I’ll Have a Skim-Brained Grande Idioto — Hold the Arrogancia

This arrogant and self-deluded idiot with his fake Italian coffee

nomenclature will create a real disaster for America if we don't 

stop him.

Howard Schultz once had a bright idea — create an ersatz Italian-style (sort of) chain of cafés with their own ersatz Italian language that bears little or no relationship to meaning.

For example, “grande” or some variation thereof in any Latin-based language means big. At Starbucks, it means you’ll get the a medium size. Or is it the small size? Hard to tell which is which in the abstract, because the product names are fake Italian.

He also figured that if you were stupid enough to fork out over four bucks for forty cents worth of coffee in a paper cup, you’d also be willing to tip the poor schnook who made it for you, after you stood in line for twenty minutes. Table service like you get in real Italian cafés? What’s that? 

Schultz got rich in part by paying coolie wages and letting the customers make up for it with tips for kitchen work. I’ll tell you what I used to put in those little lucite tip boxes near the cash register before I stopped patronizing Starbucks altogether — a Post-it note saying: “Here’s the best tip you’ll ever get. Join a union.”

Meanwhile, Schultz tried to throw a sop to his downtrodden workers’ feelings of worthlessness by giving them a fake title usually awarded to beginners at law firms that pay $160,000 for employees during their first year out of school: “associates.” That’s just as meaningless as “grande.” "Sucker" is a more appropriate title. Associates at law firms make good bucks. Associates at Starbucks make coffee — when they're not swabbing the toilets.

All his fake Italian nomenclature and tight-fisted greed made Schultz a very rich man. And as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, the rich are different from you and me. 

Or at least a whole hell of a lot of them are. (I’ll make an exception for Warren Buffet. And perhaps, but only perhaps, for Bill Gates.) 

Most really, really rich folks develop a greenbacks-fueled thought process that seems to makes them believe, “If I’m so rich, I must be smarter than everyone else.” 

Case in point #1: Donald Trump. Most recent case: Howard the ElectionWrecker.

Look, I know I come to criticizing this latest facet of American idiocy late. Half the blogs on the planet have already sounded off on Schultz and the problems he'll cause running for President as an 

"independent." But I really must join the fracas because I think it’s important to nip this one in the bud, before that egotistical idiot splits the independent vote and thus guarantees that the other big idiot, Donald Trump, will serve a second term in the White House.

Here’s what we need to do:

First — boycott Starbucks. Start now, before it’s too late. True, Schultz is no longer CEO. But guaranteed, he owns enough Starbucks stock to sink a squadron of private jets enroute to Davos. 

Starbucks closed at $67 and some pennies the day I’m writing this. If we all boycott Starbucks starting right now, if we drive the price down to, say, $47, it’ll personally make Howard many, many, many millions of dollars less rich. And earn him the opprobrium and rage of his fellow stockholders.

Second, from time to time, stick just your head in Starbucks’ door and shout a quick slogan. “Don’t be Schultz’s barista bitches. Join a union now!”

Third, remind that egotistical nincompoop (Schultz, not Trump) any way you can, every way you can, that when he splits the Democratic vote and gets Trump elected,  he will become persona non grata everywhere in America — another loser like Ralph Nader, only with greater visibility. 

People passing him in restaurants will spit on his plate. He will be booed for the rest of his life whenever he appears anywhere in public. Starbucks will lose billions in value, including his own stock. By running as an independent, he will become a pariah.

In short, let him know that he is a stugotz. Oh, pardon me. In Starbuck-ese, that’s a Stugotzi Venti Americano.