Bothering the Coffee Drinkers by Doug Hoekstra Bothering the Coffee Drinkers by Doug Hoekstra

Johnny Q was bothering the coffee drinkers again, a ritual he thought he'd left on the shoulder of his past, before his career had risen to that indefinable next level. It was something he'd sworn off, and yet, like a junkie who is lost without a good methadone clinic, Johnny Q had backslid into an old bad habit.

So, there he stood in the corner, one knee gently moving to a self-imposed beat, playing a song from his latest album, a song he had performed on National Public Radio, a song that was favorably reviewed in Billboard magazine, a song he'd played in front of crowds in clubs from L.A. to New York, and even across the pond in Paris, a song that had wound up in an independent film that played on the Sundance Channel from time to time--it starred that chick who used to date that guy in the White Stripes.

But the patrons in front of him were oblivious to this song's short yet storied history; to them, it was another song played by another man with a guitar. There were always guys and girls with guitars on Sunday afternoon, and maybe some coffee drinkers would come up to him afterwards and tell him about the songs they wrote and how they'd once had a band before they decided to start their software company.   continue