NotesFromUnderground

It’s a beautiful morning... as I read the front page’s corner: “Motto Mania.” A good reminder to all of us just how funny it is to be alive. Apparently, some state employees are making over $100,000 in overtime, making me wish I had taken that job at the prison a few years back… And then, as if coming out after out storm of fires and ash, the PRIDE rainbow speeds across the front page on a motorcycle. Book-ended by verticals about how presidential candidates are marketed and about how the zoo still reels from the tiger attack, I’d say the motto of the front page could easily be, “San Francisco: A sense for the sensational.” It would be easy to miss the words touting how the “Slow Food Nation tries to woo diners away from Big Macs.” In September a menu of seminars and samples around the concept of preparing and eating food slowly will come to San Francisco. Slow Food, an Italian born reaction to American fast-food culture, sounds wonderful. I wonder what will happen when the conference organizers feel crunched for time as Labor Day approaches? Can you skip lunch or grab a “quick bite” if you’re an organizer of Slow Food Nation? I’ll chew on that…

Waiting patiently and motto-less, Notes from Underground, at the corner of Van Ness and Green, makes an understated nod to Dostoevsky, who certainly took his time with everything, filling its walls and surfaces with words, flyers, and books. I enjoyed the house blend, a tasty but unremarkable dark roast. Hopefully the Slow Food organizers will take the time to unearth this corner spot, where they serve a copious array of breakfasts, sandwiches, wraps, and more. They offer free WiFi and desktop internet access for 12 cents/ minute. There was a happy, familiar vibe through the café. You want it to be your corner café. OK, I want it to be my corner café. When I go there I want to sing, “Sometimes I wanna go… where everybody knows my name…” OK, enough. If you want somewhere to get your basic coffee and lunch, this is your spot. It’s a sunny day somewhere over the rainbow weekend, and I’m smiling.

Enjoy your break slow. After all, if the front page writes today’s motto, we’ll be eating slowly enough to make enough overtime cash to afford a good costume for next year’s PRIDE. Which would actually be great!

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.

Lyon Cafe

The screeching BART mixes with chirping birds beneath an ominous, ashen sun. The headlines today are simple: “Plea for help as the bees disappear,” “Ruling’s Ricochet: A right to own guns,” and “Widow pleads for death penalty.” Our habits of pesticides and farming monocultures may be the smoking guns as the population decline. The Supreme Court interprets the 2nd Amendment for the first time in history, affirming the right of every American to own a gun. I can’t help but scratch beyond the front page to the movie Wanted, where the main character is liberated from his desk job to become an assassin, or to any story my students would tell of daily life in East Oakland, where guns and violence are social currency. While we may have the right to own them, do we know what to do with them? Crunched between the horrifying story of a woman whose family was killed and the massive disappearance of our bees, it is hard to watch the sun burn behind the ash without thinking that Charon is driving the trains all those people are buzzing to.

If there is a cinder of apocalyptic fatalism in this Friday air, it disappears when I sit down at the Lyon Café, which blooms across from the Rockridge BART at the corner of College and Miles. The house coffee, an organic Sumatra, warded off the morning headache but could have been stronger. Most of the folks walking in are picking up coffee on their way to or from the BART, and as only one or two take the time to sit down I find myself sipping with the traffic outside. The constant stream of commuters is great people-watching (even if most are skirt-suited women and sleeveless-fleeced men), but leaves me feeling like I should be doing something more active to keep up with all the bees… like fighting global warming, or at least contributing to it. For my ears, a pleasant mix of quiet chatter and low music that somehow all sounds like Paul Simon’s greatest hits. The café is decorated simply, with a modernist feel and paintings on the walls. You’ll find the BART schedule on a monitor, flyers, newspapers, and WiFi available. The counter offers a standard selection of pastries and croissants. Overall, it’s a great spot to reload on your way to take the BART and do your part to fight global warming, hopefully unarmed.

Enjoy your break slow, dear reader. After all, if the front page pollinates our courtrooms we’ll be vigorously pursuing the death penalty for anyone who uses the gun we’ve vigorously protected their right to own.

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.

JumpNJava

I enter to Bob Dylan, slow and low in the background. By the time I get my cup of Max’s Blend, Hendrix cries, “Well I stand up next to a mountain/ Chop it down with the edge of my hand.” An apt soundtrack for reading the headline, “Up for a climbing record,” which outlines LaFayette climber’s plan to stand up on the mountain of Yosemite’s El Capitan Nose route and chop down the 2900 foot climb in under 3 hours. If I started now I could be done before noon. Plenty of time to scale the heights held on the rest of the front page, where presidential candidates “pitch hard to win (the) coveted Latino vote,” film crews document “Abandoned kids with AIDS in China,” police arrest MS-13 family men, the California government starts a “war on (global) warming, and scientist reveal “Ancient Gator-like fish.” Too much to hold on my climb up the morning.

Luckily, Jump’N Java, waiting at 6606 Shattuck on the southern edge of Berkeley, knows how to brew a boost. The house coffee today is Max’s Blend, named after the much renowned Royal Coffee Bean founder’s son, and combining Indonesian and African coffees. On their chalkboard it says, “We brew our coffee to maximum strength – ask us to dilute it if it’s too strong for you!” and they aren’t kidding. Their coffee may be just what those scientists need to bring the gator-like fish back to help fight global warming or curb gang violence. The tables are small and mostly taken by solo sippers with laptops, newspapers, or books. I take my seat under a palm tree, one of many that grace the walls in a mural by local legend, Peter Lee. The vibe is silent and sparse, with people in and out without a word beyond their orders. The music like an Ipod on random, jumping from punk to opera to sixties rock without warning, somehow a perfect complement to today’s cover stories. Offering all manner of coffee drinks and the basics in pastries and bagels, this spot feels a bit like climbing a long, windy climbing pitch. In the end, it’s a good place to fuel up and take in the news or check your email, but not to discuss it. As Jimi’s front-page voodoo children push pins into the comfort zones of breakfast reading, my brain is safely belayed by Jump’N Java.

Enjoy your break slow, dear readers. If this front page sets our route, we’ll be saving the world, climbing its mountains, and demystifying evolution all before lunch.

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.

ColeCoffee

The sky is confused. Can I trust the calendar saying the solstice just passed, or do I admit the clouds make me think I’ve left my pillow only in theory? Picking up the Chronicle from a Safeway across the street and feeling sleepily ironic, I read that “Bay Area home prices take new hit.” With the next headline speculating that rising temperatures give us a “Grim look at state’s plant life,” I nod as the uncertainty rains beyond the sky. Just as conventional calendar wisdom weathers this morning uncertainty, so, too, the face of the Chronicle begins to look more like the traditional theatre mask. The other headlines scratch their heads as Edgerly, Oakland’s city manager, retires in her own cloud of corruption, and Scott McClellan, Bush’s former aide, hints that he may vote Democrat in 2008, depending on which candidate is the most straightforward. When even the politicians are looking for truth, which face should I make?

With all of these faces dancing behind my own, I cross the street to Cole Coffee. Nestled into the gentle corner of College and 63rd in Oakland’s Rockridge District, Cole lets the hipster, the family, the homeless, and the businessman all sip their morning together without contradiction or confusion. To my left, two suits discuss the “typical corporate game,” while to my right a family sings whimsical happy birthdays to their baby. Two sophisticated ladies reminisce about Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice. The rest of us read our papers or peck away at our laptops with our own versions of theatre faces. Inside, the baristas brew up a stunning array of specialty coffees from around the world. You can even watch your fuel drip from their subtly placed waiting couch. Each cup is freshly made for each customer, beans ground and hot water poured, using the Melitta filter drip method for a seductively graceful cup of strong and satisfying coffee. Perfect for slow sipping and conversation, which is easy with the welcome absence of background music. Most take their cups to benches and tables curved around the outside, while a few remain inside, sitting in cozy corner tables. Small display cases offer croissants and vegan donuts, and there are a few well-chosen menu items if you want a hot breakfast. I recommend the poached egg with toast. There are actually two counters pouring coffee, allowing us our choices, not unlike the front page. One door over is a second Cole, where a rotating roster of the specialty coffees is brewed in a large batch, ready for a quick fill. Today’s was the Nicaraguan Organic, and it was strong like Ortega and smooth like a Caribbean sunset. In the end, Cole is a breakfast experience worthy of the truest theatre smile.

Dear readers, enjoy your break slow. After all, if the front page keeps playing truth or dare, we will all have to choose sides while there are still sides to choose.

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.

Ritual

Breakfast in the Bay is a Tuesday’s child. Full of words, full of caffeine, and full of grace.

Is that fog or ash in the air? Emerging from the underworld of Bart, the Chronicle’s lead corner warns me that California is “on pace for (a) record fire year.” Two other headlines preach: “‘Americans reshape religion’ and ‘Satire at the S.F. ballot box in drive to ‘honor’ president.’ In the first I read that 70% of Americans believe multiple religions can lead to salvation, and that 21% of self-defined atheists believe in God. You’ve got to love a god buffet. The second article outlines a grave plot to rename a pollution control center the “George W. Bush Sewage Plant.” I read, too, that today in history, the U.S. Air Force dismissed any claims of UFO’s at Roswell. God bless the democratic process of belief.

With all of this pounding gentle nails into my head, I believe it is time for coffee. I enter Ritual to the beat of Tuesday drumming. Think stimulus. From the vibe of it, there could very well be a clandestine ritual occurring in the back room, a sacrificial roasting of Starbucks’ over-logisticised coffee siren. The menu is simple in the right way: Coffee, cappuccino, and French press ready to be poured, smoothly mixed hip-hop for ears too full of the Mission’s beeps and clunks, deftly sweetened still-soft chocolate croissants and pastel vegan donuts waiting for a tired head. Ritual, located in the Mission district at 21st and Valencia, helped me believe in the redemptive power of breakfast again. Which is important.

Enjoy your break slow. After all, if the front page blesses our dead, we’ll be flushing god down a toilet to a purgatory christened for our president.

Breakfast in the Bay: Making sense of waking up since Tuesday, 2008.