RUSH: Ray in Howell, Michigan. Glad you waited, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. First-time caller. Thank you for this rare opportunity.

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: Rush, you talked about it earlier. I’m 56 years old, and when we were growing up we all knew that anybody could become a millionaire in this country, through hard work, dedication, taking risks, and more often than not, a good education. Obviously not in your case. However, you went the hard route.

RUSH: Are you saying, sir, that I’m not educated? (laughing)

CALLER: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m talking about college education.

RUSH: I know what you’re saying, I know what you’re saying. I know.

CALLER: But today I sense that many people, and I could be wrong, but I sense that many people, especially our youth, are not being taught, shown, or they just don’t care about the hard-work portion of becoming a millionaire. And I sense that they’re levitating towards lottery winnings, Hollywood actors, actresses, sports figures, entertainers, singers.

RUSH: I think you’re right. I think you’re right on the money.

CALLER: And what is just not talked about often enough is, like the lottery, these people, for the most part, got to where they are by luck, by chance. When you look at their education level, for instance, like I said, I could be wrong, but for the most part, maybe, maybe they got a high school education, maybe. And what did they do? They practiced their sports, maybe they went to trade school, learned how to talk, how to act, and the luck of the draw put them in the right place at the right time to get somewhere. But the hard work, the real world experiences of somebody who started a business, becomes a real millionaire, it wasn’t fair.

RUSH: No, it’s impugned. In fact, it’s criticized.

CALLER: It is. And what’s even scarier, though, is these people are idolized, and it’s just not talked about often enough that they just don’t have the hard work, the dedication, and they’re idolized. And they actually have a voice in our political system, without hard work, experience, or education.

RUSH: Well, look, let me say one thing. I know theoretically what you mean, talking about actors and athletes. The one thing that I have learned — I used to think what you think. I used to think that one of the reasons actors and actresses were filled with so much guilt was that they knew they didn’t have to work very hard. They got to pretend being people they aren’t, and after a while, they got tired of that, and they wanted people to know them for themselves. So they go out and they get political and get involved in issues, and they feel guilty over earning so much money for so little work.

I have had to revise one aspect of that, and that is, it is extremely hard work. It’s not easy to be a great actor. Now, what other characteristics you want to attach to it, feel free, but it’s incredibly long hours, it is constant rehearsal, and it is very hard. In fact, it involves a talent more so than a skill. But even the talent has to be worked at and developed. Same thing with athletes. They’re very rare. Gifted, great athletes are very rare, but they still, the ones that reach the top are the ones that work the hardest at developing their God-given talent or skill.

Now, acting is a strange thing. It’s a tough psychological thing. Your whole life is spent being other people. But to make my point, if you see a movie or a television show with an amateur trying to act, you can spot the amateur like that. You can spot somebody who’s not good at acting instantly. Now, in some cases it’s charming. There’s an example, the movie Act of Valor. One of the best military movies I have ever seen. As a powerful, influential member of the media, I benefited from seeing a media screener of this. It was Relativity Media. They even captioned it for me so I could follow the dialogue. And real SEALs, real Navy SEALs occurred in all of the starring roles.

It was obvious throughout the whole movie that they were not professional actors. In this case, it didn’t take away from it. It added to the realism of it. You could say there was charm to the movie. My only point is, it is very hard, and it’s long hours. A movie, they’re lucky working 14 hours a day if they end up with two minutes of usable film. It’s take after take. It’s sitting there, making sure the lighting is correct. It’s tedious. I could not do it. I’ve done guest appearances on sitcoms and it’s driven me nuts. I couldn’t make a living doing it. I don’t have the patience. I’m a one-take guy. It’s over and done with. I practically went nuts doing the Hank Haney golf show. That show, which is a 22-minute show, took two days, minimum, to shoot. It’s a reality show, and it still took two days to shoot 22 minutes. And that was a TV show. There’s no way 22 minutes of a major motion picture is shot in two days.

So it’s a different kind of work. You talk about education. They have to have some in order to effect the talent and use talent that they’ve got. I’m not discounting at all what you say. Nobody sees any of that. They see the end result. They see Entertainment Tonight. They see the red carpet, the parties. That’s for me. I’m telling you that my philosophy really hasn’t changed. I don’t care what it is, other than inheritance, there is hard work attached to practically every level of success in every line of work. Now, the hard work may be not laborious, physical. It may not be physically challenging, although sometimes in acting it is, but there nevertheless is a lot of hard work attached to it. I don’t mean that to excuse their idiot politics. That’s a whole other matter.