SNAPSHOTS

Top: Some outlet in a building on 55th that Cara noticed was spewing foam of an unknown origin onto the sidewalk. Bottom: Subway stop near where Cara lives and where I'm staying. Apartments on that side of the street are built on these amazingly precarious stilted structures, some out of stacked stone.

BAD FUCKING JAVA

The NYTimes had an article today on artisanal coffee, the kind of espresso with the perfect shots and fancy foam poured into real porcelain cups that you can get a about nine-thousand cafes in Seattle by walking at the most ten feet from your home. In this instance the article could only list four cafes (three in Brooklyn) that actually made the kind of stuff I generally took for granted every day. Even a bad coffee shop in Seattle, and I’m not talking about Starbucks, or Tully’s (that silly little name Tully’s) could provide a decent, if not bitter and acidic cup of joe; at the very least something to get me going.

Needless to say, Starbucks doesn’t even get a nod in the article, and though I’m used to having bad coffee just about everywhere but the Northwest, (even Vancouver has problems with the Blenz chain being a particularly prevalent and egregious violator), but NYC has some serious issues.

I’ve heard over an over the best coffee in NYC comes in those little blue cups with the Grecian printing, the kind you can get from the same guy who sells pretzels and hot dogs at the corner stands. The kind you see characters NY crime movies drink in stakeout cars and surveillance scenes. But it’s really just bad taste and bullshit.

I’ve given in to the Starbucks machine, though the help is terrible at most locations, always fucking up orders and making weak and bitter brew. The Starbucks drip. Fucking Starbucks. Taking over the world with their crap-ass brew. I feel like a whore giving into their demands but what are you going to do? They own this place.

But I do have the antidote since I’m not about to give up coffee any time in the next forty years. I drink Bustelo in the morning. Hell, I’m drinking it now and it’s 1am. Bustelo, the local Latin brew, it’s lurid red and yellow cans stacked ceiling high in stores in Washington Heights like toilet paper. It’s cheap and strong and full of flavor and if I’m lucky, on good days I can just happen by a coffee shop somewhere in this town that has an excellent espresso and be glad for small gifts. Praise Jesus.