7/30/11, Pt. 2

I don’t think I should be writing prose today.  I need scattered sentences, erratic images.  Don’t think I should be visiting a winery today, should be locked in the studio, and finish reading this bloody book, already.  But that’s not healthy.  Need a separation from the desk, at some point.  Need air, characters, life aside from this laptop’s screen.  Bottles, corks, messy puddle-puddled counters in a tasting Room, that’s what I know.  That’s what I need.

If I ever have my own tasting Room, how long will I be into it?  Don’t mean to be grim, I’m simply asking Self, at this advanced age of 32, “Do I really want a Room to mySelf?” Starting to think I don’t.  I’m too old.  I just want to write, about the characters in such Rooms.  The wine’s they sip, how they grip the glass, what they say in response to their sips, how they take pictures of each other by merchandise, etched bottles, staff.  I want to record all of this world’s, or “industry’s,” subtleties, tinges.

So what’s Literary, or “intellectual” about that?  More than I can here pepper, or deconstruct.  Concisely, it’s us, Human.  Wine, which leaps from terroir, our interaction and interpretation of it.  Encourages me to read those authors bend me, on that shelf, in that paginated edifice, their interpretation of their own ideas, for us, readers.  Just decided, I will buy another Comp book, as if it’s for another class.  That’s the way to approach my corner’s constituents.  In these newly purchased pages: Lectures, classRoom prompts, academic and Literary articles (500-1000 words), reactions to readings.  Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, on desk.  Feeling Mentally Alive.  Mr. X would smile with me, I’m sure.  Want to read that piece again, as I loved lecturing on those words in his “Prison Studies.” That’s Literature, worded activism.  Truly transcendent.  All Humans need read similar words, works.  We need to be pushed, challenged, to be happy, content.  Finding our individual Equilibriums, for one collective.

12:52p.  Think I’m ready for a recess.  A winery visit.  That’s what my circuitry’s beckoning.  Have to accommodate, serve my spirit.  Rising from the chair, even though I told my students they should “stay in the chair.” I’m a humorous hypocrite, at least.  Aren’t I?  At least I’m laughing.

1:22p.  Restless, wrestling with these lines.  A tasting does sound nice now, honestly.  Some lunch on a patio.  In Paris, Dijon, anywhere in Burgundy.  Vacation, soon.  Or even a work travel.  Dreamt last night I had a book signing in Seattle. No coffee in the dream, oddly.  I was like a silent narrator, just watching Mike sign inside covers, answering questions.  No audio, though.  Was a silent film.  Saw readers bringing him bottles of wine, varying varietals.  No idea what to make of it.  Significance?  Don’t care.  It was an enjoyable dream. 

In thinking about wine, as I always do (seriously), I find mySelf with an even more assertive travel itch.  Where would I want to go first, be it business, holiday?  New York, it would have to be.  Need overwhelming fillips, quite certain the city would send such, for me, my pages, my BOOKS...

7/30/2011, Saturday.  This is going to sound pathetic, quite self-indulgent, but I read the first page of BOOK1.  An actual edit.  Not bad, actually.  Was expecting to be provoked to attack it much more, with red pen.  Yes, I’m using a red pen.  Know that’s too vicious for students, too menacing, that blood shade, but not for me.  Need to be hard on Self.  Time, 11:33a.  Back from long walk with Alice.  Overcast.  Calming.  Can’t say I long for brutal rays today.

My push back to professorhood, in motion, with bold beats.  Organizing lectures, writings, thoughts.  Have to do it now.  These business cards that were littering my desk’s untarnished face, from wine’s “industry,” now rest with trash.  How suiting.  MY desk, once again a writer’s space, a professor’s.  All about me, this late morning, a new kaleidoscopic synergy.  Back and forth from Stanford’s English Department site.  What’s my focus, or “specialty?” Theory?  Poe?  Aesthetics?  Wine, could I put that as an “expertise?” I merely miss the Exchange of Ideas with students.  That would have to be my “flagship.” Hate that word; “industry” modifier.  Raising my mocha to them, my tenacious, charged students.  Yes, a mocha.  First in two weeks, I believe.  The last, I believe I documented, gave me unstable steers, wondering scopes and fragmented frame.  Three shots, that Saturday, only two 2day.

Should keep reading my book, but it feels ineffable, this morning sipNscibble.  Should probably buy a separate Comp book for my Lectures.  No, let them lair in present pages.  A winery visit, planned for the day.  Article for magazine blog.  Need to start my small press.  Or, restart it.  Gave a copy of Letterz to a friend at work yesterday.    Speaking of that Comp book... Oh yeah, downstairs in work bag.  Too cozy in chair, not moving.  Looking back at my shelf of books, heaping.  Small tower, leaning, of manuscripts on floor.  See Capote, Wolff, countless anthologies.  The collective interpretation of Literary works, with my students, now needed.

Started reading page two.  Stopping only to realize I should keep reading.  This mocha, chanting to me, spellbindingly.  Not like two weeks ago.  It tells me not to write, believe or not.  To let ideas come, with ink ready.  Record pen2paper, only.  Leave alone the monster laptop.  Writing’s funny, with such mien.  Hard to tell when you should be writing, how, about what, how about that ‘what’.  Idiosyncratic ideality.  For me, at least.   

Below my left elbow, a schedule, of what to post to what blog.  How is that Literary?  I just want to write books, really.  Going to keep my promise, keep mikeslognoblog alive till 12/31/11, and keep contributing to the magazine’s blog.  The total, no more.  Photos and video, that’s just fun.  Nothing serious, to me.  Books, books.  BOOKS!!!

Last night’s Cabernet: don’t think I gave it enough attention.  Only had 1.5 glasses.  Tonight, with its 24 hours of breath hopefully having blandished it to loudest charisma.  Not just going to catalogue descriptors, more so document the interaction of juice and palate.  That’s wine, that’s purpose, for the page.  For the books, my books ... 

Excerpt from Last Night's Writing

Too tired to further.  Need rest, and how I am ever enthralled to sleep in 2morrow.  Needed.  Sunday, back in the Room.  Material, character, new pages.  Just did a quick skim of BOOK1.  Saw Kelly’s name, innumerably.  Don’t want to classify her class.  She’s the varietal that should never be surveyed, evaluated.  Only appreciated.  My writing is starting to suffer.  Because of her.  I’m writing about this cherished character of mine, but can’t focus on the writing about her, as I’m too enveloped by her.  Make sense?  No?  To me, neither.  To my final sips before sleep, listening to some chilled rhythmic progressions.  Friday night, delightfully flavored ailment.

unbarreled

Sitting, with visions of barrels, in caves.  The true consolidation begins.  The other blog, dead.  No more free writing, or endorsements.  Of wineries, wine bars, wine shops, wine merchants, wine spots.  I’ll write about wine entities as I select, am propelled to do so.  I’m 32, and need to bully all focus onto the books.  Looking at my first, in its manilla file, sleeping.  Tomorrow, I wake it, violently, performing paginated plastic surgery.  Need some music, Wine Lounge Beats.  And a nightcap.  Excuse me ... 

Feel like a petty antic, ever having thought this heliocentric “industry” would reciprocate my efforts, my applause, my lab hours.  Tonight, it stops.  No, not true, actually.  It stopped, in thought, on the drive back from NWG.  No, when I was in that cave today, staring at barrels, thinking of winemaker efforts.  They make wine for themselves, their winery, be it their own or one in which they accredit.  Never free, foolishly.  Me, doing write-ups, molding prose for tasting Rooms, events, winemakers, shops, stops, wine spots, hoping for anything, today I euthanize.  I write BOOKS, and smaller paged palpitations.  At my advanced age, free creativity detracts from any growth.  A significant step, in my Oenobellion, my skirmish with wine’s industrial industry.

The cave, this picture, on my phone, tugging at its hook, Mike Madigan pierced.  What it would be like to sit, compose a novelette, or even a short in the acoustics of such space.  One sitting.  Just give me two hours, less.  The barrels, there, along the walls, holding wine.  What evolves under that wood, what would.  Want to know, but don’t.  What was I doing with my life when wine was wielded into that barrel, that one, that one...  Will my wine, that I’m soon to sculpt, stand as sturdy?  Nevermind my wine, what about my novel?  What if it Lusitania’s itself?  Not one of the options.  My ending pour, an ’08 Cabernet.  Prominent, persuasive, like these beats.  It creates its own scene.  Still going to write about wine, but as, and when, I wish.  

My self-publishing ventures, formation’d with this current rise in tide.  First flex, thinner than I’d like, in page height.  Projected 152 papers, but, if my math is astute, and I think for once it may be, 115-118 boasts more buoyancy; that I’ll be alive longer, financially.  What do these small producers calculate before an opened door?  Winemakers, writers: each other’s reflections.  We write in ink.  They, in grape. 

Social Media, it’s demonic parent, technology, shoving my agitated Literary nerves.  What am I doing with these accounts?  Have they generated revenue, or helped funnel funds, from my art?  All, from this night, 9:52p, sip four, about PAGES, their parental BOOKS.  The drive from Chalk Hill to Napa, singing for me.  Paired with the wine beats through my car’s meager speakers, luxuriating.  Contrast: vineyards on 29, to immediacy of 3 gray walls, challenging.  For me.  And maybe I am too sensitive.  Yes.  I’m a writer.  Not a “wine guy,” in any buffoonish wine guise.  People attaching that tag to their name need to learn humility, true appreciation for the wine.  I don’t care if you’re a sommelier.  The wine on a shelf higher than you.  Understand that.  vinoLit ...

[7/27/11, Wednesday] 

Excerpt from 2nite's Sitting

...As my brother Steve tonight me told: “..sipNscribble, that’s what we do...” He’s right.  Can’t let these devils quake my state.  Writers always wine.  I won’t be muffled, ever.  So many warn me, even ones close to the author, characters I cherish more than any existential additive I could here cite, “Mike, you need to watch how you write, I can tell you’re mad...” Understood.  Respected, and quite appreciated, such offerings.  But, at my aged age, I have to speak.  As if I don’t now, I will never.  I’m not concerned with Newton’s Law in Wine’s world, as its industry doesn’t influence me.  I plan on saying what I wish, criticizing elements of my “industry” as I anatomize.  What could the worst consequence set be for this inkman?  What can THEY do to me?  2nite’s session, a beacon sitting.  This page, my kissed sage.  Someone recently asked me, am I at war with the wine industry?  No.  I’m in wine’s “industry.” I’m saying, quite forwardly, that we shouldn’t have to be quite, or cautious.  Especially those of us with pens...

Doing about three things at once right now.  Editing film footage, an article submission to the magazine’s blog, and freewriting.  Need to consolidate.  Or not.  I need to connect with the creatively expressive paths I love, and do the best I can in organizing the material I accumulate.  To limit Self, especially as an artist, would be terminally harmful.  In my glass tonight?  No glass.  No wine.  Taking a break.  In fact, I’m sipping a Diet Coke at this late hour, 10:38p.  Idiotic, I know.  Wine makers inhale caffeine during harvest, so I’m embodying their enviable ethic, this night.

Watching this Rootstock 2011 footage, again, for first in a few days.  Forces me to remember how much I love film.  Thinking I just need to map out projects.  And due dates, yes, as much as I detest them.  Did Picasso or Van Gogh assign themSelves deadlines?  Probably.  Or maybe not.  Maybe they were entirely consciousness-streamed.  Becoming tired faster than I expected, especially following rapidly sipped fuel.  Clocking out, thinking of the winery I’m set to visit tomorrow.  This’ll be my 2nd presence on their grounds.  Truly livened with the impending scene I’m set to sip.  Their wines, I don’t have words now, for how depleted I am.  One word hopping in my head like an impatient child, “calculated.” How dynamically and deliciously dazzling they are, not by chance.  Now, I’m awake again.  

Wining, For 2morrow

Tomorrow, a different lunch break for the writer.  Writing, editing, scribbling over coffee.  By Self.  No interaction.  Solitude begets productivity.  Lisa asked me a spurring question, while walking to the courtyard on 1st, politely projecting, “Is there a love story to it [my novel]?” At first I responded ‘no’.  Then remembered Kelly’s presence.  How could I ever forget?  Need to expand, on her, if I’m capable.  Coffee, tomorrow needed.  Maybe I’ll snack at the cubicle from 10:30a-12:30p, when I take my lunch.  Feasting consumes too much time.  Why waste a blink that could be put into writing, finalizing a manuscript’s fruition?

In the glass, Syrah, just as I noted in the Comp book today.  I satisfy my post’s mandates, daily, at NWG.  But, I do find a few free breaths to scribble sentiment, or 7.  One such blurb, addressing pattern, predictability.  My abhorrence thereof.  Cartwheeling fiendishly about this penman’s trenches, traveler impulses.  Want to be back in Paris.  Sunriver, Oregon.  Want to see every part of Canada, sip real Sangio in Italy.  North, South.  Listening to these Wine Lounge beats, puts me in a hotel Room, balcony’d, inked-out on lines.  Sipping in a serene scape.  True sipNscribble, paired with Mediterranean scenes.

Kelly practices similar leaps.  She, now, me with no idea.  Can still see her, though.  Her kind but energetic approach, no matter circumstance.  Is she real, imaginary?  Both.  Or not.  Why wonder?  She’s delicious, much as rolls this Rhone.  Too lazy to place the symbol above the “o.” Should cease with sips.  But, why?  I’m a wine scribe.  No blogging on this paper plain.  A certain Simulation to my Simulacra.  Nothing forced, contrived.  All mine.  True poetry, glowingly.  Flowlingly, knowingly.  The varietal, returning me2Literary.  Many “wine writers,” or bloggers, aren’t writers at all.  Not to affront, just potently profess.  2nite, sipping to imagination.  2dreamz, 2books ...   

[7/25/2011, Monday]

sipNscribble, for wine ...

7/24/2011.  Today, true wine continuation, jubilation.  For the record, I’m not one smitten by the sight, smell, nor savor of chocolate.  Until, I met the mother-daughter duo of Linda Bartlett and Alexandra Keys, the impetus forwarding Truffle Gateau.  One chocolate, dark.  The other, stroked with coffee notes.  Both pairing bewitchingly with Cabernet, Merlot, and Port, at St. Francis.  As I’ve always said, you never know who’s going to walk through the tasting Room’s doors, or make an appearance on the floor.  Both these young ladies were not only knowledgeable, but confident in their pairing suggestions.  Chocolate and wine, chocolate and more chocolate, chocolate to its own device/vice, even paired with olive oil.  Truly a highlight in my day.  Told them I would “pitch” their line on podcast.  They deserve words, the page, more than some slummy endorsement in some episode.  Raising my glass, sippingNscribbling for my new, sweetly masterful, lovely, counterparts.

Interesting flow of traffic.  Not as busy as I thought it would be.  Saying such, as the weather couldn’t have been configured better.  Worked with my brother Rony, which always results in scribe-worthy equation.  At one point, he and I walked around outside, just beyond the tasting Room’s patio, by the lawn.  While Rony went on about Cabernet in Sonoma vs. Napa, I looked up at the Mayacamas, then down at the Wild Oak Vineyard, thinking to Self, “This is the wine industry, the real picture of wine, here, outside.” Wine knowledge, appreciation, existence, can’t be forged.  Ever.  The money will come, as I realize the bottles need be sold.  But to be part of wine’s collective composition, you have to be here.  With the grapes, their terroir.  With the bottles, the consumers, corks, glasses.  Each ingredient.  My patience descends to residual as I age.  Wine swine, never deserving of my time.  The consumers, the Humans genuinely fond of wine, its continuance, I respect.  Much like the gentleman from New York, lady from San Francisco, I met today; Raising glass to my new allies in the publishing world.  But, I realize it’s unrealistic, irrational for me, the dreamer wine pen-mover, to expect all to be pattern-minded.  And I shouldn’t want that.  Maybe I’m too sensitive.  Alright.  You got me, pig.  But I won’t be silent.  Ever.  I tonight sipNscribble, here in my pleasantly temperatured studio, sipping for the honest bottle followers.

Another highlight, Mom and Dad just dropping by, to say hello.  Such an act, reviving.  Because, and I’ll be honest, some guests that pass though those heavy doors, bubble my blood.  “What happened to tasting Room etiquette?” one guest today actually posed.  Could have went on a reactionary, rattlesnake response of a diatribe, but withheld.  Now in night’s summation, I sip, scribble, with a much linearity as I can.  But the syllables limp.  Maybe drained from the day, the tasting Room’s rhythm.  Felt good, though, I not-so-confidentially concede.  Love the pouring of wine, the new characters, the new languages, interactions, wine antiphons.  Puddles on the counter, stained napkins, even the empty bottles, the misplaced ones that somehow find their way to the Reserve Room.  The wine, magic.  Now, before bed, temped to bite into this new chocolate discover.  Refraining, saving for morrow.  Have to share it with NewWineGig colleagues.  Incredible day, being on an actual wine stage; one not forced, or contrived.  No need to “immerse” Self, as this oenoActuality lands afore my pattern prominently, tastefully.     

Saturday, Wined Down

7/22/11, Saturday.  Day off, I didn’t want grandiloquence, exaggerated setting.  So, I thought I’d stop by Mike Muscardini and Ty Caton’s tasting Room in the Kenwood shopping center.  Last time I visited, right about the time I started the blog.  Today, no motive, no intent or specific mission.  Ty: 2010 Riesling, ’09 Estate Cabernet, Petite Sirah of the same vintage, the Tytanium blend, the port.  From Mr. Muscardini, think  I tasted everything.  This Room has simple and savory strut about it.  Nothing scripted, or forced.  That’s what Sonoma County’s supposed to embody, enact.  Just what I was looking for 2day.

Hadn’t been to Landmark in a while, either.  So, why not stop?  They had an event going on, so I didn’t want to be that wine writer/journalist in the way.  Can only imagine how annoying that is.  Saw my old friend Donna, she quelled my caution, encouraging me to walk around, take pictures, and of course taste.  She made a point of emphasizing the Rosé.  Tasted through the characters, and as I remember, flavorfully theatrical, thorough.  Climatic configuration, enviable.  Couldn’t stop taking pictures.  Wanted to stay longer, but had to be somewhere.  All around me, smiling, sipping, socializing.  Saw a few new interactions inside, at the main bar, people from states thousands of miles distant from the other.  Conversation, new occasion.  This is wine, I thought.  Memorable days, interactions.  New friends.  No status, perceived elevation. 

Didn’t want to drive to Napa on my Saturday, and didn’t want to deal with Napa, either.  I wanted a REAL day of wine.  One Human, universal, unscripted.  Right there, Kenwood, I it tasted.  As a writer of wine, I’m realizing, the cautious approach doesn’t advance he moving the pen.  So, I today was convinced I need stay, continue in smiling scrutiny of my county, my base.  My side.  Wasn’t seeking intemperance.  This writer needed omneity, oeno-civility, not excess “industry.” Glad I spent the hours as I did.  Now, I sip.  Sip.  Reflective.  Just a writer with his diminishing glass ... 

7/22/11, Friday.  Love Friday’s nights.  Back from dinner with Alice.  Tonight’s varietals: Sauv Blanc, Nebbiolo.  A little tasting scheduled for tomorrow, but mostly research for a possible impending article.  Going to keep writing, moving either way.  This night, an eased Equilibrium.  Need to burrow about old entries tomorrow.  Pen2paper efforts only.    Today, NWG, elevation, then deep traversing valleys.  Difficult for wine writers.  Especially those with poetic proclivities.  Rosso Pizzeria & Wine Bar, shoving me into fantasies of my wine blip on this industry’s radar.

Wine, weather.  Pairing compulsory.  Today, at lunch, Lisa, Tina, and I sat stunned with atmospheric performances exterior.  Kind breezes, remorseful sun.  Made me readjust my estimation of moments momentary.  I’m dropping like tenacious waterfall progressions.  Maybe it’s the Pinot.  Like a screenplay incomplete, my dreams fray in the street.  Under random lights.  I stop, to scribble a poem on the napkin from my right pocket.  Poetry, my only true vice.  It distracts me, especially when correlated with this Burgundy.  Not of the cruise to coherently compose.  Clocking out, not having even worked--I mean, written--for fifteen minutes.  Imaginarily, in New York City, enjoying a negroni at a cafe I arbitrarily pass.  I sit down to write.  But don’t.  I just note all surrounding my wrought iron throne to the left of a bed of florescent flowers.  Breathing out, closing lenses, only for instances completely condensed.  The sentences sequence.  Never detaching.  City session, safe.  Pinot’s final speech.  Me, under syllabic siege, sipping.  

Reaction2Day -- July 20, 2011

After a long day, officed, I decided to cruise over to Dan’s wine shop, Back Room Wines.  He was very inviting, as always with this spontaneous bottle scribe, hosting a tasting for me.  A Sauv Blanc, Chard, some Syrahs, then some blends.  Walked off with a Syrah.  Value, too recognizable, incomparable to dismiss.  Have always loved the character of his location, the varied intent of the floor: shop, sip, lounge, learn, among a cannon of other components.  Love the way the bottles are placed about the space, shelves.  This is the wine shop shape I sprint to one era proprietor.

Thinking of last night’s 1000 word storm.  Just read it.  Surprised how much I approve.  Usually, like many winemakers, I find something bent, displaced, oddly nuanced in the paragraphs’ succession, individual and collective notes.  Not last night, though.  I sit here, shocked, almost, sipping what remains of that ’08 North Coast Cabernet.  My statements of intent on producing my own line, more than austere, clear in my methodology.  My sister today offered introductory steps, for such a creative entrepreneurial whirlwind.  Within the next two years, I’ll be sipping my wine when writing my worded nerves.

Going to retrieve my final pour.  More like a tasting Room splash.  Need bountiful stillness 2nite.  Printing those pages, finally.  BOOK1, in front of me, completed.  But, mystery.  Why?  I wrote it.  I’ll never understand this comprehension drought when doing laps in my own lines.  Do winemakers experience these postmodern pulses?  Should ask the sister figure ... 

The Composition Book, filling.  Just realized today at work, while writing, how many pages NewWineGig has gifted.  Listening to a track now containing waves licking shores, somewhere.  Need to get there.  Maybe BOOK1 erupts, and suddenly my shell connects with this setting, the one I’m hearing.  The percussion, timidly echoed, ghostly garnished guitars, reverbing unknown notes.  I’m not here.  Dreams, within hours, hopefully transport this evaporated wine inkman.

Wine Writing Forward, Aside

First of nightcaps, two.  Ripples, still, from a sitting with another wine scribe, only hours behind this breath.  Felt like a thinker, again.  In an “industry” that holds a befuddling quantity of pattern, repetition.  Roboticism.  Felt it again, today, while tasting on that patio.  The outside.  The valley talking to my pen, its steep elevated vistas, the vines obviously, then the wine.  All ordering me away from walls.  Encouraging separatism, my eventual oenobellion.  Not much time to type, tonight.  Not for wine writers, or any pen-rider, these schedules.  This obligation, responsibilities.  Recording true unhinged fringes now, need a sip ... 

Through our interaction, she dared me, unknowingly.  To leap, universally diverge.  Our manuscripts peak, to each other speak.  Around such reflectively animated zest, me, Literarily fermented.  Ready for page.  She spoke of existential turbulence, harmony.  Don’t know how to word her words.  I’m not that electric with my page control, syllabic steering.

See mySelf a winemaker, before too long.  I truly do.  Which varietal?  I need to treat the wine as a writing project, while respecting terroir integrity.  So what varietal am I?  I’ve always said, “the calm Cabernet.” But am I?  Maybe I’m a Sauvignon Blanc; a climate chameleon of a grape.  Or maybe I’m a moody Pinot.  Or a gothic, phantasmagoric Syrah, climbing in and out of minds, just to keep them sipping.  Much claims my aim with these key pushes.

Still haven’t printed those solidifying pages for BOOK1.  The note, the post-it, still under my right elbow.  Funny?  No.  Using what I can to get to 1000 words.  Not sure it’ll happen this vengefully humid eve in, at the desk.  Looking at the miniature mic behind the monster’s screen, I’m reminded of poetry.  Then wine.  Its inherent mischievous meander.  That’s poetic.  Life.  Living.  Looking at the puddle, occupied glass, I have to laugh.  As I’ve never worked a harvest.  Maybe that’ll redirect this year, switch continuities.  Want to make a wine, even if it, conclusively, is not mine.  Want to touch dirt-draped grapes.  Want soil under nails, a sun-battered brow.  Now.

Times, for Mike’s immediacy, redirecting entirely.  My vision, not necessarily tunneled, just re-calibrated in its linearity.  Another sip.  Last before cap 2.  Tomorrow, need something interplanetary.  Unexpected.  Pleasurably annexing, like this ’08 North Coast Cab.  Again, her impending pages sending my wiring colorful phases.  Why can’t every hour after a day’s drabness plate such?  Juvenile challenge, my query. 

Wine’s world, peppered with polarities.  Some galvanizing, some elementally euthanizing.  Our conversation today, reaffirmed my immovability as a writer, thinking, oenoRebel.  Has me looking forward to the tasting Room, Sunday.  Will serve medicinal, actually having the prerogative to see a wine bottle, touch a vine, smell barrels.  That’s “industry,” 2me.  Tiring, fighting my elevation decline.  I don’t need to hit 1000 words tonight, I’ve decided.  How delicious could this writing be when forced?

In my Wine Lounge, imaginarily.  Flying away like truant jays.  Oblivious to implication.  I’m a writer, of the wine spine, so I wholeheartedly care not.  I sound, now, more like a dangerously tannic Cabernet, with a high AC.  Not me, ideally.  My manuscript, hopefully, a morsel-like modality.  At my first signing, I see us all sipping, civilly.  Discussing wine and Literary ideological contrasts constructively.  I blame her, this page-mate, for this fruitful forward.  Haven’t been sent like this for a ricochet of days.  For her vision.  These pages, hers.  Me, in need of her caution, sedation. 

Cap2, happily.  Want to edit, minimally.  So I can be as raving in these lines as I see.  Cab in bowl: Raspberry, spice, old battle leather, slightly dehydrated swamp branch, 1980s mint, snowy day by wood-burning stove Christmas, toffee gasoline ... So many industry clones would think this has no value, humor.  And maybe it doesn’t.  But I’m enjoying this wine, exorbitantly.  Playing with language in the steady sip sequence.  This is my private tasting.  This office, my “VIP,” or “Reserve” (an even more mockable monicker), Room.  This desk, my bar.  Why is there a laptop, printer, microphone, post-it with “23-44” scribbled, and some recording station on it?  Who said writers belonged in the wine world, or industry?  Shame!  Banish the writers, the freethinkers, the poets, artists.  The tangential, the Thought Criminals: DOWN WITH THEM!

I know what many of them think, those owning dialogue afore.  That’s how I can shrapnel their barbs.  I’ve heard objections to people describing Cabernets in their own way, using their reactive tongue.  “No, you should be getting spicy plum, black pepper, and dark cherry.” How is anyone’s mind ever “wrong?” Wine, all expression.  Both in creation and observation, reflective response.  I think it hilarious when some take it so seriously, anoint themselves to pulpit.  Great characters, these aloft rats.  They’ll never muffle our ink-tempo’d maneuvers.  They’ll be victims.  Of our pages.

Hoping she’s with face at page, storming the lines with Wonderland behavioral oddities.  Those intentions, savory serum.  Readers should sip them.  Know I want to.  So sick of my works, I NEED to read others’.  I feel mechanical in this session.  More than likely ‘cause I crave 1000 words like alligators with their bills extended want some winged wonderer to just land, right there.

Back to my Wine Lounge.  The current track has me more than terrifically taxed.  Relaxed.  Don’t know whose song this is.  Wonder how many times I’ve spelled “whose” as “who’s”.  What made me think of that?  What do I care?  I think typos, especially when sipping copious Cabernet, are adorable.  Admirable.  I’m not at some bar, sipping a vodka-whatever, by mySelf.  I’m here.  Studio-stuck.  Sipping ’08 Cabernet.  Scribbling, ink synapses drizzling.  Taking another sip, for her, my new oenoPen conspirator.  If she does sit, now, as I do, then we’re in concert.  What industry element could combat that?  Shouldn’t shell the industry as predictably as I do.  I’m in the wine industry, even as a writer.  It’s merely certain wine purviews that I confront.  And, I acknowledge, I need do so with more questions, than thistles.

Approaching 1k for day, I feel nothing.  Thanks, ’08.  No, wait.  An introverted debate, but I can’t professionally translate.  Maybe Lewis Carroll could, can.  Where is he when I most need?  Where’s my graduate school manuscript on the Alice books?  Too tired to look.  One more fray of Cabernet play, then dormancy.

[7/19/2011, Tuesday]

Rootstock Reflection: Dipped in Scribbles, Sips

Remember when I heard about this engagement.  Was soaked in eagerness for its arrival.  Was so excited the day was finally here, the Mutineer Magazine-sponsored, first annual Rootstock.  I arrived ready for material.  For pages, photo, footage.  Wound up acquiring all three, dozens-fold.  Wine, its followers, at every direction shift.  This, this Saturday event, why I continue in oenoScribble.  Was really excited to see Thumbprint Cellars, one of my favorite wineries in Sonoma, or Napa.  Simple Math Cellars, too.  Went over to say hello, met Scott and Tess, Thumbprint’s booth.  Christian, from Simple Math.  All were very generous with their pours, and willingness to hear some of my idea’d lunacy regarding wine writing, blogging, “social” media, media, wine sales, bla.

D’Argenzio, the hosting winery, did a bewildering job of organizing this startlingly unique event.  “Have to revisit their wines at some point,” I told mySelf.  I did.  A few times.  I never tire of thesis holding its consistency, clarity: Wine makes the occasion.  And when paired with music, as it was yesterday, music of several flavors, my notion follows with ever more value.  Enough about me...What did I see?  People enjoying themselves, wineries I’d never before sipped, new oeno-allies.  One unexpected, a fortunate turn the day took for me, my introduction to Fuze, a juice line from the Coca Cola Company.  Cheers to my new beverage industry compatriot, David.

I caught mySelf dancing, or at the very least bobbing my head to DJ Mini Mex’s beats, or the bands around the corner, by D’Argenzio’s tasting Room.  How could I halt with three of existence’s elements, by I more adored, all around me: Music, Wine, Wonderful People.  I guess 4, if you include the food.  A celebrated celebration.  Just what I needed, frankly.  Mutineer Magazine has to be recognized for its sponsorship of an interaction resounding.  As always, all I can do is look at the stills in these cameras, wait till next year.  

What I like about this occasion: its simplicity, its uniqueness, luminosity, entrapping elements.  I already had love and respect for D’Argenzio and Mutineer, but after this...immovably loyal.  Wine, people, make these arrangements fruitful, for my page.  For me.  After a few tastes, I felt pushed to pick more pics.  I caught mySelf just sitting, shaded, writing feverishly.  Then I’d stand up, to sip, scribble, snap some more.  Was lovingly lost, around D’Argenzio’s doors, his neighbors.

oenoRebel, sipping

Why am I in this session?  I need2speak.  Or write.  Wine writers love the wine, the people drinking wine.  Yesterday’s event was a true attest to occasion, wine’s presence in those tock-ticks significant.  Thinking about my Now, the plated state of affairs.  Not sure it waltzes with this visionary palate.  Designing my own forward, scene set.  What element I want, need, in which corners.  Sipping to eventualities, not possibilities.  Only days away, in my stray fray.  It’ll monetarily relay.

Separatism, my tide, stride.  That’s my ticket, surely.  That’s what wine, my written reactions demand.  That’s what yesterday’s moments affirmed, quite stern.  Tomorrow, another NWG week’s ignition.  Love it.  Racer 5, tasting especially animated tonight.  Over 1000 words for the day, and I still want2scribble.  Is that sick?  Maybe a little.  But, so all acknowledge, critics too, this is how I sip an evening before a work week.  So what’s rebellious about this?  Nothing.  I’m not fighting.  I’m proceeding in my Me-ism.  Individualistic.  Mystic, intrinsic.

[7/17/2011, Sunday] 

8:06a.  I remember falling asleep last night, or early this morning, hoping I’d wake unusually early for a weekend morning.  And here I am, clocking in.  What am I doing today?  Writing.  All day.  I have no desire to go tasting, to drive around like an amateur explorer in search of photographs.  Now, at this early hour, joyfully in the chair.  In fact, I don’t plan on drinking any wine today, to tell truth.  Why?  Just want a break from it.  Did have a great time, a creatively fruitful stream, at the event yesterday.  Showed up quite bent from the morning mocha, 3 shots.  Didn’t like the way it made me feel.  Too uneven, imbalanced, walking passed the entrance booth.  Think I may have separated from Starbucks, finally.  No desire in THIS early a.m. for a morning mocha.  Plus, if I were to go fetch one, that would mean leaving this seat.  No.

Focused in this oddly early scribble.  May leave the chair today, but only for a walk.  No interest in anything other than this page.  Like Depp in Secret Window.  That’s MikeMadigan today, but no naps.  Don’t want to hear others’ dialogue.  Want to see what the studio tells me to type, solicits me 2scribe.  Allowing Self to post to my “wine blog” only once today.  Want my session to be solely allocated [hate that word, mostly how “the industry” over-misuses it] to manuscript, or prospective release.  This is probably boring for readers, this stamp of intent.  But, it’s what I’m compelled2compose.  Sorry.  Yes, I’m certain: no wine 2day, only words.

  But then I think I should have a break.  At some point.  But it has to be scheduled, just the same as a job.  This, this writing, quite the job.  More than “employment.” It’s inherent existence, expressive subsistence.  Now, humorously, I crave a mocha.  Maybe not a 3shot.  But, if I refrain, I save almost $5.  Those five tender notes could publish, contribute to the dissemination of five, let’s say FOUR pages.  Four pages, single-spaced, even with a couple breaks between pieces, potentially totals about 1200-1500 words.  This almost 3rd grade-level math I’m barely capable of has me thinking.  About where all Mike Madigan’s pennies go.  Decreed: no more mochas.  Only writing.  Completion of project.  Scribble, scribble ... 

[7/17/2011, Sunday]

OpenShop, vinoLit [unfiltered]

12:!3p.  Clocking in.  Leaving for event in a little over an hour.  Want to get there early, maybe to help setup.  This mission, focusing on writing, with the alliance of only a few photos.  This may sound maniacal to you, but I need to write more.  Edit more.  Read much, much more.  MY material, and other pen-movers.

Beautiful day outside.  Just felt shivers about my sphere, this Now: chilled wine Lounge beats, syllable session, here, with readers.  My Saturday, my day.  Mine.  this writer’s.  While on music’s tide, I wonder what kind of arrangements’ll be played today.  What type of food presence I’ll meet.  Distracted; note under my right elbow, to print pages 23-49 of a mikeslognoblog document, for BOOK1.  Was thinking about blending it down, the book, into 2 or 3 smaller page bricks.  Should I?  A question that only a lovely SONOMA COUNTY bottle of wine could answer, for this SoCo Kid.

I’m hoping to taste some Merlot today, not sure why.  Haven’t been connecting much with the flirty, shy Bordeaux of late, with the exception of Swanson’s cosmic ’07.  Was it ’07?  Think so.  Doesn’t really matter, as I still taste it, without my vision sinking into the sheetrock at my 12.  I summon, it returns.  That’s what kind of Merlot it was, still is.  Like an obscure novelette I found buried on the shelves of an independent bookstore.  Will be returning to that Rutherford haven to taste, buy.  Sooner than my wallet wishes this author to.

Am I as Literary as I want to be, or should be?  A little assessment of Self: write much more.  1K each day, consolidate.  WRITE & RELEASE .. don’t preoccupy Self with editing, rearrange.  The words fell onto the sheet as they did with prominent purpose; just as the winemaker allows the terroir 2speak, I leave to words to be sipped by their readers.

- 7/16/11, Saturday -  

Napa/Sonoma, Wine Composition Coma

Coming home from dinner with Mom and Dad, I realize other realities in Wine’s realm.  This Napa/Sonoma skirmish isn’t so much attributed to anything tangibly reflective, but more so to consumer accordance.  It’s a fashion, of hardly enviable, desirable, sequences.  Wine is wine.  That’s all.  Incredible wine over there, Napa, along 29, elsewhere.  Luminous bottles here, Sonoma County, each of our valleys.  The contest, in our heads.  What is my position?  Am I just comfortably neutral?  Not at all.  I’m on the side of the moderated, actual, consumer.  This author, writing about wine for spanning love of the wine.  Straightforward, simple.

After a long day at NWG, I sip night’s cap, looking forward to the morning mocha.  I target 1000 words before the event.  Not sure what to expect, there.  Probably the same stage, I guess.  Right?  A wine-centered continuum.  People talking, “networking,” aflutter.  Right?  That’s what I’ll be enacting.  And, frankly, it’ll be material for BOOK2.  This night, material.  The promise of sleeping in 2morrow, pages.  Watching another ghost show.  Is this “show,” those of like, expansively authentic?  Would love to know, but wouldn’t.  Need another sip.  Oh, in Mike’s glass, ’08 Sonoma County Pinot.  Speedy, flavorfully frantic, encircling with its earth-anchored light berry bravado.  Intriguing, increasingly.

Closing, tiring.  Wine, not so much on mind.  Looking over at the pillows, blanket.  Again appreciating certainty of obligation’s absence in rising to commute an hour, to sit over 8, then ride another 60 minutes back2castle.  Not this vinoLit rebel, in hours.  Tomorrow, all mine.  With writing, cameras, WINE.  2morrow, no industry in me.  Only appreciative artistry.  Not sure how much longer I can trot in this Literary block.  This week, like a belaboring harvest, summons the scribe to snooze.  Something about my illustrate.  Not sure if it’s Pinot-pulsed, or not.  Either way, I’m forward.

[7/15/2011, Friday, NewMike]  

Post-Anderson Valley, sipNscribble

Sipping some ’07 Cab Franc, as I just de-charge to Thievery Corporation, imagining Self in my Wine Lounge.  That’s what the other day ordered of this author.  To be out there.  Released.  Freed.  Walking by vines, through tasting Rooms.  Entrapment, in NO way vinoLit.  What’s Literary about complacency, inaction?  Wine is new, transition, kaleidoscopic tangentiality.  Plans’ absence, somewhat.  Crediting Anderson Valley, Roederer Estate, Brutocao Cellars for amendments to my wine writing wherewithal.

Back to the frank Franc in glass.  Quite punctuated.  In no way abbreviated.  Enjoying its gothically flavorful growl.  This is not just another supernova of an ’07.  My sips, now, here in this session, a testament to oeno-prowess, wizardry.  Tasty Aesthetic alchemy.  Bottles like this, make Mike write.  This, a true sipNscribble ...    

[7/13/2011]