WHAT'S THAT THING you say when an election is over? "The American people have spoken." Well, the results of my own private personal Cheap Eats election are in. I didn't have to count them too many times, because every single American peopleperson who weighed in on my new name voted for Dani. Therefore, I'm going to go with Ellie. I want to spell it L.E., however, in my byline, to maximize the Lord Exister connection, as well as the sense of mystery, cantankerousness, and general confusion.

The American people have spoken, and the chicken farmer has said, in effect, fuck you. Fuck me too, because the funny thing is, I liked Dani better myself.

One Thai person spoke. It was Satchel Paige the Pitcher, who's taller than all of us, and he said L.E. So he wins. Not because I value his opinion 10 times more than anyone else's, including my own; I only value it 3 or 4 times more. But as long as I'm in charge (and you bet your bacon I am, in my own little 4-by-12-inch world here), I want things to make as little sense as possible.

I want a lot of names. Thing is, I know in life in the big world people are going to call me Dani anyway, because that's what I call myself now. They're going to call me Exister. They're going to still call me Dan, I don't care. One time I was playing baseball and I was pitching, and all of a sudden I couldn't throw a strike. Bob, my catcher, walked out in front of the plate, tossed me the ball, and said, "Let's go, Chicken Farmer. Put it in there."

I was so fired up by being called Chicken Farmer that I think I actually struck the batter out. (I won't say who it was, so as not to destroy their reputation.)

But speaking of bacon, I wrote recently to my friend Neno (speaking of people whose opinions I value three or four times more than my own), and I said, "Neno, what do rats like? I've got rats under my shack, and they're getting tired of my apple cores and peanut butter and chocolate-covered raisins. I even tried chicken-fried steak. Nothing pleases them."

And he wrote back and said, "The food of the gods – bacon." And he cast a vote for Dani, but he lives in Ohio so I didn't count it.

Anyway, I was bumming around in the Tenderloin the other day with Earl Butter, thinking about bacon, and sports, and staple guns, and Earl was thinking about Vietnamese sandwiches. Ever since I wrote about a Vietnamese sandwich joint I'd been to (months ago) that only had one kind of sandwich, pork, Earl's had a hard time concentrating on anything else. Whenever I try to take him somewhere to eat, his first choice is "just pork."

"Just pork," he said now, tugging on my sleeve and pointing to a Vietnamese sandwich hole-in-the-wall across the street. There were a lot of people hanging around in and outside of the place, drinking coffee. Football game on TV. The sign on the wall said, "Sandwich, $2.25." But the woman behind the cash register looked at us like we were crazy and said, "No sandwich."

"Not even pork?" we said.

She shook her head and we left, Earl about as impressed as I've ever seen him. His eyes were wide, and he kept saying, "Wow."

We passed a lot of other sandwich shops, but it was a while before we found one that only had one kind and actually had them. Tu Kim's, on Ellis at Hyde. Steamed pork. Two-fitty apiece and damn, damn good. It was so nice out we got them to go and kept walking. Down the road and around the corner on Larkin we found the Baguette Express, which is like the opposite thing. It's the Subway of Vietnamese sandwich shops. They have 13 different kinds, and big pictures of them all on the wall over the counter. Kind of clean, and bright. They have sardine sandwiches, ham-pâté-and-headcheese, shredded chickens, fish cakes, vegetarian ...

But we went in anyway and ordered two more. In fact, I was still eating my Tu Kim while I ordered my Baguette Express. Same price: $2.50, but almost twice as big! Same fixin's: jalapeños (only way, way spicier), pickled carrots, cilantro.

And if bacon is the first choice of both gods and rats, then barbecued bacon must be ... well, that's what I got, thinking whatever I couldn't finish I'd take home and bait my traps with. But it's not bacon bacon, like I think Neno meant, so I don't know.

Rats? Gods?

I'll keep you posted. Tu Kim's. 609 Ellis (at Hyde), SF. (415) 567-1685. Daily, 6 a.m.-6 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Baguette Express. 668 Larkin (at Ellis), SF. (415) 345-8999. Daily, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted.