THE FATHER OF MUSTACHES

Years ago you could still buy both Gauloises and Gitanes, as well as many very fine Oriental leaf cigarettes made by English, European, Greek, Turkish, and Egyptian houses. You could also smoke indoors. Having once been thrown out of a fancy hotel-restaurant for puffing Sobranie straights (flat white tin, Yenidje leaf), I remember that. They would have let me stay and finish my meal if it had been Marlboros or Camels, but they thought I was huffing ganj or camel dung, and they weren't having it! No sir! We're a classy establishment!
No unwashed hippies allowed!

Relevant fact: I had shaved and showered three hours before. As I did everyday. And still do. And Oriental cigarettes (by which is meant Turkish and Balkan small-leaf tobacco smokes, non-filter) do NOT smell like Berkeleyite skunk.

And also by the way: Eggs benedict made with tofu is not exquisite. So I was kind of okay with being thrown out before the bill came. Pretentious damned dingbats.


I dreamed of Oriental cigarettes last night.


During my second cup of coffee this morning a friend on Facebook reminded me of the years I lived in North Beach as well as those cigarettes. And also lots of truly horrible wine.

The plan was that, in order to return to our 'shriner roots' (much like Laurel and Hardy, but with additional "traditions"), we'd wear fezzes, use cigarette holders, and speak tokpisin. As a result I have over a dozen ivory cigarette holders, there are still two or three people in North Beach who occasionally speak tokpisin, and I have as yet not found a decent fez.

Ceremonial greetings when in full mufti: Wanem rot i go long Mecca?
Response: Long dispela rot!
Question: Wanem rot?
Exclamatory: Hot dok!

Sadly I realize now that this would have been neo-Ottoman cultural appropriation, and would be severely frowned upon today. For which I sincerely apologize. Sincerely! Mmm, not.


Since the nineteen thirties or before finding a decent fez has been incredibly difficult, darn well impossible (I've looked), ivory cigarette holders have been banned and can't be used in public anymore because you'll probably be beaten to a bloody pulp by vegan whales wearing Greta Thunberg tee-shirts (size Xtra large), and neither French nor Oriental cigarettes are imported into the United States anymore because the paper that keeps on burning has been outlawed! Half a dozen elderly drunks set fire to their mattresses in the middle of the night and burned to death over a twenty year period or sumpin', which is a public heatlh crisis oh my word and we must do something about that good gracious. So action was taken, and the world is a better place, safer for the children and the dolphins and Greta Thunberg.
At least in the United States.

Kreteks instead? Who the hell wants to reek like bad Xmas ham?
That's for teenagers with skate boards.
We don't do that.

Little known fact: Whales despise cigarettes. They make their cardigans smell fusty. It was whales who organized the ban on cigarette paper that keeps on burning, because they hate America and American enterprise which invented it. Most whales are snobs and only smoke pre-transition Charatans filled with Sullivan & Powell's Gentlemans Mixture, James Fox's Bankers Mixture, or occasionally Dorisco.

Also, whales eat tofu.



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