Helium Monologue
performed on 03.16.02 @ the Gershwin, among other times and places and moods...
I walk out wearing a lab coat & fake glasses, and holding up a red balloon.
Helium. One of our most useful, but also one of our least understood gases. What is helium? To most of us, it is nothing more than the substance used to inflate party balloons. But helium is so much more. Come with me now, won’t you, and together, thanks to a grant provided by the American Helium Advisory Council, we will discover the wonders of Helium, The Noblest Gas!
I release the balloon upwards, expecting it to float away – it sinks to the ground.
This particular balloon is not filled with helium. Let’s move on.
The year is 1868.
Venezuela has just begun its long, tumultuous relationship with that sultry lady known as Civil War.
The good people of Japan are waking up to the dawn of the Meiji Restoration.
The United States Congress says “yay” to impeaching President Andrew Johnson, “nay” to actually removing him from office, and “Howdy, you big cowpoke, welcome to the Union” to the brand new state of Wyoming.
In a bittersweet turn of the Great Wheel of Life, the whole world celebrates the birth of Scott Joplin, the future King of Ragtime Music, and then mourns the death of David Brewster, the inventor of the kaleidoscope.
And on the dark and mysterious subcontinent known as India, French astronomer Pierre-Jules-César Janssen discovers the first evidence of a brand new element! While observing an eclipse through his telescope, he notices a heretofore undocumented yellow line in the solar spectrum. This would prove to be one of the most startling encounters with a yellow line in Pierre’s life, second only to the time just a few days earlier, when his brother, Francois, had gotten loaded up on Beaujolais and then relieved himself in the snow on Pierre’s front porch before passing out. There in the snow next to Francois’ unconscious body, in fine, yellow script it read – and I’m translating from the French here –
“My dearest brother Pierre, best of luck to you on your upcoming trip to India to study the solar eclipse. I am so proud that you have the talent and drive to pursue your lifelong passion of becoming a truly great astronomer. Do you remember the times I teased you about your dreams when we were children? I said you had stardust in your brain, and I always gave you horrible wedgies. Well, now it is I who deserves the wedgies. You are now a great man of science, whereas I am nothing but a drunkard with an extraordinarily large bladder and incredible penile dexterity. Sincerely, your devoted brother, Francois-Guy-Henri Janssen.”
And Francois did indeed have incredible penile dexterity, for there, beneath the many loops and flourishes of his signature, was a perfect, yellow rendering of the family crest. Two unicorns crossing horns in front of a shield emblazoned with a perfect map of France, detailed down to the county lines, and shaded according to each region’s population density.
Incidentally, Francois would go on to reap quite a fortune touring the globe, displaying his prodigious skills as a urinary maestro until passing away tragically from an infection that he contracted in the Amazon river, brought about by the Candiru, a very tiny species of catfish that, when sensing warm urine in the water, follows the stream up into the human urethra and then, using tiny spines on its head, lodges there, causing excruciating pain, then infection, then ultimately, death.
They called this new element helium!
Helium is colorless, odorless, tasteless, nontoxic and nonflammable, making it virtually undetectable, much like Dick Cheney. It is continually being produced in the Earth’s crust by the radioactive decay of uranium and other elements, and then gradually works its way into the atmosphere, much the way Danny Devito must gradually work his way into Rhea Perlman.
Is that a Danny Devito has a big penis joke or a Rhea Perlman is incredibly tiny joke or a Danny Devito is so ugly that Rhea Perlman is as dry as a bone joke or a Rhea Perlman is so ugly that Danny Devito can’t get it up joke? Let’s move on.
By now you may have noticed that I have an unusually high voice. It is no coincidence that the American Helium Advisory Council chose me to be their spokesman, as helium is indirectly responsible for my voice. In fact, some would say helium is directly responsible for my voice. The story of how my voice became this way is a fascinating one. I used to make my living performing as a clown at children’s parties.
Aside from the regular clown tricks such as self-ridicule and comedic tumbling, part of my act was to delight the children by sucking helium and talking in a high voice. Day after day, I inhaled deep of the cool breath of helium from the portable helium tank. I would sometimes become a bit dizzy. Sometimes my voice would stay high for a little bit longer than expected. But little did I know the harm I was setting myself up for. One day, during a little boy’s birthday party, the boy’s single mother and I hit it off over some coffee and poundcake. One thing led to another, and in a dizzy, helium haze we began consummating our passion right there on the gift table. Her son saw us, and, in a fit of Freudian rage, the six year old sliced off my testicles with my one of my own props – a pair of novelty oversized toenail clippers. As I screamed in pain and blood shot from my groin like a lawn sprinkler, the child calmly fed my manhood to the family dog, a Pomeranian named Fritzy.
Helium also plays an integral role in the process of nuclear fusion!
Well, we’ve learned a lot about helium tonight. Next time, I will tell you the story of a man with such a low voice that he needed to inhale helium on a daily basis just to be heard, otherwise his voice would be nothing more than an inaudible rumble. Despite this handicap, he would go on to be a very successful man. Yes, next time, I shall tell you all about James Earl Jones.
Good night!
Posted on August 19, 2002 |