Nomad Cafe

Ah, what a beautiful day of surprises and a day of synchronicity. Jerked awake by a call for work, I walked the dog and inhaled the sunlight. Very domestic, and a perfect segue to the headlines: “The plunge in the price of homes gets worse.” Wow. Am I the only one who wants to reread 1984 lately to see if we’re doing it word for word? It seems like I’m riding a news see-saw between statistics and charts saying the American Dream is foreclosing and the politicians saying we’re all going to be fine, just keep the faith. Makes me want to go to one of the “Extreme Fighting” matches that are “…taking Stockton by storm.” Ok, not really. The looming picture is of the Yosemite fire, reported to be only 15% contained. Group these with a dramatic overstatement, “Last Words: Popular online scrabble knockoff erased” and the lead headline, “Death row cost overrun: $40 million,” and you’ve got the standard apocalyptic cover page: A nineteen-eighty-foreclosure on our sense of safety and belief in happy endings. But wait, what’s that headline tucked gently away in the bottom right corner? No, there’s no smoke in your eyes: “In surprising turn, McCain praises Pelosi and Gore.” Take a moment to sip your coffee. In a political firestorm that is less than 1% contained and has already seen candidates using extreme tactics, from kindness to belittlement, now McCain is pledging to work with Pelosi, someone he says, “…has been an inspiration” and, “in many ways more powerful than the president.” Wasn’t there a book by some guy that talked about how all government figures are really on the same side, manufacturing battles or something… Maybe there’s room on the McCain ticket for a VP…

All of this before I stepped into the Nomad Café, bastion of clarity burning at 6500 Shattuck (at 65th) in Berkeley. For just a few dollars I was able to sit down in a comfortable chair, read the rest of the paper to some amazingly synchronistic symphonic music, plug in, and enjoy what I can only call the American office dream. It seemed like everyone there was working on a laptop, sipping good coffee (I had the Nomad Blend: strong and solid), and wearing flip-flops and either stubble (the well-groomed, 3 day look) or a pony-tail (the I look good even when I act like I don’t care look). If 1984 is the bleak, ashen version of the future, the Nomad Café’s casual business for the entrepreneurial spirit has the sharp yellow-jacketed wave of the future that could put it out. I loved it, and if you need to get out of the house and find a place to work, read, or just enjoy the basic but reasonable menu of coffee to lunches, you will too.

Enjoy your break slow, dear reader. After all, if the front page lights our days on fire, we’ll be out of our homes and switching sides, but it won’t matter who has the last (erased) word when we’re all nomads, walking caffeinated into the 21st century.

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