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I tune in, minutes before the pruning exhibitionist begins his breathless shenanigans. My thoughts:
The macabre investment of ABC. They build up to this event by showing us the tragic death of this beautiful young deep sea diver after only 8 minutes of oxygen deprivation. And now, they remind us, "David Blaine is attempting to go without oxygen for 9 minutes. Next."
We cut to a promo: “See David Blaine talk about his amazing week, tomorrow morning only on “Good Morning America.”
The juxtaposition of life and death suspense with a morning talk show commitment is delightfully absurd.
We now see the Navy Seal guy prepping him for the long awaited stunt. “David…you have 1 minute and 30 seconds. Begin your preparations.” He intones calmly and reassuringly. “You know what to do. You;ve trained for this. Just relax and breathe…”
As he draws his last breath before the stunt, I think to myself “What if he laughed? What if someone said something really really funny just as he was going under? What if an involuntary chuckle popped the weeklong balloon of expectation and turned the entire preceding 7 days into the set up for a joke rather than the build up to a death-defying act?"
For the first two or three minutes under water, I’m thinking “Yeah, maybe you can do this with the guy talking you through this peaceful visualization. But could you do it if he were doing stand-up? Now THAT would be impressive. Plus it'd be a very funny reality TV show."
As time goes by, I start to find the whole thing really disturbing. The spectacle is unseemly. The people watching (including yours truly) are, at some level, like vultures—attracted by the scent of possible imminent death.
I’m also thinking, "I’ll bet all that screaming isn’t helping him. Did he train with these simulated conditions? Did the Navy Seals provide him with loud tapes of people screaming his name?"
The whole thing feels so artificial and constructed and shot through with tawdry commercialism and the the faux drama of Regis Philbin asking “Is that your final answer?” And yet there is something undeniably real and dangerous going on here. And I sort of feel like I shouldn’t be watching it.
As the minutes pass, I am feeling strangely uncomfortable. Almost breathless --if you will--with anticipation. Of what, I am not sure. Indeed, I can't tell if I'm rooting for him or against him. But it does feel like the oxygen isn't getting to my extremities. Clearly, I'm way too empathic.
Stuart Scott—master of inane solemnity and chief explicator of the obvious—reminds us “Now, remember: The medical experts have told us that if David is in trouble, we will see air bubbles.”
Ooops. I see some air bubbles.
Oops. It’s over.
Suddenly, it is clear: Millions of people have gathered to watch some guy catch his breath and get dried off with a towel. Stewart Scott solemnly reminds us "You are seeing this happen."
It's obvious that they had absolutely no contingency plan for what to talk about if he failed. Stewart Scott slings a few more platitudes about failure and success. Then we get to see Blaine blubberingly thank everybody "for making the week fly by."
The best part about it, of course, is that he failed. That confers some dignity and legitimacy on the proceedings; frees it of any suspicions of skullduggery or tricksterism.
OK, I wanted to scribble this up quickly so I could post it while it still had some "news" value.
But I have to sign off now, because I have to be up at 6 a.m for work. In fact, what I have to go through tomorrow makes what David Blaine went through seem like a nice warm bath. He may have been trapped all week in a small water filled sphere, but I’ll be trapped all day in a deadly boring meeting with a client.
Maybe I can get ABC to broadcast that. See if Teddy Vegas can survive 8 hours of mind-numbing jargon without any access to the Internet. Hmm. I'll have to talk to them.
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Posted on 5/9/2006
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