David Blaine: Drowned Alive? Part V
Posted By Paul Kotik on 7 May 2006
Stand back people!
The crowd around the sphere is now simply huge. The plaza is full. New arrivals are nearly falling off the edges. The line to mount the ramp and Interact With David Blaine! is now thirty minutes long, even with two lanes running and time at the sphere severely limited by men who seem to have stepped out of an espionage thriller.
Martin is slightly apprehensive about the prospects for crowd control Monday night, the climactic ending for live network television. So is one of the top security men, a former US Marine and present New York Deputy Sheriff. "I’m supposed to be off Monday night", he tells me solemnly,"But I may have to come in here on my own time and help". This is New York, after all. A city which lost some three thousand people when attacked just five years ago. Paramilitary forces have moved through the event venue, helmets, automatic weapons in tactical slings.
Has Robert DeNiro been here today? That’s the question. I don’t know, why ask me? I suppose my props suggest I Know Things. I carry a black journal and a pen. Robert DeNiro or virtually anyone else could well have been here and gone unnoticed.
Standing in the secured crew area next to the sphere, I exchanged a few words with a very pregnant youngish woman with big sunglasses. "Paul!" Kirk called to me from the other side of the pen. I excused myself and walked over to him. "That’s Rachel Weisz" he whispered. I looked back. Rachel Weisz was smiling, childlike, and waving to David Blaine. I don’t know who Rachel Weisz is. Kirk is exasperated by my socially-crippling ignorance of pop culture. "She was in The Mummy !". More chaos - I don't know there's a film so titled, and think he's referring to the woman's delicate condition. Martin has to intervene and restore order.
The communicator
But Pat Smith already knows pretty much everything. He’s the publicist in charge, the orchestrator of all media, the communicator. Pat is the consummate professional, and a walking encyclopedia. He knows who’s who, and what’s what. Anything I need to know, I ask Pat. When Deeper Blue goes breakthrough and I need a public relations man, Pat’s the guy I’ll be calling.
Copyright 2006 Paul Kotik/DeeperBlue.net
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
