Worked So Far... But We're Not Out Yet.

Commencing Random Thought Mode in 5... 4... 3... 2...

You know what's awesome about growing older? The fact that I am right now, at this very instant, apologetically and unironically clothed in an entire outfit from TARGET, including...

1) a faux vintage Mossimo (TM) brand button-up shirt

2) Fruit of the Loom boxer-briefs; the perfect compromise between form fitting but un-complementary tighty-whites and loose fitting boxers that would inevitably wind up contorting themselves mercilessly in my...

3) low end, Target issue Levis (Note to Self: never, ever dry these jeans, lest they reduce in mass to sub-atomic size, part of a plot by the combined forces of the yakuza, the Illuminati, and the insidious Dr. Shrinker to turn the bargain hunting, 30-something men of America into submissive, 21st Century Castrati)



4) Mossimo casual dress shoes. But not the ugly ones. Most Mossimo shoes land just this side of the mark; a lazy mimetic approximation of urban fashion, producing in the wearer the jarring effect of "trailer park metrosexual". But every four (4) years, Mossimo quietly releases truly brilliant footwear to an undisclosed number of stores throughout the country, always directly to the clearance shelves. For a mere $6, you can get into a pair that will earn you endless acolytes from your envious friends. Though mine are encrusted with fossilized oatmeal remains (long story) I continue to wear them, because 4 years is a long time to have to wait. Damn you Massimo Giannulli! Again. I again suspect the Illuminati has their hands in this.

Of course, you can still wear all these things in, say, your mid-twenties, but only to the detriment of your reputation as a hipster - unless, of course you perform a convoluted shell game with the labels, strategically covering the logo on the back of your jeans with a belt, or palming that Mossimo Gryffindor symbol embossed on the front of your shirt.

Another great thing about growing older is the fact that I no longer feel the need to qualify my taste in music. Around 9:30 today, during my usual mid-morning surf, I was plugging random pop-culture memes into Wikipedia. Kismet led me to the entry for Information Society, the late 80's synth-pop band, much maligned by the Cool-Kid Elite for their Thompson Twins-meets- Front 242 sound. I, of course, thought they were nothing less than the bees balls. And they're releasing a new album in October, which is liberally sampled on their website. Great Cesar's Ghost! does it make me want to stand up on the desk in my little cube and dance like an android. It's like a long lost mix tape unearthed from my high school sweetheart's closet.

Luckily for me, I'm too old to be a hipster. I suppose I could be a crypster (the rough breakdown is as follows: 21 - 24, Scenester; 25-30, Hipster, 31 and up, Crypster. It's all very complicated, isn't it?) But really, my life long M.O. is much more akin to "poseur".

Why am I musing over all this? A couple of reasons, I suppose. The wife's best friend is coming into town for the weekend, and we'll be going out tomorrow to pretend like we're young. "Danceotron" at Sputnik, probably. It'll be nice to break from Lipgloss for a change, though I suspect there'll be some crossover, music-wise.

The other reason is my Onion gig. I love it; I'm just enough of a dork to be thrilled every time I see my name in print, waaaaay the hell in the back of the paper. And that buzz, I'm sure, will increase exponentially when I get my first check next week. But damn! if I'm not a big ol' wannabe, an enabler of the big, eeeeevil empire all week long, only to write about entertainment diversions for left leaning Generation Y'ers by night (it just doesn't have the ring of "X'er" does it? Yes, I'm bitter) My love for sub-Depeche Mode (did somebody say "Red Flag"?) technopop alone would be enough to have me barred for life from writing in the alt newsweeklies of the world (though I went to high school with the city editor, and could surely dig up some blackmale-worthy stories if need be).

This must be how Clark Kent feels. That is, if he worked for the Metropolis Voice, rather than the Daily Planet.

All told, though, it's probably good that I'm starting to do this at this juncture of my life, rather than when I was younger. Good for my married and family life. Being published, no matter how small potatoes, is pretty good capital toward getting laid in clubs and bars around town, as no doubt guys like Adam Cayton Holland at the Westword could probably attest to. I myself would no doubt have wound up with a burning case of the herpies.

See... bitter.

**********

Still, I'm lucky that I can still get out occassionally, like I am this weekend; otherwise, there's a chance I could turn out to be a twisted little pervert obsessed with other people's lives...

ending Random Thought Mode.

Beware!

Beware! and Take Care!… all of those who enter here, seeking out my personal brand of wit and snark and smarm relating to all things coffee. I’m afraid I haven’t the peace of mind to offer up anything along those lines at the moment.

No, this will be one of those long, drawn out, soul searching, emo blog entries, where you’ll laugh (at me, not with me) you’ll cry (again, with the laughter), and then you’ll roll your eyes and generally think “Geez! Pull yourself up by the boot-straps, wuss. There are law abiding citizens in Iraq who are getting the crap liberated out of them day in and day out!” And you’ll be absolutely, positively right to think that. But for now, indulge me, wouldja?

A wiser man than me once said “Your focus determines your reality” I’m not sure who it was. Somebody totally intellectual, whose inclusion in this blog reveals just how deep and thoughtful I really am. (Maybe Sartre. Or Kierkegaard. Alfred North Whitehead, possibly? Yeah, that’s probably it.)

It’s my mantra. More than some mere tool that’ll eventually reveal a grand, unitary big “E” Enlightenment, it is, in and of itself, "The Goal", the very manna of my existence. It’s my personal Holy Grail… and about as difficult to attain. I’m always trying to focus on my work, so I won’t make any mistakes, so things in my life can calm down a bit, so I can focus on my health and going to the gym, and more importantly, so I can at long last focus on my writing, which’ll maybe give me a few more bucks, so I can purchase at least a ford focus, instead of the crappy little piece of Korean engineering I’ve been driving until quite recently. And if I have a little time left at the end of the day, maybe I can crash on the couch and focus a little on “Spook Country”.

And I try – really I do – to pay attention to what I’m doing, to focus on whatever task is most pressing at any given moment of my life. But as always, there is the constant stream of Bright, Shiny Objects which distract me as if I’m some bored –n- horny housecat with a chronic case of ADD.

Last Friday at work was a banner day, which I won’t really go into, other than to say that if Paramount Pictures has a less than stellar 2007, I don’t personally think it’ll have anything to do with the fact that I scheduled the wrong 30 second spot for them. (Hello? Have you seen the ads for “Hot Rod”?).

So, all weekend I was stewing over that, trying to be present for my wife, and kids, and life in general, but deep down not really being any of those things. On Sunday, I was driving past the 16th street mall with my kiddos, looking for something interesting to do with our day. Set up on the mall was a huge, piss-yellow tent with a sign that said something about “Scientology” something-or-other.

Let’s stop there and talk about “focus” for a minute; nobody spends more time focusing - no, no… obsessing about the no good, very bad deeds that have been thrust upon the world because of overt dogma and unbridled religious fundamentalism. Which is fine, so far as it goes. But it festers, even mutates into it's own very own creeping form of fundamentalism, which then drains me of my energy. So as I was driving down the street, musing over a bunch of these angry and entirely un-productive thoughts in my head... and then I proceeded to plow directly into the rear of a rather large van, entirely visible to anyone who was paying any attention at all. My car was totalled, but there was barely any damage at all on the other vehicle (which was empty, thankfully). To make matters worse, the vehicle belonged to the aforementioned Scientologists.

Long time readers of this blog will note that I also spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on “irony”.

In the time since then, the wife’s car has been acting all wonky, and our computer is now on the fritz - all expenses that we weren't really counting on. And without a car, there’s no focusing on going to the gym at lunch… so, there’s that, too. On top of all this, I was working on a last minute assignment for The Onion - the one thing (outside of family, and such. The Big Stuff) that I want to be focusing on.

You always hear those touchy-feely progressive types talk about how “The Universe” is trying to teach us something. And yeah, despite my generally agnostic nature, I guess I really am one of those. But I add a wrinkle into that whole idea... The Universe, right now, is playing a dirty little game with me. Poking and prodding me, just to test my meddle, as if to say “Oh, you want to write, huh? Well, just how bad do you want it?”

The answer to that? (I sez to the Universe, I sez) “Real Fucking Bad.”

Nothing I’ve ever done - not wearing a miserable little headset in a call center, not scheduling freaking commercials, not doing stand-up comedy, not even pulling wicked-ass espresso shots the consistency of the heat vision in Superman II – even comes close. Maybe bike riding. And dancing. But the job market’s pretty dry in those areas right now.

So. You wanna see focus? Watch this space. Right now, out my eye-sockets, there’s a Terminator style readout with everything that I see. My brain is teeming with words and ideas and big important revelations that’ll make you roll your eyes, and little itty-bitty anecdotes that’ll change the world. And if you get in my way, I’ve got enough rhapsodic wax to tear off even the tiniest little hair along your metaphorical bikini-line. Read the local, print edition of The Onion (sorry, us freelancers don't get put up online); my little introductory paragraphs to my Q&A sessions are gonna melt your faces off, bitches!

“You wanna get nuts? C’mon, let’s get nuts!” Bruce Wayne

Okay. Thanks for that. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Coffee good. MMMMM.

Yes. Let's.

From the can:

Captures the signature essence of taste and aroma from the selected coffee beans. Ultimately, tasting is comparing.

********************************************

Throw "Al Qaeda in Iraq" in there a couple (hundred) times, and you've got a presidential speech!

****************

How I love thee, M Mart Asian market in Aurora.

Separated at Birth

Brawny's been moonlighting to meet your needs, girl.

Brawny wants to make sweet love to you.

Brawny misses his mustache real bad.

There’s a passage in Douglas Coupland’s “Life after God” that talks about looking at the world around you and reading the events like you would symbols in a foreign film. If a bike rides by, or a bird crosses your field of vision – what does that mean? What does it say about the world at large? It’s sort of like Jung’s idea of synchronicity – there are no mistakes; every event is indicative of some deeper meaning in the universe.

Yeah, I don’t buy it either. I mean, I do think how you look at the world (what with all your baggage) says something you. And I definitely think that your attitude goes a long way in determining how “good” or “bad” your day is – that’s just practical. But the whole “I can make it rain just by meditating, and quantum theory proves it!” thing – chill, dude, the nurse will be by with your Dixie cup any minute now.

But I do have brief, fleeting moments where I feel like Will Farrell in that “Stranger Than Fiction” movie, where his life is being written in a book by Emma Thompson. Except in my case, I suspect it’s a screenplay, an early draft, and the screenwriter is just screwing around, writing nonsense scenes that’ll never make it into the final cut.

I was out of coffee this morning. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate; I do have a pound sitting on my counter from the Boyer Coffee “Bargain Barn” (No, seriously, they call it that! Bill Boyer may be a prejudiced old fire-and-brimstone style Southern Baptist, but his coffee is 4.95 a pound, bitches!) The problem, however, is the fact that the toddy brewing method I use requires brewing the beans overnight, which I forgot to do. So I stop over at Café Europa, which I haven’t been to in years. It’s a pretty cool place; full menu, great atmosphere, pretty good coffee, but the original owner had a reputation for chronic outbursts of bitchiness. But that was five years ago – seeing as the place has been through, like, three owners since then, I figured it was high time for me to get back.

So before I even order my coffee, I ask the proto-cutie barista (funky glasses, short hair, low slung jeans, and I’m sure there’s a tattoo in there somewhere) if I can pay for just a cup of coffee with my debit card.

“Sure,” she tells me, just as sprightly as you would expect “you know, credit card minimums are actually illegal.”

Interesting enough little insight right there; but more interesting to me, personally… was she just flirting with me? I mean, she could have just given me a dismissive “Yup”, and continued on about her business. But she actually engaged in further conversation; she showed concern for my credit card transaction habits, with a smile that reflected a little in her eyes. The wife assures me that the grey in my goatee is just blonde. I mean, I could still pass for, I dunno, twenty-eight, right? RIGHT???

So I strut away from the counter, and pick up this weeks issue of The Onion, which proceeds to mocks me, mercilessly, with this headline…

FADE OUT:

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Speaking of The Onion (notice the not-so-smooth segue) unless I completely jack up on my first official assignment, I’ll be doing some occasional freelancing for the city section starting in mid-August. That’s right – my stuff on real-live dead tree! Which is, like, 33% more street cred than blogging alone! It's so weird to think something I write is going to be edited - I guess that means no more ritualistic abuse of the semicolon. ( ; )

(;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(See how cool and dismissive and sarcastic I’m being? Yeah, I’m sitting in a pool of my own urine, I’m so excited. It's making me delusional-- see "thinks 21 year old barista is flirting with him" above.)

Thank You, Come Again!

All right, so what do you think? I’m pretty sure this is post-modern, what with all the irony (a 24 hour convenience store is made up to look like a fictional convenience store, which was based on the original convenience store in the first place. Dude, that’s like post-post-modern) and without a doubt it’s “meta”… but is it possible that this crosses all the way over to “trans” – the latest pseudo-intellectual prefix to get jimmied onto the front-end of all the latest pseudo-intellectual concepts?

The only thing that creeps me out more than the people who are standing out in front of the store taking pictures of their family is the fact that *I* myself, stood out front and took pictures. Because, dear reader, I don’t care how totally jaded you are -- this is freaking AWESOME! Best marketing stunt EVER! Way better than the tie-ins for that crap “Transformers” movie that I was legally bound to sit through, what with being the father of a six year old and all. It almost makes me proud to practically, nearly have a toe-hold in the utmost furthest corner of the advertising / marketing industry.* They even have the Indian guy behind the counter, wearing a Kwik-E-Mart shirt - which on some level is an affront to my knee-jerk liberalism, but considering he’s probably studying to be a heart surgeon, and will one day save the life of that kid in line with a deep love of taqitos, he’ll be getting the last laugh.

I didn’t pick up a Squishee (I mean, come on, they weren’t even Chutney flavored. Talk about your missed opportunities!), but after tap tap tapping away my last entry, I did swing by to satisfy my craving for the Sponch! which I washed down with some of 7-11’s signature Energy Coffee. The resulting concoction is probably bonding to my colon on a molecular level as I write; but, hey! It was pretty damn tasty. Perfect junk food to go with the perfect junk culture experience!




*almost.

Bad Coffee

A couple of weeks ago, I finally broke down and got a membership for the Hollywood Video a few blocks from my house. I figured what the hell, seeing as I’m no longer getting all the free movies (and half price porn!) that I scored while working for the cable company. No, Hollywood doesn’t offer a wildly eclectic selection, but it’s not bad for a strip mall in Engleweird, Colorado. They’ve got a fair-to-middlin’ amount of the gonzo stuff in stock, and no bounty on my head for all the unpaid late fees I’ve incurred over the years - so that’s two things they’ve got on Blockbuster. And don’t even get me started on Netflicks. What the hell is that? You choose a bunch of movies that you’ve convinced yourself you want to see, only to have them sent to you entirely at random. What if you were just lying to yourself about your love of French New Wave cinema? I mean, yes, in theory, I’d love to see a festival of German Industrialist films, showcasing the work of FW Murnau and Fritz Lang; but tonight, I want to watch a retrospective on the films of John Hughes. And Godzilla.

The other night I was unexpectedly overcome with my bi-annual urge to see “Battle Beyond the Stars”, featuring Richard Thomas wearing Luke Skywalker’s “Member’s Only” jacket from Empire Strikes Back. (Yeah, that crappy model flying through space? Designed by James Cameron. Respect, yo.) I was giving the new releases a once over, looking for something that would keep the wife from leaving me (See? How do you explain that to your Netflicks queue?) and that’s when I found it, sitting on the shelf, calling to me, tempting me like a heartless Jezebel. Like Sponch.* There, sitting among the endless rows of last years Oscar winners and box office blockbusters sat a copy of a direct to video placeholder titled – simply, generically enough - Caffeine.
Oh, yeah, this gag would work WAY better if you saw him from the front! You'll just have to trust me.

One look at the box, at the vaguely attractive cast, and I knew exactly what to expect. Which is to say, “crap”. You know, even when every “twenty-something” kid wearing a long-sleeve shirt under his flannel was making a movie, no one ever had the audacity to actually make a movie about life in a coffee house. It was just too precious, too obvious; even “Reality Bites” was smart enough to have Ethan Hawke hang out in a greasy spoon, in order to make him a little less cliché.

Still, how could I resist? How hard could it possibly be to make at least a passable movie about the subject matter? Especially for someone like me, who sets the bar so freaking low. (Yes, folks, that’s John-Boy, if only you could see his face) Throw Clerks and Empire Records in a blender, add a pinch of Diner for good measure, and hit “frappe”.

Christ on a corn-chip, how wrong I was.

Where to even start? Oh, yes - how about the script, which is presumably where the poor, misguided film makers began. The screenplay is hobbled together from a bunch of clichés from 10 years ago (the quirky customers, the single, life changing day in a static location, etc.) It takes place, for no apparent reason at all, at a coffeehouse in London. Now, as anyone who has been witness to one of my bouts of self loathing knows, I’ve never been to London. But even I could tell that the film (actually, shot on some not-terribly high quality video) was made in LA; and that was before I even heard Mena Suvari (the not-nearly-as-hot-as Thora Birch girl that everyone was lusting after in American Beauty) affect an accent that wouldn’t have passed muster in a high school production of “Pygmalion”. Then there’s Breckin Meyer, who, even if I could suspend my disbelief long to buy him as (from the website) a Sartre reading, aspiring author, I sure as hell don’t buy that he’s 27. Then there’s a bunch of people who have sex with each other.** And some clumsy fantasy sequences of people having sex with each other. And the gay character, who’s “character” is to be “gay”. And then there’s the “surprise” ending, where a character that you would never expect ends up being in a relationship with the aforementioned gay character.

(Spoiler Alert – It’s Breckin Meyer. Now THAT I can buy!)

The End. Seriously, that’s all there is to it. You can figure out the rest of the story yourself by adding a bunch of random nouns and verbs to a book of “Indie” movie Mad Libs. The best thing that I can say about it is that there’s no umpteenth repeat of the coffee ordering scene from LA Story. (Half Caff, Double Decaf, blah blah, HA HA!! snore.)

Here’s the thing – this stuff can be done well. Kevin Smith does this stuff well. I know some people rail against the guy’s success, but what’s the point? Some folks like Adam Sandler movies; I like Kevin Smith. Knocking on the guy’s ability as a film maker is like calling out Chef Boyardee for not being a good cook. But Caffeine? Dude, this movie makes Kevin Smith look like Emeril Agassi.

Maybe someday, another 10 years from now, when we all have enough real distance from the whole “Generation X” thing, then there can be a coffee house movie with a bunch of inside jokes and self referential humor. Hell, turn it into a full scale musical… it seems to be working for Xanadu. What a fossilized pile of pig vomit that movie was.

Except for the fact that it starred the positively brilliant Gene Kelly. MAD respect, yo.


*What do you mean you’ve never had Sponch****? Heretic. It’s a sugary sweet confection made by our amigos at the Bimbo Corporation. Not only does it have absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever, but it tastes like duck turd. And now you must have one, just to quell your Hemmingway-like sense of adventure. Damn you, Bimbo Bear. Available at fine convenience stores everywhere.

** for the record, people who work together at the SAME coffeehouse rarely, if ever, have sex with each other. Sad but true.*** If I knew this back in the day, I would have worked at Bennigans with the cocaine addicted hostesses.

***Yes, dear, I know it happens SOMETIMES.

**** SPONCH also stands for Sulfur, Phosphorus, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Hydrogen (key elements that compose living things)

That is all.

There Goes the Neighborhood!

You may think, for a lover of coffee houses, there would be nothing worse than seeing a burgeoning neighborhood get its very own café, only to have it turn out to be a complete and total bust. Denver is a city of vibrant neighborhoods, each one rife with an eclectic cast of characters, folks who not only deserve, but are practically begging for their very own gathering place; a destination that both caters to and reflects their unique eccentricities. When you have to sit idly by as your favorite haunts go under, it’s pretty annoying to watch an endless string of also-rans pop up all over the place.

There is, however, something worse than that for the coffee lover (especially one who occasionally catches himself daydreaming of owning his very own joint) – and that’s when that very same neighborhood gets a concurrent barrage of half-assed coffee shops, sausaged, one after the other, into the exact same location. One ill conceived independent gets bought out by a lazy franchisee is replaced by some Johnny-Come-Lately corporation. Wash, rinse, repeat. Yawn.

A few weeks ago, #1 son and I were heading up to Cheeseman for a day in the sun when I spotted a Capitol Hill cutie walking down the street with one of those brilliantly iconic/annoyingly loud Dazbog cups that said coffee company supplies to their many local accounts. Cool, I thought… maybe at long last some enterprising individual has come along to challenge Diedrichs default title of “Official Coffee Supplier of the Queen City Queens”. I couldn’t wait to visit this sparkling new utopia, with it’s mismatched couches, and charming baristas, and down-tempo house music thump thump thumping away into the wee hours of the morning

Imagine my disappointment when I looked up to see the Diedrich Coffee sign on the corner of 9th and Downing replaced with a crookedly hung tarp reading (yeah, “duh”, I guess) “Dazbog Coffee”. Meaning, they aren’t just supplying the bean-juice, they are dictating to the hapless franchisee what kind of music gets played, what sort of art makes it onto walls, what color Dazbog logo’d tee-shirts the employees will wear, and what sort of drinks you can find on the menu (which means, presumably, you won’t be able to order a Mr. Brown and Kalua anytime soon).

In the past, I have unequivocally stated my support for the Dazbog brand. It’s just that, lately, they’ve been sprouting up locations all over town. Does anyone still think of this as a novel idea? Or even a potentially lucrative business plan? Does a city which has gone through Peaberry Coffee, Tuscany Coffee, Ink! Coffee, Caribou Coffee, Brio, Brothers Coffee, Diedrich Coffee, Coffee People, French Quarter Coffee Company, Perk and Pub, Gloria Jean’s Coffee Beans and Java City really need one more chain?

I suppose if some smart ass were to answer that completely rhetorical question with a “yes”, then the corner of 9th and Downing is as good a location for it as any. After all, that spot has a storied history, and serves as a graveyard for more than a few of the joints listed above.

See, once upon a time, back before Denver was the thriving, cultured metropolis that it is now, if you wanted a simple, decent cup of coffee - and you didn’t have an hour or two to kill while the waitress at Muddy’s or Paris poured it for you - you had precisely two choices; The Market, or Brio. Brio was an itty bitty chain that served drip coffee, espresso drinks, and one (1) kind of sandwich daily, which could not be customized, because it was pre-made in a commissary deep beneath the earth’s crust. But you didn’t care, because that one sandwich was one of the best sandwiches you could get within city limits. And Brio was good; the owners were smart enough to hire hipsters to man the locations, most of which sat in the bottom floors of office buildings where workers toiled away from 9 to 5 in their business casual.

The owners eventually sold all of their locations to the Boyer Brothers, who thought it would we be an ingenious idea to start a brand new chain of espresso bars - and viola! - Brothers Coffee was born (Their father Bill, owner of “Boyers Coffee”, sued his own sons for the use of his name, leaving his sons with their generic moniker). The brothers remodeled the store from late 80’s black and white deco into a wood grain motif, stuffed the staff into that denim shirt-and-tie combo that was so popular back in the mid-nineties, and basically drove the place straight into the ground. Their only real contribution to the Denver coffee scene was opening the shop across from Queen Soopers. The clientele affectionately referred to it as “Sister’s”.

After a few years, Diedrich Coffee acquired all of the Brothers locations, deciding it was high time to bring their popular SoCal brand to Colorado. I did my time at Brio, and at Brothers, and at Diedrich; and in that time I learned one very important thing - the people of Southern California love them some monumentally crappy coffee.

Ah, Diedrich. What can I possibly say about them that I haven’t alluded to many times before in this blog? Probably nothing, but it all bears repeating… Martin Diedrich is an egotistical, arrogant twirp of a little man, whose idea of coffee training is standing in front of a group of people for four hours, and telling them all about his “family crest”, which is emblazoned on every cup. The man spoke his own name with the hushed tones usually reserved for Hitler, or maybe Jesus. Yeah, yeah, their drip coffee was pretty good, but their espresso drinks were foul. If anyone has ever told you they got a halfway decent drink at Diedrich, it’s because their barista had at one time worked for a better shop. Or they had their sense of taste irreparably damaged due to a severe brain injury.

When the Diedrich plan to establish a new world order, on par with that of Starbucks (while always bemoaning the big green label in the same breath) fell through, they handed the reins over to a franchisee, one who also owned a few Burger Kings. Because, you know, the King knows coffee.

Under the direction of this new franchisee, the store fell further into disrepair, the service got worse, and the staff exhibited that sort of slacker anarchy that happens when the owners just stop caring and the clientele is far too entranced in their habit to go anyplace else.

Over the years, I’ve overheard many an entrepreneur muse about getting their hands on the 2 Diedrich locations that book-ended Cheeseman. And I’ve no doubt the reason none of them jumped on it was that they would have had to take a few of those old Brio locations off their hands, as well. So, now, we’ve got Dazbog.

And how do they fare? Well, credit where credit is due – the coffee I got there on a recent visit was 100% better than anything that’s come out of that location in the last 5 years – maybe even ever. I watched the barista pour a flawless shot of espresso into my red-eye, causing my mouth actually water (and to think, just a few years ago I heard Leonid say that automatic machines were the way of the future – for shame!). On another visit, when I asked to have my beans ground for a toddy maker, the barista didn’t even bat an eye, which was a refreshing change from the apoplectic fit that the average Diedrich employee would’ve had at the same request.

But how is Dazbog really different? Where does it truly distinguish itself from what’s come before? The truth is, it doesn’t; the signs on the wall are the same old humdrum advertisements, and the men’s room still looks it belongs in a New York City subway station (though to be fair, the prospect of cleaning it is more than a little intimidating – we used to have this regular that we called “The Naughty-Potty Man” who would go in there for an hour and… actually, just forget I brought it up.)

It’s funny though, go check out the comments section re:Diedrich Coffee at the Denver Coffee Blog. It’s proof positive that every coffee shop, no matter how pathetic, is somebody’s favorite. And every single owner, from Brother’s on, has had to deal with the complaints when change happens.

My advice for the new owner operator is this – get to know the Boyz in the Hood’. Get a new coat of paint on the walls. Ditch the Muzak. Maybe get yourself one of those hazmat suits and hose down the john.

And most of all, put your heart into it… maybe there’s still a chance to make it everybody’s favorite.

Muddy's Memories

Following my new policy of “Fresh Content on a (Semi) Regular Basis”, here’s a link to the page for a much-missed Denver institution.

I was always more of a Paris/St. Mark’s/Euphrates guy, but I definitely did my time sipping coffee amongst the books in Muddy’s ratty old loft.

Truly, they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore…

Blockbuster Coffee!

So, this has been a pretty monumental year for me, what with the lay-off in January and the two new jobs since then. Earlier this week, I even interviewed for a possible third (I’m still in the early stages of that one, we’ll see what develops) I had my 10 year wedding anniversary in May, and in March, I officially entered my “mid-thirties”.

35 came with exactly no more and no less fanfare than I would’ve wanted. My advancing age isn’t something that’s bothered me much lately; as a matter of fact, for some reason the idea of 36 seems sort of dignified to me. Like its real, true adulthood - implying all the respect and experience therein (but then again, talk to me when I’m 40).

Oh, sure, there have been some little landmarks that are disorienting, if I allow myself to ponder them for too long. I totally outlived Jesus, for one. And If I lived in the 70’s style, futuristic dystopia of Logan’s Run, I would have been offed years ago. Not only that, but I’m two whole years older than Shatner was when he took the helm of the Enterprise. What seems strangest of all, though, is the fact that I’m no longer part of that coveted “18-34” male demographic that all of pop culture is said to be geared to.

My favorite birthday present this year was a Toddy brand iced coffee maker. Long time lurkers on my blog may recall my love of The Market’s iced coffee. They make theirs “Toddy Style”, and that’s where the Missus bought my 'maker from. It’s an entirely low tech affair; no electrical plug-ins or doodads. A pound worth of coarsely ground beans brew overnight in nine cups of cold water; the resulting, filtered concoction is a thick, pitch black concentrate, to which you add two parts water. That last part is of the utmost importance, and should be printed on the directions in ALL CAPS, italicized, and perhaps even be written in blood. Less a suggestion than a mandate, like “Don’t Feed the Mogwai After Midnight” or “Look Out! Swimming Pool Filled with Infected Hypodermic Needles!” Upon reading it, there should be an ominous thunderclap in the distance… you must make sure that you cut the stuff with a sufficient amount of H2O, and what ever you do - DO NOT drink the concentrate straight. It is dark. Potent. Intense. Like juice squeezed directly from Keith Richard’s right lung. It is an oily, shimmering, foreboding substance, like an alien life form that could crawl out of it’s carafe to bond to your body and take over your mind.

Speaking of which, I finally caught “Spiderman 3” last weekend. I’m sorry to say that it’s a mixed bag, at best. Maybe the way to go for Hollywood would be to have all of the movies top out at a duology; the trilogy thing too often ends badly. Spider-Man the Third doesn’t quite plumb the depths of stupidity mined by Superman III or Batman Forever, but neither is it as good as the good parts of Return of the Jedi. Remember Chewbacca’s groan-inducing “Tarzan Yell” at the climax? This whole movie is sort of like that - “cute”.

Sam Raimi seems to have decided that the success of the Spiderman series is less about watching 40+ years of comic book history played out on the big screen, and more about watching references to the first two movies (the upside down kiss, more flashbacks of Peter’s dead uncle, etc.). And really, can they come up with a climax that doesn’t involve putting Mary Jane in peril? I don’t care how google eyed, dodo yoohoo in love you are (and, oh, are they ever – yeeech), that would be the relationship breaker right there. If they make a fourth, they can just call it “Spider-Man 4: Sucks to be Your Girlfriend”, and it can be about Kristen Dunst and Bruce Campbell fighting off Zombie Uncle Ben.

Part of the problem for me was the whole “alien suit that turns you evil” subplot (or maybe that was the main plot and the other 15 plots were all “sub” – I had a hard time keeping up) The first time in my life I realized I was growing up was when they started the symbiote storyline in the comics. MY friendly neighborhood Spider-Man fought freaks of science localized here on Earth, like the Rhino, or Electro, or Hydro-Man, not other-worldly cosmic threats (because that would be, you know, unrealistic) He left all that stuff for the Fantastic Four or the X-Men. Seeing the previews, I begrudgingly accepted that this was the way they’d be going with the movie. Unfortunately, nothing could prepare me for the fact that Peter turning eeeevil would be illustrated by having Tobey Mcguire look like a coked-up Kyle Maclachlan in “Dreamgirls” and doing a dance number while Mary Jane sings in the background. Badly. (Stop giggling, folks who haven’t seen it yet – I’m Not Kidding.) If they really wanted to him to act evil, they should have just given him the straight Toddy concentrate – it’s called method acting, people. My proportions were a little off this morning, and I was like a paranoid schizophrenic.

The Peter vs. Harry stuff worked okay, and the finale was somewhat satisfying, if a little reminiscent of Ghostbusters (Man! Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Temple of Doom – second in a trilogy, I might add. 1984… now that was a year for summer movies). So of course, all this begs the question… is my enjoyment of this sort of thing diminished by my advancing years? Has my pop-tolerance been left behind, along with my membership in the “18-34” club? Is little Caff all grows up?

I sincerely doubt it. I think it has to do more with the fact that these gigantor budgeted movies are all micro-managed now, in order to appeal to the widest possible base. That means more Saved By the Bell-style flirting for Peter and MJ, and more heart to hearts with Aunt May. This morning, the two women I work with; women who talk about “Brad” and “Angelina” and “Rosie” with the same familiarity that multiple-cat owners use for their pets, were discussing how that new Fantastic Four movie looks “cute”.

Hear me now, world. If they screw up the Silver Surfer, I will go berserker… caffeinated or not.

Tales of the City...

I have a chip on my shoulder. Maybe more like a blemish. A growth, mutated from exposure to certain realities of my life the same way a melanoma develops from exposure to UV rays. I am a townie, a chronic local. I’ve lived in D-town long enough that to call myself anything other than a native makes all the transplanted Californians laugh out loud. Some other circumstances of my life would bother other folks more, were they to find themselves in my shoes. High school dropout? Never bothered me much. Barely a semester of film school, at dear ol’ Red Rocks Community College? I can live with that. Bi-weekly paychecks from a giant-sized, notoriously conservative media behemoth? Oooh, pangs of liberal guilt on that one; but hey - a brother gots to work somewhere.

But if I dwell too long on the fact that I’ve never slept on second hand lawn furniture in my very own basement efficiency apartment in Greenwich Village, suddenly I turn into James Stewart in “Vertigo” - you know that trademark Hitchcock shot, where he closes the camera in tight on his subject’s face, while he “zooms out” at the same time – resulting in that queasy optical effect? (what can I say, it was a very productive semester)

It’s not as though I’m pining for some Jungian “Heroes Quest”. Sure, I respect the drive to climb the highest mountain, in order to ask the old man at the top “what it’s all about”, or Cassie’s joining the Peace Corps in order to make the world a better place - but those things, I presume, come from someplace just south and to the left of your shoulder (Your heart, that is; or maybe your gut. Not your naughty bits). My own chip, though, was at one time just a simple, average sized, non-terminal wanderlust-gland, which, had I toured the hostels of Europe for a mere six weeks, would most likely have remained benign.

When I do have the opportunity to travel, what should be a simple romantic getaway with the love of my life takes on this mad, aimless urgency. I must peel beneath the simple facade set up for those accursed tourists, and truly grok whatever strange new land I find myself in.

And so it was in San Francisco, as the wife and I celebrated our tenth (!) anniversary. We consumed as much of the city as was humanly possible in our 5 short days; by streetcar; by trolley, through the ominous subway stations where George Lucas shot “THX-1138”.

(not me)

But most of all, we got by on foot - thanks to that glorious oxygen they keep so much of at sea level. I was there to dig it, man; to lose myself in the neighborhoods of Maupin’s “Tales of the City” and to find and embrace my inner hippy on Haight Ashbury.

The first thing I realized, once we got settled into our hotel, was that even the most legendary of coffee towns isn’t immune to the Starbucks virus. I figured that the corporation of choice would at least be the locally spawned Peet’s. Alas, we saw only one of those, awkwardly wedged into the Castro district. Little matter to me - I would be drinking my cappuccinos (my traditional “vacation beverage”) only in cafes where the disembodied spirits of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his contemporaries floated freely.

Look at the Cafe Trieste website and you’ll discover that this small, unassuming joint was the first “Italian Style” coffeehouse on the west coast. Scooters – Vespas only, of course - are lined up against the curb outside. If you’re lucky enough to find a table on Sunday you can hear live opera being performed. If you’re lucky enough to go on the right Sunday, you may hear opera being performed by none other than Francis Ford Copalla (!) and family. Multiple pictures of Bill Cosby (!) adorn the walls, from his fighting-trim Chet Kincaid days to the thick-around-the-middle-late-Huxtable era. His celebrity affords him the ability, apparently, to walk behind the counter and whip up his own cappuccino. Sad to say, but I sort of wish he was there to make mine. Hidden beneath a modest layer of froth – more just “foam”, really – was a watery latte of no great consequence.

The next day we visited Haight Ashbury, where I was sure to not be disappointed - if for no other reason than lowered expectations. If I’ve learned anything in my half-a-lifetime of drinking coffee, it’s that, while college towns and hippy hotspots (Boulder, the “Ave” on the UW campus, etc.) feature no shortage of espresso bars and cafes, the coffee is usually nothing to blog about. But at least I would be in for some good people watching in a groovy atmosphere. “Rockin' Java” fit the bill nicely, decorated as it was in funky-junk modern and featuring the archetypal tattered couches. One barista saw that I was re-reading “Virtual Light”, and struck up some small talk about Gibson’s day after tomorrow vision of San Fran. However, the pleasantries were cut short when this overzealous Gestapo barista, one of those proud “assistant to the assistant manager” types, took issue with the Missus taking a few non-intrusive snapshots. Really, dude, even if we were from the Dunkin Donuts home office, planning a corporate takeover, I hardly think you’re gonna be the guy to stop us.

And again, my cappuccino was mediocre.

Now, I don’t want to give the wrong impression… we had a wonderful time. And San Fran is a pretty cool city. But really, I was noticing a theme, here. It’s taken me 35 years, but I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I’m small-town. I imagine my naiveté as being one of my charms, really. And when I go to a “big city”, especially one of those nigh-mythological coastal cities that visitors to Denver endlessly compare us to (always unfavorably, of course), I am prepared to accept nothing less than having my mind entirely and completely blown. Through my urethra. By a renegade army of socialist lesbian DJs from the future. (Or some other such anachronistic subculture).

Searching for just that sort of adventure, we took the F line to Castro. Here was the one place I wanted (and got) archaic certainties. Though it’s older, and wiser (and no doubt safer) Castro just feels like I imagine the pre-HIV 70’s and 80’s must have been. But still, if there was a kitschy and flamboyant coffee shop where drag queens served boys in short shorts and Doc. Martens (a la Big Cup in NYC) I didn’t find it.

But of course, caffeine wasn’t really why we were there; this was our one night of sheer unadulterated debauchery. We imbibed, of course, and here again there was a distinct lack of minds being blown. Or if there were any, it was theirs, not ours. Funny, we can go to any gay club in Denver to a general lack of comment; there, the assumption was that we must be mustachioed and candle burning swingers. And really, how was I supposed to know that to dance on top of the pool tables with the boys in golf shoes and tighty whites, you were supposed to be on the payroll? I figured in the great big city that sort of thing just sort of “happened” all the time - like harmonic convergence, or speaking in tongues at an old fashioned tent revival.

So after a few more less than stellar cappuccinos, a couple romantic walks through the town and one absolutely brilliant Italian meal later, we were back home. In the “real world” as I like to call it.

Driving home from a family day out, last weekend, we stumbled across a street fair happening on Larimer Square. Rainbow flags hung outside a few of the bars, there was visibly more Y chromosome going on than usual, and a DJ was spinning outside the Market. I’ve surfed the internets and I still haven’t been able to figure out what was going on; but to tell the truth, the music was better than anything we heard in SF. We danced in the street with the kids, way past their bedtime. I realized that, even though the wife and I have a lot more miles to cover over next ten years (and maybe some mustachioed and candle burning style-swinging, if I can break her down) it’s nice to know that I’m pretty content with where I’m at.

This is Religious Fundamentalism...

...this is Religious Fundamentalism on caffeine...






any questions?




This half-assed post has been brought to you thanks to the generous inspiration of Daves Long Box. Read and love!

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!