Hash House Harriers
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Smile On Saturday-Separate Petals
I picked one of the Dandelions on the lawn and dissected it for today's theme. Thought the petals resembled Hash Browns!
Rabbit Hash is an unincorporated community beside the Ohio River in Boone County. So named due to a flood in the 18th century that forced the rabbits to flee the record flood waters. They were easily slaughtered and often made into rabbit hash.Flooding continues to plague this area. The 1937 flood destroyed most of the businesses. A sand bar limits access to the Kentucky shore and Rising Sun, Indiana, directly across the Ohio River became a busy port. A ferry connected the two communities. Now a historical district and busy tourist attraction that elects a dog as its mayor. Motorcyclists love the windy roads leading to Rabbit Hash.
The Hash Kitchen in Chandler, an example of trend towards hip breakfast places. Weekends brings a DJ, and the Bloody Mary bar is biggest such one in Arizona!
Hash Hameed, 16th Jun 2019, Sinjar, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. Hash was my Dubai based marketing lady, but spent more time in Iraq than any of the London or Dubai based management team. She loved working with our business, and the business adored her in return.
In 2014 Islamic State came to Sinjar, and so began the genocide of the Yazidi. The most awful atrocities were committed here. We won work with UNMAS clearing explosive remnants of war from the area, employing mainly Yazidi girls, women deeply afflicted by conflict. I was humbled by their resilience.
Hash became and remains a great friend. An invaluable part of a great team, doing meaningful work, who were together much more than the sum of their parts.
LBG le 19 aout 2012
Canon 60D & 100-400IS
www.amazon.fr/Couleurs-dans-ciel-belles-d%C3%A9corations/...
cgi.ebay.fr/couleurs-dans-le-ciel-Marie-Fabrice-Arhab-Phi...
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RYL drunken on Oktoberfest
Ich wünsche viel Spaß mit RYL drunken on Oktoberfest
(40 Lindens)
inworld direkt bei mir oder Altstadt, oder wood island und Tempel erhältlich.
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wood%20Island/199/108/4001
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/KURONI%20NEO/69/190/25
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/KURONI%20NEO/202/52/37
Furniture;
RYL Exotic Expose Table
www.flickr.com/photos/134771400@N05/43855299324
Direct surl
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sylvhara/118/116/25
Fashion:
RYL Rosi Call 32 16 8
www.flickr.com/photos/134771400@N05/44687572962/in/dateta...
RYL Wiesen18
www.flickr.com/photos/134771400@N05/29812502147/in/dateta...
Direct surl
My personal favorite, bacon and eggs with hash browns from Basket Brothers
You can find me at the locations below:
Hash Brown
Smoked Gouda Cheese
Ketchup
Tomato with Dried Basil
Smokey NY Strip Steak
Scrambled Egg
Smoked Gouda Cheese
Hash Brown
The Best Hash Brown casserole I have ever eaten. Here's the recipe
2 pound package of cubed hash browns defrosted
1 pound of mild or hot pork sausage ( i used mild)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 16 oz container of sour cream
1 can of rotel (hot or mild)
1 6 oz can of french fried onions, divided
1/2 tsp of salt (i ommited this)
1 tsp green tobasco sauce
12 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided
2/3 cup of milk
Fry and drain the sausage. In a large mixing bowl mix the sausage, potatoes, soup, sour cream,
rotel, tobasco, milk, salt, 8 oz of the cheese and 3 oz of the french fried onions. dump into a 9x12 casserole pan. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes
After 45 Minutes remove from oven and top with remaining cheese and fried onions and bake for 10 minutes more
Hash is finally on his Obitsu body!
I also have my OOAK Fairy on the new SBH body, but her clothes are color fasting.
Hash is finally on his Obitsu body!
I also have my OOAK Fairy on the new SBH body, but her clothes are color fasting.
The Case of the Missing Warts!
At some point in time, back then in the very early seventies the thought donned on me that I too could attend university, that, just because I was a grade ten dropout didn’t necessarily mean that my qualifications were much different than those who had attained their grade thirteen graduation certificates. There was a school of thought which supported the broader idea of Mature Student. This was me, had to be me, I was older, therefore wiser by experience. The decision was honed by observation and experience. My buddy, John the Count had taken me to a few lectures at U of T. At one such lecture Father David Belyea was lecturing to an English class numbering in the hundreds in a huge auditorium. The meat of the lecture was his discourse on the priest in the book Diary of a Country Priest written by George Bernanos. His lecture was nothing less than holy, I was impressed with his grasp of matters pertaining to the soul. On another visit to the campus John had me sit in at a small third year Sociology class which was about the lives of negro street people. The professor in that class had the students read a book titled Tally’s Corner which was about a man who worked now and then in a inner city East Coast American City, it may have been Baltimore. Count used me as a current day example of folk who though not pursuing a scholarly future were wise from experience, just like the guy in the book Tally’s Corner. I remember reading the book, enjoying the simplistic narration the writer wrote about, his observations, his respect for the characters in the book. One section described the method by which the shop keeper would pay his staff for unloading a truck full of merchandise. The owner estimated that the going rate for labour was five dollars an hour, this work took place in the sixties when rates of pay were much less than today, but so were the costs of goods. The owner would then subtract his estimate of how much the worker would steal from him per hour, he came up with the figure of two dollars and fifty cents an hour. The owner deducted this sum from the going rate then paid his workers the sum of $2.50 an hour. Surprisingly, the Count would find himself in a similar situation later in life while he ran the big cheese shop Pasquale Brothers on King Street East in downtown Toronto. John would from time to time actually hire, street folks, drunks, drifters, hoboes to help unload his merchandise and I know he applied the knowledge he learned in this social class to his wage structure.
Beside Count taking me to his school he also introduced me to his school friends who were not slouches when it came to scholarly matters. Some of the other guys were attending Universities around the country, one could say that my interest was by osmosis, or simply said, if they can do it, so can I.
Being an ardent writer, I penned letters to a few schools, U of T, U of Guelph and the U of Windsor. I recall having an opportunity to attend Guelph however my application arrived too late for the upcoming fall semester and this left Windsor as the school ready to accept me into a full first year of university studies. The roller coaster ride was about to pick up speed.
As an added bonus to attending school in Windsor my friend John the Count's brother Pete Kalci was looking for a roommate to share an apartment with as he was entering his second year of studies at Windsor. Using their dad Matts car we drove down to Windsor in late July of 71 to look at a bachelor apartment for the upcoming school year, Pete had gotten the lead from one of the newspapers. The apartment was situated at the back on the second floor in a plain three storey building. A centre stairway cut the building into two sections. The building was situated on University Avenue about a mile or so north of the school itself. An added bonus was that it was situated directly kitty corner to an Ontario Liquor store outlet. Besides that it was walking distance, about ten minutes to the downtown section, clubs/bars etc and a few blocks from a great second hand store. There was a clothing thrift shop in one of the store fronts of the thirty or so unit building. We took the small bachelor apartment without much thought. I believe the rent was around two hundred a month. It was furnished, albeit somewhat sparingly with a green pull out couch, an easy chair, small kitchen table and chairs which fit nicely into the tiny apartment size kitchen, it was the tiniest kitchen, no bigger really than that which a single person could fit into at one time. The eating area was tiny as well, however there was enough room for two to sit at the small rectangular table. Pots and pans and cutlery and dishes were also included. A small bathroom was tucked into the corner of the apt near the kitchen, there was no tub, just a small shower, the tiles were black and white one inch pieces with a black relief every here and there. The floor tiles matched but were a larger size, four inch by four inch. Although the fixtures were ancient, they were of a quality one seldom sees in more modern buildings. Really, everything was just perfect. The large walk in closet was to act as Pete’s bedroom, it was just large enough to accommodate a single bed with a dresser for clothes above which hangers could be hung with shirts and other articles.
Having been built I would think in the late thirties, the building was rock solid, the materials used in its construction were plain but durable. Solid wooden railings led to each floor, heavy steel self closing fire doors were present at each entrance. The building itself had character, there was an unusual stairway between the left and right hand sides of the building which was a great place to have a puff and hang out your laundry as a number of clotheslines were strung up for this purpose. Brenda the lease holder had graduated from Windsor and was taking a year off to live and study in Toronto. The neighbours across the hall were Sam, a balding, intellectual sounding Greek, short, barrel chested, Ouzo drinking Chrysler line worker, about thirty five or so years old and his new bride Mary a bit chubby twenty something, farm raised, locally, organic, dark haired woman, his conquest and love interest.
It was a hot day that July Saturday in Windsor and this is often the case in far southern Ontario as the location of the city is almost as far south as Canada reaches. We visited the school, there were a lot of empty buildings. I’m just estimating but I would think the campus took in about ten or so city acres. There were several older looking school styles, for the most part the construction was that of a late fourties architectural style with some early sixties buildings that contrasted with the older style. Prior to receiving university status the University of Windsor was known as Assumption College. The campus was growing as a new Arts and a fabulous Science facility were being constructed on the outskirts of the current campus.
There was a landscaped buffer zone from the main artery University Ave. A short five minute walk would take you to the central hub of the school, the cafeteria and student affairs building where everyone gathered, ate, attended concerts and generally observed life’s slowly turning pages in the lounges created in the foyer. Across from the cafeteria there was an impressive four storey library, quite new, well landscaped, with elevators to reach the upper floors that housed hundreds of thousands of books in sturdy six foot tall racks made of metal and dark oak wood shelves. Numerous areas had been created for sitting and studying, some had desks with chairs. On each floor there were a number of areas where four modern comfortable easy chairs faced each other. In the basement there was a microfiche department where one could look up information on this predecessor to the computer, computers were still a thing of the future, only large corporations had those newfangled information storage machines at the time. The library also had sound booths with excellent turn tables to play the fine assortment of records from the school library.
Trees graced the grounds, along with weed free trimmed lawns and hedges. On this quiet pre fall Saturday just the odd student could be seen coming and going. At the rear of the campus there was a pair of tall eight or ten storey complexes designed for students to live in, residences, beside these buildings there was a low rise building that housed the student pub.
Pete and I stopped for a few beers at the local watering hole, a place called Sid’s Bridgehouse, named thusly as it was within view of the large steel Ambassador bridge which connects Windsor to Detroit across the murky Detroit River. Draft rooms were not strange places for Pete and I, as frequent bouts of relaxation would often find us sitting at one of the many draft beer hotels in various parts of Toronto. It seems now as if we knew the city by the location of its drinking holes. With a bit of a glow on we headed over to Detroit to get some Ripple wine on my insistence. We happened upon a herd of streetwalkers, black damsels dressed in various manner many were sashaying in black high heels at the sidewalks edge wearing the kind of butt enhancing short tight miniskirt their cleavage propped up by wire hinged push up bras. It was quite obvious what the girls were up to and what we were looking for. We chatted a mother and daughter act up and we met them around the corner at the Chicago Hotel a three storey grey brick dive of a place that was more of a flop house as well as a hub for the prostitution trade. I can still see the black sign with white neon lettering above the entrance. Now why they would call a Detroit hotel the Chicago Hotel is a mystery. Each lady required ten dollars in advance which was a bargain compared to rates in Toronto at the time. The Hotel itself required a dollar fifty from each of us to use the room, I balked at the extra dollar fifty charge. The burly, dark 350 pound gentleman behind the counter didn’t make any fuss over his attempt to overcharge us, it was either pay the extra fee or leave and risk losing the money we had already paid the ladies in advance. The room was very basic, there was a small bed, a toilet, a sink, one worn thin faded green facecloth and a small once white towel. I let Pete go first, he had the daughter, a skinny thing, much less than twenty, whatever they did they did it fast, he came out of the room with his typical reserved grin and a glint in his pale blue grey eyes after his session. It was now my turn. The thirty something year old lady stripped down to her white panties and white brassiere which I found to be quite a contrast to her dark brown skin, she could have been a member of the Supremes, she cleaned herself down there with the facecloth, then rinsed the threadbare cloth in the little sink and cleaned my bulging apparatus. I couldn't help but notice the contrast in her skin color with that of her clitoris walls, why she was just like a white woman down there! My mind took a permanent snapshot of her anatomy which remains vivid today. She then proceeded to attempt to get me off, it was a while before Henry would cooperate, no amount of lip work or hand persuasion could keep Henry at attention for a very long period. A few attempts at entering her walnut shaped area failed, it was embarrassing. At the time I had a few small genital warts on my pecker that gave me some concern, Mavix jerked me off vigorously for five or so minutes, I finally came. Later that night back in Windsor while having a piss I checked and the warts were gone! She was protesting how long it was taking me to finish but I didn’t remember her saying we were on a time limit! You could say it was not a real touchy feely lovemaking session. Leaving the first floor room I stuck my chest out like a cock in the chicken pen, Pete was sitting with his date on a ratty sofa in the hotel lobby, the girl was chewing gum and primping her hair, the clerk wore a black summer shirt, he had a pencil stuck in his ear, a radio played soul music in the background, the lights were dim. We bought some Ripple wine and slept at the apartment in Windsor as had been arranged with the owner prior to leaving the city, a key was provided beforehand. Indeed life in Windsor was getting off to a very good start.
Tuition for the first year in school was going to be paid for by a grant and student loan, which was to be used for living expenses. Besides that money I had saved almost twelve hundred dollars at a summer job delivering Roll It shelving brackets. The total of the combination grant and loan was the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars. A third of that went directly to the University for tuition. Fortunately the Government issued two separate cheques for the grant portion, one in early September and the other shortly after the Christmas holiday or I surely would have spent it all in no time. Now I was pretty good with dollars, knew how to divvy them up, as I had developed my budget back in the Dyer and Miller and White House days. My habit was to take note of what was coming in and what was needed to go out. I’d been living on my own since the age of seventeen. I would make a list just before paydays and write on a piece of paper in order of necessity, the rent, meals at the Silver Tip, tobacco, bus fare, snacks for the room, beer money, HFC payments, I always owed my mom a few bucks. But this was so different, living in an unexplored town, a big town with a big city just across the bridge. My quest for adventure would drain the account in order to properly explore this new horizon. As mentioned the Liquor outlet was less than fifty steps away, it was hot in Windsor in September, to make matters worse there was a province wide beer strike, Pete and I quickly became fond of a beverage called Lite n Easy Sparkling Cider an apple beverage that was similar to beer in its alcohol content and similar in size of bottle and also satisfaction.
As mentioned the first week back to school is similar on many campuses, the new pupils gets oriented, they forgot to tell Pete and self and thousands of other students that it was not a week for getting disoriented! Check the local sales of booze in school towns during orientation week, they must be over the top. Pete and I lived like kings, we drank daily starting early in the afternoon. For entertainment I would cruise all the new to me second hand shops seeing which one could fill whatever purpose. Buying new shirts, pants etc was out of the question but poverty or near poverty was no excuse for not looking sharp. There were new goldmines of hand me downs to be explored. An early find was a bassy sounding record player AM FM radio combo, a boxy shaped wooden sound system about three feet tall by two feet wide, when you put on Albert Kings Born Under a Bad Sign album particularly that cut When I Lost My Baby, why you’d almost start to cry. The boxy 50s style system was easy to put on my shoulder and carry the few blocks to the apartment, up the stairs and down the hall on a sunny early fall afternoon.
Windsor was divided as are many towns into economical sections, we were living just south of the downtown where there were apartments and shops and side streets with big homes in a neighborhood I would describe as a step up from working class blue collar. Across from the centre of town lay more working class streets where a lot of the plant employees lived. The city’s main employer was Chrysler, they had plants spread out over the area north of the main intersections of Wyandotte and Oulette. While going to the school I was quite unaware of the fact the local economy was spurred by the automobile industry. To me, it was just another working class town, not unlike Toronto, or Hamilton. There was a good size downtown it seemed to have all the usual trappings, bars, clubs, restaurants, Woolworths, Kressges, Eatons, specialty shops, bookstores, curio stores, hospitals, police stations, pizzerias, grocery stores including a new Steinbergs everything one would need including my favourite a handful of second hand stores. One day at a second hand shop run by the St Vincent De Paul organization I found an old black typewriter from the 1920s complete with case. It was in working order I paid five dollars for it, it was a thing of beauty. It had no purpose except to look good, it oozed character but was somewhat dysfunctional as the ribbon that held the ink jammed shortly after I took it home. For assignments, which had to be typewritten and double spaced I used a newer portable electric Smith Corona bought for about seventy five dollars in Toronto complete with an aerodynamic looking plastic case.
The Geranium Tea Garden was a gem of a restaurant ran by a couple of older ladies. It was situated on a secondary street a few blocks from the downtown core. On Tuesdays buisness must have been very slow as a hand scrawled red poster board sign in the window beckoned one and all to come and eat the Tuesday luncheon buffet for .89 cents! After the first months partying Pete and I were getting a bit low on money. When we found the Geranium it became a regular event for us to attend this feast on Tuesdays, mid afternoon. Much of the food was casseroles, hamburger hash, leftover lasagna and meatballs, stick to your ribs goulash and other such fare that was probably left over from the previous weekend. Those items along with soggy mixed vegetables and gravy with a formidable skin on it were served from a stainless steel water heated table. Besides those dishes there was always a big tray of breaded pork chops and pieces of breaded fish, as well as southern fried chicken drumsticks. There were tiny rolls, along with those cold one inch squares of butter and plenty of jugs of water to wash it all down with. The deal was you could have two plates full for the cost of .89 cents. Getting the overloaded plate to your table was a bit tricky, I would often slip a half dozen chops and some breaded fish and drumsticks into my brown tweed sports jacket pocket before arriving at the table, before leaving the serving area I would look around and check that the ladies were busy elsewhere. There was a chilled display case that held homemade rice pudding as well as a variety of brightly coloured jellos with small squirts of whipped topping on top, these were also included in the buffet price.
Orientation week was coming to an end, a few bands played a free concert in the cafeteria, there were other activities as well. Pete encouraged me to check things out, as up to this point we had pretty much avoided the week long festivities on campus as we were to busy drinking at the apartment and gallivanting downtown. We just happened to go into the cafeteria mid afternoon as a beer chugging contest was winding down after a day of preliminaries. We sat down and ordered some cheap draft to watch the goings on. There were four contestants left on the stage sitting behind small desks. The judges would place six draft in front of each contestant and blow a whistle, whichever drinker finished first would advance to the next round with the second place finisher. As I recall quite a few contestants participated in the advertised event, drinks for all contestants were free of charge. No one knew me, I was a sleeper, an import, a high draft pick! Pete egged me on, our eyes meeting each others in knowing ways. Up on the raised stage there sat one last person, his name was Iggy or something like that he was the president of the local motorcycle gang, the Lone Bunch or Satans Breed, he was a big six foot four, long haired son of a bitch, a brute of a man older than me, shit older than most of the teachers. The judges hushed the crowd and asked if there were any challengers, I looked around, no one dared challenge Iggy! No one except me. As Iggy began to go for the trophy I finally stood up and got out of my chair and swaggered up to the stage, chest out like that cock in the chicken coop. I took a seat, in my mind of minds I projected myself to some of the previous victories I had amassed at places like the Embassy Tavern in Toronto on Belmont Street and of course the Place Pigalle on Avenue Road, the bars in Canton New York like Billy’s Lower, no one could beat me at chugging. They poured us each six draft in seven ounce glasses. We waited for the judge to give us the signal to drink. No one knew I had perfected the 'straight drop' technique, which allows me to open my throat and pour a full glass of beer down without gulping. As the bell rang I looked my competitor in the eye, it was like a shoot out. An alarm sounded, RRRRRIIIINNNGGG the bell went and I drank the six draft in what must have been world record time, Iggy had three left when I had slammed the sixth glass on the table. There was much applause from the drunken audience, I stood up and non chalantly shook my opponents hand and returned to the table with Peter, there was a small write up in the University newspaper marking the occasion, the prize was more free draft. Mature Student.
Single, male, and Indian? It’s almost a disease
The guard outside the Gordon House Hotel in Colaba hated my face. I don’t think he’d even seen it, though. The way most of us casually blank out eyes of a beggar knocking on our tinted car windows, this guard had first looked away, then scowled, then mumbled something for a bit—still ignoring the four of us entirely, given that we were even unworthy of his inattention. And then he finally muttered ‘nahin’, or something to the effect.
We were all men, single (so, obviously molesters and rapists), standing outside the main gate of his posh discotheque, dressed in our Saturday night best. It appeared we could afford his hospitality, but he didn’t seem interested. Dogs and stags weren’t allowed, but then, suddenly, we (the dogs) were.
Galloping mindlessly across Mumbai’s backpacking district, we had left behind our only legitimate passports to status and nightlife—the four women friends with us. They caught up with us eventually and hence the guard welcomed us in. I don’t think he said sorry. He needn’t have. I didn’t blame him. Egos are too trivial to get in the way of a precious evening.
However, the gent outside Tito’s, with eight people inside on a Monday night, in the dead of the monsoon season, turned out to be a whole lot ruder. I heard him whisper under his breath some terrible things about the anatomy of our mothers and sisters. Not the sorts to pick a brawl still, we endured the humiliation, gently explained that we, in fact, did have women friends at the bar and then quietly left. This is common sufferance in Delhi. But we were in Goa, for God’s sake.
Being a man, with other men, in India’s semi-urban nocturnal jungle is to remain a gross, sometimes disgraced social outcaste, experiencing a strange tropical ailment—single-itis, for lack of a better name. These untouchables of nightlife don’t deserve their dance, with their drink, even if they could pay twice for the same simple pleasures.
You know something’s warped when watering holes that serve loud hard retro rock for music—still no one’s idea of a romantic date, by the way — remain officially open to couples only. Save if you are a regular. So they let me into Mumbai’s good old Ghetto the other night. I heaved a sigh of relief. We were five men, one woman. You can’t form political coalitions with right permutations each time you go out. The said ratio didn’t work at the next lounge, like it won’t at most clubs. Tough luck, I guess. And, no, there isn’t such a thing as ‘gay couples’. So, smart try.
It’s the sort of sexual discrimination few will take seriously and fewer still will care about. No one I know will fight against it. Suspicions are hard to erase. Some terrorists give all men a bad name. This is true for the average, Indian non-molester man, who makes for the vast majority. He stopped hitting on Indian women at some point. She instantly assumed him to be sleazy anyway. She had probably liked looking at him. He had seemed okay. He had enjoyed giving her the attention. She had thought that was fine as well. Their eyes had just met at the bar. But I know what they were both suffering from.
The Indian girl is hit by the silly ‘slut complex’. She won’t make the semblance of a first move—which should truly be her right—for fear of being judged as the loose one. The Indian guy is similarly down with the ‘creep syndrome’. He can’t be seen as one of those, you know, “one of those”. He has a reputation to protect.
Given such poor practice with making conversations with the unknown of the opposite gender, his skills get considerably worse with time. When he does try his luck now, once in a while, the possible openers get odder still: “You smell really nice . . .” Eww. She looks away. He goes back to his drink.
The times you must hang out with other men, just men, is when you’re at a quasi-gay joint celebrating old boys’ reunion of a frustrated boarding school. There are mostly men around at party places, which allow men to be by themselves. The topic of conversation is the woman, still.
Species single, male, and Indian, could consider themselves getting officially quarantined. It would help their cause. Female companionship is a mirage. Male company gets boring. Cloaking this lack of opportunity into a moral virtue, most prefer to get married instead. Their parents help them hook up, finally. Someone should. It’s hard to hold out beyond the late twenties. Arranged marriage isn’t always a matter of social conservatism or personal choice. It is often an urban necessity. Family feels proud. Segregation suits the status quo. Society approves. As does the petty politician, whether he’s the sicko who hassles lovers at public parks, or the old man in the gram panchayat. Unmarried love is fatal to his constituency. Inter-religious or inter-caste family can negate his existence. The conforming institution, the saviour, lives on.
Sooner or later, being single gets even tougher when everyone else around is already married. And there, those platonic female passports to an acceptable nightlife are gone as well. It may be fair to suggest that you can be happily single, in much the same way as you can be happily married . . . both being empirically impossible. To me the occasional woes of single men, however, seem diametrically opposite to those of the single women I meet. Except when they discuss the opposite sex, which is when they talk the same language.
Both on separate tables insist that a man or woman who is straight, smart, attractive, intelligent, interesting, funny, and, yet, available is an extinct specimen fit to hang at museums. Maybe because the two tables have never merged with each other’s. They’ve never really met. After school and college, where will they? At work? That’s where many do, it appears—unless you’re the supposedly shy sort, who only slimily stares at objects of desire, over the cubicle, under the staircase, when not stalking on Facebook.
New to sharing workspace with women, the traditional Indian man can barely get himself to open his hesitant mouth before a frothy female form. What comes out, when he does part his lips, bears promise of a sexual harassment case. He’s better off tongue-tied, quietly fantasizing. Dishonesty in sexual expression is probably better for the civilised world.
The less shady ones—fat, fugly, tall, talkative, short, sloppy—get to demonstrate their actual worth at work. This is a level playing eld. Women get attracted to the relatively
smart. The guy has something to prove. Bosses should be glad. Late hours aren’t a problem. Attendance goes up. Company’s productivity rises.
Sure, an office intern can shake up the White House and shock America. The gorgeous dimwit secretary can make the stern corporate CEO dance on his knees. Attraction demands no prior appointment. This may be unfair on the nerdy, pimply man who must work harder to command the same attention from his male superiors. But nature tends to balance this out in the long run.
That rookie biz-school grad, when he turns bald and old and if he is on top of his boardroom game, will be considered sexually attractive still. This isn’t necessarily true for the dumb hot intern in his office twenty years later. While he’s younger, freer, funnier, he stands a fair chance as well. Call centres and the movie industry merely get a bad name. All Indian offices with reasonable sex ratios, being 1:10, if you peer harder I reckon, will look like rocking dating sites, spiced up with secret romances, rebounds, heartburns, and heartbreaks. Pay closer attention to the HR department.
Mixing hormones with business may be a terrible idea, I know, but what to do? Where else to go? At a house party full of drunks? Where the inevitable cock-blocking and penis- fencing match is about to begin between twenty single men over the only woman who decided to stay back until late? Maybe. Or maybe not.
At a discotheque? Yes. That would be an ideal place for the lonely soul, seeking a happy ending to a day—a night of casual, naughty nirvana. It’s a large, dimly lit psychedelic dome singularly structured around eyeing men and women, since there’s precious little they can see of each other, through their beer goggles, under a shiny disco-ball. Loud music takes away the awkward discomforts of acquaintanceship. Burden of conversation safely lies in the lyrics of the songs. Akon sings ‘I wanna love you’, Snoop Dogg adds ‘I wanna fuck you’. Bodies move to booty calls. Eyes meet. The point’s made. Nobody need ask your place or mine?. Maybe that’s there in the song lyrics as well. Deal’s struck. Booze is expensive. Night’s young. So are you.
But then if you’re single, male, and around others with the same affliction, you were just dreaming right now. They won’t allow you into a nightclub. It’s for couples only. Despite weightier measures of time, the two people entering have already met, and so have already dated, drank, danced, and done all old-world things invented to break the ice since the Internet. Then, perhaps, they’re not single anymore. Social segregation is a vicious circle. Having a girlfriend exponentially increases your chances of finding another than being single ever does.
For a year or so I once co-ran an anonymous daily relationship column in an English daily in Mumbai. It was called Dear Diana, named after this well-travelled woman who could solve your daily problems. I was Diana. It was a popular read. Most of those writing in, I realised, were only checking if we would print their crazy queries, none of which were serious. They were almost all jigsaw puzzles about cousins sleeping with their daughters, who were in turn making love with both the dad and the aunt. The only genuine questions would inevitably be from a lost male soul: “I like this girl. What do I do?” Become her friend, I’d say. “How?” Get to know her friends first, and take it slowly from there, I guess. “How?” You know what, buddy? I don’t know.
A veteran tri-sexual acquaintance (the sort who serially tries for sex as his natural right) tells me he’s had it now. It is a hard life, unless you’re a rock star, or in the Indian context, a Bollywood hero who plays a rock star, I suppose. The friend says he’d rather start a political front for single men. There’d be enough support for his cause, he jokes. I don’t agree.
Nobody would openly join a group that automatically is presumed to comprise a bunch of cash-strapped, unstable varieties who walk around being single because, it is thought, they ought to be. No woman could stand the son of a gun, anyway. Even women are attracted more towards men who are already hitched. There’s mystique in the unattainable. Singles’ nights inevitably fail. Recent female responses to dating apps like Tinder suggest to me that it is mainly full of married freakoids or sexual ends. Neither help much in restoring the rep of the Indian single man anyway. “Deserters, all these people,” the ‘tri-sexual’ frowns at my analysis. You’d be the first one looking to desert your own group, I tell him. He agrees.
The Game is a celebrated Bible for single men that scientifically tutors an ‘average frustrated chump’ (AFC) to become a ‘pick-up artist’ (PUA) giving out few quick steps towards attracting pretty things at bars, cafés, malls, and discotheques. The bestseller studies various ‘seduction communities’ in the US. During the course of writing his experiences, author Neil Strauss, self- admittedly an AFC, attends workshops conducted by experts in serious ‘seduction communities’ before he gets anointed the world’s no. 1 PUA.
The single Indian man would be in awe of such a champion. Read the book and you’d be easily able to tell why the same methods could never be applied in his country. This isn’t to say I haven’t seen a desi dude with a ‘wing man’ at a local bar, ‘peacocking’ (dressing outrageously), ‘negging’ (sounding rude, but giving backhanded compliments), ‘kinoing’ (making harmless physical contact) . . . Yeah, I have basically seen him make a plum ass of himself in public. The desi girl is mostly unimpressed. She probably also knows he’s read the book.
The Game is yet another American dream. Women have widely panned the bestseller in the West for its overt male chauvinism. The premise is entirely sexist, yes. But sex-guru Strauss makes a significant point out there that should please the average female reader—that there are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
Everybody loves the single woman. The world donates her its affection, attention, drinks, dinner, coffee, couch, conversations, cupcakes, tags, hash-tags, friend requests, re- tweets, roses on Rose Day, proposals on Propose Day, self- respect on Valentine’s Day . . . She gifts them hope. Nobody loves a single man; not even the single man himself, and least of all the bouncer outside the club.
Although not as famous, or in this case infamous, as the Austin Allegro, the Morris Marina has often been placed as a contender for worst car ever made ever, a point I find very confusing when you really think about it. I've heard so many people at car shows mention how it was the bane of the British motor industry, how it set us back 20 years and was such a massive failure that it made the Allegro look like a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow in comparison!
But is it true? Is the Morris Marina, that car we all know and love for the various onslaught of spontaneous piano drops, really the most awful thing to come out of Britain's automotive history?
The Morris Marina was launched in 1971, and immediately inundated with problems, largely because of what it was replacing, that symbolic and beautiful piece of post-war British design, the Morris Minor of 1948. The 23 year old design had long passed its sell-by date, and the Marina was meant to be the superb next step for the 1970's. The design and styling was done by Roy Haynes, famous also for the facelifted Mini Clubman and the Ford Cortina, and externally the car was, dare I say, quite handsome. I know, shock horror, but despite being considered repugnant by many, I honestly believe the Marina doesn't actually look that bad, following what appeared to be a design staple of its time with the Hillman Avenger, the Vauxhall Viva and the Ford Escort sharing very similar bodyshapes.
But styling was the least of the Marina's problems, as in a bid to get the car into production in 18 months, the hashed together design was based almost entirely on the Morris Minor it was built to replace. Essentially, underneath the new 1970's body, the Morris Marina is nothing more than another Minor, sharing a majority of parts including the suspension, with some models being powered by the BMC A-Series engine from the Mini. In fact many people cannibalized Morris Marina's back in the 1980's and 90's so as to keep their various Morris Minor projects alive due to the high parts compatibility.
Nevertheless, 18 months of development (in spite of the recommended 32) later, the car hit the showrooms on the 27th March, 1971, and was made available across the Commonwealth under a variety of badges during its production life, including the Leyland Marina in Australia, the Austin Marina in North America, and the Morris 1700 in New Zealand. It was also available in a selection of trim tabs, including a 4-door saloon, a 2-door Coupé, a camper variant, a panel van and as a pickup truck.
Much like the Allegro, the Marina did sell well initially, being the 2nd highest selling car in the UK behind the Ford Cortina in 1973, but was not without major public issues to begin with.
During initial reviews the poorly put together press cars suffered from terrible suspension trouble which resulted in the cars finding it near impossible to take corners. Although this problem was later rectified, 39,000 cars still went out with this original poor suspension without recall to fix these issues.
But after the initial design faults came to light, the production quality faults were the next issue. Much like the Allegro, during strike periods, strike cars left the factories with major components missing, or pieces of trim not in place or not functioning properly, or suffered heavily from malfunctions, be they mechanically or electronically. At the same time the sheer lack of rustproofing on these cars meant that showing them a damp cloth would result in the bare metal brown of death appearing in more places than one.
Even so, the car did continue to sell, and achieve the goal of being basic, simple motoring for the masses despite all its faults, and remained in production until it was replaced by a facelifted version that would become synonymous with lazy ideas.
In 1980, the nine year old Marina was given a new look dubbed the Ital, a name obviously spun to try and draw in the masses for people who thought that this car had been designed by the same people who gave us the Maserati Merak, the Alfasud, the DeLorean and the Lotus Esprit. In fact the truth of the matter is the Morris Ital was a lie in its name, as ItalDesign had only been asked by British Leyland to provide creative consultancy to the company during development. Although Ital did take a look, the final product was the brainchild of Harris Mann, BL's chief engineer who had been known for other strange concoctions like the Triumph TR7, the Princess and the Allegro. Not all blame can fall on Harris Mann though, by God I'm sure he tried, indeed many of his preliminary designs for the Allegro and the Princess looked magnificently space-age, but after some watering down by the folks at British Leyland head office, these things were very much less than stellar.
Other than that though, the Morris Ital, for all intents and purposes, was exactly the same as the Marina that preceded it, same running gear, same door panels, same dashboard, same everything, except this time it had big chunky headlights and tail-lights. In fact you could say that the Morris Ital internally dated back to 1948, seeing as a majority of its internal parts were simply handed down from the Minor! Reliability hadn't improved much and the car was still very basic in terms of equipment. From its launch in 1980 the car was sold as a pickup truck, a van, and a 5-door family estate, although plans for a Sport Coupé were ultimately scrapped. Some cars were also produced in Portugal at the British Leyland factory in Setubal, with these cars being outshopped with 1950's B-Series engines that gave the dizzying power output of 37hp!
Sales however were reasonable, largely due to its low price and running costs, but its reliability and build quality left a lot to be desired. Eventually only 175,000 cars were produced by the time production ended in 1984, the car being replaced by the new Austin Maestro and Montego. The Ital however does have the distinction of being the last production car to wear the Morris badge as after this no other cars were given this name, although this was briefly placed on the Morris Metro van. The Ital did, for some very strange reason, gain a revival in 1998, when the First Auto Works Group of Sichuan province, China, started building the cars again as the Huandu CAC6430 until the closure of the factory in 1999, another very obscure revival of a British Leyland product, but oddly enough 15 years after the last Itals were built!
Today both Marina's and Ital's are near impossible to come by. Of the 809,000 Marina's built, only 670 remain on the roads, whilst of the 175,000 Ital's sold, only 174 continue to exist. As mentioned, most Ital's and Marina's were taken apart as spares donors for the older and far more popular Morris Minor, seeing as a majority of their parts they shared. This is not helped by the running gag on the BBC car show Top Gear, where whenever a Marina appears on the show it is destroyed by a randomly falling Piano dropped by the helicopter Piano haulage company 'Careless Airways'.
But either way, despite all its criticism, I personally don't think the Marina is as bad a car as the world gives it credit for. Even the Ital I'll give some credit as a form of basic motoring, and from some angles it does look quite handsome. Sure it's basic, not well equipped, slow, unreliable and prone to rusting, but as a small family car that ambles about the countryside, it's not as bad as some obscure Eastern Block models, and even today holds a place in the hearts of many as either a happy-go-lucky little runabout, or a cautionary tale of how not to build a car.
Hash is finally on his Obitsu body!
I also have my OOAK Fairy on the new SBH body, but her clothes are color fasting.
Circleup for introductions: Dung-Fu Grip, Finger Nips, Occasional Rapist, Deadliest Snatch, Banana Basher, Rat Pussy, dBASED, Fap Jack and Wicked Retahted. Losers all.
And the hares... a well-covered Ho To Housewife, (she's always cold!) Deadliest Snatch and Rat Pussy. They turned SeaBRIGHT into Sea-BLIGHT!
Circleup for Introductions featured: Twisted Fister, Deadliest Snatch, dBASED, Ho To Housewife, Bacon Queef, Just Foot Pussy, Rat Pussy, Finger Nips, Pink Cherry Licker, Pixillated Obscenity, Twat Did You Say? and Steamy Baanorrhea.
Hangs Loose wisely positions himself behind harriettes Electric Labia Land, Pink Cherry Licker and Pussy Wood for a nice view!
Cowgirl Hugh Heifer stretches out waiting on her vegetarian dinner to be delivered. She must hate on-on-on being held at a bar-b-que!!
Just Foot Pussy and Bacon Queef seem perplexed by trail and we're only a few blocks from on-out! I do not think they will enjoy this trail!!
Here's a closeup of Ahhhto Bahng Stander's unicorn tattoo matching the one Pussy Wood has. Even worse that this though, does this man shave under his arms?!? There'll be hell to pay when he gets home to Germany!!
Back-sliders Accuprick, Just Foot Pussy, Drink 'n Squirt, Transcuntnanal and The Arabian Goggler were appropriately punished.
Just Steve and (current) wife Summer's Yeast were punished for for arguing on trail. I hope you're not feeling horny tonight, Steve!!
Early-arrivers Princess Di(arrhea), Transcuntnanal and Pussy Wood stroke Poon Doggy. Pink Cheery Licker holds the leash while daddy Hangs Loose is inside grabbing a beer.
This section of circleup for introductions contains: Just Justin, Hugh Heifer, Pink Cherry Licker, Deadliest Snatch, Rat Pussy, Cum Fart Zone and half of Jizziki.
The rain was pouring down as hashers gathered under one of the restaurant’s huts at the American Independence Day Wednesday hash on July 4th at Krua Khun Noi Restaurant. Hares Spank Me and Whining Wino had laid the trail the day before, but surely the markings were washed away and Spank Me, pulling out a paper map as proof of the previous day’s efforts, asked the brave group if they wanted to do a long, muddy run or a short, straightforward run together? After several thoughtful glances to the gray and purple sky they chose the latter, and everyone casually made their way through the parking lot onto the pitted gravel road as the forgiving sky cleared to a light scattering of drops. The run was truly a straight path past some rice fields, a right turn along a canal where we briefly watched a fisherman collect a net’s worth of harvest, and another right through more rice fields and farm houses. At the main road, the runners opted for an extended loop and a few walkers made their return for the restaurant, where the rain decidedly started up again.
Under a big green tent Nibbles had two versions of her famous papaya salad and various snacks prepared, along with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as an American treat from Whining Wino. The circle was brought to order (with Springsteen’s Born in the USA playing in the background) and EVERYONE was charged for something:
Visiting hasher Grouchy from Karachi for walking a total of 100 meters then turning back,
the American hares Spank Me and Whining Wino, for celebrating their independence day,
the Englishmen Maverick and Bullet for losing their sovereignty over the Americans,
returnee Hungry Bum for encouraging the hashers to actually run,
Normal, Nibbles, Whining Wino, and Eat Me for not running,
City Girl for not wearing her regular brightly colored hash attire,
and Som for abandoning the circle after dropping off a vegetable tray to catch a friend’s birthday party.
Thanks again to the Hares for treating the hashers to a delicious on-on of traditional Thai dishes!
-Respectfully submitted by Hairy Coconut, visiting from the Makati Metro Manila H3 club.