How starved are we for entertainment? I do not know the exact numbers on last night’s David Blaine Drowned Alive, but I bet it fared pretty well. Heck, I even watched the holding the breath part of it. I just can’t see why we watch crap like this. Were we watching to see if he would really die? I think that may be the driving force, although most will not admit it.
How many people watch NASCAR strictly for the crashes? A great number I would bet. You can only stand watching cars go around a track for so long. You need a break, or in this case a crash, in the action.
I watched the latest sham of a sporting event on ESPN the other night, The Impossible Jump. The show was based around a super extreme motocross guy jumping the fountains in Vegas. But, he wasn’t just jumping them, he was jumping them while performing a backflip. The show came on at 7:30 PM and was an hour long. I predicted that they would talk about the actual jump for 55 minutes and at 8:25 PM the jump would be made. I was right.
As they talked about the jump, they had this diagram of what was going to happen. A diagram that was constructed by a 5 year old it seems. The way they drew this out, it looked like the guy was dead. Jump time and the guy takes off, makes the jump, and lands safely. I’ve got to tell you, I was disappointed. I didn’t want the guy to die, but he could have at least laid the bike over and broke a wrist or something.
I think I am not the only one who felt that way, and maybe that is why we have events like this. David Blaine spent a week in the snow globe of water and then chained himself up and tried to hold his breath for 9 minutes to break the world record. He escaped the chains and made it to 7 minutes and nine seconds. He didn’t die, he didn’t break the record.
Isn’t this the equivalent of Geraldo opening Al Capone’s vaults to find old liquor bottles? Why was this hyped up so much? Why couldn’t he just get in the snow globe Friday morning and then 8 hours later do the stunt? Why is crap like this on TV while shows like Alias and Arrested Development get cancelled. Are good smart TV shows going to become a thing of the past? Can we now look forward to more Yes, Dears? More Freddies? More Two and a Half Mens? More David Blaine performing boring overhyped nonstunts? Good Lord I hope not. We may be starved for entertainment, but let's not fill up on junk food.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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3 comments:
I watched, but mostly because my wife picked Blaine as her "under 60" pick in our annual dead-pool tournament. We're both kinda annoyed by him, and maybe we're bad people, but we were hoping for the worst. Personally, part of me thinks the entire thing was just an illusion.
I was just passing through, but this looks like a pretty interesting blog. I'll be back!
By the way, ever notice that the "word" verification isn't really a word at all?
I actually think that is the reason he did not "break" the record. Not necessarily because he couldn't do it, but because he IS an illusionist. How would he have been able to satisfactorily prove to the Guinness people he did not “cheat” to break the mark? This is a guy who levitates for crying out loud.
If not breaking the record was indeed the case, then anyone who watched this spectacle, including myself, was royally ripped off because it was never in the plans to actually break the record.
Thanks for checking us out. We try to throw as much stuff against the wall as we can, and sometimes something sticks.
From what I was hearing on the radio, they said that Blaine was getting either pure oxygen or air containing a higher amount of oxygen during his week of floating in the snow globe.
That is a Guiness book deal breaker. By using a supply of pure oxygen during his weeklong stint, he would have increased his ability to hold his breath at the end. I think they called it oxygen loading. I don't know if using a pure oxygen feed will actually work before doing the stunt, but it's still against the Guiness Book rules.
So not only is he a failure, but he's a cheating failure.
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