Thursday, October 15, 2009

Schadenfreude!!

Best of the Web:

Songwriter Joseph Brooks has been having a difficult time of late, the Associated Press reports. He is scheduled to go on trial next week after having "pleaded not guilty in June to raping 11 women seeking film roles." He's also involved in a messy civil case:

Brooks filed a fraud suit Tuesday seeking at least $2 million in damages and the return of a $550,000 bank account, a $60,000 engagement ring and other expensive presents he says he gave to Joaly Gomez. .

The "complete shock" came Oct. 2, when he peered in her open handbag and discovered a 2007 marriage certificate listing her as another man's wife, the suit said. She had concealed the marriage "so that he would continue to shower her with gifts, attention, propose to her" and spend money on her, the suit said

OK, here's the payoff line:

You almost start to think the guy has suffered enough. And then you realize he's the guy who wrote "You Light Up My Life."

Like I said: Schadenfreude!!

2 comments:

krshorewood said...

Just hearing Debby Boone sing it was rape enough.

Christopher London said...

The recent indictment for rape and sexual assault of famed Academy Award-winning songwriter Joseph Brooks and his current efforts to spin the media and use the legal system in a proactively offensive manner to clawback and seek return of gifts given to one young woman who stood by him, cared for him and intended to marry him, got me thinking about the man’s career, his character and the somewhat, in my opinion, creepy nature of his artistic creations.Most think of the 70’s ballad “You Light Up My Life”, written by Joseph Brooks and performed by Debby Boone as a purely romantic tune. I see it another way, as the hymn of an emotionally disturbed individual unable to connect with the object of his affection on a genuine, not surreal, and equal level, who is seeking salvation from his unfulfilled life. If you doubt me, one only needs to view Brooks’ semi-autobiographical follow up film to You Light Up My Life entitled “If I Ever See You Again” which almost seems to validate the stalker persona embodied by Brooks’ creepy character in the film. These two songs combined hence are not romantic hymns, but anthems of a delusional stalker, who is either psychotic or narcissistic depending on how you interpret the perspective of the writer. He either seeks salvation in his objectification of another human being or perceives himself as his prey’s own “Personal Jesus” unwilling to accept rejection. The burden of seeking or placing one’s own salvation in another individual, making them in effect your own personal jesus, while generally perceived by most as spiritual and romantic, is on some level actually psychotic. Courts should be Courts should be especially wary and distrustful of Brooks’ claim against Gomez, especially since they come at a time when he may now be in need of resources after his indictment for rape and sexual assault. His lawsuit against Ms. Gomez amounts to little more than abuse of the legal process and is part of the same pattern of abuse that he has been engaged in with women for the last seemingly 25 years.