PREVIEW: Michael Applebaum

For the listener at home,

I just learned some horrifying information about Riley.

Yeah, information that may shock and scandalize you because you know how Riley always talks about wine.

Yeah, well, he was relaying to us a story about how he had stored all of his wine in his basement on a sort of ready-made that he found down there, and it began to shudder under its own weight and collapse.

I suggested to him, maybe maybe drink some of the wine, to which he said to me, I don't really drink wine that much.

And I started screaming at him.

You did.

You did.

And you were right trying to do it.

Divorce me or something.

Just the finding out that your friend who is into wine does not actually enjoy drinking wine that much, but is mostly just kind of like enjoys collecting the wine, looking at the wine, going down into the little like wine cellar where the wine lives to like hang out with the wine.

He said he wants to be near the grapes at the vineyard.

He also said to us in the straight-up gadracula line, he said, I don't drink wine

that much.

You just have like a parasocial relationship with a berry at that point.

You just, you're just like, well, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to drink it, but I approve of it.

You know, okay.

I think we should let Riley defend herself.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

I'm just going to start doing that, by the way.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

So is that interesting?

How does it make you feel when I say that?

When I say

something like deep in your soul sort of like make a little glimmer?

I'm afraid it's pretty neutral.

So here's the rush like wine to you then.

Okay.

I have to be clear.

I love wine.

I love drinking wine.

It is one of the best parts of my life.

However, if you're going to be, if you're going to decide to be hugely into wine, which I have been since the age of like 14, like I was just obsessed with it.

Well, yeah, I mean, all the children of the Niagara escarpment must

pass the seven, the seven tests.

You laugh, but like stop pumping, danking, fermenting,

wrestling, picking.

The thing is, the seven tests in the Niagara region are, yeah, one of them is going to be wine related, but four of the others are going to be like ATV jump related.

ATV jumping a thing over a bunch of wine barrels.

Yeah.

You have to jump the um, you have to jump the ATV over a vineyard without damaging any of the precious grapes.

It's a cool story.

Was the ski dude there?

Yeah.

So, so, okay, so basically, I have loved and been obsessed with wine ever since I was like 14 years old.

This is well known about me.

Also, I have learned that being a like wine person who just loves wine and learning about wine, what has happened is...

Interesting, you said person and not man, but go on.

You've basically given yourself a hobby that is drinking.

Yeah.

I can understand the kind of

porosity of the line between wine enthusiast and alcoholic there.

And sort of wine O.

Yeah.

Going from wine E to wine O is where you don't want to go.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

You don't want to cross that vowel barrier.

So basically, I just, when I say I don't drink wine that much, it's not because I'm like, I'm just sort of so-so on wine.

I don't really care about it.

That is much funnier than a kind of well-reasoned approach to your hobby.

It's much funnier to imagine you

looking at a cellar full of wine that you've painstakingly collected across decades that, you know,

is valued at God knows how much and being like, I hate this.

I'm going to get a beer.

Fucking suck.

Every day I walk downstairs, yeah, holding a stellar toile, and I just look at my wine collection and I give it a big thumbs up and I get back upstairs.

Drinking a beer in front of the wine to shame it.

Yeah, that helps the aging.

It's like a ritual to kind of like debase the wine to keep it in its place.

Is you're gonna like

you're gonna like shotgun a couple of beers down there.

It's a French magic called the debassement de vine.

I'm in a 24-hour DS lifestyle relationship with my uh wine seller.

Should we start the show?

Yeah, this is a podcast about mayors, I think.

I wanted to clarify: the wine collection is not like worth a lot of money.

It's just stuff I like.

Uh-huh.

Okay, so it's more like my vinyl collection.

It's like, if you steal it, you don't, not only do you not have a big financial asset, but it's going to be kind of weird because it's like idiosyncratic.

Riley, I just want to say for the podcast, officially, Riley is only rich in memories and friendship.

That's all he's got.

It's true.

He's rich in like the joy in his heart heart and also money.

Look, we do need to take that stuff out.

We don't want more people like

being like, you guys are doing too well.

I'm doing poorly.

I just have that on the record.

Yeah.

I'm doing medium good.

Thanks for asking.

I'm going to, I'm going to, so let's, with all of that being said, I'm going to, um, I'm going to start the show.

But look, we're not here to talk about my relationship with my wine.

My wine.

Just a thing that you say in every therapy session if it goes really wrong for you.

I'm not here to talk about my wine for the last time.

Take my wine.

Wine, please.

I was

doing couples counseling, but it's me in one side of the sofa and like a wine rack full of wines on the other.

Just like, I just really feel like you don't like hold space for me anymore.

She's so closed off.

I thought she would open up in a few hours.

Anyway, let's.

I know.

Thank you.

That's very interesting, Riley.

However,

your wine rack says that you

shotgun a Stella Artois in front of her.

And, you know, how do you think that makes her feel?

God damn it.

Yeah, whenever your wine sees you drinking water, it goes like, oh.

Oh, no.

All right.

Accidentally getting, getting you to like pet to like pack bond with your wine.

And you're just like, oh.

Oh.

Look, we're gonna talk about a mare.

Leaving my wine rack for a young wine.

Anyways, sorry.