Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: I'd Just Love to Lay You Down By Conway Twitty

For $30 bucks you get a 2 disk set of Jay Fortune interviewing Jonathan Goodwin, 10 tracks, and disturbing images burned into your brain so deep that even Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones can't erase them.

It's kind of tricky to review something like this. It's an interview. I could rate it on if I liked what the interview was about. But just because I liked it doesn't mean you will. I could grade it on product quality, but it's just a couple of disks with a handful of audio tracks. I could rate it on the content, but it was just a bunch of interview questions and stuff about Goodwin's many TV shows and experiences.

The bottom line is, how willing are you to spend $30 on 100 minutes of interview time regardless of how good it is. My gut tells me I need to eat less cheese, but it also tells me that most people would not be willing to spend $30 to listen to an interview, even a really good one.

Let's look at it this way. Take your favorite talk show host (e.g. Leno, Letterman, O'Brien, etc.). Then take your favorite actor (e.g. Molly Ringwald, Stephen Root, Hugh Laurie, etc.). Would you pay $30 to listen to an hour and half (ish) interview? If you would, then I think you'll be happy with this product. Because really the only thing bad to say about it is that it's essentially an expensive podcast. The interview was funny and entertaining from the start. Though Goodwin is an Escapologist and not really a magician (he's sick of the state of magic and has kind of moved away from it), I found a lot of areas where I really could relate to him, particularly in his view of magic and magicians as a whole.

There were a few inspirational moments, lots of funny stories, a few disturbing stories - where's a neuralizer when you need one? There were even a few things that got me thinking and gave me some ideas. But all in all, it's just an interview. In a world where you can here interviews with David Williamson, Bill Malone, Lennart Green, Tom Mullica, and tons more on podcasts like The Magic Newswire for free, it's hard to justify paying $30 for this interview no matter how good it is.

Everything else about it is great. CDs are well produced. The audio's great. The interview and stories are great, but the price . . . not so much.

If I were to rate just the product, I'd give a 4.5 to 5 stars, but I can't ignore the price. If it cost $10,000 dollars and I gave it 5 stars, that would certainly imply that I felt you should spend $10 grand on it. So where do I draw the line? What's the dollar limit where I can ignore the price in the review? I don't know. So I'll leave you with my final verdict in a minute, but as always, it's your call. Again, if you think an interview is worth paying $30 bucks for, go for it.

But as for me and my house . . .

Final Verdict
is 2.5 stars with a Stone Status of Grubble (Content - all gem; price - all rubble)