Lady Gaga might have a good Poker Face but it probably would be no match for the Las Vegas Law casinos throw down in the city of sin. Many singers have come and gone through the city, some only as novelty acts that lasted a few months with whatever smoke and mirrors they brought with them and their entourage, others as stupendously successful acts that lasted for months and even years with all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood clotted into just a solitary theatre on the strip. Celine Dion and Bette Midler are a few of the artists who rolled the die and had it come out in their favor show after show after show.
However, it is a different kind of show back stage where an acquaintance of mine works. Though I only work in the casinos as a card grunt, shuffling cards in complicated patterns and tricky combinations to distract the losing patrons from packing up leaving with the rest of their money, the amateur magician in me sees something kind of magical in the things this guy does back stage.
His name is Antoine. He is French and comes from a long line of French entertainers. He is so entertaining that I have hard time telling the difference from the reality of his past the lovely lies he tells to fill in the gaps and crevices in between his stories. Those fill-ins are usually only there because he wants to cover up the uglier part so his story that he doesn’t want me to hear. Like about his mother died when he was ten. He claimed it was in a trapeze accident where when she flew up in the air, she could not stop falling up. I knew the truth was probably that she could not stop falling down.
He is not just a magician in his story telling art. He also knows how to make a stage shine. He helps to light the stage in reds and yellows and blues in the same bright hues of the Bicycle playing cards that we use at the tables. He knows how to make a shimmer appear across the stage at the right time so it appears as if the light is sighing with the audience. Perhaps most importantly he knows how to read an audience knows what to give them. I know that’s why the story about his mother’s death has ten different versions.
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