THE FIRE WITHIN

The same couple got on the bus on the return journey as had been passengers earlier. They were speaking something European -- too indistinct to tell what language -- and the woman had a distinct Wenzhou look to her. Small, petite. There are more Wenzhouese in much of trans-Netherlandish Europe than Cantonese or others. Hence my surmise.

Where they had gotten off, a middle-aged Chinese couple had gotten on, with their college age daughter. A delicate bug-like young lady with brightly inquisitive bespacled eyes, dental braces, and an intelligent likeable look to her. Quite appealing looking. So naturally I didn't speak to them at all. My Mandarin is that limited that I have nothing interesting to say, and wouldn't say it well in any case.

When given a choice between creating a poor impression and creating no impression at all, go for the latter. It is by far a wiser decision. Just trust me on this.
Ignore the irritating daemon of curiosity within.
Perhaps look out of the window.
Ooh, scenery!

After all, if you're going to make a fool of youself, you can always do so in English. It's the universal language of idiocy. They even have parliamentary debates in that language.
In many places. Not just the United States and Great Britain.
You'd think they'd know better.

Lunch, when I finally got home, was curried eggplant rice stick noodles with various meaty bits and two kinds of hot chilipaste. I had decided to not go across the hill to Chinatown for eaties, seeing as I had become too peckish, and needed to clean up what I had knocked over on the way out in the morning.

It was too spicy.

And in all honesty, I hate taking the bus back during rush hour, for obvious reasons (all of you dress goofy, smell bad, and eat too much). So I'll head down later for a walk with my pipe when the crush dies down.

I'll fix myself a cup of tea before leaving.



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NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH HEATWAVE!

It is hovering around one hundred and fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Spain. Here in San Francisco, California, a formerly Spanish territory, the temperature is roughtly fifty two degrees. The perfect response in either place is a refreshing cup of tea. In Spain, it's British tourists who will gratefully drink that. Here, that would be nasty Dutch Americans.
Many of them with a pipeful of flue-cured leaf. Smidge of Perique.
There aren't very many nasty Dutch Americans here.
Actually, only one that I can think of.
My social life is limited.
How sad.


One hundred and fifteen degrees. Beastly.


It's important to eat sensibly when the weather acts up like that. Avoid the overly spicy dishes like devil's curry and vindalou à la Birmingham (Montezuma's Revenge), mushy peas as well as black beans in your burrito (dangerous nightime gasses that hit your noise spot on if you don't have your nether region poking out from the down comforter), overmuch ice cream (more gasses, like an Iowa pig farm), too much ice in your beer (athletic German macho behaviour in the hotel pool), or buckets of sweetened ice tea (hepped to the gills MAGA opinions that make you sound stupid).

And stay away from the seaside. Too many Northern Europeans.

My neighborhood was covered in fog when I stepped out to do the rounds with my pipe. Cold too. No one was wearing shorts while walking their dogs, although I did see one person with flannel jammies and a fluffy bathrobe. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the long scarf wrapped around their head, and the sunglasses. Which were not needed at seven in the morning, before the fog lifted.

Red Virginia tobacco with that smidge of Perique I mentioned is probably one of the best ways to face a horrid Spanish heatwave on the other side of the world, where it's nine hours different and a working air conditioning hotel unit in your hotel room is essential to a restful siesta. Otherwise you might have a stroke or bloodclot while you doze. They'll have to break down the door to find your fresh corpse being fed upon by the hyenas and buzzards that roam the urban areas of Iberia. Lizards and carrion eating water monitors. Irish.

The sounds of ABBA are coming from the nightclub downstairs.
Everything smells like sardines in rancid olive oil.


Perhaps you should have gone to the west coast of Scotland during your summer holiday instead. Low to mid sixties (around twenty degrees Celsius), there's a good chance of rain, no German tourists, and no one running the charming bed and breakfast out on the moors has even heard of Abba.
The tea is quite drinkable, the vindaloo has been toned down because the locals severely disapprove of tropic excess, and they'll offer you haggis but not force you to partake.

Why, it's just like San Francisco. Except we have no rain or haggis.
Our tea is also perfectly drinkable. If you can find it.
Abba is rare, and rather disapproved of.
We like people who talk funny.



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THE SPENT DAY

There is a thumping in this neighborhood; somebody is celebrating their gay pride with mindless techo-beats. They're probably doing it indoors, nearby, because it's densely foggy outside, with a chill wind. The temperature is probably around fifty three degrees Fahrenheit. Even if they're dancing, it's cold. When I returned home the hill line heading south toward the bridge, the structure itself, and the entire Presidio area, were fogged-in. I didn't admire it that much because my right leg was throbbing and twitching, but it was never-the-less beautiful. My legs are sightless, and have minds of their own.
Distinctly nasty minds. Venomous.
Especially the right one.


That's two-and-a-half hours after I take the amlodipine besylate. Which I time precisely so. That way I'm still a fairly pleasant sweet-tempered old coot when I leave work, and right when the bus heads into downtown Sausalito, I start turning into a pumpkin.

By around nine o'clock, nine fifteen, I'm human again.
Partly because of a cup of coffee.

Might be time for another pipeful.

Late afternoon Joe came in. He has two pipes he recently acquired: a rather nice Dunhill shellbriar apple, and a big full bent Sasieni ruff-root, probably pretransition. He, and Timothy O. who likes short Fuente cigars, were bits of brightness in an otherwise unremarkable day. There's just something exceptionally nice about thoughtful fellow smokers with keen minds and intelligent conversation. Which is something the old rightwing fratboys in the backroom lack entirely. Given that Burrito Man insisted on having the soccer match between Canada and Guatemala on the boob and most of them had no clue what was taking place before their eyes, they didn't know what to say. They went ahead and said it badly anyway.

Having other things to occupy my time, I didn't watch the game. Which did not interest me in the slightest. But I still heard plenty of stupid comments and gut-wrenchingly crude outbursts. I should point out that they're at that stage when simply dealing with a full bladder might take more than five minutes (Jeff), during which they will mumble and cuss.

So sometimes I hear "language" both from the backroom, AND the toilet.


The other day, hoping to cancel the bad vibes originating with the Irishman -- a remarkably rightwing troglodyte -- I found an Erse-Gaelic version of the Internationale on youtube. Bad move. It sounded like a bloody funeral dirge. I thought those people were supposed to be happy drunks, idiots, thugs, and revolutionaries. I was severely let down.

The Cantonese version sounds like they would happily punch you in the gut.
Much better. Absolutely.



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THERE ARE LIMITS

Yesterday morning when the bus pulled into the transit centre there was a dense pillow of fog over Marin City. In the evening, upon returning to the city, the bridge was invisible grey, the Presidio ghostly, gothic, and my own neighborhood was dense with fog further up hill. As if an amorphous blob was eating away at existence. Last smoke of the day was in a grey zone. So I'm kind of wondering how the gay young men are going to prance down Market Street in the nearly nude today at the parade. It might hit sixty degrees Fahrenheit or so.
A temperature not quite conducive to near-nudity.
Even with fluffy feathers.

I suspect Pride might be a bit chilly this year.
Or best in sweaters and fur.
Happy socks.

One other thought that comes to mind: there will be more straight people in the gay pride parade than showed up for the "Hetero Awesome Festival" celebration in Boise, Idaho, on June 20 to 21. Which was approximately fifty.

They probably came to gawk.
Not participate.

There will probably also be more straight people attending the Folsom Street Fair later in the summer too. Maybe not the Up Your Alley Fair, a leather and fetish festival in Dore Alley. We once handed out pamphlets and promo literature for the cause at the Folsom Street event, during which I wondered where those naked men would put it -- ooh! Papercuts in sensitive places -- but Dore Alley, that was never a possibility. Folsom Street is a wholesome family celebration by comparison. Dore Alley, mmm, not so much. Hardly. Not even.

Perhaps the awesome heterosexuals in Boise Idaho should organize a similar event.
Idaho needs to have their eyes opened to a world of possibilities.
Oh, it will be so splendid. And very festive.
Plus delightfully hurty!



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WARMTH AND SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT

It's a pity that turkey vultures cannot read. If they could, I would hold up a sign when I'm waiting for the bus back to the city saying that they should come with me, and when we get home, I would give them cups of tea and plates of buttered toast. Because though I enjoy watching them soar over the freeway, I know it's a hard life. With perfectly rotten rewards. Especially when it isn't warm in the evenings, and cold winds are blowing.

Yes, there is always the hope that some putz driving a cybertruck will crash and burn, but escape the vehicle before collapsing -- mm, nice fresh fatty suburban meat, still pink at the centre -- but realistically all they probably get are the deceased seagulls tossed overboard from the houseboats moored north of Sausalito.

That's not a diet for a bright young carrion eater.
No one really thrives on that.
It's un-American.


And, if I brought them home, they'd help guard this neighborhood from bums, drug addicts, and College Republicans. As well as other dubious untrustworthy types.

I'm fairly certain that they would like tea and toast.
So comforting when it's cold and blustery.

After listening to the folks in the backroom for several hours the company of turkey vultures, even though they probably have bad breath, seems strangely appealing.

And something tells me that they're not alcoholics.


Aeronautically elegant muppets.



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EGGPLANT FOR KINGS

As a warmly self-appreciated part of my neurotic personallity, I pick the pipes I am going to smoke often a few days in advance. The pipes for Saturday are a Royal Dutch oval-shanked Dublin, a Dunhill stubby hallmark-banded shellbriar billiard, a Charatan Prince-shape from the tail-end of the fifties, and a Sunrise Apple by Comoy. Oh boy. I'm looking forward.

Today's smokers are a Charatan black sandblast Canadian, A Dunhill shellbriar bent bull, a Dunhill Bruyere Dublin, and a Peterson pot which I refinished.

[Naturally I shall be the first in the building and the last to leave today. Because I hate rushing about and stumbling, unlike my coworkers. Bus schedules and pre-planning are key.]

Similarly I have pipes I prefer for other times of the week, after lunching at certain regular places. Food is, however, not decided upon in advance. I might have anything. Dishes that are new and interesting, old favourites, and things that strike my fancy a few hours beforehand or right before placing my order.


The most enjoyable lunch recently was salt fish and eggplant with rice ( (鹹魚茄子飯 'haam yü ke ji faan') and sambal, earlier this week. It was delicious, and the place was quieter at that time, it being late in the afternoon, near their closing time.
Peaceful. Comfortable.

It's a classic Cantonese home-style dish. Not ultra-refined, but comforting and tasty. Not something many Anglos will go for, but a nice overlap with Mediterranean ideas (eggplant) and coastal Northern European (salty and savoury parts). Think surströmming, gerookte paling, stokvis, lutefisk, smoked trout, bacalhau, and fishy things of that ilk.

If you're planning to make this at home, use fermented salt fish (梅香鹹魚 'mui heung haam yü') for the best results. Plus shredded ginger and a little chopped garlic.

A little chopped scallion for garnish is excellent.



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BERSERKITY -- OR, THE COMMENT UNIVERSE

Public figures and people who do not have their security set at maximum often get raving nutballs commenting on their social media posts. Whereas a man like myself sees that rarely. And the obvious luncheon meat or werewolf mouthfoaming will never be approved anyway. That said, some of my internet associates may not see things entirely from the same perspective. Rose-coloured glasses. Or blinkers.


Underneath a recent post, Backwoods Israeli wrote:
Well-said. Can't say I'm too mad about the United States stepping in this way...but then, my city's hospital was the target of a ballistic missile from Iran. Not too many of us here in Beersheva are feeling sentimental about the United States dropping a few bunker busters.


He's a person I know relatively well, I think. Probably the fellow who over a decade ago was angry about an essay I wrote involving turkeys, butter, and stuffing.
It was a recipe he could under no circumstances follow.
Non-kosher to the umpth degree in yedn gefal.

After all this time I'm sure he's become used to my treif posting, and I'm happy that he still occasionally reads me when I'm foaming at the pen.

Then there's a person who appells himself "Playscript", who directs my attention to a teaching assistant (Emma) with a cigar habit. It's a hot humid day in her classroom.


I'm fairly certain I know who that commenter is. A man with an unbridled fondness for the shir ha shirim (asher li Shlomo), with training in the scribal arts, and an attention to details. Resident of the Ir Ha Kodesh last I heard.

His methodology for acquiring critical thinking skills seems to involve drams of single malt Scotch paired with Dominican Cigars. It is broad-minded and multicultural. Sadly, I cannot say that I have observed that locally in any way. Most habitual cigar smokers I know tend to have a stick up their backdoor wedging the window firmly shut so that no new ideas may enter and the dog is trapped inside, chewing on soiled kitchen towels.

One only has to look at the State of Florida to see that.

Once it was a tropic wonderland with happy alligators gamboling care-free in the morning sunlight, but since those Cuban exiles took over it is filled with Burmese Pythons, fundamentalist religious nuts, gun-toting rednecks, and Ron De Santis.

Malaria, dengue, zika, measles, rabies, and syph.
Faith healers and used car salesmen.
Plus skin ailments.



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LIKE SIBERIA WITH BETTER WEATHER

Whenever I head to Marin for work it's with the grim awareness that lunch will be miserable. Contrasted with my days off on the edges of Chinatown. Chinatown is the warm embrace of a community of people who like to eat and know food. Whereas Marin is the distasteful touch of unfriendly folks who don't appreciate or know food and have grown pudgily complacent eating tasteless muck. The nearest edibles available at work are fast food places and a corner store that happily sells moldy stuff and then acts baffled if you complain.
Driving distance is pizza, fake Chinese, and one decent Mexican.
One. Closed on Sunday.

Now, you could argue "why don't you bring your own?" Which is valid, but the reaction from coworkers and others was minor distaste and curiosity how I could eat that stuff. That being rice with bittermelon and pork (涼瓜豬肉飯 'leung gwaa chü yiuk faan'), or long beans plus chilies and fish (sambal goreng katjang pandjang), or fried rice stick noodles with fatty pork and stalky mustard plus chilipaste. And once a Vietnamese sandwich.

"Why don't you bring your own?"

Please tell me how I could shlep this over there.
This being the item below.

That is chicken and Chinese sausage claypot rice. Chili paste on the side, not pictured. Pour soy sauce down the sides to sizzle. A veritable feast. Which convenience store pizza is not.

Most people in Marin wouldn't know a claypot (煲仔 'pou jai') if it came up and bit them.


Fortunately, this Saturday I'm working with burrito man. So lunch will be excellent. With a little luck the rightwing morons in the backroom will have sputtered so much on Friday that only one or two of them will be there at that time, and I won't have to listen to a tidal wave of vituperation about liberals or a 1812 Overture of ignorance.

Actually it's not even that good. Think instead of the music for Jaws, or a cataclysmic torrent flooding the canyons after a surprise downpour. A storm in the ocean, with tentacled beasts crashing around and ships sinking.


The place with the most extensive selection of claypot rice is in the part of Chinatown where tourist never go. Small, gemütlich, and rather unassuming looking from the street.
They even have frog and yellow eel (monopterus albus, 黃鱔 'wong sin').
It's an entire world away from Marin.


Lunch today will be good.



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A HORDE THING

At teatime both of the gentlemen showed up. They had taken their brain pills for a change, and made complete sense. Or maybe that was just me. Sometimes my horridness takes a back seat and I actually cut people some slack. Which is unusual. As a Dutchman, I am always right. You should know that. We Dutch will often patiently explain to other people that we are right, exactly how and why, and if need be we will patiently take the time to do that. Hours. Patiently.

By the time they got there I had already finished an egg tart and was halfway through my milk tea. And I had packed my pipe preparatory to going outside later and wading through masses of slowly dithering tourists, because school is out and both Americans and Europeans like to fustercludge for selfies or to gawk.

This is California. We don't deal well with Americans or Europeans.
And it is blustery and these shopping bags are heavy.
For the love of Chrysler, go away.


But it isn't just the younger crowd in town. It's Pride Month, the parade is coming up, and parents are visiting and coming to terms with the fact that their pride and joy is happily living with an erudite black dominant who has excellent taste, on Russian Hill. They are in awe.
Yes, they feel somewhat lost, and at a loss for words, but they are in awe.
Sonny boy won the lottery in life.

That, more or less, is what was going on at the far table. Which gradually became clear. After I licked the last crumbs of the delicious egg tart from my fingers and was filling my pipe.
I don't think they're at the stage where they'll hug him yet.
But they'll get there.


It could be worse. Their daughter might be living with a snooty Dutch American pipesmoker with intellectual pretensions on Nob Hill, and feeding them salt fish and chilipaste, and other unmentionable substances.

Which I would probably do, if I were attached.
It's salt fish and chilipaste pride.
Every single month.



After dawdling over tea for an hour, I left and lit up. Humongous clusters of people in one of the alleys. Many groups of them with cameras further on. A huge mass of them passing the bus stop where I ended up. A jam-packed bus with spatially unaware beings crossing the hill. And at last, freedom! The wide open range, endless vistas of bare pavement, it still being too early for locals to come home and walk the dog.

Finished smoking the pipe on the back stairs.
It's outside. But enclosed and wind free.
Quiet back there. Private.



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CAFFEINE-JACKED NASTY MAN

This may be one of the coldest Junes that I've experienced. How nice that elsewhere it is unseasonably warm. While I dislike being cold, I detest heat. My legs become unbearable partes inferiores and I can scarcely move under those conditions, and I fervently wish that upon all the red states, where in some areas loyal Trump voters having been waiting for months for disaster aid which has been delayed. And delayed. And delayed.

Yes of course they should build an alligator Alcatraz at top speed with that money. We'll need some place to stow the Republican traitors when sanity returns. Some place hot and humid.

By the way: we aren't much bothered by mosquitoes here. I understand they are constant companions to sleeping Repubs, yes? Perhaps because of that thick bacon-rich blood.


In another two hours or so I'll go get something fried for lunch. Seems appropriate in this cold weather. After my return last night it slightly rained. And it was somewhat foggish. Not sure, but I believe a herd of musk oxen trudged past the building.

Smoking the second pipe of the day right now.
It smells like ... victory.

David has responded to my note. He's organizing my mother's old classmate's papers for eventual publishing and or librarying at the university where he taught. Poems, translations from mediaeval French, philosophy and art writings, correspondence with French and Italian men of letters. As a complete illiterate I would be of no earthly use in that project; I only look intellectual because I smoke a pipe. All I could add is that he liked Dutch gin -- Oude Genever, pot-still produced -- and must have had a hard time finding it upstate.

[By the way: quite inconsequential to anything at all, if you enjoy good Virginia mixtures and flakes you can smoke the same pipe two times in a day or two, but then it does need to rest for a day or two afterwards. Which means at around three bowls a day you will need at least six or seven briars in your rotation. Aficionados of English / Balkan blends will need nearly twice that number at least, as will puffers of clean Burley blends. Smokers of aromatics will need a good therapist. Probably because of their dysfunctional family and several unresolved issues.]

There are birds apathetically chirping outside. And, for some reason I cannot fathom, I am wondering when the last time was that I saw a bat in this neighborhood. There used to be a small roost of them in the narrow space between the building opposite. Perhaps we don't have enough bugs here to feed the flittermice. It's not humid enough.

Bats might be the only reason to visit the red states.
They're probably chock full of them.


No genever there.




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AMONG THE WEREWOLVES

My usual spot was taken. A homeless person slumped there, half awake, mumbling, and occasionally bellowing. Imagine hearing the wild elephants across the muddy tropic estuary. Precisely so. But not quite as loud. Boys, I think this intersection is haunted and I can hear daemons, let us go elsewhere. Quite a slice of local colour for the tourist families that wandered past. Probably added a special quality to their American trip.
They'll never come here again.

San Francisco aims to permanently impress itself on your memories. Somewhere between traumatized for life and permanently scarred. Hearing things out of the corner of your ear.

They had already passed the karaoke bar where innocent souls were being tormented.
But by returning to their hotel early, they were assured of breakfast.
Get up too late, and the good stuff is all gone.
Nothing left but toaster strudel.
And boxed donuts.


Despite there being no very great shakes to breakfast in San Francisco -- just regular greasy Midwestern morning muck, pastries, and fancy schmanzy new age cuisine at fifty dollars plus per plate -- we're great when it comes to non-Anglo stuff as a wake-me-up. Best burritos in the country, plus darn good sushi, some excellent Italian food and pizza (often cooked by Mexicans), and Chinese food out the wazzoo.

You want curry and naan to start the day? We can do that!
Noodle soup with pork meatballs also.
Strong real coffee.

If course, because of the chill wind and moisture in the air in the evening most restaurants close by nine. Nothing but coke fiends and stoners staggering in after that time. Real San Franciscons will go have a late night burger or a burrito if they're peckish. Perhaps in some areas you can find a bacon-wrapped hot dog with grilled onions, salsa, and chiles en escabeche.

Sadly, we don't have a Waffle House in San Francisco, and this isn't new York where you can get "real" Chinese food at four in the morning. You know, kung pao, general Tzo's, ehrliche egg rolls (crunchy, chewy, brown), and echte emmese duck sauce.

What I had for lunch earlier was salted fish and eggplant over rice (鹹魚茄子飯 'haam yü ke ji faan') at a chachanteng. With lots of sambal, and a cup of milk tea.
Which isn't Hunanese or Szechuan at all!

My friend the bookseller often doesn't have real food till he gets out in the evening on pub crawl night, and we end up at the burger place. I had already finished my pipe by the time he arrived, and we passed the karaoke bar where lost souls where howling, deciding that it would be off the agenda later. A wise choice.

Louder and more tormented when we passed by again.
Something meaningful, possibly with banjos.


We remembered disappeared business along Grant Avenue on the way to the bus stop.
Bank branches duplicated barely a block from each other.
Things gradually changed.



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BLOBS OF NEUROSIS

When I woke up it was still dark out, but I could hear noises from the street. So I went out for a quick puff -- half a bowl which I let go out -- ascertained that it was a neighbor getting into their car and warming it up before driving off to work, then decided that I should go back to bed for another hour or two.

Today necessarily will be more productive and action-packed than yesterday. Yesterday was vegetating after my workweek, and the sheer joy-filled excitement of babysitting the rancid old rightwingers in the backroom. And their hate-filled gibbering. Something which I sadly am reasonably good at. I have noticed that an old friend and fellow pipe-maven no longer comes around on Sundays because he really can't stand them and their bleating anymore. I don't blame him. If I did not have to be there I wouldn't show up during their spit-fests either.

Late yesterday afternoon I left the apartment to go have a late lunch in Chinatown. Freshly steamed rice sheet noodle with pork liver bits and cilantro;豬肝腸粉、芫茜 'ju gon cheung fan, yuen sai'), which is not listed on the English language menu because, well, you know, white people. With squirts of Sriracha and peanut sauce. Then wandered around for a while afterwards while enjoying the first smoke in a pipe I had recently acquired. An item made in Holland by a company which before the pandemic was quite active, but which now seems to be comatose or defunct. The pipe may be a decade old, or it could be over forty years.
Don't know. I've done my research and came up dry.

For some reason, which is very probably blood pressure meds related, I am far less achy and petulant in the mornings. And also better able to tolerate the weather in this city.
It was around fifty degrees before dawn. Quite nice. Sort of. Very bearable.

By evening, I shall be a whiny old fart. Why is it so damned cold?!?
Snow weasels! That's what it is, snow weasels!
Darned Republicans.


According to the internet, it is presently 52°F and cloudy. Which is positively tropical.
We should probably expect rioting in the streets and hippie nudity.
It's disgusting, tell you what.


On the menu today: correspondence with a long-time friend of one of my mother's Berkeley classmates, laundry, purchasing ciggies in Chinatown (五葉神煙仔 'ng yip san yin jai') for that occasional sinful indulgence, late lunch at a place where the waitress keeps telling me that smoking is unhealthy and expensive (hah!), then nightime activities involving a pipe, tea, horrid singing, and basketball.



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MEMORY TOOL

It happens four or five times a week: someone tells me "your pipe reminds me of my grandfather". Then they get a dreamy look on their face, remembering the old man they haven't seen in years. And, like a gentleman, I refrain from asking "did he die alone on the dilapidated porch of a retirement home run by nurse Ratchett, because he was too far away to visit more than twice a year, and no one thought to check on the old geezer consigned to the howling winds outside with his pipe?" Because, of course, smoking is so not done, and we must protect those old addicts from themselves by driving them out into the rainstorm.
So that they are depressed and gloomy, and might stop; smoking is bad.

Naturally I would much rather remind them of the trim young tweedy student at Harvard who tutored them in Latin and algebra. Which not only paid for his sherry, but also expanded his dating pool enormously (cherry-pick the brightest ones to take out to dinner), and gave him a more vibrant social life.
Then they mention some horrible fruity pipe muck from the dark ages (Maddlethorpe's Cherry Custard Sunrise, "what all fine gentlemen smoke", 1950's), and the mood is ruined.

[Words of advice: some tobaccos recall J.R.R. Tolkien and Bertrand Russell (Virginia flakes, Like Capstan). Others call up images of Clark Gable and William Faulkner (English/Balkans such as MM Dunhill 965 and Marcovitch). And there's also what Old Dingus huffed, wearing bib overalls on his tractor out doing the back forty, and everybody wishes that the sour old bastard would die soon so that they can sell the property (those are usually crap, like drugstore Burley blends, Rum & Maple, and Sugar Barrel). Soggy aromatics are grandpa with no tastebuds left, and the rancid perverts with Hawaiian shirts and gold chains, okay?]

If I remind you of that college man, I shall buy you tea and puff at you.

Back when I was a teenager thoroughly enjoying bold Latakia blends, crusty old farts would put their arm avuncularly over my shoulder in cafés, bars and tea shops, and inform me in a voice that promised great wisdom and deep secrets "ya know, sonny, if you smoked someting sweet like Mango Melba Stormcloud, you might actually have friends!" Gee thanks, wise older man, I never knew that. Mango Melba Stormcloud, made by Theodorus Niemeyer B.V. in Groningen, Netherlands. Where friends come from. I didn't enjoy fruity crap.
Or seek to win friends and influence people by smoking a pipe.


This morning I woke up shortly after six. Habit. While outside with my tobacco a woman glowered at me as she passed. The two phrases that are the most useless and irritating, especially when speaking to women, are "calm down" and "(you should) smile!"


She would probably have more friends if she smoked.
Might I suggest something like Capstan?
A fine medium flake.



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WITH ALL DUE RESPECT

In 1983 Iran killed 241 Americans in Beirut. They've waged war on the United States for over four decades. Forgive me, but I cannot see much of a downside to kicking them in the balls. To coin a phrase, this is just continuing "negotiation" through less than diplomatic methods.

There was also the 1994 bombing of a social centre in Argentina. Which killed 85 people. Two years after Iran had had an embassy bombed, killing twenty nine.

Yes, I realize that there are protests in several foreign countries. I would advise those people to just ignore what's going on, because it's what they do best.


Iran had it coming. For a whole variety of reasons.


And I don't care particularly that Netanyahu's lies got things to this state. He's been saying that Iran was weeks away from having a nuclear bomb for twenty years now. Nor shall I complain that we had a perfectly good arrangement with Iran that they would abstain from certain behaviours till Trump nixed it. That's immaterial, and incorrect in any case.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, Bernie Sanders and AOC should take a break. Bernie effectively gave us Trump in 2016, and AOC's inflamed rhetoric has not been helpful. Ever.

Now, it seems that folks in Karachi, Dhaka, and Manila are righteously livid. Poor dears. Might I suggest that they go intercourse themselves? It could prove therapeutic.




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THE KINGDOM OF CHAGAS

Yesterday someone whose eye and judgement I value complimented me on my foggy paintings. Which is a bit of a 'kick' I've been on, off and on, for a while now. After all I live in San Francisco (famous for fog), and spent my youth in the Kempen region of North Brabant, which is also a foggy place. Fog is it. And in Summer, fog is cool. Yesterday evening while cleaning up outside I realized that it was considerably warmer than it should have been. Which I couldn't feel very well, but it made me intensely uncomfortable while I worked. Circulatory issues. Especially in the lower extremeties. My legs were angry.

From Facebook comes the reminder that in the South, evenings at this time of year are a slice of hell. Too hot. Too humid. Too many mosquitoes. Bugs. Nightmarish sleeping circumstances. Grits get everywhere. That ever-present ice-tea. Diabetes.
Plus kissing bugs (triatominae), commonly kept as pets.

Yes thank you, if you live there, do not expect a visit from me anytime soon.
Or even ever, actually. That ice-tea sounds rather unhealthy.
Don't need any Dapper Dan Hair Cream.

I am a fastidious man. Consequently I shall leave everything south of the civilized world to Jay Dot Dee and his trad wife. They stay out of our world, we won't comment on their peculiar lifestyle. Okay?

And please cut out that infernal banjo music.

The deer, the elk, the alligators and pythons, two toed carnivores and moon-eyed people. Skinned Tom, people living under the floor boars, and entire families with syphilis.

And, to cap it off, oh horrors, the State of Texas.
They've got grits there too.
It's a plague.



Grits. Everywhere.
The evil.



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THE REPULSIVES

After the retired judicial branch member's rant on Friday I've concluded that he and his ilk are not worth speaking with. They are repulsive. He's an odious slug. Full blown Magat with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The kind of thing you find slithering under a rock.

So I'm glad I do not need to associate with those people outside of work.

Though I'd gladly be in the firing squad when they're executed.

No, we're not all in this together, and it really doesn't take all kinds. There are several we can well do without, and the world will be a better place with them plowed under.
Some Trump supporters are wilfully ignorant and blinkered.
Many of them are utterly repulsive.

All of them are rotten.

Look, they voted for a felon, a conman with no ethical sense running what is indisputably a racket, and a grifter no one trusts. With a history of screwing-over his associates, dumbass supporters, and companies that do business with him.

You want to buy a steak? An autographed bible? A "gold" watch?

Trump bumper stickers, Trump flags, Trump hats, Trump hoodies, Trump T-shirts?


Today's Republican Party thrives on suckers.
The Red States are filled with them.
Ignorant and stupid.



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A BIG BALL OF FIRE

In another victory for Elon Musk, his giant phallus in the Texas dessert blew up. Proving that America's favourite apartheid neo-nazi still has something. Reports are that Pedo Donny is jealous, because it took all the attention away from him, and unleashed an outpouring of weeping sympathy from all the Maganuts. Oh, the humanity!

They had no such sympathy at all when he had the worst parade ever.

It looks like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin still throw far better stomping jackboot parties than Donny Depends. Hands down, no contest. They are masters of the art. Sad.

And Elon's exploding male package was HUUGE!
It was probably the best rocket explosion ever.
Especially in a week of tiny hand parades.

Yeah, initially I was rather disappointed that the chuckleheads in the backroom didn't watch that stupid parade last Saturday, now I'm glad, because it would have been intensely dull.
Far more so than the golf they had on, or watching paint dry.

When rightwingers get bored they start talking.
That's never a good idea.

Gee Donny, don't you wish your rocket could explode like that? People would talk about it for days. Instead of that sadly ridiculous parade. And the HUUGE numbers of people who had something better to do than attend, or watch, or throw bags of faeces.

That parade was pathetic. You know that, right?
But man oh man, that explosion!
HUUGE!



We can understand why you left the G7 meeting early. They probably couldn't stop talking about your silly little parade. Or making jokes about it. And who could blame them?

Sacré bleu, as-tu déjà vu quelque chose d'aussi extrêmement ridicule?




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THE BOMBER

It's been a while since I drove around the East Bay Hills, and a friend's recent post reminded me of that. Looking at one of my pipes brought back memories of a woman I knew back then who had a thing for bankers, and eventually married one. I am, as you probably know, not a banker. I still have that pipe, but I haven't owned a motor car in many years.

The woman with a thing for bankers lived in the Los Angeles area.
Where I haven't been for a long time either.
Despite being born there.

I miss driving in the Oakland and Berkeley hills.


It turned out that my father enjoyed driving those same undulating roads back when he was in college. Some of his friends had lived up there, and for a period after the apartment on the corner of Telegraph Avenue he had a small cottage up there.

Whenever he went back to the Los Angeles area to see my grandmother he'd purchase pipe tobacco at the place in Beverly Hills which had the blend he liked.
Eventually she purchased a house in Berkeley, and after a number of years he augmented his bomber pilot experience by getting an aeronautical engineering degree and moving down to Los Angeles, which meant he had to visit the Bay Area again fairly regularly.
Which explains him meeting my mother. A post-grad at Berkeley.
Who didn't mind his pipe too much.

And, several years after that I flipped my car going over eighty miles per hour on a dirt road in the East Bay hills. When it stopped moving, my pipe was still in my mouth, and smoking perfectly, and everything was upside-down. Not a scratch on me, but the vehicle (Honda Civic) was kind of very much the worse for the experience.

No alcohol was involved.

All this sort of explains the pipesmoking, the lack of a car, and many of my Berkeley years. Plus my enduring affection for caffeine, nicotine, and highly refined sugar.
Plus the surfeit of books in my apartment, I guess.
Languages, anthropology, culinaria.
Odd bits of literature.


No car. You don't want me driving.



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CONVERSATIONAL FOG TEA TIME

Russell was at the bakery yesterday, for the first time in months. Apparently he's had a valve fixed. The two other gentlemen also showed up, and the three of them spent half an hour plus talking about food. Which is not surprising. Cantonese gentlemen. In the centre of Chinatown. At a food place. Surrounded mostly be other Cantonese wishing to snack.

The average Cantonese person has only three subjects that must be discussed endlessly: food, mahjong, and Hegelian dialectic. Plus Hello Kitty. Four subjects. And medical issues. Five. As well as Mexican restaurants that used to be out near the beach. Among the six subjects.... Plus Raleigh cigarettes. Seven.

Back when one of them owned a drugstore in the Financial District, he sold a tonne of Raleigh cigarettes. There were those coupons. Were they still around? No, sadly that brand was discontinued back in 2014, because of declining sales. America has changed.
Many once-popular brands have fallen by the wayside.
Youngsters these days, you know.

Chesterfield, the excellent cigarette brand favoured by both Humphrey Bogart (famous Dutch American) and Ronald Reagan (nicknamed 'Dutch') still exists, fortunately, and is preferred by many famous people. A wise choice.

Ox tails, chicken feet, spareribs, preserved meat, and white flour.
Plus pineapple sherbet. No dairy. Essential for old men.
And a restaurant south of Market Street.

When I left after an hour they were still talking about food and Hegelian dialectic, but at that point I could no longer contribute to the conversation, because my knowldege of either subject is limited and soon exhausted.

Besides, at that point I had finished my tea, and wished to light up.

See, as a Dutch American, I'm not fully capable of talking about food. We're not exactly known for that. Basically, we use nutmeg in many meat dishes and often have mustard on the side. Some of us just aren't happy or comfortable if there is no sambal. And that's it.
Oh, yeah, cheese and raw herring. Plus oliebollen.

We've barely discovered Hello Kitty.

Or Hegelian dialectics.



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THE URGH!

The main problem with waking up to pee is that afterwards you don't feel like going back to bed. Because bathrooms are stimulating environments where a man is alone with himself and the vastness of the universe. Is that an ingrown toenail? What if that kid that I hurt way back in second grade is still upset at that? Jos van Zanten, Waalre. I probably should have been more involved in my brother's life.

So you step outside for a smoke before spending an hour plonking on the computer. Dang it's cold. Are those snow weasels? An eagle circles over the arctic wastes of Nob Hill and somewhere a wolf howls. Polar bears. Unicorns.

A few minutes later a garbage truck crosses the frozen tundra.

Probably shouldn't have had so much tea last night.

Shoot, need to pee again.


Realistically I know it's not a solid sheet of ice out there, but the sub-woke mind insists that it's Siberia. Not somewhere between Larkin and Hyde. I think I had way more subcutaneous fat when I was younger, insulation. It's the middle of June, and I shouldn't feel this cold.
I'm sure the Republicans had something to do with this.
Someone should do something!

My dreaming has been much more interesting these past few years, intense and vibrant. It's probably because of the blood pressure pills. And I should, perhaps, cut down a bit on the caffeine. On the one hand coffee and tea make the cold feel less, on the other hand we've got what my apartment mate refers to as the alarm-clock bladder. But hers is more finely tuned than mine.


Sometimes in the middle of the night I can hear her stirring in her chamber, then toddling off to the bathroom. And I clench, because for some reason I want to use it at precisely that time too. Patient, patient. Pretend that there is no pressure there at all. Go outside with a partially filled briar for a quick puff on the front steps. Do NOT think of the bladder, a hollow organ with muscles in the lower part of the torso, nor the urethral opening at its base, or the mucosal flaps, and smooth muscle fibers in spiral and circular bundles. Detrusor. Adventitia.


Your ancestors lived in New York and New Jersey, where it gets much colder outside. They didn't have central heating or a comfortable place to pee. There wasn't even pizza there, for crapsake! Life was hard. They had to clench till dawn then go pee behind the barn with the pigs and cows!

You know, I don't think that inside toilets had even been invented yet when they were seventeenth and eighteenth century Calvinists in what was once called New Netherland. Damn the West Indies Company! No wonder headless horsemen rode all over the place at night. They were looking for a place to pee.




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A TELEPHONE CHARGER AND FREE BEER

To my very great surprise I might be considered as having considerable charm, in addition to my commanding (domineering) character. The young fellow who had just done several hours of overtime (first job out of college) listened with rapt attention while I disquisitioned on the Malayo Polynesian languages after first discussing Punjabi Gujarati Marathi and Nepali. This happened primarily because I had no interest in an involved discussiong with a random stranger while finishing my pipe. He had started it by asking me about my sweatshirt (Medrash Govoha), a handsome black number with a football theme.

Medrash Govoha is a Litvish yeshiva which has no sports programme.
To the best of my knowledge. My kind of school.

With my pipe, I looked very collegiate.

He may have had no clue what I was on about, which was fine, because I didn't want him to himself have any chance to go on about anything. Far too often I have been a chance-met father confessor slash therapist sympathetic ear to young men who seek guidance and an avuncular victim. Sometimes it's hippie ladies who are studying to become Karen. So no. Dominate the conversation while clarifying for myself my own conceptualizations about whatever subject strikes my lips. And I happen to know far too much about the Malayo Polynesian tongues and cultures. I'll talk, and eventually they'll leave.


Because the burger joint, beer hall, and karaoke place were packed, my friend the bookseller grabbed a buritto and we headed directly to Miss Vivien's, where we were warned that there was a unique individual on the loose. Who needed phone-recharging.
And, we found out later, beer.

When people dress flamboyantly in a way that reflects their unique and creative personality, especially in this city, it is wise to avoid conversing with them. And I was afraid that she would sit in the vacant chair next to the bookseller, whereupon my skill at driving people away by being even more artistic, philosophical, and faux-intellectual than them would be called for.
It's something I do well. A defensive offense.

The problem was that I was a bit exhausted and feverish. I had been jabbed in the biceps with another vaccine earlier in the day, my arm felt sore, and I was off my game.
So I did not look forward to the fray.

The bookseller is capable of discouraging the nuts himself. But I'm normally better at it, and enjoy being more than they could ever deal with. Plus I have rabies.


Why is it never nice intelligent people who glom on to one, just to enjoy long quiet periods in a safe radius that smells of pipe tobacco? Not talking, just, perhaps, reading a book or a recent copy of The Lancet. Someone to whom one could suggest a cup of tea.

[In the past I would have mentioned Scientific American, Horizon, or even National Geographic. But I feel that those aren't as interesting as they used to be. Geological Magazine and Chemistry Journal are definite candidates.]




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BANANA SUNRISE CHAIR

As you would expect, I showed up far too early for my doctors appointment. One of the first things after filling out the same questionaire as last time was the temperature check. Which is not only to see if I'm fevered and possibly infectious, but also to see if I'm still alive and not a walking corpse. You will be glad to know that I am still alive and it's not infectious.

Then the usual questions and conversation. New thing this time. Three words. Repeat them. And again. Then about fifteen minutes later "what were those words?"
Banana sunrise chair.

Another pneumonia vaccine (肺炎疫苗 'fai yim yik miu'). Plus discussion about vaccines (疫苗 'yik miu'), research funding (研究經費 'ying gau ging fai'), idiots at the very top (高層白癡 'gou chang baak chi'), horse dewormer (馬匹驅蟲劑 'maa pat keui chung jai'), nutrition (營養 'ying yeung'), next year (明年 'ming nin'). And smoking (仲有吸煙 'kap yin').

The three words are some sort of quickie sentience or short term memory check.
Banana. Sunrise. Chair.
香蕉。日出。凳。

Okay. I think I got that.

It's reality in an alternate universe where crazy people design furniture.
Deranged seating equipment, which I now know I need.
I'll accept that as health advice.

There will be blood tests, including checking for antibodies to measles (麻疹病毒抽血 'maa chan peng dok chau huet'), because even though I had it twice (!) as a child, I'd rather know for certain that I'm still protected just in case I encounter stupid Texans, and also scans including CT (電腦斷層掃描 'din nou duen chang sou miu').

Went and had breakfast afterwards; fresh shrimp rice sheet noodle with condiments (鮮蝦腸粉， 配花生醬同辣椒醬 'sin haa cheung fan, pui faa sang jeung tong laat chiu jeung').

Then lit up a well-deserved pipe and enjoyed my smoke.
I'm a good little patient; I deserve it.

Sunlight. Fresh air. Tobacco.


Banana, sunrise, chair.


A happy-hued chaise for comfort while watching dawn.
Fruity Lay-Z Boy. Bring it on.
A smoking chair.



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