I have different groups of friends on different income levels. And that being the case, I know a little something about the differences between rich people and poor people. Here's the main one.
Rich people are very star-oriented. And no, I don't mean they use telescopes and study astronomy. I mean they're very concerned with how many stars a hotel has. If you suggest to a rich guy that he should stay at a two and a half star hotel, he'll act like you just slapped his mother in the face two and a half times. Rich people don't give much leeway when it comes to matters pertaining to hotel selection. They feel like if they stay at a Holiday Inn, their social status will be lowered to "common peasant who subsists on a diet of taters and Twinkies." If you so much as mention Holiday Inn to a rich guy, he'll say, "Do I look like a tater eater to you?! I'll have you know that I only stay at five star hotels, and I only eat five star food, and I only attend five star concerts, and my dog is a five star Yorkshire Terrier, and I clean up after him using five star pooper scoopers."
My point is, rich people major in a subject I refer to as "MSG." And no, I don't mean Madison Square Garden, nor am I referring to monosodium glutamate. I'm talking about Maximization of Stars, especially while Gallivanting.
As for poor people, they eat copious amounts of monosodium glutamate. Furthermore, when they gallivant, they don't maximize stars. For poor people, any stars will do. Five stars, three stars, half a star. They act like a Holiday Inn is basically the Waldorf Astoria. "This is very glamorous! After all, we're out of the house, and there's a loud ice machine located ten feet from our room!"
Poor people and rich people have much different vacation standards and protocols. And furthermore, for some reason, poor people usually have a better time at the Holiday Inn than rich people do at the Waldorf Astoria. Poor people have a freaking ball on their low budget vacation. Watch them. They do the double Dougie dance with frosting, they drink Popov vodka and Malort, and they have fascinating conversations with fascinating insane people that they just encountered. They will literally just pull in some person right off of the street, pour cheap liquor on his head, and then form a Soul Train line with that guy. A poor person's vacation is loaded with extremely boisterous activities like that, one right after the other. Poor people are into MBG: Maximization of Boisterousness, especially while Gallivanting." They have plenty of boisterousness going on when they're on vacation—and they do pretty much the same thing when they're not on vacation.
Poor people are generally very good at knowing how to have fun. As opposed to rich people, most of whom are awful at that.
When a rich person is on vacation, he spends most of his time watching cable news in his hotel room, or sitting in a restaurant and eating a $174 plate of West Australian baroque wild oyster marrow, engulfed in a wagyu scruyu Arctic Ocean daguerreo that was licked carefully by a schizophrenic bluefin tuna and coated and menstruated by a Pythagorean tri-truffle ostrich kidney beluga squid ink fois gras brioche el chapeaulin coloradeux.
And here's a very popular activity for rich people when they're not on vacation. Let me ask you this. Have you ever seen a rich person sitting in his home? He spends hours just staring at his living room furniture. He's formulating plans. Plans on how to upgrade the furniture, so he can make his home look more upscale.
Do you think poor people participate in such an activity? Poor people are not exactly focused on their furniture's level of elegance and luxury. A poor person will keep the same sofa in his living room for 25 years—and every few months, he'll take a piss on it. And then he'll do the Dougie dance.
The moral of the story is, rich people seldom really have a particularly good time doing anything.
Now, that being said, there's one rich guy who generally has a fantastic time being rich. We all know this man. We've seen this man in action quite a bit. And his name is Jack Nicholson.
So, here's the other moral of the story. A lot of people are good at getting rich—but Jack Nicholson is one of the few people who are good at being rich.
I really support Jack Nicholson's wealthy lifestyle. I enjoy watching him be rich almost as much as he enjoys being rich. You know what? I'm gonna become a version of Robin Hood who redistributes wealth in a manner that fits the theme of this chapter. In other words, I'm gonna steal from the rich and the poor, and give everything to Jack Nicholson.
The article you just read is an excerpt from the book What I Think of Various Places and People