"Have you Kaplowitz'd to-day?"
This is not about the big game last night. It can't be. I was watching old episodes of Antiques Roadshow while the kids were playing. This is about the way LSU celebrated its win over Clemson & therefore, their National Championship. More precisely, this is my take on takes thereof. Also, I give a fresh take at the end. All for free. What a deal!
Ross Dellenger then somehow popped into my Twitter world, & I say somehow because I had yet to learn he's apparently a writer for Sports Illustrated. His tweet read: "Joe Burrow sucking on a cigar and blowing smoke into the air while exiting the #LSU locker room is a thing that has happened." That captioned a pic destined for the viral gif-hood it shortly achieved.
Then, after this, I brewed a pot of coffee & lit a cigar. Puttered around the house a bit. Experimented (unsuccessfully) with wearing a blanket instead of a robe. It's wet & cold in the Pacific Northwest. I guess I also thought a bit. Lettuce work backward from all the above...
You can "OK, Boomer" me all you want (although I'm Gen-X) but Dellenger's "a thing that has happened" lilty faux irony tone is hackneyed junk. Unless he specializes in hackneyed junk, then his voice remains strong -- as does mine, similarly. Meaning he does worse than fail as a reporter here. Not only does he voice an opinion, but said opinion remains shrouded in what I read as an eye-roll. Maybe I make too much of it. Maybe I make too much of him. It looks like most of his work is digital. As if (liltingly) *eye-roll*
Then we get to Loope. If you read the article he shared, & I did not but did skim, it wasn't so much an almost arrested thing. In fact, if this counts as almost arrested, I cannot imagine the staggering number of times I was almost arrested. It looks like somebody spoke to someone, then somebody backed away slowly & left the boys to their celebratory smoke sesh. Also, I've been "almost cut short by police" probably even more than almost arrested. I truly shudder to think.
So what did happen then? A sports team celebrated a championship victory in the time-honored tradition of lighting cigars. They did this in a smoke-free facility while hovering around the ages of 21. They did this while being filmed (Joe Burrow looks ridiculous a la a kid wearing his dad's suit). The coach, whose name I don't know, even gleefully said to Burrow this post's title: "Take it easy on that CEE-gar, Baw." Jesus, I hope the kid read Cigar Aficionado's recent on-line masterpiece on how eating a bit of sugar helps if you get sick from smoking.
In short, this a win for our industry. Perhaps it's hard to see that because PCA and the like don't give us much by way of experience there. But it is a win. Or is it? Maybe it's just another sports team celebrating with fat cigars -- maybe it's just as if nothing has ever really changed. Maybe it's as if sometime in the near future the aggressively loud minority waging tobacco war will simply fold quietly into history.
::: very :::