Categories
You can send an email to [email protected] if you have questions about how to use this forum.
I NEED HELP IN LONDON!
I need some guidance here, people. I'm in London this morning 03/09/2013, on a layover.
I go next door to the hotel, to the Pret fast food restaurant, to get a muffin and a cup of coffee. The large menu above the busy check out area, fashioned like a McDonald's cashier stand, has a list of coffees. It says "COFFEE". There is a variety of coffees. This is how the conversation went.
ME: "Hi, I'd like a large coffee please."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte? We only have one size"
ME: "No, just coffee"
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
ME: "No, coffee. Whatever is the strongest."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "What kind?"
ME: "Coffee. I don't care. Whatever is the strongest you have."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
ME: " No, not latte. Just coffee with a little milk."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
I look the people to my left and right and it's as if they're in another world. Not hearing anything going on. I decide on a new tactic, maybe if I can get her working with me.
ME: "Do you have bran muffins?"
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Yes, right here." She picks one out for me. Then she says, "Latte?"
ME: "Do you have just coffee. All I want is coffee. The sign says that there are five or six different kinds of coffee. Just give me the strongest you have. Please," I beg.
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Oh, okay."
The cute serbian girl with the thick accent turns around and prepares something. She hands me the cup and smiles.
I take the coffee back to my room, open it and it's a latte.
What am I doing wrong?
I go next door to the hotel, to the Pret fast food restaurant, to get a muffin and a cup of coffee. The large menu above the busy check out area, fashioned like a McDonald's cashier stand, has a list of coffees. It says "COFFEE". There is a variety of coffees. This is how the conversation went.
ME: "Hi, I'd like a large coffee please."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte? We only have one size"
ME: "No, just coffee"
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
ME: "No, coffee. Whatever is the strongest."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "What kind?"
ME: "Coffee. I don't care. Whatever is the strongest you have."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
ME: " No, not latte. Just coffee with a little milk."
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Latte?"
I look the people to my left and right and it's as if they're in another world. Not hearing anything going on. I decide on a new tactic, maybe if I can get her working with me.
ME: "Do you have bran muffins?"
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Yes, right here." She picks one out for me. Then she says, "Latte?"
ME: "Do you have just coffee. All I want is coffee. The sign says that there are five or six different kinds of coffee. Just give me the strongest you have. Please," I beg.
CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT: "Oh, okay."
The cute serbian girl with the thick accent turns around and prepares something. She hands me the cup and smiles.
I take the coffee back to my room, open it and it's a latte.
What am I doing wrong?
Comments
When I asked for a strong black coffee at an airport at 5am one morning the response was "With milk?".
Probably the magic word that a CUTE SERBIAN GIRL WITH THICK ACCENT would respond to is 'esspresso' a double esspresso would have your eyeballs out on stalks 'til you were stateside again.
Denis
I'm new... This post made me laugh, (thanks).
Remember the old John Belusci SNL skit... "Cheeburgr... No Coke, Pepsi" sounds like you're there.
Good luck with lunch!
Cindy
At lunch, ask her for latte... you'll get regular coffee?! :-bd
Martin
Guys,
The day only got worse from there. I went to the airport and remembered why I don't like flying to London. They confiscated my large bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce, and my container of shaving cream. I pleaded with the lady security agent. She apologized and I told her that if she took my hot sauce and shaving cream that I would not be able to shave and my wife would divorce me because she hates when we kiss if I'm not clean shaven, and that I would probably die from the bacteria in airline food if I couldn't douse it with a ton of hot sauce. I said, "I'm NEVER coming back to England!" She said, "Oh, please come back. We're sorry. You just can't have your hot sauce and shaving cream. And your wife should kiss you whether you're clean shaven or not. It's not like we're taking your tooth paste."
I snarled at her and said, "FINE! I'm never going to watch Downton Abbey or MI5 again!"
She said, "Now I know you're a liar. We should arrest you for that. You know that you can't miss a single episode of Downton Abbey when the new season comes out."
I looked down at my shoes. She had me. She knew it too. She said, "Now, now sweety... I mean, captain, it's not that bad. Everything will be okay."
I said, "I just can't take it anymore. I cried three times this year after Downton Abbey episodes, and then I can't get coffee this morning, and now you confiscate my hot sauce and my shaving cream. Life is just so complicated all of a sudden." My copilots moved further away from the area.
She said, "They let you fly airplanes?"
I shrugged.
She said, "Now move along, captain. Go to that big shiny airplane of yours and go home. You'll see, your wife will kiss you."
That was my day. Coffee just doesn't seem so important anymore.
g
O and this is my Favorite.... I shrugged....lolol. I SHRUGGED....LOL....LOL
Last one - I SHRUGGED
Garry, My food flew out my mouth over that one.....lol. PRICCCCLESSS!
G, you made my early spring forward morning. Safe travel.
Cyn,
Two things are clear to me now.
1. You need to be reading some novels by a good friend of mine, Christopher Moore. Maybe start with FOOL, or LAMB, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD PAL.
2. I should send you an excerpt from my novel.
G
Doesn't seem to be working...
Try this: www.garrykravit.com/FLYINGDARWIN.html
Glad you survived your "HORRIFIC" day, lmao--Hey, never steal a man's hot sauce, I'll go fist to cuffs for my sriracha
was it this bad??
Gunnar and my son Jon, couldn't get pass the third paragraph without howling with laughter. Tears was flowing. Fantastic work.
Did I miss out on you promoting this book. Or you're still writing? Like I said, fantastic.
>:D< =D>
Wow, that is THE most incredible compliment. Thank you! Writing has always been my first passion and it's what I went to graduate school for. I was very luck to be in an outstanding program. In fact, if you happened to see the Obama inauguration, the poet who read, Richard Blanco, is from our program in Miami (FIU - Florida International University). I'm going to be painting a portrait of one of our professors/novelist, and a good friend, John Dufresne. His novel is LOVE WARPS THE MIND A LITTLE is wonderful. He's a brilliant literary writer. I learned a lot from my years there.
I'm thinking this is the photo I'm going to use but not sure yet.
See, I really think I have ADHD ... we were talking about the novel and suddenly, SQUIRREL!
But seriously, I have about half 250 pages written but maybe really only half of it. There is a lot of extra stuff in there. Writing is much harder for me than painting. Maybe not the writing, but definitely plotting. In fact Karen and I were talking about it tonight because I mentioned that I posted this chapter. She's a writer. She actually completed her novel and it is with her agent in New York. She's starting her second one in a couple of months she she's finished teaching. Anyway, she said that comedy is really hard because it may come naturally to write something funny but those who do have a tendency to write for the laugh and find it hard to concoct a complete story out of it. I totally agree, though I do have my novel plotted out. I just have to finish writing it. For me painting is so much more enjoyable.
If Gunnar thought that was funny please have him read some of Chris Moore's stuff. Chris is actually the reason I'm painting. I have mentioned this in the past.
Here is what I suggest from his work (two of which were previously mentioned):
- LAMB, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD PAL
- FOOL (this is King Lear told from the perspective of the horn dog court jester, the Fool. When Chris was telling Karen and me about this Karen said, "Chris, how are you going to take the single biggest example of a tragedy in literature and turn it into a comedy?
- A DIRTY JOB
- SACRE BLEU (this was his novel about the Impressionists)
- COYOTE BLUE
- ISLAND OF THE SEQUINED LOVE NUN
He has several more but these are a good start. He also has a very popular vampire trilogy: BLOOD SUCKING FIENDS, BITE ME, A LOVE STORY, and YOU SUCK, A LOVE STORY.
Chris is work is incredibly inventive and funny. While it's certainly not high brow literature, it's a lot of fun. In reality Chris is brilliant - one of the smartest people I know. He's just a consummate wise ass and at the top of his game in what he's doing right now.
That single short chapter you read is not about talent, natural or otherwise, it's the product of about twenty exhaustive revisions and lots of attempted critical review. And every time I read it I want to shred it. I see a bunch of stuff that needs to improved and fixed. Natural talent is B.S., as John Dufresne (photo above) would say. Writing is about hard, hard work. And it is hard work, on so many levels. Just like the creative part of painting. You need technical skills, which can be learned, and you need to learn to tell a story, which can be learned, and you need to be able to plot and develop characters, which can be learned, but at the end of the day the ability to be able to have people connect with the story and characters is what cannot be learned. The insightfulness into human nature and global connection is where those who are brilliant at writing have the natural ability, and that I think cannot be learned. John Dufresne has that. I often argue with him about it as he says anyone can write. I say maybe they can write but they cannot write the way you write. Just like painting. Some people can achieve the same technical proficiency but one will move people at great depth and the other will just be a fantastic painter.
The one thing that made the biggest impact on me in that entire M.F.A. program was when one day in a class on plot the professor had us read the last page of The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I thought, man, that is some damn fine writing. He nails it so exquisitely, so succinctly. Then she handed us several pages and said, "Read these." It was basically the same ending but in first draft. I don't where she got it. Then we looked at successive drafts that Hemingway honed and honed and honed. He cut words, changed words, moved and removed sentences, like a diamond cutter creating a beautiful diamond from a rough stone. That day impacted me and it was then that I realized that writing (and now I see painting as well) isn't about simply being a genius who either has it or doesn't, it's about HARD WORK. It's about honing and polishing until you get it just right. It is almost never, ever, right the first time or the second, or even the third.
That's a tough thing for those of us who are impatient.
Anyway, I'm rambling again ... it's the jet lag.
G
Your painting will be Off the chart like the last. Watching from here. Great face, as well as character.
=D>
Wow. I went back and read what I wrote up there. Talk about jet lag. When I type and don't check it all of the words are coming out of my mind but many don't make it through the finger tips. It's actually kind of interesting how that works. That's my fault because I type very fast.
Regarding the novel - yeah, I know how you're supposed to do it. Get it on the page. Then come back and revise. Thing is, I don't really want to write. That's why I'm painting. Maybe someday - but not now. It just requires way too much to do it right. You have to live, eat, breathe and be consumed by the characters and story. I can't do that and explore the paint as i want to.
On John ... I took that photo about a week ago at his house. I shot a bunch, trying to do what Mark said. He likes different photos. I like the character photos, as you mentioned. Not sure what to do. We're going to shoot some more photos soon.
But thanks,
G
If you are able to identify which you're lacking in you might:
#1 accept it the way it is "oh I'm born like this, I can only be this.."
#2 improving on what you lack.
So I agree that some people are more "emotionally expressive" and impactful that way. The rest might be able to come close through identifying what's lacking and working on that.
^^ just my thoughts on this matter.
Thank you. I have to finish writing it first.
I think my attitude is, in part, due to the program I went through and the professional writers I know. It's crafted my attitude on the subject. On the other hand the world of publishing is changing dramatically.
G
Oh, and next time, order a Mocha - hot chocolate mixed with coffee (delicious).
In case you really didn't know:
Latte is milky coffee
Cappucinno frothy milk coffee (delicious).
And I'd go to Costa over Starbucks anyday of the week.
And if you are down in London, give me a buzz. I'll message you my email. We can check out some galleries, and I'll pick you up from the airport. I only live 20 minutes from Heathrow.
I generally don't fly London trips, not because I don't like London (I do), but because we get paid by the flight hour and from Washington to London is the shortest international flight time. When you commute, as I do, I want every day I spend on the company's time to pay the most flight time I can get it to. So the idea is why fly 6 or 7 hours in one day when you can fly 12 to 14 to Dubai or Beijing.
Melissa, thanks!