Abracadabra: The Magical Taste of Boot Leather and a new Voice of the Voiceless

How Penn Jillette performed his greatest magic trick and how Nicki Minaj went from just another mindless popstar to punk antihero overnight

You know it's a weird fuckin' day when one of your favorite literary/political antiheroes pulls his pants down comes out of the closet as a cowardly, State worshipping worm who truly enjoys the taste of boot leather in his mouth…And! When a seemingly ditzy, bubblegum pop/rap icon reveals herself to be a brilliant and cunning antihero who revels in raging against the machine more than most aging and weathered punkers/rappers have in two decades!

Whew! Cue Rod Serling!

First, the literary antihero who made me sick. Who is it? It’s Penn Jillette. You probably know him as a magician and TV personality but he’s also a writer, podcaster and up until the past few years, a rock-and-roll-go-fuck-yourself libertarian. He was also a very outspoken atheist and that’s originally what drew me to him years ago - I dug his ‘fuck you’ attitude. He helped educate me about religious freedom and both freedom and liberty in general. Atheists are not mainstream and Penn put himself out there. I dug that.

For years, the guy was a badass libertarian/atheist and he took no shit! Hell, he had a show called Bullshit! where he called out all kinds of fuckery on a weekly basis. He was a skeptic’s skeptic, a student of the Amazing Randy (also a badass skeptic) and for that I greatly admired him.

I’ve read most of his books and was a fan of his podcast for several years until I started to notice a gradual change in his attitude. Sadly, Penn started to sound more and more “woke.”

But most recently, Penn posted a picture of himself cuddled up with the governor of California - shit eating grins on both of their faces - in support of Newsom’s recall victory. This in itself is a huge detraction from the Penn Jillette most of us know; the rock-and-roll-go-fuck-yourself libertarian.

It’s a big fuck you to his fans. To see him cozy up to such a gross and authoritarian steward of the State is just fuckin’ gross. It’s a real punch in the gut for those of us who grew up reading Jillette’s opinions on freedom and calling out bullshit. What’s next, Penn? You going to come out as Christian??