****
Mr. Aunt Becky, Mossimo Giannulli, lied about attending USC to start his fashion business with his parent's tuition money.
Lying about going to USC is like lying about cheating on a Kardashian.
****
My parents had to bribe to get me into the school of hard knocks.
****
Sorry, I was traveling and have been out of touch.
Did I just hear Jussie Smollett bribed Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin to get his niece into USC so R. Kelly could not get to her?
****
USC is getting so much bad publicity from the college bribing scandal, their new mascot is a popped Trojan.
****
Mr. Aunt Becky, Mossimo Giannulli, lied about attending USC to start his fashion business.
Lying about attending USC is like falsifying graduating from Trump University on your résumé.
****
Lori Loughlin paid $500,000 to get her kids into USC.
Felicity Huffman's $15,000 is the Fyre Festival cheese sandwich of college bribes.
****
And now, for a perfect summation of the last week, the USC marching band will perform R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly."
****
Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. Which is 52.5 in lying-dog years.
****
"My child wants to go to your college."
"Sorry, but she is neither a genius, disabled, a great athlete nor disenfranchised. We are adamant about supporting those albeit varied but special, special people."
"Are you on Venmo?"
"Welcome to the USC family."
****
Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, paid $500,000 to have their two daughters admitted to USC as rowers.
And now they're all up a certain proverbial creek without a paddle.
Since you asked:
Yes, with apologies to my USC-loving friend, John Snake, I am brutal to USC.
But I come by my hatred of USC fairly.
One of my first thoughts about living in California came on a particularly brutally cold Chicago New Years early evening while watching my-then-idol OJ Simpson - how did that work out? - run all over Ohio State in the 1968 Rose Bowl.
I was ten.
The field was bright green, the USC cheerleaders were gorgeous and everyone was in shirt sleeves. Meanwhile, I was living out the wolf-howling winter storm scene in Dr. Zhivago. (Windows freezing and then cracking from the strong Ural Mountain winds)
Cut to: Nine years later. I am in my UCSB Sigma Chi fraternity house when I was told we would be hosts to about ten USC Sigma Chi members. Eager to meet a fellow Sigma Chi from USC, I extended my hand in friendship.
All ten of these guys - while good looking, hair well-coiffed, tan and well-dressed in collar-up Polo shirts and wearing Vuarnet sunglasses and Top-Sider boat shoes and reeking of Polo cologne, to a person were the smuggest, arrogant, cocky, self-pleased, smug - yes, I said smug twice - bastards I have ever met.
And they still are to this day. And I met guys from the Princeton and Harvard lacrosse teams who worked on Wall Street actually named Skip and Biff.
Then, about seven years later, one of my good Wall Street friends, The Doctor as we affectionately called Mr. Timothy Mack, decided to come to Los Angeles and watch his beloved Notre Dame play USC in the Rose Bowl for his bachelor party.
We bounced from Notre Dame tailgate party to Notre Dame tailgate party. Everyone we met was a little tipsy but extremely nice and welcoming. Many beers offered and consumed.
The USC tailgaters? Rude, wine-sniffing, aloof and snottier than a French maître d.
Nothing has occurred since then to change my mind about USC fans.
With the exception that proves the rule, John Snake.
One of the best gifts I ever got from a friend was from my buddy, whom I will not name, but who was the Commander of Seal Team One, gave me a Seal Team One baseball hat. Official Seal Team insignia and everything.
What cooler gift could a guy have? And he flattered me by giving it to me. He said he would not have given it to me if he did not think I could honor the Seals and pull off looking like a former Seal Team One member.
And it was great. But I made myself a promise: if someone asked if I was a Seal Team member, I would not fib. OK, flat out lie, and say I was a former Seal.
That was the deal.
OK, one time, when a woman asked, I played coy and initially said I could not say as I was on a covert mission and was on a need-to-know basis with that information. But, I did not technically lie.
OK, it was a lie, but I did not say I was a Seal.
Then one day when I went to Chicago to see a late-season Cubs game on a beautiful early Fall day, I was wearing the hat while waiting in line at a bank.
But I forgot I had the hat on.
Suddenly, there was a 6.2, burly early-20-something guy in a Navy uniform standing in front of me saluting and almost shouting with excitement loud enough for everyone’s head to turn to us,
“Sir, it is an honor to salute a member of the Team One, Sir.”
And he stood there, with everyone looking, waiting for me to return the salute. Shocked, confused and embarrassed, I stammered,
“Oh, no, ah, no, see, this hat was a gift from a friend who is a Seal. I'm not a Seal. I just have the hat.”
The look of shattered disappointment on this kid’s face broke my heart. I left the bank immediately not cashing the check I needed to cash.
After that, I put the hat away.
Donald Trump strikes me as someone who would not only wear that Seal hat, but constantly tell people he was a decorated Seal.
There is a flip side to this college bribery scandal that nobody wants to mention.
In high school, I knew a rich kid whose dad was a huge donor to his Ivy League alma mater. (Two dorms and a library in his name) Despite lukewarm grades due to disinterest, my funny, but lazy friend was a lock to get in. The rub? He had to have acceptable - not great - but acceptable SAT scores.
It just so happened I was in the SAT classroom he was in on Saturday morning. He walked in one hour late, took a two-hour test in 15 minutes and handed it in and left. He did not even try to hide the fact he was somehow cheating.
He did the same thing in the afternoon two-hour session. 15 minutes in and out. Brazenly cheating.
Later he got investigated, they found no evidence he cheated and his SAT score, unlike his grades, was terrific.
He then went to that Ivy League school and flunked out, right? Wrong.
He was President of his fraternity and went on to guide one of his father’s consulting businesses to be the first of their kind to utilize computers and he sold it for another fortune.
Today their family is still one of the top two or three donators to the Art Institute of Chicago, along with the Sears and Wrigley families.
Why did he guide the business into being done by computers? He was lazy and found computers did more of the work.
As much as we do not want to admit it, sometimes cheaters do prosper.
This whole bribery scandal boils down to one thing: the outsized ego of the parents. If the kid wanted to work hard and get into a hard school, they could have. They did not.
But that is not acceptable to their vain parents.
P.S. Saw him at the 35-year high school reunion. He looked good. After a few drinks and laughs, I mustered the guts to ask him about the famous SAT test. He just smiled and said,
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
SAT scores do not measure all the different kinds of smart.
Mr. Aunt Becky, Mossimo Giannulli, lied about attending USC to start his fashion business with his parent's tuition money.
Lying about going to USC is like lying about cheating on a Kardashian.
****
My parents had to bribe to get me into the school of hard knocks.
****
Sorry, I was traveling and have been out of touch.
Did I just hear Jussie Smollett bribed Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin to get his niece into USC so R. Kelly could not get to her?
****
USC is getting so much bad publicity from the college bribing scandal, their new mascot is a popped Trojan.
****
Mr. Aunt Becky, Mossimo Giannulli, lied about attending USC to start his fashion business.
Lying about attending USC is like falsifying graduating from Trump University on your résumé.
****
Lori Loughlin paid $500,000 to get her kids into USC.
Felicity Huffman's $15,000 is the Fyre Festival cheese sandwich of college bribes.
****
And now, for a perfect summation of the last week, the USC marching band will perform R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly."
****
Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. Which is 52.5 in lying-dog years.
****
"My child wants to go to your college."
"Sorry, but she is neither a genius, disabled, a great athlete nor disenfranchised. We are adamant about supporting those albeit varied but special, special people."
"Are you on Venmo?"
"Welcome to the USC family."
****
Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, paid $500,000 to have their two daughters admitted to USC as rowers.
And now they're all up a certain proverbial creek without a paddle.
Since you asked:
Yes, with apologies to my USC-loving friend, John Snake, I am brutal to USC.
But I come by my hatred of USC fairly.
One of my first thoughts about living in California came on a particularly brutally cold Chicago New Years early evening while watching my-then-idol OJ Simpson - how did that work out? - run all over Ohio State in the 1968 Rose Bowl.
I was ten.
The field was bright green, the USC cheerleaders were gorgeous and everyone was in shirt sleeves. Meanwhile, I was living out the wolf-howling winter storm scene in Dr. Zhivago. (Windows freezing and then cracking from the strong Ural Mountain winds)
Cut to: Nine years later. I am in my UCSB Sigma Chi fraternity house when I was told we would be hosts to about ten USC Sigma Chi members. Eager to meet a fellow Sigma Chi from USC, I extended my hand in friendship.
All ten of these guys - while good looking, hair well-coiffed, tan and well-dressed in collar-up Polo shirts and wearing Vuarnet sunglasses and Top-Sider boat shoes and reeking of Polo cologne, to a person were the smuggest, arrogant, cocky, self-pleased, smug - yes, I said smug twice - bastards I have ever met.
And they still are to this day. And I met guys from the Princeton and Harvard lacrosse teams who worked on Wall Street actually named Skip and Biff.
Then, about seven years later, one of my good Wall Street friends, The Doctor as we affectionately called Mr. Timothy Mack, decided to come to Los Angeles and watch his beloved Notre Dame play USC in the Rose Bowl for his bachelor party.
We bounced from Notre Dame tailgate party to Notre Dame tailgate party. Everyone we met was a little tipsy but extremely nice and welcoming. Many beers offered and consumed.
The USC tailgaters? Rude, wine-sniffing, aloof and snottier than a French maître d.
Nothing has occurred since then to change my mind about USC fans.
With the exception that proves the rule, John Snake.
One of the best gifts I ever got from a friend was from my buddy, whom I will not name, but who was the Commander of Seal Team One, gave me a Seal Team One baseball hat. Official Seal Team insignia and everything.
What cooler gift could a guy have? And he flattered me by giving it to me. He said he would not have given it to me if he did not think I could honor the Seals and pull off looking like a former Seal Team One member.
And it was great. But I made myself a promise: if someone asked if I was a Seal Team member, I would not fib. OK, flat out lie, and say I was a former Seal.
That was the deal.
OK, one time, when a woman asked, I played coy and initially said I could not say as I was on a covert mission and was on a need-to-know basis with that information. But, I did not technically lie.
OK, it was a lie, but I did not say I was a Seal.
Then one day when I went to Chicago to see a late-season Cubs game on a beautiful early Fall day, I was wearing the hat while waiting in line at a bank.
But I forgot I had the hat on.
Suddenly, there was a 6.2, burly early-20-something guy in a Navy uniform standing in front of me saluting and almost shouting with excitement loud enough for everyone’s head to turn to us,
“Sir, it is an honor to salute a member of the Team One, Sir.”
And he stood there, with everyone looking, waiting for me to return the salute. Shocked, confused and embarrassed, I stammered,
“Oh, no, ah, no, see, this hat was a gift from a friend who is a Seal. I'm not a Seal. I just have the hat.”
The look of shattered disappointment on this kid’s face broke my heart. I left the bank immediately not cashing the check I needed to cash.
After that, I put the hat away.
Donald Trump strikes me as someone who would not only wear that Seal hat, but constantly tell people he was a decorated Seal.
There is a flip side to this college bribery scandal that nobody wants to mention.
In high school, I knew a rich kid whose dad was a huge donor to his Ivy League alma mater. (Two dorms and a library in his name) Despite lukewarm grades due to disinterest, my funny, but lazy friend was a lock to get in. The rub? He had to have acceptable - not great - but acceptable SAT scores.
It just so happened I was in the SAT classroom he was in on Saturday morning. He walked in one hour late, took a two-hour test in 15 minutes and handed it in and left. He did not even try to hide the fact he was somehow cheating.
He did the same thing in the afternoon two-hour session. 15 minutes in and out. Brazenly cheating.
Later he got investigated, they found no evidence he cheated and his SAT score, unlike his grades, was terrific.
He then went to that Ivy League school and flunked out, right? Wrong.
He was President of his fraternity and went on to guide one of his father’s consulting businesses to be the first of their kind to utilize computers and he sold it for another fortune.
Today their family is still one of the top two or three donators to the Art Institute of Chicago, along with the Sears and Wrigley families.
Why did he guide the business into being done by computers? He was lazy and found computers did more of the work.
As much as we do not want to admit it, sometimes cheaters do prosper.
This whole bribery scandal boils down to one thing: the outsized ego of the parents. If the kid wanted to work hard and get into a hard school, they could have. They did not.
But that is not acceptable to their vain parents.
P.S. Saw him at the 35-year high school reunion. He looked good. After a few drinks and laughs, I mustered the guts to ask him about the famous SAT test. He just smiled and said,
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
SAT scores do not measure all the different kinds of smart.
posted by Alex at
1:10 PM
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