We Are One Years Old
My how time flies, it seems like only yesterday that we where sitting on a couch having
our third cup of joe, and chatting about Fight Club. What a fabo movie that was, and an inspiration for our web
site. With our caffeine poisoned brains we decided it would be a great idea to put up a web site, that or maybe
beat each other up.
Our first issue went online June 30, 2000 and we've never looked back. It was tough going
there for a while, scheduling weekly coffee outings and writing about them. We thought it prudent to switch to
bi-weekly, which worked out great. We also thought it wise to expand our content, with more weekly content, and
special Coffee Club extras.
So here we are 365 days later, with a regular readership and new readers every month.
Hopefully some of them will continue to read, and maybe even contribute with should be very cool. For the
second year, we will try our best to expand even more. More articles, more reviews, more zany off the wall
blah blah blah, just the way you like it.
Now I'd like to put things into perspective. Let's take a look at how the year has
gone by, and not just in days. Let's put Coffee Club to some alternative measurements, and see just how
much work and love really goes into a years worth of Coffee Club Online.
Our year can be measured with:
- 31 issues of Coffee Club Online
- more then 34 coffee shops reviewed(includes extra articles)
- 600-800 cups of coffee just for Jack
- 32 rich creamy desserts split with Jill
- 10 pound weight gain(might not be coffee related)
- 1600KM(about 960miles) driven just for coffee
- 120hours having coffee wit jill
- estimated $400 spent on coffee and dessert
There you go, Coffee Club Online does measure up, well at least we would like to think it does.
Here's to a fabulous second year and more coffee to come. We hope you can take a moment out of your day to
join us. Be seeing yah
|
Don't look...
|
Hello, good reader, and let me salute your rock-hard staying power.
Why, you ask? The illustrious Cakey Pants Jack
(no relation) mentioned to me that
this is the one-year anniversary issue of Coffee Club Online.
Hmmm... I am fresh out of rats' asses, but I do marvel at the fact that
this thing is still going on, that it's actually not completely lamed
out yet, and that our readership is growing at the incredible rate of
three hundred people (projected, per decade).
Anyway, it's best to heed the wise words of 1970's power-pop heroes,
Boston, with regards to the first year of
Coffee Club Online: "Don't Look Back".
But in the spirit of retrospection, here are a few random reminiscences from
my memoirs which, I think, are far more interesting than the detectable
differences in comparing an extra four seconds of roasting coffee beans
in a Sunbeam air-popcorn maker to a Black and Decker one
and other such insipid minutia. Or, maybe not. What the fuck do I care?
Strap yourself in: the events you are about to read are all true...
Two men are on opposite sides of the Earth. One is walking on a tightrope.
The other is getting a blow job from a 90-year old, toothy French prostitute.
Both get the exact same thought at the exact same time. What is it?
"Don't look down."
A long, long time ago, when I was a nerdy, knobby little ten year old boy,
I was dragged along on painfully wearisome family trips to the parental units'
homeland, brotherless and alone, sitting through day after dreadful day of inane
familial gibble-gabble at ten-foot tables in local restaurants. Fancy thoughts
fluttered fast through my mind: 'How quickly could I kill everybody in the
restaurant with this butter knife?' or 'Those sailors look friendly! I wonder if
I could run away and join them in a life of adventure at sea?' I just this week
was told about the role of the Peg-Boy on sailing ships. I owe my
still-pretty little pink 'n' puckery butthole to coffee. That's right. Just as I was
contemplating excusing myself to go to the washroom in that seaside restaurant
long ago and escaping through the window to a new life surrounded by seamen,
my Uncle Zé - seeing I was obviously bored and near homicidal - says to the
waiter "bring the boy a latté". (He didn't actually say "latté", but ordered some
kind of concoction that contained espresso and frothy, sugary milk.)
Now, I thought coffee was a filthy, disgusting drink that adults had, and I wanted
nothing to do with it. When it came to the table, I winced and thought to myself:
"Don't look down." Then, the sublime incense of
the bitter bean wafted its way up my nose and nestled way back in my
brain stem. It was the most amazing thing I've ever tasted: sweet yet bitter,
warm yet refreshing. And it gave my tiny fifty pound body the buzz of its fucking
life. I drank that cup and then another and truly found something to live for.
Before he got sick and became a drunken psychopath who beat his family
and was later killed by his wife in self defense, my Uncle Zé was the coolest
man in the world, and was the most important male role model in my life.
He used to tell me, in perfect English: "At school with the girls, always go
for between the legs!" (I still don't know what that means.) He used to eat
live birds that he caught in his garden. He fed a ten year old boy espresso.
On my last trip to the homeland overseas, I was fifteen, still awkward and geeky,
and still hating everything. Except the coffee. Now, when we went to restaurants,
I would drink about four double espressos, black, no sugar. My mother hated it
and thought I was senseless. I loved it and thought I could see through time.
I hated school. I hated the awkward non-fitting-in that I did a lot of. I hated
jerky guys who pounded the crap outta me. I love that they're all likely
either miserable, minivan-driving average-familied white-collar shmucks or
lame-ass pot-head mullets (still). But even though school sucked, I liked going
alright because I had great friends whut did a lot of stupid, funny shit together.
One time in tenth grade, during lunch at the local Dixie Lee Fried Chicken
place where we were regulars, the meat-delivery guy gave us a cow testicle.
Yeah, that's right. After the stun and the amusement wore off over the fact that
there was a fucking cow testicle on the table, we immediately left to go
throw it on the street into traffic - where that same delivery guy's truck ran
over it, no less - and with a loud POP! that thing burst open and stuff
shot out about thirty feet! No fucking kidding. As we crossed that street to
go back to school, I kept thinking, "Don't look down."
In high school, we'd all meet up at the local donut shop, then called
Tasty Treats. It was run by this cheap bastard of a tyrant known only
as Mister Singh. He would kick us out if we weren't drinking enough coffee or
buying enough donuts. Once, the Caffiend dropped & broke a coffee cup by
accident. We'd just come back from record shopping, and Mister Singh grabbed
our records (featuring a rare and minty copy Mike Oldfield's
Airborne - yeah, we're geeks. What of it, Jerky?) as "collateral"
for the broken cup. I think we told a cop about it who made him give it back to us.
Nyah. I hung out with The Caffiend and another couple of friends of ours
who had strange and wonderful sounding names like Liquid Len and Garner.
We drank lots of coffee and smoked lots of things and talked forever about
important shit like music and movies. Liquid Len was amazing: he would pour
sugar in his coffee like he was milking his cereal.
Easily half a dozen spoonfuls. He'd get all strung out and hyper and it was
wonderful. He never had cigarettes. The Caffiend and I would let him get all
hopped up on the sugary coffee and tease him by refusing to give him a smoke.
The first few times he'd ask, he'd be all cool about it when we said no. Then he
would sulk quietly for about a minute and suddenly snap and scream
"gimmeafuckinsmoke!" We'd give him a cigarette, and I almost strangled on
my coffee every time from laughing. But he got a smoke every time so more
fools, us, I guess. Garner wrapped his entire hand around his lower face when
he smoked. He drank his coffee black, and I thought that was cool. Not because
it was black, but because you could get an extra sip of coffee on account of the
fact that the cup could be filled up more with the volume normally occupied by the
non-coffee stuff. Money's tight when you're a slack-ass teenager; every sip counts.
So this would be where I might get all sentimental and say that all these coffees
maybe weren't the tastiest I've had, but were the ones I enjoyed the most.
I might even say that getting to write about them in a fine publication such as this
one is a ton of fun. Well, maybe. But the reality of things is that I'm rather happier
now being a social misfit, am drinking WAY better coffee, still have the best
coffee-pals in the world after twenty years later and don't have to deal with school,
bullies and living at home. Everything's coming up fucking roses, baby! The only
thing I miss is my svelte little rocker-boy body I had in those days. When I think
about my presently furry, round pot-belly - borne from many years of reckless
eating and beering along with the recent discovery of adding 18% cream to my
coffee - the only thing I can say to myself is, "Don't look down."
Write the lovable Edward Pants, Esq.
" Looking back on when I was a little, nappy-headed boy... "
|
Coffee Wishes and Custard Dreams
Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy
birthday to us. Yessirree, my naughty little monkeys, it's been exactly one year since Jack and Jill, and
the esteemed Bitter Bean have been bringing you faithful and honest reviews of each and every café that we
have the pleasure of visiting in this fair city of ours.
One whole year. Gosh. Jill's rarely had a relationship last so long. Sniff. When I
think of all the long afternoons whiled away slurping primo joe on a cushy couch jabbering and babbling to
Cakey Pants Jack when I could have been working, well it just brings a tear to my eye. How much more sublime
it is, to couch surf with a cup of coffee in hand, then it is to be fenced into a cubicle, staring slack jawed
at a screen, while third rate vending machine coffee slowly makes its way down the barrel of a styrofoam cup. Ahh.
This week, when you make the time you so richly deserve to set your ass down on a comfy
chair in your local café, order an extra large slab of Death by Chocolate. Have a large instead of a medium.
Try 18% cream instead of the usual non fat skim milk you spike your joe with. Or do it black, just for kicks.
But when you slide that first fork-full of cake into your mouth, and follow it with a hot swig of gourmet coffee,
think of us. Think of the Coffee Club. And by god, make us proud.
|
|
 |
This Weeks Articles:
Coffee Musings
The Bitter Bean
Have Your Cake
|
 |
Danforth Retrospective
We saw, we drank it and ate it too. The cafes of the Danforth and top 5 lists too!
Jill has bravely volunteered to wade through the sea of rags to
select for you, her sweetest monkeys, those magazines worth wasting an eye flicker upon.
We'd like to extend an invitation to anyone for coffee inspired writings. If you are
interested, and would like to contribute some of your rantings and ravings, please send it in.
Send to:
jack@
coffeeclubonline.com
|
|
 |
|
