David Blaine

It is commonly known the human eyes believe everything they see-which has prompted society to caution against trusting them. Don't believe everything you read, don't believe everything you see, beauty is in the eye of the beholder-these are just a few warnings against trusting your eyeballs. They are devious, gullible bastards and they are out to get you.

David Blaine is one of many magicians to have capitalized on the eyes' inability to tell the brain the truth. Among others are David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy and various uncles who pull quarters from the ears of small children.

David Blaine set himself apart by eliminating the stage. Instead he took the perverted hobo approach and simply walked up to bystanders, asking if anyone wanted to see magic; people agreed because there was a camera involved. This explains 98% of all amateur sex tapes and why Samuel L. Jackson starred in Snakes on a Plane.

Most of Blaine's audience was of questionable variety, being either young consumers of cannabis, the elderly or children-specifically, people who believe we never landed on the moon, people who have false teeth (literally a mouth full of lies), and people who are tiny and believe in Santa Claus.

Among his many tricks were taking a guy's watch off his wrist, bringing a fly back to life, throwing a card into a window and executing a perfect feat of levitation. His claim is that he does this without camera tricks, and it has to be believed because the production value is so low there's no way he could afford special effects. He also managed to pull the head off a chicken. The only thing magic about that trick is that it didn't rankle the fur on PETA's back. The chicken's body and the chicken's head were reportedly not impressed.

Levitation is possibly his most successful and well-known trick. It is probably especially handy to use in truck stop or public park restrooms, or strip clubs. Blaine levitates a few inches off the ground, very shakily and claims that it makes him nauseous; he's not talking about the trick itself, but the dumbasses impressed by a man who can hide his tiptoes.

He has also been seen walking up to a group of children and asking if they wanted to see some magic. This was perfectly okay with nearby adults only because his penis was not hanging out.

Blaine's girlfriend has stated that Blaine is not known for being able to pull out with any kind of timing, which explains why there is never a rabbit in his hat. No good magician leaves home without a rabbit stuffed somewhere on his person.

A badass magician.

In recent years, Blaine has taken to performing feats of endurance. He started doing this because of people posting the secret of many tricks on YouTube and FOX's Secrets of Magic Revealed series, in which a man in a ski mask and a suit takes the path less traveled and doesn't rob a bank, but instead robs people of their childlike belief in magic.

Losing his audience, but still needing to make money (and have his face on TV because it's the only way to get laid when you're known for doing magic tricks),
Blaine decided to perform stunts rather than go into porn or sell narcotics like a respectable adult.

Having been called "the modern-day Houdini" (which isn't so hard considering the olden-days Houdini isn't around to be modern), Blaine has taken to encasing himself in ice, burying himself alive, standing on a pole, and holding his breath for a Long. Fucking. Time.

Blaine's decision to stop being an actual magician came in April 1999 when he thought it would be really cool to be trapped inside a plastic box under a few tons of water. During the stunt he ate nothing, but had a lot to chew on; like how many hot girls this would get him and if he'd maybe get an endorsement offer from Port-a-Potty. He drank a few tablespoons of water each day; more than that and he would have been able to stay properly hydrated-a completely irrational idea to someone who thinks lying in a box for a week is awesome. He stayed in for seven days, growing quite accustomed to the smell of his own funk. How he kept from masturbating with all that privacy no one knows.

After being released, Blaine said, "I saw something very prophetic ... a vision of every race, every religion, every age group banding together, and that made all this worthwhile." He also said that the smell of his own farts was intoxicating and thus his latter statement was not quite as poignant as he would have liked.

In 2000 being trapped in a plastic box was so 1999. Hoping to stay one step ahead of Mr. Freeze and corner the Sno-Cone endorsement, Blaine decided it would be really hot to trap himself in a block of ice. According to questionable sources, he came up with the idea after sticking his head in a freezer and saying, "This isn't so bad."

Thus David Blaine was encased in a block of ice for some 63 hours. Preserved Neanderthals everywhere reportedly rolled their eyes. Blaine was cut out by workers with chainsaws. It should be noted that Neanderthals aren't even cut out with chainsaws. They're removed gently, with a lot more regard given to their overall safety.

Blaine had no great epiphanies to share after this go round, but he probably realized it was a bad idea not to take Pina Coloda flavoring in with him. That shit is delicious on ice.

That's right. Nobody.

The year 2002 was pretty big. It was the second year of proof that the world wouldn't end in 2000 and there were probably some great technological and medical advancements, but none of that bullshit compared to David Blaine. Not only did he stand on top of a pole, he also published a book.

May 22, 2002 Blaine is lifted to the top of a 100-foot-tall pole and left there to die. Oddly enough, ancient Egyptians used to exile undesirables in this same manner, except with pyramids instead of poles. Due to some oversight, Blaine was given a couple of handles to grab in case things got too intense. This was a life-saving addition which would later be regretted by the event organizer. Splattered magicians make for great ratings. He stood on top of the pole (some call it a pillar because it sounds more ominous) for 35 hours until he fell into a stack of cardboard boxes-to much public dismay since he'd been challenged to just fall into a stack of asphalt.

In October of the same year his book, Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic, was released. Inside were little snippets about Blaine's life, some magic trick how-to guides and scavenger hunt challenging readers to find clues as to why Blaine was popular and why he wouldn't go away. The answers were: I dunno and hot bitches.

He's up there, not falling to his doom like a true entertainer.

321 days of the year 2003 were pretty damn great. During the other 44, the world had to put up with David Blaine locking himself inside another box and refusing to eat or defecate. A scout from a sweatshop organization in Taiwan came out. "I expected to see something amazing," the scout said. "You know something that would change the game. But I'm really disappointed."

Most people thought the event was okay. One person summed it up: "It's not as great as that time you stayed out of the media's eye for almost a year, but whatever." There were reports of objects thrown at the box, including eggs, beer cans, golf balls and employment classifieds.

2006 was a pivotal year for Blaine. After several years of doing stunts where he trapped himself inside something, he decided to mix it up a little and just submerge into a sphere of water. He had a tube ran in for air and food. This stunt could have easily been called "Placental Fantasies." Instead it was called "Drowned Alive." This was false advertising since no one was actually drowned and a little obvious, since one of the prerequisites of drowning is being alive.

After a week in the tank, Blaine was disappointed to find he still couldn't communicate with fish. He was offered a job as a water buoy, but in keeping with his challenge to do nothing productive, he turned the job down.

Blaine concluded the stunt by attempting to hold his breath for a record-setting time, but failed, with just a little over a minute left on the clock. Apparently the human body is pretty much addicted to that oxygen stuff.

A Blaine snow globe. Shake vigorously.

A lot of people would rather see an old lady punched in the face than see Blaine in action. Oprah is not one of those people. She actually invited Blaine on her show in 2008, and Blaine decided to hold his breath under water for a record setting time-presumably to avoid talking to Oprah. He got the idea from Steadman who'd nearly drowned in the bathtub a year earlier. This worked in Oprah's favor as well. Seriously, this guy is to conversation what Keanu Reeves is to acting.

Before going into the tank, which was filled with the tears of Oprah's viewers after they watched The Notebook, Blaine spent 23 minutes inhaling pure oxygen. He completely disregarded that thousands of impoverished people have to breathe regular oxygen every day.

For a blissful 17 minutes (at least for Blaine) he didn't have to talk to Oprah at all. Elsewhere, James Frey was green with envy.

After the stunt, Blaine commented that he didn't think he was going to make it, but that he just kept focusing on Oprah and that kept him under water. She's an inspiration to all to attempt drowning.

This was also Blaine's first Guinness record. It would have been two, but due to regulations, Longest Unsuccessful Suicide Attempt was not written down.

In September of that same year, Blaine, along with Donald "Golden Reputation" Trump, announced he would be hanging upside down for about 60 hours and not to worry, this would be interesting in no way whatsoever. Trump was involved because he helped finance it, which is odd considering the whole event could have been done with a piece of rope and a cell-phone camera.

Blaine stated that he would pull himself up to restore circulation and have a drink, making it not so much a stunt, but a desperate cry for attention from a man with apparent demons to face. Only hours into the bad decision, Blaine was seen standing up on a crane platform, the complete opposite of upside down. He'd neglected to mention that once an hour he would come down, have a nurse rub him off, take a piss and stretch. Kid brothers have been left dangling from trees for much longer than this, so it was disappointing to see Blaine, a professional whatever-it-is-he-does giving in so easy to his urges and ignoring the pleas from millions around the world to just stop already.

Bring it on, bitch!

Rehabilitation has been proving ineffective, but that could all change with the right program. David Blaine could be used as the punishment for all of society's misfits and rabble-rousers.

Have you robbed a bank at gunpoint recently? David Blaine is going to pull an Ace of Spades out of your pocket, chew it up, swallow it, and pull it from your pocket again. And that's with time-served good behavior.

Violate your probation and Blaine will stand on a telephone pole for three days and you'll be forced to watch the entire time and feign interest. Sure, we'd have to lax the torture policy a little in this country, but it could be quite effective. After about six seconds, even the idea of a guy standing on a pole for days at a time becomes unethically damaging to the psyche.

Blaine pictured at top of photo.