Banachek

[rabidbadger]

Heard an interview with this guy on a recent skepticality podcast. Bills himself as a "Mentalist" but seems he was a major scammer/debunker from his teens. Good interview, and his (horribly designed) website has some fun stuff, basically ripping off McDonell Douglas in a University test. Gonna read more on him. Seems cool.

Brian? You must be familiar with him.

[rabidbadger]

Here is the WashU experiment. (My stepfather was a psych grad student there at the time, I should ask him if he knew about it.)

[shwooddotcom]

Originally Posted by rabidbadger

Brian? You must be familiar with him.

Yeah, I consider him a good friend of mine. His story is just amazing, he's a great guy, and he's got some tie-ins with rev3: he was a guest on Martin Sargent's "unscrewed" back in the TechTV days. He's one of the brilliant minds who made Criss Angel a success (...and he was repaid by Criss with treachery! You'll have to ask me about that after I've had a few drinks on the next live show).

[rabidbadger]

he said on the interview he is cool with Mr. Angel. Not familiar with the story, or chris anger, er, angel, for that matter. Must be a cable thang.

[rabidbadger]

Oh, seems he is quite handsome, too. I should look for youtubes and such on him. He seems very interesting. Dude, you should get on the scepticallity podcast. That would rock. Very smart hosts.

[rabidbadger]

from the interview, I thought he was older, but wikipedia says otherwise.

[gobo]

man Criss Angel just seems to be the biggest douche in the world

[rabidbadger]

I don't get it. He is famous for bending forks? Big deal. He doesn't even say he does it with his mind or anything. He justs rubs a pre-planted utensil til it gets warm enough to bend.

[rabidbadger]

[dcolanduno]

Ya,

Banachek is a really cool man in person. His wife is amazing too, she was sitting there when we did that interview, but she did not want to say anything.

If you find a copy of Genie or one of the other magic 'industry' magazines which feature him and Angel, there is a lot of information on what really happened between those two.

But, Banachek was pretty responsible for the rise of Angel, and they used to be quite good friends. These days they are now quite civil to each other. I got to be in the room a bit when they were hanging out in Vegas.