Noche de Luna
If you’re looking for an authentic, early Californian/Mexican experience, La Luz, under the able direction of Ellen La Bruce and its talented Noche de Luna committee, makes this happen at their yearly fundraiser. I especially loved the program, which featured photos of last year’s attendees, all dressed the part. Held on September 18 at the Sonoma Barracks, the annual event benefits Latino families who want to further their education, learn English, get health care and avail themselves of the hundreds of resources necessary to thrive in our community. A worthy cause, considering that our wine industry, building trades, etc. could not survive without these hard-working folks.
This year’s event was exceptional, and the weather was gorgeous and balmy. As we entered the colorfully decorated, historic monument, the first people we saw were our hosts, chairwoman Kimberly Blattner and her husband Simon. Kimberly was dressed in a beautiful, black and floral lace ensemble, and Simon dressed as a man of the “cloth,” complete with a large cross hanging down his long black robes. They truly set the tone for the night. We walked around the food stations, which served chicken and chili chalupas, margaritas, tomales ticulenos, and more margaritas. One of the very special things I love about this event is seeing its supporters year after year – all agree that this is one of the most fun events they attend in Sonoma. After all, you get to visit while you eat, listen to beautiful music, watch terrific dance performances and partake in a shopping spree (pre-auction) provided by local vendors such as South American Secrets. Many sponsors were spotted while making the rounds, including the Vadaszes, the Storys, Cherie and Keith Hughs, the Levys and the Sandersons. So many, I cannot name them all. But each one as generous as the next, as was shown at the live auction!
This year, the no-pressure auction was headed up by Bob Rice of the Breakaway Cafe and the lovely songbird, Sheila Whitney. Each “act,” or item, was presented with humor, song and playfulness. Enough great stuff for anyone to keep their paddle up! And they raised big money for a good cause. I hated to leave moonlit night of history, philanthropy, friends and fun – it’s one of my favorites.

VROOOM VROOM
If it is action you seek or just plain thrills, the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County at Infineon Raceway is where you want to be mid-August. This three-day testosterone-injected experience brings folks from far and wide, many rolling in with their fancy RVs parked close to the track in order not to miss a moment of the day-long activities. I must admit I had not been to a car race since I was Miss Monterey Grand Prix many years ago.
We started our excitement on Saturday night by meeting top racing guns and “poster boys,” Dan Weldon and Scott Dixon, at a dinner party at Emery Estate Vineyards. Both have won the famous Indy 500. Scott is this year’s favorite to win the series championship. Both drivers race for team Target. I was surprised at how relaxed they were that evening, enjoying a glass of wine and mingling comfortably with everyone. I asked, “Aren’t you nervous?” Their response, “All in a day’s work.” They knew the job they had to do and paced themselves accordingly.
Having had the pleasure of meeting this dynamic duo, I couldn’t wait for race day on Sunday. As we arrived at the newly spiffed up Infineon Raceway, which is celebrating its 40th year, we found our parking space and proceeded to look for our hosts for the day, Curt and Marchelle Carleton.
The long, snaking track was lined with fancy tents, deluxe RVs, ribbons and flags, all placed strategically at sites where guests for the many private parties and gatherings would join up to enjoy 50+ laps of speed and power.
Within seconds of finding our group, the sky above was taken over by the America’s Patriots Jet team. “Wow,” is all I can say about these sexy, sleek gray planes as they did loops, stalls, whirls and other moves that defied nature. This macho display was followed by our other heroes in uniform, our firefighters, who were impressive as they proceeded around the track in various vintages of fire engines while waving to the appreciative crowd.
Finally, the main event: the drop of the flag and off they screeched—some 30+ Indy cars started their long journey, round and round and round. What I loved best about the day was sitting just above the track with a full view of the action, taking in the sounds and hanging out with about 40 friends—sipping wine and partaking in a sumptuous barbecue. If you are looking for an adrenalin fix, this is the event to attend.

You’re Not Hallucinating, You’re in Sonoma Valley
Celebrating what Sonoma is known for has never been a problem in this lively town. The Sonoma Wine Country Weekend is the culmination of another year’s hard work by the wine industry in and around Sonoma Valley and a chance to show off the fruits of the thousands of hours of work that it takes to produce some of the top wines in the world. This is the weekend that brings in many fine wine collectors from abroad, as well as local wine aficionados, to pluck off some of the collectable bottles that will be auctioned off at the Sunday live auction extravaganza.
Taking place each year over Labor Day weekend (August 29-31 this year), one has to plan for the Thursday-Sunday party circuit. Guests can choose one event or participate in the ultra VIP package, complete with a hotel and limo to all of the winemaker dinners, lunches, VIP-only events, and, of course, the big auction day. This year’s 1960s theme brought feelings of nostalgia to many of us who were part of the flower child era. I got to play this out as part of the infamous Magnum Force dance troupe (women in wine). Guests wore paisley, fringed leather vests, headbands, go-go boots, short skirts and tie-dye fabrics, reminding us of the easy and carefree times of the past.
Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Alliance is under the watchful leadership of the highly creative and innovative executive director Grant Raeside. Grant and his board were on a mission to make this year’s event the best ever—and it was! Every winemaker lunch and dinner was sold out. The Saturday event at MacMurray Ranch was packed with wine lovers. The event was supported by many notable sponsors, including Visa, Riedel Glass, Jenn-Air, Sonoma County Wine Grape Commission, Three House MultiMedia, Wine Spectator and Gourmet magazines, to name a few.
The big auction day came faster than expected. Many arrived dressed the part. Cline Winery was perfect for this event, with ideal weather. The big tent was surrounded with ponds and fountains. An old, decked-out train sat near the water and served as a VIP resting place. Many smaller tents were set up for wine tasting and shade. The day started early, at 11 a.m., as there were 57 lots to sell. Guests were never bored. Professional auctioneer, Fritz Hatton, made every item seem new: wine lots, trips, cars, fancy and exotic dinners hosted by famous vintners and tickets to sold-out events. The food this year was bountiful and yummy. The chefs, 11 in all, included head chef, Carlo Cavallo, but also John Ash, John Toulze, Antonio Ghilarducci, to name a few, were on top of their game, serving 350+ people. Food and wine at its best—presented beautifully, hot and scrumptious. Bravo!
This year there was no intermission. Instead, we were treated to the realistic sounds of the Unauthorized Rolling Stones. Listening to them, you would think they were the real thing—they rocked.
Always remembering the purpose of this fun-filled signature event—besides showing off the great wine that is made in Sonoma—we must thank the 12 charitable partners that work hard all year to bring in many of the top auction items that go on the bidding block. Among the recipients of the proceeds from the weekend event are The Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley, the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, Operation Youth and the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance. These, along with the eight other charitable partners, will share in a record-breaking $1.5 million. For the food and wine lover, there is no better place to have all of your senses catered to than right here in Sonoma.

G-Mix
One of the parties I look forward to is Gary Saperstein’s G Mix. You might ask why? Well, very simply, it is a mix of gorgeous guys, great hand-crafted foods, a bar that won’t quit, and an ambiance that makes you feel you are somewhere in Europe on a summer’s night, hanging out with the super trendy. Right in Gary’s own back yard!
We were all surprised when Eric and Kelly Kreglow, of Sonoma Valley Film Festival fame, flew in, unbeknownst to anyone, to surprise Gary and so many of their friends! The night was energizing, with lots of conversation, reunion, and the breaking of great news. Many of the couples here this balmy evening were announcing that they had just become married, or would be doing so, real soon. Gavin Newsom was definitely a major part of many conversations this night. I had the chance to talk with many of the committed couples and found that longevity was more common than not, and many were just as happy or happier than when their relationships had started.
Because of the popularity of the coveted event, I heard that it may be moved to another location. Hope not, because it would be hard to duplicate the hospitality, comfort, beauty, and friendliness of Gary’s wonderful property, and of course, the host with the most, Gary himself.

Officer Ebert likes to frighten people. He gets a kick out of watching thick-waisted housewives go stiff with nerves when his cruiser falls in line behind their Volvos. He enjoys the furtive scanning of mirrors and the shushing of brats, their eyes darting and their teeth clenched. He likes startling old men with his lights and sirens, especially the vaguely European sounding one that screams HEEEE-yo, the one he uses to make motorists pull right. But his favorite by far, the highlight of each eight-hour shift, the pinnacle, oddly enough—is the routine traffic stop. He loves the fear in their eyes.
Ebert likes stretching it out, savoring the details, letting his target work himself into an anxious lather. By the time he leans down to give the perp’s closed window an authoritative little tap, adding a pantomimed cranking motion for effect, the cop knows the civilian has begun to register a nervous wetness pooling under an arm, or a brittle dryness at the back of the throat, perhaps an anxious urgency to pee. He likes letting them stew.

Friedrick Ebert’s German mother stuffed him with strudel and bratwurst, stollen and beer soup. Deeply and fervently Old Country, from her sensible shoes to the money stuffed in her mattress, Olga Ebert never quite managed to cross the pond in the metaphysical sense. She dressed young Friedrich in lederhosen and woolen knee-highs for church, oiling his white-blond hair into a greasy helmet that category four hurricanes wouldn’t muss. The other boys tormented him, capturing his queer felt hat for interminable rounds of keep away, inflating their bellies to waddle behind him shouting, “Heil Hotdog!” While his mother spent hours tidying the church kitchen and gossiping with her American friends in the strange language that never felt right in her mouth, young Friedrich dodged his tormentors, his pale complexion flushed crimson, his round cheeks aflame.
“I hate them all, Mama!” A rope of viscous snot slides from Freddie’s nose.
“Ach, Friedrich! This is nothing! To have troubles such as this is to have no troubles at all. Nein, my boy. Be brave.” She clamps her bawling son to the suffocating topography of her traffic-cone breasts, patting him sternly on the back. “Let me tell you about troubles, my son.” And she begins the windy narrative Freddie knows too well; of ancestors caught up in the War of Wars, hungry and broken, all their lovely possessions gone. The air raid sirens that sent little Olga and her sisters scrambling for the imagined safety of the suffocating space beneath their beds; the ignoble defeat that forced all of Germany to hang its noble head; an entire generation shamed. Still only a girl, her pigtails braided high and tight, but Olga knew troubles. Freddie hears, but no longer listens, his mind lost to the lush landscape of someday. Someday I’ll show them, he thinks. I’ll show them all someday.

The mood in the black Jaguar stuffed with cheerleaders has suffered a sea change, Officer Ebert knows, a complete reversal of the high-octane hilarity of just seconds before. Idling at the side of the road, its occupants furtively digging for gum to cover the beer and spritzing perfume to disguise the reefer, Ebert feels a momentary pang of empathy. He has absolute power to ruin their night. Even if their music hadn’t been cranked to look-at-me-max, Ebert would have noticed. He has that special gift endowed to so many officers of the law: the canny ability to assimilate social data at high speed. Like the killing machines in all the old Schwarzenegger movies, Ebert has a droid-like capacity to absorb and analyze the cogent information of human groupings. This is how he understands from thirty paces that these girls are top tier, local hotties who date super jocks. Little rich girls, whose chest-thumping daddies own sprawling wineries, and whose well-preserved mothers play tennis on Tuesdays. He knows they’ll be firm and ripe, wafting pheromones that can buckle a man’s knees. Juicy. His mouth watering, he jams the cruiser into park and kicks open the door.
There is no hubris quite like that of a powerful man with a gun on his hip. It accentuates his already pronounced swagger, straightens his naturally straight spine, lowers his baritone to bass. The big black weapon strapped to Officer Ebert’s slim hip transforms him instantly into a cock-a-doodle dick, a leggy banty rooster with firepower, which is not to suggest he won’t quid your pro quo. He’s the consummate back scratcher, really. Friedrich Ebert is all about the secret handshake, the chummy old boys club, the tit for tat. But piss him off, son, and life changes fast. He’s got the gun, after all.
“Evening, girls.” Ebert places both hands on the car’s open window ledge, leaning down to eyeball his catch. “Going a little fast back there. You ladies in a hurry tonight? ”
“No sir,” the driver answers, offering up her most bewitching smile. “I’m just giving my friends a ride home from church is all.” A titter rolls across the back seat. The sharp scent of Altoids perfumes the Jag’s cabin.
“That right.” Officer Ebert gives each girl a good long look, pulls himself upright and mumbles into the radio strapped to his chest. Leaning back down, he says, “License and registration, please.”
The girl digs through her littered bag and the tidy glove box, surrendering both with a practiced flirt, her fingers grazing his open palm a nanosecond too long. “I don’t know how far over the speed limit I was, Officer, but I swear I’m a totally safe driver and I totally promise I’ll slow down. I’ve never even had a parking ticket before, swear to god. I hope you can just give us a warning.” Her big green eyes try to telegraph innocence. Ebert grunts, slides both documents into his ticket book, and strolls back to the cruiser.
He pretends to run the car’s plate, fiddles with the gadgets on his dash while his eyes stay locked on their rear window. He can see the driver’s face reflected in the mirror, can see that she’s not the least bit afraid as she issues commands to the underlings riding shotgun and crowding the back seat. This makes Officer Ebert mad. He knows that in every flock of alpha chicks there’s always an uber. One mega-girl in possession of preternatural calm; a cocky little thing, who knows exactly what she’s packin’ and how to play it. He knows this, but he doesn’t like it. He furrows his brow, eyes narrowed to slits, kicks his door open wide and plants his feet in the dust.
“I’m gonna need you to step from the vehicle, miss,” he tells her moments later, staring at a point just north of her hairline. She shoots a nervous little look toward her crew but recovers totally by the time she’s out of the car. Flips her long blond hair, hooks a thumb through a loop in her low-rise jeans, and pops a hip west.
“Something wrong with my license, Officer? I’m legal to drive my friends, you can check with my parents.” She juts her delicate chin defiantly at the cop, daring him to take her on.
“You and your friends have been drinking, miss.”
“No we ha—“
“And you’ve got six people buckled into a car built with restraints for five.”
“Well isn’t that better than—”
“Miss, I advise you to zip it. Now.” Ebert stares her down, leaning forward on his toes, rocking into her airspace just a little. She drops her eyes. Better.
Friedrich Ebert takes a slow walk around the girl, openly appraising the tight young body, the remarkable narrowness of her waist. Circling back he crosses his arms across his chest and sighs. “The way I see it, we’ve got two choices. We drunk test you—and you’ll certainly fail—or you and I play ball. Is that about the way you see things, ah —” Ebert looks down at his book, “Tiffany?”
“What do you mean, play ball?” Tiffany’s eyes are lasering the toes of her little boots now, and her voice has dropped half an octave. All the giggly perkiness of before evaporated. Better still.
“Well, now, let me think. How might you and I make a deal? What might you girls have that someone like me might want?” Ebert taps his chin with the index finger of his right hand, pretending to contemplate the question. Tiffany shoots a look at the other girls, all of them stone-still and doe-eyed now. She glances back up at the cop, pulls a strand of hair into her mouth and bites it.
“I dunno…,” she trails off, crossing her arms across the flat, tan belly, trying to cover the gap between T-shirt and jeans. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Nothing? A sweet, little girl like you has nothing for someone like me? You can’t think of a single thing I’d like?” Ebert leans in, his nose practically touching Tiffany’s hair, and takes a long, noisy inhale. Letting it out, a broad smile lights his face. He lowers himself several inches, waits for Tiffany’s eyes to meet his, and repeats, “Nothing?”
And now she’s crying. Quick hot tears fill her eyes, all the bold mojo gone with the wind. She keeps one arm wrapped across her belly and raises a hand to wipe furiously at her face. Ebert grins, showing all of his teeth. It was all he really wanted in the first place. Just a little respect.

Food was Olga’s canvas, each plate a masterpiece. Heaped upon the Bavarian china, handed down through four generations and kept intact through an impossible world war and a difficult ocean crossing, were daily servings of high calorie love: sausage and gratins and pastries oozing cream. In Olga’s mind, there wasn’t a single life experience that couldn’t be enhanced by food: celebration, lamentation, conquest, or surrender; all improved by a heaping plate of schnitzel. For the first twelve years of his life, Little Friedrich sidled up to the trough like the good son he was. And then, one day, he pushed back from the table like a man possessed, shouting “No more!” He changed from rosy-cheeked cherub to straight-backed young man, in what seemed—at least to his heartbroken mother—mere minutes, refusing her completely on the turn of a dime. No more potato pancakes, no more kinder punch. No lederhosen, no church. No more old stories. No. No. A vast chasm formed between them that day, and though she spent the remainder of her life looking for it, Olga never found the bridge that would carry Friedrich back.

Officer Ebert steps from the shower, his pink skin glistening. He grabs a clean towel and shimmies himself dry, steps up to the full-length mirror, and stares. The terrible pudge of his boyhood has long since given way to the angles and planes of the hard body reflected in the glass; the beautifully sculpted V from shoulder to waist; the graceful, curving musculature of his powerful thighs. He’s proud of his physique. Spends a significant percentage of his time building and admiring it. Flexing from this angle and that, he rotates slowly, taking in his reflection from three hundred and sixty degrees. He adores the plump curve of his butt: ripe and full as summer melon. Loves the chiseled plane of his belly. Returning the towel to the bath bar, Friedrich drapes it in equal measure on either side with a compulsive little tug here, a fussy pinch there.
Tonight wasn’t something Ebert had seen coming, though he’d been rubbing up against the possibility of it for a good while. They saw each other often, their coded communication creating a kind of intimate shorthand before he even knew her full name. Josie Winslow, ER nurse. Built like a brick house, and brainy too.

Newly single after her dumb-ass husband skated off on the scent of something fresh last year, Ebert could almost taste her fear. No sane woman wants to be alone at forty, even one as empirically fabulous as Josie Winslow. Women grow dependent upon the approval of men, and wither too quickly in its absence. The twin threats of solitude and celibacy made them reckless, and Ebert was getting good at positioning himself for the swoop. Josie had been letting him nearer by minor degrees for the last several months, and Ebert felt he was finally within striking distance. But when he’d brought the kid in last week, the gangly boy with a blood alcohol of 2.2, and a rough case of acne, something shifted between them. Josie spotted the boy on a gurney looking like six feet of ground chuck and before Ebert knew it, she was in his arms, sobbing. She’d told him the kid was a neighbor, someone she’d known since he was in diapers. For a shot at Josie, it was no big deal to Friedrich to pretend that it mattered.
He had sat with her in the spartan little courtyard off the emergency room until she’d pulled herself together, patted her hand and stroked her long hair until the hiccupping sobs ran their course. She looked up at him, grateful and a little embarrassed, and asked simply if he would come to dinner. “Let me cook for you,” Josie said. “It’s been too long since I’ve fed a man.” Ebert was delighted, if a little off-balance. It wasn’t often he missed such an obvious cue.
He stops at Appleman’s for a classy bouquet of blooms. The girl puts sweet pea and gardenia together in an understated display, somehow intuiting that Friedrich doesn’t wish to appear overeager. He nudges his car into the flow of traffic, and places the flowers in the seat next to the bottle of wine. Chateau Sangfroid. Excellent. Probably fifty bucks, retail, but this particular bottle was a lucky find. Discovered miraculously intact at the nasty crash site of the very kid Ebert owes for this long-coveted date, it hadn’t set the cop back a single thin dime. He smiles, and with a flourish, pops the car into third.
Her house is lit up nicely from the street. The warm golden glow shining from the panes makes Friedrich nostalgic. His mother was something of a freak about, what she called, the quality of light; refusing to eat in restaurants that were glaringly fluorescent, and fanatical about candles at home. There’s an attractively understated wreath made of fall foliage at Josie’s front door, and a stately antique fixture illuminating the brass numbers of the address. Ebert locks the car, rubs a smudge off the left fender with the cuff of his wool overcoat, and steps onto the skinny brick path. In his right hand are the flowers, in his left the bottle of wine. The pinprick in the wine’s foil top has disappeared, worn smooth by the grappling of many hands. There is no scar remaining from the syringe Josie used to poison this very same bottle of wine, no physical mark remaining from which to identify it from another. Its label is dirtied by the hands that have held it, its edges frayed and battered. Like the seven souls who laid claim to it on its long, twisted journey, the wine is fatally flawed. Capable of devastating destruction, infused with potent sins.
Friedrich Ebert marches up the garden path. In the open doorway, Josie stands in a halo of light, lit from within by some deep, private fire. Thrusting his gifts into the small space that divides them, she claps her hands like a child reborn and holds them out to him, palms open. “For me?” she cries, beaming. FL

Both the face and brains of the wildly popular online video blog, WineLibraryTV.com, Gary Vaynerchuk has all the trappings of a self-made media mogul. He’s appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on Ellen and has been featured in GQ and the New York Times among other media pit stops, while proffering his show and more recently his new book Gary Vaynerchuck’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World. The 33-year-old marketing guru talked with editor Daedalus Howell about the New York Jets, hula-hooping lawyers, modern marketing and, of course, wine.

Daedalus Howell: I just want to begin by saying congrats on your 500th broadcast on WineLibraryTV, that’s quite a big deal.

Gary Vaynerchuk: I appreciate it, it’s a nice milestone and it was a lot of fun.

DH: If you did a daily video blog, number 500 would mean you’ve been in business for two years now.

GV: Yes and it’s on five days a week so it’s about two-and-a-half years. I started in February 2006.

DH: You’ve grown this into an international online media presence—you’ve been on Conan O’Brien …

GV: Mad Money, Night Line, Ellen Degeneres, Cramer, The Big Idea with Donny Deutch. It’s been pretty crazy.

DH: Now, when you began this, did you realize you would be an international wine celebrity?
GV: Yes.

DH: That was the ambition?

GV: I mean I don’t want to lie. I definitely felt confident. I was good in front of a camera. I knew I had good wine knowledge and I knew that I could work my face off doing the business development on the back end. I feel proud of my business savvy. You know, I am the lemonade-stand kid, the baseball card business guy. I get a lot of joy out of the fact that I built this brand. I also happen to be the front-end guy, which was an added bonus. That part I didn’t know, going into it. I didn’t know how good I would be on camera, whether I am good or not is debatable, but what I definitely knew was that I could build, find audiences and then do the right thing by my community.

DH: And keep them enthusiastic. I think you’re a natural in front of the camera and I think your energy is great. The way you energize the appreciation of wine is amazing. Did you know that wine was going to be your ticket? That you would have enough passion that you could carry an entire business venture predicated on wine?

GV: Yeah, pretty early on—it was when I was working for my dad’s liquor store that I started seeing wine grow. I’ve always been pretty good about spin, that’s probably why I got into social media and did a Web site in 1997 and why I launched a video blog in 2006 — both fairly good timing in the scheme of things. You know, I think it’s about understanding opportunity and I did even at a very young age—17, 18 years old—that wine was growing in America. The interest was there and I was passionate about it. I definitely felt like that was always at play and obviously, once I saw things like you see them and everything else online, I felt that media online was growing, and things just added up and made a lot of sense to me.

DH: Would you characterize yourself as an entrepreneur first? Or a wine enthusiast?

GV: I am a family-man first—I love my family with every bit of my soul. Followed by a die-hard Jets fan, then probably an entrepreneur, then probably a personality and then a wine enthusiast. If I have to break myself down that would probably be it.

DH: That seems to be a healthy hierarchy and clearly it’s worked out.

GV: Yeah, and at the end of the day I am very fortunate, and I know it and I execute my living that way. I was born in Belarus in the former Soviet Union. I lived in a world where we were not religious, didn’t know how to speak English. So, we struggled when we came to America. And I got that taste in my mouth, and you can never get rid of that.

DH: Not even with wine, apparently.

GV: Not even with wine, not even with yelling at every Jets player from 1982 to 2008.

DH: Now initially, when we booked this interview, I wanted to talk about wine, but I am really fascinated by the trajectory of your career as an entrepreneur and personality. Do you mind if we talk a little bit more about that?

GV: I think that’s even a little bit more of what I am about, so I have no issue with that.

DH: So when was it, or rather how was it that you became the host of this venture?

GV: I’ve always had a lot of charisma, I’ve always been liked, I was always the class clown that teachers adored, because I always understood boundaries and I just like I had this… You know ever since I saw Emeril Lagasse when I was 15, 16, 17—whatever it was—I was like, “You know, I could probably be the wine version of that.” So, it’s always been in the dark dungeon at the back of my brain, and then I started seeing Ze Frank and Amanda Congdon both have successful shows on the Internet.

DH: That’s right.

GV: I kind of said to myself, “You know, I can do this.” They’re talented, but so am I. And on the flipside, I can bring a massive amount of information about wine, because wine is broke in America and I can fix it. I never wavered or thought anything of being the host.

DH: You were smart enough to ride the wine wave because the interest, especially of your demographic, has been skyrocketing and you have just been able to handhold an entire generation into an appreciation of wine, online, using the media that they use most.

GV: I think so, I think there’s definitely that. What I am most proud about, and this is anyone who watches WineLibraryTV, that it’s more than just about wine. It’s a lot about the New York Jets and my personality. I talk about family and sharing and trying to create a new culture. If you want to demo the wine guy or the wine gal in 1995, it’s a kind of snooty thing. What I am trying to create is not an average Joe or Jane thing but a very open-minded, artistic person, who wants to try different things and doesn’t look down on people who aren’t as educated about wine. I want to kind of mold this society after what I believe.

DH: And it seems to be working. You’re definitely cultivating a community around the wine premise and yourself, as well.

GV: No question. 80,000 people watch WineLibraryTV everyday, and that’s a big deal on the Internet. And it’s a five-day-a-week show that runs 20 minutes long except for when Jim Cramer was on and that was a 42-minute episode.

DH: Given the fact that it is online and you’re in charge—it’s malleable, you can have a

42-minute show. Do you ever feel like you’re over-reaching or under-reaching with the way you produce the content itself?

GV: No. I feel like it’s extremely authentic and I think authenticity is the name of the game. It’s why I have had several offers from TV—most of it’s going to be a lot more perfect and it’s going to be a lot more controllable, which I don’t think the television world is used to or ready for yet. I don’t see me making that jump. I don’t think that real and transparent is ever wrong. I don’t even think about it because that’s what I would be putting out.

DH: That’s a really great observation and the fact that the content is what it is—as it is—instead of cutting it up into evenly sliced segments. That’s a really great point.

GV: I mean if I came to a Hollywood producer and went, “I got a show”—and believe me there are a lot of producers chasing me right now—and I said, “Here’s my show, I am going to sit in front of a camera and I am going to taste wine, four of them for 25 minutes straight, never stopping, complete improv and I’m gonna talk about the New York Jets and have wrestling figures on my desk and talk about Thundercats and Transformers and I’m gonna break down wine and a crap-load of people are going to be into it … You know it wouldn’t be an easy sell.

DH: Right, it doesn’t break into a TV half-hour easily. There’s no room for sponsors. But given that, what is the future for this endeavor? Because I know, clearly, that you have people chasing you—how do you wrap it up further? Or are you projecting into that sphere right now?

GV: I want to buy the New York Jets. That’s the only thing I really want to do.

DH: [laughing] Sure, why not, man?

GV: I’ll be honest with you, I am a really basic guy. I call it “see-saw.” On one end it’s all about the health of my family, on the other end I want to buy the New York Jets, and everything in-between on the see-saw means nothing to me.

DH: It’s the means to getting there.

GV: Exactly, and so you know, if I have to play the “Oprah Ticket” because she seems like the brand that could most likely afford to buy the New York Jets today, then that’s a blueprint that I see as being very feasible.

DH: Now are you really tuned in to your own brand architecture? Can you give me a breakdown of how you have synthesized your brand?

GV: I kind of see my brand as the future of what brands are going to be. I think it’s a bit of a renaissance-brand thing. I mean I am a lot of things. I’ll be honest, I think I can market with anyone in America. Let me rephrase that, anyone in the world. I feel that I am a marketing guru and that I could go on that circuit—and I do. I have sat on advisory boards and consult for people on how to build their personal brands. I view myself as a fundamentally major wine guy. Now I don’t want to say expert, but I’m articulate, can talk about and review wine, get across my feelings and hopefully induce a new culture. I look at myself as a sports guy and a little philosophical in the way that I live my life, that I am a big family guy and I think about that. I’m not pigeonholed. I’m not one thing. I am a multi-dimensional thing and I think that with the Web, where there aren’t sponsors and where people aren’t trying to tell you I’ve got to be more zoned into a demo. I think you’re going to be able to pull off being you. And that’s what I am. Ultimately, what I have been extremely good at, and what I think is a scalable business in 2008 and beyond, is executing on your DNA. I am me.

DH: That is probably one of the coolest phrases I have heard in a long time. “Executing on your DNA”—that’s brilliant.

GV: I appreciate it. [laughing] I’m also very quotable, which makes me pretty cool.

DH: Given your take on personality-branding and all that, you’re saying that by being multi-dimensional, that by being whole people, we benefit from the natural authenticity that comes from that and there’s no reason to try and target one’s self and do one thing— just be who you are, and that thing will find its audience.

GV: You become your differentiator, right? Every one of us is a snowflake, a thumbprint, a retina, and that’s cool. That’s what makes me not Wine Spectator or Robert Parker, right?

DH: Yeah, absolutely.

GV: That’s what makes me not Seth Godin or any other marketing director. I mean, I am me all the way, and there is no one like me. And I think a lot of people are like that. Too many people are like, “Okay, I am a lawyer, let me be the lawyer.” Nooo! You should let people know about your hula-hoop skills and that you love dark chocolate more than anyone else on this earth, and that you can pick out the colors of the rainbow in three seconds. Be you!

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“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly (1968)
How the song got its name may be in dispute, but there’s no doubt about the affect this song had on popular music. Still played every Saturday night at 8 p.m. on XM radio’s “Deep Tracks,” the song was one of the first to combine psychedelic music and heavy rock. The 17-minute composition took up one entire side of a vinyl album. The piece was essentially a drum, guitar, bass and keyboard solo, framed by the same verse coming in and going out, although the producers still managed to slice up a two-minute, 53-second single version. The story goes that either front man Doug Engle could not say the words “In the Garden of Eden” while singing, or when asked the name of the song by the producer, drummer Ron Bushy, who couldn’t understand what was being said, just mumbled. Either way, the name stuck.

“Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry (1976)
The band was named after the flavor on a box of cough drops, which singer Rob Parissi suggested, in jest, to the band. To his chagrin they loved it, and Wild Cherry was born. Dismayed at the disco scene that was emerging in the mid ‘70s in Ohio and being constantly asked to “play that funky music,” Parissi challenged the band that they had to figure out a way to “rock” this disco music. One of the members shouted “You’ve just got to play that funky music white boy” (the band was all white), and with that was born one of the biggest funk rock hits of all time, reaching number one on the pop and R&B charts at the same time. The group was also awarded top band of the year honors by Billboard in 1976, and the single and album both went platinum. Admit it, you start movin’ when you hear that intro…

“Seasons In The Sun” by Terry Jacks (1974)
“We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the wine and the song, like the seasons, all have gone.” Is that really all it takes for a multi-million-selling hit? Rod McKuen thought so when he first translated it from French in the early ‘60s, but neither the Kingston Trio nor the Beach Boys got much from it. Terry Jacks had participated in the Beach Boys session and rewrote some of the words to “lighten it up a bit” and added Link Wray-style guitar. In his native Canada, accumulated sales have topped 11 million copies.

“867-5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone (1982)
There is no truth to the rumor that after this song was released, the band was sued by Ma Bell and had to disband. The truth is they just haven’t had a hit since “Jenny,” which peaked at number four on the Billboard pop charts. Coming out of the Marin County music scene with the likes of Huey Lewis and the News, the song was written by Alex Call and Jim Keller. Call would later go on to write a hit single for Lewis and also Pat Benatar. Tommy Heath and the Tutones still tour – you can catch him and the boys this New Year’s Eve in Temecula, California.

“Rock & Roll, Pt. 2” by Gary Glitter (1972)
Yes, there is a “Pt. 1,” but it’s likely you’ve never heard it. Originally both sides of a single, Pt. 2 became the only hit for the glam rock king here in the states, hitting number seven in 1972. The pounding drums and guitar line became an arena-rock anthem for sporting events from the ‘80s until about two years ago. After Glitter’s conviction of child molestation charges in Vietnam, the NFL and other sport organizations have asked stadiums to stop playing the song.

“I Touch Myself” by The Divinyls (1991)
The Australian songwriting team of Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee (formerly of Air Supply) had been writing songs together for almost 10 years and had many hits in their homeland, but it took this one to break them internationally. In an unusual twist, as they strictly wrote with each other, they teamed up with the songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, who had hits with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. The song hit number one in Australia, number 10 in the U.K and number four in the U.S, but not without a bit of controversy regarding the subject matter. Since the hit, the band has done cover songs for movie soundtracks and video games and was elected to the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 2006.

“Convoy” by C.W. McCall (1976)
“That’s a 10-4 good buddy” goes the line in this novelty song that put CB radios on the map of the average American. McCall, whose actual name is Bill Fries, had flirted with the top 100 on a few other occasions, but reached all the way to number one with “Convoy” in the U.S and number two in the U.K. The song tells the story of a small group of outlaw truckers who were angered by the then 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, and follows them through weigh stations and toll roads as the trucks gather steam in the drive from Los Angeles to New Jersey. They hit Chicago with 1,000 trucks in the convoy and break through roadblocks all the way to the East Coast. Paul Brandt covered the song recently in 2004. In 1986, Fries was elected mayor of the town of Ouray, Colorado and served for six years.

“Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas (1974)
Originally planned to be released as the B-side to a song by Larry Weiss, they had 10 minutes of recording time left and Douglas banged it out. It was released as a single and quickly rose to number one in the U.S and the U.K. Some declare it the best disco song ever written. Jamacian-born Douglas now resides in Germany where he runs a music publishing company.

“Spirit In The Sky” by Norman Greenbaum (1970)
The “wall of guitar” sound is unforgettable and recognized by anyone who was around in 1970. The song crossed musical genres by being received by the Christian and hard rock crowds, as well as being an AM radio hit. The single that eventually sold over two million copies was released only after two other tracks from the album were debuted to minimal reception. The song is an icon of the era and is used in films and television shows yearly to this day. Not a Christian, but a professed Jew, Greenbaum reportedly said he had no religious intentions with the song, he just wanted to reach a broader market. Greenbaum resides in Northern California and lives off the royalties of his music.

“My Sharona” by The Knack (1979)
Doug Fieger and Berton Averre had a vision – to bring back “teenage rock and roll,” and for most of 1979, they did just that. Having sent demos to virtually every record label in Los Angeles and being rejected by them all, the band went into club mode, playing any gig they could find. The process paid off in 1978 with record deals offered by 13 different labels. Producer Mike Chapman, who had helped make stars out of Sweet, Blondie and Nick Gilder, was brought on board. In the days of years-long and millions-of-dollars album production, the first album took 11 days and cost $18,000. Three months after its release it went platinum, selling over one million copies. Two years later the band disbanded, having failed to get the knack back.

“Hey, St. Peter” by Flash and the Pan (1978)
More a studio project than a “real” band, George Young and Harry Vanda seemed to have a premonition and appropriately named their project after the phrase “flash in the pan.” “Hey, St. Peter” barely made it onto the American charts, but the duo had many other successes, having produced the first seven AC/DC albums, of which Young’s little brothers, Angus and Malcom were members. The duo were founding members of the ‘60s pop act The Easybeats and had a hit with “Friday on my Mind” in 1966, making them the most popular Australian pop act prior to AC/DC.

“Video Killed the Radio Star” by Buggles (1979)
Primarily a studio project, the band only performed live twice. As a fledgling producing team, the trio of Trevor Horn, Bruce Wooley and Geoff Downes, were frustrated with the level of talent and songwriting skills of their peers in England and just started writing songs themselves. “Video Killed the Radio Star” enjoys notoriety as the first music video aired on MTV when the cable network went live on midnight, August 1, 1981. Downes and Horn later went on to have success with the progressive rock group, Yes. Wooley started a band with Thomas Dolby and Hans Zimmer called The Camera Club and was never heard from again.

“Venus” by Shocking Blue (1970)
Long before the “Dutch Invasion” of Golden Earring and Focus, there was Shocking Blue. Up until and after its hit “Venus,” the band contained a revolving door of band members, which lead to its eventual demise. In 1968, new vocalist Mariska Veres brought added stability and an American recording contract. The single reached number one on the U.S. charts in February 1970. On a personal note — always a sucker for a proper pop tune, I traded the last Beatles release on 45 RPM, “The Long and Winding Road,” to a friend, straight across, for this single. That’s how much I liked it. The B-side, “Hot Sand,” wasn’t bad, either. It has since been covered by many, including Banarama.

The winter that Ugly Joe died was less fierce than some, but still fierce enough to kill a man who was thought, by his professional associates, to be essentially unkillable.
There was no way to determine the exact moment of Ugly Joe’s death. By the time his body was finally discovered, the man had apparently been dead for quite a while. The discoverer was a stout, weasel-furred lady hermit known as Ethical Fred, and when she found Joe, he was frozen solid, bluer than bottle flies and hard as a wedge of ice, stretched out in a drift of snow a dozen feet from his cave. He had apparently been murdered by a frozen Canada goose, its icy corpse plummeting from the angry sky to strike Joe in the head. The goose, every bit as hard as the old hermit, was found lying there, sweet-as-you-please, right in the snow—a five-foot bounce from where Ugly Joe lay.
By the time Ethical Fred made this sad discovery, it was late in December, Frozen Corners had been evacuated for weeks, and a small number of hermits—Scandalous Sam, Pond Scum Polly, Sacrilegious Jim, Not-Popular Pete, Inconsiderate Sue and Malodorous Mike—had already arrived for the Gathering.
With the unexplained absence of Ugly Joe, however, and with none of the standard preparations having been made—such preparations consisting mainly of Ugly Joe digging a path to the two saloons and the meeting hall and chasing all the marmots and ferrets out of the hotel bedrooms—the assembled hermit brethren and sistren were irritated and alarmed. They quickly located Ethical Fred, so named because of her one-time position as a Sunday school teacher over in Twenty Pines, long before she’d lost faith in civilization and in organized religion and moved into a remote beaver dam in the Timber Tree Woods. Once the hermits explained their concerns about Joe’s absence to Ethical Fred, she pulled on her fur coat, her fur hat and her fur mittens, and headed out to discover what was keeping Ugly Joe.
“He’s dead,” pronounced Ethical Fred, upon returning to the town. She spoke with a phlegmy rasp that rumbled through her towering, weather-hardened frame as she stood in the ice-caked doorway of the Corners Hotel and Meeting House. A few recent arrivals had just joined the hermits—Two-Eyed Tom from north of Broken Furnace, Nameless Bob who lived in a high oak over near Fort Badger, and Miserable Richard, formerly known as Gangrenous Dick. “Ugly Joe is just as dead as a rock,” Ethical Fred was saying. “Ugly Joe is froze solid, and stiff as a iron stick. If there was ever a speck a’ warmth in old Joe, it’s all gone now. He’s dead!”
To prove it, Fred stepped aside and pointed. There behind her, out in the snow, flat as a board, lay the stiff blue cadaver of Ugly Joe. Ethical Fred had gathered the dead man’s belongings into two burlap sacks, found a couple of thick leather straps, and using Ugly Joe as a sled, piled the bags on top and towed the whole shebang down to Frozen Corners. It was quite a sight. Strangest of all was the goose, the very goose whose destiny had been so awkwardly joined to that of old Joe, now nestled right there between the corpse’s frozen knees.
“Ah shoot, Ethical Fred! Why in hail di’nt you leave him up in his cave?” Two-Eyed Tom wanted to know, squinting and staring out the door at the body of the deceased hermit.
“What’re we goin’ do with his old ugly hide?” demanded Inconsiderate Sue.
“Well, I figure we’re goin’ to store him out in the woodshed, first of all,” Ethical Fred replied, evenly. “And then,” she added, producing a leather sack, and pulling from it a folded hunk of paper, “And then, when ever’one’s here, we’re goin’ to read Ugly Joe’s will.”

A gathering of hermits is a very strange thing.
The style and substance of your average Gathering changes from region to region, but in general, there is an opening-night meeting announcing the sure-to-be sparsely attended workshops and lectures—which generally involve new uses for old bear fat and techniques for lighting caves using phosphorescent plants—after which most of the hermits go off to their individual rooms and stay there for the duration of the Gathering.
This year would be different.
With Ugly Joe’s body right out there in the woodshed, and with the news that the curmudgeonly hermit had left a document containing his final words and wishes, the opening night meeting would be sure to go down as one of the better-attended opening nights in Gathering history.

The meeting, according to custom, was held in the main room of the Tin Brick, where three fireplaces kept most of the nighttime freeze from intruding indoors. By the time the meeting began, all expected participants had arrived, the last being Bald Harry, Spitless Jeff and a large, wispy-haired gent named Knife-Blade Nick. After a characteristically quarrelsome group dinner consisting mainly of flapjacks and whisky, the hermits turned their chairs to face Ethical Fred, and all grew silent. Without ceremony, Fred began reading from the paper, which from the character of its contents, appeared to have been written quite recently.
“This here paper is the last will and testumint of Joseph Agamemnon Oldhammer, better known to all you ignerunt skunks and sons a’ badgers as Ugly Joe,” Ethical Fred boomed out, as the hermits murmured their approval. From the insults imbedded in the opening paragraph, it was clear that these were indeed the words of Ugly Joe.
Fred continued reading.
“I am figuring that if you bossloppers are reading this, then I am dead, and if I am dead—well then damn. All I can say is, I hope I was rubbed out in a humorous manner so as to give you all something to jaw about for a nice long while. And if I am a gone beaver, then I do not need my gear, or my knives and things and can-openers, or any of my possessions, so you sorry bone-pickers can all take what you want and the hell with the rest. Burn me or bury me anyway you ken think of. For all I care, you can dump me in the Upchuck and send me on down to Butcher’s Foot.
“That should skeer the devil out of them soft-bellies for sure.”
That latter suggestion was met with a roar of guffaws and knee-slaps, signaling the universal merriment of all those assembled. This was, indeed, turning out to be a fine meeting.
“Now I have a last request,” Fred went on reading, and everyone grew instantly silent again. Hermits generally frown upon requests, especially those of dead folks, for they often contain hidden moral traps and frequently smack of obligation.
“Lately, I have been of a morose and sorrowful nature,” the letter continued. “With winter getting set to come down upon the mountain, I find I can’t stop thinking of my childhood in the city, and danged if I know why, I am thinking of Christmas. Now, I have not given a banker’s hoot about Christmas since I left my home and kin and all the toomult of modern life. But I do remember Christmas, and now I am sad, wishing I could have one more such holiday. This year at Christmas, which in case you forgot is the twenty-fifth of December, I will find a way to make a Christmas for all you obstunate mountain wolves, so’s we can have such a time as I remember.
“But if, like I said, I have been rubbed out, and cannot give you bull cheeses a hermit’s holiday, then I think it would be only fittin’ you did fer me what I would have done fer you. I want you to take whatever is left of my ugly old carcass, and I want you to give it a old-fashunned Christmas. There should be presents. I want a tree with foo-fa-raw on it, and a big dinner of some kind, anything other than jerky, and I want you to sing songs and all that other Christmas stuff. That should make me laugh real hard, wherever my sorry soul has gone, just to think of you lizard-eaters all singin’ fer me. Since you are the nearest thing to a family I have got, dang you, it is you I am asking to do this last thing fer old Ugly Joe.
“I think you will, but if you don’t, then to hell with you.”
The document was signed, “J. A. Oldhammer — Ugly Joe.”

Well, Christ on a cracker,” whistled Sacrilegious Jim, after a long silence. To the dismay of many, the merry mood of the room had now sharply changed. Against all odds, Ugly Joe’s letter, with its melancholic temper and sweet, unexpected wistfulness, had infected the hermits with a deep nostalgic longing, a sharp sense of lack and of loss. For each man and woman present, there were families left behind, and dreams gone off course. Through this bubbling soup of unasked-for feeling swam a whole swarm of long-forgotten holiday memories, each one thick with the bittersweet crust of failure, abandon and regret. This feeling was overwhelming.
The hermits were enraged.
“Ugly Joe was a miserable old dog when he was alive,” barked Bald Harry, pulling his wool cap further down over his scalp, “and he always had a mean streak wide as a herd of buffalo, but this is the worst, nastiest, dirtiest trick he ever played.”
Variations on this viewpoint were exclaimed all around the room.
“Oh, put your muzzle on, I think it’s sorta sweet,” pronounced Not-Popular Pete, as everyone turned to glare at him. “Who’d a’ thought old Ugly Joe would ever think of makin’ us a Christmas dinner! That’s really mighty nice o’ him.”
“Pete’s right,” Ethical Fred finally chimed in. “Ugly Joe mighta been a particular skunk, but he was a good hermit, and if he wasn’t dead and froze right now, I guess he would of tried to do all that Christmas stuff for all of us ungrateful grease-eaters. He was our host for these twenty-something years, and I think at least we owe him enough to honor his crazy-brained last request.
“That said,” she added, “can’t say I know any Christmas songs.”
Had a small, screechy voiced intruder not burst in upon them at that very moment, the hermits might have debated, thrashed out and fist-fought the issue all night long, out of sheer love of arguing.
But there he was, a young boy no more than 12 years of age, stomping into the middle of the room like Napoleon at a tea party. He had long, unruly hair, a pink face flushed with excitement, and a voice that ripped holes in the air.
“Which one of you?” he shrieked, pointing a smudgy finger at each hermit in turn. “Which one of you is Santy Claus?”

The boy—who was named Henry Hay but was commonly known as “Lucky”—was evidently not lucky enough to have avoided pulling the short straw back in November, just before the annual evacuation, when the children of Frozen Corners held a secret meeting to decide which one of them would stay behind. To find out once and for all what went on in that town when all the people were gone, the children drew straws, and Lucky was duly elected. He had no parents, having lost them to a mudslide when he was four, and he’d been raised up, more or less, by a long and weary succession of Frozen Corner residents. Though a hard enough worker, and reasonably quick at learning, Lucky was a handful—bossy as an English Lord, and not one to ever shut up. From sun-up to lights out, Lucky talked, and talked and talked, quieting down only while chewing his food, and then only occasionally.
Then there was that voice.
It was a voice like metal being shredded into ribbons, a voice that was part scream and part avalanche. No one could stand to be around it for longer than a little while; therefore, ever since the wooshing away of his parents, Lucky had been shuffled from house to house on a nightly basis. Because he never slept in the same home twice in a row, it was highly possible that down in Butcher’s Foot, only the children were aware that Lucky was no longer among them. After pulling the straw, the boy hid himself in the pot pantry until the townsfolk were all gone. He had been camping out in Frozen Corners, alone, bundled up in the hotel kitchen, for over 40 days, waiting for Christmas and the answer to the mystery.
It took Lucky two minutes to explain all this and it was the longest two minutes in any of the hermits’ long and arduous lives. None of them doubted for a minute that the boy’s short straw had been rigged.
“Ever’body says Santy Claus comes to Frozen Corners while ever’body is down in Butcher’s Foot, ‘cause I guess Santy ain’t smart enough to figger we’re down the river a ways, or maybe Santy just don’t like Butcher’s Foot enough to go there, or maybe he’s just crazy a little,” Lucky rattled off, loudly. “So I want to know, then—which one of you fellers is Santy Claus?”
Perhaps if they hadn’t been so entirely mired in that discomfiting fog of sentiment, the hermits might have said something harsh and according to custom. Perhaps they might have suggested that the boy go look for Santa Claus out in the woodshed. Instead, after a long moment of stunned silence, or rather, a long moment in which the baffled hermits could think of nothing to say, as Lucky went on accosting and bossing them with his terrible voice and disrespectful manners, Spitless Jeff improvised, standing up to croak, as civilly as possible, “Uh, Santy ain’t showed up yet. Whyn’t you run along now?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, mister, till I seen Santy Claus,” Lucky shrilled out at the gaping assembly. “The other kids’ll wail the tar outa’ me if I don’t show ‘em some proof of some kind or t’other. I need proof!” To punctuate his steadfastness, Lucky leaped on Spitless Jeff, biting him four times in the leg before the other hermits were able to pull the boy away.
Under normal conditions, such behavior would have been enough for them to send the young noisemaker packing, but the fact that it was growing dangerously cold outside, and that Butcher’s Foot was a four-day journey down the mountain, forced the hermits into a difficult position. They had to let the boy stay. It’d been decades since any of the hermits had given a thought to the needs of children, or to the particular rituals of Christmas, and now it seemed they were faced with both.

It did not take Lucky long to grasp the situation, once it was explained, though his youth and defensive disposition did tend to color certain details. The men and women who’d invaded his town were squatters, of sorts. A man was dead, and the dead man wanted a Christmas party. Christmas was two days away—and Santa Claus would be arriving at any moment.
Since the hermits needed Lucky’s expertise in regards to Christmas, and since he ended up biting anyone who told him what to do, the boy was eventually asked to take over the whole Christmas project as its leader.
There seemed to be four elements to Ugly Joe’s request: a Christmas dinner, a Christmas tree, Christmas presents and Christmas carols. The dinner was easy. Ugly Joe, after all, had accidentally provided his own dinner: a fine, fat, frozen goose. Scandalous Sam, who did most of the cooking anyway, volunteered to roast the bird and pull together enough cans of beans and things to round out the feast.
As for the Christmas tree, the botanical showpiece itself would not be difficult to acquire, since appropriate specimens surrounded Frozen Corners. The decorations, however, would be somewhat tricky. Two-Eyed Tom and Sacrilegious Jim were appointed to dig pine cones out of the snow, while Malodorous Mike and Inconsiderate Sue were sent off to make stars and angels and flowers and assorted “foo-fa-raw” out of old cans and paper.
Of all Ugly Joe’s requests, the most challenging turned out to be the singing. Lucky, who’d spent a bit of time lurking in the corners of the saloons, knew the words and melodies of a whole mess of songs, including at least a dozen Christmas carols. But when the boy was persuaded to start up a song, his singing voice proved a far more agonizing affront to the ears than even his speaking voice did, and no one assembled could stand to listen.
Nameless Bob, it turned out, could reasonably recall the tune and lyrics to “Deck the Halls,” but when the hermits learned the words, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la,” another impasse was reached. No hermit worth his salt will willingly sing the words “Fa-la-la-la-la” in public, even as a final favor to a fallen brother.
As for the question of presents, the hermits decided that all of Joe’s things, which Ethical Fred had thoughtfully brought down from the cave, would be individually wrapped in whatever paper or fabric scrap they could find. It was decreed that on Christmas Day, each hermit would be randomly given one of the “gifts,” and anything left undistributed after that could simply be fought over. As regarding a present for Lucky, the very notion chaffed the ever-more-exasperated hermits. Lucky held fast to the notion that Santa would be arriving to give him a sleigh or some such thing. He stood resolute on the matter, insisting that while the squatters could give each other what they wanted, he’d be waiting for Santa Claus.
Pond Scum Polly risked getting a nasty bite when she cornered the boy to ask him what it was he expected to receive from Santa Claus.
“Oh, I never get much,” he replied, less fiercely than usual, “But I figger when I see Santy, I’m gonna give ‘im what fer, and I’ll make ‘im give me my own toboggan sleigh.”
“A toboggan?” Ethical Fred exclaimed later, once Polly had reported back. “Like a great big sled? What’s a rabid wildcat like him want with one of those?”
“Kids down in Butcher’s Foot have races, I guess,” Pond Scum Polly explained. “He wants to beat ‘em all and show ‘em. Anyway, that’s what the little noise box says.”

The next day was Christmas Eve. The interior of the Tin Brick was a sight to see. Pine branches had been laid across the mantels of all three fireplaces, decoratively embellished with shiny, twinkly doodads made of a dozen lard cans. Poker tables had been shoved together to form one large dinner table, now covered in a festive green and red tablecloth that had recently been several bed sheets. In the corner was the tree, a massive ten-footer now festooned with the little ornaments and pinecones created, with rough skill, by those chosen to be ornament-makers. It must have been whimsy that inspired the adornment at the top of the tree: a simple five-point star scratched with a nail onto an empty, upturned bean can.
Over all this activity, Lucky had ruled with an iron fist, his every screeching command accompanied by a vicious volley of petulant critiques and an outpouring of graceless condescension. Now, hermits have nothing against rudeness under normal conditions. In fact, had the boy been anyone else, the hermits might have embraced him as a brother hermit in training. But that voice, that voice. The hermits, some of whom had all taken to wearing earplugs made of moss and cotton, held their collective tongues, and wearily submitted to the boy’s verbal attacks, contented by the knowledge that it would soon be over.
At around sunset, all the hermits, and Lucky, gathered in the meeting room.
“Let’s bring the frozen feller in an’ get this nonsense over with,” Miserable Richard grumbled.
A moment later, the firm, frosty remains of Ugly Joe were carried from the woodshed into the hall. All stood silent, even Lucky, as Ethical Fred, Knife-Blade Nick and Malodorous Mike ushered the dead man through the door. As they gazed upon him, many reflected inwardly that death and refrigeration had not made Joe any prettier.
“Set ‘im at the head of the table,” Ethical Fred instructed. “In the chair.” This proved to be a difficult task, as Joe was so stiff he could not be made to bend properly enough to fit. In the end, the old hermit was laid out on the table, surrounded by evergreen, as a kind of centerpiece.
“We’d better get on with this and be quick about it,” Knife-Blade Nick remarked sharply, “’afore Ugly Joe starts meltin’ like an old ice pie.”
The dinner was served, and two things were immediately realized and agreed upon among the hermit assembly: that Ugly Joe’s goose was remarkably tender and well-flavored, and that this was turning out to be a surprisingly fine Christmas. After dinner, the presents were distributed, with Lucky looking on but obstinately refusing to participate beyond his usual barrage of commentary. With decorum and respect, all of the old hermit’s belongings were distributed around the room: his numerous knives, his bullet mold, a couple of awls, a tin cup, a musty buffalo robe, two pipes and a tin of tobacco, and a well-worn flint and steel. Ethical Fred was the last to open her gift: Ugly Joe’s sheet-metal frying pan, on which were scratched the initials J.A.O. For a while, the hermits remained quiet in their contemplation of the deceased. He had been a legend, of sorts, and now he was gone, reduced before their eyes to a thawing corpse and a lifetime’s collection of bits and pieces. Every man and woman present reflected, some for only a flash of a moment, that some day in the future their own worth might have to be calculated on nothing more than the assortment of odds and ends they would leave behind, and by the memories that would be kept and carried, either tended to or neglected, by all those who’d had the honor and displeasure of knowing them. It occurred to Ethical Fred that, though Ugly Joe was dead, he was still making things happen his own way. By coercing them into giving him a final Christmas, he’d succeeded, though frozen and long gone, in giving them a Christmas, and a Christmas they’d always remember, to boot.
Lucky, over the course of the last few minutes, had been silent far longer than he had since the moment he burst upon them two days ago. Finally, he’d had enough.
“Time for the danged singing!” he screeched.
With dinner and gifts now concluded, Ugly Joe’s somewhat more pliable body was relocated to the center of the room, and the hermits collected in a rough approximation of a circle. Checking that his earplugs were still in place, Malodorous Mike muttered to Lucky, “Hail, I guess we better just get on with it.”
Thus cued, Lucky began to sing.
Whichever carol the little boy chose, none of the hermits could later say, since by now they were all wearing earplugs, so none of them could hear it. So the impossible boy sang his song in a ceiling-shaking voice, singing to the corpse of old Ugly Joe. The solo was followed by “Deck the Halls,” inexpertly barked by the gathered many, and when the chorus came along, instead of singing “fa-la-la-la-la,” the hermits merely let loose, and howled. They howled like a mad pack of dogs.
It was easy to imagine that somewhere, the fading spirit of old Ugly Joe was laughing its way into everlasting sleep.

On Christmas Morning, Lucky was awakened by Spitless Jeff and Nameless Bob. The boy had fallen asleep by the Christmas tree, buried under a mound of furs and blankets.
“Get yer-sef ready, and dress up real warm,” Bob told him. “Santy Claus is outside with a Chris’mas present for yer.” For many children, this would seem an appropriate moment for sweet words and a cordial attitude. For Lucky, there was never such a time.
“What you standin’ there for?” he hollered at the hermits. “Why’nt you wake me up before? Get me my coat! Fetch my boots. Get out’er my way!” As was his custom, he attempted to bite someone for emphasis, but the hermits had already moved outside to wait for him.
It was a warm-enough day for those parts, with a faint overcast but no wind. The hermits were gathered together out in the snow, assembled in a cluster down by the bank of the frozen Upchuck. It seemed they were surrounding someone. A few minutes later, Ethical Fred saw Lucky trudging toward them through the snow, hollering, “If that’s Santy Claus you keep ‘im right there till I get what I asked fer!”
Fred made her way over to the boy and said, “Better close your eyes, and keep ‘em closed. It’ll make fer a bigger surprise.”
“I ain’t closin’ nothin’! Has Santy got my toboggan sleigh or don’t he?” Lucky yowled impatiently. Refusing to cooperate, the well-bundled boy was swiftly blindfolded by Ethical Fred, and carried yelping and shrieking over to where the hermits were standing. Though Lucky couldn’t see it, the group had moved out onto the hard, slick surface of the frozen river. There at their feet was Ugly Joe, face up on the icy Upchuck, with his head aimed down river in the direction of Butcher’s Foot. He’d been geared up with straps and tethers, as much like a toboggan as a dead man can be. The boy was settled into place, with his feet worked into the leather stirrup straps and a strong steering rope placed in his mitten-covered hands. Lucky permitted all of this, but at the same time rattled off such a stream of insults and hot curses that even those hardened hermits were forced to admit they were at least a little impressed.
Lucky grew silent only when the blindfold was removed.
It took him a moment to understand the situation.
“Where the hail is Santy Claus?” he demanded.
“Oh. He was just here,” lied Ethical Fred. “I guess you done missed him—but he left you the present you asked fer.”
“Hey! Wait! This is old Ugly Joe!” Lucky hollered. “Ugly Joe ain’t exactly what I asked fer!”
“Well,” said Scandalous Sam, as the hermits gripped old Joe and prepared to give him a great big push, “apparently, you been naughty!”
Before Lucky could think of a thing to say, he was off, tobogganing fast as you please down the winding Upchuck, his throat filled with a long lingering shriek of fear and excitement, a shriek such as anyone might give while sledding down a frozen river on the body of a man named Ugly Joe. What was left of that shriek was still on Lucky’s lips when he arrived in Butcher’s Foot, to the amazement of everyone who witnessed it, not long after he’d left Frozen Corners. The trip that annually took his townsfolk five days to make by wagon and cart, Lucky had just accomplished in less than one hour.
He’d squealed the whole time, and wouldn’t be able to talk for another two weeks. By the time he got his voice back, it’d changed, grown deeper and fuller and far more tolerable to listen to. The boy’s disposition had changed, too, a result of the serious reflection and introspective pondering he’d done while plummeting down the mountain at high speed. Though his singing voice would never improve, and he still had occasional fits of impatience, Henry “Lucky” Hay had arrived from the mountain, a better, wiser person.
As for the hermits, the events of the season had been more than any of them had bargained for or desired, and the unconventional camaraderie forced upon them by Ugly Joe and his will was enough to content them for years to come. It was decided that the North Eastern Region Hermit Gathering would be suspended for at least five years. This would also serve to avoid difficult entanglements, now that Lucky and Ugly Joe had so spectacularly spoiled the hermits’ secret.
Ugly Joe was buried in the cemetery near Butcher’s Foot, and a gravestone erected in his honor. When the people of Frozen Corners returned to town that Spring, the place was empty, almost as if nothing had ever gone on there. As usual, everything was a bit better than before, and little gifts had been left in the closets and cupboards all over town.
Among the children of Frozen Corners and Butcher’s Foot, Lucky had earned a newfound respect, and a reputation that soon grew to that of a legend. That legend, with its tale of the boy who rode a dead hermit sixty miles down a river of ice, grew and expanded and was added to until no one remembered that it had once been true. Down in Butcher’s Foot, life went on as well, though in years to come it would be reported that once every year, on Christmas Day, a man always came to town and stood over the grave of Ugly Joe, where he’d sing Christmas carols loud and long, in a voice that ripped holes in the air. FL

They say New Year’s Eve is about making resolutions and fresh starts. That’s all well and fine if one wants to change and grow—but I don’t. I want to stay exactly how I am. It’s taken me years to reach this point of personal perfection, and I’d be remiss if I mucked it up with some do-gooder self-improvement crap. Call me a curmudgeon, but I’m fine the way I am, thank you. To wit, I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone. Any films you might suggest that affirm my pro-stasis attitude? Surely, not every holiday film is about transformation and redemption.

Sincerely,
Same as it Ever Was in Sonoma

Dear Same,

I’m glad to hear you’ve achieved “personal perfection,” but I should warn you against talking trash against learning and growth. That, my fellow homo sapiens, is not cool. After all, learning is one thing humans can do that God can’t—he or she being all omniscient and everything. Truth is, even perfect people can enjoy and benefit from the acquisition of new ideas, skills and appetites. That said, there are a couple of good, potent movies about perfection that I would like to prescribe to you for your New Year’s celebration of yourself. In 1979’s All That Jazz, Bob Fosse explores one heart-diseased dancer’s quest for theatrical and artistic perfection, a state he never achieves until after he’s zipped into a body bag while Ethel Merman sings her head off about show business. Played by the late Roy Scheider, who once said he’d kiss a critic’s ass if the movie Blue Thunder didn’t set opening weekend records (It didn’t. Oops), Joe Gideon’s problem is that while he knows what perfection is, and knows he can get there with effort, he never really lets himself enjoy the successes he has created, focusing only on his failures. The recipe for happiness lies in mixing equal amounts of self-satisfaction and self-criticism. Another good dose of cinematic perfection is 1997’s Gattaca, in which a genetically non-superior dude from the future (Ethan Hawke), figures out how to pass himself off as A-grade material in order to become an astronaut. Not only is the film packed with close-ups of human dander and sloughed-off skin cells (showering down like New Year’s Eve confetti!), it’s a cool reminder that while perfection might be desirable in the world of art, in human beings, it’s kind of boring. So drink a toast to yourself this New Year’s Eve, Mr. or Ms. Same, and consider the final statement of Joe Gideon: “ZZZZZ-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-PP!”

Finis: Hallmark cards. While in college, a cadre of drunken English majors and I once mused that alien archeologists might one day come to earth and assume “Hallmark” was a great and prolific poet, given the millions of epitaphs that bear his name. If the advent of e-mail greeting cards doesn’t wipe Hallmark’s schmaltzy missives from the planet, perhaps MikWright, Ltd. greeting cards will finish the job.

Fine: MikWright cards. Billed as “greetings that push buttons, poke fun, and provoke something,” the cards and gifts proffered by irreverent stationers MikWright, Ltd. use found photos as inspiration for their comic cards and tchotchkes, which they couple with pithy captions. “They use unassuming vintage photos that they create fictitious storylines for,” said photo editor Ryan Lely. “It’s always a surprise when you open it. Sort of like the ‘junk in a box’ gag.” A photograph of the Last Supper reenacted by mannequins comes with the inscription “Excuse me… but we asked for separate checks! I don’t know about everyone else, but this will be the last supper I eat here!” Visit MikWright.com.

I’m Ready for My Download, Mr. DeMille

Finis: The corporately-owned film studio. After newspapers and record companies, the old-school film studio (and its close cousin the television network) appears to be the next soon-to-be extinct dinosaur kicking up its legs in the Digital Age. Though online services like Hulu and ABC.com have avoided many of the missteps the Recording Industry Association of America has made (like prosecuting kids and their grandmothers for illegally downloading MP3s), the shear amount of diverting, user-generated content online has chipped away at its market share. Studios have informed shareholders that not only are they shutting down their specialty divisions (studio-speak for “fake independent films”), but also that 2009 will see substantially less product released to the local multiplex due to audience decline. Moreover, a recent poll suggests that 20 percent of television owners will apparently forgo adapting their analog sets to the new digital standard come February, opting instead for other forms of entertainment (perhaps WineLibraryTV.com – see our Ten Q interview with Gary Vaynerchuk on page 44.)

Fine: The Flip Mino. Smaller than the average cell phone, Pure Digital Technologies offers the Flip Mino, a camcorder that at just over three ounces fits in your pocket—and at $179.99 (the manufacturer’s suggested retail price) it might fit your pocketbook too. The Mino features Flip Video’s built-in software that allows aspiring Spielbergs to plug the camcorder’s flip-out USB arm into any computer to instantly upload your Oscar moment to the social media site of your choice. “Flip Video Mino delivers the perfect combination of high-quality video, sleek design and ease of use,” says Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of Pure Digital Technologies. “For the millions who share their lives online every day, it’s more than a camcorder—it’s a fun tool for communicating and creatively expressing themselves.” And it and its brethren are rapidly making Hollywood irrelevant. When more than 100 million people login to watch comedian Judson Laipply of Bucyrus, Ohio, perform his interpretation of the “Evolution of Dance”—and receive nearly a quarter-million text comments from fans—something seismic has happened to the media-industrial complex. Watch yourself instantly on the Mino’s 1.5-inch anti-glare LCD display—an act otherwise known as “chimping,” according to our in-house video team. In this case, it’s “monkey do” then “monkey see.”

Plug-n-Play Dessert Wine

Finis: Uppity European Nations coveting beverage names. A favorite Christmas Eve tradition is leaving milk and cookies for Santa Claus. In Sonoma, of course, we leave port and biscotti. That is unless one’s port is from anywhere in the world but Portugal, which, thanks to a humbug move made by the European Union, means it technically isn’t port. It’s dessert wine. This is a new mutation of the name game the Champagne region of France plays with “sparkling wine” made anywhere but there, or Kobe beef, versus “Kobe-style,” when outside of Japan. Sonomans can relate to such vigilance when it comes to regional names and products—after all, our town name has been slapped on everything from trucks to cigarettes and, most recently, a travel agency in Spain. That said, we do admire a good underdog story…

Fine: The fine minds behind Peltier Station Winery have found a work-around for the venerable EU. The winery’s 2004 zinfandel dessert wine is dubbed “USB Port” and features the iconic digital device plug design on its label. Designed by Lodi-based 6 West Design, the bottle’s front label depicts an old vine made of binary code, which translates as the winery’s name. Sporting a “serious nose of chocolate balanced with ruby cherry and spice,” only 250 cases of the $25 dessert wine were made. Download here: PeltierStation.com

Now Read this:

David E. Price’s The Pixar Touch is a comprehensive portrait of the pixels and perseverance that shaped Academy Award-winning animation juggernaut Pixar Animation Studios. Price deftly unravels Pixar’s tightly braided helix of creativity and technology in a stirring analysis of the personalities (Ed Catmull, George Lucas, Steve Jobs and Sonoma’s own John Lasseter among others) that make up its Bay Area-based DNA.

Now Hear this:

Secrets Are Sinister, the latest album from Brooklyn-based indie rock quartet, Longwave (featuring Petaluma-born guitarist Shannon Ferguson), was released in November.
Music Blogger ALZTRON sums up the critically-acclaimed effort as the “loudest, coolest, and most concise Longwave have sounded to date.” The band’s fourth full-length effort, Longwave’s Secrets Are Sinister was released by the appropriately named label, Original Signal (with this sudden spike in the frequency of radio terms, perhaps SETI should quit looking for aliens and start a band). Visit longwavetheband.com.

– DH

Wine and Dine
Come December 4, Santé Restaurant at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn will be the site of much seasonal merriment as Chef Andrew Cain and his culinary cohorts continue their calendar of winemaker dinner events with a tasty tribute to Hanzell Vineyards. A recipient of the prestigious AAA Four Diamond award, Santé was heralded by Condé Nast Traveler as “worth a special trip just to eat here.” Likewise, critically-lauded Hanzell Vineyards boasts America’s oldest pinot noir vineyard, the product of which is sure to be well-represented at the dinner. For more information and reservations, call 707.939.2415 or visit www.fairmont.com/sonoma.

Olive, the other reindeer
In 2001 the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau conceived the idea of honoring Sonoma’s contribution to olive cultivation and culture through the annual celebration of the Olive Festival. Seven years later, the festival continues with its annual kick-off, the Blessing of the Olives ceremony, December 6 at the Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, followed by a reception and the Olive Founders’ Dinner. For times, tickets and information on all Olive Festival events (including the Martini Madness competition), contact the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau, 707.996.1090, or visit www.olivefestival.com.

Which wine pairs with gingerbread?
What started as a friendly challenge from Ramona Nicholson of Nicholson Ranch to fellow Sonoma Valley wineries is now one of the valley’s most popular and highly anticipated traditions. In an effort to outdo each other, competing wineries pull out all the stops to erect the most elaborate likeness of their winery, which they display in their tasting rooms throughout the month of December. Winery visitors can pick up a map and a ballot at any of the participating wineries and cast their ballots for the “People’s Choice Award.” As an added bonus, each time voters cast a ballot they will be entered into a raffle to win a mixed case of Sonoma Valley wines. The winners of the Gingerbread Winery Contest and raffle will be announced on January 12. For more information on the Gingerbread Winery Contest, including a full list of participating wineries,
visit sonomavalleywine.com.

Chillin’ in Sonoma
Move over, Frosty – the wine country has its own snowmen, or at least “Sonoman Season.” The Third Annual Sonoman Season (formerly “Sonoman Festival”) features whimsical and inventive snowman-themed displays by local merchants to the delight of Sonoma Valley visitors and residents alike. The month-long event begins Saturday, Nov. 29 with the “Lighting of the Sonomen at Cornerstone” (Cornerstone Gardens is located at 23570 Arnold Drive, Sonoma). Expect carols, live music and other events to follow throughout the month. For a complete listing of Sonoman Season events, visit sonomanseason.com.

Yummy Yuletide
The holidays are about giving – so give yourself a break from the kitchen and let visions of sugarplums dance in your head courtesy of award-winning Chef Janine Falvo. This year, the local culinary goddess is preparing a Christmas Day Dinner hosted by the Lodge at Sonoma’s Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar. A four course prix fixe dinner featuring local artisanal ingredients and seasonal desserts is sure to delight. Dinner is $60 per person ($30 for children). To make a reservation, call 707.931.2042.

As the air grows crisp and the vines fall silent, our neighborhoods, parks and businesses enjoy a moment to shine in their holiday finery. Wine country families celebrate the holidays and share traditions like most families throughout the United States, except, perhaps, for our unequal access to a bounty of fabulous wines and epicurean delights that our Valley offers.

Our traditions are similar, though personalized, as you will find in Lisa Summer’s entertaining story about adjusting a favored family tradition to accommodate today’s convenience-based lifestyle. Traditional messages about the holidays cross all borders—hope, peace on Earth, goodwill toward our fellow man. But what if we add a new traditional holiday message to the mix: “Be careful what you wish for”?

The traditional, commercial side of the holidays would have our children make wish-lists, and this extends for some, even into adulthood. The anticipated reward for the givers, of course, is the joy of confidently proffering gifts that will be excitedly received.  That excitement, though, may be brief, depending on how carefully the recipients really considered their wishes.

 Two stories in this edition of FineLife Sonoma toy with the notion of being careful of what you wish for. For the desperate housewife in Kate William’s story, her wish to murder her ex-husband comes around full circle during the holiday season, and in David Templeton’s fractured fairy tale, a young boy’s Christmas wish is fulfilled in a way he never imagined.

 The immediate message is timeless and sound, and for us to use every day: “Give real thought to what you are asking for, as the results may not be all you had considered.” Perhaps the deeper message is to identify what we truly value. Then our wishing becomes clear: We need the strength to pursue and the wisdom to preserve that which we cherish.

Happy holidays