Find Out About Jane.

For years I’ve been smoking a cigar in the garage at night.  Sometimes I stay for an hour – or until well past midnight into the next day.  Too, I don’t usually light up just one, either – depending on my mood, whether I’m having a textual conversation, or just staring out the window contemplating what to make of this life.

Most of those hours in the lounge, are occupied by me writing.  Sometimes I have a purpose and other times I straightforwardly write about my current situation or choice to be an entrepreneur (cigar broker), a writer (freelance), or an artist (playful).

I have ideas in my head that spiral so fast and unbalanced that after I’ve written them down (verbatim) I can barely decipher whatever it is I just scribbled on the yellow, blue-lined paper.  I try to write legibly, but it’s useless.  And for many months to avoid confusion, I used a computer pad.  But even then, I discovered the finished article resulted in a concatenation of comments that would make William S. Burrough’s prose read like Shakespeare.  But I would edit what I wanted and post the damn thing anyway.

Numerous times I have asked myself – “Why am I doing this?”  Why am I using my time to write about the interaction between cigars and culture?  Yet, without an answer, I can show you literally thousands of pages of twirly lines with black scratch outs and unreadable maps of lines and arrows going from this word to that word and from this sentence to that sentence – all for what? 

Right now I’ve slowed the posting to my blog to a snail’s pace.  Why?  Gloomily, I could say because there are few who really care what I write.  And that may be true.  But it isn’t!

But I think the honest answer the ink has slowly gone dry is because it is so difficult to attract the attention of the cigar-chomping community unless I write sugared reviews, manufacturing techniques, tips on the pairing of booze and cigars, and lastly – cloned profiles of the current rock star in the industry, (though that’s not too bad – the fifteen minutes of fame articles I can handle).  But I won’t!   

I am still a believer that there are those in the cigar coterie who have yet to be turned into butter knives by reading the same type of articles each month.

And so grasping onto hope is what keeps me in the game, both as a cigar broker –  and a writer.  At some point, the battle for blatant bifurcation will become crystal clear.  

READ ON!

Pepper dash Head Arrives

Incredible.  Some cigars take so long to finally appear in the market it’s a wonder that there’s any interest at all in the bloody thing when it’s finally released.  This wait was simply worth every empty promise and damned delay – the new addition to Isabela’s Exotic line the “Pepper-head” 6 x 60 Barber Pole.

Nestled peacefully in smooth wood boxes of 25, I imagined the rainbow of lights silently shooting out into the deep dark firmament as the box would be opened to glistening shards of cellophane reflectively revealing the tantalizing thick-to-thin ribbons of five-year-old aged tobacco just waiting to finally be caressed by the warm hands of a man who has dreamt of this moment in quiet wisps of nocturnal thought.

Shivers of excitement, like the slight tender touch of the nails of a woman on a man’s chest, ran up and down my spine as I sat in a rickety, metal patio chair in the front of the cigar lounge waiting to finally hold one.  The cigar’s creator slowly grasped the tails of cellophane and passed two over to me as the wind picked up and the shards of cold air increased my anticipation almost to the point of visible spasmodic shudders.

The sun was going down as twilight grew.  I was uncomfortable and wanted to leave so I could begin my journey home to my lounge where I would slip the cello off this magnificent tobacco conical miracle.  

I remember smiling, rising from the frigid metal chair and placing the two cigars in a plastic bag, and then into my sample case to ensure safe, warm travel.

Isabela’s “Pepper-head” did not disappoint.  I sat in my private lounge, and once the stripped aged cigar met the gentle warmth of the flame, I began to draw in what I hoped and prayed would be a rapturous cloud of smoke, overflowing with fascinating, striking, kinky flavors and essences of rare, spicy peppercorns from its organic, flowering  Piperaceae vine.

I held the dream in my mouth as my tongue gently released the smoke and as the bouquet filled the room I swooned with serious, sensual satisfaction.