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Penn Jillette: Apple Box Path

2021/11/25
logo of podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe

Literally! With Rob Lowe

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Rob Lowe: 本期节目讨论了 Penn Jillette 的职业生涯、他对各种社会问题的看法,以及他和 Rob Lowe 之间关于身高的一些有趣轶事。节目中,Rob Lowe 称 Penn Jillette 为思想家和滑稽演员,并提到了他毕业于小丑学校的经历。他们还讨论了 Penn Jillette 在 Showtime 的节目《Bullshit》中的一些幕后故事,包括节目中被审查的主题,以及他们对这些主题的看法。此外,他们还谈到了 Penn Jillette 的女儿名字的由来,以及他与岳母关于 Rob Lowe 身高的争论。 Penn Jillette: Penn Jillette 分享了他对名字的看法,以及他女儿名字的由来。他谈到了他在小丑学校的经历,以及他如何成为一名魔术师和喜剧演员。他还谈到了他在 Showtime 的节目《Bullshit》中的一些经历,包括节目中被审查的主题,以及他们对这些主题的看法,例如疫苗、二手烟和气候变化。他承认他们在节目中犯过一些错误,并表示这正是科学方法的精神所在。他还谈到了他与 Rob Lowe 关于身高的争论,以及他与岳母关于 Rob Lowe 身高的争论。

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Penn Jillette discusses the origins and significance of his unique name and how it has affected his identity throughout his life.

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Hello, Rob Lowe. Hello. How are you, sir? I'm so good. I'm excited to chat with you. And I like that we're going to do it operatically, too.

Hey everybody, welcome to literally, oh, oh, oh, it's magic. That might be the worst version. I would have paid for that little theme thing, but the lawyers wouldn't let me. Because that is the theme of the episode, because it's Penn Jillette. And he's not a magician, really. And he's not really an illusionist. What he is, is a thinker. And he's a clowner.

I think he would not be offended by, hey, don't clown me, that sort of phrase that the kids like to say, because he graduated from clown college. He's a very complicated, interesting dude. And as you will find out, he's extremely tall and has a lot of things to say about height. But it is magic because he's magic, as you will see in my little talk with Penn Jillette. Mr. Jillette. Yes, sir.

Tell me, well, I'm trying to think of the last time we saw each other. I feel like it was on Code Black. Oh, yes, Code Black. Oh, I always wanted that. You know, I always wanted to have a part where I get to sit or lie in bed and do the whole part. I wanted to be on a hospital show, but not foolishly as a doctor, but as a patient on a hospital show, I believe is the best gig in show business.

It is if you like to nap, that's for sure. I mean, because you can, yeah, and you can just sit in the bed and they go, okay, it's about 25 minutes. You go, great, I'm going to stay right here and pull the covers up and out you go. Could someone go to craft services and get me some peanuts and I'll just stay here?

It is pretty, and it's pretty, there's something about taking a nap on a set like that when, it's like when you're a kid and you can hear your parents still laughing in the living room and you're in some other room, they put you to bed. It's like it sends you right back to that. Yeah, and you get that kind of deep sleep where people's comments are, they go into your dreams. I know, I know. So I mean, not that Rob Lowe isn't always in my dreams.

But I'm just saying it's easier for Rob Lowe to be in my dreams when I'm sleeping on his set. It was true. It was so fun. By the way, how fantastic was that actual physical set? Wasn't it beautiful, that hospital? Yeah, amazing, amazing. A comfortable hospital bed. Yeah. Listen, I try to make it comfortable for my patients. You know what I realized is I'm, in the last few years,

I'm working my way through every iteration of playing a member of the village people, basically. I mean, I'm playing a fireman now. That was a doctor. Now, Grant, I don't think there was a doctor in the village people, but you get what I'm going for. You know, I was so... I really thought that when the village people hit and America embraced that kind of gay culture, it was going to be...

wonderful. This is a real breakthrough for the United States of America. This would be wonderful. And I don't know what it was. It was a combination of AIDS and stupidity. I think that all of a sudden you have Trump entering to macho man with no concept whatsoever, that that's part of the gay culture. So my, my hopes were just dashed. I know. I don't think they did a deep enough dive in the lyrics. You know, uh,

frank zappa when he was in front of the um the tipper sticker um yeah the pmrc wasn't that what it was i remember what it was pmrc the tipper sticker the uh the federal hearings was tipper um um sort of thing about lyrics ruining america's youth yeah and then frank zappa pointed out which uh

So clear, but no one else had ever said it. If music really did influence people, since every song is about peace and love, we would have peace and love. I mean, it's so heavily tilted toward wonderful, harmonious things. And I remember when...

when my friend Lou Reed went to play the inauguration of Al Gore as vice president, I said, don't you remember them pushing for tipper stickers? And Moon and Dweezil also were supporting Al Gore, which I guess...

Should have been, I mean, was the right thing to do. But it's so amazing that that tipper sticker thing was just forgotten. That Street Hassle, one of Lou's greatest records, had that

Sticker stuck on it. And Frank Zappa had fought so strongly against that. But I guess music, you know, if music really did influence people, I mean, the fact that the village people did not open up America sexually maybe makes us feel better about some of the music that has such incredibly violent lyrics. You mentioned Moon Unit and Dweezil.

You have very amazing names for your kids. Well, yeah, Moxie and Zoltan are the names of my children. Moxie named after one of the first commercial brands to become a word in the English language.

That isn't just a generic word for what that is. Kleenex became a word, but Kleenex became a word for facial tissue. Moxie, which was the original Coca-Cola out of New England, became a word for mostly feminine power and strength. So we thought that was great. And it's purely American, purely American. And I like that too. And then her middle name is Crimefighter.

And all of these lists that talk about self-centered asshole celebrities always have me on that list for naming my daughter Crime Fighter, which I did not do. We had decided on her name being Moxie. We were very happy with that. And then we were backstage at the Penn & Teller Theater. And I said to my wife, we haven't picked a middle name.

And my wife went on a rant, middle names are stupid. I don't have a middle name. I don't even know your middle name. No one knows middle names. They just don't matter. And I had just written a novel called Sock, during which one of the characters says, from now on, my name is Crimefighter. And our piano player, Mike Jones, who plays piano with our show, he said, why don't you just name her Crimefighter?

And my wife said, okay, you want a middle name? It's Crime Fighter. Discussion over. So I did not suggest the name and I did not okay the name. But you didn't veto the name either. I didn't veto the name either. But I said that, and Mox is now 16 and will get a driver's license. When she is pulled over for speeding, she'll be able to pull out her driver's license and say-

Officer, we're on the same side. My middle name is Crime Fighter. Now that was my vision, but it happened sooner. When Mox was two, my wife was pulled over for speeding and the police officer looked at her license and said, oh, Emily Gillette, are you Penn's wife?

And she said, yes, I am. And he looked in the backseat and said, well, you can carry on. You're in good hands. Looked in the backseat and said, Moxie, keep your mother in line. That is amazing. I love a good name. My brother, Chad, his youngest daughter's name is Nixie.

which is kind of a... That's a really good name. Isn't Nixie a good name? Really good name. It's a sprite. Nixie is an Irish water nymph sprite. Sure. Also named after a soda in a certain sense. Yes, also. And the thing about those names is...

And Gwyneth Paltrow is a good friend and Apple. I mean, people gave her a ton of shit when she named her kid Apple. But like now you can't imagine Apple being anything other than Apple. And you can't imagine Moxie being anything other than Moxie. You go, of course, of course. I grew up. I grew up with a stupid name.

And I have, I've never disliked it. I've always liked it. My parents were planning on having a girl. Apparently they didn't know there were two options and had picked the name Penny. And then just decided it would be more masculine to cut off the Y than to cut off my genitals, I suppose. But yeah.

And I went through life with the name Penn and always called with a girl's name, always called Penny accidentally on every gym roster. It was always Penny. And it didn't bother me that much because I think it's really nice in any group of 50 people to be the only person with your name. Then we blew it because we did our first movie with Arthur Penn. Oh, no way. Arthur Penn's nickname was...

was Penn. So I was actually on a set where the director and me both had the same name. So we made a pact early on that he was only called Arthur and I was only called Mr. Gillette. So we both got rid of the Penn name. I like that you went for the Mr. Gillette. That's a baller move. Do you remember the first time somebody called you Mr.? I do. I remember that like it was, I was like yesterday, I was like, whoa, Mr.?

Okay, I guess it's all downhill from here. When was it? Was that on a movie set? It was on a movie set. And it was, I think, another actor, obviously a younger actor. And I was like, because when you start up, and you're the same, you've done magic since you were a little kid.

When you start, when you're super, super young, I just still see myself as the youngest guy in the room because I always was. Thundercat. Thundercat Rob Lowe. Yeah, that's what I was. And now I'm not anywhere near that. And it's a weird transition, isn't it? Yeah, it's very strange. And I remember I had that instinct of, oh, no, no, no, no, call me Rob. And then I went, wait a minute.

Kind of like being called Mr. Lowe. So I didn't correct, and now I get it all the time. It's kind of cool. I can't ever think of your name without thinking of when David Bowie –

put out the record Low, L-O-W. Nick Low, a very funny guy, put out a record called Bowie, B-O-W-I, and chopped off the E at the end. People used to ask me if Nick Low was my dad. Oh, really? Well, listen, Cruel to Be Kind came out when I was 15. So, you know, the guy on the radio, you're like, yeah, that could be your dad. Okay. Tell me, I loved, by the way...

Penn and Teller bullshit. I loved your show on Showtime. That show is genius. In fact, I worked with one of the producers, Mark Wolper, who produced it. Oh, yeah, sure. And he's a good friend. And he was telling me about some of the episodes...

that you either did or wanted to do that were so out there that they wouldn't let you do them or Showtime said to you? Do you remember what any of those were? Because I don't remember what they were, but I was fascinated with that. What was it called? The Promise? The whole big... Yeah. Yeah, the book, The Promise. Yes. Yeah. Big deal, The Promise. We had that all geared up to do and then it turned out that Viacom...

was part of the publishing company that put that out and they put the kibosh on that. We wanted to do Scientology and they were afraid

And I was talking to Trey and Matt of South Park. Many people thought there was a conspiracy between South Park, Mythbusters, and bullshit. And there was. We would talk about what subjects we were going to do and what angles we would each take. But I said that Showtime wouldn't let us do Scientology. So Matt and Trey...

Just to show me that they had more power than me did an episode, their South Park episode on Scientology. It's famous. It's a very famous episode. We wanted to do vitamins and supplements and we couldn't find a way. There's just not enough video. You don't want that same video of the pills going down and going into that. We couldn't do reality shows because

because our lawyers determined that the NDAs for all the people who've been on reality shows were kind of unbreakable and that we would get people in trouble. We shot a lot of footage with people who'd done before and after weight loss stuff. And this is one of the

One of the things we did that I thought ended up being good but was heartbreaking, we shot this really very, very good stuff. And then our lawyers said, you know, when this airs, we're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Showtime's going to be okay. But the weight loss people are going to make an example of the people you've got on your show and are going to really, really ruin their lives.

Because they're breaking an NDA and they are going to lose everything. And the lawyer said, but we are clean. And Teller and I talked and said, you know, even though it's the truth, we don't want to bring people down that have been nice to us and recorded for us because we want to make a point.

They want to have their lives. We called up and said, you're not in the show because if we put you on the show, you're going to get sued and the other side is going to win and it's going to be really bad for you. And they said, thanks, as they should. And then I pushed really hard to do an anti-vax show. Talk about being prescient. And Showtime said it wasn't sexy. So we made a deal. They wanted to do cheerleading.

And I really didn't. And I wanted to do vaccinations, you know, anti-anti, so pro-vaccinations. And they didn't. So they said if we would do cheerleading, we could do vaccinations. So we actually ended up finding really interesting stuff about cheerleading because of sexism

doesn't have the protections physically that football does. So actually more people are more seriously injured in high school cheerleading than they are in football.

which I thought was really interesting. The show ended up being good. But our anti-anti-vax show ended up being one of the shows I was most proud of. And then we did a show on the Vatican. Trenton, you're a wheelhouse, big time. Didn't even come out on the DVD. It aired twice, and they pulled it instantly. And I was on...

Do you remember the show, Opie and Anthony? I was on that show pimping the new season of Bullshit out on DVD. And they said to me, why isn't the Vatican episode on this DVD? And I said, well, it is. It's the whole season. And they said, no, it isn't. And I said, yes, it is. It's the whole season. And they handed me the DVD and I went, I don't know why it isn't. And they said, what do you mean you don't know? I said, I don't know.

And so I got off the air and said, talk about being ambushed. They sent me to do an interview about a season where one show was missing and I didn't know it. We called Showtime and we said, what is Penn supposed to say about there being no Vatican? And Showtime said, no comment.

And my manager said, Penn can't say no comment. You can't do a show called bullshit and then say no comment on anything. And they said, no, no, no. We weren't saying he should say no comment. We are saying no comment. We've been instructed that Penn and Teller are not to be told anything, just that the Vatican episode is not there. That makes it sound even more nefarious than if it was some bullshit. Yeah.

We didn't have the rights. You know, the Vatican is actually a city state, so the rights issue is much more complex than even dealing with Italy. And just something like that, I would have bought. So officially, officially, I have no idea why the Vatican episode isn't on there. Non-officially, I can probably guess it has to do with a line that I did not write.

That is my favorite line in all of bullshit. I did not write it. I want to stress that. One of the writers did, which was, this is the Pope. He's the one who put the word asshole in Catholic. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You guys are unbelievable. Tell me, I remember now, is there an episode where you guys debunk secondhand smoke?

We were wrong on a lot of stuff on bullshit. Wrong on a lot. And we wanted to, the last episode of our show, we wanted to do the bullshit of bullshit. And we wanted to start by going...

First of all, these fucking assholes, one of them is a high school dropout who went to clown college and was a juggler, and the other one was a high school Latin and Greek teacher. Where do they have the authority to speak about anything? And we're going to do that VO over the two of us standing there looking awkward. That's really funny. And then we were going to do an interview with me, and then I was going to do VO over

trashing me, you know. Amazing. That's my kind of show. And then we were going to go through everything we'd gotten wrong, which was a lot of stuff. But the secondhand smoke, our position was very circumscribed because our position was that we felt that secondhand smoke was something the free market could take care of. Because already before the government got involved in it,

There were already non-smoking restaurants and non-smoking sections of restaurants. And our position was that the science on it at that time was a little iffy. The science on it now is much more robust. But we thought it was an individual's choice to be able to have a restaurant that

or a bar that allowed people to smoke as long as they posted that clearly. Now, secondhand smoke, if you live in the house with a smoker or you work in a bar,

where people are smoking all the time, there are very robust studies that say that does you some damage. Right. But it seems like you should be able to make the choice on secondhand smoke the way you make the choice on primary smoke. It's not like a vaccination, which is public health. It really is an individual choice. I mean...

You can be someone who doesn't think they need to have seatbelt laws, but do think everybody needs to be vaccinated because vaccinations are more like driving drunk than driving without seatbelts because you do damage to other people. That makes perfect sense, actually. Did you have a climate change, change of heart as well? Yes, but not as much of a change of heart and climate change as you would think because what we said on climate change was,

was really not that strong. It's remembered stronger than it was. We did not debunk. We talked about how they were still working on it, which they were, and we did not do a whole show on it. It was actually an intro to another show and it was like five minutes, but it was five minutes that was wrong, dead wrong. Um, in that amount of time, uh,

climate change, which was, we pretty likely knew about it 20 years ago, which was the end of bullshit. We kind of knew about it in the 90s. There was still some credible skepticism. Now, you know, a quarter of the way, fifth of the way into the 21st century, I don't think there is a reasonable way to deny it. But doing a show like bullshit,

It's very hard to convince people of this, but doing a show like Bullshit, you are celebrating the scientific method. And if there's one thing the scientific method celebrates, it's saying, I don't know, and I was wrong. And so the fact that we were wrong egregiously, you know, five or six times,

is exactly what a show like that should do. And also, I'm a high school dropout as a fucking juggler. Don't listen to me. Yeah, well, that's the other thing. You listen to a guy, a clown, an actual clown. An actual clown who has a Bachelor's of Buffoonery from Ringling Brothers and Barman Bailey, greatest show on earth, Comcomic. ♪

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Please tell me that's a real thing, a bachelor in buffoonery. It is. I have the certificate. Oh my God, that's the best phrase I've ever heard. A bachelor in buffoonery? Bachelor's in buffoonery, yes. I went to clown college, which at the time was wicked crazy hard to get into.

actually harder than an Ivy League school in terms of the number of applicants they got and the number of people they accepted. And I was the youngest to go my year. My year I was the youngest. And it was wicked hard. What did they teach you? I picture a scene from Officer and a Gentleman or Full Metal Jack or they line you up and they go, I got nowhere else to go. Yeah, I love that. Were they like, you think you're funny?

What are you looking at? Don't eyeball me, young wannabe clown. I mean, is there one of those things going on? The reason I was brought in, I believe, was that I was an excellent juggler. I was a wicked good juggler and a really good unicyclist. It was amazing because I'm from a small town in Massachusetts, and I had never met anybody who took –

show business, but specifically, even worse, comedy seriously. In my whole high school, I mean, I was reading National Lampoon. I was reading Michael O'Donohue. I was studying Lenny Bruce. And I was reading all the stuff they were writing and all the stuff about comedy. And I had no one to talk to because nobody thought that was an interesting thing. And I got to clown college. I just turned 18.

And I was with 40 people who all of whom would talk about

seriously about every single gag. And we really did do classes dissecting clown gags, both as they were in the ring and as they had migrated to film. You know, the Marx Brothers do a classic clown mirror gag. Obviously, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton did a lot of that stuff. And then I was...

doing juggling, unicycling, wire walking. I did trapeze. We had classes and everything so that we would be prepared for the circus. Obviously, the circus doesn't occupy what it occupied even when I was a kid. No, Ringling Brothers is gone. The problem was it had moved from the big top into arenas by then.

by essentially rock and roll promoters. And with the animal rights things, which I think were right. That part for sure, 100%. And Cirque du Soleil in Vegas and in Montreal, all over the world now, they had turned circus into something very different. And Ringling Brothers with their kind of quasi-Broadway style

trying to hybrid with animal acts. You take out the animal acts and you've got essentially bad Pippin. Yes. I mean, not that there's a good Pippin. So I never went with the circus. I did not take a contract. I learned...

in Cloud College very, very brutally that I am not a physical comedian at all. And the laughs that I got would all be verbal. And that doesn't work in Madison Square Garden. I mean, unless you have a microphone. I struggled. I worked very, very, very hard. I did my best. But if you see...

a Penn & Teller show and you ask yourself afterwards, how many laughs did you get from what Penn did as opposed to what he said? The answer is none.

Not physically funny, although I got to tell you, spending a lot of time dissecting the Three Stooges and Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers was very, very useful. I think you learn an awful lot doing the kind of comedy you don't naturally do. You know, and you...

And people didn't know you were going to be funny. And you ended up, my son is crazy for Parks and Recreation. Oh, thanks. I don't watch situation comedies as a rule, but I watch with my son. And so we just loved your character and how you played that. And it turned into huge fights with my mother-in-law.

Over dinner. During the lockdown, during the lockdown, my mother-in-law has been living with us and we were watching Parks and Recreation and we were singing your praises over dinner. And my mother-in-law said, Rob Lowe's a...

Very short. He's a very short man. He's down like Tom Cruise. And I said, no, Tom Cruise is a homunculus. My favorite word. I love you. Homunculus. Rob Lowe is, I believe, on the tall side of average. How big does she need me to be? Well, here's where it goes. She said, no, no, no. I did a movie with him.

And I remember, because my mother-in-law did some acting and she does extra work, and she said, I was on set with him and he's really, really little. I said, I've been on set with him. He's smaller than me, which is saying nothing, but you cannot put him in the Tom Cruise category. If you put Tom Cruise on one end of the continuum and Penn Jillette on the other, Rob Lowe is going to be leaning toward Penn Jillette. That's true.

No doubt about it. And she got very, very combative about it. And then I said, well, let's go to the internet. Hey, Siri, how tall is Rob Lowe? Right? Oh, Siri just answered me. Oh dear. Now it's answering me. And it came up.

That you were over six foot. And I said, see, and stuck my phone in my mother-in-law's face. And she said, well, that's the internet. He probably puts that on their line. What movie? Do we know what movie it was? Yes. It's a movie that you did with Kevin Nealon. It was The Pro. That would have been called The Pro in 2014. And you were standing next to Kevin Nealon a lot. Well, I...

Hello? Kevin Nealon's a gigantic person. Right. So she had put Kevin Nealon at 5'10". Well, then that's a problem. Then I'm a homunculus, my favorite word. Exactly. Exactly. So the whole problem with Rob Lowe's height was Kevin Nealon. Well, I mean, if she thought I was short, what the fuck did she think of Emilio Estevez? That's what I said. That's what I said to her. She said, well, we know he's like five foot.

I said, no, he's not five foot. He's like, he's like five, eight. And Rob Lowe's towering over him. What if I listen, I could have been using lifts my whole career. I thought about it. There are some guys who shall go unnamed, although somewhere in the last 10 minutes, we've named them who have the most amazing lift technology. Look, you, you're an illusionist. You probably don't like, I don't know if it's illusion, whatever the phrase you, you know what it's like to build crazy shit.

that people don't notice. Like what people can build into their shoes today is unbelievable. Like I used to think lifts were like Herman Munster shoes. Yeah. That's what you look like if you wore lifts. Turns out not. Turns out you could be wearing any shoe in the world. It looks regular, but no, no, no, no. It's giving you an extra like three or four inches. When I did Miami Vice, uh,

I had a walk and talk scene with Don Johnson. This is what I live for. We had a walk and talk scene in Manhattan, okay? On the streets of Manhattan, Don Johnson and I walking side by side and talking. And we did it, and Don Johnson said, I can't be that much shorter than him. And the director... Don Johnson's not particularly short. He's not particularly short. No, he's not. So they had to build...

a path of apple boxes yes the apple box path for like a whole block and the number of times that they've done scenes of me where i'm sitting down and everyone else in the room is standing up when i um but wait wait can i just say but now you know why because if if don johnson doesn't demand an apple box path then then your mother thinks he's

Three feet tall. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And you can't have that. And it sticks forever. Yeah. And when I had, when I did, we did a thing called Sin City Spectacular where we're interviewing people and several of the guests said, when we come out, you can't stand up and say hello and shake our hand. You have to remain seated. And I said, this is back when my mother was still alive. I said, my mother will be watching this show.

And if I'm introduced to someone and don't stand up, I'm going to get a phone call from my mother saying, we raised you better than that. And then it became, I said, I have to, can I just a little bit, can I give a symbolic? Because my mom was a proper New England lady who would not have allowed her son to remain seated when meeting someone. And when I met Prince, Prince said, when he was talking to me, if there are photographers around,

You need to stay at least 50 feet from me. That's amazing. These are all things that people do. I mean, this is all, none of this surprises me in the least. Well, that's because you made the mistake. You should have been on an Apple box path with Kevin Nealon. Yeah. That's probably why the show didn't get picked up. The network was like, I don't know.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

qualifying plan required wi-fi were available on select us airlines deposit and hilton honors membership required for 15 discount terms and conditions apply um you're now are you are as vegas opened up are you guys back at the rio yeah we are amazing and uh it's the greatest thing in the world to be on stage and we've gotten used to the laughs uh through masks but i gotta tell you we did um

421 shows without, 421 days without doing a live show. And since I was 12 years old, I'd never gone more than a month without doing a live show. When I was 12, I was doing juggling shows at nursing homes and parks and anywhere I could. And 421 days without a live show was just insane. It was like being in an isolation tank. Yeah, were you depressed?

Oh, I think everybody was. I mean, I don't think more than others, but...

I got very, very introspective and I got very ambitious, you know, finished up a novel and tried to learn the language and learned other skills and juggling and sleight of hand and just practice and work to give myself a really complete schedule. But I was like everybody else, kind of underwater. And I was, you know, I was sequestered with

two teenage children, which it's very, very difficult for, my wife and my mother-in-law, who wanted to do nothing more than argue about Rob Lowe's height. Of all issues. You could talk about a 10-day argument about Rob Lowe's height is obviously psychosis caused by quarantine, wouldn't you say? Oh, to even consider me at all, under any circumstances, is a psychosis.

I remember there was a minute in the 90s when every big male movie star was a twig. Male. Like, George Clooney. Twig. I remember playing basketball with him on the Warner Brothers lot. He was doing Perfect Storm and I was doing West Wing. And we got to, in the sort of lunchtime basketball games were legendary.

And I was like, I can fucking body this guy up. Like nobody's like, wait, he's like thin man, the thin man. And then Nick Cage. And then wait a minute on screen. They look jacked. I was like, you know what? I need to like cut like 15 pounds immediately. Cause, cause all those guys looked like the strongest gnarliest dudes in the world. And in, and in real life they were like, look, look almost frail. I think that's what the camera does.

The one for me was when I played bass with Clarence Clemons. Oh, the big man. And had to go over and say, blow, little man, blow. Because he was... Blow, little man, blow. What a great... Because the big man in the E Street band is not... Well, here's the thing that is almost...

I mean, I'll tell you this conversation here. If Einstein had not come up with special relativity, we would nail it right here. Yes. Because I'll give you another fact that'll blow your mind. Art Garfunkel, teller. Yes. Same height. No, get out. Yes. I don't believe it. Yes. I don't believe it. Yes. Yes. Which means Paul Simon literally comes up to my kneecaps.

Right. So if you put Teller and Art Garfunkel in the middle, you could put me and Paul Simon on the other side and it would give you the exact same.

Ratio. Exact steps. Relativity. Relativity. I mean, listen, I think the listeners have gotten way more than they bargained for. This has been so good. I love talking with you. I wish it wasn't another 10 years where we run it. We need to find another part where you can be in bed. We do. We do. Or standing next to you. We will bring my mother-in-law on as an extra. I told you. Well, if we've learned anything, we've learned how tall I am.

I mean, that is an important thing. And it took this guest to bring that out into the public consciousness where it belongs. I was really fun. I see the light is flashing on the answering machine here in the studio. That is the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-

4-5-5-1. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi, Rob. This is Carrie from Chanhassen, Minnesota. I am just on the road from Princess Paisley Park. So if you're ever in Minnesota, I could just give you a tour. I loved hearing your chat with Jane Lynch about coffee. And I can relate completely.

to all things coffee. I go to bed thinking about coffee. I wake up thinking about coffee. I was calling to just hear more things about coffee from you. Do you ever drink it iced? That was my main question because as a coffee aficionado, I usually just drink hot coffee, but I do love it iced during the summer. So would love to hear your thoughts on coffee. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.

Well, you and I are so simpatico. We are connected. Do I drink iced coffee? Hmm, let me check. Oh, wait, what is this I happen to have in my hand right now? Why, it's iced coffee! Yeah, so here's the way it works for me.

I usually, although I'm recording this, this is, I'm at the end of my iced coffee run. We're mid-November as I'm recording this with you. And that's about it. And then I got to go to hot for a while. And then the iced comes back in the springtime. So I'm very seasonal, very seasonal about my choices with my coffee. I often go to bed like you thinking I'm going to go to sleep so I can wake up so I can have my coffee.

Uh, it's, that's one of the, the final thoughts I have almost every night. Um, and then during the day I'm thinking I'm waiting for five o'clock to come around because that's the five o'clock is my coffee time. And my coffee is strong. Like I don't give it to regular people. Um, but anyway, listen, hit me back with any more coffee info that you have. Cause I, I would like that. I, I, and I, I always like to hear, um, a new way to consume it. If I could put it in an IV, I would.

Maybe one day. Anyway, thanks for calling. Next week is another good one, so don't forget to download. Download the whole thing. Don't cherry pick. You know how I feel about cherry picking. I mean, come on. You liked it, right? Who are you kidding? Download the whole... Just download. Be a part of the family. All right. See you next week on Literally. Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sanks, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn. And the music is by Devin Tory Bryant. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll see you next week.

I'm literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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