I’ve been informed that the new Discovery Channel 3D episode of “Human Body in 3D” that we filmed last January in New York is now entitled “I, Human” and is set to air around Christmastime, first on 3Net (apparently you can watch it in 3D with 3D glasses!), and then possibly on regular Discovery Channel (2D) and IMAX.
We filmed this episode on a cold, drizzly Friday the 13th under the Queens Bridge in New York City. For the composition of the shot, the Director said he wanted a long distance shot with lots of “keystoning” and depth of perspective looking down the street, then he wanted to film it while two trains were dissecting the shot horizontally from both the left and the right, and then at the right moment, he wanted me to swallow a long sword that dissected that view vertically from top to bottom, then bow and lean into the camera diagonally so the sword was protruding right into the viewer’s screen! It was such a cold day that I couldn’t stop shivering, but the looks on the faces of New Yorkers passing by was well worth it! This was all filmed on the most expensive state-of-the-art stereo 3D IMAX cameras. I’m curious to see how it looks all in 3D!
Then after I thawed out, they had me swallow a new 3D endoscope camera so they could see down my throat in 3D. This is an innovative new invention and the inventor himself was there from Israel to make sure things went well. This was all filmed on the most expensive cutting edge state-of-the-art stereo 3D IMAX cameras by the world’s top 3D cinematographer! Let me know if you happen to see it on 3Net!
Reality TV - Pawn Shop Chicago on TruTV
In January, watch for me in an episode of Pawn Shop Chicago on TruTV Network. The past 4 seasons were filmed at a pawn shop in Detroit, but the location for this next season is just off State Street in Chicago. I can’t tell you much more about the episode, but it was all unscripted and nobody knew what was going to happen. If you’re a pawn shop reality fan, let me know if you happen to see it on TruTV Network!
AMC TV - Venice Beach Freakshow
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of filming a fun episode of “Freakshow” for AMC TV. They’re filming the entire series at the Venice Beach Freakshow in Venice Beach, CA with a very interesting cast! Our episode included me getting to meet and swallow swords on a very windy day with 3 other sword swallowers I’d never met before in person, and a couple of really unexpected surprises! Our episode will be the 2nd in the series and is tentatively scheduled to air on Thursday, February 21, 2013, just two days before our annual “World Sword Swallower’s Day” on Saturday, February 23rd!
Legendarios Brazil
A few weeks ago, I had the great opportunity to perform on Legendarios, which is like the equivalent of “Saturday Night Live” on Brazilian national Rede Record TV, the #2 TV network in Brazil that airs on prime time on Saturday nights to over 150 million viewers on 150 stations! I got to swallow a number of swords, hedge clippers, straight razor, and even 7 swords at once. But the fun finale was when the host Marcos Mion whipped a sword from my throat from 10 feet away! The next day, people on the street in Sao Paulo were coming up to me and asking to have their picture taken with me, so I guess a LOT of people watch the show! What a great time I had in Sao Paulo, Brazil! Can’t wait to go back and practice my Portuguese!
So for Ignite talks, you have only 5 minutes and 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds, which is about enough time to get in one sentence, before the slide advances to the next slide…
So I had about 3:56 to get in 4000 years of sword swallowing and 30 years of my life, and about a minute to swallow 3 swords. I was pretty nervous about trying to get everything in…
A friend from Minnesota just sent me the following Ripley’s Believe It or Not! cartoon that came out this morning, and told me I was IN IT! I didn’t have a clue that Ripley’s was even aware of it! What a total surprise!
So here’s today’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not! cartoon:
Ripley's Believe It or Not Cartoon April 8, 2011
And for those of you who hadn’t seen it, here’s the first Ripley’s Believe It or Not! cartoon I received in September 22, 2007:
Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon Sept 22, 2007
Ripley’s cartoons are syndicated in newspapers in 43 countries around the world. The original cartoon got me a mention and photo in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not book, and in a Ripley’s card game!
As for me, this is the best surprise birthday present I could ask for!
Well, it’s over… this chapter is done, but what an adventure it was…
Special thanks to all of you who were involved in putting together the Swords For Africa charity benefit the past several months and the resulting show at Emens Auditorium on Friday night. It was an incredible journey to help support this mission to Africa, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. Long walk, part of gift…
I don’t know which was more rewarding - to be involved in the show itself on Friday night, or to be along on the journey for the past several months! Both were a hugely humbling and rewarding process, and I know I have been changed and grown over the past several weeks and months as a result of it! Thank you ALL for everything you have done along the way, and for those of you who came and supported us in the show!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Swords for Africa, it was a charity benefit to raise awareness and funding for Joy In The Harvest Missions to Tanzania Africa. Many people gave generously of their time and resources, and many lives were impacted on Friday night, and many more will be when the mission team travels to Africa in June!
Our theme was
DO the IMPOSSIBLE - CHANGE the WORLD!
This recurring theme in each of our lives came through in our program, and is what Joy in the Harvest is looking to do in their mission to Africa!
Special guests included
Rupert Boneham, America’s Favorite Survivor, winner of $1 Million and founder of Rupert’s Kids
Hunter Smith, the NFL’s TOP Punter (10 years with the Colts and last year with the Redskins), and great singer, songwriter, communicator, and a dear brother! Looking forward to doing more with you, Hunter!
Danny Frasier, the World’s Smallest Elvis (with no legs, he stands 2′ 10″, my good buddy who inspires me and I look up to!)
Jim Goldman, the Armless Wonder, an incredible Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, incredible sportsman, and dear friend
Moses Lanham, the Backward Feet Man, and another dear friend (whose car was TOTALLED on the way to the show!)
Dale Mendenhall, pastor of High Street United Methodist Church
We’ve been hearing lots of great comments from people after the show. One lady said “This was the BEST show I have EVER seen at Emens Auditorium! I would have paid $50 a ticket to see that!”
Here are a few reviews of the show from the BSU Daily News:
The AOL article about Friday’s Swords for Africa charity benefit is running nationally this morning on AOL and AOL.com - with pictures and videos of Danny and Jim!
Many of you have asked how it went at the Bruce Museum today, so here’s a quick update…
It went GREAT! Even BETTER THAN EXPECTED!
The display for the sword collection I loaned the Bruce Museum for their exhibit “Art and Science of the Circus” looks GREAT! The exhibit displays a set of historic swords that belonged to “World Champion Sword Swallower” Edith Clifford when she performed with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus from 1899-1919. The museum did a GREAT job of displaying the swords!
Adjacent to the swords are two life-size x-rays of my chest with swords down my throat. About 10 feet away is displayed Diane Arbus’ original famous black/white photo of albino sword swallower Lady Sandra Reed taken in 1979, and sold at auction at Southeby’s for $38,600. Nearby is Henri Matisse’s famous masterpiece “The Sword Swallower” - not a copy or print, but the real deal, the original painting that Matisse painted in 1947! What an honor it was to finally see the originals of these two masterpieces firsthand and be photographed swallowing swords next to them!
Then my lecture on the “History, Art, and Science of Sword Swallowing” went even better than expected! The show was sold out from all the articles and interviews the past few weeks, and the room was packed to standing room only, so the audience was VERY attentive!
After the lecture on the HISTORY and SCIENCE of sword swallowing, I did a little demonstration on the ART of sword swallowing using a variety of swords and hedge clippers that I brought with me.
But the highlight of the day for me was when we took Edith Clifford’s giant straight razor, giant SAW and 6 of her swords from the display, and I attempted to recreate the historic feats Clifford performed 100 years ago by swallowing her props as a tribute to her - first the giant straight razor, then her giant saw, and then 6 of Edith’s swords mixed in with 9 of mine! In the early 1900s, these swords were in the great Edith Clifford’s stomach - Today, 100 years later, they were in mine! What a fun way to connect with her and bridge the past to the present! Edith Clifford is still creating quite a stir with audiences, as they rewarded the feat with a spontaneous standing ovation today!
Since 2005, my personal record has been swallowing 7 swords at once (which I’ve only done a few times), and my personal goal for years has been to swallow 10 swords at once. Today I broke my personal record of 7 by more than DOUBLING it - by swallowing 15 (yes, FIFTEEN!) swords at ONCE! I guess that’s not something most folks can say on an average day, but this was no average day for me, and it sure meant a lot to me today!
And to top it off, several reporters including AOL News came out to cover the story and got it all on film!
Big thanks to the Bruce Museum for making today a historic and very memorable day for all of us!
And special thanks to AOL News contributor Marc Hartzman for his great article that is now circulating around the Internet!
Thanks to all of you for your prayers and comments! You all mean a lot to me, so much more than you know!
As I tell my audiences - Think big, dream BIGGER! Set your goals HIGH, then set your mind to it, and with God’s help, you CAN do the impossible in YOUR life!
Thanks for believing in me and for making yourself part of my dream!
Dan
Dan swallowing 100 year old antique saw that belonged to Edith Clifford
Sword Swallower Dan Meyer swallowing 100-year-old Antique Saw at Bruce Museum
Sword Swallower Dan Meyer swallows 15 swords at Bruce Museum for a new record!
Sword Swallower Dan Meyer Swallowing 15 Swords at Bruce Museum
For my part, I will be lecturing on the history, as well as the art and science of sword swallowing. The highlight of the exhibit is a collection of swords I loaned to the museum that were swallowed by the world famous “Champion Sword Swallower of the World” Edith Clifford who swallowed them from the 1890s to the early 1900s with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circuses. Clifford created such a sensation that Harry Houdini went to Ringling Brothers to see her perform in person and raved about her in his book “Miracle Mongers and Their Methods”. The highlight of her act was swallowing a giant straight razor, a giant saw, and a bayonet that was shot down her throat by a cannon, and these implements will be the highlight of this lecture.
World Champion Sword Swallower with her Saw
The last time these implements were swallowed, they were in Edith Clifford’s stomach 100 years ago, and her DNA is still on her props!
As the final demonstrations to my lecture, if my throat is up to it, I am going to attempt a historic feat to bridge the past with the present by trying to recreate some of Edith Clifford’s historic feats by attempting to swallow the giant straight razor, her giant saw, and who knows what else into MY stomach… to add my DNA with hers!
The lecture and show is at the Bruce Museum this Sunday, November 14th at 3:00pm. Edith Clifford is still making quite a stiry 100 years later, as the show is already sold out, a lot of media are scheduled to cover the story including AOL News, and as of this morning, there is already a lot of press on the story:
Wow! What an AWESOME weekend I had at YEC in Oklahoma City, OK!
I flew into Oklahoma City on Friday afternoon after only 3 hours of sleep. When I arrived at the airport, I called for my ride… They said, “Dan Meyer? We already picked up Dan Meyer this MORNING!”
I said, “That’ funny… I don’t remember it! I just GOT HERE!”
Come to find out, the sound guy for Britt Nicole is named Dan Myers, so they had picked him up about an hour earlier!
I later met him and he was a pretty cool guy! When I got to the Lloyd Noble Center in Tulsa, I enjoyed hanging out in the green room with my friend Illusionist Brock Gill, and Jason Dunn, lead singer for Hawk Nelson! They are both such great guys!… Both of them!
Then on Friday night I was privileged to open for Hawk Nelson by doing fire-eating and the Human Blockhead. Because I had a very short window of time, I kept it all pretty short, and I could tell the audience was pretty freaked out and wondering if I was ever really going to swallow real swords. I teased them and told them to come back tomorrow for some real sword swallowing. But it was fun and I heard lots of great comments from some of the 10,000 kids who were there that night! Then immediately following after me Hawk Nelson went on. Hawk Nelson was AWESOME and ROCKED THE HOUSE!
On Saturday, I finally got to meet one of my favorite Christian artists Britt Nicole! As it turns out, I use two of her songs in my show, and she sang BOTH of them live… JUST BEFORE MY SET! How cool is that? To follow Britt Nicole! As she was coming off stage, I asked her if she would be willing to pull a sword from my throat? “SURE!” she said! I was elated!
So I did a VERY quick version of my show where I swallowed a small sword, a hedge clippers, a giant straight razor, and a few other swords…
Dan Meyer swallowing sword, hedge clippers and giant straight razor at YEC
Then I asked the audience if they wanted to see Britt Nicole pull a sword from my throat… They loved it! So I called for Britt to come up on stage. She was so gracious and generous… You can tell she has been blessed with a wisdom and maturity well beyond her years!
When it came time to pull the sword out of my throat, I gave her all the details…. You should have seen the look on her face! I think she was a little freaked out!
Here’s video of Britt pullng out the sword!
Christian Artist Britt Nicole pulls sword from Sword Swallower Dan Meyer
Britt was a true professional, did a GREAT job, and was so gracious in not killing me! Thanks a million, Britt!
Then I put on my laser light gloves and did a laser choreography to Britt’s song “GLOW” Even though the haze fog was not too thick and the lights were still up fairly bright, the laser gloves and light saber still seemed to go over pretty well. The cameraman said he could see the light saber glowing through my neck and others said they could see it on the jumbotron!
Video:
If anyone got any photos or video of the show, and ESPECIALLY Britt Nicole pulling the sword out or the glowing sword, please, please PLEASE e-mail me! I really would like to see them and post them here if it’s ok with you!
I made so many great friends at YEC OK! I would LOVE to come back to YEC OK again sometime! If you were there, please follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook!
Had an AWESOME time at Cross N Dagger in Fort Wayne Indiana last weekend! I wasn’t sure what I was getting into performing for a few thousand bikers, and I’m sure THEY weren’t sure what they were getting with a sword swallower, but from the many hugs and tears and great comments I got from the bikers, it seems like it was certainly a perfect fit!
Life Bridge church is a REALLY COOL church - They had an AWESOME worship band that ROCKED, motorcycles up on the stage, they roasted a few hogs, and invited about 2000+ bikers to come in! And they had a weird sword swallower there as well! I guess Pastor Bill really DOES like to do things OUTSIDE the BOX!
After the second show, one of the bikers came back to talk to me. He said he knew there was a God, but he said that my show and message had put him “over the hump” into believing He was real and making a decision to follow Him! He was pretty choked up. So was I!
A few minutes later, I was relating this story to one of the pastors, and as I mentioned the man’s name and told the story, and a lady overheard me. She threw her arms around me and was sobbing in tears, and said she was the man’s wife and had been praying for him to know the Lord for years! She was SO overjoyed that he had made the decision that day, and she kept thanking me and hugging me and crying. It made quite an impact on me!
If you were there, please follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook!
I just got a note on Facebook from a friend who said he just saw me on a TV commercial for the upcoming History Channel documentary “Stan Lee’s SuperHumans!”
This is an eagerly-awaited new series of episodes on History Channel about people who have what may almost be considered “SuperHuman” powers to do the incredible, with my friend Daniel Browning-Smith (Flex the Rubber Boy!) as host. It was great to see Daniel again and work with the production crew from Bristol England. We had a blast filming my episode at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN in January, and at our farm in Alabama in February, and there should be some VERY INTERESTING footage in our episode!
According to the History Channel site, the series premieres on The History Channel on Friday, July 30, at 9/8c to 88 Million viewers worldwide. The series airs four 8 minute episodes on Thursday nights in each week’s 50 minute program, and some episodes re-air again later that night.
My Episode #7 is tentatively scheduled to air on
Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 10est/9pm Central Time
Check your local listing for local times. Let me know if you see the commercials or even see the episode itself! Can’t wait to see how it turns out! Should be HOT!
“Dan’s creativity, professionalism, and devotion
has taken his sword swallowing to a Superhuman level.” -Daniel Browning-Smith, Host, History Channel’s “Stan Lee’s SuperHumans”
DAN IN QUEST SCIENCE MAGAZINE
Just found out I am being featured in a multi-page article in QUEST magazine - Quest is a major Dutch Science magazine (won “Magazine of the Year” in 2010!), and Quest publishes over 200,000 copies each month to a readership of 1.1 million readers. The article was written by a great guy, Dutch journalist Rik Kuiper, who I hit it off with while I was speaking at the PINC.11 Conference in Zeist Netherlands in May. If you’re a Dutch reader, please let me know how the article turned out!
Sad news: On the day I received my copies of the magazine in the mail, I also found out that Quest’s Editor-In-Chief died at the young age of 39. What a sad story for such a great magazine. Please keep them in your prayers.
DAN IN SCANNER MAGAZINE
I also just received a copy of the Dutch medical magazine “SCANNER” which features an article on me as well! Scanner is published by Erasmus University in Rotterdam Netherlands and reaches a large audience of medical readers.
DAN IN THE LUTHERAN MAGAZINE
Also look for an article on me in the September 2010 LUTHERAN magazine (formerly “The Lutheran Standard”) written by journalist Jeff Favre. This magazine reaches an audience of 4.7 million ELCA Lutherans and 17,000 Lutheran clergy in over 10,300 ELCA Lutheran congregations around the US! Let me know if you happen to see it or hear of any Lutheran congregations, Bible camps, or Lutheran Colleges who might be interested in having me come and speak/perform!
CROSS AND DAGGER
This weekend I’m heading up to Indiana to perform at “Cross and Dagger“Biker Rally for about 2000 bikers at Life Bridge Church in Fort Wayne. If you’re in the area, definitely stop by and say hi!
Then next week I head off to Oklahoma to perform for about 10,000 Baptist youth with uber-cool magician Brock Gill and Peter Nestler on August 6-7 at the Oklahoma YEC Convention in Oklahoma City. If you’re in Oklahoma City, stop in and see us!
Just getting ready to catch my flight to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in a few minutes.
If the volcanic ash is not too bad, I hope to land in Amsterdam on Saturday and spend the weekend there. Then on Monday, I will be traveling to the little Dutch village of Zeist, for a VERY special occasion!
I have been honored to speak at the 11th annual prestigious PINC Conference (PINC stands for People, Ideas, Nature, and Creativity). PINC is like a European version of the well-known TED conference, and the PINC board has invited me along with a small number of other speakers to speak on “out of the box” type topics… like SWORD SWALLOWING! What a HUGE honor! I am really looking forward to this trip and to meeting the other speakers!
After PINC, on Wednesday I will be heading to Rotterdam where I will be speaking at Erasmus University Medical Center with my friends Erwin Kompanje and Kees Moeliker, both fellow Ig Nobel speakers themselves. This should be a fun talk for the doctors and nurses in the area, as this is one of the aspects of my job that I really LOVE!
From Wednesday to Saturday, I will be visiting the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, the Rotterdam Zoo, the Kinderdijk Windmills, and the floating Noah’s Ark replica and museum that is on exhibit in Vianen in the Netherlands! And it looks like I will be doing some media interviews in various magazines, newspapers, and even the TOP Dutch TV show in the Netherlands!
Thanks a million, Britt!
Alex and Me
Black, Red, White
Blink
Heading For Home
How the Best Get Better
How to Promote Your Book on a Shoestring Budget
Maximum Entertainment
News of the Weird
Outliers
Quiet Diplomacy
Ripley’s Believe It or Not Book
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Swallowing the Sword
The Art of the Solo Performer
The Faith of George W Bush
The Last Lecture
The Shack
Bounty
Bucket List
Facing the Giants
Final Season
Fireproof
Mountains of the Moon
Pirates of the Caribbean
Shadowlands
Carter Burwell
Ceili Rain
Dan Meyers
David Foster
David Wilcox
Family Force 5
Freddie Fernbrant
Mark Isham
Dan’s Favorite Quotes
Dan at Ripley’s Believe It or Not Copenhagen Denmark
Sword Swallower.