I just want to say that stuff you did in high school should not be held against you now, okay? And wasn’t everyone kind of trampy when they were 14-17 years old? Like, seriously, WTF? Maybe you did all that stuff because you ran with a fast crowd, not because you thought it was a good idea, you know? And really, like what, you’re telling me that none of you went behind the bleachers during the fall pep rally junior year and blew Max Goldberg? Don’t even try and offer me that because I’m not buying it. And even if you didn’t, don’t you wish you did? Because these are the sorts of character building experiences that any smart businesswoman should have under her belt. And also, he was like the hottest guy in shul, you know? Honestly, no one would have turned him down. I mean, your best friend might’ve, and that might’ve created some tension between the two of you, since they were dating at the time, but that’s no reason not to do it, is it? And so what if it caused a rift between Goldberg and Jeff Weinstein, the guy you were actually dating? So what? So what indeed? And let’s try and be adults here and realize that past experiences are not necessarily predictors of future whoredom, and cannot be used against you in a court of law! (Sorry, been a little bit sensitive about this stuff since the accident).

YEARS before she transformed herself into CNBC’s “Money Honey” and got caught up in the recent Citigroup jet-travel mess, Maria Bartiromo was a big-haired, boy-teasing, high-school honey who cheated on her squeeze and nearly caused a Brooklyn gang rumble.
“Maria and I grew up in Dyker Heights. She was the girlfriend of Joey Maria, who ran with the 13th Avenue Boys, a group of toughs that hung on the corner of 13th and 78th,” a longtime Page Six source said.
“Joey was a handsome, wiry thing, a very cool kid. Maria [a student at the Catholic all-girl Fontbonne Hall Academy on Shore Road] was a gorgeous thingy whose eyes melted all the guys’ hearts.”
One day in the ’80s, [a member of the rival "7th Avenue Boys told the Post]“We were just talking innocently, then started flirting, and then some full-on making out that got to about second base. I was in heaven. She was a great kisser. We thought the concrete handball walls provided cover, but it didn’t – somebody saw us and told Joey . . . Rumors started spreading the 13th Avenue guys were going to come down to kick my ass.”

RISKY KISS WITH MONEY HONEY [NYP]

The one thing you can say about Bloomberg News is that they’re not afraid to get service-y. Case in point: Michael Lewis’s op-ed piece from yesterday, offering the bit of advice Todd Thomson only wishes he’d had a few months (/decades) earlier. Think of it as Bloomberg’s way of saying, “Hey John Mack and everyone else who’s been contemplating pulling a TT—if you’re going to do this, do this right”:

[Thomson’s problem is that] he was thinking, in other words, a lot like a man in his position circa 1985 might have thought. The man’s impulses were still designed for an age when, if you were a big enough hitter at a big Wall Street firm and you were caught in what appeared to be a dalliance with a prominent female journalist you got not a pink slip but a standing ovation. Even if you had used the corporate jet to pull it off.

If you unfortunately happen to be reading this after 1985, and would still like to partake in some TT-inspired activities, Lewis strongly advises you to get rid of the she-devils:

You’re fired, also, because while the CEO might be able to rationalize your behavior to his male subordinates, or at least cow them into submission, he can’t begin to explain it to the women in the firm. And, suddenly, there are a lot more of them around, in senior positions, who will make sure that the scandal, left unaddressed, finds its way into the newspapers. (Prince replaced Thomson with Sallie Krawcheck.)

Thomson, Bartiromo and Victorian Wall Street [Bloomberg]

Admittedly, we were no slouches in our coverage of MariaGate, over the last couple of weeks. From the initial Code Red to trademarks, contextual advertising, and Jack Shafer’s “Why Won’t The Journal Come Out And Say That Those Two Did It?” we’ve been there for the highs, the lows, and all the pregnancy-scares in between. But Forbes’s article this morning, “Pity Citi” got us thinking—we’ve kind of been a heavy on the Maria, light on the Todd through this whole thing. Heck, we haven’t even made a ‘Todd Thomson’ tag for these stories. (Seriously—look at the bottom of this post—you’ve got ‘Citi’ and you’ve got ‘Maria Bartiromo’ but ‘Todd Thomson’ you have none. You also don’t have a ‘$Honey’ but good things come to those who wait). Previously, we would’ve answered the Q of “Why so much M and so little T?” with an A of “Um, she’s a saucy minx who, beyond not being afraid of interpreting ‘off the record’ comments by Ben Bernanke as ‘on the record’ comments, steadfastly believing that people are so enthralled by the moniker “Money Honey” that they’ll buy “jigsaw puzzles” and “coloring books” simply because they bear the rhyme, and thinking that she’ll be able to follow in inimitable the footsteps of (and ultimately surpass) Charlie “?Master” Rose, she also worked in the close vicinity of John McEnroe for several months back in 2005. If that’s not storybook, we don’t know what is. Anyway, “Pity Citi” blew the lid off of our hastily and superficially crafted notion that Maria was the star of this show because Todd-y boy was just too plain dull (allegedly cheating on one’s spouse? That’s it? Wake us when you kill someone, is what we would have said three hours ago). Thank god for Forbes, is all we can say—in the last quarter of the game Todd’s busted out some fantastic Hail Marys, much to our delight. (So you can’t say we didn’t get festive in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLI).
The Artist Formerly Known as the Dull Half of The (Alleged) Sex Scandal In The Sky:

+Had an office on West 51st Street and 7th Avenue “decked out like a Swiss chalet,” Citi insiders say, and had the air of the inner sanctum of the Wizard of Oz.
+Said office had Persian rugs and a “sumptuous chandelier”
+Had what veteran Capitol Hill insiders call his own “Wall of Shame” in his office–photos of himself with the rich and powerful.
+His own personal, well-appointed boardroom on the 50th floor that virtually no one else at Citi could use. Inlaid with expensive marble floors, it stretches about 10 yards and has an immense oval, wooden table that can seat 20 to 30 people, a kitchenette and luxuriously polished wood cabinets lining the walls, Citi insiders say.
+Tended not to circulate among the plebes. But around Christmas time, he did venture out of his office “to get out and meet the little people,” as one insider puts it. To do that, he got an executive from Citi’s marketing unit to run interference for him. “She was like his security detail,” say these people, her job more like a publicist moving a celebrity along the red carpet.

Pity Citi [Forbes]