Tobacco and Me
By Christopher Meloni
Flaunt, July 2001
My Dad was a smoker and a damn good one. He'd take a puff of his L & M and proceed to exhale a thin wispy trail of smoke for over a minute or more. And this was no trick! Just par for the course kind of stuff. He could even talk, each word sailing out on the nearly imperceptible wisps; his voice never getting thick; his throat never closing down to gag from a potential smoke-tickle cough. He could even change a tire smoking-cigarette dangling from his lips, bent over, head down, grunting and cursing, sweat pouring out and over his bald head, the smoke from the cherry languidly caressing his face; and there he was working, dragging in, exhaling through his nose, and not once did I hear or see him go, "Ah! (clenching his eyes closed and shaking his head) Fucking smoke wow right in the eye, man that burns..fuck." My father never did that. He was a real man. He was a smoker, damn it.

Now with the above yardstick, I come from a long line of real men. My grandfathers both smoked, one finally quit around 75, eventually living into his 90s, which I think proves it s never too late, or yes you can teach an old dog etc, etc. My dad quit on a bet we made at the dinner table one night. I'd cut my hair (the same hair that was lightly brushing the lamp chop on my plate), if he d before I finished the sentence, his hand was out to seal the deal. And seal the deal he did. He quit, I cut my hair, my dad went crazy (not really, but he was really irritable for five years), left my mom, had a heart attack, and got remarried. He s okay now. His brother, my uncle, also smoked, but the emphysema and oxygen tank kind of put a damper on the nicotine thing. My brother, older brother, also quit right before his first child was born, So right now you re saying either, "Gee, it s super that all your loved ones kicked the habit," or "Hey, where are all the real men gone!"

Right here baby! Let me tell you about tobacco and me. But first let me make my beliefs on the subject of tobacco. First of all, it's not a habit! Picking boogers out of your nose is a habit, eating them is just gross. A nun's headgear is a habit. Being annoying is, for some a habit, for the French it's an art form. To call my .history? relationship? with tobacco a habit is to cheapen it.

Tobacco is a magic leaf, it's a love/hate affair with a demanding and petulant mistress. A mistress whom I have sworn off millions of times only to find myself groveling back at her doorstep (a doorstep I paid for). It is a sacrament. My Prozac. My security blanket/pacifier. It brightens my world, my outlook, my day. It gives me stank breath and hurts my gums. It makes me sweat in anticipation and has brought me to my knees, sifting through garbage looking for some sign, some remnant of it. Over my life I have probably driven tens of thousands of miles for it, spent nearly $50,000 on it, and used a quarter of my precious time with it. It weighs me own like the rotting albatross around my neck that the monkey on my back plays with as he defecates on me. All this, and I'm not even a smoker. I chew. I'm a dipper.

"Just a dip between my cheek and gums gives me real tobacco pleasure without lighting up!" It also makes people go, "That is so fucking gross!" So maybe it is like eating boogers, but it is not a habit! It's an addiction. It is something about which I ve had more conversations with God than anything else (even adolescent masturbation). It is the thing I've beaten myself up over more than anything else (even booger eating, but that s a different article). I am an addict. I'm a real man.

Real man Christopher Meloni currently stars as sexy good cop Elliot Stabler on NBC s Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and as sexy rotten inmate Chris Keller on HBO s OZ. He also stars as a temperamental summer chef in Wet Hot American Summer with Molly Shannon, Janeane Garafolo, and David Hyde Pierce, opening in July. Did we mention he's a sexy chef?

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