To-bacco or Not To-bacco

Just give me a sec to get over that title… I like it... haha.. ahhh

As a smoker, I can testify that we are on the out. As you might remember from my last blog I was whining about the conditions that have been applied to smokers but not to say… obese people.

Most people accept smokers. Not everyone does it but most people have for at least one phase in their lives. My parents smoked, for a little while, and I know that most people my age had parents who did at one stage or another. What we have to contend with now, as well as the constant graphic advertising and rules telling us when and where we can and can’t smoke, is a new breed of people who hold you in contempt and look down upon you merely because you choose to smoke a cigarette.

This is wrong if you ask me, but then again I’m a smoker. There are, however, simple rules that one can abide by. Unwritten rules even, and perhaps rules that make more sense than a lot of legislation. So here it is ladies and gents, Javid’s Brief Etiquette Guide for the Modern Smoker.

1. Children

This one should be relatively self explanatory and make sense to most of you, unless you live in Mt Druitt (and the sad thing is I live quite NEAR there). Children deserve the opportunity for clean air more than these adults who harp on about it. If you’re at a kids birthday party (preferably as a family member and not just some creepy lurker) or some similar function and you feel the urge for a cigarette, walk away. If some of the kids follow you, there’s not much you can do so the choice is on you to either put it out or go to lengths to make sure that the kiddies are as far away from it as possible.

The people I previously mentioned are often the type of people that will bring their children near you well after you’ve actually started the cigarette. Chances are that they’ll stop near you and look at you contemptuously. Here’s an idea for those people, if you want to make someone feel bad for having a smoke anywhere near your children, DON’T TAKE YOUR KIDS OVER TO THEM and THEN try to make them feel bad.

Basically, if you’re sharing an open-air environment with children, legally you’re under no obligations but really you should be exercising some duty of care. The air is there to share, but you don’t need to be smoking 2 feet away from children. If you honestly don’t care about it even a little, you’re obviously a self-absorbed, miserable little person.

If you’re near a pregnant lady, don’t spark up either. If you SEE a pregnant lady spark up, go over and slap her, it’s your moral obligation.

2. Eating

There are multiple circumstances to be considered here. If you’re out with friends just grabbing a bite at any random place, or even just eating in the park, certain respect should be observed. If you finish before your friends do that’s all good, and most smokers enjoy a nice post-meal cigarette. Spare some consideration for your friends however, and wait until they’ve finished their respective meals before you go filling the air and palate of everyone nearby with the delicious smell of rich tobacco.

Eating at a restaurant is another notion. While the same rule should still be observed for the people you’re eating with, expanding it to other diners in your vicinity is a bit of a middle-ground. Someone might be seated just after you’ve received your meal, right near you, and spark up a cigarette. While this is frightfully rude in my opinion it is, however, the price you pay for eating outside, in these areas that many restaurants and pubs are now required to provide. There’s not much point in giving off any condescending air given that, when your meal is done, you’re also going to have a cigarette, and chances are it will be when they receive their meal.

If you ask me it’s a bit of an improvisational field. If the people around you are nice enough to not smoke in the knowledge that you’ve just started eating, appreciate the gesture and return the courtesy. If you’re outside it’s not too hard to take a few steps somewhere else if needed. If the people around you don’t pay you this courtesy however you are under no obligation to move yourself.

If someone brings kids to a table in a smoking area, and then sparks up themselves, they are an idiot. With many fast food places and also the occasional restaurant the childrens play areas are quite often right next to the designated smoking area. It’s a stupid idea by design and an indicator that you should observe some kind of discretion.

3. In The Car

Whether it be in your own car or someone elses there are certain protocols that can once more be observed.

In your own car you can pretty much go by whatever rules you choose but while driving other people, in particular non-smokers, it’s always considerate to ask if they mind if you have a cigarette. Chances are they’ll say yes and if they say no there’s a decent chance you’ll do it anyway, but you still offered, and to some people this gesture can be enough in itself. If other people want to smoke in your car, even knowing you smoke, asking beforehand is considerate. I won’t let people smoke in my backseat, nor will I smoke if I’m sitting in anyone elses. With windows open, particularly in the back, ash is going to fly everywhere and the reaction is not always pleasant.

In another persons car you can’t take anything for granted. They could even be a smoker, but in a new car where they’re exercising a ‘non-smoking’ rule for the sake of the smell (although these rules generally don’t last long). If you are in another persons car who does not smoke, and there are other passengers that are non-smokers, think about the amount of people you’re disrespecting by smoking in an enclosed space before you ask the question. You can say what you want about the ventilation and whatnot supplied by a moving vehicle but its not about physics, it’s about consideration.

To bring it back to the point of children, Police are currently ‘experimenting’ (because they’re certainly not enforcing it) with a law that says people cannot smoke with children in the car. If YOU smoke with your child in the car you’re an idiot, and you’re also potentially breaking an ambiguous law. If you’re in the car with someone ELSES kid and you smoke and they let you, you really are deplorable.

4. Your Own Home

The last bastion of every smoker, the place where the laws cannot touch you, where you can do whatever the hell you want because it’s your place, right? True, to an extent…

Whether you rent or own, if you smoke INSIDE your own house I consider you, once again, an idiot. The smell of tobacco and cigarettes in general is a smell that is difficult to get rid of, as every teenager who has doused themselves in deodorant back in the day knows. I smoke pot from time to time and the smell of it is SO much easier to get rid of than that of a cigarette, contrary to belief. Tobacco smoke seeps into everything. Your clothes, your furniture, your walls, you’ll even end up with yellow stains everywhere and provide a pretty unhealthy environment for your already unhealthy lifestyle. If its minus 5 out and you want to go for a cigarette in the relative warmth of the bathroom with an exhaust fan on, this can, I suppose be conditionally acceptable but is certainly not something you should turn into a routine – and all smokers are very familiar with routine. If you smoke inside, and you have kids, you are once again an idiot. If you live with other people, particularly non-smokers, don’t smoke inside or even think you can just do it in your room, because that smell will travel.

So where does this leave you? Your front or backyard I suppose, or any verandah options that are available. Here is the perfect place for the smoker - an outdoor area on their own bit of land, free from the protests and rules of society. The only people who can stop you now are your neighbours through complaining. What will that achieve? Very little, it’s not illegal and you’re totally within your rights.

So there you have it. Feel free to discuss whether you think it’s worth being courteous to those that exonerate us because of our smoking habits. Feel free to discuss any ideas for places where a set of rules can come in place. I’m all about discussion.

I leave you with a bit of a note for those who have a problem with smokers. I could say don’t judge us but you already do. You don’t know us or why we do the things we do. I understand that there are smokers who are generally disrespectful to those who don’t smoke but it’s a two way street. If you want to be a pariah and take the moral high ground because you have kids and smoking is such a deplorable act you can fuck right off. Perhaps your problem shouldn’t be with me and my nicotine addiction but the government that regulates it and keeps it legal, despite the known effects of it all. Your contempt for us breeds within us contempt for you, and hence the struggle continues. If you have a problem with a smoker doing what they’re doing, a civil approach where you can justify your problem is often more helpful than death stares and insults. Most smokers are still reasonable people you know. I hope I’ve made it quite clear that I’m willing to be as considerate as possible, and that most smokers should, for all of you out there who don’t smoke. What I’m asking, and what might be the hard part, is for you to do the same.

The Slow-Moving Epidemic

If you’ve been reading my blog a while now or know me personally you’re more than likely aware of the fact that I work in a restaurant. You may or may not also know that I’m a cigarette smoker (which might be changing soon, or it might not, we’ll see) and an occasional user of recreational drugs. So when it comes to a hedonistic lifestyle I have, in some ways, been there. As much as anyone can be on the pay I earn – which isn’t much – anyway.

The reason I mention the smoking and drugs is because everyone has their vices – well, most people do anyway. There are alcoholics, gambling addicts, smokers, junkies, stoners, all sorts of people who are professionals at throwing their money away doing something they really enjoy without thought of the cost or consequences. The reason I mention the restaurant part is because there is another vice I know of, a vice that brings society down and yet we still allow it to develop and get worse while doing nothing to prevent it - Obesity.

Fat people do not disgust me, nor do I begrudge them anything. I am overweight (minimally) myself, and have close friends as well as family who also fall into the same category. These are not the people I’m talking about. Most of these people know the way they are and try not to exacerbate the situation. My weight fluctuates from time to time, but I’m not really getting any fatter. This year I’m actually on a fitness kick but that’s another story. The people I’m talking about are the ones you see who can barely walk underneath their own weight, whose legs are the width and thickness of two infants torsos on top of one another. Who have become so large and round they don’t even have fat-person tits because they’ve been assimilated into the spherical shapes their fat creates. THOSE people.

You might be thinking to yourself about now ‘Oh Javid, don’t pick on the fat people, (at which point I would correct you and say obese), they can’t help it, leave them alone’. First question – why should I leave them alone, are they going to chase me? No. Second – why can’t they help it? Do they just suddenly wake up one day and go ‘holy fuck where did this extra 80 kilos come from?’ Was someone force-feeding them for the duration of their entire lives? OK so I’m getting carried away but you get my drift. Slowly I make my way towards my point.

As a smoker, I have to put up with all kinds of campaigns against me for my lifestyle choice. I’ve been forced outside (which I’m fine with), I have to look at gross packaging (which I’m fine with), I have to pay nearly $20 a packet thanks to tax (which I’m NOT fuckin fine with) all because it affects my health. I can be looked at horribly by someone for sparking up a cigarette in a certain place, even though I abide strongly by the laws of smoking etiquette (that’s another blog for another time). Basically someone can make a hundred judgements against you simply because you’re a smoker. It’s the price you pay – but while I’m on this, if its so bad for my health, if its no good for me, or my kids, or anyone around me, or the earth – then why does the government still allow it to be sold? Because it’s an addictive substance that makes money, this is an undeniable fact. THEN they go and put the price up to an amount that would more than cover anyone who had to quit (the amount of which I assure you would have been minimal). They don’t want us to quit, they just want more of our addict money. Ban it and I will accept your decision. I dare you.

When I or anyone else in this country goes out for a drink, we are monitored. Anti-binge drinking ads are all over our TVs and laws are in place to regulate the service of alcohol. If you are drunk (which equates to ‘you’ve had too much’), you have to stop. If someone serves you a drink they and the venue can be fined a significant amount of money. The police breath test people to find out if they’re in excess of what is a legal blood alcohol level.

Now I work in a restaurant, as mentioned before. I have to obey the laws of RSA and comply with the standards and directives of the lawmakers, simply to make someone a drink. Even if someone hasn’t had a drink here yet they may be drunk, in which case they can’t be served. Some people handle their booze well, some don’t. It’s a contentious field of law that essentially relies on your own judgement, which is a bit shit. Someone might look completely wasted to you but still be under, because they’re an idiot. Someone might be twice the legal limit and sitting there comfortably, able to hold their booze well. If the officers were to come in and breath test the normal guy, you’re fucked. Go figure. It’s all contentious. Someone’s degree of drunkenness is merely a matter of opinion based on limited information (most of the time). Obesity is another story.

In the restaurant I work in we get our fair share of obese people coming in. It’s to be expected, if there’s food they’ll sniff it out. Our restaurant is primarily booths, with tables in two sections generally to accommodate bookings, the disabled, prams and what not, and yes, occasionally the obese. Some of these people won’t fit in a booth and quite often you won’t even know till you get over there, at which point you find a table ASAP and accommodate them and they conduct themselves appreciatively for quickly and nicely dealing with the issue of their size – some of these people are lovely like that and my hostility is not directed at them, though certain parts of this still are. Some obese people, however, will come into a restaurant, insult you for even THINKING of taking them to a booth and demand a table, treating you with hostility. Even on a Friday or Saturday night where the availability of free-standing tables is limited. They always know what they want and… well… it’s never a fucking salad is it? No. I have seen people break chairs, then demand a new one and an apology. Oh I’m sorry that our standard restaurant furniture can’t support your massive amount of weight you fat piece of… anyway. We have one guy that comes in and, I kid you not, when he sits in a chair his gut actually sits less than a foot off the floor. Many of these people are REGULAR customers and throughout my time there I’ve often wondered about it, and compared it with our smoking and alcohol legislation and standards. The following question came to mind;

I know there are laws in place to protect children from the advertising of junk food during their key television times but these companies, including the one I work for, all find their ways around it with bright colours, loud music and things that get kids attention nonetheless. I know that for a fact. Yet food, and in particular fast food and junk food, are still there on our TV screens. Many sports, such as the cricket, are sponsored by companies that are essentially peddling disgusting, unhealthy food under the guise of ‘our cricketers eat it so it can’t be bad’ – when the reality is our cricketers are taking a bite in an ad for the sake of Cricket Australia’s sponsorship deal and their own seasonal contracts.

Anyway, in regards to advertising – why are there no ads showing the ill effects of letting yourself become morbidly obese? Why isn’t there an ad where we all have to look at an obese person who hasn’t left their home in months, can’t fit in a car, gets taunted by people, can’t obtain and secure a regular job and sits at home depressed and eating all the time, with a Big Mac or something in the picture? I can guarantee you it would work about as well, if not BETTER than the smoking ads. Where’s the ad for the child who lost their parent to heart problems at a young age? Where’s the ad showing the remorse of the obese person as they sit there waiting to die? These are all the emotions that smokers are presented with and we have the same affliction. We both CHOOSE to get addicted and are then too WEAK to get out of the situation because of our dependence. So WHY DON’T FAT PEOPLE HAVE TO WATCH HARROWING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THEIR DISGUSTING HABITS YET I HAVE TO, EVERYWHERE, SIMPLY FOR SMOKING?

The other aspect of this question comes in comparison to alcohol legislation. When a drunk walks up to a bar and orders a drink, you must refuse them. To serve them is breaking the law. You may receive hostility, threats, physicality, emotion, but you have the law on your side, and you have to uphold it. Why then, when a morbidly obese person comes in to my restaurant, wanting to be seated in one of our potentially-breakable chairs because they can’t fit in a booth, must I seat and serve them? Shouldn’t the fact that they can’t fit in a booth be indicative enough?

Look at the reasoning behind service of alcohol. You’re harming the person physically, which may result in them harming others. You’re facilitating their addiction despite the fact it’s bad for their health. Ultimately, it is quite evident that they’ve had enough, and that’s when you step in. Why can I not do the same? Why can’t I have the law behind me saying that I have the right to refuse someone certain foods, when to keep feeding them IS bad for their health and they have, quite obviously, had enough? If someone is drunk you can offer them a glass of water. Why can I not offer a fat person a salad or offer to call them a maxicab?

If they want to go home and eat something they really shouldn’t, that’s their choice. I find it quite the double standard however that drinkers are subject to limits and regulations, and smokers are subjected to horrible, graphic advertising and social exoneration, and yet the obese get nothing except some shoddy laws aimed at keeping kids skinny long enough to get through adolescence without dying before bringing them into the whole machine again. I understand the smoking and drinking laws, for the most part they make sense and my point here is not to object to them, but to question why the obese, and those on their way, are allowed to continue down their merry path to an early grave and social exclusion without someone stepping in and saying something.

Big Day Observations

Today’s aim is to basically extend on my Big Day Out review with a few personal afterthoughts – if you haven’t read it you can by clicking right HERE (pics and videos are included as well.)

Last year was my intended final year of going to the BDO. My first one had been in 2001, specifically to see Rammstein and a decade later they had finally made it back and I started to question why I would ever need to go again. I was getting old (in my mind). Anyway this years first announcement comes out and while there was no one with the significance of Rammstein I still went ahead and bought a ticket anyway. It’s become an automatic routine, like smoking. This year though, while I had a great time, it was the first time I ever really questioned why I do this. Not in a bad way at all. I love music festivals and I hope to never stop attending them but the BDO is a big hit to the hip pocket every year. It’s typically worth it, don’t get me wrong. Anyway I’m rambling so let me get back on track - here’s a few facts and thoughts that would have made my review seem too personal.

1. A Bra is not a top – put a fucking shirt on.

Now many people reading this have probably already heard me say it on social media. It garnered a certain amount of support but also I think confused people. People think ‘but Javid, you’re an aficionado of all things sexy, surely you love seeing the jubblies out!’ This is my reply – if you want to go for that look, wear a bikini top, as many girls did. Sure I still don’t really go for that look either but at least it looks practical. A girl that’s at a festival in a bra is merely pointing out the fact that she’s NOT CREATIVE and also, more often than not, a SKANK. There is no back up shirt for most of these people. Maybe in the car but who sees you then, right? You’ve already got short shots on that might as well not be there – why aren’t you naked? Far out it’s just unbelievable – and most of these girls are teenagers! As you can see this is one of the things that led to me feeling old. I won’t go into further graphic detail about the thoughts that made me feel old… not yet, anyway.

2. Drugs

This is another thing that made me feel old, but in an entirely different reason and not a bad or a horny one. Ever since my second Big Day Out I’ve been attending on one form of quite possibly illegal substance at the time, from speed to pills to acid. They all make for interesting days and absolutely horrible weeks after as you enjoy the horrible effects of the comedown. Both years with Rammstein (3 BDO’s in total) I went without, but Rammstein were a drug enough for me. This year, really, without the Germans, was my first BDO without any form of illicit substance and I’ll tell you what, I remember why I did them in many ways. If you get there early, it is a LONG day. If you walk between 14 different acts over the course of the day like I did, you’re buggered. If you forget to get cash out and eat very little throughout the course of the day, except for a diet of cigarettes and water like I did, you’re REALLY buggered and you’ve got a headache by the end of it all. This made me feel old, but also angry at myself for the things I forgot to bring. I can tell you now when you are taking drugs to a festival you never forget to bring anything, because everything is so meticulously planned as you freak out about concealment and sniffer dogs.

The other funny thing about drugs that I witnessed was the amount of kids who were obviously doing things for the first – at absolute most, the second – time. They were munted and loving it and looking spaced and I looked at them smiling, knowing exactly what they were going through. I had been there and come out the other side while these guys were just entering the tunnel of recreational Class A use. It made me remember back to the times where I would be just like them, and it then made me remember how fucking LONG ago that was. I don’t do that anymore, the pills, the speed. I’ll still occasionally take a tab if the opportunity presents itself but it doesn’t often. I’m not talking about pot here, that’s a completely different topic for another day. Seeing these kids off chops and the nostalgia it created were good in a way that once again drills home how old I feel nowadays. Hell, watching them freaking out before you go through the gates you can tell who’s carrying. It’s surprising the cops don’t. Obviously not enough of them got on drugs at festivals in their youth.

3. The Target Demographic

The announcement of Kanye West as headliner for the festival, only months after he’d played at Splendour, was an interesting choice. I’ve written about it somewhere else previously but many of the other acts that followed, and that played throughout the day were targeted at the multitude of kids that are now becoming festival goers. The clearest picture of this was presented to me in the evening at the time that both Foster the People and Soundgarden kicked off. My goal was to catch the first 25 minutes or so of Foster the People and then catch the last 40 minutes of Soundgarden. Waiting with my friend Pauly for the former to start, the crowd was immense. It was relatively crowded from Architecture in Helsinki beforehand but we slowly became more and more surrounded by a dense wall of people. By the time the band took the stage the crowd went back further than you could see.

After the first three songs and helped by the fact that kids kept getting up on each others shoulders near the front, completely blocking the view, I went to Soundgarden. I rationalized this by thinking that Foster the People will be back many times, Soundgarden probably won’t. I stumbled backwards through the masses for what felt like forever and when I got to the main arena I was confused. The crowd, compared to Foster the People, was miniscule. The people in seats around the arena were significant but I won’t count them for either Kanye or Soundgarden. They played a great set featuring all the classics (except Spoonman) and by the time they’d finished the arena was packed. I wish this could have been attributed to Soundgarden but we all know it was primarily the kids who had come from the end of Foster the People into the main arena to see Kanye. This makes me wonder a few things. Were people just not that keen for Soundgarden? Or is it that the majority of people who would come to see Soundgarden wouldn’t attend because of Kanye and the type of people he would bring? Either way it was interesting to see that those who had come out in droves were the kids. The older people are becoming more disillusioned and obviously not compelled to fork out the money for one or two bands. But at the same time if this happens the announcement of bands will change even more no doubt and the next thing you know we’ll have another Parklife.

It’s a bit of a situation that confuses me and I think that’s conveyed in my writing. Part of me wants to keep going, to fight to keep good bands on the bill and stop it becoming another rave full of chicks in bras and dickheads. Part of me thinks that maybe its time to start thinking about another festival. The crowd that I once, and still (for the most part) DO loathe are now becoming the next generation of festival attendees, and I’m getting old. What happens next? I’m not sure, but thanks for coming along. I’ll see you at another festival sometime in the future I’m sure, but I may need you to score me some drugs.