1/25/20

Today, a day off one could say or see, but me wanting to further push into the AE story… starting with getting up earlier, the god hour of 4am, every day.  Abraham telling me yesterday that he wakes all seven day at 4-something and works out.   Last night, me staying up late, posting some story but mostly relaxing after a long day, or not so much a long one but one of production in many arenas and atmospheres.  Today’s aims, only production… a run at some point after Jack’s baseball tryouts which are in three hours.  Think I’ll launch after that… or, run on treadmill. Yes, the latter for speedwork intentions.  Feel stuck in these types and not sure why.  I’m thinking excessively.  No more writing aims, find that’s a curse.  When you put it there, it’s there to look you back in the face and taunt you, somewhat agitate you that you haven’t done it till now.  Only option is to plainly do, just do what you need do.

Will hit that study/course guide for the certification, for connectivity and telecom work.  Not that I want to be a Sales Engineer, but I want to get as close as I can.  Associating it with winemaking, oddly.  How I know enough to make win, e but not enough to be a professional winemaker.  Some won’t get this analogy or association.  A sensible note or corollary to me nonetheless.  Maybe I do want to be a Sales Engineer, but without the title.  An AE that’s more SE than AE.  Thinking…..

Need to get a run in at some point.  I’m anxious, not having woke when I wanted, not racking 8 or nine miles like I have a couple mornings in the past.  Production, the word dominating the semester for me at the JC, and here I am grappling with it.  A new blog project, ‘a productivity practice’, revolving in my thoughts driving back from San Rafael yesterday, methods of intensifying and amplifying, diversifying production and principle productivity.  One, don’t let anxiety envelop you.  If you can’t do something RIGHT NOW, because you have family to-do’s or some other appointment, push to side in your head knowing it’ll be later appeased.  Second, bed early wake early.  More and more I’m thinking this is the most obvious realization of production.  IF I’d shot from the sheets at 4, I’d have a sizeable run in by now as well as a thousand or so words.  And that’s my third point, no shoulds or woulds… only dids, or doing.

Studying production this morning in my own thinking and with my own narration…. Oh, another staple ideology is to travel light.  Always.  No heavy bag or collection of something under your arm.  Be FREE, and free of things.  Free of clutter and ancillary anything.  Production so often is impeded by what we collect, and in my study there should be less of the study itself and more of a directedness of the productive pulse.  Knowing all of this, in expanding and heightening production, your work accrual, is autodidact.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Going in, but at 11.

After a morning of some of the most intense sibling skirmishes I’ve seen since having two littles and both could actually altercate with the other, I have time to self.  At the old Windsor coffee spot.  Last night, Hitching Post Pinot.  Can’t remember the last bottle of HP I had.  Was a while ago…. WAIT—After or actually during the fires when staying at Uncle Mike’s house in El Dorado Hills.  HP of course reminds so many of Sideways, that movie… you know… Pinot Pinot PINOT, but for me it’s not that.  Not anything bad being associated with fires, but just something different.  The not-knowing… the something of something having to do with life.  Wine is the unpredictable and the whim, both dangerous and delightful.

Had to move seats.  Only one open was the little table by the napkins and shakers and other shit bar.  So I came to the seats I used to hate writing in.  I can tell, I’m thinking too much about what I’m writing.  Second-guessing self and getting uncomfortable in seat, feeling a mood approaching, already disrupting my work.  Writing about wine, and how again I don’t see a wine bar or shop for self, but some resource for wine drinkers, no matter their “level”….  But then I back-pedal on that as well.  Just write wine, same as when my sister told me that if you’re going to make wine then just make wine.  Don’t think about it.  She said, as I’ve written so many times before, and quoted conveniently, that if you second-guess yourself you’re never going to make wine.

Another quote, from my grandmother, only days before she left, “It’s YOUR life… you have YOUR choice.” So what do I want, I’m this morning asking.  How should I know… I do, a bit.  Don’t I?  After submitting grades yesterday, or the night before, I very much am convinced that the adjunct thing has run its course.  I still want to teach, I guess—or not “teach” but offer ideas.  By way of essay.  Like this one, this piece, this article, whatever the fuck this is… going in later so I can have some fucking time to self.  To collect, think about my mission, and how much life I have left.  You never know.  So where you are and what you’re doing has to be defining and absolutely declarative in its progressions and steps.

With wine, as metaphor or no, I’m told to respond to conditions around me, favorable or not.  The fires, 2017’s, obviously not hoped-for but still present.  Winemakers had to deal with them.  Work with and around them.  More with than around.  The defined the wine of that year, much.  Even if the clusters were pulled before the blazes initiated and flew and grew as they did.  Wine… definition-prone and aided and slated by everything not-controlled.  I start to see…. Something…. Defining wine.  Or characterizing her.  No, something… not sure.  Wine and character.  What everyone keeps telling me to do.  So why do I ever stray from what everyone hopes I write, DO?  Frustrated with my handle of my own pages so I convince self to challenge the same self in writing ONE world.  One character, language.

Wine wants us to be puzzled, wants us to have to contemplate next directions, just as she did.  She demands we listen, be more observant, more connective and connected, composed and by the moment towed.  Today I’ll taste through the flight, a couple times I’m sure.  Write everything she says to me… make it personal, and wine should be personal.  At times moody, confusing, a myriad of varying and unpredictable echoes and dialects.  The Pinot last night speaking differently than the first HP bottle I had years prior.  That’s the music to it all, in wine or anything else entailing life and promise, some dream, some chance and happenstance, a reactive and spontaneous dance.  If I do open a wine shop, it has to speak in this language of spontaneity, of artful reaction, of a lick of luck.  Traveling to other countries and streets far away to gather bottles for the shop…. Ideas, from her, wine. In the convex consideration of my reflective armament.  What am I doing but walking with her, in the step of steps, not so much divine or even delicious, but decided.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Wine, words, typing, a house that’s so quiet it’s as though every touch of this keyboard echoes and calls, shouts from the kitchen here to wherever in the house.

Trying not to think about ‘what am I going to—‘

One thing about wine, or at least with me, she always reminds me of her presence in every scene, whether she’s there or not.  You drive down Occidental as I did today on my way to Balletto passing vineyards and little tasting rooms (really only one that I can think of, Hannah) and seeing myself as the owner.  Not as a sole business drive but one, one for true wine decision and nothing more.  Of course I’d like to turn some profit, not be forever in that startup red, but be with wine every day for the love of love of loving it, her.. her… that character.  Zin in stemless plastic Roth Winery cup.  Zini I bought today, a 2016 I think and I do not ever pursue Zin but this one I would.  I’m in need of writing this evening.  Not some show.  Not any posting to social, none of that.  Writing, about wine… I want to take my time with this glass and just be there, in MY tasting room.  A place where I work for ME.  Soon, I repeat repeatedly till the next grip of the glass…   I smell, I can’t place any fruit.  It’s there, I just know if I’m sensing the “right” attributes.  I know I always discourage and shove people away from that type of thinking but that’s what I’m doing now.  Why… and I can’t taste much.  I can tell it’s not flawed, or flat, or corked.  She’s just not speaking to me.  Or maybe I’m not listening.

I’m thinking too much and talking too much like these tasting room people I’ve met my whole wine life. Not the young lady who for me poured today at Balletto.  Brittany I think her name was, a doctoral student and well-placed and purposed and conversant in wine’s lap and laud.  The others I’m mentioning, those that always want to be heard and seen as some authority, want people to follow them for answers or something and just talk, and keep talking.  They don’t invite conversation, they just want to be the conversation, they want the conversation to be THEM and not her, the wine.  So I slow down.  I stop tasting the way I was in the past two sips.  And that’s all I’ve tallied.  The color is not only in-tact (not that I would expect much or any decline in a ’16 RRV Zin), but the intensity and contrast and tint have me in her spell, gothic narrative and shape, arrangement, language.

Writing wine is a trap for thinking too much, for getting away from the wine and in a reverse-cyclone of ‘what do I say, what do I write’.  This bottle is right where it needs to me, next to a writer.  Thinking of writing a letter to Balletto, someone over there, maybe my friend Jacqueline, or their winemaker if I could find him or her, and ask about the Zin production process… what is there experience with Zin, philosophy on it.  Same way I interviewed Heidi Barrett nearly 10 years ago I should with Balletto’s grape translator.  Just an idea for now but one more than likely with take for and be a letter I send.  I’m seeing Zin differently with this song, her track current with me here in the kitchen at the keys, forgetting everything that was keeping me mute and in place, a statue scribbler.  Not now.  Now I’ve become mad, madly attached to this act, to the being in the plastic stemless.  Why did I pour it into a Govino.  She deserves a real glass.  Easily fixed with next pour.

12/28/19

mikemadiganLeave a comment

With EOD already here, I’m asking myself where the day went.

Did I get enough out of it.  Did I hit the numbers that I wanted to with emailing prospects, calls, all that.

Cleaning up desktop a little, and not letting self rush out of here.  Still have to write my 300 Sonic words, but I can’t.  Not now.  Sleepy a bit, even after the coffee I had after the lunch meeting in Kenwood where I had some of the red blend being poured.  How do I get self to rise early, earlier than–  Hear someone, another AE, nice guy, big help to me, in the conference room still after meeting making calls, staying in character.  Dane was right when he said that this is the doorway to whatever you want, career-wise.  And the Account Executive model, or narrative is something that shocks me with its reverberate nature and constant antagonization of learning and conversation, music and movement.

Little more cleaning of desk.  Now settling, a cruise control of ideas and visions and thoughts of me with my winery or wine shop, or marketing kitchen… lab.  Everyone uses that term, LAB.  How about ROOM.  A marketing room.  Don’t like ‘marketing’, either.  How about ….  Just ‘the room’.  Can I do that?  Looking at everything on my desk, wanting to go somewhere and do something, raise awareness… plan the rest of the evening.  Bed early so I can wake early, and write the day’s remainder.  Where am I tomorrow, in office or out?  Wherever I want.  Call more people in San Rafael, SF, Marin County… the Peninsula…

Wonder what my babies are doing right now.  More than likely getting picked up, heading home.  Seeing them this weekend interact at the dinner table for Dad’s birthday, more urgency for me to not just focus, but detach.  Not try to control a single slice of this story.  Just write what happens around you… in the tech office this is challenging I guess you could say, from all the conversations and the codified nature to them.  Me, Mike Madigan, learning what I can when I can and trying to assimilate such into my daily talk with prospects.  But then I’m told, and before that realized, I don’t have to.  AE’s here have Sales Engineers that will do that for you.  So Mike Madigan, in his own definition, realizes he’s been doing some things wrong in trying to do too much.  All he’s do is bridge, set meetings, yes sell a bit but the Engineer handles all the technical shit.  So wait…. I’ve been working too hard?

Consolidation…. How to propel more profitable productivity, strengthen SELF, and to sell more.  Simplify.  Brainstorming an already over-stormed brain.  So does that help, who knows.  But a note to self nonetheless.

Need a glass of wine.  Yes. I deserve one.  What… what does Mike Madigan want?  Cab.  Or Merlot like the other night.  I can’t decide. I write wine but don’t know what wine to have. What’s that mean.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe everything.                                                                                                                                                                                        

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Day NINETY

No dressing up, no pretend, nothing fabricated or costumed.  I’m a writer, blogger.  And now I generate significant income from such.  HOW.  All the principles that Sonic instills in terms of narration and prospecting, and NOT SELLING.  As writers and bloggers I feel we wish and hope so much for something to happen rather than just convincing ourselves that we’re already there.  Don’t act like you’re doing it, just move in that form and frame.

Have to send out a contract this morning, or re-send it rather.  Then will be out of office visiting prospects.  Shit, should have risen early from pillow and sheets.  Woe of my life’s row. Ways to make it happen are beyond obvious, so why don’t I embrace and enact them.  Good question, which isn’t much a question but more a statement.

Quiet in office, two trainers and other AE not yet here.  Babies coming home today, and me getting impatient.  With what.  Everything.  Don’t I tell myself and can hear others telling me, ordering me.  So…. Keep moving.  Fear no error or folly or simple mistake.  Just keep deciding, realizing, actualizing and materializing.

Putting $10 in envelop in desk drawer.  No cash.  Saving.  For what.  Business.  MY business.  Turn a blog into something like this, like Sonic, with everything it is and speaks and connotes.  How…. By making a book out of everything… a book on production and productivity, a book on taking notes/notes to self, a book on selling but not selling, a book on marketing, and office atmosphere, management…. Budgeting, and empirical business. Not sure where I am in the hundred day project I set before self.  I’m estimating late 80s or early 90s.  The goal of the project was to be on autopilot, and I more or less, I think more—definitely MORE—am.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Playing at the park up and then down the street, down a little hill,

I’m definitively into my zen tilt and happiness takeover and project.  Sipping Rose in a plastic cup I found in Mike’s cupboard I think about wine and what I want with it.  Again.  Kids unaffected by this, this evacuation.  To them it’s a getaway, a vacation, something that has no flames, or threats, evacuations or dangers.  It’s fun.  They make it fun.  Actually, no, they don’t MAKE it anything.  They just see opportunity for enjoyment, to relax and play on that slide and those swings.

Not going into Sonic tomorrow, and I feel guilty, but then don’t.  I want to and need to be here with the babies.  Write. Get out of my comfort zone as much as I hate that phrase, but that’s just what I need do.  Saw a bench at the park or rather just in the not-too-distant distance in front of and on the side of a large grass field that you might think is used for polo but I think it’s just a grand and nearly overwhelming grass field for kids to play on.  Soccer, chase, tag, what be.

This house I could see as an office, or some property I’d own for either a rental or just an office.  Rather big for just an office but it’s what’s smattered in my inner sigh sense, blogging in here for weeks, just locked in and forcing self to produce a book from the blog.  The blog has to come first, and the realizer and readier for whenever I’m stuck or feel I’m recycling the same sentences, is the Now.  Write the Now.  Where you are and what you’re doing.

Jack and Emma watch the Grinch, one of the dozens or hundreds of versions, and eat some Cheerios from a red cup, the kind you’d see at a frat party.  Jack spills some and I tell him to pick it up and he tells me he will after he comes back from China.  I laugh a little but try to be serious and then tell self fuck that.  Have fun with them.  Be one on and of the playground.

I need to play more.  Not think so much. Not work, but only create, write, stay up late and pepper the manuscript’s streets with verse, pages, my phylum of music.  Keep pushing these keys and refuse to let self stop, the wine tells me.  Don’t allow distractions, obstructions.  Poetry is the vein, the blood, the beat, the blog, the Now ME.

Playing with the wine, the pink puddle in the plastic cannikin.  Turning left, seeing Broncos play Raiders.  Thinking more of my office.. what I want in there.  Anything that antagonizes, promotes, encourages creativity, bringing something to life.  This bought with Sonoma County wildfires plates a dose of déjà vu that I wasn’t expecting, to just live and write wildly and edit nothing.  Kids getting restless, and me too.  To finish this fucking book, and light MY story on fire.  Several fires.  And be so lovingly monstrous that it can never be extinguished.

Cuz F This S …

mikemadiganLeave a comment

So tempted to go home.  See my babies.  What is this class doing for me.  Really.  A lot, Mike.  I need to play it better… idea… post more to the professor mikey blog.  Yes.  Today, all day in the BNI meeting people calling me Professor Mikey, saying “What’s up, Professor Mikey?”

Just did budget.  Still healthy, but want more money to come from me. Need more bookings… more speaking engagements.  Not that I’ve had any ones that pay, ever.  Will soon.  Feeling ornery, this evening.  Ordered a glass of some red blend.  They don’t have the Grenache…. Goddamnit.  I’m NEVER coming here again.  Stomach not hurting anymore, and feeling a fine note of famine.  So…. Don’t want those fries… too much, too crumby and salty.  At end of night, I want to have …. Shit, a poem.  A verse.  Have to do that, first.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Thinking of wine and everything I’ve seen from wine’s collective and individual narrative.

Want more.  More story.  More intersections and collective composing with wineries.  How to start…. Selling.  With wineries that speak my language, and I theirs.  And I if I’m not pervasively acute in their tongue, I learn it.  And I will.

While with the last glass of Lancaster red last night, there was declaration, and movement in my Now wine-speak.

Wine tells me to write more about her and get lost in the myriad of vortex and truth, the ontological lasso of every vineyard row and lot tasted from the bench.  Haven’t done that in a while, a blending trial.  It’s harvest now, so I can’t just reach out to one of my winemaker buddies and say something like “Hey, mind if I crash the bench?” Like I used to do with Blair and Zach at Kunde.

Just ideas, this morning… wine ideas that take me to a new letter and possible talk.

mikemadiganLeave a comment