Cop A Feel

There is nothing like watching a live magic show to either make you a believer or to make you realize cheap tricks are just that.

I talked Sis and Sil into spending Mother's Day with me. What do mothers do on Mother's Day when they want the day to be magical? They go see David Copperfield.

Oh David. If only you weren't so slimy in appearance, sleazy in speech, but slicker in your performance. His show is called Grand Illusion. I was grandly disillusioned.

You start to wonder what's up when he started talking. He sounded tired, rehearsed out, like he's done what he's about to do a thousand times and he's no longer interested, that he really doesn't buy into his own magic acts. But, the show must go on.

He tossed frisbees and balls into the audience to select "volunteers" at random. Only, sometimes he'd say, "You sir, can you pass the ball to the lady in front of you?" Then he'd select that lady to bring on stage as his volunteer. These volunteers were always long-haired, slim beauties. At the end of an act, they'd all gave him a peck on the cheek. All of them wanted to do that?

Sometimes, he brought "witnesses" on stage. These witnesses just walked on stage. Where did they come from? How were they selected? The impression he wanted to convey was, these were audience members selected in advance. I didn't buy it at all.

Like the young man he chose to watch over a drawing another audience member did. The young man just happened to wear a funny T-shirt and a pair of bright orange binoculars around his neck. I mean, hey, the volunteer came with his own prop. We were at a casino. What was the guy doing wearing a pair of orange binoculars? David made him turn around, put the binoculars on him, and got him to "watch" the drawing. Can you get more corny, David?

Then he set up an act where he would go through a steel door. A couple went to check out the door. David said, "Feel how solid the back side is." The man put his hand on the woman's behind to feel her bum. Right, like a husband would do that to his wife on stage! Then David went through the steel door behind a drape. Hey, The Boy did that too, when he was six.

Later, another "volunteer" effected to feel David's behind. To which he made some joke about "copping a feel." Get it? Copperfield, "cop a feel".

It got worse. He showed a video of a guy supposedly in Hawaii. The act was, David and a guest would transport themselves there and the audience can witness it all on the screen. C'mon. It's a video. Of things shot in advance. David fed his partner information that he gathered "spontaneously" from his "volunteers" to proof what we were watching on screen was live. But when the volunteers and witnesses are suspect, so is the information they generate. Try as I did to go along with his act, I couldn't get over the fact I was just watching a pre-taped video pretending an illusion. Pretty cheesy. The only magic was how he made so many eyes roll in the audience.

There were times I wondered, is that really David on stage? Why would he destroy his act like that, after building the reputation he has? I mean, cheap, cheesy and corny just don't cut it for me, man. I wanted so much to enter the illusion. Give me Ricky Martin.

But it was still fun spending time with Sis and Sil. We ate well. We fed the slot machines. It was all very maternal.