Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The Yank in the Tank Part II



My old buddy David Blaine is at it again.

Okay, okay, I don’t really know him, but when you have seen a fella suspended in a Plexiglas box over the Thames River in London, and that same fella urinated into a small tube and you watched his urine slowly trickle down out of the box, you feel like you know him. Know what I mean?

I was a witness to Dave’s 44-day fast in London. I was there on day 30. He looked tired and hungry. I wrote about the experience (READ It’s a Kind of Magic).

This time Dave has locked himself in a Plexiglas sphere because, as any good street magician/physical-feat-master knows, boxes are so 2003. He plans on staying in it for 7 days until his live ABC broadcast at which time he will go off of his breathing apparatus and attempt to hold his breath for 8 minutes and 58 seconds – longer than any living person ever in the history of non-dead living humans.

You can follow Yank in the Tank Part II HERE where you’ll be treated to groundbreaking coverage like this, “Then slowly we were able to discern David, the man we'd just seen standing around like any other human, swimming around a sphere like a fish. It was more beautiful than can be described with words.

I ended my column It’s a Kind of Magic with the following passage:

A heroic act or a stupid publicity stunt - 84% of those polled on CNN.com think the latter. One man in the crowd at David Blaine’s last day in the box may have summed up this viewpoint best, “Moses fasted for 40 days and brought back the 10 commandments - Blaine goes up there for 44 days to promote a one-hour television show.”

Granted this time there are a few differences. As I already pointed out, he’ll be in a sphere not a box. Instead of 44 days he’s only hanging in for 7 (he’s gone soft). And he’s not promoting a one-hour TV show, but a two-hour TV show.

Dave’s hoping for big ratings.

If I were him, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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