IT WAS A GREAT VICTORY

Today is the San Francisco Marathon. Sorry, I am not participating. The whole concept of running twenty six miles, even without bronze armour, is out of the question. And as usual Kenyans will be in the lead, serious people will claim their own participation certificates, and zanies will trot along gamely for part of the route before deciding that they've done their bit, Athens has already won, no point in making it all the way in any decent time at all, and, just maybe, the idea of participating in an epic endurance challenge in which the first ever participant ended up dying dramatically is rather ridiculous.

But heck, kudos to all the stallwarts who complete the course.

Remember that we also have fun things to do here.

Bars! We've got a tonne of bars!

Rehydrate!


Just like our other famous running event it's allegedly great fun and there are many visitors to our fine city. Plus people won't stop talking about it. Those are conversations in which I will gladly not participate, as all sporting events leave me cold. Yes yes, stellar achievement, great that you did it, can we please go back to discussing Nietsche and Kant?

The only Marathon that I ever took part in was a shoot-em-up in a space ship taken over by aliens. Many times! Still remember it fondly. The engineering department was addicted to it. Even the boss of the company.


Imagine a whole bunch of people on the spectrum actually being on the same page at the same time. Feelings of gemütlichkeit and camaraderie among the profoundly un-social.
Like you had never seen before. Triumph! Success!


It's surprising that not more of them were tea-drinking pipesmokers with book collections.
I would've thought that would have been the natural and logical fall-back escape from the clamouring throngs. But no. That might have required too much of a leap.
Or possibly been too competitive.



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MID-AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS

Most of the poisonous rightwing pustules weren't in today, only the tall bald troublemaker was in, but there was no one there to agree with him, so he remained quiet. Neither the petulantly whining ex-judicial person, nor the Irishman who gives other Irish people a bad rep, or even their friend the psychopathic dgenerate troll, showed themselves. I'm guessing that at least two of them were told by their minders or helpmeets to sit still and act like a doorstop.

Han, who lives near me in the city, came in twice. But he's a very decent fellow, and consequently not at all a pain in the "Netherlands".

So even though it barely got over sixty degrees, overcast, and depressing weather, it was a lovely summer day. As I understand it the Red States are on a stay indoors and try not to breathe alert presently, but here in civilization it's the gloomiest July in living memory.
Which is perfect.

I worked on a handful of pipes for someone -- his grandfather's smoking equipment -- and smoked four of my own. One Loewe & Company straight grain billiard, one Peterson (Dublin & London), one pre-Lane Charatan Zulu, and a piss-elegant Savinelli DeLuxe that makes me look sporty and sophisticated.

Spent most of the day high as a kite on caffeine. Cup and a half strong coffee before heading to work. Three cups of tea before lunch, cup of coffee immediately afterwards, then three more cups of tea. And of course there is a hot caffeinated beverage to my left now.

Neil and Joel showed up around tea-time and were very pleased that none of the Magats were present. We discussed sunburned knees from spending your entire vacation at the Costa Del Sol under your Deux Chevaux, plus cinchona bark and black water fever, Zika, West Nile, and the Chikungunya virus. None of these are our problems -- see my previous description of Bay Area weather -- and I am able to turn illness into entertaining small talk.

Especially when there is tea and tobacco.

Words of advice: Park your crappy car in the shade, stay out of tropical swamps and the American Deep South, and use both sunblock and mosquio repellent.
You remember Elizabeth Taylor in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof?
No neck little monsters! They're everywhere!



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THE SATISFACTION OF HARVESTING

Upon deciding that I needed to get out of the house yesterday afternoon, I took the bus to the top of the hill, got out, loaded my pipe, and strolled down past familiar places. Taylor Street has some very nice spots. I would like to live there. Close enough to walk down to the shops and restaurants, but far enough uphill that the crazies seldom stumble around there. Plus one or two coffee shops nearby. A roast pig and duck place which I like four blocks away.

So I walked to the claypot restaurant because I couldn't remember when they'd be back from vacation, which looks to be next week. I'm looking forward to having a meal there.


Lunch, after the pipe, was further into Chinatown. Rice sheet noodle with pork liver and cilantro (豬肝腸粉同芫茜 'jyu gon cheung fan tong yuen sai'), lavishly condimentalized. While I was there I saw three largish groups of foreign visitors (Midwestern or European) march in expectantly, look at the menu above the counter, realize that they hadn't a clue, and depart hastily. The only people not speaking Cantonese there were a table of Taiwanese and a young lady with a bearded white boyfriend. Which to me is amazing. The food is delicious. We're enjoying it. Just look at us. Go on, take a risk. You will be glad you did. They even have black sesame dessert soup!

Okay, maybe sesame goo (香滑黑芝麻湖 'heung waat ji maa wu') isn't quite an attraction.
It's not why I'm there, and I almost never indulge in it. But did I mention the cheung fan?

There is a great satisfaction to be had by finding fun things to eat. Which requires an adventurous approach, and a willingness to try stuff one has never eaten before.
That type of cheung fan is rare in Chinatown.

Yeah, sometimes that means a plate of fragrant garlicky pig belly (廣東鹵水豬肚 'gwong dung lou seui jyu tou'). Which was delicious, but absolutely unchewable. Like rubber bands. Tried it twice. Both times I had to give up. So I can't recommend it.

Years ago I also tried tripe. Um, no.



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PERFECT ACCESSORY

After having seen any number of horrid tattoos, which the wearers will probably regret once they're older and realize that no one wants to rent to them and any divorces have been ruled in their disfavour because they look like sex-gargoyles, as well as the male short-shorts and female pudgy belly bare shirts, I can only consider that society's style choices will swing back to something much more severe and almost puritanical looking. Draw everyone's attention away from their scars and the flesh-coloured skin goop covering the evidence of their youthful stupidity and meaningfulness.

By the way: I am indebted to Steve Dallas' mom for the term "sex-gargoyle". As in "come over here and kiss your son the sex-gargoyle hello". Just imagine hairy thighs and shiny metal studs. Plus the inevitable dark sunglasses hiding that he was chronically hung-over under a veneer of Rayban coolness. How that penguin put up with him I don't know.

In any case, accessories. Specifically ones that say that the possessor is NOT a slave to fashion, but a totally unique individual, with a dress sense entirely their own, expressing their sober severity and nuanced spiritual nature. But not in a way that gets them fired or kicked out of public places.

Stylish. Hip. Geschmakvol. Yet serious.

The fez.

When he's wearing that, you can't even see his 'Billy And The Boingers' tattoo, can you? You can hire him. He's a great barista and really has a way with the yuppie sludge that oozes in every morning ready to be fuelled up for their meaningless job slaving for Intra AI Holdings LLC. With a shot of Red Bull syrup and a dusting of cinnamon. Low fat.


Guten Tag, Herr Drudge, möchten sie heute ihr übliches hyperkoffeinhaltiges getränk?


The place reeks of cheap Eastern European cigarettes stylishly smoked with ivory cigarette holders. A girl looking very punk Parisian Apache plonks away at a period portable typewriter. She is part of the Beatnik Poetry Revival Movement; intensely political and deliberately last century. Taking America back to a pre-Nixon gestalt. When we still had values as a society.


No studs. No piercings. No visible tattoos anymore.
Just a respectful in-your-face accoutrement.
Timeless and classic. The fez.


You should know that I have several ivory cigarette holders and look precisely like the younger Evelyn Waugh. Ein ernster mann. I am so ready for a new world order.



Follow me for more style tips.



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HALF LIGHT, BOOKS, WARM WEATHER

Having discovered the secret staircase I spent several hours happily browsing through the vast library the upstair neighbors had left behind. Room after room of bookcases, with here and there windows looking out over the leafy tree-lined street outside their apartment. Which I had also been unaware of. And such lovely reference books. When I went downstairs afterwards my landlady told me that they weren't coming back for any of it. So enjoy!

That should probably be the last time I have two bowls of icecream before going to bed. It doesn't do good things to my mind while I'm asleep. The actual last tenants that were above me were students at the conservatory, they did not leave a lovely bookcollection spanning several rooms, and there is no shady avenue that breaks the sunlight outside.

It is quite possible that the amlodipine besylate also had a hand in my dream.
I take that in late afternoon. The other pills I pop in the morning.

I do very much wish that there was an abandoned library without any other people above me. Occasionally my land lady drifting through, or my apartment mate happily reading something in a chair on the landing. Several rooms past that some windows open near the table with the ashtray so that I could smoke my pipe while there.

That's the second time I've dreamed of a different spatial reality connected to where I live in recent months. It really must be caffeine, sugar, and medication related. Both dreams involved shade and very distinctly experienced weather.

This was the first time I've wandered through a silent library with so many books and scarcely anybody there. It was very wonderful. I was loathe to wake up.
I just wanted to have all that.



Note: the painting is a remembered estuary as seen from above.
Water, sandbanks, and jungle masses.



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FRESH WATER AND MEDICATION

Ater lunch I communed with pigeons. Meaning that in the quiet cul-de-sac where I was smoking my pipe, two birds were wandering around, frequently coming within two feet of me, and occasionally looking at me with interest. And seemingly paying attention when I talked to them. They must have sensed that our time together was coming to an end, because they flew off seconds before I finished the bowl.

I had expressed my regret to them that there wasn't a nearby bird bath, because they both looked self-conscious about the state of their feathers. It's hard to stay clean in the urban jungle if there is no water. They both could have used a bath.

Nice birds. Good company.


A few hours later I passed a portico in which a raggedy individual was angrily shouting at no one, or life in general, the whole world, existence, or abstract concepts. Not sure, as I hurried past and did not listen attentively. Had I caught his eye and he engaged, he would probably not have been good company. He too could have used a bath.
It's hard to stay sane in the urban jungle.

So altogether I'm doing an excellent job of it.

Lunch had been a fish sandwich and fries (香酥魚柳包 · 薯條 'heung sou yü lau baau, sue tiu'), with a cup of milk tea. I had been looking forward to it for a day or two, and I like the place where I ate it. My kind of place. No tourists, no sweet and sour pork. No big meatballs from the Midwest, no Texans, no Eastcoasters. Just decent folks, not being irritating.

We are not photogenic or picturesque. We are eating lunch. I suspect that I am not the only person on bloodpressure pills there.

Unsurprisingly they sell bucket loads of house special chicken (招牌燒雞 'jiu paai siu gai'). Which I've actually never ordered, because it looks like it would be a bit much for me.
And there's nowhere to nap afterwards.




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THE SOUNDS OF GARBAGE

What should not surprise you is that I am not into sports. Of any kind. So I am peeved at bars that show the game. Could they not have better shown the musical numbers from Sesame Street and Girls Und Panzer? More conducive to drinking, and any curses hurled at the screen will be tempered by a greater sense of unseemliness. There's ladies present!
High school tank drivers! Big bird! Control your bestial self!

Kermit the Frog would approve.

We noticed tonight that a beer-pouring woman of our acquaintance is pregnant. She was not showing two weeks ago. It seems that we're always the last to find out. Which is no problem, as we end up there for the gemütlichkeit, not the sports or femininity.

No one should end up in drinking establishments for the opposite gender. Relationships that start in bars too often break up with booze.


It's garbage night in Chinatown. The garbage truck that went up an alley was barely out of sight when another headed down Grant Avenue in the other direction. For the benefit of the tourists, trash gets picked up fairly frequently. Mah and Pah Kettle from Paloozie don't need to see certain things. Can't do much about the occasional bit of human misery or outright whacked-out insanity on the streets, but trash we can do.

It was quite noisy near where I smoked my pipe while waiting for the bookseller.

One person vocalizing heartache, another screamingly singing further up the street, and a whole passel of gabbling tourists. One or two passers-by observing the pipe with interest. Quite likely they had seen folks smoking pipes in old black and white movies, and didn't realize that people still did that.

Perfect night for a pipe. Decent temperature, slight mugginess, scant breeze.
No stumbling drunks or blithering potheads.
Hot cup of tea after.


All in all, despite the sound of garbage trucks and bad singing, it was good.


I often feel that I should tell people to stop singing.
Your father hates it. Think of the old man.
And huge ... tracts of land.
Stay in your room.



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FUN NEW DISEASES EVERYDAY

The World Health Organization has recently warned about the rise of chikungunya, which is the third time this month that it has come up in either my newsfeed or my conversations. My conversations are different than yours. Chikungunya is a virus that causes fevers and joint or muscular pains similar to arthritis, as well as a minor rash. It is mosquito borne in the tropic and subtropic regions. Such as most of Africa, all of South East Asia, California up to the middle of the state including Bakersfield, Fresno, and the Sacramento delta area, and the American illiteracy and syphilis belt (East Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida). It is not common. But now commoner. And likely to become more so.
Seldom fatal, mostly just a pain in the ... muscles and joints.

[My conversations recently have been filled with diseases, haemorragic fevers, illegal cigarettes, pipe tobacco, briar pipe maintenance and restoration, gas lines, raptors and carrion eaters, food, hot sauce, fine cheeses, and the monsoon.]


Naturally I shall not mention chikungunya to my apartment mate. She's on the spectrum big time, has a lively imagination, and the mosquito net has been hung around her bed for pretty much a lifetime now. It keeps out the mosquitoes, who love her. They hate me because I'm Caucasian, a smoker, and filled with peppery goodness from all the chilies.
I probably taste and smell awful.

There are two spare mosquito nets in the closet. Just in case.

I seem to recall being bothered by mosquitoes twice in the last year. They must have been desperate. They did not survive long.

The severe phase of chikungunya lasts more or less a week, and usually does not discomfit the entire body, though symptoms do vary. Most prevalent are fevers and severe aches. Light sensitivity, nausea, and fatigue are common. Milder symptons may be present for one or two months afterwards. Less than one percent of the cases are fatal. Symptomatic treatment is recommended. No specific medicine cures it.


There are a number of similar diseases, and the virus can be transmitted by several different types of mosquitoes.



First and second pipe of the day were both Peterson's; the first filled with Fribourg & Treyer and smoked while outside dodging traffic and defecating dogs and their owners, the other one was enjoyed packed full of Gold Navy Cut Capstan Ready Rubbed after snarfing down a Toisaan taai bau (臺山大包) with Sriracha and a cup of coffee. Because of work on the gas lines, coffee water and the bun had to be heated in the microwave.
Try to imagine what ablutions were like this morning.



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IT'S A BUG!

The weather yesterday was moist. Not wet. A light semi-drizzle at times. After spending far too much time fussing around with micro-fibre pads I did laundry and headed off to get some dumplings. All encounters with humans seemed a little odd. Possibly the strange climactic conditions were throwing people off, or the humidity was interfering with their synapses.

One thing I've noticed is that fewer people are wearing masks.
Naturally I still wear a mask, because I don't like getting sick.
But much of society seems to relish the prospect of illness.

One thing fun was reading about epidemics for two hours. Some truly fascinating stuff there, including encephalitis lethargica, which affected about a million people in the years immediately following World War One. Wonderful! I had never heard of it.
Epimediology should be taught in grammar and high schools.


There is NO reason that children's imagination should be bound strictly by happy subjects. When I was still an adolescent I already knew the symptoms of many ailments, almost accidentally. The Merck Manual, as well as encyclopedias and biology texts, made for truly fascinating reading. The plague of Justinian was a good one, so was the Antonine Plague. The Third Cholera Pandemic was a doozy. No, I am not a connoisseur of massive disease outbreaks, but I know about them, and am glad that medicine has made great strides.

It's a very great pity that there is no social club, bookstore, or library café where one could spend the afternoon off by oneself reading and smoking one's pipe, disturbed occasionally by the creaking of rattan chairs and the cheerful tinkly sounds of nurses from the local hospital discussing emissions, antibody counts, and psychotic episodes caused by fever. There have, by the way, been wonderful advances in blood tests. It's almost like a new frontier.

Rattan chairs in public places are unfortunately rare in San Francisco.
I fondly remember them all over the place in the Netherlands.
As well as reading rooms in drinking establishments.
No speaker system, no music. Coffee.



One thing I also did yesterday was give some of my rims narrow chamfers, which makes the bowl openings seem more perfectly round. Over time lighting pipes with an exact ninety degree edge between top and inner wall of the bowl leads to minor distortion, a slight chamfer corrects that nicely without being significantly noticeable.
Over time it becomes something that you cannot see
But the visual effect still holds.


The typical Comoy bevelling is of course quite evident to the eye.
Deliberately so. They did that to prevent rim-scorching.
Force the smoker to not load to the top.
A perfect neurotic design idea.
So that too.



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THE GIDDY SOCIAL WHIRL

Apparently there is a male loneliness epidemic. No, I am not going to research that, or offer deep sociological insights. Just a glib sneering judgement that they are all losers. Which is based on my exposure to the modern American male. Whom, if I were a woman, I wouldn't date with a ten foot pole.

One of the people I know has packed all his stuff into his motor vehicle and is moving to a place where they have private cigar lounges, lots of tech bros, and video games.
Which is as good an indication of his social skills as any.

At the other end of the scale, I had a discussion with a gentleman over the weekend who despite being older than Christ, is into manga and anime, and over the years has learned enough Japanese to understand some really weird stuff. Kudos to him. I stand in awe. And that may have been the best conversation he's had since Obama was president. Not good enough to encourage other people to avidly study manga and anime, or Hello Kitty and Sailor Moon, or Japanese, but evenso. Dude. In the last two decades I have absorbed enough knowledge about all of those fields to satisfy my very minor curiosity.
And will not be taking classes in any of it.
But I admire obsessions.

If males are lonely it's because they don't talk. The squeakless wheel gets no double you dee forty. Being an absolute genius at cigars and video games is no use unless you open your mouth and bore someone. Take risks.

Also, own your part of the spectrum. As a person with mild Aspergers, I enjoy spending large parts of my days off not dealing with actual real human beings. Which is why I avoid private cigar lounges, gyms and yoga studios, concerts, sporting events, religious groups, and all coffee shops filled with yuppies on their cell-phones. I'm not social enough for any of that.

Social skills like shaving, showering, and doing laundry regularly are rather important. Do not neglect them. Highly individualistic hair styles or tattoos are no substitute and only go so far. Avoid yoga studios.


If you are really desperate, consider practicing the bagpipes. That's sure to attract attention. Many people, including women, will hasten to tell you that that reminds them of someone they used to know, even some relatives. Instant social success.

It does not matter if you are not musically able.
Bagpipe players never are.


I have seen three bagpipe videos in the last hour on my media feed.
And am presently considering trout fishing.
Wheeeee!




Presently smoking a Peterson's smooth billiard, shape 15, made in the Republic of Ireland, stamped Dublin & London. It is filled with Fribourg & Treyer tobacco. A good product. Considering either doing laundry before lunch, or making a cup of tea.
And totally avoiding doomscrolling.




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LIFE IS NOT A BEACH

It is traditional during the summer months to head to the beach, smear unguents all over one's naked flesh, and hope that exposure to the suns's fierce rays will make one beautiful rather than cause blisters, purulence, and festering pussy dermal issues followed by rough cancerous lesions. Obviously I am not so optimistic. I am a Dutch American living in San Francisco. I take delight in gloom, fog, dampness. These nurture my soul. A swamp thing. Keenly familiar with second and third layers, downright sneering at the near-nudity other people enjoy and their deviant 'naturverliebte exhibitionismus'.

Even sexual shenanigans should be fully clothed.
Go ahead, put on a sweater and woolly socks.

Paras. Puffy down filled.
Insulation.

Yes, okay, it was thinly drizzling when I stepped out earlier. Totally grey. If you expected us to run in slo-mo to the beach looking athletic and tanned, Bay Watch style, as you have seen on teevee, that was somewhere else, other people, who all got pneumonia afterwards and were paid for it. Actors. Not us.

So you can take that sunscreen off. You look greasy and stupid. This is NOT beach weather. We shall not beach today. Maybe not ever. A beach attitude is too European, too Santa Barbaraish, too drunken Australians in Bali.

Can I interest you in some fog, wind, claminess, and existential angst instead?
It's better for you. Less skin-cancerous.



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THE SMELLY ZONE

Alas, I have no idea what the rabid old rightwing rattlesnakes think about the Epstein thing, because the subcontinental derailed that by talking about Gavin Newsom instead, and got them riled up on the wrong track. Also, I avoided them. It reeks back there. I am not paid enough to deal with the stench of moral rot. Even one Republican would be horrendous. There were five of them. To the best of my knowledge they are all married.
Some women have no sense of smell.

Which I've noticed at times about my apartment mate. She dislikes smoking, yet does not notice If I lit up a bowl half an hour before she comes home. I doubt that it's because she's Chinese American. While many of them have relatives who still smoke, and some of them are the relative that still smokes, to the best of my knowledge she has no smoking kinfolk, and doesn't habitually hang around with smokers.

[Well, other than me, of course. And I smell bad to her mostly because I'm white. Seeing as she can't smell some things at all. Stealth tobaccos smoked late at night in the teevee room. Especially if her door is semi-shut, almost closed.]

Personally, I find the fragrance of good Virginia leaf smoked in a pipe quite comforting and home-like. One of those old fashioned smells that awaken memories.

Smells like the old days. You know, son, back in Burma .....
Yeah, don't mind me. I've got a rich inner life.

Although I do have to be careful in the morning when I'm in the bathroom. "Toad, are you SMOKING in there?" she might holler, based on olfactory evidence from the open kitchen window on the airwell. Whereupon I will lie and say "no, of course not".

It's probably someone next door.
Trust me.


It doesn't often smell of Burma here. Even though aged Virginias were keenly appreciated by trim scholarly civil servants posted to the edge of the distant jungle (it comforted them during the long hours of stultifying boredom in the tropic heat), I seldom smoke my pipes inside the apartment, and always with the windows open, no matter the freezing cold. Usually it will be outside pissing off the white Karens from half a block away or across the street. It's almost always white women who find the imagined smell of a pipe offensive.
Probably because it smells like the jungle's edge.
Or like something English.
Foreign.


I've already got the pipes I will smoke tomorrow set aside. Nice old briars, made in Ireland. All of them are stamped 'Dublin & London'. Which tells you their age. Some Fribourg & Treyer Cut Blended Plug. Goes very well with tea. Fruity carotenoids.
Some women might like it.



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OLD SOURPUSS

Last smoke of the night was haunted by an insane person hopping up hill. While on the one hand being fascinated, I was also seriously worried that he'd fall and hurt himself. Seeing as hopping up a slope backward is usually not a good idea. So I decided to turn around and head back. What with not being keen on conversation at that moment.

Contrary to popular belief it does not take all kinds. Backward hopping dude is actually not essential. He's more like the rancid waxy icing on the world's cake.

I've encountered him before. He doesn't have a rich inner life, unlike some of our loonies. He seems to be empty inside. A blank slate, with thought-resistant coating.

There is no protein in his brain. It's all cornstarch.

Oobleck husked in flesh.

There are times that I am not socially inclined. Too likely to say something blunt and nasty. Although bluntness is often considered a Dutch characteristic, and commendable, in my case it's not so much culturally induced as an accurate reflection of my unpleasant personality.

After spending all day at work being kind and forbearing, I sometimes need to revert to my snarling rabid caveman true nature. Snapping and biting. A little ball of seeting nastiness.

Sometimes the street is flooded and the daemonic clown with the red balloon lurking in the storm drain has drowned. Think of it as being a mental stretch of lowlying ground with poor water management infrastruture. It's dank there and malaria is rife. A dengue-fever swamp suburb. A junkfood restaurant parking lot awash with human fluids. There is too much of it. It's backed up. Things are breeding in the bog. Unclean monsters swim languidly just below the surface waiting for someone to put their Nike-shod extremity in the hip-deep hot ooze.

Valium keeps the slab on the table from twitching while the listening devices are installed. There is a geologist with a little hammer whacking at exposed kneecaps in the muck, and everyone jerks because of it.

Don't drown out there. Don't go swimming either.



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HITTING THE HOT OIL

All day long I've been thinking about the small intimate dinner a friend overseas had with his wife at a cosy bistro in their city. Over a dozen dishes. Two of three of which were sambal goreng. Among the others were daging sapi with kentang, gule ayam, plus various sayurs, asinan, and sate. No, they are not overweight. And a dozen dishes is NOT excessive.

Also: krupuk, serundeng, atjar tjampur. And a soup.

When my apartment mate and I went to the Netherlands, at the restaurant around the corner from the hotel the auntie who owned it was fascinated by us. One caucasian man who spoke bahasa, one Asian woman who did not. How remarkable! White dudes who speak Malay are a dime a dozen, but that may have been the first time she encountered a Chinese American.

She kept coming over to our table with stuff we just had to try. Yes of course the Dutchman will eat it, they'll eat anything they're notorious for that; but let's see how broad the tastes and open the mind of this anomalous female might be.

Well, she's of Cantonese heritage.
So guess what? Uh huh.

Neither my apartment nor I are overweight. By any means. Realistically.
Although she's convinced she is, and I do have a pinch.

So naturally I was touched by the social media post of my friend. Good food. In a pleasant place with nice company. But the food especially. The only things missing were the typical Dutch UFOs (unidentified fried objects).

Here in the United States, sambals of various types are very well possible.
When I cook, there's often something Dutch East Indies about it.
Very loose definition, but never the less.

I lack a deepfryer.



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NOT SPIRITUAL

As you probably know, I have low tolerance for insane stuff. Like the utterances of many politicians, and the gentlemen who infest the backroom where I work. Which means that actually I am a very tolerant individual. Oh, the irony.

If you didn't know me better, you might think that I am a Christian.
That would be wrong, you know. Understandable, but incorrect.

Workdays, because of the mental transdimensionality of people in Marin, are sheerly torture. Interupted once a day by nasty comestibles. The only good thing is that I can smoke my pipe on the premises and no Karens will scream at me for doing that, or demand to know if I am aware of the damage I'm doing to my body, spyche, karma, aura, and chance of salvation with tobacco. It can be very peaceful there.

But it is Marin, so some people actually believe there's gluten in vaccines.
And I've heard favourable mentions of Ivermectin there.
Plus stuff about nanochips.

Pizza Gate.

There are more "special" people in Marin than anywhere else.

One particular person there is into his native American spirituality, and keeps hooking up with psychotic professional women. Those are two related facets of the same coin. Apparently being so spiritual, he's a magnet for whackjobs. It's an irresistible attraction.
That's just the way he is. He can't help it.

I'm hope I'm not like that.

If I am magnetic, I hope it's for calm and rational people.
That seems far more pleasant.
No moths.



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TINY LITTLE POO

While watching a man's chihuahua taking a small messy dump on the street outside my apartment building, I realized that the reason why Trump is mentioned so prominently in the Epstein files is his uncle was at MIT, one of the great professors, 51 years, whatever, long-serving professor of the history of MIT, three degrees in nuclear, chemical, and math. And a fellow wearing an onion on his belt, which was the style at the time, was one of his students. Do you know who that was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius, he'd go around correcting everybody, but it didn't work out too well for him. It didn't work out too well. Tangerine Mussolini's uncle did in fact teach at MIT. He was a very intelligent professor. He's very proud of his family. The best people.

We're looking into that very strongly right now.

The reason why I understand this is because I'm a good listener. One of the best. It's huge. Many people remark what a good listener I am. The greatest!

Everybody agrees that I'm the best listener.
Even the fake news says so.

You should be ashamed for asking. Trust Pam Bondi.

You have to understand that hiding the Epstein files, as the Republicans voted to do, is intended to protect the Democrats, who wrote them, who are all in there.
It was done with the purest of motives. It's a hoax!

Are people STILL talking about that man?

His hands are much bigger now.

Swelling. Veins.



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JUST FOR THE HECK OF IT: TRUMP, EPSTEIN

The following is copied lock stock and barrel from SF Gate, written by columnist Drew Magary.

Jeez, I wonder why Trump won't release the Epstein files
SFGATE columnist Drew Magary unpacks what could be the biggest scandal of our time

When Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about something, that usually means that we need to talk about it. That’s especially true of the president’s most recently adopted third rail, the late Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump would really like everyone to shut the f—k up about his old friend and has communicated those feelings with that classic Trump subtlety that we all know and adore:

“STOP TALKING ABOUT EPSTEIN!!!!!”

But why does Trump suddenly have a bug up his ass about Jeffrey Epstein? More important, why should you pay attention to THIS Trump scandal when every other Trump scandal comes and goes like a summer afternoon rainfall? Why shouldn’t you just go eat a Pop-Tart instead, given that you’ll likely accomplish just as much in doing so?

Well dear reader, I’ve taken it upon myself to gather up what credible intel I can find on the Epstein matter, and now deem it worth your time. I’ve even gone to the trouble to present my findings to you in that classically digestible format: the FAQ. So sit down, grab that Pop-Tart (brown sugar would be my rec) and get ready to throw it back up.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?
A former teacher who switched to a career in finance at Bear Stearns. From there, Epstein became a boutique financial consultant (and likely inside trader) who only accepted billionaires as clients. But Epstein’s rise among society’s elite can likely be owed to far darker forces than market manipulation. In 2019, he was charged by the feds with trafficking underage girls with the intent of sexually assaulting them. Epstein also pimped victims out to some of his most powerful friends and clients. Perhaps in tribute to Diddy, Epstein hosted these group assault “parties” in lavish settings, including in Manhattan, in Palm Beach, aboard a private jet that went by the nickname the Lolita Express and on his own private island. While Epstein’s closest associate and lover Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein run this illicit sex ring and luring in victims, the man himself was never convicted in that matter. This is because he died in his jail cell while awaiting trial. Authorities ruled the death a suicide.

Was it a suicide?
Well the government says so, and it recently posted raw surveillance footage from the day of Epstein’s death to confirm the ruling. Oh, but Wired just reported that the released footage has a gap in it of nearly three minutes, which allows for all sorts of funny business to still be in play.

That’s curious.
It gets curioser. In death, Epstein left behind perhaps the most infamous paper trail in modern criminal history, including a little black book that included the names of his victims, his accomplices and, most tellingly, the aforementioned powerful friends he’d collected. The names in that book, many of which also show up in Epstein’s flight records, include the likes of Courtney Love, Alec Baldwin, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton and —you guessed — Donald Trump.

However, many other names and details regarding Epstein’s case have either been redacted or left classified by the Department of Justice. We know Epstein was a sexual predator, and we know that he enabled other sexual predators. But the specifics beyond that have either not surfaced or not been corroborated. The public release of all these files would have, in theory, laid those specifics bare. It also would have potentially implicated a lot of still living people who’d rather those files never see the light of day.

Like Trump!
Yes, like Trump. But prior to this month, Trump and his little MAGA army were vocally convinced that the files would implicate Trump’s enemies much more than they would the man himself. This is in line with the modern GOP playbook under Trump. Democratic leaders convened at Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C., to abuse children. LGBTQ+ Americans were “grooming” children in order to take advantage of them and/or turn them LGBTQ+. All of the immigrants living here, either legally or off the books, are a threat to our precious children, which is why we need ICE to round them up and then throw them in the cargo hold of a plane bound for Western Sahara. Oh, and abortion MURDERS children outright. The old man protesting outside your general practitioner’s office has the enlarged photos to prove it!

Oh wow, is all of that true?
Of course it isn’t, you f—king idiot. But you can see how Trumpists have been able to capture the visceral reaction that child abuse inevitably fosters in people, and then turn that outrage against anyone they hate. So when the possibility arose that the Epstein files would be released, many MAGA heads saw it a fantastic opportunity to finish off the Democratic Party once and for all. This is why Justice Department head Pam Bondi made a promise in February that she would give up the goods. In fact, she even told Fox News “it’s sitting on my desk right now to review” when asked about the list of Epstein’s clients.

Did she make good on that promise?
You’re not gonna believe this, but no. Last week the DOJ released a statement that included this wildly blatant piece of obfuscation (emphasis mine below):

“Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography. This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. …. One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends.”

So she’s NOT releasing the files?
Apparently they’re hella boring if you ask Bondi, and why wouldn’t I believe this woman? She’s only quid pro quo’ed with our dear leader a few times. Oh, and a curious plea deal that Epstein struck with Florida prosecutors in 2007 was worded to shield his co-conspirators from further scrutiny. It also barred the terms of Epstein’s plea deal from ever being made public, which a judge later found to be in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act; it was an illegal cover-up between Epstein’s lawyers and the prosecution. So here’s a notorious sexual predator with a recorded history of gaming the system to hide his evildoing. But Donald Trump is angry that you’re even still bringing it up. Move on already, jeez! We’ve got legal immigrants to kidnap and torture!

Are we moving on?
We are not, and we strangely have Trump’s supporters to thank for that. After breaking with Trump on his Big Butthole Bill, Elon Musk straight up tweeted that Trump’s name was on Epstein’s client list. After Bondi buried the files, Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, was so pissed that he ghosted work the next day and then got into a big ol’ row with Bondi about it when he finally showed back up at the office. Bongino’s direct boss, FBI Director Kash Patel, was rumored to ponder submitting his resignation over the matter (he didn’t, eventually falling in line). GOP members of Congress are pissed at Trump, with House Speaker Mike Johnson going so far as to call for their release, although in the squirreliest, most Mike Johnson manner possible:

“But at the same time Johnson publicly called for the files to be released, he opposed a procedural motion advanced on Tuesday by Democrats that would have set up a House vote to release them,” the Washington Post reported.

Even Congress’ No. 1 MAGA loon Marjorie Taylor Greene is pissed at Trump, warning the president the MAGA faction will face significant blowback if he keeps everything on the DL. Laura Loomer is pissed at Trump and, like many other GOP members, she wants Bondi fired. And for the first time in the ratio history of his own social media network, Truth Social users are pissed at Trump. These folks were promised blood, and the president hasn’t delivered.

Why hasn’t he?
Do you really need me to connect the dots here for you?

Yes.
Okay, well we already know that Epstein himself told author Michael Wolff that Trump was his best friend for a decade and that he told Wolff the president first slept with his current wife, Melania, aboard the now infamous diddler plane. We know Trump’s name is on those flight records. We have photos of Trump chilling with Epstein at one of Epstein’s parties (whether that party got freaky later on isn’t known). And, most damning of all, we also have Trump on the record about Epstein in 2002 in the New York Magazine, calling the then-at large sex offender a “terrific” guy and that, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Most telling of all, a woman going by Jane Doe filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2016 for allegedly raping her when she was 13 years old. Doe, who had previously filed another suit under the pseudonym of Katie Johnson, alleged that both Trump and Epstein raped her, which would make Trump part of Epstein’s sordid ring. But just as Doe was about to make her first public comments about the case, her lawyer announced that her client was dropping the suit after receiving threats to her person.

If she dropped the case, then why does that matter?
We know that, given what people who accuse powerful folk of sexual assault have to endure once they make their stories public (Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford foremost among them), many would rather drop the charges than be traumatized all over again in both a court of law and the court of public opinion.

Specific to Trump, we know that he’s already been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman’s in the mid-1990s, that he was accused by his former wife Ivanka of raping her (she would later recant), that he was accused by model Stacey Williams of sexual misconduct, and that he was famously caught on tape bragging to Access Hollywood co-puppet Billy Bush about grabbing women by the “pussy.” The man is a proven lech and has gotten away with being one for the entirety of his existence.

That makes his little tantrum over the Epstein affair noteworthy, especially when he now claims that the Epstein files — all of them! — were fabricated:

“Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?”

As of this morning, Trump is still working the “hoax” angle, even though we now have six years of hard evidence that this was, indeed, a very real thing … one that even MAGA weirdos believe in.

Sounds like he’s a little shaken.
That’s because he TOTALLY did it. -

So why aren’t Democrats hammering Trump over this?
You’ve met Democrats, yeah? You also saw Bill Clinton’s name on those flight logs, too. Also, in a long-gestating bit of irony, it’s likely that Democratic leaders are frightened that bringing up the Epstein files over and over again will make them look like kooks.

Would it?
What does it matter? You know how Trump rose to power? BY BEING A F—KING KOOK. All day, every day. Being relentlessly crazy is how you win now. Democrats won’t do it. And from what I’ve seen so far, the mainstream media won’t, either. Much of Epstein files coverage I’ve seen from the New York Times and Washington Post has been below the fold and about how the files have created a rift between Trump and the MAGA movement. That’s an awfully roundabout way of covering what really could be, at long last, the scandal of the century. A scandal that really does bring down everyone involved in it.

Will it?
Only if you and I keep it circulating. So embrace your inner kook and scream RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES at everyone you see: your friends, your local representatives, your social media following, and the milkman. The longer this story sticks around, the harder it becomes to ignore. That’s why Trump wants everyone to shut up. The man’s hands are so filthy, you can’t even see visible skin.


SOURCE: Jeez, I wonder why Trump won't release the Epstein files - Drew Magary, SF Gate

[Copyright: https://www.sfgate.com/]



Here's a picture of a Pop Tart:

As a matter of personal opinion/suspicion, I think it extremely likely that most Republican big names and financial contributors are on the Epstein list. So we should probably burn the entire shitcan down. And order some guillotines from France.


Oh, and by the way, it's obvious that several Democratic notables are also worried sick about being thoroughly implicated. That's not surprising, and it is good that they're worried.



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I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF

One reader sent me a note asking why I seemed to dislike tourists. Hadn't I been a visitor in several foreing places myself? He could remember that a few years ago I went up to Vancouver and galavanted about enjoying the sights, the food, the museums ...
Why, he demanded to know, was I such a bitch?

Well, the glib answer is that I am an unforgiving and judgemental person, and will typically ignore my own flaws while excoriating everybody else for not meeting my impossibly high standards for them. And if they're wandering around getting in my way by dawdling four abreast on a busy sidewalk, they will offend me.

Actually, that's not only the glib answer, but the only answer.
Move faster, all of you dimwitted heffalumps.
And consider single-file.

Of course, one single Midwesterner walking down the street often takes up the space of four slow-moving Euries. Life is different in Europe, and outside their provincial capitals they may not ever have been any place with more than five stoplights or a surprising amount of genetic diversity. Midwesterners, of course, represent not so much any genetic diversity as selective breeding. Marbled flesh, and solid shoulders for pulling plows. Sort of the combine harvester of the human world, now sadly useless since tractors were invented.

Also, as I understand it, food across the interior of this country is all variations on burgers, deep-dish pizza, and potato. Your choice of pineapple chunks yes or no. Or, if it's potato salad, with or without raisins, which are the Midwestern spiritual equivalent of pineapple.

In some places they also have eggrolls, kung pao stuff, and orange chicken.

They've seen tall buildings and grocery stores on teevee.
It was a crime series from the seventies.

Europeans, almost all of them, grew up with Baywatch on the television and are perpetually surprised that no one here runs in slow motion toward the surf wearing electric red swim togs. What on earth is wrong with us? Are we sick?
Also, our coffee sucks.



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THE HIGHLY FUNCTIONAL MAN

Seeing as I did not have the usual jollification in Chinatown and North Beach last night, and in consequence would get a full night's sleep with no problem, I decided that today was the day I would go down to Chinese Hospital (my health provider) and do the once yearly blood tests. Which serves two main purposes: it gives my doctor and my cardiologist concrete data (because I'm one of those irritating patients who answers every question about his health with "I'm fine, no problems, nope, everything is perfect", even when bleeding from an open stump where my head was cut off), and secondly it reassures me that I am still human not a zombie see there's a pulsating vein dammit that needle hurt, might faint.

No food or drink for several hours beforehand. Nor any coffee.

First smoke of the day was grouchy time.

[Blood test lab: 抽血房、血液檢查實驗室 ('chau huet fong', 'huet yik gim chaa sat yim sat').]

Got through the entire thing including the urine sample and promptly headed toward sustenance. Cheung fan. With condiments. After which with pipe in mouth I went in search of coffee. The old fellow who ran an herb shop where before I had insurance I frequently bought salvia miltiorrhiza pills (丹參片 'daan sam pin') to deal with certain symptoms closed up a few years back, that location is now a friendly neighborhood grocery shop with tables and fresh coffee for the codgers. At a non-boba drinkie young snoots price. Real coffee.

So I spent a pleasant half hour on a bench near a siu mei dim (燒味店 "roast meats shop") actually waking up, with my pipe, before doing my necessary errands and shopping.

Got a dozen things done without English. Including cussing at the tourists under my breath.

[Tourists: 遊客、外地人、旅行外國人 ('yau haak', 'ngoi dei yan', 'leui hang ngoi kwok yan').]

It takes up to eight people to ask if there is Coca Cola on the premises, whether there are barbecue buns anywhere nearby, and do the staff hold it in for several hours or relieve themselves on the street. Remarkable. And very cheap! Five people, one donut.

My pissiness toward tourist was probably delayed grumpiness from being caffeine-deprived for the first five hours of the day.

That lack of caffeine would have been over with a lot earlier if I had not started working on the illustration above before heading into the bathroom, and had not stumbled out of the house between getting up and that time. But I did not have the energy to be quick.
That's what coffee is for.

It shows three people in a forested landscape just looking while the shitcan goes up.
That's all they can do, as they haven't had their coffee yet.
They cannot be proactive. Postactive only.
Not fully functional at that hour.


Other than that, it's been a lovely day.



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UNVARNISHED AUNTIE

There will not be any visiting of various dives later this evening, because the bookseller can't make it; he has some visitors in town for a brief period (from Oregon and Amsterdam) who do not share his keen passion for anthropological fieldwork. That means that I will not be observing rats in Spofford Alley or drunks and loons on Broadway.

This bereaves me not.
There's always next week.
They'll keep.


On my way down to Chinatown earier I had an opportunity to listen in on a Cantonese woman's private phone conversation. Honestly, I wasn't trying to do that. But she was loud enough for half the bus to clearly hear. The four other incividuals on the bus who understood Cantonese deliberately kept their faces smooth and inscrutable. As a Kwailo (non-Chinese person) I do not count, as I cannot possibly understand anything.

My ears perked up when I heard her use the term kwailo (鬼佬) several times. As well as the expressions chau hai (臭㞓) and haam kaa chaan (冚家鏟). Pok gaai (踣街) once or twice. Now, as a white person I do not like the term kwailo. But is often used with no malicious intent, merely as an easily understood descriptive. Let it stand. On the other hand, chau hai is a completely unprintable obscenity utilized expletively and as punctuation. And I didn't know women could do that!

SEAL-SCRIPT GHOST-DEVIL SMOKING A PIPE

When I was outside lighting my pipe after late lunch, Howard came up. Remarkably both the proprietess and I had been talking about him earlier. We had not seen him in several weeks. His health is not that good (COPD), and I had been worried about him. So I went back inside and sat with him while he had a snack and hot beverage.


Near the end of my smoke I helped a bystander deal with an old fellow who had tripped and bashed his head. I was not much use; my Cantonese is just not good enough, and I don't really know how to ask the important questions in an emergency. Do you have your son's phone number? Are you taking any medications for bloodpressure, deppression, anxiety, or anticonvulsants? Have you eaten recently? Are you epileptic? Is your blood sugar low?

Fortunately the fire department and the ambulance came pretty quickly, and carted him off to Chinese Hospital. He'll be in good hands there, and there are plenty of people who can communicate effectively with him.



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