The Rich Kids

So recently Forbes came out with their latest list of the 400 richest Americans.  They provide a brief bio of each, including the reason for their wealth.

Honestly, since I am a little tired today, I was looking for something that wouldn’t take too much work to make funny.

Bingo.

(I have only changed 3 facts in the following summary.  Everything else is true.)

Enjoy some highlights:

#1–Bill Gates, whoever that is.

However, 4 of the top ten are Waltons.  Contrary to popular belief, they made their money not from the wildly popular television drama set in depression-era America, but from a little known chain of stores mainly in the southern United States.

#17–Paul Allen.  Cofounded Microsoft, and is now suing Apple, Facebook, Google, ebay and others.  Apparently they have stolen his ideas and made some money from them that should be his.  Fortunately he has no children to feed.  Also invests in space travel.

#26–John Mars.  Mars the candy bars, not Mars the red planet (Gates owns that).  His dad invented M&M’s, and he had a horse named Snickers.  Also does pet food and health food, which should make you think.

#33–Edward Johnson, whose source of wealth is listed as “fidelity”.  Which got me pretty excited until I realized that’s the name of his company.

#35–Mark Zuckerberg, 26 year old Harvard dropout, owner of facebook.  So stay in school, kids.

#66–John Paul DeJoria.  Source of wealth is hair products and tequila.  (This is not one of the facts that I changed.)

#136–James Leprino.  Source listed as “cheese.”

#170–Jeremy Jacobs, “sports concessions.”  Apparently peanuts don’t cost $17.00 per bag to harvest and roast.

#182–Robert Rich, “last name.”

#238–Thomas Kaplan.  Got his B.A., B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. from Oxford.  Leased a field in East Texas that turned out to contain 2.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.  Spends his money on gold and wildcat conservation.

#252–Leandro Rizzuto, “Conair”, which I just saw recently.  Nicholas Cage, lots of things blowing up.  I guess it did pretty well.

#269–Anita Zucker, “chemicals”, which is apparently what they’re calling them nowadays.

Tied for #290–Jay Robert (J.B.) Pritzker, richest man in America to go by his initials.

Tied for #290–Gerald Ford, who I thought had passed away.

Tied #308–Richard Hayne, “salsa.”  He must have fantastic hip motion.

Tied #308–Jean (Gigi) Pritzker, richest woman in America with a (silly) nickname.

365–Frank Fertitta, casinos and Ultimate Fighting Championship.  So either people really do watch that, or his casinos are freaking awesome.

Tied #385–Tamara Gustavson, public storage.  Known as “Poor Tara” and “hey get over here”, Gustavson is the butt of billionaire jokes the world over.  Forced to rent mega-yachts for her soirees and to timeshare her South Pacific Island chain, she fetches coffee and cognac for the rest of the club at their annual Forbes get together.

Personal Logo

I have been thinking of making a personal logo.  In a world of over 6 billion people how else could I possibly stand out without, for example, having one foot that is much bigger than the other, or being an X-man (both of which come with some unpleasant side effects like having to pay double for your shoes and being Storm)?

Fortunately for me the people at wikiHow have created a guide for making a personal logo, and we know that they know what they’re talking about because all of the editors on their site have an internet connection.  After all, 23,230 people have read this article, and when was the last time that many people have been wrong about anything?

wikiHow has 9 steps to making one, so let’s get started.  Just remember, do your best and forget the rest.  The tip of the day is to breathe.  (Don’t forget the tip or you’ll die.)

1.        Define the reason you need a personal logo. Insecurity. Check.  Next step.

2.       Consider what products you intend to manufacture.  Mostly, happiness.  But I might also diversity into charisma or modular furniture.

3.       Use compliments to your advantage. This is a good idea, and I intend to do that at every opportunity.  After all, I wouldn’t have been voted “best all around” in high school if I didn’t!

4.       Choose a name that everyone likes. Nice one.  This has made me reconsider names like “Republican Exclusivist Deep Water Oil Drilling Equipment” and “Radical Islam for Everyone”.  As far as I know, there is only one thing that absolutely everyone likes, and it’s “Not Drowning.”

5.       Draw sketches.  Due to my technical computer skills limitations, I cannot share in real time all of the sketches I am now drawing.  In order to gain this ability I would have to walk through the related wikiHow post, “How to be Amazing,” which includes this picture (I am not lying):

6.       Be sure that the name will be appropriate in all situations. Wow, this more demanding than I thought.  OK, I have had to execute what is called a “revision” in the marketing biz, adding the tagline “unless you want to.”

7.       Keep it Simple. In the (ironically) somewhat complicated expansion on this advice, the wikiBigs note that it needs to be easy to scale up and down, and that too many colors can be expensive to print.  I have therefore removed the Hypercolor© great white shark.

8.       Test it out. This being a logo just for me, the testing phase went extremely well, and I replied positively almost 100% of the times I showed it to myself.

9.       Print it. Here, then, is my new personal logo:

Eat your heart out, Storm.

Maybe this happens

“You two are completely out of touch!” screamed Chaz.  “Do you even understand how your companies are affecting third world workers and polluting the oceans?”  As he swung his arm around, he spilled his morning chai on his WSP shirt.

“But honey, we’re doing it for you,” said Kathy, going through her purse for her Blackberry.  “We always wanted to you to have the best.  And who even cares about those other people?  To be honest, I’m not sure this ‘third world’ even exists.”

“Listen to your mother, Charlie,” said Charles, straightening his power tie in the mirror.  “We may be absolutely heartless conservatives, but we deserve our creature comforts.  America deserves them, because we’re the greatest nation on earth.  The thing you should be worried about is that since we’re losing the Bush tax cuts, your trust fund is dwindling to nothing because it’s going to fund Obama’s crazy socialist policies.  Besides, you’re only 17.  Wait until you’re my age, and I bet you see things differently.”

“I told you, Dad, it’s Chaz.  And I don’t want your blood money,” he fumed, kicking the doorframe with his Toms.  “Those people you care nothing about matter, and they matter to me.  If my trust fund can provide them with jobs and health care, then it’s well spent.”

“What should matter to you is your own future, honey.  We care about you.”

“Whatever,” said Chaz.  “I’ve got band practice in an hour, and it takes me that long to bike over there.”

“Why don’t you let me drive you, pal?” said Charles.

“Because,” called Chaz on his way out, “I don’t want to burn fossil fuels as a means to pursue my dreams.”  He slammed the door.

His parents paused, motionless, until they heard the squeaking of Chaz’s pedals fade into the distance.  Charles loosened his tie.  “That dude is f—ing wearing me out, Kat.  We are not the enemy.”

“I know, Che, but it’s working.”  She unfastened her pearl necklace and slipped out of her heels.  “Just a year or two more and we’ll be thankful for all the sacrifices we made.”

“I guess you’re right, babe.   Have you seen my Chacos?”

“They’re under the bed by the hemp.  And I know I’m right.  All teenagers rebel.  We’re just giving him something worth rebelling against.  And when he runs off to college or that farming commune in Ohio, we can go back to our life.”

Che came and put his arm around Kat.  “That will be a great day.  We’ll be so proud.  Maybe he’ll even become a great leader and rally the people against imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“Or be an inner city educator or work for the ACLU.”

“Or be gay.”

They stood there in silence, each lost in their own dreams for Chaz.  “Whoa, I’m gonna be late,” said Che.  “I gotta catch the bus to work at the store.  We just got some new Indonesians herbs in yesterday that I want to try out.”

“Be safe, Che,” said Kat.  “I’ll leave the crisis center at 4 and change before I get home.  Don’t forget to water the cannabis.”