How far I have fallen since my 2006 Mentor of the Year award.

Yesterday I made my monthly pilgrimage to the South Bronx to meet my mentee. It is like a trip down memory lane except I kept getting hit by all the trash on the streets. As dirty as New York is I do not think I ever really appreciated how dirty the area around Yankee Stadium is. Imagine the floating bag in American Beauty multiplied by 100,000 with used condoms and chicken wings filling up the rest of the space.

Well, when I got to my mentee I could see that he was upset. He is usually barely talkative (“school’s ok, can you buy me a Play Station game?”), but on this day he was silent. He confessed to me at lunch that he was bummed because he and a friend had a falling out. Apparently my mentee was trying to “talk to this girl” who “had a man.” His friend told him that was not wrong and my mentee said that it was none of his business. End of friendship. I have to say, that despite being my mentee I am on the side of the guy who is trying to prevent cheating.

But this was just a prelude. I received an e-mail that my mentee got caught cheating on a test. Yesterday. That means that after we spoke and I imparted on him the lessons of – make sure you kick ass on your grades because junior year is most important for college applications – he cheats on a test! (I guess I did not specify how to kick ass at his classes)

All I can say is I blame the athletes, the actors and the politicians (“what about the children” in the mocking Bill Maher tone). As Chris Rock said so wisely, “How you gonna tell a kid not to do drugs, when the mayor’s getting high.” When the governors are cheating on their wives, Stallone is taking steroids and baseball players are lying to Congress how can you expect a kid not to cheat on his test or hit on another guy’s girlfriend? Which reminds me, having attempted to squire another gentleman’s woman and having cheated on a test, should I be concerned that my 5’8″ 120 lb mentee was talking about trying to put on muscle, since the only person he has not emulated on that list is Stallone?

This weekend I venture to Minnesota to impress more valuable lessons on college kids through jokes. I assume I will have something funny to write about it on Monday.