AN OBSTRUCTION IN THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

A long in-depth discussion recently delved into the irrepressible anger of the authoress of Hothead Paisan ("Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist"), which was a seminal literary work of the post-Reagan age, and the keenly illustrated details of the scrote of Fat Freddy's Cat, that being a comic strip character whom I discovered while seeing the huggable Berkeley gunfreak several years ago. She was shorter than me, sweet, and tightly strung.
I am glad I didn't get my head blown off.

In addition to an obsession with kitty scrote, the artist who drew that also often showed too much attention to the feline defecatory zone. The curious and intellectually honest person reads a vast spectrum of things, some of which, upon mature reflection, are questionable.


Reading is a gift. It prepares you for dealing with the superficialist dingbats who don't read. Which is a valuable life-skill.


This is a cat.

A feline strutting high-assedly away flaunting his testicles is a metaphor for many things, but, in a sense, this is me leaving the karaoke bar around the corner from my house recently, after being there for two hours, without a single conversation happening. Going there hoping for social interaction was insane, of course. Even though there were over a dozen people there whom I knew. Who the heck goes to a place where people are screaming their heads off to the melodies of rap-artists and country western dreck for talkies?!? Or ANY civilized interpersonal connection at all?

Besides, I am "too old, too white, and too straight".
Among other middle-aged personality flaws.


There are two karaoke bars in my life. One of them has grown-up Chinese, mostly men, politely ignoring the stupid young white people squawling for attention -- conversation IS possible there, even though two of the most memorable discussions recently were about the derivation of certain pipe tobaccos, and the word in Cantonese for "cherry wood", as in cherry wood walking stick -- and the other has immature people playing air-guitar and acting out their fantasies of musical adequacy and star-dom.
Conversation is NOT possible there.

[車厘木拐杖 ('che-lei muk gwaai jeung') or 櫻桃木棍 ('ying-tou muk-gwan'). For beating heads.]

The first place leaves me happy, even though I dump half of the whiskey on the ground when no one is watching. The second boîte on busy evenings leaves me frustrated and depressed. What with being too old, too white, and too straight, and not musically inclined.

[Dumping half of the whiskey: the proprietress has the habit of trying to get the bookseller and me drunk, as well as encouraging us to stay after the other white people have left (been kicked out). The grown-up Chinese also stay past that time, and more whiskey is pressed upon us. I do not like waking up the next morning with a stomach that feels like a war zone, dull in the head, throbbing, and nauseous. So rather than rudely declining, I politely acquiesce after much persuasion, and then discreetly tip the excess onto the floor.]


Logically, I can expect conversations during the evening when we end up at the Chinese place. Sometimes they are peculiar. At the dive around the corner I should not expect conversations, and if they do happen it will involve inanity and a narrow focus.

I do not sing. If I sing, even the non-smokers go out for a cigarette.



AFTER WORD

Potential subjects for discussion: cheese, cat's arses, pipe tobacco, the president, food, other languages, life in the tropics, various authors popular during the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties, printing technology, cartoon cats, designer purses, more cheese, why my apartment mate is sleeping in her room right now, fromage, pert nipples of any hue between rosy pink and dusky rose, bacon and melted cheese, dogs, the proper format for dictionary entries, noodle dishes, pavement, how to choose a briar (age, grain, weight, and stain), the heritage of colonial enterprise as reflected by business enterprises (coffee, tea, tobacco, and quinine), why religion is dangerous, or why we should still burn heretics, the wine cup of the navel and other enchanting phrases from the book of songs, sheep, cheddar, crazy manga heroines, and cerulean blue.
Plus Dunhill cigarette lighters.

All of these being subjects that were brought up recently at work.


My worst nightmare is that "Little White Nipple Dude" is going to show up at either the two drinking holes, or any of the several Chinese restaurants and bakeries I frequent. The idea of listening to him droning on about fancy lighters while I drink a hot cup of milk tea or try to eat is frightening, positively dreadful.

I do not wish to talk about little white nipples.
Been there, done that.


Psoriasis. The German cabinet.
French cheeses.
Curry.


This is not a cat.

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A DRY AND STRINGY OLD BIRD

It's a bit early, but I am already starting to resent other people's holiday celebrations. In particular the bird-thing coming up in a couple of weeks. The recounting of the splendours of the holiday feast, surrounded by friends and family, by the happy clams for two or three weeks following the event, fills me with dread. "Oh we had such a wonderful time", they will say, "there was turkey and pumpkin pie (with Cool Whip on top) and Grand Marnier and stuffing and gravy and beaten biscuits and corn and cornichons and potato salad and and ham and New England clam chowder and cranberry sauce and cranberry shortbread and cranberry brickle ice cream with orange-cranberry liqueur and cranberry cream cake and succotash and mashed potatoes and peach brown Bettie and Suzanne's famous cranberry truffle quiche and cookies and pastries and string beans with almond slivers and French onion and cream of mushroom casserole and oysters and Pappy Van Winkle hooch and Perdomo cigars and Peet's coffee and crème brûlée and taffy and turkey chow mein and Stilton cheese and wild boar pâté and some kind of Texas chili dish with cheese melted on top and Sriracha apple sauce mousse and lobster and garlic shrimp and a chocolate cake and festive cheese ball and tofurky with all the trimmings .... "

And then they will smile priggishly.

I will have spent the day burrowing into a pile of rotting fall leaves looking for grubs. Or something very similar.


I have no intention of going to the cigar bar that day, because the last three times the other patrons were smirking over their exquisite epicurean warm family hearth eat too much get stuffed events.


Instead, I am already figuring out which chachanteng in Chinatown will be open, so that I can have baked Portuguese chicken rice and a hot cup of Hong Kong milk tea. Or maybe pork meatball congee and a fried dough stick. Because, as the bum with the infected foot so eloquently put it, "you furriners don't celebrate, do you".

Born here. Spent most of my life here.
Still so "foreign" you could spit.
We don't celebrate.
Clams.



Being pissed off at turkey snarfing neurotypicals, normals, and suburbanites is maybe a bit premature so early in the game. Enjoy your traditional warm family thing, all you socially acceptable types!



My apartment mate will have two thurkey-sivings. One with her kinfolk, one with her boyfriend. I'll try to stay invisible both days.




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THE WRONG TARGET

Pursuant something from a few years ago, it's probably glaringly obvious that I am not cute and huggable and only slightly cynical. And this is borne out by the complete absence of bright young things seeking my company, other than the young Filipino homosexual who recently called me "daddy", and hoped we could go somewhere after bar closing time.
To which kind offer I presented a deaf ear.
He was entirely askew in his intoxicated inspiration, and barking up the wrong tree. Even if he had been a woman, it would not have resulted in linkage of any kind. Sensible men do not pick up women in bars.
Or other men.

Still, that was the first time in a while that someone has looked at me in a misguided way, and I suppose I should be flattered.
He may have been myopic.

I do not feel cute and huggable, and I am hugely a cynic.


After finishing my dinner (curried chicken, potatoes, bacon, and rice), I shall head out for a nightcap. I do not expect any unseemly advances.


You should understand that I reserve daytime venues for being unseemly and advanced upon, though that, alas, does not happen. Or if it does my density prevents me from being aware of it. Also, the places where I can be found when not at work during the day are probably not optimum for that either, usually being small eateries in Chinatown where I sip milk tea and dream before the food comes, or alleyways in the same neighborhood where I smoke a pipe after the food that came has been consumed.

If something cannot be done during the sober light of day, it certainly will not do at night and after cocktails.



I like to keep the lights on too.




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BRITISH REGULARITY

In a country where the dominant cooking smell is of burning fat and boiling starch, a Kentish landlord feels justified in deliberately not renting his apartments to Indians and Pakistanis because of a curry odour.
Which is remarkable, because until the British went massively for vindaloo and chicken tikka masala, English food was, in a word, revolting.
The famous British breakfast is a sterling example.
It's all fried, even the sliced tomato.
Possibly excepting tea.

Like everybody who speaks English, drinks tea, and smokes a pipe, this writer also enjoys a good old-fashioned fry-up to start the day. But only as an intellectual exercise. British food normally makes me ill, and the very last time I had a British breakfast I suffered dyspepsia for several days.

Fish and chips are another good example.
Massive acid for several hours.
No more, I'll talk!
Make it stop!


Landlord's 'curry smell' letting ban unlawful

From the BBC:

"Speaking to BBC Asian Network earlier this year, Mr Wilson said a property he had bought from an Indian couple cost him about £12,000 because the curry smell became a "massive problem"."

"It gets into the carpets, it gets into the walls. You'll find that most landlords think the same."

Source: Fergus Wilson


The best food in Blighty is 'curry'.

My ex-girlfriend, who is Cantonese and consequently has the digestion of a horse, just loved British food, proving that she has a sense of humour, but even she found the cress and cucumber sandwiches boring and the Spam fritter atrocious. The fist nibble of that fried item was wonderful, by the third, gastric distress, depression, and despair filled the eater.
Between the two of us we could not finish it.

[She has a massive English thing going on, having grown up reading murder mysteries, Brideshead Revisited, and all of the Jane Austen books.
Seriously, she really loved the place.]


One can well understand why the Brits erupted forth and conquered the world, like the Goths and Vikings before them. They were desperate to get away from their own food. Grease and frozen peas.

An urge to eat brought them to the Indies, the largest supply of laxatives in the world took them to China.

[China was the world's premier source of rhubarb at the time, which apothecaries in London prescribed in truly massive doses.
Poo, you poor buggering sods, poo!]


It should be mentioned that both strong tea and marmalade have beneficial effects on the guts. As do tomatoes and chilies.


Without the Chinese and Subcontinentals there would be nothing to eat in Britain. Well, other than the frightful Graeco-muck served in many lunch places in the capital, where office drudges stuff themselves on something masquerading as mutton, drenched in tzatziki, and minced lettuce.

There is a reason why the British won the war.
Sheer intestinal fortitude.



[File under 'rancid animal fat']



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EATING UNFASHIONABLY

Young adults in San Francisco would not be caught dead where the unhip dine. Even by themselves, with no one around who could betray them to their with-it equals. Because omg, one has be with it. Rather than unhip.
And, in consequence, the poor dears miss out on some fine pork chops. They'll never enjoy life, and they'll pay too much for their food in the places that their equals find fashionable.


蕃茄豬扒飯

Two porkchops, with plenty sliced tomato dumped into the pan, then slopped onto a plate with a heap of rice alongside, served steaming.
A roll, pat of butter, and a bowl of good honest soup to start with.
It was delicious.
While I ate a table of middle aged gentlemen argued about San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou. They were loud, they were animated, they were high as kites on coffee and pastries.

Various mommies came in with their little ones for an essential snackie-poo, and left with little bags. Kids under ten, mothers twixt early twenties and mid-thirties, old-timers between forty five and a hundred years old.

An elderly auntied had dumplings in soup with noodles.
The owner lit some joss for Kwan Gung.
A customer bought buns.
Plus dau fu faa.
Eaty!


What do young San Francisco office types do after leaving work?
Perhaps they have cocktails at fashionable holes?
Porkchops, feh, too pedestrian!

I suppose I shouldn't mention the hot cup of milk tea.
That, too, is not a very hip thing.




Man, I don't know about you folks. Twenty to thirty dollars on mojitos and loud music, and not a single porkchop among the lot of you till late at night, if at all. And then only if it's called "côtelette de porc au riz Chinoise avec une sauce tomate raffinée" or "cotoletta di maiale alla tomate sur riso e verdure Asiatiche" and costs forty five dollars a plate.

Heck, plain old chicken curry over is only edible if you call it "straccetti di pollo al curry con riso", perhaps with "salsa di peperoncine estremamente piccante nello stile di Sri Racha distretto" on the side.


Including tip, less than twenty bucks.
And I left happy as a clam.




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YOU CAN"T STOP HERE!

Last night I promised an innocent young person that I would introduce him to durian, which he thinks can't be that way. Specifically, I shall bring it by his place of work before closing, to chase out the last drunken customers.
Why do I like durian? Because I have a mean streak, that's why.
A fruit with a nasty attitude has to be appreciated.
Potent, precise, and unbeatable.


The first durian event I engineered was at a restaurant which no longer exists, where I was well known. They found it interesting and educational, and soon asked me and my horrid fruit to leave. So I did, and headed over to an Indonesian place to share it with the boss and his cook. They were happy to see the stuff, two customers on the mezzanine hurriedly paid and left, and his gorgeous teenage daughter said she would wait for him in the car parked in the lot. She was American-born, you understand.
Tender sensitivities.

Second time was at a burger place. Mister Naguib up at the front worriedly speculated that the Vietnamese place next door had had a nasty accident with sewage. Horrid, horrid, horrid. Louisiana Tony walked smack into the wall of durian reek, turned, and staggered off into the night, overwhelmed, and baffled by what had just happened.

Third time, at the computer company. The facilities manager came running over from two buildings away, convinced that there was a gas leak in the kitchen, we were all going to die. It wasn't until he got there that he remembered that the kitchen was totally electric, no gas.

Durian is subtle and overwhelming. I explain to people that it isn't a bad smell, but that there is unbelievably much of it. This rational and illuminative statement is met with disbelief. My ex insisted that I was an evil son-of-a-bitch who kept a dead space alien in the fridge, and barred the door.

Americans, mostly, want to get away from durian.
It is a robust and uncouth fruit.
Kind of like a sailor.


As Hunter S. Thompson explains in Fear and Loathing: "hier können wir nicht anhalten, das ist Fledermausland!" The movie was in German.
I cannot remember why I first saw it in German. Everything in it sounds better in German. We can't stop here, this is bat country.


"Hier können wir nicht anhalten, das ist Fledermausland!"


The innocent young person mentioned above works in the hospitality industry. He and his customers need to be educated. If a durian can be found by next Tuesday, I shall bring it down to his restaurant.
Because I am good in that regard.
I care.

The problem inevitably will be that there will be fruit left over. Which I will not want to take home, nor consume all by myself. When I ate durian for breakfast in the Philippines, it started sweating out through my pores and fastidious people kept their distance from me, further and further as the day progressed, a widening circle of disturbed repulsion. They could have called in a missile strike: "he's an easy target, lone white dude with no one nearby, do it now!"

No amount of Old Spice armpit smear-stick will cope with that. So I'll seek friends afterwards, to lovingly press all of the rest upon.
Here, Duong and Minh, for you. Enjoy!
A present from bat country.
Fledermausland.



In all honesty, I don't really like durian.
But I like what it does to people.





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THE IDEAL WOMAN REVISITED

Over six years ago I wrote an essay entitled "The Ideal Woman", which has been viewed rather a lot. Not as much as my screed about Clan pipe tobacco, or especially the encyclopedic listing of dimsum items with their names in Chinese and pronunciation, which is still the all-time most read post on this site (*), but it's still pretty darn popular.

[(*) See here: DIM SUM: KINDS, NAMES, PRONUNCIAT​ION, DESCRIPTIO​N]

Like any such article written by a man, especially a bachelor, it presents a very slanted view of things. At that time I said: "The ideal woman likes cuddle-dozing, bathing, humpies, history, and dictionaries."

Which is not insane, but I could just as well have said that the ideal woman is like dimsum, compact and juicy. Or that she likes Hello Kitty as an ironic statement expressing her disdain for the superficialistic search for meaningful inoffensiveness in a harsh impersonal world.

[Full disclosure: I like dimsum very much, and I have a few Hello Kitty items because a middle-aged man with a Hello Kitty backpack for his pipes and tobacco expresses an ironic disdain for the meaningful inoffensiveness that permeates much of society. Okay?]

There is no objective definition of the ideal woman.
It is, necessarily, always entirely subjective.
And frequently queer.


From my standpoint, the ideal woman is not nearly as old as I am, lives nearby, has graduated from college, is possessed of a strong sense of right and wrong (albeit leavened with considerable tolerance and commonsense), has a great sense of humour, loves dimsum, and wears spectacles.

An ability to interact with stuffed animals is essential.

The ideal woman also has no bad habits. In which we understand that moderation is a key concept, so smoking and drinking are perfectly alright provided they don't extend to the point of regret. Huffing a pack a day and swilling enough to be sick are right out, tattoos are too, and any form of illicit substance use is seen as a negative.

This definition is entirely subjective and self-reflective. I smoke a pipe, occassionally have a drink, have never gotten a tattoo, and eschew illegal substances entirely, considering people who indulge in such things to be unstable, unreliable, potentially criminal, and weak in the head.



THE IDEAL WOMAN, MORE FULLY DESCRIBED

She will like cuddle-dozing, bathing, humpies, history, and dictionaries. She is rather like dimsum(!), and while she may not actually be into Hello Kitty, she appreciates the snarky gestalt. She lives to the east of the Fillmore, north of Market Street. She is ethical, witty, culinarily open-minded.
Has no tattoos. And doesn't do drugs.

The ideal woman is intelligent, kind, and stubborn.

And is okay with pipe tobacco.



If I had been born a woman, I don't know if I could be all of those things; it seems rather a lot, doesn't it? But I think I should like dimsum, and possibly be okay with pipe tobacco.





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VIRTUOUS INTENT FOR MY WEEKEND

As befits my ethnic heritage, I intend to eat like a severe Protestant today.
Nothing but good healthy stuff. Yesterday I ate like a dissipated Catholic, meaning self-indulgent, all sinful items with next to no actual nutritive value whatsoever. Good heavens, almost like a spoiled Indian kid.
Meats and sweets, bilkul no sabzi.
I'll end up ek mota admi.
Bahut jigglywala.

Pastry.
Cookie.
Cookie.
Cookie.
Barbecue pork rib sandwich (sándwich de costilla de cerdo barbacoa), with very extrovert sploodges of Srirach hot sauce and a bag of chips.
It was delicious!
Cheese.
Three penguins.
Cookie.
Cookie.
Cookie.
Cookie.
Cookie.

On my weekends I tend to eat better. Recognizable vegetable material.


Chinatown today for a late lunch. I am torn between Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice (焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'), Tomato Porkchop and Rice (鮮茄焗豬扒飯 'sin ke guk chü paa faan', OR 蕃茄豬扒飯 'faan ke chü paa faan'), or cheap eaties on Stockton Street (三餸一湯 'saam song yat tong': three dishes and a soup, plus rice).

See, at work my options are limited to Seven Eleven, just chockfull of salty fatty meaty plus sweet baked crispy crunchy creamy soft and gooey, but no bittermelon fish, sarson da saag, spinach turnovers, or other yummy things of vegetable origin. Yeah, carrots and celery in a little package, and mixed wilted oddments called "salad", but "yummy" is not the applicable term. No wonder the Punjabis who work there look so peaked, positively pale and sickly, there's just unhealthy convenience, zero nutrition.
Just beyond Seven Eleven is McDonalds.
Ten minutes away is In-N-Out.


Sriracha is a vegetable.
McDonalds isn't.


You know, those weird containers of carrots and celery are probably good if you stir-fry them with bacon and black-bean sauce, and serve with rice.

There is no wok at work.
Nor a stove.


My weekend starts Monday evening and continues till late Wednesday, in case you were wondering. The rest of the week I am neither available nor entirely compos mentis.




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REASON FOR GIDDY OPTIMISM

In the coming year, marijuana for recreational use will become a reality in California, and even if you hate weed and think it rots brains, this is good news. Business will boom. No, not the buying and selling of products containing tetrahydrocannabinol per se, but peripheral enterprise.

Stuff containing chocolate, sugar, bacon, cheddar, and salt.

In whatever solid form. Especially crunchy.

Or frozen: bacocheez icecream.


We are heading into a bold new era of supersized vague souls wandering city streets looking for bright colourful signs with words such as "mmm, sweet!" or "crunch babies". The insane preoccupation with gluten-free non-gmo will be over. Within mere months, snackfood emporia will take over macrobiotic spaces, as dreamy whales wander around convinced that yet another bag of purple-coloured snarfies will solve problems, and cause peace in the universe. It's purple, man! The universe!

The day of twenty four hour fastfood on every street is at hand!

I cannot tell you how often I have wished that there were branches of Taco Bell, Burger King, and KFC within two blocks of my apartment at four in the morning. And now, thanks to a vast army of happy mumbling behemoths and their mobility scooters, that will finally happen!


Personally I do not care for marijuana, thoroughly dislike its effects, and think all who consume it to be shitferbrained losers as well as insufferable dicks, but hey, new jobs, opium for the masses, and all that.
Capitalism at its finest.


The medical field will have a field day with all the people eating themselves into heart attacks. And extra-large coffins are a market we haven't even explored, as well as stronger bed frames, personal mobility by Caterpillar or Komatsu, an ever-expanding digestive medications aisle at Walgreens, stretch clothing, lower abdominal fatty deposit support devices, fat fold odour control, and energy pills for the sweaty and exhausted.


All these bright new opportunities!




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DEEP-FRIED RATS ON A STICK!

This blogger is aghast at suburban females. In the past few days I have seen women wearing yoga pants with high-heels, tattooed matrons, ratchetts on the bus (Golden Gate Transit), and office bitch types with cups of coffee and cell-phones heading onto the freeway. Look ma, no hands!
I am certain some of these people are medicated.
Or subsisting on a diet of Jager-bombs.
Probably Xanax and Librium.
Booze, caffeine.

Considering what suburban males are like, this would be understandable, if only both of them weren't such mega-entitled self-centered jerks.
Keep the suburbs chemically calmed.
Drugs. They need drugs.
And Mary-J.


The reason for mentioning yoga pants and high heels is because that it is a particularly horrid combo. As regards specifying females, as a heterosexual male I am damned glad I am not connected to any of these ladies.

I am single.

And consequently, I get to eat gluten and meat, and not save the wales.
Oh, and dairy products, and NOT go to theatrical events or interpretive dance performances, and I also get to do stupid things like snarfing down bacon-wrapped hotdogs with jalapeños en escabeche after midnight ...

I have gone the entire two months leading up to Halloween without having to taste pumpkin spice bugger-all, even once, and other than my apartment mate's misguided experiment recently with a pumpkin pie from Trader Joe's (maybe it's her period?), I do not expect to grimace my face into a smile over some artificially flavoured shit and say "mm, good, this is brilliant dear!" at any point between now and January first.

Women who like juicy grilled chops, vindaloo, or steamed pork patty with salt fish, are wonderful. But they don't live in the suburbs.



This "stylish" soirée ends with hot Portuguese sausage and green chili sauce at three in the morning. We will not wear any ethnic jewelry or Andean woolens. There is no marijuana. Care for a cheroot?

There is a parked Toyota Prius over there.
Somebody set the f**ker on fire.
I hear cheering.




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THE PERFECT TWENTY

Many social media sites ask pushy questions in an attempt to figure out their audience and sell the data to advertisers. Recently, memes have invited people to answer similar queries, and post their results.

Seeing as this blog is operating under a pseudonym, and many comments are advertising spam that gets deleted without ever being shown anyway, this is a perfect place to post my own personal data.
Good luck marketing to me.

I took a list from a friend's Facebook post, and added a few questions.


How old are you?
Fifty eight, and in all honesty I never really expected to reach this age, and thought I would be young forever. I am rather disappointed in reality, and determined to resist.
Single or taken?
Single, not pursuing anybody, and ambivalent about that.
Favourite colour?
Cerulean blue, burnt umber, plus sienna and ochre, the canary yellows of Cohiba cigar tubes and Erinmore flake tins from years ago, warm golden oranges, deep pinks with a touch of blue, and several different types of green such as can be found in forests in the temperate zones.
Want kids?
Well, sort of.
If so how many?
Can I get back to you on that?
Snapchat?
What?
Twitter?:
Good lord no. Twitter is for idiots.
Dating site?
Everybody there is looking for someone with whom to hike the Amazon or slide down Annapurna. Do I look the type?
Zodiac sign?
Libra. Does anyone besides a complete idiot really believe that the zodiac signs mean bugger-all, other than dividing all of humanity AND the animal world into twelve groups? This is ridiculous, arbitrary, and beyond logic.
It is, furthermore, a dumb-ass new-age attempt to impose some kind of magical order, and see deep mystical meaning where there is none.
Don't tell me about your pets and their astrological signs.
Aquarian chihuahuas. Think about that.
Dippity cottonwool.
Last drink?
Hot, caffeinated, and bitter.
Makeup or not?
I do not.
Hello Kitty?
Emphatically yes. Did I ever mention my Hello Kitty Backpack, of a size suitable for several pipes, and tins of tobacco?
Cats or dogs?
I am fond of dogs, but I admire cats.
Evil or good?
Near daemonic, okay?
Favourite sport?
Watching paint dry.
Favourite food?
Varies, though at the moment it includes rice porridge, bacon, Italian sausages, bitter melon, baked Portuguese chicken rice, flaky charsiu turnovers, fried noodles, and goat curry. Because the last Halal butcher near me closed down I haven't cooked goat curry in a long time.
Maybe I should go get some goat.
Favourite animal?
Ducks. They can be quite delicious.
Weird?
I am extremely normal.
Do you have haters?
Probably.
Funny or nah?
No.


Other details are that I live near the Chinatown - Northbeach part of the city, smoke a pipe, and use hot sauce often. And that there are many stuffed animals.

Feel free to create your own list of intrusive questions and post results in the comments. There are no wrong answers, only wrong people.




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SUMMER IN AN ORCHARD OF THE MIND

One of the most influential people in my life has been a short bespectacled Chinese woman in Berkeley, who smoked a pipe (Drucquer's mixture 805), liked books, and had eclectic tastes in music and in movies.
She wrote a nasty letter years ago which I never answered.
We have since lost contact.

No, she was never "date material". Just a very good friend and a cherished colleague, and still in many ways an example to follow. As were her associates, who have also faded beyond radar range.

My tastes in books and pipes still reflect that, though as far as music and movies are concerned there has been no lasting effect, because I am rather unmusically inclined (tin ear the size of Texas), and I've watched films she would not countenance in a million years, being rather fond of gangster flicks, tearjerkers, and chopsocky.


I still have that letter, but I shall not respond. The misunderstanding that moved her to write it is not material anymore, that her opinion of me changed so staggeringly is no longer as oppressive.
And I have largely gotten over it.
A lot has changed.


She had a lovely pipe collection. I still have a number of her pieces which she traded me. Excellent smokes. Occasionally I light them up, but most briars I use nowadays were acquired since that time, and many of the markers of memory remain in boxes on my bookshelves.

As I mentioned, I do not know what happened to her since then.
But I hope she still has that Sasieni sandblast apple.
It was a lovely pipe, and gave her much joy.




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THESE ARE THE PLANS

A secret message from Washington to the Russians was intercepted and decoded, divulging Donald Trump's schedule during his Asian vacation.


PRESIDENTIAL ITINERARY 

Sunday 5 November: Arrive in Japan. Golf with Prime Minister Abe and professional player Hideki Matsuyama at the Kasumigaseki Country Club.
Tweet.
Monday 6 November: Get up late, play golf.
Tuesday 7 November: Arrive in South Korea for golf with President Moon Jae-in. Address the National Assembly, eat something.
Tweet, play golf.
Wednesday 8 November: Arrive in China for a series of golf games and meetings with President Xi, who reportedly has been practicing his stroke.
Tweet.
Thursday 9 November: Get up late, play golf.
Friday 10 November: Arrive in Vietnam, participate in golf games during the Apec summit. Then have a brief conversation with President Trần, and play more golf, possibly with Vladimir Putin.
Tweet.
Sunday 12 November: Arrive in Manila, Philippines, and take part in an anniversary dinner. After which he might attend the Asean summit in Manila (November 13), talk with President Rodrigo Duterte, and play golf.
Tweet again.


It is unknown at which point in the trip the president will ceremoniously vomit on a foreign leader. The money is on China, on Wednesday or Thursday.

Upon his return to the States, the president is scheduled for a briefing on the effects of the International Date Line, which may last several hours.





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FINDING OUT ABOUT THE ROOM

It wasn't until yesterday that I found out about the movie. Apparently I live in a bubble. It is staggeringly popular, and has been watched by millions, repeatedly, avid fans, packed screenings.

It is better than Last Year at Marienbad, about which Wikipedia says "the film is famous for its enigmatic narrative structure, in which truth and fiction are difficult to distinguish, and the temporal and spatial relationship of the events is open to question. Its dreamlike nature has both fascinated and baffled viewers; many have hailed the work as a masterpiece".

A few of my relatives certainly think it is.
Others wisely keep silent.

The Room, by Tommy Wiseau, is bigger and better than all of that. It is a full-blown emotional rollercoaster, a paean to life, and a certifiable extravaganza of eloquence and deeply felt existenzangst.
It is a sweetly romantic love story.
Above all, it's meaningful.
Tiefsinnig.

Quote from a commenter about the movie:

"To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand The room. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Tommy Wiseau's Clever wordplay most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer’s head. There’s also Johnny's Optimistic Outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterization- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Oh Hi Mark literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realize that they’re not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike The Room -- wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humor in Tommy's existential catchphrase “ah ha ha ha,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Johnny's secret depression."

"Addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Tommy Wiseau's genius wit unfolds itself on their Movie screens."

[Marco Ingrassia, under Best of The Room (youtube)]


Full disclosure: Many years ago I made a stab at watching Last Year at Marienbad (L'Année Dernière à Marienbad), which after a mere ten minutes convinced me that it was too artistic for the common horde.
Good lord what a load of pretentious buggery twaddle!

It's not as good as a Peter Griffin fight scene.

I am the common horde.



If I can convince my apartment mate to rent the movie, I may see it. Or if someone drags me to a midnight showing. It sounds from several descriptions like a perfect date movie, by the way. In either direction.
A few years before I met my ex, I took a girl to see Bananas.
She didn't get it, and thought me right queer.
A most unsuitable man.




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LINE THEM UP AND SHOOT THEM

American politics is a dirty business. Which comes as no surprise, but revelations from both sides of the aisle this week make clear precisely how much rot there is. The Republicans are sodden with venal opportunism, and the top echelon of the Democratic Party have completely betrayed the trust we put in them. Both sides gave us Trump.

Clinton, Trump, and everyone involved with them should be taken out of politics. Likewise Ralph Nader, Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein.

[And especially political hack and former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile, who shat all over her fellow Democrats yesterday, with her spurious claim that Clinton attempted to "wield control of [DNC] operations" in 2015. Clinton assumed control in June of 2016, AFTER the primaries were over and she had become the party's nominee, which is completely and absolutely normal. Brazile also lied ("fake newsed") about the money. See this: Hillary Victory Fund.]


Yesterday a fellow smoker, who feels betrayed and put upon because he can't smoke in his own home, nor on the public street, suggested that we all write letters to Governor Jerry Brown thanking him for standing up to the anti-tobacco fiends. He went on to recommend that everyone should write multiple letters to their congress people, for a variety of causes. All in all he was hopelessly, stupidly repetitive, and remarkably gibberant.
A very innocent man, almost child-like.
As well as a bore.

Politicians do not do things because they are right, but because they are expedient. Letters accomplish little other than putting you on mailing lists that you will never escape and keeping the post office in business.


By the way, those anti-smoking restrictions, and the new tobacco taxes in California which went into effect this year? Please break the law whenever possible. Smoke near office buildings, asthmatics, and vegans. Purchase black market cigarettes as well as silk stockings and bread from shady types, and rudely invade yoga studios and marijuana dispensaries.
Smuggle cigarettes in from low-tax states.
Or from Mexico.


Throw apples, dirty diapers, and tunafish sandwiches at bureaucrats and politicians whenever and wherever possible.


Walk your dog on government property.


Deface currency.



PS.: If you forward a packet of discarded cigarette butts to Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-Greenbrae) and Senator Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), their staff will probably send you a donation envelope, and your number will show up on every Democratic Mailing list, marked for solicitation calls whenever some whore somewhere needs to defeat a Republican.
So it might be worthwhile anyway.




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GUFU FLAKES? TASTY!

This evening's browsing has, accidentally, been all about food. And lunch was not that long ago! Not hungry yet! Actually, now I am, but onward the discourse!

Someone asked about Chinese donuts, so of course I had to respond.

"Fried dough stick: 油條 yau tiu; a light airy dough strip deep fried, perfect for dunking in congee, or, when cut, dumping on top. Because of the huge air pockets it floats and must be pushed under. The measure or numeral coefficient (counting word) for strips, wires, sticks, staffs, rods, or yau tiu, is 根 gan."

"And note that congee (粥 juk) is rice porridge, which is considered savoury. For an overview of congee and its place in the universe, see this post: Gloop and Fried Dough for Lunch."


Then, shortly after directing the querant to wisdom, someone on a Yeshivish (and not so Yeshivish) site wrote: "What would you give a non Jew to impress them that we have tasty food?"
Oooh boy! Gee whillikers!
Heh heh heh!


What would you give a non-Jew to impress them that we have tasty food?

Daniel: "Pickled herring, gala, and gefilte fish. They'll LOVE it!"
Jake: "Matzah, that as always been a winner with me."
James: "Gala."
Shulem: "Chulent."
Luke: "Holepshkers."
Daniel: "Go with something authentically Jewish: General Tso's Chicken."

Okayyyyy ..... (backs away slowly).

In my opinion, Daniel's suggestion was the best, but then Robert (Reuven) suggested 'pcha'. That comment takes the cake, and Reuven should win a kokkos for saying it.

In direct consequence of all that food talk, dinner is now cooling on the stove. It contains stalky mustard, Kimbo Ham and Pork Luncheon Meat, Insta-noodles (Japanese Flavour), Sriracha hotsauce, ginger, olive oil, miscellaneous substances, and nutmeg. It will be delicious!

Lechatchila, I am not at all certain it's a great idea to try and impress goyim with Ashki food. Especially not pcha (ptcha, or gala), which is made from jellied calf feet, heavy on the paprika, served with chopped eggs.
It's an acquired taste.


BTW: a number of the items listed above were discussed once, in some detail, on Dovbear's blog, along with many other foods: Holishkes (stuffed cabbage), Delkelech (a filled turnover), Shlishkes (fried potato dumplings), Nokrln (little boiled dumplings), Kokkos (a chocolate cake), Rockett-Crumbly (hard boiled eggs baked in butter and sour cream), Makkos (poppy seed paste kokkos), Diyusz (walnut paste kokkos), gulyasz (garlic and peppers meat stew), Lekvar (apricot compote pastries), and Letcho.

One commenter there even mentioned 'helzel'.
But that was never repeated.
Boruch Hashem.



LAGNIAPPE: CHICKEN PAPRIKASZ

A whole chicken (about 3 pounds), cut into 8 pieces.
Two or more garlic cloves, minced.
Two onions, thinly sliced.
Two to four TBS sweet Hungarian paprika.
Half cup chicken stock.
Quarter cup sour cream (*).
A very generous pinch of ground caraway seed.
Olive oil, or butter, or bacon grease (*).
Salt and pepper.

Gild the onions and garlic. Rub the chicken bits with oil, plus salt, pepper, and some of the paprika. Add to the pan and brown slightly. Now add the remaining paprika and the ground caraway, stir to mix, and add the chicken stock and enough water to barely cover. Simmer for about half an hour, then stir in the sour cream.
Garnish with plenty of chopped parsley.

(*) Adding sour cream or bacon grease is not kosher. So leave those out if you wish to impress non-Jews with delicious food without giving them the wrong idea. Personally, I'm all for giving them the wrong idea, given the various other items mentioned, but it's up to you.


AFTER THOUGHT

I am flabberghasted that no one suggested apple noodle kugel.
Flabberghasted! What IS it with you people?

You all deserve a tuna sandwich!
Made with gherkins!




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THE HONG KONG TUNA SANDWICH

Sometimes there is nothing special about an item, unless it flies at you.
The sportsman that flung the comestible was recently sentenced.
His throwing arm is still in excellent shape.
But his aim was off.

You do not go to Hong Kong for sandwiches. Especially not tuna salad sandwiches, even though they are part of a British tea there. And most especially you do not go to Wanchai for tuna salad sandwiches.
Even though very many people do.


吞拿魚三文治


The typical HK tuna sandwich ('tan-na-yü saam-man-ji') is composed of tuna salad on toasted white bread, with often either sliced tomato or crispy bacon. Sometimes a fried egg. It will not (or rarely) be as aero-dynamic as required, however, and won't hit C. Y. Leung right in the puss as you probably intended.

This is an important consideration.


The best tuna sandwiches in Wanchai are made with toasty baguettes, thick sliced tomato, and crisp lettuce. Ask for a rasher of bacon on top, which is yummy. Mr. Leung won't like it, though. To him, all such things are “臭魚三明治” ('chaau-yü saam-ming-ji'; "stinky fish sammich").

He probably also sneers at the 可颂芝士吞拿魚三文治 ('ho-jung ji-si tan-naa-yü saam-man-ji'; croissant and fromage tuna salad sandwich) or the 粟米吞拿魚三文治 ('suk-mai tan-naa-yü saam-man-ji'), which has corn kernels mixed in, or the 辣吞拿魚三文治 ('laat tan-naa-yü saam-man-ji') with spicy cayenne remoulade, 牛油果吞拿魚三文治 ('ngau-yau-gwo tan-naa-yü saam-man-ji'), made with avocado .....

[NOTES: 可頌 (Mandarin 'kěsòng'; "can laud") is one word for croissant, but 牛角包 'ngau gok baau' ("cow horn bread") is more common in HK. 芝士 "chee see" (cheese) is a phonetic transcription of Cantonese origin (芝 'ji'; "miracle mushroom". 士 'si'; "scholar, official"). 吞拿魚 'tan na yü' literally means "engulf take fish". 三文治 'saam man ji' "three literature regulate"; sandwich. 粟米 'suk mai' "unhusked millet ('suk') and uncooked rice" ('mai'); corn. 牛油果 'ngau yau gwo'; "cow grease (butter) fruit", avocado.
It is also called 鱷梨 ('ngok lei'), meaning "crocodile pear".]


Mr. Leung Chun-ying is not a fan of tuna.

Many other Hong Kongers are.

Stinky fish sammich.




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IT SMELLS LIKE BURNING GOATS

On Tuesday evenings two gentlemen head out to a late night dinner place, a local watering hole for a modest beer, and then to a disreputable karaoke bar for whiskey. After which they calmly stroll back to an intersection in their neighborhood, chat a bit, and part ways till next time. The nominal purpose of this exercise is the discussion of art, literature, and other serious matters, plus the orange-faced buffoon.

Yesterday was Halloween.

And I wish to now strongly protest that I did not see a single naked titty!

Because Halloween was spread out over five days, and the weather was a bit chilly, last night's gallivanting about only exposed our boys to a shapely black bottom wearing a thong, and it is not clear whether she was dressed for the holiday or just incidentally nasty. So I object. Halloween viewing of young adult depravity was an utter disappointment!

Over ten years ago we noticed that more and more people were dressing like Nasty Bo Peep, with barely a scrap between crotch and ripe mangoes, albeit everything ruffled or lacy, and after a brief spate of shocked puritanic disapproval we accepted the modern era. Okay. The little shepherdess is now a punk goth sexual deviant, and we are totally cool with that.
It looks a lot better across the street, by the way.

Yesterday evening, a few people were dressed as hot dogs.
Warm fuzzy felt from ankles to the crown.
Sausage, bun, mustard.

No naked titty!


LEVANTINE TEMPTRESS

On a different note, I should apologize to the bookseller for lecturing him about Latakia tobacco. Seeing as he is a non-smoker, and doesn't own a pipe, it may have been an imposition. The two things to grasp right off are that tobacco of whatever type drains the soil of nutrients and is incredibly destructive to agricultural land (one reason why Egypt stopped growing tobacco; they are limited in that regard), and also that Latakia is smoke-cured, and therefore even more destructive; the forest cover in Syria was minor to begin with, and shrinking at a very rapid pace.

In the late sixties, it was evident to many that the supplies of Syrian Latakia would eventually lessen considerably, and tobacco companies started to purchase Latakia from Cyprus. Many of those companies had stocks of blending tobaccos sufficient for a number of years worth of production, so by augmenting the supply on a yearly basis, the shift in taste would be gradual. Imagine, for instance, that you maintain a ten-year supply. By the second year, your Latakia is ten percent Cyprian, by the tenth entirely so.
None of your customers have noticed a thing.

By the late seventies, almost all Latakia everywhere was such, and the Syrian leaf was a rare commodity.

One difference between Syrian and Cyprian tobacco is that Syria was cultivating Shek Al Bint ("the maiden's cleft", or "the maiden's fissure"), which was a relative of Burley, yielding a leaf of about a foot in length of no particular distinction till smoke-cured, although it had an almost sherry-like undertone when blended into tobacco mixtures, whereas in Cyprus they were discovering that what grew best was Smyrna seed, meaning a Turkish varietal, small leafed and resinous or perfumy.

What made them both "Latakia" was the smoke curing, which imparted terpeneols and sesquiterpenoids, and transformed fairly mediocre tobacco into prized leaf, redolent of creosote, with a richly evocative span of aromas: the great outdoors, camping in the wilderness, oak forests, Autumn, boats, gentlemen's clubs, leather armchairs, strong tea, wintry scenes with distant chimneys, the blasted heath of Scotland, stampeding sheep .....

[Chemicial constituents of Latakia tobacco (from Cyprus) here: Identification of the Volatile Constituents of Cyprian Latakia Tobacco by Dynamic and Static Headspace Analyses.
Also here: John Leffingwell et al. And note mention of juniper, myrtle, mastic.]

It was a fragance that charmed, enchanted, transformed.
And upset many wussy non-smokers too!
Oh, the humanity.

My piles bleed for those bloody wheatgrass freaks.

It's perfume AND incense, you dingos.


Anyway, Greg Pease acquired enough Syrian Latakia of high quality to build several blends, all of which were much in demand and had that subtle sherry-like suggestion, but his warehouse caught fire and the supply went up in smoke sooner than intended.
McClellands was using it in a number of their products for a while, very sparingly. MacBaren formulated the HH Vintage Syrian as their first foray into the upper range of snob tobaccos, and it was so successful that they have since then introduced several more nice high quality mixtures for that market segment, unusual and well-made. They boasted that they had secured enough for ten years of production.

Syria for the last few years has not been a significant producer of tobacco, and it does not look like there will be any change anytime soon.
Syrian Latakia is available from brokers and traders who still have supplies in such minute quantities that manufacture of even those extremely few mixtures that had any cannot be sustained.

It's gone. There is no more.


No, Pumpkin Spice tobaccos, now seasonally available, are NOT a substitute. Only a complete bastard would even suggest it. Horrible drecky cavendish, soggy and overly sweet, that because of added syrup and humectants burn hot and boil rancid sludge into your briars.


To conclude, the bookseller got all of that in his ear.
He was exceptionally patient.

I flatter myself that it made up for the lack of nudity.

TOBACCO INDEX


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