Why David Blaine Matters

Truth be told, I’ve intended to write this post for almost two months, I just never got around to. However, with the recent news that the greatest magician of all time, David Blaine, is set to perform another endurance stunt in one week’s time, I had to write it now. That’s right, on September 22 David Blaine will suspend himself upside down, five stories above the ground for three days, after which he will be released and plummet to the ground. That’s all I know and it’s badass.

I understand David Blaine has a lot of detractors out there and those people are typically stupid. They're stupid and they're also fans of Criss Angel, Mindfreak. Let me tell you something – Criss Angel doesn't deserve to wipe David Blaine's ass and his fans don't deserve to wipe mine. I once saw an episode of Mindfreak where Angel was bound up in chains and sent down a conveyor belt into a wood chipper. Obviously he was supposed to escape from the chains before he got chopped up. Well, he didn't, so he got diced into a million pieces that were then shot from the wood chipper into the back of a large trailer. Miraculously Angel emerged from the trailer in one piece. What a joke. I could do that stunt in my back yard if I had a wood chipper, some fake chains, a bunch of mirrors and a hologram machine. Angel tried to make it more dramatic on his show by having his mom in the audience, who understandably freaked out when she thought her son had been chopped into a million pieces. Whatever. David Blaine wouldn't have his mom sitting in the audience at one of his stunts; He'd make her go through the wood chipper.

"But David, I don't know how to escape from all these chains."

"It's ok mom. All you need to do is imagine yourself escaping from the chains."

"Well, ok honey, but this better not take long. I have a pot roast in the oven you know."

In another episode, Angel was at the pool at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Vegas. With bystanders swimming in the pool he walked across the surface of the water from one side to the other. Ok, that was pretty cool, but come on, it was the Aladdin. Try that shit at the Palms and then I'll be impressed. He'd probably slip on all the douchebag hair grease floating on the surface of the pool and bust his ass. Now that's something I'd pay to see.  

In stark contrast to Angel, Blaine is the real thing. I mean, his street magic is second to none. Some of that stuff is just downright crazy. Like the time he was doing the standard guess-the-playing-card trick with some dude but instead of just pulling the guy’s card out of the deck, Blaine was like, “why don’t you take off your shoe?” And holy shit – the card was in the guy’s shoe! How did he get the card into the guy’s shoe??? I have no idea.

Or the time he went to prison and bent the steel bars of the cell open with his bare hands. No shit! Even the prisoner was like, “man, I was totally going to shank you with this tooth brush I filed down as sharp as a knife that I’ve been hiding in my rectum, but after you pulled that stunt, I’m nominating you for president of the prison gang.”

Or the time he went to the casino, found two strangers, gave them $100 and predicted 5 consecutive hits at the roulette table. Amazing.

But the craziest of all his street magic is his levitation. That shit has got to be real. If you don’t believe me, just go on Youtube and look up the clip where he levitates in front of Deion Sanders. I know that’s for real because Primetime don’t lie.

The thing is though, he’s so much more than just a magician; he’s a self proclaimed endurance artist capable of going through some crazy ass shit that can’t possibly be written off as magic… it’s badass. What Michael Phelps is to swimming, David Blaine is to the universe.  Shit, I bet if you give Blaine a month to train, he could run across the bottom of the pool faster than Phelps could swim through it.  

(On a brief side note, I was riding the shuttle home the other day and some woman was talking to another about the impending Hurricane Ike hitting Galveston, TX and the people that were refusing to leave their homes. She said, “Those people are just crazy. They must think they can swim away or something. Well, I don’t care if you’re Michael Phillips, not even he can swim away from a hurricane.” Now, I’m willing to overlook the completely insensitive nature of the comment; I’m even willing to ignore how absolutely retarded it is to assume that anyone was planning on “swimming away from a hurricane”; but I can not, for the life of me, forgive that woman for being so stupid that she would call Michael Phelps, “Michael Phillips.” I have no idea who Michael Phillips is but I’m willing to bet he doesn’t have eight swimming meet participation ribbons, let alone eight fucking gold medals.)

A lot of people write off his endurance acts as nothing more than publicity stunts. Those people are stupid too. Being buried alive for 7 days: badass. Standing in a block of ice for 63 hours: badass. Spending a week underwater: Bad. Ass. Granted, he ultimately failed to set the world record for holding his breath as planned after living in the fish bowl for a week, and granted I was seriously confused about the meaning of life after watching him fail, but after some deep soul searching it ended up just proving to me that David Blaine is the real thing. Not even David Blaine can succeed at everything. Ultimately he ended up setting the world record for holding his breath and he did it on the Oprah show. I know that because I watched it. Unfortunately Oprah cheapened the whole event like she always does because immediately after Blaine set the record she had some dumb woman on the show that was addicted to brownies or something.  Whore.

I may not be the first one to say this but it would require me to research it in order to prove that I’m not the first and that would require more effort than I’m willing to give so we’re just going to go ahead and say that I am the first to say it – David Blaine should run for public office. No, you know what? Better yet, whoever is the next president should appoint David Blaine as Secretary of State. Can you imagine that? In his first week on the job we’ll send him to Iran.

[I can assure you this next bit is much funnier if you can read the appropriate parts in an Iranian accent.]

David Blaine: “Thank you for having me, President Ahmadinejad, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “Cut dee small talk bulsheet, Meester Blaine, I know why you are here.”

DB: “Why is that?”

MA: “Oh, don’t play coy with me, Meester Blaine, I know you are here looking for dee nuclear weapons… Well I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have any.”

DB: “I know you don’t.”

MA: “Wait, what did you just say? What do you mean you know I don’t? Is this some sort of reverse psychology or something?”

DB: “Not at all. I know you don’t have any nuclear weapons.”

MA: “Well this is just bullsheet, Meester Blaine. If you didn’t come for the weapons, why are you here?”

DB: “I did come for the weapons. But I know you don’t have them anymore.”

MA: “What??? Who dee fuck is this guy? Who dee fuck do you think you are? I do too have dee weapons!”

DB: “No you don’t.”

MA: “Bullsheet! I will show them two you.”

[Five minutes later, in a bunker beneath Ahmadinejad’s palace]

MA: “WHAT DEE FUCK! Where are my bombs?!? You son of a beetch! What did you do with my bombs?!?”

DB: “I didn’t do anything with your bombs… You simply have to imagine them and they’ll reappear.”

MA: “You son of a beetch! I’m going to kill you if you don’t give me back my bombs. No, better yet, I’m going to make you wish you were dead you motherfuckeen magic man!”

[One month later]

MA: “Now Meester Blaine, after you’ve spent the last month, buried up to your neck in the middle of dee desert with scorpions stinging your face and eyeballs, would you like to tell me where my fuckeen bombs are?”

DB: “Actually, do you have a stop watch? I’d like to try to set the world record for holding my breath now…”

MA: “DAMN YOU DAVID BLAINE! AND DAMN YOU BARACK OBAMA! DAMN YOOOOUUUU!!!”

After that, what would he do next? In fact, what wouldn’t he do?

“Hey Biden, why don’t you take your shoe off?”

“Come on Blaine, you’ve already done this trick. I know my card is in my shoe. Big fucking deal. We need to do some actual work now, like turn the economy around, fix the education system, and stop global warming, and that’s just in the first year.”

“No seriously, man. Take your shoe off. I promise it will be cool.”

“Fine whatever, but I’m telling you I’m not impress…. WHAT THE FUCK! Is this Osama Bin Laden in my fucking shoe!?! Holy shit man, how did you put Bin-fucking-Laden in my shoe??? This is fucking amazing, and what’s this? What… it looks like… Oh, holy shit man! He’s holding the five of clubs! Holy fuck, that was totally my card! How did you do that? Seriously man, how did you do this one? Oh man, wait til Obama sees this shit man. This is amazing. Absolutely amazing!”

That’s why David Blaine matters.