{"id":23125,"date":"2009-12-05T15:26:29","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T23:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=23125"},"modified":"2019-12-24T14:22:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T22:22:32","slug":"regarding-that-rant-i-posted-a-couple-weeks-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2009\/12\/05\/regarding-that-rant-i-posted-a-couple-weeks-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Regarding that rant I posted a couple weeks ago…."},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a bit of a rant<\/a> regarding my disappointment about realizing that it\u2019s just not healthy for me to hang out in the smoke-filled Mercury anymore, and my frustration that the Merc can\u2019t get enough support for non-smoking nights to make them a regular or even semi-regular occurrence.<\/p>\n

Herewith, two related items.<\/p>\n

Firstly. As it turns out, the Merc will be having one of their rare non-smoking events next Friday: Gas Masquerade.<\/p>\n

\n Gas Masquerade: A winter formal\u2026 of sorts. Join us in all your elegant finery\u2026but don\u2019t forget your breathing apparatus!<\/p>\n

**************THIS IS A NON-SMOKING EVENT*****************<\/p>\n

Formal, fetish, military, steampunk, neo-Victorian, medical, goth, industrial, post-apocalyptic, whatever. Just Dress to Impress and wear your gas mask!<\/p>\n

Special Guest: DJ Decay (Death Guild, San Francisco)<\/p>\n

Come down for the first special event of the holiday season and to wish JQ farewell, as this will be her last night Djing at the Mercury. Doors open at 9. Cover begins at 9. $5.00 w\/id.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let it be known that one, I wholeheartedly<\/em> support and appreciate this, and two, given that I\u2019ve made a small fuss about wanting non-smoking nights, and as I do try to be be one to put my money where my mouth is, I am planning on being out at the Merc that night.<\/p>\n

Secondly. Regarding some of the statements I made in my above-linked rant:<\/p>\n

\n Apparently, the smokers are so wedded to the concept of being able to smoke indoors that, when faced with a non-smoking night, they won\u2019t go<\/em> rather than take smoke breaks outside, as they do in virtually every other public situation they go to.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s disappointing to me that enough of the Merc\u2019s supporters have made it clear that they will only support the Merc as long as they can smoke that the Merc cannot realistically hold smoke-free nights on a regular basis. I have to admit to a certain amount of curiosity about what that segment of the Merc\u2019s regulars do<\/em> on those non-smoking nights. Do they simply sit at home, puffing merrily away? Or are they so hypocritical as to go somewhere else entirely, at which point they have to do the same thing as they would be doing had they gone to the Merc that night: going outside for their smoke breaks? At that point, they\u2019re merely withholding their business from the Merc out of petty spite, and that\u2019s just sad, especially if they love and want to support the Merc as much as they might claim on any other night.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a certain sad confirmation, given that that passage had a certain amount of informed speculation at its core, that the very first comment posted on the the Gas Masquerade event listing page, by someone I don\u2019t know, is, \u201cNo smoking, no going. The merc is the noc noc for the nite. Booooooo!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

I do. Not. Understand.<\/em> This atitude.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Mercury, for occasionally doing what you can to cater to non-smokers. Thank you, JQ, for making this event non-smoking. And screw you, self-centered egotistical smoker, for being so petty as to stay home and pout (I hope, as that\u2019s less offensive to me than going to another club where you\u2019d wouldn\u2019t be able to smoke) instead of coming out and taking the occasional smoke break outside the club doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let it be known that one, I _wholeheartedly_ support and appreciate this, and two, I am planning on being out at the Merc that night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2033,2043],"tags":[3498],"class_list":["post-23125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-the-blog","category-personal","tag-from-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}