Birthmonth boy Kenny Veranos
1. My financial advisor Kenny Veranos, MBA, who celebrates a birthday today. Kenny’s attitude towards birthday observance is that the celebrant is entitled to receive birthday tributes beginning on the actual anniversary of birth and continuing through until the end of the calendar month that said birthday falls upon; a ritual that he has spent a great deal of effort in attempting to be internationally recognized as the official birthday etiquette. What inevitably causes everyone who has ever been confronted by this philosophy to mockingly dismiss it is the fact that Kenny’s birthday conveniently falls on the first day of the calendar month and his scheme would allow him all of March to be wined and dined like the Sultan of Brunei. Not only that, but Kenny bamboozled those of us who have been sucked into his dark inner circle to begin the festivities this year at the end of February, extending his moment in the spotlight even longer. Don’t think I’m not wise to what you’re up to, Veranos: it’s your plan to ultimately stretch the accolades into “The Year of Kenny” so that you have an entire twelve months to collect swag and have your rapidly aging face stuffed on someone else’s dime. I see right through your scam and I intend to publicly out you just as soon as you’re finished celebrating. After all, it wouldn’t be right to make trouble for somebody on their birthday.
Gordo Perry and I enjoying some free time in Vegas.
2. John “Gordo” Perry, who also celebrates a birthday today. I met Gordo when he was supporting me in one of the 48 productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that I have starred in over the years. That show was particularly memorable for me because it was the premiere production of Nevada Shakespeare in the Park in which I was given the nickname Mad Beast by our fellow cast member Eddie Frierson, who handled out similar sobriquets to everyone in the show – primarily because his double-digit IQ did not give him the mental capacity to remember anyone’s given name. The production was staged just outside of Las Vegas, and I was named Mad Beast because of my enthusiastic participation in the city’s nightlife. John was named Gordo for less colorful reasons: his last name is Perry, which sounds kind of like “pear”, which is remotely shaped like a gourd – hence, Gordo. I suspect that Eddie was very tired by the time he got around to giving John his nickname; either that, or Perry is so lacking in personality that Eddie was reminded of a dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants on the rare times that he had to speak with him. Whatever the actual reasons behind the moniker, I wish Gordo the happiest of birthdays and hope that one of the presents he receives is a better nickname.
Me as Snug in Tony Potter's staging of the rarely-produced “A Midsummer Night's Dream”
3. Tony Potter, who was my Facebook-assigned Best Friend for the Day (BFD) on Saturday. I was cast as Snug in the Las Vegas Midsummer when the director saw me in the role at the Globe Playhouse in a production directed by Tony. I left Tony’s show to do the Vegas gig, which Tony couldn’t complain about because he was designing lights for the Nevada Dream (which he would direct again at the Globe in 1993). Nevada Shakespeare in the Park was later taKenny over by Gary Lamb, who I never acted in a production for (although I did audition for one – a new staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream) because I was then engaged at the Arroyo Repertory Theatre where I played many roles, including Demetrius in yet another A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I later became friendly with Gary when I worked at his Crown City Theatre but never worked with Tony, although we came close last year when he was hired to direct at Crown City and asked me to play Peter Quince in one more production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I told him to go straight to hell.
Julia McDowell as Ophelia.
4. Julia McDowell, who was my BFD on Friday. I met Julia when she understudied the role of Ophelia when I played Hamlet, and she fell in love with me the in same way that every actress who has ever worked with me has become obsessed by my masculine lure. Her way of dealing with this unrequited passion was typical of most women who encounter me and are unable to cope with their response to my alpha male mystique – she didn’t speak to me for twenty years after the show was over. I have always pitied Julia having to submerge her passion for my indefinable kvorka by feigning complete indifference to me over the last two decades and even pretending not to remember who I was on those rare occasions when I would call her at 3:00 a.m. to try and get her to bail me out after a DUI. For my part, I considered her performance as Ophelia to be superb and thought it was a shame that she was relegated to an understudy position when another actress was cast in the primary role to settle an unfortunate misunderstanding after I sold her car to an out-of-town tourist when I was short of cash to finance the crack addiction which was my hobby at the time. While that resulted in my recollection of the 1980s being little more than a murky haze, I will always cherish the memory of Julia’s fine performance as Ophelia.
Al the Pal in the halcyon days of the Pugnacious Pilots.
5. Al “The Pal” Taylor, who was my BFD on Sunday. It has been well-documented that Al has been confined to an asylum for the criminally insane for many years, but when I first encountered him he was still teetering on the brink of sanity. That was back when I was running a fantasy baseball league in which Al owned a team called the Mt. Rainier Pugnacious Pilots which dominated the league in its formative years, becoming the first team to win back-to-back championships in 1993 and 1994. It is difficult to determine if Al’s grip on reality declined as the Pugs’ dominance went gradually down the toilet or if the team fell apart along with its owner’s tenuous hold on his sanity, but after Al was institutionalized the Pugnacious Pilots went into a downward spiral that mirrored his tragic decline. Al’s guards and doctors say that there is no hope for him to come back from the dark path he now treads, much like baseball insiders now dismiss the once-mighty Pugs as a shadow of their former greatness. Al was never great, but he is certainly a shadow at this point, and not even a long one. Just one of those faint glimmers of darkness that look vaguely like a savage rodent until you readjust the curtains to fall back to sleep, and then it disappears as though it never existed in the first place.
