MONEY’S FOR MORONS (AKA: The Rise of the Turd Polishers)

In 2008 the world suffered what can only be described as financial armageddon due to people investing in shit thinking it was gold, and this is pretty much true across all spheres of life, from people paying for consumer products to clothing to collaterized debt obligations.  But since then the world has moved on from that and has learned its lesson ...except, worryingly, it hasn’t.  In fact ...things are getting dumber still.  Point in case ...

Charlie Sheen

Which is what started this post off.

But why?  ...I hear my regular readers ask.  What? ...Ask those people who’ve stumbled across my blog by accident and Who? ...Ask those for whom celebrity bollocks is just not worth their attention.  I will answer the first, say welcome to the second and congratulations to the last by managing to avoid the mindless drivel that the rest of us have to put up with.

Anyway back to Charlie Sheen ... At one time he was considered to be genuinely leading man material having been in back-to-back best picture Oscar nominated flicks, “Platoon” and Wall Street”.  Ten years later he seemed to be, well, troubled, but somehow he came back to become the highest paid actor on US TV (a fact that hasn’t really been understood by those outside of America, but I digress).

Until last year, of course.  Until the meltdown.

Because he was the highest paid actor on US TV this seemed to equate in his mind that he was actually talented and so he decided to rant against the show’s producer, Chuck Lorre, whose words he called tin cans that he was turning into gold, he seemed to come unstuck when insulting him choosing instead to do a simple rhyming rip-take of Chuck Lorre’s name saying it rhymed with Suck (Yes, without writers that was the best he could do ...By contrast the best Chuck Lorre could do was Big Bang Theory ...I think there’s a clear winner here.)

So Charlie was sacked.

But Charlie didn’t need the show.  After the comparison of the name Chuck to suck this meant to Charlie that he was some kind of comedy genius.  As such Charlie decided he could do a one-man show called “Charlie Sheen’s something something Torpedo of truth”.  It was a one-man show and with Charlie being such an internet sensation and TV star he could simply talk on stage and it would easy, as he said he turns tin cans into gold ...right? ...Well, no!

The show’s first night as done by Charlie (Hence it being one-man) bombed.  The audience (his loyal and loving fans) hated it.  One fan commented  “I want my money back!”  After paying $150 for two seats she said “I was hoping for something. I didn't think it would be this bad.” (WHY?)  Clearly he was not performing the comedic alchemy he had previously boasted.  So what to do?  Well, instead, he hired a writer (Writers?  It may have been more than one) and, shockingly,  the was ...Better.  Now you would think this would lead Charlie and all the other saps out there to figure it was not Charlie turning Chuck’s work into gold, but Chuck turning Charlie’s work into gold, but it doesn’t seem to (It’s a fact that America’s funniest men forget every year until they have nothing to say during the writer’s strike and can’t think up any jokes of their own.) 

BUT this in itself, interest me, it does not (Nice Yoda-ism there!) it is what was said on the Channel Five show “Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2011” and that is that people still meet with Charlie because ...He still makes money!  And that statement is what really stood out.  because here is a guy who, on his own is a comedy turd ...but thanks to the contribution of the turd polishers, and the unlimited amount of people out there who will still pay good money for stuff that is, well, shit, then Charlie can still do well.

But before we feel all smug and delighted that such shit could never happen over here dear readers, do not feel so secure.  It already has in the beloved world were talent and genuine class have long since taken a back seat.  You see we have our own version of Charlie Sheen, we have our own delightful version of car-crash TV in a man who we can trace as a downward talent-descendant from The Cheeky Girls, to Chico, then down dramatically to Jedward before finally plummeting further with the man himself, Frankie Coccozza.

Frankie Coccozza is not even to music what Charlie Sheen is to comedy, oh no, he is far worse.  Give Charlie Sheen a GOOD comedy line and he’ll deliver it (give him any other line and he’ll probably devour it!) but even if you give Coccozza a good song he will be incapable of delivering it anyway other than badly.

Now, Coccozza was also on the same Channel Five show I mentioned previously and the thing I found interesting was how most of the commentators on the show were of the opinion that Coccozza had “an okay voice” which baffled me because having listened to him myself I found his performance to be sub-par, certainly not one worthy of the next manufactured pop-star bearing in mind that in a competition like this (a TALENT one!!!) THAT should be the over-riding factor, but of course, these days it ISN’T what it’s about.

Over the last few years we have seen the music industry pour tons of money into pop videos, so much so that radio is probably the second favourite choice for many young people to listen to music, with them preferring to SEE it on music channels.  For the industry this is a dangerous precedent (as is having Apple virtually controlling what many people can or cannot buy due to their industry-wide monopoly) because it is music ...it should all be about the sound BUT thanks to judges maintaining that it’s about having the X-Factor then what we have seen is the product being separated from its purpose.  But, I am not one without fairness so below I give you Coccozza and, no not the single version, that would not be lab conditions, but also a live version by Coldplay of possibly their best ever song for you to pass Judgement on.

Now this should be the end of the story for Frankie but no.  If the turd polishers can make money from someone and some people will be stupid enough to invest in the product then those turd polishers will break out that brown polish and brush!  Which is why Coccozza is now already on the desperate celebrity treadmill, appearing on Celebrity Big Brother 2012 hosted by Brian Dowling (an “Ordinary” person who won two previous shows) and Amy Childs, a woman, who due to her appearance on reality TV, recently showed that she had lost the ability to judge what was real and what wasn’t (4 minutes 40 ...it’s unbelievable!)

But if people hadn’t realised that they shouldn’t pay for UTTER SHIT then surely after everything that happened in 2008 then surely the credit rating agencies would have learned something?  The following tale is one that will seem both exagerrated and ridiculous but I assure you dear reader ...every detail is true.  So to start, I get the bus to and from work each day (Hate it!) and one day last year on my journey home I had the misfortune of listening to the following young woman who was, and I mean this with every disrespect, as SKANKY as it gets.  She was talking on her phone to someone (wasn’t sure who) and then after that to her Dad but here is what I gleaned from her call.

As time went by she mentioned that she had been into Manchester to have her Apple i-phone repaired as she had broken it by throwing it at her boyfriend (How lady-like.  Why, Mister Darcy ...Eat my phone!) Since then she went on to ring her Dad to inform him that she didn’t have money and needed to borrow THREE THOUSAND POUNDS!  Now don’t get me wrong I love my kids but if either of them asked for 3 grand I know I couldn’t afford to do that, which made me wonder what kind of profession her Dad was in that he could give her such money, but she could be that skanky without any of life’s privileges.  Three options sprang to mind ...security guard, builder or professional criminal, he ended the cal with delightful phrase “AW THANKS DAD.  I’LL COME DOWN AND SEE YOU ...IF YOU SEND ME MONEY FOR THE TRAIN FARE!”  But I digress.    

The first thing she bemoaned about was the fact that she was on the bus and she had to sell her 40 GRAND LAND ROVER (What the Fuck?) as she had been banned for drink driving.  The car was taken out on HP and she was trying to sell it for 25 grand.  

This was a woman by her own admission had no money, was presumably on benefits and yet, AND YET, she managed to obtain credit to buy a FORTY GRAND vehicle.  Who the fuck was asleep at the wheel for that loan to be authorised?  We’re supposed to be at a time when the industry’s irresponsible lending practices had been curbed because now we own a number of the main banks.  Now obviously I can’t legally state which lender let this deal went through but you would think that one of the lessons of lending to people without a secure source and just charging more interest is not a way to secure the risk.  

So so far we’ve looked at how people are still buying shit expecting it to be gold, are still hungry to get money from turds, and how the banks are still lending to those who they really shouldn’t BUT ...the rich people who were saved would surely have learned their lesson, right?

But, NO.  My final story of money for morons takes us into the world of business, a world that is perhaps the most important because it is this world that will as always shape out future and it is here where the biggest mistakes are STILL BEING MADE.

Let’s take a look at Sheikh ManCity and his deal with the club.  Obviously with EUFA’s fair play rules bearing down on them Manchester City Football Club need to increase their revenue stream, especially with losses over the last three years in excess of £194 million pounds (although it is unclear in itself if this is a carry forward figure or an amount for each individual year.)  NOW, the plan is of course for the £400 million sponsorship deal with Sheikh ManCity’s relative’s airline to be used to expand the stadium, build a new super-dooper training ground/academy and gain revenue from opening this ground up to the public for community use, etc.  

Clearly whoever is behind this plan didn’t read my blog on the folly of the western businessman.  The manufacturing jobs that are the mainstay of any economy are leaving the UK and are not coming back.  Therefore people have less money to spend on things like, well, football tickets, which has been proven by Man City’s less than impressive turnout for the Carling cup which, although a mouth-watering tie with Liverpool, was left 5’000 bums-on-seats short by the home fans.  If Man City cannot fill a stadium for a cup semi-final how can they get the money from the community to watch training matches or even hire it out as clearly there is not enough revenue within the local community for them to do just that

So, the public aren’t learning, the media aren’t learning, the banks aren’t learning and the rich aren’t learning, so ...What have we learnt? 

You see the worlds of the media and finance would have you believe that capital wants to self replicate itself out of nothing.  Personally I see this assessment as being wrong.  With everything that’s happened both recently and in the past it occurs to me that capital’s main aim is not to be made a fool of.  Monetary capital abides by one overwhelming rule, that was first verbalized by Mr P T Barnum and is one of the most famous sayings on the planet and goes something like this ...You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time.  Money doesn’t want to be made a sap of, and as soon as it does, it bites back!  All the suckers out there who invested in bank-shares and went down then went into sovereign bonds, and are currently watching that investment go down, a lot of them have since moved to gold ...THE ONE THING PEOPLE ACTUALLY DON’T NEED, IS WHERE THEY PUT THEIR MONEY!  It doesn’t take a smart man to figure out what will happen next, BUT, it does take someone smart to figure out when. 

I’ve been Mister Chatable.  May your time be pleasant but your pleasure not timed.  Do remember that FREE AT LAST: A NOVEL is still available on Amazon Kindle and if you enjoy reading my blog and become a follower you will automatically receive updates when the next post comes along.

Till next time ...Adieu!


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