Fuck the Working Man

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am.
I guess that's why they call me,
They call me the working man.
- Rush

What does this say about Haim Levine after he tried to use his words to judge and attempt to degrade me? I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows. I fire back once and this contaminated little maggot can't handle my power and can't handle the truth. I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon. Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words -- imagine what I would have done with my fire-breathing fists. I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong. - Charlie Sheen

What does this say? That in no country at no time in the Industrial Age has the working man, on whom everything depends, has ever been the hero. What else does it say when the only unemployed people who become more popular and become more in demand than ever are celebrities and politicians who don't even want to show up for work?

Generally, I leave the Charlie Sheen/Michael Jackson/Lindsey Lohan blogging to nasty little fucks like Perez Hilton, another example of a marginally-employed wasteoid who's somehow been turned into a latter day folk icon who can sell ad space on his marginally pornographic blog for $50,000+ a pop. But the news that Charlie Sheen, a man who makes the likes of Martin Lawrence, James Woods, Mel Gibson and Wynona Ryder look like capstans of sanity by conspicuous relief, is a more desirable candidate for president than both Obama and Sarah Palin had stirred something inside me.

Consider the case of Charlie Sheen, who jumped the shark and Oprah's sofa like a spittle-flecked, anti-Semitic lunatic on Alex Jones' show, of all places, and pissing and moaning about losing his job on Two and a Half Men. Essentially, as I'm sure we all know whether we like it or not, Sheen got fired for badmouthing his boss (never a good idea, no matter how big you are), making borderline anti-Semitic slurs in the process because he was coddled a little bit less than usual for not showing up for work.

In the real world, you get fired for that and when you try to complain about your unfair treatment, people tell you to shut the fuck up and start reading the classifieds. They don't go on whirlwind international tours called "The Terrible Torpedo of Truth", collect over a million followers on Twitter and get hailed as a folk hero of the working man.

In the real world, you don't get one enormous book deal thrown at you after another, get hired by the highest-rated cable news network in the galaxy, have the Discovery Channel build a show around you while blatant evidence of fraud dogs you like a Doppleganger and you don't make millions for not doing what you're paid to do. Your Twitter and Facebook accounts wouldn't be shaping policy at the highest levels of government.

In the real world, if you get fired, you don't get unemployment and you certainly don't get signed to a lucrative tour that'll make you enough millions to continue living a bloated, coddled lifestyle.

Fortunately, we don't live in the real world.

In this Bizarro version, these peoples' names are bandied about as polling fun fodder for deadly serious issues such as who'll be running this country after next year while the real working people who've been put out of work are actually ignored by those few companies who are actually hiring.

Sarah Palin and Charlie Sheen and how their celebrity and fortunes have bloomed since they quit and got shitcanned from their respective jobs are not what's wrong with this country but it sure as hell is symptomatic. Sheen's anti-Semitic tirade put 200 crew members out of a job in an industry where job security is measured weekly in Neilsen ratings and is considered solid if you're employed for more than 22 episodes.

Yet when they're revealed as bigots, antisemites, thieves, alcoholics, and sex and drug addicts who've done more than their part to tear down the most sacred institutions in the human experience, we idolize them moreso than Joe Lunchpail who gets up at dawn every morning or work in the dead of night for less and less money to make sure civilization continues functioning.

These are the people who educate our children, who inspect airplane parts to make sure hatches don't blow at 35,000 feet, who keep our streets safe from crime, who run into burning buildings without a thought of their own safety to save our loved ones, who care for us and our loved ones during medical crises, who keep our neighborhoods clear of our garbage and who do literally tens of thousands of unsexy jobs that'll never be put on posters in teenagers' rooms but are infinitely more important than someone whose own is to entertain for 22 minutes a week for 22 weeks out of 52.

You want Charlie Sheen for President because you think it'll be like when his Dad starred in The West Wing, Democrats, Republicans and Independents? You think who will lead our nation after 2012 is a laughing matter by getting people to say that a bigoted lunatic enjoying momentary notoriety is preferable to the incumbent President?

Be careful what you wish for, America, because you might put ideas in Charlie's addled head and you just might get it.