Alexis Zorba & Other Slightly Constrained Celebrities

"Absolute zero's one get-go,*
albeit a bleak..."  
     specs A-
lexis,** who's married with children
and swears, "Yeah: I’m Greek.”
   
     * Possibly the so-called Great Get-Go, often
confused with the Big Bang.
     ** Zorba (AZ)

     "Be your-
self! (HO* whom else would you be…?"
asks (rhetoric'lly) Boris**...  
     "To be
anyone else might cause Mother***
some serious tsoris."

     * Russian Cyrillics for 'but' and pronounced
(roughly) 'noh.' 
     * Yeltsin (BY) 
     *** Mother Russia, of course.

     "Con-
temn xenophobes! Contemn..."
Rhumba King Cugat* repeats.  
     (Just as
he would be treated, 
each stranger this vir bonus** treats.)  

     * Xavier (CX) 
     ** What the good man does is always right – 
or so (someplace) suggest the Brothers Grimm. 

     "Do with-
out! Pledge thy pounds to the poor," 
warbles Dionne* (a song bird)...     
     …though 'tis
Bacharach (Burt) who will soon
teach her right word from wrong word.

     * Warwick (DW)  

     "’Every 
valley exalted shall be;
every rough place made plain...’:   
     I would 
dance thee that text," Edward* vows, 
"in a Balanchine vein."

     * Villella (EV)  

     "I’m fed 
up! UFOs, URLs, USAs, UXBs..." 
fumes our Felix*… 
     "In the
end, all they yield
is some abecedarial helix."

     * Unger (FU) 

     "Gin and
tonic plus juice of one lime: pour the lot over ice..." 
     prescribes 
Gene.* "Good advice," echoes Gene.**
"Our innocuous vice!" 
     * Tierney (GT)  
     ** Tunney (GT)

     "He v
she…? The distinction's ambiguous," challenges Holly...* 
     "So (s)he's
Shlomo. Still, what's in a name…?
'So long, Sol; hello, Dolly.'"

     * Sweet (HS) 

     "I, 
Robot, rest my case,"
in tones Rumpolean...
     roars I-
rene.* "I'd rap it,
were I Rock 'n' Rollean."

     * Ryan (IR) 

     "John
Quincey ain't the seventh Chief Exec,"
corrects Jose*...
     "He's number 
six, post James Monroe...but what the
heck! (More: what the hey!!)

     * Quintero (JQ) 

     "Key personnel…? Kevin…? Paul…?
Rajon…? Ray…?" Kendrick* wonders.
     Then Perk's
traded, which trade shall yet prove
one of Boston's big blunders. 

     * Perkins (KP)

      Leigh/O-
livier,* Lunt/Fontaine.
Which duo's dropp’d from the list... 
        of great 
thespian pairs…? Jolie/ Pitt…? 
LOL! They’d be missed…?

     * (LO) 

     "Mach'a-
vellian, not to say cynical:
'twas just her way..." 
           muses
Mike,* as he pegs one-time partner,
the late Elaine May.

     * Nichols (MN) 

     "Not
much!" mutters Norman,* when
asked if he liked married life. 
        "Good when
naked, but less good when dead:
much depends on the wife."

     * Mailer (NM) 

     Ozy-
mandias: "Look on my burg, 
Mr. Big, and despair!"
     (Or Or-
lando*: "Give ear to my music...
or not: I don't care.") 

     * Lasso (OL) 

(More celebrities to come: a work in progress)


[PK: P. Kilbride]


[QJ: Q. Jones]


[RI: R. Ingersoll]


[SH: S. Houston]


[TG: T. Geisel]


[UF:                   ]  


[VE: V. Emmanuel]


[WD: W. Demarest]


[XC:                  ]


[YB:                  ]


[ZA:                    ]