COWS AND PIGS FOR TWO THOUSAND MILES

One of the things I fondly remember from a year ago, when I got out of the hospital, was heading over to Cafe New Honolulu (新品味 'san pan mei', 850 Stockton Street, SF, CA 94108) for bitter melon omelette over rice, with tonnes of hot sauce. That and Hong Kong milk tea got me back on my feet again, after recovering from an exploding appendix and immediately subsequent operation to remove the offensive organ.

There is no way to restore a malfunctioning appendix. Fortunately, it is useless, and the loss of it, if handled by trained professionals, will not be lamented.

[Bitter melon omelette over rice: 涼瓜煎蛋飯 'leung gwaa jin daan faan'. Hong Kong milk tea: 港式奶茶 'kong sik naai cha']

Oh yeah, I also had self-induced food poisoning five weeks after the hospital stay. So I lost a lot of weight between mid-July and September. It was an interesting period.
And I'm a rather scrawny fellow now.


In lieu of bittermelon omelette over rice, which is what I'd really like to have today, I fixed myself chopped mustard omelette with a big wedge of cheesy bread. Also good. Plus lots of sambal.


Followed by a slow smoke; flake in a Canadian made by Comoy probably older than myself.

Read while listening to the drip drip of rain, and searching on the internet to find out if the nasty orange turd ball has conceded yet. He hadn't this morning, it's unlikely that he matured much in the seven hours since then. Our president's child like innocence is a major drag at this point, and it's sad that nearly half the country enthusiastically enables him.

There is a large part of this country I do not wish to ever visit. Friends have said that one really must travel all over America to understand the people and know what the United States is all about, but judging from their voting patterns, the increase in hate crimes, ghastly food on the internet, methamphetamine statistics, and their religious practices, that would be a roadtrip to hell. I am not a masochist. And you don't want me angry behind the wheel while trying to get the heck out of Texas or Georgia. Besides, the Bay Area is like a catch drain, in consequence of which I've met every kind of American right here in San Francisco.
They eat too much, smell bad, and dress funny.


Even thinking about motoring through trailerparkistan fills me with the sound of banjos.

Tea time later. Another pipe. Perhaps a Charatan.
Filled with something ancient.
And very English.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

HIGHLY FICTIONAL PASSINGS

Thoughts about mortality this past week got me thinking. Obviously the anti-social person would prefer to die during a pandemic, because the idea of a lot of people attending a memorial service would be horrible. But the antisocial sh*t disturber, on the other hand, relishes the concept. "Do you remember the time Atboth was arrested running down the freeway naked with his upper torso painted blue", Dingo Carruthers will say, "because, as he explained to the judge later "If the invading English were horrified at native bottoms painted blue in Braveheart, then it stood to reason that blue was manifestly the colour of superior adequacy".
And everyone nods their heads. Yep, they remembered Atboth doing that.
Including the traumatized highway patrol men in attendance.
As well as the officer who arrested him at a riot.
Because the tapes hit the news.

At this point I should clarify that Atboth (me) never got arrested for such on incident. But I could have been. Except that I'm too fast, was probably covered in oil at the time and thus hard to seize, and it never happened anyway.

There are no mass gatherings to mourn passings during a pandemic. But after this is over, they may be the dominant social event for a while. The friend who died last week had heart and renal failure. The one three months ago was just severely old. Another one went to hospital for blockage. A fourth man was a cancer survivor who in the end did not survive. None of them were covid victims. But there have been no fond memorials with incidents of wailing and alcoholism, and perhaps there should be.

It is time to create great stories about the dead, and oneself, to seed the future memories.

Give the survivors good reasons to drink.


"Atboth died as he had lived; sozzled behind the wheel of his crimson Lamborghini, outrunning the tax man."

"Like a Parsee, he ate sixty hardboiled eggs at a sitting."

"His strap-on antlers caught fire."

"The short people."

"Rosebud."


A friend passed years ago after going to Russia, getting tattooed all over, and marrying a man half her age. The vodka got to her. Her young widower sold her gun collection and retired to Saint-Tropez. We still talk about her and her minor peccadilloes. We will help her daughter follow in her mom's footsteps. Those are some mighty big high heels to fill.




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

CHAOTIC TRIBALS

Key phrase in the household at this moment: "Stop being a greedy frass, Pudge-Wudge!" This directed at one of the stuffed creatures, who has an eating disorder (he wants to eat ALL the time, we only feed him at mealtimes). He eats a lot. But he says that we never feed him.
Despite developing a pear-shape, damned near eggplantian, since coming here.
'Pudge-Wudge' isn't his real name, of course.
It's an affectionate nick-name.
Egg-plantian.


Dear operaticaly exaggerating Pudge-Wudge.


Having worked for several days, it is now pau hana time. One of my coworkers managed to break a few ribs while at home -- We've been telling everyone she was practicing her tackle, but she's actually a bit accident prone -- and will be out till next year. I'm now covering one of her shifts. Working four days a week again.

When I got home, the sounds of stuffed creature discord reached my ears. My apartment mate had gotten home earlier, and it was from her room that the furball voices came. I am not as social as she is. All I want when I get back to the apartment after slaving at the salt mines is a cup of coffee, some perfectly rotten news on the internet, and later a quiet smoke.


If there are stuffed creatures sharing the apartment, that is impossible.
They're nature's little fuzzy anarchists.
Kind of like the Irish.


Dinner: Fatty pork fried up with garlic, chilies, and noodles. Yes, I shared it gerously with Pudge-Wudge. So he's quiescent for the nonce. There was also icecream He had some of that too.
Peace at last.





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

DIGGING THROUGH THE LAYERS

The Roiling Mountain of Male Hormones has left the building! We are no longer subject to his Magic Macho Masculinity. We are bereft. After last night's three hundred plus comment internet conversation, he took his ball and left. No biggie; it wasn't a very nice ball anyway.

Normally, conversations on that page for fellow aficionados of that subject are a text or picture, half a dozen likes or so, and nearly as many comments. Not anywhere near three hundred.

Drama. Thunder and lightening. Plus lots of good gentle sharp biting humour. Don't worry, we were pretty much genteel in our polite responses, almost diplomatic.

But he bailed on us, the angry little puppy.


I feel sad for him.


Glad too, as the developing comment string kept me up past my bedtime, which isn't healthy. As a mature individual, I need my sleep, what with not being college age anymore and no longer capable of operating on too little rest. It also kept one of the admins up far later than usual too -- he's on the East Coast, and a retired man besides, so he needs his beauty sleep lest he look oldish the next day -- but decorum was scrupulously maintained.

Well, except for one comment: a picture of a very butchly muscled gay man with tattoos and scanty leather scraps for covering, chains, and a policeman's hat. As an ironic statement.
My impression was that it was a biker. The apex predator of mucho manly machismo.


Yeah, coming off as stressing masculinity overmuch, or even at all, in a collection of rather well-read educated hobbyists, who cannot see that there is any relevance to the hobby, is, perhaps, the wrong way to go about making friends and influencing people.
But it made quite a splash.



While I do not doubt that one or two members may be into the Tom of Finland gestalt, the overwhelming majority probably are out of the loop entirely on that.
It isn't our raison d'etre.



It's a pipe group. Pipe collectors, pipe craftspeople, and pipe smokers.
Gender doesn't have a significant bearing on the field.
Exaggerations of gender are in iffy taste.



Please do not show us your hairy balls.




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

I'D LOVE A SANDWICH ABOUT NOW

In another week or so it will be Thanksgiving, which is when it is right and proper that families cluster together and drink too much while giving each other the heebiejeeps and whatever communicable diseases they have. Colds, flu, covid, syphilis, and clinical depression.
Followed by Christmas, New Years, and another wave.

This blogger does not do that. Thanksgiving and Christmas, both overrated holidays, are bearable if they are quick. And largely done without kinfolk.

Which is why I sympathize with Michael here:



[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OBGSeT-JX4.]


The only good things about the Holiday Season are Belgian cookies, more chocolate than normal, Pizza parties, and cheese.

.
Other than that, if you're alone, it's a time of depression.

If you're in a group, it's an existential crisis.

Either way there's football.





Some of us do not watch football. We'd rather watch paint dry.
Or have a sandwich.




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

ON GOING GREEN

At some point, a person living in California will invent a non-dairy gluten free kale or beet icecream, with a small percentage of the profits going to save the rainforests. The company making it will be minority owned. It will be about the biggest thing since sliced beans.
If you don't love it, you're a meanie glut-o-phile destroying the planet.

It's organic! And green.

This blogger, on the other hand, is keenly waiting for the first steak-flavoured gelato, with layers of Bearnaise ripple. As well as rumaki fudge.



As you can tell, I've had it up to here with organic fair trade gluten-free. Everything has to be organic fair trade gluten-free. Coffee, tobacco, pasta, cheese, and clothing. Baby formula.
Soap and skin care products. Beer. Dessserts.



"Are there", someone asked me recently, "cigars that are certified organic and fair trade?"

No there jolly well aren't. For one thing, tobacco plantations in Latin America don't hold with that organic bushwa, because that means either stronger but "natural" pesticides (poisons) or severely limited yields of prime tobacco, and fair trade is a dammed good way to make a premium colonial cash crop unaffordable to the only group that can afford to buy it in the first place: First Worlders. You might find organic fair trade cigars in the Swisher Sweets aisle, perhaps next to the Havatampas and tipparillos. Machine rolled, scrap leaf.


"Are there cigars that are certified organic and fair trade?"


"Mmm, I suggest a double claro. It's green."


Insisting on organic fair trade cigars will only benefit the drug trade. Because of economies of scale, logistics, profit per acre ratios, and third world agribusiness.

Consider, for instance, that marijuana is one of the absolute top cash crops in the United States. Whereas tobacco and cotton have sunk to lows unthinkable since our founding, which tobacco and cotton financed.

Drugs are just so much more profitable than legitimate crops.
Coca leaves, Mary J, and Opium Poppies.


If you really want to improve the world, please demand certified organic fair trade marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. As well as methamphetamine produced in clean well-regulated labs.
With OSHA and local health department approval.


As further food for thought, Erythroxylum novogranatense is extremely adaptable to a variety of climactic conditions, and would probably thrive in vast areas of this country, both as a cultivated crop and growing wild. The Deep South looks to be an ideal growing area, and would benefit from the influx of cash enormously. The new prosperity would build schools, hospitals, paved roads, and would conceivably drag the natives out of the twin pits of poverty and ignorance.
The plus side is immense. A new American century.
The South would be relevant again.
Finally.

It could be done in a way that's organic, fair trade, and gluten free.
So everyone, even Californians, would be happy.
We would an example to the world.
Sustainably.




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

AUSTRALIA IS UNSUITABLE FOR ARACHNIDS

Australia banned a Peppa Pig episode because spiders trigger the beans out of Aussies.
Or maybe they're just racists. Speciesist. Phobics. Goofy.
There's a spider in the episode.
Eek.

Mister Skinny Legs, the very controversial episode written in 2004, is about Peppa befriending a large spider, with the encouragement of her father. In the episode she offers the arachnid some tea and tucks it nicely into bed.

But not in Australia. It's "inappropriate for Australian audiences."

Our household spider, Mr. Pierpont, is quite upset with the Australians, and thinks that if Steve Irwin were still alive this would never have happened. He'd talk some testicles into their goofy little heads. Perhaps over tea. With vegemite or whatever.

Mr. Pierpont (seen above) is quite fond of tea.

And he's heard of 'Pavlova', a meringue-like dessert cake topped with fruit and whipped cream, not flavoured with Vegemite.



Australia is home to several startling things, including but not limited to: Kangaroos, Chateau Chunder Wine, Koalas, Vegemite (severely boiled down and reduced koala), blue ringed octopods, Logan, Perth, and the gimpie gimpie tree.

But they're scared of spiders.




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

REALIZING IT PAINFULLY

During the pandemic much of one's social life takes place on the internet. Which for many people has the direct benefit that no one can see you pick your nose.
The other direct advantage is: no body odour.
I am convinced that ninety percent of my Facebook friends smell like roses. Or lilacs. A few of them smell like Latakia tobacco or cigars, except for John O. who hates Latakia, and a fictitious teenage girl, a sock puppet I created a long time back to converse with people whose politics were loathesome. I mislaid the passwords to her accounts years ago -- she'd be in college now if she actually existed -- and many of those people still haven't wigged.

Thanks to the internet I've found out several things: John Voigt is completely bonkers. One or two of the people I know are out of their heads. An old friend passed away recently. My aunt in Canada is frustrated by current pandemic related constraints, she wants to get out and do things! Thailand is a hell hole to be avoided. The Great American Heartland is filled with assholes. Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, and Michelle Bachman need to be medicated, restrained, and ball-gagged. Newt Gingrich is so angry that he's constipated all the time now. And Mordechai in New York can't find Vanilla Coke or Vanilla Pepsi ANYWHERE!

Plus, Bawas can't live without eggs.



When this is all past us, we will have needed to reinvent ourselves. Things are changing, our village won't be the same as it was. There will be people whom we wished we had been more responsive to, or whom we really should have told how much we appreciated them. Places we relied on will be gone, there will be new people there whom we do not know.

We'll all be older and less likeable.



Thailand.
Look, what else can you say about a country where the king is a perverted supreme leader, the hotels take you to court for bad customer reviews, and the basis of the entire tourist industry is sexual exploitation of minors?

The Great American Heartland.
Mainly Christian, meaning there's a lot of racism and sexism there, plus bad beer and processed cheese.

Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, and Michelle Bachman.
Christians. The Great American Heartland in a nutshell.

Newt Gingrich.
Gives slime a bad name.

Vanilla Coke or Vanilla Pepsi.
Yeah man, I don't get it.

Eggs.
Bawa soulfood.




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

YEAH, UM, WHITE WOMEN!

Reading Teen Vogue is not something I normally do. But an article linked elsewhere caught my eye. White Women’s Support for Trump Remains High in 2020 Election



Per the article, 55% of white women voted for Trump. What that means is that more than fifty five percent of white women are insane, because obviously not only Trump voters are insane. All women who voted for Trump are insane, but not all insane people voted for Trump. And there were, obviously, insane women who were not white and Trump voters who were not women. But probably wanted to be.

Quote:
"In 2016, when given the choice between a woman whose record includes stints as first lady, U.S. senator, and U.S. Secretary of State, versus a man who was accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 different women prior to the 2016 election, a plurality of white women opted instead for the latter ... "

And, regarding the 2020 election:
"As a voting bloc, white women seemingly doubled down in their support of Trump, opting to align themselves against science, reproductive rights, diplomacy, and economic solvency in support of the spoils they (we?) reap as secondary benefactors of white privilege. We know that white women tend to vote along policy versus demographic lines, so is it safe to assume that white women don’t care about the rising death toll caused by this pandemic?"

It is probably safe to assume that.

And that most of them were Christian too.

It's a Venn Diagram from Hell.



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

THAT WHICH IS COMPLETELY NORMAL

My uncle and aunt live in Canada, and I also have some relatives in Southern California, New Jersey, and the New York Area. Who, if they read my blog (highly doubtful), may not know what things I mentioned in a recent post are.

"What is this queer shiznit", they might be saying, "and why is he talking about it?"
As well as "must be that Dutch crap he picked up while abroad".

Yes.


EXPLICATA

Herring = A fish that the Dutch prefer very lightly cured, almost raw, and Danes and Germans barbarically pickle the heck out of.
Frikandel = Finely ground meat spiced with herbs and a touch of nutmeg and paprika, rolled into a turd shape, dipped in beaten egg white and fine rusk crumbs, then deep fried.
It is absurdly delicious.
Rookworst = Something that goes into snert.
Nasi daing = Salt fish (daing) fried (goreng) rice (nasi). Breakfast, lunch, snack at two o'clock in the morning. Add chopped chives, and a fried egg on top.
Spicy peanut sauce = Glopped into skewers of barbecued meat, or blanched vegetables, or crispy crunch chip-like things (kroepoek).
Fish paste = Fermented fish product used as a flavouring.
Chilies = A vegetable.
Cheese = A dairy product that is hard to find in the USA.
Salty licorice = A nightmare for Americans.
Hagelslag = Chocolate sprinkles often strewn on buttered bread.
Ondé ondé = Tiny rice flour pastry balls flavoured with pandan and filled with palm sugar, then rolled in grated coconut. In Java, the term "ondé ondé" also describes jin deui (煎堆).
Smoked eel = Bacon from the sea.
Sambal = Goes on everything.


We went overseas when I was two years old. I may have acquired some non-Wasp habits while over there. As well as compulsive neuroses and minor obsessiveness.



AFTER WORD:

Earlier, it was very cold outside, but because the Betawi woman who lives downstairs was cooking, there was a smell like trassi di bakar or fried daing in the apartment building.
So, walkies with a pipe and Solani 633 flake.

Di luar dingin sekali, tathapi karena perempuan Betawi yang tinggal di lantai bawah memasak, ada bau seperti trassi di bakar atawa daing goreng dalam rumah apartmentu.
Waktu jalan jalan dengan pipa, dan flake 633 Solani.

The pipe pictured above is another thing I acquired overseas.
There are good things there.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

OH IT'S FALL MAKE EVERYTHING TASTE LIKE PUMPKIN!

Michael in New York had forgotten that Memorial Day is a holiday, and headed over to Trader Joe's. A line out the door, parking lot full, hordes of early shoppers, and a surfeit of pumpkin bagels. Which, as all right thinking people except miss Mary in Conway, South Carolina, understand, are absolutely positively inedible. Ghastly and horrendous. Heresy, anathema, and war-crimes combined. Invented by Saddam Hussein when he was still slaughtering minorities.

Miss Mary in SC starts doing pumpkins from Labour Day, and continues till New Year. Sane people, and her husband, move out during that time and start living in the wood shed.
With the cats and the goat.

Pumpkin cakes, soaps, coffee and tea, hot spiced cider, and mood candles.

Hallowe'en is her favourite time of year, and seques unpleasantly into Thanksgiving, Saint Martin's, Saint Nicholas, and Christmas. Infecting everything with the repulsive smell of large bland festive gourds.

There are also pumpkin pipe tobaccos and personal fragrances.

Pumkin everything! It's the law!


Which of course explains why I vote Democrat; I never got into the pumpkin thing, and consider such ideas to be repulsive and culturally authoritarian. I will NOT give the little kiddie-binkies pumpkin cigars for Hallowe'en. It's a form of resistance.


Dammit, there's pumpkin schmutz everywhere!



My apartment mate, a very dear friend who is sometimes misguided, purchased pumpkin spice coffee beans at the beginning of October, and discovered that she doesn't like them. Now, as a Dutchman (so ab initio notoriously cheap), I can sympathize completely with her reluctance to throw it out; that was good money, and we're gonna keep it till Saint Stephen's Day, dammit. Not drink it (at least not often), but we can't get rid of it! Yet.




SUTLIFF PUMPKIN SPICE PIPE TOBACCO

"Sutliff's Pumpkin Spice is a mellow blend of burley, Virginia and black cavendish that's imbued with the flavors of pumpkin and the spices that usually accompany it. A comforting, warm blend -- enjoyed all day long."

Described as an easy-going aromatic, with subtle hints of vanilla, anise, and brown sugar, underneath the gooey funkum, very suitable for people who wear Lulu Lemon yoga pants and drink Starbucks Frappucrappé.

A true taste of Americana, pumpkalicious and pumtastic.

Yeah, um, no.


My apartment mate is a Chinese American woman eight years younger than myself. She has not realized it, but pumpkin is a very white affectation. Pumpkin anything. Thanks to her we have occasionally had pumpkin pie, usually near Thanksgiving, and other very white things to eat. It's part of growing up in San Francisco.

Although like her I was born American, I did not grow up here. And despite my mother being a very white person in many of her tastes and ideas, I was from an early age familiar with other things. My childhood flavours were herring, frikandel, rookworst, and nasi daing.
Spicy peanut sauce, fish paste, chilies. Alternating with cheese.
Plus salty licorice, hagelslag, and ondé ondé.
Also smoked eel; it's soul food.
Plus sambal.


NOTE: Spek koek should be a favoured sweet, as it transcends nationalities, but it is laborious to make, and while there are a few people who sell it in the Bay Area, my version is better.

So it's a rarety.



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

LIQUIDS. CATS.

Cats can sleep anywhere, anytime. Mature humans, not so. Waking up to pee in the middle of the night, although arguably a conscious act, is also a matter of physical necessity. Choice hardly enters into the decision. Margeret Cho said something about that.

Children wake up in the middle of a road trip for that purpose. Which is very inconvenient, I've heard, but it's better that they wake up then, than the driver.

So. Got up at four A. M., and couldn't really get back to sleep. Half dreams of large sun-lit warehouse interiors. The smell of copra. Incredibly bad sandwiches in extremely good company. Cats.


Normally I get up slightly before six for pills and coffee.
It's almost a religious ritual.

There is no brocha for pills, as far as I know, and The Lord's Prayer doesn't cover it for Christians either.


"Baruch atta .... ha pillim?" "... our daily dosage?"


It's peaceful in the hours before dawn. No stumbling drunks outside anymore (they fell asleep in front of their teevee with a twelve pack, at home), no rumbling of machinery. Just the hint of moisture in the air confirming that it rained, or is raining. But if it is, it is doing so quietly.

Already drinking a cup of coffee. Pills soon.
Then out for a morning walk.


The wild beast has awakened. He yawns and stretches. Then bats lazily at the moose carcass in his lair. Moose? Perhaps a bit of dead moose for breakfast..... or a deer. A nice young calf deer, dispatched quickly, mercifully so, before it starts bleating for its mommy. Who would probably also be yummy, but better suited for a late lunch.
Time enough for dripping red meat later.
But first, the coffee.

A lair is not complete if it lacks the means for preparing coffee.
There must be fire or electricty in each cave.
Plus running water.

Went out onto the front steps with my beverage. Pajamas, bathrobe, warm throw rug. Darkness. A pedestrian passed, at a safe distance. Good morning. Garbage truck next block.
Back in, apartment mate still asleep in her room.




News: Trump still has not conceded. Who cares? He's largely irrelevant at this point.
Pathetic Cheeto, the chief grifter. Gone soon. A new era.



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

OH THAT'S SO SWEET

Even though in the United States rational people have largely realized that our next president will be Joe Biden, there is still an outpost elsewhere of faith in the eventual victory and vindication of Donald Trump.

光榮飲食 KWONG WING CATERING
Multiple locations in Hong Kong. Diehard Trump supporters. With customers and fans that for some reason or other seem to loathe Biden. Which is depressingly common for many Hong Kong people. Kwong Wing is where all fascists should eat, if they visit Hong Kong.

They have probably the best fried eggs in the world.

Nice that they still believe.

Stupid, but nice.



Many Hong Kong people support Donald Trump because they believe he's against the Mainland government, and don't understand that Trumpism is, plain and simple, against Chinese. It's nearly the same with elderly Vietnamese in the United States, who voted for Trump because they hate the Chinese. As well as the great state of Texas, where people can't find China on a map, but know that he's against California, where there are a lot of Chinese.
Or the Filippinos, who are long-standing anti-Chinese racists, justifiably feel threatened by Communist China's aquatorial ambitions, and don't particularly like black people either.

One has to be realistic about this. There are a lot of assholes in the world.



Hong Kong people, Taiwanese, elderly Vietnamese Americans, and Filippinos do not realize that they all look 'Chinese'. So their flagwaving is both unwise and in bad taste.

Most anti-Asian racism is manifested in Red States.

Where, really, they hate everybody.



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

FIGHTING BUGS

In 1882 a plackard was pasted all over Hanoi and several other cities in Vietnam. It effectively challenged the French to put their money where their arrogant mouths were.
It could have been written by an Englishman.
Except that it was in Chinese.

Proclamation by Liu Yongfu (劉永福 'lau wing fuk'), commander of the Black Flag Army:

雄威大將軍兼署三宣提督劉，為懸示決戰事，照你法匪，素稱巨寇，為國所恥。每到他國，假稱傳道，實則蠱惑村愚，淫欲縱橫。借名通商，實則陰謀土地。行則譬 如禽獸，心則竟似虎狼。自抵越南，陷城戕官，罪本將軍好生之德，留你蚊蟲。倘若遲疑不決，一旦兵臨 城下，寸草不留，禍福尤關難了發，佔關奪稅，惡不勝誅。以致民不聊生，國幾窮窘，神民共怒，天地難容。本將軍奉命討賊，三軍雲集，槍 炮如林，直討爾鬼祟，掃清醜類。第國家之大事，不忍以河內而作戰場，唯恐波及於商民，為此先行懸示。爾法匪既稱本領，率烏合之眾，與我虎旅之師在懷德府屬 曠野之地以作戰場，兩軍相對，以決雌雄。倘爾畏懼不來，即宜自斬爾等統轄之首遞來獻納，退還各處城池，本將軍好生之德，留你蚊蟲。倘若遲疑不決，一旦兵臨 城下，寸草不留，禍福尤關，死生在即，爾等熟思之。切切特示！

Freely translated:
"Supreme commander and tri-province governor Lau, in order to advance the decisive battle, announces that you, the French brigands universally known as rapacious thieves, are despicable among the nations. Whenever you go to other countries, you pretend to preach, but in reality you confuse simple peasants and people of low morals. Allegedly you come for trade, but you actually conspire to conquer the land. You are beasts, your hearts are those of tigers and wolves. Upon your arriving in Vietnam, you imprisoned officials and commited numerous crimes. As a result, people cannot survive, the country is impoverished and shamed, god and the populus are furious, and neither heaven nor earth can tolerate this any further. I was ordered to combat you brigands, and have gathered three armies; our guns and cannons are like a forest, ready to attack you in your evil lair and remove the stain. The welfare of the country is a great responsibility, and I cannot think of battling in Hanoi, lest it ruin the economy, hence this announcement: French bandits so vaunted for your prowess, lead your rabble to Phu Hoai, and fight our tiger legions in the wilderness; we'll see then who is mightier. If you are afraid, sever the heads of your chiefs and other commanders to offer them, return the cities you have seized, and mercy will be shown to you insects. But if you delay, once our forces come to those cities, nothing will remain to you, good fortune will vanish, life and death will be in the balance, and you will regret it severely. This is urgent!"

Unfortunately, neither the Chinese government nor the Vietnamese, though wholeheartedly behind general Lau, provided much support for actions against the French, and more or less sought to protect their asses and their assets. After three long years of war against the insects, Lau Wingfuk and his remaining loyal forces were forced to retreat back to China.
Lau was "rewarded" with a token appointment in Guangdong.

Lau Wingfuk lived eighty years, dying in 1917.
He is still lauded as a patriot.



留你蚊蟲 ('lau nei man-chong'): preserve you mosquitoes (and) maggots; spare your pestilential lives.
寸草不留 ('chuen chou pat lau'): not even an inch of grass will remain.
法匪 ('faat fei'): French bandits.



Listening to the marching song of the French Foreign Legion inevitably reminded me of this.




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

SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

It's kind of cold this morning, and there are the sounds of saws. One house over workmen are doing something significant. Which has become commonplace during this pandemic; why not improve your real estate when things have necessarily slowed down and there's little else to keep you occupied? What it also highlights is that people are moving out of the city.
Well, young white people are.

Which is probably a good thing. Less partying, no dining out at hip restaurants, and exercise studios are shuttered, as are beauty salons and nail-spas. So inevitably there is no point to being in a metropolis, and any profligate sleeping around is by oneself.
Hip venues, trimness, and promiscuity are things of the past.
Everything meaningful to them has become impossible.

People like me are staying. We never were into the hipness thing, exercise comes with regular daily living, and wild sexual abandon required too much effort and dealing with people we didn't like. Plus parties. And that right there was a problem.
Loudness, strobe, lights and watery beer.

Outside of birthdays and holiday events, the last party I actually attended was mostly middle-aged men quietly admiring the deceased person's book collection and objets d'art.
It was very nice.


My equivalent of 'profligate sleeping around', has been drowsily reading a book in bed before falling asleep. Promiscuity? Well, there ARE multiple books on the bed .....


Relationships I've had have been long term affairs, and few. The stuffed animals would have frowned on anything else. They like a strife and stress-free enviroment.
For most of my life I've been alone.


One thing that is severely inimical to developing a romantic relationship is that one must at the very least tolerate the other person's belief system. So anti-vaxxers, religious people, vegans and vegetarians, and Marxists or Republicans, are automatically out of the question. Conspiracy theorists and other illiterates are anathema.
Must like stuffed creatures.

Life is about teatime, twilight, and not being overly concerned about finding any meaning in a bleak and random universe. There is no meaning. Life doesn't have a purpose. If when you die you leave a better world than it was when you began the journey, and you are a better person than you started, you will have substantially succeeded. In the meantime, eat and drink sparingly but with enjoyment, piss off the assholes if you can, and be kind.

Oh, and put sambal on evertything.

With that in mind, my purpose today is to do some laundry, puff some tobacco, and purchase fresh vegetables across the hill on Stockton Street. Then have tea, enjoy the twilight, and fix myself something of which my doctor might disapprove for dinner.
Before then and afterwards read a bit.

It is quiet in the apartment now. The working men outside have stopped sawing, my apartment mate has gone to work, the stuffed creatures aren't quarrelling or rambunctifying (remarkably, they do that mostly when she's home), the sun is out and I need another pipeful.

Strong milk tea, flue-cured tobaccos, books, and hot sauce.
Life during pandemic times is mostly peaceful.
It's worked out rather well.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

SMELLS LIKE PENANG

It is currently low eighties Fahrenheit in Georgetown (Penang, Malaysia). And it might rain there today. This comes up for three reasons: I have friends who live in that part of the world;
I remembered my ex's reaction to durian years ago; and Latakia pipe tobacco blends smell remarkably like barbecue and tire fires according to some people.

It is mid-fifties in SF right now, where I live. Nothing in this apartment resembles durian.
And nowadays I hardly ever smoke Latakia blends.

So everything other than the temperature is oojah-cum-spiff.

Well, except for the fact that I mentioned tofu cheeseburgers on a rabbi's Facebook post about differences between d'rabbanan and d'oraisa, and now the entire conversation is about tofu. Sorry man, I'll know better next time. Perhaps I'll throw some durian into the comment string instead. D'rabbanan, d'oraisa, and is something that smells like sewage from a Limburger cheese factory even kosher, let alone edible? The pilpul will be immense.

Several years ago I brought some durian into the apartment. My ex reacted by barricading herself in the kitchen, yelling that she wasn't coming out until that stuff was gone, and she would be complaining to my aunt and uncle (my nearest relatives) that I engaged in alien autopsies, and was a horrid degenerate and completely irredeemable.

I am not in a position to deny any of those assertions.

Durian is native to the part of the world where Penang is.
As are tire fires, and some darn good barbecue.

Years ago cheeseburgers of any type were not available in Penang.
Lots of other good stuff to eat was.
No pipe tobaco.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD

Over in an internet group where philosophical gentlemen and the rare philosophical gentle damsel meet and discuss pipes and tobacco, someone started a conversation about the worst tobacco they had ever smoked. Naturally, in such an obsessive group, there were opinions. There frequently are. Often wrong and strong. We're alternatively inclined.

Nearly two hundred opinionated comments.

Erinmore Flake was the first tobacco mentioned as throughly repulsive. Now, I like Erinmore Flake. I first tried it in my teens, threw up twice, and swore never to touch the stuff again. Despite the beautiful and appealing canary yellow tins with the red trademark, very tempting, and instantly familiar to anyone who has thrown up twice because of the contents.

A few years ago I tried it again. I'm rather fond of it, intellectually, and if you smoke slow on the cusp of going out, it is pleasant, enjoyable even. A decent mostly Virginia product. The bizarre top dressing fades within moments of lighting up, and it renders down to a fine ash.

Two ancient and doddering gentlemen in Marin used to smoke it. They are dead now, and the tobacco was probably not responsible for that, as they were both seriously getting on in years, having been born well before the Second World War. It is conceivable that their "tastes" contributed to their long lives.

St. Bruno Flake and MacBaren Vanilla were also mentioned, and cursed as vile, along with the entire Borkum Riff and Captain Black oeuvres (stellarly popular among bikers, deviants, and blue collar criminals, indicative of bestial tendencies and unmentionable ailments), as well as Half & Half (equal parts Virginia and Burley, and displeasing to both sides of that equation). Plus something notoriously trashy flavoured with cherries, and the horrid "tobacco" that Hugh Heffner and Frank Sinatra favoured: Mixture 79.

I've tried Mixture 79. It is loathsome. Whatever miniscule shred of semi-respect I ever may have felt for those two repulsive specimens of humanity (Heffner and Sinatra) promptly went so far out the door and with such violent force that I cannot bear to even hear them mentioned in the same breath as Neo-Nazis, Attila the Hun, Donald Trump, the Proud Boys, the Bharata Janata Party, or lawyer-Bob-the-raving-gun-nut of the East Bay group
I have a container of it that is over two decades old.
Under my bed, very tightly sealed.
It's extremely nasty.
Faugh.


Inevitably, blends with Latakia were mentioned.


"Alicia, first rule in this group: Thou shalt not butt in and get there first when John O. is, once-a-bloody-gain, preparing a treatise against Lakakia."
-------Martin F.


"Roses are red, violets are blue,
965 tastes ... just like poo."
-------John O.


Bombs went off for another hundred-plus comments.
A savage fray, with many casualties.
Blood and gore everywhere.
Quite lovely.

Now, to any non-smokers who may have gotten this far into this essay, I should point out that some of the most splendid and fondly remembered tobacco mixtures ever made prominently featured Latakia. I myself smoked Latakia blends for years, with great enjoyment, and never minded the helpful souls who lovingly advised me that I would have far more friends, and might even have a social life with real humans to talk to, if I stopped huffing that stuff! Despite your horrible body odour, sharp claws, and glowing red eyes. Good lord, man, your thick pelt that proves you are actually a werewolf!

It's a rather lovely tobacco. I still love the smell when someone else is smoking it. Even though nowadays I almost exclusively load Virginia & Perique mixtures into my pipes.
I find them subtle and extremely satisfying.


The discussion is barely a day old. It's probably just getting started, should go on all week.
I think we're all enjoying it. Venomously, and with vituperation.
Evil juices are flowing.


By the way, the tin of Erinmore I opened a while back is within arms reach.
It smells fecundly rich, still has a hint of pineapples.
There are several pipes nearby.

TOBACCO INDEX


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

I'M IN TOUCH WITH MY INNER MEANIE

Yesterday everybody's favourite cretinous bootlicker Rudy Giulinani held a press conference in a parking lot between a dildo store and a crematorium. Which is an apt metaphor for him and his master's life right now, except that only Jared and Stephen Miller will visit him in prison. And maybe Steve Bannon who is desperate for a new lawyer with less principles than his old one.
That, too, is a metaphor.

Anyone who thought that American rightwing politics couldn't get any more seedy than a vicious snapping turtle and a weepy poodle in the senate falling over themselves to obey their bloated Adderall addicted master's every yap wasn't paying attention.

Boys, we are the country that invented crazy as a political platform. We've got Louie "chumbucket brains" Gomert as the living fossil proving that.
Plus evangelicals.


And if you're expecting me to be a gentleman and speak kind words about the other side, you will be disappointed, because I've had to put up with Trumpians at work for over four years.
My turn now, I'm going to be a bitch.
Metaphorically.



Good thing I no longer associate with the East Bay crowd; I'd gleefully tell Bob, Masha, Robin, and Jack (I think it's Jack) to shove it. With helpful diagrams.
Plus the "insect". The "herb" already died.
Also physically.


Please buy a plot, y'all, I need somewhere to dance.


It's a metaphor. Honest.



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