BRIANWORMS

One of the rightwing hose bags whom I see regularly, because I work in Marin, and attend to poisonous senile old gila monsters, is disturbed by some recent paintings I have shown him. He says that I am propagandizing for the kommoonis and the gestapo should question me. Which is utter nonsense. My paintings are art. Not necessarily good art, you understand, because I am a draughtsman and have a rather pedestrian eye, but nevertheless art.

And, if anything, they highlight the dangers of fire in a state (California) where everything can and does go up in flames. Leaves, garbage, religious pamphlets. All kinds of stuff.

Also, the message is "rake your forests".
Like they do in North Carolina.
Or even Texas.


I like to think of myself as a modern day iconographer.


I paint what I "see", child. Art imitates life.

Just to piss him off I've been doing a lot of trash fire illustrations lately. You will kindly note that no people or kittens have been harmed in any way, unlike my food illustrations which should only be studied by trained professionals. Who are emotionally prepared.

No vegans. No glutenphobes. No apple cider vinegar nuts.
No Secretaries of Health and Human Services.
That bozo should see this:

Think of it as necessary needling, Robert.
Perhaps you should get vaccinated?
Or shown a silver crucifix.
Damned vampire.



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

UNORTHODOX CHICKEN

It bothers me no end that one of the old rightwing blisters calls his seduction dish 'Chicken Marengo', despite it not being Napoleonic in the slightest; no crayfish, no eggs. Of course, with him being Jewish, the orthodox version would be out of the question, maybe. I'm not sure. His Judaism is more free-style than even New Age Reform, and it's doubtful that he knows much Hebrew. I've asked him what his bar mitzva parsha was, and then had to explain that concept to him, but that might simply be old age and the doddering.
Still. The correct version of Chicken Marengo has crayfish and eggs.
And Austrians weeping after their defeat.

Also, as the elderly delinquent in question is married (to an anticommunist harpy with anger issues), it makes one wonder who he intends to seduce with his misnamed Provençale stew.

Far be it from me to ask. I have no desire to know more about the putrid private lives and social crimes of the wanna-be bad-asses in the backroom than I already do. Their frequent presence at work is pollution enough to last for a life time.

One of them was exultant about transgendered mice in Afghanistan.
That touches on several subjects he know nothing about.
He is a staggeringly stupid man.

Several times during work this past period I was glad that I do not know any of those people socially, and that my friends and loved ones are not exposed to them ever. They are one of the main reasons why I consider Marin a festering swamp of Karens and brattitude.

I often wonder how the members of the pipe club who live there stand the place.
They are hardy men. I admire them. It takes a resolute soul.
They've had all their shots.


People who live in California and nevertheless still smoke pipes, and furthermore steadfastly avoid nasty aromatic tobacco mixtures except for those times when they wish to torment the cringing purists like Hecky, are largely liberals, stubborn and intellectually independent, and precisely the kind of person who would prepare a totally correct version of Chicken Marengo with no intent whatsoever to use it for seduction purposes. Although they might in fits of excess add mushrooms besides crayfish, not instead of.


My apartment mate, a stubborn and intellectually independent woman who is sadly not a pipesmoker, might do it without the chicken. With a lobster instead. Homard Napoléonienne, À La Manière De Poulet Marengo. Garnished with crayfish and mushrooms, no eggs.



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

BURNING WHEELS

The last time I saw that person she had a bottle of hooch with her. She's resurfaced, again with a bottle of hooch. Hungover this time rather than in a grim party mood. A glib talker, with something "off". There are some people who are exciting, but the frequent drama is just a little disturbing, and one wishes to actually keep them at a distance because of hints that all may not be right, there are just those things you know, and why does there always seem to be something that does not quite compute? Can't put my finger on it. Don't want to be that involved. Interesting. Might read about it in the paper.

Myself, I am not a thrilling person.
But I get along well with people who are. I am capable of being a diplomat.


Despite never having been to charm school, I can smile and blandly murmur.

Some people I am glad I don't know more than just in passing.
It is best to be merely background, temporary.
Don't mind me.

I suspect that people who are always the centre of attention may be good at that. An ego thing, rather than any actual talents or achievements. Like a can of gasoline and a spark, rather than careful polishing and a hard surface.

They gravitate toward richer circles, because that's where the circling is rich.
There isn't a shred of plain cabbage in their lives.
It's all sardine, baby!


I suspect that the next time I run across her there will be liquour in the handbag.



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

STATISTICALLY IMPORTANT SAMPLE OF SCUM

Several of the poisonous lizards that I tend to did not make it in today. I expect their wives forced them to change their incontinence diapers and do family things. I did not miss them. Their kin are welcome to their company. Instead of having to devote my considerable talents to shutting out their noise, I repaired a Peterson that Herb smokes on his boat in the middle of San Francisco Bay, as well as cleaning up a rusticated Dublin which belongs to Robert.

They're decent men, about my age, educated, with iffy smoking habits.

No clue whether either man is married.


Jeff wasn't in today, thank Providence. He's drunk the Kool-aid, and is not only physically hard of hearing, but mentally as well. And he whines. A very MAGA piece of work.
He's been voted most likely to die of acid indigestion.

I enjoyed the peace. Smoked four pipefuls. The briars were Charatan, Gubbel & Zonen, Comoy, Peterson. The tobacco was from C & D. So it was a good day at work.

One thing overheard: "Anything can become a fight club if you try hard enough."

That was, more or less, pursuant the President's cabinet.
Particularly the tattooed bigoted freak.

Try harder, dingos.



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

THE REAL AMERICA

Really, this blogger is baffled at the furor over setting fire to cybertrucks, when there is so much else that can be beneficially torched. I am surprised that blazes are not more wide-spread. What is wrong with you people? If Democrats had done even half the stuff that the Trump regime did in the first two months, you'd be burning everything down by now.

Damned well everything is combustible.

Oh, and that chat group thing? So much worse than Hillary's e-mails.

Y'all practically shat yourselves over that.


A can of hairspray and a lighter can be combined harmoniously. Remember that. Of course, what with climate change, the red states are going to burn up before they get destroyed by tornadoes and hurricanes anyhow, as we're seeing with the start of the fire season in places where previously they had not had a fire season. And with FEMA on the chopping block we'll need Elon going down there and pissing over everything to combat it.
He'll do it without even being asked.

If everything between the Great Lakes and the Gulf Of Mexico burns, no biggie.
Nothing but sadistic retards there anyhow. Single brain-celled organisms.



A large part of the United States consists of highschool bullies and the blonde mean girls. Plus Christians. Christians. Christians. Effing Christians. Christians. And Christians.



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

THE DIET OF THE AMERICAN SLOTH

In slightly less than one hour, within a two block stretch, I heard Toishanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. That's better than yesterday, when in that same amount of space I'd heard three crazy people erupting. So it's not my animal magnetism. Probably the weather.

Which today has been grey, with sporadic precipitation, not requiring heavy raingear or an umbrella. Per the weather report mid fifties with overcast periods, and sometimes sunny.

Apart from my outside coat the only protective gear was my mask, because public transit is a rolling petri dish, I dodn't know where you people have been, and you never known when or where you'll encounter a Texan spreading measles or Marjorie Taylor Greene.


There are diseased Americans from elsewhere everywhere.


Including seven Caucasian types besides myself at the place where I had lunch, so you can never be too careful. I wasn't really paying attention, but I saw one plate of electric hued sweet and sour something, as well fried noodles with muck on top à la Detroit.

If I had stayed any longer I'm sure I would have also seen Kung Pao and General Tso.
Plus, quite possibly, egg rolls and deep-fried wontons.


薺菜豬肉水餃

Unfortunately, they were out of the dumplings made with shepherds purse (薺菜 'chai choi; capsella bursa-pastoris), which is newly featured on their menu, and I was keen to taste it. It's traditional for Spring time, metaforous for domestic tranquility and harmony, and beneficial to the circulatory system. Which is something I have.


Still, lunch was good. They have Sriracha.
Which makes everything happy food.
Even that American stuff.



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

EGREGIOUS IMAGERY

You may have noticed a few burning illustrations here recently, yes? Because this blogger is news-reactive. Unfortunately, the images of dunces texting details of a military strike is not particulary illustratable. I suppose I could do drunken frat bros partying instead, except that one of them would have to be bare chested, tattooed, and yelling stupid crap like "warfighting, man, that's what life is all about", while another feels up a couch.

Six packs of shitty beer, cinnamon whisky, and supermarket pizza.

I am not good at illustrating red state dude behaviours.

They do that perfectly well themselves.

It's something that you can find all over the internet. The dominant aesthetic of this nation. Frequently at football games. Goes with corn dogs dipped in cheese sauce, twirly fries with bac-o-bits and ranch, and deep fried peanut butter sandwiches.

So instead, this.

Perhaps nothing is more American than a good old fashioned marshmallow and weenie party, it's positively boyscoutian. Ah, the smell of accelerant, caramelization, and questionable materials consumed by flames. Unhealth made flesh.

That also describes American junkfood, by the way.
The fragrance of a stripmall foodcourt.


Actually, I do not have good memories of the boy scouts. Baden Powel was responsible for some pretty nasty behaviours in groups under the supervision of damaged adults, and still is. He may have been totally unaware of that, even though as a public school boy he probably wasn't. But, you know, boys will be boys, and youth must out.

Per E.B. White, author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little:

This is what youth must figure out:
Girls, love, and living.
The having, the not having,
The spending and giving,
And the meloncholy time of not knowing.

It's inspirational or something.
Literary, like, you know?
Feel the vibe.



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

HALF AN EAR

So the conversation went almost nowhere. I mentioned that place down from Broadway on Stockton that used to sell roast meat. "Sold meat?" Roast meat. "Meat?" Meat. Roast meat. "On Broadway?" No, on Stockton near Broadway. "The corner of Stockton and Broadway?" Not on the corner. "At Pacific?" No. On Stockton. It was there for a long time. "Meat?" Roast meat. "Oh." Well, it looks like they're doing something with that space. "On Broadway?"
It was not on Broadway, but on Stockton Street.

And to further clarify, I mentioned that they had sold roast meat.

I am certain, fairly certain, 100% sure in fact, that he hadn't a clue what I was on about. In any case, something may be going into that place soon. I had earlier mentioned to Robert that Dai Lee is on vacation again. They are just around the corner from the bakery where we were. He had agreed with Russ five weeks ago that it was too tightly packed in there.
So I knew he was familiar with the place. I also knew that he had shopped there.
He also was quite clueless.

After that I got to hear about KFC on the mainland, a golf course with lockers, a very popular coffee shop chain bankrupt bought out and expanded, and a provincial city half an hour away from Guangzhou. Plus the vegetable markets at an intersection in the Financial District before the war, and all about the hot weather on Monday and Tuesday.

With that latter I agreed. I had been here. I knew.

Mentally I noted that one of the two ninety year olds was wearing the same number of layers as he had been when it was over eighty degrees two days earlier when I met him on the bus. It was mid to high fifties today, and he was still overdressed.

As conversations went, it was a dumpster fire. It was the first time in several hours that I had spoken English. Maybe I was out of practice. That would explain why it was so difficult.

Also, I was watching the tyke at the corner table with her daddy. She's probably close to five years old now, and just like two years ago she's calm, not loud, and very very small. I stress that latter characteristic, because there had also been a white infant of the same age and possibly twice that size in the place, looking at the displays. Had I been a pastry I should have been terrified. "Oh lawd, she's gonna eat us all!" "Bun away, bun away!"



Anyhow, I enjoyed talking with the two gentlemen, as I do everyweek. It's a different take on life, and frequently references things I am familair with, but from a different vantage point.



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

RESERVATIONS

Though the day was quite warm -- since Saturday I have not worn the customary garb, and the winter coat which I needed a week ago has been back in the closet -- this evening it was rather chilly. A cold wind was blowing, and the fog is back. Which presages an early summer.

Naturally I did not begrudge the fellow sleeping in my customary doorway where I wait for the bookseller to get off work while smoking my pipe. And when I tapped out the briar I did so at the curb so that the ashes would not blow all over him.

Lunch a few hours earlier near there had been quite enjoyable. Shrimp sauce three shreds stifried rice noodles (蝦醬三絲炒米粉 'haa jeung saam si chaau mai fan'), in which textures and flavours combine harmoniously into a comforting but not heavy dish. Savory, very Canto, very American Chinese. Despite being light and snacky it was still far too much for one not particularly large middle-aged Dutch American to eat, so half of it went into a little box for sometime later, when it will go well with a braadworst (bratwurst).
Add sambal to the pan when re-heating.

Sambal makes everything better.

A DUTCH AMERICAN

The bookseller arrived about ten minutes after I finished my pipe, and we walked past the karaoke joint on the way to the hamburger place fearing what we would find there later. And indeed, it was not inviting later -- the discordant notes of someone butchering John Denver's most famous song made that clear -- so we went directly to see miss Vivian near the chop house. Whole bunch of regulars, civilized blokes, with a white couple at the end of the bar sucking each other's faces completely privately despite being in full view.

Something with balls on the teevee.
Two of the four screens.
Sound off.


Guiness. Jameson's. Hot black tea.


At one point the female half of the face-inhaling duo fell off her stool. Something must have taken her breath away, possibly the intensity of the smooch, maybe a marked lack of sufficient oxygen. The vapours. Or Jägermeister shots.

Maybe combining a public display of whatever that was, with alcohol is not such a good idea.
Not that I would know. Generally speaking I have avoided Jägermeister, and my ex and I are both on the spectrum, so the whole face sucking phenomenon wasn't, strictly speaking, ever on the menu. Discreet pecks on the cheek. A gentle squeeze of the hand.
That whole tasting the other person's spit thing, no.


Not the usual crowd on the bus back over the hill. An old man with a walker, who got off at Hyde Street and trudged up the slope, a black guy muttering to himself, and a youngish Caucasian dude with a white rose.

In the two blocks after I got off, I remembered a girl I was quite smitten with back in Valkenswaard. She was three or four years younger than me. Reserved, petite.
We hardly ever spoke to each other in five years.
I wonder what became of her.



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

THINKING ABOUT KITTENS

According to Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, burning Cybertrucks is an act of pure terrorism. And either encouraging or organizing such a crime is also a punishable act, which might net you twenty years. Possibly in a brutal Salvadorean prison run for profit. Let me therefore state, categorically, that I neither engage in any of those things, nor condone them.
Seeing as there possibly might be kittens inside.

Will no one think of the kittens?

Oh heartless world!

Kittens!

In a great many places criminals have torched Cybertrucks, in public, innocently parked along the side of roadways, or in lots, or harmlessly stashed in showrooms. There are in fact three Tesla dealerships within easy reach of San Francisco, a city which is known for and filled with kitten-hating terrorists.

Well, maybe they hate kittens. I don't know. I'm simply going by what our political leaders are saying. Who are undoubtedly worried sick about the kittens. As who wouldn't be?

Good right-thinking Christians all over the country are concerned about the kittens.

Kitten slaughter is a horrible thing. It's what those folks in Greenland do, then they skin them and wear them as slippers. Nasty! That's why we need to take over Greenland, so that we can bring them the words of Jesus and they'll stop killing the kittens.

Or Venezuela, where they eat them!

I've even heard that in some truly barbaric countries people (savages) give them Molson and Poutine, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, totally unconcerned with the pain this causes poor little baby Jesus! Canada is an awful place. Bigly.


And that's why should never torch a Tesla Cybertruck.

I strongly oppose torching anything.

Because of the kittens.



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

TAKE A VILLAGE

They may have changed cooks, because I do not remember fish fragrance eggplant (魚香茄子 'yü heung ke ji') disquieting my delicate digestive organ quite so much previously. I did not finish my lunch. But nevertheless I enjoyed it immensely. The waitress is a hard working busy girl who does not look like she's anywhere near drinking age with a nice well-proportioned face, rose bud lips and prettily blushing cheeks who, apparently, IS old enough. Judging by the fact that her parents came by with her little daughter to say 'hi'. So there's that.

Students must be rewarded with food. Whether it's kindergarten (see above), grammar school (the mommy sitting at the opposite wall with her kids), or junior high (innocent looking fellow with his Mandarin-speaking girlfriend one table over). As well as the kid two tables over with her uncle, who was busy reading his texts while minding the child. Food.

There were no other Caucasians there, and I speak Cantonese, so I was sort-of invisible, and with my deep-set eyes no one can tell if I'm observing, cross-eyed, or asleep.
Actually, I am looking at my food.

That sauce! I disapprove of it. It suggests having read somewhere what the dish is supposed to be, and then taking a mad stab at doing something not too very dissimilar. The cooking techniques employed were fail-safe, but the sauce was slapdashedly half-assed.

It's supposed to be spicy tangy savoury sweet, with ginger, bamboo shoot, spicy fermented bean sauce (豆瓣醬 'dau paan jeung'), pickled chilies, scallions, and garlic. Plus vinegar and sugar. It did have bamboo shoot. A little dried chili. Plus red colour, sugar, and cornstarch.

I wonder what they'll do when I order mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐 'maa pou dau fu') next time.


Afterwards I dawdled at the edge of Portsmouth Square with my pipe for a while, observing the senior citizens playing cards and chatting in Toishanwaa (臺山話), as many of the older villagers do. When I left, having finished my smoke, I heard one of the old ladies emphasize her point with 'maa ge hai'. Which I shall not translate. It would have gotten her fined in some places in Hong Kong. Bad, auntie, bad!


That illustration is not of somewhere in the Pearl River Delta, but a scene in Flanders.
In case you were wondering. It seemed appropriate. Seeing as I discussed food.



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

DISTANT INSECTS BUZZING

In addition to Elon Musk wishing to steal your Social Security data, there is also Allison from Right Guard who wants to do the same. Kindly F off, sweetheart. I am an eighty five year old transgender black lesbian from Iowa with arthritic knees, one foot in the grave, and horrible indigestion, who wishes to terrify your eleven year old daughter in women's restrooms all over the deep south.

Gas stations. And Waffle Houses.

Actually, I am currently on a village road in Indonesia. Due to horrific windstorms, it is blocked by fallen greenery in the middle distance, and the villagers have sought shelter.


There is no place nearby where they have rendang. Not safe to set fire to the kerosene stove in this weather. Could start a conflagration. Rendang takes several hours to prepare, and no one wants to risk the kampong going up in a giant ball of petrochemicals, beef tallow, and coconut grease. With or without freshly made shrimp sauce chilipaste. Mmmm.

Actually, some ayam goreng jowo would be nice too. Pieces of chicken, simmered in coconut milk with turmeric, lemon grass, and galangal (and a pinch of sugar), for about half an hour, drained and rested, then deep fried golden brown and served with steamed rice, atjar tjampoer, and that same lovely shrimp sauce chilipaste.


Lukewarm tea, not so much sugar, to wash it down.


Followed by a pipe filled with Capstan, smoked under the awning of the shop while watching the sudden downpour drench the road. It will be over soon, and fifteen minutes afterwards there is no evidence of the rain. Just a slight increase in the humidity, which was already quite high. If you think about it, your skin feels like it's brushing against hot wet velvet.
And you itch a bit. Small bugs love parts of you.


Here in San Francisco it's only sixty degrees, more or less, heading up to about seventy by teatime. And there is nowhere to get ayam goreng jowo or rendang. On my days off I like to eat good food. Not something that happens often when I work in Marin.
Capstan Gold today. Soon no longer be available.
They've stopped making it.



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

BANANA REPUBLICANS

Question: Those folks who were deported on that plane to El Salvador: how do we know they were violent Tren de Aragua members, or even Venezuelans? Was there a real passenger manifest? Was there a record of due cause arrests? Correct procedures? Transparency? They were probably just Latinos caught up in a sweep of people who "fit the profile".

And how is sending them to a horror prison any different from what Russia does? And why is this not a crime against humanity?

Frankly, much as the rightwing are crowing about this, it looks very much like the United States ended up with massive egg all over its face, because there is no way in hell that Venezuelans who broke our laws are within the jurisdiction of El Salvador, and by dumping them there whatever happens to them is, ultimately, our responsibility.


Quote from Human Rights Watch: "A state of emergency adopted in March 2022 that suspended basic rights remains in force. Authorities have committed widespread human rights violations, including mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment in detention, and due process violations."
[SOURCE: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/el-salvador . ]

That report details things which would make even Ron De Santis blush.


Yeah, I know, MAGA doesn't give a flying intercourse about the human rights of any brown people, and the end justifies the means yada yada yada, but just casually dumping arrestees in some random Latin American hellhole is an egregiously despicable act which will tarnish our reputation for generations. At the very least be held against us when we travel abroad.

And by the way, our reputation was already pretty lousy after we decided to use Guantanamo Bay as a torture facility where human rights did not apply.

Essentially, we've become the biggest baddest banana republic there is.

I suspect for some people this is a reason to start proudly shouting that we're numbah one. We're number one! We're number one! We're number one! Yay! Ammurica! Oo! Ess! Ay!

This is a competition that rational people did not want to win.




AFTER THOUGHT: There was a protest at the Tesla Dealer on Van Ness Avenue yesterday. Apparently only middle class Caucasians. The brown people may not have wanted to run a risk of being disappeared and dumped into an El Salvadorean hellhole.

The White Folks have not yet grasped that this could also happen to them.


Random word advice: Don't leave fingerprints and avoid security cameras.




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

FAT AND SASSY

One of the things I tend to observe upon leaving work and heading home is the buzzards (turkey vultures) circling over the salt flats, scoping out the smörgåsbord that undoubtedly lies far below, provided for nature's scrappy clean-up crew by a benevolent providence. Cadavers in many stages of decomposition and putrescence. Yummy!


One of these days I'll take a boat out there with a giant bottle of steak sauce.
Introduce the little fellows to the finer things in death.

The problem with a flat expanse of slick sticky mud is that one cannot really get a foot-hold. Hence the boat or skiff at high tide. Something tourists should do, instead of getting stuck, and their motel wondering a week later why they haven't seen Guido, Lucinda, and the little tykes Giorgio and Liliane in a while and how long do they have to wait before they sell the luggage along a street in the Tenderloin.

At least the swamp things appreciate tourism.
The rest of us are still on the fence.
Watchful and apprehensive.

European tourists tend to be adventurous. Most American tourists simply waddle a bit around Fisherman's Wharf or Union Square, then sink exhausted upon the nearest clean surface to swill thirty two ounces of ice tea. With six or seven extra packets of sugar.
"Why, Precious, nobody told me there where hills here!"

Grass-fed Europeans are in any case better than junkfood-fed Americans.
Less likely to lead to swamp thing gout or hardened arteries.



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

WORDS OF TRUTH

The other day someone called one of the gentlemen in the backroom a fascist. And I would agree. The fellow in question IS a fascist, and pretty damned reprehensible to boot. As well as a thoroughly loathsome cretin. The individual who correctly identifies fascist(s) is one of the few people in my work environment I respect and like.

I really wish the other one owned a cybertruck.


Of course Jeff, who was also present, spends most of his time vituperatively whining -- he is neither of the two people mentioned above, just a puffy loser married to an ultra-right wing harridan, he's so lucky to find someone nearly his age and his own speed -- and for all the world sounded like he would benefit from being savagely wipped.
Unfortunately I got rid of my riding crop years ago.
But I'm thinking of getting another one.

In case you were wondering the first one wasn't for the horses either.

Of course back then I did not know so many fascists.

In the last eight years they've really come out of their shells. They've left their basements, crawled out from underneath their rocks, been cut loose by their kinfolk, graduated from psychotherapy, stopped taking their medication, and, like Jeff, been divorced and gotten remarried to someone like the evil queen in Snow White. A strident virago.

People with shrunken souls also, apparently, need soulmates.


At least I'm mature enough to just leave it at a totally imaginary soulmate, who is a secular humanist, intelligent, liberal, reserved, and wears big spectacles.
She is happy to be around a pipesmoker.


If she really existed, she'd tell me to poison those people.



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

AVOID THE VEGANS; THEY TASTE OFF

Pork rice flour sheet noodle with cilantro (豬肉腸粉同芫茜 'chü yiuk cheung fan, tong yuen sai') is a great good that fills you with a warm feeling for up to an hour or so. And I'm very happy I live easy distance away from a place that makes it. It's an easy choice, an excellent lunch, with a nice smoke afterwards. I could tell that the tourist kiddiewinkies were drawing away from me revolted as they passed, because smoking, even a pipe, is evil, and I was probably totally radiating my happy non-vegan lifestyle. Loathsome brats.

Add sambal or hot sauce, plus peanut sauce. Quite divine.
I could ignore the passing judgemental children.

No rain, somewhat warmer than earlier this week.
No errands to run or necessary tasks.
I enjoyed the sunlight.


The world seemed very far away.

For the next few days I'll be subsisting on suburban kibble. Sadly, that convenience store caters primarily to people who purchase cheap ciggies, sixpacks, and lottery tickets. Their food selection is nightmarish, and very limited. So the necessary eating at work is strictly survival mode; keep the bloodsugar level up so that I don't snap someone's head off.

Sometimes my spirit animal is an alligator.

A frustrated angry beast.



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

TRAVEL WARNINGS

So far Britain, France, and Germany have issued alerts to their people that if they visit the United States they may be haphazardly detained by our brutal border fascists, and held in inhumane conditions for several days. Canada and Mexico already knew this, all of Latin America even more so, and China and India probably too.

See, our federal department of border fascists is staffed primarily by high school and college football schmucks from the interior states who have finally been let loose. Well nigh illiterate, brutal, and morally flawed. Like the entire Republican Party, particularly Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Or Minnesota politician Justin Eichorn.

Yeah, this is just an opinion. But an educated one. For your own sanity, don't come. Spend your Dinars, Euros, Francs, Yen, and Yuan elsewhere. Canada for instance, it's a lovely place, and what the United States could be if we were civilized.

You don't want to be held in our deportation facilities, primarily because in addition to the troglodytic guards, the conditions are the same as in our frightful metros.
Rats, filth, and insane people everywhere.

If, against all better judgement and well-meaning advice you do come, and get past the immigration thugs, do not visit Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The food is almost universally awful there, the Christian natives are largely closed-minded blithering illiterates and ignorant of everything outside the United States, far too many of them worship Trump as the be all and end all and think that what his henchsubhumans are doing is just fine and dandy.


You really don't need to see the largest ball of twine or the giant two-headed crawdaddy they found in the Buckaroo River. Go to Albania instead. They've got something similar, and the local people are friendlier and less violent.


And on the plus side, they also have one or two Chinese restaurants there, and probably know how to make a proper cup of tea.

Plus Wifi and penicillin in the cities.



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

EXTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

Wildfire seasons seems to start earlier every year now. It's probably due to climate change, which of course doesn't exist. In parts of the country like Texas and Oklahoma, where climate change doesn't exist, wildfires have been alternating with dust storms and bomb cylones, which also do not exist.

What is existence anyway? An illusion? A misinterpretation?

Does one have to "exist" to experience it?

One would think so.


Even here in the Bay Area, there have been small outbreaks. Wildfire, that is.

Just imagine, there you are driving through the howling wilderness of Tiburon, the dry wastelands of Mill Valley, or the desert tinderbox of Woodside, and you smell smoke.
Under the right conditions, everything goes up.

There are times when the mind on one tangent sees the flickering shadows of another tangent. Or thinks it smells something that isn't there. Hamburgers on a grill, the deepfat fryer, sausages with brown crusty bits. Mental bacon, the sparkling memory of something experienced years ago. Orange skies. Smoke clouds, a stick of incense that isn't there, smoldering at the edge of consciousness.

By the way: If you are a foreign scientist visiting the United States for a conference, get a burner phone and a brand-new laptop, because the authorities may search your devices for things like a belief in climate change or democracy and conclude that you are an enemy hellbent on destroying our society. Or even that you loathe Propaganda Barbie and her regular insane lying rants from the press briefing room.

You will be denied entry.


That's neither here nor there, of course. I don't know why I even mentioned it.
A mental blip. Happens a lot when you're older. Or read the news.


The chances of random foreign nationals disappearing, and subsequently ending up in El Salvador are, sadly, never zero anymore. It may become a burning issue.
Many things can burn. Existence is suffering, then you die.


I think after I do my laundry today I'll go down to Chinatown for some cheung fan and other snackie things. Plus a cup of hot milk tea somewhere.
Pipe and tobacco for afterwards.


Life is graphic. Life is art.




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

YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL

His girlfriend has six sisters, nine nephews and nieces, plus one brother (the youngest of the siblings, mid-twenties) and a cat. The cat appears to be well fed, judging by the photographs. The two youngest nephews, less than a year old, are rotund. Then he and Stephen segued into discussing leisi (利是), which, with that many recipients, becomes slightly problematic. But if like me, you are a Caucasian, then precisely like the polite notice for the respected uncles not to smoke a certain distance of the doorway, you won't understand that.

[各位叔叔們 門口16尺範圍 不准吸煙 'gok wai suk suk mun, mun hau sap lok chek faan wai, pat jeun gap yin'; "dear uncles, within sixteen feet of the doorway, smoking is not allowed".]

Hey man, I'm white. Nix farshtay, okay?

After which they talked about learning how to drive back when the world was young and all cars had stick shifts. And seldom caught fire. Because they were built tough.
I didn't mention that certain vehicles are exceptionally flammable.
They go up in flames almost at the drop of a hat.
Just not made like they used to.
Tssk, tssk.

Look, if you even so much as think of a bottle of gasoline with a rag or about flicking your lighter, mistakes are going to happen. It's simply a crappy motor car. Like it's made out of pressed cardboard or something.

There's a good reason why they didn't put an ashtray in there. Smoking is bad for you.
It interferes with your sex life.

Instead of an airbag, it has a hosebag.
Or maybe that's in addition to.


The cat is an orange tabby (橙色虎斑貓 'chaang sik fu baan maau'). Very pretty. But not as attractive as the silver grey youngster with thick slate grey striping I had seen outside a store earlier. Which looked almost like it had some panther or leopard in its genetic makeup, despite being geographically far distant from any 豹貓 or 雲豹 populations.
An immature beast, several months old.
And quite appealing.



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

IT'S A GOOBER WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT

Within minutes of getting home there was a region of sharp painful stinging in my right foot. An unusual sensation which did not endure, but resurfaces periodically. Something that's circulation related. My right leg has wanky veins, so it often acts like a Karen.
Fortunately that Karenitude ends at the hip.

Most days there are moments when that limb decides that it's just about had it with darn well everything and throws a tantrum. Most of the time it grumblingly goes along with whatever the rest of the body has decided to do.

I have learned not to castigate it in polite company.
Instead, I distract myself and count stuff.
It's almost obsessive.


This evening, while waiting for the bus, I mentioned to the bookseller that there are several things I count whenever I'm waiting for a bus. Waymo driverless taxis. Zoox. Street people. Dogs. Tykes. People whom I see regularly but don't actually know because I never see them except in connection with waiting for a bus or walking toward the bus stop. Plus goobers.

Many people severely on the neurotic spectrum (like myself) have routines that bring order into a chaotic universe. Counting goobers is just one of those. This city has surprisingly few truly prize goobers, we are mostly normal. So usually it doesn't get past two digits.
This evening the beer place and the karaoke joint were packed with goobers.
Too many goobers totally spoiling the collective broth.
Apparently there is a convention in town.


Tat Yee, we knew, was at the karaoke joint enjoying the company of many very unmusically talented white people, and the place looked like the seventh circle of hell. So we headed directly to the bail-out bar, having not even ventured into the beer place.

Over Guiness, Jameson's, and hot tea, we enjoyed the quiet.
Miss Vivien cleaned up while we chatted.
Then interacted with a dog.



How did we know that the karaoke joint was packed with squawling goobers?
Simple. We heard it from a block away while walking.
And we had seen Tat Yee outside.

When tiddly, he's a goober.



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

THE CHOLERA TIME

The country is going to hell in a handbasket, we're less free and safe today than we were ten weeks ago, Elon is petulantly whining about everyone being mean to him and Diaper Donny is threatening to fling wet pooh at random anybody (something he has been known for since kindergarten when he was mildly rebuked for strangling another infant in the bathroom), plus we have the biggest measles outbreak in years, and here I sit ghosting a precious pipe with a ghastly aromatic mixture. A truly regrettable product!

Something I mentioned yesterday. Bad decisions were made.
What on earth is wrong with me? Dammit.

I should be out there throwing bombs at the other side.
As should we all.

We are governed by incompetent egomaniacs.
Something Alabama et al voted for.
Bless their hearts.

The tobacco experts who whimsically decide to put out products that reek of bad peachy pie filling -- let's see if those morons will huff this crap -- are just as evil as the dingos who elect football coaches. Marginally more depraved. Football is the great American sport, after all, and leads people to religion. Frightful fruit, however, makes men sin.

Mmm, I'm in flavour country!

The badlands. Giant lizards are chanting 'America, America!' They snorted an entire can of instacoffee crystals and are out looking for blood. Fat Christian suburbanites from Texas are lined up ahead of me at the single slot machine. Karen is everywhere. They've dosed their brats with Vitamin A, codliver oil, and clonidine. It doesn't help; the little shits are out of control. America, America!

Perhaps, when you have a whorehouse reek going in your pipe, the rest of the country ain't that bad. So I'm actually enjoying this. It makes the red states and their inbred idiots marginally more bearable.

Bad decisions were made. We're proud of that.
I will smoke this around your children.
Juicy. Peach blossoms.



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

JOY, BUTTERFLIES, CHAI, PRECIPITATION

On Facebook you can watch videos of a Punjabi dancing bhangra in the snow of the Yukon. He asserts he's spreading joy and positivity, although I think that one of Gurdeep Pandher's motivations must be that it's an excellent way to keep warm while in the middle of the frozen wastes up there. For me if I were doing it, and let's ignore for a moment that the concept of me doing a happy dance is more than slightly berserk, that would be my only motivation, because spreading sweetness and light is not, strictly speaking, something for which I'm known. Especially in temperatures that require a throw rug, two blankets and a down comforter, plus stuffed critters. Possibly socks.

I'm much more likely to impart gloom and distemper as I whine about how it's so buggery cold what is this world coming to back in my day and good grief I am thoroughly fed up with winter and blasted rain and cold and everything outside smells like garbage.

They say that complaining has no use. Nonsense!
It makes me feel bettter. That's good.
Spread the grumble!


The heat from the sun during the day causes evaporation and rising air currents, and clouds will form. Then eventually everything that went upwards comes down again.

I refuse to believe that there are vast dark clouds of mud over Texas influencing their recent weather but I may be wrong. Perhaps the dust storms are to celebrate the great victory of the orange man over climate change, perhaps continuing giddiness over the election.
For Texans, anything is possible.

In the picture above we see big rigs in their native habitat.
It's a family cluster. Mah, Pah, and the kids.
They're displaying their plumage.
Colourful headcrests.

Apparently, some parts of Texas will hit nearly ninety degrees today. Significantly more than here in San Francisco where we'll dig out from the snowbanks and scurry about shivering in our dead beaver pelts. Food! Candles! Jerry cans of heating oil! Minke whales! And fatty herring plus eels!

And, up in the Yukon, Gurdeep Singh Pandher will dance.
Wearing two or three wool sweaters and a coat.
In deep snow. Spring is coming!
He's got mittens!



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

COLDER AT TWILIGHT

The last jaunt with a pipe was at twilight, when the temperature had gone down considerably. With my circulation, considerably really means three degrees or more. Fifty six Fahrenheit is bearable. Fifty two feels frigid. Anything less than fifty and I shall hesitate to venture out.
So it was probably a good thing that it was a short bowl.

Four layers under my coat. It still felt horrible.

But the sky was several lovely hues.

Spring is still distant.


Dinner had been stirfried rice stick with juicy meat bits and asparagus, touches of stinky shrimp paste and chili sauce. Plus ginger. Cantonese in inspiration (蝦醬肉筍炒米粉 'haa jeung yiuk seun caau mai fan') but not necessarily execution.
Followed by a cup of strong milk tea.
Then a smoke.

Because of the chill breeze I did not wander particularly far. No inclination to stray any further than necessary. Also, what with it being Saint Patrick's Day, I did not wish to be misidentified as a cute Irish elf or leprechaun. I am not particularly tall, and seeing me with a pipe does goofy things to drunks.

There are too many bars catering to wanna-be-Irishes in this city.
Not nearly enough places wich offer a cup of good tea.
And shrubberies are quite unavailable.
What sad times are these!


Dang it's cold.



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