Category Archives: de rebus familiaribus

Parzen family Christmas letter 2023. Merry Christmas!

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Please consider giving to our yearly GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas in time for MLK Day (January 15) and Black History Month (February). If you can’t donate, please share. Thank you for your support and solidarity! Click here to donate.

As 2023 comes to an end, Tracie, the girls, and I have so much to be thankful for.

Georgia, who turned 12 this month, is in her first year in middle school, a legacy music magnet program where she plays violin. Over the summer, she auditioned and was placed in the top performing orchestra. She is also taking private lessons and loves her teacher.

Lila Jane, who turned 10 in July, not only plays cello in the performing orchestra at her elementary school, also a legacy magnet. But she plays with a small chamber group of select cello players as well. We are so sad that it’s her last year at our beloved elementary school. But it’s been thrilling to see/follow all of her end-of-the-year concerts.

Both girls are studying Italian at home (!!!) and getting straight A’s at school and you can only imagine how proud we are of them. Our home and lives are filled with music and it’s a dream come true for both Tracie and me.

Tracie’s 2023 as a realtor has been challenging. But she’s still loving her new career. It’s been a tough year but she’s still bringing home the bacon, which is awesome.

My work has really come together again. I spent most of October and November on the road, which wasn’t easy. But I got to see some truly interesting places and interact with some really cool wine pros.

We spent our summer vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama (above). And not long after we headed to La Jolla for my mom’s 90th. She asked me to organize a wine tasting for her friends and we all had a blast.

We feel so blessed for each other, for our community, and we pray for peace and for our country.

Merry Christmas! May G-d bless us all.

A prayer for peace in the Middle East.

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Like households of American Jews across our country, we have been glued to our television over the weekend as we watched the new, horrific war between Hamas and Israel unfold.

Our girls, ages 10 and 11, are too young to understand the historical events that led the world to this moment. But they know that they are connected to Israel through their father’s family. They know that we have deep ties to this — what must seem to them — mythical land so far, far away.

“Thousands of Americans have loved ones in Israel. I’m one of them.” That was the title of Jennifer Rubin’s opinion piece for the Washington Post this morning.

For so many families in the U.S., there is a cousin on a kibbutz, a retired uncle in a coastal community, a child at university, friends from Hebrew school days who work in the tech sector…

May G-d bless them and keep them safe. May G-d protect all human life there and everywhere. And may we all say a prayer for peace for all — all — our sisters and brothers in the Middle East and beyond.

Shanah tovah! Happy new year! This year we celebrate grandma’s 90th birthday. A blessing.

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Please consider giving to Unicef relief efforts in Libya. Click here for more ways to give.

Shanah tovah, everyone! Happy new year!

May your new year be filled with light, joy, and good health!

Every year for the holiday, we eat apples and honey to remember life’s sweetness.

This year we have something special to celebrate: grandma (my mother Judy) is turning 90 next week. We’ll be flying out to San Diego to spend the weekend with her. And she’s asked me to organize a wine tasting for her and her friends. We’re all looking forward to it.

Georgia (above, left), age 11 going on 12, started middle school at the end of last month. She’s enjoying playing violin in the orchestra and her creative writing elective.

Lila Jane (right), just turned 10 and starting 5th grade, is now a “big kid” at her elementary school. She’s one of the top cello players in her class and says she wants to be a music teacher.

Poo, poo, poo… we have a lot to be thankful for. Too many blessings to count.

Every year before the High Holidays, I turn to the excellent writers at Chabad.org for inspiration for the year ahead.

Here’s the passage that I can’t stop thinking about:

Our Sages tell us that when we emulate G‑d to provide new life to others with generosity and love, this paves the way for the awesome gift of Rosh Hashanah, the gift of new life, that G‑d lovingly grants every one of us.

Happy new year.

Happy Juneteenth! Here’s a book that totally changed my perspective on the holiday and its meaning in Texas and beyond.

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Above: one of the earliest celebrations of Juneteenth at Emancipation Park in Houston in 1880. The park was created especially by local business leaders to serve as a gathering place for future Juneteenth celebrations. That tradition continues today in Houston. Image via the John Marshall Center (Creative Commons).

Happy Juneteenth, everyone!

It’s so awesome to see people celebrating this year, two years after it became an official U.S. holiday.

Houston has a deep connection to the holiday because it was first observed here in our city not long after the earliest celebrations in Galveston.

For anyone who wants to learn more about the holiday, I highly recommend Annette Gordon-Reed’s wonderful book, On Juneteenth, a memoir of her growing up in Texas (not far from where we live), published a few years ago. It’s a great read and it totally changed my perspective on the holiday and its meaning in Texas and beyond.

Happy Juneteenth! Enjoy the holiday!

The bunga bunga party is over. Berlusconi, Italy’s long-time buffoon prime minister and political huckster, has died.

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Image via Wikipedia Creative Commons.

By the time a wide-eyed U.C.L.A. undergrad made their way to Italy in 1987, the country’s socialist government was thriving, the economy was booming, a year of university studies, even at a top school, cost around $300, and “there was a Benetton on every corner in Manhattan,” as one of their professor’s put it.

But by the early 1990s, that had all collapsed as the government led by socialist leader Bettino Craxi went down in flames and scandal.

That power vacuum led to the rise of the first post-modern politician, as many have called him, Silvio Berlusconi. As he himself openly put it, he got into politics so that he could change laws in order to make himself richer, pay fewer taxes, and avoid legal jeopardy. As he achieved all three of those personal goals, he drove the country’s economy into the toilet with bloated borrowing and destroyed Italy’s image as a progressive nation who protected its vulnerable and cherished its cultural legacy.

He also became the first, in his own words, to legitimize the far and fringe right. Today, the roots of Italy’s first post-fascist (in other words, its first post-war bona fide fascist) government can be traced to his tenure.

Back in the early 2000s, when Italy was the president of the European Union, I was recruited to be an interpreter at the Italian Mission to the United Nations. Because Berlusconi, prime minister at the time, was tasked to address the General Assembly as the president of the EU, the mission needed an extra full-time interpreter. I was assigned to foreign minister Franco Frattini, who represented Italy at the gathering, while the senior interpreter was assigned to Berlusconi.

I never met him but I did attend a meeting where he spoke — and I held my nose.

After his notorious sexual predation parties became well documented by the media, my bandmates and I wrote and produced a song about his bunga bunga. We recorded it in Austin, Texas for our 2011 album “Freudian Slip” (Aeronaut Records). You may have heard it on season 1 (episode 2) of “Emily in Paris” (listen below).

Many have said that Berlusconi created the paradigm, the road map for our country’s own post-fascist, post-supremacist political monster.

But let us not mention the name of that Devil… lest he appear.

Read the Times obit here.

“I am not my geography.” Thank you American Tributaries Podcast for having me on your show! Plus: a song I wrote about the experience.

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Big shout out and thanks today to my friend and fellow wine professional and activist Michael Whidden for asking me to join him on his American Tributaries Podcast.

Listen on YouTube here or below.

Michael contacted me after I published a post in March entitled “Stop telling me I’m a bad person because I live in Texas.”

After having an encounter with a now former friend who made some extreme, severe comments about our family’s life in Texas, I asked the two people who read my blog to consider that “state boundaries do not represent monolithic ethical, moral, and aesthetic divides. There are all kinds of people in [my adoptive state] Texas, just as there are all kinds of people in California (including plenty of ultraconservative racists, among others, in my home state).”

I was thrilled to get a chance to discuss the unfortunate episode. Thanks for checking it out.

I also wrote a song about my experience. Warning: it’s profanity laden. But it really captures the absurdity of those situations.

The only thing that mattered to the person in question was that I live in Texas. Nothing else about my persona interested them. As it turns out, there’s a lot more to me (and everyone) than just geography.

Thanks for checking out the song as well. Heartfelt thanks to Michael for having me on his show.

The tale of a social media influencer: Imp of the Perverse.

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Above: Alicia Lini, right, with my longtime friend and social media influencer, Giovanni Contrada, aka Imp of the Perverse.

When Italy first went into lockdown mode in March 2020, my longtime friend and fashion designer Giovanni Contrada (above, left) was living in Milan where he was building his Imp of the Perverse label and brand.

The boredom of the closures led him to start documenting his (at first modest) culinary adventures in Italy’s fashion and culture capital. What started with handful of simpatico videos on TikTok, where Giovanni would interact with owners of neighborhood cafés and restaurants, soon blossomed into an increasing number of likes and shares. And before long, that number started to grow — exponentially.

When he called me at the end of the year, he told me, “dude, I’m huge on TikTok.” And he wasn’t kidding.

He already had close to one million followers at the time. Today, he has 1.5 million followers — yes, one and a half million.

He also has an agent and scores of requests for product placements and endorsements. And his fashion line has exploded as well.

When Giovanni’s unique line of jackets and suits first took off, he was a favorite among the glitterati crowd. Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge were among the first celebrities to wear his clothes. Remember when Melissa Etheridge performed at the Grammys during her battle with cancer in 2005? She was wearing a Giovanni jacket.

As Giovanni was rising in the fashion world, he would often dress our band Nous Non Plus for our shows. Over the years, he’s even designed a few special pieces that he’s gifted to me (including “The Jar” hoodie). When I was up for a prize in Milan some years ago, he dressed me for the awards ceremony.

Last week, I traveled to Los Angeles to meet another dear friend and longtime client of mine, Alicia Lini. On Thursday morning, we sat down with Giovanni for breakfast at this fantastic Italian bakery and café on Sunset Blvd. called Ceci’s (everything was great, the erbazzone exceptional).

Click here to see the TikTok they made together. Click here for the Instagram. Giovanni also posted a wonderful clip of him enjoying Alicia’s traditional balsamic vinegar.

It was one of the ages. But that’s no surprise. Giovanni has always been such a loving and generous friend to me, a big brother who has comforted me in my worst times and shared my joy in my best.

Giovanni, I love you. Thanks for carving out an hour of your morning for us. I’ll never forget that chilly overcast day in LA as long as I live.

If you’re wondering where the handle “Imp of the Perverse” came from, look no further than Edgar Allen Poe.

Tracie named “rising star” realtor!

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In less than two years, Tracie went from stay-at-home mom with a couple of side gigs to a million-dollar-listing realtor in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country.

In spring of 2021, she got her license. And this week, she was named “rising star” and a top earner by her firm Greenwood King.

That’s the screen (above) at her agency’s annual award ceremony as they announced the accolade on Tuesday.

Our daughters and I are so proud of her. She’s an amazing model for the girls (ages 9 and 11) in terms of what a person can accomplish when they put their mind to it and heart in it.

And as her mother-in-law loves to say, “You know she makes more money than her husband, don’t you?”

It’s been an incredible time in our lives as her income has helped us dig out of the financial lows of the health crisis. On Thanksgiving weekend last year, we moved into our new house. Even with the rising rates at the time, she got us a great deal and a great mortgage. And we are just in love with our home.

Tracie, the girls and I love you so much and are so proud of you. You are such a fantastic role model for our children and you are most wonderful partner I could have ever hoped for or dreamed of. It has been such a joy and inspiration to watch you become a leader in your field. And I just have to say it one more time, I love sleeping with my realtor! You have made our lives and future so bright. You are the love of my life.

Protest neo-Confederate iconography with us on MLK Day in Orange, Texas. Help us keep our MLK billboard active for Black History Month.

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On Martin Luther King Day 2023, Monday, January 16, Tracie and I will be protesting the newly built Neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas, where she grew up and where much of her family still lives.

We began organizing our events at the site in 2018 after the Sons of Confederate Veterans first began raising Confederate battle flags at the site — a conspicuous Greek-style atrium that sits at the intersection of Martin Luther King Dr. and Interstate 10. Yes, those pieces of shit built their eyesore on MLK Dr., one of the city’s major arteries, just a stone’s throw from an elementary school (!!!).

We will be there from 1-3 p.m. Please join us to show solidarity for the Black community there. Here are the Google coordinates.

Please feel free to contact me at jparzen@gmail.com if you have questions.

Some may remember that our campaign to repurpose the memorial was featured in a video on the news site NowThis. It will give you a taste of what we are up against (contains graphic language).

You can also read about the site and its impact on the community at our blog, RepurposeMemorial.com.

If you can’t join us on MLK Day, please help us keep our MLK billboard active through Black History Month. Every year since our campaign began, we have raised an MLK billboard across from the site featuring the image and words of Dr. King. The billboard is already active and we just need $200 more to reach our goal of $2,000. That will keep the billboard up through the month of February.

Please donate to our GoFundMe here. And if you can’t donate or attend, please share the info with your networks. Every share, every click counts.

Thank you for your support and solidarity. Hoping to see you on MLK Day! Celebrate the life and writings of Dr. King by standing up for what’s right. As Dr. King famously said, “the time is always right to do what is right.”

Parzen family Christmas letter 2022. Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

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It’s been a year that none of us will ever forget.

The biggest news was that we bought a house!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we moved into a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house in the same neighborhood where we have been living for the last eight years. It’s literally a block and a half away from our old house (a rental).

We love our new home, our neighborhood, our school, and our community. And the girls love having their own rooms.

Both girls are getting straight A’s in school and both continue to play music.

Lila Jane, 9, above left with Tracie, Georgia and our Levy cousins, plays cello, piano, and sings in the advanced children’s choir at our school. The choral teacher there is super rad and gets the group really cool gigs, like singing the national anthem before a Houston Texans game. That’s Lila Jane at the stadium after the gig.

Afterward, I was like, so you’ve already played a stadium gig! Not every nine-year-old can say that.

Both girls performed with their school’s “performers” orchestra at the mayor’s tree lighting event this year. That was super cool because they were on stage with professional singers and dancers and the whole thing was televised — lights, camera, action and all. Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive,” was the headliner!

Georgia, who just turned 11, continues to play violin and piano. She dropped out of advanced choir this year, her last at our elementary school. Instead, she did tennis, chess club, and theater as her after school activities. It’s been a busy year so far!

As she heads toward her teenage years (sometimes we think they’re not too far off!), her intellectual curiosity is really beginning to grow. It’s amazing to watch.

Both girls are eager to get back to Italy. Venice is their number-one city to visit (they’ve never been). We’re hoping to save enough money to take them on a proper tour of Italy this summer — and not just to wine country.

The real estate market isn’t as hot as when Tracie first began working as an agent last year. But that hasn’t stopped her from maintaining a steady income. This year and last, she more than doubled our family’s finances. Her going back to work (after 10 years as a stay-at-home mom) is what made the new house possible.

We’ll be celebrating our thirteenth wedding anniversary next month. And what can I say? I’ve been sleeping with my realtor and she’s a super hotty. I love her so much and it’s been so awesome to see her enjoying her work.

We have too many blessings to count… poo, poo, poo!

As Tra has settled into her new professional rhythms, I’ve been ramping up my own work again. I have some great projects lined up for next year and I’m working with a wonderful new client whom I genuinely adore.

There’s not much to complain about these days.

Tracie, Georgia, Lila Jane, and our doggies, RooRoo and Pachy, wish you a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and a new year filled with light, joy, and good health. See you in a few weeks!