Brian Brushwood
| Brian A. Brushwood | |
| |
| Born | January 17, 1975 |
| Known For | His unique brand of bizarre magic and community building through authentic podcasts. |
| Podcasts | Night Attack, Cordkillers, Weird Things, Scam School |
Brian Brushwood (born 17 January, 1975) is an American magician, podcaster, author, lecturer, and comedian. Brian is the host of Scam School for Discovery, and Hacking The System for NatGeo. He also hit the #1 spot on Billboard with two comedy albums. Brian performs his Bizarre Magic stage act, having performed his unique brand of magic across the world.
While a regular on the college circuit, he would perform a mix of strange sideshow acts and original magic effects. His routine includes fire-eating, straight jacket escapes, breaking a cinder block over his head, sticking nails in his eyes and nose, sticking needles through his palm, reading minds, and "The Human Crazy Straw." He has performed on national television numerous times, including The Food Network, CNN and The Tonight Show, as well as one of the biggest live televised magic specials in the world Mahakarya Magician.
Brian is heavily involved in podcasting. He is the host and creator of BBLiveShow, NSFW and Night Attack along with co-host and right hand man Justin Robert Young with whom he also does the Weird Things podcast, along with fellow magician Andrew Mayne. In 2014 a couple of his staple podcasts, Night Attack and Cordkillers went independent with the help of crowd-funding platform Patreon.
Podcasts
Active
- Brian addresses the Scam School audience directly: answering questions, giving advice and behind the scenes looks into the machinations of the BB Empire.
- Brian and Tom Merritt discuss what you watch, and how you can watch it when you want to watch it.
- Brian and Justin congregate every Tuesday night to burn the Internet down with laughter.
- The only show dedicated to social engineering at the bar and on the street.
- Brian, Justin, and Andrew discuss all things weird.
Discontinued
- The precursor to NSFW, Brian talks to you live from his spare bedroom, sometimes with other people.
- Brian and Tom Merritt talk about this new cord cutting thing.
- Small vignettes from Brian's travels on the road.
- The show that ended too soon. Brian and Veronica Belmont talk about videogames!
- Brian and Justin Robert Young try to keep it clean.
Hacking the System
On February 27th, 2014, Brian's show Hacking the System premiered on NatGeo. The premiere consisted of two back-to-back, half-hour specials titled "Hack your Home" and "Hack your Car". In the show, Brian (along with friend of the BBverse, Jason Murphy) shows you various "hacks" that you can use to improve your life as well as hacks that criminals can use to take advantage of you. To celebrate realizing his dream of having a television show, Brian did a livestreamed viewing party with for both the premiere and re-airing.
Books
- The Professional's Guide to Fire Eating by Brian Brushwood
- Pack the House! The Ultimate, Ever-Growing Guide to Increasing Attendance at YOUR Campus Events by Brian Brushwood and C.J. Johnson
- Cheats, Cons, Swindles and Tricks: 57 Ways to Scam a Free Drink by Brian Brushwood
- Scam School Book 1: Smoke by Brian Brushwood (with help from Jon Tilton)
- Scam School Book 2: Fire by Brian Brushwood (with help from Jon Tilton)
- Scam School Book 3: Ice by Brian Brushwood (with help from Jon Tilton)
- The Scam School Book physical release by Brian Brushwood (with help from Jon Tilton and Brandt Hughes)
Demo
The demo includes footage also seen in:
- The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
- The New 3-minute Demo
- Brian Live and Direct from Austin and SXSW
- Scam School opening
- Special Edition: Brian's Bizarre New York Magic Show (Part 1) with OhDoctah
- The Action Figure Commercial!
Keen-eyed viewers will notice that one of the quotes in the video is from Chad Johnson.
Fun Facts
- Brian is apparently a huge American star in a small village with no modern conveniences located 4 hours outside of La Vega in the Dominican Republic. There, Mr. Happy Pants is also known as "El Diablo de Mano".
- He is married to an invisible woman named Bonnie who is presumably the daughter of Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four.
- The Brian Brushwood action figure was pulled from shelves after a little boy in Wyoming used it to set fire to his sister's hair.
- When asked why he "brushed off" the Haiti earthquake by not donating, he said "I shouldn't have to give money every time IJustine takes a step and crushes a city thousands of miles away"
- Brian, Brett Rounsaville and JammerB share a birthday (January 17). So does Benjamin Franklin. Who knew?
- Brian admitted that he has a partially unraveled testicle in the episode All the Right Notes.
- During the Night Attack episode Worse Than the Sarlacc Brian revealed that he had recently scored as an ENTP personality type on a Myers-Briggs personality type test.