One day short of a month ago, I decided to launch a weekly diary series. A lot has happened during that month, some of which I have shared with the WYFP community, and see no need to get into again tonight.
Anyway, the second weekly installment is now posted. Again, as I said last time, The idea here is definitely not to come off as some kind of expert, but rather to stimulate discussion and sharing on some pretty-much (but not entirely) non-poilitical topics. If you want to play along, follow to the jump.
Wine: Notarpanaro 2001
The big brother of the popular and inexpensive Salice Salentino, this is a single-vineyard estate-bottled red – usually aged three years in barrel and another three in bottle before release. The 2001 didn’t come out of my cellar – I bought it this week at the local liquor store.
The 2001 still tastes fresh, with bright acidity and forward fruit. The real value here, though, is the exquisite, exotic aroma – as intensely floral as any red I’ve ever had, bursting with lily and violet scents layered atop an earthy minerality. A delightful food wine, Notarpanaro is made primarily from Negroamaro grapes in Salento in Apulia – a region on Italy’s southeast coast – cater-corner from Tuscany, if you will, the Florida to Tuscany’s Oregon.
I had this with some ravioli and a tomato sauce I infused with the bones, pan drippings and a few slivers of leftover meat from a pork rib roast I made on Sunday. Delightful.
Women: Mrs. Jmart
Last month, my wife and I celebrated a special milestone – the 24th anniversary of the brain surgery that restored her life.
On our first date, she told me she had epilepsy, and how I should respond if she had a seizure. It was unnerving to say the least, but it was months before I actually witnessed one. Medication kept them largely under control at the time.
But that didn’t last long. The condition first manifested itself when she was a teenager, after a head injury, but the doctors said it had always been sitting there, waiting for something to trigger it. In her early 30s, however, it spun wildly out of control. I still vividly remember the one she had in front of the house I was renting, and as she just started to come out of it, started briskly walking up the gravel driveway in her bare feet, oblivious to the stones, while I hopped and danced and ouched my way after her, trying to keep up.
It sounds funny. Her losing consciousness and dropping like a stone four to five times a day was not. They moved her to the head of the surgery waiting list.
That required neurologists to carefully map the area of the brain that was causing the seizures so they could remove it. They started with electrodes attached to her scalp, to pick up brain wave activity while a video camera was trained on her in the hospital bed 24/7, so they could see what body parts she was moving and how they corresponded to the brain waves.
That wasn’t accurate enough. So they drilled a series of holes in a circular pattern around her head, above the ears, and inserted inches-long electrodes directly into her brain. They were in there for a month.
Finally, they had it narrowed down to a sufficiently precise area for surgery. They shaved her head and cut a question-mark-shaped scar into her skull above, around and behind her right ear and went in.
She was awake the whole time. They numbed her up with Novocain, like having a tooth filled, and opened up her head. The surgery was so delicate that they had to communicate with her throughout to make sure they weren’t damaging or removing anything vital. She had to count backwards from 10, spell her name, identify colors held up in front of her, tell them the president’s name. This went on for more than eight hours.
She knew what it was going to be like. The night before the surgery, long after visiting hours were over, she came very close to running away. A housekeeper – a Jamaican immigrant named Gladys – saw her and talked her back into her room.
But the next day, she betrayed none of that fear. I stood in the hallway with her mother as they wheeled her gurney to the operating room. She sat up, smiled at us, waved and said "See ya later."
She’s been seizure-free ever since.
The day we met, several years earlier, the attraction was fairly immediate and we started flirting. Within ten minutes, though, she made a point of mentioning that she was a single mom raising a son. A lot of women would not have done that. Her message was clear: "This is the package, pal, take it or leave it. So if you’re not interested, move on." I was so impressed with her honesty and her character, I think I was hooked from that moment.
People say there are no heroes any more. My hero is my wife.
Song: Loan Me a Dime, Boz Scaggs
Those who know Scaggs -- if at all – from his hugely successful Silk Degrees album might be surprised to learn that he was the original lead guitarist for the Steve Miller Band. Silk Degrees was a vocal/songwriting triumph, but Boz’ original rock persona was as the strong, silent sideman.
Nevertheless, his signature recording – voted Best Record Evah in any number of Bay Area magazine and radio-station polls back in the pre-Interweb days when such things were strictly local – is a 1969 cover of an old blues number by Fenton Robinson, for which Scaggs’ guitar was essentially "second fiddle" (sorry) to Duane Allman’s lead: Loan Me a Dime.
To me, what sets this recording apart as one of the all-time rock masterpieces is neither Scaggs’ haunting vocal nor Allman’s searing, emotionally charged leads.
No, LMAD is simply the single most exquisitely, perfectly produced studio recording I’ve ever heard. By that I mean, every element is proportioned just right, like a custom-tailored shirt.
It is in many ways a guitar anthem – which is why it is included on the Duane Allman anthology recording. (Before the Allman Brothers Band, Duane was a legendary studio musician at Muscle Shoals.) But it has all the elements that guitar-hero purists disdain – plenty of organ, piano and horns. What makes it work is that all of those elements are mixed in just right – never overplayed, never heavy-handed.
It starts with a brief organ riff, seeming to come from a distance, as a pre-introduction. Then the formal introduction on piano. There are little guitar fills thrown in during that intro – I think by Scaggs but I can’t be sure. Then Allman comes in for yet another extended intro that sets the bluesy tone for what will follow. After a couple of verses, the horns come in. After one more verse, the vocals are done, and then the band really starts to cook. Finally, the horns, piano and organ drop away to yield center stage to Allman for one of the most unforgettable closing solos you will ever hear.
I have no idea how difficult this recording is to chase down these days – I have it on vinyl and CD and transferred the CD to MP3 just to make sure – but I recommend it highly.
Note: The producer of this epic recording deserves high praise. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is officially listed as the producer of the album. I will say only that "producer" can and often is a nebulous term.
OK, talk amongst yourselves.