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Jackie
Mason on Starbucks This is Jackie Mason's bit on Starbucks--the coffee chain. It is funny if you read it with Jackie's voice.
Starbucks is the best example of a phony status symbol that means nothing, but
people will still pay 10x as much for because there are French words all over
the place. You want coffee in a coffee shop, that's 60 cents. But at Starbucks,
Café Latte: $3.50. Cafe Cremier: $4.50. Cafe Suisse: $9.50. For each French
word, another four dollars.
Why does a little cream in coffee make it worth $3.50? Go into any coffee shop;
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. You know why? Because it's
called "coffee." If it's Cafe Latte - $4.50. You want cinnamon in your coffee?
Ask for cinnamon in a coffee shop; 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. Over there, it's Cinnamonnier - $9.50.
You want a refill in a regular coffee shop, 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. Two refills, $4.50. Three refills,
$19.50. So, for four cups of coffee - $350.
And 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. You 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 blend. It's a special bean
from Argentina....." The bean is in your head.
And there're no chairs in those Starbucks. Instead, they have these high stools
You ever see these stools? You haven't been on a chair that high since you were
two. Seventy-three 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's 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?" 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. It's all the same
as Starbucks - no chairs, no service, a cardboard cup for you r 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. Am I exaggerating?
Did you ever try to buy a cookie in Starbucks? But a cookie in a regular coffee
shop. You can tear down a building with that cookie. And the whole cookie is 60
cents. At Starbucks, you're going to have to hire a detective to find that
cookie, and it's $9.50. And you can't put butter on it because they want extra.
Do you know that if you buy a bagel, you pay extra for cream cheese in
Starbucks? Cream cheese, another 60 cents. A knife to put it on, 32 cents. If it
reaches the bagel, 48 cents. That bagel costs you $312. And they don't give you
the butter or the cream cheese. They don't give it to you. They tell you where
it is. "Oh, you want butter? It's over there. Cream cheese? Over here. Sugar?
Sugar is here." 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." You're waiting on tables for an hour, and you owe him
money.
Then there's a sign that says please clean it up when you're finished. 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, he's got dirt too? Wait, I'll clean this up." 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, Nazi bastard son-of-a-bitches. And I say this with the highest respect, because I don't like to talk about people.
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