The Fertile Crescent, whenever it hits the news, remains a depressing and ghastly blip on our collective consciousness. In a very large part this is because we cannot understand the Arabs, whose horrifying mores and behaviour continue to baffle and flabberghast.
Dangerous, volatile, and unbalanced.
Nothing but horrendous news.
Thank G_D for the Brits.
BBC: THE LATEST ATROCITIES
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r35OsSLfy5o, also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eyT-Y7Zk0s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtRYBiH10uY.]
I should mention that those men with kilts around their heads are incomprehensible. It must be those Scottish accents.
That doesn't help, guys; learn English.
==========================================================================
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014
DRUNKEN BRITS
Over the years I've grown accustomed to reports of British people getting over-the-top swozzled and creating incidents. Whenever there are serious soccer-related disruptions in western Europe, it is often the English who are in some way responsible, and whenever they are overseas, the local press has a field-day describing what the Queen's subjects did, didn't do, and shouldn't have done but did at great length.
The drunken Englishman is a regular fixture.
I don't know where the Irish and the Russians got the reputation for being intoxicated lumps of coal; maybe that was just the nation of Chaucer and Maugham fighting back.
Additionally, Irishmen and Russkis are kind of fun when they're blotto, however rarely that occurs. The English, when drunk, are usually utterly unbearable, and violent besides.
All of my father's English colleagues, when we lived in the Eindhoven area, were insensate on cheap beer half the time. I honestly don't know how Pater put up with them, although it was undoubtedly less stressful than having the Germans trying to shoot him out of the sky for three years during the war.
Sane and sober Englishmen must be a rarity; one never notices them.
Maybe they're in permanent hiding. Flying under cover.
If they can do American accents.
Be that as it may.
This blogger, being a sane Dutch-American person with a Waspy accent and a serious tea habit, occasionally has cause to resent being mistaken for one of that lot.
I suppose the Londonian pipe tobacco doesn't help either.
I counter this by seldom eating bangers.
Or drinking gin & tonic.
Please imagine my lack of surprise at a key detail in a news article recently that mentioned a plane turning back because of a passenger who was misbehaving.
QUOTE:
"A rowdy British passenger forced a London-bound Virgin Atlantic flight to return to Hong Kong on Monday (Aug 11) after he "lost control", police said.
The 26-year-old, identified only as "Robert", was on a Heathrow-bound plane from Hong Kong International Airport and became disruptive after the flight had been in the air for more than an hour.
It was forced to turn around after 90 minutes, the airline said, and landed safely back in Hong Kong. The passenger was arrested then sent to hospital."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rowdy-passenger-forces/1306796.html.]
British. How predictable. How utterly unsurprising.
What is remarkable, however, is how soon it happened. He must have slammed down drinks at an alarming pace immediately after the unfasten your seat belts sign lit up. Pounded an entire bottle of tuppence gin. Stolen his seatmates' cocktails too.
A minor cause for wonder was that I first found out about the incident from an article on the BBC website (see: "Passenger Bob"), which entirely neglected to mention that Robert was British. Not even a hint.
Good going, guys.
You know, we Yanks have an expression about 'not showing your ass in public'. It means acting properly if among people, not embarrassing yourself or your group by your behaviour, showing the flag as it were, not giving the other tribes too many opportunities to think ill.
Whenever possible striving not to let down the side.
Gentlemanly behaviour. Acting cricket.
Not being such a wanker.
Showing class.
Just saying.
Anyhow, Mr. Robert (the British passenger) was taken into custody at Hong Kong airport by the authorities and transferred to a local hospital.
Where he was treated. For what may have been a very severe case of alcohol poisoning, or an excess of high spirits.
He had not been charged a day later.
Probably still too drunk.
All of the other passengers were inconvenienced.
There should be travellers' insurance for that.
It's not entirely unexpected nowadays.
Airborne Brits; a public hazard.
Some restrictions apply.
Cheers, mate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The drunken Englishman is a regular fixture.
I don't know where the Irish and the Russians got the reputation for being intoxicated lumps of coal; maybe that was just the nation of Chaucer and Maugham fighting back.
Additionally, Irishmen and Russkis are kind of fun when they're blotto, however rarely that occurs. The English, when drunk, are usually utterly unbearable, and violent besides.
All of my father's English colleagues, when we lived in the Eindhoven area, were insensate on cheap beer half the time. I honestly don't know how Pater put up with them, although it was undoubtedly less stressful than having the Germans trying to shoot him out of the sky for three years during the war.
Sane and sober Englishmen must be a rarity; one never notices them.
Maybe they're in permanent hiding. Flying under cover.
If they can do American accents.
Be that as it may.
This blogger, being a sane Dutch-American person with a Waspy accent and a serious tea habit, occasionally has cause to resent being mistaken for one of that lot.
I suppose the Londonian pipe tobacco doesn't help either.
I counter this by seldom eating bangers.
Or drinking gin & tonic.
Please imagine my lack of surprise at a key detail in a news article recently that mentioned a plane turning back because of a passenger who was misbehaving.
QUOTE:
"A rowdy British passenger forced a London-bound Virgin Atlantic flight to return to Hong Kong on Monday (Aug 11) after he "lost control", police said.
The 26-year-old, identified only as "Robert", was on a Heathrow-bound plane from Hong Kong International Airport and became disruptive after the flight had been in the air for more than an hour.
It was forced to turn around after 90 minutes, the airline said, and landed safely back in Hong Kong. The passenger was arrested then sent to hospital."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rowdy-passenger-forces/1306796.html.]
British. How predictable. How utterly unsurprising.
What is remarkable, however, is how soon it happened. He must have slammed down drinks at an alarming pace immediately after the unfasten your seat belts sign lit up. Pounded an entire bottle of tuppence gin. Stolen his seatmates' cocktails too.
A minor cause for wonder was that I first found out about the incident from an article on the BBC website (see: "Passenger Bob"), which entirely neglected to mention that Robert was British. Not even a hint.
Good going, guys.
You know, we Yanks have an expression about 'not showing your ass in public'. It means acting properly if among people, not embarrassing yourself or your group by your behaviour, showing the flag as it were, not giving the other tribes too many opportunities to think ill.
Whenever possible striving not to let down the side.
Gentlemanly behaviour. Acting cricket.
Not being such a wanker.
Showing class.
Just saying.
Anyhow, Mr. Robert (the British passenger) was taken into custody at Hong Kong airport by the authorities and transferred to a local hospital.
Where he was treated. For what may have been a very severe case of alcohol poisoning, or an excess of high spirits.
He had not been charged a day later.
Probably still too drunk.
All of the other passengers were inconvenienced.
There should be travellers' insurance for that.
It's not entirely unexpected nowadays.
Airborne Brits; a public hazard.
Some restrictions apply.
Cheers, mate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 11, 2014
SO....., WHAT SHALL WE TALK ABOUT?
Something I saw on the internet has indicated that I should re-think the dating paradigm.
GRAB THE FLOWERS BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqTE-ig7NhY.]
I actually haven't been on a date in what seems like forever.
Perhaps because it IS forever.
It's not something that has any great appeal. Two people optimistically deciding that a few hours in each other's company under VERY trying circumstances -- clothes they don't normally wear, a restaurant that one or both of them may never have been to, their best behaviour, and an attempt to find out enough about the other person to determine that he or she is not particularly vested in human sacrifice and ax-murdering their kin while self-medicated -- followed, usually, by two sets of sincerely "concerned" friends asking all manner of prying questions that will inevitably make the experimentor or experimentrice think that it was a silly and ill-advised thing to do, quite insane even, perhaps best not repeat it.
She has lettuce stuck between her front teeth. Which are crooked.
His breath smells of oatmeal. Maybe that's all he eats?
I'm allergic to flowers; doesn't she know?
Why does he fake that accent?
That skirt is too short.
Nose, long.
Dates are like job-interviews.
But perhaps a little worse.
Doubtful 'pleasure'.
Fortunately, while I've got the usual set of inquisitive associates like every body else, I've always been good at keeping a straight face and never telling them about certain aspects of my life. And there are no pressing relatives within a hundred miles. If I actually saw someone, my friends would not find out, though they might be supportive when it leaked.
Some women are very nice people.
I know that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GRAB THE FLOWERS BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqTE-ig7NhY.]
I actually haven't been on a date in what seems like forever.
Perhaps because it IS forever.
It's not something that has any great appeal. Two people optimistically deciding that a few hours in each other's company under VERY trying circumstances -- clothes they don't normally wear, a restaurant that one or both of them may never have been to, their best behaviour, and an attempt to find out enough about the other person to determine that he or she is not particularly vested in human sacrifice and ax-murdering their kin while self-medicated -- followed, usually, by two sets of sincerely "concerned" friends asking all manner of prying questions that will inevitably make the experimentor or experimentrice think that it was a silly and ill-advised thing to do, quite insane even, perhaps best not repeat it.
She has lettuce stuck between her front teeth. Which are crooked.
His breath smells of oatmeal. Maybe that's all he eats?
I'm allergic to flowers; doesn't she know?
Why does he fake that accent?
That skirt is too short.
Nose, long.
Dates are like job-interviews.
But perhaps a little worse.
Doubtful 'pleasure'.
Fortunately, while I've got the usual set of inquisitive associates like every body else, I've always been good at keeping a straight face and never telling them about certain aspects of my life. And there are no pressing relatives within a hundred miles. If I actually saw someone, my friends would not find out, though they might be supportive when it leaked.
Some women are very nice people.
I know that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
INCREDIBLE HORRIBLE AND TWISTED PEOPLE
When I first moved to this neighborhood there were eight functioning churches within walking distance. And there still are. Yet there has been a bit of change, they aren't the same eight.
I suppose that's a good thing. Churches get stale and settled, and take the suckers for granted after a while. Then they begin to get kind of snooty and meaningful, and yack on at you about The Lord.
Who the hell wants to hear that kind of crap?
The other possibility is that they become all soft and touchy-feely, with parishioners attempting to win you over by showing what likable and loving people they are. Filled with warmth, understanding, and a rigidly non-judgmental soup of the fermenting yoghurt of human kindness.
No wonder all those shallow e-commerce yuppies are turning to Christ.
It's enough to make you sick to the pit of your stomach!
WHAT ALL CHURCHES SHOULD BE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4.]
I don't know about you, but I found that quite refreshing.
Anent biscuits (or cookies, knäckebröd, crackers, wafers, melba toasts, and the like) I should advise you to firmly stay away from any crunchy-munchies that Christians may provide. A church is NOT a snackbar!
At the very least try to ascertain beforehand that your fellow nibblers are NOT sin-filled hypocrites or among the damned.
Spiritual people and their depraved ilk.
Do NOT even consider dropping by to say 'hi'.
Half-assed musings on the divine!
Forsooth.
I haven't been in a church in years. Probably ever since they stopped burning witches and lepers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I suppose that's a good thing. Churches get stale and settled, and take the suckers for granted after a while. Then they begin to get kind of snooty and meaningful, and yack on at you about The Lord.
Who the hell wants to hear that kind of crap?
The other possibility is that they become all soft and touchy-feely, with parishioners attempting to win you over by showing what likable and loving people they are. Filled with warmth, understanding, and a rigidly non-judgmental soup of the fermenting yoghurt of human kindness.
No wonder all those shallow e-commerce yuppies are turning to Christ.
It's enough to make you sick to the pit of your stomach!
WHAT ALL CHURCHES SHOULD BE!
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4.]
I don't know about you, but I found that quite refreshing.
Anent biscuits (or cookies, knäckebröd, crackers, wafers, melba toasts, and the like) I should advise you to firmly stay away from any crunchy-munchies that Christians may provide. A church is NOT a snackbar!
At the very least try to ascertain beforehand that your fellow nibblers are NOT sin-filled hypocrites or among the damned.
Spiritual people and their depraved ilk.
Do NOT even consider dropping by to say 'hi'.
Half-assed musings on the divine!
Forsooth.
I haven't been in a church in years. Probably ever since they stopped burning witches and lepers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 10, 2014
POKING AT THE TWENTY-SOMETHING
This was not something I overheard in Marin. But it could well have been.
"Monogamy is over-rated; let the fine fleshy women come to me."
Personally, I think he was stark raving crazy.
In his world, he may think that monogamy is not all it's cracked up to be. In the real world, however, it is a darn fine thing. It keeps people like him from being lynched.
Heck, monogamy sounds absolutely splendid to this blogger, who is quite entirely zerogamous at present and has been so for a long while.
Zerogamy is over-rated by any stretch of the imagination.
Irrespective of the fleshy characteristics of women.
Or non-fleshy fineness. That too is good.
A while later I heard: "what she needs is a cheap happy gigolo."
I am a rather old-fashioned man. My values and attitudes might not be altogether up to date and au courant. No, I am not easily shocked by modern mores, but I am distinctly disquieted.
Some people out there seem to regard sex like it's a video game. If you can't hit the jackpot and kill the nest of aliens, use codes and patches to defeat the ghouls or seize the treasure.
Rack up points, press buttons.
Achieve victory.
Obviously these people do not read.
Romance is like a good book. Even when you thoroughly understand what motivates the characters, it's fun to keep discovering new things, and be surprised by twists and unexpected personal ticks.
Get to know them, and be thrilled alongside.
Feel with them when they succeed.
Feel for them when they fail.
Books, whether they're adventure yarns or mystery novels, heck, even medical textbooks and etymological dictionaries, reflect a measure of reality. Video games do not.
The solution isn't happy gigolos and pluralogamy.
Nor RPG's and superpowers.
Just calm down.
Drink tea.
Read.
In other news, I realized the other day why so many children are out of shape little freaks; it's quite impossible to text while running around.
They'll exercise their pudgy fingers, but almost nothing else.
It also explains why they are socially problematic.
They cannot speak, and have naught to say.
Conversationally they're all thumbs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"Monogamy is over-rated; let the fine fleshy women come to me."
Personally, I think he was stark raving crazy.
In his world, he may think that monogamy is not all it's cracked up to be. In the real world, however, it is a darn fine thing. It keeps people like him from being lynched.
Heck, monogamy sounds absolutely splendid to this blogger, who is quite entirely zerogamous at present and has been so for a long while.
Zerogamy is over-rated by any stretch of the imagination.
Irrespective of the fleshy characteristics of women.
Or non-fleshy fineness. That too is good.
A while later I heard: "what she needs is a cheap happy gigolo."
I am a rather old-fashioned man. My values and attitudes might not be altogether up to date and au courant. No, I am not easily shocked by modern mores, but I am distinctly disquieted.
Some people out there seem to regard sex like it's a video game. If you can't hit the jackpot and kill the nest of aliens, use codes and patches to defeat the ghouls or seize the treasure.
Rack up points, press buttons.
Achieve victory.
Obviously these people do not read.
Romance is like a good book. Even when you thoroughly understand what motivates the characters, it's fun to keep discovering new things, and be surprised by twists and unexpected personal ticks.
Get to know them, and be thrilled alongside.
Feel with them when they succeed.
Feel for them when they fail.
Books, whether they're adventure yarns or mystery novels, heck, even medical textbooks and etymological dictionaries, reflect a measure of reality. Video games do not.
The solution isn't happy gigolos and pluralogamy.
Nor RPG's and superpowers.
Just calm down.
Drink tea.
Read.
In other news, I realized the other day why so many children are out of shape little freaks; it's quite impossible to text while running around.
They'll exercise their pudgy fingers, but almost nothing else.
It also explains why they are socially problematic.
They cannot speak, and have naught to say.
Conversationally they're all thumbs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
ALLEGEDLY THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY
Breakfast: A toasted peanut butter sandwich with sambal (chili paste). That may have been uniquely Dutch. It could also mean that more than thirty six years after leaving the Netherlands I have finally gone native.
But don't expect me to wear wooden shoes anytime soon.
Or wave any windmills at the world.
Nor stick a finger.
The traditional Dutch breakfast includes bread, sandwich meats, cheese, preserves, and huge buckets of coffee and tea. For many confirmed bachelors the only part which is constant is the caffeine. And please understand that by "confirmed bachelor", what is really meant is a mature man who does not or no longer has a woman who thinks he's pleasantly fantastic. The alternative is a "convinced and dyed in the wool bachelor", that being someone who never even considered a woman as something which on the whole could be rather good and desirable.
They probably eat house pets for breakfast.
The only thing we have in common is sambal.
Sambal is the fundament of civilized life.
Women, remarkably, are not really into the sambal paradigm. For some completely inexplicable reason they can survive quite well without it.
At six o'clock in the morning I cannot figure out why.
Maybe the answer will come to me later.
After much more caffeine.
The "confirmed bachelor" is a rather nice fellow, albeit not or no longer socially polished and gentled, as the companionship of a women is bound to do.
The "convinced and dyed in the wool bachelor" is, more often than not, a sour old prune.
I think I should like some herring.
Haven't had any in a while.
Need more coffee.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
But don't expect me to wear wooden shoes anytime soon.
Or wave any windmills at the world.
Nor stick a finger.
The traditional Dutch breakfast includes bread, sandwich meats, cheese, preserves, and huge buckets of coffee and tea. For many confirmed bachelors the only part which is constant is the caffeine. And please understand that by "confirmed bachelor", what is really meant is a mature man who does not or no longer has a woman who thinks he's pleasantly fantastic. The alternative is a "convinced and dyed in the wool bachelor", that being someone who never even considered a woman as something which on the whole could be rather good and desirable.
They probably eat house pets for breakfast.
The only thing we have in common is sambal.
Sambal is the fundament of civilized life.
Women, remarkably, are not really into the sambal paradigm. For some completely inexplicable reason they can survive quite well without it.
At six o'clock in the morning I cannot figure out why.
Maybe the answer will come to me later.
After much more caffeine.
The "confirmed bachelor" is a rather nice fellow, albeit not or no longer socially polished and gentled, as the companionship of a women is bound to do.
The "convinced and dyed in the wool bachelor" is, more often than not, a sour old prune.
I think I should like some herring.
Haven't had any in a while.
Need more coffee.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, August 09, 2014
BREASTS AND THE AUGUST MEETING OF THE PIPE CLUB
Regular readers could be somewhat ired at my frequent showcasing of the perverse searches that bring new readers to this blog, especially as it reflects somewhat less than flatteringly on their own loyalty. Most of my material is refreshingly boring and mundane, they may feel, so why give any airtime to the degenerates, perverts, and Presbyterians?
Surely those folks do not deserve it?
There's more to life than that.
Well, there is. But one recent depraved search is near to my heart.
TEENAGE JAPANESE CLEAVAGE
Good lord, man, how on earth did that bring you to this outpost of the internet? Teenage Japanese cleavage has never been a theme here, though it may have been mentioned once in connection with a discourse on Manga meant for a young Japanese male audience. And even then there were no pictures, diagrams, or schematics.
No actual descriptions either.
The internet is filled to overflowing with sites far more devoted to bringing you your fetish titty, as well as food, and kitten pictures.
There may even be a bosom or two somewhere in the bowels of I CAN HAS CHEESBURGER. Whether it's attractive or not I cannot say, it depends on you. It might even be Japanese. Go there and investigate. Give it your best shot. Peruse. Examine. Research.
Do your due diligence.
Just google it if you don't know where it is.
Oh wait. That's a mistake. Doing so brought you here.
Where there is no Teenage Japanese Cleavage.
Yes, I know; you are farklempt.
I sympathize.
AND NOW, SERIOUS REPORTAGE
Normal readers will probably be wondering why I am sitting in front of the computer at this hour on a Saturday night, when by all rights they should expect me to be at the local cigar bar with my Scotch and water, lighting up a pipefull of matured Virginia tobacco, and sagely holding forth on the ills of the world.
Gaza, Iron Dome, starving Yazidis on a hillside in Irak, the European depravities, Russians shooting down plane-loads of Dutchmen and Malays, Tofu, Vegan plots, and the latest rape scandals in India.
Crap like that.
Normally I would be.
Except that on Wednesday I managed to poison myself. I'm still a bit affected by it. Not entirely up to my usual fifty-five year-old snuff.
And not quite as full of piss and vinegar.
See, there were over forty pipes that needed cleaning, so I removed the carbon rubber stems and dumped them in bleach for two hours, which loosens the oxidation. Afterwards you can simply rub off the grime, and though the rubber will feel gritty (the oxidation was part of the material, consequently its removal leaves microscopic pits), it will now be suitable for buffing the crap out of to make it gleam all shiny black again.
What I do while the stems are soaking is pour alcohol into the bowls to loosen tars and carbon, so that a quick ream of the cake (carbon layer), and a scrubbing of the inside of the shank with a thready thing and bristly pipe cleaners, will render the briar smokeable again.
After an episode a few weeks ago when I ended up with chemical burns on my fingers because I had also employed Zippo fluid to dissolve the grease on the outer surfaces -- doing so bleaches the wood slightly, but a subsequent application of wax and polish makes it more beautiful and old-fashioned looking than before -- and had, in consequence, entirely leached out the protective skin-oils from the aforementioned fingers, leaving them quite painfully subject to bleach penetration, I postponed playing with lighter fluid till after the stems were ready.
Briefly back to breasts: On the bus ride home this evening, there were at least twelve young and possibly teenage Korean breasts -- that's exactly six sets, or matching pairs -- and any (even) number of other mammary glands of various origins. No, I cannot describe the cleavages, because my hands were cold and investigation would have been startling.
Entirely aside from which I meditate on the journeys to and from Marin. Crawl inside my own head, slow down both breathing and heart-beat,
and find the centre of my consciousness.
Or read everyone else's mind.
It's exercise.
Over forty stems. Which had not been tended to in decades.
Rub rub rub. Rinse rinse rinse.
Lots of bleach.
Then paper towels soaked in Zippo.
And a bit of sand papering.
By tea-time I had to retire to the office, to lie on the floor drenched in sweat and weakly mumbling for an hour or two. Jaw, neck tendons and the muscles in my arms feeling like someone else was pulling at them.
No nausea, no chest pains, no blurry vision, no throbbing head.
Just twitching, buckets of perspiration, and general lassitude.
I may not have been quite sane during that time.
Over forty stems.
Lots of ventilation, but still.
Forty plus stems, and skin exposure.
Okay, yes, I know now that I should use gloves. In the past I have always strenuously avoided surgical gloves, even when making gallons of Habanero hotsauce at home -- ask me sometime about spending an hour buck-naked under a cold shower because even though I washed my hands thoroughly before taking a leak there were (unpleasant) consequences -- as I really need to feel what I am doing.
But apparently nitrile gloves ARE sensitive. An emergency room surgeon who is a fellow-member of the pipe club tells me so.
Almost nobody uses latex anymore.
I found this out on Thursday evening after the meeting of the Golden Gate Pipe Club. About a dozen mature gentlemen had gathered for an informative discussion of a famous old blend -- Presbyterian Mixture -- and the sharing of various nicely aged VaPers, plus the inevitable tin of Arcadia. There's always Arcadia. Someone has fifty three tins of it.
After it was over he and I had drinks at the Occidental.
I was still feeling a bit askew, and told him why.
[Interstice: Presbyterian Mixture was first compounded for Reverend John White, who was a most moral man, despite my fond fantasy that he was a savage brute in charge of a girl's reformatory and loved nothing better than birching the tender subjects under his care. Presbyterian sounds stern and severe, but this mixture is anything but, being a refined riot of Macedonian and ribbon-cut aged Virginia. All in all a decadent and obscene product, that only self-indulgent orgiasts (like, perhaps, Stanley Baldwin, a prime minister) would secretly enjoy, in private, so that none should suspect them of queer practices. I cannot imagine smoking this constantly. The last time I opened a tin my apartment mate came beetling out of her room like a bat out of hell at three o'clock in the morning and accused me of several things, finishing with the command that I should go smoke that vile product out at the abandoned church with the bums and the raccoons. Beast! It is a rather pleasant smoke, evenso. It is not at all like Erinmore Flake, which is the whore of Babylon of tobaccos.
The only reason why I mention them at the same time is because I enjoy saying 'Presbyteeeeeerian' in the same sneering tone as 'whoooooore of Babylon'. I also particularly like the word 'glandered', except that there is no tobacco yet to which that epithet can be applied. Suggestions are welcome.]
There was some wine and port at the meeting, very nice.
Also cheese and grapes, plus cookies.
I like cookies.
I lit up my first pipe of the day shortly after seven and joined the boys. When we left a few hours later, there was a dense fog hanging in the room, from several pipes which had been smoked.
Quite marvelous, and very civilized.
I suppose if you were a non-pipesmoker, you would have found the conversation most dreadfully boring, but there was only one of those present, and she was off in a corner enjoying herself with her cell-phone.
I hope we see her again; she was very pleasant.
She only sneezed once.
Anyhow, that was all middle of the week. On Friday I was still a bit affected, Saturday too. So I deemed it best to stay in tonight, and behave myself.
Which is how I discovered the Teenage Japanese Cleavage.
Quite a splendid contradictory word-combination.
Cleavage suggests "more than".
But it's Japanese.
So "less".
[By the way, the term "teenage", in all contexts on this blog, implies a person who is legally old enough to buy tobacco products. Such as Presbyterian Mixture (Orientals and flue-cured leaf, plus a modicum of Latakia), Erinmore Flake (mostly pressed flue-cured with a peculiar fruity flavouring), St. James Flake (my tin, several years old, marvelously pongy, black and laden with Perique), Arcadia (a medium McClelland Oriental mixture with a substantial fan-base), London Mixture (medium-full Dunhill English mixture which is the only pipe tobacco our oldest member smokes), either Samarra or Cairo by Greg Pease (Oriental mixtures, well compounded), several VaPers, and at least two aromatics. Eighteen or older.]
Further pursuant chlorine poisoning and surgical gloves, we also discussed folds of flesh, morbidly obese people, heart failure due to weight, a patient who was six hundred pounds, and the opportunistic fungal infections that thrive in moist warm skin zones, such as between the toes, in the groin, between the folds of flab where one may also find a supply of soda crackers which the patient could be hoarding, and underneath the breasts when the mammaries are of a size. Teenage Japanese Cleavage seldom, if ever, gets to that point. It's a genetic thing. I doubt that that was the focus of the internet search, however.
As a thin person, I find large breasts a bit scary.
Which they are. Probably carnivorous.
I never read Playboy.
You should know that large breasts benefit from a well-made brassiere not only because of support, but also because the garment whicks away the moisture. Which is especially useful in warm parts of the world, like Marin County and Oakland. You can also dust the area with medicated foot powder or a little corn starch.
If faced with Teenage Japanese Cleavage, the previously mentioned Presbyterian minister might consider powdered sugar better.
He was a degenerate, I am convinced of that.
His blend says so.
I am a clean wholesome man, and have never seen Teenage Japanese Cleavage, and I rarely smoke Presbyterian Mixture.
I feel guilty when I do.
AN HONEST AFTERWORD
In the interests of total disclosure, I will admit that Teenage (eighteen or older) Japanese Cleavage is undoubtedly a fascinating subject, worthy of serious attention by all manner of pervs and pipe smokers. And while I thoroughly enjoy smoking a pipe -- which, according to well-informed Berkeleyites, Vegans, and Tofu-snarfing earthmoms, kills puppies and little children -- it has been a while since I had the opportunity to inspect cleavage of any sort or derivation from close-up. Cleavage, Japanese or otherwise, is not presently an important element in my universe.
The lack of cleavage affects my welt-anschauung.
But it does not fill me with angst.
It just is.
In further total disclosure, these are the pipe tobaccos I have smoked in the past few months: Elizabethan Mixture, Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake, Samuel Gawith's Full Virginia Flake, Greg Pease's Abingdon, Wessex Red Virginia Flake, Wessex Brown Flake, Escudo, The Rotary Navy Cut, HH Latakia Flake, Samuel Gawith Bracken Flake, 1792, Niemeyer's Vier Heeren Baai, Capstan, Three Nuns, McClelland's Black Shag, Hearth and Home's Black House, Greg Pease's Union Square, Greg Pease's Telegraph Hill, Greg Pease's Navigator, Greg Pease's Sextant, Greg Pease's Gaslight, Greg Pease's Cairo, Davidoff Flake Medallions, Rattray's Old Gowrie, Rattray's Brown Clunee, Rattray's Hal O' The Wynd, Rattray's Professional Mixture, Dunhill Three Year Matured Virginia, Peter Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake, Arango's Balkan Supreme, several mixtures of my own devising ranging from mild flue-cured amalgamations to Lat bombs, and a bunch of bizarre oddments from Altadis.
In that same period, the oldest member of the Golden Gate Pipe Club has smoked London Mixture and nothing else.
He's a remarkable man.
He's probably the only one of us who may have ever been exposed to any Teenage Japanese Cleavage, what with being a retired surgeon and all...
but I doubt it made a significant impact on him.
Seeing as it was in a professional context.
And he's happily married.
For some strange reason, several of the other members are not married. No, Teenage Japanese Cleavage has nothing to do with that either. The plain fact of the matter is that many women fiercely resent pipes, pipe tobacco, and the simple enjoyment of a civilized habit. I really don't know what it is. Perhaps they would rather we devote our energies to purses, shoes, Hello Kitty, tofu, puppies, and the not killing of little children in Berkeley.
We did NOT discuss breasts. Of ANY size, shape, or type. If I had only known at the time that breasts might come bouncing to the roiling surface of internet-consciousness (or at the very least manifest themselves as a search-criterium of importance), I could have brought them up for all the members to register their voice.
I'm sure everyone except the two medical men would have had strong and informed opinions, which would have proven enlightening.
I could have shared them here.
Be that as it may, we remain positive about things.
Pipesmokers are cheerful individuals.
With a sunny outlook on life.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Surely those folks do not deserve it?
There's more to life than that.
Well, there is. But one recent depraved search is near to my heart.
TEENAGE JAPANESE CLEAVAGE
Good lord, man, how on earth did that bring you to this outpost of the internet? Teenage Japanese cleavage has never been a theme here, though it may have been mentioned once in connection with a discourse on Manga meant for a young Japanese male audience. And even then there were no pictures, diagrams, or schematics.
No actual descriptions either.
The internet is filled to overflowing with sites far more devoted to bringing you your fetish titty, as well as food, and kitten pictures.
There may even be a bosom or two somewhere in the bowels of I CAN HAS CHEESBURGER. Whether it's attractive or not I cannot say, it depends on you. It might even be Japanese. Go there and investigate. Give it your best shot. Peruse. Examine. Research.
Do your due diligence.
Just google it if you don't know where it is.
Oh wait. That's a mistake. Doing so brought you here.
Where there is no Teenage Japanese Cleavage.
Yes, I know; you are farklempt.
I sympathize.
AND NOW, SERIOUS REPORTAGE
Normal readers will probably be wondering why I am sitting in front of the computer at this hour on a Saturday night, when by all rights they should expect me to be at the local cigar bar with my Scotch and water, lighting up a pipefull of matured Virginia tobacco, and sagely holding forth on the ills of the world.
Gaza, Iron Dome, starving Yazidis on a hillside in Irak, the European depravities, Russians shooting down plane-loads of Dutchmen and Malays, Tofu, Vegan plots, and the latest rape scandals in India.
Crap like that.
Normally I would be.
Except that on Wednesday I managed to poison myself. I'm still a bit affected by it. Not entirely up to my usual fifty-five year-old snuff.
And not quite as full of piss and vinegar.
See, there were over forty pipes that needed cleaning, so I removed the carbon rubber stems and dumped them in bleach for two hours, which loosens the oxidation. Afterwards you can simply rub off the grime, and though the rubber will feel gritty (the oxidation was part of the material, consequently its removal leaves microscopic pits), it will now be suitable for buffing the crap out of to make it gleam all shiny black again.
What I do while the stems are soaking is pour alcohol into the bowls to loosen tars and carbon, so that a quick ream of the cake (carbon layer), and a scrubbing of the inside of the shank with a thready thing and bristly pipe cleaners, will render the briar smokeable again.
After an episode a few weeks ago when I ended up with chemical burns on my fingers because I had also employed Zippo fluid to dissolve the grease on the outer surfaces -- doing so bleaches the wood slightly, but a subsequent application of wax and polish makes it more beautiful and old-fashioned looking than before -- and had, in consequence, entirely leached out the protective skin-oils from the aforementioned fingers, leaving them quite painfully subject to bleach penetration, I postponed playing with lighter fluid till after the stems were ready.
Briefly back to breasts: On the bus ride home this evening, there were at least twelve young and possibly teenage Korean breasts -- that's exactly six sets, or matching pairs -- and any (even) number of other mammary glands of various origins. No, I cannot describe the cleavages, because my hands were cold and investigation would have been startling.
Entirely aside from which I meditate on the journeys to and from Marin. Crawl inside my own head, slow down both breathing and heart-beat,
and find the centre of my consciousness.
Or read everyone else's mind.
It's exercise.
Over forty stems. Which had not been tended to in decades.
Rub rub rub. Rinse rinse rinse.
Lots of bleach.
Then paper towels soaked in Zippo.
And a bit of sand papering.
By tea-time I had to retire to the office, to lie on the floor drenched in sweat and weakly mumbling for an hour or two. Jaw, neck tendons and the muscles in my arms feeling like someone else was pulling at them.
No nausea, no chest pains, no blurry vision, no throbbing head.
Just twitching, buckets of perspiration, and general lassitude.
I may not have been quite sane during that time.
Over forty stems.
Lots of ventilation, but still.
Forty plus stems, and skin exposure.
Okay, yes, I know now that I should use gloves. In the past I have always strenuously avoided surgical gloves, even when making gallons of Habanero hotsauce at home -- ask me sometime about spending an hour buck-naked under a cold shower because even though I washed my hands thoroughly before taking a leak there were (unpleasant) consequences -- as I really need to feel what I am doing.
But apparently nitrile gloves ARE sensitive. An emergency room surgeon who is a fellow-member of the pipe club tells me so.
Almost nobody uses latex anymore.
I found this out on Thursday evening after the meeting of the Golden Gate Pipe Club. About a dozen mature gentlemen had gathered for an informative discussion of a famous old blend -- Presbyterian Mixture -- and the sharing of various nicely aged VaPers, plus the inevitable tin of Arcadia. There's always Arcadia. Someone has fifty three tins of it.
After it was over he and I had drinks at the Occidental.
I was still feeling a bit askew, and told him why.
[Interstice: Presbyterian Mixture was first compounded for Reverend John White, who was a most moral man, despite my fond fantasy that he was a savage brute in charge of a girl's reformatory and loved nothing better than birching the tender subjects under his care. Presbyterian sounds stern and severe, but this mixture is anything but, being a refined riot of Macedonian and ribbon-cut aged Virginia. All in all a decadent and obscene product, that only self-indulgent orgiasts (like, perhaps, Stanley Baldwin, a prime minister) would secretly enjoy, in private, so that none should suspect them of queer practices. I cannot imagine smoking this constantly. The last time I opened a tin my apartment mate came beetling out of her room like a bat out of hell at three o'clock in the morning and accused me of several things, finishing with the command that I should go smoke that vile product out at the abandoned church with the bums and the raccoons. Beast! It is a rather pleasant smoke, evenso. It is not at all like Erinmore Flake, which is the whore of Babylon of tobaccos.
The only reason why I mention them at the same time is because I enjoy saying 'Presbyteeeeeerian' in the same sneering tone as 'whoooooore of Babylon'. I also particularly like the word 'glandered', except that there is no tobacco yet to which that epithet can be applied. Suggestions are welcome.]
There was some wine and port at the meeting, very nice.
Also cheese and grapes, plus cookies.
I like cookies.
I lit up my first pipe of the day shortly after seven and joined the boys. When we left a few hours later, there was a dense fog hanging in the room, from several pipes which had been smoked.
Quite marvelous, and very civilized.
I suppose if you were a non-pipesmoker, you would have found the conversation most dreadfully boring, but there was only one of those present, and she was off in a corner enjoying herself with her cell-phone.
I hope we see her again; she was very pleasant.
She only sneezed once.
Anyhow, that was all middle of the week. On Friday I was still a bit affected, Saturday too. So I deemed it best to stay in tonight, and behave myself.
Which is how I discovered the Teenage Japanese Cleavage.
Quite a splendid contradictory word-combination.
Cleavage suggests "more than".
But it's Japanese.
So "less".
[By the way, the term "teenage", in all contexts on this blog, implies a person who is legally old enough to buy tobacco products. Such as Presbyterian Mixture (Orientals and flue-cured leaf, plus a modicum of Latakia), Erinmore Flake (mostly pressed flue-cured with a peculiar fruity flavouring), St. James Flake (my tin, several years old, marvelously pongy, black and laden with Perique), Arcadia (a medium McClelland Oriental mixture with a substantial fan-base), London Mixture (medium-full Dunhill English mixture which is the only pipe tobacco our oldest member smokes), either Samarra or Cairo by Greg Pease (Oriental mixtures, well compounded), several VaPers, and at least two aromatics. Eighteen or older.]
Further pursuant chlorine poisoning and surgical gloves, we also discussed folds of flesh, morbidly obese people, heart failure due to weight, a patient who was six hundred pounds, and the opportunistic fungal infections that thrive in moist warm skin zones, such as between the toes, in the groin, between the folds of flab where one may also find a supply of soda crackers which the patient could be hoarding, and underneath the breasts when the mammaries are of a size. Teenage Japanese Cleavage seldom, if ever, gets to that point. It's a genetic thing. I doubt that that was the focus of the internet search, however.
As a thin person, I find large breasts a bit scary.
Which they are. Probably carnivorous.
I never read Playboy.
You should know that large breasts benefit from a well-made brassiere not only because of support, but also because the garment whicks away the moisture. Which is especially useful in warm parts of the world, like Marin County and Oakland. You can also dust the area with medicated foot powder or a little corn starch.
If faced with Teenage Japanese Cleavage, the previously mentioned Presbyterian minister might consider powdered sugar better.
He was a degenerate, I am convinced of that.
His blend says so.
I am a clean wholesome man, and have never seen Teenage Japanese Cleavage, and I rarely smoke Presbyterian Mixture.
I feel guilty when I do.
AN HONEST AFTERWORD
In the interests of total disclosure, I will admit that Teenage (eighteen or older) Japanese Cleavage is undoubtedly a fascinating subject, worthy of serious attention by all manner of pervs and pipe smokers. And while I thoroughly enjoy smoking a pipe -- which, according to well-informed Berkeleyites, Vegans, and Tofu-snarfing earthmoms, kills puppies and little children -- it has been a while since I had the opportunity to inspect cleavage of any sort or derivation from close-up. Cleavage, Japanese or otherwise, is not presently an important element in my universe.
The lack of cleavage affects my welt-anschauung.
But it does not fill me with angst.
It just is.
In further total disclosure, these are the pipe tobaccos I have smoked in the past few months: Elizabethan Mixture, Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake, Samuel Gawith's Full Virginia Flake, Greg Pease's Abingdon, Wessex Red Virginia Flake, Wessex Brown Flake, Escudo, The Rotary Navy Cut, HH Latakia Flake, Samuel Gawith Bracken Flake, 1792, Niemeyer's Vier Heeren Baai, Capstan, Three Nuns, McClelland's Black Shag, Hearth and Home's Black House, Greg Pease's Union Square, Greg Pease's Telegraph Hill, Greg Pease's Navigator, Greg Pease's Sextant, Greg Pease's Gaslight, Greg Pease's Cairo, Davidoff Flake Medallions, Rattray's Old Gowrie, Rattray's Brown Clunee, Rattray's Hal O' The Wynd, Rattray's Professional Mixture, Dunhill Three Year Matured Virginia, Peter Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake, Arango's Balkan Supreme, several mixtures of my own devising ranging from mild flue-cured amalgamations to Lat bombs, and a bunch of bizarre oddments from Altadis.
In that same period, the oldest member of the Golden Gate Pipe Club has smoked London Mixture and nothing else.
He's a remarkable man.
He's probably the only one of us who may have ever been exposed to any Teenage Japanese Cleavage, what with being a retired surgeon and all...
but I doubt it made a significant impact on him.
Seeing as it was in a professional context.
And he's happily married.
For some strange reason, several of the other members are not married. No, Teenage Japanese Cleavage has nothing to do with that either. The plain fact of the matter is that many women fiercely resent pipes, pipe tobacco, and the simple enjoyment of a civilized habit. I really don't know what it is. Perhaps they would rather we devote our energies to purses, shoes, Hello Kitty, tofu, puppies, and the not killing of little children in Berkeley.
We did NOT discuss breasts. Of ANY size, shape, or type. If I had only known at the time that breasts might come bouncing to the roiling surface of internet-consciousness (or at the very least manifest themselves as a search-criterium of importance), I could have brought them up for all the members to register their voice.
I'm sure everyone except the two medical men would have had strong and informed opinions, which would have proven enlightening.
I could have shared them here.
Be that as it may, we remain positive about things.
Pipesmokers are cheerful individuals.
With a sunny outlook on life.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 08, 2014
WELL-MATURED GRAVITAS
When I still lived in North Beach and worked down on Polk Street at the Indian Restaurant, there was an apartment I used to visit late at night on my way home, in an alleyway off a street lined with trees. An old friend lived there. An insomniac.
And by old, I mean elderly. Aged. Of years.
Dessicated, fossilized, creaky.
An antique.
If you didn't know better, you might describe him as a sour old grumpus. He ate at the restaurant occasionally, then belly-ached about acid indigestion and stiffness in his joints, before mentioning that he would now head to a bar and ogle girlies.
Nice lively little blonde girlies!
With boobs, man, boobs!
Drop by after you get off, and I'll tell you if I scored. I've got a full liquor cabinet, and tobacco. Though if I have scored, you can knock and knock, but I probably shan't answer; far too busy!
The whisky will all be gone anyway.
Given that he could quote Chaucer and Alexander Pope, and seemed in other ways a real person, I naturally eventually took him up on the offer. He'd still be up long after midnight, and he'd make a pot of tea. Tea is always good when there's a glass of single malt, and some tobacco.
No, he never scored with any of the girls he had ogled. He ascribed that to their being unappreciative of literature, as well as addicted to cheap cigarettes. Real people smoked Marlin Flake or Escudo. That latter was no longer available, and while he gladly shared the sheets of Rattray's dark intoxicating flake, the delicate discs of spuncut tobacco were to be carefully hoarded, selfishly and greedily. Here, have some more Scotch and tea. Good tea, huh? Freed, Teller, and Freed.
[Freed, Teller, and Freed was a purveyor of coffee and tea on Polk Street at number 1326, corner of Austin Alley, which is now called Frank Norris Street. The Freed brothers and Mr. Teller started an institution that lasted over a century, and was much beloved by generations of cognoscenti. Frank Norris was a notorious anti-Semite and scumbag, inexplicably also much loved. San Francisco is a very odd place. Freed, Teller, and Freed closed their doors in October 1999.]
He stressed that if he ever found a curvy blonde chicky, the door would be locked, the lights would be low, and the Escudo might be all gone. He and she would likely stay up all night fondling each other and smoking, go find somewhere else to pass the time.
But it had not ever happened yet.
Still in the planning stages.
Here's the tin of Rattray's Marlin Flake. Load up.
During the rainy season the last year before he moved to Texas to be with his son, I would drop by two or three times a week. His living room looked out over the alleyway, right where the trees of Bush Street cast dark shadows on the water streaming downhill. There was scant fog that winter, but lots of rain. The streetlights seemed brighter in the downpour.
The rushing sounds from outside often stilled the conversation. It was very pleasant to sit at the window looking at the water falling in shafts of light, tea between us, and two pipes going.
Always thank your host for a lovely evening when you leave.
Bring him some fresh fruit or vegetables occasionally.
Old guys are often too busy shlep those home.
Feel free to smoke the Rattray's flake.
Cope's discs are off limits.
Late at night you don't want milk and sugar in your tea, it's fine just the way it is. Dairy tends to coat the mouth anyway, which interferes with both single malt and tobacco. And if you ate Indian food that evening, plain tea is good for the stomach. It refreshes you, removes the tiredness, and you might even have a second pipe-full.
Besides, it's raining.
There are cute blonde chickies in Texas, good lord that place is filled with them! And the weather is much better for arthritic joints, he must be having a ball. If he ever did find that curvy woman who appreciated literature, he'll be glad that Escudo is finally available again.
They can smoke and fondle for years to come.
But on the other hand, it's Texas.
They're kind of weird there.
And a bit silly.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And by old, I mean elderly. Aged. Of years.
Dessicated, fossilized, creaky.
An antique.
If you didn't know better, you might describe him as a sour old grumpus. He ate at the restaurant occasionally, then belly-ached about acid indigestion and stiffness in his joints, before mentioning that he would now head to a bar and ogle girlies.
Nice lively little blonde girlies!
With boobs, man, boobs!
Drop by after you get off, and I'll tell you if I scored. I've got a full liquor cabinet, and tobacco. Though if I have scored, you can knock and knock, but I probably shan't answer; far too busy!
The whisky will all be gone anyway.
Given that he could quote Chaucer and Alexander Pope, and seemed in other ways a real person, I naturally eventually took him up on the offer. He'd still be up long after midnight, and he'd make a pot of tea. Tea is always good when there's a glass of single malt, and some tobacco.
No, he never scored with any of the girls he had ogled. He ascribed that to their being unappreciative of literature, as well as addicted to cheap cigarettes. Real people smoked Marlin Flake or Escudo. That latter was no longer available, and while he gladly shared the sheets of Rattray's dark intoxicating flake, the delicate discs of spuncut tobacco were to be carefully hoarded, selfishly and greedily. Here, have some more Scotch and tea. Good tea, huh? Freed, Teller, and Freed.
[Freed, Teller, and Freed was a purveyor of coffee and tea on Polk Street at number 1326, corner of Austin Alley, which is now called Frank Norris Street. The Freed brothers and Mr. Teller started an institution that lasted over a century, and was much beloved by generations of cognoscenti. Frank Norris was a notorious anti-Semite and scumbag, inexplicably also much loved. San Francisco is a very odd place. Freed, Teller, and Freed closed their doors in October 1999.]
He stressed that if he ever found a curvy blonde chicky, the door would be locked, the lights would be low, and the Escudo might be all gone. He and she would likely stay up all night fondling each other and smoking, go find somewhere else to pass the time.
But it had not ever happened yet.
Still in the planning stages.
Here's the tin of Rattray's Marlin Flake. Load up.
During the rainy season the last year before he moved to Texas to be with his son, I would drop by two or three times a week. His living room looked out over the alleyway, right where the trees of Bush Street cast dark shadows on the water streaming downhill. There was scant fog that winter, but lots of rain. The streetlights seemed brighter in the downpour.
The rushing sounds from outside often stilled the conversation. It was very pleasant to sit at the window looking at the water falling in shafts of light, tea between us, and two pipes going.
Always thank your host for a lovely evening when you leave.
Bring him some fresh fruit or vegetables occasionally.
Old guys are often too busy shlep those home.
Feel free to smoke the Rattray's flake.
Cope's discs are off limits.
Late at night you don't want milk and sugar in your tea, it's fine just the way it is. Dairy tends to coat the mouth anyway, which interferes with both single malt and tobacco. And if you ate Indian food that evening, plain tea is good for the stomach. It refreshes you, removes the tiredness, and you might even have a second pipe-full.
Besides, it's raining.
There are cute blonde chickies in Texas, good lord that place is filled with them! And the weather is much better for arthritic joints, he must be having a ball. If he ever did find that curvy woman who appreciated literature, he'll be glad that Escudo is finally available again.
They can smoke and fondle for years to come.
But on the other hand, it's Texas.
They're kind of weird there.
And a bit silly.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 07, 2014
THE SACRIFICE OF INNOCENTS!
One by one they fell, all twelve of them. Their leader had defiantly asserted that it was better to perish free Udang than live as slaves.
He was the last to die. They were scooped out of the briny depths, and rapacious hands made light work, gutting them and removing their armour, leaving them naked and pink in the sun.
A fire was started, and a cauldron placed thereupon. Oil was added, and then the shrimp, still so fresh that their moist glistensomeness had not faded. They sputtered as they were tossed, and both chopped tomatoes and chilipaste were added to their insult. Plus garlic.
Which had been whacked with a cleaver.
Within mere seconds, they were dished forth.
Some lime was squeezed over them.
Cilantro to finish.
And the feast began.
SAMBAL UDANG GORENG
For each pound of freshest shrimp, one cup of chopped tomato, two tablespoons of chili paste ('sambal oelek' or 'sambal badjak'), and one clove of garlic (smashed). Ginger is not necessary.
Olive oil, lime juice, and a little cilantro.
The key is speed; shrimp goes off even faster than most other seafood. Peel them and remove the poo-vein, rip off their little legs and rinse them. You may leave the head on (unpeeled), as it is good for sucking, and full of flavour.
Once the oil starts smoking, add the shrimp, very promptly followed by everything else in the order given. Then dump it on a platter, and serve with fresh crusty sourdough.
You might want some chopped cucumbers on the side, both for contrast and to lessen the deleterious effects of too much crustaceanity on both your digestive system and the metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of either big toe. Left or right, it does not matter.
[If there is any crystalization in joints, tendons, and the surrounding tissues, you might have a problem. This can be avoided by upping your intake of coffee, citrus fruits, chilies, as well as milk, for several months beforehand, and getting off your duff once in a while. I can teach you how to do that, as I have excellent personal and dietary habits, and consequently only very minor gout, at rare intervals.]
I did not have any sourdough in the house, despite living in the beating heart of San Francisco, but I had prepared some rice. And instead of cucumber, there was okra.
Mmmm, okra!
羊角豆 ('Yeung gok tau'; "goat horn bean") or 潺茄 ('saan ke'; "flushy gourd"), katjang bendi in Indonesian. Because of its mildness okra may be cooked with strong flavours, or plain boiled, with peanut sauce for dipping on the side. It is also quite excellent in soups and stews.
I tend to stirfry it rather plainly, because I like the taste.
Okro supu is very Surinamese.
Add crabs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
He was the last to die. They were scooped out of the briny depths, and rapacious hands made light work, gutting them and removing their armour, leaving them naked and pink in the sun.
A fire was started, and a cauldron placed thereupon. Oil was added, and then the shrimp, still so fresh that their moist glistensomeness had not faded. They sputtered as they were tossed, and both chopped tomatoes and chilipaste were added to their insult. Plus garlic.
Which had been whacked with a cleaver.
Within mere seconds, they were dished forth.
Some lime was squeezed over them.
Cilantro to finish.
And the feast began.
SAMBAL UDANG GORENG
For each pound of freshest shrimp, one cup of chopped tomato, two tablespoons of chili paste ('sambal oelek' or 'sambal badjak'), and one clove of garlic (smashed). Ginger is not necessary.
Olive oil, lime juice, and a little cilantro.
The key is speed; shrimp goes off even faster than most other seafood. Peel them and remove the poo-vein, rip off their little legs and rinse them. You may leave the head on (unpeeled), as it is good for sucking, and full of flavour.
Once the oil starts smoking, add the shrimp, very promptly followed by everything else in the order given. Then dump it on a platter, and serve with fresh crusty sourdough.
You might want some chopped cucumbers on the side, both for contrast and to lessen the deleterious effects of too much crustaceanity on both your digestive system and the metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of either big toe. Left or right, it does not matter.
[If there is any crystalization in joints, tendons, and the surrounding tissues, you might have a problem. This can be avoided by upping your intake of coffee, citrus fruits, chilies, as well as milk, for several months beforehand, and getting off your duff once in a while. I can teach you how to do that, as I have excellent personal and dietary habits, and consequently only very minor gout, at rare intervals.]
I did not have any sourdough in the house, despite living in the beating heart of San Francisco, but I had prepared some rice. And instead of cucumber, there was okra.
Mmmm, okra!
羊角豆 ('Yeung gok tau'; "goat horn bean") or 潺茄 ('saan ke'; "flushy gourd"), katjang bendi in Indonesian. Because of its mildness okra may be cooked with strong flavours, or plain boiled, with peanut sauce for dipping on the side. It is also quite excellent in soups and stews.
I tend to stirfry it rather plainly, because I like the taste.
Okro supu is very Surinamese.
Add crabs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
BLACK BEAN SAUCE SPARE RIBS RICE -- 豆豉排骨飯 DAU SI PAAI GWAT FAAN
One of my favourite dimsum restaurants is the place with all the coughing old people. They're famous for their black bean sparerib rice. After the crowds die down, the elderly ladies and gentlemen from the nearby apartment buildings wander in, have themselves lunch, and cough. Spareribs can be fatty, you see, and the grease makes their throat feel phlegmy.
I'm of two minds about the coughing old people.
I like the fact that they're enjoying life immensely, what with good snackipoos to eat and all that. Old people need to have fun too.
On the other hand (other lung?), they're horking up hairballs.
Dimsum is meant to be shared. I am not that social. Of course, judging by my meals over the past several years, I am not social at all, not in the slightest.
It's not that I wouldn't want to eat with someone else, it's just that the group thing has no appeal whatsoever anymore -- not since the East Bay folks got all dickish, which more or less coincided with the end of my last relationship with a member of the other gender -- and I don't really like people that much.
The place with all the coughing old people would be a great place to have lunch with someone sweet. The problem is that if that person were white, they'd probably be too fastidious and have weird food hang-ups, and consequently object to damned well everything that came out of the kitchen, and if they were Asian American they might worry about what the coughing old people would think, good heavens, there's my auntie!
Assuming that they were Chinese American, of course.
Other Asian Americans have white food hang-ups.
Or very middle-class food ignorance.
I don't think I've ever seen more than one other white person there at any given time. White people talk a lot about food, especially dimsum and other Chinese fun stuff, but they don't really get too close. That's why they go to teahouses with nice decorous wait-staff, table-cloths, and a white-speaking clientele.
[For white people who actually do want to get closer to food, here's a list of all the items you might be curious about: DIM SUM: KINDS, NAMES, PRONUNCIATION, DESCRIPTION.]
Yeah, some white people do eat. But they tend to get all spiritual and sh*t about it when they eat outside of the box.
It's very irritating, that.
我好鍾意食豆豉排骨！
Now, having read this far, you are probably thinking: "why is he whining, the solution is simple! All he needs is some Chinese American chick to eat with! Easy! The city is filled!"
Yes, the city IS filled. But what on earth would we talk about?
What could we possibly have in common?
It's not just a food thing, but a book thing.
The issue is one of language and interests.
[There are a number of places where I no longer go in Chinatown because the women are just too nice.
With so little common ground, that's a disaster in the making in any direction.]
By the way, did I ever mention that 'cute', 'girlishness', and 'feminity' make me barf? It is important to grasp that. Real people have opinions, talk back, pursue their interests avidly, and don't pout.
Ick poo.
The vast majority of Chinese American women have NEVER read Wind In The Willows. Or Beatrix Potter's stories.
Most non-Chinese American women haven't either, unfortunately.
There's a dreadful lack of imagination all across the board.
I am far too stubborn to learn about handbags, shoes, and fabulous shopping in ANY language.
嘩，有手袋，有鞋，有美妙購物添; 偉大嘅品牌喺低價格低！
Chit-chat involving brand names (or sports terminology) kills brain cells.
I'm not interested in dating a white woman. I am not interested in dating a Chinese American woman. Actually, I'm not really interested in dating at all. Not if it means conversational death.
I am quite imperfectly happy eating dimsum on my own surrounded by coughing old people.
Might even simply have the black bean sauce spare ribs and rice again sometime soon. Then fill up a pipe and go wander underneath the gingko trees afterwards. Rich fatty meat, an entire pot of tea to myself, and a Virginia and Perique mixture to smoke.
I am not really very social.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I'm of two minds about the coughing old people.
I like the fact that they're enjoying life immensely, what with good snackipoos to eat and all that. Old people need to have fun too.
On the other hand (other lung?), they're horking up hairballs.
Dimsum is meant to be shared. I am not that social. Of course, judging by my meals over the past several years, I am not social at all, not in the slightest.
It's not that I wouldn't want to eat with someone else, it's just that the group thing has no appeal whatsoever anymore -- not since the East Bay folks got all dickish, which more or less coincided with the end of my last relationship with a member of the other gender -- and I don't really like people that much.
The place with all the coughing old people would be a great place to have lunch with someone sweet. The problem is that if that person were white, they'd probably be too fastidious and have weird food hang-ups, and consequently object to damned well everything that came out of the kitchen, and if they were Asian American they might worry about what the coughing old people would think, good heavens, there's my auntie!
Assuming that they were Chinese American, of course.
Other Asian Americans have white food hang-ups.
Or very middle-class food ignorance.
I don't think I've ever seen more than one other white person there at any given time. White people talk a lot about food, especially dimsum and other Chinese fun stuff, but they don't really get too close. That's why they go to teahouses with nice decorous wait-staff, table-cloths, and a white-speaking clientele.
[For white people who actually do want to get closer to food, here's a list of all the items you might be curious about: DIM SUM: KINDS, NAMES, PRONUNCIATION, DESCRIPTION.]
Yeah, some white people do eat. But they tend to get all spiritual and sh*t about it when they eat outside of the box.
It's very irritating, that.
我好鍾意食豆豉排骨！
Now, having read this far, you are probably thinking: "why is he whining, the solution is simple! All he needs is some Chinese American chick to eat with! Easy! The city is filled!"
Yes, the city IS filled. But what on earth would we talk about?
What could we possibly have in common?
It's not just a food thing, but a book thing.
The issue is one of language and interests.
[There are a number of places where I no longer go in Chinatown because the women are just too nice.
With so little common ground, that's a disaster in the making in any direction.]
By the way, did I ever mention that 'cute', 'girlishness', and 'feminity' make me barf? It is important to grasp that. Real people have opinions, talk back, pursue their interests avidly, and don't pout.
Ick poo.
The vast majority of Chinese American women have NEVER read Wind In The Willows. Or Beatrix Potter's stories.
Most non-Chinese American women haven't either, unfortunately.
There's a dreadful lack of imagination all across the board.
I am far too stubborn to learn about handbags, shoes, and fabulous shopping in ANY language.
嘩，有手袋，有鞋，有美妙購物添; 偉大嘅品牌喺低價格低！
Chit-chat involving brand names (or sports terminology) kills brain cells.
I'm not interested in dating a white woman. I am not interested in dating a Chinese American woman. Actually, I'm not really interested in dating at all. Not if it means conversational death.
I am quite imperfectly happy eating dimsum on my own surrounded by coughing old people.
Might even simply have the black bean sauce spare ribs and rice again sometime soon. Then fill up a pipe and go wander underneath the gingko trees afterwards. Rich fatty meat, an entire pot of tea to myself, and a Virginia and Perique mixture to smoke.
I am not really very social.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
CHICKEN CHICKEN CHICKEN! MAMA?
This blogger is an incredible fan of classical music. Yes. It's nature, not nurture. Mozart, babies, is in my blood. Or perhaps it's Beethoven. Something high salt.
Yes.
WORLD'S BEST KARAOKE NUMBER
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY.]
Like all truly great movie-making events, there's a director's cut with insightful remarks by the people involved in putting the masterpiece together.
THE FROG COMMENTARY
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAomKAMN2Pw.]
Bacon chips are the solution to all of your problems.
Beware of those two old guys; they're mean.
Rock & roll, bitches, rock & roll.
Shouldn't have eaten that composer.
Unfortunately indigestible.
Shrei gevalt.
By the way: Pepe the King Prawn is from Madrid.
He's Spanish; that's important to know.
I'm thinking gambas al ajillo.
But maybe not. Gout.
A problem.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Yes.
WORLD'S BEST KARAOKE NUMBER
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY.]
Like all truly great movie-making events, there's a director's cut with insightful remarks by the people involved in putting the masterpiece together.
THE FROG COMMENTARY
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAomKAMN2Pw.]
Bacon chips are the solution to all of your problems.
Beware of those two old guys; they're mean.
Rock & roll, bitches, rock & roll.
Shouldn't have eaten that composer.
Unfortunately indigestible.
Shrei gevalt.
By the way: Pepe the King Prawn is from Madrid.
He's Spanish; that's important to know.
I'm thinking gambas al ajillo.
But maybe not. Gout.
A problem.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GRELZAKIAN TOADCULT: COMING SOON
"We are few in numbers, but trust me, we are planning all the time. A day will come when you will bow to our meshune beleifsystem, puny human!"
This, as you would expect, was a message from a believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Who is manifestly damned and going to hell (a place where Wasps cook pasta!) for his heretical perversions.
Because, as every rational person instinctively knows, the only true faith is the Grelzakian Toadcult.
His prophet Zerblat was sent here for our salvation.
I am a missionary in this sacred task.
Of spreading truth.
Believe!
ROASTED BLERFNIKS!!!
Have a happy Thanksblornik, babies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
This, as you would expect, was a message from a believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Who is manifestly damned and going to hell (a place where Wasps cook pasta!) for his heretical perversions.
Because, as every rational person instinctively knows, the only true faith is the Grelzakian Toadcult.
His prophet Zerblat was sent here for our salvation.
I am a missionary in this sacred task.
Of spreading truth.
Believe!
ROASTED BLERFNIKS!!!
Have a happy Thanksblornik, babies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
BLESSED ARE THE GREEK
It's not just distance; sometimes the person speaking is quite indistinct. Or they have one of those queer accents that make it impossible to understand them at all.
I watched part of Life of Brian again recently. For those who don't know, it's an educational movie about the origins of Seventh Day Adventism, very well worth watching. It's informative!
If you are religiously inclined, it will change you.
At some point, an early disciple of Werner Erhard states "blessed are the Greek, for they shall inherit the earth".
The cheese makers will also be rewarded.
Greek cheese makers are doubly blessed.
Chinese Americans, judging by this creed, are rather out of luck.
You cannot find bougatsa or tyropita in Chinatown.
Europeans may be surprised at this.
We Americans are not fazed by this at all, and don't look for either of those two comestibles in Chinatown in any case. We're more intrigued by the hunt for the world's best Sweet and Sour Pork or Kung Pao Chicken. Which we know are both somewhere close by, but the locals won't let us know where.
We'll let you hold our delicious cheese if you tell us.
Oh please, we can keep a secret.
It's kind of a quest.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I watched part of Life of Brian again recently. For those who don't know, it's an educational movie about the origins of Seventh Day Adventism, very well worth watching. It's informative!
If you are religiously inclined, it will change you.
At some point, an early disciple of Werner Erhard states "blessed are the Greek, for they shall inherit the earth".
The cheese makers will also be rewarded.
Greek cheese makers are doubly blessed.
Chinese Americans, judging by this creed, are rather out of luck.
You cannot find bougatsa or tyropita in Chinatown.
Europeans may be surprised at this.
We Americans are not fazed by this at all, and don't look for either of those two comestibles in Chinatown in any case. We're more intrigued by the hunt for the world's best Sweet and Sour Pork or Kung Pao Chicken. Which we know are both somewhere close by, but the locals won't let us know where.
We'll let you hold our delicious cheese if you tell us.
Oh please, we can keep a secret.
It's kind of a quest.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 04, 2014
AN ARGUMENT UNTO HELLO KITTY
Cogent comment lifted from underneath a youtube video: "on the internet, everything relates to WWII for some reason." Very well. I shall accept that that is largely correct.
It's like Godwin's Rule, which states that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1", meaning that as comments continue the chances of some shmendrick throwing Hitler or Nazism into the swamp becomes ever more likely.
Atboth's Variation on Godwin's Rule No. 1: As an online discussion grows, so does the likelyhood of someone making a Monty Python reference.
Atboth's Variation on Godwin's Rule No. 2: Someone's going to bring up Jesus; you can count on it.
A necessary additional factor is that if the comment string includes many or mostly Jewish contributors or intelligent people, not only are Monty Python and Jesus pretty much guaranteed, but it will happen much faster. In the case of a Monty Python reference, the discussion will have been re-invigorated, whereas the Jesus thing will just be an irritant.
In life, as on blogs, Jesus is just an irritant.
That statement was a gratuitous illustration of Variation Number Two.
For which I do not intend to apologize whatsoever.
From Wikipedia: "There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress."
REDUCTIO AD AVE CATULUS VENERANDUM
Last night someone left a comment mentioning Hello Kitty underneath a recent post. That's something that isn't covered by Godwin's Rule or Variations One and Two.
But it gave me a brilliant idea.
Every time you want to reference Hitler or Nazis, say 'Hello Kitty' instead.
This is especially advisable if you are talking about Obama.
And are a screaming Tea-Party loony.
You'll seem saner.
APPENDUM EST VERBO:
By the way, a new word to learn: Instauration.
Definition, according to Merriam- Webster:
"1 : restoration after decay, lapse, or dilapidation"
"2 : an act of instituting or establishing something"
It's from Latin 'instaurare'; to renew, restore.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It's like Godwin's Rule, which states that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1", meaning that as comments continue the chances of some shmendrick throwing Hitler or Nazism into the swamp becomes ever more likely.
Atboth's Variation on Godwin's Rule No. 1: As an online discussion grows, so does the likelyhood of someone making a Monty Python reference.
Atboth's Variation on Godwin's Rule No. 2: Someone's going to bring up Jesus; you can count on it.
A necessary additional factor is that if the comment string includes many or mostly Jewish contributors or intelligent people, not only are Monty Python and Jesus pretty much guaranteed, but it will happen much faster. In the case of a Monty Python reference, the discussion will have been re-invigorated, whereas the Jesus thing will just be an irritant.
In life, as on blogs, Jesus is just an irritant.
That statement was a gratuitous illustration of Variation Number Two.
For which I do not intend to apologize whatsoever.
From Wikipedia: "There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress."
REDUCTIO AD AVE CATULUS VENERANDUM
Last night someone left a comment mentioning Hello Kitty underneath a recent post. That's something that isn't covered by Godwin's Rule or Variations One and Two.
But it gave me a brilliant idea.
Every time you want to reference Hitler or Nazis, say 'Hello Kitty' instead.
This is especially advisable if you are talking about Obama.
And are a screaming Tea-Party loony.
You'll seem saner.
APPENDUM EST VERBO:
By the way, a new word to learn: Instauration.
Definition, according to Merriam- Webster:
"1 : restoration after decay, lapse, or dilapidation"
"2 : an act of instituting or establishing something"
It's from Latin 'instaurare'; to renew, restore.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 03, 2014
ABSENT PLEASURES
One remarkable search criterium drew a new reader to this blog today: "pantyless on pavements". I'm almost sorry that he did not find what he was looking for. And no, I have NO PHOTOS of anyone lacking garments on the public street. Under or over garb.
I myself am often pantieless, and can be frequently found upon or near the pavement. Being male, I am naturally pantieless. I revel in my on-going pantie-lacking state, and would scarcely ever be any other way.
I celebrate it, with all of the boxers at my command.
If you were looking for pantieless, that's me.
I define the no pantie paradigm.
Yay, total pantie freedom!
Men seldom wear panties.
Perhaps you didn't know?
Let me tell you what I did today entirely without feminine under wear. Based on profound introspection, I am certain that anyone desperately scouring the internet for panties would be utterly delighted at this information.
I enjoyed a matured dark Virginia tobacco - without panties.
I buffed a few carbon rubber pipe-stems - without panties.
I looked at several Peterson pipes - without panties.
I spoke to cigar smokers - without panties.
I drank tea - without panties.
Oh, and I also smoked a few bowls of various English mixtures, used pipe cleaners, lit fires, cracked a few jokes, and petted two very nice dogs, without panties.
I am in many ways multi-talented without panties.
I like panties. But I never wear them.
In fact, until the moment that I looked at my blog statistics, particularly what people sought which brought them here, panties had not crossed my mind at all today. Not an oversight, but just not germane in any way.
I'm sure some of the people I interacted with were wearing them.
It seems almost inevitably that it must be so.
But I would not ask.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I myself am often pantieless, and can be frequently found upon or near the pavement. Being male, I am naturally pantieless. I revel in my on-going pantie-lacking state, and would scarcely ever be any other way.
I celebrate it, with all of the boxers at my command.
If you were looking for pantieless, that's me.
I define the no pantie paradigm.
Yay, total pantie freedom!
Men seldom wear panties.
Perhaps you didn't know?
Let me tell you what I did today entirely without feminine under wear. Based on profound introspection, I am certain that anyone desperately scouring the internet for panties would be utterly delighted at this information.
I enjoyed a matured dark Virginia tobacco - without panties.
I buffed a few carbon rubber pipe-stems - without panties.
I looked at several Peterson pipes - without panties.
I spoke to cigar smokers - without panties.
I drank tea - without panties.
Oh, and I also smoked a few bowls of various English mixtures, used pipe cleaners, lit fires, cracked a few jokes, and petted two very nice dogs, without panties.
I am in many ways multi-talented without panties.
I like panties. But I never wear them.
In fact, until the moment that I looked at my blog statistics, particularly what people sought which brought them here, panties had not crossed my mind at all today. Not an oversight, but just not germane in any way.
I'm sure some of the people I interacted with were wearing them.
It seems almost inevitably that it must be so.
But I would not ask.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
PARTY ON POLK STREET
After returning from Marin last night, I should have stayed in. Down on Polk Street the mad dogs were howling, many of them stumbling around inebriated from the mixed drinks at the new bar at the intersection of Clay.
The neighborhood has changed a bit.
Kol haschalos kashos: All beginnings are hard.
I'm not sure I appreciate the nearest main road becoming a place where e-commerce migrants get drunk and rut. It used to be quieter. Yes, I objected to the drinkers stumbling around looking for a place to pee in the past, but as they are drunker now they seldom manage to come this far up hill, and usually two or three of them will hail an uber, so that they can continue their drinking and shenanigans somewhere else, where they might also communally pee instead.
They are far more numberous, and shallower than ever.
Loud, hormonally off-kilter, and indecorous.
Everything is new at some point.
Further north, beyond Broadway, Polk Street has become an extension of Union Street and the Marina. The rates of venereal disease and liver-damage are probably astronomical. That alone will eventually lessen the effect of the economic boom and chase them back to the Midwest.
We can't count on the fog to do that.
The bastards seem to like it.
It used to be much quieter on Polk Street.
Note to the wise: one or two drinks occasionally are all right. But more than that is pushing it. Your behaviour becomes an embarrassment to your companions, your speech will be slurred, and lord help us you might even attempt to sing karaoke. Your parents would be ashamed of you, and friends with cell-phones will post pictures that aren't flattering. Especially if you expose yourself. Which, as a young pampered dipwad Midwestern alcoholic of dubious morals and worth, newly away from your native environment and earning more than you ever thought possible working for a high-tech startup in San Francisco, is pretty much inevitable. And when you do, please do so long after you've insulted the wait-staff and had dinner (you've probably tipped a minimum, if even that), and please try to wait until minors and decent people are indoors. We know you can't help it; you are stupid and rather ignorant, plus given to self-centeredness and self-indulgence on a monumental scale.
On second thought, that's not a note to the wise at all.
It's a note to transplantees from the United States.
Oh well. It does not take all kinds.
It just seems that way.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The neighborhood has changed a bit.
Kol haschalos kashos: All beginnings are hard.
I'm not sure I appreciate the nearest main road becoming a place where e-commerce migrants get drunk and rut. It used to be quieter. Yes, I objected to the drinkers stumbling around looking for a place to pee in the past, but as they are drunker now they seldom manage to come this far up hill, and usually two or three of them will hail an uber, so that they can continue their drinking and shenanigans somewhere else, where they might also communally pee instead.
They are far more numberous, and shallower than ever.
Loud, hormonally off-kilter, and indecorous.
Everything is new at some point.
Further north, beyond Broadway, Polk Street has become an extension of Union Street and the Marina. The rates of venereal disease and liver-damage are probably astronomical. That alone will eventually lessen the effect of the economic boom and chase them back to the Midwest.
We can't count on the fog to do that.
The bastards seem to like it.
It used to be much quieter on Polk Street.
Note to the wise: one or two drinks occasionally are all right. But more than that is pushing it. Your behaviour becomes an embarrassment to your companions, your speech will be slurred, and lord help us you might even attempt to sing karaoke. Your parents would be ashamed of you, and friends with cell-phones will post pictures that aren't flattering. Especially if you expose yourself. Which, as a young pampered dipwad Midwestern alcoholic of dubious morals and worth, newly away from your native environment and earning more than you ever thought possible working for a high-tech startup in San Francisco, is pretty much inevitable. And when you do, please do so long after you've insulted the wait-staff and had dinner (you've probably tipped a minimum, if even that), and please try to wait until minors and decent people are indoors. We know you can't help it; you are stupid and rather ignorant, plus given to self-centeredness and self-indulgence on a monumental scale.
On second thought, that's not a note to the wise at all.
It's a note to transplantees from the United States.
Oh well. It does not take all kinds.
It just seems that way.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, August 02, 2014
TIYULA ITUM -- BLACK SOUP WITH BURNT COCONUT
A few days ago a friend reminded me of a dish we had eaten several years ago during Eid, asking "eh, you wouldn't happen to have a recipe for tiyula itum, would you?"
Well, it's not truly a genuine recipe, but I can fake it.
I've watched it being made, and helped a bit.
Tiyula itum is a beef or goat soup-stew of Tausug origin from Sulu (Jolo) in the Southern Philippines which is always served at weddings, often also at any other celebration, and not uncommonly after Ramadan. It's most salient characteristic is that it is black - greenish - dark grey in colour, and may seem singularly unappetizing to the novio. The blackness is due to the inclusion of burnt coconut as a flavouring, that being an ingredient unique to the Tausug culinary environment.
[Tiyula: soup, wet stew. Itum: black. Tausug: the dominant ethnicity in the Sulu Archipelago between Zamboanga and Sabah. They are Muslims, their language is distantly of Visayan origin. Jolo: the main Tausug island, and the common name of the main port on that island, which is also called Tiyanggi.]
Many celebrated ethnic dishes tend toward an excess of one or other ingredient, which is how they developed. One naturally thinks of British-style vindaloo, which by the standards of the average Goan is nearly inedible. And rendang from Sumatra or Den Haag is far, far hotter than anything a Malay or Javan might touch.
[Rendang: equal amounts chunked water buffalo and mashed chili, simmered in a vat of coconut milk well-flavoured with lemon grass, turmeric, lengkuas, and ginger, till the moisture is all gone and the meat frazzles in the rendered oil. Once it is a dark brown and waxy in texture under its crust it is done. A little bit goes a long way.]
Tiyula itum is like that. One imagines someone centuries ago saying "I want it toastier", whereupon his friend said "oh boy can I do that!" And within a few iterations, the toasted coconut had become entirely charred, the amount used was upped considerably, and extra chilies had been thrown into the pot for a bit more oomph.
Then they sat down and watched whatever passed for football.
Which in that age may have been more entertaining.
All in all they were very manly.
It has been gentled and improved somewhat since then.
Their wives probably told them to act normal.
To make tiyula itum, meat chunks are rubbed with pamapa, then braised with fried onion and garlic. Turmeric, ginger, and galangal (langkuwas) are added, and after a little bit more simmering, liquid is poured in. It is cooked for ten more minutes and served with rice or ketupat.
[Pamapa: pounded spice; in this case, two cups of charred coconut meat, two to four stalks lemon grass (sae; sereh in Indonesian), and half a dozen cloves garlic, all pounded very fine and mixed with a little oil. Galangal: dwarf ginger, called Lengkuas in Indonesian and Malay, also known as langkuwas and lengkang. Lemon grass and galangal are signature ingredients in a lot of Indonesian and South-East Asian cooking. Ketupat, Katupat: compressed rice; rice cooked in leaf packets, which causes the grains to loose their individuality and become dense.]
Properly made, it will be blue-black, with a faint hint of a greenish hue due to the turmeric.
TIYULA ITUM RECIPE
Two pounds of goat or beef, chunked on the bone.
Two cups of grated coconut.
One onion, chopped.
Three stalks of lemon grass.
Six cloves garlic.
Three inches of ginger.
Three Tsp. turmeric.
One Tsp. galangal powder.
Half Tsp. dried ginger powder (non-standard!).
Half Tsp. ground pepper.
Two to four TBS sambal ulek or Sriracha sauce.
Generous pinch sugar.
Small pinch salt.
Liquid: coconut milk, broth, and water.
Cut the lemon grass into two or three inch long segments.
Bruise them by whacking, which helps release the flavour.
Roast the coconut shreds in an iron skillet till they are a disturbingly dark hue, black even. Then grind this fine, and add two or three tablespoons of cooking oil. Rub this all over the meat, which you have washed very well to remove all traces of blood.
Fry the onion golden, add the garlic and ginger, fry a bit more. Add the meat and lemon grass, cook till very fragrant, four or five minutes. Add the powdered spices and sugar, plus the sambal or Sriracha sauce, stir to distribute over heat. Let it gently seethe on low for a few minutes, stir to prevent it scorching.
Add the liquid -- about two cups each of water, broth, and coconut milk -- and raise to a boil. Turn low, and simmer for about ten minutes.
Some whole red chilies can be thrown on top.
It can eaten as soup, or served alongside rice.
Coconut milk is not necessary, and often left out. The amount of liquid is variable, and depends on your own preference. If you are making it soupy, increase the quantity of charred coconut, spices, and chili.
If more stewy, decrease.
In the traditional recipe, chunks of fresh coconut meat are charred over flames till they are easy to pound. That is rather hard to manage here, so instead I utilize shredded coconut, precisely like what is commonly made into serundeng.
Note that turmeric and galangal are used fresh in South-East Asia, but are hard to find in anything other than powdered form in the West. They will consequently taste a little different when added. Fresh chili pepper leaves (daon lara) are sometimes thrown in; these will have a slightly bitter taste. Chopped tomato can also be included for flavour, but is not, strictly speaking, traditional. Regarding the dried ginger, I tend to employ that with galangal for a slightly broader gingery influence.
You could also add a little temo kuntji.
Other dishes you might wish to serve if you have a lot of people coming over are kulma (korma), piyanggang manok, satti (saté), and sambal.
Plus suwan suwan: fried fish in a coconut sauce with vegetables.
Djuwalan (pisang goreng) as a sweet.
Also serve plenty of cooked vegetables (sayul-sayul).
Not really festive, but good for the digestion.
It isn't a proper feast without paliya.
That may be my own peculiarity.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Well, it's not truly a genuine recipe, but I can fake it.
I've watched it being made, and helped a bit.
Tiyula itum is a beef or goat soup-stew of Tausug origin from Sulu (Jolo) in the Southern Philippines which is always served at weddings, often also at any other celebration, and not uncommonly after Ramadan. It's most salient characteristic is that it is black - greenish - dark grey in colour, and may seem singularly unappetizing to the novio. The blackness is due to the inclusion of burnt coconut as a flavouring, that being an ingredient unique to the Tausug culinary environment.
[Tiyula: soup, wet stew. Itum: black. Tausug: the dominant ethnicity in the Sulu Archipelago between Zamboanga and Sabah. They are Muslims, their language is distantly of Visayan origin. Jolo: the main Tausug island, and the common name of the main port on that island, which is also called Tiyanggi.]
Many celebrated ethnic dishes tend toward an excess of one or other ingredient, which is how they developed. One naturally thinks of British-style vindaloo, which by the standards of the average Goan is nearly inedible. And rendang from Sumatra or Den Haag is far, far hotter than anything a Malay or Javan might touch.
[Rendang: equal amounts chunked water buffalo and mashed chili, simmered in a vat of coconut milk well-flavoured with lemon grass, turmeric, lengkuas, and ginger, till the moisture is all gone and the meat frazzles in the rendered oil. Once it is a dark brown and waxy in texture under its crust it is done. A little bit goes a long way.]
Tiyula itum is like that. One imagines someone centuries ago saying "I want it toastier", whereupon his friend said "oh boy can I do that!" And within a few iterations, the toasted coconut had become entirely charred, the amount used was upped considerably, and extra chilies had been thrown into the pot for a bit more oomph.
Then they sat down and watched whatever passed for football.
Which in that age may have been more entertaining.
All in all they were very manly.
It has been gentled and improved somewhat since then.
Their wives probably told them to act normal.
To make tiyula itum, meat chunks are rubbed with pamapa, then braised with fried onion and garlic. Turmeric, ginger, and galangal (langkuwas) are added, and after a little bit more simmering, liquid is poured in. It is cooked for ten more minutes and served with rice or ketupat.
[Pamapa: pounded spice; in this case, two cups of charred coconut meat, two to four stalks lemon grass (sae; sereh in Indonesian), and half a dozen cloves garlic, all pounded very fine and mixed with a little oil. Galangal: dwarf ginger, called Lengkuas in Indonesian and Malay, also known as langkuwas and lengkang. Lemon grass and galangal are signature ingredients in a lot of Indonesian and South-East Asian cooking. Ketupat, Katupat: compressed rice; rice cooked in leaf packets, which causes the grains to loose their individuality and become dense.]
Properly made, it will be blue-black, with a faint hint of a greenish hue due to the turmeric.
TIYULA ITUM RECIPE
Two pounds of goat or beef, chunked on the bone.
Two cups of grated coconut.
One onion, chopped.
Three stalks of lemon grass.
Six cloves garlic.
Three inches of ginger.
Three Tsp. turmeric.
One Tsp. galangal powder.
Half Tsp. dried ginger powder (non-standard!).
Half Tsp. ground pepper.
Two to four TBS sambal ulek or Sriracha sauce.
Generous pinch sugar.
Small pinch salt.
Liquid: coconut milk, broth, and water.
Cut the lemon grass into two or three inch long segments.
Bruise them by whacking, which helps release the flavour.
Roast the coconut shreds in an iron skillet till they are a disturbingly dark hue, black even. Then grind this fine, and add two or three tablespoons of cooking oil. Rub this all over the meat, which you have washed very well to remove all traces of blood.
Fry the onion golden, add the garlic and ginger, fry a bit more. Add the meat and lemon grass, cook till very fragrant, four or five minutes. Add the powdered spices and sugar, plus the sambal or Sriracha sauce, stir to distribute over heat. Let it gently seethe on low for a few minutes, stir to prevent it scorching.
Add the liquid -- about two cups each of water, broth, and coconut milk -- and raise to a boil. Turn low, and simmer for about ten minutes.
Some whole red chilies can be thrown on top.
It can eaten as soup, or served alongside rice.
Coconut milk is not necessary, and often left out. The amount of liquid is variable, and depends on your own preference. If you are making it soupy, increase the quantity of charred coconut, spices, and chili.
If more stewy, decrease.
In the traditional recipe, chunks of fresh coconut meat are charred over flames till they are easy to pound. That is rather hard to manage here, so instead I utilize shredded coconut, precisely like what is commonly made into serundeng.
Note that turmeric and galangal are used fresh in South-East Asia, but are hard to find in anything other than powdered form in the West. They will consequently taste a little different when added. Fresh chili pepper leaves (daon lara) are sometimes thrown in; these will have a slightly bitter taste. Chopped tomato can also be included for flavour, but is not, strictly speaking, traditional. Regarding the dried ginger, I tend to employ that with galangal for a slightly broader gingery influence.
You could also add a little temo kuntji.
Other dishes you might wish to serve if you have a lot of people coming over are kulma (korma), piyanggang manok, satti (saté), and sambal.
Plus suwan suwan: fried fish in a coconut sauce with vegetables.
Djuwalan (pisang goreng) as a sweet.
Also serve plenty of cooked vegetables (sayul-sayul).
Not really festive, but good for the digestion.
It isn't a proper feast without paliya.
That may be my own peculiarity.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 01, 2014
WARD THEM OFF WITH EGG ROLLS!
Despite what seems like frequent protestations to the contrary, this blogger really likes women. It is important to clarify this, as my snide comments about mascara dripping handbag-shopping purse-buying shoe obsessed designer clothes collecting big breasted blonde downtown slags may have given my readers the wrong impression.
For which I apologize.
The other day I was waiting for the bus on Union Street. As it took a while, I started counting things. Buses going in the other direction. Taxis. Icky little poo-dogs. Women wearing leotards. Or maybe it was yoga pants. There were three exercise places in less than a block.
Each issuing forth frightening piranhas.
Altogether, over twenty of those hungry-looking cannibals. During that same time, not a single person entered the nearby Chinese restaurant.
What on earth is WRONG with those people?!?
And why are all of them white?
To quote my ex girlfriend: "you white people are special; none of us Chinese ever get possessed by the devil, we're safe."
I'm not sure she was talking about the exercise nuts, but in any case it applies. Real people go to Chinese restaurants, febrile dingo-bats wear yoga pants and stress out about their spongy bottoms.
Because skin-tight clothing is a way of life.
Stretchy fabric, no pantie lines.
Everything revealed.
Union Street isn't my kind of place. I feel quite out of my element there.
Those people occupy the same planet, but that may be the only thing we have in common.
No partials, nothing in between.
They're precious.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
For which I apologize.
The other day I was waiting for the bus on Union Street. As it took a while, I started counting things. Buses going in the other direction. Taxis. Icky little poo-dogs. Women wearing leotards. Or maybe it was yoga pants. There were three exercise places in less than a block.
Each issuing forth frightening piranhas.
Altogether, over twenty of those hungry-looking cannibals. During that same time, not a single person entered the nearby Chinese restaurant.
What on earth is WRONG with those people?!?
And why are all of them white?
To quote my ex girlfriend: "you white people are special; none of us Chinese ever get possessed by the devil, we're safe."
I'm not sure she was talking about the exercise nuts, but in any case it applies. Real people go to Chinese restaurants, febrile dingo-bats wear yoga pants and stress out about their spongy bottoms.
Because skin-tight clothing is a way of life.
Stretchy fabric, no pantie lines.
Everything revealed.
Union Street isn't my kind of place. I feel quite out of my element there.
Those people occupy the same planet, but that may be the only thing we have in common.
No partials, nothing in between.
They're precious.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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