Monty Python - The Galaxy Song

The Way I See It # Two-Million One

So maybe I should have taken just one quick minute to add an itty-bitty note to my last "post", clarifying that the picture contained therein wasn't meant as a commentary on my new job - good, bad or otherwise. Work is ok... lower case "oh" lower case "kay". Sometimes even upper case "Oh". Maybe I'm in a little rut; but the good kind, when you know you're not at risk of getting thrown out the door on you're ass (if that doesn't sound like that a ringing endorsement, Congratulations! You've never spent all 40 hours of your work-week wondering when you're going to get thrown out on your ass.)

Indicative of said rut, however, is the fact that I'm back to visiting Starbucks on a regular basis, when I'm not making the stuff at home.

I know, I know. And trust me, it does make me feel all dirty inside. Lately, though, it's worse than just the crypster guilt of not supporting the local guy. It's those idiotic "The Way I See It" anecdotes printed on the side of Starbucks cups.

Yes, I know I've complained about this before; I realize that I should just ignore those obnoxious transmissions from "Clever-Clever Land", use my own, environmentally-friendly cup, or maybe just get some 7-11 "Energy Coffee" if I'm in such a damn hurry. But it's like driving by the proverbial car accident, or looking in Pandora's Box, or reading The Family Circus on your way to the horoscopes - your free will becomes the illusion that so many philosophers have claimed it is; you're powerless to turn away, no matter the consequences. (DAMN YOU, BIL KEANE!!!)

The other day my "Shot-in-the-Dark" came w/ an extra shot of ass-clown, raving about how "Darwinism" is responsible for all the world's perceived ills. As is to be expected, not implied among those ills were war, famine, gluttony, greed, deceit, coveting your neighbors wife,

coveting your neighbor's horse, Sloth, jealousy, any disease that could possibly be construed as The Almighty's punishment for something or other; getting my chocolate in your peanut butter, or getting your peanut butter in my chocolate.

But really, what are you gonna do? "Reason" with him? Waste your time trying to explain to this guy that there's no such thing as a "Darwinian Fundamentalist"; zealots who take ol' Chuck's work as (ahem) gospel, just because he wrote it a century and a half ago? Baby, there ain't a cup venti enough in the world for you to try.

So, as if to illustrate this isn't just some quirk, today my cup featured the musings of that wise and all knowing sage Dr. Laura, ruminating on nothing less than the "Meaning of Life". What the Hell? I wouldn't even trust Dr. Laura's opinion on the movie "The Meaning of Life".

Whatever. Mine has never been any sort of "issues" blog (see pic of Sloth chillin' w/ Chunk, above) People can believe whatever claptrap they want. I just don't know that I want to drink from a cup that spews this kind of ignorance.

It's like in that movie "What the Bleep", that whole "Molecules of Emotion" thing, where the water meditated over by a bunch of monks had prettier molecules than the water that people directed ugly sentiments at; no, I don't really buy it either, but I'm also not about to eat from a bowl that reads "Shit: It's What's for Dinner".

And don't get on me about not supporting "free speech". I'll drink me a double tall, extra-dry cup of the free speech right now. But free speech has nothing to do w/ some perceived "right" to proselytizing on the side of a coffee cup, or a constitutional guarantee to your own radio show, for that matter. Yes, as a matter of fact, if I don't like it, I will change the station, thank you very much. And if your advertisers are dropping like flies because of it, that's not some vast, left wing conspiracy; it's old school "let the market decide" style libertarianism - and sometimes, I can hang with that. Get a blog, crybaby.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only two kinds of people in the world; ones who want to cram their beliefs / religions / multilevel marketing opportunities down your craw; and folks who, like the Hulk, just want to be left alone. Sadists who are interested in "Reasonable Discourse" are relatively few, most certainly far between, and definitely aren't to be trusted.

Yes, this is a little disjointed, and just barely on topic. That's what happens when I blog from home, at night, with the world outside my door going so crazy as it is lately.

Speaking of the meaning of life, i think it's apropos that we add one more "Way I See It"... no, f*ck that... "The Way It Is" quote. A tribute to one of the late, great ones. Written originally as a comment on how the world greatest, most sincere lovers could none the less hurt one another, I think it applies just as much to all the martyrs and heroes out there so overzealous to share "The Truth" with the rest of the world.


"Please, a little less love, and a little more common decency"

Kurt Vonnegut

Barista

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

2 entries in one night!

WARNING! - wildly Off-Topic post!

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. " -- Mathew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's

When you consider that the film above came out in 1986, and is now of legal drinking age (!) the point is well-taken. And things move even faster in the post-modern a-go- go 21st century. Ted Haggard was cured of The Gay in just 3 weeks. In less than a month, Brittney Spears has already been into and out of rehab twice already. Add to these dubious signs of the times the fact that since I was laid off in January, since my last entry, I've had 2 new jobs.

The first, for a small dot-com, was trumped by the benefits and better pay offered by a broadcast television station. It was a tough move - the dot-com employed Hot Women; women who made art and played in bands during the off hours. Short hair and pierced noses were the office uniform. At the station, the uniform is stretch-pants with stirrups and Winnie the Pooh tee-shirts. Sure, there's some "attractive" women at the station, running around, primping for the 9 pm newscast, but they're the cool kids, with their very own table in the lunch room. Up on my floor it's cubicles decorated with happy meal toys all the way.

Now, once you get to know me, it's perhaps not so surprising that I've been employed 3 different places just in '07. As a legal adult, I've had no less than 27 jobs (though I'm pretty sure there's a handful of others I've forgotten about in there). I have to admit, it's nice having choices for once. Options. Even if I did have to fill out an application for my current job. Is it just me, or do you ever wonder why you bother endlessly editing, revising and updating your resume, arguing over formatting etiquette as if it was religion ("You must fit everything on One Page!"... "Never supply your references until asked, naive!") if in the end, you have to sit and fill out a bunch of itty-bitty fields by hand, like you're trying applying for a shift-lead position at Wendy's?

But it was cool for once, as hard as it was to walk away from the hipster chicks at the dot com, to leave on my terms - and for more money. To not have to hop on the first job I came across and hump it's leg like sexually frustrated cocker spaniel. To not give two weeks notice, regardless of what my parents may think, because it's not like the man always gives the same courtesy in return. Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug, baby.

(Yeah, I quoted a country song. Bite me. I'm tired and I'm not used to blogging from home... at night... how do people do it?)

Furthermore, its was good to have a practice run through the usual "Stages of a New Job". I got to get my usual reaction to days one ("Hey, this is great! Everyone is smiling at me and wants to buy me lunch") through five ("Why did I have to get married and have kids? I should have slept around more and wandered the earth like Caine on Kung Fu!") out of my system.

So, here I am; I just have to decide where to go from here. Do I try to work my way up - sell out and attempt to claw my way up the corporate ladder? I toyed with the idea of getting a "personal coach", though admittedly, they'd have to be more Dustin Hoffman from "I (Heart) Huckabees" than Greg Kinnear in "Little Miss Sunshine".

If nothing else, I think this could be what I've always dreamed of; a real live, well-balanced "day job", one that I could actually come home from and still have the piece of mind to indulge in my creative pursuits. My last job, it took me 6 months just to reach "incompetent". This, I think I'll have mastered in 3.

I've been getting my coffee at Moe's Broadway Bagels, pissing distance from the office. So I should be able to write about that, just as soon as I get all this self-indulgent, personal life stuff out of my system.

Get with "THE PROGRAM"!

(The following is from an unfinished post; originally written on 12/15/06!)

Ach.... gnnnf... gwwwrrch...










AUUUURRRRGHH!!!!

Whoo hoo! Wowsers. Yes, folks, your eyes do not deceive you... there's nothing wrong with your computer... once again, I control the horizontal, I control the vertical... believe it or not... I'm still here!

By "here", of course, I mean not so much "present", like, an active part of the blogger community at large, spewing thick, sticky ropes of profound witticism from the depths of my keyboard; but "here" in the "behind my desk, staring red-eyed at my computer monitor, buried sphincter-deep in 'Annual orders for '07'" sense; licking my post-election wounds, as political season in my business means an endless barrage of attack ads to unleash upon the unsuspecting public. (Though, the elections for me personally certainly turned out pretty good)

As this blog has always been the most reliable (all right, occasionally reliable) source of the most subjective, completely biased coffee house reviews on the web, I figure it's only appropriate to review the place I've been drinking my coffee at most regularly, during my vacation from blogging, or, as I'm loathe to call it "real life"...

My Work



That's right. Superman has his Fortress, Batman his cave, The Shadow his "Secret Sanctum" (Giggle... Tee heee... No, seriously, he calls it that.) Me, I've got a six foot by six foot...








.....................

AND THAT'S IT... that's as far as I managed to get (See? See? I told you I was busy!). But, hey, it started off as a promising enough post, didn't it? What with all the photos of where I'd been spending my days (and more nights than I care to remember)?

And the jokes... OH, the jokes; all of them, gestating in my oversized cranium for a over month now, about how my son's picture revealed our membership in a blue-scarab worshiping, Neo-Egyptian cult ("Har - dee - har!") And the way that my Hello Kitty fetish crosses so far over the line between aging Gen-X irony and "creepy old man" that it almost goes all the way back to ironic again. ("Guffaw!") And the way that my politically correct sensibilities are trumped by my love of visiting coffee shops, as evidenced by the paper cup sitting next to the reusable, eco-friendly mug on my desk. ("WHEEEE!")

Here we are, a month and a half later, a whole brand-spankin'-new year, and I'm finally getting around to dusting off and finishing up this tired ol' entry. But now, of all the pictures, I keep finding myself focusing on two in particular... The lyrics for the King Monkey's "F.E.A.R", there to mull over anytime things got bad at work, over the last two and a half years. And then there's my bamboo plant, with only two stalks, because the third had withered up into nothingness. The wife warned me that it was bad luck, feng shui-wise, to have an even number.




Damn her and her voodoo ways...

***************************
On January 4th, 2007, after sitting though the company's annual "Holiday Bistro" (pushed back because of all the storms) , listening to the managers pat themselves on the back for being the bestest of all the corporate entities in all the whole-wide world, bragging "Whoo Hoo! Lookit how we crushed that '06 budget! GO TEAM!!!"I was lead into a bottom floor, windowless room with both of my managers, and the head of Human Resources. There, I was informed that I had been selected for

"THE PROGRAM" (!)

As with all things ominous and of a highly delicate nature (the existence of Fight Club, employment in the CIA - pre Bush) the exact details of "The Program" shall remain steeped in mystery, per the scads of legalese-heavy paperwork I've signed off on. However, it is safe for me to disclose that the ties to my previous employer have been effectively severed. I can say that. I can further add that, on a good day, when I'm not obsessing over the mundane details of where I'm going to get a new job, and what kind of benefits that new employer will offer, "The Program" is not entirely unlike Summer vacation.

Oh, sure... there has been a fair amount of combing sites like Career Builder and Monster, but a good portion of that has been accomplished by utilizing the free terminals provided by the good women (womyn?) of tHERe Coffee, sitting alongside such Denver luminaries as Maris the Great. I did occasionally use the computers at the Englewood Public Library, and I once sat next to a woman who was posting an ad on Craigslist erotic services section. Talk about in-demand job skills!

So, what else does "The Program" entail? Well, aside from lots of quality time with the wife kids, I got to go to Lipgloss one Friday, where I was surrounded by youngsters oblivious to the fact that Morrissey's OTHER legendary guitarist, Boz Boorer was spinning the classic soul and Jam-n-Clash era punk that they were shaking their booties to. He even broke his vow of never spinning his own music, and played "You're the One For Me, Fatty" per my request.

(I cornered him in the "loo", as those silly Brits call it).


I went to the Denver Public Library and mulled over the "On the Road" scroll, the endless length of paper on which Jack Kerouac typed his most famous work. I even got a picture, in spite of the clearly posted signs that informed doing so was forbidden. I'm just a rebel like that.




I proceeded to go upstairs, under the highest point in the library, to drink my coffee at the legacy table, where the last decent president sat and... I don't know, did something presidential.






Alas, what "The Program" hasn't entailed is blogging. And here's the rub; the "good news / bad news", as it were... I start a new job on Monday. I'll be swathed in business casual and cubed once more. All snark aside, it's a good opportunity, and I am ready to get back to work. But I'm just not sure what it will mean for my little corner of cyberspace. I do know that I owe it to my family, to myself, to throw everything I've got into this new job. I also owe it to myself to not let this blog turn into a graveyard for ephedra and viagra spam.

So to everyone who's sent me gentle reminders to post anew - thank you. While it's not expected, it's much appreciated. (Yes, even the messages from the missus, written under various pseudonyms)

Who knows? Maybe I can still turn my writing into a marketable skill. I could always be a freelance copywriter for the Craigslist Erotic Services section.

The Way I See It # 2,000,000,000

So the Missus, knowing as she does that I can't write from home, has told me that I'm not to leave work until I've posted something to my blog. Which is incredibly sensitive to my creative needs, if you think about it. Perhaps she's the modern day incarnation of Thalia, the Greek mythological muse of comedy, inspiring me to more and better work.

Or maybe it's just sort of bitchy. I reserve judgment for now.

So: my job... busybusybusy. INSANELY so. I should probably be using this breather to double check my work, in order to make sure I haven't overshot the razor thin margin of error I'm afforded by my employers. But, baby, I just DO NOT feel like it today.

Awww. I've missed you, too! Didja lose a few pounds? Ya' look great, I mean it.

I've been so busy that I'm back to drinking (Scooterdad's gloating will resume in 5, 4, 3, 2...) Starbucks. It's just so damn convenient. Plus, they opened a drive thru mere blocks from my house. Which, yeah, it's a corporate joint and all, but may I just take a moment to say WOOOO HOOOO! We're gonna gentrify this neighborhood like a MOTHER F_____!!!

I pulled up on my way to my daughter's daycare and she said "COFFEE." Actually, it was more like "KF'FEEE" but I thought it was completely adorable. Or maybe kinda sad. Again, I reserve judgment.

The unfortunate reality is this - Starbucks coffee is actually a hell of a lot better than just about any of the coffee shops that I haven't bothered to review here. That said - just what is the deal with the inane blather they have printed on the side of their cups, under the heading "The Way I See It "? Really, is there someone out there who's coffee going experience is incomplete until they've received Oprah-caliber wisdom from an acoustic guitarist who's featured in heavy rotation on the Starbucks XM satellite radio station?

I've decided to compile some quotes to of my own for the the cups at my own, imaginary coffee house, a shop that I'm currently calling "The Coffee Clutch" (after a line in the Roger Corman classic The Wasp Woman. As in "Oh, we were just having a little coffee-clutch." Like, water-cooler talk in the break room at work. Catchy, innit?)

(DRAT! Blogger's photo capabilities have gone all wonky, once again - so all you get is the golden tressed, atom powered nemesis of the Man of Steel. I invite the completists among you to perform a Google image search for the great thinkers listed below...)

----------------------------

"maybe I'm the faggot America; I'm not a part of the redneck agenda"
Billy Joe Armstrong

"It's not what you are like - it's what you like: movies, music. These things matter." Rob from High Fidelity.

"What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality." Andy Kaufman

"Life is an obscure hobo, bumming a ride on the omnibus of art."
Maxwell H. Brock, beatnick poet extrordinare, Bucket of Blood.

"I'm so cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month! I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis!" - Zaphod Beeblebrox


"If you don't tell me where she is, I will hurt people!" Nuclear Man, from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

"You know, my son, I wouldn't be Emperor of the Galaxy if I didn't have a few powers at my disposal. Imperial Battleship, halt the flow of time! " Emperor of the Galaxy, Starcrash.

"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'" George Carlin

Feel free to add your own! You know you want to!

Let's Get Down to it, Boppers...

As I alluded to in my last entry, three weeks ago (!), my workload has gotten much, much heavier recently. Such is the injudicious nature of my workplace; some of us will be working at a leisurely pace for months on end, strolling into our cubes 20 minutes late on a daily basis, taking long lunches and forwarding along tired email jokes from 2003; while others weather a veritable shit-storm of work piling up endlessly on their desks. I suppose I can't really complain - I spent the first part of 06 in the former catagory. And of course, it would be unreasonable for me to expect that I should have time to write a great-American novel's worth of blog entries while I'm on the clock. But you'll excuse me if it grates on my last nerve when one of my go get'em, twenty-something coworkers sits complaining about "not having something to do".

Ah... the folly of youth. For me, "to chill" is a skill - one that I've honed over a lifetime of hanging out on coffee house patios and perusing used book stores and record shops. Alas, my talents are being sorely wasted.

Yeah, I know, I know... I could be, probably should be, writing at home. But blogging, in my opinion, is a subversive discipline. The difference between blogging at work and blogging at home is the difference between waiting for your parents to go to bed so you can have sex with your girlfiend in their house, and putting your children to bed so you can have sex with your spouse in your own house. Like graffiti displayed within the confines of an art gallery, something is lost in translation.

I haven't been visiting too many coffee shops lately, anyway. In order to save money, we purchased a 20 dollar Braun, the Saturday-Night Special of coffee makers. I've been picking up my beans from Paris on the Platte, fresh out of their small-batch roaster. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy drinking coffee at home; a fresh pot waiting for me right when I step from the shower. Or a cup on lazy Saturday afternoon, while my daughter sleeps and my son watches a movie. And sometimes, every once in a great while, if I'm just tired enough, a couple of sips over whatever book I happen to be reading before turning off the light to go to sleep.

When I do make it out for a coffee, it's an event. The other night, Scooterdad and I began our "Boys Nite Out" at Paris. Our seats were tucked neatly around the far side of the bar, where we had a clear view of the kitchen and could avoid the smokey teenagers smack-dab in the middle of their rebellious stage. One of the advantages of hanging out with SD is that he understands the importance of the pre-bar cup of coffee. The other advantage is that I get to hang out with all the cool scooter kids without having to actually own a scooter.

Outside Paris, we got a call from SD's compatriot, Elie. The first thing you need to know about Elie is that he's a dude - a straight one at that. The next thing you need to know about Elie is that he's The Man; a legend, a modern day myth. Like the character "Door" in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Elie is a living, breathing portal to events so utterly hip, happenings so utterly fabulous, that their very existence is to be denied to anyone who is not cool enough to know Elie in the first place.


The last thing you need to know about Elie is that if he and SD ever have a falling out, I'm totally getting his number. I don't know what he does for a living, but look at him. It has to be something with graphic design.

Elie told us to meet him at the Oriental Theater; he'd put our names on "the list". (Okay, SD's name... I'm assigned the humiliating role of "Plus One", proving once again that I'll never live down my reputation as his lackey / first wife) The last time I was at the Oriental was back when it was a dollar theater. My brother and I caught a double bill of Wrath of Kahn and Flash Gordon. As I've never been much of a live music guy, I was excited for the chance to check out the extensive re-model of this beautiful old art-deco movie theater. When we showed up, two DJ's were spinning on stage, a complicated remix of Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" and Wham's "Careless Whispers" that somehow managed to make both songs palpable. But the real payoff was the main event... a multi-media extravaganza - a "mash-up" of one of the greatest B-Movies of all time - THE WARRIORS!!!

The premise of the film is simple; the visionary gang leader Cyrus brings every gang member in New York City area to Central Park in order to unite them under a common cause - a massive take-over of the city with his own gang, The Riffs, leading the charge. Right as his rousing speech reaches it's crescendo, he is assassinated. The Warriors are blamed, and must fight their way back to Coney Island - their "turf".

Now, maybe it's because I'm a parent, or perhaps at heart I've always been a square, but I don't usually care for hyper-stylized action-movie violence in the context of real-world social ills. And when the film was released in 1979, there were plenty of "Concerned Parent" (TM) kinda groups of the same opinion. Luckily for me, this movie doesn't take place anywhere near the real world. When you see a multi-racial group of teenagers, basically the Sweathogs with cigarettes (complete with afros for the white and black members alike) going up against mimes in top hats, the plight of marginalized inner city youth is the last thing on your mind. And when The Warriors manage to not get their asses handed to them by the bat-wielding Baseball Furies, you know dealing with an out-and-out fantasy.

Now, as this was a "mash-up", the film was enhanced by the two DJ's spinning in front of the screen with film and video clips intercut over the movie. Maybe some people though it was overkill when Scandal's video for "The Warrior" came on. Perhaps others thought they were reaching too far when Mascot Mannie, the squirrel from The Yummies, rushed the stage to perform a rap; I personally thought it fit the scene just right.

I got in a conversation with some people about how gangs from other movies would have fared if they were in The Warriors - how would the Mods or Teds from Quadraphenia fare against "The Boppers"? Would Fonzie's gang from Happy Days survive against an attack by the all-lesbian "Lizzies"? Then we talked about how The Warriors would look if it took place in Denver; Scooterists against wirey-limbed bike couriers vs. RollerDolls against Crotch-Rocket riding Larimer Square assholes. Somehow, I don't think cruiser riding coffee drinkers would fare very well. It made me think of SLC Punk, "Rednecks kick the shit outta punks, Punks kick the shit outta mods, Mods kick the shit outta skin heads, Skin heads kick the shit outta those heavy metal guys, The heavy metal guys kick the shit outta the new wavers, and well, the new wavers did nothing cuz they were the new hippies."

The night was moving forward at a great pace; sure, this stuff isn't so "cutting edge" as everyone likes to act, but I eat it up with a spoon. Unfortunately, as it happens so often with these "multi-media events", the Fashion Show began. I'm going to make a tee-shirt that says "FASHION SHOWS: Killing Your Buzz in Denver since 1994" Seriously, who are these snot-nosed, junior high bodied girls strutting around, and why should I care? Do I need one more slim hipped tattoo-palate in my life giving me a negative body image?

And the show was going so well... models and clothes are something you drag out when you're trying to distract from the fact that there's nothing interesting happening on stage - like dancers, rollerbladers, fire-eaters, and whatever else Puff Daddy has on stage with him during a performance.

I'd definitely come out to another show put on by these guys, but The Fashionista's pretty much signaled the end of our night - our buzz-killed, execution style. I guess what that means is, if The Warriors took place in Denver, everybody else would get beaten down by a bunch of cooler than thou, hipster-fashion models. It's just sad, really.

HA ha!

So, when I get back to work on Tuesday, I'm going to be working with a whole new group of people (one of whom is my sister. Damn you, Karole!) Already, their work is piling up at my desk. Lots more work, for the exact same amount of money!

The next couple of weeks may not be very blogger productive... which sucks after what has been a pretty blog-intensive week for me.

But I would be remiss if I didn't at least acknowledge this news item...

While I don't condone the sort of shenanigans that the perpetrators of this particular con have engaged in, I do think it's pretty hi-freaking-larious.

WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO?

Dig all the ways you can deliver that line...

Who wants to be a superhero?
Who wants to be a superhero?
Who wants to be a superhero?

This may not jibe with the casual reader's impression of me, but believe it or not, I'm not actually a comic book geek. If one were to read through some of my past entries, they'd be excused for the misconception - seeing as they'd come across a cornucopia of super-hero metaphors; comparisons drawn between, say, a caffeine high from a particular type of coffee and some random character's superpowers (I.E. - "weak diner coffee is to the 1980's incarnation of The Flash as Turkish coffee is to the Golden Age, time-busting, 'speeding up my molecules in order to enter Dairy Queen without utilizing the door' version of The Flash." No, I never actually wrote that before, but it's apt, so there it is now.)

I'm certainly known to enjoy the occasional comic book - a black and white indie or a dog-eared issue of The Avengers, selected haphazardly from the "4 for a dollar" bin at the lonely shop up on East Colfax. Sometimes I'll even read "The Classics", assuming they're reprinted under one cover and available at a reasonable price. And I have some definite geek tendencies; I get goose-bumps on the rare occasion that a comic book movie "gets it right". Like when MJ delivered the classic line "Go get 'em, Tiger..." at the end of Spiderman 2. Or when Superman fixed the great wall of China by utilizing his little known "brick and mortar vision" in Quest for Peace. You know, all that stuff that's right out of the funny books.

Superman IV - Great Wall of China Vision
I can appreciate a comic for all the cool, detached, ironical crypster reasons; I can appreciate them for the pseudo - Joseph Campbell "it's contemporary mythology!" reasons, and I can appreciate them for the sheer visceral pleasure of groovy pichers. Like Jack "The King" Kirby's "Kirby Krackle", the fizzy-pop distortion in the fabric of reality that accompanies cosmic characters like The Silver Surfer. Or Darkseid. Or me, when I'm dancing. (Seriously, people, it's a thing of beauty)

But honestly, I don't think that makes me a comic book geek - whether the connotation is meant positively or negatively. I don't have hundreds of four-color, FABULOUS 1ST ISSUE!s hermeticly sealed in plastic bags, indexed by "inker" and locked away in a filing cabinet, right alongside my hopes of ever seeing a real-live naked woman. I don't argue in chat rooms over who the best X-Men writer is. I don't even own a trench coat.

Sure, every now and then I imagine that Caffeinator_X is a guy with a great set of abs, a cruiser bike that transforms into a cybernetic exo-skeleton, and the ability to inflict his enemies with the less desirable effects of coffee (jitters, paranoia, "hafta poop now", etc.) just from his stare. And true, I did get a call back for the show, based on my initial application (for the all-new, all-different character "CENTRIFUGE! The Flippin' Idiot!"). But I never could have beat that "Feedback" guy, who looks like one of those Larimer Square crotch-rocket dudes who dress up like they're Japanese animation.

But really... do I want to be a superhero? Nah. I want to be a writer. Or, a paid blogger... that'd be good.

And someday - dream of dreams - I'd like to have my own coffeeshop. And I'll tell you what... somebody who shares that dream could do a HELLUVA lot worse than SML Coffee, off of Washington and Speer. I got the following message from proprietor Brian, just yesterday...


SML Coffee shop for sale - $20,000


Here is an opportunity to own a start up coffee shop at a ridiculously low price.

All the start up work has been done for you.

Lease negotiations
Build out
Licensing
Zoning
Building dept. sign offs
Initial customer base created
Equipment purchased and installed
Tables and chairs
Supplies stocked and ready
Take over the coffee shop, make it your own and make it great.

The customer base is strong and the potential growth is even stronger.

There is opportunity for additional signage and expansion onto the adjacent patio area.

The shop is in a really cool building on the busy corner of Speer and Washington with free parking in the attached lot and additional parking on the street.

Price includes all equipment and supplies, most of the furniture and all the customers.

Please email to schedule an appointment squarewheeler@gmail.com

http://www.myspace.com/smlcoffee

Now, I gotta tell ya - this breaks my heart. That "make it your own, and make it great"? Yeah, it's already great. Though it doesn't have the hang-out-all-night vibe of Monkey Bean (moment of silence, yo); in the short amount of time since it opened, SML has become one of my favorite places in town.

So take heed, whoever jumps on this... don't you dare change a thing. Keep each and every one of the baristas - especially that slim-hipped morning guy who whips up dry cappuccinos the consistency of milk-shakes. Keep the Wednesday movie night. And keep Brian's promise to me to have an annual showing of Bucket of Blood, every Halloween.

Do all that, baby, and you'll be MY superhero.

FAUX COFFEE WEEK - DAY 3

In her book "The Meme Machine", Susan Blackmore posits that the meme is as important to human evolution as the gene. Like the gene, the meme is a replicator of information. But rather than genetic code, the meme is a cultural replicator; transmitting ideas, belief systems, habits, philosophies, fashions, fads, and all of the other stuff that gets knocked around between our oversized monkey brains. Memes, like genes, thrive or perish based on natural selection. A caveman "infected" by the "how to light a fire" meme would have a better chance of getting some cro-mag nookie than his in-the-dark competitors; therefore, it would be his genes and memes that were transmitted to the next generation.

Also like genes, memes are "selfish" (not in the Janet Jackson, "what has he done for me late-ly?" sense, but in the unstoppable, Terminator robot on-a-mission sense); both genes and memes exist only to replecate themselves, whether or not doing so will be beneficial to their "hosts" (i.e. us... We of the oversized monkey brains). Genes compel humans to procreate in times of famine, memes compel you to order the "Windsor Pilates" 6 DVD set when you're channel surfing at 3 am, even though you're too lazy to ever actually use it.

A good example of memes in action is "The Lovely Latte Ladies Auxiliary". These are the women who visit coffee shops in small groups and try to out-do each other with increasingly complex drink orders. ("Double tall, non-fat, decaf vanilla latte") Their behavior is learned through mimicry, like monkeys at the zoo. Each successive order is placed more loudly than the last, so that any nearby women who are not part of the gaggle can return next time to spread the meme among their own group. ("SOY, NO FOAM ORANGE MOCHA!") There wouldn't appear to be any evolutionary benefit to this behavior, as it's extremely hard to believe that it's the kind of thing that would help them attract a mate. But the memes march on...

The simple reality is this... nobody is safe from the influence of memes. I myself got infected, just the other day. Sitting at Kaladi Brothers, I witnessed a half-caf, 2% milk caramel machiato get trumped by a "Mate Latte". ("THAT'S RIGHT! MATE LATTE, PLEASE! MMM, DELICIOUS! TAKE THAT, WHORE! POW!") Seeing as Kaladi's, with it's DU professors and it's marathon moms, is basically a scale model of the People's Republic of Boulder, I was pretty confident that Mate Latte would be made from rice milk (but only after they asked the rice real nice-like) and organic tree bark. But in the spirit of FAUX COFFEE WEEK, I decided to find out for myself.

Only one problem... when I rushed into Kaladi's this morning, toddler in tow, I was sympathetically informed "I'm sorry, we are out of Mate Latte... can I get you something else?"

So there I stood, a recovering addict in a crack-den, the aroma of the oily black beans firing my synapses to full attention. Didn't these people realize this is FAUX COFFEE WEEK? Doesn't anybody read this blog??

Arms pinned to my sides, I ran out of the building, Napoleon Dynamite-style. My canine-obsessed daughter wailed hysterically as we ran past the friendly-looking golden retriever parked on the patio. I knew just how she felt.

I stopped by Scooter Joe's, figuring that they would be just earth-y enough to carry the stuff. The barista whipped up the drink by brewing the leaves/bark/whatever through the espresso machine's portafilter and topping it off with steamed milk, just like you would a regular-old latte. But then, he put an extra tea-bag of the stuff directly into the cup because it "looked a little weak". I have to tell you, the only thing weaker than what I drank this morning would have been cup of evaporated tap-water. I mean, no disrespect to the barista, he probably made it exactly the right way. The thing is... it's tea. I hate tea. Tea tastes like soap; like a big gulp from a cup of "Bed Bath and B'nasty". Now, I don't hate people who like tea. Not all of them, anyway. Hate the drink, not the drinker, I always say.

(Except in the case of Lipton ice tea drinkers. That stuff tastes like obese-man bathwater, and is surely an abomination against... I don't know... something. )

But if I'm going to be one of the "Meme Machines" who's spreading the word about this stuff, giving throngs of rampant soccer moms one more excuse to raid their local coffee shops, like SUV driving zombies, the least I can do is affect my best Charlton Heston and scream "IT'S TEA! MATE LATTE IS TEA!" Even if you like tea... this is worse than Lipton. Step away from the hype machine... they're trying to brainwash you...

Hello...? Is this thing on?

Coffeecrush, The Motion Picture!

Waaaay back in 1991, Francis Ford Coppola predicted that the wide availability of inexpensive film and video equipment would mean film making would truly become an "art form", freed from the restraints of finance or committee. I'm paraphrasing, of course; Coppola's actual quote referenced a hypothetical "little fat girl in Ohio" becoming "the new Mozart", which offended my sensibilities as far as women who are, shall we say, rounded, are concerned. But the sentiment remains. Similarly, in the novel "Pattern Recognition", William Gibson gives us the "Garage Kubrick", a brilliant auteur operating outside the cult of personality.

As you can see, from the clip above, the future is NOW, dude. If you imagine the camera just a little more still, you can see Jim Jarmusch's sense of mis en scene. And that ever so brief, blink-and-you-miss-it cameo at the end? Can you say Hitchcock...?

Of course, I'm a little biased.

Faux Coffee Week!

Remember when you were a kid, and you would be "anxious"? Anxious for Christmas, anxious for summer vacation; anxious for it to finally be May 25th, 1983, so you could prove to your stupid brother once and for all that when Yoda said "there is Another", he was referring to Obi Wan Kenobi, who would have to come back from the dead to rescue Luke (who of course would be turned to the Dark Side) and not Lando-freaking-Calrissian, because that would just be lame. "Anxious" was a code word for sheer, depthless joy, unbridled and unbounded; a word your parents and teachers used to describe you, back before there were more technical terms like "ADHD".

In adulthood, we call it (along with ADHD) anxiety. Anxiety is the same vacuum, teaming with the same vibrating nervous energy, but now its filled to the brim with all of your grown up baggage. Work! Money! Kids! "Holy Crap, the north facing wall of my 100 year old house is sinking into the earth!!" that sort of thing.

Anxiety, if I'm not careful, becomes a sort of default setting for me, the fumes on which I conduct my busy day after the inevitable caffeine-crash happens. Mornings at Casa Del Caff are a tightly choreographed affair. Out of bed and into the shower to drag a razor over my melon. Get Princess Plucky (a morning person) out of her crib and feed her whatever she wants to eat(Usually "Ba-na-na-na-na!". And whatever her brother doesn't finish). Tend to my son (emphatically NOT a morning person) who stumbles out of bed every morning in his tight little underwear like an angry white Gandhi; force feed him the exact same breakfast he's been eating since he broke his first tooth (two Eggo waffles with butter and a glass of apple juice), then drive my daughter to daycare while the wife talks number one son off the ledge. I may have the better end of the deal, but the routine can still get a little stressful.

I was running late the other morning, so I stopped by Mile High Coffee for my morning jolt, avoiding the 3 Starbucks that are also within the same distance from my house. I want to support this place, I really do. But man, does their coffee have some problems. And it's not like it's consistently bad, It's just that, when I least expect it, after a couple of visits where I've actually gotten some good stuff... that's when they'll hit me with a cup that's as flavorful and aromatic as a can of motor oil. By the time I got to work, 100 proof, pure liquefied anxiety was coursing through my veins. Compound this with the fact that every 15 minutes, the radio on my co-worker's desk taunted me with the meandering pop-pabulum of "Had a Bad Day". This was not a "bad day", this was what the kids call a "bad trip". After gritting my teeth through the mind numbing Deejay banter, they follow up with the umpteenth playing of "How to Save a Life". Hey! Corporate radio overlords, wanna know how to save a life? TAKE "HAD A BAD DAY" OFF OF HEAVY ROTATION!!

I actually wasn't even having that bad of a day. I was just a little annoyed. Intense. Slowly, it dawned on me what was happening... this was the work of my old arch nemesis....

MR. COFFEE NERVES!


Just look at that smarmy, see-through bastard, torturing those poor people like that - with his clunky moniker right there on his shirt, and that stupid little handlebar mustache. You just know he twirls that thing between his thumb and index finger. What an asshole.

When Mister CN comes back into MY life, fraying my nerves until they're the limp consistency of the fringe on the back of a heavy metal chick's acid washed jean jacket, I know it's high time for a detox. A couple times a year, just to prove to myself that I'm not actually an addict, I go on a caffeine purge. I mean, whoa... not all caffeine, of course. Let's not get all crazy, now! Usually, I'll have some green tea in its place. And, you know, not necessarily a full week... we're supposed to be going out with some friends this weekend, and I certainly can't deny myself the traditional, post-club coffee and pie. But just a few days off the stuff will do me some good.

So, dear reader, welcome to my nightmare... this is 'FAUX COFFEE WEEK!" If I'm not my usual charming and clever self, I'm sure you'll understand. Just don't bug me when I'm shaving, like the picture above, or I'll cut you. I'm not kidding.

Rather than make you, the reader, suffer through the long, detailed account of my DT's, and to prevent this blog from being polluted with the sort of existential musings that come along when one faces the long, dark coffee break of the soul, I've decided to experiment with some popular "coffee alternatives". So you don't have to. You can thank me later.

I started off this morning with a big, tasty cup'o POSTUM. Postum is a CAFFEINE-FREE coffee substitute that's been all the rage among the Big Love crowd since 1895. If I was the flavor of Mormon that could have a couple of sister wives to cavort with every night, I could actually see trading in my coffee for this stuff. Hell, if I could have a couple of sister-wives to cavort with, I would trade in my lungs for this stuff. Not that I'd actually ever drink it... I'm just all about the hot, sister-wife on sister-wife action. The drink itself tastes like a thirst quenching gulp from a glass of sand, flavored liberally with molasses. Is there anyone who can't be described by the term "mountain folk" who actually likes the taste of molasses? On the bright side, Postum is chock full of healthy, fiber-licious WHEAT GERM. Considering I drank it alongside a great big bowl of oatmeal, and chased it with a couple of prunes, there was one effect from my morning coffee that wasn't missing.

In the advertisements seen above, Postum was hailed as the bane of Mr. Coffee Nerves' existence, the liquid equivalent of the Scooby Doo gang, leaving the villain cursing it's amazing ability to bring families back from the very brink of distraction. Time will tell. But right now, Mr. CN is walking outside my house, sneering, mumbling "you'll be back, bitch." under his breath.

JAVALERT!

You know, here we are, on the very day of an attempted terrorist attack, and the President has helpfully taken time out of his busy day (he'll tell you himself... it's "hard work") to come on television and explain that "It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America". Even his ol' buddy Joe Lieberman has likewise explained how this attempt "should serve as the latest, most serious evidence that we are in a war against a brutal enemy that intends to attack us..."

Boy, I'm just beside myself! As a latte-drinking liberal, I did not realize that terrorism is dangerous. I'm gonna go change out of my "Terrorism - It's Not So Bad!" tee-shirt right now!

I mean, it's not like the president hasn't taken every single opportunity to explain how the world was changed on "September Theleventh" - even if he had to veer wildly off-topic in order to do so. How could I be so stupid? These terrorists, they hate freedom! They don't shop at Wal-mart! They blow stuff up!

Since we're all just a bunch of sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show elitists, the current administration is requiring me to display the JavAlert (TM), Terror Advisory System, utilizing, at long last, language we can understand.


GREEN - As in, "Korben m' man, we are green". There is no threat, citizen. Go forth, and enjoy your civil liberties (until told otherwise).




CINNAMON ROAST - general risk. I think. Wait, lemme check the polls...






CITY ROAST - Oooh, this is a tough one... which city? Like, say, Houston or Dallas, you're cool. Austin... not so much. Those folks are a little iffy.




FULL CITY ROAST - New York City or LA? Yeah, you guys are screwed. But you probably have it coming, what with all the gays, and stuff.




ESPRESSO - it's dark. That's how we know it's bad.





FRENCH ROAST - Well, this is clearly bad news. Hello? Are you paying attention? It reads "French" right there. French = Bad. Freedom Fries are not free, people.

And I'm adding my own, "situation immenent" level...

DEPRESSO - as in, sit back, and get used to the taste of this. It's a long time 'til 2008.




Maybe by then we can elect somebody with some real solutions to complex problems - not just a color-coded Rainbow of Fear.

Lost In Translation

You never know how far reaching your blog really is. There are days when I resolve myself to the idea that, despite my best intentions to turn "coffeecrush" into an internet phenomenon, on par with Dave's long box or Engrish, maybe I've just maxed out at seven readers - family and good friends all, humoring my usual delusions of grandeur. Then, out of nowhere -and during a particularly long period of blog-abstinence - I receive an email from a San Francisco-based artist named CW (follow that link... very cool stuff) about a post from nearly two months ago. He was questioning my translation of the Turkish proverb,"Coffee should be black as hell; strong as death, and sweet as love."

Sure enough, after a little Googling, I've discovered a plethora of variations on a theme (black as night/hot as hell/sweet as love; hot as Thora Birch/gayer than Paul Lynde/slightly less conniving than Joe Leiberman - and on and on and on) Lost in translation, I suddenly don't feel so bad for my befuddled take on the Middle East crisis, a world-view worthy of my altruistic grandmother - "Why can't they all just get along?"

But I digress. At long last, I've decided to find out for myself which version best applies to the brew at Habibi Hookah Cafe on South Broadway. Past the bars, past the train shop where Gary Coleman used to work, past the (ahem) "massage parlors" ("Innovative Therapy"... Like my dad says "yeah, that's not so innovative"), this place sits in the run down remains of a gas station, strobe lights around the parameter announcing it's presence to passers-by (and warning off epileptics). Inside, the espresso machine looks brand spanking new; a good sign, as the only kind of coffee I want in a place like this is Turkish, brewed directly in a metal ibrik, like campfire coffee on Mars.

I order my coffee and tell the proprietor that I may get something else later. Embarrassed, he quickly advises me that he can't serve any food inside. Apparently, as part of the city-wide smoking ban, not only can you not smoke after your meal, but if you are allowed to smoke, you don't get to eat. I, for one, think it's about time that the government step in to protect smokers from all that second-hand food. Little matter, as the main reason people come to a place like this is for the exotic, ornate hookahs. The proprietor asks me if I'd like to partake, and I decide for one night to lift my own personal smoking ban in the name of visceral experience.

Waiting for my order, I sat down and watched the other patrons; a mix of foreign men playing backgammon... and, as always, the "barely legal" crowd. I once made the mistake of going to a place called Marrakech Cafe on a weekend night, and I was shocked to find it packed with teenagers. I wondered if maybe, for "Generation Z", Sufism (the mystical arm of Islam) would become what faux-Zen was for Generation X. Are these kids enamored with the whirling dervishes, who get strung out on strong coffee and spin wildly around, all in an effort to become one with God? Are they embracing Middle Eastern culture as a slap in the face to their Bush-voting parents? Alas, eavesdropping on their conversations, it's apparent that it's all about the forbidden smoke.

My coffee and hookah arrive. In the tiny cup sits a substance somewhere between the states of "liquid" and "solid", which fits every variation of the proverb and more. Bean-remains float throughout the cup; when the drink finished, the grounds can be turned over onto a napkin and "read" by a fortune teller. Generally, they won't see sleep in your immediate future.

The server is tolerant of my ignorance regarding how to smoke - a hell of a lot nicer than I was as a barista. (Soy milk!? Heresy!) Once I get the hang of it - between the smoke, and the music, and the caffeine - I definitely start to feel a buzz. Nothing like the buzz you get from a certain OTHER substance smoked from a hookah (by which I mean unflavored tobacco. What did you think I was talking about?); but when I notice myself, hose hanging from my lips, saying "Haw Haw Haw! Jeeedy Jedi! JEEEDY JEDI!" under my breath, there's definitely something going on.


Then something strange happens. A man stands up from his table... and walks outside to light a cigarette. I wonder to myself just how far we've gone to demonize good ol' fashioned cancer sticks, when you can sit at a inside at a table and smoke "double apple" (one of the many sweeter-than-candy flavors) from something that looks like a hybrid of a sex toy and something you would administer an enema with.

When I left, I didn't head straight home. Rather, I rode my bike for a while to shake the buzz. The whole "hookah cafe" experience is an acquired taste. It fits with a very particular sense of aesthetics. But it's something every coffee lover should experience at least once, if for no other reason than to get a brief sample of a culture that we Americans know precious little about; even though it's fate is now so intricately entangled with our own.

Monkey VS. "The Man"!

The last couple of weeks have completely kicked my ass. Thrown me down, hammered me, and didn't even have the common courtesy to take me to breakfast afterwards.




dramatic re-creation. Note the stubble in that last panel - if I stop shaving, you know I'm having a nervous breakdown.


I haven't been blogging. I haven't been riding my bike. I haven't been working out, reading, writing, dancing, or doing any of the other things that keep me sane in my daily life. Even my cafe excursions are entirely utilitarian, like lightning is to Frankenstein's monster - fuel for an empty husk. Such is the level of the recent ass whooping delivered to me by my job.

My "day job" - that precious one-third of my life which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of "The Man". Every day it becomes increasingly more soul-crushing. The corporate machine continues to complexify, without ever actually becoming more efficient, like evolving entropy; an exercise in futility.

And the thing is, I've never really had a problem with Huge, Soulless, Multinational Corporations - in theory. "Per se", you know? I mean, yeah, yeah, "corporations suck" and all that. But sometimes, in a fit of conscience (and after a meeting of the board of directors, where all the appropriate forms and releases are signed in triplicate, then reviewed by the stockholders, etc. ad infintum) they can do some good. They'll offer domestic partner benefits, maybe donate some money to a good cause, or even pay a living wage to the workers who toil away, producing their wares. And for me... it's a paycheck. I've always thought there was some post-millenial slacker romance in working for a big, high tech company. Doing customer service for the Evil Empire, as it were. It's sorta funny to be a tiny, outmoded cog in the middle of a bunch of valiantly shining gears, all spinning too fast to realize that I don't actually serve any function.

But sometimes, stuffed into my cubicle like a experimental lab-monkey, cut off from any organic stimulus from the outside world and force-fed a steady diet of Orwellian corporate-speak, I just can't take it anymore. My emotions start to flare up and the thin veneer of my phyche begins to dissolve. Like Darkman. Remember Darkman? The deep fried dark avenger - master of disguise with the superhuman ability to pronounce the letter "p" with no lips? "The Man" would get him down, and his humanity would shatter in a flash of phychedelic psychosis and he'd start KICKING @$$!!

I always thought that Darkman's real motivation was the fact that "The Man" blew up his laboratory, sweet real estate located right above that awesome "Java Cafe". Even way back in 1990, when I first saw "Darkman", I imagined that the interior of "Java Cafe" would be just like Monkey Bean.

Ah, yes... th' Monkey. That archetypical Denver java joint. Never pretentious, just the perfect place to chill with the latest issue of The Onion while sipping an iced americano, while stealing sideways glances at the adorable red-headed barista behind the glass case of rice crispy squares...


The Monkey Bean... which just closed down on July 31st, due to a 400% (!) increase in rent by "The Man"!



This time, "The Man" has gone Too Far!

Screw that... the Monkey was cooler than any ol' "Java Cafe". The Monkey was as cool as Darkman's laboratory. It was my not-so-secret headquarters. If you're looking for Batman, you go to the Batcave; for the Superfriends, you go to the Hall of Justice. And if you're looking for Caff_X... you look in his bedroom, under the sheets, where he's curled up in a ball, weeping softly. You know why? BECAUSE "THE FRICKIN' MAN" KILLED THE MONKEY!

Over the last couple of weeks, in my state of depression, I haven't been taking care of myself. I haven't devoted time to the things that are important to me. I even broke my "no alcohol before the Weekend" policy, rather unceremoniously, on a Monday night, with a Gin and Blueberry Izze(when you see all the kids drinking this in a few weeks, remember; you heard it here first). But now it's time for full disclosure. Every superhero has their shadow, that dark part of themselves that makes them who they are. For Spiderman, it's the fact that he is partially responsible for the death of his beloved Uncle Ben. For Superman, it's the fact that he roofie-kisses the girls and leaves the planet after planting his seed. For me - for no other reason than laziness, I've been getting my coffee from Starbucks. I mean, it's not like my 2 bucks a day would have saved the Monkey (that's a "four", with two "zeroes" and a percent sign, people!) - but NO MORE! I won't contribute my money to the machine that makes the world more bland. "The Man" can keep me holed up in a cubicle all day, he can make me fear for my job... but I don't have to drink his coffee!

THE CAFF IS BACK!

Caffeinator's Top 5 Dream-Baristas

5. Reality Bites-era Janeane Garofalo










4. Thelma.










# 3 - a little (okay, a lot) skinny for my usual tastes, but the look - capri pants with the sensible, slip on flats - just completely breaks my heart. And that hair! Jean Seberg is the absolute sexiest, coolest thing to come out of the very cool, veddy sexy French New Wave.







#2 - Enid. ESPECIALLY in this outfit...










And the #1 fetishistic barista hottie is...

"Hi, Loonette. May I have a double, cuban-style espresso? And can you tell me the time again... pretty please..."

*SWOON*

Music for the Masses

I've always believed that the music critics for the Westword represented a threshold. A cosmological constant, like the speed of light, beyond which it was impossible to be more pretentious. The field of theoretical physics was dealt a mighty blow yesterday when the weekly paper arrived on newsstands. Two readers, presumedly independent of one another, wrote in to bemoan the Westword's lack of relevance. One writer went so far as to attack a picture of a local record label producer who dared to wear an Oasis t-shirt (gasp!). Then he heroically lashed out at the restaurant critic's taste in sushi.

Of course, neither one of these nitwits brought up exactly what us serfs should be listening to. (neo-Goth hip hop? industrial bluegrass? samples of flatulent cats, looped over an African drum beat?) But why would they... if we get our un-worthy hands on their favorite music, we'll suck it like a black hole into our dimension, instantly making it not as cool as it was "back when" they were listening to it.

Man, it's hard out here for a hipster.

Not that I'd know. I listen to Erasure on cassette tape while munching California Rolls from Tokyo Joe's.

***

Music is on my mind. This blog is meant to be a virtual manifestation of the coffee house which currently resides only in my noggin, with all the inane conversation and wacky regulars that implies. To further enhance the atmosphere, I've added some of my favorite music over on the right hand side of the page. If your internet connection is up to speed, I cannot recommend Pandora enough. Unlike most free internet radio there are NO COMMERCIALS, and they have an exhaustive library with which to cross-reference your musical tastes. The only problem is that, rather than finding new music based on other users profiles, Pandora uses the so-called "genetics" of your favorite music (i.e., melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) If you're an electronic music fan, like me, that means that occasionally it'll dig up some Club Disney techno-crap. Luckily, they also have a pretty liberal policy as far as how many songs you can skip in a given amount of time.

I've made two brilliant musical discoveries for my imaginary cafe (which is a little like saying Ed Sullivan "discovered" the Beatles; I'm admittedly a little behind the times with these things) Gnarls Barkley is just funky enough for the pre-club rush of scenesters, looking for a caffeine fix, and Zero 7 is the sort of music you want to hear after hours, when you're sitting on the couch sipping a capuccino with the complete stranger you're about to take home and get intimate with.

Of course, my ideal coffee house is a democracy (okay, mostly - no enormous selection of pretentious herbal teas for you!) and I'm always looking for suggestions for new music to play. Any requests?

Coffee Science Theater 3000 PART DUEX !

As any frequent blogger has no doubt experienced by now, blogspot is running SSSSSsssssslllllllooooowwwww. I'm begining to suspect, however, that the problem isn't limited solely to our gracious web-host. To wit; I'm having about a 50 percent success rate logging into my yahoo email account, and my broadband connections, both at work and at home, are running slower than usual.

Has my obsessive compulsive quest for clips from Mexican wrestling movies and information about the nature of warp drive finally caused the world wide web to seize up? Have I broken the internet?

If you're one of the lucky ones who can still abuse your internet privliges at work, you should definitely check out the following clips...


I find it interesting that the Japanese have the same pavlovian response to strangely familiar green labels and ubiquitous references to Washington state as we here in the US do. I like to think that I myself am above such knee jerk reactions to television advertising, but I gotta tell ya, if Jodie Foster circa the mid-1990's tells me to put something in my mouth... boy, I'll do whatever she says. RRROWR!

... Here we have a true anomoly; a commercial directed by that most un-commercial of directors - Mr. David Lynch(!) When I first came across this, I had to comb the internets to convince myself this was truly his, and not just a parody of his work. I've never been a fan (which, I realize, strips me of many layers of indy/arty street cred)... but seeing as "Georgia" is essentially Coca Cola Blak with different packaging - I believe the product and the artist were made for each other!

arts and culture and coffee ... OH MY!

I absolutely live for the summer. Though anyone who knows me, who's seen me up close and experienced my lily white, nearly translucent skin knows that I don't spend it poolside, worshiping the sunlight. In truth, the weather is murder on my delicate pate. And while I'm an avid hiker and a dedicated city bicyclist, I'm no sort of weekend warrior.

No, my free days in the summer are all about coffeeshop patios and arts and culture festivals; people watching and smack-talking about the assorted mutants and Capitol Hillbillies who turn out for just that sort of free entertainment.

On Saturday, kids in tow, I headed downtown to take in the Italian flavored "Plaza De Arte" chalk drawing festival in Larimer Square. I found some princess parking right by the Japanese micro-district of Sakura Square - only to discover that the Cherry Blossom festival was in full effect. Truly, this was my lucky day - for the freak flag waves triumphantly above this annual event. Buddha groupies and sci-fi goth geeks are out in force, cloaked defiantly in black against the oppressive 90 degree heat. Anime is to the Cherry Blossom Festival as "Lord of the Rings" is to the Renaissance Faire / bondage scene. Pirate video dealers hawk their wares to the fanboys while little old Asian ladies look on beguiled, just wanting to listen in peace to the warbling pop-opera being performed on stage.


"You rang?"



Freak-cred was further established by the fact that I had the pleasure of bumping into fellow bloggers Josh and Cassie, who were nice enough to share their pink-Chinese-foodstuff-bun with my 1 year old daughter, only to have it rudely spat back down onto their table.

One of my favorite things about these events is how all the big companies send out "Street Teams" to shill their products like so many turn of the century carnival barkers; twenty-something college girls who convince themselves this'll look great on their resume once they finish their marketing degree. Watching the sheer volume of free Blak that was handed out, I could just imagine the high-level meetings going on at Coca Cola HQ, deep 'neath the earth's crust - "People blow 4$ a day at Starbucks... why the hell can't we move this stuff off the shelves?" If they had just consulted with little ol' high school dropout, freelance cool hunter me, I could have told them that until 7-11 starts hiring tattooed hipster girls in cat-eye glasses and chunky soled shoes, this stuff will never get a market share.

While I did take a few bottles away from the Cherry Blossom festival for further research, there's really only one ice cold caffeinated drink I want when I'm out pretending to be cultured and urbane. The first entry I ever wrote on this blog had to do with iced coffee; how to make it and where to go get it made that way. Since then, Scooter Joe's, featured in that first entry, stopped making their iced coffee Toddy-style. There are a handfull of other places that keep insisting they make it that way - but the only place that I find I can get a consistent iced coffee, one that leaves well rounded, almost chocolatey tones ringing on my palate is at The Market in Larimer Square. (SML, though, gets honorable mention for their cold-brewed French press variation)

The Market is another of those Denver institutions that you'll find me pontificating about for hours on end. In the 90's, if you needed a cuppa between your shift at the espresso bar in the morning and hanging out at Paris on the Platte all night, this is where you went. And if it's become something of a tourist attraction, you can hardly blame the owners, who have kept the same formula since it's inception; well made coffee, good food (only slightly more pricey than it's worth), and freaky-as-they-ever-were baristas. Hell, some of the baristas have been there for the last 12 years - which makes me happy with where I'm at in my life professionally. But also kinda sad at the same time.



The Plaza de Arte was definitely my 5 year old son's favorite of the two festivals. "Pop"-and-"High" art mingled amongst one another the way they always do on Larimer Square. Starbucks, not to be outdone by Coke's attempt to get in on the coffee biz, had their minions out sampling a new "Banana Frappuccino", which doesn't have a single coffee bean in it.


As long as I can stroll across the street over to the Market and pick up the "real thing", that's a-okay with me.