I'm a 30+ year member of The Magic Castle in Hollywood…and before I go any further, do me a favor. Please don't write and ask me for passes. I know you have a once-in-a-lifetime event or a dying relative whose last wish is to go to The Magic Castle and I'm your only hope. But I once gave a pass to a stranger who embarrassed me up there so I don't do that anymore.
Now, then: One evening in the early eighties, I took a group of my fellow comic book writers up there for an evening. Steve Gerber was in the group and Marv Wolfman and maybe Len Wein and some others. At the Castle, you wander from showroom to showroom seeing different magicians, and we all went into the Close-Up Gallery to see a performer named Richard Turner.
Richard Turner bills himself not as a magician but as a "card mechanic." He can fix a card game the way a good automotive mechanic can fix your Honda Civic. He can shuffle the deck, let you cut it, and he can then deal you whatever hand he wants to put in front of you without you being any the wiser. Before I go any further, let me give you a short (40 second) demonstration of what this man can do…
Pretty amazing, huh? Here's the kicker: Richard Turner is blind. Not totally blind but legally blind.
Watch the video again. He doesn't even look at the cards. It wouldn't matter. He can't see them. But after handling cards constantly all day for 40-some-odd years (he has a three-pack-a-day habit), he's developed an extraordinary touch. It is not magic. He just has these amazing hands. One demonstration of many he did that night was to have someone place either a deuce or a face card in his hand and he'd tell them which it was.
How? Simplest thing in the world. The face card has more ink on it so it weighs more. Can't you feel the difference when you pick up a card?
That night at the Castle, we were all astounded at what he did and simultaneously, we all came to the same realization: We had found Daredevil. In the comic book, blind Matt Murdock has developed his sense of touch, among others, until it can do the impossible. He also developed his physical strength and agility…and Richard's done that, too. He's a black belt karate champ. Almost everyone in our party had written Daredevil at one time or another (I'd just written a TV pilot of him for Marvel) and we were all agog at the parallels.
At the time, I was a writer for a TV show called That's Incredible! Right after Turner's demonstration, I went up to him and asked if he'd like to do that act on national television. He said yes and a few weeks later, he did. It was a very popular segment and I especially enjoyed the show's technicians in the editing room, playing and replaying the video we shot of Turner doing false shuffles, dealing from the middle of the deck or dealing the second card and making it look like the top one, etc. You couldn't catch him cheating. If you'd been in a game with him, he'd have had your wallet, socks and undies in ten seconds.
Richard works mostly in and around the San Antonio area but he also tours and if he's ever performing near you, run and get a front row seat. Also, if you're interested in learning about how to cheat at cards, he has a set of videos you can purchase through his website that you'll want.
Lastly, here's a little promotional film (nine and a half minutes) about Richard…and it even includes a few seconds of his appearance on That's Incredible! And that's all I have to say about him. I just wanted you to know about the guy and to insert into the collective wisdom that is the Internet, just what I think of him. I think he's the most amazing handler of cards I've ever seen.