Starting a business. Putting people to work. Giving them an opportunity to be better. There is so much of that going on these days. Right next door to where I am sitting, a small taproom is nearly ready for a grand opening. The background noise of tile being cut mixes with the sounds of another existing restaurant beginning the day. Wait staff tell jokes among themselves, setting up tables and greeting customers.
Scenes and stories like this are too boring and too many for the internet news. I get that. But do we really have to read about this silly concocted event of the moment from a few days ago: Dumb Starbucks?
It seems a local comedian in Los Angeles thought that people paying $4 for a fancy coffee drink was dumb. So he opened up a store (although it turned out later not to really be one) giving away free coffee. All this under the familiar green logo and the banner Dumb Starbucks.
Because some people stood in line for a long time and waited for their free "dumb coffee" the news vans rolled and set up for another internet news story. I suppose this might have gone on just as easily in the past when we only had the 5 and 11 o'clock TV news.
Probably a topic for another blog, but those people in line at Dumb Starbucks looked a lot like the customers waiting to buy pot in Colorado.
Anyway, the comedian got his few minutes of national fame. The real Starbucks threatened legal action for trademark infringement, and the news vans rolled away to the next story - like seven year olds on a soccer field enthusiastically chasing a ball. Dumb Starbucks is gone.
Yes there is dumb in all this. We are all getting very good at pointing it out. With about seven billion people to share the planet with, I'm sure that just about anything I do can be considered dumb by someone.
Write a weblog? Have an oatmeal breakfast? Walk my dog at three in the afternoon? Definitely someone is out there that doesn't like any of that.
What's different now from any other time is that the internet provides a lot more leverage to express that opinion, however dumb it may be.
I'll continue giving business to my local Starbucks, even though lately I have seen a few changes. They have remodeled. Taken away the comfy chairs and put in only one bathroom. Now that is dumb. But in the end, smart people with $4 for a fancy drink will decide.
