The Big Board…(and other musings)
19 November 2008
This is the board from 3 days ago. Today’s board contains classified information. Eyes-only. In addition, I think the 99cent store chalk has pcp in it.
I inhaled too much chalk dust and developed a raging mad-on for people who hate Starbucks. By people, I mean the 10% of the population who thinks ragging on starbucks for being “corporate” gives them anarcho-street-cred or something. I see it like this…Starbucks is a mirror. You can’t blame a mirror if you’re the one who’s ugly. You can walk into Starbucks and order a cup of coffee. It’s not even that expensive. And they’re nice enough to have enough stores that when you want a cup of coffee you don’t have to break out your google store-finder to get to one. Just walk in some random direction, and within 5 minutes you’re ordering a cup of coffee. If you live somewhere this isn’t true, then it’s time to leave the farm. If there isn’t a Starbucks in your general vicinity, you live in the wrong place. If you don’t believe me, consider this…There is no Starbucks in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There is a Starbucks in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Anyone who tries to tell you that Williamsburg is better than Greenpoint is an asshole.
The flip side of this equation is walking into a Starbucks and ordering a $6 dollar mocha-frappa-whip monstrosity. Starbucks is not the villain here. Life needs choices. If there were only one virtuous cup of organic-shade grown inexpensive holistic cup of coffee to be had, then how would you tell the greedy assholes from the enlightened masters? You couldn’t. Starbucks gives you plenty of rope. It’s up to you not to hang yourself with it. The matrix is real, and the goo that you float in in your battery-pod is mostly high fructose corn syrup and whipped cream. Go ahead…order the goo…make it a Venti.
Most of all, Starbucks is a corporation, not a straightedge band. If you’re looking to Starbucks for righteousness, you’re doing it wrong. For the most part, a trip to Starbucks is a pleasant experience. The employees seem to be human, they smile occasionally and it smells nice. If you really want to experience the ass-end of corporate America, walk into a Marshall’s department store, or a freakin Arby’s. Those places fatten you up with misery, so they can feed off of your unhappiness. Your only choices in those places are shit, and more shit. Compared to your average Quizno’s, Starbucks is a cathedral of light.
Also they’re the home team. And I always root for the home team, cause all good things come from the 206. Know what else comes from the 206. Ezell’s fried chicken. Know how Oprah has her favorite things, and every woman in the universe wants to go buy whater Oprah’s new favorite thing is? Well, Ezell’s was Oprah’s original favorite thing. But everyone can’t run out and buy it, cause there’s only one place you can get it. And it really is that good. And that’s why Oprah shits in solid gold toilets, and wipes her ass with live baby seals.
p.s. I don’t really like coffee that much, and mostly don’t drink it because caffeine is a demon drug that makes me crazy.
The 206 does indeed have it’s fair share of contributions to the world. One need only sift through the cultural and culinary flotsam of the 206 to occasionally arrive at first rate quality. For every Jones’ Soda and, yes, Starbucks, one does run across an Ezells and a Dick’s Drive-In. The problem I have with Starbucks is that it’s a paramilitary junta whose owner is a third world dictator. Starbucks has no soul. Starbucks is an industrial behemoth that opens stores across the street from other Starbuck’s stores and pushes the small coffee shop out of business. Starbucks has forgotten it’s roots in the pig headed pursuit of world domination and presumes to represent America to countries that I don’t think quite understand that we are all not Natalie Merchant sounding, peppermint brownie eating, lap top whores who sit amongst sterile, uniform surroundings with art work that is made by Scandinavians. This is Stalinism. Starbucks is not a straight edge band, to be sure, what it is, dear reader, is 10,000 Dashboard Confessionals overwhelming you with unplugged, shade grown,cheery propaganda in the service of Shultz- C.E.O. and Sonics’ Seattle cleanser. Maybe you think this is a bit strident and perhaps it is, but I don’t need choices and mirrors when all of the choices are bad and the mirrors are warped. I am impressionable and Starbucks has hardened me into a cynical coffee mercenary whose scars run deep and psyche is fragile. I have P.T.S.D. post traumatic Starbucks disorder. Like Dick’s, Red-Mill and Ezells, I believe that there is strength in numbers…..less numbers.
“The problem I have with Starbucks is that it’s a paramilitary junta whose owner is a third world dictator”
Some say tomato, some say tomaahto,
So is Kim Jong Il, but that no reason not to roll into NK, and order up a batch of muffins.
Thing is, once you leave the 206, (Seattle) you find yourself missing the taste of a reasonably good cup of coffee, and that is what Starbucks provides. It does,,,,really. I mean it isn’t the gold standard or anything, but it is at least a standard. I will be the first to support those cute independent little coffee shops with their slightly overweight white girls, packaged in their patagonia fleece vest, sipping corn syrup, disguised as Chai tea, reading, noam chomsky. but those spots are dying ,do to a lack of ambition,possibly from a sense of privilege. Starbucks is a standard, and not a hard one to top, Really if you can’t make a coffee shop with better coffee at similar prices , and more character than Starbucks , then you probably don’t belong in the business of serving coffee. Look at the Coffee shops that have survived Starbucks, they tend to be well managed , and have consistently good coffee. Way I see it Starbucks has just trimmed the fat, inched up the bar, and allowed me to get a cup of coffee that is not from a can like they all were when I first landed in japan.
I think you are onto something Maceo- it’s not that Starbucks has no soul..but that Starbucks has no Seoul…or Pyongyang for that matter! Feature some “Great Leader” muffins up in that bitch and i’ll go back.
I feel y’all on the East Coast, though, I was there once and between Philly and NY I could not find a good cup o joe. Which is not a bad thing, sometimes I forget how good generic supermarket freeze dried chrystal coffee is, for real.
Whatever Dickey, I saw you putting on that green apron and doing those dirty things outside of Seattle’s Best that one time…Where you livin now anyway? you a long way from Vivace, boy.
Ahhhhh, I thought that green apron bit had gone unnoticed.
I am living in Los Angeles and I must say that the coffee bean skills of the northwest have slowly trickled down this way. I enjoy a little spot down the street that compares favorably with Vivace …maybe a distant cousin…a weak facsimile….oh, who am i kidding I WANT SOME VIVACE!
Also, whether you like it or not we’re living in a capitalist society where you vote with your almighty dollar. If you drop your money on independents you vote thata way; if you buy corporate at least support one that has some redeeming value. Like it or not, when corporate makes a small change for the green (eco/world community that is) it has a huge effect on the world markets and drives what products are`considered of higher value. Because people are willing to spend extra money on organic and sustainable food, many mainstream corporate vendors are offering up (Costco and McD serve sustainably harvested fish and Starbucks does kick back some to the farmer). It doesn’t mean all corporates sins are washed away, or mean we have to shop there but as long as their around (and not going away anytime soon) they might as well try and be a part of a bigger picture rather then exploiting all for the bottom line.
Lia from the 206 block
you know *even* in the big scary city (aka nyc and surroundings), if you don’t want to cough up the big dough for the starbucks, you always can just buy some cafe bustelo and brew that s*** at home, if you miss the quality of good coffee, and then you don’t have to stand in line, listen to yanni, figure out what a venti even is… if you want good coffee, man, make it yourself, and leave the marketing to the professionals… and while we are missing everything from the 206, who do i have to snuggle up to to get a decent piece of salmon on this coast? this s*** is rediculous> it LOOKS like salmon, but tastes like chicken, what the hell is that about?
cheers,
erik
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