 The last video we posted here described you the phenomenon known as Carlos, a delicious hoax that artist Jose Alvarez and I, with the assistance of Channel 9 Australia, carried out some years ago in order to prove to the residents of Down Under that they could be fooled by a totally made-up channeler played by artist Alvarez. I should explain a few facts behind the scenes concerning this performance. All three of us, Alvarez, his manager George and myself, flew off to Australia with me riding in the back of the aircraft and the other two in first class, of course. And when we disembarked in Sydney, the media was out in full force to greet the great guru Carlos. I rather hung back, not wanting to be noticed, of course, because if they'd seen me, they would have known that some sort of skull-dugger who was probably a foot. The first-class passengers were moved aside so that Alvarez and his manager were taken to the front of the line. But much to our surprise, they were then marched into a back room and I found out later that they were stripped right down to the skin and searched for drugs and other possible contraband. The kind of thing that gurus might have with them, you know? As for me, I waltzed through immigration, but as I was preparing to go through customs, I was startled to hear a strident voice from another desk calling my name. Mr. Randy! Mr. Randy, come over here, please! I looked over and saw a customs agent who was obviously intent on speaking with me and I obediently complied, only to find that he'd recognized me from previous appearances in Australia and wanted to welcome me to the continent. He insisted on speaking loudly, which rather disturbed me, lest he might be overheard and call attention to me. After I signed an autograph for him, he was satisfied and I went my way. I was a little miffed to know that I was going to a very second-class hotel while Jose and George were going to the penthouse of Sydney's best hotel and I found out later that they shared that floor with the rock artist George Michaels. In the next few days, I got to visit with the great Carlos by sneaking in the back door of the hotel and walking up an awful lot of stairs. Jose told me that late at night he saw a photographer with a huge tripod set up on the roof of the building across the street and he was snapping pictures of Carlos. To accommodate him, Jose always dressed in his robes and was sure to stride back and forth in front of the windows to provide suitable images. The media were always waiting outside the hotel to mob Carlos and on one occasion they followed him all the way to the beach where he waded into the ocean with a crystal held high above his head and could hardly suppress his laughter when they too followed him into the water risking their electronic equipment just to cover this news item. Now I should mention as well that the media seemed to think that the pulse stopping trick that I showed you before meant that Carlos's heart had stopped. Of course it was only the pulse in that particular wrist that stopped but I can tell you that we frightened a few nurses during our adventure and yes a couple of the Australian skeptics figured out the stunt including our good friend Barry Williams who also had a succinct comment about the hoax which was bang on. Well if I'm allowed to swear, I'll tell you but I'll be kind about it and say it's a load of garbage. The skeptic claims that Carlos's pulse trick is simply that, a trick. Now in this case if you had say a tennis ball or a roll of cloth or some newspaper under the armpit and you put pressure on that that will slow down the pulse rate. As we told you admission to the Carlos appearance at the Sydney Opera House was free but there were various artifacts for sale in the lobby. Now I don't recall exactly how much was bid for some of these bits of junk but we could have done very well if we'd accepted the proceeds. One such object offered was a black crystal from Atlantis which was actually a chunk of melted tar that we picked up on the way into the backstage area. You see we wanted the artifacts to be natural. The radio interview that you saw in the previous video was actually done after hours with the cooperation of a friend at radio station W-O-R in New York City. We removed the call letters from the studio mic and substituted the letters W-O-O-P, an intentional effort at a joke but no one picked up on it. Radio station W-O-P, come on. We gave the media of Australia all sorts of clippings, some from TV Guide, but none of which made any sense. The days of the week that captioned the article did not even correspond to the calendar dates. All sorts of incorrect references were made, all of which could have been checked up on by a simple bit of research such as a phone call. But it seems the story was far too good to really investigate too carefully. Too many facts can sometimes spoil a very good tale. The Broadway appearance of Carlos was negotiated by our good friends, Penn and Teller, who were then playing on Broadway. After the audience was in place, we simply substituted the playbill outside for one advertising Carlos. And we had an arrangement with the management whereby at the end of the Penn and Teller show, they would ask the audience to stay on for a few minutes and adore Carlos. Needless to say, the audience went along with it enthusiastically. These are just a few of the points I wanted to make about the Carlos caper. You'll read much more about it in my next book, A Magician in the Laboratory, which I'm sure you will all rush out and buy as soon as it's on the stands. Thank you for the use of your computer screen and of your time. This is James Randy.