I’m not a coffee drinker. I tried to start once at University. I had a math class called Discrete Mathematics. It was advanced math for theory and decision making. The computer science department required it. Upper level stuff and I was in there as a freshman being pushed through the system. That’s right, I’m a musician and I’m good at math. The math itself was cool. The class unfortunately was not. I had a professor that could barely speak the English language and had a massive accent from a country that I didn’t know. To make matters worse, it was inside a room with no windows, no ambient light and nothing but white walls and a dry erase board. To put it bluntly, it was like being in a vacuum.
I tried everything I could to stay awake in that room, but I have to believe that I am destined to have easy access to natural lighting. At one point durring the semester I was so desperate to stay awake that I took up the ritual of drinking coffee. I figured there must be something to it if so many people partake in it. So off to the student union building I’d go (where the cafe was) to get a cup of coffee. I started with a single small cup. I put a little sugar and a little milk in it and off to class I went sipping along the way until I had consumed it. I got to class, and within 10 minutes I was out like a light.
The next day, I tried a bigger cup, a medium. I shuffled along to class. Finished the coffee before I got there, and within 20 mintues I was asleep. No, I wasn’t getting decaf coffee. So I figured what the hell, lets go for the jumbo. I picked up a 32 oz cuppa joe for the next class. I nearly made it all the way through class. But man did I have to pee when it let out. So I kept at it, I continued to drink 32 oz cups of coffee before that class for about two weeks. Then it wore off. I could drink the 32 oz’s and boom I’d be drifting and nodding with 10 minutes after the class started. I was defeated. I stopped drinking the coffee as it just didn’t work. I haven’t had more than a couple of cups since. I don’t mind the taste, but I don’t see the attraction to it.
I ended up doing alright in the class, but that professor and that room royally sucked. By my Sophmore year I had had enough of computers and programming and math to know that I really didn’t enjoy it. Nothing like great aptitude but no desire. I turned my interests toward film and ended up getting a degree in film instead. After that came the music. Ah, the journey.
I met Jason at the CD Baby meet & greet a few weeks back. Very personable guy. I’m guessing he’s a coffee junkie cause who else would write a song about it? I’ve met people that claim they can’t function without it. Actually my sister is one of those people – she loves it so much her nickname is blackbean. I think I mentioned it already on the blog about a musician introducing themselves and saying they’d like to offer their keyboard playing skills for my tour; it was Jason. After giving the CD a listen, I quite sure that when the need arises, I will certainly give him a call. I think he’s got something good going for himself, beyond his skill to to piano.
The intro is what drew me in to this song. The easy going harmony and rhythm is what kept me in. The other thing that I enjoyed was the sprinkles of the distorted vocals too. The other thing that piqued my interest was the spanish voices. I still haven’t figured out the reasoning behind that but hey, I liked it.
Show Jason some warmth. Grab the song and make it a part of your morning ritual when you drink your joe.
p.s. – two of my favorite movie scenes about coffee are The Fisher King, and Good Will Hunting. In the Fisher King, there’s a scene with Robin Williams where he meets a girl of his dreams. She runs through an entire relationship with him all based on morning coffee, and she totally ignores that he doesn’t drink coffee.
In Good Will Hunting, Mini Driver meets Matt Damon in a bar and tells him he’s an idiot. Then she proceeds to say she’d like to get coffee with him sometime. His response is that they could also go get some caramels and that the act of drinking coffee is arbitrary. Smart writing there. Love it. It’s usually my response when someone wants to get coffee with me.