Young, rich, and stupid

I burned a lot of blogging energy on my last post about global warming - I've found it difficult to follow up all that research and gravitas with something worthy. So instead, I'm going to sink into the trite marsh of easy targets and pre-packaged commentary. There certainly won't be any difficulty following up this post.

Adam "Pacman" Jones, a DB/PR with the Tennesse Titans, was recently involved in a three-person shooting at a Vegas nightclub. Yawn. NFL players with poor decision-making skills and piles of money find themselves in the wrong place all the time, so that's not news. But the events leading up to the shooting, are, well...revealing.

Pacman walked into the Vegas strip club that night with over $81,000 in cash in his pocket. He used the money to shower the strippers, in his own words, creating a visual effect. Unsurprisingly, this money was picked up by the strippers, the club owner, and some patrons. This led to a scuffle as Pacman's goons attempted to retrieve the cash, and before you know it, three people were shot.

The obvious commentary is, well, too obvious to type. It brings to mind the Bad Idea Jeans sketch from SNL. But what fascinates me is the psychology behind this juvenile action.

Imagine having earned $20 million dollars before you turn 25...you are nationally recognized, kids in your hometown are wearing your jersey, you have the means and the access to go anywhere and do almost anything...and what do you choose? You decide to throw $81k in small bills around to impress strippers. Yes, the world is your oyster, and you celebrate by showing off for women who routinely pull $5 bills out of men's pants with their teeth. I cannot even comprehend the smallness of the mind that would take satisfaction from such a gesture, and then to top it off, start a fight to get the money back!

Is it any wonder that JP Getty claimed that if all the money in the world was divided equally, in ten years it would be back in the same hands? The chances of Pacman Jones dying a rich man are perfectly inverse to his odds of surviving his 40th birthday.

My first $20 million will be used to separate myself from the teeming, ignorant masses as much as possible (my cherished readership excluded, of course), not showing off for them.