First Soul Train Line of the Year

Greetings, my '07 friends. Welcome to the new year.

I hope you guys had as fun a night as I did. I knew it was gonna start well when I found a parking space barely five minutes after exiting the highway in South Beach. Anyone remotely familiar with South Florida can tell you that finding a convenient on-street parking space in SoBe at night is like finding Britney Spears' drawers: nearly impossible.

Nothing spectacular happened for me. We attended another celebutant-filled party - two of 'em, actually, had a beverage - literally just one for me, and just enjoyed the tunes. Miami-based DJ Irie spun some crazy records in one spot, and drummer Travis Barker beat the skins like Ike beat Tina, to accompany DJ AM at another party.

But beyond the music, here's what I observed throughout the night, and the conclusions I drew from it all:

First, I saw a lot of posers. There were lots of groups of young dudes riding around in Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, and it is a pretty safe bet they had not inherited old money or won the lottery and were not wealthy jocks or musicians. Trust me people, it's really expensive even just to rent one of those things. One of my guys last night confessed he had looked into it: $2K - $5K for a day in most cases.

Second, I saw a lot of people who are famous for the sake of being famous, people who were born to famous parents or rich parents, or who married into famous money.

Third, I saw a lot of people fighting. Up close, I saw three fights start on the street because in two cases someone's shoes got scuffed and in one case someone bumped into another person accidentally and jostled the bumpee a little too hard.

In the past all three of these things would have annoyed me. The latter would have made me downright angry.

I'm past that though, I think. I've come to the conclusion that it's not for me to say what one spoiled rich kid deserves or does not deserve. That's not to say I won't or can't give my opinions on the subject. I will continue to do that. It's too much fun not too. But who am I to say this one's too spoiled or that one's too bratty, etc?

I've got my own fish to fry. And sitting on a high horse to condemn these folks is not gonna help me reach my goals any faster, unless I figure out a way to turn criticizing them into a cash-generating cottage industry.

Seriously, I have seen the light. K-Fed walked past me last night and I didn't feel compelled to crack one joke.

I am now looking at these folks as commodities. As with overpriced sporting-event tickets (more than $400 for a family of four to attend a major league baseball game, get good seats, get food and drinks and pay for parking), and overpriced concert tickets, the market takes what the market can bear. When people get tired of paying for those things, the prices will fall to more reasonable levels. It's a natural process.

And when the general public gets tired of celebutants being the self-indulgent, self-centered knuckleheads that many of them are, the public will stop showing up to night club openings where some rich kid got a million dollars for a two hour appearance. And when "the people" stop showing up, the club owners will stop paying the big appearance fees. Same goes for the TV hosts who invite them on to talk about their manufactured fame, the tabloids that pay big bucks for photos of 'em, the music execs who give them record deals, and the publishing houses that ghostwrite books for them.

So until then, rock on celebutants. I may not like you, but I don't have to. Do your thing and I'll do mine.

Same principle goes for the fighters. The "market" takes what the market can bear. When the general public gets tired of seeing kids assault and/or kill each other over a crooked look or a scuffed shoe, we will put the offenders in check so hard they'll be afraid to offend. When these kids get sick of assaulting and/or killing each other, over being assaulted and seeing friends die over silly stuff they'll stop.

Until then, I won't stop preaching my doctrine of Grow-the-hell-up. But I'm not gonna lose sleep over numbnuts anymore, if I can help it.

The posers? I don't know what to say about them. They may be a lost cause, until pretending causes them to go broke and they hit rock bottom.

So that's all folks. Those are my first logical thoughts of '07. Now, though it is noon as I finish this, I'm out of here like Don Cornelius. Going to take a nap. I just got home a few hours ago and sleep has mostly dodged me.