OH, YOU BITTER CYNICAL BRUTES!

He is young, extremely likeable, and looks darling in his trim uniform with the bullet proof vest underneath. As well as being intelligent, idealistic, and developing an unfortunate cynicism about American foreign policy. Reason being that the bullpuckey hypocrisy of American actions in Syria and the middle-east are an unpleasant surprise -- he spent most of his life here and swallowed the guff -- and he's hanging out with amoral bitter middle-aged geezers who long ago left their better instincts at the window sill.

He is running with the cigar crowd.

He still looks like a knight in khaki-hued armour.
Five foot six, bright and cheerful.
But dude! The ironies!

I hope he sticks with it. He's a positive addition to the force. As well as one of the most courteous and cheerful cigar smokers I know. The majority of cheroot chompers are balding disease-spreading capitalist swine, elderly, and keen to rape and pillage their fellow men.


Quite unlike pipe-smokers.


One or two of whom have chosen to live in the hinterlands, either near Placerville or in the boondocks of Oregon and Washington. I myself would find it extremely difficult to dwell in those places, because like a typical transatlantican Dutch-speaker I need a Chinatown nearby, where I can anonymously people-watch, purchase ingredients for my favourite dishes, quietly smoke in deserted alleyways during rainstorms or under the awnings of abandoned commercial property, and scare angelic little moppets after school with my foreign ghost-devil habits and appearance.

My weekend is on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I shall be doing all of that.
With a pipe.

This morning on the way to work, the bus smelled like a hippy orgy. That combination of acrid lemon tanginess and angry skunk, which testifies to the pot-smoking proclivities of the modern inner-city, the tie-dye houseboat dweller of the North Bay salt flats and tidal marshes, their lower-income housing development cousin with the gangsta rap and Bob Marley tee-shirt, and assorted faux well-educated white vagabonds who insist that Mary Jay is therapeutic, macrobiotic, good for glaucoma, and sustainably grown by little green men in the Amazon rain forest who recycle and hug dolphins.


I don't like pot. I don't like middle-aged capitalists. I don't like dicks in the suburbs. I don't like tie-dye, sandals, cargo shorts, BMW owners, the Prius or soccermom van crowd, and very many cigar smokers.
A few pipe-smokers are somewhat iffy too.

The Grateful Dead are bores.

Fudge them.


"Cocaine is only a gateway drug for people who drive Teslas"


Yeah, that's probably true. I know just one of those.
Don't know if he does coke. Yet.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I shall be snarfing noodles with roast duck or charsiu, squirting Sriracha hotsauce on everything, puffing Elizabethan Mixture in briars that are older than I am, swilling cups of strong milk-tea in assorted chachanteng, bingkaa, and kaafeidim, avoiding bloated visitors from the bush (damned-well everything between the East Bay Hills and the East-Coast urban crust), sneering at anyone wearing yoga pants or tight shiny bycicle outfits, or wielding a vape pen, and if possible triggering a multitude by my tobacco, accent, and unmitigatable snootiness.

Steamed pork and gaau-choi dumplings, man!

I am middle-aged pissy guy.
Hear me grumble.


I sincerely wish my Malay American friend well. When he moved to the West Coast from 'genetically impaired America', he probably thought he was escaping hell. Problem is that heaven is fragmented in the swamp of mediocrity here, and he will still have to find the decent places. There are islands, there are reefs. Most people still swing from trees.

I'll see how he's doing in two days.

He should be fine.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================