D&P Highlight: Is Hollywood making smoking cool again?

0:00You're listening to the Dana N. Parks podcast on K M B Z. From the New York Post, earlier this year, the post reported with great horror that Hollywood has made smoking cool again, despite all the very real health risks, but being a cool social smoker outside of a bar with a cigarette between your fingers, it seems is not the same as being a social butterfly. According to new research, smoking actually leads to increased loneliness. Ooh, I don't disagree. Number one, a lot of people do it in secret because now it's a dirty thing and I don't really want people to even do it. And number two, you're going out alone on a smoke break at work with that. I mean, no one's joining. It used to be a communal thing. I don't think it's a communal thing anymore. No, I saw somebody here at the office outside smoking alone. It's one. Yeah. No matter the age or gender, current smokers were found to be lonelier than non-smokers.

1:03We're still smokers also experienced larger increases in loneliness over time. One theory as to why this is is age. The average age of research participants was 67. So younger people are not vaping. Are they saying they're lonely because their friends died sooner? I'm confused. What? Probably because so few people smoke. After the age of 60, you're not really going out to the bars every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. You're probably staying at home alone smoking. I'm not smoking anymore. How long did you and how old were you? Very long. I was a freshman at college. I smoked a little bit in high school because you thought it was cool. It was cool back then. I mean, you were sort of the rebel, but it didn't go well when I was playing football and baseball. So it never really took until I went to Nebraska.

2:05I mean, when I was there, college, all of my friends were in the service industry. It was the communal thing. You'd go out to the bar and hang out and everybody went out and unison to go smoke. And I'm just standing there like, okay, did you ever smoke? No. You never smoke to cigarette in your life. Far too afraid of being coming addicted to. I mean, I'd probably, well, I say probably I know for a fact, I had a few drunk, but outside of that now, Dana smoked one. One. No, not even the full thing. Well, it was a Virginia slim. I lit it and I tried it. And then I hurt my mom walking in because I was walking in. So I threw it across the room, hoping it would land in the sink and it did, but it didn't go down the drain. So the little thing was still wafting up. You could see the little smoke. That was in her cigarette pack. Oh, yeah. Okay. They were smokers back in the day. Like you wouldn't even believe. And she came in and she was like, Hey, whatever it was, can you come out with this? And she goes, is something burning? And I just, teenagers were such bad liars. I would have been, then God, we were still in the house on the hill. I would have been 16 or 17 tops,

3:12probably close to the 15. Did you even know how to smoke like to how to inhale? No, she goes, is something burning and I go toast. Now, no, I'm toast. I wait. I hadn't made toast. I don't even know if we had written the house. I, I, that was it. That was the one and done never doing that again. Both of my, my parents smoked my dad quit later in life before he died, obviously. My mother, tough to quit after is very tough to quit after. My mother continued to smoke and she had some health problems when she was like 53, 54, which is a say she had a heart attack. A mild one, but a heart attack nonetheless. And I remember my dad had passed by this point if I remember correctly and I drove her home from the hospital and she went upstairs and there was still a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table. Yeah. And the first thing she did was sit down and pull out a cigarette. Yeah. And I'm standing there looking at her. I mean, my mom was in her, her mid 50s.

4:12And I'm looking at my mom. I go, what are you doing? And she looks at me and she goes, it's my goodbye cigarette. And I ran over to the kitchen table. Oh, well, it is. Grab that cigarette out of her mouth and crushed it. And she never smoked again. My mom hasn't had a cigarette over 30 years. I did vape. We're honest on this program. I did vape. How long? Longer to way too long. See, I've never done that. I was, was afraid it would like blow up in my mouth. I literally, I decided I had to quit because I would wake up in the middle of the night and the vape was in my hand. Oh, yeah, that's that's time. Like I would wake up, you know, you half wake up and do something. Most people take a drink of water. If you're a vapor and I'm sure it's true for most people who vape, that drink of water is a rip off the old vape stick. Is it expensive? Insanely. Really? I told you, one of the kids vaped for probably a year or more. And it was because all of his roommates did it. And he said, we'll be sitting around playing video games, doing whatever and everybody was vaping.

5:16The next semester, he ended up roaming with, and I think he requested. He ended up roaming with two or three of his buddies that did not vape. And he said it like that. He said I was able to quit that because it's so well, then he wasn't really a communal and he said it's so just something to do when you're all sitting around. He said, the minute you're around three other guys that now don't vape, he said it, the fixation was not there for him. Well, what are you going to say in that room? Hey, guys, do you mind if I vape? No, I don't want you to look like a dragon right in our room. The weird thing for me is that it wasn't the nicotine that made it hard to quit vaping. It was literally the hand-to-mouth. Like, what do I do with my hands? It's the fixation. I'm going outside and be like, okay, well, this is when I vape. I don't have a vape. What do I do? What am I supposed to do with the next 34 seconds? And then eventually you just get over it. nicotine is a bear to try to quit. It is a bear. 913-586-779-8, 913-586-7779-8,

6:17you just love this tennis, don't you? No. I might have told my daughter to tape it so I can watch it when I get home. What? When did this, I've known you for almost two decades. When did this fascination with tennis come about? I'm going, I would like to request that you watch one match with Coco Gough and one match with TFO. It is the most athletic. How do they do that? I played pickleball yesterday, Scott. I came home. I have I see hot all over me. I've TheraGund. I've got nine ibuprofen in me. I thought I'd been hit by a car. And then you watch these athletes compete at that level. I don't even understand how they're doing what they're doing. Outside in front of all of those people. It's beautiful to watch. What did you do to yourself? I think I pulled a groin muscle playing pickleball in doors. Well, that doesn't make the groin any stronger. Oh my gosh, Sam, do you know?

7:20You're for no room if you're groin. I actually asked a tennis person last night. Do you think any of us could get a racket on a serve from a professional tennis player? No. And before it even came out of my mouth, he goes, no, no. They're serving like 120 miles an hour. You wouldn't even see that ball go past you. It's that fast. You'd feel it if it hit you. Well, you would. You couldn't hit a major league fastball. None of us could. Could you get a bat on it? No. When I was in my 20s, I went to a batting cage in Lawrence. And I put the spedometer, if you will, at 80 miles per hour. That's it. Just to see. And I played baseball. I wasn't awful. I mean, I was athlete of the week one time. Okay. Well, I was. I never even saw the 80 mile per hour fastball go past me. Never even saw it. There goes. I put it. I had like 10 balls that I had paid for. I saw that first one. Well, I didn't see it. And I just grabbed my bat and went home.

8:23You heard it. Fine. You saw it. Then there were nine more that must have come out. And I never even saw it. I just went home. 913-586-7798 here on Dana and Parks. Thanks for listening to the Dana and Parks podcast. Remember, you can catch us online anytime at KMBZ.com.