My main problem with the lottery is that the wrong people win. We’re talking about people who bought tickets for a “one-in-a-really?” shot at a preposterous amount of money and were rewarded for it. By winning. I don’t mean to offend anyone, specifically the Lotto winner from southeast Illinois. In fact, I hope to be friends with the winner and possibly get some financing to shoot my pilot about a rich stranger meeting a down-on-his-luck twenty-something with student loans trying to make it big in the city. The funding most likely won’t happen (until I find a better title than Handjobs 4 Life) but it’s the winner’s loss for never realizing the inherent power in winning the lottery.

America has the best opportunities for the randomly rich to follow their every whim. A person that never owned a TV for non-pompous reasons could now pull a James Cameron and travel to the deepest regions of the Earth’s sea. They can just go into uncharted depths for the fuck of it, just to chill where not even eyes of science have gone. Or if water isn’t your thing, there’s always OUTER SPACE. On your way through the atmosphere, you can look through the SkyMall and order every item, including a subscription for your private space jet.

So many people want to be obscenely rich, but our culture currently hates rich people. People in America can be so rich that they become a cartoon version of rich people, including the incapacity to understand art and other heart-required treats. Lotto winners can also be like Mitt Romney, a man so rich and out of touch with most Americans, whose garage necessitates an elevator. A Lotto winner is given the potential to have that much power, but the stories of Lotto winners are fraught with peril and isolation, as if they won a trip to VH1’s Behind the Music Fantasy Camp. There’s so much to do, and yet they end up rotting in mansions like sad, fat dogs.

Buying a mansion seems so useless when compared to what money does now. A Lotto winner can change the course of America. The entire culture becomes a plaything if a person from the public can buy television time and finance their personal oft-dreamed ideas. Anybody could become a celebrity solely by hiring the right people. And could somebody once just think about the Kickstarters? All the senators money could buy, or at least until the novelty wears off. Riches and power are often wasted on those dumb enough to spend their life wanting them, but the Lotto can be an amazing equalizing tool if it doesn’t dissolve into petty money feuds and terrible buys. Though, there still need to be some terrible buys. It’s America. I’ve heard people say “Oh if I won the Lotto, I wouldn’t change a thing. Nope, I’d go to work the next day and continue until I really thought about what I wanted to do, ya know?” You have the money to have the Pixies play at a family barbecue, so there is no reason to be all humblefucks about it. Therefore I call to the Lotto winners and other rich people: please dream bravely, or at least read this article, or at the very least read my pilot.

Other stories you’d buy for a dollar:

Jack and Jill swept the Razzies; read Dom’s take on the film.

Angry Birds is getting its own TV show because you’re all terrible parents who shut up your kids with phones.

Anchorman 2 was announced. The 15-year-old comedy nerd in me wipes his eyes in disbelief, while the 23-year-old me knows the constant stream of Anchorman quotes by those around me will only worsen.