It was long past lunch, and I had already returned home, when I realized that what a man really needs in these hard times is more caffeine, and fish balls. Specifically a packet of frozen fish balls to dump in a curry sauce with some potato or an actual vegetable, for dinner at the end of day.
My cooking is hardly romantic nowadays.
Tasty, but utilitarian.
My major source of vegetable fibre is probably chilies.
Fishballs have a textural thing going for them. But white folks markets do not carry such items. Because San Francisco yuppies disdain such, to them, odd yet pedestrian comestibles.
Not the gefilte fish balls in carp broth jelly, which are probably perfect on a bed of Romaine lettuce, with a side of darling baby carrots and arugula, but the real thing. Dense, firm, and unnaturally white.
Serve with curry sauce, or chilipaste.
And rice stick noodles.
It's really like a food made out of sci-fi supermaterial.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
LATE NIGHT WITH SMELLS
Late at night a man smokes Cornell & Diehl's Red Stag in a squat bulldog from E. Wilke, formerly located in New York City. While a crazy person on one corner changes his clothes (flashes of pallid flesh), a crazy person on the other corner goes through the garbage cans (discarding everything that isn't tin or bottle on the sidewalk), a crazy person on the third corner makes strange mooing sounds, and two damsels on the fourth wait for their ride.
Earlier I had deployed the "Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley", even though due to an early delivery in a few hours the bookseller had regrettably cancelled our usual jollifications in C'Town, which have been going on once a week for over two decades, more or less. We are men of habit.
Cornell & Diehl's Red Stag is a medium English, not very top-heavy in the Latakia department, fair amount of Turkish, and consequently well-suited to a cold night in December in San Francisco. The venue being Polk Street, near a Japanese restaurant, a fancy bakery, a wine lounge, and one of the screamingest gay bars in the city. And also near Bob's Donuts, where late night booze hounds go for a sugary snackipoo after closing time.
And, naturally, crazy people.
When I smoke Virginia-Perique mixtures here, sometimes people ask me for cigarettes. Orientals do not suggest a fag, and no one has importuned me yet when I smoke those.
Which is strange. It seems no one remembers Yenidje straights from Balkan Sobranie, Khedive ovals from Austria, or Kyriazi Frères, located in Suk El Tawfikia, Kahira el Misr (Egypt). Similar smells to what I was smoking.
The tin of Red Stag had benefitted from being opened five weeks ago. Much better now. Tin-note pleasantly resinous and degenerate. Reminds me rather of Constantinople (not made since the seventies), and John Cotton's Smyrna.
Wilke closed down New York operations in the nineties, after a fractured history. Their pipes are sweet smokes, quite desirable.
And squat bulldogs are a rarity.
My dad favoured bulldogs, and his pipes were what as a teenager I always considered the paradigm of smoking equipment. And, if well made, that shape in all its variations still commands my veneration.
The squat version, especially, speaks.
Some tobaccos take longer than others. Earlier I enjoyed Greg Pease's Navigator, in a bent bull. Over an hour smoke. But Oriental (English) blends are a faster load, and in the Wilke that was barely thirty minutes.
The "Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley", with a Virginia, is around thirty to forty minutes. With a Lat blend, considerably less.
Over two years ago I would enjoy a pipe under the overhang of the old Four Seas (四海酒樓) on Waverly. It no longer exists, alas, and there are changes in the neighborhood. Uncle's on the corner is gone too. But the two clinics for bumps, bruises, contusions, and muscle aches are still there.
As well as the First Chinese Baptist Church, where occasionally "odd" individuals doss down in the entryway of their social hall.
C'town is half a dozen blocks away. Late nights there are different.
Here, there are louder crazy people.
More drunks.
Actually, all of San Francisco is filled with loonies.
And disturbing behaviour.
Noisy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Earlier I had deployed the "Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley", even though due to an early delivery in a few hours the bookseller had regrettably cancelled our usual jollifications in C'Town, which have been going on once a week for over two decades, more or less. We are men of habit.
Cornell & Diehl's Red Stag is a medium English, not very top-heavy in the Latakia department, fair amount of Turkish, and consequently well-suited to a cold night in December in San Francisco. The venue being Polk Street, near a Japanese restaurant, a fancy bakery, a wine lounge, and one of the screamingest gay bars in the city. And also near Bob's Donuts, where late night booze hounds go for a sugary snackipoo after closing time.
And, naturally, crazy people.
When I smoke Virginia-Perique mixtures here, sometimes people ask me for cigarettes. Orientals do not suggest a fag, and no one has importuned me yet when I smoke those.
Which is strange. It seems no one remembers Yenidje straights from Balkan Sobranie, Khedive ovals from Austria, or Kyriazi Frères, located in Suk El Tawfikia, Kahira el Misr (Egypt). Similar smells to what I was smoking.
The tin of Red Stag had benefitted from being opened five weeks ago. Much better now. Tin-note pleasantly resinous and degenerate. Reminds me rather of Constantinople (not made since the seventies), and John Cotton's Smyrna.
Wilke closed down New York operations in the nineties, after a fractured history. Their pipes are sweet smokes, quite desirable.
And squat bulldogs are a rarity.
My dad favoured bulldogs, and his pipes were what as a teenager I always considered the paradigm of smoking equipment. And, if well made, that shape in all its variations still commands my veneration.
The squat version, especially, speaks.
Some tobaccos take longer than others. Earlier I enjoyed Greg Pease's Navigator, in a bent bull. Over an hour smoke. But Oriental (English) blends are a faster load, and in the Wilke that was barely thirty minutes.
The "Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley", with a Virginia, is around thirty to forty minutes. With a Lat blend, considerably less.
Over two years ago I would enjoy a pipe under the overhang of the old Four Seas (四海酒樓) on Waverly. It no longer exists, alas, and there are changes in the neighborhood. Uncle's on the corner is gone too. But the two clinics for bumps, bruises, contusions, and muscle aches are still there.
As well as the First Chinese Baptist Church, where occasionally "odd" individuals doss down in the entryway of their social hall.
C'town is half a dozen blocks away. Late nights there are different.
Here, there are louder crazy people.
More drunks.
Actually, all of San Francisco is filled with loonies.
And disturbing behaviour.
Noisy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
THE DAY IN FRAGMENTS
For a second I thought she said "Mario net". This in reference to someone in Trump's innercircle. So naturally I was baffled. Then she mentioned strings attached, and I realized she meant the one without Trump's tiny hand up his ass.
Trump's tweety digits. Perfect size for texting.
Soft, small, and femmy wemmy.
My apartment mate has delicate hands the right size for texting, but they are hard as steel. Not soft rich white bitch prep school frat boy mits.
So she does not tweet.
Then she mentioned giving a hamster a peeled grape. Odd segue.
I think she was unwinding (mentally de-constructing) after a long day at the coalmines, whereas I had the day off and relaxed with porkchops at one of my favourite spots.
I should clarify that we are not a couple, just two extremely similar people sharing an apartment and several stuffed animals, with a few like-minded tastes and obsessions. For two years I got to hear about her going down to Chinatown for oxtail stew (牛尾市都 'ngau mei si dou') at one of her fave places, and I of course have mentioned porkchops till y'all sick of them.
But that's just one example, there are others.
She's Cantonese, I am Caucasian.
She doesn't smoke a pipe.
Yep, similar.
The place I went to was not the one I intended to go to, as they turned out to be closed from December tenth till December seventeenth. So I had tomato porkchops and rice (番茄豬扒飯 'faan ke chü paa faan') further up the street instead.
番茄豬扒飯
Salt and pepper two thin cuts, and brown fast on both sides over high heat. Then add sliced onion and four or five chopped tomatoes, plus a splash of ricewine, and when it's boiling slop it on to one side of a plate. Now add a big scoop of rice. Simple, delicious. Probably more to it than that -- a roux plus pan crusties may be involved -- but high heat is definitely part of the programme, as the chops are done just right, rather than over done.
If you are English, include Worcestershire.
Plus soup with a meaty bone in it, some minced carrot, and lotus root (蓮藕豬骨湯 'lin ngau chü gwat tong'). And a small heated roll in which to melt the butter pat.
All that with a cup of milk tea.
Happiness.
In the middle of the day, all the people there seem to be elderly crotchets with strong opinions speaking Toishanese. Aside from the three people behind the counter there were no women. Just men swilling coffee and tea and ripping up hot buns with their fingers. A good people-watching spot.
Even the lone fellow at a table opposite was more interested in the conversations around him than his newspaper.
He barely even read one article.
I should have stayed there longer; the pavement outside was freezing, and once that cold had travelled up my bones it was difficult to walk. I finished my pipe in the portico of a church while longing for warmer weather.
AFTER WORD
My apartment mate's birthday is this weekend. I bought a few more things (already got the main gifts a while ago) and ordered a cake. We'll celebrate on Friday once she gets home. It's actually on Saturday, but I must work.
No, I shan't mention how old she will be.
That would not be gentlemanly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Trump's tweety digits. Perfect size for texting.
Soft, small, and femmy wemmy.
My apartment mate has delicate hands the right size for texting, but they are hard as steel. Not soft rich white bitch prep school frat boy mits.
So she does not tweet.
Then she mentioned giving a hamster a peeled grape. Odd segue.
I think she was unwinding (mentally de-constructing) after a long day at the coalmines, whereas I had the day off and relaxed with porkchops at one of my favourite spots.
I should clarify that we are not a couple, just two extremely similar people sharing an apartment and several stuffed animals, with a few like-minded tastes and obsessions. For two years I got to hear about her going down to Chinatown for oxtail stew (牛尾市都 'ngau mei si dou') at one of her fave places, and I of course have mentioned porkchops till y'all sick of them.
But that's just one example, there are others.
She's Cantonese, I am Caucasian.
She doesn't smoke a pipe.
Yep, similar.
The place I went to was not the one I intended to go to, as they turned out to be closed from December tenth till December seventeenth. So I had tomato porkchops and rice (番茄豬扒飯 'faan ke chü paa faan') further up the street instead.
番茄豬扒飯
Salt and pepper two thin cuts, and brown fast on both sides over high heat. Then add sliced onion and four or five chopped tomatoes, plus a splash of ricewine, and when it's boiling slop it on to one side of a plate. Now add a big scoop of rice. Simple, delicious. Probably more to it than that -- a roux plus pan crusties may be involved -- but high heat is definitely part of the programme, as the chops are done just right, rather than over done.
If you are English, include Worcestershire.
Plus soup with a meaty bone in it, some minced carrot, and lotus root (蓮藕豬骨湯 'lin ngau chü gwat tong'). And a small heated roll in which to melt the butter pat.
All that with a cup of milk tea.
Happiness.
In the middle of the day, all the people there seem to be elderly crotchets with strong opinions speaking Toishanese. Aside from the three people behind the counter there were no women. Just men swilling coffee and tea and ripping up hot buns with their fingers. A good people-watching spot.
Even the lone fellow at a table opposite was more interested in the conversations around him than his newspaper.
He barely even read one article.
I should have stayed there longer; the pavement outside was freezing, and once that cold had travelled up my bones it was difficult to walk. I finished my pipe in the portico of a church while longing for warmer weather.
AFTER WORD
My apartment mate's birthday is this weekend. I bought a few more things (already got the main gifts a while ago) and ordered a cake. We'll celebrate on Friday once she gets home. It's actually on Saturday, but I must work.
No, I shan't mention how old she will be.
That would not be gentlemanly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
THE SWAMP OF SOULS
Yesterday, in a pointless discussion about driverless cars and Tesla among the cigar-smoking brainiacs in the backroom (audible over the sound of the buffing wheel), one of these exemplars of American intellect opined "trains don't have accidents".
Arguing in favour of Teslas, apparently.
Reminded me of this song:
THE WRECK OF THE OLD NINETY SEVEN
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNo0cGi1xZU.]
One of the more intelligent of the boys in the back, Harry, could never own a Tesla because apparently it has a giant console on the dashboard. Like an Apple. It is too computerish, and lacks the proper feel of a car. He also loves his typewriter and pounds his underwear clean with rocks.
David mercifully stayed out of the discussion. He would have claimed that Obama or Pelosi was behind the idea, and that the Democrats favoured driverless cars to control the country.
That holds for everything, by the way. Vaccinations, solar energy, truth in advertising, the affordable care act, public eduction, and kittens.
Which are all evil.
Harry comes everyday because he likes poking people with a sharp stick.
David comes because it is lonely out in the desert.
Art visits to stir up sh*t.
And Jeff ...
Jeff has no testicles, and it takes him ten minutes to pee.
They are his emotional support group.
Richard is just visiting from outer space.
Eventually he will go home.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Reminded me of this song:
THE WRECK OF THE OLD NINETY SEVEN
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNo0cGi1xZU.]
One of the more intelligent of the boys in the back, Harry, could never own a Tesla because apparently it has a giant console on the dashboard. Like an Apple. It is too computerish, and lacks the proper feel of a car. He also loves his typewriter and pounds his underwear clean with rocks.
David mercifully stayed out of the discussion. He would have claimed that Obama or Pelosi was behind the idea, and that the Democrats favoured driverless cars to control the country.
That holds for everything, by the way. Vaccinations, solar energy, truth in advertising, the affordable care act, public eduction, and kittens.
Which are all evil.
Harry comes everyday because he likes poking people with a sharp stick.
David comes because it is lonely out in the desert.
Art visits to stir up sh*t.
And Jeff ...
Jeff has no testicles, and it takes him ten minutes to pee.
They are his emotional support group.
Richard is just visiting from outer space.
Eventually he will go home.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
JOCK'S -- A SOUTH AFRICAN SMOKE
Yesterday afternoon at the meeting of the pipe smokers, Bernhard extended a container with some tobacco from South Afrika. So I filled a bowl for later, intending to enjoy it as the last pipe of the day. But I napped instead. And lit it up as the first pipe this morning at work. Jock's Mixture, by Van Erkom.
The few reviews of it I can find state that it is a medium-bodied Virginia with the addition of caramel and vanilla. Now, being around tobacco and cigar smoke all day, my sense of smell is buggered-up by noon, almost out the door by teatime. So although it smelled pleasant enough, I did not notice such a topping. Instead it came across as grassy and slightly herbal.
Nor did I notice it when lighting up while working.
It is also described as "unpleasant room note".
Yeah, um, no. Hardly unpleasant at all.
Perhaps not enjoyable to a dried-up stick insect like Kate Sears, one of the five Marin County Supervisors, who spearheaded the recent anti-tobacco crusade here which resulted in a complete ban on all flavoured tobacco products locally, ably assisted by the usual villains and puritanical anti-everything folks. She'd probably scream that I was killing babies by lighting it up. And have several other incoherent and irrelevant things to say.
As we say in Dutch: Zy kan de kolere krygen -- she can (and should) get cholera. Venynige klotewyf, een echt stuk werk. Verrek maar es, kreng.
It's good stuff. Hardly likely to tempt children. Especially not the pot smoking Ritalin-addled vaping kiddiliewinkies of Marin County.
Here's a video review of it by someone else.
VAN ERKOM'S JOCKS MIXTURE
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFN2-nB1G0.]
His thoughts on this tobacco are a bit wordier than mine. It's a nice smoke. Seems to be a Virginia (meaning 'flue-cured tobacco') product, with some complexity, unsuited to halfwits. It smoked easily and enjoyably all the way down, and gilded the first part of the day. I would definitely puff it again.
Note: our stoep at work is often occupied by crotchetty old geezers. This morning a self-important person of the other gender parked herself there, and had to be "persuaded" that she should go somewhere else.
Which the bossfella did, eventually and reluctantly.
More gently than I could do.
Commendable.
My approach would've been "oh piss off, ye crazy old bat, nobody cares that ye've bin to Baghdad! G'wan, scoot!"
Apparently she's on a no fly list. I am not surprised.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The few reviews of it I can find state that it is a medium-bodied Virginia with the addition of caramel and vanilla. Now, being around tobacco and cigar smoke all day, my sense of smell is buggered-up by noon, almost out the door by teatime. So although it smelled pleasant enough, I did not notice such a topping. Instead it came across as grassy and slightly herbal.
Nor did I notice it when lighting up while working.
It is also described as "unpleasant room note".
Yeah, um, no. Hardly unpleasant at all.
Perhaps not enjoyable to a dried-up stick insect like Kate Sears, one of the five Marin County Supervisors, who spearheaded the recent anti-tobacco crusade here which resulted in a complete ban on all flavoured tobacco products locally, ably assisted by the usual villains and puritanical anti-everything folks. She'd probably scream that I was killing babies by lighting it up. And have several other incoherent and irrelevant things to say.
As we say in Dutch: Zy kan de kolere krygen -- she can (and should) get cholera. Venynige klotewyf, een echt stuk werk. Verrek maar es, kreng.
It's good stuff. Hardly likely to tempt children. Especially not the pot smoking Ritalin-addled vaping kiddiliewinkies of Marin County.
Here's a video review of it by someone else.
VAN ERKOM'S JOCKS MIXTURE
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFN2-nB1G0.]
His thoughts on this tobacco are a bit wordier than mine. It's a nice smoke. Seems to be a Virginia (meaning 'flue-cured tobacco') product, with some complexity, unsuited to halfwits. It smoked easily and enjoyably all the way down, and gilded the first part of the day. I would definitely puff it again.
Note: our stoep at work is often occupied by crotchetty old geezers. This morning a self-important person of the other gender parked herself there, and had to be "persuaded" that she should go somewhere else.
Which the bossfella did, eventually and reluctantly.
More gently than I could do.
Commendable.
My approach would've been "oh piss off, ye crazy old bat, nobody cares that ye've bin to Baghdad! G'wan, scoot!"
Apparently she's on a no fly list. I am not surprised.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, December 10, 2018
ARE WE WINNING YET?
The world has become surprisingly bizarre. Four nations at a international conference in Poland will be promoting fossil fuels as the safe alternative to clean energy, the United States President (slug with stumpy fingers) sends out hatred laden tweets regarding a man he fired, Russian policeman excels at women-slaughter (surpassing two other Russians), and a friend of Jared Kushner has a journalist whacked inside a consulate, then liquefied with acid.
Germany's most respected bank gets uncovered as a money-laundering operation for the Russian mob and Trump's real-estate scams.
I would exclaim "what is the world coming to?", but that seems kinda pointless right now.
Especially as the Irish immigrant turned super American patriot MAGA-ite who infest the lounge has been reduced to whining about a Democratic congress woman, parroting his Fuhrer, the stubby fingered potato.
Which is pathetic. And amusing.
Sad.
Trumpites are the best people. With the biggest brains.
And superior vocabularies.
Ivanka should have chosen an other father, and married a different weasel.
Except for Russian operatives, the Republican Part is dead.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Germany's most respected bank gets uncovered as a money-laundering operation for the Russian mob and Trump's real-estate scams.
I would exclaim "what is the world coming to?", but that seems kinda pointless right now.
Especially as the Irish immigrant turned super American patriot MAGA-ite who infest the lounge has been reduced to whining about a Democratic congress woman, parroting his Fuhrer, the stubby fingered potato.
Which is pathetic. And amusing.
Sad.
Trumpites are the best people. With the biggest brains.
And superior vocabularies.
Ivanka should have chosen an other father, and married a different weasel.
Except for Russian operatives, the Republican Part is dead.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, December 09, 2018
AND NOT A SINGLE HOBBIT
The quarterly social event for the club was cancelled this month due to scheduling issues, but the monthly meeting went off without a hitch. From my perspective, at least. I got to nibble tasty things, like cheese.
If I ran a company, there would be a cheese plate at every staff meeting.
Company events? We have some fabulous cheese!
A new product roll-out? With cheese!
Plus dried tofu for the Vegans.
In barbecue flavour!
THREE BEARDS, TWO MOUSTACHES
AND SPECTACLES
Ten men, and probably several times as many fine briars. Plus an open tin of McClelland Christmas Cheer, of which I smoked a bowl. It was very good. Nearly the same number of men elsewhere in the building huffing cheroots and yowling at a football game. But distant enough that their unwashed habits and drooling did not impact us.
Because the local team won, Jeff pretty much had his first orgasm in months, judging by the sounds of it. All of that plus a Honduran stogie too.
Football doesn't do that for me, but I'm normal.
McClelland's Christmas Cheer is actually very nice -- there are several tins of several vintages on top of the main bookshelf in my quarters, as well as a few behind me in the tall bins in the teevee room -- but initially I demurred a bowl, because I am weaning myself off of that company's products. Seeing as they no longer exist. McClelland closed it's doors at the beginning of this year, and while I have enough to last me for nearly three and half more years if I smoked nothing but, I intend to live longer than that.
What I have will have to last me a few decades.
I think William brought the tin. Which was very nice of him.
Bernhard brought some Jock's Mixture from South Africa. It's the tobacco he grew up smoking. I'll have a bowl of that later this evening, as my last puff of the day out on the street.
[Van Erkoms Jock's Mixture: ribbon cut flue-cured leaf, allegedly spritzed with vanilla and caramel, which my nose did not pick up. Described as earthy, stinky, and pleasantly sweet. As well as profoundly enjoyable. If the reviews I have seen are correct, I may need to order a shipment of this, as like many other fine tobacco products it just isn't available locally.]
[Re: McClelland: Melon!?!.]
As I mentioned, ten men at the meeting of the pipe club. But other pipe-smokers were also in -- Wade, whose wife secretly bought him eight ounces of Stonehaven several months ago, plus Jacob and his confrère whose name escapes my memory -- so I had the buffing wheel going for a bit, as pipe stems do oxidize over time. And I got to talk smack about my favourite enemy amongst the aromatics: Molto Dolce. Here, smell this. Good tobacco does NOT reek like a Turkish bagnio. Or feel sticky, like the Mummy in the Brendan Frazer movie, it's still moist. This tin has been open for over two years, it should be bone dry. Nope. Propylene Glycol. It will remain soggy forever. Ten thousand years from now the space aliens will find a stash, and say "we don't know what this is, but it is incredibly nasty, and this species deserved to die".
The last time I smoked it was to torment Hector, who looked at me horrified and demanded to know why I was doing this to him. But it left my mouth so buggered up that I couldn't smoke the rest of the day. Something had died a painful death in there. Aromatic shite fit for perverts, no one else.
No members of the pipe club will touch it.
Contrary to what anti-smoking harridans of Marin County assume, no children came in looking for aromatic tobaccos. None of the little bastards want to emulate me. Or any of the other distinguished members of the club.
There were no hordes of tykes outside trying to breach the barricades.
No little ten year olds with dad's ancient black briar.
Sherlock Holmes wannabees.
Gandalfs.
Kate Spears lied.
Come here, little girl, would you like some Capstan?
Tolkien, Bertand Russell, and Simenon smoked it.
It's damned fine stuff. Shows good judgement.
I'll see if I can arrange a regular supply for you.
And some Jock's Mixture. You'd like that.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
If I ran a company, there would be a cheese plate at every staff meeting.
Company events? We have some fabulous cheese!
A new product roll-out? With cheese!
Plus dried tofu for the Vegans.
In barbecue flavour!
THREE BEARDS, TWO MOUSTACHES
AND SPECTACLES
Ten men, and probably several times as many fine briars. Plus an open tin of McClelland Christmas Cheer, of which I smoked a bowl. It was very good. Nearly the same number of men elsewhere in the building huffing cheroots and yowling at a football game. But distant enough that their unwashed habits and drooling did not impact us.
Because the local team won, Jeff pretty much had his first orgasm in months, judging by the sounds of it. All of that plus a Honduran stogie too.
Football doesn't do that for me, but I'm normal.
McClelland's Christmas Cheer is actually very nice -- there are several tins of several vintages on top of the main bookshelf in my quarters, as well as a few behind me in the tall bins in the teevee room -- but initially I demurred a bowl, because I am weaning myself off of that company's products. Seeing as they no longer exist. McClelland closed it's doors at the beginning of this year, and while I have enough to last me for nearly three and half more years if I smoked nothing but, I intend to live longer than that.
What I have will have to last me a few decades.
I think William brought the tin. Which was very nice of him.
Bernhard brought some Jock's Mixture from South Africa. It's the tobacco he grew up smoking. I'll have a bowl of that later this evening, as my last puff of the day out on the street.
[Van Erkoms Jock's Mixture: ribbon cut flue-cured leaf, allegedly spritzed with vanilla and caramel, which my nose did not pick up. Described as earthy, stinky, and pleasantly sweet. As well as profoundly enjoyable. If the reviews I have seen are correct, I may need to order a shipment of this, as like many other fine tobacco products it just isn't available locally.]
[Re: McClelland: Melon!?!.]
As I mentioned, ten men at the meeting of the pipe club. But other pipe-smokers were also in -- Wade, whose wife secretly bought him eight ounces of Stonehaven several months ago, plus Jacob and his confrère whose name escapes my memory -- so I had the buffing wheel going for a bit, as pipe stems do oxidize over time. And I got to talk smack about my favourite enemy amongst the aromatics: Molto Dolce. Here, smell this. Good tobacco does NOT reek like a Turkish bagnio. Or feel sticky, like the Mummy in the Brendan Frazer movie, it's still moist. This tin has been open for over two years, it should be bone dry. Nope. Propylene Glycol. It will remain soggy forever. Ten thousand years from now the space aliens will find a stash, and say "we don't know what this is, but it is incredibly nasty, and this species deserved to die".
The last time I smoked it was to torment Hector, who looked at me horrified and demanded to know why I was doing this to him. But it left my mouth so buggered up that I couldn't smoke the rest of the day. Something had died a painful death in there. Aromatic shite fit for perverts, no one else.
No members of the pipe club will touch it.
Contrary to what anti-smoking harridans of Marin County assume, no children came in looking for aromatic tobaccos. None of the little bastards want to emulate me. Or any of the other distinguished members of the club.
There were no hordes of tykes outside trying to breach the barricades.
No little ten year olds with dad's ancient black briar.
Sherlock Holmes wannabees.
Gandalfs.
Kate Spears lied.
Come here, little girl, would you like some Capstan?
Tolkien, Bertand Russell, and Simenon smoked it.
It's damned fine stuff. Shows good judgement.
I'll see if I can arrange a regular supply for you.
And some Jock's Mixture. You'd like that.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
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Saturday, December 08, 2018
THE MESS AND CHAOS ARE CONFUSING
When I returned to my neighborhood this evening, it was to scenes of madness and chaos. Drunken Santas, stripper elves, randy drug-crazed grinches, and terrified pedestrians. Santacon.
Worse every year. 'Santa' is an anagram for 'Satan'.
And the street smelled of marijuana. Can't wait for the cops to hose these people down with watercannons and start clubbing them.
Which makes my apartment mate going to bed early and being sound asleep in her room completely understandable. She is even less likely to participate in a drunken orgy than I am.
The sounds of excess were audible for hours. As well as sirens.
Three Santas of two genders should NOT be doing what they were doing at the bus-stop. And that's NOT where the Santa hat goes!
Bad Santa! No cookies!
Dinner tonight was a grilled sausage with a rich and hot curry sauce. It was delicious. On youtube, to drown out the revelry, songs from the nineteen sixties and seventies in Hokkien; even with subtitles in Chinese, dense to comprehend, because of non-standard characters and turns of phrase.
Just for the heck of it, here is what Google Translate does to one of them:
Dressed in a demon look, accompanying people to shake and shake
Red neon, sparkling, ignoring my heart
Ah, who will know the sorrow of being a dancer, secretly seeing it, and also knowing how to cough and cough
Ah, come and come to dance, if the footsteps are shaking, no matter who I am, I am a dream.
I dragged my heavy footsteps and went to the west with music
People are also talking about the mess, and the chaos is confusing
Ah, I am willing to have no one to know the shadows. The sorrow of the dancers is only seen through the eyes
Ah, come and come to dance, if the footsteps are fixed, no matter who I am, I am a dream.
That's actually pretty good. You can tell the thematic colouration.
紅紅 red red, utterly red; 傷悲 sad, sadness, heart ache; 悲哀 sadness, unhappiness, sorrow; 憂悶 even more sorrow; 亂亂紛紛 ongoing confusion and disorder, so messy (luen luen fan fan); 眠夢 sleep and dream.
The song has an upbeat party-party sound to it.
Some of the people outside were showing too much cleavage and flabbage.
I like the idea of cleavage. But only very selectively.
It's a good way to catch a cold.
No amount of mascara makes dead eyes sparkle.
I am not a fan of Santa or his con.
==========================================================================
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==========================================================================
Worse every year. 'Santa' is an anagram for 'Satan'.
And the street smelled of marijuana. Can't wait for the cops to hose these people down with watercannons and start clubbing them.
Which makes my apartment mate going to bed early and being sound asleep in her room completely understandable. She is even less likely to participate in a drunken orgy than I am.
The sounds of excess were audible for hours. As well as sirens.
Three Santas of two genders should NOT be doing what they were doing at the bus-stop. And that's NOT where the Santa hat goes!
Bad Santa! No cookies!
Dinner tonight was a grilled sausage with a rich and hot curry sauce. It was delicious. On youtube, to drown out the revelry, songs from the nineteen sixties and seventies in Hokkien; even with subtitles in Chinese, dense to comprehend, because of non-standard characters and turns of phrase.
Just for the heck of it, here is what Google Translate does to one of them:
Dressed in a demon look, accompanying people to shake and shake
Red neon, sparkling, ignoring my heart
Ah, who will know the sorrow of being a dancer, secretly seeing it, and also knowing how to cough and cough
Ah, come and come to dance, if the footsteps are shaking, no matter who I am, I am a dream.
I dragged my heavy footsteps and went to the west with music
People are also talking about the mess, and the chaos is confusing
Ah, I am willing to have no one to know the shadows. The sorrow of the dancers is only seen through the eyes
Ah, come and come to dance, if the footsteps are fixed, no matter who I am, I am a dream.
That's actually pretty good. You can tell the thematic colouration.
紅紅 red red, utterly red; 傷悲 sad, sadness, heart ache; 悲哀 sadness, unhappiness, sorrow; 憂悶 even more sorrow; 亂亂紛紛 ongoing confusion and disorder, so messy (luen luen fan fan); 眠夢 sleep and dream.
The song has an upbeat party-party sound to it.
Some of the people outside were showing too much cleavage and flabbage.
I like the idea of cleavage. But only very selectively.
It's a good way to catch a cold.
No amount of mascara makes dead eyes sparkle.
I am not a fan of Santa or his con.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, December 07, 2018
ORANGE SUEDE PANTS?!? IN HAWAII?
In traditional weddings the world over there will be food, and often music. In American weddings, there is suffering, as befits a gun-crazy culture told not to bring their weapons. Because otherwise they would shoot the bridezilla putting them through all this.
This pops into perfect focus when one sees the demands of a person on the internet, whose nuptial event is a year hence. She demands that all invitees dress in a specific manner. Women between 100 and 160 pounds: green velvet sweater, orange suede pants, Louboutin shoes, and a Burberry scarf. Men between one hundred and two hundred pounds: Purple fuzzy jackets, white trainers, glow sticks.
Children: red entirely. Freshly ripped dripping heart red.
Fat people: dress in black; it represents the devil.
She and her husband-to-be are certified spiritual healers. Deep experience.
She's pissed that someone turned her requirements into an internet meme, and has bought a ninety nine dollar polygraph kit to test all of her friends at a Saturday night jamboree at her house. Part-AY.
Because she is a spiritual healer.
With psychic creds.
I bet she and her not-yet-hubby wrote their own vows.
Because I am making fun of her, I am a troll playing video games in a scum basement, and how dare I comment about people I don't even know?
Um. No basement. No X-box.
I'm just an average middle aged Dutch American with too many books littering my second floor digs, pipes and tobacco all over the place, and an unhealthy taste for pastries, hot sauce and hot Hong Kong Milk Tea.
Spiritual healing and its attendant meaningfulness give me bile.
No one in their right mind wears orange suede pants.
The only dress requirements I consider valid are "presentable, with no private parts showing". Which means no codpieces, no exposed cracks or cleavage. No hotpants either.
If I ever get married, the stuffed animals will be there.
Some of them might be under or over dressed.
Leave your guns at home.
==========================================================================
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Children: red entirely. Freshly ripped dripping heart red.
Fat people: dress in black; it represents the devil.
She and her husband-to-be are certified spiritual healers. Deep experience.
She's pissed that someone turned her requirements into an internet meme, and has bought a ninety nine dollar polygraph kit to test all of her friends at a Saturday night jamboree at her house. Part-AY.
Because she is a spiritual healer.
With psychic creds.
I bet she and her not-yet-hubby wrote their own vows.
Because I am making fun of her, I am a troll playing video games in a scum basement, and how dare I comment about people I don't even know?
Um. No basement. No X-box.
I'm just an average middle aged Dutch American with too many books littering my second floor digs, pipes and tobacco all over the place, and an unhealthy taste for pastries, hot sauce and hot Hong Kong Milk Tea.
Spiritual healing and its attendant meaningfulness give me bile.
No one in their right mind wears orange suede pants.
The only dress requirements I consider valid are "presentable, with no private parts showing". Which means no codpieces, no exposed cracks or cleavage. No hotpants either.
If I ever get married, the stuffed animals will be there.
Some of them might be under or over dressed.
Leave your guns at home.
==========================================================================
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
DO NOT DO THIS IN PUBLIC!
A friend's Facebook post directed me to a fascinating read in the Root, where this caught my eye: "So imagine doing exactly that, reminiscing on the late Eartha Kitt’s sexually charged portrayal of Boomerang seductress Lady Eloise, when some white lady materializes out of thin air and taps into her mutant power of not minding her motherfucking business."
The rest of that article is, of course, predictable.
Barbecue Becky and Permit Patty.
“You don’t belong here! You were talking about sex in public! Are you having sex in public? Because that’s what you screamed out loud.”
Let us talk about sex in public, please. It's a fascinating subject, and obviously appeals to many people, judging by what some folks decide to wear to mall. And by all of popular music since the sixties.
It's a deeply beloved past time.
And some of us like to watch people humping.
Mating displays in bars, for instance.
Well, it's not that we actually like seeing that, but hey, it's right in front of us, and you are putting on a show. So we watch, fascinated, like observing an accident in slow motion, while you rub and bump and lick each other, just as you probably learned from other fine people or parents of your class and background, about whom I shall say nothing but Christian things.
Because far be it from me to talk shit about y'all.
Some folks aren't allowed in the Frozen Food section of the Supermarket anymore. And there's a reason for that.
Body fluids.
Yeah, ya know life is too short to deal with all the Becky and Patty, so rather than reading people the riot act for being dipshits, I usually just step aside while muttering vile things under my breath. Or sometimes not so under.
I've unfriended people for racism and republican shitheadedness.
And people have unfriended me for being a liberal.
Or various other reasons.
By the way, there's gluten in many things, even in your macrobiotic vegan clothing and make-up, vaccinate your damned kids, and no you are not a deeply spiritual being. Or a poet. Yoga in sweaty groups is sheer evil.
Those colourful native fabrics make you look like a clown.
The whales hate you.
In other news: there are approximately three hundred calories in a Scotch Egg. Don't ask me why I know this, or what I shall do with this data.
It probably tastes better with Bearnaise.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The rest of that article is, of course, predictable.
Barbecue Becky and Permit Patty.
“You don’t belong here! You were talking about sex in public! Are you having sex in public? Because that’s what you screamed out loud.”
Let us talk about sex in public, please. It's a fascinating subject, and obviously appeals to many people, judging by what some folks decide to wear to mall. And by all of popular music since the sixties.
It's a deeply beloved past time.
And some of us like to watch people humping.
Mating displays in bars, for instance.
Well, it's not that we actually like seeing that, but hey, it's right in front of us, and you are putting on a show. So we watch, fascinated, like observing an accident in slow motion, while you rub and bump and lick each other, just as you probably learned from other fine people or parents of your class and background, about whom I shall say nothing but Christian things.
Because far be it from me to talk shit about y'all.
Some folks aren't allowed in the Frozen Food section of the Supermarket anymore. And there's a reason for that.
Body fluids.
Yeah, ya know life is too short to deal with all the Becky and Patty, so rather than reading people the riot act for being dipshits, I usually just step aside while muttering vile things under my breath. Or sometimes not so under.
I've unfriended people for racism and republican shitheadedness.
And people have unfriended me for being a liberal.
Or various other reasons.
By the way, there's gluten in many things, even in your macrobiotic vegan clothing and make-up, vaccinate your damned kids, and no you are not a deeply spiritual being. Or a poet. Yoga in sweaty groups is sheer evil.
Those colourful native fabrics make you look like a clown.
The whales hate you.
In other news: there are approximately three hundred calories in a Scotch Egg. Don't ask me why I know this, or what I shall do with this data.
It probably tastes better with Bearnaise.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, December 06, 2018
COCKTAILS FOR ELDERLY PERVS
After three queenly cocktails (one part gin, two parts Dubonnet, lemon) the beastly cold did not affect me. Which is good, a pipesmoker must spend time outside. From a block away I heard Jackie and Joe (two people I only know from their behaviour last night) arguing on their way to the Tower, they were bitchy when they passed, and I could hear them inside while I was outside enjoying the peace, quiet, and aged Virginia tobacco in my briar.
The only two others inside at that time were Josha and Ambika, and some halfwit blonde twit. who left shortly afterwards. Barb threw Jackie out (refused to serve her). As anyone would have done. Solve your domestic issues elsewhere. Mass murder, if any, some other time.
We cater to sane individuals.
And pipe-smokers.
That last would be me. I may be me. I might be the last one left in this neighborhood.
As I am sure the girl with the kissy lips on the bus realizes. Yes, she is unsuitably young. But there is that intelligence sparking in her face, and she was on the bus down to C'town, as well as, remarkably, on the bus back four hours later. That face -- because of the intelligence in it -- has charm, and an attractiveness and sparkly character that make it seem like she would be fun to converse with.
Unfortunately no one like that cruises by at one in the morning when a pipesmoker might be on his third Dubonnet and gin.
With a slice of lemon.
It is unlikely that she and I will ever end up talking.
After all, I am a skeevy old guy. She is so much younger.
But she does have beautiful lips.
So I'll just look.
Don't trust me. I am bad.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The only two others inside at that time were Josha and Ambika, and some halfwit blonde twit. who left shortly afterwards. Barb threw Jackie out (refused to serve her). As anyone would have done. Solve your domestic issues elsewhere. Mass murder, if any, some other time.
We cater to sane individuals.
And pipe-smokers.
That last would be me. I may be me. I might be the last one left in this neighborhood.
As I am sure the girl with the kissy lips on the bus realizes. Yes, she is unsuitably young. But there is that intelligence sparking in her face, and she was on the bus down to C'town, as well as, remarkably, on the bus back four hours later. That face -- because of the intelligence in it -- has charm, and an attractiveness and sparkly character that make it seem like she would be fun to converse with.
Unfortunately no one like that cruises by at one in the morning when a pipesmoker might be on his third Dubonnet and gin.
With a slice of lemon.
It is unlikely that she and I will ever end up talking.
After all, I am a skeevy old guy. She is so much younger.
But she does have beautiful lips.
So I'll just look.
Don't trust me. I am bad.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, December 05, 2018
I NEED A DUBONNET!
A very likeable boisterous New Yorker of my acquaintance has mentioned Pia Zadora several times recently, so often that he must be obsessed. Which is understandable. Who doesn't like the artist widely know as worst new star of the eighties?
Apparently he has seen her on stage.
For which he paid.
Naturally, I best remember her for the Playboy Spread and the Dubonnet advertising campaign. The first put me off nudie mags, and while the ads claimed that Dubonnet was the French word for cocktail, and perfect for lovers, I almost instinctively developed a loathing for pretentious French crap that lasts till this day.
I think I saw Pia Zadora once in a movie. She had a starring role. For the life of me I cannot remember which flick, or which theatre. Her filmography lists nine movies: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Butterfly Fake-Out, The Lonely Lady, Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Feel the Motion, Hairspray, Troop Beverly Hills, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
It's probably a mental block.
None of these look like a must-see winner.
Here's a promotional poster for Dubonnet by A. M. Cassandre (1901 - 1968) which make it look like a neat-o product to consume. Fifteen percent alcohol. The queen mother drank it; it probably kept her malaria-free (because of the inclusion of quinine).
It's a "vin tonique au quinquina". Queen Elizabeth II enjoys a cocktail consisting of two parts Dubonnet, one part gin, slice of lemon, plus ice everyday before lunch. But it can be drunk straight.
Perhaps it's finally time for a Pia Zadora movie-fest. An introspective on the career of this woman. With, of course, cocktails.
If a nearby gay-western bar takes the pictures of shiny naked men with their penises off the walls, and replaces them with Freddie Mercury, it will be the perfect venue.
People will love it.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
For which he paid.
Naturally, I best remember her for the Playboy Spread and the Dubonnet advertising campaign. The first put me off nudie mags, and while the ads claimed that Dubonnet was the French word for cocktail, and perfect for lovers, I almost instinctively developed a loathing for pretentious French crap that lasts till this day.
I think I saw Pia Zadora once in a movie. She had a starring role. For the life of me I cannot remember which flick, or which theatre. Her filmography lists nine movies: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Butterfly Fake-Out, The Lonely Lady, Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Feel the Motion, Hairspray, Troop Beverly Hills, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
It's probably a mental block.
None of these look like a must-see winner.
Here's a promotional poster for Dubonnet by A. M. Cassandre (1901 - 1968) which make it look like a neat-o product to consume. Fifteen percent alcohol. The queen mother drank it; it probably kept her malaria-free (because of the inclusion of quinine).
NOT Pia Zadora!
It's a "vin tonique au quinquina". Queen Elizabeth II enjoys a cocktail consisting of two parts Dubonnet, one part gin, slice of lemon, plus ice everyday before lunch. But it can be drunk straight.
Perhaps it's finally time for a Pia Zadora movie-fest. An introspective on the career of this woman. With, of course, cocktails.
If a nearby gay-western bar takes the pictures of shiny naked men with their penises off the walls, and replaces them with Freddie Mercury, it will be the perfect venue.
People will love it.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT?
Apparently some old f*ckers in Northbeach are upset that they can't use certain sexist, racist, or gayist terms anymore. And I realize that I can live quite comfortably with that. My piles verily bleed for their perceived loss.
When I use the term C*&t, it is usually in reference to Trump.
F&*got refers to very bad music and dance.
Abba videos, for instance.
Or Elton John.
And the N word? Well, there was a tobacco blend (and a type of tobacco) that went by the name N54ger-head. No great loss.
So yes, I'm comfortable losing less than half a dozen words out of an active vocabulary in the tens of thousands. Horse's ass and assinine are still there. F9)king damned millennial, yuppie scum, and dickhead are in play.
As is the compound "stupid f*cking white people".
In lieu of 'sei kwai lo'.
"M-koi, nei man ha, ko sei kwai lo yiu mat ye."
"Please (go) ask what does that non-Chinese person (whom I instinctively dislike, because he looks like a yuppie scum dickhead) want". As one might say in a Stockton Street business to the personable and energetic woman working there. Usually they want to just look at the non-wasp shiznit, ask whether it contains gluten (麵筋), and then quietly fade out of sight.
If you absolutely need those terms which are not acceptable nowadays to express yourself, maybe you and I do not speak the same brand of English. Your vocabulary is that effing limited and minor that you are mushmouthed and crippled. And if that is the case, what could you possibly try to communicate that I would find worthwhile?
You're Johnny's idiot younger brother.
You're the Pothead after smoke.
You're Republican.
Po-tato.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
When I use the term C*&t, it is usually in reference to Trump.
F&*got refers to very bad music and dance.
Abba videos, for instance.
Or Elton John.
And the N word? Well, there was a tobacco blend (and a type of tobacco) that went by the name N54ger-head. No great loss.
So yes, I'm comfortable losing less than half a dozen words out of an active vocabulary in the tens of thousands. Horse's ass and assinine are still there. F9)king damned millennial, yuppie scum, and dickhead are in play.
As is the compound "stupid f*cking white people".
In lieu of 'sei kwai lo'.
"M-koi, nei man ha, ko sei kwai lo yiu mat ye."
"Please (go) ask what does that non-Chinese person (whom I instinctively dislike, because he looks like a yuppie scum dickhead) want". As one might say in a Stockton Street business to the personable and energetic woman working there. Usually they want to just look at the non-wasp shiznit, ask whether it contains gluten (麵筋), and then quietly fade out of sight.
If you absolutely need those terms which are not acceptable nowadays to express yourself, maybe you and I do not speak the same brand of English. Your vocabulary is that effing limited and minor that you are mushmouthed and crippled. And if that is the case, what could you possibly try to communicate that I would find worthwhile?
You're Johnny's idiot younger brother.
You're the Pothead after smoke.
You're Republican.
Po-tato.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
TWILIGHT OF THE BLOBS
Many of the people with whom I must associate are older men who smoke cigars in the back of the business. Which means that they are, largely, self-entitled successful conservatives displeased by everything in modern society except for the orange toupeed potato they voted for, and the fact that they can include pornographic images in their text messages. So for them there has been commendable progress in the last two decades, because computers!
When they were still lads, e-mail still had to be written out with quills by hand and faxed over. No titty pictures.
Yesterday Arthur looked despondent. There was no outrage!
No possibility of anyone getting spitting mad.
The butt of everyone's offpissing wasn't there.
No, I did not sympathize with him. But I did express my commiseration, as it is obvious that only the prospect of someone else having apoplexy or an ulcer keeps the old cock alive.
Besides politics, and vicious slander of everyone to the left of Steve Bannon, the venerable gentlemen also talk ball games, fifties movies, and popular music from the stone age. I have had to explain to them that I know absolutely nothing about those last three totally fascinating subjects.
It is by association with them and the fossil record that I feel young.
I know some of them are on Facebook. All of them have cellular devices. Imagine a herd of lonely old relics staring at their screens, occasionally giggling moronically, while ashes from their stogies fall on their stained trousers and the flickering flames from the fireplace give an antique glow to their parchment-like skins. Dull eyes, bald heads, and wobbly quivering jowls. Here a paunch, there a paunch, everywhere a paunch.
A whelter of creaky limbs and liver spots.
The most exciting thing to happen in the last week was a screaming match between an Irish racist and a tightly strung gentleman over the "N" word, during which one of them bluntly requested that the other shut the intercourse up. That happened on a day when I was away.
All of them seemed vibrantly alive again.
I am sad that I missed it.
I likewise enjoy a bit of outrage.
Angry old farts are therapeutic.
I hope your digestions are all okay?
Too many of you need a good burping.
Or a lullaby from the booby sitter.
Plans today: porkchops at the Regency, milk tea, briar pipes and aged Virginia tobacco, aimless wandering through alleyways, umbrella, smoking under the awnings of abandoned stores, people watching, rain, small snackipoos, a nap, the 'Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley', then whiskey with the bookseller at a place where many can't sing but do.
Nothing productive.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
When they were still lads, e-mail still had to be written out with quills by hand and faxed over. No titty pictures.
Yesterday Arthur looked despondent. There was no outrage!
No possibility of anyone getting spitting mad.
The butt of everyone's offpissing wasn't there.
No, I did not sympathize with him. But I did express my commiseration, as it is obvious that only the prospect of someone else having apoplexy or an ulcer keeps the old cock alive.
Besides politics, and vicious slander of everyone to the left of Steve Bannon, the venerable gentlemen also talk ball games, fifties movies, and popular music from the stone age. I have had to explain to them that I know absolutely nothing about those last three totally fascinating subjects.
It is by association with them and the fossil record that I feel young.
I know some of them are on Facebook. All of them have cellular devices. Imagine a herd of lonely old relics staring at their screens, occasionally giggling moronically, while ashes from their stogies fall on their stained trousers and the flickering flames from the fireplace give an antique glow to their parchment-like skins. Dull eyes, bald heads, and wobbly quivering jowls. Here a paunch, there a paunch, everywhere a paunch.
A whelter of creaky limbs and liver spots.
The most exciting thing to happen in the last week was a screaming match between an Irish racist and a tightly strung gentleman over the "N" word, during which one of them bluntly requested that the other shut the intercourse up. That happened on a day when I was away.
All of them seemed vibrantly alive again.
I am sad that I missed it.
I likewise enjoy a bit of outrage.
Angry old farts are therapeutic.
I hope your digestions are all okay?
Too many of you need a good burping.
Or a lullaby from the booby sitter.
Plans today: porkchops at the Regency, milk tea, briar pipes and aged Virginia tobacco, aimless wandering through alleyways, umbrella, smoking under the awnings of abandoned stores, people watching, rain, small snackipoos, a nap, the 'Pipe for Watching Rats in Spofford Alley', then whiskey with the bookseller at a place where many can't sing but do.
Nothing productive.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, December 03, 2018
IT'S PART OF OUR HIPPIE CHARM
Around the corner from where Cantonese parents drop off their kiddies for enlightening daycare which will give them a foot up in grammar school, there are three doorways. This morning voices were coming from two of them. One being a gentleman discussing matters of great import (with himself) while with energetically gesticulating, the other being from a bearded head sticking out of a sleeping bag in another doorway.
The tykes are cheerful and cute as the dickens.
The insane people not so much.
Frowsty-wowsty.
The insane people are, of course, Caucasian. Here in San Francisco we are the beneficiaries of the rest of the country giving all their less than reality-success-blessed brethren one way bus tickets in the hope that we can do something with them.
These folks aren't evil, unlike their kin that discarded them.
It's just that their hard drives melted.
Defective wiring.
I vastly prefer watching the little kiddies running around under their parents watchful view in front of childcare to warily keeping an eye peeled behind me while waiting for the bus. It's far better for my peace of mind.
Chinese kiddies of that age are small and cute and clean.
Adult crazy people often fail on all of those points.
Sometimes it's purely for lack of effort.
We also have drugs in this city.
There's evidence of that.
Wiring issues.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The tykes are cheerful and cute as the dickens.
The insane people not so much.
Frowsty-wowsty.
The insane people are, of course, Caucasian. Here in San Francisco we are the beneficiaries of the rest of the country giving all their less than reality-success-blessed brethren one way bus tickets in the hope that we can do something with them.
These folks aren't evil, unlike their kin that discarded them.
It's just that their hard drives melted.
Defective wiring.
I vastly prefer watching the little kiddies running around under their parents watchful view in front of childcare to warily keeping an eye peeled behind me while waiting for the bus. It's far better for my peace of mind.
Chinese kiddies of that age are small and cute and clean.
Adult crazy people often fail on all of those points.
Sometimes it's purely for lack of effort.
We also have drugs in this city.
There's evidence of that.
Wiring issues.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, December 02, 2018
TOO MUCH TOAD
Here it is, more than two hours after they're gone, and I still feel like saying something nasty. The cigar smokers in the back were all loud and crude today, but the last four were NOT using their indoor voices, complete blisters, repetitive, and profoundly irritating.
Everyone should be grateful that I don't tell them all to shut the blazes up.
Years ago, in parts of Europe, infants were given a sugar cube dipped in brandy to quieten them down. It helped them sleep. That might not work on these boys. Alcohol has scant effect; they are the reason Xylazine and elephant tranquilizer darts were invented.
But I shan't say anything nasty. I am not that type.
Like Mr. Badger in Wind in the Willows, I am a calm unruffled sort, content to be left alone and leave others alone. I'll just drape a cloth over my face, put my feet up, and relax in the peace and quiet of my diggs.
"Badger had retired to his study and settled himself in an arm-chair with his legs up on another and a red cotton handkerchief over his face, and was being "busy" in the usual way ..."
There was far too much Toad today.
Them and their bluster.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Everyone should be grateful that I don't tell them all to shut the blazes up.
Years ago, in parts of Europe, infants were given a sugar cube dipped in brandy to quieten them down. It helped them sleep. That might not work on these boys. Alcohol has scant effect; they are the reason Xylazine and elephant tranquilizer darts were invented.
But I shan't say anything nasty. I am not that type.
Like Mr. Badger in Wind in the Willows, I am a calm unruffled sort, content to be left alone and leave others alone. I'll just drape a cloth over my face, put my feet up, and relax in the peace and quiet of my diggs.
"Badger had retired to his study and settled himself in an arm-chair with his legs up on another and a red cotton handkerchief over his face, and was being "busy" in the usual way ..."
There was far too much Toad today.
Them and their bluster.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
WAKE YOUR MOUTH UP
Early morning epiphany: everything can di-rudjak. Standarly rudjak is a salad of vegetables and fruits cut bite size dressed with a sauce that contains a fish or shrimp paste, tamarind or other sours, and sugar. Fried stuff like peanuts or tofu chunks can be added.
Chinese urban versions in Indonesia or Malaysia often also have cuttlefish or shrimp, inland variants might contain cooked meat products.
The key thing is that the sour and sweet are balanced with salty and spicy (pedas), and there is a textural variation.
It is refreshing and intense.
[Roedjak, Rujak, Rojak; similar to Petjil, Pecel, and Lotek.]
Yeah man, perfect for bratwurst.
Just add ghost-pepper peanuts for crunch and zip. In which case leave the sambal and chilies out of the dressing, and use only fish sauce, tamarind, and sugar. You won't need any red pepper powder on the side either.
Cucumber, green mango, grilled bratwurst, and rudjak sauce.
A small handful ghost pepper peanuts, crumbled.
Use more palm sugar than normal.
Perhaps add pineapple.
Standardly, the dressing is firstly sweet, then hot, then tangy and savoury in equal measure. It isn't always cooked, necessarily. If you are from the Midwest, you will notice the spicy-salty flavours first, and object.
But chilies and shrimp paste are essential.
As are crumbled peanuts or cashews.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It is refreshing and intense.
[Roedjak, Rujak, Rojak; similar to Petjil, Pecel, and Lotek.]
Yeah man, perfect for bratwurst.
Just add ghost-pepper peanuts for crunch and zip. In which case leave the sambal and chilies out of the dressing, and use only fish sauce, tamarind, and sugar. You won't need any red pepper powder on the side either.
Cucumber, green mango, grilled bratwurst, and rudjak sauce.
A small handful ghost pepper peanuts, crumbled.
Use more palm sugar than normal.
Perhaps add pineapple.
Standardly, the dressing is firstly sweet, then hot, then tangy and savoury in equal measure. It isn't always cooked, necessarily. If you are from the Midwest, you will notice the spicy-salty flavours first, and object.
But chilies and shrimp paste are essential.
As are crumbled peanuts or cashews.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, December 01, 2018
FUJIAN FRIED RICE HOME TOWN ASSOCIATION
Thoroughly awful day yesterday; the cold. Yes, I know it wasn't that bad and that I am whining -- there were several people walking around hardly clothed, mostly young yups with pudge or exercise daemons -- but for a man with poor circulation and a crappy right leg, it was sheer torture.
Still, enjoyable. Day off. Lunch in C'town. Pipe.
Milk tea. Small pastry. People watching.
Condiments: 瑞士汁、Sriracha.
Fun reading about Trump and his folks having the nooses draw closer.
As well as discovering a video of Mimi Chu (朱咪咪、咪咪姐、朱月美) singing Hokkien. For someone older than myself, she still looks darn good. Sings better, too.
Great hair. Very charming and witty.
I've seen her in 老表，你好hea！
Chair of the 福建炒飯同鄉會 。
Sometimes she's on tour in North America. Your uncles and aunties would go see her. Maybe even your older brothers and sisters.
I have not seen enough episodes to fully grasp the backstory behind the 福建炒飯同鄉會 (Fujian Fried Rice Home Town Association), or, for that matter, the entire complicated tale of the apartment building where all the characters of 老表，你好hea！(sort of the sequel to 老表，你好嘢！) live.
Youngster inherits building with apartments above a supermarket. Takes over the supermarket, then hires the residents of the building. Including an environmentalist and organic food nut who instigates revolt.
It's complicated.
好複雜嘅 。
POST SCRIPTUM
Last smoke of the day at sometime after twelve. Communed with a friend's small dog. First bowl in a Hardcastle bent bull, second in a Peterson Prince, shape 405, Republic period. Slight rain, no major downpour. No smell of bacon, as the street sellers of sausage had not been out along Polk.
After late tea just before midnight, of course.
Did not have to deploy the umbrella.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Still, enjoyable. Day off. Lunch in C'town. Pipe.
Milk tea. Small pastry. People watching.
Condiments: 瑞士汁、Sriracha.
Fun reading about Trump and his folks having the nooses draw closer.
As well as discovering a video of Mimi Chu (朱咪咪、咪咪姐、朱月美) singing Hokkien. For someone older than myself, she still looks darn good. Sings better, too.
Great hair. Very charming and witty.
I've seen her in 老表，你好hea！
Chair of the 福建炒飯同鄉會 。
Sometimes she's on tour in North America. Your uncles and aunties would go see her. Maybe even your older brothers and sisters.
I have not seen enough episodes to fully grasp the backstory behind the 福建炒飯同鄉會 (Fujian Fried Rice Home Town Association), or, for that matter, the entire complicated tale of the apartment building where all the characters of 老表，你好hea！(sort of the sequel to 老表，你好嘢！) live.
Youngster inherits building with apartments above a supermarket. Takes over the supermarket, then hires the residents of the building. Including an environmentalist and organic food nut who instigates revolt.
It's complicated.
好複雜嘅 。
POST SCRIPTUM
Last smoke of the day at sometime after twelve. Communed with a friend's small dog. First bowl in a Hardcastle bent bull, second in a Peterson Prince, shape 405, Republic period. Slight rain, no major downpour. No smell of bacon, as the street sellers of sausage had not been out along Polk.
After late tea just before midnight, of course.
Did not have to deploy the umbrella.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
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