unbibium

I'm stuck inside, tending another sore throat, so I'm looking up links to stuff...

First, I finally found Penn Jillette's bee sting story (audio), one of many in which nobody believes that he's never taken drugs.

"Do you know how you die from bee stings? ... No, you breathe perfectly. You do smother, but you keep breathing. This is the sexy part, OK? What happens is, your veins and arteries expand, and your blood pressure goes to zero, and your heart keeps pumping, you keep breathing, but it's like trying to force from a river to a pond. Your blood doesn't move enough, and your whole body smothers."

It also includes part 1 of the Tarzan story, where Penn accidentally invites a chimp and a dwarf to the same party. Part 2 of the Tarzan story is here, with a pretty good recap so you can listen to that one on its own if you only have time for one. Chimps will attack small humans, and they always win. But Penn couldn't choose between the two, so he took precautions.

"Goudeau gathered together a vigilante squad, of about four of us, who had knives. And we made a solemn pledge, in the back room, with Michael Goudeau as our leader, that if it came to a choice between saving the dwarf and saving the monkey ... we would kill the monkey, with tools, in order to save the dwarf."

The story spawned the tradition of Monkey Tuesday, where people call in with their stories of primate encounters.