Rambling thoughts while smoking a cigar.

Robusto has an incredibly viscous draw that triumphs bellowing out soft, smooth, blue smoke thick as a DQ milkshake. Standard size 50 x 5 made in Honduras.  Such scratching radio reception can only add to the lack of concentration of the smoke flavors that slather the tongue with prurient pleasure.  Is that the way it’s supposed to be – can be?  I suppose.  Enough of the comical culinary comparison to intrude on the true tobacco flavor.  But the leaf is unknown.  The garage is cold.  I’m cold.  The tip is sizzling.  Foco de Chão offering only one choice.  That’s enough!  Enough literary material in front of me to cause the average person to make a snide comment.  Salacious. Questioning.  The ash is perfect. Gray. Dark. Sturdy. Brand?  New to us.  Fixated.  The bouquet is like falling in love. Mi Amour. Romance isn’t easy.  But in the warmth of an embrace.  Shoving back reality is. The first sentence in Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel “The Haunting of Hill House” though most famous for “The Lottery” is “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”  Sucks.  Fantasy.  Jazz is derived from fantasy.  Haze.  Just returned from Jazz.  Honduras.  Breakfast at the hotel consisted of fried, sweet plantain, beans, chorizo, (crumbled and slightly cool but scrumptious nonetheless), farmer’s cheese, bananas, mango, watermelon (with the damn seeds), eggs, ham, flour, mini flour tortillas. No washing dishes. No preparation. Hot tea, Blah! Mint, yet. The radio can be so annoying.  But the cigar is anything but. So odd – no Ligero. Perhaps fermentation, age, seed, soil, rain, mistake? Unlikely. Rum would be nice. I don’t drink. But the aroma would be accentuated. It’s getting moist in here. How? Conflicting air pockets. Flow. Direction. Can’t say. Don’t care. It is what it is. My choice. Can’t review them all. Falling asleep at that. Long reviews are tedious. Flood the internet.  No choice. Why? A bit of spice is creeping in. That’s the wrong word. First stop – Cuarto de hombre. Her back was so smooth, but no shape.  One didn’t want to be there. Last minute crowd. Us. Shit. Or in Spanish Mierda. Punctuation can be a habit, others don’t care.  I do. The serving plates were sizzling with sausage, chicken, pork, beef, at one time shrimp. Chimichurri. Oily. Diarrhea. Woody’s play, “Don’t Drink the Water.” Fools. The burn is significantly straight.  Laser straight has become a cliché. Avoid it at all costs. Which I didn’t. Not chintzy with the samples. Any cigar you wanted.  A changeup can win a ballgame. The fence around the church was put up to keep kids from playing baseball and soccer on the grass.  One of our host’s best friends revealed tiny bits of Danli’s history. Fascinating. Listen too much to the reps and all you get is bullshit, blather, and braggadocio.  Blondes. No.  Deep dark hair. The women. Their skin is as smooth as alabaster. Their smiles make you blush. Three little girls and their Mom drinking old-fashioned sodas.  No cream for me. Strawberry ice. Such sweet flavors. Like the cigar I’m smoking with just a spritz of spice. Necessary. It makes the blend. Walking back to the house, these thoughts continued to swirl in my mind.  The cigar was in the ashtray. It’s flavors dissipating in the closed room. If walls could talk. It’s never-ending. Like the cow parade on the way to the farms. One shit on the running board. Another dented the door.  They have the right of way. As does the flavor in this Robusto with an Indonesian binder. A critical component. One rep found a musty straw hat. I was taking a leak.  Barbed wire surrounded the inside sweatband from the outside. Rust. Flavors of rust?  Too musty. This Robusto has the flavor of tobacco. Period. A instant jet stream of coffee bean, newly roasted. Still warm. Seeped into liquid – negative. Dry. Crunchy. Crackly radio conflicts with my thoughts. A brave Robusto. Such an elegant wrapper.  Nature’s blessings. A miracle considering the risk of time.

It is NOT about you. It IS about the cigar.

(This article was written only days before Karl Otto Lagerfeld passed (9.10 1933 – 2.19.2019) I decided to publish it not only as a tribute to one of the greatest designers to live but to also bring home my point of cigar celebrity through the subtle practices of a fashion genius.)

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Look in any cigar magazine and whose face (or entire body) might you see in an ad? Pete Johnson?  Carlito Fuente?  Christian Eiroa?  Alan Rubin?  Litto Gomez?  Rocky Patel?  Plus maybe a photo of the cigar their fame rests.  These tobacco luminaries are not in every magazine, but they are in your face enough times that some cigar smokers consider them “celebrities.”  Let’s put this into perspective.  

In a recent photo spread in “Elle Magazine,” 95 percent of the photos are of models wearing perfectly-fitted ensembles designed by the great Karl Otto Lagerfeld.  But what is unusual is the fact that he appears in just one of the shots. Here’s one fashion star that seems to shy away from overexposure and lets the fabric, style, and design of what he does do the talking.

Lagerfeld, a Parisian resident from Germany is creative director, artist, and photographer of some of the world’s most alluring fashion contributions, “ . . . (H)e is also known as the creative director of the French luxury fashion house Chanel, as well as creative director of the Italian fur and leather goods fashion house Fendi, and his own eponymous fashion label.” (Wiki)

What?

Oh, yes.   This is a cigar blog.

Ah, yes.  So what’s the connection?  Simple. Mr. Lagerfeld appears so rarely in fashion shoots that when he does – it’s an event in and of itself.  You take notice.  You don’t just flip the page as one is wont to do in cigar magazines when say, Rocky, or Rubin or Christian grace an ad.  Why is there this seemingly overexposure of the same people over and over and over and over again?  I mean the magazine is trying to boost cigar sales is it not?  And the powers that be think that having the “face” of the brand will sell more cigars?  

Lagerfeld has been in the fashion industry since 1919.  Even as a 14-year-old he was born with mature exquisite tastes and a keen talent for style.  He bounced around various design houses a lot, sure, but was still able to hold his own in an industry as finicky as the cigar world through sheer talent – and of course rubbing elbows with the right people at the right time.  

One thing he had was a certain joie de vivre that carried his confident, absorbent personality to build brands.  It was said he was a fool in the early 1980s when he took on the sickly brand – Chanel.  But he brought it back to life.  He became known in the fashion industry for his innovative, in-the-moment styles.  But Lagerfeld also had an appreciation for the past, and he often shopped in flea markets, finding old wedding dresses to deconstruct and re-imagine.

As for himself?  Even his signature attire is part of his personae,  “‘I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that. It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long,’ he once said of his signature anachronistic suited-and-booted look, that of an 18th-Century aristocrat time-warped into the 21st Century.  There’s the powdered ponytail – he’s had the same ’do since 1976, whitened daily with clouds of Klorane dry shampoo – and ensemble of crisp white, high-collared shirts by Hilditch & Key with black tailored jacket and jeans, punctuated with a tie, shades, fingerless gloves (from historic French manufacturer Causse) and custom-made black crocodile boots by Massaro. Not forgetting the ornate brooches and jangling finger loads of rings à la Henry VIII, with designs ranging from chunky silver Chrome Hearts creations to exquisite vintage Gothic and Art Deco designs from Paris jeweler Lydia Courteille.” (www.bbc.com)

But you still don’t see Lagerfeld in the ads for Chanel, his own brand, or Fendi.  You can envision him in your mind’s eye, ergo he has already and unequivocally branded himself where his appearances in print media have become an exception.  When he does grace the studio, house, or location, he shows up with what some may call his costume, and he is not afraid to share his outspoken opinion. “‘Who else would refer to their natural hair shade as “a little pee-pee yellow” or their sunglasses as their ‘burka?’”  He is not swayed by what others say, nor is he awash in a sea of what others think.  He is his own man.  He needs not a stage.

Celebrities don’t exactly fit in the tobacco mix here.  (Though there are exceptions to the latter statement such as Jonathan Drew.)  What fits in the mold is the cigar!  Cigars sell themselves by consumers smoking them, recommending them, stores reordering them. Indeed, build the brand first.  Highlight the brand.

If a cigar manufacturer wants to be a star, he or she has to earn that right to shine by magnetizing the customer’s respect for the brand.  Be real.  Capitalize on your genuine personality, don’t create an ersatz one.  We know when you do.  Get out of your plane, your home-bound smoking lounge, your suburban office, your fantastical factory, the photography studio – and mingle with the fans.  Build their interest in the brand, not YOU.  Let them get to know the real you – as long as you know who the real you is – think Sybil Dorsett.  A challenge for some.   

Then once your genuine personality is ingrained within the brand – disappear.  See if your image created with the occasional print appearance has any impact.  Maybe then your brand will continue to grow by itself.  Time sells.  Ask Karl “Kaiser” Lagerfeld.  At 85, he knows.

(I am truly saddened by the passing of Mr. Lagerfeld.  I wrote this article with the idea in mind that I still believe in – sell the brand.  It ain’t about you Mr. or Mrs. Owner.  Newbies take note.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d8o8vNTNao

Cigar Dreams Live On Forever.

Eye-to-eye.  Hands clasped tightly together in a hardy handshake.   I just agreed to represent another cigar in the Midwest Region.  I feel exuberant about this association. I’ve known the owner of the company for many years.  We trust each other. Otherwise, the agreement – sans paper contract, would never have taken place.  

I have learned in this precarious cigar industry that trust is rare.  Unfortunately, trust in any business is not a common trait these days. I do not represent any cigar where there is the thickness of a tobacco leaf of doubt between us.  Plus, this business agreement was different. My motivation was death.

I knew all of the main characters in this owner’s venture to distribute their own cigar on a national level.  I had a special relationship with the elder partner. I often, for some reason, had trouble remembering his name.  But anytime I met him, his name would congeal in my psyche and our greeting was one of a smile, the mention of his name producing an inner feeling of camaraderie that comes about in business shall we say, “Once in a blue moon,” i.e. rarely – almost never.  But this was my blessing as we grew to appreciate each other over the years. I had great affection for this BOTL.

He did not fill the everyday conversation with his challenges, he was always positive, kind, and giving.  I once had the chance to break bread with him in the back room of his store and to this day I can still feel the reverence we had for each other.  I felt I became family that day.

Unfortunately, as the song goes, “The good, they die young,” became a reality not too long ago – but too soon.  My friend became ill and for years suffered in silence but never dealt the dent of destruction that an illness can produce between personalities.  There was no pity. Just his smile and eagerness to please.

He passed away within the last few months and I, like others, were taken aback with shock and sorrow.  I had lost a friend and I miss him.

The last time I met with him was at a Cuban Festival in Chicago in the blistering heat of August.  He and his mates had set up a booth, and I went up to the counter. He noticed me and came over to say hello.  As I would never ask, he offered me one of his cigars. I took it, put a flame to the foot and began what was to be the last time he and I would ever share words.  How could either of us ever know?

So when I heard of his passing I was touched in a way that one might feel the wisp of the human spirit enter the soul.  Not mournful but at peace.

I went to a New Orleans-style memorial at his shop, and the packed house and I smoked cigars in his honor.  It was then that I was compelled to do what I had been asked to do many times before, but was never ready to commit to.  It was on that night that I approached his partner and asked if he was still looking for an independent rep.

I was pleased to hear “Yes.”  It would be what my friend would have wanted me to do.

I made an appointment to meet and discuss the idea with his younger partner in the coming weeks.  We met and after talking business, we shook hands to move forward with great confidence. And in some way, I felt a smile come across my face that could only have been produced by believing that I would now be able to carry on my friend’s dream –  and it was good.

So.  I have added another cigar to my book of business.  A very good cigar, I might add. Will introducing it to the shops be like walking down a cathedral’s aisle with a brilliantly lit angel lofting rose petals behind her in my path?  No. I know better. I’ve been in this business too long to kid myself that despite my commitment, this will be a play of many acts and few intermissions with dramatic and comedic moments.  I knew that as I grasped his partner’s hand that nothing worth a pinch of salt is ever easy. But with the elder partner’s memory in the back of my mind, I knew that all the realities of this business would never get to me because I accepted this responsibility for him.  And I will not disappoint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WZZjXgJ4W8

Puzzling prose provokes confusing ire

(If you’re unwilling to read into this essay – scroll on.  Otherwise . . . enjoy.)

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What can beat the pants off any cigar article or review written today?

There is a new biography just published that may alarm, shock, or disturb some people.  Written by the religious historian, Philip Almond, “God, A New Biography” under the I.B Tauris imprint.  It is a dramatic paradoxical story  “. . . of a transcendent, timeless being who, throughout history, has supposedly engaged with immanent and mortal creatures on a fallen and broken world of his own making.  In this book . . . Almond reveals that – whether in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam – God is seen to be at once utterly beyond our world yet at the same earnestly desiring to be at one with it.

“In the Christian chapter of this story, the paradox arguably reaches its improbable zenith: in the fragile form of a human being the infinite became finite, the eternal temporal. The way these and other metaphysical tensions have been understood is, the author demonstrates, the key to unlocking the entire history of religion in the West. Expertly placing the narrative of divine presence within the wider history of ideas, Almond suggests that the notion of a deity has been the single greatest conundrum of medieval and modern civilization.

“In this rich, nuanced appraisal, God is shown to be more complex and fascinating than ever before.” (https://books.google.com/books/about/God)

I rest my case.  Or did I just stir up the soup and turn up the heat to the boiling point?

Recently, I had a reader ask me via text, rather curtly I might add – if one of my blogs was supposed to be in his group (about cigars).  It was.  I’ll admit it was a bit unorthodox in its passion for cigars the way it was written (so what else is new) but it was and is about cigars (as is this essay). This bloke just didn’t get it.  And as the “pseudo-administrator,” he felt it shouldn’t be in his group that is clearly about cigars.  Because if he didn’t get it, obviously none of the others in his group would understand the unconventional way I wrote about our common bond.  So he deleted the blog.

Fortunately, I decided to leave the group of my own accord.  I was not asked to do so, but I just felt why I should cause this reader, or the other group members,  any undue intellectual hardship?  

Sounds arrogant, doesn’t it?  On both sides of the aisle.  Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAjC7BSqAA

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Oh, you can get an answer to my initial question quite easily.  Look on Amazon.

God: A New Biography Sep 27, 2018
by Philip C. Almond
Hardcover
$19.20 $ 19 20 $29.50 Prime
FREE Delivery
Only 4 left in stock – order soon.
More Buying Choices
$14.91 (32 used & new offers)

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=god+a+new+biography&sprefix=God+a+new+%2Caps%2C243&crid=3QTFQ1SXWK6TZ&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Agod+a+new+biography

-30-

 

A great movie and a great cigar.

I’m in the garage watching “Stardust Memories” directed by and starring Woody Allen. The film was released in 1980. “While attending a retrospective of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.” (IMBd)

And I’m smoking a Nat Cicco HHB Habano toro.  

A commercial just eeked its way into the movie.  I’m on Tubi, this is a great app I discovered where you can watch movies for free.  They are only available for a limited time, so if you think you can wait to see the ending in two weeks from now, you’re mistaken.  I found that out early on when I went back to finish a film I started. When I returned several days later, it was no longer there! I’m much more Tubi savvy now.

But there is absolutely no disconnect with the HHB I’m puffing on.  Here’s how the catalogue describes it, “Our flagship line, HHB cigars marry a silky, Ecuadorian-grown Connecticut Shade leaf wrapper with a Nicaraguan binder and filler. They reward the connoisseur with a smoke that is robust, well-balanced and full-flavored.    Creamy-smooth, with a pronounced nuttiness resulting from their complex blend of the finest tobacco leaves in the region . . . they come in three distinctive sizes, all with a pigtail-capped head and a foot that is enclosed within the wrapper to preserve freshness . . . .”  I’ll add to that that the cigar satisfies all my wanting taste desires. It’s the perfect smoke for me. Damn the flavor profile. It’s odd, first off the film is in black and white, which I adore, and the commercials are in brilliant color. Quite a contrast.

This is classic Woody Allen.  The cuts, the subject matter, the fast-paced dialogue, the asides, the quirky, disconnected plot.  All genius. It’s the cigar that’s the constant here. Smoking it as I am, slowly and deliberately, only accentuates the plot, once you figure it out.  If you do.

I’m finding out, at least in this montage of a movie, that Woody and I have some of the same thought and pattern characteristics.  Of course, the resemblance ends about the time he became involved with Soon Yee Previn. Coincidentally, there was a recent article in New York magazine where Soon Yee speaks out about how many of the accusations that were leveled at her and intimated about her husband were downright lies.  But this isn’t about that Woody, this is about this Woody.

You might call a lot of films that Allen writes, directs, and stars in cult films, but I just call them masterpieces.

HHB could be in that same league.  Some people would say the cigar just that, but in the end, it’s what the individual likes.  Damn the public opinion. Once, during an interview, Allen was asked if he cares about all the trash talk not only about his films but his relationship with Soon Yee.  Basically, he answered, “No. What do I care what the public thinks of me? This is my life and I’ll live it the way I see fit. I really don’t care about the public’s opinion of me or my films.”

The film races at a very quick pace, not at all like the cigar I’m smoking.  It is slowly smoldering along and gives me a sense of calm I could never get with a glass of beer or a foot rub.  In fact, HHB is the direct opposite of the film. Smooth paced, connected, and with a modicum of predictability. Which ain’t bad at all.

Woody’s hair is grey now and when he sits next to his wife they look like an ordinary aging couple, of course with a tumultuous past.  Surely not American Gothic – though there is a past. Just ask Mia. But whose past is pristine? The difference is is that Woody has been in the public’s eye since the 60s.  

I’ll have to have my pants pressed. The way I’m crossing my legs have etched soft creases in them where they ought not to be.  

Another commercial.  Annoying.

One character says  during the movie, “Your films are always psychological, not political.”   This cigar really complements this film. Both are bringing me such pleasure. The cigar by satisfying my flavor cravings. The film my insatiable intellectual appetite.  I can’t take my eyes off the movie and the cigar has become a permanent pacifier between my lips.

Where does Woody get such grandiose ideas that make us think, laugh, cry, get angry, become depressed and annoyed?  Same place HHB gets its blend – from a vivid imagination. The progress, the process is clear.

“People grow up to become big shots,” opines another character.

“Too much reality is not what people want.  You really have to be lucky.”

“Stardust Memories” and HHB are, indeed.

Both have a great finish.

Cigars May Be Honduran Nirvana.

(All quotes are excerpted from the article “The Migrant Caravan: Made in USA,” by Roberto Saviano, published in the March 7th, 2019 issue of The New York Review of Books.)

I just returned from Honduras.  It’s a beautiful country with friendly people, and as with all societies, challenges that must be met.  And as much as I would like not to admit, it is a country rife with poverty.  What I saw would melt the hearts of even the most hardened cynics.  Yet, there are many ways the people of Honduras are trying to just live a normal life.  They are a hardy group who will find ways to make a living for themselves and their families no matter what. Some setup roadside fruit stands, others roast corn to sell on the street, still, others carry heavy sticks on their backs to bring to market to sell for firewood because many of the cinder block and mud houses the size of a two-car garage don’t have furnaces or even electricity.  Yes, it does get chilly in this Central American paradise, but most use the wood to burn for cooking as they have no gas lines to their houses.

One of the ways the Honduran people carry on to survive financially is by working in cigar factories.  And there are many. My reason for being there in the first place was to visit and see firsthand how a cigar is made from seedling to the final product.  The pay for these workers is commensurate to what one would expect from a third world country’s economy. Very little.

But despite the hardships, the people of Honduras also have to live with the omnipresent bane of being a hub for the exportation of drugs.  You can live there and survive, or you can do something drastic. One solution, as you may know, is the journey of the migrant caravan that left Honduras in October of last year.  President Trump has called this mass exodus “an invasion.”  “In reality, Honduras and Central America have paid an enormous price precisely because of US policies. The dire situation in Honduras right now is shaped by the drug market, and the world’s largest consumer of cocaine IS the United States.”

These migrants, these “invaders” are not just trying to enter the United States to make a decent living with or without a green card.  These people are trying to escape a dangerous country where the gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, and most other businesses are protected by armed guards 24/7.  The individuals that have decided to leave come from all stripes of the spectrum – including drug users, dealers, and criminals. If there were a mass exodus from New York, not everyone leaving would be considered pure.  But let it be made known that the majority of those trying to get out of Honduras are doing so to escape the pervasive and very dangerous drug culture.

You have to read the article to fully grasp what is going on in Honduras and to begin to understand the full gist of the immense problems that plague the people and hamper their simple desire to live in a safe country with their families.  My God, one little boy was selling popcorn balls. Age? Maybe 10? I noticed in his eyes a sadness but impish stare that met mine as I handed him a dollar. What are his prospects for a robust future?  To whit:

“In 2010 the United States for the first time identified Honduras as one of the major drug transit countries and since then has cooperated with Honduran authorities to combat drug trafficking. But the offensive has involved only efforts to suppress criminal organizations and has shown no real willingness to tackle, at a societal level, the problem of drug trafficking and gangs, for which the US bears a great deal of responsibility. President Trump limits himself to exploiting the effects of the tragedy: when he speaks about the caravan, he talks of ‘invaders,’ of ‘stone cold criminals,’ who must be coming to the US to occupy and plunder. None of this is true. But to understand, we must grasp how badly US policy has failed and how culpable and terribly complicit it is in the current situation.

“Today the maras—the gangs—provide the best employment opportunities for youth in Central America. According to a 2012 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the maras in El Salvador had about 20,000 members, those in Guatemala about 22,000, and those in Honduras about 12,000 (though a report that same year from USAID indicated a much higher number in Honduras). As Corrado Alvaro, an Italian writer from Calabria—a region plagued even in his day by the mafia group known as ’Ndrangheta—wrote in 1955, ‘When a society offers few opportunities, or none, to improve one’s station, creating fear becomes a way to rise.’ Mareros, or gang members, tattoo their face and body to signal their gang membership and to openly declare their separation from civilian society as if their gangs were military divisions operating in a sort of parallel life. Gangs control the territory and protect the trafficking of the big cartels. Businesses are subjected to shakedowns, streets become the scenes of clashes between rival gangs competing for dealing locations, and the jungle is a no-man’s land in which clandestine runways are carved for planes loaded with cocaine. Some urban areas are off-limits to ordinary citizens; a perpetual curfew reigns. The maras recruit boys—younger each year—as drug-trafficking foot soldiers; refusing to join can be fatal.

“Because no one protects the populace from the abuses and threats of the gangs, people feel abandoned and in constant danger. This feeling is exacerbated by the extraordinary level of impunity in Honduras. In 2013, Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubí caused an uproar by declaring before the Honduran Congress that law enforcement had the manpower to investigate only about 20 percent of the nation’s murders, and that therefore the remaining 80 percent were certain to go unpunished. In Honduras (as in other Central American countries) being a sicario—a contract killer—is a real profession: in the morning you wake up and wait for a call asking you to commit a murder, for which you’ll be paid more than you could hope to make at any other job.

“This is what people are fleeing from, this landscape that seems to offer no future but killing or being killed. Despite their varied histories, the migrants all have in common the desire—or rather the need—to escape the violence of the drug gangs and the lack of work and opportunity in their country.”

Here is what we have – a convulsive conundrum of massive proportions.  The solution is not readily available. Most Hondurans have to stay. Those who do may survive.

As mentioned above, people do what they have to do to live.  But for those of you who are naive about Honduras, it is a major link in the chain of producing cigars – a respectable industry that offers a product that is far less harmful than cocaine.  It employs hundreds and hundreds of men and women who take pride in what they do.

Instead of the fear of death from drug traffickers, these individuals’ only fear is not producing enough cigars during their shift.  And at the risk of sounding like a shill, Oscar Valladares is doing what he can to help the people by providing jobs in his factories.  Yet, one man cannot do it alone. Other cigar factories have been doing their part for years.

The people of the United States, the members of Congress, the health fanatics, the general population – they all need to know how hard these people work in cigar factories to keep themselves employed to feed their families to continue to produce a legal product that is in high demand throughout the world without the fear of murder, incarceration, harassment – and oftimes death.

 

Reflections on a pink winter night.

“Pink is made up from a combination of red and white which is where it gets some of its characteristics from. It gets its passion and energy from red and its peace and tranquility from white.  While red is more associated with passion and lust, Pink is a softer more caring color which is more associated with romance and love with a more sensitive side to it.”  (The psychology of colors)

Despite the cold, despite the snow, despite the frigid temperature – pink softly illuminated the side table and its surroundings on the Patio Cigar Lounge (Open 24/7). On the way to walk Flo, my forward movement stopped. I had just toasted a cigar and felt a oneness with the colors, the snow, and the 24-degree temperature. The smoke tastes different in the cold.  Pink blends differently in the freezing winter night. White is a remnant of the many shades discovered by the late abstract artist Robert Ryman, whose only paint on the canvas eventually was this convincing non-color.

At first, he would paint using many colors, but realized that that was not what he was searching for, “I’m really not that interested in the color that I’m putting down” he was quoted as saying, “. . . I am painting it out,” with white.  (Chicago Tribune 02.13.19).

Yes, the surrounding sparkling white snow glistened because of the blurred rays of the pink solar light.  The cigar’s burning ember added nothing to the two-toned prism but quiet delight. Perhaps Ryman would have shaded the pink using his trademark “sweeping array of brushes and materials,” stretching his favorite pigment to expose white in all its reflections and refractions.  Perhaps not.

But did the two shades have the power to stop me?  I began to walk away, but could not take my mind off what I was experiencing – scintillating shades of light, and the aroma of the cigar’s smoke mixed with the night’s cold, moist air as I headed out.  I turned around.

I gently returned Flo back into the porch.  With my snow-covered boots still on, I tiptoed into the office to retrieve my phone.  Closing the porch door, I picked up Flo’s leash.  I’m sure she thought her walk was now to begin – but no.  I took the cigar out of my mouth and placed it ever so gently on the glass jar that was emitting the pink glow accented by the snow.  

This was meant to be.  I drew on the cigar to generate a red ember for contrast and placed it on top of the glass jar and without hesitation or anal settings, took the shot – not once but twice, at slightly different angles.  Quickly.  It was providence.  I felt I captured a moment from the heavens.

Pink indeed is related to “love, caring, and understanding.”  And now it registered why I stopped and did what I did.  I wanted to record the tenderness of inanimate objects. As I turned away and began my sojourn with Flo, I knew the brilliance of the moment would stay with me.  Me. Wired at times. A curled concatenated collection of chaos.  

Funny.  Freezing temperatures.  The remnant of a snowstorm.  The grace of a silent cigar.  A pink glow.  Crystalline white ice – all gently led me to this brief moment of nighttide serenity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qoz8ZA-yPw

 

The reason for blending great cigars.

What’s the reason behind blending great cigars?

This woman at Chicago’s Art Institute is looking at “Stranger in the Village #13” by Glenn Ligon (1998), an American artist born in 1960.  The detail card on the wall to the right of the painting has printed on it that the work is “enamel, oil, and acrylic paint, gesso – a hard compound of plaster of Paris or whiting in glue used in sculpture or as a base for gilding or painting on wood (or a surface), and coal dust on canvas.”

Yes, I know, this is a cigar blog.  Dig deeper.  Dig into your nocturnal subconsciousness.

“Glenn Ligon is best known for text-based paintings that take up themes of authorship, history, and identity.  Borrowing from writers such as Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, he systematically stencils quotations across his canvases.  This work is from a series in which Ligon rendered passages from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay ‘Stranger in the Village’ – about his encounters with racism in a remote Swiss hamlet – in nearly illegible black paint mixed with coal dust.  The artist explains that he was inspired by ‘the gravity and weight and panoramic nature’ of Baldwin’s text, which are reflected in his own material and formal choices. Meanwhile, by allowing the words to degrade as part of his process, the artist points to (the) language’s inability to fully capture (the) experience.”

So in fact, from a distance, this appears as a large work that is completely black with, as you get closer, texture (the text) that has combined with the materials to produce his statement.  The casual onlooker will see this as a “nothing” work of art. Anyone could have done this. How far from the truth. It takes an eye for art, to see, to visualize the interior of the mind of the artist.  The raison d’être for its being on display.

Ergo, the reason for blending great cigars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SMDq8XcB9U

   

Seeking fame only may disappoint.

Fame was once described by Vincent van Gogh, “ . . . sticking your cigar in your mouth by the lighted end.”  Not something that this writer would have much use for. The interest in Vincent van Gogh has circled around once again with the release of a new film directed by Julian Schnabel, an accomplished contemporary artist in his own right, called “At Eternity’s End.”

Fame.  “Vincent Willem van Gogh ‘At the Pronunciation Unit, we don’t expect non-native Dutch speakers to pronounce his name with a perfect Dutch accent. Instead, we recommend the established Anglicisation van GOKH (-v as in vet, -g as in get, -kh as in Scottish loch.’) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life.” (Wiki)

Fame.  Several movies have been made attempting to give us, the viewer, the “real” van Gogh.  “In 1948, Alain Resnais made a documentary, ‘Van Gogh,’ that won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject. Vincente Minnelli’s “Lust for Life” was released in 1956. After a long hiatus came Robert Altman’s ‘Vincent & Theo’ (1990) and ‘Van Gogh’ (1991), directed by Maurice Pialat, who, like Schnabel, had started out as a painter. Last year, we had ‘Loving Vincent,’ an animated film, and now we have ‘At Eternity’s Gate.’”

Fame.  The most unlikely van Gogh is conjured up by Akira Kurosawa, in ‘Dreams’ (1990). A Japanese man of the present day is magically transported into a series of van Gogh’s works, trotting in bewilderment down painted roads.” *

Fame.  A TV series (1982-1987) that centered around “the stories of the students and faculty of the New York City High School for the Performing Arts.”  (IMBd)  

Fame.  “Flashdance,” the 1983  film starring Jennifer Beals, a Pittsburgh woman with two jobs as a welder and an exotic dancer (who) wants to get into ballet school.  Read – achieve Fame.

Fame.  As defined by the Oxford English dictionary as “The state of being known or talked about by many people, especially on account of notable achievements.”

Fame.  Everyone wants a piece of this bloated noun to enter their lives in some way, shape or form.  And being in the business I am in, the Cigar Industry, the desire to achieve same is like a contagion and penetrates even the interior of the humbled cigar blender.

Fame.  Is that what keeps Oscar Valladares on edge 24/7 to continue to make some of the best cigars produced in today’s market?

Fame.  It infects the elephant hide of the independent cigar broker to the point of abject fear that if he doesn’t reach his numbers he will be removed as the rep?

Fame.  It entangles humankind.  Few are content with a nine to five sentence.  Though that is what he or she chooses. Why? It’s predictable.  In the corporate world, there are chances to say, “get ahead.” But in reality, the distance traveled is an ephemeral step to the next rung up the evasive ladder.

Fame.  The #metoo campaign has scattered the illumination of a billion klieg lights on a way of life that may have been a step to promised fame, but in the end, it was simply a way to abuse an innocent soul to achieve personal self-gratification at the price of another’s desire for – fame.

Fame.  Name a cigar brand.  Any brand. Which one brand is famous today?  Reinado? Arganese? Wilson-Adams? Doña Flor?  Fighting Cock? Indian Tabac? Juno? Marco V? Pichón? Smokin’ Toad?  Don Leon? La Fleur de Jardine?   Alas.  None.

Fame.  I won’t complicate my existence via predictions of today’s star manufacturers and blends.  But I have in my mind several brand names that are making BIG headlines today in the cigar community that will be piled high in the ash heap of dead brands within fine years.

Fame.  Julian Schnabel himself would be more solid in his field – contemporary art – if he would just concentrate on one business.  What’s it gonna be Julian? Damien Hirst knows how to play the game. Monetize. Bastardize. Fantasize. Laugh all the way to the bank. Ask Larry Gagosian – he’s too famous to even bother to take on the “F” moniker.

Fame.  To quote the final paragraph of an article written in “The Critic at Large” section of November 19th edition of The New Yorker by Anthony Lane*: “Near the end of the film, we don’t watch the painter pass away. We do see him dead, though, curled up on his cot-like bed, in a small provincial inn, and barely visible in the corner of the screen. ‘In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing,’ he once wrote to Theo. After the event, his landlady sheds a tear, but she cries more loudly a while (sic) later when she hurts her foot. Meanwhile, there is much to do. The floor is swept, and the wine brought in for the day. Theo comes down from his brother’s room to settle the final bill. The innkeeper asks what he should do with the two paintings that Vincent gave him. ‘Keep them. They’re yours,’ Theo says. Outside, children play hopscotch in the yard.”

Fame.  Vincent van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime.  He lived to age thirty-seven. He died of a gunshot wound in 1890.

Fame.  “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh
findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”  ( Matthew 7:7–8)

Fame.  Just be prepared for the inevitable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPX6JPHRmBA

Ever regret not asking for that date?

If you can control your thoughts, you will have some of the most exciting experiences of smoking any cigar on the market, (or not yet) – today.  Why bring this up? It’s really very simple. I am a cigar broker and oftimes I offer to the store owners cigars that no one has ever heard of.  And sometimes this is a plus, but more often it is a negative dagger slashing at the screams of phrases such as, “No one is asking for it.” Or worse, “I never heard of it.”  Or the nadir of gray-mattered, intellectual vacuous cynicism, “Why would anyone want this cigar and risk their cash when they can buy this one and be assured of a good smoke?”

That latter phrase was posed to me by the owner of a downtown Chicago cigar shop many years ago when I first started in this cigar broker business.  In fact, he was my first encounter with any cigar shop owner. Lucky me.  I was as green as bile and had no retort at all. And to this day, I believe he thought that I would wither, dry up and crumble to the floor and that’s why he verbally stomped on me with all fours.  I can imagine his feelings of superiority.

Whether or not the psychological terrorism he used on me was planned or just somehow adlibbed or not I’ll never know.  I suppose you could say that I had been baptized by blazing fire uttered by a rude cigar shop owner in Chicago. At the time, I wondered, “Can it get any worse?” All I do know is that I left the shop thinking to myself, “Judas Priest, I hope the others I plan to visit aren’t such f*^#@*g assholes.”  And you know something – they weren’t. Even then I could feel my skin beginning to inspissate. And when something begins to thicken, it grows dense, tough, resilient.  

I left, obviously shaken – but not stirred.  As I walked between the buildings headed for LaSalle St., I began to feel my mind working at top speed.  I wasn’t going to let anyone’s insipid thoughts ruin my plans to become an independent cigar broker.  I was inching closer to the next challenge with greater conviction.

My point?  I grabbed my fearful thoughts, tied them up with imaginary, bloodied barbed wire and never went near them again – to have reached for them, to have mused over them, to have gotten entangled in them would have been too grotesquely painful.

Ergo, my attitude for trying new cigars that I would wish more shop owners would adopt.  I’m not requesting a prenup, a blood contact, or a voodoo ritual. All I’m asking is to buy a few boxes, put them in your cooler and make every attempt to sell them to your regulars or to be fair – to your customers.  Give that some serious thought.

Stop acting as if you’re putting down $3.5 million for a life-long investment with no dividends.  It’s a cigar. My thoughts try to always be on the plus side. Take yours off the slanted, negative side and get into the game.  How the hell do you think today’s other well-known brands made it if it weren’t for the adventurous shop owner to place them on a shelf with the thought that they might sell?  Change your thinking. Give it up to the excitement, the fun, the absolute joy-filled orgasmic moment when you find that next great cigar.  And you will, if – and only if you open up your mind and let the samples rush by your palate like the tons of whitewater violently cascading from Victoria Falls. Let your mind gurgle with adventure and give a life for a life.