Penn Jillette: Dice Stacking
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subject to change. Dua Lipa doesn't sing about Elvis. That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. It's me, Rob Lowe, in the studio with the great Penn Jillette. Penn is making his second appearance here, but it's been a bit. It's been a moment. He has a new book coming out called Felony Juggler, which is super fun and interesting. It's his life story.

And get this, Penn and Teller are celebrating 50 years, 50 years of work. And they're doing a new tour that is beginning now. We'll be in London, we'll be in the United States. And there's nobody, nobody has more insane, wonderful opinions than Penn. I always love talking with him. So let's get to it.

Are you in the middle of a big, for the anniversary tour right now? I think I'm in the middle of everything. Yeah. It's 50 years and people wonder how you could possibly survive 50 years with Teller. So that's... Well, there's that. Surviving 50 years with anything, in anything, and then add Teller to it. And you're kind of...

It becomes impossible. Yeah. Yeah, the 50-year is, you know, I was staying at the hip rock and roll, used to be, you know, 50 years ago, hip rock and roll hotel, the Sunset Marquee. Oh, do you remember how that was a real thing? Wasn't it, though? Yeah, and I still stay there. Do you? What's it like now? It's the same. It's the exact same people. They're just wicked old. So I bumped into Alice Cooper.

And I said that we were on, you know, it was 50 years. And he said, you know, you should do some press on that. I said, see, that's why you're a genius, Alice. You thought of that just like that. Do something on the 50-year anniversary. So, yeah, we're doing a lot of stuff. And we're doing some, you know, we're doing Radio City, which we've never done before. How have you done 50 years and never done? You've played everywhere on the planet. We have, but Radio City we've never actually played.

And it's kind of nice. We're playing the Palladium over in London. Wow. We're playing a lot of those bigger places. We usually play about 2,000. And this time we're up to more places that are like five. Jeez. So.

Does that affect the show in any way? Yeah. You know, we have so much, so much material because it's been, I don't know, like 50 years. So we're picking, you know, slightly bigger things. Although now, now when you're doing a live show, the audience expects you to do a TV show.

because they have the big screens up all the time. So if you do small stuff, they seem thrilled to pieces. And it's just kind of like it goes against...

My heart says they should be there watching a live show. But when I go to see a show, I'm looking at the screens too. So I guess things have just changed enough that when you, I mean, every place you play now has a camera crew and a director. So you're doing a live show, but you can actually still

be fucked over by a director. Even though you're doing a lot. That is amazing. Oh my God, it's so true. I'm on stage, right? Yeah. I am the producer, the director, the writer, the star. I am everything along with Teller, that show. It's just the two of us doing everything and they can still miss a shot and you don't get, you go, why didn't

But they reacted to that because I just did a miracle. And it turns out that they were shooting, you know, the side of the stage. Yeah, cutaway of somebody looking at you. Oh, my God. So you can still. But the shows, you know, it's been a long time. You know, we've done over 8,000 shows.

You know, if you take the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and all of them and put them together, they aren't a quarter of the number of shows we've done. Because they have tours, you know, and we've had 50-year tours. You know, you can talk about Mick and Keith being together for a long time, but they take three years off to hate each other.

You guys hate each other all the time, forever. While working. While working together. We can keep working and hey, we have that ambidextrous quality. I love that. How has the world of illusion changed? Obviously, 50 years, everything in the world has changed. If you had to boil it down to one or two things. It's funny, but magic doesn't change. Now, magic, I mean, there's

All sorts of new stuff, but the technology, the stuff that you'd first go to, you know, the first thing you'd think about is we have all these miracles around us, so magic must be getting more amazing. And the truth is that in the 19th century, magicians were the cutting edge of science stuff. I mean, they are the inventors, we are the inventors of movies, and movies were first exhibited.

exhibited in magic shows. They were parts of magic shows. That's where it all starts. And there was the cutting edge. And then communication gets so remarkable that there's nothing I could know about technology that the entire audience doesn't know. So you go back to the basics, which is lying.

which is the most important part of magic. Because, you know, there's stuff you could do using the internet or using AI or using computers that every single human being in the audience knows. You'd be busted like this. So the show that we're doing, that we'll be doing at Radio City, and the show we'll be doing there, the only technology that is...

more recent than 100 years will be the technology that's playing out there in the open, the video technology, the lights, you know, the fact that the lighting technology is different and sound technology is different, you know, wireless and so on. But as far as the magic goes,

It comes down to, you know, sleight of hand and lying and sadly comes down to a lot of gaffer's tape. Oh, that's it. At the end of the day, there's not a problem that a little black gaffer's tape can solve. Don't look over here. And you put it inside your suit and you hide shit there and then you steal it. So, yeah.

But that's a really interesting thing because at first blush, you would think, boy, there must be great stuff you can do with technology. Yeah, that's what I would think. Yeah, and it's what everybody thinks is what I would think, you know, except when you come right down to it, you go, this is an incredible thing we could use, and I heard about it from my barber. Yeah. So he probably knows. So you famously –

James Randi, that's your guy? Yeah, he was the hero. He's a hero, mentor, friend, everything. And what turned you on to him when you first, you were like 18, you were a kid when you saw him for the first time. Well, I read the books first. Okay, so in the book, his brand is like, he's anti, I have superhuman powers and I'm going to levitate you. How did he articulate what you guys took and ran with

So much earlier, like how did, what was his? We really go back to the 17th century. And there was the first magic book ever published was called The Discovery of Witchcraft. And it's the first book that deals with magic as trickery.

First book ever written that deals with magic is trickery. Before that, it was people were using trickery, but never was talked about. It was always under the guise of some sort of spiritual cloak, some sort of supernatural cloak. And

Then magic bifurcates right there and they become two schools of thought in magic, which still exists completely. And I'm a little hesitant to do this, but I believe I'm morally in the right. I can present David Blaine's position on this because he said it to me many times and we are friends, but we disagree completely. He believes at the end of his show,

That you should believe something about the universe that he knows not to be true. That you should believe. That the audience should believe, yeah. Something about the universe that he knows not to be true. Yeah. He thinks that the job of the magician is to confuse reality.

And I believe very strongly that no one should ever leave the theater believing something that I know not to be true because of me. And the kind of paradigm I use is sawing a human being in half. If you see a human being sawed in half in a magic show, everybody, except maybe the very young children and someone who has got serious mental problems,

believes they are seeing a trick and that the person that they're seeing injured is actually okay. Correct. And they leave the theater and they enjoy that wonder of that and the miracle of that. And they leave the theater not thinking anything different about biology or the morality of the performers. And that's very easy on that big illusion. On smaller stuff, like if I'm doing a card trick

There's two ways to present that. One is I've done some sleight of hand and I know what card you picked. And the other is I'm looking into your eyes and there's body language. And I can tell by where you look that your card is a three of hearts, you know. Right. And those are the oversimplified ways of doing that. But there are many, many, many shades of gray. And David Blaine really enjoys and believes it's his job. It's not like I'm saying this is a failing of his. This is his goal.

that you should leave the theater wondering about things about the universe. And I believe you should leave the theater going, during that whole time, they were monkeying with me, but the universe is the way it is. And that goes back. Now, Houdini, probably most famously in the 20th century, had a very strong feeling about that because Houdini had worked

when he was young, doing readings, being a fraudulent psychic. And it broke his heart to lie to people about their loved ones. And he had this very strong moral position on this. And then after his mother died, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's wife was a big spiritual person. Yes. And she came to him and said that she had gotten a message from

from Houdini's mother. And there were a few things that were rather amazing about this message. It was automatically written. Somebody had gone into a trance and written it. There was a cross at the top. Now, Houdini's name was Eric Weiss. His father was a rabbi. He was an observant Jew his entire life.

His mother was the wife of a rabbi and raised him Jewish, and there was a cross right at the top of the page. She also then referred to him as Harry, which was not his name. She called him Eric his whole life. His stage name was Harry Houdini. And he was so appalled by—

misrepresentation of his mother in the afterlife that he went even into overdrive. So Houdini is one of the few superstars, and he is one of the superstars of the 20th century. Undoubtedly. As a matter of fact, if you were going to look back in the future on who the most famous person in entertainment was in the 20th century, you

Houdini's going to be in the running because Houdini is in the dictionary. To pull the Houdini means to vanish. Elvis is not in the dictionary. So, you know. Elvis doesn't, Dua Lipa doesn't sing about Elvis. Right. Let's just put it that way. That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. That's all you need. That's all you need.

This is the time of year where you just want to donate all your old clothes and revamp your wardrobe, right? Spring cleaning means out with the old and in with the new. And that's where Macy's comes in. Yep.

Spring fashion has officially landed at Macy's, and they've got the perfect items for a serious wardrobe upgrade. Macy's knows what's hot this season, like lightweight knits that make you look effortlessly cool, matched sets that make you look as polished as a celebrity's photo filters, woven skirts, mini dresses, and red carpet-ready maxi dresses. Macy's has got all the new arrivals,

The latest colors, your favorite brands, and brands waiting to be your favorite brand. And just when you think it couldn't get any better, bam, they've got timeless jewelry, classic denim, and workwear that says, I'm here to work and look awesome doing it.

Find Macy's Spring Styles in linen, crochet, cotton gauze, all the perfect fabrics for when the heat kicks in and you still want to look like a million bucks. So what are you waiting for? Shop now at macys.com or in stores.

Summertime's here. The sun is shining. You need powerful sun protection that feels light on your skin. Meet Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunscreen. This is SPF 70 lotion. It absorbs fast with smooth, dry-touch finish, so you'll forget that you're even wearing it. It blocks 97% of burning UV rays and is water-resistant.

for up to 80 minutes. Lightweight, effective, and perfect for sunny days. It is just what your summer needs. Neutrogena Ultra Sheer. Sunscreen you can't feel. Shop now at Target.

Literally with Rob Lowe is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. ♪♪

So Houdini's one of the few people, maybe along with Bob Dylan, who does a...

absolute theoretical change in his persona. I mean, David Bowie and Madonna... In the middle of his height of his fame. But, you know, David Bowie and Madonna did it as part of what they did. They just reinvented themselves seasonally. But for a real idea of a new thing, Houdini came out first as an escape artist, which was pretty remarkable for a...

for a Jewish immigrant in the early 20th century to have as their showbiz slogan, I defy the jails of the world to hold me. Pretty heavy stuff. Wow. And Houdini in front of an entire ocean of immigrants hanging upside down in a straitjacket and casting that off, it can make you, it can give you a kind of faith in America that we're perhaps losing now, a kind of joy and a welcoming feeling. Yeah.

And then from that incredibly powerful, I am the escapologist, I am freedom personified, he then goes to I am pro-science.

And the supernatural stuff is not true, you know. And then continuing from the 17th century right on through, those two tracks of magic go along. The I'm really magic and the I'm doing tricks go side by side. And when I was...

In high school, junior high, there was a guy named Kreskin. Of course. Who died recently. And he was presenting everything as being this is science. And didn't he bend spoon? Wasn't his thing? No, that's a regaler. That's your story. Same guy, morally. Yes. And he was on TV and he was saying, I can have these powers of ESP. And he was selling his little bullshit ESP kit. And I bought it. My parents bought it because...

My parents were not wealthy. I mean, I didn't grow up poor, but not wealthy. And, you know, that was actually an expenditure, but it was science, you know. And then I spent all my time in the CSP stuff. And then because of the Dewey Decimal System, which is, you probably know, puts juggling and magic close together. That's how it started. I was a juggler.

And I happened to be looking through one of the magic books and saw the trick that Kreskin had done as a science experiment, saw the method as a trick. And my reaction was not healthy. I took that as adults lied to children.

And that science was all lies. And I went from a straight-A student to flunking everything. Come on. That's true. And I had a hatred for magic that was unparalleled. I thought magicians were just lying sacks of shit, and they were terrible. And it wasn't until I read Randy's book and then met Teller—

that Randy and Teller both said to me, you can be honest and be a magician. And that was an incredible revelation that you could treat people with respect. Jerry Seinfeld says, all magic is here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're an idiot. Now it's back. You're an asshole. Show's over. And that was what magic was to me. It was just insulting. Plus, if you were a, uh,

when I was a child and there was like the Hollywood Palace on, the magician was the guy who was on before the rock people you wanted to see. Zeppelin will be up first, but first there's a greasy guy in a tux pulling doves out of his ass. Watch him and then you can see Zeppelin, you know? Yes. And so I hated magicians for all sorts of reasons. And Teller and Randy kind of working together.

told me that you could be honest and respectful to people and still do tricks with consent. And I don't mean to use a loaded word, but I really feel that way. I feel that if you don't give me your consent to trick you,

You know, if you, if I just pull the trick on you, which when you think I'm being honest and you haven't given me explicit consent, which walking into the Penn and tell the theater is that, you know, in the first line of our show, you know, we're going to do tricks. Um, that I believe that that is outside, uh, morality may be too strong of a word, uh, ethics, you know, but,

To tell you the truth, in my heart, I believe it's morality. But I wouldn't make a strong stand on that. I think you could argue that in terms of damage and so on, it might not be. So this is, I'm fascinated with this. So when I, in your analogy is, this is the perfect one, the woman's salt in half, that completely tracks. But what about when it's clearly a feat that involves some kind of physical thing you have witnessed, whether it's

Houdini submerged with the chains or it's David holding his breath for 17 minutes or whatever. Well, Houdini would always, would always, even in his escape stuff, would never claim that there weren't tricks involved.

Okay. Although that's a tricky area because it doesn't really change one's view of science and biology. I mean, the fact that...

Houdini would let the rumor be that he would swallow keys and vomit them back up, whereas the truth was the last guy who examined him was working for him and would just hand him the key and a handshake. So great. It's amazing. It's much easier to do that, you know. Houdini also, your first celebrity to appear naked.

When he was... When did this happen? Well, he would be stripped naked in jail cells. And there's all these press pictures of him just kind of holding his handcuffs over his dick.

You know, he was, you know, right along with those when you want to breakthroughs for Houdini. Also, the first the first person to use the press. But Houdini was the first to manipulate it. And Houdini would actually use what we would now call, you know, influencers. Right. He would hire people.

that were talkative and popular, he'd just slip them a 20 or whatever the equivalent would be to go to bars and tell stories of things they knew about Houdini that weren't true.

No way. Yeah. What a genius. And so the whole kind of modern, the idea of a rock star as we see it now is in a lot of ways created by Houdini. Now that's always a lie because time, you know, and the zeitgeist pick somebody to do that. If it hadn't been Houdini, it would have been somebody else. But every time they interview me about Houdini,

I always go, you don't want to talk to me. Talk to Bob Dylan, the person that understands what it's like to be that much of a cultural force. Really, you've only got Bob Dylan that you can talk to for that kind of social change and tied in, you know. Houdini was not...

It's a very important point. Not the most famous magician of his time. He was the most famous person of his time. And that's a very different thing. We haven't had a magician at the level of Dini since, oh, Houdini. Yeah. You know. Yeah. No, it's the, in Dylan, the same. Yeah. I mean, I was going to say,

Maybe Paul McCartney and John Lennon? Maybe? Maybe? Maybe sort of, although it's very hard to pin a real direct cultural moral idea. I mean, Dylan was standing next to Martin Luther King Jr. when he gave the I Have a Dream speech.

I mean, of everything Dylan has done, that may be one of the most important things. He was standing right here. That was Bob Dylan in the best written, best delivered, most important speech in the 20th century. Bob Dylan wasn't given it, but he's standing there. You know, wasn't, you know, wasn't Paul and John. They weren't, they were thinking about being Elvis and being really, really popular and

and nothing wrong with that but who and so was dylan but he was thinking about other stuff at the same time so let me ask you this though so is there i guess it would this would be the equivalent of me asking you to explain a great magic trip good if somebody a medium says for example there's someone here his name is ba it's a b it's a ba it's um

Bob? And I go, all right. And he's dressed in golf clothes, but he's holding a bunch of pies. And I go, well, my beloved grandpa, Bob, was an avid golfer, had 11 holes in one. And whenever I would come visit him in Ohio, he would meet me at the airport holding a box of pies. How the fuck?

Well, yeah. Well, there's a lot of stuff going on here. First of all, because I can't explain it doesn't mean it's supernatural. That's one of the big things that skeptics fall into. They say, I don't believe this is supernatural. You say, explain this. You say, I can't. You say, therefore, it's supernatural.

There's a lot of things I can't explain that aren't supernatural, including things in my refrigerator. It's the problem with the term UFO, unidentified flying objects. Do you believe in those? Yes. There's all sorts of shit. I don't know what's in the air. There are bugs that are unidentified to me. Right. It's just, it's just all this talking about is ignorant. So the fact you don't understand something does not mean it's supernatural. It just means we don't understand it. That being said, uh,

A big part of psychic reading is what's called cold reading. Yes. Which is simply another way of saying poetry. It's the negative side of poetry. We share all sorts of things that we don't know we share. So you say stuff that is true pretty much for everybody.

and watch the person's face. I see you, Rob, you're in grade school. You're surrounded by children. They're all around you. You somehow feel alone. You somehow feel separate from them. But it looks like you have a lot of friends, but you still feel alone. Well, yeah. Yeah. It happens. It's true for everybody. You know, you can also go to other stuff, like you probably have a scar on your left knee. And, you know, because that's,

where the injuries happen and all the five people in your family, because it depends on how you count them, right? How many brothers you have or whether you count your grandmother or whether there was an aunt that was close to you. Only children have five people in their family. People with five, with four siblings have five people in their family. People with five siblings have five people in their family. There's always a way you can count it down to five. There's all that stuff.

But a lot of the psychics were doing hot readings because the way you would learn about a psychic was a friend of yours would say, I go to this person and they're amazing. Right. And they would say, you know, I'm bringing in my friend Rob next week. Right. And they would just have elaborate notes from everything you've said.

And everything that they said that referenced that, they would go. And the psychics had a network where they'd sell stuff back and forth.

No way. Yeah. But all of this has gone away. Right. With, of course, the internet. Yes. Because, you know, so-and-so is coming in and we just type in and there's a picture of your fucking grandfather with pies in the golf clothes. And that took exactly 25 seconds of research. Right. So I'm talking about all stuff before 95, you know. Yeah.

And, but so all that stuff comes. Plus, you can get lucky. Plus, you have people's memories. Plus. When you say you can get lucky, what do you mean? I mean, you can just say something and you can be right. Oh, yeah, yes. Yeah, you just get lucky. One of my favorite stories was, am I going to forget his name? I'm going to forget his name right now. But the big talking to the dead guy in the 90s.

Oh, yes. What the hell was his name? I know exactly. South Park did the whole thing. Yes, I know who you're talking about, and I can't think of his name either. I should know, but I don't. But anyway, the story that I heard, because a lot of skeptics were going to his shows and taking notes and pointing it out, was he said in the middle of the stage, I'm getting a strong feeling about Greece. Does Greece mean anything to anyone?

And someone raised their hand and stood up, and he looked at them and said, yes, I was getting the strong feeling of Greece, and your family is from Greece, and there are relatives. And she said, my mother loved that musical.

And he didn't even know how to pivot from there. You know, but that kind of stuff, of course, happens. But one of the remarkable things that skeptics have done is you record the interview, the reading that you're getting. You record it. And then you also hear the person's report of what they did.

And so I might say to you, I'm getting the feeling of a older woman in your life who was a strong influence. It's an M or an M.

and you say, my Aunt Nancy, my Aunt Nancy, who was, and then you talk forever. And then you come out of that reading and say, how did he know right away that I had an Aunt Nancy? And you listen to the tape and go, he never says aunt, he never says Nancy. He doesn't say any of that. And what you come down to is some very sad and rather profound things. I've always thought that

Many psychic readings are actually a feminist issue or were a feminist issue in the 20th century because they were finding really, really lonely people who were mostly women, who were home alone during the day and had few friends. And going to the psychic was someone to talk to or they should have had a friend. And they weren't being skeptical in any way. They just wanted to talk about these things. And then you had that combination of

When Bob Dylan sings, I married Isis on the fifth day of May, but I could not hold on to her very long. You didn't marry anybody named Isis and it wasn't on the fifth day of May. And yet he's speaking to something in your heart that feels real. Psychics do that poetry thing and the friendship thing and the psychology thing. And the really sad thing is we've,

But the poetry thing, wait, but the poetry thing, which you've categorized as poetry, isn't that some sort of alchemy of unexplainable? Like you said, just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it's... It's absolutely unexplainable. You know, you try to find why Bob Dylan reaches more people than many other songwriters and poets. And it's very hard to...

To categorize that, you know, Stephen Fry wrote a wonderful book on poetry, The Ode Less Traveled, where he talks about all the forms of poetry, you know. But he is, like me, a Dylan freak. And, you know, you can talk about what Bob's getting a hold of. You know, when you're listening to someone like Springsteen,

or someone who is more a cheerleader, he's saying, we all share these things. Boy, do we like girls and cars, you know, to talk about Springsteen in the 70s. But Dylan doesn't do that. Dylan does this really personal stuff that is seemingly accidentally universal.

And that's the part that I find so fascinating. And that to me, that mystery of life, that mystery of connection, that mystery of art and poetry is the most beautiful thing in the world. So, but it's not supernatural. It's not God. No, it's not. It's the, well, not to me. It's the, yeah, not to you, but the muse, let's call it the muse. Sure. So where does the muse come from?

Three most important words in science. I don't know. If you were trying to define the scientific method, those are the three words. Because previous to, you know, once again, we're in the 17th century around there, 1600s, 1500s, you know, Newton, all that stuff coming in. What religious figures, what kings, what prophets had never done was say, I don't know.

And to me, once someone is brave enough to say, I don't know, the scientific revolution takes off.

Because simply saying, I don't know why things fall, sets you up for everything. And we still don't know, by the way, we still haven't got a really good definition of gravity. You know, we know, and we keep finding more and more and more, and there's still more and more questions. And the fact that there's mystery, you know, there's always this sense that

There's an attack, and I don't want to do a straw man here because many of the attacks on atheists are much more profound than this and more accurate and correct. But to do a little bit of a straw man, they say, well, atheists think they know everything. What about the wonder of the mystery?

And that's actually precisely backwards because what a religious person does is give you the answers. The answer is God as opposed to the answer is, I don't know. So you say you've got these— But if you say you don't know, then why couldn't the answer be God? Sure could. Sure could. But you don't have any evidence of that. ♪

This is the time of year where you just want to donate all your old clothes and revamp your wardrobe, right? Spring cleaning means out with the old and in with the new. And that's where Macy's comes in. Yep.

Spring fashion has officially landed at Macy's, and they've got the perfect items for a serious wardrobe upgrade. Macy's knows what's hot this season, like lightweight knits that make you look effortlessly cool, matched sets that make you look as polished as a celebrity's photo filters, woven skirts, mini dresses, and red carpet-ready maxi dresses. Macy's has got all the new arrivals,

The latest colors, your favorite brands, and brands waiting to be your favorite brand. And just when you think it couldn't get any better, bam, they've got timeless jewelry, classic denim, and workwear that says, I'm here to work and look awesome doing it.

Find Macy's Spring Styles in linen, crochet, cotton gauze, all the perfect fabrics for when the heat kicks in and you still want to look like a million bucks. So what are you waiting for? Shop now at macys.com or in stores.

Literally with Rob Lowe is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

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So as a Dylan fan, how great is the sequence in The Greatest Night in Music, the making of We Are the World? When Stevie Wonder teaches him how to do Dylan? Yeah, teaches him how to sing like Dylan. It's also fascinating.

that whole greatest night music thing how you by the way i could posit that if dan akroyd could be in the back row you could have been in there yeah why was dan akroyd there i don't understand why dan akroyd is in the back i don't understand it it gives me really bad fomo because like that's right at the height of the brat pack they could have used a brat they could have used a brat pack they could have fucking totally you i don't want i don't want to flatter you but

I think you're better looking than Dan Aykroyd. At least then. When they're putting the camera, when they're panning the camera across, I think you probably got Huey Lewis beat.

I think you probably got Paul Simon beat. At least you're taller. I got more hair. Yeah, yeah, sure. Probably better looking than Springsteen. You could have been a big addition to that one big wide shot. And it was not to be. It was not to be. The phone never rang. No. The other great shot is that— Quincy never called you up and said, Rob, come on by.

Quincy and I were battling over the same women at that point. That was the issue. You really want to know. That was... I had competition. What's really nice is that, I hate to say it, but all my competition is passing. Quincy has passed on. Nicholson's teetering. You know, these were the guys...

These were the guys. Warren, still hanging on. And still beats you, by the way. Still. Yeah, yeah. Still. Mick. No, I don't think Mick does. Don Knotts. Oh, he's dead. He is gone. The other great one is the picture of him in the chorus, the big panning shot. Yeah, yeah. Where he's just not singing. No, he's not singing. At all. Not even making an attempt. But it is fascinating that...

Bob is just like a little kid. He's very uncomfortable. He's the most uncomfortable. You must have met him now. Yeah, but you can't talk about meeting Bob. You don't meet Bob again. That's right. Yeah, but yeah, it's a fascinating thing. It's also wonderful to watch how superstars, Paul Simon, Springsteen, and Billy Joel,

All they're doing is watching Bob to see what he's doing. If Bob decides this is not the place to be, you know those three are walking. Oh. 100%. It's also wonderful. These people you see as rebels and rock and roll shitheads. It's amazing to see the work ethic.

You know, everybody in that, with a few notable exceptions that are so clear we don't need to mention them, are just really hardworking people. Springsteen does a show that night, flies in, it's five in the morning, he steps up to the mic and does a great job. And we also have to, we have to,

find out who the person was when Stevie Wonder is taking Ray Charles out to the restroom, the one who says it's the blind leading the blind. And they do not give you credit for who said that. But one... I don't think it's Aykroyd. Who was it? I... Okay. Lionel Richie told me who it was. Oh, he did? And I've fucking forgotten. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

That's why you weren't there. If you can't even report that properly. Lionel told me who, because I love Lionel and he's an old friend and I just, I grill him all the time about that night. I'm obsessed with that night. When that documentary came out, I was like, this is a gift to me. The person I most want to be in that whole documentary was the guy who goes, they don't speak Swahili there. Oh, it's amazing. We don't know who that is either. Oh, wait.

Hang on. He told me that too. Oh, those are the two things. Hang on. Wait, no, I know. Wait, wait. Okay. So it's, it is, who is it? It's, that's an amazing moment. Because having the balls to tell Dylan, this is a way to sing like Dylan is one thing. But after that, to have the balls to tell Stevie Wonder. Who did it? Waylon Jennings.

No, it's not Waylon Jennings. Are you sure? No. Yes, I am. Well, Waylon had the great quote where he goes, what do you say? Cowboys don't speak Swahili. Yeah, cowboys don't sing Swahili, and I will not be singing it. Out. Out. Yeah, not Waylon at his best moment, but still pretty funny. So funny. What a night. Yeah, but he does mention Swahili, but I don't think he's the one that says they don't speak it there.

That was one of those things where it just— And also, the people that you didn't think much about, like Huey Lewis, I never thought much about. Murders. Is a hero. Murders. And is also humble.

I mean, so humble. He goes, I'm taking the part. I'm taking Prince's place. Well, you know who that was supposed to be? I think that was supposed to be Kenny Loggins. Uh-huh. And Kenny, I'm pretty sure this is... I sound like an idiot. I'm A, dropping names, and B, not following up on the name drop by forgetting...

what the names told me. You are incompetently name dropping. I'm the most incompetent name dropper. This is my new thing. I want to hear one of these stories and say, I don't remember what Rob Lowe told me. I don't remember. I know Kenny Loggins over a pickleball game. I'm pretty sure told me that he was supposed to be there and didn't. And that's where they, they got,

Kenny Loggins is there. He is there. Well, see, I really don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I know what it is now. It's Kenny Loggins' idea to get Huey Lewis. That's what it is. But Huey Lewis, he became my hero after watching that. Kills it. He just kills it. He just kills it. And Cindy Lauper with the bangles and the, ay-yi-yi-yi-yi!

She hits everything. She's really, she's really good too. She's like, I like, what I like, she's like, I'm going to throw down here. Here's my favorite part. I want to be the one who has, at the beginning, you see Quincy doling out who's going to, and it's based on what key they sing in, right? Which is super, super interesting. Yeah.

It's actually not Quincy Jones. It's the guy who does the vocal arrangement, who's the genius, who wants Tina Turner in her lower register because he thinks she's more powerful there, making some really important artistic decisions. And I want to be the person who goes, and Kim Carnes, you'll be singing and we. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, the edgier going, you got one take with these people. I mean, the nervousness of that, you know. Sorry, I didn't get all that. Can we do that all again? Yeah. My old friend, David Foster, who I've had many times on this show, not many, but I've had him. He likes, my favorite story I get him to tell is he did the Canadian We Are the World, which is still my favorite thing ever.

I forget. It's like, we stand in shame. Whatever the fuck. Everybody was doing that. And he had Neil Young. And he's like, Neil, because David famously has perfect pitch. Neil, you're a little flat on that A note. And Neil's like, man, that's my brand, man. Well, I was talking with a friend who has very, very good pitch.

and we were saying, can you think of a Neil Young song where he's in tune from beginning to end? And we could not name one. No. It's the beauty of it. And also, The Clash. If they ever sang in tune, it wouldn't sound at all like The Clash.

And I also wonder if... I've always thought somebody should take Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Four Way Street, the live record, and put auto-tune on that and see what they were trying to do. I used to see them a lot, and there were some nights where...

Well, once you've got David Crosby, anything you're doing is going to be a little fucked up. Yeah. And then he gets together and then you got to worry about Stills. And then Stills is going to get to worry about Graham. It's like very, very few nights where they all. Yeah. Although Graham Nash, the most solid of all. Of all. Which is damning with faint praise. Rather murdering them right now. You're working with Neil Young.

David Crosby, it's Stephen Stills, and you are by far the

the one who comes in on time and knows what material you're doing. I think Graham's got that. Now, put him in another group, you know, put him in the Philharmonic, maybe he's not there. Then we have issues. Oh, my God. This is great, man. Do you have any dates in—what are your L.A. dates? Do you know? We're playing the YouTube, and I don't know when it is. Oh, yeah, that's great. That's a great year. When is it?

October 16th. October 16th. October 16th. How hard was that? Okay, last question. Very last question. What's the best magic trick you've ever seen?

The best magic trick I've ever seen was a guy named Eddie Fector. Great name. Who worked at a place called the Forks Motel that had a little sign up that said Magician Knightly. It was in Buffalo, New York. And he, like all of your great close-up guys, had learned magic because he was, shall we say, a graduate. He had done time.

And anybody that's got a perfect bottom deal did time. And he did, he, big guy, I mean, big, beefy hands, you know, jailhouse tattoo. This is 70s when not every mall girl had a tattoo. This is jailhouse stuff, indie ink with a little pin, you know. And he would do card stuff and, you know,

I'm the only one in the world, by the way, who likes this. He would do dice stacking. And I'm the only person in the world that enjoys it. Tell our kids, stay at dice stacking. It's where you take a little cup and you have dice, like five of them. And you move your hands like that and you can stack them up and do two piles. And he could predict what numbers would be on which pile. And you're holding back and doing all that stuff. That was my favorite stuff. I loved, loved it.

love, love, Eddie effector. And one of the reasons we do fool us is we're able to get on people who do that little stuff that would never be booked on another show, you know, that do the real stuff that just kills me. That's amazing. So dice stacking. Yeah.

I have a whole new rabbit hole. You just asked somebody who's seen 800 magicians perform on Fool Us, the best in the world, who knows every magician you can name, who knew Siegfried and Roy, who knew everybody, and I just gave you a dice stack. Dice stack.

I'm going to be hitting the wormhole. And what was that book you were holding up? Oh, yeah. How about that book? We're not going to let that going on. Your new book, Felony Juggler. Yeah. I've been skimming through it. It's super great. You know, when I was...

I had all these stories from when I was a street performer and I was homeless and I was just living on the streets juggling. I had all these stories, but I couldn't bring myself to write an autobiography, so I added a bank robbery and a murder to it. But up until they invite me to do the book, the...

robbery in Burger King, up until that, every word of it is true. Because I read all the Bob Dylan stuff when I was 15. And I thought that Dylan was telling the truth. I never knew he made it all up. So Bob said he hopped trains, hitchhiked, worked in a carnival, left home,

Actually, he went to the University of Minnesota and then went to Greenwich Village and was a superstar within six months. There was no struggling. There's no living on the streets for Bob. But I believed it. So all the stuff Bob Dylan says he did, I actually did. So that's what the book's mostly about. I have hopped a train.

Me too. You have? Yes, I have. Yeah. It was great with Christian Slater, of all people. Really? Yeah. Tell me about that. Or can't you? No, I can't. You can just drop the name Christian Slater. No, I know. This is a name. Although you've gotten down from David Foster. I'm obsessed with a little-known movie called Emperor of the North Pole. It's Ernest Borgnine.

And he runs he's the conductor on a freight train up in the Pacific Northwest during the Great Depression when everybody was a hobo and would use that transit. And it was the train that couldn't be ridden. And if you ride it, he'll kill you. It's a great B movie. Great B movie. So I wanted to do a new version of it and to do research for it. Movie never got made.

Christian and I got, hopped a freight up in San Luis Obispo and took it all the way down to LA. And it was one of the great moments. But you were already a famous guy then. Yeah. We'd pass sightings and people would be stopped in their cars and they'd be like, what? As we'd go by. I'd,

It was insane. It was so fabulous. So fun. I love, we literally hide in the bushes. The train pulls up and you're like, should we go in this car? No, no, I think we can better. And then you're like the adrenaline of picking your spot. Cause once you pick your spot, you're done. You're done. Right. Yep. And then the whole thing of like, um,

how you jump on if it's moving versus not. Because there's a way you can do it or rip your arm right off. That's true. Ask Buster Keaton. Is that how he... No, no. But that's how he dislocated his arm. It's when he's grabbing a... I think it's actually a car, but he also hopped a train in a lot of those movies. Yeah, it's great. It's a great American lost art. And a lot of people, I just want to tell you, out on the streets, they say Rob Lowe, the Buster Keaton of our time. Yes, they do. Yeah.

They saw me fall down in the street. So much better looking than anyone else that we are the world. I'm going to, if I could just go back in a time machine. Well, but I'd want to sing a lick.

Well, I could sing and we. And we, yeah. You could do that. You could do that. And we. That's my Kim Carnes. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome, America. You're welcome. So the book, again, it's Felony Juggler, by the way, and great.

You kind of look like David Crosby on the title. Thank you. You do, dude. I mean, here we are shitting all over David Crosby. Meanwhile, you're the one that looks like him. Yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. Yeah. That's why. That's why I have that hostility. Can I tell you about this outfit you have on? I was a Renaissance. That's me at a Renaissance festival. So good. Isn't it good? Yeah. I was a Renaissance festival performer. That's where Teller and I did our first show was the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Love that. So good. Well, good. Awesome. This is great. Thank you, my friend. What a pleasure. Well, that was wide ranging. When you look up wide ranging, that's a wide range. He has wide ranging conversations on literally. We just did.

That was amazing. Thank you for listening as always. I really, I know I say it a lot, but I really mean it. It means a lot to me that you devote whatever time you're devoting of your day to spending time here with me and us at Literally. And I don't take it for granted. And because of that, I will be back next week with more.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Grau. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Sound by Devin Bryant.

Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally. Firestone Complete Auto Care's epic savings event is the sign you need to stop putting off your car's maintenance. And you can save up to $100 on tires and services while you're at it. Don't wait. Call Firestone Complete Auto Care for an appointment.

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