The Doctor is In

Well, I'm back.

My blogging—never high frequency, even in the best of times—has been particularly somnolent for the past few weeks because I have been reacquainting myself with the missus and the little Dealmakers on vacation. (Don't ask.) I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that it was mostly a sporting vacation, involving lots of perspiration, the callous sacrifice of many small, defenseless animals, and several large helpings of gelato.

The highlights, to my mind, were teaching Junior how to shoot skeet in the Piazza della Signoria and morning iaido practice with a naked blade on the 12th green of Royal Birkdale before the second round of the British Open. (I still can't figure out what the course marshall was trying to say to me before I accidentally severed his brachial artery while executing a particularly difficult kata. Bloody scouse accent is incomprehensible.)

Of course, the exchange rate made the entire exercise a festival of pain, but at least we were able to forgo the cost of equipping our spacious Tuscan villa with toilet paper by using U.S. currency instead.

I note that in my absence you, my Faithful Readers, and your colleagues, friends, and fellow travelers have generated remarkably little news or scandal worthy of comment. The same tired story lines in place before I left still dominate the headlines, and I simply cannot get inspired to sharpen the quill and freshen the vitriol to take it all on again just yet. I am sure a couple of double lattes and a quick read of my most recent deal status report will get those creative juices flowing again forthwith.

The only item of note is the recent defenestration of my favorite poisonous little cherub from the executive floor of Citigroup, but even that was no real surprise. I guess the received story line is that Pandit's Morgan Stanley mafia finally overwhelmed the chubby little scrapper with superior numbers, but I prefer to think he was asked to leave because they simply no longer required his special talents. After all, with private equity flat on its back, legs in the air, and rigor mortis setting in, there really isn't much call for senior investment bankers whose primary talent is not appearing taller than their diminutive squillionaire clients. Oh, that and underhanded knife fighting in the leveraged finance Credit Committee.

Well, I'm off to wrestle my towering inbox into some form of submission, and to see whether I can arrange some long-distance defibrillation of my languishing deals and clients, which have been in decline for some time now. I'll let you know if I find any wooden nickels in the pile.

© 2008 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.