Bigger. Fatter. Louder. The American Dream has come to this:

“Living Ever Larger: How Wretched Excess Became a Way of Life in Southern California” by Patrick J. Kiger

…You shift uneasily in your seat, the fabric of your fashionably baggy jeans chafing against the lush leather upholstery and take another sip of your Starbucks Venti cappuccino.

That 2,000-calorie lunch–the one you gobbled off the extra-large 12 1/2-inch plate that has replaced the 10 1/2-incher as the restaurant industry standard–is rumbling around in your stomach like steroid-bloated professional wrestlers locked in violent embrace.

You fiddle distractedly with the volume knob on your 400-watt stereo system as Long Beach rapper Warren G. intones, “I want it all, all, all, all.” Easy for him to say. You’ve already had it all, or nearly so, but you want more.

Cathedral ceilings. A 64-inch TV. A pair of $160 Nike Men’s Shox VC sneakers, the ones that look like NASA standard issue. There was a time when wretched excess was the exclusive province of divine-right monarchs and mega-millionaires.

To be sure, the rich still lead lives of otherworldly extravagance–for example, Aaron Spelling’s 45-room, 56,000-square-foot Holmby Hills mansion (its footprint about as big as a football field), or the underwater stereo system that entertains swimmers in Bill Gates’ pool.

Lisa Kerkorian is demanding $320,000 a month in child support for her 4-year-old daughter from her ex-husband, MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian, and most people would find excessive the $14,000 a month she says the child needs for parties and play dates and the $436 a month she needs for pet care…. (Living Ever Larger…)