- 1 -

One night while working with Harry and Gay Blackstone at magic Island in Newport Beach, I
was doing my regular card on forehead routine and the beginning of the trick is where I pass out the
big deck and the guy pulls out a card and he slips it into the small deck. I had opened up a brand
new deck of cards, shuffled them, mixed them, and held them out and the guy thrust the jumbo card
into the deck and pulled it right back out. And what had happened was the little card from the
little deck split the seam of the big card and when he pulled the big card back out, the exact same
little card came out! The jack of spades and the jack of spades. And everyone had seen me open up
this deck of cards so they knew it was legitimate. I got a standing ovation and Harry and Gay were
waving at me like, enjoy this because it's never going to happen again!

- 2 -

Early on in my career I worked in an amusement park. I started out doing close up, but I wanted to
entertain more people, so I went into a dove act. One show in particular I went to produce my third
bird and the bird had died sometime during the beginning of the show in my coat. And when I went
to produce him I knew right away 'cause his head fell right to the side. All I could think to do
was to put my thumbs under his wings and flap his wings up a couple of times so I did and then I
handed him to my assistant, which was my wife Lori, and I told her "Don't perch him!" Somehow the
message got lost and I knew as she was walking toward the perch that she hadn't heard me and I
thought, "oh no!" But I did some fast thinking and right as she put the dead dove on the perch I turned
to the bird and said, "SLEEP!" So, when he fell right off the perch, everyone thought I had a
really well trained dove... I hope!

- 3 -

The first time I ever saw a magic trick that I knew I wanted to be able to perform was when I was
working as a bartender and I came into work early one day and the day magician, Bob Shaw, took a lit
cigarette and he made it disappear. I was standing behind him and I didn't see where it went and the
people in front of him didn't see where it went. So I pestered him for 2 weeks because I wanted to know
how he did it and he said, "Oh, these are old secrets and I can't just give them to you. You
have to buy the trick - these tricks cost money!" So I said, "How much?" And he said "$100." And I
thought, $100 to be able to make a lit cigarette disappear? Yeah, I'll do that! So I paid him
$100 and got a thumb tip in return. Best $100 I've ever spent in magic!

WARNING
answers below

May's winners:

jaxson_t@
Ryan@sim.....
jeandersen2002@

The lie was #2 Although Mike did work at a theme park and unfortunetly did lose a dove
the rest of the story was made up!

Voting Results:

1 - 35%
2 - 41%
3 - 24%