Kaffeewahnsinn: The death of the American coffeehouse

Yesterday marked the first winter storm of the season here in Suckingtomatoes.

After another desiccated summer season in this festering snakepit of inept, incompetent governmental Californica politics (although surprisingly somewhat milder than the usual blisteringly hot midsummer madness that usually prevails).

I for one, welcomed it enthusiastically, for Autumn has always been my favorite season. Winter storms and a healthy diffusion of negative ions in the air are a powerful creative catalyst that spurs me to write, regardless of the fact that few people who read my postings seem to pay much attention to them (either the writings or the ions).

I’d already had my obligatory first cup of coffee for the day but for some reason, the creative juices weren’t stirring, so I put the pup’s harness on her and we headed out the door in a light but steady rain. The two cats that have ‘adopted’ us were waiting faithfully on the stoop, so I dutifully retraced my steps back into the house and brought out the usual cat treats we spoil them with, after their regular AM meal of fish and shrimp bits.

Nala, my pup, stared balefully at me as I did so, indignant that Her Royale Progresse to the nearby park had been rudely interrupted by cats. She contented herself by licking up the scattered remnants of their fishy fare, left in the plates, fully mindful of the fact that this sort of gratuitous display of improprietary gluttony never fails to irritate me.

Our daily route takes us down a major boulevard that has, over the past several years, increasingly become a favorite bypass route favored by huge Semi trucks to avoid Interstate highway AM commuter snarls in urban Sacramento and said heavy traffic is rapidly tearing up the asphalt of this formerly quiet street. Of course, although the posted speed limit is 35 mph, and despite the fact that this boulevard passes directly in front of a local grammar school, none of the cars or trucks venture below about 50.

This sort of heavy traffic generates an ungodly amount of noise, such that pedestrians have to use some sort of hearing protection (I use ear-plugs, others use noise-limiting headphones and earbuds) to keep from going bat-shit crazy before traversing 5 blocks to reach the park.

The narrow sidewalk (built back in the 50s) is directly adjacent to the east-bound traffic flow, so it can be considerably unnerving to have conga lines of heavy commercial 16-wheelers roaring past one, less than 3 feet from you. It’s almost a civic planner’s afterthought: “Oh yeah (snap!), we need some sidewalks.”

Fortunately for her (the grrrrl), she’s now almost completely deaf (at 19+ years, incredibly for a Husky dog), so the extreme noise doesn’t bother her a whit and I have my years of past experience working SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) racetracks (such as Laguna Seca in Monterey, and Sears Point in Napa) as a turn marshal to help take the edge off such otherwise terrifying exposure to the whims of mechanised fate; that and my professional quality ear-plugs.

Still, walking down this sidewalk I always have these minor flashbacks of being back at the track again, facing a chaotic pack of Formula-Vees coming into Turn-3, or perhaps at some Spanish bullring in Cordoba, facing away from a monstrous thousand-pound bull who is about to smash me into atoms.

Believe me! I’d much rather be sitting in a scenic little cliff-top cottage, quietly perched on a bluff over the Sonoma Seacoast and nestled among the trees there. Ah! The peace! The quiet! No cars, no air pollution, just wonderful, balmy sea breezes, the occasional stormy seascape and the soothingly muted roar of the breakers to liven things up naturally (and without manmade artifice).

Anyway, we finally made it to the park where the grrrrl goes about her daily sniff-and-squirt protocol, quickly locating particularly interesting patches of smelly offal that some other dog has left, conscientiously pausing to squat over it and leave her mark upon it to announce to other doggy visitors that she’s anointed it.

At 7AM, a half hour or so before sunrise, there are blessedly few if any others in this particular park, if you exclude the odd neighborhood woman (a regular) with her three rescued foo-foo dogs in tow, whose daily path seems to be congruent with ours. At such times, we execute the ‘Doggy Minuet’ maneuver, a sort of intricate, stylized action intended to put the most distance possible between us, so as to preclude any nasty little, yappy foo-foo dog ‘incidents.’

Continuing through the distal end of the park, we pass the City’s Sewage Processing facility (with its endless fumes of methane and hydrogen gasses venting away, adjacent to the park) and a bit further, past the Parkside Hootenholler Evangelical Baptist Church, now taken over entirely by a pack of radical leftist Karens who embrace DEI as a creed and code and fly the LGBTYQ+ flag of many colors (formerly the intellectual property of biblical Jacob’s son Joseph). There’s also a Montessori School directly adjacent to it, which made me wonder if this particular school had any connection to this nest of radical Karens next to it.

Maria Montessori, the founder of the Montessori educational concept was, of course, a devout Roman Catholic and brought much of her religious belief into her system of educating children. However, in this particular instance, I suspect not. It’s probably secular, despite sitting right next to notoriously left-of-center, LGBTQ+ sympathetic “Baptist” church, given that most of the kids’ parents are about as irreligious as Mephistopheles himself!

Given the utter chaos and ideologically polluted public school systems that pervade this awful state (Californica), private schooling is on an all-time exponential surge and I can imagine all the parents of those Montessori school inmates are paying premium prices to keep their munchkins uncontaminated by the radical socialist progressive dogma that now predominates in our “public” school systems.

A short distance (just across the street) is the local neighborhood shopping center, anchored by a Southeast Asian supermarket called SF Market. Attached to it on its south side is a sort of gentrified strip-mall with small shops and a local US Post Awfuls. The coffee house I frequent patronise is called (rather strangely) ‘VENUS’, and lies on the north side of this complex. On these daily, early AM walks with the pup, I drop in for a cappuccino and a croissant for the grrrl.

This particular morning, as I walked in, I did a quick scan of those others already inside and seated at several tables in its interior. It was a pretty typical shake-out, by my reckoning. One table with 4 older guys (my age) huddled together (probably bullshitting each other about their experiences in Vietnam), two other tables occupied by female couples and one or two individual older women by themselves (engaged by laptops).

The atmosphere is quite subdued, since almost everyone (except the 4 older guys) was on a smartphone, scrolling and scanning, with a minimal amount of conversation or interaction with others.

Mulling all this over, I reflected that this neighborhood in what is called the ‘Land Park Hills’ (another paradoxical name, since there are no “hills” within a hundred miles or so) residential area is principally populated by older married couples. There are also a couple of retirement complexes nearby where single older, retired adults live reclusively in two-room suites. This is definitely not a neighborhood with a significant number of younger single people and that demographic make-up is reflected in those whom one finds in this ‘Venus’ place.

The few younger people that drop in are usually on their way to work and likely stop by for a cup of coffee to take with them as they drive to wherever they are employed. Once in a while, one spots a younger couple with a kid (or two) who sit outside the place in a small, covered area directly in front of the coffee house. Very rarely, one sees some buff young studly guy who drives up in an expensive Maseratti, Porsche or Lambo, gets out to check out the female possibilities, sees nothing of interest, gets a cup of coffee and hops back into his noisy beast, gunning the throttle all the way down the street. Obviously this motorized studcake is unaware of the fact that ‘VENUS’ is a hotbed of radical feminist patronage and that according to the prevaling feminist ideology, women are under an peer obligation to sneer at, disregard or be abruptly rude to anything with...as a friend in Saudi Arabia once put it...”dangly bits.” Still, its fun to see the disappointment register on their Hollywood profile faces as they climb back into their hot wheels and leave a strip out of the parking area.

These latter are generally not YUPPIE types, but very middle or lower-middle class (perhaps YUFFIE?) folks. And of course, there is little if any interaction among  these habitues, each acting as if their entire world is self-contained with no need to either take note of or be aware of others around them. Studied aloofness, cultivated disinterest is the de riguer norm. It’s an interesting study in social behavioral patterns that any undergraduate sosh student would have (20 years ago) found a promising microcosm of behavioral indicators. I strongly suspect that the latent hang-over effects of the 2019-20 pandemic are still having a palpable effect here, since interaction back then was greatly discouraged and social isolation was encouraged. When one factors in the impact that rampant reliance upon social media contacts and internet material has on younger people, the apparent total operative impetus appears  to be seeming avoidance. Younger people have lost much of their natural, inherent tendency to interact with others as a result, and this is evident in a notable loss of people skills, if one examines the scene critically. Older people, whom typically younger people avoid like the plague, are also sort of left out on the fringes at public watering holes such as one finds here. As such, social isolation becomes a de facto norm for everyone, with younger people and older people alike exhibiting signs of extreme social anomie and awkward disconnectedness. In short, it’s a very depressing effect that obtains.

Of course, “local” coffeehouses reflect the communities and neighborhoods they exist within, so when the majority of the area’s residents are older (safe to say “much older”), places like this will likely have little ‘eye candy’ for the older men who aren’t yet shooting blanks (spermatologically speaking). While younger men have a very urgent physical and hormonal impetus for sniffing out comely young ladies, older men whose sperm counts are still not fully depleted are, are most regrettably limited to visual enjoyments rather than mano-a-mano encounters of the XX/XY kind.

I am reminded here of a columnist in the US edition (Sept.) of SPECTATOR magazine, who recounted an encounter he experienced after giving a presentation several months ago. Said columnist is also a noted doctor of medicine and psychologist.

He was approached (he related) after the speech by a young Chinese woman he described as “...about 16, extremely pretty with deep black eyes, and obviously quite intelligent”, who asked him what she should study (academically), explaining that she was quite interested in history and human psychology.

He notes that she was asking for his opinion regarding him both as a peer and a guru, although he explained that as a 75-year-old he was hardly a peer in any real context. He further explained that at the time, all he was fully aware of was how very pretty she was (the classic geezer''s dilemma).

This made me briefly reflect, albeit somewhat ruefully, that there seem to be a great many ‘pretty Chinese girls’ in circulation who are intelligent, these days. “Intelligence” wears many faces and expressions, of course, but not many men, no matter how august or intellectual they may be, when faced by fresh youthful beauty are able to focus on anything other than a woman’s obvious physical endowments. Intelligence may be clearly on the table, but hormones will always dominate any such encounter, regardless of age differences. Fortunately for social propriety’s sake, that’s the point when the portcullis with “old enough to be her father” inscribed on it usually slams down with irresistible inertial finity.

Clearly, mindful of the above anecdotal digression, the ‘Venus Coffeehouse’ is no hangout for unattached, bright young ladies with Gong Li’s rather exotic beauty, despite the fact that there isn’t usually a male on premises who is younger than about 70ish. And judging from the brutish, Gertrude Steinish look of most of the few women in the place (customers, not staff), there’s not much on hand to remind older guys of the fleeting bird of youth that used to sit perched on their shoulder, like a gnarly pirate’s parrot on steroids. But such is the ‘Venus’ experience.

Contrasted to this is my experience in coffee houses back in 1970s era Berkeley (Telegraph Avenue) and San Francisco (North Beach), which long before any sort of smartphone/social media/internet culture even existed, were alive with younger people interacting, talking, chatting and engaging each other, all day long (Berkeley was, naturally, the home of the nearby UC Berkeley, home of thousands of students, both undergrad and postgrad). But 50 years is a long time in today’s fast-paced and rapidly changing American society and the devastating effects of our modern reliance on electronic communications devices, in such a comparison, are both awful to behold and plaintively devastating to be immersed in.

I don’t mind admitting that a substantial part of the Bay Area coffee house experience I remember so well was the coastal ambience that inextricably permeates every street in every neighborhood of my old stomping grounds of Berkeley.

Especially in the summertime, when the great Potato Patch Shoal fogs would roll in from the Golden Gate and flood the atmosphere with a fantastic, salty aroma of the boundless great Pacific that lurks on the Bay’s seaward side. Compare that to Suckatomato’s ever present city sewage processing plant odors, from the plant the city thoughtfully placed adjacent to the park, for a contrast in aesthetics! No contest! Defense yields to the complainant, yer honner!

I really needn’t relate that my favorite hangout in Berzerkeley was at Walnut Square, a couple blocks north of the campus, since I make mention of this now and then in my musings, but his was Mr. Peet’s original coffee, tea and spices shop and the place where the STARFU*KS twins learned the trade at Mr. Peet’s knee. There was a rooftop patio, open air, where we early AM faithful would huddle with our espressos (no sissy “Frappaccinos” for us, mind, since STARFU*KS was still just a malevolent profit-making scheme lurking on the back burner of the STARFU*KS twins’ minds). 

Sadly, just as pubs and neighborhood speakeasys are rapidly disappearing in England these days, so too are truly cosmopolitan, uber-hip watering holes for the intellectual cognoscenti in America. Especially in this cultural stockyard pasture that just happens to be the capital city of the world’s 4th largest economy.

The Venus coffeehouse has ‘open mic’ nights occasionally, but the hipsters that show up to read for a sparse and motley crowd are almost always black males who spout the most egregiously sexist, misogynous and scatological garbage. This may be increasingly accepted as a unique black cultural mode of expression by many deluded souls but in my book it’s worse than bovine exhaust fumes. Certainly not in the same league as the 50s/60s Beat-era genre I am comfortably acquainted with. 

Once a fellow member of the Sacramento ‘Bad Poets Society’ suggested we read some of our things there, but I quickly disabused him of that notion. He (and I) would have been met with, at best, a devastating dead silence, after no more than a first stanza. Garbage thoughts for garbage minds, on the other hand? Pure gold!

This morning, after trying to write something and experiencing a complete lack of creative mojo, I bundled the pup off with me to the Venus upon returning from our walk. Part of my dead-battery impetus was an insufficiency of 1,3,7-Trimethylpurine-2,6-dione (that’s caffeine to you who failed chem lab in school), and I ordered my usual cappuccino while the grrrl got her quotidian ‘per-contracted-agreement’ (Huskys have sharp legal minds always lurking behind their selective intelligence) croissant.

There were several other dogs there, including not just one but TWO Portuguese Water Dogs (the Obamas’ favorite breed, due to the breed''s non-allergenic fur). I enjoyed a few moments of conversation about dogs with some folks and their kids got to give the grrrl a couple of small pieces of croissant in the bargain (big thrill to "feed the wolf!"). All in all, a nice Saturday morning recharge of my creativity Leyden Cell. Baron Frankenstein would have been proud, I’m sure, of how I quickly came alive, as I did after the extra injection of jingle juice...

I would love to drive up to Venus in my spiffy 1973 Volkswagen Beetle someday (to impress the Depends crowd?), with the grrrl riding shotgun but I hesitate to expose the car''s upholstery to the grrrl’s dirty footses. Maybe one of these days!

Speaking of my orange Volksie, it required a complete ‘long-block’ rebuild this past month, so I am now US$7000 poorer. I shudder to think about what a modern car’s engine rebuild would have required! Ah! The joys and sorrows of keeping vintage cars in one’s stable in our present depressed economy! $7000 would buy a whole passel of cappuccinos, come to think of it..

POSTSCRIPT: (19 Oct 25)

You may note that in the above commentary I referenced that fact that men will predictably check out "certain" (ahem) specific parts of a woman''s anatomy at first sight, before taking note of her facial ''map.'' This is pure sexism of the highest water, of course, but let''s not be too hasty here and take a moment to be thankful that Ma Nature has so perfectly programmed Homo saps in such a manner as this, that ensures the preservation of the species so admirably.

Of course, by custom and tradition, men acknowledge this trait in men and will talk openly about it to just about anyone nearby who is capable of listening. Women, on the other hand, have been traditionally socialised to be discrete and keep such thoughts and reflections to themselves, as regards a man''s "package", until now...

Allow me to explain why. In the current October 23th issue of the US edition of the SPECTATOR, on page 57, columnist (and party guy) Cosmo Landesman informs readers that one of the current hot trends among young women is open discussion of penis size. Shock! Alors! Gott in Himmel! The end of Western Civilisation as we MCPs know it!

Landesman quotes iconoclastic writer Lytton Strachey here: "Strachey once pointed a long finger at a strain on artist Vanessa Bell''s (Virginia Woolf''s sister) dress and asked, ''Semen?''"

Woolf shortly thereafter wrote, "With that one word, all barriers of reticence and reserve went down... It was, I think, a great advance in civilisation."

Landesman states that he has since had a number of conversations with young, ''very posh'' and highly educated women, like that one between Strachey and Bell, so we are to assume that among the leading wave of radical young feminists, discussing how well a man may be able to fill the gap (so to speak) is now nothing too unusual.

I am reminded of a remark my former main squeeze made some 50 years ago about the fact that a Deputy Sheriff she was coitally involved with had a "huge penis." Meaning, I presume, much thicker than normal, but also a bit longer than the norm (which is about 6 inches or so). This particular GF was a "red-hot nursie" who also had a Porsche that she drove as hard as the men she let be intimate with her. From my own experiences when I was "tight" with her myself, this Sheriff character must have been a real animal to impress her thusly, for at 22 she was at least half-mink, herself.

At any rate, I often wonder if this is where the British slang phrase "Get stuffed!" originated (although I suspect it got started in British Public Schools), but there''s little argument that nature abhores a vacuum of any sort, so QED.

Anyway, girls, apparently the gloves are now off, so discussion of such formerly indiscrete subjects as penis size is now a matter of course in today''s social mixing bowl... 

PS: in case anyone is interested, she''s (my former main squeeze) now 76 and still as hot as a red-hot Chili pepper, but the Porsche is long gone.