SPOILED BRAT TANTRUMS

It speaks volumes that several hundred people staged a vanity protest on both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate, and, in a country with more guns than people, not a single one of them was shot. That non-fatality figure was duplicated all across the country.
I repeat: no one shot the egotistical nuisances.
We've come a very long way, baby.
Practically Gandhi-esque.

Meanwhile, organs for transplant were probably delayed, along with necessary surgical procedures, hundreds of people who had appointments waited in vain because their doctors or lawyers were stuck in traffic, workers at day jobs lost wages or were fired, students didn't get to class in time, and grocery stores didn't get their shipments and had to close early.

Flights were missed. Weddings and probation officer interviews got cancelled.
Babies were born in traffic, there were cardiac arrests.
Bowels and bladders functioned.


I repeat: no one shot the egotistical nuisances.


Pissy terror supporting heathen in Dublin, Glasgow, and London were probably disappointed. Greta Thunberg will spend the next week clenching her sphincter angrily. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib very likely weep tears of disappointment.

All over Berkeley and Oakland there are self-congratulatory orgasms.

Because I was off today, it didn't affect me in the slightest. I despise Berkeley and Oakland and wasn't planning to visit, and I rather wish that there were barbed wire blocking every BART entrance and exit so that those hosebags can't come to the city.
But there isn't, yet, oh buggery well.



At lunch I enjoyed chicken curry and a hot cup of tea at a restaurant, followed by a pleasant smoke in a pipe that absolutely screams old-school imperialist stomping all over the world's proletariat: a Dunhill shellbriar with a classic shape, made when there still were pieces of empire left. It was extremely enjoyable.

Gluten. Meat. Tobacco. And even more bombs.
Cue the Imperial March from Starwars.
Pom pom pom pompeddapom!



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AN EXCESS OF EVERYTHING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

TOBACCO INDEX


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BERKELEY: PERVERSE AND SICKENING

Facebook has informed me that something I wished to say about Berkeley and Oakland went against their community standards, and did I really want to risk yet another time out? Well, no. What I really want is for Facebook to examine its own Quisling attitudes and develop some balls, but that's probably never going to happen.

The only people who should visit Berkeley and Oakland are British and Irish tourists. They will be loved by the natives for their perceived hatred of Israel and Jews, as well as their resolute unintelligible screaming every week on the streets of London in favour of Hamas. Robbed and beaten up too, because that's what the Eastbay is all about, but loved.

I may have sarcastically asked if we could nuke Berkeley and Oakland and be done with it. Obviously I did not mean that literally, because we're just across the bay and the fall out and lasting radiation would affect us too. But I wish gluten and fatty meats upon them.
It will make them shrivel.



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A GUSTATORY TRAILER PARK

First thing I do upon returning from the saltmines is fix myself a strong cup of coffee and switch on the computer. This soothes the nerves, ajangle all day because of the inane conversations. Then maybe prepare curry paste noodles with fatty meat and green river cabbage (清江菜 'ching gong choi'; Shanghai bokchoy), which is more stalky, and not as sweet as regular little bokchoy, as well as greener and crunchier.

Ginger, fenugreek, ground coriander seed, cumin, and fennel, toasted chilies, turmeric, black pepper, galangal, lemon grass, nutmeg, temu kuntji, djeruk perut. Kemiri. Shrimp paste.

Add a hefty sploodge of sambal.

It is quite likely that most Indians, Thais, Malays, and Singaporeans would be aghast at my reinterpretive amalgamatory variations on their food. Certainly Mr. K. at the restaurant was adamant that white people didn't know how to cook, and every Indian I know has strong but wrong opinions about food. Which is okay. I do not cook for them. I cook for me.


Years ago, when I still had a thing going with Savage Kitten, I would tone it down a few notches, and have a large blob of sambal of some sort in a small bowl for myself.
As the necessary augmentation of whatever I had made.

It is unreasonable to expect most people to have the same chili preferences.
It is lamentable that so many of them prefer sawdust.
Fat and starch, deepfried or boiled.

As I understand it, people in the Mid-West run screaming for the Canadian border if you wave a chili at them. Even bellpeppers are considered too spicy there. That's probably the effect of all that damned lutefisk and those baby food casseroles.

Marin County is, sadly, only slightly better.
I work there. Couldn't live there.
Not enough Mexico.


Back in 2016 some politician promised us taco trucks on every corner.
I'm still waiting for that, dammit.
Where are they?



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THE REAL AMERICA!

You know those news articles where somebody burned down their house because there was a huge spider which they tried to kill by setting aflame their can of hairspray so it would be a blowtorch? They missed the spider and hit the drapes. The spider got away.
But the entire row of suburban neoclassical ranches went up.

People tell me I should visit the real America.
I think not. I don't want to.
Them.


It's filled with trailer parkers, inbred Jed, slopebrows, Republicans, bible thumping cretins, Marjorie Taylor Greene, coprophages, Iowa, zombies, born again Southern Baptist swine, fundie devil worshippers, Kyle Rittenhouse, sister fornicators and Mormons, machine oil, large poisonous bugs, football, flag-waving illiterates, Fox News watching morons, necrophiliacs, beer-swilling yutzes, people who will kill you with apple pie...
Unwashed savages, Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert.
Clones of the My Pillow Guy.

I'll take a pass.

They visit us here in San Francisco.

Then they complain.



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A MOST AMERICAN MADNESS

According to my ancestors' version of Christianity, most people are damned heretics and practice witchcraft, and should be expunged with fire and sword. Which, while I do not adhere to it, I am perfectly willing to bring back for members of the Republican party.

I have prepared a list. Just in case.

This, more or less, is why you don't want to claim that the United States was founded as a christian country, or why those batshit fundy ideas about the primacy of religion, over the constitution and common sense, should be taken seriously.

By the way: Among heretics and witchcraft practitioners I will include ALL baptists of any type especially southern, methodists, literalists, fundamentalists, and adherents of snake cults, faith healing, seventh dayers, scientologists, and football fans. Just so you know.

Plus diverse speakers of Spanish, French, and German.

Altogether, I am eclectic in my 'dislikes'.



By the way, just in case you missed it the first several times, these are the shithole states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. They are unredeemable, and must be despoiled utterly.

And their heathen football teams erased.

Are there any questions?



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SUNLIGHT BUGS

The stick of butter bade a farewell to his host the loaf of bread. "Goodbye, uncle, I had a wonderful time, but I can't stay, and I'm actually not your nephew." The loaf responded: "oh I already knew that, son, but you were stellar company, and you were extremely generous, so I knew you weren't a relative, everybody had a great time, so I said nothing. The others don't have a clue". Then he told him that there would always be a nice room at the end of the annex passage ready for him, with a comfortable bed, come and stay anytime.

It was a very nice dream. A song from eight decades ago played in the background. Rose, Rose, I love you (玫瑰玫瑰我愛你), sung by Yao Lee (姚莉). I hadn't been born yet when it was popular, and I can't remember when I first heard it. It was a while back.

The other thing in my head upon waking was a local chachanteng where I have been often over the past few years. Decent food, nothing exceptional. But it's a nice place with excellent milk tea and they treat me very well there.

I seldom go during their peak hours when it's crowded and elderly old home town types fight for seating, with loud exclamations in dialects I don't quite understand. I'd feel out of place.

One thing that struck me when I opened my eyes was that there are no ceiling geckos. That isn't a new thing, as ceiling geckos (tiki-tiki, tsileng) are not common this far north, it's too temperate. They often eat the large tropical cockroach, which we also don't see here.

Those things on the sidewalk late at night near vegetable markets in summer? Those are palmetto bugs that hitchhiked in crates of fruit from Florida or Mexico. They won't survive, and the rats will eat them (feeding on the head, and avoiding the noxious rear).
At some point, wasps that parasitize them may go native.

One creature which, although present, I have not seen here, is a cicada.
Apparently there are several native species.
But not in the city.

Crickets. I've heard crickets.
Hot weather.


In Manila that August the cicadas made such a racket for thirty or forty minutes before dark that at first I thought it was the neighbor's generator kicking in.



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POSSIBLY A RABID SKUNK

A number of years ago, after my break-up with Savage Kitten, I stated that the ideal woman would be like a sleek and wriggly hunting animal with a nice personality who was curious and intelligent, and read at a post-college level, short enough that one could kiss her forehead. It was a follow-up to an essay in which I had slagged nearly all women. In consequence of which I was not dating and had no plans to date. Sour grapish, sure, but accurate.

What I'll observe is that many of the nicest women I know are friends married to friends
And, of course, there are just some things a gentleman does not do.
Because he is a gentleman, and it would be messy.
Faugh and forsooth.


If I were a woman, that slag-rant would have gone the other way.

Neither the perfect man or woman is a sports fiend.

So obviously humanity is flawed.


We also established at that time that I like dachshunds.

What I really should have mentioned, because it would've thrown everything into sharpest perspective and probably clarified matters, is that as a middle aged Dutchman who smokes a pipe and has particular tastes, I smell nasty and am completely unlikeable. There is always a hint of fire, brimstone, and the devil's cabbage about me (aged Virginia tobacco augmented with a touch of condimental leaf), and because of my deep-set eyes I look quite daemonic at times. Especially notice my eyes. They follow you around the room. Glowering, glowering.
An exile from the realm of Orcs, sneering at the puny world of men. Quite baleful.


I suspect that my apartment mate may be hard of seeing, and is not aware of the evilness of my eyes, OR the personal reek. She expressed concern. Am I eating enough? And do I need another blanket? Clearly she hasn't noticed the minor pudge either, as she says I'm scrawny. I believe that this is quite instinctive. Possibly she thinks I'm a feral cat, and in need of careful care, infinite patience, shots at the vet, and a tempting bowl of juicy dead animal feast.

Either that or I look like a helpless goober, but I rather think not.
I am fierce, and have claws.



Mmm, dead animal feast!
So juicy and tempting.



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A SENSIBLE DIET AND SOUND HABITS

There was an ambulatory wreck just down from the busstop rooting through the garbage can, trying to get at the good stuff before the trashman took it all away. Years from now we'll see his type wearing golden Trump sneakers.

When we left the karaoke joint it sounded like some of the plastered Toishanese were rather upset at each other, probably not because of rival musical tastes. There had been no singing, which was nice, and two other gentlemen were asleep at the bar. So in many ways it was an exceptional evening. No mostly white marketing departments torturing the damned with Hotel California or Sweet Caroline. If you ask me, all days should be marketing department free after dark. The burger joint had been remarkably clear of that type also.

What had really surprised me, a few hours earlier, was how peaceful and almost empty the chachanteng where I had lunch had been. A cow meat free regulation (牛肉免治 'ngau yiuk min chi') with two fried eggs over rice, which I augmented with chilipaste and devoured with gusto. Free regulation (免治) means minced meat. Very Hong Kong.


I'm ahead of the game at this point. Picked up my refills, did my laundry, mailed off my taxes a week ago, and there are no medical appointments on the horizon. Plus the weather is a lot more bearable, and I'm beginning to think that my legs itching from the inside out when I try to sleep may be related to the Amlodipine Besylate. I'll try taking it earlier in the day to see if that diminishes the unpleasantness at bedtime.

Combine all that with no singing at the karaoke joint, AND enough coffee and tea to sink a battleship, and I'm feeling half my age. Life is awesome. I am ruddy Gandalf with my pipe, watch me slay the Balrog.

Eggs are actually pretty good for you. They've gotten a bad rap, and I'm sure my medical team would have furrowed their brows at me having two of them over my sauced ground meat and rice. But they make your pelt nice and glossy. And besides, the chilipaste makes it healthy. Chili is a vegetable (roughage, which helps the bowels deal with food and waste products) and it's chockful of vitamin C. I was being a responsible adult, I feel no guilt.


On that note, I really must encourage the bookseller to add much more Sriracha to his burger and fries. It will balance out that perfectly horrid wine he had with his dinner.


Follow this blog for more realistic life-style tips.



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WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED

As I do occasionally, I checked my blog stats, which will show me the most visited essay for today, the past week, month, etcetera. And, if I so choose, all time, since the beginning of this blog. Very rarely do I check the 'all time' category, as it will not show me what my readers are quirked by recently. And, naturally, change there is slow.

Now the most read posting is: HAM SAP LO - THE CANTONESE PERVERT
It has become the all-time favourite.

Dang.
It did not used to be that.

I guess the world wants instructions, huh?


I'm sorry, I just can't give them that. For one thing, I am not Cantonese. And for another, while I am indeed acquainted with the Toishanese titty-groper, he isn't close to me, and I've never analyzed his methodology or asked him what he's thinking. Assuming that he does that, instead of operating on instinct alone. He's just on the periphery, a mere blip on my experiential horizon.

And because I am a man, he has never expressed a tactile interest in me.

I do know that he likes white women. There are more of them, they're drunker, and there is a nice bigness there which makes his pursuit easier. Given that he's usually had a few by then, and may have trouble piloting the landing gear.

The vast majority of Cantonese males are not like that.
Only a few are drunken British-type perverts.
None of them approximate the Dutch.
Who are staggering.


According to research published in a Dutch newspaper six years ago, the Dutch are intrigued by lesbians and teens, whereas their Belgian kinfolk favour stepmothers and stepsisters.


Personally, I am more food-obsessed than anything else. It's a much narrower demographic; Dutch-speaking bachelors in a metropolitan area cruising the internet late at night for interesting recipes. Key requirement: does it go well with hot sauce.

CREATURE DEMANDING FOOD

Two very good friends and my apartment mate, though not Dutch, which they cannot help, are otherwise very similar. If you live in San Francisco, necessarily you probably share living quarters with one or more people, rents and housing being what they are here. So it's crucial that your co-tenants have similar preferences in food and entertainment. Heaven forefend that you live with a football-obsessed vegan! Life would be quite unendurable!

As a pipesmoker who speaks Dutch, I probably have many things wrong with me. But I am NOT into sports or eccentric diets. And it baffles me that there are Dutch vegans.
We invented cheese, zure zult, and the frikandel, for crapsakes!
And herring! Without us there would be no herring!


And donuts. That was us too.
You are welcome.



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A CLEAN PIPE SMOKER

The perfect afternoon consists of chicken curry and rice, Hong Kong milk tea, a Peterson pipe with aged Virginias, and a two hour nap. As surely everyone knows? That particular chachanteng has a chicken curry I rather like -- without the inevitable chopped onion, but with slightly browned potato chunks, so it's much more Hong Kong than Chinatownish, and plenty of sauce -- and although there are often a horde of irritating old-town blighters who snoot whenever I'm there, yesterday it was free of that crowd.
So I had a splendid time before my smoke.
And napped after returning home.


Of course, for some reason I cannot understand, I got to hear about Meghan Markle's magic floating womb, narcissists getting preggers, Bill Clinton, and other somehow linked subjects when I woke up and entered the teevee room. These are the dubious benefits of youtube.
As well as the apartment mate's obsessions, coupled with Aspergers.

What I also cannot understand is why I dreamed of a rice wholesale and retail operation. This year's crop from Thailand, fifty pound bags of varying qualities from the Delta, Arborio for the Italian community, and aged Basmati and Texmati for the sari-wearers.
It may have had something to do with chicken curry.
That seems logical.

咖喱雞

There are parts of Chinatown beyond that which I seldom visit. But the bakery that operates in slapdash manner is still around, as is the duck place and the shop that years ago was run by Hakkas from Suriname who spoke Dutch. So is the small claypot restaurant owned by villagers, with very reasonable prices and an extensive selection of offerings.
Which is good. I should go there again. Decent people, too.



Bought a twelve pack of bath soap while nearby.
I was on the cusp of running out.
But I shall be clean.




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NON-PARTICIPATION TROPHY

An older gentleman was commiserating with a much younger fellow the other day about his three year old kid, who is going through an extended version of the terrible twos. Ah, young fatherhood; rabies, too much sugar, open electrical outlets. And fresh diapers in the middle of the night. Or at the ballpark watching the first baseball game. It should not surprise you that, listening in, I was convinced that I would make a wonderful dad. There are several things which point in that direction.

Several years ago I gave a friend wonderful constructive advice on raising a daughter, in this blogpost: INSTRUCTIONS ON RAISING CHILDREN

I've taught kids about dinosaurs and what happened to them.

I also know about the Christmas Lobster.


For the uninformed: The reason why there are no dinosaurs in San Francisco is because they all moved to Las Vegas to work as lounge lizards. More space, and much more pizza. Dinosaurs love pizza. The Christmas lobster scuttles around on December 24th to reward sweet little children with his Generous Claw of Plenty, showering them with candies and shellfish. Obviously this is much much better than some fat old pervert in a greasy crimson bathrobe visiting kiddies in secret during the night; that merely makes them buy into the patriarchal value system, frightens the very young, and does nothing for people who are not wasps. The Christmas Lobster on the other hand, with his Generous Claw of Plenty, is quite perfect for Cantonese-Americans. He favours little Cantonese-American girls especially. He is non-threatening, but he also has the Dreadful Claw of Punishment with which he snips off the heads of bad children. All little Cantonese girls are sweet and good, and richly deserving of seafood, and should get EVERYTHING they wish for. The only ones who have anything to fear are little boys. Especially nasty little white boys. At least, that's what my apartment mate says. And she should know; she once was a little Cantonese American girl.

Also, I smoke a pipe. That lends me an air of gravitas and maturity far beyond my youth. Little children are in awe of me. Their eyes follow me down the street when I pass.
Why, they don't even notice the tentacles!

And I make sure not to step on those trotting eyeballs behind me.
The precious, precious eyeballs.


Pursuant the pipe, I should mention that aged Virginia flakes are good stealth tobaccos. My apartment mate didn't even notice that time when I smoked several bowls late at night in the teevee room, whereas Latakia would have gotten her busting out of her bedroom like a bat out of hell telling me to go huff that crap with all the other senescent old fossils at the abandoned church up the street.


She also once said that the reason I never had kids is because I'm male.
She totally overlooked the fact that I'm a chupacabra.
We can be any gender we want to be.

I'd be a wonderful dad.



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IT AIN'T GONNA WORK

As I understand it, having visited the internet, the eclipse today is a warning to Democrats to return to Jesus, caused by the mirror-earth Niburu crossing in front of the sun, heralding a mass extinction and the uplift of the 144,000 select to the heavenly throne and the painful servitude of everyone else. And because "they" "lied" to us about the pandemic, don't you believe "them" when they tell you not to look at the eclipse. Good Christians have nothing to fear. Jesus will protect your eyes. Also, there is no point in voting anymore, because 'The Saved' will gain everlasting life and gunrights. Or sumpin'.

Halfwits don't need their heads examined. Those are clean teacups.

Marjorie Taylor Greene will use her unique powers dancing naked during the eclipse to defeat the Jewish space daemons trying to eat the heavenly bodies.

Special Maralago eclipse sunglasses now available!
Just five hundred dollars for believers.
As foretold in the holy book.
Supplies limited.


A cynical friend recently remarked "the entire Republican Party has devolved into a host of pig ignorant flat-earthers: oddly enough, I don’t feel "owned", but I will admit that I'm pretty amused." Which saddens me. The reason pigs stay ignorant is because they can't read.


The tribulation: war, pestilence, famine, targeted advertising, and woe.
Plus the cancellation of your favourite teevee shows.
As was foretold.



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OH LORD, FEET!

After a full day working a man want's nothing more than a cup of coffee and a sit down. The peds ache. They've had a work out. The floor in the salt mines is cold and hard. And the recompense seems scarcely worth it. The benefit is that I can smoke my pipe on the premises, swill tea all day long, and get an education.

Yesterday I learned about suburban women and burying your husband in the back yard.

Mark the spot with a large stone labelled "Fluffy".
It explains why there is fresh dirt there.
Plant deep. Nothing slapdash.

Today most of the discussion involved using your Apple phone to cheat on your wife and get away with it. I feel that somehow, those two subjects are linked. Inextricably. And as a logical sequence of events. It may influence my low opinion of the suburbs in general and Marin County in particular. What with me being a Puritan and not involved in skeevy middle-class American shenanigans. Which seem to involve golf trip photos, file hacking, insurance payments, and shovels. As well as wine and cheese parties. Plus lipstick removal.

See, I'm just an innocent worker bee struggling to lift my shiny nickel over the window sill of life. I don't know nuttin'. And I don't have an Apple phone. Or a spouse.

The complete conversation by the elderly rutabagas in the backroom escaped me, I only heard parts. But enough to be shocked at their knavery. And I now fully support efforts by wives in Marin to bury them in the backyard and move on. Gardening is something to be passionate about. A brilliant landscaper is someone you should have on speed-dail.

One a different note, one gentleman seems to prefer dating women who are severely neurotic and licensed practitioners of alternative medicine or chiropractic.
So as far as I'm concerned, he's just a walking target.
A snake-oiled gigolo, so to speak.

Glad to be off work for a few days.
It will be good for my sanity.
As well as my feet.



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GARDENING NOTES

One of the old farts mentioned some place that has a regular singles mixer for people his age, which he describes as 'fifty to eighty years old'. Apparently there were hordes of single women. As well as one woman there who is a hot little number. So he's going again next month. Naturally I wish him well. Anything that will civilize him is welcome.

Some goes for many of the others. They need taming.
Remarkably, some of the old boys are married.

Hard though it is to imagine anyone gladly putting up with them.


Not me, of course, because I have no filthy habits and am a remarkably clean-mouthed chap. My problem is that I just don't talk well with women. The most interesting conversation with the other gender that I've had in recent weeks was with the person whose boss ended up attacked with an axe and needing emergency care. Which was quite fascinating.

Most of my other exchanges with the fairer sex involve food, drink, and disposing of corpses in the back yard or similar things.

I am quite knowledgeable about the first two subjects, and have no major opinions about the last. If your zinnias need fertilizer, sure, why not? On the other hand, some people might look askance if it were found out. Especially the new occupants of the house. Real estate in Marin is tight, if you've priced it reasonably and been flexible about the final price, there will be more time to worry about that, and you might make it all the way to Colombia by then. Depends on depth and soil compactness.

It all seems very suburban. There are reasons why I live in the city.



Zinnias are annuals that bloom throughout the summer and into the fall.
Colourful and visually very distracting. Bees love them.
Right now is the ideal time for planting.




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IN WHICH I COMPLAIN

You've probably seen Bay Watch, a teevee series in which lifeguards run slo-mo into the surf on sunny days and perform acts of derring-do, solving crimes and stuff. It was filmed during the later seasons in California, I believe. Yesterday was not like that. And it was never set here in any case. On the other hand, that scene where Luke Skywalker slices open the tauntaun for the heat inside was done here, in the Tenderloin during early April.
It was bitterly cold yesterday.

If writing angry letters to the editor blaming my generation or the Republican Party for climate change had any hope of achieving anything, yesterday was surely the day to do it. I didn't.

Last night it got down to forty two degrees Fahrenheit (5°C).

Elderly people of all ages froze their testicles off.
There was weeping and wailing
And gnashing of teeth.

Good thing I'm not old.

Having seen that rain was imminent, I headed over to the chachanteng anyhow. It was unsurprisingly uncrowded. Two customers I know (one of whom was enjoying toast), and a table full of shivering Mandarin speaking young people. Folks, if you want to not shiver, perhaps don't sit near the door? That's for European tourists wearing tee-shirts and shorts because they're visiting California and have seen Bay Watch. Normal people occupy tables as far way from there as possible. There is warm air coming from the kitchen. One can see that by the swirling of steam, and the fact that there are no icicles anywhere near there.

Lunch and hot beverages were extremely enjoyable.
The pipe smoked afterwards far less so.
It's angry letter time.



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THE LOVELY EAST BAY

You know, here it is sixteen years later and I'm still pissed at the racist snoots from Berkeley and Oakland disrupting the torch relay in San Francisco back in 2008. Thousands of Chinese Americans had come out to see the run, but a buch of pissant "we're so superior to all of you" dingoes from the East Bay and elsewhere showed up to piss on the parade. Which, by the way, is what one nowadays expects from that bunch, on that side of the Bay.

Every time there's a demo, instead of holding it in Oakland as they should, at the Ashby station, they do it in SF and trash the place. No wonder the downtown smells like urine.


This isn't pursuant anything in particular, I just feel snippy at present.


And really, nearly all of the East Bay is, when you think about it, scrotal inflation guy showing off his weird hobby. Plus old large naked people celebrating spring, gluten-free life, tattoos, and piercings. Plus yoga. Rampant rabid earth-mothers.

So I'm not surprised In N Out Burger closed there. It's too high class for them.


I kind of miss the bookstores in Berkeley, though.
But I have no plans to go there.



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BLINKY THINGS

Today is the day that one should go down to the club with one's pipes and a tin of tobacco, ensconce oneself in the smoking room (the library), and avoid people. Except for Roger. The man who pokes the fire occasionally and will silently bring one a cup of tea while fending off the vagrants (other members) with a machine gun. Loyal man, Roger.
Too bad that he doesn't exist.
Tragic.

Other than calling up the pharmacy for refills to pick-up next week, there is nothing I have to accomplish today. Laundry and taxes are done, bills have been paid, pipe stems have been polished, and I gave the downstairs neighbor some vegetables and fruit yesterday. Oh, and people have been spoken to and it has been made clear to them that I am not interested in changes to medicare parts A and B, my solar panels are up to date, the airducts have been cleaned, there won't be contributions to the policeman's benevolent fund or the poor starving widows and orphans in outer Muscovy, funeral expenses if and when are not their concern, and they don't need access to my computer hamsters and elderberries.

Yes, I have answered the damned phone. Several times.
Speaking Cantonese. For the spam callers.
All of whom were Indians.

One has to wonder whether the British, as they were raping and pillaging the third world and learning how food might advantageously be prepared (still an ongoing process), were ever aware that their cringy victims would eventually discover that they could spam-call the entire civilized world and commit brigandage on an unimaginable scale? If they were, they probably said "oh that's just the Americans damned colonials we still haven't forgiven them for saving us in two world wars and their commercial vulgarity! Horrid superpower. Trump, feh!"
Then went back to sleep. While raping and pillaging.

It is because of the British that Sunil or Rajiv or whoever now calls me several times a day. The best prospect the average subcontinental apparently has is somehow gaining access to my private data and credit cards wherewith to finance his paan and bidi habit while snarfing biriani from that lovely place behind the emerald mosque run by Afghan refugees who use real saffron, and fingering the itchy spot under his dhoti.

And one can understand that. Britain is a cold wet bog where washing oneself every week in those unheated hovels runs you the risk of pneumonia, and India is an air-polluted mess with too much heat and several tropical diseases plus tourists from Berkeley being spiritual. On the plus side, there are samosas and tandoori chicken in both places. On the minus side: patchouli and pudgy white women doing yoga.


The weather has turned cold again. It's hurting my knees. I shall go down to Chinatown and have an early lunch, then lurk in abandoned doorways smoking my pipe and saying "boo" to little children while sheltering from sporadic rain.

A pity about the club. I really wish it existed.



On a different note, Graham living in exile in Germany is desperate for fresh crumpets and Branston Pickle. Whereas I would like some real marmalade, good tea, and curry. Oh well.
It's tough bringing civilization to the savages.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================