Starbucks Nation: a Satirical Novel of Hollywood by Chris Ver Wiel

Author:Chris Ver Wiel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

OPTION THREE

The Eyewitness News Team was smoking and talking around the mother ship—well, not all of them. The segment producer and Kevin Mackey had gone around behind the flagship Starbucks to see if they could break in. A little-known fact about people in entertainment and media: when on site, they believe that rules and laws no longer apply. Breaking and entering? We’re here to report a news story!

I began to wonder if this group was actually qualified to do its job. Here I was, a guy sitting at a desk with his arm stuck in a machine, and nobody had even thought of coming over to ask me if I saw anything. They were reporting on a story about some guy who was thrown into a hole. I had the perfect vantage point, but nobody from Team Eyewitness seemed to give a shit. I felt like I was in high school again: nobody noticed me in high school.

Inside the Starbucks, the segment producer and Kevin Mackey were walking past the warm raspberry walls. She yelled something into her headset, and the group around the van scrambled. Two team members climbed into the van and reemerged with two folding tables, which they set up next to the van. The cameraman and his assistant approached the front door of the store, which the segment producer unlocked from inside. The hands that set up the tables were soon inside the store. Various grips climbed behind counters and disappeared into the supply room. The group emerged from the store toting box after box of supplies to the folding tables next to their spacecraft. Luke was weaving through their legs as they worked. Nobody noticed him either. Were we invisible? Luke made his way back to the vending machine.

“What are they doing?” Luke asked.

“Setting up a craft service table. Team Eyewitness is setting up camp.”

The craft service table is ground zero for snacks. It’s the area where people of “craft” gather for a shot in the arm. You’ve been throwing a framing hammer all day so that boutique in the next scene will look magical, and now you’re a little low on juice. The answer is the craft service table. Get a Coke and a muffin. You’re making a movie, reporting the news. You need to nibble on something other than your inflated sense of self-importance. At the end of the day, you throw out what you don’t eat, then talk about circulating a petition for Feed the Children. Need an analogy? You’ve been working hard on that sales presentation since lunch. Your performance is slipping—you leapt headlong off your Zone Diet with that baked potato. Take the team to Starbucks. Starbucks is the average Joe’s craft service table. Go on, have the antidote! Four shots of espresso with nonfat-milk foam—that’ll help you create that perfect bumper-sticker slogan to combat childhood obesity!

Luke scrutinized the looting news team. “So where do you think we are? With the script, I mean.”

“Well, the machine has been doing relatively little writing of late.

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