CHASTISE THE BUGGER!

It looked at me from underneath my apartment mate's chair when I entered the teevee room with my coffee, as if to ask whether there would be comfort, safety, and a profound 'coolness' to my behaviour. Cats define coolness as no startling movements or disconcerting sounds, an atmosphere characterised by couth, and the comforting smell of Virginia pipe tobaccos being smoked contemplatively. Or, if the smoker is an author, which I'm not, Balkan blends such as William Faulkner enjoyed. Those of a Scientific bent might smoke over-the-counter blends from Sutliff et autres, but sparky creative minds do often prefer the addition of some Turkish or Syrian leaf. Fantasts, such as Tolkien and Sir Bertrand Russell, however, are distinctly in the flue-cured (Virginia) camp.


"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."
------ Albert Einstein


Angry Berkeleyite Earthmothers and other frightful harridans (either gender) vastly prefer that you don't smoke at all, and rot in hell instead. My apartment mate, who is not like that, does actually prefer that I light up outside, which is why the feline currently under her chair will be disappointed. First smoke of the day is always while walking around a few blocks outside among the dog people and healthnuts.

Berkeley and other college towns used to have a faint whiff of pipe tobacco at all times, but nowadays reek mostly of marijuana and unwashed Guatamalan ethnic garb as worn meaningfully by santimonious vegetarian twats. This is not an improvement.

San Francisco smells mostly of dog poo and healthnuts. This is also not an improvement.
In the Italian part of North Beach there is a lovely aroma of roasting coffee beans, which gives way gradually to an odour of vegan cooking and rutting poet, or, as you head over to Chinatown, some rather nice meaty fragrances and smuggled in cigarettes puffed in mahjong parlours. But mostly, it's dog poo and healthnuts. Ah, the bracing smell of exercise clubs and yoga studios early in the morning! Sweaty and fermentive! Mmmm!

We don't have a cat. There is one downstairs, who my apartment mate will take care of when our landlady is on vacation, but whom I have seldom seen. What we have is a corner-of-the-eye ghost cat. It sometimes shows up in the the halflight of early morning. What proves that it is not flesh-and-blood is that nothing has ever been pushed off the tables or kitchen counter, there is no scratched furniture, and not even a whiff of cat pee smell.


About an hour after my apartment has gone to work, I will close her bedroom door, fill a pipe, and light up. The cat, if it is still lurking, will settle down to snooze, and there will be no angry puritan busibodies telling me that my tobacco is harming generations of children as yet unborn. Or accusing me of having a dark and harmful aura.


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THE CHILDREN

It's barely above fifty degrees out there. According to several people, smokers like myself deserve that, we should suffer because of our vices, and perish of stiff joints, cold seizures, and pneumonia. Because tobacco is evil. And must be stopped.

Per the venomous earthmother sow I encountered up at the intersection while smoking my pipe and catching pneumonia, daemonic beings should NOT indulge in tobacco in public! We're endangering peoples health, and think about the children!

Okay, the children. Woodchipper.
There. Happy now?


Perhaps it's time to remind everyone that once upon a time, and not even so very long ago, more doctors smoked Camels than any other cigarette. Yes, in a repeated national survey, doctors in ALL branches of medicine, in ALL parts of the country, were asked "what cigarette do YOU smoke, doctor?" Not surprisingly, more doctors preferred the taste of Camels. Why don't you try Camels for a month, to see what a smooth, rich tasting cigarette can mean for your tobacco enjoyment?

At some point there may be a class action suit against the entire damn' board of supervisors for endangering lives with their draconian measures. Either that or elder abuse. Rather than the plaudits and cheap good publicity they expect for being puritanical dillwads.

At which point there may be cupcakes. And joyous parties.
Kiddies and puritanical dillwads not invited.

You bet I'm thinking of the children.
Unkind thoughts.



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SLICE OF LIFE

San Francisco, which in some ways radiates an aura of near-nazi puritanism, is heading more in that direction, Because just being a self-righteous whack-job of a city at times is just not enough. Supervisor Myrna Melgar is leading a crusade against drinking establishments which in any way at all cater to smokers and wish to prevent them being mugged by street people, El Salvadoreans, and drugies, while indulging, or being harassed by the venomous do-gooders and rabid health nuts. Here in San Francisco, we have tonnes of rabid health nuts. They roam the streets snapping and growling, and wish to invade secluded patios and windswept outdoor smoking areas with their bloodstained teeth and claws, torturing the poor souls risking pneumonia and haphazardly strewn discarded needles.

Instead, they will be forced to eat tofu.

Pot-smoking is still okay, however. Marijuana is, as everyone knows, grown be little green men in the Amazon who hug trees and dolphins, and recycle. So it's good for the planet.


Besides, everybody goes to bars for their health. We should probably install exercise equipment in all of them. As well as petting zoo areas for the little kiddie winkies.
And non-gender-specific diaper-changing stations.
With vegan wipes.

Again: pot, good. Tobacco, bad. Indulging in ciggies or cheroots, evil.

In a city with hundreds of establishments that serve liquour and over a hundred thousand severely alcoholic pot heads there are less than a dozen places that have managed any accomodation for tobacco smokers. But they're bad (!), and we must have none of that! By the standards of some people, Myrna Melgar is a hero. Saint buggery Myrna, the anointed supervisor of District Seven, which includes West Portal, Westwood Park, Forest Hill, Parkmerced, Golden Gate Heights, Inner Sunset, St. Francis Woods, Miraloma, and Monterey Heights. Where many people are often triggered.

In the days when I still occasionally indulged in alcohol, I would sometimes head over to a clean well lit place that allowed smoking because I did not wish to freeze my rear end off outside among the vagrants, drug addicts, insane people, and tourists. With my pipe. It had been grandfathered in and was the last of its kind. Nowhere near schools, petting zoos, and diaper changing stations.

Most of the time, however, I have been outside in the cold suffering exposure to vagrants, drug addicts, insane people, tourists, as well as vegans, health nuts, and fentanyl-injecting habitués of petting zoos and diaper changing stations. Which litter this city like discarded slices of greasy pizza in east-coast metropoles.



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WHERE THERE IS NO THERE THERE

Over the years I have become quite adept at conversing with the senseless. In some part it's because I live in San Francisco, where you never know if that stranger is a tourist visiting from Mars, or from the Midwest. Part of it is because of my employment.
About the precise nature of which the less said the better.

One other thing that comes into play is that I, through no conscious intent, seem to impress people as a genuinely likable fellow. Which I'm not. I'm actually a curmudgeon. Bah humbug is second nature to me. But I'm diplomatic. When someone tells me that Elon Musk is brilliant and they like the man more than they did last year, I am more likely to compliment them on their capacity for growth than tell them they're an absolute moron.

Or change the subject entirely.

See, there is really no reason to tell Danny that he has compost where other people have a brain. Or that his opinions are, more or less, raw sewage. That's his wife's job. And I'm glad those two found each other. Bless their hearts.

There there, little bald degenerate.
There. there.

I'm sure I'll read about him in the papers one of these days.
It will be an accidental and embarassing demise.
Probably Darwin Award worthy.

The expression "there there" sounds pleasingly comforting without actually meaning anything. Calming, even soothing. It's what you say to a wild animal closing in on your exposed body part. There there, savage cougar, there there. There there, little rabid chipmunk, there there. Perhaps you want a carrot instead?

How's life in the caffeine deficient lane?


You have to slow down when driving through brain fog.


Life, little bald degenerate, is not always foot on the accelerator.
Sometimes you have to avoid invisible walls.
Or Elvis impersonators.
There there.



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WELL NO WONDER IT'S COLD

This doesn't feel like May. It didn't yesterday either. There was a bitter wind in late afternoon, and I hadn't taken that into account. It reminded me of that March where I froze my gand off after roast goose, and ended up buying a garment I have not worn since. I think today I'll have two undergarments beneath my shirt.

The place to which I went for lunch is one I had not visited since the pandemic lockdown. They're under new ownership now, possibly the old mother retired and both the son and daughter-in-law went on to better things. I hope so. The new people have barely changed a thing, they're obviously keen to keep their Chinatown clientele. Prices are a bit higher, not much. The specials are the same. The waitress from years ago is still there.

Late lunch. Excellent. I'll add them to my irregular regularity.


Dunhill Shellbriar filled with rubbed out red flake.
Smoked afterwards in a deserted block.
Few people. No tourists.
Long calmness.

It struck me yesterday that in all the hoopla about Kyle Rittenhouse being hospitalized by a brown recluse bite, no one has mentioned what happened to the spider. I hope she's okay. Hasn't been infected with something. Who knows where Kyle had been.

Nor has anyone delved into what Kyle did to get bitten.
He probably acted like a total dick.


My sympathies are with the arachnid.
Our eight-legged fellow citizen.
A team player. Totally.



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AN AIDE TO MEMORY

For some reason which I cannot figure out, free coffee refills were in my head while waking up. When did those disappear? Years ago I would relax for two or three hours at Ping Yuen reading several news papers, doing all the puzzles including the New York Times crossword, and leave high as a kite on free refills after a slice of pie. Ping Yuen no longer exists.
Puzzles don't rope me in anymore. Newspapers are largely crap, mostly folded.
And free coffee refills are no longer offered.

Long sit-down counters are also a thing of the past, along with ashtrays and near-industrial lighting so that you could read news print. Or, hypothetically, a recently purchased collection of poetry you brought with you.

People drink raspberry syrup frappays while scrolling through memes.
Not Six Hundred More Poems From The Tang era.
Bi-lingual. With notes.


And I strongly suspect that university press editors are putting together scholarly collections of memes, annotated and explained, in short sentences of simple everyday hip words, no more than two syllables, only one sentence per idea.
For your scrolling pleasure.

Where is Miss Nancy with that floating pot of coffee?

Well, the coffee IS better now. Although a lot more expensive. And those places that are still serving the same pallid swill as years ago have raised prices and cut off refills.
They no longer encourage dawdling or literacy.


I would really like the old-style lunch counters that stayed open till nine or ten in the evening to come back. Daily specials like ox tail on Thursdays with rice or potatoes, plus soup and a hot roll, clam stew on Sunday, a wedge of pie or ice cream afterwards, and perhaps a table and chair with an ashtray out back near the garbage cans under the overhang for those old fossils who still smoke. If Miss Nancy is still alive she'll float by with the never-empty coffee pot with bad coffee. "Freshen your cup, dear?"

We've really lost something.

Well, I have. You haven't, because you're probably reading this on your cellphone while waiting for your bowl of designer ramen in a vegan blade-runner themed restaurant.
Your significant other, right next to you, is scrolling on his or her device.
Neither of you have spoken a word since breakfast.
Both of you ordered off the app.



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SMALL DOSES

For a while now I have been avoiding the C'town bakery where I used to go for afternoon tea on Wednesdays, because of the changed ambiance. When I was still going there I tailored my time to avoid it when crowded, as I've noticed that, what with being a space mutant with tentacles and a bad aura, some of the home-town regulars are distinctly iffy about me. I don't need to feel more on the spectrum than I usually do, and in consequence there are a few places where I don't go when there are too many people there.

Also, I like finding a place to sit. That's very important. Afternoon tea just isn't afternoon tea if it's merely a pastry and a rapidly cooling hot cuppa out in the snowdrifts because there was no room at the inn.


Hypothetical conversation: "How come you haven't been around in over a month?" "Well, the last few times I went there I got the distinct impression that my company was unwanted and unwelcomed by some of those people there at that time. So why even bother?"


That's okay, boys, I'll simply take my slimy ichor elsewhere.
You can have the tables all to your selves.
余亦謝時去 ...

Afternoon tea requires a few things that are pretty darn essential. Among them are a place to sit, a pastry or snackiepoo, and a hot cup of milk tea. At too many places the milk tea comes in a paper cup, which is tolerable, but not ideal. What is crucial -- it makes the damned paper cup not an issue -- is that one's presence is in no way treated as impositional.

There are a few places where I feel warmly welcomed.


I am too much on the spectrum to be a social butterfly. Plus rather sensitive.



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THE CAT DISAPPROVES

Somehow I feel that the cat disapproves of the entire cock-up humanity has made of things. And please note: the cat is figmantary, he doesn't actually exist. He (or she) is a ghost feline that lurks in my apartment during the dark hours before dawn, when I catch glimpses through half-closed hours of the beast either on my computer desk -- where I have four crystal wine glasses from a friend years ago, which are not knocked over -- or the high shelves near the Chinese classics. Which I should reread; Mencius has words about misrule and tyrants.

What I'm actually rereading is the Three Hundred Poems Of The Tang Dynasty Period (唐詩三百首 'tong si saam paak sau'), which was compiled by the retired scholar of Heng Tang (蘅塘退士 'hang tong teui si') two and a half centuries ago. A standard collection of the poems written over a millenium ago during one of the golden ages. Even if you are not in school, it should be required reading.

I'm fairly sure the ghost cat approves of that.
He wants you to improve yourself.

Seriously.

Your pig's breakfast displeases him. Her.

The reason I know he's a ghost cat is that this place does not smell of cat pee, and those crystal wine glasses have not been pushed onto the floor. Quod erat demonstrandum.

There are also no rats or mice here. Nor ghost rats or mice.


Which brings Lu You (陸游)'s poetic ode to his cat slaughtering all of them to mind.


鼠屢敗吾書偶得狸奴捕殺無虛日群鼠幾空為賦
['sue leui paai ng sue ngau tak lei nou bou saat mou heui yat kwan sue kei hung wai fu.']

服役無人自炷香，狸奴乃肯伴禪房。書眠共藉床敷暖，夜坐同聞漏鼓長。
['Fuk yik mou yan ji jue heung， lei nou naai hang pun sim fong. Sue min gung jik chong fu nuen, ye jo tung man lau gu jeung.']
賈勇遂能空鼠穴，策勳何止履胡腸。魚餮雖薄真無愧，不向花間捕蝶忙。
['gaa yung seui nang hung sue yuet， chaak fan ho ji lei wu cheung. yue tit seui pok jan mou kwai, pat heung faa gaan pou dip mong.']


Pararaphrasis:
The rodents have often destroyed my books, but at times, having acquired a cat, the feline hunts them down and kills them all, the multitude of pests is quite gone, a dedicatory verse:

By myself in the study with none to light the incense, but my cat is with me and shares my couch, together we listen to the steady leak. He has hunted the mice and skillfully dealt with them, he does not sneer at the humble meat or fish, nor does he waste his efforts on chasing butterflies among the flowers.


I'm probably going to have to redo that paraphrasing at some point. It's clutzy and doesn't flow well, nor does it translate as well as it should. Later, after lunch and errands.



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HOBBITS BANE

The reason why Gandalf smokes a long churchwarden pipe is two-fold: he's too darn vain to wear his reading specs except when he absolutely needs them, and he doesn't want to set his beard on fire. Entirely unlike him, my beard is neatly almost obsessively trimmed short, because I am more fastidious than him, and reading specs are my constant companion. Not only because of printed matter. There might be a coffee cup or fork on its way to my mouth. Or, hypothetically, a pipe. Either lit, or not yet. I like to see what I'm setting fire to.

Another point of difference: my stick is not absurdly long. Unlike Gandalf, I do not need to keep hobbitses in line. Nasty verminous hobbitses. We hates them.

Actually, we don't have hobbits here. We've got bums, streetpeople, and fentanyl freaks bent over in the zombie pose forming perfect toadstool shapes that one could very well leapfrog over if one was so inclined. Inadvisable. They'd topple over and take you to court.

Maybe those are the hobbits.

There were three very strange people who walked by as I was smoking my pipe while waiting in Chinatown tonight. Less than half a dozen neighborhood residents. Some stoners, and a score of tourists. And a man wearing a scungy wool coverlet and naught else.

I could have clobbered nasty hobbitses, had there been any.
That's always a possible use of the stick.
Hobbit control.

It ended up being an early evening. The karaoke place was filled with screeching orcs, and the place to which we usually bail out had a new person behind the counter who informed us that she was closing in ten minutes the very second we walked in. And I note that Tat Yee had already left. Another bar was filled with squiffed marketing types, and the last possibility was closed tonight. There is a fifth bar which we haven't visited, but it's relatively new and looks like it has designer cocktails for yuppies. Carefully curated.

So after we left the burger place, there was nothing.
Perhaps the hobbitses are taking over.
We disapproves of them!



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WE ARE NOT AT WAR!

You don't need to ask permission if it's not a war, so, as per our inspired leadership, we are officially not at war. Maybe Iran is, we don't know, but we aren't. It's time for a peace prize, as I think you will all agree. Congress certainly does. And by the end of his third term, we will have forgotten all about it. Which congress will also agree to do.

And, given the calibre and morals of his supporters, it is best to agree.
Because you do NOT want several million trailerparkers angry.
It might affect the quality of methamphetamine.
Which is proudly made right here.
It's all-American!


Like war.


By the way: He aced three cognitive tests. Absolutely blew everybody else taking it out of the water. And recognized the giraffe that bit him amost immediately. Yes, it was in the room with him. It was huge. Dangerous animals, giraffes. Lock them up. Everybody always says "lock up the giraffes, mr. President". USA! USA!

Congress agrees. They always do.

Several months ago I also aced a cognitive test -- banana chair sunrise -- but I seldom boast about it. Because entirely unlike our president I still have all my marbles -- banana chair sunrise -- and can take such things for granted.

In about five weeks there's another doctor's appointment.
I wonder what three words they'll have then.
Not banana chair sunrise.

Will giraffe be one of them? Apparently there are giraffes around every corner, waiting to bite the president. We've got to do something! Can't have wildlife trying to eat him, he's almost a god, second hand of Jesus, a divine being all aglow, it's just not done!


Bad giraffe, no president for you!

Go bite a trailerparker instead. We have tonnes of those. There's darn well millions of trailerparkers, they're a dime a dozen, but only one president.



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THE UNTRAVELING

Recently Bill and Raymond returned from Thailand and the Philippines. Where Mike had also been, as well as Bahrain. Tom went to Japan, T. went to New Orleans, a friend left for Tahiti, and Jingo has been to Italy. Three others have also been to Italy, and someone else is making plans to go, probably in Summer or Fall. Egypt is on the list.
Another person is heading to Bali to party fabulously.
B. and S. are going to Turkey soon.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home eating mangoes.
Tiny little baby mangoes.
Delicious.

Because I find it insufferable when the temperatures are above the seventies I'm actually glad that I'm not going anywhere. Several of the places mentioned are frequently warmer than that. Most of the time. There was a trip to Honduras planned, but that fell through.
It would have been much earlier in the year anyway. February, March.
It's currently ninety degrees Fahrenheit there now.

San Francisco is sixty. Overcast.
I'm fine with that.

I hope they still have those little mangoes when I go shopping.
The tropics can be eaten even if you don't visit.

Centuries ago wealthy people in Northern Europe built orangeries for precisely that purpose. This allowed periwigged notables to feast on luscious fruits, even if they were freezing their silken kneebreeches off. The empress dowager of China loved lychees, which were not native to anywhere even close to the capital. Brought in by fast horse relays.

She would have hated their native climate. Malarial, wild, exotic, hot weather, and there were allegedly even cannibals and run-away convicts in the hills! How ghastly!
My heavens, these are sweet. Mmmmm!

天哪，這些太甜了。嗯嗯！

Or, in a language spoken closer to lychees than Mandarin, and easier for everyone else, "waa, buah-buah ini manis sekali. Alamak!"

The poet and statesman Su Tung Po (Su Shi 蘇軾), who was exiled to the far south in hopes that he would die of something tropical and thus cease being a nuisance, wrote a poem about lychees that can only be considered eloquent gloating on his part:


食荔枝 ('sik lai ji')

羅浮山下四時春，盧橘楊梅次第新。日啖荔枝三百顆，不辭長作嶺南人。
['lo fau saan haa sei si chun, lou gwat yeung mui chi dai san, yat taam lai ji saam baak fo, bat chi cheung jok ling naam yan.']


"Below Luofo mountian it is Spring year round, the loquats and bayberries are ripe again, I've feasted on lychees three hundred times today, and do not wish to ever stop being a resident of Lingnan." One can almost hear the "neener neener neener' in his voice.

Longan and lychee are available nearly year-round on Stockton Street.
They are delicious and tropical.



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THEY ARE ALL EVIL!

Like everybody, I am thrilled that our three year old baby, oops sorry I meant our respected and revered president pardon me, can identify a girafe. Millions of people have never seen a giraffe and would not know one if it came up and bit them in the gand, but Donald J. Trump immediately recognized him through the power of Jesus and promptly ordered him to leave this country and return to Africa. Then he called Putin to tell him what he had done.

Truly, we are blessed. Paula White agrees.

So does Kash Patel. Hi Kash!


If you aren't thrilled, you are probably a sicko Democrat and should be thrown in jail.
Or deported.


Please do NOT from the foregoing think that I consider very much of this country a stinking hellhole filled with ignorant yokels who are happy to get ripped off by religious charlatans and always elect conmen and monsters. Far from it; I truly appreciate my fellow Americans in the vast interior as warrm charitable folks happy to treat their fellows kindly, welcome the foreigner, and radiate their intrinsic goodness to the rest of the world. And Putin.
There is NO sneering sarcasm here. None. Far from it. Bless you.

THIS IS A GIRAFFE

And Rudolhp Giuliani should live many long years. Till one hundred and twenty.


By the way, the Straight of Hormuz is open, through the grace of the lord and Donald 'The Blessed Virgin' Trump, and anyone who says otherwise is a stinking commie, and probably gay and a foreigner. And should be shot. Or in any case barred from office.

We're the greatest country on planet earth. Or any planet.

We will outlaw all giraffes.



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ENOUGH SAID NOW STOP

At work I babysit a backroom with elderly gentlemen of the insane rightwing persuasion. Who normally are too busy clenching to be much of a problem, except when a subcontinental riles them up. And while I realize that I will probably not leave that place for quite a while, despite being mere months away from full retirement age, largely because one must stay active in order to keep the joints, guts, and brain from seizing up like a block of concrete, such as for instance the retired former member of the judicial branch who has totally drunk the Kool-aid and is now een oude verkrampte stuk werk you wouldn't want sensitive OR sensible kinfolk to come near, I am mighty happy that I do not have to associate with those men on my days off. They are only incidentally part of my social universe, which is like a Venn diagram with several non-overlapping circles. And we're going to keep it that way. Because I do not want my friends to do time for murdering poisonous old farts. All of whom are residents of Marin County. Which is welcome to them.

The subcontinental is a typical Punjabi. Likes stirring things up when he gets bored. Stirring the pot, so to speak. Which is very irritating, because I'd prefer ALL of them to be quiet.

Tomorrow is a day off. I shall unwind, and at some point eat at a place none of the bastards would be caught dead in, because the good stuff is all in Chinese and they would not like it anyway -- no kung pao or sweet'n sour, or eggrolls, or crab rangoon -- and where ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percent of the clientele do not habitually speak Karen, itch'n spritch, or right wing white dingus language.

Their wine list is non-existent. And there is no beer either.

I'm very much looking forward to this.

I need the break.




After three days of pit vipers and Marin County, Oh boy.




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THE TEMPTING PLACES

MSN Personal News seems to think that I am a sports fan. It is inconceivable to them that anyone wouldn't be. And I will concede that seeing someone doing something with skill that came from years of practice, dedication, verve, talent, and surplus energy channeled into non-destructive behaviour, can in its own way be quite fascinating. That said, I think I should prefer to watch an organ transplant and read the patient's medical casefile instead.
Why isn't that a thing?

Isn't there something that involves small nerdy brainiacs doing something not quite so extroverted that they could offer to bring to my attention instead? Clever tool use?


And no, I am not interested in adding gelatine to some mystery ingredient to lose several sizes, or any of the fabulous articles telling me about some substance consumed daily by seniors which inevitably leads to dementia. The substance shall remain a mystery, as I will not click any of those links, and the dementia item articles require the reader to be well on their way to fooldom to scope out the fabulous findings which an ever-changing array of snake-oil sites wish one to read and believe, and probably purchase a miracle purge that overturns or counters the effects. Consuming televised sports on a daily basis turns people into brain-dead fools. Don't bother looking for other excuses.

Again: small brainy extroverts. Something brilliant.

Imagine. At the end of a darkening street in the city bright lights beckon one in. A hospitable place where research scientists and graduate students of many genders congregate while remaining seperate -- group solitude -- to do various things by themselves that involve slide rules and beakers, sometimes looking at each other's equipment, and making admiring statements about "interesting reading, that", and "must be the sample size".

Do not interpret that in nasty ways! I know you people!
It's all about inflated balls and glutei maxima!
The crap that goes on in your brains.
I'm disappointed in you.



To prove that you are human, please click on every square that shows somewhere you might hide during an uprising by the machines.



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ALWAYS PACK YOUR OWN BAGS

It has been exhausting. There was a birthday party with very expensive liquor, cigars, lobster claws, and gummies. It was exceedingly noisy. Many people enjoyed themselves immensely. Did I mention that it was noisy? Several times I was the only one who noticed the phone and answered it. By the time I left I was all jangly.

Group events are not my thing. But with enough coffee and tea I can put up with them, for the duration. At halloween parties I'm the one dressed like the invisible man. Always.

You can't see me? Good, it's working.
I'll tell you later that it was wonderful, gosh, you wouldn't believe! Fabulous.


A splendid gathering, lots of very good booze, lobster claws, caviar, crudites and shrimp. Gummies. Cigars. The young Pakistani lady with expensive taste in cigarettes came in.
We chatted pleasantly for a while. Her relatives still don't know that she smokes.
I think she was somewhat taken aback by the hullabaloo. As was I.
And I had been in it for several hours.


Apparently that's the most expensive cognac in the world. And that champagne, I've heard, costs a fortune. The vodka was rare and award-winning. I stuck with tea.

When I left I was one of three cold sober individuals. The hullabaloo was heading into its seventh hour by that time. All I wanted to do by then was reread some poems from the Tang era which I had remembered about halfway through the racket. I could not quite recall the precise phrasing, but it seemed very important.


Tea is marvelous for staying properly hydrated, good for the digestion, and helps you keep several steps ahead of foaming mobs. I highly recommend it. There are several decent brands of Pu Erh tea bags, as well as things like Shui Xian and Oolong.
Stimulating beverages are the basis of civilized life.


I always have extra tea bags in my coat pocket.
I'm a real boy scout in that regard.



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RABBIT RABBIT MAY 2026

Rabbit rabbit. For good luck. Why mentioning leporids is propitious on the first day of each month in the morning is quite beyond me, but far be it from me to contest a cherished ritual among very Waspy types. Especially as it's harmless. Which is unique for their cherished rituals. Or at least rather unusual and uncommon. We've got to encourage that.

Rabbit rabbit.

Four of my Facebook friends do the same. An Anglo, a Bengali, a Chinese person, and sometimes a Jewish Person. So like a beneficial disease it's spreading.

My apartment mate, a Cantonese American, is not quite sure if we're sane.
She's always had severe doubts about Wasp Americans.
Which is understandable.


I also have severe doubts about Wasp Americans. Y'all elected Trump.
That indicates a streak of insanity ten miles wide.
Have you considered straight jackets?

As a personal fashion statement?

One size fits all, and they're adjustable, so even those extra large people can wear them. Beer swilling jutzes, barbecue snarfing plus sized hick-bubbas, and every overweight diabetic dingo down in Dixie. Darn well everyone in the MAGA demographic.

Even bankers, marketing types, and billionaires.
Imagine cabinet members wearing them.
Every Republican you know.
Styling, dudes!
Zesty.


Rabbit rabbit.



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RATHER UNREAL TEA

Sometimes I'm a sucker for something new. Which means that today I tried beef dumplings. Specifically, something listed as "West Lake Beef Dumplings" (西湖牛肉水餃 'sai wu ngau yiuk suei gaau'). For which the internet turns up diddly-zip. So they might not actually exist. Still. Innovation. Good.

One must get out of the house and walk around a bit, lest one turn into a vegetable. Minor exercise is good for the guts, the circulation, and the mind. It gets the juices flowing and the synapses sparking. As well as alerting one to the weather and why certain alleyways in the Financial District need to be cleaned with high-powered water hoses.

The meal was enjoyable. Tender dumplings. Very few Chinese people. Odd.

I was reminded why I seldom go there. The milk tea was just okay, and a generous pour, but I have had much better. No silk stocking was involved. 唔係真正嘅港式奶茶。

Still, in the old days they didn't even have milk tea.
Or the same selection of dumplings.

Their menu is more interesting now.

The paradigm is constantly evolving.

Sadly, real Hong Kong Milk Tea is slowly losing the battle against that Taiwanese nightmare beverage with the fake flavours and indigestible humengous gummy balls. Probably because boobaliscious twitty-poos spend their money differently than old geezers, and are hipper to boot. The geezers mostly feel that milk tea of any kind is too new-fangled, and would be caught dead in any place with a young clientele.


This younger generation, bla bla bla, back in my day, kids, get off my lawn, and with an onion tied to my belt, as was the style at the time. A big yellow one.
Can't get white ones because of the war.



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LIGHT ON THE HILL

For years I have been ambivalent about breakfast. I've been told that it's the most important meal of the day, and I scoff at that statement. All one needs is strong coffee and a smoke. That, my friends, is the perfect preparation for doomscrolling, witnessing pet dogs defecating, and street people waking up. As well as householders rushing off to their dreary desk jobs at Amalgamated AI Incorporated for another day of senseless toil over images of the president stomping on the poor and downtrodden in his palatial ballroom.

There are reports that some psychopaths prefer the cheapest brands of pre-ground coffee, drunk black, with either a burley blend or a shitty codger aromatic from the fifties in their pipe. Others, excessively refined and probably yuppie snobs, contemplate life with beans flown in from Borneo and a load of rare McClelland's Frog in their exquisite Danish Artisan briar masterpiece while listening to Vivaldi and watching soothing yoga videos.


Balancing out both of those types, somewhere in this city an elfin woman in her thirties is energetically tucking in to a plate of red stewed fatty pork and rice, dollops of blistering chili paste, washed down with two cups of super strong Graffeo or Trieste, and mopped up with a croissant from La Boulangerie De SF, Tartine, or Arsico's. While looking forward to the latest test results from our wastewater which shows which diseases are currently trending. She has named her microscope 'Ishmael' because it sees monsters in the water. Dual lenses, 200x, plugs into computer. Suitable for both home hobbyist AND lab work.

Just goes to show that the breakfast paradigm needs rethinking. That bowl of pressed sawdust flakes or the plate of farmhouse fried crap just doesn't cut it anymore.
Concoctions of berries, yogurt, and cottage cheese do not hit the spot.
Also can: fresh clam soup with garlic and bean thread.


The red stew pork could be prepared the previous day and put in the ice box overnight, as it benefits from reheating. The clam soup would be at ten or eleven at the earliest, or you would need to keep them chilled before hitting the pan. And living near the coast is, of course, essential.

Apropos of nothing at all, why are there no breakfast restaurants attached to seafood markets on Stockton Street? This is a grievous oversight! Shocking!



Today's first pipe was Carolina Red by Cornell & Diehl in an old Comoy, enjoyed after a strong cup of coffee. Early morning is lovely at the top of Nob Hill. Very few dogwalkers, almost no joggers, and not a single street person. I felt like heading down a few blocks to Chinatown, but then I remembered that I'm not particularly social this early and there is, sadly, absolutely no decent coffee before North Beach.

Walk back instead. Make more coffee.
Time to read about ballrooms.



NOTE: If they don't clean up the alley where Russell lives sometime soon, the rat population will explode. It's disgusting. Those mahjong-playing old disreputables with their greasy fastfood containers should be firmly spoken to. They're lowering the tone.
Which was already damned close to rock-bottom anyway.



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THE FREAK

As I usually do I went into Chinatown to have lunch at the restaurant to which I often go on Wednesdays, and do my grocery shopping. But I stayed away from the customary place for tea afterwards, because I'm kind of pissed at the old gentlemen who congregate there.
Don't need the aggro. I may not look it, but I am a sensitive man.

Instead, tea time at a different place, then hurried off the busstop to avoid the rush hour jam packs. No throngs of white yuppies, no elderly Chinese American men.
Both of those types irritate me.

一杯奶茶同一個芝士肉鬆蛋黃包。

At the place where I had a pastry the milk tea has improved immensely. Well worth drinking.
I think I will be going there more often henceforth. Probably going to avoid the other place at tea time for several weeks. I like the women who work there, but not all the regulars.
The atmosphere has become un-gemütlich.

If anything, chalk it up to a rut.

Still like a hot cuppa and a snackie in the afternoon.
But please just leave me the heck alone.
I am not a tamed wild animal.

See, if I can have a fine old time eating lunch by myself then obviously tea-time alone will be no problem. Kindly go ahead and enjoy your own company. You can do it, I'm sure.


And here's the thing: I don't have to be courteous if I avoid you folks.
It's easier for you too, don't you think?



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CHOADVILLE

By almost any standards large parts of this country are third world hell holes -- Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, et autres -- and other parts resemble Mussolini's Italy. And they're proud of it. Plus it's unsafe to travel through, and the "forces of law and order" there are either narrow-minded bigots or outright bastards. A road trip is out of the question.

So the World Cup will be interesting.
Anthropologically.


Also, FIFA is planning a grand ceremony in which they will award our president with the prize for most peaceloving beloved leader for ending the war in the Middle East. People will sing, there will be Civil War re-enactments in which the Confederate States finally win this time, and some dreary has-been like Kid Rock will perform a cheesy rendition of God Bless America.

I'm also predicting that a blonde White House spokesdebbie will make a speech about 'why can't we all be friends damned crazy democrats after all we are all Americans just obey the president', to mass cheering from the carefully selected audience. Any arrests will be swept under the rug and ignored unless you want your press passes revoked. Well do you?

The major broadcasters will declare it a grand success.
Auto-erotic back-patting all around.

See, it's only because of America and our great traditions that the World Cup can be done at all, the world should be grateful, we are the greatest, and it was bigger and better and more spectacular than any other sports competition ever, and totally splendid. Historic and epic.
A monumental achievement. A celebration of the glorious genius that is this country.
The Founding Fathers could be proud. Our faith in Jesus.

And now that it's finally over and we've made millions, all of you can go home.
Go on, push off. Clear out.



We really want you to like us.
You should.



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THE HOO HA FILES

It's interesting listening with half an ear to what she watches on her computer, especially now that she has stopped looking at skin ailment videos. At one point she went to the kitchen to prepare herself a snack, and I became aware of an infomercial that may have been why she got up. Something about a medication or wondrous nostrum which if you stick it in your hoo ha is absorbed more effectively, and much better for you. It went on and on. Good lord, why won't they shut up about the hoo ha? Nearly ten minutes of hoo ha waffle! I didn't understand even half of it, because the sound was on too soft. But I can guarantee you that nothing on my playlist is ever interrupted for a disquisition on the hoo ha.
See, I am not the female audience.
Wrong demographic.

To the best of my knowledge, most men do not have a hoo ha.
Which may be why some men keep talking about it.
Others are startled and throw stones.


But enough about that. While I was smoking my pipe before meeting up with the bookseller for drinkies, a gentleman approached having a loud screaming match with invisible people. This was after the old codger trying to sweep the street with a dried-up discarded mop before nesting down in the entryway to a local bank. A clean bedroom is a happy bedroom, and it was, in his own way, an expression of civic responsibility.

Several German tourist families, a few familiar locals, and what was probably a marketing or sales department, passed by. Also some stoners and druggies from North Beach.

Lunch a few hours earlier had been rice stick noodles with salted black beans, garlic, ginger, bellpepper and celery, and sliced beef (豉椒牛河 'si jiu ngau ho'). Staggeringly delicious. With chilipaste. Washed down with milk tea and regular tea. I should have chau min and chau ho fan more often. Great cold weather food.

So you see we're back to the usual Tuesday schedule and don't need to stand in for New Teeth Boy. He's back. And threatening to bite people with his sparkling chompers.

Maybe screaming dude would be happier if he also had new teeth.
In any case they would put him under to install them.
With restraints possibly too.

One can but think.



By the way, entirely unconnected to any thing above, I was reading through the family tree this morning, and confirmed that indeed I do have a direct ancestor (five generations ago) named Ichabod. Born ten years before the revolution. I'm not sure how I feel about that.



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BAD CITY, NO PIZZA FOR YOU!

Some weird dreams involving a doctorate. Normally I don't even think about my failed attempt at academia, seeing as what I remember most fondly from that period of my life are cigars and pizza, which are not, strictly speaking serious subjects on which people write their theses. Perhaps a degree in history. "What would have been the effect on the Netherlandish struggle for freedom agains Philip of Spain IF pizza had been widely available at that time". A completely speculative analysis. Three possible results: Leiden and Leuven would have been much more Berkeleyite, pineapple would have become popular in Northern Europe ages ago, and cigars would have been handed round at children's birthday parties.

Not very good cigars. Italian preference. Firecured Kentucky.
Very popular among certain old geezers.
Rope-like cheroots.


The first time I had pizza while living in the Netherlands I found it interesting and tasty, but in retrospect it wasn't very good, and if that had been a true representation of the dish it would have not become something of which I was fond, not even close, and American college boy insanity regarding it should have been quite as baffling as their berserk fascination for football. Fortunately, Berkeley is not far from good pie.

Pizza is widely available and quite good in the urban part of the Bay Area. What is called "California Pizza", not so much. You have to go to suburban shopping malls for that, and rub shoulders with pudgy fembots. I've had it only once. During a company event. It was not repeated. We had many company events that involved pizza. Except for that time, the Marketing Department folks were shut out of the decision making process.

Someone should seriously do a study on the frequency of pizza deliveries to old folks homes. Front door deliveries lead to happier staff, back door deliveries quietly in the middle of the night to more lively, longer living, and more mentally alert residents.

The computer-paint illustration above had, sadly, very little connection to pizza.

I finished it late at night after needing to pee, and because I had already brushed my teeth and was wearing jammies I did not head out for a late snack. So I did it to get my mind off of pizza. A slice of which would have necessitated a taxi ride. I wasn't up to that.
And past three o'clock good pizza is rare.

Which is very regrettable.



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HAPPY AND POSITIVE!

All over the public school boy environment people with good diction and plummy accents are in despair that Gentlemen's Relish is no longer being made. And they are experimenting with concocting tasty replacements at home. Which, as you would expect, feature butter, tinned salty anchovies, plus pinches of mace, allspice, powdered ginger, cinnamon and maybe clove. Minute quantities of spices only, because they're British. And usually no garlic.
All gently cooked to darken a bit, then stuffed into ramekins and refigerated.

Perfect for smearing on toast at teatime.


What with being substantially Dutch, and despairing over American Anglo tastes, the concept somewhat excites me. Years ago at the computer company we would sometimes go out for a departmental lunch at restaurants like the Olive Garden, where the Anglo love for bland muck found a bountiful expression. Even "Italian food" got sucked into its orbit. Good lord, haven't you folks ever heard of flavour? Waiter, bring me some anchovies! And I hope you don't mind, but I brought some Jalapeños, I have a dozen in a bag in my coat pocket.

Or mirasol chilies. A friend grew them to survive the blandness out in the suburbs, surrounded by pale churchgoing people.

This grew eventually into a sambal for chain restaurant kibble.

Not quite "bush paste", which you take upriver in Borneo when visiting hill countr tribes who are far from spices, trade ports, variety, and cook freshly killed lizards with leaves into soup, serving it with broken rice and fermented what-the-living-blazes-is-that for flavour, or when you're going to England and know that you'll be so far from actual food that the appetite quails. But close.

[Bush paste: dried Habaneros or birdseye chilies ground to powder, mixed with equal volumes of salt, oil, and vinegar to an oily goo. Keeps for weeks unrefrigerated, and the British natives won't notice when you slip a little onto your plate.]

It's been years since I always had a bottle of a homemade hotsauce in my coat pocket when stuck in the suburbs. For one thing, I seldom eat with the white-bread-people nowadays. For another, both at work and at the places where I dine when off, there are bottles of Sriracha. One should probably not develop a taste for anything much hotter than that.
Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets are not common in the interior.



Currently smoking the pipe I had filled on Saturday with 4th. Gen. Black Dot.

Apartment mate has left for work. Sunlight streaming in.
Fresh cup of coffee on a stack of books nearby.
It is quiet in the building.
Peace.



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