This is my blog. There are many blogs like it but this one is mine. I’m a 20-year member of SAG-AFTRA who also works in the wine business who is also married with a soon-to-be-3rd-grade daughter, a goddess (because she puts up with yours truly) of a wife, and a dog who is sleeping at my feet as I write this. How the hell did this happen?
Life Coach (produced by Principato-Young)
June 2, 2015
Life Coach, Episode One
As frustrating as show business is, there are times when it’s so much fun your brain explodes. December was not one, but two, of those times, when friendships, technology, an understanding family, and a full tank of gas all converge into something really cool, fun, and sleep-deprived.
Early December, I logged onto my Facebook page and saw a posting from the “Emerson Mafia,” a group of Emerson College alums who like to keep in touch. An Emersonian, whom I’d never met, was putting out a call for extras on a Key & Peele-produced project in LA.
Now, I like to think I don’t do extra work anymore, but I’m still getting residuals from the second-to-last time I decided not to to extra work, and got upgraded. Plus, I also want to make inroads into LA (who doesn’t), and I’m a big Key & Peele fan (but I’m trying to lose weight). So I contacted the Emersonian in question…and got hired!
Truth be told, the gig was a death march. I got 12 hours’ notice to be on set at 8 am. This isn’t a bad thing when you live near the set. But it’s problematic when you live 400 miles from the location. So a quick call to my buddy Lincoln, who quickly offered me his couch, and I was on my way to LA. I arrived at his place at 4:30 am, was on set by 7:45 am, and was the best groggy barfly background talent I could be. I also met the Emersonian who posted the project on Facebook and we hit it off.
All in all, it was a fun gig. The real fun happened on the way home the next day. I stopped for a shake, and to do a little Christmas shopping, and checked my emails. The folks from the shoot wanted me back a week later, to be a zombie! With lines!
I don’t care how long you’ve been in this business…getting hired to flap your gums is always an ego boost.
A week later, I was back on Lincoln’s couch. This time I had more lead time. I drove down during the day (no Tule Fog on the I5 this time), got plenty of sleep, and had a post-noon call time. They made me up as a “bad” zombie, I was on set for maybe a grand total of two hours, and I was on my way back to Linc’s house. The next day, I was on my way home, via Barstow, where I went to visit some dear friends I hadn’t seen in many years.
Fast forward to April (my birthday month). I received an email from Principato-Young, telling me the project was finished. You can view it here. I appeared at the very end, but we managed to ad-lib my name during the closing credits. It was a very cool experience.
Since the project is sponsored by the Province of Alberta, and supposedly is playing in movie theaters in Canada, I can imagine that I’d get the movie star treatment up there…but I have to dress like a zombie.
I’m cool with that.
October 7, 2014
Still have the mustache from my audition a couple of weeks ago. Grew the beard back as well. But not for long. I sort of like the whole “wild and wooly” thing. I think, sometimes, that it helps me sell wine (day job stuff) because a middle-aged guy with a beard, at a mountain winery, somehow looks more, I don’t know, “winey?” But the beard’s gonna go in a few days, if only to keep my wife happy. Frankly, it makes me look old, and even though I’m past the stage where I’m seeking a potential mate, and if I were looking, which I’m not, any potential mate would laugh at the thought of mating with me. Unless there’s an audition calling for a bearded guy. Those are few and far between. So my face will be shorn, shortly.
Funny how even the potential for good news can spark you up. I like to think I’m a fairly happy guy, most of the time. (Let’s face it: people who are happy “all of the time” are the ones to worry about. Sort of like health nuts who scarf down vitamins and are always sick.) Yet, we can all have days where we can feel a bit down, for no apparent reason. At least that happens to me from time-to-time. Today was one of those days. If I were a meteorologist, I’d say that today I was “fair to partly cloudy.”
Then I got home and opened up my email — and lo and behold, I was being invited to read for something in LA in a few weeks! How cool is that? A chance meeting with a producer led me to shmooze as deferentially as I could. I sent him an email later, knowing full well that these things typically go nowhere. So seeing an email from one of his colleagues was a great freakin’ shot in the arm. My mental forecast went from “fair-to-partly cloudy” to “sunny with a chance of more sun” real quick. Such is the nature of show business…and that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. Those little moments of connection and reinforcement are priceless (even if you don’t get the gig).
I told my wife about it, of course. She won’t even be in town the day of the audition, but helped me work out the logistics. So the audition day’s going to go like this:
- Wake up,
- Get the kid fed, dressed and off to school.
- Haul ass to the airport.
- Fly down to LA, pick up a car, drive to the audition.
- Nail the audition.
- Haul ass back to LAX and fly back to northern California.
- Pick up the little one at her sitter’s house and tuck her in at night.
If my wife were home, I’d drive to LA the night before, crash with a buddy, do the audition, have some stupid time with my friends, then drive back the next day in time to teach my “Intro to Acting” class to the kindergartners-through-second graders at our kid’s school. But that’s not the kind of day it’s going to be. So it’s Southwest, here I come! Or, if I’m lucky, there might be some frequent flier miles I can poach…
In any event, the beard’s coming off, I’m hitting the jumprope and pool, and gonna lose a few pounds so I can go to LA (even if only for a few hours) in a kick-ass mood.
Happiness is a new kitchen. We’re in the process of remodeling our kitchen. New paint on the cabinets, granite countertops, new sink…Now our poor, water-averse dog now has a sink big enough to bathe in. Think he’s starting to figure that out?
Had an audition for a feature film the other day. At this stage of my career, I’m happy to audition for anything. I like to joke that, when I started in this business, I’d get auditions as the young father, the young businessman, etc. Now I get auditions as the guy with Low-T, COPD, a heart condition or a senior executive. I guess when you have gray hair, your “type” changes from “dynamic, hard-charging guy,” to “invalid.” That doesn’t really bother me. As the dad of a second-grader, I don’t care what you want me to be. I’d love to get a part as a guy in a boner pill spot. Our kid needs more “Frozen” paraphernalia, and of course, her college fund will always need more money.
But I digress…As luck would have it, I got called to audition as the lead in a SAG-low budget project. The sides I received were extremely well-written, and the part looked like it would be a blast to play. Looking in the mirror, I realized I was going to have to shave my three-week beard that I grow sometimes for fun. As I was shaving, I decided to keep the mustache, as I sort of envisioned the guy with a ‘stache. Not a Burt Reynolds mustache, mind you…more a pathetic, middle-aged guy’s attempt to be something besides who he was.
My poor wife. She was so happy to see the beard go, because she hates beards. She also hates mustaches. What’s funny about that? I have no idea if I’m going to get a callback. But I realized, after the audition, that I can’t really shave until I find out whether or not I’m cast in the film. So until then, I’m walking around looking like a used car salesman or something. If I’m cast, and they like the mustache, then I get to look like a used car salesman (which isn’t the part, by the way) for a month or so. I’m I’m not cast, I can either grow the beard back, or just shave until I get my next audition. Or until my wife drugs me and shaves me in my sleep.
I wrote this on my Facebook page the day I heard that Robin Williams had died.
I make no claim to have known the man. But I had the unbelievable privilege of working with him on two movies, and learned so much just watching the man work. It was a pleasure to have shared, if only for a while, the same real estate with this wonderful individual. Here’s what I wrote…
RIP Robin Williams. I worked with him on “Nine Months,” and “Flubber,” and never stopped laughing the entire time.
I can’t say that he knew me, but of course, I knew him. We chatted a few times, shook hands a time or two, and on “Nine Months” I had the thrill of laughing hysterically while watching him film an idea of mine (that didn’t make it into the film). He was a San Francisco guy who, when he could, brought a lot of work to this area and was a very kind man.
He was the first actor on the set, and the last actor to leave and as down-to-earth as a man could get.
Three of my favorite Robin Williams memories:
Memory Number One:
One day on “Nine Months,” I walked onto the set after lunch. The only people there were me, Christopher Columbus and the first assistant director. The assistant director got on the walkie-talkie and called for two of the actors to come in for a line-up. One of the actors was being all “Hollywood,” for reasons of ego, and certainly not of talent, and wouldn’t come to the set unless they were absolutely ready to shoot.
As this bit of information came over the walkie-talkies, I could see the director and assistant director look at each other with supreme frustration. About two seconds later, Robin Williams walked onto the set and very quietly said, “what do you need me to do?”
I can’t stress enough the man’s work ethic — and he always went out of his way to make those long days on the set enjoyable. The cast and crew would literally be in tears before, during and after takes, during meal breaks, and just about every second in between.
Memory Number Two:
Emeryville, CA, 6 a.m. Actors, crew, stand-ins are blearily filtering onto the set from the crafts services truck. In comes Robin Williams with a fresh cup of coffee.
“Coffee!” he bellowed. “It wakes you up in the morning and tells your colon to say hello!”
As we burst out laughing, he puts his his non-coffee holding hand behind his rear end, and makes a long farting sound and then holds his hand in front of us. “Hey honey,” he yelled. “Look what just came out of chute number nine!”
The laughter just got louder, when he shifted gears again…
“Hey Kids,” he says. “I’m KaKa the Clown. All my toys are brown. Today, we’re going to make animals.”
You never saw so many people try not to spit coffee all over themselves, ever.
Every day of every shoot that had Robin on the call sheet started with laughter, continued with laughter and ended with laughter.
Memory number three:
The anecdote, that to me summed (I hate writing this in past tense) him up perfectly, came during a conversation with a few of us stand-ins on “Nine Months.” He liked the voice of one of my co-workers, and suggested she do animation. She told him how she went to L.A., landed a big gig working with two of the biggest talents in the biz, and left, as she said, “with my tail hanging between my legs.”
He looked at her, and quietly said, “do you know what you have to do?”
She said, “what?”
He said, “you have to pick yourself up, go back down there, and do it again.”
Two rows of glasses greeted me. Five sakes per row. Chosen by leading sommeliers. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Winter Sake Sommelier Challenge, San Francisco
One of the interesting things about being in the wine business are the people you meet who share a passion for fermenting things. Last week, we helped several Japanese green tea and sake companies meet with US-based green tea and sake buyers. This week, I was invited to participate in the Winter Sake Sommelier Challenge at RN74 restaurant, in San Francisco.
Here’s what we matched our sakes with…’twas all very tasty.
I’m not a sommelier, but being married to one, and working in the wine business, and having studied various wine courses, I’m sure I could play one on tv. So here I was, surrounded by somms, and other wine folk, with ten awesome sakes in front of me, along with some little bites of some gourmet nibbles.
The task at hand? To sample some sake, taste it with some food, and select which sake you like the best. The goal of the get-together? To introduce sommeliers to sake as a food-pairing beverage.
The good news? Sake is an awesome and interesting beverage that goes great with food. The bad news? Sake lacks the acidity that wine has. It’s the acidity that clears your palate and cuts through the fat in meats and sauces. Nor do I see sake appealing to “Joe Six-Pack,” in the US, even though it’s a drink that cuts across classes in Japan.
I do see sake appealing to the foodies among us, and the food-curious. It’s an incredibly interesting drink, which like wine, is made (brewed) by passionate people, using the purest of ingredients (rice, water, yeast, koji mold). Each region of Japan has its own distinct terroir, its own distinct style of water, and therefor, its own style of sake.
My advice? Try some for yourself. Go to your favorite beverage store and drop a couple of bucks on a bottle. There’s no need to spend a lot of money. Try it with foods that have a fair amount of umami in the flavor profile — if you go with western food, think of cheeses, light pastas; pretty much start with the kind of food you’d drink a light white wine with. Then go from there.
Here’s the most important thing to remember: sake, unless otherwise noted, doesn’t lay down like wine. It’s meant to be consumed within a year. Once opened, refrigerate. They say you’ve got a week or so to enjoy. Don’t be fooled. Just enjoy it until it “loses the fruit” as we say in the wine world.
Keep your eyes on this page and others as the sake project continues…
The Beard Is Ever Growing…
I used to grow a beard during the New England winters. Then I had a mustache. When I crossed over from the corporate life to the dark side of commercial auditioning, I shaved and went facially-hairless. You don’t see many folks with beards or mustaches selling Fig Newtons if you know what I mean.
Well, here it is, the winter of 2014, and I’ve had a beard going since just before Christmas. Technically, I started growing the thing for a film audition. I didn’t get the part. Since my wife was headed out of town on business, and she hates beards, I decided to keep it going. Well a few weeks later, I shaved. Then I had some video ideas for a guy with a beard…you can see one of them on my demo reel page. More clips are one the way! Unless my wife finally snaps and shaves me while I sleep. I sorta thought it’d grow on her.
Green Tea and Sake…
Just spent the better part of two weeks calling US-based green tea and sake buyers on behalf of numerous Japanese green tea and sake producers. Why? For the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, that’s why.
Not the worst way to occupy one’s time. Especially since part of the payoff is that you get to try really exquisite Japanese green teas and sakes, right from the loving cups of the folks who make them. As they say in Japan, “Oishi!” Which means “Delicious.” In Japan.
The most annoying part of the whole project? Having people commit to visiting your clients, which commits you to getting them passes to the event, then having them not show up. Now some folks made the trek, just on different days, and let us know, sometimes after the fact. Some folks let us know after the fact, in a very nice and constructive manner. So they get a pass. After all, you don’t want to burn bridges.
Then there’s the folks who committed, didn’t show up, and didn’t bother to explain. The sad thing is, the client I work with sometimes sends qualified people to Japan, all expenses paid, to visit the makers of the goods they want to buy. Who do you think is going to get first dibs on those opportunities the next time they arise?
Had a Great Audition Today…
Had an audition for a national spot today. Lots of fun! It’s bad luck to mention what you auditioned for on “social media,” which this blog sort of is, even if nobody reads it. I’m comfortable saying that a dog was involved, which made the audition all the more enjoyable.
What made the experience even more memorable was what happened on the way to the audition and what almost happened on the way home. On the way to the audition, I had to drive down Mission Street in San Francisco. As I’m making my way down the street, there was a line of cars ahead of me. The car in front was trying to turn left into oncoming traffic. Of course, he couldn’t make the turn, so he waited…and waited…as I pulled around to pass on the right, the driver behind him started leaning on the horn. Really leaning on the horn. I could see that the guy who was being “horned” was only slightly smaller than the vehicle he was driving. I also think there were neck tattoos on either the driver or the passenger, but I really didn’t want to roll down my window and ask to see his ink…so I kept going. The horn kept blaring…until finally the big dude got out of his car and not-so-kindly admonished the other driver, who didn’t react like Mother Teresa, if you get my meaning. I just kept driving. I didn’t hear or see the incident escalate — but the driver ahead of me slowed down significantly so he and his buddies could watch the proceedings. I, wisely, I believe, chose not to blow my horn. I just slipped on by, since I had an audition to attend.
The audition was a blast. Then again, it doesn’t matter how good or how bad you were. If the director and client like you, you’re in. If they don’t, for whatever reason, even if you’re slamming it like the love child of Lawrence Olivier and Daniel Day-Lewis, you’re not landing the gig. So, I hope I get selected; if not, I hope the casting director liked my stuff enough to keep me in mind for another gig.
Here’s what I learned after the audition. If it’s Friday afternoon “rush hour –” and you’re making a 50-mile drive from San Francisco down to the San Jose area — it’s not a good idea to purchase and consume a ginormous bottle of water in the car on the way home. Because you will encounter traffic. If you’re lucky, the Friday afternoon drive won’t be a total crawl, and you’ll make it home before the water you drank decides its time to take its leave, if you know what I mean. In this case, the Friday afternoon drive was a total crawl. Route 280 was a veritable parking lot. And my bladder wasn’t happy.
For those of you who know Route 280, there aren’t exactly a lot of places to stop and whiz during Friday afternoon rush hour. The one stop I always make is the Los Altos Trader Joe’s — even when I don’t have to whiz. Yesterday, the closer my car crept, the farther and farther away that exit seemed. That, after all, is the way it is when you’ve gotta whiz.
Wouldn’t you know…I made it! Of course, I had to park a few hundred feet from the entrance, which made the walk to the front door all the more agonizing. Lucky for me, there was a clear path to the men’s room. I was there a good, long, blessed time. With the exception of my beer-fueled college days, probably my longest adult micturation in many years. Of course, I bought a box of cereal before I left…it was the least I could do to thank Trader Joe’s for being right where I needed them to be!
Now if I land the gig…I’ll be buying up the whole store! But I won’t be drinking any water on the way there…
Update on “A Day of Auditioning is Better…”
I didn’t get selected for the gig in question…but I’m still growing the beard that I started to “look scruffy.” Why? Well, my wife hates facial hair, but she’s on a business trip. And the Red Sox are in the World Series! I’m not the most knowledgeable of baseball fans, but when the Sox are in the Series, I’ll be in front of the TV set along with my friends and family back East. So, sorry honey…the beard stays until you get back! Because I’m a man, and can make decisions for myself…when you’re not here, of course. 😉
A Weekend of Long Form Narration Class is Better Than…
Work? Mowing the lawn? A funeral?
For an actor, the only thing better than paying to hear the sound of your own voice and receive helpful criticism from your teachers…is being paid to hear the sound of your own voice and get helpful direction from your clients who will then send you checks in the mail!
The most important thing, I believe, in going to a VO/Acting class is to NOT leave your imagination at the door! So many people, who’ve been told they have great voices (and they do) take these classes but don’t yet trust themselves enough to bring their imaginations and/or a willingness to fail. So it’s really cool to see the lightbulbs go off when they realize it’s okay to act like an idiot in front of a supportive audience.
I’ve tried, over the last 20 years or so, to leave my fear of failure at the door, before going into the audition. I’m not sure I’ll ever get there…but I’m a long way from where I was when I started. (I hope.)
A Day of Auditioning is Better Than a Day of Work? We’ll See about that.
Made the drive up to San Francisco today for an indie film audition. I’d love to say what the film is, but I’ve been told by casting professionals that it’s bad form to mention the gig on social media. It was a great day to be in San Francisco, and especially North Beach.
(Note: the film in question was “Palo Alto.” I didn’t get the part, and it’s been about a year since the audition. I don’t think there’s any harm in mentioning the film at this point. But, James Franco, any time you need a guy for a gig…I’m your man!)
Here are a couple of pics from my trip.
Specs Adler’s Place…a classic North Beach Dive Bar.
Golden Boy Pizza…where I occasionally, under the influence of adult beverages,
partook of a slice or two of pizza to go.
Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store and Cafe. Where I met my wife on our first date! I was a starving actor and substitute autism resource specialist with the SF School Dept., with $20 in my pocket.
I miss living in San Francisco. A lot. Of course, being a suburban, lawn-mowing dad has its advantages. I don’t have to worry about parking, we don’t have meter maids circling like vultures, and the schools generally are safer. My wife has a nice garden that I forget to water when she travels. And the chance a carjacker’s going to shoot at the cops chasing him, while I’m walking down the street, are fairly slim.
Back to the audition…The one difference between being a single, starving actor, living in the city and a married guy with a first grader living in the ‘burbs is this: you’ve gotta be creative when it comes to auditioning, especially if your wife’s away on business. So, it’s the kind of day when you drive your kid to school, haul to your doctor’s appointment, then call the babysitter and ask if she’ll pick the kid up from school, and take her to her extracurricular activity, while you call the casting director’s office and ask if you can audition early, so you can pick the kid up from school — and haul ass up to San Francisco even when you haven’t heard back from the casting director, in the hope that you can sneak in and do the deal.
So you make it to the city, and you find a parking space. You pay for two hours of parking, just in case you have to wait for your normal audition time. You stroll to the casting director’s, while enjoying the beautiful San Francisco day (Autum is Summer in SF).
You get to the casting director’s, and they let you in early! You go into the room, say the two lines, then try them again. You’re done. You say your goodbyes, leave the casting director’s, take a stroll back to your car, and you’re hauling ass back to the ‘burbs to get your kid. Well, “hauling ass” doesn’t quite cut it, since you’re in traffic all the way back…but you make it back in time to assemble your new trailer bike to your bike, and you ride to the kid’s after-school school, so you can surprise her with a way-cool bike ride home. The look on her face, when she realizes she’s biking home, makes you forget the traffic that you just spent two hours dealing with.
Well, here we go again.
I’ve been a member of SAG/AFTRA since 1994. I’ve worked on commercials, features, was a bad guy on Unsolved Mysteries once (just my luck the real guy turned himself in right after we wrapped so the show never aired), and yes, have worked as an extra more times than I care to admit. Hollywood’s never pounded my door down (one can always hope), but like countless dozens before me, and the countless dozens who’ll follow, I stay in the business. Auditioning when I can, taking classes when I can afford them, and generally trying to create, exploit, or beat opportunity into submission whenever possible.
It’s fun. I like the actors I meet. I like the people I audition with and for. I like the folks on the crew (where I began so many years ago). I like the dark humor, and the encouragement that comes from where you’d least expect. I hate not being chosen, but I also like the hustle, and the off-chance, that this audition…this callback…will be the one that nails it.
After over two decades in Northern California, with much of that time spent in the Silicon Valley, I have to say that actors are the most interesting and entrepreneurial people I know.
So this blog is primarily a love letter to the profession.
It’s also a place to vent, to bitch, to moan, and to ultimately and hopefully entertain and amuse. Don’t look for deep thinking. I don’t think I’m capable of that anymore.
Thanks for reading. Bear with me as I experiment with formatting, pagination, and so on
I’m a surgeon with Dreamweaver, but I’m relatively new to Word Press.
Where’s Wine Come In?
Every actor needs a day job. When I met my wife, I was working in the San Francisco School System, and doing website work. Since the dot-com had crashed a few years earlier, the school gig was the primary source of income.
On our first date (thanks Yahoo! Personals), I asked the woman who became my (ever patient, long-suffering) wife what she did for a living. She told me she was a wine marketing consultant. I, with $20 in my pocket, wisely said, “Uh, I like wine.”
She said, “what do you like?”
I said, “well, if it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m the single guy who’s invited out of pity, and know they’re serving turkey, I bring gewürztraminer.”
A couple of weeks later, this Goddess told me that “when a guy tells me he likes wine, I ask him what he likes. If he says “white zin,” I know he doesn’t know anything. When you said gewürztraminer, knew how to pronounce it, and knew what it was served with, I knew you knew something about wine.”
I never told her that I read it in a book. And there’s times I wonder what would have happened if I’d said, “oh, I love white zin.” Chances are, I’d still be living in my rent-controlled apartment, looking at an empty refrigerator, and listening to the water pipes clanging under my apartment at 4 am, and worrying about the rent. But that was nine years and one daughter ago, so I think I’m in the clear.
The truth is, I began learning about wines and the wine business helping Yuko on her rounds, meeting winemakers, and carrying multiple cases of wine. I began to think that perhaps, she was more interested in me for my wine case-lugging ability than she was in my charm or good looks. Then I looked at the wines I was drinking, the food I was eating, the people I was meeting, and the luck I was experiencing in having this woman even talk to me. I kinda, sorta, shut up, and think that was the best decision I ever made.
I learned that the wine business is like show business. You need passion, faith, money, have to like crawling in the dirt now and then, and you’re going to have good and bad years. You’ll also encounter rock star personalities, huge egos, and alcohol abuse. I work well in those worlds.
Truth be told, if you’re going to have a day job while you audition, there are worst gigs than the wine business. For a guy who came to California as a corporate PR guy, and ended up with a goddess of a wife and a princess of a daughter and get to work in wine, the web, and show business — let’s just say there are worse things that can happen.
HOW TO BE A MORON AT A WINERY
Random observations from four-plus years behind a tasting room bar…
Bring food into a tasting room. That stinks up the room, creates clutter and makes you look like the inconsiderate douche you are.
Bring outside wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages to your winery picnic
One of the most low-class things (regardless of your mode of transportation, stock options, bank account, etc.) you can do when you visit a winery with your friends for a, lets say, picnic, birthday party, or celebration, is to bring alcoholic beverages not from that winery, to your precious little soiree.
Here’s Why:
It’s illegal. Most winery use permits don’t allow outside beverages. If the wrong person sees your non-winery sparkling, beer, vodka, etc., the winery gets fined (at the very least) and your, until-then, friendly wine professional might get fired.
It’s Just Wrong. That winery makes its money selling you wine. If you’re going to occupy that winery’s real estate to have your lunch, and you have the nerve to bring outside wines, etc., you’re being a douche. There’s really no other way to say it.
You’ll Be Remembered. As a Douche. It’s always a kick to go to a restaurant, bar, or winery, and be remembered in a nice way by the person who’s taking care of you. That generally means that that host, waiter, bar-or-wine-tender, thinks highly enough of you that he or she has chosen to keep you in mind, over all the other people who’ve come through the door.
When you stiff the winery by doing the outside-wine/beer/booze thing, you’ll be remembered as somebody who isn’t worth the time of day because you’re a disrespectful douche. Oops, did I say that word again?
Worst yet, you might be remembered at the worst possible moment. Say, for example, the winery person you acted dismissively towards has a day job as a veterinary nurse. A week, month, or perhaps even a year later, you might notice that Fluffy has the sniffles. You bring Fluffy to the vet’s. Your friendly veterinary nurse, who looks vaguely familiar, takes Fluffy in her arms, and goes into the back room.
A few minutes later, she comes out and says, “Gee, I noticed Fluffy’s rabies records were out-of-date. I have to put her to sleep, cut off her head, and send it to the Center for Disease Control. Sorry!”
Now I’m not saying this actually happened. But that scenario was once bandied about in the tasting room where I work.
The morale of the story is: Don’t bring outside beverages to a winery.
Don’t be a douche.
Bring your pets into a tasting room. One time a rather entitled-looking couple asked if they could bring their Rhodesian Ridgeback into the tasting room that also had a very ornery cat, and a sign on the door that said “no pets.”
I said, “sorry, the sign on the door says no pets,” and explained that we had a very possessive winery cat.
The husband said, “well he’s very friendly with cats.”
I said, “sorry, no pets.”
He then said, “does anybody bring their dog in here?”
I said, “yes, the owner, but it’s his place and he signs the checks.”
This went on, I swear, for about two minutes, even after I said I’d be glad to give the pooch a water bowl and let him stay in the hallway outside the tasting room.
Finally, they relented. They seemed to enjoy their tasting, and their dog seemed to enjoy the break from their preciousness. They paid and went on their way.
Minutes later, our winemaker came in, and told me of the strange couple who were letting their dog run loose on the property. When he asked them to put the animal on a leash because he and his wife have two cats, the guy said, “oh, he’s cat-friendly,” and basically ignored the guy who actually lives on the property! If our winemaker were Hannibal Lecter, this guy, his wife and the dog would have been washed down with a nice Chianti. Well maybe not the dog.
The moral of the story: If I go to your house for drinks and/or dinner, and you have a rule that says “no d*$^-slapping on our dining room table,” guess what? I’m not going to be the guy who slaps his d*$^ on your dining room table!
Oh, and this “no pets rule” applies to small dogs, as well as large ones.
The moral of the story is: if you bring your dog into a tasting room, you’re an inconsiderate moron. Don’t get all flustered when we ask you to take the dog outside.
Be impatient. If you’re in a hurry, a winery tasting room isn’t the place to be. If the tasting room’s crowded, and you reach for the wine behind the bar and pour it yourself, you’re going to be kicked out…for being a douche and for breaking the law. Pretty much in that order.
Shake drops of wine on the floor. That makes you look like an inconsiderate fool. It’s also a great way to break glassware, because you’re bound to smash the glass on the bar — and that’s a great way to end your wine tasting. Just ask your wine pourer to give your glass a rinse with the next taste of wine.
Impress your date by trying to stump your friendly wine pourer with questions on French oak, malolactic fermentation, or proper temperatures. If you’re nice to us, we’re happy to help you score points with your date. If you’re trying to make us look bad, so you look good, then we’ll try to rescue your date by any means necessary. If your wine pourer is new and/or inexperienced, stumping him or her just makes you look like a stiff.
Be a camper: keep asking for “just one more taste,” over and over. Then get miffed when we shut you off. Most wine tastings consist of five one-ounce pours. That keeps us within the confines of the law, and keeps all but the biggest lightweights from getting juiced. We’re happy to let you revisit one or two wines, but it’s only common courtesy to either pay up and leave, or purchase a glass or bottle and go to that given winery’s picnic area, so other people can enjoy their experience. If you want to try every wine in the house, ask to reserve a private tasting.
Wear lipstick, perfume, cologne and after-shave. Wine-tasting’s a sensory, and sensual (if you want it to be) experience. Your sense of smell is crucial to really enjoying the wines we’re pouring for you. Lipstick gets the glasses all messed up and turns the most mild-mannered barback into a zombie. Perfume, cologne, aftershave stinks up the joint. It’s hard to enjoy a wine’s complex aromas when the person next to you stinks to high heaven.