God, No!

by Penn Jillette

  Several years ago, while they were still working on getting approval to fly civilians, they figured out how I could go up in their Vomit Comet: they’d make me an employee of their company, Zero G. I’d go up in one of the flights they were conducting to train their pilots how to best hit zero G. My six years of grueling cheerleading had paid off: I was going to be weightless.

  It was not without price. I had to get up early. We’d been working hard on a TV show and I needed a rest, but I got up early in Vegas and caught the 8:10 to Burbank. Getting up wasn’t hard. I was as excited as a little kid and didn’t sleep anyway. I decided to have a Cinnabon (“You pig!”) for breakfast because I thought it might taste nice coming back up. It is called the Vomit Comet. I slept the whole flight to Burbank and went from Burbank to Van Nuys by car. At the airport I ran into another Zero G “employee,” Billy Gibbons (yup, from ZZ Top). Billy’s also a guy who cheerleads for nuts. Look at us, for Christ’s sake. The Zero G boys had run into Billy at an airport somewhere and had invited him along too.

  On board would be two pilots, the four guys who were working on starting the company, a flight doctor, a nurse, and two paramedics. One of the NASA guys brought his girlfriend (another “employee”), a platinum blonde with way-big aftermarket breasts. I’ve always wanted to fuck in zero G, and the aftermarket-breasted girlfriend of someone else was my first choice. I tried to make a case that these were extraordinary circumstances and her boyfriend, who was busy doing airplane stuff, would be fine with us fucking for science, but she didn’t go for it. She thought I was trying to ask her out for another time. I wasn’t trying to ask her out; I didn’t want to date her, I wanted to fuck someone in zero G, and she was a better choice than the officious medical people and Billy. Mary Roach, the great writer, also did a Zero G flight and tried to bring her husband up to fuck her. I wish we had been on the same flight. I could have tried dressing up like her husband. When the busty blonde said no, I winked at Billy, but he was also a no-go.

  Billy was big as life, with his big old Warner Bros. cartoon hillbilly beard, an African hat, a $250,000 Gibson starburst guitar, a six-pack of beer, and a specially made amp that had been built inside a can of peanuts. He looked great. Billy is thin. Shaved, he would weigh about a hundred pounds. He was beaming all over. I’ve known Billy about twenty-five years, and although we don’t see each other much, he feels like a friend—not enough of a friend to have sex with me in zero G, but a good friend all the same. We were ready to go.

  We walked out on the runway, and there was the mystical plane that would battle gravity for us. It was a beat-up 727 cargo plane that read MEXICARGO on the side. Oh, my word. I’m not one to engage a lot in ethnic humor, but I did have to have some fun talking to Billy about our lives riding on “beans and Bondo.” Man, it looked jury-rigged and fly-by-night. But we were ready.

  I was intent on exploring the science behind Barbarella. I asked one of the owner guys to run a little video camera for me—I wanted to get some video comparing Hanoi Jane’s strip in zero G, which of course had been faked by having her lie on glass, with a real strip in zero G by me. I was going to go weightless and strip naked. The blonde really wanted to join me, and I thought it would help the science, but her boyfriend said he thought her stripping would hurt Zero G’s credibility with the FAA. Big guys stripping in space is serious research.

  Anyway, inside, the plane was mostly a lot of big open space. At the back were three rows of old coach seats with oxygen bottles just lying on them, a cooler tied down with ropes, a box of Ziplocs that would be used for our vomit, and a big mat on the floor. An astronaut guy did a little flight attendant speech, except we all really listened. This wasn’t some food server in the sky; this was a real former NASA guy. “We have lost cabin pressure a few times,” he told us, “so we might have to use the oxygen.” In the event we needed the oxygen, it wasn’t going to drop down and turn on—we would have to find it and turn on the oxygen from the bottle. Of course, if we did lose cabin pressure we’d be heading down to thicker air so fast we wouldn’t have time for the oxygen before we were safe (or dead), but our guy was having fun scaring us. The Vomit Comet, for all the weirdness, is safe. It’s doing safe stuff. It’s as safe as any big plane, and that’s safer than hanging out on your front steps. It just doesn’t seem safe, and for creeps like us, that adds to the fun.

  Now here is how weightlessness works: this huge plane does parabolas. It goes pretty close to straight up for thirty seconds, and then it turns around and heads straight for the ocean. You know that feeling you get at the top of a roller coaster before the big drop, that feeling where your stomach goes to your throat? On a coaster it’ll last a second or so. Well, this plane becomes a huge roller coaster, and instead of a second you get thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of that feeling. The roller coaster example doesn’t tell you anything. Thirty seconds of Vomit Comet weightlessness is not sixty times a half second of Six Flags weightlessness. It’s a different thing. Imagine an hourlong orgasm. You can’t—and that’s my point.

  Another way to look at how it works is that we’re falling straight down and the plane, and everyone else, and even the air, is staying around us in the same relative position. It’s not easy for the pilots. They’re flying straight down at the water, and they’re trying to keep the plane heading perfectly straight down, and then they pull out, and back up you go, and when you go back up, you go to 1.8 G. I would go from weightless to 504 pounds in a few seconds. We would go from 0 G to 1.8 G and we were going to do it over thirty times! We would be weightless for at least fifteen minutes altogether. That would be longer than Alan Shepard on his first flight.

  I would also weigh 504 pounds for 15 minutes. It wasn’t the zero G that would make us vomit, it was the 1.8 G. At the end of each zero G segment we’d hear the call “Thirty seconds!” and have to quickly sit down and get our heads straight up, perpendicular to the floor. It would be better if we didn’t talk or laugh or look around, but just sit. That was our best chance of not getting sick. And we would have no idea where we were. The plane has only one small window in the middle of the open space. It’s recessed and hard to look through. We wouldn’t be able to sync our eyes with what our bodies were feeling. Like a roller coaster in the dark with no wind. Everything would be moving with us. We would just feel it in our bodies.

  It’s very weird to be in an airplane unable to see out any windows. I mean, when you sit on the aisle, you may not think you’re seeing out the windows, but it’s so odd when you really can’t. We took off and then had to fly out over the ocean, and it took a while with all the noise regulations over Southern California. Finally, it was time. We’d do “two Martians, two lunars, and then go to zero.” That meant we’d have two thirty-second legs at one-third gravity, two at one-sixth gravity, and then the real deal. In between each one, we’d get heavy. They told us we might want to stay in our seats for the first few until we got used to it. Billy and I were told to start slow; if we felt sick, we should come back to the seats and strap in, and they’d be there to help us. As we began the first leg—the first “Martian”—the NASA guy used his arm to illustrate the orientation of the plane, so we could understand a little of what we were feeling. We were told to be careful, but the real boys were walking around, even during the going-up times. His arm sloped up and I felt heavy. I mean I was really pushed into my seat, and then . . . his hand . . . as I stared at his arm curving, I felt lighter.

  I was lighter. The pros started dancing and jumping. I had to shake my head. They were moving in slow motion. I had seen this motion in movies, but I had never actually witnessed it. They’re both stocky men, but now they were jumping huge distances, doing backflips together and landing on their feet. I felt my arms; they were so light. And then we got heavy. I could feel the skin of my face pull down, and it was hard to lift my arms. That lasted thirty seconds, and then we started another Martian.

  Billy couldn’t wait; he was up out of his seat, jumping and giving a Texas “Woooo!�
�� I was a little more cautious; I unbuckled and lifted myself from my seat. I was a gymnast. I could hold my whole weight with my arms with no strain. Man oh man. “Thirty seconds!” came the call, and we got heavy. I was back in my seat, looking straight up, trying not to get sick. But I was doing fine. Okay, on lunar, I would rock.

  The angle of Bob’s arm told us it was coming, and we were lunar. Weighing forty-seven pounds, I jumped into the big empty space with the mat on the floor, very cautiously. I went right to the ceiling (not far for me). I’ve always wanted to walk on my hands, and there I was, like the greatest circus star you’ve ever seen, running along on my palms. Billy was dancing some weird ZZ Top/Texan nut dance. The busty girlfriend was doing cartwheels and flips. The medical people were just getting up out of their seats. “Thirty seconds!” we were warned, and I hurried to the edge of the plane and sat on the floor with my head straight up, really feeling the weight this time.

  My second lunar was great. My handstand was better, and I tried a flip. I fell over, but it felt great. I was so strong. The body that I’ve been stuck in for decades became new. I was stronger. Looking at the others was amazing. It really was slow motion. I had never even seen what I was seeing, let alone felt it! Amazing. I stood on one hand. I spun and flew. “Thirty seconds!” And I rushed to the wall, and felt the oppressive weight come back almost double. Time to pay the piper.

  Now it was straight up and down. The heavy was really heavy, but soon we were going to be weightless. I sat straight and quiet and waited. It was a long thirty seconds of gravity oppression, and then, the tilt of the arm—and freedom, complete freedom. I pushed off and, still seated, floated in the air. Billy came flying at me and I caught him. There was no up or down; I was upside-down and I had military NASA ass over my head. I grabbed the girlfriend and tossed her lightly to Billy. When she got to Billy they both went off together. Someone grabbed me and spun me around.

  “Thirty seconds!”

  Like a ton of bricks. I scrambled to the wall. I breathed through my nose. I lifted my arms and it took all I had. I could feel my stomach, and my head was hard to hold up. This was only 1.8 G, but thirty seconds is a long time.

  Weightless again. Billy and I were laughing, hugging, and floating. I did all the stuff I remembered seeing astronauts doing. I got myself spinning in one place in a little ball. Up and down didn’t matter. We were all bumping into each other. Well, wait a minute, not all. Billy and I looked over at the cocky medical team. All but one of them were in their fancy scrubs, still seat-belted in, vomiting their guts out in sheer misery. I don’t know if they had even stood up. It was going to be a very long two-hour flight for them. They weren’t going to be there to help us. I said to Billy, “Yeah, flight doctors aren’t ready for this. But the old road dogs can do anything—we’ve played Cleveland!” Billy got to laughing, spinning in space with his stupid hat, hillbilly beard, voodoo necklaces, and tight rocker jeans, yelling, “We’ve played Cincinnati!” (He changed it.) It was wild.

  “Thirty seconds!”

  I wasn’t quite sitting down, just kind of hovering near the side of the plane, and I slid down the wall as the next heavy leg began. They had told me to keep my head up, so I fought—man did I fight—and I got to a sitting position, and I tried to breathe slowly and remember it would be over soon. We were weightless over and over: I got into a full-lotus yoga position and floated around. Billy liked that, and then next time he did it too. We sat next to each other like gurus and got all ready—we took off together and floated by the video camera. I found myself on top of Billy as “Thirty seconds!” came and had to use all my strength to not crush him. The same thing happened later with the girlfriend, and I used a little less of my strength and crushed her a little just for fun. She was fun to be on top of.

  It was time to get to work. Billy went first: he got out his guitar, this beautiful Gibson that he’d borrowed for this flight. The NASA guys didn’t sit down at 1.8, they walked around. Nothing changed for them, except how they moved. They went back and forth from flying to trudging, but they were over helping the vomiting medics, shooting the video for Billy, and running up and talking to the pilots. These guys were used to it. So they got Billy’s guitar out and they shot some rock video stuff. I tried to stay out of the shot, but as he was spinning the guitar, ZZ style, in front of him, he lost control and I had to catch it. The other novice, the blonde, was trying to get into the shots. It looked great. The beard flying, the necklaces flying, and the guitar just floating.

  I played around with a ball; it would just float in front of me. Amazing. And even more amazing was tossing the ball in 1.8, because you’ve never seen that in movies. There’s no way to fake it. Throwing it hard, I couldn’t hit the ceiling. Throwing and catching the one ball wasn’t easy. Amazing. I want to try to juggle three in 1.8. It would take some time.

  Billy had gotten the video test that he wanted, and it was time for me to work. I was going to strip like Jane Fonda in Barbarella. We had been back and forth a lot of times and I was getting beads of sweat on my forehead and it was getting tough. The rich guys who do it now are doing fifteen parabolas maximum, and we’d already done twenty. I was getting a little panicky, but it was time for the real wildness.

  I told everyone that I was going all the way, that I would be naked. I let my hair down and it flew better than Jane’s. I licked my lips. We went 0 G and I tried to work the camera and lick my lips and play the eyes and get my hands in my hair. I sexily unlaced my big old size 15 Doc Marten and let it float, with my sock, in front of me. Man, it looked great.

  I couldn’t do the whole strip in thirty seconds, and even in hunks of zero G it would take too long, so I had to keep stripping in 1.8. Man, that was hard, but I got my other boot off. Everything I removed the NASA boys had to grab and tie down so it wouldn’t hurt anyone. I undid my belt, played with it stripper style, and let it go to float like a sea snake. Next were the pants, and those came off while I twirled in a ball. In a few thirty-second hunks, I was down to T-shirt and boxers. I whipped the shirt off and then tried for a move I was really hoping would work. I pushed off the wall so I would be spinning, and I took off my boxers as I floated toward the camera. I timed it right; it was perfect: as I took them off my ass hit the camera.

  Now I was in zero G and naked! I was free, the first person to be naked on the Vomit Comet. (If you have the desire to see me naked in zero G, first of all, I’m flattered, and second, you can see it: we showed a clip on one of the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! shows on Showtime, and the clip is on YouTube, so if you want to see it, go ahead. And thank you.) Seeing me floating around naked, the NASA guys had to prove they weren’t gay. “It’s the first time I’ve been nauseous in zero G!” one said, and the one with the camera panned back and forth between me naked and the medics throwing up.

  The next few times, I was just going wild. I put my hands over my package and went spinning on my axis. I was trying to cover my dick and balls and do all the sexy Jane faces—Jane was coy, and I had to be too. This was science, this was the Barbarella project. With my arms being used to cover my cock and balls, navigation was tough.

  I inspired the NASA guy’s girlfriend (I don’t like calling her that, but I want to respect her privacy). She had been told she couldn’t strip, but as I sat across from her in 1.8, she lifted up her shirt. In 1.8 gravity, her saline bags did not even bend. Man, that’s some nutty surgery. Those huge tits didn’t even feel the 1.8. Wow. I think she was starting to understand that maybe we could fuck for science, but there was no time for me to work her. I had plans, while she was taking her shirt off, to spin around naked. The video guy didn’t know what to cover. He knew he should cover me, and he wanted to cover her.

  Well, as I was spinning, and she was starting to strip, we got a gust of negative G that threw us to the ceiling. I was rolling, naked, across the ceiling, and then the thirty seconds were up, and I was back on the floor rolling. As I went by, I hit my belt and saw that my dad’s silver dollar was gon
e from the buckle, the silver dollar my dad had given me. He had just died. Dad had worn that silver dollar belt buckle all his adult life and now it was mine. I was really worried. I yelled, “Find the silver dollar, please!” I thought I was going to cry. I should have known that the fuselage was closed and I couldn’t lose it, but I was naked and confused. NASA had no trouble finding my coin, but in all the excitement—of being naked, being bumped around, huge breasts whacking the ceiling, and just worrying about the belt buckle—I didn’t get myself to a nice seated position by the time 1.8 came around, and I couldn’t get my orientation. I couldn’t get it together. I was dizzy from spinning (that axis thing is an advanced move), and, bam, did I feel sick.

  “Man, I’m going to be sick.”

  NASA got me a bag, and I leaned over into it and started vomiting. It really hurt the muscles in 1.8; then we went weightless, and I panicked a little. The video guy said, “I’ve got you, don’t worry about anything.” He held my arm as I floated, naked and vomiting. He told me later he kept the camera on me while I floated naked and vomited into my hair, the bag, and all over him and myself. Sexy! Actually, I didn’t really vomit on myself or him. The vomit just floated there in 0 G, then it went to 1.8 vomit and landed all over us. Heavy vomit.

  NASA was all over me with paper towels, and they really cleaned me up. I don’t like to vomit, but I’ve heard on heroin you vomit and don’t care. This was like that. I didn’t care much. Also, this wasn’t flu-bile-pizza vomit. This was friendly caffeine-free-Diet-Coke-and-bits-of-Cinnabon, we’re-having-fun vomit. Billy had almost vomited a while before and was staying cool. He didn’t vomit. The problem was that I got a little nauseated and then did all this stupid stuff for the camera.