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71

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#71. I am hard to impress, but easy to please.

Okay, so this is a good example of why I should think about these friggin’ things before I write them down. What the hell am I supposed to say about this?

It’s true enough, I suppose. I don’t get caught up in fame and glitz, and I don’t really give a damn about people’s titles, or their rich families, or whether they’ve been on TV. None of that really tells you anything about who they are, in my book.

And, at the same time, I don’t really have expensive or complicated tastes myself. I’m happy to watch some baseball on the tube, and sit on my couch, and maybe go play softball once in a while, and have a couple of beers and some macaroni and cheese with my wife. I don’t really need fancy trips or toys or antique furniture to be happy. Oh, sure, I enjoy the occasional plaything — TiVo kicks ass, and our new grill is pretty damned sweet. But those aren’t exactly ‘big ticket’ items, either. I’m not installing Jacuzzis or flitting around on the Concorde or anything like that.

And that’s the way I like it, frankly. I like life to be simple. (Outside of the myriad of ways I find to make it difficult, of course. But I don’t want anyone else to put obstacles in my way.) And money and fame and power and all that just tend to complicate things, from what I understand. How can you sit down with a beer and watch the Simpsons when you’ve got a scene to shoot, or a company or city or country to run? Honestly, I don’t have time for all of that.

No, I’d much rather hang here, and leave the stars and starlets, the pols and pollets, and the pigs and piglets, to do their own thing. None of their glitz and glamour and cash really do much for me in the first place. If anything, most of these well-to-do weenies serve as a reminder that I wouldn’t ever want to be rich, myself. Sure, it’d be nice to pay off the mortgage, and maybe buy some new speakers, but real money? Frankly, I’m just not interested.

You see, from what I can tell, big, big money and fabulous prizes seem to turn people into smarmy assholes. (And yes, assholelets.) Not universally, mind you — there are cool, down-to-earth rich people out there. I can’t actually name any off the top of my head, but I’m sure they exist. Somewhere. But chances are, the wads of dough will go to your head, and you’ll end up in a mansion, trying to build enough tennis courts to keep up with the Joneses (or the Rockefellers, or the Gateses), and you’ll go to black-tie affairs and polo matches charity balls, and you’ll never get back to those simple pleasures of watching football on a Sunday afternoon with your buds.

So, anyway, that’s how I feel. Maybe I’m missing out on a life of luxury and pampering, but I simply can’t risk losing the sweet thing my wife and I have got going right now. So we’ll make that house payment every month, and the car payment, and we’ll scrape up enough dough to buy those speakers, and in the meantime, we’ll laugh and giggle and cheer on our favorite teams. This is my American dream, folks, and there’s not a bit of tinsel or a sequined gown in sight. Or stacks of money and gold, for that matter. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one damned thing.