Coffee House Revolution
In the land of the small cities, in a time before Starbucks or Caribou Coffee shops there were only diners. The diners of your parents and grandparent’s day where the exterior walls had the unfinished interior rock decor of a cabins fire place and the bright orange vinyl booths matched the nondescript orange and green carpet. Where you went out to breakfast on Sundays after church. Where the cost conscious family went out to dinner occasionally. Where the “Open 24 hour” large booths would see the hidden life of the city as it passed out and woke up for more coffee. This type of place was also the last refuge of the young or those refusing to grow up.
The late night/early morning cast was the best. It seemed to change about 10pm. That was when the older ones, who should have been in bars but were cruising for youth, entered circling for prime booths. It was when the high school kids who would bring their books and study or go over their lines would begin to pack up their trappings. Rotating around the guy who had been there for a record 72 hours straight. When the groups of girls would tell their friend to give up waiting for “that” guy to show up. When the gang of guys would show up: loud and wild and full of themselves. There was always safety in numbers. And anyone alone was mocked. It was the time and place of meetings, of social butterflying from one table to the other, of relentless and hopeful flirting. It was the microcosm of life in this city.
No matter what you started out to do, you always ended up at Perkins surrounded by overflowing ashtrays and over caffeinated people.
Perkins 12:49pm
Cheese Sticks!
RUFUS, NIGHTMAIRE, SPIDEY, RAMROD, SLATS, THE TOASTER
And an order of Jimmy Buffett on the side.
Cheese sticks
The smoke of a clove in the air
And Nightmaire getting tense waiting for the job
Rufus is shifting back and forth Spidey’s conducting!
We’re chillen’ waiting for the word.
Slats and Ramrod have eyes red with rage as their blood,
thick like day old coffee, begins to boil waitin’ for the kill.
Jimmy B. and pantomime horse
Had me over for cheese sticks and coffee
Waiting we discussed chaos theory
And the significance of a “Wings” episode appearing in dreams.
But now we’re waiting for a plan
For our cheese sticks,
And our wings.
Spidey waiting for the deal
Toaster heading to cool off in the car
Nightmaire getting into the feel
Ramrod and Slats fighting like it’s a bar
What’s the deal man
This place ain’t got no spam.
The Toaster glows
Fidgeting, finicky, frivolous
Stomach growling with tension.
It’s always like this before a big job
Tara has been stirring up trouble again
Or is it terror
Nothing is for sure in a world of deception.
We have unfinished business.
I can remember, if you can believe it, the whole club gutted by the blast
Spidey’s communist rhetoric
Plays upon The Toasters anxieties.
I smell the nitrate on your rubber gloves
Maire is placid as the sea.
Some things we plan, we sit and invent, plot and cook up
Other things are works of genius like poetry.
Tonight’s the night gang.
They all gather together, huddled close like children
These are the plans
They are not the first, nor are they the last.
Nightmaire turns her back as Spidey
Gathers her darkness around her and cools The Toaster to a mere few degrees.
I’m glancing side to side
Watching the isles as we synchronize our watches.
6 of us is enough to win us the most coveted booth, the big one in the corner.
It was a coffee house. You drink coffee and you smoke. What else was there to do: Swing the lamp and bounce in your seat pretending it’s a train, use a fork and a creamer and make it look like you popped your eye out, flip creamers and see how many times you can get them to land right side up, snort sugar and salt? Yeah, okay we did all that, but someone was always writing so we always had paper and we’d all take turns writing several lines. It breaks up the monotony of coffee. And that was the Coffee House Revolution.
Not quite the real or imaginary point beyond which a person or thing cannot go
Perkins
(one cup of coffee den I go)
Shaken not stirred
the old grey mare she ain't what she used to be.
I didn't know kitch could clash but they've done a lovely job here. Every room induces you to order something different.
I blame the violent youth on youths violence, he blames it on the parents, the born again ex-gay blames it on being saved. He didn't remember me because he kissed me once or twice and with salvation he got selective memory. But we still remember the rock wall hidden under layers of remodeling.
We talk of parents and lovers and coffee getting punchy earlier than we use to but you've got to be on the road by 4 cause pop is a military man. We stand in doorways alternately clinging to each other and tugging on our cuffs.
We don't talk about it except to say 10 years is a long time.
The late night/early morning cast was the best. It seemed to change about 10pm. That was when the older ones, who should have been in bars but were cruising for youth, entered circling for prime booths. It was when the high school kids who would bring their books and study or go over their lines would begin to pack up their trappings. Rotating around the guy who had been there for a record 72 hours straight. When the groups of girls would tell their friend to give up waiting for “that” guy to show up. When the gang of guys would show up: loud and wild and full of themselves. There was always safety in numbers. And anyone alone was mocked. It was the time and place of meetings, of social butterflying from one table to the other, of relentless and hopeful flirting. It was the microcosm of life in this city.
No matter what you started out to do, you always ended up at Perkins surrounded by overflowing ashtrays and over caffeinated people.
Perkins 12:49pm
Cheese Sticks!
RUFUS, NIGHTMAIRE, SPIDEY, RAMROD, SLATS, THE TOASTER
And an order of Jimmy Buffett on the side.
Cheese sticks
The smoke of a clove in the air
And Nightmaire getting tense waiting for the job
Rufus is shifting back and forth Spidey’s conducting!
We’re chillen’ waiting for the word.
Slats and Ramrod have eyes red with rage as their blood,
thick like day old coffee, begins to boil waitin’ for the kill.
Jimmy B. and pantomime horse
Had me over for cheese sticks and coffee
Waiting we discussed chaos theory
And the significance of a “Wings” episode appearing in dreams.
But now we’re waiting for a plan
For our cheese sticks,
And our wings.
Spidey waiting for the deal
Toaster heading to cool off in the car
Nightmaire getting into the feel
Ramrod and Slats fighting like it’s a bar
What’s the deal man
This place ain’t got no spam.
The Toaster glows
Fidgeting, finicky, frivolous
Stomach growling with tension.
It’s always like this before a big job
Tara has been stirring up trouble again
Or is it terror
Nothing is for sure in a world of deception.
We have unfinished business.
I can remember, if you can believe it, the whole club gutted by the blast
Spidey’s communist rhetoric
Plays upon The Toasters anxieties.
I smell the nitrate on your rubber gloves
Maire is placid as the sea.
Some things we plan, we sit and invent, plot and cook up
Other things are works of genius like poetry.
Tonight’s the night gang.
They all gather together, huddled close like children
These are the plans
They are not the first, nor are they the last.
Nightmaire turns her back as Spidey
Gathers her darkness around her and cools The Toaster to a mere few degrees.
I’m glancing side to side
Watching the isles as we synchronize our watches.
6 of us is enough to win us the most coveted booth, the big one in the corner.
It was a coffee house. You drink coffee and you smoke. What else was there to do: Swing the lamp and bounce in your seat pretending it’s a train, use a fork and a creamer and make it look like you popped your eye out, flip creamers and see how many times you can get them to land right side up, snort sugar and salt? Yeah, okay we did all that, but someone was always writing so we always had paper and we’d all take turns writing several lines. It breaks up the monotony of coffee. And that was the Coffee House Revolution.
Not quite the real or imaginary point beyond which a person or thing cannot go
Perkins
(one cup of coffee den I go)
Shaken not stirred
the old grey mare she ain't what she used to be.
I didn't know kitch could clash but they've done a lovely job here. Every room induces you to order something different.
I blame the violent youth on youths violence, he blames it on the parents, the born again ex-gay blames it on being saved. He didn't remember me because he kissed me once or twice and with salvation he got selective memory. But we still remember the rock wall hidden under layers of remodeling.
We talk of parents and lovers and coffee getting punchy earlier than we use to but you've got to be on the road by 4 cause pop is a military man. We stand in doorways alternately clinging to each other and tugging on our cuffs.
We don't talk about it except to say 10 years is a long time.
posted by Perdita at 2:08 PM
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