Gaining my stride back.

I think I need a vacation – an extended vacation.  Cigar brokering is not your normal nine-to-five occupation.  It’s turned into a 24/7 odyssey.  Right now I feel like I’m David Bowman (Keir Dullea), the astronaut in the pod who was thrown into outer space and experienced the psychedelic “Star Gate” sequence in the 1968 classic science fiction film – “2001: A Space Odyssey,” (see link below) to really understand and get a feel for my mental state at this date (9.28.18).

Why would I admit to this conundrum?  Well, I’ve always thought of myself as a straightforward type individual.  You won’t get any bullshit from me. Anyone who knows me or has at least read my blog posts can figure that out rather quickly.

This past year has been like a dry metal frying pan on a stove with the flame on high. You can’t see the heat, but you know something is cooking. To wit: I’ve changed my travel tactics, I’ve acquired, dropped and refused a number of cigar brands.  Plus, my Mom passed away after years and years in a variety of deteriorating conditions called age. I know.  I was there to help her for thirty of them.

I’ve kept up with the demands of the cigar brokerage business to the best of my ability, physically and mentally.  Though, I’ve dropped the ball many times this past year. Sometimes I was able to retrieve it, but other times it bounced out of reach and was lost in the crowded arena of marketing.  

Some people knew what I was up against.  Many were aware of subtle business and character changes and let them slide.  Some didn’t. I had one store owner ask me every time he saw me, “How are you doing?”  Every time.

I became tired of feeling like all the shop owner needed was a warm body to take an order, me or another guy – it didn’t matter.  If he eats, sleeps, shits and writes orders – that’s my man. The most important thing was taking down the order.  Next!

Look, I’m not asking for anything, especially sympathy, I’m just telling you how I’ve felt this year so far.  But I haven’t quit. Though God knows I’ve wanted to scream sometimes. Maybe I should have.

This is what I do.  I decided to independently represent brands that have no inside sales force.  I like helping the proverbial “little guy” get his feet wet, soaking and sloshed on the shelves of a humidor to perhaps become a star before dripping all over the floor.  “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” Damn straight you can! It just takes time. Given that . . . .

There’s a song by Ocean Park Standoff called “Good News.”  One of the lines in the song is “I need some good news, baby, ‘Cause all the world’s gone crazy.  I need some good news, baby, Give it to me, give it to me.”

Well, the bad news is, the world has gone crazy.  The “good news” is that I’m beginning to get my stride back.  I feel confident that the assholes are heavier than the angels – and they will rise to the top.  The air is fresh to breathe up there.  A swell of understanding will overwhelm many souls and my mistakes, miscalculations, and maniacal marketing misfires will be forgiven.

This is where Keir Dullea (Dave) is standing in this mostly white palatial room at the very end of the “Star Gate” journey – Beyond the Infinite.  He is still in his orange space suit, his breathing is heavy and muted as he surveys the room.  Dave walks through the bathroom and stops in front of a full-length mirror.  It reflects his being. He has aged markedly. How long was his voyage?

But as we all know, the last time he sees the monolith is when he is on his deathbed and then, the brilliance of an unborn child is visible – gathering the new beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0&t=84s

 

Palate pandamonium from an aged cigar.

Cold draw was chocolate.  Seconds later, I lit it up and was thankful that that flavor dissipated almost immediately.  I’m smoking a San Cristobal “the cornerstone of Ashton’s mutual endeavors with the Garcia family in Estelí, Nicaragua – prolific growers of fine tobaccos.” (website)  I might add that it is an aged cigar that I would guess is at least seven to nine years old.

It’s burning as a cigar should – laser straight.  The ash is an article in itself. The cherry is the epitome of absolute perfection defining exacting fermentation, construction, and tempo of the cigar. Why is it that some cigars are just not as perfect as this one?

I’ll tell you why.  Experience in the universe of manufacturing cigars.  I don’t want to take it out of my mouth, it’s so good.  But again, I want to emphasize what I believe continues to make this masterpiece what it is – age.  I have to be one of the luckiest cigar smokers in the Galaxy. I know the secret of bringing a cigar to its peak being assured of a one-time experience (If I only have a single stick). totally unique.

Even when the glowing ember at the foot of this magnificent Churchill eventually goes out, I won’t be sad because my luck will continue with the hundreds of aged cigars I’ve stored since 2005.  I will savor this sensuous San Cristobal and share my impressions with you in this essay and most certainly add this moment to the glorious cache of smoking delights that are building in my memory.

Then, when the time is right, I’ll do it again.  

Verkaufen. Selja. Kuuza. Sell.

It used to be, at least in the Midwest, that if a cigar broker got his cigar into Chicago’s Iwan Ries, the oldest cigar shop in the area (1857), you scored a coup.  Now apparently it’s Dubai! That’s 7,227 miles apart – give or take.  I just read about another boutique cigar that is available in Dubai (which comes from a word in Arabic that means “money.”)  I can name several others cigar manufacturers that seem to think they’ve hit the jackpot by having their cigar available there. Kudos. But what is this penchant to have your cigar selling in Dubai?

Well, there’s lots of money there.  Sick money?  Naw!  The average income in Dubai is around $60,000.00 (USD).  Wow!  A Trade center, bubbling oil, natty nightclubs, soft sand, come on. Help me out here. What’s the draw?  New York can top that in a heartbeat just with Radio City Music Hall. Let’s see. Hmmmm. Tap. Tap. Tap. Shit! I can’t think of any good reason to be so proud that your cigar is available in Dubai – United Arab Emirates.

Reach?  Yeah.  I suppose.  But so is Evansville, Indiana – a reach.  Granted it’s not over 7,000 miles. But for anyone in say, Chicago, it’s a haul (291 miles).  But is it worth it? Maybe for someone in Kentucky.  Gads. It’s looking like, like, oh hell, I’ll say it – elitist! Yep. You got your cigar in Dubai. BIG F***KING DEAL!

So I’m jealous?  Of what? Well, I guess if all you have to work with is Lombard and Dolton, Illinois, yeah I guess I’d be telling everyone that my cigar – MY CIGAR is being offered to well-heeled tourists and a sheik or two in Dubai.  In fact, one of the cigars I rep IS offered in Dubai.  But still, so what? I’ll tell you why?

Because Europe is sizzzzzzzzzzzzzllllllllllllling hot right now.  No FDA. Not that countries like Estonia, Serbia, and Iceland don’t have their own share of outlandish laws and tobacco nazis.  Selling cigars anywhere isn’t easy.  So you got to go where the business is.  In fact, while I write this article, any manufacturer of note has already landed somewhere in Europe – to sell their cigars.  Why? To attend The International Trade Fair for Tobacco Products and Smoking Accessories 2018, better known as InterTabak to be held at the Messe Westfalenhallen – Dortmund GmbH Strobelallee 45 44139 Dortmund (9.21 – 9.23), need I say Germany?  (+49 (0) 231/1204-0.)

Ah yes, what used to be an almost exclusively European-attended tobacco extravaganza has now become the “must go to” place for anyone who rolls a cigar. Let me give you a taste of the strange and exotic cigar manufacturers who will be introducing their cigars on the international trade floor to the public this year.  Ah, let’s see. . . , looking down the list, YES! There’s AJ Fernandez, Alec Bradley, Ashton, Bossner, Inc., Cornelius & Anthony, Davidoff, De Los Reyes, and even Drew Estate.  WAIT!!! Weren’t those the same manufacturers who attended the IPCPR in Las Vegas (Nevada! How droll), the largest and most comprehensive tobacco trade show in the United States?   And here they are in Germany!  Isn’t that double dipping???  Of course, it is, “du Dummkopf!”  Cigar business is a cigar business.  Whether it’s as romantic a one as some think?  Well, that’s for another day, another time and certainly – another article.  

So back to the streets of Hamtramck, Michigan in Wayne County to keep my numbers up?  I only have four states to dip into.

Thoughts leading up to what.

Indolent.  Incessant. Invited.  I’ve never felt this tired before.  A puppet without strings. Octagon. Observer.  Obsequious. Listening to the wind chimes in the backyard here.  Cigar between my fingers. Probably a 38 ring gauge. Not a fab fan of the size.  Eyelids are as heavy as lead. Clouds. Windy. Flo is to my right. My mind is to my left.  Jerry Saltz, art critic for New York Magazine will give a lecture Saturday, October 27th at 1 pm at Fullerton Hall.  Tickets on sale in September. I can’t miss that. Will I sleep? It’s going to rain.  Heading out of town in a couple of days.  Hedges need trimming.  No matter how hard I try Mother Nature does what she wants to do. My head feels as if it’s going to burst.  No energy. Stream of consciousness is “a literary style in which a character’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogues.”  (Google) Certainly not an excuse for the perception of what may come off as disjointed thoughts.  The cigar is just a tad spicy. Wake up! Threatening to rain but the clouds refuse to open up and release the pressure. Lids like anvils. Heavy. No dents. Just resistance. Burns quickly. Maybe I’m drawing in too much anxiety. Tremors. It just won’t rain and the humidity is affecting my head.  Not very comfortable. “Pulitzer Prize-winning author and senior art critic (a one-time cab driver) for New York Magazine Jerry Saltz presents his personal perspectives related to key issues in contemporary visual art.”  (AIC Member Magazine). Internally.  Cognitive. Bombastic.  How many times can you show how to build a bicep or light a cigar?  Way off the center. The slathering of social media is drowning the culture, not in dribs and drabs, but a technical tsunami that will eventually buzzkill all thoughts. Still so humid. Yawn. There’s so much to see but if we try to absorb it all through tiny lighted screens we will intentionally pull our own selves from this society that isn’t real, but the raison d’être we think we have a handle on.  And we don’t.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbx00-L_EI  

Get your head out before it is too late.

“The single-artist sale brought Hirst $201 million, but a number of those works have since lost millions for their original buyers.  A Decade After Damien Hirst’s Historic ‘Beautiful Inside My Head Forever’ Auction, Resale Prices Are Looking Ugly.  Using the artnet Price Database, I tracked down 19 lots from “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” that has returned to auction in the time since. The chart below compares their total sales value in their debut with the total sales value they generated in their first respective resale.  Instead of a formaldehyde tank (look it up), the best fluid measure here is a bloodbath. After enticing buyers to spend $8.1 million at “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever,” the same 19 works only managed to bring in about $5.2 million after they each mounted the auction block a second time—a collective loss of nearly $3 million.” *  For an original Damien Hirst!!!???

So just think this through.  If this can happen to one of the world’s most prolific and famous artists, could it happen to a cigar manufacturer who’s theoretically riding Jackson, New Jersey’s Kingda Ka (capitalist consumerism) and is considered “the tallest and fastest roller coaster on earth” through turn two, three maybe even turn four?  You bet your wet pants it can happen!  So for the thrill of being at the top of this 456-foot monster, the trip to the apex was as exhilarating as that first time.  But the trip down? Indeed, just as breathtaking.  But at some point, there are no more tracks to barometrically swoosh back and forth on. Nope.  Even at up to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds at some point, AT SOME POINT the coaster’s vehicle is going to come to a dead stop – at the bottom.

Question is . . . have you got the guts to get back to the drawing table and try another design?  Or do you wince and blame the inevitable disintegration of perpetual motion.  This – due to the eventual and total extraction of energy from a finite source that cannot indefinitely produce because it is driven by the energy stored in the source, which will eventually be exhausted.  (Think spent rep and cigar saturation.)  Wiki

*(Tim Schneider https:// .artnet.com/market/damien-hirst-beautiful-resales-1346528)

Drawing Fresh Air Through an Opus X.

Crème brûlée.  Smooth.  This cigar has to be at least 6 years old.  I’m not at all impressed with the wrapper.  Once the cedar sheath is removed the wrapper shows engorged veins with a somewhat mottled dark sienna shade.  The draw is perfect. Just right. There isn’t a lot of flavor at the start, but the aroma is intoxicating.

I do have to wonder what all the hubbub is about just because this is a Fuente Fuente Opus X.  I believe it is a 6 x 50, could be a 48.  I didn’t purchase the cigar. It’s so smooth, though – like running the fabric made from one of the best silks in the world that is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity, i.e. sericulture or silk farming.  Only the best!

This would not be a good cigar for the novice due to the stinging spiciness that covers my palate throughout the entire smoke.  

Woodsy?  Perhaps. But the flavor is difficult to pin down.  The construction is luscious. Straight burn with an ash that goes between flakey and solid.  Very gray.

But this is a beaut.  A delightfully aged cigar.  However, I don’t smoke many Fuente cigars so my baseline could be slightly off.

Remember all this is, is a cigar.  So I’m not drooling at the fact that I’m privileged to be smoking it.  No heart palpitations. It’s a well-made cigar with a very famous name.  But I like it. What continues to intrigue me is the smoothness of the smoke.  I can retrohale (with trepidation) this Opus X with no coughing or burning sensation.

The tingle on the tongue is also omnipresent.  It entertains my senses but remains mellow and snappy simultaneously.

I’m going for a walk with Flo and see how this cigar changes, if at all, adding movement to the experience.  Be right back.

(Fifteen minutes later.)  

Wow.  That was like having an orange peel squeezed into your nostrils.  Not citrus in any way, but the freshness.  A dessert such as mentioned above.   The flavors mingled with nature’s night air and I think that even the darkness added to its overall splendor.

An overused truism. It is that something.

Every cigar has that something that the smoker yearns for.  All of them, whether they be good or bad is not the issue, the fact that there is an elusive element in every cigar that draws the smoker into the blend.  Right now I’m enjoying a 1502 Blue.  A delightful dessert destined to stay with me for the entire post.

Now, what that “something” is cannot be precisely defined.  It is a mystical ingredient that perhaps even the master blender is unaware of that emerged accidentally during the fermenting process, figuring leaf percentages or the choice of tobaccos – nothing is definite or even predictable.

So when I began to read the review written by Michael Pollan of Galen Strawson’s new book titled, “How to Change Your Mind: The new science of psychedelics, published by Allen Lane (£20), I couldn’t help myself from pondering the similarities that exist between the defined chemicals in drugs (natural and synthesized) and the ingredients in cigars (all natural) that befuddle our brains to the point of what that “something” is.

To quote the very first paragraph of Strawson’s review “The Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was looking for a drug to stimulate circulation when he set out to synthesize the various molecules in the alkaloids produced by ergot – a fungus (natural) once used by midwives to induce labor.  In the autumn of 1938, he isolated the twenty-fifth molecule in the series and called it “lysergic acid diethylamide,” – LSD. Initial tests on animals were unpromising, and he put it aside until 1943, when he resynthesized it, accidentally ingested some, and took the first acid trip.

From there the author writes about how he went mushroom hunting.  “He consumes four different psychedelic tryptamines under suitably controlled conditions – LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca (active ingredient N, N-dimethyltryptamine, sc DMT), and, with shattering results, 5-MeO-DMT, the smoked venom of the Sonoran Desert toad Incilius alvarius . . . .”  The hell you say?

He continues in fluttering detail what happens when these chemicals are ingested . . . laying out the latest neuroscientific speculations and describing the extraordinary fruitful renaissance of the use of psychedelics in psychotherapy in the 1990s.”

The book offers up a rich and wide open resource for the use of these drugs . . . .  And “he shows how much valuable research work was done . . . until people such as Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley” put the disreputable spin on the drugs socially permitting to the FDA to deem LSD et al, illegal in 1966.

But not before LSD therapy was tested as a therapeutic answer to many of the woes of a variety of mental and physical conditions.  Stars such as Cary Grant, who was quoted as saying, “I’ve had my ego stripped away . . . . All the sadness and vanities were torn away.” Other famous people such as James Coburn, Stanley Kubrick (The StarGate sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey was produced in 1968), Jack Nicholson, Anaїs Nin, and André Previn went through the controversial therapy with more than satisfying results.  (Think of marijuana’s two most active ingredients delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC,  and cannabidiol.)

So is it possible that tobacco produces an intrinsic ingredient that also brings about ecstasy and intense, therapeutic relaxation?  We just don’t know what it is?  The smoker only experiences it when the tobacco burns to produce microparticles in the smoke that are absorbed then released into the body lavishing a sensorial high that creates such erotic satisfaction that we want more.  Might we call that in the colloquial the flavor?

A full study would have to be made to prove this, but let it be said that there is “something” that tames the wild beast in those who choose to light up a favorite cigar, with a favorite blend, in a favorite easy chair.

Natural (or not), it is what it is.  And it is that – something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0&t=73s

On the edge in more ways than one.

That’s where I place my cigar after taking Flo out after her evening walk.  It’s on the ledge of the porch’s framework.  Inside.  It rests there while Flo sits and waits. She always does.  Then after a few seconds, the command is given that she can walk up the stairs and into the kitchen.  The aroma of the cigar is subtle even though it’s in the enclosed porch for such a short time.  If it’s there too long, the bouquet travels up the same wooden stairs and enters the house.  That’s not a popular situation, so I work fast and get my ass back to either the Patio Cigar Lounge (Open 24/7) or the garage. Tonight it seems as if it may rain, though I doubt it.  But I have the routine set. Tonight.  The Patio.

I’m heading out of town again this week.  My schedule this time is a bit more fluid than usual, and that’s fine with me.  I get tired, no . . . I am tired of the militaristic route I would plan.  So, I have decided to go another way this time and stop in the last section of the state first.  Why? Some folks are just not going to change their routines, so I’ve been nudged to change mine.

I’ll make calls as I go along and see if I can get into the stores without disturbing the work day for the owners or the managers.  I’m very fortunate at times. Other times, it’s just bad timing. But that’s life. There’s plenty to do.

I have a fondness for all the states I cover.  I used to cover nine states, but that burned me out.  Now I stick to the Midwest. I can handle four states without an attitude.  Yet, I will admit some score higher than others and the attitude reverts to nine states.  That’s all I will say about that.

So I’m ready.  I may post this week.  We’ll see. 

I guess it depends on my attitude.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4niv522mbtM&start_radio=1&list=RD4niv522mbtM 

The Stripper.

Just recently I was asked to take on another line.  Good lineage, admirable pedigree, good stuff – what?

The samples arrived.  Too, they were packaged by a company and individual that cares about how the cigar is initially presented.  I stored them for a few days in my humidor to get the temperature and humidity right.

After a few days, I just took one out.  The real reason is that all the others fit gently one way and this poor devil was on the bottom just being pressured by the others so I thought I would take it out of its misery and smoke the damn thing.

I took it in my hand and I noticed that its weight seemed a bit off.  Too light. Sorry to be so anal.  I took my cutter and clipped it.  I expected a Chicago Hot Dog “snip” echo.  Rather I heard a slushy “gimp, followed by a moist “Blep.”  Not a good beginning. Then the surprise, where I cut it the wrapper began to flutter.  Literally.  Misshapen-ed potter’s clay.  Moist newspaper?

But the cutter finally got through and I literally had to scrape the cap off my cutter’s circular blades.  

I took my lighter, newly cleaned so the points of burning butane were sharp and scalding.  As I began to draw the wrapper around my lips almost disappeared altogether. “Shit.”

I placed the handicapped cigar between my lips and began to draw.  Hmm. I felt as though I was pulling hot air from an unobstructed pipe or straw.  Some smoke, mostly heat. Yes, it’s a man-made product, but the Neanderthal that rolled this one must have died on the table and his partner figured he’d finish it up.  Save a life?  Perhaps not, but a cigar – of course.

Hot air, light smoke, no flavor, why not suck on a welder’s torch?  Ok. That was mean. I finally began to catch the rhythm of the cigar because I certainly had no control over it. And then what I had hoped wouldn’t happen began. The damn thing began to disrobe right in front of me.  I began to hum David Rose’s “The Stripper.”

I licked the unfurled tobacco leaf hoping it would moisten whatever glue was still left on the edges thinking that perhaps I could save it from its slow, sacrificial self-immolation.  It worked. Enough so that I didn’t have to throw it away. From what I could tell the flavors would have been quite refreshing had they appeared in the fashion that I’m used to, but alas this was not to be the case.

I held onto to it, “The Old Man and the Cigar.”  Slowly it burned itself into a mixture of soggy ash and oblivion.  But I made it home.     

So, who’s going to tell the manufacturer?  Not me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TBrh259zig