David Blaine: Bored to Death
So I got suckered into watching the David Blaine special all night yesterday. Let me preface this by saying a few things. 1) I think Blaine is a moron. 2) I don't generally watch specials like this. 3) If someone is possibly going to die on live national television, I would be extremely pissed off if I missed it.* That all being said, I watched the entire David Blaine: Drowned Alive special.
Where to begin? Let's start with the title. Isn't the term "drowned alive" ridiculous? If you're dead, you can't drown; if you're drowned, you can't be alive. Buried alive? Makes perfect sense. Drowned alive? Not so much. But that's a pretty minor semantic complaint.
Remember when David Blaine just marketed himself as a magician? Back before he marketed himself as a completely psychotic attention whore. Turns out he still does some magic, but it often is crossed with ridiculous stunts (e.g. eating glass). "Magic", in and of itself has never really impressed me. Partly I blame David Copperfield for douching up the whole thing, but it's also because it's all fake. There is no magic, only tricks. (And, as everyone knows, Trix are for kids. Silly magician!) At any rate, Blaine apparently decided being the weird dude who levitated wasn't good enough, he wanted to be the weird dude who was buried alive (in a box, pretty much eliminating the whole "danger" element). From there it was a natural progression to be being frozen in a block of ice (really, just buried alive but colder), and-my personal favorite-living in a box under a bridge (like a homeless guy, only with way more media coverage). The culmination was last night's stunt, holding his breath for nine minutes, beating the world record by an entire 2 seconds. Of course, leading up to this he spent 176 hours in a big goldfish bowl in the middle of Lincoln Center (buried alive, but wetter). Apparently one of the biggest inherent dangers here was that his hands were really pruny (seriously, that was a major concern).
Nine minutes, huh. That's actually pretty impressive. I think I can hold my breath for approximately forty seconds before I pass out. The real question was, the show's on from 7 to 9**: what are the other 111 minutes for?
Turns out they were for Blaine to let us all know how cool and tough he thinks he is. We got recaps of old stunts, some magicy interludes, but these were the real gems:
- Right off the bat we got a five minute montage of Blaine working out with his shirt off. And Eye of the Tiger wasn't even playing.
- At one point he interviews the dude who cut off his arm with a pocket knife in an avalanche. That was kind of interesting, but they held the interview outside, in the snow. Armless dude, whom we're supposed to be inspired by I think, was sensibly dressed in a jacket, whatever. Blaine is wandering around in a t-shirt. Cause, apparently, he's way too badass for jackets (and by extension, armless dude is a pussy). At the end of this, Blaine gives him a big hug. I guess they're kindred spirits. I mean, Blaine spends inordinate amounts of time locked in various contraptions and the other dude, used a boulder to break his bones and cut off his own arm.
- He also talks with Evel Knievel (whom I totally thought was dead, but whatever). At one point this 67 year old man seems ready to fight him, because apparently, those of us who don't engage in obscenely reckless and dangerous behavior are a bunch of pussies. The best part here? Blaine performing his five minute breath hold training exercise while the old man counted him down, while wearing his oxygen tube. Awesome.
- Countless interviews with the rescue divers and team of doctors at standby in case "something goes wrong". My favorite? The one doctor who seems to have been instructed to squirt a hypodermic needle whenever on camera.
So after all this it's stunt time. They lock him in, drain the tank so he can get a good breath and….he's under. His coach/trainer/doctor/lover(?) is talking him through the whole thing. Meanwhile, Stuart Scott is trying to give us commentary that we can't hear because ABC isn't balancing their levels. Oh. Did I forget to mention this whole she-bang is hosted by ESPN's Stu Scott? BOO-YAH!*** So he's down there, the dude's counting, he starts his "escape". Now he's been handcuffed to some chains. His dramatic escape? Unlocking the handcuffs. He is not wrapped in chains, they're just handcuffed to his wrists and he has a key. Whoo-ha, it's intense now!
Alright, chains are off, but you can see he's hurting…there are the bubbles…and DIVERS IN! His male and female duo dive in to bring him up****. Mission: (Not)Accomplished. They bring him some towels (Doctor, with much urgency: "I need more towels up here! More towels!!). The crowd seems to have some weird terry-cloth fetish, cause they go nuts for that. They do some wrap coverage, aaaaaaaaaand…we're out.
Wow. So two whole hours and not only does he not die, he doesn't set the record. I've just spent 120 minutes of my life watching someone get wet. Sweet. Man am I a sucker.
One outcome of all of this is that David Blaine, although creepy and admittedly psychotic, doubtless makes mucho cash out of this. And he's really not doing much. Seriously, living in a box suspended over a river? I'm supposed to be impressed? I could do that. So I need to come up with some ridiculous stunt quick, before he beats me to it. We're looking for something that seems vaguely dangerous, but really just requires me to live with being bored and hungry. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm currently thinking that hanging upside down for a record amount of time might do the trick. If I can get enough people onboard, I can pitch it to ABC and make millions! And have people post snarky things about me on the internet…
*Not because I'm some weirdo, but because it somehow seems culturally significant.
**When showing the live footage of Blaine in the bubble, ABC threw up the little LIVE tag in the corner and inexplicably included EDT. I'm sorry, isn't LIVE EDT the same as LIVE CST? I'd understand, LIVE at 8 Eastern/7 Central, but this was just "LIVE Eastern".
***At what point do the Boo-yah references die? I haven't actually heard him say it in like three years. I'll always love the SNL sketch where Tim Meadows is Stu. "Invitations read BYOB, bring your own….BOO-YAH!"
****As they're holding him up at the surface, we get some amazing shots of the vaguely attractive female diver. Let me see if I can paint this picture for you. She has her feet spread on the walk on either side of the bubble opening, leaning over to hold up Blaine. ABC decides the best angle is…right behind her. Giving multiple close-ups of her wetsuit ensconced taint. Thanks ABC, you guys rock.
How to Tell When You Have a Serious Problem
Something strange happened to me this morning. Driving around listening to the radio, not once, but twice within a couple of hours, I found myself saying, "Wow, this song is awesome…Who sings this?…I should check this out…Wait, wait, I've heard this before…Oh yeah, I already have this album…"* Now this means one of two things. Either:
A) I'm an idiot. I try to avoid coming to this conclusion whenever possible, so I prefer…
2) My music "habit"** is out of control.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a self-acknowledged "consumer" as my friend Joel will gladly tell you. Hi, my name is Jim and I like to buy shit. Among the things I am most wont to consume is music. I am overly proud of my cd collection (I broke the 400 mark a couple weeks ago. Some of you may be impressed, some of you may yawn, whatever.) This in and of itself isn't so much the problem, but when you claim to be as into music as I do it really shouldn't take two minutes of listening to a song on the radio to realize that not only do you know it, but that it's a part of your permanent collection.
This wasn't always the case. I used to buy a cd, listen to it until anyone within earshot wanted to vomit/cram the cd in question up my ass and around the corner…sideways (ouch!). By the end of a week, I'd have a pretty good handle on it. Needless to say, I'd be able to recognize it instantly on the radio and "sing" along.
A couple of years ago two things happened that changed all that. I A) started having a consistent income and B) joined BMG (I'll give that a legitimate endorsement some other time, it's well worth its own post). This meant that I was buying cds in bulk, two, three, four or more at a time. This meant that I wasn't able to focus the attention on one cd solid and they would end up on the shelf before I got a chance to intimately acquaint myself with them. (It's also a rough way to operate now that I'm sans income. Old habits die hard.) Also contributing to the problem is my love affair with the Shuffle Songs feature on my iPod and obsession with singing along whenever possible, causing me to skip songs I don't know in favor of ones to which I can wail along. At any rate, that's how I end up not recognizing songs I should really be familiar with.
That or I'm an idiot, your choice.
*The songs in question: Chicago off Sufjan Steven's Illinois album, subtitled-brilliantly-as Come on and Feel the Illinoise and Shine off the album with the same name by Trey Anastasio. Both excellent, consider them "JM Endorsed".
**By habit I mean habit as in "coke habit" rather than say a monk's garment or cracking your knuckles.
Post script: On another, vaguely related note, I can't recognize songs off cds I own, but somehow this also happened this morning. I walked in the door and Romancing the Stone was on the tv. I have never seen this movie. I'm not talking, oh, I've never watched it all the way through or, I've only seen bits and pieces or, I saw a couple minutes, but it was lame so I switched. I mean I have never seen this movie. I couldn't tell you a single plot point. Yet somehow, within ten seconds I was able to identify it. I think my brain needs a defrag or something.
