A MARKED LACK OF CHEESE BURGERS

The thought processes of the night continue more consciously into the first cup of coffee. It is doubtful that the rain overnight has anything to do with that. An odd sense of timelessness.
I remembered stuff I could not possibly know, from a generation before I was born.

When I stepped outside to smoke my pipe the sidewalks were wet, down on Polk Street a brightly garbed garbage man trundled a bin toward the truck. There were no homeless people, no dogwalkers, no joggers. Darkness, moisture, early donut fiends.

It is important to mentally reconstruct. Things seem so long ago. I thought of my father, and his father, whom I never knew, as he passed away years before I was born.

London after the great war must have been a fascinating place.

When he died, my grandmother brought the boys back to America and settled in Beverly Hills. My dad was six at that time, so his schooling was entirely here. My uncle was eight, and never quite lost that English accent. Both of them were at Berkeley just before WWII. Where afterwards they went again.

When I came back to the States I also ended up in Berkeley, which was a different place then. But I haven't been there in years. It's changed in the intervening decades. There is a lot of tofu and veganism there now, and they're determined to "awaken" the world.


Did I ever mention how much I dislike piercings, tattoos, and meaningfully expressive clothing or jewelry? As well as dining to save the planet?


I am unabashedly culturally appropriative, and semi-colonial.
It's both a life style and an aesthetic.
Consciously.


Bring back the Roman Empire.
The Vandals demand it.



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