April is the cruelest of them all

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Eliot, T.S. THE WASTE LAND

Spring has begun to "spring", as they say. Things have begun to change. In that same vein, R.J. Reynolds decided to change the design scheme for Camel Lights. The package now has much more of a "retro" look. The "style" is a certain brand exudes is oft talked about. The idle cigarette conversation is a pivotal moment for all social smokers. The smokers are able to discuss all of the cigarettes they have experimented with over their years burning the tobacco leaf, sucking it through a filter and letting it seep into the lungs.
The first time I smoked anything was at age 11. With some neighborhood kids, I found an "Indian Tobacco Plant" perched below a hillside in Playa del Rey. We pillaged the plant and stuffed it's leaves into bags to take home to dry out. A few days later, I removed the leaves I had stored and crushed them up. Taking some old newspapers, I rolled a "cigarette" and stole away into the garage to light it up. The smoke smelled rustic and of nature, and I excitedly puffed hard on the shoddily rolled cigarette, if you could even call it that. Years later, I remember stealing some filter-less Marlboros from my friend's mom and smoking them in a jacuzzi. High school was the time during which I decided on a brand.

Parliament Lights, with its regal packaging, became the choice. They were easy cigarettes to smoke since they pretty much taste like paper. Everybody has an idea of what their preferred cigarettes taste like. American Spirits taste like "chocolate", Marlboros taste like the "Wild West", and Camels taste like "garbage". I found myself casually smoking Parliaments, enjoying the perforated, recessed filters and feeling debonair. The full effect did not take hold until I found myself paired up with a lady, who also smoked "P-funks" - however, never called them that. We sat on my porch in Portland and chain-smoked, argued, and then made up. The bars of Portland invite the bar goer to smoke cigarette after cigarette. It is one of the last places where one is welcome to smoke, drink and cuss like hobo sailors. 1-5 Cigarettes per day gradually escalated to 5-7. Once we went through our nasty break-up, where brutally I damned her life to be "mediocre", I made the switch to Camel Lights.


THE PACKAGING OF YESTERDAY
Camel Lights were a new found joy. They offered more punch than Parliaments. Lights were always the easy way out since you can establish a protectorate between yourself and the evil cancer. The graphic on the box had much more character too it. As opposed to the plain "Royal Blue" of Parliaments, Camel portrayed a camel in profile - once a royal pose - in the foreground of a pyramid and an oasis. Joe Camel was long since banished due to his influence upon the schoolkids below his cartoonish billboards. He was a character of the lost age of Spuds Mackenzie, where these figureheads of sin would appear in nightclub scenes where scantily clad babes would abound, saxophones blow with raspy, sexy tones, and the everlasting party was always beginning. The Marlboro Man was not invited, he was too much of loner. It was an age where Ads were still cooler than you, whereas now, they have moved more into the realm of being "dumber-than-thou".
Today, we as the audience view some hopeless jerk with look of bewilderment trying to parallel park his car and laugh as he hits the cars on either side. We see "normal" looking folk experience awkward circumstances that force them to bashfully look foolish. And then we laugh again at the awkward office interactions. It's ludicrous and nonsensical. Are we altogether convinced? The only thing I've ever been convinced of is ponying up those hard-earned dollars for the Camel Lights. It's a brand to die by. I'm in the same sinking ship as the hotshot businessman who swears by the speed of his hot red Maserati, which will eject him through the windshield into the arms of an oaktree, impaled, bleeding to death. Drive a fast car, cut hard and have no regrets.