CoffeeHouseBlog

Blog Entry #3
Starbucks, Brentwood Village, California
6:34 pm

I don’t know, I got stung by a beauty bee yesterday evening. I went to get my mail from the apartment complex mailbox which is on the edge of a nice courtyard near the pool and there right in front of me was a perfectly opened and formed rose.

I usually stop to smell roses – especially the yellow-hued ones because the roses in the yellow and orange tints often are very fragrant. Not the white ones. I’ve never found a white rose that had any fragrance. Have you? If you have, let me know which one.

I used to be a photographer for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City as one of their main contract photographers. One of my favorite things to do while wandering the endless rows of studio spaces in the photo building, was to stop at the end of the building where all of the flower arrangements were shot. There was an Italian man, I think his name was Mario, who had been there a long time and I loved to watch what he did. He had these beautiful stucco walls built for him and painted and aged so that when they ended up on cards, they could have been shot in Merano, Italy – City of Flowers. He seemed like he absolutely loved his job. The photos he designed and took were incredible, creating fingers of late afternoon light with filtered banks of lights off in the corner of the room flooding across his wall. If you’re ever in Kansas City, Missouri (no one I know goes to Kansas City, Kansas!), stop in at Hallmark and take a tour. It is one of the best places I have ever worked. I could go on and on but that’s another post.

This is the rose that was in the courtyard. Click on it to see a bigger version in a new window. It was dusk, the light was almost gone and I had to take it quick. But I don’t like straight camera flash – too harsh for me – so I shot at about 1/30 of second at a wide aperture and used a combination of flash and ambient light (camera flash set to SLOW – try it). I might have looked a bit strange out there taking about 30 photos of the same thing but I had to keep refocusing because the light was low. That, and the fact that I was using a piece of toilet paper over the flash element to dim it and soften it. I then used Adobe Photoshop to enhance it and bring out the attributes in the rose that I saw with my eyes. I have been using Photoshop for 15 years, so I kind of know what I’m doing with it and probably make it look easy. Email me if you need a tip!

I hope you enjoy looking at this photo as much as I do! If you want to use it, please ask me first. It’s not polite to use other people’s photos for your own website without asking. Unless it’s in the Public Domain. Besides, as would happen to me, the great god of Copyright will zap you if you rely on any kind of copyright protection for your own work. Thanks!

I will be posting more photos from time to time and eventually, Videos! So check back often and tell your friends! Salut!

I AM the CoffeeHouse Blogger. Hear me type!

ABOUT THIS COFFEE SHOP:
For being in the middle of Brentwood Village (remember O.J. lived in Brentwood?) this is one of the smaller, but nicer Starbucks. AND, it’s got two comfy chairs even though it’s small. There’s hoity toity people, but they tend to only sit outside where they can be seen. Inside, there’s a counter along the window that you can sit at with your laptop and watch people walk by. And watch the luxury vehicles roll past.

But wait, I’ll take you to a Starbuck’s in Beverly Hills at some point and we’ll have some REAL fun, there.

I go to this Starbucks on a regular basis because I have a computer tutoring client in Brentwood Village – Jack, 92! (another post!) – and because my friend Brent and I stop here before Bible Study sometimes. OOPS! Don’t tell his wife! HAHA!

The place is usually clean and I had a sandwich here tonight. Tuna fish. I always want one but they are always dry. They should make ‘em like I make ‘em… The music is not too loud and this is one of the rare Starbucks without a local Designated Character. There are some DC’s that wander past outside, but not inside. If you know of one there, let me know. I’ll find out about some of the baristas there and ask them revealing personal questions. I have no shame – Gringo sin vergüenza!

No, this is just a solid, consistently good Starbucks. Go there or be square!

Starbucks Coffee Company
11700 Barrington Court, Brentwood Village, California 90049

Blog Entry #2
Starbucks, 12824 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604
8:43 pm

“No running in the Pool Area!” Gilbert the barista calls out to the young woman running toward me at the back of this Starbucks, her two girlfriends walking, giggling behind her. I ask them if they’re here because of the power outage. They say no, but that apparently it’s out in places all over the city after the wind storm.

I was thinking about the 64,999 other people who are without power along with me here in the San Fernando Valley. The “Valley”, for those not familiar with Los Angeles is the large metropolitan area inland and over the “hill” from Hollywood and the ocean. It contains Beautiful Downtown Burbank, the place that Johnny Carson used to make fun of on his show. I always remember his Art Fern character, describing with a freeway chart of LA that looked like spaghetti. He used that to show how to get to his store.

“You take the 10 to the 405, take the 405 to the 101, take the 101 to the 134, if you miss the 134, take the 170 to the 5, double back and take the Slausen Cutoff”, and on and on. My family and I would sit together in front of our black and white television those summer nights, when I got to stay up a little later as a young boy, to watch Johnny Carson and laugh, laugh, laugh. If you’re too young to remember Johnny’s shows, you can catch them on those Best Of DVD’s available on the web.

Johnny’s rendering of Hollywood, Los Angeles, and the whole television and movie world was how we all viewed this place where I now live – it’s stayed with me all these years. It seemed like such a surreal world watching and hearing about it on Carson’s show, us living back in the Midwest. Funny thing is, the reality turns out to be no different now that I’m here living in the middle of it all. I will tell of how I came to end up in Los Angeles in another post. That’s a story, too…

I’m wondering how old they are, the three girls. They gather at the table next to me in the back of the coffeehouse. Only one sits. The others have to stand, they are so distracted by their own brainwaves and hormones. I’m trying to pay attention to their conversations because I think there may be something for this blog in the broken noodles of their speech. At the same time, I try not to listen. I get the sense that if I listen to them too long it will make me scattered, mushy, and I have an underlying fearfulness for my masculinity.

Then, three guys walk in through the front door and I immediately get the idea they know these girls. No indication, I just feel it. I have no idea how these rough guys could be associated with the giggling girls. It’s a weird feeling, like there could be a showdown or something. But they don’t look toward the back where we’re at, they just glide in, hands in pockets, cool.

All three have shaved heads and a couple of them have baggy pants. I think, “Gang members.”

NOTE: Here is an admission of a level of ignorance of other cultures and ethnicities, along with being purposefully out of touch with the fads and affectations of teen and early twenties-types. Can only be fixed by extended contact. Must find opportunities for that to happen. END NOTE.

Then I hear whispers from the girls behind me. I look. The girls’ attention is on the guys and so I look back to the guys and they’re coming straight back. Aha! But these guys have fooled me. They act very cordial and respectful – not at all like gang members. One of them speaks to one of the girls in a foreign language and me being fairly ignorant of many other accents, I can only assume that it’s an eastern European accent. She answers him back in English, though, which is interesting – he speaks to her in a foreign language and she understands perfectly well but responds in English. Help me understand that one. But these guys seem actually quite nice!

They are right next to me and one of the guys says something about the girl who seems to be the center of attention. She is the tallest and has the longest hair – the one who was running back here (Alpha Female?). The guy asks about her birthday, I think. She says, “I’m twenty today.” It’s her birthday! Happy Birthday!

And I’m sitting here, a party to their conversation. As a guy, though, it bends the mind, what these young women talk about. I can’t track it. Girl Stuff. Now they’re talking about the guys. All sorts of stuff. It’s a world I used to be privy to, when I bought all the feminist propaganda and was trying to ingratiate myself with women. Do you remember that? Some of us guys bought all that “being friends with girls” stuff; put down the other guys stuff. All this was always, either consciously or not, with the singular goal of gaining a certain favor from these female “friends”. When Harry Met Sally, with no exceptions. It’s true.

I wonder for a moment what tone this party of young people would have if we all had been without power, lights, hot showers, etc. for going on two months instead of five hours. Would there be massive depression? Where would the young people be on a night like this? Would the girls just stay home and hide their matted and smelly hair? What would those guys look like with full heads of hair? What would your life be like if due to some major calamity – say a nuclear bomb that takes out all electricity production – large areas of the earth were without power? Can you imagine continuing on with your life with joy and enthusiasm? What would you do to survive? If sometime later today your life and lifestyle ceased to be, as you knew it, could you quickly adjust to a totally new reality that’s extremely difficult – total survivor mode – and lacking most of the pleasures of materialism you now know? Seriously, God forbid! What would it take, if anything, for you to turn to God or Jesus or another “higher power” if you don’t already? Interesting thought, hey? Consider it for a moment.

Soon, the guys leave and when I ask, Suzy (her friend spells her name out for me) says that the guys know her boyfriend. I get it. Then I understand that she was running toward the back of the store because she had seen them out on the street.

Has this blog entry made your mind fuzzy, or made you antsy or feel disjointed? That’s what I feel in this coffeehouse tonight with all this going on.

More girls come in and congregate. I have to switch tables.

I AM the CoffeeHouse Blogger. Hear me type!

Continued in Part 2:
One Black, one White woman debate the Don Imus debacle; Coffeehouse discussions in the ancient Assyrian language; Gilbert answers a very personal question.

About This Store at the end of Part 2

Hi!

As I’ve been scrambling to recover from the stiff, I have been remiss in putting up new posts. But count ‘em, I have three! (3) new posts almost ready. They will be available starting tonight sometime. Posts with the following titles:

Powerless In The Film Capitol of the World (posted!)

I Got Stiffed, part 2

My Two Greatest Joys, part 1

Serial Killers I Have Known

So check back real soon! And there will be lots more content, much concerning… Coffee!

Salut!

Blog Entry #1
Starbucks Coffee, Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA
9:58 pm

Yeah, today I got stiffed. Have you had people renege on an agreement or promise?

This is the inaugural installment of this blog, CoffeeHouseBlog.com and man-oh-man, could I use a new beginning today. Now, I’m not a person who regularly has people stiff him for things (or even thinks people renege on promises) – but today I allowed myself a few moments of feeling like God has it in for me. Of course, this also comes on a day I have a bible study in the evening that has now convicted me of my indulgence. And I am repentant. That’s where I’ve just come from and coincidentally, what we covered tonight – repentance.

BTW (By The Way, for you who are acronymically-challenged), in the spirit of transparency, I want to just get it out of the way and up front that I am unashamedly a beginning (after many years, I still count myself a beginner) follower of Jesus Christ, believe in the Bible, and will refer to my faith as often as I need to in order to give an honest picture of my life and experience. I’m also still a human bean, won’t sugar-coat anything, and recognize, as a human bean, that I am subject to all the foibles anyone else is… But be forewarned, there will be good with the bad! And regardless of anyone’s religion or faith or non-belief, all are warmly welcomed here and I hope to make a place for all.

So, here it is – I have a client for whom I was designing a website and last week on the phone they had promised to send out a check to me for $635.00 as a second installment on their website. I sent an email on Friday making note of the absence of their check in my little post office box. When I didn’t receive a reply from them by this weekend, I knew that wasn’t a good sign. Especially since, in all truth, I had advance warning of the possibility for the stiff. Am I to blame if I chose to believe that what I was told would happen, wouldn’t happen?

Question: How many times in my life was I given good advice or information that I essentially refused to believe? Answer: Too many. Looking back, I’m amazed at how many times well-meaning friends were actually right – if sometimes only partially right.

Take marriages. I’m a walking cliché of the guy who was told, “Run. Run for your life!” and didn’t. When I told one of my business acquaintances about the burnt offering I found my wife-to-be sitting in front of on the sidewalk by our garage, that’s what he said. I said, “Oh, no, she was just…” Fill in the blank, you people who have done the same – making excuses to allow yourself to keep rolling down the tracks of your mind’s and/or passion’s desire. Casey Jones, look out! Read more »

We’re just getting our order in, the milk is steaming, and I can smell the beans roasting. Check out the About This Site for background information, what to expect, and how you can contribute. Salut!