(no subject)
If you live in America, or anywhere outside of it, Starbucks is nothing less than your entire life. There’s one on every fourth corner of the main L.A. thoroughfare, Ventura Blvd., and within a five-mile radius of any given place on Ventura there are about twenty. There’s a giant Starbucks attached to where I work (Barnes & Noble), which I’m sitting in right now as I type this.
See? And it took me a short eternity to grab this spot since everyone else in the San Fernando Valley seemed to have the same idea.
On our family trip to London, we hoped to locate a quaint little place to have afternoon tea, only to find the city overrun by Starbucks establishments. Somehow, dipping my Tazo teabag into my “grande” cup didn’t have quite the same effect. After years of Starbucksing, I’ve become way too chummy with the baristas, drive around the turnpike extolling the virtues of Starbucks through a bullhorn, put up a small shrine in our laundry room revolving around a used Frappuccino lid, and have successfully graffitied “Starbucks Forever!” on the family cat. This is dangerous, kids. Don’t try it at home.
I’m not sure whether my repeat appearances at Starbucks are due to my actually liking it or simply getting so used to it that it becomes comfortably commonplace. The clumsy and long-winded answer comes in the form of this post, in which I grade:
ASPECTS OF STARBUCKS
Yeah, this was bound to happen.
Actual Coffee
There’s so obviously a corporately controlled “Starbucks Experience,” of which the actual coffee is just a part. Having said this--*takes out bullhorn*--THAT IS NO EXCUSE TO MAKE YOUR COFFEE TASTE LIKE SIDWALK CHALK!!! Jeez, man! The factories over-roast every living molecule out of their beans, which is beyond me since they’d save some money by under-roasting those things, no? Drinking a cup of Starbucks Coffee coffee reminds me of when I first tried it and plainly didn’t like it. “What is this shit, Dad?” a 9-year-old me asked. “Just drink it,” he replied, so I did, then gave up and went for a highly caloric White Mocha instead. That’s how they hooked me, the bastards, along with so many little girls in makeup and undershirts who look like they’re trying to appear on America’s Next Top Model a decade and a half before they’d be eligible.
Grade: C-
Ambiance
The other major part of the “Starbucks Experience” is, of course, being inside of one, and this is where Corporate actually got it right-even if it feels a little calculated. Because around the world, every ‘Bucks looks like what you might imagine the archetypal java hut would: lots of browns on the walls and furniture, angular architecture and crazy contempo paintings straight out of one of those old John Scieszka books. How many of those expensive-looking orangey glass lamps broke in the process of being delivered to a Starbucks in New Zealand? I think they’re playing on the fact that coffee makes me-and all people, probably-feel that much more hip, sophisticated, and left-of-center, even though Starbucks is about as left-of-center as dead center.
Grade: A-
Employees
How happy would you be making just over minimum wage and having to wear a dopey hat? The answer is: probably less happy than the average Starbucks employee would be doing exactly that. Look at how happy that lady above this paragraph looks. There’s something in her smile that makes me think to myself, ‘Wow-she looks all too happy to get me my really complicated drink today; so happy, in fact, that it kinda makes me want to order the most complicated drink possible just to screw her up bahahahahaha.’ No, really, when I approach Starbucks employees, everything seems just dandy, and they even want me to have a great day (after I pay up, of course). And a great day I will have; the sky will be blue, the temperature will be 74 degrees, and the birds will sing. Kinda makes me want to shoot birds with my rifle. God damn it those people are too f*****g happy!!
Grade: B
Customers
Starbucks is like a bank. But how is Starbucks like bank, you ask? Glad you asked. Like a bank, Starbucks tends to attract people from all walks of life, not just the overcaffeinated yuppies you might expect to frequent a coffee house. This is both good and bad. You might have an enlightening conversation with a young entrepreneur you just met there that night and listen intently to his brilliant insights while a local punk steals your laptop. The one thing that all of the customers have in common is how absolutely pissed off they get when an employee messes up their drink order. Seriously though; if you order something with a longer name than most book prefaces, like a double-espresso-shot grande nonfat vanilla latte with sugar-free vanilla syrup, two shots of sugar-free hazelnut syrup and no whipped cream, it’s as though you’re putting your hands flat on the counter and asking the barista, “Please, PLEASE, by the grace of God I beg you to fuck up my order.” So, if you get angry when the girl who makes your coffee botches up the caffeine-bloated monstrosity you ask for, I’m giving her express permission to stick your head in the Frappuccino machine. Dig?
Grade: C+
Drink Names
Okay, maybe not gibberish, but why call sizes “tall”, “grande”, and “venti” (and what the heck language does that last one come from anyway?). For one, the “tall” is about as tall as my shoe, which, in the grand scheme of things, is not tall. For another, sizes are relative terms. See this little one over here? This one is the smallest, so call it small. This one is bigger than that small one, but not as big as that third one, which is the largest. They should be called medium and large, respectively. Sweet Jesus I should not have to be explaining this. Aside from that, the drink names seem to make some degree of sense (a latte is a latte is a latte, I guess), but only out of necessity. Yet where Starbucks has wiggle room, they fall flat on their face; like, if you want people to take your drink at least semi-seriously, do not call it a “Frappuccino”.
Grade: C
Music
All of the blame for creating a genre of adult-contemporary pop that we now acerbically call “coffee house music” should be laid directly at Starbucks’ feet. Their Hear Music series obviously intended for us to discover “hot” new artists as we plaintively sip our mochas, but if they’re not between the ages of 23 and 28, don’t feature some sort of acoustic guitar and sound inoffensive enough to please my mom, then Starbucks doesn’t want anything to do with ‘em. For discerning listeners like moi, this kind of elevator music causes ears to go on strike. What’s so beguiling (and upsetting) about Hear Music is that somewhere, around the conference tables of Starbucks Inc., a bunch of 60-year-olds with more hair in their noses than on their heads decided that this music was “cool” and that we would “like” this “hot” “music” so much that we would want to “buy” it and not “rip the kiosk out of the floor.” Think about the value that any 19-year-old person with any music sense would have had on such meetings. You, yes YOU, could have made all the difference, the only reason being that you’re not a “grandpa” with “too much ear fuzz.” It’s about one rung above the music that the Barnes & Noble where I work plays, but I would also give that garbage an F, so…
Grade: D-
Wireless Internet
There isn’t a lot to say about wireless Internet. It’s wireless (hooray for no wires!) and it’s Internet (hooray for luxuries we take for granted!). It’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but we’re all millionaires here, right? Besides, you weren’t really gonna use that arm and leg, were you? You’ll still have the other ones.
Grade: B+
See? And it took me a short eternity to grab this spot since everyone else in the San Fernando Valley seemed to have the same idea.
On our family trip to London, we hoped to locate a quaint little place to have afternoon tea, only to find the city overrun by Starbucks establishments. Somehow, dipping my Tazo teabag into my “grande” cup didn’t have quite the same effect. After years of Starbucksing, I’ve become way too chummy with the baristas, drive around the turnpike extolling the virtues of Starbucks through a bullhorn, put up a small shrine in our laundry room revolving around a used Frappuccino lid, and have successfully graffitied “Starbucks Forever!” on the family cat. This is dangerous, kids. Don’t try it at home.
I’m not sure whether my repeat appearances at Starbucks are due to my actually liking it or simply getting so used to it that it becomes comfortably commonplace. The clumsy and long-winded answer comes in the form of this post, in which I grade:
ASPECTS OF STARBUCKS
Yeah, this was bound to happen.
Actual Coffee
There’s so obviously a corporately controlled “Starbucks Experience,” of which the actual coffee is just a part. Having said this--*takes out bullhorn*--THAT IS NO EXCUSE TO MAKE YOUR COFFEE TASTE LIKE SIDWALK CHALK!!! Jeez, man! The factories over-roast every living molecule out of their beans, which is beyond me since they’d save some money by under-roasting those things, no? Drinking a cup of Starbucks Coffee coffee reminds me of when I first tried it and plainly didn’t like it. “What is this shit, Dad?” a 9-year-old me asked. “Just drink it,” he replied, so I did, then gave up and went for a highly caloric White Mocha instead. That’s how they hooked me, the bastards, along with so many little girls in makeup and undershirts who look like they’re trying to appear on America’s Next Top Model a decade and a half before they’d be eligible.
Grade: C-
Ambiance
The other major part of the “Starbucks Experience” is, of course, being inside of one, and this is where Corporate actually got it right-even if it feels a little calculated. Because around the world, every ‘Bucks looks like what you might imagine the archetypal java hut would: lots of browns on the walls and furniture, angular architecture and crazy contempo paintings straight out of one of those old John Scieszka books. How many of those expensive-looking orangey glass lamps broke in the process of being delivered to a Starbucks in New Zealand? I think they’re playing on the fact that coffee makes me-and all people, probably-feel that much more hip, sophisticated, and left-of-center, even though Starbucks is about as left-of-center as dead center.
Grade: A-
Employees
How happy would you be making just over minimum wage and having to wear a dopey hat? The answer is: probably less happy than the average Starbucks employee would be doing exactly that. Look at how happy that lady above this paragraph looks. There’s something in her smile that makes me think to myself, ‘Wow-she looks all too happy to get me my really complicated drink today; so happy, in fact, that it kinda makes me want to order the most complicated drink possible just to screw her up bahahahahaha.’ No, really, when I approach Starbucks employees, everything seems just dandy, and they even want me to have a great day (after I pay up, of course). And a great day I will have; the sky will be blue, the temperature will be 74 degrees, and the birds will sing. Kinda makes me want to shoot birds with my rifle. God damn it those people are too f*****g happy!!
Grade: B
Customers
Starbucks is like a bank. But how is Starbucks like bank, you ask? Glad you asked. Like a bank, Starbucks tends to attract people from all walks of life, not just the overcaffeinated yuppies you might expect to frequent a coffee house. This is both good and bad. You might have an enlightening conversation with a young entrepreneur you just met there that night and listen intently to his brilliant insights while a local punk steals your laptop. The one thing that all of the customers have in common is how absolutely pissed off they get when an employee messes up their drink order. Seriously though; if you order something with a longer name than most book prefaces, like a double-espresso-shot grande nonfat vanilla latte with sugar-free vanilla syrup, two shots of sugar-free hazelnut syrup and no whipped cream, it’s as though you’re putting your hands flat on the counter and asking the barista, “Please, PLEASE, by the grace of God I beg you to fuck up my order.” So, if you get angry when the girl who makes your coffee botches up the caffeine-bloated monstrosity you ask for, I’m giving her express permission to stick your head in the Frappuccino machine. Dig?
Grade: C+
Drink Names
Okay, maybe not gibberish, but why call sizes “tall”, “grande”, and “venti” (and what the heck language does that last one come from anyway?). For one, the “tall” is about as tall as my shoe, which, in the grand scheme of things, is not tall. For another, sizes are relative terms. See this little one over here? This one is the smallest, so call it small. This one is bigger than that small one, but not as big as that third one, which is the largest. They should be called medium and large, respectively. Sweet Jesus I should not have to be explaining this. Aside from that, the drink names seem to make some degree of sense (a latte is a latte is a latte, I guess), but only out of necessity. Yet where Starbucks has wiggle room, they fall flat on their face; like, if you want people to take your drink at least semi-seriously, do not call it a “Frappuccino”.
Grade: C
Music
All of the blame for creating a genre of adult-contemporary pop that we now acerbically call “coffee house music” should be laid directly at Starbucks’ feet. Their Hear Music series obviously intended for us to discover “hot” new artists as we plaintively sip our mochas, but if they’re not between the ages of 23 and 28, don’t feature some sort of acoustic guitar and sound inoffensive enough to please my mom, then Starbucks doesn’t want anything to do with ‘em. For discerning listeners like moi, this kind of elevator music causes ears to go on strike. What’s so beguiling (and upsetting) about Hear Music is that somewhere, around the conference tables of Starbucks Inc., a bunch of 60-year-olds with more hair in their noses than on their heads decided that this music was “cool” and that we would “like” this “hot” “music” so much that we would want to “buy” it and not “rip the kiosk out of the floor.” Think about the value that any 19-year-old person with any music sense would have had on such meetings. You, yes YOU, could have made all the difference, the only reason being that you’re not a “grandpa” with “too much ear fuzz.” It’s about one rung above the music that the Barnes & Noble where I work plays, but I would also give that garbage an F, so…
Grade: D-
Wireless Internet
There isn’t a lot to say about wireless Internet. It’s wireless (hooray for no wires!) and it’s Internet (hooray for luxuries we take for granted!). It’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but we’re all millionaires here, right? Besides, you weren’t really gonna use that arm and leg, were you? You’ll still have the other ones.
Grade: B+