Category Archives: Coffee

… which means I would never leave there

I don’t think of myself as a particularly materialistic person, or a sensualist per se (except within certain parameters). And I am most definitely, certainly not a foodie. Personally, I find foodism… off-putting.

But there are two things that I look forward to every day, and that are hard for me to forgo — coffee in the morning (and sometimes in the afternoon), and beer at night.

And now Kathryn brings my attention to this:

Starbucks Explores Possibility Of Selling Beer & Wine

Hey, you can have the wine. And I’d rather that the cheese not be in the same building. But the best coffee in the world, followed by beer? I would never want to leave.

“Use to was:” Small town South Carolina

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Dang it, I searched on Google Books for the quote I wanted, but you know how they leave out pages here and there? Apparently the page I wanted was one of those.

Anyway, there’s a page somewhere in John le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl in which our heroine Charlie is being escorted through a bombed-out 1980s Beirut by a couple of young Palestinian-affiliated gunmen whom she, and the reader, find utterly charming. One of them speaks English with an odd tick: He throws “use to” in front of all verbs, giving his speech a strange poignancy at all times. At one point, he’s indicating where a certain landmark — I want to say a Holiday Inn, but my memory could be failing me (and maybe it wasn’t even in the book but in the movie, but good luck finding that; Netflix doesn’t even have it) — back before the city’s devastation, back when it was the Paris of the Mideast. Let’s say it was a Holiday Inn, in which case he would have said, “Holiday Inn — use to was…”

That line kept running through my head when I went home to Bennettsville Saturday for the funeral of “Teenie” Parks — my grandmother’s best friend, who lived next door to my grandparents and then my young uncle (only six years older than I) as he raised his family there, with Teenie taking the place for his kids of my grandmother, who died in 1969. There are people in B’ville who would ask Teenie how I was related to her, even though I wasn’t. We were all that close. Her husband Frank, who died in 1984, had grown up in the house that my grandparents lived in during my childhood and my uncle still lives in today. Then they sold the house to my grandfather and moved next door. From then on it was like one household; we walked in and out of each others’ houses as though the doors weren’t there. We were, as I said, that close.

The funeral was at Thomas Memorial Baptist Church, where I was baptized long before I became Catholic. It’s the scene of an incident for which I’m still remembered by some of the older folks in town — far more than for anything else, really. While at the visitation various folks made a point of saying what I hear so often, that “We miss you so much from the newspaper,” a couple of my relatives made a point of mentioning The Incident, and admonishing me not to repeat it.

(Here’s what happened: It was 1957, and I was four years old. Our preacher then, Mr. Thomas, was not the most accomplished homilist. He tended to drone and lose his train of thought. He was reciting a list of some sort in which towns in the Pee Dee were ranked. It went something like this: “Cheraw was first, Dillon second. Um, Marion was third. And Bennettsville was… it was… um… Bennettsville was, um…” I couldn’t take it. I shouted out, as loud as I could, “FOURTH!!!” The congregation, which had been as tense as I was, erupted into laughter, drowning out Mr. Thomas as he murmured “fourth.” I had not known I was going to do it; it was involuntary. Four, after all, was my favorite number because I was four years old. How could he not think of it? But now that I’d shouted it, the laughter of all those grownups overwhelmed me with embarrassment. I lay my head on my mother’s lap and pretended to be asleep for the rest of the service. Bottom line, to this day, I am known by some as the little boy who yelled “Fourth!”)

After the funeral, driving back through town on Main Street, I pointed out to my wife landmarks that once had been. That’s what put me in mind of the le Carre character. B.B. Sanders’ Esso station, where the proprietor would always lean into the driver’s window, while his employees swarmed over the car to check the oil and the tires and the water and wash the windshield, and ask us, “Y’all want a Co-Cola?” Use to was. Belk’s — use to was. The Bennettsville Department Store — use to was. Penney’s, Miller Thompson pharmacy, the dime stores, Bill Stanton’s daddy’s store, the movie theater, the A&P, the Harris Teeter. All “use to was.” The buildings are all still there, and most look fine from the outside. But they aren’t what they were. And there is almost no one walking on the once-busy sidewalks.

This morning, I almost got a parking ticket because lobbyist Jay Hicks sat across from me as I was about to get up from breakfast, and I stayed, and we started talking about a number of things. Eventually, we got onto the state of South Carolina’s small towns, especially the ones well off the Interstates. He spoke of Bamberg, and I mentioned to him how impressed I was the one time I visited Allendale — all those abandoned motels along 301, which died when the Interstates opened.

We talked about whether there was any hope for turning around South Carolina’s small towns, whether Nikki Haley (who hales from Bamberg) or Camden’s Vincent Sheheen is elected. We reached no conclusions.

And I spoke of visiting Bennettsville over the weekend. I didn’t mention the “use to was” part, because it would have taken too long to explain.

bradwarthen.coffee

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Who’d like to invest in a coffee shop in Surfside Beach that is designed purely as a place for people to take their laptops and connect via wi-fi?

There’s a real gap in the market there. And the public library that was my refuge last week has its limitations. For instance, my son-in-law, who is a economist/consultant, needed wi-fi in a place where he could simultaneously talk on the phone — so he ended up going to a Starbucks way up in Myrtle Beach. (Even there, I don’t know how welcome he was, talking into his cell phone in a public place, which suggests the need for a better place that is all ABOUT connectivity.)

OK, maybe “bradwarthen.coffee” is a goofy name for the place — maybe I should get my fellow ad wizards at ADCO to work on it — but I was thinking that it needs a name that tells people it exists for bloggers (like Tim Kelly, who also vacations there and has to go to McDonald’s of all places to get connected) and others who can’t get through their vacations without a reliable place to connect.

This is a bit of a throwback — a decade or two — to the old “Internet cafes” that existed before access was widespread. But I think that in a vacation spot like that that lacks a Starbucks or a Panera, it would have a real chance to catch on.

The money would be made from coffee and snacks, as one certain source of revenue, but they would not be the main attraction. And while my first instincts are that the wi-fi must be free, if it were inviting and accommodating enough (with amenities like LOTS of electrical outlets so you don’t have to jockey for those spaces, and maybe soundproof booths for those needing to teleconference and such) perhaps the market would bear a small fee for the access. I don’t know. This is just the beginning of an idea…

Starbucks is playing with fire

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A little while ago I posted something on Twitter about a periodic peeve of mine:

Yo, Starbucks: A separate queue for us actual coffee drinkers would still be a great idea…

Truth be told, I have been to a Starbucks that does have a separate queue for straight coffee drinkers (by which I don’t just mean those of us who prefer the opposite sex). They do that during morning rush hour at the one at Poplar and White Station in Memphis. And for that matter, most Starbucks do a pretty good job of moving the line along, taking orders over the shoulders of the slowpokes. They’re particularly good about this over on Gervais Street.

As you know, Starbucks is one of those corporations that makes me say, along with Austin Powers, “Yea, capitalism!” (And I’d purely love it if they’d pay me to do so…)

Not that it doesn’t occasionally stray into error. In fact, I’m very worried about this Via thing.

Excuse me, but what ad genius over at Starbucks thought of selling instant coffee? To me, this undermines the whole business model. Starbucks is about the experience of walking in and smelling the smell, and just generally digging being there. Sure, you could buy the coffee to make at home, but it was never as good, and made you want the real thing in the real place.

And maybe Via will produce that same effect (“Dreck! This’ll teach me to drink the real thing at an actual Starbucks!”). But what if it’s actually good. Suppose people decide that the instant is acceptable? Doesn’t that open the possibility that you might as well be drinking Folger’s? What’s to stop people from thinking, “If I’m going to drink instant, what do I need Starbucks for?” Which to me is as subversive as the Policy Council running down representative democracy.

And then, it just all comes tumbling down, and then where would be be? Like in the depressing first part of that Policy Council video.

Admittedly, this product’s been out a couple of months without the Starbucks universe collapsing. But it still worries me.

What’s with this ubiquitous pseudo-Beatlemania?

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Once again, I am puzzled by Beatlemania.

The first time, I was living in Guayaquil, Ecuador in early 1964. Communicating with the States — or Britain, for that matter — was a cumbersome affair, hardly speedier than in the Napoleonic era that I enjoy reading about in those books I’m always on about (just finished reading The Fortune of War for the fourth time). The only television we had was one local station that was only on the air from about 4 in the afternoon until 10 at night, and ran mostly American cartoons and TV shows dubbed into Spanish. Imagine being an Ecuadorean and trying to grok “The Beverly Hillbillies” with Granny and Jethro speaking Spanish out of sync with their lips, and you will begin to see the roots of whatever appreciation for the absurd that I today possess. For our part, we didn’t bother — we left our TV set gathering dust down in the bodega with the shelves of canned goods ordered from the Navy Exchange in Panama, for the entire two-and-a-half years we were there.

But we did occasionally see The Miami Herald, although generally a couple of weeks late. And it was on the front page of one of these old papers that I saw the shouting banner headline, “Beatles Hit Miami,” or something like that. I thought it referred to an insect infestation of Biblical proportions, given the huge play.

Eventually, I figured it out, and was entranced. My Beatles fanhood in those early days was probably intensified by the difficulty of keeping up with the Fab Four at a distance. I occasionally found a 45 for sale in a local tienda (I think my first was “Love Me Do”), and I still treasure the first album I ever owned, an Odeon release titled, “La Banda Original de la Pelicula ‘A Hard Days Night.”

Anyway, to bring you to the present day — I fear that I am fated to remain confused by the most recent manifestation of Beatlemania. Or perhaps I should say “alienated” rather than “confused,” because I sort of understand it, but am put off by it. This one is different.

This one doesn’t arise spontaneously, up from below. It’s not a cry of love from the fans. It seems a calculated effort to impose enthusiasm upon a new generation, imposed from above by the masters of the marketing universe.

Note the display I photographed moments ago in the Barnes & Noble from which I am blogging. Not that I’m criticizing Barnes & Noble; I love Barnes & Noble as Winston loved Big Brother. Drinking wonderful Starbucks coffee, listening to “Instant Karma” via Pandora, sitting near a foreign chap wearing a T-shirt that proclaims “FREEDOM AND EQUALITY FOR PALESTINE” who looked furtively about him as he sat, seemingly expecting someone to challenge or argue with him or something, and in another direction a cute schoolgirl bent low doing her homework with an ipod in her ears, who kindly watched my laptop while I ran to the head… WHOA! The caffeine seems to have taken hold… where was I?

Oh, yes… nothing against Barnes & Noble. And certainly nothing against Starbucks; my slavish affection for Starbucks is well-documented. But both are very much apart of this vast commercial conspiracy to market the Beatles like mad, all of a sudden.

Is it really all prompted by the release of a video game? That’s the way it appears. I know it’s not a plot by Michael Jackson, who sneakily snapped up the rights to the Beatles’ songs years ago, because I seem to have heard that he is no longer among the living. It got quite a bit of play, as I recall.

So what’s it all about, Alfie? And how should a true Beatles fan react?

Trying to explain Joe Wilson to France

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This morning I had a very pleasant breakfast at the usual place with Philippe Boulet-Gercourt, the U.S. Bureau Chief for Le Nouvel Observateur, France’s largest weekly newsmagazine. I forgot to take a picture of him, but I found the video above from 2008 (I think), in which I think he’s telling the folks back home that Obama was going to win the election. That’s what “Obama va gagner” means, right? Alas, I have no French, although I’ve always felt that I understand Segolene Royal perfectly. Fortunately, Philippe’s English is superb.

It was my first encounter with a French journalist since I shot this video of Cyprien d’Haese shooting video of me back in 2008, in a supremely Marshall McLuhan moment. If you’ll recall, I was interviewed by a lot of national and foreign journalists in the weeks and months leading up to the presidential primaries here. (You may also recall that a lot of them came to me because of my blog, not because I was editorial page editor of the state’s largest newspaper. Philippe, of course, also contacted me because of the blog, although he was aware of my former association, and expressed his kind concern for my joblessness.)

He had come to Columbia from New York, which has been his home for 14 years, to ask about “this summer uprising among the conservatives, peaking with the Joe Wilson incident,” as he had put it in his e-mail.

Well, to begin with, I disputed his premise. I don’t think there has been a resurgence of conservatives or of the Republican Party, which is still groping for its identity in the wake of last year’s election. What we’ve seen in the case of Joe Wilson — the outpouring of support, monetary and otherwise, after the moment in which he embarrassed the 2nd District — was merely the concentration of political elements that are always there, and are neither stronger nor weaker because of what Joe has said and done. Just as outrage over Joe’s outburst has expressed itself (unfortunately) in an outpouring (I’m trying to see how many words with the prefix “out-” I can use in this sentence) of material support for the unimpressive Rob Miller, the incident was a magnet for the forces of political polarization, in South Carolina and across the country.

What I tried to do is provide historical and sociological context for the fact that Joe Wilson is the natural representative for the 2nd District, and will probably be re-elected (unless someone a lot stronger than Rob Miller emerges and miraculously overcomes his huge warchest). It’s not about Obama (although resistance to the “expansion of government” that he represents is a factor) and it’s not about race (although the fact that districts are gerrymandered to make the 2nd unnaturally white, and the 6th unnaturally black, helps define the districts and their representatives).

In other words, I said a lot of stuff that I said back in this post.

We spoke about a number of other topics as well, some related, some not:

He asked about the reaction in South Carolina to Obama’s election. I told him that obviously, the Democratic minority — which had been energized to an unprecedented degree in the primary, having higher turnout than the Republicans for the first time in many years — was jubilant. The reaction among the Republican minority was more like resignation. Republicans had known that McCain would win South Carolina, but Obama would win the election. I explained that McCain’s win here did not express a rejection of Obama (as some Democrats have chosen to misinterpret), but simply political business as usual — it would have been shocking had the Republican, any Republican, not won against any national Democrat. I spoke, as I explained to him, from the unusual perspective of someone who liked both Obama and McCain very much, but voted for McCain. I think I drew the distinction fairly well between what I think and what various subsets of Republicans and Democrats in South Carolina think…

That got us on the topic of McCain-Bush in 2000, because as I explained to Philippe, I was destined to support McCain even over someone I liked as much as Obama, because I had waited eight years for the opportunity to make up for what happened here in 2000. Philippe agreed that the world would have been a better place had McCain been elected then, but I gather that he subscribes to the conventional wisdom (held by many of you here on the blog) that the McCain of 2008 was much diminished.

Philippe understood 2000, but as a Frenchman, he had trouble understanding how the country re-elected Bush in 2004 (And let me quickly say, for those of you who may be quick to bridle at the French, that Philippe was very gentlemanly about this, the very soul of politeness). So I explained to him how I came to write an endorsement of Bush again in 2004 — a very negative endorsement which indicted him for being wrong about many things, but in the end an endorsement. There was a long explanation of that, and a short one. Here’s the short one: John Kerry. And Philippe understood why a newspaper that generally reflects its state (close to three-fourths of those we endorsed during my tenure won their general election contests) would find it hard to endorse Kerry, once I put it that way. (As those of you who pay attention know, under my leadership The State endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans overall, but never broke its string of endorsing Republicans for the presidency, although we came close in 2008.)

Anyway, when we finished our long breakfast (I hadn’t eaten much because I was talking too much, drinking coffee all the while) I gave him a brief “tour” of the Midlands as seen from the 25th floor of Columbia’s tallest building, then gave him numbers for several other sources who might be helpful. He particularly was interested in folks from Joe’s Lexington County base, as well as some political science types, so I referred him to:

Rep. Kenny Bingham, the S.C. House Majority Leader who recently held a “Welcome Home” event for Joe Wilson at his (Kenny’s) home.
Rep. Nikki Haley, who until recently was the designated Mark Sanford candidate for governor, before she had occasion to distance herself.
Sen. Nikki Setzler (I gave him all the Lexington County Nikkis I knew), who could describe the county’s politics from the perspective of the minority party.
Blease Graham, the USC political science professor who recently retired but remained plugged in and knowledgeable. (Philippe remarked upon Blease’s unusual name, which started me on a tangent about his ancestor Cole Blease, Ben Tillman, N.G. Gonzales, etc.)
Walter Edgar, the author of the definitive history of our state.
Neal Thigpen, the longtime political scientist at Francis Marion University who tends to comment from a Republican perspective.
Jack Bass, the ex-journalist and political commentator known for his biography of Strom Thurmond and for his liberal Democratic point of view.

I also suggested he stop in at the Gervais Street Starbucks for a downtown Columbia perspective, and the Sunset Restaurant in West Columbia.

I look forward to reading his article, although I might have to get some of y’all to help me with understanding it. With my background in Spanish and two years of Latin I can generally understand French better when written than spoken, but I still might need some help…

No “tea parties” for me, thanks; I’ll take coffee

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Something that occurs to me when I see notices like this one:

Larry invited you to “Tea Party Event ” on Sunday, September 27 at 1:30pm.

Larry says, “Please join me.”.

Event: Tea Party Event
“Come hear Senator Larry Grooms”
What: Informational Meeting
Start Time: Sunday, September 27 at 1:30pm End Time: Sunday, September 27 at 4:30pm
Where: Wannamaker County Park

… is this: Who wants tea? Certainly not me. I’m a coffee guy. All these people having “tea parties” seem kinda, you know, effete to me. Not very American.

I mean, when the British slapped that tax on tea, a few unsteady types went spare and committed an act of vandalism in Boston harbor. But the rest of us moved on and drank coffee instead. Preferably Starbucks coffee (he said, still hoping against hope for a major endorsement deal).

When the UnParty wants to whip up its base, it’s going to have Kaffeklatsches instead. We’ll sit around, talk, drink coffee — no big whoop.

My message to the U.K. (and Ireland)

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Someone explained to me how to send Darcy Willson-Rymer, managing director of Starbucks in the U.K. & Ireland, a direct message on Twitter. So I will, in response to his kind note. But my pitch to him takes more than140 characters, so I’m going to post my message here, and use the Twitter message to bring him here.

A lot of trouble, but potentially worth it. It’s a cosa de bizaneese, as Sollozzo would say. Here’s the message:

Thanks for the kind word on my blog post!

But seriously, would you pass on my idea to someone in your marketing area? I truly think my blog (and possibly other blogs, but mine first) could be part of a great symbiotic relationship with Starbucks. Starbucks stores are full of people with laptops. Advertising on blogs seems a natural fit. And if those bloggers are blogging FROM Starbucks stores, you’ve got a great promotional information loop going.

I think it could work. And in case you’ve lost the link to my idea, here it is: https://bradwarthen.com/?p=1325

Hey, I’d even be glad to go blog from some of your stores in the UK (if my fare were paid). Ireland, too.

Here’s hoping someone at your end sees the potential I see,

-Brad Warthen

How was that? I’m rather new to making business pitches…

Progress in my bid to woo Starbucks?

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My effort the other day to prostrate myself in an appealing manner before Starbucks sort of bore fruit, in that I got this message via Twitter:

Loved the blog and thanks for the mention

That was from one Darcy Willson-Rymer, who is managing director of Starbucks in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Unfortunately, he didn’t opt to follow me on Twitter, so I couldn’t figure out how to message him back (if you know a way, tell me). I found what seemed to be a way to e-mail him indirectly (had to sign up for a service called “Spoke“), but so far no response.

Among other things, I told him in my message that if we could just get that sponsorship thing going, I’d love to hop across the pond and blog at some of his stores in London and Dublin. Hey, I’d even go to Slough if he’s got one there. As long as Starbucks is paying, of course.

You know, they’d go for my deal if only they knew how much I love Starbucks. I love Starbucks the way Winston Smith loved Big Brother. OK, that may not have come across the way I meant it, but I meant it in a good way. You see, I too love Big Brother, as many of y’all know…

Take me, Starbucks — I’m yours

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First, a confession: I really like Starbucks’ new ad campaign. When you Google it, you find a lot of people sneering at it. They find it pompous, overbearing, supercilious, and so forth. Everything that people who don’t like Starbucks don’t like about Starbucks comes into play.

But me, I love Starbucks. So when those ads — which I first saw in The New Yorker recently — say things like “If your coffee isn’t perfect, we’ll make it over. If it’s still not perfect, you must not be in a Starbucks,” I just think, that’s absolutely true. Other people think it’s obnoxious.

But as I said, I love Starbucks. There was a time when I was prepared not to. Back when I was not a coffee drinker, back when I avoided caffeine (and fell asleep a lot in meetings), I bought into the anti-Starbucks propaganda. When Starbucks replaced the Joyful Alternative in Five Points, I sneered along with all the others at the supreme irony of that venerable head shop (which, let’s face it, had since its early-70s heyday morphed into more of a boutique) with the perfectly symbolic name being displaced by this ultimate, soul-less cookie-cutter corporation that was trying to take over the world, yadda-yadda.

Of course, at the time, I had never been in a Starbucks, much less tried the coffee.

My conversion began in New York City in 2004. I was there to write about the Republican National Convention. National political conventions will wear you out if you’re a delegate, with delegation meetings, the plenary sessions, the parties, the sightseeing, the shopping, and more parties. No one ever gets a full night’s sleep at a convention. For journalists, it’s worse. You’re imbedded with a delegation, and you try to be there for everything they experience. Then, when they’re grabbing a nap, you write. You also branch out and check out newsworthy things that the delegates don’t do. Two-four hours sleep at night is about par.

There was a Starbucks near my hotel (of course; there’s one on practically every block in Manhattan), so I fell into the habit of grabbing a tall House Blend before I’d sit down to the laptop in my room. A House Blend with several Sugars in the Raw, because my palate had not yet adjusted to enjoying coffee in its own right.

As time wore on, I got more and more into it. Starbucks coffee is inextricably tied up with the early days of my first blog. One of my favorite early blog posts, headlined “The Caffeine Also Rises,” was — while not technically written in a Starbucks, but in a Barnes & Noble, was nevertheless written on Starbucks coffee, which B&N proudly serves — written on a coffee high. An excerpt:

This is blogging. This is the true blogging, el blogando verdadero, con afición, the kind a man wants if he is a man. The kind that Jake and Lady Brett might have done, if they’d had wi-fi hotspots in the Montparnasse.

What brings this on is that I am writing standing up, Hemingway-style, at the counter in a cafe. But there is nothing romantic about this, which the old man would appreciate. Sort of. This isn’t his kind of cafe. It’s not a cafe he could ever have dreamed of. It’s a Starbucks in the middle of a Barnes and Noble (sorry, Rhett, but I’m out of town today, and there’s no Happy Bookseller here). About the one good and true thing that can be said in favor of being in this place at this time is that there is basically no chance of running into Gertrude Stein here. Or Alice, either.

I’m standing because there are no electrical outlets near the tables, just here at the counter. And trying to sit on one of these high stools and type kills my shoulders. No, it’s not my wound from the Great War, just middle age….

In those early days, blogging and Starbucks coffee sort of went together like Kerouac’s continuous rolls of butcher paper and benzedrine. But in a good way…

Over time, I quit taking the sugar, because it got in the way of the wonderful taste of the coffee. House Blend. Komodo Dragon. Sidami. Gold Coast. Verona (my favorite). Even the ubiquitous Pike Place. They’re all wonderful.

But beyond that, there’s the Starbucks experience. Yeah, it’s all based in a conscious marketing strategy, but it’s a strategy based on good stuff that works. For me, anyway. First, there’s the smell, which immediately makes you glad you’re there, and makes everything else about the place more pleasant. Each Starbucks is both warm and cool, in all the positive senses of those words. The music is pleasant, and chosen with enough thought and originality to rise miles above the stuff you hear in most stores. Everything is nicer in a Starbucks. Women are more beautiful, for instance. No, I don’t think they are objectively more beautiful; they just seem that way. It probably all arises from the smell, but the rush after you get started on that first cup probably plays a role, too.

The whole thing just works. It works to an extent that if I were ever to endorse a product for money, the one I could endorse more wholeheartedly than almost any other would be Starbucks.

Hint, hint.

For a couple of years, I’ve had this idea, which I would pitch to someone at Starbucks if I knew how to get in touch with the right person. Basically, it would be to have Starbucks sponsor my blog. And in return for lots of free, gratuitous mentions of how wonderful Starbucks is, I would get a nice chunk of change and all the coffee I want.

I would spend a couple of hours a couple of times a week blogging live from different Starbucks stores, with my Webcam on. I could do impromptu interviews with the people who come and go (and at the Gervais St. store, there’s almost always someone newsworthy to chat with), and otherwise share the experience while blending blog and product. This I could do with no ethical qualms at all, because my love of the product would be completely unfeigned.

There are a couple of problems with this idea, I’ll admit. First, I’ve seen no sign that anything like this fits into the Starbucks marketing plan. Second, I have no idea how to find the right person to pitch it to.

So I’ll just post it here, and refer to it from Twitter. Starbucks is one of my followers on Twitter, so there is an extremely thin chance that it will get to the right person, and an even thinner one that said person will like it. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Why am I passively pitching this now? Because I’m about to try to start selling advertising on my blog. I don’t know how or whether that will work, or whether it will be worth the bother, but I thought I might as well give it a try. And Starbucks would sort of be my dream client.

But is not being a “yes man” a good thing or a bad thing, job-searchwise?

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Jack Van Loan, continuing to promote Steve Benjamin’s candidacy for mayor of Colatown, is hosting a serious of informal meetings with the candidate and folks Jack hopes will support him, or at least offer constructive feedback.

I was one of the guests for coffee this morning. As I’ve done with Vincent Sheheen and everyone else, I made it clear from the outset that I was just there to collect info, that I have NOT decided whom to support. I like Steve, but I also like Mayor Bob. They said fine, they understood.

Anyway, perhaps because of that statement on my part, but probably also based on knowing me over the years, Jack said something at the end of the meeting that got me to thinking about my own situation. I forget the exact context. I think he was saying he hoped Steve would get support among people who think for themselves. Anyway, here’s what he said:

This guy is the last guy in the world if you want a “yes man.”

He was indicating me when he said it.

I thanked him for the compliment — and coming from my friend Jack, I knew it was a compliment — but then I thought, Is it a good thing for people to think of me that way? Is it good, in particular, for prospective employers to think of me that way?

There’s no doubt that it’s accurate. It’s not that I’m not a team player — I am very much a team player, vigorously so, once I’ve made up my mind to be on the team. But I may take some persuading.

A couple of nights ago, I watched the Jim Carry vehicle “Yes Man” (which by the way was a lot better than I thought it was going to be). The idea was that a very negative guy resolved to start saying “Yes” to life, “Yes” in all circumstances, and it made him more open to life and happier — until it started to catch up with him.

I’m not a negative guy, certainly not the way the Carrey character was. But I do question, and challenge, and need to be persuaded if you want me on board. Once I am on board, I’ll be your fiercest ally. Under certain circumstances, I’m thinking that could be invaluable to the right employer. But do the employers themselves think so?

Where I’ve been, in less than 140 characters at a time

How do they get away with this?

As you know, I’m extremely allergic to milk and all products derived from it. Fortunately, I learned long ago not to believe products that claim to be non-dairy. But not everyone is hip to that.

And in this era in which — and I’m very grateful for this — allergens have to be clearly pointed out on food labels, I have to wonder how a product gets away with that claim, when the evidence to the contrary is so clearly laid out.

Check this container I picked up at a local restaurant today. It blithely claims, in all-cap letters, to be “NON-DAIRY CREAMER.” Then, in letters that an awful lot of people my age can’t read, it acknowledges that it contains “Sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative).” The image at right, by the way, is approximately the actual size.

Then, at the end, still in tiny letters (although now slightly boldfaced), it says “Contains: Milk.”

Duh.

So how does it get to say “NON-DAIRY CREAMER” in much bigger letters? How does either the government or the marketplace let it get away with that? There is no way, in any rational way of looking at things, that something that “Contains: Milk” is “NON-DAIRY.” No way at all. Total contradiction.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Little-noticed stimulus development

Yesterday, I stopped by the Starbucks on Gervais for some afternoon coffee. There are sometimes closer places to get coffee, but I’ll go out of my way to go to this one. In this case, I even walked several blocks in coat and tie in the 83-degree sunshine, which caused me to make a note to myself to tell Mayor Bob that there are portions of our city streets that could use more shade trees.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The reason I go there for coffee even if it’s slightly out of my way is that I always run into somebody I haven’t seen in a while, and frequently learn something interesting. In this case, I ran into Dick Harpootlian (shown above at the Stephen Colbert event back in October 2007). Dick, as you will recall, was last seen in the company of Dwight Drake filing the lawsuit for that high school girl about the stimulus. You know, the suit that was thrown out, but with wording that sort of provided a road map for how to make sure South Carolina gets the stimulus money in spite of He Who Must Not Be Named (I say that because some of y’all say I write critical things about him too often).

Anyway, Dick says that he had a hand in the resolution that the Senate passed Wednesday. Dick says merely passing the budget that spends the stimulus money wasn’t enough. He said this resolution was needed to actually request the money, going around the governor, thereby putting the governor in the position of having to sue to get his way, instead of the other way around.

Dick said he called his old buddy Jake Knotts — at which point he paused to let me say, Your old buddy who once threw you over a counter at the solicitor’s office, to which Dick says he merely TRIED to throw him over the counter. Actually, they are friends now, though. Anyway, Jake said Hold on, and put Glenn McConnell on the line. McConnell apparently liked the resolution idea, and then so did Hugh Leatherman, so it was quickly drawn up and passed by both Houses. The speed and ease with which that happened is sort of remarkable in itself.

Anyway, I nodded sagaciously through all this, but the fact is, I was thinking, “What resolution?” I had not heard or read about it. If it was in the paper, I missed it. I did find this reference to it at thestate.com:

SC Legislature approves stimulus resolution

The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina legislators have approved a resolution that might help them deal with legal challenges that could arise in forcing Gov. Mark Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus cash.

The House adopted the measure on a voice vote with no debate Thursday. The Senate had approved the measure Wednesday after sending Sanford a $5.6 billion budget that requires him to request the money.

The resolution says the Legislature accepts the money under provisions in the $787 billion federal stimulus legislation.

Legislators say the measure would help them defend taking the money if a lawsuit is filed.

I don’t know whether this development will prove significant as this unfolds or not, but I thought I’d mention it.

I spent everything I had for this hat

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Finding myself at the Surfside Pier this afternoon, and having forgotten to bring a hat (having the sun glaring down in the gap over my shades drives me nuts), it occurred to me that I had never, in all these years, bought a hat that said "Surfside Beach."

And "all these years" is a lot of years. My grandfather bought two lots down here in about 1957. He built a little cottage on one of them. In about 1968, he built a house on the other lot, which is on a freshwater lake about two blocks from the ocean. He sold the other one to a friend of the family, and the lady lived there for about the next 30 years. Then it was sold and torn down to make way for TWO houses of the tall, skinny, stilted variety that started cropping up around here about 15 years ago. Here's a coincidence for you — Tim Kelly has stayed in one of those houses, which are right across the street from the "new" house. Very small world.

Anyway, needing a hat, I spotted this beauty. I hope you like it, because it cost $8.99 plus tax (see the price tag still on it, my little tribute to Minnie Pearl), and I only had a sawbuck in my wallet.

In fact, I had to take $2 out of my wife's purse to buy coffee at this coffee shop so I could come post this. I didn't want the coffee, but you have to have cover. Speaking of cover, as I've mentioned before, this coffee shop is actually sort of a front. The real business is a commercial bakery in the back. Zoning rules required that it be a retail business, so they put in the coffee shop as a sort of retail fig leaf. A few minutes ago, the young counterwoman said she was leaving, but I didn't have to leave; I should just let the guy in the back know when I leave. Very casual. I'm glad I'm not keeping her, the way the old man did the waiter in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." She had enough on her mind because she was trying to keep tabs on a little boy out in front of the cafe, in the bright sunlight. She had to keep telling him to get out of the street. She had been sitting in the sun in front of the place when I arrived, and it was easier to keep track of the boy that way, so I felt bad that she had to come in on my account. I felt worse that she had to brew decaf for me. She said she didn't mind. But it occurs to me that she would have been perfectly happy if I had just come in to use the internet connection rather than insisting on buying something. Since the main business is in the back and all.

She's getting married soon, so I congratulated her.

By the way, I didn't really come in just to post this. I came in to get my column ready to post tomorrow. What, you think I don't have better things to do?

Stepping forward into the past: My cool new Moleskine notebook

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As you may have gathered, I'm a bit of a gadget guy. One of the reasons I blog is for the opportunities it gives me to mess around with cameras and PDAs and laptops and the various ways you can use them to produce text, sound, video, etc. This very night, in fact, I'll be trekking out to the Verizon store to get a Blackberry to replace the Treo I use for work. That Blackberry will be, as my Treo is now, a place for working with e-mail, my calendar, my contacts, as well as providing another browsing platform and a backup camera. Oh, yeah, and a phone (although I use the current one least for that).

But at the moment I am most enchanted with a piece of low-tech, retro equipment that my youngest daughter was so thoughtful as to give me for Christmas, ignoring my hint for a new insulated coffee travel mug. She gave me a Moleskine notebook — specifically, a Moleskine Reporter Ruled Notebook. You may have seen them in bookstores. They're advertised as the notebook of Hemingway and Picasso. In years past, I had thought of buying one (I was a great admirer of Hemingway in my youth, and he had something to do with my choice of career). But I couldn't justify the expense. After all, I get all the reporter's notebooks I need for free at work, right?

But I misunderestimated, to use a bit of Bushspeak, the magic of a really nice, classic, classy notebook in one's pocket. I just started carrying it yesterday, and it's already affecting how I work — for the better, I think. Since the notebook itself is special, it makes me think a little more carefully about what I choose to jot down. And it also makes me WANT to come up with stuff that's worthy to write in it. It's a motivator in the way a blank screen on a laptop or a PDA is not. It's like, I don't know, working on a painting or something — the sense that what I write here stays here, is permanent, has a life, and if this notebook is dug out of an old box in an attic by one of my great-grandchildren, they will read what I am writing today.

I find myself thinking I need to get a better pen to write in it with.

The book itself is esthetically appealing — you can see why Hemingway might have wanted to carry one around the Montparnasse or to the bullring or the front or whatever. It's a perfect size for the hand and the suitcoat pocket. It's black. The paper is of high quality. It has that cool, built-in elastic band to secure it with, giving a feeling of completeness and accomplishment when you finish a note and get ready to put it back in your pocket. Using it is just an appealing tactile, visual and interactive experience all around.

And it's making me more efficient, of all things. Y'all know how I tend to start my day with breakfast downtown, where I pore over The State and The Wall Street Journal and whatever I else I have time to look at over my coffee. Well, I get a lot of ideas while doing that, but too often, by the time I get back to the office, and have my morning meeting, and then start dealing with the e-mail that has to be read and the copy that has to be moved and talking with Robert about a cartoon and so forth and so on, next thing you know it's past lunch and my ideas of the morning are long forgotten.

This morning, I had a column idea for Sunday of the classic ephemeral sort that would be likely to evaporate long before I had time to start on it — bits and pieces from different stories I was reading in the paper. Wanting to hang onto the thread, I thought of sending myself some notes by e-mail on the Treo. But that is cumbersome at best, typing on that little thumb keyboard, and it lends itself only to the shortest of reminders. But then I remembered the notebook. So I sent myself an e-mail that simply said:

Hope springs, even in South Carolina politics

See Moleskin notebook

Then I opened my notebook and filled two pages with an outline for the column, an outline that would be just waiting for me to flesh out at my first opportunity (which, as it happens, did not arrive until mid-afternoon). Since I all too often don't write the first word of my Sunday column until midday Friday, this put me more than a day ahead on one of my must-do tasks of the week. Consequently, I might have a chance to write an extra column to run Tuesday (a page that has to be done this week because of the MLK holiday), one that occurred to me as I was doing the final editing on the Tuesday editorial (about the Obama inaugural).

A classic, simple black notebook. What an ingenious device for enhancing personal productivity. What will they think of next?

How is coffee affecting me? It’s none of your blasted BUSINESS, that’s how! So BACK OFF, Jack!

1 Reply

Recently, I’ve gotten a number of e-mail releases from a "Dr. Mike Magee," and in the split-second I spend deciding whether to delete an e-mail or save it to look at later, I had saved these, under the vague impression that they were from someone I actually knew, namely the erstwhile USC athletic director.

But noo-o-o-o-o! These messages are from some busybody stranger who’s asking me nosy questions such as:

The Coffee Fix
How is coffee affecting your life?

By Mike Magee, MD
Is coffee part of your daily routine? If it is, you are like millions of Americans, who start their day with a cup – or two or three – of coffee. But even if it’s part of your daily routine, it makes sense to stop and ask a few questions. How much do you know about your morning pick-me-up? Do you ever think about where it comes from or how it’s affecting your body?

First, he hammers on my conscience:

Most small farmers sell their coffee directly to middlemen exporters
who pay them below market price for their harvests and keep a high
percentage for themselves. This forces these farmers into a cycle of
poverty that keeps working conditions poor, wages low, and often
involves child labor. Coffee workers are usually paid the equivalent to
sweatshop wages and they toil under harsh conditions.

With all
of this in mind, we’re left with two major questions about coffee. One,
is it good or bad for your health? And two, what about the health and
well-being of the coffee farmers and workers around the world?

Then, just as I’m turning away, he lures me in with nice thoughts:

On question one, you might be shocked to find out that coffee is full
of antioxidants that dampen inflammation and are believed to be
positive and preventive when it comes to chronic diseases. Studies by
major journals have confirmed that coffee is a major contributor of
antioxidants in the diet of Americans.

But just as I’m thinking this guy might be OK, he hits me with this:

But there’s the caffeine to consider. Once it’s ingested, it’s rapidly
absorbed into the blood stream in 30 to 45 minutes, and takes 4 to 6
hours for most of it to be eliminated. At low to moderate doses it
increases well being, happiness, energy, alertness, and sociability –
but at higher doses it can cause adverse health effects.

Arrrghhh! Who do you think you are, you imperfect stranger? You can’t even spell McGee, and you’re lecturing to me about my coffee?!?!? Back off! Where’s the pot? I need just one fresh cup to calm me down and clarify my mind…

Product placement on TV ‘news’

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Don’t know what y’all think of this, but these must be some pretty unassertive "news" people who stand by while their station collects revenue for product placement, and they don’t even get any free coffee out of it!

What a raw deal:

Oooooooh, they’re calling out your name.
Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product placement (BUY!) to chase down your morning news.
They’ve been on the Las Vegas station set for about two weeks, following the lead of a few TV stations across the country, and they’re still looking every bit as frosty and tantalizing (BUY!) as they were the first day you laid your eyes on them.
But wait, here’s the best part: They’re not real. Fake coffee on the real news, two plastic cups permanently filled with some kind of bogus drink. The anchors aren’t even supposed to acknowledge them, McDonald’s reps explain. That’s part of their genius, my little lambs! They get into your mind without you knowing it. So they just sit there, two logo-emblazoned plastic cups, percolating into the psyche. Made-to-scale models that weigh something like seven pounds each — refreshing, and bottom-line boosting!…

By the way, if Starbucks would like to pay a bunch of money, and give give me lifetime free coffee, for ads on my blog, what’s stopping you? I mean, I’m drinking the stuff anyway.

Also, as you can see above and below, I can sometimes get my guests to play along…

Mcstarbucks2

Where will the Starbucks ax fall?

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The one thing I wanted to know in the news stories about the closing of 600 Starbucks locations is the one thing none of them could tell me: Which stores will close?

To a true aficionado, this is a matter of some import. Among those I hope will not close are the following:

Gervais Street — I went by this one this morning just to help out by buying a cup of the much-maligned Pike Place Roast. The Vista’s only location, its opening last year was long overdue. I suppose the cutbacks preclude the realization of my dream of another store opening nearby, only on the south side of the street — that one would have a drive-through window, and be well-positioned for those of us coming into town from Lexington County via 378. As things stand, the Gervais Street location is the only one conveniently located for folks coming in from West Columbia or Cayce, and therefore should be untouchable.
5 Points — Like the Vista, Five Points has to have at least one Starbucks, even though I’ve always slightly resented the fact that this one replaced the last incarnation of The Joyful Alternative.
White Station in Memphis — Located right next to the Southern railroad tracks, this is a sentimental favorite for two reasons. First, it was for years the only Starbucks convenient to my in-laws’ home in the Bluff City, and I made many a trek there in the early days of my addiction — I mean, infatuation. Second, it replaced a Pancho’s taco location where my wife worked with her friend Mary to earn the money for their backpacking trip across Europe the summer just before I met her. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard so much about it. And I ate a few tacos from there. I suppose I should resent that one replacing Pancho’s, just as I should resent the Joyful Alternative thing, but I don’t.
Kirby Parkway (Memphis) near the Bill Morris expressway — Just because I picked up two cups (a tall Pike Place for right away, and a travel mug of Sumatra for the road) on my way out of Memphis Monday. It’s near Mary’s house, where some of us stayed over the weekend.
Columbus Circle in Manhattan — Near a subway station I use pretty much every time I’m in New
York. Several of my kids and I used coffee from that location to warm us as we walked through Central Park on the super-cold (to me, anyway) day after Thanksgiving last year.
The coffee shops in Barnes & Noble — Yeah, I know these aren’t technically Starbucks locations (they don’t accept Starbucks coupons for that reason). But they do "proudly serve Starbucks coffee," and they loom large in my own Starbucks legend. That’s where it all started for me, as documented in the early days of my blog. Being ignorant of the way business works, I worry that somehow the Starbucks corporate woes might indirectly affect some deal that Barnes & Noble has with them. May it never happen, because Barnes & Noble bookstores are my favorite places to drink the coffee, while browsing (but seldom buying — you don’t have to tell the Barnes & Noble people that, though). My two favorite such locations? Harbison, and the one at exit 247 on I-81 in Harrisonburg, Va. — a great place to stop on the way to PA.

As for which ones they should close? I have a list, but I don’t wish to see anyone lose his or her job, so I’ll keep it to myself for now. Let’s just if something has to go, I suppose I could live without any that compete a bit too closely for customers with any of my favorite locations…

Save this woman’s life! Vote for McCain