Pleasures

In the “I Don’t Need THIS!” Dept… “All the Tobacco in China; Taking up the habit of rulers and the common man.”

After years of resisting, a friend in Shanghai gave me the perfect excuse to start smoking. China has become so polluted, he told me, that it's better to breathe through a cigarette filter than just take in the air on its own. And if your lungs are going to get shot to hell anyway, you might as well enjoy it. So, well into middle age, I figured that it was probably a good time to take up the smoking habit. The result? I enjoy it so much that I don't know why I didn't take it up earlier.

For the Chinese, smoking carries connotations that might seem outdated, even quaint to Westerners. Real men smoke, period. And when real men hang out together, they smoke a lot. The presence of women is appreciated, of course--if they are quick with a lighter. At a formal meal or banquet, each course may be followed by a cigarette, as if to cleanse the palate, and a few more cigarettes will be smoked at the end, in place of port. As the saying goes, fan hou yi zhi yan, sai guo huo shenxian--a cigarette after a meal and you feel better than a living god.

It was hard for me to take this article seriously in this Politically Correct day and age, and I kept looking for a “gotcha!” or an “April Fool!” Or something. But no, it is as it reads above: a paean to the Evil Weed. Doubtless some pinched-face do-gooder will come out with a “tsk-tsk” editorial response to this charming and informative little piece…it’s just a matter of time.

But back to the subject at hand. Ya know what? I miss it. I really do. But I won’t…can’t…go back. It really was killing me, and that’s not hyperbole.

I wonder if Barack has quit yet?

Today’s Musical Interlude… Two gems from the BEST incarnation of Fleetwood Mac: the Peter Green years…

And one from the second-best iteration of Mac…the Bob Welch years. Nice photos here.

You’ll note I didn’t include a cut featuring the abominable Stevie Nicks. If I ever hear that frickin’ “Rhiannon” song again it’ll be too soon. Thus spake The Ol’ Fart.