To be rich would be a wonderful thing. Now, I don’t mean to have a nice car and a nice home, but really rich. Rich like a Kennedy or a Bush. Rich like the GDP of a small to medium country. Because when you are rich, when you are famous and absolutely fabulous, when you are king, you can do anything. You can have sex with nubile young things; 13-year-old girls even, if that’s your scene. You can ply them with drugs and bang them at Jack Nicholson’s pad. Oh, what a trip! You can hog the runway with your Gulfstream, hold up an entire airport at a whim. You can steal millions and still play golf at your favourite country club. When you are stupidly rich, you can be richly stupid, and still be president. You can walk away from a girl drowning in a sinking car and still be honoured by your peers as a good man. You can have little boys sleep over in your bed and be a beloved icon of the pop world. You can shout at the top of your voice that Jews are the cause of all the world’s problems, blacks are dirty rapists and women in short skirts are asking to be raped by a pack of them said blacks. You can do all of these things and still make all the movies you want, still crack the A-list, still live the dream. Your obscenities will be written off as oddities and your perversities as eccentricities. You will never be called filthy, when quirky will do. Biographers will say you were colourful when really the words: lowlife, crackwhore or scumbag would have suited more. People will always forgive a tyrant before they forgive a common thief. Robert Mugabe, a man who stole a country got VIP tickets to the World Cup. Kunle Benjamin, a man who stole some World Cup tickets, got three years in prison. That’s the beauty of wealth and fame. Common people like you and me are suckers for it. We will gladly buy MJ’s albums, defend Polanski in fanzines, get the Mel Gibson boxset and pour over their pictures in You magazine. We will vote for men like Bush (and Ted Kennedy), make them our leaders, forgive them their sins, over and over again. We will edit and re-edit the bits about them that we don’t like, shift the pieces until we have a nice picture. We will cut them slack that we wouldn’t even give to our own mothers. All in the hope that one day we’ll be just like them. Because when you’re rich, life is your bitch.
The Golden Rule : He who has the Gold makes the Rules.
Insightful and actually very much true.
Well said …!
This reads a lot like Alan Ginsberg’s Howl. Great stuff.
I was going to write something really spiteful and nasty about this article, but if you send me some money I will agree with everything you said.
Very true – how does it go – kill a man and you get the death penatly, kill 10 men and its the nut house for you, kill a million men and you are probably a great leader / president.
A very good article, the unfortunate part is that it is true ! Bloody hell.
“…untill destiny catches up with that a*s and it gets even”. Accurate picture painted by Mr. Smith.
This is why we should all be striving for riches! “If you can’t beat them..”
God, there must be better things to do with ‘rich’. And thank God, some rich are doing it. Question: who gave Mugabe his VIP WC tickets? Eskom, Telkom, the Presidency or FIFA?
Scandalous, money greed and lust
In this rife life, there ain’t nobody you can trust,Plus there’s no justice, it’s just us
In fact, watchin’ yo back it be must And each and everyday around the way gats bust….
but ja, Destiny with catch up with their acts!
@David
Sad but true – although your article should have been entitled Rich and / or Powerfull.
Just look at the kind of people that are revered and admired in popular culture -
Great writers, philosopher or philanthropists? NO.
Scientists that discover cures for dread diseased? No.
We revere rock stars, celebrities, actors, sports stars and pop stars.
If it is any consolation, there is lots of academic research to indicate that the rich – especially the super rich, are a pretty misearable, paranoid and unhappy lot (think about it – who would ever kidnap David.J Smith for a ransom?)
Beyond middle class levels of income, extra income and assets have negative utility – ergo, beyond this level, happiness starts to DECREASE with increasing income and assets.
One of my Profs, Hans Falkena wrote an academic article on the subject called “banking on happiness”.
Ironically, if I were rich to the tune of just a fraction of what these sorts have, the overriding motive for me would be to hole up somewhere nice where I’d no longer have to see or hear all this and the rest that goes with being filthy rich. Permanent escapism and totally incommunicado…just a few small trappings and all else pushed to the periphery where it belongs.
@Paul S
And if you did that, you would most likely become very depressed and unhappy – look at the actual cases of Howard Hughes, Michael Jackson and John Paul Gettty 3rd.
True happiness comes from good relationships, family and friends, coupled to self-actualisation – becoming all you can be.
Well, what an interesting view on life of the rich and famous! I totally agree with you, that when you have loads of money you can rule this world! Unfortunately or luckily each and everyone could be bought. That’s why it is essential to make as much money as possible. Maybe not to brake the common rules, but just to be on the safe side.
Very true & insightful.