Knee Bends and Mindfreak Fights

After a few days recovering from knee surgery and hobbling around on crutches, I thought it was time to post a little update. (Don't worry, I hope this won't be long, and I'm going to include some other fun stuff in this post as well.)

Well, the knee surgery went fine, but only because the doctor didn't perform the procedure he had planned. Seems when the folks in the O.R. opened me up and poked around a little, they discovered something the MRI didn't show. The piece of cartilage they hoped to save by drilling holes in my femur bone was gone!

Yes, they were perplexed (as was I when they told me in the recovery room), but could do nothing but clean things up in there and close the incisions.

The good news is, my recovery time for this procedure is nearly complete already. I'm walking fairly normally without crutches, and should be released for normal activity within a couple of weeks. The bad news is, since there is a huge divot on the bone where the mystery cartilage used to be, I may well have to have cartilage transplant surgery.

Medically speaking, the cartilage transplant procedure is really cool, in that they take some cartilage from a non-critical area of my knee (which the doctor did during this last surgery), and they grow new cartilage cells in a lab. Once the new cells are sufficient in number, they go back in, cut a thin sheet of tendon from my shin area, and suture it over the divot, essentially creating a covered pouch. They then inject the new cartilage cells into the pouch, where over time, they grow and become a durable patch covering the spot where the missing cartilage once was.

Yeah, it's medical science at its finest. The only drawback is the recovery time from surgery to fully functioning durable patch is about 18 months. So if I have to have this procedure, I'm going to be fat and depressed for about a year and a half. And nobody wants to see that.

I'll keep you posted if you care to hear of my struggles.

The other thing I want to talk about is the show on NBC called Phenomenon. If you haven't seen it, don't worry, you're not alone. Hardly anyone has. It has been a ratings flop in its first two weeks. But if you're not familiar with the program, basically it's an American Idol for mentalists/magicians.

One of the judges is Uri Geller, the man who achieved marginal notoriety in the 1970s claiming to be a real psychic by bending spoons and stopping clocks and by doing other parlor tricks of that ilk. In addition to the fact that he never won the lottery or predicted major election outcomes or historical events to prove he was a real psychic, he had an embarrassing appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when Carson, an amateur magician himself and suspicious that Geller was a fraud, eliminated all advantages a stage magician would have, and guess what. Geller couldn't successfully perform any of his effects. Since then, Geller has fallen off the radar for the most part, only to be thrust back into the spotlight for shows of this type.

The other judge is Criss Angel, the Emogician (thanks Rebecca Watson for introducing me to that word) best known for his Las Vegas street illusions and his successful show on A&E called Mindfreak. Angel is a bit controversial in the magic community himself, both for his presentation and for his "suspected" overuse of stooges and camera tricks. Angel, however, never represents himself as anything other than a magician doing tricks or illusions. He is just a performer. And by all accounts, he is very intolerant of charlatans claiming real powers.

So pairing Geller and Angel (the fraud and magic's bad boy) on the show was an obvious attempt to create instant conflict.

Anyway, Angel agreed to be a fair judge of those contestants presenting mentalist effects and/or tricks and illusions, but he warned beforehand on camera that if any of the performers claimed real psychic powers, he would bust them in front of the viewing audience on live television.

Well, on Wednesday's episode, he got his chance.

A performer named Jim Callahan took the stage and pretended to channel a dead guy named Raymond Hill. After his performance, Geller was amazed (as expected), praising Callahan for his believable contact with the dead man, and for using the "connection" to divine the identity of a hidden object. Geller seemed pleased to have found a brother in delusion.

But Angel on the other hand, was not so enamored of Callahan. He criticized the contestant for his comical presentation and then went off on him for representing that what he was doing was not a trick and that he actually could talk to the dead. Angel boldly challenged Callahand (and indeed Geller) to prove his ability by guessing the contents of an envelope that he, Angel, had secreted in his pocket. Callahan angrily defended himself, calling Angel an "ideological bigot" and escalating the confrontation, and the two seemingly almost came to blows.

You can see the full performance and near tussle here , along with some comments by Callahan (FYI, Callahan posted this video on YouTube himself through a friend). You can see the uncensored video of the aftermath from NBC here.

Now as much as I despise reality TV, and as much as I despise frauds who do parlor tricks and claim to be real psychics, and as much as I would like magicians like Angel to expose them in very embarrassing public ways, I think there are a few things to remember in this case. First, the ratings for the debut of Phenomenon were dismal at best. The show needed a boost. It needed something to generate interest. Second, in a performance of magic or mentalism, the magician is always in control. Always. And third, in television, it's not always easy to determine just whom the magician is, if you get my meaning.

So take that for what it's worth, and if there are any further developments, perhaps I'll comment on them again.