THEY HAD HELP

According to Laura Loomer, "America is over". Well, her version of it is, and deservedly so. It was a small, narrow-minded, damned near Nazi version that stank from several miles away, basically a political cess pit. Now if only the media would get over her and never mention that vile slug again, that would be exceedingly nice. There are several other slime balls we should never hear from again as well. Over the next few years they too will sink into the bubbling muck that remains of MAGA and fade from the scene.

Oh, I forgot. In Trump's America windmills are wafting homosexual Muslim vapours into our schools and transgenderizing our kids, and foreigners are taking all the factory jobs that kept the trailer parks afloat. Now that all the social programs that kept them fed have ended. In the red states. Where everyone is Christian and never takes drugs.

In my coastal urban intellectual ivory tower I sneer at those poor uncultured droogs, while adjusting my dhoti. Languourously I sip some lotus tea. Because I am so, so superior.

Suck it up, swine.


By the way: a mile is one point six zero nine three kilometers.
So in European terms, she and her ilk stank worse.

Of course we can also thank people like Mark Levin, Nancy Mace, Ben Shapiro, Enrique Tarrio, and several other influential operatives, sleepers, and agents of foreign powers and billionaires for this. Their often deliberate sabotage of the Christian right sank half of the Republican fleet better than the strike on Pearl Harbor. Thanks guys. Medals!

After all, Greg Wayne Abbott and Warren Kenneth Paxton couldn't have done it on their own, even with the help of Donald John Trump and James Donald Bowman James David Vance.

Or the coke-snorting bribe-taking traitors in the inner circle.


Hark, do I hear tumbrels?



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AND THANK ME FOR SHARING!

So, what did this Dutch American do to celebrate our great victory last night over the forces of barbarism and ignorance? Did I run through the streets screaming "free at last, free at last, thank doggamighty we're free at last", or did I perhaps dance naked with a crossdressing gender mixed individual in a girls bathroom, as we liberals are wont to do?
Did I get riotously drunk and smoke the devil's grass?

Pompoms, confetti, ticker tape?

No, I went down to Chinatown for lunch like every Wednesday, pipe of tobacco afterwards, banked and grocery shopped, purchased some Chinese cigarettes (小熊貓煙仔 'siu hung maau yin jai'; "little panda", which are darling), then had a caffeinated beverage.


I am not one for excessive gloating. But never-the-less: "Hey Elon, neener neener neener and go ram-bam yourself. Loser."


Oh, and I also counted obese visitors from the red states. What is it with many American men that they get that impact bumper right around the navel area, extending past their balls? And why are their women folk so much like the Michelin Man that you wonder of the French were sending us a message, but like everything else we got it wrong?

Perhaps instead of two double bacon-cheesies, biggie fries, and a thirty two ouncer every day, they too should have had a Cantonese lunch?

And perhaps get used to just one lunch everyday instead of five. Force yourselves.
I never get tired of looking at you. Forgive me for staring.
Or not. I really don't give a damn'.
Lard buckets.

Yes, I would like to fat-shame the entire country.


We do NOT need to save the whales.
They'll eat us alive.



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PERFECT WEATHER

A half-formed idea that I've been toying with for a few months now is that sometime next year, between my birthday in mid-October and Thanksgiving, a trip to China would be good. Initially I was thinking about Hong Kong, because it's changed so much over the past three decades. And I speak Cantonese, so it's a logical choice. But there are a few things that suggest otherwise, among which are their represive smoking and tobacco laws (oh boy things have changed!) as well as the average daily temperatures. Anything much over seventy degrees is not ideal, verging on grumpy time. With peripheral artery disease, temperatures over eighty are sheer torture.

It is going to be mid eighties there today. So, um, no.
And December is out of the question.

I am looking at other possibilities. Chengdu (Sichuan), Kaohsiung and Keelung on Taiwan, Kunming in Yunnan, Qimen (Anhui), Guiyang (Guizhou), Shanghai, Suzhou, and Ningpo.

Key considerata: weather, food, and monuments that interest me.


Keelung has the wettest weather in Taiwan. Do I really want to be in a place that will remind me of Ireland or the Netherlands, albeit with better food and somewhat denser people?

Chengdu looks interesting. Spicy food, fascinating place, and a profound teahouse culture, but maybe too many foreign tourists, and more people than you can shake a stick at.

Ningpo. Looks interesting. Good eating, emphasis on fresh seafood.
Across Hangzhou Bay from Shanghai, less than 100 miles.
Oldest library in East Asia, with a garden.
A tea culture museum.

And because the weather is in my range (currently mid-sixties, progressively cooler toward December), it looks ideal. I should probably be able to smoke outdoors in quieter areas if I'm discreet about it, mainlanders smoke like chimneys anyhow, and both rain and wind are mild. The only concerns are language and umbrellas. And I'm sure they've got umbrellas.

[Language: Cantonese, Mandarin, and Ningpo are not mutually intelligible by any stretch. Ningpo is almost the same as Shanghainese (Wu languages), and Mandarin is now universal. I'm sort of capable in Mandarin, but almost unconversant entirely in Shanghainese. That can change before I go, and must. Mandarin will be somewhat easier, because I do hear it often, and frequently have to use it with fellow pipe-smokers for whom English is still too dense. Shanghainese or anything in the Wu spectrum will be a lot harder.]


The first time I enjoyed the pipe pictured above was when I was a teenager in Valkenswaard. My father had gone to London for two weeks in spring, and I borrowed his pipes for a while.
I particularly remember bicycling down a street near the Willem II office building while smoking it, semi-inclement weather, a nice smoky blend.

In the year that he passed he gave me his pipes. There are only three of them that I use, because the others still have the smell of his tobacco, and that brings back memories. The one above was I believe one of the ones he took with him into the Royal Canadian Airforce during the war, so it's travelled much more than I have. Three years of flying over Germany. Then two years merchant marine up and down the coasts of North and South America.


While hurling verbal rotten apples at some senile Republicans ovr in Marin this past weekend I smoked it once. And today I think I'll fill it up after lunch and gloat over the monumental disaster for the right wing that happened yesterday.

It's never been to Asia.
Maybe next year.



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POKE THEM WITH STICKS!

It drizzled anyway. Per the internet the precipitation was supposed to end before I caught the bus, and instead there was more of it when I got off. But I had decided that my blackthorn stick was more comforting to have with me than an umbrella -- the one time I had to clobber someone with a brolly the damned thing got destroyed -- especially as it's dark where I wait. And close enough to the skeevy part of North Beach that there are people who look like poets or very artistic types passing by.

As well as young white professionals getting far too drunk for people of that age.
Not that I was worried, because a grouchy Dutchman can take care of himself.


A middle aged Chinese woman heading home greeted me and wished me a good night. not one of the people who knows that I'm able to speak Cantonese, but she must have seen me around the neighborhood often enough to know that I'm harmless.

Which is a misapprehension. I'm clever enough to stay out of problematic situations, but quite capable of "loosing my cool". If it becomes necessary to do so.

I am deceptively amiable.

The wait was wet but trouble-free.

Odd, because the results we saw on teevee at the bar to which we bail-out when the normal bail-out bar is inhospitable would have suggested that the city should have been filled with giddy celebration and unbalanced joy. You know, dancing in the streets and all that.

The extremely mild drizzlery must have kept them in. So I will imagine wild scenes in living rooms and in front of basement computer screens, as citizens realize that now we get to cock snooks at the other side of the aisle. Who are probably fouling their diapers.

Mercifully, there were no sports on teevee. Anything involving pursuit of balls destroys conversation, and leads to people spouting statistics.


The bar tender was involved in a loud game of liars dice. In Mandarin. Which was also the language of some of the music videos on one of the screens. I miss those old time music videos in which a row of young fellows dressed in tight-fitting Sears-Roebuck pastel suits with wide lapels shimmied discreetly and goobuslike. Not enough to upset your grandma. When Lady Gaga came on in between bizarre Chinese sets, singing "Bad Romance", she would have definitely upset the old lady, if the weird Manopop hadn't.

Now that would have been classic entertainment!


Noe of the usuals were on the bus back across the hill tonight. I sincerely hope the two older fellows haven't died or gotten ill, and that the younger guy is still employed.



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DELICATELY HOLDING MY WEE NOSE

So I went and dutifully voted. Against everything that smelled Republican or special interest. Which was surprisingly easy, because one can spot scams a mile away in some cases. And, in a move sure to piss off some progressives, I also voted for Scott Wiener. Because sometimes progressive means anti-semitism. We live in strange times.

I also voted to tax the billionaires, depite believing that hunting them down and slaughtering them in front of their few remaining loved ones is a better option. Once their corpses have hung and dried for a week or so they won't smell that bad. Mediaeval punishments, baby, that's where it's at.


Lunch before I voted. One cannot contemplate torches and pitchforks on an empty stomach. The potentially violent mob must be well-fed. Red meat and grease!


If the Democrats win, we'll make Ohio a state.
To disappoint Donald Trump Jr. no end.
Oh well. Eggs and omelettes.
Monkey-faced bitch.

State hood for Ohio now!
Before Canada grabs it.
We saw it first!

So the progression today was eat, take my afternoon pills, go out and vote, smoke my pipe, get rained on, buy some smuggled cigarettes at a business where a few minutes before they had told a tourist that ya man we got no cigarettes maybe around the corner, and get rained upon some more after relighting my pipe. Some very Americanized young ladies did that theatrical anti-tobaccofiend coughing while I walked down the street.

Betcha their uncles and aunties think they're "precious".



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THE YELLOW FISH

It's one of those dishes which is almost instinctive, and consequently requires little in the way of instruction or measurements. Snow vegetable and yellow croaker soup (雪菜大湯黃魚 'suet choi taai tong wong yü'). One appropriate fish (黃魚 'wong yü') of at least half a pound to a pound. One bunch of snow vegetable (雪菜 'suet choi'), soaked, rinsed well, and drained. Ginger, scallion, shallot. A chunk of bamboo shoot (竹筍、鞭笋 'juk suen', 'pin suen') optional, slivered. About a shot glass or two of rice wine (花雕酒 'faa tiu jau'). Pinch salt, pinch sugar, pinch black pepper.

Clean and gut the fish, make three or four incisions not very deep on each side. Chop the snow vegetable and scallion, sliver the ginger and shallot. Heat a jigger of oil in the wok, add ginger - scallion - shallot, and as soon as you notice the fragrance place the yellow croaker in there and fry a bit without moving it, because of the softness of the flesh. Fry on one side only. Cast in the rice wine, then add the snow vegetable, bamboo shoot if using, and semi-inundate with water or thin stock. Bring to a boil, sprinkle pinches. Cook till done, which depends on the thickness of the fish. To make it extra luxurious, thin matchstick cut Virginia, Parma, or Jinhua ham (金華火腿 'kam waa fo teui') may be added a few minutes before the end of cooking.

Serve with rice.

The sweetness of the fish is complimented by the slight saltiness of the pickled vegetable, the dish is made fragrant with the ginger, scallion, and shallot, more so by the splash of rice wine. Bamboo shoot and ham add complexity (and similarly one might use very thinly sliced black mushroom for visual interest and taste). Think of it as similar to a fish waterzooi in a way. Originally one of the famous dishes from Ningpo (寧波 'ning bo'), but also beloved in Shanghai and well-known in Hong Kong. This is the best time of year for it.

Bafflingly, I cannot figure out why I had this in my dream before waking up. It has been many years since I had it, though croaker is available here.

Maybe it was from subconsciously re-viewing and re-tasting yesterday's late lunch; bitter melon fish over rice (涼瓜魚片飯 'leung gwaa yü pin faan') at a chachanteng. I note, by the way, that the waitress who was heavy with seed a few months ago is working again, in a generally much better mood, and I marvel somewhat at a person of such smallness and apparent youth already being a mother of two.

Of course I should mention that my own mother was also of small stature, one of the shortest people in the United States Women's Naval Auxiliary during the war.
But that was more common then.



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HAPPY TOGETHER

One of the first negative comments I ever heard when I was a child was "go back where you came from". This was after we had moved to Valkenswaard, where all of my school teachers thought I sounded delightful and spoke like a civilized person, because I spoke proper Dutch. We had lived in Hilversum and Naarden before that and consquently my speech was clear and clean, and correctly accented. Local children did not speak like that at all, and they resented being told to emulate me. Go back where you came from.

And, given that their elders often discussed what a shithole the United States actually was, and add to that the fact that unlike them my family were heathens (not their religion), once it was clear that I was in fact a foreigner (American) though of Dutch descent, I was told to go back where I came from very often. Which occured in many social environments.

[The United States on the news every night: McCarthyism, racial conflict, Vietnam war, assassinations of Kennedys and MLK. And also Richard Milhous Nixon, Cambodia, Laos, Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Corley Wallace, the Cayuhoga River, atom bombs, what we had done to the Indians, the CIA, our meddling in Chile and the killing of Salvador Allende, our meddling in Indonesia and the slaughter of several million people from the fifties through Lubang Buaya into the seventies and eighties -- Borneo, Madiun, Maluku, Timor, Western New Guinea -- and let us not forget the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Plus Charlie Manson, sex, drugs, hamburgers, and religious nuts.]

Which I eventually did.

Since my return to the United States I have been told to go back where I came from very many times also, because my speech is clear and clean, correctly accented, and I sound like a civilized person, probably foreign. Which is one of the reasons I damned well refuse to ever visit most parts of this country. I have NO need to meet the "natives", see the world's biggest ball of twine, and eat crap like scrapple and grits. Been there, done that. So to speak.
Let me tell you where to shove that cheese steak. And your regional pizza.

I was born in California. Where I have resided since returning to the United States for college. And y'all know what they think about California in the rest of this country.

We're all gay, communist, or ethnic here. Sometimes all of that. And many of us are closet Mexicans too. Plus we eat foreign foods here.


Do you really think that the two ways y'all cook raccoon and possum are any better? Or fried starch with a side of boiled starch? Let's not even mention scrapple and grits.
Or cheesesteak and your shitty regional pizza.



By the way: I've heard that in some parts of the country they layer ground beef with sliced American cheese and ketchup in a casserole, cover it with tater tots, and bake it.
Served for family dinner, washed down with soda or sweetened ice tea.
Surely that can't be true. Do they at least add pepper?



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YOU DON'T SOUND LIKE A SPACE ALIEN!

Having read some social media posts in Dutch recently, I am pleased to inform you that both Jews and Moroccans are female reproductive organs, looters are cancer, and rioters are scrotums, just like the weather (which is also a reproductive organ of either gender). Americans are also female reproductive organs, which is very penisy of us.
And many things are also cholera as well as the result of defecation.

Dutch is a very poetic language. Honest.

Cancer. Cholera. Female reproductive organ. Male reproductive organ. Scrotum. Testicles. And, as you by now probably expect, a male farmer's reproductive organ.
Plus tuberculosis or tuberculoid. And Turkish.

And of course, French conditions, circumstances, and ways of doing things. This isn't Paris, naked name of the diety (nakende nom de dieu). Or London.
So it will all be a sausage to me.


In addition to being a poetic language, Dutch is also used for much scientific writing, medical articles, and legal texts. As well as for eloquently expressing love and devotion.
That it hasn't become the language of diplomacy is an outrage.
That's one of those totally baffling things.
Gast-flabbering, in fact.

Given the depth, delicacy, and capacity for subtle refinement that the language of Brederode and Vondel encompasses, it is, on the other hand, not at all surprising that the phrase most Americans will hear when trying out something in Dutch, on a visit or schooltrip to the centre of the civilized world, is "that's okay, we speak English". Because we do. And very well.


The one thing which my apartment mate knows how to say perfectly in Dutch is a request for herring with some chopped onion. More than anything else it convinces folks that she is a worthwhile human being when she is surrounded by Dutch people.

She sounds like a civilized person.
Because she is.



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RABBIT RABBIT NOVEMBER 2026

Rabbit rabbit. Which is the traditional thing to say first thing in the morning on the first day of a new month. And who are you to go against tradition? It's by way of greeting, and the proper response is rabbit rabbit. Which I'll assume you just said. Rabbit rabbit.

Rabbit rabbit!

Being Dutch American, naturally I am into tradition, big time. It is traditional to dislike several other countries and their nationalities, such as the English, the French, the Irish, the Spanish, Scandinavians, Slavic types, and, well, most of the world. Either historical enemies, rivals, or violently opposed to our spreading the light of civilization and making obscene profits while engaged upon that commendable endeavour.

The new world has been very good to us in that regard. There are so many other Europeans here to dislike. You are all heathens, plus you talk funny, dress badly, and eat too much.
Really, somebody should have said something about that.
I mean, it is rather damnably obvious.
And extremely offensive.


And why are there so many of you getting on the bus in Sausalito when I'm heading home?
You can eat in Sausalito, they have restaurants there.
They also have liquor.

You all like liquour. You thrive on it. It's that English, French, Irish, Spanish, Scandinavian and Slavic ancestry. You're genetically disposed toward dipsomania, which can be noticed daily.

Yesterday evening it was evident all over my neighborhood. In costume. Which meant visible expanses of fatty sweaty flesh. Legs, bosoms, bellies. It was horrifying, I tell you.

Male and female sex gargoyles. Bo Peep and Alice Cooper.

Please stop doing things like that.

Rabbit rabbit.


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MINOR LAWBREAKING

All week long there had been text messages trying to get youth to come to Den Haag to riot. Consequently shopkeepers boarded up their windows and the riot police were out. What also happened is that members of the supporters club for the local soccer team came out today, determined to make sure that there would be no riots, or, if there were any attempt to riot, it would be suppressed. Several wanna-be rioters were chased back to the trainstation, quite chicken. The local police had spent time searching many soccer supporters to make sure that they weren't armed. Consequently it was just bad attitudes rather than cleavers.
Or bicycle chains and tyre irons. Effective, though.


"If you ignore police commands, arrests will be made and clubs will be used."


There were around three dozen arrests.
Clubs may have been used, "discreetly".
No reports from any emergency rooms.

What the police basically did was make sure that nobody whacked the wanna-be rioters, and herded them to safer places. With occasional use of teargas. Other Dutch cities where riots were also planned remained very largely peaceful. There is every indication that the citizenry, including Turkish shopkeepers, were not having it, do not intend to have it, and will for the foreseeable future continue to not intend having it. Determinedly.


In Maastricht, the MVV soccer supporters circulated the message that (quote) "mochten mensen van buitenaf de stad willen slopen, slaan we ze eruit" end quote.
"If outsiders might wish to trash the city, we will trash them up".

There were no incidents in Maastricht today. None.

So it was a culturally enriching day.

And there was no looting.

There are substantial reports of things getting "somewhat" out of hand in France, Germany, and Italy today. Spain too, but that may simply be Spaniards objecting to foreigners again.

They're usually a Spain in the ass on that score.
Kind of bigoted toward everyone.
Snooty, you know.



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CHECK FOR CAT SMELLS

It would appear that Asians are more likely to snore than Caucasians, going by stuff I found on the internet which mentioned "shortened nasal passages, narrow nostrils". Okay. However white people snoring probably resonates more. Deeper and bigger noses, more echosome. What I was loking up was about cat snoring. Cats do snore. Some more than others.
The cat I noticed when still half asleep on my pile of laundry was snoring.

That cat was there one second, gone the next. I probably should not have tried to focus my eyes. Half-dream ghost-cats don't deal well with being looked at directly, because, you see, they are only partly inside reality. Mostly they aren't there at all.

I've sometimes heard snoring from my apartment mate's room.
This wasn't like that.

Cats snore less than dogs.


I would like to claim that I don't snore, but I have no evidence at all to support that belief. Maybe I snore less than my apartment mate (see previous mentioned shortened nasal passages and narrow nostrils), but there is no evidence for that either. And no, I am not going to ask her about this. Either she'll think I'm nuts (which she already does anyhow), or I'll get a long disquisition about the vibrations shaking the rafters much like a jackhammer, that being a device that functions on compressed air delivering high-frequency impacts to break up concrete. Or asfalt. At this time of day I am not ready for an epic dissertation.

She has probably never seen the ghost cat which lives here. It's only around ocassionally, and seems to favour higher elevations. The tops of bookcases are a preferred spot.

So the pile of laundry was rather surprising.


Per the internet, Asians do indeed snore more than white people.
I shan't dig into the data that underlies that claim.
Seems to be around thirty percent more.
I looked it up.


On the other hand, Caucasians are probably far noisier.
In general. Not just when they're asleep.
There is evidence for this.



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LET'S DO LUNCH, SORT OF

Shaved, Showered. Shampooed. Applied skin lotion where it's a good idea to do so (chin and cheeks, because that area tends to dry out because of the shaving), feet and toes (itchy calves, itchy calves!), and hands. Then sat around all clean and fresh being lazy. Didn't bother going across the hill to Chinatown today because I didn't need to buy anything. Prepared lunch at home. Sausage, root vegetables, and fresh green chili peppers.
Added hot sauce because cooking chilies softens their heat. I need heat.

The proper lunch place has caffeinated beverages that hit the spot, and preferably real crockery and cutlery. Two of my semi-regular places don't, but their food is quite good.

Next week I'll probably have claypot rice (煲仔飯 pou chai faan') with eel (黃鱔 'wong sin) or frog (田雞 'tin kai') at one place, and steamed pork patty with salt fish (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'), rice, and some mustard greens at another. Neither place does Hong Kong Milk Tea, but both have chilipaste type hotsauce ("sambal", 參巴醬, 辣椒醬 'laat jiu jeung').
It's a question of priorities, you see.

Food the doctor might not recommend, plus milk tea, crockery-cutlery, chilipaste.
If they've got three out of four that's actually pretty darn good.
The first and the last are essential.

Sadly, there is no place where one could get Wu Huai cuisine (滬淮美食 'wu waai mei sik') in Chinatown, the last place where that was available closed down a quite while back, so Red Stewed Pork Noodle Soup (紅燒豬肉麵湯 'hung siu chyü yiuk min tong') and Nanjing Style Beef Vermicelli Soup (牛腩麵 'ngaau naam min') are entirely out of the question.

Even if that was available, Shanghainese people aren't particularly into the hot condiment phenomenon, and milk tea is probably entirely beyond them. I do not know how they get jazzed up at the beginning of the day, although I imagine they do.

It might be some kind of warmish soy milk (豆漿 'dau jeung'), so no caffeine at all.
Almost unimginable, and definitely not my cup of tea.
Maybe it takes all kinds?



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INDECENT BEVERAGES

And at the end of the walk, a cup of tea. Surely somewhere along Stockton Street some place already has hot Hong Kong Milk Tea ready for the early bird? That being a man walking with a briar pipe, rather than some sloodge with a French Bull. Because once you get beyond the gingko trees at the top, and the place where the elderly Indo woman works, there are far fewer monsters at this hour, in early Autumn, before the rains, but when sweaters are already needed for that first smoke. I've already had the coffee that fuelled my heading out.

A cup of strong milk tea will reward me, and when I get home, more coffee to be fully zipped up and ready to actually start the day.

Ideally, of course, I could "simultane" all of that; coffee, tea, coffee, and aged red cake in the Comoy 186 with the spectacular old wood. But even though many of the Cantonese here smoke like blast furnaces, it is not possible inside commercial establishments to do so, and everybody steps outside to skulk like a Caucasian addict. Because that is the custom.

Years ago, before Hong Kong Milk Tea was offered at the places in C'town, smoking inside was common, but the coffee was appalling, and I remember it with a certain distaste. It took Americans a long time to get beyond watery muck, and all of the Chinatown bakery-coffee shops had that canteen style coffee maker that does a bathtub-load of darkish dishwater. Industrial-institutional cum military style. A few of them still have that.

Mid-fifties. Slightly windy. Humid.

The quality of the wake-up caffeinated beverages in this part of the United States has vastly improved. It is no longer necessary to limit one's cups to a few places in North Beach where Italians and Bohemians maintained civilized standards in the face of all-American mediocrity. Which still abounds, of course, but there are alternatives to Starbucks.

Americans now also drink "chai", but trust me, that's actually just hot milky slop flavoured with a little cinnamon. And clove. Properly made it has far, far less of that, but green cardamom, ginger, and fennel instead. And stronger on the tea leaves too.

You can look it up. American chai is garbage.


* * * * *


When I returned home my apartment mate was already up. I could hear her arguing with the turkey-vulture in her room, as well as the teddy bear reading him the riot act.
Bird, it is still too early to stir up hornets nests!



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THE TARNISHED PAST

He was comig out of his alley when I left the provisioners, but didn't see me. Good. It's over half a year since I started avoiding the bakery where he and his cronies often hang out. The fun has gone out of it. And I'm an ornery sort anyway, not enthusiastic about the company of old men living in the past. Which is why I'm currently listening to chirpy Japanese voices singing 'The Battle Cry of Freedom' and 'Marching Through Georgia'.

Time to burn Atlanta again. It will make us all happy.
Precisely like it did the first time around.
Because some folks deserve it.

On the way to lunch I passed The Pilgrim. Who urgently needed five dollars, which I gave him, because he's a wreck and his old age is turning fairly miserable. He's resistant to all efforts of society and the authorities to make sure he's housed, fed, and medically treated. Because it would mean a loss of control and whatever freedom and independence he thinks he may have, and someone telling him what to do, and that he cannot smoke in whatever lodgings they might benevolently provide.

It's bad for you, offends our precious sensibilities, and harms other people.
To which the natural response obviously is "oh go piss off you twat".

He's chronically short of food, housing, and smokes.

Lunch at a restaurant i've been going to for over a decade, followed by a smoke in pipe made for a long-gone local shop by Comoy's of London, then shopping and a lottery ticket where a whole bunch of the silvered elderly were trying their luck at the daily draw. Ladies and gentlemen, you've haven't gotten rich yet, but you hope that's going to change?
Play cynically, like I do.

Besides, I like saying 'hi' to the auntie who runs the place.
I find her to be a cheering sort. Which is remarkable.
Considering all the bad-tempered lizards.

Maybe we should burn Atlanta again every time they rebuild it.
It would give some people something to live for.



Over half of the packet of Khong Guan Custard Cream Biscuits (康元卡士特餅乾 'hong yuen kaa si dak beng gon') was already crumbs when I opened it. Tea time was ruined. Very disppointing! I need to win the lottery to ensure that never happens again.

The pipe is a Corinthian made for Grant's back in the day when everyone and their sainted grandmother smoked. Grant's and several other tobacconists are long gone, and sadly unlamented. A slice of San Francisco's history has disappeared.



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DON'T LOOK NOW

On the bus back from an appointment I became cognizant of the fact that I have become a dirty old man, albeit a rather innocent one. A young lady standing next to where I was seated had a lovely face. So fresh, so clean, so girlish. Her mien showed evidence of remarkable personality and intelligence. I looked as little as possible, because at my age that doesn't come across as in anyway good, but rather like a skeevy old pervert.

Naturally one would not wish to make that impression.
At any age. But certainly not on the bus.
Too many there already.

Personally, I find the company and attention of most older folks irritating, even if they're my age. "I'm old, I need special treatment, serve me before all of these young people!" Um, one is more likely to be satisfied with a little patience, so go ahead you old fossil, I'll just calmly wait in line with all of these vibrant chirpy things. They're more likely to make me feel alive, and the view is better.

Which reminds me of a restaurant to which I haven't been in three years, where a crusty old fart who came in after me was served first, and he had happily finished his meal before I had even gotten my drink. He wasn't the only example of very much quicker attention, but he and his grumpy wife were at the next table over, so it was right in my face. Obvious and blatant. Which I took as a message that I don't count, I should henceforth take my business elsewhere, and a pox on all of them.

Please especially note that I tip better than those two people.
Habitually. Because I've worked in restaurants.
I am not a cheap hinterland villager.

Being gracious and polite is no extraordinary effort and should come naturally. In any case one should always make an attempt to make a favourable impression. Whether any other people appreciate that is rather immaterial. One does it for one's own sense of self worth. The idea that one is a decent person and has not failed to reach personal standards.
And yes, it does make life nicer.

Besides, I'll undoubtedly be found wanting in other ways, so I might as well have a credit balance to counter that.


Not acting like a dirty old man kind of falls into that category.


Oh, and did I mention the view?



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BURNING ITCH

At the bar there was an endless stream of political advertisements on the television. Even with two cups of tea the spew was galling, but part of that is because the bar-tender, a tea purist, does NOT understand the concept of boiling water. Dude, if I can stick my finger in the glass without screaming, it isn't hot enough. But I did not say anything. I am not a Karen.

In another week the politicking ends and the shooting starts. Some farmers in the illiterate parts of America will be more pissed than they usually are, and grab great grandaddy's civil war rifle to shoot damn' Yankees. That being their more intelligent fellow citizens.
One rather wishes they were in the ballroom and they could not get out.
Because the rest of us know how to make Molotov cocktails.
And both ass-lard and garbage burn.

I have not made a bonfire of political junkmail that I receive -- big glossy piles of it -- but perhaps I should. It would be more than appropriate.

You would be surprised at how many things are combustible. Tesla big rigs are, there's one burning on a freeway in the Bay Area right now, the fire might last another day. Southern plantations and golf courses are combustible. Benton, Louisiana likely is too. As well as the entire damned state of Florida, where Flavio Bolsonaro is expected to land at any moment.
By the way, we alreay have enough sleazebag Latins there, we don't need anymore of them.
Many real-estate holdings and famous buildings are similarly quite flammable, as well as, or so I've heard, all Tesla vehicles. I mention this purely for scientific reasons, to satisfy your burning curiosity, as I would NEVER advocate setting fire to anything.

Except tobacco. Regarding which I am an expert.

That pipefull I smoked while waiting for the bookseller was superlative. I will imagine that it smelled heavenly, but because one can seldom accurately distinguish the "room note" while smoking, and it was out in the open, I'll take its exquisitity as an article of faith.

Few people at the hamburger joint. Loud people at the karaoke bar. Two people at the bailout place. Several people, includign Tat Yee at the bar where we ended up, that being the place with the aforementioned tea purist.

There were nuts on the street earlier. But there weren't eny events to lure a multitude out, and by the time we headed to the bus stop there were none. So it was good.



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RACHEL FROM S.A.D.

You've probably read here that I always answer my phone in Cantonese because of the Spam calls. The Indian, Paki, or Bangli spamcenter employee who can understand that language probably hasn't been born yet, I do not have a telephone-based social life, and everybody who might need to call me in the medical field can speak Cantonese, and could get through to me anyway. One call I get several times a day from several different numbers is 'Rachel From The Senior Advisory Desk'. She's all over the country. Not just meth-head trailer parks in the Deep South or Texas.

[Actually, Georgia has more meth-head trailer parks than any other state, even California and Texas. Georgia is very scenic, well-worth a road trip. They've got peach cobbler, and biscuits'n gravy. Plus fried green tomatoes. Delicious!]

The assumption that I am a senior is something I keenly resent.
My head still works fine bitch, thank you very much.
A few parts of the body are "problematic".
Those are sports injuries, okay?
All athletes are stiff.
Fact.


The Senior Advisory Desk wishes to alert me to upaid burial expenses, quite illogically, because if I answered the damned phone I am quite obviously not deceased.

Asking "are you there?" or "can you hear me?" is NOT a test.

Which idiot wrote the script for these robocalls?


Starting a phone call with 'hello can you hear me' or 'hi this Rachel from S.A.D. are you there' is totally incorrect. Now, if they started with 'Hello Bob this is Irmgard, we spoke last Tuesday about waffle irons' they might get a little further, because who isn't passionate about waffle irons, or, for that matter, any kitchen hardware?


By the way: I do not need a waffle iron. I leave my waffles as wrinkled as they come out of the dryer. I strive for that culinarily rumpled look, because it emphasizes that I am a single man, without a long-suffering white Protestant woman doing all my housework for me.
I am very Bohemian and carefree. And unattached. An artist!


Me speaking English won't help you either.
It almost never does.



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MORNING IN AMERICA

Sometime in the last decade (precisely two years ago), Hispanics, twenty-something white men, farmers, and Christians, all decided that what America really needed was a small-handed corrupt racist sexual deviant in the White House, and they'd make sure of that, by gum. So it really doesn't matter if they've seen the error of their ways this time around. We're still stuck with them. The Hispanics got smote, the twenty-somthing white men have far less privilege-security now, the farmers are going broke, and the Christians ..... well, they're still the same, and as convinced of their rightness as ever, because another man's "rapism", bigotry, and grift is totally fine as long as, well, you know .....

Pond scum.

Oh yeah. Afforable healthcare is communism. And the Muslim Brotherhood.
The trillionaires worked hard for their money!
Who needs insulin anyway?
Ban books!

So, am I convinced that I'm sharing this continent with a whole bunch of dumb-asses?

You bet I am.


Maybe I can make money off these fools.

Perhaps I could sell Bibles with lots of illustrations of Jesus waving an American flag over the cornfields of Kansas, or inspiring the men shooting at the redcoats. And football games. Advertisements for all-white abortion reversal kits. Jesus in a pick-up truck.


By the way: the poor people between Treasure Island and Brooklyn manifestly do NOT need affordable medical care, food, or even an education. Because we all know they're undeserving heathens likely to back all the wrong teams.
Plus they're Jewish or Muslim anyway.



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