| Penn & Teller PCC articles by Penn Jillette | Reprinted with permission. |
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People in power care about letters. PC Computing gets fewer than
a dozen letters complaining about my use of "goddamn" in a
column and I can't use the goddamn word anymore. TV networks are
terrified of that Wildmon nut and his group of fundamentals
because they write letters about boycotts. The honchos don't
even see many actual letters. "We had a few more letters
complaining about all the Uma Thurman references in Jillette's
column," that's all they hear.
Who the hell writes letters? Nuts. Nuts write letters. If you have friends, and a job or know how to use the remote control on your TV and turn the page of a magazine -- you don't write letters. While you're licking that stamp, entropy takes another chunk of your precious life. You don't have time, so nuts fill the vacuum. By the time I voted in the last election, New York was already sure to give the electoral votes to Clinton. I could have voted for absolutely anybody (and boy, did I). No one sincerely wanted Bush or Clinton, but some of us still voted. "Of," "by" and "for." It used to be that a regular citizen could just talk to the president. Mary Todd Lincoln used to reprimand Abe for answering the White House door himself (I didn't make this up, Teller heard it from a friend [who probably made it up]). People would walk in, sit down, and yak to the President of the United States. But with mediocre actors, Jody Foster fans and characters in Ollie Stone movies pumping lead into them, presidents have become less accessible. But the President still pays attention to letters. Did you see that fast 180 he did when they got "thousands of letters" against that "nanny-gate"-almost-Attorney-General? "Thousands of letters" -- that's not that many. Someone reads those letters and tallies them up. Clearly the way to vote is to write letters and now it's easier! Clinton and his faithful assistant, Algore, have Internet, CompuServe, and a couple of other e-mail addresses. That means no envelopes, no nothing. You just write a letter to the Chief as part of your daily e-mail ritual -- modem your beefs. Don't worry about quality. Don't expect an answer. A lacky will read it and make a check in the correct column. You're just voting -- but you're voting in a sample of thousands, not tens of millions. Don't worry about funny or witty and you don't need to make a brilliant case, just write - "Yo, Slick Willy, the Clipper Chip sucks. Don't compromise our privacy," and you're done.
I'm going to be a nut and start writing every day so if you don't
think Uma Thurman deserves a high government post, you better
write to
While we're writing, let's ask Bill about this: The guy who's painting my apartment (that's a source they don't quote often enough in the New York Times) said that a friend of a friend of his (you already know it's got to be true), who is high up in the government (and spills secrets to painters) said that Clinton wasn't holding up LAX for a haircut in Air Force One, but rather to "visit" with an actress who fancies herself Marilyn Monroe to his JFK. Even though the source is as reliable as the paint job on my walls, I don't believe it. It's too good a story to be true (but this rule of thumb sure broke down on Swaggert and the hooker -- didn't it?). We should at least ask.
Oh, BTW -
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