Shopping With... Lee Tergesen

By Lauren David Peden, Fashion Wire Daily, December 16, 2004

Excerpts...

Just then, Tekserve owner Dick Demenus swung by to say hello, eager to show off the prototype of a foil-wrapped chocolate iPod that would be given away during the store's tongue-in-cheek "buy one, get one free" holiday special.

"I'm good at this," Tergesen exclaimed, holding the iPod next to his face and mugging for a nonexistent camera. After Demenus departed with the edible iPod (which he refused to let us hold on to for fear we'd melt - or nibble - the prototype), Tergesen launched into a series of puerile penis jokes. "Thanks, Dick. Very nice, Dick. That's perfect Dick," the Natural Born Wiseass said with a grin. "I had to fit that in, it was the perfect opportunity." Truer words were never spoken.

So why did Tergesen, who is in the market for a new iPod (real, not confectionary) choose Tekserve rather than the SoHo Apple Store for his "Shopping With" excursion? "Well, the Apple Store is way downtown and this is right near my house," said the Chelsea resident. "This is the place I come and I do a lot of business here. It's convenient."

Convenient and helpful. To wit: Tekserve recently saved the actor's vacation photos after a digital camera snafu, for which he is eternally grateful. "I went to Rome and Tuscany for a couple of weeks and stayed in a villa with Tom [Fontana, creator of "Homicide" and "Oz"], Dean [Winters, an "Oz" cast mate] and some other friends," he said. "It was really nice; we did a bunch of little day trips. When I came back I did something to the scan disc thing for my camera so I couldn't get the pictures off it. I brought it here and they got my pictures for me."

Today, the self-proclaimed music junkie is looking to upgrade his iPod from a 10 gig to a 40 gig, which is how we've come to find ourselves at the bustling, loft-like emporium that bills itself as "The Old Reliable Mac Shop" on this Friday afternoon.

"I made this huge mistake; it was a rookie move," Tergesen told us while perusing an Epson all-in-one CX5400 printer/scanner/copier. "I went in without any forethought and bought the 10 gig, which only holds 2,500 songs, and almost immediately filled it up. For another $100 I could have gotten a 20 gig that came with a dock and a case, all things I had to buy. It was so stupid. I look back and am like, 'What was I thinking?' I was crazy: 'I'VE GOT TO GET AN IPOD - GIVE ME THAT ONE! GIVE ME THAT ONE!' I have 600 or 700 CDs, and I haven't put anywhere near all my music on it. The other day I realized there are all these CDs I'm just not listening to."

Oy. Tragedy, thy name is Tergesen. "It's been a year," he agreed with an exaggerated sigh. "I don't know how I did it. I don't know how I'm living." Nor do we. Thankfully, FWD had swooped in (with $100 cash) to help Tergesen right this egregious technological wrong and to allow him to play Uncle of the Year come Christmas. "My [old iPod] is going to my niece," he said. "She's 13. She'll be happy with 2,500 songs."

Before we grabbed a number and headed to the counter to pick up his new-and-improved iPod, Tergesen and Lamos ogled a Canon XL2 digital camcorder (the model reportedly used by director Spike Lee) and the actor stopped to admire a mini-printer that sat under a protective glass dome, looking like something from Woody Allen's "Sleeper."

"My friend Ivan Fonseca travels with a printer [like this] because he's got a baby, so he prints out pictures as he takes them. He brought it to Tuscany. I'm like, are you ever going to live with the kid? Just be with the kid, dude." The toddler's name, Tergesen informed us, is Axel Fonseca. "It's got a nice ring to it," he mused. "Ivan said [with a name like that] he could be a brain surgeon or an interior decorator."

At the counter, the diehard metalhead broke into song at the sight of the salesgirl's Iron Maiden t-shirt ("Two minutes to midnight, to kill the unborn in the womb"), and charged the $433.41 iPod to his credit card. "I'll take this at 19 percent interest!" he crowed, pocketing FWD's $100 cash allowance.

While we waited for Demenus to reappear with the faux iPod, another round of Dick jokes ensued (hey, it was funny at the time!), and the newly-single Tergesen riffed on the store owner's enthusiasm for his non-mechanical sweet treat. "He's showing that chocolate around like he's going to get laid from it," he laughed. "You ain't going to get laid from no chocolate wrapped like an iPod, dude. That's not the way it works."

After Tergesen posed with the candy replica, we strolled West on 23rd Street. So what will the chameleon-like thespian be doing once "The Foreigner" ends its run in mid-January?

"I'm going to go out to LA to get into the warm weather and look for work," he replied. With a song in his heart and 10,000 songs in his pocket, thankyouverymuch.

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