Korman: Madman Madoff good for more than just laughs

Bernie Madoff just couldn’t settle for a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. It’s now alleged that his New York office was a frequent venue for cocaine and sex parties. Of the numerous sources that reported the story, one tidbit of information was faithfully included across most reports: His office was so saturated with cocaine that it was known as “The North Pole.”

The nickname takes a few seconds to sink in, but once it does, it is glorious. One can’t help but marvel at the allegation that one of the world’s most monetarily successful businessmen was both a fraud and a cocaine aficionado.

While “The North Pole” epithet offers a new plateau of hilarity, it’s hardly unique — all Madoff coverage is ripe with absurdity. From late night talk shows to straight news, Madoff and jokes go together like … well, sex and cocaine, apparently.

Some Madoff jokes are good, and some Madoff jokes are bad — it’s a typical bell-shaped distribution curve of humor quality. Some might object, “But Bernie Madoff jokes are awesome! Hey, did you hear what Bernie Madoff got his family for Christmas?”

To those people, I offer a preemptive apology because I am about to squelch your insatiable appetite for Madoff humor by rendering even the funniest of jokes patently sterile.

(He got his wife cubic zirconium and his children fool’s gold, by the way.)

“You know something? Shouldn’t the first clue have been the guy’s name? Madoff, you know, as in ‘made off with the money?’ I mean, who were his partners, Pilfered and Swindled?” Jay Leno said.

Ah, such hilarity. But why? Because Madoff is merely a higher-order thief or bandit, and we, as a society, love it when peoples’ names are somehow representative of their character.

We are tickled by the likes of librarians named “Bookman” and, of course, lauded poet William Wordsworth. We even call Shaquille O’Neal “Shaq” because when you say it out loud, it actually sounds like a fiberglass backboard shattering.

Leno’s “Pilfered and Swindled” comment highlights the fact that the Madoff-“made off” connection was so spot-on that he might as well be named any other stealing-related phrase. Props to Jay’s writers for ensuring that “Pilfered” and “Swindled” were appropriately in the past tense to correspond with that of “made off.”

Another reason why this Madoff joke was funny was because Jay said it in this funny voice that was really, really funny.

“This Madoff, what a number he must’ve done on his mother. I mean, there’s obviously something wrong with him, psychologically. The woman probably had to see a shrink ‘til the day she died, with this son of hers.” my mom said while watching a “Dateline” special on Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

This technically isn’t a joke, but I am including it in this discussion because it is awesome.

And John Oliver of “The Daily Show” said that “[Madoff] launched a prison fund that yielded two handjobs per every pack of cigarettes invested,”

This Madoff quip prompts guffaws primarily because it implies that Madoff is so devoid of morals that he’d fail to learn from his mistakes, even after being sentenced to 150 years in prison.

The joke also takes a shot at his dignity. While his Ponzi scheme had netted him billions in profits, the best he can hope for now is a handjob from Bubba. Indeed, society loves tearing down its fraudulent heroes. What we’ve done as a culture to Barry Bonds and Milli Vanilli is pretty consistent with what we’re doing to Madoff right now.

Of course, the Madoff debacle isn’t all jokes. It exposed a major hole in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulatory practices to the public. Former SEC chairman Christopher Cox acknowledged that “credible and specific allegations” pertaining to Madoff’s firm were never pursued.

The ubiquity of the story has prompted widespread demand for change, and on Tuesday, treasury officials and House Financial Services Committee head Barney Frank, D-Mass., drafted legislation which would give the government broader oversight and require investors with offshore funds to inform the SEC. Madoff had accounts in 11 offshore locales, including Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.

Though Madoff doesn’t nearly represent every cause of the economic crisis, his downfall has been cathartic. It’s like when you’re having a bad day, you might chuckle a little harder when you see somebody trip on the sidewalk.

Is it sadistic? I say it’s therapeutic. If we can laugh about being broke, we might be less likely to cry about it. Sure, we might be in financial ruin, but we can at least take solace in the fact that Madoff now does business not in the North Pole of cocaine, but in the Sahara desert of dignity.

E-mail Ben at bek25@pitt.edu