rafael pyton

“And, wine…” I said, before being deliciously interrupted by the sheer size of the crowd listening to my every word, “… wine, is the blood of the gods. At the very least, the blood of the goats of the gods.”

Cue rapture, rupture. Cue the sweeping gaze upon, the arms around. I raised, we raised our crystal glasses in shameless celebration. Again. Dinner was long over, but the wine lingered - in the bottles, in the glasses, in the bottomless holes situated on the lower half of our faces, flushed with whatnot but red beet.

Terribly sorry, but the story does not continue. I just needed a cool intro for this post. He he hefner. But the topic is yet again WINE - since I promised the solution to everyman’s question, yes, the one you always wanted to know, but never dared ask:

Does my bum look big in this, and is this wine any good at all?

I argued that subjectivity is impossible. I argued that subjectivity is possible. You did not know what to think or whom to trust; me or me. But the fact of the matter is, it is possible for me, and impossible for you.

Until now…

See, everyone should make their own notes on tasting. Only you yourself know yourself. But since most of us lack complete ambition in everything but staying alive, that won’t work. Fear not, however. I found a most unlikely solution: I found a person, a friend, who represents the real world to perfection. This person personifies you and me. This person has your and mine palate.

My source is the deep throat, whose identity will be guarded closer than the Crown Jewels. It’s a name I will whisper on my deathbed, or in Guantanamo, whichever comes first. But the scores are out now, to be updated in regular intervals forevermore to come!

Thus, without further gibberish, I hereby introduce the red wines of the real world, carefully compiled by my secret source. I have baptized the list “Winos In Veritas“, and you can find it under Pages, the top right column. Or be lazy and click on the link below; nevertheless, it is a click for truth.
May it be a beacon, bacon, bread and butter, bible of wine the next time you restlessly roam Alko.

Winos In Veritas

To tell you the truth, I stopped watching the Monaco Grand Prix after the first wave of pitstops. As I write this, I have no idea who won - but I will check the results when I near the end of this post. That way, you will get genuine reactions…

But pre: Am I losing my F1 mojo? When was the last time I quit watching the Monaco Grand Prix??? Never since birth, that’s when. Sure, I may throw in a towel in Shanghai or Sepang, but this is Monaco, where cocktails cost 80 euros and a limb of free choosing. Monaco! Where yachts are so big, penises must be invisible. Monaco! Where geriatric men can date skinny teenager supermodels, and look cool doing it. Monaco! We love you and your big black sunglasses!

Well, admittedly there was a slew of circumstances that conspired to fade my interest. Three, to be more accurate.

FIRST, qualifying yesterday. Kimi turned in too early, and made himself look stupid, and Heikki was so slow I want to mean slow in more ways than one. So, he got held up by Coulthard on a quick lap - but it’s not like he set the world on fire before that, is it? In the meanwhile, teammate Fisico shone like Maldini at San Siro.
SECOND, I am painting the roof right now. I’ve been working like a deranged animal for ten hours a day since the beginning of May. And while I sit inside and watch F1, the roof is not painting itself…
THIRD, that godawful Catalan shot into an early lead, with black Senna hot on his heels. I figured the race was practically over.

If there ever was a year to ignore the racing, and instead get smashed on Dom P. aboard your yacht, this was it. So I grabbed a skinny model and… so I grabbed the brush and clambered back out and up onto the hot steel roof, hooked my line to the chimney, and started talking to myself.

Ok. Let’s get the results, shall we?

Double McLaren, wrong side up… F U C K ! ! ! Wave bye bye to that shitty championship again. Fuck do I care, anyway. Because I enjoy self-flagellation so much…

Oh. Not a single overtaking manouvre during the hole race. Yes, I left the w out on purpose… well, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love the Principality, but if I started the Monaco grand prix on pole, in my very own 944 , I’d win the race. Like so.

Know thy taste.

It is the only way forward. The only way to quivering heights. The only way to transcendental delectation. But the road to bliss is beset by all kinds of evil. Such as other people’s opinions. On wine. Take Robert Parker, for instance…

As you ought to know, he is the most influential wine scorer in the world. Too influential, some would say. I know I would. But let’s not get medieval. Let’s just get even. The easy and seductive “RP” system is based on the American high-school marking system. A wine receives 50 points just for turning up. Then, it gets 5 for color, 15 for bouquet, 20 for taste, and a further 10 for overall impression.
These days, anything with a “RP” of 90 and above gets priced up accordingly. Many rich American hostesses are said to place orders for wines, no matter which, that Parker has awarded 96 points and over. How convenient! Insecure, but highly convenient! [I confess to checking Viinilehti scores myself, albeit only occasionally..].

Yes, well. But I dearly want to comment on the points system, if I may? I may. 5 for color? As long as it is a shade of red, frankly, it is not of vital importance to me. By the way - what kind of red is better than another kind of red? Depth? Don’t be anal. 15 for bouquet? Really! A wine can get 15 points for how it smells, but only 10 points on overall impression? I say! And what is overall impression anyway? Where does it fit with taste? Or what’s the use of an extra overall impression, when the other 90 - or 40 - should make up the parts of the overall impression?

If that was confusing, it may not be as bad as it gets. See, unless your own palate matches fruity Parker’s, you’ll be in trouble. The former lawyer favours big, juicy and slightly sweet wines in New World style. Over-extracted wines, intense flavours. In other words, he likes fruit bombs.
Do you? I don’t, normally.

Also remember that professional wine tasters sample on dozens with perhaps a hard biscuit to snack on between sip-and-spit. Their scores does not relate to the real world drinking that we do. Think food combos first and foremost, but also all nighters, good movies, the odd white-lipped cigarette, a loved one in your arms, the damn color of the sunset.

Really! The next time a bottle of table wine blows you away, trust your instincts. Enjoy the moment. Ask for more. And then some. I know there are plenty of us out there who are tired of forking out Fort Knox for something with perfect pedigree, only to curse the skies when the taste is shockingly immature, or the inside of a Frenchman’s latex gimp suit in the morning.

Really x 2! Subjectivity is impossible. And yet so possible. There can only be one solution: …………………………

[Intermission. But said solution follows so soon!]

Earlier this spring, before my last operation, I was knees down and butt up in the garden. But… this is not the National Garden Association, Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey.

Maybe I don’t really want to know | How your garden grows…

…the song goes. [Do you remember which one?] Anyway, instead of flashing my green thumbs, I will show you were rolling stones end up.

Right there, that’s where. I grew tired of pulling weed from flowerbeds and such, so I dug the crap out, laid out weave, and added beautiful natural stones. Let’s face it; stones are forever; a man’s best friend.

As a bonus, this did not cost me a dime. I happened to “find” the stones somewhere… a buddy helped me out, and we made a couple of stealth runs with the trailer. Tadaa. I call it saving money.

[Oh yeah, the Porsche is on a stilt in the pictures above: Just before my operation, I sent the right front aluminium wheel to be trued. The last owner had put a small dent on the inside of it, and it made the steering wheel shimmy on the good side of 200 km/h... It is now in perfect shape, shod with brand new Falken 225/45-17 front and 255/40-17 rear. The grip is so massive I don't brake into corners anymore...]

Thought I’d balance the Eurovision with something impossibly high-brow and utterly incomprehensible, i.e. something that is conspicuously cool only in my little burgh of taste. Some time ago, while completing my Kraftwerk collection with the rare Kraftwerk I [1971] debut album, I discovered a band called Tangerine Dream. And it is sensational. Sort of.

It all depends on the ambience & atmosphere. There are days - most days - when I don’t even want to be in the same country as new age, space music and electronic dance. But, there are also days - seldom days - when I want to fill the pure dawn of calm with something huge and deep and of undefined shape and shadow.

That is when I hit the triangular button on Tangerine Dream. That is when the current washes me away like a leaf out of control. That is when I ride the river of energy right through the wonderland. Alice waves to me. And Tangerine Dream waves a magic wand.

I have 97 albums of Tangerine Dream…

Right. Just in case that number borders on overkill, I have chosen a few spells that you could fall under. Personally, I prefer the earlier production of main man Edgar Froese and his Dream partners. Try on these for size. You might find that they fit. Eventually.

Phaedra [1974]
Stratosfear [1976]
Force Majeur [1979]
Hyperborea [1983]
Firestarter [1984]
Poland [1984]
Canyon Dreams [1987]
Transsiberia [1999]
The Seven Letters From Tibet [2000]

And if you really listen hard when the rest of the world is sleeping, you might see naked nymphs dancing on moonlight water…

Who is killing the cat?

The silly spectacle that is the Eurovision Song Contest returned to normal yesterday. Normal as in shit. Man, I was such a fool for thinking that Lordi might inject the schlagerfest with some much needed testosterone… not that Lordi is not shit - it is - but at least the monsters semi-rocked the casbah for a little while back then & when.

For once, Finland did not deserve to be at the lower end of the tables. The song was a masterpiece in comparison with Serbia and the rest of the catkillers from the blok. And why did not Sweden win? They had a proper band with a proper tune - not a comedy act gone bad.

Well, shaboom, shabaa and shakalakalaaa - the music itself actually matters very little, since it is all show and no go, but what completely strips the last remaining shreds of dignity from the Eurovision scene is the voting system. [Can't believe I just used the word dignity in the same sentence as Eurovision...]

OOH, how it pisses me OFF!

Thus, I, Rafael Pyton, the drop that makes the sea, will hereby boycott the cheap joke that is the Eurovision Song Contest until they change the system radically! Political voting makes me sick! Commie bastards! It is the god damn WARSAW PACT in all but the name!

[Ok. Ok. I may need some sueet Dizzy Gillespie bebop for my sehr über-sensitive antlers right now...]

Roy L. Pearson Jr. is a man I’d love to slander all the way to the slaughterhouse - was it not for the fact that he’d probably sue me for an astronomical amount. See, this man is sueing a dry-cleaning Korean family for… 65 MILLION DOLLARS FOR LOSING A PAIR OF PANTS!!!

Bang, bang! Order in the courtroom!

It comes as no surprise that this is taking place in America, land of the free, home of the blind, but what raised my eyebrows all the way to the back of my neck is the fact that dear ol’ Roy here is a JUDGE. Yes, a judge, who passes judgement onto others; someone who by all accounts should know the difference between right and wrong and the meaning of moral.

Bang, bang! Order in the courtroom!

I don’t think I ever heard anything more absurd in my life. As a caring member of the human race, I have been insanely insulted.
Then again, all evidence definitely point to Roy L. Pearson Jr. not being human at all. Probably humanoid. Perhaps hominoid. Certainly inhuman. Hopefully dehumanized.

Sarkozy just snacked on a Royal with cheese. And if you ask me, he is precisely what France needs after ages of socialist tomfoolery. And if you ask me, a promise to crack down on crime is always an election winner. And if you ask me, French trade unions make me roll my eyes. And if you ask me, I get a strange urge to utter something xenophobic now, but I’m too smart to fall into that pit of fire and snakes. Or…

Come on, Sarko! Bring out the Kärcher!

Seasons three and four of the finest tv-series ever made are setting my cinematic space on wildfire, and I’m beginning to wonder if it really is possible to spend an hour in a better way than playing third man to hotshots Mr. Burnett & Mr. Cooper.

A better way? There can not be. When Jan starts to Hammer, and your retinas are scanned by the palm trees, the bouncy bikini strut, the jai-alai, the leaping jaguar of a powerboat and the rush of the sea to the neon letters that flash M I A M I - V I C E, then you know there can not be.

Wanna check my loafers for bare feet? My Ferrari for white? My badge for proof? I am the third man.

It’s been more than twenty years now, and Miami Vice has not shrunk a centimeter, dated a day. Quite the opposite - it is ahead of its time right now and today to the day, the year of 2007 according to the clock of Western civilization. Speaking of which, could it also be that, having taken possession of this cultural artefact, we have reached the pinnacle of our civilization?
Could it be that the heights have been scaled, that we are now slowly slipping down the slope? Many things today confirm that we have peaked as a people. In the future books of history, you will know I’m right. Miami Vice was the turning point of our civilization.

Waiting while some one writes the future books of history, however, let us revel in the excess of awesome. Let us relish in the company of spectacular. Let us ravish in the being of splendid. Let us really shake our heads in wondrous disbelief - when tv is good, it is fucking sensational.

Beauty rapes the beast, gives birth to Miami Vice, all emotions come as standard. The agony of drama, the cruelty of tragedy, the joy of fun, love, kill, Izzy talk, the blend of kitschy and catchy, the eternal battle between good and bad and blur, everything draped by the surface of cool; do you hear me now? Ahead of its time, whatever the time is!

Man, I still can’t believe Zito is dead… poor Switek. But fear not; horizons also come in pink. And I AM the third man.

Can’t you see me? I am right there, to the left of the Don. No? Are you blind, foo? I’m right there, to the left of… Äh! You need new eyes. You need my eyes.