Issue 1: August 1993

Issue 2: September 1993

Issue 3: October 1993

Issue 4: November 1993

Issue 5: January 1994

Issue 6: February 1994

Issue 7: March 1994

Issue 8: April 1994

Issue 9: May 1994

Issue 10: June-July 1994

Issue 11: August 1994

The Lost Issue

ABOUT THE STAFF

As Caffeine Goes, So Goes the Union

by John Sarvay

There's a common thread that runs between politics and music: cocaine and emotional instability.

This is really old news, but it helps explain why everyone thought Tabitha Sorensen was so damn hot in the early 90s. It also helps explain what happened to Caffeine.

Just like all the sexy, take-charge editors in the country -- taller-than-life figures like Tina Brown, James Truman, Jann Werner and Ed Grimsley -- the editors of Caffeine once strode that thin line between arrogance and ambivalence. Unlike our peers, we weren't exiled to Elba -- we went there willingly.

In the months before the Republican Revolution of 1994, life in Virginia was a bleak and sordid affair. On the political front, Oliver North's Senate campaign was oiling its gears, while bomb thrower and former Governor L. Douglas Wilder, was kicking sand in sitting Senator Chuck Robb's eyes. A Contract with America was circulating in the pages of TV Guide. G. Felix Allen was governor and "Young Tom" Bliley, the congressional representative for Philip Morris, was running without opposition.

Closer to home, Dave Matthews was getting hotter by the hour and Don's Hot Nuts had closed. Sharon Bottoms was being denied the right to raise her child (though it still isn't clear if her lesbianism was the issue or the fact that she is a bit of a redneck). Tower Records and Starbucks were sniffing at our hip, urban ankles. And some rocket scientist from Chicago thought a museum that rented pink bicycles to tourists would be a genius idea.

Coked out of our minds as we were, even we could sense that the end was nigh. The atmosphere was inhospitable. What with the death threats from the Libertarians and libel threats from many of our friends, we felt it safer to "go to ground," as the French Resistance would say. In French.

Nineteen long months we spent publishing shipboard newsletters with Kathy Lee Gifford aboard the S.S. Fiesta, endlessly cruising the waters north and west of Alaska and drying ourselves out. Just as junkies always crawl back to the smack, we have returned, and an Iron Curtain has fallen over Richmond. The foul Troika of Moralism, Apathy and Celebrity have descended upon the city. The city we embraced in 1994 as a modern Sodom is a different place now that the Republican governor and at least one former City Council member have direct satellite uplinks with God.

The New Morality

To be quite honest, we miss Sodom. We remember when Richmond was dirty. And we liked it in a perverse sort of way. When Winkie's was set afire by a rock-and-roll hoodlum, many Richmonders wept. Not because they cared about music. Nothing so shallow. They were in tears because it meant longer walks to buy pornography.

Smut is being attacked on all sides. Like the beleaguered government of Angola, VCU has adopted a slash-and-burn approach to urban renewal.

Gene Trani's community college torn down the old Greca, which exuded simultaneous scents of sex and ether -- having been a pharmacy long before pasties became the clothing of choice on that corner of Grace Street. This spring, the old Lee Art theatre became home of VCU's dance department. And the Fan District Association is celebrating the return of a Republican Majority by enacting its own liberal Big Brother agenda.

The FDA's action is galling with all the rank spirit of desperation and an elevated sense of concern that reeks of Nouveau Social Victorianism.

A fevered spirit of cleanliness is sweeping the Fan. Anti-graffiti drives. Alley cleanings. And free postcards to those men and women arrested for seeking sexual pleasure in one of the city's most architecturally pleasing neighborhoods. Berlin in the 30s was never so grim.

The way Caffeine views the issue, tourism or prostitution -- if it gets rich white men back downtown it's got to be good for the city. Richmond's smut trade makes economic sense. And it gives GRTC a solid rationale for running bus lines from Chesterfield County and the Far West End.

Trying to get beyond the whole "Scarlet Letter" aspect of this direct mail campaign, we thought that perhaps suggestive postcards featuring Dirt Woman might serve as a good deterrent. But humor has no place among Richmond's new Troika. Would you take Lenin to a comedy club? Caffeine faces the same problem with the Fan's cultural method of binge-and-purge.

Appropriate enough. Yesterday's liberals have become today's conscience police; it looks like Jello Biafra was right. Bless his punk soul.

Too Old To Rock

Speaking of whores and of punks, we miss Eeyore in all their incarnations -- Eeyore Power Tool, Eeyore Cop Killer. They stood apart as one of Richmond's stinkiest bands. It's hard to imagine that they stand out at all in San Francisco.

Who hasn't been touched by the forceful embrace of apathy, the feeling of cultural slide, of decay and abandonment. More facts: The Metro-cum-Rockitz is gone. The Floodzone left with a whimper and has returned the same way. Hard Times is a bagel store.

And this: Coffee, like the Continental Army in 1779, is losing its troops to the promise of good planting weather and an insurgency by the dairy industry. What would Thomas Paine do at a time like this, when the "sunshine soldiers" and "summer patriots" begin to abandon the sacred trust?

We think he'd cower in his home and become sour and pissy like old vinegar.

Many of our older friends continue to wax nostalgic about the good old days of Richmond rock. Frankly, we can't remember them. And if we could, we already feel like we are living in the good old days everytime we go to a show featuring Dave Brockie or Dan-O and glance up to see Richard Bland feverishly sketching in the audience, his fingertips blemished by pastels and charcoal.

Radio offers no solace. Richmond's homogenized enough. We don't need radio stations to coddle young, white males more than we need mega-music stores to thrust the dry-rot of progressive rock down our sour throats.

What straws, then, can we grasp? What is the message we would issue to all the scenesters fleeing -- or bypassing altogether -- Richmond? Where can hungry rockers go for good ear candy? Hard to say. We hear the tinkerings of the music faerie in the next room, but all we see is a tide that ebbs and flows. We'll put our faith in RVA Punk Nation and hope for the best. Stay tuned.

Autographs, Anyone?

Are we the only ones in Richmond that feel bruised and pummeled by eighteen program hours a day of the same six "On Your Side" newscasters? Just when you think nothing's changed in Richmond, you turn on your local news and find out you were right.

Gene Cox has a book out. A second one. Odder still, there's a publishing company whose sole existence, it seems, is based on printing the old coot's homilies. Brenda Hughes now works for the Richmond Police -- going from a media outlet that is plain bad to a government agency that is all bad news. Andrea McDaniel still starts our mornings with a horsey -- and painfully cheerful -- "Goooood Morning."

And did we not predict great things for little Jason Laney? Das Wunderkind of Weather no longer stands under the rail-thin shadow of that snow-skittish, meteorological elf, Jim Duncan. Ah, but we warned him of the fury of a woman scorned. Jason may be gone, but that tempest in the 12-News teacup -- Tracey Capps -- remains.

Channel 12, the erstwhile WWBT, the station that is on our side, always has found a fond spot in Caffeine's liver. Nothing makes us more nervous than a commercial venture that tries to come across as sincere and homely. Cynical waifs that we are, we find darkness is the brightest of dawns. WWBT is only on our side to raise cash.

And when we first identified Gene Cox as the "original bad boy of the Richmond news scene," little did we know what malicious schemes were being hatched by his minions. As we left town, WWBT made its move on the Sudatenland of television. Imagine our despair every time we see those gloating hep cats on the FOX News at Ten -- those damnable carpetbaggers from WWBT. Not to pick on our local Williard Scott affiliate. They are, after all is said and done, on your side. And like a bad rash, they will spread across the rest of Richmond's sick, corpulent body.

Back when WRIC was managed like the Clinton White House it, too, was fun to mock. Those were the days -- oh, so long ago -- that Channel 8 featured former snippy Miss Virginia Gretchen Carlson and Jackie "Fat Like Me" McQueen. When feuding staffers' studio fisticuffs and intramarital flings were widely reported by the print media. Say it ain't so, Lisa LaFata!

In a sure-fire sign of schizophrenia, we'll identify the three newscasters worth our time: the feisty Campbell Brown, the lovely Archinal Newlin and the dashing Doug Lozare. We would cook dinner for these three charmers without a second thought.

What a coup it would be for, say, Channel 6 to reel in Campbell, Archinal and Doug! Call it the Baywatch of local news. Call it pure genius. Pick up the phone, Charlie, and give us a call.

We're Gonna Fight, Fight, Fight in the Middle of the Night

With fisticuffs on our mind, we turn to politics. Certainly, we were reassured by two years with the Prophet Shirley Harvey on City Council. (Ah, she left too soon, too soon.) If only one council member speaks with an odd blend of Biblical authority and good, old American paranoia, the city is a better place for it. Naturally, we miss the days of Chuck Richardson, Roy West and the gang.

"People who use a crystal ball, Mr. Mayor," the erstwhile West once said to then-Mayor Walter Kenney, "often wind up eating ground glass." This from the man who shot himself. The only person with the guts to speak to the Honorable Reverend Mayor Leonidas in that tone is Doug Wilder, who once said (in a very plaintive, but convincing tone), "People are tired of being treated like cattle and dogs."

But Doug's an odd bird. Not as odd perhaps as the Prophet Shirley or the Honorable Reverend Mayor, but odd.

Shirley, we earmark for her very accurate depiction of Richmond as the refuge for Christians fleeing persecution. Richmond, Shirley says, lies like the center of the Most Holy Cross at the intersections of those major thoroughfares -- I-95 and the River James. The New Jerusalem, she calls it. Yea, verily.

And, so, Shirley gave us solace at a time when we began to miss the old City Council and its backbiting ways. To be honest, Caffeine was almost ready for the last City Council to begin acting mature and responsible. We sort of hoped some sort of annexation plan would take place in which Richmond would become part of Albermarle County; it would please us -- and the Richmond Mounted Police -- if Richmond traded in its old moniker. Goodbye, Capitol of the Confederacy. Hello, Richmond: Horse Country.

With mayoral elections on the back burner and City Council elections leaden and complete, Caffeine would like to think we had all the answers. But, we're not problem-solvers. That's not what critics do.

Ethnic Cleansing

Rock and roll. Politics. All this talk is making us hungry for smack. And where to go for a good fix? Shockoe Bottom, baby.

Here's the obvious: Those skittish hyenas who run in packs known as neighborhood associations were placed in the city as some sort of ancient curse, perhaps connected with the triumphant return of felon Lyndon LaRouche to Virginia from his prison home in Minnesota.

Participatory democracy, our collective, newsprint-stained ass; these groups are nothing less than anarchists in sheep's clothing.

Case in point, of course, is McDonalds. Those smug patsies with disposable incomes smugly refer to it as "CrackDonalds." Such is their prerogative; they are, after all, rich enough to be condescending.

Never ones to huddle like sheep (unless we're threatened or cold), we shy from phrases like "inappropriate to the historic and architectural fabric," when we meant to say "ethnic cleansing."

Shades of Sarajevo! Viva le segregation! You mind your business and we'll mind it, too.

The facts (skewed, of course, by our interpretation): McDonalds wanted to build a restaurant on Broad Street near the border of The Fan. McDonalds wanted to build a restaurant on Broad Street near Shockoe Bottom. The mostly white land and business owners got skittish and groped for ways to stop McDonalds without saying what really bothered them.

We'll say it for them: McDonalds would draw young blacks. Crime, it is to be understood by those who would rather pay $25 for an entree than $1.99 for a Happy Meal, is caused by young black men.

All of whom, we are led to believe, eat fast food. All of whom are dangerous and should be given their own fast food restaurants in the few, specific areas of town set aside for them. Conclusion: Not in my backyard, baby.

In the era of open disclosure, Caffeine will admit to being mostly white. Skin obviously being an issue when it comes to fast food in Richmond. We'll go one further and admit that we own no stock in the McDonalds Corporation and think that their coffee is the worst crap served in a cup in this city.

The lesson? Kick hard enough, you're gonna get bit. Just ask Main Street's bankers who lost control of City Council after 40 years of kicking. Just ask the Serbs.

We'd like to think of our own Congressional representative, Thomas J. "Young Tom" Bliley Jr. as the Radovan Karovic of Central Virginia. Unlike the well-fed and poetic killer of Bosnian Muslims, Young Tom is pale, gaunt and high-strung. His looks and mannerisms speak more to his formative years in the American Death Empire (that cottage industry consisting of funeral homes, lawyers and cemeteries). The Congressman representing the District of Philip Morris, Thomas R. Bliley Jr. (known in his heyday as "Young Tom") has found delightful new hobbies: meddling with the telecommunications laws and pockmarking the environment. It's nice to know that when Jesse Helms gets his cracker ass de-elected this fall, we still will have Tom Bliley to kick us around.

The Role of Pop Culture

Enough bitching. Pull out the scorecards. Caffeine knows what the tea leaves say: Get out now while the getting is good!

That's what two of our current editors plan to do. The rest of us? We're vested, sweetheart. And we know something that they don't. Pop culture is still on our side.

Go ahead and try to deny it, but you know that nothing out there today comes close to the emotional power of "Webster" or the social veracity of "Welcome Back, Kotter." Times, indeed, have changed. And the trends are in our favor.

To be quite honest, the biggest trend we hope to ride is what we grudgingly call Richmond's Recovery. You will recall that the second time Richmond burned (in 1865; after Benedict Arnold torched the town during the Revolutionary War), it was set afire to save it from those damn Yankees. In other words, Richmond burned itself. Pretty damn appropriate.

What failed Richmond in the late 80s and early 90s? Well, besides Roy West, Richmond was kilt by its own desperation.

In an effort to save itself from decay, Richmond grasped every hair-brained scheme with conflicting emotions -- downtown malls, riverside museums, biotechnology research parks, statues, sports halls of fame and grocery stores. There was no plan, no framework, no sense that there was a place Richmond wanted to be. The triumverant of Frank Jewel, Eugene Trani and those zany Ukrop Brothers have not succeeded in saving Richmond from itself.

It looks like things are changing. While regional leaders and the city government are slowly building a foundation for the future, little pockets of culture are beginning to reemerge. In spite of our outward appearance of disdain, Caffeine feels hopeful. One day we will own property and when we do, watch out. We'll be demanding better recycling services and picketing the homes of known pedophiles with a vengeance. You haven't seen "not-in-my-backyard" until you've seen the staff of Caffeine's fenced-in plot of land. We will call it our home, our kingdom and we will kick the crap out of anyone who plays their stereo loud.

Until we reach that pinnacle of success -- property ownership -- where do we fit in? Why should you read Caffeine?

Because despite of the information glut in Richmond (5 TV stations, a daily paper, three monthly newsstand magazines, four weeklies, and at least a dozen monthly free publications), there is nothing but blather. Because you live in a vacuum, baby, and we're all about vision.

Richmond is a joke trapped in the body of a serious city. And until someone tells us the punchline, we're the only ones willing to laugh our fool heads off.

After all, mockery is the basest, and most fulfilling, methods of self-expression available to us in these commercialized times. Don't parents still teach kids that the way to feel better about yourself is by punching someone else in the gut? What this town needs is a few more bullies.