Tall Drip Gives Grande Red-Eye Rant with Lots of Foam

So I'm at the milk and sugar station at Starbucks, and I notice an ad staring at my through my iced quad in a venti cup. It is encouraging me to buy/read the new Mitch Albom book For One More Day.

Excuse me? I don’t yet know how to type a double take, but if I did, I would insert it here.

For the fortunately unfamiliar, Mitch Albom authored the insanely best-selling, Tuesdays With Morrie, and the brilliant follow up, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. He's also a sportswriter who, a couple of years back, wrote an article describing a game that ended up not taking place, and it ran in the paper as if the game actually happened. (Sort of like what Jayson Blair did at the Times, only minus the humiliating fallout.) He's a hack, but big deal. My problem with him is his yucky books that sell like hot porn. No, I haven't read them, but I do know a grizzled-yet-wistful looking Jack Lemmon played Morrie in the TV movie right before he died - that and the premise of each book* are all I need to convince me that not even my grandmother could stomach this level of precious, syrup-laden dreck. And my grandmother is a Rush Limbaugh fan.

(*Here is my best guess at the premise of each book: Morrie is nonfiction, about Albom's regular visits to his dying former college professor and the learning that ensues; Five People seems self-explanatory, a novel about a person or people who go to heaven and meet five people who changed/had an effect on their lives; One More Day is a novel about a baseball player who dies and then comes back for one more day and truly lives, or his mom dies then comes back and truly lives, or some such. Again, I'm guessing. I don't know for sure what these books are about. But I think it’s safe to assume they’re yucky.)

So why is Starbucks, my corporate friend, trying to sell me this book? On the little chalk board by the espresso machine there is a review by one of the “friendly baristas” about how “I” really enjoyed the book and how it's important and inspiring and spiritual. I first saw it at the Starbucks in Sheridan Square, and I thought it seemed strange (as would anyone who has been to Sheridan Square). "Which of these drag queen/tranny/lesbians is responsible for this review?" I wondered to myself. "Was he/she/etc. forced to give it a rave, or just forced to read it? Do employees get a bonus for finishing? Is there a test?" So many questions and, really, who could I ask?

But then I saw the same review on another chalkboard at another Starbucks, this time on the Upper West Side. I saw it again in Columbus Circle, and then again on 14th Street. (That's right, I get around. Herr Guitar says I should work for Blackberry, because wherever I am I can locate the nearest Starbucks.) So basically, this corporate behemoth is trying to sell me this stupid book using folksy, corner coffee shop tactics. "Your friendly coffee jerk likes it, and she has a nose ring and several celtic tatoos so..."

I hate to rail against Starbucks, because as huge corporations go, it is my favorite. I know at least two people who read this blog who would sniff at that remark, but to them I ask: why is it OK to like Apple or Whole Foods but not Starbucks? I mean, I understand why Wal-Mart is evil – it gives consumers a false impression that inflation is not occurring by keeping prices artificially low, meanwhile it's bankrupting its suppliers. Plus, it locks employees in at night. But Starbucks raises prices regularly, and no one cares. Because Starbucks is the best kind of drug dealer… uh, I mean, retailer: familiar, consistent, bearing a quality product, easily found, friendly, and cozy, with a relatively clean bathroom. (Aside from the bathroom, the consistency and quality are truly important. Before Starbucks came to LA in the early 90s, you could not get a decent latte in that town. Period. And it’s a big town. Even during the post-"Friends" coffeehouse boom, I ordered a mocha from a very hip and popular cafe in North Hollywood and was given a cup of brewed coffee with spoonfuls of Nestle’s Quick.)

Granted, Starbucks frowns upon unionizing, but it pays employees pretty well (including decent tips), offers health benefits even for part-timers, and has a profit-sharing plan (full disclosure: I worked there briefly after college. I make a mean sugar-free vanilla mocha). It may hurt small South American farmers, but don’t believe your local Java Joe's is doing anything to help South American farmers. And it seems pretty committed to sustainability. Starbucks isn't perfect, but for a wildly successful corporation, it’s kind of admirable.

Until now. Globalism is one thing but Mitch Albom I cannot abide. I mean, this is a brand that I am associating myself with (and not just through this blog - as I type this, there are three Starbucks cups on my desk, several more are scattered about my home and car, and there may be one or two in my purse), and now the company is telling me that, as far as it is concerned, I am the kind of person who read Tuesdays With Morrie, and wants more. Or maybe I didn't read Tuesdays With Morrie. Maybe I'm just the kind of person who thinks the idea of a baseball player or his mom going to heaven but then getting to live one more day would make a nice book. "Just think of the possibilities!," the Starbucks-imagined me would say. "What would I do if I had just one more day? Hmmm. I guess if today were that day we'd have the answer to that one, huh? I'd be reading a book about what another, make believe person and/or his mother did on his or her last day. And having a latte, of course," Starbucks-me would chuckle. "What a satisfying way to go."

No! That’s not me, Starbucks. I thought you understood! It’s been like 14 years and still you act like we've just met. It was OK when you started selling music, because some of it was pretty good and people just aren’t buying CDs like they used to (damn Internet pirates!). And when you produced that Akeelah and the Bee movie, I thought it was weird but then it got two thumbs up and Greta Van Susteren called it the best movie ever made or something like that. And then when I saw the movie on a plane and thought it was fairly terrible, I forgave you because at least you were taking a stand in the war against spelling (who knew inner-city parents were so against their children participating in spelling bees?).

But now, I don’t know, Starbucks. I don't think I can defend you anymore. I may be an iced-venti douchebag, but I don’t to be a part of the iced-venti douchebag demographic.