SAN FRANCISCO STYLE

Today I shall avoid Portsmouth Square entirely, and perhaps lurk in Hang Ah Alley or Waverly instead while I smoke my pipe. What I saw in the square yesterday should last me a while, and should NOT have been seen, ever. Not even in a nature documentary.


TEA TIME, MONDAY

There was a small group of people playing instruments and singing Cantonese Opera ballads. Though not professionals, they were good entertainment; enough innocence to their performance that what they lacked in ability (very little, trust me, they knew the material well),
was more than made up for by the honesty of their art.

No, I have no objection to them. They were why I sojourned a while, on a bench at a suitable distance, after smoking my first pipe.

It was the incidental stuff. Peripheral to the singers, musicians, and old people playing cards. Other occupants of the park.

Putting it differently, it was the non-Chinese denizens.


To quote a friend: Stupid white people.

And three stupid black people.


The black man who was naked to the waist was having an extremely violent argument with invisible people, and they won. He was suffering because of it, and made sure everyone nearby had a share.

He wasn't as worrying as the tattooed white guy (also naked to the waist) screaming death threats at another street person, while his marginally less drugged-out tatty-assed girlfriend lent moral support. After he was finished, he came marching through the park looking for someone to pound. We are all experts at avoiding eye-contact, so he managed to get all the way past the singers AND the children's play area, and out of the park, without satisfaction.

You know, maybe the police need to have a greater presence in Portsmouth Square? Just to make sure no one beats up a three year old or an ancient grandmother who "looked" at someone?
It's only an idea.

The white rasta-bum who was much better at eye contact (and much more pungent, as well as insistently pushy), made two complete circuits, before going up to Grant to harass the Germans and Italians.

He didn't get jack out of me, because I glare well.

But I'm sure he could have gotten money -- lots of money -- out of the entire family of severely overweight Americans from elsewhere in the country who lumbered through. Though overburdened with his rag bag, he could have run them down and glared at them. They would have caved immediately and given him everything.
They looked weak.


Crazy old white guy behind me talking to the pigeons..... he's going to vote for Trump, because there are way to many Mexicans, tell ya whut. Why, there's one now! And another! They're ruining the tone, and what IS an honest (albeit batshit) White Anglo Saxon Protestant to do!
Drink vodka, is what!

One black person hove into view, gesticulating with a bamboo pole.

A ratty Caucasian ran at him, loudly demanding beer money.


In the distance a black heffalump appeared.


As she drew closer, it became apparent that she was entirely naked beneath the waist. Or at any rate, IF she was wearing panties, they had been swallowed by her quivering rolls of fat. But as there was no evident cinching and pinching anywhere, there is every reason to believe that she had mislaid her underwear. As she trundled past the row of elderly Asian gentlemen on the benches, all of them deliberately looked elsewhere until she had gone further ahead, then followed her with round googly eyes till she was out of sight.

Thank you, ma'am, we shall need to bleach our eyeballs now.

Wrongly, we thought we were already educated.

We did NOT want to see that!

It was nasty.


[For the benefit of any African American readers present, I should hasten to assure you that it was NOT the blackness of the cootch that displeased me. I like cootch as much as any man, and whatever the race or religion, I am always keen to admire other people's sexual parts from a safe and realistic distance, which may vary considerably depending on youth, personal charm, and levels of sanity. So the hue of the cootch was not a problem, by any means.
It was that there was over four hundred old flabby pounds of it.]


When an exceptionally fragrant individual plonked his charming self next to me, I decided that yes I did need some caffeinated refreshment, right now and bye bye, and forsook the musicians whose efforts had charmed me for the calm refuge of a nearby chachanteng, where conversation was more likely, and both offense and insanity far less.




Sometime soon I'll have to explain to Washington Uncle that the reason why I so resolutely refused all offers of food, including a bowl of refreshing strawberry ice cream, is because I did not have an appetite.
I had spent half an hour in Portsmouth Square.
During the hot season.





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