Blues for Berkeley

To Caffe Mediterraneum and Telegraph Avenue's poet laureate

The original 50s espresso machine (Mediterrane-O?)

During my Berkeley years from 1987 to 1992, my favorite haunt was upstairs at Caffe Mediterraneum on Telegraph Avenue. Why the two F’s in Caffe? The original owner from 1956, Maxine Chitarin (née Jackson,) was married to an Italian (just like me!)

This was my view! Photo by Rosemarie Alejandro

Right at the top of the stairs, front corner against the railing. From that vantage point, I could see the sidewalk outside, the door, the counter, everyone sitting downstairs. The only thing I couldn’t see—because I was sitting against the wall they were painted on—were the murals depicting Greek myths which I wish now I’d taken some pictures of.

You can just see the cyclops sun in this found shot…

That exact spot is also where I was sitting when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit in 1989. In the confusion and panic of the hours afterward, the buses weren’t running and I had to walk about four miles home to Albany.

Upstairs was the smoking section, so that must be why I drifted up there with my bianco and my journal. It was the 80’s—everyone smoked. A bianco was a pour-over coffee with steamed milk, but it wasn’t actually on the menu so it felt secret and special like ordering a grilled cheese at In-N-Out. It was the cheapest coffee you could buy, I want to say 65¢ at the time, when you could also get a pack of Camels for $1.25 at Top Dog on Durant.

Caffe “Med” is where my journaling habit really took off. I could fill one of those quad-ruled, marble-patterned composition books in a couple of months. There was something very Harriet the Spy about my secret perch and my secret coffee, wrapped in my self-made fog of smoke—all very The Third Man meets Travels With My Aunt.

There were (still are) lots of other cafes clustered around the UC Berkeley campus. Strada on Bancroft with its Kaffeegarten patio nestled under fruitless pear trees. Milano further down the street where we baby queers hung out.

When I saw the street video in

pan ellington.

’s recent post “six daze - public poetry” I knew instantly the exact corner where it was filmed, a block away from the old Au Coquelet in the hinterland of University & Milvia, torn down in 2020. (pan’s a pip, btw, you should subscribe—

house of ellington.

)

I used to write in all these places, but when I really wanted to hunker down and draw out my inner aether, Med was where I’d hide.

The Graduate (1967)

Allen Ginsburg supposedly worked on “Howl” while hanging out at Med in the 50s. And there’s this:

The cafe (officially Caffe Mediterraneum) has two claims to fame:

One is inventing the latte. As the story goes, in the 1950s co-owner Lino Meiorin — he’s said to have been the first Italian-trained barista in the Bay Area — would add more milk to Italian cappuccinos to make them more appealing to the customers of that era. (And here we thought the beatniks were made of stronger stuff.)¹

Also, in 1967, “The Graduate” filmed a scene with Dustin Hoffman at a Caffe Med window table. For decades since, customers tried to snag that table.)

Despite its long history as a countercultural crossroads, Med succumbed to the march of time and is now a Hawaiian BBQ joint. I’d love to say something pithy about the golden age of protests and the Free Speech Movement, but its beginnings were long before my time and its endings are still to be written.

To everything there is a season, nescafé?

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Photo by Ted Friedman

Julia Vinograd—aka “The Bubble Lady” in the yellow and black cap—was a fixture at Med, and read at the 2016 closing party. I remember the first time I saw her around campus, happily flinging bubbles from her wand into the air at some protest or speech or other.

Many had no idea that she was so much more than a street character. She was a graduate of UC Berkeley, and had an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. She won an American Book Award in 1985 (alongside the likes of Louise Erdrich and Sandra Cisneros) and a Pushcart Prize for her poem “For The Young Men Who Died of AIDS.”

You can read more about her HERE and HERE and HERE.

She used to come around the tables at Med with copies of her books. She published over 60 in her lifetime. Sometimes I’d buy one; once we traded one of her books for a bead necklace I’d made. I’ve got 5 signed Julia Vinograd books of poetry from between 1991 and 2006—I must have run into her on trips back to Berkeley after I moved to San Francisco in 1993.

Julia died in 2018 at 74.

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Despite a certain horror of capturing my soul on video and parading my gay self in front of you all for kicks, I’m contemplating a series of obscure(ish) literary readings, so…

Next week for my first ever video post, I’ll be reading selections of Julia’s poetry from my copies of:

Blues for the Berkeley Inn (1991)
Eye Contact Is a Confession (1991)
Paper Television (1993)
Blues For All of Us (2000)
Cannibal Casserole (New & Selected Poems 1996-2006)

Julia - Photo by Annie Moose

Poems walked by and I wrote them.
-Julia Vinograd

1. “While Seattle may have made this drink famous, it was invented here at the Caffe Mediterraneum in the late 1950’s. Lino Meiorin, one of the owners, was the first Italian-trained barista in the Bay Area. Customers were not used to the strong flavor of a traditional Italian cappuccino and would ask Lino for more milk. Speaking in Italian, he would tell the barista to put more latte (milk) in their cup. Finally he thought of putting a larger drink on the menu with the same amount of espresso but more steamed milk, and calling it a caffe latte. At first it was served in a bowl but soon they switched to a pint beer glass. Today lattes are often served in a wide mouth cup in order to show off hearts, rosettas and other latte art designs.” - From Kenneth Davids’ Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying.