MIDDLE CLASS DUMB DOWN

Climate-change deniers, anti-vaxers, and opponents of genetically modified food-crops, are, on the whole, pretty much the same kind of people as conspiracy theorists, new-agers, fundamentalist Christians, and Republican presidential candidates. Full of strident opinions, but no real facts or hard knowledge. And in all honesty, we should refuse to give these screaming nutballs any more attention than they already get.
Like Fox news, they are best left ignored.
They still won't go away, dammit.
But their egos will starve.


I was left with this thought when someone asked about the purest type of tobacco, with the least amount of chemicals, something that the Indians would have smoked. Something wholesome.

They were planning a "spiritual" retreat.
And needed something "mystical".
Just like the Indians!

Apparently the Indians were gentle and centered, and in communication with nature and the earth. They never polluted their bodies and lived long clean lives of creative fulfillment. Or some such nonsense.


NICOTIANA TABACUM

Sweetheart, it's tobacco. Inhaling smoke into your lungs just ain't gonna be good for you no matter what. And you should be damned glad that nowadays we have tobacco that is grown under conditions that do not leave that field a drained wasteland for a generation after two or three crops, because we've gone about as far west as we can go, the Pacific Ocean is less than five miles away. In three hundred years we've taken over an entire continent because of tobacco and cotton. If we didn't use fertilizer, please imagine what would be left. And yes, chemicals are used. Organic tobacco is unsmokeable crap. Trust me, I've tried it. Damned near mahorked my guts out. You should be so glad that nowadays we have several selectively bred (in other words, genetically modified) strains of White Burley (which is a mutation that yields a far better milder leaf than Red Burley), Golden Seed (commonly called Virginia, a specialized strain and flue-cured to preserve the colour and natural sweetness), Maryland (again, selective breeding of a mutation), and even Turkish (quite the furthest departure from the original stock, with almost no resemblance to its ancestral strain).
All of these are ideally grown on fertilised fields.
Then cured to emphasize a flavour profile.
Treated to prevent infestation.
And 'doctored'.

In any case, the Indians would have smoked Nicotiana Rustica. Which is rough, nasty, and altogether horrifyingly high in nicotine, as well as a natural pesticide. Harvested, shredded, and dried. Still "raw".

If you smoked that, you'd be pure, but probably puking.

Common effects include nausea and vomiting.

A thorough cleansing, truth be told.

Totally gluten-free.


The Indians mixed it with a whole bunch of other crap, and used it shamanisticly and ritually, shared among several participants.

You are not an Indian.

For heavens sake take that broomstick out.
It has made you all rigid and tense.
That ain't good, Pale Face.

Try pot instead.


I own a Chinese water pipe that was meant specifically for Nicotiana Rustica. One or two puffs are sufficient, after which one abstains until another hit is desired. It is, no more no less, a delivery system.

This image comes courtesy of the Sam Waller Museum, in The Pass, Manitoba, Canada.
www.samwallermuseum.ca/feature/?id=35
Chinese Cloisonné Water Pipe: missing tools (tongs to hold an ember on the tobacco, a prong to clean the bowl), with a storage compartment separate from the water container, all fitted into a decorated sheeth or holder. The main material is paktong (白銅), also called nickel silver, white brass, or cupronickel; an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc.


If you are using a reasonably strong-tasting tobacco (Samson dark Dutch shag, Van Nelle, or Perique), you will get enough in one puff to keep your taste-buds jangling for a while. It's an experience.
No, I do not recommend it.

Like the famous coffee enema, so much beloved by practitioners of new age medicine, it probably cures migraines, cancer, low sperm count, flux, the ague, dropsy, and several other ailments.

It's pure, sweetheart, pure.

Magic.


You do not want "pure" tobacco. You want good tobacco.
No fruity aromatics added to candify it.
Which isn't "mystical".



By the way, they are properly called 'Native Americans' or 'First Nations', not Indians. Indians are people from the subcontinent, and both Indians and Native Americans get huffy when you misapply terms.
They might get violent too. They've been keeping it in all this time.
And a spiritual person like you makes a perfect target.
Soft, squishy, easily bruised.


Now get that green look off your face. It's interfering with your precious aura or mis-aligning your chakras, and you're frightening the cigar smokers, sweetheart.



So far it's been nothing but dumb-ass Caucasians "re-enacting" peculiar self-serving re-interpretations of native cultures. Haven't figured out why they are desperate for meaningful sh*t, but there you have it.
Often they're Buddhists and Vegan as well.
Many of them do half-ass yoga.
It's a California thing.




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THE LAND OF SPIRITUAL DOLPHINS

This morning my co-worker was cranky and peculiar till he had his breakfast. Which, regrettably, consisted of a breakfast burrito with three kinds of cheese, fried chorizo chunks, beans, rice, and SriRacha.

He loved every artery-clogging bite, and was a calm happy hamster till the middle of the afternoon.

The only part of his breakfast of which I approve is the SriRacha sauce. SriRacha makes eating in Marin both bearable and nutritious.

Marin County is where tofu, veganism, and gluten-free were invented.

As well as auras, chakras, and medicinal pot.

Thank g*d for burritos.


It strikes me that if European tourists really want to experience America to the fullest, they need to eat chocolate-crusted sugar kruncheez to start their day, along with toasted cheese and fried egg muffins, and greasy breakfast burritos. And then, like my co-worker, cap the delightful learning experience with an expensive cigar. It had a lovely sensuous wrapper leaf.
Nothing says good living as well as acid-reflux and a cheroot.
More American than that you cannot get.

There should be a bucolic country spa that offers precisely that.
Somewhere between Mill Valley and Napa.
Adventure lodgings.


My breakfast, if it can be called that, when I am in Marin is a pack of snack cookies, dark hot tea, and a pipe. This follows the bus-ride from civilization across the Golden Gate, and is three hours after my first cup of strong coffee. Also not particularly nutritious, even with SriRacha.
But not totally suicidal either.

Unlike the typical Yanqui grease-bombe breakfast.

I'd actually prefer crackers and cheese.

Seven-Eleven doesn't sell that.


On days off I do not need solids in my stomach to enjoy that first pipe.
I actually don't eat anything till early afternoon, or quite a bit later.
Two cups of strong coffee, a pipe, the internet, and at least one screen tab open to Wikipedia at all times.
Often, on such days, I am a wee bit wacked by the time I roll into a lunch place.

It's still better than Marin, though. People there club you over the head with imaginary coeliac disease, an overweening sense of entitlement, and fantasy re-interpretations of reality that include re-incarnation, spirit guides, and extra-terrestrial communication.

Then tell you how happy you will be once you stop eating gluten.

You have to liberate your inner-pizza.

Hug the tree within.


Fortunately there are enough Mexicans doing all the things Marinites can't do for themselves to keep real food from being banished entirely, but a breakfast burrito is NOT authentic, except for truck drivers.

[There is also a nice woman who occasionally indulges in a pipeful of tobacco, whom I saw today for what must be the second time. She'll be trying some bullseye and flake, and I am keen to hear her feedback. That by itself indicates that Marin is not totally irredeemable.]


For dinner this evening I decompressed from three days over in Marin with sautéed 雞肶菇 ('gai bei gu'; "chicken thigh mushrooms", pleurotus eryngii), some bittermelon, garlic and soy sauce stewed chicken legs, and wheat-flour noodles. Plus SriRacha.

Real food.




I actually rather like Marin. It's like a strange foreign culture where nothing is real, whose inhabitants worship peculiar deities and strenuously experiment with new forms of navel-gazing.





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MEN'S SHORTS

If you like the sight of bony knees and hairy calves, this the season for you. Because it is summer, and men with scant sense or taste all over the Bay Area are wearing shorts.
As a San Franciscan with plenty of taste and common sense, I am of course horrified -- dang some of my brethren are ugly gits! -- as well as garbed in long pants.

[For the past two days, very mature men with ghastly gams wearing flamboyant shorts have been a dime a dozen. Pink shorts. Stripey shorts. Cargo shorts. Tight cut-offs. Baggy campaign shorts. Sailor Jerry shorts. My eyes hurt, and every time I come back from Marin County my stomach aches. Bony knees. Paunches. Liver spots and flab. Wattles. 
Gentlemen, stop airing yourself. Dress like you mean it. Feh.]

Truth be told, I do not have the right physique for shorts.
No, even if I did, I wouldn't ever wear them.
And my legs are quite nice.
Thank you.

The last time I wore shorts was down in Menlo Park, over a decade ago, when the Glynn sisters and two brilliant Filipina Americans talked me into participating in the inter-departmental volleyball game.
They then sat on the side lines making humorous rude comments.
Something about British tourists at the Costa Del Sol.

Dark socks were part of that image.

I am not proud of that.


When I say I don't have the right physique, what I mean is that there is no way in heck anyone could confuse me with an athlete.
I wear slacks well. Not shorts.

The only people who should wear shorts are athletes, children, and attractive young ladies.  Athletes look perfectly fine in shorts, and attractive young ladies also look fine. Mighty fine.
Exceptionally fine.

Same goes for summer dresses.
Athletes, children, and attractive young ladies.

On anybody else, shorts and summer dresses look ridiculous.

I do not ever, in this life time, wish to see any of the cigar smoking old farts who infest Marin wearing a summer dress. Even if they do stuff the front with convincing falsies. Actually, I can think of nothing more likely to upset the masses and cause unrest.

But let us limit our conversation to shorts.

No matter how acceptable the shape and dimension of each of my legs, or even the surface texture of said appendages, I have this perfectly reasonable paranoid suspicion that my friends would utter all kinds of nasty albeit funny comments if they saw me in shorts.

As would I with them in the same circumstance.

Dang you look like a fratboy!

Are you drunk?

[Unfortunately I do not know any young ladies who wear shorts. Which is a pity. I have always thought that college girls looked their sunniest and brightest best when jauntily dressed.]

In fact, the only plump thighs I wish to see underneath shorts had better be adult female. Adult males with plump thighs -- such as many of my friends who smoke cigars -- are quite displeasing aesthetically.

[By the way, ladies, your thighs are NOT humongous, but curvy. And consequently your knees look correctly proportioned. I know some of you have this weird hang-up about your weight and the thickness of your legs, and want to have scrawny gams like some of the anorexic stick-insects walking around the city. But their knees seem enormously knobby because they have no flesh, and they look painful to know, and likely to break. Trust me, you look fine. Just ask any man. And please feel free to ignore your various women friends regarding this matter. Can I offer you some more pizza?]


No matter the weather, one should attempt to look socially acceptable, dignified, and not ridiculous. In other words, not like a druggie or a fratboy, nor like a trollop or crazy cat lady. How you dress affects how you will be treated by strangers, and how comfortable or not your friends and family are in your company in public places.
Yeah, it's your right to dress like an idiot.
We'd rather not be seen with you.
So please don't.

[If, for instance, you wished to swan around wearing boxer shorts or hot pants, that is perfectly fine, in private. If you are a young lady of anywhere between twenty and forty who decides to try boxer shorts, very few people would mind being seen with you, provided there was no one else around. Go for it.
Heck, I wouldn't mind your company either, you would probably look fine.
And if you are a man so garbed, somewhere some young lady probably wouldn't mind seeing you thus.
I wouldn't know, as to the best of my knowledge I am the only person who wears boxer shorts, and I never wear them on the outside. Again, it's a question of taste and common sense.]


One of the reasons I do not like hot weather is the smorgasbord of visual ghastly parading around in public.
Too many people flashing wads of ugly. Large Midwesterners, milky white Scandinavians, and flaccid suburbanites of either gender.
Wrinkles, flab, freckles, wobbly bits, and sponge.
And cleavage you can drop coins into.
Men, women, and others.


On the other hand, all those young ladies who were wearing yoga pants previously are now wearing shorts, and that is an improvement.

Men in shorts look bleeding ridiculous.

For crapssake, wear a kilt.



I'm actually rather jealous of women who can wear summer dresses well. It always looks so fresh and festive. Like one should offer them tea or something.




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CIGAR HUFFING PICKLE HEADS

It seems to be becoming a tradition that during the last hour or two on Tuesday, denizens of the lounge start talking politics. And, given that they are frightful reactionaries, this means that they spew vitriol at the Democratic candidates while lauding any one OR all sixteen of the braindead farts in the Republican line-up. I've even heard hopeful stuff about Sarah Palin, who hasn't had significant contact with planet earth since her umbilical cord fell off and she drifted into space.

OH PLEASE BRING BACK THE ALASKAN BUTTERFLY!

You know we need the entertainment. That dinglewad has stature!
She was once seriously considered. And she's way more amusing with biblical nonsense than any of the inbred jeds from Duck Dynasty.


It's guaranteed that most of them will vote for a fascist.

That's their natural tendency, and it explains a lot.

Such as why women seldom stay very long.

And little children loathe them.

It ain't their cigars.



Equally part of the developing tradition is my finally turning up some boffo music to drown then out. Last week they got twenty minutes of the Internationale in German. Today I started off with the Russian version of that song, then switched to "God Protect The Czar", followed by the marches of two imperial military units.

Good solid stuff.


MARCH OF THE PREOBRAZHENSKY LIFE GUARDS

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwMCj9XO8L8]


MARCH OF THE SEMENOVSKY LIFE GUARDS

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG-TFYEWsik]

They really don't like it when I play "that furrin kommaniz sh*t". I don't bother to explain what the tune is, they just know it's evil. One of them visibly has problems with his neck at that time. His cords go all tense.
Perhaps he's worried that they're coming to get him.
Or steal his manly juices.

There are so few rational or intelligent Republicans left. Altogether a very great pity. The G.O.P. attracts nothing but vermin these days.

I think next week I'll try them on the Imperial March from Star Wars.


THE DARK LORD APPROACHES

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRRtOJqB8PU.]


They probably won't get it.
Too darn dense.
Marinites.


It's the total shitniz.



Pipe smokers are more rational, in case you were wondering. Most of us will vote for the Democrat. Primarily because we distrust anyone on the other side who is bucking for the job.



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HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

This afternoon, in an ultimately futile gentle remonstrantic reaction to the rightwing pickleheads smoking cigars in the lounge and their blitheringly inane political conversation, I played Die Internationale.

They accused me of putting on the Soviet National Anthem.

Folks, it's in German. Russians do not sing in German.
Bertold Brecht, Kurt Weil, and Lotte Lenya sing in German.
Are you all a bunch of steamingly ignorant Fox Nation savages?

Oh wait. Yes you are.
You are Marinites.
And well-to-do.

Righty-o.


DIE INTERNATIONALE

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKr4HSPHT8.]

Kindly learn those words, Capitalist scum. After the next election they may save your miserable lives.


Now, what I actually should have played, seeing as today is Bastille Day, when we celebrate the overthrow of a cruel despotism and the liberation of the downtrodden masses, plus the beginning of Western Democracy, was either the Marseillaise, OR the Chant Du Depart.

LA MARSEILLAISE

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1q9Ntcr5g.]


LE CHANT DU DEPART

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFF9gnlY3c.]


Liberté, égalité, fraternité, bitches, liberté, égalité, fraternité.


Soon the Jacquerie will be upon you.


We have scythes.




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ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND HAIRY CARNIVORES

Recently two readers remarked that the Hello Kitty essay written on Tuesday was disturbing, and seemed far too much like a dating site profile. The third reader present during discussions didn't say anything, perhaps because he's a habitual user of medical marijuana, and may have had a hard time focusing.

One of them had several times suggested that a Hello Kitty backpack was sufficient reason for parents to keep their children far away from me. He's got a filthy mind, and does not realize that I know far more dogs than children.

I am not enthralled by the repulsive offspring of other people.
Most Americans give birth to spoiled brats.
Odious priggish troglodytes.


Let me quote from Elizabeth Taylor in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams:

"One of those no-neck monsters hit me with some ice cream. Their fat little heads sit on their fat little bodies without a bit of connection... You can't wring their necks if they got no necks to wring. Isn't that right, honey?... Think of it, they've got five monsters and number six comin' up."


Feel free to think of me as either Elizabeth Taylor, or Tennessee Williams.
I gladly identify with those two excellent human beings.
They had everyone else's children pegged.

I like dogs and cats, though.

Anyhow, they opined that there was too much of my own self-regard in the Hello Kitty post, and not enough about the original target of my ire, OR ms. Kitty.

"Please DON'T tell us how you really feel!"

I pointed out that there was no e-mail address or contact data there, so while that sneering article may have seemed to have an element of dating site bait, it was instead meant ironically.

Before I could clarify my statements regarding the gentleman so aptly described as a "pompous bald-headed dog-freak in Marin County who thinks he's so funny", one of the people present launched into a sparkly monologue about a seven-hundred pound hominid whose teethmarks have been discovered in Washington somewhere in the mountains, and there was speculation about a Canadian who may have gotten lost.
Alternatively, a foodie.

While this was going on, the gentleman who said nothing earlier giggled a bit to himself, and stared at the ceiling.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that Elizabeth Taylor was NOT the perfect woman. Yes, brilliant, but almost a stereotype.
All sexy curves and crazy eyes.

The perfect woman has peaceful eyes, and isn't insanely curvy.
Only one Tayloresque similarity: stunning lips.
NOT carnivorous breasts.

[This blogger does indeed like breasts, but there is such a thing as too much cleavage.]

There are also several good reasons to believe that the perfect woman is completely not into Hello Kitty. And in fact distinctly loathes the saccharine feline tramp.
Because, after all, Hello Kitty shmatte or chatchkies totally sabotage the impression one wishes to make of independent-mindedness, good sense and good taste, intelligence, and femininity.
Too damned childish.
Not "cute".

Which is of course why I can get away with it. No one in their right mind would mistake me for a woman. Possibly crazy and a disturber of the peace, yes, as well as a borderline reprobate, a wild animal, or an eccentric old coot. Definitely not Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor didn't have a goatee.

Nor did she smoke a pipe.

I am not cute.


The concept of a wild non-Canadian hominid hiding out in the Cascades up in eastern Washington is rather intriguing. The teethmarks were on deer carcasses -- hence the chance that it was a foodie -- and from the spacing of the incisor tracks the scientist who was cited deduced the seven hundred pound dimension.

I doubt that it's Bigfoot. I'm betting a missing computer programmer or an Information Technology professional who recently moved out of his mother's house.

A no-neck monster, all grown-up.
Huge, but harmless.



Years ago, designer Edith Head said about Elizabeth Taylor:

"Elizabeth Taylor is the most beautiful woman I've ever fit. She is not as easy to dress as Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn, because she is a short woman, only five foot two. She's also extremely curvaceous and has short legs. But, you see, those are the kinds of minor imperfections that make for classic beauty. A woman’s individual beauty is created by little mars in the state of perfect beauty. Elizabeth's fascination lies in those little discrepancies. She has aged gracefully, despite what her detractors have said. She is beautiful when she is plump and she is lovely when she trims down. A faulty figure can be changed by foundations and the proper use of dark and light colors. But no makeup can create a face like Elizabeth's. She is exquisite."


I still can't get over that bosom, though.
Aggressive and threatening.
Dangerous.

An insurmountable problem.

I still think it's Canadian.

A long-dugged troll.

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SET SOMETHING ON FIRE!

The sad thing about the work I do is that it puts me face to face with middle-aged cigar smokers more than any other demographic. No, there is no need to detail the job exactly, suffice to say that it involves a quite considerable amount of psychological counselling, for which I was never trained, as most Marinites of that indelicate age tend to be self-obsessed and convinced of their entitlement.
They jangle as they walk.
Loose screws.

Younger Marinites are often sweetly fresh-faced and innocent.
Though with the seeds of utter batshittery within.
The curse of their time and place.
Pre-programming.


Almost nowhere else in the world are people so utterly and overwhelmingly white of mind.


Marijuana is good, gluten is bad, and preventive medicine is an ideological minefield. Poor little fevered weenies.
Special is the new orange.


Nice young women, as is well-known, seldom indulge in cigars. It is too expensive an indulgence for someone just setting out on her career and contemplating eventual marriage to a masculine Marinite of suitable background and unsurprising tastes.

Personally, I have always been tickled by the fantasy of a young woman of post-college age indulging in a pipe, and developing an educated palate for Latakia blends. Imagine the echo-waft of resinous perfume whenever she is near, the slightest hint of wickedness!

Cigars are not suitable for bright young women; fine briars are.

Pipe-smoking is a restrained and cultivated habit.

Cigars are as easy as crack-cocaine.

No brains required.


Of course, the less said about cigarettes and vape-devices, the better. Those are mere addictions, and there are sleazoid venues all over where those can be found and gangs of wastrels loiter.
A presentable woman will not venture in.


Sinning should be a splendid secret pleasure, never a public vice.

I always feel mighty spiritual when I'm smoking.

Everyone can, it's really not hard.

I have Latakia blends.

And matches.

Heh.



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YOU POO GOOD!

There are too many yoghurt commercials on teevee. This is not because people love yoghurt, but because they enjoy pizza, crunchy bits, fried stuff, and salt. The poor dears are either plugged up, or full of dietary guilt. Eventually it must come out.

I actually like yoghurt; it counteracts the effects of Marin.

How on earth did Marin become the epicentre of entitlement, vanity, self-indulgence, alternative philosophies, and consumerism in Northern California? Is it any surprise that the Emerald Triangle starts there?

Pot, plus potheads, and potty spiritualists.

They really need some yoghurt.


A CLEANSING!

Folks, convert your hot tubs to vessels in which to make yoghurt. What use could be better than that? Especially during a drought. And for crap sakes cut back on pot; growing it is incredibly wasteful, uses tonnes of water, and smoking it turns whatever tiny minds you might have -- not there's any convincing evidence that you folks actually own such things -- into even worse pudding than they already are.
Basically, runny grape jelly.

I've seen you think, and I am not impressed.


By the way, you are NOT allergic to gluten. Or meat.


You are just too obsessed with yourselves. That, too, can be cured by switching from pot to yoghurt. And I fervently urge you to make the switch. No, you will not have uncontrollable seizures, or debilitating migraines.
Your back will not go out. You won't be nauseous.
Life and civilisation itself will not end.

Those are misapprehensions.

Instead, you'll wake up with a new sense of reality, and look around all bright-eyed and filled with wonder at the world around you. The fact that you are no longer the centre of the universe will be a profound release.
You will enjoy new freedom and awareness.

And you will finally poo.

You are full of it.

Yoghurt!




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MARIN IS A SPECIAL PLACE

A number of my friends grew up in Marin County. Remarkably, they are rather normal. Well-adjusted, even. Maybe because many of them fled as soon as they were able.

Marin, in case you didn't know, is ground-zero of the anti-vaccination movement. And spirituality. I feel different after I've been in Marin.

My schedule takes me there several hours every week.

I promote "sacred native plant medicine".

Specifically, tobacco.


YOU ARE USING REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY ON YOU...

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_u0reE6bjI.]

"...and you must use 'reverse-reverse' psychology on them."
"You are SO ready."


I did not know what ayahuasca was until about fifteen minutes ago. Predictably, spiritual Dutchmen were involved in its promotion.

Are you in-touch with the unspeakable beauty within?

If not, move to Marin county now.


Everything from the Golden Gate Bridge north to Petaluma and Rohnert Park is like a superior spiritual version of the Netherlands. Except without the mosquitoes, cheese, and low-lying areas, or the smell of cows and people smoking dark shag tobacco or cigars. Just the pot.
Which is therapeutic.


One of the things I did this weekend was clean out a briar pipe gunked-up with the tarry residues and juices of Dunhill Nightcap (a full Latakia mixture which also contains black Virginia to boost the taste of the dark leaf) mixed with potent high-grade medical cannabis.

Canna - effing - bis!

I'm rather fond of Dunhill Nightcap, have been since I first discovered it in Holland when my local tobacconist ran out of Balkan Sobranie, and it took several weeks before he had located a wholesaler. His first supplier had disappeared since he stocked up on it several years before, you see.
I was the first person in a long time to develop a fondness for Balkan Sobranie. Over a period of two years I bought every tin he had.
Dunhill Nightcap mixture proved an excellent alternative.
It was lovely stuff. Enlightening.

The reek of high-grade medical cannabis makes me gag. Heck, any grade cannabis does that. It is far more offensive than a passel of angry skunks, about akin to stale beer vomit from a Caucasian frat-boy passed-out on Polk Street after "bridge-and-tunnelling" to the city for a weekend of antisocial behaviour.

I never would have thought of cutting tobacco with marijuana.
It seems downright sacrilegious, somehow.
Latakia is a sacred product.
I hate pot.


MARIN!

Some people like to smoke cigars after doing yoga.
Others prefer full Latakia blends.
They are special.

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IT'S A CALIFORNIA THING! RE-CALIBRATE YOUR AURA!

There is, of course, a mental ailment that afflicts people living beyond the cities. The silence late at night, and the shifting shadows at the edge of vision in the darkness, combine to create monsters in their minds. Add over-active imaginations, and insufficient medication, and you end up with anomalous beings roaming the backwoods of America.
Things with horns and tendrils.
And teeth. Sharp teeth.

They aren't American representations of the Black Beast of Ar (of Monty Python fame), or the inbred Cornish Pygmies still rumoured to exist in parts of rural England.

These are the Jersey Devil, the Sheepsquatch, the Enfield Horror, Mothman, Sarah Palin, the Chupa-Cabras (note: singular despite the pluralist termination; 'goatS-sucker'), and the Petaluma Rabitode.


That last mentioned might actually exist. It's described by witnesses as a longish rat-like beast, like a bowling pin heading sideways, the size of a recumbent human, which slithers (or scuttles; accounts vary) into the barns of the poultry capitol to feast upon the chickens within. It either calms the birds by hypnotizing them or by emmitting a scent that dulls their senses.
Apparently business is good; the creature has been spotted as far south as Novato, as far west as Estero Road between Tomales and Bodega.


"IT WAS, LIKE HUUUUGE, YOU KNOW?"


Last week, two locals were bicycling in the hills near the coast when they spotted something. Their accounts are different enough that one may assume that they did not invent and coordinate, but actually saw something.

One of them, Sunkarma (29 years old), described it as covered in sleek fur, except for the plated head and beak-like snout.
The feet looked claw-like.

[NOTE: That probably ties in to Miwok legends about an oyster-eating animal which used its hard bony beak to crack shells. Obviously, battery chickens are softer and easier to hunt.]

The other witness (Persephone-Shawnee), on a different trail, reported a "big blob, kinda greasy gray, with a long pointed head like a possum; it was, like, huge, you know?" She also mentioned that it smelled like rotten eggs, and glared angrily at her before fleeing into the forest. Its paws resembled human hands, but were black, misshapen, and shiny.

"It was, um, kinda radiating sadness, and like, negativity!
Like, it thought I was invasive and gonna harm it?"

A key detail, which strikes me as extremely Northern Californian, was that she was returning from a native American smoke medicine ceremony, which was "very spiritual", and "re-calibrates your aura".
I don't know whether ganja or sage was offered.
Probably both. Along with etcetera.

All of which may have influenced Persephone-Shawnee's perceptions.

Sunkarma, who saw different feet, was collecting forest greens, because "veganism is in tune with mother nature". The lack of protein in her diet may have weakened her little hippie brain.
Marin is filled with refugees from flowerpower.
Unlike Petaluma, which has.....
Chickens.


Now, if you ask me, both ladies were probably stoned out of their minds and batshit crazy. From a variety of causes. The entire Bay Area is filled with male and female hysterics of their type. Heck, we're so holy and "spurtule" that we think tofu and karma didn't exist until we invented them back in the eighties.

I'm looking forward to eventually seeing the beast on Polk Street in my neighborhood. Drunken twenty-somethings are even easier to hunt than chickens.

And probably juicier, too.



By the way, Petaluma is the only municipality in the United States which has laws against congress with chickens. There is a good reason for this.



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CALL THE POUND! MY SPIRIT ANIMAL GOT LOOSE!

According to several people in Marin, the temporary closure of the Golden Gate Bridge this weekend is terrible, because it means that San Francisco is cut-off and isolated. Let that sink in for a moment.

First off, the buses between Marin County and the city are still running. They are permitted through, despite the closure.

Secondly, if only we were isolated.
No Marinites for two days.
Yippee!

In any case, the venereal disease infection rates in San Francisco will briefly plummet.

I should also mention that San Francisco has way more chocolate than Marin County.


Chocolate, as everybody knows, is the sure-fire cure for a major post-evening-meal cookie binge. All of a sudden you no longer compulsively consume all of the Danish butter cookies within sight.
You must have more chocolate.


Meat, gluten, highly refined sugar.
Dinner of champions.

While we are isolated, and the wheat-grass and tofu crowd cannot come to spread civilization, we temporarily enjoy Sobriety and Common-sense.
And eat all the chocolate.

They really ought to close the bridge more often.

A man, and a city, could get used to this.

We are liberated, and at peace.

Quite isolated and alone.

If you say so.


Let us float away before they re-connect us.


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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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