David Blaine (and other associated crazy-ass white person nonsense)

Yesterday, Brad and I cut through Central Park on our way back from the bad shopping experience described in the previous post. We came upon a spot that we were certain only weeks before had been a mini children's amusement park, but now was a vast open space with a stage and cranes and a couple of dudes suspended upside down from them. There were people gathered around watching. And then it hit us - David Blaine.

For those of you who somehow may not know who David Blaine is, he considers himself to be a magician - an illusionist, even. Sadly, people rally around him in support of this ridiculous notion. But the reality is that David Blaine is nothing more than one of our world's most classic idiots - the "crazy-ass white person."

Now before you decry this post as racial, I ask that you consider (in addition to the fact that my husband is white, and I therefore have a pass to say whatever I want about his people) that throughout history, white people have made repeated attempts to demonstrate to the world that they are somehow invincible. Examples include Evel Knievel, who sought to prove that no dare was too devilish for him; Dean Karnazes, who ran 30 miles from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay in the middle of the night, and hasn't stopped running since (no, like, literally); and now David Blaine, whose stunts aren't even interesting - just stupid.

Why must the whites endanger their lives to feel as though they are truly fulfilling them? Whereas the rest of us are content filling each day with such joys as spending time with loved ones and otherwise socializing, eating, exercising, shopping, watching television...the list goes on and on - crazy-ass white people are content only to cheat death, stare it square in the eye, and mock it until it bites them in the ass (RIP, Evel Knievel). Believing only they have unlocked the secret of happiness through nonsense activities, the mere average-intelligent amongst us know that at least one secret of happiness is sustaining life.

David Blaine has been advised that this most recent "stunt" of his - a 60-hour inversion elevated above New York City (mind you, not a magic trick - not an illusion) - may lead to blindness, life-threatening elevated blood pressure, stroke, and of course, when he plummets to the earth if he makes it through the 60 hours, death by falling crash. He seems to believe that "there are ways to override these dangers." Fine, let's pretend I accept that. But even if there are, WHY do you want to try? Really, there are far more interesting and even at least initially fun ways to risk your life (just ask George Michael). I hear heroin is a blast at the start. And fornicating with hookers...quite a rush. But hanging upside down with a catheter for waste disposal and a tube for drinking, for more than 3 days after a one-week starvation? That's just retarded.

But alas, presumably, he'll survive - again. The news will be abuzz - he may even supplant Sarah Palin as the top Google search for a day. And then there will be the Oprah appearance (because as much as I love Oprah, for reasons I don't understand, she loves to indulge the crazy-ass white person). Then, silence. 2-3 years will go by before we have to hear anything about him again, during which he'll be plotting his next boring, inactive, moronic thrill. And - if we're lucky - by then, a new crazy-ass white person will have exploded onto the scene.

Fingers crossed.