James Randi and Alice Cooper - Dragon*Con 2012

do I like to introduce to you our first guests he's known as mr. Alice Cooper's executioner let's give a nice round of applause for the fantabulous magician known as mr. James Randi and before we introduce our next guest I've been given permission I've been given the greatest permission to read an excerpt from the upcoming book a magician in the laboratory as written by mr. James laboratory not lavatory and laboratory I was there very alright this is from his words years ago I toured the USA in several foreign markets as part of the Alice Cooper rock show the billion dollar babies episode my job was to chop Coop's head off with a guillotine every single night hopefully without actually doing him any harm it worked for more than three months and during that period of time I had the nightly opportunity of seeing a rather unique phenomenon coop and I were always the last to leave the dressing room to begin the show because I had to equip him with two handheld mechanisms that enabled him to throw long flames from his fingertips these were semi dangerous who ever heard of semi dangerous semi dangerous these were a semi dangerous devices which he'd only take it to his hands at the very last moment when the stage manager would poke his head in the door and announced two minutes I would watch Vincent veneer e Freudian fuuny a well close enough yeah him too coupes original name rapidly and almost magically changed from a reasonably normal young man into the showbiz monster that his audience expected him to be he adopted a character by simply putting it on like a pullover his walk his facial expression his entire demeanor changed in a moment later as he were totter up the stairs Frankenstein monster like into the spotlight Vincent Lulla Lulla would become Alice Hooper two hours later when he retired from the stage dressed in white satin tales and top hat he again became Vincent soon as he hit the lights of the dressing room I always admired that in him his ability to step into fantasy and then shed it so easily it's a talent we might all try to acquire ladies and gentlemen mr. people [Applause] Fournier at Vincent Damon Fournier and by the way Randy actually looked like this in nineteen fifty seventy six and I have pictures of as a baby he looked just like this his amazing my apologies for bastardizing your last Nell I never studied French but it's a wonderful name nonetheless folks as you know like I said once before this is our billion dollar babies tour 1973 so this discussion is gonna mainly focus on that I'm sure many of you may have a few questions but we're gonna listen to these gentlemen chat and I have I guess the start of this question mister Cooper how in fact did you find this man well you know the idea was we had already basically decided that rock and roll needed another dimension and rock and roll didn't have a villain rock and roll had was full of heroes but there was no villain and I would gladly be captain hook to all the Peter Pan's out there you know I was I was born to be the villain and so we decided that Alice Cooper I mean I would definitely be the Basil Rathbone of rock and rock and roll and at when we finally got that we pretty much alienated every organization in America and thought let's take it one step further and bring illusion into it now the most dangerous thing in the world was to give Alice Cooper money you know because we were making our own props and knew we would find things backstage and that would be the prop for the night we actually had money now cuz school's out did very well and then all of a sudden billion dollar babies was a number one record and we could afford the best guy in the business so we said well let's get Randi and let's start adding illusion to the show and that's when we came up with you know the guillotine and things like that and I really wasn't really wasn't willing to put my head in a guillotine without somebody that really knew what they were doing why is why is decision yeah yeah I must tell you how I heard about it I don't know whether you know this story coupe I was in the magic shop of all places on 34th Street one afternoon with some of the other magicians sitting around we were telling one of their stories and some of them true and the phone rang and the proprietor picked up the phone answer didn't that he put his hat over the phone he said a fellow connected with an Alice Cooper I hadn't heard the name Frankie I must admit I had and he hadn't heard either he said he wants to talk to a magician who will travel with a rock show I put up my hand I said I'll do it if he pays me $100 just to talk to him and he went back to the phone he said he'll pay it hundred dollars at that time was a lot more than a hundred dollars today I can assure you I got out of there I burned the stairs as they went down and I showed up at the alive enterprises office you weren't there no after that but Shep was and several other people I think Joe Cannon might have been Joe Gannon yes yes and I noticed something about the Dacor this is great they had potted plants all over the place all dead this is what live under prizes remember all the potted plants hadn't been watered they were all dead I thought that was a good touch and I said oh these are my kind of people and they talked to me and we made a deal and I ended up working for the billion-dollar baby show yeah he was the perfect I think the perfect foil for Alice it was a you know it was the first time anybody had seen this kind of a show anyways so when you're adding another dimension to it all of a sudden you're distracting Alice would be over here and Randy would say now when you go over there we're gonna switch this over here and you know you're mister directing the audience and it's all stuff that we wanted to do but didn't know how to do and that's when we brought Randy and he was the guy that really knew how to do all that stuff which way if I could interject which was an amazing thing about that because this was live we were what back in 73 what Rosemary's Baby things of that nature I kind of harsh on her was you know movie special effects theatrics in that way this was live could not be messed up could not be forth could not be tricked the whole nine yards you brought in the amazing Randy to chop your head off and obviously it succeeded because you went on a few other locations after that to carry out those same tricks I do believe well and every night he would be back the next morning alive and I couldn't figure it out I chopped his head off come on he doesn't seem to take chopping very serious we we did another bit called it was unfinished sweet well and the story behind this was we would the guy would go to a dentist office and he would get under gas and he would have this dream that he was a super spy so one guitar would be playing The Man From UNCLE theme one guitar be playing I spy and the other thing the James Bond theme now if you put them all together they actually all work together but I would be in the dentist's chair and Randy would come out as the mad dentist and he had a drill that was bigger than him and it came down it was all lit up and he would start drilling my teeth and then he would take it down to my crotch and start drilling my crotch I don't remember rehearsing that part I think I made it up new and improvised that part yeah and and it was you know when you see film of this right now it really it's very vaudvillian but that was the charm of it I think was the fact that everything was trying to be high-tech and we went back to the vaudevillian kind of attitude of rock and roll which which drew people like you know Groucho Marx and Mae West Groucho Marx would come to the show and bring Mae West Fred Astaire Jack Benny George Burns they would be standing on the side watching the show the audience was cringing in horror at what was going on and they were standing there going ah 1923 Gracie and I did that Toledo we're in Toledo and we accept the snake he had wasn't as big as that snake but they were not in the least bit alarmed at anything we were doing because it was vaudeville to them they grew up in vaudeville so our show had this vaudevillian flavor to it it was sort of also like that show that yet the carnival that you weren't didn't want to go to but you really wanted to go to you know there's the big tent and then there's that show on the right over here that it was the creepy kind of really do I want to go in there you know that was our show you know and we did my audience was not the crosby Stills and Nash audience I was in charge of the lunatic fringe which you will never mind did you know all about that so we were we were in charge of all these sort of outcasts and people that didn't quite fit in but there were millions of them you know oh yeah well I remember all that's still there I think yes I think so yes but I think this if I'm wrong on this this is the senility creeping in again but I'd won that point I remember the chap called a meeting of us all in in panic he said Oh something really bad has happened I thought what now and that you were there and I think you were a bit puzzled and he made the announcement he said that the mayor of Baltimore had given you the key to the city do you remember that oh I remember that yes and he said don't want that we want the parents to absolutely despise Palace you see so that they'll forbid the kids to go which means the kids out there go this is a way of forcing me the audience to be there and that we got over it somehow yeah I don't we had to insult somebody in order to not get the key to this meeting like that yeah but we we managed it yeah we went out of our way to not try to get those accolades so they came later on you know when you're young and dangerous now I'm sort of old and treacherous now and lovable though and by doing what you did by wanting you know that type of audience to appreciate that you know well here we are well yes yeah and like I said there there are millions of you out there and you remember when you came to me and said that your mother was going to be in the audience yeah now this was in Phoenix was it no my mother's probably the most dangerous person you'll ever meet understand that you know I mean she is she doesn't flinch at anything she's just like you know well coupe came to me and he said it was even a little a little worried about he said would you mind sitting with my mother should be in the fourth row we got reserves each that because she's never had he seen me act she doesn't know what I do da and I thought well this is this is gonna be a shock for this lady I can I can assure everybody of that and he was pretty sure of it too i sat with her and when kook walked on stake in the turn costume tearing up a doll or whatever he was doing at that moment on a chicken not a chicken I swear and his mother sat there and said oh why has been since costume torn I can fix that and I just patted her on the arm I was trying to be very very soft and gentle with it and I said no this is all part of the Act wait till you see and then she started to warm up a little bit but I had to leave and go and do another part backstage and when I came back to see her she was hoping on horror she was she was with it at that point sure suddenly realized what the gag was yeah and who you were and what you were doing and why yeah and she was you know she was one of those ones I said you know not enough blood you know I was expecting a little more blood than that in the show I don't think when the head comes off the artery shoots out far enough in the audience my mom and dad both got the show they my dad was a pastor and you know he was one of those guys that is an example he would he'd be shaving you know and I would pick open the Bible up and I'd say Ezekiel 3:17 he said and the Lord says welcome you know and he would quote it I said okay I opened it up again I'd say okay Matthew 5:12 and he says and Jesus said unto them you know this guy's good you know and I say who plays bass for the animals was Chas Chandler so the guy was really good I mean he really liked the music he liked what we were doing he got the fact that I wasn't satanic you know he got the fact that was my sense of humor and I was creating a character that what I was going to play of course which was misinterpreted by a lot of people but yeah you know yeah it was funny that my parents I never had a problem with my parents I wrote all these songs about parents being the problem whereas my parents were never the problem I had the same thing with schools out I wrote all these songs about you know how horrible school was I was you know I was like I owned my school and you know I knew it was one of those things were like I had no problem in school I had girlfriends doing my homework I was in a band I was on the cross-country team and you know I was mr. personality you know so you know yeah it was funny I wrote all these things about things that never happened to me but I was invited to do at coops recent birthday party shall we name the number oh sure 60 I was six I earned all 64 years yes and so many old faces were there it was a wonderful get-together of the old gang and I met his mother and I sat with her at a table and she said you know when you joined me in the audience there I I didn't know who you were and I didn't know what Vincent was doing up on stage but you made it very much easier for me I want to thank you for that and she remembered the event that was very sharp his attack my mom is still I guess she's 87 and she's just you know a sharpest can be someone older than I I don't believe that oh I know I'm only 84 you know we were talking about how back then you were trying to alienate when we lived in Los Angeles we got to a point where we were pretty much gonna be run out of LA because you know it was like we were people would come to our show just you know to leave they would go to the show so they can say they left in the middle of the show which attracted Zappa that's what it directed Frank Zappa to us is that is that but at one point chip says I have this idea we're gonna go on stage in clear plastic suits with nothing on underneath and I'm gonna call the police and get you arrested because it'll be great it'll be great publicity that Alice Cooper gets arrested so of course you know we're on stage playing he calls the police the police show up by the time they get there now the clear plastic suits had heated up and you couldn't see anything because it was all you know it was all you know like and the police I don't see anything wrong with us we couldn't get arrested [Music] we literally understood at that point we could not get arrested in LA so we moved to Detroit no no but we figured we could get arrested in Detroit but you should tell them the story about when the the semies didn't arrive with the stage oh man the city was that in oh man it was it was dead winter gas the gas shortage right did it happen during that time there was a gas shortage during that time in well yeah I don't know what it was but they but the semi is the big trucks didn't arrive at the stage the stage was monstrous and beautiful made out of what inch and a half a glass yeah everything did step on the on this's it would light up I mean it we are yeah it was a beautiful stage I think one of the the best stages I have a certain leave that stage I have ever personally seen in my life it was so versatile and so electronic I'd I mean really it did react it was like Busby Berkeley you know finally electrospinning and it didn't arrive and we had to go out in trucks and pick up used Christmas trees you can imagine with some tinsel still hanging on them and arranged them we only had to do that for one night but everybody in the crew myself everybody we all went out and picked up old Christmas trees and spray painted them and put them around the stage I don't think the kids knew the difference no it was you know I mean in fact that's the show I would have wanted to be at because it would have been a one-off show exactly yeah a lot of times you had to improvise you know one night you know what the snake was a very big part of the show I mean it was only on stage for maybe three three minutes or so but I go to get the snake and I had it in the bathroom I like to swim at night and the in the in the bathtub and it was gone and I realized we were in a brand new hotel that didn't have lids on the toilets so it went down into the toilet into the plumbing of the hotel this is a stink this big around yeah her name was Yvonne that was our big snape I'm gonna make it we had boa Derek we had Julius squeezer you know we all Little Bo Peep we had was a small one but this one was our biggest snake and she's gone so Randy all of us are tearing the walls apart in this hotel trying to find this nuts it came up two weeks later in Charlie prides toilet now I didn't ask Charlie Charlie was chasing me at the time and the Grammys with an ax I think he was you know and I didn't ask him if he was sitting on the toilet at the time or if he was shaving and just kind of looked over and this snake comes up out of the toilet then I liked in a horror movie this snake wouldn't hurt anybody it was like you know it was a gentle giant but I could imagine if you were sitting on the toilet and this thing came up between your legs it would pitch or a tendon that would get your attention would get your attention say the least yes indeed yeah but you handling that big snake you could barely walk when you had that snakes on your neck but that one was big she was she was really big but she was uh she was probably 12 feet long oh yeah yeah 60 pounds seven if I weighed 90 you know so the snake weighed as much as I did that all coiled around you and yeah constantly fighting the snake off not not seriously or anything like that he was just sort of trying to arrange it so that he could move around and still move his mouth yeah this thing was huge it was really really a big snake but you know this state thing was always great it was always one of those things that and everybody finally on the tour got so used to the snake that nobody even if you had a fear of snakes you didn't you didn't bother you anymore you know in fact the ones that I left in here was in the front row on the floor somewhere in there I don't so here if I could ask a personal question here and you told me it was pretty okay to to touch into anything and everything mr. Randy you were originally a Canadian citizen and I'm yes from what I understand because of this man sitting next to you I'm I'm assuming I'd like to hear you part of it you have an R noun or had been an American citizen due to an incident with the well that's the Mounties the Canadian Mint that Leslie trigger that set it off we did Nara Falls you remember oh yes okay we had a large a room full of lockers it was I think the football teams locker room or something where we could set up the props and so it was at a school and I had several parts to play during the show and I did the opening act or whatnot went to the dressing room and tried to get in there was an RCMP that Royal Canadian Mounted Police that's the Canadian equivalent of the FBI the federal police and he want to know where I was going I said into the dress from hell I got to get my costume change and I got to get some props I was looking a little hesitant at this time I guess and he said okay and he opened the door and I walked inside the RCMP was trashing that locker room they were very angry because they had come in looking for narcotics didn't find any and they decided that they would make a big fuss and they trashed the room they were taking doors off lockers and then taking stuff out of the lockers they I clipped off a lot of the padlocks on the lockers that belonged to the students in the school through the sports team and I looked around and I saw that my props were pretty well destroyed and I'd have to improvise somehow and when I left that room that's the time when I made a decision saying what the hell do I need Canada for you've been very good to me thank you but no longer I'm going to become an American citizen and I set out to do it at that very moment and I I've never regretted the decision for the the odd thing I guess at the time was the fact that we had a very good reputation for not being druggies exactly you know we were we drank beer you know I mean that was we lived on beer come to think of it you know we we kind of proved that you could live forever on beer if you were in your 20s and so we had a very good reputation for never ever having and and the reason was was because the band that opened for us in 1971 was teaching Chong you go over the border with Cheech and Chong in 71 they took everything in our possessions apart I mean it was just like unbelievable and of course we never had anything you know beer cans is what only thing they could find and we did finally get a good reputation now I don't know if somebody decided that they were gonna make an example of us in in Niagara Falls or not but I think after that we we just went right through the border back and forth with ever out ever changing now it was funny thing with bands like Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath's and groups like that we did we all drank beer the Mamas and the Papas James Taylor the Monkees you know I had heavy drug problems I mean all the girls all the groups you know that we're like the squeaky clean 16 magazine bands were the ones that were at home into that stuff it and we'd sit there going I want to get involved in that you know as a layman has not a rock and roll person myself into this into this ambience here that I was suddenly plunged into by being hard to top the band's head off every night had a few other things I was very sensitive to that I thought oh boy I thought I'm going to see a lot of Dover I didn't see any trees now but whatsoever thought I could smell pot most of that was coming from the audience oh yeah yes no if you went to Canada and by the third song you're going I kill for a Dorito right now in the middle of a song in your class anybody have any Oreos dying up here all you have to do is breathe I don't know what the big deal was about the border because once you got over there was everywhere you know yeah I mean yeah so but but anyways that was really that was that the peak of our drug existence was that you know now you know drugs for me or like you know sign X you know pepcid ac yeah this is really good stuff yeah but you know by the way I don't think the Monkees were into hard drugs come to think of it they were they order drinkers too but you know a lot of the really squeaky clean bands that that were you know above reproach were all into the hard drugs and it was just the opposite of what you would think yeah you know exactly but Cooper had a very good principle and I was very happy to hear this read at the very first performance he would carry a can of beer around on the stage usually but he never took more than one sip out of any open can of beer it would come open he would take a sip from it put it down a prop man would come and get it and replace it with a fresh can right away because he was deathly afraid and rightly so that somebody might drop something into that can of beer that could be harmful to him that was a wise decision early in our career we did shows with the Grateful Dead [Music] who felt that it was their obligation to turn everybody onto LSD in 1968 and I mean I ever I would sit there with my hand over my beer like this you know because the last thing you want to do is be on stage as Alice Cooper and then come onto LSD I mean that would be the you're in the guillotine going wait a minute what am i doing any so anyways we never got into psychedelics my you know at least I didn't you know and yeah our show was crazy enough where you didn't really want to be involved in anything like that it would and I never drank on stage when I finally quit drinking which was like 30 years ago I I went in and my psychiatrist said well he says now he says how much how much do you drink on stage right well I never drink on stage as well he says well when you're doing a movie how much do you drink when you I say I never drink when I'm acting on the movie he says let me get this straight Alice doesn't drink I said yeah nieces but you do yeah because so Alice is not the alcoholic here is he you know because I kept blaming everything on Alice you know because he was an easy scapegoat while I do it kiss of Alice you know and realize that actually dr. Jekyll was much much worse than mr. Hyde and that that's when I really realized that when I did work I was never drunk or I had to actually make it look like I was drunk as people wanted me to look like that you know but I I never drank when I was actually working performing it was the other 22 hours you know that that so I mean that was a revelation to me you know and you remember when we hit what what was it not it wasn't for Phoenix nowhere it was a I'm sorry you'll come up with the city in a moment for me when you realize what I'm about to say I we checked into a hotel and I went out on the balcony the back had a beautiful view of the parking lot and I looked over to the adjacent balcony and here's coupe standing there and coupe punched the iron to the prior glances what the hell is that a big white BAM with a with a jet motor on the top of it yeah like from an electro plane and it had written on the side of it now there'd be some recognition here I think domestic on was written down the side of the big black letters and I said I don't know what he said I don't know either what is it it's a weird device in a way so we retired went to bed the next morning I was supposed to be in Time magazine that was a Monday morning and Time magazine comes out on the stands on a Monday morning and I was down at the newsstand and I said it's Time magazine out yet and the lady at the counter said no not yet but this gentleman is waiting for it to and I looked over and here is a Woody Allen they're standing there and I had met him before I whatever and reintroduced myself and he remembered me vaguely I'm sure and he said what are you doing in the hotel there I said well I'm the Alice Cooper room this is Alice in the in the hotel and I I said yeah I took a piece of paper and I said this is secret and I wrote down your room number and gave it to him later on that night when I walked into the arena he comes rushing over to me says you said Woody Allen to my room and I thought I'm gonna get it now he said oh wonderful he embraced me wonderful wonderful I'm in his new movie and he is in sleeper yes sleeper he he's standing at the side of the highway not in makeup or anything like that and he's just standing hitching a ride from the domestic on that was the the the big white van that contained the servants that had the thing plugged into their mouths and whatnot you may remember if you remember the movie sleepers they'll all go to go out order copies of it right now of course and that's the way they had the McDonald's sign word said so many sold and the figure went all the way down along the desert into infinity it was a neuro zero zero all the way along it and so you actually got into the movie yeah woody was actually uh I was a reference in two or three movies in Annie Hall oh yeah yeah I got a joke about me in Annie Hall and there was another one in celebrity or he was talking about this rock star that had snakes up in the room and everything like that so there was a there was a little bit of I was a big Woody Allen fan I thought I'll you know take the money and run actually it was it was but I you know living in New York I seen him at Elaine's you know and bumped into him a few times but it was I didn't really realize that he it was very pretty much an Alice Cooper fan oh yeah and was yeah so it was like when I said that yeah it was uh it was an easy unique character very I just saw his new movie that's actually very good yeah but a Rome with love or whatever yeah yeah yeah I kind of wish he'd go back to the you know the early Woody Allen movies I thought those were really really astute in different phase yeah yeah but the movies are very clever they're very good oh yeah oh yeah you guys have such incredible chemistry together with each other and yet you've only not illegal either that's just legal chemist I know alcohol only I got that but basically mr. Andy you've only worked with mr. Cooper on one tour which was billion dollar babies I'm sure and I say it was 90 days but it went a bit longer than that because we went to Brazil right and leave countries yeah well we went all over Europe now but the Brazil trip was them this was a good one oh yeah okay so they never had a rock concert in Brazil ever and we're talking about Rio de Janeiro now a huge huge yeah so we're playing on herself hollow 38 million people and that Alice Cooper shows up down there one hundred and fifty eight thousand people indoors you set a record they'll argue in this indoor attendance ever Guinness Book of Records is it you know their place there was eight times the size of Madison Square Garden you couldn't see the end of it couldn't with binoculars you couldn't see the end now if you take a hundred and fifty eight thousand Brazilians and they all go at once it's deafening well 158,000 drunk stoned Brazilians at the top of their lungs and I'm standing this close to a wall of amps the size of this wall I can't hear a thing yeah yeah and the thing that I remember most about it the next morning I get up and there's the newspaper front page the whole picture and it's a picture me with a snake around and the sword of the blood everything it just says Macumba you realize that 70 or 80 percent of people under the equator believe in Macumba which is a little bit of voodoo Catholicism this that knit and so I walk down the street and people were like you know hiding their children kind of good you know I said going he enjoyed every minute I was a Macumba God you know you know it was really a great kind of feeling that you know people were like shunning like that as I said this I loved being the villain this is that even fed my villainous appetite even better but I'm sure you remember that the stage was very very high yeah very high and it was so it was so high that we almost had a disaster there the crowd this mass of people was all pushing in they're all standing you'll see there are no chairs for them standing and they were we had to reach down and the roadies had to hold us by the ankles in the hot woman they could to hold the kids up because they were getting crushed you know either crowd behind them they could have died yeah it was well the way there were three births during the concert and you're not responsible running out and not responsible for any more case I think there were three people died of old age yeah there was it was a city 158 thousand people in a city so it was like you know what would happen in a city when you looked at that crowd it was it just went off to the horizon in this you know it was a monstrous and it was indoors it wasn't the biggest outdoor but it was the biggest indoor audience now kiss came in after then did one forty four so we still have the record I still have the record it tells me this story I I don't have many of the details where Shep hey Shep Gordon used some ingenious towie we all know that he used really ingenious ways in and out of problems of all kinds and I think what we were in Holland I my memory doesn't serve me well in this respect and we knew that the count of heads was wrong and there was some 8 by 10 cameras there that took pictures of the audience and Shep held up the show until they had prints and could put pinholes through every head in the audience every face that we could see they're counting them up as we went along and we have been shortchanged by something like 30% yeah I'm Leia the head count in the audience but that's how chef Gordon thought he thought so well so efficiently well you know he was he's still one manager 43 years later Shep and I are still together we don't have a contract with each other we've never had a you know it's all been on a handshake so Shep is still you know blasting away putting the new show together right now actually in Hawaii and so I the one of the strangest things that happened early early on in the career was the Toronto show with the chicken okay now we had no idea this was just gonna be a big hundred and I think there was maybe a hundred thousand people in Toronto I was gonna go on between the doors and John Lennon and John and Yoko and Shep put this whole thing together for these Canadian guys and they were gonna pay him and he said I don't want to be paid I want Alice to go on between these two acts at the prime time that was my that was his payment that's how managers think you know good land so yeah so we're up there on stage and at the very end of our show we used to open pillows up a feather pillow that one feather pillow would fill this room with CO hydrogens it would look like a snow storm we had five feather pillows up there and they're like in and Jim Morrison's over here and the doors are there going yeah this is great John Lennon's going yes this is wonderful and I always said and I look down and there's a chicken on stage and I went well I didn't bring it you know it's appropriate because it's a white chicken and you know being from Detroit I had never been on a farm in my life you know I figured well it's got wings it's got feathers it should fly you know so I picked it up nicely and just kind of chucked it into the audience I figured what someone's going to get a great souvenir now they didn't they don't fly as much as they plummet under the audience and the audience tears it to pieces this was called the Toronto Peace Festival piece of this he said that piece it is and they throw the rest of it back on stage now it's just mutilated chicken you know next day in the paper of course at Alice Cooper kills chicken and drinks blood and you know and if you saw Alice you would go okay believe that you know because I mean you would you would see this character and think well that's what happened the kicker to the story is the first five rows were all in wheelchairs [Music] so illness Sippi from wheelchairs that killed the chicken to this day I'm thinking just take it back to the basics let me see I got my keys I got my wall I got my tickets got my chicken who brings a chicken to an Alice Cooper concert you know and then I thought the only person that could have brought the chicken is Shep knowing this was going to happen you know doing that it was gonna you know Frank Zappa called me the next day see did you kill the chicken on stage last night no no and he said well don't tell anybody they loved it no okay you know next thing and when people would say did you kill a chick that might not I don't want to talk about that you know and to this day I go into a city and it's the ASPCA is there are you gonna kill chickens I want to know I'm not gonna kill chicken I entered in the reality I never would kill any animal ever you know but that was the reputation we got 10 to this day I'm chicken they never mentioned Colonel Sanders know who's like killed billions Michigan you know one chicken yes it's like you know eat one missionary and you're a cannibal right not a very smart chick your life oh my god the hell am I here for anyway we can segue into more blood and guts and and that kind of carnage mr. Andy can you explain to me how you came up with the idea of the guillotine and in fact how did you set up mr. Cooper to have his head removed every concert well first of all the guillotine was that's the French pronunciation you see who they think is he yes the guillotine was invented by a man named guillotine figures doesn't it in France many many years ago before the French Revolution and it was used to decapitate machine in such a very small one of course you see and it was later adopted by the revolutionaries it sounded a very good way to chop off the heads of aristocrats but the guillotine trick that I used was not designed by me I've never taken credit for that designed by a thorn a will rock our Ock an ancient magician who came up with an idea of how to do the thing in such a way that the head that fell into the basket was the head of the artist and that's what it was it's a damn clever idea I'm not going to go into any more details on that you'll just have to wonder about it and you'll look it up on Google and you'll probably find it but you'll probably be a lie I warn you in advance well thank you very much one I've never seen no one you know can you imagine now I'm coming to rehearsal and I don't I think everybody kind of just kept it from me the whole idea you know and I get there and I look over it down and I went what is uh what is that you know it said oh it's a guillotine funny you should ask and you know I'm not stupid my brains going click click click I might be drunk but it wasn't stupid you know and it's so yeah in the previous year you had been hanged I've been hanging but I'd never been guillotined you know and of course I'm looking at the blade that go well it's foam rubber no no it's a 40-pound blade and I take a piece of paper to go okay so it's a real guillotine because what they don't blame you'd suffer UC Davis that's it said if it was gonna cut my head off it was gonna be you know oh yeah if you were at that concert you got to see it okay right and he's explaining to me how it works in corn what I'm not putting my head in there you know pretty soon they got me to put my head and they showed me how the device worked you know and I went so if I do this wrong I my head comes off for real yeah when I went okay I just said maybe in every bit that we did there was an element of danger there was actually a moment if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time where you could be decapitated or you could be hung if the device didn't work correctly if this didn't work the Rope was gonna go around my neck and I was I was taught my hands were tied I liked the idea that that was part of it I like the idea that when I went to the circus when the guy was on the trapeze up there and I looked down and went if he misses good he's gonna die yeah I like the element of that in it I wanted the audience to be part of knowing that this is it could be fatal well I've got a wonderful souvenir at home it's a picture of me dressed in a poncho a Mexican oh thank you very much tiger I'm trying to get this stuff out of the way you're working for me but no thanks something to show you with with it addressed the poncho I was at the place where the artist made your head yeah and you had to have what did they use and I know they had to do I have to do the cast you know in those days you actually do it's the most claustrophobic thing you'll ever do in your life where they actually have to make a cast of your head so all your senses are cut off for about 10 minutes yeah and it feels where I've gone through the procedure and it's not a lot of fun but I have a surprise for your coop oh no I have the original Alice Cooper head that was cast at that time in there ladies and gentlemen it's in plastic we got a hole in the back of the LA get shot we're having a fight over LTR sketch but this is the original Alice Cooper head and from from this one the other ones were involved right how many did you make okay they have to make five or six of them and with the one we use now is still from that cast is it yeah Wow yeah hold on to that but I'm gonna ask you to autograph this oh absolutely when they try out we need a special autographing pen for this of course yeah and this is the original the very first one I wasn't there when the thing was being cast on on your on your face but I was there when they were finishing it off afterwards and I've still got a couple of souvenir pictures of that that are mementos of my my wasted youth but that is the original ladies and gentlemen either make us listen to I didn't know you had that that's great no I didn't put that makeup on someone else do so that's really good yeah I think I got to tell you a great story about Randy Oh Randy is carries a check in his wallet he used to do you have it now you know I don't carry the check anymore because we don't do business that way that she'll take credit now that's what old folks go to okay yeah to debunk anybody that could prove that Marie Geller could was psychic or any psychic is my sector that matter you every killer happened to be the guy the hot guy at the time at the time yeah [Music] it was really a unique thing because everybody was into psychics everybody wanted to believe in this and yet here was Randi going against the flow going no he says uh you gotta prove that to me well I just ate a display table outside we actually have million-dollar checks signed by me but it says right there in small type that this is not a valid check firm is that rejected but there was a ton when you didn't have a check that was we I had $10,000 $10,000 dollar check and that was the initial I would sacrifice that immediately if somebody did something really psychic yeah that's that's an amazing thing you know that that that somebody would go against the flow of everybody wanting to believe in this to go the other way well cookie the thing is these so-called psychics are doing a lot of damage to a younger generation they're getting them thinking in the wrong way I don't deny that there are psychic phenomenon phenomena pardon me happening I don't deny that because I can't prove a negative of that sort but I offer the million dollars it's not mine it belongs to the foundation that I represent a million dollars is a huge carrot to hang out there even in today's inflation it still is a good sum of money to offer as a prize to anyone who can prove that they have psychic powers they should be lined up outside this hotel right now waiting to claim the million dollars because there are tens of thousands of them all over the world we get applications for it all the time but the only applications are commits are not from regular or Sylvia Browne or other people like your John Edward none of these people they haven't applied for this Court not interested they're very interested in the million dollars and particularly to make me look like some terrible fool but though once we get them from her from people who genuinely believe they have psychic powers and we test them every year in Las Vegas and all the way through the year and around the world through other experts other scientists who can handle that sort of thing for us and I never sit in on it you know why be because the psychics had adopted an attitude none know if James Randi is there he'll put out negative vibrations so I can't be cycling ah so when I did a test with the BBC for homeopathy they said well we'll call you and I said no no no I wanted you know 48 hours after the tests are all done all tabulated in the computer inside then tell me that the experiment has been done and that's exactly what they do and of course homeopathy didn't work either but that bet that prize that cheque I did carry it around for 10000 for a long time now see I went to claim the check because I thought he said psychos and I said well I knew would have won I wouldn't want that money so I had this great idea and I was gonna bring it to you for a reality show about when they were trying to catch bin Laden I said why don't they put 10 psychics and a helicopter over Afghanistan I'd push them up you know and no easy put them up over this and if they can find a little girl buried you know in Idaho behind a barn by looking at a dress or something and I'm going why can't they find this guy so I said put these guys on there the 10 top psychics put him over Afghanistan and the guy the guy that comes up with the least each week gets voted off the helicopter you know is it don't worry you should have known this was coming number 7 number 7 stand step forward please over to the door so and if you win it's 25 million dollars I mean you couldn't catch the guy we're looking at 25 million well they were gonna agree with us we were gonna pay 25 million dollars to whoever caught bin Laden right so so if they do win its win wasn't course we get the guy right Wow so it never came to fruition nobody wanted to do it it was but I was gonna call you and say I was gonna put you in charge of this oh thank you would have been perfect for them yeah I think of the mail I'd get oh boy so ladies and gentlemen we come to the close of our panel I know it's only been I know we have to do this I'm so sorry but on a good note immediately following this panel mr. Cooper will be doing autographs at 6 p.m. not immediately following this panel but at 6 p.m. in room 208 in the Hilton room 208 wait twitch 208 yep you knew that was getting some time away for a second ok room 208 and he'll actually all weekend long mr. Randy will be everywhere i I just don't know much of what to say about you - you guys have been fans have ulis incredible thank you so well together so without any further ado this is only Friday it's only the first day you will see these gentlemen all weekend long ladies and gentlemen thank you mr. James Wendy and mr. Allen Cooper Oh

Channel: JamesRandiFoundation

Views: 86,633

Rating: 4.892149 out of 5

Keywords: James Randi, Alice Cooper, Billion Dollar Babies, DragonCon, JREF, skeptic

Id: aKpig-0_mOw

Length: 50min 44sec (3044 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Not sure what people mean by skeptic in his case. Skeptical to con-men? Skeptical to arbitrary beliefs? Skeptical to nonsense? We all should be.

[u/[deleted]]

what in god's name was that Alice Cooper yell, holy fuck