#2056 - David Blaine

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Hello, David. What's happening? Good to see you.

David Blaine (0:17)

Good to see you.

Joe Rogan (0:17)

How you been? Good to see you're still alive.

You're not full of visible holes.

David Blaine (0:22)

Not come wood.

Joe Rogan (0:23)

What are you been up to, man?

David Blaine (0:26)

I'm spending a lot of time with my daughter, number one. And then number two, I've been working on this series for National Geographic. So I've been traveling around the world, searching for these people that do incredible feats that they've passed down through generations. And I'm trying to learn, but it's a fast learning curve. So it is the most dangerous thing that I've ever done in my life. But I have the best of the best helping.

Joe Rogan (0:56)

That says a lot, because you've done...

David Blaine (0:58)

By far the most... Yes!

Joe Rogan (1:00)

Whoa. Well, you showed me some things off camera that we can't talk about, but...

David Blaine (1:04)

Well, you can talk about them. I just can't show them.

Well... So the scariest thing was like three days ago. The cobra? A king cobra.

Joe Rogan (1:12)

Yeah.

David Blaine (1:12)

In the wild.

Joe Rogan (1:13)

Yeah.

What is... Is there a trick to that? Is there a... Is it a movement thing? Do you move slowly so you don't...

David Blaine (1:22)

I studied for weeks and just tried to understand their behavior and worked with different cobras and was... I had a team around me that taught me how to move quickly and get out of the way.

Joe Rogan (1:35)

What happens if you get bit?

David Blaine (1:37)

Well, they have enough venom to kill a full grown elephant in 30 minutes. So we had anti-venom. We had that there, but...

Joe Rogan (1:45)

But still...

David Blaine (1:46)

In my case, I don't trust that.

Joe Rogan (1:47)

And even if you get anti-venom, it's still a rough ride even if you live, right?

David Blaine (1:52)

Yeah. But it was amazing. It was incredible.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

Is it similar to rattlesnake venom? Because rattlesnake venom essentially... It's a neuro...

David Blaine (2:00)

Yeah, I mean...

Joe Rogan (2:01)

Digests your body.

David Blaine (2:02)

This one shuts everything down. So your heart, your lungs, everything just start to...

Joe Rogan (2:09)

So were they like ready on standby with a needle?

David Blaine (2:13)

Well, they put it in a serum. You have to go to a hospital.

Joe Rogan (2:16)

Oh, you have to go to a hospital.

David Blaine (2:17)

So you have to travel. But we had an ambulance right there.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

How far is the hospital?

David Blaine (2:22)

It was 20 minutes away.

Joe Rogan (2:23)

Oh, God.

David Blaine (2:24)

So 20 minutes of king...

Joe Rogan (2:26)

Oh, God. So 20 minutes of king cobra venom.

David Blaine (2:30)

It was the scariest and most intense thing I've ever done. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:35)

How many of these guys died doing this?

David Blaine (2:37)

Well, the snake, the two snakes we had, one of them killed its previous owner. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:45)

And they don't kill the snake after it kills the previous owner?

SPEAKER_1 (2:47)

No.

Jamie (2:47)

This guy died, so it does happen.

David Blaine (2:49)

Exactly. Right. That's right.

Yes. It's... But it is kind of incredible, because there's another guy named Chris Sweet, who...

Well, that's his Instagram name, but he lives in Thailand with 90 venomous snakes, and he just lets them move through his legs. Well, he was bitten twice on my birthday, and his heart stopped two times. But he lets them just...

Joe Rogan (3:21)

While you were there?

David Blaine (3:22)

No, no, no. On April 4th, I mean.

Joe Rogan (3:25)

Oh, okay.

David Blaine (3:26)

Yeah. But he's so calm with them, and he studies their behavior, and he watches how they move, and then he gently takes them out. And there was one... We were outside, and the scariest thing wasn't trying to kiss it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that's a snake called a spire. Yeah. So that's one that was slithering through my legs, and you have to keep your heart rate down.

Because if they sense, they have pheromones. They detect if you're nervous or uncomfortable. So anytime I would get, like, super tense, I would have to... I'd walk away carefully.

Oh, boy. Yeah, that's him. And that's... That's a snake called a spire.

You're so good at finding everything. Thank you.

Joe Rogan (4:07)

Wow.

Oh, my God. It's trying to bite you through the glass. Why is it trying to bite you through the glass but won't try to bite you when you're right there?