We did the bit. We started in an empty cage, and Teller produced one bee bare-handed. It looked great. Then he produced about a dozen from a tube and then it escalated. As usual, I didn’t do much besides talk and Teller just kept producing bees and dropping them on me. Teller got stung a couple times, because he was paying attention to the bees and dropping them on me. I lost count after my twenty-fifth sting, because as I did the bit and moved my arms and talked, bees would get trapped in my sleeves, or collar, feel threatened and sting the shit out of me. There was the sickening sweet smell of fear pheromones and bee shit and I was being stung every several seconds. One bee got trapped in my mouth, and if you watch the YouTube video, you can see it happen on a close-up and watch me flick the stinger with my tongue and spit it out. Everyone thought I was a real tough guy and not a sixteen-year-old mall girl at all, but the truth is, if I fucked up or screamed or stopped, I would have to do it again, and I was too much of a coward for that.
We finished the bit and stripped naked in the cage with the live audience watching, but the TV audience was watching the much more attractive commercials. Stripped naked with bees all around us, we moved into an airlock where the bees were vacuumed off us by our prop guys. When there were no bees left on us, we went into another air lock and then out into the theater proper. Not one bee escaped into the audience. I stood naked in front of the audience (thank you, Allen Ginsberg) while the nurse and entomologist picked stingers out of me, put on salve, and checked my pupils and vital signs. I was a-okay. We got dressed and went on to the next trick.
Naked isn’t a big deal for us. I believe if you haven’t been naked onstage, you’re not really in showbiz. It’s what we do. When we were doing our Bullshit! show, we would hire people to be naked on the set. We were doing a science show on cable and to do that we needed obscenity and nudity to make it worth paying extra for. We would hire nude models. It pissed me off how many of the models got to the set and then were uncomfortable being nude. They would wear robes and get all shy. It would be like I was supposed to seduce them into taking their clothes off. In my personal life, I hate seduction. Why would I want to talk someone into being naked with me if they didn’t really want to? But in my professional life, it’s just people not doing their jobs. These aren’t people I wanted to see naked. I didn’t care at all. It was their job to be naked. If they didn’t want to be naked, they should have a different job. It’s like you hire a plumber and she comes in and says, “I hate getting my hands wet.” Well, then don’t put “plumber” in the side of your Econoline! If you want to keep your clothes on and have any dignity at all, don’t be in showbiz.
In my last book, people seemed to like the story of me dropping my cock in a blow dryer, so it seems that my stupidity plus my genitals is my ticket to the New York Times bestseller list. So here we go again. After shooting the bee bit, we did a bunch more tricks for the audience that day and then went into production meetings and planned for the next day of shooting on our special. I was bee-stung and exhausted and worried about how the show was going. I also knew something was wrong between my legs, but didn’t want to look at it, talk about it or even think about it.
I went home late that night, with an early-morning call the next day. At the time, I was dating a beautiful New York City model. She was so sweet and caring and just gorgeous with her figuratively bee-stung lips. I was exhausted, and when we were finally alone in my apartment, she was in the bathroom, naked, washing her face and brushing her teeth, and I was standing in the doorway to the bathroom watching her and digging her. She was telling me the show was going to be great and I had done a good job. I was barely awake. As I watched her and listened to her, I took off my shirt and dropped my pants, but as I went to take my boxers off, something was very wrong. Oh, so very wrong. The skin of my scrotum was attached to my boxers and my boxers had blood all over the front of them. When I peeled off my boxers, the skin of my scrotum came with them, and I was standing there with bloody balls. I was horrified, but when I looked back to my girlfriend, she was more horrified. “What the fuck?” she asked. All the kindness was gone.
“I never told you. I have an exoskeleton, so to get bigger, I have to molt. Your ass looks great.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m calling 911.”
“It really doesn’t hurt. It’s disgusting and it burns a little, but it’s not bad. It’s like a bad sunburn on my balls.”
“Your balls are bleeding. You have a bloody sack. We’re going to the hospital.”
“I’m too tired. I have to work in the morning. I’m going to bed.”
“You can’t do this. This is disgusting.”
“Okay, so don’t blow me. Goodnight.”
I woke up the next morning in sheets that could be displayed and confuse an entire Jewish neighborhood. I could peel all the skin of my scrotum off in one very thin sheet. Just like a sunburn, if you went on the tanning bed in a completely opaque body suit with your balls cut out and hanging (is that sexy? I think so). My girlfriend wisely insisted that I call my doctor. I had become friendly with my doctor, “Hey man, my ball sack is bleeding. It started last night.”
“Cool. I want to see it.”
“It’ll cost you a quarter.”
“No, seriously, come to my office.”
“I can’t man, I have to be on set. We’re shooting our TV show.”
“Nope, you have to come in. I’ll call the board of health and shut down the whole shoot if you don’t. Jump in a town car and get over here, I’ll get you back on set ASAP.”
“Okay.”
I went to his office, pulled down my pants, and showed him my bloody sack. He got really serious, a nutty kind of serious. “We have to talk.”
“Okay.”
“Listen, the lie is over as of today.”
“What?”
“We’ll get you help.”
“Yes, for my bloody balls.”
“No, for your drug addiction. It’s not secret anymore.”
“What?”
“This is an allergic reaction to shooting up street drugs. Let me see the tracks on your arms.”
“I don’t have tracks, because I’m not doing drugs.” I rolled up my sleeves. Luckily I didn’t have bathtub syphilis at this point.
“Where are you shooting up?”
“I’m not shooting up.”
“I know you do the whole no drugs and alcohol pose, but that’s over. You’re a junkie. Admit it and let’s get you help.”
We went on like this for a while. I finally got him open to the possibility that it could be something else, “An allergy? Did you eat anything unusual?”
“Cheeseburger and pizza.”
“No shellfish?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing unusual happened yesterday at all?”
“Nope, just shooting the TV show, tired, overworked—lots of pressure—could it be pressure?”
“No. Just shooting TV?”
“Yup.”
“When are you doing the bee thing we checked you for? How is that going?”
“We shot it yesterday.”
Long pause. Then another long pause. Then another long pause. Then eyes rolling. He asked, “Did you get stung?”
“Yeah, some.”
“How many times?”
“Lots. Like more than twenty-five times.”
“You were shot up over twenty-five times with dirty little hypodermic needles full of poison and shit and you didn’t mention that?”
“Oh, is that it? But I didn’t get stung in the balls.”
“It’s an allergic reaction, you idiot. It’s not right on the area. It’s systemic. Fuck, you are stupid. If you’d have said that on the phone, you’d be on the set working now and not wasting my time.”
“That could do it? What do I do?”
“Yes, that did do it. I don’t give a fuck what you do—put some cream on it and toughen up. Oh, a
nd the skin will probably peel off the tops of your feet too. Man, you’re stupid. Get out of my office.”
Once my girlfriend knew that it wasn’t life threatening and, more important, wasn’t going to spread to her girly parts, she thought it was hysterical. She was running around the set telling everyone, “You know how Penn’s balls usually look pretty good and tight? Well, now they look like Ernest Borgnine’s balls and they’re bloody—show them, Penn.” And I did. It’s the least I could do after freaking her out the night before. But how did she know about Ernest’s balls? She was a model.
CNN was there doing a piece on our TV special, and when I was done doing the hype, I said to the camera guy, “Want something for your Christmas reel? Shoot this.” I pulled down my pants and pulled out my balls. He was freaked. Sometimes I’m more of a nut than I realize. The skin on the top of my feet did peel off too, but that was so much less entertaining.
That kind of stupid can’t be fixed with a resolution, so I don’t try. I read an article in the Times that said that New Year’s resolutions really do help people. I was surprised by that. I thought they helped only health clubs. People make a promise to work out and get in shape, they join a health club and then they stop going. Health clubs, like insurance, are businesses based on people paying for but not using the business. They count on people not showing up. They count on people not knowing themselves.
I have a friend who runs a legal whorehouse. He told me his whole business model is based on having a guy pay for what he wants before he knows what he can really use. Have a guy pay for three sex partners for six hours, and when he uses one and a third partner for fifteen minutes, the men and women supplying the service get to sell that same time slot again to another guy who thinks he’s going to fuck for six hours. If you can do six hours of work in fifteen minutes, you start to turn a profit.
I played Reno the New Year’s Day that my mom died. It was her dying request that I miss no shows for her sake, so I didn’t. I don’t remember anything from the sound check or the show. I just know that I got through it. My friend who runs the brothel came to the show, with a couple of his co-workers in tow. They were scantily clad and they were there to enjoy the show and say hi afterward. I had offered my friend my complimentary tickets for the show a few months before, so they were all set up, and with my mom’s death, I’d forgotten all about them, but there he was with a couple/three co-workers to help him reciprocate. They were ushered back to my dressing room after the show.
I don’t know a lot of etiquette, but I approve of those rules that tell us how to act when we don’t know how to act. When someone experiences the death of a loved one, one says, “I’m sorry for your loss.” If you say something other than that, you may cause even more discomfort. You don’t want to say “I know how you feel” because you just fucking don’t. You don’t want to say, “They’re in a better place” because they’re fucking not. You don’t want to say, “Things happen for a reason” because they fucking don’t. “I’m sorry for your loss” is safe and kind. They are magic words. There is no etiquette for how you tell an attractive person who is not wearing any underwear that your mother died that day. I’m not saying it’s wrong to fuck or be fucked on the day a loved one dies. It’s very good to throw raw life in the face of death. I understand the point of view that it’s good to be human when you’ve lost a human that you love. I understand all of that, but it hasn’t been the way I’ve felt. I didn’t want to be crying with a prostitute in Reno in the middle of the night. I know I wouldn’t be the first, but I didn’t want to do it. Go ahead, call me a pussy.
That was the scene in my dressing room the night my mom died. A pimp, three prostitutes, a friend of mine who’d driven up from L.A. separately, and me. The prostitutes had seen the show, and they were guessing I was a fun guy. No etiquette. I said, “Um, yeah. Thanks for coming to the show. Thanks for coming backstage. It’s nice to meet you. Um. My mom died today and I’m in kind of a weird mood. Not a weird mood for my mom having died—I think my mood is appropriate for my mom having just died—but a weird mood for the way you’re dressed.” They were dressed very appropriately for a performer’s dressing room backstage, but inappropriately for a wake. They put their legs together and crossed their arms. “So, thanks a lot. Nice to meet you. Hope you come see the show again. Good night.” My friend showed them to the door, and I got to the work of mourning and crying.
New Year’s Day is a complicated holiday for me. Everyone in showbiz works on New Year’s Eve. I don’t. People drink. I don’t. People watch sports. I don’t. It’s a day of resolutions that I don’t make.
It’s an important day for me. It’s a real holiday for me. On New Year’s, I think about death, and remember my losses fondly, and I celebrate life by bribing my children with toys.
Listening to: Bach’s Sonata #2, BWV 1028, Andante—Gary Karr
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY— YOU CAN BE IN MY DREAM, IF I CAN BE IN YOURS (BOB DYLAN SAID THAT)
OKAY, HOLD YOUR HORSES. JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN. I’m NOT going to write about race. I’m not going to write about racism. I’m not going to take a quote from someone on Twitter, credit it to Martin Luther King Jr. and send it around the world. Not again. I’m going to try not to write anything stupid. Most of the time I’m trying not to write anything stupid, but maybe I’ll get lucky this time.
In my little, dead-factory hometown of Greenfield, we had only a few African-American families. The few African-American students in my little school were cousins, and they would dance with each other at school dances. It’s a small town and maybe a lot of cousins were dancing together; I just didn’t notice the others. I didn’t go to many school dances. I’m not the one to write about racism in Greenfield, Massachusetts. I just don’t know anything about it. I never heard overt racism until I left Greenfield, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The cousins dancing together certainly showed we weren’t living in utopia. Utopia would have everyone dancing and fucking with everyone else.
My buddy Karen Russell, the daughter of Bill Russell, was in Massachusetts when her superstar dad was playing basketball for the Boston team. I know nothing about sports, so the few times I met Bill Russell we talked about magic and comedy. Mr. Russell knows more about magic and comedy than I know about basketball. It’s likely Mr. Russell knows more about magic and comedy than I know about magic and comedy. He’s a smart cat. The best thing about having Bill come backstage was how much it pisses off my buddy Arsenio Hall that I’ve spent more time with Bill Russell than Arsenio has. Maybe the secret to Bill Russell’s attention is not talking about basketball. Or maybe it’s because he loves his daughter. I bet both help. Bill Russell being a superstar could not protect his family from subtle, overt, and criminal racism. Karen tells me stories and I listen, but those are her stories. It’s not my place to write down those stories. I’m not qualified to comment.
I am welcome to write about Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, because Dr. King included me in that speech. I’m one of the ones he wrote it for. I just watched it and read it again while thinking about Martin Luther King Day. We can ignore everything else Dr. King did, and I’d be okay with celebrating Martin Luther King Day based just on that one delivery of that one speech. The being-on-a-Monday thing instead of his birthday pisses me off, but I like observance. He was the best of us.
Before I reread the “Dream” speech, I listened to Dr. King’s “The Drum Major Instinct” speech. That was the last speech he gave before he was assassinated. “I Have a Dream” is way different. “The Drum Major Instinct” speech was given in a church. It’s a sermon. He was speaking to believers about religious issues. The “Dream” speech was given during a secular March on Washington. That difference matters. The difference mattered to Martin Luther King. He knew I wasn’t going to be at church, but he knew I was going to listen to the speech he gave from in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and he wanted to make sure I was included. He was a preacher, a religious man, and a
real no-kidding minister. I don’t doubt his faith, but he constructed that speech to make sure I knew his faith shouldn’t exclude people who didn’t share his faith.
I’m going to write about this speech from my tunnel-vision perspective. What I’m about to do with the “Dream” speech is the equivalent of writing about Bob Dylan’s life work by critiquing his three-ball juggling cascade in the “Blood in my Eyes” video. (Bob does almost five throws of a three-ball cascade before we cut away. Those throws qualify him, barely, as a juggler. Mr. Dylan never really has this pattern under control. Every throw is too late. Instead of throwing at the apex of the subsequent ball, he throws when the next ball is already on the way down. This gives his juggle a precarious feel. The audience never relaxes in the knowledge that Bob is in control of his props. Juggling should be carefree at least until the final trick. Mr. Dylan’s throws don’t stay in the same plane; they aren’t straight up and down. Bob throws every throw a bit in front of the last. This reviewer would humbly suggest more practice with his knees pressed against his couch. I would also humbly suggest that he think more musically and less visually about the throws. Each throw must be connected to the pattern and not a separate event. You can’t do that if you’re waiting to see when to throw; you have to feel the beat of the next throw independent from the visual. Bob gives us a new thought with every toss, and we never really feel the security of an established pattern. Bob Dylan’s juggling is a tentative series of throws, a very long way from a professional juggling routine. It’s acceptable juggling for his grandchildren, but Bob Dylan doesn’t seem prepared for juggling clubs or rings outdoors where his props might be blowing in the idiot wind.) I want to write about Martin Luther King’s “Dream” speech from the POV of separation of church and state, about how religious folk can include the non-religious folk without distorting their messages or their philosophies.
Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!: More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No! Page 10
