I understand people who are on crack more than I understand people who smoke cigars. The path that leads to crack is one that makes sense – it starts with softer drugs that are accepted in your social circle and so you feel pressured to try them. You keep stepping it up and then one day you’re sucking a guy’s dick in an old Ford in Hunt’s Point the Bronx just for another rock. But why the fuck does anybody smoke cigars? Besides the need to have something big and brown in your mouth but not having the ability to find an old Ford in Hunt’s Point the Bronx, that is. It’s such an affectation, something nobody starts just because the other kids in school are doing it.
But whatever – let people smoke their cigars. My feelings on this are like my feeligs on your sex life – just don’t involve me. I don’t really care, especially thanks to the wonderful world of anti-smoking laws. Now most places I go are smoke free, and I can’t remember the last time I was at someplace that wasn’t a cigar store or a meeting of the 1930s Evil Plutocrats Society where I smelled cigar smoke. At least until I moved to Studio City California and went to my local Starbucks*, which seems to be the center of dudes smoking cigars culture in the Valley.
They just sit in front of the Starbucks and tongue the big shafts, wrapping their lips around the moist tip. They talk about nothing of value, it seems (but who am I to judge? I’m writing a blog where I make gay jokes about people smoking cigars), and they just smoke. Cigar smoke is acrid and gross and seems to really travel, and these guys insist on sitting by the door, so while I’m on line for my large coffee, room for cream**, I am bathing in the nasty smoke of the cigar club.
What is it about Starbucks that calls to these men? If you’re going to engage in your disgusting, smelly and ridiculous looking fake habit, why would you want to do it at a Starbucks in a strip mall? Does the Togos down the way not have the right cachet? Is Jamba Juice not the proper place to suck on a stogie? I’m not even sure these guys are drinking coffee (but if they are I bet it’s the kind that takes fifteen minutes to order and an equal amount of time to make). I walk past these guys every day, get my space assaulted by their stench, and wonder how they have nothing else to do. Then I go home and write about superhero movies.
*listen, the mom and pop coffee shop charges 75 cents more for a large coffee which is the size of a Starbucks medium! I’m getting a coffee machine.
** Fuck your venti