He is known around St. John, Newfoundland as The Magic Man,  the guy who freaks people out.

Mark Webber wants to escape from "a coffin-shaped box that
will be dangling by a burning rope and about to drop in St. John?s
harbour."

That’s just half of the trick, though.

He hopes to perform the stunt during the town’s Aliant Downtown Busker Festival this August.  He knows he needs to prepare physically and mentally for the escape.  But Mr. Webber is learning escaping from a coffin dangling from a burning rope is not as easy as it used to be.

Enter the lawyers and the insurance companies.

Approaching that event?s organizers as well as city officials,
insurance companies and potential sponsors will consume a lot of
Webber?s time between now and then as he tries to get the green light
for the trick.

Gaylynne Lambert of the Downtown Development Commission suspects it will be challenging for Webber to get the thumbs up.
It’s her experience that even for non-risky events, insurance is needed
to cover every single thing that could possibly go wrong.
"So when you are looking at a death-defying act like this, I would say
that it is going to take some convincing to get everybody on board,"
Lambert says.

Mr. Webber is in the unenviable position of putting on a death-defying act that is not death-defying or even risky.

Read the rest of this entry

Good News in the Making.

The rumors around Vegas and Hollywood have reached critical mass: Siegfried & Roy intend to return to the stage.

We received the following press release / tease last night:

Entertainer ROY HORN and his illusionist partner SIEGFRIED FISCHBACHER
are to return to the stage in a daring new show – four years after Horn
was savaged by a tiger live in a Las Vegas show.
Horn, 63, suffered a stroke after the white tiger attack in October 2003, which left him partially paralysed.
But despite his disability, Horn insists he and Fischbacher are ready
to make their Las Vegas comeback with an updated version of their show
Siegfried and Roy.
He says, "We will be back.
"I’m not saying too much about our new act because we’re still experimenting.
A good magician never lets the cat out of the bag and we want everyone
to be surprised when they hear what we’re doing." The duo was one of
the most successful stage acts in Las Vegas history until the tragic
incident. Horn has always maintained the tiger’s innocence.

Read the rest of this entry

Criss Angel and Paris Hilton topped the list for The Most Annoying of 2008.  Miss Hilton was selected by readers of Vegas Tripping for her skills. 

The editors of that Vegas Tripping bucked the readers’ sentiment and voted Las Vegas resident Criss Angel as the man with whom they would least like to hang.

Criss Angel (real name Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos) is a not a mack
daddy, he just plays one in the gossip rags.

Like clockwork, every
Monday morning Norm Clarke at the Review-Journal details who Mr. Angel
has hooked up that weekend. You’d think that Mr. Sarantakos has got the
skills to pay for the purple pills, but no.

He ensnares starlets, porn
babes and actresses for self-promotion purposes via tabloid headlines
and talk show hot air. If only his disappearing act was real….

Read the rest of this entry