Fuck Starbucks

Anyone who reads my bullshit with any sort of regularity knows that I go to Starbucks. Not, like, every once in awhile. I mean I really GO there. Like twice a day if not more. I have, for years, been an unapologetic patron of the Starbucks Corporation, for a number of reasons: being anti the antis, proximity, ease of operation to name a few. First and foremost however, was the fact that by going to Starbucks I always knew exactly what I was gonna get. It was (fairly) cheap, and the Starbucks in Downtown Chico was essentially the same as the Starbucks in the Austin, Texas airport or on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, Kansas. Moreover, the employees of Starbucks are trained to be deferentially welcoming and personable in the extreme, which can be creepy, but also nice when you walk in and get your drink without ever saying a word. This employee training, as well as the comfortable, homey decor of most Starbucks locations are part of a marketing technique used by the company that attempts to brand Starbucks your "Third Place," after home and work, in which you feel most in your element. As contrived as this marketing scheme may seem, it certainly worked on me, as I found myself spending an inordinate amount of both time and money at the Downtown Chico Starbucks location.

Over the years, I'd cycled through a few different drinks of choice at my "Third Place," from coffee, to white mochas, to non-fat lattes when I started packing on the lbs, finally settling on the Americano, which is just espresso with hot water in it, like coffee only a little bit smoother. Of course, a nice piping hot Americano is all well and good in the winter time, but as the weather starts to turn hot, switching it up to iced is a must. But something just seemed wrong with getting espresso shots on ice, then pouring water over it. After all, all that ice is just water waiting to happen. So instead of getting an venti (which in Starbucks parlance is a "large") iced Americano, I just started ordering three shots over ice in a venti cup. Makes sense, yeah? I certainly thought so. The manager at the Downtown Starbucks however didn't seem to thrilled, however, with the fact that by buying three shots on ice, for $2.15, then adding my own milk from the condiment bar, I was essentially getting a Venti Iced Latte, which runs a dollar and change more. But it's not my fault that their menu has an obvious flaw, right? And besides, the profit margin on three shots of espresso in a cup with a little ice and a few ounces of milk is still probably nothing to laugh at, especially for a place with signs hanging all over the place saying things like "Your drink should be perfect every time" and that if anything was wrong with your drink, or you just didn't like it, you should have the barista remake it. If they were willing to eat the price of an entire drink just because some old lady thought it was too sweet, you'd think that someone buying a drink off of the menu, and paying full price, every single damn day of the year would be kosher, even if there existed the potential of bleeding one more dollar out of said customer. After all, this was my "Third Place."

Apparenty, times are tough in Starbucksville. After all, they only did $2.53 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2008, which only translated to $108 million or so profit. Sure that might sound like a lot to most people, but to Mr. Starbuck, in his penthouse office, $108 million doesn't even pay the phone bill. Maybe he was monitoring the closed-circuit cameras at the Downtown Starbucks this last week, because suddenly, instead of serving me my daily drink with a forced smile, knowing that there was a dollar lost but two gained, the manager of the Downtown Starbucks decided to finally call me out as the milk thief I am. "You're stealing," she said, as she lambasted me in front of a gathered assembly of morning coffee drinkers. I practically came in my pants out of pure shock. The old timer working the register seemed equally bewildered, as the process of trained pleasantries and customer-always-being-right attitude that had been drilled into his head in employee training was suddenly flying out of the window in the face of literally tens of cents worth of "stolen" milk. "Are you serious?" I asked, incredulous. "You're stealing," she repeated, demanding that I not only pay the extra $1.60 for my splash of non-fat milk, but in the process, acknowledge that my frugality was in fact criminal and I should be ashamed of myself. And maybe I should be. But guess what? I'm not.

Long story short, I feel like the dude whose friends all told him the girl was a whore, but he kept dating her anyway, until she gave him Syphilis and he died. Starbucks gave me emotional Syphilis and it's my own damn fault. If you go to Starbucks, stop. If you don't go there, don't ever start going there, unless you have to take a shit some time, then you should definitely go there. If you work there, quit. If you don't work there, don't ever apply. If you're the landlord of Downtown Starbucks, raise the rent immediately. If you're reading this, Mr. Starbuck, here's a drink for you: one-pump White Mocha straight from the bottom of my balls, extra hot, extra whipped. If you're good maybe I'll even throw in an extra shot.

Life Sucks Die

How's this for cynicism? The Wall Street Journal last week advised savvy investors to stock up on food. Yeah, as in the kind you eat. Cans of Tuna, bags of rice, basically the sorts of long-term, non-perishable food items that any Yankee Hill militia-man or God-fearing Millennialist would have in his stockpile. But the WSJ wasn't warning of any sort of forthcoming apocalypse, I mean if you don't count the food riots that are already happening overseas that could very well start happening here in the near future if food prices keep skyrocketing they way they have. Rather, they were advising that this very skyrocketing in food prices has made food a better short-term investment choice than putting your money in the bank. " If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax," says the story. "Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%." Anyone else getting hungry?

The only real problem with all that, besides the fact that its utterly and completely fucking stupid, is that, not really a lot of people seem to have any sort of short-term cash sitting around these days. I mean, food ain't the only fundamental living cost that's getting expensive. Beer, pussy, gasoline, drugs, everything seems to be inflating these days. Maybe it'd be easier to try to list the things that are getting less expensive. How about houses! Houses are dropping in value left and right. Hell a house that cost $400,000 two years ago can be had for $280,000 today. That kind of rules I guess, unless you're the person who owns that house, and probably still owes $385,000 on it. And besides, even if the house itself costs less , unless you have a few hundred large sitting around your house, getting a loan is definitely getting more expensive, thanks to all the lopdicks who bought 4-bedroom villas with granite counters and swimming pools with interest only mortgages thinking they were gonna make a killing when prices went up another 200%. Instead, they fucked the entire US economy, accelerating the demise of the dollar as the worldwide currency standard, and ending the post-Cold War pseudo-hegemony enjoyed by the good old US of A. Thanks guys!

Not like it matters, though, really. After all the world's gonna end soon enough anyway. Four years, to be exact. You see 2012 is the end of the current Procession of the Equinoxes. Plato called this the Great Year. Astrologers call it an age, as in the Age of Aquarius, which coincidentally is the age in which we will be proceeding into (we're currently in the Age of Pisces. Whatever you call it, 2012 marks the end of it, and also of the earth. You don't believe me? Ask the Mayans, man! They called that shit WAY back in the day. Like back when post-Roman White Europe were to busy dying of the plague to read, write, bathe or really do much of anything. Don't trust them, ask the Hopi Indians, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, the Sumerians, all sorts of people knew what was up with 2012, but we're just now starting to figure it out. I mean, sure, people said the same thing about 2000. But that was just too obvious! 2012 sounds way more believable. And if it makes you feel any better, the end of the world isn't as bad as it used to be. Once upon a time, the "end of the world" was all about hellfire and pain and death and disintegrating into nothingness, but these days, the end of the world is almost a good thing: a paradigm shift into a more utopian state, or at least something other than what we've got now. I don't know about you but I'm ready for a change. Maybe the next world will have some cheaper gas.

Fuck Life

It's finally official! I'm no longer just plain old fat, but I'm actually obese, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A person is considered obese when there body mass index, or BMI, is above 30. At 5'9" and 219 pounds, my BMI is 32.3, placing me squarely into the "obese" category. But hey, on the bright side, at least I'm not 'morbidly obese', which is the distinct honor bestowed upon anyone with a BMI of over 40. Give me a couple years though, and maybe I can get there.

Thankfully, I'm a guy so I don't really have to worry all that much about looking like a fatass. I mean, look at Buddha, that dude's BMI was probably like 50 and he still stacked fame. And even at 219, I'm still not as fat as I was in my days anchoring the O-line for the 1997 Willows Honkers high school football squad, which was ULTIMATE fame. Besides, by present standards, if you're a guy over 20 and you can still look down and see your own dick you're doing pretty good, especially if, like me, you're not exactly John Holmes (though if you are packing some Holmes-esque heat, you could probably weigh 500 lbs and still wreck as much P as you wanted).

The problem, however, is that as comfortable as I am with looking like a fat piece of shit, being obese does carry with it a plethora of health related consequences. Just this week, in fact, a new study was released showing that individuals with an excess of visceral fat, the technical term for people with big ass beer guts, significantly raise their odds of developing dementia or Alzheimer's later in life. One could argue, of course, that perhaps Alzheimer's is the ultimate form of Zen (thus explaining the obese nature of the Buddha) but I would hope that Nirvana doesn't involve adult diapers and bed restraints. And even if it was, you still have to live long enough to see it, which is hard when you're suffering the other ill effects of obesity, which is basically every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person: heart failure, diabetes, cancer, depression, erectile dysfunction, stroke, carpal tunnel syndrome, infertility, gout, arthritis, sleep apnea, asthma, and so on into infinity. It seem like the only thing worse for your health than being obese is being dead.

Thus, I am going to join the rest of America in the ultimate cliche middle-age pursuit: losing weight. In order to get myself into the healthy range of BMI, I need to lose about 50 pounds. I could accomplish this by meticulously crafting a diet regimen, following it diligently and adding in ample amounts of exercise and rest, while cutting out booze and caffeine and all those tight-gripping vices in my life. But that shit would suck. So instead I'm looking to do it the modern way, by acquiring myself an eating disorder. Anorexia is passe. Bulimia is too much work. But there's a new disorder making the rounds these days, one specifically catered to my lifestyle: drunkorexia. Drunkorexics replace food in their diet with booze, which besides just making them the funnest people to be around EVAR, also usually helps them stay trim, with all the puking, running from the guy you just tried to start a fight with, getting put in jail, etc. Genius! Ever better, recent studies have shown that moderate intake of alcohol actually helps prevent Alzheimer's, and if a little helps, I'm sure a lot is even better! My future is looking brighter already.

On Second Thought: The only thing better than eating a huge meal, or going out and getting drunk, is doing both at the same time, or at least in rapid succession. Fuck it. I don't care if I end up a fat, old, demented, cancer stricken, infertile, impotent, sleepless diabetic, I'm still walking down, this very goddamn minute, getting a burrito, with extra cheese, and a 40 of Bud Light beer and celebrating the real essence of American Zen: mindful acceptance of the present moment, free of judgment, full of beer.

Fuck You

It goes without saying that Americans, by and large, are an extremely greedy, selfish and fortunate to the point of being spoiled, people. And though the lion's share of the American largesse is concentrated in the notorious "top 1%", the remaining majority of Americans are still living pretty high on the hog. But don't try to tell them that. Middle class Americans might as well be caste Hindu untouchables for the amount of bitching and woe-is-me-ing being done any time gas prices go up a few cents, or their taxes get raised a quarter of a percentage point. Despite the fact that the level of consumption presently practiced by Americans - even those considered 'poor' by whatever arbitrary standard is in use at the time - is far and beyond any sort of realistically sustainable level, whenever a crack starts to show in the facade of neverending supply meticulously constructed to meet our neverending demand, American's react with an uproar that would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. While billions of people elsewhere in the world are watching the price of grain and wondering if they will be able to afford bread next week, Americans are bemoaning the fact that cigarettes cost a quarter more a pack than they did last year. While many around the world worry about the cost of heating oil, hoping that they can continue to stave off the winter cold for a few more months, Americans are worried about the cost of jet fuel, up in arms over the fact that a cross-country flight costs $20 more this year than it did last year, what with the impending recession and all. And they don't even serve you an in-flight meal anymore.

You can read in the newspaper every day, the tragic tales of the economic dire straits faced by everyday Americans in the wake of the recent subprime mortgage debacle. Foreclosures are running at historic highs. People are being thrown out into the streets. However most of these people are folks who bought homes well-out of their realistic price range by way of ill-advised multiple or adjustable-rate mortgages. Instead of settling for less they did things the American way: spending until you don't have any more, borrowing, spending some more, then borrowing some more, rinsing and repeating until your finances are in a nice foamy lather. Sorry about their luck. Of course this process serves as a nice little microcosm of American consumerism as a whole, in that it only works for so long. Traditionally this period was only as long as it took for your creditors to figure out you were a no good motherfucker and call in your debts. But lately, its been extended. Creditors just pass the borrowing up the ladder, selling debt like a real, tangible product. Debt somehow became a commodity, and not just any commodity, but one that you could make a mint on. Selling debt is like selling a thought, only more speculative. Yet there were plenty of huge financial companies, some of the bedrocks of American financial markets, who battled for the right to buy it. And thus irresponsibility once contained to individual greedy Americans got slowly transferred to greedy American companies, who had, of course, always been greedy, but never in such a blindly irresponsible way. These banks and financial institutions became like bears, too lazy to forage, instead seeking out dumpsters and trash cans for an easy meal. But bears who do this too many times, of course, get shot. And thus is the story of....(DRUMROLL) Bear Stearns, formerly one of America, nay the world's, largest investment banks, who like many of its peers got caught up in the subprime feeding frenzy and ended up paying the same price as the individual "victims" of the mortgage crisis, namely: everything. On the verge of bankruptcy last week, Bear Stearns was bailed out by the federal government, who backed a sale of the company to rival JP Morgan, only after the company's value had contracted from some $10 billion to $236 million over the span of one weekend.

Like the individual tales of woe, the stories printed by the mainstream media in the wake of the Bear Stearns debacle were stunningly indicative of the deeply entrenched sense of entitlement that forms the basis of modern day America. One such story, in the San Francisco Chronicle attempted to show the utter devastation wreaked upon Bear Stearn employees by this sudden failure. "James Cayne, the firm’s chairman and former chief executive, holding on to his Bear stock was a point of pride, and he rarely, if ever, sold," said the story A billionaire just over a year ago when Bear’s stock soared past $160, his 5.8 million shares are now worth about $28 million." Only $28 million dollars?? How is he supposed to LIVE!!!! HOW WILL HIS KIDS EAT!?????? The lesser employees of the company found themselves in even more dire straights. "'My life has been flushed down the drain,' said one person. There was talk Monday that with their life savings nearly depleted, some executives had moved quickly, putting their weekend homes on the market." Oh man. Selling the weekend home? Might as well get out the revolver and just end it all. America: when things get bad, sell your weekend home.

On Fucking Broadway

Jaywalking is Serious Business: Crossing Broadway at the corner of 3rd the other day, I began walking across the empty street, not a car for a block in either direction, just a few seconds before the light changed from red to green. Unfortunately, an eagle-eyed officer of the law had witnessed this incredible act of daring lawlessness and took the time to give me a stern warning. I would've thanked him for keeping such a tight ship, had I not been so busy stepping over sleeping homeless dudes in feces-washed jeans, hurrying past aggressive panhandlers, trying to avoid eye contact with the various resident schizos, all while attempting to keep out of the way of kids on skateboards hurtling down the sidewalk. I guess the only laws that apply in Downtown Chico are those that involve Jaywalking, Parking and Drinking Holidays. Need somewhere to sleep or take a shit? Pick a door! Any door! But don't EVER try to park in front of that same business for more than 2 hours!!!!!11 EVAR!

Shelter for Homeless and Runaway Youth: Right up the street from where I work, over on 6th and Broadway is the newly opened Drop-In Center for Homeless and Runaway Youth, where teenagers, and young adults up to the age of 24 can come, watch TV and take a shower, check their e-mail and eat some food from noon to 8 PM, before heading back out to do whatever it is teenagers and young adults who are homeless and runaway youths do after dark. I look in the window on the way to work and see dudes not much younger than myself, lounging on the couch, watching a TV, one of those nice new ones, with the crisp colors and sharp picture. It makes me wonder if maybe I'm the one who's fucking up? Spending my entire day chasing down enough money to pay the rent, pay the cable bills, pay the power, when I could just be kicking it on the couch, eating some shit, watching Spongebob? Granted, I'm sure its not exactly the fucking Hilton over there, but hey, you can't beat the price.

Dogs: After the first couple of times I had to start walking on the other side of the street, because there's always a bunch of dogs and tough looking kids outside, and I already have enough shit to deal with. Last thing I need is a fucking dog biting at my ankles or another shithead eye fucking me. But this didn't make my daily moments of self-doubt any less. It just makes me feel like more of a failure. You see, I'd love to have a dog, but I really can't afford it, what with the shots, the food, not to mention the fact that it'd be too hard to cram a dog into the townhouse I share with 3 other people. I guess thats the advantage of not having a house: you don't have to worry about fitting a dog in it. And as far as shots go, I guess if you can't afford it, you don't have to worry about it. Maybe it's like BIggie said: Mo' money, mo' problems. Maybe I should just say fuck it, right here, right now; give away all my shit, move out of my house, get myself a dog and start spending my days at the 6th St. Drop-In Center, and my nights taking part in the epic brawls going down in the Park Plaza lately. Sounds like some adventurous shit. I could be the William T. Vollman of Chico.

Brawls: It bears noting that the aforementioned fisticuffs in the Downtown Park Plaza, which according to an unnamed source who witnessed them on consecutive nights a week or so back, ultimately drew (and only after some time had transpired) a lone police cruiser, who upon skronking his siren and scattering the combatants, surveyed the area and not feeling the need for further action, got back in his car and left. After all, there weren't any parking violators, jaywalkers, or college students drinking in the area to be cited.

Caveat Me: Lest anyone take me for harboring any sort of ill feeling towards policemen or bums, let me know take a moment to insure you that I do not, on either account. I'm just a little jealous of the former, and bitter about the latter. After all, if I was cop, or a bum, I'd probably do the exact same shit. In fact, who knows, I might be one, or both of those in due time. After all, if you can't beat 'em, join' em.

Cum Trees

I enjoy to no end this time of year in Downtown Chico, the crisp afternoons, the people excitedly emerging from their sweater and coat cocoons into shirt-sleeved sunshine butterflies. Best of all are the Cum Trees in full blooming regalia. I know not the actual scientific name of these semen scented arbors, if they are fruit-bearing trees, or merely ornamental. For the rest of year I take no note of them, as I go about my business in the Downtown area. But for a few months each year, these trees occupy a place of distinction above and beyond that of the orange trees, shrubbery and assorted other vegetation of downtown. They are the Cum Trees. And they smell exactly like Cum. And I mean exactly.

Perhaps my favorite way to spend a sunny day is to do exactly as I'm doing right now, sipping a bottle of Bud Light beer while looking out of a window at it. Sorry, but I'm not much of a Frolfer. However, every few beers I make a point of taking a bit of a promenade, in order to enjoy the above-mentioned olfactory sensations, as well as the other sites to be seen around these parts. And I don't mean Bidwell Park. I like to dig the dudes selling drugs in the Downtown Park Plaza, the schizophrenic guy in stilted women's heelsholding one of history's most storied debates with an unseen foe, the hawks screaming at each other in the skies above the parking lot at Second and Flume. It almost makes me wish I had the moxie for psychedelics. But my limited studies in that field during college, all of which ended in rather spectacular failures, proved beyond a reasonable doubt that my imagination was already active enough without any help, chemical or otherwise. So I stick to beer, and the occasion taste of liquor for variety. As they say, it "takes the edge off." Besides, as Emerson said "Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest poison is time." A shot of time, with a beer back never fails to send me reeling through the streets, drunk on hours, on days, on years. Even those anonymous characters of the street are not immune to this intoxication. Here's one beat old soul, a Bukowski in his own right, who has been haunting downtown since time immemorial with his gray beard and weathered face, now relegated to a wheelchair, a vehicle which doubtlessly serves only hastens his journey to a place from which no one has yet returned. Here's a man that has had too much time! Where were the counselors, the teetotalers, the interventionists when he was killing himself with time, every single day? Why has their yet been legislation written to regulate, if not outright ban the consumption of this most deadly of substances, this most vile of vices?! It seems time is one addiction that refuses to be taken in moderation. One hit and you're hooked. And it's all downhill from there.

Drunk on time and booze I find myself wondering how it's possible, that in a town of 80,000 people, that one who spends the majority of their days and nights frequenting the bars and coffeeshops and restaurants of Downtown can see without fail, the same 100 people day in and day out. For years. It seems like it's all a big lie, some sort of joke you weren't let in on. You feel like your life is a sitcom, and maybe it is. Maybe its the Truman Show, only everyboy's Truman. Everybody is the protagonist of their own show, with its own audience, it's own discussion bulletin boards, its own ratings. God is just the guy calling the shots, what Jack Kerouac called the "Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven." Of course he was talking about himself, but hey, I could think of worse Gods than Jack Kerouac. There was a man who could handle his time, man. Booze though, not so much. No one's perfect I guess.

Sick as Fuck Bro

Like everyone else in this godforsaken town, I'm currently suffering from the crazy AIDS, black death flu that's hit Chico at a seemingly pandemic level. Whatever happened to all those wonderful advances in medical technology that were supposed to be happening in this 21st Century? How come we can give some broad someone else's face after her first one got chewed off by her dog, but the flu, that ancient scourge of humanity is still beyond our capacity for prevention? How come the best we can come up with is the flu "vaccine" which, oh by the way, doesn't work against the strain currently waylaying every man, woman, child and beast in Butte, Glenn and Tehama Counties. Sure, there are "medicines" one can use sick with the flu. But there's a good reason you have to show your ID when purchasing these supposed medicines: they're basically nothing more than distilled meth, watered down and cut with a bunch of fancy sounding chemicals that don't do much except mask the symptoms of the illness. So instead of people taking a few days off of school and life to get over their flu, we have a bunch of people gagged out on legal meth pretending they're not sick and in the meantime coughing and sneezing and leaving their vile disgusting germs on every door handle and countertop they come in contact with, thus allowing even the relatively few people who practice the time-tested preventative measures--hand washing, not fucking touching their eyes and mouth every 5 seconds--little chance of escaping catching this dread disease. My favorite part is people who think they're being all polite by coughing or sneezing into their hands, then immediately start touching every thing in site. Especially when the "thing" they're touching is a sandwich that will soon be going into your mouth. Fuckers.

I guess it wouldn't really make any difference, if they actually had any sort of real flu prevention or treatment medicine. It's not like I'd be able to afford it any way. And I actually have health insurance, unlike the majority of people I know. My health insurance is awesome if I get fatal brain cancer or if I get hit by a car and break every bone in my body. But other than that it's pretty much a waste of time. If you haven't got around to watching Michael Moore's movie about the sorry state of American health care, Sicko, drop whatever you're doing and rent that shit right now. Actually, you probably don't even have to. Anyone who's lived in America for longer than two weeks is probably well aware of how bad our health care system has become. Like I said, I actually have insurance, but still the best I can usually get when I do get sick is one of the pseudo doctors at Immediate Care, who just throw as many drugs as possible at any sort of sickness in the hope that one of them will work, usually antibiotics, pain pills and the above-mentioned legal speed. And I don't blame them. Medicine is hard. That's why it shouldn't be turned into a fucking fast-food restaurant. But what do I know?! Americans don't care about their bodies. They take better care of their cars. How is it that not having car insurance is against the law, but not having health insurance is the norm? How is it that we have the second worst infant mortality rate in the developed world--slightly ahead of Latvia but trailing such technological titans as Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia--yet also have the highest percentage of automobile ownership in the world. Sicko blames our health care ills on the System, which certainly should assume some part of the responsibility. But the system is nothing more than a creation of the people operating within it, so I say, all of us sick, fat, unhealthy, dying Americans really have no one to blame but ourselves and our backwards priorities. Which begs the question: what are we gonna do about it?

The Answer?? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!111 Pass me the Nyquil! Let's go wash and wax my jacked-up truck! But let's hurry, American Idol is on in 20!!!!onehundredeleven!!