Mac the Nice

Friday, April 19, 2002 | 2:32 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: April 21, 2002

There's nothing magical about writing a book. It just takes hard work and perseverance.

Getting it published is something else. It takes hard work, perseverance and luck -- and maybe a little magic.

Comic-magician Mac King, who performs afternoons at Harrah's Comedy Cabaret, recently pulled his first book out of his bag of tricks -- "Tricks With Your Head" (Random House; $11).

King and co-author Mark Levy describe how do do more than 50 magic tricks involving your head -- tricks that range from sticking a fork in your eye to piercing your chin with a straw.

The 43-year-old native of Louisville, Ky., recently talked to the Sun about the book, which was released in March, and discussed other things in his head:

Las Vegas Sun: How's the book doing?

Mac King: I don't know how it's doing around the country, but sales are good at my show.

Sun: Do you have any more books in your head?

MK: I do have a couple of ideas, if this one does well.

Sun: What inspired you to write the book?

MK: About eight years ago I was on a quiz show in England called "The USA vs The World." They had three magicians from different parts of the world on one team and three magicians from the United States on another team. Before the competition began you had to declare an area of expertise. I just sort of flippantly said that my area of expertise was tricks with your head.

They thought that was the greatest area of expertise ever, so I started thinking about it and I got the idea for doing a book about it.

I tried to sell it pretty quick after that. I was living in Los Angeles. I got a literary agent in New York. I had written up just three tricks and then a proposal about the rest of the book. After the agent got some very nice rejection letters, I just sort of went on to other things. The book just sort of sat in my desk for a long time.

Sun: When do you try to sell it again?

MK: Mark Levy was a ghost writer -- the man behind the scenes -- for a book called "Magic for Dummies" by David Pogue. Mark came from New York to Las Vegas to work on a magazine article about magicians in Las Vegas. He called and asked if he could come over and interview me -- he's an amateur magician himself.

During the course of our conversation, I told him how much I liked "Magic for Dummies" and he says, "You wouldn't believe how many magicians, now that I've done this, come out of the woodwork with ideas for books for me to help them with." I said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I have a book sitting in my desk."

He looks over the proposal and he says, "Oh, I can sell this. If you want a co-author, I can get this sold."

Sure enough, he did. He wrote half the book and I wrote half the book. We ended up with a pretty good mix.

Sun: Where did the tricks come from?

MK: Some are based on old tricks. Some are old tricks. Martin Gardner put out a big giant book years ago called "The Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic." He's kind of the authority on weird little tricks like that. He makes it his business to collect that kind of thing. He was very helpful.

Sun: Isn't it taboo among magicians to reveal to the public how to do magic tricks?

MK: I guess that's true. I guess that's part of the deal. But if nobody revealed anything, there would never be any new magicians.

I feel pretty strongly about that. Magic makes a great hobby. I really enjoy encouraging people to give it a shot. Besides, I'm not giving away how Siegfried changes a woman into a tiger or how Lance Burton makes a Corvette float. I'm giving up how to break a match stick and put it back together, something simple, nothing that anybody actually uses in their show. It's just to spark an interest.

Sun: Has there been an increase in the interest in magic lately?

MK: Yes, and it's all due to "Tricks With Your Head." Actually, there's been a lot of magic on television during the past 10 years. David Copperfield has caused a lot of that, and before him Doug Henning (who died in 2000) paved the way for magic on TV. There hadn't been any interest in magic on TV 'til Doug Henning started doing his yearly TV specials.

Sun: At what point did you realize magic is what you wanted to do with your life?

MK: I realized it early on, about 6, but I didn't know how to go about it. There's no school to teach you.

Sun: I understand you and Lance Burton grew up together in Louisville, Ky.

MK: Yeah. We met at about the age of 14 at a club for magicians in Louisville. We started hanging out together and then we started doing shows together here and there. We both had about a 20-minute act. Whenever either of us got a call like from the Kiwanis, and they wanted more than 20 minutes, we would call the other and say, "Hey, we've got to do a two-person show to fill up the time."

Then I got a call for a full-time job at a western theme park in Kentucky called Tombstone Junction. They wanted three 30-minute shows a day, seven days a week. The park was only open in the summer.

Sun: Did Burton perform there?

MK: Yes. We worked there for three summers together.

Sun: Sounds like a great training ground.

MK: It was the greatest. I don't think neither Lance nor I would have a magic show today if it wasn't for that.

I get e-mail all the time from people who want to know how to become a professional magician. The only real answer is, you find a place where you can do a bunch of shows. There's no magic to it, no pun intended, it's just a matter of getting in front of an audience as much as you can. That was really good for both of us.

Sun: Did you and Burton go your separate ways after college?

MK: Yes. Lance moved to Los Angeles. He had two weeks worth of work there, and it turned into a storybook. He loaded up his car with his act and his birds and in the course of two weeks, he was on "The Tonight Show" (with Johnny Carson).

Sun: Where did you go?

MK: This was about 1981. There was a boom in comedy clubs around the country. I got in on the ground floor of that.

Sun: You must have started about the same time as Louie Anderson.

MK: That's funny. I don't know if Lou would remember this -- I don't know him at all. But we started in the exact same spot. I went to college in St. Paul, Minn. (Anderson's hometown), and there was a little comedy club there called Mickey Finn's, where I would go once a week. Louie Anderson was there then -- he's the guy that made it the biggest. We were on the same show almost every week. There were like 10 or 12 guys, and everybody was doing five or 10 minutes.

Sun: How long have you been in Las Vegas?

MK: I've lived here about five years. I've had the show at Harrah's almost 2 1/2 years. It's going good. They've extended my deal to 2006, so I've got a job. I do a little bit of traveling. I do like 10 shows a year outside of Vegas, but I'm pretty dang content staying here. I have a nice house, a car that runs and a wife and baby that I really like, so I'm happy hanging around here with them.

Sun: I hear people complaining that there are too many magicians in town.

MK: I hear that, too. I think there should only be one.

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