(Note: I promise, the brief political bit here is played entirely for laughs. I'm laying off politics for a while in a desperate, flagrant, obvious attempt to get my four-or-so readers back.)

David Blaine is probably the world's greatest magician. Well, maybe he's really more an alchemist than a magician. He's figured out a way to turn nothing interesting at all into money, power and fame. And that's real magic.

In 2005, Forbes called Blaine the the 98th most powerful celebrity in the world. That's not quite as powerful as that Malcolm in the Middle kid, but clearly more powerful than Amanda Bynes.

David's most recent spectacle involved hanging upside down for a long time and then pretending to drop. Apparently, most people who saw the trick responded with boos/yawns. Something must have went wrong, and David Blaine says that it's all Dubya's fault. The emphasis below is mine.

Magician David Blaine pulled a string of excuses out of his sleeve to explain why his latest high-profile stunt went wrong - even blaming President Bush's Wednesday night prime-time speech.

A day after finishing his latest "trick" - hanging upside down over Central Park for 60 hours before taking a "Dive of Death" from a 44-foot-high platform, a TMZ.com cameraman asked Blaine why the stunt went awry...

"...because of the president's speech, my show was delayed 15 minutes and all of the wind picked up," he said.

The (hanging like a) bat thing lost some luster when Blaine started taking breaks every hour to stand on his own two feet.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Blaine nodded and smiled to hundreds of fans watching the stunt as they screamed, "Jump! Jump!" and, "Do it!"

The screams for Blaine to "Jump! Do it!" might not have been related to the trick.

I've really got to say, this is the last straw with Dubya, as far as I'm concerned.

First he stole the 2000 election, probably by dropping in on a wire like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible ...

... then he started a fictitionous war in the desert paradise of Iraq by telling a bunch of vicious lies ...

... then he borrowed the Sorcerer's hat and conjured up Hurricane Katrina ...

... and I've always suspected that Dubya kidnapped the Lindburgh baby.

But now he's gone too far. Ordering his cabal of fascist Neocon cronies to sabotage David Blaine is just beyond the pale. Dubya MUST be impeached. Impeached, severely scolded, hosed down with cold water and beaten with a rake.

Of course, Dubya is far too stupid to have pulled it off by himself. This smells like Dick. Dick Cheney, of course, must be responsible.

Blaine's magic is amazing. I'm not even sure how to describe some of his acomplishments. But I'll try.

David Blaine has:

• Laid in a box for a long time.


• Stood on top of a pole for a long time.


• Sat inside of a box without eating. As Chris Rock said, "That's not magic. That's life in the projects."


• Stood inside of a container of water and breathed through a tube for a long time.

Future stunts he's considering include

• Not changing his underwear for six days.


• Sitting on a couch and watching all 48 Hours of Nick-At-Night's Car 54 Where Are You? Marathon, sustained by nothing but root beer and Fritos. (I've tried this and it's very hard to do. Without dozing off.)


• Sitting in his car, in his driveway, and listening to all 100 songs of WXLZ 104 FM'S "100 Greatest Rock Songs Of The 70's". And get this ... he's considering singing along with Stairway To Heaven. So don't miss the final ten minutes.


• Playing Halo 2 nonstop for six hours without a bathroom break.


• Watching all 172 minutes of Beloved* without once rolling his eyes. Not even during the scene where Oprah pees in the backyard.

Personally, I can't wait. If anyone is capable of actually doing all of this nothing and getting paid for it, it's gotta be Blaine.

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*Totally unrelated, extremely obscure sidenote about Beloved... next time you go to the fridge and find nothing to pour on your cereal, the best way to react is to put on a huge frowny-face and say, in your mopiest voice, "They took my milk. Them boys, they took my milk."

HT to Rey, although he might prefer to be unacknowledged, for getting me thinking about the ridiculousness of Beloved. I hope I've tied the topic into this post in a spurious and confusing way, as is befitting that particular movie.

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