I just hit the send button on my book, all 74,237 words of it.
Of course, it’s not finished, but I've cleared the first hurdle. I expect plenty of grunt work ahead of me with rewrites. There will be requests from my editor for more, less, get this info, say this better, convince me, too hyperbolic, IS THIS TRUE???!!! But this is a milestone, and I am exhausted.
After three days of relief, I now sit here, drooling on the bench in despair. Three days into the New Year, relief has been replaced with loss. I am nursing the latest bug, sucking on zinc tabs and am in a panic about getting publicity photos and my future.
For three years I’ve been stocking up on the passport stamps and now I am grounded in Little Italy, looking for the next step. Who knew that I would find it on the erobertparker.com site? A job. A real job. I want it. It is the obvious next step after a book entitled, The Battle for Wine & Love (or how I saved the world from CENSOREDization)
I haven’t had a job (with benefits, health insurance, and vacation. Vacation? What a concept.) since 1988 when I left Boston to return to NYC, so the idea of JOB is almost foreign and I was tempted to go to the dictionary to see if the word still had the same meaning. Never the less, I like the sound of being the next
Unesco Chair for Wine & Culture.
<<<
The UNESCO Chair will be the center of a network of high-level international partners involved in vine and wine culture. "The Chair is a central organizing body allowing for better communication, as well as raising the entire grape and wine production standard for the world," said David Hulley, grape and wine industry liaison at Brock University. …. The Chair will also endorse the third annual Bacchus at Brock, an interdisciplinary wine conference, on June 7 through 9. >>>>
Really, what do they want? I have no idea and find it amusing that one of the responsibilities of the position is organizing a wine conference. But here’s where I’d start.
* I would put and end to or stop the EU Grubbing up opportunity (the scam allowing people to sell off their vines for land development). All land looking to be sacrificed must be assessed by an independent vigneron in the area who is not wealthy but makes great wine. That person will assess how important the land is, how good the parcel of land is for growing vines and if the loss of the land (even if the winemaker working it is not making good wine) would be bad for the appellation. If the land is too good to turn into condos, the land is off limits for grubbing and the winemaker can lease the land or work with some of the locals to do better work.
* Per the above, all those disabusing great terroir by making industrial quality wine must attend classes, the wine class equivalent to the driver’s classes given to people arrested to driving under the influence. Nicolas Joly will supervise the inspirational speakers and the curriculum.
* Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU agricultural Commissioner would attend one blind wine tasting a month to educate her on the perils of “new world’ winemaking and how looking to the New World for inspiration will be the root of French and European wines further downfall. Paris-based Jenny Lefcourt will choose the samples.
* Wines must list all additives (including oak staves etc. yeast, etc.) as well as processes such as reverse osmosis, micro oxygenation and concentration.
That's just for starters. I'd also organize one hell of a conference. Promise.
If you're cozy with someone in the application process, sign me up?
