I’ve decided that cigarettes are probably not for me. I can’t justify taking them up as a habit for many reasons: cancer (of course), they make my clothes stink, my breath stink, and I really only have a hankering for them when I’m stressed out. Plus, they make me quite ill at times (hint, hint). I haven’t been on a cigarette jag in months, which is a good thing. But I do like the kind of stress relieving act of taking in smoke and exhaling it along with all your worries into the air. So…how about a pipe?

I know nothing about pipes really. Both of my grandfathers used to smoke pipes. The smell pipes produce is quite calming, nothing like the rancid stench cigarettes can bring. Although, I must admit, sometimes the smell of cigarettes brings back images of my departed grandmother who smoked like it was going out of style. Anyway, I’ve noticed that quite a few men I admire smoked pipes at one time or another. I’ve listed a few below. All geniuses. So, of course, that begs the question, “Does the genius make the pipe or does the pipe make the genius?” Frankly, I think you could take Steinbeck’s Lennie, stick a pipe in his mouth and all of a sudden you go from a intellectual stump to friggin’ Albert Einstein.

Anwar Sadat



Che Guevara



Ron Carter



Jean Paul Sartre



Bing Crosby



John Coltrane



Cary Grant


Orson Welles



Archie Shepp



Earl Hines


Sinatra



Bertrand Russell