The Life and Times of a Coffee Bean

Hello Mr. Spunkybean,

Thank you for spending a little time with me so we can all get to know you better!
Being a coffee lover myself, I’d say a coffee bean is an important part of many people’s lives. If fact the latest studies show that drinking coffee is good for you. I’d even go as far as to say that most coffee lovers measure their days in actual cups of coffee. So my first question to you is: Espresso or Regular?

Spunkybean: Depends how much writing we have to do! But to be honest, since we were introduced to the Aeropress, “regular” coffee rarely touches our lips and taste-buds. We prefer what’s known as an American Coffee (or Americano for you coffee shop folks) which is strong, strong Espresso with hot water poured over it.

Angie: I understand you love todays TV shows, movies, music and books and what you do is, give your own analysis and feedback on what’s going on with todays hottest entertainment and report it on the web. TV shows from what I can tell is your greatest obsession.
How did you get perking on your blog?

Spunkybean: I’m surprised more people don’t ask about that! I mean, how many other sentient coffee beans do they know? I got my start when a web designer overturned a can of coffee beans onto his laptop during the second season finale of Lost. He was pretty freaked out when the Hatch started to implode. I kind of hung out in the keyboard for a while, absorbing pop-culture knowledge and self awareness from the Internet. (I can’t even begin to explain the science of it – you’ll just have to take my word for it.) Eventually, I reached out to some people to take dictation and do the legwork, and that’s where we are today. By the way, I’m working on a screenplay about my origins – A Stroke of Bean-ius. So, if you know any directors who definitely want to win an Oscar, you know, send them on over.

Angie: How did the spunkybean family come to be?

Spunkybean: Like the best coffees, we’re a blend. To keep going with that Lost theme, my writers were all leading individual lives as bloggers, guys and gals who sent emails to their friends, and were just big huge fans of TV and pop-culture when I, the “Jacob” if you will, brought them all together and …well, here we are. When I decide to retire, EJ, Myndi, Don, Casey, Stacy and Webmaster Mike can take over upkeep of the island. We’ve already put a beautiful row of coffee cherry trees right where the Hatch used to be. It’s the radioactivity that gives our coffee it’s flavor.

Angie: How do you keep your brew so fresh? How do you keep your blog so frothy?

Spunkybean: One thing we love to do as a group is make lists. (Wait a second…that’s another of Jacob’s favorite pastimes! This is just getting spooky now!) And we try to keep coming up with new ideas. Just this week, we launched a new feature, Profiles in Awesome, that will highlight some of the most talented people in showbiz; people who do consistently good work, but don’t always get the recognition they deserve. We’re here to give it to them. My door’s always open (the office itself is quite small, of course, so the writers usually just come up to the open door and sit in the hallway), and we’re brainstorming every week. You might think we’re just about recaps, but we’re more than that. We want the readers to come back often–daily even!–and get their pop culture fix. We think once they try us, they’ll be hooked. Addicted, some might even say.

Angie: How would a bean complete these next three sentences?

1. A day without coffee is like a day without:
Spunkybean: Purpose! Or higher brain functions. Drink it in people!

2. A bad day is:
Spunkybean: Percolated Maxwell House. Also, it’s a pretty bad day when TV is all in re-runs.

3. In a moment of crisis:
Spunkybean: I ask myself ‘What would Batman do?’, and then sit and wait for somebody else to deal with it. I’m a bean! What am I going to do in a crisis?

Angie: Lets talk a little bit about your blog. You have many great categories of today’s best entertainment on your blog. It’s pretty clear you love sharing what’s on the tube these days and even do movie and books and music reviews. Which do you love writing about the most?

Spunkybean: You know, when we started out, we didn’t mean to focus on TV as much as we did. We used to have a lot more movie and music coverage, but the flesh-sacks (That’s what I call the humans who work for me. Affectionately, of course.) and I just gravitated more toward TV as time went on. I think maybe because TV shows are an ongoing thing – you develop a relationship with these characters when you see them every week. With a movie, it’s all there at once. And sure, maybe there’s a sequel, but that’s years away. It’s still something that’s self-contained. TV is open-ended. Every week there’s something new to say about Parks and Recreation or Justified or Glee or whatever, because every week there’s a new episode. It’s a continuing story, which creates this greater degree of identification. We still cover other areas of entertainment, but my beany heart lies with television.

And I try to be positive – sure, we cover Celebrity Apprentice and The Bachelor, neither of which anybody would mistake for being good. But I try to keep our focus on things that are really good. There are some really excellent TV shows right now, and I’d rather our team write about how funny the new Community was, rather than gripe about something we didn’t like. It’s just more fun that way.

Angie: I noticed that the scroll button on top of your blog (where the pictures are) all go directly to that individual post. What a great idea for those of us who are more visual. Was that your idea spunky?

Spunkybean: I’ll take the credit for the idea, but the actual execution came from Webmaster Mike. That guy is amazing! I just give him orders, and he makes it happen. If I wore clothes, I could probably get him to pick up my dry cleaning.

Angie: Who picks the videos?

Spunkybean: We have a “Council of 12” that we pay a great deal of money and keep isolated on an undisclosed island somewhere in the Pacific. Daily, we send them videos, clips, links, and flip books that look like cartoons when you flip the pages really fast. They decide. I wish we had input. But, it’s “the Council” and we do not question their decision. Or, it might be webmaster Mike and a video serve company.

Angie: Kick Start Comic Books? Can you tell me more about them?

Spunkybean: Oh, they’re swell people! They publish original graphic novels that you can find in your finer comic stores and even Wal-Mart. Some of the people there were fans of our Lost coverage, and when they started up their publishing operation, they were nice enough to send us review copies and sit down with us for some interviews. They’ve published some really great comics, and some of our favorite TV writers have worked with them. They’ve been very good to us, and they keep publishing books that we love, so we’re happy to talk about them whenever we get a chance. (Check them out at KickstartComics.com!)

Angie: I like Your “Mixed Beans” tab has many interesting and entertaining posts. I personally enjoyed “The Most Awesome Thing” category.

The Most Awesome Thing We Saw Last Week “again”

What great choices, especially for those who love keeping up with great TV reviews. Though I do wonder, if you had to choose “the” most awesome thing seen these last six months, which one would you pick?

Spunkybean: Ooh, that’s a good question. I actually had to upgrade “The Most Awesome Thing I Saw”, because I wanted to talk about more than one thing every week. So now it’s “The Best TV Shows on TV”, where I go on about a whole bunch of awesome things. But if I had to pick one thing, the first one that comes to mind is Will Ferrell’s last visit to Conan. I mean, he played with a straight razor for the entire interview, then he shaved off Conan O’Brien’s beard onstage. It was really funny, and the kind of barely controlled craziness that you don’t get to see very often. There are a lot of other contenders for the title, but I’m pretty content with Beardpocalypse. Oh, and Lauren Alaina’s Idol audition and every bird-like note she’s sung since.

Angie: I actually was lucky enough to catch that show with Will Ferrell on Conan and it was funny as hell.
For those of you who missed it, click here.

Thank you Mr. Spunkybean for keeping us up on the best of the best in entertainment. You do espresso yourself quite well on your blog!

Given enough coffee, I could rule the world.
~Author Unknown

Connect with SpunkyBean

On BlogCatalog: User/Spunkybean

Twitter: @spunkybean

FaceBook: SpunkBean