A friend of a friend passed away last week. His facebook is still there, his profile picture showing a happy smile, his photo albums showing nights out drinking and days spent volunteering. There is an uneasy feeling that rises from my stomach as I continue to browse. He's right there in front of me, living on, showing the world his youth and possibility. There are no boundaries, but I feel like I'm trespassing.
I know that people who haven't heard of the latest would assume that he's doing fine.
Those that did though, leave messages on his wall.
"Now why did you have to go and do that, man?"
"Rest in peace brother, I'll be seeing you at the Pearly Gates"
"I'm not going to forgive you for this."
He's speaks still. The living scrutinize in greater detail who he was and is. Validating his existence.
It's similar to the part of the wake where a longtime friend speaks fondly of his departed to an audience, maybe recanting a hilarious moment they had together. Laughter into tears, tears into silence.
Some technological purists envision a life beyond flesh and bone, where they continue to function and evolve in a digital domain -- it's a concept often cited in science-fiction novels and movies. The transfer between these planes extends well beyond grafting metal and tissue, but rather in the resurrecting of the soul. We're not quite there yet.
The wall posts are the only thing that indicates his passing. Perhaps, more fittingly, his facebook represents a kind of Purgatory. Everyone else will be updating their own profile pages, uploading more pictures, writing more notes, and adding new friends, but this guy won't. He floats around in digital space unclaimed and frozen in time.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
A brief history of Starbuck$$
"Caffeine is one helluva drug." Obviously, Rick James did not say this because caffeine does not back people into corners, forcing them to commit heinous acts of violence and theft in order to maintain their stimulating habits. Caffeine has not killed anyone. Caffeine never led anyone to the poor house. Caffeine is simply a friendly acquaintance who lives in your pantry, around the corner, and at the auto dealership waiting area. You can be a sponsor of caffeine for $4.95 a day and someone will send you pictures of their progress before and after the cleft-pallet surgury.
The Germans were the first to harvest and behold the mind-jolting powers of caffeine. The chemist Friedrich Ferdinand Runge discovered "kaffein" in 1819 after visiting a toothless gypsy fortuneteller who, via fecal induced hallucination, saw visions of Germany's rise to power -- and for the additional price of 5 Kreuzers, revealed to Friedrich that a dark brew he recently concocted was the catalyst of it all. He hurried home to think of a business strategy that would effectively advertise and sell this disgusting beverage.
A new black plague spread throughout Germany, and after 4 generations of intense caffeination, there was nowhere else to direct the national energy except outwards. Two World Wars and a massive inflation later, the Germans switched back to beer and drank themselves into oblivion.
Of course, that did little to deter its consumption. Caffeine, usually in the form of coffee, reached American shores long before Germany overdosed. Fortunately, prospectors were more interested in rivers of gold, prostitution, and giving AIDS (invented by the CIA in 1830) to the indigenous Indians rather then trying exotic luxuries. Caffeine went by, relatively unnoticed, until the 1960s, when in an attempt to level the playing ground in the battle for Civil Rights, Black Panthers declared it the organization's official drink. The incumbent president at the time, Mr. Assfuck, addressed this issue by offering white consumers non-dairy creamer while forcing his scientists to invent decaf.
Starbucks Corporation, during these tumultuous years, was a modest alternative energy company. During the oil scare of the late 1970s, Starbucks executives were forced to abandon their drilling projects in order to find another crude black liquid product that they could process and sell for an enormous profit. After Federal de-regulation on coffee (it was standardized after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream"), they stumbled upon caffeine and purchased exclusive rights to the distribution and control of it in the form of coffee -- a boon, a windfall by any measure -- and they were able to turn it into the multi-billion dollar industry that you see today.
And although these claims can and will be disputed, evidence to the contrary fails to recognize the intoxicating power of this 19th century psychoactive stimulant. Starbucks continues to erect storefronts wherever civilization stands, leaving many of us twisting and turning as the clock strikes 3 am.
The Germans were the first to harvest and behold the mind-jolting powers of caffeine. The chemist Friedrich Ferdinand Runge discovered "kaffein" in 1819 after visiting a toothless gypsy fortuneteller who, via fecal induced hallucination, saw visions of Germany's rise to power -- and for the additional price of 5 Kreuzers, revealed to Friedrich that a dark brew he recently concocted was the catalyst of it all. He hurried home to think of a business strategy that would effectively advertise and sell this disgusting beverage.
A new black plague spread throughout Germany, and after 4 generations of intense caffeination, there was nowhere else to direct the national energy except outwards. Two World Wars and a massive inflation later, the Germans switched back to beer and drank themselves into oblivion.
Of course, that did little to deter its consumption. Caffeine, usually in the form of coffee, reached American shores long before Germany overdosed. Fortunately, prospectors were more interested in rivers of gold, prostitution, and giving AIDS (invented by the CIA in 1830) to the indigenous Indians rather then trying exotic luxuries. Caffeine went by, relatively unnoticed, until the 1960s, when in an attempt to level the playing ground in the battle for Civil Rights, Black Panthers declared it the organization's official drink. The incumbent president at the time, Mr. Assfuck, addressed this issue by offering white consumers non-dairy creamer while forcing his scientists to invent decaf.
Starbucks Corporation, during these tumultuous years, was a modest alternative energy company. During the oil scare of the late 1970s, Starbucks executives were forced to abandon their drilling projects in order to find another crude black liquid product that they could process and sell for an enormous profit. After Federal de-regulation on coffee (it was standardized after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream"), they stumbled upon caffeine and purchased exclusive rights to the distribution and control of it in the form of coffee -- a boon, a windfall by any measure -- and they were able to turn it into the multi-billion dollar industry that you see today.
And although these claims can and will be disputed, evidence to the contrary fails to recognize the intoxicating power of this 19th century psychoactive stimulant. Starbucks continues to erect storefronts wherever civilization stands, leaving many of us twisting and turning as the clock strikes 3 am.
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