Don Van Vliet on Smoking

 photo by Nick Chase.

"They used to have this billboard at 'Hollywood and Vine' that sent out these huge smoke rings. Oh man, how could anybody not smoke after seeing those huge mechanical smoke rings? The circle in records, the circle of the smoke rings, the circle of the tobacco cylinder - a very clever campaign.

It was hard to quit cigarettes but I quit, because I was too green to burn (laughs). No, actually I quit so I'd be able to do anything I wanted with my voice, and I can finally hit really high notes now. I smoke a pipe now and keeping the damn thing lit is so hard it's really taught me patience.

"The Gentle Art of Smoking" by Alfred P. Dunhill is a very good book on the subject. I have a huge collection of pipes and I got this particular one on Duke Street in London in 1971. I like London."

 - Don Van Vliet, interviewed in the summer of 1984 at his home in Northern California by Kristine McKenna -

https://beefheart.xyz/argue/don/good.html