IT'S PROBABLY THE DUTCH

Reading the Dutch news sites is always instructive, especially when they're discussing stuff that happens in the United States. Apparently those Dutch are now calling our beloved Vice President, J. D. Vance, who regrettably hasn't a drop of Dutch blood -- or any blood -- the "second bitch". How insulting and disrespectful for that baboon! I am utterly offended!
That's "Vice President Second Bitch" to you, mynheer!

The intercoursing nerve of those kaaskoppen!

And naturally that makes either Mike Johnson OR Stephen Miller the "third bitch". With their official titles. "Cringing House Speaker Third Bitch Mike Johnson" or "Secretary of Evil Third Bitch Stephen Miller". Respect, please!


Bear in mind that they're using English terms in some of their Dutch texts. This is to make sure that slow Americans will get the drift. They're good that way. And while there is definitely a Netherlandish word for 'bitch', it doesn't have the same flavour. Teef is just bland.
Tweede Teef means nothing. Unless you're breeding dogs.

The Dutch word for Texas is quite neutral. We have many words which start with 'sch'.
Not surprising, given how close Dutch and German sometimes are.

In other North America related matters, Raw Story reports that our beloved Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been more or less covering up the deaths of migrants in its detention facilities which do not at all resemble gulags or concentration camps. This is undoubtedly to protect us innocent Americans from facing the harsh realities of life.
Under our First Bitch, Second Bitch, and Third Bitch.


"I am not surprised that ICE, in addition to lying about its murders and leading smear campaigns against its victims, is also under-reporting deaths in its custody."
------ Robert Garcia, House Oversight Committee


For all we know, there may have been hundreds of deaths, but we'll very likely never know. Years from now we may discover mass graves, probably in Texas, which we will ascribe to space aliens, mercifully zapped by lord Jesus with death rays so that we were unharmed.
Because our government said so. And we can believe them.


In any case, Greg Bovino, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem, as well as Gregg Abbott, will have been pardoned by the president, so whatever happened is immaterial.

A dead issue.



NAWOORD

Geraldo Lunas Campos died in ICE custody on Jan. 3 at Camp East Montana, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Several detainees at a Texas immigration detention facility claim in sworn court declarations that they heard a Cuban immigrant, whose death was later ruled a homicide, pleading for medication shortly before hearing what sounded like guards slamming him to the ground.

He is the third detainee to die at the detention center since it opened last year as a tent facility on the grounds of the Fort Bliss Army base outside El Paso.

Cuban immigrant's death at ICE facility ruled a homicide, autopsy report says: In an autopsy report released last week, the El Paso County deputy medical examiner determined that Campos died from "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression."

Quoted from ABC News.




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WANDERING INTO THE PERVERT APARTMENTS

There are times when the gay young blade strolls into the darker side of town, down near the rail road tracks, where sailors and loose women throng, lurking in the shadows and shaking their curvaceous legs. "Come on, big boy" they whisper, "I've had my shots, I am no longer infectious". They reek of cheap perfume.

This blogger, as a pipe smoker, likes to read about old tobacco blends that were common at drugstores and establishments that also sold liquour, chewing gum, and notions. In addition to the cheap perfume favoured by sailors and loose women.

Things like 'Maple Pinstripe', 'Rum Floozy', and 'Prince of Welsh'. Vanilla, chocolate, caramel, and a faint hint of lavender to suggest refinement. On a base of heavy Cavendish-treated leaf and steamed and toasted burley, made milder and easier by that processing.


There's yellow crime tape stretching around that entire corner. A man in a cheap business suit smeared with lipstick is sitting with his back against the wall, mouth slightly open, drooling. His eyes look vacant. Like a stockbroker.

It is unclear whether the person who engaged him, provided certain key services, and took payment, was a nautical person or a beatnik chick. Smoking imported cigarettes. Drenched in cologne. The entire intersection reeks. Fermentive, alcohol based, intoxicating.

At present I am looking at a container with an old codger blend in the newest iteration of the blender's art. Decades ago Middleton, then already a division of R.J.Reynolds, acquired the rights to Royal Comfort and added it to their portfolio of offerings for the discerning smoker.
A few years later a match blend was created for the by then discontinued product. Then the vikings raped, pillaged, and conquered, leaving many elderly pipe smokers bereft, hunkered down and beaten in a blasted landscape, without the products that they had relied on for their humble joy since Noah landed the Ark. The match blend was no longer made.

In the past year, Arango purchased the name, and tasked another company which does not wish to take responsibility with duplicating it. A few days ago I bought a tin, having fondly recognized it as a renewed version of the corner-stone of existence.

It's a cloying "European style cavendish". Brown, black, and a touch of blonde Virginia. Extremely mild and smooth. Vanilla, chocolate, and perhaps a hint of caramel. I've smoked a few bowls with great enjoyment. Little tobacco flavour or punch, and the added perfumes do not particularly impact the taste when one smokes it. It is, in a word, the perfect tobacco for tormenting Hector when I work with him again, as I love his reaction when he notices what I'm doing. His little face scrunches up in anguish and he wails, heart-broken, "why are you doing this to me?!?" His misery is palpable, audible, operatic.
He hates aromatics. Passionately.
Delicious.

This is a product which many old codgers on the pipe forums missed. Several of them have said that the best way of starting the day was with a cup of black coffee and a pipe filled with Royal Comfort.

Like many aromatics it is overly moist, damned well drenched, there is a faint chemical whiff to it, and it should not be smoked by educated people. It appeals to risk-taking teenagers, wanton women, and ex-Marines, plus other dubious types. It may take me very little time to go through this tin, I'll probably have to order more in a month of two.
I look forward to torturing people.


Perhaps I should drink my coffee black like a psychopath.



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THERE ARE MANY OTHER WORDS

Per Greg Bovino, there will be consequences for using terms like "gestapo", and "kidnapping" for actions that ICE takes. So henceforth I will not use those terms. Furthermore, he says that the name of the thug(s) who shot ten bullets into Alex Pretti will never be released. So effectively we have a secret police very much like the Gestapo, Stasi, or Cheka, but NOT actually "gestapo", just a kinder, gentler, and more red-blooded American Stasi and Cheka, operating on the streets of America, who can bust down doors, and shoot people at will.

Which is something we have always wished for. We looked at places like East Germany and Stalinist Russia for decades with envy. "Oh", we exclaimed, "if ONLY we had a gang of badly trained schoolyard bullies to terrorize people we don't like, such as for instance Anne Frank or Kurt Weil, even Albert Einstein, so that we could feel like our collective testicles were even half that size!"

Well, now that big tough he-men like Bovino, Noem, and Patel have stepped in, we do.
Truly we are blessed. Praise Jesus.


Terrible things happened during this past weekend.
It snowed on an important football match.
And it was Burns Night.

Plus Kyle Rittenhouse is horribly upset that people are using him for rage-bait (again).
Kyle is the gift that keeps on giving, why won't we just realize that?

Well, admittedly he's like that haggis you dumped in the trash after midnight and all of your drunken friends had left, but he's certifiably an all-American boy, and therefore manifestly chosen. An example to all of you horrid, HORRID! gay black communists. If ONLY you could be like him. Or like Greg Bovino, a man of stature and importance and whititude.
Who is NOT head of the gestapo OR a child kidnapper.

Those ethnic kids somehow instinctively recognized the goodness of those uniformed men, and willingly, almost lovingly, walked into their arms. It was the goodness of Christ that magically motivated them.


Also, J. D. Vance wishes that we would all co-operate with ICE, so that all-Americans like them can eat in peace in local restaurants or pee in gas stations. Why are we so cruel?


And there is no climate change. Snow in Texas proves that.

A handful of Republicans may be developing spines.



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FOND THOUGHTS ABOUT BURNS NIGHT

Last night was Burn's Night, which is an opportunity for people to celebrate bad poetry, get drunk, and clog-dance for Jesus while wearing no underpants underneath scratchy woolen skirts. For men a particular problem, because their delicate parts are not used to hard fibres irritating the flesh, unless they're religious penitents with a hair shirt thing going on. Which simply illustrates that many North Americans of European descent are a bit goofy. I mean, if you want to punish the flesh, why don't you simply eat standard white folks food? No flavour, no spices, and a vast array of repulsive textures ..... Oh wait, that explains both lutefisk and haggis. Plus Detroit pizza, but that stands no chance of ever becoming widespread.

Lutefisk and haggis, on the other hand ..... As good an excuse to get blotto as any.
You might want to make it last, because there will be left-overs.

As a Dutch American, I am certainly open to culinary practical jokes, because our entire cuisine is basically founded upon that. Or has names which indicate that the person in the kitchen was high as a kite or stark raving mad. Rather like the English with some of their dishes. In mediaeval times it lightened the burden of dried fish, salt pork jerky, fermented cabbage, and coarse ground groat porridge. But please understand that since then we got our hands on things like nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and above all sambal, and we've never been the same.

Whereas Scotland and Iowa doubled up on severe culinary horror.

A better argument for there being Wisdom In The East is that China, India, and Japan have no version of haggis. Perhaps Tibet does -- apparently they thrive on boiled tealeaves and rancid butter poured into a goat hair bag (shag in the inside) shaken until frothy there -- but the vindaloo version of haggis was invented by Scots-Irish in Manchester, the healthy matcha or apple cider vinegar and tofu version hails from Berkeley, and the unbelievably popular vegan haggis are all white folks inventions. Typical.


Perhaps haggis needs to be aged. Like cigars, wine, and cheese. It's a Scottish answer to casu marzu. If you need to take a day off for your digestion to get back in order, we'll understand. We'll plan an intervention while you're gone.

I have not touched haggis in years.
Deservedly.



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TUMULT

In Minneapolis, Alex Pretti went to the assistance of a woman thrown on the ground by an ICE agent. Which resulted in him being peppersprayed and shoved to the ground, assaulted by a mob of ICE, and then being shot with at least ten bullets. Whereupon the Trump gang went into full spin and put out numerous lies trying to make themselves look good.
In what is, no bones about it, an extrajudicial killing by hired thugs.

Fascist hacks, patsies and flunkies went public with lies flatly contradicted by witnesses and numerous videos. Noem, Patel, and rabid chihuahua Bovino spun themselves silly.
Backed by Putin's bitch Bonespur Boy and the cretins at Fox.

All of this cheered on by the bot army, of course.
As well as Kyle Rittenhouse.


Every single work day this week I've had a full house of senile Nazis baying in the backroom. A herd consisting of a few demented Jews, several vicious Goyim, and an insane sober Irishman who might be a Cro-Magnon or full Denisovian.
Plus a libertarian who lies and obfuscates.
When he's not sneering.


You know someting? I'm a saint. An effing saint.
I have not killed anyone yet.


I watched the videos. I saw a murder. It was the second ICE murder I've viewed. And I've heard the Republican talking points. There are several Republicans who deservedly feature on everybody's "Feed These Bastards To The Sharks" list.

It's a Venn Diagram with substantial overlap.
We know who they are, and where they are.

At this rate, it may be incredibly soon.



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IT GROWS ON YOU

It strikes me that I currently do not eat the same as when I was still in college. Part of growing up is, necessarily, growing away from juvenile crap that one snarfed down with gusto as a teenager and early adult. And I should mention that certain things in that category no longer exist. Doggy Diner, source of marvelous chili dogs, is long gone. Kung pao beef isn't on the programme anymore. There was a chocolate place I fondly remember, and gelato is a fond memory but I still wholeheartedly of it.

Haven't had a burger in a heck of long time. Do you remember Zim's? Done in by fast food chains. As was Hungry Hippo. As well as a few dozen other groovy burger joints.

Think in terms of a milk shake, bacon cheeseburger, good fries, and no screaming kids with a free toy or a frightening clown. Mmm, baby.


When the interventionary cardiologist who did the angioplasty on the lower dexter extremity lectured me about correcting my sinful ways, he zeroed-in on smoking. Totally ignoring decades of extremely unwise dietary choices. Which included North Indian food very frequently, which meant meals that provided a stick of butter in every serving.

And pizza.

Pizza is one of the world's most perfect foods, suitable for students at university pulling an all nighter, the football squad celebrating a stellar victory, childrens' birthday parties, weddings, and office workers being thanked and incentivized by their generous employers. Anciently it was hunted down by wiry Roman legionairies galloping across the vast veldts of Emilia-Romana and Tuscany, grazing in the shade of majestic boabab trees, dodging lemurs..... nearly extinct in its homeland, but fondly introduced to the new world by settlers and explorers. Sometimes adorned with unorthodox vestments (pineapple).

On superbowl Sunday vast mounds of it will be consumed, fresh and bloody.

By stalwart righteous men cheering on the noble Seahawks.



Myself, I do not intend to watch the game at all.
But I might venture out for pizza.



Pineapple?



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TASTES LIKE CAKE

You know, if someone decides to shoot some rightwingers in the guts, like many people in this country I have a list. The gentlemen in the backroom spent too much time over the last two days justifying ICE breaking down doors, kidnapping children, gassing bystanders and arresting them, and shooting people. As well as Trump's schoolyard bullies acting like Russian soldiers. So guess who is on my list. Yep.

They are all "self-made men". And like many "self-made men", they refuse to acknowledge that they benefitted 100% from a system rigged in their favour.

I suspect that many (most) of them are not welcome at family get-togethers anymore. And that probably explains why these days I've got several of these rabid bastards raising their voices in the back, vehemently advocating for police brutality.

[Jeffy, does your daughter still even talk to you?]

Plus they're still bitterly disappointed that the Forty Niners got their ass kicked and won't be in the Super Bowl, despite their prayers and passionate fandom.


Largely I keep quiet now, because I know that I would be insufferable since the Seahawks wiped the floor with the Niners, defeated them horribly, deepsixed their hopes, ruined their chances, annihilated any possibility of this ending as a victorious year for them, destroyed them utterly, and danced around on their graves.

Without self-control I'd wipe the backroom boys pasty smug faces in that defeat.

With all that in mind, you will understand why I am not programmed to enjoy my lunch when I'm in Marin, and largely consider it merely fuel. Uninspiring white folks muck eaten in proximity to unpleasant scumsuckers, the very quintessence of the white life.

On the other hand, I do have a fondness for mediocre pizza.


Crappy food is totally a Marin thing.
HOA Karen kibble.



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THE TEA IS COLD

Somewhere in the South, a gentleman probably named Jethro or Joe-Bob (so lets call him 'Jeth-bob') is pouring himself a large glass of sweet tea to go with his donut. It's the breakfast of champions. Every morning. Wakes him up right, soothes his soul, and keeps him regular. He stocked up before the snow hit. He's got enough tea and sugar to last at least a month. One teabag daily, which makes about a gallon, and five one-pound bags of cane sugar.
No, he's never worried about "dahbeets". That's something only Yankees get. Half of his neighbors have it, probably secret Yankees. They won't go the clinic in this weather.

[Clinic: Early stage renal disease because of 'dahbeets', all that sugar. Dialysis twice a week, subsidized insulin. ]

Shoot, he forgot about Momma. She's probably still on the back porch in her hammock!

He goes outside, where it's freezing and totally arctic, and sees a large snow-covered lump in the sagging hammock, all four hundred pounds of her. It snores gently.
Snow didn't even wake her up. She's got plenty of insulation.
Besides being a damned secret Yankee.
Dahbeets.


It strikes me that if you pronounce 'diabetes' with a Southern accent it sounds kinder and gentler. Dahbeets. Kind of soothing, not like something that could harm you. Go on, have another BIG glass of sweet tea. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing, now.
Everything is gonna be all right. There there.

Dahbeets.

Does your pickup truck start in cold weather? Maybe you should take public transit, it's nice and warm with all those once-in-a-blue-moon passengers wedged together.
Sure, there's that smell, but as long as it's warm.

They smell sour underneath the deodorant, the perfumes and the colognes. Pockets of stale air. There's a buildup of ketones, including acetone, in the blood and expelled through breath.


Yeah, okay, I have no idea what the South is like.
I'm imagining all kinds of things, though.
I'll pass on the sweet tea.

I've heard it makes people crazy.



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I ACTUALLY LIKE PEOPLE

While I was walking down the hill with my pipe after lunch an exceedingly pretty woman gave me a very heartfelt "ni hao, hen jiao bu jian" (你好，很久不見). Which indicates three things immediately; 1) She recognized me from someplace, 2) We had spoken Mandarin there, and 3) the impression I made was excellent. The problem in all of that is also three fold; 1) where on earth had it been? 2) Had I really spoken intelligible Mandarin? 3) Good lord, favourable impression? Me?

I tend to think of myself as a rather grumpy goober most of the time. Perhaps I should start considering myself as a likeable old git instead. And the major problem is that I cannot for the life of me remember where we met.

Being warmly greeted by a pretty woman is nice.
If I behave it may happen more often.

My Mandarin is pretty lousy, most of the time in a Chinese context I rely on Cantonese. But in the case of charming intelligent women I will step out of my comfort zone. Problem is that that is thin ice. The borderzone between comfort zone and danger zone is rather slim.


Maybe it was my deodorant. Which is sporty and youthful.
That may have made a positive impression.
Doubtful, but not impossible.


And, speaking of deodorant, I found out yesterday that there is one that smells like snickerdoodle. Why on earth would anyone want their pits to reek of a bakery?
How seriously nuts are people? Americans?

Lunch had been excellent. But I've realized that what this world -- or at least San Francisco Chinatown -- really needs is a place with spicy pork rice noodles, cilantro, slight hint of lemon grass (咖喱豬肉河粉湯 'gaa lei chü yiuk ho fan tong'). Ripe red chilies. It would be something that might give my cardiologist nightmares, but which they couldn't resist sampling often.

If you have it more than once a week you might be dead within a year. Or suffer from gout that goes all the way from the ball joint to the torso. Same with the other great idea I had, namely dried oyster rice sheet noodle rolls (蠔豉腸粉 'hou si cheung fan').



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ONE AND A HALF HOURS EACH

To show support for ICE agents who can't pee in gas stations, the government is sending a known sofa abuser to Minneapolis. Now, no matter what you might think of ICE, they don't deserve this. Many of them have sofas at home, or intend to purchase one with their signing bonuses -- they've heard so much about them and think a sofa would be a splendid addition to their single person family -- and they have to babysit a limp-wristed Nazi midget who can't even throw a green gas grenade without the contents blowing back on them, and perhaps a furniture maltreating cretin should be the last of their worries. And I agree.
Except for one thing.

I myself do not own a sofa, and consequently couldn't care less. About any looming danger to sofas. Kitchen cabinets would be a different matter. As would rattan chairs. One of which is where I sit when I'm on the computer reading about sofa abuse at the highest levels.

If our elected officials and their obsequious enablers spent more time abusing sofas (or easy chairs, random throw pillows, and lawn furniture) that would be a good thing. Especially during the snow storm set to hit large parts of this country within hours. Which will be monumental. Ted Cruz has already gone to Cancun, so it promises to be a doozy.

Therefore I respectfully ask that ALL members of Trump's regime go hump furniture out on the lawn while it's snowing, for the good of the country. And think about Jesus.
Jesus would want them to do that. During a blizzard. Hallelujah.

It would be far more productive than anything they've done up till now, AND it would show solidarity with all their red state voters who have sofas, as well as the trailer park residents who will eventually buy one, if meth sales perk up, which they might now that the fentanyl crisis has been dealt with. Fentanyl, by the way, competes directly with home grown all American substances. Which is why.

As a nod to whisky makers all over the red states, I should point out that Bourbon aids in breaking the ice when negotiating with a sofa. It acts as a lubricant in a way. Good stuff.

Personally I don't have Bourbon either, much like the sofa I don't own.
See, it won't fit in the trailer with all fifteen of us.
We take turns sharing the bed.



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THE FIRST RUMBLES

Ying Ying has a little pale purple plastic doohickey which her grandfather wishes to see. But she is loathe to relingquish it. Which is something I can get behind. There is NO reason why a little four year old girl who has learned the first five letters of the alphabet recently should surrender whatever that is. She's absolutely adorable, and doesn't know it.

That little girl will achieve much. Never give up what's yours, Ying Ying. Whatever it is. From across the room I couldn't identify the thingamajig, other than presuming the material to be matte plastic, pale violet purple, and probably shock-resistent.

And I was enchanted by the perfection of her face.
She looks like a brilliant moppet.
And five letters!

A. B. C. D. E.


I am a sucker for brilliant women. They make opening doors for them fun. I ascribe this to my cat Dorothy, back in Valkenswaard years ago. Who had an engaging personality and was far more interactive than her daughter Narnia, or grandkids 'Wild Thing A' and 'Wild Thing B', or her distant cousin Banes, a slithy tom who would come padding in from the yard whenever my brother Tobias played a musical instrument.

The rather pointless illustration above features neither women nor felines, despite both of those subjects being at the forefront of my mind. It's based, more or less, on a complicated dream before I woke up this morning, in which I was using liquid colours on canvas. It was raining in the alleyway next to the space in Chinatown where I was working. Interesting, because even though I spend a fair amount of time in Chinatown, I don't live there.

On my days off I go to Chinatown.

Yesterday I was at a chachanteng, a bank, a general store, a place that sells lottery tickets, a vegetable shop, and a grocers, plus a bakery for tea and an egg tart. Yes, there were women in all of those places, and some of them have cats too. That's all perfectly coincidental.


The lead-up to New Year has already begun. Mini nin-gou (年糕), red paper things in a huge variety, green plants you might want to put in your foyer, and such like. Soon every one will start losing their minds, and women will push and shove at bins with oranges and tangerines to get the nicest ones with stems and green leaves attached mine bitch I saw it first and no you can't have it mine mine mine I'm taking all of them they're all mine!

My family is deserving of the good fortune, prosperity and good health all these symbolic things and practices will surely bring, whereas your family isn't. Sorry. I hope you have happiness and luck! And some of sweetness. Eat dumplings!


All I really care about are the dumplings.



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DINING AND FINE DINING

There are several dishes at Canto eateries which you know from home cooking, but which you also know from all those times when you're lazy and decide to eat out. During warmer weather you might head over wearing pajama pants, a tee shirt, and flip-flops. Which you cannot do in San Francisco when the temperature hovers near fifty Fahrenheit.
And in any case the white people might object.

Not me, of course, because I find all manifestations of eccentric behaviour fascinating, and as I recognize that that's a sign of a personal comfort zone rather than dangerous craziness from drugged-out fentanyl freaks, it doesn't disturb me. There you'll be, one flip-flopped foot drawn up on the chair, scrolling through the news and your social media feed with your left hand, while happily tucking into claypot rice with your right.

It's a restaurant where white people don't go, because they don't know what the food is, and they associate casseroles with either inedible Chicago pizza or Midwestern potlucks.
The clientele do not look like Iowa, the food does not look Chicago.


After watching Jon Stewart's rant about pizza I'm not even sure you can get food in Chicago. Perhaps it's why they swill Malört. It clears the taste of kibble out of their mouth, and they're filled with such soul-crushing angst that Malört tastes bearable. Not okay. Bearable. Barely.
Iowa still hasn't learned about salt and pepper. So much more angstig. Poor bastards.

Some dishes I despair of ever getting my fellow glow-in-the-dark white people to try. That is to say, I assume they'll wrinkle their noses at the suggestion and say something incredibly stupid, so I never even try.

Anything with salt fish (鹹魚 'haam yü'), for instance. White Americans are predisposed to feign repulsion at the concept, and act all culturally superior. Kind of like Northern Chinese.

Three home style dishes you should, ideally be able to get at the corner restaurant: Steamed pork and salt fish (鹹魚豬肉丁 'haam yü chü yiuk ding'), steamed salt fish pork patty (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'), and salt fish and chicken fried rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haam yü gai nap chaau faan'). If they don't do any of those, consider moving.

If you wish to make them at home, look for "plum fragrance salt fish" (梅香鹹魚 'mui heung haam yü'). Which means that is not just dried, but fermented. Good stuff.

And if you can't find that locally, good lord get out.
You live in Iowa without realizing it.



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MISCOMMUNICATION IS KEY

Sometimes I think that my apartment mate is off the deep end. Since Saturday she's been obsessing about a pearl necklace which she is restringing, fussing over precise graduation of sizes and the knots in between just ever so. She's done it at least three times by now, taking several hours each time. When I point out that it's fine, just fine, stop frustering, she counters that it's exactly like my pipe work, when I'll spend hours with micro-fibre pads getting the rims perfectly done, or steaming out minute dings whatever. Which is serious aesthetic labour not to be sneered at by any means. But okay, point taken.

Currently there are no pipes I'm working on. But I'm still looking at the rim of an old Dunhill Bruyere, billiard shape, group 4, and wondering if it needs more work. I smoked it last night while waiting for the bookseller in Chinatown. It's around forty years old and has been with me for a while. It's a pipe with a certain gravitas, such as a country doctor or an engineer working for the space agency might smoke.

Or, hypothetically, someone who did credit checks for the toy industry.


One of the pipes I'll have with me today will be a Peterson sandblast, and a Dublin shape natural with Dublin & London stamping and a p-lip. Very harbour pilot in a tropical estuary looking, imagine the mosquitoes and those pesky little sandflies oh look there's a water monitor lizard with nasty pointy teeth. The first for after lunch at a chachanteng, the second after grocery shopping, and a cuppa at the bakery where the elderly Cantonese gentlemen will probably be.

Most of them were born here and speak English far better than their parents' Toisanese, and three out of four have hearing problems. One of them has been long-distance involved with a woman in the mainland somewhere outside of Canton, who is probably twenty years younger than him (so late-fifties at the youngest), and I have no idea how he communicates with her seeing as she is not Toisanese. Perhaps in English?

In any case, it's quite admirable that he is still involved with the opposite gender. Even if it is miscommunicatively and long distance. I myself miscommunicate with a number of people, some of whom are not English speakers, a few of whom are of the opposite gender.
But not in any way like that.

For some strange reason very few of the people with whom I miscommunicate hang around in Chinatown bakeries or chachanteng. I cannot understand why.

Perhaps they're afraid that there are creatures with nasty pointy teeth there. Perhaps just under the surface of their hot beverage. I can assure them that that is not so. I am a Dutch American with an affintiy for water monitors, and of this I am certain. I would know.

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FRAGRANT SMOKE AND SERIOUS MATTERS

The bar we to which we normally go because the karaoke joint is filled with screaming white women singing badly was closing early. Different person behind the counter than normal, and only one customer left. So it was an early evening. The burger place had been much like normal, however.

We spoke about recent events, particularly the disastrous loss of the Forty Niners on Sunday to the Seattle Seahawks. A complete rout. A debacle, a humiliating defeat, a totally miserable cringe-worthy performance, total abasement, humiliating, pitiful, and ghastly. The Seahawks wiped the floor with the Niners, destroyed them, smashed them utterly. Naturally this pleased us, because it is exceedingly good to live in a city filled with disappointed sports fans. Who really should take the team's horrible performance personally, as a reflection on them and their faltering limp and spongy manhoods.

Okay?

In a word: they sucked.
Suck suck suck suck sucked!

And I say that as a man wearing a football themed garment proudly promoting a team that has never once lost a game. Primarily because it's an institution which does not do sports but graduates Talmudic giants. So can we please stop talking about that stupid game and that rotten miserable team and instead talk about something meaningful like Bava Kamma, Bava Metziah, and Bava Batra?

Hmmm?

In other news, night time San Francisco is getting more surreal. While I was smoking my pipe and waiting for the bookseller to arrive, a woman asked me about my briar and offered to sell me cigarettes in Cantonese. Did I just encounter a freelance tobacconist from the mainland? I should have asked her what type of ciggies she had. I'm rather fond of Ng Yip San (五葉神) and Diamond Brand Lotus Cigarettes (鑽石品牌，荷花煙仔).

While waiting for our bus we saw a wheelchair cross the intersection blasting some serious funk music, and a woman carrying a huge stuffed sloth larger than the one currently on my bed. This is what San Francisco is all about. Soul and stuffed animals.

Also, I finally realized where that voice in my head came from every time I read another late night Trump tirade. It's Raoul Duke (Johnny Dep) stating that his name is on the list, he has his attorney with him, and they must have a suite! Terrible things were happening, buy us some golf shoes, it's impossible to walk in this muck otherwise we'll never get out alive!

Doctor Gonzo was merely drugged out of his gourd, not senile and gibbering.

But that way of talking is the perfect match for it.

Adderal and pineal gland extract.



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PENGUINS, HERRING, AND LETTUCE

Today I could have done my laundry, visited my bank, and paid bills. But because today is Penguin Awareness Day for 2026 today, I didn't do any of that. It's Penguin Awareness Day! Let us all waddle in celebration of our sphenisciformic fellow citizens. Of whom there aren't that many, because they aren't native to the North American continent, but we appreciate them never-the-less. Or at least, I do.

The proper celebratory food to enjoy on this special day is "one herring whopper, hold the mayo". Per Bill the Cat's friend. Sadly, American fast food franchises are not on board with this yet, so it's still unavailable. And in any case it should be 'hold the lettuce', not mayo. If you're in Holland, like many civilized people, herring is do-able. Americans have not yet wigged on to good food yet.

A herring would turn up its nose at crap like lutefisk and surströmming, the first of which is regrettably present here, and extremely popular in some parts of the country.

There are no penguins in Greenland, but perhaps they have herring there, in addition to lutefisk, which might be the only reason to want the place.

J. D. Vance does not eat herring.
He is a very flawed man.
Possibly a Texan.

In any case, like our president, Vance probably prefers hamberders. Now, hamberders are a very fine food, to be sure, and far be it from me to criticise the beloved iconic national dish of the entire Deep South, bless their hearts, but the hamberder cannot possibly compare to the herring whopper with or without something held.

Hamberders are poor folks food, eaten when you're drunk, in a hurry, tired from a long day working, or you lost the plantation because them damned Yankees burned it down, dang it. The herring whopper is fine dining, enjoyed in a leisurely fashion, while you are laughing riotously at the funny bits in Gone With The Wind.


Hold the lettuce. Always.
Rabbits hump in it.



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A QUESTION OF PERSPECTIVE

There's a video of ICE agents detaining a man forcefully because he has an accent. Which, as they're strong-arming him, they explain is the reason for grabbing him. An accent.
No other reason. They make that absolutely clear.

I have an accent. My family has been here since Nieuw Amsterdam days. We went overseas when I was two. Since returning for college regular American have told me to go back where I came from. So, do I trust a bunch of blinkered inbreds with bulletproof vests and tactical gear who think they're above the law? Mmm, no. Not any further than I can spit.

There are also videos of ICE agents slamming people to the ground, clobbering them, breaking down doors, shoving an elderly man who looks non-white out into freezing temperatures, and breaking car windows to drag screaming people out.

Did I already mention that I have an accent?


The last non-American in the family was three generations ago. My family served in each World War. And in Korea. And in the Civil War on the Union side.

But I have an accent.

Some of my best friends are lily-white Americans with very Waspy surnames who don't have accents. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but because they are lily-white with Waspy surnames, lacking accents, they are a little suspect. They could travel to Kansas or Iowa, or even to the place where my maternal grandfather was from (in Indiana) without raising eye-brows, being questioned about their backgrounds, or being told to go back where they came from.

I also am lily white, with a Waspy surname. If I keep my mouth shut I'm fine.


No, I don't worry that if I visited Kansas or Iowa, or Peru, Indiana, I would be stomped by a xenophobic Christian member of the Elks Club the very moment I asked for hot sauce (!) at the local diner, I am not that paranoid. But there is probably no hot sauce there anyway.
And no reason to visit.

Initial cursory internet research into restaurants in Peru, Indiana, indicate that options for Chinese food, pizza, or Indian, may be a bit limited.


There's plenty of hot sauce in San Francisco.



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THE EARLY AMBLE

Didn't smoke a pipe at all yesterday, it being a holiday so my apartment mate was at home, and I didn't feel like going anywhere other than the Pakistani restaurant that she suggested where we had an excellent lunch. But this morning I jazzed myself up with some coffee and stepped out with a pipe and some Rattray's tobacco. Day off, feet recovered from workweek.
And I'm perky. Oh lordy yes.


Rattray's various Virginia offerings are suitable for smokers of any age and either gender.
So I'm surprised that I don't run into more people who recognize the fabulous smell.
Or any of them, really. Must be the time of day.

People who wander around this neighborhood early in the morning are probably more familiar with the odour of their dog's digestive tract terminus than anything refined.

There's just no accounting for tastes.

When I wake up, I usually want a hot caffeinated beverage, followed by a smoke while wandering around the neighborhood enjoying the fresh air and the birds tweetering.
Dog poo is the last thing on my mind. I'm normal.


Mind you, I like dogs and get along well with them. It's dog owners I find problematic. They're too needy and always want attention, and that whole crotch sniffing thing is a bit much.
Cats are much more civilized, and sometimes they gift you a dead mouse.
It's a token of their near-parental concern.
Encouragement, in a way.
Eat better!

A cat will never insist that you go duck hunting, will not drag you out of bed to poo, and won't bark at birds, travelling salesmen, or other creatures. Nor will it slobber and act drunk.
It may lie on your keyboard, for want of an old-fashioned typewriter.
Or sleep in a shaft of sunlight on your chest.
Sober common sense behaviour.
And indolence.


There is a cat in the picture above. The reason you cannot see it is because it isn't jumping around and barking at a chipmunk. Nor did it use any part of the pavement as its toilet.

When my apartment mate leaves for work I shall shut her bedroom door and open a few windows, so that I can smoke indoors while doomscrolling, safely away from people out toilet-walking their ambulatory four legged or two legged poo-factories.
I am not what's wrong with this country as some of them think.
If there were a cat, it would not object.
Or bark at me.



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THE CHAMBER OF THE MAD KING

So, because Norway didn't give him a Nobel Prize for peace, he's doing everything in his power to provoke World War Three and force Denmark to give him Greenland. And his cabinet, knowing full well that if they play their cards right, they'll have orgasms beyond belief, are prodding him in several directions. And they keep feeding him hamberders, despite knowing what it will do to the fatty deposits around his aorta and his brain.
As well as being bad for his blood pressure and sperm count.

Oh, the humanity!

Meanwhile, there are reliable reports that his wife finds him repulsive, that he smells like roast beef gone bad, very bad, and keeps audibly farting. And did anyone ever mention cankles and tiny puffy bruised hands?


Maga still worships him.


Maga has very low standards and many members who aspire to his level. If they do, maybe they'll get treatment. As well as hamberders. Hamberders would be so nice. It is those evil foreigners and Denmark who are hogging all the hamberders, so unfair, and why are those lutefisters sitting on top of their hamberders? Do something!

And then there's Tommy Turberville, who is too stupid even for that.
There is strong evidence that he can't spell 'hamberder'.
Or even locate Greenland on a map.
It's not Mississippi.

There are many good reasons not to visit anywhere between Treasure Island and Staten Island. The berserk obsession of the brainless Christian savages in the interior with sperm count and hamberders, both washed down with crappy beer, is just one example.


Besides, there is just far too much Texas there. Like a huge cancer spreading across the continent, swallowing up vital organs and brain cells used for critical thinking.



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