Confessions Of A Cuban Cigar Smoker, Volume I
Addiction
Published by Addiction at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Addiction
Look for future titles by Addiction at Smashwords.com:
Confessions Of A Cuban Cigar Smoker, Volume II (Coming in 2012)
All rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. Any cigars portrayed in this book that appear to be Cuban in origin are most likely completely fictional in nature. Any resemblance between these sham cigars and actual Cuban cigars is unintentional and purely coincidental.
Dedications from Addiction
MMJW the best thing that ever happened to me. I wish I were the same for you. I ask the heavens that in the future I will be.
CA and CD you guys are the tiny lights along my path. Little people make you believe in wonder again.
Byrd thanks for giving me a chance to spread my wings under your roof. I'm not going to blame you if I crash to Earth, but if it all works I'll raise you up!
Jennie thanks for being the first encouraging person I didn't actually know. Hope you like how it turns out and PLEASE stop taking rides from History of Science majors.
Jeremy you, sir, are the man. Jennie told me I could, but you showed me HOW!
Jason, Jason, Brian, Mark, Dan, and Nick it would be insanely hard to find people as good as you guys with whom to share cigars. Luckily I don't have to.
Phil I can't believe you got me to do this.
Mike and Tori thanks for helping even when you didn’t know you were.
Jason and Angela people might think I can form a coherent sentence because of you guys. I made it comedy, but without you guys it wouldn't be a book! THANKS!
Antonia Do what you do, girl. We're selling a million copies next time!
Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, and Stephen King thanks for giving a brother something to shoot for.
To the rest of the world: I believe that you need to laugh at yourself, and if you can do that then you should be able to laugh at everyone else. After that things get considerably easier. I don't hate any ethnic or religious group. I don't dislike any sexual orientation that involves willing participants. Except maybe furries, but come on! My mind sees each of us as funny—separately and in groups. So don’t get your knickers in a twist if you don't like it. Just stop reading.
Table Of Contents
Chapter Four: Lake Anna, Ballapalooza
Chapter Five: You'll Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends
Chapter Six: Wanted Gently Used Ferrari
Chapter Seven: The Worst Words
Chapter Eight: Finding Our Way Back
Chapter Nine: DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!
Chapter Ten: Is It Worth It (Parts I and II)
Chapter Eleven: You Gotta Fight For Your Right
Chapter Twelve: Let's Review Shall We
Chapter Thirteen: It's So Hard To Say Goodbye
Chapter One
In The Beginning
OK, some things are obvious. It's pretty obvious that I've written a book. And it’s a fair guess that I want you to buy it. I'd bet that if you pick up a book that's titled Confessions of a Cuban Cigar Smoker you expected it to be one kind of thing. And it's certainly that kind of thing, but it's also another completely different kind of thing. You will definitely learn something about Cubans in this book, but hopefully you'll also learn just a little bit about life.
This tome speaks to Cuban cigars in particular and all cigars in general; at least, that was the intent. Once I started writing, nothing came out about non-Cuban cigars, so you won't read very much about them here. This book also serves as a record of my observations of the strangely delicious absurdities life presents every day. I sometimes use my general observations on life to drive home a point about cigars and I sometimes use the teeny bit of cigar knowledge I have to drive home a point about life. It's all the same thing, really; I’d never let a cigar get in the way of spinning a good yarn. The fact is I've only been smoking since 2007 and only found Cubans in 2008. I'm not a real expert in the field but I do have some knowledge that you might find useful.
Sure it's only been four years, but I've bought over 400 boxes in that time, maybe over 500. I've sold quite a few, too. I've been through it with fakes, gougers, and brotherhood. I've managed to sneak out the other side of the abyss with a little bit of knowledge and a slight sense of humor. I'm here to give you the benefit of that knowledge and humor.
For background, I'm a black man coming up on the midlife crisis milestone pretty quickly. I won't lie, I felt like I had to throw that out there right away, otherwise in about three paragraphs you were going to be calling Al Sharpton with my actual home address so he could organize the protest. Anyway, I've driven convertibles for the last 10 years, so that wasn't going to scratch my itch. I've also traveled a good portion of the world and I have a wife who is both beautiful AND a lawyer, which dissuades me from most other pursuits sought out by men who are getting old enough to finally realize they are no longer young.
I thought about maybe doing some stand up. In a past life I did a little stand up, once in front of a full house of 8,000 people. I think I rocked it and I loved being up there. The euphoria of the stage makes you completely understand why people pursue that life, but the aftereffects are a real bitch. People want to take your picture. They want to talk about shit and have you make jokes. It seems I don't have the stomach to be famous; maybe I'm the only one in America who doesn't want that. I'd love the money, mind you, but I don't want it enough to live in a gilded cage and let you watch me fling my poo for your amusement.
Then it occurred to me that I could write a book. If you believe the hype, most Americans can barely read; they damn sure can't identify the people that write. So if I can pump out enough pages of my thoughts and then sell 194,986 copies at $2.99 a piece, then I can pay off all the property I own in this life. That would be pretty fucking sweet. That probably means I'm going to have to write about 70 different books to accomplish that goal, so I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
But before I can get to that point, you and I need to get better acquainted. After all, I need you to tell 194,985 of your closest friends that spending this $2.99 is a pretty good goddamn idea. So I just think we should take some time and lay some ground rules. Every successful relationship is based on a series of understandable rules of engagement. I guess every reality show and news broadcast proves that several unsuccessful relationships are as well.
I’m pretty sure Elliot Spitzer had several rules. One rule had to say that you don’t actually tell people Elliot was spending $5,000 a night to get laid. I'd guess there was also a rule about not saving his number under “Governor.” There definitely had to be a rule about not writing any of that shit down.
Think about it: if you are spending five grand a throw to fuck, then $50 is for pussy and the remaining $4,950 is for discretion. If you’re famous and you pay a bitch $20 and an eight ball, then hell yeah, you should expect to see your shit in the paper. How the fuck do you even pull up to buy an eight ball driving an S-Class and think it’s going to remain a private transaction? Hell, TMZ is staking out anyone selling more than a rock just because they can. With one SD card holding thousands of digital pictures they will just start snapping and hope for the best. Ninety percent of those pictures are going to be of Tom Sizemore, Courtney Love, and/or Lindsay Lohan, but the other 10% will make them some pocket change.
However, when you man up and cover a $5,000 price tag, it should come with a "no names in the paper" guarantee. I understand what they mean when they say "it ain't tricking if you got it," but that level of pussy bribery should be full fucking service; you should get a free excuse phone call from an established voice talent and everything. Morgan Fucking Freeman could call your wife and use his full-on God voice and say you just helped him deliver a baby dolphin in a rain storm and now you guys are going bowling and grabbing a beer. Hell, you spent $5,000—that should cover some special effects, shouldn't it? I ain't saying a monsoon, but you can scare up a shower for $3,800, right? That's still $1,200 to cover the cost of a basic bodily function; I think a college student can get by with that. But Governor Spitzer didn't get any of that. If the pussy and head fee is $50, then somebody owes that guy a hell of a lot of blow jobs, that's all I'm saying.
Where the fuck was I? That happens, by the way; I wander. I write whatever comes into my head. I often plan to write something, and something else comes out. That’s the curse; I just take it and run with it. Oh yeah, I was on ground rules. I believe we need to start with ground rules. It’s only fair that you have an understanding of “who” is talking to you. I need to give you that sneak peek into my persona that lets you know that you can either identify with me or you can identify with what I’m writing about, because there ain’t no refunds! So let’s just go with some off-the-cuff, freeform thoughts of the moment (like that's not what I was doing anyway).
So I was in the airport yesterday and these geniuses were hypothesizing about how they knew the recession/depression was coming. You know how I knew it was coming? Rick Fox. I mean five or six years ago, Rick Fox had acting parts, he had commercials and shit, he did some sports broadcasting; things were happening for that dude. With how regularly he was appearing on TV, you might have thought he had been somebody other than Mr. Vanessa Williams and the Lakers’ .6 points per game water boy who sometimes got into the action. He’d already left Vanessa Williams and the last big shot Rick Fox took had dead flu viruses in it, that’s all I'm saying. Even when he was playing for the Lakers, Rick Fox was so far down the bench they had to send a telegram to get his ass in the game. I'm pretty sure his seat on the bench was on the other side of the fucking International Date Line; you had to set your watch back to fucking call him in. Then one day I looked up and there was no Rick Fox. Nigga just gone, poof, disappeared. And that’s a fucking sign of trouble friends, like if "pretty Ricky" yellow-skinned niggas with naturally curly hair can’t find work, the rest of us are screwed.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a test: try to think of the last time you saw a high yellow homeless person.
Naw, don't give up that easy. Go ahead, I'll wait.
......
Can’t do it, can you? It’s not that there are no bright-skinned homeless people; that would be a numerical impossibility. If there are white people homeless, then everyone else is allowed to be, too; that’s one of the things they didn’t decide to keep for themselves. Except maybe the Chinese; if some dude was out there kung fuing other homeless cats, that shit would be on the news or, at the very least, you would have seen a YouTube of it. And by Chinese, I mean any Asians; there are 1.6 billion of them so, as far as I'm concerned, God made that call already, China won. If the rest of you 'eses and 'eans want to be counted, you better start fucking.
Let's get back to the perceived lack of high yellow homeless. As I said, it's not that there is a dearth of high yellow homeless people; it’s just that regular homeless people look, well, homeless. They got a shopping cart with three hefty bags in it, two of them have holes in them and one of them actually contains garbage. That shopping cart has 90% of a fucking Cuisinart in it and they ain’t got no goddamn electricity; clearly, they ain’t right in the head. Their socks are made from yesterday’s sports section (and Rick Fox ain't fucking in there). Their breath just smells like lungs because there’s no bothersome food odor to get in the way.
Before I forget, am I the only person who cracks up a little inside when you see a homeless person with a shopping cart but he asks you for money to buy food? That’s some advanced fucking planning right there; his broke ass is probably already deeply considering if he wants his shit in paper or plastic. I always look at the shopping cart and think they’re as optimistic as a motherfucker about how this panhandling is going to turn out. C’mon, you have got to love the irony of that!
Also, if a dude comes up to you smelling like a distillery that was built inside a crack house and asks you for money and you oblige, then your cost for this book is $2,300. Because your Mr. Softee ass ain't got the sense God gave a grapefruit. You would probably be better served by setting your money on fire because I'm pretty sure he couldn't have been that damn hungry if his breath smelled like Wild Irish Rose.
Anyway, light-skinned homeless people still got two matching shoes and shit; they are still together enough to dress with the season and coordinate an outfit. Seriously now, if you ain't wearing a Nike on your left foot and a wing tip on your right, you ain't really homeless. That level of coordination and togetherness implies a lack of morbid desperation; your ass is simply "place to stay inconvenienced.” Regular homeless people are wearing everything they own no matter what time of year it is; that’s what’s up. Yeah it's 90 degrees outside but they can't afford to lose their good pants, the ones with only two holes and a missing zipper. And while regular homeless people smell like a goat on a three-day bender, yellow homeless people just smell slightly European, which is to say uneducated in the proper use of soap and deodorant. Let’s face it; a regular homeless guy looks like he’s living through the apocalypse and light-skinned homeless people look like they’re backpacking across Spain.
Back on task, there is a hierarchy of how black entertainers can find work. Like the top of that pyramid is occupied by Will Smith. I would say a Will Smith type but Will Smith himself snatches up about 95% of those jobs. White people LOVE Will Smith, and I can’t much say that I blame them. I’m pretty sure white people look at Will Smith and they see an American flag caught in the wind above amber waves of grain and shit. There's probably an apple pie and a baby in there somewhere, too.
Now, the Will Smith spot used to officially be the Bill Cosby spot but then Bill ingested a bad pudding pop or some shit and got all political. When the magic negro starts to uplift people with common sense instead of hopes and dreams, he becomes a regular negro pretty damn quickly. Anyway, if Will Smith ain't picking up $20,000,000 for pretending to be the coolest guy in the room every five to six months, then the world has gone askew. Either Will ate a bad pudding pop and started telling niggas to read (only 194,984 to go now!!!) or they’re bringing slavery back. And even if they brought slavery back, I'm pretty sure Will would get a pass. The rest of us black folks better start learning negro spirituals and studying the fucking cotton growing season.
As an aside, I was talking to a friend of mine who was theorizing what slavery would be like today. He believes that there wouldn't be a lot of cotton farming, that it would be more fruits and veggies. Like that makes a difference; I'm fairly certain that if a white man is standing over you with a whip, and last week that same white man had sold your wife to a farm three counties over to pick strawberries, that you’re thinking to yourself "I'm sure glad these are cucumbers I'm picking and not cotton." When he mentioned us picking fruit, before I could even catch myself, I said "What, they brought back slavery and all the Mexicans died?" Yeah I know, not my finest hour there. Anyway...
Under Will Smith, you have red-boned black people, someone like Rick Fox or Alicia Keys. Most of these people are only marginally talented to begin with but they are pretty and nonthreatening and white people look at them and can’t help but think what their babies would look like if they hooked up with them. Say what you will, but I'm pretty sure even David Duke has thought about a tryst with Halle Berry because Gabrielle Union's black ass is going to be out working his fields. That's why they kind of get a pass.
Before you fucking start in on me, let’s keep it real. Of course there are some talented light-skinned people. Alicia Keys is DEFINITELY a great musician. But that's the exception, not the rule. Remember pop phenom Al B. Sure? He was a singer-dancer in the ‘90s who could neither sing nor dance. Like seriously, YouTube one of his videos if you don't know him; that dude dances like he's a car whose fucking engine is seizing. And when he opens his mouth to sing, vultures gather because they assume nothing can sound like that if it isn't dying. You would wonder how he had a top 10 hit except his complexion reminds you of tapioca pudding and his hair is naturally (S)curly...
All the white people are like "what's that S for..."
But seriously, think about it. If you turn on the TV and see a dude so black you think he might have a birthmark that spells "Oreo," with hair so nappy Medusa would kick in $20 to find him a barber, you expect that he’s either talented as shit or President of some dirt ass poor country where $1,000 of whatever the fuck they call their money might buy you a happy meal…if you didn’t supersize. But if you turn on the TV and see Lisa Raye, you know the only acting you’re going to see is she is going to act like she loves this rich dude until the prenup expires, and then she’s going to act like she just lost her damn mind. That's just real talk.
Lisa Raye is to gold digging what fucking Jordan was to basketball. I have to believe at some point they will retire her jersey.
Moving on, I guess the talented dark skin exception would be Wesley Snipes, because that dude ain’t been in a good movie since the federal prison showed Shawshank Redemption on movie night. How the fuck do you go from making $20M a year to being in prison for tax evasion? That's like buying an 80-inch LCD 3D TV but shoplifting the $6.00 cloth to clean it with; it just makes no damn sense. Shut the fuck up, pay the 30%, and keep it fucking moving already. You don't want to tell White Power or the Latin Mafia to always bet on black, that shit won't fly. Then the next thing you know, there you are lying on the shower floor with blood leaking out your anus. Clearly, white men can jump…dead up in your ass.
If I ever needed to pay a million dollar tax bill you would never hear me bitch about it, because that’s a good indicator I got to keep at least two fucking million dollars. I suspect that I wouldn't like said tax bill, but once I went out and bought me a new vacation house and some kind of outrageously priced item covered in bald eagle feathers and luxuriously furred in baby sealskin I would get over that little disappointment. That’s kind of like complaining about how your girlfriend always has to go fix you a sandwich after she blows you; why is she such a busybody?
As an aside, some people would tell you there is no racism in the world anymore, but if I recall the facts, Willie Nelson owed $40,000,000 in back taxes and he got a payment plan that allowed him to tour and smoke weed. Wesley Snipes owed about $9,000,000, which he offered to pay right away, but his black ass will be spending 36 months washing Big Mike's boxers. For emphasis I will say it again: Willie owed four times as much and got to tour and smoke weed to pay it off. Wesley owed a quarter of what Willie did and he got to do time and smoke pole to pay it off. I guess that is what passes for totally fair and impartial justice in America.
I don't actually think this had anything to do with racism, I think some judge just got tired of Wesley Snipes being free to create shitty action movies and overcrowd the local Blockbuster shelves. At some point after releasing Art of War 18: No, I'm Still Not Paying Taxes the global karma has to back up on you like rancid meatloaf. Someone had to stop Wesley before he filmed again.
Anyway, at the bottom of that pyramid it's just niggas like you and me. We all get lumped together; that’s the fact. If you ain’t Will Smith or light-skinned, until they get to know you, white people think the same thing every time they see you: fried chicken, watermelon, welfare fraud, grape soda, and “did I remember to lock my car?” I feel like every time I pull into a parking lot, I just ruined every auto thief’s chances at a witness-free crime. When I walk across a parking lot, I hear so many door locks pop it sounds like fucking applause, and I'm wearing Armani and driving a Lexus. They also seem to hear the fucking Good Times theme song. I swear to God, I’m going to flip the fuck out if I hear one more motherfucker in the grocery store line behind me whisper to himself “Just looking out of the window, watching the asphalt grooooo...”
As an aside, I think if you drive a nice car or wear a suit, they might hear The Jeffersons theme song, but I’ve never been able to confirm that one. And Jason, my trusty editor, says really cultured white people hear the beginning lick of Sanford and Son. Oh Jason you big dummy you.
So, we can tell it’s a recession because Alicia Keys ain’t put out a new album or they didn’t try to spin off Ice-T in his own Law and Order show “Law & Order: That Nigga Might Have Done It.”
Wha...?
Don’t look at me like that. Number one, you know you still do a double-take every time you see Ice-T on TV in a police station not in handcuffs with CoCo standing off to the side covering her black eye and nursing a fucking gushing nose bleed. Don’t front like it's just me. I can't be the only one who has noticed that whenever a crime is reported on that SVU show, they want to know where Ice-T's character was that night. And secondly, Law & Order has done everything else; ain’t shit left but some kind of gritty urban bullshit that could only by shown by the world’s most ignorant television network: BET. They could put it on between “My Dumb Ass Is Flunking Out Of College” and insert-broke-ass-musician’s-name-here’s reality series.
You also have to know at this point that if you see some shit described as urban or gritty, that's code for Made for Black People, right? On top of that, Ice-T just looks like he steals. Hell, every time that nigga comes on my TV, I hide my fucking wallet and he ain't even really in the room; it is what it is. You know goddamn well if you pull up to a country club and the valet looks like Ice-T, you will self fucking park…and join a new country club! Because really, who wants to be in a country club that employs people on work release?
And with that out of the way, let’s lay down some organizational ground rules.
This is an "infotainment work of faction.” I will freely admit that looks like it makes no sense, but if you’ve gotten this goddamn far and you haven’t figured out that I am willing to forge the path through a new frontier by stringing words together in interesting ways, then you have not been paying attention. I'm not making up new words, mind you; it appears infotainment has passed into Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster's canon. The fact of the matter is that I intend to enlighten with laughter. I think if I tell you “this cigar is good,” you might remember. I think if I tell you “this cigar is good” and make you laugh so hard when I say it that milk comes out of your nose and you ain't had dairy in six years because you’re lactose intolerant, you will definitely remember it. Richard Wright was certainly a great writer but I have no aspirations to be him.
And faction, that’s not a misspelling and it’s not about a smaller group within a larger collective. I intend it to mean a work of factual fiction. I was going to use the word “factcy” meaning a factual flight of fancy, but that sounds like a word you come up with while another dude is resting his balls on your chin, so I took a pass on that one.
Why do I need to write factual fiction? Let's not get it twisted: owning Cuban cigars is illegal.
Yes, I own a couple hundred boxes of Cubans, but if the man shows up, I will claim that those are just fucking Pardons and keep it moving. Thus, I don’t believe it is in my best interest to tell you it’s a fact that I own over 200 boxes of Cuban cigars (I do). That’s why I write under an alias; well, that and the fact that I may only sell 32 copies of this book and end up embarrassed as hell for even attempting this. Also, I still do a lot of contracting; I don’t need some Human Resources hotshot Googling me and seeing a result set with 438,765 instances of the word fuck.
Don’t worry; I’m not going to James Frey it up and tell you I was blowing dudes for crack when I was really taking basket-weaving classes at a prep school. I’m just saying if you are an officer of the law, there is every possibility that some of what you read is fabrication and wouldn't be worth a single moment of your investigative brainpower. Why don’t you go find Ice-T instead; Law and Order says he might have done it. However, if you are a private citizen, then your copy is completely accurate and truthful.
I’m going to say some shit that’s funny, but I’m also going to say some shit that you ain’t going to like. Mostly I’m talking to you religious zealots, all the men whose breath smells like a jock strap, and all the women who work construction. Look, I get it; you guys have to guard against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune AND take up arms against a sea of troubles and thus opposing end them and all that jazz. But this is comedy and part of being equal is it’s OK to make fun of you. If it makes you feel better, I make fun of everyone equally.
If you want to picket this book, you’re going to have to get in fucking line; I’m going to piss off more people than if Salman Rushdie had written “The All Pork Chop Cookbook” as a follow up to Satanic Verses. So it's not an attack on you, per se, more an assault against humanity.
Well, maybe not so much humanity, but society for sure. Humanity, as an institution, is pretty amazing. Jason wonders if humanity can be an institution and I say it's my fucking book so yes it can. And as I already said, it's a great institution. But once you mix in society with a dash of religion and a sprinkle of organization, shit gets sideways real fast. But trust me: if you are breathing, there is probably something in these next few chapters that’s going to piss you right the fuck off, and if you don't see it that probably means it got pushed out to Volume II. If you bought this book for the full $2.99, then I’m sorry I offended you. I used those words because I wanted to drive home a point. Those points are generally specific, things like: Latinos are taken advantage of in America; or owning a Tracfone is stupid. I don’t intend to write the Iliad here, this is more of a Chicken Soup for the Soul Of The Mean Spirited kind of book.
However, if you got this book for free from a friend then yes, that one time I was talking directly to your broke ass. In fact, you don’t even need to be reading; you need to put this shit down and go get a second job! Hell, if you couldn’t afford $2.99, you might need to go get a new first fucking job.
This book is only partially dedicated to cigars…in fact, very partially. I basically talk about whatever crosses my mind and I'll at least make the attempt to marginally connect it to the leaf. Like right now, I've just struck flame to an ‘03 Cohiba Siglo VI, and it is quite lovely. This is what a cigar should look like: thick and strong with the color of café au lait and a wrapper with the smoothness of Jennifer Lopez's pre-baby thighs. On the first puff, it's as powerful as an Ike Turner right cross after Tina went shuffle kick shuffle instead of shuffle shuffle kick. But the power is wrapped in velvet creaminess and crisp beany flavors with toasty vanilla notes. We'll circle back to the Sig VI, because that's not Chapter One. Chapter One is rules.
This book was originally written as a series of blog posts. I used to post on a friend’s blog, The B&B Cigar Club, and I collected the content here so people could pay me for it. Don’t worry about duplication; the blog posts as a total were about 20,000 words and this book ends up being about 80,000. This only represents half of the published blog posts; it is important to me that you know that of the 80,000 words you are holding, about 68,000 were written solely for this book. Even the stuff that is reprinted from the blog has been added to. For example, this chapter was about 1,400 words on the blog and is now bursting at the seams at just under 6,300 words. That has to justify the $2.99 price tag.
I will talk about what to try; I won't talk about where to buy. In other words, I'll try to take you as deep into the dark side as I can, but keep in mind I'm relatively new to this. I sparked my first cigar in May ‘07, a CAO Gold if memory serves. I recall it being exceptionally bland and uninteresting. It was nothing like the sweet cream and light toasty vanilla of this Sig VI. The depth of this cigar, the richness, it's incredible. The beaniness has slipped into the background, giving way to cream and vanilla that leads you directly to Cohiba heaven.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I can tell you which cigars are working right now in my opinion, which are not working, and which are never going to work, again in my opinion. But I'm not going to be responsible for sourcing you; you have to do some of the work to reap the richness of the reward.
Hints of chocolate show up at the halfway point of the Siglo VI. I mean just a touch, and it's at the tail end of a finish longer than a Kardashian weave at a Super Bowl party. And before I forget to ask, what the hell did those girls do other than put a size 12 ass in a size eight skirt to become famous? Sure their Dad helped OJ get away with murder and their stepdad won a gazillion Olympic medals back when four-inch long gym shorts were all the rage, but that doesn’t make me want to watch them on TV for a half-hour a week. And as far as the wardrobe choices go there are probably 10 or 11 of Goldie's best girls working various corners in DC wearing that same outfit and they won't get a reality show and an NBA husband out of the deal. But I guess Kim doesn't have that NBA husband part any more.
Now I have to ask: Kris Humphries? Really? Were there not any actual famous people at the club on that particular night, Kim? Because that dude makes Rick Fox look like a goddamn All-Star! Actually, I take that back; that’s just the hate talking. Anywho, that long finish on the Siglo VI has nuttiness to it that just whispers itself. Slowly, mind you, but it's definitely there. The stick makes smoke in copious amounts, making it a sipping cigar, which is odd for a six-inch 52 ring gauge smoke.
My reviews will be a cavalcade of Cuban treasures. Some everyday smokes, some special occasion smokes, and some what the fuck is he thinking smokes. I promise you, however: if you have an open mind, a willing spirit, and a reasonable credit limit, I'm going to blow you away. But the fact is, 99% of what you see reviewed or talked about here is going to be Cuban. It's what I buy, it's what I smoke, and therefore it's what I review. I realize it's not for everyone but that's why Steve Jobs, in his infinite wisdom, paid someone to invent the back button for your iPad. I still occasionally try non-Cubans, but the experience is typically a letdown. It's like when you see the one who got away in high school and your first thought is "Did she always have more than one chin?" Sure, you can get her to blow you now, but it will be mostly because dicks and hot dogs have the same shape. As far as non-Cubans go, if I get past the first third, I'll review it; otherwise you gets nada.
Coming into the last third of this Sig VI, by the way, and sweet baby Jesus, this is one good goddamn cigar. The vanilla is out like Ricky Martin. Were there people who owned televisions who didn't know that cat was gay? He'd clearly slid on more poles than an entire volunteer fire department. If you smoke a 20-year-old Cohiba, there is so much front-loaded vanilla that you might suspect it's a flavored cigar. This Siglo VI, from a box of the original release of the Siglo VI, has the cream, vanilla, and strength of a much older cigar and makes me wonder what this would be like in 2022. I'm not going to be able to find that secret out, however, because I'm down to my last dozen and they’re going fast. The bean flavors Cohiba is known for go all coffee in your mouth; it's a gooey, chewy smoke of significant character. Even the smoke coming off the end of the stick is pleasant and nutty if forcibly inhaled.
Before I forget, I know "wha" is not a real word. My swapmeet copy of Word came with AutoCorrect too, goddamn it. I know there are better word choices than ain't. I know it's impolite to use fuck in mixed company. I just don't care. This book is simply information I was writing as I smoked, anyway. I'm willing to share my inner voice, but I ain't willing to modulate it for the grammar or sensitivity police. Hell, I think most human communication would be improved with the proper use of a good fuck now and again, both literally and figuratively. The main point here, the point more important than grammar, spelling, diction, theme, and the hideous specter of political correctness, is a positive answer to the following questions: Did you learn something? Did you laugh? And, primarily, did you pay your fucking $2.99 and did you tell a friend to do the same? Those mortgages ain’t going to pay themselves, people.
Also on the ain't thing, using it just makes the text flow. When I write, I pretty much hear it in my head like I'm on a stage, and I hear “ain't.” I can accept that the more intellectual people among you do not use the term, but so be it; it’s the way I choose to write. It's not nearly as bad as it was planned to be. At one point this book was filled with the terms "prolly," "gonna," "I'mma," etc., but I decided to quit short-arming it and make a real effort. I pulled all that garbage back and started over. I also hired a professional copyeditor and a professional proofreader. These guys also act as confidants; they tell me when I have gone too far or, alternately, not far enough. And they make sure I sound like I have at least driven by a library before, let alone read a book.
The Sig VI, which started strong enough, is certainly a powerhouse now, but still smooth and flavorful. Vanilla, coffee, and cream mixing perfectly and a long finish that morphs into milk chocolate in your mouth. It's burned down to its label like a champ, holding a three-inch ash of light gray color. The cigar might take a small hit in the value column as it cost me $18, but if I could find more at that price, I'd mortgage my damn house for them. But then I'd have to write more books to pay that shit off…it's that good.
Oh, and that's all the rules. How much regulation did you expect from a man who buys Cuban cigars—did you not see my earlier comment about tearing the tags off my mattresses? Probably not because I didn’t say it, but that’s what I do, so deal with it. And ummm, allegedly buys Cuban cigars… What's next, are you going to ask Martha Stewart for stock tips or get Bernie Madoff to manage your money?
‘04 Cohiba Siglo VI
Appearance - 10
Construction - 10
Flavor - 10
Value - 9
Overall Experience - 10
Overall Grade - 10
Notes: An exceptional experience of character, balance, and strength.
Before I move away from it, Jason has kindly pointed out that Rick Fox was a starter for most of his career, playing 28 minutes a game and averaging about 10 points. And while that’s true, it’s not nearly as funny as what I wrote. Besides, if there is a guy describing the game to me, I want it to be an All-Star doing the talking instead of an also-ran. Lastly let’s face it, for a good bit of the time he was on top, Rick Fox was the only person not seeing his face and thinking “That’s Vanessa Williams’ husband.”
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Chapter Two
99(%) Problems
OK this topic has been on my chest for a hot minute and I don’t know how you are going to take this. Honestly, even if you have not already talked to 193,000 of your friends about buying this book, I care about your opinion of my opinion about as much as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan cares about having to work on MLK day. But this is only the second chapter so I’m pretty sure the word has not spread like wildfire just yet. I probably need to keep myself on a tighter leash for at least a little while. Let’s face it, I still need you, so I should be polite until around chapter five or six; I learned that from Lisa Raye.
It might sound harsh to hear an author say he doesn't care about your opinion, but a big part of what I write could be considered social commentary. If I busy myself with pandering for your approval it gets in the way of my ability to commentate. I can serve but one master, my friend.
Anyway as I was saying, after you get to the fifth chapter you should have told everybody you are going to tell about this book, and there won't be anything to be gained from me playing nice anymore. Now to frame what's been on my mind I have to ask if you remember when that crazy ass Alaskan broad started the Tea Party crap? I was pretty elated over that, personally. Let's not get it twisted, I’m probably more conservative than liberal because I recognize someone has to pay for those liberal ideas. I know that is a selfish frame of mind. I own that part of it because it's how I feel.
Like when I had to eat government cheese as a kid I was mad as hell. You look at that shit and wonder “Is cheese supposed to have a fucking grain to it? Did someone just rub a two-by-four with some fucking Cheetos crumbs or some shit?” That cheese is horrible and waxy, and to top it off who needs five pounds of cheese at once? Plus that shit would shut your system down like it was a dude in a turban trying to go through airport security.
Now honestly, how are you going to complain about racial profiling if you wear a turban to the fucking airport? Unless you are flying to Calcutta that’s not a good look son. Why don’t you just complete the outfit and wear an “I <3 Blowing Up” t-shirt to match? If you are wearing a turban, trust me on this: you really want them to search you “randomly” because it beats the fuck out of me beating the fuck out of you. Don’t get your panties in a wad people of Middle Eastern descent; I know not all Middle Eastern folks are carrying IUDs. Some of them are just holding the backup detonators. I’m just saying, if I’m sitting next to an Arab on a plane and I hear a lot of clattering from his person, sure it could be just loose change for the meter. But since we ain’t in a fucking parking lot I’m going to choose to believe it’s a backpack full of nails, marbles, and C4, and respond accordingly. Because the one fucking time you try to behave like a decent human being they will be picking pieces of you up off of runway seven…and runway 17. And those bad boys are a quarter mile apart. I'm just reacting because I don't want anyone to have to use a squeegee and a bucket to gather my last remains.
Now as I was saying before I drifted off: what the fuck are you supposed to do with five pounds of cheese, all of which is in one single non-resealable container? This was the damn ‘70s, people, everything didn't come delivered in stay-fresh packaging with a vacuum seal. Once you opened that block of cheese the race was on because it took roughly six days before the first signs of mold showed up. So there was not going to be any eat a piece today come back and eat a piece next week shit going down. You knew after your mother opened that shit up there was going to be a dairy death march, at least dietetically speaking.
Damn, how much grilled cheese can one person be expected to eat? And they were handing that shit out in the ‘70s when there wasn’t no George Foreman grill, nobody knew what a fucking Panini was. Most of the time it wasn't even grilled cheese, it was just two pieces of toast with some lukewarm cheese between it. You needed a good ass iron or possibly a flamethrower to melt that shit. The Catch-22 of it was you had to be located in or near the projects to even get the cheese. Shit, you and your three brothers only had two pairs of pants between you. You had to take turns going to school and shit, you ain’t have no fucking iron. Hell, I ain’t even see an iron till I went to college; I thought it was some kind of new fucking hair straightening device. I suppose you could use that shitty cheese for fondue, but how? If you live in the projects you don’t have a fondue pot; hell, you probably think Fondue is a fancy salon on 23rd St. And fondue is some shit you dip other food in; if you had any other food at all you couldn’t qualify for the fucking cheese.
Anyway, now that I’m in the position to have to pay for other people to eat government cheese I’m like “Maybe it’s not so bad, hell if you are all stopped up you probably feel more full.” Real talk, once you cross to the other side of the poverty line you completely understand the thought process that made ketchup get counted as a serving of veggies by the Reaganites. All I know is I sure as shit ain’t about to spring for no fresh fruit or no real meat for you.
But I was happy because the conservative crazy was on full display. The Tea Party was and is so clearly a movement about not wanting to do nothing for nobody that isn't you or isn't just like you that I imagined it would effect change on a global scale. I'm not all super liberal, I don't want to see the rich become 100% of the tax base or condoms in schools and all that jazz. It just seems like the Republicans have let themselves become a party of fear and they need a course correction. Fear is no way to run a fucking chicken coup, let alone a country. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a race where your choices aren’t as simple as hope and change versus geezer and batshit crazy lady? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a presidential race that's focused on two good men with different ideas? Well, two good men and Ralph Nader. Why don’t we give that a whirl and make us all actually have to think about which lever to pull.
I was hoping we would get to some real communication. I was hoping that Republicans could lean in just a little and Democrats could lean in just a little and all of a sudden shit would be getting done. And just when it seemed like the Republican crazies were going to change the world the goddamn Democrats got their own crazies: The 99%.
Long story short, the 99%ers are mad that 1% of Americans control 99% of America’s wealth. Like this is a new fucking development. Look at the fucking Declaration of Independence. Ain’t no poor people sign that shit. If you go down to the Smithsonian you won’t see no X’s where Willy Lumpkin made his mark to fight for freedom. Willy Lumpkin was too busy chopping down trees to make fucking paper so rich motherfuckers could write out Declarations; Willy ain't have no free time to record his opinion. Besides, how the hell would we interpret X, which was the only letter Willy knew how to make? That shit was his signature, the date, and/or his social security number depending on the angle at which those two lines crossed.
There were no poor people in the meeting of the Congressional Congress when they signed the Declaration of Independence. Well I guess you could count the dudes that were asking the signers of the Declaration of Independence would they be having the beef or the chicken at the goddamn celebration that evening. Just like every revolution since Adam and Eve left the garden, the wealthy got indignant about not being wealthy enough and the poor people did some fighting. Which is what it is, and I say that as a man who has served his country.
Sure George Washington was broke dick poor compared to King George; King George owned half of the known world. But I’m pretty sure that our first President was the prerevolutionary Donald fucking Trump to everyone over here. The man could pay someone to make him wooden teeth and sharpen them regularly; George Washington had the first grill. You can't deny the logic, clearly George liked himself some sistas. If you were poor you didn’t have fucking wooden teeth, if you were poor your ass was somewhere gumming some goddamn porridge. Actually, scratch that, if you were poor you were sitting outside a barn covering yourself with leaves and eating dung beetles while looking through the window and watching some middle class motherfucker gum some porridge, that’s what's up.
Heck, remember 11 years ago when John F. Kennedy, Jr. decided he was rich enough to fly his airplane at night like a real pilot? No one has seen that motherfucker since. His airplane was lost at fucking sea and they sent the Navy to look for him.
THE NAVY!
THE MOTHERFUCKING UNITED STATES NAVY! AND THEY SET SAIL WITHIN 10 HOURS, MIND YOU!
I'm pretty sure that if you look at the goddamn charter of the motherfucking Navy that there is nowhere in that document that it says one of their duties is to locate lost fucking rich people who are almost certainly dead. You can go to New York and take a tour of the USS Constitution and fall off that bitch in full sight of an admiral and the Navy won't look for you...and they own that boat! That's not a service they offer to everybody, that's certainly only available on the "my daddy was a President" side of the menu.
Think about that. You should wander into a police station near the ocean and tell them your brother, who had no pilot’s license, flew his plane off at night and is lost. First they are going to ask your name. Now I’m pretty sure your response is not going to be Kennedy or Gates or Buffet. If you aren’t dropping a well-recognized 1% name you should be prepared for a lot of those people to go right back to their Angry fucking Birds. They almost got a third fucking star on this level and here you come with some goddamn crazy talk?
Maybe if you are really attractive they might send out a lifeguard to stand at the edge of the beach and see if he sees your brother. If you told them your brother was six years old then they might send out a Coast Guard dude with binoculars to look around. And at best they are going to look for 20 maybe 25 minutes, tops. Then they are going to tell you your brother ran away to be a crack whore and they will go back to looking for Natalee Holloway. And if you’re black you can skip over all those intervening lines and go directly to the crack whore excuse. And Mexicans are for sure just shit out of luck, if the authorities could find a fucking Mexican most of you wouldn’t be here now!
Yes we are still looking for Natalee Holloway, believe it or not. It has been seven years, that's a really long time. Natalee has been gone so long that if she had any red meat in her system it’s all gone by now, think about how long that takes. She's been missing long enough that in two more years whatever outfit she disappeared in will be back in style. I admit I feel for her parents, but really?
Let's get serious for a second. At some point during the parenting cycle you have to admit how you fared in the let's-mix-our-genes lottery. Face facts, some of us end up with doctors and lawyers as offspring and some of us, well, we don’t. And right about the time that kid is in the 10th fucking grade and still can’t decide if they want to be a rock star or an astronaut you should have a strong suspicion what you ended up with. You can be pretty sure no one is going to be calling your kid when they need a will written. It’s also almost a certainty that no one will need little Jimmy when they have to have a colon removed. A fucking astronaut? Gimme a break, you know little Jimmy’s ass barely passed Earth Science. Hell, he only wants to go to the moon because he thinks there might be a secret Transformer base there.
So I have to believe Natalee's parents knew; in fact I’m sure that they knew, deep down inside, that unless the committee seriously broadened the categories to include proper lip gloss application or tweeting, Natalee wasn’t going to be winning the Nobel Prize just on genius alone. Hell, that bitch was struggling with Cracker Jack prizes. Nothing about the facts we have in our possession say that Natalee was survive in captivity for seven years smart. I mean Natalee wasn’t going to make a bomb out of some hair gel and a paper clip. The goddamn facts we have say Natalee would have a hard time holding papers together with a paper clip unless you sent her an instructional YouTube link. Hell, the facts we have in our possession make you wonder how she made it to 18 years of age without choking on her own damn spit. Look at the story and ask yourself how smart she could have been.
First off, she went to a foreign country and accepted several open containers from men she don’t know. My daughter is nine and unless your name is Mom or Dad you could be in this fucking house and offer her a drink and she will hold that shit up to the light and inspect it for cloudy substances. And unless she has one of those substance check test strips she is still going to reject that shit. She already knows when you leave the house take a juice box or enough money to buy a coke. If you send your teenage daughter off to an island filled with loosely managed bars and you don’t teach her at least that much, well fucking shame on you.
Secondly, she went off alone with three men she didn’t know. How is that ever going to turn out well? The best possible ending for that scenario is that you have three times the FDA's recommended amount of liquid protein leaking from your bodily orifices. And that’s the fucking upside, mind you. The worst thing that can happen? Well they could still be looking for you seven years later...
But her greatest ignorance was she actually thought no meant no everywhere.
Today we coddle and protect our children to such an extreme degree that they don’t understand the difference between the real world and the polite world. If you are in a hotel filled with guests, or a house with other people, or a nightclub, no definitely means no. And ladies, it’s your business to make sure you stay in the polite world with strangers until you feel like not saying no wouldn’t be a horrible thing. But if you are, oh I don’t know, let’s say on a beach with three strange men, you have to do some thinking: