Tony's Diary Package — page 153

New York-based singer Missy Modell rewrote the lyrics to Lady Gaga's 2008 hit "Paparazzi" to rhyme with "Docta Fauci." Her Instagram hit includes the line, "Tony, there's no other superstar except for Andy," New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Fauci's likeness is splashed on coffee mugs, T-shirts and even donuts. In Washington, D.C., the town Fauci calls home, Capo's Speakeasy teamed up with a real estate company to sell Fauci Pouchy to-go drinks, cocktails in seethrough sealed bags emblazoned with the doctor's image. At Chef Geoff's in northwest D.C., Fauci and his wife, a nurse bioethicist at the NIH, are regulars who in pre-virus times would pull up bar stools and order Chef Geoff Burgers and beers, says owner Geoff Tracy. He posted a sign warning take-out customers, "Dr. Antony Fauci is a long time guest and he wants SIX FEET." "He's a genuinely nice human being, and I deal with a lot who aren't sometimes," says Tracy, whose wife, CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell, has interviewed Fauci over the years. Tracy says Fauci's sudden ascent into the pop culture firmament doesn't surprise him. But he doubts it phases Fauci.