Free Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!: More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No! by Penn Jillette Page B

Budapest who moved his family to Appleton, Wisconsin, and supported them by pretending to be a rabbi.
    Before I started the book, I knew I wouldn’t identify with Houdini, but with a warmth in my heart that heated up the bathwater, I realized I identified with Mayer Samuel Weisz. I’m much less of a rabbi than Mayer was. Our different philosophies didn’t matter. I couldn’t even lie to myself that Rabbi Weisz was an atheist. But Mayer was a dad, and as I read in the bathtub, my infant son slept in the next room. I loved thinking that one day I could be fewer than eight pages into my son’s 608-page biography. That would be enough for me.
    I don’t need or even want my son, Zolten Penn Jillette, to have a biography written about him. I don’t want him to be in showbiz. I don’t want him not to be in showbiz. I don’t want him to be driven. I don’t want little Zz to grow up to be Houdini, Stern or Ciccone, but I don’t want him not to be like them either. I don’t really have any plans or dreams for him. If he’s an alcoholic pastor who listens to the Grateful Dead, I’ll still love him. What I want most for him is for me to love him, and again that goal has also been surpassed. Perhaps the greatest thing about overshooting my goals, being more successful than I deserve or I had planned, is there’s nothing I need my children to finish for me. Earl Woods got too late of a start to ever be the golfer he really wanted to be, so he helped Tiger be the greatest golfer of all time (so my wife tells me, I don’t even know what end of a golf club to blow into).
    My mom and dad didn’t push me. They were older when I was born, and they didn’t want anything for me except for me to be happy. As far as my children are concerned, I’m not even sure I need them to be happy. We all want happiness for our children, but they don’t have to be happy about everything all the time. Life must include sadness, and there’s peace and truth to be found in sadness. The best times are not always the happiest times, but the times spent in the flow, the times spent getting things done, the times spent living.
    Right around when Zz was born, I took a set of clothes that I wore performing the Penn & Teller show and put them aside for Zz in the future. The Keith Richards belt that I’d worn in every show since the first Off-Broadway run, the Dr. Martens, the pork pie hat that I wore to play pre-show jazz, the gray suit, even my boxer shorts. I had them all vacuum-packed like a wedding dress and put into storage. I don’t know what he’ll do with them. Maybe he’ll keep them for his children, if he has them, and let them throw out the vacuum pack if they don’t want it. I like the thought of that generation throwing away my show clothes. But if he wants, Zz will be able to see what his dad wore onstage around the time he was born.
    My mom and dad (and most moms and dads) said that I would never understand how much they loved me until I had my own children. I’ve started saying that often to my children. I want Moxie and Zz to know that they don’t understand that yet, so that when they do understand, their hearts will explode in joy. It’s the love you don’t choose, the animal love that gives the reason to live.
    Love for one’s children is like a hard-on in a strip club. It’s purer and stronger feeling than the place in my brain where I make decisions. I chose to love my friends. I chose to love my wife. I think I even chose to love my parents as I got older. But I had no say in loving my children. The love for my children is beyond my control. It’s animal. It’s like hunger. It’s more than hunger—there have been times I could control my hunger (although I can’t remember any off the top of my head). I love my children like I need to breathe.
    One of the things I love about going to strip clubs is getting turned on by women I don’t like. I love that I can see a woman naked except for a cross around her neck and