So over the past couple of weeks I have been crossing the country from my home in California, first to NYC then Boston, then back to SF then off to Las Vegas - a total of 11 days on the road. I have a lot to say about the trip, and a lot of event and restaurant and wine and interviews and stuff to talk about but we will start with The Blue Man Group, which I actually saw on the last day of the trip, due to a chance meeting near the first day of the trip.

While the story about how I ended up with tickets in the front orchestra for a Sunday performance is interesting, it is not as interesting as the show itself. Now with my wife, partner and all-round amazing woman who sticks by me for more than my knowledge of a wine list on my arm, we head over to The Venetian and The Blue Man Theater. Head to the bar, grab a cocktail and make our way to the seat. Right away you have a sense that you are in for a treat when the left and right pillars begin speaking to you via a dot matrix display, red text on black ala Jenny Holzer.

Once the audience has taken the seats, and the LEDS have scrolled out messages and instructions, the stage opens to exactly what you expect: three blue dudes. What you don’t expect is the entire rest of the show.

The Blue Man Group has successfully combined Art, Science and Rock and Roll into such an entertaining performance of anything that I have seen since U2 dragged the ZooTV tour around the US. First off lets start with the Blue Men themselves. A trio of silent performers that speak only with their actions, most of which are minimalist head turns, arm waves or a deep stare down with bright eyes embedded in blue grease-painted bald heads. Creepy and yet endearing. They are obviously not from my neighborhood, nor my state for that matter, yet they are not so strange as to be aliens. With expressionless stares and percision timing The Blue Man Group takes you through a series of sets that incorporate visually splendid performance pieces set against a Phil Spector-style Wall of Sound. And throughout the performance, just when you think that things are explosive and can’t be topped…a BOOM and a BANG and they are off in another direction, providing another level of curiosity and amazement at their ability to make music from plumbing material, sonic percussions and eye bending graphical displays.

Now, what really got me excited about these guys was the educational value that was intertwined in their performance. I learned about cones and rods and nodes and networks and stuff I would have remembered from science class had I actually attended science class. They also reminded me about the concept or phrase about great music, that its not always the notes that are great, but the spaces between the notes. Their performance was restrained and yet massive at the same time, stopping at just the right moment for the audience to take it all in.

Now notice I am not telling you about each little bit they do. You have to go see it for yourself. If I were to describe it to you then a.) you wouldn’t need to to go and b.) I wouldn’t even begin to do it justice. Book your next trip to Vegas. Get tickets to The Blue Man Group. While we weren’t able to get a room at the Venetian we did stay a night at TI, which is right across the street from the BMG Theater and quite nicely remodeled for about a 100 bucks. It makes it a convenient walk in the 109 degree heat we had to deal with.

Seriously Blue Man Group for the win! They were brilliant performers, exceptional entertainers and above that, groundbreakingly entertaining. Like nothing you will see in a while, and I have seen quite a lot.

DISCLOSURE - Bourdain, No Reservations, and The Travel Channel do not pay me for the love I give them week over week. I do it because I am a big fan of the show, and because I hope someone will recognize this fresh new voice in the blog-o-sphere and send me on assignment somewhere to screen test a new show they are developing. And if they aren’t developing a new show I have the perfect one for you. It’s called Tripped Up. Here’s the pitch - a married couple picks something to go to, say The Kentucky Derby in, well, Kentucky or the Festa di San Marco, in Venice where every year is the gondola races.

They take you with them along their journey from point A to point Z and explore the nooks and crannies of life along the way. Traveling as a couple is very different than traveling the world alone, if you consider traveling with a camera crew and stylist alone. It’s no longer just your agenda, and you get to discover things, the good and the bad about travelling together. And in the process of sharing with the viewing audience, which hopefully would be couples considering taking similar trips (think product placement, sponsorships, packages all neatly bound in blogs, webisodes and landing pages), you learn a thing or three about yourself, each other, and that crazy little thing called love.

Oh yeah, Bourdain, Monday night at 10pm EST on the Travel Channel. He goes to Uruguay with his brother and they eat a bunch stuff. Like meat. Watch it. Then have your people call my people.

So when in Rome and all that. We recently went to Portland for the Internet Strategies Forum and… Yeah, you read right INTERNET STRATEGY. See, in my 9-5 I am a hardcore web marketing and design guy, but during the night I turn into the guy that quits work and makes music, or drinks some wine, or watches Californication until he begins to feel really cool for being a blogger because, well, Hank does it too. But that really doesn’t have anything to do with the wine.

So when in Portland, one is pretty much required to dine at a McCormick & Schmick’s restaurant. Hell, in Portland, throw a rock and you will hit one. So we showed up at Jake’s Famous the other night, shortly after having a few shots of Jameson’s and Guinness at the Grill of the same name, just down the block. The restaurant had an eclectic mix of people in the mutli-roomed dining area. At the front near the bar was a few circular four-tops already crowded in by the folks standing near the bar waiting for a table. It didnt take long to get a table and it didn’t take long to order a house selection of oysters, seared Ahi, a Rib eye, a baked crab dish and a few other items. And then we ordered the wine.

I left it to the waiter to pick out the wine. The only requirement was that it come from the Willamette Valley. He came back with a 2006 Pinot Gris from Left Coast Cellars. I was quite frankly surprised at the choice of a Pinot Gris, but the selection was actually quite insightful. The richness of the crab casserole thing was paired nicely with a fresh, light combination of melons and for what might typically be considered a “sweet wine”, very well balanced.

Now for being a wine blog I know that about 12% of the words in this post are about the wine. But to err on the side of honesty, I can say that the wine was good, very drinkable, not as sweet as I expected, and then I went back to drinking my Toscano Rosso and whackin out the rib eye. So what I promise Left Coast to do is to grab another bottle of the Gris and give it a proper twirl. And in the mean time, you may want to check out the Left Fielders Wine Club. Twice a year shipments of 6 bottles will set you back $150-$180 bucks.

OK, so i didnt win the FAN-tastic casting call contest for Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, even though I should have. Whatever. And even though I dont get paid to pimp out the show I think its great TV and I hope anyone interested in food and culture and cool would tune it.

Tonight, Tony travels to Saudi Arabia with Danya Alhamrani, the winner of the fan contest. And as usual, the show airs tonight at 10pm EST. Buy the season from iTunes.

One of Guy Kawasaki’s ventures is Alltop. Basically it is an collector of user generated content by topic or group. Last night I was exploring wine.alltop.com and came across some really good articles by writers I never would have found if not for the Alltop service.

The list is long, and some of the usual suspects are there - GaryVee of Wine Library TV, Grape Radio and Lenndevours. My hope is that DrinkSomeWine will soon be on that list as well.

I am big fan of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. Tonight (10pm EST) is another episode where he travels to Columbia and I will guess that the magic ingredient won’t be powered, but groundup. And I am talking about Chorizo! He is also writing a blog. I am always fascinated by his show because he has transformed the classic “cooking show” into a cultural influencer, opening my eyes to food that i would never have thought existed. Its the culinary version of Wild Kingdom.

If you saw last week’s episode I am certain that you have a greater respect for him that before as a man. Sure he is cool in that late-night all-night rock and roll celebrity-chef style, you know, the kind that roll off the line at 3:30 am in the Big Apple, grab a cab to some hole in the wall that serves insane food at 4 am, tosses back a shot of bourbon to clear the fire orders in his head and then pops a bottle of 2005 Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape because its a great red wine to pair with anything and because he just spent 18 hours on the line and really doesn’t want to make any decisions. That kind of guy. Reminds me of myself really, as a younger man, when I was living in NYC in the 80’s, waiting tables and tending bar at such storied locations as il Tres Merle, Flutie’s. Private Eyes, or Paladium.

Anyway, on the first episode of the season Tony was visibly moved by the story he became part of during his journey into Laos. Now I am no pussy by any means, and just because I can swirl a wine glass with the big boys doesnt prohibit me from shedding a tear or two in compassion for the people I saw on the show. Go get it here from iTunes.Buy the whole season pass while you are at it.

Hats off to Bourdain and crew for another great season of television. Go buy Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) or Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking and support the blog. Wine isnt cheap ya know.

Congratulations to Gary Vaynerchuk on his 500th episode of wine library tv. For those of you who dont know of Gary, he has been delivering the thunder about new wines and a new vocabulary thru his podcasts that appear 5 days a week, sometime between 4:00 and 6:00 EST.

What I find interesting about Gary is his use of social media to promote his message and his personal brand, and I will discuss that more later at Relevantly Speaking, but he has defiantly taken the medium and the message by storm. He is active on Twitter and he is all over mainstream media. Some people are put off by his loud, in-your-face style of broadcast, but it seems like the increasingly large number of fans have acknowledged that this might just be the wake up call that the often-times snooty and snobby wine industry needed. I for one hope to be able to do an interview with him here at DrinkSomeWine, with the assistance of my mentor Scott Parent, who produces the ever so famous podcast AmericanCliche.

For his 500th episode, Gary did a live audience show at CrushPad in San Fransisco and talks about a 2003 Araco Crianza Rioja, a 2001 Bodegas Primicia Rioja Reserva Rioja as well as a 2006 Lucien Crochet Sancerre Le Chene Sancerre Blanc.

If you are still reading this, I would highly recommend buying Gary’s Book - Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World. ANd yes, buy it from here so I get a sniffy sniff of the sale from Amazon.

The talented Dr. Vino has put together one of the more useful tools since the invention of the Rabbit (take your pick). His Wine Map of NYC is available for your mobile device. Check it out here, and be sure to let him know of others in the surrounding boroughs.

In addition to having the PBS series in town, Paso Robles Wine alliance has been doing some great things to insure that the area is recognized for the great winemaking region it is. Home to more than 100 wineries and over 40 varietals, Paso’s visibility to the wine consumer has increased steadily over the past few years. And as it is halfway between LA and SF, it makes for a great weekend getaway.

This region is now home to a few big events each year: the Zinfandel Festival in March, a Wine Festival in May, Paso Robles Wine University and a Harvest Wine Tour in October. There is also a Pinot Festival this month.

The Zinfandel Festival weekend takes place March 17, 18 and 19, 2006, with a marquee event Saturday, March 18 at the California Mid-State Fairgrounds in Paso Robles. You should get your tickets for the Zin Festival soon. It is the second largest Zin Fest in the country and will feature an $85 dinner, auction and Grand Tasting. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 800.549.WINE (9463).