July 7, 2000

IKEA: The Promised Land

    It is a dark and stormy noon, and the traffic is murder. You wish your arms and hands where big enough, strong enough, to crush the mini-van in front of you, as you wait to make your left hand turn.

    Even as you pull into the parking lot, a sense of dread fills your very soul, in a sea of cars you can not find a parking spot. What were you thinking.....





Is Coffee Good For You

   I am Jack's puzzled look. If you ask one person, you get one answer, ask another, another answer. Don't seem to be a whole lot of consensus about whether or not good old bean juice does the body good.

   On the one hand you have the experts that say it can cause heart conditions, it can make you nervous, it can implode your brain(not really). Mostly the negative shwing to this coffee thing.

    Then there's the flip side to the downside. We are talking a cure for what ails yah. We've got a preventative for liver disease. We've got prevention of heart disease and clogging of the arteries. We've got protection from bowel cancer.

   Gee. I guess it's alright to be a boozing, overweight, fat eating machine. As long as you include good old Joe in your diet. Hmmm. Im getting right on that. I saw a carton of whipping cream in the fridge. No use letting it go to waste. Besides, I need something to go with my Vodka and double-stuff Oreo's!

   I am Jack's learning ability. So what have we learned? Just about nothing. Seems that it's a good thing, and its a bad thing. Then again most things are. I'm thinking I have more important thing to do, then worry about weather or not 6 cups or coffee per day is going to increase my chance of heart disease by 10%. Besides, I'm not drinking 6 cups, but I AM drinking, now and forever. Amen.





Project Couch - The Manifesto

    You are not your job. You are not the contents of your cupboards. You are not Nescafe, you are not the drive through window. If all you want from your life is a vending machine burn in the back of your throat and an edge to get you through to five o clock, then stay off our fucking couch. But if you want more, if you want to hit the bottom of the cup, then sink down into a comfy cushion and listen.

    Do not leave your seats in their full and upright position. Get as horizontal as you can without swallowing your coffee the wrong way. You need to forget what you know about life, about friendship, and especially about coffee and cake.

    No couch, no coffee. You will not patronize an establishment that does not respect the clients need for a full coffee drinking experience. This is your life and it is ending one minute at a time. Why make those uncomfortable minutes, when there are so many couches to be had?

    This is not about the cup you have to wake you up or keep you going. This is about the best cup of joe you can find, nothing less will do. This is about finding a couch, and parking it there while you down several cups and perhaps partake in a slice of cake, if you can find one that's whole and worthy. You will search coffeehouse after coffeehouse til you find a place with a couch that cushions your work rattled bones. You will not sit in a hard chair to sip your coffee, that means discomfort and damnit, you as a worker bee must fly away from the hive and relax. This is not the coffee to keep you at your desk, this is not the cake that celebrates a co workers retirement. This is Coffee Club, do not fuck with us.



Food Court Maitre D' and the Spacemonkey in my Life

    I am Jill's eternal regret. Joel Bissonnette lived upstairs from me for a year and did I sleep with him? No! Not once!

    He occupied the apartment above mine on Baldwin Street years ago, and I am Jill's screaming remorse. Walking around the house in a pair of jeans and little else, with that hard body and exquisitely lickable cheekbones. And not only hot, but smart, and funny and well read. I am Jill's shameless cowardice.

    Ricky was a god for ten minutes when he trounced the maitre d' of a local food court. And Jill is a pathetic loser. I don't know what kind of coffee Joel drank, but I'm sure he had a great deal of it, he went out for it often enough with a veritable cornucopia of women as beautiful and intelligent as himself. I am Jill's burning jealousy.

    If you asked me now, I couldn't tell you why I didn't try harder to sleep with him. Intimidated by his fabulousness, his razor wit, his vast collection of books that not only had he read, but could speak about intelligibly?

    "You know how much ether we have in this fucking house?" No, Mr. Bissonnette. Do you know how much damp pantied girlish lust there is in this fucking house?

    If losing all hope is freedom, then I'm free as a bird, free as the wind. Because there's no hope in hell now that I will ever sleep with Joel Bissonnette. I am Jill's nipples, erect at the image of Joel in his housecoat, emerging from the shower. I am Jill's juvenile crush. I am Jill's fawning adoration of Joel Bissonnette, food court maitre d' and the spacemonkey in my life.




MrJ.C.P.- "So who would YOU have coffee with if you could have coffee with anyone?"
J.J.-"A celebrity? Dead or alive?"
MrJ.C.P.-"Makes no difference."
J.J.-"I want to say Gwen Stefani, cause she's hot. But I don't think she's very smart. No. I don't want to have coffee with her, I want to go shopping with her and have her pick out my clothes."
MrJ.C.P.-"Cause she has that fabulous fashion sense. No, she's probably not too bright. I heard her on some interview on the radio, and the DJ called her sweetie, and she was OK with it."
J.J.-"Drew Barrymore. She is hot."
MrJ.C.P.-"Yes indeed, very hot."
J.J.-"Not too bright though. She would probably order like a Non fat double latte with like whipped cream or something. Not like Courtney Love. She would probably drink the burned on bits at the bottom of the pot. Have them scrape it out for her."
MrJ.C.P.-"Nah, I bet she drinks tea."
J.J.- "Who, Courtney Love? Get the fuck out!"
MrJ.C.P.-"No really, she goes on stage and rocks out hard, and then probably goes home and has a nice hot cup of tea. I betcha any money."