A REMARKABLE TALENT

Other than forgetting to bring the cigarillos, it was a splendid evening. No stupid kwailo singing loud and bad at the karaoke joint, no intemperate behaviour (that may have come after we left), and much better music than usual. Although seeing Teresa Teng (鄧麗君 'tang lai kwan') on screen during her teenage years belting out a plaintive ballad in a deep basso profundo was slightly odd. The actual singer being 'Titty Groper', a short Cantonese gentleman with a thing for nipples.

Teresa had a voice like honey, mixed with dreamy girlish wistfulness.

Titty Groper sounds like a hairy big bull bear threatening the innocent.

If there actually was a performer who looked like a sweet cheerful kissy-faced teenage girl but sounded like that, she would be worth paying much to see. It would leave everyone feeling more than slightly unclean, but thrilled by the experience. Frisson!

He did three numbers, then Jenny sang an old-fashioned torch song.


There was fog. Wetness in the air. A typical San Francisco evening. The pipe for watching rats in Spofford Alley was smoked before the burger-beer-whiskey at a karaoke place, and after. No, I did not indulge in alcohol. The secret to spry perky middle-age is to have a shot of strong coffee before leaving the house, then a little soda followed by two glasses of weak tea. All that caffeine puts a spring in your step.

While my friend the book seller was getting us our various beverages, I secured a table on the mezzanine at our second stop, and saw the Broadway Idiot stumbling up the street from my vantage point. He's older, and a little more decrepit. I suspect more of his brain is shot than before. Conversationally he always was a pile of composting garbage.
So I'm glad I haven't had the pleasure of his company inside.

As I get older some people become less tolerable.



When we left I lit up my pipe, and finished the bowl of tobacco before the bus came.
The cigarillos were where I left them next to my rattan chair when I got home.


The one time I sang a Teresa Teng number at karaoke I massacred it.
People like me should not sing. Ever.



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