Buccaneer Booty

THE BLURB:
Let’s have some fun with pseudo-psychometry!

“It’s national talk-like-a-pirate day,” you announce, “so in
the spirit of the occasion, here’s some pirate treasure.”
You open a small,wooden chest to display the contents
within, over a hundreds items of ‘booty’ (‘doubloons’, shiny
trinkets, costume jewelry, etc.) and some drawstring Swag
Bags in a perfect size to contain any of the items. The
chest is placed on a table or chair so the lid, when opened,
will prevent you or the audience from seeing inside.

“To make things even more difficult, I’ll blindfold myself,”
you claim, “...well, sort of.” Whereupon you slip on a
black eye patch and pick up a plastic pirate’s sword and
never get within a yard of the chest again.

Approaching the audience, you point with the cutlass to one
of them and say, “Aye, matey, you’ve been dragooned as part
of my crew, so you get a share of the loot - call it a
signing bonus. Open the chest, take the bauble of your
choice, put it in a bag and pull the strings to close it.
Hide what you’ve picked from the rest of these lubbers -
they don’t look very trustworthy. Once you’re done, stand
to one side while the next swabbie selects and bags a
treasure. And leave the doubloon coins be - everyone must
take something different.”

After the fifth person from the audience closes the chest
and everyone has a bag in hand, you continue, “My stout crew
may not be superior fighters, navigators, or thieves, but
they’re the best liars on the planet. So to ship out with
me, you’ll have to tell believable bullsh.., er, perfect
prevarications Otherwise, you’ll stay ashore, empty-handed.
For now, pass your swag bags to the bos’uns mate here
(pointing to the person nearest the chest). He’ll hide them
behind the chest so nobody knows which bag belongs to which
shipmate.”

When that’s accomplished and without so much as looking at
the five bags, you extend the sword and request, “Hang one
of those bags on me cutlass, bos’un. Take yer pick.”

You remove the item from within the bag, hold it in front of
each of the five, instructing, “Each of you say, nice and
loud - I didn’t take that, Cap’n - and not a word more. If
the one who took it can hoodwink me, you’ll get extra
loot and a promotion to first mate.”

After testing all five, you say, “A good liar doesn’t give
himself away with shifty eyes ...”, pointing with the
cutlass to one of them, “... like you did.” The person
agrees. “Matey, shove off. Yer too honest for me. And
here’s a special tasty doubloon (a chocolate coin, wrapped
in gold foil) for your trouble.” You repeat with three more
persons - using variations on the same theme - identifying
which among them took each succeeding item.

Hooking the last remaining bag from behind the chest on the
end of the cutlass (obviously never touching the bag) you
hold it in front of the your final participant and observe,
“There’s no point in asking for a lie - we know you chose
this bit o’ swag. But no one has a clue what it is you
picked - ya can’t see through the bag (holding it at his eye
level on the tip of the cutlass to verify) and there was
plenty of other baubles you could’a took, right swabbie?”
He affirms.

“I’m a good judge of bad character. You’re the kind of
plank walkin’, rum-guzzlin’, binnacle-bustin’ deckhand who’d
take a liking to a big fancy jewel in return for the
privilege of sailing for adventure and plunder. Don’t even
try to fib - admit it!” He agrees and you show the audience
the bag’s contents - a ‘diamond’ pendant.

The objects selected will, obviously, be different every
time. There are no forces of any sort, no electronics, no
stooges, no cueing, no angles, no switches, no magnets, no
threads, and no pre-show. For obvious reasons -
spoilage,melting, etc. - we provide only the source for the
chocolate coins.

The chest comes packed with five bags, the plastic cutlass,
a black bandanna, plus the selection of hand picked plunder
that would make Blackbeard envious.

MY COMMENTS:
What a wonderful idea this is. And, being that it's created
by Larry Becker & Lee Earle, it's no surprise that the
method is easy-to-use, quite clever, and brilliantly
practical. It definitely lives up to the hype of the blurb
and I really like the method. It's quite unique. For those
familiar with pseudo-psychometry bags, it does use similar
ideas, but the specific method of this is quite different
from others I've seen (including Lee Earle's No-Brainer
Bags). The blurb, incidentally, is accurate. I'll only say
the unique method has something to do with the sword. This
is another great idea from Larry and Lee. Of course, somehow
I think if I said any less than that, you'd be surprised.

At issue, though, is style. This is, after all, a routine
that deals with a plastic pirate sword, a variety of
"booty," and a pirate costume (the bandanna), not the
identification of personal thoughts or items collected from
audience participants. Due to the price, which is quite
reasonable, I only recommend that you carefully consider
whether this will be successful with the onstage persona you
use.

The package comes with the sword, the "booty," the five
bags, and four pages of instructions, all in one fairly
large box. (You do have to supply the chocolate coins,
which is perfectly understandable and a source for those is
provided.) If this sounds like fun, and something you feel
that you can have fun performing successfully, then I'm sure
that this will be one of the highlights of your show and I
wouldn't hesitate to invest in this.

NOTE: Due to the large, heavy box filled with all the props,
please expect the shipping and handling to be more than
usual. Sorry, it will not fit in a flat-rate box.