Where was I?
Well I'm here in body and spirit... whatever "Spirit" really means.
I'm in one of those moods where I feel the need to rant and this is always a much better venue than picking a verbal duel with the plethora of unarmed opponents that seem to permeate this world.
But what to rant about? Have you ever been in the mood to argue because something irked you and you're not even conscious of what it was?
Politics are too easy... the maritimes look at is as religion, the east as business, and in BC it's entertainment. Truly, where else outside the USA can you have Parliamentary members get nailed for DUI, lose records on their pc's (ever heard of a memory stick?), sell off ferries for a third of what were paid for them...and so much more!
It's like a soap opera...especially since it is always led by some born-rich effete shyster leading the pack. I'm not just offended by the Liberals here in BC, so don't think of this as if I have a side in this boondoggle of a province... I dislike every current party because they've "Americanized" to the point that actual issues aren't news anymore... it's whatever scandal one can dig up on the other... COME ON! **shakes head in disgust and lights a cigarette**
HEY! I know what to talk about! (Well, in reality, I'm not sitting here talking to my pc, because that would put me into that "Odd" bracket... but I might be sitting here in a Cartman costume and you'd never know! BWHAHAHAHA!)
Smoking...oohhhhhh he brought it up...that evil habit that at one time was the symbol of virility...
When I was a kid, My parents smoked in the truck with the windows up. Every adult I knew as a kid smoked...EVERY...LAST...ONE!
The Marlboro man was the epitome of cool, sitting there by his horse lighting up a cigarette, women fawning over him and his stetson.
Doctors told everyone that would listen about the benefits of smoking...a doctor lied? wow!
When I was a teen, fewer people smoked..mostly because it was being proved that they weren't healthy, as a matter of fact..they were deadly, and the tobacco companies were *Gasp* spending millions in research to make them more addictive!
I grew to a young adult and began smoking to look cool...because Hollywood (obviously well paid by the tobacco giants) still portrayed smoking as cool... Clint Eastwood smoked... so did Arnie, Carl Weathers... even CHUCK NORRIS!
Then the boom came down...
I used to gather my writing materials, find myself a quiet little restaurant and slip into a booth to write and enjoy a few cigarettes and coffee. I loved those quiet times of creation, only momentarily disturbed by the waitress as she refilled my cup or asked if I needed anything else. How I recall those days smiling, happy with the world, my words poured from my heart and mind to paper. I knew I wasn't in any sense the next Leonard Cohen, but I was inspired to write, and an adequate talent I had.
First they banned smoking in the restaurant, understandable, as the reports were coming fast and furious about second hand smoke... but this left me in the parks sitting under a tree, striving to maintain my sanity, writing 'neath yonder pine, my coffee brewed and stored in a thermos, my cigarettes aside my pens and other sundries...
Then I was told that smoking in the park was now illegal... so, my spirit wounded, but not crushed, I hied my dedicated mind to home... the last bastion of the smoker. Surely I could write there, my coffee was freshly brewed, my mind reeling... the words continued to flow as long as my ink held up, although my observations were becoming more isolationist in nature...
Then I rented a place that was non-smoking...all of them are now of course. So, still not beaten, I found myself hurrying outside to have a puff, then back inside to drink some of that wonderful Colombian bean juice, and possibly write something witty or hopefully thought-provoking....but the patio called... must...go..outside...
Now whole neighborhoods and city streets are smoke free, and little yuppie bastards in their beamers drive a block to get their Starbucks and write their inconsequential pap on their laptops, then drive that block again to home to get ready for that stop-smoking rally and the safe injection sites for junkies...
I see the future... I'm sitting on a rocky beach enjoying some hand pressed coffee, smoking a cigarette from a supply drop... and writing a best-seller because I'm finally free to write in a comfortable environment...until the tea-drinkers become the majority and ban coffee from the beach because it's been proven to be unhealthy... and I'll finally snap and kill them all.
Just an odd thought... where the hell do these activists get the time to protest? Am I, The working, tax-paying, smoking Canadian PAYING into their welfare so they can organize against me?
Don't get me wrong here, I would love NOT to smoke, but just try to quit if you've been doing it for years...more addictive than heroin, and LEGAL... yet we don't get "Safe smoking" sites.. that would be something, right downtown Vancouver, a place where we, the smokers can walk in, have a few smokes for free, and the little yuppie bastards actually praising us for using the site instead of giving that pathetic *cough-cough* beside us because they're too spineless to say anything unless it's online (Oh my! he's smoking beside me! I've got to get somewhere safe and write about this... oh, there's a Starbucks!).
I love that *Cough-cough*, it gives me the chance to tell them that maybe they should cut back on their smoking... and when they rarely, but sometimes tell me in their nasally and uptight self-righteous voice that they don't, I reply that it's probably a good thing, as they obviously need to take care of their delicate lungs...
I think that the non-smoking activists piss me off the most... I keep thinking that the majority of them are city-born and bred, commuting for 1-2 hours a day if they actually work, and spewing WAY more carcinogens into the air with their vehicles than I could in my lifetime with cigarettes... the others are "professional" protesters who jump from cause to cause and live in the woods with their other hippie friends... and if they're from the Kootnays...we ALL know what they're smokin'.
Overall, I'm just pissed off that I'm now a bad guy regardless of where I am now for smoking a LEGAL drug, and it's okay to shoot-up, pop pills,rave-out on E, smoke a joint, and whatever else is in vogue at the moment... I just smoke dammit! I don't do ANY drugs...rarely drink, and help out my neighbors!
My suggestion to the Anti-smoking coalition, "Get the government to fund stop smoking programs if you want to be useful."
okay... I rambled enough I think, and I'm not even sure if i really said anything worthy of my own opinions.
Acta non Verba
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