Special Comment: Todd Carmichael, Brilliant Comedian
Hunt Slade (via twitter) – “Is it wrong that while part of me feels like laying an effing mushroom cloud about the Esquire article, the other part found it hilarious?”
Nick Cho. Andrew Brewtbart. Jaime Vandura. These are just a few of the names that come to our wandering minds when we allow the streams of “coffee” and “comedy” to cross. Nobody can make us laugh like Nick Cho, from his classic “I’ll punch you in your (*expletive deleted*)” to reminding Giorgio Milos that he came in 27th place at the WBC. Andrew Brewtbart singlehandedly tears down linguistic walls, all the while assailing those in the coffee community who he deems worthy of his ire, from the SCAA (“Socialist Communist Anti-Americans”) to Doug Zell. Jaime Vandura spills bile and belly laughs in equal measure on his essential Coffea Cultura blog, making him one of the must-read voices in coffee commentary today.
But Todd Carmichael, man, you just took the cake.
Your recent series on Esquire.com’s “FOOD FOR Y CHROMOSOMES” machismo blog playground is a laff riot. Does nobody else see the humor in this? There have been outraged responses, eloquent rebuttals (particularly from Chris Tacy’s God Shot blog), and all manner of twitter chatter, but it seems that the vast majority of the coffee community are missing the point. Heck, we’ll even call ourselves out; we ran the first part of Todd’s comic masterpiece under the headline “Before Coffee Was Really Good, Coffee Was Really Good”, a post in which we implied that bootleg alcoholism was to blame for Todd’s misguided content.
Turns out, we just didn’t get the joke yet. Todd Carmichael, you’re hilarious! The timing, the major publication smoke screen, the kangaroo punch link… the way in which you couched your mock vitriol as part and parcel with being “a man”, calling yourself a “long time, culinary-minded neo-traditional roaster” who knows when to ” shut up and take it like a man”. That’s a riot, dude. We’ll say it again: this blog post is a work of comic masterpiece.
Dig in a bit deeper, you’ll start to get the guffaws:
“Super-geeks love to claim their coffee hails from single-origin Valhalla, unapproachable for any other roaster. Truth is, we live in the computer and commuter age; the world is tiny and coffee only comes from the small band around the middle. We all have access to the same beans.”
Whoa, we got a Bob Newhart over here or something! Dig that deadpan. This guy actually wants you to think he’s serious! He just took a shit on all the amazing progress made in micro lot direct trade practices in the last decade, and managed to keep a straight face!
“Beware the barista who goes techno-nerd on you when describing how he makes coffee: heat-surfing, pre-infusion profiling, tamp-dialing. Seriously, and how would you describe the act of opening a beer, liquid-load pressure breaching?”
Hey there, Woodsy Allen, you’ve got us rollin’ in the aisles, laughing at that nervous fellow! He’s just poking fun! As a professional and a noted member of the coffee/trans-Antarctic travel community, Todd would never, ever actually disparage the artisans who power specialty coffee with their hard work and dedication. Surely he knows there’s a bit more involved in pulling a shot than opening a beer (for more on beer, check out another must-read post from Esquire.com, the internet’s Algonquin Roundtable of sophisticated content, editorial acumen, and airbrushed soft-core).
The surfing metaphors, the open-ended shit talking at every direction, his ability to deride innovation and bury his head in the sand, ostrich-like, at the “trends” in coffee that will “eventually crash”…Todd Carmichael, you’re nothing short of brilliant. This guy is a joke, people, and it wouldn’t be impolite to laugh at his antics. Not since Rod Lazar have we seen this high quality of comedic nonsense, and everyone who reads these features on Esquire.com should consider themselves lucky.
“I suppose it was only a matter of time before I snapped.”
Keep snapping, Todd, and we’ll keep reading.
Read the whole article and laugh along with Todd at Esquire.com
And again, we’ll point you to the response at Chris Tacy’s God Shot blog
whoa, hilarious!
Todd I can’t believe you copy and pasted this over here (http://shotzombies.com/2010/06/02/todd-carmichael-insults-everyone-who-serves-better-coffee-than-him/).
Is this even topical?
Sprudge I think your analysis must be right. He’s having a laugh at Esquire’s expense.
Before I become completely ostracized there are number of very important topics in roasting that are never properly discussed on blogs like yours. I have 9 of them, and this is the first. Would you mind discussing it?
One
All serious roasters use gas burners to heat air, which is then blown through the coffee to roast it (probat et al). What I am surprised by is no one really discusses the major problem of coffee absorbing the unspent fuel which exists in that air if not continually managed. In effect, I am not aware of a single roaster that insures the coffee isn’t being turned into a toxic oil slick. In fact, I have tested four-dozen micro-roasters coffees from both coasts and each shows very high levels of un-burnt fuel. Wouldn’t you think this should a major topic of conversation, yet is not addressed? Worse, many of these were labeled “organic”.
I highly recommend getting the appropriate meters, piercing the front of your drums (or use the test hole) and gauge this. After, you will find you will be continually adjusting your burners, or best, manage them with a gas/air controllers.
Food for thought.
Thanks
Imglorious Bastard Todd
While your satirical commentary is not strictly what I meant by my off-handed tweet, I do find it funny that if cranked up to a ludicrous degree, our staff at the shop could fall into some of Mr. Carmichael’s seven points.
What is sad to me, however, is that people in this informational day and age can so easily retreat into the moat-encircled walls and buttresses of superciliousness, hurriedness and sarcasm, instead of taking advantage of a learning experience from their friendly neighborhood barista. In this regard, I often have to check myself for symptoms of having fallen into a position of preferring to know than to learn.
Whoa. I’m happy to have found you, “The internet’s ONLY coffee website” Finally someone brought coffee to the web, about time I say.
Todd Carmichael