ACHP 383 PCA 2025 Wrap Up Show

Episode Summary

Episode 383 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast is the post-PCA 2025 wrap-up show, recorded by an exhausted crew fresh off the drive home from New Orleans. Before the cigar talk, the hosts run through their usual trending-topics segment: the worldwide Spotify outage that knocked out search for hundreds of millions of users, a Dallas school shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School and a long debate about whether parents should be held liable when a teen accesses a family firearm, Hong Kong suspending postal shipments to the U.S. over the de minimis exemption and Trump's tariffs, and — improbably — Sweden's runaway hit livestream of the annual great moose migration.

The back half is all PCA. The guys break down their booth placement (shifted right and hidden behind the Jake Wyatt wall, down by the bathrooms) and still report packed first two days, strong appointments and plenty of new accounts. They dig into "Anthony Mackie-gate," the trade show's biggest gossip: Captain America turned down photo requests — including one from Abe of Smoking with Abe and his daughter — while posing with Guy Fieri, Richie from Espinosa and others, sparking a debate about whether celebrities owe fans a picture and whether you have to hold the line once you say no. They also recount the running gag of the show: repeatedly stealing Room 101's giant Johnny Tobacconaut statue from the STG booth, parading it around for photos with Pete Johnson, Nick Melillo, Erik Espinosa, Michael Herklots, Willie Herrera and others, and Matt Booth's defeated plea to give it back.

Other trade show notes include New Orleans vs. Las Vegas as a host city (better show, better weather, genuinely terrible restaurant service — with a long riff on raw burgers and two-hour red beans and rice), finally meeting PCA's Joshua Habursky in person, breaking through to Charlie Minato of halfwheel after three days of silence, the media house night with Justin Andrews, Bradley Rubin of Alec Bradley and the Developing Palates crew, and a shout-out to David Garofalo of Two Guys Smoke Shop as Listener/Shop of the Week. The Patreon bonus segment covers the new Ceniza Fina Connecticut, a Big Tony conversation, and a different theory on the Mackie situation.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Trending Topics: Spotify Outage
   The hosts cover the worldwide Spotify search outage and debate whether anyone should really be upset about losing a streaming app for a few hours.
2. 02
   Dallas School Shooting & Parental Gun Liability
   A rundown of the Wilmer-Hutchins High School shooting leads into a debate about securing firearms at home and whether parents should be charged.
3. 03
   Hong Kong Suspends U.S. Postal Shipments
   Discussion of the de minimis exemption, Trump's tariffs, and why the mail ban is mostly political theater when DHL, UPS and FedEx still ship.
4. 04
   Sweden's Great Moose Migration Livestream
   A 24-hour livestream of moose crossing the Ångerman River has become Sweden's most-watched show, and the guys can't believe it.
5. 05
   PCA 2025 Booth Placement & Traffic
   Being shifted behind the Jake Wyatt wall near the bathrooms didn't stop a packed first two days of appointments and new accounts.
6. 06
   Anthony Mackie-Gate
   Captain America declined photos with some attendees while posing with others, setting off a trade show controversy and a debate on celebrity obligations.
7. 07
   Stealing Room 101's Johnny Tobacconaut
   The running bit of the show: repeatedly lifting the giant Room 101 astronaut statue and touring it around the floor for photos with industry figures.
8. 08
   New Orleans vs. Vegas & Industry Encounters
   Verdict on the host city, brutal restaurant service, meeting Joshua Habursky and Frank Herrera, and finally getting a word out of Charlie Minato.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 383 of the Cigar Hustler Podcast, the post-PCA show. Yes. We are alive. Barely, but we are alive.

We're alive. I'm very tired. Are you tired? Yes.

Did you drive or something? No, I punched in orders in a bouncy car. Indeed you did. You did a great job too, man.

Come on. Give yourself some credit. Punching in the orders? Yeah.

Yeah, it was okay. I feel Greg slowed down at some point because when I would turn around to get another order, he was not punching. But I did take a nap for 15 minutes, so maybe he felt like he... It was a little bit longer.

Was it longer than that? It was almost an hour. Was it in an hour? Yeah.

I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore punching an order. I was nodding off and it was becoming dangerous. I couldn't tell where the order, you know, where I was leaving off. So we're going to get into the PCA in a little bit, but what are our topics for today?

Well, first on the Patreon today, we're doing the new Ceniza Fina, we can't do the hand, we don't need to do the hand thing anymore. 2 grams, somebody should probably write that down somewhere, I got it, excellent job, Mr. Boots, we have Boots with us again today, hello, there he is, I left everything upstairs, no, no, no, wait, it's here, because I don't have backups anymore, the backups went to the backup, we're a bit of a It's a train wreck today. But we're rolling.

Better late than never. We're gonna still, uh, we got a podcast going for this week. Uh, we'd like to say hello to Gavin, uh, with Espinosa Cigars. Uh, just so we say hello to him and he stops asking us to say hello.

He'll never stop asking. All right, let's go. What do we got? Uh, let's see.

Today's trending topics. It's a Dallas school shooting today. The suspect shooter, 17-year-old Tracy Hayes Jr. turned himself in and is charged with four counts of aggravated assault In a mass shooting at Wilmer Hutchinson Heights.

So you're not going into the topics? No, this is just a little synopsis. There's plenty of information about this. This is just the highlight.

You wanted a longer intro to the stories. Well, I could talk faster like the man does in the car, but I can't do that. I feel like you just say, okay, there was a Dallas shooting we're gonna cover, we're gonna, whatever. Go ahead.

Well, he went longer. Do whatever you want to do. You're in charge. You know...

What? No, nothing. Okay, what else? Spotify is down.

Oh, no! People are going to other places to get their music. I had no issues today. When did you listen to Spotify?

11:30. It might have been back up by the end of the stories from this morning, but 200,000 people were talking about it. It was the hot topic thing. Okay.

How are your eyes, by the way? Might got a little bit of an eye issue with the thing. It's getting better. Thank you.

Mine was just bothered me that one day I told you I think it was just psychosomatic. The day after you had yours, I was having no problems. Hong Kong is suspending package shipments to USA as a fight back tactic to the tariffs. Uh oh.

Interesting. Sweden's top new show has 24 hour streaming access. Oh my. Okay.

Is that it? That is it. That and much more. That and much, much more, coming up on A Cigar Hustler Podcast.

You need to pick it up. Do you want a gummy or something? Let's go. It's a little late.

Those gummies are upstairs. I need you to dial in. Let's go, baby. Those do work.

You know, it's kind of weird. Yeah. Because I had one the first day and then didn't have any more. Yeah, you need to have them all the time.

It was busier the first day. They're good stuff. So busy. Super busy.

Okay. Let's go. Shooting. Let's go.

What happened? Well, first, we're starting with Spotify. We'll start on Spotify? Yes.

Okay. Tens of thousands of Spotify users around the world have reported they were unable to stream music on the app this morning. Down Detector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 20,000 people reported Spotify was not functioning on Wednesday afternoon from 13:30 GMT Greenwich Mean Time. Okay.

Because it's a worldwide application. S. and parts of Europe, Spotify told the BBC the issue with the search has been addressed. Oh, that's nice.

It was rolling out the update to its users, however, it is unclear how long it will be before the app works properly for everyone again. Where is Spotify located? S.? Don't know.

Boots, where's Spotify located? Boots, can you check for that, please? " Spotify says it has more than 675 million users worldwide. Users reported they were still able to play music they had downloaded onto their device.

However, they were unable to view Artist or use the search function on the app. Uh, so the search is down? Yes. That's what we mentioned earlier.

Okay. Story. Oh, you better get it together, dude. After trying to search for music, the app appears to time-out and display a message reading.

Something went wrong. Oops. Oops. It's in Stockholm, Sweden.

Oh, a lot of Sweden in the news today. They have a brand new TV show. They just all just love it. So the Swiss are taking over this week.

The Swiss are taking over. With a refresh button, we're aware... I was trying to do a Swiss accent, but I don't think I can. Okay.

Yemini, we are aware of some of the issues right now and are checking them out. The firm wrote on social media in response to rising complaints from users. Is that where all the companies now go to announce things? I guess.

Where? Social media. Yeah. Where else would you go?

Would you email everybody? Well, what did they do before social media? No, you just let it shut down and no one said anything. There was like a bullhorn, wasn't there?

No, it was just a guy with a horn going, "Attention! Attention! " You had to go on your MySpace. Uh-oh.

I miss MySpace. You had to message Tom directly and tell him that your Spotify was down. On social media, a number of users told the company they were unhappy with the outage and the impact of the loss of music. I can't play my music today.

I'm very upset. I don't really understand that. Oh, see, when the music doesn't play, they complain that they can't. Ah, thank you very much.

You're welcome. You know, how shitty is your life going where you're upset about your Spotify being down temporarily? Well, you don't know how far down. Sorry, Boots, what?

And first of all, why does people only have one platform? How many platforms do you have, Mikey? Just Spotify. You don't have Apple Music?

No. I don't use Apple Music. Why would I pay for two different subscriptions for music? Oh, I don't pay any of them.

Don't pay to any of them. No, if you have an iPhone, you can search music. On Apple Music? Yes, but don't you have to have it downloaded also?

Don't you have to pay for that too? No, you can stream it, you can't download it. Ah. For free?

Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I use the free version. Oh, I pay for Spotify?

Yeah, I pay for Spotify as well. I use the free version. That's why they're complaining, because they pay. Or even like a Pandora, you don't have Pandora?

Nah. My wife uses Pandora, I like Spotify, and I use iHeart in the car. Yeah, see, you have multiple platforms, Palmer. There's certain things you can't get everywhere.

I was getting frustrated on the drive when the car wouldn't work. Oh, when the carplay wouldn't work? Oh, you're very upset. Between my peeing on the way home and your turn and trying to reset the ways in the musics, that's why it took so fucking long to get home.

You gotta pee every 30 minutes. I was very thirsty from all the talking for three days. I consumed a massive amount, because during the show I tried to keep it down. I was like, okay, I can't really leave to go pee, so let's keep the, you know, liquid consumptions down as little as possible.

So you bulked up for the trip? I was very thirsty by the third, by the fourth day. Nothing from you boots on that? So you took your pee suppressor pills.

I wish I had some, that would have been nice. Some pee suppressor pills. I did venture into the caffeine packets for the trip. He was, he was hitting caffeine packets.

I don't know if they made a difference or not, but they tasted good and they kept my mouth from getting too dry. Really? I found blueberry ice to be the most appealing one. Where did you get these from?

Amazon. I didn't know that cocaine had flavors. I wish you did. Yeah, of course.

Blueberry. Blueberry and blueberry ice. I had one of those boom sniffers, too, but I only did that in the morning because it burns. What's a boom sniffer?

You know what that is? You don't know what a boom sniffer is? No. Okay, we all know that I have a hat.

I guess you always do have one. I'm an addict, I guess. Nasal spray. Allegedly.

No, no. I was an addict to nasal spray. I fully admit that. He's confirmed.

We saw one on the ground and he had to keep me from picking it up. Oh my God. Oh, look. Oh, look, there's one there.

Let's shake it, see if there's fluid left. You remember the old Vic inhalers? Yeah. The little round things that just had mentholated stuff in it?

Yeah. Okay, they've done that again, but it's a different company now called Boom or something. I saw it on Shark Tank. Okay.

But they also have added vitamins and whatever to it. Oh, it's good for you now. Yeah, now it's good for you. With the cocaine.

With the cocaine. Okay. In the morning, I sometimes do that as a little pick-me-up. Gotcha.

And that helps? I don't know. It just makes me feel good. You know, it's like an alcoholic, you drink, or what?

What's the stuff the cocaine guys take now? A. stuff? When you addicted to cocaine, methadone.

Ah. It's like a methadone hit. That's your move. Yeah.

This helps you often. This helps me think that I'm still using it. Oh, it's your Suboxone. Whatever that is.

Suboxone. It's my Suboxone. I don't know what that is. Okay.

Well, I don't know, man, you know, I'm glad that Spotify's working, but, you know, look, at the end of the day, if it's down for a small period of time, these things happen with the technology, it's not the end of the world. I can see if you're paying for it why you would be upset. Whatever, man. It's like when cable goes out, everybody complains at the cable.

Is cable a thing? Well, it used to be. What's cable? Sorry, satellite service.

Sorry, my plan. Your streaming service goes down. It's a damn thing. One urged the platformer to hurry up and fix the issues.

They were at the gym. You can understand that, Michael. Well, another pleaded for a quick fix that the loss of music was disrupting to their revision. More significantly, some said that they would switch rival streaming platforms such as YouTube or Apple Music.

Yeah. That's it. I'm switching. If you use Apple Music, is that like having an AOL email address?

Apple Music? Yeah. No, I think Apple Music's competitive in the space. Is it?

Yeah. You just never hear much about it. How much about it? I think Spotify's the dominator.

Yeah, I would imagine so. I love Spotify. I didn't even realize it was down. They give better recommendations.

Do you play mostly saved music? Yeah, yeah. That's why you didn't know. No, but I played podcasts today.

Oh. I listened to podcasts. Yeah. But you know, it's so smart, I don't have to search for it.

Like, here are the ones that you like to listen to. Right. Just click it, and there you go. I'm not gonna say which podcast I listen to because, as of right now, we don't know if we're invited I don't know if we're invited or not if we're allowed in.

If you did not have Spotify while you're working out, would you still work out? Yeah. Yeah, I'm a psychopath. I no longer do pre-workout.

None of that stuff. Oh. I'm unaffected. I'm going in.

Here's the one thing that upsets me if I go to work out and I don't have. If I don't have my notepad where I can track my progress and look at my previous goals, that's where I start to lose my mind. Okay. That kind of frustrates me.

Then I have to give it up and just understand that, okay, we're gonna have to do some kind of cluster sets and just work to failure, you know, and not really be geared in towards one more rep than last time or something like that. Do you think, do you feel the music helps you lift more, or doesn't have any effect on that? I think that there's times when it benefits you, but I'm indifferent now. I listen to podcasts and stuff while I'm working out at this point.

Okay. All that. More informational. Whatever I'm trying to do, you know, especially when we're doing, if we're doing an interview with somebody.

Right. That's usually where things kind of consume me. Oh, because you go, yeah, you try to listen to everything they've done before. Yeah, I'll cover as many recent podcasts up to two or three years back as I possibly can, because I don't want them to say any of those things.

Right. And then what's really kind of funny is you start to see the patterns. Oh, I would imagine, yeah, they get asked the same questions all the time. So how did you get into cigars?

Right. And then sometimes not even. Sometimes if a podcaster is really bad at things, but the person being interviewed is good, they know how to curve it into that conversation, and then they have their go-to speeches. And I like to interject when they start to, no, no, we're not talking about that.

Oh, the interviewee has their standard stuff they like to say. Correct. I could see that. Yeah.

So I usually like to prep with, here's what we're not talking about. Right. No, no, don't say that, don't know. You don't get to say.

And you could see it actually in our interviews when someone slides in and I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Don't say that. Yeah. You said that on Developing Palettes.

You said that on every show that you've been on for the past five years. All the other shows that are all the same. All right, Dallas school shooting. This is interesting.

Go ahead. Teen suspect arrested, charged with aggravated assault at a mass shooting. The suspect, gunman in the Wilmer Hutchins High School shooting, turned himself in and is facing first-degree felony charges, according to the arrest affidavit. So I guess no one died, thank goodness.

Turned himself in. Well, yeah, at the end. Okay. I guess.

Hmm. Usually they don't turn themselves in. Keep going. Oh, I'm sorry.

He was talking. I know. I'm curious. Newly released details in the affidavit gave insight into what led to Tuesday's shooting at the Southwest Dallas campus.

Police were able to review hallway surveillance video to help piece together what happened on Tuesday. Okay. m. Oh, so they didn't get him at the school.

He got away. Okay. He turned himself in. Tuesday, he has been booked into the Dallas County Jail and is charged with four counts of aggravated assault and a mass shooting and a first-degree felony.

A DPS special agent who wrote the affidavit, probable cause said, "At the conclusion of my review, and based on the totality of the circumstances, I believe Tracy Haynes Jr. " So I'm guessing that's all one offense. 222 Niner? 02 B4.

Yeah. First degree felony, when Hayes Jr. intentionally, knowingly, and/or recklessly attempted to cause serious bodily injury and/or death to students attending WHHS, and during the commission of the offense, used and exhibited a deadly weapon. Additionally, during the commission, Hayes Jr.

committed the assault as part of a mass shooting where Hayes Jr. discharged a firearm to cause serious bodily injury or death or to attempt to cause serious bodily injury or death to four or more persons during the same criminal transaction. It's a transaction. Oh, everything.

Well, everything's a transaction life. Haynes is being held in the Dallas County Jail on a $600,000 bond, $150,000 per count. Okay. So, did he shoot people?

Yes. But he did not kill anyone, apparently, because there's no murder charges. That's kind of weird. Well, nobody's dead yet, maybe?

I'm surprised he didn't. There was no attempted murder mentioned. Yeah, I was gonna say that. So, what did he do?

He shot four people? Uh, what we don't, okay, this is what they don't know. Officials have not said if Haynes was a student at Wilmer High or if they've received information as to why Haynes brought the gun to the school. Police documents say that five people were not Five people were injured in the shooting.

Dallas ISD and Dallas Fire Rescue said on Tuesday that four were injured. Fox 4 has reached out to agencies for more information. It looks like somebody died. It looks like somebody died?

One died. Well, maybe there's an update after this story, because he's not accused of murder in here. Aggravated assault with a weapon. The charges can upgrade down the road.

Certainly, yeah, well, as things change, I would imagine so. m. Haynes walked down the hallway and encountered a group of male students, the affidavit says. That's when he pulled out a gun and began shooting, striking five students.

He then approached one student who was unable to run away and shot him point-blank range, according to the report. All five victims were taken to local hospitals, four have non-life-threatening injuries, and one is in serious condition. That must have been the death. That must have been the one that passed.

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Tenell Atkins said all the victims are expected to recover. Well, now I'm confused. Well, this says one dead. I mean, this is all kind of new, right?

Sure. Well, the Pro Tem Mayor says everybody's fine. Everything's fine. Everything's fine.

They're fine. Three of the victims are between 15 and 18 years old. The ages of the other two have not been confirmed. It's at a high school.

You figure that would be pretty safe bets unless it's a teacher. Right. The extent of the injuries has not been fully released, but sources told Fox 4 and Cigar Hustler Podcast that at least one 17-year-old male student was shot in the lower leg. Hmm.

Despite extra security measures at the school, Haynes was able to enter through an unsecured door. So it is not a failure of our staff, of our protocols, or of the machinery that we have, said Dallas ISP, ISD. Sorry, Police Chief Scott Smith. Well, apparently there was some problem.

There was an unsecured door. Yeah, I thought the guardians or whoever's on campus is supposed to check all those anyways, make sure they're locked and/or secured. Um, and my interaction with those guys, they sit around a lot. Okay, so allegedly.

Okay, so here's my question to you. Yes. Where did he get the gun? That has not been reported yet.

Okay. And what type of gun? I don't give a, I don't care. That means nothing to me.

Do you think that there should be a penalty involved for whoever was the original owner of the firearm, as long as it wasn't stolen? Like, let's say it was his parents' gun or something like that. Correct. You think that that person...

What are you deeming stolen? Taken without authorization? Uh, reported stolen. I think what he's asking is, did he steal it from his parents?

I don't think you can steal it from your parents. Yeah, what I'm saying is, you know, if it was, if you had a burglar in your house and your firearms were stolen and it was reported that your firearms were stolen, at that point, if it's used later in a crime, you know, I don't think that you should be held liable. Right, yeah, no. And then also, I mean, if it's with the parents, you have to see timeline on this.

So, was it taken and then immediately taken to the school and the parents weren't home? Yeah, I think, yeah. So let's say it was taken out of the house and the parents weren't home. Do you think they should be held liable?

That's my question. No. I don't think they should be. I think they should be.

I think they absolutely should be. If it was unsecured in the home, I mean, child, for lack of better words, because he was 17, he had access to it. Right. Are they trying him as a juvenile or as an adult?

It has not been mentioned. We don't even know if he's been tried for murder yet. It's Texas. It's just charges.

Well, I mean, you know, I've read two different articles. One said one person died, one said he didn't. Right, in this article, I got the mayor said everybody's fine. Yeah, so five injured.

Well, even in Texas, if somebody murders somebody, they get the death penalty, correct? Texas does have the death penalty, but they have to be convicted, and I'm sure there's certain extenuating circumstances on how they get the death penalty. I don't think murder is an automatic death penalty, just puts it on the table. I think that if you own a firearm, and you're responsible for that firearm.

You're responsible with it, yeah. Somehow it is accessible to the child, again, for lack of a better word. I believe so. It should be in a safe, should be secured.

Right, in a safe, unloaded, bullets in a different place, whatever the rule is. Well, I mean, I don't know, you know, maybe not all that, but I have access to the firearms in my safe. Right. My wife does.

Right. That's where it ends. That's where it should end. Right.

I don't, you know, that makes no sense to me. Is there an age where you would, I guess not, wouldn't you, I mean, and your children aren't of that age yet, But is there an age where, let's say, Jax gets access to the gun? He's still in the house, and he's 19 years old, or something. Would I educate my son on handling and controlling firearms?

Sure. Right. He would still not have access to it. Gotcha.

Without me. So, as long as he lives in your house, he's not on the list? No, 100%. Just curious?

Not at all. No, because they're not his. They're mine. Sure.

So, I'm responsible for it, and I would take that very seriously. " Yeah, you're educating them on firearms. Certainly. That's totally different.

Right, well, I'm just saying what my policy was. I would never, ever let my son have access to the gun for him to use for protection or safety, I have bubbles. Well, that's what I was going to say. Is your wife comfortable?

Would she want to get it if something had happened? You're not, I mean, we were just gone. So something happened, somebody gets in, would she go for bubbles or go for the gun? I think that potentially both.

I mean, bubbles is a gun, bubbles. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

No one's getting in. Certainly. Right? It's like, oh, God.

Yeah, oh, God, look at this. Yeah, never mind. There's got to be a better house. And the other one's sticking his nose up my ass.

What the hell is going on? So yeah, I mean... Yeah, my wife wouldn't, she knows where ours are, obviously, and there's no children in our house, so, I mean, mine's not locked up anymore. But she would, she would do the dogs, she would have the dogs first.

Right, several dogs. Yeah, we have, we have multiple dogs also. Right. Yes.

So yeah, I think if they want to roll the dice and come in with the dogs, okay, see how, see how far you can get. The house isn't that big anymore. There's no place to run. Right.

Yeah, I think that the parents should be held liable. I believe so also. Yeah. Didn't they just do that with that last school shooting both parents the one of the parents or somebody went to jail both or one or something?

Well, they got charged, but I don't think they I don't think it stuck. Oh, really? I didn't see anything about them going to jail. You're responsible for that kid.

Right. And what he does. Right. Certainly.

And you're responsible for your firearms. Okay, let's let's go one step further. He's 17 years old. Okay.

He can drive your car. So if you drive your car, say he goes and runs people over, you know, does a group thing where he's going to a parade and just runs through the people, are the parents responsible then because he had access to the car? That's a great question. That's what we're all about here at Cigars Podcast.

You know, anything can be used as a murder weapon, I guess, to some degree, right? Oh, I guess you have a point there. So he grabs a spoon. So, I would say no in that scenario.

I think no also because the car is not meant for that purpose. Right. I mean, a gun isn't meant for killing people. Technically, it's more for self-defense.

Well, but it is used to hurt people. Right. Where, you know, I mean, if he takes a gun, he's not because he had to go to the movies. Right.

Well, unless he was watching Dark Knight Rises. Yeah, that was a horrible situation. That was that one guy who went in and lit up the theater and then sat out front waiting for the police. Right.

Right. What do you think, Boots? With the car? Yeah.

No, I mean, so the hardest part with any type of attempted murder or murder, right, is the black and white on all of it. Right. So, and especially the school shootings, because they actually don't have a lot of black and white on school shootings. It's very minimal, right?

So when they charge these guys it's really hard to get a subsidiary off of the main charge with a parent or with anything involved, an accessory. Right. So I think gun laws need to evolve a little more to be able to stick stuff like that. Gotcha.

Okay. Our legal expert, because, you know, in the Navy, he wasn't on boats. In the Navy. " You know, he's all for it.

He's all for it. No. Yeah. He's fine.

He's fine. All right, next. All right. Something a little lighter.

S. after Trump terrifies. Yes. Definitely lighter.

No more shipping for you. No more sitting in packages. You cannot get your Timu or your Shin. No more.

No more. That's dumb. Unless, you know, Jonathan Drew's there and... He was just in Macau.

I was just in Macau. I was in Hong Kong yesterday, but then I'm in Macau. I like how somebody attacked you on YouTube and said, you know, mean things about you. It's hilarious.

I don't think I saw that. Yeah, it was good. Oh, they did about the... How dare you attack him.

How dare you attack this man, this saint of a man. This great man. This great man. We know him.

We know him. He said he loved the stuff. He stopped and said hello. Yeah, he's our friend.

Right. Hong Kong, CNN, Hong Kong's Postal Service will stop handling packages coming from or going to the United States. So I guess if they get there, they're like, no, no, come in. And no more for you.

S. President Donald Trump's decision last week to eliminate the so-called "de minimis". De minimis? S.

Oh, so I guess there used to be an exemption in place where if it was $800 or less, no tariff. Now, everything tariff. S. is unreasonably bullying and imposing tariffs abusively.

The government said, they can't say abusively with their accent. Well, they don't pronounce B's anyways. Right. Abusavi.

The government said in the statement, oh, it's just a written statement, okay. Yeah, that's true. S. unreasonable and bullying acts.

The government said the Postal Service, Hong Kong Post, will stop accepting packages transported by sea with immediate effect and stop taking airborne packages starting from April 27th. So on the water, stopped. In the air, better order fast. Get it through.

Other postal items containing only documents, for example, letters, will not be affected. So you can send a letter. That's okay. Like anything in an envelope.

Who sends letters anymore? That's why this has no big deal. It would take a week to get a letter from China or Hong Kong. You think so?

Sure. We should start sending postcards. I don't like that. Everybody can read them.

With like, oh yeah? There's no emblem. Yeah, but no, it should be like, you know, something with Trump on one side of it. Oh, you send them over there?

Just sending them to me. Trump with the thumb up? Thank you for embracing the American culture. Right.

MAGA postcards. So everybody, quickly, send MAGA postcards to the people of Hong Kong. You want to see how quickly the communist country starts rounding up random people? Sir, we saw that you got this letter.

We saw you got this postcard from Trump. The retaliatory move means companies and individuals in Hong Kong will have to pay private couriers But it's a move. Okay, so the government is no longer handling it. The government's not handling it.

But there's still ways to do it. That's, you know, that's the one thing that I can't stand about. Well, there's more than one thing. But that's the one thing I really can't stand about politics is the theatrics and the BS of it all.

Right. Oh, well, then you know what? No more shipments from us. However, if you want to get a shipment from us, then you know what?

No more shipments from us. However, if you want to get a shipment from us, However, if you want to get a shipment from us, contact DHL or FedEx or UPS and we'll get that out to you. Right. Yeah, what pack, okay, have you ever got, does your wife order stuff from Sheen or Timu or any of that stuff?

Mmm, I think she tried once or twice, and she regretted it, to be honest. It doesn't normally come by the mail anyway. It comes by DHL or UPS or FedEx. Or a private, or some weird courier service where you have to download an app to track it.

So what can we say that sounds threatening, but it really doesn't have a... We do what we do. We say no more mail. But they could do DHL.

It'd be fine. S. and China. Yeah, it's that thing where who's going to bow first.

Yeah, but they're going to have to figure out some term where it's, oh, well, we have another issue and we're just going to set this aside for now. And, you know, we're going to work hand in hand to solve this for this other major, bigger problem for the time. Noodle shortage. Noodle shortage over here, we need more noodle.

Right. Virus or something. Virus, right. I mean, you know, maybe they shut everything down or so, who knows?

I've heard about that before. That could be a thing. Do you think maybe this is a move in politics to enrich the shipping services such as DHL, UPS, and FedEx? DHL's behind all of this.

No, no, but I just mean in general. They're almost out of business. I mean, they don't have their own trucks and stuff anymore. Well, those are American companies, correct?

They do have them in China and Hong Kong and stuff, but it's not the same DHL because we've had problems before in the past. You know, you call the number and they go, "I'm sorry, we took it to China DHL. We can't help you anymore. " Oh, you wanted the China DHL.

Ooh, the tracking has a lot of C's in it now. We can't really handle that. Yeah, there's various shapes. That's the woo you need to call someone.

You need to call Circle Square, trying, wait, wait, what? Oh, that's a PlayStation controller. Yeah, exactly. Right, Circle Square, Square Square, Circle Circle.

What are you doing? That was the finisher in Mortal Kombat. Oh. The DHL spokesman told CNN and Cigar Hourser Podcast.

We're rich! , monitor the situation, and work with customers to help them keep up with the latest changes. CNN has reached out to FedEx and UPS. The Cigars Podcast is not for more information and comments.

Here's their phone number if you want to ship. Yes, here's their phone number if you'd like to ship. Oh my God. We, China, FedEx, we all fine, they're fine here.

Everything good. Everything good. UPS. No, bad.

Bad UPS. It's so comical, man. It just goes on and on and on. On and on.

You know. Have we had a hundred days of President Trump in office yet? No, because you know there will definitely be a thing in the paper. There'll be a t-shirt.

Has hit 100 days, where are we today? Well, it's a good 100 days. It's the best 100 days that we've ever had. It depends upon who you ask.

Huge. Huge. Huge 100 days. Stock market doesn't feel that way.

Stock market went up and down. Stock market is down. Is it down today? " And then it's up again.

Well, why do you think he does those things with the tariffs? What makes you think, what's the reasoning? Maybe to move the market. You think he's trying to just manipulate the market?

I mean, I think all politicians try to manipulate the market. I'm going to be rich, I have a plan. If you're that powerful and you can, why not? I think that he's really trying to just focus on China.

I think that that's his main issue. Well, that's our biggest problem as far as the tariffs. I think that he's trying his best to bring back manufacturing. Yeah, I think he's trying to level the field because almost from what I have understood, But almost everybody but China is coming and going, let's take a look at this and see what we can do.

We want to review. We want to review. We would like to review. You know, the poor little countries are like, no, that'd be fine.

We'll buy all your stuff. Bring it over. Yeah, I'd be interested to see how much investment Trump has in China products or China businesses. Well, none now if he was.

He's screwing himself. I mean, that's a great question. I don't think he has none. He might buy stuff from them, or had bought.

I don't know how that works when you're president, though. Right. So now his son buys stuff from Chad. Yeah, whatever.

Whatever the loophole is. You can't do that anymore. However... However...

He met my son. Right. I just love that, you know, well, you can't directly send hush money. That's a no-no.

Right. Through a campaign. However... I can tell you this pencil.

If you wanted to send hush money, This is the proper channel to set and set hush money. This is my new Venmo. Politicians, man. This is my new pair.

I mean, nanny. Right. This is my au pair. This is my au pair.

You want to know what Swedish's hottest new TV show is, Michael? Uh-oh. Tell me. Boots, do you know?

It's probably a reality show because you said 24 hours. Does that have something to do with love? It's always something love related. Maybe.

And it is in Sweden. In Sweden. It's always about love. It's a non-stop live coverage of the epic moose migration.

No. Ooh, yeah, that's definitely love-related. The show will be non-stop for 24 hours a day for the next 20 days following the animals via remote cameras and drones as the moose journey through forest and swim across the Engerman River. And this is the highest-rated show.

Right now, this happens once a year in Sweden. There's really nothing on TV of this. There's really nothing in it, yeah. They show Three's Company reruns and this.

Do they have Netflix? I mean, what are we doing here? No, there's no Netflix and chill over there. It's cold.

They're always chill. And a holiday special of Gilligan's Island. It's cold. They're always chill.

And the holiday issue of Gilligan's Island. They love Gilligan's Island. Big Gilligan's Island people, huh? Very big show in Sweden.

Billions are turning into the hottest show captivating Sweden. It's reality, it's live, and it's after hours of slow shots of calming nature. The stars arrive, Sweden's beloved moose on their spring migration. So no more police live.

Right. No more police live Scandinavia or whatever. Our TV is way better. The great moose migration started airing on Tuesday on SVT, Sweden's public service television.

It's not like CMT. It's not a music station. Okay. Company, it captures the creatures on the path they've followed for thousands of years to rich summer grass.

The Rich Summer Grazing Pastures. And then watch the show. Some guys in there go, got a great idea. I got a great idea.

Follow me here. We need drones. Do we have drones? We have drones.

Lots of drones. We need lots of drones. And we need a guy on a motorcycle and three guys with Jeeps. Perfect.

Follow those goddamn moves everywhere they go. You want to know what? No one's watching this. What do we do?

Let's shut down Spotify. Oh! Everybody's listening to that stupid music. Yeah.

I wish I could do a Swiss accent, because that's the thing. Right, they're both from Sweden. Oh yeah, we love to shut down the Spotify. That's Hong Kong, we're not doing the Hong Kong story anymore.

The show will air non-stop for 24 hours or 20 days following the animals via remote, which is repeated again, the same thing. All right. You know, they're crossing the Angerman River. The Associated Press reported, the series debuted in 2019 on SVT Play and drew about a million viewers The last year, viewership exploded to 9 million and its fan base is dedicated and massive.

It's the most ridiculous thing. Read a book. Seriously. I make sure I have coffee.

I have snacks. Sleep? Forget about sleep. I don't sleep.

Ulta, oh, Ula Balmogren, 62, said in an interview, I don't know if that's a man or a woman, said in an interview aired Wednesday on NBC's Today Show. The Moose Today Show, a Facebook group entitled Visamgillardensora, okay, it's honestly in Sweden, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, no, keep going, yeah, yeah, more, we, oh, it's good, it translates to, we who like the great moose migration and SVT, has over 78,000 members with fans sharing photos of their TV screens when moose appear, so I guess they all sit around, all of a sudden they put on Facebook, the moose have arrived, they're here, they're here, here they go, couldn't they just find them earlier? Yeah, couldn't they just, put a track, Put a GoPro on them. Well, maybe it's the swimming part that they all like.

They like the swimming part? Maybe. Because it's when they cross the Anger River. Okay.

Man, Sweden. Come on. Get your act together. It's ridiculous.

What a world. Sweden. We played the mousse. All right.

They're German? Kind of. They're by German. It was water.

Okay. Switching to PCA news. Okay. Because that was our last story.

We were within earshot of the German-engineered cigar people again. We were. They were very close to our booth. They were.

They were on the other side of Ricky. Yeah. Ricky Rodriguez. Okay.

Still didn't talk to him. Still didn't talk. German-engineered cigars. I know.

It's our favorite cigar company. To this day. We have yet to have interaction. But we always see them.

Yeah. So when we talk about placement of the show, how did you feel about your placement of the booth? uh because of their last minute changes from what i understand we were shifted uh if you're looking at our booth we were shifted to the right yeah and we were hidden behind a giant wall that we looked at the entire time they said jake white so we were behind the jake white directly behind the jake white people you couldn't see us eric Espinosa walked around on the phone going bro can't find you where are you we're behind jake white eric i'm standing in their booth i can't We were down by the bathrooms. Right, yeah, that's when we mostly saw people that we knew when they had to pee.

But we were still busy. We were busy. People found us. We had great appointments.

Yes. We had a lot of new customers. First two days we were packed. Yeah.

I didn't even get lunch. Yeah. I got no food. Somebody did deliver a sandwich and you ate it all.

It was a half a sandwich. Well, that means, you know, if I would have gotten half a sandwich, we both would have had a quarter of a sandwich. Greg would have had nothing. Tyler gave me half of somebody else's sandwich.

Okay, perfect, I'll take it. He wasn't very much sherry after that. He wasn't, he's like, that's it. Well, because he tried to give me a full sandwich, and I go, someone took a bite out of this thing.

He's like, oh, I'm sorry, man, I didn't see that. One of the things I wanted to get, we were like, I've never been to New Orleans before, was a beignet. So, Romo Craft had beignets every morning. Okay.

He did give me part of his beignet so I could try it. Oh, that's sweet. You guys shared a beignet. It was terrible.

It was incredible. It was everything you thought it was... I thought it was more croissant-y, you know, light, fluffy. Uh-huh.

But it was a wad of dough covered in powdered sugar. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

It was almost like it wasn't even cooked. Somebody gave me a beignet, too. Yes, I did see you eat a beignet. Did Tyler give me a beignet?

And you were just eating the sugar. I just, yeah, I just grabbed the bag and just... You were just snorting the sugar. Yeah, I just, I, uh, I, whatever you used, the boom-sticked it, I boom-sticked it.

You boom-sticked it up the nose. Yeah. Yummy. Delicious.

So we got some things to cover. I want to talk about Anthony Mackiegate. Oh, Anthony Mackiegate. The most horrible man in the world.

Allegedly. No, he's so horrible. No, he's not. You can't say that.

That's discrimination. That's not nice. You have to say allegedly. Allegedly a horrible person.

That is Captain America. Captain America was in the building boots. And he liked to use the bathroom right behind us and escape out the loading dock door. We did escape out of the loading dock door.

Twice. So, here's what happened. Unless you want to tell a story. No, no, no, go ahead.

So, Anthony Mackie, we heard he was in the building. " Who is this person? Willie told me. Willie Herrera?

No, Willie from La Aurora. Oh, okay, Willie. " They didn't come across the PA? No, no, no, he was low-key, incognito.

He was trying to be low. Did not have the Captain America suit on. Right, so I ran into him. So I had one of my son's best friend's necklace on me from basketball.

It was a cross. It was a cross. Yeah, whatever. I don't care what it is.

So, you know, as you're going around, I wanted to take pictures with celebrities since I had it because I thought it'd be funny and it'd make the kids day. Who all did you get? Carl Malone. Okay.

Oh, Carl was there again? Yep. And Guy Pieri. Nice.

And uh, I did do one with Matt Booth as well, I feel like he's- He's definitely a celebrity. Well, he's a celebrity in our world. But that's why I was curious, I didn't know- He has jewelry, Michael. Yep.

Oh, that's right. And liquor. Yeah. Yeah, and liquor.

He's a jewelry guy. Well, he licks everybody, not just her, but go ahead. He's a jewelry phenom. You think he's known for his jewelry outside of the cigars?

Yes. Probably definitely in LA. Okay. Yes.

All right, go ahead. - Yeah, the Cypress Hill guy is a big collector of his stuff. - Dr. Greetham.

- Not that one. - Oh. - The other one. " Like, I didn't think anything of it.

But then you hear, so Abe was, Abe from smoking ran into him, and he wanted to get a picture with his daughter, and he said no. Oh. So Abe was upset, Abe did a post about it. Oh boy.

Now, #NotMyCaptainAmerica. #CaptainAmericaIsAnAsshole. Oh wow. #Everything you can think of, he hated him.

Allegedly. Then apparently on one of the Espinosa, on Gavin, wait, was it Gavin or was it Richie? Richie. Yeah.

'Cause Richie got a picture with him. Right. He commented on Richie's picture, And he's saying, hey, I don't take pictures with people. Right.

Right. The problem is, though, he took pictures with people. Yeah. He took pictures with Guy Fieri.

He took pictures with Richie. He took pictures with a handful of people. So, do you think he should have taken pictures with people? As a celebrity, should a celebrity stop to take pictures with people?

Yes or no? Yes or no? What do you think? I think so.

I mean, the people made you a celebrity. Right. Okay, but now, listen, as a superhero, you're a cigar guy, allegedly a cigar guy, right? It might be a bad look as far as the personification of a superhero liking cigars, right?

Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's been a superhero. He's not a Disney superhero. Right.

I don't know. I just feel like he is a superior. He's the last action hero. So.

Yeah. And Terminator. So maybe that was his logic behind not taking the picture. Maybe.

I'm just giving you devil's advocate here. And sometimes those guys have rules with their agents and lawyers and stuff. Or hey, I'm not allowed to. Right.

I heard he told one person, this has not been confirmed. Tirely speculative. Right. Give me a box of cigars, I'll take a picture with you.

Oh! I heard that same story. What a weasel. Oh, weasel game.

Give me a box. Give me a box and take a picture with you. That's pretty funny. I don't know what booth that was.

Like the guy couldn't afford the box of cigars. We don't know if that's even true. Yeah, we don't know. " I mean, I had two interactions with the guy, and he seemed really nice.

Nice. Now, here's the problem. Okay, if you decide, "Yes, I'm gonna take pictures with people," or "No, I'm not gonna take pictures with people," if you're gonna say no, you can't take pictures with people. Right, you gotta hold the line.

Yeah, no matter the circumstances. " Yeah, if the answer is no, then no pictures. It's like, hey, look, I'm not supposed to be here. You know, I can't, I don't want to be, you know, I love this.

Yeah, this is not a scheduled event for me. Right, you know, I just wanted to kind of hang out and meet some people. I just wanted free cigars. Yeah, I just wanted some free cigars, whatever.

Like a box. You have a box? You got a box? So, now.

Do I hear two boxes? Because, because I think Abe has a valid point. You know, I'm arguing both sides here. Right.

If my son loved Captain America. Right. and I'm like, hey, can you take a picture of my son? And he told me no.

And he went and took pictures with other people. I would be like, yeah, fuck this guy. Yeah. 100%.

I understand why Abe is mad. Right. Sure. There's definitely going to be a rule change next year at PCA.

What do you mean? Must take pictures. No more unauthorized celebrities unless they take pictures with Abe. No, no.

That might happen. Well, you got to hold. Look, at the end of the day, you have to, you know, If you're a celebrity, you've got to decide what you want to do. Guy Fieri stops for everybody.

He stops for everybody. Well, we're talking about, you know, two different people. This is two totally different worlds. That's a fair statement, too, right?

Guy Fieri doesn't have the celebrity, I mean, he's a celebrity, for sure, but he's not Captain America. Right, yeah, he's a celebrity, but a different level of a celebrity. He's not Captain America, he's not, you know, he's not... I think he should be.

I think he should be, too. With that hair, he should be Iron Man. And let's be honest. Iron Man?

You know, Anthony Mackie wasn't Captain America in the beginning. He kind of gave him the shield. All right, so he's not the Falcon. No.

You know what I mean? Doesn't his Captain America still fly with the Falcon wings? He does, yeah. So is he Falcon America?

It's kind of. It's a little strange. A little weird. I can't carry the shield.

I gotta fly. Somebody hold this. Disney does all this crazy stuff. They can do whatever they want.

They're Disney. Yeah, apparently, I listened to a Terrence Howard interview. You know who Terrence Howard is? No.

Yes, the guy who used to be the Falcon. No, he was the Hustle and Flow guy, and he was War Machine. Oh, yeah, yeah. In the originals.

Yeah. And the thought process for Disney was that Robert Downey Jr. wasn't going to be great as Iron Man, so they were going to focus on Terrence Howard, and then they went a totally different direction. Thank God.

The second movie, Terrence Howard wanted way more money than they were willing to pay. Yeah. I don't think Terrence Howard would have the same effect as Robert Downey Jr. No, but do you think...

But they were going to War Machine him. Yeah, but he was replaced by Don Cheadle. Which I think did a fantastic job. I like Don Cheadle.

I like Don Cheadle. I like both of them. I think either one of them would. I do like Terrence Howard, but he's a different person.

I gotta be honest, nothing frustrates me more than shifting into a different... Yeah, I know. Oh, wait, now you're... They would've went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, yeah, but there are a lot of things.

" Right, I can't stand that. I don't mind that so much. Not so much. From a pilot?

Okay, I could see your point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But from an entire movie? Well, it's not like he did two movies, he did one movie.

They did it in Batman, too. Yeah. Oh, who did it? Batman Begins.

Anybody can be Batman, though. No, Batman Begins, I don't know their names. Rachel Dawes was replaced with Gyllenhaal's sister, Jake Gyllenhaal's sister. Oh, oh, and I don't like her.

Oh, wait, I'm thinking, he's got two sisters, doesn't he? I don't know. There's like a cute wind, and there's one that's like, not cute, but we could put a lot of makeup on her maybe. We're kind of deviating at this point, but my point is, at the end of the day, if you're going to, you know...

He should have said it differently. " No, look, honestly, I got to be honest, he probably should have just taken the photos and... Well, didn't he say something like, "I don't do photos because, dude, you don't know where they go," or you don't know what happens to the photo I have to take. Yeah, he said something like that.

Something like that. And that's fair. Yeah, that's reasonable. You know, but at the end of the day, anybody can take pictures of you moving around at any given time.

Did you see, did you see Tyler's, uh, chat GPT photo? Oh, of him with Captain America? I mean, it was perfect. It looks good.

He took it down because it said Weasel something in the back. I mean, Roma Craft Weasel Team 6, the sign behind the two of them. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

He took it down because of that? Right. That's pretty funny. " He's my Captain America.

Nice. I mean, it was perfect. Yeah. So, I mean, look, at the end of the day, I think that...

We'll get a little more into this on the Patreon because I have a different theory. Oh, do you? Yes. Oh, interesting.

Yes, I do. All right, Patreon material. Okay. What else happened at PCA that was a major highlight of Epic Proportions?

I'm trying to... I got one for you. That was very bad booth of you. I untangled my cord here, they're hanging in my face.

How about the giant Johnny Tobacconaut that Room 101 had? Oh, the Johnny Tobacconaut fiasco. Yeah, so I saw this fiasco. Well, it was at the time, but it turned out not to be.

So I saw this giant Johnny Tobacconaut at the beginning of the show when we were kind of building this mic. Yes. And I was like, I am stealing this. Like giant, you mean four feet tall?

It wasn't four, it was probably what, maybe like a two foot, two and a half foot? Oh, I think it was bigger than that. It was pretty big. Was it?

Yeah, it was, you know, four feet-ish. You think so? Okay. Well, not life-size.

When you say giant, you think huge. So I saw this and I'm thinking, okay, I got to, I can't wait. I'm going to have, you are going to film me stealing this on day one and this is going to be hilarious, right? And I ran into Booth, Matt Booth, and he goes, yeah, we're giving them out with orders.

And I'm like, well, that kind of takes the fun out of things for me. Are they really though? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are they?

Yeah. So do we have one coming? Yeah, of course. Perfect.

So, you know, day one goes by and we're busy as shit. And then day two goes by, we're busy, and day three is always the day where things are kind of lingering, people are gone and stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to take this thing anyways. It was on the edge.

Yeah. I mean, they couldn't have made it any easier. So I grabbed this thing, and I brought it to our... Heaved it up on his shoulder like it was a sack of potatoes.

Yes, I heaved it up on my shoulder, and I brought it over to our booth for it to kind of hang out. and apparently the STG guys went to Booth and they're like, that guy just stole. That big guy just took our statue. Yeah, those freaking tattletales.

But Matt obviously knows me, so he's like, yeah, well, I guess, you know, hey, he stole it. I guess it's his now. Yeah, I don't know what you're going to do. Go get it back from him.

We should go. They actually came back. Oh, Weasley guys, too. They were the minions.

Oh, the greasy guys. The STG minions. They do not even have names. But it took three or four of them to come by and get it, right?

Yes. They came by to pick it up. " They took it away. So how are we going to do this?

Were you guys going to force me to do it or...? So I went back and I stole it again. Yes. I stole it again and then all of a sudden I decided to make an adventure with this thing and I took it around to everybody in other booths.

So we took it to Pete Johnson, Nick Malillo, Eric Espinosa. I never saw the Pete Johnson photo. Yeah, because I took that afterwards. Oh.

You sent him on a wild goose chase? Did you post it after you left the booth? Yes. It wasn't done as he was going.

It was a montage of photos. It was with music, very lovely, done very well. Michael Herklots. Yes.

Everybody in Espinosa except Anthony Mackie, because he had already left it there. Anthony Mackie did not. There was not a Guy Fieri photo with it. Yeah, we don't take pictures with superheroes.

Anthony Mackie refused to take a photo with the astronaut. It was on the couch with Eric, Michael Herklot sat on his lap. It was pretty awesome. Skip took a picture with it.

Rosales took a picture with it. Willie Herrera. Willie Herrera took it. We took numerous photos with all types of people.

Then they came and got it again. Yeah. Then they came and got it again. So up to this point, they don't chat when they come and get it.

They just come and scoop them up and take them back. Should have just put a tablecloth over it. Because now this is funny. It's like, oh, okay.

Right. So now this is the second time that he's taken it. So he gets it a third time. So I stole it again.

The third time. Now when they come back, they're trying to reason with him to not take it again. Wow. Like, come on, man.

We're getting in trouble. Yeah. We have to have this back. It's gotta be over there.

We've given it to someone else. Yeah. So they sort of linger a little bit. We weren't gonna take it home.

We were just taking it around here. Oh, we were taking it home. We were taking it home. It was gonna be in the car seat belted in with the three of us, and it was making the trip.

Yeah. We were gonna leave with it. Yeah, I was stealing it, for sure. So then that was the third time they came and got it and took it back.

Yeah. So then he went and got it again. So then I stole it again. Nice.

Then they sent the Asian dude over who sort of stroked the antenna on his head a little bit. Yeah. He was kind of being sexual with it. It was really uncomfortable.

He thought he was going to Matt Booth it. But only Matt Booth can Matt Booth. Only Matt Booth can Matt Booth. Yeah.

You know, you can't. You can't. That space has already been taken in the cigar industry. Right.

And when you try and... Be the booth. Yeah. You cannot be the booth.

Is that the Sancho Ponza guy? No. No, no. It's a minion.

It's a worker bee. Worker B Minion. But he picked it up and he only carried it to Jake Wyatt. Someone else had to come get it.

Oh, he was tired. It was heavy. He couldn't carry it. He tried.

He couldn't carry it. He left it by Jake Wyatt. So the big guy came again who was very angry. He didn't like to talk and he just took it.

Yeah. Was it Tony? Is he working for STG now? No, it wasn't Tony.

It wasn't Tony. No, Tony was there though, but he wasn't. Big Tony? Yeah, Tony.

Oh yeah, wait a nice little chat, Big Tony. We'll get into that in the Patreon too. Okay. We're now friends.

told matt i was like hey i'm gonna no i'm gonna keep it and he goes oh but it's it's keith's but it belongs to somebody it belongs he sounded so defeated he did i've promised him to another he did you know and he's giving me three goats and promised to marry my daughter you could tell that like he didn't want to tell me no yeah and he knew that this was going to be awkward if i decided to Right. And I was like, all right, dude. Please, bro. Please, let me have that.

Please, just don't steal it. Stop taking my man. So, I... Took it again.

So, I stole it. So, at that point, when they came and got it for the last time, I had said, okay. Well, they moved it further in. It was no longer on the edge of the booth.

So, then I went around. So, Skip says, you know, you should go around and kind of peep at it just to continue to mess with them. So, I did that a few times as well. And then we were going to steal Matt Booth.

Yeah, I was going to do that. Yeah. Just heave him up on his shoulder and carry him away. But he was always busy.

They were going to start tethering all these things at Justin Andrews' boat loops. Start tying everything down. What do you think the big difference was between New Orleans and Vegas? Because this year was New Orleans, and it hasn't been New Orleans for about a decade.

I liked the show better. I didn't like the city better. Yeah. The weather was nicer, obviously.

You didn't like the shooting that happened up the street? Well, yeah. Luckily, we weren't. Four people were killed.

Four people got shot. Didn't like the shooting. No shooting. The hospitality employees suck in New Orleans.

Yeah, it was really bad. It's not alleged. They suck. Yeah, no, it was it was pretty terrible.

I went, we went, we one night got a hamburger at our hotel because it was late and we had not eaten yet. Yes. And Tammy, Tammy, lovely Tammy. We finally get her to come over and take her order after Greg had to go fetch her.

She looked through us like three times. Oh yeah, right. Is this really going on? So then Michael ordered a hamburger, and she goes, "Okay, your cheese choices are American or cheddar.

" Obviously, they're out of American. " So it was cheddar. No, she wrote American the second time. " Right.

So how did you ask for yours to be cooked? I didn't. Oh, I thought you had said something. Because mine was raw.

Yeah, mine was raw, too. Yeah. But at that point, it had already been an hour. I did not care.

I was, yeah. I mean, I'm sopping up the blood with my bun. Yeah. That's funny.

Like it's sauce. I like it like that. Hmm. I'm not a fan of raw hamburger.

I don't care. Your brother, oh, your brother got tuna medium something and his was almost burnt. So. Yeah, you know, it's, the mentality was in New Orleans was very, we don't give a shit.

We're all smoking dope. As far as service, it was really bad. One night, it took me over two hours to get red beans and rice. Oh, staple.

That's, yeah, so that's pre-made. It's in a big bucket in the back or something. But the food was good that night. Well, what, your third sandwich?

I only had the second one. Because he ordered, because they forgot to take Mikey's order. Franklin, forgot to take your order because you were on the phone talking to your children. Yeah, I said, I'm sorry.

I didn't look yet. Can you come back to me? Right. So, Mikey ordered and then instantly his sandwich comes out.

Yeah. An hour and 15 minutes before anybody else's food shows. There's 16 of us at this table. Hmm.

So, my wife has taught me not to eat. Right. So, he didn't eat. Everybody's going, "Eat.

" He's going, "No, no. I have rules I must abide by. My wife is watching from somewhere. " But, you know, you learn to be courteous to people.

Yeah, yeah, nobody else has their food yet, so you walk away. Yeah, I'm not going to sit there and eat. But 16 people, the food came out onesie-twosies, so he'd already set the line so no one else ate. Oh.

So they brought him another sandwich. It was like everyone was looking at me to eat. He's got a bite of it. Yeah, he didn't eat, so now he can't eat.

Except the one guy over in the corner, I forget his name. I think a couple people want to beat him. Rosales started eating his salad. It was going to wilt.

He had to eat the salad. Yeah, it's going to wilt. It's gonna get hot. I was second to last to get mine, and then Rosie was last.

Yeah. Rosie was last. By then, his sandwich was cold again. I didn't care.

So they brought a new one? No, at that point, you just eat it. Yeah. Then I gotta wait for another one.

Yeah. It was pretty bad. It was terrible. Greg got really upset with me because I don't like phones at the table.

Oh, that was the first night. Yeah. They got in a fight the first night. Yeah.

m. m. " That's kind of par for the course, right? Did they get in a fight?

Yeah, first day. Normally, it's a little later. They had not even, you know, had time to piss each other off yet. I gotta tell you though, for this show, we had minimal conflict.

Yeah, other than that, there was really not any. We've gotten a lot better with a lot of things. Well, you don't room together anymore. That was half the problem, that very first trip I went on.

We all three shared a room. We're more organized. Yes. You're a huge help.

Thank you very much. Paul was a huge help. That was a huge help. Paul was a huge help.

Things were set up before we even walked in, even though we did show up on time. Right, Paul was earlier. Well, he was right across the street. Right, he was ready to go.

Right. He had vacuumed and had things cleaned and set up. After the first day, he goes, "Okay, I know how to do it now. " It was amazing.

" "You want a San Andreas? " My manservant, Paul. Yeah. I didn't call him manservant.

No, yeah. You can't tell that. It's not nice. So, yeah.

What else did we want to cover from that? Let's see here. What did you... Because I didn't get out that much.

Would you still prefer it being in New Orleans than Vegas? Even though the service is terrible? Yeah, because that last night, the service was excellent at that place. Yeah.

Couchon. So, I think we just chose poorly. Yeah. So we just got to find out what the local spots are that are good.

Yeah. Well, Blue Bayou, you know what, you know what the problem was? Blue Bayou is over on Canal Street, so that's tourist town. Right.

Where I don't think, Cachon was in a, well I guess it was close to a couple of hotels, but not far. So would you rather it was in New Orleans still? I think so. Me too.

It was still in April. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. I would much rather.

The weather was amazing. I would take New Orleans over Vegas. Maybe a different hotel. You think so?

You think so? It was a little far from the place. I didn't mind that. We had the car.

We didn't have to walk. You know, I guess it was okay. Oh, but we're doing that Airbnb thing next year. Yeah, we're probably gonna do that.

Yeah, that'd be great. Then we each get two rooms. And our own bathroom. We each get two rooms.

Right. Mikey and I shared a room. Greg had the single because Greg's a pig. Well, you know what, dude?

And he does his yoga in his underwear in the morning. Look, at the end of the day, though. Every time he coughs. You know what, here's, for me, it gives me more opportunity to talk with you about other things we're viewing, right?

Well, yeah, and it's not like the first time we've shared a room, we have a program on how things work with a toilet share room. We're on the same page for the most part. Your shit goes everywhere, and I get this little spot on the corner. Yeah, you get a little crevice.

Right. Yeah, and then I have to pack everything up by myself, and I got to cart things down three times. Well, we will take a photo, like I said, so I will know how it goes back in, because your wife didn't have a photo for me. Yeah, next time there'll be a photo.

I'm sorry. Right. So I'm packing up all my stuff and he says, well, all my stuff is done and he leaves. Well, that's not what I said.

I said there is nothing out that is mine. I'm sorry. That's exactly what he said. There is nothing out here that is mine.

Slam the door. I did not slam the door. I was getting out of your way because the one day I sat in the chair in front of the TV, I got berated for blocking you because you could not get around. Well, you blocked me from my bed and my section of stuff.

It wasn't like there was a lot of floor space. Where else would you like me to have that? It was like you were trying to charge a 25% tariff or something for me to get to my bag, you know? And you wouldn't share your M&M's?

No. Yeah, I wouldn't share them. They were mine. You got mad because I was openly eating the M&M's.

I made you eat the M&M's. Well, probably because your wife had heard that you didn't. " I told her. You ate the M&M's.

I told her. " No. You ate the M&M's. Don't you lie.

I ate three. You met Josh Harbersky. Oh, I did meet Joshua Harbersky. Yes.

Oh, I met Frank Herrera, no wait, Frank, Frank, that's it, yeah, that's it, right, the premier cigar industry law guy. Yeah, you didn't want to talk about Joshua? We can get to Joshua Bersky in one, but I met Frank first, I want to mention Frank, I'll mention Joshua, please, I have to mention Joshua Bersky. Yeah, did you, did you approve Steve?

Steve is frantically saying. I'll approve you, you talk. All right, so we went, we went to pizza with the, with the Roma crew, one of our pizza nights, we had a lot of pizza. We had a lot of pizza.

A lot of pizza. And so Frank showed up. I know who Frank is. I had never actually met Frank.

So at the end of the evening, I went over to shake his hand and introduce myself and to say goodbye and to meet his wife. And I go, hi, I'm Mike Palmer with Pasona. And he goes, oh, I know who you are. I've seen you around.

I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. Is it good or is it bad? He goes, no, I've seen you roll with these people. So, yeah, I know who you are.

I'm like, oh, well, it's a lovely meeting you, sir. Okay. I'm not a podcast guy, though. No.

We got a lot of compliments about the podcast. A lot of compliments about the podcast. A lot of compliments about the podcast. Yeah.

Did I tell you about Charlie the last day? No. Oh, yeah, you did. Okay.

We can tell that story, too. That's a funny story. Okay. But then, was it day two or three when Joshua came by?

Day one. Was it day one? Yeah. Because he came by to see how everything was going?

Yeah. Okay, Joshua Iberski is in charge of the PCA. Mm-hmm. We have had him on the show audio.

We have not done a video. He's not been live with him. Right. So we've never met him.

He has pictures of him from, you know, mid-chest up. Right. He is five feet tall. Oh, wow.

" Like he didn't know. He had red hair and curly mustache. My curly mustache. And then I sort of awkwardly kept going, I'm taller than you.

I'm taller than you. I did not realize you were this, you were not tall. I'm a giant in comparison to you. Right.

And he took it well. He's like, yeah. He gets it. I'm okay, I'm short.

I'm short, I understand. Probably not the first time he's heard it. Ah, very funny. No, probably not even the first time that day, because he's going booth to booth to booth.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I thought you were taller. Yeah, I thought you were, you look so much taller in photos. Yeah.

Who really, Joshua Haberski? And he walked away, and I would tell everybody, I'd go, there's a 12 year old that runs the BCA. How did we all not know this? The lollipop kid.

The lollipop kid. Oh, dude. So now, when we do his voice, we will do the lollipop. There you go.

Oh, that's not nice. No, no, he was very nice. He seems very sweet. I still feel weird about how doll he was.

I'm trying to see what else you wanted to cover. Every time Charlie goes by, because I get the impression Charlie doesn't like me, because I'm annoying, and it's fine, and Charlie's kind of quiet, he's a little reserved, he is serious when he's at this thing, he's running, zipping back and forth, so he walks by us a lot, and I always go, hi Charlie, hi Charlie, and he doesn't say anything, Half Wheel, Charlie from Half Wheel, he never answers, he'll leer at me sometimes, give me a look, maybe a nod, never says a word. No engagement. No engagement, yes.

No engagement. But he stopped and talked to Michael. " Still nothing. Nothing at all.

Last day after we were breaking, were we breaking down? I had broken down. There was nobody standing there but me. So he comes by again.

He's coming right at me. He's a little walkie walkie. Just he's buzzing to the next stop. " And they kept walking.

I'm like, "Oh, this is perfect. I met miniature Joshua Burski, and now Charlie has spoken to me. It has been three days, but I finally broke him. I broke him.

Good job. Next year, Charlie, you have to look at me when you compliment me. Ooh, eye contact. He has lost a lot of weight.

He looked great. Yep. His hair was done the first day. He looked lovely.

Mm-hmm. No cashmere, though. No cashmere. No, uh, no sweatsuit.

Yeah. No, uh, big white hoodie. Nothing. Oh, no sweatsuit.

Yeah. Yeah. Last year, every time I saw him, he had a hoodie on, a hoodie sweatsuit. Yeah.

I do want us to talk about one other thing, and we could talk more about it on the Patreon, for sure. Okay. I am going to say this one thing, though. Yes.

It has come to my attention that people do not like when I speak of their issues or things that they do, right? Ah. But I will tell you this: if you want me to speak good of you, then do good things. Because I don't hate anybody in this industry.

One guy. Right. Oh, yeah. There's one guy I do.

There is one guy. Legitimately. Allegedly. And, you know, but that goes back 15 years.

Right. Choose your enemies wisely. Right? He's definitely my enemy.

He's definitely my enemy. Apparently his wife was too. But as far as everybody else is concerned, if you do good things, I'll talk about good things. If you do bad things, I'm going to talk about the bad things.

So, pay your debts. I keep receipts. We didn't attend many of the after-hours PTA events. No, man, no.

And by not many, I mean none. Yeah, we didn't attend any of them. We didn't go to any. Not even like an Espinosa one?

Well, no. Not really. The only thing that I really, generally when you go have dinner and then you're kind of done, we did go buy smoke on the water, we saw them. We went to the Espinosa private rooftop thing, but we got there before Espinosa did.

Yeah, we generally, we leave before, I like to be in bed before midnight. I saw a video of you guys, I think it was Richie, or maybe it wasn't of you guys, but I saw Danny, Danny in the background, mopping. What did you, what? Danny, uh, Daniel?

Yeah? He was in the background mopping. Yeah. Yeah, no, I know, I was like, oh man, this guy, he even does it there, this guy's great.

Dude, the guy, that's Daniel, man. Yeah. That's why he's a stand-up guy. But the one night that we kind of hung out, when it was still till about midnight.

The last night? No, we went to the media house. Oh, that's right. I forgot.

That's always the best night. We have a great time there. Every single year. It's always good conversation.

Justin Andrews in the building. He got drilled. And Bradley. Bradley was there.

Of Alec and Bradley. Yeah, the actual Bradley of Alec and Bradley. You know, him and Justin look very similar. You think so?

Really? They both have robust heads. Black beards, black hair. Bradley's is obviously more manly and thicker.

I'm glad he's gone back to the beard. I like that better than the mustache. More Stormtrooper uniform kind of evil empire type of scenario? Yes.

Yeah, they should both have Stormtrooper. That's it. Stop. Yeah, three seconds.

So, yes, they attacked Justin Andrews and STG, killing cigar brands like they're small planets, and he's the Death Star. He came for me. Yes. He brought up the short clip that we talked about.

Yes. " And Ben Lee went at him, sitting on my left. Yeah, so I countered, I lobbed the grenade into the air, and then the media guys had a feast. It was amazing.

Right. It was amazing. You're saying Justin Andrews came at you by the short clip? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, where he talked about STG. Yeah.

Don't come for me, bro. Right. Don't come for me. " Yeah.

We have a bun to pick with you. " Yeah, then he went inside and started doing his short clips. It's probably the best I go get to work. Yeah, probably the best I go into it.

You know, fuck those guys and those guys. I don't want to mess with them, it's very scary. Yeah. And Bear and Ben aren't because they love us, so.

Yeah. They're developing pallets, guys. Yeah. And Bradley did have muscle, the large Scott, I think his name was Scott.

Yeah. He's quite the large, it must be his security guard. You think so? He was tired, man.

Sleepy. He was tired. And we didn't really come for Bradley. No, no, no, we like Bradley.

There's no reason to come for Bradley. We like Bradley. I still want to meet Alec, though. We've heard of him.

We've heard, we know there is one. He exists. Right. It's like Greg.

Yes, people were like, so you're Greg. Yeah. We don't let him out. We don't let him out much, I'm sorry.

Yeah. He doesn't speak much. All right. Oh, wait, wait, wait.

Last night in the car when we're talking about the order for the shop up north, and Greg's asking questions about how they operate, how they run and stuff, and he didn't know they had a podcast and none of that. Right. And he's going, well, somebody should probably go up there. And we were like, you should go, Greg goes, I'll go, and we're like, no, you can't go, you're not allowed to talk to people, you can't go, I go, we'll give you a big bucket of change, you can count the money, and then Mikey and I'll go, we thought it was hilarious at 9 o'clock last night in the car, but right now it doesn't seem as funny, he was pretty bitter, but speaking of new accounts and up north, shout out to David Garofalo of Two Guys, that was the one I was talking about.

I didn't know that you wanted to do that or not, so I was just letting that go, but okay. You're really good at throwing me under the bus. Why is that throwing you under the bus? Like, oh, no, that's, oh, you mean, like, the last episode when I was trying to not mention a person or something, you're like, oh, you mean this person exactly?

Well, that's why I didn't mention it. I beat around the bush as much as humanly possible. I was trying my best to protect you, because you didn't mention the retailer. So then I was leading into, hey, shout out to David Garofalo, two guys, because he's a good guy and we had a good interaction.

Oh, I thought you were going into, that's who we were talking about. No. Yes, he's a very nice man. But there you go again.

He is the number. You know what, David, you are the number one podcast. No, he's not. Okay.

He's number two. He's number two. But he's a cool guy. He is very nice.

He did what he said he was going to do. He told me, he goes, I can't set an appointment, but I will come by. Yep. Not expecting him to bring the buyer.

I thought he was just going to come by and say hi and just hang out. Yeah. Normally when you hear that, you're like, okay. Yeah.

Okay. You know, maybe he won't come by. Yeah. God delivered.

He did. you know so and apparently uh greg's gonna go up there and uh go up there and uh work to shop for a couple days it'd be great do a meeting maybe they'll let him come in yeah cover the podcast maybe you're like watching paint we do have an open invitation for the podcast we're gonna we're going we're gonna have to do that show we're gonna go like on my list oh really well i had the beignet so next on the list is two guys just two guys okay the cigar authority it's the longest This is the biggest running podcast in cigar history. In history. That's right.

Okay. Do all the commercials. I'm going to do all the commercials. Do you have a Listener of the Week?

David Garofalo. David Garofalo. Listener of the Week. Listener of the Week.

Look at that. You got a Shop of the Week? Two guys in New Hampshire. Look at that.

All right. Welcome to the Powstanie team, sir. All right. Well, hey, I think that'll wrap up this podcast and we'll get on to our Patreon.

All right. Thanks, everybody. All right. Thanks, bye.

Cigar Hustler Podcast. com and search the Cigar Hustler Podcast. That one up.

Show Notes

🎙️ Cigar Hustlers Podcast - Episode 383

This week, the Hustlers are back with a packed episode covering the latest in trending news and premium cigar buzz.

🔥 In the headlines:

A tragic school shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas shakes the nation. We break down the details surrounding the 17-year-old suspect, how he got into the school, and what’s next for the community.

Spotify hits a major snag as the platform goes down—streamers are jumping ship.

Hong Kong claps back at U.S. tariffs by halting package shipments to America—what could this mean for global shipping?

And yes… Sweden’s top-rated TV show is literally 24/7 moose migration. You can’t make this up.

💨 In cigar news:

The boys bring you an inside look at the PCA 2025 Trade Show in New Orleans—get the scoop on the cigars, surprises, and industry shake-ups you didn’t hear anywhere else.

Grab your stick, pour a drink, and let’s get into it.