Keep reading this post to the end, its really worth it (Update: money line added)

January and February are the slowest months of the year for hotels in New York, and the Hotel Idiotica is no exception. It's crazy, sometimes we only see one or two posts a night here, and sometimes it is completely empty! We all think the proprietor has no idea what he's doing.

Anyway, much of the downtime that hasn't gone over to breathlessly filing or eagerly entering data--have you ever done clerical work to Bruce Springsteen?--has been spent discussing the sexual habits of a certain Yusuf.

This isn't anything new, of course. Yusuf has been humbly informing me of his carnal proclivities for months now. The difference is, now that I'm working some evenings towards the end of the week (Yusuf comes in at about 7 o'clock), GWNTSLACD is here to balance his accounts.

After a careful vetting of all rumor, hearsay, and innuendo, it's been determined that Yusuf has bedded between four and forty women in the three to ten years he's worked here at the Hotel Idiotica.

Adorably enough, when you ask him directly, Yusuf seems to take the low end. This could just be because he's embarrassed in mixed company, but I actually think I can tell he's being honest here, if typically evasive.

My hot-blooded Spanish colleague's estimate seems to depend in part on her extremely dilated definition of "girlfriend" (I have had three friends come visit me [you should too! it's all you've imagined!] at the hotel during the day; they are all my "girlfriends"), but it rests mostly on the fact that a small plurality of the women who come into the hotel are obviously quite taken by the Big Guinean

I'm not talking about Yu's seductive psychological battering of twenty-somethings ("You want you' key? Only 500 dollars, my baby") or his genially egregious harassment of his coworkers. No, what's surprising, or not surprising if you've been around him as much as I have, seen him dote on the Boss Lady, seen him gather clothing and blankets and all kinds of random shit for dozens of family and friends in Africa, and, yes, seen him hurt and weary, what's surprising is just how quiet and tender he can be with the single, lonesome women just on either side of forty.

A lot of the time, these are transplanted Africans themselves, usually living somewhere in Europe like Holland or Belgium. Yusuf nearly always has their phone number within about four hours. Lately he's been trying to email pictures to a woman living in Norway, which we're finding a little difficult since he doesn't understand what goes into an email address (send suggestions to www.diaboute2005.com)

So I'm sure you're all asking, do they jugujugu or not? Jugujugu is Mandingo (Yusuf's first language, and, according to him, also the world's) for "boinga boinga" or "choo-choo, here comes the meat train, next stop: tuna station" (thanks,Wikipedia!). Pronounced jugujugu, Alexander Kimenyi considers it to be an ideophone of the Kinyarwanda language that indicates "rapid repetitive movement."

Yusuf is always on the lookout for potential jugujugu; I chronicled the first time I heard him use the phrase, but I wrote it like a week later, so I couldn't remember exactly what he said. This is WJCITH's Jayson Blair moment, but let's just move on.

So to get to the point, and the payoff to this is huge, I promise, I thought for a while that Yu was jugujuguing whole bevies for the duration of his tenure here at the Idiotica. He's often mimed for me how the whores of Times Square would come around the desk to give the clerks handjobs back in the hotel's glory days.

But lately I've come to think of him as more faithful. I've realized that even though he's fifty, he's only been married less than a decade, and the legends of his promiscuity seem to disperse at just about the time of his marriage.

But, oh, what legends they were. The Israeli girl. The two young African women who showed up at every day at the hotel for months. And the his delicate chrysanthemum, the pure white, crimson solar glory of his Japanese consort. Yusuf recalls her so fondly. "'Oh you so very strong,'" he says, imitating her high, clear whisper. He strokes his own hand. "'And your skin so soft,'" he breathes.

"Hoooo," he sighs. "I love brack men"