In case anyone is wondering, I haven’t had a cigarette in two months. I did have a dream today where I was about to smoke one, but never quite did it.
I feel like I’ve made it out of the woods now. The hard part will be avoiding that “just one” cigarette. Kiss of death.
Several weeks ago, my friend Angela re-introduced me to the wonders of French press coffee. She extols its virtue not only as the superior method of brewing, but also as a nearly spiritual discipline because, unlike everything else in our frenetic world, the French press takes time — several deliberate steps — to complete.
So I started buying fancier fresh-roasted coffee and making it slowly. Boiling water, grinding beans and waiting. First, waiting for the water to heat up. Then, waiting for it to steep with the coarse, chunky beans.
The result is two amazing cups of coffee. And I’m reminded why I love the stuff in the first place. No, I don’t get a lot of volume out of the process, but the two cups equal a pot of my regular stuff.
And while we at The Institute are an impatient lot (because our very mission seeks faster and more comprehensive delivery of caffeine to the central nervous system), it’s clear that Angela’s preferred method produces most excellent coffee.
Last night was the annual meeting of the University of Iowa Mustache Club, a conference convened at midnight at the local Perkins. This illustrious group exists so that members may “find strength in the facial hair of their comrades” and advocate for the mustache and its survival in these scruffy times.
Although our keynote speaker, Mr. Iowa Law herself, D’Arcy, sounded the alarm about a grim future without upper lip facial hair, the club resolved to prevent that dystopian nightmare and instead bring an veritable Pax Mustacha to our land.
Below is video of her speech, followed by a transcript of the same.
Transcript:
I’m so sad to say, the future is bleak. When one googles “the future of the mustache,” one gets no returns. How is that possible?
So I dug deep into my vast, vast repertoire of cultural knowledge and the only mustache of the future I could come up with was Cosmo Cogsworth,¹ the dastardly boss of the Jetsons.
And I thought, oh wait, oh wait, Lando Calrissian! Lando Calrissian can protect us in the Skyworld² – in the opposite way he did for his friends. Then I thought, Star Wars takes place a long, long time ago.
I’m not one of these people that believes in predetermination. I believe that we can change the future; That this small group of determined people can come together and I ask each of you to do what you can to change that future so that in 50 years, when another student is sitting in cyber-employment law, I want them to be able to search “the future of the mustache” and get 3 million hits so they no longer have to play Treasure Madness for an hour.
So I send you out into this dark, cold world with only the light of our mustaches.
¹ Although our esteemed speaker refers to “Cogsworth,” it is likely a mistaken reference to Cosmo G. Spacely, owner of Spacely Sprockets and George Jetson’s tyrannical boss – a man whose thundering bellows of “JET-SON!” were made that much more terrifying by the quivering of his lampshade-style mustache.
Cogswell, on the other hand, is owner of Spacely’s chief competitor, Cogswell Cogs, and as this photo reveals, is a clean-shaven, hairless chap (right).
This clarification in no way impugns the majesty and raw power of Ms. D’Arcy’s speech, but merely attempts to credit the proper mustache enthusiast of the future.
² Or, Cloud City.
Over the last year or two, I’ve become a big fan of Raymond Chandler. He’s the master of pulp detective novels and his first novel, The Big Sleep, was turned into arguably one of the best film noir detective movies. It also starred the best film noir couple of all time
– Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
But anyway, Chandler’s characters are all hard-boiled police detectives, private eyes, hotel dicks, you name it, occupying the seamy underworld of post-war Los Angeles, a city exploding in size and teaming with graft and corruption. The heroes — noble joes, all — are constantly being shot at and cracked over the head with all manner of objects, mostly whiskey bottles, gun barrels and my favorite, the sap.
Chandler’s world is populated by thugs and chiselers and the hero is quickly implicated in the sordid tale — for instance, awaking next to a dead body seems to be a common problem for sapped private detectives. Thus his job becomes extricating himself from the crime(s) while protecting his client and avoiding indictment and/or death by gunfire.
Chandler’s stories are only possible in the world he lived in – one where a Hollywood starlet would shell out thousands of dollars in blackmail money to keep her adulterous affair out of the newspapers. Keeping unseemly topics under raps is the chief concern of most of Chandler’s detectives and their clients. Even the police and state’s attorney are willing to cooperate with cover-ups to avoid scandal. It’s a world where shame exerts a powerful reign.
But that world is gone. Shame? When was the last time entertainment folk worried about their reputations being damaged by their dalliances, drinking habits or naked photos? Sex tapes are now the quick way to reach a certain low level of celebrity (see Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, et al.)
The apparent blackmail attempt against David Letterman is a good example. Here the chiseler demanded money or he’d reveal Letterman’s affair(s) with staffers. So what does Letterman do? Go on his show and announce the entire thing to his audience of millions. Kind of takes the sting out of any blackmail operation…
I wonder whether either world has much moral authority over the other. I doubt it. Still, the differences are striking.
I wish I was as good at life as I am at growing a mustache.
Because I’m pretty good at growing a mustache.
Once a day I would examine its reflection for a few minutes and tend to it, making sure its edges stayed within boundaries. The rest of the time I would just wait and everything would flourish.
UPDATE: I haven’t had a cigarette since I posted this. That’s six weeks now.
Maybe something about that last post got to me. But I haven’t had a cigarette in a week. I’m tired of quitting and starting again, which I’ve been doing for the last six years now. This time it’s just cold turkey; no more stupid nicotine gum, which preserves the physical addiction.
Actually, what happened was I was staying at some friends’ house last weekend and I stepped outside in my pajamas to have a smoke. It was 9 a.m. and about 40 degrees. I was standing barefoot on the concrete walkway. My feet were freezing. I thought, this is insanity; I’m enduring discomfort just to quench this addiction. So, I decided to quit.
The problem with quitting is that the longer you get away from the last cigarette, the more nostalgic you become about the habit. You forget your scratchy throat, the persistent cough, the stench that sticks to your fingers. All you remember is the sweet first drag and the satisfying way the smoke pours out of your lips when you exhale.
Stupid addiction. I made sure to smoke the rest of my pack inside a friend’s apartment last Sunday, just so I would reek like it and be disgusted. So far, it’s working…
Whenever I hang out with my law school classmates – who are all six to 10 years younger than me – I notice that I’m the lonely guy out on the porch smoking a cigarette. Nobody joins me. If I were hanging out with my contemporaries, there would be a few other stragglers puffing and enjoying the solidarity of social outcasts.
There’s a marked difference among age groups. It occurred to me that part of the reason for this could be that most of my younger classmates came of age in the post-Big Tobacco settlement era, which began as I was graduating from high school. You see, I started smoking back in the days of Joe Camel and flagrant marketing to teenagers. But my younger counterparts grew up in the world of anti-smoking campaigns (funded by settlement money). They have an altogether different attitude about smoking.
Not that we didn’t know cigarettes were bad for you. Of course. But they were irresistibly cool. And we all know who wins out between cool and dangerous versus safe and square.
At least for me.
Since his arrival in first grade, my son has fallen into the tangled and spiny world of social interaction. It can be a bewildering place for a kid with Asperger’s Syndrome, but he made friends with his classmate (we’ll call him Rick) across the street and had him over to play, which is a major major breakthrough. Then, a week later Rick’s other friend (we’ll call him Mark) told Nicholas that Rick would have a birthday party and he wouldn’t invite Nicholas. This upset my son very much. Obviously, Mark has some jealousy issues and doesn’t want to share friends. He’s also a brat. A couple of weeks ago, Rick and Mark snubbed Nicholas when they left to play at the park together. Nicholas cried about it.
Fast forward to yesterday after school. Nicholas’ teacher and aide asked if they could speak to me a minute. <Groan> Yes, of course.
Teacher: Nicholas hit someone today. This isn’t a big deal, but we thought we should tell you about it.
Me: What happened?
Turns out Mark either hit or pulled the arm of a little girl in their class and Nicholas, disturbed by the bullying, socked him.
Teacher: It was hard enough that Mark cried.
Me (on the outside): Hmmm…
Me (on the inside): <Beaming>
Hence, my dilemma. I don’t want Nicholas smacking people whenever there’s trouble, but I’m proud of him for standing up for someone who’s weaker. And the truth is, smacking a bully is about the best way to get them in check. Instead, I had to tell him that punching people isn’t a good way to resolve the situation. Still, I can’t help but beam inside.
One thing’s for sure. We won’t have any more trouble from Mark.
Since I moved back to Iowa City, I’ve been without a job. I’ve tried to get work at some local law firms and at the two newspapers that cover the area – not much luck. So it looks like I’ll be delivering pizza or mopping floors or some other mindless job to make ends meet.
Or better yet, tomorrow I’m going down to the plasma lab to sign up to donate.
It’s the first time I’ve ever been unemployed in my life. I’ve been working since I was 14. I’ve always excelled at work, whether it was washing the CEO’s Cadillac or scrubbing saucepans or filing stories.
I’d like to believe that I’ve reached some level of self-actualization where I don’t need to define myself by what I do or by any extrinsic qualities or connections. But I haven’t (and I’m pretty sure it’s bullshit to define a point in space without mapping out connections to other points). So here I am, listless and bored, no job and three months to wait until I’m deluged with cryptic case law and long nights in the library and tyrannical professors and the thick fear that is law school. And when that comes, I’ll long for the easy days I’m enjoying now.
Of course, it’s the Great Depression for my generation, so maybe it behooves me to remain unemployed for a few months. Then, one day, when I’m cozy in government bonds and a paid off mortgage, I can tell my grandchildren about the ancient days when jobs were hard to come by and people had to give up their McMansions and let their bills slide until the third notice.
I think it would be more adventuresome if I had to ride the rails to find migrant work in northern California.
An AP photog shoots disturbing images of a mortally wounded Marine in Afghanistan and, after much debate, decides to run it last week. It’s a graphic shot of a Marine moments after he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. What’s most disturbing is his graven face; he’s staring off in shock with his mouth open. He died later in surgery.
It’s a very troublesome shot and I understand why the Marine’s father didn’t want it published. I also understand why the AP did it anyway. But what I don’t understand is how some newspapers decided not to run the photo because it was in poor taste. From the NY Times article on the controversy:
“We thought the value of that image was to show the complexity, the sacrifice and the brutality of the war,” said John Daniszewski, [an Associated Press] senior managing editor.
Not every news organization agreed. In Maine, The Portland Press Herald said pointedly on its Web site, “We believe that running the photo would be in poor taste and have chosen not to run it.” The Washington Post’s Web version of Ms. Jacobson’s slide show on Friday omitted the critical picture, although it later appeared on The Post’s site, along with an article noting that Post editors had “decided not to publish the image in the newspaper.”
It’s understandable that the Marine’s hometown paper (The Press Herald) would refuse to run his dying image – the blowback from subscribers would be immense. But for all the others who took a pass, it’s yet another sign of newspapers failing to grasp their lost relevance in a world soaked with digital on-demand media. Once upon a time, newspapers were the gatekeepers of information. Editors decided what was news and what wasn’t, and since the newspaper was the only game in town. As such, they could afford to be arbiters of taste.
But the bottom line is, they aren’t any more. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection could find the photo with a quick Google search. The decision not to run the shot reveals that newspapers are no longer general interest news outlets providing information for the masses; instead they’re boutique information sources that cater to the tastes of a shrinking demographic. They can refuse to print something and know that they’re really not preventing anyone from seeing it. They’re just upholding a worn-out sense of authority that faded long ago.
