I guess 30 years in showbiz isn't enough to prepare you for everything. Yesterday was a matinee, so we were lousy with kids. It was a good show, we were rocking along. It was near the end of the show, we were at Broken Bottle Juggling. I had just broken the third bottle and I was up to "the way they break is a non-linear equation." As I paced the stage, I got over stage left and a little girl, about 8 years old was walking up the stairs from the audience onto the stage. She was tentative, but not stopping. My first inclination was to wave her back, say I wasn't picking someone from the audience right then, but I didn't have time, she was on the stage. She looked at me and I leaned over with broken bottles in my hand.

"My Mom sent me up here to tell you to watch your language."

What? Well, in about 3 minutes from then I had that hunk coming up about language, and the difference between obscenity and blasphemy and the, "If I get cut, I'll take you on a scatological, sexual, white-knuckle ride through the old testament featuring the violent, non-consensual sex acts of deuteronomy 14 through 27 described in the graphic street language of the late, great, Tupac Shakur." So, I went into that. With that on autopilot, I had time to think of what I would do next. I went into this thing about, "What kind of parent would see a huge, mentally ill man standing with broken liquor bottles in his hand and send a child to have a talk with him about his language."

It was just so nutty. I said a kid forced to do that was going to grow up to be Hillary Clinton (even I'm not sure what I meant by that, but it sure seemed right). I kept doing callbacks to it for the rest of the bit. When I was about to juggle the bottles and pretended she was tugging on my pant leg while I was juggling, "Pardon me, sir, could I talk to you about your language?" It was pretty funny stuff, but still so disconcerting.

During the Flag closer, when I'm talking about freedom of speech, I added, "And not just problems from an imprudent parent, but also the government." Because I worked it in so much, and because it's such an important idea to the show, and because I had hunks all ready to go, the audience was sure the little girl was a plant. After the show the people who were sitting next to the little girl and her mother said they saw the mother standing in the aisle and pushing the little girl toward the stage. They were really appalled. I couldn't get over it. I was freaked into the next show. It's some sort of violation I wasn't ready for. I mean, it's a super-heckle. As Robbie said, "The perfect combination of gall and cowardice." How goofy.

The closest thing to a punchline on it was that the family came up to Teller after the show to get an autograph and the grandmother said, "this is the `imprudent parent.'" They were proud, they had helped the show. It's just amazing. I've never even heard of something like that happening anywhere ever. What next?

Penn

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