“Oh my God,” I said as the ad in “Lucky Magazine” finally registered. “Oh my God,’ echoed the 62-year-old woman seated next to me after showing her the promotion to “taste” the “additive” and “natural” flavor of American Spirit Tobacco.
Getting over my shock of seeing such an ad in print, I looked closer at the magazine. It had graced the table of a dentist waiting room. It was one of more than a dozen, including “Time” and “Newsweek.” I chose it after seeing “Lucky Breaks Free Stuff – page 113” in bold letters across the top of its cover.
Turning to the section — I’m a sucker for anything free – I see offerings by someone named Anna McEntee, pushing “deals, discounts and giveaways.” The “Lucky Break” section stretched across two pages facing one another — 112 and the advertised page 113. To the left occupying a full one-third of the page is the tobacco ad. A thin line separates the “Lucky Breaks” from a picture of three packs of cigarettes. The heading above the smokes says: “EVENTS + PROMOTIONS + GREAT DEALS.”
Lucky offers link for coupons
Now, before you begin pooh-pooh the rantings of some virulent anti-smoking crusader, you should know I’ve always enjoyed the company of smokers over non-smokers. I started sneaking smokes from my mother’s packs of Pall Mall when I was 12, and didn’t quit until 30-some odd years later. I never condoned health-conscious campaigns that ostracized myself or my friends that continued (and continue today) to smoke.
But, I immediately focused on who the target audience was: young women concerned with “shopping and style,” according to the magazine’s subtitle. The magazine’s cigarette ad seemed to be hinting – no, it was more than a hint – that it was somehow chic to be a smoker; that it’s cool to smoke again! (For more see teen girls drawn to cigarette ads in fashion mags.)
The cover for the July, 2011, edition portrays a healthy, 25-year-old “reality star” Lauren Conrad with a “Great Body, No Gym Needed” tag line on her picture. The magazine is geared toward young women with disposable income for the latest in fashions and designs.
We’re not talking Marlboro Man-type territory here. It’s strictly for the professional women and the lady who can afford not to worry about price when great looks are worth so much more.
That is exactly what bothered me. If “good lucks” is what these young adults are seeking, what makes anyone think that smoking would make them appear more appealing?
“Experience Natural American Spirit with two packs for $2” the ad says. Nothing describes what the promotion means as “natural.” It does claim, however, that: “No additive in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.”
I’m all for free enterprise and for a person’s right to anything that’s not illegal. But, this ad was right next to such offers for “Lucky Break” discounts as necklaces, bikini tops and bottoms, cosmetics and jewelry. None of these will kill you, folks, and I cannot understand how the publisher could approve its offering in such a magazine.
Contoveros 
Where have you been Controveros? WordPress fans need to hear from you. I waited for your Memorial Day post.
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My laptop computer isn’t working. I took out the battery on the advice of my son in hopes that I could “drain” what I might have done by “over-charging,” and I simply have not had the time or patience to write at another location.
I’m cheap. I got the computer free from the VA and I’m reluctant to pay for a new one or to repair the old one.
In addition, I keep losing my good luck crystal, a malachite stone. I lost three of them and had to stop writing every time. It may sound strange, but I feel a lot better when I have that piece near me.
Well, there you have it on this 50th anniversary of the War in Vietnam, sans a working laptop and my trusty piece of stone. I’ll get things back together soon. Well before the ending on December 22 of 2012.
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I agree. Thank goodness for stumbling onto Buddha path. It has changed my life completely.
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Did we really “stumble” onto the Buddhist path? Or was there something karmic about us being drawn to a path of inquiry? We could have chosen a different road, but we did not.
We could have chosen not to smoke that first cigarette, but were influenced so much by images of those “cool” people smoking, that we (I) wanted to be just like them.
It’s all in forming the “right intention” isn’t it? When choices need to be made, what is the right path to follow?
I wish the publisher of Lucky — Gina Sanders — would have thought of this before approving the ad insert.
(see http://www.luckymag.com/services/presscenter/bios/GinaSandersBio)
She could have raised money elsewhere without exposing her young readers to such destructive habit.
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In my twenties, I walked out into my backyard and looked up at the sky. I looked all around me and said to myself “Is that All There Is?” I guess that was the initial stirring deep within. During those tumultous years, I started reading about self realization. One of my first books being Siddhartha. Then I read about sages in caves, Patanjali and found a gurani by accident one day in a yogic ashram. This went on and off for years as I stumbled along through life. Then one day around 50 years old I found Buddha. I was swept away forever.
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“Unable to identify what my Life was all about, I closed my eyes and heard the sultry sound of one of America’s greatest White blues and jazz female singers, Peggy Lee.
She was a hit singer after World War II, but I remember a song she did in the late ’60s. She sang it in that seductive, husky throated soft voice that demanded your immediate attention. ”IS THAT ALL THERE IS?” Peggy Lee sang. The song, composed by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, was inspired by a short story written in 1896 by Thomas Mann. The lyrics are from the point of view of a person disillusioned with life. She tells of seeing her house catch fire when she was a little girl, going to the circus and when she fell in love for the first time. There’s disappointment after each experience. And then she suggests we “break out the booze and have a ball — if that’s all — there is.” The narrator in Mann’s novel tells the same stories. One difference is that Mann provides a different ending, and offers a sense of freedom when seeing the sea for the first time and the hope a sea without a horizon would provide. Most of the words used in the song’s chorus are taken verbatim from the words of Mann.
(Incidentally, Mann thought his best work was about characters from the Bible, particularly Abraham, Issac and Jacob, when he wrote a four-part novel over the course of 16 years called ”Joseph and His Brothers.”)
And, that’s when I learned what my life was not about!”
[I wrote this for another venue last February, 2011, and like you, Livvy, included a U-tube presentation.]
Is That All There Is?
SPOKEN:
I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, “Is that all there is to a fire”
SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is
SPOKEN:
And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth.
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears.
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle.
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don’t know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, “is that all there is to a circus?
SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is
SPOKEN:
Then I fell in love, head over heels in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world.
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other’s eyes.
We were so very much in love.
Then one day he went away and I thought I’d die, but I didn’t,
and when I didn’t I said to myself, “is that all there is to love?”
SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
SPOKEN:
I know what you must be saying to yourselves,
if that’s the way she feels about it why doesn’t she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me. I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment,
for I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself
SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is
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The girl singing Is That All There Is must have been friends with Nietzche! LOL
There is just this. Nothing more. LOL. NADA. Just this moment. Rest is illusion. LSD trips.
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LSD? Shades of Timothy Leary and an elevation toward a higher consciousness, without smoking a thing!
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Evolution? Evolved human race? Ha. Ha.
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Unbelievable! Unbelievable! Ugghhh….
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Thank you, Carmen. As a young professional woman, you are in the target audience of Lucky Magazine.
Tell me you are going to boycott it as well as its companion magazine, “Lucky Kids.”
You see, they may be in cahoots with the 1 percenters who want to sell us not want we “need,” but what they — creating a psychological desire within us — want us to “want.” They help create a desire (dare I say a “craving“?) to possess more in the belief we will attain happiness with their product, no matter how much harm it and its covetedness might bring . . .
“Lucky Kids.” Unlucky adults who buy into it.
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Spare me! Just spare me! Is there a prize for “stupid”? And I do not use that word normally!
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Wait a minute. I thought Humphrey Bogart looked really cool with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
We all were a little stupid and Madison Avenue took advantage of that, didn’t it? Makes you want to go out and Occupy Wall Street to insure it never happens again.
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Watch this video about how Edward Bernays, Father of American Advertising, convinced young women to smoke. His phrase was “Torches of Freedom.
Bernays used his uncle’s work (Sigmund Freud was his uncle) on desire to HOOK American consumers on CONSUMERISM. Watch all the youtube videos on Edward Bernays. Before his campaign, Americans only bought what they needed.
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Thank God for Buddhism, Livvy, to help put a check on our desires and our cravings.
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