Yes, Mr. Penn called me as I was flying from Venice to New York. As I mentioned in a previous postlet, he left an overly cheery voice message. I called him the next day -- that would be Wednesday, April 9 -- and told him to come to my place on Thursday late in the day.
He arrived at 5PM on the button. He entered laughing, full of bonhomie and nonchalance and as Gallically debonair as on overweight, unemployed man d'un certain age with a comb-over can be.
"Here I am, Thomas, back a lot sooner than I thought I might be!" He guffawed in a Falstaffian way. I bade him site in exactly the same spot as before. The cleaning lady had just plumped up all the pillows, so his hemorrhoids were lucky.
I was cool. Very different from last time. I think I was overeager then. Unlike politicians and Britney Spears, I learn from my mistakes. "Thanks for coming over, Mark -- you don't mind if I call you Mark, do you? I feel like we know each other so well."
"Indeed! Please call me Mark! All my friends do. And my wife!" A beat. "And Hillary!"
No laugh from me. Let his flop sweat begin. We were here to talk strategy, tactics. And a low low price.
"Well, Mark, I know you've entered a rough patch. Those Colombians and all. Not to mention ignoring the caucus states. I don't think Harold Ickes -- " he shuddered violently and looked like a cornered rat -- "would have done that. But, let's put those faux pas in the dustbin of history and move on, shall we?"
"Yes! Yes!" I paused to see his reaction. Silence is unbearable for most people, and especially for void-fillers like Markele. After writhing for a moment, he cried, "We WILL make you the number one wine blogger in 2009!"
"You remember that so well? After all you've been through lately?"
"I do! It was a conversation that, quite frankly, gave me a ray of hope when all seemed fucking hopeless!"
"I'm touched, Mark. Really I am. Only thing is...things have changed."
He blinked. "What? Is Dick Morris coming in?"
"Christ no. He'd be spilling my sexual pecadilloes on CNN in two days. No no no. I mean the scope of the job has changed."
Mark pushed a lock of sweaty hair back, exhaling with stertorous relief. "Ahhh. Listen, you got a drink or something?"
"Wine? Wine is my life, after all. Wine is why you're here."
"Wine! Wine, good!" Was it my imagination or was this poor desperate bugger throwing a lot of exclamation points around? I certainly hoped so. "As long as its not Shapiro's!" A little Pesadike humor.
"God forbid. This is a fine Brunello. Tell me what you think." In reality I gave him a glass of truly vile Sicilian rotgut. But perhaps part of the crop had ended up in some expensive Brunello.
He smacked his lips at the out-of-balance tannins. "Wonderful! Exquisite! You've got a winner here!"
I smiled with warm gratitude. "I'm so glad you like it, Mark. Now, the scope of the job has changed. It is much much bigger than the verkakte WBA."
"Excuse me, Trevor," he interrupted in his cognitive dissonance. "Are you Jewish?"
"I am an enigma wrapped in a bagel and rasher of bacon sandwich."
"Uh-huh." He looked bewildered. Now I had him.
"See, Mark, I want more than blog recognition. I want a book deal and a cable TV show. I want multimedia ubiquity, and a multimedia revenue stream. I want branding. I want to be the apostle of Italian wine to the American people -- and then to the Koreans and the Singaporeans and the Indians and all the rising economic powers of the world. As the Who sang, I want the power, the glory, the story."
"I don't think they exactly said it that way."
"Mark. Don't doubt me. Don't second guess me. Don't fucking contradict me. Make it happen. With or without the aid of your amigos from Medellin."
"Cali, they're from Cali." There was a whiff of sulfur in the air, no doubt from the inferior wine.
"Tant mieux, Markele, tant mieux." I glared at him for several moments. His sweat glands were going mad. "And do NOT over-rely on polls. You got me?"
He gave me a big fat smile. "I feel like I've known you for years, Teddy."
Comments