Criss Angel in my Hood

Unless you've been living in a cement block for the past week, you've heard about Criss Angel and his latest mind-blowing stunt. To promote the third season of his show, "Criss Angel: Mindfreak", he entered a box that was hoisted 40 ft. into the air and then filled with cement. He was handcuffed before getting in, and the deal was that he had to escape before 24 hours had passed, when the box would come crashing to the ground.

What made this whole spectacle really awesome is that it went down just 2 blocks away from me, so I knew I had to check it out. When I walked by on the way to work it was raining, so there was hardly a crowd at all. It was around 9 AM on Monday, and the box was only about 15 or 20 feet in the air. It didn't look like there was any cement in there yet, because I could see him lying down on the floor of the box with his feet planted on the walls. When I walked home from work at 5:45 they were finishing off the cement pouring process and the box was at it's max height. You couldn't see him at this point.

This morning I woke up early to go check out the mayhem. I checked the live webcam before leaving to make sure he hadn't left yet. The countdown clock was down to 14 minutes, so I grabbed my camera and headed out. I got there 4 minutes later. The crowd was huge, at least a couple hundred people were packed in the parking lot where the block was dropping. I joined a small crowd across the street and waited for the magic to happen. The pic above shows the box in the top right corner, right in front of the top level of the parking garage. I felt a little weird pretending to care what happened to Chris, especially since I took part in spoofing him just a few months ago. There was a black-haired woman in her 40's standing next to me yelling "Get out!!! Get out, Chris!!!" Girls tugged on their checkered suspenders and boys used their My Chemical Romance shirts to wipe the nervous sweat from their brows. At 7:30 AM the block dropped with a loud bang. Criss was nowhere to be found. Everyone stood in silence, and right before the lady next to me had a heart attack, Chris appeared on a scaffolding completely separate from where the block was. Everyone's minds were blown. Criss came down to greet his fans and even came across the street where I was. I gave him a slap on his sweaty shoulder as he walked by. I haven't washed my hands yet, I'm hoping the magic has rubbed off into this post. As I left, I heard a guy talking to someone on his cell phone, "Dude, that was the whackest shit ever."

Criss, seconds after escaping, is lowered down to greet the fans.

Criss stands in front of the only thing that outfreaks him, the church of scientology.