STARTING THE DAY RIGHT

Prayer leads to constipation. And, judging from the sounds of this neighborhood waking up which I hear while outside walking with my pipe early in the morning, there are some mighty religious people living here. As evidence I offer that the only evidence of non-constipatory existence seems to be that only the dogs being walked have excellent digestive processes. Their owners are themselves not prepared to poo, clearly, and they don't have their helpmeets or children out there on a leash. So that ain't happening.
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Speculate all you want about litterboxes.
I'll believe it when I see it.

Despite the salutory effect of red Virginia leaves at a slow ember inside fine briar, it is with a considerably jaundiced eye that I regard my neighbors at this hour. Why are they out here?

Many, if not most of the people on the street at six o'clock in the morning have the precise appearance of being bourgeois consumer whores.
As do their icky dogs.

French bulldogs and pugs. Uurgh!!!
With designer fewmets.

Dawn is horrid.

First, a cup of coffee. Pipe smoke. Then home for the second cup of coffee.

Followed by reading the news.


In another few hours I might go out for some congee or dimsum. Don't know yet. Bourgeois scuzzies seldom go for snackies in Chinatown early in the morning. They're too busy ordering their lattes with syrup down at the local baristeria.
Fashionable steamed milk bevvies.
Unicorns.



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PACK CLEAN UNDIES

Unlike many other people, my genetic praedisposition to inadequate serotonin production is completely overcome by the three finest grits of microfibre wood-polishing pads. Which lead to a glow of satisfaction as well as a glossy mirror-like surface.

Yesterday, a Cantonese woman was shocked at the price of a fine quality briar. Somehow I think she feels different about certain other things. But to speculate what those might possibly be would open me up to charges of sexism.

Far be it from me to be a sexist.


There is nothing more delightfully feminine than a fine pipe, of an elegant shape that displays the grain properly and highlights the age and beauty of the burl. One of the best examples of that very thing is on display at a tobacco emporium not too far away. It was carved be a Japanese woman. An artist! A genius! And a consumate master of her craft!
As just one example of women's achievement.

What IS sexist, totally, is that almost NO men lust after the Birkin Bag. Why is that? It is the perfect size for carrying half a dozen smoking pipes, a tamper, a packet of cleaners, a tin or two of fine tobacco, as well as a polishing cloth for when you go all anal retentive on a long airplane flight from Paris to Ankara. Having finished your book.

It's stylish, too. Goes well with tweed.
Or grease-stained bluejeans.

If you're going to stay more than a few days (and why on earth would you do that?!?), you may need up to a dozen pipes as well as an extra tin. You'll get bored in Ankara, there's nothing to do there, no opera, and the shooting outside the city is frightful. A complete absence of ptarmigans, grouse, woodcocks, partridges, or pheasants.

You'll need that Birkin Bag then, boyo.


A ROTATION

New Dunhill pipes run upward of six or seven hundred dollars. Might even cost you well over a thousand. But with proper care and scrupulous avoidance of aromatic shite, they will serve you for decades. And your grandkids will be totally overjoyed when they inherit them. Sadly, Comoy and Charatan aren't what they were over a generation ago, but there are still several other manufacturers of excellent smoking equipment. So springing for a dozen or so Dunhill pipes isn't vital to your happiness. A few good Petersons (Irish), a Frenchman or two, and some lovely Italians, and you'll be well-equiped.

And absolutely look into Castellos. Yes, some of them are damned ugly, but they smoke like a dream. Find a reasonable looking one that you'll not hesitate to pull out of the rack and be seen smoking. Unfortunately John O. in Smyrna, Georgia, seems to have entirely cornered the market on those -- what I hear is that he huffs Royal Yacht Mixture in them -- but there must still be one or two around, so do not despair.
And good luck!


PS.: The reason why you should have several pipes is that you will need to rest them regularly. They need to dry out, and the complex chemicals deposited on the inside by combustion will need to break down, dissipate, evaporate. Pipes, like sweatsocks and underwear, perform better if they are cleaned and dried regularly.

What if you have an accident sometime and the emergency room staff over at the hospital are shocked by how perfectly horrid your pipe is?



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REVOLTING MONKEYS

Two of my more recent posts on social media have been to indicate the I am not vested in the Lord Of The Rings thing, and do not take kindly to people desirous of telling me about Medicare Parts A and B whom I do not know and did not ask to call me.

Sharon, a programmed message caller, got the licensed agent, an Indian call center drooge. Who was firmly told 我唔知你係邊個，我唔想同你講嘢。Imagine a baffled pause, followed by a disconnect.

Sadly, I do not have a favourite hobbit. They're all odious. Frodious.

And please don't tell me about 'second breakfast' again. The full English breakfast (and also the Scottish) is incredibly nasty, and having it twice in one day would be torture.
Besides being unhealthy and indigestible.

Today I snacked a bit before heading out for a late lunch. 牛肉免治飯，兩個煎蛋 ('ngau yiuk min chi faan, leung go jin daan') and a cup of Hong Kong milk tea. I was too busy internetting about lizards to actually have breakfast. Or second breakfast. Or lunch at the normal time.

Three hours more or less after puffing the post-lunch pipe, I was back at the same cross street smoking another bowlful while waiting for the bookseller. It was pleasant out, not warm, so tourist maidens showing off their tumtums with immodest clothing were not to be seen, and the Midwesterners have all waddled back to wherever they came from.

There have been times in the past few weeks when I did not feel quite myself. The weather had a lot to do with that. Not the usual foggy cold summer we're used to, but warmish, even quite hot. On Wednesday it might get up to the seventies, so there could be some public immodesty. But most of the next week or two it's probably going to remain in the sixties.
With fog most mornings and late evenings. Perfect for thoughtful pipesmoking.

It felt moist in Chinatown tonight.

During the cold wet part of the year I'd occasionally see Russel and Stephen when I was at that spot after lunch at my usual Wednesday haunt. Russel has since then had a bad bout of pneumonia and has not full recovered yet, Stephen doesn't walk around much alone, and the Wednesday restaurant folks have been on vacation since the beginning of May. The world is out of sync. Which tonight was exemplified by the squalling jugend loitering in front of the karaoke joint. Their gay ruckusing was audible from a block away. A veritable zoo.


We got to the bus stop too early to see the winsome miss with the anime babe hair (silvery light blue) who normally waits there at the same time. The bus over the hill was more filled than the later one usually would be. And there was more noise on the street.

I do not quite understand what my friend meant when he described a mutual acquaintance as giving a ghastly wave in response to our greeting.
But I did not see it.



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CONTEMPLATING DISTANT WORLDS

One could, at an ungodly hour, imagine that one is tramping over a blasted heath with one's pipe. But doing that requires a hound, a hunting gun, and several scraggy cattle mooing in the distance. Not the lone pooing poodle walker and random street person, barely awake. Yes, they're wildlife, native to these parts. But their presence does not thrill or invigorate.
And they'd look mighty queer if they saw me striding along with a shooting piece.
This isn't Alabama or Oklahoma.

Where good pipe tobacco would be hard to find, there are no moorlands, and there is nowhere to get a decent Vietnamese coffee at the end of the trail.
Nothing but boiled black slop and soggy grits.


And speaking of which, Alabama, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia have the highest rates of obesity in the country. Which may or may not tell you something about the people there and their cuisine.
I'm just throwing that out, I've never been there.
But I've heard things.

I'm envisioning vast mountains of lard and mayonnaise.
Which is unholy at six o'clock in the morning.

PICTURE OF A SCOTSMAN WITH HIS PET GOAT

To be honest, I have no interest in food at this hour. A cup of coffee and a pipeful of tobacco are all that is required, really, and I'll pass on the humongous platters of lard, mayonnaise, and boiled cornmeal that folks in the vast interior eat.


It's a diet based, I believe, on British cooking, but without the variety.



Scotland might be tolerable, if they had hotsauce.
Plus running water and central heating.



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DEAD DEVIL SO NOISY

Lunch was delightful. Other than hearing the woman in the back who kept up a non-stop angry monologue about someone's husband, black people, and a person who did not know what they were doing while in the process of doing it. Impossible to ignore, because of the loudness and the rising and falling in her prolonged squawk. It is quite likely that her social life is non-existent outside of that chachanteng, because she did not allow anyone else a word in edgeways, and repeated everything several times in a number of ways to make absolutely sure that those nearby people forced to hear her would understand.

I have heard her doing that a number of times. Always in the same chachanteng, mid to late afternoon. She does not know I speak Cantonese. I am a lucky man.

姖咁鬼死大聲！

If she's your relative, please make sure she takes her pills. Don't just push her out of the house every morning, you risk pissing off the entire community by doing that.
Me, you've already lost. Permanently.

There are a fair number of regulars there of whom I am less than fond. I time my visits for when I'm certain that the Toishan gang of geezers isn't there, as they are loud, stand-offish, and rather arrogant. The old lady who looks daggers is also someone whom I avoid.
As well as the man who looks corpse-like and mean.

But the waitresses are nice, and considering the people they have to put up with (including me) they are ruddy saints.

And I like their milk tea. It's very good.

For lunch I had one of the rice plates with HK milk tea. Enjoyed while enduring the anti-social harridan behind me. Given that I was not one of the people she was talking at, I could fairly easily pay her no mind. She was rather like one of those kvetchy old Republican dingbats in the back room over in Marin, whom I also largely ignore, because there is no benefit whatsoever in conversing with them.


They don't have milk tea where they are.
Which is so very sad. So, so sad.
No wonder they're pissy.


The pipe afterwards was very enjoyable. Chinatown is filled with Germans. They're thinner and trimmer than the suburbanites and Midwesterners. Waddle waddle waddle.



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YOU HAVE OFFENDED MY ANCESTORS!

A good friend was once repulsed by my posting a drawing of bittermelon on social media, and likened it to Kermit The Frog after a spin in the blender. Obviously, as a child she was made to eat it, and still harboured longlasting angst over the experience. I, on the other hand, discovered it in my teens when eating a late lunch over at an auntie's house, and was rather delighted by how different it tasted from vegetables at home. My mother was the daughter of an army officer, so naturally they had servants and a cook from The South. In those days proper Anglo-Americans did not believe in flavour. Not in vegetables. Those had to be cooked for hours to repress any savage Catholic tendencies.

Stringbeans? Four hours of boiling.

My grandmother once put stringbeans in the pressure cooker and set the timer at thirty minutes. I decided to have dinner out at a Chinese restaurant with friends that evening. In my teens I had started cooking stringbeans for only very short periods of time.
Excellent with dried shrimp, chilipaste, and a splash of stock.

After brief exposure to Southern and Midwestern "cuisine", I concluded that it was all far too English in concept, and have mostly avoided it ever since. Don't try to talk me out of that.

My repulsed friend, by the way, is Parsee. Parsee food is quite good.

Well, perhaps not how they do bittermelon.

Bittermelon at Cantonese restaurants is frequently cooked with fermented black bean sauce and fatty meats, or seafood. Personally I find it delightful -- it's so greeny green in taste -- but I can understand that many other white people will avoid it, because it does have a bitterness which Anglos do not associate with "nice". And at Chinese restaurants Anglos want things deep-fried then sauced with a brightly-hued gloop that incorporates plenty of sugar.
Plus salt and cornstarch. That's real Chinese food.

It's one of my favourite vegetables.

There are some things without which civilized eating would be downright unthinkable. Chilies. Fermented fish products (garum inter alia). Garlic. Ginger. Soy sauce. Cooking wine of whatever type. Citrus. Spices and herbs used liberally. Highly refined sugar.

If that last is the only one present in a noticeable quantity, you may be stuck in England or the heathen parts of the United States. And augmenting what's on your plate with glops of ketchup or mayonnaise.


One cannot read about the fall of Rome without realizing that for the next millenium food in large parts of Europe was nasty and Brutish. No wonder they martyred saints and burned people at the stake.



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THINKING KINDLY

In case you had forgotten, today is street cleaning day on this side of the block. When means that if you are one of the four people still parked right now, you are getting a ticket. The cost of which will contribute a small bit towards keeping the city running, and the retirement fund for bureaucrats, as well as ocasional emergency services, and pre-printed ticket forms in tear-off blocks that fit neatly inside a SFMTA standard issue work shirt. Which makes you feel mightily chuffed, I know. It's your minor contribution to a well-functioning society.

It does not contribute to the San Francisco fog.
That comes with the territory.
Icing on the cake.

As a long time resident here, I do not own a car. So es ist mir scheißegal on which side of the street the cleaning vehicle rolls today. Or tomorrow. Between 7 AM and nine.

The workmen down the street are all getting tickets. And for that the building contractor has probably made an allowance. The vehicle owners will be on the scaffolding placidly enjoying their cup of tea and a Camel cigarette, while the hardworking SFMTA functionary oozes out of their meter maid conveyance to slip a paper tag under their windshield wiper, before happily going on to the next pickup truck and the next ticket. A profitable morning!
It makes everybody happy. You can just feel the joy.

There are times when I wish this was Amsterdam, with cafe awnings where one could sit with one's pipe at the crack of dawn dawdling over coffee, or somewhere in Kowloon with a mug of strong milk tea, a bowl of congee, and a yautiu, while discussing the stock market with Ma Sook who runs the place. Who is smoking his third Double Happiness cigarette while behind the counter. Nothing says early morning while the outside temperatures are still bearable and all the kiddie-winkies are bundled off to school better than smokes and parking tickets.

Except, of course, that Ma Sook has not been able to smoke in his place of business since 2007, I don't know beans about the stock market (so we could talk about the horse races perhaps), and neither one of us own a car. The Netherlands banned indoor public smoking in 2008. Since then, in both places, thousands of older people have died of weather related diseases -- pneumonia, typhoid, the plague -- because they have to go outside for a puff. Good riddance, as far as the bureacrats and vegan do-gooders are concerned.
They were just taking up room and breathing everyone else's air!


An early morning dog walker glowered at me while I was wandering around at the top of the hill with my pipe, which I took to heart. I do not like displeasing the people who are picking up dog poo. They serve a useful function. We can't leave little Muffy's bowel movement just lying there steaming there on the sidewalk, it must be properly disposed of. And dog owners are useful members of society! They perform desk jobs remotely, like paper shuffling with computer files for gadget and widget companies downtown!

By the way: When I'm outside with a pipe I always have a sufficiency of pipe cleaners with me in case some other smoker needs one or has a gurgly shank. I presume Muffy's owner has an extra baggie with him on the off-chance that some other canine has a bowel movement. It's the Christian thing to do.



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THE SLACKJAWED MASSES

The western fence lizard sunning on the walkway at work is a naturally skittish creature, keenly aware of the facts that crows overhead might see him, and the Karenesque bozos in the backroom are entitled, attitudinated, and largely unlikeable. Plus if they stayed at home, their wives would exile them to the compost heap whenever they light their stogies.
Because they become more so, and it stimulates their horse puckey glands.
Juices!

I feel a kinship with that lizard. I know how he feels.
Never-the-less, I am paid to be a Christian.
Which is not my nature.

[Heck, without the dollars, I would not even be there.]

I look forward to spotting him when I show up early every day.
And I think he may reciprocate that feeling.
I am not hungry like a crow.

And unlike two pea-brains recently, I am not stoned on ganj.
That's an hour and a half I'll never see again.
Marinites+therapeutic substances.
How perfectly ghastly.

At least the western fence lizard can believably pretend that he does not speak English.

So I'm also quite jealous. I blew my cover on that score years ago.

He can turn away and scurry into the twigs and leaves.

I must, sadly go "hello ... Newman".

Then Newman drools.



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AN AGE OF INNOCENCE

When I stepped out for a last pipefull yesterday evening dense clouds were moving in, and the temperature had dropped very much from the heat of the day. A young Chinese woman walked by wearing a blue dress that revealed her curves nicely. She was abstracted by the images on her screen. I observed her briefly, then headed up the street. Young ladies smiling at their cell-phones may be seeing what their special friend sent them, and in any case there is no percent in engaging with them, if you are old enough to be, you know, that generation.
If she spoke to me in Cantonese, she would have addressed me as 'Ah Sook' (uncle).
In English, if she was American born, 'mister' (aka: skeevy old creep).
Because, of course, one doesn't randomly converse.


Basic life rule: do not bother women walking past. They will take it amiss. And consider you a right creep. Before reaching into their pocket and unleashing a full can of mace right in your eyes. Assuming that they have been well brought up.Mace is part of the feminine mystique.
Always let them start the conversation by saying what a remarkably dashing middle aged fellow you are, and gosh you look jaunty with that pipe. Are your busy?

That never happens. But it's best to be prepared for it.
Yes, I am a boy scout in some ways.

A friend of a certain age mentioned that he was always disappointed whenever he went to July Fourth celebrations to which he had been invited. No discussion at all of the founding principles of our country, standard American beer, a dearth of condiments for the crisped dog, and not enough potato salad. Further inquiry indicated that it was always the same people that invited him. He had never let on that it left him with an empty feeling.

Perhaps start a conversation about Monty Python instead, and have TWO burnt weenies.
Social life takes two to tango. Enough badly cooked food can fill that hole.
And for craps sakes, bring a bottle of wine when you go.
Shitty beer is a default.

I didn't say that, of course. He has a greater social life than I do, but mine is not depressing. So while I am slightly jealous, I don't feel like giving him pointers. Personally, I rather like burnt weenies. They're an American tradition I have not experienced enough.

Personally, I was completely unaware that people discussed our national founding principles at these events, but I knew that they drank lots of pissy beer and burned things. I went to a July 4th. celebration once when I was much younger, and there weren't any weenies.
Haven't repeated that since. Weenies are fundamental.
I don't like being disappointed.



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ALL NINE OF THEM

The fog came back yesterday evening, later than in previous years on the Fourth. But appreciated never-the-less. At jus past nine thirty or so I left the building with a pipe to enjoy the coolness and the muffled explosions. Throughout the evening after dark there had been rumbling and booms, not too close, so it was rather enjoyable.
But I am not an aficionado particularly of fire works.
I understand that like burnt hot dogs they are traditional.
That does not mean I want them close by.

A friend had remarked that you could make a wonderful refreshing beverage with cucumbers, and for a second what I heard was peanut butter. Both my coordination and my hearing are better when it's high fifties to low sixties, and for most of the past three days it has been somewhere between seventy five and ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

Outside of the civilized zone it's been a furnace.
Mad Max Country.


It is possible, I suppose, to use peanut butter as the basis for a refreshing chilled beverage. Add sugar and a little lemon juice, plus plenty of water and crushed ice.
Perhaps I should experiment. The Skippy shake.
Pinch of salt.

Might go well with the charred hot dogs in the fog. A new July Fourth tradition.


I think I prefer fog. Bundling up warmly and going somewhere elevated to observe the only barely visible glowing puffballs in the sky, before saying "stuff this, I'm going home", is a time honoured San Francisco custom. Then, the next morning, local media shows pictures taken from a boat in the Bay of all the glory that we missed.

Some people are disappointed to see only invisible rumblings.
Don't worry, boys, the rest of the state is burning up.
That's fireworks enough for all of us.



I hope everyone still has all nine of their fingers?




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HEATHENS RUNNING AMUCK IN SHORTS

Good lord there are a lot of outsiders in the city. After having a bowl of congee and a fried dough stick I lit my pipe, and stood in the shadows counting obese people. Of which there are swarms. Huge swarms. Awsomely humongous. Huuuuuuge.

Sorry.


Angelic little blonde kid posing with dried fish. Click.
Large thighs in front of a shop window. Click.
Ooh, an array of whatevers! Click.

It should be noted that the average Caucasian young person only knows from battered fish chunks, microwavable, and perhaps tuna salad. As well as salmon, which no one in his family understands how to prepare properly. It's very sad.
Dried fish is utterly "foreign".

Tourists, sadly, bring out the unmitigated savage in me. I want to tie them up and dance around them, yowling. Plus I resent their waddlesome mobility as they tromp around my sector of the city with their carbonated beverages, ice cream cones, and vulgar tattoos.

It's probably worse where they come from.
More skin, because of the heat.
The burning zone.

In a Sci-Fi universe we'd send agents out into the hotlands wearing special protective gear against the blazing temperatures, in cooled vehicles, to hunt down murderous mutants and degenerates. Real world: we invite them into the city, where it is substantially cooler, to snap selfies and spend money. It's over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit where they're from.
Just around seventy here.

The place where I had dumplings yesterday was jam-packed.
The congee cafetaria had four empty tables.
Congee is not bourgeois.
Unhip.

The place where I had afternoon tea and a nible was not doing a booming business either. Too old-fashioned, terminally unhip, with incomprehensible unknown edibles, and what on earth is Hong Kong Milk Tea?

There was a line outside the matcha icecream place.
And a throng up the street waiting for their bobas.



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OH, THE GHASTLY HUMANITY!

All night long idiots have been setting off fireworks. The sound of explosions from near and far was not conducive to a good nights rest. Consequently, today I'm siding with the English. Damned colonials!

First smoke of the day in a Charatan Canadian pipe, slightly re-topped.
A blend of two different red Virginias with a pinch Perique.
After, of course, absorbing a cup of coffee.


It is too early to be exposed to people pooing their dogs.


The great American past-time.

All over the city there are folks who will not be able to pick up dog poo with all ten fingers tomorrow. Mostly frat boys and urban rednecks. Male. Naturally. Their extraordinarily patient and long-suffering helpmeets of either gender will have to go out and act like human shovels, bedraggled and sleep-deprived, hair matted and clumped, because Bubba James just had to be an idiot, and play with explosive devices despite being inebriated from drinking shitty beer since before lunch on Independence Day. Poo must be picked up after Rover.
And so it damned well shall be. Hell or high water.

My piles bleed for them.

Yesterday the prospect of dumplings was spoiled by the obese red-headed child who kept stepping outside to set off fireworks, returning each time with a satisfied smirk on his puffy face. His grandma regarded him with pleasure and pride, the tattooed mom-person seemed zonked and out of it, the aunt kept adjusting her make-up. You know, ladies, when someone keeps disappearing from the family dinner table to "do things", that's almost a sure sign of addiction. Does Sonny Boy also smoke pot? Probably needs it to put up with you.

Good luck when (and if) he goes off to college.
He'll pair it with pizza then.
Bloat-o-rama.



Fortunately the entire ghastly lot of them had left by the time my food arrived. So I was able to enjoy my 白菜豬肉水餃 ('paak choi chyu yiuk seui gaau') in the relative peace and quiet of a crowded Chinatown restaurant, there being no other juvie white breads to fly the ointment or set off explosives right outside the plate glass windows.

Plus sambal, milk tea, and a pipe afterwards.
Dutch Uncle was a contented man.



On Wednesdays I usually bring the Indonesian Chinese auntie downstairs some groceries from shopping on Stockton Street. This week, peaches and okra. Persik dan katjang bendi.
It provides her with human contact and something healthy.
And it's good for my self-esteem.
Proves I'm human.



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THE FIERINESS

Second day of a heat wave (there is no global warming) with temperatures in large parts of California (there is no global warming) well past one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And there are wildfires raging out of control (there is no global warming). With thousands of people evacuated (there is no global warming), and blistering temperatures. On the other side of the country, off the coast, a force five hurricane is barreling in. There is no global warming. Over in Europe, the natives are smearing on suntan lotion and stripping down, as they are wont to do for ninety days each summer. Same in Northern India along the banks of the Ganges.

There is no global warming.
We're just burning up.
It's natural.


Cairo, Hong Kong, and Oakland are at the same temperatures.

Outside the building it's low seventies, mild breeze, and no sign of the wildfires raging to the East of here. Shirtsleeve weather. It's balmy. Temperate even.

Damned naked tourists from The Valley, wandering around enjoying our coolness, and I can't even wear my overcoat it's so warm, I keep pipes and tobacco in the right hand pocket. Which are essential for my comfort. And there is no global warming.

Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the governor of Texas all say so.
And they're smart people. They wouldn't be what they are otherwise.
Book learning, common sense, and smarts combined.



No matter. In a short while I shall be heading out to do some shopping, have a late lunch, and smoke a pipe. In my shirtsleeves. The heat isn't that bad that I fear dehydrating, and though my right leg will feel like it's being run over by a tank while Russian troops are screaming and wipping it savagely, I shall be in a cheery springlike mood. Yes.

The right leg is a mean bitch when it's warm outside.
From knee to ankle was a temper-tantrum.
Trying to fall asleep was unreal.
No global warming.


Cheery. Springlike. Mood.


Tomorrow is the Fourth. All over the city people will be ceremonially incinerating a hotdog, because the singed meat smell will remind them of Independence Days of the past, and celebrating the greatness of our country and our glorious leaders.

Then we will all watch the fireworks, bursting in the fog.
Giant pastel-hued poofballs, scarcely visible.
It's always foggy on the fourth.
It has to be.



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SCREAMING 'POK GAI' IS NOT A GOOD IDEA

In fact, screaming 'pok gai' in the middle of the night on a quiet street at people who aren't there and might not even exist is probably never a good idea. He was emoting ferociously before our paths crossed, ignored my cheery 'good evening' and continued being angry and vocal after we passed each other. I could hear him even once I was inside and going up the stairs. Which is why I don't live on the groundfloor in the front of the building.

He's a man I've seen around the city many times. Not entirely compos mentis. And, naturally, I have never demonstrated any ability to speak Cantonese, because I've learned over the years that doing so to Chinese loonies makes them remember your face. And strike up random conversations when you do not wish them to do that.
Because surely you will understand.

I'm a very tolerant sort, which people tend to pick up on. That fossilized white woman on the bus who pressed upon me her opinion that there weren't enough white people in the city, all these Asians were taking over, probably took one look at me and figured "ooh, a white man of a certain age, so surely he will understand". A few blocks after I informed her that it wasn't my concern and went to stand elsewhere she outbursted loudly about Asians, why the bus was filled with them, it was so nasty! Asians, by the way, are very good at ignoring crazy white people. Which is good. There are an awful lot of them in this city.
Her doctor who prescribes her pills is probably Asian.
As are the staff at the pharmacy.
And the nursing home.

By that time I had already had a loud but friendly disagreement with a Cantonese woman. Please sit. No, it is not necessary, you sit. No no, you sit. I do not need to sit, you sit. I'm not sitting. 請坐。唔使，你坐。我唔坐，你坐。我唔使坐，啊，你坐。我唔坐。你坐，你坐。

I wouldn't be surprised if the old white lady had been sitting down because a Cantonese passenger gave up their seat.


The phrase 'pok gai' ( 仆街) literally means to fall or collapse on the street, as one might do when starving, dying of the plague, uncared for, not likely to have relatives who will give one a proper funeral or even a bowl of rice when alive. It is a curse, a death wish, and a noun. Pok gai is the diametric opposite of an endearment, and is quite the most common imprecatory utterance in Cantonese.

There were youngish white women screaming at the karaoke place, so we went elsewhere.
I was conscious of the pipe in my breast pocket giving me the appearance of having a single pointy man boob -- not the best look -- so at an opportune time I removed it. It had been very enjoyable an hour earlier. Grant Avenue had been fairly quiet then, no stumbling drunks, but a passer-by had reeked of therapeutic substance, and I was glad when he finally moved on. For a few minutes he had been in discussion with a newspaper rack, but left after instructing it to tell nobody. Nobody, dig?

Not being myself a newspaper rack, nor conversationally inclined, I had done my best to be invisible. In which I believe I succeeded. I am actually part of this wall, honest.

I believe it's this weather. The heat makes people act strange.
Explains why people in New York are goofy in Summer.
And everyone in Florida is crazy year round.



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PARTS OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

It was his second to the last day in the city, he had been here last year and at that time due to family issues he didn't have as much time to enjoy and explore. I had gone out to the front steps for a smoke where he was doing likewise. He's my landlady's stepson from New York. So he's staying downstairs.

He made sure to tell me to convey his thank yous to my apartment mate for the croissants from Juniper which she had brought over. My apartment mate is a very considerate woman, whereas I am, most of the time, a casual and downright insensitive dude. I am glad that after all these years she still associates with me. She picked me up from the hospital both times (coronary stent, appendectomy), which pissed off her boy friend at the time, but she had done the same for him (panic attack, wheelchair malfunctions, idiot health nut dietarily induced ailment), and eventually broke up with him, so hey. Whatever.
She tends to gift people eaties. Very nice.


I guess it's obvious I didn't get along with her now ex boyfriend.
That's probably my problem, and we shan't discuss it.
She tolerates human frailty better than I do.

Which makes me wonder why all the dysfunctional stuffed animals live in my room, and all the sane and capable "roomies" stay on her side of the apartment. How did that happen? How did I end up with the German raccoon who went to Heidelberg and the hippopotamus who false-remembers that he and I used to rob banks together? Or Lennie the tentacled cardshark who lives under my bed? How odd.

Anyway, the croissants from Juniper (1401 Polk St, San Francisco, CA 94109. Pastry chef Amy Chen) are absolutely stellar. They're the best I've had since coming back to the United States by a mile. Humongously excellent. Might make me a morning person again.

They're also close enough to the apartment that I could walk there before lighting up the first pipe of the day.


My friend the bookseller has the Caffe Trieste around the corner from him, I have Juniper around the corner from me. There are excellent claypot rice (煲仔飯), roast duck (燒鴨) and siu yiuk (燒肉), pizzerias and pasta places (意大利菜) in between. Plus Anthony Bourdain's favourite burger (漢堡包) in San Francisco. As well as the gâteau St-Honoré and fabulous dumplings. It's a wonder that none of us are fat.

It's probably the San Francisco hills. It makes people lean and wiry.
All that exercise is good for the appetite.



Now, what I should really like is a place two or three blocks away that started seving jook and phở (粥同河粉) early in the morning, with good strong Hong Kong style milk tea (港式奶茶) and Vietnamese coffee (越南咖啡). Perhaps on the corner of an alley, so that a man could light up his pipe at the tables there without getting screamed at.



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BLISS WILL BE PROVIDED

After seeing the emergency crew cart off an overdosed Caucasian in Chinatown -- first time in that neighborhood to my knowledge -- on the further way down to my bank I saw a poster for something featuring a chopstick-wielding Caucasian looking blissed out. The overdoser was one of the usual streetpeople, and I think he'll live. That blissed out dude? Maybe not. Exquisite ecstatic agony. Probably food-related snuff pornography.
This city has a high degree of strange.

Much of it, oddly, connected to Caucasians.

Earlier I had seen an exceptionally large, LARGE, white man wearing tight short sexpot pants ambling down the street. Which is understandable, as it's shirtsleeve weather.
But not suitable garb for a gentleman. In any weather.


Which is one of the reasons I'm damned glad white people don't often eat at the place where I had lunch. Where there were only four people who weren't speaking Toishan dialect. Three of whom had no hope of ever doing so. At least I can understand it, situationally.
Don't ask me to ever speak it, though.


Sometimes I think that white people don't like Chinese food.
If I ever see sexpot shorts guy there, I'm invisible.
Sorry, I just arrived from Mars.
He isn't mine.

No, it's not a place with Hong Kong style milk tea. Instead it specializes quite a bit in claypot rice preparations, and sometime I shall have to order the yellow eels claypot rice, which I'm sure is delicious, but when I walked in I had a yen for salt fish pork patty claypot rice (鹹魚肉餅煲仔飯 'haam yü yiuk beng pou chai faan').

Listening in on all the talk in Toisaanwaa was icing on the cake.
The way the sounds are different is fascinating.
Is it an older pronunciation?
Or a later shift?



Hot pants are 熱褲 ('yit fu').
No word for Daisy Dukes.



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PEASE, ZEITGEIST, AND A BRITISH FUNK

Little White Nipple Dude was in a few days ago, and deeply desired my thoughts on African Meerschaum versus Anatolian. Meerschaum, which is a fairly neutral material for pipes, is a porous mineral silicate of magnesia, of which the finest deposits are mined under the city of Eskişehir. It is also found elsewhere in the world, but not nearly so pure and white, and often there are inclusions. Those ancient see creatures did not die a clean death, and not alone.

I myself am not a fan. It's good as the bowl insert in a calabash, but that's about it.

Little White Nipple Dude has queer obsessions.

He stayed for over an hour.


Naturally my mind wandered while he waffled.
And I fixed myself a strong double bagger to stay awake.
I was enjoying a bowl of Greg Pease's latest release during that time, and suddenly remembered that I had not mentioned several of his more recent tobaccos here yet.
Which is an oversight.

BANKSIDE
Zetgeist collection. Virginias, with smidge of Latakia, Perique, and Kentucky. Flake.
This is good tobacco, but it did not excite me. Which is entirely due to my mental state at the time. Most of the time. Virginia dominant, with a span of of condimentals. Including Latakia. Smokers of McClelland would definitely like this. When it first came out, it was winter in California, and effing miserable outside.

HORIZON
Zeitgeist collection. Balkan flake.
Precisely the kind of thing Neil would like when he's outside in the yard with the cat. Medium to full Latakia, rich, complex, refined and old-fashioned. I smoked several bowls over the weekend. Hits spots. It's a definite winner. Remember that depressing village outside Exeter where everything seemed wet, during that summer years ago? It would have been bright and sunny (but not hot) if you had tins of this with you. You might have stayed there two or three extra months. The locals would have seemed more washed, the beer more drinkable.

GÉOMÉTRIE
Zeitgeist collection. Plug. Pale and dense.
Well hot damn'! When you're smoking this, work doesn't seem such a pain, and you don't even hear the bitchy old men in the backroom ripping the liberal member another one. Foral and vegetal. That's probably how the Turkish leaf augments the Virginias. Medium strength, it has depth, and for a VaPer aficionado this could well be an all day smoke despite the absence of Perique.

LEVANT MIXTURE (DRUCQUER & SONS)
Balkan, thinnish ribbon cut.
When Greg had been tasked with reformulating the Drucquer blends there had been so much blend shift due to the incompetence of the then owner of the company that, for all intents and purposes, he had a clean sheet to start from, with just the descriptions in the catalogue to go on, and precious little else. So his versions then were not copies or restored originals, but more along the lines of homage blends. What he thought they would have been like regarding Latakia and Turkish, based much on how they had been decribed and where they were placed in the range. I didn't go to Drucquers during those years -- being otherwise engaged and in an unsettled period since leaving their employ -- so I don't have a clear idea how succesful he was at recalibrating the blends. But from all accounts they were good. His current editions of some of those blends are excellent. Both the Levant Mizture and Jeremy Reeves' Palmetto are more or less must-haves that reawaken memories you didn't know you still had. Levant is dark and creamy, the perfect tobacco for a middle-aged bookworm at Cambridge who still recalls crash-landing the plane in Devon during the blitz.
Well-balanced, Latakia leading. Berkeley is reborn.

SPARKPLUG
Dark British Balkan Plug.
Heavy and Latakia dominant. What you should smoke when you are in a foul mood and want to keep the visiting relatives out of the library. Or it's raining, and still hours to go ere tea time. Might as well hit the sherry you hid behind the volumes of Swann's Collected Depravities. If you smoke this too often, they'll start leaving a tray of food outside the library door instead of calling you for dinner. Cook does a lovely roast, you want a second helping with some more of those fabulous buttered parsnips, but good luck. It's all gone by that time.

THE VIRGINIA CREAM
Heirloom collection. Flue-cured mixture with a touch of vanilla.
It is traditional for smokers of one type of blend to sneer at other tobaccos, and to start off their reviews with the phrase "as a smoker of blah blah I did not think that I would like this", followed by quible-waffles. Variegated, but on the paler side. Has small dark chunks, which may be the firecured leaf. The vanilla is not a powerhouse. It leaves your bottom clean.
Tangy, springlike, and enjoyable.

TOBACCO INDEX


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RABBIT RABBIT

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