RobertLiebowitz.com

This guy Madoff, a Jew, has stolen from seemingly every wealthy Jewish philanthropy and many other Jewish inverstment groups and the like.

He goes to court like the schmuck he is, and everything appears calm on the outside–all his victims, what do they do? Why, they go to court. No, G-d forbid one of them tries to gauge out his eyeballs…which is what i would do, for sure.

It is why we are loathed in the world, why we are scorned, ridiculed, and laughed at. It is why we are designated cowards–because we are. It is why we willingly walked into concentration camps–”Oh, Please, Mr. Nazi, please don’t hurt me! I won’t say anything to offend you, just let me go back to my office and count my money!”

Same thing here–a guy wrecks thousands of lives, maybe millions…and he just walks into court, unopposed. Soon, he’ll have his own reality TV show. It is nauseating. And it makes my blood boil.

“And Little Sir John’s grown a long, long beard…

and so become a man…”

Steve Winwood, Traffic

If it were only that simple.

Yeah, I said it. Overrated. When his dialogue are short bursts–Othello and Iago, the two assassins in Richard III, the balcony scene in R & J-he is first rate. Really terrific, profoundly entertaining dialogue. The poetry he shoehorns into his plays, however, has no place on a modern stage, with one or two exceptions. Playwriting is the art of THE SPOKEN WORD–people simply do not speak in poetry, and it runs counter to everything that modern theatre aspires to be.

You can’t claim he is the greatest when very few people, this humble scribe included, cannot understand 85% of what they hear in any given play.

Let the debate begin.

“Mama said love is all that matters;

Lies and Deception are a sin;”

–Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music

Once in a while I find myself observing life, rather than living it. The nature of the artistic beast in me, or am I just another vicarious thrill-seeker?

From an underrated film (so underrated I cant even remember the title!), comes this beaut, uttered by Sandra Bernhard’s character (ahh–I just remmebered the movie–”Hudson Hawk”):

“Nothing happens unless it happens to us.”

Perfect.

All this time, since the 80s, gluttony has overrun this country something fierce. We watch baseball players make MILLIONS of dollars a year, and we yawn, and even argue the merits. Can you imagine the cloud of insanity that has just passed? Oh, wait, there’s the sun…what? A baseball plays makes $17 million dollars a year? Box seats cost $500? To see a baseball game???? I could feed a family of 4 for 3 weeks on that!!

Until…

What do you mean, the value of our house is going down? What do you mean, our stock portfolio–NOTHING BUT GAMBLING!–has flatlined? I’m entitled for everything to go up! I’m an American! Two planes crash into the WTC, 3000 people are killed, our President tells the county–go shopping. Geez Louise…

WHERE IS THE SENSE OF SACRIFICE???

No, everyone wants to live a risk-free life, self-absorbed life.

And then there are my fans, often witty. A shout out and some props to A.K. for her clever cynicism…I am still laughing…