My Starbucks Obsession

I don't feel loyalty to too many corporations. I like driving my 2004 Lexus sedan with 164,000 miles on it.

Food is important. I buy healthy food at the Whole Foods Market. As far as beer and tortilla chips-- no preference really.

As far as fashion, I find most of the great brands get the job done-- Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger make quality clothes. I came across a French company that makes shirts-- Marithe and Francois Girbaud-- by finding fantastic used shirts at Thrift Shops. Just went to the girbaud.com website and see the new clothes cost 200 Euros and more!

I've had good luck with Rockport shoes. I worked as a waiter for many years and the Rockports provided good foot support. Never buy second hand shoes!

And, like almost everybody else, I'm a fan of Apple products. I'm typing on a MacBook laptop. My phone is a Samsung.

Guess I have more brand loyalty than I realized. Nobody  really functions in this world without turning to corporations for survival-- food, clothes and entertainment. That's the West anyway.

We have everything at our fingertips. Just admit it. Life is good even with Trump in office.

But Starbucks stands out for me-- my coffee shop of choice, even with all the excellent cafes in my neighborhood.

The reasons I like Starbucks:

1) Good coffee
2) Made precisely so almost always perfect on the espresso drinks
3) Comfortable setting-- high ceilings and naturally well-lit with big windows always part of the architecture.
4) Starbucks Gold Card. My adding cash to my gold card I somehow don't notice the cost of my coffee drinks. It's a poor man's Gold Card but you do earn some free coffee drinks along the way.
5) Like the mermaid logo-- not sure why this adds to the experience?
6) Like the lingo-- tall, grande, vente for small, medium and large drinks.
7) Rest, read, restore, recuperate-- Starbucks is a corporation that will provide you a comfortable place to sit and read or to converse with a friend.

The key to my Starbucks loyalty has to be #7--

Despite their large volume of business, Starbucks customers move in-and-out, and room exists for people to sit down, read the newspaper, study the contents of their cellphone, or share conversation and conviviality with a friend.

The Super Bowl ads will use all manner of cleverness to attract me to their product.  Maybe Starbucks will have an ad? I hear they cost $7 million dollars for a 30 second spot.

Sure I'm set in my ways. And Starbucks is at the top of my list.

Super Bowl 52, according to Marshall McLuhan

NFL football is America’s most popular sport. Super Bowl 52 baby! The game, New England Patriots versus Philadelphia Eagles, will be played in front of 70,000 fans at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. A domed stadium protected from the Minnesota elements. The real audience, however, the group that matters to advertisers, stays home and is watching the game from a couch. Advertisers will pay $7 million or so for a 30 second ad. Just to get those eyeballs on their products.

The Super Bowl has become a national holiday. Legions of football fans will visit the supermarket in the days prior to the game. Mountains of beer, dips, chips, hot sauce, guacamole, burgers, hot dogs and all kind of BBQ meats will fly off the shelves. Fans stocking their freezers like a prepper the night before the apocalypse.

Football has supplanted baseball as the national pastime. Marshall McLuhan, the media guru, saw it all coming. Football’s rise, he suggested, was connected to its compatibility with the TV medium.

It is the inclusive mesh of the TV image, in particular, that spells for a while at least, the doom of baseball.

(Understanding Media, p.238)

I remember watching the NY Giants (“the football Giants“). I peering at grainy black-and-white heroes: Y.A. Tittle, the baldheaded QB, Sam Huff, the tough guy linebacker, Frank Gifford, the golden boy running back, and linemen Andy Robustelli, and Rosey Grier. The images have gotten clearer in 50 years and NFL football has risen to the top.

For baseball is a game of one-thing-at-a-time fixed positions and visibly delegated specialist such as belonged to the now passing mechanical age.

In contrast, America football is nonpositional, and any or all of the players can switch to any role during play.

(UM, page 239)

McLuhan explained that football works differently than baseball. Football has more simultaneous action, more moving parts than baseball. The same guy that blocks might also be a running back. Who knows? Tom Brady might throw an interception and then tackle the defensive back who grabbed the pass. Don’t count on it.

Football, as the very image of the new corporate and participant ways of electric living, fosters habits of unified awareness and social interdependence… When culture changes, so do games.

(UM, page 239)

Instant replay will be a big part of the game. Replays can highlight spectacular plays. They will also be used to review  referee decisions. The referee’s decisions can actually be reversed by “the guys up in the booth,” officials not visible to the fans with the power to change decisions made on the field.

The footage is examined with the care of a rabbinical student learning the Torah. The TV sports announcers argue the possible different interpretations…Did he juggle the ball or have control the ball…. Did he stay in bounds or did his cleat hit the white line…?

The discussion animates the presentation. The TV announcers consider the options with great brio and focus—and then we learn the outcome from the officials. Those decisions may get dissected all week-- by the big time ESPN national show hosts and an army of lesser-known, radio hosts fast-talking from across the hinterland.

McLuhan commented that baseball “has been dislodged from the social center and been conveyed to the periphery of American life.” Football, by contrast “goes very well the new needs of decentralized team in the electric age.”

Think about this when you quaff the adult beverage of your choice and/or dip you chop into the hot sauce. Or maybe not.

Super Bowl Sunday: Is it just a fantasy?

Fan interest for football is at a phenomenally high level. Like most pro football fans, I never played the game. I never liked putting a helmet on my head. Never wanted to bang into people. Football attracts fans in ways they may not even understand.

Marshall McLuhan, my media guru, successfully predicted football would overtake baseball as the most popular sport. Modern media is all about engagement. Football, where players do different things simultaneously, works like magic for the television audience. Simultaneous events mean engagement of the viewer. The cameras cut from one event to another: quarterback dropping back, cut to wide receiver being defended by the cornerback, cut to linebacker closing in to tackle the quarterback, all within the space of a few seconds. All within the space of a single play.

McLuhan correctly recognized the importance of the "instant replay." Taped replay allows us to watch the play again and again, studying in great depth. Instant replay has been added to actual playing of the game itself. Coaches have been granted the power to request a play be reviewed by the referees. The referees can reverse the on-field decision based on replay. The fans study the replay and participate with the referees's decision.

Baseball, formerly the national pastime, moves forward in a logical, straight-line sequence. Batter hits ball and only then can he run. The ball gets fielded. The batter runs to first base. Football moves forward simultaneously-- occurs on many different levels in the same moment. Fans achieve more in-depth involvement in the football game.

Engagement! Engagement! Engagement! So said McLuhan when explaining the electronic media environment. Our new media life, life itself you might say, is all about electronic engagement. We stay engaged in our cellphone, on Facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram and things like Snapchat. I don't even know what Snapchat is! Guess that reveals my age...

Football wins. With fantasy football we get an deeper involvement. We actually own the team and the players, even if it's just a fantasy. Football wins the electronic competition by keeping us deeply engaged.