A Rose By Any Other Name...

I was reading an article about actor Chris Noth in Entertainment Weekly ("The Next Big Thing" by Vanessa Juarez) and stopped cold in the penultimate paragraph. Mr. Noth was semi-whining about his loss of anonymity in New York City--seeing as how he's been in not-one-but-two versions of the TV behemoth, Law & Order, and a little HBO project on both the home and silver screens, Sex and the City:

• "I have been walking these streets and taking subways all of my adult life, and [before] I was just another face in the crowd," he says. "It's pretty annoying to be suddenly looked at as some exotic bird in the zoo." That could be why Noth and Wilson are still discussing whether to raise their newborn son, Orion, in New York City or L.A.

I probably know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking I was stopped in mid-read because I couldn't believe the guy was annoyed by becoming such a successful actor that people recognize him on the street. "Oh, poor, poor, pitiful fella! Hey, Sir Lawrence, you chose to put yourself out there, so suck it up and take the fame along with the fortune...would that I had your problem, crybaby."

You're probably wrong.

What stopped me in my tracks was the thought, "Orion?" Seriously, naming the kid Orion has made your choice of locales not only obvious but vital. You absolutely must move to Los Angeles. You put a kid named Orion on the streets of NYC and you might as well shave his head and paint a target on it. What were you thinking?

If you wanted to stay in New York, you should have named your son Vinny or Butch or even Edwardo...but Orion? Get yourself to the Left Coast where your precious little Orion can play in the sand with Bambi and Neptune and Grape-Nuts.