No. 901 – You Got Me Floatin’

Performer: P.M. Dawn

Songwriters: Jimi Hendrix

Original Release: Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None

100 down, 900 to go.

I have to clarify something. I had said after someone threw a Mountain Dew bottle through my car window, that that set in motion activities that would lead to Debbie and I dating. That’s true, but I forgot an important step

 At Schmidt’s that fateful day, all we did was say “let’s do the things we say we want to,” but the only thing that was actually booked was dinner at Debbie’s. We set that up for a week or so after the Bottle Incident. I don’t remember what we had that night. If I had to guess, I’d say chicken divan, which was a specialty of hers. But what I really remember was the wine that I brought.

In 1994, I didn’t know anything about wine other than it came in red, white and rose. I didn’t even know which went with what food. (I was strictly a Jack-and-a-beer-back guy at that time.) There’s a line in Jaws, one of my all-time favorite movies, where Hooper visits Brody at home around dinner and says “I brought red and white; I didn’t know what we were having.” Well, why bring two? I went for the rose—it’s red AND white, right? At the time, my brand was Beringer. I had been told at some point that that was a good label, and the white zinfandel  seemed to be all right the few times I had it before then.

What I didn’t know at the time was that bringing Debbie a white zinfandel was like taking Police Academy to Roger Ebert’s house to view: I couldn’t have looked more like the boob that I was. Debbie didn’t say a word, however.

We had a great dinner, and Debbie introduced me to Stone Free, the Hendrix tribute album. This album was how she knew Seal, because he did a killer version of Manic Depression on there with Slash. And we chatted the whole evening away, but before I left, we nailed down dates: We’d see the Reds in two weeks and do Cedar Point roughly a week later.

It wasn’t until years later, after the student had become the master, that Debbie would recall my first sad attempt to show wine gravitas: “Well, at least it was Beringer.” True, it could have been worse; it could have been Boone's Farm.