Name: Ricky Jay's Amazing Shower Trick | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-04-04T22:00:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ricky Jay's Amazing Shower Trick | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ricky Jay's Amazing Shower Trick | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-04. Transcript available.

this is going to be nice we've known this man for a long long time yes
fascinating and there's a new
documentary featuring his life and the world of magic and sleight of hand and
illusion it's a
wonderful compilation he is the subject of that documentary it's entitled deceptive
practices
the mysteries and mentors of ricky jay ladies and gentlemen here he is ricky jay
ricky i have
so many questions to ask you i enjoyed the documentary i thought it was
wonderfully
entertaining and dense with fascinating information give us now your opinion
the state of magic in the
world today is it better than ever is it where it's always been is it less than
it's always been
where is it it's different than it's ever been and i think the reason for that
is the accessibility
of magic techniques on the internet so that makes it very different in my day
magic was really a
closed shop right and the way you learned was from someone who taught you right
sort of like the uh
sensei student relationship in the master in the martial arts you literally did
that and the
reason i moved to los angeles for my home in new york was to be with di vernon
who was the great
sleight of hand man of his era charlie miller di vernon when i was living in
los angeles worked at the
magic castle and charlie miller who you mentioned and and hold an equal regard
right what i didn't
realize this man was from my hometown of indianapolis yeah yeah isn't that
great that's fantastic and these guys
these guys meant everything to you everything they were superb they never
charged you for
lessons they never asked anything of you other than to care about the their
information about
really interesting thing they were often real game players in terms well i
shouldn't i should say
vernon was a game player vernon had many people move to los angeles to study
with him
you know your friend jeff altman came from syracuse david roth came from new york
john carney came from
des moines steve freeman came from oklahoma he kind of made happy pilgrims of
us all we literally
transported ourselves to be with these people who were so great and sometimes
vernon would play the
acolytes off against one another charlie never did that but he was less
accessible yeah and and uh
uh... with las vegas now and uh... everyone is familiar with sigfried and roy
and david copperfield and on and on
are these guys uh... penn and teller have big acts are these guys uh... good
for magic is it is it really magic or is that illusions is there what is it it's
very different than
what is it it's very different than sleight of hand and certainly these big
illusion shows are different than sleight of hand
a penn and teller are capable of some very sophisticated things and uh... sigfried
and roy and copperfield do nice things right it's it's very different than the
world that that i uh...
has that changed the expectation that people have of magicians i don't know
i don't know the answer to that uh... in the film there's a great segment
where the uh... suddenly we're talking to a guy from i think from the los angeles
county sheriff's department
uh... who is teaching you in a a rarefied form of martial arts arts uh... and
he had seen an illusion or uh...
sleight of hand that you had done where you take two one dollar bills
whoop whoop and out comes a single two dollar bill right and he was so baffled
by this
that uh... but for months and months of hectoring you about how it was done he
follows you into the shower
and he says he says here are two one dollar bills
do it for me now
and you according to this guy did it
yeah now
how did you do it
the way i analyzed it was it was the quickest way to get him out of the shower
yeah but i mean is that true is that possibly true
well yes i i mean i thought it was funny i i'd lost track of him he was a
sheriff in los angeles
and these wonderful filmmakers uh... molly bernstein and alan edelstein tracked
him down to god knows where
and he was still carrying the two dollar bill in his wallet
yeah you guys were all at lunch and you said who's got a dollar bill who's got
a dollar bill and then bingo abracadabra zippo it becomes a two dollar bill
i understand that i don't understand it in the shower
actually vernon was known to have performed something rather remarkable in a
shower as well
well now wait a minute what are we talking about
well now but not assume this is good
but honestly
now you had no idea the guy is following you into the shower or or did you say
hey later if you're not busy
come by the shower
how was that possible don't tell me how the trick was done just tell me how it
was possible
you know i wake up on alternate days in my life thinking i'm the unluckiest guy
in the world and the luckiest guy in the world
yeah and i think this proves i'm a little closer to the lucky no well i mean i
i just yeah
uh... could you do it now if you and i were taking a shower
well
uh... it would be hard to say no
i think we got a little magic going here
there's uh... wonderful uh... archival footage in this uh... documentary of of
you as a kid tricky ricky
your grandfather was a lover of uh... magic and in one case we see you
put a supposedly a rabbit or a hamster or something into a
can a container
and you sort of clumsily as a kid might do turn it upside down
and then you pull out from that a dove
that's not slight of hand strictly speaking is it
no that's terrible magic performed by a child
but that's an illusion right
uh... if if you wanna
benight it with such a word okay
i was terrible at that age
well no you were fine for what it is
but now and then we see you when uh... you were throwing cards
right uh... fifty two you know card danger of cards dangers of cards as weapons
cards as weapons my first book right
and uh... you're firing them into various things and they pierce and they stick
now that's not
the sleight of hand either is it
well that's a skill
a skill
yeah skill right
and uh... at one point i think it was die vernon
yes challenged you
to catch forty you would throw cards in the air and catch forty of them at once
or not at once but in a row
well he challenged me to boomerang them and have them come back to my hand
right times which is also a skill that you would talk yourself right yeah
you know what happened when you did that
well he he promised to give me a beautiful illusion the secret to an illusion
sleight of hand illusion that had me fooled
and he said when he was a kid he practiced over and over and he could never do
it forty
times he do it
thirty eight times or thirty nine times
and uh... he picked a dark place for me to do it in which i think was part of
his
bad so his point was in teaching yourself a skill it's difficult to go
beyond thirty nine re in this particular case you know so i had done it thirty
nine times
and i i had bet him a hundred dollars against the uh... the illusion that i
wanted to learn
and i had uh... the fortieth card in my hand
so again you throw it out and it comes back to you you catch it
well the fortieth time i caught it behind my back
because i was a twenty-year-old kid who was an idiot
again i actually risked losing this wonderful secret because i was so cocky
one of the other things that i love about the uh... the film is your discussion
of the pleasure
and the peace that comes from uh... sitting down with a deck of cards and as
you say for a couple of hours
and going through your various uh... manipulations maneuvers and whatever
it really brings you a source of deep pleasure really doesn't it
yeah i have to say that that's absolutely true you it almost becomes a meditative
tool
to shuffle the cards for more than two or four or six or eight hours ten hours
a day
but it's not the best way to practice charlie was the guy who made me think
about refining practice
but that feeling is truly wonderful a really comfortable feeling
uh... an illusion or a sleight of hand maneuver here tonight
if you'd like to
uh... if if i were to frisk you would i find birds
perhaps that's why my best performance has been in the shower
uh... all right what what are we going to see and and are uh... uh... are there
the equivalent of a di vernon and charlie miller now i guess that would be
yourself
no no no no it wouldn't if i live to be 190 is that right
these guys were just remarkable on a level but
i'm just so lucky to let's see that we have a clip from the old ed sullivan
show what is that going to be
oh i'm so pleased
you know one of the mentors that i work with was a fellow named al flasso
and al flasso uh... had a magic shop at thirty-fourth and eighth avenue
uh... by uh... by uh... the train station and he
he was maybe five foot one
he barely came over the counter which was filled with clutter and memorabilia
but he was a great magician and he worked on the ed sullivan show in this very
theater
he was known as the coney island faker
and you know how hard it was legendarily to make ed laugh
watch al flasso
this is from took place right here in this theater on this stage
so now from the circus lots professor al flasso
i remember him making ed sullivan truly laugh which was almost unheard of
for coming up here i'll show them how this is done
all you have to do is reach up in the air and get all you want
grab one
in a can
that's good
with the other hand
in a can
that's better
blow it in before you
put your hand out boy look at this
grab one
put it in your pocket
keep that for coming up here
i don't care for money
did you get it?
thank you
let's see
that's what i thought
oh that came with both hands
well well well thank you my boy
you don't see that sort of thing much do you?
not these days
alright
i'm sorry to have waylaid us here
let's see what we can do
um
well i have a deck of cards there's a surprise can i ask you to give them a
shuffle?
i'll do what i can
looks great
he said he didn't have no money
flasso is just a
from the isle of malagula
what i want to show you is kind of the difference between what a gambler would
do and a magician
have you ever gambled with your skills?
what i'd like to do is show you the difference between a gambler would do and a
magician would do
so that's great
right there
that's a pretty good shuffle
and i'm going to ask you as i do this to just say stop at any point
okay
can you see a card?
i can
oh you want to stop there? that's fine
can you show
no you go on if you want to
no no keep going on because i think you forced that on me
that do you want to stop somewhere else?
no i want to keep going
oh you do? okay
okay there
okay you got one?
yes
has paul seen it as well?
paul have you seen it as well?
i can see it yeah
shuffle them again
all right
remember that card though don't change your mind
it's very important
what i'm going to try to do is look at what you're doing and see if i can
discover a tell
that's what gamblers would do in this situation
i've heard of that term with regarding poker
looking for a tell
okay in regards to poker
by the way i forgot the card
i know what it is
i'm not as dumb as i look
alright this is sounding crazy but i'm going to try to determine your card just
from looking at you a couple of times
alright
so i'm going to jog some cards up here
trying to read a tell on me
i am i'm going to try to read a tell
could be any one of these cards
i'm going to show you four cards
and i'm going to assume that the card you took is one of these four
alright
so all i want you to tell me is if it is one but do not in any way
tip your hand
and tell me what card it is
could be the four
or the ace
or the king
or the seven
the four
or the ace
or the king
or the seven
the four
the ace
the king
or the seven
but you did a subtle little thing
on the seven
it was very subtle
but i thought that it was just enough for me to get it
i'm going to make a definite statement
your card was the seven
because you had a tell
but wait a minute
wait a minute
this is very important
the difference between a gambler who sees a tell and a magician is this
that if a magician were doing it that would be a seven that would be a seven
and that would be a seven
just lovely
well if you've ever loved magic or wondered about magic and by god i think
everybody does whether it's a part of our childhood or later in life this is a
wonderful piece of work it's called deceptive practice the mysteries and
mentors of ricky jay and it opens nationwide in may and congratulations on
everything and thank you very much for being here thank you
ricky jay and thank you very much for being here thank you ricky jay ladies and
gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen
thank you ricky jay ladies and gentlemen

Ricky Jay's Amazing Shower Trick | Letterman

this is going to be nice we've known this man for a long long time yes
fascinating and there's a new
documentary featuring his life and the world of magic and sleight of hand and
illusion it's a
wonderful compilation he is the subject of that documentary it's entitled deceptive
practices
the mysteries and mentors of ricky jay ladies and gentlemen here he is ricky jay
ricky i have
so many questions to ask you i enjoyed the documentary i thought it was
wonderfully
entertaining and dense with fascinating information give us now your opinion
the state of magic in the
world today is it better than ever is it where it's always been is it less than
it's always been
where is it it's different than it's ever been and i think the reason for that
is the accessibility
of magic techniques on the internet so that makes it very different in my day
magic was really a
closed shop right and the way you learned was from someone who taught you right
sort of like the uh
sensei student relationship in the master in the martial arts you literally did
that and the
reason i moved to los angeles for my home in new york was to be with di vernon
who was the great
sleight of hand man of his era charlie miller di vernon when i was living in
los angeles worked at the
magic castle and charlie miller who you mentioned and and hold an equal regard
right what i didn't
realize this man was from my hometown of indianapolis yeah yeah isn't that
great that's fantastic and these guys
these guys meant everything to you everything they were superb they never
charged you for
lessons they never asked anything of you other than to care about the their
information about
really interesting thing they were often real game players in terms well i
shouldn't i should say
vernon was a game player vernon had many people move to los angeles to study
with him
you know your friend jeff altman came from syracuse david roth came from new york
john carney came from
des moines steve freeman came from oklahoma he kind of made happy pilgrims of
us all we literally
transported ourselves to be with these people who were so great and sometimes
vernon would play the
acolytes off against one another charlie never did that but he was less
accessible yeah and and uh
uh... with las vegas now and uh... everyone is familiar with sigfried and roy
and david copperfield and on and on
are these guys uh... penn and teller have big acts are these guys uh... good
for magic is it is it really magic or is that illusions is there what is it it's
very different than
what is it it's very different than sleight of hand and certainly these big
illusion shows are different than sleight of hand
a penn and teller are capable of some very sophisticated things and uh... sigfried
and roy and copperfield do nice things right it's it's very different than the
world that that i uh...
has that changed the expectation that people have of magicians i don't know
i don't know the answer to that uh... in the film there's a great segment
where the uh... suddenly we're talking to a guy from i think from the los angeles
county sheriff's department
uh... who is teaching you in a a rarefied form of martial arts arts uh... and
he had seen an illusion or uh...
sleight of hand that you had done where you take two one dollar bills
whoop whoop and out comes a single two dollar bill right and he was so baffled
by this
that uh... but for months and months of hectoring you about how it was done he
follows you into the shower
and he says he says here are two one dollar bills
do it for me now
and you according to this guy did it
yeah now
how did you do it
the way i analyzed it was it was the quickest way to get him out of the shower
yeah but i mean is that true is that possibly true
well yes i i mean i thought it was funny i i'd lost track of him he was a
sheriff in los angeles
and these wonderful filmmakers uh... molly bernstein and alan edelstein tracked
him down to god knows where
and he was still carrying the two dollar bill in his wallet
yeah you guys were all at lunch and you said who's got a dollar bill who's got
a dollar bill and then bingo abracadabra zippo it becomes a two dollar bill
i understand that i don't understand it in the shower
actually vernon was known to have performed something rather remarkable in a
shower as well
well now wait a minute what are we talking about
well now but not assume this is good
but honestly
now you had no idea the guy is following you into the shower or or did you say
hey later if you're not busy
come by the shower
how was that possible don't tell me how the trick was done just tell me how it
was possible
you know i wake up on alternate days in my life thinking i'm the unluckiest guy
in the world and the luckiest guy in the world
yeah and i think this proves i'm a little closer to the lucky no well i mean i
i just yeah
uh... could you do it now if you and i were taking a shower
well
uh... it would be hard to say no
i think we got a little magic going here
there's uh... wonderful uh... archival footage in this uh... documentary of of
you as a kid tricky ricky
your grandfather was a lover of uh... magic and in one case we see you
put a supposedly a rabbit or a hamster or something into a
can a container
and you sort of clumsily as a kid might do turn it upside down
and then you pull out from that a dove
that's not slight of hand strictly speaking is it
no that's terrible magic performed by a child
but that's an illusion right
uh... if if you wanna
benight it with such a word okay
i was terrible at that age
well no you were fine for what it is
but now and then we see you when uh... you were throwing cards
right uh... fifty two you know card danger of cards dangers of cards as weapons
cards as weapons my first book right
and uh... you're firing them into various things and they pierce and they stick
now that's not
the sleight of hand either is it
well that's a skill
a skill
yeah skill right
and uh... at one point i think it was die vernon
yes challenged you
to catch forty you would throw cards in the air and catch forty of them at once
or not at once but in a row
well he challenged me to boomerang them and have them come back to my hand
right times which is also a skill that you would talk yourself right yeah
you know what happened when you did that
well he he promised to give me a beautiful illusion the secret to an illusion
sleight of hand illusion that had me fooled
and he said when he was a kid he practiced over and over and he could never do
it forty
times he do it
thirty eight times or thirty nine times
and uh... he picked a dark place for me to do it in which i think was part of
his
bad so his point was in teaching yourself a skill it's difficult to go
beyond thirty nine re in this particular case you know so i had done it thirty
nine times
and i i had bet him a hundred dollars against the uh... the illusion that i
wanted to learn
and i had uh... the fortieth card in my hand
so again you throw it out and it comes back to you you catch it
well the fortieth time i caught it behind my back
because i was a twenty-year-old kid who was an idiot
again i actually risked losing this wonderful secret because i was so cocky
one of the other things that i love about the uh... the film is your discussion
of the pleasure
and the peace that comes from uh... sitting down with a deck of cards and as
you say for a couple of hours
and going through your various uh... manipulations maneuvers and whatever
it really brings you a source of deep pleasure really doesn't it
yeah i have to say that that's absolutely true you it almost becomes a meditative
tool
to shuffle the cards for more than two or four or six or eight hours ten hours
a day
but it's not the best way to practice charlie was the guy who made me think
about refining practice
but that feeling is truly wonderful a really comfortable feeling
uh... an illusion or a sleight of hand maneuver here tonight
if you'd like to
uh... if if i were to frisk you would i find birds
perhaps that's why my best performance has been in the shower
uh... all right what what are we going to see and and are uh... uh... are there
the equivalent of a di vernon and charlie miller now i guess that would be
yourself
no no no no it wouldn't if i live to be 190 is that right
these guys were just remarkable on a level but
i'm just so lucky to let's see that we have a clip from the old ed sullivan
show what is that going to be
oh i'm so pleased
you know one of the mentors that i work with was a fellow named al flasso
and al flasso uh... had a magic shop at thirty-fourth and eighth avenue
uh... by uh... by uh... the train station and he
he was maybe five foot one
he barely came over the counter which was filled with clutter and memorabilia
but he was a great magician and he worked on the ed sullivan show in this very
theater
he was known as the coney island faker
and you know how hard it was legendarily to make ed laugh
watch al flasso
this is from took place right here in this theater on this stage
so now from the circus lots professor al flasso
i remember him making ed sullivan truly laugh which was almost unheard of
for coming up here i'll show them how this is done
all you have to do is reach up in the air and get all you want
grab one
in a can
that's good
with the other hand
in a can
that's better
blow it in before you
put your hand out boy look at this
grab one
put it in your pocket
keep that for coming up here
i don't care for money
did you get it?
thank you
let's see
that's what i thought
oh that came with both hands
well well well thank you my boy
you don't see that sort of thing much do you?
not these days
alright
i'm sorry to have waylaid us here
let's see what we can do
um
well i have a deck of cards there's a surprise can i ask you to give them a
shuffle?
i'll do what i can
looks great
he said he didn't have no money
flasso is just a
from the isle of malagula
what i want to show you is kind of the difference between what a gambler would
do and a magician
have you ever gambled with your skills?
what i'd like to do is show you the difference between a gambler would do and a
magician would do
so that's great
right there
that's a pretty good shuffle
and i'm going to ask you as i do this to just say stop at any point
okay
can you see a card?
i can
oh you want to stop there? that's fine
can you show
no you go on if you want to
no no keep going on because i think you forced that on me
that do you want to stop somewhere else?
no i want to keep going
oh you do? okay
okay there
okay you got one?
yes
has paul seen it as well?
paul have you seen it as well?
i can see it yeah
shuffle them again
all right
remember that card though don't change your mind
it's very important
what i'm going to try to do is look at what you're doing and see if i can
discover a tell
that's what gamblers would do in this situation
i've heard of that term with regarding poker
looking for a tell
okay in regards to poker
by the way i forgot the card
i know what it is
i'm not as dumb as i look
alright this is sounding crazy but i'm going to try to determine your card just
from looking at you a couple of times
alright
so i'm going to jog some cards up here
trying to read a tell on me
i am i'm going to try to read a tell
could be any one of these cards
i'm going to show you four cards
and i'm going to assume that the card you took is one of these four
alright
so all i want you to tell me is if it is one but do not in any way
tip your hand
and tell me what card it is
could be the four
or the ace
or the king
or the seven
the four
or the ace
or the king
or the seven
the four
the ace
the king
or the seven
but you did a subtle little thing
on the seven
it was very subtle
but i thought that it was just enough for me to get it
i'm going to make a definite statement
your card was the seven
because you had a tell
but wait a minute
wait a minute
this is very important
the difference between a gambler who sees a tell and a magician is this
that if a magician were doing i