David Blaine (magician and mentalist)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Featuring David Blaine

Episode Title: David Blaine (Magician and Mentalist)
Release Date: April 23, 2025
Host: Dax Shepard
Guest: David Blaine
Podcast: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, host Dax Shepard engages in an in-depth conversation with the world-renowned magician and endurance artist, David Blaine. The discussion delves into Blaine's extraordinary journey from a childhood fascination with magic to becoming a pioneer in the realm of endurance stunts, exploring the mental and physical fortitude required to perform his awe-inspiring feats.

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Early Life and Introduction to Magic

David Blaine opens up about his upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, highlighting the significant influence of his single mother. Born in 1973, Blaine describes his early exposure to magic, which began at the tender age of five or six. He fondly recalls performing simple card tricks for his mother in libraries, a practice that laid the foundation for his lifelong passion.

David Blaine [08:02]: "I started doing magic when I was about 5 or 6. And I would do tricks to her in the library."

Blaine credits his mother's unwavering support and encouragement as pivotal in nurturing his talents. Despite his parents' separation and his father's struggles post-Vietnam War, Blaine emphasizes the loving and stimulating environment his mother provided.

David Blaine [08:39]: "My mother gave me everything. I had the best childhood a kid could dream for. But by everything, I mean love."

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Transition to Endurance Challenges

While Blaine began his career focusing on traditional magic, his interests gradually expanded into endurance art. He explains how early experiences, such as holding his breath during swimming races, ignited his fascination with pushing the limits of human capability.

David Blaine [12:00]: "I think it all began just from holding my breath. I was on the swim team at the YMCA in Brooklyn..."

This intrinsic desire to explore the boundaries of physical endurance led him to undertake increasingly complex and daring stunts, blending seamlessly with his magical performances to create a unique hybrid act.

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Signature Stunts: Buried Alive and Beyond

One of the most discussed stunts in the episode is Blaine's decision to bury himself alive for a week, a feat that marked his transition into endurance challenges. He narrates the meticulous preparation involved, including practicing in a coffin and fasting to sustain himself without food.

David Blaine [24:51]: "We went to the cemetery where Houdini was buried... I would just practice. How long could I go?"

Despite skepticism from fellow magicians and the media, Blaine persevered, emphasizing the authenticity and mental discipline required to endure such extreme conditions.

David Blaine [24:52]: "I have to say, I think it all began just from holding my breath... And I was like, I was so excited to meet him [a fellow magician]."

Another notable stunt discussed is Blaine standing on a 90-foot pillar without a harness, highlighting the psychological and physical challenges he faced, including hallucinations and extreme cold.

David Blaine [30:06]: "It's the combination of the extreme environment, the standing up, no sleep."

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Physical and Mental Aspects of His Stunts

Blaine delves deep into the interplay between mind and body in his performances. He underscores the importance of mental control, relaxation, and the ability to override natural pain responses. This mental tenacity is what sets his stunts apart from conventional magic tricks.

David Blaine [05:19]: "The control of it, of course."

He also touches upon the physiological impacts of his stunts, such as starvation and refeeding syndrome, stressing the inherent risks and the comprehensive medical supervision required.

David Blaine [44:52]: "Now I don't advertise it and say I don't monetize them... But those stunts cost more than the budget. I always lose off of all the stunts."

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Influences and Inspirations

David Blaine acknowledges the profound influence of legendary figures like Harry Houdini and Buster Keaton on his career. He admires Houdini's relentless pursuit of pushing the boundaries of magic and Keaton's physical comedy and resilience.

David Blaine [15:00]: "He was an enigma now and in assignment and at all times. He was incredible."

Blaine also highlights the importance of innovation and originality in his work, striving to blend traditional magic with groundbreaking endurance challenges.

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The Making of "Do Not Attempt" Series

The conversation shifts to Blaine's latest project, the Nat Geo series titled "Do Not Attempt," where he showcases various extreme stunts from around the world. Blaine emphasizes the authenticity and rawness of the series, aiming to present the genuine struggles and triumphs behind each feat.

David Blaine [65:56]: "I'm so excited and I'm so amazed by everybody that I'm meeting. And I would say it's not a favorite episode."

He discusses the meticulous crafting of the series, ensuring that each episode not only entertains but also inspires viewers to push their own limits.

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Philosophy and Motivation

At the heart of Blaine's endeavors is a philosophy centered on human potential and the relentless pursuit of self-improvement. He believes in challenging oneself to achieve what seems impossible, thereby expanding the perceived boundaries of human capability.

David Blaine [37:01]: "Part of that is proving that we are capable of more than we think."

This drive is further fueled by his intrinsic curiosity and a desire to discover and share the "human truths" that lie beneath the surface of extraordinary performances.

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Challenges and Risks

Throughout the episode, Blaine does not shy away from discussing the significant risks associated with his stunts. From physical injuries to mental strain, he provides a transparent account of the dangers he faces and the exhaustive preparations undertaken to mitigate them.

David Blaine [44:44]: "The body can't handle it... My recovery was terrible."

He also touches upon the skepticism he encounters from peers and the public, often being dismissed as a mere magician rather than a true endurance artist.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Blaine reflecting on his journey, the lessons learned, and his ongoing commitment to pushing the envelope of what is possible. His dedication to both magic and endurance art serves as a testament to the human spirit's resilience and capacity for growth.

David Blaine [66:13]: "They keep pushing themselves. And it was pretty amazing to have a glimpse into that world."

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Notable Quotes

• David Blaine [05:19]: "The control of it, of course."
• David Blaine [12:00]: "I think it all began just from holding my breath."
• David Blaine [24:51]: "We went to the cemetery where Houdini was buried... I would just practice. How long could I go?"
• David Blaine [30:06]: "It's the combination of the extreme environment, the standing up, no sleep."
• David Blaine [37:01]: "Part of that is proving that we are capable of more than we think."

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Final Thoughts

David Blaine's episode on Armchair Expert offers listeners an unfiltered glimpse into the mind of a modern-day Houdini. His relentless pursuit of pushing human limits, combined with his deep-rooted passion for magic, creates a compelling narrative of endurance, innovation, and the unyielding quest for personal growth.

For those intrigued by Blaine's journey and seeking inspiration to challenge their own boundaries, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free. Right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. I'm David Shepherd. That's my brother's name.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I'm Neil Patman and you're Neil Patman.

[Dax Shepard]

And today we have David Blaine, the world renowned magician and endurance artist. Yeah, you have probably seen one of his special street magic, Real or Magic Beyond Magic? The Magic Way. And he has a new series out that is radical called Do Not Attempt on Nat Geo. It's out now and it's mind blowing. It gave me my palms and my hands were sweating during the whole show.

[Monica Padman]

And you guys know I love magic. And we get, we get to see some David Blaine magic in real life. He does magic for us.

[Dax Shepard]

It was shocking. It was insane.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The magic is just straight insane.

[David Blaine]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

And so if you're listening, you're going to hear X amount of this.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And then if you want to see the magic tricks, they'll be on YouTube because they're obviously visual. So please enjoy world renowned David Blaine. We are supported by Squarespace, our old friends Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. We love Squarespace. We have our Armchair Expert website which was built by Squarespace and it's gorgeous. It's a great, great product. If you want to build a website that looks as snazzy as the Armchair Expert site, Squarespace makes it simple. With their collection of cutting edge design tools, you can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits your brand. Or start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder. To get a fully custom website in just a few steps, Basic info about your industry goals and personality will generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. Squarespace also offers a complete library of website templates with options for every use and category. You can make a gorgeous website without any previous experience. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com and promo code DAX to get started today. We are supported by Britbox. There are some incredible shows coming out of the UK right now. The clever writing, the picturesque settings, the witty dialogue, they just do TV differently across the pond in the best way and you know, they're the Masters of charming mysteries set in quaint little villages where three people die a week. Not only do they have a huge selection of classics like Pride and Prej, but their new original shows are insanely good, too. Especially Ludwig with David Mitchell from Peepshow. He plays the introverted puzzle maker guy who accidentally becomes a detective and solves murders like they're crosswords. It's twisty and clever and an absolute treat to watch. So if you want to mix it up and see things differently, try Britbox and stream the best British TV. Go to Britbox.com and start a free trial today.

[David Blaine]

He's an upchurcher.

[Dax Shepard]

We cut everything anybody doesn't want. We have no gotchas.

[David Blaine]

That's how I am, by the way. Every show that I do, I don't let anybody sign a release until they see the footage in the context of the show, approve it, and then I give their footage. Yeah, because when I do the shows for abc, I don't want somebody to be on the show and not like what they did.

[Dax Shepard]

We're not hard cut.

[David Blaine]

That's rare, by the way. Well, Joe Rogan doesn't cut anything. He wants it all to be hyper real. Sure. But when I did that and the blood went over, they had to stop because the medics.

[Dax Shepard]

You did a trick on Rogan and it went sideways, had him push the.

[David Blaine]

Ice pick through the inside. Normally I go this way, pop blood everywhere. And they had to because it was a medical emergency.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay, hold on. For the listener who can't visually see what you're saying, you had what, a skewer?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, an ice pick.

[Dax Shepard]

When that happens, what is the range of emotion?

[David Blaine]

That's the thing, is it changes it from magic to now. It's like freak show.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Fine line.

[David Blaine]

I try to figure out the magical aspect of things, so I try to show it where there's no blood, no nothing. And you say, how could that be possible?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, how is it possible?

[David Blaine]

I figured that out through trial and error. So it started years and years ago where I would do acupuncture needles, but I would just go all the way through. I did scans of the hand so I could see where all the blood vessels were. And I started with the hand. I started to build scar tissue, so I started switching locations and I started going through the bicep. And what I realized is if you give it time, the blood coagulates. If you give it enough time, you can heal it before it even comes out. And there's nothing. It's about time and about pain. Control and about relaxation and not freaking out over the pain. That's the interesting aspect for me.

[Monica Padman]

The control of it, of course.

[David Blaine]

The mental control. Yeah, that's the fun part.

[Monica Padman]

That's wild.

[David Blaine]

One of the most difficult episodes in the new show I did is India. It's the most difficult to watch because they show the suffering. Because then the people will give more because they say, oh, he's really doing it.

[Dax Shepard]

Often in the case of the Sikhs, you do. This is a demonstration to God. It's an offering. So if you're suffering, it's even more.

[David Blaine]

It's also showing that we don't live by the flesh, we live by the spirit. That's why they do that. They desecrate. So, yes, that's part of the reason. But therefore, they like to show the blood. And for me, I was watching them do this and it changed my whole idea of what I do. I'm like, oh, my God, I don't want to traumatize you. It was so hard for me to accept that. I stopped them from doing what they do. And he's like, this is what I love doing.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[David Blaine]

This is. My guru taught me. This is my passion. I was obsessed with this guy Deepak, who's a circus performer, but his guru taught him how to break bottles over his head. Had to dive on mounds of glass.

[Dax Shepard]

Monica, you can't imagine watching. It's one of the hardest things I've ever watched. It's a mountain of glass, of broken bodies. Like you dumped out a 55 gallon trash can. That much glass. He's walking on it, dancing on it. Then he's up in the air, body slamming on top of it, but then.

[Monica Padman]

He'S just getting cut and bleeding.

[David Blaine]

No, it's surface. So this is the episode I do not recommend, by the way, because it's so different. I mean, for people that like to watch scary things. And. Oh, sure, you could watch the beginning, but it starts to become really, whoa. I wanted to go find the undercurrent, the things that are really driving what I'm most fascinated by, which is the ability to control pain with your mind. Ability to override what the body's capable of. And they find these secrets that they pass down for generations.

[Dax Shepard]

We're gonna go all the way back, though. We're gonna go back to Brooklyn.

[David Blaine]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

We're gonna go back to mom and dad.

[David Blaine]

Brooklyn, 1973. Started in East Flatbush. We moved to Park Slope. But Park Slope, during that time, it was nice buildings. It was a beautiful area. But it was a Dangerous area. At the same time, what did mom.

[Dax Shepard]

Do to support you? Your parents were divorced, yet?

[David Blaine]

Single mother, biological father. She stayed away from. He was messed up from the war. Viet. He was a minority. So he got drafted, and there was no way out. He was Puerto Rican. And I think what happens is, in order to get somebody to go into these combat zones, they take morphine. They take whatever they get from the infirmary. When he came back, it was so difficult because he was hooked.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Blaine]

So he started with heroin. And then my mother waited for him. She was pregnant, but it was just too difficult. He would wake up with these nightmares. So that ended between them.

[Dax Shepard]

What age were you?

[David Blaine]

He disappeared when she told him she was pregnant.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[David Blaine]

Then right when she was about to give birth, he showed up in the hospital, said, I don't love you anymore. I'd love another woman. Goodbye.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

What a place to present.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. But my mother gave me everything. I had the best childhood a kid could dream for. But by everything, I mean love. Or walks through the park, or take me to libraries or museums, or bring me to Coney island, where I would see those freak performers. We'd go into the aquarium. I'd play with all those different creatures that they have. But really, I would go. And I was fascinated. And anytime I saw a magician, she would let me just stop and watch. And I started doing magic when I was about 5 or 6. And I would do tricks to her in the library. Cause I'd wait for her to pick me up. There I was at PS230, and she worked a few jobs. So sometimes I would take the subway alone to the school, then back.

[Dax Shepard]

I love taking a subway. At 6 years old in Brooklyn, in 82.

[David Blaine]

Yes, by the way, I knew what I was doing. Just two stops. Got off. I walked to PS230, got back, and then I would go to the library that was right there, a block away. And then I would wait for her. I say this story over and over, so it's kind of redundant, but my mother gave me a deck of cards around that age. I would carry everywhere that I went. And I loved how it felt.

[Dax Shepard]

Still, I can tell when I'm watching you. There are moments in the show where you're interacting with folks and putting on shows. But, yeah, you holding a deck of cards to me is like me and a cigarette. I can tell. It's just this little safety blanket.

[David Blaine]

That's right. To this day, I fall asleep with cards and wake up with them stuck to my face.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. It's Never stopped.

[Monica Padman]

It's like, you're lovey.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. But back then, I only had the one deck, so I cherished that deck.

[Monica Padman]

Do you still have it?

[David Blaine]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that would be cool.

[David Blaine]

We had a bunch of fires back then in Brooklyn, so we lost.

[Dax Shepard]

What was she doing for a living?

[David Blaine]

She was a teacher. She was a social worker. She worked as a weight.

[Dax Shepard]

And what generation was she?

[David Blaine]

She was second generation. Her family came from Odessa. They moved to Scarsdale. She grew up with a very privileged life, but she left everything behind when she was 18 and just did everything on her own. Put herself through school, worked really hard, and education was first and foremost. But the most important thing to her was the encouragement, the love, the support. So it was specific to magic for me. But anything that I do is, like, the most amazing thing she's ever seen.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you have a child. You can relate.

[David Blaine]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Who were you in school? Like, what kid were you?

[David Blaine]

Up until we moved to New Jersey, and even in the beginning of New Jersey, I was that nerdy but funny, weird kid. And I think lots of my friends that are magicians were like, the kind of people that weren't fitting in. And I wasn't able to throw the footballs and the baseball, but, you know, I was like the kid that could throw the playing cards, but nobody knew I did magic. But you kept asking, other than my two best friends.

[Monica Padman]

Cause you were embarrassed.

[David Blaine]

Well, I'm lucky that I did it that way. Cause kids are emotional. Tough audience. I have so many friends that are magicians that stopped for many years because they did it to other kids. And the kids were mean and they felt terrible, so they never did it again. What happens is when you're young and you're doing magic, it's easy to get caught because you're learning.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right, right. They just want to bust you.

[David Blaine]

So somebody got busted with a thing that was like a little whatever, string. And after that, after he got busted, he was so embarrassed that he, like, stopped doing it. So I was lucky that Alani did it to my mother and all of her friends. And they were kind of hippies in the late 70s. So all of her reactions were just running away loud was the greatest thing ever.

[Dax Shepard]

And then what happens when you go to New Jersey, you start a new high school?

[David Blaine]

Well, I went there when I was nine.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[David Blaine]

What's funny is, in Brooklyn, it was a different kind of tough. But in New Jersey, the kids were actually tough. One of the kids would walk all winter long in a T shirt, and I was obsessed with that idea. So I would kind of mimic that and take it to the next level. So I started learning these weird skills that somehow connected to magic for me specifically.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I was gonna say. Cause what your work ended up being is this weird hybrid of magic and then these different industries, endurance challenges. Those are two different avenues that you combine very successfully. But the part I'm really interested in is the kind of overcoming the body, quieting the mind, forcing yourself to endure something that you otherwise wouldn't choose to. And I'm curious if you have a story or a theory on why you needed to demonstrate that was possible.

[David Blaine]

I have to say, I think it all began just from holding my breath. I was on the swim team at the YMCA in Brooklyn around 6, 7. And I was warm. My feet turned in, so I couldn't swim fast. I couldn't run fast. But what I could do is eventually I learned to not turn my head while swimming so I could hold my breath longer and longer. The coach would say, don't do that. You need to breathe. But I was making up on time, so I kept doing it. And then the kids started to watch because I was able to do multiple laps. And then I would challenge the older kids because they would be like, you gotta see if you can beat them. And I would just hold the ladder and stay underwater holding my breath. And I didn't realize back then that the mechanism of just remaining still and calm and overriding that feeling is the success to breath hold. And because really, the other kids, I'd let them go up and down, they would go up and down five times. But the up and down, and that doesn't help.

[Monica Padman]

It's counterproductive because you're panicking.

[David Blaine]

It's just not efficient. If you get trapped under a wave, the best thing to do is to just relax and wait it out. Your body's very capable, right? But if you stress and you fight, it's like even if you're getting sucked up by a current, you don't fight the current because you're never gonna beat the current. You just rel and conserve energy and go with it. And eventually you'll find the way out of the current.

[Monica Padman]

So you were getting validation at an early age from that.

[David Blaine]

It felt good to be able to do something that it was my own thing because I couldn't compete at the other things successfully. So I think that was the beginning of the love of endurance. Then studying Houdini. And his thing was escapes. Obviously that was his specific thing, and he was amazing at it. But I felt like what I was good at was endurance. I was like, how can I? And then the first stunt led directly into it. I was buried alive for a week.

[Dax Shepard]

We're gonna talk about it. When do you become aware of Houdini and do you go on an immediate rabbit hole and read about him? Are you immediately obsessed with him?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, but it started in the library. The same place that I started working on card tricks with the librarian that showed me a book of simple magic. I saw a book with Houdini, looked at the pictures, and I remember falling asleep. And immediately while I was sleeping, I kept seeing this guy chained to a building staring at me. It basically sunk into my mind without realizing it. On understand why. I just love the images that he was creating.

[Dax Shepard]

I can see those same images in my head, right? Him with these fucking iron shackles and all that stuff. That was very punk rock. And I'm like, okay, that guy's a stud. There's something really cool and dangerous about that guy. And where did it go and what's the history like? Was he standard for that day or was he an enigma?

[David Blaine]

No, he was an enigma now and in assignment and at all times. He was incredible. But what you're saying is relevant. The things that he left behind were real. So real to the point that he collapsed after doing the breath hold on stage and was rushed to a hospital where he died.

[Dax Shepard]

Do we not accept that it was from the punch the two days before Toronto? Maybe?

[David Blaine]

Yeah. With the kids in his dressing room. Possible.

[Dax Shepard]

He died in Detroit, right?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, but he shouldn't have done the breath hold. He was immense pain, but he didn't want to let his audience down. So he did the show. He did the upside down breath hold when he came out, collapsed on the stage, was rushed to a hospital, and then died in the hospital a few days later on Halloween. He was 52.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's pretty good.

[Monica Padman]

That's so young.

[David Blaine]

That's not good.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, no. What year was he. What was he operating in? The 30s?

[David Blaine]

1926 is when he died.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Doing these crazy tricks in 1926. Underwater tanks, clasps. Just the way things were made back then. They didn't 3D print anything. That was good.

[David Blaine]

He was risking his life. That's true. And he was pushing himself.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. If you had said he died at 31, I'd be like, yeah, it sounds about right with the life he was living.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. And since he didn't have k. Have kids, you start reconsidering. Oh, Wait, I don't want to kill myself doing something crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[David Blaine]

It's like, I'm not going to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so Houdini's. Obviously, I'm sure you're not unique in magicians that were obsessed with him, even.

[David Blaine]

If you don't love the stunts or his magic. Because he was a card magician. He was a magician. He had a magic show. Lots of magicians were against him in his day, so he's not a good magician. But I would say he was more like the greatest showman. He was doing the vaudevillian, the Dime Circus. That's how he built his skills.

[Dax Shepard]

But he is the Mick Jagger or the Paul Newt of magicians. Right.

[David Blaine]

My favorite movie is Cool Hand Luke.

[Dax Shepard]

There you go. I mean, this is a guy who just somehow reeked being cool. And am I missing a bunch of cool magicians between Houdini and you?

[David Blaine]

Oh, yeah. First of all, there was a guy named Chan Canasta. He would go on talk shows, like the biggest ones in London, and he would just take these incredible risks, just gambling on what people were gonna say. He was using psychology magic. He was doing the same kind of risk taking that a guy like Houdini was. But it wasn't dangerous, but it was still putting it all out there. There was another named Mac Norton, who I was inspired by. He was like the human regurgitator. He was a human aquarium. He could put fish and frogs and they'd live inside.

[Dax Shepard]

How long can a fish or a frog live?

[David Blaine]

He would do it in front of them, drink, and then come out.

[Monica Padman]

I'm just the testing process for these.

[Dax Shepard]

The trial and air.

[Monica Padman]

You're just laying there and like, I think I'm going to be this person now. So I'm going to swallow a fish tonight and see what happens. That is abnormal.

[David Blaine]

And had to never injure a fish.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's be honest. A few went down in the.

[David Blaine]

I probably just eat frogs. I've never injured one. I believe you not.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so you also, in your head, you just thought, I'm gonna try this?

[David Blaine]

No. What fascinated me was Harry Houdini wrote about it in his book Miracle Mongers, which is kind of the impetus for this entire show. It's the idea of searching for these incredible people around the world that have these amazing secrets. Some are real, some are magic. But just exploring that. And what fascinated me about Mack Norton, specifically the human aquarium, was Houdini had top build with him, and they were on tour together. And Houdini said that this must be for Real. And I was thinking, there's no way this guy was gonna fool Houdini. And he knew all the sight of hand and everything else. So I believed it was real, but there was no way to figure out how to do it. But I was thinking, there's also a Hirano Bosch painting from hundreds of years ago. The Conjurer, it's called. But in it, there's a man watching, and there's a frog coming out of his mouth. No one had ever done that. But I started thinking, if a frog could just appear without drinking the water with the frogs and putting it out, which is what the human aquarium did. If it could just appear, that's the closest thing to real magic. So I went into studying the physiology of the body, learning how to swallow swords, learning how to swallow bingo balls, learning how to eliminate the acid from the stomach, not eating for a certain amount of time, putting a gallon of water in the stomach, holding it what temperature, and then figuring out how to have frogs stay at the very top.

[Dax Shepard]

So your approach was to introduce yourself, be in front of someone for a minute before the frog came out?

[David Blaine]

No, for hours. When I did the scene with Drake, Dave Chappelle, and Steph Curry, I was doing magic and everything else to them. And I had a frog in your throat.

[Monica Padman]

Literally.

[David Blaine]

No. I had three frogs and also a gallon of water, which is very uncomfortable in this show. I went to Japan and met Kobayashi, who puts six liters.

[Dax Shepard]

Said the hot dog champion.

[David Blaine]

Yep. Six of these in his stomach in less than a minute. It's the most painful thing of everything that I do in any of my shows, including breath holding for 10 minutes, including sewing my mouth. That's the most difficult part. And it's a part nobody even thinks about.

[Dax Shepard]

Drinking six liters of water.

[David Blaine]

He had to do that to stretch his stomach out so he could fit.

[Dax Shepard]

All those hot dogs.

[David Blaine]

That's right.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you leave New Jersey as quick as you can?

[David Blaine]

No, I left when I was 18 years old and started working.

[Dax Shepard]

And you went back to Manhattan?

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So when did you have an actual routine, and what version of magic were you doing?

[David Blaine]

At the beginning, I went to the neighborhood playhouse, and I stayed with this incredible teacher, Richard Pinter. There was that Robert Houdin quote that Orson Welles used. A magician as an actor playing the part of a magician. And in the class, I would do these magic exercises, and I would do them in a very typical magical way where I would do the patter of the trick.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Cause they almost come with a script.

[David Blaine]

Kind of I was more along those lines. And he's like, really read that. And when I started to read it, I realized how ridiculous and I just broke into a puddle of tears of laughter. So then I started to do magic.

[Dax Shepard]

With my own personality.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. Cause I was thinking if somebody could take this and change it into something, it wouldn't be like, watch me. It kind of stutter and then it would change, Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. I think it takes a lot of confidence for you to go, okay, I'm gonna do this kind of dry, monotone, not showy. The thing I thought was corny, you're not looking around and seeing that version working.

[David Blaine]

I was working at restaurants. I was doing magic to everybody. I started to understand the strongest way to communicate with simple close up magic. And what I loved to watch was the way people reacted. And the less I would force, the more their reactions would be. So I kind of obsessed over the reactions.

[Dax Shepard]

Can you relate to a flash? I remember learning that flashers, what the kink is, is seeing the person's face. Do you know that about flashers?

[David Blaine]

No, I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, the flashing isn't like necessarily that they're dying for someone to see their penis. It's more they're into the reaction. That's their kink in the face.

[Monica Padman]

The shock on their face is what they're after.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

There's people that just run around and flash people. I think this was huge in the 70s. I guess when I was in the box in London, I had sometimes wimbit would do that to me.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, sure, sure, sure. I gotta earmark that too. I mean, people went nuts with that box.

[David Blaine]

Well, actually, the media painted the inc were relevant to the story. People would come and they're like, where's all the action? And when they'd come, there was like, nothing. Cause I'd say like 99.9% of the entire time was just amazing people. But then you'd get that one egg donut. But it was actually helpful to me because all of a sudden it would become about getting that thing off. Then four hours were gone.

[Monica Padman]

People might not know I want to.

[Dax Shepard]

Do a big thing on it. But yes, that one is called above the bullet below.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. Harmony.

[Dax Shepard]

44 days in a 7x7x3 plexiglass box.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to go through each of those.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So you started. You didn't have a period where you were trying to do really showy, jokey, any of that.

[David Blaine]

No, but when I was 18, I went up in a comedy Club where my friend was performing, convinced me to do magic on stage and I did a trick. It went terribly wrong and I didn't get back on stage at all until I was like 30. I kept doing magic.

[Dax Shepard]

Not on a stage, no way.

[Monica Padman]

You had what the kids have in the elementary school.

[David Blaine]

That's right, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And how were you making a living? Like, how does a magician make a living?

[David Blaine]

In 1995, I was doing all the fancy restaurants. I'd go in and at first I was a waiter and everybody would come back just to watch and they would try to leave a really good tip and I'd say, no, no, no, tip me. A normal tip, but come back. So you come back to see me do magic. That's when I was like 18 and then I started just working the restaurants up on lower Park Avenue.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, so restaurants would hire you to walk through the restaurant?

[David Blaine]

No, I'd walk into the restaurant, I would do magic to the staff, to the manager, be like, can I do magic to the tables? And I won't ask for anything, but if they want to tip me, they can. And that was actually very good. But really what happens, I would get booked to do private gigs off of that.

[Dax Shepard]

I asked because in LA you have the Magic Castle. So people go there and then they might love a magician and then they know to ask that person to come to a party. I'm just wondering how 1. If you're wandering around Manhattan, I guess it's just word of mouth.

[David Blaine]

Back then I had a. A really cool business card. Had the definite magic on the back of it. It was all black with eyes on it. I would run into people years later that would pull it out of their wallet and say, look, I still have this in my wallet. And then people would call me to try to book me, and then they would say, how much? I would say the price and be like, oh, that's too high. And I'd say, go get a deck of cards. Then they'd get a deck of cards. I'd do magic to them over the phone. They'd say, okay, you're hired.

[Aaron]

Oh, really?

[David Blaine]

But then I had the idea for the show, so I ran around and shot me doing magic to people all over the streets of New York.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you do Streets of magic in 97 and then you do another special the following year, 98. Magic man. Yeah, and that's still card tricks and stuff. We're not doing anything endurance wise yet.

[David Blaine]

Leading into the airing of it is when I buried myself alive.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so how do you decide to transition from the kind of magic you were doing to doing buried alive.

[David Blaine]

I went in kind of unknown and came out, and there was this incredible reaction to it, which was crazy. A dear friend of mine who has a great library of magic, I was living behind his library of magic in a pantry room. And one day he opened up a book, Ja Du, which is about the Indian. And he showed me a stunt where a guy was buried alive. And I knew Harry Houdini wanted to do the buried alive stunt, but he had died before he had a chance to do it. He had done another version, but I was like, oh, this is interesting, but nobody's gonna believe it. And my friend Bill, who's a great magician, he said, we should bury you, sneak you out, do it in Central Park. Then a month later, we'll sneak you back in. I was like, no, it has to be real. So I was like, we're gonna do it underwater so everything is visible. And I fought with him about it. Cause he's a magic purist. And lots of my magician friends would fight me on the. Who cares about these stunts? There's nothing magic when you jump off the pill. You need to disappear and end up in the bottom and then appear back up top. And I was like, no, but that's not fun. It's an illusion that you spend money, build it. So I was like, I'd rather just really bury myself. And eventually, I buried myself alive.

[Dax Shepard]

How does one train?

[David Blaine]

We went to the cemetery where Houdini was buried, which is out in Queens. They sold caskets there. So we bought a coffin, and we brought it back to his apartment, put it in the living room, and I would just practice. How long could I go? And what I really became obsessed with, which always practiced as a kid, was fasting. When you remove everything, your brain starts to change, and things become much more meaningful that you would normally just ignore. So you become more sensitive to colors, emotion, to everything. And it's kind of amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you're in this plastic box under three tons of water for seven days. And is the fasting? Because my first question, of course, is, how do you poop?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, you can't. So you have to fast for a week before. So I had a trucker's tube. It's called what truck drivers that go long distance have. And then since I wasn't eating, didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Have to go poop.

[David Blaine]

Right. Even in the 44 days, I had the same setup. And it was fine, except that my stomach shut down. And afterwards, recovery was terrible.

[Dax Shepard]

Did it start getting attention day one or when did it start getting massive attention? And did you have a goal of how many days?

[David Blaine]

I went in for my birthday and then came out a week later, basically. So I set the time, which was seven days, seven nights. I think what happened was lots of magicians were so against it and they were saying, oh, this is all a hologram. It's not real. He's not really doing it. I remember the amazing random went on Entertainment Tonight. So he's a trickster. It's not real. There's no way he's doing it. So people would show up, firemen and people, they'd shine lasers at me and then I'd be like, what are you doing? Because the laser wasn't going through, it was me. And then I would wave and then they'd wave back. But what happened was that magician, Randy, they flew him to New York and he looked at it and went, yeah, it's real. So then the vibe on it shifted to, oh, wow, this is a guy that's really doing something.

[Dax Shepard]

Was that like day four? Yeah, I think that's when I became aware of you. I would have been 22 and I'm like, what a dude. That hit.

[Monica Padman]

So it was in a tank, I.

[David Blaine]

Was in a coffin. And it was buried, I would guess like nine feet deep. And then three feet above me there was a see through plexi water tank. And that was six feet deep. So when you look through the water, I was there, right below it. And then there was air pumping in and out. That was my big concern was what if the air supply, something goes wrong?

[Dax Shepard]

For sure.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. But we had a very good team and they were in charge and careful.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you self fund that Jimmy.

[David Blaine]

Nederlander, who was a Broadway producer that I'm still close to, and when I do a show, he will be the producer. He backed it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, how does one monetize this?

[David Blaine]

I haven't monetized any of the stunts ever.

[Dax Shepard]

Only the ones that are on tv.

[David Blaine]

No, those cost more than the budget. I always lose off of all the stunts. I usually have to work and do gigs like the next year to pay back the money.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[David Blaine]

No, no, I never monetize them.

[Dax Shepard]

I wasn't accusing you of it.

[David Blaine]

Now I don't advertise it and say I don't monetize them. But even when I do the balloons, I say I don't want a penny. I look at them as performative. Cause when I was a kid, I was so struck by strong visuals like the balloons for example, I always imagined if I was a kid and I was at PS230 and I saw a guy flying over my head on a rig of balloons, it would make my brain go crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a dream. When you hold a helium balloon, your next thought is, how many would I have to hold before it lifted me off the ground?

[David Blaine]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

So the Next is in 2000, frozen in time. This is a fail. But it's a hysterically successful fail, which is you were going to go for 72 hours encased in a block of ice, but you made it 63 hours and 42 minutes.

[David Blaine]

Well, we started late. That was the issue. Everything was not right, so it delayed the start time.

[Dax Shepard]

This was maybe the most difficult recovery after you got out of there.

[David Blaine]

My training was I'd sit in ice baths and see if I could endure that. And then I would go into ice lockers in Nyack, and I would stay in them for as long as. It was always difficult, but I was like, okay, I can do this. It's gonna be ice around me. It'll have the igloo effect. It was a warm November, so the air pumping through was 68 degrees. So I was like, this is no problem. And I was completely. That's a stunt that, to this day, messed me up the most. And I could never, ever redo that one.

[Dax Shepard]

So what went wrong?

[David Blaine]

It wasn't just the standing. It's like the constant radiation of the cold from the ice that you don't think about standing in one place. The edema that occurs. So everything swells down here. No sleep. And the hallucination started kicking really hard, and it became a living nightmare. And to this day, it was the most difficult stunt that I've ever done. Then there was the drip of the cold.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's like waterboarding.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How hard was it for you to surrender?

[David Blaine]

No, I didn't surrender because the goal was to finish. We went live on abc, and they were going to break you out at the end. My original idea was, I'm going to break myself out, which was ridiculous. So they cut in with a chainsaw. We had made it almost to the end. The vision of this stunt was something that I thought was going to be much better, of course.

[Dax Shepard]

So you didn't have to signal them like, I'm not making it 72. It was on a schedule.

[David Blaine]

No. Everybody there that knew me started saying, you have to cut him out now, because I was tripping out of my mind. But when they started going through the ice with the Chainsaw. I started grabbing at it. Oh my. Yeah, because I didn't know what it was. My brain, I was out of it.

[Dax Shepard]

And that has to be from the temperature because you've spent that much time by yourself.

[David Blaine]

It's the combination of the extreme environment, the standing up, no sleep.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you catch yourself falling asleep?

[David Blaine]

No, you can't. Because if you fall into the ice, your face will freeze. You get frostbite. That would be a disaster. So, no, I stayed awake. There was hard.

[Monica Padman]

Did you fall asleep when you were buried alive?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, I'd wake up and I wouldn't even know I was there. I'd be on like a boat in the middle of the ocean sometimes.

[Monica Padman]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, vertigo. This one's really nuts. You stood on 100 foot high pillar.

[David Blaine]

Like 90 foot, but yeah, just under.

[Dax Shepard]

2Ft wide without a harness.

[David Blaine]

They had the things that could go up and down though, so there's those handles if it got windy. I had stability, but I could have easily had something go wrong. And at the end, I started to hallucinate really hard again. So I was supposed to jump into this little bit of boxes because they were so worried that I was hallucinating because I thought the buildings behind me were shaped like animal heads, but they were just New York City. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, there's some gargoyles.

[David Blaine]

So they started to build the boxes really high and as close to me as possible, thinking that I was gonna fall off wrong or earlier.

[Dax Shepard]

You were standing for 35 hours. A day and a half.

[David Blaine]

The big problem with that one actually was my dear friend James Purse, the designer. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, we love James Purse.

[Dax Shepard]

You want an extra strong T shirt?

[David Blaine]

That's what you saw. He made me something really cool. This hoodie with this design. What I wasn't prepared for. Cause it was the end of May in New York City. It 39 degree night time. So now you're again battling the cold and you're standing up there shivering the whole thing. So your energy is just depleting quickly. So that's something I wasn't prepared for. So I think that's what threw that one off for me is just. I took a beating that I wasn't ready for.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you ever find yourself wobbly?

[David Blaine]

No. If there was any time of wobble, those things would just come up. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

This is a dumb question, but are you scared up there?

[David Blaine]

No. So I lived on 11th street and Fifth at the the time, and I would just stand up on the corner of my building and I would put like a flower pot upside down on the edge of the building. I would just stand there. Lots of times in the beginning, an ambulance would show up or the fire door. Then they knew it was me and I wasn't going to fall off or jump. But that's how I trained myself. So I just changed my brain. So whether it's up there or down here, it's the same. Like if I said to you, you have to stand here for 36 hours or you will die. You're going to do it. You'll figure it out.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, now that I have kids, but I might have given up.

[David Blaine]

No, you wouldn't. Trained yourself. And just 160ft up, stood there and looked down and made yourself comfortable that you could rewire your brain. And that's part of the thing that I love about all these challenges is you do learn to rewire your physiology or your brain or the way you think about things from a wiring point of view. So that's why they say when you're looking out of an airplane, you're not afraid. But when you stand on the edge of a building, you're afraid. It's because your hard wiring is like, you know, this height, standing on a cliff, looking down, you understand it.

[Dax Shepard]

My analogy is like I've skydived and it's not scary. Bungee cord is very scary because you can see the ground and you decide to dive at it.

[David Blaine]

Your brain understands those heights, but through evolution, we were never up 30,000ft.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Craving your next action packed adventure, Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. Like Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, where a lone astronaut must save humanity from extinction. Narrated with stunning intensity by Ray Porter. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms, unleash your adventure aside with gripping titles that'll keep you guessing. Discover exclusive Audible originals, hotly anticipated new releases and must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Because Audible knows there's no greater thrill than the one that speaks to you. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat. Start your free 30 day trial at audible.com wonderyus that's audible.com wonderyus At 24, I lost my narrative. Or rather, it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes and politics. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think Listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks both recognizable and unrecognizable names about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph. My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up, they connected with the people that I'm talking to, and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the one Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Dax Shepard]

What if your mind could trick your body into feeling sick or even worse? In Hysterical, I investigate the bizarre medical mystery that unfolds in a high school in upstate New York. It starts with one girl developing strange, violent symptoms. And then another, and then another. Rumors begin to swirl. Is it something in the water inside the school or is it all in their heads? Hysterical is my search for answers. And along the way I uncover surprising connections to unexplained incidents around the world. Events that challenge everything we think we know about our bodies and our minds. Named Podcast of the Year at the Gambies, Hysterical is a mind bending, unforgettable Binge all episodes right now exclusively and ad free on Wondery. Start your free trial of Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What is happening in the internal narrative? Because this is my assumption is there is a dedication to doing something novel and unique that no one can do. And I'm gonna prove it. What is the identity piece of all this?

[David Blaine]

So I think for me it starts from a visual because I was struck by those visuals of Houdini when I was a kid, like standing on that pillar. I was with Guy Osiri at a cafe and he's like, oh, look at that pole right out there. That's kind of cool looking. And right at that moment, a bird landed on top of it and I was like, oh, that's gotta be my next thing. And then I obsessed over that idea of just like a tall column. And then I started researching and I found San Simeon and all the pillar and all the people that lived up on the pillars. And I became obsessed with it. But then the fun part for me was learning how to jump, because you start at 5ft, then 10ft. Constantly trying to learn new things, challenge myself and override the inherent fears that we have. I think that's part of the thing that I love.

[Dax Shepard]

But again, do you like it? Because you go like there's an infinite possibility that I'm discovering. Is there a freedom of, oh, I think I have these limits, but in fact, I have a much more infinite scope. Can you articulate what the joy is.

[David Blaine]

Part of that is proving that we are capable of more than we think.

[Dax Shepard]

I think even to be drawn to magic, you kind of want more out of life. You want life to be magical, and you want it to have more out there than is just presented to you. You're, like, starving for more as you're saying all this.

[David Blaine]

I'm seeing Stranger in a strange land over your head, which is funny. And then above that is brave, not perfect. All these titles are great.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no. Don't get any ideas. This room.

[David Blaine]

No, no, no. But I think it's much more simple than that. For learning magic, it was just. I loved how cards felt in my hands, and then I loved how I could change the course of my Mother's Day with a simple trick. The endurance thing was just being able to override and do something that was unique to me. Once I started to come up with these, how do I make this into a visual? How do I make this into something striking? That was where the love of performance art intersecting with magic was exciting, even for the series. It said, only give me ideas, that when you say them, it's going to make me uncomfortable. I want things that make me uncomfortable. I want to learn. I want to break the comfort zone.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I related to you a ton. Again, I'm projecting, but I'm watching you watch a guy break a bottle on his head, and I can see in your face, you're like, fuck, I don't want to do this. And I'm going to have to do this, because I can't not do this now that I know it can be done.

[David Blaine]

I understood that there's a technique, but I also understood that there's a great risk to this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[David Blaine]

And I also understood that you could easily slice your eye. You could do anything. And then normally I have a learning curve. I'm like, well, I don't really have a learning cur curve. Everything was happening quickly during the last year of filming. And I was like, can I do it? And at that moment, my daughter called, and when she called, somebody's holding my phone. I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this. But I still couldn't get out of my mind, because the way he does it just makes no sense to me.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so fucking disturbing. I want to add, he started with some water bottles, and you're like, okay. But then he goes to a fucking square whiskey bottle, and I'm like, this is nuts.

[David Blaine]

I would watch it over and over, over, and try to understand, how does this make sense? Because it's so counterintuitive. So it was something that wouldn't leave my mind.

[Dax Shepard]

So then is it more not about bravery? Is it about intelligence? Are you, like, you're smart enough to figure this out? Figure this out?

[David Blaine]

That's such a good question. I think it has to do with. It's an idea that just gets stuck in my head, and then I can't get it out.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like an OCD thing.

[David Blaine]

Yes, thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

That's more what we got there.

[David Blaine]

So it's not that deep.

[Dax Shepard]

It's obsessive compulsion.

[David Blaine]

Yes. It's an idea gets stuck in my head, and I'm trying to work out the mechanics of it. I'm trying to understand it.

[Dax Shepard]

That makes sense. I needed an explanation. Thank you.

[David Blaine]

I don't think it's a Bravo type of thing. I think it's more internal.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. There's an angst until that is solved.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Do you feel relief when you're done with one of those, or do you feel elation?

[David Blaine]

I just love Deepak so much that I was so happy to let it go.

[Monica Padman]

But, I mean, like, the burial things, you've completed yourself when you're done, when they let you out of the ice. Well, I guess your brain is kind of fucked up. But is the feeling relief, or is it yes, I did it?

[David Blaine]

It's never a yes, I did it. That's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you get peace from it? I had this obsession.

[David Blaine]

That's a really good question.

[Dax Shepard]

I've now done it, and now I have peace until I think of the next.

[David Blaine]

Well, no, but they're not all based on that obsession. One time, I was like, oh, 15 minutes. One time, 20 minutes and two seconds. Underwater heartbeat was eight beats per minute. They had telemetry on me, so it was like this fascination with what's possible. Some of it is that. Some of it is an idea gets stuck in my head. Some of it is just the visuals is so compelling that I just want to do the pole.

[Dax Shepard]

One is interesting because I once saw in Australia on a trip, an orangutan. They just put telephone poles up for them to play on, and these big orangutans that would just sit at the very top, and they were so peaceful, and it is such a disturbing image. Oh, my God. That thing likes being 60ft in the air.

[David Blaine]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's very memorable and terrifying to a terrestrial creature like us also, when.

[David Blaine]

You'Re up there, there's a stillness now all of a sudden. And there's no phones, there's no distractions, there's no food, there's nothing about when I'm gonna eat. So suddenly you're kind, you're present, you feel everything. You see the sun go all the way across the sky. You see things that you would never normally stop and pay attention to and they're amazing. There's so many different things that drive for each individual thing.

[Dax Shepard]

But to Monica's question, I think I have a bit of an answer and which is again, this is what I always say that I love about the track. On a motorcycle, your mind can't wander. If it thinks of something else for one second, you'll go off. And so my addiction to it is just. I go for eight hours, they're 20 minutes minute sessions. And I cobbled together like four hours of being dead present, which is so rare for me. My brain is so fucking busy.

[David Blaine]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm imagining maybe there's also this relief from maybe a noisy brain otherwise.

[David Blaine]

Or it's a heightened sense of awareness.

[Dax Shepard]

And that can be very pleasurable.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, people, when they're getting into accidents, they say they see everything in slow motion and it's because everything else is gone. So you're aware of everything.

[Dax Shepard]

You're taking in more data too.

[David Blaine]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, above, below. We gotta talk about that one. So as we said, 44 days in a 7 by 7 plexiglass box hovering 30ft in the air. There was a webcam so people could watch the entire time. Yeah, as you already said, you had fasted for that, so you don't have to go duty for that long.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, it was like a 47 day fast. You drank nothing but purse 1.2 gallons.

[Dax Shepard]

Of water a day.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, 4.5 liters. In London on the River Thames, right by the Tower Bridge. So it was the most beautiful view ever of the river. It was pretty amazing and surreal.

[Dax Shepard]

As a layperson, my thoughts are, what does it feel like to starve? Because you really go into starvation at that point.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. I'd read all of the books from people that had done extreme fasts or protests where they would fast against the government. Like Bobby Sands when He died in 66 days or so. But then I started speaking to people who had done fasts. And you're always curious, are they really doing the fasts like they say, or are they taking some sort of glucose it's hard to believe that the body can't. I did go right to the breaking point. I do think going that long is too much on the body. But the things that I had read about were all exact. They said in about 28 days, in about a month, you start to have this pear taste in your mouth. You switch from breaking up muscle tissue and then the organs, and you start to eat your own body, of course. But then it starts to taste sweet. And I was so paranoid because I had water that was coming up, but again, pureed too. No minerals, no nothing. And when I was drinking it, it became sweet in, like, 28 days, exactly when it.

[Monica Padman]

It said it would.

[David Blaine]

And if I hadn't read that, I would think that they were putting sugar into the drinker, but I still thought that I would make people stand below me and I'd pour water out into their cups. I'd say, taste this. Is there sugar in it? I didn't trust my own team with it. I thought they were all trying to, like, save me. Is there sugar in it? They're like, no, it's water.

[Dax Shepard]

By the way, if you're on his team, you're like, he's fucking lost his mind. They're like, don't even let us taste the water.

[David Blaine]

They say, oh, it's just water. But that happens. And then around 40 days, I start having really bad heart palpitations.

[Dax Shepard]

It's really bad on your heart. Right.

[David Blaine]

It's tough on every organ.

[Dax Shepard]

How long does the hunger part last?

[David Blaine]

That's gone in two days. I would have dreams of eating certain foods.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Did you start planning? Cause even when I have a flu that lasts, like, four days and I haven't eaten and I can't eat, I start thinking about McDonald's french fries, like, day three. And I just start obsessing about when I get to eat those. Did you have a meal planned?

[David Blaine]

So in the beginning, I was dreaming of smoked salmon on a bagel of cream. But then as it evolved, I started dreaming of soup. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

For sure. Easy.

[David Blaine]

And I would wake up in the middle of the night after, like, day 30. I'd have vivid dreams. I left the box, got out. I was eating a meal, and I'd wake up panicked.

[Dax Shepard]

You cheated and wounded. Yeah. Failed.

[David Blaine]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like relapse dreams.

[David Blaine]

I had a great starvation expert, Dr. Jeremy Palatuck. We published a paper in New England Journal Medicine, was very proud about the effects of the refeeding syndrome. Because when I came out of the box, he. He assumed when I was going in. My team even tried to give me sugar vitamins, which, by the way, I probably would have died if I had taken them, because the metabolism. Your body wouldn't shut down and go into starvation mode to preserve itself. I wouldn't take them, of course. So I did the entire 44 days. When I went to the hospital, he didn't believe it was real. He thought I was cheating as well, which is what everybody assumed, because I'm a magician. Oh, what's the trick? So he put me on an IV right away, and my phosphate levels went. And I almost went into shock.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I just want to frame this. So what was most dangerous about this whole thing was refeeding?

[David Blaine]

I think so. I think the whole thing is dangerous once you go over 30 days. So I would never recommend anything like that to anybody.

[Dax Shepard]

Cause if you had gotten out and eaten a pepperoni pizza, you would have died.

[David Blaine]

I don't know. But I know that when they put me on the iv, my phosphate level just.

[Dax Shepard]

Why did it.

[David Blaine]

The body can't handle it.

[Dax Shepard]

Walk me through the refeeding process.

[David Blaine]

I went on the iv, and then, boom. A friend had sent a trunk from Harrods full of food to my room, and I was giving it to all the doctors and nurses. And then two days later, I was so hungry. There was a bag of potato chips in there, and I was like, what the hell? I opened it and ate. Agony, the worst. Stomach, like, horrible pain. They had to readjust and take care of me again. Eventually, I got back to eating, and then everything comes back in full force.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so there was the starvation part. And then. How do you deal with boredom?

[David Blaine]

I always say to everybody, boredom is a choice. And I kept writing that. And I have a journal and a pen I had in there, and I wrote over and over, boredom is a choice. And everything is perspective. Everything is how you see it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

So I think you choose to be bored, and if you want to be bored, that's fine. But the mind has so many things. You know Rainer Marie Rilke in his book Letters to a Young Poet? I remember reading that when I was younger. And he says, you know, even if you're locked up in the most solitary prison confinement, you can still imagine where you are, what you're doing. You can see your friends.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's, I guess my question. How much of your day were you floating off into to the ether of imagination?

[David Blaine]

I have to say, a lot of what I do, and I think with magic as well, is based on numbers and logic. I was Breaking it up. It was 10, 56 hours, 44 days. I was breaking everything up into time, numbers. And then I would say, okay, I just need to get to the halfway point, 22 days, which I would then break up to 11 days. And then when I got to 22, I was like, okay, this is now the starting point. So I only have to do that again. And then I would all these logic puzzles and things in the journal and things that I just love doing to occupy my mind. And then also the people that would come that would walk by to work every day, I became friends with all. You know, I was like, communicating.

[Monica Padman]

Were you up?

[David Blaine]

It was like 30ft in a completely glass box.

[Monica Padman]

So people could hear you?

[David Blaine]

No, but they could on that camera that was up there if they wanted to. I think that was one of the first continual live stream things.

[Monica Padman]

It's very similar to an Olympic athlete training your brain to just keep going and pushing, ignoring every signal you're receiving.

[David Blaine]

No, I think Olympic. They have to work much harder.

[Monica Padman]

No, I think you're working much harder than they are. Really?

[David Blaine]

No, but I think this is more along the lines of accepting the conditions. But also it's different when you know the beginning and the end. Then it's just, how do you get there?

[Monica Padman]

That's true, but that's a mindset that you know the end. You hope you know the end, but you might not because you don't know how your body's gonna really react.

[David Blaine]

That's true.

[Monica Padman]

You anticipate the end, which I think after athletes do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, now you say it was exaggerated in the media, but I must know the. So people did start vandalizing or. There were at least a handful of. Someone threw eggs. Someone threw balloons full of paint.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, that was cool. It was like an art. He tried to cut my water supply off.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, there we go.

[David Blaine]

Okay. He was angry.

[Dax Shepard]

What do you think those few vandals were reacting to? Because I have a very strong opinion about what it was.

[David Blaine]

No, I want to hear your opinion.

[Dax Shepard]

I think there's something in us as a social primate that feels like we need to police how much attention people get. There's just a guy who's getting all this attention and now people are stopping.

[David Blaine]

Also, it was a see through box. So it was kind of like what you're saying. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Was there any women that did this shit? You gotta imagine it's dudes that were throwing shit.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So I just think there's this like, whoa, why is this guy getting so much attention? He didn't do X, Y and Z. You get attention for X, Y and Z. And why is he getting this attention? And fuck this guy.

[David Blaine]

There was this one guy that used to come every day because his girlfriend wanted to come see it. Oh. And he'd be behind her. And every day he would walk up and go like this to me, but behind her. And she'd be waving and he'd go like this. But when he would come, which was almost every day, he would make my day. I would laugh so hard because he was so passionately angry.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[David Blaine]

So when he would come, I would smile and wave at him. So he started to come on his own. Then I have full communication with him. He provided such an incredible distraction that he became a very relevant part for me. We became friends at the end, when I got out, he was waiting in the hospital. I was so excited to meet him. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, again, that's. That other social priming thing is like, I don't like this guy's getting all this attention. Wait, this guy kind of likes me. I'm a part of the attention now. I'm in. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

People don't like being on the outside of something or feeling like I can't do that.

[David Blaine]

But I also think there's a part to it of what you're saying. That's weird. It makes no sense. And why is he doing it? You paint your own version of what the reason is. You're projecting what you feel onto that.

[Dax Shepard]

Last thing before full show is Vegas residency for 10 months at resort World and then now at the Wynn. And I guess I was maybe shocked to read that your very first residency was 2023.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you not tempted to just go grab those bags of cash before? I mean, I've already learned, frustratingly. So you don't seem motivated by money.

[David Blaine]

Not at all.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't trust you.

[David Blaine]

I'm not complaining. I do fine. But money's never been the decision making factor. So my mother taught me when I was young because she grew up with extreme privilege, but left everything, did everything by herself and was much happier than when she lived in a big house in Scarsdale. She said, the way I think about things is if you would do it for a dollar, she would say, penny. But if you would do it for a dollar, then you should do it for whatever. And if you won't do it for a dollar, then you shouldn't do it for whatever. When I think about things like, would I do this if it was a dollar? Yes or no. And that's how I decide on almost everything. And it could just be the person or the team. And that's enough of a decision making process.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. And so your residency, you're doing three days a month, is that right?

[David Blaine]

Because physically you can't.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's what I was going to say. This is where your act sucks. Whereas if you're just doing a bunch.

[David Blaine]

Of magic, magic tricks, you could monetize the hell out of it 30 times a month. That wouldn't be fun for me. I wanted to show that I know anything can go wrong. Yes. I know that I'm giving everything I have to the audience.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

And I think that was a problem with Houdini. He was so driven by satisfying the people that were coming to see him that he pushed himself to the breaking point.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He didn't have the type of act that you could do 20 times a month, but he did it 20 times a month.

[David Blaine]

Right. That's why he was always in incredible shape. And that whole dime circus, vaudevillian performing.

[Dax Shepard]

They were the toughest of the tough.

[David Blaine]

Seven shows in a row.

[Dax Shepard]

I was obsessed with Buster Keaton for a long time. And, yeah, he grew up as a little kid in vaudeville. Axe and getting thrown. His family would kick him, put them in a suitcase and chuck them into the audience. Physicality incredible. Oh, what a fucking genius that guy was.

[David Blaine]

So when I made my first TV show, I was studying Buster Keaton a bunch. And I remember his thing was he tried to do everything in one take, no cuts. So that led to what I was trying to do at Street Magic is try to get one take, do the magic, get the reaction without cutting. That was inspired by him. He was a phenomenon athletically.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, he's the first Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan in his best day is just Buster Keane.

[David Blaine]

Supposedly Houdini gave him the name, although that's been disproven. But he had said that Houdini named him Buster when he was five because his parents used to throw him on the border going stages into the wall and Houdini. So kick him like a size Buster.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that very most famous stunt of his that people can picture in their mind, which is the front of the building falling. He's in front of a house he built himself. And then, of course, the last frame is. It falls flat. And there's one window open on the second floor of the face of the building, and it falls perfectly around him. And he had like 4 inches on each side.

[David Blaine]

It's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

And half of his crew quit. They were like, we're not Sticking around to watch you get flattened by the face of this building. Okay. So the Nat Geo show. It's called David Blaine. Do not attempt. And I watched India.

[David Blaine]

That's the one you watched? Yeah, it's the hardest. Oh, man.

[Dax Shepard]

By the way, though, that's first. When I get the link.

[David Blaine]

Southeast Asia would be the one I would say to watch. First starter piece, then Brazil, then all the others. And then at the tail end, if you're like that, then, okay, I'll watch India, but carefully. And I also think lots of them should be watched by adults. Watch it first. Make sure you understand, because there's some things that are scary. Like I push a steak knife into my nasal. Yeah. Which is crazy. And then like he said the bottle breaking thing, which is what woke me up in the middle of the night, which is why I called the show. Do not attempt. Horrified of the idea of somebody trying to imitate that.

[Dax Shepard]

This is my great curiosity. With you young magicians. It's like no one will tell anyone their tricks. How the fuck are you supposed to learn?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You hound them until they tell you. Or books the secrets get told.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. Or you reverse engineer it like a logic puzzle. You figure it out diligently and then you come up with your own version by doing so.

[Dax Shepard]

You got Deepak to pull a string you put in your mouth out of the side of your face.

[David Blaine]

Yeah. And I figured that out by watching the Urs Festival. So they were pushing things through and I was like, wait, so there's a passage there. And that led to trying to figure out how to turn it into a magic trick.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So do you feel any compulsion? Like what I is you're really upfront about generally what's magic and what is an endurance thing or just a pain threshold. But some of your tricks, will you always declare whether they're magic or not?

[David Blaine]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So the one I saw where you put a string in your mouth and he pulls it out the side of your face. Is that magic?

[David Blaine]

No, it's real. Combined with magic, which is the stuff that I like. Cause then it makes the magic more believable because then you're not like, oh, what's the trick? You're like, but wait, that thread is really coming out of his skin.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What part is the illusion? It's the exciting part.

[David Blaine]

That's right. The stunts themselves are not tricks. It's a different thing.

[Monica Padman]

You'd think you'd have like all these holes in your face.

[Dax Shepard]

You're not in great shape. Right. You've damaged some stuff Damaged?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, big time. And I go up and down, up and down. Right now I'm on the up. I've definitely messed up my body and my metabolism and everything else. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

What is the thing that is hardest of all the fallout from these things? What's the thing that you're like, fuck, I kind of wish I didn't do that.

[David Blaine]

Now it's like I'm starting to feel the effects of everything.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you 53?

[David Blaine]

51. You know that logic puzzle? It's two days ago, he was 18 years old. Next he turns 21 years old. How is that possible?

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, two days ago.

[David Blaine]

Two days ago, he was 18 years Old.

[Dax Shepard]

So he has to.

[David Blaine]

Next year he turns 21 years old. How is that possible?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's easy, because if he's born On January, bingo first.

[David Blaine]

So two days ago, he was 18. But yesterday, on December 31, he turns 19. The last day of this year, he turns 20. But next year, on the very last day, he turns 21.

[Dax Shepard]

I was helped by having a January 2nd birthday.

[David Blaine]

It felt very natural. He was 18.

[Dax Shepard]

Now they do a lot of impaling, the fakirs. That's kind of their signature. Or maybe I'm wrong, but that seemed to be what I saw the most. Putting skewers through the inside of the arm and pushing them out, popping their eyeballs out with a sore.

[David Blaine]

That was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I called my optometrist. I was like, what are your thoughts on this? He's like, you're going to degenerate your vision. I was like, yeah. No, but yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

They go in and pull their eyes significantly out. But it's very difficult to watch. Even the way you're reacting. That's just from hearing it, but seeing it. I couldn't even believe that this was real.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So someone might be inclined to think because you are willing to put these skewers through your own hand, that it might be easy for you to watch it. But then watching you, I don't think it is.

[David Blaine]

It was very difficult for me.

[Dax Shepard]

I gotta say. What's really fun is these guys are doing this incredible stuff, and the guy's jumping into glass and everything and then the bottle. But David's got, like, some tricks up his SL even they haven't done. So it's like after all the glass, he's like, hand me a piece of that glass. And then he just starts eating glass. And they're like, whoa, it must be fun.

[Monica Padman]

It's funny to me that you think what they're doing is wild. To me, it's the same eating glass and cracking a bottle. In fact, cracking a bottle over your head to me is like, it happens at a bar.

[Dax Shepard]

You gotta see it.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

You really gotta see it.

[David Blaine]

But what you're saying is, right, it does come off as that. But the way he does it is his guru teaches him a method, and he learns how to do it. And it is precision. It is something repetitively, and it's flawless when he does it. It's kind of like, how is that possible? How does he do it? And there's no bump.

[Dax Shepard]

It's more like watching a gymnast land a crazy trick. You go like, oh, yeah. There's a total technique here.

[Monica Padman]

But eating glass is the same. Just so you know, from an audience perspective, I mean, you saw it. So maybe to you, you could say it's very dangerous.

[Dax Shepard]

I'd prefer to try eating glass than hit myself in the head with that whiskey bottle.

[David Blaine]

I would say don't do either, but.

[Dax Shepard]

If you were recommending one over the other, I think you'd agree with me.

[David Blaine]

I don't recommend either.

[Dax Shepard]

Because can I chew the glass up fine enough?

[David Blaine]

No enamel on my teeth. My nerves are exposed. It hurts all the time. Hot and cold sends pains into my head. So I don't recommend either. But like I said, that episode is the one that the show is titled Do Not Attempt. Because of.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, we should make a fine prize.

[David Blaine]

That's the one that's, like, the most.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not telling you. But, yeah, my mind, I'm like, yeah, I could grind glass up in my mouth fine enough to where it's.

[David Blaine]

And then it's so easy to just cut.

[Dax Shepard]

Slice up your glass so you're doing.

[Monica Padman]

It and you're not bleeding when you eat glass. Wow.

[David Blaine]

But it's something I don't recommend at all. I always tell magicians, if you want to get into magic, do card tricks. And ironically, that's the stuff people like the most. Right. The other stuff is I'm obsessed with finding things out that seem impossible and then trying to figure out how to do those things and combine them with magic. For the first time, I'm showing the process of that learning curve. I'm showing what I normally would never share. And by having the real part of it exist with magic, it kind of stops the audience or the viewer or the spectator from just writing it all off right away. Which is what you said you didn't like about some of the magic that you've seen. It's like, immediately like, sure. What's the trick?

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe I should have told you this at the very beginning. I don't like magic. Monica loves magic and we have debates about it, all of that. And I've gone with her numerous times to see magic. I've even hired a magician for her birthday one time.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I've had two magician birthday parties as an adult.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And you'd like more?

[Monica Padman]

I love it. I went to a really good magic show in New York. Now, I don't remember his name.

[David Blaine]

Ossie Wind.

[Monica Padman]

No, it was at the Nomad Hotel.

[David Blaine]

Oh, Dan White.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

I love that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, it was so good, I cried.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you get on with other magicians?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, yeah. Dan used to work with me. He's great. I have to say, most of my best friends are magicians. That's who I spend all my time with.

[Dax Shepard]

I put you guys in a category with really great guitar soloists, which is one only can get this skill by being in their bedroom by themselves for very long periods of time. And I think that's a personality type.

[David Blaine]

But also magic's a little different because the performative part of it is just like you're always doing magic, if you do it to the same person over and over, they're gonna get bored. So you're always looking for new people. The plane flying. Heroes do magic to half the flight.

[Dax Shepard]

How lucky to be on a fucking flight. And David Blaine's on it.

[David Blaine]

But people say, oh, do you feel bad saying no? Like, no. I mean, this is how I practice. This is how I improve. This is how I'm constantly training. And this is the part of the process that I like the most, is that constant tweaking, learning, changing, modifying, adding things.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you thought about what the shelf life of your own skill set is? Do you think there'll be a peak and a decline, like all trades or no? Is this one impervious to decline? Do you think you're getting better?

[David Blaine]

Yeah, I do think I keep learning more. And I have two of my favorite tricks I've done for the last 30 years. And just recently, a few weeks ago, I realized that you can combine the two. And how did I not realize that for 30 years, these two things combined beautifully. Now, one of my favorite magicians, he was doing this incredible trick that I saw him do when I was 18. It was just a card trick, but it was so good. He did it in front of a small room of people that I was laughing and crying at the same time. And he stopped doing magic because he said he was doing that trick that he's done probably a hundred thousand, who knows how many times. And in the middle of it, he forgot what he was doing. His brain couldn't process anymore, so he stopped doing magic. At that point, it would be a.

[Dax Shepard]

Cognitive thing, probably, not a physical thing maybe. Yeah.

[David Blaine]

Who knows?

[Dax Shepard]

What seems interesting is overnight so many people are attracted to you in this very intense way that's not anyone else's normal experience. Like in high school. Fiona Apple, who I'm watching her video over and over again, I know is dating this magician and I go, really funny. She could be with Leonardo DiCaprio. She could be with any movie star. She's with this magician.

[David Blaine]

She's just brilliant. The way she thinks and the way she absorbs information.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you even yourself a little shocked with like, oh, wow, I'm dating Fiona Apple.

[David Blaine]

I mean, I was lucky and amazed to be around, but I had met her before and I was blown away by her and thought she was incredible.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we all were.

[David Blaine]

But I met her before she was famous.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, before she was famous?

[David Blaine]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Is this. Is she a California person?

[David Blaine]

She was. She grew up in Venice, but not anymore. I still speak to her.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you do? She's one person I've never met that I'm still dying to meet.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, she's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

I one time heard you on Stern. You've done Stern Several times.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, two, maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well then I've heard both of them.

[David Blaine]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I've tried in the past to explain it to Monica and I really can't. But I thought the most fascinating part of the interview is you were talking about being able to convince people you can read their mind.

[David Blaine]

Cold reading, which is just generalizing kind.

[Dax Shepard]

Of information, making high probabilistic guesses.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

I think that psychology applied to psychics or tarot card readers, I think what they're doing is they're estimating what's normal, what you represent, and then kind of feeling out that information.

[Dax Shepard]

You look at me and you're like, 50 year old white guy, but he likes World War II documentaries. And I'm like, that's right, I do.

[David Blaine]

But also, you could go into the characteristics of a person as well. What they've been through, what struggles they've been through.

[Dax Shepard]

How did you learn this? I was so fascinated when I was listening to you talk about that. I guess 20 years ago there was.

[David Blaine]

A book that I read which was called King of the Cold Readers, the Fundamental Book of Information on how to Read People. It's so old now, it's Kind of outdated now. The way to access information is just so incredible. It's such a different game now because of the Internet. Just the techniques that are employed are incredible. But I'd love to do magic tricks, but you might have to sit here.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good, good. We'll get Monica there.

[David Blaine]

I'll show you the new trick that I was talking about.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're listening and you want to see the magic that's coming next and you can go over to YouTube and watch Magic Tricks with Dav, Blaine and Monica and maybe me. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Well, David Blaine, this was incredible.

[David Blaine]

This was so fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Your modern day Houdini. And we got to talk to you. Everyone watch. Do not attempt. I want to say we talked about how gory is. It's a awesome show. It's beautifully shot. It's a very, very cool show. I think this is going to be w popular.

[David Blaine]

We worked three years on it and we all worked around the clock on it and everybody was amazing. We had the best team and we all gave it our all.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's very obvious.

[David Blaine]

And also when we went into these places, I wanted to show not like the fancy beaches and resorts. I wanted to show the things that most people never get to see. So we went into places that nobody would go or would want to go or things nobody would want to do and showed the beauty in what they do and all the things that you're seeing. It's like they. They've really put their thousands of hours into those feats that they're doing. That's why to me, it's magic. It's because of the invisible work that goes in that you don't equate for. You don't think about the amount of work and faith and diligence and practice and failure and repeating that they put into it to make it look so simple.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Blaine]

And so that's why I think this is kind of like a discovery of people. And they're constantly a student. They never, never see themselves as masters. They're searching for the next learning curve, the next thing, the next challenge. And they keep pushing themselves. And it was pretty amazing to have a glimpse into that world.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's admirable.

[Dax Shepard]

It's really neat. Yeah. You're looking at someone who has funneled thousands of hours into 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 9 minutes, and you're like, wow. They just funneled it and refined it and pointed it and it's very cool to see that. Do you have a favorite Episode.

[David Blaine]

For me, it's more like the characters. We don't show this, but I'm, like, in tears every time. I'm so excited and I'm so amazed by everybody that I'm meeting. And I would say it's not a favorite episode.

[Dax Shepard]

The people you love.

[David Blaine]

Oh, yeah. Things that I saw and witnessed and was given an insider into their world. So it's like there's so many things in each thing. Ramesh, the guy who built his fire act, but he's the rickshaw driver by David. His passion is fire.

[Dax Shepard]

David puts fire all over his head.

[David Blaine]

That part's beautiful. And I've seen him before, and I was blown away by his acts. So then going and meeting him real time and then having him give me, like, crash course. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, well, good luck with the show. It's truly great. I can tell you guys spent so much time on it, and it's a pleasure meeting you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Thanks for coming.

[David Blaine]

Thank you.

[Monica Padman]

Yay.

[David Blaine]

Now you guys want to see the real magic people? Turn this off and I'll show you the good stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi there. This is Hermion Permian. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact checker. Ms. Monica.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, I have an update. Something wild happened yesterday.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my goodness. After we worked. Mm.

[Monica Padman]

I went somewhere. I won't say where.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I went somewhere there. And I basically witnessed this person. I don't know. I thought he was just very, very, very drunk. But then I was told that maybe he was on, like, a drug by someone who could tell.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And it was so scary. Oh, he was, like, falling. This other girl was like. That was really, really scary. Seen this person there before. And I do sometimes wonder in general, like, what's happening. Yeah. Is this person okay? But nothing has ever been this extreme. And it was really, really crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Were they vocally.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Obnoxious?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of stuff were they saying?

[Monica Padman]

I mean, they were on the phone and kind of just screaming on the phone, but just like stumbling around the whole place and falling down. Like it was.

[Aaron]

That's not like, an atmosphere where.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

People are acting.

[Dax Shepard]

What time of day?

[Monica Padman]

The day after we recorded, so 3:30 on a Tuesday? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Monica Padman]

It was really scary. And then my friend went up and said to the manager, just, hey, you need to keep an eye on this person. Really? Doesn't seem okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And the manager said, do you know who he is?

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh. And then what does that, though, mean?

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And that, to me, is what I've just been sitting with, like, so and obviously I can't give too many details, but this is a person that they. I don't want to lose, I guess as a client, maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

Was that the subtext or was the subtext like, you know, that's so and so. They're. They're a up.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no, it was. I don't think it was.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Cuz that could. That was. That's a vibe where we're from, where you'd go, oh, that's my. He's a. You know, he's a. He's a lush. He's a.

[Aaron]

Look the other way.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, let him do his thing.

[Monica Padman]

If that would be at like a certain type of bar or something. You could do that. But not scary. Yeah. And it, like, it was scary to me. It was scary to another guest. Like it was causing concern. And so this idea that, like, do you know who that is? Was very upsetting to me. Cause I was like, so you're gonna let him die, right? Because you don't want to say anything. It was really scary. And then my friend was like, I don't care who it is. I mean, he knew who it was, but he was like, I don't care who it is. People are scared.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very obvious.

[Monica Padman]

I know, I know. But I was really glad he said that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. But I think it does point out, no one needs to be sympathetic to an addict. They don't need to be sympathetic to anyone famous. They don't need to be sympathetic to someone with means. But I will argue it can be harder for those people to get sober because they don't have the consequences. There's so many consequences that would normally make you reevaluate and like, losing friendships. Well, people with status and means can be pretty.

[Monica Padman]

The people won't push back.

[Dax Shepard]

They won't abandon them because they want to be a part of the state.

[Monica Padman]

I know, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Places will put up with them because of whatever. And I just. I do wonder sometimes. I worked with a famous, super talented dude who was so fucked up on this movie. And I hated him at one point in the movie. And then, you know, he did this fucking thing where he made me laugh so hard. He's so powerful.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

He made me laugh so fucking hard. He was assigned a cop on set to have a cop with him on set. And so he was running through this store and the police officer was chasing him and he was screaming, chase me, chase me.

[David Blaine]

Oh, God, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was like. I had been just seething about this person for like three weeks and then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my God, this is the fucking funniest thing I've ever seen. And it really disarmed me. And I was like, yeah, good luck to him getting sober, because he has a superpower. He can win you back immediately.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I feel really freaked by it.

[Aaron]

I bet you weren't the only one.

[Dax Shepard]

You do get into your personal stuff, which is, like, addict stuff is very scary to you, and for good reason.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And I don't know if it's. It's. It's addict, but it's more like this. Deeper. That person might die.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

And I might see it, or I might have, like, been not a part of it, but kind of a part of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Should have sounded the alarm.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me of when I was in high school and I went to the mall with Callie, and we saw this, like, weird thing happen where this woman was wheeling her husband in a wheelchair. But then, like, something was happening with the woman, and the guy got out, and the woman got in the wheelchair, and it was like they switched. Yeah. They had to switch. I didn't know if she was having a. A heart attack. And of course, like, you know, the people were running out of the stores to, like, help and.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I thought about. I'm. I still have that memory. And I thought about it for weeks. Like, I could not. It's almost ocd.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Like, it's. It becomes an obsession.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You just can't stop thinking about it. Keeps popping up into your head.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know why that wheelchair fiasco did remind me of. Do you remember we were working in New York, and we were at the Carile Hotel.

[Monica Padman]

I'll be there in a couple days.

[Dax Shepard]

And we would have to walk every day to the parking garage, and there was this dude with cerebral palsy.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And he, like, was shuffling down the street, and it was, like, so heartbreaking.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And really bad. And this woman gave him money. And then the woman turned the corner, and then he started walking normal.

[David Blaine]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

And I threw my coffee.

[Aaron]

He threw a coffee out. And we were gonna beat the. Out of him.

[Dax Shepard]

Sick. That is so low.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It was a show like you had never seen before.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to cry when you saw this guy? I'm like. At the beginning, I'm like, I'm probably gonna give this guy a box.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Nope. I'm going the other way.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

You deceptively.

[Monica Padman]

What if the money actually cured you? Don't.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You didn't think about that.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't think about. It is possible that he was just $5 away from a cur.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You never know.

[Aaron]

You know, I had a similar. When I had my bar. There was crazy situations at my bar. So it wasn't this place and it wasn't a nice place, but things still could get escalated to that point where I'd have to make the decision. And not a famous person spending a bunch of money and bringing all his people, but like a drug dealer that was responsible for a lot of money being thrown around in there and this and that. And then thought he fucking ran the place.

[Dax Shepard]

Like a whale at a casino.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But then once everyone is so uncomfortable in the situation.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You can only. You can only let it go so much and you have like, guess what? They come back after you kick them out.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Aaron]

But like, enough's enough when you have that business.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

You gotta fucking take a stand.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Aaron]

I mean, that's like, buddy, you're driving away.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You gotta get the trade off. Like, when do I lose money after this person's here.

[Monica Padman]

What's the line that you draw at a bar or something? Because, yeah, people are. People are there. A little up. I mean, that's the point of the place, you know? So it's.

[Dax Shepard]

It's highly regional, though. Like you. I've rarely, rarely, rarely have I seen anyone in la, at a bar or a club, that is like, asleep on a table, throwing up on the dance floor.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

That is much more common in Michigan. And I can save also Chicago. Like, if you go out in Chicago, you see people, like, falling through tables, falling out of the.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's really, like, regionally cultural.

[Monica Padman]

It also just. It depends on the place itself.

[David Blaine]

Also.

[Monica Padman]

What do you do? You tell them to leave. And what if they drive home?

[Aaron]

Well, there's only so much you can do.

[Monica Padman]

That's my question. Like, what do you just go.

[Dax Shepard]

If they're on a mother motorcycle, you'll wear a helmet.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Dumbass. Right Fast, but right. Safe.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

Anyway, as fast as you can.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. We're on, like, such opposite ends of the spectrum with our comfort level with that stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Just, I think from exposure.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Yeah, probably. I mean, my friend didn't feel the way I felt. He wasn't worried. Like, he wasn't like, that person's gonna die. Like, I was right. He was more like, this can't. This is an unacceptable thing to be happening at this establishment.

[Dax Shepard]

I love all the little adventures you and Jess get into.

[David Blaine]

I Gotta say, I really do, because.

[Dax Shepard]

There was, like, the. There was the episode with someone saying to Anna, someone's so gay.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then Jess had to get involved, but he.

[Monica Padman]

But he didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

But then he does. But he does.

[Monica Padman]

I know, I know. Little Min. Adventures all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Funny duo, too. You're 1ft tall. He's 8ft tall.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I. I think a lot of people think we're together, and in some ways we are.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess I think of it as, like the cartoon with the really little dog and the big dog that are friends, and the big dog's always. The little dog's picking fights and being up, being mouthy, and then the big dog somehow.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Well, I actually. I brought you up at. So we. We left to go to dinner, and it was really, like, I was not frazzled. Yeah, I was frazzled exactly. Because of everything. And so I was feeling a little, like. I could tell that I was getting annoyed, but it was because of this other thing. I just, like, didn't feel good. So I had to tell myself, like, don't take it out on Jess. Like, don't take this feeling out on him right now. He's, like, the easiest person for me to take it out on, so don't do that. And I. I feel like I. I didn't. But then we got to the restaurant, and the server was so amazing, like, so nice, so awesome. And. And Jess was just being, like, his, like, gregarious. He was just being his gregarious self and being funny and making jokes, and I was like, why can't you just not have to do that? Like, why can't you just say thanks instead of doing.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then. And I. And I, like, looked at him and I. And I said, it's so interesting that I am obviously, I am attracted. Drawn to people who can't stop themselves from putting on a show. Like, I.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right, I leave the house, it's showtime.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. There are so many times we're sitting in here and I'm like, why are you not stopping?

[David Blaine]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes.

[Monica Padman]

And it's the same thing with him. And. And it's clear that it's me that. That needs or likes it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Even though on the surface I, like, don't.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's weird.

[Dax Shepard]

That is interesting. I'm thinking, of course, of the time I also was putting on a show, because sometimes you're in and sometimes you're out, right?

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Like the time I'm in New York City, what?

[Monica Padman]

I just tap out, like, I like it for a second, but both of you sometimes just.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, but remember my suitcase bit in New York, which is probably the most extreme and obnoxious bit I've ever done.

[Monica Padman]

That was funny to me and you.

[Dax Shepard]

Loved it the whole time I had a roll on bag or maybe we even had like recording gear. Maybe because we were going around the city and interviewing people. It had wheels in any street we're on that had a wheel. Slight decline. I would let the bag go and then I would be screaming, my bag, my bag. And I'd be chasing it. But the bag wasn't going very fast. And I would let it like go between people and every single block I would like run and scream, my bag. By bag, my bag, my bag. And then I would look back at Monica and be like half a block away laughing really hard.

[Monica Padman]

I did think that was funny. I don't know what the line that was really extra.

[Dax Shepard]

Like if you're just walking down the street and some guy's like, my bag. My baby's chasing a bag that clearly.

[Monica Padman]

He could get it off. I know. I don't really know. Well, he does silly things like that that don't. It's when it involves other people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Maybe there's more exploration to get like really granular about. What. When does it tip for you? What is the exact thing? This is admittedly annoying. Like, admittedly annoying. But I think you enjoy this or you don't like. Aaron and I lived for. We would put on. Aaron would put on his baseball pants from sixth grade baseball and a half shirt that had a pony on it that was yellow that Carrie got me. And then I would be in an insane outfit and we would go to White Castle. It was showtime.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, White Castle.

[Dax Shepard]

And we had like a pipe, we had chewing tobacco, we had playing cards, we had a radio. And we would really just go, let's go be as weird as possible at this White Castle. And we just enjoyed it so much. And you know what you think you do or you don't enjoy that kind of thing.

[Monica Padman]

Well, oh my God. This is back to yesterday's fact check or last week's fact check with the three of us, where ultimately I think maybe I feel like, why do you get to do that?

[Dax Shepard]

Ah, here we go. Here we go.

[Monica Padman]

I think that's what it is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Cuz you were kind of trying to.

[Monica Padman]

I had to.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Monica Padman]

I had no option. There was no option for me to be like, my bag.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, the money. You have to admit, we don't know.

[Monica Padman]

I know, you're right.

[Dax Shepard]

We don't know. But I definitely understand how you were like, I'm just trying to not get fucked with and called out and pointed at.

[Monica Padman]

Being a woman, though, isn't the last.

[Dax Shepard]

Thing to where sixth grade clothes and a fucking. I would wear the crazy hat that the Chinese people wear when they're picking rice. You know, I got it at a Salvation army, it was like three feet wide, and be smoking a pipe. And I just. It was so fun because from my perspective, there's something really fun about, like, oh, here are the rules of life. But who's to say? What if you're not participating in those rules and they're not like, it's not like we're pushing people or anything.

[Monica Padman]

No, I know you're not hurting anyone.

[Dax Shepard]

It's just like, oh, you're supposed to look a certain way. Well, let's see if you don't look that way. It just kind of like, wakes you up in a way that I find. I have always found, really. Carrie was very much that way. We would go into 7/11 and we would have fake fights and stuff.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Like, I. We would sit at the restaurant and what you're supposed to do is eat your food.

[David Blaine]

Food. But we'd be going, oh, God.

[Monica Padman]

See, you say that's not hurting people, but I think it is.

[Dax Shepard]

We did some stuff that was disturbing. You're right. You're. You were right.

[David Blaine]

We.

[Dax Shepard]

We did definitely ruin some people's. But I got to tell you, Monica, I do think I'm objective about this. We amused more.

[Aaron]

Sure, I agree more.

[Dax Shepard]

People were really laughing at their boots, looking at us, trying to wonder, are these guys, like, are they gotten out of a hospital? Hospital? Like, are they on? Are people looking for these two?

[Aaron]

Why don't they have so much stuff?

[Dax Shepard]

And we've gotten airing up, punched over at once.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah, that was for making noises.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Once in a while it doesn't work out.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, sure.

[Aaron]

But for the most part it does.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a high wire. When it's working, it's. Yeah, it's really fun. And I think it's. It's just a huge bonding thing. It's like some expression that, like, I myself can't go sit at White Castle with the huge hat on and all this stuff. Make noises. I would be.

[Aaron]

You probably wouldn't chase your suitcase without Monica there.

[Dax Shepard]

I want it. I want it. There's like, this declaration that, like, all these people might think I'm crazy, but because, you know, and this is for you and Aaron and I's was for each other. There's a very bonding thing about that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, as long as I have your approval, I'll. I'm willing to throw everyone else's away. And again, it's very indulgent and selfish. I get it. I can admit it. But it was also, I do promise, it was highly amusing to most people. People thought we were funny.

[Monica Padman]

I'm sure they did.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair expert if you dare. I'm gonna change gears, but Aaron and. And I have a favorite restaurant. We went to it last night with old friends that happened to be in town from Detroit.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Who witnessed many of these outfits. They're fully functional adults with a business now, and it's wonderful it worked out for everyone. But this happens one in four or five times. I eat at this restaurant where I eat. I go hard. By the way, I was thinking about what it was this morning, potentially. Did you eat any of the asparagus?

[Aaron]

Mm.

[Dax Shepard]

You did.

[Aaron]

Okay, I haven't gone yet.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. I also had a huge scoop of Metamucil before we went fiber. I knew I was gonna eat a lot of steak, but anyways, about four minutes after we got done eating, I had to pee. And I'm peeing, and I think I have to. I gotta go sit down.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. You have harness.

[Dax Shepard]

I. Epic harness.

[Aaron]

This is when we're together. It's been like, I think a 50. 50 shot.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. More like one and two.

[Aaron]

But.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I mean.

[Aaron]

But I know you go without me, so.

[Monica Padman]

And you don't experience it.

[Aaron]

No, I. I'm jealous.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is crazy.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I love watching it. Like, I love the, like, really fast walking to the.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, sure, sure.

[Aaron]

Like, it's about to start spraying.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. So it was. It was.

[Aaron]

I mean, the meal has just left the table. Just got taken away.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, right.

[Dax Shepard]

Fast acting and acting to the point where I was like, oh, there was listeria on the.

[Monica Padman]

But not every time you go or have to.

[Dax Shepard]

And apparently not because you ate asparagus as well. Anyways, it's a epic thing. So come back to the table. I don't announce it at that point because our friends that are visiting, they don't know this pattern. I'm guessing Aaron might have put it. But I was very quick. Did you know the first time I went to pee that that had happened?

[Aaron]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So then we're sitting there talking, and now we're wrapping it up, and I've paid the bill, and I'm thinking, oh, man. I think I gotta go again. But I'll be able to wait till I get home. And I'm the middle of his sentence, and I go, I got. I got.

[Aaron]

And then that was the one I noticed.

[Dax Shepard]

Then I really booked it to the bathroom. Thank God. The dining room was dead empty.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Went back in there. Another. Wow. This is apparent if there was a.

[Aaron]

A bathroom attendant. Like, you'd have to be like, dude, can you just. Here's $100. Can you just leave?

[Dax Shepard]

Wake up for a while?

[David Blaine]

A.

[Monica Padman]

So no one was in there.

[Dax Shepard]

No one's in there.

[Monica Padman]

Thank God. Thank God.

[Dax Shepard]

But all to say, I come back to the table now, we've only got five more minutes, and then we're out the door and we're in the car. And I, like, I pray I make it home. 3. 3.

[Monica Padman]

Wow, that's a lot. There probably was. There's probably just something you're a little. You're allergic to in that.

[Dax Shepard]

Just too much fat.

[Aaron]

Such a good meal.

[Dax Shepard]

It is. It is.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

We.

[Dax Shepard]

We both get a ribeye and then we split the lamb chops.

[Aaron]

Our friends split a ribeye.

[David Blaine]

We both split a ribeye and lamb chop. Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

And left it all at the restaurant.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I. Public bathroom situation. I don't like it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. But sometimes you got it. Sometimes your meal turns.

[Monica Padman]

But that wasn't a public bathroom. That was a private.

[Dax Shepard]

That was your private car.

[Monica Padman]

This is for David Blaine. Oh, and actually, Aaron was here. David Blaine was.

[Dax Shepard]

Damn it.

[Aaron]

I wish I could have watched some of this.

[Dax Shepard]

Watched all the magic.

[Monica Padman]

God, it was. It was such a cool thing.

[Dax Shepard]

His show is awesome.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't attempt this.

[Monica Padman]

I really want. Yeah, do not attempt.

[Dax Shepard]

Do not attempt.

[Aaron]

What's it on Hulu.

[Dax Shepard]

Nat Geo. Okay, Hulu.

[David Blaine]

It's on Hulu too.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

I watched one last night.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, did you? Did, yeah.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you watch India?

[David Blaine]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

I started with the first one where.

[David Blaine]

He puts the knife into his nose.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

He said, don't. He said, don't watch India.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[David Blaine]

That's why I waited.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I guess you're supposed to build up to India, but I started with India freaking wild.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Guys jumping onto big piles of broken bottles.

[Aaron]

That dude.

[Dax Shepard]

A guy who's breaking this huge whiskey bottle over his head.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know why. For some reason I. I just have to watch it. Because the way both of you were talking about it is with such, like, horror.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And for some reason that it doesn't sound that bad to me. Is it because I'm Indian?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. It Feels like a natural activity to jump on a big mound of broken box.

[Aaron]

One of the worst things I could imagine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I'm abnormally afraid of glass.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Oh, me too. Yeah, all sliced up.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, God.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I don't like glass, but it.

[Dax Shepard]

It just cuts so weird.

[Aaron]

Why do you think when, like, I don't believe in Satan, but for some reason, when a magician is real good, I think dark is involved. Like all of a sudden I believe in Satan, sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, I'm like, oh, so he's Satan.

[Monica Padman]

He's instead of like he's Dumbledore, like the happy one.

[Dax Shepard]

But that's what historically people have thought that they practice the dark art.

[Aaron]

I go right there.

[Monica Padman]

David signed a card for me. That's up there. That's. That's really exciting.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, David Blaine.

[Aaron]

Oh, I see it. The Ace of Dimes.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, the really crazy thing he did. And maybe we should talk about it because it's not on video.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's not. We might be getting video because when David's publicist was here and she took video, so hopefully we'll get it. But yeah, there was a trick that happened after the cameras were off.

[Dax Shepard]

That was. Think of a category.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that one.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I think that's the craziest one.

[Monica Padman]

How does he know what watch is craziest?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't. Because. Okay, he says, like, think of a category. Monica. Yeah, okay, great. It could be like food, nature. Now think of a specific thing from that category. Aaron, listen to this and tell me this. How on earth this could be done? Okay, Think of a. So she. Do you have it? Yes, I have it. Okay. And then how did he start doing the. Oh, he was asking for states that. That start with vowels. Yeah, and he goes like, oh, there's. Oh, we have Ohio. And then he writes on these other vowels and he wrote down these words and he wrote down like seven words or whatever, right? And he's like, I don't know. And then George. Oh, let's put George on there. And then he goes, is this your thing? And he shows her a list of these seven words or whatever it was.

[Monica Padman]

And she goes, does this have anything to do with your thing?

[Dax Shepard]

Right? And she said, no, but then. And then he circled the outside thing and he said, does this? And it, it said gossip.

[Monica Padman]

Cuz. Cuz my English, Gossip Girl.

[Dax Shepard]

She thought television as a category. And then the specific show, Gossip Girl. And oh, oh, oh.

[Monica Padman]

And there was one more piece because. So it was like, think Gossip Girl, then give a clue. So like, I Had to say a clue to you. You were the. Like, you were technically supposed to be guessing, and I had to give you a clue. That wasn't a big giveaway.

[Dax Shepard]

And what was your.

[Monica Padman]

And I said the Met, I think.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I would think art, then I would think Picasso.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And then I don't remember then how we got into him writing the words, but then. Yeah, it was gossip.

[David Blaine]

Yeah, it was.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm like, how does he know she thought of Gossip Girl out of the.

[Monica Padman]

Millions of TV shows and even TV out of the millions of categories.

[David Blaine]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Basically infinite every object in the world.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it was scary.

[David Blaine]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then, you know, there was a card trick error where it was like, I wasn't even involved. You know, this one. And it was under my watch.

[David Blaine]

Yes.

[Aaron]

I love that, too. That's.

[Monica Padman]

And like, I had pinned the card. It wasn't that. Because everyone I tell this to, they're like, did he hug? It's like, no, no, no, no. This was way too late into the game. You may be hugged when you walked in. Maybe, but I picked the. The card during the trick, and then it's unfolded up under his.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, let us not forget that in his. His Netflix special. Was it Netflix?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, Harrison Ford, he tells Harrison Ford to pick an apple up off of the. Out of the fucking fruit basket, cut it in half. And when he cuts it in half, the cards folded up in there that he himself had written. Harrison Ford had written his name on. Like, how does that.

[Monica Padman]

He got into the.

[Dax Shepard]

How do you even get it? Even if he said, I'm going to put your card in this apple and there'll be no evidence of it, I'd go, that can't be done.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

That was the trick. And he got it inside of an apple. That would be plenty for me.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

And then Harrison Ford cut the apple and he goes, get the. Out of my house.

[Monica Padman]

He got so scared. It was great. It was definitely a, like a once in a lifetime moment to get magic from David Blaine.

[David Blaine]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

One on one, very, very cool. Okay, couple facts. Bobby Sands, he died in 66 days hunger strike. He was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican army, the ira. And he helped plan a bombing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Monica and I were talking about this, and I think this is a great opportunity to realize that you're racist because do you remember how you felt about the ira?

[Monica Padman]

I had no feelings about it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, also, you're Irish, right? I'm from a very Irish family. Yeah, but weren't you kind of supportive.

[Aaron]

Always.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I was like, isn't that interesting? These are a group of men blowing shit up and killing people when they're brown. I'm like, those are terrorists.

[Aaron]

Right?

[Monica Padman]

And yeah, it's the same thing.

[Dax Shepard]

It's. Unfortunately, it's the same thing. And it's just. They're white.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think that's the difference.

[Aaron]

That's insane. I never thought of that. And by the way, I'm not in support of it anymore.

[David Blaine]

But.

[Aaron]

But, yeah, I thought it was cool. I thought it was fighting the power.

[Dax Shepard]

Felt like the American Revolution. I could, like, relate. It's the same country we revolted from.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But, yeah. Blowing folks up is not just great.

[Aaron]

Their freedoms.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

But then when you see, you know, Al Qaeda trying to have their own state.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Y. Their caliphate.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, no, those guys are monsters.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. After 28 days of fasting, he said you get a pear taste in your mouth, which we are kind of jealous of.

[Aaron]

A pear taste.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like, what's the longest he fasted for?

[Monica Padman]

He did 30 something days.

[Dax Shepard]

He was in a glass box hanging above the Thames.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

In England. And he just didn't eat for 36 days. There's no trick. That's just. He really didn't. He lost half his body weight.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. He almost died because then he went to the hospital after and all his phosphate levels were like, completely.

[Dax Shepard]

And you can kill someone by giving them food too fast.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's crazy. But you. Yeah. You start tasting pear. And we thought, that sounds gross.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you hadn't eaten. And I'm expecting some really gross taste. Like a metallic taste.

[Aaron]

That's what I was about to say.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, you just say tasting your blood. Your body's eating its blood or something. He did 44 days. 44 days.

[Monica Padman]

That's why it's so funny, because when he's talking about these Indian guys who do the bottle over the head, he's like. He's shocked. And I'm, like, staring at him like, are you kidding me? You didn't eat. You. You buried yourself alive. That's way crazier. Sure. Okay, so when Foss.

[Dax Shepard]

What is this alarm telling me to do?

[Aaron]

Oh, you got one.

[Monica Padman]

That's a ding, ding, ding from last week. Both of you just letting your alarms run rampant.

[Dax Shepard]

I took a nap before this.

[Monica Padman]

Oh. Both were nap related.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I set it to the wrong time. Oh, thank God. I woke up on my own.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Did. Did he tell you? Did he Did Dex Tell you about my nap. That actually happened yesterday after we.

[Monica Padman]

What happened?

[Dax Shepard]

I got a video, which is great.

[Aaron]

I fucking crashed hard. Like it was.

[Dax Shepard]

He goes, I'm gonna skip the sauna and take a 20 minute nap. And then three hours later, no, this is so great. I text him like, hey, time to go to dinner. And then I start thinking, I wonder if he read that text. And then I come out to the guest house and we look at this. Look how his legs are.

[Monica Padman]

I know. His legs are splayed.

[Dax Shepard]

His feet are. The bottom of his feet are touching and he's in. I guess that's a lotus position.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. That is.

[Dax Shepard]

Hips are wide open.

[Monica Padman]

I'm shocked that you could sleep like that. That's very flexible, actually.

[Dax Shepard]

It's impressive.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And you're.

[Dax Shepard]

His hand was in his pants. It's under his pants. But I. And I thought the words were his underwear. There's a swimsuit. He had great intentions. Yeah. And then I said, it was like when on the time I tried to wake my papa Bob up, I was like, aaron, Aaron, Aaron, it's time to go. Aaron, Aaron, it's time to go. And I'm like, oh my God, I gotta touch him. I gotta touch him. So then I caressed his knee and that got him away.

[Monica Padman]

You didn't have to put washcloths over his face.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank God. No, but that's what I. What I escalated to.

[David Blaine]

3 hour, 3 hour tour, little nap before dinner.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have a hard time going to sleep last night?

[David Blaine]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

I was a little weird.

[Monica Padman]

And then you napped today?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I got home from drop off, I did some like email stuff and I was on my bed and I was going to get changed to go work out and then I just thought, I have two hours. I'm going to sleep for one of the hours. And then. And then that turned into I didn't fall asleep for half an hour and then I slept till 10:30.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I just had. I kept laying there going, it's okay if you don't work out.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's okay. It is.

[Dax Shepard]

Your body needs a rest.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it needed a rest.

[Dax Shepard]

You had traumatic diarrhea anesthesia last time.

[Monica Padman]

That is why probably might be related to the hauntedness.

[Dax Shepard]

Traumatic evening.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Buster Keaton. So he said that Houdini. That there's a rumor that Houdini named him Buster, but that. That's been debunked. But it says that on PBS.org God, I trust PBS and I trust PBS.org.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Who doesn't so I think is PBS.

[Dax Shepard]

Gonna go away because of Trump? Yeah, I think it's on the chopping block. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know what I'll do without Frontline.

[Monica Padman]

He's a monster. Yeah. Joseph Francis Keaton got his name when, at six months, he fell down a flight of stairs, reaching the bottom unhurt and relatively undisturbed. He was picked up by Harry Houdini, who said the kid could really take a buster or fall. From then on, his parents in the world knew him as Buster Keaton. By the age of three, Keaton joined the family's vaudeville act, which was. Which was renamed the Three Keatons. For years, he was knocked over, thrown through windows, dropped downstairs, and essentially used as a living prop.

[Aaron]

Yeah, you could really take a buster, huh?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. They would put him in a suitcase and just chuck him into the audience.

[David Blaine]

Oh, weird.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, man. Great. Oh, my God. You know, he was obviously during the silent picture days, and then he. No one had ever heard his voice. And then when talkies came around, he was in Sunset Strip or Sunset Boulevard, that famous movie. It's the only time anyone ever heard him talk. And he's in a scene playing bridge and he had his crazy low voice that no one was expecting. Cause he was a little guy.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Aaron]

Oh, man.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. How many times did David Blaine do Stern? Eight. He's done it eight times.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you heard Blaine on Stern?

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. They're very memorable, aren't they?

[Aaron]

Yeah. That's what I was thinking about. The water, too. That was on Stern. I remember they were sending during his show. They were sending, like, you know, Baba Booie down there.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Fuck with them.

[David Blaine]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

To have fun with them.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

That's it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's it.

[Monica Padman]

That's it for David.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. Well, that was really, really fun.

[Monica Padman]

Love you guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.