This Is Not A Joke

How many of y'all saw the comedy "How High" featuring Redman and Method Man?

It was a pretty typical stoner flick, with the two rappers, have a well-known fondness for cannabis, playing the role of stoners with hearts of gold. It had some funny moments, even if it will never be considered a masterwork.

Anyway, one of the characters I loved in the movie was a trifling pimp played by Mike Epps. Now, Mike Epps is a funny dude, and his character in this movie was perfect. The pimp, whose name was Baby Powder, was a bumbling preener, but he had a hilarious habit.

Whenever his "pimp-in-training" or one of his hoes would mess up, the pimp would you yell out "Where my powder!" Then once someone sprinkled a liberal helping of powder into his hand, the pimp would slap the shit out of whoever offended him. Like I said, hilarious.

Well, after I read this story in the New York Times, I wanted to yell out "Where my powder!"

'Cause somebody needs to be smacked.

Those of you who bother to click that link will learn that Obama's new $500,000 cap on executive pay has some New York denizens shaking in there $2,000 Gucci loafers. Seems that what to most of us seems like a ridiculously generous salary, doesn't seem so hot when you have the mortgage to pay on two homes worth $5.5 million, along with an assorted amount of other expenses. While the article goes out of its way to note most people struggling in today's economy won't shed any tears for these bankers, the mere fact that the piece was written seems to be an attempt to stir up some sympathy.

Epic fail.

It would be easy for me to just rail against the skewed values in today's society that make it a struggle for some folks to survive on $500,000 a year. If you check out the list of "expenses" described in that article, it's easy to come to the conclusion that rich people have very skewed priorities. It's even easier to hope that they get their just desserts.

What might be harder, is to see a little of yourself in these rich people. I know that several of my readers have had their pockets pinched in recent months, but most of us are still above the poverty line. We may not have everything we want, but seem to have most of our needs and a few creature comforts that might make other less fortunate individuals swoon.

One of the most interesting things in the article was the justification that these rich people can't just save money like the rest of us because their sense of self is tied into the extravagant lifestyles they lead. At first that made my Bullshit Sense start tingling, but when I really thought about it, it made sense.

Don't most of us use certain goods or rituals to reinforce our feelings of who we are? It might be that daily trip to the coffee house, that weekly trip to the hairdresser, or that monthly movie that you just can't miss. For me, I could point to my big screen TV or the $700 machine I use to play cutting edge video games or my penchant for Polo shirts, although they are always purchased on sale.

Anyway, while most of us could get used to living without these comforts if we had to, it would seem like a pretty significant sacrifice. I've had firsthand experience dealing with someone who has to have certain little comforts or they feel like the entire world is conspiring to make their lives miserable. While these things may seem optional to me, they are life and death issues for that person.

Yet, for those individuals scrambling to feed themselves everyday, our "comforts" probably seem like ridiculous extravagances. They look at us the same way we look these rich people who spend $425 every two weeks on groceries for their tiny families. They wonder what right we have to complain.

What right do any of us have?






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