11,417. RUDIMENTS, pt. 542

RUDIMENTS, pt. 542

('pass me that cup of quiet')

I always wondered what

'Cup of Joe' meant when

used about coffee. I've

heard 'mud,' and 'gunk,'

and they were always

understandable; but I

never got it about the

'Joe' thing. Just today

I read, in some material

about WWI and Wilson,

that there was this guy,

the tee-totaling Secretary

Of the Navy, named

Josephus Daniels, who

objected to alcohol on

ships, and ordered that

coffee be served instead.

Recruits grumbled about

their 'Cup of Josephus,'

which later became today's

'Cup a' Joe.' Well, one

mystery solved, a'fore

I pass on.

-

I sort of lost my own edge

for coffee sometime ago  - 

still I drink it but with little

care. It's all mostly about 

price; I little care really 

for the 'roast' or the 'blend.' 

That's the big marketing 

now, and I frankly think 

it has blindsided all else 

with a particular level of 

BS. They should maybe 

have a BS Blend, which 

could sell well with the

right advertising pomp. 

Even I, alas, have my

limits on what I will pay

for hot water that dribbles

through some beans.

-

The thing about NYC 

coffee-shops, besides I 

mean their ubiquity, is

how they each somehow 

put together their own 

particular aesthetics and

ambiance, which play 

off better for the owners 

and workers than for 

the denizens of said 

'roastery' or cafe. You 

go into Birch or Joe, 

to use two simple 

examples, and it's

already pretty scary. 

I discount here the 

mob-affront atmospherics

of Starbucks, but they're 

all blooms off the same 

plant. Less the alcohol, 

Leopold and Stephen,

we could find much in 

common with any corner 

grog-house. The thing is,

for the workers, they end

up appearing as nothing

more than prettified and

internalized sweatshops.

No one seems truly 'happy,'

though they each go about

their trendified work with

the correct aplomb. Pretty

girls are pretty girls; and 

the perfectly capitalized

menfolk, as well, color

nicely the scene. (BUT - let

me interject - give it up some

on the tattoos, OK. I don't
want to have read you; I just
want a cup of your brew. Or,
as they say in show business,
'Break a leg!'). The noise level 
in the best of them is perfect; 
that is, non-existent. However,

I've seen some already

prostituted by on-wall

televisions. Wrong move,

big daddy. Way wrong.

Bars did that to themselves 

30 years ago, and it ruined

everything. Please, coffee

shops, don't even think of it.

-

Whenever I try sleeping, I

want to stay awake, and then 

once I'm sleeping I never

want to get up. It's quite

paradoxical, and when you

set yourself to thinking of

the gains, or not, of sleep,

and dream, it certainly puts

you to wondering. That's a

bit like the paradox of a cafe

or coffee shop : once you

enter  -  if it's right  -  you

don't wish to leave. The

passing parade of those who

come and go ends up being

of little consequence, as long

as its not noisome bevy of

honkers or reprobates better

kept at home. That becomes

the break in the reverie, the 

nightmare which grows from

the dream. Ascertaining a 

source is useless : Ignorance? 

Poverty? Simple bad behavior?

The sorts of creeps who end

up tarnishing a place for others

hardly do deserve any musing

over, but they represent the

affront that is our society 

today.

-

When I lived at 509 e.11th,

there wasn't anything like that

around. My 10 cent coffee was

pretty much a brown water, and

handed to me by a Polish guy,

a survivor, with tattooed camp

numbers on his arm; he served, 

each morning, whatever gruel

and eggs and coffee he could

muck up, for the locals or for

the Con Ed Generating Plant

who'd would come in to wake 

up. Cafe? I don't think so; first

off, there was cigarette smoke 

everywhere. I don't think you

can that anymore. Secondly,

the little wooden, free-standing

chairs, maybe 10 or 12 of them 

at most, weren't connected to

anything, and didn't honor any

one table or place. They just

got moved around according

to the layout of that day. There

weren't any fancy catacombs

sorts strolling in or out either.

Maybe Dick Tracy could be

found there, penning his

'Crimestopper's Textbook.

(I used to love that).

-

All up and down 11th street

and the area around it, everything

was bare-bones, trim and 1960's

local. How it ever got all rolled

up into what we have today is

beyond me. Apparently the 

need did not yet exist  -  or had

not yet been ad-manufactured 

into a 'need'  -  for fancified 

versions of the most ordinary 

stuff. Perhaps that's the 

American way, now. It

all been proffered and 

thrown overboard, to 

the waste and the prime

maleficence of greed 

and pretense. I could sense,

even then, and saw, what 

was coming. It wasn't

as if the world was to be

ending, and most people liked

it  - except maybe for those

about to be sacrificed on

the altar of Vietnam for the

malfeasance of a nation about

to be BUT, at the same time,

it no longer represented in

any way any of the founding

principles of what the country

was supposed to have been 

about. That was all dead and

done for. You'd have a better

chance of maybe looking

down your best buddy's sister's

blouse than of getting any of

that back. Well, even chance, 

let's say. Some things were 

always pretty easy; others hard.

(Is that a pun, hidden in there,

or are you just happy to see me).

-

See  -  that's what writers do, 

that's how I graze. You think,

you agree, that I'm taking you

somewhere in this read, and 

then all of a sudden I've got

you by the ring in your nose

and you're being dragged off

in some other direction. It's 

the way I like it. It's how you

learn. I learned this today too  -

in doing some James Joyce

research (Ulysses). Bannon

refers to Milly Bloom, (the

daughter, not Molly) saying 

in a letter to her father,

Leopold, about there day's

work, as a photographer's

assistant, that 'We did great

biz yesterday, and all the

beef to the heels were in.'

Confusing reference, yes?

In Mullingar, (the town

where she worked), Mullingar,

heifers, and beef to the heel,

were slang terms for girls

with thick ankles. The

origination story goes: 'A

stranger, passing through

Mullingar, was so struck by

this local peculiarity in the

women, that he asked a

Mullingar girl, "May I

inquire if you wear hay

in your shoes?" She replied,

"Faith an' I do, and what

then?" The traveller said,

"Because that accounts for

the calves of your legs 

coming down to feed in it."'
-
This was, what, like 1904. The
book itself was faced with many
problems, for 'obscenity' etc. in
the older terms of its day, but no
one took umbrage at the thick
ankles thing. Curious it is, now,
to look back at all that. The sort
of nice musing that gets done in
quiet, softly-addled, clumps-of-
people, coffee shops all 
along the way.