Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear David Blaine,

You just took up two hours of primetime television performing a "stunt" I had never heard of until yesterday.

Of course, the "stunt" took up maybe 20 minutes of those two hours. We periodically saw you hanging upside down for "the past 60 hours," even though we know you weren't upside down that entire time (thank you, FOXNews, for busting Blaine on your web site today with the important news of his "cheating" by standing upright periodically throughout his "stunt").

I can't blame you for needing a few upright breaks. But, don't call that 60 hours of hanging upside down. It's like calling a bike event a 100 mile Century, but only marking out 85 miles. If it's not 100 miles, it's not 100 miles, and therefore it's not a century. Don't tell me that it is.

That didn't happen to me, by the way. I swear.

Anyway, for the rest of the two hours we watched you do the same card trick to random people all over the country. And then you "caught" a bullet in a tin can in your mouth. That was sort of exciting, until we watched 15 minutes of footage of all the prep work that went into it. Then it was kinda like you'd be an idiot to mess that one up after all the precautions.

Granted, I will probably never attempt to hang upside for MOST of 60 hours. Nor will I travel the country blowing people's minds with a card trick. Nor will I attempt to catch a bullet in my mouth, with or without a tin can.

But damn you, Blaine. If you insist on taking up prime time TV and wooing me into watching you, I insist that actually do something remarkable. I watched those card tricks years ago when you first showed us that you can levitate. I'm over it.

But yes, once again, I kept the TV on tonight while America waited, and waited, and WAITED for something to actually happen. That "something" being this Dive of Death we heard about all the livelong night.

I mean, we're on the verge of an economic collapse that could happen mere seconds after you Dive to Death. David, we turn to you in this hour of need to doing something spectacular to remind us that we're all just Americans trying to make it in this world of Wall Street types who seem to need my meager income to keep their six-figure incomes, retirement portfolios, and penthouses intact.

So, imagine my disappointment when the time came for this death-defying leap from 44 feet above ground, but all I saw was you take a step off the platform, then float gingerly toward the ground, not actually getting close to the ground, mind you, before you were hauled away by a cable, slowly, ever-so-slowly . . . while the commentator seemed not to now what to say, and while the crowd that watched was underwhelmed into silence, as well.

What, pray tell, was that supposed to be? It would be more of a Dive of Death for me to stand on a chair then jump onto my soft carpet stack high with pillows and a snuggly blanket.

In fact, I tripped in the hallway last week and I'm pretty sure now that walking down the hall is more dangerous than what I saw as your dive of "death" tonight. I don't have any cables attached to keep me from falling to the ground, flat on my arse.

I mean, I'm not going to attempt a dive from 44 feet off the ground. I don't even jump off my step ladder, for goodness sakes.

But to think, I put my DVRed America's Next Top Model on hold when I turned on the TV and saw you hanging from some sort of contraption. I thought that maybe this time, this would be the time you actually do something exciting. Something perilous. Something, I don't know, that Cirque de Soleil doesn't do every night of the week.

But, no. I took a Dive of Death by laying here on my couch, watching you stretch a coin for folks holding plastic cups of what I'm guessing was not just water. That would impress me, too, if I were sipping the trashcan punch.

I know Tyra will forgive me for my lapse in good judgement. However, forgiving myself for this poor use of my time and energy, well, I only hope I can be as forgiving as Tyra is.

Your power lies in your ability to make me watch, even though with every fiber of my being and sanity, I fight you and your "stunts."

Damn you, Blaine. Damn you.

C.T.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

Next time, you'll know. Tivo David Blaine and watch whatever you really want to watch live. That way you can skip through the boring parts. Not so much of a sucky time suck then.

MadMup said...

This should amuse you:

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/09/30/5-david-blaine-stunts-lamer-than-dive-of-death/

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