“When I speak of hatred, I’m not exaggerating. True, I wasn’t there. But when a husband and wife living under the same roof get to the point where each does his own cooking, each keeping his provisions in his own locked food cupboard, and one waits for the other to vacate the kitchen before getting his own dinner, what other explanation is there?”
Georges Simenon, “Letter to My Mother”, 1970.
Casino COVID
Caught in slot machine blur
Praying for the jackpot of herd immunity
Big Pharma legislated impunity
The three cherries of hurriedly tested vaccine untested for the long term
Could be worse than the germ!
RNA concoctions messing with our genes
Holy shit where are the simpler days of captain Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans?
Displaced by the politico-medico teams
Opening, closing, duplicating and replicating surges and waves
Killing and maiming more?
Similar to an infected whore
Misjudged again and again
Ruining the economy and the health of all
Crazy focus on a virus but in a casino you know who always wins?
The house
Robert K. Stephen
Casualness
The ALL authority
Beckons
the lecheurs and menials
a court of the tactfully polite
conveniently spellbound
Robert K. Stephen
“Today I realize that a couple with children is not just a couple. And sometimes they forget it. Near them in the house, almost always present, there are children who watch them and, in the measure of their own intelligence, judge them.
The parents think of themselves as simply a father and a mother. But they are wrong. They are two individuals whose every gesture, word and glance are judged mercilessly.”
Georges Simenon, “Letter to My Mother”, 1970
The Unofficial Mission
Sleek
And silent
The 52 birds knife up through Da Nang tropical air
And when over their target
Spawn the hot roe of doom
Upon the suspecting unsuspecting below
Leaks to the Fifth Estate
“NAPALM BURNS AND MAIMS 700”
In a private conference the generals and politicos are Most Disturbed
Shouting “God damned press bastards”
While millions with temporary interest
Gobble down the evening meal gawking the evening news
And agree with the generals
That it was the gooks, commies, Ho and Cong
With their propaganda machine
Smith and Jones thought it all deserved less attention
After all war is war
So open up another can of beer and switch to Hogan’s Heros and Rat Patrol
Where was and will
War films fun and
Painless
Robert K. Stephen
“When I say I was luckier than the children are today I am deliberately making a very dangerous statement, a statement that I am willing, even anxious, to be called on. A black boy born in New York’s Harlem in 1924 was born of southerners who had but lately been driven from the land and therefore was born into a southern community. And this was incontestably a community in which every parent was responsible for every child. Any grown-up seeing me doing something he thought was wrong, could (and did) beat my behind and then carry me home to my Mama and Daddy and tell them why he beat my behind. Mama and Daddy would thank him and then beat my behind again.”
James Baldwin, “Dark Days”, 1980.
“I hit the streets when I was seven. It was in the middle of the Depression and I learned how to sing out of hard experience. To be black was to confront, and be forced to alter, a condition forged in history. To be white was to be forced to digest a delusion called white supremacy. Indeed, without confronting the history that has either given white people an identity or divested them of it, it is hardly possible for anyone who thinks himself as white to know what a black person is talking about at all. Or to know what education is. “
James Baldwin, “Dark Days”, 1980.
“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”, 1848.
“I’m sick. I’m alone, I’m dying-see my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the emerald mountains beyond the city, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile-I’m too tired now of everything else, I’ve had enough, I give up, I quit, I want to go home, lock me in a safe, take me to where all is peace and amity, to the family of my life, my mother, my father, my sister, my wife and you my brother and you my friend-but no hope, no hope, no hope, I wake up and I’d give a million dollars to be in my own bed- O Lord save me, In evil roads behind gas tanks, where murderous dogs snarl from behind wire fences cruisers suddenly leap out like getaway cars but from a crime more secret, more baneful than words can tell.
The woods are full of wardens.”
Jack Kerouac, “The Vanishing American Hobo”, 1960.
I was fortunate a few years ago to benefit from a five-day media trip to Portugal’s Dão region relatively close to Porto. The wines and cuisine did not fail to impress. Our base in Viseu was a charming town with a fascinating medieval centre. It is worth a visit as is the Dão wine region.
Morgado Silgueiros 2021 Reserva is produced by Adega Cooperativa de Silgueiros which we did not visit. On occasion I review their wines all scoring close to 90/100.
The wine is a blend of Touriga Nacional (50%), Tinta Roriz (30%) and Alfrochiero (20%).
Aroma: Red and black fruit particularly black cherry and cherry liqueur. A smidge of chocolate covered cherries and rhubarb.
Palate: Grippy tannins. Firm body. Lean. Santa Rosa plum, raspberry and more of that cherry liqueur.
Personality: Consider me a good everyday wine. Basic. Well made. A fair deal.
Food Match: Beef for sure. Ox filet. Vegetarians may want to pair with lentil-black bean “meatballs”.
Cellarbility: No point in ageing. Drink in 2026
Price: $17 CDN.
RKS 2026 Portuguese Wine Rating: 88/100. Natalie MacLean 88.
(Morgado Silgueiros 2021 Reserva, DOP Dão, Adega Cooperativa de Silgueiros, Viseu, Portugal, 750 mL, 13.5%).
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