somebody should make a joke about how this isn't magic.

Criss Angel is weak, I saw him in vegas 3/2005 doing the human candle for someone's birthday, mom or grandma, well he did light himself ablaze (which was kind of cool) but the part where the extinguished him and suddenly he was one of the rescue team was added on for the tv, I was so disappointed I swore never to watch again. LAME ASS.

Try not to read any posts on the way to the parking lot!

So people would say, "Oh, he could have done it if not for the chains"?

Who is the clown who decided to have Boo Yah host this thing? Holding your breath for 9 minutes is nothing. Listening to Stuart Scott for 2 hours is the real torture. Not even the Seals should attempt that.

As for Blaine, he's done some stupid shit on his TV specials, but the roulette wheel thing has to be his worst ever.

das

I confess to only having watched the first ten minutes and the last fifteen, but does anyone know why Blaine talks like he's one of the walking dead? Spooky!

good reference...might of been more appropriate if it had been 37 posts though...

Personally, I didn't want him to die, but I'm glad he failed. There is no reason he should have gotten as much press for this as he did. Call it magic, call it an illusion, call it a stunt, whatever, what makes him so special that he constantly gets coverage for doing all this stupid stuff? Bill Needle said back in an earlier post, "Illusions, Patman. Tricks are something a whore does for money." Sorry Bill, Patman was right. This was a trick.

Or if it hadn't been about reading posts.

So can Blaine now be on MTV's "Call To Greatness"?

Fixed

The chains were so it would be more "Houdini like." Escape from chains as opposed to just some guy holding his breath for a long time.

I'm really surprised he didn't do it, as I never thought he'd be 'doing it" in the first place. Figured it'd be some illusion. (One beard hair actually a thin air house...hence the justification for a weeks worth of growth.) But if it indeed was an illusion, why not stay down til the right time? Maybe to schedule "Drowned Alive Two!"

I like Blaine's street magic and such. Fun ta figure out how it's done. But the illusions in this show were pretty lame. Roulette wheel, magic teeth, shattering card, cell phone "is this your card?", etc. Just not as fun as some of his old bits.

Can I now be on David Blaine?

Sounds like this was meant to be a stunt (not a trick/illusion), Evel Knievel-style... but without the motorcycle.

But his buried alive and frozen alive were both 'proven" to have been illusions. (body double, trap doors underneath while they 'sprayed the ice/cleaned the coffin glass, etc) I don't see Blaine so much as a stunt guy as he is an illusionist, and assumed this one would be fake as well.

Hmm

I agree. Why would you try and make a living doing this?
Time to start getting some computer skills so he can work in the real world.

I call BS on this stunt:

1) I watched the HD feed on my TV and did not see one little tiny bubble come out of his nose or mouth the entire time he was "holding his breath"

2) I noticed that there was a light that was showing on his face that formed the shape of a mask.

3) The whole get out of the chains thing was a way for him to get out of the air bubble that he was in.

4) I think that when the 2 female divers jumped in at the end they went for his nose. They did not rush him to the top of the tank for air. Instead they pinched his nose - like they were taking off a mask or some air tube.

Isn't it more likely that it would be the other way around? Who u foolin'?!

It's been a while since I've seen the Super Best Friends episode, but didn't Cartman try to drown kyle in a big plastic bubble?

Have you ever wondered what David Blaine's plan is for you?

I figured that was to prevent him from sucking water into his lungs when his body started to convulse.

Funny how you should mention Evel Knievel as he was on the special talking about the stunt (said Blaine was crazy?) and they had Blaine at Knievels home where he practiced holding his breath while laying on a couch - did it for 5 mins 5 secs.

LB...

Hey, i was not saying he should get a "real" job. I said that getting made fun of is just part of the job. I'm glad there are people out there like David Blaine. The downside of the life they have chosen is ridicule(sp?). If you voluntarily do something that may kill you, people are going to joke about you dying.

Actually...BIG cut in the middle. We have no idea how long he held his breath for. Coulda been 30 seconds...or however long the clip was on the show. (heck..even then he could have been breathing the whole time.)

Interesting. I never ready anywhere that his other stunts were illusions. But then again, I didn't watch either of those. Anywhere care to explain further or provide a link or something.

As for all the people saying this was an illusion and not a real stunt, if that were true, how come he didn't set the record and last the full 9 minutes? I'm not a Blaine-iac or anything, but I would have to say that this stunt was real because there would be no point in fixing the result if you don't get the result you were looking for.

Here's an article I got from the wire at work. It looks like he might want to try this one again:

Trainer says Blaine had convulsions, was unconscious when rescued
By PAT MILTON
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — David Blaine was unconscious and having convulsions when he was rescued from his 8-foot aquarium during a breath-holding stunt, his trainer said Tuesday.
"I wasn't focused on records; I was thinking of a rescue,'' said trainer Kirk Krack, a free-diving expert. Blaine was convulsing and "unconscious when we brought him to the surface. If we hadn't intervened, he would still be at the bottom of the sphere doing a breath-hold.''
The 33-year-old illusionist had been submerged in the aquarium with an oxygen mask for a week. Rescue divers jumped into the 2,000-gallon saltwater tank Monday night and hauled him up.
He was rescued as he struggled to break a breath-holding record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds. Blaine, who had spent some 177 hours underwater, went without air for 7 minutes, 8 seconds as a finale to his endurance stunt at Lincoln Center, which was televised live on ABC.
Blaine checked himself out of Roosevelt Hospital on Tuesday. Friends took him out of the hospital in a wheelchair and then helped him walk to a waiting car.
At home, he took a hot shower, played cards and was able to eat.
But "he was crying'' Monday night, said Dr. Murat Gunel, the head of Blaine's medical team. "He still feels today that he let people down.''
Blaine's liver and kidney functions had suffered while he was submerged but are now improving. His skin, which was peeling Monday night, "looks much better today,'' said Gunel.
His team concluded that strenuous training and losing 50 pounds so his body would require less oxygen left Blaine too tired before he entered the sphere.
They said Blaine wants to try the breath-holding stunt again. Next time, he plans to be in better shape, and do it without being in a tank for a week beforehand.
"He is going over everything he did and analyzing what happened,'' said Gunel, associate professor of neurosurgery at Yale University School of Medicine. "He is remarkably strong.''
"I think he was a great success,'' said Krack, adding there are only a handful of people who can hold their breath for more than 4 minutes with training.
Blaine started training in December, with some help from Navy SEALS. The water temperature was regulated to help keep his core temperature near 98.6 degrees, and he ate and relieved himself through tubes.
His previous feats included balancing on a 22-inch circular platform atop a 100-foot pole for 35 hours, being buried alive in a see-through coffin for a week and surviving inside a massive block of ice for 61 hours, all of which were performed in New York. In 2003, he fasted for 44 days in a suspended acrylic box over the Thames River in London.

Because you can't set a record for an illusion. If it's an illusion, and he "breaks" the record, there would be some serious outrage. There's a difference between making fools of a television audience with a stunt and claiming to break a world record.

The week submerged in water, the silliness with the chains, really ... if this is such a badass record that experts who've trained their entire lives can't match, why risk failure with all the added foolishness? Holding your breath under water for 9 minutes sells itself. The thing with the chains is something Gob would think up.

All that said, that's not why he didn't break the record. The public loves a rematch. Why do a 2-hour special when you can have 4?

das