Daily Gut: Health Care for Those Too Creative to Pay for it Themselves

So last Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi was speaking at some DC summit, where she noted that – because of the new health-care reform law – musicians and artists could quit their jobs and pursue their dreams, because now the rest of us will be footing the bill for their urinary tract infections.

Here’s the gasbag, now, gasbagging:

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“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill – a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.”

So, to put it plainly: If you want to play your guitar in the subway, no worries – we’ll supply your health care. If you want to join a death metal barbershop quartet that plays everything on a children’s xylophone- that’s cool too. If you want to freeze-dry your feces, jar it, and call it an indictment on the Bush regime, relax, you daring artist – we’ll pay for your pink eye.

This is EXACTLY the news our young Americans need. With health care a non-concern, they can now focus on their crappy folktronica ragacore techstep. I’m sure their parents will be pleased to know their kids will get a real job.

Look, it used to be that those who embarked on careers in the arts did so because the lifestyle rejected the idea of a safety net. The rest of those boring old farts can become accountants and lawyers – but not the creative soul! He’s leaving town with nothing but a guitar, the wind at his back, herpes in his future. But when he snubs his nose at the safe and the boring – he also snubs the benefits that come with it. That boring company he mocked happens to provide steady income and benefits.

Life on the road doesn’t. That’s why it’s called “life on the road.” Somehow I don’t remember Bruce Springsteen singing, “Tramps like us, baby we were born to stay on our parents’ policies as dependents until age 26.”

Although that sounds better than the original, if you ask me.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who won’t boycott Arizona.

Tonight‘s show puts the delight in delightfanstastic!

We’ve got

Andrew W.K.!

Steven Crowder!

Juliet Huddy!

and Slayer’s Kerry King!