Yesterday I was off work. So lunch and errands. Restaurant, bank, grocery store, vegetable mart, another grocery store, Walgreens, and finally a bakery for an egg tart, milk tea, and another egg tart (because a man needs to recoup his energy). Only at the bank and the bakery was English employed -- at the latter because a Nepali lady wished to negotiate a cake large enough for several dozen people; I know she was Nepali because I asked "aap kahan sa pradesh ka hai?" and got that answer -- and the word for tres leche is more understandable to everybody as "saam nai". Though it may look like trilatchi.
And, for some reason, even though I ate well, as is customary when I'm not in Marin, the idea of a rich Indian dish cropped up in my head. I might have to teach the folks at the restaurant how to make it, and despite it being a heart-attack on a plate as well as dangerous to anyone with lactose intolerance because of the sheer buckets of ghee, doodh, and malai, I think their customers would love it. Hong Kong people have a liking for artery busting food.
And would probably request plenty of melted cheese on top.
"Let's just push that envelope as far as it will go."
All the way to the cardiac ward.
The problem is that at a chachanteng the customers might ask that it be served on top of spaghetti Bolognese, and I do not wish to imagine that. Even worse: carbonara. My heart specialist, whom I see again in August, would never forgive me if I introduced all that to an innocent unsuspecting Chinatown public. Who already labour under a fatty pork overload.
And any day now will demand mui choi kau yiuk on top of spaghetti.
Avec beaucoup de fromage fondu dessus.
Evil Dutchman!
I have everyone's best wishes at heart.
So I shall restrain myself.
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Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here
strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton.
And that you might like cheese-doodles.
Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you.
Friday, May 19, 2023
Thursday, May 18, 2023
DEEP POOLS OF GREASE
One conversation yesterday was about white women who have unique food things going on in their lives. "Hi, I'm allergic to gluten, peanuts, citrus, and I can't have dairy, commercially raised beef, or seafood. What can I eat here?" Crow, sweetheart, you can eat crow. The door is right behind you. A person of Brahmin background stated that his daughter in law was the only white woman he had met who could cook. Not only cook well, but had no fear of spices.
He normally lives on the East Coast, so he may have met far too many serious Protestants. He even knows Afrikaners, some of whom are severely Dutch Calvinist squared in triplicate. Flavour, some Christian sects believe, comes from the Devil. Many Karens have kept that idea from their ancestral religious traditions, while rejecting all the rest.
It's a modern form of Puritanism.
Having worked part-time at an Indian restaurant, I have met my share of such people.
To the best of my knowledge I don't actually know any now.
Which is intentional.
By the way: If the first thing into the pot is ghee, the food is often suitable even for Brahmins. Ghee is the great purifier. Other things that go in are guajillos, dried New Mexico chiles, and D'Arbol.
But that's just a personal preference, really.
Garlic, ginger, and black cardamom.
The key thing for any late night sanckies at an Indian or Pakistani restaurant are, of course, good breads. Naan, kulcha, or rumali. Or excellent parathas. Ideally also a small plate of fresh green chilies, raita, and an achar. Avoid beer, it's bad for the digestion at this point. Finish with some hot masala chai, and rosgollah.
[Chilies are a vegetable. You need a vegetable.]
Come to think of it, that's also an excellent lunch.
"Hi, I'm allergic to gluten, peanuts, citrus, and I can't have dairy, commercially raised beef, or seafood. What can I eat?"
Absolutely nothing. Go back to the Midwest.
That is what it's there for.
I'm so sorry.
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He normally lives on the East Coast, so he may have met far too many serious Protestants. He even knows Afrikaners, some of whom are severely Dutch Calvinist squared in triplicate. Flavour, some Christian sects believe, comes from the Devil. Many Karens have kept that idea from their ancestral religious traditions, while rejecting all the rest.
It's a modern form of Puritanism.
Having worked part-time at an Indian restaurant, I have met my share of such people.
To the best of my knowledge I don't actually know any now.
Which is intentional.
By the way: If the first thing into the pot is ghee, the food is often suitable even for Brahmins. Ghee is the great purifier. Other things that go in are guajillos, dried New Mexico chiles, and D'Arbol.
But that's just a personal preference, really.
Garlic, ginger, and black cardamom.
The key thing for any late night sanckies at an Indian or Pakistani restaurant are, of course, good breads. Naan, kulcha, or rumali. Or excellent parathas. Ideally also a small plate of fresh green chilies, raita, and an achar. Avoid beer, it's bad for the digestion at this point. Finish with some hot masala chai, and rosgollah.
[Chilies are a vegetable. You need a vegetable.]
Come to think of it, that's also an excellent lunch.
"Hi, I'm allergic to gluten, peanuts, citrus, and I can't have dairy, commercially raised beef, or seafood. What can I eat?"
Absolutely nothing. Go back to the Midwest.
That is what it's there for.
I'm so sorry.
==========================================================================
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BAD DECISIONS WERE MADE
It was still too early in the season for cargo shorts, and I regretted my choice. A cold breeze from the North Sea reminded me of the one passage from the guide book which stuck in my head: "the earliest inhabitants of these shores grew fins and developed the ability to mimic seaweed." The ancient kingdom of Cumbria in northern England, on the coast.
Which is where the settlers of Arkham, Massachusetts, came from.
In point of fact, I never wear cargo shorts. That's more Jeff's style, but the weather in Marin has so far not been warm enough to let him do so. And he shouldn't. Judicious men, myself included, dread him showing off his misshapen milk bottle whites. Last night on the way home I saw a woman crossing the street with legs more appalling, quite grotesque.
If he wasn't already remarried, she would have been a perfect mate.
Maybe I already mentioned that bloodpressure medication (three types, but it was probably the Amlodipine Besylate) sometimes cause intensely odd dreams.
Evenso, I hope Jeff has given up on shorts. Late Spring early Summer in San Francisco is marked by cold weather. Fog, biting winds in the afternoon, grim and chilly mornings. One is likely to see Euro tourists shivering in certain areas, wondering what went wrong. Surely California is sunny all year round? Sorry, meine damen und herren, but no. You're thinking of Baywatch. Different place. Not this bay.
That teevee show and many others were shot somewhere else.
Somebody really should tell Jeff.
Ghastly ugly icky damned well repulsive legs. He's retired. He should dress with more dignity, rather than swanning around in goober rags making everyone sick. Some old men have body parts that are the stuff of nightmares.
His wife probably sends him outside when he's dressed like that to scare the neighbors.
Jeffiepoo cục cưng, go play in traffic, người yêu.
Mosquito bait.
The caffeine had worn off before nine, so I went to bed, and slept fitfully. There are spots on both legs which are tinglesome after a full day on my feet, and there is twitching. Probably shouldn't have had that bowl of icecream and followed it with barfi either. Saffron barfi. Absolutely delicious!
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Which is where the settlers of Arkham, Massachusetts, came from.
In point of fact, I never wear cargo shorts. That's more Jeff's style, but the weather in Marin has so far not been warm enough to let him do so. And he shouldn't. Judicious men, myself included, dread him showing off his misshapen milk bottle whites. Last night on the way home I saw a woman crossing the street with legs more appalling, quite grotesque.
If he wasn't already remarried, she would have been a perfect mate.
Maybe I already mentioned that bloodpressure medication (three types, but it was probably the Amlodipine Besylate) sometimes cause intensely odd dreams.
Evenso, I hope Jeff has given up on shorts. Late Spring early Summer in San Francisco is marked by cold weather. Fog, biting winds in the afternoon, grim and chilly mornings. One is likely to see Euro tourists shivering in certain areas, wondering what went wrong. Surely California is sunny all year round? Sorry, meine damen und herren, but no. You're thinking of Baywatch. Different place. Not this bay.
That teevee show and many others were shot somewhere else.
Somebody really should tell Jeff.
Ghastly ugly icky damned well repulsive legs. He's retired. He should dress with more dignity, rather than swanning around in goober rags making everyone sick. Some old men have body parts that are the stuff of nightmares.
His wife probably sends him outside when he's dressed like that to scare the neighbors.
Jeffiepoo cục cưng, go play in traffic, người yêu.
Mosquito bait.
The caffeine had worn off before nine, so I went to bed, and slept fitfully. There are spots on both legs which are tinglesome after a full day on my feet, and there is twitching. Probably shouldn't have had that bowl of icecream and followed it with barfi either. Saffron barfi. Absolutely delicious!
==========================================================================
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Wednesday, May 17, 2023
BRIGHTNESS AND GOOD CHEER
Getting through the day dealing with bulbs and nimnoos is surprisingly easy. It requires sound philosophical fundaments, clean habits, and chemical assistance.
Shimon The righteous used to say the world is held together by three things; caffeine, nicotine, and highly refined sugar.
[From Pirkei avos: "Shimon hatzaddik hayah mishyarei khneses haggedolah, hu hayah omer, al sheloshah devarim ha olam omed; kafin, nikotin & hekhst rafinirte tsuker."]
Multiple cups of tea, and three bowls of a new pipe tobacco blend that contained rustica as a condimental leaf, plus snackipoos. By mid-afternoon I was bouncing off the walls. Which is a darn good thing, because a number of the old diaper-wearers in the backroom sounded like bitchy whining Debbie. PARADOXICAL
Sutliff: Birds of a Feather, Signature Series by Per Georg Jensen
Rustica, Virgia, Burley
Pressed slabs.
Good stuff. Tangy, rich, and mild. Mildly spicy.
This has an old-fashioned tobacco smell, redolently evocative of school, the lithographics printers, and draughting rooms of the company off the Leenderweg in Eindhoven near the Chinese restaurant. It has a good mouthfeel, doesn't bite, and is great fun to gently whisp over the rim of the bowl while taunting the rabid dingos in the back.
Normally stuff with too much nicotine will turn me into a complete blister, unbearable to be around. Not this. I was all zesty bubblesome sweetness and light from early-afternoon onward, a joy to be with, really warm and sweet.
Honest.
TOBACCO INDEX
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Shimon The righteous used to say the world is held together by three things; caffeine, nicotine, and highly refined sugar.
[From Pirkei avos: "Shimon hatzaddik hayah mishyarei khneses haggedolah, hu hayah omer, al sheloshah devarim ha olam omed; kafin, nikotin & hekhst rafinirte tsuker."]
Multiple cups of tea, and three bowls of a new pipe tobacco blend that contained rustica as a condimental leaf, plus snackipoos. By mid-afternoon I was bouncing off the walls. Which is a darn good thing, because a number of the old diaper-wearers in the backroom sounded like bitchy whining Debbie. PARADOXICAL
Sutliff: Birds of a Feather, Signature Series by Per Georg Jensen
Rustica, Virgia, Burley
Pressed slabs.
Good stuff. Tangy, rich, and mild. Mildly spicy.
This has an old-fashioned tobacco smell, redolently evocative of school, the lithographics printers, and draughting rooms of the company off the Leenderweg in Eindhoven near the Chinese restaurant. It has a good mouthfeel, doesn't bite, and is great fun to gently whisp over the rim of the bowl while taunting the rabid dingos in the back.
Normally stuff with too much nicotine will turn me into a complete blister, unbearable to be around. Not this. I was all zesty bubblesome sweetness and light from early-afternoon onward, a joy to be with, really warm and sweet.
Honest.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
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CHEERS!
According to the darling of the culture warriors, Elon Musk, our city is a blasted wasteland filled with woke drug addicts and theft-besotted transgenders. More or less.
"Downtown SF looks like a zombie apocalypse. People who’ve not been there have no idea."
------Elon Musk on Twitter.
As a long-time resident I am flabbergasted. I often spend several hours out and about in the city, in my own neighborhood, which is the North East sector, mere minutes away from Tech Gulch or whatever it's called, the Financial District, and the shopping area. The downtown.
Haven't seen the zombie hordes of which he speaks.
Unless he means yuppies and tourists.
He's probably drunk.
Dumb ass.
Frankly, the more people from the dung bucket states are scared to visit San Francisco, the better it is. So in that sense Elon 'big yap' Musk spouting horrible things is good.
But that's not how he meant it.
We have less violent crime than Texas or Florida, and far more literate people.
We also wash more and drink better beer.
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"Downtown SF looks like a zombie apocalypse. People who’ve not been there have no idea."
------Elon Musk on Twitter.
As a long-time resident I am flabbergasted. I often spend several hours out and about in the city, in my own neighborhood, which is the North East sector, mere minutes away from Tech Gulch or whatever it's called, the Financial District, and the shopping area. The downtown.
Haven't seen the zombie hordes of which he speaks.
Unless he means yuppies and tourists.
He's probably drunk.
Dumb ass.
Frankly, the more people from the dung bucket states are scared to visit San Francisco, the better it is. So in that sense Elon 'big yap' Musk spouting horrible things is good.
But that's not how he meant it.
We have less violent crime than Texas or Florida, and far more literate people.
We also wash more and drink better beer.
==========================================================================
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Tuesday, May 16, 2023
WHOLE TON OF BLOBBO
Marjorie Taylor Greene, fashionista and all-American woman-hero (if you are a batshit crazy Republican) promises to have a Washington prosecutor impeached for persecuting tourists at the capitol, and Lauren Boebert, an advocate of weapons to murder kids in every school in the country, or leastways the beautiful state of wherever the heck she's from, demands to bring back church control of American thought. Or something.
It's often extremely hard to figure out what these two fictional friend fearing conservative godesses are thinking. Or if.
They've probably had too much light beer.
Meanwhile, the best paragraph in journalism today is this: "Enjoy your final days in office, President Biden, for you will soon be presumed convicted of a multitude of criminal presumptions based on conceptualized evidence wished into existence. All courtesy of today’s Republican Party, which never lets facts get in the way of imagined victory."
Source: Joe Biden is definitely going to prison! As soon as the GOP finds its missing informant -- Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
It's a fun read. Recommended.
Republicans often indulge themselves in too many wet dreams.
"Enjoy your final days in office, President Biden, for you will soon be presumed convicted of a multitude of criminal presumptions!"
How very 'Giulianiesque' of them.
Filthy freaks.
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It's often extremely hard to figure out what these two fictional friend fearing conservative godesses are thinking. Or if.
They've probably had too much light beer.
Meanwhile, the best paragraph in journalism today is this: "Enjoy your final days in office, President Biden, for you will soon be presumed convicted of a multitude of criminal presumptions based on conceptualized evidence wished into existence. All courtesy of today’s Republican Party, which never lets facts get in the way of imagined victory."
Source: Joe Biden is definitely going to prison! As soon as the GOP finds its missing informant -- Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
It's a fun read. Recommended.
Republicans often indulge themselves in too many wet dreams.
"Enjoy your final days in office, President Biden, for you will soon be presumed convicted of a multitude of criminal presumptions!"
How very 'Giulianiesque' of them.
Filthy freaks.
==========================================================================
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CONSIDERING AMPHIBIAN DIRECTIVES
The news of the world is not good. The sensible man reacts by withdrawing into a fantasy world fuelled by caffeine and a pipe, in which frogs are the dominant intelligent species, who have made a clever simulation of reality for their interesting experiment; the human beings. Moderately smart apes. Who enjoy being mean to each other. Meanness is an emotional response which frogs don't have.
With cold calculated purposefulness they eat flies.
While wondering about their laboratory.
Filled with mean apes.
I, for one, welcome our frog overlords, now that I know about them.
The frogs, it turns out, are like gods. Divine, and powerful.
Resplendent clamminesses. Here in California we like clamminess. It suggests moisture and lickability.
The natural state for humans is moderately cold, moderately wet, and moderately well-fed.
Moving at a slow gravid pace through a fantasy landscape.
A maze filled with flies.
On my second cup of coffee and my second pipe of the day. Planning a late lunch down in Chinatown, as well as some grocery shopping. With a bit of luck I can avoid any proximity to tourists. According to Dave Chappelle and Elon Musk, San Francisco has become a real sh*thole, with which Fox, the Washington Examiner and the New York Post all agree, as do rightwingers in the Red States, so with a bit of luck we'll have less visitors from the rest of the country and fewer tech-bros deciding to relocate. Eventually it will be just us and the frogs.
Smoking our pipes in peace, in the fog, with abundant flies.
I'm rather looking forward to that.
Ribbit.
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With cold calculated purposefulness they eat flies.
While wondering about their laboratory.
Filled with mean apes.
I, for one, welcome our frog overlords, now that I know about them.
The frogs, it turns out, are like gods. Divine, and powerful.
Resplendent clamminesses. Here in California we like clamminess. It suggests moisture and lickability.
The natural state for humans is moderately cold, moderately wet, and moderately well-fed.
Moving at a slow gravid pace through a fantasy landscape.
A maze filled with flies.
On my second cup of coffee and my second pipe of the day. Planning a late lunch down in Chinatown, as well as some grocery shopping. With a bit of luck I can avoid any proximity to tourists. According to Dave Chappelle and Elon Musk, San Francisco has become a real sh*thole, with which Fox, the Washington Examiner and the New York Post all agree, as do rightwingers in the Red States, so with a bit of luck we'll have less visitors from the rest of the country and fewer tech-bros deciding to relocate. Eventually it will be just us and the frogs.
Smoking our pipes in peace, in the fog, with abundant flies.
I'm rather looking forward to that.
Ribbit.
==========================================================================
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Monday, May 15, 2023
HOT CLAY, SIZZLING SAUCE
It has a very Hong Kong ambiance. Upper Kowloon. Home town urban instead of shopaholic foreigners, too far into Canto territory for the White people, Filippinos, and Japanese.
And it caters to regular folks, rather than hip young people.
So of course while I was eating late lunch, three couples came in for early dinner.
The cook likes doing rice stick noodle dishes. Stirfried with three shreds, or shrimp paste, or scallion ginger black bean sauced stuff. They also do excellent pork chops, as well as ngau lam and chicken stuffs, and good vegetables. It satisfies a loyal clientele.
The neighborhood has been coming there for many years.
Sadly, they still don't do any clay pot dishes.
But I suspect they'd be good quite at it.
There are bakery items made daily.
Noodle soup, wonton, sui gaau.
Also Hong Kong Milk Tea.
As you would expect. What I would have ordered, if they had had it, was preserved meats over rice casserole. The savoury rich taste was what I fixated upon since this morning, but what I had instead was strifried rice noodles. Which I dolloped with hot sauce.
Fork, fork, fork. Mmmm.
Nearly an hour after arriving I paid and left, lighting my pipe once outside. A quiet stroll down the alleyways, past nearly deserted Portsmouth Square.
Fewer people about than earlier.
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And it caters to regular folks, rather than hip young people.
So of course while I was eating late lunch, three couples came in for early dinner.
The cook likes doing rice stick noodle dishes. Stirfried with three shreds, or shrimp paste, or scallion ginger black bean sauced stuff. They also do excellent pork chops, as well as ngau lam and chicken stuffs, and good vegetables. It satisfies a loyal clientele.
The neighborhood has been coming there for many years.
Sadly, they still don't do any clay pot dishes.
But I suspect they'd be good quite at it.
There are bakery items made daily.
Noodle soup, wonton, sui gaau.
Also Hong Kong Milk Tea.
As you would expect. What I would have ordered, if they had had it, was preserved meats over rice casserole. The savoury rich taste was what I fixated upon since this morning, but what I had instead was strifried rice noodles. Which I dolloped with hot sauce.
Fork, fork, fork. Mmmm.
Nearly an hour after arriving I paid and left, lighting my pipe once outside. A quiet stroll down the alleyways, past nearly deserted Portsmouth Square.
Fewer people about than earlier.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GLUTEN-FREE AND NATURAL
Whenever I hear those Marinite patsers in the backroom waffling on about illegal aliens and the influx of drugs, what I note as the unstated subtext is that they wish that only upstanding Anglo Protestants will profit from the sale of illicit substances, not those people. Mexicans cut it and adulterate it horribly. It should be clean and pure and gluten-free. Why, the nerve!
And we must have a reinheitsgebot for drugs, like the Germans had on beer.
Because the coke fiends of Marin County deserve the very best.
We need goverment intervention; more testing labs.
Only deserving white people.
Not this chaotic situation where every immigrant Tom, Dick, and Harry can get into the drug trade, make obscene amounts of money, and sell impure shit to the high school kids of Marin Oaks or Mount Tam. Or their nice upstanding upper middle class parents. Church-going Protestants only, please, NOT those damned foreign Catholics. It's nasty!
In the old days, cocaine was green, free trade, organic, and vegan.
No chemicals, sir, there were none of that back then!
Also, we need to ban abortion because otherwise the undeserving poor will just fornicate for entertainment purposes, unlike the clean sacred unenjoyable sex approved by the church and the fathers of industry.
We can't have that! What is this world coming to?
And no vaccination! Disease is natural!
Damned commies.
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And we must have a reinheitsgebot for drugs, like the Germans had on beer.
Because the coke fiends of Marin County deserve the very best.
We need goverment intervention; more testing labs.
Only deserving white people.
Not this chaotic situation where every immigrant Tom, Dick, and Harry can get into the drug trade, make obscene amounts of money, and sell impure shit to the high school kids of Marin Oaks or Mount Tam. Or their nice upstanding upper middle class parents. Church-going Protestants only, please, NOT those damned foreign Catholics. It's nasty!
In the old days, cocaine was green, free trade, organic, and vegan.
No chemicals, sir, there were none of that back then!
ERYTHROXYLUM
Also, we need to ban abortion because otherwise the undeserving poor will just fornicate for entertainment purposes, unlike the clean sacred unenjoyable sex approved by the church and the fathers of industry.
We can't have that! What is this world coming to?
And no vaccination! Disease is natural!
Damned commies.
==========================================================================
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==========================================================================
THE ALGORITHM KEEPS ME SANE
After a few days at work it's good to have some time off. What with not being the most social of creatures, dealing with people whom I would naturally choose to see less of has left me feeling somewhat unclean and slightly diseased. Several conversations left scraps in my brain I am keen to rinse, so that the stain fades.
Fortunately my computer and social media are run by algorithms. So they know I need to see kitten pictures, red pandas, crows, raccoons, waddling mama ducks, and squirrels.
And obscene pictures of food.
That I must eat.
Today is probably dumpling day. Which, if everyone celebrated dumpling days periodically, might make the world a saner place. But force me to hide. Because dumplings are good for the mind ONLY when there are fewer people about, and the nearest tables empty. Go away, I'm gasaking soul food, your inane tourist yuppie marketing department important person chatter is icky. And quite superficial. Un-grooves, dude.
Please go play in traffic.
Everything goes with sambal. And cups of Hong Kong Milk Tea. Followed by a pipe filled with aged Virginias and a smidge of Perique, which will smell old-fashioned and comforting, rather like when you're in the drafting department on a weekend, dust motes faintly nictitational in the weakly rising heat from the blueprint machine.
My parents' generation knew the fragrance of mimeographs. By the time I started working, that had disappeared, but the smokers were all desked closer to the blueprint equipment, so that all of us stinky types were closer to the brain-rotting chemicals of the office. Then, just before Noah landed the Ark, ashtrays disappeared. Hence all those cigarette butts, pipe cleaners, and cigar droppings on downtown streets outside offices near the terminal.
After the cellphone became common, many people stopped thinking.
It was no longer necessary, modern technology did it all.
Kitten pictures, conspiracy theories.
Pornography and recipes.
It's all there.
The vape pen, inseparable from cell-phone addiction, will never replace the briars of pipe smokers. We're immortal, lurking in dusty vacant corners of the city near where the huge Kodak copy machine, blueprinters, and mimeographic devices once stood. You never go there because you're scared of the shadows, or the possibility of fentanyl-laced coke and cheap bourbon taking over your life and keeping you from shopping on-line.
Come over to the twilight side, kiddo.
We have actual kittens.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Fortunately my computer and social media are run by algorithms. So they know I need to see kitten pictures, red pandas, crows, raccoons, waddling mama ducks, and squirrels.
And obscene pictures of food.
That I must eat.
Close-up of chili paste
Today is probably dumpling day. Which, if everyone celebrated dumpling days periodically, might make the world a saner place. But force me to hide. Because dumplings are good for the mind ONLY when there are fewer people about, and the nearest tables empty. Go away, I'm gasaking soul food, your inane tourist yuppie marketing department important person chatter is icky. And quite superficial. Un-grooves, dude.
Please go play in traffic.
Everything goes with sambal. And cups of Hong Kong Milk Tea. Followed by a pipe filled with aged Virginias and a smidge of Perique, which will smell old-fashioned and comforting, rather like when you're in the drafting department on a weekend, dust motes faintly nictitational in the weakly rising heat from the blueprint machine.
My parents' generation knew the fragrance of mimeographs. By the time I started working, that had disappeared, but the smokers were all desked closer to the blueprint equipment, so that all of us stinky types were closer to the brain-rotting chemicals of the office. Then, just before Noah landed the Ark, ashtrays disappeared. Hence all those cigarette butts, pipe cleaners, and cigar droppings on downtown streets outside offices near the terminal.
After the cellphone became common, many people stopped thinking.
It was no longer necessary, modern technology did it all.
Kitten pictures, conspiracy theories.
Pornography and recipes.
It's all there.
The vape pen, inseparable from cell-phone addiction, will never replace the briars of pipe smokers. We're immortal, lurking in dusty vacant corners of the city near where the huge Kodak copy machine, blueprinters, and mimeographic devices once stood. You never go there because you're scared of the shadows, or the possibility of fentanyl-laced coke and cheap bourbon taking over your life and keeping you from shopping on-line.
Come over to the twilight side, kiddo.
We have actual kittens.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, May 14, 2023
KINDLY SHUT UP ABOUT MOTHERS DAY.
Herewith a conversation -- as well as I can remember it -- with my apartment mate, who is a Chinese American female. Because I am a Dutch American male, I naturally have my own ideas and experience. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Me: So all over the city apartments are dark because people are visiting their mom for mothers day and making sure she has all the Bourbon and Crab Rangoon she wants.
Her: White guy cultural appropriation.
Me: No not at all, it was invented by Trader Vic here in SF.
Her: Some weird white guy with a sick Polynesian thing going on.
Me: But it's not Polynesian. Rangoon is Burma.
Her: I've never had Crab Rangoon.
Me: Sure you did, they served it in the Student Union at State.
Her: Oh yeah, like I could afford real food back then. All I had was the pizza, I never bought seafood, I just watched white folks eating it.
Now, I never knew Crab Rangoon had actual crab in it, I thought it was just cream cheese or congealed ranch wrapped in a wonton skin and deepfried. But she corrected me. Authentic versions really do contain crab. So it's not kosher, in addition to being inedible crap.
How was I to know? I simply thought it was America's favourite hors d'oeuvre, in addition to a celebration of tiki culture. And probably great with rumaki and grape salad.
So naturally Americans would force-feed it to their mothers today, it's probably one of the few celebratory things the poor dears know how to cook. In addition to tuna casserole, that is.
You'll have to forgive me for being slightly cynical, and sneering. All of the internet AND social media are full of Mothers Day today. Y'all forcing it down our throat.
Just give her a gift-wrapped can of Spam™ and an Oliva Melanio Figurado (cigar of the year in 2014). Nothing says mothers day like a fine cigar. And the meat product is America's gustatory gift to the world. Moms love it.
Okay?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Me: So all over the city apartments are dark because people are visiting their mom for mothers day and making sure she has all the Bourbon and Crab Rangoon she wants.
Her: White guy cultural appropriation.
Me: No not at all, it was invented by Trader Vic here in SF.
Her: Some weird white guy with a sick Polynesian thing going on.
Me: But it's not Polynesian. Rangoon is Burma.
Her: I've never had Crab Rangoon.
Me: Sure you did, they served it in the Student Union at State.
Her: Oh yeah, like I could afford real food back then. All I had was the pizza, I never bought seafood, I just watched white folks eating it.
Now, I never knew Crab Rangoon had actual crab in it, I thought it was just cream cheese or congealed ranch wrapped in a wonton skin and deepfried. But she corrected me. Authentic versions really do contain crab. So it's not kosher, in addition to being inedible crap.
How was I to know? I simply thought it was America's favourite hors d'oeuvre, in addition to a celebration of tiki culture. And probably great with rumaki and grape salad.
So naturally Americans would force-feed it to their mothers today, it's probably one of the few celebratory things the poor dears know how to cook. In addition to tuna casserole, that is.
You'll have to forgive me for being slightly cynical, and sneering. All of the internet AND social media are full of Mothers Day today. Y'all forcing it down our throat.
Just give her a gift-wrapped can of Spam™ and an Oliva Melanio Figurado (cigar of the year in 2014). Nothing says mothers day like a fine cigar. And the meat product is America's gustatory gift to the world. Moms love it.
Okay?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
COCO REPUBLIC
One of the latest hip stores to quit the Union Square area is Coco Republic, a retailer of high end furniture, or sumpin'. And the usual chorus is wailing about high crime and run-away liberalism ruining what was once a fine city, what the heck happened to San Francisco.
Actually, what happened is shopping patterns changed. That goes double for Macy's, Nordstom, and a lot of other places. Personally, I have avoided Union Square for three decades. None of the stores were affordable or catered to my demographic.
The last two establishments there at which I shopped were a place that sold affordable blue jeans, and the Dunhill Store on the NorthEast corner which closed in 1990. I walked past one day and saw that it had become Nike Town. Nike Town?!?! Who the hell shops at Nike Town?!?! You all aiming for the suburban thugbucket crowd?!?!?!
Affordable blue jeans disappeared when designer jeans built for dump truck shaped housewives from suburbistan became the paradigm.
High foot-traffic lowers street crime enormously.
People browse and shop on-line nowadays.
Quick, convenient, and cheap.
Union Square catered exclusively to the high-end crowd and people with money to burn. If there's no parking OR a place where a window-shopping horde of Filippinas can eat, no one goes there. None of my clothes came from there, nothing in my whole apartment. The last time I was in the area I was passing through to get somewhere else. Parked cop cars everywhere, a constant police presence bigger than at the Quad in Makati. Okay?
Who the buggery goldarn is Coco Republic? Never heard of them. And if they were a Union Square merchant, they weren't catering to people who actually live in San Francisco.
Macy's et al have been losing money for years now.
Saxs NEVER catered to the working classes.
Nordstrom was strictly office slime.
Dunhill, as I said, shut down over thirty years ago and the brand has been almost entirely disassociated from tobacco, there are no more bookstores downtown because they couldn't compete with the internet, and at the quite unrealistic prices of many restaurants in the vicinity, Union Square had become a wilderness location that you packed your own food and water to visit. Plus you trekked overland. Parking? Parking?!!?
If I'm not back in a month, send a rescue party.
Bring ropes and dynamite.
The suburban Fox demographic has lost another playground. Boo hoo.
My piles bleed for them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Actually, what happened is shopping patterns changed. That goes double for Macy's, Nordstom, and a lot of other places. Personally, I have avoided Union Square for three decades. None of the stores were affordable or catered to my demographic.
The last two establishments there at which I shopped were a place that sold affordable blue jeans, and the Dunhill Store on the NorthEast corner which closed in 1990. I walked past one day and saw that it had become Nike Town. Nike Town?!?! Who the hell shops at Nike Town?!?! You all aiming for the suburban thugbucket crowd?!?!?!
Affordable blue jeans disappeared when designer jeans built for dump truck shaped housewives from suburbistan became the paradigm.
High foot-traffic lowers street crime enormously.
People browse and shop on-line nowadays.
Quick, convenient, and cheap.
Union Square catered exclusively to the high-end crowd and people with money to burn. If there's no parking OR a place where a window-shopping horde of Filippinas can eat, no one goes there. None of my clothes came from there, nothing in my whole apartment. The last time I was in the area I was passing through to get somewhere else. Parked cop cars everywhere, a constant police presence bigger than at the Quad in Makati. Okay?
Who the buggery goldarn is Coco Republic? Never heard of them. And if they were a Union Square merchant, they weren't catering to people who actually live in San Francisco.
Macy's et al have been losing money for years now.
Saxs NEVER catered to the working classes.
Nordstrom was strictly office slime.
Dunhill, as I said, shut down over thirty years ago and the brand has been almost entirely disassociated from tobacco, there are no more bookstores downtown because they couldn't compete with the internet, and at the quite unrealistic prices of many restaurants in the vicinity, Union Square had become a wilderness location that you packed your own food and water to visit. Plus you trekked overland. Parking? Parking?!!?
If I'm not back in a month, send a rescue party.
Bring ropes and dynamite.
The suburban Fox demographic has lost another playground. Boo hoo.
My piles bleed for them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, May 13, 2023
SPRING ON THE GRAND CANAL
For some reason I was at a waterfront café in Sausalito, naked, writing a sports article for a local publication. It was going to be illustrated. And tidy whities were involved, that were helpfully on the table. Passers-bye did not remark on this.
I've never liked tidy-whities, they're too constrictive, and the material is too thick. Helpful bystanders cannot rip them open in an emergency or when one needs to breathe. Also, I am never naked outside my dwelling, haven't sat at cafés in Sausalito, though I pass through there often, and I'm totally uninterested in sports.
Conclusion: it wasn't me.
Maybe someone else.
I vastly preferred the earlier dream. A three month tour of the Grand Canal, in early spring, from the capitol down to Suzhou, stops at fifteen or sixteen scenic towns and villages along the way for several days.
Because of blood pressure meds my dreams are often vivid, and remarkably memorable.
Repeat: I am not a nudist sports writer. So the question is NOT where would I rather be undressed and writing about sports, Suzhou or Sausalito, but instead where would I rather find myself?
On the one hand, delicious fresh water fish, fatty pork, and lovely dumplings.
On the other, overpriced tourist trap cafés and boutiques.
And constrictive men's underwear.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I've never liked tidy-whities, they're too constrictive, and the material is too thick. Helpful bystanders cannot rip them open in an emergency or when one needs to breathe. Also, I am never naked outside my dwelling, haven't sat at cafés in Sausalito, though I pass through there often, and I'm totally uninterested in sports.
Conclusion: it wasn't me.
Maybe someone else.
I vastly preferred the earlier dream. A three month tour of the Grand Canal, in early spring, from the capitol down to Suzhou, stops at fifteen or sixteen scenic towns and villages along the way for several days.
Because of blood pressure meds my dreams are often vivid, and remarkably memorable.
Repeat: I am not a nudist sports writer. So the question is NOT where would I rather be undressed and writing about sports, Suzhou or Sausalito, but instead where would I rather find myself?
On the one hand, delicious fresh water fish, fatty pork, and lovely dumplings.
On the other, overpriced tourist trap cafés and boutiques.
And constrictive men's underwear.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, May 12, 2023
BUT THEY'RE USELESS!
The stuffed turkey vulture wishes to inform me that he performs a useful service: trash clean up. I don't like dealing with the rightwing turdballs at work, right? Elderly crypto-nazi scum gets my goat. But for a nominal fee, he will make them disappear. Parts of them. All I have to do is take him to work with me, he'll lure the useless old fossils out back, where there's a baseball bat (and no witnesses), then "clop", followed by nom nom nom.
Well okay, I'll have to help him with the baseball bat.
No thumbs, and no leverage.
Easy peasy. At the beginning of my work week this is far less appealing than at the end, but it is never not appealing.
Still, I think there might be problems.
What to do with left-overs.
Considering that he is less than a foot tall, and most of them much larger, this will be an issue. Authorities look askance, society disapproves, cops have questions, and nutritionists object. And then there's the vegans. Go for the vegetable equivalent, little fella. It's safer.
Not better for the planet, just safer.
Most brands of barbecue sauce are vegan.
I find this contradictory.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Well okay, I'll have to help him with the baseball bat.
No thumbs, and no leverage.
Easy peasy. At the beginning of my work week this is far less appealing than at the end, but it is never not appealing.
Still, I think there might be problems.
What to do with left-overs.
Considering that he is less than a foot tall, and most of them much larger, this will be an issue. Authorities look askance, society disapproves, cops have questions, and nutritionists object. And then there's the vegans. Go for the vegetable equivalent, little fella. It's safer.
Not better for the planet, just safer.
Most brands of barbecue sauce are vegan.
I find this contradictory.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, May 11, 2023
THE PLEASING CLUTTER
If you are an Asian American woman, you probably obsess over balls. Or a caffeinated beverage. Perhaps even a caffeinated beverage (of whatever temperature) WITH balls. Seeing as I'm not an Asian American woman, I do not. My apartment mate (a certifiable Asian American woman) has four different types of coffee mix on top of the fridge, three different packs of coffee beans inside it, several containers of chocolate beverage mix, and over a dozen boxes of loose leaf and bag tea in the cupboard.
No balls. Balls or for girlies.
Surprisingly, she doesn't spend the day wired to the tits and bouncing off the walls.
Myself, three boxes of teabags, two tins of leaf, and two plastic bags.
I tend toward tit-upto-ness more than she does.
So today on a whim I acquired another brewing vessel.
Brown unglazed earthenware. Obviously she does not have to deal with rancid rightwing fossils as much as I do. Caffeine makes it possible to at all times remain mentally ten or twenty steps ahead of the damned dingoes, even on my days off. But especially when I work.
The item illustrated above is a gaiwan (盖碗), also called a chung (盅), although that term is more broad and also encompasses any number of potty or bowly things that are not meant for brewing tea.
It struck my eye and fell into my lap, so to speak.
I do not need another tea-brewing vessel.
Precisely like I do not need ymore pipes or books.
But, um, well, you know.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No balls. Balls or for girlies.
Surprisingly, she doesn't spend the day wired to the tits and bouncing off the walls.
Myself, three boxes of teabags, two tins of leaf, and two plastic bags.
I tend toward tit-upto-ness more than she does.
So today on a whim I acquired another brewing vessel.
Brown unglazed earthenware. Obviously she does not have to deal with rancid rightwing fossils as much as I do. Caffeine makes it possible to at all times remain mentally ten or twenty steps ahead of the damned dingoes, even on my days off. But especially when I work.
The item illustrated above is a gaiwan (盖碗), also called a chung (盅), although that term is more broad and also encompasses any number of potty or bowly things that are not meant for brewing tea.
It struck my eye and fell into my lap, so to speak.
I do not need another tea-brewing vessel.
Precisely like I do not need ymore pipes or books.
But, um, well, you know.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
A DISCUSSION ABOUT TEAPOTS
Years ago my ex wondered why I'm just a ham sap lo in Cantonese. The answer to this is complex. Firstly, she's suspicious of people speaking Cantonese, especially white men, and probably quite right about that; I also am suspicious of people speaking Cantonese, because it's the best language for being a smuggler, grave robber, and outrageous lawbreaker in. As Hong Kong movies abundantly prove. Never-the-less, Chow Yunfat is one handsome devil, and comes across as extremely likeable, even admirable. I too wish to serve fried rice in a New York restaurant with aplomb to criminal Caucasians. Wah, hou yeh!
Of course, in 'Diary Of A Big Man', he ended up looking frazzled.
All part of an innocent chain of events and mistakes.
As any man might. Understandably.
嘩,小姐,妳好靚呀!
Secondly, she's mistaken. I cannot possibly sound like a ham sap lo, as I am by nature a mild and well-behaved fellow, even in a conspiratorial language. Which is why the ladies at a bakery think I'm a quite a gentleman, and unobjectionable to the point of boring.
Lastly, I sound like I'm up to something in any language.
Which is probably why I quarrel in Dutch.
They suspect something.
You know, many Chinese people suspect men talking to women of being ham sap lo, especially if the fellows are Cantonese or white. That's just the way things are. To be perfectly honest, many (probably most) men are not ham sap, because it leads to complications. We like our simple self-indulgent lives, and as Chow Yunfat says in 'An Autumn's Tale, "nui yan jan hai chaa bou": women are a teapot.
That makes a lot more sense in Cantonese.
Borrowing from English.
茶煲
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Of course, in 'Diary Of A Big Man', he ended up looking frazzled.
All part of an innocent chain of events and mistakes.
As any man might. Understandably.
嘩,小姐,妳好靚呀!
Secondly, she's mistaken. I cannot possibly sound like a ham sap lo, as I am by nature a mild and well-behaved fellow, even in a conspiratorial language. Which is why the ladies at a bakery think I'm a quite a gentleman, and unobjectionable to the point of boring.
Lastly, I sound like I'm up to something in any language.
Which is probably why I quarrel in Dutch.
They suspect something.
You know, many Chinese people suspect men talking to women of being ham sap lo, especially if the fellows are Cantonese or white. That's just the way things are. To be perfectly honest, many (probably most) men are not ham sap, because it leads to complications. We like our simple self-indulgent lives, and as Chow Yunfat says in 'An Autumn's Tale, "nui yan jan hai chaa bou": women are a teapot.
That makes a lot more sense in Cantonese.
Borrowing from English.
茶煲
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
DUTCH DEMANDS
There really should be a place nearby where one could have a bowl of soup noodles early in the morning, especially when it's still so cold at first light. Red broth -- chicken stock with pork bones, lard, rice wine, sugar, and soy sauce -- wheat noodles, an egg, and lots and lots of scallion. One could snarf it down next to the Grand Canal, and have a dark shag cigarette with one's coffee afterwards. Rolled from that pack of 'zware' bought at the trainstation kiosk. But this isn't the Venice of the North, Zware Shag is totally unavailable. And there is no luxurious noodle soup kitchen.
One is bitterly disappointed. One looks blearily out over the street leading up Nob Hill, and grumpily laments the absence of many things. While smoking one's pipe.
As a Dutchman I demand canals and soup noodles.
Plus, optionally, sliced fatty pork.
Or fresh shrimp. For the best flavour, the shrimp should be subjected to two different cooking methods. Firstly a quick blanch in lightly simmering water, then sautéed briefly on a low-medium flame till barely coloured. This will bring out their sweetness best, and yield a tenderness.
The stock should, ideally, have been simmering overnight.
The noodles must be al dente.
This is the way.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
One is bitterly disappointed. One looks blearily out over the street leading up Nob Hill, and grumpily laments the absence of many things. While smoking one's pipe.
As a Dutchman I demand canals and soup noodles.
Plus, optionally, sliced fatty pork.
Or fresh shrimp. For the best flavour, the shrimp should be subjected to two different cooking methods. Firstly a quick blanch in lightly simmering water, then sautéed briefly on a low-medium flame till barely coloured. This will bring out their sweetness best, and yield a tenderness.
The stock should, ideally, have been simmering overnight.
The noodles must be al dente.
This is the way.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
ADDENDUM TO PREVIOUS SAUCE POST
My apartment mate likes Chick-fil-A sauce, which is manufactured by a bunch of Southern Baptist hosers from lord-only-knows-where in the primitive red-state outback beyond Donald Trump's rancid wattlesome arse-end. Bunch of repulsive damned Christians.
And far be it from me to encourage anyone to patronize their latest assault on civilization, apparently located in Emeryville. Which is basically Oakland for people who have jobs.
The sauce is easily replicated.
Goes great with everything fundamentalists hate. Including the Gay And Lesbian Alliance, Bud Light, and shrimp. As well as char-grilled spicy Polish sausages.
Please enjoy a drag show while dining.
In the local library.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And far be it from me to encourage anyone to patronize their latest assault on civilization, apparently located in Emeryville. Which is basically Oakland for people who have jobs.
The sauce is easily replicated.
Recipe stolen from The Lazy Chef, as forwarded by a friend on the internet.
Goes great with everything fundamentalists hate. Including the Gay And Lesbian Alliance, Bud Light, and shrimp. As well as char-grilled spicy Polish sausages.
Please enjoy a drag show while dining.
In the local library.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
