Part 5 (1/2)
$9 million-plus: Annual pension $86,535: Consulting fees for first 30 days of work each year $17,307: For each additional day $11 million: Resale of Trump Towers luxury apartment $291,869: Unlimited use of corporate jet per month $600: Leased luxury Mercedes-Benz per month Priceless: Unlimited use of company limousine, security-trained chauffeur and bodyguards, country club members.h.i.+ps, full health and life insurance coverage, tickets (season courtside to New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden; season box seats at Yankee Stadium; season grand tier Metropolitan Opera; U.S. Open tennis; Wimbledon tennis; VIP seats at all Olympic events) *
_03:: Big Soldiers in Little China In Chinese culture, death and dying are perceived as just another phase of life. So, it's no wonder that the emperor and other royalty have burial chambers that are designed to mirror their former opulence and prosperity. In fact, some tombs are so elaborate that construction begins really early. In Emperor Ch'in s.h.i.+h Huang Ti's case, for instance, construction on his site started when he turned just 13 (the same age he was crowned king of Qin). Of course, the site was also filled with plenty of goodies the good king could appreciate in the afterlife: food supplies and utensils, carriages ( just in case he got restless), pets, favorite objects, and more than a few subjects (aka dead servants) just in case something needed to be fetched. In fact, the emperor's large harem also accompanied him to his burial chamber while the majority of his servants and animals were spared and replaced with terra-cotta figures. The practice of human sacrifice eventually disappeared thanks to continued objections by notable philosophers like Confucius, Mozi, and Xunzi. Their arguments not only elaborated on the inhumanity of the sacrifices, but also pointed out that the preparations were extravagant, wasted time, and interfered with the daily labor needed to generate wealth. Pretty wise indeed.
_04:: Good Reason Not to Be a Mourning Person On August 18, 1227, Genghis Khan, the most feared leader of the 13th century, was buried with a simple procession of 2,500 followers and a mounted bodyguard of 400 soldiers. Anyone unfortunate enough to happen upon the procession was immediately put to death by the soldiers. When the procession arrived at a remote mountain location in Mongolia, 40 virgins were killed to provide Khan with the needed pleasures in the afterlife. Then, at the end of the funeral ceremony, the soldiers killed all 2,500 members of the procession. When the 400 soldiers returned to Khan's capital city, they were immediately put to death by another group of soldiers so that no one could reveal where Khan's final resting place was. Since Khan was considered a G.o.d, it was important that no one know his whereabouts and plunder the site. In fact, only recently have archaeologists found a site that they think may be Khan's burial place. So did anyone survive the onslaught? Well, yesa camel. The creature was spared since she could find her way back to the site if Khan's family needed to visit. Family members had to be led blindfoldedif they knew the whereabouts, they also would be put to death.
Take the Money (or the Gold Medal or the Notoriety or the Potato) and Run:
7 Great Sports Scams, Scandals, and Hoaxes
Some say the U.S. national pastime is baseball. Others say it's football. Or basketball. Or jai alai. But you can forget all those, because these seven examples prove that when it comes to sports, mankind's favorite pastime is lying, cheating, pulling pranks, and spreading hoaxes. Play ball!
_01:: A Black Pox on the Black Sox This is pretty much the mac-daddy of all sports scandals. The 1919 Chicago White Sox was one of the greatest baseball teams ever to take the field, including superstar left fielder ”Shoeless” Joe Jackson. But two gamblers, ”Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg, backed up by gangster Arnold Rothstein, changed that by bribing eight players with $100,000 to throw the World Series. The fix was a success, the Sox lost, and n.o.body really suspected a thing until late in the next season, when the eight players were indicted. Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all from baseball for life, and they all had it coming. Except one. ”Shoeless” Joe did all he could to avoid being involved: he told Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the scam, but was ignored; he asked to be benched for the Series, but was refused; he even batted .375 for the Series and had 12 base hits (a Series record at the time) and the only home run. Due to the scandal, Jackson is still not in the Hall of Fame, though many players have supported his induction.
_02:: Stella ”the Fella” Walsh In 1980, a 69-year-old member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping mall. Police immediately ascertained that the victim was Stella Walsh, the greatest female track-and-field athlete of her day. Stella, born Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Poland, won a gold medal for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and a silver in 1936, and set 20 world records. But when the police took the body to be autopsied, they found something very unusual on the 69-year-old woman: male genitals?! Further studies showed that she...er, he... had both male and female chromosomes, a condition called mosaicism. When the shocking news got out, it took approximately 2.7 seconds for the great runner to get a new nickname: Stella the Fella.
_03:: Mighty Sports Ill.u.s.trated Fans Strike Out The greatest baseball pitcher of all time was actually a figment of George Plimpton's imagination. His article for the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Ill.u.s.trated was ent.i.tled ”The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.” It told the story of an English orphan, raised by an archaeologist, educated at Harvard, and trained by a yogi in Tibet, who showed up at the Mets training camp in Florida. He could throw a fastball at 168 mph (the record at the time was a comparatively sluggish 103) and preferred to pitch with one foot bare and the other in a large hiking boot. As of the magazine's publis.h.i.+ng date, Finch hadn't yet decided if he was going to play for the Mets. The response was ma.s.sive. Sports Ill.u.s.trated received over 2,000 letters immediately following the story, many expressing their hopes that Sidd would play. Two weeks later, the magazine fessed up to their hoax. Of course, the clever Plimpton had included a subtle clue in the article's subhead: ”He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent lifestyle, Sidd's deciding about yoga....” Confused? Just take the first letter of each word: ”happyaprilfoolsday.”
_04:: Rosie the (Underhanded) Runner On April 21, 1980, a young woman crossed the finish line to win the 84th Boston Marathon in the record time of 02:31:56. For someone who had just run over 26 miles, Rosie Ruiz looked notably sweatless and un-rubbery in the legs. Race officials checked photos and video from various spots in the race, and Ruiz appeared in none of them. So how did she do it? Here's the prevailing theory: She started the race with the others, then left the course, hopped a subway, then reentered the course about a half mile from the finish line. She was disqualified and stripped of her t.i.tle. So, how'd she fine-tune her con? By cheating in another marathon, of course. Rosie had sneaked her way past New York Marathon officials, and her time qualified her for the Boston race.
_05:: Simonya Popova: aka How the Women's Tennis a.s.sociation Got Served With the advent of computer-generated imagery, the art of the hoax really came into its own. Take the case of Simonya Popova, a female teenage tennis sensation from Uzbekistan who made Anna Kournikova look like Billy Jean King. In the fall of 2002, a Jon Wertheim article in Sports Ill.u.s.trated profiled Popova, proclaiming her the next great phenom on the tennis circuit. It covered five pages and even had a picture. But Popova was a complete fiction; her image was computer generated. Even the name Simonya was chosen as a reference to Sim0ne, a movie about a computer-generated actress who becomes a star. The story was done as a fictional what-if, intended to be a comment on tennis's need for a hot new superstar to give the sport some mojo. But the Women's Tennis a.s.sociation wasn't exactly amused. A spokeswoman for the organization lambasted the magazine, claiming they should've used the five pages to cover real tennis players. And, for the record, they said, ”We have tons of mojo.”
_06:: The Great Potato Caper The date: August 28, 1987. The scene: Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The AA Reading Phillies were in town to play the hometown Williamsport Bills, when Bills catcher Dave Bresnahan decided to pull a stunt he'd been thinking about for weeks. With a runner on third, Bresnahan threw the ball over the head of the third baseman and into the outfield. The runner jogged home, thinking he had an easy run. But unbeknownst to him and the 3,500 fans at the game, Bresnahan still had the ball. The object he had thrown was a potato, meticulously peeled and shaped to look like a baseball. Everyone got a chuckle out of the hoax. Everyone, that is, except Williamsport manager Orlando Gomez, who promptly ejected Bresnahan and fined him a whopping $50. Bresnahan had the last laugh, though: Instead of the money, he gave Gomez 50 potatoes.
_07:: A Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl (Except When CalTech's Involved) It seems fitting that what is widely regarded as the greatest college prank of all time was pulled off by the college where pranking is practically a major: CalTech. (Students once changed the well-known ”Hollywood” sign to read ”CalTech,” despite the ma.s.sive security around the joint.) Since the Rose Bowl game is played in CalTech's backyard of Pasadena, the students and their head pranksters, the Fiendish 14, were miffed at the lack of publicity the event generated for their school. So they finally decided to take it out on the game's partic.i.p.ants in 1961 (neither of which happened to be CalTechthe game was between the University of Was.h.i.+ngton and the University of Minnesota). The students learned of an elaborate halftime spectacle planned by the Was.h.i.+ngton cheerleaders that involved 2,232 flip cards. One CalTech student, disguised as a high school newspaper reporter, interviewed Was.h.i.+ngton's head cheerleader to learn their plan. The CalTech students then stole one of the instruction sheets, made 2,232 copies of it, altered each one by hand, then swapped them with the real cards while the cheerleaders were visiting Disneyland. The next day, live on national television, thousands of Huskies fans held up cards to make a picture of a Husky. Instead, viewers saw a Beaver, CalTech's mascot. One of the next card formations read ”Seiksuh” (read it backward and you'll get it). And finally, the piece de resistance: The cards read, in giant letters, ”CalTech.”
Crime Does Pay:
6 Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous
If you sell your soul to the devil, you might as well have something nice and s.h.i.+ny to show for it, right? If these dirty dealers didn't know how to live good, they sure knew how to live well.
_01:: John Palmer (ca. 1947) British bad boy John Palmer suckered over 16,000 people in a phony time-share scheme. Currently ranked Great Britain's wealthiest criminal, having ama.s.sed ill-gotten wealth of over 300 million, the notorious Mr. Palmer owns a fleet of cars and several houses all over England, including a huge estate at Lands-down in Bath. He even has a cool nickname: Goldfinger. Which doesn't mean he has a golden rep. Palmer defended himself in the fraud trial, lost, got eight years in the clink, and has so far been slapped with fines of 5 million. But this wasn't his first criminal activity. In 1983 he took part in the U.K.'s greatest-ever robbery, in which he and a partner stole 26 million in gold bullion from a cargo storage company at Heathrow Airport. He smelted the gold himself and was arrested when police found two gold bars, still warm, under his sofa.
_02:: Pablo Escobar (19491993) Picture every stereotypical South American drug dealer you've ever seen in a movie. They're all based in part on Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, head of the Colombian Medellin cartel. Escobar ran his empire from a lavish pad complete with Arabian horses, a miniature bullfighting ring, a private landing strip, a Huey 50 helicopter, and a private army of bodyguards. Clearly, money wasn't an object for the man. After all, he could afford to pay local authorities $250,000 each to turn a blind eye. Plus, he used his money to build schools and hospitals, and was even elected to the Colombian senate. But eventually the pressure from authorities, including the American DEA, got to be too much and he turned himself in. Of course, incarceration didn't stop him from living the lush life. Escobar used some of his loot to convert his prison into a personal fortress, even remodeling all the bathrooms and strengthening the walls. Once he left, he was a fugitive again, but he wasn't hard to track down. An obsessive misophobe, Escobar left a conspicuous trail of dilapidated hideouts with s.h.i.+ny, expensive new bathrooms. In the end, the cocaine kingpin was killed when the secret police tracked his cell phone to an apartment, stormed the building, and shot him. Many, many times.
_03:: Mother Mandelbaum (18181894) One of New York City's earliest criminal G.o.dfathers was actually a G.o.dmother. Frederika ”Mother” Mandelbaum, or ”Marm” to her friends, was the top ”fence” (buyer and seller of stolen goods) in postCivil War New York. From 1862 to 1882, she's estimated to have processed almost $10 million in stolen stuff. In fact, Mandelbaum made enough money to purchase a three-story building at 79 Clinton Street. Running her business out of a bogus haberdashery on the bottom floor, and living with her family in opulence and comfort on the top two floors, ”Mother” often threw lavish dinners and dances for the criminal elite, which included corrupt cops and paid-off politicos. Ma Mandelbaum could afford to eat well, too, and allegedly tipped the scales at over 250 pounds. But like any good criminal, she gave back. Well, kind of. Mandelbaum ran a school on Grand Street where orphans and waifs learned to be professional pickpockets and sneak thieves. She was finally arrested in 1884, but fled to Canada with over a million dollars in cash before the trial. She remained there in comfort and safety until her death in 1894.
Touch of Evil Meyer Lansky was the syndicate crime boss who financed Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. While his cohorts died or went to prison, Lansky eventually retired in Florida with a cool $400 million.
_04:: L. Dennis Kozlowski (1946) OK, so he's not a criminal in the cla.s.sic ”bang bang, shoot 'em up” kind of way. But this sc.u.mbag still has it coming. The former CEO of Tyco International, along with CFO Mark Swarz, allegedly embezzled an estimated $600 million from his company, its employees, and its stockholders. He borrowed $19 million, interest free, to buy a house, a debt that the company then forgave as a ”special bonus.” He got an $18 million apartment in Manhattan and charged the company $11 million more for artwork and furnis.h.i.+ngs, including a $6,000 shower curtain and $2,200 garbage can. He even threw his wife a little 40th birthday soiree on the island of Sardinia that cost the company over two million clams. Special musical guest: Jimmy Buffett. And while a mistrial was initially declared in April of 2004, the best lawyers couldn't keep Kozlowski and his cohorts from changing residences from their very big houses to the Big House.
_05:: Leona Helmsley (1920) The famous New York real estate mogul and cla.s.s-A witch lived the American Dream. Well, except for the whole prison thing. Leona was a divorced sewing factory worker with mouths to feed before she met and married real estate tyc.o.o.n Harry Helmsley (the fact that he was already married mattered little). In 1980, Harry named Leona president of his opulent Helmsley Palace Hotel, which she ruled like a despot. Her tendency to explode at employees for the smallest infraction (like a crooked lampshade) earned her the t.i.tle ”Queen of Mean.” The tyranny didn't exactly last. In 1988, Leona and Harry were indicted for a smorgasbord of crimes, including tax fraud, mail fraud, and extortion. And after numerous appeals, Leona served 18 months in prison and was forced to pay the government $7 million in back taxes. A healthy dose of irony for the woman who once said, ”Only the little people pay taxes.” Of course, that doesn't mean things turned out that badly for poor Leona. Said tobe worth over 2.2 billion bucks, the dreaded Ms. H. still owns the lease to the Empire State Building and lives in luxury with her aptly named dog, Trouble.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S HORRIBLE-TERRIBLE,
NO-GOOD, VERY BAD DAY.
Despite conquering England in 1066, William I spent more time back in Normandy, where greedy neighboring rulers tended to grab his lands if he left. In 1087, William, who had grown fat in his 50s, was on his way to take a ”cure” (like going to a fat farm) when he made good on a threat to attack Mantes, taken from him by Philip I of France a decade earlier. The attack went well until the aftermath. As the village burned, a spark spooked Will's horse. It reared and the king lurched into the ornate saddle horn. Ugh! The painful result? It took William five agonizing weeks to die of internal injuries. Worse still, at his death, his attendantsincluding sons Henry and William Rufusrode out quickly to defend their own properties as word got out. Meanwhile, servants robbed the unguarded body, stripped it naked, and dumped it on the floor.