Cigar events must be redefined.

I just had a person who inquired whether or not one of the manufacturers I represent hold events via a text message.  I sent a reply that read, “What do you mean? Do you mean does the owner, or blender show up?  Or do you mean does the rep make an appearance?”  I know the answer. Do you?

Of course, they want the owner to show up.  That’ll draw ‘em in by the thousands. Ahem. Hundreds? Maybe. Depends on the cigar. Depends on the popularity of the cigar.  We all know Drew Estate’s Jonathan Drew draws groupies who can fill up a room the day before his arrival.  But he, along with a scant number of other cigar celebs are anemic anomalies in this business. Plus it depends on how the shop has supported the cigar? A couple boxes here or there during the year and I’ll bet you even the rep will have to think about scheduling an event.

Fact is, events are becoming passé.  Why?  Well, Let’s have Mr. Dylan chime in here.  The last stanza of his ’64-’65 classic heralds the fact that the old way of doing things or events is over:

“The Times They Are A-Changin’”

 . . . The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin’

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin’

Which translates to:  Shops that hold the usual buy 3 get 1 free (oops! promotional), or whatever combination, is the curse.  The slow metabolism of interest has set in. The “slow one” i.e. he with new ideas “will later be fast.” One shop offered dinner and the opportunity to take classes to become licensed to conceal and carry.  Brilliant! Another manufacturer brings in a roller. It’s a piece of cake that still works, but it, too, is getting stale.

In short, the new ideas may succeed.  But they will take time to catch on. But keep in mind soggy chips and warm dip, dry sliced beef and cold gravy – and dare I say it, uber-ethnic foods are not draws.  Nor are the owners of companies no one knows. Slugs beware, the sin of sloth will eventually catch up to you.

So get your foil thinking cones on because “The order is rapidly fadin’ and the first one now (read conceal and carry classes and rollers) will later be last –  ‘cause . . .  The Times They Are A-Changin’”  Listen close

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ9drv78dCQ

The Girl on the Train Mix.

Tincture of the mind advertising is the best way to get your product into the hands of the consumer.  

Period.

To my left are two objects, a DVD and a hardcover book.  Both have the same title – “The Girl on the Train.” Entertainment weekly’s contribution is “The darkest, sexiest, most daring thriller of the year.”  The best blurb on the book is from The New York Times, “Has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since “Gone Girl” . . . (It is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership.”

In short, this is a winner.

But that’s why I picked up a copy of the book at the library (It had, at one point, stocked 16 copies, and I have the last one.  And that’s why I grabbed it off the used bookshelf. I bought it for one dollar. It was in like-new condition. I also checked out the DVD. I feel surrounded by what could be one of the best reads of the year.  And why did I grab the copy off the shelf the second I saw it? I’ve heard so much about it on the radio, have seen ads for it in the paper and the magazines, as well as being tethered into previews as a trailer and finally – the movie. It was also #1 New York Times Bestseller for who knows how long.  However, that last accolade had nothing to do with my interest. I still wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

I had no clear idea what the story entailed.  All I was knew was that I was submerged in the hype.  Over and over and over and over and over and over. “The Girl on the Train.” Yes, it did remind me of Patricia Highstreet’s book title, “Strangers on a Train” (1950) which was subsequently made into a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  The similar concatenation of the titles drew me in.

Would it be the same plotline as the one by Highstreet?  Or would it be an entirely new storyline? I didn’t know but I had to find out.  

Why?  Pure unadulterated curiosity.  Remember, I bought the book. Price is a moot point.

So I ask you, why don’t cigar companies do the same thing?  Connect the subconsciousness.  Yes, they have fewer places to splash their print ads. They are limited to cigar magazines.  There are no ads in everyday publications.   No television.  No movie trailers.  But they have painted themselves into tight, unimaginative, non-creative corners because they don’t want to take the nimble chance or real risk of publically dissing another company’s product.  To that, I say “Rubbish.”

Can you imagine the feisty festival of fun cigar companies would have if they went along and began to blatantly compare their products to others?  Think for a minute if you read an ad that said, “Stop sitting on the Rocky Edge all the time and get on solid ground with the Ciseron by Oscar Valladares.”  Or “When you want to create volcanic thunder, the last instrument you will hear is a Brun del Re Piccolo.  Smoke Maya Selva’s volcanic Volcan, Cumpay’s Puro Nicaraguan for a sizzling surprise.

Daring, uh?

Use your competition.  Don’t be afraid of it.

That’s why I became so entranced by the book by Paula Hawkins, because it tweaked my subliminal memory about Highstreet’s tome.  

Take chances.  If your cigar stands up to the one you’re trying to knock off the fence, what are you worried about?  

Your cigar?

 

Cigars are chosen by using algorithms.

“In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an unambiguous (not open to one interpretation) specification of how to solve a class of problems. Algorithms can perform the calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning tasks.

You may not think about this very consciously, but all of these operations performed by your computer consist of algorithms.  An algorithm is a well-defined procedure that allows a computer (a brain?) to solve a problem.  Another way to describe an algorithm is a sequence of unambiguous instructions.”

THEORY OF CONNECTIVITY

“The human brain is the most sophisticated organ in the human body. The things that the brain can do, and how it does them, have even inspired a model of artificial intelligence (AI).  Now, a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience shows how human intelligence may be a product of a basic algorithm.

This algorithm is found in the Theory of Connectivity, a “relatively simple mathematical logic underlies our complex brain computations,” according to researcher and author Joe Tsien, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, co-director of the Augusta University Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology. He first proposed the theory in October 2015.

Basically, it’s a theory about how the acquisition of knowledge, as well as our ability to generalize and draw conclusions from them, is a function of billions of neurons assembling and aligning. “We present evidence that the brain may operate on an amazingly simple mathematical logic,” Tsien said.” (Futurism.com)

Take away the term “mathematical logic.”  Replace it with “consumer logic” (I know that’s a stretch, but consumers are savvy.)  So what this brings us to is that the human brain, if the “Theory of Connectivity” is worth its salt, then it would be logical to deduce that the way we pick out cigars is not based on favors, essences, body, country, maduro, or even brand.  It is based on the brain calculating amalgamations of “equations” to give the buyer what he or she is jonesing for.

So “An algorithm is a well-defined procedure that allows a computer to solve a problem.”  And since we have determined that the brain is indeed a computer of the highest order, we do indeed choose our cigars based on the ejection of the accumulation and internal biological dissemination of facts that we have gathered.  In short, it is not possible to choose a cigar without the input of prior information that has been gathered over a period of time. What we may think is our conscious decision based on likes and dislikes of a certain flavor, essence, size, country etc., is really the “computer” within our cranium simply processing the internal algorithms that are constantly performing calculations, processing data via reasoning. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLMVB0B1_Ts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE

Peace and Love. Peace and Love.

I get it.  I’ve always gotten it.  There is no confusion whatsoever.  I make my living as an independent cigar broker.  The name of my business is Irv CigarBroker.  I created it from scratch.  No one in the cigar business knew me, of me, or about me when I started.  I represented three small brands.  I worked two jobs until the business could sustain itself and then I told the folks I was working for that I would no longer be needing them. I have an independent streak in me thicker than the base (660 feet) of the Hoover Dam.

I get paid by commission.  I do not receive anything from the cigar manufacturer.  Only samples. I pay for my food, my hotel, my gas, my repairs, my butane, my everything.  I work as hard as I do because I’M AN INDEPENDENT BROKER.  My business.  My plan.  Most manufacturers know this or at least I think they know this or they should at least ask! That’s why they allow us to represent their cigars. They do not have enough money to hire in-house sales reps. And they want someone who is eager to work because if we don’t – we don’t get paid!

So why in the name of Judas Priest would I agree to work for a manufacturer or brand owner knowing that I will have to change my method of sending and receiving emails, fill out weekly reports, which would include naming all the shops in the area that I visit on a particular day, provide their phone numbers, their emails, whether or not I called them or met face-to-face, weed out the hookah and vape stores, and supply their Instagram profile!  Why? Why? Why?  Because the (expletive) didn’t tell me that was part of the plan, that’s why. Then when the time comes to get to work – all of the above surfaces – to my chagrin.

Do your homework!  You’re not dealing with Gumby here.

I work alone.  I’ve been doing this for over 13 years.  I’m known in the industry.  I deal with the principal.  And I certainly won’t need a sales manager to motivate me to get to the other level.   And I don’t fill out reports.  I stay in contact – but at my pace.

Ok.  Rant is over.  I feel much better now.

Peace and love.  Peace and love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7V7lONndY

Cigars are never a necessity. Lisbeth is.

I just finished watching the Swedish version of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  (English subtitles). The time reads, ah 12:09 AM on my computer to the bottom right. It’s damp and humid outside.  The air conditioning is on. So I decided to watch the film in my office on my laptop.

The more concise summary is quoted from www.imbd.com. “A journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Niqvist) and a computer hacker, Lisbeth, are hired to investigate (the) disappearance of young Harriet Vagner.  Their search connects to a series of decades-old murders, though it also begins to reveal the Vagner family’s dark and secretive history.”

The film did vast justice to the book.  I wore earplugs so as not to disturb E.  (Yeah, I know it makes no sense, but listening to the film in its original language was a buzz and really heightened the tension.)

My next goal will be to the view the English version starring Rooney Mara who plays Lisbeth’s part.  Lisbeth was portrayed in the one I saw superbly by Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, it was directed by Niels Arden Oplev.  

There are many characters, almost too many at times, and the plot line is really much more involved and complex than IMBd’s excellent summary.  

But that’s not the point.  The point is that I was able to watch the entire 2 hours and 32-minute film without a cigar.  Not a one. Can’t. The office is in the house. Not only was I attracted and glued to the plotline, characters, and oeuvre of the film, but I was able to watch it and not once, not even once did I think it would be a better experience if I could just have a cigar.  My cravings (if any) were psychologically transferred to the film.  Confusing I know.

And I feel good about that.  I’m not a slave to cigars. Show me any cigarette smoker who doesn’t exhibit or feel uneasy without the nicotine coursing through his or her body while on a flight from Chicago to New York?  Go ahead. I dare ya.  That’s right!  They don’t exist.

The film was superb.  The rush of adrenaline I experienced was enough to last me for a few days.  The rush. Hmmm. I love it. When a film is as good as this one, it’s hard not to appreciate all the effort and work that goes into it just to give the viewer chills and that magnificent adrenaline high.   And then, in the end . . . well, if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I shan’t spoil it for you.  But I will say this, it is totally and completely expected in an unexpected way. Bravo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOqGJuHbUmA

Seven days justifies decompression.

“We could start with the risk. With a man slipping into the ocean next month off Miami Beach, about to enter a trap where he can’t breathe, speak, see or smell. A man atop a 56-story building who’s heading all the way down to the cellar, then back to the roof, only the building is water, all water, and he has no scuba tank. And no wife, because she never returned from the trap. And no sleep, because of his anguish and the media and Internet firestorms over his role in her death, and the resulting lawsuit. Yes, we could start by asking how it happens that the last thing a man in the midst of such grief should be doing becomes his only way out of it and why—here, today, a few billion years into the evolution of life on earth—we’ve come to this, the ritualized risking of death:” riding with a cigar manufacturer. (The Rapture of the Deep.  SI. 06.16.03 Gary Smith)

********

The article is about how a man and his wife tested their endurance in “Freediving.”  The woman, Audrey. The man, Pipín. Both passionately in love with each other. Both passionately in love with Freediving, “the sport of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear.  Besides the limits of breath-hold, immersion in water and exposure to high ambient pressure also have physiological effects that limit the depths and duration possible in Freediving.” (Wiki)

********

The article takes the reader through the dangers and exhilaration of putting yourself through the rigors of preparation and then the actual dive.  The one thing that keeps any man or woman tightly ensconced in the sport?  Depth record-breaking.

“Keep going deeper, friends warned him, and you’ll end up in a coffin if you’re lucky.  A wheelchair, if you’re not.” Yet, that – even that, held no sway for the two divers to break the record.  And there are many that have tried. And many that have failed.

In this piece, the dives are made and the end can result in death.  As it did for Audrey on an attempt for a record dive.

She found herself testing her limits to see “how much deeper?  How far will a woman follow a man?”  How far will a broker go with a cigar manufacturer?

No, the question is, how far will a cigar broker follow a manufacturer.  The dangers are minuscule when compared to freediving, but the concept is the same.  Go as deep as you can and with stages of predetermined decompression, the broker will surface with the feeling of being in the netherworld of success.  Or as with Audrey, despite all the preparation, something can always go terribly wrong.

Luckily, my recent trip with Oscar Valladares was a record breaker, but even during the seven days he spent here, the feelings of disaster permeated my thoughts.  So when I left him off at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare late Friday night, I felt as if I had broken through the surface and achieved a record, which for me was seven days.

I do not make it a practice to break records with a manufacturer.  My lungs can only hold so much and then I must surface and at the end of the dive – decompress.  Which is what I am doing right now by writing this article.

 

Oscar Valladares visits the Midwest.

Oscar Valladares of Leaf fame is in the Chicagoland area.  I took him to Gene and Jude’s in River Forest for a true Chicago tradition the other day – a double dog with fresh cut fries – and he liked it!!!

He’ll be in town the next few days.  So keep your eyes open.  We might just stop by.  Or show him your support and like the page!

I’m holding off on the blog posts this week and will concentrate my efforts to give Oscar some great memories to take back with him to Honduras.

Ooh-Rah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLy2SaSQAtA

Patience plus a stunning cigar equals success.

I’ve worked for numerous manufacturers over the years and one thing most have in common is an unrealistic expectation for their brand as regards to sales.  Here. Look. I have a cigar. I’ll call it Basura de Flores.  Dominican.  It comes in three sizes, robusto, toro, and 60.  Two wrappers, Habano and Maduro. No Connecticut.  Boxes of 20. Wholesale price for the robusto is $5.50. Toro is $6.00, and the 60 is $6.50.  No taxes are included. So at keystone, or double the cost, that comes to minimums of $11.00 for the robusto. $12.00 for the toro, and $13.00 for the 60.

The aroma is like Chanel No. 5 with genuine ambergris mixed in – unique, intoxicating. The wrappers are perfect, no imperfections whatsoever.  The draw is likened to the sipping of gooey honey from a wild bee’s honeycomb and the burn is laser perfect. The packaging is that of a graphic genius – who uses colors that pull on your emotions so that you want to bathe in them to absorb their glistening glitter. *

It is an experience like no other.  And I’m the only broker with access to these gems.  The only broker with the key to open your humi-doors to the unsuspecting smoker who would never have had the opportunity to smoke the cigar had it not been for my belief that what I represent is a shard of luxury and all I’m asking you to do is try one.

“But the prices?  What of them?” What of them, I ask?  Are you looking at this business as one that sells dried leaves for dollars?   Or are you in the business of smothering pure erotic pleasure across a smoker’s palate to give away a sensuous experience that will never be forgotten?  And he’ll come back to your shop because the manufacturer hasn’t whored out the brand on the internet.

But the shop owner doesn’t know this.  I’m just “telling” him this.  “Go ahead, smoke one.”  Pause. “See for yourself.”  He stretches his hand out to show me the plethora of cigars he already has in stock.  “What? My fault? Buy something that sells,” I confidently suggest.

He looks at me like I’m trying to sell him something.

“Here’s a sample. Try it.  You might like it.”

Does he?   Sometimes. Sometimes not.  But that’s the process. Sales have nothing to do with it.  It’s all in the cigar, the tobacco, the fermentation, the aging, ah, not even the price has a bearing on how the cigar smokes.  

But this is the disconnect.  “No one is asking for it”, he whines.  Has it been rated?” What do you care if it’s been rated you h. . . . .-h. . . . .a.s.  You’re always telling me the ratings are bogus. So WTF?  Now it’s an issue???

Does the manufacturer of the cigar or the brand owner see all this?  No. All he or she sees is the bottom line.  The number of orders generated.  And that can take a very long time for an unknown, but delectable, brand.

Brand owner’s thought bubble: “Bullshit!!!  These are Basura de Flores!  I created the blend.  I creAted the f@*+king blend!  It’s better than Padron, Davidoff, Ashton, etc., etc., etc.”  And it may very well be.  But it’s easier to convince the guy to kiss Joel Grey’s cupid bow lips who played the Emcee in the 1972 movie, “Cabaret” than it is to jam the damn cigar between his clenched teeth.

********

No Mr. Brand Owner.  It doesn’t happen overnight.

Ahhhhhhhhh.  But when the shop owner finally lights up the majestic conical maze of tobacco, he realizes he’s wasted months of making money and of course – introducing the customer to sheer smoking bliss.

Just wait.  If the cigar is shit, it’s S*+T!  It won’t sell. Period.

But if the cigar is spectacular – the results will be stupendous.

If you know you have a good one – all you gotta do . . . . is wait.

*  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guDZ7Bhgbz0

Interesting business this.

Do you feel like a fish in a barrel, rifle readied, just because you smoke cigars?  Read on:

If you’ve ever watched “DJango Unchained” (2012) directed by Quentin Tarantino, there’s a sequence in the film when the former dentist now a full-fledged bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), and his newly purchased slave, DJango (Jamie Foxx) walk into a saloon in Daughtrey, Texas.  The owner panics, “Whoa! What the hell you think you doin’ boy, get that n….. outta here!”  When he sees this, he skedaddles for the sheriff.  Dr. Schultz reminds him in a loud voice, “Innkeeper! Remember, get the sheriff, not the marshall.” 

The sheriff walks into the saloon and asks them to step out of the saloon, which they do.  “Now why y’all wanna come into my town, start trouble, and scare all these nice people? You ain’t got nothin’ better to do, then (sic) to come into Bill Sharp’s town and show your ass?”

And this they do, leaving the saloon and stepping out into the street.

The former dentist walks toward the sheriff as if to shake his hand and instead a slight metallic sound produces a derringer and Schultz puts a bullet in his heart.  Then he walks over to the body and fires one into his head.  The Innkeeper runs to get the marshall with the echoes of the former dentist’s voice crying out, “Now you can go get the marshall.”

Now the two men return to the building and are holed up in the town of Daughtry’s saloon immediately after Schultz shot, in cold blood, the town’s sheriff.  

Now this entire scene is being played out because not only did Dr. Schultz, former dentist cum bounty hunter, shoot the town’s sheriff, but he also allowed Django (for those of you who haven’t seen the film, I urge you to do so), a slave – a black man – to walk into the saloon and have a beer!  Gasp!

So now it’s up to the United States Marshall to set this whole debacle straight.

It’s only moments later when the entire town is walking behind the Marshall who is giving orders right and left of how this is going to play out.  “Move that buckboard over there long ways across the street from the saloon. And I want six men and six Winchesters behind it. And I want two men with two rifles on this roof, and two men with two rifles on that roof, with all barrels pointed at that front door.  And somebody git poor Bill outta the goddamn street.” (imsdb.com)

So the Marshall arrives and he’s talking loudly and directly towards the saloon doors where the two men are inside.  “We got eleven Winchesters on every way outta that buildin’! You got one chance to git outta this alive!  You and your n….. come out right now with your hands over your head, and I mean, right now!” (imsdb.com)

Dr. Schultz, the refined gentleman that he is, answers from the inside the marshall in duly polite fashion by slightly raising his voice and asks, “First things first! Is this the marshall I have the pleasure of addressing?”  The marshall answers back in the affirmative, “Yes it is, this is U.S. Marshall Gill Tatum.”

“Marshall Tatum,” Schultz continues, “may I address you, your deputies, and apparently the entire town of Daughtrey, as to the incident that just occurred?   Again, the marshall agrees with the caveat that both men will exit unarmed.

Dr. Schultz continues his planned exit by stating, “I have relieved myself of all weapons, and just as you have instructed, I’m ready to step outside with my hands raised above my head.  I trust as a representative of the criminal justice system of The United States of America, I shan’t be shot down in the street, by either you or your deputies, before I’ve had my day in court?

“You mean like you did our sheriff? Shot ’em down like a dog in the street?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean! Do I have your word as a lawman not to shoot
me down like a dog in the street?”

The Marshall agrees.  But before they exit the saloon he cautions Django by saying, “They’re a little tense out there.  So don’t make any quick movements, and let me do the talking.”

Both men walk through leaving the two swinging saloon doors behind them with their hands held high in the air. The marshall asks if he or the slave are unarmed and he reassures the marshall that neither of them has weapons.  And then he goes into his explanation of why what took place – took place.

“My name is Dr. King Schultz.  And like yourself, Marshall, I am a servant of the court. The man lying dead in the dirt, who the good people of Daughtrey saw fit to elect as their sheriff, who went by the name of Bill Sharp, is actually a wanted outlaw by the name of Willard Peck, with a price on his head of two hundred dollars. That’s two hundred dollars – dead or alive.” 

The marshall seems to talk to himself saying, “The hell you say.”  

Dr. Schultz goes on to further explain what Peck was doing prior to being elected as Daugherty’s sheriff about two years ago.  And the Marshall is amazed to find out that the town’s sheriff was a cattle rustler at the “B.C. Corrigan Cattle Company of Lubbock Texas.”

Then the former dentist goes into the legal details by saying quite clearly, “In my possession (pointing to a tri-folded piece of paper held high) is a warrant made out by circuit court Judge Henry Allen Laudermilk of Austin, Texas. You are encouraged to wire him. He will back up who I am, and who your dear departed sheriff – was.  In other words marshall, you owe me two hundred dollars.”

********

Yep, that’s how I feel sometimes in this business.  You gotta take what’s yours as long as you know the law.  You gotta do what you know is right, no matter what the shop owner thinks is right.  

Which is happening right now with the FDA breathing down our necks and the shop owners are not too far behind looking for all sorts of insane deals to keep profits high to pay the fees that the FDA is requiring for inclusion.  Ergo my stance as an ersatz Dr. Schultz just doing my job. Preserving my livelihood. Dissing the discounts. “Duz does everything.” (Look it up.)

Yup.  

Interesting business, this.  But I’m hanging in there (excuse the pun) cuz I believe there are enough bodies, ahem – cigars, and sensible bounties, nay discounts – to go around.

No descriptive diarrhea needed.

Whol – ē Shit!

I needed to stop for something at a gas station and had just lighted up an Horacio VII Classic (aka Don Horacio del Monte).  So I figured I would close my windows, leave the cigar on the seat, get whatever it is I can’t remember what it was, return to the car and relight it.

So after my purchase which took a little longer than I had hoped, I pressed the car door fob to open the lock, sat down, turned on the engine, and begin to drive away, picking up my cigar that had the lighted end cantilevered on the edge of the seat.  I’m getting ready to relight it but can’t – traffic gets in the way – more time wasted.  Back to driving.  I figure I’ll take a few more puffs just to see if it stayed lit. And wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing was ready to go!  A few healthy drags and I never had to take out my lighter.  And the first thing I remember saying out loud in the car to myself as I drove away was “Holy Shit!  This is some cigar!”

So to hell with the thesis-length descriptions.  Here’s my review:

Horacio VII Classic (created by two Costa Rican based French-men, Fabian Gil and Christophe Leroy) is a damn good cigar!  Clearly, the flavors and construction are near perfect.

Wrapper	Ecuador
Binder	Costa Rica
Filler	Nicaragua

Want more?  Buy one and see for yourself.  Soon to be available at your local tobacconist.

Just ask!