Episode 231 - Penn Jilette

Episode 231 • Released November 27, 2011 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF?

00:00:19Marc:What the fuck?

00:00:20Marc:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?

00:00:27Marc:What-the-fuckineers?

00:00:28Marc:What-the-fuck nicks?

00:00:29Marc:What-the-fucks-a-kins?

00:00:30Marc:What-the-fuck-a-mollens?

00:00:32Marc:Oh, man.

00:00:33Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:34Marc:I am Marc Maron.

00:00:35Marc:This is the Monday after Thanksgiving.

00:00:37Marc:Before we get started, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, but I do want to mention right out of the gate, before I forget, as I will, that I will be at the Arlington Drafthouse in Arlington, Virginia, December 2nd and 3rd.

00:00:49Marc:That's this Friday and Saturday.

00:00:52Marc:Please come.

00:00:53Marc:I have had five consecutive cheat days.

00:00:56Marc:Is that still called a cheat day if you just keep eating?

00:01:01Marc:I am not going to sit here and talk about my weight or my diet.

00:01:04Marc:I did have a good time in Seattle.

00:01:06Marc:I was in Seattle for, what is it, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

00:01:11Marc:Five nights.

00:01:11Marc:Chose to take a vacation up in Seattle in November.

00:01:15Marc:There's a good choice.

00:01:16Marc:No, the weather's going to be great.

00:01:18Marc:It's not going to rain every fucking day.

00:01:20Marc:And I know that some of you are thinking, hey, it's Seattle.

00:01:23Marc:It rains up there.

00:01:24Marc:I knew that, too.

00:01:25Marc:I didn't realize just how weighty and relentless it could be.

00:01:32Marc:I locked in.

00:01:33Marc:Jessica and I knew that it might rain, but come day two and a half to three of just relentless, shitty, cold rain, you start to wonder how the fuck people in Seattle keep any sort of...

00:01:49Marc:relatively light disposition about their life.

00:01:53Marc:How can you not be just completely oppressed by rain after a certain point?

00:02:00Marc:And then you start to look outside and you realize, hey, they're not even using umbrellas.

00:02:04Marc:They're just walking around like it's not fucking raining out.

00:02:07Marc:That's what happens.

00:02:08Marc:The denial in Seattle gets so intense that they believe they're not wet.

00:02:13Marc:They believe that they're not just sort of lumbering

00:02:17Marc:Kind of hunched over wine drunk earth nerds moving towards their next destination as if it wasn't raining.

00:02:26Marc:All very practically dressed.

00:02:27Marc:Very interesting city up there.

00:02:29Marc:I've spent a lot of time there.

00:02:31Marc:This is the first time I spent this long in a long time up there with Jess.

00:02:35Marc:And the people were great.

00:02:37Marc:But there is sort of a weird kind of very grounded sort of earth nerdy thing going on up there.

00:02:42Marc:Everyone's dressed very reasonably.

00:02:46Marc:But always damp.

00:02:47Marc:I think always damp.

00:02:48Marc:Bit of a beer buzz.

00:02:50Marc:Bit of a wine buzz.

00:02:51Marc:Certainly a massive coffee high.

00:02:54Marc:I don't know how you can be so jacked up in such a... I guess you have to be that jacked up in order to deal with the grayness of everything.

00:03:01Marc:But like I said, we had a great time.

00:03:04Marc:I really appreciate everybody coming out to the Neptune Theater.

00:03:06Marc:That was really my first legitimate...

00:03:09Marc:theater gig, and we sold it out.

00:03:11Marc:800 people and change came.

00:03:14Marc:Great audience.

00:03:15Marc:Thank you for the smoked fish.

00:03:16Marc:Thank you for the homemade blueberry lemon muffins.

00:03:20Marc:Thank you for the brownies.

00:03:22Marc:Thank you for, what else did I get?

00:03:25Marc:Oh, and I was really going to try to stay on the fucking diet.

00:03:28Marc:I knew that Thanksgiving would be rough and my cheat day was before Thanksgiving.

00:03:31Marc:So, of course, that day I went out and got fried scallops, French fries, two mochas, a Mexican mocha at a place, had great fucking coffee up there.

00:03:39Marc:But then it just continued.

00:03:40Marc:Not too crazy, but I really thought I was going to get back on the horse come Friday night, the night of the show, and someone brought me some sort of fruit.

00:03:48Marc:that I was about to go on.

00:03:50Marc:I just fucking inhaled it.

00:03:53Marc:Mike Drucker was great opening.

00:03:55Marc:We had a great couple hours of show in there.

00:03:58Marc:And it was, I don't know, it was definitely a high point of my life to really pop my theater cherry in Seattle at the Neptune.

00:04:07Marc:And I really appreciate all you WTF people coming out.

00:04:12Marc:And I don't know, it was emotional for me, man.

00:04:16Marc:What can I tell you?

00:04:18Marc:I love Seattle.

00:04:20Marc:I just do, even though it's rainy and dark.

00:04:24Marc:But I did stuff in Seattle, just wanted to do stuff.

00:04:27Marc:I went to the Experience Music Project that I've been hearing so much about.

00:04:32Marc:There seems to be two permanent exhibits there.

00:04:35Marc:There's one on Nirvana and there's one on Hendrix, but then it's just a crapshoot.

00:04:38Marc:It's like he spent a lot of you go into a guitar room, got a great collection of guitars.

00:04:42Marc:Then he looked at the entire history of the Pacific Northwest music scene focused around Nirvana.

00:04:48Marc:Then he'd go back in time and he'd do the Hendrix thing.

00:04:51Marc:And then it was Battlestar Galactica paraphernalia.

00:04:54Marc:And then there was an exhibit on Avatar.

00:04:56Marc:And then there's a large room that looks like it could be used as a very high-tech function hall.

00:05:01Marc:And upstairs you can go into sound booths and play or sing or hit on drums.

00:05:04Marc:The earnestness that people bring to drums is sometimes slightly disturbing.

00:05:08Marc:And I'm not talking about professional drummers because that's something to watch.

00:05:11Marc:But you go upstairs in the Experience Music Project and there's like studios where you can play along with a track.

00:05:18Marc:And everybody, you know, you can wait in line for a booth.

00:05:20Marc:And I saw this middle-aged dude that was just playing the drum with an intensity.

00:05:25Marc:He had a look in his eye that whatever he was banging, whatever those sticks meant to anybody else watching, to me, it just looked like a guy that was banging his way out of his life for as long as he could in that booth, in that experienced music project.

00:05:42Marc:You just caught his eye and you had that moment where you're like, oh my God, don't look at it while it's feeding.

00:05:47Marc:Yeah.

00:05:47Marc:It was it moved me.

00:05:50Marc:I'm very sensitive like that.

00:05:52Marc:And, you know, my girlfriend's a vegetarian, so we did a vegetarian Thanksgiving and don't automatically think Tofurky.

00:05:58Marc:Now, it's not 1975.

00:05:59Marc:All right.

00:06:00Marc:Tofurky exists, but there's other ways to go.

00:06:03Marc:We went to some place.

00:06:05Marc:What was it called?

00:06:06Marc:Cafe Flora.

00:06:07Marc:It was very nice.

00:06:08Marc:It was a prefix.

00:06:09Marc:It was a risotto cake with some cranberry stuff and some vegetarian gravy.

00:06:14Marc:I don't know what they make that out of.

00:06:17Marc:There was other stuff.

00:06:18Marc:It was very nice.

00:06:19Marc:People who eat at vegetarian restaurants, I envy them.

00:06:22Marc:I don't know if they're like me.

00:06:24Marc:When I'm eating vegetarian food, as much as I want to lock in with the whole idea that it's better for me and the world and the ground and everything else that's connected with everything, I'm still a little aggravated.

00:06:36Marc:And then I get jealous.

00:06:37Marc:I always sit in vegetarian restaurants.

00:06:39Marc:I looked at these practically dressed restaurants.

00:06:41Marc:Seemingly normal people.

00:06:43Marc:I focus in on this one couple.

00:06:44Marc:This old guy must have been in his 60s, had a very long beard, no hair on his head, had the sweet sort of worn out old hippie looking wife.

00:06:54Marc:And I thought, why am I not that guy?

00:06:56Marc:Is it too late to be that guy?

00:06:58Marc:If I start growing the beard out now in an earnest way, could I slowly move my life towards matching that beard?

00:07:05Marc:Could I slowly move off the grid into something comfortable?

00:07:09Marc:Maybe a wood-burning fireplace, a small house with a lot of knitted things and a few books, maybe no television, perhaps a radio occasionally.

00:07:18Marc:Maybe I'll just make model planes or take care of small animals, which I already do.

00:07:26Marc:Why do I build a life fantasy around a fucking beard that I decide has integrity?

00:07:32Marc:I don't fucking know.

00:07:34Marc:I really don't know.

00:07:35Marc:But we did.

00:07:35Marc:Then we went to another health food restaurant.

00:07:37Marc:What health food?

00:07:38Marc:What year is it?

00:07:39Marc:We went to another vegetarian restaurant, but this was sort of a to do.

00:07:43Marc:You know, we go to this place.

00:07:44Marc:What was the name?

00:07:45Marc:It wasn't called Urethra.

00:07:47Marc:It was called... It wasn't called... Oh, now I'm forgetting that name, too.

00:07:53Marc:What?

00:07:53Marc:I need to do some brain... I need some exercises for my brain.

00:07:58Marc:I got to start doing crosswords.

00:08:00Marc:I got to start doing Sudoku.

00:08:01Marc:I got to start doing stuff because my memory is drifting away.

00:08:05Marc:I don't have any...

00:08:06Marc:I don't have any exercises.

00:08:09Marc:I don't have any brain exercises other than angrily untangling earbud cords in my car, which I think is challenging.

00:08:17Marc:What the fuck is the name of that restaurant?

00:08:19Marc:Was it called?

00:08:21Marc:Fuck.

00:08:21Marc:Fuck, what was the name of it?

00:08:23Marc:Was it Ovum or something?

00:08:28Marc:Sutra.

00:08:29Marc:That was it.

00:08:30Marc:Sutra.

00:08:31Marc:Price fix.

00:08:32Marc:Two seatings.

00:08:33Marc:You go, you sit down.

00:08:34Marc:It's all local.

00:08:34Marc:They do the whole kit and it's connected to a yoga studio.

00:08:38Marc:They bring you.

00:08:39Marc:It's all organic, local, vegan stuff.

00:08:43Marc:It was very nice.

00:08:44Marc:And they come out before the meal starts and they bang a large bell-like gong.

00:08:50Marc:And you listen to them.

00:08:51Marc:Then they give thanks to the farmers and to the earth and to this.

00:08:56Marc:And there's part of me that just can't.

00:08:59Marc:How is that not funny?

00:09:01Marc:How is it not ridiculous?

00:09:02Marc:But I'm sitting there trying to make it OK.

00:09:05Marc:Why can't we be grateful to the earth?

00:09:07Marc:Why can't it be nice to have this nice food that doesn't hurt any any bugs or or or animals with meat on them?

00:09:15Marc:Why?

00:09:15Marc:can't I just let this be why do I have to sit there looking at the people working there thinking like they go home and say this is fucking bullshit I just doing it for a gig they're all hugging each other after the meal it's all very sweet but there's some part of me that just won't let it happen without thinking that what is teaming beneath this what is what is beneath the yoga studio and the organic wonderful beautiful food place where the food was just perfect and great and everybody was thankful they're ringing bells and I'm thinking there's something fucking wrong

00:09:45Marc:What is wrong here?

00:09:47Marc:What is wrong with me?

00:09:48Marc:This is the Monday.

00:09:50Marc:The gratitude didn't last.

00:09:52Marc:Clearly I'm here.

00:09:53Marc:I'm back in my house all jacked up on coffee.

00:09:57Marc:Wishing I had a long beard and nothing to do.

00:10:01Marc:On the show today...

00:10:02Marc:We have Penn Jillette, who before I met him, I thought he was a difficult person.

00:10:07Marc:And I probably used a different language in that just from his TV appearances and what I thought was a very abrasive disposition.

00:10:14Marc:But what a sweet fucking guy.

00:10:16Marc:Smart guy.

00:10:17Marc:Very great raconteur.

00:10:19Marc:Wonderful storyteller.

00:10:21Marc:I talked to him when I was in Vegas the last time I was in Vegas.

00:10:24Marc:So that's going to happen.

00:10:26Marc:There's some part of me every time I'm in Seattle where I just feel so meditative because of the weather that I just want to... I know I may have mentioned this before.

00:10:37Marc:I just want to continue moving north.

00:10:40Marc:I want to be a trapper or something.

00:10:43Marc:No, not a trapper.

00:10:44Marc:That's a horrendous job.

00:10:45Marc:Maybe just...

00:10:46Marc:A guy that lives off the land that goes up.

00:10:48Marc:He walks up into the Yukon or up into Canada and then up into Alaska.

00:10:54Marc:And he just disappears and becomes a myth, like a mythic guy, a mountain man.

00:11:00Marc:I want to be Mountain Man Mark Maron.

00:11:04Marc:You know, I want the story to continue.

00:11:06Marc:I want it to be, you know, he had a podcast when he was working his garage.

00:11:10Marc:Things weren't going well.

00:11:11Marc:The podcast went for two years.

00:11:13Marc:He was in Seattle for the weekend.

00:11:15Marc:And then he said, fuck it to everything.

00:11:17Marc:He bought supplies and then no one has seen him.

00:11:20Marc:Some people think he lives up in the hills of wherever the Yukon, Canada, Alaska area and lives.

00:11:27Marc:They see him wearing many layers of clothes.

00:11:30Marc:Of pelts.

00:11:32Marc:And he lives off the land.

00:11:34Marc:He grows winter vegetables.

00:11:36Marc:Root vegetables.

00:11:37Marc:And traps rabbits.

00:11:39Marc:And he has a very long beard.

00:11:41Marc:They see him occasionally.

00:11:44Marc:I'd be like a yeti.

00:11:45Marc:Or some sort of weird monster.

00:11:48Marc:And then I come back.

00:11:49Marc:And I come back to the garage and the readjustment becomes the second phase of this show.

00:11:55Marc:That's the plan.

00:11:57Marc:If I'd stayed up in Seattle one more day, I would have done that.

00:12:00Marc:Would have left a note for Jessica and just taken a hat and a coat and then just bought all kinds of shit and head up into the hills.

00:12:10Marc:I went to REI.

00:12:12Marc:I just bought a nice sweater.

00:12:13Marc:But I'd go back there and just pack up.

00:12:17Marc:Just leave my car at the Canadian border.

00:12:19Marc:Head out.

00:12:21Marc:No phone.

00:12:24Marc:No, maybe I should bring a phone.

00:12:26Marc:I probably need a phone up there.

00:12:28Marc:But definitely no computer because what the hell good would it do?

00:12:32Marc:I don't know.

00:12:32Marc:Yeah, no, I'd probably bring a computer.

00:12:34Marc:I'd probably bring a computer and probably, yeah.

00:12:38Marc:Yeah, you know what?

00:12:38Marc:I think I'll drive.

00:12:40Marc:I'm going to drive.

00:12:41Marc:Yeah, I'll just keep everything.

00:12:43Marc:Yeah, just in case it doesn't work out.

00:12:45Okay.

00:12:49Marc:I don't think I've seen you since, like I ran into you once when you're, I think I opened for a friend of yours at the knitting factory.

00:12:57Marc:He was doing some one man show about emails from Nigeria.

00:13:02Guest:Oh yeah.

00:13:02Guest:Dean Cameron.

00:13:03Guest:Yeah.

00:13:04Marc:And I, and you were sitting in there and there was like 12 people in there and it was a horrendous set.

00:13:08Marc:And then I approached you with some ridiculous story that I've carried with me forever about first meeting you, which you'll never remember.

00:13:14Marc:And I just made a fucking idiot out of myself.

00:13:17Guest:I don't remember you making an idiot of yourself.

00:13:19Marc:Let me flesh it out for you.

00:13:22Marc:It was at Caroline's Comedy Club.

00:13:24Marc:You were with Debbie Harry, and I wanted to connect with you somehow.

00:13:29Marc:So I'd just gotten a tape of the Velvet Underground live in Paris, the reunion.

00:13:36Marc:Did you get it?

00:13:37Marc:Right.

00:13:37Marc:Someone gave me the tape, and they told me it was recorded from the mixing board.

00:13:43Marc:And I walked up to you, and I said, yeah, I got this tape from the mixing board.

00:13:47Marc:And you're like, well, they released a live album.

00:13:49Marc:What fucking difference does that make?

00:13:51LAUGHTER

00:13:51Marc:And I kind of went, oh, all right.

00:13:55Guest:I'll talk to you later.

00:13:57Guest:Was very, very kind of you.

00:13:59Guest:Very kind of you and very ungracious of me.

00:14:02Marc:Oh, no.

00:14:02Marc:I mean, you were right.

00:14:03Marc:I don't know why I didn't put that together.

00:14:06Marc:But you have a way of cutting through bullshit.

00:14:09Guest:It's a great record.

00:14:11Marc:It's a great record.

00:14:12Marc:I fucking love it.

00:14:13Guest:And I was in London for the first show they did together.

00:14:17Guest:Yeah.

00:14:18Guest:And although it's not well documented,

00:14:21Guest:The first words spoken when the Velvet Underground got back on stage was Lou Reed walked to the mic and said, this is for you, Ben.

00:14:29Guest:Really?

00:14:30Guest:The first words.

00:14:31Guest:Now, are you friends with him?

00:14:33Guest:I was very close friends with him when I was in New York.

00:14:36Guest:And moving to Vegas, the way both of us operate, not seeing him on a daily basis, we still, we see each other very friendly, but we're not the email, phone call.

00:14:49Guest:Right.

00:14:50Guest:It wasn't that kind of relationship.

00:14:51Marc:By the time you became friends with him, he was probably later in his career, right?

00:14:55Guest:Well, yeah, I became friends with him in the 80s, late 80s.

00:14:59Guest:But his career starts in 65.

00:15:02Guest:Right.

00:15:02Guest:So I was 10.

00:15:04Marc:And it would have been odd if you were at the factory at 10.

00:15:09Marc:You would have been that kid.

00:15:11Guest:But I sure would have been the star of it.

00:15:13Guest:Yeah, hell yeah.

00:15:13Marc:Very popular.

00:15:15Marc:Yeah, and I don't think you would have lived past 17.

00:15:17Marc:Probably not, probably not.

00:15:19Marc:But it was interesting with me and that Lou thing when I read Please Kill Me, you know, having loved the Velvet Underground, and that thing humanized everybody.

00:15:27Marc:And there was a point in that book where I was like, holy Christ, what an asshole he was early on.

00:15:33Guest:Yeah, you know...

00:15:35Marc:I don't need you to say he is.

00:15:36Marc:I love the guy.

00:15:37Guest:Everybody had that reputation.

00:15:41Guest:My relation with Lou was the kinds of friends who went to movies together.

00:15:47Guest:We just hung out and had dinner and went to movies.

00:15:49Guest:So it wasn't a...

00:15:51Guest:There's no asshole stuff, but then again, there wouldn't be when you go into movies.

00:15:56Guest:That's right.

00:15:56Guest:People have a different persona.

00:15:58Guest:It's when you're working together that you get those stories.

00:16:02Guest:Right.

00:16:02Guest:And anyone who's worked with anyone else has a story about that other being an asshole.

00:16:07Marc:Isn't that interesting?

00:16:07Marc:Everyone becomes an asshole in your point of view if you're around them long enough.

00:16:10Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:16:11Guest:You're working with them.

00:16:12Guest:Working with someone changes everything.

00:16:14Marc:Sure, it's like being married and then you divorce.

00:16:17Marc:She's always the bitch.

00:16:18Marc:But, you know, not me.

00:16:20Guest:It's okay.

00:16:21Guest:Actually, I've heard people.

00:16:22Guest:I have heard people with enough presence of mind to say, you know, we got divorced and I was an asshole.

00:16:28Marc:Yeah, well, you've got to give it a few months.

00:16:30Marc:You've got to kind of relish in the fact that you're a victim of some kind and then eventually go, maybe I shouldn't have yelled at her so much.

00:16:37Guest:We're coming very close to doing the basic plot of Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett.

00:16:42LAUGHTER

00:16:43Marc:i'll have my producer put that in i'll have him roll it in now you know it's my own damn fault that's the punchline there well you know i uh you know i was a little not a little nervous but not too nervous because i know you you like to talk but like as a kid why what what drove you towards this did you think you'd end up in vegas i mean is this a big payoff for you

00:17:05Guest:Well, you know, that's the thing that's so odd for me is that whole way of looking at things.

00:17:12Guest:People who look at their careers as a venue really confuse me.

00:17:17Guest:And it was so hard when we first played Broadway because you're going to be on Broadway.

00:17:21Guest:And there aren't that many two-person shows that are on Broadway.

00:17:25Guest:You know, there's, you know, 20.

00:17:27Guest:And it's a big deal and you're really excited about it.

00:17:30Guest:And people would say to me, you know, is this your dream to be on Broadway?

00:17:34Guest:And I try to be polite.

00:17:38Guest:I would say to people, I'm really happy to be playing on Broadway, but the show matters.

00:17:43Guest:You know, it's not just where you are.

00:17:45Guest:And there are a lot of performers in Vegas who say, all I ever wanted to do was be on the strip in Vegas.

00:17:51Guest:And I go, how can that be?

00:17:53Guest:You know, if you offered me right now a theater in Vegas with my name on it and the same amount of money and keep all things equal, but I'm not doing the Penn & Teller show, I have no interest.

00:18:05Guest:What would that show be, though?

00:18:07Guest:I don't know.

00:18:07Guest:Exactly.

00:18:08Exactly.

00:18:08Guest:I don't have any interest in the venue, just in the show.

00:18:11Guest:No, I get it.

00:18:12Guest:And that's real important.

00:18:14Guest:When I hear people say, you know, I've always wanted to have a sitcom, you just kind of go, well, which sitcom matter?

00:18:21Guest:It seems so insulting to the audience.

00:18:22Guest:As long as I'm in this room having this job, I don't care what I do.

00:18:27Guest:Right, right.

00:18:27Marc:Give me the hat and let me dance around.

00:18:29Guest:Yeah, and so I don't think it was ever part of my goal to play Vegas.

00:18:35Marc:But it was your goal to be a great illusionist.

00:18:38Guest:To do a show.

00:18:39Guest:Not even that.

00:18:40Guest:What do you call yourself?

00:18:40Guest:You know, I guess if push comes to shove, magician.

00:18:45Guest:I mean, that's what we do.

00:18:46Guest:We do tricks.

00:18:47Guest:But that also wasn't my goal set.

00:18:48Guest:I mean, I'm not... When you look at Siegfried and Roy and Lance Burton and David Copperfield...

00:18:55Guest:From the age of seven, all they wanted to do was be magicians.

00:18:59Guest:What did you want to do at seven?

00:19:01Guest:I think I probably wanted to stay out of prison.

00:19:05Guest:I'm from a dead factory town in Massachusetts.

00:19:08Marc:Was there a big prison there or something?

00:19:10Guest:No, but my dad was a jail guard.

00:19:12Guest:He was?

00:19:12Guest:Yeah, at that time in my life.

00:19:14Guest:Later on, my dad very bravely retired at the age of 50 and became a numismatist after being a jail guard.

00:19:21Guest:What's a numismatist?

00:19:22Guest:A coin dealer.

00:19:23Guest:Oh, okay.

00:19:24Guest:Sorry.

00:19:24Marc:I like the other word better.

00:19:26Guest:But I got to, you know, my dad subscribed to Newsmismatic News.

00:19:30Guest:So I got to see that word a lot.

00:19:33Marc:But wait, so he's a prison guard.

00:19:35Marc:That's heavy.

00:19:35Guest:In a small town.

00:19:37Guest:Kind of a more of a county drunk tank.

00:19:41Guest:Oh, so it wasn't like, you know.

00:19:43Guest:Oh, it wasn't, no.

00:19:43Marc:He was over saying, you know, Oz.

00:19:45Guest:It was Charlie Manson going in and guys carving swastikas.

00:19:49Marc:It was guys he knew probably.

00:19:51Guest:Oh, welcome back, Hank.

00:19:52Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:19:53Guest:Yeah.

00:19:53Guest:But all the same, my goals, I think very early on, the show business thing was really tough because the first person I met in show business was me.

00:20:07Guest:You know, Teller grew up in Center City, Philadelphia.

00:20:10Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:20:11Marc:Greenfield, Massachusetts.

00:20:12Marc:Where is that in Massachusetts?

00:20:13Guest:Western Mass.

00:20:14Guest:You think of it more as Vermont or New Hampshire.

00:20:16Marc:But not Springfield, sort of north.

00:20:19Guest:Yeah, about an hour.

00:20:21Marc:North?

00:20:21Marc:Okay.

00:20:22Yeah.

00:20:22Guest:And it's, you know, a town of 20,000.

00:20:24Guest:And Teller grew up in Center City, Philadelphia, which means that he was running spotlight on local productions of the Fantastics when he was 12.

00:20:33Marc:He came from theater.

00:20:34Guest:He could be.

00:20:35Guest:Well, not really, but there was theater there.

00:20:37Guest:I saw, I think my parents took me to the Music Man on a vacation when I was 15.

00:20:46Guest:You know, bands didn't play.

00:20:48Guest:The nearest they played was Springfield.

00:20:50Guest:Did you like the Music Man?

00:20:51Guest:Yeah, I did.

00:20:52Guest:But the idea of being in show business was completely foreign to me.

00:20:56Guest:So when I started thinking I wanted to be a writer, I mean, the biggest moment when I thought I might be able to go into show business was when I heard...

00:21:08Guest:The first bootleg albums I heard.

00:21:10Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:21:11Guest:Which were they?

00:21:11Guest:Because I believe it was a comeback by the Beatles, the uptakes from that, and Bob Dylan stealing.

00:21:17Guest:Right.

00:21:18Guest:And I had believed, and I still in my heart, I think, believe this, even though it's not true.

00:21:24Guest:I believe that a record like Highway 61.

00:21:28Guest:Yeah.

00:21:29Guest:That Bob Dylan had every, that an idea came into his head that was every tune, every word, and every chord, and exactly the way it would sound.

00:21:42Guest:And there was no editing and no discussion and no accidents.

00:21:45Guest:So it was fucking magic.

00:21:46Guest:He went in and did it all perfect.

00:21:48Guest:Yeah.

00:21:48Guest:And certainly on Sgt.

00:21:50Guest:Pepper's, I didn't believe that they would throw in a backwards tape for no reason.

00:21:55Guest:Everything meant something.

00:21:57Guest:And then I heard these bootleg records and there were mistakes.

00:22:02Guest:And there was stumbling around.

00:22:03Marc:People stopping going, let's do another one.

00:22:05Guest:Let's try this.

00:22:06Guest:Try.

00:22:07Guest:The word try was in there.

00:22:08Guest:Wait a minute.

00:22:09Guest:Not Bob Dylan trying.

00:22:11Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:22:12Guest:The Beatles, not coming in and going, this is where that roar of the lion goes in on Good Morning.

00:22:20Guest:It goes in this exact, George, you know, George Martin, come over here.

00:22:24Guest:This is, no, not a second early, not a second later.

00:22:26Guest:We've talked about this.

00:22:28Guest:It's all set.

00:22:29Guest:This is the way the guitar will sound, and these are the notes George will play.

00:22:33Guest:And no sort of experimentation.

00:22:36Guest:And I learned, because when I was 12,

00:22:40Guest:Juggling wasn't a thing college students did.

00:22:43Guest:Right.

00:22:44Guest:You were ahead of the curve?

00:22:44Guest:When I was 12, it wasn't a hippie thing.

00:22:46Guest:Really?

00:22:46Guest:It was still a circus thing.

00:22:49Guest:Okay.

00:22:49Guest:And it was still an outsider thing.

00:22:51Guest:And I practiced like a freak, thinking, as children do, that if I got good enough at something in show business, that the world talent scouts would come and say, you're a good enough juggler, now you're in show business.

00:23:05Guest:Sure, they'd come to Western Massachusetts.

00:23:06Marc:Sure, and they'd say, who's the good juggler here?

00:23:08Marc:Yeah, just driving around.

00:23:09Marc:There's one.

00:23:10Marc:He's outside in his yard practicing.

00:23:13Marc:So the thing you learned from the bootlegs was that there was a process.

00:23:17Guest:There was a process, yeah.

00:23:18Guest:And that whole idea, which Teller took for granted from the first moment he put together a magic trick, he watched people rehearse.

00:23:26Guest:And I had no idea that people rehearsed or practiced.

00:23:30Guest:I thought you were supposed to think of something perfect

00:23:33Guest:and then go and execute that perfectly.

00:23:36Marc:Well, how big, deep was your fascination with the Carney thing and the circus thing?

00:23:41Guest:Pretty deep, but once again, you have no access.

00:23:43Guest:The fair would come to town once a year.

00:23:46Marc:What was the favorite part?

00:23:47Marc:Did you go to a show?

00:23:47Guest:It was always the 10-in-1 show, which is called colloquially the Freak Show, but called the 10-in-1 show.

00:23:52Marc:Right.

00:23:52Marc:I was gravitated towards that, too, and I feel like we missed the great heyday of Freaks.

00:23:56Guest:Yeah, we sure did.

00:23:57Guest:But what is different about the way I tell the story, whenever I tell the story, and there's a monologue we did on Broadway about the 10 and 1 show, and I talked about going into the circus tent and watching the fire eater, and it was, as Teller would say, the lie that tells the greater truth.

00:24:14Guest:That wasn't really what I did.

00:24:16Guest:I was really afraid to go in.

00:24:18Guest:But what I really did was sit outside and listen to the grind tape, or

00:24:22Guest:over and over again.

00:24:24Guest:And what I loved about the Freaks show was not the Freaks on the inside, because I didn't see them, I didn't care about them, but I loved the guy talking about them.

00:24:32Guest:And I now say, well, the grind.

00:24:34Guest:I now say the guy, but it was actually either Bobby Reynolds or Ward Hall.

00:24:40Guest:They were two guys that actually did all those tapes, and I know them both now, and they're both my friends.

00:24:45Guest:Thalidomide, the day a woman's world stood still, on the inside, all of that stuff.

00:24:51Guest:And the idea of talking about something insane and beautiful always killed me.

00:24:58Guest:I mean, I would listen to those grind tapes.

00:25:00Guest:I would stand there out in front of the 10-in-1 show for, you know, it's so easy to exaggerate as you get older, but certainly for a child a very long time, 45 minutes.

00:25:10Marc:Because there was a hypnotic element to it, and it was sort of like it was an entry into a dark but beautiful world.

00:25:17Guest:And also it was someone talking for a living.

00:25:20Marc:Yeah.

00:25:21Guest:You really thought that then?

00:25:22Guest:I don't know.

00:25:23Guest:I don't know what I thought then.

00:25:25Guest:We're trying to go back to when I was 12, and every time you tell a story, you don't remember the event.

00:25:32Guest:You remember the last time you told the story.

00:25:33Marc:But there was something so frightening about actually seeing what they were talking about.

00:25:36Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:37Guest:And also something so ... When I finally went in at the age of 14 or 15 ...

00:25:44Guest:There's a great book.

00:25:46Guest:Leslie Fiedler, I think, wrote a book called Freaks, The Myths of Our Secret Selves, which I read in high school.

00:25:53Marc:Did you have Very Special People?

00:25:55Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:55Guest:Did you have that book?

00:25:56Guest:Yeah, it's great.

00:25:56Guest:But Leslie Fiedler's book was, I think I would probably consider it now to be pretentious and a little bit bullshitty, but at 17 or 18... What was the message?

00:26:08Guest:The message was...

00:26:10Guest:That he stated over and over again was that what bothered us about freaks was not that they were so different from us, but that they were the same.

00:26:20Guest:And when I first went in to see the world's smallest couple, I believe it was, a husband and wife that were little people.

00:26:28Guest:they were sitting watching TV eating an apple.

00:26:31Guest:Right.

00:26:34Guest:Because, you know, that was their gig.

00:26:35Guest:They're going to be there 15 hours a day, you eat an apple, you watch TV.

00:26:39Guest:And there's that moment.

00:26:40Marc:Then you stand up.

00:26:40Marc:Yeah, I saw Ronnie and Donnie watch television.

00:26:43Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:43Marc:And I interrupted The Swamp Woman.

00:26:47Guest:Which is The Swamp Woman?

00:26:48Marc:Well, there was this little woman, and she was like, you know, from the Cajun bio, like, you know, the dwarf swamp woman.

00:26:54Marc:And I walk into this trailer, you know, walk up that ramp, and you look in, and she was making her bed.

00:26:59Marc:And she turned around and saw me and went like, ugh.

00:27:01Marc:And she reached into a box and got a snake and went, ehhh.

00:27:06Marc:I felt like, yeah, sorry to bother you.

00:27:07Marc:I just...

00:27:08Guest:It was really, so it was all that kind of idea of showbiz.

00:27:15Guest:And so I was juggling all the time and was a professional entertainer in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

00:27:24Guest:I would get $5 for going.

00:27:26Guest:to a nursing home and doing a juggling show for 10 minutes.

00:27:29Guest:With Mike Motion, who ended up being the MacArthur Genius Grant greatest juggler of the 20th century.

00:27:37Guest:He tells the story differently, by the way.

00:27:40Guest:I taught him to juggle.

00:27:41Guest:And by that, I mean I started a week earlier than he did.

00:27:44Guest:And then we juggled together all the time and did our shows and so on.

00:27:47Guest:And he went on to be...

00:27:49Guest:as important in the juggling world as you can be, which is damning with faint praise.

00:27:56Marc:What does it mean to be an important juggler?

00:27:58Guest:I think it means you get the MacArthur genius grant.

00:28:00Guest:I think it means that, you know the crystal ball thing where people roll them around in their hands?

00:28:04Guest:Well, he invented that.

00:28:06Guest:Oh, really?

00:28:06Guest:That is not an ancient tradition that they're all bringing about.

00:28:10Guest:That's a guy in 1978.

00:28:11Guest:A device that he created.

00:28:15Guest:Yeah, and the way it came about was crazy.

00:28:18Guest:We were sharing a house in New Jersey.

00:28:22Guest:I had stopped being partners with Mike Motion and became partners with Teller and a third member.

00:28:27Guest:What year?

00:28:30Guest:It would have been 74, 75, 76.

00:28:33Guest:And we were trying, and I would go in.

00:28:36Guest:as often as I could to New York with Teller, and with Michael, to the Television Broadcast Museum, and I would just watch all these Vitaphone recordings of acts from vaudeville.

00:28:49Guest:I was just fascinated by guys who did one act their whole life, trying to find the craziest stuff you could find, and trying to think of stuff.

00:28:56Guest:Trying to figure out what angle you could get, come up with bits.

00:29:00Guest:And I went down to Canal Street.

00:29:03Guest:There was all those plastic shops and stuff.

00:29:06Guest:And I found these acrylic crystal balls that looked just beautiful and looked beautiful.

00:29:14Guest:kind of delicate and dangerous but we're acrylic you know you could throw them out of you know out of the third story window wouldn't do anything so i bought like five of them and i brought them back uh to uh where we uh where we would practice and i just juggled them every way possible and i talked with teller forever and what if we did something with smoke and what if we did this and just a

00:29:35Guest:Total, total dead end.

00:29:38Guest:Got nowhere.

00:29:39Guest:And just left them over there in the corner.

00:29:40Guest:And Mike Mosher came over and said, mind if I monkey around with those acrylic balls?

00:29:45Guest:And then he invents this whole what's called now contact juggling.

00:29:49Guest:It used to be called Mike Mosher's act.

00:29:52Guest:Now it's called contact juggling.

00:29:53Guest:And what is that?

00:29:53Guest:Well, they take like one ball and roll it over their hand and up their arm.

00:29:57Guest:And it's always done with like a crystal acrylic ball.

00:29:59Guest:And that's because I couldn't get an idea.

00:30:03Guest:That's how I changed the world of juggling is I was unable to get an idea.

00:30:08Marc:The genius behind the genius was the guy that bought the balls and just left them laying around.

00:30:13Marc:Yeah, couldn't get an idea.

00:30:14Marc:Now, did you do a lot of street performing?

00:30:16Guest:A tremendous amount, yeah.

00:30:18Marc:Where?

00:30:19Guest:I had all these kinds of...

00:30:22Guest:I liked to perform where it was illegal.

00:30:25Guest:I just thought that was important.

00:30:27Marc:What does that mean, corporate space?

00:30:29Marc:No, no, no.

00:30:30Guest:I just mean on the streets of Philadelphia.

00:30:32Guest:Like in San Francisco, you get a permit, and you sign this thing, and you sign up, and you can perform from 315 to 330 at this particular wharf on this stage.

00:30:43Guest:I like to be in South Street, New Market, Philadelphia, where the police arrested people for doing street performing.

00:30:54Guest:And I also did Renaissance festivals.

00:30:56Guest:In street performing, I made...

00:30:58Guest:So much fucking money, street performing.

00:31:02Guest:I had a really good 12 minutes, and more important than that- Juggling.

00:31:08Guest:Yeah, juggling and talking.

00:31:10Guest:And I had a really good collection hunk, and I had a really good crowd gathering.

00:31:14Guest:And I would play places where there were rich people, and I also dressed as expensively as possible because I thought I want them to be embarrassed to give me a dollar, have them give me a 20.

00:31:27Marc:So what do you mean?

00:31:27Marc:So no tie-dye?

00:31:28Guest:No tie-dye, no hippie stuff, none of that stuff.

00:31:33Guest:I tried to look so that they would feel like they were really seeing the show.

00:31:36Guest:Oh, wow.

00:31:36Guest:And I made so much money.

00:31:38Guest:I was...

00:31:40Guest:I was 19, 20, and I would make a couple, three grand at a weekend in cash.

00:31:50Marc:On the street.

00:31:50Guest:Yeah, and I remember going to an accountant.

00:31:52Marc:And you were not a druggie, so.

00:31:54Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:31:54Guest:Well, that's where it's going.

00:31:56Guest:I went to an accountant, and I said, you know, I'm a street juggler, and I have to pay taxes on this.

00:32:03Guest:You know, I'm making...

00:32:05Guest:Six figures.

00:32:06Guest:And I told them what I made and said it's all cash and it's all in the street.

00:32:14Guest:And the accountant said to me, if you declare this as a street juggler, you will go to jail as a drug dealer.

00:32:22Guest:Nobody will believe it.

00:32:24Guest:As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I believe it.

00:32:26Guest:You're not making this much money.

00:32:28Guest:You're doing it some way illegally, and you're trying to launder it and pay your taxes on it, and I will be no part of that.

00:32:36Guest:I suggest you declare whatever you got paid from actual checks and leave the street money out of this.

00:32:42Guest:And I said, well, that means I'm making like 15 grand a year.

00:32:45Guest:He said, pay taxes on that.

00:32:47Guest:And that was it.

00:32:48Guest:That was it.

00:32:49Guest:So it's the advice of one person.

00:32:50Guest:And he's still your accountant.

00:32:53Guest:Yeah, probably very bad advice.

00:32:54Guest:But so all the early stuff, Teller and I would street perform, make all this money in cash, buy light rigs, rent theaters, work on our show, and do that.

00:33:07Guest:So the street performing really did support...

00:33:11Guest:The, you know, trying to do a real theatrical show.

00:33:14Guest:And I love street performing and probably would have never stopped except for the incredible damage it was doing my voice.

00:33:21Marc:Because you're screaming.

00:33:22Guest:I was really loud.

00:33:23Guest:Yeah.

00:33:23Guest:You know, I'm big and I'm loud and I was just blowing my voice out completely.

00:33:28Marc:Yeah, I remember you were the voice of Comedy Central when I was actually on Comedy Central.

00:33:32Guest:Yes, I said your name many, many times.

00:33:34Guest:Isn't that weird?

00:33:35Marc:Many, many times.

00:33:36Marc:Some guy just put a thing up on YouTube of me doing some sort of thing on Comedy Central in 1993.

00:33:41Marc:And I was like, oh, my God, someone infused personality into that man.

00:33:47Marc:Look at that young lost person.

00:33:49Marc:Yeah, it was the old days.

00:33:51Marc:So now how much does like this?

00:33:54Marc:Because it seems like you're pretty well known now for your for your view on religion and on politics.

00:34:00Marc:But before I get into that, let's talk about filth.

00:34:04Marc:I am.

00:34:05Marc:I ran into Al Goldstein, I don't know, about maybe eight years ago, and he briefly worked at the cigar store.

00:34:11Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:11Marc:And he brought you up, and I guess he lost that job because people would just come in to talk to Al Goldstein, and he was smoking a lot of cigars.

00:34:18Marc:And he said you were sort of taking care of him.

00:34:21Guest:Yeah, I found out that Al was in a homeless shelter.

00:34:25Marc:Well, what was your relationship before that and Screw Magazine in general and what he represented?

00:34:29Yeah.

00:34:29Guest:He was a hero of mine.

00:34:31Guest:I think that the Goldstein versus Topeka case is a really important freedom of speech case, and Al went through that, and anybody else would have just copped and walked, and he didn't.

00:34:46Guest:And he didn't for, like everybody who's a hero, he did it for really base reasons.

00:34:52Guest:He did it because, you know, for attention.

00:34:55Guest:But that doesn't matter.

00:34:58Guest:You know, all the people that make real breakthroughs, especially in First Amendment cases and Fourth Amendment cases, you can't do it for the pure reasons because it's not worth it.

00:35:11Guest:You have to have all sorts of other baggage to do it.

00:35:14Guest:And I also remember my mom and I. My mom had – she never said hell or damn.

00:35:24Guest:Was she religious?

00:35:26Guest:She –

00:35:27Guest:She died an atheist.

00:35:30Guest:The whole story of that is in my book.

00:35:33Guest:And my dad, they were Congregationalist, First Congo Church, First Congregationalist Church, Greenfield, Massachusetts.

00:35:42Guest:She wasn't particularly religious, no Bible thump or anything, but a very, very proper New England woman.

00:35:49Guest:And I never swore in front of her.

00:35:51Guest:When she would see me, when she would...

00:35:54Guest:read the interview with me in Playboy, she said to me, you know, it's very odd they have to add all this obscenity, but I guess they add that to fit in with their magazine.

00:36:03Guest:And I said, no, Mom, I really talk like that, just not around you.

00:36:06Guest:And she said, I guess they have to add all that stuff.

00:36:10Guest:You know, the Rolling Stone interview and stuff.

00:36:13Guest:So I remember on Tom Snyder, Al Goldstein was on.

00:36:19Guest:And I guess it would have been after I had left home.

00:36:22Guest:I must have been back visiting.

00:36:23Guest:It must have been in the 70s at some time.

00:36:26Guest:Right, 70s.

00:36:27Guest:Yeah, something like that.

00:36:28Guest:And Al Goldstein was on talking about Screw Magazine and talking about people trying to stop him and going on and on and on.

00:36:35Guest:And I remember...

00:36:37Guest:my mom asking me about screw magazine yeah and i said you know it's pornography and it's available and she said uh is it given to anybody against their will and i said no you have to pay for it she said well then why are they talking about it couldn't even cross her mind the idea of censorship was so foreign to her as long as you didn't force it

00:37:00Guest:into her house and blast her on her walls.

00:37:02Guest:And she also thought it was so easy to avoid.

00:37:05Guest:She'd done it perfectly her whole life.

00:37:07Guest:And so I was very aware of Al Goldstein.

00:37:09Guest:He read Screw a bit.

00:37:11Guest:Well, there wasn't much to read in Screw, but I liked the idea of it.

00:37:15Guest:And I met him.

00:37:16Guest:He came to our show off-Broadway, you know, 86, I guess.

00:37:21Guest:And it was funny because, coincidentally, it's only fewer than 200 seats, like 150, 60 seats on our off-Broadway show.

00:37:30Guest:And it happened to be that night that Al Goldstein was in the audience and Gloria Steinem was in the audience.

00:37:36Guest:They both happened to be there.

00:37:37Marc:Did you know that before the show?

00:37:39Guest:No.

00:37:40Guest:Yes.

00:37:41Marc:Would you address it on stage?

00:37:43Guest:No.

00:37:44Guest:But we always hung out during intermission with the audience and afterwards.

00:37:48Guest:And Gloria Steinem was here and Al Goldstein was there.

00:37:51Guest:And I walked past Gloria Steinem to go over to Al Goldstein and introduce myself and shake my hand.

00:37:56Guest:And that blew his mind.

00:37:58Guest:Yeah.

00:37:59Marc:What, because he iced Gloria?

00:38:00Guest:Well, not because I didn't really ice her.

00:38:03Guest:I just chose to speak to Al before Gloria.

00:38:06Guest:And that was a big deal to him.

00:38:08Guest:And his son was, at that time, was getting into magic, Jordan.

00:38:14Guest:And so he was like 15 or 16, and I spent a little time.

00:38:18Guest:And then Al was so...

00:38:20Guest:incredibly generous.

00:38:22Guest:He took everyone out to Le Cirque.

00:38:23Guest:He spent thousands of dollars on dinner.

00:38:27Guest:He had these Sunday brunches everybody was invited to.

00:38:30Guest:He'd pick up the tab for everything.

00:38:32Guest:And he'd come out to Vegas and insist on picking up the tab.

00:38:37Guest:And then I just, friend is perhaps too strong a word, but he was a hero of mine for the political stuff he'd done.

00:38:45Guest:He was always very kind to me.

00:38:48Guest:And then I found out he was in a homeless shelter and got together with Ratso.

00:38:56Guest:Yeah.

00:38:57Guest:And Ratso had told me Al was having a really hard time.

00:39:02Guest:And we made this deal where I would put up the money if Ratso would do the work and get him into an apartment and kind of walk through it.

00:39:10Guest:And he's now...

00:39:11Guest:He's now in kind of a home situation in Brooklyn.

00:39:15Marc:I heard he was in the hospital.

00:39:16Marc:Is that true?

00:39:17Guest:He was out of the hospital, now in kind of a nursing home type situation.

00:39:21Guest:And Ratso and I watch over him.

00:39:23Guest:And I always say to Ratso, you are really, really in trouble.

00:39:29Guest:When the only two people that help you out are Penn and Ratso.

00:39:32Guest:When you're down to that level that you go, these are the two guys I'm counting on.

00:39:37Guest:It's Penn and it's Ratso.

00:39:39Guest:Things have really gone badly for you.

00:39:44Marc:Well, I think it's important to – because I think a lot of people forget that there was a time where –

00:39:48Marc:Because the culture has become so pornified on some level, and that in the 70s, so much of those First Amendment things were around porn.

00:40:00Guest:First Amendment is always porn.

00:40:03Guest:Fourth Amendment is always drug dealers.

00:40:04Guest:Right.

00:40:04Guest:And that's what you're going to deal with.

00:40:06Guest:Second Amendment's always guns.

00:40:07Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:40:08Guest:And Third Amendment, housing soldiers in private homes during peacetime doesn't come up.

00:40:16Guest:People always say, during your show, you talk about the First, Second, and Fourth Amendment.

00:40:24Guest:Why don't you do a whole show that's all 10 amendments in the Constitution?

00:40:28Guest:I say, because we're not going to get a bit on three.

00:40:31Guest:The Supreme Court can't even do 10 minutes on the Third Amendment.

00:40:35Guest:No one has Third Amendment material.

00:40:37Guest:Any guy who talks about how he's a comic that does political stuff, hey, let me hear your Third Amendment hunk.

00:40:43Guest:That's what I'd like to hear.

00:40:44Guest:You don't want to hear about what you think about soldiers being housed in private homes during peacetime.

00:40:51Guest:You got a hunk on that?

00:40:52Guest:What is it?

00:40:52Guest:Is it just me?

00:40:53Guest:Am I crazy?

00:40:54Marc:Is it just me?

00:40:56Marc:When are these soldiers going to get out of our houses?

00:40:59Marc:I mean, I've had this guy in my basement for six months.

00:41:01Marc:There's no war on.

00:41:03Marc:How is it my responsibility?

00:41:04Marc:If there were a war on, I'd be fine with it.

00:41:07Marc:But now I got to house the guy because of the fucking Constitution.

00:41:12Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:41:12Marc:I haven't heard that bit.

00:41:14Marc:Maybe it'll happen.

00:41:15Marc:So do you think that the soul of your libertarianism came from your mother's lack of understanding of why there was an issue around filth?

00:41:25Marc:Certainly.

00:41:26Marc:Yeah.

00:41:26Guest:I mean, certainly.

00:41:27Guest:There was an attitude with my parents, which is, you know—

00:41:34Guest:Every part of America claims this as their part.

00:41:38Guest:It's a southern thing.

00:41:39Guest:It's a New England thing.

00:41:39Guest:It's a Midwestern thing.

00:41:43Guest:But the idea of do anything you want, just don't monkey with me, was so strong in my household.

00:41:51Guest:And my mom's aversion...

00:41:54Guest:And my dad's aversion to anything that was even slightly like gossip.

00:41:58Guest:Anything that would be telling someone else what to do.

00:42:02Guest:I mean, that was an absolute... I mean, my parents never had a drink of alcohol.

00:42:07Guest:Never had any drugs.

00:42:09Guest:I've never had a sip of alcohol or any drug.

00:42:12Guest:But they would never talk about it.

00:42:14Guest:They would never say so-and-so shouldn't be drinking.

00:42:19Guest:That never came up.

00:42:20Guest:Never a discussion of someone being a drunk.

00:42:22Guest:Never anything.

00:42:24Marc:They shouldn't be drinking in our house next time.

00:42:26Guest:It was more like that.

00:42:28Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:42:29Marc:There was an idea I used to do a bit about the libertarians about how it's, you know, you can do whatever you want, just don't do it in my yard.

00:42:38Guest:Yeah.

00:42:38Marc:Get the junkies off of the grass.

00:42:40Guest:It doesn't frighten the horses.

00:42:41Guest:Yeah.

00:42:43Guest:And that really, I think that's where the heart and soul of it come.

00:42:50Guest:You know, you can't be...

00:42:52Guest:You can't trace this stuff back.

00:42:56Guest:When people explain... I mean, there's been studies that are done that say that the liberal conservative, that whole thing, may be chemical.

00:43:07Guest:It may be just part of the brain that's just built in.

00:43:10Marc:With the two sides of the nurturing thing and the tough love thing?

00:43:14Guest:Yeah, well, it's broken down more into...

00:43:19Guest:how how was it uh how was it seen but on on whether uh how much control you want to have over other people and it ties in with that adventuresome thing and all of that and they're able to do uh some goofy stuff where they can do brain scans and tell a little bit of people's politics and you buy that very confusing i don't know

00:43:43Guest:I'm just saying that I just know that every time someone says, you know, why don't you do drugs or drink, the reason I have to always explain that is they always want to make my father and mother into alcoholics and see this horror when I was a child.

00:44:02Guest:No one wants to accept the opposite.

00:44:04Guest:They want to have some traumatic moment.

00:44:07Guest:They want to have me be AA or something.

00:44:09Guest:And so I try to— Why do they want to hang that on you necessarily?

00:44:13No.

00:44:13Guest:I think because it's just the story that's told most.

00:44:16Marc:Well, I think there's something interesting about the atheist disposition in general in that there's a practicality to it and an ability to deal with the fact that shit is not pretty and it probably won't work out and there's a lot of pain in the world.

00:44:36Marc:So there's a way of dealing with that personally, which is a certain element of the control of it.

00:44:42Guest:I guess, you know, that's such an odd thing.

00:44:46Guest:There is this, once again, this story, especially in the U.S., it's not the international story, but kind of the American story, is that atheists are bitter.

00:44:57Guest:You know, one of the first questions you'll get if you're an out-of-the-closet atheist is, you know, I guess you were really fucked over by Christians, or they treated you badly, you went to Catholic school.

00:45:08Guest:Or they'll go the other way and say something really bad must have happened in your life.

00:45:13Guest:And in my experience with hardcore atheists, it tends to be if your family was so perfect that it made Leave it to Beaver look dysfunctional,

00:45:26Guest:That puts you on that road more.

00:45:29Guest:Because it's a lie.

00:45:30Guest:No, no, not at all.

00:45:32Guest:Not even close to that.

00:45:33Guest:Because it's the absolute truth.

00:45:35Guest:If your love from your parents is unconditional and constant, and they just nurture you properly,

00:45:46Guest:then a lot of the, you know, you become 12 foot tall and bulletproof.

00:45:51Marc:Right, the need to somehow have somebody or something bigger than you salve that pain of being... Yeah, it's just not there.

00:46:02Guest:I mean, when people talk to me about, you know, eternal love of Jesus Christ, I just go, Jesus Christ going one-on-one with my mom, my mom wins.

00:46:13Guest:Yeah.

00:46:13Guest:You know?

00:46:14Guest:My mom's love was so unconditional, so pure, and provable.

00:46:19Guest:Provable with apple pie, provable with smiles, provable with being there for me every single time I needed her.

00:46:27Marc:And you went into show business, and that's no small order for a parent.

00:46:31Marc:Very hard.

00:46:33Guest:My dad, very difficult.

00:46:35Guest:My dad never met anyone in show business.

00:46:38Guest:So from his point of view, when I said I wanted to be in show business, it was like saying, I think I'm Johnny Carson.

00:46:43Guest:I mean, that's what he actually said to me.

00:46:45Guest:So you think you're Johnny Carson.

00:46:46Guest:You're going to go from here in Greenfield and host The Tonight Show.

00:46:50Guest:I said, no, but there are other people in show business working.

00:46:52Marc:I'm going to juggle on the street.

00:46:53Marc:Exactly.

00:46:54Marc:Oh, okay.

00:46:55Guest:He didn't understand that at all.

00:46:57Guest:No idea.

00:46:58Guest:And my dad also, you know, he did not finish high school.

00:47:03Marc:Well, that's a fear they have for you.

00:47:05Guest:He firmly believed that everything that didn't go perfectly in his life was because of not going to college.

00:47:11Guest:So when I tested well and did well in school, my dad just, you know, all the money went aside to Penn will go to whatever college he wants.

00:47:20Guest:When I chose not to go to college or to go to clown college.

00:47:24Guest:You went to clown college?

00:47:25Guest:I went to Ringley Brothers Barnum.

00:47:26Guest:Did he pay for it?

00:47:27Guest:It didn't cost anything.

00:47:28Guest:It didn't?

00:47:29Guest:No.

00:47:30Guest:How did you go to clown college for free?

00:47:32Guest:And Ringling Brothers Barnum Bear, the greatest show on earth, pays for it.

00:47:35Guest:In exchange for you saying Ringling Brothers Barnum Bear, the greatest show on earth, clown college, for the rest of your life and never saying clown college.

00:47:42Guest:Did you have to audition for it?

00:47:43Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:47:44Guest:It is, yeah, it's very, very difficult.

00:47:47Guest:So you know how to do broad clowning?

00:47:50Guest:Not well.

00:47:51Guest:I mean, that's one of the things I learned at Clown College was that I wasn't good at it.

00:47:54Guest:I would get laughs verbally and not physically.

00:47:57Guest:But I took makeup classes.

00:47:59Guest:Did you pick a face?

00:48:00Guest:Yeah.

00:48:01Guest:I have my own face and did all of that.

00:48:03Guest:Did you ever go back to your face?

00:48:05Guest:No.

00:48:05Guest:Oh, I haven't ever put on clown makeup.

00:48:08Guest:I'm not really sure I know how to use clown white anymore.

00:48:12Guest:But I went very seriously.

00:48:13Guest:I mean, very seriously and worked hard.

00:48:16Guest:And it was my first time.

00:48:18Guest:I was the youngest person in my class.

00:48:21Guest:I was 18, I guess, or 17.

00:48:23Guest:And I must have been 18.

00:48:25Guest:Is there any affectation to it, or was it all sort of practical?

00:48:30Guest:Very practical.

00:48:31Guest:Very nuts and bolts.

00:48:33Guest:As far from pretentious as possible.

00:48:40Marc:Were there any pretentious clowns within the school where you're like, oh, fuck that guy.

00:48:44Guest:It's 30 people, so it's a small group of people.

00:48:47Guest:But it was the first time I had met, and this is, again, being a small-town mouse, you know,

00:48:54Guest:It's the first time I've met funny people.

00:48:56Guest:And that's an astonishing thing.

00:48:58Guest:I don't know anything about sports, but I know that with sports, the guy who plays professional basketball in his high school was also the best football player and the pitcher and track and field.

00:49:12Guest:And the guy that we hate.

00:49:13Guest:Yeah, but if they're good.

00:49:14Guest:So, you know, when you have someone that's...

00:49:18Guest:that's in comedy, and you go back to their high school, they were also the best actor, and they were the best writer, and they were everything.

00:49:26Guest:And then when you get out, you get into people that are much better at that.

00:49:29Guest:They're also the best looking.

00:49:31Guest:Then they're a character actor in L.A.

00:49:33Guest:They're not even close to good looking, but in their town they were.

00:49:36Marc:A lot of them ended up insurance salesmen.

00:49:38Guest:Exactly.

00:49:39Guest:But I was in Greenfield, Massachusetts, so I was...

00:49:43Guest:I was the funniest person in Greenfield Public High School.

00:49:48Guest:There were 300 students in the whole high school.

00:49:50Guest:I was the funniest.

00:49:51Guest:You were the tallest person.

00:49:52Guest:I was the tallest, sure.

00:49:53Guest:I was the tallest.

00:49:53Guest:I was the funniest.

00:49:54Guest:I had the longest hair.

00:49:55Guest:And the most popular?

00:49:56Guest:And the Josh liked you?

00:49:56Guest:No, not the most popular, but a little bit creepy.

00:49:59Guest:You were a little creepy?

00:50:00Guest:But when I got to Clown College, it was just this incredible thing because everybody there was funnier than me.

00:50:08Guest:And, you know, everybody there, if you said Lenny Bruce, you didn't have to explain for ten minutes afterwards who Lenny Bruce was.

00:50:17Guest:The clowns knew who Lenny Bruce was.

00:50:19Guest:It's the same thing.

00:50:21Guest:They're into comedy.

00:50:22Guest:So they all know every stand-up person.

00:50:24Guest:They know everything because that's their life.

00:50:27Guest:They all know everything.

00:50:28Guest:So, you know, you'd say...

00:50:31Guest:Well, I remember seeing the Smothers Brothers, and they did this bit, and everybody in the room could do it.

00:50:37Guest:And you'd mention Elba Brooks, who was just hitting them.

00:50:40Guest:And everybody knew the whole first album.

00:50:42Guest:So it was all one big business, on some level.

00:50:44Guest:Funny people are funny people.

00:50:45Guest:Exactly.

00:50:47Guest:I had never experienced that.

00:50:49Guest:Every single person I talked to about the similarities between Lenny Bruce and Tommy Smothers, you had to, oh, that's the guy we saw on TV once.

00:50:59Guest:It hadn't spoken to their heart.

00:51:01Guest:So you were a comedy nerd in high school?

00:51:05Guest:No, not really.

00:51:07Guest:What kind of creepy were you?

00:51:08Guest:I wanted to be Camus.

00:51:11Guest:I wanted to move to France and write really serious stuff.

00:51:14Guest:So you're a little pretentious?

00:51:15Marc:Incredibly pretentious.

00:51:16Marc:Long hair, kind of dark.

00:51:17Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:18Guest:Very dark.

00:51:19Guest:And I don't know why I didn't win a Nobel Prize for this, because I got the idea of fucking smart girls, which no one else had that idea.

00:51:27Guest:No one else.

00:51:28Guest:Everybody else was trying to fuck the cheerleaders.

00:51:30Guest:I found the girl with the long, straight hair and the baggy sweater who was reading Henry Miller.

00:51:36Guest:Yeah.

00:51:36Guest:Now, she's already read about anal sex.

00:51:38Guest:All you've got to do is say, do you want to?

00:51:40Guest:Anais Nin has taught her everything about fucking.

00:51:44Guest:So I was fucking all the smart girls.

00:51:45Guest:So I got laid constantly in high school and beaten up for being a faggot because I had long hair.

00:51:50Guest:So I got beat up for being a faggot and got laid all the time.

00:51:52Marc:Well, you got to go with your wounds to the smart girl and

00:51:55Marc:I'm so misunderstood.

00:51:56Guest:Absolutely.

00:51:57Guest:Oh, getting beat up in front of a smart girl, you can't do better.

00:52:01Guest:You cannot do better than getting punched in the face by a jock who's smaller than you that you could beat up but choose not to because you're such a pacifist and he hits you in the face and calls you a faggot.

00:52:14Guest:You are going to get your cock sucked.

00:52:17Guest:Within three minutes.

00:52:18Guest:You're not even going to have to really get to the car.

00:52:20Guest:You know, in the park next to the high school, she's going to say, you know, come in my face.

00:52:26Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:28Guest:That was my genius there.

00:52:29Guest:But whatever I wrote, you know, I'd always try to write this really pretentious stuff, and I would read all the most pretentious stuff possible.

00:52:38Guest:And then I would write stuff, you know, my creative writing class and so on.

00:52:41Guest:To blow minds primarily?

00:52:43Guest:No, no.

00:52:44Guest:It would always end up giving laughs.

00:52:46Guest:You were being serious.

00:52:49Guest:No, no, I wasn't being serious.

00:52:51Guest:But as I wrote these serious ideas from my heart, I always wanted to put a joke in there.

00:52:55Guest:And every time I was carrying on about the stuff I believed strongly, it always kind of was in a funny way.

00:53:04Guest:And at some point, I just kind of gave up.

00:53:09Guest:and said, well, it doesn't seem I can do two minutes without putting a joke in.

00:53:13Guest:I guess there are other people in comedy who also have serious thoughts.

00:53:18Guest:I'll look into that a little more.

00:53:19Guest:All of us.

00:53:20Guest:Look at that.

00:53:21Guest:Lenny Bruce, he was a comedian, and yet there was stuff he was talking about.

00:53:27Guest:So I got down to Clown College, and here were people that were going to drop their pants and fall down, and they knew everything.

00:53:35Guest:and they had all the same pretentious thoughts, and they cared about the arts.

00:53:39Guest:All this stuff is things that anybody else that went to a performing arts high school, they got at the age of 13, 14.

00:53:47Guest:But it's a whole new world for you.

00:53:48Guest:Anyone who was from a city.

00:53:50Guest:If you were from any city, then one trip to the library, and you bump into somebody there, and they're from another school.

00:53:58Guest:Or if you had a high school of 1,000 people.

00:54:01Guest:Any of those things...

00:54:03Guest:give you the information that there are other people like you.

00:54:06Marc:Right.

00:54:07Marc:But you're isolated.

00:54:08Guest:Greenfield doesn't.

00:54:09Guest:And also, I think now the internet gives you that information.

00:54:11Marc:Yeah, for better, for worse.

00:54:13Guest:I think for better.

00:54:14Marc:Yeah.

00:54:14Marc:But I think that... You can find it.

00:54:15Marc:It's up to you to decide whether it's bullshit or not.

00:54:17Guest:Yeah.

00:54:18Guest:But, you know, when Frank Zappa had on the back of his record, you know, do not listen to this song until you've read Kafka's in the Penal Colony,

00:54:28Guest:I went down to the library and read all of the Kafka stuff before I listened to that cut because Frank Zappa had told me to.

00:54:35Guest:Did you ever tell Zappa that you did that?

00:54:37Guest:Yes, I did.

00:54:39Guest:And what did he say?

00:54:40Guest:I did.

00:54:41Guest:He was flattered and said, you know, you were the one I was doing the records for.

00:54:45Guest:You know what I mean?

00:54:47Guest:No one else actually did that.

00:54:48Guest:You're the guy because Zappa was also everything to me.

00:54:52Marc:Was he?

00:54:52Marc:Because that's a very specific thing, the Zappa catalog.

00:54:55Guest:Yeah, it is.

00:54:57Guest:But Zappa is really good for a juggler who's interested in comedy.

00:55:04Guest:You've got that combination of...

00:55:07Guest:caring about nothing except practice and being perfect, which is the juggler part, and then also caring about being funny.

00:55:14Guest:And Frank Zappa had chops.

00:55:17Guest:He really did no music.

00:55:19Guest:He wasn't a goofball doing comedy.

00:55:21Marc:And it's so funny because so many of his chops, outside of the improvisational stuff, was like sort of doo-wop.

00:55:28Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:55:29Marc:And it's weird.

00:55:30Marc:The spine of a lot of Zappa stuff is really this kind of 50s thing.

00:55:34Guest:Absolutely.

00:55:35Guest:And then you add to that the Varese and the Stockhausen and the Stravinsky.

00:55:42Guest:When I read an article that said that part of Firebird was in Lumpy Gravy, well, then I had to listen to the Stravinsky stuff.

00:55:49Guest:So what I really had was in Greenfield Public Library, I have Frank Zappa telling me from L.A., this is what a fan of my music should do.

00:56:02Guest:You're a Zappa nerd.

00:56:03Guest:Yeah, I was a Zappa nerd.

00:56:05Guest:And, you know, and also you add to that a little Randy Newman, a little bit of Martin Mull.

00:56:09Marc:I just listened to Randy Newman yesterday.

00:56:11Marc:How the fuck is that even possible?

00:56:13Marc:I listened to Guilty yesterday.

00:56:15Marc:Yeah.

00:56:16Marc:That fucking song.

00:56:17Guest:Well, you know, the one that, you know, God's song.

00:56:21Guest:Great.

00:56:21Marc:And that's a funny song.

00:56:23Marc:Yeah, really funny.

00:56:24Marc:But some of these weird poetic tangents, like, what is it, Last Night I Had a Dream?

00:56:28Marc:Yeah.

00:56:28Marc:That's kind of dark.

00:56:30Guest:Well, yes, it's great stuff.

00:56:33Guest:I remember an interview, you know, 1972 around...

00:56:39Guest:Rolling Stone.

00:56:40Guest:And I've never checked on this.

00:56:43Guest:It's been with me all these years.

00:56:44Guest:I've never gone back and checked.

00:56:45Guest:I don't know how much of this is right, but an interview with Randy Newman where he starts, the interviewer doing a feature story on him, says the first question Randy Newman asked him was, do you believe in God?

00:57:00Guest:And the interviewer said, yes.

00:57:02Guest:And Randy Newman said, then you cannot understand anything that I will say in this entire interview.

00:57:08Guest:And at the end of the interview, the way the guy spends three or four days with him, it's not really an interviewer's story.

00:57:13Guest:And at the end of the feature, he says, as I was leaving, Randy Newman said, do you still believe in God?

00:57:18Guest:And I said, yes.

00:57:19Guest:And Randy said, please put in the article that you haven't understood anything.

00:57:23Guest:No, I don't remember that that's accurate.

00:57:25Guest:This is 35 years later.

00:57:28Guest:And being the lone person interested in show business in the whole school, in the whole town, and the lone person talking about atheism all the time.

00:57:41Guest:Even in high school?

00:57:41Guest:Even in high school, yeah.

00:57:43Guest:Most importantly in high school.

00:57:44Guest:You can imagine how important Martin Mull, Randy Newman, Frank Zappa were to me.

00:57:53Guest:You know, John Lennon and the Beatles and Bob Dylan were always so...

00:57:59Guest:all over the place and a little bit confusing.

00:58:02Guest:Mystical and poetic.

00:58:03Guest:What they believed religiously.

00:58:04Guest:Right.

00:58:05Guest:But the people who were just brass tacks, you know, just boom, there is no God.

00:58:09Guest:And then someone like Martin Mull, you know, who is a good friend of mine now, but when I met him, it was like, you know, it was impossible, you know, not to cry because Martin Mull was well-educated, articulate, deep,

00:58:27Guest:atheist and funny.

00:58:31Guest:He was all those things.

00:58:32Guest:I mean, new art, he's more an artist now than a comedian, but new all that stuff inside and musical.

00:58:38Guest:All that stuff together was just, oh, there are people out there that can live the life I want to live.

00:58:44Marc:Right, without this weird kind of ominous obstacle of God.

00:58:52Marc:Well, getting back to your dad, obviously he eventually accepted your drive because you worked hard, you made money, and I imagine there was a moment there where you said... Oh, very big... You know, my dad was still saying... This is a hunk of Woody Allen's act.

00:59:05Guest:It just happens to be also true for me.

00:59:07Guest:My dad was saying, you know...

00:59:09Guest:And almost when I got on Broadway, well, you should still consider going back to college.

00:59:15Guest:Yeah, well, they're scared for you is what it is.

00:59:18Guest:But then I did some stuff at MIT in the 80s.

00:59:26Guest:And they made me a visiting scholar.

00:59:28Guest:What do you mean, stuff?

00:59:30Guest:Media lab at MIT.

00:59:33Guest:I worked on some music stuff and some media stuff, and I was hanging out there.

00:59:39Guest:And then at some level,

00:59:42Guest:I was connected with MIT.

00:59:45Guest:And my dad being from Massachusetts.

00:59:47Marc:Yeah, that kind of hangs over.

00:59:48Guest:That's everything.

00:59:49Guest:Everything.

00:59:49Guest:Sure.

00:59:50Guest:So my dad was then able to find a way to say, you know, my son didn't go to college, but he lectures at MIT.

00:59:57Guest:Oh, that's great.

00:59:58Guest:That's okay.

00:59:58Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:58Guest:And then, you know, and then dad...

01:00:00Guest:Dad came around completely.

01:00:02Guest:But it's very hard, especially in comedy, to talk about your dad being worried about you without making it look like your dad wasn't supportive.

01:00:18Guest:My dad was completely supportive.

01:00:20Guest:He was just worried.

01:00:21Marc:Yeah, that's what it always is.

01:00:22Marc:It always is.

01:00:23Marc:It does not fit into their understanding of how people work.

01:00:26Guest:But it also felt that way to me.

01:00:28Guest:Yeah.

01:00:28Guest:You know, there's so many people that say, you know, my dad never wanted me to do it.

01:00:33Guest:But to me, he was completely supportive.

01:00:36Guest:Just a little worried.

01:00:37Guest:Sure, yeah.

01:00:38Guest:You're doing great stuff.

01:00:39Guest:And, you know, I had a lot of trouble.

01:00:42Guest:As much as he loved me, I had a lot of trouble understanding what I did.

01:00:48Guest:You know, my dad, I loved it.

01:00:49Marc:Even when he saw you work?

01:00:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:51Guest:He saw me on Broadway.

01:00:53Marc:But he must have been entertained.

01:00:55Guest:Oh, yes, he loved it.

01:00:56Guest:What I'm saying is afterwards he would say, you know, I like it when you do a little more juggling in the show because then the audience knows you can do something.

01:01:07Guest:And I know they're impressed by how much you've memorized and how much you say, but when you're talking, if you do some of that hard juggling stuff, it reminds the audience that you practiced a lot.

01:01:19Guest:Why don't you engage in your skill set?

01:01:21Yeah, exactly.

01:01:22Guest:Exactly.

01:01:23Guest:And I've got to tell you a story about my mom that's one of my favorite stories.

01:01:30Guest:Off-Broadway, we came out to New York, we go off-Broadway, and we do our opening night show where that night you're going to stay up all night and read the review of the New York Times.

01:01:42Guest:This is back when that still mattered, the late 80s.

01:01:45Guest:The New York Times review made you or broke you.

01:01:47Guest:And my mom and dad and Teller's mom and dad were at the show.

01:01:51Guest:opening night.

01:01:53Guest:And then afterwards, they're at the party.

01:01:54Guest:And of course, there's all the investors there who have not a lot of money by Broadway standards, but by off-Broadway standards, it's probably a million and a half bucks to put on the Penn & Teller show.

01:02:05Guest:That's some large green to be hanging in the balance.

01:02:08Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

01:02:09Guest:There's some cats sitting around who really want that review to be good.

01:02:12Guest:Sure.

01:02:13Guest:And the producer, Richard Frankel, who's now the biggest producer in New York, this was his first project.

01:02:19Guest:So this really would make or break him.

01:02:21Guest:And we're sitting around.

01:02:23Guest:And my mom and dad, my mom was 45 when I was born.

01:02:26Guest:So my mom was much older than you expect my mom to be.

01:02:30Guest:So my mom was at that point in her 70s.

01:02:33Guest:And my dad.

01:02:35Guest:And they ended up sitting next to the producer.

01:02:37Mm-hmm.

01:02:37Guest:And the review comes out at 2 a.m.

01:02:41Guest:The person's waiting in Times Square and runs over to the restaurant where we are.

01:02:45Guest:And one of the producers reads it on the way and decides that it's good.

01:02:49Guest:It was actually a blowjob that was going to get us going.

01:02:52Guest:And he decides he's going to read it in front of everybody.

01:02:55Guest:So once the guy stands up to read, you know it's pretty good.

01:02:58Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.

01:02:59Guest:And he stands up and reads the whole thing.

01:03:01Guest:And the producer, of course, this means his children can go to private school.

01:03:06Guest:It changes his whole life, this one review.

01:03:08Guest:More than it does our lives, actually, because we were carny trash.

01:03:12Guest:We could still work.

01:03:13Guest:And he finishes the review, and he turns to my mom, who's the closest person to him, and says what he thinks is the right thing to say to a mom.

01:03:22Guest:He says, doesn't it make you proud of your son?

01:03:28Guest:And my mother said to him, what is wrong with you?

01:03:32Guest:I've been proud of him from the moment he was born.

01:03:35Guest:I don't need the New York Times to be proud of my son.

01:03:39Guest:What's wrong with you?

01:03:41Guest:That's her reaction.

01:03:43Guest:To which she said, no, no, I just...

01:03:46Guest:What I really meant, Mrs. Gillette, is I'm going to make an awful lot of money.

01:03:50Guest:That's what I was trying to say to you.

01:03:52Guest:I wanted to kind of high-five you and say, I'm going to make money, but I was trying to be more polite.

01:03:57Guest:He doesn't say that, but of course, that's what he's thinking.

01:03:59Guest:And the whole next day, my mom doesn't talk about the review in the New York Times.

01:04:02Guest:All she talks about is, can you imagine someone saying you're being made proud by a review in the New York Times?

01:04:10Guest:i was proud of you the first i said i know mom i know and he knows and he's been proud of his children from the first moment and we all are he just spoke a little bit clumsily in a moment of excitement she said well the review is wonderful yeah and it is wonderful that you'll be playing here for a long time and we certainly are relieved but it's the use of the word proud i know i know mom you've been

01:04:33Guest:But that is, you know, that's the kind of total acceptance we're talking about.

01:04:40Marc:Well, it's interesting from that point of view of the true unconditional love and proper parenting and a lack of...

01:04:48Marc:infusing religion into you.

01:04:50Marc:Because I grew up, my parents are both nuts, and I wouldn't say that they were perfect parents, but I was never taught how to use God.

01:04:57Marc:It was never a concept that was put into any sort of action.

01:05:00Marc:So now, like I talk about in my act a lot, it's not...

01:05:04Marc:that I don't believe or I do believe it's that I honestly don't give a shit one way or the other.

01:05:11Marc:Which is interesting because I say it's interesting when you say that to religious people because it sort of baffles them for a minute.

01:05:17Marc:And when you say it to atheists, they say, you don't want to fight?

01:05:21Guest:Well, it's actually, you know, it's...

01:05:23Guest:That's something that I believe is, I do think it's an important issue.

01:05:29Guest:And people that say they don't care do baffle me.

01:05:32Guest:It's not so much you want to fight, but it's just you're making a decision on what world you want to live in.

01:05:42Guest:And it's the deep problem with the title of the book, God Know, is that it's not really about that.

01:05:51Guest:It's like the show Bullshit.

01:05:53Guest:We did the show Bullshit, and the title is stated in the negative for comedic purposes.

01:05:58Marc:Well, I think it's a cop-out, I mean, on some level, my position.

01:06:03Marc:And I agree with you because I think that what you're fighting is not necessarily whether there's a God or not, but the power that that idea has over people.

01:06:12Guest:Right, but you're also talking –

01:06:15Guest:If my book were titled properly, if bullshit were titled properly, it wouldn't be called bullshit, which is the comedic title.

01:06:23Guest:It would be called a celebration of science and this life.

01:06:27Guest:And this would be called the whole world is enough.

01:06:31Guest:I mean that's really the point of the book is that I can look into my children's faces

01:06:38Guest:And I don't need everlasting life.

01:06:41Guest:Who could need more than that?

01:06:42Guest:And how does that not get boring, everlasting life?

01:06:45Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:06:46Guest:But I mean, it's just how can you breathe a breath of air?

01:06:51Guest:How can you hear a wonderful piece of music, see a beautiful piece of art?

01:06:57Guest:Feel the love of your friends and family and go, yeah, but this is just a veil of tears.

01:07:03Guest:Beyond this is the real house.

01:07:05Guest:You go, what the fuck?

01:07:06Guest:I can understand if you're at Auschwitz, you know, and you kind of go, we got to get something.

01:07:12Guest:This has got to be.

01:07:13Guest:I get it.

01:07:13Guest:We got to get.

01:07:14Guest:Yeah.

01:07:14Guest:But.

01:07:14Guest:Living in the United States of America and having children who love you and having friends that you can hang out with, going to see great movies, and then you go, yeah, but the world beyond is so much better.

01:07:27Guest:Fuck you.

01:07:28Guest:How greedy are you, you cocksucker?

01:07:30Guest:You've been given everything.

01:07:31Guest:You have won the most amazing lottery that has ever been given.

01:07:36Guest:The chances of you being alive are zero.

01:07:41Guest:Just point...

01:07:43Marc:won that you happen to be here and you won and you're here now shut the fuck up yeah just enjoy it and suck it in and be nice to people but what an amazing bill of goods you know when you talk about the grind at the beginning and the pitch to to basically convince i mean the biggest trick that that they did was say like you know everything is going to be better when you're dead right

01:08:07Guest:It's an amazing fucking thing to sell people.

01:08:12Guest:And once you've got that, you have condoned.

01:08:16Guest:Complete control over that person.

01:08:18Guest:And all the pain in the world you've condoned.

01:08:20Guest:And you've condoned slavery.

01:08:21Guest:You've condoned everything.

01:08:22Guest:Because it'll all be made okay later.

01:08:25Marc:But they exploit people who are in pain.

01:08:27Marc:The people that do that.

01:08:28Marc:Now, how much of your experience as a student of illusion and an illusionist sort of sets you off to dismember these dangerous emotions?

01:08:37Guest:Well, you know, what you learn, I mean, one of the big secrets of magic is that you never lie to people.

01:08:44Guest:You let people lie to themselves.

01:08:46Guest:And you manipulate the information.

01:08:50Guest:And once someone gets the idea themselves, once they feel that they've gotten the idea, there's no knocking them off it.

01:08:58Guest:You know, if you say...

01:09:02Guest:we're going to catch these bullets in our teeth at the end of the show, then you've got to do a lot of convincing.

01:09:09Guest:We never say that.

01:09:10Guest:We let them say they're doing that.

01:09:12Guest:And I think that with religion, a lot of that is you ram it down their throats, but you also allow them to feel like there's a personal connection.

01:09:22Guest:That idea of...

01:09:27Guest:Religion is so good at taking credit for things that don't need to have credit taken for them.

01:09:34Guest:You just take the beauty and say, well, how could that beauty be there?

01:09:38Guest:And all of a sudden it has to be something else above that is just an amazing trick.

01:09:44Guest:I mean, that's a rhetorical trick that's just so perfect.

01:09:48Marc:Well, do you hold people responsible?

01:09:51Marc:Yes.

01:09:51Marc:I mean, when when you like you hear we're in Vegas and, you know, my experience here, you know, when I come here and I perform here, you know, obviously I'm working in a lounge.

01:10:01Marc:You know, I you know, I'm just an option that, you know, people get dragged into.

01:10:05Marc:And I find myself with a contempt for for humanity that borders on misanthropic because I actually said on stage last night, I said, I'm proud to be performing for the for the troops of sadness.

01:10:19Yeah.

01:10:19Guest:Well, you know, Johnny Rotten said about Berlin, a cheap holiday in other people's misery.

01:10:26Guest:You can get that in Vegas.

01:10:27Marc:Yeah, that do you find yourself being misanthropic or does this love that you're talking about extend to everybody?

01:10:34Guest:Absolutely.

01:10:34Guest:Really don't.

01:10:36Guest:I mean, one of the things that I have done in my whole career is used volume and aggression to conceal the fact that I am the most Pollyanna person that ever existed.

01:10:50Guest:I really do like people.

01:10:53Guest:I really think people are good, which is one of the things that is the basic of libertarianism and atheism is this real deep belief that people are good.

01:11:04Marc:But how do you reconcile, as a libertarian, the fact that there are hundreds and thousands of people that are not going to be able to rise up and adapt?

01:11:19Guest:How do I reconcile that?

01:11:21Guest:Yeah, because it seems like there's a disrespect.

01:11:23Guest:You need to help them.

01:11:24Guest:Okay.

01:11:24Guest:I mean, they need to be helped.

01:11:26Guest:They need to be helped by everybody.

01:11:27Guest:And my real question, I was just on –

01:11:32Guest:One of these shows hawking my book with Jerry Springer.

01:11:37Guest:And they were talking about Malcolm Forbes saying that the super rich should be taxed more.

01:11:43Guest:And Jerry Springer was saying, you know, I, Jerry Springer, should be taxed a lot more.

01:11:49Guest:And I said, why don't you and Malcolm Forbes just give your money to the government?

01:11:53Guest:Why?

01:11:53Guest:No one's stopping you.

01:11:55Guest:Just do it.

01:11:55Guest:If you think you should be taxed more, there's a real easy solution.

01:11:59Guest:You just give that money in.

01:12:01Guest:And the reason is that you think you can do more good for people with your individual money than you think the government can do.

01:12:09Guest:You think it's more efficient.

01:12:10Guest:Malcolm Forbes thinks that Bill Gates can do more to stop polio and malaria than the government can.

01:12:16Guest:That's why he's choosing to put his money there.

01:12:18Guest:And I think that there's this real mistake...

01:12:22Guest:of libertarianism where people think that if you don't want the government to do something, you don't think it should be done, that there's some sort of Darwinian social thing happening, let those people suffer.

01:12:35Guest:No.

01:12:36Guest:When people ask me that, who's going to help the poor?

01:12:39Guest:My answer is me.

01:12:40Guest:And you.

01:12:41Guest:And let's do it.

01:12:42Guest:Let's do it now.

01:12:43Guest:Do you know somebody?

01:12:44Guest:I remember I was on... Do you?

01:12:46Guest:Yes.

01:12:47Guest:I was on Piers Morgan.

01:12:48Guest:And he said, one in seven people are on food stamps.

01:12:51Guest:What does that mean to you?

01:12:53Guest:I said, that means that six in seven people can help them.

01:12:56Guest:That's the math.

01:12:57Guest:It's really easy math.

01:12:58Guest:And he said, how do we help these people?

01:13:00Guest:And I said, give them money.

01:13:01Guest:Give them food.

01:13:02Guest:Do it this afternoon.

01:13:04Guest:And he said, well, I'm not going to do that.

01:13:06Guest:It needs to be the government.

01:13:07Guest:I said, no, do it.

01:13:08Guest:You.

01:13:09Guest:He said, how do we do that?

01:13:10Guest:I said, it's really easy.

01:13:12Guest:It's really easy to help people.

01:13:14Marc:But then you still have the, I guess the idea then is like, who is going to do that?

01:13:18Marc:I mean, it's a nice idea.

01:13:19Marc:You are.

01:13:20Marc:Yeah.

01:13:20Marc:But you can't speak for anybody else.

01:13:22Marc:I know a lot of people.

01:13:23Marc:Where's the libertarian collective of people who are out there going to feed?

01:13:26Guest:Everywhere.

01:13:27Marc:Yeah.

01:13:27Guest:I mean, Bill Gates.

01:13:28Guest:Sure.

01:13:29Guest:You and Bill Gates.

01:13:29Guest:Sure.

01:13:29Guest:But everybody in between, and Malcolm Forbes and everybody in between, they're doing shit.

01:13:35Guest:They're doing stuff like crazy, and they're doing it more efficiently.

01:13:38Guest:I mean, the world governments had given up on polio.

01:13:43Guest:This is the level of polio we're going to have around the world.

01:13:46Guest:This is the level.

01:13:47Guest:It's too expensive.

01:13:49Guest:We haven't got a way to do it.

01:13:51Guest:The main guy, and I've forgotten his name, forgive me, who's like the polio expert,

01:13:55Guest:has been saying, we can't really do this.

01:13:59Guest:And Bill Gates has been going over there and saying, no, no, no, we're going to get rid of polio.

01:14:04Guest:It's going to be extinct.

01:14:06Guest:Solvable problem.

01:14:06Guest:That's what we're going to do.

01:14:07Guest:And we're going to do it this way.

01:14:08Guest:And the way he's doing it is with...

01:14:10Guest:Billions of dollars, but also billions of dollars handled really efficiently with no payoffs to bureaucracies, with no trickle-downs, with nothing else.

01:14:21Guest:He's actually going and not giving the money to dictators and not giving the money to what looks for his re-election, but actually solving it.

01:14:29Guest:So this stuff can be done.

01:14:30Marc:Sure, but now in terms of something like some sort of socialization of health care or that kind of stuff, do you believe that that should be...

01:14:40Guest:No, I don't.

01:14:42Guest:And the argument for this is Lasix.

01:14:47Guest:Lasix is an amazing thing.

01:14:50Guest:Lasix wasn't covered.

01:14:53Guest:Do you have it?

01:14:54Guest:No, I don't.

01:14:55Guest:I didn't get it.

01:14:55Guest:It scares me.

01:14:57Marc:Okay, not the point.

01:14:58Guest:Not the point, yeah.

01:15:00Guest:For all sorts of reasons, it wasn't covered by insurance.

01:15:04Guest:So the people that got Lasix actually paid for it.

01:15:07Guest:And without having, we don't have health insurance in this country.

01:15:12Guest:We have prepaid health care.

01:15:14Guest:There's a big difference.

01:15:16Guest:Lasix keeps getting cheaper and better.

01:15:20Guest:It gets cheaper and better like crazy, even as all other health care gets really expensive.

01:15:26Guest:And I think that you have the people who are going to be paying.

01:15:31Guest:Health care can't be free.

01:15:33Guest:The amazing thing about Obamacare was we are going to bring health care to everybody.

01:15:44Guest:And yet the bill doesn't call for more doctors or more hospitals or...

01:15:50Guest:more equipment.

01:15:51Guest:That isn't even in there.

01:15:52Guest:Which means that whatever the ratio is now of people who get health care has to be the same.

01:15:58Guest:You can't vote to have more doctors.

01:16:01Guest:There have to actually be more doctors.

01:16:03Guest:So I don't know what the solution is, but people, individual people, can make better decisions for themselves than a collective.

01:16:11Guest:And that is very important to what I believe.

01:16:15Guest:And sometimes that's wrong.

01:16:16Guest:There's some things you have to do collectively.

01:16:18Guest:You certainly have to do defense.

01:16:20Guest:You certainly have to do police.

01:16:22Guest:You certainly have to do courts.

01:16:24Guest:You cannot have a private police force.

01:16:27Guest:That has to be done collectively.

01:16:28Guest:So there is a line there in a sliding scale.

01:16:32Guest:But I think if you have prepaid food, if you have food that we all pay into, there's nothing but gourmet shops.

01:16:44Guest:There's no reason you would eat anywhere except the most expensive places ever.

01:16:50Guest:And that's what's happening with health care being done through insurance.

01:16:54Guest:And they also haven't changed any of the players.

01:16:56Guest:I mean, the insurance people are all still in power and all that stuff.

01:16:59Guest:But the real question is, if we have one doctor for 500 people...

01:17:07Guest:No matter how we juggle who's paying for that, it's still one doctor for 500 people.

01:17:13Guest:And how do you change that?

01:17:15Guest:What they've really done, I think, is they will de-incentivize people to go into medicine.

01:17:22Marc:And the other question is... Yeah, because they don't want to just have a job.

01:17:26Marc:They want to be doctors who are celebrated as doctors.

01:17:29Guest:But also, the right to health care...

01:17:33Guest:is really crazy because healthcare doesn't exist.

01:17:38Guest:It's not a natural thing.

01:17:44Guest:It has to be created.

01:17:46Guest:So when you come up with a

01:17:50Guest:You've come up with a pill that will help my high blood pressure.

01:17:54Guest:Now, I didn't have a right to that pill the second before you invented it.

01:18:00Guest:Then you invented it, and now I have a right to it.

01:18:02Guest:And the question is really, who pays you?

01:18:04Guest:What do you get out of it?

01:18:06Guest:And trying to make other people be altruistic, to say, because you chose to invent this medicine, instead of playing football...

01:18:16Guest:you'll get paid less.

01:18:18Guest:What you should have done was played football because you can have an unlimited amount of money.

01:18:21Marc:I get that, but I think the other side of the issue is that when you have a lot of people in a country that are in sort of dire straits and dying and feel like they have no real recourse, and that just in my own experience of insurance, and I don't want to get too far into it, it's just that the fact that there are people that live in countries that never have to worry about whether or not they can afford to get basic fucking health care is kind of exciting.

01:18:45Guest:You also have to see where your breakthroughs in medicine are coming.

01:18:50Guest:No, I get that.

01:18:51Guest:That's a real important point.

01:18:52Guest:Obviously people need to be rewarded.

01:18:53Guest:It's much better to have Canadian health care if you're on the border of the United States because the real, you know, who are the superstars that are going to do that kind of stuff.

01:19:02Guest:Yeah, it's really nice.

01:19:03Guest:And you can decide whether you think the government does a better job at taking care of people or individuals do a better job at taking care of themselves.

01:19:13Guest:That's really the issue.

01:19:16Guest:We won't find out because we are going all socialist and that is the decision we've made in this country and that's fine.

01:19:24Marc:You think we're going all socialist?

01:19:26Guest:We're going definitely in that direction.

01:19:28Guest:We'll see.

01:19:30Guest:Remember, I'm someone who's against public schools.

01:19:33Guest:Do you homeschool?

01:19:35Guest:I do not.

01:19:35Guest:My children go to private school.

01:19:37Guest:But I think that being educated by your government

01:19:42Guest:seems like a really bad idea to me.

01:19:44Guest:I don't trust the government to do anything, because the government is forced, the government is guns.

01:19:49Guest:And I'm one of those nuts.

01:19:50Guest:And I really think that I'm a peacenik at a level you cannot believe.

01:19:54Guest:Are you armed?

01:19:55Guest:I will not force you, no I'm not, ever.

01:19:57Guest:I will not force you to build a library.

01:20:00Guest:I will not force you.

01:20:01Guest:I will not use a gun.

01:20:03Guest:I will beg you to give money to build a library.

01:20:06Guest:But when you pull out a gun and say, pay your taxes for this library, I get a little bit iffy.

01:20:11Guest:But the first thing I want to do is just stop the wars because that's where most of the money is going.

01:20:15Guest:And, you know, if you can just stop the six wars we've got going, and as Teller said, which I really love, using money we don't have to kill people we don't know for reasons we don't understand.

01:20:26Guest:Right.

01:20:27Guest:Just stop all six of the wars we have going.

01:20:32Guest:Stop all of those, and I'll give you all the health care you want.

01:20:35Guest:That's a compromise we can make.

01:20:37Guest:You just tell me we'll stop killing people.

01:20:39Guest:I'll pay for all your health care.

01:20:40Guest:I'll give all the taxes.

01:20:41Guest:This is very giving of Penn Jillette to make this promise.

01:20:44Guest:But you know, that's the thing.

01:20:45Guest:They're looking at this thing and saying, we have to cut Social Security.

01:20:48Guest:We have to cut Medicare.

01:20:50Guest:I just go, okay, let's argue about that later.

01:20:53Guest:Stop the fucking war.

01:20:54Guest:We got to tax the super rich.

01:20:56Guest:Okay, what Bill Gates has, tax all his money.

01:21:01Guest:That pays for two days of the wars we have going overseas.

01:21:05Guest:How about we don't tax anybody, don't cut anything, and just stop killing people?

01:21:10Guest:Because it turns out killing people is really fucking expensive.

01:21:13Guest:And really evil.

01:21:14Guest:Really, yeah.

01:21:15Guest:But don't even look at that.

01:21:17Guest:Just look at this as a corporate guy going, okay, where's our money going?

01:21:21Guest:We're pissing away a lot of money killing people.

01:21:23Guest:Can we kill these motherfuckers cheaper?

01:21:25Guest:No, we really can't.

01:21:26Guest:Let's stop doing it.

01:21:27Marc:Let's cut it.

01:21:28Marc:Well, I fucking hope you're right about that.

01:21:31Marc:I believe that what you're saying is right in that people are good.

01:21:36Marc:I just don't know.

01:21:37Marc:I think they get a little misguided.

01:21:39Guest:Yeah.

01:21:39Guest:And also, when you are forced to give money at gunpoint that's supposed to accomplish something, it makes the joy of giving that money on your own a little less great.

01:21:48Guest:You know, it's great joy in giving people and helping.

01:21:53Guest:Great joy.

01:21:54Guest:It's part of being human.

01:21:55Guest:But when it's separated from so many different things, when people pay their tax money, I don't think they really feel in their hearts this money is going directly to help people.

01:22:06Guest:They aren't thinking that.

01:22:08Marc:It isn't necessary.

01:22:09Guest:Right.

01:22:10Guest:And that's the problem is everybody who argues for the taxes says, but don't you think that you should be helping out the community?

01:22:17Guest:And I go, yeah, and I'll do that.

01:22:19Guest:But taking money from me and using it to kill people and using it to push paper around and using it to censor and using this to put marijuana smokers in prison?

01:22:29Guest:That's what you're really using the money for.

01:22:32Guest:I'm keeping potheads in prison?

01:22:34Guest:That's where my money's going?

01:22:35Guest:And you tell me that I'm cruel because I don't want to pay that?

01:22:38Guest:No, no, no.

01:22:39Guest:Give me that money back, the money that kills people and the money that keeps potheads in prison, and I will use all that money.

01:22:45Guest:As a matter of fact...

01:22:47Guest:All the entertainers on the strip, we'll take care of all Vegas.

01:22:50Guest:Give us our money back.

01:22:51Guest:We've got that one.

01:22:52Marc:Are you guys all friends?

01:22:54Guest:Well, we're all acquaintances.

01:22:55Marc:I was at Carrot Top's house yesterday.

01:22:57Marc:He told me about your house, and I'm like, oh, I'm not going to his house.

01:23:01Marc:I want to see the house.

01:23:02Guest:Yeah, well, Carrot Top's a great case of somebody who does a real solid show that people enjoy, and comics have just decided he's the bad guy.

01:23:13Marc:Yeah, we talked.

01:23:13Marc:Yeah, it's getting a little better.

01:23:15Marc:I mean, that was another time.

01:23:16Marc:And Checky Green I tried to interview, but I really wanted to, but someone did a fairly thorough piece on him.

01:23:26Marc:that you know got back to him and I'd been in touch with him but this thing came out and he thought he looked bad in it and I caught him I got him on the phone and he was just aggravated and didn't want to do an interview well you know Shecky Green I have a great Shecky Green story I went to see him just last year I guess maybe this year he's so wonderful so fabulous and

01:23:44Guest:And I'd never met him.

01:23:45Guest:I'd go backstage afterwards.

01:23:46Guest:And he was so, so kind to me and so sweet and seemed to know who I was.

01:23:52Guest:And he was wonderful.

01:23:53Guest:And he's doing, because he's jacked up.

01:23:55Guest:He's offstage.

01:23:56Guest:So he's doing shtickle for me.

01:23:58Guest:And I'm just so flattered.

01:23:59Guest:And he goes, where are you from?

01:24:01Guest:And I say, Massachusetts.

01:24:02Guest:And he goes, no, no, no.

01:24:03Guest:Where are your people from?

01:24:04Guest:Where are your people from?

01:24:05Marc:Are you a Jew is what he was asking.

01:24:06Guest:Exactly.

01:24:07Guest:But no, he's going, where am I going to go for the shtick?

01:24:09Guest:And I say to him, Newfoundland.

01:24:12Guest:My people are from Newfoundland.

01:24:13Guest:And he stops dead and goes, what do you do for Newfoundland?

01:24:19Guest:Do people have Newfoundland hugs?

01:24:21Guest:I mean, does Robin have a Newfoundland?

01:24:23Guest:What comic has Newfoundland shit?

01:24:26Guest:What do you do, stuff on the dogs?

01:24:27Guest:What do you do on Newfoundland?

01:24:30Guest:I've never had anybody in an audience say Newfoundland.

01:24:33Guest:What the fuck?

01:24:34Guest:I'm stumped.

01:24:35Guest:He said, I got Jewish stuff.

01:24:36Guest:I got Polish stuff.

01:24:38Guest:I was hoping Gillette I'd have some French shit to do.

01:24:40Guest:But Newfoundland?

01:24:42Guest:It was just a great, great moment.

01:24:43Guest:What do you got on Newfoundland?

01:24:45Guest:Are your people really from Newfoundland?

01:24:47Guest:Yeah.

01:24:47Guest:I wasn't fucking with them.

01:24:48Guest:It's actually true.

01:24:49Guest:My people are from Newfoundland.

01:24:51Guest:You haven't got Newfoundland material.

01:24:52Guest:No, I got none.

01:24:54Marc:Now I'm going to go work on some.

01:24:55Guest:Yeah.

01:24:56Marc:Yeah, or maybe not talk to the audience so much.

01:24:58Guest:What I want you to do as we end this, you have a homework assignment.

01:25:01Guest:Okay.

01:25:02Guest:Next time I see you do your stand-up, I want to see a Third Amendment hug.

01:25:05Guest:Okay.

01:25:06Guest:I want to see a Newfoundland hug.

01:25:07Marc:Okay, good.

01:25:08Marc:I will work on that.

01:25:09Marc:So you've got a show tonight.

01:25:11Marc:Yeah.

01:25:12Marc:Now, do you still, when you get up there, do you get lost?

01:25:15Marc:I mean, are you in it?

01:25:16Guest:Oh, I love doing this show every night.

01:25:18Marc:Yeah, that's great.

01:25:19Marc:Well, thanks for talking to me, Ben.

01:25:20Marc:Thank you.

01:25:25Marc:That was it.

01:25:26Marc:That was my time with Penn Jillette.

01:25:28Marc:A very sweet man, as it turns out.

01:25:30Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.

01:25:32Marc:Please, do what you can for yourself and your loved ones.

01:25:36Marc:And for my show, if you'd like.

01:25:37Marc:You can go to WTFPod.com.

01:25:40Marc:Get all your WTFPod.com needs met.

01:25:42Marc:You can kick in a few shekels.

01:25:43Marc:You can buy the new merchandise.

01:25:45Marc:We've got some packages available in the merch section for Christmas.

01:25:48Marc:Get yourself an app.

01:25:50Marc:Get yourself...

01:25:52Marc:Whatever you need.

01:25:53Marc:Whatever I can do for you.

01:25:55Marc:And you can listen to the show there.

01:25:56Marc:WTFpod.com.

01:25:59Marc:JustCoffee.coop.

01:26:01Marc:Available over there at WTFpod.com.

01:26:03Marc:And as I mentioned earlier, I will be at the Arlington Drafthouse December 2nd and 3rd.

01:26:07Marc:That is this Friday and Saturday.

01:26:10Marc:Come down if you're in the D.C.

01:26:11Marc:area.

01:26:12Marc:I have been funny lately.

01:26:14Marc:Again, thank you Seattle, the Neptune Theater, and thank you for coming out.

01:26:17Marc:It was great seeing you.

01:26:18Marc:I had a great time.

01:26:20Marc:I really appreciate it.

01:26:22Marc:Boomer!

01:26:23Marc:Boomy!

01:26:24Marc:Come here, Boomy!

01:26:26Marc:This hasn't really worked since that one time we were able to pull it off.

01:26:30Marc:That's not a cat.

01:26:34Marc:Whose dog is that?