“The Empire Crumbles and so do its Cigarettes.”

An Honest and Mostly Sincere Essay by Ken Pauls Milano


I still remember when I was a young man of seventeen. My, those were the days. I could smoke anywhere I so choose: theaters, airplanes, bars, malls and restaurants at large. That certainly was freedom, without the attachments provided by the benevolent (with a question mark) hand of the law.
Now, many years later I’m middle age, I look back with nostalgia and yeaning and I envy those days of old. Thus, I find myself wondering what happened along the way, in conjunction with the hypocrisy associated with the ‘powers that be’ and the heavy weight they pretend to carry on their bare, shameless shoulders.
It is not enough for law writing morons to have taken away all the liberties of smokers ‘by choice,’ but they had to stamp their ugly feet, deeper than ever, into the very chests of their income. Yes, income—because the tobacco industry pays the government billions of dollars every year, so that stupid politicians and ‘yes men’ at large can take their ‘not deserved’ vacations along the sunny beaches of the Caribbean or some European country where smoking is not considered a crime. On the contrary, it is a form of entertainment, a social duty and fashion trend all rolled into one. Were Bogart here to see what this world has become, he would faint mainly from dastardly pressure, then come back up and curse them all to hell.
Where would all the greatest actors in Hollywood be and the best writers and artists and scientists and inventors and producers? A James Dean, a John Wayne, an Elizabeth Taylor, a Marilyn Monroe, a Sophia Loren, a Luciano Pavarotti, a Frank Sinatra, a John Lennon, a Van Gogh, an Alfred Hitchcock, a Mark Twain, an Albert Einstein, an Alexander Graham Bell, a Thomas Edison, a J. Robert Oppenheimer, and countless others, too numerous to even mention here. Smoking was chic and classy. There was nothing sexier than a smoking Rita Hayworth.
And for that matter where would Pierce Brosnan and his James Bonds persona be? The latter complains he has to travel to London to enjoy cigarettes and alcohol with friends, because the anti smoking law has destroyed pub culture in his homeland. And Keith Richard from the Rolling Stones famous warning: ‘Smoking may cause the best Rock & Roll ever.’ How about that one?
And let me put in an anecdote worthy of note, about 'Poor, lonesome cowboy' Lucky Luke. His Belgian creator, Maurice de Bevere (Morris), let him quit smoking in 1983. On this subject he said: "The reason why I took away Luke's cigarette, is the fact that children usually have a tendency to imitate the heroes whose adventures they read." This sounds good, but why didn't he take away his pistol as well? Warning: Firearms are more deadly than tobacco! Indeed.
You see, those ‘powers that be’ started slowly up the latter or down as the case may be. First, smoking was prohibited in certain establishments, but not altogether. Oh, no. Restaurants had a smoking and nonsmoking sections at first. You could choose. And that was all right with me and every other smoker, though we felt separated, avoided and made to feel like an insect trapped in a glue trap. Hell, if you’re not a smoker, I don’t want you to suffer my bad habit, right? Perfect.
Then all of a sudden, smoking was not permitted at all, under the enclosed walls and roof of any eating establishment anywhere. Well, I said, might as well, I’ll eat on the patio; but you see, it was not the ‘same.’ I was to love going into Friday’s, sitting at the bar, guzzling a couple of beers and watching the game. When this happened, I stopped going into Friday’s.
Who was the loser? The poor retailer and its employees who profited from me and many others from going there. I believe, hundreds upon hundreds of restaurants across the nation closed their doors, because patrons could not smoke anymore within their precincts. Yes, believe it or not—and I talk from experience, since I worked in the restaurant business for twenty years—the best customers and all-around tippers were smokers who remained seated after they had finished eating and spent more in after dinner drinks, wine, champagne, coffee and desserts than they had in their whole meal.
But the whole mess didn’t start just there. The unforgiving jaws of law clamped down first on theaters and malls, then airplanes—though it has been proven that no damage whatsoever can come to a plane from people smoking in it, and yes, secondary smoking is nothing but a myth. My grandfather lived to be ninety-six and died of old age, even though he smoked and chewed tobacco for eighty-five years, that is since he was eleven.
I was and so was all of my family surrounded by chronic smokers. And I mean chronic, nonstop smokers o the worst kind. I remember being a kid and asking my grandmother to please stop smoking. PLEASE. And you know what? I guess I got used to it, and you know what else? None of them died of cancer or smoke-related causes. My grandmother died last year of old age.
You know what kills people? ‘Gasoline’ burning exhausts and petroleum combustion engines of all sorts. You don’t see the fumes but they’re there just the same. But hey, it’s big business, so what the hell, let it be! Someone is getting a slice of the money pie.
The most outrageous thing that ever happened me—concerning smoking that is—is beyond human understanding. Sure, it makes total sense not to smoke in an enclosed room full of nonsmokers, but in the open air? Come on, it is a joke! Yes, an uncommonly whispered bad jest to top them all. Well, it happened to me not once, but twice. It never happened again after that. I would not stand by something, with which I totally disagree. I am tolerant to a certain degree but I’m no fool, neither do I want to be made one.
So here is the ridiculous caper of the century. Twice I went to a ball game to catch my San Francisco Giants against the Marlins in Miami (both victories, so I can only guess the whole world was not against me after all) and twice I was reproved by ushers when I pulled up and lit a cigarette. Mind you, open skies, not a wall or roof around anywhere. So I put out the cancer stick and asked him where could I smoke. He pointed so this area or that, I dutifully went there.
It was an enclosed, air-conditioned room. Well, I said, now we’re talking; let us truly enjoy this fumes-infested room. What a prank. The joke is on them, I said, or is it not? Here we are in the lap of luxury surrounded by walls like prisoners getting ready for the slaughter in the gas chamber. I’m bound to believe that they take us all for a bunch of blubbering idiots and an infection to boot. Though I might disagree with the latter, since I possess an average IQ of 186. Nothing to sneer at.
Ah, but now, those same ‘powers that be’ are never happy enough with ruining someone’s day or week or whatever, (yes, I missed at least a quarter of each game with my frequent visits) so this was their next logical step: ‘Let us kill them bastards, they’re all going to die anyways.’
So they said that to avoid about 800 accidental fires and deaths every year caused by burning cigarettes, were going to murder a few million of us smokers in return. That is, they had—the government and federal law that is, not the tobacco companies—introduced a new chemical in our cigarettes, (invisible bands in the paper) that would make cigarettes stop burning very often. Now these new chemicals are not only harmful, in spite of what the law makers say, but they make cigarettes go off in the most inopportune of times. Then relighting the thing is disgusting to say the least. And people at large in the smoking community have been complaining of nausea, uncontrollable coughs and even vomiting and so on, due to this wonderful new chemistry introduced by our wondrous lawmakers.
So if you are a nonsmoker but love someone who is, put your pretty penny forward and do something about it. Smoking ‘may’ not be good but people do have choices. Some are compulsive eaters, some are gamblers and still some are homosexual or bisexual or whatever. And some are considered the black sheep of their families, but hey, they’re your kin, your friends and to hell with all the rest. Speak up now or forever hold your peace as the old saying goes.
And to top it all, recently I opened a new pack of Marlboro Lights 100's, my brand of choice, and what did I find you may ask? A black and yellow slip, stating that new federal law required that the words: lights, ultra-lights, mild, etc., could not appear in the covers of the packs or advertisements of any kind concerning the brand in question. What?
Well, I guess they figured people were being mislead into believing that cigarettes with the ‘lights’ sign meant they were less dangerous to their health, (after all grilled meat is less likely to produce a tummy-ache than let us say one cooked in a thick, oily sauce.) Yes they state that all cigarettes are created equal and they all have the same effect on someone’s health. What these morons don’t realize is—or maybe they do and are just playing the old-school hooky—that people already know that. And that those words refer to flavor and nothing else. After all these idiots, or should I say smart idiots who get paid for doing absolutely nothing worth of notice, in congress at one time spent eight whole months trying to figure out if the health warning in cigarettes packs of all types should state ‘causes lung cancer’ or may cause lung cancer’ and we, the brutally disregarded even by those who should serve and protect, tax payers are paying them for this? Hell!
Now, I said, what are they going to do next? What are we going to do? How do I go about asking for my favorite brand? Naturally I though of colors first, since smokers usually refer to the regular Marlboros as ‘Red.’ So I called up just the same, the Phillip Morris 800 number provided on the slip to make sure. Pure curiosity I should say.
The PM agent who I talked to was very courteous, as well he should be, and after asking me a myriad and one questions—most probably required by federal law as well, to make sure I was twenty-one years of age (although kids can go to war and get slaughtered in the process but cannot drink a single beer, preposterous to say the least, but that is a subject I will address in another blog) he proved my theory was correct. “Yes,” he said, “your cigarette will still be the same (with its frequent going-offs and all, I added this last, between the parentheses signs for a dose of irony,) they’re going to be packed in a gold box very soon with the name of your brand and the 100's description but there will not be any other words like lights, mild, etc.on the package. But not to worry they still will taste the same.” I thanked him and hung up.
Really? After not being able anymore to enjoy my favorite places and my coffee with a cigarette. A cigarette that doesn’t go off every few puffs? Either they’re crazy or I’m crazy or the whole must have gone completely raving mad!
Nuts!
So I have taken a decision: I’m going to start rolling my own cigarettes with imported paper without any chemical, fire retardant, bands in it, then I’m going to open my own sports bar in my patio to replace TGI Friday’s, buy my own airplane and private theater. And I’m really going to enjoy it then. Wishful thinking? Perhaps no.
And thanks for not to the feds, congress and senate.
Was J. Edgar Hoover here to see it, fed or not fed, he would rightfully call this a ‘commie invasion of the first kind.’ In the end the Empire, I so admired since I was a child, crumbles to the ground. What a shame!
Enough said.
I rest my case.