Well folks, it’s that time of the year again when I retire to my secret, undisclosed holiday-time punpkin’-pie sunshine bunker* for the remainder of the year. Things should get back on a regular schedule on December 29th, followed closely by another brief hiatus to allow for my first hangover of 2009. Until then, let’s reflect.

I started this blog this fall, after jumping ship from the City Paper’s arts beat to cover a subject a little closer to my area of interest—women (am one). Since then, I’ve written on contraception access, coy Internet sex fiends, and that sexy dunce ice queen who would become the Vice President of our hearts. Let’s see what subjects ya’ll found most interesting this year: in a list!

1. SEX/OBAMA: Electoral Dysfunction: In Search of Election Night Sex
2. SARAH PALIN: The Sexist’s Vice-Presidential Debate Drinking Game
3. SEX/FIRE: The Good Guys Trial
4. OBAMA: Is This Man Your Ticket to the Inauguration?
5. SEX: Nude Coworkers: Disturbing?
6. SEX/SARAH PALIN: Star in the Sarah Palin Adult Film
7. SARAH PALIN: Now: Live-Blogging the Vice-Presidential Debate
8. GAY ENDURANCE CONTESTS: High Heel Race Seeks Volunteers
9. BOOBS: Breast Cancer Awareness Cake: Fail
10. WOMEN’S HEALTH: Yes, We Have No Birth Control

Thanks very much for reading. And let me know what sexy fire boob contests you’d like to see covered in 2009!

* Phoenix.

Photo via trialsanderrors.

Attorneys for Vasile Graure opened and rested their case this afternoon in the case of last year’s fire at Glover Park strip club Good Guys. After calling five witnesses to the stand—including two employees of the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia and three MPD officers—Judge Robert Richter asked Graure if he’d like to testify on his own behalf. Andrew Ferguson and Premal Dharia shook their heads no. “No,” Graure responded. Richter asked if he was sure. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and so far, I say no, I can’t decide,” said Graure.

Read More “Good Guys Trial: Graure Does Not Testify” »

MPD Detective Richard Espinosa is currently stationed in Djibouti, Africa, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Last year, he  helped arrest Vasile Graure, the defendant in the Good Guys arson case. Graure was arrested in Alexandria’s Days Inn several days after the fire. Espinosa testified today that police had put Graure under surveillance for about a day before he and another detective secured a warrant for Graure’s arrest. When Espinosa arrived at the hotel and entered Graure’s room, he noted what he described as “second degree burns” on his hands. The prosecution entered into evidence police photos of Graure’s arms, handcuffed behind his back. His arms appear bright red and chafed from the wrists up to the elbows.

On the night of the fire, Samuel Bond’s old Marine buddy invited him to celebrate his upcoming wedding. So Bond, 27, traveled from Richmond to Washington, D.C., and headed to the Good Guys strip club to join the bachelor party. At around 7 p.m., he sat down, had a couple drinks, talked with his buddy’s military friends, and watched naked women dance.
Read More “Good Guys Trial: The Bachelor Party” »

Vasile Graure, the man accused of igniting a fire within Glover Park strip club Good Guys last year after being booted from the club, didn’t arrive in court today. “I got a call from the Department of Corrections,” announced Judge Robert Richter to the attorneys present this morning. “Vasile Graure has an infection in his toe.”

Read More “Good Guys Trial: Postponed By Infection” »

Second district D.C. police officer Robert Fennell, Jr., was on duty on the night of the fire. He testified today in court about responding to a report of the blaze. After he arrived on the scene, he says, he spoke to officers who were at the club before going behind back and seeing Djordjevic. “He wasn’t responding to any of my questions,” Fennell says. “He had that thousand-mile stare. He was like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon, where Wyle E. Coyote was just blown up by the Roadrunner, with dynamite.”

Read More “Good Guys Trial: MPD Testimony” »

Two Good Guys waitresses were called to the stand today in the trial of Romanian citizen Vasile Graure, the man accused of setting the club on fire last November. Valerie Kremer, 29, who left her job at the club in September, was working the night shift at the club on the evening of Nov. 3, 2007. When she arrived, a customer she didn’t recognize asked her for a drink and complimented her on her clothes. “You look Scottish,” she recalls him telling her. She asked where he was from. He told her he was from Romania. Kremer says that one year later, she wouldn’t recognize the man if she saw him again.

Read More “Good Guys Trial: Waitresses Testify” »

This afternoon, Andrew Ferguson and Premal Dharia, attorneys for Vasile Graure—accused of alighting Glover Park strip club Good Guys last year—-cross-examined Good Guys employee Kathleen Lazorchack, the only manager on duty the night of the fire.

Read More “Good Guys Trial: The Manager’s Cross-Examination” »

Kathleen Lazorchack, 39, has been working at Good Guys for 16 years. She had just started her shift— waiting tables—on the evening of Nov. 4 3, 2007 when the place burst into flames. She took the stand today in the trial of Vasile Graure, the man accused of igniting the fire last year.

Read More “Good Guys Trial: A Good Guys Manager Testifies” »

On Nov. 4, 2007, a man was kicked out of Glover Park’s Good Guys strip club for taking photos of the strippers with his cell phone. He left, but returned with a lighter and gasoline and set the club’s manager on fire. Two days later, police and U.S. Marshalls found their suspect, Vasile Graure, in a hotel room at Alexandria’s Days Inn. He was charged with assault with intent to kill eight people—the manager, who suffered second and third degree burns, and seven others inside the club.

One year later, the 38-year-old Romanian citizen, a Phoenix resident, is being tried in D.C. Superior Court. Opening statements in the case began on Monday; I’ll be at the trial all day today, posting updates of the proceedings as they happen.