Just Us Talking

Just Us Talking
A series of blogposts-meant to shed light on the human comedy which has been progressing since we crawled out of our primordial soup...and ended up at a local Starbucks,

Dam Nature...you scary! 

At this juncture in my life I figured I've kind of seen /heard / clicked on it all ...In fact when I peruse the daily news and read of invasions....war ...coups ...a thrown election .... natural disasters ....dirty business dealing ...."crimes of the century"....I kind of take it in stoic stride...Having steadily read news since my teen years ...several decades now ...I can rightly say ...been there ,seen that ,heard of that. It's hard to surprise me. 

Like wise my very keen interest in the nature  which also  reaches back to my teen years has a undergone a similar hardening and calcification. I almost majored in biology as a college student and since then have by virtue of documentaries, countless news paper articles and occasional books have maintained a layman's mastery of the natural world...and it's sublime and sundry wonders. However as I've  gotten older those wonders have became less sublime and more routine. The pattern of interconnection of different species ,...the hunters and hunted eventually took on a familiar, unalterable and if you will repetitive meme.  I  had become a  "hardened nature veteran " as my youthful sense of wonder  ...although still essentially intact nevertheless was tainted by a slightly jaded sense of complacency....

But just about the time I assumed I had it all figured out, Nature gave me a right hook  to the jaw ...and it was wearing brass knuckles.

I woke up one morning, and while surfing through the various news  headlines of the day saw something so absurd it made me do the classic double take..."sheep eating plant blooming in UK nursery...it's s joke I thought right? ...a thumbnail gag. Well I took the thumb bait and clicked on the article ..."that's right it eats sheep "said the article in the subheading. Moreover the method made total sense ...the Puya chilensis plant native to Chile, “sports large spiny shoots which protruded from its core “ The spines  thereupon snare wondering sheep by entangling their thickly matted wool...” the hapless animals would then die of dehydration or starvation thus leaving a rotting corpse to fertilize the ground around the plant’s base . Moreover the plants were found in arid climates with poor top soil which also made perfect ...yet diabolical... sense. Later after having been unnerved at a very  primal level by this cruel act of passive aggression ....perpetrated by a plant no less....I happened upon a YouTube video featuring a UK sheep farmer who was extricating his animals from viny bramble bushes that had viciously wrapped themselves around the hapless creatures as they fed on their ripe berries . The rapacious vines had to be strenuouslypried off and cut away with sheers. And it seemed those vines with their shark tooth barbs and vice like grip didn't want to let go! It was stated that every year thousands of unfortunate sheep die as a result of accidentally wandering into these treacherous vines....but then again  is it really an accident? 

I remember picking wild berries with friends once and marveling at the sweetness and rich color of the lovely little fruits...what a ‘wonderful little gift of nature’ I had  thought to my self. Yes nature ,like God ,giveth....and taketh away....but when she gives she gives graciously I reasoned. However that video of the hungry brambles made me rethink my pleasant homily. Maybe nature wasn't really giving me a wonderful little gift at all ... Maybe she was just offering bait! Was I being cleverly enticed to wander too far into the bowels of that massive plant where I likewise might have been trapped and ultimately devoured like my fellow sheep brethren...warm blooded mammals just like me? 

It all became very unsettling. A little later I happened to look out at my back patio and saw the small grove of lovely trees which I had enjoyed so many times before. I mean what’s not to like? They provided shade , had a nice fresh evergreen sent and were aesthetically pleasing to behold. Where’s the downside? But now my enjoyment was turning to suspicion...could these ...these living beings....who need to breath , drink and eat, if deprived of these basic necessities ...turn on me? Could I be viewed as a ready made meal as the Puya chilensis and the berry brambles had done with the sheep? I began to feel nature closing in on me and regarded those trees with a wary eye 

from then on. Every brush up against one of their branches and distended roots I saw as as a potential life and death struggle...was that tug on my shirtsleeve  just an accident or part of a preordained plan by nature to feast on my flesh...who's to say? But as the old saying goes "an ounce of prevention ...." so I have thereupon made sure that my condo association waters and fertilizes that little forest regularly.  I figured those trees  ...much like a pet tiger  ... would be far less likely to attack if they were well fed and content. The plan has apparently worked in that the trees have remained completely docile to this day...

But just in case, Ive taken a Kung fu class at my local YMCA so if  they ever try anything Ill be ready. As the old saying goes....every man ...and tree for himself!!! 

DT

Just Us talking: Homelessness public scourge or social opportunity? 

One guilty pet peeve of mine as a proud Hawaii resident (albeit an intermittent one)has been the persistent practice of the Island’s homeless to use the state’s very comfortably designed bus stop benches (which are not in fact benches but broad  slabs of polished concrete) as their personal master bedrooms. Upon my first visit to O’ahu, I was rather aghast at the sheer boldness with which the homeless went about man (and woman) spreading their limbs in every radial direction, so as to send us the clear message that these pleasantly-shaded and taxpayer-maintained little pieces of micro-real estate, complete with their own mini A-frame roofs, were their sovereign territory.

I remember one if these miscreants, whom I dubbed the “screaming lady.” She resided—and I mean just that, resided—at a bus stop bench on Kapiolani Boulevard,. just about where Walgreens is now. She would, at precisely predictable intervals, lapse into intense yelling rants in which she proclaimed her personal philosophies of life... all at the top of her lungs. Everyone within shouting range, literally. was strangely quiescent in the face of these verbal hurricanes. When I asked a person witnessing this phenomenon why no one seemed willing to challenge her obvious disturbing of the paece, they answered that the prevailing island culture of tolerance and hospitality—in a word, “Aloha”—proscribed them all from conveying any serious chastisement.

Moreover, I discovered later that this cultural forbearance even has a coded manifestation in the “Law of the Splintered [or Damaged] Paddle.” Anyone visiting the famous king Kamehameha statuee adjacent to the capital building can see this historic precept embossed in bronze under the likeness of Hawaii’s most famous leader. I happened upon the shrine one day and perused its bylaws, which were clearly displayed on the sturdy plaque. It went something like this: 

Law of the Splintered Paddle (English translation):

Oh people,

Honor thy God;

Respect alike [the rights of] people both great and humble;
May everyone, from the old men and women to the children
Be free to go forth and lie in the road [i.e. by the roadside or pathway]
Without fear of harm.
Break this law, and die. 

It is said that this edict even helped lay the groundwork for future humanitarian laws and policies used not just in Hawaii. but throughout the civilized world. So I began to understand the forces that were holding back my fellow Island citizens from being more assertive with these individuals. Yet in spite of the sublime words and lofty intentions of the great King, my predilection for forensically analyzing language asserted itself. Yes, I reasoned. He wished any and all subjects of the Islands to be able to pass the night safely out of doors, should circumstances beyond their control make this a necessity. But come the next day, or as soon as practicable, all are still reasonably required to get a move on and vacate the premises, as it were. I saw no license for the pesky homeless to habitually sleep on our lovely bus benches during peak riding times, nor permanently set up eyesore encampments right out in public willy-nilly.

No,I reasoned, all these tree-hugging (or “homeless-hugging,” if you will) bleeding hearts were actually exacerbating a social problem by enabling the homeless to abuse the very culture and mores that were meant to protect us all. I vowed to firmly assert my civic rights the next time I encountered one of those bus stop squatters and gently remind them that they and their private accoutrements were infringing on my publicly allotted space ... and that said space was designed for me to wait for the next bus, period. It was not a flophouse, where they and their things could be sprawled out indefinitely.

Well, last summer I had my chance to flex my assertive muscles, as it were, when while sojourning on the North Shore, I approached a bus stop along Kamehameha highway. Immediately I noticed a large satchel bag filled with miscellaneous items occupying one end of the bench. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a fifty-something lady in the vicinity. I came to the conclusion that she was not a temporary occupant waiting for the next lumbering ten-wheeled Pegasus to whisk her away, but a permanent resident of said stop. My “dander got up” as they say, and for a few moments, I wondered whether saying something or sending a little stink eye her way was warranted. However, after a few seconds of soul-searching, I reluctantly decided to ”mind my own business” and let sleeping dogs (aka pet peeves) lie. She seemed harmless enough, and besides, I never really liked busybodies, so why become one?

It was then that she did something that totally took me by surprise ... and m

and moved me to my core. She took out a broom from somewhere and started fastidiously sweeping the bus stop, and she continued to do so until it was sparkling clean. I was completely disarmed by this ... and not a little ashamed. With one simple prosaic action, this lady made it clear that she was a fellow human being who, due to a tragic sequence of events, had been exiled to this unconventional living space and, in spite of this, she was trying as best she could to manage.

Suddenly my scowling disapproval for her breaking of a city ordinance didn’t really matter like I’d thought. This person was trying to maintain her humanity while trying to survive. That’s what mattered more. Or maybe what only really mattered when one sees the big picture. Whether it’s people displaced by domestic violence with no place to go, or desperate immigrants landing on our borders, or just people who’ve fallen on hard times, there will always be those among us who fall between the cracks and are deemed a “nuisance.” And no, I don’t advocate turning over all the nice bus stops on Oahu to become de facto homeless shelters, nor do I advise opening up our national borders with no immigration oversight or guidelines. But narrowly and pitilessly enforcing every little rule and regulation with a rod of iron isn’t the way either. Let’s follow Kamehameha’s example and cut a little slack to our fellow humans who’ve encountered unfortunate circumstances and see what we can do to make their way a little easier, because you never know… it may be we who need help someday. 

Keep on keeping on ....DT

Just us talking..The Middle Kingdom

The Middle... I never liked this existential reality. I mean let’s get real. Did any mid-level executive ever make the cover on Forbes or Business Week?  Aren’t we always trying to cut out that annoying  "middle man”.  And Isn't  it a perennial problem that parents forget that ,neglected and often bitter middle child? I still remember poor little ,stuck in the middle, Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch. Then there's that ominous midlife crisis we always hear about.  When you really think about it “The  Middle” seems never to be a destination but a place to pass through or even to get away from, hence the compound term "flyover states " aka the middle.  Haven't even those flyover state inhabitants ,those so proud All-American Midwesterners historically stuffed  themselves into metallic escape pods(aka family car) and trekked to far away points out West  ,East  ,South  or even North in search of cultures wherein dwell hippies , hipsters, wise-guys ,artists , weirdos ,wackos and other eccentrics who collectively deviate from the norm ,aka the middle? 

The comfortable knowledge that their beloved home- sweet -home back in Kansas, or wherever awaits them after their foray into the cultural bohemianism of places like Los Angeles, San Francisco ,Seattle ,New York or Miami -all places literally  and figuratively on the edge-must be reassuring.  There seems to be something about living at the geographical fringe that calls out to the fringe in people, for both good and dark reasons. 

I'm  a confirmed “fringer” -born in LA, just a half hour or so drive to the edge of the American continent- That lovely vast Pacific was and still is a portal to mysterious worlds. The very idea of being land locked in the Midwest -immersed in all that middle American gooey goodness ,stimulates mild panic attacks. It would be like living in an existential middle seat on a plane-not the way I would prefer to fly through life. And  I think I speak for other "fringers" like me as well. Oh well, that’s that. However just as I was about to put to bed my justified distain for that retched middle, that same middle way made a roaring comeback to throughly redeem it’s reputation and did so bigly! 

The middle way has in many ways represented the path of reconciliation and reasonableness. How 

many bitter and fractious debates ,disputes and struggles-whether civil, legal ,diplomatic or personal have been resolved when both parties agreed to back off their extreme positions and met ,as it were "somewhere in the middle" ? How about that famous quote we often hear about satisfying guilty indulgences-dictated with the refrain-in all things moderation and moderation in all things? In other words-neither gross over indulgence nor harsh denial of a pleasure is warranted-but a controlled enjoyment if it- aka the middle. 

   

In statistics we have the famous bell curve which at it's two extreme ends skews low while the middle hump protrudes vertically upwards forever telling  us that most opinions, tastes and attitudes on just about everything under the sun almost always rests somewhere in the mid range. In business dealings "meeting you half way "has been the gold standard of sealing agreements and getting over the rough patches of negotiations. Ever since the days of the Pharaohs right up to today ,people have had and still have to cut deals ,compromise ,make concessions and reach out to others while others did likewise to get great things done. I’ve sometimes wonder why the Ancient Greeks, who had a pet deity for just about everything, never had a Middle Way god who’d conceivably prefer chilling out and bringing everybody together to get what they wanted instead of throwing tantrums and hurling thunderbolts ,which was more traditional. I'm also willing to bet Columbus asked for at least five or six ships rather than the three he settled for, and that the Great Wall of China was meant to be even longer until all parties involved figured 2 thousand or so miles was plenty enough.  Even the historic location of US capital was itself originally a compromise, a meeting in the middle between a county divided both geographically and politically between North and South. Possibly one of the most charming love songs I ever heard was a melody titled "Meet in the Middle “ by Dimond Rio. It celebrates a married couple's metaphorical solving of  their  marital  problems by meeting in the middle- the way they did as youngsters when they met "neth that old Georgia pine" which was distanced exactly half way between their homes. The words to the song deliver a potent and sublime message-that meeting half way can be the key to getting good things done - like the maintenance of a relationship. But maybe even this lovely song and it's uplifting message is eclipsed by the great Siddhartha Buddha who in one of his great metaphors taught about  the musical instrument whose strings  "if kept too lose would not play -yet if pulled too tight would break”. The answer ,said the great Buddha ,was to keep the strings  just tight enough to make music-life's music. So then that's the real middle way. 

DT Saroyan 

Just us talking:  It’s all the Road Rage!

I’ve always been a bit perplexed by phenomenon of road rage. To be more specific I’m rendered nonplussed at how a  normal ,law abiding, church and or rotary club going person can be tooling around in their Toyota Hybrid one minute...and in the next transformed into a screaming ,maniacal vengeance seeking entity bent on exacting blood revenge for some unforgivable slight perpetrated by their fellow travelers in the next traffic lane. 

And this isn’t an age restricted reality ...sorry teenage blame baiters. Middle aged Housewives , white collar professionals and blue collar assembly line workers , senior citizens, high school cheerleaders , nerdy poindexters ..even clergy have given succumbed to throwing angry taunts or the one ‘fingered salute’ at their fellow humans when their evil  driving passions have gotten the better of them...and on more then a few occasions these initial profane salutations have graduated to even more profane verbal altercations which if left untreated have been known to  metastasize into actual physical violence for which statical data bear grim results. It has been reported that up to 1500 people are killed in road rage related incidents each year (source 23 startling facts about road rage statistics Brandongaille.com) and more disturbingly the road rage incidents are gong up every year by roughly 7% points. (AAA road reports)

Maybe our heightened awareness of this unsettling trend rests in the advent of new technology ...namely social media. 

Like many aspects of life before it the internet ...namely YouTube.... has made it possible to witness a veritable cornucopia of digitally recorded road-rage incidents the world over which incidentally can even be rated and commented on -per you tube’s protocol. So what used to be  a once in a while event we had to witness live ....or personally experience live .....now has become a sad social media spectator sport where other people’s misfortune can be seen ,gawked ,gloated at and even rated with the click of a keyboard mouse. And I gotta admit I’m one of the worst offenders when it comes to the aforementioned gawking and gloating ...so there I’ve admitted it. 

I’ve actually segregated road rage into two basic categories...foreign and domestic. 

With regards to the latter there are usually few real surprises in that they almost always consist of a relatively small  pool of recognizable iterations of the F word. usually followed by predictable chest pounding rituals which inevitably escalate or de-escalate  with regards to actual damage to persons or property...depending on the sanity of the participants. And don’t get me wrong it’s still grimly amusing...but as mentioned earlier rather predictable. 

But with with regards to British road rage (to which I’ll restrict my foreign selection for practicalities sake) the experience takes on whole new dimension  of disturbing intensity. The sheer naked aggression expressed with such a varied canvas of facial expressions accompanied by a rich lexicon of profanities is simply captivating...it’s like imbibing a fine wine as opposed to a cheaper domestic brand. Not convinced ?

Here are  but a few of the sample imprecations available to  hurl your fellow British road warriors who’ve offended your honor....or scratched the paint on your Lexus: wanker .....F(word)  C(word)...Nutter ...Tosser ....twit ...knob ...maggot...bloody hell...bastard ....Bollocks....bugger....piss off , scumbag...as well as others. Moreover this impressive cannon of ink in your face insults are usually delivered with body and facial expressions that are histrionic to the point of Shakespearean. In one video an older gentleman who was confronted by a bicyclist for almost clipping him on the road goes face to face with his erstwhile accuser exhibiting a display of pure apoplectic rage which I believe is beyond the range of even the best method acting thespians ...sorry Al Pacino but you’ve been bested by a guy in a Range Rover somewhere in Essex. BTW if you don’t believe me he’s the link but enter at your own risk

 So this still begs the question...from whence does all this hyper aggression come? Well the previously cited Brandongaille.com had something to say about that namely that although there  are a minority of road maniacs regularly causing havoc there is nevertheless a widely occurring mental condition called ‘intermittent explosive disorder’ [IED], which reportedly causes  a person’s anger to go from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye. It is estimated that 7% of US drivers have this condition which if extrapolated internationally means there are easily millions of drivers on the road right at any given time who are simmering volcanos ready to explode  at the slightest provocation. This situation is presented the likely causation for a large percentages road rage occurrences. Furthermore the article states that less than 3 out of 10 of those who have IED either know about it or have received treatment. In the end exercising ‘personal responsibility’ was the suggested key to preventing road rage incidents from spiraling out of control...which frankly lit up my “no duh alarm” but I digress 

There were a few more of what I call ‘eye brow raising stats’  presented in the article , a few of which I’ve listed here: 

• the number one demographic for road rage was cited as men ages 35-50  (so much for the crazy teenagers alibi )
• Most common cars subject to road raging were listed as blue BMWs (34%)...followed by Land Rovers ,Audis and Subarus (32,29,22 % respectively) 
• Most common colors for road rage were ...blue 47 %,Black 33% and silver 26%.
• September was reported as the worst month for road rage while June was considered the best(least likely to occur).
• Tuesday’s were reported as the very worst day for road raging while Sunday was the best(see above) . 
• Time wise 5:45 pm (aka rush hour,no surprise there) was assigned the worst overall time for road rage incidents. 
• Interestingly distracted driving (rather the the classic cutting someone off )was cited as the number one way road rage incidents were triggered.

So what can we make out of this? To honest your guess is as good as mine. However I did appreciate inside info...and I’ve came to the conclusion that if while driving I ever encounter a male between 35 and 50, in a blue ,black or silver BMW , on a Tuesday in September at 5:45 pm ,driving distractedly...I’ll stay the hell away all costs! And I suggest you do the same. 

Best Regards DT Saroyan 

Just us talking 

Rise of the machines! Or Let me tell you about my best friend.

             Recently I decided to entertain my students with a  symposium on the reality of machines in our daily lives. In a tongue and cheek class exercise , I asked them to guess which machines ...to me at least ...were lovers or just friends ...meaning which were the machines I encountered in my daily life which I needed ....aka lover ,and which I simply enjoyed but could do without  if I had to...aka ,friends. My lighthearted exercise was meant to avoid another cold and forensic description of the various machine technologies existing  in our present day world along with the tired historical rejoinders of the 'modernness' of machines and their collective or individual abilities to ..." get things done faster ,better and cheaper than mere flesh and blood humans ever could....the folk story of  John Henry ,that fabled hero who took on the cold inhuman railroad gun machine and defeated it...only to collapse and die in the end ,foretold the future better than any news article nor scientific lecture could...then or now....The future definitely belonged ...and still belongs to machines. The massive proliferation of machines and their myriad functions would have confounded  even the most ambitious futurists of the late Industrial Age. We have machines that hygienically clean our bodies , wash our clothes , wash our dishes, cook ,process and preserve our food ,clean our vehicles ,elevate us ,escalate us , deescalate us   ,entertain us,  educate us ,assist us in research, guard our homes , our cars and our kids ...and last but not least of course ... carry us hither thither up ,down and yon.

 Machines in essence have become a collective human appendage...they are not merely inanimate tools for our pleasure and profit, they have for some time co-existed with us as some sort of  existential living entities ,if you will ,juxtaposed to the flesh and blood beings who conjured them up...

First of all machines ...aren't just dormant objects...like a painting or a building fixture or a paved road ...all the aforementioned...while likewise created by man for his use ..nevertheless have inertness about them...they exist because they are there...but machines ... do things ...they move ,vibrate , beep , swirl ,mix, cut ,spray ,drive ,fly ,buzz, roll , scream, flash ,cook ,clean ...they even talk to us. 

Machines are  in essence a contradiction.... inanimate yet animated entities  to which  we have attached a strange anthropomorphism  from  the very outset of the modern Industrial age. when it came to the phenomenon of moving pictures for instance ...machines and theatre arts were a match made in heaven. How many plots and story lines in the modern 20th century era were predicated on the performance ...or non performance ...of some machine? The first ever action movie made circa 1903 was called the Great Train Robbery ...in this case a massive Goliath like machine was both assaulted  and avenged by it’s human co stars. What cop story worth its salt didn't never had a chase scene...where screaming pistons and burned rubber didn't stimulate our primal pleasure centers....and havnt muscle cars ...speed boats ....submarines ....airships .... ....planes and space ships all gotten their fair share of the limelight ? ...James Bond , sans exotic gadgets ...would be like a soda missing some of its fizz. Machines have  essentially been like a type of supporting character in movies from the very beginning ...so then would (aforementioned smash hit The Great Train Robbery have been as much of a smash hit had it been merely called The Robbery ?? 

Machines not long after they cameo the scene became very anthropomorphic ...enter our friends ,the robots.

 These very humanoid metallic beings made their debut in films long before 3cipio and ar 2 d2 charmed us out of our Levi 501s...and terminator freaked us out of same.

But my contemplation of machines hasn’t  focused  on principally on their most humanlike manifestations.  It’s frankly the  sheer universality of these man made animate devices, ...usually assembled  in Taiwan or some beleaguered third world place ...that what fascinates me. How long and far would this procession into a brave new world of artificial aliveness continue...how many daily human endeavors ,whether prosaic or sublime would we continue to delegate to these "things" ...and how would  this trajectory affect the collective human experience? Woody Allen in an early routine told of his father being replaced at work by a four, by three  by one foot machine that could do everything better ,faster and at half the price ...and his mother wanted one. 

Was this a prescient metaphor for all of us ? Are we steadily replacing ourselves by gadgets?  

Moreover the ever improving trajectory of machine quality seems to be abided and abetted  by artificial intelligence...Or AI as it is diffidently referred to by both it's detractors and supporters. Experts have asserted that AI could be either a boon to mankind or bring on our extinction....they also assert that the more high tech machines became the more vulnerable they are to being  co-opted by AI to work against our interests.  Even home appliances ,they say ,could conceivably be controlled remotely via internet...will the day come when AI decides to hold us all for ransom by telling our washers ,microwaves ,air conditioners and big screens to go on strike or even worse to turn on us? I shudder at this brave new machine world we're fast approaching !!! 

Maybe  a way to obviate this dark future scenario could be to appease these man created creatures here and now....we have an international woman's day ...workers day ...even an Earth day...how about a machineday?  Let's show our love for our faithful and long suffering servants by honoring  them with a collective day off...let's make our own coffee, take the stairs ,wash our own cloths by hand, walk to work....and read a magazine instead of semi consciously turning on that Tv ,radio , iPad ,smart phone...etc. Let's show them some love now while there’s still time, Cuz if we don't the day will might come when it’s too late and they'll be coming around looking for some payback. 

DT Saroyan 

Just us talking

My star bucks ephifany

I think it's safe to say i'm a regular Starbucks patron...well that's a little understated ....if Starbucks gave out frequent flyer miles I'd have long since earned earned a first class ticket to Alpha sentari ...and back again. Let's just say I go there a lot. The coffee giant's Art Deco interior and post modern ambiance is a constant fixture in my consciousness simply because I'm pretty much a constant fixture in Starbucks ....and this isn't limited to my local neighborhood ....I've Darkened the Mermaid's doors from Hawaii to New York ...and a place or two in between.

I've even sought out that familiar logo in faraway strange lands ...such as China, where the service ,product ...and the snoody prices were congruent to their American counter parts.The other side of the world notwithstanding ...the Starbucks brand and ambiance holds up...which I've got to admit Ive found to be strangely reassuring in this very unsure world. And although this world is still a biblical veil of sorrows as wars ....revolutions ....famines...depressions ....social upheavals ....(fill in the catastrophe) still plague the face of the earth... I can get still get my dulce deleche latte just like I want it and sip on it to the tune of a poignant Leonard Cohen song then leave in a state of caffeinated euphoria. And before i'm accused of being a Starbucks's shill...or troll to be more contemporary. Consider this ....there was a time when I avoided Starbucks like an Ebola ridden sweat towel. I eschewed ,loathed , held in distain,reviled, shunned,scorned .. Et al ....the Mermaid Brand. But why ,might you say, did I have such a negative personal regard for the Coffee giant? Well for one thing it was just that ...it's giantness. The dam company was like a corporate coffee slinging octopus ...it was freaking everywhere. That pervasiveness rubbed me wrong...what was the need to spread out and dominate the entire landscape like that? There was something creepy about it...Starbucks was virtually omnipresent...in any given downtown center you couldn't Not see one of these prefabricated ,pretentious, faux Art Deco splayed coffee factories no matter how hard you tried ...or so it seemed. I made a vow to resist Starbucks by all means necessary and I vowed would not drop even one of my hard earned shekels there. I took a sort of pride in this. I considered my self to be not unlike Winston Smith, the erstwhile protagonist of 1984, who heroically resisted Big Brother...wasn't my struggle against an all encompassing corporate coffee monster just as heroic? Sure it was! (To me at least )

My prejudices against the coffee chain were made even more efficacious when I considered the herds of people who frequented Starbucks ...I'll grant they were a demographic that had their ' 'Stuff' together...well educated ,well mannered ,well attired ,well groomed... in all the above categories ...well. But maybe that's what put me off a little. I just didn't identify with those responsible glass tower working suburban dwellers who predictably migrated between Starbucks and their nice office cubicles ,law firms , medical suites and boardrooms...What did I have to do with those upstanding coffee imbibing pillars of society ?

I endeavored to find places more attuned to my iconoclastic tastes. One of My favorite locations was in a renovated turn of the century (as in 19th century ) historic office building.

It was artsy, unconventional...a little musty ...and wonderfully unconventional. A person could sip their double mint latte and not feel like the drink was devised by an MBA in a high rent air-conditioned office somewhere in Manhattan. The owners were right there ...taking you orders and concocting your drinks ...just as you liked it.

And since the place was smack tab down town ...it sported a patronage that was a far cry from the aforementioned "normal" customers. This place was chalk full of bohemian types ....poets , musicians , writers ,artists ...well at least they thought they were all of the above. I pretty much went there every night and used it as a place to do my graduate college work....and it worked out fine...until I finished school and got to working full time.

After that something strange occurred. I had a job and a mortgage to hold down. I divided my time between looking for work as a college professor and doing a job that paid the bills. Suddenly I started identifying less with the aforementioned bohemian types ...most of whom didn't have real jobs or mortgages...and more with people who like me had had a long tiring day and wanted to relax and sip something pleasant before heading home for the night...or maybe wanted to start their day with a simple coffee ,bagel and a news paper...simply put Starbucks was for people with jobs.

Still my resolve held out for considerable time. I did my level best to only patronize the independently owned places....but my reservoir of resolve started to spring leaks when I moved to a new city and there was no family owned place to be seen literally for miles....I compromised my standards just a tad and started going to a chain place called The Coffee Bean. ok it was corporate ....but at least it wasn't Starbucks....but I began to undergo a transformation...I was starting to appreciate the ordinariness of the experience. I frankly wasn't missing the loud poetry readings...naked body art ....film festivals ...bongo drums ...and abstract art that looked like something an elephant had painted with its trunk. No just pleasant ,pre-selected music tracks ...dec decent coffee ....central air conditioning...and a few high carb snacks.

I was becoming a square....my metamorphosis became complete when , due to my extensive travels as a pharmaceutical currier I like all freeway travelers in So- Cal or Timbuktu for that matter, found my self in need of a decent public restroom. The choices were grim. There were the gas station restrooms which were notoriously....notorious. Fast food joints were abundant ...but were strictly restricted only to patrons ...and just the thought of having to chow down an Arby's roast beef every time I had to go to the john brought on involuntary constipation...and you could sneak into the restaurant restrooms only so many times before an assistant manager chased you out waving a skillet. Well there was one other option...Starbucks. I had to admit there was were stores literally minutes away from any given location my job took me...And I went to some pretty god forsaken ...albeit not Starbucks forsaken places.

So one day while I was just coming back literally from the middle of nowhere ...I saw the Mermaid logo. It seemed to be enticing me not like its ancient name sakes who lured hapless sailors to their doom...I nevertheless took the bait and gratefully used their rest room which was not only pleasantly clean and hygienic but also sported a locked door which enabled me to make my private bathroom duties ...in private.

My innate sense of fair play precluded me from just "going and running" , so I assuaged my conscience by buying something...and I might as well eat or drink it here ...I thought. So you see where this is going. My Starbucks "pit stops" increased in frequency ...and duration...until I realized the unthinkable was occurring ! I was becoming a "regular" I desperately made one last ditch effort to reverse this trend and sought out a service station restroom to perform my necessaries but was abruptly thwarted when I opened the door only to see the taped outline of a body next to a massive hole the floor where the toilet had been...that was it ! I ran ,tail between my legs, back to the nearest Starbucks and formally surrendered...from then on I'd be a loyal mermaid bathroom user ...and coffee drinker. The metamorphosis had became complete.

Starbucks ...that obscene ,over priced ,overexposed ,over extended ,over hyped ,over caffeinated monstrosity....had sucked me into its Death Star...I was from then on and still am a loyal customer waiting in line with the other lemmings for my iced frappicino venti with a twist of chocolate sprinkles...And just as Winston Smith ,the the ill fated hero in 1984, had ended up loving Big Brother...I loved Starbucks.

DT Saroyan

All Hail the Mighty Beep! 

This oft’ heard and almost universally recognized little sound is so familiar and ubiquitous that we are wont to  block it out the same way we might screen out the many other prosaic yet essential audio signals needed get through our day...but when you get to thinking about it we basically live our lives in constant juxtaposition to this innocuous little sound all the while giving it almost no consideration. Yet we are ,in a sense ,at the mercy of the beep in that we must inevitably wait for it's permission before we can proceed with life's myriad  tasks which have somehow come to be regulated by this ubiquitous sound. The very word beep is in itself a semi comical affectation which has seemingly assigned a warm and fuzzy nature to this gentle yet unquestionably assertive little sound. Interestingly the etymological origin of the very word beep is described as imitative ... meaning that the word is an imitation of the actual sounds made by early electronic machines while they went about doing whatever it was we had them doing, so in effect machines themselves gave us this word enriching our vocabulary in so doing. There are undoubtedly other machine generated words in our lexicon. A few popular utterances that come to mind include but are not limited to the following utterances: clank! ....screech! ....wirrrrr! ....hummm....buzzz!....! ....wizzzz! ...sputter ....rrrrring! Et Al. All these  aforementioned might fairly be classed as machinese....for lack of a better moniker. How interesting is it then that of these robust and timpanically muscular sounds it’s the mild mannered beep...that unprepossing  ,unpretentious ,even mousy little sound which has set it’s self apart from all the others as the main gate keeper of our quotidian existence. But if the little beep can be called mousy then it is mouse that roared. Consider the following ..."At the sound of the beep" we key in prompted numbers to access our bank accounts,  open up our hotel doors ,  pass through secured corridors , focus camera shutter lenses  , scan our credit cards to make purchases , pass through crowded turnstiles , fine tune our car engines, click on or  off our remotes just to name a few examples. Furthermore if one gets the notion that the beep has been assigned to regulate only the routine, the common aka the petty matters in life then they need to guess again. We've trusted the beep to be our audible sentinel for such life saving devices as smoke detectors and security alarms ; they gently tell us to buckle our seat belts ;alert pedestrians that it's safe to cross busy dangerous streets ; inform drivers about their vehicle’s safe functionality and even help regulate in the dispensing of health giving medicines among other things. And it goes even further. In the August  matters of Life and Death, it is the universally recognized beep ,beep...beep of the EKG machine audibly announcing the heart rates of our loved ones which gently reassures us that they are still among the living and have not succumbed to the infamous and death auguring flat line monotone. So then rather being than being just    

another insignificant sound in the audio mix of our lives, the beep is in essence our life’s existential crossing guard...gently nudging ,guiding ,warning ,even comforting us as we progress through this life's pilgrim journey ...even to the very gates of the next. Saint Paul famously said that the world would end at the "the sounding of the Trump"...but I don't think we'll recognize it, maybe it should be the last beep instead.

DT Saroyan