Perry Caravello is truly a creature of habit. He finds comfort in his deep-rooted patterns of regularity. Anything that deviates from these patterns is met with stern resistance as change is quite inconvenient for Perry. Psychological studies tell us that the very anatomy of change is not determined by one’s surroundings but one’s inherent mindset. Perry is a unique case. For him, it’s both.

There are many fascinating examples of this to choose from. There’s Perry’s obsessive devotion to his hairdresser, Sheila Falcone or perhaps how he has two working VCRs and an extensive VHS library. These are all topics for another time perhaps. Today, I’d like to focus on Perry’s shopping habits.

One of Perry’s longest running rituals involves Costco, the membership-only warehouse superstore. Once a month, for the past 24 years, Perry does his all his food shopping there. Why only once a month you ask? Perry explains, “Because I only get paid once a month. I make sure I do all my shopping the day I get paid. I shop smart, safe and big. I shop big because you never know what’s gonna happen. You never know if you’ll go broke, go hungry, or even have a terrorist attack or an earthquake.”

“Back in 1989, I had no idea what Costco was,” Perry states. “I first went with Mark Ross, my very first boss when I was going to telephone tech school. He introduced me to how awesome Costco was. I would go to shop for his company with his card. A year later, Mark and I weren’t working together anymore, but I knew I wanted to still shop a Costco, so I got my own membership and I’ve been going there ever since.”

I’m often asked, “What does Perry purchase when he shops at Costco?” As his publicist, I’m continuously embarrassed to admit I don’t know this basic and simple fact. So, I asked Perry to shoot some video and take us all with him as he shops through aisles of America’s number two retailer during his monthly visit:

As evident in the above video, Perry is extremely brand loyal. Perry can speak for hours about his favorite brands but when I asked about some of his top products found at Costco, he was concise and clear. “Look, I get the same stuff every month, so it’s not that hard. Right now I am loyal to Kellogg’s and Wolfgang Puck Organic Soup. Those soups are fantastic! Sure, they’re in a can but it’s not that shit Campbell’s puts out. That’s all garbage! Barilla is the only brand of pasta and sauce that I buy, nothing else. I’m a proud Italian, so the right pasta and sauce is important to me. Just read the ingredients. There’s no preservatives. It’s all natural stuff! Gillette Clear Gel Deodorant is also a product I’ve used for years. It says on the front that it lasts 48 hours but it lasts about a week. I also only use Irish Spring soap and Listerine mouthwash. I don’t know why people buy Scope. Scope has sugar. It’s like washing your mouth out with candy!”

Perry is also a stickler for organic products. “Organic is healthier, everyone knows that,” Perry explains. “Let me go back to my mom; for her entire life she had stomach problems. She had a big digestive problem. Now, my grandfather was a tailor but he was also a hunter. He would hunt birds and that was the only thing [my mom] ate. You can’t get any fresher than that. That’s organic! Food was healthier back then. So, when I was a kid, she always fed me fresh foods and I’ve always pushed people to eat healthy.”

When I asked if he purchased organic condiments such as ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise, Perry’s answer was emphatic. “Heinz ketchup is the number one ketchup on the market and I would never buy another brand, ever! Even if it was organic ketchup, I would never buy it. It’s Heinz ketchup only! I’m not a mustard eater and I don’t like mayonnaise, so I don’t even care about that stuff.”

One might think Costco is just for shopping, but according to Perry, that line of thinking is incorrect as it could lead to a pleasant social experience. “You could meet a lot of nice women at Costco, oh yeah. The one in Marina del Ray is loaded with hot chicks. Sometimes I try talking to some of the pretty employees there but only in a nice, warm way. I’m not trying to be Don Juan Casanova anymore. I can’t be out there grabbing asses all the time like I did back in Palm Springs. When I talk to pretty girls at Costco, I’m very respectful.”

The last line puzzled me. Did Perry really grab women’s asses or was he speaking metaphorically? Perry clarifies, “I would grab a girl’s ass to see how fit she was. You have to understand, my entire life was fitness from bicycle riding, skateboard[ing], and roller skating. Being fit was always very important to me, so any girl I was gonna be with had to be fit.”

If Perry has a weakness, it’s a wide array of junk food, none of which are organic. But Perry is a man that owns up to his faults and weaknesses, and admitting to his love of junk food is no exception. “My weaknesses are peanut butter pretzel sticks, beef jerky, Peanut M&M’s, brownie bars, brownie brittle, wild berry bars, all-natural gourmet Popcornopolis and Kellog’s Rice Krispy Treats. I will admit that Rice Krispy treats are my biggest weakness. They’re not organic, but they’re basically healthy, so it’s not that bad.”

Once in a rare while, Perry falls victim to over-shopping as we all do when we shop on an empty stomach. On this particular visit, Perry purchased a rotisserie chicken that he didn’t necessarily need, but he did manage to make a lovely dinner out of it as shown in the video below.



Perry never worries too much about over-shopping, his life philosophy also applies to this issue. “I’ll get to it eventually,” Perry explains, “If it’s nonperishable, I don’t worry about over-shopping. I’ll use it sometime down the road. I have a lot of stuff in my apartment that I haven’t used yet. I still have a case of SoBe from two or three months ago.”

I’d like to add an additional note if I could. Just in case anyone from Costco, Kellog’s, Silk, S. Pellegrino, Sam Adams, Vitamin Water, Gillette, Wolfgang Puck Organic Soups, Barilla, Irish Spring, Listerine, SoBe, Heinz, M&M’s or Popcornopolis happens to be reading this… just know that Perry is available for any and all endorsement opportunities.

-TOM BRENNAN