The World (War Two) Cup Update

A World (War Two) Cup Update:

In a blow to the Axis Powers, Japan lost yesterday, to Paraguay, a country with a large German population who harbored Nazi war criminals after World War 2. Germany is still in and so is Argentina, another Nazi sympathizer. Spain too, where the Nazis first tried out their blitzkreig against the Republicans in the 1930s. And Uruguay, which sounds like Paraguay.

Ghana didn't exist yet.

So of the allies we've got Holland and Brazil.

But Plotnik can't make himself root for Holland. He wanted South Africa to win, but now he's down for Brazil. At least they have Brazilians playing for them.

Brazil makes soccer look like fun. Brazilians make anything look like fun.



And guess what: although it is probably true that nobody who is not a shut-in can really watch an ENTIRE soccer game, World Cup soccer is somewhat more interesting than baseball. Plotnik follows baseball almost religiously. ("Religion" means falling asleep while the fool with the microphone drones on, right?)

But let's be honest -- a baseball game is a colossal bore, unless your own favorite team is playing, and even then it's scratching and posturing most of the time.

Speaking of scratching, shouldn't someone try to soothe that poor girl's sunburn?

"We'll Leave the Light On For Ya."

Very pretty night last night back in Saint Plotniko, with a just-past-full moon shining over Bernal Hill. Other people in the country are already trapped in heat and humidity but out here the worst we seem to get is fog. So maybe Plottie will stop complaining about the weather for a week or so.

After the Plotzer game last night Plotnik was surfing The Land of the Meaningless and found a documentary on some yahoo who built a gift shop in Florida colored and shaped like an orange. Since he did that his business has tripled.

"Ever-body they come in here now," he said. "We got Merle Street 'n Diana Keaton."

Someday, if they're lucky, they might get Robin de Niro and Al Puccini.

Bringin' the Fog Home

It's been a nice weekend and now it's time to come home. Mummy P. is doing well and it was a good deal of fun over the weekend, with the exception of the Plotzer 9th Inning meltdown yesterday. It must be over 100 degrees in Saint Plotniko, but look out hot weather: here come P and D.

Disable the Password

The U.S. has lost in soccer and hallelujah. No more watching well-conditioned babies run up and down a field falling over and pretending they are injured for life.

The Plotzers beat the Imperialists last night. Does anyone care? Plottie does, a little, but only a little.

Yesterday, Plot and Duck took Mummy P. to see an exhibit on self-indulgence at the LA County Museum. This new sculpture of light poles outside was far more interesting than anything inside the galleries. But Mummy P. got to leave the house and have lunch out, and that was worth plenty.

Plot spent this morning with Verizon on the help line, trying to work out a security problem with Mummy P.'s cell phone. She thinks no one ever calls her cell. The reason she thinks that is she can't hear the phone ring, and there was no alarm bell to alert her that there were messages waiting for her. Now there is. But she has to enter a five digit password to access the messages. Entering that password is difficult.

So Plot tried to have the access password eliminated. The first guy told him how to do it. It didn't work. The second guy said sorry, due to security considerations one can no longer disable the password. But you can change the password to something simpler.

The third guy apologized that you can't really change the password to something simpler on her phone because they have disabled that feature. But if they would like to come into the office they could buy a new phone.

Would the new phone allow her to bypass the password?

No, but she could access the internet.

The Red Hat and The SoCal Garden

Who knows about the Red Hats? It is an organization of women over the age of 50 who get together to DO things. They go to concerts, they organize events or get-togethers and appear to have a lot of fun. Down the street from Mummy P. is a woman who is a member, and she has invited Mummy P. to join them at some point. She has even given Plottie's mom a red hat, which is required costume for all Red Hat events.

Plotnik is envious of Mummy P's garden, because it's so hot. He put in a couple tomato plants a month or two ago and they are, of course, flourishing.



Last year Plot and Duck were walking in the hills above M.P.s house and passed a beautiful, twining tree. The owner of the house in back of the tree came out with a pruning shears and cut off two branches and told Plot to stick it in the ground and keep it wet.

He stuck it on the side of Mummy P.'s house. Here it is one year later, on the bottom, next to a tomato plant, a rose and a sago palm.





This asparagus fern has gotten so big it has burst through its pot and now is growing in the ground.



This is a World Cup U.S. day and Plotnik is trying to care. Perhaps he will watch the last five minutes, perhaps not. Tomorrow Mexico plays Argentina. Plotnik advises all his Saint Plotniko and Stiletto City friends to monitor this game, and if Mexico appears to be victorious, head immediately to your nearest taco joint because you will see la vida loca, chicos.

The Tortoise Always Wins

From the fog to the sunshine, from wrapped up in a jacket to shorts and bare feet. It's nice to return to hot weather, but, you know, not all THAT nice. Even though summer is over in Saint Plotniko until Fogtober, and the city is completely invisible from the air when you fly over it, it's still a very comfortable place to be when your hot weather gene has gone into remission.

The Yankees are in town to play the Plotzers and Plotnik would love to go, but...

The best sushi in the world is in downtown Stiletto City and Plot and Duck would love to get their hands on some of that spicy tuna, but...

There is a birthday party for Vash-nik in a park this weekend, and it sounds like fun, but...

Mummy P. seems to be like her old self. She's moving a little slower but she wasn't exactly sprinting before. It's great to see her. Plotnik has told her he will be removing her from the dashes but entering her in the distance races. She is now the tortoise and we know that the tortoise always beats the hare.

Art to Lift the Spirit of Modern Man

Wow, what an exhibit at MOMA! Plot and Duck got to go to the Press Opening yesterday of the first part of Donald Fisher's monumental modern and contemporary art collection, all of which has been given to MOMA and is scheduled to be eventually housed in a brand new wing of the museum, but a part of which opens to the public Friday on the 3rd and 4th floors and sculpture garden.

Who knew about this stuff? Claes Oldenburg's snake necktie above? Chuck Close's outrageous portraits -- here are three views so you can see what this guy does to uncover an image...





...Wayne Thibault's crazy-eye view of the hills of Saint Plotniko...





The list goes on and on. Frank Stella.




Roy Liechtenstein. True, the guard was bored out of her mind.



Alexander Calder.



And of course, two views of a sculpture in the outdoor garden. The artist's original is on top and his New Improved Version follows.




Most of this art is by men, and all the huge canvases were by men. Does this say anything about art or is it about politics? Don't know.

There were a few The Chief's Nightmare rooms. Plotnik's late stepdad truly despised that branch of minimalist modern art that considers a blank wall with a frame around it to be artful. He would have really hated what Plotnik called The Squiggle Room -- the artist is Cy Twombly. Cy Twombly could not possibly have had children or he would never have had the chutzpah to put any of this in a frame.




But that's what is cool about art. You like it. You don't like it. The Emperor is wearing a brilliant costume or somebody just ran off with his underwear. (There is a lot of Andy Warhol in the exhibit. Plotnik can't stay in the same room for ten seconds with Andy Warhol, so no pictures here.)

You can have it however you like it. You can have your apple and eat it too.

A Gorgeous and Scary Photo

Papa and Bobo looked at this photo of Belly at Xano's wedding in Jamaica, and had the exact same reaction:

First five seconds: Awwwwwww!

Next ten minutes: Holy smokes! Is this Belly or her eight year old sister? What is happening here while we're not watching her closely enough? This little girl looks 'way too grown up, doesn't she? Dang, she's gorgeous, but...honey, does this photo scare you a little? Yeah, you too? Yeah.

On the other hand, Plotnik thinks she looks 100% like him.

Inglorious all right

Inglorious Basterds -- Plot and Duck watched it last night and -- well, it's entertaining for the most part but is this the best Tarantino can do at the end?

Plot knows how difficult it is to write good endings, but with the best people in Hollywood at his disposal, and all the money in the world -- this is the best he can come up with?

And nominated for Best Picture of the Year?

People claim I.B. is the very best Tarantino movie since Pulp Fiction, and maybe that's true, but Pulp Fiction is one of the best films of the decade, of any decade, and this one is so light it is already flying away.

Brad Pitt is good and Christoph Waltz is a Nazi whose forehead will look great with a swastika carved into it and you can't wait to watch him get it. Great, tense opening scene at the farmhouse.

Is Plotnik missing something? Was there some message going on that went right over his and Duck's heads?

Maybe it's just Nazis. Hollywood loves to keep killing Nazis. Nazis are the last enemies it's still politically correct to dismember. Maybe that's it.

Belly the Flower Girl

Guess which flower girl just had the wind blow away all her flowers in Montego Bay?

(HINT: It's the same girl who called on the phone yesterday and said: "I love you, Papa. And I love the Dodguhs.")(It's true: she's picking up a bit of a Brooklyn Puerto Rican accent.)(But her heart is true.)

Happy Theater-Goer's Day

Today is Father's Day but yesterday was Theater-Goer's Day. Not only did Plot and Duck get to see the premier of a fine revival of one of Plotnik's favorite musicals "The Fantasticks," but yesterday was also the Twentieth Anniversary Marathon at the Marsh. Some of the Bay Area's best performers lined up to do fifteen or twenty minutes, one after the other, as a means of thanking Stephanie Weisman for the venue so many of these performers used to hone their craft.

Plot and Duck saw Dan Hoyle and Josh Kornbluth and Jeff Greenwald and Wayne Harris and Mark McGoldrick and many others. They missed Charlie Varon and Ann Randolph and Marga Gomez and so many more. It was a happy day. It makes Plottie feel good when nice people who do nice things are rewarded.

It's kind of like dads, right? In truth, Father's Day always makes Plotnik a little uneasy, because he feels like he's putting his kids on the spot. He always wants to call them first thing in the morning to give them a heads-up and tell them "don't forget to call your father," but he already is their father so he can't do it.

So he called his Mom and wished her Happy Grandmother's Day because without grandmas there aren't any fathers.

(MEMO TO PD AND BZWZ: READ YOUR FATHER'S BLOG TODAY!)

At his yearly physical the other day, Plotnik asked Doctor I Dunno Wadda YOU Think? about the shingles vaccine.

(Everyone repeat here what Dr. I Dunno Wadda YOU Think? said. It is exactly what you expect.)

Plotnik said "My wife thinks I should have it" and Dr. I Dunno agreed with her. So Plotnik got the vaccine. Apparently shingles is one seriously bad mamma jamma, and after The Great WantzaNewName's experience Plottie would like to avoid it. The vaccine is not infallible but supposedly helps even if you should come down with what would be a milder case.

Yet -- Plotnik has felt a little bit weird ever since then. Not a lot, you know, just that little tug in the back of the, you know, kinda over where the, you know, that little sore kinda, you know, just a little. It's probably all in his head. Right?

P.P.P.

Playoff Post Partum has come. Plotnik started watching his Shmlakers during their Playoffs run in April in Brooklyn and ended up on June 17 in the Worry Room of The Great Plotnik World Headquarters congratulating the Great PunkyDunky long distance on the phone.

Now it's all done. Sigh. What's next?

Certainly not the Plotzers, what a boring team.

Certainly not work -- are you kidding?

Life goes on. L.A. Blue's mom fell and broke her pelvis a few weeks ago and last night fell right out of her chair and broke four ribs. Plot got a text from Blue this morning that said: "Old Age Sucks."

Plot calls Mummy P. and asks what she's doing. "Hahhh!" she says. He and Duck will head down there next weekend.

Life goes on, but in real life no short guy like Plotnik throws down a slam dunk over a seven footer like old age, his mom's or his own.

Life goes on, but in real life Kobe Bryant does not bail you out in the last few seconds with an impossibly difficult jump shot that extends the game. Your best alternative is to stay happy and involved with whatever and whomever you've got, and when that's no longer possible figure out a way find it again.

You've got to be your own Kobe. Otherwise...you stand up, you don't care anymore, you're brittle and you fall over. Something cracks that is unmendable.

But next year -- the season starts all over again. That's all we have to do. Stick around. We'll do it all again.

CHAMPS!

"The stoic guy with the shaggy hair screamed, and a city screamed with him.

The tough guy with the constant glare wept, and a city danced in his tears.

The stern superstar skipped across the court like a child, and a city is still bouncing along in his wake."

Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times wrote those lines this morning. The long season is over and the Lakers are World Champions for the second year in a row. They managed, somehow, to beat the dogslobber Beantown Crybabies and that just makes it sweeter.

Yeah, it's only sports, not life, and yeah these are incredibly wealthy children who get to play with a ball for a living, and yeah kids in Africa are still starving and basketball really doesn't matter. Yeah Yeah Yeah.



While we're quoting John Lennon let's have another three Yeahs for Bill Russell, the greatest player of the 1960s, who is handing that trophy to the greatest player of this generation, Kobe Bryant, while looking on in back is one of the two or three greatest players of the 1980s Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Kobe puts one of his two kids on his shoulders. He has these two chubby cheeked daughters who, like Obama's kids, have learned to keep their mouths closed while being interviewed in front of millions of people.



And here we get to see the other greatest player of the 1980s: Magic Johnson, in the blue suit. In back of Magic is Jerry Buss, who owns the Lakers, and in back of him is Kobe's wife. Which is to say Mrs. Bryant has more pull than any other woman in the organization, including Buss's daughter Jeannie, who just happens to be married to Laker Coach Phil Jackson.




The Duck came in to the worry room for the last quarter, just in time to spark the Lakers to their final rally. (Today they are the Lakers. Yesterday, and tomorrow, they'll revert back to their real name The Shmlakers.)

This morning Duck asked Plotnik if it wouldn't be better to just record the last five minutes of all 82 regular season games and the 23 playoff games the Lakers had to compete in, edit them together and then sit down and watch the whole season in a day or two?

It's a great idea, IF you've already watched all the other games first in their entirety.

Crybabies Versus Shmlakers: GAME SEVEN!

Elgin! We may need ya tonight!

So, the Stiletto City Shmlakers got a big break for tonight's Big Game Seven Duck's Delight against the absolutely dreaded and despised Beantown Crybabies. The big enemy center is injured and can't play. That doesn't mean the Crybabies won't win, it just makes things harder for them.

What? The ground is dry under Plotnik's tear ducts? He's not feeling sad for poor Beantown?

It's hard for people a generation younger than Plotnik to remember when Stiletto City felt like a small town, but that's the way it was in the 1950s when the Cleveland Rams moved there to become the L.A. Rams, the Plotzers left Brooklyn to become the L.A. Plotzers and in 1961 the Minneapolis Lakers left the lakes behind to become the L.A. Shmlakers.

All of a sudden, pro sports teams were on the West Coast. But the West Coast wasn't really ready for them. In Stiletto City there was only one large venue, the L.A. Coliseum, which had been built for the 1932 Olympics. When the Shmlakers announced they were moving, they built a small arena next to it called The Sports Arena. The Rams and the Plotzers played at the Coliseum and the Shmlakers played next door. So if you wanted to see a pro game, you had to go downtown.

Plotnik loved going to the Sports Arena. It was small. The neighborhood ain't exactly Beverly Hills now and it was about the same then.

Once, Plotnik left the Coliseum after a night game and on his way back to his car, which was parked on one of the side streets, he saw a bunch of guys stuff a body into the trunk of their car. Oh, you couldn't mistake it. A makeshift sheet, blood all over it, hands falling out of it, four guys straining to carry it, wham and in ya go.

Teenage Plottie stared at those guys. They stared at him. He kept walking. Parked on a different street next time.

It was also at the Coliseum where Plotnik's stepdad Harold took him to see the Plotzers play the Braindeads. Since Harold died in 1959 we're gonna assume this was 1958. They stopped for lunch first, got to the game late, in the bottom of the First. The problem was the Braindeads had scored eight runs off Carl Erskine in the top of the First. The final score was 8-0. Talk about missing the action.

Harold was always late for everything except the most important thing, when he got there early.

At the Sports Arena you could sit up close and they'd let you stand right in back of the baskets while the teams took their warmups. It was the first time Plotnik realized just how BIG these guys are. Elgin Baylor looked like an average-sized guy on TV but up close he was a mighty mighty brick house. You can't stand on the court anymore, even during practice, even you're Jack Nicholson.

(You probably don't know that Elgin Baylor was on the Minneapolis Laker DC-3 that crash-landed during a snow storm in a frozen Iowa corn field in 1960. The next year they moved the team West.)

The Boston Garden was even older. There were famous sections of the floor where the ball wouldn't bounce right. The Crybabies knew all those spots. The Shmlaker players never seemed to be able to figure it out. Beantown always won Game Sevens at the old Garden.

But they tore down Boston Garden and built a new place for the Babies. The Shmlakers moved too, first to the Forum in Inglewood during the Magic Johnson years, and then moved again to their current home back downtown at the Staples Center.

They tore down the Forum. It was next to the racetrack, Hollywood Park. They tore that down too.

Game Sevens are special. NBA championships and baseball World Series are both Best of Seven. When one team plays the other one seven games in a row, each one knows everything there is about the other team. The superstars do their thing like they always do and the coaches coach like they always do. The only variable is that one player who nobody expected to rise up always does so and dominates the game. The team with that player wins.

Who will it be? Somebody please stick a voodoo pin into Rajan Rondo.

Plotnik is trying to work up enough hatred for the Crybabies but he has to admit he likes them. He just hopes they lose.

Yum-o-Rolls and Extra Runs

Imagine that this tray of empanadas has two or three in it that you need and six or seven that you don't need. Right now.

Plotnik was writing to his Giant fan friends this morning. One of them, The Great NotThat, had admitted that he, like Plotnik, hates to see his team win a game 12-0, like the Plotzers did last night. That's because you always figure a five run lead is enough -- and the extra seven runs could be used so much better the next night, or spread out over the next few games.

Just like the Lakers last night -- what a game! -- but they didn't need ten or fifteen of those extra points. They will really need them tomorrow night in Game Seven Duck's Delight, otherwise known as the Last Game of the Basketball Season.

Plotnik started thinking about it. Mummy P. told him to eat his peas when he was a young boy, because poor children in China were starving, right? Well, he did that and now the Chinese have grown big and strong and are outproducing us. If we'd let the little buggers starve to death none of this would have happened and you could still buy a home on the beach in Malibu for $65,000.

Or let's say you have your yearly physical coming up, let's just say. Let's also say that you come home from visiting your kids on the East Coast and you've been porking it on big time -- lobster, pasta, desserts, meal after meal. You look like Homer Simpson and you know you've only got ten days until Dr. I Dunno Wadda YOU Think takes one look at you and puts you on Lard-o-cillin.

So you go on a crash diet. You only eat food that swims and food that clucks and not much of it either. Maybe a little brown rice. The weight comes off.

Then, the day before your physical, let's say, dear JJ-aka-PP's boy friend happens to be in town and he comes over for breakfast and stops first at Destination Bakery to bring with him a box of, let's say, croissants and yum-o-rolls.

You say to yourself: I haven't had anything good to eat since Deer Isle, Maine. I would like, at least, one of those yum-o-rolls.

Tomorrow, that is. Tomorrow, right after I get home from Dr. I Dunno and his Blood Drawing Evil Minions of Disaster.

But you can't wait 'til tomorrow. In fact, if you wait five more minutes the other fat fingers of pleasure at your table will have eagerly smacked down those yum-o-rolls.

Let's just say.

You COULD package them up and send them to the Chinese so THEY could get flabby and stop producing all that pink and bright yellow plastic your countrymen flock to buy at Walmart.

You COULD just say No.

Hahahahahahahahaha!

So you eat one. OK, two.

Now, children, what do pastries have to do with extra runs that you don't need? The point is that if you don't eat them you will have denied yourself a delicious pleasure. If the Plotzers or Lakers don't score those extra runs or baskets, nobody else will get to use them either.

The Rationalization App is ON.

Plotnik HATES blood tests.

Mmmmmmm Chilaquiles

Plotnik the Ascetic forced himself into the Kaiser parking lot and forced himself into the elevator and forced himself into the check-in line and forced himself to sit and wait for his name to be called, and then he had his yearly physical and said FINE to everything Dr. I Dunno Wadda YOU Think? asked him, and then they did all the blood tests, and by time that was all done he figured the worst would be over for today so he complimented the lady who runs the blood laboratory, told her their system was working better than ever and that all the techs were pleasant and professional, and she seemed so surprised that he would say something nice that she shook his hand over and again saying thank you, thank you sir! as she pumped his hand up and down.

They must not get complimented very often.

NOW Duck and Plot can eat something that doesn't swim in the sea or lay eggs. Bread? Bring over a loaf o' that sourdough, Missie, and is that butter? If it is, just bring the churn and set it on the table. Plotnik is taking the night off.

What a Beautiful Sunday

Truth is missing its final H, but we know what they're trying to say. A beautiful, beautiful Sunday in the Bay. The City Hall Farmer's Market was filled with people in shorts. Shorts! Plot needed lemon grass, juice oranges, fresh cherries and red curry paste. No problem, all within a few feet of each other. You can't beat farmers markets in Saint Plotniko.

The plotkicycle flies during good weather over torn up Valencia Street in front of the police station. The evangelists have returned to Mission Street from wherever they've been during the long rainy season, but they are easy to dodge. The lines are starting in front of Mitchell's Ice Cream. Painters and contractors are blocking intersections again with their trucks. Big watermelons and persians and honeydews fill up the outside bins at Church St. Produce Market.

Thanks to Heidi for reminding Plotnik that Labor Day is SepFogber 6 this year. Hopefully we can have Grillers in the Mist once again at World Headquarters, though what we're gonna do without Leo and Florence Plotnik is not sure.

The Zinfandinis and the World Cup

Ooooh it's nice. Hot. Nice. Hot. Nice and Hot. Hot and Nice.

Saint Plotniko's summer is almost over. Soon it will be Jufog, and then Fogust and SepFogber. Towards the end of Fogtober summer should return for a few weeks.

Yesterday it was hot here and hot in Marin, where Plot and Duck went to the Zinfandini household for the usual glut of wine and great food.

The Z's served Plot and Duck a rosé that Plotnik the Wine Snob actually liked! It's from a winery called Thumbprint in Healdsburg. It was delicious with the stuffed heirloom tomatoes with brown rice, mint and feta that Duck brought up. The Z's have also discovered an Italian bakery/gelateria in Larkspur where they make some of the best Italian cookies Plotnik has tasted since the Apple, as well as gelatos that make Fee Monster happy, though here she is sucking on a home made popsicle. Sophia is seven and is going to be as tall like her dad.



Now, about The World Cup.



It'a like the Celestine Prophesy. Just because gajillions of other people around the world think it's exciting, even if it's a runaway popular hit, doesn't make it worth two snoots of a beaver's butt.

Zero to Zero? Fun to watch? One to One? Astonishing? Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam. At least they're actually DOING something.

Every taqueria in town has a TV blaring. Thank goodness for silent, calm Marin which is its own country. Karen ran into a woman recently who has two kids and two nannies, one for each child. Yikes.

Plotnik Goes Looking For Trouble

After seeing so many books, movies, plays, songs and stories attempting to define the difference between men and women, Plotnik thinks he's found the simple answer.

Women like A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT.

Men like A LOT OF THIS.

----

Which is to say women think about the ensemble. The whole look. The way everything flows together.

Men put on a cool hat and figure, Dude!



This is why men, not women, rob banks.



A woman would never allow her picture to be taken by any camera, even a surveillance camera, with no thought given to the correct sweat shirt, running shoes and even a gun that didn't clash with the ransom note. Men don't think that far ahead.

This is why so few men blog, and when they do they talk about robbing banks and guns and basketball caps. Women think deeper. They blog about their feelings, their children, their hearts, their lost loves, their anxieties.

Men review plays. Sometimes they don Laker paraphernalia, though it might be a total waste of time.

Tiaposians are Wild Creatures Too

Mush was late, so five TIAPOSIANS posed before she got there, in front of The Great WantzaNewName's new J-Whacky installed wallpaper. Then Mushie arrived.



From left: Blonde Bombshell, Mississippi Motorhead, The Great Large Pants, The Great WantzaNewName, The Great Mushnik and William Faulkner. Chef Pickle had to work last night.

The Great Ducknik took these pictures. She had come with Plottie because they had to leave immediately to go see the World Premiere of A.C.T.'s 'The Tosca Project.' Plotnik was entranced with this show. You can read the San Francisco Theater Blog review of "The Tosca Project" here.



Wild salmon (not local - these are from Oregon) are in at Sun Fat's. Plot was standing there the other day while the truck was unloaded, and the fish had been caught the previous night. Can't get it any fresher without catching it yourself.



The fish weigh 18-20 pounds. The owner of the fish shop told Plottie every fish in the shipment had already been contracted out to local restaurants, but he was going to filet a few for his customers. They all went within minutes.

The question Plotnik always has is: can you call wild fish organic? Obviously the answer is no, because God knows what PCB poison they consume at the top of the oceanic food chain, and yet wild things appeal to Mr. P., in plays like last night's, his Tiaposian comrades and in these delicious creatures.