Play-Dope

The spokesman for this year’s RN&R Summer Guide, Mr. Reno, is a passionate Gemini. He hails from Brooklyn, by way of San Francisco. Mr. Reno got his first taste of superstardom with a bit part in the first Friday the 13th movie as a bit of a liver stuck to a wall. Since then Mr. Reno, 38, has been modeled as dog excrement in the smash hit Independence Day, played himself in the swamp scene in Shrek and most recently stood in for James Caviezel in the scourging scene in The Passion of the Christ.

So how did you come to be the RN&R spokesmodel for the 2004 Summer Guide?

I’d applied for that butler spokesman position, Sterling, over at the RSCVA. They chose some lispy barfly and didn’t even give me a second interview. I didn’t have the cash to pay for a cab to catch my junket back to the Bay Area, so I said, “Fughedaboudit. I’m staying.”

Yeah, but how’d you end up as the RN&R spokesmodel?

I got caught silver-mining quarters at the Eldorado, and as security was escorting me out, I came across that Carano guy from the billboards. He was trying to get that guy Dave Foto to take his picture. Foto got me the gig.

So do a lot of people confuse you with Mr. Bill, the comedian from Saturday Night Live?

I guess. A lot of people believe Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center.

Well, you do have similar names.

You’d have to be an idiot to think we are the same guy. He’s a no-talent has-been.

You sort of have similar complexions.

What are you, some kinda ass? I said we have nothing in common, now why don’t you ask me another inane question? Jesus Christ, don’t you guys ever do any research before you do these interviews?

So if you could be any tree—

Holy crap, would you get a freaking clue? Why don’t you ask me my phone number so people can call me when they need a spokesmodel? That’s all this interview is, right, a thinly disguised attempt to get some business to advertise in your paper. Why don’t you ask me something that’ll do somebody some good?

Well, what haven’t we talked about that you think people should know about you?

What haven’t we talked about that people should know about you? Who’d you bend over for to become editor of that newspaper? What? Did you have to fail a test to get that job?

You know, when I hired you, I thought you were a nicer guy.

Yeah, well, when you hired me, you didn’t tell me you were going to shove a garden fork through my chest.