On Not Being a Wine Connoisseur, Featuring Pinot Noir

At first I thought I might start this post by saying, "I like pinot noir." 

 

But then I thought for a minute, and realized I've had 3 glasses of wine in the past 15 years or so, and they were all pinot noir, so how do I really know whether I wouldn't have liked some other variety much better? Also, each of those 3 times, I was in a bar which seemed well-stocked with wine, and I asked for a glass of their best pinot noir. So perhaps all I really learned was that I like expensive wine. Perhaps I'd like expensive glasses of other types of wine about as well, and maybe I'd find cheap pinot noir disgusting.

And if the local Kroger is any indication, it's easy to find pinot noir at all price points. The pinot noir section of the wine section of the local Kroger is -- it is huge.

What or who exactly first made me interested in pinot noir, I can't remember, not at all. I think the chronological sequence was like this: I heard or read something which made me interested in pinot noir -- I REMEMBER NOW! I saw a documentary movie about wine, and in this movie, some authority on wine held forth in an interesting way on pinot noir, suggesting that the variety held vast rewards for connoisseurs. I don't remember his exact words, and I may have misunderstood him, but what I took him to be saying was that, more than any other variety, pinot noir was the wine for the connoisseur. That's what made me interested in pinot noir. Perhaps at some point I'll even remember the title of the movie.

Since watching that movie, I've certainly spent more time reading about pinot noir than I did actually slowly sipping those 3 glasses of it. Even if you don't count the time I've spent reading labels on bottles of pinot noir in the local Kroger, which itself is more time than I spent drinking those 3 glasses. 

I read somewhere just recently that western Michigan -- relatively near me. I'm in eastern Michigan, near Detroit -- is a notable pinot noir region. I have no idea how seriously I should take that. Maybe that's an accurate statement, or maybe some local enthusiast got carried away in comparing local efforts to the whole big world of wine. I don't know. Perhaps someday I'll know.

Unbeknownst to me until a few days ago, more recently than the most recent glass, the film Sideways, released in 2004, has had a lot to do with making pinot noir more popular. When the film came out in 2004 I noticed some reviews of it, which made it sound like the sort of movie I wouldn't like. To summarize the movie's plot: two friends, a has-been actor and sex addict and an alcoholic unsuccessful writer, take a trip to Santa Barbara wine country, as a sort of week-long bachelor party celebrating the sex addict's upcoming wedding. Among the vineyards and tastings, the sex addict harms people with his reckless sexuality and the alcoholic gets drunk. And then maybe uplifting things happen near the end of the movie, I don't know.

A few years ago, when I still had premium cable, Sideways made a return run on premium cable, and I saw a total of no more than 15 minutes of it, which confirmed my opinion that I didn't want to watch the whole thing. 

But I still hadn't noticed the movie's connection with the worldwide wine market, until, a few days ago, reading about pinot noir, I was informed that the alcoholic character in the movie is constantly praising pinot noir and trashing merlot, and that this has led to a great increase in demand for pinot noir and a great drop in demand for merlot. After reading that, and before remembering the wine documentary with the wine expert extravagantly praising pinot noir, I assumed, for a little while, that my interest in pinot noir must have come indirectly from Sideways, from someone who saw the movie, or from someone who listened to someone who saw the movie, etc. Now, for all I know, it might be exactly the other way around: maybe the author of Sideways got his interest in pinot noir from the very same wine critic who gave it to me.

Life Choices

So there we were, arguing about tipping. Some of us saying that we always tip a lot because we know that jobs which are mostly tips tend to be difficult, low-paying jobs; and then this one guy who said that it was unfair to expect him to tip well for poor service. 

Hm. Fairness. He went on to say that maybe jobs such as waiting tables were difficult and low-paying, but that people had such jobs because they had made poor life choices, and that it would be unfair to him, again, to expect him to pay to help people because of the choices they had made.

 

It seems really amazing to me that I have to explain this to anyone, but apparently I do: Life isn't fair. It isn't remotely fair. Not everyone has the same sort of things to choose among. For example, one person who's turning 16 in the US might have the choice of a brand-new Tesla or a brand-new BMW as a 16th-birthday present; a second 16-year-old might get a 10-year-old Chevy in poor condition for their birthday and be expected to be grateful for it; and a third one might have the choice of working long hours for tips after school and eventually being able to buy their own car, or walking.

And still other 16-year-olds might be faced with much worse choices still, yes, even in the US. Some never had the chance to take Driver's Ed, never went to school, are living on the streets. 

A couple of years later, one kid might have the choice of going to Harvard, all expenses paid, or Princeton, all expenses paid. Another might have the choice of going to Harvard and going heavily into dept, or going to Indiana State and going into somewhat less debt, or going to Indiana State and taking on no debt, but having to work full-time while studying. Etc. Not everyone has the same choices. It seems incredible to me that I have to explain such things to anyone, but apparently I do. Some people have incredible advantages, but don't appreciate them.

I'll give you an extreme example. This will sound impossible, but it's a true story: about 50 years ago, one guy got $1 million dollars from his father to help him start out in the real estate business. And 50 years later, as a billionaire, he's still complaining about how difficult his life has been, and how he's been treated very unfairly, and how he was forced to start out "with only a small $1 million loan from my father."

And I bet that guy is a lousy tipper. I don't actually know, I just have a feeling.

And let me just add another incredibly obvious thing about choices and tipping, because apparently it's actually not obvious to everyone: a lot of us very rarely have the opportunity to tip someone to begin with, because we can't afford to eat out. The last time I gave a tip, I think, was over a year ago, at a car wash. I tipped big, because I believe in tipping big. But I don't think I've been to car wash, or a restaurant, since then. Not only because of COVID but also because I couldn't have afforded it if there was no pandemic.

And if I start to feel sorry for myself, I need to remind myself that there are many people, all around me in this prosperous city which does an amazing job of looking out for the less fortunate, who don't have a car and can't afford to buy one, not even an old broken down car. I only had part of a driver's ed course back in the 1970's, but some people didn't even have the choice of going to school when they were 16. And a lot of these people who don't have cars are still much better off than others, because they have homes.

A lot of people in this world never live to be 16 years old. And everybody knows everything I've said in this post. None of this is any kind of a secret.

So, Mr goes-to-restauraunts every-day, lousy-tipper complaining-about lousy-service: I don't want to hear about how those waitresses you abuse should've made better choices if they don't appreciate your impolite behavior and small tips. I probably could make this point even more obviously clear if I weren't so angry right now. But I think a lot of the reason you don't understand any of this is because you're really not even listening to me or any of the many other people trying to explain such elementary, obvious things to you, because you're far too busy reading Ayn Rand and feeling sorry for yourself because Democrats are wrecking the stock market.

Some numbers concerning EV's

In 2020, the number of plug-in electric vehicles which have been sold worldwide passed 10 million. 2019 and 2020 alone accounted for half of that total, with over 2 million units sold in 2019 and over 3 million in 2020. While the numbers increased almost everywhere on Earth in 2020 compared to 2019, the most spectacular growth occurred in Europe, where, for the first time in many years, more EV's were sold than in China. Europe and China each saw sales of over 1.3 million units in 2020, with Europe just barely edging China out. 

But the most spectacular story in these 2020 statistics is that less than 600 thousand EV's were sold in Europe in 2019. Year-on-year, 2020 saw more than twice as many sales as 2019. Making the story even more spectacular is the fact that overall vehicle sales in Europe (including the gas- and diesel-burners) were 20% less in 2020 than in 2019.

The hottest-selling EV model in Europe right now appears to be the Volkswagen ID3. 

 

In October, the most recent month for which I can find these statistics, the ID3 edged out the previous leader, the Renault Zoe, with over 10,000 units sold. 

Two other things the ID.3 and the Zoe have in common: they both have been getting rave reviews from almost every auto reviewer who's tested them, and neither one is currently for sale in the US. A lot of us Murrkins hope the second thing changes soon.

A very common phrase in those ID3 reviews, perhaps the single most-often heard phrase, are words to the effect that "The more I drive this car, the better I like it."

 A little over 325 thousand EV's were sold in the US in 2020, and the rest of the world outside of China, Europe and the US saw sales of less than 200 thousand.

Dream Log: Blockchain Magic Carpets

 I dreamed I was a partner in a startup company which had invented a way to beam people, like in "Star Trek," using blockchain. 

 

Some paper-based product imprinted with blockchain had been stolen from our company, and I was tasked with aiding law-enforcement with recovering this product. It had become known that these pieces of cardboard-like material could be used as so-called "magic carpets." Strictly speaking, they did not fly, they glided, and some people like to stand on them and surf through they air, controlling them with their body movement much as one controls a surfboard or skateboard. 

I traced the "carpets" to a junior-high school which was combined with a municipal building which was six stories high. I convinced the school principal to let me use the school's PA system. I said on the PA that no one was angry at the students, that no-one had any intention of pressing charges. We were just concerned that "surfing" on the "carpets" was unsafe, and we didn't want anyone to get hurt. 

 After I got off of the PA it occurred to me that my message might have sounded pretty lame to the sort of junior-high school student who would steal a "magic carpet." 

The school-municipal building was next to a multi-lane downtown street. Across the street was a freight railroad. I saw someone take off from the roof of the building and "surf" across the busy street and across the railroad. I had convinced the police to send only plainclothes personnel, with no marked police cars, badges, guns or handcuffs showing, to stay in tune with the We're-not-angry- we-just-want- to-make-sure- nobody-gets-hurt message. Some of the plainclothes cops started off across the street. Others headed up the stairs toward the roof. I went with the latter group, because I knew that the quickest way to get across the street, and then over the high chain-link fence between the street and the railway, and then across the tracks... was going to be to "surf."

And sure enough, the last of a group of several kids took off from the roof just as we arrived, leaving a pile of "magic carpets" behind, and I, very unenthusiastically with my fear of heights, grabbed one of them and jumped off of the roof.

The kids were standing up on their carpets. I was lying face-down on mine and holding on white-knuckled to the edge. A big gust of wind came along, one of the kids was sent flying off of his carpet, but he managed to come back down onto it. My carpet went upside-down, then I was plummeting close to straight down, head first. But somehow I managed to pull the edge of the carpet up, get some air under the carpet and level out. Now I was flying low and level and much too fast. Before I could even try to steer the carpet I was across the street and across the railway, and I crashed through a second-story window into what looked from the outside like an abandoned warehouse. 

On the inside, it turned out to be an active but decrepit warehouse. I painfully disentangled myself from the contents of some cardboard crates into which I had plowed, contents which I couldn't identify. Luckily for me, they seemed to have been closer to the T-shirts-and-pillows end of the spectrum than the knives-and-hammers end. I stood there bruised and out of breath and feeling particularly under-qualified for this mission. I watched rats scatter away from my landing, and thought to myself that it might be a better use of my time to try to talk the cops into launching an investigation into the state of this warehouse. Then I reminded myself that I was a partner in a company which wanted to offer a safer alternative to flying, and that made me laugh. Then I woke up.

Dream Log: Among Irish Catholics

I have never yet, in waking life, been to Ireland. When I lived in Manhattan in the 1990's I knew many, many Irish-Americans. I felt very comfortable in and around some of Catholic church buildings on the island. Perhaps most of the others in and around those buildings were of Irish heritage, or perhaps I gravitated to the Irish for some reason.

How Irish is Manhattan? Well, in addition to Irish immigrants, people who had moved there from Ireland, I met some people, adults, who had been born in New York City and lived in the city all their lives, who still spoke with Irish accents.

Or maybe they only sounded that way to me. There is an upper class in the United States, most of whose members kindly shun the public eye so as not to shatter the illusions of those who believe that America has no upper class, some of whom speak in accents which sound English to Americans and American to English people.

Last night I dreamed I was in a large city which was almost all Irish Catholic. Dublin, perhaps. The city wasn't specified. It seemed to be the 1950's. But for all I know, some regions of Dublin might look, sound, smell and feel like the 1950's. On the other hand, it was just a dream.

I had pleasant, non-meaningful conversations with strangers on the crowded sidewalks. I like that part of Louis Armstrong's hit record "What a Wonderful World" where he sings, "I see friends shaking hands, saying 'how do you do?' They're really saying, 'I love you.'" That's pretty deep, I think.

In the dream there was no sign of COVID.

Some of the Irish Catholics surrounding me were self-righteous, rigid, dogmatic, judgmental and just thoroughly unpleasant. Others were wide-eyed, wild, alert, gentle, good humoured, generous, sensuous and loving. Most of us in the dream were somewhere in between. 

A storm was coming, and many of us moved into an enormous church building. Lightning lit up the stained-glass windows. Strong wind rattled them. Rain was coming down in torrents outside. I stood in a portico watching it, until there was no staying out there without getting wet. 

It was getting to be too crowded in the nave, so most of us moved down to the less formal basement. 

 

Some went into the kitchen and began to cook for the huge crowd. Some basement windows were crushed by the rain and water began to pour in. I joined some people who attempted to bail all of the water out, but it was quickly getting deeper. 

We managed at least to keep the kitchen relatively dry. I was drawn there by the smell of bread fresh from the oven. I picked up a loaf as big as a suitcase, with a golden-brown crust. I tore off a corner. Inside it was white, and fluffy, and tasted as good as bread rarely tastes. 

I walked around the basement handing out pieces of bread to wet people. One girl who looked and acted angelic complained, although with a sweet smile and utterly without malice, that I had only given her a little, so I tore off an enormous piece for her. 

The bailers had become channelers and had managed to dry out parts of the basement. People who looked most vulnerable were bundled up in blankets and sent upstairs.

Then suddenly the storm was over, and I was in a restaurant, still in the same city, just a few minutes' walk from that large church building, where a young woman was directing a scene from a movie. Now the movie equipment and people's clothes and other things made it clear that it was the present day. I was one of the actors. In the scene, a young couple, a fair-skinned blue-eyed blonde-haired woman and a dark-skinned black man, were being harassed by racist thugs, until the other people in the restaurant banded together to protect the couple. I was playing one of the restaurant patrons who stopped the thugs. My character had several lines, and was supposed to be Irish. I was very unsure of my character's accent. The director said my accent was just fine, nothing to worry about. I was unconvinced, but she was the director, which meant that it was her call, and that if she said something was okay, it was part of my job description to stop bothering her about it. I thought to myself, maybe they'll just edit my voice out of it. 

After the scene was finished, the fair-skinned blue-eyed blonde-haired woman burst into tears, and said -- in an American accent which caught me by surprise, because her character was Irish and her accent had fooled me into assuming she was Irish as well -- that the scene stirred up a lot of emotions for her because she had experienced similar harassment in real life. Several of us shared frightening experiences we had had while in interracial relationships. We expressed the hope that the movie we were making might help in some way. I thought again about that Louis Armstrong song, and it felt to me that what everyone was saying to everybody else was, "I love you and I want to protect you." I thought to myself, as I often have in waking life, that show business people can be pretty awesome sometimes. That it's not always all just crap. Then I woke up.

Dream Log: Sad Over Scarlett Johansson

There are two kinds of people: those who are in love with Scarlett Johansson, and those who won't admit that they're in love with Scarlett Johansson.

 Last night, I dreamed I was in the cast of the latest Avengers movie along with Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey, Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans and manymany others. I don't watch the Avengers movies for much reason other than to watch Scarlett Johansson, and I don't really follow the plots... at all, so fans of the MCU: your possible objections to the casting in the movie may be relevant to the MCU, but they are irrelevant to my dream. In the dream, the relevant things were that I was working on a movie alongside Scarlett Johansson and a lot of other movie stars, most of whom, including Scarlett (I was on a first-name basis with the fictional Scarlett Johansson in the dream), are much younger than I am, and very attractive and in very good physical condition. In the dream, COVID didn't seem to exist. However, in the dream, Scarlett was married to that douchebag from "Saturday Night Live" to whom she's married in real life, whose bio centuries from now will consist of the dates of his birth, his marriage to Scarlett, and his death. 

So, in the dream, dozens of people in the main cast, to which I somehow belonged, were hanging out after a day of shooting. Scarlett was doing a diplomatic job of dividing her attention between us. At first, I felt wonderful when she was talking to me, and sad when she was not, but then I just felt more and more sad, because, even when she was talking to me, although she seemed very sincerely nice, she was also giving me no reason to hope that I was inflaming her passions, or that I was about to, a delicate balance with which I imagine the real Scarlett Johansson might have had a lot of practice, if she's been inclined to practice it. I began to wonder whether it was obvious to everyone that I had a crush on Scarlett. Obvious, and sad.

At one point, another movie star, whose identity was indistinct to me in the dream, was flirting with me, and I was trying to be nice without giving her any reason to hope that she was getting anywhere with me. She was talking about 1970's disco music: records which were made long before she was born, which were big hits when I was a teenager. She began to speak enthusiastically about Gloria Gaynor's single "I Will Survive," when I lost my polite composure a little bit and said that the Thelma Houston version of "Don't Leave Me This Way" was a much better record. 

I said that, yes, I realized that "I Will Survive" had become an anthem for people who had left abusive relationships, and that that was a very positive thing, but "Don't Leave Me This Way," I insisted, was a much better piece of music. The passion in the song, I said, was real, was raw, was intense, and if the passion was unrequited, the pain was cathartic. I compared some of the lyrics of the two songs.

Then I noticed that the young actress was not with me, did not know what I was talking about. Or, it occurred to me, maybe she and everybody else could see and hear that I had a stupid hopeless crush on Scarlett, which meant that everybody knew exactly what I was really talking about. I stood up and turned away and headed back to my room, calling it a night, didn't even bother to say good night to anybody. 

Tom Hiddleston caught up with me and asked me if I was okay. It occurred to me that I had just been talking about lyrics including "I can't/survive/Can't stay alive/Without your love." I told Tom that I wasn't suicidal. Then it occurred to me that that was what suicidal people sometimes say. But after a while, although admitting that I was feeling sad, I managed to convince Tom that I was just going to get some sleep. I thanked him for caring, turned down his offer of a hug, and woke up.