Taki
Already a subscriber? Log in
For the next hour or two I hear nothing about the Occupy Wall Street movement while Ali, Teimoc, Mark, Brian and I take turns under the timer. After fighting and pounding the pads and bags, we lie around talking politics. Ali, an Uzbeki, does not participate except to denounce the KGB. The fact it’s no longer even called that does not matter. As far as Ali is concerned, men of the KGB are all child molesters and subhuman, and all over ‘dis grate country of hours’. Teimoc, Mark, Brian and I are of the same political persuasion, paleo-conservatism, not to be confused with the scum that have names like Kristol, Podhoretz, Perle, Abrams, Cheney and George W. Bush, the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, got hundreds of thousands to die, all so that Likud could sleep well at night. Which brings me to the latest fashionable vice, to occupy Wall Street.
I’m all for it, but who’s gonna replace it? Those Woodstock wannabes posing as Dickensian urchins who have occupied Zuccotti Park? The Dow is up more than 9 per cent since the demos caught national and international traction three weeks ago, so whatever else happens, the capitalist pigs are doing their job. As are the melodramatic young people who have turned downtown into a pigsty. The former should have ensured their leaders had gone to jail after 2008. They did not because that’s not how one does business on Wall Street. Squealers on Wall Street are like stool pigeons in jail; they have a very limited shelf life. The latter may be well intentioned, but they’re also professional protesters looking for publicity in the guise of pretending to change the world for the better. Basically, it’s people who have the time to do this — sleep alfresco, play the guitar, give interviews to concerned-looking hacks, and smell bad.
If they knew more about the park’s name, they might get even angrier. John Zuccotti, after whom the park was named, was deputy mayor of the city and is head of Brookfield’s, a property firm which owns the quasi-public park. He is a very affable man who lives quietly in Brooklyn and whose father was a very, very good friend of mine. Angelo Zuccotti was the most important man in New York society during the Forties and Fifties because it was he, as maitre d’, who decided where one sat once inside the high-society temple that was the El Morocco. Angelo liked my father, took me under his wing and placed me at the best tables according to the lady I had with me. To be 20 years old and to out-table, say, Onassis, was quite impressive, at least to some of the girls, which means I owe Angelo a lot, and, as he is no longer with us, to his son.
Typically Zuccotti, he has not commented on the occupiers. That was Angelo’s way also. He would smile, greet you as if you were the world’s numero uno, and if you had a dog with you he’d take you straight to Siberia. (Which the western part of El Morocco was known as, where the BBQs were placed. Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens.) The irony is that most nice people nowadays live in Brooklyn and Queens, as Manhattan has attracted the same kind of ex-Soviet and Arab scum that populates London and the Riviera.
So there you have it, sport fans. Downtown is occupied by poseurs, uptown by flâneurs, and the only place the poor little Greek boy can find peace is while crossing the park very early in the morning.
Also in Society
Also by Taki
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in