New blog serves up daily dish of news
by Philip Read
Sunday, July 4, 2004
Forget News 12, this is really about as local as local gets.
It's Barista of Bloomfield Avenue, a Web log, or blog, whose barista-in-chief is writer Debbie Galant, with financial backing from Carl Bergmanson, Glen Ridge's mayor and now blog CEO.
As for content, there are pictures of the signs -- and telltale gasoline prices -- at four stations (Ah, the digital camera), and even a personal bit on "Debbie Goes to the Hospital," with this message: "ER visit: $700. Two nights semi- private room: $6,000. ... Tons of Internet linkage from blogging friends after I got out: priceless."
It's quirky, it's tongue-in-cheek, and it's but one of countless blogs. But this one hopes to travel where few do, by turning a profit.
"It's tremendously beyond a blog," said Bergmanson, from the basement office of his dayside computer consulting job at the Arcade, Glen Ridge's sole retail strip next to borough hall. "It's like a cross between a blog and an information Web site. It's both."
At the helm -- or rather button of the Canon PowerShot S1 IS digital camera -- is Galant, who is on a relentless pursuit of "serving up your daily dish."
One article -- with the headline "Turn that damn thing off already!!!!" -- reports on a card-carrying Sierra Club member from Montclair who's waging an anti-leaf blower crusade. "The Barista has to admire someone who starts an anti-leaf-blower campaign in the summer," she reports in typical Galant fashion.
Time posted: 6:42 a.m. It fits, as Barista's signature logo is a cup of java, even if her coffee isn't as chic as the picture of the cup might suggest.
"We get the cheapest kind. What do you call it? Eight O'Clock?" she said from the kitchen of her Glen Ridge home last week while pulling out a bag as proof.
Her blog/news site, at www.baristanet.com, explains itself in dictionary fashion like this: "ba-ris-ta. n. 1. Coffee slinger, the person who serves you espresso. 2. A purveyor of news and gossip. 3. Your 21st century info source."
She is a woman on the prowl.
"Reading poetry in front of a crowd? Jogging nude in Brookdale Park? Tell the Barista," she tells her audience to stir up some news leads.
There's even the occasional opinion poll.
"Where would you move once the NJ Millionaires Tax becomes law?" asks one of the most recent. Some 15 percent chose this: "Connecticut, because that's where all the rich people live in the movies." But 38 percent, the largest group, checked off: "I would never move. New Jersey is worth every single drop of blood they extract from me."
It all started about a year ago, as best Bergmanson can recall. He -- the soon-to-be-mayor -- was chatting with Galant, a New York Times freelance writer. He wanted to get information to the people in Glen Ridge. She was into blogs, particularly her "personal" version, "Debra Galant Explains the Universe."
"We said, 'Why don't we take the two ideas and meld them?'" Bergmanson said.
Born was a new business model. Asked whether it will make money selling online ads, Bergmanson said, "In theory." Galant wouldn't settle for that. "I can be more positive than Carl. I definitely plan on this being a moneymaker."
One of the early advertisers is Adriana O'Toole of Montclair Realty, who for a time is getting some free ad space.
"I don't know what it's going to cost," she said, "but people say to advertise a lot, and I say, 'Yeah, otherwise people think you're dead.'"
The sleepy debut came in May, and like a newspaper's circulation director, Galant has been charting "page views" on her laptop. This weekend is actually the "official launch," during which she'll be hawking Barista from the seat of a convertible in Montclair's Fourth of July Parade.
With just days to go, the Barista gear had just arrived at her home. There are 80 Barista T- shirts, Barista coffee mugs, 500 Barista beach balls and 3,000 balloons, she said while helping pick out one of the newly arrived T's for her art director, Janice Yamanaka.
Soon, she was out on assignment, driving her white Plymouth Voyager to Montclair for a Barista story on an artist-type looking to create "the hideous house," a counterpoint to the lavishly decorated Montclair estates that occasionally open for tours.
"She's into campy stuff," said Galant of Fran Liscio shortly before arriving at her Upper Montclair home.
Once parked outside, Galant spots Liscio, whom she describes as a humorist who once published a newsletter called Hip Hop Housewife.
Liscio has given up the idea of finding an actual house, instead saying she'll settle for a carriage house or perhaps a gallery.
Her project: "A living space so ugly nobody could live in it unless they were totally insane," said Liscio, while displaying some psychedelic artwork.
All the time, Galant, in typical reporter fashion, is jotting down notes in a pad, later to be turned into a story on her PC. Soon, she's thinking like an editor, considering story placement.
She appears to be leaning toward the Barista "home" page, now the location of an item on the sale of Martha Stewart's childhood home in Nutley.
"I have a feature that's growing whiskers there," Galant said of the Stewart piece.
Philip Read covers West Essex. He can be reached at pread@starledger.com or (973) 392-1851.
