Creating latte art is a swirl of new expression in my coffee.

I am learning to make hearts in my lattes. You haven't lived until you try it. 

My parents were big fans of coffee. My father drank a cup of Joe every morning before he went to work, though the coffee brands he and my mother drank were thin and cheap generic store brands that pale in comparison to the coffees now available in stores, and the plethora of drive through coffee stands that have become commonplace in every city in America, if not the world.

My parents liked freeze dried Sanka. It was perfect for camping trips. No camping trips were complete without the adults holding cups of coffee in their hands as they sat around the camp fires. Every one of my parent's friends were coffee drinkers. And many were smokers. I always equated smoking with drinking coffee, which is why, until fifteen years ago, I hadn't had much interest in coffee. When I was a kid, coffee ads were regularly aired on the TV. The first one I recall was shown on the Lucille Ball show. Desi and Lucy were gaga for Sanka, and money was greasing the track of their endorsement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOSIcmk27rM&NR=1&feature=endscreen


Freeze drying was the hip thing in the 1960s. This was when Tang, the powdered orange drink, was in everybody's kitchens, right next to the box of Wheaties. If it was good enough for the astronauts, it was good enough for me! At that time, Tang was mostly sugar and fake orange flavor. In 2007, Kraft Foods replaced half the sugar with really awful sugar replacements, like sucralose, acesulfame potassium, and neotame. They used to use some truly horrible things to decaffeinate coffee beans, such as benzene, chloroform, and trichloroethylene (TCE).Dichloromethane, and CH₂Cl_{2, most of which of have been shown to be carcinogenic. Which means that Sanka and Maxwell House and other "decaffeinated" coffees had some pretty nasty stuff in them. Coffee is predominantly decaffeinated with more benign things now, like hot water, and the fluid version of CO2. In the future there may be no need for decaffeinated coffee. In 2003 the caffeine "switch" was found in tea and coffee plants, so now it is a matter of simply turning off the switch so the plants don't make caffeine. Can you spell GMO, people? One day they will turn off or turn on the switches in you or your children to make them office workers or to grow bigger boobs or other enhancements. I hope the caffeine has killed me by then.}


There have been many lawsuits against cigarette companies, but there should have been a few against coffee companies, and other food companies, who knew darn well the ingredients and the solvents they were using were toxic to human beings.  The American public still thought corporations cared about them back them, thanks to advertising which used trusted spokespeople to sell products. Even the Andy of Mayberry show had endorsements for Sanka that were precursors to infomercials. Did Sheriff Andy Taylor know he was selling cancerous coffee crystals? No. Neither did Opie, or Aunt Bee, who were so wholesome they could sell radioactive waste as if it were a natural part of a nutritious breakfast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxbcQ6lV00s&feature=related  Even Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble advertised Winston cigarettes. The viewing audiences were naive, and the products were lousy and cheap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYvOgnabABU 

Coffee companies quickly used TV advertising successfully, just as cigarette, liquor, and a lot of other companies had for many years. When I think of the 1960s I cannot get the slogans out of my head. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is! Ad men at this time in history were enjoying the golden era of writing pithy sales copy for everything. The coffee brands had memorable slogans, and many had distinctive music tracks to support their brands. The brands aligned themselves with TV shows and personalities, such as Danny Thomas and Dick Van Dyke. Maxwell House had a memorable perky music track that sounded like coffee being brewed. The music alone could have sold their coffee. In the 1980s, Maxwell House hired Ricardo Montalban to endorse it, and Montalban went on to sell a half dozen other products, including rich Corinthian leather. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxbcQ6lV00s&feature=related

I had never tasted more than a half cup of coffee before I turned eighteen, though my siblings and I occasionally mixed coffee with on our vanilla ice cream. We didn't know this was like a latte. I had my first cup of coffee in Europe in 1973. I was hitch hiking in Italy after my high school graduation, when a man in a small red Italian car gave me a lift. In the back seat of the car there was a green parrot in a tall wooden cage. The cage jostled back and forth as the driver, a fifty-something year old man who sported a pencil thin mustache and an odd hat, steered the tiny car through the curvy streets of Bologna. He spoke little English, and I spoke no Italian, but he said we had to stop for an espresso. It was early afternoon, and easily ninety degrees that day. I had heard of espresso, but I'd never tried it. We stopped at a small cafe and he bought me an espresso that came in a tiny white china cup, which sat on an equally tiny saucer. The espresso was thick, greasy, and sweet. It was nice, and a great introduction to freshly brewed quality coffee. And I was wired for hours.

My father drank coffee every morning for as long as I can remember, and mom filled his metal thermos with coffee to wash down his bologna sandwiches and chips. He was perked up most of the day, which was what an auto body repair shop owner needed to get the work done. Drinking coffee was a tradition that my parents practiced into old age. Naturally, with this indoctrination, I married a woman who was enamored with coffee. She had an flame red  espresso machine that made truly terrifying sounds as it got going. She was skilled in the workings of the machine's knobs and buttons, and assured me it would not explode and embed shrapnel into the walls and our bodies. I did not know coffee's health benefits at that time, for if I had I would have been on the cutting edge in the 1990s when a lot of forward thinking entrepreneurs got into the coffee drive through business in the little college town where we lived.

I am dating a woman who owns three coffee stands. So when I think of coffee, I think of relationships. Nothing gets people in a talkative, sociable mood like a good cup of coffee. I'm not immune to its caffeine, and I'm not good at measuring how many scoops to put in my French press. I was jittery for most of yesterday morning due to bad measuring. I never cared for the generic coffees, but I'm a big fan of organic coffees. My prostate is too. I'm drinking several cups of coffee per week to help that old organ. I like my coffee thick and creamy, like the espresso I had in Italy years ago. I've even begun dabbling in making designs in my lattes. I'm not sure I'll drink my creations, but I'll certainly photograph them.

The health benefits of coffee have been confirmed by modern science. I like the idea of a drink that can save me from getting prostate cancer.  I want to live to be 100, and coffee seems to be the ticket. But it also raises blood pressure, so it may be the drink that ultimately kills me. They will find me slumped over a keyboard, a latte on the table beside me.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43065205/ns/health-cancer/t/swilling-coffee-may-protect-men-against-prostate-cancer/#.T0pOl2WbWHI  


Too much caffeine isn't so great for pregnant women either. Researchers from California's Kaiser Permanente Division of Research report that women who consumed 200 mg or more of caffeine per day (about two cups of coffee), doubled their miscarriage risk. But on the other hand, it helps the cognitive powers of women over 65 , eases constipation, stops eye spasms, and makes you sexier. Well, I made up that last one. Too much of anything is not good, and coffee is no exception. Too much of it can decrease bone density. So if you're a woman your brain will be firing on all cylinders from the caffeine in the coffee, but you'll have bones as brittle as a sparrow's. Your teeth, or your dentures, will turn the color of yellowed wallpaper, but you'll be a stellar Scrabble player.

So drink up you old men, save your prostate . My brew is ready now. Mmm, and it's good to the last drop. I'll have a second cup! Here are some video links about how to make swirly art with your coffee, darling. Make mine with lots of milk and sugar, baby. If I'm gonna go, I want to go with a smile on my face.

How to make a heart in your coffee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY2nncqKGjQ&feature=related

How to make many shapes with chocolate syrup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDZs__m5iAI

How to pour the milk like a pro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si-wsNVh7qI&feature=related

Going with the flow. Being thankful. Watching for signs and wonders.

Life is a crazy proposition. The challenge is to always be thankful.

In January of 2010 I went to Nashville. I wasn't looking for Buck Owens, or Taylor Swift. My buddy, Dan Wilkins, of Legacy Films (www.legacy.tv) in Eugene, who is also a client, said, "Yeah, go to Nashville. You'll love it. They have a 20 foot tall golden statue to the goddess Athena. Maybe you'll want to live there."

He had said the same thing regarding my going to Key West, which was another project I worked on for Legacy Films. Wilkins, and Portland director Erich Lyttle, had traveled much of America ten years ago in making the Indie film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359389/) "Have You Seen Clem." The film is based on Wilkins' experience in having lost millions of dollars due to over-expansion of Duff's, his buffet-style restaurant chain that once had twenty-six restaurants in Tennessee and California. They had spent some time in Nashville, and filmed a number of Nashville "cats."

Lyttle's claims to fame were his work for Red Bull, and ESPN (www.erich.tv). I had hired Lyttle in the 1990s to shoot a TV spot. He had in turn introduced me to Wilkins. Lyttle thought Wilkins was a little bit crazy, but never boring. And, he enough money left over to pay Lyttle to film a movie as they drove around America in an RV for four months. Wilkins' plan was to film the homeless of America, and to eventually lead his crew to Knoxville, TN where he would exact revenge on the banker who'd nearly bankrupted him. He didn't share this information with Lyttle or the crew. Wilkins was also the star of the film, and wore the disguise of a homeless man named Clem, complete with grotesque fake teeth. In Clem's odd hat was what was referred to as "Jame-O-vision," created by a young skateboarder-turned-cinematographer from Portland, Kris Jamieson. But in meeting and filming the homeless, including many talented street musicians, and seeing what was really going on in America, Wilkins had a change of heart and decided to forgive the banker. So it goes.

Life is funny that way. You set out to do one thing, and somewhere down the highway, sometimes literally while you are on a highway, you change your mind, and your world expands just a little bit.

I have noted that everything is interconnected. I do not know why this is, but I know it to be true. For example, my meeting Dan Wilkins. Wilkins is a quirky character, even when he isn't wearing a disguise in an Indie movie. He knows people because he is a people person. He lined me up to do work to promote his film, and introduced me to John Herklotz the executive producer of another film, "Giant of Thunder Mountain." Herklotz wanted to rebrand the never-released film so he could get it into Walmart. That was in 2007. Wilkins also arranged for me to write a biography of Herklotz. Both Wilkins phone numbers and Herklotz's phone numbers had numbers similar to my birth date. I do not know why this is, but this is a perfect example of the synchronicity of the universe. I notice such things.

In Nashville, where I'd gone to see if I could sell some of my songs (I had done an EP and sold it on CDBaby) to a hot shot Nashville producer. This is how crazy I am. I went to Nashville not knowing anything about how to do this. I had heard of Music Row, but I didn't know what it was. Wilkins said, "I know this guy there who runs an Italian restaurant. He used to work for the mafia, but I don't think he does now. You could stay with him!"

I won't tell you all the things I did in Nashville, but suffice to say, it would be a comedy film. Here are the highlights: 1. I did go to Music Row and became an ASCAP writer. (I admit I ogled the huge naked dancer bronze sculptures there). 2. I stood in the room where Billy Ray Cyrus recorded, "Achy Breaky Heart" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQIPdHMpjc). 3. I stumbled across Hatch Show Print on Broadway Street www.hatchshowprint.com and fell in love with letterpress. 4. I sneaked into the Roy Orbison  recording studio's top floor and wasn't arrested. 5. I auditioned after too many glasses of merlot, for a former Columbia recording producer from NYC, who was a friend of the Wilkins' restaurant owner (Mario). 


Sometimes I wonder if my life is my own anymore, or I am simply the puppet of a master puppeteer. Maybe I am a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard. I am thinking of Nashville and my experience there, and the people we meet that change the courses of our lives. I do not claim to understand what any of it means. We simply have to be willing and life will direct and drive us places that expand our world view. It has mine. How about you?

My life as a clown. Or: Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh.

Actual unretouched image of my father.

Most people, when they graduate high school, pursue further schooling at colleges, or trade schools. And then they go on to mostly unhappy careers doing jobs they would rather not be doing and they serve their time and then they are paroled for ten years or so and then they die. No one told me how this works when I was young or I would have run away the first time a carnival rolled through my town. At least these people seemed to know that life was all about having fun. This was before I understood that carnival people are the scariest people on Earth, and to live with them was a step away from a padded room.

There are, of course, no hard and fast rules about finding a new career, or being happy. Some people are perfectly content to do jobs that give them ulcers, heart attacks, and too many unhappy marriages. We all went into this with our eyes wide open; we just were maybe hoping for something a little more fun to do with our lives. The lucky few figure this out way earlier and they only do the things that make them happy. These are the people we should be voting for, not the unhappy double-talking politicians. A clown would make a wonderful president. Imagine the big red floppy clown shoes of our comic leader slapping the Lincoln Bedroom floor at night, as he paces back and forth. Picture the First Lady clown wife in bed,  her strange orange hued hair up in giant clown curlers, while her clown husband, Mr. President, paces back and forth saying, "I don't know...Muffy...I gave them the funniest speech today about the state of the economy and nobody laughed! What is wrong with this country anyways?" Meanwhile, Muffy is blowing up balloons with helium and sucking down the gas. She says, in a high pitched tone, "Oh Fuzzy, baby, I wouldn't let it worry you. Wear a flower with a water squirter in it. That will get one of those serious-as-a heart-attack generals to laugh!"

In the real world, where frowns are commonplace, we don't have time for levity unless it is in prime time, on our flat TV screens. We always make time for the world of make-believe - the world of films and TV sitcoms. Comedies and drama's are full of modern clowns. Sometimes when I am contemplative, I become deeply delusional about what everyone should be doing in life. Being happy seems to be the only important thing to do. In my world, random acts of kindness are way up there in importance, and making people smile in a grocery store is much more important than whatever is on my shopping list. I am living life of Peter Sellers in 'Being There.' I believe that after a person has tried their hand at, say, being a gardener, they should try being something else, like being an advisor to the President. You only have so many years and then you'll be six feet under. So like, you will go to Heaven and God will say to you, "Um, were you aware you spent over 20,000 days with a frown on your face? You were only happy in fourth grade. Your punishment is to watch the video."

There are no rules that say an accountant cannot have an epiphany in their gray old office cubicle and say aloud, “I am going to be a clown!” Admittedly, this doesn't happen often enough to make more people comfortable throwing away an MBA for a MCBA (Masters of Clown Business Administration). We are on a treadmill, like rats, or the gerbils my son used to raise. Let me tell something about gerbils. After my son abandoned them, I was the one to take care of them. After five generations, those rodents went insane. I tried to make them happy. I built elaborate tunnels that stretched halfway across the kitchen. But eventually, the mom gerbil started eating her children. If this is our future, as a species, count me out. I'm just sayin'.  Ahem. well, no, we aren't gerbils, but we do need more happiness, or, like gerbils we will simply lose ourselves. I mean the crayon toting, joyful us that used to be when all was happy and sunny for most of the day regardless of the weather. 

I threw off conventions some time ago. I simply threw up my hands and said, "That's it; I'm a writer, and it doesn't matter that I don't have a degree in English from an Ivy League school." I simply have to be who I am! And naturally, this meant something less than a financial windfall. I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and said, with a simple moronic smile on my face, "Okay, you win, God. I will be your court jester."  And God, who was holding all the cards anyway, said, through the honk and rumble of a nearby train, "Yeah, I knew you would come around eventually. Now go find your bliss."

We all have to make a living somehow. We can't all be clowns, regardless of Stephen Sondheim's song. Think what it would do to the oil crisis. All that oil going into clown makeup. Well, maybe it would work out; we'd all be driving strangely festooned bicycles anyway. With parasols. No, not everyone can be a clown. Some have to settle for standup comedy, or weekend gigs juggling, or distracting bulls at rodeos. I envy clowns. I also fear them. Some clowns scare the b'Jesus out of me. Can you really trust someone who covers up their face? Banks feel the same way, why shouldn't I? But some people know early on what they are good at. Mostly they are the children of clowns, or rabbi's. Their daughters want to grow up and marry someone like their fathers. Preferably, someone who keeps kosher and who graduated clown college, and whose idea of fashion is to wear pantaloons. http://www.ringling.com/TextContent.aspx?id=17084&parentID=390&assetFolderID=708

My daughter is afraid of clowns. Perhaps she first began fearing them when she saw a Chinese waiter for the first time, at age three. She had only seen white people up until that point. We said, "Honey, what's wrong?" And she said, "Was that a clown?" I think that was the beginning of her fears for people who looked different. But after living in NYC and Paris, she has developed an immunity to clowns and their first cousins, the mimes. So blame the French for that one.

I was raised by a man who aspired to be a clown. He did not know this, but his behavior suggested it was true. He had the perfect clown physique: long arms, a bit of a belly, very short legs, and comical expressions. All he needed was the outfit. It is no big surprise to me that he settled into square dancing, which requires strange outfits that only a clown could appreciate. My mother used to make clown-like square dance dresses. Her hair was a well coiffed as any clown's. In square dancing the women wear bouncy things to support their dresses. It was not meant as a joke, but it is a joke that goes way back in clown mythology, (probably back to ancient Greece). Women square dancers swing their hips so violently you have to be especially agile or you will be knocked on you back side onto the sawdust covered floor.  Dosey doe-ing (do si do?), refers to 'dosado,' a basic dance step where the man artfully dodges the clown-like dress of his partner, while holding her momentarily to keep her from knocking him down. Square dancing was supposed to be slap-stick, and dosey-doe's ruin what could be a Vaudeville routine. All the moves of square dance can be traced back to circus clown choreography developed in Jolly Olde England. You've got to do something when you have the Plague. Or maybe the women are the  'doe's' and the men are hunting them with their bolo ties. It is a mystery, lost to time.

Anthropological evidence does show a clear connection between clown dresses and square dance dresses. They are both spring loaded. The men's bolo ties are simply poor excuses for their predecessors: the cheap plastic brightly colored flowers that squirted water on innocent bystanders. Male square dancers have settled for cowboy boots (where, I might remind you depend on clowns to distract the bulls, people), when they wanted to wear big floppy red boots. Their huge belt buckles are identical to clown's belt buckles.

When you had a father like mine, you grew up a natural comedian. You tried to be unfunny, but you had to eventually go back to your roots in clown-dom. This is why I only get pleasure anymore out of making people smile. Send in the clowns. As Paul McCartney sang, "I want to build a world with silly love songs. What's wrong with that, I'd like to know...so here I go...again. I love you...."

Why are there so many Jewish comedians? If you can't beat 'em with guns, you beat 'em with jokes. Even the gentiles got into the act. Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW02c5UNGl0

So, I guess what I am saying is: I was raised by clowns, and I'm okay with that. Like all of us. And if you really love humanity, you will find a way to entertain the people you meet. Out of love, and silliness.