MAHJONG: HORRENDOUS RACKET IN A SMOKE-FILLED ROOM

Several years ago while in Los Angeles some Filipinas roped me into an all-weekend mahjong game. Yes, of course there was food! Do you seriously think I would have done so willingly otherwise? Filipino food is better than drugs. From Friday afternoon till around nine o'clock Monday morning.
I was the spare hand, in case one of the girls needed to rest.
No, naturally I haven't played Mahjong since then.
Do I look like a Jewish grandma to you?

Hang Ah Alley: four mahjong parlours.
Spofford: at least a dozen more.
Ross Alley: one or two.

Wentworth Place, which used to have over a dozen legitimate businesses, now has as much mahjong as honest enterprise.

Mahjong was always prevalent -- you could hear the clack of tiles in the corner of your ear wherever you went, if not drowned out by recordings of Cantonese opera on some one's tapedeck -- but Chinatown is not as prosperous as it once was, and playing mahjong fades away the hours in the excellent company of people equally impoverished or unoccupied. Whenever there's an empty storefront, there's a very good chance it will become either a mahjong parlour or a Buddhist / Taoist shrine.
As well as a mahjong parlour.


I know all three people in this picture:


SINNERS! SINNERS, I SAY!

[Left to right: 'Mad Dog', 'Flaming Chassis', and 'Doodle-Poo'.]

I prophesy an evil end for them. They are headed down the primrose path of clackity-clack, a very severe addiction. Before you know it, they'll be creeping around my neighborhood late at night, red-eyed and desperate, looking for the last game of the day.

It's those cigars, I'm sure of it. They cannot handle them.
Too much nicotine for spongy little cerebellums.
Oh, the heartache! Oh, the pain!
The chemical stimulation!

Two of the stogies have barely been lit, the third will be shortly.  The picture was taken as they were still setting up for an entire afternoon's worth of intemperate behaviour (with more cigars, you can be sure of that!), possibly followed by unseemly amounts of liquor or espresso beverages.

I must say, I am shocked.

I had expected better.



Well, perhaps not.




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