People have long wondered what goes on in Bob Dylan’s mind
But if you pay attention to what the recent Pulitzer Prize-winner says and plays on his XM satellite-radio program, Theme Time Radio Hour, you can actually get a pretty good idea. Here, by cataloguing the themes has chosen for the episodes, the artists he has favored, and Dylan’s other preferences and quirks, Vanity Fair has constructed a revealing portrait of America’s most enigmatic musician. Below is a near-exhaustive, up-to-date list, expanding on the version printed in our May issue.
The Themes
Weather, Mother, Drinking, Baseball, Coffee Jail, Fathers, Wedding, Divorce, Summer Flowers, Cars, Rich Man/Poor Man, The Devil, Eyes Dogs, Friends & Neighbors, Radio, The Bible, Musical Maps School, Telephone, Water, Time, Guns Halloween, Dance, Sleep, Food, Thanksgiving Leftovers Tennessee, Moon, Countdown, Christmas, Women’s Names Hair, Musical Instruments, Luck, Tears, Laughter Heart, Shoes, Color, Texas, Trains Fools, New York, Death & Taxes, Spring Cleaning, Hello Youth & Age, Days of the Week, California, Classic Rock, Cadillac Head to Toe, Smokin’, Dreams, Party, Countdown One, Walkin’, Around the World, Lock & Key, Mail President’s Day, Doctors, Danger, Birds, Joe Heat, Cold
Artists He Plays
Nine times: George Jones
Eight times: Tom Waits, Dinah Washington
Seven times: Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, Louis Armstrong, Van Morrison
Six times: Buddy Johnson, Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Louis Jordan, Muddy Waters, Porter Wagoner, The Rolling Stones
Five times: Anita O’Day, Buck Owens, Howlin’ Wolf, James Brown, The Stanley Brothers
Four times: Bessie Smith, Big Joe Turner, Billie Holiday, Charlie Poole, Chuck Berry, Ella Johnson, Fats Domino, Fats Waller, Irma Thomas, June Christy, Little Walter, Loretta Lynn, Los Lobos, Prince Buster, Randy Newman, Ray Charles, Slim Gaillard, Smiley Lewis, Sonny Boy Williamson II, The Beatles, The Carter Family, The Everly Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Wynonie Harris
Three times: Bo Diddley, Bobbie Womack, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Elvis Presley, Ernest Tubb, Etta James, Hank Ballard, Hank Penny, Hank Snow, Harry Nilsson, Huey “Piano” Smith, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Rodgers, Johnny Tyler, Joni Mitchell, Lefty Frizzell, Lou Reed, Memphis Slim, Merle Haggard, Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies, Otis Redding, Ricky Nelson, Roy Brown, Roy Orbison, Ruth Brown, Ry Cooder, Sam Cooke, Sir Douglas Quintet, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Clash, The Drifters, The Ink Spots, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Staples Singers, Wanda Jackson, Warren Smith, Webb Pierce, Willie Nelson
Brothers
The Allen Brothers, The Bailes Brothers, The Chambers Brothers, The Clancy Brothers, The Everly Brothers, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Lebron Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, The Maddox Brothers, The Mills Brothers, The Monroe Brothers, The Neville Brothers, The Osborne Brothers, The Stanley Brothers
Sisters
The Andrews Sisters, The Davis Sisters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sister Wynona Carr, Sister Rose
“Little” People
Little Eva, Little Johnny Taylor, Little Junior Parker, Little Millette Little Milton, Little Miss Cornshucks, Little Richard, Little Walter, Little Willie John
The Playboys
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys , Vince Taylor & The Playboys , L.C. Smith & His Southern Playboys , Jimmie Revard & His Oklahoma Playboys
The Years
—50% the songs he has played were recorded before 1960.
—Only 9% of the songs he has played were recorded in the 1980s or more recently.
Guest Commentators
Six times: Penn Jillette, Tom Waits
Five times: Billy Vera, Deke Dickerson, Elvis Costello, Richard Lewis
Three times: Jack White, Jimmy Kimmel, John C. Reilly, Luke Wilson, Marianne Faithful, Matt Groening, Peter Wolf, Ricky Gervais
Poets References
Aesop, W.H. Auden, St. Basil, Bertolt Brecht, Gwendolyn Brooks Charles Bukowski, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Gregory Corso, Stephen Crane e.e. cummings, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, Ted Hughes, C.S. Lewis Christopher Marlowe, Sylvia Plath, Alexander Pope, Rainer Maria Rilke Anne Sexton, Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein, Jonathan Swift Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats
Authors Referenced
Cervantes, Anton Chekhov, Herman Hesse, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, Marcel Proust, Edgar Allan Poe
Playwrights Referenced
Molière, George Bernard Shaw
Movies Referenced
As Good As It Gets, An Affair to Remember, The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Barfly, Blow, Blue Hawaii, Blue Velvet, Bonnie & Clyde
Casablanca, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case
Chinatown, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Coffee and Cigarettes
Cool Hand Luke, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, For a Few Dollars More
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Godfather, It’s a Wonderful Life
Life of Brian, The Maltese Falcon, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
The Lost Weekend, The Night of the Hunter, Night Train, Paper Moon
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, The Player, Raising Arizona, Rock & Roll High School
Rocky III, Runaway Train, The Shawshank Redemption, Sleeping Beauty
Snow White, Spinal Tap, Strangers on a Train, Streetcar Named Desire
Sweet Smell of Success, Taxi Driver, The Ten Commandments, The 39 Steps
The Wild Bunch
Television Shows Referenced
The Beverly Hillbillies, Chico and the Man, The Ed Sullivan Show
Hee Haw, Josie and the Pussycats, The Honeymooners
Leave it to Beaver, Lil’ Abner, Welcome Back Kotter
Sanford and Son, Roots, 60 Minutes
The Simpsons, The Sopranos, The Tonight Show, The Wire
History Lessons From Bob
Famous Electric Chairs (e.g. Old Sparky and Gruesome Gerty)
Famous People Who Were Cheerleaders (e.g. Ann Margaret, George W. Bush)
Famous People Who Were Valedictorians (e.g. Cindy Crawford, William Rehnquist, Weird Al – “I wonder if William Rehnquist gave the same type of speech as Weird Al. Somehow I doubt it.”)
Famous People Who Had Burials At Sea (e.g. Steve McQueen, Ingrid Bergman, Vincent Price, Jerry Garcia)
History of the Wobblies, the U.S. labor organization
People Who Died While Playing Cards (e.g. Wild Bill Hickok, Al Jolson, Buster Keaton, the gangster Arnold Rothstein)
Famous People Who Drove Cadillacs (e.g. Pope Pius XII, Teddy Roosevelt, Bill Clinton)
History of Constantinople
Useful Tips
How to Hang Dry Wall
What to Pack When You’re Traveling
How to Walk Like A Runway Model
How to Give Yourself Dreadlocks
One-Liners
“Hope all you listeners won’t accuse me of cronyism just because I occasionally play records by people I know.”
“The distinctive voice of Aaron Neville. A lot of people think we sing the same.”
Re: Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code—“I’m not ashamed to say that I live my life according to that code. Quite a man, that Gene Autry.”
“Fred Astaire, the smoothest dancer known to man.”
Re: Berna Dean—“Here’s a woman who sure doesn’t sound like she sleeps alone.”
“John Lee….one of those guys that always sounds better without a band. Thirteen bars here, eleven bars there, nine there. Doesn’t matter to him. Nobody can do more with less than John Lee Hooker.”
Re: Endless Sleep – “This next song is not for the faint of heart.”
Re: Johnny Hicks – “A man who sounds like he’s got a smile in his voice.”
“America is certainly the great melting pot. Where else could someone like Slim Gaillard sing a tribute to matzoh balls and gefilte fish? It’s the kind of thing that makes me proud to be an American. Sing it, Slim.”
“It’s a quarter of a million miles from earth to the moon, and there’s no one I’d rather go with than Dinah Washington.”
Re: Six Pack to Go – “One of the great beer drinking songs of all time.”
Re: Leadbelly – “One of the few ex-cons who recorded a popular children’s album.”
“A lot of people who play one kind won’t play with people who play another kind, but me personally, I never understood any kind of border patrol when it comes to music.”
“Some people call Bob [Seger] the poor man’s Bruce Springsteen, but personally, I always thought Bruce was the rich man’s Bob Seger. Love ‘em both, though.”
Re: Red Headed Woman – “Boy, you hear a record like that, and you wish more Rockabilly bands had trumpets.”
Re: How You Gonna Get Respect—“A political statement you can dance to.”
Re: Eddy Dugash and the Ah-Ha Playboys: “Sometimes you just play a record because you like the name of the band. I love the name of this band, but I also love the record.”
“Not all songs about crying are necessarily sad.”
Re: Robert Parker’s Barefootin’ – “The man who wrote the national anthem of shoelessness.”
Re: Jimmy Lewis – “He sounds as bad off as a rubber-nosed woodpecker in a petrified forest.”
“Willie Nelson’s tour bus runs on cooking oil….I’ve toured with Willie…sometimes late at night you can see us, I’m filling up my tank at the gas station and he’s filling his up at Denny’s.”
“I always liked songs with parentheses in the title.”
Re: Dinah Washington’s Manhattan – “If there every was a love song to a city, I’d say it was this one.”
Re: Prince Buster’s Taxation – “Like all great artists, he was able to turn things that bothered him into three minutes of musical pleasure. Like here.”
Re: Porter Wagoner’s Skid Row Joe – “Next up, a very sad song. A recitation. A sermon. A speechifying testification. From Porter Wagoner, telling a tale of a sad man down on his luck in the dirty part of town.”
Re: Tex William’s Brother Drop Dead – “Some people die too soon. Others, you’re kind of hoping. Tex Williams has a song for such a situation.”
Re: Sinatra singing Summer Wind—“West Coast weather is the weather of catastrophe. The Santa Ana winds are like the winds of the apocalypse. But the summer wind that Frank’s singing about may be a little lighter. Come on in, Frank.”
Re: Charles Aznavour—“The Frank Sinatra of France…sings in six languages – French, English, Italian. He’s written over a thousand songs…I only know about half of them.”
Re: Memphis Minnie—“Me and My Chauffeur Blues. One of the great blues songs of all time, one of the great car songs of all time, one of the great chauffeur songs of all time, sung by one the great old ladies of all time - Memphis Minnie.”
Re: Joni Mitchell—“Joni and I go back a long ways. Not all the way back, but pretty far. I’ve been in a car with Joni. Joni was driving a Lincoln. Excellent driver. I felt safe.”
Re: Howlin’ Wolf—“This next song is entirely without flaw and meets all the supreme standards of excellence.”
Re: Hank Williams—“One of the greatest songwriters who ever lived was Hank Williams, of course. Hank could be headstrong and willful, a backslider and a reprobate, no stranger to bad deeds. However, underneath all of that, he was compassionate and moralistic.”
Deep Thoughts
“I don’t trust a man who doesn’t tear up a little watching Old Yeller.”
“All of our shows are for truckers, if not about truckers.”
“They say the earth’s warmin’ up. Be careful of that global warming, and wear your sunscreen.”
“Music City USA – one of the only places where a banjo player can make a six figure income.”
“You know, every shut-eye ain’t sleep. Sometimes you’re sleeping in the ground, taking a dirt nap, saying the big Goodbye.”
“The Harmonica is the world’s best-selling musical instrument. You’re welcome.”
“Sometimes when you look at a menu, it’s hard to decide what to get. Life is like that, full of difficult choices.”
“Lipstick traces on cigarettes can get you in trouble or remind you of the wonders of the night before.”
“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me…as opposed to when you grow up and you learn that…the pen is mightier than the sword. The world is fill of little contradictions like that.”
“I leave you with the words of Benjamin Franklin. ‘He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.’ Thank you, Ben. Peace out.”
Bad Jokes
“My friend’s wife is a really bad cook. I broke a tooth on her coffee.”
“I once had a friend who said liquor will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no liquor.”
“A giraffe can go a long time without water. But he wants to see a menu right away.”
“I gave a bald-headed friend a comb. You know what he said? ‘I’ll never part with it.’”
“I don’t condone [blonde] jokes. I just repeat them in the public interest.”
“I want everybody to go out and paint their cars red and white tonight. We want a PINK CAR NATION.”
Recipes
Mint Julep Four mint sprigs 3 oz of bourbon 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar 1 tablespoon water Put the mint leaves, powdered sugar and water in a Collins glass. Fill the glass with shaved or crushed ice and then add bourbon. Top that off with more ice. I like to garnish mine with a mint sprig. Serve it with a straw. Two or three of those and anything sounds good!
Rum and Coca-Cola Let me give you my recipe for a rum and Coca-Cola. Take a tall glass, put some ice in it, two fingers of Bombay rum, and a bottle of Coca-Cola. Shake it up well and go drink it in the sunshine!
BBQ 1 cup tomato sauce 1 cup vinegar 5 tablespoons Worcestershire 1 tablespoon butter ?? small onion dash black pepper cayenne pepper 1 ?? teaspoons salt half cup water Mix it all together in a large pan. Bring it to a quick boil. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes. You can also figure out your own secret ingredient and dump it to the mix. I like about three fingers of Tennessee sipping whiskey.
Figgy Pudding 4 oz of plain flour a pinch of salt 4 oz bread crumbs 4 oz shredded suet 1 teaspoon mixed spice 1 teaspoon baking powder 3 oz dark soft brown sugar 8 oz chopped dried figs finely grated rind & the juice of one lemon 2 tablespoon milk 2 beaten eggs “Sift salt and flour together, then mix with all the remaining dry ingredients. Add the figs, lemon rind and juice, milk and beaten eggs. Beat them well. The mixture should have a soft dropping consistency. Put into a greased two-pint pudding basin, cover securely, and steam for three hours. I like it served with heated golden syrup topping, and a generous pour of custard. Makes me hungry just talking about it. My engineer Tex Carbone likes vanilla ice cream on it. I don’t understand that at all.”
The Perfect Meatball 3 minced cloves garlic ?? cup vegetable oil (for frying) 1 pound ground meat (equal parts beef, pork, veal) ?? cup grated Parmesan cheese 9 Saltine crackers, finely crushed ?? teaspoon salt black pepper oregano dried basil 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley ?? cup water 1 egg 1 teaspoon tomato paste “Heat the oil over a low heat in a large Dutch oven. In a big bowl, add the meat, garlic, cheese, crackers, and spices. Mix lightly with your fingers. Don’t be shy—get into it. In a small bowl, whisk the water, the egg, and the tomato paste. Add the egg mixture to the meat mixture. Mix it lightly with your fingers. Form it into drum shapes, or balls. Cook in batches, over medium high heat, until its browned on both sides. That will be about five minutes total. Serve ‘em up with some potatoes, or some spaghetti, or just make a sandwich out of them. You're gonna love 'em."
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My favorite thing about October is the scares. Sometimes we get some good ones in theaters ("Paranormal Activity), sometimes some bad ("Saw (Insert Any Number Here)"). But with the invention of this crazy "internet" thing, there are plenty of scary videos out there free of charge. So if you dare to become that person jumping out of your chair at the office, or watching 3 minutes of terror in the privacy of your own home - here are my picks for the Top 10 Scariest Videos on the Internet. We start with #10....
10. Ghost on the Staircase
This ghosthunter does his best to summon something hiding out on his staircase. He calls her "Carrie," but does she answer? You be the judge!
All you want to do is cut the grass, but you have to worry about "them" showing up again.
8. Japanese Girl in the Mirror
Leave it to the Japanese, but they seem to know how to execute a good scare. Watch the mirror closely, no doubt it's fake, but well played at least.
7. Hide and Seek - FROM THE GRAVE!
This father records himself playing hide and seek with his daughter. This is strange enough...until he finds that there might be a third playing with them. A third - FROM THE GRAVE!
6. The Crying Ghost
The "Father of the Year" from the previous clip comes back for more. Too bad his daughter is nowhere to be found. This time he hears something creepy coming from the hallway. I'm sure his interior monologue went something like this:
"I tell you what. I'm not sure what that thing is, but let me fire up this video camera and go check it out!"
5. Ghost Car Police Chase
This is a great video. Police are in hot pursuit of a driver on the run, when suddenly, he's gone.
Seeing errors, or visual errors, express themselves by the misinterpretation of some characters. The capital "I" (i) is for many font types similar to the lower "l" (L). E.g. with the Arial font type they are equal. Analogously there is a visual problem with lapsed printer ink. When the "r" and "n" characters are too close to each other, they look like a single "m". And of course the same applies for the other way around.
On a stage in a spacious Las Vegas banquet hall sits a nervous-looking, dark-haired Danish woman named Connie Sonne. The 46-year-old retired police officer made a name for herself as a psychic in Europe by claiming she knew the whereabouts of famous missing British toddler Madeleine McCann. Sonne also says she can read playing cards through sealed envelopes using only a crystal. If she can successfully demonstrate her skills in this controlled experiment at the South Point Hotel Casino and Spa, she'll receive $1 million.
A broad-shouldered security guard enters, dressed in a standard-issue black polyester uniform. He walks toward the stage, carrying the precious cargo he's been hired to protect: a large manila envelope sealed with duct tape.
The 700 people in the audience — famous magicians, television personalities, mind readers, scientists, and garden-variety nerds — sit in silence, their eyes fixed on the package. The guard passes VIPs: magicians Penn and Teller, astronomer Phil Plait, psychologist Dr. Ray Hyman — and there, at the end of the first row, with a bald head and a beard as long and white as Darwin's, sits James Randi. For more than 60 years, "The Amazing Randi" has been performing magic, debunking psychics, and discussing the perils of all things paranormal. Now 81, he heads the Fort Lauderdale–based James Randi Educational Foundation.
Across from Sonne on the stage is a magician named Banachek. Back in 1980, with help from Randi, he tricked scientists at Washington University's now-defunct McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research in St. Louis into believing he had supernatural powers. He later admitted he had performed an elaborate hoax. Today, Banachek is administering Sonne's test.
The security guard hands the envelope to Banachek. Inside is a 10-sided die and four smaller envelopes. Banachek cuts one open and removes 10 more envelopes. Inside each one is a playing card. Sonne rolls the die. It stops on three. She now must find the envelope containing the three of hearts, plus two other cards. If she can, the money is hers.
Sonne glances at the audience, then back at the envelopes spread before her. With her right hand, she dangles her crystal amulet over the table.
For four minutes, the room is motionless. Sonne's dowsing charm sways like a pendulum over the envelopes. No one speaks — nobody wants to be Sonne's excuse if she later says she was too distracted. Randi watches closely, his bushy eyebrows cocked. It's his foundation's million bucks on the line.
Randi has debunked more than 100 psychics and faith healers in a quest to rid the world of hucksters. It also makes him the subject of scorn among purveyors of the paranormal, true believers who say Randi has made himself rich, pulling in nearly $200,000 a year from his foundation, at the expense of others' careers.
Now, however, Randi's work may be in jeopardy. His foundation has been hemorrhaging money, and Randi, who has spent his career challenging the notion of an afterlife, now faces his own mortality. He has intestinal cancer and may not have long to live. He has been a commanding presence for four decades, but it's unclear who could fill his role as the face of the skeptic community.
Randi still has a loyal group of followers, though, who revere him like a religious leader. Many of them come to Las Vegas every year for his conference, the Amazing Meeting. This July, the weekend of critical thinking culminated in Sonne's dowsing demonstration — the first public attempt at the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.
When Sonne indicates she has found the three of hearts, Banachek writes "3" on the sealed envelope. She rolls the die twice more, then searches for a seven and an ace. For the final card, the awkward silence lasts nearly five tedious minutes before Sonne chooses the envelope farthest to the left.
After nearly 20 minutes, it's time to see how she fared. Banachek asks her to cut open the envelope marked "3." She does, and Banachek peeks inside.
The James Randi Foundation put together its first skeptics' conference in 2003. That first year in Fort Lauderdale, the event drew just 150 attendees. In the years since, it has grown to become the largest gathering of critical thinkers, doubters, heretics, and nonbelievers in the world. More than 1,100 conferees paid about $300 each for admission this year. They come to hear some of the most famous voices in critical thinking — Adam Savage, San Francisco–based cohost of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters; Bill Prady, cocreator of CBS' The Big Bang Theory — and to discuss Randi's favorite topic, skeptical inquiry, a discipline devoted to debunking psychics, faith healers, con artists, and ghost whisperers through the holy miracle of old-fashioned science.
The Amazing Meeting attendees are mostly white males with glasses, facial hair, and a healthy appreciation of physics and Monty Python. They come from as far away as Australia and Japan. There are college students, bloggers, and rambunctious computer scientists. In the halls of the conference, they banter about the psychological phenomenon known as "the ideomotor effect," the pseudoscience behind the instant sommelier (a contraption that can supposedly age wine to perfection in 30 minutes), and — a favorite conversation topic — getting wasted at the hotel bar.
The highlight of the weekend for most of the skeptics here is the chance to meet the man dubbed "The King of Debunking." Randi is a 5-foot-5 command performance, with his characteristic white beard and brow, and penchant for zingers. On each morning of the conference, Randi arrives at the main lecture hall in a wheelchair. A slow-moving pack of swooning disciples gathers around him. Pictures are taken. Hands are shaken. A little girl asks him to sign her straitjacket. A booth sells little James Randi dolls with glasses, bushy white beards, and tiny handcuffs. Some conferees come with questions they've been dying to ask for years ("Mr. Randi, when you flew in upside down over Japan, did you have any plan in the event of an autorotation ditch?"). But most want to give thanks to the man who got them sober to the ways of the world: "Hi, I saw you speak in Toronto, and you changed my life." "You let me know it was okay to question my own beliefs."
Magician Penn Jillette and his usually quiet partner, Teller, have known Randi for nearly 35 years. "Make no mistake," Teller says. "Randi is the reason everybody's here." Regulars at the Amazing Meeting, Penn and Teller often cite Randi during their nightly show at the Rio and on their Showtime show, Bullshit! "He means everything to us," Penn says. "It's hard to think of something he doesn't influence that we do. There certainly wouldn't be a Penn and Teller as it is now if not for Randi."
Penn puts Randi in the same category as innovators like Bob Dylan and Pablo Picasso — people who moved the world through their life's work. Penn first visited Randi's house in New Jersey in 1975, which gave him an idea of how he wanted to live his life: "The door opened the wrong way, and there were talking birds and Alice Cooper heads," he says. "It was, for me, the first sense that you could be artistically crazy and flamboyant and still grounded in reality."
Randi's debunking work over the past 40 years has earned him fame, powerful friendships, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, and a spot on Esquire's 1997 list as one of the 100 Best People in the World.
Hard-core skeptics see their work as a moral imperative. Randi points to the millions wasted every year on astrology or phony faith healers and psychics who profit from people in pain. "Someone who lies to strangers for money is just as amoral as someone who robs a 7-Eleven," Penn tells the audience at one point.
The emotional tolls of charlatanism are as real as the financial ones: In 2003, on TheMontel Williams Show, psychic Sylvia Browne — who charges upward of $700 for personal sessions — told the parents of missing 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck that the boy was "no longer with us" and that his body would be found in "a wooded area." The news devastated his family, until four years later, when Shawn was discovered alive, living in an apartment with his kidnapper. Randi has confronted Browne on several talk shows. On Larry King Live in 2001, she agreed to take his challenge, but Randi is still waiting for her to show up.
Randi wasn't the first to dream up a financial reward for anybody who could prove his or her paranormal skills. Harry Houdini offered $10,000 of his own money in 1923 to any psychic who could prove that his or her gifts were genuine. The master magician said he felt compelled to draw a distinction between entertainers and criminally minded grifters preying upon a gullible public. "It takes a flim-flammer to catch a flim-flammer," he used to say. Nobody passed the challenge.
Following Houdini's model, Randi started offering his own money in 1964 for proof of supernatural powers. First the reward was $1,000, then $10,000. One of his friends, Internet pioneer Rick Adams, put up $1 million in 1996. That nobody has won the challenge in 40 years doesn't stop a regular stream of applicants: a woman who claimed to cry tears of glass, the man who said he could detect buried water with two bent coat hangers, the woman who could supposedly make strangers urinate using only the power of her mind.
"I never claim they don't have these powers," Randi says. "I just say there is no evidence to support these claims. I say, 'If it's so, I'll give you a million dollars.' That's a pretty big carrot."
It's unclear how long the foundation would survive or who would carry on the challenge if he can't beat his cancer. On the first morning of the conference, Randi, looking more slouched and frail than most of his fans have seen him, rises slowly from his wheelchair and walks up the steps of the stage. He tells the dedicated faces peering back at him about his coming chemotherapy. Two weeks earlier, doctors had removed a Ping-Pong-ball–sized tumor from his intestines.
"We'll fight it," he reassures the audience, though many can't fight back tears. "And we'll beat this. We still have a lot of work to do."
Randi's voice is scratchy and strained from the tubes down his throat during the surgery. Hangover from the anesthesia has left occasional blurry spots in his otherwise remarkable memory. The procedure left him weak, begrudgingly confined most of the time to his wheelchair. "It's not a matter of pride," he explains. "It's a matter of the impression you make on people. You want to appear to be empowered. It's the show business in me."
When Randi was 15, he heard of a preacher in his hometown of Toronto who claimed he could read minds. Randi had been reading every book he could find on magic and illusions, so he thought he could figure out what trick the preacher was using on his flock.
One Sunday morning, Randi watched the preacher set up a classic "one ahead" scam, using information obtained ahead of time to trick the crowd into believing he could read minds. Randi took the stage as he imagined his hero Houdini might have done and preached to the congregation about being duped, explaining the trick. He was immediately run out of the church.
Dissidence would become a regular reaction to Randi, who was born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge in 1928. He describes himself as a quick learner but a bit of a rabble-rouser — he was once kicked out of his Sunday school class for heresy.
When he was 12, he stumbled into a matinee performance by famed magician Harry Blackstone Sr., who made a woman float in the air just feet from the stunned boy. "That got me," Randi says. "That grabbed me, and it never let go. It's still got a hold of my head right now."
A year after the church incident, Randi was in a bicycle accident that left him in a full-body cast for 13 months. Randi figured that even confined to the cast, he could still perform at nightclubs as a mentalist. "In those days, they were paying me $70 a week," he says. "Now that was a lot of Canadian dollars, I can tell you." He decided he would make it clear at the end of every show that he was simply using illusions. But he was disturbed when audience members would insist he had paranormal powers — ironically ignoring the only bit of truth he'd spat out all night. People seemed to want to believe in the supernatural.
Before he graduated high school, Randi left town with the carnival, performing as "Prince Ibis." At age 22, he pulled off a highly publicized escape from a Quebec City jail cell, a trick Houdini used to perform. A local newspaper dubbed him "L'étonnant Randi" — the Amazing Randi, "with an i at the end," he says, "like Houdini." For three decades, Randi toured the world by train, plane, and ship, headlining marquees from the Deep South to the Far East. He was bound in straitjackets and dangled over waterfalls; buried alive; and handcuffed and locked in an oversized milk jug.
But Randi could never shake the need to educate the naive. Working at nightclubs in East Asia, he learned new con-man techniques, and when he came back, he had a bug for debunking. In the 1960s, he hosted a radio show in New York in which he would, among other things, argue with astrologers ("Complete woo-woo," he recalls) and confront chiropractors ("Three chiropractors, three completely different diagnoses").
The height of his fame came when Johnny Carson invited him onto TheTonight Show. Carson had him back 37 times, and the two became good friends. "Johnny was a very skilled magician, very accomplished," Randi says.
Living in northern New Jersey, Randi befriended other great American thinkers, including astronomer Carl Sagan and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Randi and Asimov would sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes together deep into the night. "He had such a wonderful voice," Randi remembers. Randi and Sagan would discuss their shared love of astronomy; Sagan helped name a comet after Randi.
Randi even played himself on an episode of Happy Days — he levitates Mrs. Cunningham, and in the final shot, he steals Fonzie's patented "Ehhh." At one point, Randi toured with Alice Cooper, cutting off the rock god's head with a trick guillotine at the end of every show.
In the '70s, Americans developed a new fascination with all things paranormal — crystals, Tarot cards, astrology parties. Randi found the trends disturbing; he was particularly irked by a young Israeli named Uri Geller, who said he could bend spoons with his mind and read the thoughts of strangers. Geller appeared on countless television shows and was featured in magazines in dozens of languages.
The degree to which people took Geller seriously bothered Randi. Reputable scientists from several labs studied "the Geller effect," how brainwaves affect pliable metal. Those scientists no longer discuss those experiments. In 1987, Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invited Geller to the floor of Congress to send positive brain waves to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The senator and the psychic later claimed at least partial success.
Randi tried to spread the message that Geller's techniques were simple charlatan tricks, old Israeli shtick masked by a trustworthy voice and a warm smile. Randi performed Geller's tricks himself for Barbara Walters. He arranged for Johnny Carson's staff to foil Geller on TheTonight Show. "I'm just feeling very weak tonight," Geller explained to Carson when he couldn't perform anything supernatural.
In 1975, Randi published his first book, The Magic of Uri Geller, later retitled The Truth About Uri Geller. A series of lawsuits and countersuits between Randi and Geller ensued. Geller won a suit against Randi in a Japanese court, claiming Randi had defamed him, but the judge awarded Geller 500,000 yen, or just $2,000. Randi boasts that he has never paid a dime to anyone who has sued him.
"Randi is my best unpaid publicist," Geller says in a phone call from his home in London. "If I had to get a calculator and see how much a high-priced Madison Avenue entertainment publicist would cost, I'd have to say that I got around $10 million worth of free publicity from skeptics."
Geller speaks with an old-world show-business charisma not unlike Randi's. Under other circumstances, the two might have even become friends, but to Randi, Geller has crossed an ethical line — he never came clean about his tricks.
Geller doesn't see it that way. "Without the skeptics, I wouldn't be Uri Geller," he says. "They made me. They created me. They kept the aura, the legend, the mystery, the mysticism around Uri Geller. I owe them bouquets of flowers for keeping my career alive. If they wanted to finish me off over three decades ago, all they had to do is not talk about me. They should have shut up."
Randi, of course, has offered to test Geller and to give him $1 million if he can prove his claims. But Geller has always declined, saying anything that would quiet skeptics — and by extension make him less controversial — would hurt his career. "If someone wants to stay in the business of being a psychic," he says, "they should simply ignore the skeptics."
Enticed by the warm weather, Randi moved to Florida in 1985, two years before he became a U.S. citizen. He wanted an organization of his own from which he could launch his lengthy investigations of paranormal claims. He established the nonprofit James Randi Educational Foundation in 1996 out of a split-level white Fort Lauderdale building with Spanish tile, stained glass over the entrance, and peacocks frolicking in the yard. Images of flying pigs hang on the walls next to old posters, magazine clips, and a letter from Johnny Carson (it accompanied a $100,000 donation). In Randi's Isaac Asimov Library are shelves of books on all things paranormal, from phrenology to faith healing, and a portrait of the writer friend for whom the room is named.
The truth is, Randi's obsessions with incredulity and prestidigitation flowered from the same seed. He has always delighted in watching the stunned faces of audiences as he makes them believe — perhaps only for a moment — that they've witnessed something impossible. At lunch, for instance, he makes the salt shaker vanish under a napkin, and when his tablemates finish applauding, he says, "Yes, yes, great dinner entertainment, horrible table manners. Now, has anyone seen the salt?" He gets the same giddy satisfaction making the careers of psychics disappear.
But even before his cancer diagnosis, Randi had faced recent challenges. Like many nonprofits, his foundation has taken a severe financial hit. It is funded through sales of books and DVDs, grants, conferences, donations from wealthy friends, and Randi's speaking engagements, which command as much as $30,000.
According to tax records, Randi's organization lost nearly a quarter of its $2 million overall worth last year. (The $1 million for the challenge is held in a separate, Goldman Sachs account.) Randi takes an annual salary of about $200,000, which he justifies by saying that it's in line with what he was making as an entertainer and hasn't been adjusted much in the 13 years since the foundation was started.
Critics of Randi — and he admits that there are hundreds who write to him every month — call him the charlatan. "Mr. Randi, admit you're a fraud, that your offer's a fraud," demanded Greg Price, a Minnesota man who claimed he could dowse, in a video he sent to Randi. "Your foundation should be disbanded immediately!"
In the 40 years since Randi has been putting up money to test paranormal ability, nobody has made it past the initial testing stage. The vast majority of failed or debunked applicants complain that Randi surreptitiously affects the outcome in his favor. He has been accused of both having paranormal powers and of violating the showbiz brotherhood by trying to expose a lack of paranormal powers in others.
He has also been accused of having inappropriate relationships with his apprentices. The accusation went public on an episode of Oprah in which Randi was asked to debunk psychics. One of the psychics accused him of improper relationships with young boys. Randi denies the allegations: "She was referring, of course, to my apprentices," he says. "I've had many fantastic apprentices over the years."
Those closest to Randi are fiercely loyal. His longtime companion, Jose Alvarez, met Randi 20 years ago, not long after Alvarez was involved in a cult. "Randi showed me that reality — the real world — has a very special kind of beauty," says Jose, now 41.
The other frequent criticism of Randi is that he's just wrong. Like many of the psychics Randi encounters, Geller says reality is composed of paranormal events every day, though science can't yet understand or quantify it. Geller contends that everyone, Randi included, has some psychic powers. "It's simply not developed in everyone," Geller says. "We all have a sixth sense, because we are animals. It's a part of our chromosome buildup. It's a part of our DNA. There are too many synchronicities in your life to ignore it as coincidence."
The critical-thinking movement is all about examining explanations of the paranormal from multiple angles, questioning the accepted reasoning. That's also why the movement is made up mostly of atheists. "Religion is the biggest scam of them all," Randi says. "You go into the voting booth, and you're going to depend on a spirit in the sky — some old guy with a beard, a jealous, vindictive, very-uncertain-of-himself, provocative, angry god? No, I don't think that should be your driving force."
Geller says, "Most people are believers. Most people are religious. Most people want to believe there's a creator. Most people want to believe in spirituality. Most people want to believe there is something out there. Seven billion people can't be wrong. Whether you call it a god or Buddha or religion, there is some kind of spirituality out there. The skeptics are a tiny, tiny minority. They're insignificant. They are molecular nothings."
To illustrate how easily spiritual leaders can garner followers, Randi and Alvarez, a visual artist, perpetuated a hoax on Australian national TV in 1988. Alvarez pretended his body was inhabited by "Carlos," a 1,500-year-old fortune-teller. Within days, he had thousands of followers. "It was just so easy," he says. "It's sad and remarkable."
During most of the Amazing Meeting in July, Alvarez pushes Randi in his wheelchair around the expansive Las Vegas resort. Some days, Randi feels great. Some days, he can't lift the phone. Doctors have put his five-year prognosis at 50-50. Medical science, though, is the one thing this old skeptic actually has faith in. Two weeks after the conference, Randi will start a regular routine of chemotherapy. He will lose the soft white hair around his head; his bushy, expressive eyebrows; and the beard he hasn't shaved in more than 25 years. "That's fine," he says. "Growing hair is something I'm good at."
Still, the cancer hasn't changed his views on death: "One day, I'm gonna die. That's all there is to it," he says matter-of-factly. "Hey, it's too bad, but I've got to make room. I'm using a lot of oxygen and such — I think it's good use of oxygen myself, but of course, I'm a little prejudiced on the matter."
Up in his hotel room at the conference, he's asked about whether nearing death will make him recant his lifelong atheism. "I've been wrong about things in the past," he says, "but not anything this big."
It's the skeptics' willingness to say "I don't know" that makes them a mostly libertarian bunch. "We don't trust anything or anyone," a science teacher from Texas explains, "least of all the government."
Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., says Randi has been a prominent promoter of reason and scientific method. "Part of his legacy will be the resurgence in atheism and all the debunking he's done, but one of his greatest achievements has been the reassertion of one objective truth," he says. "So many of those influenced by him just want to debunk for the sake of debunking, but Randi is better. He is a defender of the truth."
When Randi does go over to the great big nothing, it's unclear what will become of his foundation or the million-dollar challenge. The foundation's board of directors recently installed astronomer Plait as president. But Randi is the face of the organization, and he knows that fundraising and organizing conferences could suffer if he isn't there to put his name on the place.
Things are still bright, though. On the second morning of the conference, two skeptics get married onstage. The bride, Rebecca Watson of Boston, and the groom, Sid Rodriguez of London, met in Las Vegas at the Amazing Meeting three years ago. MythBusters' Savage is the ring bearer. After the wedding cake is cut, in front of 1,000 or so of the most dedicated atheists on Earth, the lucky couple takes to the floor for their first dance — to a cover of the Beach Boys' hit "God Only Knows." Everyone in the room giggles at the ironic refrain. For the last two lines, the lyrics are changed to "Randi only knows what I'd be without you ..."
Back in the dark banquet hall, everyone is ready for the results of Connie Sonne's dowsing test.
"This has to be a three," Banachek reminds the room. He flexes the envelope and pours out the playing card.
Sonne takes a deep breath.
"Connie, that is a two. You've failed."
To be thorough, Banachek asks the failed dowser to cut open the other two envelopes she picked. Both were wrong. Then Sonne cuts open the remaining envelopes to prove that all the cards are present.
By the time she's finished, the patient audience has grown restless.
After the test, in the hallway, Sonne says that, although she failed today, nothing would make her believe she doesn't have psychic powers. "I just know," she repeats. Then she says the voices she hears have simply chosen another time to unveil her skills to the world. "They haven't allowed it today. But you wait. You remember me. You will see."
Outside the banquet room, Randi feigns relief, giving his brow an exaggerated, sarcastic wipe. "Thank God the money is safe."
He says that people who lose the challenge all react the same way: "Without fail, they always have an excuse for why they couldn't do what they claimed they could."
Sure enough, once Sonne returns to Denmark, she claims Banachek had used sleight-of-hand to move the cards and protect the money.
After the test, most of the attendees head to the airport or begin long road trips home. A few skeptics linger at the bar. "The TAM parties are something of a legend," a tall, pale, bearded conferee from Seattle confesses after his third vodka, between a string of Simpsons quotes. (Asked for his name, he spits out two that end up not being his.) "Skeptics understand the chemistry of inebriation. And we're good people to have deep, meaningful conversations with. All the people here are based in reality. That's really refreshing." To punctuate his sentiments, he stands up: "Who wants another round?"
Although the future is up in the air for the Amazing Randi, what keeps him going are the men and women who approach him every day with stories of their skeptical conversions. "That means I've changed someone's life," he says. "I get emotional. I say to myself, 'Damn! That's why I'm in business.' The people here, they're going to follow me. The movement's going to go on."
Randi jokes that after he passes, his fans need not bother with grandiose gestures like establishing a museum of magic or burying him in an elaborate tomb. He has something more Amazing in mind. "I want to be cremated," he says with his signature dry, knowing charm. "And I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes."
