This week’s Dudes decodes the real worth of the right-wing all-stars, as well as the usual suspects. In pennies.
You don’t need some ivory-tower egghead’s study to tell you that the male of the species expresses rage in all sorts of ways.
We’ve all been there. Some men seethe. Others lash out. Still others discover a career path that allows them to do both.
This, it should be noted, bears no connection whatever to the existence of unhinged right-wing commentators.
By the by, how many pennies is a right-wing commentator worth? Well, let’s say one of those talking ulcers is paid as little as $1 million per year. By our calculations—none of which are ever correct—that works out to 100,000,000 pennies. At 2.5 grams per post-1982 American one-cent piece, that’s 551,155 pounds of coin, or roughly Rush Limbaugh’s weight before he slimmed down.
Whoops! Did we mention that some men articulate rage by taking cheap shots in public forums? Well, yes, we did; we’ve already alluded to Rush Limbaugh.
Then there is Jason West, 38, of Vernal, Utah (population 9,216). Here is a man who knows the value of a penny and, like a right-wing commentator and his opinion, is unafraid to annoy others with it.
Mr. West recently paid an outstanding $25 medical bill using 2,500 pennies (roughly 13.778 pounds worth), according to a June 6 post in the Salt Lake City Deseret News.
He allegedly emptied a large bowl filled with the loose coins onto the receptionist’s counter at an establishment with the smooth-as-porcelain name of Basin Clinic.
Police cited Mr. West with disorderly conduct. This seems odd, given that pennies are lawful currency. But because coins were “strewn about the counter and the floor,” police concluded that Mr. West’s stunt “served no legitimate purpose.”
Mr. West argued that his purpose—to resolve a billing dispute—was legitimate, as was “to protest how I’d been treated.”
He noted that the pennies rolled from the counter onto the desk and floor because “that’s just the nature of pennies. They’re round.”
This unassailable logic suggests Mr. West is possessed of a levelheadedness sorely missing in these days of probable presidential candidates—and right-wing commentators—who believe Paul Revere was “he who warned, uh, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s RIDING HIS HORSE THROUGH TOWN to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free.”
Mr. West certainly sees himself as being free—of rage. He claims he did not yell at clinic staff: “I didn’t go on a rant. I wasn’t irate.”
Peculiarly, as proof that he was qualified to use humor to protest perceived mistreatment, he offered, “I did standup comedy in college.”
We feel compelled to point out, rather sternly, that having done standup comedy in college is something that no person older than twenty-three should publicly admit to, ever. This, then, is hardly a foolproof defense, and Mr. West should know better.
If convicted of the disorderly conduct charge, Mr. West will be fined $140. We are sad to note that he has indicated he’ll not pay the fine using pennies.
Levelheaded? Yes. Performance art–worthy? Apparently not.
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It is reasonable to say that the penny-pitching Mr. West is a criminal only in the loosest sense of the word.
By contrast, Michael Jay Scott, 19, of Pensacola, Florida (pop. 53,752), most definitely
According to a May 8 report in the Pensacola News-Journal (“A Gannett Company”), Mr. Scott was badly bruised during a scuffle with a homeowner whom he’d been warned to stay away from.
Arrested on a charge of battery, he was handcuffed and hospitalized for his wounds, according to Pensacola police Chief Chip Simmons (no relation to tongue-wagging Kiss bassist Gene Simmons).
At the hospital, Mr. Scott, still cuffed, gave deputies the slip. Officers and K-9 (dog) units subsequently scoured surrounding areas, to no avail.
Presently, employees of a nearby Home Depot reported spotting Mr. Scott inside the store. He was allegedly attempting to sever the handcuffs with bolt-cutters.
This is a fantastically ingenious idea, one that suggests endless entrepreneurial possibilities. Indeed, with the right marketing campaign, Home Depot could become the go-to spot for harried criminal sophisticates the world over.
The chain could start with FasSaks®, easy-to-steal bags perfect for toting bundled bank bills. Then there’d be MugWhomp!®, the Wiffle-style bat ideal for in-store muggings of children and the elderly. (MugWhomp!®—When you need to scare ’em—and bruise ’em—just a little.) They could then add Detail-Rite®, a drive-thru department that camouflages stolen cars. (“Get a new paint job AS YOU DRIVE THROUGH our Detail-Rite® chop shop!”)
Alas, no such conceptions troubled Mr. Scott. A May 9 post on aol.com (mascot: a butterfly) reported that, having sensed he might have been seen, Mr. Scott fled the store, scaled a fence and broke into a camper.
That’s where police later discovered him, in possession of a nail file and screwdriver he had allegedly stolen from the Home Depot and with which he evidently hoped to unlock the cuffs.
Mr. Scott was charged with felony larceny and burglary, and received misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and damage to property.
Should Mr. Scott be incarcerated, we hope he will use the time to take correspondence businesses courses. That way, upon his release he can use his considerable resourcefulness to serve humanity rather than to harass already hassled homeowners—and home-store owners, too.
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Were Gary Felts, 46, of Joppa, Maryland (pop. 15,371), and Stephen Lee, 44, of Cumberland, Md. (pop. 20,449), serving humanity when they stole two huge sets of antlers from a National Rifle Association meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (pop. 311,647)?
Or were they simply expressing rage?
A May 3 Associated Press report on the event included no references to their mental or emotional states. And so, alas, we shall never know.
We do know, however, that Messrs. Felts and Lee were apprehended and charged with theft and conspiracy.
We also know that the antlers were worth roughly $500,000. That’s 50,000,000 pennies, or 275, 577.827 pounds of coin.
With that kind of weight, NRA members likely felt enraged that the antlers had been lifted. First our antlers, then our guns (or “arms”). What will “they”—the British, or anyone else—come for next? Our pennies? Our tea? Our “gotcha”-gotten Grizzly Mamas?
Who can say? Were he with us today, Paul Revere—he who warned the British, or someone, with shots and bells, or something—would no doubt agree that, when it comes to men’s rage and presidential candidates’ historical acumen, things in this country have certainly come to a pretty penny.
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Other dudes, who, previously, have been “in the news”: