Author Archives: Do Bianchi

MLK Day “on purpose”! Protest ICE with FIEL tonight.

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Happy 2026, everyone!

It’s already shaping up to be a year full of immense human challenges. The vulnerable among us are facing — quite literally — life and death stakes.

For our family, MLK Day always represents a “New Year’s Day” when we check in with our values and our dreams for a better America.

I’ve got good news to share for the occasion.

The advertising company that posts our MLK billboard overlooking the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange (erected 2017) gave us a returning customer deal.

Our MLK billboard is already active and will remain in place throughout Black History Month. Thank you, B.!

And last year’s GoFundMe had a surplus that made it easy to get us to where we needed to be with our new discounted rate (it’s still open if you want to donate to next year’s billboard).

Parzen family is not planning a protest at the Neo-Confederate site on MLK Day. Inclement weather has made the protest challenging for the last two years. Stay tuned: there will be a protest in February during Black History Month.

But we will be attending the MLK March in Orange with our friends at Mt. Olive Church, a historic Black church in Tracie’s hometown.

Btw that is Lila Jane and Georgia in the photo above carrying the banner for the March a few years ago.

We hope to see you there! Please spend your MLK Day “on purpose,” as my good friend Annette P. likes to say!

In other news…

Houston friends: meet us TONIGHT at Dunlavy Park at 5pm for FIEL’s “ICE out of Houston” protest.

We are praying for the family of the woman who was murdered by them in Minneapolis this week.

We are praying for all the Brown people in our country who are living like Jews in Nazi Europe, afraid to go out lest a government official threaten them.

My ancestors were immigrants who fled the Cossacks (quite literally). They are my children’s ancestors, too. We cannot stand by idly watching the dehumanization of Brown people — any people! — in our country.

We hope to see you tonight. Let’s make 2026 the year of the change!

To my brother Aaron, who couldn’t be with us to say goodbye to Judy.

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Brother Aaron, nearly 70 years have passed since you were born. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you.

Just last May, while we were in Chicago for a family reunion, I saw our distant cousin Daniel J. in Hyde Park where we all lived when we were born.

Daniel is a pediatrician. He was a co-founder of the “Lab” school for kids at U. of Chicago where you studied before we moved to California. He spoke earnestly and eagerly of his fond memories.

Your best friend from the Lab school, Professor W., has always stayed in touch with me. We’ve even shared a bottle of Nebbiolo or two as we talked about your life.

He’s a famous law professor at Harvard. Every time he and I connect, I am reminded of how Judy used to say that you would have been the first Jewish U.S. Attorney General.

When I got to La Jolla High School, so many of my teachers told me that they expected a lot out of Aaron Parzen’s younger brother. I tried my best, brother, to follow in your footsteps.

My memories of you are hazy: I was five when you died, you were 15. Judy used to tell me how much you adored me and took me everywhere you went.

I have strong, crystal-clear memories of the day you died. And the day we buried you, in the same plot where Judy is now buried. I can see the scene in my mind like it was yesterday.

You couldn’t be there with me on New Year’s as I sat alone in the early hours of a rainy La Jolla morning and dug through our mom’s photography and papers.

But you were in my heart, as you always are.

I barely knew you but I miss you more now than ever.

Four tragedies shaped the arc of our family’s troubled life. The second of those was your death, the tragic outcome of a misguided teenage road trip. The photo above was taken not long before you died.

Know that no matter what happens, I will always speak your name. And my children will, too. And they will tell their children about you. We will always speak your name. I love you.

When a soccer game is more important than family, even as we say goodbye to Judy.

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Above: the last sunrise I’ll most likely ever see in my mom’s La Jolla apartment. That’s the full moon.

Last week, Tracie, the girls, and I traveled to La Jolla for family vacation. I spent the better part of the week sorting through my mom’s apartment and shipping precious photography and other documents back to Texas where I plan to build an archive for her.

We had planned to gather as a family in La Jolla, earlier in the month, the first weekend in December, although without our daughters — just me and Tra, my brothers and their wives. The mission was to dig through the apartment, leaf through hand-written memories people had shared at the memorial, spend a day, maybe a meal together, reminiscing.

Some days before our trip, brother Micah called to say that he unexpectedly wouldn’t be there that weekend. He was traveling outside San Diego for a soccer game. He would sort through the things on his own and inform us as to what he was taking.

That wasn’t what we planned, I protested.

It was a complicated weekend for us but we had figured it out. A Herculean effort, with a bar mitzvah, an audition, and a friend’s recital for the girls to attend. I turned down a juicy gig with my band. Tra put clients on hold. Her parents cancelled their participation in a credit union board event (Randy’s mayor of West Orange).

Micah, how could you do this?, I pleaded. This is really messing us up.

I have to do what I have to do for my mental health, he said.

A soccer game?

We rescheduled for our winter break. Not only did he not meet me. He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me that he was punking me again — a pattern through our lives. No call, no show.

Thing is, his soccer team lost and there was no match that first weekend of December. It was all just a game he was playing.

How can he dishonor the memory of our mother like this?

Some years ago he changed the name of his museum from the Museum of Man to the Museum of Us. I applauded at the time.

Seems his next project is Museum of Me.

.דאָס איז אַ שאַנדע און אַ חרפּה

“Melody” my album of songs for 2025 including “Under the Christmas Tree,” this year’s Christmas song. Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy holidays!

You know what I would like for Christmas this year? For you to listen to my 2025 album of songs, “Melody”!

Click here to stream on Bandcamp.

Here’s the track list:

Melody

I wanted to write Tracie a yacht rock, slow burn song, and so I did! Music and making love feel like the same thing when I’m with her. “Italian mandolins or Paul McCartney songs/just can’t compete.” I love her so much.

Stuck in a Hotel Room in Dallas

I wrote this, yes, you guessed it, when I was stuck in a hotel room in Dallas on the road for work this summer. We knew my mom would be dying soon. But we didn’t know how soon. My vocals on country songs suck but this one meant so much to me. Still does.

Under the Christmas Tree

“No need to invent/a new ornament.” My 2025 Christmas song! I write one every year. Our tree has ornaments dating back to the girls’ pre-school years. We love it so much and it’s one of our favorite family traditions.

Ballad of Rusty and Paco

This one is for our dogs, Rusty aka RooRoo and Paco. There’s not a day when their joy doesn’t lift me up (I’m a “dog person”). I wanted to capture how much fun it is to share our lives with them so I wrote them a “Rocky Raccoon” song.

Land of Aggressive Driving

This song was born out of self-challenge: I promised the girls I would write them a song about the “land of aggressive driving,” in other words, Houston, a city we love but also a megalopolis where the driving can be insane. As the singer (me) says, just use “the Nancy Reagan defense,” just say “no” to aggressive driving!

Aiutami a farti ritrovare

My old bromance Giovanni Arcari gets a song-writing credit on this one. I heard him utter that line one night in a pinseria (similar to a pizzeria) in his hometown. He was trying to convince a woman to give him her phone number. She didn’t. He said to her (in Italian), I’ll look for you, but help me be able to find you. Sounds better in Italian! I wrote it for him for his 50th birthday.

Merry Christmas! Thanks for listening!

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.