Then Arno turned around, and was confronted with us live in the room with him.
It was pretty groovy. Arno just couldn’t understand for the longest time that it was all a scam. While Arno was saying words and sentences into the microphone earlier, Dennis had been in the next room controlling what Arno saw and heard on the computer. The “video clips” were live pictures of Teller and me in the next room, digitized and turned on at appropriate times. We were just ad-libbing and monkeying with Arno. Our crew for this video shoot were some of the greatest computer minds in history. They had run the cables and were operating the cameras and mixing the sound. It was the most overqualified crew in show business history. They had high-quality video feeding to Dennis’s machine and he was cheapening it and glitching it up before it was sent to Arno’s monitor. I had been ad-libbing the wrong answers for verisimilitude.
Arno was shook. It really did blow his mind. As he started to understand, he wondered if the author and the Dynasty star had been in other rooms with other crews. He was freaked. He told us it felt more intense than winning the Nobel Prize. I think that was something said in the heat of the moment, like saying “I love you” right before you cum, but it still thrilled us. We had learned our lesson; this is the right kind of practical joke. It was a gift to Arno from the people who worked with him and liked and respected him.
A few years later, Arno returned that thrill by an order of magnitude (that’s science talk). We were at a TED conference. Teller and I were doing a mini-opera with magic about the spiritualist who tangled with Houdini. We had put together a presentation with Tod Machover and his gang at the Media Lab at MIT. It featured the “sensor chair,” a new musical instrument, like a Super Theremin that I would play by moving my hands and body is space. It was pretty cool. I was there to wave my arms around in a chair and Arno Penzias was there to talk smart stuff.
During the TED conference, the whole town is filled with TED people, and during lunch at a small Chinese restaurant, I found myself at the table next to Arno’s. We pulled tables together and told them all about “LabScam.” We then talked about the “talks” (my arm waving) that we were giving and, just to be weird, I asked, “What joke are you opening with?” Arno laughed and moved on, but just for fun, I pushed, “You know, you really have to open your talk with a joke. You gotta break the ice.”
Arno said he couldn’t tell jokes. I figured if Arno could teach me superficially about the 3K of cosmic background radiation that won him the Nobel Prize, I could teach him to tell a joke. He agreed to let me try over lunch to teach him to tell a joke.
I told him my version of the “Orange Dick” joke. Here are the beats, the bare bones a comedian would build on:
A guy has an orange dick.
He goes to a doctor.
Doctor examines him, asks a lot of questions about lifestyle, work and diet, but can’t figure out why the guy’s penis is orange (this is the body of the joke).
Finally doctor asks him to detail his average day, and the guy does so. He describes his typical day and ends with, “I get home, open a bag of Cheetos, turn on the Playboy Channel . . .”
It’s a fine joke. I told Arno those were the only beats he had to remember, but he would fill in all the details on the fly. Those were the parts of the joke that had to be all his. He needed to have the doctor ask questions about where the guy worked and his girlfriend and diet, but all of that would be done on the fly in Arno’s own style. The most important part of the joke was that at the punch line his voice had to go up and trail off. His right arm should go up with his voice and hang there on the ellipsis. I don’t think it matters very much for this joke whether the Playboy Channel or the Cheetos are last, as long as the audience gets to put the image together during the ellipsis. As long as the right arm and the pitch leads them to the right altitude for the punch line.
Over lunch, I had Arno tell me the joke over and over. He just kept telling it, and I kept correcting him, telling him to use more details or less and kept working on the punch line. I coached him to make sure that he had something else on the list in his mind. He had to have masturbating on the list, he just wasn’t to say it, but his voice had to lead to that. The punch line is really the silence. The punch line must be the offbeat—it’s gotta hit you where you ain’t. Arno starting taking this joke very seriously and really working on it. He had really no experience telling jokes, but he was focused and trying.
We both knew we were kidding; he had no intention of telling any joke in his Bell Labs talk at TED. That would be inappropriate, but we both made believe he was going to and really had fun pretending the dumb guy was teaching the smart guy something. Some of what I was explaining was real information and some was just fun bullshit. It was friends playing over lunch.
We went our separate ways after lunch, and I didn’t see him again until I was in the auditorium for his talk and he walked onstage. The TED audiences are heavy. I believe Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were both in the audience for Arno’s talk. Jonas Salk was there in the front row. Can you imagine being onstage with Jonas Salk in the front row? I did a fake séance and waved my arms around with Jonas looking at me. He saw me at a restaurant and complimented me on all the magic and monologues he’d seen me do. I told him to shut the fuck up, in those words. He wasn’t allowed to talk about stupid shit like our shows, when he had fucking helped eradicate polio. He laughed and talked about some bit we did on SNL. “What are you doing watching fucking TV? What, have you cured all diseases already? Fuck you, shut up, get to work.” I had to run and get my parents and sister on the phone and tell them I talked to Jonas Salk. I’ve met Lou Reed, but Jonas Salk, motherfucker. I just kept looking him in the eyes and trying to imagine what it felt like to help save that many lives. I can’t imagine it. I guess Jonas could have talked about it to Norman Borlaug, but it’s a short list. There’s a lot of debate about the Salk vaccine, but no matter whom you give what credit to, Dr. Salk was part of it. Doing card tricks for a living is stupid no matter who you’re talking to, but look Jonas Salk in the eyes, and it seems everyone else is doing stupid card tricks for a living.
Arno walked onstage with that kind of audience. I wasn’t fit to eat shit off anyone’s shoes in that crowd, but I was about halfway back on the aisle. I was still giggling about our goofy lunch when Arno began to speak. He started with something like, “I had lunch with Penn Jillette and he told me a great joke and tried to convince me to start my talk with it this afternoon.”
Jonas Salk started heckling, something like, “Tell the joke.”
Arno said that it was a great joke, and people should ask me to tell it to them during the break.
Someone else heckled him to tell the joke. Arno explained that it was an inappropriate joke and it was time for his prepared talk, which would take up all the allotted time.
Jonas Salk yelled something about not caring a bit about the same old boring Arno stuff; he wanted to hear a joke.
Arno stood onstage quietly and thought. There was a lot to weigh before the vice president of Bell Labs could tell a dirty joke onstage at TED. This was a big hairy deal. The audience was clamoring for the joke, and Arno was thinking. Salk was still heckling and being a dick about it. Jonas wanted to hear a joke.
Arno looked out at the crowd and found me. He asked from the stage, “So, Penn, can I do it?” I nodded yes, and raised my right hand in the gesture of our rehearsed ellipse.
Okay.
“A guy goes into the doctor with an orange dick.”
Imagine if Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and Elvis Presley walked out onstage together at a sold-out rock show at Madison Square Garden. The crowd went nuts. Looking back, I imagine I can hear Jonas whooping.
Arno told the joke. He got way carried away. During the section where the guy is getting his dick tested, Arno had details of the machines being used. When talking about the guy’s job, Arno built an entire backstory. This was the extended play version. One of the most important parts of comedy is commi
tting. If you hold back one bit, if you give the slightest wink that shows you’re not completely in the joke, the audience leaves with you. Even if you’re dying, even if the idea isn’t good, you have to keep your heart in it completely. In acting, we all know the actors who let you know they’re above the character. These are the actors who suck dead dog cock. We know the comedian who laughs a bit at his own joke and let’s you know he’s just a regular guy talking weird shit. You might laugh at the time, but those comics will never change you. They won’t give you lasting beauty.
Arno committed. Like a motherfucker. Arno committed like Andy Kaufman. My mouth was bone dry. I was hyperventilating. I had tears in my eyes. At the time, I didn’t have children, but I felt like my mom must have felt watching my TV appearance. I was leaning forward in my seat, moving my mouth with his. I have never wanted a joke to go better in my life. I was more nervous in that TED audience than I was on Saturday Night Live live. Arno was going long. There was no doubt he was going way too long. He was putting in too many details. But this was an audience of scientists, and the details were killing. He knew the names of all the machines that would be used to test this guy’s dick. He had the doctor in the joke do a House differential on what could have caused this perplexing orange dick.
I haven’t found any recording of Arno telling this joke online, but I don’t want to. I want my memory, with all its mistakes and exaggerations. My memory is that this joke went on longer than the longest Grateful Dead show. My stomach was in knots, but the audience was right with him. It wasn’t too long. Penzias was killing. He got to the end of the orange dick guy’s day. He got to right before the punch line, and his eyes found mine in the audience, and he went into it. He started the list, his right hand and voice rose for the ellipses and he hit the punch line on the offbeat. He nailed it. Silence for a heartbeat, and then explosion.
Remember that Madison Square Garden show with Jimi, Lennon, and Elvis onstage? Kurt Cobain, Lenny Bruce, Dean Martin, Tiny Tim, and Jesus H. Christ joined them onstage. The crowd went nuts. In my memory (all of this is my memory, I didn’t fact-check, I didn’t want to), Jonas jumped to his feet. The reaction was insane.
It was a lecture hall, with a raked audience and very low stage. Arno jumped off the stage and ran up the aisle. I stood up and Arno hugged me. I was crying my eyes out. I believe if I were to win a Nobel Prize, it would be more emotional than this, but not by much. Arno was just a different person. We were all different. He finally got the crowd to calm down and went into his talk. My hands shook for the whole talk and I had butterflies in my stomach until I went to bed that night. It was an amazing moment. Payback can be a bitch, but payback can also be a super inamorata. Wow, did Arno pay me back for “LabScam.” I saw scientists in a whole different way. The separate worlds in my mind joined together. The strongest moments in my life make me feel one-nation-under-a-motherfucking-groove, and I felt that when Arno talked about the guy’s orange dick and Jonas laughed his genius ass off.
Several times during the next couple of days, speakers made references (some of them on graphs) to the orange dick. Arno had set up a runner for the conference.
Arno’s telling of the “Orange Dick” joke in that room was the platonic ideal of a joke. Brave and true, and not the least bit mean-spirited. Rebellious and shocking at no one’s expense. Uplifting and enlightening to everyone involved. Beautiful.
Think about that next April Fools’ Day when you’re thinking about putting Saran plastic wrap under the toilet seat. Get it?
Listening to: “I Started a Joke”—The Bee Gees
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
EXPERIMENTAL PROTOTYPE COMMUNITY OF TOMORROW was Walt Disney’s idea for EPCOT Center. His idea was to have a working city of about twenty thousand people where they would test all sorts of groovy future shit, like hydroponic carrots, flying cars and apocalyptic zombies from hell. When I first read about Walt’s plan, I was thrilled. I loved the idea of scientists, artists, and guys who run dry-cleaning businesses all living together and digging the future. That was before I visited some planned communities like Columbia, Maryland, and I became a libertarian. Smart city planning always seems like it’s going to be inspiring and beautiful but the results are usually beige, with those “tasteful” McDonald’s signs. Central planning doesn’t work; give me garish Golden Arches and people being free to be stupid. Central planning is not good for us nuts. It’s good for beige.
Walt Disney died and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow became EPCOT, just another Disney property. I like to think that Walt Disney would have designed his city better than Columbia, Maryland, but probably not. The problem is not who does the planning; it’s the plan itself. Groovy cities have to be free and wild with lots of unexpected ugliness; they can’t be planned.
The real corporate EPCOT follows the libertarian ideal of making money. Goddamn, they are good at that. Losing on Dancing with the Stars got me VIP treatment at all the Disney properties “forever,” which turned out to be about a year. We took our children over to California and down to Florida and we were treated great. I did worry a little that my children would be spoiled by not waiting in lines, but then ObamaCare was passed and I know they’ll get to wait in lines when they’re sick and that’ll build some real character.
I don’t remember why, but my wife was at EPCOT before or after me on one trip. We often fly separately. Our schedules are very different, so she’ll fly with the children the night before and I’ll fly noon the next day or something. It’s also good because then no one notices me flying first class while the children fly coach—hey, I’m bigger than they are, and they fit in those coach seats, right? No matter what the reason, Emily was at EPCOT for a while without me.
One of the ways EPCOT made money for a few years was by selling the little bricks that made up the walkway alongside the big white sphere known as Spaceship Earth. They called it Leave a Legacy, and instead of having to write a great novel or win a Nobel Prize, you could pay thirty-five bucks and have your picture taken or write a little message and they’d put it on a brick. Quite a deal. You got a tile with your picture or a message on it. They gave you a little map and when you come back, you could look for the message and maybe look at a few others until you be bored shitless with guys with carefully trimmed beards wearing mouse ears.
Emily Zolten Jillette is confrontational. She’s a freedom fighter. Some MILFs have dress shops. Emily’s fighting every time she goes through TSA and “The First Noël” at our child’s fancy-ass, uniform bullshit private school. (I think my major gripe with the private school Mox goes to is that she’s so happy there. How is that for a great dad? I had such a shitty education that I want her to rebel too, but she’s happy and learning a lot and treated well and making wonderful friends. Maybe there is something to this good education thing. I guess it plays to my libertarian ideals. Private schools are good and Mox even loves her uniform, but Emily still keeps an eye on their “Winter Pageant,” making sure Xmas doesn’t sneak in even at a great school.) Freedom fighters don’t take vacations, so at EPCOT she was itching for a confrontation. She decided to buy a molded piece of cement from Disney and have it signed “PEZ” (That’s P for Penn, and EZ her initials and her . . . style). She wanted the message to say “No God.” That’s a message she wanted in modern fake rock in the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. She gave them money, and that was it. Until they told her they couldn’t allow that, because the bricks couldn’t mention god. Emily pointed out that the walkway was maggoty with bricks that read “God Bless.” Well, they shifted, now they didn’t allow offensive messages. She demonstrated offensive right in their faces at that one. She finally decided it was a private park and it’s their little goatfuck, so she backed down. Emily said she’d give up and leave a legacy of “Dog On,” and then our PEZ signature. There’s nothing offensive about that. They took her money and that was that.
A couple weeks later they called while Emily and I were having lunch together. Sh
e walked out of the restaurant with the phone and the Disney folks explained they were sending her money back because “Dog On” was “No God” backwards and they couldn’t allow that. I saw through the restaurant window that she was getting frustrated on the phone and raising her voice. I was just eating. She came inside, having given up, and said, “I told them they should talk to my husband about this.” Now, you may think there’s some sort of sexist, “Let the man take care of the little lady’s problems here” thang going on. I assure you, there’s none of that. Emily plays poker. Emily plays golf. Emily does the business in our family. Emily goes out with the guys. I’m the bath-oils-and-reading-novels gal in our family. I don’t do man things. You might think she was trying to pull some celebrity card, “talk to my husband—he’s a two-bit magician and that will impress Disney.” Nope, she knows I lost on Dancing with the Stars. Emily was putting me on the phone for the reason a lot of my friends put me on the phone, “This asshole wants to be crazy; we’ll show them fucking crazy. Put Penn on the phone.”
“Hello, this is Penn, what’s the problem?”
“We’re sending your wife’s money back to her for the Leave a Legacy tile she wanted to buy.”
“Good, send us all the money back, we like money.”
“Fine.”
“But we’ll still get our tile, right?”
“Well, no, that’s why we’re sending your money back.”
“It’s my wife’s money. I’ll never see it.”
“Okay, your wife’s money.”
“And you’re still doing the tile right? We want that tile.”
“No.”
“Why not? That tile means a lot to us. You promised us that tile. You gave us your word.”
“I’m sorry, but the message is inappropriate.”
“Isn’t the message ‘Dog On’?”
“Yes, but it means ‘No God.’ ‘Dog On’ is ‘No God’ spelled backwards.”
Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!: More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No! Page 17
