Tuesday, September 20, 2011

WHAT SMELLS LIKE VICTORY?

The title of this post derives from the famous line by Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.
Remarkably, it is also the search criterium that drew a reader into this blog.
And no, I don't know what he was actually looking for.
He was from Pakistan, so it was probably something impossibly nasty.
Very likely involving sex.
There ain't no sex here.
But there are smells.

[Quote: "Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell... The whole hill smelled like... victory."]



No, victory does not smell like cheese.

There are several movies that are, almost in their entirety, quotable.
Not only Apocalypse Now, which is one un-ending symphony of bat-shit crazy from beginning to end ("It smelled like slow death in there, malaria and nightmares; this was the end of the river, all right"), but also especially such classics as The Big Lebowski, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and, of course, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. All of them are very San Francisco movies - our population largely consists of escapees from Lebowski and Rocky Horror.

Only the last film mentioned should really have any smells associated with it.


Though both of the Monty Python offerings might also have rich odours..... primarily the same smells as downtown San Francisco.
Which reeks differently vile on every intersection, depending on the age and composition of the effluvium in the storm drains.


There are two places where the funkum gives one a paranoid fear that one has befouled oneself, those being Drumm Street at Sacramento, and Sansome Street at California.
Obviously, I try not to get on the cablecar at Sansome Street, lest the German tourists suspect me of being responsible for the horrid stench.
Which is worse this year than ever before, or so it seems.
I can imagine them glaring at me (Germans are not very discrete), and talking among themselves "es schtinkt doch, ja", and "vielleicht is es dieser bartige mann.....". "Ganz schrekliche malodeur, nichtzo? Hmmph, der typische Amerikaner."
Someone else can take the blame of being a goose-frightening typical Yank in German noses.
I shall instead reek politely of small cigars.
Welcome you, tourist peoples!
We have aroma.


Ich liebe den geruch von zigarren am abend - es riecht so nach..... sieg!



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