Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women

I used to smoke a lot—upwards of a pack-n-a-half to two packs every rotten day. Smoking was a simple, pure and expensive joy. Not to mention deadly. I loved to see the flame dance on the head of a match and imagine that fire inside me. My friends called me “smokestack”. I used to smoke at work, after work and before work. I woke up and lit up. I went to bed only after that all-important last cigarette. I did this for about seven years of my life, the last one of those years accompanied by whiskey. Not as much as the smokes, but enough so that my roommates noticed. And I lost one job, but that was due more to rudeness. Rudeness in conjunction with a hangover…

Anyway.

Old habits are like old lovers, most of the time they are best forgotten and left alone. We move on and always ahead, for anything else is just dancing in a shadow. I know this but I still let these two old lovers back into my life.

Whiskey I don’t mind having back. Whiskey is the kiss of life. Whiskey is fun. Whiskey is easy to control. I never had a drinking problem. I don’t need whiskey every day, first thing in the morning and right before bed. I think I just did away with the distilled spirits as they seemed to go too easily with, you guessed it, the smoking. Cigarettes on the other hand, I know how badly they once ruled my life. Going back to them seems like a total mistake. Nevertheless, I have sat down with Nick O’Teen a few times as of late.

I could blame school. I used to smoke in college and now that I am back it just feels right. There was always that pre-test smoke to help steady the nerves or the celebratory cigarette after a class. The society of young men and women huddling outside the auditorium to pollute their lungs, despite Chicago’s chill… I was of them and when I see them now I feel somewhat nostalgic. Yes, the faces are different but the haircuts and attitudes are the same.

I could blame academia, I could blame my smoking friends, or, more directly, I could blame Mike Smith whose return to Chicago strangely coincided with my picking up the odd cigarette (usually his). I could blame my girl for suddenly deciding she wanted to have a smoke one day—which she did, buying a pack and then calling it quits when it was through. I bummed some off her and it felt fun, like the two of us were rebelling against something or someone. I could blame her again for scolding me each time she catches me smoking, something that must be working my psychological gears. Each time I smoke, I know she will find out. She can smell it, she can just tell. I know I will get caught, but I do it anyway. Why? Has this become my new rebellion? Absent of her admonishment, would I loose interest? I always wanted my parents to catch me and they never did. It was sort of disappointing.

I could blame all of these people, places, things, nouns, etc. I could but I won’t. It is my own damn fault. I’ll give it up soon, seriously. I always do. I like to give things up from time to time. First it was smokes, then whiskey, and then coffee then meat. I am back on coffee full time, whiskey part time and smokes, well, I’m doing my best not to succumb to peer pressure. I’m trying, children, really. I will never go back to meat. It’s just wrong. But I guess the realization is that everyone needs a vice. Or three.

For the record, I barely smoke at all. Once and awhile at the bar, with the whiskey, when not in the company of my wild, wild woman. I bummed a cig from a young girl in my class once and it made me want to vomit. I don’t know what the problem was; I think her brand did not agree with me. These days, I am something of a wuss when it comes to tobacco. People with serious habits laugh at me when I tell them I have to stop. I would have laughed at me. I quote Bill Hicks. “A pack a day? You puss. I go through two lighters a day.”

I leave you with the song from which I stole the title for this blog entry, and the poem of the same name. Fun stuff.

By Tim Spenccer

Cigarettes, whiskey and wild wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane;
Cigarettes, whiskey and wild wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane;

Once I was happy and had a good wife
I had enough money to last me for life
Then I met with a gal and we went on a spree
She taught me smokin' and drinkin' whiskee

Cigarettes are a blight on the whole human race
A man is a monkey with one in his face;
Take warning dear friend, take warning dear brother
A fire's on one end, a fools on the t'other.

And now good people, I'm broken with age
The lines on my face make a well written page
I'm weavin' this story -- how sadly but true
On women and whiskey and what they can do

Write on the cross at the head of my grave
For women and whiskey here lies a poor slave.
Take warnin' poor stranger, take warnin' dear friend
In wide clear letters this tale of my end.


By the magnificent Anne Sexton

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quicknessand
yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was—
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.