Archive for September, 2010

PUBLISHING NEWS

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

New short story hits the magazine stands in December. First novel being published in early 2011. More to come…

SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM!

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Light it up, baby!

The picture is of one of my favorite cigar stores in L.A.  The Lone Wolf in Santa Monica.  See the leather chairs and table?  For years, it used to be the nicest thing to go down there and select a cigar from the humidor and have a smoke and a chat.  The crowd was men and women, teachers, cops, filmmakers, tourists, businessmen, deadbeats, the whole melting pot.  It was a smokers’ café, a very civilized situation.  No more.  Despite the huge open windows ventilating the place, the store had to close its smoking lounge.  And it is not the first one to go.

The behind-the-scenes scam the PC police schmucks foisted to lean on these long established smoking venues?  They did it by pressuring the landlords.  Here’s how it worked.  The people upstairs complain about smoking at just the time the leases come up.  Complain about smoking?  The stores have been there for a decade or more.  Why the hell did they move upstairs if they didn’t like smoke?  I might accept this as an anomaly, but another friendly cigar shop, SMP in Westwood, with a place to sit and talk and smoke, also had to close their smoking area recently.  Reason?  You got it.  People upstairs complained about smoking when the lease came up.  Do I detect a conspiracy here with those sneaky nanny government city council dweebs?  Damn straight.

The Santa Monica PC police got a nerve using our tax dollars to infringe on our liberties instead of doing what we pay them for.  Smoking ban on the Third Street Promenade, an outdoor mall?  Kiss my ass.  There’s still nothing I like better than going down an enjoying a stogie on one of the benches with a Starbucks, and watching the world, and the cops, pass by.  It’s a dumb, unenforceable law.

And I ain’t been ticketed yet.