DanMargarita.com

The truth is that I have wanted to kill Jimmy Buffet for about twenty years now on account of that song. I don't like his music anyway, so him having a huge hit with it has hardly gotten me to write him into my will.

In the last week alone about five people upon hearing my last name have said to me "Boy, I could really go for one of those now." I chuckle politely as I do whenever someone starts singing that song to me, thinking that they're the first ones ever to do that.

Unlike the drink, the name is Italian and may have originally spelled "Margherita" or "Margerita" or "von Schuschnigg."

The reason I bring all of this up is because the big mini-series (that's an oxymoron) on TV this week is Cleopatra. I didn't see it, so here's what my encyclopedia has to say about the woman.

The daughter of Ptolemy XI, at seventeen she married her younger brother Ptolemy XII. (How come my spell check doesn't go off for "Ptolemy" but does for "Beatles?" How often did the programmers of my word processor think that "Ptolemy" was going to come up?) Her brother-husband Ptolemy XII drowned in the Nile, so she then married her even younger brother Ptolemy XIII. (Jerry Lee Lewis had nothing on this woman.) At this time she was having an affair with Julius Caesar and bore him a son named Caesarian who later changed his name to, you guessed it, Ptolemy XIV. Had she lived, she may have married him too. Perhaps all these Ptolemies were the inspiration for George Foreman to name his five sons George.

Oh yes, my point:

All of this and my high school reading of Julius Caesar have me wondering why ancient Rome never had a guy named "Vinnie."

Being of Italian lineage with an uncle named "Tilo" and high school friends named Tom Minghella, Jeff DiTullio and Rocco Zizza, it seems weird to hear of Romans named Ventidius, Trebonius and Decius. Nor do I recall any of my high school conversations with my friends remotely sounding Shakespearian. Listen to how deep one of our get togethers might have sounded had it been scripted by the Bard of Avon and ascribed to the ancient Romans:

TREBONIUS: I am taxed by the games. Let us repair to the fields where we shall refresh ourselves with libations.
VENTIDIUS: Popilius hath promised to join us and provide merriment. Doth anyone know of where he roams?
DECIUS: Am I Popilius' keeper?
LEPIDUS: Popilius is but vermin.

Now here's how it would sound in modern English:

TOM: I'm wiped from the football game. Let's go to Broadway and have a couple of beers.
JEFF: Kell was supposed to come by with a case of beer. Where the hell is he?
DAN: How the *%$@#!& should I know?
ROCCO: Eh, Kell's a maggot.

Well, I missed Cleopatra but next time I watch The Godfather or Goodfellas, I'll pay closer attention to see if anybody gets "whacked" by a guy named Trebonius.