We signed the big deal with the Rio over milk and cookies and now it's time to work on really doing a long run in Vegas. In September the Rio will announce it's deal with us and we'll be really playing Vegas. There's a budget for many more billboards and cab tops and all of that. We're even doing TV and radio. So, there has to be an ad campaign. Krasher and Joel met with all the Vegas ad people and found none of them acceptable. It was going to be more "Penn & Teller, Magicians of the Year." Krasher had a bold plan - spend a dollar. He wanted us to go outside of Vegas, to the big leagues. Get some national professionals.

He loved this one company and we met with them in Frisco. It was a serious big fancy building with serious smart guys. We talked to them for a couple hours. They cut out all the ads from Vegas they did market research they watched all our tapes and came to our shows. We weren't playing with kids. They delivered their first pass and it killed us. It was bad old pictures and just a mock up, but they were the first ads I'd ever seen for P&T that I was proud of. Man, I couldn't wait to have my picture behind their words and style. I've never felt that before. Hey, maybe you do get what you pay for.

Okay, well, those words had to go over a picture. The only part of my job that I don't like is photo shoots. And photo shoots aren't just the torture of the shoot, but days after when I feel like I'm in the wrong business. I stand in my suit, next to Teller with gunk in my hair and on my face and people tell me to "smile" and "do something funny." I hate myself, I hate everything. I feel empty. I feel like Wayne Newton with some fake smile trying to make a buck. I'm always sad for days after. Yeah, there have been some good shoots. One we did for fancy magazines and expensive ads for products were always painless. There's a picture of me for some Internet thing that I really like, but that's about it.

So, it was time for pictures. We paid a photographer a LOT of money and our ad agency was going to be there. We were promised we'd be told what to do and they'd have EXACTLY what they wanted all laid out. We were promised that it would be as "painless as possible."

The amazing thing about paying money to people who know what they're doing is every "coincidence" that you can imagine happens. Hey, look our call time is 1 pm, that's nice. Oh, they have food that I like. Oh, they have caffeine-free Diet Coke all over. Wait a minute; is that Mingus on the stereo? There were pictures of other people all set up in the poses. The lighting was all ready and perfect. The whole group of them talked us through every set up and what they were trying to do. They knew about the hole in my chin from the new balancing act I'm working on and they were ready to fix that with make-up. They knew I don't like a lot of gunk, but they still made me look good. Our clothes were perfect.

We walked under the lights and the photographer had everything ready. I stood there, very comfortably and relaxed and they started taking pictures. There were smart people right behind the camera who said, "move your shoulders a little more dead on." They said, "No forced smile." I used a way of standing and facial expressions that I've been using in my real life for 47 years. I didn't make faces that looked like Wayne Newton. They weren't trying to get me to smile in a way that I never do. I stood there. He took a Polaroid and I looked at it. I looked big and strong and smart and powerful. I looked happy, but not like a jerk. I looked a lot like I look in my head. I look better in my head than I really look, and I looked better in this picture than I really look, but it was all me. I looked at the picture and I didn't wince and look away with hate. I smiled. I was proud. I wasn't a big man trying to look like a little pixie promising fun fun fun. I looked like Penn of Penn & Teller. It was amazing. And this was just the Polaroid.

They brought Teller in and did some with him alone. I looked at them. He didn't look like some loser; he looked like my friend and partner. His face, that works so well on stage looked like that. He was expressive but not clowny. Man. We posed together and it was amazing. We didn't hate each other. We were relaxed. They knew just what they wanted AND THEN we played around a little. But, not fake playing. Not big toothy grins, but the kind of playing that comes from our real heart. They brought out props and they knew what hand they wanted them in and how we were to hold them to make them look good. Amazing. I've never looked at the Polaroid before on a shoot, they just depress me. But, these I was going over and looking and it was making me happy. I liked the way I looked and I liked the way Teller looked.

There were NO screw-ups with the cameras or lighting. Everything went smoothly. They shot 47 rolls of 20 pictures each. We were done by 6. The music stayed great and they brought us pistachios and CFDCs. They were happy with us.

Now, I have no idea if these pictures and their campaign will put asses in the seats. I have no idea. I don't know what sells. But, I do know one thing. The photo shoot is over and I feel good about myself. I feel proud to be Penn of Penn & Teller and I'm proud of my partner. And I know that when I see these pictures all over Vegas, I'm not going to cringe. And if the show doesn't sell, it's P&T that didn't sell, and not some goofy smiling desperate losers that didn't sell. And, I'd rather fail with these pictures than succeed with the pictures we had before.

Penn