The Cool School (50 page)

I waited until he was almost in front of me, then I reached out to grab him—but he jumped back and went around the circle again. This made me very nervous. I felt on the verge of a freakout. The bartender seemed to be watching us.

Carson City, I thought. Twenty years.

I
STEPPED
on the merry-go-round and hurried around the bar, approaching my attorney on his blind side—and when we came to the right spot I pushed him off. He staggered into the aisle and uttered a hellish scream as he lost his balance and went down, thrashing into the crowd . . . rolling like a log, then up again in a flash, fists clenched, looking for somebody to hit.

I approached him with my hands in the air, trying to smile. “You fell,” I said. “Let’s go.”

By this time people
were
watching us. But the fool wouldn’t move, and I knew what would happen if I grabbed him. “OK,” I said. “You stay here and go to jail. I’m leaving.” I started walking fast towards the stairs, ignoring him.

This moved him.

“Did you see that?” he said as he caught up with me. “Some sonofabitch kicked me in the back!”

“Probably the bartender,” I said. “He wanted to stomp you for what you said to the waitress.”

“Good
god!
Let’s get out of here. Where’s the elevator?”

“Don’t go
near
that elevator,” I said. “That’s just what they
want
us to do . . . trap us in a steel box and take us down to the basement.” I looked over my shoulder, but nobody was following.

“Don’t run,” I said. “They’d like an excuse to shoot us.” He nodded, seeming to understand. We walked fast along the big indoor midway—shooting galleries, tattoo parlors, money-changers and cotton-candy booths—then out through a bank of glass doors and across the grass downhill to a parking lot where the Red Shark waited.

“You drive,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
, 1971

Another graduate of the rock and roll press, Richard Meltzer got his start at Bostons
Crawdaddy!
and worked his way through
Rolling Stone
(where he was found too funny),
Creem,
and
The Village Voice.
His first book,
The Aesthetics of Rock,
was a fantastic mash-up of academic convention and utterly bebop free-association with some Dada flavoring and 220 footnotes. Equally brilliant was Meltzer’s sequel
Gulcher,
taking Ezra Pound’s Kulchur one step further along the ledge. The excerpt here shows Meltzer’s unique form of poetic meditation on any given subject. He has written more than a dozen books, as well as lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and his own groups, such as VOM and Smegma.

I
T
’
S
EASY
with a pack of Camels, it’s easy to tell which side is the front and which is the back. The front is the side with the camel’s back on it—commonly called the hump and he’s got only one, hence he’s a dromedary—and the camel’s left side and the camel’s left side of his face and portions of all four legs and his tail. And three trees and two pyramids. And the back is the side with the buildings in town where people live (they don’t live in pyramids, only dead pharaohs live there if you can call it a life).

But on the pack of Lucky Strikes both sides are identical. They both say “It’s toasted” plus the Lucky Strike in a circle. Actually it’s inside of four concentric circles and maybe more but there still is one way to tell which is the front. The front is the side that’s facing you when the thing on top with the Indian and the letter A and “20 cigarettes” all in blue is facing you too. When the left side of the Indian’s head is facing your direction and his nose is above his mouth. Otherwise it’s upside down and it’s the back of the pack, not the front.

Both packs have the surgeon general’s warning about health on the same side and both of them have only one word beginning with a lower case piece of type and that’s the word
to.
The rule is: “The only words in a title supposed to be small are articles, prepositions and conjunctions.” Well to is a preposition—even Lenny Bruce knows that—and you know what? The word
that
(capitalized on the packs) is—as used—a conjunction rather than a relative pronoun so they’re doing it all wrong and it’s even worse than Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. Worse cause it’s got the support of the prestigious surgeon general’s office behind it.

But all that’s quickly forgotten when it comes time for the showdown. People have always been saying that the difference between a good cigarette and a great cigarette is in the know-how. Well they may know how but you’ve gotta know how too. And you’ve gotta know how to. To light the cigarette right. And the right way is the same way as for a cigar. First if it was a cigar you’d remove the cigar band by ripping it while it’s still on the cigar instead of slipping it off with a pull and a tug so you don’t tear the tobacco leaf. Well a seegar is not a cigareet and vice versa so you don’t have to worry about no bands, just the lighting part. And in the lighting part you take the cig (whether it’s an ar or an arette) and hold it twixt the fingers horizontal with a tangent drawn to the surface of the earth below your feet. In the other hand is the match which has been lit for proper use. Hold the flame so that it’s below the end of the cig you want lit but hold it low and slowly approach the cig. Don’t ever let the actual flame come in contact with the cig or something bad’s gonna happen to the taste of the smoke. It’ll taste chemical cause chemicals are what goes into the making of the match. Just let the
heat of the match
light the cig, not the flame itself. One or more attempts may be necessary before you get it down pat but you’ll notice the difference already and that’s what know-how is.

Now the most important part of the smoke is when it’s leaving your respiratory system out through the nose. It’s crucial cause exit is the last part of the smoke you’ll remember if your memory is good
and if it isn’t good you shouldn’t be smoking. It’s that tingle of warmth on the inner surface of the nostrils that does it. Like when it’s in your lungs and in your mouth it’s just another something in your lungs or mouth. You don’t really experience the heat, same goes for the throat too. But you feel the heat to optimum watchamacallit
only in the nose
along the linings. And if the heat isn’t important there’s no reason to set the Lucky or Camel as the case may be on fire at all, you could just as easily keep it in the ice box with the cold ham.

And the facts are that in the battle of the nose Camels are stronger to the nose, Luckies are weaker. But while Camels may be stronger, Luckies happen to be weaker. One’s less weak and the other’s less strong and one’s more strong and the other’s more weak and both are either Camels or Luckies.

Next in priorities is which is packed firmer. Luckies.

Next is which one holds moisture on the mouth end of the paper better and longer. This is important as a matter of comfort, lip comfort to be exact. Lips count too and you’re not enjoying smoking pleasure if it isn’t comfortable for the lip. Also worth considering in this behalf is where the moisture comes from, it comes from the tongue. It comes from the salivary glands but it’s by way of the tongue. So what happens indirectly is that if a cigarette paper requires a lot of moisture to stay wet then the tongue will be getting dry in the process of keeping the lip satisfied. So while it’s said that a good tobacco blend is one that won’t raw the tongue (this is debatable to say the least and what’s wrong with raw?) the fact of the matter is it’s the paper too that plays a role.

The winner in the holds water longest and bestest is Camels.

Next on the agenda is will the smoke be okay if you light the wrong end and which end is wrong? The wrong end is the end with the writing on it. It’s not wrong because it’s not
supposed
to be lit on that end, it’s wrong on account of the inconvenience caused the smoker. Cause the lettering end is the end nearest the open end of the pack and so you just plant your teeth on it and pull it out. If you had to take the time to take it out with your mitts it would be too long. So
it’s the wrong end. It’s also the wrong end because soon after it’s lit the lettering will disappear from oxidation and you won’t be able to tell what brand it is.

Both brands smoke okay when you light the wrong end.

Okay next consideration is can you light them from the middle in an emergency? Yes, both will light from the middle in an emergency, in a non-emergency too. But the main emergency may be if it isn’t an emergency to begin with so you get uncautious and burn your nose in so doing. The Lucky lights faster in the middle than the Camel.

Which burns faster? Well if you light both of them at exactly 4:58:05 and you lay them down unimpeded and come back at 5:07:21 you’ll notice something remarkable as a tender suspender. On the one hand there’s more ash on the Camel and on the other there’s also more unburned portion on the Camel too! In other words they started at the same length but something extraordinary has transpired in the interim. The logical explanation is there however, it’s a very good one. It’s that the Lucky burns faster and it also pulls its ash with it as it burns along! So it’s a most friendly cigarette, it’s one that refuses to reject even its dismembered grotesque burnt end and so it wins that part of the race although that part of the race was unscheduled. Plus it already won the burns fastest part so it has two big points.

Now which has a better draw? A tie.

(A subsidiary competition with no bearing in the final decision: which is better for lighting the other without a match? To be entirely within the confines of truth it must be said that Luckies light Camels better than Camels light Luckies but you could easily turn it around cause it’s not always better to give than receive. Hence inconclusive.)

Easiest on the eyes. Neither.

Pleasantest for inhaling. If mellowness is the criterion then it’s Camels. If the firewood feeling is the criterion then it’s Luckies. If you take out the tobacco from both and roll your own then it’s as close to mellow firewood as you can get and no fire extinguisher is needed. It’s a tossup here.

Now it might be stressed that tobacco manufacturers and cigarettes
in particular have never (never) done anything for the armless smoker. He or she has to keep it in there tight or it falls out and gets dirty so he or she has to start a new one so as not to infect the mouth with germs. So the cig gets smoked way down to a tiny butt because the person cannot even see how far down the smoke has gone without a mirror. Thus it’s important that the butt be good. Camel butts are better butts, no problem here.

CONGRATULATIONS LUCKIES FOR WINNING!

Gulcher: Post-Rock Cultural Pluralism (1649–1993)
, 1990

A sadly under-known poet, elegant essayist, and distinguished translator, David Rattray was an extraordinary scholar, fluent in French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, among other tongues. He interviewed Ezra Pound for
The Nation
while an undergraduate at Dartmouth, studied at the Sorbonne, and earned a master’s in Comparative Literature at Harvard. While living in France, he became an expert on Antonin Artaud, retracing his footsteps and producing the best Artaud translations in English. Rattray also translated Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, René Crevel, and Friedrich Hölderlin, among others. His poems are collected in
Opening the Eyelid
(1990). Rattray also spent years as an editor for
The Reader’s Digest,
a seeming oddity, but he produced numerous scholarly books for
The Reader’s Digest Press.
This excerpt is from
How I Became One of the Invisible,
an anthology of his work assembled when Rattray was suffering from terminal brain cancer. He died at the age of fifty-seven.

I
N
ORDER
to become one of the invisible, I had to go through an ordeal technically known as throwing oneself in the arms of God. This consisted of going out in the empty desert with nothing but the clothes that one was wearing and a bag containing certain things. Some of us stayed there for months, others years, many forever.

One night I made up my mind. Pedro, who had already gone, walked out a ways with me in the moonlight.

“Keep on until dawn,” he advised. “Then dig a hole just big enough to lie down in. Watch out for snakes and bugs. Wrap up. Try to sleep. Whatever you do, stay out of the sun. There is a cloth in your bag. Put it over your nose and mouth. The air out there is very clean but
too hot to breathe. Travel at night. Locate plants; stay with them. Never leave one until you have figured out where the next one will be. Make a slit to suck out the moisture. Eat whatever you can chew, and pretty soon the plants will start coming out, just like stars. Follow them. If a plant makes you nervous, eat just a bit. Find out what it does. You will run into some that give strength, more than you ever dreamed of. At first you are going to feel miserable. You will want to die. Sand sticking to your clothes will rub your skin raw, get in your mouth and down your throat. You will be half blind. You’ll think all the time; your mind will race. You will have strange dreams. You will find yourself doing things you would never think of doing anywhere else. You will imagine you are going crazy. All this for a little walk in the sand. There are many animals. Start with the iguana. By the time you learn to get an iguana out of a hole you’ll also know how to keep him fresh. Break his back, tie the legs, block the jaws, drop him in the bag. Two days later, still fresh. You will find the desert as crowded as any habitat on earth. After the reptiles, animals and birds, you will meet a few other things. Devils, actually. When you tame your first devil you can eat scorpions if you choose. At that point you can also start going out in broad daylight. You’ll get tanned black all over, no matter what you wear. Lions and tigers will sit at your knees. Crocodiles, elephants, hippopotami will ferry you across the river that sometimes rushes through the center of this desert for a day and then vanishes as suddenly as it appeared. When it’s time for you to leave, there will be a sign in the sky. All of us witness it. You will feel something like a sudden draft of air. Turn round and face it and you’ll see a cloud of white dust pouring out of the sun. An iridescent arc will appear to the east. Within a few seconds the whole sky will glow with luminous crescent-shaped figures, the biggest of which will form itself into a circle round the sun. This will in turn be intersected by a second ring centered on the zenith, its circumference coinciding also with the sun’s position. The smaller arcs will fall into concentric patterns about these two grand rings, filling the whole sky with lights. Then you will imagine yourself inside a prism that is vibrating like a gong. You will long to vanish in thin air, to disappear in that sound.