The Crotch Doctor

A big part of this blog is story telling... Stories from my Metro commute, stories from work, stories from my past, stories from Moe Greene's past, stories from the news... lots of stories...

And for the most part, these stories basically true. Sometimes I change a name, or date, or maybe I'll slightly exaggerate a fact for dramatic purposes, but like I said, it's all basically true, and all basically believable.

The reason I'm giving this long explanation about 'truth' and 'exaggeration' is because the story I'm about to tell you is simply not believable... but it happens to be true.

The story involves Moe Greene... his penis... and a dirty old man...

It all began a couple years back after Moe's wife gave birth to their son (which she continues to allege is his). They decided that after 3 kids it was time to retire from the baby making game and his wife got fixed... but a few months later, they had a pregnancy scare.

They called the doctor who had performed her procedure and he admitted that these things were never really 100% effective, and that the only way they could really be sure not to prevent another pregnancy was for Moe to get clipped as well... and so he scheduled an appointment with a urologist.

That urologists name was... Dr... Crouch...

I kid you not, "Crouch" the "Crotch Doctor"... and he was 80 years old... I told Moe right then that he should look into getting another doctor to perform such a "delicate procedure", but he would hear none of it. He let "Crouch the Crotch Doctor" give him a vasectomy and that was that... We never thought about the doctor again... until yesterday that is...

I was browsing my old hometown newspaper, The Frederick News-Post, and who's name do I see sprawled across the front page? Dr. Crouch!

It seems the good doctor got a little too touchy-feely with a woman who was renting out the guest bedroom of his house.

The woman, who was a student at a local college, had just moved in this month and says the unwanted sexual advances started right away. Crouch (now 83 years old) began making comments to her like, "everyone needs sex, it's just like breathing," and grabbed her in a naughty place on several occasions.

She says the advances came almost everyday, but the "highlight" came a couple weeks ago when she was studying in the living room... Crouch entered the room, put a pornographic movie into the DVD player, and turned it on. When she insisted that he turn it off he responded by grabbing himself (in the Crotch), and saying:

"I'm a doctor, I know what you need!"

To make matters worse (or better depending on your point of view I guess), when police arrested Dr. Crouch in his car they found five grams of marijuana under the driver's seat! The only thing that could make this story any better is an embarrassing mugshot... oh wait, we've got one:

Of course as soon as I saw the story I called Moe Greene and read him the details. His immediate response was, "I only spent a couple hours with the man and I don't doubt her story for a second!"

Moe went on to tell me the creepy story about how, prior to his out-patient procedure, he shaved himself really well --"down there"-- because he didn't want the doctor's dirty old-man-hands shaving his most prized possession.

Now you would think that Dr. Crouch would have been thankful that Moe had already shaved himself (you know, one less task for him to take care of) but according to Moe, the old man actually seemed disappointed and insisted on re-shaving "the area" anyway!

I don't know if I can conjure up a creepier scenario then having an 80 year pervert shaving my junk with his cold, trembling hands...

As a side note, Dr. Crouch is apparently really into aviation and actually crashed his plane at the Ocean City Airport over the weekend (before he assaulted his roommate I assume)... And his late brother-in-law was Strom Thurmond... I don't know what any of that has to do with the accusations, but I felt like you needed to know that anyway.

And again, I swear I'm not making this story up, my imagination is just not this good.

Break Up Break Downs

I stepped onto the Red Line train at Metro Center and scanned up and down the car for an empty seat. There was only one, directly behind a teenage couple engaged in a full on make-out session. Reluctantly, I took the seat.

I was listening to the latest edition of the "This American Life" podcast. The topic was "breakups" or rather, dealing with breakups. I found this incredibly ironic because it took me only approximately 10 seconds of sitting behind "kissing couple" to know that their relationship would at some point result in a tragic breakup... the kind suitable for retelling on the very episode of "This American Life" that I was listening to as they passionaltly embraced right in front of me.

Not only could I tell that the relationship would end poorly, but I could even tell who would be the one left with the broken heart.

They were both attractive people. The girl had long, dark, flowing hair, and big puffy lips... the kind of girl I'm prone to falling in love with on just about any other day on the metro.

The guy had long hair, pulled back into a pony tail, and soft, pretty facial features that were slightly offset by unkempt facial hair that left him with a rebellious twist. I wrote in my journal that he looked like Che Guevara but if Che had been an Italian soccer player obsessed with having "good hair".

"Che" was sprawled across his ladies lap and in between kisses he closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. "Penelope" (that's what I've decided to call his romantic counterpart) starred at him longingly when he closed his eyes and ran her fingers tips up and down his cheek brushing against his ear.

She was trying to let him sleep but every few seconds she couldn't help herself and would lower her lips to his face and plant soft kisses on his closed eyelids, his nose, his mouth.

"Che" would open his eyes, they would kiss passionately for a few seconds, and then he would close his eyes again and the process would repeat...

Finally, she left him alone long enough for him to drift off to sleep... and as if on cue, his phone rang... he stirred awake and answered the phone. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but the entire time he was trying to talk "Penelope" was back to her old tricks, kissing his ear, his cheek, his forehead, etc.

There was a trace of annoyance on his face. It went unspoken but it was there to be seen, and really, who could blame him? How could he not be annoyed by constant facial touching?

"He's probably too nice a guy to protest," I wrote... "But eventually, he will..."

It was plain to see that she needed him more than he needed her. And that's a recipe for disaster.

In 3 months he'll dump her for being so smothering, but he won't tell her why. Maybe he won't even know why... But he'll move on and she won't... She'll stalk him on MySpace, pick a fight with his new girlfriend at the mall, and finally key his car in an act of desperation... you know, as a final expression of "her love".

We can only hope the whole saga ends up on Judge Judy someday.

In honor of the kissing couple seated next to me on the train, and in honor of the "This American Life" segment on breakups, I figured it would be a good time for us all to tell breakup stories... I'll start with one of my own, and then you guys can share your own in the comments section.

Mine will be a little unconventional... Usually when you think of a breakup story you think of one where your heart was broken, but I'm going to tell one about breaking someone else's heart.

It starts in High School where I had a girlfriend that was totally, completely, utterly in love with me in the way only a teenage girl can be. I dare say she loved me just as much as "Penelope" loved "Che".

And I loved her too, but not with the kind of love that could honestly rival hers. In fact, her passion was so strong that I could never fully believe it. Having the self esteem of a 16 year old boy, it was just incomprehensible that someone could love me that much. I wanted to know why...

Part of me felt that she only loved me because she was a teenage girl and she thought she was supposed to be "in love" with her boyfriend. By my way of thinking, it wasn't even anything special about me, It was just the idea of me, the boyfriend. I could never fully accept that- indeed- this beautiful girl was really in love with me for me.

So every couple weeks I would do something to test her love... At the time I didn't even realize that I was testing her, but looking back on it now with the eyes of an adult I can see that clearly, that's what I was doing.

I would act distant or cold towards her for days at a time for no apparent reason and give no explanation. I would flirt with other girls. Mention in passing how her friend Eva was really cute in that new dress. I would forget to meet her in between classes... All the typical teenage mind games.

All of this was in an effort to see how she reacted. As long as my actions could hurt her, then I could see her emotions were real... If I could make her cry, then that must mean she loved me. Right?

It was all very juvenile behavior, but then again, I was a juvenile!

We ended up breaking up several times but we always got back together. Then finally, after about a year together I started to get bored... I had eyes for a Puerto Rican beauty in my Geometry class and so I started looking for a way out... But because I wasn't man enough to just breakup with her, I needed to somehow make it her fault.

Then one day I got my chance when Moe Greene saw some guy on the football team pass my girlfriend a note... that was all I needed. I confronted her about it the next day and she told me that indeed, the football player had given her a note asking her out on a date, but that she had turned him down.

She had even kept the note, as well as her rejection reply just in case I didn't believe her. The only reason she hadn't told me about it in the first place was that she thought I might try to pick a fight with this romantic rival... Of course I knew she was telling the truth, but I pretended not to believe her. I refused to read the notes or even listen to her explanations any further. I dumped her on the spot for her "cold hearted betrayal".

And of course she cried... but the novelty of being able to make her cry for me had finally worn off. It was really over this time.

Of course I never got the girl from my Geometry class, never even got the courage to tell her how I felt... And after a few months, my ex-girlfriend started dating someone new, though it was not the football player... I remember feeling hurt that she moved on, but at the same time I knew it was her right to do so. We wouldn't speak for another 2 and half years.

We were both taking classes at a local community college when we ran into each other. She was still with the "new guy" but he had enlisted in the Army and was away at boot camp. We shared an awkward lunch and made small talk. And then, without provocation, she brought up the breakup.

"I was telling the truth about that football player you know, if you had only just read the notes...," she told me.

I conceded that I had believed her all along and went on to tell her the real story about what had really happened... About how I had wanted out of the relationship but didn't know how to get out... About my crush on the girl from Geometry... And about how stunned I was when I saw her with "the new guy" a few months after our breakup... I told her everything.

When I finished, she was crying. I reached my hand out to try and comfort her but she slapped it away. She called me a bastard. Told me that I had broken her heart, and that she cried herself to sleep for weeks after I dumped her. In fact, she claimed that she dated "the new guy" for 6 weeks before she would even kiss him because she had still been so in-love with me!

I felt terrible of course... but at the same time I felt powerful. All those juvenile feelings came out again... "It's been 2 and half years and I can still make her cry! She must have really loved me!"

I spent the rest of the semester trying to woo her back. I vowed that I'd never hurt her again if she just gave me another chance... and I really meant it. But to her credit, she had learned from her mistake. She would never let me hurt her again she claimed.

But I didn't listen. I tried everything I could to win back her trust... flowers... jewelry... I even woke up at 6 am every Tuesday and Thursday to pick her up from her house and drop her off at school even though my classes didn't start until noon... But nothing could be done.

She had finally moved on and now I was the one left broken hearted. After the semester ended and she no longer needed a ride to that 6 am class we would pass each other on campus and she wouldn't even acknowledge me. Not even a wave, head nod, or even eye contact. I ended up dropping my classes and taking a job working the night shift at a gas station.

Every night at the gas station I would listen to "I Wonder" by Chris Issac over and over again on my discman... The song seemed to perfectly capture how I felt... I had found true love, accidentally thrown it away, and now it was lost forever. I'm pretty sure my obsession with that song prolonged my misery by at least 3 months, but of course, if a song by Chris Issac can have such a profound effect on you then you probably deserve to be depressed anyway.

I didn't know it then but becoming obsessed with a single song after a heartbreak would become a pattern for me. Here's a list of a couple others that I would later on become obsessed with:

"Take Another Little Piece of My Heart" - Janis Joplin
"Dammit" - Blink 182
"A Long December" - The Counting Crows
"Ensename a Olvidar" - Aventura
"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" - Dusty Springfield

So there it is... My breakup story. Now lets hear yours. It can be about you being dumped, about you dumping someone else, how you got over being dumped, anything, as long as it involves someone being dumped. It can be from last week or third grade... You can be brief or you can ramble on about every detail... FITS is here for you. Get it out, I'm in a mood to read about other people's misery... bonus points if you can include any good breakup songs.

Wax Your Pole... its the Law!

For the first time in way too long, I went to a strip club last night... It had been so long that I'd forgotten many of my own advice from my old Asi Es -- A Strip Club Guide . By my count I broke 3 of my rules.

[3] "Don't be part of the crowd"... I went to one of the of the higher class, over priced, and well known clubs in DC.

[5] "Don't go during the day"... pretty self explanatory.

[6] "Never use a credit card"... one of the cardinal rules, a rule I'd always vowed never to break.

Now in my defense, this was the going away party for a coworker of mine and so he picked the venue, which explains breaking rule #3... and since we went after work we had no choice but to walk in around 4 pm, which explains breaking rule #5 [I should also say that when we walked out 6 hours later it was late at night so I only halfway broke that rule anyway]... now as far as the credit card goes, I'll have to explain that one later on in the post...

But despite breaking so many rules, I still had a great time. I'd say it was a top 10 strip club experience... the girls at the higher end places are obviously usually of a higher caliber --which is a good thing-- of course this often means you sacrifice a bit in the performance department --which is a bad thing. But for the most part that wasn't the case at this club... In fact "Cynthia" from Colombia actually gave me a little more attention then I was comfortable with, and that's something I never thought I'd hear myself say about a stripper.

And every great strip club adventure needs to have some sort of bizarre or surreal event, and we had that as well...

When we first got into the place one of the more acrobatic girls was in the middle of her routine, making good use of the stripper pole... she was a very talented young lady, no doubt inspired by the Olympic gymnastics being shown on the TV by the bar.

Anyway, when the atletic girl finished up her set, "Chastity" came up next sporting a naughty cheerleader outfit. (Just in case you're wondering, the school name on her cheerleader outfit was the "University of Pink"... I hear they have a really good engineering program)

But before "Chastity" could give us a display of her school spirit she pulled out a wash rag and bottle of Windex... At first I thought maybe she was confused about her outfit. Shouldn't she be wearing the "maid" outfit when using cleaning products as a prop? But then she proceeded to thoroughly wipe down the stripper pole and surrounding stage... And not in a sexy or provocative way either. She was really trying to clean up... And for good measure she even turned around and gave the mirror behind the stage a quick wipe down as well!

My friend and I were befuddled. Was this the world's first germ-freak stripper? Maybe she had OCD? Or was she possibly trying to say something about the intimate pole work done by her predecessor?

Finally after she sterilized everything within 10 feet of the pole she began her routine and I made my way towards the stage with a fist full of $1's... I wasn't planning to ask about her pre-dance clean up, but in the 20 minutes since we'd arrived I'd already downed three $13 Rum 'n Cokes and curiosity got the better of me... When she came over I asked, "What's the deal with the Windex?"

It turns out "Chastity" didn't have OCD or any germ phobias at all (which was a bit of a disappointment)... it's just some archaic law in the District of Colombia about cleaning up the pole and stage area between dances. According to "Chastity", most every other club in the city ignores this rule... but not at this place!

And that's when I decided it would be okay to pay the bar tab with my credit card. Not only has this place been in business for a couple decades now (with as good a reputation as a strip club can have) but I figure that if they make their strippers spray the stage down with Windex in between performances they probably wouldn't try anything funny with the billing... Lets hope I was right.

Elevator Up?

The call button on the elevator at my work is broken. Actually, the button is fine, it still calls the elevator, it's just that the light doesn't work. So you push the button and then you can't tell for sure if it's been pressed.

As a result, whenever I approach the elevator and someone else is already there waiting I can't tell if they've actually pressed the button or not... Now clearly they have... They wouldn't be standing in front of the elevator doors waiting for them to open if they hadn't pressed the call button... But because I can't see the little light on the button, I can't totally trust them.

To make things worse it also happens to be the slowest elevator in the Mid-Atlantic region. It's always a long uncomfortable wait. Right up until the point when the elevator finally arrives on our floor and it's door slide open I have to fight off the urge to reach over and press the button myself. You know, just to make sure...

But as uncomfortable as it is to be the one wondering if the other person actually pressed the button, it even worse to be the one who did press the button. For me at least, it's just too much pressure.


I walk up to the elevator with no one else in sight. I press the button. The waiting game begins... I feel someone else approach from behind.


We make eye contact, followed by the polite half-smile.


I watch as their eyes dart towards the call button. "Oh that's right, the light doesn't work," I can see them thinking.


A long pause.


Then the look of distrust. "Did this guy really push the button?"


Eye contact again... I try my best to give a reassuring "yes I really hit the button" look.


And then I wonder, "Wait a second... Did I really push the button?.......... Of course I did....... Well....... What if I didn't press the button hard enough?........... What if I only pushed it in halfway?............ Would it still work if I didn't press it in all the way?.......... I should push the button again, just to make sure........"


Then I stop myself... If I push the button again right now then the other person will think that I never pushed it before... They'll think that I was just standing here like an idiot this whole time.


So I don't push the button again... I just stand there and hope that I really did push the button the first time. And that I pressed it in all the way. And that it will get here soon...

The Mayor and His Dogs

One of my favorite lines from the Eddie Murphy comedy "Coming to America" is delivered not by stars Eddie Murphy or Arsenio Hall, but by "that guy" actor Frankie Faison who plays the role of a slum landlord in the 1988 comedy classic.

It's the scene where Murphy and Hall have just arrived in Queens, NY and are looking to rent basically the shittiest apartment they can find. Faison doesn't disappoint and shows them a run down efficiency that still has chalk outlines on the floor where the previous tenants were murdered. Murphy and Hall see the outlines of two humans and a dog and look to Faison for some sort of explanation, to which Faison only offers, "It's a damn shame what they did to that dog..."

Even though I've seen the movie at least a dozen times I still laugh out loud every time I see that part. In fact, it's been in my vocabulary ever since I first saw the movie so many years ago.

Right now you're probably wondering "okay fine, it was funny, but what's your point?"

My point is that, right now in the DC/MD area, we are experiencing an actual "It's a damn shame what they did to that dog" moment that's being played out in our newspapers and local news as I type this... and I feel the need to share...

Our story begins in a little town in the Maryland suburbs called Berwyn Heights. Its the kind of town you might drive through and not even realize you were there. It's population is only roughly 3,000 people who reside there because of it's convenient location to several quick routes into DC.

I've lived in this area my entire life and I'm only marginally aware of its existence... Before this story I knew basically where it was, but I still had to look it up on the map just to make sure. It's nestled right next to College Park, the home of the University of Maryland... a place I'm obviously quite familiar with, but like I said, I still had to check it out the map.

The mayor of the town is named Cheye Calvo, but being the mayor of Berwyn Heights is only a part time gig. His real job is working for the SEED Foundation, which is a nonprofit group that runs urban public boarding schools. Here's a picture of Cheye and his wife Trinity standing on their porch in Berwyn Heights:

I don't personally know Cheye, or Trinity for that matter, but they look like decent people. They look like the kind of people that if say, the county police knocked on their door to ask them a few questions, they would probably cooperate.

But Prince George's County Police apparently felt otherwise... When they were alerted last week that a package being shipped to the Calvo home had been identified by a police dog as containing marijuana, they decided not to knock on the Calvo door and ask questions, no, instead they decided that the prudent thing to do was obtain a search warrant and call in the SWAT team!

I'll let the Washington Post describe what transpired from there:

Calvo said he came home early from work [last] Tuesday. While walking the dogs he noticed several black sport-utility vehicles and a woman parked in a car down the street.

"I figured someone was having a party," he recalled.

It was the police. They were watching, waiting for someone to bring the package into the house.

As Calvo returned to the house, he said, he spotted the large package that his mother-in-law had told a deliveryman to leave on the porch. He placed it on a buffet table near the front door and went upstairs to change.

"I brought it inside because I figured it was something we'd gotten for the garden," he said.

Moments later, just after he had undressed, Calvo said, he heard his mother-in-law scream that someone was coming toward the house. He looked out his bedroom window and saw officers in SWAT gear running across the lawn.

"I heard a loud crash and then 'bang, bang, bang,' " he said, recalling the sounds of the police shooting his dogs. [emphasis added by me]

"I hit the floor."

As the police came in, Calvo said, they shot his 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, Payton, near the front door and then his 4-year-old dog, Chase, also a black Lab, as the dog ran into a back room. Walking through his house yesterday, Calvo pointed out a bullet hole in the drywall where the younger dog had been shot.

"I understand they have a job to do, but it didn't have to go like that," Calvo said. He said the police could have knocked on his door and asked him about the package. "I've never done drugs in my life. Anyone who knows me knows that I am so adamantly opposed to them."

Police said yesterday that, when they seized the package during the raid, it was unopened.

But perhaps the most horrifying part of the story, worse than the actual act of shooting the dogs IMHO was this:

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he -- wearing only underwear and socks -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.

You shot his dog and then you interrogated him FOR HOURS in his UNDERWEAR right in front of the dead dogs!
In response to this, the police spokesperson (who claimed the heavily armoured SWAT team felt threatened by the black labs) had this to say:

"We're not in the habit of going to homes and shooting peoples' dogs. If we were, there would be a lot more dead dogs around the county."

Are you serious? That's your REAL response to killing the Mayor's dogs? How the fuck are you the official spokesperson with answers like that?

Oh but the story gets worse from there... As it turns out, the Prince George's County Police forgot to notify the Berwyn Heights police department that they were sending a SWAT team to the mayor's house!

Now call me crazy, but I have to think that if I'm the Berwyn Heights Police Chief, I'd kinda like to be told about something like that before it happens... In fact Berwyn Heights Police Chief Patrick Murphy was pretty peeved about the whole situation... According to him, town police could have conducted the search without a SWAT team.

"You can't tell me the chief of police of a municipality wouldn't have been able to knock on the door of the mayor of that municipality, gain his confidence and enter the residence... It would not have been a necessity to shoot and kill this man's dogs."

But wait there's more!

You know that search warrant the PG County Police obtained to conduct the search?

Well... they kinda... sorta... forgot to provide a copy of it to the Mayor... Now that's a little tricky because a detective at the scene actually signed a sworn statement that he did give the Mayor a copy... but in fact, he didn't actually follow through on that until days after the dogs were shot... Oops...

And oh yeah, they never actually knocked on the door either... They just kicked it open and came in shooting... Of course, immediately following the incident the Police spokesperson assured the press that the warrant they obtained was a special "no knock" warrant that is sometimes issued in cases where police are afraid that the suspect may destroy evidence... but the truth is... that was a lie... they didn't actually have a "no knock warrant"... Oops again!

Oh and one last thing... apparently... the Mayor, his wife, his mother in law, and his dogs were actually umm... innocent... gulp...

As it turns out, what actually happened was that two delivery men had a scheme to smuggle marijuana by shipping packages to unsuspecting recipients and then intercepting them before the homeowners were even aware of the packages... and that's what happened to the Mayor and his wife in this situation.

Police arrested the real criminals last night and actually spent this entire week chasing down similar suspicious packages that in total come out to 417 pounds of weed... No word on whether or not any more dogs were shot in the process of the investigation.

And of course now that the culprits are behind bars and the investigation has concluded, PG County Police were glad to clear the Mayor's name and apologize... right?

No actually! Here is what they had to say in the Post this morning:

Police Chief Melvin C. High would not rule out that Calvo and Tomsic had some involvement in the delivery. Asked whether police had cleared them, he said: "From all the indications at the moment, they had an unlikely involvement, but we don't want to draw that definite conclusion at the moment." He later said, "Most likely, they were innocent victims."

Neither he nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson apologized for the raid, which they said was conducted responsibly, given what deputies and officers knew at the time.

What? Not even a "my bad" ?

The Chief went on to spew more stupidity:

"In some quarters, this has been viewed as a flawed police operation and an attack on the mayor, which it is not," High said. "This was about an address, this was about a name on a package . . . and, in fact, our people did not know that this was the home of the mayor and his family until after the fact."

So wait a second... you obtain a warrant, get a SWAT team ready, and set up a plan to raid the house of suspected high volume drug trafficker, and you never even figured out that the "suspect" was the fucking MAYOR of the town! They don't have Google on the PG County Police Computers?

I can't wait to see how this case plays out... I'm sure there will be a massive lawsuit soon to be followed by an out of court settlement... and the Mayor and his wife will deserve every penny they get... but of course they'll never get their dogs back. I guess the only thing left to say is:

"It's a damn shame what they did to that dog..."

Weird Wiki

I was browsing wikipedia this morning and came across this bizarre tidbit of info that I felt needed to be shared with you all:

"Coolio has six children but is separated from his wife. He is currently living with the ex-wife of close friend, David Faustino."

In case you have somehow forgotten who the immortal David Faustino is, let me remind you, he played "Bud" on Married With Children.

God bless Wikipedia...

Excuses, Excuses

I neglected my blog all last week and for that I apologize. It's not that I haven't had anything to blog about, I just haven't had the opportunity... My mother-in-law has been staying with us for the past month or so, and up until two weeks ago we had a sister in law and her 3 kids with us as well. All of this coincided with me finishing up my summer classes at George Mason so it was a big mess.

At work I have an intern that's been taking up a lot of my time... I wish I could say that the intern was some sultry Georgetown co-ed with a penchant for short skirts and an unhealthy fetish for fat married guys, but alas, his name is Chris and I doubt anyone would find him very appealing in a mini-skirt... He's a pretty shitty intern truth be told... he's actually assigned to the entire department but since we don't really have much work for him to do and because he's not very ambitious he's basically attached himself.

I didn't really like him at first... in his first two weeks on the job he was late at least four times, he called in sick twice, I caught him sleeping in a conference room once, and he shamelessly hit on Amy, the newlywed receptionist to the point where someone had to talk to him about what does and what does not constitute appropriate small talk in an office environment... That's a pretty impressive start. The only thing left for him to do is drive a car with a sleeping mistress into a lake and he could have a Kennedy-esque resume.

To make matters worse he mentioned to me a few days ago that he only got this internship because his mother knows somebody... Actually, I can't really thinkg of anything good to write about him... he did make me a couple of decent mix CDs... and he is a good sidekick to tag along at the Senate Buffet*... but mainly I've enjoyed making him into my make-over project so to speak.

I've convinced him that even if he's not going to be a good intern he should at least try to look the part and make it look like he gives a shit... No more sleeping in the conference room, no more coming in hung over and unshaven, no more hitting on the receptionist when other people are around... He hasn't even called in sick the last two weeks! His time here finishes up within the next two weeks and the goal is that he might fool someone into thinking he's made some sort of contribution while he was here. It's been a lot of work.

So anyway, those are my excuses for the blog slow down... a needy intern and a house full of in-laws. Things should be back to normal soon.







*The Senate Buffet is amazing. The food is top notch, the service is excellent, and you can never overstate the surreal experience of waiting in line for macaroni casserole behind an elected official... It's also worth noting that there is a flirty Brazilian host that's been offering to give me some private Portuguese lessons for about a month now. Overall I'd say its just about the best post-Moe Greene lunch experience I've found over the past couple of years... I've been thinking about trying to keep a running diary of one of my lunches there to post on the blog. We'll see.