No shirt off his back

I’m not David Sedaris’ biggest fan, but I’ve enjoyed several of his essays. I liked him less, however, after reading an interview he did with Money magazine last year, bragging about how much money he makes and how much he enjoys spending it rather lavishly.

He talked about splurging on shirts that cost a good deal more than a minimum-wage earner makes in a 40-hour work week. Per shirt. He went on to say: “I’m rich. And I absolutely love being rich.”

Later in the interview, he talked about having bought a very expensive pair of black sequined culottes he gave away to someone who “can’t possibly afford them and would wear them all the time.” He further added, “When I do a live show … I can’t tell people how much money [I’m] paid …. What did those culottes cost me? Twenty seconds on stage?”

Yeah, it’s his money to spend as he wishes, but how he chose to spend that easy money says a lot about his values. And yeah, I’m sure he’s a very nice man.

A decade ago, in Paris, I passed a store with a shirt bearing a price tag of nearly $2,000, about what I’ve spent on all the shirts I’ve ever owned since I began buying my own clothes nearly 60 years ago. Many of those shirts looked nice on me in ways that spending an additional $1,980 apiece wouldn’t have improved.

David Sedaris, like so many of the undertaxed and overpaid, is faced with the challenge of figuring out clever ways to spend all the money he is paid in a nation where the gulf between rich and poor widens daily. Maybe, instead of shirts and culottes, he might have donated what he earned in a few seconds onstage at Laxson Auditorium earlier this week to help reduce the suffering still being endured by victims of the fire and floods that devastated this area. It wouldn’t exactly be the shirt off his back, would it now?