Comments
by Scoper...
YOU CAN HAVE MY COFFEE!
(when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers)
What's the shape of the world when
it turns out that Mad Magazine was decades ahead of its time? I'm talking
about a throwaway line I remember from the early 1970's, when Mad was 35
cents (cheap!) It went: "Remember when we used to solve our problems over
coffee and cigarettes? Now those ARE our problems!"
Har-har. Whatever. But this is not
a cigarette story, for three reasons. The "war on tobacco" has been legendary
for years, you've likely read all you care to read about it, and the web
master informs me that there's not enough storage space on this site to
handle one of my tirades on that topic. No, this is a coffee story. (Coffee,
that is. Black gold. Colombian tea.)
I started drinking the stuff in college,
to facilitate late-night cramming (which wouldn't have been necessary had
I studied all quarter, but you'll be happy to know I not only passed, I
developed a fondness for the stuff that never went away.) What's the difference
between the 70's and the New Millennium? Now there are people with nothing
better to do than to try to make COFFEE go away.
One of them, apparently, is Cindy
Crawford, the supermodel with the cheek-dot (com.) According to ABC (you
know, the Mickey Mouse network,) Cindy has formed a "roundtable" group
in Chicago, the purpose of which, apparently, is to wean people off the
very stuff that helps them start their day, the delicious brew made from
the beans carried down an Andes mountain on the back of Juan Valdez' little
burro.
Why? Simple. Coffee does good things
for good people; therefore it must be bad. Same song, different verse.
Look, too much coffee can give you
the jitters, sour your stomach, and stain your pearly whites. How long
have we known this, about 300 years? Do we really need Cindy Crawford to
tell us how to live? And she's not the worst offender, by far. Now there
are "activist" groups (who REALLY have nothing better to do) going after
coffee, tea, and soft drinks. It's a war on caffeine! Drive out the evil
Barbarians at the gate! (And if you would, please send us a generous contribution.)
It's for the children! Yes, the children! Makes you wonder how any of us
over 30 actually survived to adulthood, doesn't it?
But what's the real story on coffee?
Well, according to the American Dietetic Association, three cups of coffee
a day not only pose no risk, there are measurable health benefits, including
mental alertness and improved brain calcium levels.
Forget about calcium for the moment:
do you find an over-abundance of mental alertness in the world around you?
Could we perhaps use a little more? Would you rather that the driver of
the car whose headlights are approaching you on a dark road had just finished
his third highball, or his third cup of coffee? And where's a fist-fight
or a gunfight more likely to break out? At Starbucks, where the coffee
is flowing, or at the Dew Drop Inn, where the beer, whiskey and tequila
are flowing? Where would you be more likely to meet a woman (or a man)
worth seeing again?
Am I dependent on coffee/caffeine?
Yes! Wanna know why? For the past 20 years or so, I've done morning-drive
radio. If everything goes just right, I'm one of those bright good-morning
voices people hear when they can barely pry their own eyes open. I guarantee
you I'm in the same sad shape when my alarm rings, except that mine rings
at 3 a.m. I'm in the studio about 4 and on the air at 5. I'll guarantee
you this too: the coffee - hot and black - is in my cup before I even check
the Associated Press wire. The world, my employer, my listeners and I are
better for this.
Yet, there are those who would "improve"
my life (and yours) by denying us still another aid for doing an honest
day's work for an honest day's pay. We should be grateful to them: we're
far too stupid to manage our own lives.
It's a bit bass-ackwards to proceed
from the specific to the general, but I've always been more of a question-man
than an answer man, so let me close with this question. What kind of a
personality is it that makes someone think that he or she is justified
in telling other adults what to do or what not to do? And who the hell
needs these people?
Forgive me, that's two questions.
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