Britany, Bird and the Use of Simple Wine

No matter how common, no matter how simple, no matter how ridiculous a wine may be, sometimes that’s what somebody is comfortable with and you are better off just sucking it up, ignoring the good stuff, and just giving them what they want.

So I’m sitting in the chair the other day in the process of getting my hair trimmed. My “stylist”, standing over me shears in hand, stops trimming when she here’s Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” blare out through the speakers in he shop. She stops and announces, “Ha! I love Michael. You know it’s his birthday today.”

My first thought (having read a great blog post earlier in the day at the Ridge Blog) is to respond to her this way:

“More importantly, Amber, today is Charlie Parker’s birthday.”

“Who,” she responds.

“Charlie Parker. Bird. You know. Charlie Parker”.

“Who is Charlie Parker,” she asks.

“Who is Charlie Parker,” I repeat “Really? Charlie Parker…the man who largely defined be-bob…the great Charlie Parker!”

Indignant I reached for my trusty iPhone that just happened to hold a few recordings by Bird and I started to play them for her. Billy’s Bounce. Blues For Alice.  Nothing. She recognized nothing, let alone his very existence. I quickly decided I needed to determine her level of jazz education and perhaps educate her.

I played some Thelonious Monk for her. Ruby My Dear. “Who’s Telinus Monk? Don’t know this.”

I played some John Coltrane. A Love Supreme. “Oh I’ve heard of  him….Wait, I don’t know that…what IS that?”

I tried Miles Davis. So What. “Yea, he’s the guy they talked about in ‘Jerry Maguire’ right?…Oh…I don’t know that song.”

A little exasperated now, I simply pulled up Crazy by Ms. Britany Spears. “Britany!! I like Brittany.”

The moral of the story is that like with music, with wine it is sometimes best to simply give somebody what they want, no matter what it is they want and no matter what your opinion is of what they want. In the end, you’ll be less exasperated and they will be much happier.

Posted In: Jazz, Wine Education

Tags:


2 Responses

  1. Dom Moreci - September 3, 2012

    Sad. But true. And really it’s okay. We can have Miles, Mingus, and Monk. They can have Britney & Bieber. And occasionally we can listen to MIchael, or Coldplay together. The trick is to teach them – and to keep yourself learning – about what they all have in common.

  2. In A Land Of Painted Thirst, Painted Wine Will Slake The Thirsty « 4488: A Ridge Blog - September 9, 2012

    […] was admitted as the 31st state?), it is often much easier to simply go to Tom’s blog (Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog), and just spin off of whatever he’s gotten up […]


Leave a Reply