I have no idea why Tyler and I decided to meet up at a Saturday basketball game at our junior high. Neither of us gave AF about most team sports (I mean I played football, but that feels like an anomaly in retrospect) and while my younger brother was into basketball it certainly wasn’t of any interest. I can only surmise that it was a strategic location from which we would be doing whatever mischief came next on that cold January morning.
I was there first and was cold despite having ridden my bike some thirty blocks to get there. Some hot cocoa seemed like a good idea from the small vending window our school had. I carefully carried my Styrofoam cup (no top) up into the bleachers to sit and wait. I hadn’t noticed that my hot cocoa did not smell like it should and was aghast when I took a sip. It was hot and bitter with not a trace of chocolate in it. It was gross, but I still managed to drink half of it. This was my first experience with coffee. Despite this inauspicious beginning, coffee and all its associated rituals would go on to inform my efforts daily. This was even to the point of becoming an ongoing if not accidental quest.
Music: Negative Blast: Echo Planet I first visited San Diego right after I finished high school. It reminded me of my home base, but bigger and with better weather. A big conservative military town, but with a unique undercurrent of music, sports and art. I was stoked to get to spend a day riding nearby Del Mar Skate Ranch back then and I was a fan of Battalion of Saints. Skateboarding and music are two great flavors that go together that are still coming out of SD. Negative Blast have a name that seems like a generic hardcore moniker or maybe at best a portmanteau of the bands Negative Approach and Bl’ast! They do have elements of both of those groups in their sound which is a great thing. Negative Blast lay down anthemic rocking hardcore and on this release feature the drumming talents of Mario Rubalcaba (Off!, Hot Snakes, Earthless). Considering the plethora weirdness coming from SD’s Three.One.G recordings this stuff almost sounds normal, but not generic. The song structures are straight forward and lack the obtuse noise elements of their new label’s catalog. It slots in nicely with stuff like Obliterations who I’ve mentioned before. Negative Blast have a new album dropping in November and the first track released sounds equally as raging as the stuff on this record. Horned hands high for this stuff!
All great quests begin by accident. I made that up, but my espresso pursuit was not anything I had planned. Yes, it does tie into cycling FWIW. However, allow me a moment to backtrack.
I received an espresso maker for my birthday as I was beginning my junior year of dental school. I’d been to Europe and had espresso but did not really know what it was. I just thought people over there just drank really small cups of coffee. I still believed this when I received what I thought was a coffee maker that just made small pots of coffee. My roommates never said anything as I am pretty sure they did not know any better despite being sanctimonious art students. I am positive that if they did know, they would have made fun of my philistine behavior that followed. I began brewing a pot of espresso every morning before I walked up the hill to school. I did not understand that each pot was four shots, so in my ignorance I dumped the whole thing in my mug with ice and half and half. I’d guzzle it down as I marched to school in rapid fashion. This was 5 days a week for the next two years. I finished my clinical tasks reaching a terminal velocity not far off from the licensed docs I was surrounded by and would soon become. I did not come to understand the concept of espresso yet, but that excessive caffeination fueled my adventures and gave me a bolt of lightning to grab.
My caffeinated hijinks slowed maybe slightly following graduation, but a few years later it was kick started again when I resided in Minneapolis. This was the first place where I experienced serious coffee culture. It seemed like there was a different coffee place on every corner and while Starbucks was around the indies ruled up there. Knowing no one when I got there, I often would drop in and hang at different coffee shops and talk to whoever was around while trying different offerings. I met tons of cyclists and motorcycle enthusiasts. I began doing linked trail rides around town and stopping for coffee, snacks, dropping by the tattoo parlor where I had made some pals, hitting book/record stores all the while getting some exercise. This was a great way to kill weekend days.
The apex of this quest occurred in the mid-00s. Or maybe that was when I defined it. I spent nearly two years planning a trip for a few friends to go ride in Switzerland and Italy with Big Mountain. I had been on a number of mountain biking trips by this point, but this was my first time riding in Europe. The trip was everything we hoped for and more and I cannot recommend Chris and his crew enough. One moment stood out and became the veritable throwing down the gauntlet instance for me. The riding was high alpine, all mountain with lots of exposure and very technical. No e-bikes, minimal shuttles/lifts and hours of pedaling were on tap every day. The riding was demanding to say the least and many times I became discouraged when I’d be exhausted due to the high-level aerobic efforts at altitude. It was at one of these points maybe mid-morning where we rounded a corner and found ourselves in a small mountain town. We pulled up and parked our bikes at a café. Upon sitting down, and an espresso with a small cookie accompaniment appeared before us like magic. I cannot say for certain if this of the was the highest quality as I was certainly no connoisseur, but right then it was best espresso in the world. At that moment everything seemed perfect, and no other issues mattered.
I continue to seek the perfect espresso every time I go out. The one I had the other day consisted of remnants from my morning ice coffee with a cold Diet Dr Pepper* poured over it. This was following my morning burner at one of my local haunts. It was the perfect espresso.
*You might find this gag-inducing, but Dr Pepper is uniquely complimentary to coffee flavor. However, as noted above I’m no connoisseur.