I buy coffee from a guy who is a custom roaster. He used to have a little downtown storefront where he served coffee beverages and roasted and sold his beans. About five years ago he closed the storefront and built a roasting hut on the farmstead where he lives. Now he sells beans on his web site, but he still delivers beans to the old downtown coffeehouse crowd.

He also sends out very chatty emails to his clients to tell us what coffees are in stock, to remind us of the weekly order deadline, and to give us his opinion on current events, or whatever else might be on his mind. It's a bit like walking in on his surreal and rambling discourses when he ran the shop. The man is never short of opinions and is rarely afraid to express them. Did anyone see the movie "Blue In The Face" with Harvey Kietel? (It was the follow-up to the movie "Smoke.") Lou Reed had a cameo role in that movie, and our roaster man is more than just a bit like Lou Reed in "Blue In The Face," sans the cigar.

Now don't get me wrong -- this man knows his coffee and roasting techniques thoroughly, and I consider him a master roaster. As a political pundit, it's another thing, although I'm rather amazed he isn't a guest commentator on Fox News. To illustrate this point, here's a sentence from his most recent email. It is one of the most weirdly hilarious things I've read in a long time, if only because I know he was dead serious. Read it and weep or laugh or howl:

"So, now what do you think of this? A 25-year-old female Spanish language schoolteacher has been arrested for having sex with an 18-year-old male student. It seems that Texas passed a law against teachers having sex with students. The initial bill was for students 17 years of age or under taking into the fact that the age of consent is 18. But some old fart in the legislature had that dropped and made it any student. Now come on, this man, can sign contracts, he can vote, he can serve his country, he can marry but he can't have sex with his teacher."

Well damn it, a man has a right to bonk his teacher! But isn't turn around fair play and that 18-year-old female has a right to bonk her 25-year-old science teacher? I may have to ask him that when he drops of the coffee beans. He'll probably say: "Hell yeah!"

If I could play music to close out this segment, it would be The Police, with Sting singing: "Don't stand, don't stand, don't stand so close to me..."