I never used to drink coffee. Much like smoking cigarettes, it simply wasn't a vice that had ever occurred to me to pick up (though rest assured, I picked up plenty of others). Oh sure, I'd tasted coffee, but whenever I was in need of a hot beverage or a pick-me-up, I usually opted for a cup of hot chocolate. And even though I spent over a decade working two overnight shifts a week at TIME Magazine's trusty news desk (r.i.p.), I did so fueled only by soft drinks and junk food.
Then I got married.
Peggy is a firm believer in the life-affirming power of coffee, and the fiery Middle Eastern blood that cascades through her veins demands that she drinks it black. Sometime after she and I started dating back in the late 90's, I too started drinking coffee with regularity. But being the pathetic girly-man that I am, I require emasculating amounts of milk and sugar before my delicate palette can handle it. I've tried Peggy's black route -- I'd imagine it's also how the Marines and Samurai warriors and Henry Rollins consume theirs --but I can't do it. In fact, these days, I fill my mug halfway with milk and pop that sucker in the microwave for thirty seconds for an ersatz Cafe Au Lait effect -- this surely isn't something the Marlboro Man would do, but fuck that chap-chafed cowboy -- it's how I like it.
I now count myself as one of the addicted. I take my coffee seriously and go to great lengths to get it right. At my last job, I took to sneaking down to a lower floor to use their superior coffee maker (eschewing the tongue-immolating battery acid on offer in my old floor's pantry). Much like many of my kind, if I can't start my day with a half-way decent cup of coffee, it's going to be ugly.
I'm typing at you from a coffee shop right now, as a matter of fact. My morning routine now involves a cup or two at home with the wife and kids before I head out to an internet cafe, where I launch my daily campaign to re-instate myself into the work force. My locale of choice is Gizzi's on West 8th Street, a relatively new establishment, but one well versed in the art of serving an ass-whuppin' cup of coffee. I'm about to close up shop for the morning, but the java surging through my veins won't let me stop typing. As such, I've selected this video from the amazingly versatile and criminially under-praised British band, Cardiacs, who play with a frenzied fire that also suggests a Herculean intake of coffee. This is an old track of theirs titled -- quite fittingly -- "Jibber And Twitch," something I'll find myself doing if I have one more cup. Enjoy.
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