(minimalist tech music)
- Alright so this is the awkward story
of how I met David Blaine.
I was in New York City with a friend of mine,
Daniel Madison who is also a magician
and Daniel knows David
because he worked with him in the past.
Daniel says to me, "Do you want to meet David tonight?"
And naturally, as a magician myself, yeah, I would love
to meet David Blaine tonight, that would be amazing.
So David get a text receiving the coordinates of where
he's located which happens to be his editing studio.
He's getting ready to launch his latest TV special
and they're in there just sort of watching footage.
We show up to this condo, it's super swanky,
everything's made of marble.
There's a lady working at the desk as security guard
and she asks us for ID so naturally we hand her our ID
to which she says, "No, you're not from the United States,
"I need your passports."
Odd request, so luckily we happened to have our passports
on us, not five seconds later, this young guy,
maybe 20 something years old, short with a gold chain,
walks down and says,
"David's upstairs, he's waiting for you."
So we follow him in, I have no idea who this is.
He doesn't introduce himself, he's probably apart of David's
entourage, and we get into the elevator in complete silence.
This was the second longest elevator ride
I've ever taken in my life.
We get to the top and walk into his office.
This is the layout of the office.
So you have a couple computer desks, in the corner
you have this sofa where there's this really incredibly
hot girl sat next to David and a bunch of other people
and then there's a bench along the wall.
That's where we'll be sitting in a second.
And in front of David and to the left of me,
is this giant TV screen and underneath,
there's a bunch of post-it notes because they're
going through editing.
So I walk in and I feel the need to have to sort of say hi,
so I present myself to one person, I say, "Hi, Chris,
"it's nice to meet you" and then another person.
And I'm just like, "Hi, hi, hi, sup dude, sup dude?
"Nice to meet you."
After that, the man in the corner, David Blaine himself,
I say, "Hi David, nice to meet you"
and he says, "Nice to meet you."
So now we're all sitting down and to the left of me
is a giant TV screen without a word of anything,
the video starts playing and so I naturally watch the video
and everybody's watching and now this is the scene
where David performs for Drake and Dave Chappelle
and he regurgitates frogs.
(gagging heave)
This is the first time I've seen him regurgitate frogs,
this has not aired yet so this is like blowing my mind
sitting here watching this.
I'm just like freaking out so this plays for like
two, two and a half minutes, we see the whole scene.
At the end everyone's applauding, it was great.
I was completely floored, everybody stops talking
and David turns to me and says, "Do you like cards?"
"Do you like playing cards?"
To which I replied, "Yeah, yep."
David then turns to the right of him,
to the person editing and says, "Can you play that back
"but this time fade in with some intro music?"
And we all just start watching the same scene over again.
This time, however, there is a bit of an intro music, so.
Again, a solid two, two and a half minutes of watching
the exact same footage I'd just watched
and, alright, cool, cool.
Everybody stops talking, David turns to me and says,
"So what do you do?"
And I told him who I worked for and told him
what I was doing and I even showed him a deck of cards
that I was producing which is super cool.
Yeah I'm working on this, check these out.
They're pretty cool.
And he says, "There's a new design I'm working on.
"You want to see it?"
And I'm like, yeah, oh, sick, sick, sick, cool, cool.
"It uses my logo."
And everybody stops talking, turns to the editor and says,
"This time play it back but make the music louder."
And everyone's watching the scene again.
So we all start watching the same exact scene
but this time there's a minor tweak again,
and another two, two and a half minutes of this
and it stops and everybody stops talking, David turns to me
and says, "I like cards, I've been working on a new design.
"Do you want to see it?"
To which naturally I reply, "Oh, sick."
"It uses my logo."
"It's pretty, yeah, I like it, like it a lot."
David then turns to the editor and this time he says,
"This time, play it again but fade in the music
"and then fade out at the end and let the music
"play at the end before it cuts.
"I think they'll like that."
And the movie starts playing
and we all watch the same thing over again.
This goes on, I'm not even kidding you,
I've seen this scene 73 times.
We stayed there for a solid two and a half hours
watching this scene over and over
and over and over and over again.
Now at this point, I'm texting my buddy Ian
who is downstairs who couldn't join us
and he's kind of like, "What's up?"
And I'm like, "I don't know, I'm about to leave.
"This is getting incredibly tedious.
"I'm bored out of my wits, I want to go home."
And just as I say that, just as I text that to him,
David says, "You want to go for drinks?"
So we're like, "Yes, I would love to, yes."
Let's go get drinks with David Blaine, that sounds amazing.
This is what I was waiting for.
Now here we go.
Enough of this awkward work, let's get into the bar
and have some drinks.
So again, I say bye to everybody, one at a time.
"Alright, nice to meet you, nice meeting you,
"nice meeting you, nice meeting you."
Even though I haven't said a word
to any of these people the entire time.
We walk up to the elevator and just as we're waiting
for the elevator, David turns to me and says,
"Did you see the Chris Angel special?"
To which I replied, "No."
And then he says, "Did you see what he did?"
And then I say, "No, oh, you mean when he ripped
"like a person apart in like the park?"
To which he replies, "No, he stole my font."
What do you say to that?
I have no idea what to respond.
What do you say to someone who says
their font's been stolen?
"The guy from Seven drew it."
"Damn." (sucks teeth)
And awkward 30 seconds goes by and ding, the elevator opens.
We get into the elevator to what will be the longest
elevator ride I've ever taken.
This is just, we just don't talk.
Go all the way downstairs and just as we're about to leave,
David turns around to me and says,
"Want to go get a drink at this bar down the street?"
He then squares up his hat, puts his headphones in,
turns around and runs out the building.
Now, I'm not exaggerating, he just darts out the building.
I'm standing here with Daniel, looking at him like,
"Do we chase him, do we chase David Blaine?
"Is that what we're doing now?
"We're gonna chase David Blaine?"
So we run out the building as well.
We see David like maybe 20 feet ahead of us, just jogging
and so we're catching up to David Blaine.
I'm trying to, I'm running in the streets of Manhattan
trying to chase down David Blaine.
We get there a couple blocks down.
I'm completely out of breath, 'cause you know,
I'm not David Blaine and I don't hold my breath
for 17 minutes so I get to the door panting.
He walks in, beautiful restaurant, this beautiful
cocktail restaurant, like way out of my price range.
And David says, "this is a great place to eat, you know?"
And I'm like, in my head, I'm never gonna eat here.
There's no way I'm gonna eat here in my life.
But I was like, "Yeah, cool, noted."
And he goes to the bar, orders three whiskeys,
comes back to me, Daniel and Ian who joins us now and David
and we just stand there holding our drinks.
David doesn't drink a sip of it, just holds it
and we all just sort of stand there and we're standing
there for a solid 45 seconds.
That's a long time of silence so I break the silence
because I don't want to be awkward so I'm like,
"Do you, I heard you like chess.
"Do you play chess?"
And to which, he replies, "Yeah, used to play chess."
So okay, this goes on for like seven minutes
of awkward sort of, I couldn't get in, I couldn't.
I didn't want to be be like the fanboy to be like,
"Oh my god, let me ask you about this,
"let me show you this."
I was trying to let him makes the move.
I was like initiating conversation but everything I said
was like shut down immediately and he was just stone faced.
And then he grabs his phone and he looks at me and says,
"I have to go pick up my motorcycle.
"My uber's here."
"I've got to pick up my motorcycle.
"My uber's here."
I don't know what that means, I don't know what he meant
by that, I was like, "Cool, well it was nice meeting you."
"Nice meeting you."
He hands me his glass of whiskey which he never touched.
There's a full glass of melted ice now and whiskey.
"It was nice meeting you as well."
And turns around and walks out the door,
grabs the uber and leaves.
Now I stood there with Daniel and Ian,
kind of chuckling, we're all kind of sharing a little bit
of a laugh like what just happened?
What just happened?
I'm standing here holding David Blaine's whiskey
and that was it.
So I drank his whiskey, finished, as a gentleman does,
and we left and we all just kind of wanted to go home.
That was it, it was really anticlimactic.
Now I know a lot of you are probably expecting,
"Whoa, two magicians getting together.
"Like Blaine is legend, Chris, you guys are gonna,
"this is gonna be amazing story."
So that was the entire story, that was the whole story.
I really wish it would have been an epic story
for this video but I kind of think it's like delectable
(kisses fingers) that this story is so deliciously awkward
and I just had to tell it so I'm sorry
there wasn't a big bang ending
but that was my encounter with David Blaine.
Hope you enjoyed it, peace.
(mellow saxophone)