9 posts tagged “koffeehaus”

My senior year of college, I took a semester-long vacation here in Alexandria, Virginia.  I was ostensibly in an exchange program with the urban campus of Virginia Tech's marine biology school, but I was only taking twelve credits and all I had to do was pass.  More important things (by which I mean anything but school) were on my mind.  As you might expect, by mid-September I was out of money and needed to get a job.

One of my friends had recently found work at the coffee house across the street, and I thought that would be a good way to earn some walking around money while eliminating the sizable line item in my budget for caffeinated beverages.  (Employees, at the time, got free coffee whenever they wanted.)  I stopped by when Tine was working, and officially inquired about a job.  Per management's instructions, I was given a paper plate and a pen.  The thinking was that if I couldn't figure out on my own what to write, they didn't want me working there.  At the top of the plate, I wrote "Hotrod!"  They told me later that's the only reason they hired me.

My first training shift was during a weekday morning rush.  It didn't take me very long to master the subtleties of steaming milk for a cappuccino versus steaming milk for a latte.  I was also able to steam the milk without losing track of the time on my espresso shots.  And, obviously, I already knew how to pour drip coffee.  After a couple hours, Misha - the owner - asked me to pull him a shot of espresso.  When he asked me for a second, I knew I was doing okay.  I went back the next day for a few more hectic hours, after which I was scheduled for my first solo shift the following Saturday afternoon.  Aside from the specifics of the drinks, the only thing they told me during my orientation was that my shift officially started fifteen minutes prior to the hour and that they wouldn't tolerate tardiness.  They'd fired people for being late for work only once.  That Friday, the guys from Cal Poly threw a party.  Dedicated to achieving the noble goals I'd set for myself that semester, I attended their party and became spectacularly intoxicated.  I stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning and fell unconsciously into bed.

The next day, I awoke with a start.  I looked to the clock next to my bed and the numbers were blinking.  At some point during the night, the power had gone out.  The time had reset to midnight and the alarm was off.  I needed to be at work for my first real shift - the first shift for which I would be paid - by quarter to two in the afternoon.  I leapt out of bed and ran across the room to collect my watch from the top of the dresser.  At a glance, I could see the hands formed a right angle.  Shit!  It was three o'clock!  I was over an hour late!  I really needed this job, mainly because it was the easiest and most convenient one I could find that paid decent money.  Getting fired would be a huge pain in my ass.  I quickly changed clothes and ran across the street.  As I approached the door, I could see Misha behind the counter at the espresso machine.  Shit!  They got the fucking owner to cover my shift because I was late!  I was SO fired.

I burst through the door and exclaimed: "THE POWER WENT OUT IN MY BUILDING!"  Misha slowly turned to me with a blank stare.  "NO!  REALLY!  THE POWER WENT OUT IN MY BUILDING!"  After a beat, Misha asked, tactfully, "What the hell are you talking about?"  I explained.  "My power went out - sometime during the night.  My alarm never went off."  Misha replied simply: "So?"  "That's why I'm late," I pleaded.  "It wasn't my fault."  Once again, Misha leveled his steely gaze upon me, and after what seemed an eternity asked: "Hotrod, what time do you think it is?"  I looked back down at my watch.  The hands formed a right angle.  It was nine o'clock in the morning.
 
 
 
None of this has anything to do with anything.  I've just never told this story here and didn't have anything I wanted to say about the Stiff Little Fingers.

I had a somewhat humbling - if unsurprising - trip to the doctor today.  I've been freaking out about, well, literally everything lately and started to notice some tightness in my chest over the past couple of days.  Which naturally caused me to freak out a little more.  Hence the trip to the doctor.  Long story short - I'm fine, but my heart rate is on the fast side of normal.  It's a Fiat, when it should be a BMW.  (Yes, my doctor actually said that.)  I'm supposed to get more cardio exercise (which: check) and drink less coffee.  That second item is going to be even more painful than the cardio.  Good thing for me it's just a heart.  It ain't worth nothin'.

A few months back, we wrote about the wonderful combination of two of the best things in the world.  Well, we are here today to inform you that it gets even better.  Because there's also a.... wait for it.... video game.  Now, the concept of the Lego Star Wars video game series is not new to us; we have simply been (oddly) skeptical.  We mean: why is it Lego?  But we saw a copy of Lego Star Wars II (The Original Trilogy) marked down at Best Buy a little over a week ago so we picked up a copy.  And it's about the best thing ever.  We mean: what's not to like?  It's Lego!

As you might expect, we have been re-watching the original trilogy in what spare time we have had lately between a busy work schedule and our video game fix.  We've made it through the first two movies and are halfway through Return of the Jedi for about the thousandth time.  Naturally - as we have done so many times since 2005 - we have been reflecting on what a colossal mess George Lucas made of the prequels.  And - as we have also done so many times since 2005 - we've been wishing we still had access to those emails we sent out to the pre-Vox Yahoogroup so we could reflect further on how much smarter and better we are than George Lucas.  Then we remembered that we can, in fact, get at those emails and that we have just been a 'tard (though still smarter than George Lucas) all this time.

So our long-winded point is this: over the rest of the week we will be re-purposing old material and posting a better treatment of the Star Wars prequels than was filmed.  We may or may not update and edit them, depending on if we feel like it at the time.  We'll see.  That was Yoda's motto, right?  "Eh, whatever.  We'll see."

Ladies and gentlemen, I have news - news that may shock you to your very core.  I have been complicit in perpetuating a shameful fraud.  I am not proud of my behavior, but neither do I defend it.  And it is time I come clean.  You have a right to know the truth.

For many years, Dabysan and I have told the tale of how Karaoke to the Death came to be.  In every (possibly apocryphal) version, KttD was born in the smoky back room of Misha's Coffeehouse after an argument stemming from the singing of "Free Bird" by Daby and a challenge from one or the other of us to settle the debate on the grand stage of the Rock It Grill.  Well, some of that is true, but not much.  And granting Daby the "co-founder" status he has long enjoyed is a gross distortion of the facts.  To say Daby co-founded Karaoke to the Death is not dissimilar to claiming that King George co-wrote the Declaration of Independence.  In both instances, a genius responded to the actions of an asshole in the way geniuses often do: by creating something great and beautiful.  But to give the asshole credit would be disingenuous.

So how did we get to this point?  How is Dabysan widely and mistakenly accepted as a co-founder of the world's premier bad karaoke competition?  That, I am sad to say, is my fault.  All this time it has been easier to live with the lie.  For you see, back in the winter of 2000/2001, there was this girl I was trying to get into the sack.  We worked together, so as you might imagine I was eager to concoct scenarios in which we might spend time with each other outside of the workplace and in which we might also become intoxicated.  At some point, it occurred to me that a karaoke outing would offer me an opportunity to be charmingly and insincerely self-effacing.  I recalled an argument I'd had with Daby months (if not years - I have an excellent memory) before, so I approached him with the idea of finally settling the score.  After I reminded him that a discussion of who was the worse singer between us had actually occurred, he agreed to my proposal and Karaoke to the Death was born.  Daby's role in the proceedings was incidental, and the very first song ever performed in competition - "Friends in Low Places" - was the song that the object of my affection/co-worker selected for me to sing.  The rest, as they say, is history.

My plan worked, by the way - at least initially.  But after a few months, things went sour in a bad way with my girlfriend/co-worker, to the point that Karaoke to the Death was for a while a painful reminder that at least something good came out of that ill-advised relationship.  Which is why I had been willing to acquiesce to the untruth surrounding the contest's origin all these years.  Daby now however - inexplicably - has the unmitigated gall to accuse me of blasphemy and threaten ex-communication for reasons completely unbeknownst to me.  Perhaps he's off his meds.  At any rate, his recent ramblings should be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.  And I might remind you that KttD II might never have happened had Akaijen not intervened.  So, in short, the list of people who were more instrumental than Dabysan in the creation of Karaoke to the Death includes: my bitch ex-girlfriend, Akaijen, and King George III of England.  No wonder he's upset.

Excelsior!

I once fell in love under circumstances that are a total cliché.  If I told you the story, you'd probably think I was making it up (or more likely that I was stealing it from the third season of Family Ties), that's how clichéd it is.  It's such a cliché that stuff like this never actually happens in real life.  Or so it would seem.

Back in my senior year of college, six of my classmates and I participated in an exchange program with a branch campus of Virginia Tech located in Alexandria.  The idea was that marine biology students at rural schools could come to study in an urban environment for a year.  Or in our case, a semester.  We secured housing in a renovated church that was owned by the university, and the apartments were a bit unusual in that there were three students to a unit.  Coop and I were paired up with a guy named Damon from Florida who later assaulted me.  (That's a story for another time.)  Coop's girlfriend Molly and her friend Tine were paired with a Tech student from Blacksburg.  (The other three Ohioans - Wes, Nick, and Kray - aren't relevant to this story either.)

One day very early in the semester, I dropped in on Molly and Tine.  Their roommate - Jessica, who I had not yet met - answered the door.  She was wearing demin overalls over a gray t-shirt in a willfully un-hip manner and her curly brown hair was either pulled up into a crude bun or wildly out of control.  I inquired after Molly and Tine and she told me that they weren't home, which surprised me because - though I don't remember now exactly for what reason I went to their apartment - I know I expected them to be there.  I thanked Jessica for her time and walked away.  Only later did I learn that I'd made an impression.

The word that Molly and Tine used was "rude."  We were eating dinner and they had just informed me of Jessica's reaction to our brief encounter.  "Your friend is rude," they said she said.  Apparently, I'd been quite surprised by my friends' absence and asked where they might be.  I (may have) said in response to being told they weren't around: "Are you sure?"  At which point, Jessica (may have) turned into the apartment and called for my friends, to no avail.  I will deny for the rest of my life that that exchange actually happened, but I know at least one person who thinks it did and she reported as much to Molly and Tine.  Also, my never officially introducing myself was, let's just say.... not well received.

That was the moment I decided that Jessica was a total bitch and that the less I had to interact with her the better.  And what was the deal with the overalls and the hair in a loose bun (or wildly out of control)?  She obviously wanted people to think she was some sort of artist (or something equally pretentious).  To hell with her.  And that attitude carried me through the next week, until the seating assignments in the lab were finally posted.  I was placed at a desk right next to.... yep, you guessed it.  Again over dinner, I was lamenting my bad luck.  Tine joked, "You'll probably end up dating!"  I replied, "That's not very fucking funny.  Besides, that shit only happens on television."

School started and I promptly began occupying myself trying to impress a different girl from Virginia Tech whose name I now don't remember.  (She was a Dave Matthews fan and this was right before they broke nationally, in the fall of 1994.  This fact isn't relevant either, but it explains a couple DMB CD's that still sit on my shelf.)  The fall passed mostly uneventfully, if not overly cordially, between Jessica and me.  She moved out of Molly and Tine's apartment, so I saw less of her.  But we both got jobs working at Misha's (then kôf' i hous') so I saw more of her again.  Then just about this time of the year - late Rocktober - the ice thawed.  She had become friends with a kôf' i hous' regular named Stacy and I had become friends with a kôf' i hous' regular named Dennis.  And Dennis and Stacy were friends.  At the annual Halloween party thrown by school - and with the aid of our mutual friends in Stacy and Dennis (to say nothing of a keg of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) - we finally struck up a real conversation and somehow hit it off.

I remember spending most of the next month and a half with her more or less inseparably, but I know that's an exaggeration.  We did hang out an awful lot, though.  We even - in another scene straight out of a sitcom - prepared a Thanksgiving dinner for ten or twelve of our friends, with all the comic mishaps and small triumphs one would expect.  And yes, we went on a few dates, but there was always the unfortunate knowledge that time was short.  I was going back to Ohio in December to finish school where I'd spent most of it.

I made the right choice.  As fondly as I remember that autumn and reflect on what might have been, I know I would still regret spending my final semester of college away from Ohio.  If this particular chapter of my life were a movie rather than a situation comedy, I would have come back to Virginia, and she would still have been here and we would have lived happily ever after until the credits ended.  As it happened, I just moved back.  That worked out pretty well, too.

By now you're probably wondering (if you've bothered to read this far) what any of this has to do with Rocktober.  Well, Jessica introduced me to some pretty cool music.  And though Liz Phair doesn't always remind me of this story, this story does always remind me of Liz Phair.

Once upon I time, I made coffee for a living.  It was the best job I've ever had, and I was really fucking good at it.  I knew most of my regular customers by name, and those few I didn't could at least count on me to get their order right without being asked.  Many of them waited until I was free to order.  "Hotrod's got it," they would say to my co-worker.  I could tell you the difference between a Full City roast and a French roast and why the people who really take their coffee seriously prefer the Full City.  I could go on about the subtle differences between the Tanzania Peaberry and the Ethiopia Yrgacheffe.  I could describe in detail exactly why Starbucks is utter shit.  Still can, as a matter of fact.

But the very best thing about that job was that I basically had carte blanche to be an asshole.  We took our coffee seriously, and we didn't suffer fools lightly.  My favorite question was when people asked me "what flavors we serve."  My response was always:  "We serve coffee-flavored coffee."  They'd protest, of course.  They always did.  "That's not what I meant."  I was unflappable.  "Oh, I know.  We serve coffee-flavored coffee."  We dumped our drip coffee if it sat too long, we timed our espresso shots, and we didn't offer flavored syrups.  Our regular - our tipping - customers knew not to ask for a blueberry latte.  As for everyone else.... well, there was a Starbucks just a few blocks away.  I gave directions on numerous occasions.  If they protested, I was authorized to invite them never to return.  It was bliss.

So it may be easy to guess where I come down on the issue of iced espresso.  It's an abomination.  The customer is not always right.  In fact, the customer is often wrong.  And in this case the customer is too stupid to realize that the barista in question is doing him a favor in trying to educate him about civilized coffee etiquette.  This is the level to which our society has devolved: a dedication to craft and quality will get you nowhere because some yuppie jackass will scream more loudly.  I just wish I had thought back then to threaten to punch my more belligerent customers in the dick.

Vrabel and Alexis entered toward the beginning of the morning rush.  With a hint of a smile he said, "I've got some bad news.  Do you want to hear it straight or do you want me to dance around the issue a little?"

Sunday mornings were my favorite shift, despite that I was supposed to be there by five-thirty.  I almost never made it there on time, but then Andrea wasn't there to chew me out for being late either.  It didn't really matter, anyway.  Unlike the rest of the week, Sundays usually didn't get busy back then until about nine o'clock.  We had plenty of time to get everything set up before the crowd showed up, and with time to spare.  Most days we had a good ninety minutes to chew the fat.  Misha was uncharacteristically chatty on Sundays; away from the prying customers he often seemed almost human.  And my co-worker Karl had a day-job; he worked only one shift a week to make some extra cash.  It was a refreshing change to work occasionally with someone who had also graduated from college.  And he knew what he was doing, so there was no need for a third wheel mucking up the works behind the counter and cutting into our tips.  We didn't get Saturday-level tips on Sundays, but they were a far cry better than what I usually earned serving tea bags and hot water refills to the annoying crowd of non-tipping loiterers that were my usual weekday evening customers.

This particular Sunday was shaping up to be a busy day.  I had to work until two o'clock and the NFL Conference Championships took place that afternoon.  My beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Indianapolis Colts in the early game, and I planned to wash some bottles while watching the Cowboys and Packers in the second game.  We had been through a blizzard just over a week prior, and I decided to commemorate the occasion by cooking up a batch of an especially chunky imperial stout.  The amount of fermentables that had gone into this diabolical brew was almost obscene.  Within a few days, it would be ready to drag out from the dark corner behind the television and siphon into individual bottles.  Another few weeks spent carbonating in the bottle and a heavy stout would be ready for consumption by mid-February, in time to ease the long, pre-KttD late winter doldrums.

I was contemplating those bottles of dark, silky stout I'd be savoring in less than a month's time when Vrabel and Alexis walked in.  Alexis had been visiting since before New Year's and they were on the way to the airport.  It was just the beginning of the morning rush, so I had time to chat for a second when I went to the end of the counter to grind a couple pounds of '66.  I wished them a good morning and Vrabel said with a hint of a smile, "I've got some bad news.  Do you want to hear it straight or do you want me to dance around the issue a little?"

I was understandably confused.  "What are you talking about?"

"Bad news.  Do you want it straight or not?"

I turned to Alexis.  "What's he talking about?"

"Your beer blew up."

I turned back to Vrabel.  "My beer blew up?"

"Your beer blew up."

I staggered.  I reeled.  "What do you mean, my beer blew up?"

"Your beer..." Vrabel began.  Alexis finished his sentence.  "It blew up."  Vrabel continued, "Alexis was in the kitchen, eating breakfast.  I was getting ready to go.  I heard a loud crack from the middle room.  I went to to investigate only to watch five gallons of imperial stout spread across our living room.  I threw some towels down, but I didn't have time to do anything more, or else Alexis would miss her flight."

I spent the rest of my shift in a daze.  Aside from the fact that two cases of potent stout were now never to be, there was the matter of an enormous mess and - most importantly - the questionable status of our still new "entertainment center" immediately adjacent ground zero.  The VCR I had owned since June, because Garrett already had an old and barely serviceable television that he left with us when he moved out.  When I was home for the previous Thanksgiving, I upgraded our television, thanks to Sister #2's employee discount in the Electronics Department of the local Sears.  Without knowing the extent of the damage, my mind raced and I feared the worst.  I had visions of still-new circuitry fried and caked with malted hops.  And what's more, I had no idea when I might return to Ohio, so my options were either to pay a then-prohibitive full price for a new television or *shudder* do without.  Either scenario was less than ideal.

I scurried home as soon as I could, even foregoing my precious tips - opting to count them the following day.  I was greeted as I opened the door by the overwhelming aroma of malt and alcohol.  A soupçon of hops was detectable within the pungent stew.  Our baby blue carpet had been stained a seemingly permanent shade of chocolate.  A cursory examination of my now-shattered carboy revealed that the tube which released excess fermentation gases had become clogged with grain and hop particulate, resulting in pressures sufficient to crack quarter-inch-thick glass.  The Mighty Roy, who had taught me to brew, claimed I was too fussy, and that I should relax.  This was the first time I had followed his advice.  Of course, he once tried to brew a chicken beer with bullion cubes and thought if a few drops of spruce essence were good, a whole bottle would be better.  So I guess it was nobody's fault but mine.  But I still like to blame Roy.

It was almost too much to bear.  Actually, it was too much to bear. I threw a few more towels on the pile and settled into the sofa to watch the Steeler game amid olfactory overload, postponing the cleanup effort until much later.  The television and VCR were both fine.  (Still are, in fact - I have the very same television on in front of me as I type.)  We lost, though, our Atari 2600 and copies of a Charlie Chaplin movie and "Some Kind of Wonderful."  The Steelers won the game and advanced to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Dallas Cowboys.  ESPN2 rebroadcast the 1996 AFC Championship Game this afternoon, in the absence of any real football games.  I still got a little nervous, even though the outcome was decided a dozen years ago.

And so, sadly, Rocktober draws to its inevitable close.  All things must pass, as they say.  Since we started with the Boss, it seems only fitting that we end with Cash.  Johnny Cash is the only musician who comes even remotely close to Springsteen in my particular pantheon, and frankly he's only half a step behind.  My musical Mount Rushmore features Johnny and Bruce and two also-rans.  That's how far out ahead of everybody else they are.

On a CD somewhere I still have the ones and zeros that comprise an email eulogy I sent on the occasion of Johnny Cash's death.  If I were a less lazy man I'd find it, but instead I'll just paraphrase.  I initially got into Cash because I discovered the greatest hits collection in the Kofi Hous rotation made the annoying high school kids go away.  That, in and of itself, is reason enough for deification.  But he also wrote amazing songs.  And - as I later learned - he was about the coolest motherfucker ever to walk the earth.  So maybe he's not actually in second place after all.

Oh, and look: Disneyland rollercoasters!

i was looking through some old files at work this afternoon when i stumbled across a folder from about a year and a half ago.  i remember it well.  someone had forwarded me a link to the south park character generator and my compatriots and i had spent several glorious and comical minutes fashioning each other as if we lived in colorado.  intermingled with my coworkers were a few faces yinz might recognize.  for you see, i believe i shared said website with the yahoo group we used before mostly switching over to vox.  i know for a fact that i was on IM with dabysan discussing this particular topic; he uses his south park self-portrait as his IM icon to this day.  my version is better.

anyway, given that i have been on a bit of a south park binge of late already thanks to CV's discovery (yes, i AM the highly suggestible type.  now get that delicious doorstop away from me.), i thought i'd share.  so without further ado, here's soo doh nim, daby, and me:

UPDATE:  all right you jackals, here's a few more: