PATAY. IT'S PRONOUNCED 'PA TAY'!

The mad dingo spoke mightily about the glories of South Carolina compared to California, specifically Marin County where he now lives. He can sell his house in San Rafael and buy a mansion, a frikkkin' mansion boy, in South Carolina plus have enought to retire on! Naturally, as his departure will improve the moral tone of both places, I am encouraging him to do so.
He and the natives can trash our wokeness when he does.
I suspect he'll love the summer humidity.
Lording it over the flies.

If he does, I'll actually be rather sad. The backroom will seem empty without him to slag. Cleaner, quieter, more sane and balanced; no old bald guy manufacturing spitwads and calling random people a moron. No spandex booties from the football game on teevee reflecting off his smooth and shiny pate because he sits too close to the set.
Boy, you run a risk of skin cancer looking like that.
Here, wear this Coors baseball cap.
Stay on the veranda.
In the shade.

Best thing about South Carolina: no drag shows. So he'll be in the limelight.
Come see the short balding Jewish redneck! He's fabulous!
Rub his sparkling dome for luck!
Pate!


Sorry for the bald shaming. Truly. Some of my best friends are bald.


Some of them smoke pipes, and gathered yesterday for the March pipe club meeting.
In consequence of which there is some pâté sitting in my fridge now, which I look forward to snacking on later with the crispy scallion crackers I picked up in Chinatown last week. Not everyone, it turns out, associates pâté and cheese with pipe smoking. How odd. On the other hand, almost all of them do connect it with Scotch whisky, port wine, and a bottle of good red wine. I was probably the only person there high as a kite on caffeine, what with avoiding alcohol because it might interact with my pills.

[By the way: a good friend refered to me as an old fart recently, which another good friend agreed was 'spot on'. Both of them are wrong. But in MY day, a pack of Camels only cost fifty cents! What is this world coming to when they've raised the price to FIFTEEN DOLLARS?!!? Sign of the end times, tell you what. I also want those damned kids off my lawn. Twenty miles in the snow, all twelve months. Kids these days. Bet they don't know how to operate a rotary phone!]

Relevant sidetrack: my most recent conversation with a medical person about tobacco included details about growing seasons, fertilizer, the effect of micro-climates, plus the marvelous stuff coming out of Nicaragua these days.

Normally I abjure aromatics, speaking scornfully of them and their fans, in harsh terms and opprobriously. So one of the pipe club members is now horrified, because I admitted that there were two which I had actually enjoyed recently, one of which I recommended as a pleasant smoke with a topping that did not shock or conflict. And which was seasonally appropriate. No, not corned beef and cabbage, or mildew, which are the other superb aromas one associates with the old sod, but Irish Cream Liqueur.

Illegal in the great state of California, of course, because a recent state ban on flavoured smokeables, which appeal to children and teenagers raiding dad's liquor cabinet. Let's take this one, he'll never notice because he obviously never drinks it, it's dusty and nearly full. Ooh, sweet dessert plonk! Lovely! They sit on the neighbor's lawn while getting stinko.

Remarkably, it's made by the same folks who brought you Molto Dolce.

I've smoked several bowls of it, and bought two tins.
May need to acquire a third for home use.
There's an open tin at work.
Which I've sampled.


It was a good meeting.



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