The Underminer Visits with David Blaine, printed in Guilt and Pleasure magazine, Fall 2006, The Magic Issue

Well if it isn’t Mister David Blaine himself! Is that you or an illusion? Ha ha! It’s me, how are you? Wow last time I saw you was in dry ice or in that cube or whatever. Oh no it was in a sphere of water smack dab in the middle of Lincoln Center and your hands were purple and peeling and shriveled!

Yes! I was there! I waved to you but I think you were preoccupied with one of your large-sized female fans. It was weird how obese and fanatical your fans are. But maybe that’s just America now. I haven’t been in the country for so long. Yea I’ve been with Brad and Ange and Shi and Mad and Booboo, in Namibia, just helping them set up their new baby’s room and a sustainable community farm for a village. And then to come back here and see all this obesity and rampant consumerism and…you! In a big sphere like you are a giant human snowglobe! Ha!

Well anyway it was really fun to watch! Your whole Jesus moment! It was a really fun stunty fun thing! Even though you didn’t break the record and jeopardized your life and the careers of your assistant and doctors, it was fun! Really fun!

Yes I was there with your old girlfriend, ex-model and actress Josie Maran. Yes! Well we’re old friends, from waaaay back. And let me tell you she is doing SO well. She quit the ruthless modeling business—is showbiz just a big desperate plea for attention or what? -- and is pregnant and settled in Hawaii with her wonderful devoted husband. I think she just had enough the whole fame-game, and the predatory guys who circle around models in the hopes they can prove to themselves that they are cool and accepted in some strange constant wheel of narcissism from high school.

So I hear your dating another model!

Yes I also hear she is German.

Interesting.

Its funny, I was talking recently with Fiona Apple, another one of your exes! (she is great and grounded, thanks for asking, I’ll tell her you said hi!) We were just talking about how men these days are so immature and cant commit and how maybe in the end it’s been good for women like her because all that pain was used by her for artistic purposes to make Extraordinary Machine, which has gone on to be basically a modern classic.

She just sort of set out to do something, and had a clear goal, like you with the holding-breath idea, and then she just did it. She just did what she said she'd do!! You know, like just followed through?

But we were also talking about you, and how worried about you we are. No! I mean not like worried-worried, just concerned.

We were just wondering what is REALLY behind all this need for you to make a spectacle of yourself, you know? I mean you are SO GOOD at it and everything. But after encasing yourself in a block of ice for 62 hours, standing atop an 80-foot pole for 35 hours and burying yourself in a plexiglass coffin for seven days without food or water, haven’t you proven something to the little boy you left behind? Aren’t the challenges getting old? What about your personal life? And how perhaps you may be suffering from some deeper trauma you may have never acknowledged. Surely, the simple fact that you were called names and pelted with water and junk food as you hung from a box on the Thames is traumatizing enough.

But what about the challenges inside, hm? I know maybe while you are floating in saltwater, peeing through a catheter and eating no solid foods you may feel like you are accomplishing some sort of spiritual, sacrificial feat, but, well, It's just not really much of a path. you know?

Why don’t you, for your next act, try focusing on something that you really may find challenging?
Like instead of David Blaine: Drowned Alive, what about David Blaine: Commits to a Healthy Relationship! Or David Blaine: Examines his Male Body Dysmorphia and Need to Binge And Purge? Or David Blaine: Finds a Nice Jewish Girl Who Isn’t a High-Maintenance Model.

I mean, who do you want to share your $1.67 million apartment in TriBeCa? We need to find you some sweet girl. Or guy!

No no no. I’m not saying your gay! I just am trying to be as open-minded and embracing. To help you think outside the mental plexiglass box you are in.

By the way, who was your broker for that deal, because my friend Christie and Ed just bought a place in tribeca for half that. Too bad you had to rush in and buy without consulting me. I guess now you have to do another crazy stunt to pay off the mortage! Ha! Well good luck. Be careful. And Be Good to the Real You. Please.