In the movie Birdman, there is a scene where Samantha is on the roof of the St. James Theater in New York City. She’s a hard-edged addict working her way through recovery (and daddy issues), and she’s brooding up there on the ledge, uplit by the neon lights and camera flashes of Broadway below. Mike, an egotistical actor and bad boy, pursues her onto the roof, with his coat collar turned up.
They’re brooding together up there, as the tourists bustle on the sidewalks below them. And they’re flirting. And they’re exchanging sarcastic barbs. And they’re being hip and edgy.
And they’re smoking.
In that moment, watching them a few months ago, I felt achingly romantic for a cigarette. For smoking. Because I wanted to be there. I wanted to be the eccentric actor with the bohemian fashion, smoking a menthol on the freakin’ roof of a freakin’ theater on freakin’ Broadway! Being up above it all, feeling artsy and witty, smelling the night’s breeze - the exhaust of taxis and the aroma of falafel carts mingling with the tobacco smoke. Feeling sexy and alive, ruling over the Gotham City night from atop a glittering palace.
Whoa!
Ah, the old delusions and attachments. Those notions of being cool and rebellious and hip. Independent and grown. I gave so much character, so much personality, so much emotional power and sway…to a drug addiction. So much influence given to what I wanted a cigarette to do for my persona, or for what I thought it allowed me to become.
As if I very well didn’t or couldn’t feel cool and groovy and bad-assed all by myself, naturally, thank you very much!
And it makes me wonder if I, an ex-smoker, could hold my own now, up on that roof, wisecracking with a funky chick or with a James Dean-type dude, and be one of the smoothest “it” hipsters in Manhattan…without having to smoke to feel that way.
I think I could.
Because genuine coolness doesn’t come in cartons, and I know that now.
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