Puffing away
Taki
INew York started smoking aged 13 at Lawrenceville school. Pall Mall's unfiltered, in a large red packet. It was illegal, but so was masturbation, which we were told by the wrestling coach was far worse. Six minutes of non-stop grappling was tough — I'm talking of Olympic-type wrestling, not the bullshit on TV — but running the 400 meters was worse, for smokers, that is. I don't remember the bum who got me on the habit, but I've been at it all of my life.
Mr Dawlings, the wrestling coach, would stick us in the sweat-room and keep us there until we lost half a stone in water. Dieting in order to wrestle a class below one's natural weight can't be very good for growing boys, but such were the joys of competition back then. 'Tomorrow we wrestle Princeton Freshmen, and you will need all your strength,' he would say to the team, but looking straight at me. In other words, don't go playing with yourself. 'Why are you looking at me, sir?' I would ask. 'Because you've been to the south of France,' he'd answer, and my team-mates would burst out laughing.
This was 1953, at Blair Academy, after Lawrenceville and Salisbury. Blair is the numero uno prep school in America in wrestling; they haven't lost a meet in years, and it was a powerhouse even back then. Oy vey, how my lungs suffered the last 30 seconds. But the 400 meters were worse. As a 15-year-old I got down to 53.1, but never managed anything faster than 52 seconds at 17. The fags did it every time, especially when you needed that last kick coming round the corner.
I guess it had a lot to do with role models. The great Mandikas, sixth at the 1936 Olympics in the 400-meter hurdles, and the man who dethroned my uncle as Greek. Balkan and European champion, used to put the ciggie out on the cinder track, and take his position. He died of TB, but I saw him immediately after the war doing just that. Everyone smoked back then, in fact all the Greeks still do, so what was I supposed to do when at Lawrenceville an older boy offered me a Pall Mall? Only sissies said no, and to my great regret I was no sissy. Now, at 66, it's too late to kick the habit. `Que sera, sera,' as Doris Day used to sing. Mind you, there's a prick called Bloomberg who's trying. Not content to have made cigarettes a luxury item accessi ble only to tax cheats, rock stars, dishonest CFOs and supermodels. Bloomie wants to ban smoking from its natural environment, bars and downtown dives, not to mention chic uptown joints frequented by ladies who lunch and whose hubbies are in or are about to go to jail. As my friend Jay McInerney wrote, 'New York itself is a nasty habit that some of us can't seem to break so why pick on smokers?
The problem, needless to say, is not civil liberties — I gave up on them a long time ago when free speech was abolished by the PC Nazis — it is financial. The Big Bagel has been reeling since 11 September, and just as things are starting to look better, although still in the midst of a recession. billionaire Bloomberg drives a spike through the heart of local restaurateurs and bar owners. Bloomie doesn't care, after all, they're the little people who employ poorer people than themselves, pay the outrageous city taxes and have no say when the big boys cut up the pie.
Bars and restaurants have been trying to accommodate smokers without flouting the 1995 law by roping off smokers as if they were lepers. The system works. But now Bloomberg — who I'm willing to bet my last euro will not run again, as he only did it in order to find women — is trying to please the PC elite, those killjoys who think the little people have no right to pollute with their fags, especially when our air is already filthy with fumes from private jets and lingering stretch limos outside their East Side pads.
Bloomberg is no different from that other scumbag, David Geffen — well, actually, I'm being unfair, there's no one as bad as Geffen — who, along with some of Hollywood's and the Democratic party's biggest contributors to liberal causes, have suddenly turned into conservative property-rights advocates — in Malibu, of all places. Imagine the outrage. A few young boys were being taught how to surf by a teacher, when one of them crossed the line onto Geffen's beach property. This sand is my sand, according to those rich, lefty pricks, and to hell with children when it comes to my privacy. The billionaire lefties are suing. Par for the course. Let's all light up and go to Malibu and take over the beach.
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