WE. ARE. LISTENING!

By the time I started on my third cup of coffee I had two pipe tampers and an engraving tool in my bathrobe pocket. All of which had not been there when I got up. This is not normal, and I'm blaming the goblins. Or elves.

One of the gentlemen that I occasionally see blames the Clinton Foundation and the Russians for fracking in Marin, and believes that the government is tracking him using his cellphone, which is why he takes out the batteries when it's not in use. He also eschews electronic watches for the same reason. Trump is part of the secret world government and in cahoots.

If I were a mean sort, I would place a piece of paper under his windshield wiper with the statement "we are listening" in plain block letters, all caps, no punctuation.

I have not asked him about the secret world government to which he made reference, nor for any details about cahoots. It was bad enough that he volunteered the information (at very great length) about the Clinton Foundation, and I didn't want to hear about his cellphone either.

I live in San Francisco.
He isn't unique.


The other evening there was a fracas among the residentially challenged in one of the alleys in North Beach. Earlier, when my friend the bookseller and I had wandered past, the only person there was having a psychotic episode, spreading her spare clothing in an ever widening arc. Naturally we paid it no mind, as the alley attracts that kind of thing, along with artistic types, guitars, and meaningful people.


An hour later, that alleyway attracted five or six flashing squad cars and two policemen cocking shotguns as they hurried in.


They came too late, as the only person still there was a raggedy man having a psychotic episode of his very own.


If you think about it, the main reason to wear a tinfoil helmet in San Francisco is to tune out other people's psychotic episodes. We can frazzle ourselves to bits without any input from Trump, the FBI and their mind-listening devices, or the Russians plotting frack.
We've got elves. And goblins.
And pot is legal now.
We're fried.




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