Kid Rock was sentenced to 80 hours of community service for his part in a brawl in a Waffle House restaurant in October, 2007, in which it’s said he threw the first punch. In early December of last year, Rock’s judge in Georgia refused to let him have credit toward his community service requirements by going to Iraq to perform for the troops. Judge Alvin T. Wong wrote that “giving [Rock] credit for something he would otherwise love to do in front of a camera completely defeats the punitive purpose of performing community service.”

Rock then bitched about this on his website, noting that he’d already done a fundraiser at the Waffle House and complaining that Judge Wong thought he had better plans for him than “tak[ing] pictures and spend[ing] time with the men and women who put themselves in harms (sic) way to protect the very freedom he and all of us live by.” For good measure Rock also published the judge’s contact information for all his fans to complain too.

Two months later and Rock is still trying to weasel out of his community service. He says he’s not being put to enough use by just shoveling show and doing clerical work and that he should be fundraising for the charity but that mean old Judge Wong isn’t letting him do it:

Rock then asked that charity work he had done for autism, Aids and war veteran organizations be taken into account – and that proposal was rejected too, so now the singer is begrudgingly clearing snow in his native Michigan, insisting his energy could be put to much better use. He says, “There’s so many people in Michigan right now that are really hurting, especially charities, who are looking for money to do what they do.

“The place I’m working with now does a lot of work with children with terminal illnesses, so they’ve got me here stuffing envelopes and moving boxes and shoveling snow – that’s what the judge wants me to do… They’re sitting here, like, ‘Man, we wish you could raise us some money.’ “I turned in over 120 hours, where I raised over… a million dollars and they disregarded all of that… I understand what he’s getting at – he wants you to go out and slap and spend your time and sit there, but it doesn’t make any sense… Whatever, I’m here schlepping 15 hours a day.” Kid Rock fears his community service stint will cost him an appearance at the Grammys this weekend: “I’m trying to juggle a few things around.”

[From WENN via Hollywood TV]

Of course Kid Rock can throw a fundraiser for the place where he’s doing community service – that’s a no brainer. All he has to do is show up on his own time to perform. He’s just mad that he won’t get credit for it, like he hasn’t received credit for his other volunteer work. When you beat up people and cause a public disturbance, you have to do some penance for it. Two weeks of helping out at a service organization is way better than going to jail, and if Rock ends up wanting to help them out more he can certainly do it. Instead he’s moaning about what a disservice the judge is doing by actually making him do a little work.

Kid Rock is shown in Austria on 12/8/08 and at the People’s Choice Awards on 1/7/09. Credit: WENN