not correct as I was watching trying to keep your mouth closed And when I said greats You know what you went with you went great Cheers go are you thinking of Tom Brady walking in this room? I fucking hate it. Be for real Are you thinking of Tom Brady for real for real? Yeah, and you ready? I said dead or alive and I know tell me just so I know What is your favorite sport to watch football? It's football is your favorite sport, but The power of suggestion why did I mention you throwing the ball at the pod raise why do I do that was that for fun? Nothing's for fun Frank because I Planned to thought in your head when you were debating you were you were when I said dead or alive You didn't decide right when you said and I snap you saw Tom Brady, but moments before that you were about to go with somebody else dead Baseball Lou Garrett was the other person you were about to say am I right and my right? That was the other one your head. Yeah, what the fuck is happening? Yeah, the fuck is that no, I'm not and then right over here right over here you Think I think Frank wanted to stump me Frank even though he said he I picked it at random. There's no way I think you want to stump me So I don't think you did football because I said jet even though it's it's random. You you're not doing football and then you looked at this man And I'm not saying it's a weird way, but you found him handsome Good looking guy exactly. There's nothing wrong with that And you looked at him and in your head you don't know if I picked your tiger woods I wear I always picture wear it a hat. You don't see tiger without a hat. You saw this guy With the headband Raphael in the doll turn it around is that what you wrote down is it Raphael in the doll? Yo, get the fuck out of here dude Joe Joe, let me ask you a weird question. Can I ask you a weird question? Do you know Raphael in the doll's birthday? Do you know it? No, that'd be super weird if you did it my arena agreement. You could pick day grab your phone Yeah, I feel like crying for some reason. I don't know like I'm like This is like Google it Google. I'm just so curious. What is Raphael's birthday? Raphael in doll's birthday You could see it whatever you want Yeah, I'm not gonna guess it. I could Google that grabbing the marker please the marker please What's his birthday? Yo, get the fuck do you want me to tell you or do you want me to just know it? No, no tell us what one month a day Month is June day is three. Did that have some bearing to you? I know. Okay, okay, so June 3rd Your football fan fuck I'm involved. Yeah, what's let's let's let's look let's piece this together six three June 3rd You agree with that? Yeah, six three first person you picked Tom Brady. What's his jersey number? Well, well, that's right TV 12 Lou Gehrig. Four is it four? I believe it was four. Do you want? John fact checker is all fact checker, but I'm 90% sure Famous Yankees player first basement. I'm pretty sure because the two biggies. We got right. We got Mickey Mantle 7 Yeah, so it's for 12 463. Does that mean something to you? What the fuck is that does that mean something to you Joe? No, no Raphael in the doll I said birthday his birthday is June 3rd. That is his favorite day of the year I assume right but birth date you only have one a birth date is the month day in year that you're born, right? You see I'm saying Joe 12,463. Joe, and take a listen here Birth date is the day you're born What was the date 12,463 days ago? It was Tuesday February 25th 1992 Yeah, I'm gonna have a heart attack Well, how can that possibly be wait a minute? Fucking call an ambulance 911 Yo, yo, also I'm old 12,000 days, but I Don't even have a word to say yo, I'm not kidding Yo, that's insane. That's insane. I'm glad I wasn't on the receiving end of that because I would have fucking if I were you I would go home and pray I don't know. I don't know what I believe in but pray to something All right, what can you say? What can you say after that? Wait, wait, wait. This was my birthday fucking and that There's no, I don't know man Congratulations You have done something that no one has probably ever been able to do we are absolutely speechless and dumbfounded You found will you found our dumb Yo, I I am I don't really know how that's possible There's even more bad water and Joe's pants right now. Oh my god. You have no idea. It's in my socks right now So just just to make sure that everyone that is watching understands There is no conceivable way that he could have guessed my person At random his people at random and then making it do that is Like I'm like, okay, like I'm thinking of Tom Brady That's not that crazy. That's not a crazy thing. Whatever I get Tom Brady. I'm like cool Finale, I don't know about that. I like Shane Gore and more And you I thought of Raphael Nadal Raphael Nadal's crazy I'm gonna congratulations. Thanks boys. That was unbelievable. I Don't know I I want it I I can't what do I say nothing? There is nothing to say there's a photo these guys talk for a living and they are done I got nothing man. I got really. I got nothing. That's that's incredible. I wanted to throw What is with that's a weird reaction. Oh, no why
Has anyone ever thrown up because of something like this? - A lot of you have cried. - Yeah. - Definitely some people have lightly peed their pants. - Right. - Some people have to. - Definitely, yeah. - I don't know about the throwing up, but maybe. That would be great to get on camera. - That is shocking, dude. - How did it go? - I famously have only thrown up twice in the last 20 years. - Wait, you can't even just trick me. - Do you throw out of your mouth and nose or just your mouth? - It hasn't happened enough to be able to make it. - Oh yeah, you've thrown up like twice in your life. - Yeah. - That's it. - My entire life, but in the last 20 years, twice. - You never threw up from drinking too much? - One time. - Wow. - One time. - Did you ever throw up from drinking? - Come on now. - Dude, yeah. - Yeah. - It's called my whole 20s. - Yeah, I can't think. - We gotta get it. - I've just thrown up from running a bunch of times too. - Did that about, did you throw up when you were in fun? - There's really a lot of me in Greece throwing up for nine hours straight that went viral. - My friend making fun of me the whole time. It is quite funny. - How do you throw up for nine hours? - I don't know something. That's not my stomach. I couldn't keep any food down. - Oh yeah, I was running 153 miles. - Okay. - What's your resting heart rate? - It's about 42. - That's good. - 42, are you alive? - Yeah. - What the fuck is that? That's mine when I'm asleep, probably. - 42. - What do you pace and add these days? What do you pace and add? - Running? - Yeah, I don't know. I'm not that fast, like it varies. I run like seven, 38, 30s. - Okay. - I mean, that is fast, but it's, yeah, I don't know. - I don't know if you're gonna be like, oh, 4.30, oh, fuck you. - I just pace Canyon. - It's pretty much it. - I mean, that's a pretty good pace. - At what accuracy, I'm not putting on the spot here, but what accuracy would you say that you can guess if someone's thinking of a number between one and 10? - Pretty high. - Really? - Yeah. - I mean, that's a cool trick. - We're not gonna put you right now. - We're not gonna put you on the spot. - Yeah. - He fucking did this and you should be. - Yeah. - Gets a number between one and 10. - Yeah, I don't. - You must be, you must start mission and shift to make a shift for your D. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, exactly. - You must be absolutely awful to play Rock Paper Scissors with. (laughing) - Pretty bad. - What am I gonna throw out right now? - Rock. (laughing) - Yo. - You know what I'm pretty shocked. - Do people, when they recognize you on the street, they're like, "Guess my pin goes." - So shockingly, no. People are pretty cool about it. It's very funny. I had one guy who we were on, we were at JFK. This guy's gonna hear this shout out. And it was like, so we literally, we're going on escalators, opposite directions to each other. - Yeah. - Do you understand? So we're moving apart. And I'm texting, because I'm trying to get, I'm not even texting, I'm trying to get like an Uber, 'cause I just got from a flight, and he goes, "Yo!" And I'm like, and I don't even, does he say my name right? He goes, "Yo, yo!" And I'm like, "Yeah." And I turn around and I was all the way up there. What's my pin coat? I go, "What?" And he goes, "New, you couldn't get it, loser." (laughing) - fraud! He gave exactly three seconds. What's my pin coat? I'm like, I don't know that he's talking to me. Do you understand this? - Yeah. - I'm not kidding. - I'm not kidding up so hard. I such, whoever you are, that was a great heckle. - Dude, last night, I texted that. - No, it totally doesn't ever happen. - Last night, I texted them, like, I kind of, I'm like, wanna change my pin coat. - You're coming into this. - Can I plug something? - Absolutely, boy. - All right, everybody, you can see me in action. May 2nd, I'm at the win in Las Vegas. Tickets are up for sale right now. Go to my Instagram, go to my social, @osementalist, @osementalist. If you are East Coast based, Basement Yard, baby. The board got in Atlantic City, June 5th. So come see me at the board, got a June 5th. May 2nd, the win. - Amazing, dude. Thank you so much for coming on this been amazing. - I am not, one more plug, if you can. July, New York City, I'm shooting my Netflix special. Here, local, hometown, baby. So everybody come, we're shooting a Netflix special. Gonna be two shows back to back. Come get tickets for that show. It's gonna be incredible. Not only are you gonna be in it, but you might be on Netflix for everyone to see worldwide. - Congratulations. - You guys come, Shane Gorman comes. - Adam Peele comes. - Adam Peele comes. - I'm everybody. - I am so successful. - You said it all to this kind of stuff. I'm gonna make this special. - I don't know, man. I'm a little, this is amazing. - This is unbelievable, truly. Like, thank you. - Thank you so much for coming. - What a crazy thing, dude. Thank you so much for being on. Go follow 'em. OZ, the mentalist, on Instagram. - TikTok, Facebook, everything. - Everything. - OZ, the mentalist, I'm already in your feed. You've seen me with sports teams. - Yeah. - Now, top of the pyramid right here. Frank and Joe are thoroughly freaked out. - Yeah, dude, crazy, but yeah. - Thank you so much. Thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time. Bye.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The mentalist O's performs a live demonstration that appears to read minds, including guessing a stranger's phone contacts, name, and childhood memories with apparent accuracy.
The audience is deeply unsettled, with one participant confessing they felt physically overwhelmed and nearly vomited, highlighting the psychological impact of the performance.
O's explains that mentalism relies on subtle psychological cues, misdirection, and subconscious patterns in behavior, not supernatural ability, and that the success stems from understanding human nature and reaction patterns.
Summary:
Frank and the host record a live, unscripted demonstration with mentalist O's, who performs a series of seemingly impossible mind-reading feats. The session begins with a tense moment when O's appears to gain entry to the building without knowing the code, sparking immediate disbelief. Throughout, O's guides the audience through a series of psychological exercises—such as guessing a person's phone contacts, first and last name, and childhood memories—each time the participant is left stunned by the apparent accuracy.
The mentalist explains that these results stem from observing subtle behavioral cues, misdirection, and the way people naturally react under pressure, rather than supernatural ability. The performance leaves both Frank and the audience deeply unsettled, with Frank admitting he was more nervous than during any prior high-stakes experience. The host reflects on the power of mentalism as a form of psychological influence, noting that it works by exploiting human tendencies to focus, react, and unconsciously reveal information.
The segment ends with a mix of awe and skepticism, as the audience grapples with whether the feats were truly spontaneous or the result of deep psychological insight. The episode is framed as a blend of magic, psychology, and personal vulnerability, showing how mentalism can feel real even when rooted in observation and manipulation. Sponsorships for Squarespace, BetterHelp, and Skims are included, with the show maintaining its signature mix of humor, personal anecdotes, and raw emotional reactions.
FAQs
Mentalism is a form of magic that appears to involve reading or influencing someone's thoughts. Unlike traditional magic with props, mentalism relies on subtle cues, misdirection, and psychological understanding to create the illusion of mind-reading or telepathy.
A mentalist doesn't literally read minds. Instead, they use observation, psychology, and subtle cues—like eye movements, speech patterns, and reactions—to predict choices or thoughts, making it seem like they have supernatural abilities.
Yes, mentalism often works without props. The most advanced forms rely on the performer's presence, body language, and psychological insight, creating a strong connection with the audience that feels like mind-reading.
O's didn't know the code in advance. He used psychological cues and patterns from Joe's behavior and online presence to make an accurate prediction, demonstrating how mentalism works through observation rather than external knowledge.
No, the guesses were spontaneous. O's claimed he didn't research or prepare, relying instead on real-time observations and subconscious patterns in people’s behavior, which makes the results feel completely unexpected.
Yes, mentalism is rooted in psychology, including cognitive biases, attentional focus, and social dynamics. These principles help explain how people make decisions and how subtle cues can influence behavior.
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