BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

So, I’ve had multiple requests for a “repeat” of the “Gospels of the Bean” updates/tweets from a while back. In fact, I’ve even had folks requesting them for Christmas. Since I’ve been so busy with Luetsencurbenpuken (yes, I still need to post some pictures from 2010) and such, I neglected to have a blog entry ready for this morning… Therefore… Yeah. I’m going to get my lazy on and do a big old copy and paste from the “Gospels of the Bean” text file.

Since I am writing this while pumping bean jooce into myself, AND I will need to go roust the o-spring and redhead very soon, this is going to be pretty haphazard. As in, no particular order. I have a busy day ahead and, besides, you know how my mind works anyway…

WHAT IS COFFEE?

cof-fee [kaw-fee, kof-ee] -noun : decoction of crushed, roasted seeds ingested primarily as a vehicle for caffeine delivery. – I haz some.

COFFEE COMMANDMENTS

“And BEAN spoke all these words, saying: I am BEAN, your God…”

“1: You shall have no other caffeinated beverages before Me.”

“2: You shall not make for yourself a false coffee, such as anything that is in the likeness of decaf.”

“3: You shall not spill the brew of the BEAN in vain.”

“4: Remember the birthday of Saint Juan Valdez, to keep it holy.”

“5: Honor thy roasts, espresso, dark, medium, regular, and all in between.”

“6: You shall not murder after partaking of the brew. Before is okay, after, not so much.”

“7: You shall not drink tea as opposed to coffee, for this act is to commit adultery against the BEAN.”

“8: You shall not steal the coffee of another.”

“9: You shall not falsely accuse thy neighbor of being a cola drinker.”

“10: You shall not covet your neighbor’s Bunn, Krups, Saeco, etc.”

GOSPELS OF THE BEAN

On the third day, Starbuck said to them, “Drink this and you will live, for it is of the BEAN.” Gevalia 42:18

BEAN said,”In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, COFFEE will overcome.” Juan 16:33

And Juan did according to all that the BEAN commanded him. – Gevalia 7:5

When Starbuck partook of the coffee, he bowed down to the ground before the BEAN. – Gevalia 24:52

Starbuck said to the baristas, “Come here and listen to the words of the BEAN your God.” – Starbuck 3:9

“It will produce caffeinated beverages for you, and you will drink the brew of the BEAN.” – Gevalia 3:18

“And BEAN spoke all these words, saying: I am BEAN, your God… 1: You shall have no other caffeinated beverages before Me.”

The angel of BEAN said to me in the diner, ‘Coffee?’ I answered, ‘Yes, please.’ – Gevalia 31:11

“So BEAN created coffee in its own image, in the image of BEAN it created brew; Arabica and Canephora it created them.” – Gevalia 1:27

“So Juan moved his tents and went to live near the mountains, where he built an altar to the BEAN.” – Gevalia 13:18

BEAN said to Coffee, “Where is your brother Espresso?”, “I dunno,” he replied. “Do I look like a Starbucks?” Gevalia 4:9

The Bean said, “It is not good for mankind to be groggy. I will make a caffeinated drink suitable for them.” – Gevalia 2:18

Bean said, “Let there be brew,” and there was brew. Bean saw that brew was good, and separated brew from grounds. – Gevalia 1:3

For coffee so loved the world it gave its one and only brew, that whoever drinks it shall be not foul but have good mood. – Krups 3:16

Brew not, and you shall not have coffee. Drink not, and you shall not be awake. — 2 Juan,  6:37

“Now, my Coffee, may your bean be ground and your caffeine extracted for the drinkers of your brew.” — 2 Starbucks,  6:40

“He who has coffee is better than the coffeeless; and he that drinketh his coffee than he that doesn’t.” – 1 Peaberry, 16:32

“Tea may endure for a night, but coffee cometh in the morning.” — Peaberry 30:5

May the glory of the bean endure forever; may the bean rejoice in its caffeine – 1 Folgers, 2:19

Awaken me, O COFFEE, for your caffeine is kind; With your great stimulant, lead me to the path of consciousness. —Starbuck 69:69

COFFEE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Coffee makes all things new again. A public service announcement of the Church of the Latter Day Bean…

PENNANCE

Tea is an Aqueous sin and Cola is both an Aqueous and a Carbonic sin, making it far worse. 24 Hail Peaberries minimum

COFFEE PRAYER

Oh coffee, who art in cup, Java be thy name. Thy espresso shot, rich and hot, just keep the refills a comin’…

Oh coffee, who art in cup, peaberry be thy name. Thy caffeine come, as I swill one, do they have refills in heaven?

COFFEE AFFRIMATIONS

Coffee is great, coffee is good, I’d best go drink some before I’m rude…

Coffee is great, coffee is good. Better give me more before I get rude…

Coffee is great, coffee is good, let us thank it for our mood…

Thou hast raised me from sleep, O coffee; awaken my mind and open my lips, that I may praise Thee, O Holy Trinity- Bean, creamer, and sugar.

Glory be to the bean and to the grinder and to the water, as it was in the beginning, but is now, coffee without end.

Coffee…grant me the strength to pour, the serenity to brew when the pot is empty, and the wisdom to not kill anyone yet.

COFFEE CONFESSIONS

Confession time – I have a little plastic statue of Juan Valdez and his donkey on the dash of my truck…

I like my coffee straight up, no frills. But when I feel a little kinky, I put on one of my wife’s negligees and have an espresso…

FROM THE COFFEE HYMNAL

I like my coffee bay-bee! Hot, fresh, and… well, not so sticky. But strong, yes. Stronger the better. (Rock Candy)

Coffee, coffee, bo boffee, banana bana, fo foffee, fee, fi, mo, moffee! KAW-FEE! (The Name Game)

Have another cup of coffee, but don’t be sloppy, be careful don’t spill it, when you refill it, have another cup of coffee…  (Manic Monday)

COFFEE IS…

Coffee is… The only thing that keeps me from climbing the clock tower with a rifle in the morning.

Coffee is… My Mistress, and damn she’s hot and steamy…

Coffee is… An essential part of the food pyramid.

Coffee is… Do I really need to embellish here?

Coffee is… Not just a good idea, it’s the law.

Coffee is… My own personal Prozac.

COFFEE QUOTES

I need a faster coffee bean juicer…

Coffee… There can be only one.

Coffee… Not just a good idea. It’s a way of life.

If it weren’t for coffee, well then, I guess I’d just have to be an even bigger asshole today…

I love the smell of coffee in the morning… Smells like… burnt coffea canephora berries actually…

It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion. It is by juice of the bean that thoughts acquire speed, desk stained, cup empty…

Ahhh… Freshly squeezed coffea canephora juice… It just makes the world look so much more… well… tolerable.

Chemicals my ass! Without COFFEE, life itself would be impossible…

COFFEE QUESTIONS

How many beans do you have to squeeze for one cup of coffee?

More to come…

Murv

I happen to like fried chicken…

I mean, after all, I’m from the South. I would probably be disowned by my kin if I didn’t like fried chicken. You see, much like Texas has the “he needed killin'” law, there’s one of those unwritten little ditties in the original South as well. It’s the “I ain’t eatin’ it” rule. Basically, you are allowed one free pass on a regional comestible. In my case I used my freebie on Head Cheese – that gelatinous loaf of aspic and cranial meat that comes from boiling down a hog head.

Truth is, one would think that having grown up on a farm, and therefore having been physically present (and even directly involved) during an actual “chicken running around with its head cut off” incident (several times, to be honest) I would have been more likely to use my “get out of eating it free” coupon on just that. However, I’ve also seen a hog’s head floating around in a soup pot. And, witnessed my grandmother digging the eyes out of the skull… And…

Well… You get the picture. Suffice it to say, in my way of thinking the crazy, bleeding, headless chicken made a far less horrific impression, believe it or not.

So, now that I’ve whetted your appetite, let’s move right along…

This past weekend I headlined at Festival of Souls in Memphis, Tennessee. FOS is a fantastic alternative spirituality gathering put on by Summerland Grove and held at Meeman-Shelby State Park. Incidentally, Meeman-Shelby is where a piece of my luggage now makes its home, but that’s another story… Thing is, this wasn’t my first time at this particular fest, but it had been a few years, so I have to say it was great to visit with old friends once again.

But then there came the chicken.

Now, as I said, I love fried chicken, so when I saw that it was on the menu for Saturday night’s dinner feast, I was to say the least, pretty excited. Granted, we were in Tennessee and not Kentucky, but hey, it’s still the same geographical area, so they oughta know how to fry chicken. So, all good… I was going to have fried chicken… My mouth was all set for it.

Fast forward a bit to Saturday evening. The feast was scheduled to begin after the main ritual for the fest. Some of us – namely Tish and Patrick Owen, E-Mac, Johnathan, E K, and Moi – who were not attending the ritual had parked ourselves at the Group W book signing table in the dining hall. Here we played with pencils, chatted, signed books, talked about the mysteries of the universe, reveled in the lovely fried chicken smells wafting from the nearby kitchen, and watched E K torturing wayward insects that fell into her “you don’t belong here” category.

(NOTE: E K will rescue insects that belong here, but if they are an invasive species, or are just plain nasty and annoying… Well, let’s say it sucks to be them. See “Mistress Of The Flies,” “Missouri Kat And The Scarab Of Doom,” “Eeek Of Destruction,” etc…)

Eventually, the ritual was over and folks began rapidly filing into the dining hall for dinner, and as hungry people will do, they lined up in front of the window, anxious for a plate of chickeny goodness. Seeing the length of the queue, we all decided to kick back and wait for it to die down. So, we continued chit-chatting while E K continued introducing various bugs to the sole of her shoe as she giggled that cute, intensely evil giggle of hers.

However, the kitchen staff had another idea. Not about E K and her bug crunching, more like about us not eating right away. Because, out of the blue… Well… not blue, really… More like out of the kitchen door if we want to be completely accurate… Anyway, suddenly a couple of tray laden folks appeared and placed loaded plates of fried chicken, mashed ‘taters & gravy, green beans, and glazed carrots in front of us. We were also duly chastised for not having walked into the kitchen ahead of everyone else to be served at the head of the line, since Tish and I were the headline authors and everyone with us qualified as our entourage, so to speak.

Well, truth is, Tish and I really don’t buy into that dynamic. There are many authors and presenters out there that do, but we aren’t them. So, if the staff of an event hustles us into the dining hall ahead of everyone even after we strenuously object, we will go. We don’t always have a choice.  But we are NOT about to jump ahead of paying attendees, and we aren’t big fans of folks who do.

But now I digress…

So… Where was I? Oh yeah. At any rate, we were now in a quandary. We were embarrassed that we had been literally served our dinner while many folks were still waiting in line, but by the same token we were hungry. Fortunately, nobody minded that we had been brought our plates, and they insisted that we eat before it got cold. So, we did… And there were these piles of fried chicken. And the fried chicken was not good. The fried chicken was freakin’ EXCELLENT. So very excellent, in fact, that we just kept eating since they had a surplus and they had provided us with monster chicken pieces.

Fast forward again…

Late in the evening we stood about, smoking cigars, chit chatting, watching EKay step on things, and being amused by a field mouse that chased Johnathan around the porch after it had used the restroom. Well, we assumed that’s what it did. It went into the restroom, then came out later and started chasing Johnathan. At any rate, we eventually piled into our room and retired for the night. Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, however, the “incident” happened.

“The Incident”? you ask…

Yes. “The Incident.” We still aren’t positive about the hour of the occurrence, but when sunrise arrived, as usual we climbed out of bed and headed for the restroom. It’s one of those morning things, ya’know. Upon opening the door to the cabin we found “it”…

It being two large pieces of fried chicken affixed to our cabin door with duct tape. We had been vandalized… We had been victimized… We had been the target of a “Drive By Chickening”…

Being a mystery-thriller author, of course I launched a full scale investigation, co-opting whatever I could find in order to process the crime scene. I even interviewed witnesses, one of them being a rather wet and naked young lady in the unisex shower facilities. She seemed to know who it was, but was unwilling to give up the info. Since she was wet and naked, and I really wasn’t all about interviewing her in that state, I was unable to pursue the line of questioning any further.

Later we discovered that we weren’t the only victims. It seemed someone using the very same roll of duct tape had attempted to tape Tish and Patrick into their cabin. Obviously we had a “serial tapeist” on our hands…

While the perpetrator of these crimes still runs free, we are relatively certain we have narrowed things down to a single suspect. During her interview she was evasive, and even offered a rehearsed answer, stating that we had been the victims of Tennessee Hoodoo.

That was when we knew for certain she was lying. Everyone knows that if fried chicken is involved, it’s Kentucky Hoodoo.

So, she might as well just fess up. Otherwise I’ll just have to invoke the Colonel. Trust me, I have a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, and I’m not afraid to use it…

More to come…

Murv