Getting to the bottom of it
I just don't understand this Gay Pride lark.
They're holding the annual Gay Pride Parade in Dublin today, where presumably, if I wanted to, I could go and see loads of oiled up torsos wearing scanty briefs, or blokes wearing dresses and wigs. But I don't want to. Even if I were gay [which I’m not, in case you hadn’t guessed] I doubt I would want to see such a spectacle.
Just what is this Pride thing? Pride is something that may or may not come after some achievement. I would be proud if I had conquered Everest or reached the South Pole on foot. I might take some pride in discovering some wonderful new invention or in writing a best seller. So where does Gay Pride come in? Is being gay some kind of an achievement?
Some people by now would probably label me homophobic [which surely means fear of men?] but I'm not. The point is that I don't give a damn. I know a few people of "the other persuasion" and it doesn't bother me. They are just like me, except that they prefer the company of their own gender and that is absolutely fine in my book. When I meet someone I don't care about their sexuality, or their religion or their philosophies on life. Those are maybe interesting topics over a pint or two but that's it.
I would class myself as being Irish, male, heterosexual and with no religion to speak of. I don't take pride in any of those simply because they are what I am. If some God Botherers try to persuade me to change my religion, I'll tell 'em to fuck off. If some bureaucrat in Brussels tries to tell me I'm European not Irish, I will equally tell him to fuck off. My identity is something I am born with [except maybe religion and it has taken the best part of a lifetime to shrug off the brainwashing I got as a kid] and I take no pride nor shame in any of it. It's just me.
The only time I get really pissed off is when someone tries to change my identity to somehow conform with their view on life. Brussels is doing its damnedest to change my nationality by giving me a European passport and that really pisses me off. Others are trying their hardest to force me to give up my favourite foods, my pint and my pipe purely because of their ideologies [and their incomes] and that frankly drives me incandescent.
Actually, that has given me a thought……
Let's hold an Annual Smokers' Pride day!
Same as that, GD. It's never bothered me one way or another if someone is gay, although I've never really understood it. I mean, there are so many desirable women in the world! Gorgeous, delectable, adorable, seductive, covetable and mostly unattainable. Why on earth would you prefer some hairy-arsed bloke? But that's just me. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
But I do get a bit pissed off with the fact that all these LGBT people are treated like they're something special, and nobody must offend them, and everyone must bend over backwards to give them special privileges for some unknown reason. And yet me, an ordinary bloke who enjoys a drink and a smoke, things which are not in any way aberrant, I find myself being actively discriminated against for no other reason than society deciding that being a shirt-lifter is now in style and my pleasures are now very unfashionable. So while the prancers are lauded, people like us are treated as untermenschen.
It doesn't make any sense.
And yes, maybe a 'Smoker's Pride' day isn't such a bad idea, either. We could do with a bit of decent PR.
Hold an ASP day – now you are talking Grandad. What logo and what colour flag would be appropriate for that day? Which month in the year? I can visualise floats with circles of sitting and standing smokers puffing away while discussing world affairs. Big banners with slogans like SMOKING HELPS YOU THINK or (thanks Descartes) I SMOKE THEREFORE I THINK THEREFORE I AM (Profumo ergo Cogito ergo Sum) would festoon the long trailer floats. There would be special tailguard groups of cannabis smokers on the parade – ready to throw their rolled joints into the Liffey if Garda snatch squads tried to nab them. The organisers could apply for Arts Council grants, and Irish language enthusiasts could apply for Gaelgoir grants to make banners as Gaeilge. Eye-catching slogans like I'M STILL PUFFING AT 90 would win special spot prizes, like a pack of 200 cigs or a Meershaum pipe. Bring it on Grandad and contribute to the public culture scene in Ireland.
Sounds to me like you should be on the organising committee, Ger.
Go on Utube and watch Anti-Brexit protest tells you all you need to know about Europe future generation glad I'm out of it.
You shouldn't have suggested that. I just had a quick look and now I have a headache.
Annually? I thought you lot had one every month. Seriously. The Irish Times has an article every week or so about LGBT pride. Isn't that a sandwich? 🙂 I don't care about a persons sexual persuasion. As long as they treat me with respect, I always do the same in kind. I don't care for the "OM! Look at me, I'm whatever", but to be fair, there are plenty of straight people that act just as obnoxiously.
Might you not make it Tobacco Pride Day Festival, held on a couple of big fields (one for the event, the other for parking cars, toilets and etc)?
Bring in the snuffers and SNUsers, the vapers and the growers. Then specialist vendors such as TL4U and vape-kit manufacturers could rent a stand (or tent, or whatever) and educate those interested in the possibilities of home growing, curing, shredding, blending, flavouring: all the stuff done in big factories can be done in the kitchen by those with curiosity and time in their hands. And sell seeds, raw leaf and so on.
And yes, Ger. Prizes, paid for by a modest admission fee. Add a few vendors of barbecued hot dogs, burgers, spit-roast pigs and cows, so one can point out to the politically offended the absurdity of this smoke from charcol and incinerating animal fat being "correct" and that smoke from tobacco "haram". And, of course, a beer tent.
You might even make a profit!
There is a million of us so maybe the Phoenix Park would be ideal? Wait for a Westerly breeze so the plume of smoke will drift across Dublin thereby making it uninhabitable for the Antis?
It's pretty amazing, now that I think of it, that years ago (years and years ago) I did a lot of theater work when I was young and it was certainly not unknown at all that many of the participants of a theater production (actors, actresses, directors, musicians, stage crafters, etc) were not of the, shall we say, heterosexual persuasion. Often times blatantly so.
The amazing thing about it was that everyone involved in the production called everyone else by their first names regardless of their, in this case, sexual persuasion. In fact their sexual persuasion wasn't even considered. But that's theater for you.
Of course, there were the other derogatory terms used back then by those of rather infantile mindsets to describe the various aspects of those persons who decided that being heterosexual was not actually mandatory and went on to follow another path, but I found these types of
idiotspeople not worth my time.Now me, I'm 100% heterosexual, full of testosterone male and I didn't and I still don't care one whit about anyones' personal preferences as long as they don't beat me over the head with any of them. I expect to be treated as a person first so I've always treated others that way as well. So far, it's worked out pretty well.
It's strange how some professions attract people "of a singular persuasion". The television station where I worked for most of my working life was full of strange attachments. No one batted an eyelid to see two males walking hand in hand or a woman wearing dungarees and smoking a pipe [yup – unusual?]. I don't think there were even any snide or derogatory comments, and if there were, I never heard any. The only comment I ever heard was once when they were decorating the main transmitting mast for Christmas someone suggested that all applicants to be the fairy on the top should meet in the canteen.
Dear Grandad
Here in Free England™ (est. 2016) we have National Smokers' Day – 1st July, where I (non-smoker) and, er, no others that I'm aware of, light up a ciggie that I have bought or cadged off someone, in support of persecuted smokers everywhere.
DP
PS I don't inhale. dp
Just look at what a bit of solidarity can achieve?! I shall light up in celebration of the day [mind you, I'd light up anyway, but I shall do so especially].