Every Once In A Blue...

    I once saw the following on a page of quotations about  alcohol.  “One drink is too many, and a thousand not enough.”  I assumed the speaker/writer  meant that alcohol is overrated, and I would tend to agree.   Upon further reflection, maybe he’s an alcoholic.  Alcohol tightens muscles (thus the expression “getting tight” ).  Pot relaxes muscles, so maybe restrictions on pot should be more relaxed than those on alcohol, which is exponentially more harmful and destructive than pot could ever dream to be in its haziest paranoid dreams. 

    Moderation, folks.  You don’t need to inhale a thirteen-ounce bag of Tostitos (hint of lime) after downing a fifth of gin (hint of alcohol poisoning) and splitting an eight ball of blow (hint of suicide).  Try a little abstinthe. (abstininthe)  SECOND ONE IS BETTER

    Tobacco can make for a delightful experience in moderation.  I’ve never quite understood  why people don’t seem to have widely varying cigarette-smoking experiences that depend heavily on prevailing air conditions.  Sometimes after a smoke I’ll think, I really could’ve done without it.  Other times it’s more like, Yeah! That’s the stuff.  

    Have a smoke by an open window on a cool and rainy day.  Or outdoors on a halcyon day with a very light breeze.  I’ll always remember that sweet smell, sitting in the back of the neighbors’ station wagon when their mom opened her window and fired up a cig before driving to the country club.  Ah, summer breeze.  FYI: when indoors, running the central air, heat, or ceiling fans ruins the experience.  Generally, slowly blowing the smoke out your mouth while inhaling through your nose maximizes sweetness. (Actually, I guess that's not technically possible. But you can do it intermittently, sort of like when a person checks themself for bad breath.)  My best cigarette moments are those where I’m slightly retreating from the cherry, like an in-the-zone basketball shooter who knows his spot, gracefully falling away from the release of his jumper.

   I often sit out in the smoking gazebo at work even though I never smoke at work.  Why buy the cow?  Many of my colleagues who don’t sit in there probably assume as they walk past that I’m a regular “smoker.”  These days I smoke very seldom, every once in a while, every once in a blue… state.  But seriously, folks, it's a crime that weed is still illegal in many states. 

One reason is that cannabis is not physically addictive. Things that are more addictive than pot: caffeine, TV, porn, alcohol, talking on the phone, video games, comedy, music, reading, taking bribe money from Big Pharma and Big Booze lobbyists.  There are two types of people who are opposed to legalizing pot: Greedy people and ignorant people. In the former group you have people who benefit from the booze and pharma industry's profits, cops who make money from busting people on pot charges, the prison industry, etc.  Among the second group of people are, of course, religious busybodies who like to tell other people what to do.  

   If you’re able to watch the brilliant smoking scene in His Girl Friday—where  a 36-year old Cary Grant, wearing that splendid gray suit, fires up a cig as he attempts to wear down Rosalind Russell—without  running and getting something to smoke, “you’re a better man than me.”  I can’t think of a more compelling advertisement for smoking.  He smokes that cigarette the way Miles Davis plays trumpet.

    A final note on booze and smoke: They should have “drunk tank clowns” to keep the angry drunks away from the peaceful ones.  And they should have bar-and-grill clowns to keep the non-smokers away from the smokers—or just to squirt water on offending, self-important cigs and stogies.

(include bit about Laura Ingraham???  ... some folks become delightful; some become Laura Ingraham)