EXCLUSIVE DEFINITION

It being the meeting of the pipe club today, I felt like I was being run ragged. They are nice fellows, but they all want to talk, and they all are desirous of the oddest things. And, being pipesmokers, they are neurotic. Less than a quorum showed up, and the president of the club was missing in traffic. There were no snacks or bottles of liquor. A grievous oversight. They are innocent lads, and do not know how to buy cold cuts and pâté. Or cheese.
It's so complicated. Fortunately I brought lunch (which I did NOT offer to share).
And I was high as a kite on cups of tea.

Plus, preemptively, a painkiller. I had set up the tables and felt my right leg starting to act up.

So tea, an alledgedly Italian sandwich, keffir, and what's left of my work stash of chocolate (soon to be refilled) which they do not know about. The crusty old fart who is turning eighty this year, and is absolutely convinced that there is a nano-chip in the vaccine, used to have a work stash also -- which they didn't know about either -- but he's given up on that.
His self-indulgences aren't what they used to be.

Chocolate, by the way, is cheaper by the two pound container.
But as I hinted, that's privy information.

In any case, they all had a fine time.

The usual rowdy crowd remained in the backroom all day and did not bother us. At the time when we were about ready to lock up I hollered in there that "gentlemen, Trump supporters, and libertarian scum" had to leave. There was only one gentleman in there, but all of them obediently departed. He's also the only one who has a wife. Which surprises me not.

The bus back to civilization was plowing through dense fog well before we got to the bridge. We were enveloped entirely in pale greys when we got to the city. There is currently not so much visibility outside. Buildings two blocks away fade into purple blue above street level.

It should be quite lovely early tomorrow morning when I go for a walk around the block and the first pipe of the day. The silver does not lift till well past eight or nine.



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GREY, GREYNESS, GREYITY

Apparently I am a horrible human being and very un-Christian. Because I did NOT forewarn anyone about the signal peculiarities of Little White Nipple Dude. Who arrived at the same general time as most of the members of the local pipe club, spent nearly four hours there, and found nearly a dozen victims. Bernard thought I had come to save him at one point.
But was disappointed. He had to endure half an hour more of Little White Nipple Dude.

It should be mentioned that Little White Nipple Dude is a truly fascinating man and superior conversationalist. What with being a brain surgeon jet fighter pilot podiatrist astronaut in training nuclear physicist zen monk sherrifs deputy. AND having a rich inner life.

There was no way in hell I would save anyone at all from his delightful discursive stylings, because then I would have to listen to him. More than I already had. Which would be most unfair, there's more than enough of him to go around.
And I had things to do.

Calvin, the other person of peripherally Netherlandish heritage, agreed with Bernard. At the very least I should have rescued my fellow ethnics, if no one else. Sorry, you're both older than me, and very social. You should know better by now. Oh look, a pink-elephant!
And make your escape.

Or do what I do. Seize control of the conversation, dominate it, change the subject several times, and leave his little head spinning. Exercise conversational strategies which you've always wanted to try. Whenever possible mention that you're a vegan.
Hop up and down on one leg for a bit.
Confuse him.


Worst comes to worst, declaim all the lyrics to Charlotte The Harlot or The Winnipeg Whore as if it's Shakespearian poetry. I tried that once at a company meeting, and was excused.

When I got back home after the meeting of the pipe club it was turning cold and grey in San Francisco, with fog hiding large buildings at the top of the hills. So the first thing I did was fix myself a cup of coffee and put on a warmer garment. In the left pocket of this comfy piece of clothing there is a soft small sock, infant foot size, which I had found deposited in front of the apartment building last night. I may not be any good at saving my fellow pipe smokers, being all heartless and giggling at their predicament, but I can save a lonesome and abandoned sock. Somewhere a baby delinquent is wantonly waggling his or her toes at strangers.


I think it was a good meeting, but I didn't really notice. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if the worlds greatest conversationalist was sneaking up on me. But I probably would have heard him.



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PASTY AND FREEZING

Several years ago I strongly suggested to the pipe club that on Bay To Breakers (a yearly running event across the breadth of the city) they should contribute to the zaniness (nudity, funny costumes, beer) by participating as a team. The Naked Puffs. Running. Naked. With pipes. Surprisingly, there was pushback. One member opined that, as I was the person who suggested it, I should lead and they would follow.

I demured, explaining that I was always scheduled to work on Sundays, kindly think of my as the vicar of this parish, but I would be there in spirit encouraging them. Trot trot.
If I am not here at my usual post, it would quite upset the applecart.
And cause a revolution, what is the world coming to?
It's quite unthinkable, tell you what.

Besides, I look ugly running naked in the fog, and would scare the little children. You lot, on the other hand ...
I have been told that I am a veritable Adonis, and must run. It won't be the same without me.

Bay To Breakers was today. So was the meeting of the pipe club. The full quorum did not show up, so some of them must have been running. Jolly good, and bravo. Kudos.
Show the world what it's like to be a naked pipesmoker!
The children deserve to know!

I attended the meeting. I did not run. But I chided them for their laziness.
Did I already mention the applecart? I have an excuse. They don't.

You are all letting the side down. We expect better.


Also, a chap from Kansas City was visiting, new pipe smoker. Talked him through the history of pipes since Adam, answered several questions about briar, burl growth, famous brands, and stuff like that. So I don't really know what the lads all discussed, though Bernard, as an Afrikaner, authoritatively talked smack about the President's nonsense about South Africa and those claims of a genocide. This was before Kansas City came in, and while I was stuffing my face with excellent pâté and charcootered items.

Now that I think about it, none of us are young enough to get up and get naked at five o'clock in the morning. Cold winds, darkness, fog, and just generally nasty at that hour.
They should reschedule the race entirely so us old codgers can join.
Everyone's looking forward to that. Trust me.



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FEVERED PIPE DREAMS

During the day I filled two bowls with a well-made tobacco that epitomizes rank perversion. Which I smoked. And thoroughly enjoyed. At one point Hecky demanded that I get the hell away from him with that nasty stuff. The refined urinal cake odour was, he opined, vile and nasty. Utterly repugnant, and I was a big meanie.

Well, I also convinced two of the members of the pipe club, which met today, to try the stuff.
So there was a constant almost subconscious hint of it at the edge of perception.
Hecky may have felt under siege.

Yeah, there is now a faint ghosting in both pipes. It will probably take half a dozen smokes each to remove that. It's worth the sacrifice, and I fondly remember the time when there was a faint whorehouse funk to one of my bowls (lasted for three more smokes), as well as the evening when Curtis was convinced that some criminal was huffing a fruity aromatic in his nice clean virginal cocktail lounge the horror the horror.

Also, I know that the gentler sex rather like the smell. Which is odd.
It's a product that seems to make strange things happen.
Almost a supernatural bane or curse.
Bad aura tobacco.

Bern reminisced about Spain, West Africa, and that Flamenco dancer. Charles went on and on about eating silkworms. Neil sat in his corner looking miserable and depressed, Christian gibbered about the sacred precinct, and almost as if by magic small bottles of Habanero chili hotsauce appeared on the table. Much fine liver pâté was consumed. Along with cheese. Prostates, cataracts, and thyroids were discussed. Along with surgical management.
Plus floods. Eruptions. Emergency barriers. Magma flows.

Someone confused Murphy with a taxi driver.

The Mallard was smoked too.

On the bus back to the city there were an awful lot of confused foreigners. Apparently you can urinate against the bus, but not on the bus. Irrespective of the vehicle's direction.
That perfumed pipe tobacco must have somehow caused all this.
I shall not mention that belief to Hecky.
Because he would agree.


It was a good meeting. Around a dozen members.
Most of them quite sober. Most of the time.



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STIMULATING THOUGHTS ABOUT CHEMISTRY

"So it's agreed then? In June we all make Molotov Cocktails." No one voiced disagreement as they were all far too busy talking over each other and sharing opinions, or pouring wine and swilling Scotch. Sadly, there were no bready substances for the charcuterie, which would have sopped up some of the excess and slowed absorption. And I was probably the most attentive member seeing as I was drinking coffee instead of hitting the booze. The resident Dutchman has to stay alert. It's how we ended up brutally exploiting the world for so long while maintaining a pretence of being liberal humanists and ever so civilized.

Well, that last isn't a pretence. We actually are. We've never been ruled by an orange puke bucket and his coterie of paranoid numskulls. Just remember that.

When I asked one of the gentlemen present what his overseas relatives were thinking about this clownshow, he informed me that they were half shitting themselves over what the president would do, and half pissing themselves laughing.

This blogger is absolutely in favour of well-functioning eliminative processes.
I'm thinking more of incendiary methods and tactics.
Not biological functions.

Most of the boys agreed with my assessment that violent riots were both a reasonable option under certain circumstances as well as a great likelihood by summer. And that all markings of an attempted Fascist take-over are swinging into place, albeit quite clumsily and amateurish because the cabal are stupid people, raging paranoid egomaniacs, and absolutely incapable of all being on the same page or even concerted co-operation with their fellow dingbats.

It's not subtle. But many people are stupid and credulous.
As well as adulant or fellow travelers.


Other matters that we discussed were Willmer pipes, Carolina Red, Fribourg & Treyer, Kapp & Peterson and green wood dye (not colour-fast), stem materials, the addition of Perique. Plus terpeneols, carotenoids, and tannins. That last in connection with iron acetate, and staining wood. Briar, after curing, is very low in tannins, unlike for instance oak.
So very strong bitter black tea as a pre-coat comes to mind.



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THE GATHERING

Remember, I am not a particularly social person. Which may explain why I am still a pipesmoker, and have remained single since my break-up years ago.
Pipesmoking, as you undoubtedly realize, is not a social activity.
Nor endearing to the fairer sex.
I do not endear.

Today was consequently a little trying. I could easily ignore the rancid old Magaites drooling and gibbering in the back room -- all they need, really, is carrion and a teevee -- but when the gentleman from Shanghai and his adult daughter and son came in we ended up talking for over two hours. A pipesmoker, keenly interested in the environment in which we were. He did not know many pipesmokers in Shanghai, it was mostly a private pursuit. He liked Latakia blends, knew about the Scandinavian Tobacco Group's recent purchase of MacBarens/Sutliff (which means that the spectrum be reduced to a mere fraction (four hundred plus distinctly different products down to about a dozen), was reasonably familiar with the outside world despite not speaking English, somewhat acquainted with zhuan shu (篆書 sealscript) as well the full forms of many characters. A very good thing, as my ability in Mandarin is poor and haphazard; his daughter (a very nice person) was a capable translator when necessary.
He was glad to be there, as I was glad he had discovered the place.

I hope I see him again next year when he visits his daughter again. Shortly after the three of them left, the pipe club members started trickling in. We had not seen each other since two weeks before the inaugeration. We all share much the same opinions about the subsequent actions and appointees. At one point I casually reminded Nick, who is in his eighties, of the time a young lady was so taken by his elfin charm (he's in his eighties, but cute looking with sparkling eyes that reflect his puckish personality) that she hopped onto his lap and stuck her tongue in his ear. Startling, and memorable.

Nick smokes aged Virginias and fine flakes, as do I. Neil, who had provided two nice pâtés, tends to sometimes indulge in those, but usually puffs medium to full Latakia mixtures. We agree on some of the limited edition C&D flakes, as well as Palmetto Balkan, which proves overwhelmingly that Jeremy Reeves is an absolute genius.


Bernard, another gentleman, and I discussed African wildlife. He agrees with me that it's a jolly good thing that honey badgers have neither opposable thumbs nor the ability to form complete sentences. If man had to compete with them, we'd lose.


Altogether about a dozen pipe smokers, several tobaccos, at least two bottles of wine, and good cheese in addition to the pâté.


So it was a succesful pipe club meeting. And the members had a good time.
As did I. But I am not a social person, and am a bit frazzled.
And my right foot is painful and twitching.
Tomorrow will be quieter.


Perhaps a few bland sentences about food. After a few days of being twirling mister charm surrounded by Orcs in the salt flats I probably need that. I really must stress that I am not a very social person. Nor like Gandalf in any way. You might mistakenly assume otherwise.
And I am certainly not a blasted Hobbit.



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IT SMIRKS PERKILY!

One thing I've noticed about commercials is the preponderence of women who sound blonde, middle-class with aspirations or pretensions, well-fed, and perky perky perky!
Doesn't matter what the product. Cars. Clothes. Make-up. Eloctrolytes.

Perhaps that is the ideal woman in suburban America.
Judging by media to which I've been exposed.
The background noises of the day.
Perky! And blonde!

None of whom showed up to the meeting of the local pipe club. Which is their loss, as there was good stuff to smoke, as well as some very nice earthy brandy, of which I did not partake for a variety of reasons. There were also some lovely pipes there, old briar well-shaped and properly maintained.

Plus brie, preserved meats of various types, and a delicious bit of pâté.


Snacks, tobacco, good company. As well as discussions of gold prospecting, ore, amber, carbon rubber, terpeneols, carotenoids, natural sugars and oils crystalizing, engineering.
And diverse other subjects.

About a dozen of of us gathered. I know and like all of them, but I did not participate entirely because I had things to do, and did not wish to unduly burden my co-worker.
And I probably smoked too much, mostly Virginia-Perique blends.


Plus by the end of the afternoon the lack of sleep from the previous night combined with perhaps too much caffeine from all the tea I had drunk throughout the day made me less than rational. Or perhaps super-rational. Transcendent. Inspired.

Sometimes I wonder how people put up with me.




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COMPLETELY!

One thing that struck me over the work week (which includes Saturday and Sunday) was that A) there are good sound reasons for not associating with many Republicans, cigar smokers, and Marinites during my days off, and B) if I had listened to the medical opinions of the delusional old bastards in the back room I would be dead now, and going blind.

Let's just say that cayenne-ginger water, manuka honey, apple cider vinegar, special vitamins for eyes, sitting yoga, and avoiding vaccination, are complete and utter horsefeathers.
Same goes for glutenphobia, kombucha, and most, almost all, popular diets.

Most days there are repulsive people on the premises.


I am completely normal.


Okay, I used that phrase ("I am completely normal") in conversation with my apartment mate, who expressed undiplomatic surprise at the intensity of my reaction to the box of cookies falling over, whereupon she said (paraphrased) "the heck you are, you are completely Aspy, no one acts like it's a horrid car crash with fatalities when cookies fall". Which is just wrong. If they don't, they should. Crumbs! Imperfection! And if anyone here is on the spectrum it is her. Whereas I am completely normal.

Today was the meeting of the local pipe club. Who are all normal people. Meanwhile the cigar-huffing rabid old swine in the back room were drooling over tight football buns and spewing loud and venomous disagreement over politics, economics, the medical profession, the media, everybody who disagrees with Trump, modern society, young people these days, climate change, various minorities, and milk bottle white calves visible because the retired member of the judicial branch was present, wearing shorts.

They're basically all on the same page, but instinctively they snarl, snap, and growl. Being foul tempered is their natural state. Which is why their surviving relatives of much younger generations drive them in and push them out of the car with pitchforks and cattle prods.

Because I am completely normal, I do not wear shorts.
I value other people's sensitivities.
And I'm very kind.

The pipe smokers, being creatures of sweetness and light, much like myself, were patiently tolerant of the stinking distemper on the other side of the building. As usual we had cheese, preserved meats, and pâté. Plus sundry bottles. Being an abstemious man I had no liquour, but took satisfaction with the pâté. Of which I had more than anyone else.
Yes, I even toasted with it.

Several members were sadly missing. One of them is currently in Africa, another had sent word that he couldn't attend, and a third may be off in the wilderness shooting or drawing ducks. Two others were simply not there. A pity. Maybe next month.


Did I already mention how normal I am?



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IT'S THE FOG

Rumours of my social sparkle may have been grossly exaggerated. As well as my hail fellow well mettishness and bonhomie. Consider the cat, which ensconces itself in a convenient box so that it rear-end and vital organ areas are safely out of sight, only the head with fangs and the paws with claws are showing. Precisely so. This box is my fortress.

But I will venture forth for pâté, of which there was a tempting sufficiency durin the meeting of the pipe club, most of whom I like rather much. I am fond of pink meat goo.
Pink meat goo is as good a social lubricant as there is.
Look, I'm smiling.


Ten people and two whiskey bottles showed up. Plus several tins of tobacco. One or two of the members look more fragile than they did last month, and I think there was a pick-up truck with Texas plates parked outside. Not that that is germane, he lives locally. There were, sadly, no women. For some reason I cannot fathom we have no women members.

Ladies, if you like fine Virginia Perique mixtures, and pink meat goo, please show yourselves! Come for the meat goo, stay for the fabulous company. Have some flake! Delicious!

It ended with people fading into the fog, which was starting to roll over the coastal hills. It's gotten colder since nightall, by about fifteen to twenty degrees. The road across the bridge was enveloped in white silk which also veiled the view of the city. Some pelicans flapped near the bus, then disappeared into the mists.


Because it's the beginning of the football season, the depraved cigar smoking old gits in the backroom were in high spirits, a perfect rutting frenzy, and loudly insulted each other as they vied for the attention of imaginary females of their species, ruffling their wattles in splendid display. I had earlier told them to behave better than they normally do, no venomous and vehement fighting over politics, go ahead and discuss religion, that's a safe subject and you're all heretics who will burn at the stake anyhow, so nobody will be offended.

They talked politics.


Anyhow, the pipe smokers had a fine time. At the appointed hour I told them that some of them were in danger of turning into pumpkins, and if they stayed much longer I would have to mop up the pumpking guts, please avoid the cheroot crowd on the way out they all have diseases. Unclean, unclean! A few members crossed themselves as they left.

Nick is looking to buy his first Comoy. I suggested that if he didn't want to spring for a Blue Riband, he should look for a London Pride or research some of the Comoy off-brands.
Many of those are also nice. I look forward to seeing what he finds.
He's in his eighties. But still spry and hobbit-like.



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FRUITFUL MEETING

A number of years ago I mentioned that the total absence of a love life of any sort weighed on me. Before that I had had a love life -- which lasted for several very happy years -- and not having anyone to eat dinner with or NOT accompany to the symphony was a bleakness. Friends suggested alleviations and solutions. Most of which if analysed would have meant changes equal to or greater than a sex-change and joining a cult.

Yesterday was the meeting of the local pipe club. Many of the members of which are of my age, roughly, with similar bad habits and tastes. Some of whom are actually in relationships. Two of them are married. No, we did not ask them what their secret was. One of them we couldn't because he and his wife were off somewhere doing something. I'm sure he had told her weeks (even months or years) before of the regularly scheduled meetings, which occur once a month and last for less than three hours. Which we all look forward to, because it is both good and refreshing to share time with people like oneself.
The other married member brought the eaties.

There was alcohol there. A few bottles.
Single malt Scotch. Rare Bourbon.

As you would expect, I drank plenty of tea. Which is the extent of my indulgence in cheering beverages nowadays. Goes with both Virginia blends and Balkan mixtures. Perhaps not so much with aromatics (only one participant) or Burley concoctions (best with bathtub gin and clear distilates from your cousin Bubba presently in the federal penitentiary we're praying for an early release on good behaviour because he leads the weekly Bible class).

On my days off I usually head into Chinatown for a cup of hot Hong Kong Milk Tea and something to eat. It's an escape from the wider world, and therapeutic.
Also stress-free. Quite enjoyable.

People in Chinatown don't object to my smoking a pipe on the public street, because they either have a dear relative who still smokes or they are that relative, and they mind their own business, or they are tourists from parts of the world where people smell very much worse and do perfectly awful things habitually so a whisp of burning leaves doesn't register.

Plus it's well policed there. Unlike the rest of the city.
Or Berkeley and Oakland.


A dozen pipe smokers attended. And a good time was had. I should have offered the designated drivers a cuppa from my stash, I realize now belatedly.

At one point I explained an unusual product to two others, who committed to trying it some time. The Beast, comprised of 51% Perique (an anaerobically fermented tobacco)that has been soaked rum for a week, augmented by red Virginia Cavendish and black, with a smidge of fire-cured leaf. Supposedly a tweaked version of what Aleister Crowly enjoyed. Seeing as he was a certifiable freak who dabbled in black magic and occult practices, and probably liked ripping the wings off baby daemons, it's a peculiarity. Not likely to be anyone's desert island blend, though it is .... amusing. Normally Perique is only used condimentally, no more than ten percent max, best as three to six percent of a blend. I've smoked a few bowls of it. From an opened sample tin, because I'm not going to purchase any.
I enjoyed it, and it didn't ghost my pipe.

Note: a few years ago I smoked a pipeful of something that was twenty percent Perique, not rum-soaked, which though quite pleasant left my mouth feeling both raw and processed. And two talented blenders have assured me that ten percent max is bullpucky. But they're both eccentric, so let us disregard that.

At one point there were three of us standing around yesterday with Dunhill shellbriars in our mouths; two Balkans, one VaPer. Two fat straight billiards, one bent.

Ecumenical. Or Catholic. Depends on your definition.


The smoker of the aromatic mixture is conservative, as you would expect. Ex-army.


The three tea drinkers are all intelligent and liberal.

Air force and the navy were also there.
As well academia and industry.
No women, sadly.


The Beast, by Cornell & Diehl, is the kind of pipe tobacco you smoke when performing an exorcism. It will remind the daemon of losing its wings. And give it night sweats, much like what Nigel Farage has when he remembers being deservedly assaulted with a milk shake.
Fruity Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
You should buy a tin.



AFTERWORD: That there were no women in attendance dismays me. This must change. We're all socially polished and on the whole excellent conversationalists.
And we smell good. Plus there is tea, and whisky.
Also cheese and pâté.

TOBACCO INDEX


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CIGAR SMOKERS AND THEIR DISEASED MINDS

Cigar smokers, as I heard today, all remember the first time they got a ( -- blank -- ). Pipe smokers remember their first tobacco. Not because they are sexless, but because they are cleaner-minded, nearly saints. My very first pipe tobacco was Niemeijer's Scottish Mixture.
A month or so later I bought a tin of Niemeijer's Irish Mixture. Basically the same variegated blend of light and dark ribbon, with for the first heather honey and Scotch whisky notes, for the second, Irish whiskey with a touch of citrus. I cannot remember which of those two my father handed me back disdainfully when it was discovered that at fourteen years old I had become a pipesmoker.


"Good pipe tobacco does not smell like a Turkish bathhouse; smoke good tobacco."


Having crossed that bridge, and been outed by the cat, who had found my stash and played with the pipes, I was became blatant about it. I asked for a serious increase in my allowance because good pipe tobacco is not cheap, and within a fairly short period discovered Latakia blends. Whereupon well meaning elderly degenerates would take me aside in coffee shops and whisper conspiratorily that I'd have a lot more friends if instead I smoked Clan.

Two things must now be mentioned: 1): I did not smoke to attract friends (or aged dingbats). 2): Latakia blends are splendid and delicious, whereas Clan (by Theodorus Niemeijer) is nasty aromatic shite that will wreck your pipes, tastebuds, and morals.

So, speaking of first times, today a respected member of the pipe club brought a bottle of grappa to the meeting. Naturally I did not have any -- one of us has to remain cold sober to drive them all out into the snow at the appointed time -- but I did thoroughly enjoy the pâté. Sometimes there is nothing finer than duck organ meat made smooth and oleaginous. Neil also brought a big bag of shortbread, because he knows I like his shortbread very much. One of the other members is currently reading about Jan Pieterszoon Coen -- an accomplished man, much admired -- and I was happy to remind him of what happened in Banda, about which we shall not speak, but it does rather illustrate how we Dutch engage in trade.


At one point one of the attendees said something berserk, but his marbles were always on shaky ground anyway, and sometimes I think he lost it. We are all getting on in years, and not everyone has my gravitas and equitable personality.

All in all I had a very good time. The others did as well.
Sex was not mentioned because we are clean-minded.

Unlike the cigar smokers in the back room.
Who are a bunch of filthy hooligans.
Icky and quite cretinous.



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AN EXCESS OF EVERYTHING

There was just too much yesterday. Pipe club meeting, with two sales reps, a lot of noise, micromanagement, and liver pâté. Plus a tin of Cornell & Diehl's Steamworks: a nice limited edition pipe tobacco, of which I have more than the other members, because I am a selfish opportunist. Anyhow, it is no longer available, although at some point Jeremy Reeves will compound more of it. Apparently the process requires a lot of steam and heat, hence the name. And, being a wetter tobacco than many other C&D products, mold remains an issue, so if you pop a tin go through it fast, OR let it dry a bit. But it's delightful, and I am distinctly pleased that the other members remained largely unaware of it when it was still available.

Ya gotta move fast. When stock goes up, it might meteorically rise, and it's good to be in on the beginning. If the American forces are withdrawing from Oota Bonga, get one of the first helicopters out, rather than waiting till the last possible moment and fighting for a seat when the People's Fundamentalist Puritan Front is marching in and taking over the parliament. Those times that C&D releases a limited edition? Purchase a test tin immediately.
Smoke a few bowls, and if you like it, buy everything in sight.

Fortunately for me, most of the pipe club are my age, give or take a decade, and letting early senescent mental rot take over, cruising through life barely noticing the pretty butterflies and placidly wondering if they should wash themselves this week. Rather than keenly aware of the wildfire at the edge of the yard or the horde of zombies on the horizon.

See, Jeremy Reeves is a ruddy genius. A rockstar.
A Mick Jagger of tobacco, without the lips.
Just guessing about the lips.
Never met him.

There are, in no particular order except perhaps alphabetically, five star tobacco blenders in post apocalyptic America. Per Georg Jensen, Carl McAllister, Russ Oullette, Greg Pease, and Jeremy Reeves.

[There are also the McNeils of that late and lamented outfit in Kansas City, and their guest-blenders Tad Gage and Fred Hanna. Plus one or two others who have done marvelous stuff. But they are mostly quiescent. And Robert Rex is still with us, but he's been doing top-notch wine for nearly four decades now.]

So in some ways, these are the best of times. America was built by tobacco. It gave schools and burgers to orphans, built hospitals and universities, funded libraries, railways, and roads, and supported the arts and public projects. There are many great smoking blends available nowadays that our grandfathers couldn't even dream of in their caves and hovels while absentmindedly scratching their privates. We should remember that.
Credit where credit is due.

Related thereto, I should mention that there are, broadly speaking, four types of smokers, who represent the totality of American society: hobbit wannabees and disgusting perverts who hotbox Aromatic shite, representing the great trailerparked heartland and the solid concrete fundament of the bourgeoisie; flake and Virginia smokers, being scholars and thoughtful writers like Tolkien, Bertrand Russel, and Simenon; Balkan blend aficionados, William Faulkner, Clark Gable, and that bright young collegeman wearing a tweed sports coat who tutored young ladies in Latin and algebra when you were at Harvard you gay young blade; and lastly crusty and grumpy puffers of old-style American economy blends weighted toward Burleys wearing bib overalls with their tractors out doing the back forty.

At yesterday's meeting of the pipe club, the first and last type were not present. We did not miss them. We do not talk about Gandalf, none of us know where the back forty is.
Perhaps in Kansas.

Tasty snacks, Scotch and Rye, and enough caffeine to launch a battleship.
Naturally I went for the first and last.


Anyhow, I'm a bit pooped today.
And my legs hurt.

TOBACCO INDEX


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STRANGE FACTS AND DISTANT LANDS

Many recipes on the internet have long mundane and downright boring narratives that add naught to your knowledge, interest, or desire to cook the dish in question. This is for various reasons (advertising and copyrights). How about putting in an introduction that excites? "While getting shot at by the Germans, Captain Nigel Penguin of the Royal Navy decided to experiment with lutefisk and turnips". And, like magic, you now desperately want to cook Royal Navy Mine Layer Lutefisk Casserole. Goes great with mango chutney.

Of course, not having any lutefisk, you make substitutions.
Tinned sardines in olive oil.

You change the name slightly, what with having no lutefisk. Royal Harbour Tugboats on Toast. And you add a dusting of cayenne, because it needs symbolic explosions.
Plus 'Gentleman's Relish', in lieu of Mango Chutney. They're similar, right?

British in any case.

Ten years later you run into 'Mordor Toast Crumble' in a charming Hobbit-themed Irish pub in Minnesota. Something seems strangely familiar, you can't quite put your finger on it.

It was invented, you are told, by Tolkien, as a snack while playing videogames. Back in that day they didn't have computers, and the early videogames were all analog instead of digital. It took days, there were long boring periods when castles were being built by hand.
A man needed sustenance!


By the way entirely: J.R.R. Tolkien smoked Capstan and ate Mordor Toast Crumble, William Faulkner smoked Balkan blends and dined on 'Skorpor med Torkedfisk og Peparediki, with a side of grits, and Georges Simenon smoked Dunhill's Royal Yacht when not stuffing himself with Moules-Frites Avec Mayonnaise et Sambales (he was Belgian, you know, and they are 'eccentric'). I bet you didn't know that! It's the overlap between authors and pipesmoking. If you're into hobbits, smoke Capstan. Southern writers and Clark Gable, Balkan Sobranie or Dunhill MM 965. Fine dining, Parisian bistros, and rainy weather, then deceptively strong peculiarities like Pipestud in Texas often enjoys.

All of this serves to bring up that the local pipeclub met again yesterday, and because Neil was absent due to lassitude and bad weather, there was no duck liver pâté.

No stinky cheese either. What IS this world coming to?

Though Neil's sparkling personality was rather sorely missed, Calvin and Bernard were in fine mood, and Joel happily showed me his modifications of two pipes, one of which now looks piss-elegant and very old-school English. Nice. Among the tobaccos enjoyed by the crew were Red Carolina with Perique (C & D) and the No. 8 Slice (L. J. Peretti), as well as various mild to medium British-style pressed flue-cured products and sliced coins.

I probably smoked too much. And I was high as a kite on tea.
So altogether I would say it was a splendid afternoon.
Perfect pipe-smoking weather outside.


We few, we happy few, we band of stinkers.



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WE ARE SENSITIVE MEN

The meeting of the local pipe club was sparsely attended this time. Less than a dozen men. The South African wasn't there, the intellectual of solid dutch Calvinist heritage neither, the elfish man who is famous for the time that a woman less than half his age spontaneously jumped on his lap and stuck her tongue in his ear also not, nor the fellow who needs a mansierre or less thin clothing. The high-domed chap from the middle-of-the-country remained unfortunately absent too.

This, naturally, meant that my access to the duck liver pâté was unhindered.
No fear of a ravenous mob bogarting the snacky stuff.
It was very good.


This was the first time that one of the members drank mead. Despite my encouraging him to get drunk like a viking, he remained very well behaved. Which was extremely disappointing.


Various salume and charcooters, cheeses, and open bottles. Plus tins of tobacco.
So I dare say I wasn't the only one who had a good time.
It was a flavoursome afternoon.

The latest limited edition pipe tobacco from C & D is finally in. Sight unseen and nose quite unsniffed I acquired four tins of it before anyone else, and I'm not through purchasing it yet. The previous version had a profound fragrance of Limburger cheese due to the maturity of the blending components, yielding a divine smoke. Which I'm counting on this time around.
Oddly none of the other gentlemen leaped upon the supply.

Neil smoked Three Nuns in an old Peterson full bent for most of the afternoon, occasionally watching the game that was playing on the teevee in the back room. And probably didn't hear me when I remarked that televised sports always remind me of a few lines of English poetry: "Balls to your partner, Arse against the wall; If you cannot get intercoursed* on Saturday Night, You cannot get intercoursed* at all". I find it inspiring.

[The long version of that sung poem goes on for several hundred verses, which every one in Britain probably knows. It's quite epic. British people take great comfort in the ellucidation of satisfactory resolutions to every day social quandaries.]

The English are a poetic people. Probably makes up for their cuisine being so appalling.


And, in reference thereto, don't forget that Bobby Burns Night is coming up on the twenty-fifth of January. Sheep guts, boiled turnips, peat, firewater, doggerel, and accordions.
No, none of us have any intention of observing it. In any way.
Especially not gustatorily.




I take pains to point out that I like Cornell & Diehl's Anthology very much. The last time it was available I stockpiled over two dozen tins. And I shall probably end up with the same number this time around. This version is a selection of fine contemporary reds.

TOBACCO INDEX


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THE WELL-CONDUCTED MEETING

There was a little tub of duck liver pâté which was absolutely delicious! Thank you, Neil, for a splendid lunch. And I must say that I was surprised at the turn-out, considering that it was so cold, football is a passion among many people including the mostly sane, and it was so near to the holidays that fevered consumerist passions society-wide are at a high-water mark.

As was to be expected, I ate most of the pâté.
Unlike the other fellows I had already been there a for while.
And I had finished smoking my pipe. Whereas they had all just driven in and had filled their briars upon arrival. Yes, I did give them a fair shot at the pâté -- a half hour head start -- but many of them were, for some reason, hesitant about purplish bird goo, so shortly after three when I descended upon the snacks like the rapacious Assyrian conqueror upon a helpless Mesopotomian outlying city state, I had free reign.
Going ape I may have slightly went.

I very much like pâté.

I am a great fan of many versions of deceased duck.
That oily rich flesh and scrumptious liver.
It's a life-style choice.

From my point of view, the gathering of the pipe club was a splendid success. Nick had a lovely Virginia flake from Peretti (Ampersand), of which I sampled a bowlful after the purple goo. Earlier, before lunch, I had sliced up enough G. L. Pease Géométrie for two smokes, and another tobacco I've "sampled" the heck out of in the past several weeks is C & D's smallbatch Steamworks. The tin is nearly empty. Both of these would be excellent replacements for Stonehenge, which has been discontinued.


Joel and Bernard discussed the Boer Wars off to the side, on which due to his own family involvement the latter is an expert. I listened in, bowing to his superior knowledge, while as a fellow Dutchman I naturally take immense pleasure in the valiant resistance of my distant kin to braggadocious imperial over-reach. To be honest, other than their language and tea-time, there is not very much about Great Britain in the age of conquest that appeals to me. And let's face it, cricket is the most boring sport on the planet. The most exciting thing about the game are the cucumber sandwiches in the pavilion while the other side is at bat.

By the way: Blaming the Brits for the messed-up state of so much of the world is ridiculous. They were plenty messed to begin with, since independence they've simply continued where they left off, and it was their complete cock-ups before the Brits took over that gave the English an opening to impose a semblance of order on many of those places.

Although I do agree that internecine warfare and regular massacres are "cultural traditions", and we Western Nations have no business interfering when the howling savages kill each other. As long as we don't start doing it ourselves, because that would be "cultural appropriation", which is bad! So go ahead, fellas, express yourselves.

We need to put an electrified razor-wire fence straight through the Mediterranean, the Dardanelles, and the Straight of Hormuz. Maybe the English had the right idea.

That said, Dublin, London, Glasgow, and Manchester, are all diseased hell-holes filled with soccer hooligans and politically obtuse savages, and there's nothing to be done about that. Sad. Maybe mustard gas. Literacy didn't work.



Final note: I have suggested that, seeing as they resisted the proposal I made a year ago to do a run as a naked pipe-smoking contingent at Bay To Breakers (a zany annual SF event), an "uncostumed" effort, as it were, they all participate in either Saint Paddy's Day OR Santa Con as a team. A pipe smoking intoxicantry! But they may have had too much Bourbon, Scotch, and Port, to hear me. I was the only one drinking tea.
It being the right time of day for that.



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REPRESENTING!

Angry radical Filippina lesbians aren't my cup of tea. There were several thousand of them stomping down Market Street from the Ferry Building to Moscone Center today, if the reports are to be believed, protesting against capitalism, Bong Bong, Biden, Xi, and the patriarchy. As represented by APEC. Which is fine. Other than the folks who wish to see themselves on the news, it's just APEC attendees visiting the city this week (who are all being very well protected from protestors and real people). Run riot, ladies. APEC your hearts out.

And of course, angry radical Filippina lesbians are an important demographic.
Our many fine vegan restaurants depend upon them.
As do makers of snow-proof boots.

Blundstones. Chelsea. Clarks. And Docs.
Lovely functional expressive footwear.

San Francisco is ALL about angry radical Filippina lesbians. They are emblematic of the city.

Along with the angry old git in a wheelchair outside my apartment building this morning having a loud screaming fight with a filthy drooling and mumbling African American with matted locks streetperson who had tried to rob him. Which is why he had come back with a crowbar. They moved down the block loudly shouting, no one else around to witness their altercation, because all the local angry radical Filippina lesbians were elsewhere.
Filthy drooling bums, with or without wheelchairs, are also emblematic.
And something we are famous for.

On work days I leave around eight, so that I can deal with the sweet tempered non-lesbian drooling old farts in Marin for a full shift. It's a mission, a handful, my life's work, and a manly job. There was a ballgame on teevee early, so the backroom collectively shit their diapers several times, totally unaware of the angry radical Filippina lesbians, who might've been on a different channel. Ladies, screaming your hatred of capitalism, Biden, Bong Bong, Xi, and the patriarchy along Market Street during a Forty Niners game may be unproductive. Unless you start breaking plate glass windows, no one pays attention. And they wouldn't allow you anywhere near Moscone Center. So the APEC folk didn't know about it either.

Alas, I myself didn't find out about the Market Street protest march until I returned to the city in the evening, whereas I was extremely aware of the game.


Also, there was a meeting of the pipe club. Which was quite enjoyable. All of the attending members, about a dozen today, were remarkably non-Filippino men, with equitable dispositions, not particularly upset about Bongity, Biden, and the capitalists.
Mostly Balkan blends were smoked. There was cheese.
As well as red wine, and bottles of Port.
I drank tea.



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GIBBERING, LITTLE FELLAH, GIBBERING!

My right leg hurts like billy-o and someone hijacked the chair I use during meetings of pipe club. It raises up so that I can see over the display case, instead of not being visible. So I simply didn't bother attending during my lunch break. Sat where I usually sit when eating, near the cabinet with all the dead things in it. And as far as I'm concerned, today was the worst damned pipe club meeting ever. It turns out I am neither as socially bendable OR socially engaging as I often pretend to be.

Sometimes I sulk. Enjoy a jolly good a snitfit.

My right leg still hurts like topsy.



On the way home I realized that most people are dense. It's the natural human condition. Neurotypical. It explains a lot. The damned bipeds are defective. No wonder the aliens keep avoiding this planet. They'd prefer a race that happily read textbooks about geology while drinking tea and smoking their pipes, enjoying each others company in relative silence all afternoon, over gibbering social maniacs and any conversation at all about the ballgame.

Apparently we won the game. The local team. Stupendous. The course of human history has been firmly changed, huzzah, rejoice. This was the most significant thing all year.
The pandemic is over, you can all go home now.


It happened while I was smoking the pipe above. Which I calmly finished. Without whooping it up or pouring gatorade over anyone. I always worry when the local team is playing that one or two of the old fossils in the back haven't had their requisite dose of kaopectate, and in the excitement will lose control.

You know what they're filled with most of the time anyhow, don't you?



Dinner: Two stroopwafels, a piece of maple fudge.
Plus coffee, and Amlodipine Besylate.




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YOU ARE ALL INFINITELY PRECIOUS!

The other day someone remarked that I complain a lot here on my blog. My apartment mate seems to take it for granted that I am often grumpy (albeit harmless). Someone else recently took umbrage to my hate-filled rant celebrating the death of Pat Robertson. And I realize that I have too many negative thoughts about complete strangers who don't deserve the bad karma or whatever.


You know something? I've become an unpleasant old fart.


I've got to change that. This is not how I planned to be when I was still in highschool and imagined my future as a mad-scientist emperor of the world. Adding to it all the fact that at times I'm a crashing bore, this may explain why my social life isn't quite up to snuff.


Recently I found myself love reacting to a meme in which a woman mentioned that a guy she had the hots for ghosted her after a first date in which she blessed him with a twenty minute lecture on the coelecanth. I can see myself doing that. Her mistake was that she didn't bring diagrams and helpful illustrations. The coelecanth is much more facinating if you don't have to fill in the colours mentally. Undoubtedly he went home and spent the next four hours on the internet reading about pelagic biology.

So, even though someone described the pipe club meetings as a bunch of old men smoking pipes, if you like that sort of thing, in a discussion about a pouch of tobacco with a woman pipesmoker during which yesterday's get-together was mentioned anticipatorily, I enjoyed the afternoon immensely. Felt physically whacked afterwards -- painfully aching feet starting just below the sternum, mental discord and chaos by the time I got home, and strangely lethargic and disconnected mentally -- and I'm still kind of out of it all.


"A buch of old men smoking, if you like that sort of thing!"


Dude, shut up! I'm trying to get her to come tomorrow. You're not helping! The more the merrier, and we need to get our average age down to around thirty. Someone's got to push us out to the only legally allowed municipal smoking area (probably the salt flats or the city dump) when we are in our nineties and in wheelchairs. And it ain't gonna be you.

By the way, what do you know about the coelecanth?

I'm enjoying the pipe picture above at present. The shape and finish remind me of former military pilots bushwhacking around South East Asia from one remote and primitive airfield to another, as well as broken electric fans in corrugated-roof office buildings that stank of insect spray and cigarettes. Trim men. Sometimes skeletal. But always neatly shaven, because a man has to have standards, especially out in the wilds.

There was a bottle of Kaopectate in my kit then, which I had bought a few years before on the advice of a friend in Manila, who said I would need it.
I never broke the seal.


In any case, I resolve to correct myself. Henceforth I shall be more filled with love and sunshine towards my fellow human beings. Little miss Sunshine.
Change is good.



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ICHESTER IS STAGGERINGLY POPULAR

One of the old men in the back is experiencing bowel issues, and because he knows we'll ban him if there is even one more occurence, he's been clenching like topsy, desparate not to become 'Pooh Man Two' and be banished to the outer darkness, where there is a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. I haven't said anything, but I think he would be much happier there. He'll be able to eat all the cheese he wants. Which he really shouldn't.

[The means NO Wensleydale, Greek Feta, Gorgonzola, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Pippo Creme, Danish Fimboe, Czech sheep's milk, Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, Cheddar, or Brie whatsover. None. Neithe a jot nor a tittle! Not a scrap.]

The marginally saner members of the syphilitic old fossils club in the back are aghast. And possibly fearful that eventually they too will have no place to philosophize rightwingedly, as the old bastards are wont to do, while watching televised balls, and two men naked in the wilderness with a chainsaw and bears or whatever that show is called.

Yeah, my piles bleed for old white boomers with bowels.
Truly, sincerely, warm heartedly.
Sarcasm off.


On the other hand, the members of the local pipe club are full of spirit, bravado, and derring do. Despite the average age being closer to sixty that thirty. The one thing seriously amiss with them is, perhaps, that there is always an excess of cheese at their monthly meetings. Oh, and maybe that all of them are male. There is not a single woman who has evinced the same interest in handsome briar smoking equipment, OR the fine substances with which to load them. Sad, because today for show and tell I brought a tin of Old Hollywood, a Cornell & Diehl blend, which I had purchased over a decade ago, and which was bulgy with age.

John had asked that we bring our square pipes (if we had 'em) to the meeting for show and tell. I own two: one is a Butz Choquin Roc Brune, the other is a Dudleigh from a Hollywood store (Richardson) that opened in 1930 and may have ceased existing sometime in the fifties or sixties. Quite a number of famous people loved the store: Leslie Howard, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Clark Gable, and William Faulkner among them. Hence the tobacco, which has NO connection to either of the two famous Hollywood tobacconists (the other one being John's, where my father shopped) other than that term Hollywood.

Either Clark Gable in between shots, OR a typical American badger

Didn't bother popping the lid on the sealed tin. It didn't look like anyone was interested in square pipes or a mighty fine blend which some have speculated was reverse-engineered from tobacco barn floor sweepings and discarded cigarette butts.
I rather like it, but I'm a litte peculiar that way.
It is no longer produced.

[Two types of red Virginia, plus Burley, Latakia, and Turkish. Pleasantly complex.]

Percy Dudleigh Richardson, the tobacconist, produced a number of private blends rather like it. Virginia and Burley mixtures with a dash of condimentals were not unusual then.

My father smoked something like that.

Obviously, I have met many more male pipesmokers than female pipesmokers. Of which there have been three. Committed aficionadas with a respectable plurality of pipes. As well as two occasional pipe ladies, with only three or four briars maximum. Men are a dime a dozen, women who smoke pipes are rare birds. The chance of being insane is just as great whichever the gender, the likelihood of being a tattooed freak with piercings and a dense beard down to the navel are considerable less for the distaff side.

The regular pipe smoker will need about six or eight briars minumum to have a rotation going on, in case you were wondering. The pipe needs to air and dry out, the complex chemicals deposited by the process of combusting tobacco must have time to dissipate and break down into simpler substances. Some men, filthy swine, end up abusing their pipes so badly that they have sewers on a stick jutting out of their faces.

It is an unfirmly held belief of mine that a woman pipe smoker will probably not need as many pipes as a man, because the female of the species is more careful about keeping her equipment clean. Some men are absolute pigs.

Still, ten to twenty pipes is not uncommon. A woman whom I knew when I was much younger had well over sixty. And knew her tobaccos.


By the way: the idea that fruity aromatic cavendishes are more naturally fit for women is complete horsepucky. The woman pipesmoker will at some point happily discover Balkan blends or fine Virginia mixtures, and not indulge in unseemly experiments with sweet crap (which is more suited to the tattooed pierced bearded freak in any case).

There are no women member of the pipe club.
Sad! All of us are well behaved.



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