Now there's a name that I haven't heard in 30+ years. The Amazing Kreskin is performing at the Riviera in the old comedy club room. I went to the show with VERY low expectations. I wanted to see him because I had watched him on Johnny Carson many years ago and didn't know he was still performing. Back in the day, I believed that what he was doing was real. After growing up, leaning magic, and being on stage with several mentalists, I was convinced that everything that can't be explained is fake. I've been on stage with 3 different hypnotists/mentalists/mind readers in Vegas and they are all fake. They all told me what to do and what to say while I pretended to be in a trance.

Kreskin does a lot of talking. He talks about as much as Penn Jillette. Penn talks politics, and Kreskin talks about disclaimers and brags about how many shows he had done and who he met, and adds just a little comedy.

Kreskin impressed me. He impressed me several times. He was very good about reading peoples minds. He was really good with numbers, picking birthdays and phone numbers from people. He did a lot of card tricks that could be done with trick cards and/or require the participants to be in on the trick.

I could have easily walked away just as bored as I am with the many other mind readers in town, except for the fact that I was involved in an early stunt that he pulled. He asked if any of the men had change in their pockets. I raised my hand and he told me to take out all of my change and count it. I had a lot of change and as I was pulling it out, he was writing down the amount on a piece of paper. He was finished writing before I started counting. I had 10 quarters, 5 dimes, 4 nickels, and 14 pennies. It took what seemed like a long time to count it, but when I was done and I told him $3.34, he flipped over the paper and showed everyone that he had written $3.34 as the amount. His handwriting was a little sloppy and the first person thought it said 3.74, but upon closer inspection, it was indeed 3.34. There is no way he could have known. I would have guessed about 1.75 when I first dug my hand in my pocket.

Since the coin trick was early, I was more open minded on the rest of the card tricks and audience Q&A. And the coin trick wasn't reading my mind or working off of a stacked deck. Some of the audience mind reading was really good or really fake. I've seen where other mind readers ask if anyone has had a death of a friend or family or bought a new car or had financial issues, etc. In any group of 100 people, odds are, someone has these issues, and they play off of that. Kreskin did not follow any of those routes in his audience readings.

The guy looks like I thought he would. He is 75 years old. He gets around pretty well. I've seen a lot of performers in Las Vegas that I thought retired a long time ago. Most should have retired a long time ago. Kreskin still has what it takes to be on stage.

I thought he was dead!
If he's so good, I wonder if he knows his death date? LOL
Sometimes the old performers are better then the new up and commers. At least they know how to handle themselves on stage.

Don't know if this interests me enough to go see him however???

Nah, don't put it on your list for your short trip unless you have a deep urge from the Carson days. If I had not been the guy picked with the change in my pocket, the whole show would have been shills and stacked decks of cards to me.

He spoke about predicting his own death and what to do when the airline loses his luggage. His take on it is that sometimes these strong suggestions come to him and he has learned to accept them as predictions. He can't take any subject and go out and get the answer. The answers come to him, he doesn't go fetch the answers.

A show you might like is Frank Caliendo at the Monte Carlo. It's very clean and funny. I really don't like him that much on Fox NFL, and I think you don't either. His show in Las Vegas is pretty entertaining.