LOTS OF TESTOSTERONE

Not to hear Pete Hegseth talk about it, but too much testosterone can lead to health issues. Including heightened sexual drive but reduced sperm count, plus pimples, greasy skin, heart issues, and general smelliness. Which is probably exactly what we want our men in uniform to have. Especially in the hot climates to which we usually send them, places like Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi.

Where, because of all of that, they will blend in.

Aggression, benign enlarged prostate, coronary disease, emotional instability, hairiness, halitosis, hypertension, increased appetite, infertility, insomnia, liver problems, low sperm count, migraines, uncontrollable sexual urges, violent mood swings. They'll be absolutely indistinguishable from most Republicans. And probably die much sooner.
Which leaves more for the rest of us.

You know, most of us are probably fine if you quarter all the smelly alcoholic rapists in the South, that's kind of what we expected anyway, which is why we don't ever visit.
At least I don't. Alabama will freeze over before I do.
And Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi.

[Also Texas, but there are different reasons for that.]


Sorry folks, you'll have to survive without my sparkling presence.

Nevertheless, two of my favourite American writers remain William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, both of whom had the misfortune of being southerners and could not see anything wrong with that. As you would expect both wrote about flawed human beings, people who were emotionally unbalanced, in some cases overwrought and batshit.

[William Cuthbert Faulkner: September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962. The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! A Fable.  Thomas Lanier ('Tennesse') Williams: March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983. Battle of Angels, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Garden District, Sweet Bird of Youth, Vieux Carré.]

Faulkner was a pipesmoker, whereas Williams, the more unstable of the two, experimented with drugs, booze, and cigarettes to dull the pain he certainly must have felt as a gay man from Mississippi, where other than depravity and fatty foods there is so little to still the mindnumbing agony of being intelligent surrounded by inbred syphilitic morons.

Naturally I sympathize with both men.
I too am a pipesmoking man.
And I work in Marin.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

DO NOT REPLACE

There is just something about old smoking pipes in perfect condition that speaks to the soul. A well-maintained touchy-feely object that has not been maltreated by idiots smoking pot or morons with aromatic mixtures -- good tobacco only, smoked slow -- after a dietarily unwise lunch in Chinatown (high salt, fat, and capsaicin) is better for a Dutch American's peace of mind, by far, than arguing with any number of Netanyahu and Trump supporters on the internet, or putting up with senile rightwingers at work in Marin County.


While obviously the Netanyahu and Trump supporters infest the internet at all hours, even at the crack of dawn, the foul-mouthed senile Marinite rightwingers are not lurking around the upper reaches of Nob Hill at six thirty in the morning.

Which is good. My bowl of Fribourg & Treyer Special Brown Flake in the Comoy Tradition from the nineteen fifties would in no way benefit from their vicinity. I was thinking of having some strong tea after returning, milk and sugar, but instead went for a second cup of coffee. Now I'm waiting patiently for my apartment mate to head off to work so that I can use the bathroom. After that maybe some tea.

Netanyahu and Trump are both criminals and assholes. Their supporters are mostly just the latter, plus they dress funny and smell bad. In addition to eating too much.

The world will probably be a much better place when most people of my generation have died and been plowed under. Along with everyone younger who ever voted for Trump, Netanyahu, or Christians and bigots. The sooner that is effected, the better.


Not me of course. I should live forever.
So that I can piss on their graves.


Which is where coffee and tea come in. Both are diuretic, though the first mentioned much more than the second. Needing to pee within two hours of coffee is fairly normal, but while at work, I can go for several hours without needing to leak even after multiple cups of tea.
The bladder just seems more capacious at that time.

Probably because when I was at the Indian restaurant if I bathroom-broke during the evening my coworkers would make mistakes with money and the bills while I had stepped away, and figuring out what they had in their Indian brilliance done wrong would take longer. Never trust rushed waiters with making change. They just want to free up that table.
And what with being Indian, they. Are. Always. Right.


Anyway, if a rightwing bastard is buried, have some coffee at the funeral. That way you won't have to visit the grave much later in the day unless you reallly want to. Like after tea.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

HEADING TO THE CLOTES

Now let's see. Lettuce might give you explosive diarrhoea, the Straight of Hormuz ain't hormuzing, the reflecting pool was ruined by a motorcade, and depraved rapist pro-Trump ultra-macho influencers were arrested in Florida wearing stylish tight capris and or lovely pink semi-ruffled summer clothes. And there isn't enough testosterone in the entire U. S. military to give Pete Hegseth a hard-on. Have I got that right? Is America great yet?

Gosh golly, I think we are. Oh yes.

There is a Dutch expression, "naar de kloten gaan", which indicates that things are going to hell in a handbasket. It is appropriate here, and despite mentioning testicles it does NOT refer to Whiskey Pete, or his Tom of Finland fantasy life.

It could well apply the whips-and-chains-and-arrest-them-all fantasies of several people in our current Republican administration, however. And I'm not talking about Lindsey Graham, who has not been brought back from the dead yet. Still stiff as a nail. Putrifying as we speak. Gone to meet his maker, pushing up the daisies, joined the choir invisible. Expired.
Is no more. Croaked. Kaput. A has-been. Vamoosed.

Well, that's at least one bright spot.
We hope for many more.

Personally, I'm just praying that the country survives another month, month and a half. By that time the pipes I sent off recently for new stems will have returned and I will be heading into the final appointments of my yearly physical, and also financially on even more stable footing, as well as having depleted the supply of a certain pipe tobacco at a local suppliers (adding to my stockpile in my hide-out). So as far as I'm concerned, everything east of the Rockies can damned well fall into the ocean or burn up.

I encourage the rest of the country to continue eating iceberg lettuce in the meantime. Vegetables are good for you. Mitch McConnell, for instance. Great with Chianti.


I feel like I should end by mentioning Homan, Patel, and Miller. But that would be fucking unprintable, and this is a clean wholesome family blog. So no. Wholesome shit only.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

WIGGLE ROOM

This blogger is mighty glad that the World Cup is over and we can now renew our focus on real sports; slamming the President and his Republican babysitters for driving the country to ruin. As is natural. And not dominated by foreign players. Americans can destroy the country all by ourselves, we don't need short stocky Iberians or Argentinians for that.
No, Hormuz still ain't hormuzing. What did you expect?

Also, I was getting tired of explaining to Americans how the game is played.
My fellow citizens sadly don't know beans about sport.
Games with logic, and a point.
Sportsmanship.


Kind of reminds one of splendid verse: "The sand of the desert is sodden red, Red with the blood of a square that broke, the Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, and the men are blind with the dust and smoke; The river of death has brimmed its banks, and England is far and honour a name, but the voice of a school boy rallies the ranks; Play up, play up and play the game!" Oh, splendid! That's the ticket, boys!

None of that poofty Texan crap with spandex leotards.
Or busty chorus girls with pom poms.

The back room was filled with loud fellows today, making strange animalistic sounds. After it was all over they drifted out, till at last the only ones left were a few experts on everything. It wasn't as bad as on Friday, when the rancid right wing spew from the Irishman would have had me killing the old bastards if I had been paying attention, but darn close.

Most of the time I don't bother listening, because they're wrong and magat-christo-nazi about so much stuff. But they do not modulate, so one does hear fragments. Yesterday the alcoholic coke-fiend was swearing up a storm at "bitches, bitches, bitches".

Sometimes I fervently wish ill upon them and their ilk.
But somewhere else because of the clean-up.
They are all bio-hazards.
Toxic waste.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

THE PROPER DIET

One of the words which has gained circulation recently is cyclosporiasis, which reminds me that I haven't eaten at Taco Bell in years. When I still worked for a law office down in the Embarcadero area, it was a favourite lunch or dinner. Mmmm, Tex-Mex Cali junkfood!
And I realize, belatedly, that I have never had gastroenteritis. Or dysentery.
Or, for that matter, actually enjoyed the Poetry of Walt Whitman.

I've spent a lot of time on Wikipedia looking at symptoms. None of which I shall share here. Just one bit of advice: If you're worried about vampires, take garlic pills. As a prophylactic.

Being an intellectual, and being stark raving bonkers, are not mutually exclusive.

Key words, besides cyclosporiasis, are: Entamoeba histolytica, Salmonella, and Shigella. Common causes of chronic diarrhoea include microscopic colitis, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome.


You know, there are major reasons that most people in tropical countries don't touch raw vegetables. Reasons which include cyclosporiasis, dysentery, entamoeba histolytica, salmonella, shigella, and vampires. So avoid iceberg lettuce.
Also, wash your damned hands.

Lunch today was a burger from the convenience store, no lettuce no onion no tomato. The vegetable component was hot sauce. I have no guilt about this and would do it again.

Writing all of this took longer than it should have, because at the other end of the table my apartment mate is watching pimple-popping videos and giving a play-by-play. The internet is a marvelous thing. Because of it, people with a scientific bent can learn everything about epidermal care.


It is unlikely that either one of us will have cyclosporiasis. But both of us are probably going to develop, or may already have, a dermis.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

ORANGE PANCAKE DEMENTIA

Yesterday evening I wasted a lot of time listening to a senile pile of horse dung ramble on. And on. And on. Fortunately the dumb-ass kept it short. For him. Twenty eight minutes.

In that scant half hour he slandered, calumnied, and vituperated against President Biden, the Democratic Party, and the People's Republic of China. Clearly he or some of his circle would wish to see lynch mobs and political violence.

It was a nasty and repulsive self-pitying display of verbal compost.
No doubt pleasing to both Putin and Stephen Miller.
Proving that he is a good little monkey.

It was reprehensible, disgusting.
Pathetic and rather silly.

Very many of the rank and file Republicans, the traitors that voted for him and still support his insane and irresponsible behaviour, will be convinced of the truthiness of his speech. They know their way around torches and pitchforks, by gum. The anointed one has spoken!

Most people who sat through that twenty-eight minutes of unhinged conspiracy idiocy will, undoubtedly, have fought the urge to flush their eyes and ears down the toilet.

Imagine Eric Cartman elected to office.
Wait, that's still too good.

Large doses of pharmeceutical amphetamine cause delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and psychosis. Sleep disorders are not uncommon, neither are two A.M. social media posting sprees filled with gibbering, plus multiple grammatical and spelling errors.



Anyhow, do not be surprised if the GOP quislings in the Senate organize committees, and a compromised partisan DOT launches a barrage of lawfare attacks before the 2026 elections.
Also predictable is the likelihood of rightwing vigilantism in such shithole states as Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

ABOUT THE STYLISH HAT

Very recently an old friend in the Shomron commented semi-irately underneath one of my elsewhere posts: "Of the many things I enjoy about your wandering mind, your eminence, somewhere in the top five is that you are completely out of your damned mind. This is something I have tremendous appreciation for. Most people are only partially nuts."

High praise indeed.

A while back my apartment mate (Canto American) and I got off the bus in Chinatown on our way to the Rose Pak Muni Metro Station (華埠–白蘭站 'waa fau -- paak laan jaam) when we saw a young Caucasian fellow wearing a conical straw hat and what appeared to be a Japanese male kimono. Very geshmak. Shoyn.

I commented to her that the gentleman was trying to blend in.

Her response: "It's working. He's invisible.

Which is also high praise.


I don't know if she was being serious. I have been told that all of us white dudes look alike.
I am outsider enough to know that no amount of conical straw hat will make me look Asian, and insider enough to know that I do not want to know more than that.

So all of you large pale Midwestern tourists who wish to ponce around wearing such things (斗笠 'dau lap'), please, go right ahead. Height of fashion.
It's stylish and shows that you care.

In other news, the steamed fatty pork chunks with ginger and shrimp paste (蝦醬薑汁蒸豬腩肉 'haa jeung keung jap jeng jü naam yiuk') wich I prepared for lunch today was delicious. A completely non-Chinese touch was adding peeled chopped tomato in the last fifteen minutes of steaming, partly as a foil for the greasiness, partly simply for taste. And of course I had sambal on the side.

Both Uncle Roger and Jimmy O. Yang would have liked it, I think. Probably not Jamie Oliver, as there was no trace of chili jam. And the big stainless steel steamer was not celebrity chef approved or endorsed.


By the way: It still baffles me that Uncle Roger and Jimmy O. Yang are so deeply and passionately involved in fried rice. You wanting to cook for white people is it?


Expect people with rice paddy chapeaux to drop by.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

THERE ARE BOGS

A little bit beyond the town the wildnerness starts. Not primaeval wilderness, like in parts of the United States, where the wild redneck still roams in his native habitat, but the restrained Northern European forest and heath where the spawn of inbred peasants can't find his way home and kind of hopes that outlying farms have left some food outside so he won't starve. The feral halfwit is thin and rangy, and because of generations of genetic material folding in on itself stunted and short. And, in the case of Norfolk or Yorkshire, prone to the ague.


And we've all encountered Scotsmen, haven't we?


Years ago an urban collegeman from Leiden or Utrecht wrote a book arguing that the reason North Brabanders reported so many more sightings of fairies or gnomes was because they were so inbred that their idiot offspring might get lost one mile outside of the village and lurk for months or years in the local forests, not remembering how to get home. Where they sometimes spawned. Leading to generational genetic and intellectual rot.

It's a novel theory. Also biased, and indicative of Northern praeconceptions.
Those 'Ollanders need to get out more, their blinkers are showing.

Please don't anyone think of dolichocephalism.

MALPY VENNEN

When I was growing up in Valkenswaard that theory had not yet been formulated, and had anyone even expressed anything similar we would have automatically mentioned Friesland province, where no one in their right mind ever goes and the natives are that purebred that, like some breeds of dogs, their brains are as thin as a slice of supermarket luncheon meat.

Please imagine some fine Parma ham here.
With a thick white layer of fat.


Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and purchased a nice thick strip of fatty pork belly meat (腩肉 'naam yiuk'), which today I shall prepare for lunch. Scrape the skin side clean, cut into large chunks, blanch to firm it up, gild briefly to flavour, then steam with ginger and fish paste till tender. With some rice and sambal it will be splendid, and there should be plenty left over.

I am quite looking forward to this.
Oh it will be lovely.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

CUSTOMER FOR EVER A DECADE

Normally on Wednesday I would go to a regular place for lunch, smoke a pipe afterwards, do errands and shopping, then head to a bakery for afternoon tea and an egg tart. Followed by another pipeful. The regular place is on vacation till next month, and I haven't gone to that bakery in months. Largely because of four of the regulars. Those being older American born Chinese gentlemen. There are three other places to which I do not go. One of them has a tableful of discourteous middle-aged Toishanese in the afternoon on Wednesdays, one of them showed that they really didn't give a damn about my patronage, and at the last the owner has several times has been apathetic. I tip well, and I do not smell bad.
I tip well because I want you to remember me favourably the next time.
If you have seats, I wish to enjoy my food and beverage there.
And if I greet you, it would be nice to greet me back.

All of the places referenced are in Chinatown. On my days off I like to go there because it's the safest neighborhood in San Francisco, with a hospital and pharmacy where I can get my refills, there are vegetables and condiments I depend upon there, I enjoy the foods, snacks, and milk tea, and I can smoke a pipeful in an alley without having suburban earthmoms or wokey clean-living freaks scream at me that I'm poisoning the planet and their lungs.

But I am white, and a grouchy pissant to boot. So understandably, I do not go there for the people. There are many whom I like, and some regular places to which I go, but largely 'no'. Evenso, the places I no longer frequent are less than half the places which I like.

The Wednesday bakery that I no longer visit has gorgeous cakes, delicious pastries, and egg tarts fresh out of the oven (蛋撻啱啱出爐 'daan taat ngaam ngaam chut lou') right about tea time. And I really like their egg tarts. But, as I prevously mentioned, I am white, so in no way an old time Chinatown American born Chinese, and you may have also surmised that while my Cantonese is passable, my Toisanwaa is virtually non-existent (meaning I don't feel quite welcome at their sister establishment -- see tableful of discourteous middle-aged blisters also previously mentioned) and a grumpy old coot besides. Plus too sensitive to slights and likely to perceive deliberate rudeness when casual and mere apathetic rudeness was intended.

And I probably do smell bad.
Mm, yes, frightful.
Quite.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

AMERICA'S CLOCKS

Yesterday, on the fourteenth of July, contingents from dozens of countries marched down the Champs Elysees. The United States, which should have been there, was not represented at all, because currently we are not a beacon of freedom or anything worthwhile. In the previous twenty four hours I've seen several videos of the parade. It was splendid. I've also seen ICE goons brutalizing people on my screen, protests outside of federal facilities, and appointed officials lying through their teeth, deflecting, and not answering questions.

Plus several statements from our morally bankrupt president.
And a few reprehensible spews from his acolytes.


Yesterday, in discussion, Ronald Wilson Reagan was mentioned, possibly the very worst president we've had till the 2016 election. An absolutely detestable piece of garbage who seems mild and avuncular in comparison even though he laid the groundwork for all the ghastliness of the present. The Republican party has since then become such a rancid cesspool of self-aggrandizing greed-drenched putrid scum that our founding fathers are probably spinning in their graves, assisted wholeheartedly by evangelical rightwing Christians may they rot eternally. When you pass a church, spit.

Is it Molotov cocktail time yet?

In other news, it's finally beach weather here in California. Please remember that life vests are a conspiracy by Big Swim, and infect you with nano-chips that allow the illegal aliens to track you. You have rights as an American, and if you want to go into the water entirely unprepared, who is to stop you?


Naturally I encourage all good Christians to head into the surf.
It's America's ocean out there, yours for the taking.
Tides and undertows do not exist.
Please go.


In some parts of the Bay Area it will hit the high nineties today. Early man did not use sunscreen, and it isn't mentioned in the Bible, not even once. No true Texan uses it.
Jesus will protect you. Have faith. Dermis is evil.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

THE BODY PARTS

We were somewhat dismayed when she got on the bus with her four-wheeled luggage cart, because late at night there are sometimes not-perfectly-sane fellow travelers. People who mentally vibrate. I noticed that her calves and ankles were oedematic, and the skin down there showed dryness verging on dermal ailment. But other than that she seemed okay.

Still. There have sometimes been screamers.
Municipal transit is an adventure.

The original bail-out bar had an actual bartender this evening, so we didn't end up further down. Unfortunately he was filling in for the apathetic person and won't be there next week. The bartender from the secondary bail-out was there, it turns out that his shifts have changed and consequently there is a new bartender at the bail-out from the bail-out, who should be more fully broken in by the time we get there again. Nice enough chap, but somewhat overwhelmed the last time.

The bookseller is still in pain from fighting with a pin-ball machine, which I kept assuring him was a "sports-related injury", because that sounds ever so much better than "lost an argument with a box of nuts and bolts" or however else you wish to put it.
But a ball was involved. So it's a sporting mishap or accident.

I'm still not entirely sure how it happened.
But it cost him a quarter at least.

Warm weather, such as we're having (mid to high sixties) brings out more nuts. I don't know how the rest of the country can stand it. Places like New York City, Washington DC, and the entire deep south must be awash with loonies.

Plus mosquitoes, murder hornets, and giant cockroaches.
As well as iguanas, pythons, and feral children.
So glad we live in civilization here.
A temperate zone.



NOTE: I shall NOT mention the oedema woman, nor the chubby Chinese girl with the very intelligent face who was also on the bus, to the turkey vulture currently dozing among the other roomies in my apartment mate's room. He would have insisted that I really should have harvested fatty body parts for him to feast upon. We've already argued with him over that. It's not going to happend, little dude. And step away from the little girl hamster who comes over during the day, she's not a meatball, and the large purple cat will wack you very severely if you try to eat her friend. There are some things one just doesn't do. Okay?



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

TOXIC WASTE

It appears that Donald John Trump's Department of Justice is blocking a full investigation of the bodies of sex-traffic victims buried at the Epstein ranch. Which should surprise no one. Given that one of the major policies of this administration is to protect as many of the wealthy donors as possible. A simple solution, one which appeals to many people, would be to line up everyone who was ever a guest or friend of Epstein, and just shoot them. The problem is that that would turn many Republicans both in and out of power into landfill.

Also, it would upset the conservative Christians.
Who are a major demographic.

This blogger, as you would expect, is rather in favour of pissing off conservative Christians. Among whom are a great number of sexual predators and deviants, of which, if you follow the news, you are reminded on a daily basis.

Somtimes it seems like certain states are full of them.

As a reminder, here are the American states where there are huge numbers of Christian sexual predators and Republican voters fully in favour of covering up everything Epstein: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

So don't go there. Don't even think of visiting. Those places are all filled with Charlie Kirks, Erika Kirks, Candace Owens, and Andrew Tates. And several associates of Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and Mark Wayne Mullin. Also Kash Patel, who isn't a fundamentalist Christian, but has a thing for them.


Knuckle-dragging troglodytes.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

DESERVEDLY!

Per "reliable" sources, the syphilitic old bastard died of massive amounts of horse tranqs, cocaine, quaaludes, and viagra, and rough play with ropes. It is as yet entirely unknown whether that was with boys, girls, or large slavic women named Ivana.
Cheap bourbon also played a role. Lots of it.

As it often does. Republicans.

Anyhow, the coroner's office has put a stake through his heart to make sure he doesn't rise again, and plans are to put a massive slab of concrete over the grave just in case.


Our beloved leader is heartbroken. Heartbroken! One less slavish cretin to genuflect. Oh, the sadness. Heartbroken! Stevie, Cashew, and Little Petey are comforting him with hamberders as we speak! And biggie fries! Diet coke! Oh!


The other slime creature is being kept "alive" with embalming fluid and electrical jolts.
They've plasticized his face to make him look younger.

Don't breathe. They can smell that.

To quote our beloved and sanctified dear leader, bless his shrivelled heart: "Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!"


All over the red states people are in mourning, weeping, wailing, and whipping themselves with chains and thorny branches. There are public outpourings of grief.
Especially in the great state of South Carolina.
Which is an outpost of hell.


Have some more cheap bourbon, fellas.
Pour some out for your homie.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Here it is, over a day later, and I'm still smiling because Lindsey Graham is dead. The only sad thing about it is that most of us are too far away to go drunkenly piss on his grave. He was an utterly useless piece of "garbage", like many others in the Republican Party, and sane people are hoping for a trifecta, at the very least. And that the next few months get brightened up by Republican funerals.

Several Republican governors also need to go.

And in the same way too. Choking during an unspeakable act.


The fact that people like that keep getting sent to Washington shows that the corruption and good old boy network runs deep and that we may need to do something incredibly violent about the billionaires that keep supporting obedient repulsive right wing puppets, as well as the fundy Christians who cheer, gibber, and obey. In China and Iran, people like Lindsey Graham would have been taken out and shot long ago, and in actual living democracies scum like that would not have even stood a chance of getting elected.

There are, unfortunately, a large number of murderous fascists that need to be strung up.
Or treated like mediaeval pontifs; tortured, dismembered, strangled.
Parts of their bodies cut off, corpses abused.

Lindsey Graham was a loathsome degenerate who wholeheartedly supported bloodshed and kissed-up to reprehensible foreign scum. A thoroughly despicable blister, a blot on humanity and the South, and the world is a better brighter place now that Lindsey has croaked. He had so little left to live for anyway, having plumbed the depths of depravity, and is now deservedly being tormented and burned.


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

ACTIVE KIDNEYS AND OTHER THINGS

Pipe club met today. Only eight people, but I was up to my elbows. though I did manage to clean three big pipes of good makes the size of which said that the previous owner had a miniscule manhood and was desperate to compensate. Big BIG pipes, tiny TINY manhood. People like that should really smoke mango passionfruit chocolate cavendish so that the rest of us know to stay the heck away. Look, if you were smoking those pipes in public I should be embarassed to be anywhere near you. If you smoked that tobacco in public I would be nowhere in sight.

"Oh I just love the smell of your tobacco, it reminds me of my granddad!"

Lady, your granddad was a ruddy pervert. He probably loved Clan.

On the other hand, my pipetobacco brings an Oxford man to mind. See, it's civilized. Would go well with a spot of sherry. While reading a very literate murder mystery. After tea time.

If the author was masculine, probably a Balkan blend. If she was a lady, more than likely a nice aged Virginia or a refined flake. With just a wee bit of Perique.
Ogden's Gold Block, if they're undecided.
This is just a theory.


Perhaps the pipe club would be interested in me giving a little lecture about this. Lord knows, we've happily heard about steamship races, Scottish distilleries, the Boer War, gold panning in the Sierras, small automobiles, curry, kidney stones, boat building ...

Shortly after I finished lunch miss A.A. came by to see me. We talked about Seiko watches, delightful black market Chinese cigarettes with a dried tangerine peel frangrance flavour capsule, and various things like that. So that was enjoyable. Mr. Y. was also there. My pipe expertise was needed, What kind of pipe is this? Is it Danish? Indeed, it's a Stanwell Golden Sovereign, characteristic shape, one or two letters of the stamping are still visible. And both of those GBDs are extraordinairy.


Most of the working day I was zipped to the gills on caffeine. Two cups of coffee before leaving home, about six or seven cups of tea and some more coffee while at work.
I'm home now, with a cup of coffee within arms reach.
Probably crashing soon.


Coffee, as you know, is a very efficient diuretic.
Tea far less so.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

DROPPING EYES

It does not feel particularly cold outside, there is no wind. Birds are tweeting and there is a lighting in the morning sky toward the East, over Oakland. The world seemed a much better and brighter place. I had actually gotten up in the middle of the night to drop Latanoprost into my eyes, guiltily, because I assured my eye-doctor that I'm religious about that.
Then slept for a few more hours after.

The pipe for the early walk is a Peterson army-mounted prince shape, well-defined briar with that depth to the wood that shows it came from one of their original sources and was made way back when. The old days.

I noted as I walked up hill that there are three cars in my block parked illegally. Two of three have wheels not curved toward the curb, which indicates out-of-towners.

It seems like a lovely Spring morning.


I have no idea when my apartment mate went to bed yesterday, as even with two cups of coffee after dinner I totally collapsed. Which rather tells me I am no longer as sparky as I was in my teens and twenties. Old goat needs his sleepy-sleep. Can't party all night anymore.

When I still lived in North Beach there were some truly lovely early mornings with scarcely anybody about, the toasty fragrance of roasting coffee beans from the Trieste and the Roma perfuming the dawn air, a bright slivery grey quality to the streets, faintly whisps of French cigarettes from random Bohemians still up from the night before ... walking around with an onion tied to their belt as was the style at the time.....


There had been a dream in which I was arguing the liability issue of a pedestrian about to cross the road in front of a bus. The driver had indicated that she should go ahead and walk, she had beckoned 'no no go ahead', and the driver then waved at her that she had the right of way. If she crossed at that moment and he had driven forward, or at any time before it was absolutely certain that the pedestrian was out of the way and not going to dart into the middle of the road, that would have been law-suit material. What the old lady needed to do was turn around and step back from the curb to clearly show that indeed she was not going to step in front of the vehicle.

I could palp the irritation of the driver at the old lady.
You've shown intent, now follow up dammit.
We can wait all day here.

Easily damaged flesh husk versus warm hard steel.
It's something lawyers mouthwater over.


By the way: I am not a legal man.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

NO SALT FISH THERE

In Palo Alto this afternoon at the ceramic event, it was marginally too warm. At present, in San Francisco, it is marginally too cold. Why can't the weather be always 'just right'? This is northern California, which is supposed to have the best climate in the world! Then I look at the temperatures in London (eighty plus degrees), Hong Kong (hovering around ninety), and Karachi (over ninety). Reykjavik is around the mid fifties. Which is probably too hot by their standards. It's cooking the fermented seal blubber. Can't have that! Takes away that delightful waxy sliminess which makes it divine.


New York city is low eighties. No wonder they eat hot dogs.
Instead of waxy nice slimy fermented seal blubber.
Which they would, if it wasn't spoiled.
Hot dogs are a poor substiture.
It's suffering, is what.


On the metro from the trainstation back to Chinatown I listened in on two women talking about salt fish and pork. I would have interjected that fatty pork would be best for the dish they were discussing, except my Cantonese isn't good enough to fully convey what I want. Still, fatty pork. And slivered ginger on top. Perfect.

My apartment mate and I went down to the ACGA Clay & Glass Festival in Palo Alto, as we do every year. Bus, metro, train, bus. And back. Great fun. Some years it's boiling down there, well over eighty Fahrenheit, this time it was quite bearable, mid seventies.
Still probably too hot for the delightful fermented seal blubber.

On the other hand, steamed chunks of fatty pork with chopped salt fish and ginger would have been quite lovely, over rice with some lo fo tong on the side. And sambal.


Several suburban areas between SF and Palo Alto look like dreary industrial settlements. If you disembark there, watch out for werewolves. Vampires don't come out till after sundown. Werewolves operate under no such restriction.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

IT MAKES FOR INSULATION

Lunch yesterday, unsurprisingly, was dumplings. And, for a bit of heat, sliced bittermelon sautéed with chilies, garlic, and ground peanuts. It was delicious. Didn't bother leaving the house much. No need, and too darn cold. You know I hate hot weather, but the climate here presently is overcompensating. Oh my Nelly yes.

Fifty eight degrees, mostly sunny. With a cold wind from the ocean for much of the day.

Two jaunts outside with a pipe for a walk around the neighborhood. First one in the early morning of what felt like a bright winter day, with a cold breeze around the top of Nob Hill. After which I retired to the completely imaginary library (teevee and computer room) to huddle by a non-existent fireplace with a second cup of coffee. Second one late afternoon.
A-shirt, Tee-shirt, flannel shirt, an overgarment boasting of a fictitious football team, and overcoat. My feet felt like they were freezing. Should have worn two pairs of socks.


A sandblasted zulu Savinelli De Luxe filled with aged Virginias.


Actually, the teevee and computer room, like the entire rest of the apartment, is more or less a library. There are bookshelves in three rooms, book boxes in the hallway.
And an entire reference library under my bed.

Sadly, I do not have an encyclopaedia of bugs. Although before the internet that would have been a more grievous lack. Now I can find out everything I need to know about creepy crawlies on the computer. As well as many other subjects.


Homalodisca vitripennis, also know as the 'glassy winged sharpshooter', is a Southern gentlemen, like so many other pests. Probably, like Rhett Butler, lives on mint juleps.

Votes elsewhere than he alledgedly resides, because of marital issues.

Now being given a warm welcome in Northern California.
As a sudden visitor to our climes.
A new permanent resident.
Confound it all.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================