Madoff And Lauer Poem by gershon hepner

When Bernie Madoff meets Matt Lauer
which of them’s the first to glower?
Bernie, being not the banker
of Matt, who of Today is anchor,
or Matt, because he thinks it’s rotten
to be apparently forgotten
by all the newsmen who’re now swarming
around his building, and brainstorming,
to find out why Matt gave no warning
though he sees Bernie every morning.
and evening as well? Perhaps
Matt hasn’t any verbum saps
about the things that Bernie did
because he, nebbish, is no Yid.
Although the building is co-op,
Matt Lauer has a goyish cop,
which may have saved him from the ruin
befalling Jews from Bernie’s doin’.
Since Matt can’t know all things that Bernie
is telling now to his attorney,
perhaps he really should be lurkin’
around Park Avenue where Merkin
might have a story for Today.
Although he hasn’t got the power
of attorney, he’s Matt Lauer,
and ought to tell us and his neighbors
when he first learned of Bernie’s capers.

Susan Dominus writes that Bernie Madoff and Matt Lauer live in the same apartment building on East 4h Street (Madoff Aplogizes to Neighbors for the Ultimate Co-Op Crime, ” NYT, January 12,2009) :

An elegant prewar building with apartments starting at $5 million and an understated lobby (orchid, clubby leather chairs, doorman in vest and jacket) ,133 East 64th isn’t the kind of place where residents get together in the lobby and nibble butter cookies at an annual holiday party, or run into each other in the laundry room and gripe about the high fees of the machines.To the contrary, says one resident, you could live there for years and almost never run into, say, its most famous resident, NBC’s Matt Lauer, or any other neighbor, for that matter. The building has 2 penthouses and 11 floors. It’s laid out with two residences per floor; but since the front and back apartments each have their own elevator, the contact among residents can be minimal. That same neighbor said she barely recognized Mr. Madoff in the paper, and had met him only once, years earlier, when she was interviewing with the board pending acceptance of her financial package. “I think I blocked it out, ” she said. Mr. Madoff, who endeared himself to so many, apparently did not always make a great impression on newcomers to the building, running a meeting that felt, on at least this occasion, adversarial and cold. “I left the meeting thinking, ‘I know that they’re supposed to be deciding whether they want us, but I’m not sure I want them, ’ ” she said. Some of Mr. Madoff’s success seems tied to his knack for making people feel unwanted, that they were being judged and found lacking — the projection of someone whose own books now look cooked to Cordon Bleu perfection, in the eyes of prosecutors.



1/12/09