HANGING LOOSE

For old times sake, seeing as they were still open when I got down to C'town in the evening to smoke a pipe and wait for the bookseller to get off work, I bought a pack of 555 ciggies at Waa Long Kong Si. They've gotten more expensive. Probably Trump's fault. Damned tarriffs. All prices have gone up. This may force us all into becoming vegetarians leading pure and abstemious lives. Which is un-American.

By the way: avoid Texas beef It's likely filled with maggots.
Always unclean, now probably worse than ever.
A poxy hellhole of a place.
In my opinion.


Yesterday's lunch was veggies and fatty preserved meats, delicious, while today was down at a familiar place, savoury chicken and tofu with rice and hot sauce, washed down copiously with tea. Followed by a smoke in a pipe that is older than I am. All of which was delightful.

As a side note: hot sauce, to Toishanese people, is still that vaguely toasty fried chili oil which adds a warmed pan taste but no appreciable heat. Discovered that at lunch yesterday, but it was tasty and enjoyable nevertheless.

At the burger place, the bookseller and I discussed the sports line-up this coming Sunday. White trash cage brawl on the south lawn, two important world cup matches (Netherlands-Japan and Curaçao-Germany), and the event to which people look forward all year, namely Hello Kitty At The Ballpark. It is entirely unlikely that the rancid rightwing scoundrels in the backroom will have any interest in the last three, so I suspect that we will have the white trash event on teevee.

Sadly, the Giants look to be the worst team in baseball right now. No amount of Hello Kitty's inspiring presence will change that. Rather, their dross will likely rub off on her, and she'll have to take a long hot shower afterwards. Unclean! Unclean!


That's okay. I've some cigarettes she might like. Ultra-thin little smokes from the mainland with lovely packaging, and a tangerine peel fragrance capsule in the filter.
Very elegant, and stylish. Tasteful.



The karaoke place when we passed was a steaming slice of hell with lots of dubious people, probably Financial District drooges, and what had once been our bail-out bar closed for the evening because the new girl doesn't care about tips or the regulars. The new bail out only had four people in it when we swaggered in. The bartender was happy to see us, and after about ten minutes Tat Yee showed up and greeted us. He too would have been up at the other place, but change is good.



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TSUNAMI OF CUTE

On the bus a woman indicated very sincerely that I should sit down, having observed my cane. Which is far less for support, but much more for savagely clobbering nasties in a dark alley should the occasion call for it. Underneath the white hairs and wrinkles, and the sometimes wanky legs, I am still twenty or thirty years younger than I actually am.
Which I shall have to point out to my doctor later in the month.

She had Hello Kitty shoes and a Hello Kitty purse.

I myself own a Hello Kitty backpack, which is still in perfect working order, but which I hardly ever use anymore, as when I originally bought it it was just perfect for taking to bars with my pipes and tobacco in it. It discouraged people who were unable to grasp the gestalt from bothering me, and if heaven forbid I forgot it, someone would be sure to yell "hey mister you forgot your granddaughter's backpack!" because they didn't want it near them.

Besides, what do you think when you see a middle-aged dude with a Hello Kitty backpack?

1) Aw, he has a granddaughter!
2) He's good with kiddies and little animals!
3) He's seriously unbalanced, and might have a Luger in there.
4) The previous owner's head is inside.

But you don't want to find out.

Naturally I did not say anything about her habiliments. I respect the concept. It says that underneath her adult demeanor she is still a child at heart, with unmodulated moments and a streak of insanity, even if you can rely upon her to analize the data from ten months of core sample collecting across the Nefud and pinpont where it might be worthwhile to sink an exploratory hole. Plus watch out for savage tribes, they'll cut off your scrotum and hang it from the longhouse rafters as a trophy that brings good juju to the fields.

That girlish smile? Either a sweet personality radiating goodwill, or mental instability that will burn down a city block. Darn it, could be either. This is a public bus in San Francisco.


My current backpack on working days for pipes, tobacco, and an imaginary fully loaded hand gun, radiates stressed-out and much set upon wild furry animal with sharp teeth, who gets blotto every week at a karaoke joint and sings death metal very badly.

I don't drink anymore, and no one wants to hear me sing.


Still. Don't mess with me.



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PROPER TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

Today I wasted too much time putzing around with small sharp blades, microfibre pads, and alcohol. No, this is NOT an admission of a strange addiction coupled with a desperate cry for an intervention. Go away, and take your twelve-step programme and Bible with you. It's all about cleaning up half a dozen pipes which I've had for a while but never bothered finishing the restauration work on. They're all fine, thank you. And there is a q-tip with a little wood stain perched on a ledge in the kitchen for a second application.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of lunch. Which will be what?

See, I'm not hungry right now, but if I don't eat eventually I will probably snap and growl at strangers later while having a quiet smoke across the hill. Which would be bad. It is always good to maintain a decent pretence at being a human being and halfway socially ept, just so that the men with giant butterfly nets aren't alerted. Let them deal with the genuine crazies instead. As they should.

Pensively the lizard licks its eyeball...


One of the briars is a small tanshell with a rather lovely grain that needs a serious bit of work. sadly, I do not have a buffing wheel here, so some things are more problematic in this task than they really should be. And I suspect that my apartment mate would have objections at my bringing such a device into our abode. It took years before all the little deposits of pink wood dust in the teevee room and the kitchen had been found and dealt with.
She is fastidious, and this displeased her.

Like many males, I am at ease with a minor amount of grunge.

Instinctively, the male of the species realizes that total neatness discourages small edible furry creatures upon which one might wish to snack, in lieu of an actual balanced meal.


"And the people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, and large ... "


Should the menu item 'sloth' be pluralized? Isn't it much like sheep and mice, inherently plural as well as singular? You know, like one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish?

I'm probably underthinking this. May need to up the bloodsugar.



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LITTLE PANDAS

Note to self: If anyone says anything that sounds like 'Jesus', utilize sharp pointy stick, self defensively. Oops. This in connection to something that has naught to do with pipes (being specifically a Dunhill fifty six shape, bent billiard, with patent number), for which stem work needs to be done, as well as rim work. Remarkably clean inside. But I'm still thinking about alcohol in the bowl. The Jesus thing relates to religious types, in particular television preachers and several pastors who would like to be television preachers.
Thieves in other words.

The backroom was remarkably free of the senile old rightwing deplorables today, leaving the neurosurgeon plenty of opportunity to enjoy tennis on teevee. While he was doing that, I was made aware that Kevin had over a year ago decided that, in order to preserve his sanity, he would pay as little attention to the news as possible. A wise choice. As he described it, every week a new level of absurdity was reached that pushed the envelope further than he had theretofore thought possible. Indeed. We have reached the trailerpark trash stage.
And there is no end in sight.

He had not heard of the south lawn trailer park cage brawl yet.
Sadly, I burst his bubble, and he is appalled.


Several times during the afternoon I enjoyed little baby pandas (小熊貓 'siu hung maau') as well as red square seal prints (紅方印 'hung fong yan'), both of those being high quality and surpassingly elegant thin ciggies from China. While swilling buckets of tea. So given the frequent stretches of calmness and quiet, I had a very enjoyable afternoon.

Upon reflection, I might have been too mightily caffeinated. Two cups of strong coffee before heading off to work. Three cups of tea before lunch late in the afternoon. Then another cup of coffee. Two more cups of tea. And coffee when I got home. This is good for creativity, bad for mental consistency. The problem is that caffeine and tylenol are necessary to maintain sanity in Marin County, lest I blow up at some of those people. I can understand, I think, why movie stars have to be coked to the gills whenever they go there.

They could never sell little pandas in the United States. Karens all across the country would howl in outrage. The illustration is too cute, the phrase "happy every day" on the package is just wrong wrong wrong, and they're child size!

They're rather delightful. Sie stehen für die typische Chinesische kunstfertigkeit und raffinesse in der tabakverarbeitung. And they absolutely radiate vergnügen!

I can scarcely wait to show them to my doctor later this month.


紅雲紅河菸草（集團）有限公司
['hung wan hung ho yin chou（jaap tuen）yau haan gung si']

Hongyun Honghe Tobacco Group Company, Limited.
Yunnan Province, Kunming City, Wuhua District.

Did I already mention vergnügen? Mmm!

Little pandas, happy every day!




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WHAT KIND OF TEXAN?

In another week the most exciting sports event of the world will take place when the Dutch face off against the Japanese in Texas. Two civilized nations in the heart of darkness, battling each other instead of the natives. I feel for both of them, and can just imagine the shock and horror they will feel when they discover watery beer and canned tuna sushi. Dallas, low to mid nineties, and Dale Gribble all over the place.

Years ago the company for which I worked had a customer in Nederland, Texas, a town founded by a lost Dutchman but since then populated by racists, rednecks, and inbred Jeds from Louisiana, who had been extended commercial credit by the crevious credit department before I got there. Sumbitch never paid the open invoice I inherited from my predecessor, so after trying to collect for several months and geting precisely nowhere, I sent off a diplomatic letter and on the date mentioned therein I forwarded the file to a collection agency. A year and a half later I got a screaming phonecall by someone speaking Texan, who swore he'd pay us if only we got that "damned nigger" off of him.

So I called up the collection agency. They had put their blackest sounding man on the case. He'd called up twice a day, five days a week, and calmly left a message on the machine. For one and a half years. I spke to him. Good man. Ex military, if I remember correctly.

Anyhow, we took the Texan sumbitch's card, charged it for the invoice, and paid the agency their percentage. Never did business with anyone in Nederland, Texas, again.
They're a bunch of right funts. Nedeland, Texas.

Despite the account executive at the collection agency which employed big black-sounding Bubba also being from Texas, and a very nice woman, quite the sweetest thing, I've always had a slight preconception about Texas, since they started voting out sane peole and voting in asshats. Just can't shake it. Molly Ivins and Anne Richards were splendid people. After them the dingoes took over.

So even though thousands of Orange men will briefly visit Texas next week, I shan't join them. I support the team, but life is too short to drink shitty beer and eat boiled armadillo.

Good luck.



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PHILOSOPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

On the bus back from Marin there was an adorable little foreign lesbian with her companion, directly in my line of sight. Which was enough to make me forego meditation, which I usually do after work. And realize that what this country needs, what everyone needs, is more cute foreign lesbians. Our society would be vastly improved if we had those instead of Republicans or hardcore Christians.


Normally, after a full day of dealing with senile male Karens, I ponder man's inhumanity to man and the futility of existence, as you would expect a serious Dutchman like myself to do, especially if you've seen a lot of depressing Scandinavian films or grim Dutch movies.
But I am perfectly fine contemplating adorable foreign lesbians.


It took my mind off my achy twitching feet entirely.


I blame Marin and its vast hordes of Karins for any and all podal discomfort. Marin, especially, needs more adorable foreign lesbians. This cannot be proven.
But trust me, things will be better when that comes to pass.

Problem is, they keep taking the bus to San Francisco, or the ferry, and staying here, which is why the city is so much better than Sausalito and Mill Valley, and I have senile old rightwingers in the back room at work stinking and bellyaching. Damned Karens.
What's the point of being exposed to fascist asshats all the time?

As you can see, I am a man of amazing depth and perspicacity.
With an altogether charming and cogent worldview.
To know me is to fly closer to the light.



Another thought I had was that work is the equivalent of three or four hours walking in a day, which means that I am surpassingly healthy and vibrant for a man my age.
Trim toned buns. Although the feet are quite aflame.
Might keep me up half the night.




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NATIONAL DONUT DAY!

Today is for all intents and purposes a Dutch American holiday, or at least the closest we'll ever come to that, so I expect parades, marching bands, and clog dancing troupes down main street. Plus festive decorations! We invented the donut. We also invented scalping and the corncob pipe, but seeing as smoking is no longer a smiled-upon activity, and scalping only caught on among the natives, who were warlike and didn't cotton to Christianity until we forced it upon them, I don't expect those to be celebrated. But donuts and diabetes, we can take credit for those. Certainly people in the Deep South have benefitted from them.
Some of them enormously. Enormously! Damn!


All over Main Street America, motorized personal mobility scooters are headed toward bubbling deep fryers as we speak. Kind of like Shriners in those little go-carts.


Festive, delicious, and deadly. What's more all-American than that? And both of those things are older than the country itself, so well worth lauding and applauding. Think of it as a preamble to Independence Day on July Fourth, just better.
And no space aliens!


Also, entirely without the drunken frat boys of other common nationwide celebrations, such as Cinco De Mayo and Saint Patrick's Day. Or Superbowl Sunday.

You know you want to see clogdancers in short frilly skirts, you might as well admit it.

Nothing else is going right in this country, you need a break. Start the day off right. Donuts. Then zesty clogdancers. Then the burning of politicians in effigy. Or in real life, I wouldn't mind, personally, but sadly there are laws against that.

By the way, clogdancers come in both genders and all ages.
To satisfy every appetite and praedilection.
It's what Only Fans is all about.
America, bitches.


Happy, happy, happy!


Here's wishing everyone a loaded deepfryer on this special day.




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DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SETS

The televisions in Droid City have minds of their own. Collective consciousness. No, they're not watching you, even when you're asleep. Point is, why are you watching them? You aren't. For centuries now you've been watching your little portable device for any changes in the paradigms. Or messages from other humans.

It is the considered opinion of most sentient beings that 'humans' are a monumental waste of time. Ever since that incident with the mutants in the thunder dome on the White House Lawn. When a shard hit their leader, a repulsive giant orange slug. All hell broke loose. Half the country killed each other. The rest of humanity, because of electronic entertainment, programming errors, and video games, did not reproduce much.
You know what happened.

In many parts of the United States people were unable to walk, and their mobility scooters ran out of juice. So they couldn't flee very far in any case. The feral rednecks got 'em.


Lunch was at a dumpling place where the other customers at that hour were two vacuous twenty-somethings, and a bearded hipster business dude with a laptop and a cellphone, conferencing. So other than the staff and myself, hardly any humans.
Times are desperate, but the food was delicious.

After eating I lit my pipe and headed into the Financial District. Several of the places I used to know there are gone now. The health nostrum store underneath our old office run by those two repulsive slime creatures, the Chinese buffet where Miss C. was behind the counter (a rather charming face, both fierce and softly vulnerable looking), the horrible pizza place, three different bookstores, a salad bar to which I never went, drugstores, etcetera.

Other than a man sleeping with a beercan, street people are gone too.


Office workers on their way home do not look at their devices much.
There will be plenty of time for that when they're on the bus.
Desperately searching for changes in the paradigm.



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NO QUESTIONS

There are balls, and considerable distortion. This was a comment about a sportsgame which I may have misheard because sports bore the living crap out of me but the phrase stuck in my head as being as good a description of current politics as any. I mean, really, what else can you say about our secretary of war, plus little Marco, and the orange poo-bag? Well, other than dragging the word 'infandous' out of storage?


"There are balls, and considerable distortion."


Our dearly despised president claims that the world now respects the United States as never before, but if you read the foreign press, especially in their own languages (which I do), the impression is that the world regards us as the big bawling spoiled brat breaking everything in the room while soiling its diapers. So the phrase "there are balls and considerable distortion" would be a diplomatic way of saying something far less polite. When this is all over, we'll have to fiercely kick several people in the back-ends before sending them to jail.

Naturally, I have a list. An exceedingly long list.

I'm also thinking firing squads.

It will be lovely.

An accounting eventually, with executive repercussions, will be one way we can regain some of our standing in the world. Maybe civil war, or French Revolution style executions of huge numbers of our elites. Tumbrels, guillotines, head baskets, and happily cheering masses.


Disembodied republicans, preachers, and southerners.


Oops, did I just say that?


Aloud?



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THE IMAGINARY PARACHUTE

There are times when I relish my marginal sociability. All I really want to do is sit by myself with a nice meal, maybe somebody who isn't overly pushy but has a good appetite, a cup of hot stimulating beverage, and a smoke in prospect for afterwards. Which partly explains why I have again stocked up on delightful and elegant Chinese cigarettes. Although in case that person wished to smoke a pipe I always have a sufficiency of tobacco and pipe cleaners with me, in addition to an extra pipe.

Naturally I am asuming a meat eater.

A young lady of post-gradute age and interesting interests who is utterly capable of ripping a porkchop limb from limb with gusto and aplomb. While not at all inclined to lecture me about meat-rights, miracle cures for whatever, or the horrible sinfulness of smoking which will see me consigned to the devil's ashtray for eternity.


My apartment mate is seated opposite me at this moment eating ice cream while on her computer. She tried a pipe once. After a puff or two I was on the ground getting kicked, because it was a horrible experience, never to be repeated. So she isn't a candidate.
The ideal candidate is, unfortunately, still an imaginary creature at this point.
Though based on the people whom I have known over the years.

The imaginary dining companion and my apartment mate share some similarities, though. You know the type. Wore glasses, sat in the back row, hated group projects, did all the reading and aced all the tests.

Obviously the negative reaction to a pipe is not what one wants.

In the neighborhood above there are no pretty little flowers, butterflies, and unicorns. My little pony does not live there. Maybe Madame Curie does, or Dorothy Hodgkin. I don't know.


I enjoyed my afternoon. I had observed an elderly Mandarin-speaking couple at another table while eating lunch, wondering where they were originally from. Judging by her accent possibly somewhere in the centre. He spoke without moving his lips. The bank was a fascinating interlude too. All aged people being exceptionally patient, except for the tetched old lady whose daughter parked her in an easy chair off to the side where she kept up a grouchily mumbling stream of consciousness.

At the lottery place the proprietess was her usual affable self while joshing one of the customers. Bought some veggies further down, and interesting potato chips at the provisioners. Happily browsed among the jewel-like cigarette packs elsewhere.


Home before the cold wind picked up.
Solitary tea time.
Nice.



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ABOUT MILK TEA

Both yesterday and today are at solid places where the staff is pleased to see me, the food is decent, and the milk tea is entirely as it should be. Meaning that it is served in a ceramic cup, reasonably strong and sweet, and properly brewed. And I cannot sense that the staff would rather be elsewhere, or they and the regulars wish that I were. There are no bakeries on my schedule. One of those is a pleasant place, but I'm sick and tired of the damned paper cups for a beverage that isn't as good as at an Italian caffe in Northbeach though at the same price and at least two of the regular customers in the middle of the afternoon clearly would much prefer that I weren't there -- for the past six weeks I've avoided dropping by -- and an alternative bakery has a limited selection of pastries, the milk tea is distinctly stale, and the owner does not seem to like me. Or my patronage.

Milk tea absolutely needs to be in ceramic or glass if it is consumed on the premises. Not in a paper cup with an attitude that strongly suggests "thank you for your money, now piss off".


All in all I've decided to henceforth limit my Chinatown food and drink jaunts a bit. Two places remain in the regular ambit. Six more once every three or four weeks, and another place favoured by sour old codgers. If I am down there early because of medical appointments. Plus dumpling places for when a whim strikes. The key criteria are good milk tea in ceramic, and a pleasant atmosphere devoid of apathy or distaste at the presence of customers.

I tip well, I do not snarl, I'm patient, and I bathe daily.
Also, I'm sane and do not bother others.
Just act like I'm human.

As for what had been the frequent Wednesday afternoon tea place, their pastries are indeed exceedingly good and some of the staff actually like me (hard to imagine, I know) but during the last few times I felt distinctly unwelcome. Or least like a leper. So screw it. If I come it will be hours before the old guys show up. The place I tried instead for few times is clean, well lit, and often tiredly apathetic. Kind of screw them too.

Did I mention the paper cup thing? At that price for a beverage, not even factoring in the tip, which is optional, it needs to be decently made as well as in a ceramic or glass container if consumed on the premises.



One place I've more or less avoided has a passle of old country bumpkins who barely even say 'hi', and as the white guy who speaks Cantonese I get treated like a smart monkey who should have learned Toishanese instead, because that is a far more civilized dialect which all decent people speak. There are, never-the-less, two places operated by Toishanese folks where I enjoy going. Good food, good service, good attitude. Why isn't that the norm?
Not sure if they speak English in addition to Cantonese, Mandarin, and Toishan.
I've ordered from the specials, in Cantonese, every time.



Anyhow, going to have lunch today at a place where they treat me like a fellow human being, and which I know certain local 台山佬 don't like because it's not the old Chinatown, they don't do things properly there, not like in the old days when there weren't so many folks from Hong Kong or the Mandarin speaking zone living here, why, there is nothing that even suggests Chinatown as it should be, things just aren't the same, these new people!
And the milk tea isn't slop served in a paper cup good gracious!

They even understand me when I speak Cantonese!
What is this world coming to?
So wrong!



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CREAKING NOISE

Both yesterday and today the Muni bus over the hill had eccentric-and-on-the-spectrum passengers. Besides myself, I mean. This may have something to do with under-the-surface goofiness in one particular ethnicity -- shan't mention which because I do not want to get lynched while eating lunch and enjoying a hot cup of milk tea in what is actually the safest neighborhood in San Francisco -- but I've noticed a fair amount of that over the years.

In both cases I didn't say anything in their language. I did not want to set them off or be recognized every time they saw me. Like that dude with whom I engaged in conversation one evening nearly ten years ago outside a karaoke bar, who has never forgotten.
Although his mind has finally grown dim.


One recent conversation that I wished I could have gotten out of was with the gentleman explaining that when colonic distress hit, as it did often, he wished that there were a ceiling mounted clock in his bathroom because sometimes he had to recline on the tiles in a cold sweat till things had eased, and he wished to time himself during those moments.
Also, an ashtray and cup rest at ankle level. Plus a space heater.

The space heater I can thoroughly understand. But I didn't tell him which make of same we have in the bathroom, because I did not want him assuming that I or anybody else was similarly afflicted, nor did I want to encourage him to say anymore. As public transit conversations go, that one was a doozy I could have done without.

While waiting for the bus uphill after visiting one of our usual haunts this evening the book seller mentioned that he sometimes is the abashed and dismayed recipient of senior citizen discounts. He is younger than I am, and doesn't yet qualify for the senior citizen transit pass. But I look young and spry, plus innocent. He sometimes has a knowing and world-weary look about him, the wise elder, whereas I often seem like an uncomplex middle-aged goobus.

Then we talked about arthritis, and joints. Comparing notes.
Picking things up off the ground means creaky noises.
An imagined chorus of laughter. Or clapping.

This was an unconscious segue from a comment I had muttered earlier, to the effect of blaming the deity for my legs, which hurt considerably because I had probably played too much soccer as a youth and the cold of the night affected hips, knees, and feet.

Also, that if it ever got below forty degrees in San Francisco I should purchase two extra woolen mufflers to wrap around my knees.



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THERE'S BEEF!

Ken Paxton, one of the most dubious candidates the Republicans have ever championed (that's an understatement), has protested that his opponent James Talarico is a vegan and an idolator. It's unclear whether he thinks that the first or last is the worst. And not at all certain why he thinks either of those characteristics is a disqualifier.

There is some evidence that in Mr. Talarico's social circles there may be some veganism. Which, if you are hosting a celebratory 4th. of July barbecue in one hundred and ten degree heat, might present a problem. I mean, you could put the tofu and cabbage in the ice chest next to the vanilla Jalapeño gelato, I suppose. For that ten minute salad preparation time when the vegans might wish to eat. Plus garlic, chilipaste, and crackers.
And have some other beer than Lone Star in there as well.
Coors, for instance.

Coors is the total vegan paradigm of beers.
Well, besides every IPA in existence.

All beer, actually.

If I had to host any vegans, I'd definitely be able to accomodate them. Or any other dietary preference. Worst case scenario, hire a caterer that they trusted, who would also provide plates and cutlery uncontaminated by any animal shadow.

But there is plenty of photographic evidence that Mr. Talarico eats meat. So it's a moot point. The vegans wouldn't object anyway, unless he bathed in huge vats of beef everyday and danced draped with bloody cattle carcasses in the Texan moonlight.

The key issue in that Texan election should be whether a candidate is qualified for the job.

James Talarico is. Ken Paxton isn't. Even by Texan standards.


Why is that even up for debate?



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A GOOD SOLID FLAKE

Got out of the house late. Early dinner at the place with the pregnant woman. Who looks ready to pop any moment now. No, I have not said anything about that. Life is hard enough already, then you give birth. And you're stuck with what came out of your stomach till it's college age. With a bit of luck it will learn to wipe it's own bottom very fast.

Over the weekend someone commented that the lovely Chinese cigarette packs I'd showed him seemed like they were pretty enough to attract the young, but fortunately his kids (in the parked car outside) just HATED smoking and would never touch them.

I told him that they seemed to be on the right track, and had he cracked the window?

Privately I thought that they were abnormal little squidgies.


Kids, if you're going to smoke, not that you should heaven forfend, but if against all the harsh puritanical haranguing of your elders and betters who have been through the wringer and finally succeeded in quiting you start, make sure that it's classy.

Many famous authors were lifelong pipe smokers.
The list of names is endless.


Avoid cheap stogies, and aromatic cavendish.

Several of the most popular pipe tobaccos are little more than massage parlour stinkers, the kind of things people of discernement would not be caught dead applying to their armpits or that little area behind the ears. They dominate the market, beckoning the unwary tasteless and depraved with their siren stench. Faugh.


Far better that you should smoke smuggled-in luxury fags.
That's an altogether more lovable affectation.
Did you see the lovely pack art?
Tempting, isn't it?


Unfortunately, you will need to learn how to speak Cantonese for you to have access to those. It's worth it, indeed, but entirely beyond many Anglo Americans. Sorry.
So instead acquire a few good briars and some Rattray's tobaccos.
Do not read L.O.T.R., it's longwinded jejune poofle.



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RABBIT RABBIT JUNE 2026

Rabbit rabbit. Sometimes doomscrolling isn't the first thing I want to do. I mean, considering that we're celebrating two and a half centuries with a cage brawl on the south lawn, and a giant orange poison dart frog impersonating Elvis because otherwise it's a solid day of Vanilla Ice doing his two songs over and over again, how much more American can it get?
Star spangled adult diapers?


The Star Spangled Banner as played by an Iranian Kazoo orchestra?


So yeah, no doomscrolling to start the day. Not this time. Instead, half an hour of animals acting like New Yorkers and saying snide things. Maybe I should order some pizza.
It goes with everything East Coast, especially the Big Apple.

Coffee. Pills. First pipe of the day.
It's sunny outside.


No sounds of construction equipment. Distantly, a siren.
This is the golden age of urban decay.

My apartment mate told me that the Valedictorian at her youngest nephew's graduation was a young lady who totally aced every math test and excelled in other brain-based courses. That's progress. Eventually women won't need us men for anything else except throwing balls on teevee (it's what we American males do best), and those of us who are useless can just veg in front of the wall-mounted flatscreen all day eating cheetos and grunting.
It's a brave new world.


Quite possibly I am defective. Haven't turned on the telly in years. And it's a dinosaur of its kind; an RCA from the late seventies the size of moving box. So I'm not with the programme. The idea of having the boys over to hoot appreciatively at the team has never crossed my mind and there is no beer on the premises. Having a bunch of like-minded rowdies come by is not in the cards anyway, because my friends do not rowd, and we'd have to open all the windows for ventilation. There's only enough air for maybe two pipesmokers, three max. And no cigars. Middle of the week when she's at work and her bedroom door is closed, and both of you fellow disreputables need to leave just after teatime so that the place can air out.

And absolutely NO hobbit tobacco. We're not doing bloody Lord Of The Rings here. Aromatics are dreck, and not worth stuffing into a pipe. Role-playing noodges huff that.
Real men go for Balkans or Virginia blends. Possibly eccentric Cornell & Diehl burley concoctions if they're hipsters and spout poetry. Real women too.
The chemistry of taste doesn't vary with gender.

[Balkans: William Faulkner. Virginia blends: Sir Bertrand Russell. Burley concoctions: Christopher Morley.]


We'll read our books together in silence for an hour or two.
Stand up, stretch creakily, prepare another pot of tea.
There are enough dictionaries here, don't worry.
As well as various reference books.
It will be perfect.


Rabbit rabbit.



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SINCERE COMPLIMENTS

With every passing day it becomes more and more obvious that every single Republican state is a festering shithole state. No exceptions. The biggest is probably Texas.
And rational citizens would like to build a wall around it and seal it out.

Fortunately, other than the fellow I occasionally encounter in Marin County, Texans don't travel much, so civilized people scarcely have to put up with the buggers.

I should mention that neither of the two Texans I've encountered in recent weeks were unpleasant, at all, and they knew enough to keep their bedsheets and hoods at home, understanding that outside of the Deep South those would be taken amiss.


Most Texans are not like those gentlemen.
Unfortunately.

Must be the effect of the beans and tortillas they stole from Mexico. If you don't prepare those things properly they generate rising gasses which affect weak brains.

That or the unclean diseases to which they're prone.
Most of them voted for Trump.
Q.E.D.

That said, the Texas Aggie Marching band is absolutely splendid. Totally.
It's the only thing that makes college football worthwhile.
And I don't wish to hear anything ill about it.



NOTE: The illustration has no relation to the subject of this post.
I needed to relax after I came home, so I drew.
It's been a very long day.
Speedfreaks.



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MADE TO ORDER

Being, as you know, an unpleasant and evil man, I fervently with that someone would take a hand in feeding a certain orange-faced blowtoad things that would speed up his demise due to arterial clogging and aortic rupture. And I have a suggestion for that. Eggs, butter, cream, bacon, cheese, and pasta, in a wonderful hot greasy swamp. Like the hero in 'Supersize Me', he wouldn't last a month. His adulatory fans, in emulating him, wouldn't either. Problem is, neither would I.

Yeah sure I'd eat that. Mmmm. Add chives and Jalapeños.
Plus pinches of paprika and nutmeg.


If there were a breakfast place nearby that served that, I'd be on my way now.


You can probably think of several ways to make it more you. The perfect start of the day, a hot dish that encapsulates and epitomizes the unique dietary disaster that expresses your innermost being. Maybe dollops of crème fraîche and hefty squeezes of Sriracha. Or some shellfish to barely cook in the hot gooey mess, added halfway through. "Les Huîtres Crise Cardiaque à la Sauce au Fromage." Maybe along with a full English breakfast.
There is no age at which this would be healthy.

Therefore someone needs to put it on the menu. Holiday resorts, fancy hotels, or even cruise ships. Especially elite golf clubs. Better than the basket of hot thick-cut bacon with double garlic aioli for dipping.

Of course I myself would wash it down with buckets of strong coffee or tea (anti-oxidant rich beverages) rather than the diet soda the intended victim habitually swills. And it properly should be an occasional indulgence, rather than a four or five times a day snack for a repulsive old degenerate.

I would also like to see mutton nihari on the menu at breakfast places. With hot toast OR kulcha. Far better for you than a full English breakfast or Le Bacon-Cheese Americaine.
Just thinking outside the extra-large to-go container here.


A chain of such restaurants across the country.
Just think "Cholesterol "R" Us.
Mmmmmm.



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THE HOLDING PATTERN

While discussing tobacco, Mr. Chow asked, given that I speak Cantonese and Mandarin, and am able to read Chinese, why I didn't have a Chinese girlfriend? Let's overlook for the time being that I am only half-assedly able to speak Cantonese, less than that in Mandarin, and reading the newspaper is sometimes a crapshoot because a significant percentage of the words are beyond me sofar.

Let's instead focus on the fact that I'm a grouchy pissant of a certain age, and not on anybody rational's "must be caught" list. Nor quite the epitome of salonfähigkeit.

Also, I tend to be distrustful of women my age, as the chances of them being just as bad are enormous. JR got married again about eight or nine years ago to an anticommunist harridan, and is presently contemplating divorce. He's already retired, these are supposed to be his golden years, not his tarnished tinfoil twilight times. Sofar we only have his version of it, but seeing as his wife has had to put up with him all this time she must be an exceptionally tolerant and forbearing woman, and probably qualifies for sainthood.
In any case, she's been through much.

Like many old crotchets, neither one of them is a prize.

I'm not a prize either. Pipesmoking "middle aged" Dutch American male, kind of stubborn and opinionated. Any woman who wasn't like me, AND did not think in English would likely end up having nightmares and be asked at some point by her kinfolk why on earth she stepped into a pool of muddy water. I'd wonder too. Did I already mention that I'm no prize?

So yeah. Not on the look-out. Not chasing any skirt. Not thinking of asking anybody out on a date. Not in the market for diamond rings or bunches of long-stemmed roses. Not even saying "hey why don't we go have some milk tea, I know a bakery" to anyone.


And I'm imperfectly content with this situation.


But I do have two pipes in my coat pocket just in case. Plus pipecleaners and tobacco. Because, you know, the day I'm not prepared is the day I'll regret not being prepared.



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