Well, Penn & Teller have won the Hefner First Amendment Award. In the Playboy Foundation's opinion we are the entertainers who have done the most to work for the First Amendment. Our buddy, Robert Corn-Revere, who is the real deal, who lives, breathes, and even fights in the Supreme Court for freedom, was there. He's a lawyer for Playboy, and you can bet he was the one who nominated us. But, others had to vote for us, and it's quite an honor. We were recipients along with people who lost their jobs and money fighting to give student editors the right to print what they wanted and stuff like that, you know, the real deal. There were two women that fought to keep Harry Potter in the school library, stuff like that. And then there was us - cheap carny trash, surrounded by lawyers, professors, and militant librarians. It seems like there should have been some scumbag pornographers there, but it seemed it was heavy on the lawyers.

Now, when I was flying out, I was told to put away my "Screw" magazine even though there was no one around me. The flight attendant told me to put it away and then yelled at me, insulted me, and threatened me. I backed down and then wrote a letter to her boss. I would think a REAL award winning freedom fighter would have fought and been thrown out at a few thousand feet. But, at least I wrote a letter.

So, the night before was the Playboy Foundation dinner, and I got to hang out with Nadine Strossen, the ACLU big cheesette, and I love her and that was great. I told her about the airlines and she's ready to go to war. I love her. Righteously indignant is her default setting. I got to meet a bunch of the names you see all the time in articles on freedom and I got to hang with my date, Robert Corn-Revere. We agree on everything, but we still manage to yell at each other. He's a smart cat, and always an inspiration. After the dinner I hung in the bar with the cats and we told stories, laughed, and got appalled together. Robert says that the anti-flag burning amendment may pass this time. He really thinks so. It made me so sad. Just so sad. Of course, we won't be in trouble, because we're doing art, and as Robert points out, it's really good for us . . . if we don't care at all about our country.

So, the next morning, we got up for soundcheck. Our Flag bit is a complicated bit, and we were doing it in the Waldorf ballroom. Krasher, Nate, Andre, and Matt were working hard to make us look good without a real stage, spotlights, or our usual sound. We ran it a couple times, and it was cramped, and didn't look as good as it would in our real show, but it would be fine.

Now, here's the problem, the award was from the Playboy Foundation, but they had teamed up for this shindig with the Creative Coalition. William Baldwin is president of the Creative Coalition, I guess so his brother, Al, will be ready to leave the country on an election count's notice. Bill seemed really nice, we posed for pictures with him and he was fine. Ronald Regan was there, and I've known him for years, and he at least knew that my politics were different from his (this is the younger Reagan, you know Ronald W. Regan or whatever). The Creative Coalition had membership applications on every seat and a video team. "We're going to need you over here to talk about the Creative Coalition."

"We're not members."

Big laugh.

"We're not, we don't agree with a lot of your positions."

"You're kidding right."

Now, before you decide that we're lunatics, it was NOT the Creative Coalition giving this award, it was the Playboy Foundation, and we DO agree with them. So, while we waited for our spot, we were ducking Creative Coalition people who were just assuming we were Hollywood Liberals. Imagine everything Ron Silver lives, breaths, believes, and does, now draw that as a Venn diagram; see the area outside all the circles? Mark that "Penn Fraser Jillette."

But, lunch was nice. My partner, Teller, has had some very wise ideas in the time I've known him, but none comes up more often for me than the observation that ALL AWARDS are YMCA awards banquets, the ones we hated as kids. No award show, not even the porno awards gets better than that. Krasher knows how we get during awards shows, so he brought us backstage before it started ostensibly, so we wouldn't have to stand up in the middle of the show. On the way back, I stopped to talk to Robert, and started, just for kicks to yell, "Fire, Fire, oh jesus, there's a fire!" I was really yelling. It got a bit of a laugh, and then the show started with Christy Heffner explaining the joke.

Teller and I sat backstage and realized that if we were real freedom of speech guys, we would heckle and yell until we were thrown out. We didn't really do it, but we did keep each other laughing. These were really good people who had fought hard and sacrificed. Some of them, we didn't agree with, but they all put it on the line. I was proud to be associated with them, but we still should have been heckling.

Finally Billy Baldwin introduced us, with a joke about Teller getting the freedom "of expression" award and not freedom "of speech" award. He then said we'd been doing the Flag bit for 25 years and we hit the stage. We were preaching to the choir about liberty, and the bit went over well. Teller noticed that the huge applause at the end, when the flag reappears, was a little weaker than usual, even though the rest of the bit was stronger. This was a group of people that would have been fine with the Flag just ending up burned. Teller hoped they didn't think that that was the kind of ending we had to put in "for the masses." I don't know. I thought they loved it, but it did seem it might have been a bit patriotic for some of the tastes in the house, but that could have been in our heads.

It was a great show. We got our award from Billy and I must say, I was very proud. We were in great company. I ran down and shook Robert's hand. We were really there because of him, and it was great to see him. We got to smile at each other and shake hands.

We had to take a few pictures, and then we changed and had a proper tea at the Waldorf with our buddy, RRG. Now, I'm on a plane to San Juan to do a corporate show.

I couldn't be prouder at having our magic tricks noticed for having some content by the likes of the Playboy Foundation and the ACLU. It's really wonderful to be around Robert, Nadine, Christy, and all these librarians, teachers, professors, lawyers, and business people who really care enough to keep speech free. There were some wonderful people in that room. But there should have been some strippers.

Fight the power. Fire! Fire! Fire!!!!!

Penn

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