Show Economics according to a rapper Joel Stein Special to the Los Angeles Times I 1 met the last person in the world who doesn't know theres there's a recession While are afraid to use their corporate jets and sitcom writers arent aren't ordering sushi the rapper Plies released a song called I Got Plenty Money This seemed about as wise a public relations move as Donald releasing a book titled I Got Plenty Diplomatic Solutions I 1 went to Tampa Fla to interview Plies for during Plies Week which included the Stripper Olympics a yacht party The Goon and Pink Black Bash and a car show When I 1 asked him how this differs from if his Plies non-Plies Weeks they're normally filled with library research and Plies museum tours asked if I l worked for Nickelodeon I 1 think that was his way of telling me that my odds were not good of scoring a I accompanied Plies to his video shoot ata at ata ata a rented million 28 home which had three p outdoor fire pits a wine cellar a pool facing a golf course and six women in lingerie There was no acknowledgment of the irony Irony that the house was in an unfinished suburban housing development where every second home abuts a plot of weeds Or that the builders who own I the model home were in such bad shape that they were willing to rent it to a rapper named Plies During the shoot Plies rapped in a room filled with fake cash But when he threw the money in the theair theair theair air he used a completely real stack totaling You can study economics from books all you want but unless youve you've been on ona a rap video set youre you're not going to know that fake money doesn't throw right In a culture in which Dennys Denny's is giving away free breakfasts I feared that a man wearing two giant gold diamond- diamond studded medallions might be endangering his career by slightly miscalculating the American Zeitgeist Especially when he rapped Just bought another house the last one was boring I Ten thousand square feet it feel like you tourin Ran me out the store I 1 bought too many plasmas I Count so much money breathe like I got asthma My only surprise was that he didn't brag about his moneys money's indecent exposure while buying the listeners listener's house out of foreclosure It was hard to watch someone destroying his career So when we got to the car show I 1 was shocked to see 1000 people people families families teenagers single women dressed up gathering to gawk at cars It was as if Tom up Joad pulled over to check b in on the construction of Hearst Castle During his show car-show concert Plies whipped out the roll of to throw money and proceeded to hand out stacks of 1 00 bills He gave 1000 to a boy who couldn't have been older than 7 At one point he waved a few hundreds and yelled like a politically incorrect Monty Hall Im looking for a white person Throughout this Plies stimulus package I was wason wason wason on stage cowering behind his bodyguards pretty sure that Florida plus rap concert plus tossing money into a crowd added up to exactly the level of journalistic significance as the thc riot I 1 was likely to todie todie todie die in As I wished I were anywhere else it became obvious to me that Plies and I differed in how we would spend our time if we had plenty of money But it also was obvious that Plies understands our culture much better than I do Possibly because Im I'm wasting time cari caring g about grammar As much as columnists and commentators want our economic situation to change our values it We Ve haven't gone from wanting giant plasma TVs to wanting to whittle on the porch with our extended family Our heroes are still the ones with the most outsized irrational optimism and materialism |