SOME OF THEM HAVE SCALES!

One of my friends was, which surprised me, born overseas, and has two pasports. So he has a bail-out as well as a sanctuary in case the United States government really goes off the tracks. He mentioed that pursuant our discussion over President Trump calling off the ICE surge. Which pleases very many people here, not least of all myself, because many of the folks I know are Chinese American or in some other ways not lily-white Anglo, and I sound like a foreigner (due to diction and accent).

One third of San Francisco, by the way, is Asian American.

So I was not looking forward to the very real possibility that I would have to bail-out a number of friends for "assaulting" Kristi Noem's employees, as I'm sure several of them would have done if pushed. With my accent, and horrible attitude towards most people from the Red States, I would probably end up getting arrested too.
They would then have to bail me out.
Sorry for the inconvenience!


Years ago, in my first week at school, having come back to the United States for college, one of my clasmates told me "we shoot people like you where I come from". Thanks, Bubba, I still remember that. And I still don't trust you simple types in the interior, I hope nature wipes out your community in a flood, hurricane, debilitating plague, or massive wild fire.

Which is ironic, given the sheer number of relatives I must have among those simple types, considering the length of time my people have been in this country. Since New Amsterdam, so way before this country was a country. Ages before Sherman deservedly burned Atlanta.
Should've burned much more. And salted the earth after passing.

I'm always surprised when folks from certain places demonstrate reading skills and thinking ability. Not often enough, not nearly often enough. As far as I'm concerned, Florida man isn't limited to Florida.

Remember the pandemic? They proved that then.
Bunch of ignorant submentals.
Swamp things.



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THE MISSING PETRI DISH

Got out of the house late yesterday, after making myself some salt fish and egg fried rice with grilled sausages and two kinds of hot sauce. Basically, breakfast closer to dinner time.
So I ended up having a postmeal pipesmoke at dusk, when it gets colder. I had unwisely stepped out wearing a shirt too thin for the conditions. And decided to just suck it up.

The sanctity of the ritual outranks the need to be comfortable.
Yeah, okay, that's just weird. Crazy stupid stubborness.
If I die of pneumonia I'll have myself to blame.


Unlikely, given that it's merely early Autumn, late October. Which in San Francisco is actually pleasant weather. And I do own a functional coat. Which has capacious pockets suitable for holding pipe and tobacco. As well as two teabags because you never know when you might require a restorative hot cup.

Two pipes. In case a woman politely asks to join me.
Two teabags. Similar, but also planning ahead.
Sometimes a man needs another cup.
I'm actually a boyscout.

Actually, that's really why I have two briar pipes with me, because the chances of meeting a woman who indeed does want to smoke a pipe and isn't a tattooed free spirit with issues is remarkably slim. Non-existent, really. Two pipes gives me a choice, even though I've usually already decided which one I'll smoke before I leave the house. I just like having a suitable second to match. Neurosis.

I'm not socially adept enough to strike up conversations when I'm outside smoking my pipe. Not used to the idea. And I'm okay with that, comfortable with what I am. Also, a woman would in any case have her own smoking equipment. Her tastes, her preferences, her favourite shapes and brands.

Or maybe she prefers refined cigarettes from overseas, and has a steady supplier of same, because they're usually no longer legally available in the United States. Something slim and elegant. Something that one could let burn down in the ashtray while deeply involved in a textual ellucidation of something rather interesting.


It's a concept. I should write a science mystery with a protagonista exactly like that. A laboratory in a picturesque English village where most of the natives are pretentious eccentrics or blinkerdly ignorant snobs, and not good conversational company at all.
With a tea-shoppe with mediocre pastries, dried cucumber sandwiches.
And really cheap tea, clearly not Taylors of Harrowgate.




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DO GHOSTS HAVE GHOSTS?

Did I mention that bloodpressure meds make dreams vivid? Especially if one is in the habit of having a hot caffeinated beverage in the evening. Now, I know that what I'm supposed to do, having reached the age when pills are part of the daily program, is to quietly tone down my habits, and over a period of the next four decades or so slowly become a vegetable, only starting up to scream "damned kids get off my lawn" or occasionally babbling incoherently while gumming a rusk soaked in warm milk, but the problem is that I do not have a lawn for the damned kids to get off of, and I hate rusks.

As a Dutchman, rusks (beschuit) are a tangible part of my cultural heritage.
They're "okay" with a very thin slice of jonge kaas (cheese).
Or butter and hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles).

That latter is also something which I do not have. I live in a cultural wasteland.

What I do have is dreams, which are sometimes populated by ghosts. A cat that visits the corner of my eye when I'm still half asleep, before vanishing. And, most recently, a female figure in a loose shift that does the same. Possibly the former owner of the cat.

She floats a bit, shimmering, mouthes something I cannot hear, blinks out of existence. Then it's time for me to get up, go to the bathroom, and head into the kitchen to put the water on for coffee. I expect that as the weather grows colder she will start to wear something warmer, perhaps a sweater or a fluffy bathrobe. Flannel jammies.

She isn't my apartment mate flitting through my room. I know this because of her hair colour. My apartment mate, though of a similar height, does not look like that, never wears a shift (jammies with penguins, or happy sheep, or grizzly bears) and has black hair that's rather short. And I'm fairly certain she does not have a ginger wig, as she has no desire to be mistaken for Irish or Scottish.

Maybe I should research the occupants of this building before my landlady's parents bought it decades ago. They're all Chinese American (landlady, passed parents), but before then it was probably mostly Caucasian-filled.

In the years that I have lived here, it has still been mostly Caucasian.
Even though many of the folks nearby are Chinese American.

My apartment mate, also Chinese American, has a theory that Chinese ancestried people, if they're lucky, are visited by the ghosts of all the seafood they have eaten. Delicious haunting. And I should mention that Cantonese people are quite seafood obsessed, which may play a part in that belief-system.


I'm imagining little flocks of ghost lobster and shrimp all over the hills of San Francisco, scurrying after people and trailing fragments of salted black beans and garlic. Which explains why elderly Chinese often take the bus, even for one block. Ambulatory Crustaceans can't mange the step up into the vehicle. They probably cluster at the stops forlornly, waiting for someone likely to get off.



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STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW TAPE!

Sometime soon the first wave of Trump's goon-surge will hit the Bay Area, according to some local news reports. Which will overjoy several repulsive Republicans (including two retired police officers) in Marin County. Despicable men. Too long alive. So by this time next month, just in time for turkey day, the fans will have been well and duly spattered, and the locals will be hunting down uniformed Texans and "talking to them". Or something like that.


Imagine several possible conversational scraps:

"Don't go there, son, that's where they gutted and skinned a Fox News reporter two days ago." "Who knew that the Salesforce Tower was so combustible?" "They're combing through the building for surviving feds." "Yeah, okay, their demise was extrajudicial, but it was proven that they were college Republicans, so no biggie."

Myself, I shall stay out of trouble. I fervently hope that the people I know and like will too.
As well as all the medical personell I know, only ONE of whom is Caucasian.


I fully expect San Francisco to be a war-zone within hours of the thugs landing.
Probably most intensely near Salesforce, Fox News, and Sansome Street.
Secondarily places like Union Square and Pacific Heights.
At all times, stay behind the yellow tape.

Remember that tear gas residue stays on surfaces for a very long time, so be careful touching your eyes even after it's all over. Also, Kristi Noem's gestapo is no respecter of rights -- the Immigration Department is chock full of old-fashioned bigots, just ask anyone who has arrived from overseas at our airports in recent years -- and if you're arrested by them you will be treated badly, so be prepared to sue them and be tied up in the courts for years. Furthermore, and this interesting, masks are penetrable, and protective gear may or may not be combustible. Do with that info what seems best for you at that moment. California's law against facial coverings to prevent recognition by police and Federal Christian Nationalist bullies does NOT go into effect until January, and they will disregard it anyway. Same with the requirement (same law) that they identify themselves by name and badge number. Assume that those people are actually inbred syphilitics from a red state.
Possibly swamp creatures. Do NOT get their fluids on you. Unclean.


And again, stay behind the yellow tape.


As a man with peaceful inclinations, not at all likely to get involved in shenanigans or law-breaking, honest, the worst that I expect to happen personally is that drifts of teargas and smoke might interfere with my quiet pacifist enjoyment of a pipe after eating in Chinatown. Smoking a pipe is good for the digestion. Teargas isn't.
Reagan taught us that.



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BOYSCOUTING AND URBAN LIVING

They're working on the street again. Sounds like heavy machinery. Somewhere there is a jackhammer. The newly laid concrete along the near edge has had a few days to cure.
If I lived at the front of the building I would be bothered.

Because two buildings are also being worked on, there are now three porta-potties on the street. A mommy, a daddy, and a little baby Jesus potty. Now imagine Goldilocks having to make a choice. After eating and napping.
One of them is "just right".
Confused bears.


"This one. This is totes the one! OMG!"


She has a little self-satisfied smirk. Like a spoiled blonde yuppette would have after trying on everything at the store. The latest fashion in porta-potty garb, designer, costs more than your weekly pay cheque. Onward to the luxury potties of Union Square!

It might be worth it to purchase monthly memberships to the gym around the corner for the jackhammer boys. Cleaner, more comfortable, flushy flushy, and better lighting. Lighting is very important at such times, there are few things so depressing as a badly lit loo.
And you can't see the spiders when you're in there.
Uncomfortable angry spiders.

About seven years ago when they were working on Van Ness (a project that consumed a generation), one of the local crazies or street people got accidentally locked in a porta-potty at the beginning of a three-day weekend. I sure hope someone with a cell-phone called the authorities to rescue him. I didn't have a cell-phone at the time, and it was dark and cold.
Being pooped from a long day, I forgot about it by the time I got home.

I often think about panicked frantic Goldilocks locked alone in a crapper on Van Ness.
If you're going to sneak into a porta-potty when it's dark, maybe bring along a crowbar or an axe. Or at the very least, a flashlight and a walkman or cell-phone.
Plus water and maybe a bag of snacks.
Be prepared.

During one of the Union Street Festivals (yearly events with drunks, food stands, and artists worried that a drunk would knock over their shelves of pottery) I stood in line for one of the porta-potties. Not exactly traumatic, but in hindsight not a memory I'll cherish. I can't even remember which lovely ceramics I bought that day, OR whether I had patronized the fried snack concessions. But I remember the porta-potty. So my sympathy is decidedly with working types forced to use those things.

Who might worry, on a slope in San Francisco, whether it's going to start sliding downhill and they'll end up smashed into a local restaurant amidst horrible wreckage and overturned wine bottles with their pants around their ankles.

And spiders.



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ANCIENT FRAGRANCES

North Beach has become too popular with the out of towners. Mobs of them. An infestation. Fortunately once we left the burger place there was the party wheel chair across the street, with loud Latin dance music and strobe lights. He wheels through the darkened city waking the natives with salsa. In a radius of half a dozen blocks.
A breath of positivity and light.

Besides, at the intersection of Columbus and Broadway the only people sleeping are drunk or drugged. A long time ago I used to live very near there, and I can remember sometimes being up until dawn, when the robust aroma of fresh roasting coffee beans from the Caffe Trieste and the Roma beckoned.

Some of the local bars already had the early alcoholics at that hour.

We ended up at Vivian's (not the actual name of the place) because both the beer hall and the karaoke bar were insane asylums. Tat Yee expressed wonderment that I had not gone to the latter, and I explained that there is nothing worse than twenty-something white people singing Hotel California or Country Roads. Or, heaven forfend, the Okland Booty song.

Caucasian yuppazoids love the Oakland Booty song.

Whereas a bar with only half a dozen people inside and NO loud music is a slice of heaven. Quite tolerable. Especially if they have hot water for tea. Plus Guinness and Jameson whiskey for the bookseller.

A few hours before pipe and pub crawl I had been down in C-town enjoying a plate of salt fish and chicken chunk fried rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haam yü gai nap chaau faan'). Hong Kong people may claim that dimsum is their quintessential home town food, but nothing evokes a sense of comfort and well-being quite like salt fish. That briny cheesy saveur! That intense baconesque jolt of umami! That richly fermented pong! AND it combines harmoniously with chicken or fatty pork, much like cheese for many westerners. Which it scares considerably. Despite being great with dollops of chilipaste.

Sadly, I have never been able to convince other English-speakers of this.
I guess I will first have to teach them all Dutch. Then they will know.
The Netherlandish tongue inculcates gustatory understanding.
Denk aan nasi goreng met een beetje trasi of daing.

Or, in the case of my apartment mate, bacon and eggs over rice for dinner with a dollop of oyster sauce. Which isn't Dutch, even though a Dutchman would assuredly enjoy that also, but very American-born San Francisco Cantonese. 真好食呀！
See, an Anglo would have potatoes and ketchup.
In lieu of rice and oyster sauce.

We do have ketchup in the fridge, but we go through oyster sauce far faster.

In some places like Mississippi or Alabama you have to travel out of state to purchase oyster sauce. I cannot imagine living there. How horrible!


Crowded bus on the way back over the hill.
Dammit y'all, go to bed already!



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GLOBULAR FRUITING BODIES

Elaeomyxa are slime molds in the family Lamprodermataceae. There are four known types. They are true slime molds (myxomycetes) with distinct phases. During their plasmodium stage they ingest nutrients in an amoeba-like fashion. After they have become replete, they produce globular fruiting bodies. Like most slime mold species they grow on rotting wood in moist forested environments.

Which, personally, is interesting to me. But I can understand if most people would find this unexciting to the point of mental immobility, hardly thrilling at best.

Especially as the individual slime mold manifestation is microscopic.
Barely noticeable except in masses or when mature.
Strange small alien things.


When I showed my apartment mate an illustration of slime molds recently she said that they looked 'evil'. This is the same woman who went through an entire phase of pimple popping videos and would invite me to appreciate "how big that one is can you believe that?"

I would rather not. It's icky.

There are many things which one of us finds fascinating, and the other doesn't. I discovered this morning that my little plastic envelopes of pipe carbon for making mud to patch the inside cakes of damaged pipes are missing. She probably thought that it was just weird ash, which the toad (me) was saving for some berserk reason, and out with it. Housecleaning.


The toad (me) is not one for fits of housecleaning. Although I recently realized that I have way too many scraps of paper that I will never look at again.
Which I should probably throw out.


It fills me with discomfit.



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AND GRAVY FOR THE MASSES

Everytime I look at comment strings under news, I see a number of Trumpites shitting all over everything. It's like a junior prom version of the Young Republicans. Slightly fewer nasty digs at African Americans, Asian Americans, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, and Native Americans. Because they know it will get them axed. Far more sneers, slights, outright falsehoods, and approved government talking points.

The good thing is that there are no calumnies directed at Dutch Americans and pipesmokers. We are not a significant blob on their admittedly limited mental horizons, and that, basically, is what people like me are for.

Excoriating hard-core bible-thumping cretins in Michigan is something I occasionally do. Fortunately, there are far fewer of those trogs in the current administration. I guess they weren't vicious enough.

By the way: they aren't many of them in Placer County either. The rot there is all home-grown inbred Anglo etcetera. Syphilis rates there have stabilised, because they just keep intercoursing themselves. Bless their hearts.

Fortunately I do not have to deal with such people very much when I'm off work; they stay in that one suburban venue festering in their own bile and cheering for the local football team, because it represents all that they hold dear and no one kneels for the anthem anymore.

As organised and televised team sports often do.
Junkfood and beer advertisers demand it.
All-American cheese, grease, salt.
It's what people love.
Patriotic!



Delicately I raise a minute pinch of Fribourg & Treyer snuff to my refined nostrils, and sniff deeply, appreciatively. Mmm, lotus fragrance! Bugger the sports pigs.



Do you see a television in that book room illustrated above? Well, do you? It isn't there. During the football, baseball, basket ball, and ice hockey seasons there is naught to watch, and now that the Trump regime has yanked funding for PBS there isn't enough money to pay the British for their snooty productions, which are literate and well acted by clearly enunciating people with correct diction for their class.

Certain accents, like Belfast, Cockney, Mississippi, and Gronings set my teeth on edge.
Oxford, Cambridge, Dick Cavett, and Den Haags are fine.
Glaswegian and Liverpool, just no.
Gibberish.



Speakers from Texas, on the other hand .....
Sometimes quite eleoquent.




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REVERIE

There is nothing quite like snarfing down a plate of pork and cabbage dumplings 豬肉白菜餃子 ('jyu yiuk paak choi gaau ji'). No hot mik tea, because it's a Shanghai place, and that isn't their thing. But they have chili crisp (香辣脆 'heung laat cheui'). And their dumplings are quite good. So I enjoyed my meal. Immensely.

Had a long smoke in the Financial District afterwards. I must have looked jaunty and dashing with my pipe sticking out of my mouth, as a passing lady security guard smiled warmly at me as she passed. A fine briar is definitely an excellent style accesory. It makes any man or woman look brilliant, like Einstein or Faulkner. And soigné, like Clark Gable.

Warm enough today for shirtsleeves. Even at dusk, when it was cooler.
Downtown, empty at evening, is reverie inducing.


Over in England it has, I have been informed, been rainy and autumnal. Twenty degrees Fahrenheit colder than San Francisco, with some downpours. Perfect for a stomp in the woods with a magnifying glass to inspect the small bugs and slime molds.

Myxogastric slime molds of the genus cribraria have globular and soft fruiting bodies with an abbreviated thready peridium, forming a net-like structure. They are widespread, with more than thirty species. They flourish in shady moist environments, often on rotting wood or dense vegetal matter in forests.

In the illustration above, cribraria are shown on rotting wood.

Slime molds are in fact quite fascinating.

Some are dumpling-shaped.



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ON THE ISLAND OF NEUROSIS

At present I am amused by the imagined frustration of two people at constructing a series of interlocking cubes at my work place. Soon to be augmented by a third, when his shift starts. Who will, undoubtedly, after half an hour say "heck it, let's just toss this crap and have a shot of tequila". I put it together yesterday, and deconstructed it entirely before I left at night. The marginally demented anti-vaxer who works tomorrow may take an axe to it. Another brilliant idea by a marketing department, leapt upon alacritously by the boss, which has proven both goobus and capable of inducing psychological trauma. I work in an unique environment.

Much about what I do in a work context is likely to cause weeping, wailing, and, if the wind is right, gnashing of teeth. Not by me, as I am an equitably-tempered bloke. But others.


Under certain conditions at work I may grumble, but sometimes there is cheese.


I keep fantasizing that one day a skunk or a badger may wander in.
Friendly, extremely self-assured, and quite curious.
I shall give it a tuna fish sandwich.

Animals like that often react 'decisively' if other creatures nearby make sudden or threatening moves. As a Dutch American, and a pipe smoker, I understand that. I also react decisively at those times. And I have trained myself to be calm, as I do not wish to bite through the stem of my pipe. Those things are a pain in the gand to replace. Obviously I do not wish to inflict that pain in the gand on furry entities. Some of whom are adept at sharing their gand irritation.

To put it differently, I see myself as good at sitting still, not disquieting animals, and gently feeding them tuna fish sandwiches. Besides constructing cubes.

Because it was my birthday last week, and to reward myself for being a good little patient (saw medical professionals recently, like every year at roughly this time) I bought myself another pipe. A black sandblasted Peterson straight-shanked billiard, silver-banded.
A handsome piece. Very skunk or badger like. Which a crow might also like.

Breaking-in a new pipe is a neurotic project. Smoke it gently, partial bowls at first, gradually increasing the tobacco, until finally somewhere at around twenty smokes or so one can do full loads. By that time the carbon layer on the inside of the bowl will have developed enough that it's the perfect interface with the tobacco and acts as a protective layer between the fire and the wood. Which should probably be sometime in December for this pipe.

This item looks very similar to an older Dunhill shellbriar banded billiard which I mentally associate with club sandwiches and Hong Kong milk tea for lunch. Perfect for the rainy season and the return of colder weather.



By the way, and speaking of neurotic, I should mention Greg Pease's Ellipsis Flake. Mostly lighter leaf (Virginia flue-cured and a little burley) augmented with Smyrna (Izmir) and a touch of St. James Perique. Rather delightful. Off-kilter label art, which seems to be three dancing nudes erupting from tobacco leaves on a sunny day. A seascape. I shall have to purchase more of this. This might be something to stockpile.

TOBACCO INDEX


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THEY'RE RUINING YOUR DINNER TODAY.

Naturally the senile Republicans in the backroom stayed to watch the ball game. Equally naturally, I left my coworker, a sportsfan, to deal with that. I cleared out when my shift ended, and was glad to get on the bus back to civilization. My workweek is short, but bitter. I am far less of a people person than I was years ago. Not a psychopath, but not exactly warm, cuddly, outgoing, or neurotypically standard.

My apartment mate ditto. A conversation which she was party to: "How dare you fail my precious! He's a genius!" Her interjection: "I see. Gets that from his parents, does he?"
That goes into the 'screw you Jennifer' file.

So basically, we get along fine.

The gentlemen in the backroom cannot understand why I am not into sports on teevee, and have made clear that they consider that un-American and snooty of me.
These are the same fellows who will watch golf on the telly.
Can't get more un-American and snooty than golf.
It's the paradigm of dickhead pastimes.

Saruman, Sauron, and the Nazgûl play golf.
That tells you everything, doesn't it?

Anyhow, the Forty Niners are playing this evening, football I believe. Thousands of people are eating hotdogs and creaming in their panties because of this. The Forty Niners, I have been told, are America's team. It is unpatriotic to not adulate!

The game started at five thirty, lasts about two hours, and features screaming from fans. So dinner table conversation is out of the question for many people, unless they have mastered the phrases "yay team", "how about those niners, hey", or "beer".

There is silence in my neighborhood at present. Yay!
I appreciate such neighbor silence greatly.
Perhaps the team has already lost.


Yay!



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HEALTHY DELUSION

It wasn't until I got home yesterday that I realized work had clopped me a good one. Long day, with lots of noise. My feet hurt like billy-o. What had delayed the realization was 800 mg of acetominophen. A miraculous substance. One especially loved by autistic single moms, per our politicians. Who are stark raving mad.

My evening routine on work days is to fix myself a cup of coffee, sit in front of the computer looking up stuff on Wikipedia or doomscrolling, and hitting "like" under social media posts. Such as the seance cartoon where they've summoned a pizza delivery guy, or the dark nursing humour page. Or pipe smoker postings.


The acetominophen was an extra strength caplet at nine in the morning, and half a regular tab in mid-afternoon. Acetominophen works for around twelve hours, with minor continuing effect for another twelve afterwards. There are cautions about using it too much too often.

Just call me the Tylenol whisperer.


It's usually the right leg that's the problem. Sometimes only the right leg. That's why we're going to do the angioplasty there first. See how it holds, then the left.

Which inevitably brings up things like gooey Brie, Stilton, cheesy poofs, Cheddar flavoured crisp biscuits, smoked Edam, and that it's a darn good thing that I have the digestion of a pre-menstrual woman AND am taking statins.

I snacked a bit after coming home.

Statins made it guilt-free.



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PURCHASING THINGIDINGKY

One of the major effects of tariffs and punitive taxes, other than bankrupting businesses, is that smuggling goes through the roof. Which, surely, is free-enterprise at it's finest! "You want thingidingky, stupid white man? Very good, I supply you with thingidingky! For one quarter the price that your licensed thingidingky vendor charges!" Several people I know haven't purchased legal cigarettes in California in many years. They don't have to. They have several contacts who will sell them cigarettes smuggled in from elsewhere. For considerably less than they would pay from a legitimate cigarette store.

We spent years fighting the war on drugs. Drugs won.
Which wasn't a big surprise to anyone.

A century ago we banned alcohol. Over the next decade prohibition gave us the FBI, the Kennedys, and organized crime. We're still on the fence about two of those three.

And everybody loves stockcar racing, right?


It's against the law to hire illegal aliens, or anybody without correct papers. There are now many enterprises which, because of ICE, have severe labour shortages.
Many of them are Trump voting family farmers.
Funny how that turned out.

Far be it from me to speak any ill of certain activities.

As a red-blooded American, I must instinctively applaud all manifestations of laissez faire free-wheeling capitalist free-enterprise. It's what made this country great. The colonists during the revolutionary war did it, starting a tradition which maintains to this day. John Jacob Astor of the American Fur Company smuggled opium on a truly massive scale, the coastal English during the Napoleonic war smuggled as well, United States Citizens near the Canadian border do it as naturally as breathing, Russian citizens during the Soviet Period did it all the time, and the Dutch province from when my ancestors hailed regard it as part of their intangible cultural heritage, we're planning to file papers with Unesco about that.

Something about butter, guns, and tobacco.


Thumbing one's nose at the Feds, sneering at Washington, and buying stuff illegally, are all as American as apple-pie. We Americans are very fond of apple-pie. It runs in our veins.


Yay, thingidingky!



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REVERSE BATHTUB!

Donald Trump, famous felon, gobbledigooker, and failed businessman, sometimes says truly remarkable things. "We built a thing called a reverse bathtub. You seal it. The problem is, nature always wins". No one knows what that means. It's covefefic.

No, he didn't rant this in a late-night twitter rampage, as you probably thought. That being when his more incoherent brain turds drop. Said it out loud in front of witnesses.


"We built a thing called a reverse bathtub. You seal it. Nature always wins. I know a lot about reverse bathtubs."


You know, old man, the next time you have a thought, consider keeping it to yourself. Leave it sealed up. Unsaid. Not on the record. Not in front of guests at a White House dinner, when your audience feels constrained to be there because they need something out of you and consequently will look politely quizzical instead of giggling at signs of dementia.
Keep wisely quiet. Just. Shut. Up.


Reverse bathtub, 屌，你老母，reverse 你嘅 bathtub!

By the way, is it time to release the Epstein files yet?


Lunch yesterday was excellent. Pork cheung fun with cilantro.
And condiments: chili crisp, hot sauce, peanut sauce.

Can't get that at Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago.
Not showy and vulgar enough.



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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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