Every now and then a story pops up in the news about some dude with way too much money deciding that he’s going to buy his way onto a spaceship to fulfill his childhood dream. The latest wannabe spaceman is Guy Laliberte, the founder of the wonderful circus troupe Cirque du Soleil. What caught my eye in this story, though, is the description of Laliberte as a billionaire.

I wondered if he’d been a rich kid to begin with, so I looked up his bio on wikipedia. I’ll be damned if he didn’t turn his talents of stiltwalking, fire-breathing, and accordion playing into a franchise that made him unfrigginbelievably wealthy.

Back in the day, the rainbow-striped tome “Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow” was popular in the gang of freelancers I hung out with (I never read it myself). Some people have pointed out that the formula is not quite so simple…otherwise the phrases “unemployed actor”, “starving artist” and “unpublished writer” wouldn’t roll so easily off the tongue.

I don’t think “billionaire street performer” will end up being as common a phrase. But hat’s off to Laliberte for making it happen for him.

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