Bonne Chance @ DAHplaytime

My Trouble With Me Or Us

Some years ago a therapist, doing couples counseling, said to me, "Being alone is always easier, simpler. You never have to compromise. But it isn't necessarily better to be alone."

I'm very social. I delight in doing things with others. However, when I really want to get something done, I'd rather take care of it alone. That may not always get the best result, but I can make sure that something happens.

When I'm feeling out of sorts or anxious, I always want to take action now, alone. Even at my advanced age I feel pretty clever and capable. I can make something happen. But will it be the best something? Maybe not. Even as clever and capable as I am (or think I am), I don't see all possibilities at once. And if I miss some possibilities, I may miss better possibilities than those I pursued.

I've been doing wine marketing work for a long time. I can usually see the "best" way to do lots of things. And I often take care of those things by myself. However, there are lots of times when I have only a vague notion of the best solution. My team saves me. They have different ideas, they share them, and we pick the ones that have the best potential for great reslults.

Theater is the same for me. When I'm tired or disappointed, I dream of one-man shows: Just me, and maybe a guitar or piano (if I played either ... so that's a problem), telling stories and singing songs. Or me directing a play. When I directed Lanford Wilson's "Book Of Days" a few years ago, I had a pretty singular vision, which I was able to implement (with a great cast, and Patrick Kinyon's stellar assistance both on-stage and overhead, setting the lights). That was a very satisfying experience. When I directed "Urinetown" on the other hand, there were more people involved. I still found great satisfaction in in the experience, but I couldn't have done it by my self. Les Pfutzenreuter, Rose Bell, Trudy McCreanor, Jason Davis, and Ray Gifford were all necessary components, in addition to a fabulous cast. Without their efforts and ideas, "Urinetown" might have been simpler or easier for me to deal with, but it would have been terrible.

I suspect that my trouble with me or us is a long-term -- life-long long-term -- thing. That's OK, I guess. As long as I remember that both ways can work, by myself and with others, in different circumstances.

New SLO Restaurant: Ciopinot Seafood Grille

Ciopinot Seafood Grille

1051 Nipomo Street

San Luis Obispo, CA 93403

(805) 547-1111

On Wednesday evening, Rusty and I met over a glass of wine at Ciopinot Seafood Grille, a new restaurant in San Luis Obispo. It was the last day of their first week of operation. Ciopinot is owned and operated by a family with strong ties to the local fishing industry, and they already operate another restaurant, the Olde Port Inn, at the end of the San Luis Harbor Pier.

It was a sign at the Olde Port Inn that made me keep an eye open for Ciopinot: The sign promoted their "soon to be open" seafood, small plate, and local wine focused restaurant, planned for the old Tortilla Flats space in downtown SLO.

First, what about that name? Well, you can order cioppino here, but you can also order Pinot here ... the wine list is focused on red and white Pinots (Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc). The menu is almost entirely fresh seafood, with one steak, one chicken, and one vegetarian dish for those not pescatorially inclined.

This is an old brick building in the Creamery complex. The space is large, with an open beam ceiling. The black tables and chairs are substantial, and there are water-features mounted on the exposed brick walls. It feels very open and warm inside. The bar area at the front of the restaurant holds perhaps a dozen four-top high tables, set so that food can be ordered here, as well as in the main dining room. Full bar, with about 20 wines by the glass.

Christine joined Rusty and me for dinner, and we moved back into the dining room (although they encouraged us to stay in the bar to dine). The restaurant was pretty busy -- all the locals checking out the new place, no doubt. Rusty started with some oysters, Christine and I shared a crab cake. All very fresh and tasty. Good salads ... I was happy that my Caesar had real anchovy fillets. Sole, cod, and a calamari/scallop dish were ordered for dinner and swiftly devoured. A Tangent Pinot Gris was enjoyed with dinner.

The Ciopinot staff was skilled and friendly, and great attention has been paid to details here. Nothing sloppy about this opening week. A great addition to downtown SLO. And, from a wine guy's perspective, huge appeal in their "No Corkage Fee" policy!

Live Is What I Like

Eric Felten had a column titled "That Synching Feeling" in the Wall Street Journal (06-Feb-2009). It made me a little sad, and I felt a little betrayed. I watched the Super Bowl in Redwood Valley with Judy and Christine and Bob and Sheilah and Steve. Steve is a musician. We watched Jennifer Hudson sing the National Anthem before the show, and thought she performed live. Christine was doubtful. And Christine was correct. Hudson was lip synching.

Felten's column also reported that the all-star classical quartet that played at Barack Obama's inauguration was also pre-recorded. The artists and agents involved all said, more or less, that "the occasions were too important to risk a mistake." So, it's OK for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to flub a line, but not for professional performers? Whatever you might think about Justice Roberts' error, and subsequent Oval Office repair-job, at least he took a chance. I'm sure a squeaky note from Yo-Yo Ma would have irreparably spoiled President Obama's time in office.

"The synthetic perfection of faux-live performance may enjoy an appealing gloss, but you can say the same thing about supermarket apples -- and we know how good they taste," wrote Felten.

I've always preferred live performance. Some sense of someone taking some kind of risk makes me care about the outcome. I can appreciate the artistry of a recording, but, particularly in "live" moments of high drama (like a presidential inauguration, or the Super Bowl), why must artists hide from delivering a live performance? It doesn't increase my appreciation of the occasion.

Apparently, the Marine Band did perform live at the presidential inauguration. And Bruce Springsteen did perform his vocals live for the Super Bowl half-time show (his performance couldn't have been pre-recorded). Hurray for that. Then I read that, while the Boss was live, the E Street Band was not. Apparently, the Big Man and Little Steven could not be trusted to put on a good live show. Hey, Bruce: That Darkness on the Edge of Town seems to have infected your team.

P.S. I Love You

Valentine's Day is almost upon us. And a few days later, on Friday 20-February, we'll be at the P.S. I Love You "Dark & Delicious" event in Alameda. P.S. I Love You is a cute name for a wine promotional organization, dedicated to that big red varietal, Petite Sirah. The organization began with a symposium about Petite Sirah in 2002. Today, there are 82 members. That's right, 82 members of an organization dedicated to a wine you probably savor only on rare occasions, if at all.

Click Here to visit the P.S. I Love You website

"Dark & Delicious" is our PSILY (P.S. I Love You) "Valentine's Day" event. Last year it was held before the day of hearts, this year it will be held after. 30 wineries and 20 food vendors will sate your appetite for this dark monster of a wine and the foods that are delicious with it. We'll be at the Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda. You can learn more about the event at the PSILY website.

Petite Sirah, as you will have gathered, is famous for its dark purple color ... if you drink much of it, your teeth will be stained blue (thus, PSILY's famous "Blue Tooth Tour"). The wines are usually tannic and meaty, with blackberry and blackpepper character, in addition to being dark. At the Clayhouse table, we'll be serving tastes of Hearst Ranch beef jerky along with our Estate Petite Sirah. Since the Hearst Ranch beef is local, we thought it would be a fun complement to our PS.

If you come to the tasting, stop by our table and say, "Hello!" I'll post about "Dark & Delicious" sometime soon after the event.

Cheesemonger in Paso

Di Raimondo's Italian Market & Cheese Shop 822 13th Street, Paso Robles

I'm not sure what the "Italian Market" is at this place. Most of the wares aren't from Italy. I bought a jar of Marmite here ... nothing too Italian about that.

But visiting Di Raimondo's on Saturday made me smile all day.

I was in Paso Robles for the grand opening of the Clayhouse Tasting Room. After stopping by the tasting room and visiting for a bit, I was chased out by the crowds (the tasting room grand opening was quite successful in drawing visitors, even on that rainy Saturday afternoon). So I went for a walk around the town square.

From the outside, I checked out other tasting rooms, said "hello" to Vic, the manager of the La Quinta Inn (he was waiting for a Mexcian restaurant to open for lunch). Was impressed by the restored Carnegie Library building in the square (a large shady park). And wandered back towards the Clayhouse Tasting Room.

Di Raimondo's was on my route back to Clayhouse. I remembered that Kari, our tasting room manager, had mentioned how nice the people were at Di Raimondo's, and how hard they were working (including having other jobs) to make a go of it. So I stopped in.

It's a tiny place, and it smells of cheese (surprise!). There were two women working there, one of whom must have been a proprietor. But I couldn't tell you which one. They were laughing about calling themselves "cheesemongers." And they began offering me little tastes without my even asking.

The vibe was very friendly and unhurried. I chatted with both women, about cheese and Paso and our new tasting room. I bought a slice of Pecorino Pepato, and a slice of Cypress Grove's "Midnight Moon," and a very crusty, rustic loaf of Ciro Pasciuto's Skipping Stone bread (you can't buy it directly from Ciro, because he doesn't have a public bakery). I left my card, and I left smiling and happy.

Small town culinary happy human contact.

You Have To Do That Much

I've fallen into a nasty habit recently. Whenever somebody (usually Christine, since I'm with her most of the time) complains or comments on things not turning out the way one might wish, I say, "Well, you can't have everything."

It seems like I say that at least a dozen times each day. Now I'm catching myself, and trying to break the habit. At first there was kind of a positive spin, riffing off the Rolling Stones' lyrics:

"You can't always get what you want ... But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need"

Recently, however, after saying "Well, you can't have everything" so often, the phrase is taking on a darker tone in my mind. It's drifting into "just give up and settle for what you have" territory. I don't much care for that, so I'm working to clean up my language.

Then, yesterday, I don't know why, I listened to a CD of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" stories in the car as I drove to Paso Robles. These stories aren't new to me. I've heard most of them several times. But the rhythm of Keillor's stortytelling, and the good humor and goodwill with which he imbues each story, they always lift my spirits.

And although I wasn't listening to the story that contains the following lines, these words sprang to mind (although they're remembered, and may be paraphrased). Another aphorism for my personal "rules of life" ...

"You can only do so much ... But you have to do that much."

Thank You, Robert Mondavi

I'm often asked the question, so I've often given this answer. Feel free to stop reading if it sounds too familiar.

Why is DAH in the wine business?

I studied International Relations at UCDavis, in between performing with the UCD Early Music Ensemble, Bad Actors at the Palms Playhouse, West of Broadway in Davis and Woodland, Davis Comic Opera Company and the UCD Drama Department. I thought I'd join the diplomatic corp, or go to Law School, or maybe teach at some college.

I met Amy Smith (now my ex-wife) working in Shields Library on the UCD campus. We began dating. She lived with four other students in an East Davis house. I'd visit there for meals or just to hang out. And one of Amy's housemates, I can't remember which one, kept Robert Mondavi White and Red table wines in the refrigerator.

This was 1979, I think. My relationship with wine was pretty much "what are we drinking" and "is there any more?" Wine was sweet and simple, something to drink when the beer and hard liquor were gone.

But the Bob White and Bob Red were different. They were dry. They tasted serious. I began thinking about wine in a different way.

I decided to go to grad school, Modern European History. I read Fernand Braudel and Marc Bloch, and got interested in the Annales School of historical study. History wasn't about dates and battles, it was about places and people and the passage of time. And that overlapped with wine: Something slightly exotic that dealt with places and people and the passage of time.

I went to work on my dissertation. Peasant farmer riots in the south of France in the later 19th Century, due to a regional wine market collapse after the government funded massive replanting to recover from phylloxera's destruction of vineyards.

I didn't much like my advising professor, so when he went away for a summer in France, I thought I'd go work in a vineyard, as a break from my studies. I asked Amy's father's cousin about working in his Lake County vineyard for the summer. He said, "You wouldn't like that. You should work in a winery. Go talk to Barney Fetzer in Mendocino County. I sell a lot of my grapes to him."

I went to see Barney Fetzer, and then met with his son, John. I went to work for Fetzer Vineyards, and didn't go back to my UCD studies. All thanks to Robert Mondavi, in a refrigerator, in Davis.

Lava Cap

On New Year's Eve we visited Lava Cap Winery, me and Christine and John and Lisa. Lava Cap is in El Dorado County, at the northern end of the Sierra Foothills appellation, near the city of Placerville (where John and Lisa live).

Lava Cap was established in the early 1980s. It was named for the geology of its rocky location -- just guess what flowed here a long, long time ago. The winery and the estate vineyard blocks that surround it are Jones family owned and operated, with the family hands-on laborers in both vineyard and winery.

I'm fussy about visiting wine tasting rooms. Since I have no necessity to visit any particular winery, I'm there only for amusement. So I evaluate each wine tasting room with a simple test: If somebody greets me within a minute or two of my entering the space (even if only to say, "Welcome! We're a little crowded right now but we'll be with you in a little bit!), I'll stay and I'll always buy wine. If nobody greets me within a minute or two, I leave and go somewhere else.

At Lava Cap we were greeted the second we walked in. Since the tasting room space is small, and visible even from the barrel room behind (through a big glass window behind the tasting bar), it would be difficult to miss a new arrival at the tasting bar. The staff was friendly, and knowledgeable about the wines and the industry. We enjoyed our visit, and appreciated the wines (we purchased six bottles). It would have been nice if the tasting room staff had been able to recommend other area wineries to visit (that information had to be dragged out of them ... they didn't seem hesitant to suggest other wineries for qualitative reasons, more because they simply didn't know what to tell us). But that was a niggling issue.

I'd recommend Lava Cap to any visitor to El Dorado wine country. And I look forward to making it a stop on our next journey to Placerville.

25 Things

I invested so much energy on this list for Facebook, I decided to post it here, too.

1. I find the idea of thinking of, speaking or writing 25 things about myself to be extremely daunting, because my inner voice is busy saying "It's not about me, it's not about me, it's not about me"

2. I judge myself by a set of rules collected from several sources (my thanks to Rudyard Kipling, Don Miguel Ruiz, Anne Linden and the creators of NLP, Oscar Wilde, Oscar Levant, Delmore Schwartz channeled by Dr. Tolian Soran in Star Trek TNG, and Ralph Waldo Emerson). If you've ever spent any extended amount of time with me (well, with me when I'm speaking out loud), you've heard one or more of these aphorisms in some form:

3. Everything in the poem "If" -- even when I take parts out of context, even when it is stupid for me to do so (that's what rules are for!) ... and that poem is too long to insert here, so I'm posting it as a separate Note

4. Be impeccable with your word

5. Don't take anything personally

6. Don't make assumptions

7. Always do your best

8. The meaning of your communication is the response you get

9. You have all the resources you need

10. Success is the ability to achieve intended results

11. You can turn failure into feedback

12. The map is not the territory

13. There is a positive intention behind every behavior

14. There are always more choices

15. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars

16. Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel

17. Time is the fire in which we all burn

18. Finish every day And be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely And with too high a spirit To be encumbered
With your old nonsense.

19. My Englishness is an essential part of me, despite its being a long time ago, and despite my becoming a U.S. citizen in 1995

20. I don't believe that I have any creative imagination, but I can look at the evidence of my life and it suggests otherwise. Yet still I don't believe it. And I'm finished, forever, with theater and music, unless I decide there's something I want to do.

21. There are two books stuck in my head, books I love, that speak to an interesting "I'm not worthy" theme (and both set in academia): "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis, and "Double Negative" by David Carkeet. They make me laugh out loud whenever I read them. A third book approaches but does not achieve the DAH heights of those two: "Handling Sin" by Michael Malone.

22. I've worked pretty diligently to brand myself as DAH (David Anthony Hance), with some modest success, but I couldn't tell you why I've done that.

23. I think about the angels in Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and I've decided that Hugh Laurie's character, Gregory House, on the TV show "House, MD" is that kind of angel.

24. I give a lot of love a lot, but I wish I was more reckless with it, but I'm also relieved that I'm not.

25. As someone (rather angry with me, at the time) said of me: "It wouldn't matter to you where you lived, as long as there was a 24-hour bookstore, wine bar and coffee shop." She was trying to hurt me, but I remember thinking, "Well, that's true ... When can I move there?"

Dead Dreams

I drove north from San Luis Obispo this week, to Mendocino County to visit friends and family, for a musical theater performance, and for a Super Bowl party (great game ... second year in a row ... lucky NFL!). We were staying with a friend in the hills above Redwood Valley.

As we drove up West Road, we passed what was Gabrielli Winery. Christine mentioned that I always looked at it a bit longingly, saying, "Maybe we should buy that." The winery building sits on a rise above the vineyard, visible from the road, but set back far enough to have a little isolated, prestige, "winery on a hill" look about it. The winery is nice looking, but very practical. That's part of what I like. It looks like somebody did a really good, thoughtful job establishing a new vineyard and building a solid, attractive, working winery above that vineyard.

But it's for sale, and not for the first time (I think). The business just couldn't make a go of it. And that seems sad, for I'm sure that the vineyard and winery began as a passionate dream. A dream now dead. Like seeing those abandoned and derelict farmhouses along lonely rural backroads. There once was a dream in those farmhouses, too.

I remember when Gabrielli Winery began. I visited and tasted wines ... really good and interesting wines ... but I thought even then, "These won't be easy to sell." While good and interesting, the wines were not easy to understand, commercially. Varietals that were out of fashion (or had never been in fashion), new blends, slightly odd release dates. When your dream takes you to a place outside the mainstream, you may need to be very, very patient.

In the wine business, being very, very patient could require lots and lots of money. You're building up inventory from the start, laying out money for grapes and equipment and barrels and tanks and pumps and bottles and labels. And it's an unusual business plan that allows for that extra couple of years before you can get things working right, and actually sell enough of the right wines and the right prices to cover your nut.

Maybe an extra couple of million bucks, just in case.

What if you plan for break-even in five years, seven at the worst, and what if it takes ten years?

Dead dream.

I love the dream, but please keep me safe from it.

I'd rather a pretty dream that's never manifest.

I don't like nightmares.