REVIEWS & PRESS!
Awake To The Awakened Café
By Rob Taylor of Spotlight Magazine Online
There are some things that make just a coffee shop into a great coffee shop and here’s the list:
1) The coffee shop has to be small and intimate.
2) It has to serve good coffee and food
3) It has to have an atmosphere where the customers feel relaxed The Awakened Café, located at 722 West 8th St. in Erie has that and oh so much more.
The evening I went to Awakened was the night where singers and musicians were there to showcase the talents. Guess what, the place was so popular that it was standing room only and there was barely enough room for that.
I do have to say that I enjoyed each performer I saw but one got me to really take notice and that was a young man named Dan who was there with his “gay tuba.” I am not sure what made it gay but he did an excellent job playing classical music. However, it wasn’t that that caught my attention. It was, while I was talking to a couple friends, that he finally played a song that I knew and that was “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” I have heard it sung and played hundreds and hundreds of times before but never on a solo tuba. Guess what? It was good!
After he was done I started looking at the walls. I saw some of the most beautiful art and photography pieces I have seen since I moved to Erie almost thirty years ago. They ranged from animals to abstract and landscapes. There was one set in the room by the kitchen that surprised me and that was a set of paintings of penguins. I don’t know why but I just stared at them for God knows how long.
They have special events planned for nearly every night and we list them here in Spotlight so keep reading and see what nights offer what you are looking for. According to a flyer I picked up when I was there they offer a very wide variety of “shows” including music, art, comedy and poetry.
Now, what makes Awakened a good coffee shop are the coffee and teas. They do not sell the prepackaged, mass produced crap that the major chains sell. They use only “certified organic” coffees and teas. That means that there are no enhancements to them so the flavor you get is what God intended.
I know what you’re asking…am I going to spend $4.50 for a small coffee like I would at some other places? The answer is NO! A single coffee is just $1.40 and a bottomless cup is $2.50. As a matter of fact a bottomless cup of coffee, spinach and feta salad and a bagel sandwich is going to run you $9.75. Not bad considering that $9.75 wouldn’t even get you three cups of coffee in other places.
You can find out more about The Awakened Café by calling 814-452-CAFÉ or by checking out www.awakenedcafe.com
From Aaron - via MySpace...
-reprinted from MySpace bulletin 06.04.08 02:44-
I went last night to 722 West 8th Street - The Awakened Cafe - Newly Opened.
Those of you (and count me among you) who heard about it and heard it compared to "Moonsense" from back in the day need to erase the "M" word from your vocab. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not an attempt to recreate Moo... well you know the word. The place had it's own unique and inviting vibe to it, however, and this is understandable since they just opened, it was a little unclear when I went in with my friend if it was open or not.
Once we figured out that we were allowed to be there, we were very happy to sit and order!
The staff, though still figuring it all out as expected, is quite pleasant and accessible and made sure we were completely at home, and we felt so. I ordered a decaf coffee and my friend ordered a green tea and chai mix, which she warmed up to quite quickly. My coffee came out in a sizable mug and was quite tasty and she got an aesthetically pleasing tea pot set. And once the music was turned on, it was the right fit for the atmosphere.
I ordered their "fruitshi" which is sushi with fruit instead of fish. It was awesome and presented with three different sauces to dip them in. And the wasabi was awesome! However, by the time the fruitshi was on the table, it was a little less chilled than I prefer but all in all I will say with ease that I will be getting it time and time again.
So with all that to say.
GO TO THE AWAKENED CAFE! It is going to on my list of cool places to go, and that is rare for Erie to be on that list ;)
Ciao
Aaron
-end-
Laughing matters
When life gave them lemons, these folks made jokes
By Dave Richards
dave.richards@timesnews.com
Having a disability is nothing to laugh at -- unless you're a professional comedian who delivers more zingers than a cop with a stun gun.
Brett Leake has muscular dystrophy and hasn't taken a step since October. Michael Aronin walks with a pronounced limp and has cerebral palsy. Aaron David Ward talks about his germ phobia -- he works mostly clean, of course -- and other traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Edinboro's Dawn Beale wheels before audiences and breezily notes she does her stand-up sitting down.
All four comedians love to make audiences laugh, despite their conditions. Like a famous Monty Python song -- no, not the one about the lumberjack -- they always look on the bright side of life.
Leake's father had MD; so did his uncles and grandparents. When the disease began to emerge in him, he knew the road he'd face.
"Humor comes out of problems in life," says Leake, a five-time guest on "The Tonight Show," who returns to Jr.'s Last Laugh with his spiffy new standing wheelchair this weekend. "I think what happened in my brain was, 'I've got a big problem here.' Comedy, for me, was my way of saying, 'Yes, I have no control over this disease. But I still have the ability to solve the problems in my life.'
"Without knowing it at the time, I began identifying these little things in the fabric of daily life that didn't make sense, like expiration dates on cheese or a capital cursive Q looking like a 2. All of the sudden, I could not find enough ironic things in life."
Aronin, 39, turned to comedy as a coping device -- more for others than himself.
"It's always been a way of making people feel comfortable around me," says Aronin, who has twice performed at Jr.'s and is finalizing a new date. "So, one day, I wanted to see if I could take that talent on stage. Luckily, it has worked out."
Though sick humor is nothing new, seeing a physically challenged comedian on stage or on TV was relatively rare two decades ago. That started changing after Richard Pryor was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. He not only continued playing clubs but often joked about his disease.
In 1991, Leake became the first disabled comic to appear on "The Tonight Show" when Jay Leno, subbing for Johnny Carson, invited him.
"He taught me the technique," Leake says. "He said, 'What would people be interested in talking to you about, if you were at a cocktail party?"
Leake knew the answer to that.
"Whether they ask it or not, they want to know, 'Why are you walking that way?' or 'Why are you using that wheelchair?' So, you need to find a way to answer that."
He did with this opener: "You may have noticed I have a slight disability. I have a degree in economics." The "Tonight Show" crowd erupted. After a couple of break-the-ice jokes -- "a kid asked why I snap in and out of step. I told him I'm a Transformer!" -- Leake moved on to his regular, wise and witty observations about life and culture.
That's how he's patterned his act ever since, and will once again at Jr.'s. Aronin takes a similar approach.
"You have to address (your disability), because if you don't, the audience is sitting there wondering, 'Is this guy for real or is he making fun of people with disabilities?'" Aronin says.
After Leake appeared on "The Tonight Show," his bookings skyrocketed. "That stamp of approval made all the difference for me," he says.
Other disabled comedians took note of his success, including Aronin, who started in 1993 and became a huge Leake fan. Josh Blue, who has cerebral palsy, won a "Last Comic Standing" title in 2006.
Audiences have grown more accepting, Leake says.
"I think the culture has changed a lot. There's not much of a startled reaction -- far less today than it used to be when someone has a physical difference."
Says Aronin: "I love the challenge of taking an audience that at first feels uncomfortable and starting to massage them and have them see me not as someone with a disability but a comic who happens to be disabled. Even today, 15 years later, I still get nervous until that first joke hits. But I love making people laugh and having them see me for who I am."
So does Ward, who started stand-up at 30, after getting fired from his public-relations job. Good comedy is autobiographical, he figured, so why not address his obsessive-compulsive disorder, which would manifest itself through incessant vacuuming and a fear of germs?
"Talking about OCD was, for me, very therapeutic," says Ward, 36. "Usually the funniest things in your life are the things that are the most painful. So, the decision to talk about it was pretty easy for me. Also, as a comedian, you want to carve out as unique a niche and unique a persona as you can."
His OCD is mild, he says, and Paxil helps, except for lowering his sex drive.
"I thought, 'Oh, this is great. I'm not thinking about cleaning all the time but I'm not thinking about getting dirty, either.' So, the cure is worse than the illness in some ways."
Beale, who has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, is a comedy newcomer. She plunged in at the urging of comedian Jo Hyatt, who had answered her ad for a personal-care attendant.
"My first time I was like, 'Am I really funny enough for a stage?' I still think that, every time," Beale says.
Beale, a big fan of Josh Blue, says in some ways she gets the last laugh, though she's the one on stage.
"Doctors said I would never walk, that I would never make anything out of myself. Well, I totally walked until 11, so I was like, 'Ha!' And I went to college and I live on my own, so ha, ha, ha," she says. "Sometimes you're put into a situation and how you deal with it is up to you, but I always try to find the funny things. It gets you through things so much easier."
Ultimately, Leake says, humor is what connects everybody, whatever their human condition. Other than your boss, have you ever met someone who never laughs?
"Disabilities are remarkably isolating events, and I say that in spite of having a disability that I share with my family members," says Leake, who cares for his 81-year-old father. "Comedy was this great golden cord that connected me back to society through laughter."
"Comedy is called monologue, but it's a dialogue," he added. "When you say something on stage, and the response at the other end of the dialogue is laughter, there's something bigger in the room than a room full of strangers.
"It's a room full of people who hear something together -- commonality, not isolation. Everyone feels some degree of isolation in their lives. That's where comedy serves us."
DAVE RICHARDS can be reached at 870-1703
