Monthly Archives: January 2025

Happy anniversary Tracie P! I love you!

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Tracie P, it’s been 15 years since we got married and 17 years since we first started dating. Happy anniversary!

I still get a flutter in my heart with every time you write me “I miss you” and “I love you.” I really do. I still can’t believe that someone as beautiful as you could love someone like me. But it’s true and I am grateful every day — poo, poo, poo! — for your love and our life together.

Do you remember these lyrics I wrote for you, nearly 10 years ago now:

Fast forward to a time, a couple years from now
And then rewind to find the reason
In the where and what and how
The woman brought the very best out of you
When she said I do

It’s so true: you have made me a whole soul again and your love has given me the strength and courage to be the person I have always wanted to be.

It’s been 13 years since Georgia was born, 11 since Lila Jane came into this world.

Watch her hold the babies
When the thunder makes them cry
Hear her tell them that she loves them
And you’ll wonder why it took so long
To get here from that day in 1975
Doesn’t it feel good to be alive?

Tonight we’ll celebrate by going out to dinner at a new, chic Mexican restaurant in our city.

We won’t be budgeting like we used to when we ate at all those down-and-dirty Tex Mex places in Austin when we were first dating.

But the thrill of going out together has only grown brighter in my heart. It truly has. Thank you for giving me the absolute best years of my life.

Happy anniversary, piccinina. I love you and I can’t wait to stare into your eyes tonight as we celebrate.

Trump viewed from Italy.

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During my early years as a student in Italy in the late 1980s, it wasn’t uncommon for my classmates to invite me to their family’s home for Sunday lunch. Their parents and sometimes their grandparents would join us, eager to ask me questions about the U.S. and tell me about their lives.

Whenever the elders would talk about wartime in Italy, their stories would paint themselves before me like a Neo-Realist film.

Nearly 30 years have passed since then and none of the grandparents are around anymore.

Many of them suffered greatly during the war and nearly everyone lost a loved one, even those progenitors who were card-carrying members of the Fascist party.

Over the course of my travels, I’ve met plenty of right-leaning folks in Italy who are not ideologically opposed to Trumpism. I’ve probably met more who find his policies repugnant. (Their preponderance may be due to the fact that I tend to hang-out with lefties.)

But for all Italians, the images of roundups and raids evoke memories of the rastrellamenti (from rastrello, a rake) conducted by the Fascists and later by the Nazis in their country from 1922-1945.

Few survivors remain today but their children still carry with them the generational trauma endured by their forebears.

One of my best friends in Italy comes from a family that hid Jews in the cellar of their winery during the war (there was a concentration camp nearby). There is a government plaque displayed at the winery entrance honoring their family’s courage. She, obviously, wasn’t yet born. Her uncle, also born after the war, has spoken often of the ways Jews were treated there during Fascism and the subsequent German occupation.

Traveling to Italy for the first time since the election, I discovered that even my most conservative friends are bewildered and nonplussed by the first two weeks of the new administration. They still can’t even seem to wrap their minds around why or how Trump was re-elected.

I can only imagine what their grandparents would say.

Celebrate MLK Day with us in Orange, Texas.

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Tracie, the girls, and I invite you to celebrate Martin Luther King Day with us in Orange, Texas.

On Monday morning, we will be marching in the historic MLK Day parade. See details here.

MLK Day is always an inspiration for our family: to stand up for what is right and to be better community members.

But over the years, I’ve found that the Orange march is something special and extremely compelling. Please join us! It’s just an hour and a half drive from Houston.

Following the march, Tracie and I will be heading over to the site of the neo-Confederate memorial at the intersection of I-10 and MLK Dr. where we hold our annual protest. (Yes, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, those cowardly assholes, built their “memorial of the [breaking] wind” on one of the city’s main arteries.)

Those who join us will also see the MLK billboard that we raise each year, overlooking the neo-Confederate totem.

It’s not an event for kids. But it is an occasion that reminds the Sons of neo-Confederate Bitches that conspicuous displays of hateful and hurtful iconography is no longer acceptable — even in MAGA America.

Please join us and I believe you will find the experience to be as powerful as we do.

See details here.

We hope to see you and we wish you a meaningful and purposeful MLK Day!

DM me for more info.

I’d never tasted an Aglianicone until late last year. I liked it a lot.

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One of the great things about studying Italian viticulture is the field’s endless mosaic of terroirs, traditions, and hyper-local grape varieties. It’s encyclopedic in breadth!

I had never tasted an Aglianicone until late last year while visiting and working with old friends in New York.

Taking a glance at Ian D’Agata’s remarkably long entry for Aglianicone in his Native Grapes of Italy, I toppled down through the rabbit warren of putative mistaken identities. There is so much debate swirling around the origins and genetic makeup of this variety that there are only known unknowns.

At one point the writer and ampelographer throws up his hands, smugly writing that “the fun never stops when identifying Italian grapes.”

What I can tell you is that the De Conciliis Aglianicone was delicious, surprising me with its buoyant fruit and hints of earthiness, not as tannic as you would expect an Aglianico to be (De Conciliis makes some of the best Aglianico imho).

I liked it a lot and from what I’ve read, some are looking at Aglianicone because of its natural resistance to vine disease — highly important in changing climate times.

Sommeliers are going to have fun with this one.

Smith-Story Cabernet Sauvignon was delicious, a perfect fit for our family.

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Every since I poured my Houston cousin Neil a bottle of Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine he swooned over, it’s become a bit of a shared family quest: to find Neil Cabernet Sauvignon with freshness (acidity), a combination of fruit and savory flavors, and judicious use of oak aging.

Over the years he’s moved away from the oaky-jammy paradigm that managerial class members like him used to drink regularly. Maybe because he’s been enjoying Italian wines with us over the last decade, food-friendliness and freshness have become the two criteria that seem to drive his preferences.

While shopping for our family’s holiday wines last year, I came across the Smith-Story Sonoma Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon at our go-to wine shop, Houston Wine Merchant.

I first met Alison Smith back during her Texas career when she was a supplier rep for a high-profile Italian winery group. I’ve never met her husband Eric Story but I have enjoyed following their winery’s social media — especially their cynophilia.

Although the wine wasn’t a cheap date, it didn’t break the bank either. And it hit that sweet spot between inexpensive fruit-forward, oakier California Cabernet Sauvignon, and the really high end stuff (like Smith-Madrone), which I love but cannot regularly afford.

This wine had freshness, balanced fruit and acidity, judicious alcohol, and no oakiness.

Neil loved it, too, and it was gone in a flash after being served at our Hanukkah party. I highly recommend the wine and the people who make it.

Please don’t stop praying for our sisters and brothers in LA. And please join us for the MLK Day March in Orange, Texas on Monday, followed by our protest of the Neo-Confederate memorial there.

Rock with me, march with me, pray for LA.

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Our family is still reeling as we watch the awful images from LA.

So many of my friends have been displaced but luckily everyone, at least in my personal LA orbit, seems to be okay. Thank G-d.

It’s terrifying to read some of their accounts of escaping the flames.

We are praying for the city and its communities. We know our LA friends and colleagues are going to need a lot of help in recovering. Right now, many are just looking for a place to sleep tonight. It’s terrible.

For folks in Houston, I did want to let you know that my 80s cover band, Biodynamic Band, featuring Katie White on vocals and melodica, will be playing this Sunday, January 12, at Vinsanto on the westside. We’ll be playing three sets starting at 4 p.m.

And just around the corner… Tracie, the girls, and I will be marching in the historic Orange, Texas, MLK March on Monday, January 20. See flier below.

For those who have never participated, I believe you’ll find it to be an extremely compelling experience.

After the march, Tracie and I will be heading over the neo-Confederate memorial on I-10 for our yearly protest. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard across the from the monument. It will remain active throughout January and February (Black History Month).

I recognize that protesting symbols of white supremacy isn’t for everyone. But the march is something that nearly everyone in the community — except for the white supremacists — participates in.

We hope to see you then (Orange is an hour and a half drive from Houston btw).

Thanks for the support and solidarity. Please pray for LA. G-d bless the City of Angels. G-d bless us all.

Praying for our sisters and brothers in LA.

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Tracie, the girls, and I are praying for our sisters and brothers in LA. I lived, went to school, and worked in west LA right where the fires are happening. It’s so unreal and scary. And we just got back from southern California where we spent our winter break. We left San Diego where my family lives just a day or so before the Santa Ana winds started up.

I have so many beloved friends and cherished colleagues in the LA area. I just did two wine events in LA a few weeks ago. I know they are going to need our support moving forward.

Let’s all pray for the families and communities impacted and affected. G-d bless them. Angeleños, please stay safe. We love you and you are in our thoughts and prayers. We will be ready to help when the time comes.

What are you doing on inauguration day? Please join us in our protest of the neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas!

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Thank you to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard that looks over the monument. The billboard is already live and will stay up throughout MLK Day and Black History Month (February) 2025. Thank you and we hope to see you on MLK Day at our protest!

Please join us in a MLK Day PROTEST of the neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas (at Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. and Interstate 10, north access road):

MLK Day
Monday, January 20, 2025
location:
Confederate Memorial of the Wind
(Google map)
time:
1-3 pm

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE REPURPOSE EMAIL NEWSLETTER
to receive event details and updates.

Read more at RepurposeMemorial.com.

Happy new year!

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Happy new year from the Parzen family! Wishing you health, light, and joy in the year to come! May there be peace on earth.