Sumbitch!: Starbucks

October 18, 2005

Starbucks

Circumstances forced me into a Starbucks yesterday, and while I was there I decided to buy the Dylan Live at the Gaslight 1962 album. Why Dylan chose to release this album at a Starbucks in the first place is a mystery: perhaps he is a sellout. But what is ironic is that in all likelihood Starbucks drove this little independent coffee place, or at least thousands like it, out of business. They are celebrating what they destroy. It is like Hitler selling books by Jewish writers at a concentration camp.

Starbucks cannot make a decent coffee.

Let me explain: the primary purpose of coffee is to wake you up in the morning and get you going. It needs a strong, rough taste and a smell to match.

Now standard Starbucks coffee does not smell like coffee. It doesn't have the smell to wake you up I mean. It's just some sort of gourmet coffee smell that does not pack power. And espresso has caffeine but not the kick in the smell and taste, and also it's not a full size cup of coffee.

Any morning I would greatly prefer whatever kind of coffee Steak 'n Egg has (the lion's head on the cover, I think it is called "Royal") to whatever bullshit Starbucks has regardless of cost or all-you-can drink status. That kind of coffee gits-r-done. Starbucks does not.

Yeah gourmet coffee has a role but it's not a good one. It's rarely worth the price and never worth going to for itself. When you get a decent price ($2.00) and combine it with a meal, such as at Pho 75, it crosses the barrier, but even if I lived right by Pho I would never go just for the coffee, good as it may be. And I wouldn't pay more than two for, except maybe a few cents more.

Tack on a few more bucks, dock the quality, take away the meal, and add an aggravating cookie-cutter half-assed attempted at "coffee-shop atmosphere" and you're way in the hole.

The only thing I can appreciate is the tongue-in-cheek name.

Posted by icejew at October 18, 2005 09:01 PM

Comments

you like the coffee at steak n egg better than starbucks. i'm not reading the rest.

today i spent several hours at starbucks getting free internet and cheap coffee (including several free samples) and sitting in a comfortable chair.

Posted by: afsdsd at October 18, 2005 11:50 PM

Can you honestly say the coffee at starbucks is better for waking you up?

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 12:57 AM

Well I'll answer for you: it's not.

If it was all free I'd prefer the Starbucks coffee in the afternoon except I don't drink afternoon coffee because it fucks with my sleep and makes the afternoon less relaxing and isn't refreshing like a soda.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 01:00 AM

youre making a distinction between gourmet coffee and strong coffee, which doesnt really make sense. there is shitty coffee that's weak, and gourmet coffee that's strong. i like my coffee pretty strong and i dont think starbucks disappoints. i couldnt tell you if it wakes you up better than other coffee, because it doesnt affect me all that much.

Posted by: asdfas at October 19, 2005 01:45 AM

No dude the coffee can be strong but it doesn't have the same quality as that Royal Coffee in taste and aroma...it sort of seems like whatever that is is masked somehow. Like I can just smell the Steak 'n Egg Coffee and that is good stuff, and smelling or drinking the straight Starbucks coffee I don't get that feeling at all.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 02:12 AM

I'm surprised you don't rant about the fake "foriegn" atmosphere they try to put on. I mean, with all the accents they put on their drinks and the sizes. I mean... since when did Tall mean small? Jesus Christ, you walk in there and order a small black coffee, they look at you like you're from another planet. Hell, I don't even drink coffee and I hate the place.

Posted by: KP09 at October 19, 2005 07:33 AM

i always order regular coffee and i dont use their gay ass terms for sizes and no one's ever looked at me funny.

the last sentence of that comment is ridiculous. you dont like it BECAUSE you dont drink coffee.

Posted by: fdsa at October 19, 2005 10:39 AM

i'm no coffee expert, but is it possible that the Royal aroma you refer to is the smell of cheap, shitty coffee? i mean, i like steak 'n egg, but i wouldn't claim they use better beef than some expensive burger place.

the true small size at starbucks is "short," but they keep it a secret so you have to know to ask for it.

Posted by: farbs at October 19, 2005 11:44 AM

Well it's a different sort of shitty coffee if it is, because fast food coffee has a strong taste but doesn't have the same kind of taste and smell. I'm not saying Royal is technically superior, just that I prefer it.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 12:57 PM

Bob Dylan is sort of a sellout, as also evidenced by his weird Victoria's Secret ads, but also just seems to like doing shit that will piss off his fans.

Posted by: Cortez at October 19, 2005 02:27 PM

I wasn't bothered by the Victoria's Secret ads, man was just trying to get some action

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 03:23 PM

yeah, i don't think the victoria's secret was so much a sellout as a continuation of a career-long pattern of inscrutability. the starbucks thing, though, doesn't have the weirdness of the bra ad, so it's harder to accept.

for myself, i don't plan to buy the gaslight record at starbucks, but that has as much to do with the record itself as with the marketing. i don't really see a need for as many alternate versions and live performances of his early-'60s folk material as they're releasing. if it was another electric live set from the 1966 tour (or more material from the basement tapes), i would probably be more inclined to swallow my distaste and buy the record at starbucks.

Posted by: farbs at October 19, 2005 03:38 PM

It's surprisingly good, and there's not really a lot of folk stuff out there other than it. I was doubtful but it came highly reccomended from a friend who knows his Dylan and has lived up to the reccomendation. But you gotta like the folk stuff I guess.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 03:53 PM

at this point dylan doesn't know where the bathroom is, much less where his cds are being sold

Posted by: fdasfs at October 19, 2005 04:22 PM

The best coffee is the coffee they serve here in France. They drink it out of teeny coffee cups but they don't call it espresso. I find that you get the same amount of satisfaction from a big cup as a little one, if not more so.

Posted by: Lindsay at October 19, 2005 05:40 PM

...from a little one.

Edit: I get more satisfaction out of a little cup.

Posted by: Lindsay at October 19, 2005 05:40 PM

I dunno I like drinking for a long time and not that much taking small sips.

On the other hand Turkish coffee can be good at night and stuff.

It really just depends on what kind of mood you are in and what kind of coffee drinker you are. I'm not really suited for it.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 05:44 PM

For little cup coffee I mean.

And also Dylan still knows what's going on, he doesn't speak that often but earlier this year he was talking about modern music and was no harder to understand than he has been his whole life.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 05:46 PM

this is stupid, at least compare starbucks to other independant or smaller chain gourmet coffee store. They have the same level of pretenciousness but at least its not mass produced corperate pretenciousness and generally the coffee is somewhat better.

Posted by: Cash at October 19, 2005 07:49 PM

uh i also i am sitting in starbucks using the wireless connection as i read this post and make this comment

Posted by: Cash at October 19, 2005 07:53 PM

i like the folk stuff, i just don't feel nearly as much need to have multiple versions of those songs. i already have the original records, plus the live 66 acoustic disc, live 64, the acoustic stuff on bootleg series 1 and 2, and now the no direction home soundtrack too. that is a lot of records to cover a 4-year period.

Posted by: farbs at October 19, 2005 10:23 PM

mason, did they give out free pumpkin spice latte samples? i ahte to say it but that shit was delicious

Posted by: sdfdf at October 19, 2005 10:41 PM

Dude the acoustic half of 66 is not folk stuff, and only a little of the No Direction Home is.

These songs are not released on any other official Dylan album as far as I know:
Rocks and Gravel
The Cuckoo
Handsome Molly
Cocaine
Barbara Allen
West Texas
which is 60% of the album that is not "multiple versions."
Now he didn't write these but his folk arrangements of standards are pretty good.

John Brown is only on MTV Unplugged which kind of sucks so you may not have it. My brother got it on DVD for a dollar in China, which is a good deal so it is worth it for that but I would never buy the audio.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 10:56 PM

And it says here he wrote Rocks and Gravel.

Posted by: DHI at October 19, 2005 10:56 PM

I've had a bootleg version of the remastered gaslight tapes for about a year now, from one of my totally obsessed Dylan friends up here. No idea if it's the same one as Starbucks markets, but I will say that although a lot of the songs are traditionals it's still a pretty kickass record. Particularly if you're interested in Dylan's history and growth. I've listened to it a number of times. Since I got it for free, I don't know if I would have bought it over other Dylan material or albums by other bands having not heard it - but I like it a lot.

My disc says Rocks and Gravel was "Adapted from McGee/Carr."

Posted by: egosumebrius at October 20, 2005 12:47 AM

Yeah looks like they sort of exxagerated the originality to try to sell it.

Well I still think it's valuable to have.

Posted by: DHI at October 20, 2005 03:27 AM

The Astros have been in even worse shape, using three starters with less than two years of major-league experience. Signing Clemens to go with right-hander Roy Oswalt and left-hander Andy Pettitte again gives them a legitimate Big Three once again. If Clemens, after several minor-league tuneups, proves anywhere near as good as he was last season, he will give the team precisely the lift it needs.

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