Penis envy

Lloyd Blankfein glanced up from the resume he was scrutinizing to meet the eager eyes of a young man seated in his posh London office. He sported a sharp suit and a silk tie arranged in a perfect double Windsor knot that seemed to scream out ‘hire me.’ But is he Goldman Sachs material, the company’s chief executive officer asked himself silently as he continued studying the resume.

“So you graduated Yale with summa cum laude honors,” he interjected. “And you were top in your class at Harvard Business School.”

“Yes sir,” the young man replied.

“It says here you also captained the crew team and were president of the business fraternity,” he continued. “And when you graduated, you started your own mortgage brokerage firm that grossed more than $100,000 in profits in the first five years of business.”

“All true, sir.”

“You then took a year off to volunteer with the Peace Corp. immunizing underprivileged children in Sierra Leone and teaching the locals the finer points of crop rotation.”

“The pleasure was all mine, sir.”

He has all the traits of great executive, Blankfein pondered; but there is something about the young man that doesn’t rest well, despite the ironclad resume, amicable demeanor and impeccable skill at tying Windsor knots. There is something about his name. Somewhere he had seen it once before.

“Now tell me this Calvin,” he said in a somewhat gruff voice. “Is there anything you haven’t told me about yourself?”

Perspiration began to bead on Calvin’s forehead. Rouge began to color his cheeks.

“No sir,” he said pensively. “No, you’ve seen it all.”

Blankfein’s mind raced through the thousands of executive candidates and resumes he had leafed through over the years. Morett, Morett, Morett; where had this name surfaced before? Where had it made a lasting impression on him? Then it struck him like a bolt of lightning.

“You’re Calvin Morett, the penis guy…”

Yes, former class clown Calvin Morett continues to be immortalized as the fellow who crashed the Saratoga Spring High School graduation last month dressed in a penis costume. From now until the foreseeable future, Morett will be known as the high school alumni who returned to his Alma Ata in the puffy flesh-colored suit, squirting white silly string into the crowd gathered for the ceremonies at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Morett was the punch line in a cornucopia of hackneyed headlines smeared across the Capital Region, as reporters and editors alike took bizarre fascination with his stunt. Then last week, his lore extended even farther as he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to write an apology to all the Spa City grads who watched gag with a mixture of laughter and frustration; after all, it wasn’t exactly his graduation he was interrupting.

Clearly, Morett realized his prank was going to draw attention. He might have even realized his cameo at the event might prompt some area media sources to write accounts of his moment in the spot light. But it’s doubtful he ever realized his stunt would circle the globe, making him the planet’s de facto “penis guy” or “guy in a penis costume.”

Just in case anyone was wondering, Morett’s stunt has been picked up just about every newspaper in New York and most major publications in the United States. His sentencing alone was picked up by more than 100 news services. But his plea also caught the attention of the international press. Morett’s name appeared in journals published in Canada, Britain, Germany and even Australia. The headlines range from the catchy with Australia’s “Man apologizes for making dick of himself” to the sublime with Germany’s “Giant Goo Shooting Penis Terrorizes Graduates.”

From the Times Union’s “strange news” listing online to the more international Fark.com Website, stunts involving a six-foot phallus, the police and silly string are bound to garner some attention. Often times, these events draw more publicity than the ones that should probably be drawing worldwide interest.

It’s doubtful this is what Morett had in mind when he staged the stunt, but it’s a reality in today’s media. One stupid stunt can quickly immortalize someone in the worldwide press. It’s a lesson some of the younger folks using Facebook.com, Youtube.com and Myspace.com should learn before devoting large tracts of the World Wide Web for photo documentaries of their weekend beer bash. And it’s one they should certainly grasp before pulling a gag at a mundane event where the mass media is looking for even the slightest distraction.

Then again, maybe Morett can capitalize on this pseudo penis envy to make himself some loot. After all, more than 179,000 people have viewed an online video of his graduation appearance, which sometimes translates into dollar signs in the advertising world. Perhaps in a few months, we’ll have Calvin Morett, private dick for hire. Hey, it seemed to work alright for another well known Dick.