[lit-ideas] Puff Piece (warning: highly politically incorrect)
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 23:55:16 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301879.html
Puff Piece
By Jonathan Yardley,
whose e-mail address is yardleyj@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; Page C02
THE EASY WAY TO START SMOKING
A Step-by-Step Guide to Smoking Twenty Cigarettes a
Day -- And Loads More in the Evening
By George Cockerill and David Owen
Canongate. 148 pp. Paperback, $10
At long last, after endless decades of pious piffle
from the world's vast army of goody-two-shoes, come
two bold gentlemen from Britain to set the record
straight. The one-man industry named Allen Carr --
author of "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking," "The Little
Book of Quitting," "Allen Carr's How to Stop Your
Child Smoking" and uncountable other "Easy Way" tomes
to get you off booze, fearful flying and Lord knows
what else -- has met his match.
Thanks to George Cockerill and David Owen, it is now
permissible -- no, desirable, even mandatory -- to
smack your lips around that coffin nail, light it up
with your handy Bic and chant a few choruses of the
Merle Travis classic, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That
Cigarette)." Having shaken the lovely habit fully a
quarter-century ago, I aim to rush right out, wrap my
fingers around a carton or two, haul the smoking
jacket out of mothballs and light up. In no time at
all my old friends will return: nicotine-stained index
and middle fingers, holes in my sweaters and trousers,
ashes on the living-room rug, a hearty hack-hack-hack
at bedtime (after that ethereal day's end smoke) and
another at dawn. My inspiration will be Owen's
heart-rending account of his own introduction to the
joys of tobacco:
"I lit my first cigarette straight away and I knew it
right there -- I was going to be a smoker for the rest
of my life. The smoke coursed through my lungs and I
immediately went into a coughing fit that ended in my
throwing up the previous night's vegan buffet. A great
and wonderful weight had been placed on my shoulders
and I wanted to tell the whole world: 'I AM A SMOKER!'
"
If you think for a moment that this is easy to do,
think again. Starting smoking is serious business, and
procrastination is always tempting. As the authors
point out, one timid nonsmoker after another has been
heard to blurt out the classic excuses: "I'll start
tomorrow," or "I'll start after Lent," or "I'll start
when there's been a death in the family." It is the
authors' promise, though, that if you follow their
various prescriptions, "just three weeks after you
have started reading this book, you will be smoking,
and maybe even enjoying, your first cigarette!" You
will become fully acquainted with "the procedure and
paraphernalia of smoking," and you will discover the
joys of turning your entire bank account over to R.J.
Reynolds and Philip Morris.
Isn't that the very definition of "liberation"? Free
to smoke, to go broke, to gasp and wheeze and choke
and croak? Call those the smoker's Six Freedoms, 1 1/2
times as many as Franklin Roosevelt's -- and this
greatest of 20th-century presidents, please bear in
mind, was a world champion smoker whose jauntily
tilted filter gave hope to the entire nation in its
hours of despair. Obviously, what was wrong with all
those who followed him in the White House, especially
the wimpy past three, is that they did not smoke or,
if they did, kept quiet about it; though Bill Clinton
did have a way with a cigar.
So take heart from the example of FDR and the
inspirational prose of Cockerill and Owen, not to
mention the testaments of others who have followed
their path to the nirvana of addiction. Take
20-year-old Dean, for example: "It was after my exams
that I first felt like giving up. It's the times when
you're least stressed that it's so tempting to throw
in the towel. So I try to make sure that I'm in
stressful situations or find something worrying to
think about and that usually gets me reaching for
another smoke."
Or 24-year-old Megan:
"The hardest times are when I go to places like gyms
or health spas. Being surrounded by temptation is
really hard sometimes. Especially when you see how
much other people are enjoying themselves and how
healthy they look. But I stuck with it and tried to
steer clear of those environments while I was forming
the addiction. Now I'm so hooked that I don't really
spend much time in places like that before nipping out
for a smoke."
Make no mistake about it, though, Megan is right:
Staying a smoker can be hard . So, how handy it is
that the authors provide useful tips for keeping the
habit on those occasions when the temptation to quit
can become extreme: a weekend as a guest in a
no-smoking household, for example, or long-distance
flights aboard no-smoking airplanes. For the latter,
they prescribe in rich detail a new variation on the
Mile High Club, with results that can be described
only as gratifying.
On and on they go, enriching your life all along the
way. They devote two whole pages to the various ways
-- 18 in all! -- by which you can offer a cigarette to
a fellow initiate, and they have catchy names for
them, including "Pick a Card," "Nick 'O' Time,"
"Shotgun Fun" and "The Last Supper." They steer you
through that most desperate crisis -- "it's 2 a.m. and
I have run out of matches and can't find a lighter" --
when you can't get the stove or the gas grill to
light. One suggestion: "Rip the front off the gas
boiler and smash the little window in the middle with
your fist. Here you will find your friend -- the pilot
light."
Then, of course, there is the touchy business of
getting sick. You have to accept one essential fact --
"I am going to catch more colds than my non-smoking
friends and acquaintances. They are going to last
longer and involve mucus" -- and more: "You must also
prepare yourself for the sad reality that many people
will delight in telling you that the reason you have
so many colds is because you smoke. For the most part,
and especially if the person telling you is a doctor,
nurse or pharmacist, it is best to remember that they
are right, nod your humble agreement and make a mental
note to spend more time with musicians or comedians in
the future."
As for the Big C:
"All we will say here is that it is now widely
believed that mobile phones, microwaves, asbestos loft
insulation, X-ray machines, farmed salmon and
department-store elevators can give you cancer. That
cigarettes sit comfortably in that list is hardly
breaking news."
If you've gotten this far, you're ready to start
chanting some of the slogans from the Kick Start
PowerPhrase mantra: "I only REALLY need one lung," and
" I DO enjoy the taste," and "Who needs another 6
minutes anyway?" Then it is on to "The Smoker's
Pledge," all 12 steps of it, among them: "I know only
that I will smoke today, that I will smoke tomorrow
and do humbly place my destiny into the hands of
addiction," and, "I promise not to bring smoking into
disrepute by being seen in public smoking and crying
at the same time," and, "I will not attempt to teach
my dog to smoke."
How sage! How inspiring! How humane! In gratitude to
Cockerill and Owen, saints masquerading as mere
mortals, let us chant four choruses of "Smoke Gets in
Your Eyes," crank up the old Victrola, listen to the
immortal theme song of Glen Gray and the Casa Loma
Orchestra, "Smoke Rings," and then, as final tribute,
follow the advice of the old ad: "Blow some . . .
[breathy pause] . . . my way."
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