There is a Lorenz Hart lyric that about sums it up:
When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals...
He further mentions,
The conversation with the flying
plates...
And,
The fine mismating of a him and
her...
These could be the lyrics to the most entertaining show in the
Hamptons...certainly, at least, until the rainy season is over.
It all started with a divorce, which should have been a ho-hum
yawn of an event for the usually jaded residents of this
money-by-the-sea community.
Mr. Cook wanted the courtroom closed and the children's Law
Guardian supported this request. In New York, this usually happens
virtually automatically in child abuse and neglect cases, but does
not happen in the average divorce case unless there are small
children involved and sensible parents request a closed courtroom.
However, in this case, Ms. Brinkley wanted the courtroom open to
the media of the Western World and any neighbors who did not have
anything better to do on a rainy afternoon. The judge, in an
entirely legally supportable decision, whose precedents go all the
way up to the Supreme Court, decided the courtroom should be open
to the media and public.
Ms. Brinkley's position appeared to be inexplicable since the
airing of this couple's dirty linen could only be detrimental to
the children. Especially so, since Mr. Cook's peccadilloes
apparently included a couple of very young women and at least one
other who was already married, unfortunately, to someone else. In
fact, his own lawyer compared him to those bastions of sexual
probity: Clinton, Spitzer and McGreevy.
Mr. Cook was seeking custody, but, back in the real world, that
stood as little chance of happening as Bin Laden showing up at a
Bar Mitzvah. What the mother was trying to show was that he was
morally unfit to have visitation with their two children. However,
the fact is that it probably takes him twenty minutes to do
whatever he does with a young lady and he has the rest of the day
to be a good father. Brinkley's capable lawyers will have to prove
that his conduct somehow has so contaminated his life that he
should not have unsupervised visitation.
In the category of sometimes answered prayers are worse than
unanswered ones, the Brinkley lawyers forced Mr. Cook to make a
damning admission: that he was virtually addicted to pornography.
The only problem was that upon further questioning he revealed who
joined him in this pursuit. You guessed it. Ms. Brinkley.
EVEN MORE BAD NEWS for Ms. Brinkley: Old television tapes have
surfaced where she praised Mr. Cook's fatherhood, and she indicated
how great a father he was. Now we know, although she claims that
she did not know that he was indulging in his habit of pornography
at the same period of time. How is he any worse a father now that
we know about it, than when we didn't know about it?
Diana Bianchi, Cook's then teen-aged lover, testified she had
sex with him about ten times. Cook gave her $300,000 to prevent her
telling his wife. This, of course, breaks down to about $30,000 an
assignation.
Everybody was shocked when Spitzer paid $4,000 for a visit from
a girl. Putting aside the fact that the former was consensual and
the latter, a business arrangement, Spitzer got off cheap.
Stay tuned, and if you are in the neighborhood of Islip, drop
in. There is no admission charge for the show.
And if you get bored and want to see a different show, there is
always A-Rod, C-Rod, or Madonna -- and if you are really
bored, you can start thinking about Kabala.
topics:
Television, Business, Law, Supreme Court
