RACCOON!

The raccoon was very pissed at the old lady stomping on soda cans down below. It could smell the sweetness! That all should have been his! It glared down at her in front of the poultry shop from the roof, very obviously disturbed by her monopolizing all that good stuff with the intoxicating sugary smells. The bookseller and I lit our smokes and continued down the street. There was nothing we could do for the beast, and more to the point, we needed to get away from the karaoke bar, where the seventh circle of hell was being made audible. The only two Chinese customers had been despondent because of the loud screaming (singing?) from the pack of drunken kwailo at the end of the bar near the toilet.

Now, far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade, and as I understand it karaoke is as good as getting into the Nine Rivers Country Club for some people, it brings great joy to their lives, and they can forget for a while that they live right next door to a bunch of drunken hillbillies, damn that Ted Wassanasong. Karaoke is a great and universal blessing.

My sympathies were with the raccoon.

I always like small animals.

People, not so much.


I note, by the way, that the long-time barber shop in the Alleyway seems to have closed. There were workmen making the space look spick and span, rent-out-able to some new business. Chinatown is changing, and businesses patronized purely by elderly locals are one by one making way for young Mandarin speakers addicted to bubble-tea.
This is not an improvement.

I'm fond of many of the old businesses. They have character. Unfortunately, they're all also operated by old people, many of whom are ready to retire or give it all a rest. Their college educated children -- doctors, lawyers, engineers, and geologists -- are largely unwilling to work long hours for little reward, sometimes barely enough to scrape by.

I'm blaming Ted Wassanong and his type. Those pretentious Episcopalians, wanting to be all white, don't you know. But still eating transfat food, and singing bad karaoke in a working class bar. Oh, and the drunken kwailo too.



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