Archives for category: Romance

THREE CHEATING HEARTS

May 15, 2014 //
0

Falling Like Dominos

Haresh Shah

threehearts

The plan is for just the two of us to go out for dinner. Leave the business behind and talk men talk without women tugging at our arms. For me, whenever I am in Munich, it would be Susi as my forever companion. Normally Günter would have brought along his wife Hilda. Our usual double date every visit. For tonight, I am thinking of maybe us two having dinner at my early favorite neighborhood kneipe, Georgen Stuben on Prinz Regentenstrasse and afterwards maybe hit a couple of Schwabing locals like Tangente, Giesela’s and Domicil. Go down the memory lane, re-live the nostalgic days of my not so distant life in Munich.

But first, we’ve got to talk some business. Günter is one of the senior editors at the German Playboy. He has spent time in America as well, so we have got that too in common. We have spent lot of time together and have shared hundreds of silly laughs.

The first McDonald’s in Germany opened in Munich scant ten months before my arrival there in October of 1972. Just in time for Munich’s 1972 Summer Olympics. It must have taken a while for the national Life like illustrated Stern magazine to notice this American invasion, prompting them to run a cover story with the blurb screamingly calling Big Mac der Schmackloss Hackfleish – the tasteless minced meat. Günter and I couldn’t agree more, especially considering the humble German fricadel, a tasty meat ball the shape of a hamburger patty, made of the minced meat, eaten lukewarm with a hard shell brötchen – a bread roll and blob of yellow mustard on side. Lekker.
But that didn’t stop Günter and me to frequent the local MacDonald’s, conveniently located on my way home on Lindwurmstrasse. Often we would feel nostalgic about America and go grab a Big Mac or McChicken menus with some beer. Yup, you could actually have beer at McD’s in Europe. In Prague you also have a choice of white or red wine. And we would talk about the Stern story and how horrified the editors must have been along with a large amount of German population vis-à-vis the arrival of the Yankee Golden Arch. We would agree that fricadel was great, but once in a while, nothing would do but a juicy Big Mac. We would come to the conclusion that it must be Ronald McDonald’s secret sauce. We would often get carried away with our wild imagination of the Big Mac’s sex appeal, calling it a furburger instead, and acting out asking for them to be easy on onions – the silly childish stuff. I really am looking forward to spending this evening alone with Günter.

‘How if we first go to my hotel, have a couple of drinks in the lobby bar, then have dinner at Georgen Stuben and then following that hit a couple of joints in Schwabing, just like god old days?’ I suggest.

‘Sounds like a plan.’ He responds, but lacking in his voice is his usual exuberance and enthusiasm.

We drift away talking something else while I notice a certain amount of uneasiness on his face as he switches his butt back and forth in his chair.

‘The thing is, something else has come up since we made the plans!’ Looking nervous, he finally spills it out.

‘Like what?’

‘I got two press passes to tonight’s Paul McCartney concert.’

‘Wow! Paul McCartney live?’

‘I thought we would have a quick drink. Go to the concert and then get a late night bite at some place.’

‘That sounds super!’

‘It does, doesn’t it? I was very much looking forward to it.’

‘But…?’

First I see a bit of shrinkage with some wrinkles suddenly appearing on Günter’s face and then watch him take a deep breath and let go. That irons out his wrinkles and the smoothness of his face returns.’

‘The thing is, there is this woman!’

‘What woman?’

‘Her name is Ursula. Uschi.’ I wait for him to elaborate. ‘We see each other on and off.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Yup. Seitensprung!’ And we both break out laughing, remembering the fun we’ve had years earlier defining and re-defining the expression. Literally, it means a sideway leap. Simply put; straying or cheating in a relationship. Have a fleeting affair on side. Hoping no one notices it and then leap right back in the line. No harm done!

I am not happy about it, but I understand. An opportunity of a quick clandestine bums always trumps an evening out with a friend. But why tonight of all nights? The crossing in my mind of the expression bums makes me want to burst out laughing. Because it’s one of those other German words – literally it means, to bump! bounce! bang! Or normally used to run into something or someone. But it also means…

And I remembered another one of the editors during the early days: Carmen Jung using it and then telling me what it really meant in answer to my simple question.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘A steady one? No. But I do have someone I have bumsverhältnis with…recently it was perfectly defined in Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis movie, Friends with Benefits. And then she goes on to elaborate, how perfectly it works for her. That they have each other, and yet they are free.

‘I wouldn’t do this to a good buddy like you. But she called me a while ago whether we could have a rendezvous tonight that her husband had to take a sudden trip to Hamburg.’

‘I still don’t say anything. The expression on my face has a question mark.

‘And?’

‘And Hilda knows I am having dinner with you. You see?’ I certainly do. What could be more convenient?

But I still don’t want to see it. I notice a certain dismay on his face and then watch him slide open his desk drawer and pull out the two strips of the tickets and hand them to me. Printed on them is Paul McCartney & Wings. Not a bad trade off.

‘I guess.’ I say. Since I am busy for the next two evenings of my stay in Munich, I won’t be able to re-schedule another dinner with Günter this trip. But the next time around? After all, how often you get all access press passes to Paul McCartney concert?

‘I am sure, you and Susi will have fun at the concert.’

I am sure that Susi would be ecstatic. But wouldn’t it be great also if Barbara were free that evening? A thought crosses my mind. But out of sheer protocol and the guilt I would otherwise feel, I call Susi from Günter’s phone, wishing that she wouldn’t be around to answer it. And she isn’t.

‘I’ll try to call her again from the hotel.’ I say.

It’s half past five when I leave Playboy offices in New Perlach, wishing Günter nice evening with his seitensprung with his squeeze, Uschi.

I catch the S-Bahn back to the hotel and immediately call Barbara. She’s already home from work and answers her phone on the first ring.

‘I would love to!’ I can hear the excitement in her voice. Takes me back to the days when we both lived in California.

‘Let me hang up. We don’t have much time. I just got home and need to change and freshen up. Where are you staying? I’ll pick you up at 7:30.’

Her little BMW pulls up in Grand Hotel Continental’s driveway. The concert is at the Olympia Halle. Normally I don’t really care for such large venues packed with thousands of people. But though our press passes have no reserved seats, they allow us an easy access to everywhere except the back stage. We spend the entire evening in the arena – which is the open area right in the front of the stage and dance the night away as if in a small and cramped smoke filled venue of Schwabing or on Ripperbahn in Hamburg where the Beatles first began. Instead, on the stage are Paul & Linda McCartney and Denny Lane and rest of the Wings belting out their Band on the Run repertoire interspersed with some Beatles classics.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, May 23, 2014

MAKING FRIENDS

One of the fringe benefits of me working for Playboy in the job that I did, was an opportunity to meet the most interesting and creative people from around the world, many of them have become lifelong friends. More importantly, it allowed me to maintain those friendships by not fading into out of sight, out of mind state. Because I had no geographical barriers. It also allowed me to re-kindle non-Playboy relationships. Among them Dieter (Stark), whom I had originally met and worked with at Burda in Offenburg.

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Categories Friendship, Memoire, Playboy, Relationships, Romance, Women

LOVE, LIES AND THE LATIN LOVERS

January 30, 2014 //
1

Haresh Shah 

How Can You Not Fall In Love With Them?

parachute

‘And now ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the home of one of the most colorful characters of our country: Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, the adventurer and the author of the Republic of Venice and the autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of  My Life), which is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. But as many of you certainly know, he is mostly known as the great lover of women. Yes, the great lover and the great liar.’ We are on a gondola site seeing tour navigating through the narrow canals of Venice. On our right is a long curving three story flaming rust colored brick building with elaborate balconies protruding out of the walls and huge windows overlooking the the canals down below.

I am crisscrossing Europe with my friend Ranjan from Bombay, and of the cities in Europe we have seen so far, Venice certainly takes us to a dreamland like no other. I notice a self-congratulating chuckle on the face of the gondolier for having said something so clever as to pair the great lovers with the great liars. Perhaps more true of the Latin lovers than the others. The reputation they must have earned from the speed with which they move forward, totally infatuated in pursuit of the objects of their desire.

My friend Irene in Chicago is head over heels in love with Bruno – a  handsome singer guitarist playing at a Lincoln Park venue around the corner from her apartment.  He is good looking for sure, soft spoken, charming and a smooth operator. Irene believes in whatever lies he tells and the promises he makes. And before any of us realizes, Bruno has moved in with her. We actually like Bruno and are even charmed by him. But we are protective of Irene. She is particularly vulnerable and we don’t want her once again to be hurt. We suspect all along and tell Irene that he is probably happily married with kids back in Mexico. But something as trivial as that never stopped Irene from her amorous escapades. And then he is gone. As we had suspected, before departing, Bruno confesses to Irene that he indeed has a family in Mexico and is in Chicago to  make a few fast bucks. Whether Irene expected him to leave his family and stay with her, I don’t know. But she is devastated nevertheless. Like others before Bruno, Irene manages to move on with time. Though I know, he was for her more than just a fling.

Fortunately, in most cases, it’s just that. A fling. Short and sweet. Just like one of the two American Playmates I had invited to come to Mexico some years earlier to help us promote the local edition. We are in Acapulco and have an afternoon off.  We linger at the beach front bar restaurant long after lunch. While one of them decides to waddle through the sand with a juicy paperback in her hands and stretches out on her stomach, baking under the sun, the other decides to be adventurous and signs up for parachute jumping. So off she goes with an instructor. Young, svelte, gleaming bronze tan and of the body toned like an iron statue – Roberto is certainly handsome. He speaks reasonably good English and is probably tickle pinked that he gets to help this American beauty – a Playmate, no less. He is vivacious and charming as he buckles her up and snaps in the parachute. Gives a little push on the small of her back, she taps her feet on the sandy ground and struts towards the approaching waves. The parachute unfurls and she is airborne. Roberto shades his eyes and watches her pulled up and away.

By the time she comes back down on the earth, she is exhilarated and giggly. Roberto unsnaps her and helps her undo her gear. Free of constraints, he gives her a congratulatory hug and like a true galan, escorts her back to us. All of these couldn’t have taken more than total of ten minutes. But for a true Latin lover, that’s more than enough time to hook his prey. I can just imagine his squeezing in hola guapa, que bonita eres and don’t you want to have a drink with me? along with other phrases of endearments that Latin languages are so rich with and come natural to them. How can you even begin to compete with te amo and eres mi corazon, or ma chérie amour and j’taime in French or ciao bella and bellissima in Italian?  In comparison, you’re beautiful, i love you and ich liebe dich sound absolutely hollow.

The next morning, we meet again at the same table and are waiting for the Playmate to join us for breakfast. As punctual as she normally is, it seems a bit strange that she isn’t there already. She is about half an hour late when we see her making her way towards us, swinging on the arm of, who else? Roberto. They part with a quick peck on cheeks and as she approaches us and as if in answer to the big question mark on our faces, she is all smiles. No need for her to elaborate. Her smile and how radiant she looks tells us all. We all smile back the knowing smiles. Thinking: Good for her. Knowing well that it’s just a passing fling and there is nothing for us to worry about. And so it was. Some months later she is married to a good American boy back home.

So when during the Mexico World Cup shoot in Puerto Vallarta, Jan (Heemskerk) and Michaela (Probst) are stood up by Alfonso, because he was busy with our Pat (Tomlinson), none of us actually gives it a second thought and we immediately write it off as a vacation fling south of the border. This was the first week of March. We all return home towards the end of the week. Pat and some others may have stayed over the weekend before coming back. But little did we know, from there on, things must have progressed at the speed of a bullet train.

Barely three weeks later, Pat stops me in the corridor and hesitantly but happily tells me that she was getting married that weekend, on the Easter Saturday on the 29th. The groom to be? Alfonso! I don’t know whether it’s the shock that I feel, but it certainly jolts me a bit. It makes me feel quite uneasy. Alfonso was brought in by our Mexican publisher to help us with logistics of our photo production but was not a part of the regular staff. I didn’t know much about him, if anything. Handsome, tall, dark hair, tanned skin and a fast talker. I didn’t really think much of him, also because as charming and affirmative as he was with his always positive si como no! attitude, things that he would promise or said he would take care of, he didn’t or didn’t quite.

The speed and urgency with which it’s planned feels like a shot gun wedding. It’s not going to be in a church or anything. It is to take place at her sister’s home in the north western suburb of Barrington. I am not sure whether it would be her sister or someone else would perform the ceremony. And then there would be small toast to the newly weds followed by dinner at home.

Even though Pat has worked with me on several projects over a period of years, we are not exactly close enough for her to invite me to her wedding. ‘I know what you might be thinking. But it all happened so fast. I never thought I could fall in love at first sight, you know! We’re both very happy.’ She pauses and continues, ‘It’s just my immediate family. I would love it if you and Carolyn could come. To have someone who was there when I met Alfonso.  It would mean a lot to me for you to be a part of it.’

When Carolyn and I arrive at her sister’s home the night of the wedding, there is a distinct cloud of doom covering everyone’s face. I say perfunctory hola to Alfonso, who looks petrified and distressed. The place itself looks helter-skelter as if a bunch of rambunctious kids having turned it upside down hunting for the hidden Easter eggs. Everyone frantically looking for the missing wedding band Alfonso has brought along to slip on his bride’s ring finger during the ceremony. He swears to have carefully tucked it away into a small pocket of his carry on duffle bag. Could it have fallen down and rolled away somewhere in the house as he unpacked? It was also likely that it fell off when the customs officer opened it to inspect its contents? The room is filled with the cacophony of multiple possibilities on the fate of the dainty little wheel of the precious jewelry meant to bind them for life for the better and the worst. Pat is besides herself and is on the verge of breaking down with a cry. Before things get any gloomier, someone suggests that we should just go ahead with the wedding ceremony anyways, the ring’s got to be somewhere around, and must show up sooner or later. Rest of the evening is blurred in my memory.

Fast forward to me running into Pat once again in the corridor of our offices. That marriage didn’t last too long and as it turns out, Alfonso was already married in Mexico and there was never a ring.

Something to be said about the wisdom of the Venetian gondolier having described the great lover Casanova to be also a great liar.

The good news is: Whatever suffering Pat may have endured, she flashes a pragmatic smile and tells me that since then she has found herself a true soul mate and is now happily married.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, February 7, 2014

PORK, DUMPLINGS AND CABBAGE

I was one of the early ones to enter the countries of the former Eastern European countries almost as soon as the Iron Curtain was lifted and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first three editions to be launched in the region were Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. In the early years, my predicament always remained, what to eat?

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Categories Culture, Mexico, Playmates, Romance

THE TERROR OF THE TWO Cs

January 2, 2014 //
1

Haresh Shah

The People, The Pride, The Passion And The Philosophy Of Making California Wines

winelabels2

His desk is huge and cluttered and we’re face-to-face with an unkempt and eccentric looking vintner wearing the wine stained sweatshirt bearing the logo of one of his creations, Le Sophiste.  With shoulder length long black hair, he looks like a cross between Tom Jones and Abbe Hoffman.  Bonny Doon‘s President for Life and the founder, Randall Graham is known in the industry as the Rhône Ranger as in the Lone Ranger, a.k.a Crazy Randall, because of his refusing to succumb to what he calls the terror of Cabernets and Chardonnays. Instead, he devotes his energy and resources to growing  exclusively the Rhône varietals such as Grenache, Mourvedre, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier, Cinsault and Syrah. His response to the industry’s perception of himself: when your foes believe that you are insane, you have a great technical advantage.

Life is too short to keep drinking the same wines, Graham philosophizes, I have a soft spot for ugly duckling grape verities, he adds with a wry smile. Randall studied philosophy at the University of California in Davis, prior to getting into the making of wines in 1983.  Realizing hat he wasn’t a good philosopher, he decided to blend his love of philosophy with that of wines he would make.

He believes wines need certain raison d’etre, and he has made Bonny Doon’s mission to make wines that complement California’s emerging fusion cuisine, which is closer to the Mediterranean and south of the border than it is to the American meat and potatoes.

His is a loft office in what once must have been a barn. I see a cat scurrying in the background and also a couple of young women busily hurrying back and forth across the hall carrying stack of papers. The cackle of the wood burning fire place makes you fell warm and cozy on this cold, gray and rainy day

The looks and the ambience of the place reminds me of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young classic of the early Seventies.

            Our house is a very very very fine house

            With two cats in the yard

            Life used to be so hard

            Now everything’s easy ‘cause of you.

Randall’s eccentricity and the courage of his conviction shows in his demeanor and the pride in his going “solo” against the wind in the wines he chooses to make. Bonny Doon wines are hand crafted and produced with tender loving care. The philosophy and the character of those wines is  apparent in their creative labels illustrated with unusual, if not controversial images of Alcatraz prison, a flying saucer beaming up above a Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyard, a portrait of Marcell Proust, and in the contents of those bottles described by the RG himself, sounding scholarly with a tongue in cheek humorous twist. Here is how he describes Le Sophiste: Sophism: from Gk. sophistes sage (def): A spacious argument for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone. And then throws in some Italian just for the fun of it. Like on the label of Moscato del Solo; stampatore o’dell.  incisore c. casa. DOONOMINAZIONE DI ORGINE CONTROLLATA 1993. DA SERVIRE FRESCO.

●●●

My first awareness of California came when I met Ann (Stevens) at Positano restaurant in Munich. I became instant friends with Ann and her husband Mark. It was because of them that three years later I ended up moving to Santa Barbara, California.  And it was them who first introduced me to California wines and what has now become known as California cuisine.

Mark introduced me to the Fetzer Zinfandel, which was so good, but a bottle cost $3.50. A hefty sum in the early Seventies. We decide to buy a case instead, for $36.00. Certainly the first of many we would continue to acquire and consume.  Little did I know, twenty years later I would  be sitting in Hopland in Mendocino County with Ken Boek – the Master Gardener at Fetzer Valley Oaks Food & Wine Center, who would introduce us to the basics of making of the wines. True to its creed of from earth to the table, Fetzer has committed itself to the organic farming. As Jimmy Fetzer, the oldest of the eight Fetzer children and the winemaker tells it: the first step in making wine is growing grapes.

Fetzer is the largest mainstream winery in Mendocino County. The business no longer belongs to the family – though they still till the land and make their wines. Personally heart breaking for me is that under the corporate umbrella of Brown Foreman, Fetzer family too has succumbed to the terror of the two Cs, and they no longer make the Zin that introduced me to good American wines. Apparently Zinfandel is an extremely low yielding grape. Another reason Cabernet Sauvignon claims competitive advantage. Small comfort that there is still a strand that bind us. Jimmy Fetzer, is married to one of our own: September 1974 Playmate Kristine Hanson. At the time of publication, a student of communications at California State University in Sacramento and working part time as a black jack dealer at Harrah’s Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. We run into jeans clad Jimmy at Boonville’s Pinot Noir tasting. He is soft spoken, tall and handsome, a proud wine maker who is equally as proud of his beautiful centerfold wife; she looks sexier now than when she appeared in Playboy more than twenty years earlier.

●●●

As we crisscross the wine country, I realize that eventual corporate buy outs or not, the business of making wines is basically tied to the soil and the farming, which at the end of the day is a family affair. Dry Creek is the father/daughter team of which David Stare is the owner wine maker and his daughter Kim takes care of the marketing. Kim’s husband Don Walker too is enlisted and is now in the process of learning the ropes.

Business should never get too big for its britches,

David Stare tells us as we are having a lunch at Bistro Ralph in downtown Healdsburg. Here is the man with degree in civil engineering from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and MBA from Northwestern University. Academically oriented, he looks the role of his preppy self, dressed in his khakis and crew neck sweater – a tedious nerd.  But as he puts it, from early on he was becoming a cork dork. This leads him to add yet another degree in enology from University of California at Davis. An article in  The Wall Street Journal talking about the bright future of the wine industry in the U.S. prompts him to combine his business acumen with his “cork dork” passion and take a plunge by buying 55 acres of land in Sonoma County in 1972.  Twenty three years later, Dry Creek wines are considered to be some of the best values for the everyday wine consumers.

He believes, Wine should not be an investment.  It’s something you buy because you enjoy it at the time. So do 90% of Americans who consume their purchases the same evening on which it was bought.

The morning, we cross the Golden Gate Bridge to visit Dry Creek, I feel a certain affinity for their wines. I couldn’t help but think of the evening almost fifteen years earlier, my colleague Donald Stewart and I had killed two bottles of their Fumé Blanc over a dinner – which helped us resolve some work related conflicts the two of us were experiencing. Just what good wines are supposed to do.

In the early days, Dry Creek produced predominantly white wines, among them Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Fumé Blanc. So did most of the California wineries.  It all changed almost overnight when in 1992, the sales of red wines sky rocketed in the aftermath of the highly watched CBS program 60 Minutes aired a segment called The French Paradox, crediting red wines for the longevity and good health the French citizens enjoyed.

●●●

Later that afternoon we meet with Bob Levy, the winemaker and one of the partners of Merryvale Vineyards.  Bob had joined University of California in Davis to study medicine, instead he got interested and switched to enology. We spend fair amount of time in Merryvale’s barrel room, tasting and talking wines.  Lightly bearded and balding Bob is a serious man, even looking a bit sad and melancholic at times. He gives you a feeling of being more of a doctor or a professor than the man in such intimacy with his wines. He shares with us some of his best along with his deep passion and philosophy of wine being the beverage most conducive to romance.

I see wine as romance, like raw oysters.  Blend  good wine with good food and think of intimate things that can happen.

His thoughts are centered around romance even when he speaks of the technical aspects of wine making.

Timing for picking grapes is extremely important. Harvesting is the most exciting time.  We work 18 hours a day, seven days a week.  It’s a multiple orgasmic feeling. 

In that barrel room filled with the pungent aroma of the wines aging, listening to Bob Levy talk about them makes Omar Khayyam come alive:

             A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

            A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou

●●●

How could one even begin to talk about California wines without talking about the Mondavi family and the invaluable contribution made by the patriarch Robert Mondavi for putting American wines on the world map? He not only makes some of the best California wines but he is also the ambassador at large for the entire wine industry of the United States. Robert Mondavi will also go down in the history as having forged the joint-venture with Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Mouton-Rothschild and establish Opus One winery right across the street from his own.  In the true family tradition, working with him are his wife Margrit Biever, his sons Michael and Timothy and his daughter Marcia.

His striking mission style winery complex leads you in through an imposing archway flanked by the wine tasting room, a souvenir shop and the administrative offices. Inge Heinemann of public relations gives us a quick tour of the winery before we settle down for leisurely tasting of their wines paired with some exquisite dishes created specially for us by Margrit’s daughter, Annie Roberts, who is the chef at their elegant, airy and spacious Vineyard Room.

During the course of the meal, we are joined by the younger Mondavi son. Lanky, debonair, tall, brooding, gaunt and bearded with full head of black hair, Timothy is the family winemaker – though he prefers to be called the wine grower.  He differs slightly with his father’s philosophy of making good wine is a skill, fine wine an art, to making good wine is a skill, growing good wine is an art   Because; the three most important things that give its personality and noblesse to an artistic wine are; soil, climate and philosophy of the people involved.  One needs to grow grapes in synchronization and harmony with nature. As he talks to us about wine and good life, he turns his head in a circle and looks around the room; this room is about celebration of good life.  Wines are civilizing aspects of being a part of a meal and therefore of  good life. And then he continues: artistic wine’s purpose is to express its personality in a pristine way. After all, life is too short to drink bad wines”. Timothy Mondavi somehow seems to echo the sentiments of the wine country’s madman, the Rhône Ranger, Randall Graham.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014

UNEMPLOYMENT BLUES

It wasn’t until after more than a  year later that I show up at the unemployment office to apply for the benefits I was entitled to. This in itself was enough for David M. to wonder about during our initial interview. There were other things about my application that he couldn’t quite put in the standard slots. What followed was enough to drive him up the wall.

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Categories California Wines, Culture, Food & Wine, Playmates, Romance

THE BUICK, THE BUREAUCRAT & THE BLONDE

November 7, 2013 //
2

Haresh Shah

And The Tearing Of My Heart

buickII_b

Soon after her arrival in Munich, in order to make my beautiful Buick legit in her new habitat, I promptly present myself at the Kraftfahrzeugzulassungsstelle, (ugh! they are four words: krafts-fahrzeug-zulassungs-stelle – no  wonder Sanskrit is a dead language in India. But as the most expats and converts tend to do, German being one of the Indo-Germanic languages, still adheres to long and drawn out compound words, as do the Czechs, while the modern Indian languages have simplified the Sanskrit grammar and would have neatly broken them down into four distinct words) at TÜV, (equivalent to the Secretary of the State’s automobile registration center in the US,) on Eichstätter Strasse 5, in Munich. I have all ten required documents as listed on Hanlzettel, translated and properly notarized and attached to the application form and the fee of DM 30.- held firmly in the grip of my hand. I place them all on the counter and stand across from the clerk processing the registration. I am pleased at myself for being so ready and am imagining my Buick emblazoning the bold black and white letters on a square-ish license plates bearing the numbers along with the three designated letters, MüC to indicate that the vehicle is registered in Munich. I am also looking forward to slapping on the back of her, the standard oval shaped decal with the letters DE for Deutschland. But not so fast Haresh! I am being naïve to think that like back home in Chicago, the clerk would stamp a few things, write up a receipt for the payment and hand it to me along with a set of Munich license plates.

Wrong!

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Categories Automobule, Romance

STRANGERS ON THE PLANE

August 1, 2013 //
0

Haresh Shah

In The Journey Of Life One Meets Only To Part

strangerplane2

When I first  notice her, she is standing next to me in the check-in line, fidgeting and shifting her weight from one foot to another. Her face looks pretty in profile. With Milan’s Linate International Airport fogged-in, we are bussed to their standby Malpensa, which is in a big mess as ever. Despite the throngs of crowds and the chaos that normally prevails, and amidst the multiple delays, things somehow work out at this remote airport.

I check in, go through the immigration and the security check and on to the other side of the security wing. Pick up some duty free booze, look around for a while and with the first call make it to the gate # 7. And there she is again. All wrapped up in her leopard skin coat and her knee-high black boots. Her pretty face floats in the air propelled by her swan like long and delicate neck. On the second call, we move closer towards the gate to get on the bus.

I notice her staring at me. I stare back. They have called the flight for the third time and the bus still isn’t anywhere in sight. Us just standing there, waiting, our eyes discreetly catching a fleeting gaze of the other.  I want to strike up a conversation, probably so does she. But we maintain our demeanor. The fourth call and the bus still hasn’t arrived. She looks at me and lets a slight smile cross her lips. I smile back.  Neither of us says anything. We continue to steal glances at each other every few moments.

A few more minutes have elapsed and the bus still hasn’t arrived. Everyone is getting antsy,  with the possible exception of us two. We are enjoying our little charade. I watch her fiddle with her pink boarding card. The lady is traveling in first class. She sort of looks rich all over, from her head to her toe. It is sweetly awkward just waiting and stealing glances at a stranger. She has moved sideways, bringing her a couple of steps closer to me. I want to move even closer and talk to her. But don’t know how to break the ice. The way we are taking each other in is discomforting.  And yet, there seems to be an unspoken insinuation between us that its alright.

It isn’t that warm in the departure hall, but while waiting, she decides to undo her coat buttons. Underneath, I could see that she is of a  slender frame and of delicate built.  Don’t think  she has much on her chest. She stands  still for a while with her coat unbuttoned and then finally takes it off. When I see a pair of lascivious breasts bounce off her form fitting turtle-neck sweater, the sight takes my breath away. A white pearl necklace dangles down from her neck, with its knotted loop snuggly resting in the cleft of her cleavage. She is wearing a knee-length black velvet skirt and a three inches (6.6cm) wide black belt, separating her tight sweater from the skirt. Averting direct eye contact, I let my eyes traverse down from her knee high black boots up to her head, her hair bunched together with a glittery hair clip. I observe that her breasts aren’t as big as they seemed, except that they stand out on her shapely  petite frame. She is a beauty! A tempestuous one at that.

They call the flight once more, but where the hell is the bus? Our heads automatically turn towards each other, our eyes lock.

‘They probably don’t even have the plane there!’ I say.

‘Probably not.’ The ice broken, she responds.

‘Sind sie aus Deautschland?’ I ask in German.

‘Ja,’ she answers, ‘und sie?

‘Zur zeit.’

Finally, the bus has arrived. We walk in together. She finds herself a corner seat, I stand  next to her. ‘hier gibt’s noch ein platz’ she points at another folded chair next to her. The plane is only about twenty meters away from the gate, we could have walked. We get off the bus and walk a few remaining steps to the plane.

‘It’s going to be pretty lonely in the first class!’ I say, quickly scanning the small cabin of the empty first class.

‘I guess so.” She agrees and in hurry explains that she had to get the first class ticket because there were no seats left in the economy.

‘Perhaps we can sit together?’ She asks.

‘I would love to, but I don’t think they would let us.’

We walk into the plane. She hands over her pink boarding card to the stewardess and asks her if  I could possibly sit with her. Yes, if I paid the difference in the fare.

We start with champagne and a nice meal. This is my first time ever, traveling in first class.  Not too hard to get used to.  The stewardesses keep refilling our glasses. It is a shame that we only have such a short distance to travel.

The mutual infatuation  between us is apparent. Before we know, we have switched to addressing each other with familiar Du. Our faces so close, our hands overlapping on the arm rest, they find each other and our fingers entwine on their own.  We talk and we flirt. Holding hands, looking deep into each other’s eyes. Her face is a perfect combination of Ingrid and Gisela, two of my prettiest German friends. An exotic mixture that reminds me of Queen Farah Pahlavi of Iran. Really a beautiful woman, I say to myself. Deep green eyes, jet black hair, thin lips and dimpled cheeks.

Her name is Chantal – unusual for a German girl. I have a Francophile mother. Chantal is married to a fifty eight year old entrepreneur from Hamburg. She herself looks like about twenty seven. They now live in  Ascona, Switzerland,  with their four month old child and three servants. Her parents live close to Düsseldorf, but she isn’t flying there to see them. She tells me that she is going there on “business”.  Sure! I give her a cryptic smile. She smiles back and concedes that she is actually meeting a “friend” there.

‘In fact, we were supposed to have a nice dinner together.’

‘You did have a dinner with someone nice anyways.’ I respond.

‘Of course,’ and she smiles, squeezing my hand. ‘I think it’s more romantic with a total stranger than with someone you already know.’

We talk for a while about me working for Playboy.

‘Would you ever consider posing for the magazine?’ I ask.

‘In the nude?’

‘Well, we’re talking Playboy!’

‘I would love to. But I don’t think my husband would be too thrilled!’

‘Schade!’ Too bad. She is sooooooooooooooooo gorgeous. I think.

Not the nudes, but she would certainly be open to a fashion shoot. If not exactly for the pictures, but more so because such an opportunity would enable her to get away from her day-to-day chores of being a rich man’s wife.

She tells me that in two days she was returning to Ascona and the whole “family” of six was going to leave for Spain on Friday morning to spend the winter months in a new house that her husband had bought in warm and sunny Costa del Sol.  Spending six months in a small town swarming mainly with the German tourists is not her idea of excitement. She asks me if I would write her a letter on an official Playboy letterhead inviting her to come over to Munich to do a fashion shoot. It would be just an excuse she needs to get away from her husband.

‘He doesn’t mind my seitensprung (literally a sideway leap – those clever Germans!) ab und zu. How do you call it in English? Extra something…?

‘You mean extra curricular? Extra marital?’

‘Ja genau. as long as I am discreet about it’ – the word she uses is diplomatic – so lange ich diplomatisch bin. A trophy wife, I think. And she knows it!

And she certainly knows how to indulge a  man’s ego. ‘ I think Playboy has the right kind of a man in you. You’re not only good looking, but you’re also charming, warm and have a friendly personality. You can make interesting conversation and the people feel nice being with you.’ I am flattered, of course! Thanks. Same to you lady.

Her hair clipped at the top, I wonder what she would look like if she let it down. She obliges. The long tresses unfurling, she tosses her head until they softly rest and caress her shoulders. I gently brush it with the back of my hand. She nuzzles her neck backward and flashes that certain smile which has me unarmed. She looks much prettier with her hair down. More sensuous.  Encouraged, I tell her, I’m sure you’ve got great looking legs! She gives me a bewildered but a pleasant look and then bends down and if a bit hesitantly, unzips her boots and removes them. I feel like I am undressing her bit by bit like in a slow motion striptease.  My fingers reach down and lightly touch and caress the silky smooth skin of her legs.

She tells me that her friend is picking her up at the airport.

‘I wish he didn’t.’ I say.

‘I wish he didn’t either.’ She sounds sincere.

We exchange addresses and telephone numbers. However remote the possibility that we would ever see each other again.

‘Maybe I can come over and see you in Spain?’ I wonder out loud.

‘Please do,’ she answers, ‘but bring along a friend or a model with you, my husband loves pretty girls.’ As if I didn’t already know.

We are already on the other side of the Alps. We only have fifteen to twenty minutes remaining before the plane touches down in Düsseldorf. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach at the thought. As the plane descends, we just look deep into each other’s eyes, mesmerized. And hold hands in a tight squeeze, our fingers tensing over each others. I bend down sideways and impulsively kiss her lightly on the mouth. Her lips flutter. A dismay crosses her face like a floating cloud. She raises her hand and gently wipes off the lipstick smears from my lips with her dainty fingers.

‘Maybe we should make a baby together. Would look beautiful. Wow! my own baby with dark skin and brown eyes!’

I am touched by the wistful look in her eyes focused on mine. Up until then I haven’t thought of having a child of my own. It feels surreal to imagine having one with this stunning beauty sitting next to me.  Overwhelmed, we hold the gaze, unblinking, lest the spell be broken – like two teenagers in love for the first time.

Time elapses faster than it should. We are already in Düsseldorf. The landing strip is only a few hundred meters away.  I move my eyes from the approaching runway to her face again. I squeeze her hand hard.

‘Hey, look at me one more time before  we touch down.’ She does and kisses me lightly with  the side of her lips to avoid her freshly applied lipstick from smearing.

‘Let’s just say auf wiedersehen right here’ she says, ‘because I want to be the first one to get off the plane.’ It makes me sad, but I understand.

‘Auf wiedersehen.’ I whisper.

‘War schön – verführung im erste klasse’ – it’s  been nice, seduction in the first class – and  she laughs a nervous laugh. Soon as the  plane pulls up at the jetway, we look at each other one more time with an unbearable longing. And then she is gone!

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

MORE MATTERS OF THE HEART STORIES

MEXICAN CONSUL AND MATTERS OF THE HEART

 MY LATIN VALENTINE

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

BY THE TIME I GET TO AMSTERDAM

MY SPRING VALENTINE

Next Friday, August 9, 2013

WRITE OFF OR NOT

For most people, expense account is a perk to be envied. I have often heard people say: Oh, you’ve gotten expense account! As if it were a bonus of sorts. What they don’t realize is that an expense account is the reimbursement of the money spent on the company’s behalf. And it’s a hassle keeping track of and account for monies spent. But then, people wink at you, you know, they are thinking of some of the creative ones who can actually turn an expense account into a handsome perk.

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Categories Love Story, Romance, Rommance, Women

MY SPRING VALENTINE

April 4, 2013 //
0

As The Time Goes By

Haresh Shah

myvalentinev2

Exactly thirty six years ago today on April 5th. 1977, in Santa Barbara, California, it was another fucking beautiful day, as my neighbor Greg Ketchum and I had began to refer to our forever such gorgeous weather, whenever we both found ourselves out on our respective balconies, overlooking the awesome Santa Ynez Mountain Range.  I was done with my writing for the day and was sitting around in my living room with Mike and Guusje, drinking beer, when the phone rings.

Without any pleasantries, the female voice on the other line dives right into it.

‘I understand you are auditioning young ladies for Playboy.’

‘Not quite.’ I respond with trepidation, trying hard to think who it might be. Sensing confused silence on my end of the line, the voice breaks out in a hearty laugh.

‘This is Carolyn,’ it says.’ It still doesn’t ring the bell.

‘I was just passing through. I am on my way down south to see Gwen in LA.’ And then I knew.

‘Where are you?’

‘I am here. In Santa Barbara.’

‘You are? Why don’t you come on over?’

‘Okay.’

She doesn’t ask for the direction. Soon I see her pulling up on the Linfield Place in her yellow Volkswagen, named Rachel Rabbit.  She had once lived here before moving up north to Sacramento.  She plans to spend a couple of days walking down the memory lane, perhaps meet up with some people she knew and then continue on to Los Angeles to see her sister. As soon as she walks in, we hug, ever so self  consciously, but there is a feeling of a certain intimacy, which becomes apparent after Mike and Guusje leave. We stand in the middle of the room with our arms wrapped around and holding each other as if we were long lost lovers, and then abruptly but gently step back.

I invite her out for dinner and we drive down to Dobb’s in the city center from Goleta, where I live off the UCSB campus. The dinner is animated and we talk a lot about relationships. Hers with her husband Bob has just ended and they have filed for no-contest divorce. I am trying to build a long distance relationship with Patricia in Mexico City, but neither of us is quite sure. We are sort of oscillating. Carolyn has also been sort of dating someone. But as we talk, the magnetic pull between us two is obvious. After dinner we take a walk on the beach, feeling mellow, listening to the gentle waves of the Pacific splashing the shore. The vast expanse of the beach is deserted that night. I don’t remember for sure if it were a full moon night, but let’s assume that it was, just to give an extra romantic edge to the evening. We feel the ocean breeze lightly feather our exposed skins. The stars seem to be aligned just right on this clear cloudless night. We are walking hand-in-hand and feel the tender but intense energy transpiring through our entwined fingers.

The way I normally tell the rest of the story is: I bring her back home that night, thread my three hour long reel-to-reel tape containing Keith Jarrett’s soothing Cologne concert. And keep her.

●●●

I first met Carolyn and her husband Bob in the bar of a canal side little B & B in Amsterdam, where I had stopped by to look for a room. They were fully booked. But I stayed to have a beer in their bar before venturing out in the early January cold. Sitting diagonally opposite from me was a young couple from Duluth, Minnesota.

I had not planned to be in Amsterdam on this trip.  Certainly not to spend the whole week there. A little over a week earlier I had run away from Chicago in hopes to mend my broken heart. I had picked Denmark literally by putting my finger on the map. The place where no one I knew lived and the place where I could be face-to-face with my lonely self, the place where I could nurse  my wounds and disappear in its anonymity. Copenhagen seemed to do just that for me. Regaining some of my spirit back, I flew on to Stockholm – thinking I would celebrate  my New Year’s Eve up there. But on that morning, it got to be too lonesome. At the last minute, I called my friend Franz-Hermann Gomfers in Wachtendonk, a little town in the lower Rhine, that bordered with Venlo in Holland. As usual, he was hosting the Sylvester party and I found myself amongst the jubilant throng of the New Year’s Eve revelers.

Four years earlier, also at Franz Hermann’s Sylvester party, I had met the flaming red head, Felicita. Fe, as everyone called her,  grew up in a house in the alley diagonally opposite from Fran Hermann’s house. Shy as she was, we had clicked and spent most of the night sitting on a corner sofa, talking. Getting up once in a while to slow dance and then sit down again.  There is a photo of me sitting next to her, holding her wrist in my hand and twirling her bracelet, gazing at it as if in admiration. As good a pretense as any to hold her hand. Three weeks later I had left Europe to come to the United States.

Reconnected, we drive to Krefeld to have dinner the night of the New Year. Staying out late, we  leisurely stroll the deserted streets of the town. Stop frequently at store fronts and window shop. Four years earlier, she wore her hair very short. Now seeing her in a longer than shoulder length hair, I am blown away by how breathtakingly gorgeous she looks. Her radiant smooth skin matches the color of her hair, her shy smiles has me absolutely captivated.

Playfully, I say to her: ‘I’ll marry you when your hair grows down to here,’ pointing to the small of her back with the blade of my hand.

‘Be careful what you say, because my hair grows very fast. In fact, I did have it down to my waist up until a month ago.’ She responds with an impish smile on her face.

And our game begins, as if we were an engaged couple, soon to be married. We pick the bridal gowns and the tuxedos that she and I would wear on our wedding day. We build an imaginary house and begin to fill it with the furniture we see on display. We select baby clothes and the little booties and bonnets for our baby. Even toss around a few names for the daughter we would have. And as we continue our silly little make-believe game, I imagine her walking down the aisle, her radiant face luminous behind the veil.

My plan is now to spend the remaining eight days of my escape from Chicago in Amsterdam. Something I had dreamt of doing with Karen. But it wasn’t meant to be. And now my fickle heart is longing for Fe to explore with me the canals, the bridges and the alleys of the Venice of the north.

●●●

On that Sunday evening, as I stand over one of the thousand bridges of Amsterdam and watch the canal floating down below, I see in its ripples the faces of the women that dot the canvas of my emotional landscape.

Netty, who worked at Drukerij Bosch when I was an intern there seven years earlier,  now lives in Amsterdam. It’s been nice seeing her again, but I can still feel a certain amount of tension linger  between us. Her girlfriend Reneé, on whom I had an incredible crush, leading to a few stolen kisses, is now married and also lives in Amsterdam. Both Netty and I went  to see her and her husband one evening. There is also Carolyn. I thought she was pretty and liked her American way of dressing in blue jeans and a simple top. Lacking of any visible makeup and the hair almost touching her waist. She reminded me of Joan Baez . But I don’t carry any  deeper impression of her. And of course, there is Karen, back in Chicago – the woman I have run away from. But the face that superimposes all of them is that of Fe’s.  What I see clearly in that fluid water is the parting  image of her, clutching the bunch of red tulips, her eyes fogging up and the tail light of her disappearing train.

Having spent the whole weekend together, walking around Amsterdam till wee hours of the morning – still feeling weary and sleepy after the late morning breakfast, we are lying sideways on her single bed – talking, almost whispering – sharing with each other and feeling a certain   closeness at our parallel stories of the bruised hearts, I am overwhelmed at the silence that has fallen between us. Us staring deep into each other’s eyes.

‘Willst du mich heiraten?’ It just pops out of my mouth. Something I had never asked anybody up until then and have not to this day since. ‘Will you marry me?’

The fog has fallen dense on the city of Amsterdam. My emotions are torn. The longing intensified. The faces dissolving in the ripples as they march on.

●●●

It’s January 3rd 1979. Delayed by two and a half hours, our United flight from Los Angeles is the last one to land that night at 12:30 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, before the back-to-back snow storms would blanket and paralyze the city for weeks and months to come. We check into the Playboy Towers – the old dame of the hotel known as The Knickerbocker, before and after its present avatar – at two in the morning with a whole bunch of boxed live potted plants that make up the bulk of our excess baggage. Because we are told that they would never make it to Chicago in the truck. I have returned to Playboy full time to work out of their head offices. Carolyn is seven months pregnant. We have bought a condo in Hyde Park and would move in soon as our stuff arrives.  The side streets remain buried under mountains of snow up until April. When the truck finally makes it to Chicago area, they deliver bits and pieces by minivans. Soon as they deliver the mattresses on the 26th, we move in.

After three weeks of being stuck in a hotel, it feels good to be in our own place. However inadequately equipped. We are prepared to sleep on the hardwood floors if we had to. In the meanwhile, I keep trucking. Of which Lee Hall writes in his International Publishing Newsletter dated February 5: Haresh will be returning from Spain this weekend to assist in the last minute birth of his first child. He and Caroline (sic) have recently moved into a delightful apartment in Chicago but are currently awaiting the arrival not only of the baby but of their furniture van which has been marooned somewhere in the Mid-western snow.

And then its March 6. Its 04:04 in the morning – the drama of a new child being born is enacted in the bedroom of our apartment. Propped up and leaning on the wall at the edge of the bed is me, Carolyn’s head resting on my shoulder. At the ready is the midwife Kay with her experienced hands to clutch and catch the baby pushing to emerge into this world. Surrounding the bed are Dr. Elvove, Anita and Keeline while Bob is clicking away with the little Kodak Instamatic with his trembling hands.  We see first Anjuli’s head pop out and then with another push, all of her. Dr. Elvove hands me a pair of scissors to snap the umbilical cord. A daughter born in Playboy family receives Playboy kind of welcome by telexes from around the world in response to Lee Hall’s following announcement, barely making it  in his Newsletter dated March 5, but not mailed until later.

PS: Anjuli Shah-Johnson, the first daughter of Haresh Shah and Carolyn Johnson, was born on March 6.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, April 12, 2013

FACE TO FACE WITH JAN CREMER

It is very likely that the most of you have never heard of Jan Cremer, the ultimate enfant terrible of the Dutch literature and the art. He once famously said in an interview: Rembrandt? I have never heard of him. I’m not interested in sports. Arrogant? Brilliant?  Whatever. But I am a big fan of his books, I Jan Cremer and Jan Cremer Writes Again. And have had a pleasure of meeting and talking to him.

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Categories Relationships, Romance, Women