Richard Day's picture

    THOSE WERE THE DAYS

     
    caricature of Eros as an old man...(Greek 2nd cent. BC, at the Met) by ccseed.F.decorate(_ge('photo_notes'), F._photo_notes).notes_go_go_go(3579161528, 'http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3642/3579161528_2a32a30cfb_t.jpg', '3.1444');


    "Mr. Madoff is 71 years old, your Honor. Based upon his health, which is in the PSR, his family history, his life expectancy, that is why we ask for a sentence of 12 years, just short, based upon the statistics that we have, of a life sentence." Quote at sentencing by the attorney for Bernie Madoff just prior to the Judge sentencing his client to 150 years in prison.

    AP Wired Services (A US Corporate Personage)

    July 1, 2147, Washington DC

    Today Bernie Madoff was released from prison. At 211 years of age, Bernie was not looking at his best, so to speak. Lying in a gurney with seventeen intravenous tubes invading what was left of his body, he managed a smile. At least they think it was a smile. Dr. Gothami, the treating physician had opined it was probably gas.

    I was given the opportunity to speak with the giant of the old Wall Street we now all read about in our criminal law classes, as he was once known, at his condominium only a few hours following his release. I worked up to this by putting in over one hundred hours of research on this financial expert.

    It seems that Madoff had made off, so to speak, with some fifty billion dollars of his investors' money back at the beginning of the last century. It may not seem like a lot of money now, I mean fifty billion dollars is a monthly allotment of food stamps for a family of four in this day and age.

    But back then, that kind of money could buy a lot of stuff, as they used to say. Huge mansions and islands were at his disposal. I Googledorfed the Webbensoft to take me back to the days before computer implants  and when average life expectancies were well under a century.

    I spoke with Tomasu Terlacki, the head of prisons in DC to get some idea as to why Mr. Madoff only was released today. He told me:

    Well the best we can figure, people were really mad at Madoff in those days. Hahahahahah. Get it? Mad at Madoff. And he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Well, I can tell you, we would have let him out decades ago, but we plum forgot he was even in prison. As a matter of fact, Mr. Madoff should have been released in '87 following the Universal Amnesty Edict. There was some kind of computer screw up. The prison in which he was located had become an animal shelter in '07. The proprietors thought he was one of those extinct forest animals.

    Well an intern, fresh out of Oral Roberts School of Veterinary Medicine, was doing some research and wandered into his 'cell'.  While she was checking out Madoff's vital signs, he suddenly sat up and said something like: Hey hot stuff, how about a bj to go.

    The intern was taken aback over that one, let me tell you. Well one thing led to another and we procured an order from High Command to release him to his great great grand son, a certain Sabitu Khomani.

    Mr. Khomani let me into Mr. Madoff's room and greeted my quarry in his bed. Bernie was a mere shadow of the great man he had once been. Sitting up he appeared pale and so emaciated. The doctors had told me this one captain of Wall Street weighed only 45.7 pounds when he was finally released. His intravenous tubes were now 7 in number with all sorts of bags containing different solutions hung by specially placed poles around his bed.

    Hello Mr. Madoff, I am Banji Ganhini from the AP, we had an appointment?

    Oh sweet cheeks, I remember. How are you. Quite a rack you have there honey.

    Well thank you Mr. Madoff for the complements, but I am here.........

    Oh please, call me Bernie, all my friends do. And how might I address you sweet cheeks?

    Bonny will be just fine Bernie. All my friends call me Bonny. Now Bernie, while it is still fresh in your mind, what was most memorable about your stay in prison?

    Well a couple things Bonny. First was the smell; I mean about twenty or thirty years ago there was this smell that never went away. They tell me that that was about the time that my prison had become an animal shelter. I actually got kind of used to it. My cell door had even been left open for the last fifteen years and all sorts of critters would come visit me. It was strange but it was good to have friends again.

    Oh and May 7, 2122.

    May 2122? What happened then?

    It was the last time I took a good crap. Really, hard to forget that day. I mean I could tell the sun was out because of the shadows on the floor and everything. What a great relief it was!!!

    I have something here to read to you Bernie. I really would like your reaction. Is that OK?

    Sure Bonny. Just read slowly. I have not heard a woman's voice in so long. Except for that intern. Oh and Lassie one of my friends at the shelter.

    This is from Nancy Smithsonian back in '67:

    I remember Bernie Madoff. Sure I do. My Grandfather, Thomas Smithsonian lost everything in this Ponzerini Scheme at the turn of the century. Something over 100 million dollars. A lot of money in those days.  I learned that if this had not happened I would never have ended up in waitress school. I could have chosen any University in the world. I would have attended the great Bombay University of Science & Technology. I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER.

    Well Bonny, those years are gone. I mean it is time for all of us to look forward to the future. Besides that was all one hundred and forty some years ago. Things were different then. There was a stock market where people would gamble all day, kind of like those Indian Casinos. Everybody wished to make as much money as fast as possible so that they would not have to rub elbows with those street people and so they could live in gated communities and send their children to the best schools.

    We had control, those with the money or the pretend money like me, and the politicians would do our bidding without even a blink.

    There was this president back then when we still had presidents. George W. Bush, as I recall. He appointed the same people who had been gambling in the Market (as we used to call it) to the regulatory agencies that were supposed to police the Market. Can you imagine? Right in the middle of my schemes, I would get calls from his appointees--the same people I had been bribing for years--and they would ask me to sign on as a consultant to their agencies. Well, how could I turn something like that down? I mean I would show up for a few months, erase my files and a few months after that I would start receiving government checks in the mail. I mean who could top that, really? OH THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND:

     

    Once upon a time there was a Wall Street
    Where we used to raise so much money
    Remember how we laughed away the hours
    And think of all the great things we could be

    Chorus:

    Those were the days, my friend
    We thought they'd never end
    We'd sing and dance forever and a day
    We'd live the life we choose
    We'd fight and never lose
    For we were young and sure to have our way
    La la la la la la
    La la la la la la

    Then the people rose up against us
    We began to lose our sway
    Pitchforks held so high it was really mass confusion
    We'd run and hope to fight another day

    Those were the days, my friend
    We thought they'd never end
    We'd sing and dance forever and a day
    We'd live the life we choose
    We'd fight and never lose
    Those were the days
    Oh, yes, those were the days
    La la la la la la
    La la la la la la

    We would just do what we wanted
    Nothing seemed the way it used to be
    In the glass I saw a strange reflection
    Was that lonely investor really me?

    Those were the days, my friend
    We thought they'd never end
    We'd sing and dance forever and a day
    We'd live the life we choose
    We'd fight and never lose
    Those were the days
    Oh, yes, those were the days
    La la la la la la
    La la la la la la

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5pkkAhETYg

     

     

     

    With that Bernie Madoff fell off into a deep sleep.



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