My Cigar Rx.

Remember the old Anacin commercial?  Some may some may not.  The announcer would talk over the graphics of this head illustrating jagged, sharp lines, a pounding hammer, and the shock of electrical impulses gone haywire and tell the listener if you took two tablets this trio of triage would disappear.

Well, multiply that pain 1000 times and you’ll get an idea of what my head feels like tonight.  So I figured this is a good time for a test to see what happens to this monstrous nuisance if I light up a cigar and use it for my relief.

I didn’t care what cigar I smoked, so I pulled out the one that was in my shirt pocket most of the day and weaved my way to The Patio Cigar Lounge (open 24/7).  I sat down.  This headache was a blazer.  The pain was excruciating.  Metal thumb screws tightening down on every raw nerve cell in my skull.

What caused this pain is not the issue.  But I knew stress was a huge contributing factor (so what else is new?).  I lit the cigar – and that action in and of itself became a stress releaser.  I began to hear the birds singing, the cicadas screeching, and the hum of our air conditioner lull me into a different state.

I had eaten earlier, so food would not dissolve the pain.  I would let the cigar do its magic.  So I sat there smoking the cigar.  I closed my eyes.  I could not will this one away.  But even with the cigar’s silent medicine moving through my mental motherboard, the headache persisted.  Oh, for a massage right now.

I know that smoking the cigar would not relieve the pain instantaneously.  So I just sat there and smoked the smoldering leaves of aged tobacco.  Modern Juju.

******

I continued to smoke that cigar.  The draw?  Impeccable.  The chewy smoke a dream.  The aroma a delight.  I began to imagine mist.  I have gotten to know a photographer in India, Divanshi Chauhan, a student.  She has sent me some gorgeous shots of her country.  And I thought of one in particular – a quiet plaza, where light rain is falling.

I continued to smoke the cigar and began to enter the vision.  I could sense the tightness around my neck loosen, the twisted tendons of taut muscle relaxing.  I allowed the cigar to transport me to India.  I walked around the plaza of my mind.  My eyes still closed.  I became serene.  Still.

I slowly began to open my eyes.  I had not seen reality.  It wasn’t until I noticed that the cigar was almost to its end when I discovered that the headache had all but vanished.  Silently it had disappeared into the smoke.  This combination worked.  I could feel the light breeze of the night air.  I was smiling.  My prescription for the pain had worked.  I felt as if I had discovered the cure for the plague of the 21st Century –  and this time it was not lost.

 

“We decide which is right . . .”

Cicadas are always heard during the night.  I’m recording my podcast (shameless plug coming) The Sound of Cigars, Moment #7 (heard each week on www.irvcigarbroker.com).  They can lull you into a blissful catatonic state, or the constant micro chatter can drive you insane.  But you will feel some emotional stirring deep inside you.

This is what you’ll hear when I smoke a questionable cigar.

“Hmmmm!”  A hum?  A what?

And then I conjure up the closing lines of what some consider to be the best song on this concept album, Days of Future Past by the Moody Blues, “Nights in White Satin.”  On the album the official title of the song is – “The Night: Nights in White Satin.”  Correlating with the entire idea of the typical day. . .

“This is the last song of the concept album, which follows the course of a day, jumping between people and places to capture the typical day. The song documents the heightened emotions and intimacy of dusk/early night-time. The second half, the Late Lament, completes the cycle of the day mimicking the opening monologue and invoking the privacy that the late-night embodies.”

Breathe deep the gathering gloom

Watch lights fade from every room

Bedsitter people Look back and lament

Another day’s useless Energy spent

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one

Lonely man cries for love and has none

New mother picks up and suckles her son

Senior citizens wish they were young

Cold hearted orb that rules the night

Removes the colours from our sight

Red is grey and yellow white

But we decide which is right

And which is an Illusion?  – Moody Blues

 

And then that questionable cigar takes on a different character – one that may have in it the possibilities that might have yet come to the fore.  It is just too early to tell.  As with anything to do with nature, the variables are in the billions – giving man a break.

This morphed into a damn good cigar – the Flor de Gonzalez 90 Miles Limited Edition RA – A delicious, zesty tasting cigar that had me in a state of silent serenity. Unfortunately, I smoked it before I could micro-analyze it.  It’s 10 out of 10, in flavor, construction, and satisfaction.

“We (do) decide which is right and which is an illusion.”

And this is no illusion.

 

 

 

Cigar’s Continuum.

“Space – the final frontier.”  (IMDb)  This is where I am tonight.  Outer space.  I’m the floating debris in the stratosphere after the rocket exploded in the film Mission to Mars (2000) with Gary Sinise.  Everything is silent.  Chaos is the norm.  Ideas are replaced with sheer, terrifying fear.

There are no ideas running through the detritus of wires, twisted metal, ragged remnants of years of work, thought, testing and mathematical configurations.   No chance to catch a piece of shrapnel.  No opportunity to grab onto any part of the bursting miracle that is now littering space.  Who can reason with what is happening?

Pure rational thought is an anomaly as the mind delves deeply into its recesses to find ideas of how to survive such a devastating occurrence, one that was never on the drawing board, considered in the plans, or recreated by the simulators.

I am these fragments.  I am these leftovers of years of calculations silently becoming micro-satellites in uncharted emptiness.  There is nothing to catch.  There is too much bedlam to build a solid thought.  My mind is a void.

There is nothing to pull from – nothing to begin with again.  It is over for this day.  The pieces are too small to bring them together.  This is now.  This is my reality.  Space has infiltrated and mastered my mind.  This one time – this one frightening sobering time, all is quiet.  The cosmos of scattered debris was filled too quickly, without warning, reaching too many places, no chance to pick up the pieces and somehow fit them together as a jigsaw puzzle.

Tonight there is silence.  No tightly knit stories, anecdotes or rants in this emptiness.  It is still.

 

“Now explain this Cigarism to me.”

Ok, this intro is going to be a bit of a climb for some.  And this IS a longer article than usual, but hang in there and you’ll get some food for thought about “Cigarism.”

“Racism is a product of the complex interaction in a given society of a race-based worldview with prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems (e.g., apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often includes the idea that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior.  Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena.

Today, the use of the term “racism” does not easily fall under a single definition.  It is usually found in, but usage is not limited to, law, the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and popular culture.” (Wiki)

Now let’s look at “cigarism” and see what we get.  You say you’ve never heard of the term?  Hmmmm.  That’s unusual.  “Cigarism” has been around for decades but has become a major social and legislative issue since 1964 and one of major concern since August 8^th of this year.  Cigarism is the resultant philosophy of the few that is based on the ideology of stereotyping and discriminating against a legally manufactured product.  This causes constant confusion and inflammatory confrontations both ideologically and physically within society.

What it comes down to is encased in the famous line by the Captain as said to Paul Newman’s character in the classic film, “Cool Hand Luke,” when he says in his affected southern drawl after striking Neuman’s character with a blackjack, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Ain’t that the truth?  Now, I know that no one wants to be preached at.  So I won’t.  But until the public, the legislators, the scientists, the educators, and the parents of nine-year-old cigar smokers begin to realize that what is seriously going on in the Cigar Industry is rational, then indeed – we need to communicate.

One question I have to ask – will anyone listen?  George Wallace wouldn’t.  Phyllis Schlafly wouldn’t.  President Obama wouldn’t (and how hypocritical is that?), the Congress and the Senate wouldn’t.   It’s a tough battle we face.  Can we win it all?  No.  Look at race relations today, even after tense decades, and pages upon pages of legislation to make things equal.  But we can come to a compromise.  And that’s what the cigar community has to strive to do.  Yes, the FDA has the fire power and all we have is the fire to light our cigars.  But we can still proselytize, go out and educate the public.

The other question I must pose then is – will the cigar community actively do it?

(Note here: If you find this boring then try reading all 499 pages of the FDA’s document.  It’s something you have to do if you really give a damn about this industry.  All play and no work makes Irv a dull boy – and in this case, possibly out of work.)

Unfortunately methinks not.  A downer – yeah, for sure.  But let’s look at the phenomenon of “racism” again and see how it correlates with “cigarism.”  And why changing the FDA’s dictum may seem like a Sisyphean task but really isn’t within the proper perspective?  In brief: “You can use Sisyphean to describe things that require a lot of hard work and yet will never be truly finished.  Keeping a house clean can feel Sisyphean, and so can deciding on a movie that everyone in a family will enjoy. The word comes from the character Sisyphus in Greek mythology, who was sentenced for his wrongdoing to push a boulder up a hill and watch it roll back down, again and again, forever.”  (vocabulary.com)

That first sentence in bold type is key to understanding that we have a chance to change things:  “You can use Sisyphean to describe things that require a lot of hard work and yet will never be truly finished.”  Racism is far from over, but we have made strides that would shock the peoples of the past.  Hell, look who’s in the White House!  The Reverend Jesse Jackson shed tears when President-elect Barak Obama won the election because he never thought he’d see the day that an African-American would sit in the Oval Office.  (Some pundits still believe his tears were running down his cheeks because he thought he would be the first black president.)  Bigots still think it’s a nightmare.

Then again, look around you.  Take a gander at any cigar shop in America, you see any sign posted that reads “Cigars only?”  You bet there are.  Walk by someone while smoking your cigar and get a hand by the nose gesture.  Or tell someone you broker cigars and be asked “You can make a living doing that?  Our job is to break through the ignorance.  And the only way to shed the skin of ignorance is through development.  The body and the mind have to grow in order to shed the old and allow the new to progress.

I know I’m harping on this relentlessly, but I will continue to do so until the raw nerves of courage are tapped into and we get off our butts and start to speak up.  And I say to hell with letters to the legislators.  Not only do they not read them – They can’t read save for the bigger numbers over the little numbers on election night that clearly gives them the win.  Politicians are not in Washington to represent us; they are there to be re-elected.  Period.  McFly!?

The boycotts of the 50s and 60s brought to light the economic impact of racism.  Sitting in the back of the bus wasn’t considered a problem until an exhausted Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus bringing to the fore the idiocy of segregation. The riots in Watts wrenched the heads of people to take notice to finally acknowledge – “Houston, I believe we’ve had a problem here.”    Is racism gone?  Of course it isn’t.  It makes up the fabric of our society like it or not.  Really?  It’s 2016.  Look at the news (8.26.16) regarding using the “N” word in an email sent out announcing the disappointing news of losing an election in Alabama.  “Midland City, Alabama, interim Mayor Patsy Capshaw Skipper denied using a racial epithet (the “N” word) to describe an opponent on Facebook this week and instead said hackers had likely compromised her account, local media reported Thursday.” (Washington Times)  Hackers my ass Patsy.  What?  She’s an alleged racist who got caught being an alleged racist?  Backpedaling is a required course for politicians as is “spinning.”

Will racism ever be completely eliminated?  Will the restrictions on smoking ever be completely eradicated?  NO!  But we are making progress however slowly by educating the public about our product – the cigar.  Will scholarly papers cause ignorance to vanish?  Of course they won’t.  At best they most likely will be ignored just like the 499 page FDA document that is accessible to all who care to wade through it – and it’s a slosher.  But we CAN make headway – if we are diligent in our mission to educate.

Cigarism is here to stay I’m sad to say.  But if – as a community, we work together we can continue to crack the toxic codes ensconced in racism and cigarism and allow the truth to set us free.  The truth will always win – even if it takes decades to cross the finish line.

 

 

PIO’s Resurrection.

Cloudy.  The air smells like giraffes.  (Extraordinary smell sensory memory, I have.)  Humid.  The pre-draw is welcoming.  Butane, please.  I am now smoking a PIO Resurrection outside on The Patio Cigar Lounge (open 24/7).  No sun at all.  Ashtray is filthy.  Use it.  My son and his buddies were having cigars late last night.

It feels good to smoke a cigar you can count on – every time.  A straight ash from the gate.  Gently box-pressed.  Nicaraguan.  After a day like today, I needed this predictability.  Predominate flavor?  Sweet aged tobacco, with a lilt of molasses, viscous, slow moving – fresh green twigs twisted tenderly releasing the aroma of nature.  God’s zest in the hands of man.

 Yeah, it’s breezy here.  I could have used some cool air earlier today as I asked embarrassing questions and received resounding, blunt answers, a flurry of changes, and a hat-trick of cigar homicides.  (I dropped three cigars.)   The fourth, well, let’s just say that without people, nary a cigar can be rolled, but with people you can have differences.  That fourth cigar vanished.  I was punched in the stomach, but receive enough blows to the belly over time, and your muscles become taught and sinewy.  And pretty soon, you don’t flinch.  Remember the scene in the James Bond classic, “From Russia with Love” when Colonel Klebb sucker slams her fist into the muscle-bound blond Aryan’s abs with brass knuckles and the surprise blow never fazes him.  Nor did it I.

The Resurrection is conceived and blended by Alberto Medina, a man whose dream has become a reality.  Proof is in my sight.  And it isn’t always the bottom line that sells the cigar.  Not this one.  The gorgeous burn and ensuing ash shows flawless construction.  Grown in rich soil.  A touch of spice is sneaking in with longer draws.  It complements the mix of flavors.

I’m reminded of the “P” word.  Yes, that “P” word.  That is remarkable.  The smoke is chewy, so satisfying the ills of the day are becoming a Brigadoon mist.  My stomach muscles have not weakened.  Nor has my desire to continue.

Coffee grounds, the essence of espresso, tea tannin, and tree bark all ground together to create a smooth, velvety flavor.  So bloody satisfying.  Take another draw.  I do.  The cigar has been around for a long time and it has pedigree.  It will be available soon in stores throughout the Midwest.  That I promise.  Once you light one up, your senses will swoon with decadent delight intensified with the flavors and the cigar’s utmost perfection.

While I’m smoking this heavenly cigar, I ask myself, why don’t more people live life like the ball used in a roulette game?  Fear, methinks.  True, you may not know where you’ll end up, but the journey is fast, wild, and freewheeling (excuse the pun).  Unless you’re a corpse, you can always spin again.  You’ll never lose, you’re the ball.  You’re playing a game.

A very bold cigar, this, with daring flavor combinations through and through.  The burn is continuously straight, a testament to the construction brought up earlier.  I think Alberto has been able to inject his passion into the Resurrection.  He’s the blender.  It comes in a variety of sizes.  No goofy names.

The Patio Cigar Lounge (open 24/7) with a lone, determined broker, smoking an excellent cigar.   The air is filled with passion; the taste buds are totally a blaze.  Thank you Mr. Medina.  (Man, this is good.)

 

Sex, Cigars, Fashion and Ads.

Years ago this type of embrace would have been either in private or in one of “those” magazines.  Now it’s in W magazine being used to advertise Equipment with Kate Moss as the draw.  I had to go to Equipmentfr.com to see what Equipment exactly is:  Voila!

“In 1976, Christian Restoin set out to revolutionize a flourishing, yet cautious women’s ready-to-wear industry with the launch of his brand, Equipment.  Straightforward and innovative, Equipment’s menswear-inspired shirts were characterized by their refined tailoring and timeless appeal.  The brand quickly became a worldwide success and a recognized name amongst the fashion elite, creating a following in film stars such as Lauren Bacall.   After enjoying twenty years of the brand’s success, Restoin moved on, wishing to pursue another phase of his career.

In spring 2010, Serge Azria, re-launched Equipment as he saw a void in the contemporary marketplace for a luxury shirt brand that catered to the modern woman.”  (Website)

Ok, I should know this?  I’m interested in fashion.  It’s just like the cigar business – something new all the time – new blends, new wrappers, new manufacturers, new trends.  It’s all quite the same.  In fact, the ways in which both industries advertise are quite similar.

Take a look at Cigar Snob magazine.  March/April 2015.  Look at the front over.  What’s Nohemi Hermosillo saying with her eyes?  I don’t know, my attention is elsewhere and it isn’t on the cigar.  See?  The editors hired her, from the Wilhelmina Modeling Company, to be photographed by David Benoliel in a variety of poses that lure the reader in.  They are sultry, provocative and appealing.

But the ads are becoming edgier and edgier.  Example, same W magazine (September), and here’s what you see.  A conglomeration of designer’s clothes and jewelry – Alexander Wang’s belt, Cartier’s necklace, a Fenty Puma’s jacket, corset and pants, along with tats, S&M masks, leather pants and the look of sheer craving.  Lifeless it is not – bordering on the ideologically confrontational.  Models are posed in such a way as to spark a feeling, tap into a reservoir of psychological space that you might not be aware of.  What’s the upshot?

Yes, fashion has always been on the brink using taboo ideas and subject matter.  Even in the 50s, the fashions were considered risqué, improbable, and inescapably disturbing – for the time.  Yes.  Agree with me or not.  Look through Cosmopolitan, Vogue, or even earlier issues of W.  The vivid imagination has always been the high-point of the photographer and the editor.  Look.  At.  This.  And we do.

So where are the ads taking us?  No longer are we safe from unsettling images, be they having to do with an embrace of two women or the inclusion of pseudo-sadomasochism.  And that’s OK.  Fashion, art, photography and cigar manufacturing have always been the same – “Rolled on the thighs of Cuban virgins.”  Or key in on Robert Mapplethorpe’s work and realize that he was testing the tensile strength of our thought threads as to what will attract and what will repel without snapping them, thus spoiling the entire experience.

This is our world and has been.  Nothing has really changed.  Go through The Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana Vatsyayana.  The difference?  It’s technology coming at you from all sides at the highest rate of speed imaginable – instantaneously.  No longer are we able to slowly absorb what we see.  We skim, we click, and we scroll down looking for something to excite us NOW!  Delayed gratification does not exist anymore.  Save for the world in which I live as a cigar broker.  It takes time to smoke a cigar.  The inflammatory passions are being stoked by the ads to make you look.  Anything goes.  So why not go there?

Yet, when you pick up a cigar, and light it, the smoke pulls through slowly, deliberately, without any hurry.  The cigar will get hot if you rush, thus destroying the subtle flavors that were meant to be enjoyed at a pace so foreign to our lives today.  Maybe the ads are trying to circumvent that possibility and make you “hot” before you try on the dress, or the shoes, or the blouse – or smoke the cigar.  They intentionally disrupt you.  They goad you into an emotion you really need not embrace.

The cigar is a place.  The cigar is its own entity.  The cigar has control over you.  Let it shield you with its purpose – to provide tranquility, quiet, and stillness.  You can’t help but know the ads are there.  They are there to draw you in – be it in an excited state or a disturbing one.  Their goal is certain – to attract your attention.

Look at the ads.  Take in the message if you must.  But know that fashion’s goal is to incite the emotions – NOW!  The cigar’s goal is to arouse the emotions s-l-o-w-l-y.

No More Free Cigar Samples.

Ever since I got back from Vegas, Life has been throwing some mighty piercing challenges at me.  Sometimes I have been able to dodge them.  Other times they hit me head on and I hurt from the impact of the blows.  Some of these trials have been seen from the distance, others I never saw coming.  And boy – did those cause pain – sometimes physically, other times emotionally.

Now I could list them, but I’m really not looking for a collective “Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!” a la Artie Lang.  But I will admit, yesterday was the kicker. I was with a shop owner.  And what we were talking about has been heading our way for some time.  So I thought I had my moves in place to swerve so the legal salvos could whiz by me.  But, no.  This one figuratively sliced right through my flesh and only stopped when it hit bone.

NO MORE FREE CIGAR SAMPLES!

Read that again cigar lovers.  No more free cigar samples.  And for whatever reason, that reality stunned me into a daze yesterday.  It caught me off guard.  I was bloodied, knocked down with the swiftness of the setback.  As many who experience shock, I felt no pain just a sudden numbness – for me, in the pit of my stomach.  That realization actually quelled the flow of my conversation with the customer.

But that was the only outward sign that something was amiss.  I finished my business and left the store.  I walked to my car and pushed the button on my key fob.  I opened the door and got in.  I slid onto the seat after placing my satchel in the back.  I automatically started the engine.  It was hot.  So I automatically turned on the air conditioning.  The radio stayed silent. 

“The government actually did it,” I thought.  Through the FDA, the government finally twisted and turned its slimy tendrils into my business in such a way that IT now controls me.  The FDA controls me by fear of fines, imprisonment – or both.  The worse pain is in two places, your heart and your pocketbook.  I just sat there, almost in a state of shock.  They won.  Nikita Khrushchev was right, without a single shot; our government is taking over the United States – not some out of the way sand lot, but our own land of freedom.  And it won’t bother you until it hits home.  And it will.  And when it does, it may be too late.  Is the child already in the air, falling toward the ground – prepared to die?

Many businesses will die before this war is over.  If the child does survive the fall, the pain will be excruciating.  The rehab will take months.  The child will never be the same.  But the strong will endure.  I for one will not give up my freedom easily.  I have plans and have already begun to implement them to keep my business operating at full throttle.  You can take everything I have Uncle Sam, but you can’t take the “I” out of ideas.  And I have plenty.

It’s just not in my nature to roll over and pee all over myself.  I may be hurt, I may be injured, and I may be knocked down, but I’ll be damned if you think I’m out.  You are dealing with the wrong business person.  Yes, I am sensitive.  I hurt more than some, but that’s how God wired me.  And that’s what will make me a survivor.

To quote the late great actor Patrick McGoohan in the classic British series –The Prisoner, “I am not a number.  I am a FREE MAN!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw

Was the FDA tipped off?

(This is an opinion piece.  If you care about The Cigar Industry, you’ll enjoy it.)

Did someone in the cigar industry squeal on the cigar makers of some of your favorite blends?  Conspiracy theorists are everywhere.  So why not pump this one up and look at how remarkable or fantastical the idea could be.  (Read between the lines.)

Here’s the scenario:  for hundreds of years cigars have been made with tobacco leaves grown in soil and then babied as if they were ancient pieces of sculpture, one of a kind statues that took years to make, but seconds to destroy.  All the cigars were made of real tobacco, nothing added, nothing reduced, nothing smeared on them to enhance the sheen, nothing that would kill the romanticism that many cigar smokers have of an industry based on love, passion and integrity.

The best way I know how to explain myself is to point out some of the greatest art forgers in history.  For some, it took decades for the art world to discover that respectable museums such as New York’s MoMa and The Met exhibited fakes in its galleries.  How were they discovered?  What about all the fakes that are still circulating out there, taking the rightful, respectful spaces of the masters?  What do we do about them?

We don’t know.  But we do know that there is always a remnant of a mistake attached to every discovery.  That’s how the forgeries are found out.  But it’s amazing how long these fake pieces of art fooled the experts without being detected.

 For example, one of the top art forger’s in history is the German “artist” Wolfgang Beltracchi.  “Beltracchi’s tactics for fooling dealers?  First, he stuck to lesser-known Expressionists and modern painters, like Max Ernst and Heinrich Campendonk, whose techniques hadn’t been studied as extensively. Second, he found old canvases and frames to get the period details right, sometimes paying as much as €5,000 an item. But most important, Beltracchi earnestly channeled the artists he was imitating. ‘I wanted to find the painter’s creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about,’” he told a German newspaper.

How was he found out?  “He was using a tube of paint that contained titanium dioxide white, a pigment that didn’t exist during Campendonk’s day and wasn’t mentioned on the materials list. Beltracchi was arrested in 2010 and released from a German prison (years later).“  (Vulture)

Or the famous case of the Jasper Johns forgeries.  “In 1990, Jasper Johns hired Brian Ramnarine, an artisan based in Long Island City, to cast a wax mold of Johns’ famous Flag sculpture. Johns needed it to determine how much it would cost to cast the sculpture in gold.  Ramnarine wouldn’t return the mold, even after he was paid.

Over the years, Ramnarine made at least two unauthorized copies of “Flag,” including one that he tried to sell to an auction house for $10 million. He gave his broker a fictitious letter, dated from 1989, stating the sculpture was a gift to him from Johns.

But in 2012, a federal grand jury indicted Ramnarine on fraud charges, and Johns himself took the stand, recounting their transactions in detail. When an attorney asked whether he’d given Ramnarine the sculpture as a gift, Johns just chuckled and said , ‘No.’”  (Vulture)

In short, the forgery was seen as the real thing for many years until someone or something tipped off the dealers, the museums, or the owners.  It can happen in the art world.  It is allegedly happening in the cigar industry.  Now I’m not talking about fake Cuban Cigars. That’s been going on for years and will continue to be a money maker for many an unscrupulous dealer.  It’s easy to play off of the naivete of an excited cigar smoker just as it is to fool a motivated or greedy art dealer, or museum.

 

And without giving away the store, there are several simple and current alleged methods being used to this day to enhance the appearance, the flavor, and the burn of supposed natural, all tobacco cigars.  I think that the FDA got tipped off and it went ballistic because it had an opportunity to destroy the evil tobacco industry, and allow big tobacco to squash the little guy once and for all. Reason?  Once anything is added to a cigar removing it from its all natural form, it’s considered an additive by the FDA, and must be tested for safety by the esteemed agency, even though the agency itself over the past few years has made some outlandish and egregious decisions.

Anthony M. Amore’s book, The Art of the Con, “take(s) the reader into the investigations that led to the capture of the con men, who oftentimes return back to the world of crime. For some, it’s an irresistible urge because their innocent dupes all share something in common: they want to believe.  (Amore)

So that’s where we are now – locked in a battle between truths and lies.  Any lawyer will tell you that in either case it is always difficult to expose one or the other notion with absolute, total certainty.

I can’t help but think the FDA was always looking into the practices of cigar manufacturers, but didn’t have enough steam to push a law through that would grab the public, and hold the legislators accountable to espouse a negative attitude about smoking.

Obama was the catalyst for the recent surge of legislation so that the FDA could have carte blanche to begin ferreting out alleged illegal practices of cigar manufacturers under the guise of stringent and over-the-top restrictions.  It was the right era.  It was the proper time.  Legacies were being made.  Why not another bangle dangling from the President’s crown?

Cigar Blog > e = mc2

That’s what I see when I start this blog.  A blank piece of paper can be quite intimidating.  It reminds me of when I would take a test in college.  Nothing’s there.  No answers.  No marks.  Nothing.  Just wordy questions posed to see how much I absorbed – or crammed, into my cranium in order to pass.

Luckily, I no longer take these kinds of tests.  I’m not concerned if I “pass.”  My writing isn’t an exam.  Today, as usual, there’s a multitude of thoughts running through my mind.  I just purged my opinion about the cigar industry in yesterday’s blog.  Yesterday redux?  No.  What of today?

I’m smoking a PIO Resurrection, a cigar made by one of the most passionate blenders in the industry – Alberto Medina, a veteran in the business to say the least.  A review will be forthcoming.  Not today.  I’m taking the time to regain my composure to create much needed energy, and plan on drinking it in for, let’s say, nourishment.  Funny, how that works.  You have to fill up the tank with something in order to operate the machinery.  In this case I need to swell the creative side of my brain.

Everyone needs that, except maybe actuaries, to go on.  When a plethora of angst, anger, anxiousness, ideas, disappointments, joys, and confusions are whizzing around in my head, it takes a concentrated effort to slow them all down.  It can be an exhaustive process at times.  That takes energy.  We all need energy just to live this life, and then adding writing to the mix,  the demands increase to locate that precious reservoir.  The frantic search for energy increases after an article, as I must find access to another repository to drain.

It’s how I obtain that energy.  Today it’s through this cigar I’m smoking, Resurrection, apropos methinks (a double entendre) for this one time of refueling.  Chewy smoke, smoothness you can’t find in reality save the skin of an infant or the texture of salt-water taffy, pulled and stretched to absolute flawlessness.  Each smoke is so thought satisfying – eroticism.  It’s comforting to know I can meld my psyche to this type of man-made consistency because of Mr. Medina’s insistence that every cigar be as near to perfect as can be.  His passion is my vicarious rescuer.

Contemplation can easily turn into chaos and confusion, unless you can collect your thoughts.  And for me, now . . . I’m using that choice, Resurrection, to channel my emotions and feelings that were apt to be deeply embedded and hidden for years, from not only others but from myself as well.  Not exposed.

Now I listen to them, especially while enjoying a cigar.  I believe sensitivity is genetic.  I also believe it can be honed to a razor sharp edge that can effortlessly slice through the elephantine thickness of random thoughts we are bombarded with each and every day that draw us into the abyss of doubt.  I have disconnected the control switch.  The wires are no longer wrapped around the screws; there is no control station that is able to turn them on and off anymore.  I let them flow.

Cigars help me to return to sanity.  I was recently having a smoke with someone. It was quiet.  We were smoking different cigars.  We were able to share our ideas about the tastes, the construction, the age, and the sensations we were experiencing.  It was one of the finest reviews that will never be written.

We were able to have deep conversations, there was no concealed agenda.  I still think about that moment.  Total and complete.  I use it.  I draw energy from it.  Errant thoughts are captured in my mind as gently as a butterfly gliding onto a leaf – silently, naturally and so peacefully.

The paper is filled.  The blog is done.  The process will begin again – tomorrow.

Isn’t It Time To Unite?

Mark Twain once said, “There’s nothing common about common sense.”  This institution is chock full of misinformation, questionable decision making and falsehoods, and is slow to the gate – if it gets there.  No, I’m not describing the Federal Government; I’m more accurately describing the Cigar Industry.

OK put down the pitch forks, the bats, and pieces of lead pipe you just picked up to beat the living daylights out of me.  Don’t take offense to what I’m writing.  This is my opinion and my opinion only.  Call this a DISCLAIMER if you want, I don’t care, but it’s gotten to the point where there is just too much going on to ignore anymore and we have to be honest with ourselves – for once.

The FDA has begun to dismantle our businesses, the broker business, the boutique cigar business, the manufacturing end of the business the whole ball of wax.  And that ball of wax is melting out of control like the final scene in the 1953 version of “House of Wax” staring Vincent Price when all his carefully carved figures are dripping hot goo all over and catching fire and he has absolutely no control over the outcome.  None.  That’s the Cigar Industry folks.  Like it or not.

And I’ve noticed that there is no cohesiveness within the industry.  It’s every man for himself.  As Vincent Price’s character in the movie tries desperately to stop the scalding carnage, he discovers, too late, that one man alone cannot extinguish the blaze.

Divisiveness has oozed over the entire industry and it’s as thick as molten lava.  This situation could be a play by Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco (The Rhinoceros) whose characters depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way.” (Wiki)  A possible title for this drama could be, “No!  You do it.”

Because that’s what happened, is happening, and will continue to happen in the Cigar Industry – an attitude of shrugged shoulders and looks of dismay.  Everyone is watching out for their own best interests and nary has a soul known which way to turn, nor does the slaughter seem to faze anyone.  We look for guidance, we get the party line.  We look for assurance, and we get speculation.  We seek answers and we are thrown questions.  We are all walking around in a darkened cave, desperately scratching the walls with our bear hands, hoping that we can find a way out of this confusion, but there is no light, no opening, and no plan – just the pitch black darkness.

 Fine.  Get angry, go ahead.  Call me an asshole.  Do something!  All I know is what I’ve observed, what I’ve heard, and what is happening right now.  And it ain’t pretty.  The government has laid us out and flayed us wide open as a fish caught in a net and pounded into unconsciousness so the end-user can get at its flesh.  And the crew stands around and watches because it has been done so many times before; they are immune to the pain, the destruction, the helplessness.

“Everybody plays the fool sometime.  There’s no exception to the rule.  Listen baby.  It may be factual, may be cruel, I ain’t lying, everybody plays the fool.”  (Main Ingredient)  And I’m ashamed to say this – but we be playn’ the fool.  Like it or not, we waited too long, we partied too much, we ignored the proverbial writing on the wall and now the hammer has dropped on our heads and we are in the worst state we have ever been in since the late C. Everett Koop released his devastating blow to the tobacco industry with his Report on Smoking on January 11, 1964.  “Wolf!”  “Wolf!”  “Wolf!”

I sound like Scott from the Howard Stern show with his imaginary cloud of doom over his head, but it’s how I often feel.  I’m in this for the duration, I’ve dropped brands, I’ve picked up news ones, and I intend to survive on my own terms.  It’s My Business.  It’s My Plan.  (Thank you Dr. J)   Cornel Wilde ain’t got nuthin’ on me for survival.

You wait and see, the schism between retailers, manufacturers, and brokers has begun to hasten the split in the industry and unless UNLESS we really do Band Together it’s only a matter of time until we plummet to the nadir of the cigar business as we know it.  By banding together we all need to have a common goal and that’s to defeat the absurd FDA rules passed by a government that really could care less about entrepreneurs, small businesses, or innovative ideas.

We live in a land of puppets. We are being controlled.  We have to get the scissors out and sever the cords from above no matter how messy it gets down below because if we don’t – we will fall (have already fallen?) into a nation run by the state for the gratification of those in power.  The government is not working for us.  The government is working damn hard against us.  Stop playing the fool.

I am ready to run the gauntlet.