Let it Bleed.

An epiphany, according to Merriam-Webster “is a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something. (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking. (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.”

Grace Frankenthaler, the artist, once said, “All my infancy and childhood, my parents treated me this way (special).  I had genes . . . intelligence . . . talent . . . the ‘gift!’ Who knows what ‘it’ is, really. But it was a positive thing.  The condition was my destiny.”

Irv, the CigarBroker, me – withdrew myself from many cigar groups.  The catalyst? FB prevented me from sharing my blog. One of the groups I kept is the one that first accepted me when I first started writing daily essays about the cigar broker’s viewpoint several years ago.  End result? Relief and sadness all rolled into one nugget of a chewy, chocolatey Tootsie Roll®️.

Helen goes on to say, “On the other hand . . . the child is alone, isolated.  The child cannot know, that the gift is creative within. So there was this constant state of potential crisis of excitement, of things driving toward protection, of impatience with the obvious, easy solutions . . . .”

As is the blog I write.  As is the sudden realization that I write exactly what I feel at the moment, sometimes without editing.  But in no way, shape or form do I want to fall into the rabbit hole, as did Alice.

Helen goes on to say, “To this day I have trouble listening . . . I am in my own head and going faster than my head.” (all quotes from Mary Gabriel’s, “Ninth Street Women.”)

What prompted this introspective essay.  A priest in a pulpit proselytizing the patterns of the prole pedestrian population.

Helen Frankenthaler didn’t become Helen Frankenthaler flirting with fate or joining the crowd.  She knew what she wanted. And she pursued it.  Me, too.  

No FB back then.  No Instagram. No nothing.  YOU had to promote yourself by your gut and hard, hard, hard work – not by the cover of the simplicity of a blue-lighted screen.  I freelance. Is it difficult? Yes. Has social media made it easier? No, it’s made it more difficult because now everyone thinks he or she is a writer, a humorist, (I’d love to hear what Mark Twain would say about that), a comic, an artist, an illustrator, an author, a politician, a singer, a swinger, a critic, a photographer, and an exposed fool.  It isn’t easier. It isn’t creative. FB has bred a ruse of talent. It bleeds. No tourniquet will stanch the flow.

The whole truth is not on FB.  Not even the quote attributed to Mark Twain is accurate.    English poet and political writer Nicholas Amhurst (16 October 1697 – 27 April 1742) wrote: “Terræ-filius or The Secret History of the University of Oxford In Several Essays” published in 1726, in which is found the following:  To paraphrase, Common sense isn’t so common. But long before Nicholas Amhurst, there was the Roman poet Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (known in English as Juvenal who lived in the early 2nd century AD) who in Book III of his collection of satirical poems, “Satires,”  wrote “Rarus enim ferme sensus communis.”  Common sense is generally rare.  (https://idiomation.wordpress.com)  (And you thought what came out of Mark Twain’s and Will Rogers’ mouths were original.)

Ergo, my reason for exiting many FB groups as a primary source for my blog.  Disenchantment.  Now you can find it on https://irvcigarbroker.wordpress.com.   No imbibing.  Some groups.

The Socratic method is so far removed from the babble on FB, I’m surprised even Mark Zuckerberg can sleep at night.  But I guess if you were worth $75.5 BILLION, the Zzzzzzz’s would come easy as the public continues to dive into his leaking trough for free!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF8ov34Gels

 

 

Karma is a reality cigar people.

Being professional and courteous in the cigar industry can have its challenges.  But if you stick to those two traits, they are the wisest choices. You will have no worries.

I just had the opportunity to discover the true personality of an individual who forgot or was naive about professionalism and courteousness – and it wasn’t pleasant.  But, I kept my mouth shut and took the bitchy verbal beating because in the back of my mind I espouse to the understanding of the principle of Karma. In the colloquial, that’s known as “payback.”

Karma is real.  It permeates the human condition whether or not you believe in it, it is there to protect your sanity and expose the hypocrisy of man.  In fact, it has been around since egg met sperm- there just wasn’t a formal name for it. Oh, I suppose you could call it revenge. But that latter action takes movement on the party that was wronged.  Karma spills silently into the incident and makes the correction silently and at times deadly.

The hurt or harm imposed on the individual (that’d be me) can be physical, psychological, verbal, or via the subconscious transference of anger.  It matters not. Karma is the great equalizer. There’s only one downside to it – patience. The wronged individual must know that he or she may not be around to enjoy experiencing the bliss of the wronged being righted.

And now, if I offend any reader my apologies, but what I have found is that those who spew out vindictive statements, negative character accusations, and bitter barbs whether they be verbal or written are ofttimes the ones who bring God into the conversation.

This discovery has happened to me on two distinct occasions and both individuals were always bringing up how God had helped them through difficult times, how important it was that if it wasn’t for the intervention of the Divine they would never have gotten as far as they did in the first place with their businesses.

But both had no problem revealing how they truly felt when the orders fell short or the money slowed to a trickle.  Then it was time for the “God” governor to be taken off so their true feelings could be heard loud and clear. Hypocrites all.  And I love it when I hear it because, believe it or not, I sense that eventually, the truth will reveal itself.  No graph goes up forever, and no cigar brand sells as fast as a manufacturer thinks it should.  It still amazes me how utterly unprofessional businessmen can become when the money doesn’t roll in at the pace they have in mind – or it takes slightly longer for the public to become aware of a new brand (if it does at all).

When anyone waxes poetic about the history, the time-honored tradition of cigar manufacturing, and their love of the leaf all that breezy bullshit seems to disappear when the green isn’t three feet higher than last month – and we ain’t talking tobacco leaves.

Are we all in the cigar industry to make money?  You bet your lighter we are.

So, since this second incident, I have made an unbreakable oath to myself that I am going to continue in this business and really listen to my gut (I didn’t this last time for whatever reason, ego maybe) when acquiring another brand.  Right now I am fortunate to be representing some of the finest cigars on the market today. And the folks behind the scenes are grateful and appreciative of the work I, as an independent broker, am putting in to sell their brands.

But even with that said, I always keep this song in mind . . . . . . . . . 

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

The PCA Cigar Con.

On the evening of June 19th, 2019 Halfwheel.com confirmed that the IPCPR would be officially renamed the Premium Cigar Association (PCA), AND, that in 2020 at the annual convention in Vegas, on Day One, consumers would be allowed into the show BEFORE the retailers, in what has been christened – CigarCon.  (This same latter proposal was attempted in 2013 but was quickly shot down.  Where’s the NRA when you need ’em?)  This has led to a drop in confidence (60%) by retailers of the efficacy of the PCA as it ignores the obvious and is moving ahead with its unpopular agenda.

On June 28th, 1969, “a group of (angry) queers resisted routine police harassment at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, leading to thirteen arrests and days of street protests.” *  Fifty years later, in The Stonewall Riots, edited by Marc Stein, he writes that what was a partial cause of the riots was “inspired and influenced by other social movements”; or, simply, as a “spontaneous eruption of anger.”

The same could be said about this polymorphous decision on the part of the PCA to add CigarCon.  It has indeed ignited a fire while we had hoped a few bright minds within the PCA were still glowing and trying to logically figure out what to do about the cigar industry’s dismal attendance at the annual trade show and at the same time how to handle the insatiable onslaught of the FDA (and our own culture) to obliterate tobacco from the landscape.  (Though methinks the association’s intellectual embers are stone cold.)

Lee Grossman, in an article written for Vanity Fair’s Summer issue about the final episode of the Star Wars Trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, details how George Lucas after his making of THX 1138, and then the spectacular success of American Graffiti, quotes the legendary director, “I realized that after THX that people don’t care how the country (or an industry?) is being ruined.  We’ve got to regenerate optimism.” Grossman goes on to write “Like American Graffiti, Star Wars is a work of profound nostalgia, a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate anthem of longing for the restoration of a (sic) true and just power in the universe – the return of the king.”

And that “king” is Accountability.

Maybe, just maybe, like how the Stonewall Inn Riots produced the Gay Right’s Movement and turned the public’s attention to the oft-maligned community for no particular reason other than it’s different from what society perceives to be the norm or conventional (the cigar smoker).

And maybe the zeal of Lucas’s desire to give hope to moviegoers through the art of film-making by capitalizing on the popularity of Star Wars prompted this quote from the Grossman article,  “People wanted movies that gave them something to believe in instead of relentlessly autopsying the beliefs that failed them.”  

I think the PCA created the CigarCon concept to try and solve its low attendance problem by allowing Day One of the 2020 Vegas Convention to be cannibalized by voracious consumers – in any form.  But the idea backfired by giving industry retailers the catalyst they needed to take a closer look at what the PCA’s priorities really are.    

For eighty-seven years the retailers have faithfully handed in their fees in the hopes that the association, whatever its initials, has been using its polished prowess to be the one bright light for the shops, lounges, stores, and events of the tobacco industry.  Lord Acton, the British historian, said that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  This statement may be something to ponder here.

Retailers are stomping mad at a lot of things: the FDA, the government, CigarCon – and the PCA.  Perhaps this is the right time for that “spontaneous eruption of anger” to take place.   

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

(*Times Literary Supplement June 28, 2019, Article by Hugh Ryan)

Cigars the world wants and needs.

I just got back from the PCA in Vegas and I thought this was an interesting connection.  

“Your editor has asked me to give you some practical advice about the kind of labour involved in planning and executing a book of the kind I have just published – a work of some 80,000 words about a fellow-author whose name is D. H. Lawrence. I would not normally be willing to give such advice since no writer’s method of work can be of much value to another: a method is an emanation of a personality.”

So starts an article in the April 26th issue of the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) written by Anthony Burgess, (“John Anthony Burgess Wilson, FRSL, who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was predominantly a comic writer, his dystopian satire, A Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel.”)

The short piece centers around how he went about to write a book about – D.H. Lawrence, the English writer, and poet who is is best known for his book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  A challenge indeed.

But this is a cigar blog and if you substitute a few words in the very first paragraph, you will see that what I’m eluding to is quite succinct and right on the dime.

The sentence that stood out was “ . . . since no writer’s method of work can be of much value to another: a method is an emanation of a personality.”  My point. No blender’s method of producing is of any value to another blender: ergo, a “method is an emanation of a personality.” The clincher – we, us, humans, blenders, sales reps, manufacturers, rollers, distributors, and on and on and on hold value because we, us, deez, dem, and doze all are distinct identities with intricate thoughts that will only be attached intellectually to the individual.  

In short – Unique!

Burgess goes on to say, “Indeed, there are times when the author who has accepted a commission to write a book, who has completed his research, and who may even have composed a rough draft, finds himself unable to push through the task to the end.”

In short, so close yet so far.  The blender has it, he knows he has it, but what he does not possess is the temerity to toss aside the criticism and go for broke.

Which leads us to the belief that time, energy, and most importantly, money has been rolled into a miniature funeral pyre and burned out of existence.  Burgess goes on to say that, “(t)here is no other trade in the world that offers such time wasting and such frustration.” Ah, but he did not consider the cigar maker.

In fact, when this article republished in the April 26th issue was written in 1986, Mr. Burgess is quoted writing, “We’re living in an age when books (cigars) go out of print (production) with terrible speed – one of the curses of an epoch in which too many books (cigars) are published (produced), warehouse space is short, and publishers (manufacturers) concentrate on the new rather than the worthy.”  How bloody true a statement has ever to be written.

Yet, new brands are coming out of Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Brazil with blazing speed.   Not a logical step to stem the tide of saturation. Or even a thought of what the FDA will decide to do – whose wheels are already in motion like the bulldozers in The Medicine Man without a whit of concern of the damage that is being done as long as the land is cleared (read until the cigar industry is abolished).

Know this, if you plan on producing a cigar, don’t do your homework – make the cigar. Despite the emphasis on the fact that this article in TLS concentrates on literature – it alludes to the cigar industry.  He closes by writing, “All the research in the world won’t help you if you lack the flame of conviction. Every book you write is fundamentally about you. And it is your peculiar uniqueness, good or bad, that the world wants.”

In short, if you lack the passion, every cigar, every blend, every vitola is “fundamentally about you.”  He continues, and take this to heart, “it is your particular uniqueness, good or bad, that the world wants.”  

So just do it and damn the opinions of others, the squeamish – and the FDA!  

My recap on the 2019 PCA Convention.

(Sung to the tune by Peggy Lee “Is that all there is?” Click on the link below and return to this page – and sing along.   And think!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M&list=RDLCRZZC-DH7M&start_radio=1

********

I remember when I was a little boy, I took my first cigar out of my Dad’s top dresser drawer.

I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face when he discovered it was missing from the tray.

As he questioned me about taking the cigar, I stood there shivering in my pajamas.  I watched as my father took it from my hand.

And when it was all over, I said to myself, “Is that all there is to taking a cigar?

Is that all there is?

Is that all there is?  If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep smoking.

Let’s strike up a match and have a draw.  

If that’s all there is.

And when I was old enough, I visited the nearest cigar shop and marveled at the vast array of cigars.  There were so many.  

There were skinny ones, pudgy ones, long ones, short ones, – and some shapes I had never seen before.

And so as I stood there trying to pick out which one would be just right for me, I had the feeling that somehow I was going to make a mistake.  I couldn’t know but picked one out.

And when the purchase was complete, I said to myself, “Is that all there is to choosing a cigar?”

Is that all there is?

Is that all there is?  If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep smoking.

Let’s strike up a match and have a draw.  

If that’s all there is.

Then I fell in love with cigars, head over heels in love with the most wonderful past time in the world.

I would take long walks through the neighborhood or just sit under the porch for hours watching the smoke fill up the small space, we were so very much in love.

Then one day I got caught and be punished, and I thought I’d die.  But I didn’t. And when I didn’t I said to myself, “Is that all there is to love a cigar?”

Is that all there is?  Is that all there is? If that’s all there is my friends, then . . . 

I know what you must be saying to yourselves.  If that’s the way he feels about it, why not just come out and let everyone know about it?

Oh no.  Not me. I’m not ready for my passion to be reviled.

Because I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you – But when that final moment comes, I’ll feel so relieved to finally be telling the truth.  I’ll be saying to myself.

Is that all there is?  Is that all there is? If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep smoking.  Let’s strike up a match and have a draw.  

If that’s all (long pause) there (another long pause) –  is.

Oom-pa.  Oom-pa. Oom-pa.  Oom-pa. Oom-pa. Oom-pa.  Oom.  

(Written by the American songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller during the 1960s, became a hit for American singer Peggy Lee and an award winner from her album of the same title in November 1969.)