Patton Oswalt at a Coffeehouse

Patton Oswalt, one of my favorite comedians, has this to say about the recent state of coffeeshops/coffee houses and culture, which I thought was pretty damn funny and true. This is exactly how I feel pretty much everywhere I go. And besides having my own humble abode with a coffee press and a computer to go on, this is also the reason I don't visit coffeehouses anymore.

I'm trying to think. Shut the fuck up, seriously.

During the past week, my computer broke, my iPod went on the fritz, and I had a massive power breaker problem where I live. I was forced to go out—to coffeeshops, libraries, bookstores and internet cafes—to get any work done.

Ten years ago—fuck, five years ago, this would've been fine. In fact, that's how I did all my writing.

I loved being out. Loved hearing the low murmurs of conversation, the city sounds, the music playing overhead—usually a CD I'd missed, put on by someone cool and adventurous, working a day job and trying to make it tolerable for themselves and the customers. At 10 am on a weekday, at the Horseshoe Coffeehouse on Haight Street around the corner from my old apartment, the freaks and outcasts and weirdos and genuinely original would be arguing and sparring and chatting back and forth, and you'd grab the occasional intriguing packet of words or out-of-context phrase that would fuel your own brainwaves, make you surf in new directions. Distant sirens and nearby pedestrians and the occasional crazy homeless person outside the shop (or inside—one time, this tweak-head came in and arranged every napkin container on every table so the paper napkins were facing towards the big picture windows of the shop, muttering, “Done!” when he'd finished, like he'd just won a bet with a demon).

Gone now. Those days are over. When did everyone and everything get so fucking LOUD?

WHA? EH? PLEASE EXCUSE ME, I'M EIGHTY-ONE

I know this is cultural suicide, for me to admit that I can't stand the fucking noise anymore. I have friends who are kissing their mid-40's who've decided, out of desperation and fear of death, that they're 22 years old forever, and could ya turn it UUUUUPP??? Whoooo! They'll sacrifice clarity of thought and peace of mind and a lot of other shit so they can fool themselves into thinking they're still riding the crest of the Youth Wave.

Fucking idiots. I can't wait to be an old man. And to speed that process along, I've got my pair of Howard Leight earplugs and a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones. 'Cuz I'm in revolt. 'Cuz I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

I don't want to hear these inane half-conversations on people's cell phones. I don't want to hear the even MORE inane full conversations between two actual people. Strung-together catch phrases and repeated punchlines from TV shows and movies. SHUT THE FUCK UP!

It'd be fine if people talked conversationally. I don't know what happened these past few years, but now people scream when they talk. They bray and whine and shout as if there's a boom mike recording their every word, and a hidden camera capturing the amazing Indie Film That Is Their Lives.

And what happened to coffee shop employees playing a cool CD at a volume where you could actually listen to it? I spent last Sunday afternoon at the Abbot's Habit coffeeshop in Venice. Trying to read. To write. To think. Chased out of my house, and trying to make the best of it.

Impossible. The dumbasses at the counter, determined that everyone in The Habit experience the sonic glory of the Blaring Drivels and the Deservedly Unsigned, kept the music cranked to ear-splitting levels. Which made everyone talk louder and LOUDER and L!O!U!D!E!R until I forgot my name, where I was, and that I shouldn't punch the bag lady sitting next to me.

Out on the street, huge H2s, empty except for their lone, skinny, blond teenage chick drivers, crawled up Abbott Kinney, pumping Ashlee Simpson and Beyonce and ratting the windows, making the taped-up flyers for dog walkers shake.

Hey, when you're twenty, and still young and sexy, it's a good thing to have the music loud. 'Cuz you're not going to impress anyone by saying something startling or original or truly funny. That's the age when you rely on your looks. Or, if you look the way I did at twenty, you become a comedian, so you have a spotlight on you and a microphone in front of your yap, so you have a fighting chance.

But when you've reached the age of the clientele inside the Abbot's Habit, and you accept the fact that you look like a used copy of Confederacy of Dunces that a lucky wino used for toilet paper after a kindly spinster took him to the Chili Cook-Off - well, you get the point.

And so on. There is more to read here. I agree with every point made here, especially the part where people who use cell phones think they can talk as loud as they want. And of course his cultural observations are telling, something I've been noticing often when I go out in public. I just notice that people are loud, rude and in the way, moreso than they ever have been, or so it seems. Well, at least someone cares about the people who think somewhat like me.