"Freedom or glory? Glory, knowing full well the means to seize it."
Ted Perez, The Branson Belle Showboat, en route from Branson, MO to Eureka Springs, AR, 1970
Ted was 'sequestered' 2 hours into the 5-hour cruise when he rushed the stage where Tony Orlando was performing yelling "Richard Little will die tonight!"
“Peace shall come, eventually, to each of you for the vagabond grace of us sinners also flutters towards the fingertips of angels.”
Ted Perez, Caravaggio Room, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy, 1977
Leading a tour of visiting students from Ft. Lauderdale’s Winston Academy Middle School. Ted, in no way associated with either the Uffizi or the school, had taken to leading tours when on leave from the US Embassy.
"Was I duped by leaches, criminals and turncoats? Yes. Did I enjoy every minute of the debacle? Hell yes!" Ted bankrolled The Buck Turgidson, an eight stool, four booth saloon in Georgetown, while serving as US Ambassador to the Loa People's Democratic Republic [1966-68]. Hopes of hosting "A haven free of gibberish, prying sycophants and Russkie sympathizers" were, sadly, but a folly as Ted's generosity outweighed any business aptitude and The Buck was abruptly shuttered on Easter Sunday 1968.
Young, brazen and perhaps not exactly challenged by his responsibilities as researcher at The New York Daily News ['New York's Picture Newspaper'], Ted wrote, typeset and ran just under 1,000 copies of the Daily News with the headline 'Iron Widow Loose' before being caught by a graveyard shift janitor [Elmer Dills of Brooklyn]. The 'Iron Widow' was of course Ruth Snyder, who at the time was awaiting trial for the murder of her husband Albert. Weeks after the stunt, Snyder was found guilty by a jury of her peers. On January 22, 1928 Snyder was electrocuted at Sing Sing. A picture of her hooded, dead body, ran in the Daily News the next day. In a letter to esteemed photographer Paul Aubin, Ted wrote, 'I'm certain you've seen the Widow image. And to think, I get shitcanned [sic] for a prank and those monsters are free to print a snapshot unfit even for Charon's bill fold - America is truly coming undone.'
"Silence is the single most difficult argument to refute."
Ted Perez, Washington, D.C., 1975
IRS Commissioner, Presidential Appointment Ceremony
"I've never hunted for fame. But I'd give my left ring finger for infamy."
Ted Perez, Montreal, Canada, 1964
From his toast at the 1st marriage of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Ted meets actor Paul Lynde and notes in a letter to first wife Jessica, "Met Mr. Lynn [sic] at an impromptu regatta outside Duck [North Carolina] - unimpressed."
Communication Arts honored the Ted Perez + Associates produced website for "The Palace" as their Webpik of the Day.
The corporate website for “The Palace” - an Australian Advertising Agency - is equal parts greatest hits gallery, curated inspiration wall, brand planning center and business development tool. Combined, the site presents clients, partners and employees a personalized resource tailored to unique interests and needs. Notably, the HTML site dynamically reorients the site’s content to maximize the layout of the user’s viewing platform [desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.].
Reached for comment following the death of notorious gossip-monger Walter Winchell, Ted simply states: 'The world has lost its most true form of measurement. Mr. Winchell polarized our society into two very distinct parties - those with sense and those destined for an afterlife chin deep in the sick of a thousand pigs.' In 1956, nearly a year after a brief encounter with actress Gene Tierney while touring Hartford's 'Institute for Living' where he was 'completely and utterly removed from this world by Ms. Tierney's glance,' Winchell penned a report that Ted and Gene had eloped in a private ceremony at the home of Sherman Billingsley [Stork Club]. The rumour would create an irreperable fissure between Ted and Tierney admirer Senator John Kennedy.
"I have never driven an ambulance only to later mistaken it for a Mark I."
Ted Perez, Anchorage Westward-Hilton Hotel, Anchorage, AK, 1981
Excerpt from Ted’s keynote speech at The Alaska Convention of Lodges wherein The Grand Lodge of Alaska was formally recognized by the Free and Accepted Masons. The title of Ted’s speech “Be Damned” has been widely accepted by historians as a two-pronged offensive on one-time comrades Hemingway and Sanchez.
On this date in 1972, Ted Perez, in an attempt to disprove the theory that life might exist on Jupiter, secretly gained access to Mission Control in Houston, TX.
After being discovered, Mr. Perez successfully held the security forces at bay for over 45 minutes with a broom handle and two hostages - maintenance engineers Kumar Pallana and Mary Foy. Foy, interviewed in '78 for a Parade Magazine exposé on 'The Common Transgendered Man' recalled "Guilty or not, all I know is Mr. Perez was right. We weren't hostages - we were comrades. I'll never forget his cry: Questions do not hurt - truth does not hurt - batons and mace, fuck, that hurts."
Ted Perez, on the final leg of his 1960-61 European lecture tour where he debated, town hall style, with the 'common man', subjects ranging from US foreign policy, wildlife preservation and the benefits of a fiber-free diet, is pulled from atop a young man who he'd been arguing with in the water closet of a local pub. His opponent, a Stuart Sutcliffe of Edinburgh, filed charges claiming Perez had broken his hand and stolen his scarf.
Ted Perez, The Stork Club, New York, NY, New Year’s Eve 1947
When asked if he had any resolutions for the coming year by author John O’Hara, Ted responded with, “I will always face the past with my chin up and the future with my nose down.” Ted, not an invited guest to the evening’s festivities, was asked to leave roughly an hour before the New Year. By midnight he’d made his way to a holding tank in the 13th precinct police house.
Ted's perspective on taste were refined evermore on Christmas Eve 1949. Joining bridge partner Joseph Eichler, Ted first met Charles and Ray Eames at their just completed Case Study House No. 8. "Enraptured by the couple and their spellbinding carriage", not until "well in the cups" did Ted realized the cocktail he had enjoyed so carelessly was without precedent. Pressing Ray for the brand he was rebuffed, "The gin? Puffer's of course. But the spirit is not the signature." Ted later stumbled upon the secret - an empty bottle of San Pellegrino - while hovering over the rubbish bin revisiting the evening's meal.
"Il Duce did not have a list of wishes - he had Rome."
Ted's response when asked by Vice President Nixon's second daughter Julie what he wanted from Santa. It was not only Ike and Mamie's final Christmas at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest it proved to be Ted's as well.
Birthday of Theodore Roosevelt.
Ted Perez + Associates holiday. Observed October 28, 2011.
Johnny Damon Day
Former Ted Perez + Associates holiday. Observed October, 20 2004 through December 20, 2005.
Ted Perez + Associates worked with their friends at DOCOMOMO/NOCA to produce a website promoting the foundation's mission of documenting and conserving historical architecture in Northern California. The site, built in HTML, features an interactive portion that highlights all of their documented buildings within a map. Each building is presented with photos, its architectural history and tips for visiting. Additionally, the site operates as the organization's hub offering donation information, board members and the latest news and buildings they hope to preserve.
Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita' is published and distributed in the US by G.P. Putnam's Sons. Many believe if it were not for Ted's heartfelt, if not at times off-color, praise for Mailer's Hollywood send-off 'The Deer Park' at a dinner party in New York's Lower East Side held in honor of William Golding, 'Lolita' may never have found a domestic distributor. Unfortunately, Perez and Mailer would only speak for a brief period of time as Mailer's open letter to Castro included beliefs Perez could not comprehend nor appreciate. "I have serious apprehension accepting Mr. Mailer's claim that his is a genuine vision of the future. To praise Señor Castro and state that he, the father of communism in the western hemisphere, gives us hope...I mean sweet Jesus WHO IS US? WHO! IS! US!...I can't continue..." [excerpt from Ted's toast at his nephew Jack Ray's second marriage to Honeywell heiress Janice Varitek].
"Ask your old man about Cambodia and then listen for his spirit to tremble. If it does, he is human. If it doesn't, he is legend."
Opening ceremonies for the Central Sectional of the 1991 Little League World Series.