High life
Over the moon
Taki
Gstaad schadenfreude is the malicious joy in the misfortunes of others. Alas, it is not unknown in other parts of the world, say, in Wall Street, the City, downtown Athens, central Frankfurt, even in Kuala Lumpur. Nowhere, of course, is schadenfreude a reli- gion, except in Tinseltown. There it has replaced the worship of God, the Ten Commandments, the golden rule, you name it. Schadenfreude is the first thing Hollywood tykes learn from their divorced parents, long before nursery rhymes, fables, or fairy tales. Schadenfreude is oxygen, sus- tenance and manna from heaven, the be all and end all to the Sammy Glicks of this world.
I thought of schadenfreude last week when an acquaintance of mine told me he was in serious business trouble. So serious, `Don't let me put you off eating my children.' in fact, he was thinking of taking his boy out of private school. I heard the news while sunning myself on the terrace of the Eagle Club, surrounded by friends and hav- ing an awfully good time. Needless to say, it spoiled it for good.
`Why are the wrong people always going broke?' was the way my buddy Christopher Buckley put it. He had a point. The acquaintance in trouble is a very nice man with a wonderful family. He deserved bet- ter. (A venture capitalist, he was sued by a professional litigator because of the simi- larity in name of their respective compa- nies. Although it was proved in court that the plaintiff lost no business, nor was their business remotely in competition, the plaintiff won his case. The heavy fine and ensuing publicity caused the stock to go violently south.) Having skied down in a terrible mood, I decided to try a bit of schadenfreude to see if it helped. It did. The first man who crossed my mind was the extortionist who sued my friend. I could see the headline in a New Jersey newspaper: 'Plaintiff loses on appeal, is jailed for contempt after produc- ing false witnesses.' I was already feeling much better, had a drink and rang my friend. 'Well, it could happen. I am, after all, appealing, but don't count on it,' he said. Still, you know what they say about life and hope.
Having tasted the wickedness of schaden- freude's pleasures, I tried it again the very next day. It was something I read about Sidney Blumenthal, probably one of Wash- ington's most disgusting people, a man who is to truth and fairness what Lavrenti Beria was to compassion. Blumenthal was the cowardly bum who, during the 1992 elec- tion, spread the rumour that George Bush had bailed out early from his burning tor- pedo dive-bomber, leaving his co-pilot to die. (The complete opposite is the truth.) `Blumenthal jailed for perjury' was the fan- tasy that had me over the moon in no time.
Needless to say, being an addict to plea- sure, the fun and games went and are still going on. All I have to do is read the news- papers. An incredibly gushing, arse-licking and extremely embarrassing piece about David Geffen in the New Yorker — where else? — had me fantasising all day. 'Geffen forced to sell DreamWorks, Gulfstream jet and Malibu pad' had me tingling all over. For any of you unfamiliar with the vulgari- an, Geffen is a billionaire activist in gay causes, a close friend of Bill Clinton's, and a man feared in Hollywood for his tenden- cy to abuse and crush those who displease him. (He is a short poof from Brooklyn who wears jeans and trainers and in whose house the Draft Dodger spends 'quality time'.) `Donald Trump sells casinos, announces bankruptcy' didn't give me the kick the oth- ers had, but, still, if the great loud-mouth did go bankrupt, we would at least stop reading about how great he is in bed. The greatest fantasy of all, 'CLINTON RESIGNS', simply does not work. The greatest liar ever to hold any office has managed to make lying not only acceptable but desirable. The great American public, its brains fried by non-stop television com- mercials and car chases, now approves of dishonesty the same way it once approved of, say, milk or apple-pie. George Orwell's Ministry of Truth lives. Ergo, even the fan- tasy fails.
Mind you, since writing this, my Holly- wood pleasures are over. I could have gone on and on. Just imagine what I could do with the likes of Rusbridger, the low lifes of Private Eye, the worms that work on and edit the tabloids. Oy veh! I'd turn into a Sammy Glick myself, and that surely is a fate worse than that of Monica Lewinsky.
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