World Portraits: Catered Coffee

In the center of the grand souk in the shadows of the massive sandstone minarets, stands Ahmed. For 30 years the “human drinking fountain,” as he is known, has provided sparkling cupfuls of liquid relief from the hot desert days.

He says that shoppers, who repeatedly visit him throughout the day feel as if they “plunged into a lake with an almighty splash, the delightful shock of icy water jolting their minds.” Never asking for money, Ahmed ekes out an average of $12 a day from donations, enough to keep his family of five clothed and fed. And his grateful customers keep on coming.

WORLD PORTRAITS: Taj Mahal

The sun crept down the burnt grey sky as I pushed my way through the crowded, arched entrance that surrounds the monument. Burnt amber rays warmed the white marble, creating a breathtaking muted glow.

Dust Off Your Capes

Hail ye Spiderman, Superman, Batman. Time to dust off your capes and come out and play. Super heroes, and acting like one, have long been a running theme in The Media Guy Struggles. Connecting with your favorite hero just go easier.

I know that few of you realize, but August 28, is the second annual celebration of International Read A Comic in Public Day. So grab your favorite comic or graphic novel and grab a spot in the park with your kids. Some of you are now wondering—perhaps you already Googled—what a graphic novel might be. Graphic novels and collected editions came into vogue following Marvel Comics’ emergence from bankruptcy in the mid-90’s when they shifted focus away from single issues sold in the direct market to these specialty items sold through mass-market bookstores.

While you’re sitting there saying, “Media Guy! Take off those nerdy Clark Kent goggles and see the forest among the trees…comic books are for booger-eaters living at mom’s house.”

Au contraire, comics are bank and generate copious revenue for both the independent publishers and the big boys. Now with the intellectual property firmly entrenched into our movie going experience, the sky is the limit for what kinds of revenues will be generated. The major economic shift occurred in 1997 when New Line optioned the rights to make Blade. You remember pre-jailed, IRS-hating Wesley Snipes portraying the obscure vampire-hunter character from the 1970s, right? The 1998 movie was a hit bringing in $125+ million and when X-Men was released in 2000 grossing almost $300 million, it was on like Donkey Kong (whoops, do I have to pay Nintendo for saying that?)

The Blade and X-Men series showed that smaller comic properties could open films and sell DVDs. They revived the superhero film genre almost instantly opening the door for Spider-Man’s $800 million dollar payday.

Recently, The Walt Disney Company proved just how far comics have come with their $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Comics and all of their intellectual property. Even Donald Trump would agree that comics aren’t nerdy any longer.

On a side note, the thing about this media I find ironic is the term “book” in the “comic book.” When we speak of books, we imagine verbose narratives with grand words and deep Lawrence Durrell-like thinking. It’s about the words, right? Comic books are just the opposite. Their narratives are all about the pictures telling the story with minimal words. They are the ultimate “a picture is worth a thousand words” medium. Words aren’t completely dismissed, but a great deal of the word’s value rests in the typography and unique tradition hand-lettering.

In the advertising world, we build copy points first and visuals second. In the comics world often an entire story is composed visually and then text is added in response to those images. From an Ad Man perspective, this is a bizarre was to work, but originally the most successful comics were created in this exact manner.

So, short story long, grab your capes and nerdy glasses and come out on August 28th with your favorites. Leave your secret identity at home; there’s no need to hide.

WORLD TRAVELS: Saudi’s Ahwah Arabiyah

It was time…We started exchanging “Coffee?” emails last January with the search for good coffee as our excuse to travel the world.

For us there isn’t a better Internet moment than receiving that first email with “Coffee?” in the subject heading. As we get older there are only three of us left: MacD, Hops and me. Everyone else has fallen by the wayside––we’re the last of a dying breed, guys ready for a road trip. We even recount fond stories about the married ones, the ones who stopped coming years ago, the ones we don’t even think to ask anymore. We used the search of good coffee as our excuse to travel the world.

Traveling becomes the great equalizer. Times and places where you see that no matter what the setting is, all people love to live and experience life. Many places welcome you as if you are family. We’ve sipped coffee in the exotic and the tame––Moscow, South Carolina, Toronto, New Zealand and Costa Rica. This time it called for something different. Saudi Arabia.

Coffee is a big thing there. Ahwah Arabiyah, Arabic coffee, comes first as the primary ritual in Saudi hospitality. In Saudi Arabia’s capital of Jeddah, coffee shops are the “in”place to pass evenings away. 

This is not your local Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts where you grab a run-of-the-mill pastry and a brew in a cardboard cup and hope that the barista gets your order out before the blended drinks back up the orders. Jeddah’s coffee cafés serve more than coffee, sweets and meals. They offer shishas, friendship, and the chance to converse openly and freely with the opposite sex. In a country where public places must have family sections separate from singles sections, most cafés limit their services to families.

The irony of the café is that many do cater to singles. The low lighting and dividers inside many upscale shops make them a perfect place for a quiet meeting away from society’s watchful eye. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t one of those “Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” situations. Simply two people getting to know each other without the gossip machine starting.

“There is nothing wrong with having a coffee with a guy out in public,” says Rasha, a regular of the café scene.“It’s one of the only places where co-mingling is accepted, and with so few entertainment places in Jeddah, also a place for fun.”

We discovered that the coffee café is the entertainment equivalent of the sprawling mall complexes in Anymajortown, USA. Every café is under pressure to invent and import ideas in order to maintain its stature in the area. Karaoke competitions, multiple TV screens featuring American sports and television shows (“Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Friends” are favorites) and cooking demonstrations are just some of the popular activities.

Entertainment isn’t the only area of strong competition; coffee is not just ground up beans. Many café owners mix their own blends––some adding spices such as cardamom seed powder to give a characteristic flavor all their own. The coffee is served in small porcelain cups without handles. It keeps coming until you indicate you are finished with a rapid shake of the cup.

The best part of the whole café culture is that you can enjoy the sights of Saudi Arabia by day and evening without missing the late night action. I realized that the café in Jeddah has evolved into this city’s club in terms of the place where you have to be seen. All of the best seats are reserved and you have to “know” the right people to get into the most popular spots.

In the end all this proves that you haven’t really lived until you’ve had a cup of coffee in Saudi Arabia.