Denis Leary: Coffee

So let me ask you this: is it impossible to get a cup of coffee-flavored coffee anymore in this country? Huh? What happened to coffee? Did I miss a fucking meeting with the coffee? Huh? You can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee. They got mochaccino, they got chocaccino, frapaccino, capuccino, rapaccino, alpaccino, WHAT THE FUCK?! www.what-the-fuck.com!

I walked into a Starbucks about a year ago, little kid behind the counter. I go, "Yeah, give me a regular." "A regular what?" "Coffee." "What flavor?" "Coffee-flavored coffee." I'll stick that menu right up your ass, kid! Menu... coffee doesn't need a menu, it needs a cup, that's all it needs! Maybe a saucer underneath the cup, that's it!

You been to Dunkin' Donuts lately? The last bastion of coffee-flavored coffee? It's gone, forget about it. You walk in there now, there's people wearing berets, they're writing poetry on computers. There's a kid behind the counter, "Would you like a cafe colada?" Fuck no! www.blow-me.com! Cafe colada... what the hell's that about? When I was a kid, Dunkin' Donuts had two things: coffee, and donuts, and that was it! You took the donut, you dunked it in the coffee, thus the fucking title of the place! Dunkiiiin Donuts! That's all they had, donuts and coffee, nothing else. They had no ice, no napkins, no soda, no salt, no pepper... no quaso, NOTHING! You walk in there now, there's soup flyin' around, people are eating finger sandwiches... they got the donuts on display in a case, like relics from a former era, you know? "Here's what we used to serve. We used to fry 'em up and sell 'em by the dozen, back in the seventies." God almighty...

And you can't smoke in any of these coffee places. Can't smoke in Starbucks, can't smoke in Joe Bar, can't smoke in Dunkin'... what the hell is this? I'm pretty sure that coffee was invented by guys who were sittin' around smokin' anyways, right? And they just wanted to drink something that would let them stay up late and smoke fucking more! That's my theory. Just ask me or Columbo, he'll back me up on this one. "Peter Faulk and Denis Leary walked into a Starbucks today and shot twenty-seven people, without any announcement whatsoever."

I actually gave the coffee up for a while, it reached that point with me. I said, "You know what, I'm not going to have a heart attack in front of some eighteen-year-old Haiku-writin' motherfucker, in a Starbucks, okay? It's just not gonna happen." That would be just my luck... "He just came in here, and he was yelling at me about coffee-flavored coffee, whatever the hell that is. Then he called me a Haiku-writing motherfucker! I'm glad he's dead, I really am." So I gave it up. In the morning, I would suck down two Cokes, back-to-back, to get that caffeine jolt, right?

So about a year ago, working on Long Island, making a movie, I'm driving around in my truck, and I see a 7-Eleven and it dawns on me, "Of course, 7-Eleven! I can get a cup of coffee flavored coffee in 7-Eleven. What could be more basic than the 7-goddamn-Eleven?" I walk in there, sure enough, two big aluminum containers, like the old days, right? One's labeled decaf, the other one has no label, what would you think? I think you would think what I thought. I pour myself a nice cup of coffee, I get up to the counter, go there to pay for it, behind the counter is another eighteen-year-old kid, okay? Head shaved, right? Both ears: pierced, okay. Both nostrils: pierced. Both eyebrows: fucking pierced! Tattoos coming out of his sleeves on both arms, he's got baggy pants on, okay? They start at his knees, and this is all underwear right here, okay? Here's the pants and here's the underwear, there's twenty-seven inches of underwear, what the fuck is that about, okay? Explain it to me! That's one of the most basic rules that we all know about: the underwear goes inside the pants. Not here, not here, not here, INSIDE THE FUCKING PANTS! That's why it's called under-fucking-wear.

I am standing there looking at him, now he starts to talk to me. This is how he talks to me: "Yo man, wassup? Wassup, man?" And he's white! He's waving gang signs at me, "Wassup man," and he's fucking white! He's talking to me like he's a card-carrying member of the Wu Tang Clan. You know what, you're not in the Wu Tang Clan, okay? You're not even in A Tribe Called Quest, asshole! You're in a 7-Eleven, you're eighteen years old, you don't know shit about shit, and pull up your pants!

And, uh, his tongue's hanging out. You know why his tongue is hanging out? Okay? Because there's a five-pound steel stud embedded in the middle of it, that's why! What the fuck is that about? When I was a teenager, I wouldn't get a steel thing put in the middle of my tongue, that's one more thing for your dad to grab ahold of when he's pissed off. "Come here!" "Auugh!" How do you wake up one morning and say, "You know what I'm gonna do today, I'm gonna get a piece of steel shot right through the middle of my tongue. Yeah, I'm gonna pay a big, fat, hairy, sweaty, tattoo guy to do it, too. Then, I'll get a piece of steel shot through my cock. Yeah, that'll be fun, yeah. Then I'm gonna get a metal rod that sticks out of my ass and makes my underwear stick out even further, then I'm gonna get a keychain attached to my balls, so I always know where my keys and my balls are."

So I'm standing there with my coffee, trying to pay for my coffee, he's looking at me... I take my coffee and I leave. I get in the truck, I'm drivin', coffee's in the cupholder, I'm thinking about what a FUCKING retard that kid was! Hopin' my kids don't turn out like that, and all of a sudden I smell maple syrup in my truck, I'm like... Did the kids spill maple syrup in here? And then I realize it's coming from my coffee; somebody spilled maple syrup in my coffee. I go BACK to the 7-goddamn-Eleven, walk in, put the cup on the counter, I go, "Yo. Yo yo yo yo yo. Come here. Come here. Somebody spilled maple syrup in my coffee." "No, that's the flavor of the month, man. That's, uh, maple nut crunch." Maple nut crunch, okay? Maple nut fucking crunch. Are you gonna tell me that Juan Valdez is down in Bogota right now fielding a field full of maple nuts? I don't fucking think so! As a matter of fact, I bet my left maple nut that he's NOT! Pull up your pants!

My mom used to tell me when I was growing up, "Denis, why don't you wake up and smell the coffee." You know what, ma? I did, I smelled my fucking waffles, okay? Why don't you just throw all the breakfast stuff in my coffee? Yeah, put an egg in there, eggaccino, let's go, come on! How about some Cocoa Puffs, puffaccino. Yeah!

Goddamn it!