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Saturday, August 30, 2008

A Cup Of Joe

I am thoroughly convinced that there are principally two different kinds of Canadians, those who drink Tim Hortons and those who drink Starbucks. All right, before you get too excited, there are those weirdos in that third category, the teetotallers, tree huggers and hippies who are too sensitive to drink coffee. But for those real Canadians, real people, with real lives. We drink coffee, hot black, steaming nasty, smells good tastes horrible, coffee! Fix it how you will. Black, white, sugar, no sugar. Double double Double triple. Latte, Mocha chino whatever! COFFEE! We don't drink it because we want to we drink it because we have to. You know the first of the twelve steps is admitting we have a problem. My name is Greg T. and I am a Coffaholic! You really think you aren't hooked, especially to one or the other of the big chains? Try this spend some time in a foreign country.


I just got back from three weeks in the British Isles (I include Ireland in this so my sincerest apologies to the Irish as they are definitely not British). The first thing I noticed was the nasty black liquid that greeted me when the waitress finally arrived with two stainless steel decanters. I am sure she asked me if I wanted coffee. What was in my cup when she was finished pouring was a complete surprise to me. I picked up a small pitcher that contained a white fluid. I always pour a little cream into my coffee then wait. The dream slides down the side of my cup then swirls upwards magically turning the dark brown liquid a wonderful golden color. It changes the smell too, I think. It seems to soften to fill the nostrils with that cafe au lait smell that I love so much. However when the white liquid hit this stuff it was as if it had vanished. The volume in my cup increased but the color and odor did not change one iota. Milk, I reasoned. Then a second realisation hit me, Man this must be strong coffee the color is the same. I added more milk with no effect. I poured until my cup brimmed and I dared not stir as it would have sloshed. I ended up with a liquid the color of a Panther tank model I once painted. Flat battle grey I think the label on the paint bottle had read. As I was horribly jet-lagged and sleep deprived I raised the cup to my lips and took a strong pull at the now lukewarm mess. It was appalling. I have drunk some bad cups of coffee in my time, in college dorm rooms, cooked over an open fire, reheated day old Joe in a microwave at three in the morning, but this one beat all.

A couple at the next table to us were also on the same tour. He raised his mug in a morning salute and said cheerily, "Good stuff, just like Starbucks, eh?" He emphasized the "eh" as a reference to the fact that we were Canadian, they were from Oklahoma. I suppressed a grimace and waved, too appalled to speak. I am a Double Double man myself. A medium double double to be exact. You cannot be human nowadays without having a coffee Identity. I suppose to be honest I am now a double double sweetener as a concession to my diabetes. In actual fact, (no body's listening right? I mean, you can keep a secret?) I don't really like coffee. I drink a cup or so a day, more as required, but mostly for medicinal purposes. In other words I drink it to get awake or to stay awake. I add milk and sweetener so I can get the stuff down. To me it is the Buckley's Cough Syrup of the beverage world, It tastes awful but it works. That's why I like Tim Horton's, you can doctor it up and make it passable with caution. I believe that most Canadians, if the truth were told, love the smell of coffee but the taste is somewhat less appealing. Starbucks people are different. They love the taste so much they want you to slap them with it. No, harder, like you mean it! They are masochistic sorts. Tim's people like to be awoken with a gentle word or a nudge in a mug. Starbucks people want to be grabbed by the ankles and inverted, and shaken awake by a seven foot drill instructor of a coffee. No subtle nuances here, just pure, raw savage power. Well folks if this is you, you'll love England, Strong coffee without a trace of cream. No wonder the English drink so much tea. They do Tea very well, hot fresh and sweet. Sublime. By the end of our tour, when the waitress arrived with the two gleaming carafes, I said, "Tea, Please!" When in Rome... Hey, did you see that tree, let's see if I can get my arms around it...

Friday, August 29, 2008

That's Not The Way It Feels

This September 20th will mark the thirty fifth year since Pop Singer/Songwriter Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash. In the summer of 1973 I was fourteen years old and had just bought my first record album, ever. "Life and Times" By you guessed it Jim Croce. I sat in my old room in the second story of my parents house in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and played that album until I wore it out (It wouldn't be my last copy, I have owned it in Vinyl, 8 Track, Cassette CD and MP3). Little did I know as I listened and sang along that his life would be brought to such a sudden and tragic end just a few months later.

Croce was born in the south side of Philadelphia, in a rough part of town. His love of music started early and he joined numerous musical groups. He attended Villanova University where he met his wife Ingrid at a Hootenanny. He was a member of the Villanova singers and formed a number of bands. Jim played in coffee houses and at neighboring Universities. After graduating in 1965 he and his wife toured and performed mostly folk music doing covers of Ian & Sylvia Tyson tunes, he also emulated Gordon Lightfoot and Woody Guthry. He would continue to do thoughtful covers and interpretations of the works of other artists such as Sam Cook when he made it big. It wasn't an easy life and after having moved to New York, and lost everything he owned except one guitar he left the business and went to work driving truck. He would later chalk this up to "Character Development" but it must have hurt, a lot. But like most things that do not kill us, it made him stronger.

While they were struggling he and Ingrid wrote many fine tunes, such as "Spin, Spin, Spin" and "Age". These folksy tunes stand up well and are worth a listen. While playing some very tough bars Jim developed a style of talking between songs that endeared him to his audience and doubtless saved him from a lot of abuse and perhaps a few stitches from flying beer bottles. His style was funny, if a bit bawdy, pithy and studded with the experiences of someone who had worked for a living,The kind of humor that he used so well in his "Character Songs" about people like Leroy Brown and a roller derby queen who "Was built like a fridgerator, with a head.".

Life is often a series of fortunate accidents and in 1970 Jim met Maury Muehleisen through a mutual friend. Maury was a classically trained guitarist and initially it was Jim who backed up Maury. It was a match made in heaven, they complimented each other beautifully. Eventually Jim would take the lead but always, Maury was there with his crystal clear tones and haunting chord structures. Jim's diamond would not have shone so bright, nor had so many facets without Maury, his brilliance and Jim's were symbiotic.

When fame came it was meteoric. Croce was your typical overnight success that was ten years in the making. In 1972 he released "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" and "Life & Times". "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" went to #1 on the Charts in the summer of 1973. Jim was at the very zenith of his career. He was having success with "Operator that's not The way it Feels" and only one day before the release of his third album under the ABC label "I Got A Name"it literally all came crashing down, when the small plane he was riding crashed on takeoff, killing all aboard. Jim was just 30 years old. Like so many music stars he had been taken In the prime of life in a plane crash, the bitter news was heightened by the death of Maury Muelheisen who was only 24. In that summer of hope in 1973 when I was so young and the world seemed so endless and vast, I learned something of what it was to feel loss and sorrow. Jim will be forever young as he joins those whom time has frozen, like fruit picked at the peak of the harvest. To paraphrase what I once heard about Stan Rogers, what Jim did with the first thirty years of his life leaves you to wonder what he would have done with another thirty years.

I recently downloaded a video of Jim singing "Operator" with, of course, Maury at his side, not in the back but sitting side by side, playing so beautifully. The video was sublime. It also opened an old wound that I did not think would be so close to the surface some 35 years later. Jim has been gone longer than he was on this earth. His music holds up so well, though. Especially for me anyways, his ballads and love songs. Give them a listen and I know you will agree. After his death I was left with only his older music, and some very bad recordings of his coffee house and barroom days. The talent was still there, a diamond in the rough. As I listened to Operator" it occurred to me how appropriate were his own words to the reaction of his millions of fans on the September morn....

I've overcome the blow-
I've learned to take it well-
I only wish my words could just convince myself-
That it just wasn't real.... But that's not the way it feels...


No,NO,No,NO.... That's not the way it feels...