Las Vegas Weekly

January 20, 2010 · 6:24 PM

One year later, psychic comic Kevin Burke is still juggling two jobs

By Robin Leach

Kevin Burke.

Photo: Courtesy

Actor Kevin Burke becomes psychic comic Kevin Burke every night by juggling two shows at two Las Vegas showrooms 13 minutes apart -- and, so far, no mistakes! Not only that, but he’s just celebrated the first anniversary of his own comedy magic.

I chatted with Kevin after a recent performance to try and understand the rigors of two different shows each night, one on the Strip and the second 13 minutes later downtown. He is the one-man star of both shows: Defending the Caveman at Excalibur and Psychic Comedy Magic at Fitzgerald’s.

Robin Leach: Kevin, what is it like doing two shows in one night? How do you keep them straight? How do you not do Psychic Comedy Magic during Caveman, and how do you not slip into Caveman in the middle of the magic show?

Kevin Burke: Well, Defending the Caveman is written by somebody else, and I am the actor that does that show, and the show at the Fitz, I wrote that one. That one is all me. So if I mix those two up, I’m in trouble. It’s like Frank Sinatra: He sings one song, and then he sings another song.

RL: I am guessing the other reason is that Caveman has a script to follow, even though you might do it out of your head, but Psychic Comedy varies every night depending on the audience?

KB: Yes, very much so. Caveman is a scripted play, and while I keep trying to poke though the fourth wall there, it is what I am bound by contract to follow. The show at the Fitz follows a specific form. A lot of it is depending on the audience each particular night. Sometimes they want to just sit back and listen to me tell jokes and do my thing, and sometimes they want to get really involved. I have to be prepared to go either way.

Photo: TVT

Kevin Burke and Mayor Oscar Goodman.

RL: Did you create the original idea of the psychic magic and comedy blend? Are you a magician, or are you a comedian?

KB: The comedy mentalism, I think that concept has been explored by other people, and I am very specific on the wording. The world’s only psychic comedian wherein psychic modifies the noun comedian. I can do an hour of standup without ever picking up a prop or doing any mind-reading stuff. As far as putting it out there as a specific form, I don’t know if I am the first, but I am the most committed. When I started doing this 15 years ago, mentalism and comedy didn’t go together, but I’ve made a living for 15 years putting the lie to that.

RL: But let’s be honest: There really is no such thing as psychic mentalism.

KB: I am 100 percent behind that because what I do is I make the joke about these are the messages that phony psychics use, and I say, “But I am the real thing.” I don’t think there is anyone that could take that seriously. Of course there is no such thing. But the cool part is I do pull off some amazing feats of magic. I tell you there is no such thing, then I make it look like there is. Hopefully, people get the message that even though it looks this good, this impressive, it’s still a con.

My great grandmother was a fraudulent, spiritualist medium, and she handed it down. I was 8 or 9 years old, and I showed her a magic trick, and she said, “Oh, let me show you something.” And she blew me away, and she started teaching me the con. She was originally in vaudeville in a show called Roller-Skating Girls. I’ve kept the family tradition going.

RL: You do a brilliant trick with a specific word in a book picked by an audience member but already known to you in advance. But the topper is when you smash your hand down on one of three rotated Styrofoam coffee cups hiding a giant stiletto blade. How long have you been doing that?

Photo: TVT

Robin Leach and Kevin Burke with cavewomen.

KB: I have been doing that since 1995 or ’96, so roughly 15 years, and only once has it gone wrong with a real calamity of impaling myself badly. I was about 100 shows into doing that. I impaled myself on a knife blade. There was so much blood, I was actually terrified the next time I did it. It happened in the second show on a Friday night at Giggles Comedy Club in Germantown, a suburb of Milwaukee. It went wrong because I thought I was certain of something that I was not certain of, ’cause in the end, you can’t see through the cups. I don’t wince anymore every time I do it, but the next night when I did it with my left hand, yes, I winced liked heck cause I thought, OK, if I get this wrong now, I got two bad hands, but you have to get right back on like it’s a horse.

RL: Can we say without naming names that you know of certain people who have followed in your footsteps doing that same trick who have told untruths about the hands being spiked to heighten the drama?

KB: Absolutely. I was with one psychic, and we were swimming in his pool one day when I told him everything I do and showed him my scar. Lo and behold, it appeared in his show pretty soon afterward! My thinking that night was, OK, everyone has seen him do this. They have seen him talk about his paper cut, but they have never seen me do this. I thought, OK, I have to set the record straight, and I probably did it a little more forceful than I should have, but you know I think of it like a Purple Heart. I think this scar is something you should have to earn the right to display.

RL: Are you pleased with what you have achieved the first 13 months downtown?

KB: Absolutely, because it has been very challenging economic times in a challenging room and a challenging hotel in a challenging downtown area. Also for downtown, a 9:13 p.m. start time is a bit later than what I would like, but that is what we got. However, it’s the No. 1, top-rated only 9:13 p.m. show in the world.

Photo: Courtesy

Gene Adler, 80, and Mickie Hollander, 72, at their Defending the Caveman nuptials.

RL: In your act, you show a “dead fish” from Lake Mead in a box, and then when you do your meet-and-greet with the audience after the show, you ask them to look in the box. What’s the purpose?

KB: When I was a kid, I used to love going to see sideshows, the carnivals at the circus. The very last thing you would see on your way out of the sideshow tent was “the blow-off.” There was usually an extra charge for it, usually 50 cents or a dollar, and you would see Siamese fetal pigs or a two-headed half something else that was strange and unusual. This is my tribute to that little experience, and I probably should charge 50 cents or a dollar to see it.

RL: Now you don’t sell it as a fish, but you sell it as the ugliest creature to come out of Lake Mead?

KB: That’s what the guy told me. He said he found it in the banks of Lake Mead. I don’t know if that’s true. It is the ugliest, strangest thing you will ever see. It looks as if it was in atomic shock when it washed up, maybe from Area 52? It is so bad, yes, it is the strangest thing you have ever seen, and I got it from a crazy guy who lives out in the desert. All of that is true.

RL: How long are these two shows renewed, and how long can you keep this up physically?

KB: Well, we have open runs for both places, and to be honest, I could do these two shows together till I retire. I would love to do that ’cause I am so blessed. There are so many people who would kill for one show in Las Vegas, and I have an embarrassment of riches. Plus, it’s great for me. I get to do Caveman, an uplifting show, and then I get to do my own stuff.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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