Perhaps I am odd (my, but I am setting myself up now) perhaps I am odd but I really do love shaving. At one time I enjoyed having a beard and the beard I had was a fine one. Sadly, though, I had to sacrifice my fine facial shrub to my love of dragging a razor over my sober, soaped-up countenance. I attempted to reach some sort of compromise with my persistent stubble. It obviously really wanted to be there. I attempted goatees, chin curtains; for the longest time I sported a moustache given that I could shave nearly all my visage while still respecting my facial hair’s right to exist. It was not to be. After a time it too was subjected to hot lather and fell before the razor’s keen edge and my satisfaction was marked. With the shaving of each and every part of the face, one is presented with different challenges, joys, and sensations. A mere application of suds and repeated dragging of the razor will never truly invoke the pleasure to be had from this most venerable of masculine undertakings. There have been men of my acquaintance who have told me how they simply shave in the shower as a mere afterthought. I can remember a chap, though such a person is barely worthy of being called a chap, who proudly proclaimed to me that he was ambidextrous, that he shaved in the shower with a disposable razor in each hand. He was obsessed with efficiency, he said. I resolved from then on that I was obsessed with inefficiency and sought his company no more.
I can have a grand time of shaving in the morning equipped with a mere plastic razor and an aerosol can of shaving foam. I have had to make do with as much so many times that it is better that I learned to take it in stride. As I advance in the world, however, I have seen no reason not to treat myself to what the glorious world of hair removal has to offer. I have now a mug, a badger’s hair brush, round cakes of scented soap, and dark amber aftershave of a spicy, sweet fragrance in tall, narrow-necked Victorian style bottles.
Allow me to here sorrowfully confess that I do not have a straight razor. Many would assume that I do, and I feel like something of a humbug that such is not the case. I have been in the midst of casual conversations, more than one, in which I do not recall shaving being before mentioned only to have people say, “I bet you shave with one of those old-fashioned folding razors with the leather strap.” I quickly change the subject. I have no wish to disappoint. Yes, three inches on keen Sheffield steel being gracefully drug over jugular is indeed an arresting possibility, but even I will knick myself once in a while and I would rather that be the height of my blood loss in a day. I’ll have my young fogey membership revoked now and they’ll ask me to turn over all of my tweed jackets and Trollope novels.
I once liked to think that I could trust the services of a professional. As a birthday present some years back, my wife made an appointment for me at a full service barber shoppe with the understanding that I would be given the works. After my haircut I enquired into a straight razor shave. There were multiple black and white photographs on the walls of portly men having their soapy faces seen to by smart looking barbers wielding gleaming blades. The young lady-barber who had been seeing to me took a step back. She had never done such a thing, never been asked for such a thing before. They had covered it in beauty school, made everybody shave a balloon with a straight razor, sure, but she was under the impression that it was all some sort of antiquated hazing ritual. She acted as though I was being unreasonable. By then I was resolved, however. It was my birthday and I was going to make this nervous woman give me a goddamn shave and I didn’t want anymore of her lip. Before I had to resort to mockery and name calling, she conceded.
She first draped a hot towel over my face. I thought for a time that she would leave it covering my eyes while she lathered me up and faked the rest, but no. After dispensing a pile of foam from a hot lather machine into her palm she began to daub it over my cheeks and neck, all the while with a look of pleading in her eyes. From a drawer she took the straight edge, that tool that she had always seen as nothing more that a thing used to clean up a man’s neckline after he had had a good, Christian haircut.
“Don’t worry,” I tried to reassure her, “I’m not going to pop.” I settled back and closed my eyes. She began to draw the blade lightly over my cheek. I detected nary a quiver. Then I realized that all conversation in the barber shoppe had ceased. Even the scissors of the barber working on the customer in the chair next to mine had fallen silent. Looking around, I saw now that all eyes in the establishment were on me and none of them seemed approving. I was being confronted with the same looks of shock and confusion bordering on the violent such as I had not seen since I took my children to story time at the public library wearing a three piece suit and a paisley bow tie. Such, such are the perils of living in a ski resort town populated by so many California expatriates. Steeling myself against anymore steely looks, I settled back once more in my chair intent on not rising until the last bit of lather was scraped from my face.
Lord, but it was the worst shave ever. Wanting to be gracious, I gave the woman a large tip as I left. To be fair, she had splashed bay rum on my cheeks and neck when she had finished. Outside on the sidewalk I ran my hand along my jaw. Tracts of stiff stubble still bristled out in various places; bumps of razor burn were beginning to pimple out at sensitive areas. I cursed that woman, suspecting that she was probably a snow boarder on weekends or that she would probably not have known the slightest thing about the history of the Royal College of Barber-Surgeons. I stomped off to spend the rest of the afternoon browsing through antique stores.
Just as with tea brewing and tobacco blending, this experience taught me that if I am to get anything out of life in this blithering age and blighted place, I must do so on my own initiative. As such, I have gotten to the point where I can shave my face as smooth as a marble statue and become moody self-doubting should I fail at it. It is hard to imagine my joy a few weeks ago at having come across instruction in a barber’s manual from the early nineteenth century on how to work up a rich, buttery white lather that causes the razor to positively swim along the contours of the face. Such pleasures, though, when so fervently pursued can become inhibiting. It is interesting how anything taken to the point of art and artifice can lead one into situations where one ends up feeling awkward, silly, and even vulnerable.
When I was attending college in Washington state I shared a large dorm house with two other guys. One of them was an art student with aspirations toward being a photographer. As an impromptu project the second day after we had all moved in and unpacked our gear he was going around the dorm snapping pictures of things that caught his interest. We heard him laughing in the bathroom and he called us both in. “It’s like the perfect representation of culture clash,” he said, pointing to the bathroom counter. The two of them used electric shavers, both of which sat on either side of my mug, brush, and turn of the century Gillette safety razor. This kind of razor requires disposable double-edge blades that I had always been able to buy from a friendly drug store in my hometown. The drug stores of Olympia were apparently not as friendly and I found myself without any blades in a matter of weeks. Readying myself for classes one morning, I bemoaned my plight to one of my roommates, not the one who had taken the pictures. He graciously offered to let me use his electric shaver. It was simple, he told me. Just turn it on and move it around the parts you want to shave. Had he not bought so much beer I would have thought him a truly harsh, uncaring sort. I switched the device on and began to work it along my jaw. The vibrations of the motor sounded along my teeth, setting them on edge.
My grandfather, the man who raised me, worked for the state building highways for forty years. He rose in the morning before sunset. Shaving seemed to be the last thing he did before leaving, an afterthought, really. He had no time for the rituals of masculinity I would later come to affect and used a battery powered electric shaver. I would wake up shortly after he did and eat breakfast with him in my pajamas. When he went into the bathroom to shave I would stand dutifully next to him, gazing up at his crinkled, brown face. Before he would turn it off I would always say “Shave me, Grandpa,” and he would turn the razor around and run the vibrating butt end over my cheek. He would tousle my hair or pat me on the back then walk out the door to his truck. Grandpa contracted cancer while I was still young. He hated to quit working and still rose at the same hour every morning with me. His skin had gone from brown and took on something of a translucent pallor. His hands shook more and more over the years. One morning I was standing with him in front of the medicine cabinet. He switched on his electric shaver, but could not hold it steady, his hand tremoring severely every time he brought it to his face. He wouldn’t look down at me, wouldn’t even look at himself in the mirror. A trickle of blood fell from his nose and onto his hand. He swore and walked past me out of the bathroom, into his bedroom and shut the door. When he died straggling, sickly white hairs had sprouted out all along his jaw.
When I think of my grandfather, I often develop a warm feeling at the base of my stomach and a tightness at the back of my throat. I think of it as a good feeling, an effect of pure, unguarded sentimentality. I had it then as I stood in the bathroom of my college dorm using my roommate’s electric shaver. It never occurred to me before then how akin this feeling was to nausea. The warmth in my stomach became an ache and the hand holding the shaver began to tremble. I switched the thing off and decided that it was time to grow my first beard.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Pleased to meet you.
I am six feet one inch tall, 140 pounds. Being abnormally thin but not at all slight of build gives me something of a bony, awkward appearance, rather, I sometimes think, like an old, dead, mossy tree. I have exceedingly curly, sand-blonde hair which is most often frizzed and shaggy due to infrequent care or cutting. My face, overall, has often reminded me of a friendly, inquisitive dog of the short-nosed variety, like a Boxer or Boston terrier due to my small, somewhat upturned nose and heavy jaw. I have deep set, blue-green eyes, a heavy brow ridge, and a pair of dark, bushy eyebrows that are my favorite physical feature. My arms and hands are long and bony, my legs are exceedingly strong, my feet are huge and white. I have only a few stray hairs on my chest, but my arms and legs are well covered with thick tracts of reddish brown.
I have smoked a pipe every day of my life since I was sixteen. If I am able, I will always have a briar or cob pipe clenched in the far side of my jaw, speaking or breathing between puffs. The tips of both of my index fingers are cracked and grey from tamping tobacco and usually black under the nails. I always smell like tobacco, though I don’t notice it. By the end of the day I often have ash and soot around my nose and mouth. I don’t notice this either. I always carry at least two pipes on me, as well as two boxes of matches, pipe cleaners, and two or more tins of tobacco.
My clothes are all worn and rumpled and do not fit me very well. All of my trousers are olive-green corduroy and extremely baggy. I cannot find a pair of pants in my size, but do not like belts and so I am always wearing suspenders. I have several pairs and, I will admit, I do try to wear a color that I think matches what else I am wearing. I have tee shirts only as undergarments or to sleep in. I leave my shirt collar open during the summer and button all the way up starting around October. I almost always wear tattered green sweaters and tweed jackets. None of my jackets have elbow patches. I wear my oldest jackets the most and do not remember to put on a newer, fresher one even when going to important meetings or attending church. I like, but seldom wear, neckties. My wife thinks that I should wear argyle sox and so now I do. I have brown leather boots which are rather expensive on account of the size of my feet. I try to buy shoes as little as possible, but attempt to disguise their beaten up, worn down appearance with frequent polishing.
I like cold, grey days, log fires, long, meandering walks, and stacks of books. I drink excessive amounts of strong, black tea all the year round. My favorite tobaccos are heavy, thick cut blends that taste and smell like wood smoke. I enjoy eating boiled vegetables and unseasoned meat. I like pie better than cake, my preferred variety being wild berry. I like beer, specifically ale, and try to tell myself that I can drink more of it than I can or should. I enjoy picking my nose, but hope that I manage to avoid it when people are watching.
I have more books than I do any thing else. One month out of the year or so I will resolve to get them all shelved and in order, though this does not remain en force for very long. They are in stacks and piles in every room of my house and I am proud to say that I can usually know where any one is at the time. I am not what I would consider a diligent or disciplined reader as I am usually reading three or more books at any one time often not finishing any one at a stretch. Sometimes when I have to get up early and am too groggy to read, I will stare at them on the shelf or on the table to ease myself into the day. My favorite authors are those of Victorian England or of Classical Antiquity. I have instant and unreasonable respect for writers who employ flowery prose, long sentences, or allusions to Greek and Roman mythology.
I have a strange attraction to fat women. I avoid their company because I will become distracted and fixated by them. There is also the fact that they very often have unpleasant or abrasive personalities. They nevertheless haunt my dreams and my mind often wanders to thoughts of them eating excessive amounts of food or breaking chairs. I have never publicly admitted this.
The first thing that people always seem to notice about me, aside from the fact that I am unusually thin, is my deep, booming voice, which, I am told, is in the Basso profondo range. It can sound alternatively warm and comforting or dramatic and bombastic and has secured me a good deal of work on the stage or on the radio, though I find that I really do dislike performing. I do find great joy in reading Shakespeare or the Bible aloud to myself. I have noticed when I am up late with friends that my voice will gradually change to the point where I sound more raspy than anything else, like any working-class American male who is a heavy smoker.
I am strong, for my size, and have dug ditches and lifted heavy loads for a living more than once in my life. I abhor physical labor and mistrust people who define themselves by it all the same. I have shoveled garbage for eight hours a day, stacked crates, walked twenty miles to a hardware distributor and am ashamed to admit or recollect it.
I am extremely fond of religion and consider myself a Christian. I am uncomfortable with being sentimental or preachy about it and I sometimes wonder if this makes me bad. By creed I am an Anglican. This means that I spend every Sunday and major feast day in the company of old people. I very much wish that I could simply say that I am a member of the Church of England, as that is all that I have ever wanted. Most people would see me as being somewhere between a traditionalist Catholic and an extremely formal Lutheran. When I am bored, I will occupy my mind with liturgical minutiae and obscure events from English church history.
My one greatest flaw, the one from which all of my other flaws derive, is that I do not sleep enough. I have avoided sleep for as long as I can remember. My excuses for this change. It is truly a shame. My fondest memories have been in dreams.
I have smoked a pipe every day of my life since I was sixteen. If I am able, I will always have a briar or cob pipe clenched in the far side of my jaw, speaking or breathing between puffs. The tips of both of my index fingers are cracked and grey from tamping tobacco and usually black under the nails. I always smell like tobacco, though I don’t notice it. By the end of the day I often have ash and soot around my nose and mouth. I don’t notice this either. I always carry at least two pipes on me, as well as two boxes of matches, pipe cleaners, and two or more tins of tobacco.
My clothes are all worn and rumpled and do not fit me very well. All of my trousers are olive-green corduroy and extremely baggy. I cannot find a pair of pants in my size, but do not like belts and so I am always wearing suspenders. I have several pairs and, I will admit, I do try to wear a color that I think matches what else I am wearing. I have tee shirts only as undergarments or to sleep in. I leave my shirt collar open during the summer and button all the way up starting around October. I almost always wear tattered green sweaters and tweed jackets. None of my jackets have elbow patches. I wear my oldest jackets the most and do not remember to put on a newer, fresher one even when going to important meetings or attending church. I like, but seldom wear, neckties. My wife thinks that I should wear argyle sox and so now I do. I have brown leather boots which are rather expensive on account of the size of my feet. I try to buy shoes as little as possible, but attempt to disguise their beaten up, worn down appearance with frequent polishing.
I like cold, grey days, log fires, long, meandering walks, and stacks of books. I drink excessive amounts of strong, black tea all the year round. My favorite tobaccos are heavy, thick cut blends that taste and smell like wood smoke. I enjoy eating boiled vegetables and unseasoned meat. I like pie better than cake, my preferred variety being wild berry. I like beer, specifically ale, and try to tell myself that I can drink more of it than I can or should. I enjoy picking my nose, but hope that I manage to avoid it when people are watching.
I have more books than I do any thing else. One month out of the year or so I will resolve to get them all shelved and in order, though this does not remain en force for very long. They are in stacks and piles in every room of my house and I am proud to say that I can usually know where any one is at the time. I am not what I would consider a diligent or disciplined reader as I am usually reading three or more books at any one time often not finishing any one at a stretch. Sometimes when I have to get up early and am too groggy to read, I will stare at them on the shelf or on the table to ease myself into the day. My favorite authors are those of Victorian England or of Classical Antiquity. I have instant and unreasonable respect for writers who employ flowery prose, long sentences, or allusions to Greek and Roman mythology.
I have a strange attraction to fat women. I avoid their company because I will become distracted and fixated by them. There is also the fact that they very often have unpleasant or abrasive personalities. They nevertheless haunt my dreams and my mind often wanders to thoughts of them eating excessive amounts of food or breaking chairs. I have never publicly admitted this.
The first thing that people always seem to notice about me, aside from the fact that I am unusually thin, is my deep, booming voice, which, I am told, is in the Basso profondo range. It can sound alternatively warm and comforting or dramatic and bombastic and has secured me a good deal of work on the stage or on the radio, though I find that I really do dislike performing. I do find great joy in reading Shakespeare or the Bible aloud to myself. I have noticed when I am up late with friends that my voice will gradually change to the point where I sound more raspy than anything else, like any working-class American male who is a heavy smoker.
I am strong, for my size, and have dug ditches and lifted heavy loads for a living more than once in my life. I abhor physical labor and mistrust people who define themselves by it all the same. I have shoveled garbage for eight hours a day, stacked crates, walked twenty miles to a hardware distributor and am ashamed to admit or recollect it.
I am extremely fond of religion and consider myself a Christian. I am uncomfortable with being sentimental or preachy about it and I sometimes wonder if this makes me bad. By creed I am an Anglican. This means that I spend every Sunday and major feast day in the company of old people. I very much wish that I could simply say that I am a member of the Church of England, as that is all that I have ever wanted. Most people would see me as being somewhere between a traditionalist Catholic and an extremely formal Lutheran. When I am bored, I will occupy my mind with liturgical minutiae and obscure events from English church history.
My one greatest flaw, the one from which all of my other flaws derive, is that I do not sleep enough. I have avoided sleep for as long as I can remember. My excuses for this change. It is truly a shame. My fondest memories have been in dreams.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I really should be ashamed of myself. Given that I often feel shame when it is not even necessary, you can imagine the agony that I am putting myself through now. Shortly after its inception, this log fell into disuse, in spite of all the publicity I attempted to generate for it and all the gasping, grasping masses of readers that I just know have ever yearned for a daily dose of me. I let it fall by the wayside and I have nobody to blame but myself. However I will now attempt to shift some of that blame onto the so-called Holiday Season.
I have always tried to maintain that I was largely unaffected by the “Holiday Season”, either in sentiment or in the pragmatic. I don’t even like the term Holiday Season. In the grand days of yesteryear when holidays were the province of the Church, as they should be, and not of advertising companies, there were all manner of holidays, feasts, fasts and observances no matter the time of year. At best, Christmas ought to be a mildly jubilant Day of Obligation with an intense period of fasting leading up to it. Truth be told, I found myself more excited by the third Sunday of Advent given that this day requires a color of vestments, a pinkish lavender, not seen any other time of the year. I was awed by an exquisite fiddleback chasuble that adorned the priest performing the mass that day; a muted pink it was, all covered over with gold brocade and with a hand painted medallion depicting the face of Our Lord in the centre of the back. Yes, it was glorious, but I digress. In spite of the conspicuously lackadaisical attitude that I adopt during throughout essentially the entire month of December, this year I found myself inexorably caught up in the whole mess. Having now two children as where I previously had none would appear to be the cause of it, so far as I can tell. I am proud to say that my two children seemed about as indifferent to the secular American holiday hoopla as I ever was. In their young lives, the closest thing they have ever experienced to holiday magic have been my yearly readings aloud of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. This, however, was not to remain the way of things. In spite of all of my efforts, I do have relatives; not a single one of the sharing in my beliefs or perspectives. The made it their mission in inundate my son and daughter with as much tinsel draped hullabaloo as they were able with an unending barrage of parties, Santa sitting-ons, and gift givings. Against the onslaught of so many tasteless Scandinavian-American customs, not even I could stand. I resolved to let my in-laws have my poor offspring, taking comfort in the fact that I had the rest of a new year to remold them back into my own stodgy image. Even then, I was not spared. I can’t merely expect my children to go to these things by themselves, though I did try to suggest that at first. No, I was the one to take them to all these damned functions. Worst of all when I was there, those jubilant troglodytes attempted to draw me into all of their carrying-on. As though my being there at all was not enough. The result of all of this ended up being that nearly all I managed to do over the Christmas Season was to celebrate, and not in the somber, scary, religious way that I prefer to celebrate things. I was left with little time for anything else, this log included. Nevertheless, that is all over now. My time is, mainly, my own again. Best of all, I have secured for myself a position in the reference section of a local library which seems to have, in the midst of answering all manner of wonderful book related questions, left me with more oppertunity to write than I have had in quite some time. My output thus far has been both surprising and gratifying and I see no reason why I should not redevote some of these energies to fulfilling the reading needs of my public. So let it be written. So let it be done.
I have always tried to maintain that I was largely unaffected by the “Holiday Season”, either in sentiment or in the pragmatic. I don’t even like the term Holiday Season. In the grand days of yesteryear when holidays were the province of the Church, as they should be, and not of advertising companies, there were all manner of holidays, feasts, fasts and observances no matter the time of year. At best, Christmas ought to be a mildly jubilant Day of Obligation with an intense period of fasting leading up to it. Truth be told, I found myself more excited by the third Sunday of Advent given that this day requires a color of vestments, a pinkish lavender, not seen any other time of the year. I was awed by an exquisite fiddleback chasuble that adorned the priest performing the mass that day; a muted pink it was, all covered over with gold brocade and with a hand painted medallion depicting the face of Our Lord in the centre of the back. Yes, it was glorious, but I digress. In spite of the conspicuously lackadaisical attitude that I adopt during throughout essentially the entire month of December, this year I found myself inexorably caught up in the whole mess. Having now two children as where I previously had none would appear to be the cause of it, so far as I can tell. I am proud to say that my two children seemed about as indifferent to the secular American holiday hoopla as I ever was. In their young lives, the closest thing they have ever experienced to holiday magic have been my yearly readings aloud of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. This, however, was not to remain the way of things. In spite of all of my efforts, I do have relatives; not a single one of the sharing in my beliefs or perspectives. The made it their mission in inundate my son and daughter with as much tinsel draped hullabaloo as they were able with an unending barrage of parties, Santa sitting-ons, and gift givings. Against the onslaught of so many tasteless Scandinavian-American customs, not even I could stand. I resolved to let my in-laws have my poor offspring, taking comfort in the fact that I had the rest of a new year to remold them back into my own stodgy image. Even then, I was not spared. I can’t merely expect my children to go to these things by themselves, though I did try to suggest that at first. No, I was the one to take them to all these damned functions. Worst of all when I was there, those jubilant troglodytes attempted to draw me into all of their carrying-on. As though my being there at all was not enough. The result of all of this ended up being that nearly all I managed to do over the Christmas Season was to celebrate, and not in the somber, scary, religious way that I prefer to celebrate things. I was left with little time for anything else, this log included. Nevertheless, that is all over now. My time is, mainly, my own again. Best of all, I have secured for myself a position in the reference section of a local library which seems to have, in the midst of answering all manner of wonderful book related questions, left me with more oppertunity to write than I have had in quite some time. My output thus far has been both surprising and gratifying and I see no reason why I should not redevote some of these energies to fulfilling the reading needs of my public. So let it be written. So let it be done.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Musings of a Pipe Smoking Man
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.
I wish that I had come up with that line. Rates of literacy being what they are in our time, chances are that I could claim it as my own and never be called on it. Needless to say, I smoke a good deal, which is to say all the time. Please, spare me your admonishments. I am aware of the risks involved and I don’t need anyone else trying to make me feel bad for exercising personal choice. If statistics bear out, I should feel extremely bad about it around age fifty-five or sixty and all you pink-lungers can feel vindicated.
Once upon a time the world was run by smokers in the forms of Churchill, Edward R. Murrow, and FDR. We called those people heroes then. We’d call them disgusting now and relegate them to the fringe of society in the designated smoking area several hundred yards away from where the rest of the fringes are allowed to be. In such times as these, smokers have been known to band together for support, swap stories about how many times they have tried to quit, or offer tips on which stores offer the best prices on favorite brands. It’s beautiful, really, and I’m proud to be a part of it. At least, I would be, but I happen to be of a subgroup that seems mistrusted and ridiculed but even the rest of the tobacco using world. I am a pipe smoker, you see. I have smoked a pipe since the age of sixteen and it wasn’t a hard choice to make. Many of the men in my family smoked pipes; many of my heroes smoked pipes; pipe tobacco tastes far better than any cigarette or cigar I have found and is always much cheaper. Sure, a pipe makes me seem even more professorial, more pompous, more pretentious than I already am, but like I always say, I never wanted to be a stereotype, I was just born this way.
Yes, I share in all the rejection and disparagement meted out to all smokers nowadays. Instead of being allowed to commiserate with my fellow puffers, however, I am most often met with stares and sniggers when I step outside to light up with them. Worst of all, though, are the comments I get, both in volume and content. Four and five times a day I’ll be treated to one witty observation or another. A common one is “Hey, my grandpa smoked a pipe.” This very often comes from attractive females my own age. It’s really good to know when you remind a woman of their grandpa, you’ll better understand your chances of getting her number then. By far the most common witticism to be directed at me is this little gem: Hey, man. Watcha’ smokin’ in that pipe? This will usually be followed by a hand gesture implying that I am actually smoking from a joint or bong or some such. This was not funny the first time that I heard it and it had become increasingly less so ever since. I didn’t start out hating pot smokers. I may choose to become inebriated and escape reality through other means, but if that’s their bag (pun intended) I’m fine with it. The fact, though, that they have so tainted the public image of pipe smoking of any kind really causes me to want to lash out in a very un-pipe-smokerlike fashion. It is only fair, given that I get this kind of flack from many pot smokers I encounter. Here in the Pacific Northwest I encounter a lot of them. It seems that they are far less beleaguered by persecution than any tobacco users. They practically toke up on street corners with impunity in some parts of Oregon. Perhaps it’s time that I redress the balance of ridicule and give them a taste of their own medicine. Hey, dude. What are ya’ smokin’ in that pipe. Is it Erinmore Flake? McClelland’s Arcadia Mixture? That is some dank shit. Hey, was your piece made by Dunhill or Charatan of London. Dude!
Somehow, I think the reference would be lost.
I wish that I had come up with that line. Rates of literacy being what they are in our time, chances are that I could claim it as my own and never be called on it. Needless to say, I smoke a good deal, which is to say all the time. Please, spare me your admonishments. I am aware of the risks involved and I don’t need anyone else trying to make me feel bad for exercising personal choice. If statistics bear out, I should feel extremely bad about it around age fifty-five or sixty and all you pink-lungers can feel vindicated.
Once upon a time the world was run by smokers in the forms of Churchill, Edward R. Murrow, and FDR. We called those people heroes then. We’d call them disgusting now and relegate them to the fringe of society in the designated smoking area several hundred yards away from where the rest of the fringes are allowed to be. In such times as these, smokers have been known to band together for support, swap stories about how many times they have tried to quit, or offer tips on which stores offer the best prices on favorite brands. It’s beautiful, really, and I’m proud to be a part of it. At least, I would be, but I happen to be of a subgroup that seems mistrusted and ridiculed but even the rest of the tobacco using world. I am a pipe smoker, you see. I have smoked a pipe since the age of sixteen and it wasn’t a hard choice to make. Many of the men in my family smoked pipes; many of my heroes smoked pipes; pipe tobacco tastes far better than any cigarette or cigar I have found and is always much cheaper. Sure, a pipe makes me seem even more professorial, more pompous, more pretentious than I already am, but like I always say, I never wanted to be a stereotype, I was just born this way.
Yes, I share in all the rejection and disparagement meted out to all smokers nowadays. Instead of being allowed to commiserate with my fellow puffers, however, I am most often met with stares and sniggers when I step outside to light up with them. Worst of all, though, are the comments I get, both in volume and content. Four and five times a day I’ll be treated to one witty observation or another. A common one is “Hey, my grandpa smoked a pipe.” This very often comes from attractive females my own age. It’s really good to know when you remind a woman of their grandpa, you’ll better understand your chances of getting her number then. By far the most common witticism to be directed at me is this little gem: Hey, man. Watcha’ smokin’ in that pipe? This will usually be followed by a hand gesture implying that I am actually smoking from a joint or bong or some such. This was not funny the first time that I heard it and it had become increasingly less so ever since. I didn’t start out hating pot smokers. I may choose to become inebriated and escape reality through other means, but if that’s their bag (pun intended) I’m fine with it. The fact, though, that they have so tainted the public image of pipe smoking of any kind really causes me to want to lash out in a very un-pipe-smokerlike fashion. It is only fair, given that I get this kind of flack from many pot smokers I encounter. Here in the Pacific Northwest I encounter a lot of them. It seems that they are far less beleaguered by persecution than any tobacco users. They practically toke up on street corners with impunity in some parts of Oregon. Perhaps it’s time that I redress the balance of ridicule and give them a taste of their own medicine. Hey, dude. What are ya’ smokin’ in that pipe. Is it Erinmore Flake? McClelland’s Arcadia Mixture? That is some dank shit. Hey, was your piece made by Dunhill or Charatan of London. Dude!
Somehow, I think the reference would be lost.
Well, isn't this just a fine kettle of fish?
Well, my first venture into the blogosphere and I’ve already made a seeming irreparable mistake. As you will note, my name is A. Morley. The URL for this page reads amorely.blogspot.com. I won’t go into how or why this was allowed to happen; I won’t even blame myself for it. All the same, it has happened and, short of junking this page and starting another, which I am really in no mood for, we’ll all just have to live with it.
So remember friends, for your daily dose of ranting, musings and purple prose from A. Morley visit http://amorely.blogspot.com/. Trust me, it’s good for you.
So remember friends, for your daily dose of ranting, musings and purple prose from A. Morley visit http://amorely.blogspot.com/. Trust me, it’s good for you.
Red Hats & Rancor
I will now take this opportunity to express my deep and seething disdain for an organization whose warped and sickening denizens have been tolerated for far too long. This cadre of rich, simpering, tasteless old biddies go under the name of the Red Hat Society and their offenses against common decency are many. However, there is only one transgression of theirs that really sticks in my craw and for which I shall evermore seek retribution. Their ridiculous getups, consisting of frocks of eye-burning purple and nauseating crimson haberdashery are but one of myriad examples of American offenses against better taste; their mission statement of avoiding any legitimate purpose to their meetings aside from shopping and making spectacles of themselves is but a bald-faced acknowledgement of the rampant epidemic of apathy in this society. However, their egregious treatment and association with tea, that most blessed of leaves, I shall not abide.
For whatever reason, this nationwide flock of cackling hens who have far too long escaped the chopping block and the stewpot have adopted tea and tearooms as one of the main features of their perverted regiment. Tea, my favorite beverage and reason for living, that soothing yet stimulating elixir that had been the solace of captains of the British Empire and the greatest philosophical minds of the Far East for generations, now bogarted by a mass of overfed, soft-headed geriatrics proud of their status as morons. On tearooms across the land, once temples of solace against the batteries of twenty-first century life where men in tweed and women in muted wool skirts could go and enjoy a pot of proper loose leaf along with a selection of English and Continental sweets and savories, the legions of chortling prunes descend, destroying all quietude with their ear-splitting banter. Why? Because having tea is, after all, the proper and ladylike thing to do. Members of the Red Hat Society, being possessed of none of the true qualities of a lady, are obliged to ape and parody the qualities and institutions of their betters in order to further their own revolting world view. They will make themselves the new cultural personification of tea, all the while ripping down and soiling all such expressions that came before.
My first encounter with this society of red hats on pin heads was more than enough to earn my everlasting enmity and hatred. I was spending an afternoon in a local tearoom over a pot of Keemun and a plate of buttered scones. I was the only customer and my solace and satisfaction seemed complete. Then from the street came the muffled, high-pitched din of uncivil female voices caterwauling about nothing. The door of the tearoom flew open and in issued a mass of vaguely human shaped figures all as red and purple as infected boils. They made for the largest table in the establishment and sat down, never one of them silent for a single moment. As they passed the menu among them, their chatter, never worthy of being called conversation, did not cease and I could not help but overhear them.
“Well then, isn’t this place cute? What do they have to eat? A Cornish paste-ee? What’s a paste-ee?
A pasty is, in point of fact, an English meat pie or turnover and a great favorite of mine. It is pronounced like “pasta”, except with a double “e” in place of the “a”, not in the same was as the adjective used to describe unhealthy pallor or those things more modest exotic dancers place over their areola, such as that obnoxious gaggle were saying it at that moment. I tried to remain silent, hoping that they would all soon stop talking or spontaneously combust, but they just kept on.
“Marge, what are you going to get? Do you think I should get the paste-ee? What the heck is a paste-ee? Why do they call it a paste-ee?”
“What’s with all of those jars of leaves over on the wall? Where are the teabags? Do you think they have any herb tea?”
I could bear this no longer. Though it was a delicate piece, I dropped my bone china cup and saucer with a clatter and stomped to their table.
“It is pronounced pasty, I roared. “Pasty, for the love of god, pasty. Oh, how I loath every one of you. I can only hope that the diseases common to your segment of the population claim you all in the most severe and disgusting way possible.”
I stormed out and have not returned to that tearoom since. Even then, my perturbence has not been alleviated. Obliged now to buy my loose leaf tea for consumption in my home from various mail order companies, I was one day perusing the latest catalogue of a fine tea merchant. After having marked off the few pounds which I planed to order, my eye was drawn to a new offering in the catalogue. My face went first white, then red. The description read:
The Red Hat Society approached us about producing a tea just for them, and we of course said “Yes!” Red Hats are sweeping the country!
Every one of these tokens of treachery were offered only as teabags and were then barely worthy of being called tea, the majority of them being flavored teas and flowery herbal infusions. I would have declared a jihad on all Red Hats from that moment on and perhaps seek to perpetrate the same sort of atrocities that were done to tea drinking British sympathizers during the American Revolution, tarring and feathering them in the streets and pouring scalding tea down their throats. Then again, that is the sort of thing that coffee drinkers do. And why, after all, should anymore tea be wasted on these people?
For whatever reason, this nationwide flock of cackling hens who have far too long escaped the chopping block and the stewpot have adopted tea and tearooms as one of the main features of their perverted regiment. Tea, my favorite beverage and reason for living, that soothing yet stimulating elixir that had been the solace of captains of the British Empire and the greatest philosophical minds of the Far East for generations, now bogarted by a mass of overfed, soft-headed geriatrics proud of their status as morons. On tearooms across the land, once temples of solace against the batteries of twenty-first century life where men in tweed and women in muted wool skirts could go and enjoy a pot of proper loose leaf along with a selection of English and Continental sweets and savories, the legions of chortling prunes descend, destroying all quietude with their ear-splitting banter. Why? Because having tea is, after all, the proper and ladylike thing to do. Members of the Red Hat Society, being possessed of none of the true qualities of a lady, are obliged to ape and parody the qualities and institutions of their betters in order to further their own revolting world view. They will make themselves the new cultural personification of tea, all the while ripping down and soiling all such expressions that came before.
My first encounter with this society of red hats on pin heads was more than enough to earn my everlasting enmity and hatred. I was spending an afternoon in a local tearoom over a pot of Keemun and a plate of buttered scones. I was the only customer and my solace and satisfaction seemed complete. Then from the street came the muffled, high-pitched din of uncivil female voices caterwauling about nothing. The door of the tearoom flew open and in issued a mass of vaguely human shaped figures all as red and purple as infected boils. They made for the largest table in the establishment and sat down, never one of them silent for a single moment. As they passed the menu among them, their chatter, never worthy of being called conversation, did not cease and I could not help but overhear them.
“Well then, isn’t this place cute? What do they have to eat? A Cornish paste-ee? What’s a paste-ee?
A pasty is, in point of fact, an English meat pie or turnover and a great favorite of mine. It is pronounced like “pasta”, except with a double “e” in place of the “a”, not in the same was as the adjective used to describe unhealthy pallor or those things more modest exotic dancers place over their areola, such as that obnoxious gaggle were saying it at that moment. I tried to remain silent, hoping that they would all soon stop talking or spontaneously combust, but they just kept on.
“Marge, what are you going to get? Do you think I should get the paste-ee? What the heck is a paste-ee? Why do they call it a paste-ee?”
“What’s with all of those jars of leaves over on the wall? Where are the teabags? Do you think they have any herb tea?”
I could bear this no longer. Though it was a delicate piece, I dropped my bone china cup and saucer with a clatter and stomped to their table.
“It is pronounced pasty, I roared. “Pasty, for the love of god, pasty. Oh, how I loath every one of you. I can only hope that the diseases common to your segment of the population claim you all in the most severe and disgusting way possible.”
I stormed out and have not returned to that tearoom since. Even then, my perturbence has not been alleviated. Obliged now to buy my loose leaf tea for consumption in my home from various mail order companies, I was one day perusing the latest catalogue of a fine tea merchant. After having marked off the few pounds which I planed to order, my eye was drawn to a new offering in the catalogue. My face went first white, then red. The description read:
The Red Hat Society approached us about producing a tea just for them, and we of course said “Yes!” Red Hats are sweeping the country!
Every one of these tokens of treachery were offered only as teabags and were then barely worthy of being called tea, the majority of them being flavored teas and flowery herbal infusions. I would have declared a jihad on all Red Hats from that moment on and perhaps seek to perpetrate the same sort of atrocities that were done to tea drinking British sympathizers during the American Revolution, tarring and feathering them in the streets and pouring scalding tea down their throats. Then again, that is the sort of thing that coffee drinkers do. And why, after all, should anymore tea be wasted on these people?
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