Author Archives: Do Bianchi

I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life…

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On Friday night, our oldest daughter Georgia marked her 14th birthday. The next night she celebrated with her mom’s pot roast (a favorite), a beautiful cake from our family’s official pastry chef, Fluff Bake Bar, and a sleepover with two of her best friends from school.

She was also surrounded by her Orange and Houston families. They had gathered for another momentous occasion: earlier that day, she had performed with the Region (as in all-region) string orchestra, one of the top accolades a Texan middle schooler can achieve in classical music.

The conductor spoke about how our region, 23, is one of the two most competitive in the state and arguably the most dynamic (thanks to the confluence of three fiercely engaged school districts in its radius).

Georgia was first chair in her section, viola, and performed a beautiful solo in the third piece.

The music was gorgeous, the performance extraordinary, especially when you consider the ages of the musicians.

I couldn’t have been more filled with joy to hear her play.

Maybe it’s just because I’m an unabashedly proud father.

But it’s also because when I see her, a straight-A 14-year-old with a rich network of delightful friends, I see the kid that I couldn’t be when I was her age.

My family simply wasn’t in a place where they could support my cello studies. And the vicissitudes of life had left me precariously adrift among my peers.

A few moments before the concert began, I squeezed Tracie’s hand and told her, I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life. And from the moment she and I decided to get married, every instant has led up to this, I said, this beautiful, graceful child who’s growing into an adult as she explores her creativity and curiosity unyoked from the burden of family trauma.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life. Thanks for letting me share it here. Happy holidays.

The worst year of my life, the best year of my life. Holiday blues, open mic at Emmit’s Sat. 12/20.

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Man, it’s been the best of times and it’s been the worst of times.

Losing my mom in October was a crushing blow to my heart this year.

And the heartless way my brothers have treated me and my Texas family in the meantime has left me with an emptiness, a void in knowing that my family in San Diego is now totally gone.

I haven’t felt this alone since Brooklyn, post-9/11.

Watching my children grow this year has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.

Georgia is turning 14 this week and both girls fill me with joy and pride at their myriad accomplishments.

Knowing that they and Tracie will stand by me, even through the helter-skelter and the pell-mell, has filled me with hope and peace in this darkest of times for me.

There’s also something else that I’ve felt this year: I do have a family that loves me, I do have children who are thriving, I do have a partner who lifts me up emotionally and catches me when I fall.

It’s a far cry from the drug-taking, alcohol-guzzling 14-year-old that I was after my family was fractured by catastrophe and my older brother handed me my first hit of weed.

I’ve never felt so much love and support in my life.

My bandmate Bela Adela and I are going to be singing about life’s blues at Emmit’s Place in southwest Houston on Saturday, 12/20, 2-6pm, where we will be hosting our final open mic of the year.

The last event in October was packed and we are expecting a big crowd for our holiday show.

The Rhythmix, the coolest middle-schooler jazz band, will do a set and a ton of people are stopping by for the open mic and jam.

I hope you can join us as we close out the worst of years and the best. Thanks for your support and solidarity.

Please read FIEL director Cesar Espinosa’s op-ed for Houston Press: “The Definition of Courage.”

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Please read FIEL director Cesar Espinosa’s op-ed for the Houston Press: “The Definition of Courage.”

It’s hard to turn on the local news in Houston these days and not see Cesar Espinosa and FIEL in action.

The immigrant-led civil rights organization was not only successful in its campaign to free Emmanuel, the unjustly incarcerated autistic 15-year-old, who spent nearly two months separated from his mother.

It also forced Houston mayor Whitmire to reveal that he was a liar: in fact, his administration had been cooperating with ICE when he claimed it was not.

The mayor tries to write-off FIEL as a for-profit law firm. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

FIEL is a non-profit group that provides discounted legal services for vulnerable and financially stressed community members.

But first and foremost, it is a community leader and builder that advocates for people like Emmanuel and his family and provides educational resources for immigrants in this city (FIEL was founded in 2007 by future DACA recipients and they have never abandoned their founding ideals and aspirations).

I’ve been working with FIEL as a media consultant (pro bono) for nearly a year now. Over that time, I’ve learned something that a lot of people don’t know about FIEL and its director Cesar: not only is he a tireless super hero and champion of human rights; he is also a great writer. I know that because I read everything he writes (I manage the website among other roles I play).

I couldn’t be more thrilled to see his writing published by the editors of the Houston Press. Please read his first op-ed for the weekly: “The Definition of Courage.” Thank you.

Prince Alessandrojacopo Boncompagni Ludovisi, beloved Roman gallerist and revered winemaker, dies at 53.

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Above: prince Alessandrojacopo Boncompagni Ludovisi (left) and his father Paolo. You can view the portrait and other images from the prince’s life on the Tenuta di Fiorano website.

The Italian wine world mourns the loss of one of its brightest figures this month: prince Alessandrojacopo Boncompagni Ludovisi, who died last week after battling a short illness according to mainstream media reports. He was 53.

American wine professionals and restaurateurs knew him because of the famous wines he and his family produced just south of Rome along the Appian Way.

But in the Italian capital, where he lived on Piazza Spagna, he was widely known as the prince gallerist, a collector of modern and contemporary art, custodian of his family’s sprawling collection of Renaissance, baroque, and mannerist paintings. He regularly mounted shows by top artists. And he ran an arts and wine educational program led by leading Italian wine writer and intellectual Armando Castgano.

Some may remember a heady time in the Italian wine business, in the first decade of this century, when aged white wines from the Tenuta di Fiorano were sold for astronomical sums in New York City. In his weekly Times column, Eric Asimov featured the library releases, including his visit at the winery and farm built by Alessandrojacopo’s uncle Alberico.

At the time, one of the city’s leading wine mavens, Charles Scicolone, would openly remark that yes, the white wines were very good. But the reds, he said, were the wines that landed Fiorano among the world’s greatest. He later organized a dinner, attended by Eric and me among others, where we tasted a vertical flight of astounding Bordeaux blends.

Many years later I would host the prince at Rossoblu in Los Angeles where I was wine director. What an incredible night, tasting back into the early 80s with the prince!

He had flown to California just for our sold-out event. I asked what he planned to do before returning to Rome. I’m going to view a portrait of one of my ancestors at the Getty, he said.

It turned out to be Pope Gregory XIII, the same one that gave us the Gregorian calendar.

Sit tibi terra levis Alexander Iacobe.

Below: the estate lies adjacent to one of the most beautifully maintained stretches of the Appian Way. It can’t be seen in the photo but it stands just to the right of the road. Note the name of the crossroad: Fiornello (after Fiorano).

Happy holidays!

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Happy holidays 2025, everyone! Here’s a little slideshow from our year, accompanied by our 2025 Christmas song! Georgia, Lila Jane, Tracie and I are all looking forward to the season with family and friends. Wishing everyone a wonderful end of the school year and a very merry Christmas!

Please consider giving to FIEL this holiday season. Their work is more vital than ever.

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“Give to Groups Defending Immigrants From ICE” was the title of a recent opinion by one of our favorite writers for the Times, Michelle Goldberg.

I couldn’t agree more: the work of immigrant aid groups is more vital than ever.

For the last 11 months, I’ve been volunteering for FIEL here in Houston. I run their website and consult on media strategy for them (pro bono).

There are so many compelling stories I could tell about their advocacy and activism. In recent weeks, FIEL and its leader Cesar Espinosa worked to free Emmanuel, an autistic teenager who was wrongly incarcerated and separated from his mother for nearly two months. If you watch the Houston TV news or read the city’s paper of record, then you know that Cesar not only managed to obtain Emmanuel’s freedom, he also proved that our mayor (a democrat) was lying to us when he said that he wasn’t working directly with ICE in our city.

These guys are super heroes, folks. I work with them literally every day and they are tireless in advocating for immigrants’ rights.

But there’s another story I’d like to share with you. Cesar’s brother, Abraham, the group’s education director, recently published an image of Anne Frank on his social media. I immediately called him, I was so moved by his post.

Although so many of us simply drive our cars to work and then come home for dinner each night, there are hundreds of Anne Franks in our community right now, fearing for their lives and their families. Immigrants in this country live in fear each day that masked men in unmarked cars, men armed to the teeth, will snatch them up from the streets. Sound familiar?

As a Jew — as a human! — I cannot turn my back on my people who are facing the same thing our ancestors faced in Europe when my mother was a little girl in South Bend, Indiana.

Please consider giving to FIEL this season. Click here to donate. Thank you.

To transcend the human: finding solace and meaning in Dante and Pasolini.

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The loss of your mother, as I’ve learned, is a life-changing, soul-searching epochal event in life.

It’s been only natural for me to turn to music, literature, and art to try to make sense of the unimaginable — she’s gone.

A word, an ancient neologism, kept coming to mind: trasumanar.

It was coined by Dante in his “Paradiso.” It means to transcend the human, to transhumanate as it were, to pass beyond the state of being human.

In the Paradise, Dante describes his sensation after encountering Beatrice, his earthly love and spiritual guide. He evokes the Greek myth of Glaucus, the human fisherman made immortal.

Trasumanar significar per verba/non si poria, writes Dante, transcending the human cannot be described with words. Look to the example of Glaucus to understand such transformation.

Pasolini used the lemma in the title of his last poetry collection, Transumanar e organizzare (1971), transcend the human and organize.

He juxtaposes transcendence into the divine with the earthly task of political activism. Both are necessary elements of life, one might infer.

I’ve been reading Pasolini’s book. The poems are dense, sometimes surprisingly playful, sometimes overly erudite for some readers; other times they are profound and offer harsh insights into human nature. They are always beautiful, always subversive.

For readers who don’t speak Italian, I highly recommend my friend Stephen Sartarelli’s Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini (University of Chicago).

See also this review of Stephen’s book in the Nation. It gives an overview of Pasolini’s life and work, warts and all.

There are also a number of recent translations of Dante’s Paradiso.

The book in the photo above is a first edition that I recently obtained (another story in itself).

I’ve sought to express in words how I perceive, how I feel my mother’s passing. Alas, transcending the human is not something that can be described in words. But I will continue reading and writing as I search, however endlessly and hopelessly, for meaning in her death.

Thanks for being here and letting me share my grief.

When you hear someone say something racist, say something!

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What kind of person just stands by and says nothing as someone in their presence makes overtly racist comments in casual or professional conversation?

If you need me to answer that question, I suggest you do some serious soul-searching.

I’ve recently been forced into a regrettable business deal with two persons I can’t mention here.

The leader of the group was tasked with hiring an agent to procure the sale of a highly valuable asset.

Party 1 and party 2 met an agent without me. In his recap of the meeting, party 1 neglected to tell me that the agent had made vile comments about Muslims during the encounter.

In a separate meeting with party 2, they informed me about the conversation. They, like party 1, chose not to say anything to the offender.

When I learned of the offensive language, I confronted party 1 with this info.

Their answer? The agent just happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Stop being the “word police”! The agent just happens to talk like that. Hell, even I talk like that!, they said.

That doesn’t fly at our house, I’m sorry to inform them.

Here’s what we teach our children.

When someone makes a racist comment, the first thing you do is make sure that you are safe (get out right away if you fear violence).

Once you’re sure you’re safe, tell that person that such language is not acceptable in your presence and ask them politely to refrain from making such comments.

How can we call ourselves friends of Muslims — friends of anyone! — if we don’t defend them when they are not in the room?

Racism in any context is wrong and must be called out. That’s the rule in this Parzen household.

It takes some people longer than others to understand how dangerous and harmful comments like that can be. They may need some grace to get there. But if they don’t, they are no friends of ours.

When you hear someone say something racist, say something!

A southeast Texas Thanksgiving, an antidote to the family blues.

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Man, the last two months have been a crash course on the darkness of grief and the harsh, cold family dynamics that accompany the loss of a parent.

It’s been a rough ride for me.

But respite came last Thursday in the form of a traditional southeast Texas Thanksgiving.

I was so depressed on Thursday morning — the first major holiday since my mom passed — as I drove to Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up.

But it was literally “on the bayou” where 20+ family members greeted me with open arms, love, and shoulders to cry on.

Thanksgiving with Tracie’s family is always a blessing. And the food is extraordinary, for real.

But this year’s holiday reminded me that in spite of grief, in spite of the terrible ways that people can treat each other… I do have a family that loves me, respects me, and wants my children to thrive.

We drank a bottle of 2013 Smith Madrone that I’d been saving and it sang in the glass. Heartfelt thanks to my friends Julie Ann and Stu, owners of the winery, for sharing it with us. It meant even more that it came from Julie Ann: she and I grew up in the same La Jolla neighborhood.

Treat your family well. It’s the only one you’ve got. It was the old folks’ only wish that we all stick together. Southeast Texas reminded me of that this year and I am so grateful for that.

Parzen family Thanksgiving letter. Happy Thanksgiving!

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On the day we memorialized my mother in La Jolla, a double rainbow appeared over the Pacific Ocean. My older brother Tad took the photo above, a few hours before the celebration.

Maybe it was the accumulated sleep deprivation, maybe it was the cresting waves of emotion… or maybe Mother Nature decided to show us that even in the face of grief, there is beauty in the world — beauty that reminds you why you live and breathe despite the crushing, suffocating pain of loss.

A week has passed since we returned from San Diego where we buried my mother. The yahrzeit candle on our kitchen table is not quite spent as I write this.

It’s been the worst of years but also the best.

Daughter Georgia, violist and soon to be 14, made the cut for all-region orchestra earlier this year (wow!) and she’s been enjoying Houston Youth Symphony, another new feather in her musical cap. She’s also been playing electric bass.

Daughter Lila Jane, cellist and going on 13, is excited for first chair at this year’s varsity holiday concert. But even brighter in her life is the incoming 3/4-size cello that her former teacher is lending us until she grows into a full-size. Her current teacher got together with the former: they are both so impressed by her natural ability, they told me, they felt she needs a better instrument.

This was the year that the tariffs reshaped the European wine industry in the U.S. It’s also been a year where wine sales have dropped precipitously, including for domestic wine production.

But this year was also a year of miracles: the collapse of my industry and career dovetailed with Tracie’s growing success as a realtor (poo, poo, poo!). We’ve never had more financial security than ever before thanks to my brilliant and incredibly hard-working partner. I love her and the girls so much.

I’m thinking about that double rainbow as we prepare to leave for Orange, Texas where we’ll celebrate the holiday with Tracie’s family (aunt Ida is hosting this year, for a change).

I remember a line I once read in a prayer book during Yom Kippur: nothing, said the rebbe, heals like a broken heart.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.