E-Mail This Article to a Friend Penn on paper (continued)

Q: You’ve been doing Penn & Teller shows for 30 years now. Why do you think it’s managed to stick around so long? What keeps audiences coming?

A: I don’t know. The reason that’s a really hard question is that we’re more successful than we planned on being, which is an odd thing to be in show business. I mean, Madonna sincerely believes she should be more famous. Elvis was really bothered by the fact that there were aboriginal tribes that hadn’t heard of him. [Howard] Stern just can’t understand why there are radio stations that play anything but him. Teller and I really set out to do theater shows for about 200 to 300 people. And we were successful in that for a good while. We kind of thought that our stuff was odd enough that that’s the number we’d go for. We could support ourselves and live on that. It turns out that about 2000 people a night want to see Penn & Teller, in the country. And I totally attribute that to the large population in the US. You can now have a [radio] station for Catholic gay fishermen. There are enough of us. A hundred years ago, you had to appeal to damn close to two or three percent of the population before you could earn a living in show business. I mean, when you look at Tom Paine or Mark Twain or any of the other ones that rhyme, they were getting a big portion of the country in order to be successful. Now we’re getting to the point that if you can really please a tenth of a percent of this population, you’re doing well. You can really keep going.

When people come out of our show, one of the things I think is that they really — even the people who disagree with us intensely — seem to think it’s important that people tell the truth as they see it. And I know for me, I can listen to gospel music, I can read stuff that’s very different from my point of view, if I believe that it’s not in any way cynical, that the person is not going, "What’s the next thing I can put in here that’ll really sell?" People seem to think that there is no doubt that we are saying stuff that we believe. It’s what I require. A lot of times people will ask the question about Penn & Teller, "Do you ever spend time saying, ‘Well, how are we going to top ourselves on our next appearance?’ Don’t you feel you have to keep ratcheting it up?" And that question is a deep misunderstanding, because we’re really trying to do cool stuff that means a lot to us.

I think that once I’ve said all that about integrity, I really need to say the other side, which is that we do really good tricks. It’s so tempting to say that it’s the fact that we’re speaking from our hearts and don’t compromise and stuff like that, but I’m afraid that it may be that I palm stuff really good with my left hand.

Q: I read that you’re a Cato Institute Research Fellow.

A: Yeah. I don’t even know exactly what that means. I think it means I get a 10 percent discount at the bookstore or something.

Q: How’d you end up a fellow?

A: Well, I’m a real total-freedom nut, a libertarian, and I’m one of those crazy optimists. You get this personality type of incredible Pollyanna, dip-shit optimism that just kind of turns out this atheist libertarian who thinks, let people do what they want and everything will be okay. I think, really, the percentage of people on the planet that are actually bad is so small, you don’t even have to consider them. Throw your car keys to everyone; you’re pretty much going to be okay. People just really treat other people, I think, really, really well, and always have, and are getting better all the time. Our crime rates are going down and so on. So I would read the Cato Institute stuff, which I think is the best, and then I started doing some writing for that, and then I started speaking for them. It’s kind of a tautology: why is Penn Jillette speaking at your Cato thing? Well, because he’s a scholar here. And why is he a scholar here? Well, because he speaks here pretty often. I think they just put that [title] on me to shut people up as to why the fuck’s he here. It just answers that question easily.

Q: You have a program, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, on Showtime. Do you ever get HBO envy?

A: The fact that Penn & Teller have a show that’s on any TV network at all, the fact that it even be local fucking cable, that we have a show that is 100 percent debunking, that is really pro-science and pro-truth, on TV, is so fucking astounding! The fact that we have a few million people that watch the show is enough for me to build statues. I mean, that’s fucking amazing. What do you expect, The Sopranos or those kinds of shows? They are really appealing to a broad market, and they’re working hard on appealing to a broad market. I mean, Bullshit is just two retards — with a crew of about six other people that are writing and putting it together — who are really doing stuff that is absolutely hard-core, try to tell the truth as we see it. If you look at any of the cynics talking about stuff, they’ll tell you that nobody can get by doing that. I know it’s only a Showtime show, but man, it is a Showtime show, and the DVDs just keep selling out. So I’m very, very happy. The Pollyanna optimism thing will sicken you shortly, I’m sure.

Q: Well, I have a feeling I’m going to hear more of it when I ask you: does it ever bother you that in almost everything that’s written about you, you’re referred to as "the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller"? Do you get tired of hearing that description?

A: No, it’s just true. I’m more than half of Penn & Teller by weight. Here’s the fact that you’ll want to know, that will freak out your little mind: Teller and Art Garfunkel are the same height. We just found that out. See, people don’t realize that I’m 6’6" and 270; people put me at about 6’2", and that makes Teller the little guy. Teller’s 5’10". So Teller is a perfectly normal American-male height. People say to me, "You’re taller than I thought." When people meet Teller, it’s like he’s a man mountain! They go, "Jesus Christ, I thought you were little!" But he’s out there towering over a very good percentage of our audience. You know, I don’t mind that at all. I get called "Teller" at least as often as I get called "Penn." And we’re just very happy with that.

Penn Jillette reads from Sock at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in Brookline, on July 7, at 6 p.m. Tickets are $2 and are available at the Brookline Booksmith. Call (617) 566-6660. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com