If I can figure out chords for the chorus bit, I’ll probably record the thing and slap it up here…

I look at me in the mirror

I don’t like what I see

I wanna see happy and rested

I wanna see flyin and free

And I wanna see calm and collected

I wanna subtle and sane

I wanna get out of this spinnin

And I wanna come out of the rain

I wanna fall flat into happy

I wanna sink down into joy

I wanna wake up from this nightmare

I wanna walk away from their ploys

And I wanna be miserably happy

I wanna with rot with smiles

I wanna climb the top of the tallest tree

I wanna lay down for awhile

What’s blocking the mirror

What’s blocking my view

I look in all I see is me

When I all want to see is you

All I want to see is you

I sit here in this cold blue room

Staring at the wall 

I stare a little longer

I can feel the darkness fall (call?)

I breathe like they told me to

Counting 7, 8, 9, 10

I’m afraid I’ve lost my way

I’ve lost the door again

I’ve been into the mines of me

My only hope is you

My only hope in this dark, damp cave

Is that you’ve tasted darkness too

My only hope is a nail-scarred hand

That’s dying to be free

My only hope is a wounded side

And the blood pouring over me

My only hope is a heavenly flood

My only hope is your light

It’s my only hope in this fiction land

Cause I don’t have the strength to fight

All the monsters that want to pursue us

All the windmills that deface

All the maidens that need to be rescued

All the world that needs Your grace

What’s blocking the mirror

What’s blocking my view

I look in, all I see is me

And all I want to see is you. 

All I want to see is you.

I kick and I scream and I thrash at you

I kick and I scream and I thrash at you

I kick and I scream and I thrash at you

Hold me in spite of me

Hold me in spite of me

What’s blocking the mirror

What’s blocking my view

I look in, all I see is me

And all I want to see is you. 

All I want to see is you.

I sit here in the darkness

I don’t know if you’re going to come

I know I know so much more than this

I’m the beloved son.

I know I’ll be swimming in laughter

I’ll know my name by somehow

I might be afraid in the darkness

But I won’t be afraid of the crowds

I won’t be afraid that they’ll see me

I won’t be afraid of my words

I won’t be afraid of my still, small voice

I won’t be afraid I’ll be heard

Nothing blocking the mirror

Nothing stopping the view

A view so clear

I can see from here

You like to see me too

So I’ll let you see me too.

DÍA GLOBAL DEL SERVICIO VOLUNTARIO JUVENIL – DGSVJuy

Lema 2010: “Solidaridad sin fronteras.”

We’ll leave the light on for you…

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/travel/19next-1.html?emc=eta1

AFTER several wrong turns through desolate dirt roads, I finally saw Carlos Pizzorno waving at me from the entrance of his vineyard. He is an affable man with wind-worn skin and rough hands, the result of tending personally to the vines. While touring the 50-acre estate, we stopped before two hand-cranked corking machines from the early 1900s, a quaint example of Mr. Pizzorno’s painstaking craftsmanship. Inside the cellar, his 2004 blend of tannat, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and petit verdot had been aging in bottle for three years. “It will be released when the time is right,” he said. “These wines have my family name and I can’t let it down.”

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Canelones, Uruguay

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Horacio Paone for The New York Times

A part of the 37 acres of vineyards at the Viñedo de los Vientos winery.

Pizzorno Family Estates is a winery in Uruguay, a country that began pressing grapes more than a hundred years ago but remains largely unknown in the wine world. Without the financial resources or marketing expertise of its bigger winemaking neighbors, Argentina and Chile, Uruguay lags far behind in recognition. But thanks to a group of ambitious boutique wineries, it is slowly winning over critics and connoisseurs.

“I was favorably impressed by what they are doing,” said Evan Goldstein, a San Francisco master sommelier who recently visited Uruguay. “It’s an industry that candidly wants to get outside, and what’s intrinsically exciting is that it’s all family-owned, which is a rarity in this business.”

Uruguay’s temperate climate is suited for wine growing, with warm summers, cool winters and ocean breezes that flow freely through low hills and plains. The conditions are similar to those of France’s Bordeaux region.

For most of the 20th century, the country produced mainly unsophisticated table reds for local consumption. After a nationwide replanting of imported clone vines, which began in the late ’70s, the industry was finally able to focus on quality. In recent years, about 20 wineries began courting international markets with inventive blends and a signature red called tannat.

Tannat grapes, originally from the southwest of France, were first planted in Uruguay in 1870 by a Basque immigrant. The vines flourished, yielding a suppler taste than their highly astringent (because of high tannin levels) European counterparts.

Having a flagship varietal can be an asset — a case in point is malbec in Argentina — and local growers are hoping to use this grape as their passport to distinction. During my visit in January, winemakers talked about developing tannats that adapt better to global palates (drinkers abroad may find the wine too rustic or earthy), about crafting unique blends, and about diversifying their portfolios with popular grapes.

This is the strategy at Pizzorno (www.pizzornowines.com). When Carlos, grandson of the winery founder Don Próspero José Pizzorno, took over the business in 1983, quality and marketability became paramount. He planted new clones of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, petit verdot, tannat and other varieties, enlisting the help of a New Zealand-born consultant. Today, 60 percent of his wine is sold abroad.

Pizzorno’s tasting room is notably austere, but the wines are encouragingly approachable. We tried a fruity 2008 sauvignon blanc, a peppery 2007 pinot noir with berry aromas, and a brut nature sparkling wine that, to a Champagne lover with no formal training, tasted superbly crisp and refreshing. I took home a bottle for a mere $10.

Viñedo de los Vientos (www.vinedodelosvientos.com) is another small winery with big ideas. The owner, Pablo Fallabrino, inherited the property in 1995, when he was just 21. He has surfer looks and a hang-loose attitude, and is considered somewhat of an iconoclast. “I like to combine techniques, to do weird things,” he said. One of Mr. Fallabrino’s concoctions is a ripasso de tannat, made using a traditional Italian method by which grapes are left to dry for one month under the sun, and the resulting raisins are used to referment a young wine. After 18 months in French oak, the outcome is a hearty, dry red with liqueur aromas.

During our walk through 37 acres of cabernet sauvignon, trebbiano, tannat, gewürztraminer, chardonnay and nebbiolo vines, Mr. Fallabrino talked about his sustainable approach to farming and his conviction that Uruguay needed to focus on a single foreign market. Since the first vintage, Mr. Fallabrino set his sights on the United States and now sells 90 percent of his 60,000 bottles in New York, California and other states.

Back at Viñedo de los Vientos’s casual tasting room, Mariana Cerutti, Mr. Fallabrino’s wife, prepared a shrimp and watercress salad paired with an aromatic white blend called Estival. Next, she brought a basket of unforgettable lamb empanadas, along with a medium-bodied tannat. The finale: handmade strawberry tartines and a sweet, chocolaty dessert wine (labeled Alcyone) that can best be described as addictive.

Most of Uruguay’s 270 wineries are in Canelones, just north of Montevideo. Wine tourism started flourishing about five years ago, when 18 winemakers converged to create a trail called Los Caminos del Vino. Through their site, www.uruguaywinetours.com, visitors can schedule tastings and get help making travel arrangements.

Alto de la Ballena (www.altodelaballena.com) is perhaps the most scenic of these wineries. When Alvaro Lorenzo and his wife, Paula Pivel, decided to turn their love of wine into a business in 1998, they spent months searching for the right terroir, the French term that encompasses both soil and climate. In 2000 they found a rocky hillside plot eight miles from the sea, strategically located near Punta del Este, summer retreat of South America’s glitterati.

There is no tasting room in Alto de la Ballena; we sampled wines and local cheeses on a simple deck with unobstructed vistas of a faraway lagoon, grazing cattle and brushes of alamos and eucalyptuses. It’s hard to mind a lack of infrastructure in a place like that. I tried a 2006 merlot, aged 12 months in French oak, that had wood and raisin aromas; a dry 2008 cabernet franc and tannat rosé, as well as an intriguing 2007 tannat-viognier.

Another required stop is Bouza (www.bodegabouza.com), frontrunner among Uruguay’s new-generation wineries. Nine years ago, the Bouza family bought an abandoned winery with colonial-style facilities near Montevideo, where they planted 12 acres of albariño, chardonnay, merlot and tannat vines (they also have a plot in Canelones). Bouza’s oenologist, Eduardo Boido, practices a style of viticulture known as low-input, paired with a meticulous manual handling and selection of the fruit. The strategy has paid off. The winery’s Tannat A6 Parcela Única (A6 is the name of the parcel where the wine comes from) was lauded by Jancis Robinson in The Financial Times and selected by the Wine Enthusiast as an editors’ choice.

The food at the estate’s restaurant — brick-walled and soberly decorated with leather sofas — is also ambitious. To start, I ordered an arugula and pear salad with Jabugo ham, paired with a dry, citrusy 2008 albariño. A rack of Hampshire Down lamb, raised on the property, seemed like the obvious second course. This flavorful dish married well with their aromatic 2006 Single Parcel Merlot B9, a big, robust wine. In the United States, it sells for $55.

The owner, Juan Bouza, is well aware of his — and Uruguay’s — strengths and weaknesses. “This is not the place for a uniform, massive product,” he said. “But for connoisseurs who have tried a lot of wines, we are very interesting.”

La tarea de coordinación es la tarea de crear esos espacios.  En 2009, STC Uruguay procura lanzar iniciativas de voluntariado para ayudar a fomentar una cultura de voluntariado.  Necesitamos personas que pueden ayudar a formar los proyectos, hablar con voluntarios, trabajar con patrocinadores, y coordinar eventos, y facilitar comunicación para que los demás puedan encontrar su lugar para servir. 

¿Te interesa?  Mandanos tu información a stc@servethecity.org.uy, y estaremos en contacto.

Matt,
Coordinador General, STC Uruguay

I got there, and saw his facebook page wide open.  The room was dimly lit, and so I think that contributed to the mischievous deed that came forth from somewhere deep in my bowels.

I saw it, it said “Joe Bloe is” with a blank afterward with grey text that said something like, “What’s on your mind?”  I swear, there appeared a thousand imps inside me (no, not Legion, he wouldn’t be quite so funny as me, a lack of sense of humor being one of the chief failures of the demonic host), and they had something on their mind.

“I like sausages.”

So, next to that cool pose and smiling face of my good friend, in a nano-second, there appeared that wonderful phrase.

“I like sausages.”

Bratwursts, Chorizos, Italian, Polish…

The only thing I hadn’t counted on was all the sick, perverted minds in this world that would thing I was attributing a sexual orientation to my friend.  May it never be!  And when I saw THOSE responses on his facebook, I got seriously embarrassed.  How dare they!

So, next time you are having a backyard cookout, and the peppers and onions are sizzling on the grill, and the brats are dripping, and the tops are popping on your favorite refreshing beverage, make sure you don’t leave your Facebook account open.  You never know who might drop by.

For instance…  If you looked at me and said, “Hey Bill,” then you would show how unwise you were. Not only that, I wouldn’t say anything back to you.  Well, I might say, “You have me confused.”  Or, if you really seemed nice, I might tell you about all the times I would respond to the wrong name when I was younger due to a perpetual fear of making people feel stupid.  Stupd and bad.

So, I had a thought.  Maybe we could go a long way toward stemming Middle East confusion and violence by trying out different names for things.  Take Islamibad for example.  Aren’t you just asking for trouble by saying Islam Bad every time you mention that fine capital city.  Try, “JudaismBad” for Jerusalem, or ChristianityBad for the Vatican (well, you might be on to something with THAT particular example).

So, I am going to try it.  At least, give it a shot.  Islamigood.  Who knows.  Maybe militants in safe havens in the mountains of autonomous tribal regions will start beating their Kalishnakovs into plowshares.

If Istanbul was once Constantinople, surely we can do better than Islamibad.

Maybe I’m wrong.  But maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of wisdom.