The Things We Do for Friends
I have a friend in Boston who is, by all accounts, a "Golden Child." He's handsome, he's successful, he's athletic, and he's a gentleman. He is what the rest of us wish we were. If you're average, and possess just two out of the four superlatives, you're a "Silver Child." And if you possess none—say you hit every branch on the ugly tree, your LinkedIn page looks like the one below (don’t skim, read carefully), you throw like a girl, and you're known for belching the alphabet in one fell swoop at black tie events—well... you're a "Bronze Child."
The Golden Child is golden head to toe; starting from the top, his scalp is adorned with wavy walnut-colored locks that women fawn over. His cheeks and jawline, which resemble the proportions of a Greco-Roman soldier, have a heavy prickling of coarse facial hair, but he's always clean-shaven on account of habits he picked up as an officer in the Marine Corps.
His eyes resemble horizontal almonds, like those of an Egyptian, and they sit above a symmetrical nose and in between perfectly designed ears. Further south is a million-dollar smile and a confident voice that was born of a lifetime of making the right decisions.
His spine is always erect, like a Doberman Pinscher. His muscles have been carefully crafted, from horseshoe triceps to perfectly sculptured thighs. He is trim and has a single-digit body fat percentage, making the suits he wears look regal. I suppose it goes without saying, but his oxfords are spit-shined.
He's also educated. In addition to his undergraduate degree and an MBA, he's wrapping up a master's at Harvard while he works full-time. If ever there were a future United States Senator, my friend is it. But before Mr. Golden goes to Washington, he has to turn in his dissertation, and that's where I, a struggling "Silver Child," enter the picture.
In front of me, as I write this, is his 57-page ticket to hanging another diploma on his wall.
But there are two other things in front of me, and they're both MUCH more exciting than a Harvard dissertation, which he has asked me to review.
One is Fran Lebowitz's "Metropolitan Life" and the other is "Vegas, A Memoir of a Dark Season" by John Gregory Dunne. And I must say, the dissertation has become the “Bronze Child.”
No offense to the Golden Child, but the only way I'm getting through his paper is to pepper in some Lebowitz with a splash of Dunne.
Mr. BS/MBA/MS is a talented writer (how could he not be?). But it has been a LONG time since I read anything academic, and it reminds me why parts of college were so brutal. Why academics communicate in the manner in which they do is beyond me.
Anyway, I'm grateful for Ms. Lebowitz and Mr. Dunne, because this old boy is struggling. I'll do anything for a friend, and I have a track record to prove it, but next time, please call me from jail before asking me to read another dissertation.
