I’m talking about a different kind of assisted suicide, smoking. Smoking kills 4 out of every 9 people in America today, according to a study I made up. The numbers for children are even more staggering. The same study says that 1 out of every 3 children will die a smoking related death. Shocking, I know.
Let’s face it; Hollywood has traditionally been to blame for at least a small part of that influence on children. James Dean: what a stone cold badass. Aaron Eckhart in Thank You for Smoking: I’d buy anything that man sells. He could make me trade my car for a corned beef sandwich infected with mononucleosis. Patty and Selma from The Simpsons: come on—how could you not want to smoke after watching those two foxes hack their way through carton after sexy carton?
At some point, regardless of media persuasion or peer pressure, people have to make their own decisions—and therein lies my beef (not corned). I just don’t get the appeal. You inhale, die a little bit more each time, then it’s over. If I’m going to spend my money on some “substance,” I better get a little more bang for my buck than that. Beer or alcohol, I get it—you get buzzed, drunk, hammered, sloshed, blitzed, shitfaced, blacked out…you get the idea. Other drugs, I get it too—you get trippy, high, messed up, crazy, jiggly, muddy, clammy, arrested for indecent exposure…you get the idea. There just aren’t any highs to cigarettes. It’s not looked upon as something ‘cool’ anymore, it doesn’t enhance or change your mental state in any way, it just gives you smoker’s cough, yellow teeth, and a slew of diseases and conditions that will end your life prematurely. That doesn’t sound sexy to me (except you Patty and Selma, I will love you always).
I tried to put together a pros and cons list of smoking to see if I could come up with any pros. My cons list was longer than my typewriter could produce. (Yes, I still use a typewriter, I’m old fashioned. You crazy kids and your computers and your rock music). I only had one pro: you have some company outside in the freezing cold Piscataway, New Jersey winter when the manager at Bennigan’s makes you take it outside with the other “wheezy’s.” (Yes, as you probably have noticed by now, I use lots of specific and obscure references. I guess it all goes back to the time I was at Taco Johns and bumped into Peter Saarsgard and we started to play a game of Connect Four, but he had to leave because he said he wanted to get home to make sure he caught the new episode of Clarissa Explains it All, but I think he was just leaving because I was about to win—Clarissa hadn’t been on the air in nine years).
(Yes, I also use alot of parentheses. You can find me on TV and radio doing advertisements for parentheses, I support them whole-heartedly and if I use 200 in my blog this month they will give me two tickets to the next Lady Gaga concert))))).
Now, back to cancer sticks.* Past the issue of why people start smoking, it’s clear that they continue because they are addicted to them. Addiction is another thing I don’t understand. The closest I ever came to addiction was Funyuns and Mountain Dew (two 6-packs of Dew a day is normal, right?).
Most people with addictions seem to realize they have an addiction. If you understand you have an addiction to something that is horribly harmful to you, well, you should probably find a way to stop. Did I really have to spell that out for you? Get your ass some Nicorette and get in gear!
The ones who don’t realize it or are in denial, wake the fuck up! That persistent cough ain’t from the smog, and no you “can’t stop whenever you want.”
So, in conclusion (because I’ve run out of things to say, and I’ve met my daily quotient of parentheses), if you’re addicted to the ciggys, get some help. If not, don’t start, they aren’t cool anymore. Maybe try some shrooms.
*Cancer sticks in this case refer to cigarettes, not the other widely known use: as a nickname coined by dozens of former girlfriends of Nicolas Cage. The name refers to both his skinny legs and the growing urge to kill yourself when you’re around him.
Snake Alley Song of the Day: M83 - Midnight City
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