The Don Chico Connecticut

Finishing a Don Chico CT Robusto is so very hard to do.  From the beginning – upon first light – this is a Nicaraguan cigar that patterns itself after a frictionless sojourn into a fantastical feast of flavors and aromas.

One of the newest blends of the Barreda lineup of cigars, the Connecticut is one of the most delectable I have had the pleasure of smoking of late.  How do you describe the thrill a few burning tobacco leaves can provide in words?  You can’t.  Period.  You must smoke it yourself to experience such satisfaction.

As the readers know, I rarely put my fingers to the keyboard to expound the virtues of any cigar –  either one I rep or one I don’t.  But this is different.  As was said to Dr. Campbell at the end of the movie Medicine Man, “You’ve been touched.”  Indeed, I had – and have been.

I was smoking the Don Chico in the garage when the lyrics from the song by Neil Sadaka slowly seeped into my mind, “breaking up is hard to do.”  I was “touched.”  This revelation was the utmost in subtlety.  I found a red pen and wrote, “ . . . finishing a Barreda Connecticut Robusto is so very hard to do” in the margins of an ad for the Eddie Martinez exhibition in the Art Newspaper.

This is so unusual for me.  I dislike cigar reviews.  They are often pretentious and silly in their descriptions.  So why would I do even this?  

Some things are left unanswered, but I do know that when I am moved to write, it is for a damn good reason.

WAIT A MINUTE.

Hey.  Has anyone noticed that the Charman® bathroom tissue cut has been changed from straight to wavey?  I detected the new type of perforation months ago.  Hmm?  Anyone?

It’s not a dramatic difference, but it is a far cry from how it used to be.  Straight.  Predictable.  Unnoticed.  

Perhaps the folks at Procter & Gamble figured it ought to do something to get Charmin® noticed once again after almost a century of cleaning our bottoms.  Think about it.  Change was happening everywhere in 1928 when Charmin® was first introduced.  The first television was sold for $75.  Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin.  And Walt Disney released Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with sound.  So it was thoughtful timing for a softer and more reliable form of bathroom tissue to be slid onto the grocery shelves since it was first invented in 1857 by New Yorker, Joseph Gayetty, who named the modern miracle “medicated paper for the water closet.”

Change and innovation are inevitable.  Sometimes it’s subtle, like the curvy cuts between Charmin’s® soft sheets, or it can be mind-numbing such as the plethora of cigars that are being produced and added to the marketplace – it seems like – daily. 

Ooooooookay.  I’m a cigar broker.  I am partly responsible for the issue, but the manufacturers are the bigger problem when they have too many cigars already available and add a new one, or those hopefuls who have yet to find a foothold on the shelves of the humidor due to the embryonic stage of their brand.

I like change.  I like new cigars.  But what I don’t like is, that instead of new cigars being slowly introduced, a good portion of the newer brands are pounding down upon us like boulders falling from above.

Yes, we need new stuff.  We get bored with the old stuff.  Praytell, the master- marketers on Madison Avenue make a living at this cultural phenomenon.  But please give us a break.  Too many newbies introduced a cigar last year at the PCA.  One year ago.  One.  Twelve months – 365 days.

And – this year those same manufacturers are bringing out a new cigar, a new wrapper, a new blend, or new packaging.  This decision, without gaining a market share or, in some cases, not even being a recognized brand yet.  And they bring out something new?  Where’s the logic in this? Of course, I’m not suggesting that cigar manufacturers wait a decade or more to introduce a new cigar.  But please, for heaven’s sake, give the first cigar a chance to assimilate.        

Why I Hate This Phrase.

Simply put, I loathe the six-letter phrase, “taking it to the next level.”  In sales, it’s a euphemism for, “we want more.”  That’s only a three-letter phrase and more concise.  So why is the phrase, “taking it to the next level” used at all?  It’s a mind-bending tactic for the recipient of the idiomatic expression.  No one wants to appear greedy.  Though that’s exactly what a person means when the phrase is uttered.

Donald Judd,“(is) one of the most significant (American) artists of the twentieth century. His radical ideas and work continue to provoke and influence the fields of art, architecture, and design.) {Judd Foundation.org}  He fully understands what the next level is through his works of art, such as the one above – Untitled (Stack), 1967.

So how is it that the next level has been watered down to avoid the obvious?   Easy.  The English language of today has metamorphosed into the cultural milieu of anything goes – as long as it does not offend.  And to say to a sales rep, “Hey dude.  We want more!”  isn’t as acceptable as saying, “taking it to the next level.”

Our society has softened in so many ways.  Being a cigar broker, I have seen the nicey, nicey way this industry has gone, as has the entire Western Culture.  You can’t say this or you can’t say that, the cigar reviews are friendly descriptive essays written with a candy-coated lilt so as not to make anyone bitter – because you might offend.

Say it like it is!  

Look at Judd’s work and ask yourself, “Is he looking for more?”  Do the green steps beg for more?  What is the next level?  One step up.  It is not offensive but it is clear, to the point, and pleasant to look at – even to contemplate.  Think about it.  What does one do once he or she reaches the final level?  (Make another cigar?   Ouch. I can be SO snarky.)

Salt

Salt. 

The windshield housings on my car were frozen solid.  I had lifted the blades, as I am wont to do at times, to keep the rubber from freezing to the glass.  Well, that worked, but here I was with another scenario that for a while had me completely flummoxed.  

So with January in the Midwest going through some ferocious below-zero temperatures a few weeks back, anything can happen and you have to be prepared.  But this?  No.  No.  No.  So I went to visit YouTube.  Although my specific problem was not addressed, some videos did give me an idea.

Salt.

So I came back into the house and found a rather large bottle of rough-ground sea salt.  This compound, once generously sprinkled over the ice, surely would make my job of releasing the encased housings easier.  After several applications, despite the frigid temperature, I was able to jiggle the ice away from the housings and eventually move the blades back and forth.

Salt.

One word.  One word that gave me an idea I hadn’t thought about.  Why?  I don’t know.  But when you’re in a pickle the mind often goes to where it ought not to go and that’s to the negative side of the equation.  It’s only until the gray matter sparks a light to shine on the positive side that you see the end of the problem.  

I find this is the reaction I get a lot when I introduce a completely new brand of cigar to an owner or manager.  Why?

Fear. 

Ohhhhhh. That devil of doubt.  Yes, fear that the cigar, since it is an unknown brand in their minds – WON’T SELL!  Heaven help us.  Flip fear!  What if the unknown brand SELLS?  Had that thought ever occurred to them?  (Shrug?)

Well, I’m going to have a field day this year with others’ emotions because I was asked to rep some relatively unknown cigars and I said, “Yes!”  

Plus, I’ve not a speck of anxiety with my choices.  I know most of the manufacturers and the brand owners by default simply by being in the business since 2005.  I mean really, keeping up with the plethora of brands being spewed out is realistically impossible.  But some do bob to the surface – and I have confidence that I plucked those out of the morass.

So instead of fear, I BELIEVE (hands in the air!) – I AFFIRM (dramatic pause) that I AM (another vivid pause) this year’s – FORECASTER OF FUN!

Let it Go. Let it Go. Let it Go.

No matter how I tried to spin it intellectually, five days in a hospital room closing in on the end of the cigar-selling season is depressing.  Yes, I was there to heal, but the confinement was not my choice.  Time stops.  Lee Krasner’s biography just sits there.  Spiral notebooks remain unopened.  Small, plastic cups of apple juice remind me of urine samples.  There are no comfortable positions to lie down on the bed.  TV is indeed – a wasteland. Throughout my stay, I had no urge for a cigar.  None.  Pain can divert delightful desires.  Only in retrospect was my stay favorable – late December.

I am getting better.  My condition is improving.  Iced tea will again quench my thirst. 

Twenty-four is looking good.  Lots of new brands are in my cigar bag.

Merry Christmas.

Let it snow. 

Let it snow.

Let it snow. 

IL DOGE Indulgence

I’m smoking one of my first true Italian cigars made “exclusively from Nostrano del Brenta Tobacco, an air-cured leaf, which is fermented and aged and used as the trinity of all cigars –  wrapper, binder, and filler.   This three-pack of cigars was gifted to me by my son’s girlfriend who had just returned from Italy.

The cigar?  Nostrano del Brenta’s – IL DOGE. Named after “the historic ruler of Venice, Casanova, the famous romantic lover.”

And from the get-go, this type of cigar seemed to demand an acquired taste.  Its shape is a long and skinny cigar with a baby bump of maybe the second trimester in the center intended to be divided in two to share with a companion. 

Known as a cheroot, (open at both tapered ends), this rough-looking delight lit easily and gave my palate the impression that the taste was akin to that of a stick taken from a smoldering bonfire and inhaling the swirling smoke highlighted in the night’s sky.

IL DOGE is handmade of long-filler tobacco – tobacco that was said to be grown from Cuban seeds brought to Italy in the Brenta River Valley in the 1500s and has been grown there ever since.

How did it fare?  Before I initially wrote it off (and I did), I thought about the way some people learn to swim by being chaotically, suddenly, and savagely thrown into a lake producing thrashing arms while struggling to survive the ordeal, and hoping to God that this abrupt initiation to something new would not be the beginning of the end.

Through it all, though, I thought, “Hmmm.  Very woody.”  

The clock in the garage where I am permitted to smoke, is always clicking and I felt as though I was being timed.   

Still thrashing.  I.  Going under and splashing, and gasping for air was my excuse for drawing another draft.  

Am I critically thinking during this surreal situation?

IL DOGE holds its ash, by golly, while its aroma slowly drifts away from the glowing, smokey campfire stick to becoming a pleasant and alluring bouquet of sheer satisfaction.  

Rotating the cigar between my fingers I find I’m privy to almost inaudible cracklings from the wrapper.  Perhaps air-cured cigars talk like that since my garage is unusually quiet at night so I could hear it whisper.

I’m beginning to thrash less and less.  My arms are floating beneath the water, moving back and forth holding me up effortlessly.  Hmm.  I’m swimming?

The clock is still clicking rhythmically as a thought runs through my mind – borrowing from the Fifth Dimension’s “Grazing in the Grass”,  “I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it.  Oh, let’s dig it.  Can you dig it, baby?  I can dig it, he can dig it, she can dig it, we can dig it, they can dig it, you can dig it.  Oh, let’s dig it.  Can you diiiiiiig it, bay-B-E?”

And Nostrano del Brenta’s IL DOGE? It extracts one delicious, dynamic dimension – and I CAN dig it. 

Tree

What is it that we pass by every day that we don’t see? 

It’s just ain’t gonna happen otherwise.  

Walking Flo I noticed a natural phenomenon.

We have to look.

Listening to Barry, Robin, and Maurice.

Finishing an Aganorsa Habano Validacion.

Stop?  Should I?

Yes.

So I took the photo.

Yes, I had my phone in my pocket.

The screen is black otherwise.

Until I happened upon what has been there for years.

To please.  No.  To satisfy.

No number two.

But that’s okay because I could see it.  Clearly.

Sharp and focused.  The cigar complemented the find.  

But not obsessed with the camera.  Most everyone is.

It seems.

Sad.

It’s a charm to save such beauty.

Share it.

So simple.

A walk with my dog and then this.

At first, I passed it by.  And then.

And then I couldn’t ignore it.

So I retraced my steps.

Unzipped by coat pocket.

Took out my phone.

Turned right.  And this is what developed.

Streaming in other ways.

Go.

Continue to do what you were doing.

I’m done. 

Linden Links

“Artists need to be loved she told an interviewer, ‘and to have rejection, silence, and indifference was very difficult.’”  “She” is painter Grace Hartigan, the abstract expressionist artist of the early 50s and beyond – being quoted in the book “Restless Ambition,” by Cathy Curtis.

I was just into Chapter thirteen of the book when I first read that passage and it smacked my psyche like a padded mallet striking the calfskin surface of the tympani during the climax of Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” played at the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Hey, that’s me!  Yep!  No!  Not Strauss – Hartigan!  This cognition is due to my meandering mind weaving a variety of thoughtful threads while reading late into the night.  But it’s true.  I’ve been a cigar broker for close to 20 years and indeed, I’ve experienced all three – rejection, silence, and indifference from day one.  And it is difficult.  Very demanding.

Anyone who has ever made a living by introducing a new idea or product to a prospective client has been squeezed through an old-fashioned potato ricer.  Over time you become comfortable with the pressure knowing that you will end up okay.

The difference comes into play that a typical artist is usually staring at a blank canvas, piece of wood, or some flat surface trying to create a personal moment to bring out into the open what only the mind’s eye can see or what the emotions are experiencing.  Oftimes, sales are not the only goal.  Often it’s just getting out what’s inside in a gifted way.

Whereas, the cigar broker is constantly hurled into the chaotic cacophony of personalities that are the bain of the business but the necessary standard of sales.  Which one is more challenging and/or satisfying depends on the individual’s talent and knowledge of self.   And “self” according to “Buddhist philosophy . . .  is composed of five aggregates: physical form, sensation, conceptualization, dispositions to act, and consciousness.” (Google)

But wait.  The point.  The point is that a cigar broker, a writer, an artist, a musician, or whatever discipline he or she may concentrate upon  –  are individuals who are sluicing through maddening mixtures of all three notions (rejection, silence, and indifference) that are being haphazardly blended and slathered all over their inner being every day in what they do.  And no one, I repeat NO ONE has the correct or right answer to the proportions, degree of intensity, or the limit of exposure to these three intangibles that make up the proper perfect persona for survival.

As regards Love.  That’s another article.   

Tincture of Time

Don’t worry about your future, mate.  It’s not worth the stress, strain, or sorrow.  Just do the best job you can do – despite the tincture of time. 

Enjoy the days God has given you, and happiness will be your constant companion while you work toward what only you were chosen to accomplish in the limited heartbeats of time.

Flamingo Fright

Bells were stinging my eardrums.  People were moving about like zombies – aimless in their gates.  Lights were flashing almost to the point of making me dizzy, annoyed, and clutched.  I grabbed my orange plastic bag of candy, my cup of In ‘n Out pink lemonade mixed with Coke, and the cigar from the ashtray.  I walked away from the slot machine feeling, hearing, and noticing nothing after a decaying day at the cigar convention.  Where to now?  There’s no pathway on the gaming floor at The Flamingo.  I moved further from the slot machine.  Further.  And further.  My direction was one of just avoiding the zombies, the bodies of over-stuffed bathing suits, and the exaggerated swinging of tattooed arms.  The sounds were muffled as if hearing them through a pane of thick, green glass.  

I reached for my phone.  I went for my phone.  I know I have my phone.  Suddenly a cloudburst of nausea entered my body.  My head began to ache.  My legs weakened.  I reached for my phone.  My inner voice screamed, “What!  I forgot my phone!”  I could only mutter to myself, “Ho – lee, Shit!” I checked my pockets, and my orange bag, and I rammed the cigar between my lips clenching the end of it with my teeth.  I checked and checked and checked.  Did I?  Shhhhhhhit!  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.  SHIT!  

I turned around.  The casino sounds suddenly seemed to magnify, and the boulders of bulbous people all around me now decided to block me.  My vision was like a laser.  Could I remember what machine I was at?  Hell, you bump into the wrong person in Vegas and you can lose your wallet in a second.  How many minutes do you think an unattended cell phone in a casino is going to stay put before it’s scooped up?  This device is my link to business information – and now it’s gone!

How long was I away from that slot machine?  Seconds began stretching.  No, it was here.  Yes, this way.  No, that way.  “Get OUT of my way!”  I had paid so little attention to where I sat down.  My memory was bleeding out to which way to turn my consciousness.  Flooding rivers of unrecognizable estuaries of where to look began rushing into my cranium figuring out which direction I should be going.  Everything was becoming pulsating splashes of blurring, swirling colors.  This is crazy.  Even the omnipresent sounds were hauntingly taunting my psyche by mixing my panic into a concatenation of backward playing hip-hop on 78rpm.  Left.  Right.  Yes.  I remember this.  No.  Yes.  Straight.  You should have zagged.  You zigged!  I began berating my memory.  “How could you forget your fucking phone?”  I tread deeper into the ticky-tacky rows of money-munching machines – large ones, small ones, Aladdin ones, Rambo ones, even talking ones.  My senses were ready to . . . .

WAIT!  Holy SHIT.  Calmly now.  Just go over and pick it up.  Pick up the phone!  It’s your phone.  It’s over there – on the side shelf.  It’s still there.  My heart rate began to slow.  The very thought of disgorging my burger and fries on the carpet began dissipating.  I grabbed it.  I took it.  It’s MINE!