FOR THE BROTHAS: CULTURE AND INTELLECTUALISM: THE DEATH OF "THE GREAT AMERICAN CONSUMER"

Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans

This evening I read an article about mass closings of Starbucks retail establishments around the country only to discover, (once I began to read further), that these stores were only temporarily closed for a few hours due to routine repairs and upgrades. What a bad tease; Tantamount to bad sex, and specifically a sexual expectation that never gets fulfilled or is poorly executed. I digress now reminded of a college professor who routinely and amusingly used his wife as a reference for everything bad and complicated in life. His stories were greatly amusing and he always led us to a place we never expected with a sudden turn of fate and a giggle at the end. At the outset of the article I was bracing myself for tidings of mass job losses, a story we have heard only too often over the past few years since the recent economic depression. Normally, I am amused by witty unexpected turns of plot within a story line but somehow this one did not impart that warm and fuzzy feeling to me, to be honest I was a bit annoyed… the only redeeming quality, and hardly any expiation for such a tired article, was that those hard working Starbucks employees would not be losing their jobs… Would that that article had got lost I sighed… Is there no standard for excellent writing anymore?

Like Teas, Coffee can be artfully handcrafted to suit taste

“HOW UTTERLY REDICULOUS,” I thought to myself. “What mindless, urban, consumer automatons would actually feign helplessness and disorientation when interviewed by the media about a temporary Starbucks closing? I began to see “The Great American Consumer” as a top-heavy, hyper-high-heeled, spoiled bimbo sporting a new pair of 10X Boobs requiring personal assistants to hold them, and consequently her up!

A French Sidewalk Cafe at night

What in hell is the big deal about this product, outside of the sugar and caffeine addiction, that has made it one of America’s lusts of choice second only perhaps to pornography? OK, that may have been a bit too harsh a suggestion and one that I admit literally came out of my head and is not documented by any credible, empirical research of which I am aware… But in my frustrated state it sounded really good and still sounds damned good even now… It’s also a pretty good attention grabber to compare anything to the GDP that something like pornography or alcohol sales represents in America even if the statistical relationship is purely imaginary.

Roasting Properties of the Arabica Bean

Coffee Roaster

To us coffee connoisseurs, the two week shelf life of a freshly roasted bag of Arabica beans, (coffee beans) is sacrosanct! The beans begin to mold and the essential oils evaporate after two weeks so the Damned things, not having been consumed, need to be chucked! Goodness or Badness knows, (depending on what kind of day you are having), how long Starbucks coffee lives out its mediocre-tasting bean life in a vacuum packed retail animation of imagined freshness before finally being dispensed into the disposable and biodegradable coffee cups or ceramic, metallic and plastic coffee mugs of America! The moral of this story America is to throw those rotten stale beans out after two weeks! Reading about customer reactions to this temporary nightmare which ranged from helplessness to fear and disorientation was scary on an Alfred Hitchcock level! If consumers lose their minds about a Starbucks closing of only a couple hours why are they not storming the U.S. Capitol about many of the serious problems congress is not dealing with in Washington D.C.? O’ did I digress… Well then gentlemen, let us discuss this over a cup of amazing and fresh roasted coffee and waiter! “Will you please bring me a lemon zest for my espresso? Thank you so very much garcon, Starbucks does not have lemon zest and they also hide the poorly crafted foam-head of their cappuccino under a plastic cup lid; Yes quite uncivilized I agree”!

A proper Cappuchino shold have a foam head at least 1 inch above the top of the vessel this is achieved by spooning the foam in, adding toppings and allowing the foam to sit for at least 30 seconds before pouring the steamed milk in at the middle causing the foam to rise.

I understand how the media is hard pressed to exalt the products of its benefactors and patrons, corporate America but Geesh fellas! Helpless? Scared? What do you take us consumers for anyway? I was just putting the DVD for Casino Royale away and remembered the Café scene in Montenegro when 007 his lovely accountant and local contact enjoyed coffee at a picturesque café near The Casino Royale and I did not see a Starbucks anywhere in the vista. Has the media, especially the advertising media, completely lost its respect for “The Great American Consumer”? Have we been reduced to mere spending units? Did we not have other choices outside of Starbucks? In the great and apparently forgotten tradition of free market capitalism, a tradition I have come to miss, this seems like an excellent opportunity to explore other retail establishments, mom and pops cafes and retail eating establishments who not only sell all manner of wonderful coffee products but probably greatly exceed Starbucks in quality and freshness and variety, not to mention ambience… What a missed opportunity for the media to suggest that consumers broaden their breakfast blend horizons while the McDonalds of the drip coffee hustle gets its act together; I mean, I’m just saying fellas!

A lemon zest mellows the expresso

A proper expresso is always served with a lemon zest

Now I don’t hate Starbucks, it’s not really that bad a place and my intent, (believe it or not) is not to denigrate it at all, rather to suggest that in its enthusiasm and zeal to promote a wealthy benefactor, the media wined and dined the American consumer with promises of sublime sex but delivered only a lame corpse lying coldly and repulsively in the missionary position; fortunately the brothel was closed and I moved on to other prospects poetically speaking that is… the sales pitch never intoxicated me as I knew the nature of the sale but stopped to holler, “Consumer Beware”!

A coffee roaster

If Starbucks had freshly roasted coffee daily and imported, exotic teas fresh from their points of origin then, perhaps its disenfranchisement of the many lovely small bistros, cafes, bakeries and restaurants who specialize in the art of coffee and its allied complementary provisions could be somewhat justified. As a coffee and tea lover I don’t want to have an identical, predictable coffee experience every time… its sort of like predictable sex, and who falls in love with that? Answer: Americans? Hopefully those people who visited the 10% to 20% of stores that closed that morning found alternative venues in an experiment that could aptly be called, “A DAY WITHOUT STARBUCKS” and I must also hope that they were fortunate enough to discover a truly extraordinary coffee experience transcending them from the coffee equivalent of “routine, predictable sex”.

A French sidewalk Cafe

So I happily deleted the article from my browser remembering a meeting at Starbucks earlier in the evening. As I remember I mentioned that I needed a pound of coffee and that I was going to visit a wonderful café uptown that roasted its beans fresh daily for a mixture of 20% Sumatra and 80% Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, my specially engineered blend. But I lamented what I recognized as the end of the era of “The Great American Consumer”; a much romanticized era of Americans who were savvy, informed, intelligent and discriminating consumers used to the very highest quality our economy could provide. Where did they go? Is this the result of the decline of the art of the impeccable host and hostess? This reminded me of a conversation which I casually eavesdropped a few years ago between two foreigners who were merchants visiting America, they said, “O I buy this junk to sell to the Americans visiting my country, you know they will by anything.” As I reflected on my shamefully mediocre cup of Starbucks coffee sipped almost at unawares whilst focused on my conversation I realized they were right, Americans will buy anything… and everything we are told to buy…