THE ALGORYTHM IS WRONG

For some reason Microsoft Start wants me to read about Columbia. Which I have absolutely no intention of doing. Not planning to go there, ever, and I have no interest whatsoever in reading about a place run by cartels. Same goes for Florida.

Ditto for most of Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa.

And Dublin, and Glasgow, and London.
Plus Malmo.


Most of the world smells bad, eats too much, and talks funny.


If I actually wanted contact with savages determined to destroy civilization there are any number of places I could visit. My shots are up to date, and I'm sure I could find something edible with effort. The folklore show with colourful native dances is easily avoided, and not getting into political discussions with the natives is, at this point, automatic.

The welcoming committee and the local political opinions are totally in synch. To such an extent that someone from the United States is usually blamed for everything wrong in the world, the high price of penis gourds, killer bees, and witchcraft.
As well as bad sports and hamburgers.


So, to sum up: screw Columbia. It's a nasty place with rabid hippopotamuses.
Vulgar Miami make-up slags, and gun-toting illiterates.
A smelly suburb of Venezuela.



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HOUSING FOR ACADEMIA

Per a recent news article, there is not a single encampment of ten pup tents or more in the city. Reason being, one suspects, because anti-Semites at Ivy league universities, decent schools, and Berkeley, have driven the price up and made them unaffordable for the average pavement-dwelling needle freak. As well as rednecks made homeless by tornadoes.


This may well be true. I shan't head into the Tenderloin to find out. Too many Fox News reporters down there reportaging on Republican politicians and influencers.


At the beginning of the pandemic I looked at an employement opportunity down there, and decided that close association with that neighborhood and those people would not be conducive to my mental health. An office with no masks and little ventilation.
If they haven't had Covid (yet), they caught something else.

Life is too short to hang around people from the interior spreading disease.

Which, of course, is why I am not in the tourist business.
Or employed by Fox News Corporation.

ANTI-SEMITE LODGINGS

And it should be pointed out that pup tents are inherently racist, because there is no way your average grossly underclothed overweight tattooed lardbut can comfortably fit in there, even if the poor Midwestern refugee of either gender but mostly female, overwhelmingly female, could actually bend over and crawl in. Instead, those people are running loose with nowhere to go, exhibiting themselves at every cake shop and icecream parlour in the city, swilling boba tea, slushies, and 64 ounce sodas because of the heat we're having.
Oh, the humanity! The morbidly obese tattooed humanity!
Pink and quivering Kansas!


Saw over twenty of them yesterday. I hate tattoos.
It looked like a women's prison out there.
The Aryan Sisterhood section.


This isn't fat-shaming! I have nothing but admiration for people who weigh well over four hundred pounds who are still ambulatory and active. Kudos. Save the whales.
One of these days I may visit them in the Midwest or South.
See them in their native enviroment.
Feed them peanuts.



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WATCH OUT FOR THE WILD LIFE

The first few hours of being out and about were the same length of time as the last few hours. But I got a lot more done, because it was cooler. The stretch between Walgreens and the well-stocked grocery store to which I weekly go was torture, and after tea the amble up the street from the bus stop to the bench outside a restaurant I like was like climbing Everest and rafting the Amazon combined. I finished smoking my pipe in a calm and relaxed manner while my legs tried to kill me or occupy the campus. Due to circulatory problems down there, those limbs are rebellious and terroristic when the weather is hot. As it was today.

Tomorrow promises to be more of the same. But worse.
I believe it should be around eighty degrees.

The question tomorrow is NOT "where do I eat lunch" or "where shall I go for teatime", but rather "should I leave the house at all, or simply stay at home bellyaching about global warming and what the hell is this world coming to, why back in my day .... ?"

Perhaps I should acquire a pith helmet. If these excessively hot days are going to be a regular thing. It probably wouldn't help, but it would give me the proper attitude for the occasion. As well as a certain cocky arrogance.


More white colonialists die of climate events in hot places than anywhere else.
That is why the British crowd in Hollywood no longer exists.
It was their food and the ghastly heat.
Plus tigers.



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HE AND SHE

When a bear raids your storage locker, he (or she) is probably looking for bacon and cheesy poofs. It stands to reason. As a smart animal, albeit with juvenile delinquent tendencies, he (or she) associates honey with unpleasant little buzzy stingy things, which get in his (or her) nostrils and ears and are altogether a pain in the ... mmms. Yes. Bacon. Cheesy poofs.

The only bear I often come into contact with is Ms. Bruin, the senior roomie, who lives in my apartment mate's room. Who is a stern overseer in control, more or less, of the other animals. That are sometimes rambunctious, and occasionally steal my wallet.
They have plans, and the leafy things inside of it will enable them.
Either that or the plasticky thing for internet purchases.
Sometimes the magic bowl of quarters.

[The magic bowl of quarters contains my laundry money. Which they pooh pooh. "Surely," they insist, "the old geezer never does laundry. He's content to be stinky and stew in his own funk." Besides, no delicate young things will come close so it's useless! They'll just take it and ..... That reminds me that I have to do laundry today, by the way.]


Ms. Bruin is, mostly, on my side. That is to say she'll utter a reprimand when the other critters are too bold. And remind them that no matter how pointless it is, I do make the effort to be clean and presentable, and in any case, theft is wrong.

Ms. Bruin does not smoke. So who is that poking around near my box of pipe tampers? What with generally not having any pockets, I can easily understand how he (or she) left the house without a tamping device -- something I used to do, but as I worked for over a decade around the corner from a tobacconist I would simply buy one on my break -- and I'm quite okay with him (or her) borrowing one. But how did he (or she) get in? Did Ms. Bruin give it a key?


Must be an old friend. Someone she's known since college.
Looks like rather a decent sort.



After the bear left I got up and made myself some coffee. I need to be alert and wide awake when doing laundry. And take back my bowl of quarters.



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BOO, KARAOKE!

After lighting up my pipe I ran into gangster uncle going into one of the mah jong parlours. Hadn't seen him in ages, and my first uncharitable thought was "oh good, they released him early for good behviour". But I doubt that he was in the big house, he's too wily for that, and he probably delegates, so he very likely has plausible deniability in any case.
Sadly, he and the others no longer frequent the same place.

Back in the day several "iffy" gentlemen went to that dive. And strange things happened. The current owner is much more stable than her predecessor was in the last years, and does not tolerate people acting up. But it's okay if they sing badly.
Karaoke is a truly absymal thing.
Though profitable.


There were too many people enjoying karaoke this evening so the bookseller and myself headed toward saner shores. A more mature place, even though the "most dangerous man in Northbeach" often patronizes it. He's a pothead, and goes there relatively early.
The karaoke fans are mostly shiftless honkies who stay up late.
The most dagerous man is out of it by then.
And there is no karaoke there.
Nor many honkies.

I rather doubt that gangster uncle ever goes there.
Or Michael. Or Fatty. Or the titty groper.

For some reason karaoke always makes me think of vehicular fires. Maybe it's the lack of sound judgement, the similarity to alarms going off, or the spectacular disaster of someone singing badly at the top of their lungs for a rapt or petrified audience.

Maybe it's because karaoke calls for a jerrycan of petrol.


Thank you for pouring your heart into it. Now get help.


Other than that, the other thing this evening that struck me, during my first cup of tea, was that someone really needs to buy all the rights to Capitol OK Whiskey and bring that brand back. If only so that they can use the pale fleshy nude as brand ambassadrice or mascot.

Also, why is karaoke permitted indoors in commercial establishments?
But pipesmoking, which is much more tolerable, isn't.
This makes little sense.



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SOMETHING ABOUT TEETH

Half a year before the United States entered the war, my dad went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. As he put it later, he wanted to fight the war sitting down. Which, as a bomber pilot for three years, he did. Substantially. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I fully appreciated what that took. Flying over Germany while someone else was trying to put anti-aircraft fire up your behind would have left me clenching for the next twenty years.

Which does not explain why I had his pipes re-stemmed after he gave them to me.

That was a sharp corner tooth. And a few decades.

Being quite neurotic, I concentrated on having a gentle mouth-grip on my pipes, especially after I found out that replacing them when we lived in the Netherlands took six months and meant that a pipe factory would do a crappy job on such things, sanding down the shank and redrilling it just to fit one of their factory stems into the briar. Which horrid butcher job, to my surprise, they charged and arm and a leg for. Here in the United States we are luckier in that regard, as there are still slightly over half a dozen repair guys active, but Russ who worked in Hayward passed away two decades ago, and for a long time he was the best there was.

I have carved a few of my own stems. Not having the proper equipment, it was a laborious effort. So I will emphasize the necessity for a gentle grip. You are relocating your kittens.
Not chomping through the steel bars to get at the juicy diver.
Mmm, fresh red meat! Delicious.

SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND

Of the pipes he gave me in the last months of his life, I only smoke three semi-regularly. The others are carefully put away because they bring back memories, and they still possess the fragrance of his tobacco, despite my having borrowed them when he went off on a two week vacation to London with Marianne, and my smoking Balkan Sobranie in them while he was gone. He had a wonderful two weeks. I had a wonderful two weeks. Some of the funds for household expenses and food went, as you would expect, for good pipe tobacco.
Teenagers desperately need a supply of good pipe tobacco.


Many of my fondest memories of growing up involve tea and pipe tobacco. Tea time is the respite from the day, a welcome pause for either a meal or just a stimulating hot beverage that lends one more energy and time to gather one's thoughts again. And, with a bowl of tobacco, one is happily fortified for the next several hours.


I've recently sent a Sasieni Billard out for a brand new mouthpiece (the original has a goofy moisture baffle stuck in the tenon, which that company was quite proud of), and I'm keen to see what the repair man does. He's actually quite good. So it should be splendid.
The pipe looks like something someone would smoke in the Fifties.
Which is, in fact, the era in which it was made.

May have to shave it down a bit.
I have a soft grip.



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LET US COMPLAIN ABOUT THE MODERN WORLD

Sometimes it's a bit too cold and biting for proper enjoyment smoking that post-prandial pipe outside. Though I was wearing enough, it almost felt like the fabric had withered on my body, like autumn leaves. There was a frigid wind on the streets despite the bright clear sunlight, sharply defining lines and dark blobs, when I left the restaurant where I dined at teatime.
The elderly lady seated at the nearby table had struck up a conversation about Chinese restaurants, recommending one near my apartment which I may try out soon. I had been mildly interested when she sat down, because of her Hermès scarf. It's a classic look. Quite suited to a white haired matron, but seldom encountered on a younger crowd.

My parents and grandparents generation were more used to it.
The current crop of women have nose piercings.
Not even a Hermès style tattoo.


Lunch had been claypot rice topped with bitter melon and blackbean (涼瓜排骨煲仔飯) at a place that opened perhaps three years ago, but I've known the proprietress probably for nearly ten years. She's very kind, and a diverse crowd of regulars enjoy eating there. Excellent HK milk tea (港式奶茶).

I note, by the way, that a herbalist up the block is now out of business.
Rather a pity, that. They had been there for a few years.

NOT WAVERLY PLACE WITH CHILL WINDS. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The breeze was a little too cold to thoroughly enjoy my smoke. It stang my face. Wisely, most people must have been indoors. Chinatown lacks both a reasonable number of pipe smokers as well as enough doorways and awninged courtyards or unpoliced parks where they might shelter during unconducive weather. For all I know it may be overrun by gentlepersons with fine briars and decent taste in pipe tobaccos, but they're hiding. "Gosh darn it", they probably mutter to themselves, "this temperature is not suited to tromping around with a squat bulldog clenched between the lips, so very much unlike Kwuntong (觀塘), Lam Tin (藍田), or Yuen Long (元朗, specifically Hung Shui Kiu 洪水橋), at most times of the year!" And I'd have to agree; it's eighty degrees there right now, a slight chance of rain, only very mild wind.


For contrast, both San Francisco and Eindhoven are barely cracking sixty.
Indeed not at all like the furthest reaches of Kowloon.
We should do something about that.


It speaks volumes about San Francisco's lack of consideration for pipe smokers and the elderly that there is not a single smoking room in Chinatown! Time for an angry petition!

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SANER PEOPLE, BETTER FOOD

One individual with whom I am in sporadic contact, which I somewhat regret, firmly believes that the government is deliberately injecting people with "nanites" and "arm worms", in order to control the population with five G and bring about the era of black helicopters and United Nations Police. Plus make the sheep vote for Biden. As you would expect, I am somewhat skeptical of his assertions.

His almost instinctive gut feelings tell him that if authorities claim something, then it must be wrong there is a plot afoot and the free spirits on youtube claiming something that contradict it in new and unusual ways must be right.

Consequently, he comes across as stark raving nuts.

Which, in effect, he is.

[The arm worm thing is basically soreness in the arm after a vaccine being conflated with labs using certain bug larvae to develop large quantities of different vaccine material and other bio-components (mostly experimentally) along with badly referenced (berserk trailerparker interpretations) maggot and worm skin infection videos. The nanite thing is based on imaginatively interpreting descriptions of modified ("programmed") lipid nanoparticles used in immunization coating as "ohmahgerd they's injection us with microscopic compooter technologies!" Nano in this usage refers strictly to size.]

He also has novel theories about pizza and space aliens (they're connected), and absolutely rejects the idea of global warming. So he's amusing. In very small doses. Nanoparticles.


People like him are a major reason that I'm glad that I do not live in Marin County, and don't need to go there on my days off. There is more sanity and better food in San Francisco.

Those yellowish things in the illustration above are NOT government arm worms but slivers of ginger. For some reason when I was drawing this I did not strew them higgeldy-piggeldy but all more or less in similar direction. Slivered ginger is essential, cilantro is optional, sambal is desirable (as well as highly recommended).

Unfortunately the restaurant where this was one of the regular lunch offerings, made in one person servings, with some veggies, over rice, with a bowl of lo fo tong (老火湯), is no longer in business. The old lady who owned it retired. I could make it myself. But I am far too lazy to do that, and I rely on exposure to normal people speaking Cantonese and a pipe smoked after lunch in Chinatown for my sanity.


Especially after hearing about gluten and apple cider vinegar for several days.
Or Palestinians and Guatamalans. Wise men in the Andes.
Spirituality. And Chiropractic.
Vegans.



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DID YOU WEAR YOUR SPECIAL HAT?

Nothing says 'Cinco De Mayo' like a taco bowl from the Trump Tower Grill! It's a fiesta in your digestive tract. And to zip it up a bit, here's a genuine Iowa recipe for guacamole stolen from the internet:

GUACAMOLE

One large avocado, peeled and cubed.
6 Ounces Cream Cheese.
2 Tsps. Lime Juice.
½ Tsp. Worcestershire.
1⁄4 Tsp. Tabasco.
1⁄4 Tsp. Salt.

Blend together till smooth.
Note: Cottage cheese may be substituted for the cream cheese.
And the Tabasco can be omitted if it's too spicy.

This, too, is a fiesta in your digesta!



"I LOVE HISPANICS!"
......Donald J. Trump, 5 May 2016


Nothing says "partay" like Anglos in straw sombreros getting squiffy on cheapahooly cerveza and tequila. Which makes me damn' glad that we Dutch Americans don't have a special day. Just have a donut, okay?

By the way: To celebrate the anniversary of the poorly equiped Mexicans defeating one of the most modern military powers of the time, whupping their ass, wiping the floor with them, and seriously kicking froggy butts, dinner tonight was pork-fried rice made with chilipaste. Chilies are of course Mexican, and don't feature in French cuisine at all. The Iowa-style guacamole above would be too much for them. Substitute ketchup for the Tabasco.

Washed down with a cup of strong coffee.
I don't drink with frat boys.



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LATE SEASONAL RAINS

Because the teevee is out in the backroom, some of the soon-to-be-decomposed gentlemen there who infest the place had a very mediocre day yesterday (which more will have today as well). And, myself not being interested whatsoever in sports or midgets in coloured jackets on the backs of horses, I am immensely tickled. There was a quietness there. And half-hearted attempts at actual conversation. Even the snot-disturbing Punjabi played along. Normally when Punjabis get bored they start a ruckus, but this time he realized that the shapeless lumps in the other chairs were hurting, and kept reasonably quiet.
Which was very Christian of him.

Because I felt better than on Friday -- the horrible rainy weather was at just the right level for me -- the day was a splendid success as far as I was concerned. Yes, I'm still waiting for a young replacement body because the one I presently occupy is slightly worn out.
But good gracious I was sparkling and vibrant! I had energy!

More so than usual. Ended up eating lunch close to five o'clock because I was having so much fun. Smoked too much. Admired the rain and greyness. Just like Holland. Very moody outside. Perfect for something spicy and rijstafelish at dinner. Which was necessarily late.

Greasy fiery glop with too much curry chili sauce.


Green vegetable sambal goreng.

You can't see it, but there is salt fish in there. Great with thick slices of toast for mopping.

The salt fish adds both umami and a lovely savoury stinky quality.

Reminds me of a flop house in the tropics.


Thick humidity, fermentive vegetal rot smells, insects touching one's face, a sweet cold drink in a glass with a lid on a table nearby, ashtray, cheap cigar, small cup hot coffee no sugar, and bright light from chinks in the blinds. I left the light on in the book room.


It rained till mid afternoon.


Schadenfreude improves the appetite as well as one's outlook.
Immensely.



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EATING WELL AND STAYING HEALTHY

"Hey, if you eat fruit that's slightly contaminated by mold can it give you the runs for two days?" This was a question from my apartment mate. Who owns a bag of oranges. One of which was moldy, so she threw it out. But she didn't wash the next one she ate. Nearly three days ago. The answer to her query is "well, um, yeah". She's Chinese American. Meaning that unlike Caucasians, she doesn't have as powerful a cultural memory of drinking ditch water and dying, eating rotten oats and dying, consuming meat improperly preserved with either not enough salt or absolutely no Prague powder and dying, or ergot poisoning, or just generally speaking food poisoning from three day old leftovers at room temperature .....

While the West invented mayonnaise, the Chinese invented tea. The difference being that one is a good breeding ground for all kinds of microbes, the other boils the water and kills all the buggie-wuggies. Plus they wrapped foods in bamboo leaves, which work somewhat antimicrobially, due possibly to lignin and traces of zinc .

Also, she survived her mother's queer kitchen practises.


Raw fruit should be washed thoroughly. Ditch water must be boiled ere drinking. Macrobiotic should be avoided, because of contamination with micro-biotics. And why are Chinese so taken by oranges, fercrapsakes? It's NOT the most exciting fruit.
Despite being the source of much marmalade.
Mmm, buttered toast!

When you find yourself having digestive disorders, reach for the bottle of kaopectate.
Eat plain boiled rice. Hydrate. And have some yogurt.

And postpone delicious food for a few days. It might not agree with your delicate guts. So it's a good thing she and I have different eating schedules -- and she's snarfing a bag of cheese flavoured chips right now, that can't be good -- hence whatever I stuff into my gob will not leave her envious because she should avoid it till fully over the gallops.

Of course, seeing as I am at work in Marin for the next few days, I'm eating garbage from the convenience store nearby. Not the most appetizing of sustenance. I keep a bottle of Sriracha in the fridge at work. It's an essential supply. If you are going into the depths of Antarctica for several months to tabulate the number of penguins that went the wrong way and died, pack an entire crate of it. Frozen rancid blubber tastes MUCH better with a dynamite condiment. As well as lots of hot tea to stay properly hydrated.


If you are heading into Marin, get your shots and take your anti-malarials. Cholera, typhoid, dengue, foot fungus, and parasites. Which you don't have to worry about in Antarctica.



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THE FIRST MOMENT

The first thing is putting the water on. Loading a pipe may be the fifth or sixth thing, but hot water for a caffeinated beverage always comes first. Everything else depends on that. Coffee is the beverage that most people here start their day with. It's what unites us. Also what divides us, because everyone always sneers at how every one else makes it, and how they like it -- let's not talk about all those syruppy add-ins at chain coffee places because that's disgusting -- and it sets us apart from the Europeans who almost universally lament that there is no decent coffee in the United States good lord those Yanks are a depraved lot!

It stands to reason that this apartment is ground zero for good coffee, and some excellent brews may be had within a radius of one or two miles. It goes sharply downhill once you leave the city, and falls off a cliff once you are out of the Bay Area. Between here and New York it's all roadhouse swill fit for truckers and inbred people. Surely you know that?

As for the Europeans, many of them represent a narrow spectrum of DNA because of their ancestry being limited in range (rather like decent coffee in that radius of one or two miles), having bred with fellow villagers for ten thousand years or whatever, and they are certain that only people who speak exactly like they do are human anyway, bah, American English!
So we'll ignore them. Different planet.

One cannot smoke the first pipe of the day without having had coffee first. Wandering around the neighborhood without it is like stumbling through a fog. Who is that person who just ran past wearing electric green sports shorts, and why is this dog defecating at this curb exactly next to the red Toyota? Why is someone nearby frying a batch of car tires? Is that a pigeon up ahead, or a space alien? What is Pi to the twentieth decimal?


These are not questions one has after drinking coffee.
Coffee is both the solution and the answer.


It's time for another cup.



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MILDLY NUTS

The biggest quandary today besides where to have a bite to eat is which pipes do I put in my pocket for later. Either of the two Comoy off-brands? The little piss-elegant Becker? Perhaps a Comoy London Pride or a blue riband? If it's the Becker, I'm heading to the chop house. There is something deliciously ironic about eating at one of the cheapest eateries in Chinatown and lighting up an expensive and rare briar afterwards

Yep. I may be a poor schlub, but I've got class.
This pipe proves that, in buckets.
Mmm, darn good smoke.


The perfect pipe for voicing sarcasm, cynicism, bitter disapproval, or joy and good cheer while smoking. Even, dare I say it, bonhomie.

Surely you agree that it is a piss-elegant piece?
Stellar with a Rattray's broken flake.

Such a pipe would be perfect for a gay young blade on Sproul Plaza during the free-speech protests, or while sheltering out of the way of Reagan's teargas wafting down Telegraph. Even, imagine, while declaiming beatnik free-verse in the basement of City Lights.


Not at all suitable for today's college lay-abouts in their homeless encampments. For one thing, smoking is not allowed within the perimeter. Neither are gluten, animal protein, or tweed, but that is neither here nor there.


If the Republicans having rabid hysterics and getting worse doesn't convince people to vote for Biden, even in Michigan and Berkeley, then we are truly beyond hope.


Time for more beatnik free-verse.



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CUE THE VIKINGS!

Just told Daniel with 'free solar' that I thought he was "ding sohgge". Despite him not understanding a word I said, he took offense and hung up. Well, that was just rude and unprofessional of him. Subcontinental spam drooges nowadays have no standards.
Why, back in MY day ...


On the other hand, kudos to the caller who identified herself as my "medicare advisor" who switched to a Chinese dialect I don't know, with a friendly tone. There's a hopeful optimism there of which I approve. I would have nearly dropped my mask and asked what that was, except, you know, inevitably we would have had a spammorific conversation.

I doubt that many of these people are familiar with Monty Python.
It is very sad. What is this world coming to?

My relationship with the telephone is strained.

Just like my relationship with many other facets of modern life, but it's different. Far more confrontational. Why are you calling me? And what are you wearing? Actually, I doubt that any of them would recognize any perverse attempts at twisting the conversation. They probably don't have any skill at either surreality or inane and depraved conversation.

See, they are calling me. For a quarter of a century I was usually the one making the call, and trying to get business people and merchants all across the country to pay their bills or their order would not get shipped. And hinting delicately that too long a delay might effect their terms with the company I represented. Pay reasonably promptly, get sellable stuff for Christmas. Or not. Prepayment is always a possibility. So to now have piranhas from the furthest reaches of Toiletflushingstan calling me and taking up my time, could be seen as some poor stupid dingo volunteering to get abused. It's my turn.

Toiletflushingstan is a suburb of Bombay. Right nect to the traintracks.
It's probably very warm there. There is no airconditioning.
Nor are there any ice cubes for their drinks.
They are uncomfortable.
Very sad.


It's my phone, Swamiji, therefore my choice of conversation.
Can you dig it?



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INTERNATIONAL RIOT DAY

All over the world, the radical disaffecteds raged today. Not only actual wage slaves, but also semi-educated bourgeois prole pretendeurs and citizens of formerly imperialist countries resentful of the only superpower. As well as the residents of bantustans like London, Berkeley, Oakland, and the Mission District. Huzzah.

[The usual terrorist-supporting bitchbags were on the street in SF today. In case you were wondering.]

I was reminded of this by the discourse of Robert, ABC, who railed against the United States daring to involve itself in the Pacific, and lambasted what he refered to as United States colonies Japan and the Philippines. Quite like something from 1970's propaganda.
Well, he is eighty years old.

Back in the seventies the well-informed sociaal bewogen leftwing wholeheartedly supported re-education camps, the Khmer Rouge, Che Guevara's murderous tendendencies, just like their parents had cheered on the Soviet crackdowns in Eastern Europe, and Stalin's regime murdering hundreds of thousands. There was not an atrocity that could be hued in convenient revolutionary guise that they did not approve of.
Wholeheartedly and unreservedly.

Their modern day heirs celebrate rape, violence, and hatred, from the Palestinians through the Iranians to the Yemeni and Somali pirates and the Janjaweed. The international drug trade? Well, it harms primarily the decadent West, so it, too, is good. Repression of women? It's a cultural thing, who are we to judge. Kneecapping and slaughter of political opponents? Necessary, and for a good cause. They went onto the streets today to overturn garbage receptacles and break plate glass in support of all that.

Revolution!

Both Che Guevara and Enver Hoxha are dead as doornails now, as well as several of the old style Western European communist traitors. The world is a better place. There are still a few Berkeleyite Marxists around, slavishly kissing Islamist arse, but eventually they too will die and be eaten by worms.

Go ahead and riot in the streets, you morons.
You are braindead and disgusting.
Spit you out.



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DON'T ASK ABOUT MY SIGN OR MY AURA

Even though I live in the civilized world (San Francisco), for a few days each week I end up in the suburbs for work, where edible food is hard to find and rabid Karens roam, objecting to anything that even looks like a taco truck or curry wagon. Heaven forefend that something tasty might disturb our manicured lawns in front of our neo-Florentine ranch houses and mission revival palazzos, with two and a quarter kiddiewinkies practising soccer and minipugs playing on the Guatamalan hand-woven rug while we burn sage!

There is no cat. Cats can't be trained to be vegan.
That horrid carnivore ate the goldfish!


Consequently, at the beginning of my weekend, I am desperate and crazy.


This week, without even thinking about it, I hit a trifecta.
A veritable triple-crown of gustatory self-assertion.

More urban than this you cannot get.
Up yours, Marinite pig butts.
My food. Mine!

Pork and chive dumplings in soup with mustard green, dried fish and peanuts congee (with the accompaniment of a fried dough stick), and salt fish and short ribs claypot rice.

No vegans, sage burners, or fashionable minipugs were harmed during these meals. And other than myself, no snarling or snooty white people were present. They couldn't find the places where these dishes were served, and wouldn't have thought that anything edible was on the premises in any case. Well, other than the German family that wandered in desperate because die gute ehefrau mutter der familie had low blood sugar and needed something fried noodles fast. Just one dish for the entire table. The rest of them were all fine, we don't need anything, honest, wir sind 'fine'.


I can sympathise. Low blood sugar is a bitch.
Cannibalism starts with low blood sugar.


Today lunch will be in a place where hot sauce and chopsticks (essstäbchen, 筷子) are on the table. Afternoon tea will be yat pui gong sik naai cha and a dan taat.


No sage will be burned, no chakras will be out of whack.
Mercury may or may not be in retrograde.
No pugs on the horizon.



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RABBIT RABBIT, ALL YOU BAD SINGERS!

Rabbit rabbit. Happy May First. Now that I've got that out of the way, let's talk about why many marketing types and trailerparkers shouldn't sing, even if they are visiting the big city and just giddy to be here. For one thing, their choice of songs is frightful, for another, they can't sing worth diddly, and for a third, they make one of my favourite bars quite unbearable. Seeing as because of my medication I abjure alcohol -- it might interact with one of my pills to destroy my liver and I'm rather attached to that organ -- favourite bars are fewer.

So we avoided the karaoke place. There was a rutting frenzy going on there. Instead we went to a more civilized venue further down where the nice bar tender recognized me from previous times and put on the kettle for my cup of tea. The bookseller had a pint of Guinness. We eventually became fascinated with her learning how to achieve the perfect oil-spritzing orange peel for cocktails, and, as my friend said when we were on the bus later, she does not at all look pregnant. Whoever told her that was either an idiot, or blind.

Or, possibly, jealous.


I should also mention that there is a bottle of Pimm's No. 1 there. So at some future point in time I shall bring a cucumber (a necessary garnish) and we'll all pretend like we're at Wembley or the regatta. Oh, it will be so jolly!

I'll still end up drinking tea, though.

The combination of the ill-effects of amlodipine besylate having diminished, a quick shot of coffee before leaving the house, a semi-caffeinated beverage at the burger joint, and hot tea at the bar, plus a very satisfying bowlful of red Virginia in a Dunhill bruyere billard -- a lovely old pipe that's comfortable for the hand to hold, and sits well in the mouth -- rendered me probably high as a kite. Wide awake and cheerful, despite the lateness.


Grant Avenue, now that the weather has improved, is somewhat more lively at night. One shopkeeper was washing her car in front of her store, a clothing emporium nearby was still open, one wonders why she still had the lights on and the sign up (perhaps as good a place to do her college homework as there was), and the ice cream place had only just closed. The next intersection over had a person taking photographs of the lanterns. Yes, there are still pavement sleepers, but more sane people.


Chinatown three times today. Haircut, lunch, pipe. Dumplings at teatime and a pipe.
Then the pubcrawl, preceeded by a pipe.



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SPECIFIC TO THE TIME AND PLACE

Late afternoon I had claypot rice (煲仔飯 'pou jai faan') for lunch. And, per two ladies at the opposite side of the room, you don't often see Caucasians eating claypot rice. Whereupon the proprietess clarified that the Caucasian in question had been sporadically coming there over the years, and had in fact ordered off the white board, because the actual dish in question wasn't on the English menu. Also, he speaks Cantonese.

[There will often be things on the Chinese language menu that aren't shown in English, because it is, very realistically and accurately, assumed that Caucasians have no interest in them, will ask a lot of difficult questions, and demur.]

Shortly afterwards I was explaining that no, I wasn't particularly smart. There had been plenty of time, and, erm, well, I am no longer a youngster.
Also, I collect dictionaries.

I should also have mentioned that the internet (網路 'mong lok') frequently is a good source of info on languages, provided you cross-check and effectively reverse-search (對證 'deui jing'; 查對 'chaa deui'; 查看 'chaa hon'; 覆核 'fuk hat') .

[For example, "welcome" is 歡迎 ('fun ying'). "You are welcome" is 毋客氣 ('mou haak hei') or 唔使客氣 ('m sai haak hei'). Though you'll note that the second person pronoun is entirely absent, and there is no actual verb there. A quick glib web search might have you saying something berserkly off-kilter when you were just trying to be polite.]

But I assume that they've already discovered that about the internet.

SPARE RIBS SALT FISH CLAY POT RICE

Claypot rice is white rice cooked in a lidded earthenware casserole with robust foods placed on top so that the rice is perfumed by what's above it, and made a little crickly-crackly by the heat underneat, which is then amplified for drizzling a little soy sauce in along the sides when it comes off the fire. Frequent inclusions are Chinese sausage, marinated chicken or duck, and salt fish. It is very Canto, very Hong Kong.


Once Caucasians understand the operative paradigms they often like it well enough. But it is reflective of and specific to particular social and cultural environments, and if you don't swim in those waters it rarely speaks so much to you.

It's also very San Francisco.
Subculturally.



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DE LUXE VIRGIN

When you think about it, pipe terminology is distinctly queer. Billiard. Bulldog. Panel. Pear. Squashed tomato. Tiger stripe. Virgin, de luxe virgin. That last meaning, often, that it's a well made piece of fine blemish-free briar polished but without stain or colouration added, relying on the excellence of the wood to make it attractive. Not, as a pervert would expect, a young lady or man of either or whichever gender wrapped in tissue like a bonbon.

Many companies have over the years used the term 'virgin'. Not with any sexual or skeevy connotation even implied. It's a nice piece of wood. We're rather pleased with what we did with it. Here, admire this. Now pay us. Please pretty.

I mention this because I'll have a saddle stemmed billiard Virgin De Luxe in my coat pocket later today when I head over the hill. Along with a companion piece, from the same factory, and nearly the same shape (slightly larger), taper stem, natural. So technically also a virgin.

Both have the patina of age and use.

Lovely little things.

Neither pipe is particularly collectable, as the stamping makes clear. They are Comoy off-brands, so technically not flag ship pipes, and sold cheaper than the company's top of the line. Same excellent workmanship and attention to neurotic detail but not show off pieces except to aficionados of that maker.

The most important thing is smokeability.

Because some companies over-use the term 'virgin', leaving pieces unstained that would benefit greatly from colour, there are virgins which look drab and unexciting. Much like a few Danish manufacturers who excessively use two-tone finishes on wood which has absolutely bugger-all to redeem itself other than no fills, and shouldn't be highlighted so. For that the bruyere finish from Dunhill, Parker, et autres, would be better. Perfect for Calabrians.

Comoy chose their briar well. Before being subsumed completely into Cadogan Investments, they were absolutely top notch, and even afterwards for a number of years a Comoy pipe damned-well guaranteed a good smoke and sound aesthetics.

Both of these pipes are probably as old as I am.
Ergo good smoke, and sound aesthetics.



Despite not wearing a tweed coat today, because it is too warm by half, I shall look 'tweedy'. Tweedish. Fog in the channel, Jerry over the South Downs, pip pip, oops bugger I crashed the Piper at Sek Kong Airfield oh well, can I tutor you in some Latin miss? Oh, there goes a grouse, shoot it shoot it. Bally good show, I say, what.

A faint hue of tar, tea, and tobacco colours my environment.
Or perhaps that's machine oil and plane fuel?
These delightful virgins.

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THE TEENAGE DIET

The dumplings were fine. Lovely. Should have left it at that. And not augmented them with panfried pickled vegetables chilipaste hot oil, a smoked brat, cheesy crispies, and fine Italian pastry. A slow browsing dinner such as a teenager would eat. The guts, as you probably know, are not a teenager. I enjoyed it going down. The pipe I later smoked outside wandering the neighborhood while dodging drunks and silently sneering was also good.
The coffee I had made upon returning home wore off by nine thirty and I was in bed by ten.
By which time the uproar in the digestive realm was starting.
But it did not interfere with sleep.

[The sneering is a natural result of growing up. Given the age gap, I disapprove of everything. This weather, for instance. I really do need to talk to someone. Back in my day we didn't have weather such as this. Feh, the modern world. Kids!]


Stomach aches are a frequent occurence in the several hours after taking amlodipine besylate. Unfortunately. Nevertheless, modern medicine is truly miraculous.
If I had been born a century ago I would be dead by now.

I had weird dreams last night.

I wonder why.

A good thing to remember is that when you encounter people who are older than, let us say forty years of age, they are probably Karens at heart. Mentally bellyaching. We disapprove of everything, the manager will hear about this, damned car teenagers radicals rightwingers pup tents students bums cheap champagne suburbanites.

Back in my day, sonny boy, unwashed high school drop outs did not get drunk on two dollar dessert wines by eight in the evening. No! Never. They waited till eleven o'clock, and they had been to college! Young people these days just don't have standards!
Well, some college. Intro to Philosphy at Community.



I've grown up. My eating habits haven't.



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READY TO CONQUER THE WORLD

What does the average Dutch American multi-lingual middle-aged pipesmoker living in the Bay Area want when he gets home from Marin? I feel that I am in a position to answer that, what with being representative of the type. I want some coffee and not to talk to anyone for about twenty minutes at least.

See, I've started taking my daily amlodipine besylate at tea time. Late tea time. Around five o'clock. Which means that irritability -- always a factor because I am a rather ornery sort even at the best of times -- and painful aching of the pedal extremities both start kicking in on the bus, and I'm in a fragile AND horrible mood when I stumble off at around seven thirty.

On the plus side, I can fall asleep more easily now.

I was afraid I'd have to cut out coffee in the evening like a decrepit old limp biscuit, such as many of the people I know, but once I figured out that it was the bloodpressure pills, life improved considerably. There is a renewed glow to my mien now. Yay!

That cup of coffee after returning home gives me the vigour to go out and despoil continents, enslave their peaceloving nature worshipping peoples, dig mines with robots on one of the moons of Saturn, eat the dodo to extinction, and start a dinosaur farm in wildest Africa.
Netherlanders are men of blood: rebels, brigands, and incendiarists.

Also dumplings. Dumplings help immensely. My apartment mate got some dumplings from the new place around the corner, and they were very enjoyable. Dumplings are the new ramen. Everybody has discovered them now. White San Franciscan America has discovered them. Of course, the resident Toisanese speaker (apartment mate) and Cantonese speaker (multi-lingual Dutch American pipesmoker) already had great familiarity with dumplings ages ago -- we've always been ahead of the curve -- but this neighborhood now has dumplings within claws reach. So it's a considerable improvement.

This area is also known for the local donut place, a late night cult favourite, and as a Dutch American I feel somewhat responsible for the millions of people killed by too many fatty fried snackipoos for too many years. Heart disease, kidney failure, diabetes, sugar jag insanity, gout, and just sheer stupity. But proud too. Genocide is in our DNA. We taught the natives scalping for fun and profit, our kinfolk wiped out an entire island in the East Indies for sober business reasons, distant kin coined the term 'apartheid', and we introduced English settlers all over to edible food, bad beer (a direct ancestor of mine was brewmaster and miller in New Amsterdam), and sugar jags coupled with acid indigestion, both of those last mentioned being caused by donuts. Go ahead, eat an entire bag of them.

We also introduced gin to the English, and their society has not been the same since. Their urban working class found their lives enriched and enlivened by the new beverage and became an object lesson for societies around the globe.

Quite a list of achievements.

[NOTE: Demented old lady outside the donut place on my way home this evening. Quite an unprintable vocabulary. Calmly, clearly and very loudly enunciated. Intelligible for over a block. A credit to her ethnic group (white). Such diction! And she had made an effort to apply make-up before leaving the house today, not very well and certainly without sound judgement, but she believed in being presentable. Fit for the social hurly-burly. Probably needed a donut and a drink.]


We were quite "efficient" in Atjeh, Bali, Jawa, Suriname, and West Africa.
Caffeine and sugar had an awful lot to do with that.
La mission civilisatrice.



Afterword: much of this essay was inspired by someone recently accusing me of being a collaborator and accomplice of genocide because of my support for Israel. Okay. What of it? The Israelis are amateurs in that field. Rank amateurs! They are far too humane. We Dutch are professionals. The Levantine and Syrian Arabs wouldn't exist any more if instead of the British and Zionists, we had been involved. Nothing but sweating backs in sugar cane fields.

Anything else you want to blame me for?
I'll go Dutch on you.




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