... Starbucks a la Jackie Mason ...

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I'll make believe I'm Ed Sullivan ... arms folder and looking stern.
"All right everybody, we're going to have a really great "shew".
That's the way he pronounced it, "really great shew".
And here's the man you've all been waiting for.
Here's Jackie Mason, real name being Yacov Moshe Maza.
All right, Sullivan never even knew Mason's real name.
And few will probably know who Ed Sullivan was.
So here's Mason's famous Starbucks routine:


Let's say you want coffee in a coffee shop, that's 60 cents (at the time of this writing). But at Starbucks, if it's Cafe Latte: $3.50. Cafe Creamier: $4.50. Caffe Suisse: $9.50. For each French word it's another four dollars. Why does a little cream in coffee make it worth $3.50?

Go into any coffee shop and they'll give you all the cream you want until you're blue in the face. Forty million people are walking around in coffee shops with jars of cream: "Here's all the cream you want." And it's still 60 cents. And you know why it's 60 cents? Because it's called "coffee."

You want cinnamon in your coffee? Ask for cinnamon in a coffee shop and they'll give you all the cinnamon you want. Do they ask you for more money because it's cinnamon? It's the same price for cinnamon in your coffee as for coffee without cinnamon - 60 cents, that's it.

But not in Starbucks. Oh no, over there, it's Cinnamonnier - $9.50. You want a refill in a regular coffee shop and they'll give you all the refills you want until you drop dead. You can come in when you're 27 and keep drinking coffee until you're 98. And they'll start begging you: "Here, you want more coffee, you want more, you want more?"

Do you know that you can't get a refill at Starbucks? A refill is a dollar fifty and two refills is $4.50. Three refills, $19.50 ... so, for four cups of coffee you're paying $35.00. That's what you're paying it's burnt coffee. It's burnt coffee at Starbucks, let's be honest about it. If you get burnt coffee in a coffee shop, you call a cop and say, "It's the bottom of the pot. I don't drink from the bottom of the pot. But when it's burnt at Starbucks, they say, "Oh, it's a blend, it's a special bean from Argentina....." Want the truth; the bean is in your head.

And there're no chairs in those Starbucks; instead, they have these high stools. Did you ever see these stools? You haven't been on a chair that high since you were two years old. Seventy-six year old Jews are climbing and climbing to get to the top of the chair. And when they get to the top, they can't even drink the coffee because there are 12 people around one little table, and everybody's saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me....." Then they can't get off the chair. Old Jews are begging Gentiles, "Mister, could you get me off this chair?"

Do you remember what a cafeteria was? In poor neighborhoods all over this country, they went to a cafeteria because there were no waiters and no service. And so poor people could save money on a tip. Cafeterias didn't have regular tables or chairs either. They gave coffee to you in a cardboard cup. So because of that you paid less for the coffee. You got less, so you paid less.

That's the way it is in Starbucks - no chairs, no service, a cardboard cup for your coffee - except in Starbucks, the less you get, the more it costs. By the time they give you nothing, it's worth four times as much as the nothing you get in a cafeteria.

Am I exaggerating? Did you ever try to buy a cookie in Starbucks? Buy a cookie in a regular coffee shop; it's huge and you can tear down a building with that cookie. And the whole cookie is 60 cents. At Starbucks, you'll need a magnifying glass to see it, or you're going to have to hire a detective to find it, and it's $9.50. And you can't put butter on it because they want extra for the butter. Did you know that if you buy a bagel, you pay extra for cream cheese in Starbucks?

Cream cheese is another 60 Cents. A knife to put it on, that's 32 cents. If it's long enough to reach the bagel, that's 48 cents. Add up everything and that bagel will eventually cost you $312. And they don't give you the butter or the cream cheese. No, they tell you where it is. "Oh, you want butter? It's over there. Cream cheese? Over here. Sugar? Sugar is there next to the napkins." Now you become your own waiter. You walk around with a tray. "I'll take the cookie. Where's the butter? The butter's here. Where's the cream cheese?

The cream cheese is there." You walked around for an hour and a half selecting items, and then the guy at the cash register has a glass in front of him that says "Tips."

If that's not chutzpah, what is! Here you are, waiting on your own table for an hour, and you owe him money? And then there's a sign that says please clean it up when you're finished.

It's not just that they don't give you a waiter or a busboy; now you've become the janitor. Now you have to start cleaning up the place. Old Jews are walking around cleaning up Starbucks. "Oh, here's another tabe with dirt. Wait, I'll clean this up too." They clean up the place for an hour and a half.

If I said to you, "I have a great idea for a business. I'll open a whole new type of a coffee shop. A whole new type. Instead of 60 cents for coffee I'll charge $2.50, $3.50, $4.50, and $5.50. Not only that, I'll have no tables, no chairs, no water, no busboy, and you'll clean it up for 20 minutes after you're finished." Would you say to me, "That's the greatest idea for a business I ever heard? We can open a chain of these all over the world." No, you would put me right into a sanitarium.

Starbucks can only get away with it because they have French titles for everything, bastard sons-of-a-bitches. And I say this with the highest respect, because you know, loshon hora, I don't like to talk about people.

So that's what Jackie Mason thought about Starbucks.


And a postscript regarding Ed Sullivan: He was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of a TV variety show called The Ed Sullivan Show that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

When asked on air by Jack Benny, what do you do on this show, Ed Sullivan replied, "I introduce the acts."

He was awkward looking, had horrible posture, spoke with an odd accent, couldn't sing, dance or act and was on television for 23 years.

Why the success? Because he, Ed Sullivan, was one of the greatest showman who ever lived. Sunday nights the family gathered around the TV and watched Sullivan. They saw jugglers, opera, ballet, lions and tigers and bears, singers, comediennes, puppeteers and ventriloquists. And Sullivan, master of his domain, arms folder, stern look, off to the side, just stood there and watched.

AND A QUICKIE LESSON ON STARBUCKS
For more information, you too can visit Wikipedia.

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 16,635 stores in 49 countries, including 11,068 in the United States, nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan. Starbucks sells drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, coffee beans, salads, hot and cold sandwiches and paninis, pastry, snacks, and items such as mugs and tumblers. Through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company also markets books, music, and film. Many of the company's products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also offered at grocery stores.

From Starbucks' founding in later forms in Seattle as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, the company has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. The first store outside the United States or Canada opened in the mid-'90s, and overseas stores now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores. The company planned to open a net of 900 new stores outside of the United States in 2009, but has announced 900 store closures in the United States since 2008.

Starbucks has been a target of protests on issues such as fair-trade policies, labor relations, environmental impact, political views, and anti-competitive practices. And my opinion?

I've tasted almost all their drinks and find it all over priced and over rated. Five dollars for an erotic tasting exotic tastng drink is way out of line when an equally good coffie for a fraction of the cost, can be purchased at Seven-Eleven. Of course, the ambiance is not the same; Seven-Eleven's might be slightly better.

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