born 13 January 1970

A. Onomen Asikele, Benin City, Nigeria, renaissance man

Anna Marie Goddard, Ysbrechtum, The Netherlands, Playboy playmate

David C. Romano, Providence, Rhode Island, set dresser

Ivana Mihic, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, actress

Keith Coogan, Palm Springs, California, actor/grandson of Jackie Coogan

Manish Srivastava, birthplace unspecified, Indian director

Marco Pantani (died 14 February 2004), Cesena, Italy, cyclist

Michael Jung, Detroit, Michigan, producer

Michael Massé, Falls Church, Virginia, music supervisor

Prinzessin Nataly von Preussen, Frankfurt, West Germany, Prussian noblewoman

Shonda Rhimes, Chicago, Illinois, screenwriter

Simon Vaughan, Kingston-upon-Thames, England, producer

Steve Sauve, Ottawa, Canada, singer

More so than any of the other groupings presented here thus far, I feel strongly that all of these people should get together and have a birthday party. Kind of a bad male/female ratio, yes, but two of the women appear to be extremely attractive. It’s a cosmopolitan group – I owe a special debt to A. Onomen Asikele, for helping me to realize that a) Benin City is nowhere near the country of Benin; and b) Benin is the country that until 1975 was known as Dahomey: a regrettable switch in my view. In addition to their widely scattered origins, this group displays a broad variety of skills. And they’re all the same age.

If that party ever were to happen, however, the late great Marco Pantani would be absent. I have a strong suspicion that Today's Winner did manage to party quite a bit more than his share during a tragically short life. Known as il Pirata (“The Pirate”), Pantani remains the last man to win the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia in the same season. He was very much at the leading edge of the doping scandals which convulsed the sport in the 1990s and beyond, and for reasons I’d have to do more research to ascertain, he never returned to challenge Lance Armstrong during the Texas Crankshaft’s period of steady domination. (That’s a nickname I just made up: shockingly, however, before today I never knew that Lance Armstrong’s actual last name at birth (in 1971) was…Gunderson?!?!?!? Lance Gunderson?)

The point, being, gawd, what a phony-ass world we inhabit. Marco Pantani, you were a genuine champion, and your fans loved you for your valiant assault on the voluptuous mountain passes of Europe. I certainly don’t care how many needles you had to stick yourself with to endure the pain such feats entailed. Buona notte amico.