THE HEART OF THE BEATING CITY

If I don't watch myself I will spend the entire morning wasting time by cleaning up the rim of this Sutliff briar pipe (an elegant billiard that has seen much abuse), just frittering away the hours with sandpaper and microfibre pads. Which, as you understand, is inimical to actually getting things done. This is one reason why when I start collecting my Social Security old-geezer payments every month I shall not actually retire, just work one day less. One must stay active. Lest one become a cabbage, as so many of the fellows I babysit over in Marin have done. Mental garbage dumps unable to accept change, incapable of dealing with the modern world.

Beware the lurking of changes. They are out there.
I am not fond of change. Don't much mind either.

This essay was penned on a device which could not have existed decades earlier, when we still did all of our computations on our thumbs and communicated by throwing rocks at each other. Carrier pigeons had not been invented yet.


Without change, many of us would be dead. More than there already are.
In about three weeks I'm having an MRI scan.
Medical routine.

That Sutliff was made back in the forties or fifties at the latest. Unlike a few of my other Sutliff pipes I cannot discern any flaws, fills, or defects. The previous owner just didn't respect his smoking equipment very much, and like many men in that era treated his pipes worse than his shoes or family members. Your great grandfather is still paying off an enormous debt for years of psychological counseling necessitated by that kinder gentler age. They're the people who elected Ronald Reagan, which is one reason why you cannot afford to buy a house now. Defective individuals.


Their descendants are currently doing the fentanyl inverted 'U' pose over on Van Ness at the far ends of the bus stop platform where they won't be disturbed (or tipped over) in their comatose state. Equally flawed, but with a different approach to "dealing with it".

There were three of them there this morning. Unlike the tweaking speed freaks of a previous generation they're quiet and don't bother anyone. If the drug stupour is good, they'll be there for nearly an hour, occasionally swaying a bit, mostly motionless. Sometimes one of them does not wake up and has to be carted off. Change is good.


Old briar. New man.



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