There’s a whole bunch of useless legislation going on in the world recently. It’s getting more and more irrelevant as I have no control over it yet most of it impacts me. They say voting regularly is your voice. All voting regularly (primaries too) has ever done for me is increase my Jury Duty assignments. So, I’m doubtful about my so called power to ignite change.
But speaking of ignite, I remember a time when the results of legislation were direct … like way. I’m thinking it was in Mike Bloomberg’s first term. For starters, I loved Mayor Bloomberg and voted for him when he ran as a Republican, then a Democrat and finally as an Independent. As a matter of fact, I have a like-new hardly been worn Michael Bloomberg for President sweatshirt. Sadly, by the time it arrived he’d already pulled out of the presidential race. Maybe it’s a collectable item or maybe it’s just bad timing.
(I also have a Kamala Harris for President, a Pete Buttigieg for President, an Elizabeth Warren for President, a Bernie Sanders for President, an Amy Klobuchar for President and a few others. Had they made an Anyone but Trump for President I could have saved alotta dough.)
But when Mayor Bloomberg pulled the plug on smoking inside bars and restaurants, the timing was spot on. When the clock struck midnight, city workers went inside every bar still open and confiscated every ashtray in site. People cried. People screamed. People puffed the hell outta what was left of their final indoors butt. And some people really lost their #2.
I was inside a bar on the Upper East Side that was usually tame. No blaring music or obnoxious people. I mean come on it’s the Upper East Side. Well one guy went completely berserk and tore down a wall of velvet curtains then set them on fire. Yes indeed. He screamed something about his constitutional rights being violated, though I don’t think the founding fathers established limits on smoking. Probably since they all did and many owned tobacco plantations.
Back at the loony bin, bar workers and city ashtray collectors tried to put the fire out by stomping on the curtains. Their efforts were futile as the velvet drapes fell upon carpeting that just perpetuated the fire’s life. And what did most patrons (including myself) do to help? We kept on smoking. I mean come on, everyone was up to their ass in fire, so what harm would a little more smoke do? It’s not like it overpowered any of the smoke courtesy of the towering inferno. I got two or maybe even three cigarettes in post-midnight ban. Bonus cigs.
Sorry Mayor Bloomberg. I guess the $45 obsolete sweatshirt was your revenge.
Some good did come out of it. The idea of not being able to smoke inside public places then turned to my co-op becoming a non-smoking building. It all happened so quickly that my anxiety levels were popping like corks. So I asked my psychiatrist for some help and she prescribed a certain Rx that a few years later was found to diminish one’s cravings to smoke. So a few weeks after the ban, I realized (with no effort or suffering on my part) that I stopped smoking. Didn’t even notice. Naturally when people recognized I had stopped, I played hero and told them how difficult it was. The cravings, nausea and weight gain.
So whenever I see someone smoking while hovering outside a building on either a frigid or steamy day, I instantly think BLUE VELVET.
Not the movie, the song or even Liberace’s jacket. Just yards upon yards of flaming blue velvet.