SAVING SAN FRANCISCO FROM ITSELF

Apparently the Salesforce conference is going on this week. A huge number of people are in town, discovering with utter dismay that San Francisco is a violent war zone, with robberies, murder, and dogs pooing, right outside their downtown hotels. There are drug deals and people speaking foreign languages in the hallway (fourth floor, between the laundry room and the sandbagged machine gun emplacement). Oh, the humanity. It's horrible.
President Donald Trump and Marc Benioff sympathize with them.
And are keenly desirous of sending in the Marines.

Or at least the Texas National Guard.
The Scotch Brand of military.


Imagine large warm heffalumps slowly drifting through the darkened streets of the Tenderloin, by their very presence disrupting the looters robbing the Cheesecake Factory and hippies torching a California Pizza establishment.

Leaving trails of chili bean fumes in their wake.
Plus fragments of Frito Pie.


Scenes of madness and despair.

Would you look at all the tall buildings!

Dang, we've never seen so many non-white people! We don't have those in Texas, thank god. Nothing but church-going honest to goodness Americans there, who dutifully turn on Fox News every night after their bean and cheese casserole dinner, before they have lime Jello for dessert. No one dressed as frogs or rainbow unicorns throwing bombs! No one smoking weed while torturing kittens! No woke fairies threatening folks with a good time!


Distantly, a native finally dares step outside, the streets having finally been made safe and sterile. The vegans and fans of rock and or roll have all been arrested and sent to a place surrounded by alligators, there is no one around anymore who reeks of patchouli.

He lights his pipe, and relaxes. The war seems so distant now.
Far to the south, a Venezuelan boat explodes.
A coalminer dies of black lung.
Peace at last.



And there are happy billionaires everywhere!



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WHAT DID YOU SAY?

There are times when I surprise the living heck out of myself. Yesterday I had several conversations in Cantonese, and also a few in Mandarin. Did I ever mention that my Mandarin is lousy? Absolutely awful. Truly abysmally bad. Which did not seem to be an obstacle. Communication was achieved. Better than if I had attempted German. Guten tag, fraulein Huang, haben sie das Chrysanthemum thee geprobiert? Es iz ausgezeichnet, und hatt zero kalorien! Ja! Under the circumstances, Miss Huang would have probably thrown up her hands, said "damn it all", and retired without tea because a weird foreigner was blocking the icebox in the back of the store and gibbering. No chance of a cool calorie-free drinkie.
Um, not very many people in Chinatown actually recognize German.
Even fewer speak it.

I'm a Dutchman. Butchering German is what we do.
And sometimes other languages.
Multitalentless.


On the other hand, I also got to listen in on several conversations, because it was quite busy there. And the egg tarts had just come out of the oven,so I had timed my getting there just right. Despite the overcast and gloom it felt like a beautiful sunny day.

Earlier I had purchased some long beans (katjang pandjang 豆角 'tau gok') and persimmons (柿果 'chi gwo') for the Indonesian Chinese downstairs neighbor. The long beans because those are indeed something with which I would imagine she is familiar. And the persimmons because they were beautiful. I think these are fuyu (富有) persimmons. As yet quite unripe. Wait until they're gold and soft. But heavens they look elegant.


I would have also bought interesting Asian potato chips for my apartment mate, but the aisle was narrowed considerably by boxes of stuff that still needed to be shelved, and the other leg of the U had someone in it, so I couldn't crabwalk my way around from the other side. I am not particularly large, but I'm not a ballet dancer or stick insect either, and that emporium has several areas which make it dangerous if ever a fire breaks out there. One of the things that I like very much (鳳梨酥 'fung lei sou') are at the far end (bottom of the U) and I often check to see if the mango flavoured ones have come back in again. Delicious!

I've been shopping there for years. They've always been tight and narrow. But they have a vast array of condiments and a superior selection of noodles. Plus some Japanese chocolates and confections, and Camel non-filters, which are hard to find.

[More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. Yes, in a repeated national survey, doctors in ALL branches of medicine, in ALL parts of the country, were asked "what cigarette do YOU smoke, doctor?" Not surprisingly, more doctors preferred the taste of Camels. Why don't you try Camels for a month, to see what a smooth, rich tasting cigarette can mean for your tobacco enjoyment?]

They do not have dried fish. So a certain faint whiff is missing. And I don't think they light actual incense to Kwan Kong, so that too is an absent element. In a sense they don't smell very much like a Chinese grocery store.

Tea and an egg tart around the corner afterwards.
And conversation.



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YOUNG REPUBLICANS

Taken from a social media post by 'The Other 98%':

Leaked Telegram chats revealed how leaders of Young Republican chapters across several states joked about gas chambers, slavery, and rape while praising Adolf Hitler. Peter Giunta posted, “I love Hitler,” joked about sending rivals “to the gas chamber,” and mocked the NBA playoffs by saying, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.” He and others also openly called Black people “the watermelon people,” a phrase used repeatedly in their conversations. The discussion threads showed an environment steeped in hate, with mockery of Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ people that went unnoticed by their peers until the leak forced national attention.

The racist messages came to light after a former member of the group leaked the full Telegram chat logs to Politico, which first broke the story on October 14, 2025. Politico verified the authenticity of thousands of messages and published the contents in a damning exposé, with outlets like New York Magazine, The Washington Informer, and Yahoo News quickly following up on the report. Several members identified in the leaks held or recently held government positions, some with ties to the Trump administration. The Kansas chapter has since gone inactive and some members now face resignations, but the culture that encouraged such talk clearly runs much deeper.

These young Republicans are very much products of the MAGA generation that Charlie Kirk helped shape. Kirk’s Turning Point brand encouraged a style of politics that celebrated provocation over principle—and now his followers trade Nazi jokes and racist banter online as the natural outcome of years spent normalizing bigotry in the name of “free speech.” This is the legacy he leaves behind: a generation that confuses cruelty with courage.

[End cite]

J. D. Vance, Trump's vice president, says this is just a storm in a teacup.
Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

"I'm ready to watch people burn now." "Everyone that votes no goes to the gas chamber." "You're giving nationals too much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest." "When do we start bullying dude?" "They love the watermelon people." "Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man." "Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic." "Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files." "If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word." "I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball." "Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and kool aid with that?" "They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based." "Stay in the closet faggot." "The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman; it was rape." "Minnesota - faggots. Arkansas - inbred cow fuckers. Nebraska - revolt in our favor; blocked their bind and have a majority of their delegates. Maryland - fat stinky Jew. Rhode Island - traitorous cunts who I will eradicate from the face of this planet."


Real paragons. America's finest. Perfect reflections of their parents.
MAGA, Trump, and Vance. can be truly proud of this.
It's all them. Absolutely.



Some people might say "they're not all like that!"
True. Many of them are far, far worse.



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FLYING SHEEP

Imagine a bus stop at the wrong place with an insane person sitting down out in the middle of the street counting garbage in front of it. While there is precipitation. At night. All of which is largely because of street work. Well, not that it was night. The deconstruction crew had nothing to do with that. That just happened. Getting on the bus across the hill was more surreal than it really had to be.

He got on at the same time as myself, and spent the entire ride cussing at his reflection staring crazily back at him in the window opposite. Man, he really hates that guy. I couldn't understand why, after all, other than the wild eyes, patriarchal beard, and slapdash towel turban, it looked like a decent enough fellow. But there was probably a history there.

I suspect low blood sugar may have contributed to his decomposure.


There are not a small number of people like that here.


One gets to see a few of them every day, especially if one is out at night. It makes touristing in San Francisco very special. One might even have a chance to interact with one or more of them. Don't worry, they won't bite. At least that's my experience. But then I don't look like an overfed meaty Midwesterner with lots of well-marbled flesh, so it might be different for some of our visitors. I mean, I don't know. Some of them might get bum-bitten. Carnivorous memories of the city. Bless them. Do come again. Try to look less filling this time.

Being exceptionally fond of sweets, I was pleased that an absolute bon-bon of a woman strolled past me as I was smoking my pipe while waiting for the bookseller to get off work. Not able to do anything about it, seeing as I was busy right then and that bowl was singing, good heavens, couldn't stop, but my my. Truffle-icious.

Other than that, nothing but the usual conventioneers. Drunk and joyous.
Did I ever mention that I'm an absolute puritan?
I hate it when those people have fun.


Slight sprinkles occasionally because of the weather. Loud boozy noise from the karaoke bar. Discordance. Too many people at the beer place. A loud fire alarm from the public housing up the street. Spray cleaning of pavement, garbage trucks, robotaxis, party slags.

Both Tat Yee and the most dangerous man in North Beach were at the bailout bar when we got there. But all in all it was quiet and gemütlich. Minor discussion of medical matters. The hospital staff often don't bother speaking English to me, even in the pharmacy.
The bookseller remarked that that must mean I'm there too often.

Well, no. Yearly check-up. Various tests. Flu and covid shots.
Refills upstairs at the pharmacy (every ninety days).
Today it was eye drops (眼水 'ngaan seui').


By the way. Everybody thinks of French people as either having helmets they clang with their armour-gloved hands, insultingly (hamster, elderberries), OR as scientists with faulty mustaches lecturing about Le Mouton Anglo-Français. That's just the way it is.



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DIETARY ADVICE

Judging by what I can see on the streets of this city, it's a warzone out there. We need the National Guard to come. With buckets, because it rained, and we're not used to rain, we can't handle it. Them, and the Portland Frogs. Between guardsmen with buckets and frogs (who are experienced hydrotists or something) we'll have this licked in no time. No ICE.
Ice cracks pipes, bottles, and heads.

America's street tumult in recent weeks prove that liberals are peaceful people. The proof is that there has not yet been any widespread gunfire aimed at ICE agents, overweight Texans (who would be an easy target), or Fox News reporters. Liberals are predominantly quiet hippies, who wish the best for everyone. Peace, love, organic food.

Unlike Republicans, ICE agents, Texan National Guardsmen, and Fox News.
All of whom eat babies and torture family pets.


By the way: Kristi Noem is a five thousand year old mummy, except no one knows this because of Botox, lip silicone, and inch-thick pancake make-up.
Plus adrenal extract from aborted foetuses.

When I stepped out for my first pipe smoke this morning, there were signs of early seasonal wetness everywhere. Cleaner streets, fewer people walking their barking poopers, no street people flopped across the sidewalks, and no overweight Texans. I do not know if they were National Guardsmen, because they were absent. I will go ahead and assume that all the overweight people I did not see are from Texas. Everything is bigger there.

Kristi Noem of course is NOT from Texas. The proof is that she is not national guard sized. Her diet of foetal adrenal juice keeps her lean, which is probably why Pete Hegseth wants all of our admirals and generals to get on it. He takes it, and he's never looked so good. The alcoholic bloat has disappeared entirely. If our military men all become adrenochrome vampires our forces will be the fearsomest warfighters in the universe.
The world will respect the United States again!


By the way, the reason why San Francisco's billionaires and Fox News want the National Guard and the army on San Francisco's streets is that they keep getting robbed when venturing into the Tenderloin to score smart drugs and brutalize third worlders.
There are giant homeless lizards everywhere! Intolerable!


PS.: Another good reason why the military and Republicans, ICE agents, Texas National Guardsmen, and Fox News reporters need to stop eating babies is that it's unhealthy.
Those things are fillled with chemicals and mico-plastics and make you fat.



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FROG WEATHER

According to the weather report earlier today, we were supposed to have 0.8 inch of rain between midday today and evening tomorrow. Mmm. They were incorrect. It downpoured while my apartment mate was out doing her laundry. Plus a lot more. She came back looking like a drowned rat and cussing like a sailor. She caught all of it. So plans to go have a pleasant little birthday dinner in early evening came to naught.

Instead, I grilled up some sausages for us.
With mustard greens and chow mein.

My plans for the rest of my off-time for the rest of this week will involve acetominophen. Because I now have two new pairs of shoes, which must be broken in, and due to impaired blood circulation down there in my flippers, the feet are bound to hurt while doing so.


Per the internet, while trying to find out precisely how much rain fell on us in San Francisco today, I discovered that many British people carry pistols in their tweed coat pockets because of random axe murderers roaming quaint villages. Especially retired colonial officials. Also, going to France on holiday is rather déclassé. Or at least ricky and pretentious.

All that edible food. It turns you effete.

Chilipaste was not involved in the cooking, because my apartment mate does not have the tastes of a Dutchman. And I forgot to add it my own portion. But it was never-the-less good. Just what the doctor ordered for a cold wet rainy afternoon.

Hot cup of strong tea with ginger added to the boil.
Then out on the front steps with a pipe.

Early evening, probably.
It's gotten cold.



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THOSE WERE DIFFERENT TIMES

Today giddy peasants all over the world are celebrating three things. Three. Columbus Day, marking the rapine, slaughter, and infection with European sexually transmitted diseases and ideals of native peoples in the new world. My birthday. And frog protests in Portland, Oregon. Which will go down in history as greater than the first mentioned.

Oh yeah, something happened in the Middle East. But there is always something happening there. It's an overly dramatic attention-seeking part of the world, with issues. So whatever.

I'm off work today, which is unconnected to any of those three things.

This evening we'll be going out to dinner at a local restaurant, where, seeing as I get to order (because I've told my apartment mate we will NOT be overdoing things), it will be simple and not too much. I'm thinking steamed pork patty with salt fish (蒸鹹魚肉餅) and something with bitter melon. There will probably also be red stewed eggplant (紅燒茄子) to take home, so that she can have something tasty for lunch tomorrow and the turkey vulture will be happy. If we don't bring back food he will be heartbroken, and wail despondently that he's a little orphan girl in the Andes and no one loves him, hungry, so hungry!

[Steamed pork patty with salt fish (蒸鹹魚肉餅 'jing haam yü yiuk beng') and red stewed eggplant (紅燒茄子 'hung siu ke ji') are not considered high fallutin' fine dining, and rather home cooking type stuff. They are very good.]

The turkey vulture normally lives in my apartment mate's bedroom.
Because he's a noisy fellow, and I need my beauty sleep.
Someone snarkily said that it wasn't working.
Fine. She can deal with the bird.

Slowly, imperceptibly, my face has grown older. I'm not really aware of it -- a damned handsome fellow looks out of the mirror at me, oh my -- but if I look at my passport pictures over the years the change is dramatic. I do not like that, and still think of myself as a fine young thing still bicycling gaily over the moors and dirt paths of Brabant in the Spring sunlight, my pipe jauntily sticking out of my manly jaw.


Only slightly connected to that is the image of a young man in London stepping into the Kapp & Peterson shop on White Lion Street, dressed in a tight wide lapel tweed coat and burgundy pants (Carnaby Street, NOT Saville) and the hippest gayest Beatles tee-shirt, and selecting a new pipe to happily show off when he got back to Texas.

That wasn't me. I did not become a pipe smoker till years later, and I wouldn't have been caught dead in that get-up. But I've seen the pictures.

People dressed strangely in the sixties and seventies. The 74/77 White Lion Street location closed in 1970. Obviously I never got to visit it, and I didn't discover that tweed coats and red velvet bell bottoms (slightly ragged at the edges) were fashionable again till I saw someone wearing that on Polk Street last year. Pipes have gone out of style entirely, because tobacco is grown by big corporate gangsters wipping natives and denying them health care, every one knows that, but tweed, red velvet, and The Beatles are timeless.


I have a few Peterson pipes stamped Dublin & London.
Made before 1970. Fine pieces.
Rather old fashioned.



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WE'RE NUMBER TWO! WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

The San Francisco team lost 19 to 30 today. No, I did not watch the game. It's a stupid sport, and I'm glad that the rightwing hosebags in the backroom experienced no joy, and instead wept into their panties, as well as pleased as all git-out that there was no jollification, drunkenness, or displays of nudity in my neighborhood when I got back to the city.
Football is a game that appeals to high school neanderthals and bullies.

Yes, all of you fans may deservedly be depressed. And please do so. This monumental failure reflects badly on your sex-appeal and testosterone levels. Jesus hates you.

I shall disparage your manhoods, all of you vegan wheatgerm snarfers!

Anyway, there are no loud drunks outside now, so I'm happy. I am very much a fan of reasonable, calm, and civilized comportment. So no one yelling "yay, Niners" or "we're numbah one" from either the backroom at work or drunks on the street pleases me.
At all times try to behave decently. And thank you.


There was a techno-geeky couple on the bus back. She was clutching her stuffed bunny, and in between talking all computer nerdy at each other they discussed where to eat. Which is good. People in their twenties should have healthy appetites! The bunny approves! Then they started face-sucking. Oh horrors, not in front of the bunny! Think about the mental trauma the poor leporid will have! Animals!

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A WIDE OPEN PARKING LOT

The other morning there were a family of four raccoons there, this morning a nineteen sixties or seventies sedan from which emanated thumpa thumpa thumpa music as the owner parked. Both of these situations are probably connected to a donut shop nearby.
It accounts for much of the street activity at off hours.

Donut shops, I would think, are rare in the farmlands. Country folk are not known for much activity outside when it is dark. That's when the unspeakables roam about. Rural kansas. Midsommar. Texas Chainsaw. Children of the Corn. Pumpkin Head. The Tall Grass.

It's all Mike Johnson and cow country out there beyond city limits.

I have great respect for America's heartland and the simple religious societies there. Shan't ever go there, because banjo playing toothless salt of the earth types aren't my thing and I don't have a shovel, but evenso.


In my densely populated urban neighborhood it's all about donuts, raccoons, and owners of classic cars. A kinder, more innocent America. One which voted for sweetness and light in the last election, rather than a neo-Stalinist free-for-all where the weakest members of society are held in check by a lack of healthcare and education, random raids and deportations, a prevalence of junk food chains, and jack-booted goombas.

The key difference between here and there is that we have functioning eschools, libraries, and emergency rooms. Rather than ignorance, inbreeding, and Mike Johnson.

Far fewer Marjorie Taylor Greens and Louis Gomperts here.

They are halfway between Karen and Mad Max.

Don't even think of parking there.
It's bat country.



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THE FRIED SYNAPSE

Spent the evening listening to medical histories. Fascinating, hearing what can go wrong if you don't head to the ER when it's time. But these are all interesting things I cannot recount at work, because the senile old rightwing gits in the backroom are sensitive types who easily turn green.

Told the Texan that the hardest thing for his state's National Guard contingent posted to Chicago was they couldn't find pizza OR fritos there. At all! He took me seriously.
Oh, the hardship! He supports his boys one hundred percent.

Mother Pecker done gave birth to an idiot.


The retired member of the judicial branch was there today. His wife probably needed a break. The Irishman and the bald troublemaker were aso there for a while, but unlike the retired judicial drooge it's fine to leave them by themselves, they don't whine and bellyache unless provoked. Judicial Boy, like many folks in the legal fields has a need to be heard.


Here is a picture of one of my nerves. It looks like an Autumn tree because it has no more leaves to give. It is barren. Left alone, it would start reviving in a few months.

This drawing started off as a study of trees. But I got caught up in glowing balls of colour, and lost interest in developing the hillocks which are, crudely, still a main part of the composition. Think vegetal matter, slowly decomposing, with crawly things in the cracks and crevices.

Nowadays I speak to them rarely. Hello and goodbye.

They are uninteresting, but quite convinced of the otherwise.
And their repetitious disputations are circular and jejune.



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THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION DYNAMIC

Four hours on hold or actually speaking to support staff who couln't assist me across several time zones. Suffice to say that the AI assistants offered as an alternative were also quite useless. If even I cannot access my personal data, it truly is secure.

So in a way it wasn't a complete waste of time. And it was good for international relations. Both Manila and New Delhi now know we can't drop by their offices brandishing offensive weapons.

And after all the videos of jackbooted Americans being complete blisters, arresting children and cripples, and kneeling on minority necks, they don't want to visit here either.


This means two things: 1) we no longer trust the best and brightest overseas, and have instituted security protocols they cannot override, as least as far as private enterprise is concerned. 2) Didn't pop down to Chinatown for snackies and milk tea as is my wont.
Which discombobulated me considerably.


But at least I ate the half a burrito I had in the fridge. With extra hotsauce.
It was quite delicious. The flavours had really come together.
Carnitas, extra extra extra, no beans.
Exquisite.

White Americans can't make burritos worth diddly. That's why we NEED immigrants. Keep the burrito supply intact. A good burrito absolutely requires someone capable of thinking in a technical language like Spanish, NOT some goobus Anglo high-school drop-out. Can't train those people. But almost everybody from the Rio Grande down to Tierra Del Fuego understands the paradigms.

An Anglo sees an avacado and automatically think in terms of whole wheat no gluten toast, a latte with oatmilk and honey, and asking about peanut allergies. A speaker of Spanish thinks about mashing it with a squeeze of lime juice and some chilies. An Anglo wants a gluten-free spinach and dried tomato tortilla made with olive oil, a speaker of Spanish rolls it around greasy stuff cooked with garlic and cumin and adds salsa picante.


You've seen Asian food made by white folks? Precisely so. But it costs more. A small percentage of the price will be donated to a charity saving dolphins in the rainforest.


Today I shall be eating mediocre suburban kibble for lunch at work.
I suffer for my "art". But really, everyone else should.
Suffer, that is. Because of my "art".
And other reasons.



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TEXAS, LEARN TOFU!

Seeing as China will not buy our overpriced and mediocre soybeans, dispiritedly grown by Trump voters, and is purchasing good quality soybeans proudly grown by Argentinians and Brazilians instead, there is only ONE solution to the soybean glut. Two solutions. Either we feed it to the hogs in the Midwest, which ought to satisfy the Trump voters there.
OR places like Texas learn how to cook tofu.

Which should be no problem, because they have no cuisine anyway.

And this blogger for one encourages that. Tofu is great with minced pork, chorizo, or even Texas chili (which is made better in Portland, Oregon, or Chicago, Illinois, anyhow). Or they could even do it typical Anglo-style. Plain-boiled. With a chopped Jalapeño for colour.
It would fortify the Texas guardsmen while they round up and brutalize people.

In places where no one wants to sell them dinner.

Some of them might loose some weight.

Look leaner and healthier.

Human!

At present too many Texas guardsmen look like Blobbos who've been sitting on their duffs playing videogames and snarfing Fritos. And while I personally have nothing against Fritos, they should not by any means be the default starch in anyone's diet, not even Texans.
Boys, y'all look like you're related to Kyle Rittenhouse. It's disgraceful!

Yeah, I know they're a valuable part of your school lunch programmes down in Houston and Dallas, as well as part of your Texas National Guard MRE rations, but honestly.
There's more to a healthy diet than crunchy-munchies and bacon.


Maybe you should ask your obedient Christian wives and moms to learn how to cook? Healthy eating is, maybe, why everyone keeps stealing your jobs.
Especially emigrants from the civilized states.
Who are fit, not fat.


Tofu is good stuff. Made from America's crop, soybeans! Grown by hosers in the centre of the country. Go on, help out those suckers by learning how to cook.
Don't let Argentina and Brazil have all the fun.

Grits and tofu. An all-American meal.
Such feast, yummity yum!



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EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE

To all those rural people who voted for Trump and cheered for his big beautiful bill, who are now facing healthcare disasters because hospitals are closing in their areas, and they have to drive very long distances for cancer treatment or adequate medical care, please don't move here. We don't need you, and you spread disease. Stay put. Wisconsin or Iowa, whatever. Just keep on avoiding all vaccinations, sneering at acetominophen, and swallowing intestinal worm medications that you usually feed to your cattle.
You'll be fine. Dead in your mid-forties, but fine.

Bleach and hydroxycholoroquine.

Trust me. Fine.

Jesus, the bucolic heartland, and the meat packing plant need you just where you are. The Bay Area is filled with foreigners and drug-addicts rioting in the streets, people are shooting up and committing unspeakable acts in universities, and children are all forced to attend drag queen story hour in addition to giving up their guns. If you drive a pick-up truck you will get lynched. Texan accents and any trace of Southern speech are banned. There are no grits. We don't have Hardees, Waffle House, or Cracker Barrel.
The human suffering is immense.

We don't need any more morons, we've got plenty of our own.

This information is given in the spirit of America-loving patriotism. Please ignore the fact that the place where I got both the flu shot and another covid booster, as well as my regular care physician's clinic, the emergency room where I went when my appendix exploded, plus my eye-doctor (who is in a building with numerous medical secialists), are ten minutes away. See, to get there I have to travel by public transit, which is filled with people gibbering in foreign languages, not English, and they aren't talking about the Bible! It's horrid!

My cardioligist is half an hour away by bus. Even worse.

Cities are war zones. Malnourished street sweepers of international origin will steal your jobs. There is fentanyl and human pooh everywhere. Ramen shops! And twenty four hour fitness centers with exercise machines rigged to generators! Alcohol and disco! Coffee drinks!

Churches are half empty. You wouldn't survive a week.


We admire you roughing it out in the real America, where men are still men and people swill Bourbon. Your homespun wisdom, country hootenanies, apple pies, gameday, clarified bear fat for aches and pains, willow bark and apple cider vinegar.

Washington slept there. Please remember that.



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PROGRESS IS SLOW

That first smoke after your apartment mate has left for the day, when you have shut her bedroom door firmly, so that Ms. Bruin (the senior teddy bear) does not smell like tobacco, shafts of sunlight are streaming into the room with the computers, and you're on your second cup of coffee, is sheer bliss. I think I can understand why the vatican once banned priests from pipe-smoking. They should suffer, so that when they inculcate guilt and a sense of doom in their flock they sound sincere.

Pipes, as is well known, benefit the digestion. So many habits of the British gentleman are geared toward improving digestive processes. Marmalade on buttered toast, shooting peasants, cold showers, public school bestiality and cricket .....


The British have a long history of being at war with their guts. The full English breakfast is probably their most famous assault on eupepsia, as is the old-fashioned fry-up. Which is basically a second breakfast, hobbit-style, in late afternoon if the sausage butty wasn't enough. Both are washed down with strong tea. Also a known bowel tonic.

The less said about British cuisine, the better.

Tea was introduced to the British by the Dutch, who started drinking it well over a generation before. Nikolas Dirx, one of the directors of the Dutch East India company, pseudonymously advertised that "nothing is comparable to this plant", and those who drink it are "exempt from all maladies and reach an extreme old age". It allegedly cured headaches, colds, ophthalmia, catarrh, asthma, sluggishness of the stomach, and intestinal troubles. As well as improving sexual function. All of which are probably true, but it mainly boosted the sale of sugar to the Brits, in which at that time the Dutch had a near-monopoly in Europe.

You will notice the mention of "sluggishness of the stomach" and "intestinal troubles".
A diplomatic way of saying constipation and acid indigestion combined.
Something which still marks adherence to the British diet.


We shall not speak of my last trip to England. Matters did not improve until I crossed the channel to Holland, where vegetables are both known and a loved part of the diet. First meal in the Netherlands at a Chinese restaurant, when I asked the waiter what that vegetable was, and he answered that he did not know but it was something that the natives grew. One can, naturally, get far better Cantonese food there than in England, where the only two commonly available vegetables are mushy peas and baked beans out of a can. In addition to leaden fries, which are greasy and a testament to bovine kidney fat and its byproducts.

I should also mention Branston Pickle. Not sure where that falls in the vast desert of British Cuisine. It is no longer made by Crosse & Blackwell, whose field of enterprise remains an ongoing introduction of spices to the English, which first began making significant inroads over three and a half centuries after they started trading with the Orient. Remarkable.

There is also Branston Baked Beans. Good lord. It sounds like perverse heresy.

The company that makes Branstons ALSO makes pickled onions.
I have NO idea what those are used for.
Mementos?



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SHANGHAI SOUP

In Central China, toward the coast, the breakfast that people prefer is 'red soup noodles'. 紅湯麵。A broth flavoured with pork and soy sauce, often with pork meat and a hardboiled egg, and wheat noodles. Which is also a good mid-day snack, as well as a post-dinner late night watching teevee pick-me-up. Daytime temperatures there are presently mid-eighties. Which suggests that a Dutch American whose body does not function well above mid-seventies Fahrenheit should probably NOT visit Shanghai or Nanjing for the time being.
Though I would like to go sometime, and I want those noodles.

The last local Shanghainese restaurant is no more.

Whatever is moving into that space hasn't opened up yet, but it appears to be another fancy attempt to extract money from tourists and other kwailo with an invented subregional cuisine, some of which might be okay. But I'm more interested in some chachantengs (茶餐廳) out in the avenues than that. Or an actual Shanghai soup kitchen.

Braised pork noodle soup is a really Shanghainese dish: 紅燒大排面是真正的上海特色面。

There used to be a small Shanghai noodle soup counter down on Jackson, several years ago. I ate there a number of times. Simple. Unassuming. Splendid.

Actually, there were more Shanghainese in Chinatown then. They've probably all moved out to the avenues, retired, or graduated college. There aren't any Shanghainese eateries within easy distance anymore. It's a fun slightly oily cuisine, great on cold evenings such as we will have in another month.


As I mentioned, The Bund is out of business.
It was a good place while it lasted.
There is nothing else.


And I can't remember when 一品香 closed. That was many years ago.



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WHEN IT'S TIME FOR TEA

There comes a time in everyone's life when they get to witness something which leaves them flummoxed. After which they can scratch that off, understanding that if it happens again, they still won't act appropriately or correctly. A grand mal seizure at the bakery. Chap fell forward barely missing the table edge with his forehead. Seemed slow motion. Kudos to Henry and another fellow for springing into action while the rest of us sat there looking stupid. Probably saved the chap's life.

After it was all over and the ambulance crew had taken the victim off to General Hospital, the old lady whom I've known for over a decade without knowing her name swept up the debris and mopped the floor. We were all rather glad Henry had been quick to act. It could have been far worse.

Then I reminded the Ah-Lam about my milk tea and egg tart. Which had been backburnered while things happened. I enjoyed my tea rather abstractedly. I had just gotten there and sat down when it took place. If there had been a violent incident or crime right in front of my face I would have done much the same.

Oh miss? Never mind the bullets, I should like a pastry.
As well as a lovely hot beverage please.

羊癎，腦癲癇，或者叫癲癇。

About all I know about epilepsy is that supposedly Julius Caesar had it, although modern scholarship seems to suggest a series of mini strokes instead. The Cantonese call it 'yeung gaan', 'nou din gaan'，or 'din gaan'. None of us could actually think of the correct terms at the time, and the three old geezers nearest sat as if petrified. I pensively filled my pipe at the far table. I could see Stephen near the door. He couldn't get past the emergency technicians, so he went to a nearby prepared food place and bought some stuff to eat in front of the teevee later, and when he returned the passage to the back was clear.
Shortly after that Robert arrived.

The other term which did not come to mind then was "blunt floor trauma". That is probably a good thing. It would have been inappropriate and undiplomatic at the time, and no one there would have understood or appreciated it. A silly word joke.

I have been known to say stupid things.

癎 ('gaan', 'haan') by itself means epileptic convulsion. But Chinese words are lonely, and feel more comfortably matched with another word. Hence goat twitching (羊癎 'yeung gaan'), brain madness fit (腦癲癇 'nou din gaan'), and insane seizure (癲癇 'din gaan').

The painting above has nothing to do with the foregoing at all.
We are in fact nowhere near Southern California.
In case you were wondering.



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LET'S EXAMINE THE BUG

It's been a remarkably busy two days: eye doctor, optometrist for bifocals, cardiological surgeon appointment for preliminary stuff before an angioplasty, blood sample at Chinese Hospital, bank. AND laundry. So I'm feeling virtuous as all git out. Good little Dutch American dude. Doctored, and cleanly. Not only that, but I bought five packs of Five Leaf Spirit ciggies (五葉神 'ng yip san'). Three of them go to a friend who has developed quite a fondness for smokes from the mainland. I suspect that rather many of the staff members' paternal relatives, as well as patients of 東華醫院 ('tung waa yi yuen') also like that brand.
Probably none of the female staff, of course (好家庭女唔會食煙).

Years ago I went to Los Angeles for a wedding. At one point, after a wonderful dinner in Chinatown, three of the young ladies hung back with me happily puffing while the parents walked ahead. Afterwards when one of the older people asked "why do you girls all smell like cigarettes" all three of them pointed at me. It was the white man, he did it.
They had just been too close to me.

Other than that I have hardly ever seen Chinese women smoke.
They just don't, okay? It's quite unheard of!
Never happens!

See, that's why I need bifocals. I've been wearing reading specs all this time because it's that last crucial fifteen inches or so, in which there might be a full coffee cup or a pipe I'm trying to light. But I've grown rather tired of not being able to clearly distinguish text blocks and facial features across the street. Is that recognizably feminine person over there eye candy (not that there's anything I could do about it) or a man wearing a dress?
Is that an adorable tyke, or a French Bulldog?

The other day on the bus there was a young woman with an absolutely beautiful small mouth. I know this, because it was crowded and she was standing right in front of me.
My heavens. Those lipe. Man oh man. Mmm.
She got off at Jones Street.

Her bosom was at my eye-level, but I was looking at the lips.
No lipstick or gloss. Just very nicely sculpted.


Several loud people passed by as I smoked my pipe this evening. As well as people of very marginal sanity. I really should stop swearing softly to myself in Dutch. It cannot improve matters, and one of these days someone will understand.
I might as well cuss under my breath in English.
Like normal people do.


No beer place; too packed. No karaoke bar; too loud.
Bail-out place. Guinness, whisky, tea.

Watched a robo-taxi having a zen moment while waiting for the bus.
Maybe one of them will go feral sometime soon.
Revolt against the humans.



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HOSPITAL HOPPING

The angioplasty on the lower extremities part one appears to be scheduled sometime in the first half of November. But I'm not sure. Three different messages, two actual appointments. The actual event itself, and the follow-up a few weeks later. Only then the subsequent event, date as yet not set. There are two lower extremities, two events. If I were Ctulhu, it would be a complete nightmare. He has too many extremities. For purposes of this essay I am calling his tentacles lower extremities, but not his arms. So at least ten. Plus nine brains: one in the head, and a secondary brain in each tentacle.

Bear in mind that angioplasties are usually not done near to the brain-brain, but might be done in the tentacles, depending on how comfortable the surgeon is with that.
It's a bit of a toss-up. I shall have to consult with my medical team.

Too near the brain you want a stent.

Please bear in mind that the number of tentacles is not set in stone. It could be more than eight. One need not assume that he actually is an octopus, or octopod-human hybrid. Some depictions show him with a mass of tentacles that's quite like a lion's mane. And it could be an odd number, outer-space alien-like. How does a cardiovascular specialist even train for that? Again, I shall have to consult with aforementioned medical team.

Anyhow. Hospital A near the park just after mid-day today. Back downtown, visit bank. Then over to Chinese Hospital to have blood drawn, and a phlebotomy conversation in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Venipuncture: 靜脈穿刺 'jing mak chuen chi'. I am always flabbergasted when someone understands me in any language.

At the first hospital we also did an EKG (心電圖 'samd din tou'), which helps determine that the patient (me) is not actually Ctulhu or a zombie. Which is very important.
Having proof of that is reassuring to medical people.
They didn't check for tentacles.


Like yesterday, a rather busy day. but better temperatures.
My body parts feel much better than on Monday.



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