Keith Richards Wants David Blaine To Get Some Sleep

David Blaine is at a crossroads - after all, how do you top standing on a pole and standing near some ice and sitting around in a box for a while?

Which is why, for his next big trick, David Blaine has decided to stay awake for 13 days.

Trouble is, though, Keith Richards doesn't want David Blaine to do that. Keith Richards, speaking from experience, says that there are unknown dangers involved with staying awake for days, like falling face-first into a JVC speaker and smashing up your nose after nine days. Similarly, Keith Richards has warned David Blaine against climbing up tiny coconut trees that most children would be able to scale safely without falling and snorting the ashes of dead relatives.

Maybe it's because Shine A Light's being released soon, but it's impossible to get rid of Keith Richards at the moment. He's sort of become the Alan Hansen of celebrity news - a battle-scarred veteran full of 'in my day' stories and ready advice for the young.

Not so long ago Keith Richards was telling everyone that Amy Winehouse will be dead soon because drugs are dangerous these days, and now he's doing the same thing to David Blaine. Seriously, we'd give Keith a fortnight before he becomes a regular GMTV pundit, discussing teenage cosmetic surgery with Lorraine Kelly.

Anyway, back to David Blaine. David Blaine has carved out a niche for himself as a kind of slow-motion Jackass member who, instead of getting gored by a bull, gets his kicks from almost drowning himself and almost starving himself and spinning around until he almost pukes over the course of a couple of weeks for fun and profit. And David Blaine's next stunt involves two weeks of sleep deprivation.

Most people who have attempted to stay awake for days know that the biggest threat of failure occurs when ITV Nightscreen comes on and teases you with its rubbishness until you realise that you may as well just go to bed, but Keith Richards has more pressing concerns for David Blaine - what if Blaine gets to nine days and then falls headfirst into a JVC speaker? Huh? The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Richards claims he managed to stay awake for nine days back in the 1970s, thanks to a cocktail of narcotics, but the feat ended badly. He reveals, "On the ninth day I was putting a tape into a tape deck. In 0.3 of a second I fell asleep and crashed headfirst into a JVC speaker, smashing my nose apart. I just lay there and let it bleed. It was a chemical thing."

David Blaine's people are thought to have heeded Keith Richards' warning - for his stunt David Blaine won't be a) surrounded by confusingly outmoded 1970s technology or b) be completely off his mash on as many hard drugs as he can fit into his mouth. Problem solved.

Of course, even without a tape deck to break his nose on, the threat of damage to David Blaine is pretty huge. By denying the body its right to sleep, there's a genuine chance that David Blaine will start to go mad during his stunt. Without exaggeration, the lack of sleep could destroy the rest of his life. 

But then again, if that means that we won't have to put up with David Blaine doing any more big attention-seeking stunts then we're OK with it. He can stay awake for a couple of months if that's the case.

Read more:

Richards' Sleep Stunt Warning For Blaine - SFC