SMELLING LIKE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Spent a good hour futsing with two Dunhill pipes that both need a little work. So of course the first thing after finishing that is contemplating doing my laundry while the sun is out, heading down to my bank and Chinatown, where I will have lunch or a snack later, and thinking about debonair actors in 1930's Hollywood reading a book (posing for publicity stills) while happily smoking a Comoy pipe loaded with a fine stinky Latakia blend.

As people did in those days.

Somehow I suspect that many famous Americans started the day with whiskey.
Baristas didn't wake up until noon, as it would be pointless.
Cappuccinos likely were a dinner drink.


In the midst of this wild hurley burley, I had time to wonder if Daniel (!) with American Solar could hear my arrogant somewhat British accent when I answered his spam call in Cantonese. Hong Kong snappish.

"Wai, nei man pin ko-ah?"

I think not. Sumbitch hung up.

There are a few lovely black and whites of Clark Gable relaxing with a pipe exactly like the one above. It's a Comoy Squat Bulldog. The one pictured is a pipe I've had since working at the nasty law office in the Embarcadero Center over two decades ago. I remember that firm with great distaste; the head of my department knew the names of all of her damned Beanie Babies (over two hundred) but could not remember who I was if her life depended on it.

Comoy made very many pipes for tobacco stores all up and down the coasts, under a variety of names. You can track pipesmoking by the shop brands made by them, and its gradual fade-out by the disappearance of those enterprises over the last forty years or so.

The entire generation of confirmed pipesmokers that went into World War Two came out as converts to Camels and Luckies. They were so convenient! You could quickly huff a fag while Jerry and Yamada were shooting at you instead of standing erect and calmy scoping out the trenches as gun smoke and whisps of poison gas drift over the battlefield for half an hour or so while puffing a bowl of Father Dempsey from Kramers in Beverly Hills.

If you didn't shop at Kramers, or Richardson (where Dudleigh pipes were made), you might have gone to John's Pipe Shop in Hollywood. I fondly imagine a whole swarm of young men from Beverly Hills High there every day. My father patronized them as a young fellow. No, the lovely billiard pictured above is not one of his but something I picked up several years ago and seldom smoked until the first months of the pandemic.
Since which time it is a favourite.


My father still smoked a pipe for many years after the war. I can remember him and the smell of his tobaccos in Bussum and Naarden, even in Valkenswaard when I was in high school myself. Where the only decent tobacco mixture available seemed to be Balkan Sobranie Original, as I discovered by fortunate accident when I was fifteen and had grown tired of straight Maryland ribbon (so called "Baai Tabak") and crappy Dutch Cavendishes.

That's roughly the same time that I started swilling tea morning noon and night. Which I still do. It's fun being hepped to the gills. That may have influenced my irritation when I snapped at the Hindustani phone-wallahs who have called since I got up. As they do everyday.
Wai, nei hai pin ko? Tim kai nei taa din waa pei ngo ah, paak chi!?!


喂，你係邊個？點解你打電話畀我呀，白癡？


It's very effective. I suppose I could put myself on the do-not-call list, but I like being a disappointment to them. Their lives are pointless and empty.
I hope they feel that keenly after they hang up.
Frustration is important.

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