Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes

For those that have been following, Nick from Libertarian Librarian issued a challenge in the form of a laundry list of conservative gripes about Wisconsin (all due respect, Nick, but just as you expected some of my reactions on those issues, I feel I could have predicted your listing of most of them too. And if I'd been listening to Charlie Sykes or reading his transcripts, I would have been able to get the Board Member one also). Mini-rants, all. One in the midst had to do with the potential of banning smoking from bars and restaurants.

I held for the affirmative, because of a recent pleasant experience in Florida, which is a non-smoking state. I'm sure Nick maintains that my support is typical Democratic nanny-state do-goodism. Of course, the Tavern League is aghast and predicting doom.

I still maintain that the Tavern League has a tendency towards alarmism. Must be all those late nights closing up. A sight of the sky makes them feel that it must be falling. They also predicted doom when the drinking age was raised to 21.

And actually, I opposed raising the drinking age, although most people my age didn't care, since they had already made the age. Most of the opposition, other than the TL, was from underage people, who of course don't count because they can't vote and have no money. But I feel that the drinking age should be abolished altogether, and follow a more european model (I know, Nick, it's heresy!) There's a much lower incidence of binge drinking in countries like Germany and France, where alcoholic beverages are a part of everyday life starting in your teens. I think it would be beneficial because by the time kids would hit college, they would be able to handle alcohol much better, and be more well-versed in their reactions to it. Rather than finding out by puking in a friend's car after a wop party. Or worse.

Of course, part of that would be more serious penalties and enforcement of drunk driving restrictions. One advantage European countries have is greater density, so inns and pubs are nearby or easily accessed using cabs and public transportation. So, we'd have to plan our cities, towns and villages at a little bit greater densities (which is already being done- places like Seaside, Middleton Hills, the whole New Urbanist movement). Another side benefit would be the resurgence of the neighborhood tavern. I live in an area that had four or five corner bars within easy walking distance when I moved there. Now all are, regrettably, closed.

But I digress, eh? The smoking ban is, I think, a natural part of the progress toward generally declining smoking rates. No one, other than tobacco industry shills (how do they sleep?) disputes any longer the deleterious effects smoking has on your health. I anticipate that smoking will decline and eventually, future generations will look back and wonder how we survived at all, with common habits like that. Much as we regard people from the 1800's who drank absinthe or smoked opium on a regular basis.

Smoking bans will continue to take hold because the public will become increasingly in favor of them. In fact, Washington DC is currently looking at a smoking ban that comes from a public demand. A couple of interesting quotes here:

Bartender Mark Genberg, a smoker, estimated that three of 10 people who sidle up on an average night are smokers, down from six in 10 a decade ago

...

Jon Brothers, 32, a smoker, said he was ambivalent about the ban. “Don't get me wrong. I love to walk into a dive bar and people are smoking cigarettes or whatever,” he said. “But I think it's a good idea. It's not going to stop you from going somewhere. I'll have no problem going outside for a cigarette.”

This is interesting. Remember when restaurants were up in arms that they were being forced to provide separate smoking and non-smoking areas? End of the world. Three in ten now, 1 in ten in another ten years.

Nick's reaction to my response was thus:

So, you're okay with discriminating against people participating in a legal activity because you don't want to come home smelling like an ashtray? Oh, and the “go outside and pound a nail or two” option isn't acceptable in the currently proposed ban, since “The plan also would prohibit designated smoking areas ”immediately adjacent“ to outside public entrances.”

There are smoke free restaurants and bars in Milwaukee already-- if you don't want to smell like an ashtray, go there. Encourage others to go there. But don't tell me you're against writing discrimination into Wisconsin's constitution and then say it's alright to discriminate against smokers.

Legal activities are what we say they are Nick, and if it' s decided that smoking in tightly congested public places is illegal, then they are not participating in a legal activity, are they? But this becomes a case of personal freedom. As it's been said, my freedom to swing my fist ends at your nose. I'm not particularly worried about people who choose to smoke. I'll try to help friends and family quit, because I have personal feelings there, and I probably won't go visit a smoker's house very often (although we do have friends who won't smoke in their own home, out of concern for their own friends and children. We go there plenty). I think they'd all be better off if they didn't but hey. Some people make poor choices.

But my particular objection to smoking was music bars, not just bars and restaurants in general. I don't have a particular problem with going to smoky bars because I've always lived with smokers and can tolerate it. But my wife is allergic to the smoke, so coming home stinking of burnt tobacco can be problematic. But I have noticed that a night in a smoky bar feels a lot worse the next day than a night in a non-smoky one. The added impact of my body trying to clean out the smoke as well as the alcohol contributes to a more powerful hangover.

Unfortunately, it's not a matter of going to non-smoking bars, because I often go to see one of those musical combos all the kids are crazy about. It's a case of there only being one place to go, and tolerating whatever dive it happens to be. But in a case where less than half the people are smoking (just conservatively extrapolating using the bartender's anecdote above), which is the greater hazard: imposing an environmental toxin on over 50% of the patrons, or asking some of the patrons to step outside for their fix? I know one local musician who moved out of town and got into a different career, because she couldn't tolerate the smoke infested venues she was forced to play at.

HOWEVER.

Roy Edroso, a former punk musician, recently posted an interesting entry at his joint. Although it starts by talking about Lester Bangs, it eventually goes into a related discussion against moderation. As he says, “Moderation can get out of hand”. Also: “... if you think concerts are as good now as when people were getting routinely fucked up, you're dreaming.

He also quotes Bill Hicks (Hicks and Bangs. Two anarchic geniuses who died young. But would they, could they have been geniuses but for the lives of self-destruction?) ”You think the Beatles weren't high when they made 'Yellow Submarine'? They had to scrape Ringo off the ceiling for that one!“

He's absolutely, 100% right. To borrow a phrase from Our Librarian Nick, Dead On Balls Accurate (DOBA). It was said in the late 70's that Corporate Rock Sucks. Corporate Rock simply turned around and swallowed Punk whole, without even burping. And now, although Corporate Music is hurting because people are unwilling, finally to constantly swallow the feces that is being foisted over the airwaves and in megastores, the whole scene has been sanitized and cleaned to the point where even Holy Joe Lieberman doesn't object any more, not really. C'mon, Don Henley doing anti-drug commercials? What's next, Fleetwood Mac getting back together? ...oh wait.

Jon Langford, when asked about ”The Executioner's Last Songs“, said:

”I liked the idea of purging ourselves by singing all these death songs against the death penalty,“ he added, ”and I also liked the fact that most of the dark and murderous covers on the CD were the equivalent of hits in their day. The mainstream is a far more timid place now!“

There's no place for murder on the radio now. For all the handwringing about the horrible influence pop music has on the culture, the approved songs are, nearly without fail, banal and forgettable.

So, with the above novella- length mea culpa, I find myself tacitly agreeing with Nick about the smoking ban. Not because I buy the Tavern League argument, and I am not going to be campaigning against it. But in general, I find life is becoming too damn proscribed, and if America no longer represents the freedom to get blasted on cough syrup at a rock show, then we need to fight to get that back.

As Edroso notes, it's the chaos, the irritant nature of of rock n roll that created the social force. Corporate sponsorship of rock shows should be outlawed, not by legal fiat, but by the enraged backlash of people who despise the Rolling Stones for helping to push flawed corporate swill like Windows on their fans. What colossal arrogance and disregard for the people who put them where they are! The Who used to destroy their instruments to get a response out of a timid audience. Now, destroying you instruments is part of the show, paid for by the makers of those instruments. The encore is a given, and the T-shirts are de rigeur. Not to mention nearly all profit for the record label.

I often say that rock n roll is still alive in the nightclubs where bands like the Figgs put on a better show for five fans than someone like the Eagles can muster for 40,000. There's excitement when the Cloud Cult tour with painters who do real time artwork in response and in harmony with the music. The Mekons have carved out a niche beginning with punk, laying the seeds of alt-country now being reaped by Wilco, now collaborating on theatrical pieces and art installations. The record labels were befuddled by the Mekes when they were making music. They found a life outside the corporate mainstream by doing what was wrong, but what they wanted to do.

So here's to personal destruction, danger and living the life you choose, no matter what some medical do-gooder or religious moralist feels is right. Here's to darkness. Here's to light. Here's to the glorious results when chaos is allowed to thrive. Here's to smoking, drinking, and riding your bike without a helmet; every breath may bring you five minutes closer to oblivion, but without that buzz you wouldn't know you're alive. That, my friends, is what it MUST mean to be Free, or we are not Free at all.