Mike, Before Night’s Wine Time: Hurried, Beautifully Buried

For Mike, this would be work day six, sequenced.  He didn’t have to be at the event until  a couple stokes before four.  But still.  All he could do was watch the clock’s taunts.  He had a fair amount of the book together, but he needed something for his current sitting, before getting ready for tonight’s event.  Then he started thinking how he could make tonight an assignment.  He heard it was to be New Orleans themed, with engaging colors, illustrations, what have.  He put one of his camera’s chargers into the outlet.  His little video camera into the moody laptop monster.  Didn’t want to make it too much of a “blogging” mission, though.  He wanted writing material.

He would focus on the characters.  All of them.  The executives, to the pourers; to wine club members, drunker the better, for the page.  He wanted them all belligerent.  Event staff, the band if there were to be one on stage this year.  The characters were what his writing was missing, he realized.  One character from the haircut hut, from where he only ticks ago returned: a young woman, two little kids; couldn’t have seemed happier; kids were of more energy, curiosity, devilry than Mike could ever hope to handle, but mom couldn’t get enough of her hilarious hellions.  He wasn’t sure what to do with this pocketed role, ‘roles’ if you count the two kits, but he was back in a lucrative Literary habit.

11:45a.  Mike thought of the Sauvignon Blanc he poured for Self last night.  2010, Napa Valley fruit.  Reminded him of her, for some reason.  Crisp, tropical, vibrant, paradingly mysterious.  But then he stopped in his wine association, appreciation, looking at the time numbers again.  He hated the rushed actuality of his moment.  Wasn’t Literary, nor wine.  Oeno, no.  At 32, Mike knew he needed more ease.  All when the book was finished, he told himself.  With the window to his right open, morning servings of sound, scent, streaming, he leaned back into posture more peaceful, purposeful.

Wine, today.  And I’m not blogging this event.  Writing it.  True journalism.  Or fiction.  Whatever I want to do.  Not on anyone’s clock.  Not tonight, “industry”!  But, I think of how much I write about the wine surfaces most immediate to me.  Want to be away.  Far.  Back in Paris.  Want to explore Italy.  Spain and Portugal, like my sister.  Think I need to act more erratically with these entries, the Literary practices.  What could possible happen, hurt me?  I’m 32.  Yes, with an invincibility complex.  Maybe that’s what’ll get me on the shelf.  Think about how many winemakers make almost moronic-level wagers with their careers, and they become a cult bottle line, tasting Room, hunted winemaker.  That’s what this new transformation, “NewMike,” the final transcendence in the transfixing of my wine lined entries laments.  Same is true of many artists, no?  Musicians (Pac, Hendrix, The Doors, even the overplayed and overrated Beattles), painters (Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali), writers (way too many to catalogue).  “Regardless of intent, vision description, he would remold, leap, no longer creep discrete.  He’d be loud, force feed his pages.  Ideas such goaded him, further, to a furthered futherment.” Good lines for the book, those in quotes.  Transferring ...

The first bold act for me, true absence of censorship, Self-fettering.  Something I’ve been meaning to convey in entries recent: Napa’s beginning to anger me, with its self-indulgent hyperbole when talking about wine, food, their belittling of Sonoma County fruit, wineries, oeno-wizards.  Much of that side of the mountain, as much as I’ve lately been saying I love it so, on the blog and what be, has been making me realize why so many industry troops over here adhere to their degradative estimation of what’s over there.  I’m not saying, “I hate Napa, that’s the dark side,” like many in SoCo state.  I’m merely saying that my appreciation for Napa’s wine presence steadily corrodes, erodes.

The mocha, definitely helping this morning.  How is it already 12:22p?  Before too many more minutes buzz by, I’m going to have to start getting ready for the event.  Get into character, the one they require me assume.  And I’m getting too old for that, frankly.  I strive for true scribe sovereignty.  Don’t want to any more be told when to be somewhere, when I can have lunch, how long I can be gone, how to dress, how to talk, what scripts to follow.  I’m done.  When this book is out, I’m out.  Me, what this “industry” probably doesn’t want to see.  Trusting Self, though.  Not caring.  

Mike counted the money in his wallet.  $10.  That also needed revamping, the revenue ado.  He started thinking, how much would he charge for the book?  How many copies would he run the first round?  Had to be Self-published, he also mandated in this anything-but-routine Self conference, chapter, this morning, now afternoon.  Mike thought of himself as thematically correlated with the small producers of wine.  The ones who’ve been offered a buyout, but held to vision.  He saw himself as without time, not enough to wait for an agent’s approval, a publisher’s permission to distribute his writing.  They couldn’t market him like he could anyway.

Wine and food.  Topic in Mike’s scopes.  Would his tasting Room have a food element, if, when, he opened one?  It would have to, right?  That’s what would provide the best material.  The best fiction, so he could keep the books coming, support his brand, his label.  Him.  He WAS the label.  Sovereign, paginated, never evaporated.  Mike liked that idea, opening a tasting Room, a wine-food jaunt if the guest requested.  Just so he could have something to write about.  Always.  If he wanted.  That was Aesthetic autonomy.

Everything would be about writing.  For the page, for the work.  His work.  Everything had page value, he thought.  The mouse laptop’s mouse, the cell phone and his over-dependence on it, the empty mocha cup, grande, by the printer with only a couple sheets in the pipe.  Already time to get ready.  The night’s event awaited a renewed writer.  But he didn’t have a mini-notepad.  Put these $10 to usage instant, he thought.  All fluidly tying, blending, for the page, today.  His.  Sipping the last drops of mocha, mostly the acidic syrup that irritated, he rose, headed for shower.  Suddenly reverting to the Sauv Blanc, Napa, her ...    

And the sitting starts, even with swarming distractions.  So much writing in the box beneath this desk, in the Comp book.  What do I put towards the book?  Not thinking about it tonight.  Not going to think about anything.  At all.  Just write, freely.  Yes, with the Syrah encouragement.  Not as hot tonight.  And with the window permitting the outside’s flavors into this writer’s corner, I’m sanely sedated.  Was ignited again by Lisa’s words tonight when she said, “Real writers are the ones who think about it all the time...everything’s writing to them.” Wanted to brandish my little notepad right there, in that corner of the wine bar.  Could’ve had a short in three minutes, I bet. 

The vineyards, talking to us, writers, at this point in their growth, as if they want us to be proud of their progress, survival.  Walked around a little in one yesterday, but with my vessel’s emergency lights stuttering, and the meaty sun on my already-sore shell, the afterwork saunter was held condensed. 

Tomorrow, Friday.  Not much relief, as I’ll be at the winery both Sat & Sun.  But then I rise in the reality that both, Saturday night’s event especially, are certain to courier material.  Needing characters, more, more.  Characteristic, both in animations and inanimate.  Especially with the book nearing its end.  Already have book2 in scope.  Think I read a few lines in Capote’s ‘Portraits & Observations’ that said something to the effect of always having the next project embracing your brain.  Again, I think.  Been reading more, lately.  Finally.  And I usually do so when tired, after work, the commute back, forth.  So who knows how credible my recollections are.

Bed, not sounding appealing.  Just want to stay up up till I have to speed back to Napa’s downtown.  AND WRITE.  And maybe crack that old Cab, finally.  Scratched, though, by present.  This Now.  My Now, now.  Entirely musical, I realize.  All of it.  Even the turbulence.  And these instrumentals, putting me elsewhere.  Beautiful.  Sipping, scribbling.  Me, no frenzy.  Solely harmony, disarming breeze.  Still.

[6/16/11, Thursday]

Escalating Mercury, Means Seeded Wine Poetry

Can’t stop scribbling in this Comp book.  Must be the Syrah.  Summer upon, with me in a constant dawn.  A bit frustrating, the Literary strides, of late.  Looking through some pictures taken the other day, Sunday.  Russian River expedition.  Not sure I documented it with strokes sufficient.  But I’m understanding the Humanness of not always moving in manuscript mode.  Sometimes the writer, the wine writer/novelist, MikeMadigan, need just live.  I don’t have to write every second, this Syrah on my desk says.

Looking at pictures I took in the tasting Room, Saturday, of my stamped hand.  Believe it was the Petite Sirah’s cork that decorated my claw so. 

NewWineGig, revealing interesting dimension, to be candid, brief.  When I leave, I’m in a reflective cyclone, pulled apart and assembled masterfully.  How does it do that?  Why does the wine world always put me in paragraph pause?  That’s what the paper diary’s for.  My thinking now, after temperature upward, shifts stretched, in roam.  No destination, like the ever-contrasting, conflicting, winemaker.  As a writer, I don’t want to throw measurable sentences, books.  I want to be feared, have people wondering, as Lisa said, “You’re not gonna write about this, are you?” Such lines, like old Bordeaux finds to this emboldened poet.  In days soon, my own sovereign sect; Separatist wine scribe ...

Forgive my eventual, more so present, ramble.  Just the way I think, like Virginia Woolf when she pitied the moth.  The weather, wielding ways.  Syllabically, warrior-like.  Hope the wine “industry” can deal with me.  And if it can’t, I’ll only ascend.  Taking another Syrah sip ... gorgeous Sonoma County character: approachable, dark berry, constricting mouthfeel, augments by summation rhythmic; spiced, electric, jumpy.  Would love to just stay in tomorrow, abandon my exhaustively laughable commute.  WRITE all day.  The last 20 pages of this bottle bravado’d book.  Bringing my rough rough rough draft to work tomorrow, proofreading at lunch, at that Napa Coffee castle, or whatever it’s called.  Excuse the sudden snap, but Napa’s challenging my diplomacy.  Need to Syrah mySelf, for Equilibrium return, to Sonoma Country ... 

[6/15/11, Wednesday]

New Notes

This Cab/Syrah blend throws me into holes with the rabbit.  Logic reversed, odd verse.  Unusual tunes; I’m soon to do swoons.  She, of tempo slow.  Me, from her, aglow.  I, lower lights.  She, slows her sights.  Palate push.  Gentle, rushed.  I’m hushed.  Multitudinous harmonies as we meander in borrowed seas.  Unusual union.  Loosened in fictional fusion.  Our characters, blended.  Haphazardly.  Won’t let it end ended.

Fog forwards.  Off, closed words.  We stay inside, lay in tide.  Her eyes, heavy, with me on the levy.  Almost gone, just as quick as reaction spawned.  Can’t more pour, as she’s adorns tile floor.  Fahrenheit elevated, I stare and sigh, escalated.  Her return, I learn, a beautiful churn.  I turn, but still yearn. 

Sipping ... 

SUNDAY: Hated, Loved, Again

Beautiful day in the wine country today.  Russian River.  J Vineyards and Rodney Strong.  A little unscripted tasting on the day before work return.  Love being outside.  Seeing sun, vibrant vines, other lives, those loving wine.  This is what “the industry” truly embodies.  Writing for my novel, I think, right now.  Hard to tell, as I’m quite tranquil.  yesterday in the Room, festive.  Exuberant, in all of its developments.  I was surprised how many took to the ’08 Cab/Syrah blend.  Well,  I was, and wasn’t.  Its taste structure, insupposable.  The looks on guests‘ masks, engaging.  I found mySelf distracted the entires shift, if need you know.  Not just with wine reactions, ripples, but with the outside.  The Wild Oak Vineyard, the lawn preceding, Mayacamas Mountains, creeping breezes.  Enjoying the moments, OUTSIDE.  That is where true wine appreciation, life, interaction takes place.  The tasting Room, too, as we all see what’s merely on another side of the glass.  Inches away.  And of course, this made me think of my own tasting Room.  I want guests leaving in reflection, truly tormented by their enjoyment.  I’m addicted to guests‘ reactions.  Mostly as a writer, but as well one in love with wine, one loving being around other of minds like.  

Looking at the pictures I took today, I’m again shook to appreciate the fact I need be out.  Not encapsulated.  That’s not wine.  Certainly not Literature.  Be there not characters in isolated spaces.  Yesterday, met an older gentleman from Russia.  He stood so surprised by the ’07 Rockpile Blend’s palate presence.  “This is good taste,” he told me.  “Give me six.” Finding a wine he loved.  The next guests, a group of ladies from Southern California, in just before close, accepted my offer to embark upon an unruly progression through some of the wines, a flight not on the simplistic laminated menu atop the green marble.  They liked my take on wine, I think, colliding with wines they found bedazzling, beautiful.  Loved their energy, and it was the tasting Room that fostered such fermented fervor.  What I’ll remember most about these SoCal femmes, their trust in me, their respect for my relationship to bottled Sonoma County fruit.  Love to those ladies, and all the many guests yesterday of similar dispositions aglisten.

Now, in the studio, listening to Wine Lounge beats, envisioning.  What, the future most suitable, beneficial, to me.  AS A WRITER.  The other day, someone asked me, “Are you a wine writer, or blogger?” First of all, I write.  Often about wine.  I lend some of that wine writing to a blog.  The blog is a forum, or venue.  I don’t blog before I write.  I write, then post to blog.  Why is that so hard for people to get?

Wine of the night?  You guessed correctly, lovely readers: the St. Francis 2008 Cuveé Lago I mentioned above.  Cab and Syrah can orchestra so ornately, picturesque palate pummel.  What am I pairing it with?  A quesadilla from up the street.  What’s wrong with that?  Like my brother Ariel Ceja said the other day, “If it makes you feel good...” Plan to explore and deconstruct this wine, 2nite.  And what I mean: try to understand its intentions.  What is this wine trying to say?  So many speak on wine as if they know the wine better than its creator does.  Than the wine knows its own intricacies.  I plan to, when I return from picking up dinner, just taste, listen.  Not judge, and I don’t have to, as I already know how magically the bottle’s to connect with this penman’s core.  Time to clock out, but only for blinks brief.  Returning soon, to compose, scribe.  With Cabernet and Syrah.  

9:57p.  Typing till 11p.  Aiming for 1000 words, just as winemakers aim for profiles, especially when dealing with blends.  This Cab/Syrah duet, cinematic.  Tastes better than it did yesterday in the Room.  Looking over the notes I took behind the bar, thinking about those points in the shift.  Need to do something with that stage, here on the page.  Was thinking, 30 minute play.  A cluster cast, but each character distinguished, established.  This before the stage that comes before brainstorming, so don’t take me too seriously.  Time disintegrating, too worried to wait.  So I’ll write.

52 minutes remaining, and I’m distracted by weightless Reality TV on BRAVO.  Why am I watching this visual toxicity?  Why does anybody?  Remember lecturing on Pop Culture, Reality TV, a couple semesters ago.  Many of my dear students, becoming impassioned, vitriolic, insistent in their views, written positions.  Was thinking earlier today, while tasting through some Pinots at J Vineyards & Winery, that I should develop some lectures on Wine, Writing, and Literature.  Take it a step forward, a sprint forward.  Force fruition.  Couldn’t believe how beautiful it was today, in Russian River.  Glad I had the camera with, the sense to snap stills, push the trigger.

Closing words: wine, blend, ink, autonomy.  That’s what I embody.  That’s what now epitomizes me.  I don’t need direction, or management, as a wine writer, as one in the wine industry.  I’m a writer, I write about wine from my time.  Like the sparklings in J’s Room, I think of something that’ll stop people.  Readers, consumers.  An idea that’ll imprison attention, agreeably.  That’s what this writer wants.  Not be an authority, just to truly live on pages, with wine-timed lines.  The cork, by the keyboard.  Dry, weakened, sensory.  Significance?  Difficult to definitively distinguish.

And the pulses summarizing, leading to the day next, the beginning of the work week.  Truthfully, my signature, in this session, slanted.  Maybe it’s the blend, its effect on this character...

...Mike thought.  He closed the laptop, walked to the kitchen, tossed the remaining contents into a drain.  He thought about the coming set of five.  But something felt uneven, disrupted.  He couldn’t measure the bent aesthetic with any accuracy, but he still thought.  As he walked back to the couch, he counted steps, breaths, thoughts.  He was exhausted, as if he’d sprinted, or done gymnastics.  He couldn’t figure it out.  He laid down, lowered his feigned eye lids.  His mind slid to a defined grid.  Slowing, sleeping.

[6/12/11, Sunday]

Bistro Sabor: My New Napa Base, Flavored

I’m always talking about wine locations being of more significance when they’re fun, Human.  And this spot on Napa’s 1st Street, all.  More.  Festive, forward with personality, diversified cuisine.  Had an opportunity to chat with owner Ariel Ceja the other day.  And I loved his sequential deconstruction of his restaurant’s aim, presence.  Not only is it a wine location, I found, but quite conducive to beer’s presence; I was startled, it’s fair to say, how many bottles and taps he offered; domestic, foreign.  It’s all here: beer, wine, food, music, atmosphere, culture.  This little flavored bistro: memorable, delicious.  Wine  on the walls, in my glass.  Beer, too.  Amazingly animated food.  Returning soon for another taste, tastes ... 

An ’06: Sipping to Future Bottles, Me & Katie

Tonight, sipping from a label I haven’t in a long time touched.  Surprised by the depth, intricacy, of this ’06.  For me, 2006, quite hit-and-miss.  More miss.  Gorgeous drive back from NewWineGig.  Almost pulled over for pictures.  Refrained.  Wanted solely moments.  Highway 12’s curves, her specific spots.  Traveling tryst.  More than romance; Erotic elemental visuality.  All about wine, Literary, Art.  Character, Characters.  She, in this glass, skewing my logic, intriguingly.  More than elated to be home this Thursday’s nightfall.  No timewaste in this sitting.  No distractions.  She demands it, my character.  She’s singing commands to a pattering pulse.  Ethereal evaporation, me2her ...

Last night’s pen2paper session on couch, resonating.  Beckoning regression.  It’ll be gifted, assuredly.  Another ’06 injection, warranted.  Why?  I want to prose descriptors, as crazy as I can write.  Or, as current, TYPE.  To start: maple, blackberry, dark chocolate, maple wood, a little vanilla, something-floral-I-think-maybe, rain asphalt, mint pat.  This changes my estimate of the ’06 chapter, I have to say.  Wine continues to surprise, teach this stubborn author.  9pm, sharply.  Curious about day next.  And next.  The wine world invites the fervent, the derangedly ambitious.  Must be why I feel so at home, here, in a 2006 Room.

Today, at NWG, thinking about my own label.  The varietal, easy.  Cab 83%, Cab Franc 10%, Merlot 6%, Petite Verdot 1%.  How many cases?  To start, let’s just say about 100.  What would I name my winery?  Would name it after me, or a relative.  But everyone does that, I feel.  How about “whoso winery”?  Or, “projection cellars”?  Keep it lowercase as to nod to poetic aesthetics, the unorthodox, that contrasting.  If all that is agreeable to my sis, Katie, a real winemaker.  Me, the wanna-be.  A new note in this Cab: burnt barbecue chicken skin.  No humor here, that’s with what I currently tap.  Odd arrangement in this Napa discovery, but just for me.  Totally my character’s mentioned profile.  Demonstrative of visions, dreams, wine writing delusions.  My label’s true focus; True contrast, Oenobellion, leaping outside bottled boxes.  vinoLit ...

[6/9/11, Thursday, NewMike]