"Freedom or glory? Glory, knowing full well the means to seize it."

Ted Perez
The Branson Belle Showboat
en route from Branson, Missouri to Eureka Springs, Arkansas
May 10, 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!"

"It is a fine line that which lays between the resolute and the stubborn."

Ted Perez
Manoa, Hawaii
April 25th, 1946
Ted consoling professor F.X. Williams. Three years earlier Williams, a long-time pen pal of Ted's, had introduced the Ampulex Compressa to the 50th state in the interests of biological pest control. The professor's scheme of enlisting the Jewel Wasp - which poisons a cockroach, rendering it a virtual zombie - to eradicate the islands' Blattaria problem was in no uncertain terms a failure.

"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
Firenze, Italia
April 21, 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.

"A fool is the first to bellow 'Eureka!'; alerting the wolves of fresh blood and the Gods of a loop hole."

Ted Perez
On the set of Perils of Nyoka
Los Angeles, California
April 18th, 1942
It was during a visit to 'Republic Pictures' filming of "Perils of Nyoka" that Ted met actor Steve Clemente [aka Esteban Clemento Morro] and was introduced to his life-long love of knife throwing. On set to see oft-escort Kay Aldridge, Ted was amazed at Clemente's poise. "There is no luck in this adventure - a marksman, and a scientist, does not happen upon a kill."

"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.

"Picasso had his brush, Bizet a gift from within circles; myself, my wits, actually, my wits and a gun."

Ted Perez
Virgen de Fatima Orphanage
São Paulo , Brasil
April 2nd, 1981
Ted christening a kiln he and local volunteers constructed for the orphanage. As translated by Bronson Arroyo.

On holiday at the Sweeney Farm, Great Pride, in County Cork, Ted hears of President Ronald Reagan's call for public and congressional support of his SDI - Star Wars - defense initiative. Torn, Ted discussed the news with his hose Ewan Sweeney. "Is he a good President? Who am I to say? I can vouch for him as a man and as an accomplished card player. If pressed, I'd say no. No, Dutch is not a good President and that hurts me because I consider him a dear friend. I simply can not find favor - especially when challenged by bold faced lies such as 'The United States does not start fights.' If he was here today, I'd say, straight-away, 'Listen Dutch, we're American, we were born fighting. Embrace it good man and cast aside any commie who dares question our right to enforce the law.'"

"I've never hunted for fame but I'd give my left ring finger for infamy."

Ted Perez
Montreal, Canada
March 15th, 1964
From Ted's 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 nine-hole champagne scramble tournament outside Duck [North Carolina] - unimpressed."

"Heaven is littered with the souls who didn't have the courage or wherewithal to make do on Earth."

Ted Perez
Tokunoshima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan
February 23rd, 1986
Excerpt from Ted’s eulogy for Shigechiyo Izumi, the former oldest living person in the world. The Izumi family quietly questioned if the two had ever met and who had in fact invited Ted to speak.

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.

"Talent is not negotiated. The Gods determine the blessed. The remainder, the vast majority of souls, are left to hone a skill, accrue experience and hope for the best."

Ted Perez
Chimbote, Peru
February 15th, 1963
An excerpt from Ted's "Parent/Mentor Contract" distributed to the guardians of his 23 charges at Universidad Privada San Pedro's day-care center where he was both volunteer and greens keeper.

"I've gone toe to tip with the Devil and I've felt the scruff on God's chin. If there is any regret, it is that I befriended them both."

Ted Perez
The Bull And Widower Public House
Belfast, Ireland
January 26th, 1975
The closing words of a lengthy diatribe with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. Ó Brádaigh cited the encounter weeks later during negotiations for the 1975 Truce, "The American. It was The American who imparted perspective. Imagine." Ted claims to have no memory of this event but does not dispute close ties with both Satan and The Almighty.

"Damn the details then! Ignore their significance and one renders all they support tommyrot."

Ted Perez
The Thacher School, Ojai, California
January 24th, 1928
A distraught Perez purportedly blurted these words when his thesis on the role the Bering Strait played ["constitutive"] in the current state of genetic diversity in Northern America was rejected by the school's founder and editor of The Thacher Quarterly one Sherman Day Thacher.

"Few men know my resolve. Time will reward you with either truth or one hell of a story."

Ted Perez
The Grove of The Crystal Dragon
Landover, Maryland
January 22nd, 1968
The opening lines of Ted's speech at the first annual "Gathering of the Tribes" hosted by Y Tylwyth Teg ["The Fairy Folk"] - the American off-shoot of the Welsh Tribe of Dynion Mwyn ["The Gentle Folk"] - a family of witches that claim lineage dating back to 1282 A.D.

Ted Perez, on the final leg of his 1960-1961 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.

In 1948 Ted was honored with an invitation from shipping baron Daniel K. Ludwig to join an ceremonial exploration retracing the days and nights of Theodore Roosevelt's journey down the then uncharted Rio da Dúvida [River of Doubt] later named the Rio Roosevelt by Colonel Cândido Rondón. What made Ted's heart skip more than a few beats was the news that Rondón himself would be leading the junket!

There was zero hesitation - Ted responded the same afternoon via telegraph to Ludwig:

"Luddy. Count on me to join you and know if I perish I hold nothing against you save being a world-class miser. Always. Ted."

Ted immediately wired his long time valet Kumar V. Pallana with his requirements:

"I'll need just my compass, my annotated copy of Don Quixote, a sensible knife and the goods."

Ted's ample detail of the weeks that followed can be found in his serialized survey "Every Breath Is Measured: A New Found Appreciation of Exploration, Resolve and Madness".

"Chin up. Nose down."

Ted Perez
The Stork Club
New York, New York
January 31st, 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.

"What is my greatest accomplishment? Living, of course, and not dying all the while."

Ted Perez
Independence, Maryland
December 28th, 1972
From Ted's eulogy for Harry Truman.

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.