i remember once trying to bribe someone with my pocket contents and that night my pockets consisted of one poker chip, a small container of confetti, a widmer bottle cap that read "a prost to things left unsaid", and the 45th and 46th page of alice in wonderland.
that was a particularly special night.
i did have More in my pockets, but i wasn't willing to give that More up over a bribe. the More i always carry consists of a pack of cigarettes in one inside-pocket, and a thin moleskine with a ballpoint whiskyfest pen in the other inside-pocket. in my right and left pockets, i carry my right and left fingerless gloves. and in the pocket nearest to my lapel, i carry burt's bees chapstick and an audio recorder.
if you ever see me put my baby blue and god said poo moleskine in my inside-pocket you can be sure i'm headed somewhere i consider important.
depending on where i'm going things are added, but usually the basics are the same.
in fact, if you've ever wondered how i've managed to type out full conversations with strangers or bosses here on my blog, it's because i recorded the event. i started doing it back when i was nineteen and selling weed-- someone was too broke to buy a gram, but had a small audio recorder they were willing to trade. and when you're selling weed, you get a little paranoid; sometimes a proof-creator is nice to have.
i lost that one and bought another. i sold the second one when i wound up broke in 2008. and then bought another one when finances went back to normal.
i didn't start using my third recorder until andrew smith, of city sightseeing, told me he wanted to punch me in the face, kick me in the balls and fire me for being a twat on account of something i had written here. sentences like that tend to remind me i bought an audio recorder for a reason.
i lost that one in a recent outing with confused lesbians and bought my current recorder shortly after.
anyway, at 3:52am i was watching noise-- a dark comedy starring tim robbins-- and i was thinking about the nob hill inn. i was also thinking about being a super villain. i was thinking about a lot of things, which means i was enjoying the film. travis had recommended it and, inadvertently, gained 18 wishnack respect points as some people do when they recommend movies that i wind up enjoying.and now, when i'm upset, i won't need to watch falling down for the 990437503rd time. i have a nice new film about losing your shit in today's society.
so i was having my after-movie smoke. and i don't know why, but i left my apartment without my jacket-- without my utility belt of gadgets and garbage. but i had a cigarette and lighter in my hand, so it didn't seem to make a difference for my six-minute breath of fresh air.
except it always does. call it murphy's law, call it coincidence, call whatever you like. (remember when old people used to say that really lame joke, "call me whatever you want, just don't call me late for dinner!"? i hated that.)
i was outside for no longer than four drags, or two minutes before a man in his late forties drove by. he was wearing a blue dress shirt and driving a black lexus suv. i laughed at the fact he must've been going to work at 4am, or coming home from a really late night at work. or maybe just coming home from a strip club-- some people dress nicely for strip clubs so they won't feel as sleazy about being at one.
but before my laugh was over, he stopped by the corner's fire hydrant, and put on his hazard lights. i thought that was a bad choice. hazards don't prevent firefighters from breaking your car window to make room for their hose.
i imagined his car window breaking and it was easy because it happened a lot in noise.
i hate people who refer to them as "extra cigarettes" because i've yet to have a wonderful day when there are twenty-one smokes in my pack. and, even if there were, it still wouldn't be an extra unless i didn't plan to buy another pack when the first was complete.
but i was in a friendly mood, and he seemed to be in dire need of a cigarette. i'm not sure why i felt like helping this man-- i've said before that there are really only two types of people in the world of cigarettes: people who think you should quit and people who want to bum a smoke off of you. but he was very formally friendly and spoke with confidence. plus, i'd had an excellent day.
it is a habit of mine to leave cigarettes upstairs so i won't feel as bad about lying to the many people who ask for cigarettes each night.
"no, i do," i said, "but they're upstairs. i can grab you one if you don't mind waiting."
"oh, no," he said happily, "i don't mind waiting if you don't mind."
"not at all," i said, "i'll be right back."
as i climbed the apartment stairs, i cursed myself for not having brought my jacket. i wasn't cold-- i was perfectly content-- but my jacket had all of my supplies. if i had brought it, i would've had my audio recorder running and would've had the experience documented properly. i mean, how often does someone pull over in front of an apartment at 4am and ask for a cigarette? i wanted to ask him how his day was because it was probably worth talking about.
but it was more than just the fact i wanted to prove this had really happened. i'm currently animating a short film that revolves around smoke break conversations and that was the second time i missed a rare one.
the first one i missed was the homeless man telling me i would go to hell for not giving him a cigarette.
see, the mouth-abet was designed for the first segment of the smoke break short. and i can't afford to miss any more of these conversations.
when i was working on snapdragon, david told me he was jealous of the smokers' camaraderie. as a smoker i'd never expected to hear such a thing-- i don't consider it camaraderie as much as a group of people who feel so shunned by society that they have to bond with each other for survival purposes. but it got me thinking that non-smokers probably have no idea what sorts of interesting events happen during the six minutes it takes to smoke a cigarette.
or thirteen minutes for those of you who smoke american spirits.
i mean, i've bummed a cigarette to a firefighter.
i think something the more verbal of non-smokers fail to realize is how often a cigarette leads me to a conversation. by no means do i smoke to start conversation, but it becomes relevant. the type of passerby that mad-dawg me and cough a useless cough feel as though they've done the world a justice: they've let me know that my lifestyle does not match theirs and i am, therefore, RUDE for not thinking about them before myself.
what they're forgetting is that they are only one person reacting to my cigarette-- they're forgetting that as a smoker i hear a good fifteen reactions a day and can weigh how i feel about each very fairly because of the great number. it's sort of like a customer service representative has a better idea of what a jerk is than someone who doesn't deal with hundreds of people a day-- they have a greater frame of reference.
as a smoker, i hear a lot more than you can imagine. and the coughing bit just makes me want to smoke more because you've come at my choices in what you consider a fair angle and what i consider to be more rude and useless than my act of smoking-- especially since coughing weakens your esophagus and makes you more susceptible to my cancerous smoke.
but don't get me wrong, this animated short is meant to share some of the supposed smokers' camaraderie without sharing any of the supposed cancers. it's not meant to promote smoking or change anyone's mind-- just to share stories that non-smokers miss.
but i'm going to need to stop forgetting to bring my recorder if i plan to ever finish this. i'm going to need to smoke prepared.
p.s. - the title of this blog is a quote by louis pasteur, and is on my list of four quotes i believe in.
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