Pigs at the Trough

The Dirt

So because Mark has his “Daily Dirt” section in which quotes from the book appear, hopefully eventually on a daily basis, I decided to pick me up a copy and read it. And while I could write a review on it, instead I’ll share what I learned (it’s good, by the way, real good).

As you all know/can probably guess, the lives of Motley Crue were all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll during their heyday. And even though one could easily condemn them for this lifestyle, I believe they’re just doing what everyone would do in that situation. Scott Baio even did it, and he’s not even that cool. What these people and pretty much everybody is doing is what poitical commentator and California gubernatorial candidate Ariana Huffington described as being “pigs at the trough.” And while she wrote a book about political leaders who were pigs at the trough, taking advantage of whatever they could for their own gain, be it monetary or otherwise, this is exactly what the Crue did, Scott Baio did, and what everybody does, even you and me.

We’re all pigs at the trough. We all take whatever we can, when we can get it, and overindulge in practically everything that we’re able to. For example – we’ve all been to a buffet. And after eating 12 plates of whatever crappy red meat they have there, we still go back to the dessert bar 3 or 4 times. Do we need all that food? No, but you paid the buffet price, so everything becomes free, and like pigs, we overindulge. This can be true about anything that we like a lot, like smoking, drinking, or even watching tv or going on myspace. If we have the means, we will overindulge. I’m not sure if this is human nature or American culture or both, but that’s how it is.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think it’s more American culture than anything, and that’s why the rest of the world hates us. We have the means to have nice cars and fancy cellphones. Even the simple things like clean clothes and toilet paper. We have the means, we overindulge. When is the last time you went into the store and saw only one type of toilet paper on the shelf? Or better yet, when is the last time you actually had to wipe your ass with something other than toilet paper because there was no stores to sell toilet paper because our country was too poor? Never.  But I think we all would agree that only a couple of types of toilet paper would suffice.  Why do we need all the quilted and scented and colored and multi, mega, two, three ply and extra soft and super absorbent types? That’s way too many! But that’s how America is – it’s deeply rooted in competition and capitalism, and in that vein we have all that available and don’t think it’s wrong. The rest of the world hates us for this as we might look at these celebrities and hate them because they’re ugly but get the hot chicks, or drive the Bentley because they stand around a movie set for three hours a day. In reality, it’s a form of jealousy because they have the means to do these things and have these things and we don’t. Just like in third world countries they probably only have one kind of toilet paper on the shelf of the store, if that.
But back to the matter at hand: don’t hate these people because they have what you don’t. That’s what it all boils down to. They have the means to do these things, and, like we all would and do, overindulge. Especially when the means become available very fast – like some of these overnight billionaires you hear about, or even the starving kids who all of a sudden see a big meal – we tend to go so overboard in overindulgence that sometimes it can really hurt us.

So in conclusion, we can all shake our heads at people like Motley Crue because of a lot of the stuff they got themselves into. But I think you’d be hard pressed to find people who wouldn’t do a lot of the same things – maybe not the exact same things – as these guys did. I know I would. I’d hope I wouldn’t get into the drug and alcohol abuse like the Crue did, but I’m sure there’d be ridiculous overindulgence in many ways because it would be so easy to do so, as we are all just pigs at the trough. Think about that.