Here’s The Thing – Penn Jillette’s Marathon Life in Magic

I’m curious. Everybody’s got a story and I want to hear it. I’ll posit your story is your life’s work, how can you convey your experiences such that a listener will get the gist of who you are, where you’re coming from, what you’re about.

Back before David Letterman turned late night into a comedy program, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett interviewed people. They didn’t have to come prepared with a funny story, they just had to answer the questions, they just had to be real, they just had to be themselves.

And this is the underbelly of the podcast revolution. Human beings are long-winded, they’ve got a lot to say, and the truth is we want to hear it. How did you get here? Are you happy? What’s the truth behind that rumor? These questions are all answered in podcasts, and right now the man doing the best job as inquisitor is Alec Baldwin.

Who knew? Short-fused actor turns out to be an intellectual, who can banter with the best of them. That’s right, asking questions is not enough, you’ve got to parse the answers, know when to go deeper. And when you’ve got a guest who’s willing, the results are stunning.

I’m not a huge fan of magic, or juggling. But I love Penn & Teller. Because they know the whole thing is a ruse, that there is no magic, that there is no channeling. They’re a constant warning to raise your level of perception, to realize this world is full of hokum and once you become a victim, you’re hopeless. And Penn goes into this, when he found out Kreskin was faking it, he became completely disillusioned. But, if it’s presented on stage, if people go home knowing you didn’t saw that woman in half and you didn’t read anybody’s mind, he’s comfortable with that.

What is Penn’s career based on?

Juggling. Takes six years to be good. That’s why the teen phenoms come and go. There’s no there there, they’ve never done the work.

And after practicing, the work Penn Jillette did was street-performing.

But not like everybody else. He wore a three thousand dollar watch, a multi-thousand dollar suit. Because his goal was to get you to put a twenty in the hat, not a quarter. Penn defined his goals and knew how to get there. And knew if you were just like everybody else, you had no chance.

What else did Penn possess?

An incredible line of b.s. That’s how you succeed in the world. Through conversation. You have to know how to open the door and then put your foot in it and keep it open, a skill most don’t have, never mind work on. “Pay attention to my stuff!” is not banter, and it doesn’t work. Penn got the drama critic of the “Philadelphia Inquirer” to come to his magic show by not only going to see him, but demonstrating his wares live, to the point the critic was intrigued. Professionals are all jaded, they’re suckers for something new and good, and only that.

And, Penn was willing to stand up for himself. That’s the difference between baby boomers and millennials. Question authority, speak truth to power, the boomers were taught by their heroes, to let their freak flags fly and be themselves. Whereas millennials are all about fitting in. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t work in a cubicle farm, busy praising everybody else’s work and eating lunch together and being nice. Winners are unique loners, like Penn. He can only be himself. And this is what draws people to him. He told the “Inquirer” critic his review was crap, that he misunderstood the show. The “Inquirer” critic then asked Penn for an interview and the right to re-review the show.

Not that every authority figure is amenable. But life is long and hard, and if you’re busy sucking up you might make it to the top of the corporation, but you’ll never make it to the top of the art heap.

At least not before. In today’s me-too world, that’s what people expect. And then “Book of Mormon” and “Hamilton” blow everybody away and clean up all the money.

As for music… If you’ve read an interesting interview with one of today’s stars you probably think the Top Ten is fantastic. But you can’t even say that, you’re castigated for being a naysayer if you decry what’s popular and laugh at what’s unpopular, like jazz and classical, whose proponents believe they got screwed instead of seeing times changed and to win today…you’ve got to be Dudamel, a man of the people who’s a great performer with his own mind.

We’re looking for individuals. Who are probably gonna make it long after they started. Overnight success is about old men propping you up, you’re just a figurehead.

But everybody says not to take a risk, to make it bite-sized, to make it palatable.

But that’s not what they do in podcasts.

I’m shocked. Positively shocked, I tell you. You mean educated people are working around the clock to make tons of money and be granted stock options all at the same time? While you revel in guaranteed delivery of quality products at a discount seemingly instantly?

Kinda reminds me of the Wal-Mart problem. You know, moving into town and hollowing out Main Street. The only problem was…people liked the discounts.

And so do you.

Oh, don’t tell me it’s a first world problem or the other rejoinder you employ to make yourself feel holier-than-thou, saying you can wait an extra day for an Amazon delivery. The truth is you like the price and convenience. Remember the pre-Amazon days, when you had no idea of the value of a product and got ripped off at your local appliance store? And are you willing to pay triple for a flat screen? If not, manufacturing ain’t coming back to America, no way.

So this is the way it works. America is split into the haves and have-nots. And the way the have-nots survive with any degree of happiness is by drinking and screwing and partying. Take away their vices and they’ve got nothing. Certainly not upward mobility, to get that you’d have to move to socialist Europe or Canada. Here in the free United States we have the right to start at the bottom and stay there…SO THERE!

But if per chance you’re upper middle class, or even upper class, you’ve got to stay that way. So you pursue the bucks. And the only places bucks are guaranteed are in finance and tech. As for the gigs… I just read John LeFevre’s book on finance entitled “Straight To Hell.” Promoted for the debauchery, what impressed me was the drudgery. If you want to do this work when you grow up no wonder you want to be paid well, for to sacrifice years on this planet to wasting your time is…a waste.

No wonder people want to pursue the arts. But they believe they’re entitled to a living in the arts. Not everybody wants to be a garbage man, but seemingly everybody wants to be a rapper. To get paid by Spotify, garner endorsements and tour to beaucoup bucks. Never forgetting the audience is cash-strapped and if they’re gonna lay down their money they want value, and you rarely deliver it.

Used to be you could do an honest day’s work for a living, but that was back when we had unions and other ways of protecting the middle class. And, of course, don’t get your knickers in a twist, unions occasionally took it too far, BUT DOESN’T EVERYBODY?

You berate Jeff Bezos while you lionize him. He’s a billionaire seer? From taking a risk and sleeping with one eye open. Because if another site, like Jet.com, never mind all the litter on the side of the information superhighway, drops prices a whit, you’re shifting loyalty. He’s driving his workers so you’ll be happy, not them. Because in tech it’s eat or be eaten. Can you say Kaypro and Osborne and BlackBerry and Nokia?

So what did we expect? Bezos to continue to employ the losers and let everybody go home at five? As for his competitors in the tech sphere… You know why they provide lunch and dry cleaning… SO YOU’LL STAY THERE AND WORK!

And we could certainly change as a society. But we refuse to.

We don’t want guaranteed vacations, like in Germany, where you can’t even take your company smartphone on holiday, we don’t want a social safety net, we want everybody to suffer just as much as we are because we’re working around the clock trying to get ahead and if we made it, WE EARNED IT!

Everybody’s so self-satisfied in America, like they grew up in a vacuum, as if Donald Trump wasn’t the beneficiary of bankruptcy laws, never mind the fat cat bitching about entitlements for the poor people…who buy their products and keep their companies alive, never mind guarantee their huge salaries.

We could admit we’re all in it together and have a giant kumbaya moment, but then you wouldn’t be able to live in a gated community and fly private. That’s right, the great unwashed would be able to come right up to your door and scare you, never mind do something worse.

So we need a bogeyman. The immigrants! The blacks! The uneducated! We want to point the finger at everybody but ourselves. We want our workers to be trained, but we want to charge them so much for college the only reason it makes sense to go is you can’t get a job without a degree. Oh, college could be free, but then taxes would be higher, but you know the government…IT WASTES MONEY!

But what about Amazon, what about the Fire Phone? If Amazon was the government Republicans would be agitating for it to be shut down for this failure, because after all we gave the company all that money through our purchases and they WASTED IT!

And the Democrats believe in government, but they’re wimps when it comes to corporations. They beg companies for money and are then beholden to them. So, we can’t get hedge fund fat cats to pay taxes at ordinary rates. Good luck changing that, when Henry Kravis and his buddies donate so prodigiously.

Our whole damn nation is hypocritical. Our only savior is…

ART!

But artists are not satisfied spreading the message, speaking the truth, they too want to get rich. Scratch a musician and he’ll start poor-mouthing. As for writers, they want to sue Amazon, for being so successful. They want to jet back to the past, where distribution was limited and publishers ripped them off with a smile.

I’m glad the “New York Times” exposed working conditions at Amazon. But I wish it engendered a conversation about America, not the company in Seattle. If only people asked how we got here. Where our best and brightest are working like rats in a cage so they can have the trappings of wealth. With a public that views the almighty dollar as king.

Economics baby, it rules our country.

You’re either a winner or a loser.

And we define those who win as those with the money.

Which those people up in Seattle have.

We pay lip service to teachers but laugh at their five figure salaries. We say if they had any balls they’d be entrepreneurs. But they’re educating our children. Well, not MY children, I send them to PRIVATE SCHOOL!

I personally don’t have any children. If so, I’d be worried. California can get everybody to reduce water consumption instantaneously but our whole nation can’t reduce carbon pollution because we’re too busy giving Exxon Mobil subsidies and coal companies pay our politicians.

And I’m not saying things can’t be fixed.

But they only will be when we have a good, honest look at what we’ve become. A society with a self-reinforcing rich class and everybody else just trying to survive. One in which no one can sacrifice, not their job, nothing. At least those culled from Amazon’s workforce weren’t bitching about getting canned. Same thing happens in the music industry and players with lame tunes blame everybody but themselves.

We’ve got to start blaming ourselves.

I’m a sucker for an acoustic guitar.

That’s right, in this electronic world of 0’s and 1’s, something natural, something evidencing humanity, grabs me and has me paying attention.

At least once a week, I cruise the Country playlists on Spotify. And it’s astounding how much of it’s formulaic, me-too crap. All about beer and trucks and… When I hear something different and it rings my bell, I don’t push the button to fast-forward, I listen.

She was dancin’ in a sundress under a Carolina sunset on the last night of MerleFest

Huh? Jerrod Niemann is singing about one of America’s hippest festivals, one people have been e-mailing me about for years, telling me it’s the one I can’t miss, the one that doesn’t fly on the mainstream radar?

Told me she ain’t missed one since the summer she turned eighteen

Used to be it was how big your record collection was, now it’s how many wristbands you’ve got, where you’ve been. It’s not only the Grateful Dead themselves who’ve come back, but their entire ethos.

She had a flower in her hair, a little smoke was in the air

Freedom. It’s what we all want, what we are all too uptight to pursue. If we don’t apply ourselves, work on our careers, we’re going to be left behind, broke down and busted on the side of the road. So we envy those who are willing to cast aside the precepts, to hedonistically pursue being alive.

We were chillin’ in some lawn chairs saying we wish we could’ve seen Woodstock

Don’t think the young don’t envy the oldsters, their ability to see not only Zeppelin, but all the bands on that stage in the Catskills. They feel they missed out. On not only the music, but the experience.

Told me she was leaving in the morning, headed down to New Orleans
Said boy, you oughta come along and I know I shoulda gone

The last time I blew off my plans was when my buds knocked on my door at midnight and encouraged me to skip the LSAT to drive up to Montreal. Which I did. Saw a Truffaut movie and a border cop found a seed in the glove box of Hughes’s Biscayne on the way back. Sometimes I wish I was more free and easy, took more risks.

She’s a Bonnaroo baby, she’s Coachella crazy
She’ll be folking out in Newport, you’ve probably seen her before
Up at Lollapalooza, in the mud at Wakarusa
She’ll be at the Hangout down in Alabama
Just look for the girl in the blue bandana

And there you have a recitation of every famous festival in America today. And there are many. Not only the biggies, like Bonnaroo and Coachella, but Newport and Hangout. Listening makes you want to go, to have the music set you free. That’s what the festival promises, an escape from the way it is from Monday through Thursday. And here’s this woman who’s following the festivals like we used to follow the bands, from town to town, like Deadheads and Phish Heads.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say the lyrics were overbaked, nearly lowest common denominator. But then there’s that sound… The dynamics from quiet to loud, the anthemic quality, rock and roll before it became harder-edged and left so many out. Country is a big tent, like the above-mentioned festivals. And it turns out we all want to go.

Where we’re the stars. Where we let our freak flags fly. Where we’re happy. So it’s no wonder the song closes with…

Now I’ve got a beat-up van and I’m drivin’ ‘cross this land
Lookin’ for a blue bandana

He’s chasing the dream. He wants that feeling back, of being free.

So do I.

And so do you.

We’re all looking for the girl in the blue bandana.

Rhinofy-Blue Bandana Spotify

Rhinofy-Blue Bandana YouTube

“YOU BUILD A FOLLOWING, THEN MONETIZE IT.”

This is a quote from the “New York Times,” from a sidebar to the article “The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t” Be sure to read the stories of the six creative people featured – “The New Making It”

YOU START OFF NOWHERE AND YOU’RE LUCKY IF YOU GET SOMEWHERE.

Too many want to start at the top. They don’t want to do the hard work. But it always is hard work. What looks like an overnight success is not. People would rather believe the myth.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU WALK OUT THE FRONT DOOR.

This is my personal mantra. We’re creatures of habit. And now that usually means staying at home in front of the screen. But if you leave the house, you bump into people, you have experiences, you’re in the flow and inspired. Try it.

NOBODY TELLS THE TRUTH.

They lie about how many albums they’ve sold, about how many fans they have and how much money they make. You especially see this in Los Angeles, where people who are broke drive $100,000 cars. Take everything people say with a grain of salt, EVERYTHING! And know that inadequacy is a state of mind. As that old Jamaican seer once sang, you can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try…

SUCCESS IS USUALLY FLEETING.

Did you see that Yvonne Craig, television’s Batgirl, sold real estate when acting gigs dried up? Respect those who’ve persevered and are still making a living at art, it’s extremely difficult.

PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR THE HITS.

If you’re doing a live gig, and people are paying for access, you’ve got to give them what they want, or something equally as good. I know, it sucks, but that’s the pressure of building upon prior success.

GOOD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

When music, TV and movies were limited in quantity, desire frequently outstripped production, people listened to and watched that which they might not have if they had more choice. Now, they’ve got choice. And there’s a rush to quality. Which is why summer TV is fading in America, on cable channels, the WSJ wrote about a fall in the double digits:

“Summer-TV Watchers Abandon Cable Shows”

Used to be we watched network reruns in the summer. Now we don’t even want to watch originals, unless they’re as good as what we can stream on Netflix.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AT THE TOP TO BE SUCCESSFUL.

But you do have to be happy with this success. And not be sour grapes that you did not make it to the show. And there’s nothing wrong with being a hobbyist, as long as you realize that’s what you are and give up the dream.

HATING FADES AWAY, THOSE HATED UPON LAST.

This is something that almost no one in the creative class can get over, the hate. People have always hated those with success, but it’s worse now that people have a voice online and economic times are so challenging. If you get caught up in the hating you’ll be dragged down. Ask yourself, would you send an equal amount of hate with the same vitriol? It’s a reflection upon the hater, not you. Follow Obama, who refused to respond to the Birthers, because he knew it wasn’t about his birth certificate, but the sheer fact he was in the White House. Obama won the election. So did you. Bask in it and try to look forward, don’t let the naysayers drag you down.

WORD OF MOUTH IS EVERYTHING.

If no one is talking about you, nothing is happening, you’re dead in the water.

“Y’ALL TALK ABOUT UX LIKE IT’S JUST ANOTHER FEATURE. FOR A USER, IT LITERALLY IS THE PRODUCT. FULL STOP. EVERYTHING ELSE IS INSIDE BASEBALL.”

This is a quote, from the Twitter account of Startup L. Jackson (@StartupLJackson). Or, as that old tire commercial once said, user experience is where the rubber meets the road. Features are secondary to usability. Just ask Microsoft, it had all the market share but its lunch was eaten by Apple, a supposed also-ran. This is how the new Apple screwed up Apple Music. Sure, we might clamor for more features, but that’s secondary to bitching that the product is hard to use/unfathomable… We expect every product to be intuitive and work from the first iteration. This is not the electric windows of cars in the sixties. If you want to improve something on the fly, label it BETA!

YOUR BEST IDEAS WILL BE STIMULATED BY SOMEONE OR SOMETHING ELSE.

If you live in a vacuum the light bulb will never go off. You need to read, you need to talk to people, you need to synthesize information into something new. He not busy being born is busy dying (thanks Bob!)

HE WHO BITCHES LOUDEST IS THE LEAST IMPORTANT.

Funny how this works. Those who’ve made it rarely complain, they know what it took to get there and they know change is a campaign, not just mindless yelling, often executed behind the scenes.

SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE ARE SMART.

They may not be book smart, they may be street smart, but when you think you can do the job of the CEO, you’re usually wrong. First and foremost, you could never get the gig.

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITIES.

There is no insurance anymore. Plenty of people go to Ivy League schools and don’t set the world on fire. Sure, it helps to be born on third base, but that’s not the only way to make it.

PEOPLE WANT TO BUY.

They want new and different, they want to tell everybody about it and spend money on it, it’s a badge of honor. So when you’re broke…either you don’t have an audience or you haven’t figured out how to monetize it.

DON’T BE A PRISONER OF THE PAST.

If you’re not constantly reevaluating, if you’re not constantly thinking about change, if you believe you’re secure…as Rob Halford once sang, you’ve got another thing comin’. And it ain’t gonna be good.

NOBODY HAS ALL THE ANSWERS.

Your opinion is just as good anybody else’s. Don’t let others be an impediment, assuming you believe in your idea and have traction.

IT ALL DOESN’T MATTER.

Not the money, nor the status…it’s a game people play while they’re alive and then they die and they’re forgotten. Bob Dylan had it right:

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘Pa’
That must be what it’s all about
That must be what it’s all about

“Sign On The Window”