0:12

Here we go! Brothers,

0:17

sisters, siblings, welcome to Penn Sunday School.

0:19

I'm Matt Donnelly. Of course, we're

0:21

brought to you by Masterclass. We're broadcasting

0:23

from Show Creator Studios South here

0:25

in Las Vegas. It

0:29

is the 40th anniversary of Penn &

0:31

Teller Off -Broadway. It is the 10th anniversary

0:34

of Penn and my pregnant wife seeing

0:36

Diana Ross. We'll find out which one's

0:38

nearer and dearer to his heart. Here

0:40

he is, preaching the love, Penn

0:42

Jillette. Yeah! Preaching

0:44

the love brought to you

0:47

by Masterclass. I

0:49

don't know, I just wanted to make a

0:51

sound. You miss her piano that much. But

0:53

I also miss the fact that... Reddy

0:56

gave me a treat and took

0:58

it away. Yeah, yeah. He gave

1:00

me my Rickenbacker, or as they

1:02

used to call it, wrecked and

1:05

broken, my Rickenbacker bass, and I

1:07

believe it's a metric shit ton

1:09

of pedals. Yes. And when you

1:11

came in, you were greeted to

1:13

a fuzz wah. Yeah, just a

1:15

real concert was happening in here.

1:17

I was playing Come Together, and

1:19

I was saying, shoot me, and you didn't take

1:21

me to my word. I

1:23

missed my cue. You missed the command. But

1:26

CI is going to be so upset. I infiltrated

1:28

properly. I worked my way up. I caught myself

1:30

right next to you. Yeah. And I blew it.

1:34

I would have been doing

1:36

on my bass with all

1:38

the wah -wah after I said

1:40

Masterclass. But Masterclass is lifelong.

1:43

Learning. And we'll talk more about that

1:45

because it's important, you know. And

1:47

they've been so good to us. And

1:49

you can get 15, 1 .5 %

1:51

off. Yeah. Actually, I probably

1:53

should slur it. You know, I

1:55

should say 50 % off like that.

1:57

Yeah. But it would probably be

1:59

better advertising technique at masterclass.com slash

2:02

hem. Did you put some

2:04

sort of, is that wet?

2:06

Is your voice wet? Ready?

2:08

Did you put some effects

2:10

on it? It should not

2:12

be. Okay. We're putting effects

2:14

into the Penn and Teller

2:16

show. Okay. Teller's

2:18

nightmares finally come true. And he made

2:20

me live so many of my nightmares. I

2:23

figure he should live his. The

2:25

audience cannot know this. This is

2:28

top secret stuff. But at the

2:30

beginning of Kazoo. Yeah. Okay. Let's just

2:32

say Teller needs to get dressed properly

2:34

before he does that trick. That's fair

2:36

to say. Okay. He's got to put

2:38

a hat on. Well, there's a lot

2:40

of theater in that piece. Sure. The

2:42

hat budget alone. Sure. It

2:45

puts Bruce Springsteen live

2:47

at the Hammersmith Apollo to

2:49

shame the hat budget

2:51

on Kazoo. Kurt Gerer,

2:53

our drummer, and

2:55

Jonesy and

2:58

I. Jonesy on the

3:00

Hammond organ and me on bass.

3:02

Yeah. We do a little

3:04

bit of a rave up before

3:06

we go into the classic

3:08

Willie Dixon blues riff upon which

3:11

I build the improvised song

3:13

that backs up Teller doing the

3:15

kazoo. When I reach Chief

3:17

Weasel and I try to profit

3:19

directly from my time working

3:21

with you guys and I write

3:23

a quote unquote tell all. book

3:26

about Penn and Teller, there will

3:28

be a whole chapter called Kazoo. Because

3:31

it was the weirdest thing I've ever

3:34

worked on with you guys. Anyway,

3:37

at the beginning we do a

3:39

little rave up, right? Because

3:42

we are trying to fill

3:44

time while Teller puts a

3:46

hat on, which takes a

3:48

remarkably long time. He's

3:51

just putting a hat on. I'm actually just realizing

3:53

now that it serves a function. Oh. And I'm

3:55

relieved. I like, well, now a lot of that

3:58

shit for rehearsal makes sense. Wait a

4:00

minute. Are you saying you don't like the

4:02

rave up at the beginning? You remember

4:04

the meeting where I go, maybe we don't

4:06

make it as big. And

4:08

you guys are like, oh, yeah, maybe we should make

4:10

that trick that big. And then I came into the

4:13

next show and you added a drum kit. Weeks

4:21

and weeks. There's a trick that Tyler gets obsessed

4:23

with for every season of Fool Us, and Kazoo was

4:25

that one for this season. He does one trick

4:27

a year. No, he gets obsessed with one. That one

4:29

year, we were just cutting tomatoes over a mirror. There's

4:33

a whole room dedicated to it for

4:35

the entire taping Us. It's also important

4:37

that people understand that while he's obsessed,

4:39

he makes no progress. You

4:43

know, it's kind of like saying,

4:45

boy, that dog is kind of obsessed

4:47

with his tail as he chases

4:49

it in circles. But

4:51

rehearsals for months, every rehearsal was

4:54

you guys getting on all your music

4:56

equipment. You and Jonesy noodling and

4:58

making up stuff and saying, you got

5:00

that, Matt? And I'm writing down

5:02

stuff all the time. Teller's

5:04

working on stuff with Zeke. While

5:06

music is playing constantly, Aaron

5:08

goes, all right, we have an hour left of

5:10

rehearsal. And both you... Very contently going

5:12

like, okay, I think we're good here. And just

5:14

wrapping it up. And

5:19

moving on to the next trick

5:21

in rehearsal and me feeling like a

5:23

bad consultant. I'm like, I feel

5:25

like we have made no progress. Well,

5:29

what I said was, what

5:31

I decided was that beginning

5:33

rave up that I believe

5:35

is too short. I

5:38

would like tell her to try

5:40

on several hats backstage. It's very psychedelic.

5:42

Very psychedelic. And I also told

5:44

Matt Stanek, who is our

5:46

lighting director, I said to him,

5:48

you know the taste and

5:50

restraint you show as a lighting

5:52

designer? Yeah. Please take that

5:54

away. Just like,

5:57

I would like a disco ball. I

5:59

would like a wet show. You know

6:01

Chipmunks? Yeah. Wet shows from the 60s.

6:03

You know what a wet show was? Not

6:05

the one you're thinking of. Oh, never

6:07

mind. Little Mr. Pornhub. Come on.

6:09

Leave my search history alone. But

6:13

you know what a wet show is? They

6:15

would take oil. and

6:17

different color paints and put it on

6:19

an overhead projector. Yes, I didn't

6:21

know that's what that was called. In

6:23

a tray. Okay. And then they

6:25

would take a convex lens and squish

6:27

it. Into the inky stuff, and that

6:29

would be projected on the performers. I've seen

6:31

that effect. I know what you're talking about. I

6:34

didn't know it was called a wet show.

6:36

look, I don't know why you would, but you

6:38

go to the cover of Ina

6:40

Gata De Vida by Iron

6:42

Butterfly. See, it's heavy, but

6:44

it's also light and elusive.

6:46

Yeah. And you look at

6:48

the cover there. It's a

6:50

wet show that's being projected

6:52

onto the band. By the

6:54

way, Ina Gata De

6:56

Vida. of course, is in the

6:58

Garden of Eden. This is said by

7:00

a drunk person. Right. And so

7:03

in the bit where you're like, oh,

7:05

I it was Antigada De Vida. If

7:07

they were less psychedelic, if they were less stone,

7:09

I'm like, no, it's in the Garden of Eden,

7:11

you fucking idiot. But instead it was like,

7:14

oh, I like that. I'm going to keep

7:16

that. I'm going to keep

7:18

Antigada De Vida. Also,

7:20

if you... replace

7:22

In the God of Davida with

7:24

In the Garden of Eden. The

7:26

lyrics become even worse. In the

7:28

Garden of Eden, baby, don't you

7:30

know that I love you? In

7:32

the Garden of Eden, baby, don't

7:35

you know that I'll always be

7:37

true? Oh, come with me and

7:39

take my hand. Oh, come with

7:41

me and walk this land. Oh,

7:43

walk this land, land, land, land.

7:45

In the Garden of Eden, baby,

7:48

don't you know that I love

7:50

you? I never

7:52

followed that through before,

7:54

and that's hysterical. Yeah, yeah. I

7:57

often said, well, singing in a garden

7:59

of divina makes no sense if you put it

8:01

in the garden of divina. But no one ever plugs

8:03

it in. No. They just leave it at that. And

8:09

like so many songs from

8:11

the late 60s. Yes. including

8:13

Whiter Shade of Pale, The

8:15

God of Davida, and several

8:17

others. The keyboard players, okay?

8:19

This is also the Doors.

8:21

The keyboard players say, I

8:23

was inspired by Bach and

8:25

trying to do a Bach

8:27

-like sound. What they really

8:29

mean is, I was unable

8:31

to play Bach, and that's

8:33

why it sounds like this.

8:35

You get what you get.

8:37

You get what you get. It's

8:41

a little like me saying, when

8:43

I walk out on stage, I was

8:45

trying to run the marathon. I

8:49

was only walking 10 yards. How

8:51

many behind the scenes of every

8:53

song from the late 60s says,

8:55

I don't know, man. I don't

8:57

know. I don't know. We were

8:59

just trying to keep gigging.

9:01

We were just trying to learn

9:04

our instruments. And then we

9:06

decided that wasn't worth it. In

9:10

a garden of vida, baby.

9:14

All right, so on the cover of that is

9:16

an oil wet show. A wet show. Okay. That's

9:18

what I would like projected on us, right?

9:21

But no one listens to me.

9:23

You know how far down

9:25

in the pecking order I am,

9:27

Penn & Teller organization. It's

9:29

Glenn, then it's Teller, okay? Then

9:31

it goes down, Robbie, Aaron.

9:33

And all we know for

9:35

a fact is that Jonesy

9:37

is always either at

9:39

the bottom or... If a

9:42

new merchandise person comes in, he

9:44

is over that person. But

9:47

then the merchandise person immediately gains

9:49

more power than Jonesy. Just one

9:51

week in. Yeah. They know how

9:53

the register works. They know all

9:55

the prices. Jonesy isn't even told

9:57

when there are rehearsals of music.

10:00

He has to overhear it. He's

10:03

not on any email chains.

10:05

Nothing. He's not told when time

10:07

off is being. Yes.

10:09

He's not told when the show

10:11

starts, when the show ends. Yeah.

10:13

Yeah. When the time of the

10:15

show was changed, Jonesy was not

10:17

informed. So the proof

10:19

of the fact that I don't have

10:22

power in the show is the lack of

10:24

a wet show at the beginning of

10:26

Kazoo. There you go. I have a question

10:28

about... I am not even... even started talking

10:30

about the beginning of Kazoo. Just so you know. You're

10:32

right, right. You've got a while before you're going to

10:34

get your chance to jump in with this. I understood.

10:36

right, I'll hold that. So

10:38

I was playing,

10:40

and I

10:43

thought, geez, this would sound

10:46

better with effects, okay?

10:48

Yeah. Now, sometimes you have

10:50

a perfect synergism, you

10:52

know, when two things come

10:54

together and really complement

10:56

each other perfectly. Mm -hmm.

10:58

And then you've got

11:01

when two things don't exactly

11:03

complement things perfectly. And then

11:05

you've got when two crazy

11:07

sine waves go over each

11:09

other and just amplify everything.

11:11

Okay. So I decided I

11:13

needed effects. So I got

11:15

in touch with Reddy Rich

11:17

and said, have you got

11:20

some pedals for me? And

11:23

then the Penn & Teller

11:25

organization went to pieces. Oh, no.

11:28

So Dave, who's our

11:30

long -suffering sound man, and

11:32

Aaron showed up and

11:34

ready, was on the floor

11:36

with a pedal, filling

11:39

it with effects for me to use. Okay.

11:41

Now, you know, I have very bad

11:43

balance in my old age. And he gave

11:45

me a wah -wah pedal, which means I

11:47

can also fall over during the bed

11:49

because I have to stand on one foot

11:51

to run the wah -wah. And you know.

11:54

In my list of priorities, running

11:56

the wah -wah on my guitar is

11:58

more important than remaining upright. So

12:02

you know I will

12:04

fall down in order

12:06

to get that wah

12:08

-wah -wah -wah. And he

12:11

gave me the Hendrix

12:13

setup, a phaser, fuzz

12:15

box, and Aaron runs the

12:17

whole show. Aaron is our boss.

12:19

Aaron is tremendous. Aaron

12:22

understands. Only the

12:24

very iceberg -y tip

12:26

of my psychosis. Right.

12:29

So she was standing

12:31

there as I was punching

12:34

buttons on the floor and

12:36

Reddy and I were smiling

12:38

our full heads off. I

12:40

was going... And I went

12:42

out that night so excited. So

12:45

excited. I didn't care. I mean,

12:47

I was going through polyester, battle

12:49

of dreams, just... through. Zip, zip,

12:51

zip. To try to get there.

12:53

And I was also thinking, geez,

12:55

I hope Teller takes a wicked

12:57

long time to put his hat

12:59

on. Because I am

13:01

going to play like I was

13:03

on acid. Because

13:06

I have never experienced

13:08

LSD. No. But I feel

13:11

like I can replicate

13:13

it naturally. I

13:15

was feeling psychedelic. And then you

13:17

know what happened? What? No sound. What?

13:20

I couldn't hear my bass at all. I

13:22

couldn't hear my bass at all. I

13:24

could just hear like my fingers on

13:26

stage. I heard nothing over speakers. So

13:28

I came off stage after a standing

13:30

ovation at the end of entropy. And

13:33

I went to Dakota, who

13:35

is shortly suffering. She's

13:37

only been with us like a year. She's

13:40

tremendous. She's really tremendous. So I couldn't hear

13:42

my bass at all. Couldn't hear my bass

13:44

at all. Couldn't hear my bass at all.

13:46

That's all I said coming off stage. Not

13:48

good show, not thank you. I couldn't hear

13:50

my bass at all. And she said, we

13:52

couldn't hear it either. I

13:54

said, I couldn't hear my bass at all. I

13:56

couldn't hear my bass at all. So I went back

13:59

and then gave notes to everybody

14:01

about my bass, including wardrobe. I

14:03

couldn't hear my bass at all. I

14:07

couldn't hear lights. I couldn't hear

14:09

my bass at all. Okay. So the

14:12

next night, the long suffering Dave

14:14

turned it up. Okay. A

14:16

lot. And

14:19

somehow the problem that

14:21

existed the night before.

14:23

Yeah. Persisted. What

14:26

he did was turned it up wicked

14:28

loud in the house. And I still

14:30

couldn't hear it on stage. Oh, really?

14:32

So I kept playing louder and louder

14:34

and louder. And I said,

14:36

after that show, I said,

14:38

I couldn't hear my bass at

14:40

all. And she said, perhaps

14:42

the funniest sentence ever. In

14:45

the house, it was hurting my

14:47

chest. Not

14:52

even that it was loud. No. it

14:54

was hurting her chest. Yeah. So

15:00

tonight we will have

15:02

sound check. Before

15:07

the show. And try

15:09

to get it. I think the goal

15:11

of everybody is can we get

15:13

this really loud to Penn. Yes. And

15:15

make it so no one else

15:17

can hear it. All monitor.

15:19

All monitors. Yeah.

15:21

That's what we'll be doing.

15:23

And Reddy Rich will be there.

15:25

He'll be there. And then,

15:27

if you want to talk about

15:30

a classic mistake in human

15:32

interaction. Yeah. Aaron said casually to

15:34

Reddy. What exactly is

15:36

a pedal anyway? Wow.

15:40

Yeah. Did she then get a chair? She

15:43

got a very long email. I

15:45

was going to say. Which I was

15:47

CC'd on. And started

15:49

with. When

15:51

caveman banged rocks together. Well,

15:54

no, it started with the

15:56

streets of Laredo, right? El

15:59

Paso. El Paso. I know

16:01

it was some Texas town,

16:03

and the accidental fuzz tone,

16:05

and then all the way up to when

16:07

it goes to, which I thought was

16:10

really funny as I was reading it, I

16:12

went, Aaron's not going to know what

16:14

this means. Then a guitar player from Britain

16:16

named Keith wrote a song, and neither

16:18

Keith nor Mick liked it. And then it

16:20

goes to the next paragraph, the Rolling

16:22

Stones, you know, with Satisfaction,

16:24

which is your first big pop

16:27

hit with a fuzz tone. You

16:31

should have Aaron be like, you know, you should ask Reddy

16:33

if he likes trains. Just

16:35

thinking. I'm just thinking

16:38

about that. Say to Aaron, ask

16:40

Reddy a little bit

16:42

about trains. Although I

16:44

think actually, I think

16:47

Reddy's disease has shifted

16:49

from trains to pedals. Don't

16:51

you think, Reddy? I only do

16:53

the one thing at a time. I've been yanking around

16:55

about trains forever. And now you move to pedals? Yeah,

16:58

I had jujitsu in between that and a couple

17:00

other things. Oh, yeah, she should ask him

17:02

about jujitsu and strip club DJing. But

17:07

just pedal steel would do for another email, wouldn't

17:09

it, Reddy? You

17:13

know, and Reddy prefaces

17:15

the email by going, I don't know

17:17

if anyone's told you about me. You

17:21

know, my friend Scotty, who

17:23

tries to claim to be

17:25

on the spectrum, Merely

17:27

annoying? It's just so we can keep

17:29

talking. Yeah, he's annoying. He does this

17:31

thing, which I think is pretty funny

17:34

and actually works. When you ask him

17:36

a question, he'll say, how long do

17:38

you want the answer to be? Because

17:40

I can do two minutes and I

17:42

can do 15. And

17:45

then we have our

17:48

good friend Andrew Hickey, who

17:50

is also neurodiverse and

17:52

does 500 songs, the podcast.

17:55

And he said to me, which I thought

17:57

was just a charming thing to say, he

17:59

said, I only have two ways

18:02

to interact socially. One is

18:04

I can be completely quiet,

18:06

and the other is I can lecture, but

18:09

I don't really know how to do

18:11

conversation. Wow. And I said, you

18:13

can lecture. And we sat

18:15

in my hotel room because he won't

18:17

go out to public restaurants. Okay. We

18:21

sat in my hotel room in

18:23

London, in my hotel room. For

18:25

five hours. And he

18:27

talked about the chances

18:29

that George Harrison actually

18:31

plays the sitar. He

18:36

talked about the development of

18:38

Yellow Submarine. Right. In other

18:40

words, this was one of

18:42

your favorite conversations. Oh, yes.

18:44

Yes. And, you know, people

18:46

think because I am a

18:48

chatty motherfucker. Yeah. And self

18:51

-absorbed asshole. People think. No,

18:53

no, no. Oh, thank you. Sorry, was that

18:55

too late? A little bit late. Okay, sorry.

18:57

A little bit late. That

19:00

I like to talk. But

19:02

the truth of the matter is,

19:04

and I don't know all the

19:07

time, but I have friends who

19:09

just grab the floor and talk.

19:11

Yeah. They just talk. And there's

19:13

no stopping them. One

19:15

of my dear friends was

19:17

AJ. Yeah. And I'd be out

19:19

with AJ. You were out

19:22

with AJ. AJ would just tell

19:24

stories for three hours. Yes.

19:26

And you'd throw in a little

19:28

thing. You'd egg them on.

19:30

That's it. Just to stimulate the

19:32

fire. Yeah. And people just

19:34

poke the log. Yeah. And people,

19:37

I think, who don't know me

19:39

well would think that that would drive me

19:41

crazy. Like Penn doesn't get a chance to

19:43

talk. no. mean, you have a remarkable attention

19:45

span. Oh, thank you. Even just

19:47

like when I'm around you at Fool Us.

19:49

Like you can put on stuff and you

19:51

can watch things for an hour without talking

19:53

and you absorb the information of an hour's

19:55

worth while you're making a television show. Most

19:57

people would be a little preoccupied with their

19:59

job as a television person. I

20:03

have never been preoccupied with my

20:05

job. No, you fucking clock out. The

20:09

jacket comes off, clocked

20:11

out. It's like severance.

20:14

You're at home pen.

20:17

And then the jacket goes

20:19

back on and you clock

20:21

back in. And also Paul

20:23

Daniels. Yeah. Paul Daniels, one

20:25

of the greatest magicians of

20:27

all time. Yeah. And English

20:30

superstar. Yeah. Paul Daniels came

20:32

backstage at the Penniteller show.

20:34

Yeah. And he was in

20:36

the green room. And

20:38

we've had people back there.

20:40

We've had Steve Martin

20:42

back there and Eric Idle

20:44

and Bob Dylan and

20:46

Ronnie Wood and Ringo Starr.

20:49

We've had people that have stories and

20:51

can tell them. No

20:54

one could touch Paul Daniels. Really?

20:56

Paul Daniels stood in the middle

20:58

of the room and held court

21:00

for three and a half hours

21:02

after the show. Oh, wow. That

21:04

must have been awesome. It was

21:06

the greatest. It was the greatest.

21:08

Also, Mickey Gilly. Yeah. Mickey Gilly.

21:10

Could tell stories. When

21:12

you go to museums and stuff, you

21:14

can be the first and last

21:16

out of a museum, no problem. I

21:18

read everything. Yeah, that's

21:20

unusual, I think. And whatever supplementary

21:22

material they give me, I

21:24

absorb it. So if it just

21:26

keeps going, like the one

21:28

in Tasmania. Yeah. It's electronic. So

21:31

you go to the museum

21:33

in Tasmania, and you can look

21:35

at one piece of art

21:37

and take in 45 minutes of

21:39

information on it besides the

21:41

art. Oh, my gosh. And I

21:43

do it all. That's crazy.

21:45

I really like that. So AJ,

21:48

Paul Daniels, Lawrence O'Donnell Jr.?

21:50

Yes. Doesn't take much to

21:52

get him going, which

21:54

when I auditioned

21:56

with Robert De

21:58

Niro, right? Because

22:00

I'd had a run -in with him

22:02

before. Yes. I was trying to

22:05

cozy up to him because I was

22:07

auditioning to play his best friend

22:09

in a movie. Yeah. What movie was

22:11

that, Penn? Well, I didn't get

22:13

it. So

22:15

name any De Niro movie. It could be that

22:17

one because I'm not in him. I'm not

22:19

in him. Me

22:23

as De Niro's best friend? Yeah. Didn't

22:25

click. Go ahead. IMDB the shit out

22:27

of it. You won't find it. It's

22:33

enough. Not a storyteller. Notoriously

22:35

bad at holding court De Niro.

22:39

I was trying. I

22:43

was trying to bond with De Niro

22:45

before we went on camera for my

22:47

screen test. I don't know. I

22:49

don't know. We're going to be together.

22:52

We're going to be together in a

22:54

screen test. I was screen testing

22:56

with De Niro, me. Yes. You know

22:58

my acting skill. Right. Superman, the

23:00

others. That's my acting skill. I was

23:02

going to be with De Niro. So

23:06

I wanted to kind of break

23:09

the ice. Now, the idea of breaking

23:11

the ice with De Niro is

23:13

folly. Right. It's complete folly. Yeah. Like

23:15

he doesn't see anyone coming to

23:17

him from a million miles away. No.

23:19

If there's anyone who's just like,

23:21

here we go. For anyone coming to

23:23

him about anything, it's Robert De

23:25

Niro. He just

23:27

finished doing Awakenings. This is how long

23:30

ago this was. When

23:33

he wakes up, he catches a ball.

23:35

It's a big movie. Big movie. He finished

23:37

doing it, and I knew that. So

23:40

I said, now you got to work with

23:42

Robin. You know, Robin Williams. Yeah, yeah. Because

23:44

I know Robin. We have friends. We're in

23:46

the same circles. Sure. You and I, we

23:48

could be anywhere together. Me and Robin, yeah.

23:50

Me and Robin, you and Rob were exactly

23:52

the same. I said, she just finished a

23:54

movie with my friend Robin. De

23:56

Niro pauses and goes, doesn't

23:59

much to get him going.

24:06

With complete disgust. Right.

24:10

Doesn't take much. Now,

24:12

most people would say, does it take

24:14

much to get him going? Boy, yeah. Wow,

24:16

it's Robin Williams. Camera on, camera off.

24:18

What a delight to have on set. Kept

24:20

the energy up. Just a joy. Keeps

24:22

the balloon in the air, that guy. And

24:27

that's when I went, oh.

24:29

I have other friends, too. But

24:32

it was also like,

24:34

um. If you don't like

24:36

being around Robin Williams,

24:38

your chances of liking being

24:40

around me are zero. Because

24:43

everything I can do,

24:45

Robin is better at. You

24:50

know? Yeah. Yeah.

24:53

So it didn't go great. No.

24:55

It did not go great. What

25:00

was really great was... We're

25:03

sitting down in front of the camera. Yeah.

25:05

Right? And we both have

25:07

scripts in our hands. Because I'd gone

25:09

through all the audition processes and I was

25:11

down to the final one. Because you

25:13

don't get your first audition with the star

25:15

of the movie. No, no. And I

25:18

guess for some listeners, whatever, this is a

25:20

very regular practice with the final stages

25:22

of putting together a film. You do on

25:24

-screen testing where you just see if you

25:26

guys talk to each other. It feels

25:28

good and natural. Yeah, yeah. It

25:31

didn't. And

25:34

so here's the

25:36

scenario. Yeah. We should also be

25:38

clear. Only one of you is auditioning in this

25:40

scenario. They're

25:45

very sure they want De Niro. Yeah.

25:47

Yeah. Very sure. Very sure. The chances

25:50

of them going, yeah, we're going to

25:52

use Penn. Let's find a new guy

25:54

for De Niro. The

25:56

chemistry isn't there. Let's get him out of here.

25:58

This guy's reading his best friend is off

26:00

the charts. Yeah, let's get Bob out of here.

26:05

So we're sitting in front of the camera. We both

26:07

have our scripts. And I'm

26:09

going to read with De Niro. And when

26:11

I told this story to my buddy

26:13

Andy Lerner, I prefaced it by saying, you

26:15

know, Andy, I'm not an actor. So

26:17

I'm sitting there with De Niro. And Andy

26:19

starts laughing his ass off. Because

26:22

it's a little like saying, I'm

26:24

not a football player. Right. So I'm

26:26

in the World Series. Super

26:28

Bowl, there you go. You've

26:31

never made your point clearer. You've

26:35

never nailed a metaphor more

26:37

in your life than what you

26:39

just did. Exactly. So

26:41

I'm not an actor. Yeah. And

26:43

here I am at the absolute top

26:45

of acting that you could be.

26:47

If you're doing a scene with De

26:49

Niro. Right? You're at the top

26:51

of where an actor can be. Yeah.

26:54

Okay? Yeah. Even if you're just

26:56

auditioning. Right. People don't get that's a

26:58

pretty good position to be in.

27:00

Yeah. It's not common. No. And

27:03

we start reading. Right?

27:05

And I read aloud

27:07

well. My mom taught

27:09

me to read when I was very

27:11

young. And I kept it up. And

27:13

I like to read. And

27:15

I can read something cold pretty well.

27:17

Yeah. You've seen me do prompter for

27:20

pages. Yes. Right? And I can get

27:22

through. Even cold. Even prompter I haven't

27:24

seen. Yeah. I can get through. I'm

27:26

not, you know, newscaster level.

27:28

They're the best in the world.

27:30

Right. But I'm okay. So I get

27:32

the script in my lap and

27:34

I am reading well. And De Niro

27:36

is reading terribly. Terribly.

27:39

My reading, every

27:41

comma is expressed, every

27:43

period, every word

27:45

is said. It's said

27:47

conversationally and comfortably. De

27:50

Niro is reading like

27:52

this. He is saying

27:54

his conversational lines, that

27:56

kind of style as

27:58

he goes. And then

28:00

I come in just

28:02

kind of talking. Do

28:04

you feel at any

28:06

point you're debating? Whether

28:08

this is a tactic.

28:11

Never crossed my mind. Seemed to

28:13

me like just incompetence at reading

28:15

aloud. Just not a good reader.

28:17

So I'm thinking, oh man, I

28:19

am fucking nailing this. If

28:22

that's the level we're at, I

28:24

am really good. Me and my

28:26

buddy Bobby at the premiere. Yeah.

28:28

I'm doing okay here. I'm doing

28:30

really okay. And I'm actually getting

28:33

confident. I'm actually getting confident this

28:35

is going okay. Because I expected

28:37

to be stumbling over words and

28:39

fucking up. And I expected to

28:41

not have a natural cadence. But

28:43

I kind of sound like I'm

28:45

talking to a friend. Now,

28:48

what the scene is that

28:50

we're doing is we're having a

28:52

conversation where he's about to

28:54

bring up that I've sold him

28:56

out to the House on

28:58

American Activities. Sold him out as

29:00

a communist. And I have

29:02

ruined his life, even though we

29:04

were best friends in college. That's

29:07

what we're gearing up to. Yeah. Right? And

29:09

I know that. I know that. And I

29:11

know that what he has coming up is

29:13

the scene where he says, you know, you've

29:15

let me down. How could you do this

29:17

to me? What have you done? It's going

29:19

to take a turn. I've read those words.

29:21

Yeah. I've read the turn. And

29:24

we're going. And we're coming around that

29:26

corner. And it's a comfortable corner. You

29:28

know? She's going to do a turn.

29:30

I'm just kind of. The words on

29:32

the page are right there. And De

29:34

Niro just drops the script. And

29:37

he turns to me. And

29:39

he looks me in the eye.

29:41

And I don't know if he did the

29:43

words on the page or not. I

29:47

just know that he

29:49

was really mad and betrayed

29:51

by me. And

29:54

I knew that we had been

29:56

friends forever. And

29:58

I had let him down. And

30:01

he was right in

30:03

my face. And he was

30:05

Robert De Niro. And

30:07

his performance went from,

30:09

here we are reading words

30:12

on a page, to

30:14

here we are in front

30:16

of the Un -American Activities

30:18

Committee. And

30:21

I... take it.

30:26

I could not take the intensity.

30:28

I could not take being yelled

30:30

at by Robert De Niro. So

30:33

I kind of grin. I

30:35

try. I am trying for

30:38

my own psychological self -preservation. I

30:40

am trying to not be

30:42

in the scene. He is jarring

30:44

you out of the scene.

30:46

He is. Pulling me

30:48

so deeply into the scene that

30:50

I psychologically can't handle it. I'm

30:52

going to drown in here. So

30:55

I'm trying to put a wall

30:57

up. I'm trying to do bad acting

30:59

in order to save myself. Because

31:01

there's so much good acting, I believe

31:03

I'll never come out. of this

31:05

drug trip that is me having betrayed

31:08

Robert De Niro. Because I have

31:10

now betrayed Robert De Niro. And he's

31:12

really, really mad at me. And

31:14

he used to love me, and now

31:16

he doesn't. And all of that

31:18

is clear in every sentence he says.

31:21

And I'm just a guy who has

31:23

a show to do that night on

31:25

Broadway. Who was just killing it, reading

31:27

it. Yeah, just killing it. Can we

31:29

just read like the phone book or

31:31

something reasonable? You

31:34

know. Now, the last movie

31:36

you did, The Safdie Bros, they

31:39

really fucked with you. No, not particularly. They

31:41

put you in a different place for you

31:43

to act. Right. But that was mostly the

31:45

people that helped me with the acting. Josh

31:48

was very good. Yeah. But Timmy

31:50

Chalamet is, well, I don't know.

31:52

We can just say this simply,

31:54

better than De Niro. So

31:57

when he came in, and

31:59

I didn't meet him beforehand.

32:01

Right. The first time I

32:03

met Timmy Chalamet. There was

32:05

cameras rolling on us. Yeah.

32:07

And there was a close

32:09

-up on us. Yeah. And

32:11

Timmy was conning me, and

32:13

I was confused and angry

32:15

at Timmy. And Timmy came

32:17

in, well, I don't know, 180

32:20

miles an hour on the turn.

32:22

Right. He's absolutely there. But I feel

32:24

like it was like. is

32:26

that the Saptee brothers knew to at least get

32:28

you out of your comfort zone with your glasses,

32:30

your appearance. Oh, yeah, yeah. They did everything they

32:32

could to fuck me up, yeah. Right, that's what

32:34

I'm saying, right? So do you feel like if

32:36

there's a time machine, do you feel like they

32:38

could have prepped you for your scene with De

32:40

Niro? No, they would have made it worse. What

32:44

you have not understood at

32:46

all is that... know how actors

32:48

are supposed to be in

32:50

the moment? Yes. And really part

32:53

of the scene? Yeah. And

32:55

forget themselves and just be there?

32:57

Yeah. I did not want

32:59

that. I

33:02

needed to fail. Yes.

33:05

And leave. I wanted to

33:07

be giggling and doing

33:09

a shitty job. because

33:11

I did not want to be someone

33:13

that Robert De Niro used to

33:15

love and now hated. I didn't

33:18

want to be that. I wanted to be

33:20

Penn failing an audition. That's what I chose

33:22

to be. I did not want to be

33:24

his childhood friend. Two people accomplished exactly what

33:26

they wanted in that room. Well,

33:31

then De Niro says afterwards to me,

33:33

how old are you? Yeah. And I told

33:35

him. And he went, hmm, you don't

33:37

look that, do you? I said,

33:39

I don't know. I said, you look a

33:41

lot younger than that, right? I said, I

33:43

don't know. I think I'm the age I

33:46

am. And he said, yeah, we didn't go

33:48

to college together. You look too young. And

33:50

then the director came over

33:52

and said, remarkably, I mean,

33:55

lying or whatever, said, that

33:57

felt really good there. And

34:01

De Niro went, yeah, but

34:03

I don't think he's old enough.

34:06

And I think what he really meant was

34:08

he was too old to have gone to

34:10

college with me. Because the age that I

34:13

was was not the age he looked. But

34:15

I don't know what he meant or anything. But

34:17

actually, the fact that that happened

34:19

to your face is unique. That's

34:22

usually something you would have found

34:24

out after the fact with someone talking

34:26

to someone talking to your agent.

34:28

Well, the director and De Niro were

34:30

there talking. And the director went,

34:32

I kind of liked that. that

34:35

feeling there. And I

34:37

said, I was really uncomfortable.

34:39

And he said, yeah.

34:41

And that came across really

34:44

well. So what

34:46

happened was I did

34:48

no acting whatsoever. De

34:50

Niro did so much

34:52

good acting. That

34:54

it bounced off of you.

34:56

Went into me. And

34:58

apparently. Like a racquetball. On

35:00

camera, my trying desperately

35:02

to get out of the scene looked

35:05

like the character trying desperately to

35:07

get out of the scene. I

35:09

probably made surprising choices, right?

35:11

Right. Because other people would

35:13

have tried to be like

35:16

sad and freaked out. And

35:18

I was going like. Cackling.

35:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to say, how

35:25

do I get them to say cut? And

35:28

probably the character I was playing would

35:30

be. How do I get them to

35:32

say cut? How do I get out

35:34

of this scene, right? Right. So the

35:36

character wants to run away. Yeah. And

35:38

the fact that I really wanted to

35:40

run away maybe came across. But

35:43

they sat there discussing it. And he

35:45

said, I think you could have gone to

35:47

college together, dear. He goes, no. Well,

35:49

the fact of the matter is, neither one

35:51

of us could go to college because

35:53

we're both dumb as dirt, right? So the

35:55

idea that De Niro and I went

35:57

to college together, you don't need the word

35:59

together. No

36:03

one's believing it after, up until the

36:05

word together, they don't even believe it.

36:07

Right. So you add together, who cares?

36:09

Oh, they're different ages. Well, neither one

36:11

of them could get into a college,

36:13

and we're supposed to have gone to

36:15

an Ivy League college, and we're supposed

36:17

to both be lawyers? I

36:19

mean, what the fuck? These are two

36:21

people who don't have those skills.

36:24

Right. Yeah. And that's why that movie

36:26

could have done better. It could

36:28

have. They ended up with, who's the

36:30

fat guy from Cheers? Oh,

36:32

George Wendt? Yeah. Oh. He ended up

36:35

with that part. So you can't say

36:37

they went a different direction. They went

36:39

the same direction, just more skilled. I

36:41

don't think he cackles. George Wendt. I

36:44

don't think he cackles out of uncomfortability. He

36:46

doesn't try to run out of the scene?

36:48

No, no, I don't think so. And

36:50

the other thing that was

36:52

great was Arthur Penn, the

36:55

great director and a good friend

36:57

of mine who'd worked with De

36:59

Niro quite a bit. Said to

37:01

me, which I really love, with

37:04

no joke or nothing, just directly

37:06

at me, said, if you get

37:08

this movie and work with De

37:10

Niro, he will destroy you. I

37:12

said, what? He said, it will

37:14

be the worst time of your

37:16

life. Whoa. And

37:18

when I didn't get it, Arthur

37:20

Penn said, you are so lucky you

37:23

didn't get it. Because everything about

37:25

you, Robert De Niro would hate. And

37:27

Robert De Niro is very, very

37:29

powerful as a person. And he would

37:31

do everything he could to rip

37:33

you apart. Then it doesn't take much

37:35

to get you going. Yeah.

37:41

Arthur explained he would have taken away

37:43

all my tools for interaction with

37:45

people. He wouldn't have allowed any of

37:47

them. Oh,

37:50

that's scary. He

37:52

said, because you will really rub Robert

37:55

De Niro the wrong way. And it turned

37:57

out I've had several interactions with him,

37:59

and every single time I have rubbed him

38:01

the wrong way. Deeply the

38:03

wrong way. He's

38:05

not much for

38:07

charming wiseasses. No, no,

38:09

no, no. Just

38:11

tomfoolery. Not play

38:14

with De Niro. He's not held court

38:16

backstage of the monkey room? No, no. And

38:21

he can also

38:23

sit quietly. Yeah. No.

38:26

Give me Paul

38:28

Daniels. You know, in

38:30

the room, it was a big room

38:32

we were in. We were going to do

38:34

my audition in. Our audition. And,

38:42

you know. Bob, are you nervous? We

38:45

were sitting like in a

38:48

bar. Yeah. And if you were

38:50

sitting at that bar with

38:52

Paul Daniels or Robin Williams or

38:54

AJ, right? Yeah. Or Matt

38:56

Donnelly. Right. They would be chitter

38:58

-chattering like crazy. Yeah. You'd be

39:00

having a really, really good

39:02

time. I'm sitting at the bar

39:04

with De Niro and he's saying nothing. And

39:07

on top of saying nothing, more

39:09

disconcerting, he's also doing nothing. It's

39:11

not like he's reading the paper.

39:13

Yeah. It's not like he's chatting

39:15

on the phone. Just sitting

39:17

there. So

39:20

he just finished a move with Rod Williams.

39:23

Doesn't take much to get him going. So

39:27

that kind of means, Bob, you don't want

39:29

me to get going. Is that right? Is

39:32

that what you mean? You mean that

39:34

you're going to do... Bob, me tell you

39:36

something. My Sean Connery is way better

39:38

than Robin Williams' Sean Connery. Go ahead. Ask

39:40

me anything Sean Connery would answer. You

39:42

know, Robin and I used to do this

39:44

little bit when we were in San

39:46

Francisco together. I thought maybe we could do

39:48

it. You ever do Dueling

39:50

Walk -ins? Listen,

39:53

let's just do it in the style

39:55

of Shakespeare. In

39:59

the style of Shakespeare, let's do

40:01

a deodorant commercial, okay? You and me,

40:03

Bob. What are your five favorite

40:05

jokes to tell, Bob? Yeah, Bob. Lay

40:08

it on me. Yeah. What's your

40:10

favorite genie desert island joke? Because

40:12

I've got a few. No,

40:15

we just sat there quiet. I

40:18

can't even picture De Niro going like, oh, I heard

40:20

this good one the other day and going into a

40:22

joke. I can't picture it, can you? I

40:26

can't. And apparently, he did not get along

40:28

with Bill Murray. I mean, I guess there's lots

40:30

of stories of people not getting along with

40:32

Bill Murray, but it seems, I don't know. It's

40:34

hard. That's a tough one, yeah. Yeah. And

40:36

when I talked to Terry

40:39

Gilliam about Robert De Niro,

40:41

he said he's the weirdest

40:43

actor ever because he says

40:45

you're shooting the scene and

40:47

it's terrible. He's just not

40:49

good. There's nothing good about

40:51

it. And then you go

40:53

watch it in the dailies

40:56

and he's fabulous. It

40:58

just is only on camera. It's

41:00

not in the room. Can't prove

41:02

that by me. It was in

41:04

the room. It was in the

41:06

room. But I mean, he was,

41:08

get this, De Niro was acting.

41:10

He was acting. And I

41:12

was 10 inches from his face. That's

41:14

where I was. So you've seen

41:17

the intensity of Robert De Niro on

41:19

screen. Yeah. Now imagine you're actually

41:21

there. You don't want to be there.

41:23

No. Imagine you're talking to Travis

41:25

Bickle. That's

41:29

where I was. I

41:32

was like, I actually was in your story. I was

41:34

like, and I had the guts to complain about

41:36

America's Got Talent to Penn. I

41:40

would switch places for a

41:42

second. I

41:44

wouldn't send you out to rude Heidi

41:46

Klum in front of Intense De Niro. Well,

41:48

see, you would have done okay because

41:50

you're a good actor. You

41:52

would have been okay with him. You would have been in

41:55

the scene with him. Yeah. At

41:57

my best, I don't think I was ever great.

41:59

At my best, I think I was always a

42:01

decent and good actor. I don't think I ever

42:03

jarred any of my scene partners in to be

42:05

like, wait, is he doing the script or is

42:07

he just talking to me? And

42:10

great actors do that. Yeah. Well, that

42:12

happens to me all the time. Every

42:15

time I'm reading a scene with anybody,

42:17

I think they're getting mad at me.

42:19

Yeah. All the time. I do not

42:21

like people acting to me. It's

42:23

just why I do so well with Teller.

42:25

No, I think I told the story before

42:27

when we did a director's cut. Missy. Missy,

42:29

yeah, yeah. Missy Pyle. Missy Pyle. Every

42:32

time, every take, she talked to me so directly

42:34

that I thought, oh my gosh, we have to call

42:36

a cut. She's talking to me. Yeah. And something's

42:38

gone wrong. And

42:40

then my brain had to go like, nope, that's

42:43

the script. And get back into

42:45

it. When I was in, when I

42:47

was like 19. Yeah. I

42:49

had a girlfriend in New York

42:51

who was an actor fairly successful, right?

42:54

And she asked me to go over a

42:56

scene with her. I just read the scene

42:58

with her for her to learn. Yeah. It

43:00

is the perfect thing. So like

43:03

I said, I'm a good reader. Yeah.

43:05

So we're reading along. And

43:07

we read along the scene. And

43:09

we're going back and forth. And she's

43:11

got her lines. We're doing great.

43:13

And then I see on the page

43:15

that she's got like a paragraph. It's

43:18

like long. And I realize I

43:20

got a little bit of time. Okay?

43:23

So I just slide my eyes

43:25

down to the end of her script,

43:28

the end of her speech, look at the

43:30

last three words, and I look at my

43:32

next line. Pick it up. And I put

43:34

the script down, and I'm holding it, and

43:36

she's talking to me. And there's a pause,

43:38

and she goes, you don't want to be

43:40

here. You're not even listening, are you? And

43:44

I say, No,

43:48

you had a long speech, so I just

43:50

decided I could put the... She goes, what

43:52

are you saying? I said, what? She said,

43:54

what are you doing? I said, what do

43:56

you mean? Those

44:03

were the lights. Yeah, yeah. I

44:07

didn't know it was going there. I

44:10

thought she was mad at me. Wait,

44:13

I've never done it to anyone. I've

44:15

never, reading with anyone, never did that. I

44:17

want to only do scenes with people

44:20

where they're happy and nice to me. No.

44:24

I mean, like I said, whatever, two years into

44:26

being a magician, you were like, you'll never walk

44:28

in with your headshot and do a minute of

44:30

your act for someone to scribble on the back

44:32

of it while they eat donuts and drink coffee.

44:34

And I was like, oh, that's so great. And

44:36

the other day my wife, she goes, oh, I

44:38

have an audition. I to put myself on tape.

44:40

And I was like, what? She goes,

44:42

I should probably say I can't do it

44:44

or whatever. This week's kind of crazy. I was

44:46

like, kind of. My wife has three full -time

44:48

jobs. And one of them is like revamping

44:50

an entire show on a strip. She goes, do

44:52

you think I should ask him to extend

44:54

the deadline? And I said, I don't know why

44:57

you still have an agent and audition. And

44:59

she was very jarred by that. I was like,

45:01

you have all the work. You have so

45:03

much work in show business right now. Are we

45:05

to say so many works? You have so

45:07

many works. So many works. And

45:10

she goes, I know, but I don't know why. I

45:12

go, you could also, if Alva went away tomorrow, you could

45:14

absolutely call your friend who's an agent and be like,

45:16

hey, everything I worked on closed, can I start going out

45:18

again? They'd say yes. But I

45:20

don't know why you want to add auditions to your

45:22

stuff now. Not

45:24

being an actor has been

45:27

a blast. So fun.

45:29

Well, my auditions have all

45:31

been weird. Yeah. You

45:34

can call them for weird guys now.

45:36

I always get called in for weird guys.

45:38

But you know, I went in to

45:40

audition for Oliver Stone and had a fight

45:42

with him. Right. Unpleasant argument.

45:44

I went in to

45:46

audition to be Jim Carrey's

45:48

henchman in one of

45:50

the Batman movies. And just

45:53

for a joke, I

45:55

insisted on auditioning for Batman.

45:58

Because I thought they'd be really funny. I

46:00

went in and on the page, there were

46:02

some Batman lines. So I went in and

46:05

he went, okay, let's hear it. And I

46:07

just read the Batman lines. And

46:09

I said, I'll be better than Val Kilmer by

46:11

a lot. I

46:15

said, and also all the muscles are in the

46:17

suit. I'll be fine. I'm

46:20

Batman. I'm Batman. I

46:22

said, I get a good voice. I can be

46:24

Batman. Glenn was not your agent.

46:27

No, no. I

46:30

didn't ever get chosen. Right. I did

46:32

a few things. I mean, I did the

46:34

Oliver Stone movie. You did the movie

46:37

where he called you and hated you. Yeah.

46:40

And I did, you know, a few

46:42

things here and there. But most

46:44

of the time, I wouldn't audition. My

46:46

favorite thing. You have a fine

46:48

IMDb page. You started with Savage Island.

46:51

Which I did with Linda Blair. She

46:53

shot me in the head. That's my

46:55

first appearance. That's my first acting. It's on

46:57

screen. That's pretty great. Savage Island. There

46:59

you go. And Savage Island is a remarkable

47:01

movie. Yeah. Yeah. You've got a lot.

47:03

I mean, a lot of people just want

47:06

like, you know, under fives on sitcoms.

47:08

You've done a lot of sitcoms. The

47:10

other day we won this big

47:12

NAB award. Yeah. Really big NAB

47:14

award. Yeah. Teller did the speech

47:17

because we do that. When we

47:19

get awards, Teller always does the

47:21

speech, the acceptance speech. That's nice.

47:23

I think one, the major reason

47:25

is one, the reason they tell

47:27

me is that it's really a

47:29

change -up for Teller to talk. a

47:32

big deal. I just stand there smiling. But

47:34

the real reason is I don't think I'm

47:36

skilled at accepting awards. And

47:39

Teller can be

47:41

very, very... sincere,

47:43

and the award means a lot to him.

47:46

He's gracious, and he gets a tear

47:48

in his eye. The award means everything to

47:50

him. I never can remember the name

47:52

of the award we're giving. I don't

47:54

know who's giving it, and I think

47:56

it's bullshit. And that comes across in everything

47:58

I say. NAB, there's

48:00

a National Association of Broadcasting, is that

48:02

it? It's a television award. Television. Television.

48:06

And so we did a Q &A afterwards,

48:08

right? And the woman

48:10

asked me questions about being in

48:12

shows and asked Teller, too, and

48:14

asked me questions. And then I

48:16

answered the questions, and I told

48:18

little stories. And I finished the

48:20

whole thing, and I went backstage,

48:22

and Glenn said to me, I

48:24

didn't even know you were on

48:26

Seinfeld. And I said, oh. I

48:28

wasn't on Seinfeld. And she said,

48:30

he said, she asked you about

48:32

being on Seinfeld. You talked about

48:34

it. Then you told a little

48:36

story and went on. Did

48:39

you mistake it for friends? Yes. Did

48:47

she mistake it for friends? We

48:53

know that because. She

48:56

was going over the questions with

48:58

Glenn. Yeah. And she said, when you

49:00

were on Seinfeld, and Glenn said

49:02

he wasn't on Seinfeld, he was on

49:04

Friends. She went, oh, yes, yes,

49:06

yes. I meant Friends, and the question

49:08

is about Friends, and be fine.

49:11

It's good to know that you and

49:13

her have the same exact opinion

49:15

of those two shows. It's

49:21

different when people are huge friends people

49:23

and you don't seem to give a shit

49:25

that you were on that show. It

49:28

maybe hurts their feelings a little bit, but

49:30

it's good to know that she also

49:32

just conflates those two shows. Just totally, totally

49:34

the same. And there was no discomfort

49:36

whatsoever. The audience was happy. Teller didn't know

49:38

the difference. Nobody objected. Nobody was like,

49:40

nobody from the back was like, friends. We're

49:42

talking about friends. You were never on

49:45

Seinfeld. How dare you?

49:48

Friends, sure, but Seinfeld, fuck

49:51

you. No,

49:54

no one cared. No one cared

49:56

at all. Yeah,

50:00

and I just heard friends. I

50:02

just heard friends and went on with

50:04

the answer, and that was fun. Because

50:06

what I was thinking about was that

50:08

where we were getting this award was

50:10

right across the street from Bagel Mania.

50:13

and they were going to give me a

50:15

toasted everything bagel with tofu fake cream

50:17

cheese. And I was going to have that

50:19

ready for me. When you were done. Yeah.

50:21

So suddenly your answers got shorter. Yeah. That

50:24

was good. I liked it. It was a fun show.

50:27

People watched it. was great. I don't know. Like

50:31

De Niro on a talk show. Did

50:33

they give you a big wind -up?

50:35

Did someone present to you the award?

50:37

Oh, yeah, and the award was really

50:39

heavy. And they warned us, which is

50:41

really funny. They said, the award is

50:44

really heavy. And last year, we gave

50:46

it to Jennifer Holliday, and it almost

50:48

knocked her over. And

50:51

I said, yeah, okay, so the award's heavy. And

50:53

they handed it to me, and I went, fuck! really

50:56

heavy. And

50:58

I tell her, it is really heavy.

51:01

And we said, don't hand it to either

51:03

one of us. Put

51:05

it on a table or something. Yeah, something.

51:07

It was really heavy. It's like a granite

51:09

award. That means that they have someone like

51:11

you on the committee. Whoever came up with

51:13

the award and had to get it made

51:15

had a wise ass like you in there.

51:18

It's like, no, we're more important than the Oscars. We

51:20

should show that by weight. Let's

51:22

make it out of granite. Can

51:25

we give it a plutonium core? Yeah,

51:31

it was heavy. I

51:33

want to talk a little

51:35

bit, just a little

51:37

bit, about masterclass.com slash pen.

51:40

Because that is lifelong

51:42

learning. They have over 200

51:44

instructors. They're the best. The

51:46

instructors are the best. You become

51:48

a member. You can learn everything. And

51:50

it gives you interesting stuff to

51:52

talk about and to think about. You

51:54

always want to be learning stuff.

51:56

You always want to do that. I

51:58

say, and this is maybe not. Masterclass's

52:01

point of view. Yeah. I'm speaking

52:03

for myself, not Masterclass. Stop reading

52:05

the newspaper and instead take a

52:07

Masterclass. It'll be much healthier for

52:10

you. What have you been doing?

52:12

Like you said, I was basically

52:14

like the world seems a little

52:16

crazy and I feel a little

52:18

inept. Yeah. So I started Malala's.

52:21

Master class. What's that? Malala

52:23

is the youngest Nobel Prize winner. She

52:26

changed the way educating poor women, basically.

52:28

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so

52:30

she talks about what it's like to try

52:32

to maybe be an advocate for change

52:34

and how to go about doing it made

52:36

you more of an advocate for change?

52:38

I think one of the smartest things

52:40

she said, I just cracked it. She

52:42

was like, don't look at your mistakes

52:44

as failures. I've made mistakes. you're

52:46

going to make mistakes. And as long

52:48

as you learn from your mistakes, it's not

52:50

a failure. And so you can keep

52:52

going and keep trying. I have a file

52:54

called failures. Well, you got to

52:56

look at that. Yeah. If there are mistakes you

52:59

learn from, you take that off that list. Yeah.

53:01

Some of them might stay there. Yeah. I think

53:03

all of them will. I

53:05

can learn from Masterclass. I cannot

53:07

learn from my failures. I

53:11

think that should be their

53:13

slogan. Masterclass.

53:15

Learn from us, not your

53:17

failures. But once you are

53:20

a member, you have access to everything.

53:22

All of them. All of them. And you

53:24

can jump around from astronauts to directors

53:26

to stand -up comedians to cooks to hostage

53:28

negotiators. They're all there. What you want to

53:30

see is all the people you like

53:32

and admire being passionate, and that's what you

53:34

get. out of this. You really get

53:36

people being full throated about what they're all

53:38

about and what they work on and

53:40

how they work. And it's so exciting. And

53:42

they do such a beautiful job. Yeah.

53:44

And I want to stress once again that

53:46

it is the best people in the

53:48

world. Yes. As a matter of fact, I've

53:50

just forgotten. Who does the magic one

53:52

for MasterCard? Penn and Teller. Oh yeah, that's

53:54

right. It really is the best in

53:56

the world. And George Wendt teaches one on

53:58

could have gone to college with DeMiro. I

54:03

feel like you could have gone to college with

54:05

De Niro and take that class. Yeah, that's pretty

54:07

good. That's really good. Yeah, I couldn't have done

54:09

that. Right now. Our listeners, and

54:11

I want to also say

54:13

Masterclass, no one else would let

54:15

us have the fun we

54:17

have with the ads and all

54:19

of that. They're just terrific.

54:21

They just back us and have

54:23

backed us now. And it

54:26

makes it so easy and fun

54:28

to do this. And I

54:30

thank them. So support them. Get

54:32

15 % off an annual membership

54:34

at masterclass.com slash pen. Get

54:36

50 % off right

54:38

now at masterclass.com

54:40

slash pen. Masterclass.com

54:42

slash pen. Yeah, check

54:44

it out. Check it

54:47

out. What were we

54:49

talking about? We were trying to get to the kazoo thing.

54:51

Yeah, we were trying to get to the kazoo thing. I

54:53

was actually wondering, because it's your 40th anniversary of Off -Broadway,

54:55

you've had Jonesy with you in Vegas. What

54:57

was the music palette of Penn

54:59

& Teller pre -Jonesy? I

55:01

think we played pre

55:03

-show was Ima Sumek.

55:06

The Voice of the

55:08

Incas, five octave range. We

55:11

wanted to play music that wouldn't

55:13

make anybody feel like they were

55:15

in the in crowd. Okay. If

55:18

we'd played, you know, we had

55:20

such a diverse audience on Broadway. We

55:22

didn't want anyone to feel left

55:24

out. And the way to do that

55:26

was to have everybody feel left

55:28

out. Fascinating. kind of music that was

55:30

exotic. Actually. To everyone.

55:32

Called Exotica. Yeah. To everybody. So

55:34

it was Inca music and Ima

55:36

Sumac. And that didn't let anybody

55:38

go, oh, I know the kind

55:40

of show this is. That's

55:43

fascinating. Yeah, that was really a very, very

55:45

strong plan of ours. Wow. I did not

55:47

want to play pop music. I did not

55:49

want to play rock. Right. I didn't want

55:51

to play, you know, I wanted to make

55:53

sure that everybody said, this is something different.

55:56

40 years ago. 40 years ago.

55:58

years ago. No cars. No,

56:01

no, there were still cars back then.

56:03

No pilot. No

56:07

heart. What's

56:09

he saying? I think he's doing bands that you

56:11

can't play. Oh, yeah. All

56:14

the FM shock jock songs that they would

56:16

play for you when you were a guest.

56:18

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's

56:20

right. It took me a second. I got

56:22

thrown with no cars. So

56:26

did you have music underneath any of your

56:28

stuff? No. Not unless we were

56:30

playing it. Interesting.

56:32

That's so interesting. Yeah. But

56:34

now we have Kazoo. Now

56:37

you have a real

56:39

psychedelic kind of sweeping.

56:42

Sweeping. Anthem. Anthem. I think it's worth saying. I was

56:44

at the fair. Went to the fair. Did you

56:46

go to the fair? I didn't realize it was here.

56:48

Well, it's not here. It's an hour and a

56:50

half away. Well, then no wonder I didn't go. You

56:52

might as well go to Kablip. It's

56:55

very far away. It's out near Kablip. Oh,

56:57

it is. You know, Criss Angel's Restaurant. I could

56:59

have taken my children there. Which is only

57:01

open. Not to Criss Angel's Restaurant. No, no, no,

57:03

no. I'm sorry. Which is only open for

57:05

like now. I don't think he's allowed within 500

57:07

feet of my children. No, he's not. About

57:09

eight hours a week it's open now. Yeah. And

57:11

we weren't going to go there when there

57:13

was the fair. And we were very sad they

57:15

didn't have deep fried ranch dressing. Which

57:18

they do have at the Minnesota State Fair.

57:20

Really? Deep fried ranch, yeah. They just decided to

57:22

just go ahead and put an exclamation point

57:24

on it. Yeah. Deep fried ranch. I

57:26

would try it. I would eat it. had deep

57:28

fried Oreos. They

57:30

didn't have butter on a stick, which they have

57:32

at some state fairs. But they had a one

57:35

-man band. Oh, that's always

57:37

fun. Really fun. And

57:39

we also saw his teenage

57:41

son, I assume his teenage son,

57:43

looked like him and was

57:45

teenaged, who has to pull the

57:47

cart with the sound equipment

57:49

on it. There's

57:52

a one -man band. There's a place where the

57:54

floor and ceiling of your career are very

57:56

close. Yeah. Right? You'll

57:58

never not work. Yep, never. And you're

58:00

never going to Broadway with your one

58:02

-man band. Nope. They're not going to

58:04

make the movie of the one -man band

58:07

guy. And he had a nice setup.

58:09

He had a bass drum, two cymbals,

58:11

and a snare drum on his back.

58:13

And the cymbals were hooked up to

58:15

the guitar next. We could move that,

58:17

hit the cymbal. And the drum things

58:19

came down to his feet and hit

58:21

his ankles. He'd just kick his feet.

58:23

He could do the bass drum. And

58:26

he had a harmonica holder. I mean,

58:28

that is remarkable. Yeah, it was great. It

58:30

was a great setup. And he was playing

58:32

Come Together. And

58:34

I sat

58:36

there. Moxie

58:38

said, how are you liking him? I

58:40

go, he's not doing the lyrics

58:42

right. Of all the things.

58:44

Of all the things he's doing. And

58:51

I said, I don't know if he's really saying shoot

58:53

me. He said, he is.

58:55

He's doing shoot me. I said,

58:57

good. But he did hold you

58:59

in his armchair, you can feel

59:01

his disease three times instead of

59:03

one and one. Right,

59:06

the other lyrics. And

59:08

I do his knees. Got to be

59:10

a joker, he just do what he please.

59:12

He skipped those two. So

59:14

that bothered me. Of course. And

59:16

I went to the pig races,

59:18

which is all I care about.

59:20

And I told Mox a story

59:22

that he said after I told

59:24

him the story. He said, you

59:26

should have never told me that,

59:28

Dad. Never. Whoa. And I told

59:30

Robbie that before the show. And

59:32

Robbie said, don't tell that story

59:35

to anybody ever. So I'm

59:37

going to tell it now. I

59:41

love the pig races. They have little

59:43

pigs, little squealers. Piglets. Piglets. And they

59:46

run around a track. I said it

59:48

like I have any either knowledge or

59:50

authority. Well, it used to be Swifty

59:52

Swine that did it. Okay. And now

59:54

it's called the Alaskan pig races. Okay.

59:56

And it looks like the pigs are

59:58

well cared for. I mean, you could

1:00:00

argue, and I think I would accept

1:00:03

this argument, that that's not what pigs

1:00:05

should be doing. That

1:00:08

they should be. living their lives.

1:00:10

But they're in an air -conditioned trailer,

1:00:12

and it was 97 degrees, and we

1:00:14

were miserable, and the pigs looked

1:00:16

rather refreshed. So at least

1:00:18

for this day, it was a

1:00:20

win. Yeah, for the pigs. And

1:00:22

I bet with Moxie and lost. My

1:00:25

pig was the slowest. In both

1:00:27

races, I chose a pig. I

1:00:29

mean, by a lot. I

1:00:32

seem to almost have a gift. But

1:00:35

pigs are very smart, you

1:00:37

know. Yes. And whereas humans

1:00:39

think they can gain expertise

1:00:41

on a pig's speed by

1:00:43

looking at them for two

1:00:45

minutes. Well, Elijah,

1:00:48

a friend of

1:00:50

Mox's, Elijah said wisely, he

1:00:52

said, bet on the fattest pig

1:00:54

because they get treats when they

1:00:56

win, and that's the pig that's

1:00:58

won the most. Okay.

1:01:00

I take back what I said

1:01:02

about humans earlier. Yeah. He

1:01:04

should be a shoe shine guy giving

1:01:06

tips on the races. Give me 20

1:01:08

bucks and I'll tell you who to

1:01:10

vote for in a second. Who to

1:01:12

vote for? Vote for. Bet on. Bet

1:01:14

on, yeah. This is

1:01:16

the story I told that haunts

1:01:18

me. Haunts me. And now it'll

1:01:21

haunt Moxie. And now it'll haunt

1:01:23

Robbie. And very soon it'll haunt

1:01:25

all of you. It's horrible. It's

1:01:27

horrible. I'm about to tell it. Horrible.

1:01:29

Are you sure you want to? Yes. Okay.

1:01:31

No doubt at all. There's no doubt.

1:01:33

There's nothing else I had in my mind

1:01:35

to tell except this story. I was

1:01:37

going to get there. There

1:01:40

are not pig races, but there

1:01:43

were back in the 60s and 70s,

1:01:45

probably before and probably after, pig

1:01:47

acts in the circus. And you would

1:01:49

think, know, you want to see

1:01:51

lions, you want to see elephants, you

1:01:53

want to see that. Pigs, what's

1:01:55

the big deal? Well, pigs are wicked

1:01:57

smart. Yeah. Wicked smart. And

1:01:59

the acts you get them to

1:02:01

do could be very pretty elaborate.

1:02:03

They could move in circles and

1:02:05

move together and stand up on

1:02:08

things and do this whole thing.

1:02:10

And you'd train the pigs. And

1:02:12

there'd be a band,

1:02:14

a circus band, which played

1:02:16

fairly loudly. And they

1:02:18

would be choreographed to the

1:02:20

music. Unlike other animal

1:02:22

acts, dog acts, elephant acts.

1:02:24

Lion Axe, so on. The

1:02:27

pigs didn't really need very much

1:02:29

coaching from the people. Once they learned

1:02:31

their routines, the music would start

1:02:33

and they would just go. And the

1:02:36

guys would be in the ring

1:02:38

acting like they were controlling it. But

1:02:40

the pigs just kind of did

1:02:42

it. Now, pigs grow too big and

1:02:44

they grow too hard to travel

1:02:46

with. So they are given away to

1:02:48

a farm. which is a

1:02:50

euphemism, of course. They're going to go to

1:02:52

a farm. They're going to be fattened

1:02:55

up for another year. Then they're going to

1:02:57

be slaughtered. These intelligent, beautiful creatures are

1:02:59

going to be slaughtered. And

1:03:02

the clowns would tell this

1:03:04

story. The old -timers, when

1:03:06

I was at Ringling Brothers

1:03:08

Barn and Bailey Greatest Show

1:03:11

on Earth Clown College, would

1:03:13

tell this story that there

1:03:15

was one farm slaughterhouse area

1:03:17

that... was right next

1:03:19

to where the circus was.

1:03:21

So the retired pigs would

1:03:23

be sent out to pasture,

1:03:25

as it were, and to

1:03:27

be slaughtered. And then the

1:03:29

circus tent would set up,

1:03:31

and the circus band would

1:03:33

play loudly. And the

1:03:35

pigs, who had been thrown

1:03:38

out of the show... would

1:03:40

be in the pens where they

1:03:42

were going to be slaughtered. And when

1:03:44

they heard the music from the

1:03:46

circus band, they would start doing the

1:03:49

routine in the pens, just kind

1:03:51

of moving through and doing all their

1:03:53

stuff to the music. And the

1:03:55

ones that had been in the circus

1:03:57

would do it, and the other

1:03:59

pigs, of course, didn't know. But they

1:04:01

would go through their little routines,

1:04:03

the two or three of them that

1:04:06

were there ready to be killed. would

1:04:09

go through their little routine and

1:04:11

the clowns could see them moving through

1:04:13

their routine as they heard the

1:04:15

music. Let

1:04:17

that sit in your head. That's

1:04:19

a fucking black mirror shit right

1:04:21

there. That's horrible, isn't it? Yeah.

1:04:23

Yeah, it's horrible. And it just

1:04:25

makes me think that, you know,

1:04:27

I would be in a retirement

1:04:29

home or a hospice and all

1:04:32

of a sudden there'll be something

1:04:34

that'll cue me to. Some

1:04:36

tribal exotic music will come on.

1:04:38

And I'll just go, good evening,

1:04:40

my name is Pandela, my partner

1:04:42

Teller, we're Pandela. Just kind of

1:04:44

under my breath, kind of remembering

1:04:46

and going through the motions right

1:04:49

before I'm slaughtered as a pig

1:04:51

in the slaughterhouse. What home are

1:04:53

they sending you to? I don't

1:04:55

know, the slaughterhouse. That's

1:04:58

a tough one. Isn't that a tough one?

1:05:00

Yeah. Run that image around. No, I did.

1:05:02

I did. I'm now going, I'm now doing

1:05:04

it. I'm now, you're De Niro and I

1:05:06

want out of the scene. I'm

1:05:10

hoping they yell cut. Isn't that

1:05:12

horrible? I'm emotionally brick by brick right

1:05:14

now, just cementing it up right

1:05:16

now. And Robbie said to me, you

1:05:18

told that to your child while

1:05:20

at the pig races? Right. I said,

1:05:22

yeah. I did. To make sure

1:05:24

to rob any joy. Yeah, Robbie pointed

1:05:26

out that I was a very,

1:05:28

very bad father. But

1:05:32

you know, I have things going through

1:05:34

my head and I share them. Yeah. There

1:05:37

you go. I mean, it

1:05:39

is a deep and beautiful and

1:05:41

tragic story. It's just a random

1:05:43

downer. No, there's a lot of

1:05:46

richness to it. Yeah. There's a

1:05:48

lot of richness in what our

1:05:50

lives are about and what becomes

1:05:52

important to us and what. what

1:05:54

cues in. And pigs actually

1:05:56

also, the clowns would say, would

1:05:58

react very much to applause and all

1:06:00

that. When they got more approval,

1:06:02

they did a better show. The other

1:06:04

animals don't seem to know what

1:06:06

they're doing, but the pigs kind of

1:06:08

did. Yikes.

1:06:10

Yikes. I also read my

1:06:13

book. So there'll

1:06:15

be an audio version? Is that what you

1:06:17

mean? Felony Juggler comes out in less

1:06:19

than a month. And

1:06:21

I think there's some sort of deal, right?

1:06:23

Is it on the Patreon page? It's on

1:06:25

the Patreon page. If you search for Akashic

1:06:27

Books, you'll see a discount code there. My

1:06:29

books can be a felony juggler. And I

1:06:31

had an experience I don't even know how

1:06:33

to describe. As the kind of guy who

1:06:35

has, and I do have a file of

1:06:37

failures in my computer. Yes. I have no

1:06:39

file of successes, by the way. But

1:06:42

I do have many of the

1:06:44

things I consider to be failures, which

1:06:46

is pretty much everything. But

1:06:49

you must have left the NAB with a big

1:06:51

pep in your step. Yeah. And the

1:06:53

Seinfeld appearance. And

1:07:01

I read Felony Juggler. We should say, on

1:07:03

a very day -to -day level, you do know

1:07:05

when you have a good show. And you

1:07:07

do feel good about having a good show.

1:07:10

But not as much as I know when I have

1:07:12

a bad show. Of course. Of

1:07:14

course. Why did I say that?

1:07:16

Yeah, yeah. That's the thing, you know,

1:07:18

when you go to a show

1:07:20

and someone does something that doesn't please

1:07:23

you, you can be pretty sure,

1:07:25

unless it's one of the many psychotics

1:07:27

in this business, you can be

1:07:29

sure they're more upset about it than

1:07:31

you are. Right. But I

1:07:33

realize I say that. I can

1:07:35

name five people off the top of

1:07:37

my head. That's not true for.

1:07:39

No, unfortunately, when it's not true, it's

1:07:41

worse. Yeah. Right? You know that

1:07:43

they feel terrible. Yeah, yeah. By

1:07:46

the way, even if you talk to

1:07:48

a professional athlete, if they won two

1:07:50

Super Bowls but lost one, if you

1:07:52

say the word Super Bowl, all they

1:07:54

think about is the one they lost

1:07:56

and what they would do differently. And

1:07:58

they have so many memories of. all

1:08:00

these little choices they made, but you

1:08:02

can't get them to think about like

1:08:04

they're winning Super Bowl that way. Yeah,

1:08:06

poker players say that a good win

1:08:08

lasts about an hour, but a good

1:08:10

beat you can be in for three

1:08:12

or four weeks. But

1:08:16

I read my whole book. Now I'll

1:08:18

tell you, like I said, I'm a

1:08:20

good reader. Yeah. And this was nice

1:08:22

because De Niro didn't come in and

1:08:24

yell at me. I'm in

1:08:26

the middle of reading. But you sit

1:08:28

in the booth and you have someone that's

1:08:30

producing. Yeah. That's on Zoom watching you.

1:08:32

I guess there may be FaceTime. Doesn't matter.

1:08:35

And she is the producer. And I

1:08:37

need that because if someone doesn't

1:08:39

tell me that was okay, I go

1:08:41

back and do it over and

1:08:43

over again forever like a pig a

1:08:46

slaughterhouse. And she was

1:08:48

very pleased with me. The

1:08:50

average person. reading a book

1:08:52

for an audio book, does

1:08:54

15 pages an hour. Okay.

1:08:57

I do 25. Wow.

1:08:59

And I recorded for about

1:09:01

10 and a half hours

1:09:03

for a seven and a

1:09:05

half hour book, which is

1:09:07

pretty good. That's not a

1:09:09

lot of, that's your porn

1:09:11

shooting ratio. That's not Apocalypse

1:09:13

Now. Yeah. Okay. And

1:09:16

a remarkable thing happened. It's the

1:09:18

first time it's ever happened. I

1:09:21

finish a book, I send it out,

1:09:23

and I'm done with it. I don't think

1:09:25

about it again. When

1:09:27

you're reading it, that has to

1:09:29

be its own kind of intriguing moment.

1:09:31

It is. Because I never it.

1:09:33

You never watch yourself. You never do

1:09:35

whatever. So to actually go through

1:09:37

and read your whole book after it's

1:09:39

turned in and done, you can't

1:09:41

change anything. Right. That's got to

1:09:43

be a little assessing as you go

1:09:46

through the book, yeah? Oh, yeah. And

1:09:48

the punchline to this, and it's, It's

1:09:50

a mind -blowing punchline is I liked

1:09:52

it. You liked the book? Every other

1:09:54

book I've done, I've been like, oh,

1:09:56

why did I write? But

1:09:58

this one I felt pretty good

1:10:01

about. I don't know why. But,

1:10:03

you know, I thought Random was

1:10:05

pretty good. I was okay. And

1:10:07

Akashic Books, when I turned in

1:10:09

Felony Juggler, he said to me,

1:10:11

this is a lot better than

1:10:13

Random. And I thought, well, I

1:10:16

don't know if it really is

1:10:18

because Random had a higher concept

1:10:20

and this is da -da -da -da.

1:10:22

But I thought it was pretty

1:10:24

good. I was kind of crying

1:10:26

at the end. This is your,

1:10:28

fiction book -wise, this is your third

1:10:31

fiction? Mm -hmm. Sock? My 11th

1:10:33

book, 12th book. book. My 12th

1:10:35

book and my third novel. Okay. My

1:10:38

third novel. Yeah, there was Sock. You

1:10:40

might be getting better at it.

1:10:42

Maybe that's possible. Because

1:10:45

that's not an age thing. You don't have to

1:10:48

worry about athleticism. There's an age thing or whatever.

1:10:50

But it actually made me want to start another

1:10:52

book. I said, wow, I'm kind of happy

1:10:54

with what I did here. I want to write

1:10:56

another one. Well, that

1:10:58

doesn't surprise me at all.

1:11:00

I feel like you enjoy it.

1:11:02

writing quite a bit. I

1:11:04

enjoy writing a lot, but I

1:11:06

was happy that I also

1:11:08

enjoyed reading it. And

1:11:12

I thought it was pretty good.

1:11:14

It was pretty good. And I

1:11:16

also love that the woman who

1:11:18

was great, Megan is

1:11:20

her name, and she's also

1:11:22

an actor. And a fairly

1:11:24

successful actor in L .A. She's done a

1:11:27

lot of stuff. The same groups that you've

1:11:29

done. I

1:11:32

think we have a lot of mutual friends. And

1:11:34

she kept saying to me, which really

1:11:36

made me feel good, she said, slow down

1:11:38

on this because I really enjoy the

1:11:41

words and I want to get every one

1:11:43

of them. You're kind of flying through

1:11:45

with the idea, but the way you say

1:11:47

the idea is also really good. So

1:11:49

let us enjoy it a little bit. I

1:11:51

like that as opposed to saying, can

1:11:53

you get through this fucking thing? She

1:11:56

didn't say that ever, really. Three

1:12:00

o 'clock already? But

1:12:03

I did, and boy, it's

1:12:05

a weird kind of tired from

1:12:07

reading. I bet. Because you

1:12:09

do four hours, right? That's about

1:12:11

all you can do. I

1:12:14

actually was always curious about that. I tried

1:12:16

to go longer, and she said, Penn,

1:12:20

you're starting to get goofy.

1:12:22

You're starting to do

1:12:24

less well. Your voice is

1:12:26

sounding pretty ragged. And

1:12:29

you can't possibly finish the book

1:12:31

today because I have to go and

1:12:33

do a play tonight. And I

1:12:35

have to get ready for it, so

1:12:37

I have to leave. So you

1:12:39

can't possibly finish it. All you could

1:12:41

get to is where you'd have

1:12:43

20 minutes to do tomorrow. You have

1:12:45

to drive into the studio and

1:12:48

back. Why not do two hours tomorrow?

1:12:50

Make the drive in back and

1:12:52

forth and be fresh and relaxed and

1:12:54

not be falling apart like you

1:12:56

are now. I said, I think I

1:12:58

can finish it. Then I

1:13:00

paused and I saw her

1:13:02

look. That's the wonderful thing about

1:13:04

video. I went, you

1:13:06

know, I could, yeah, probably a good

1:13:08

idea. Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. But

1:13:11

you end up bleary.

1:13:13

Your whole mind is bleary.

1:13:15

You can't just focus. And

1:13:18

my voice gets not raspy,

1:13:20

but tired. And it's still a

1:13:22

little tired now from way

1:13:24

back on Wednesday when I finished.

1:13:26

And your back gets bad. So I

1:13:29

finally like settle all the way

1:13:31

to the chair and then pull the

1:13:33

computer right on top of me.

1:13:35

You know, so I'm really close to

1:13:37

the screen and I don't have

1:13:39

to hold my back in any position.

1:13:41

And your neck gets bad. It's

1:13:43

amazing because you're focusing everything. Yeah. And

1:13:45

I've been told that, because I

1:13:47

always ask, the guy, what's the guy's

1:13:49

name? Who's the best reader in

1:13:52

the world? I don't know name. I

1:13:54

wouldn't know his name. He's

1:13:56

African -American fellow. He was on

1:13:58

Star Trek. He was also on

1:14:00

Sesame Street. Burton? Yeah. Yeah. LeVar.

1:14:02

LeVar Burton. LeVar Burton. They said,

1:14:04

you know. He is a master class.

1:14:07

You can, you know,

1:14:09

Penn, you're doing really, really, really

1:14:11

well. But you still can't see

1:14:13

LeVar Burton from where you are. They

1:14:16

say LeVar Burton will do like

1:14:18

six pages with no mistakes. Oh, wow.

1:14:20

Nothing. Reading cold. Not

1:14:22

a mouth sound out

1:14:24

of place, not a raspiness

1:14:27

of the voice, not a

1:14:29

punctuation wrong, not an inflection

1:14:31

wrong, just... And you know

1:14:33

the Stephen Fry, Harry pocketed

1:14:35

it. Do you know

1:14:37

this story? No. It's the

1:14:39

greatest story ever. Stephen

1:14:42

Fry read all the Harry

1:14:44

Potter books, okay? And there

1:14:46

was a line in there.

1:14:48

Harry pocketed it. Harry pocketed

1:14:50

it, right? Got it. And

1:14:52

Stephen Fry could not say,

1:14:54

Harry pocketed it. Harry pocketed

1:14:56

it. Harry

1:14:59

pocketed it. And

1:15:01

it took him many times to

1:15:03

get it. So he, of course,

1:15:06

knows J .K. Rowling, right? And,

1:15:08

you know, because they're smart British people. They all

1:15:10

know each other. Yeah, yeah. So

1:15:12

he called her jokingly

1:15:14

and said, boy,

1:15:17

I had real trouble with Harry

1:15:19

pocketed it. I

1:15:21

don't even think it sounds good in the

1:15:23

finished take. Can I just put something else in

1:15:25

there? Harry put it in his pocket. Can

1:15:27

I do that? She said, no, Harry pocketed it.

1:15:29

And he said, okay, okay. And

1:15:31

then she put it

1:15:34

in every single book.

1:15:37

She went back and actually changed

1:15:39

the book so that every book

1:15:42

that she wrote in the Harry

1:15:44

Potter series has Harry pocketed it

1:15:46

in it. Just as a fuck

1:15:48

you to Stephen Fry. which

1:15:51

is fabulous. Yeah. And

1:15:53

I looked over. When

1:15:57

I'm writing a book, I know I'm going to

1:15:59

do it because I actually, I mean, I don't

1:16:01

want to get too into the Howard Stern area

1:16:03

here, but I get paid more for reading the

1:16:05

book than I do for writing it. I

1:16:08

do. I am worth

1:16:10

more his voice talent than I am his

1:16:12

author. Oh, interesting. But

1:16:14

I think when I'm writing it, I'm

1:16:16

going to read this. So I tried to

1:16:18

put no hard words in. And

1:16:21

when I wrote Presto, it was

1:16:23

the worst idea in the world. I

1:16:25

had all this shit I couldn't

1:16:27

say. Chipotle, right? Is that right, Reddy?

1:16:30

The worst one was from the movie.

1:16:32

What was that? Unfathomable

1:16:35

Genius. Unfathomable

1:16:37

Genius. Yes, that was in

1:16:39

Tim's room here. Unfathomable

1:16:41

Genius. Oh, man. And Chipotle,

1:16:43

I was terrible on at

1:16:46

Presto. In

1:16:48

Random, there's a whole section. But

1:16:50

this is not too bad. There

1:16:52

you go. But I do have

1:16:54

conversations, okay? Yeah. I have conversations

1:16:56

between a woman and a man.

1:16:58

Because it's essentially a love story.

1:17:02

Random is a love story, too. And Felony

1:17:04

Juggler is a love story. And I

1:17:06

have conversations between the woman and the man.

1:17:08

And she actually said to me, I

1:17:10

think you need to make the woman a

1:17:12

little more seductive here. And I was

1:17:14

like, oh. I got to do, I don't

1:17:16

do a woman's voice. Right, right, right.

1:17:18

I just go a little gentler. Use a

1:17:20

little subtext to make it happen. Yeah,

1:17:23

yeah. And I also have to do gangsters

1:17:25

and stuff. And you know how me

1:17:27

and voices, I'm not good. Right. That's

1:17:29

what De Niro said. I don't know. I don't know. I

1:17:32

can't do voices. I

1:17:34

only go to college and people do voices.

1:17:39

So. So

1:17:42

you could tell them apart. Yeah. Because she has

1:17:44

to make, you have to be able to make it.

1:17:46

When you listen to an audio book, you have

1:17:48

to be able to tell which character's talking. Yeah. So

1:17:50

that was a little bit difficult. That is hard. With

1:17:52

the books I listen to, I find like,

1:17:54

I'm like, oh, that person's good at giving distinct

1:17:57

voices. Yeah, you won't say that about this

1:17:59

book. I listen to

1:18:01

The Stand and I go like, how long did

1:18:03

it take him to record that? And how do you

1:18:05

keep the energy up for the same the whole

1:18:07

time? Who does it? I got to look him up.

1:18:09

It would say on it, right? If I look

1:18:11

it up. Neil Gaiman goes back

1:18:13

and does his first three pages

1:18:15

at the end. Oh, interesting. Because

1:18:17

he thinks he gets his groove

1:18:19

after that. Oh, that is fascinating.

1:18:22

Which is true. You really get

1:18:24

a groove. Where are the credits

1:18:26

on the audio? I don't know.

1:18:28

But we're going to finish up

1:18:30

anyway. Yeah, fuck that guy. Fuck

1:18:32

that guy. Fuck that guy who's

1:18:34

reading that. Whoever reads it. So

1:18:36

that was Penn Sunday School. We're

1:18:38

brought to you by Masterclass. Masterclass.

1:18:40

And you can get 15 %

1:18:42

off lifelong learning at masterclass.com slash

1:18:44

Penn. Just go there. Do your

1:18:47

lifelong learning. They support us. They're

1:18:49

really good. Did you find out who

1:18:51

reads The Stand? No, I was

1:18:53

going to look it up right now

1:18:55

during the credits. Okay. I was

1:18:57

going to say, actually, what made me

1:18:59

laugh about is that I'm playing

1:19:01

the Magic Castle in a couple weeks,

1:19:03

and we're bringing the misdirection out. My

1:19:06

prop? Yes. You're doing that prop? Yeah,

1:19:08

it's Alex Ramon and I are playing

1:19:10

the castle, so we're doing this direction.

1:19:12

Good, good, good, good. So we're taking

1:19:14

it out to a show we're doing

1:19:16

at the Lesher something theater in Northern

1:19:18

California on April 18th. doing Alex's show

1:19:20

there. Oh, good. And he's taking possession

1:19:23

of the rig to bring it to

1:19:25

the Magic Castle. Oh, good. going to

1:19:27

be doing it for a week there.

1:19:29

And when I had to divide up

1:19:31

your script. I absolutely gave all the

1:19:33

harder parts to Alex and kept the

1:19:35

easier parts to say for myself when

1:19:37

we divided your two. There's a little

1:19:39

hard stuff in there. Yeah. There's a

1:19:41

little hard stuff. Yeah, yeah. Well, you

1:19:43

have a, because now that I've covered

1:19:45

a few of your routines, you have

1:19:47

a sentence length. You have the lungs

1:19:49

of someone who's six foot six. So

1:19:51

you have a length of sentence structure

1:19:53

that just simply goes longer than the

1:19:55

average person takes an oxygen. Well, I

1:19:57

work on that. You know, I worked

1:19:59

on that a lot because where you

1:20:01

breathe matters. I remember when I was

1:20:03

writing stuff early in the 90s, actually,

1:20:05

I was listening to a lot of

1:20:07

Sinatra. And I was going, boy, the

1:20:09

fact that he goes a long time

1:20:11

without a breath makes this better. So

1:20:13

I worked on breathing and doing deep

1:20:15

and being able to do longer without

1:20:17

taking a breath. It's awful to get

1:20:19

right to the end of an idea,

1:20:21

but I have to take a breath

1:20:23

and then finish it. Grover

1:20:26

Gardner. Grover Gardner. Is the guy who does

1:20:28

The Stand. He's very good. He's no LeVar Burton,

1:20:30

but he's very good. I wonder how many

1:20:32

pages he does a day, motherfucker. Yeah, Grover. I'm

1:20:34

a 25 -page -a -day guy. just want you to

1:20:36

know that. Was that like a good day

1:20:38

for you? No, not 25 pages a day. 25

1:20:40

pages an hour. An hour. 25 pages an

1:20:42

hour, yeah. Most people do 15 to 25 pages

1:20:44

an hour. Yeah, you hear that, Grover? Yeah.

1:20:46

You hear that, buddy? Yeah, yeah. Would have gotten

1:20:48

through The Stand in only like five years

1:20:50

if you don't know. You

1:20:55

wouldn't have lived your whole life in

1:20:57

the stand. That was Penn Sunday School.

1:21:02

Cha -cha -cha. You

1:21:05

become naked. So

1:21:13

Magic Castle, right? In

1:21:15

the California day? Yeah, yeah.

1:21:17

April 28th to May

1:21:19

4th. Good. Yeah. For those

1:21:21

who want to go

1:21:24

to the Magic Castle. You

1:21:40

know, we love you. Anybody

1:21:42

to thank there, Matt Dunley?

1:21:44

Yeah, I want to thank

1:21:46

the people who get Patreon

1:21:48

-only feeds with ad -free episodes.

1:21:50

Great people like Michael Halpin,

1:21:52

Kevin Merriman. Ryan Boshier, Jay

1:21:54

Edmo, Craig Crawford, Charles Johnson,

1:21:56

Vanessa Blanks, Tony Bunyan

1:21:58

Snipe Johnson, Matthew Simino,

1:22:01

Galactic President Scooper Star McScoopsalot,

1:22:03

Josh Zero, Ben, Harry the

1:22:05

Gorillagician, my fullest episode aired.

1:22:07

It's official. You're a TV

1:22:09

magician now, Harry. Kevin

1:22:11

Burke, Old Bear Greg, show us

1:22:13

the unedited Hondro and Piff Trojan

1:22:15

horse trick. Maybe

1:22:17

we've asked, Scoop Fest is coming up in

1:22:19

September, and we've asked Piff to go through

1:22:21

a live play -by -play of the unedited version

1:22:24

at Scoop Fest, so that might be your

1:22:26

only way to see it. No

1:22:28

Shit Sherlock, Cactippities, Stephen

1:22:30

Brycegirdle loves the new website.

1:22:33

Oh, good. It is a good

1:22:35

website. Yeah, pensundyschool.com. Check it

1:22:37

out. Coach Rat Bastard, Vito Quattroformaggi,

1:22:39

David I Want to Figure

1:22:41

Your Cunt Brenner, Sagebrush, Luke Mellon,

1:22:43

Sean Doonan, Jason Andrew Davidson,

1:22:45

Peter B. Clark, Matthew

1:22:48

Williams, Brad Sherlag, Steve

1:22:50

Feldman, Jonathan P,

1:22:52

NewRuleFX.com, Robbie Neely, Danny

1:22:54

Insert Meta Joke Here Ruse,

1:22:56

Tiny Sun Unit Dylan, Adam Stickney,

1:22:59

Sax Guy Jimmy D, Nathan

1:23:01

Julian, Jeremy in Shanghai. I resemble

1:23:03

that remark. Daniel, falling on hard

1:23:05

times again, but you are

1:23:07

keeping me going. Love you all.

1:23:09

Love you too, Daniel. William

1:23:11

Wengreen, Batman, David Kay. We are

1:23:13

alive for Hondro to be

1:23:15

in a horse suit. Brandon Knapp,

1:23:17

Nick Dingman, Colin Durham, Susie

1:23:19

Felber, Lancey Menchu. Thank you all

1:23:21

so much. Thank you.