5/1/23
Newsletter #323
The Crack of Dawn
Today is May 1, known as “Mayday.” Mayday is also a distress signal that came into use in 1923. Mayday is the phonetic equivalent of “M'aidez,” which is French for “Help me.” Why do I know this? I live for this shit.
Way back in 2017 when the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke and #MeToo became a big thing (I heard comedian Bill Burr say on TV last night, “Believe all women all the time? Come on, let’s be reasonable. How about 85% of the time”), my Uncle Carl and I were out for lunch. We made ourselves laugh compiling a list of “When Jews Go Bad.” Harvey Weinstein, who always gave me the creeps, but was honestly quite a good producer, was at the top of our list that day. Pleasantly for both Carl and I, we really couldn’t come up with much of a list as hard as we tried. Carl insisted that Judah Benjamin, who was the Attorney-General of the Confederacy during the Civil War, be included, but I don’t think he qualifies; he didn’t go bad; he simply came from Louisiana, was proud of it, and did pretty well for himself. Mazal Tov. Since Harvey Weinstein’s escapades there was Jeffrey Epstein, a creep of such international magnitude, involving so many rich, famous men (mostly gentile) that we’ll probably never learn all of the details of that nightmare.
Since 2017 I’ve been vaguely thinking about the subject, When Jews Go Bad, and I still can’t come up with much of a list [There is a “Comment” button at the bottom of these newsletters that isn’t often used, which is fine with me, but if you have suggestions for When Jews Go Bad that I missed, you can post them here].
When Jews Go Bad: Let’s start with that true piece of shit, Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor. Young Roy Cohn came to prominence in 1951 as the main Department of Justice prosecutor of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, getting them convicted of being Russian spies, for which they were both executed in 1953 (and they too are on this list). During the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) reign of terror, Roy Cohen was the general-counsel for Wisconsin Senator, Joseph McCarthy. Together they destroyed the lives and careers of hundreds of innocent people out of nothing but Communist paranoia, spite, and of course, self-promotion. Roy then became “The Fixer” for the rich and famous. He could pretty much get anybody off of any charge for more than 20 years. Roy Cohn personally taught Donald Trump everything he knows (although Cohn was much smarter and much creepier). Cohn taught Trump to never pay anybody; let ‘em take you to court: it takes years, and eventually they’ll settle for much, much less. Never admit guilt. Also, since he never admitted that he was gay or that he had AIDS, Roy Cohn died at the age of 59, and not a moment too soon.
There’s Bernie Madoff and Ivan Boesky, both spectacular stock market crooks. I enjoyed Barry Levinson’s movie about Bernie Madoff, The Wizard of Lies (2017), with Robert DeNiro as Bernie Madoff and Michele Pfeiffer as his wife, Ruth. Is it just me, or has someone else noticed that they just don’t cast Jews as Jews. You can’t cast Mickey Rooney as an Asian anymore (thank God), but it’s perfectly OK to cast Robert DeNiro and Michele Pfeiffer, both of whom are blatantly not Jewish to me, as Jews. I adore Michele Pfeiffer, and she does a great job, but she’s not Jewish – not even a little. If you look up “Gentile” in the dictionary it has her picture. Of course, Barry Levinson is Jewish, but get these yid screenwriters: Sam Levinson, Sam Baum, and John Burnham Schwartz. Look, I understand, if Robert DeNiro wants to play the part, he gets the part. And he’s really good, too. Wearing a prosthetic schnoz.
Jews have the great good fortune to claim at least one famous serial killer, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz. My mother’s maiden name was Berkowitz. My sister ran the ancestry on Berkowitz and it’s a pretty common Eastern European Jewish name, along with Berkovich and Berkovic. Spike Lee made Summer of Sam (1999) which is ostensibly about the Son of Sam killings, but even he cast an Italian, Michael Badalucco, as Berkowitz.
There hasn’t been a movie yet (that I know of), although there probably will be about the Jewish Sackler family and the opioid crises. I’m not running defense because they’re Jewish, I just have great difficulty jumping aboard that train and blaming them. Of recent times, the Sackler family have been described as the “Most evil family in America,” and “the worst drug dealers in history.” You judge for yourself, once you hear the facts. Oxycodone was invented in 1916 in Germany by two Jews, Martin Freund and Edmund Speyer. It was a terrific drug, it made you feel euphoric, it killed pain, everybody loved it, and it went on the market all over the world by a number of names, the most popular being Eukodal, which was manufactured in Germany. Records show that Adolf Hitler was a regular user – meaning addict – of Eukodal from 1943-1945.
Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler were the children of Jewish immigrants from Galicia and Poland, and grew up in Brooklyn in the 1930s. All three went to medical school, became doctors, then worked together at a psychiatric hospital in Queens. The Sackler brothers were early pioneers in medication techniques which ended the common barbaric practice of lobotomies, and were also regarded as the first to fight for the racial integration of blood banks, evil though they were. In 1952 the brothers bought a small pharmaceutical company, Purdue-Frederick. In 1996 Purdue introduced OxyContin, a reformulated version of oxycodone in a slow-release form. It was extremely popular, sold astronomically well, then went completely out of control – not by the Sackler family, ostensibly “the most evil family in America;” but by the prescribing doctors [my late, addicted mother had five] – and an opioid/opiate epidemic followed. At that time Purdue was owned by the five children of the three brothers, none of whom had anything to do with running the companies. Yes, they’re insanely rich and probably spoiled rotten, but did they cause an addiction crisis? In 1996? Remember, there had been an opiate addiction problem in America since before 1971 when they made The French Connection. Opioids are fake opiates. When good, long-lasting, fake opiates became available, of course they were a problem. But there already was a problem, and surprise, it got worse. The Sacklers are the most evil family in the world? Putin’s cat, Igor, is worse.
I’m not quite done with this topic.
Y’all come back now, hear?