Salon.com > Penn Jillette

Did a Salon excerpt ruin Penn Jillette’s chance to win “Celebrity Apprentice”?

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:06:00 +0000

In November 2012, Salon published an excerpt of the magician Penn Jillette's memoir, "Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday," in which he unloaded about his experience as a cast member on "Celebrity Apprentice." After describing an uncomfortable confrontation with co-star Clay Aiken, here's what he wrote:

No one loves anyone on the set enough to say, “Hey listen, man, take a little break and think about this.” No one cares. We’re all trying to save our own sorry asses. Then the next day, Trump says something insane like, “I’m glad you showed some backbone. I like passion.” He means, of course, he likes passion for his little TV show, but it feels like he’s saying the outburst was a good thing. We’ve chosen to make this whackjob, with the cotton candy piss hair and the birther shit, into someone we want to please.

Jillette didn't just choose to return to "Celebrity Apprentice" for its all-star season, which concluded its run last night. The series had already begun filming when his piece was published on Salon.

Penn Jillette’s secrets of “Celebrity Apprentice”: Donald Trump is a whackjob!

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I did "The Celebrity Apprentice 2012" as kind of a work/study thang. TV networks are dying. The death throes of religion give us jihads. The death throes of television give us reality shows.

Our sucky TV culture is all PBS’s fault. In 1971, they put a camera crew into the home of Bill and Pat Loud and their children and, in 1973, put everything the crew filmed on TV. The show was called "An American Family," and viewers watched the Louds’ lives as though it was a TV show. It was a TV show. The Louds went from happy family to D-I-V-O-R-C-E and America watched it happen. Their son Lance became the first totally out gay guy on TV (I guess no one counts the "Hollywood Squares" and "Bewitched"). When Lance died of hep C and complications from HIV years later, there was another TV show.

Before "An American Family," you would have bet your ass and your colonoscopy video that if you put TV cameras in a room with people, those people would behave better. They’d be kinder, wiser, more measured and more loving than they would be without the cameras. The whole world is watching, so be at your best.

Five atheists who ruin it for everyone else

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 14:01:00 +0000

Like a fresh-baked loaf of sanity resting on the window of human possibility, atheism is on the rise in the United States. Will this growing constituency become a formidable political force before global warming decimates civilization? I'm skeptical. But according to the Pew Research Center, 1 in 5 of Americans now say they're either atheist, agnostic, or that they simply don't believe in anything in particular. That godless number was a scant 6 percent in 1990, and this spring roughly 20,000 atheists showed up—rain and all—at the first ever Reason Rally in DC, so, surely, despite the protestations of Texas Republicans, this newfangled thing called “critical thinking” is poised to better the national discourse, yes? Well...

The thing about the so-called “rationalist” movement in America is that disbelief in gods seems to be the only qualification to join the club. Disbelief in a supernatural creator, especially as the movement becomes more popular or “hep,” as I'm pretending the kids say, in no way guarantees rationality in matters of foreign policy or economics, for example. Many notable atheists believe in some powerfully stupid stuff—likely owing their prominence to these same benighted beliefs, lending an air of scientific credibility to the myths corporate media seeks to highlight, and thereby eroding the credibility of all atheists in the long-term. In other words: The crap always rises to the top.