Thursday May 27, 2004

MONEY, HONEY. Rightwing "It" Girl Michelle Malkin is enraged by Wonkette and her recent find, a low-paid Washington functionary named Jessica Cutler who let Republicans fuck her up the ass for money. Among Malkin's plaintive cries against both: "Skanks," "promiscuous," "raunchy," "female Beavis and Butthead," "sex-drenched infamy," and "members of the media elite."

And then there's this:

Cutler, who aspired to be a journalist, spouted: "I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: How can anybody live on $25K/year??" When I was 24 and making less than that, I did it by eating Spaghetti-O's, Ramen noodles and Swanson pot pies for dinner; driving a Toyota Tercel with no air conditioning; and sleeping on a $30 futon. I did it the way most parents teach their daughters to succeed: through hard work, thrift, faith and perseverance.

Malkin's parents are a doctor and a schoolteacher. When Malkin was 24 she was married to a Rhodes Scholar who apparently works for the Rand Corporation. According to her bio, in '94 Malkin was working as an editorial writer and weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News.

Them Spaghetti-O's musta tasted alright with a nice Chablis.

At that very same time I was living in New York City (surely as expensive a jurisdiction as LA) and working as a freelance writer, and made maybe six grand more than what Malkin claims to have made. (The following year, Malkin was named Warren Brookes Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., so her prospects were obviously infinitely better than mine). I wasn't hooking, either (not for lack of opportunities!), nor did I consume a more exalted diet than Ms. Malkin did. And though I sure did work hard, and had to be thrifty, I had no faith or perseverance to speak of.

But I'll say this: I sure as shit couldn't afford a car with or without A/C -- I'd have had to take major dick up the ass for that! Almost certainly Republican dick.

But I didn't, and till now I never had cause to feel morally superior about it. In fact, given the severe mark-up in rents and other cost of living indicators since then, I marvel that Malkin does. That whole "poor but pure" argument makes much more sense if one is actually poor.

POST UPDATED because I can't handle numbers too good. Malkin was 24 in '94, not '84, as I previously wrote. By that time I had left the dispatching business and had entered the humiliating world of freelance writing. Not surprisingly (though depressingly from my perspective) I wasn't making much more in '94 than I was in '84, but I suppose the extra six large could have been what kept me from working the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

When I was 24, I was working as a busboy and would have considered $24K a princely sum.
<br />[Your user agent does not support frames or is currently configured not to display frames.]<br />