Heard the news about Jeff Bezos’ $500,000,000 yacht? I wanted to wait a little while to write something and submit it for publication — just to be sure Big Boss Jeff hadn’t slyly succeeded in buying the Rotterdam City Council and Mayor. What a downer that would be (and, of course, he may yet succeed).
Lately, I’ve been reading the writings of that young ignorant supporter of the Confederacy turned abolitionist turned anti-imperialist and world-touring Weisenheimer, Mark Twain. Herewith is my result regarding Mr. Jeffery Preston Bezos.
Broken News
(The latest news link I could find was this August 11 article, so it’s not breaking, it’s long broken, in fact, it’s downright stale news.):
“Rotterdam Won’t Dismantle Historic Bridge to Let Jeff Bezos’ $500 Million Superyacht Pass” [Credit: Town and Country]
Now there’s a magazine that I must confess I have never bought a copy of, but I’ve seen it prominently offered at many a supermarket checkout aisle. So, is it bought by bumpkins who aspire to affluence and will attain it by regularly purchasing lottery tickets and this magazine? I am ashamed to admit that this is the very first article from this fine bourgeois publication that I have ever read. In that regard, I must offer thanks to the serendipity of the search engine. “Read all about it,” as they say in the news biz, and here it is:
Jeff Bezos’s Superyacht Is Nearly Completed
A limerick dedicated to Jeff Bezos by Kermit Leibensperger
When whales get beached, the shrimp laugh*
There once was lubber named Bezos.
Who thought his big yacht would be famous,
He offered to pay off,
But Council said “F___ off
That yacht is a crime infelicitous.”
* A Bethlehem Steel blast furnace coworker of mine enjoyed repeating this with an ear-to-ear smile: “When whales get beached, the shrimp laugh,” so I must credit him with my limerick’s title. He religiously repeated this whenever the news reported that some big cheese who thought they were beyond the law had come in contact with the law — in a big, big way, as big cheeses rarely do.
(By the way, this coworker liked to steal sporty cars for fun before he technically qualified as an adult — not that I think he ever could grow up because after working with him for over a decade, I knew the fellow well, and he was too intelligent to do much in the way of grownup things, the “Awfuler… things that ever were,” I concur with him wholeheartedly and like to whistle that song from the musical “Peter Pan” occasionally. The entire lyric is a masterpiece to me. But back to my digression …
This worldly-wise USW brother claimed to be a Mensa member, but I didn’t fall for that yarn because, as a youth, he got caught purloining a car. You know, quite a fair percentage of them never do get caught. I learned this firsthand when my ’66 VW vanished. I contacted officers of the law, and they have been clueless to this day, as those who enjoy this newspaper are well aware.
Getting back to the background story, qualifying as a youth offender at the time of his grand theft auto conviction (Note to readers, not geezers like me: Video games did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s if you are one of the unfortunates, sadly addicted to the game with the same name), the only effect my friend’s juvenile arrest and detention had on him by the time that I came to know him was bragging rights. I fondly remember his grand theft auto saga whenever I see the scene in the prequel movie “Star Trek” where teenager James T. Kirk sends his mean stepfather’s antique Corvette over a cliff … after the joyride of a lifetime. That movie is a favorite, like my old blast furnace brother.
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