bloodyrosemccoy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2006-09-16 06:57 pm
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2006-09-16 06:57 pm
Entry tags:
Tales From The Strip, Tuesday Afternoon ~ If We Weren't All Crazy, How'd We Get HERE?
Actually, I also had a magician phase as a teenager. Not that I ever did magic, but I was interested in the world of stage magic and learned a lot about it. I could expound on this for hours, but it’s just background so that you know that there is an entire hierarchy of who I want to see in Vegas, and that I would need quite a lot of money and time if I wanted to get to them all. There were many worthy choices.
Mac King won my vote.
Partly this was because he did his show at a convenient time. Partly it was that his prices were affordable.* But mostly, it’s that he’s damn good, damn funny, and a worthwhile show for anyone who can stand the sight of that much plaid.
And he managed to amaze me in a way no other show has so far.
He kept scaring me.
Not in the sense of “Oh, my god, he’s gonna die!”, because his stuff was mostly standard birthday party magician fare—no chainsaws or big flames. No, what he would do was call up a volunteer, and then when they followed his instructions a certain way he’d look a bit alarmed, as though they had thrown him off somehow and the trick would probably fall totally flat. And you’d think, “Oh, no! He’ll never recover! Poor Mac!”
And then he would build up your expectations that the card was, say, in his pocket, and go through this whole elaborate and sort of hopeful buildup, and you’d be hoping to hell that the trick would work for his sake, and there would be no card. “It woulda been cool, though,” he would sigh.
And then the card would appear in a different trick, in his shoe or something, and you’d be like, “Wait just a god damn minute! He burned that card! How the hell did he do that?”
It’s standard magician fooling, but usually I am confident. But somehow, Mac was so good at it that I fell for it every time. God, I was laughing at myself by the end.
He also seems very genuine. I told him after the show that my family was extremely jealous of me. He looked surprised. “Because they want to see me?” He might have still been acting, but I fell for it again.
I also got to converse with one of Mac’s weirdest fans, which was an old woman in fashionable conservative garb who had the entitlement air of a Vanderbilt and seemed disgusted with me. It was a surreal conversation, and I was never sure if it had really happened. It went like this:
Vanderbilt: He’s magnificent, isn’t he? This is the FIFTH TIME I’ve seen him.
Amelia: Really? (aside) Even I think that’s a bit much. (to her) Well, so far I’ve only seen famous magicians on TV, and that’s when I started wanting to see Mac King. And I got to see Penn and Teller on this trip, too! It’s been awesome.
Vanderbilt: Ah, yes, I’ve seen them. They do such disgusting things.
Amelia: Yeah, I like it. I was going to see the Amazing Johnathan, but my brother would—
Vanderbilt: Oh, that man and his FILTHY mouth!
Amelia: … He’s my brother’s favorite. He’d kill me if I saw Johnathan without him. We love his Comedy Central stuff.
Vanderbilt: (ignoring me) I much prefer Lance Burton. He doesn’t swear. I’ve seen him five times, too.
Amelia: Oh. I like what I know of him.
Vanderbilt: I find I’m not as interested in David Copperfield. Too flashy and sparkly.
Amelia: I’m with you. I mean, I only saw him—
Vanderbilt: Yes, you’ve “only seen him on TV,” I’m sure.
Amelia: … Uh, yeah.
I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t like me—I figured it was that I was looking a bit grubby in my bandanna, T-shirt, and shiny dead bug, although a young guy from Houston didn’t seem to notice this when he asked if I wanted to go get a drink after the show. I tried to include the other people around me who seemed nicer in our conversation, but the Vanderbilt lady kept butting in to tell us that she was a better magician fan than we were. It was the weirdest one-sided status rivalry I’ve ever been part of. People are so twitchy.
I managed to bow out of the invitation from the guy from Houston by a perfectly legitimate claim that I was meeting my aunt in Margaritaville, which is a fun but extremely loud restaurant that has a continuous loop of a Jimmy Buffett concert on the Jumbotron and a volcano that periodically spews out a scantily clad dancer. Aunt and I had a shouted conversation discussing the trip, and we both proclaimed the food to be good—it was one of the best paradisical cheeseburgers I’d ever had. It fueled me for a final walk around the Venetian while my photos were developed, where Aunt told me about her experiences in actual Venice. We both wished she’d brought her good camera, because she’s one awesome photographer even if she does use her ring finger. But as it was, when we collected my shitty-camera photos I found that there were quite a few good ones amongst the pictures of dark I seemed to have taken. I am so glad I bothered to buy that stupid thing.
Of course, by that time it was late, and we had an early flight to catch the next day. So I put the pictures into my bag o’ stupid souvenirs, packed, and we both collapsed in exhaustion into our beds, with “Volcano” still ringing in our slightly deafened ears. Tomorrow would be a straight shot to the airport.
But I was already making plans to return to this ridiculous place, maybe with my brother. Yes, I am coverted. I now want to go back, to see what I missed, to show my siblings and to enjoy it again and to visit Aspen some more. And unfortunately, to write about it.
Gods help us all.
*Which surprised me, because I thought he was big-name enough to be able to demand higher prices.
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