//metrognome logo//

Hello, my name is Gersh and I’m a drug addict. And apparently, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. ¶

The drug is caffeine. And, according to a new book that I read one night when I couldn’t sleep because I’ve
 been drinking too much damn coffee, caffeine is making me smarter, wittier, more productive, and (despite
 appearances) sexier. ¶

"Caffeine is a safe, almost magical tool for releasing our hidden potential," according to "The Caffeine
 Advantage," a new book/rationalization by coffeeholics Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie Bealer. ¶

This is big news. I mean, I’ve been drinking so much coffee lately that I sometimes wake up in a fetal position
 outside a Starbucks with biscotti crumbs stuck to my beard. And here were Weinberg and Bealer telling me that
 the coffee was giving me "a more-productive life." ¶

I started worrying that every good column I’ve written over the past year — from my expose on the "iced coffee"
 scam to my public crusade against the 50-cent phone call — has been the caffeine’s doing, not mine. ¶

After all, when I’m on coffee, I’m filled with witty bons mots. But when I’m decaffeinated, I can’t come up
 with even un bon mot. And I can’t write anything longer than a shopping list. ¶

So I bought Weinberg and Bealer a cup of coffee for some reassurance. ¶

"Remember," Weinberg said, "the caffeine doesn’t give you the brain cells, it just makes them work better.
 Whether you’re on coffee or not, the words are still coming from you — unless you’re plagiarizing, that is."
 (Hmm, is that man onto me?) ¶

And some of the most creative people in history have been coffeeheads. Balzac said that when he drank coffee,
 "ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army...the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a
 magnificent gallop — the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water." ¶

You know what this means, don’t you? Your morning java is now a legitimate business expense. ¶

—30— 

gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net