Our Top Five Favorite Things to Do in VegasInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

The poker-friendly magazine, All-In suggests
there is another reason to go to Vegas other than poker; and that is to
see Master Magician Lance Burton at the Monte Carlo.

Viz.

Hands-down, the biggest draw at this property is Lance Burton's magic
show. The dapper illusionist-more approachable than David Copperfield,
less spooky than David Blaine-thrills crowds with sleight of hand and
multi-million-dollar special effects: his latest featured illusion is
rumored to include a $10 million prop made of real gold. Burton's
signature trick, the flying Corvette, is cheaper but just as
impressive. The show runs Tuesday through Saturday in the
custom-designed Lance Burton Theater, and is celebrating its 10th
anniversary in 2006.

That's pretty high praise from a serious poker publication.

Maybe out priorities are out of whack but the first thing we think of
when Vegas is mentioned is Master Magician Lance Burton.

Perhaps it is due to the court-ordered hypnotic therapy following our
third bankruptcy, but poker is not even in the top five activities we
associate with Vegas.

Here they are in order:

1. Watching Lance Burton Master Magician (and we agree,
"less spooky than David Blaine" and far "more approachable than Mr.
Copperfield");

2. Auditioning for a chance to be
one of those lucky few who get to hand out fliers for escort agencies.
(We think it is likely one of those 'it's who you know' kind of deals
because we have never been picked. We went freelance once by
using some of the full-color brochures we scraped up out of the street
but it's not the same. We want to be one of the glazed-over men
and women listening to their iPods whilst trying to force a dad or a
mom to let go of their child's hand to receive our advertising circular
for a local woman trying to make a living, $250.00 an hour at a time).

3. Touching otherwise occupied visitors in an accidental but loving way.

4. Red-Black Trick. We love toying
with others' emotions using the Red / Black trick.

(We
are proud to say we invented and perfected it. The fact that you
haven't heard about it only proves our contention that our agent is
terrible and you've never accepted a brochure shoved into your hand on
the Vegas strip.

So here's the play:

You stand by a roulette table.

You don't bet, just stand there.

Out of the corner of your eye, watch for the winning number.
Memorize the number. For the purposes of this instruction, please
assume the winning number is 36 Red.

Scream in horror and wail
in deep, unredeemable grief, drop to the casino floor, bury your face
in your hands with your forehead rubbing on the carpet.

Now the next line is crucial. Don't mess this up or the bit won't give you a ride.

You cry out, "I can't believe I put my entire second mortgage and all
of my available cash advance money on 36 Red and it comes up 26
Black!"

Bury your head again and bemoan your plight.

Continue your wail until a kind soul points tries to console you.
They may put a hand on your back or shoulder and insist that you
shouldn't be upset. They'll tell you the number was 36 Red. You won, gosh-darnit.

Stand-up, wipe your eyes, look at the number, and then look with love (the platonic kind of love) at your new friend.

Shake his or her hand, thank them, hug them, kiss them on both cheeks,
and even jump up and down with them while hugging them.

Turn 90 degrees towards the Roulette Croupier but do not make
eye-contact with the employee. Say the following in a clear,
strong voice as you get your last hugs in, "Please give all of my
winnings to my new friend, my angel in a time of need. This is
truly a sign and I want to give away all that I have to someone who is
all that I need."

This is not illegal — we know from
experience — but it will get you attention and genuine affection for a
few precious seconds. To paraphrase Willy Loman in Arthur
Miller's Death of a Salesman, "You will be liked, you will be well liked."

And for once, you're not just a "taker." You're a giver.
You're helping others while you fill that attention-shaped hole in your
heart of hearts.

Through your performance, perfect strangers
will ride an emotional roller-coaster with you similar to watching a
very condensed version of Terms of Endearment or any chick-flick.

First, they'll feel surprise, then pity, then sadness, then hope, then
awe, then pure joy, then admiration for your selfless desire to share
with your "angel."

Last time we checked, you can't pay for that kind of emotional response from anyone — even in Vegas.

You will be liked, perhaps even loved. But you must not stay to
bask in the positive, sympathetic feelings. You must leave
quickly. Perhaps steal one last kiss and supportive hug, and then
hit the road.

This is so much safer than Alka Seizure method described below.

5. Alka Seizure. In this classic cry for help, you evoke sympathy and genuine concern from strangers for less than $2.00.

The method hasn't changed much since we introduced it in Atlantic City in 1975.

You secretly chew five and three-quarter Alka Seltzer tablets, sipping two fluid ounces of strawberry rum punch.

(Two important points to remember here. For our European friends,
we don't know the metric equivalent of two fluid ounces. As a
warning to all who would try this ploy, DO NOT USE Alka Seltzer Plus tablets. Alka Seltzer Plus
contains an active ingredient known to cause a potentially dangerous
reaction when mixed with some brands of rum. While you could just
be careful about the type of rum your punch or frozen drink contains,
we've found it is very difficult to be sure the bartender is using the
correct, non-lethal type of rum. It is far better to be safe than
sorry).

Back to the set-up.

Trust your instincts. You will know when the time is right to do the next phase.

As the pressure builds in your mouth, drop to your knees, feign
speaking in tongues, hold your hands above your head as if seeking
assistance or perhaps as if you are giving praise consistent with your
mysterious language to a god known only to you.

Now, you open your mouth like an enormous fleshy volcano spewing forth a torrent of bloody, foam-crested lava.

The Black and Red trick, is safer and better — all things being equal.

In the Alka Seizure
bit, you must be sure to close your throat as you mumble and
fall. If you don't shut off this avenue for the foam, you may
suffocate on the ever-expanding quantity of "lava."

Even if you don't suffocate, however; our studies have shown that 5 out
of 9 times, some 'hero' will put his burley arms around your waist to
administer the almost cliché Heimlich Maneuver.

Based on our experience, an improperly timed Heimlich
will assuredly bring up and out things other than your foaming stage
blood. In fact, on one unfortunate occasion, we saw an almost
undigested pretzel we consumed one week earlier.

We don't consider an uninvited Heimlich Maneuver the same thing as a sympathetic touch or loving caress.

But, maybe you do. So if you're looking to be the center of attention and to be touched, this earlier method may be just right for you.

5. Frisky-Poo.
We've found a special place for this classic method of changing the
dynamic with strange women of the opposite sex.

Stand
out front of the Women's Room after midnight. We have found the
best location for this is found at Caesar's Palace — right by the
elevator bank and the infamous Cleopatra's Barge Night Club.

As a patron leaves the restroom, look at your watch and then try to
peer past the woman into the restroom as the door closes behind
them.

(Note, the women's room at Caesar's Palace opens outward
so be sure to step back a few paces and at a 30 degree angle to an
imaginary line drawn from the woman's room door and the large mirrored
wall adjoining the area. You want to appear to be looking for
someone else leaving the restroom, and not as if you are looking for an
opportunity to sneak in the facility).

Ask your
subject whether there is someone in the restroom "wearing a high school
prom dress, a shiny tiara, far too much make-up for such a young girl,
and who was clutching a man's leather wallet stuffed with hundred
dollar bills."

When they answer in the negative, go
into your routine. Feign disappointment and then make a character
transition. You don't want to snap into the new persona but allow
it to develop naturally, as if the new character was slowly descending
upon you. The characteristic of reason or understanding slowly
overtakes your worried visage. You are no longer in the dark
about such matters. You now know for certain you have been
scammed by perhaps the oldest scam in the book.

You
should look as if you know to a mortal certainty that your guest
earlier in the evening was not a prom queen, didn't really need a ride
home because her boyfriend dumped her for acting too "worldly and
mature," and wasn't really willing to hold your wallet while you used
the men's room just to protect you from the dangerous characters who
haunt men's rooms.

You must play this transition
correctly. Whether your believe in the Method-school of acting or
not, we recommend you adopt the Method philosophy for this
moment. You need to be convinced yourself that this is the
truth. You cannot be an actor playing the part of a stupid, drunk
man who just got scammed. Nay nay. You must be that stupid,
drunk man. Hang out with such characters, watch them, talk like
them, drink like them, avoid deep thought like them. But most of
all, be them.

Bobby DeNiro saw us perform this gag at
the Tribeca Film Festival in 1989 at the Waldorf. He convinced us
we would never pull it off unless we really were the stupid, drunk man
we wanted a perfect stranger to believe we were.

We can't argue with Mr. DeNiro. The guy knows his stuff — he's got some heavy trophies to prove it.

Back to the ploy.

Once the transition is about a beat away from being complete, lift your
eyes towards the subject and accuse (first with your thoughts and then
your eyes and finally your voice) the woman of conspiring with "the
so-called Prom Queen who just needed a ride home."

Extend
your hands towards their waist — your non-dominant hand should extend
further and before your dominant one — and demand she submit
immediately to a frisking.

(We learned the hard way
that the non-dominant hand should go further and sooner than the
dominant one. If you get the wrong subject for this innocent,
playful charade, you may not be able to eat, write, or perform magic
tricks until the steel pins are removed from your joints and the
stitches have been removed).

Seventeen
times out of seventeen, your subject will say or indicate through body
language that she does not wish to submit to a good frisking.

Now it's time for the pay-off. "Well, how about you frisk me then?"

For this last character change, you need not be as precise as the transition immediately before the pay-off line.

The new character is a light-hearted flipping of the concern and anger that just possessed you.

You must immediately become a fun-loving, happy, innocent, prankster.

Perhaps you can be a fraternity prankster or maybe just a goofy drunk
guy who should be home with his family but he's on a business trip and
lonely and not well-understood by the people back at his little home
with 2.5 bathrooms and just under an acre of lawn.

Your call.

6. Poker.
We don't really play the same as the guys on television. For
example, we don't use cards. We do use similar terms,
however. For instance, we say "raise," "flush," "fold," "wild,"
"one-eyed jack," "hi-low," "bluff," "deal," "good hand," and
"straight."

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