Cigar Hustlers Podcast 271 World Exclusive

Episode Summary

Episode 271 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast is built around a "world exclusive" sit-down with Jack Torano and Hector Alfonso of Espinosa Cigars, in which Jack gives his own first-hand account of the altercation at an Espinosa event during TPE 2023 in Las Vegas. He explains why he refused to shake the hand of a rival company's principal (loyalty to friends caught up in an ongoing industry dispute), how the exchange escalated to a sucker punch that grazed his head, why he declined to press charges, and how Erik Espinosa and others worked to broker a truce. Jack also addresses the phone call and apology he ultimately accepted, the rumors that he'd been hospitalized or had a black eye, and his belief that the whole affair is a black eye for the premium cigar industry. Hector Alfonso weighs in on how Erik Espinosa handled the fallout, why some retailers' offers to drop the other brand were declined, and why he and Jack shut down their COVID-era "Heckle & Jekyll" livestream — too much inside-baseball information flows through his office.

Before the exclusive, hosts Mike Stepankiewicz, Mike "BDP" Palmer and camera man Phil catch up on a charity auction weekend, a backyard bar teardown, and the retired M&M Management "OnlyFans" side venture that Jack and Hector finally get to talk about on air. Justin Andrews of Diesel Cigars unexpectedly answers a cold call and gets roasted over his weekly hour-long product meetings, Matt Booth's absence from them, and Scandinavian Tobacco Group's acquisition streak — plus he confirms the March 17th private Room 101 / Diesel event with Matt Booth.

The news segment covers the FDA's plan to finalize the flavored cigar and menthol cigarette bans in fall 2023 (roughly 250,000 public comments in review, per CTP director Brian King), PCA Executive Committee changes including Smoker Friendly's Mary Szarmach joining and John Anderson of W. Curtis Draper rotating off, and a fire at a Plasencia facility in Ocotal, Nicaragua that destroyed a structure of cigar boxes with no injuries. The guys also preview The Great Smoke, an upcoming Don Doroteo review on Patreon, Phil's Facts, and name Mark Rozanski listener of the week and Secreto Cigars shop of the week.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Weekend Recap and Sponsor Talk
   The hosts compare notes on a school charity auction, a backyard bar demolition, and an overhead garage storage rack.
2. 02
   Surprise Call with Justin Andrews of Diesel
   Justin Andrews actually answers a Monday call and defends his weekly product meetings while confirming the March 17 Room 101 and Diesel private event with Matt Booth.
3. 03
   Cigar Industry News
   FDA aims to finalize flavored cigar and menthol cigarette rules in fall 2023 as it works through 250,000 comments.
4. 04
   PCA Executive Committee Shakeup
   Mary Szarmach of Smoker Friendly joins the PCA Executive Committee as John Anderson of W. Curtis Draper rotates off.
5. 05
   Fire at Plasencia's Ocotal Facility
   A structure holding cigar boxes burned at a Plasencia facility in Ocotal, Nicaragua, with no injuries and production resuming the next day.
6. 06
   Florida Stories and Listener of the Week
   Invasive 'penis snakes' in South Florida canals, a Daytona-area alligator bite at a front door, and shoutouts to Mark Rozanski and Secreto Cigars.
7. 07
   World Exclusive: Jack Torano on the TPE Incident
   Jack Torano of Espinosa Cigars walks through the refused handshake, the sucker punch, why he didn't press charges, and the apology he accepted.
8. 08
   Hector Alfonso on Fallout and Heckle & Jekyll
   Hector Alfonso explains how Erik Espinosa navigated the situation, why retailers were told not to drop the other brand, and why the Heckle & Jekyll show ended.

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 The Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 271 with your host, Mike Michael the King, Stepankiewicz, and his producer, Mike BDP Palmer, and me, I'm Phil, your camera man, I'm only posting on social media so everyone else can feel better about themselves. You're welcome. Better overhead garage storage with A Rack Above. Why must we damage our home just to gain overhead garage storage?

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I have mine. Yes, you have yours and it's working out well. Did you put more stuff on it over the weekend? No, it's capped out.

I mean, I love the way that it's built. It's got all my goodies and Christmas stuff is out of the way! I didn't think I'd like it as much as I like it. I fuckin' love this thing, I'm not gonna lie.

It looks nice! Park your car on the one side now? You guys were at the house. Yeah.

You finally got to kind of experience it. Yeah. You had no issues. I wasn't at the house.

Oh, that's right, you left. We left. Oh, you showed it off in the dark. Because you went in that way?

Well, he went in that way and then he broke the no-shoe rule. Oh, Phil. He broke the no-shoe rule. Phil with no-shoes.

Phil wasn't there. What was that? He broke the no shoe rule. Uh oh.

So, that made me angry, but then I saw this thing. Yeah? What did you see? There's a thing, there's a machine.

Yeah? That you put your foot, well there's two, there's two. There's like the standard one where you just press and it puts one of those little booties on. Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that.

And they're like 50 bucks. And then there's this really nice one. Are you going to get that? I might.

I might. You just want to get the kind with the booties where they just pop them on. That's what it is. I know, but where they don't have to step into it, it'll be a lot less expensive.

It's 50 bucks. Well, that's 50 bucks. I want, I want it to be as convenient as possible for Mike. How do you peel them off?

You just take them off. Oh. So, but there I saw another one. Yeah.

Which is amazing. Right. How much is that one? Wait, hold on.

Oh, sorry. Hold on. You put your foot in. Right.

And like this almost cellophane wrap goes around it and then it sucks onto it. Seems I might be a little harder to get off. It might be a little harder to get off. But it's $1,500, so I ain't getting that one.

Oh yeah, get that one, that's the one you need. So if you wanted to up me on Christmas, you know, I mean, that's kind of where we're at. We don't up on Christmas. We've gone down, oh yeah, Christmas we don't, birthdays.

Birthdays. Ooh, July's coming. For a while, I'm not getting you a $15 foot wrap machine. I feel like that's where we need to be.

No, no, we're not. I think that we have agreed to walk this back down anyways. I think we have, yes, yes, it was getting ridiculous. That would be ridiculous.

I mean, if you bought me the footwrap, it would officially be ridiculous. Oh, yeah. Well, then you're going to get the footwrap. Unless I can make monthly payments.

You can do that. It said $85 a month. Oh! Yeah.

Oh, there we go. Easy peasy. Sure, I won't get that car that Adrian wants me to get. A little cell phone bill.

That'll be fine. Why would you get a car because Adrian wanted you to get it? She wants a Jeep. She really wants a Jeep.

But she doesn't want to drive the Jeep because she's ridden in a Jeep and they're not good for every day for her. So she wants you to get the Jeep. Right. So that she can have it on the weekend.

But you can occasionally drive in the Jeep. Well, I can drive in the Jeep Monday through Friday. And then Saturdays and Sundays, we can take all the pieces off, because it's so easy just to take all the pieces off and drive it around. Why don't you just borrow Chet's Jeep?

" Yeah, so just ask him what's he doing with it on the weekend. Rent it out for 50 bucks or something. He was renting the other one, but he sold it. The white one?

No, the white one's the gray one he used to have. The gray one's gone? The gray one's gone. Okay, I know that he was trying to sell it.

It's not the white one. But that's their only car. So then you just bring over the little roller skate. There you go, a tray.

It's perfect. Perfect. So we all got to, well, not Phil, but Boots got to partake in the St. Mary Mag.

Well, should we start with the Jack and Hector? There's going to be a special Jack and Hector world-exclusive story at the end of the show. That's why you are the producer of the show. Yes, yes.

Yeah. So after all of this nonsense, there is something you want to hear. Some good industry details. Exclusive.

You will only hear it here. It will never be mentioned again anywhere else. That's actually true. Some of Jack's emotions.

Except maybe in a court of law. That might be the only thing. He's a very perplexing man sometimes. He is.

Oh, you should see the clip. The clip is amazing. Is it? Oh, yes.

I must see this clip. Okay, well, here. I'll play it right now. Perfect.

No, it's on my laptop. Well, sometimes, because like, I feel like as time goes by, he kind of softens, you know? Yeah. And then Hector said some great stories, and I'm going to talk to the retailer about them, and I'm going to try and get the retailer on the phone, because those stories are fucking amazing.

I don't remember what Hector said. Oh, I don't know if you were around him at the time, but they were fantastic. Oh, where did he tell these? We were sitting at the table.

I'm like, why aren't we talking about this shit on the podcast? Sitting at this table? No. He opened up a lot upstairs.

He went nuts upstairs. Oh! Yeah, he's fucking hilarious. Gotcha.

He is, he's a very funny man. Yeah, I love those guys. Yeah, they're very nice. They should have been invited to the wedding.

Should have been. Well, Hector was there. Yeah, Hector was. Hector was, just not Jack.

Yeah. Right. And then we have a double, were you doing a double Patreon this week? We are gonna do a double Patreon this week.

Or do you want me to make it just one longer one? No, no, do two. Two? Like, you can release after the show, when you release the show, then you can release the Patreon the next day.

Okay, the first one tomorrow? Yeah. And then we'll do a regular one on Thursday. Yeah, we're going to review the Don Doroteo.

Very, okay, I don't want to say anything. Yeah, don't say anything. Garrett is in the Dominican Republic right now. He just did a Facebook Live where he's walking the crops.

Yeah? The Don Doroteos. He's walking the crops? Yeah.

What's he doing in there? What's he doing in the crops? Wearing a funny hat. You think they'll put him to work?

Looks like a very white Indiana Jones. Oh. He's wearing a white shirt. I don't think he's wearing it.

So he did the standard. He has the straw fedora. You know, I've never done the standard me standing in the field. Oh, in the field?

You've never done that? I've never done that. Palmer's done it. I've done it.

I've never done the. Chet and I did it for the BDP. This is me. This is me looking at the firefine tobacco.

Chet and I did it on the island of Nauru, standing in the. I've stood in the field. Right. But no picture.

Yeah. And where was it? Nauru? Yeah, Nuru, the island of Nuru, did you do the gladiator, you should do the gladiator walking with the, you know, the top of your hands hitting at the top of the waist?

Can I grab the sand before I'm going into battle and just kind of... Well, I don't know. That's what he did. That's where you should start the photo.

Yeah. Down on one knee, down on one knee, pick up the sand. With like the... You smell it.

Yeah. Let you taste it. Oh, yeah. Mmm, this is good.

This is good, sir. This is very good. I can taste the pH levels. I can taste the pH.

Yes. And you rub it in your hands. Oh, yeah. - Yeah.

- And then stand up and walk. - Can we do like fade in, fade out type shit? - Oh yeah, sure. - Keep going, don't stop.

- Romantic music? - I don't know, why do you say keep going? - It was great, you had a close up and everything. It was perfect.

- I don't know, as long as he's staring at the screen, that's fine, that's all that matters. - Oh, we need to talk to Phil a little bit about his screen. - Speaking of screens, have we wiped down the lenses today? - Yes, yes, yes, yes, we did, we did wipe down the screen.

On the Jack and Hector portion of the show, there are several times when the person talking, Phil, It's not the person on the camera. It's because I was so intrigued. Yeah, we lost him. Yes, but you need to watch the screen, not the show.

This sort of thing is going to start to reflect your pay. I just want you to know. I think people are going to love it. And, well, no, because Jack is telling a very important part of the story and we see Michael's face.

Yeah. Well, he wanted more screen time. What do you want me, what he tells me behind doors, I'm not allowed to tell you. Oh, Phil's blaming you.

Yeah. Just put him in the next room. Fuck it. We could, we just need longer cords.

Yeah. No, and we just drill a fucking wall. Drill a hole in that wall, and make him sit over there. Sit at the other table?

Yeah. We could do that. I think that'd be great. We could.

Why are you shaking your head no? You guys would never know if I'm there either. Oh. We just want you to do, you know what, we're friends, so I'm going to trust you, Phil.

I'm just going to take a lot of time. We can set up the monitor, and we can make sure you're out there. Yeah, we can attach the ring to the app, and we could stare at you. Oh, yeah, I could put the ring up on the phone, sure.

Well, technically, I am in the other room. He's in the control room, but he can see through the window. Is that what it is? Yes.

So we need to close the window. We need to cover the window. By moving him into a chair. With paper or something.

Move him further away, possibly. I think that's a great idea. So how was your guys' weekend? It was good, right?

We went to a lovely... Well, we had the event Friday night. Oh, yeah. How was that, Palmer?

It was okay. It was a nice event. My wife got a little upset. Why?

I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't talk about it on the end. No, let's talk about it. What happened?

Okay, somebody's wife was going around planning a beach day on Sunday and did not say anything to my wife. He did not include her. But like people sitting closer than me and you now, she would invite you and not her if I was her. Oh.

So, kind of her feelings. You know, here's what I can tell you. What? Fuck those people, man.

We don't need to be around them. We don't need to be included. Well, I know, but she was, but it was, it was a, Chet's wife got invited, Tia got invited, a couple other people got invited, but not her. " Oh, what conversation did you have with her?

To be fair, did she want to be invited or not? She said that she's closer, that she's not friends with, that some other people are very close to that person. Oh, yes, yes, yes, another person, yeah, very close. D.

" That was nice of you. - Because I want everybody to have a good time. - Right, no, I understand, I understand. But I think that meant more to her because of what had happened the night before.

- Oh, great. And I didn't even know that it happened. - Right. - 'Cause she's my friend.

- You didn't know, right. - You know? And I know that you turned into like this stick in the mud. So we had a, we were at the auction for my school.

- Stick in the mud? Just because I'm very tired and sore. - No, no, no, this happens all the time. I don't know what this is.

You get into like security. I mean, I just need to get the little coil thing out of your ear And you just kind of stand there like this frozen fucking, you don't want to do anything, like you just- I'm not a dancer! Neither am I, but who gives a fuck? Just not a dancer.

So what? So I didn't want to go dance! You can just stand there, you can do the 50 cent thing like I do, I do like the- Very minimal motion, I don't want to injure myself, you know what I mean? That's it, that's all you gotta do.

All right. Once in a, you know, you gotta loosen up a little bit. I had a good time, that was a lovely event. You know, I'm not gonna lie.

But the best part was, nobody bought our thing. Are you sure about that? There was no bids on it. There was never a bid.

It said current bid on it. But that was the opening bid. Yeah, but I think that somebody might have purchased it at the current bid. Oh, well, we need a notification or something, I would imagine.

Yeah, let them contact us. Don't worry about that. I know one of them did not. The podcast did not.

Okay. Because it would come up on the list. Okay. Now, if the other one did, I don't know.

You know, I'm honestly hoping that somebody purchased the DJ one. Oh, I am too. Because that really opens the door. That would get exposure and get us out.

Yeah, the podcast thing, okay, fine, you know. I am going to say this, and we did say this. First of all, but let me back up. The table, having you guys there, you, Boots, and Erik, and like your wives.

I like Erik. Fucking amazing. He's a nice guy. He really is.

He's a super good dude. And man, it was so awesome to have a whole table of my own people. Right. Like, you know, I don't know.

It was really cool for me, so I really appreciate you guys coming out, I had an awesome time with you guys, and I can just be open and honest, like, I don't know, I mean, I think you get that, but I'm very, I'm very open and honest with my friends, and then everybody else, I'm just kind of bullshit and fucking, you know what I mean? Right. If I gotta be like, hey, I'm like, hey, with the other people over there, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw some of that, yeah, yeah, so, but with my people, I keep it 100 with my people, so, I had a great time, the DJ sucked. The DJ, I wouldn't need, I wouldn't know if the DJ sucked until I have seen Chet do his thing.

Ah, I gotcha. Yeah, the guy's not very interactive at all. Yeah, I have seen Chet mix music. I have seen Chet.

Yeah, with the wooka wooka wooka, and then hit the button, we're making du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du. I have seen Chet speak on the mic. Right. You know what I mean, where I want to engage with this guy.

Right. Whereas this guy, I mean, there were mistakes on the script about a 50/50 raffle that didn't exist. Oh, yeah, he said something about that. He said it more than once.

Right. Not only did he say it more than once, but he said, well, this is what it says on my screen. Like, okay, dude. Right.

You know. Just don't say it then. Right. If someone says, hey, don't.

You know it's the first time, okay, maybe the first time. Yeah. Then they correct you and you're like, that still says it right here. Yeah, if someone says, hey, you know, if someone says, hey, we're not doing that.

Right. That's it. You just, oh, my bad, never mind, that's not going on. Right.

Not, well, that's not how it says on my screen. Right. You know. In fact, Erik made a great analogy of the Dave Chappelle show where it's the Player Haters Club, where they're all talking shit and stuff, he's like, this is you guys right now, and I went back and watched the clip so that I was in, you know, so I've watched it 100 years ago, but I've watched it again, I'm like, hell yeah, that was totally us.

I remember it, but I'd have to go back and watch it, too. I had a great, it was a great time. It was a good time, the food, the food was really good. You know, and we invited Jack, but he didn't show up.

Right. Well, he sent a lovely gift. Yeah, I'm sure he did. So, it's a nice breakfast.

I hope he bid from home. He did. He probably bought the DJ thing. That would be great.

For Lozona Palooza. For Lozona. Oh, how great would that be, Hatchett to Lozona Palooza. Yeah, we gotta bring him down there.

Well, we'll see if we go this year. If we get invited. Yeah. But, other than that, what happened?

I mean, Sunday was kind of a recovery day for us. I worked in the yard all day Saturday, and then, oh, Sunday, I took the bar down Sunday. Yeah, what happened with that? What happened with that?

People are terribly upset that we took the bar down. Yeah, Brittany talked to me, concerned, like, what happened? Oh, well, we don't use it because we screened in the porch this last year, so we don't go to it, so it's sort of just sitting out there. It's just melting away.

Well, I don't know, it took me six hours to take that thing down. " You just need some gas and a lighter, bro. What are you doing? Well, it would have burned up the backyard.

Well, so we took the front of the bar, I took the front of the bar. That's showbiz, baby. Yeah, I took the little section on the side. It's all gone.

That's gone. And it now is a small seating area because she decided not to take the deck in the front and the deck on the side away. I said, well, if you're not gonna take those away, you gotta have something in the back. She goes, oh, well, maybe you can just extend it and build it.

Well, then I got to build another deck. No, I'm not building another deck. Right. So we just pulled all the sides and walls and downgraded the roof some, and now it's got a chair and a coffee table and a patio furniture.

So I can sit with her in the shade. He gives her idea where she is. Tanning. Took fucking forever.

Oh, by the way, Phil, if you could get boots, I need a six foot pallet and another pallet picked up in my house. No problem, I'll let him know. All right, thanks very much. I appreciate that, Phil.

Thank you. I like him staring at the screen now. It's nice. I came up here to throw some of it into one of his dump trailers and the bikers had a thing going on Sunday here, so I just did a lap.

I couldn't unload. They were everywhere. You know, it's bike week. Right, yeah, that's what I figured.

I figured it was bike week. We're lucky they didn't have something Friday night, that would have been a hassle. Yeah. Anything to add, Phil?

We're going to get into some light news here before we let the Jack Taranio show go. No, but we've got some stuff coming up for us, right? Do we? We're going down to the Great Smoke.

We are going to the Great Smoke. Next Saturday, yes. That is next Saturday. That's next Saturday.

Friday, well, a week from this coming Saturday. Holy shit. Yeah, wow. So people can catch us there.

This Saturday is mom's brain scan. Oh, that sounds exciting. Yeah, that's exciting. And then we have the private event with Room 101 and Matt Booth, and Justin Andrews of Diesel Cigars.

And apparently there's other people who come in too. Justin Andrews kind of slithered his way into it. He did. You know what, we should not let him ride in the car with us.

He doesn't answer the phone when we call. You want to call him? You want to call him right now? We'll call him.

He's not going to fucking answer. No, because here's what he says. He says on Mondays from 2:30 to 4:00 or something, there's some product meeting that they have. I think that was an excuse.

Well, no, because he was surprised he'd never invented Matt Booth, He never invited Matt Booth to be in the meeting, which he realized was a problem. We should just call it the Room 101 event. You know, like, I don't understand the fucking, the meaning. An hour-long meeting every fucking week about that.

Like, I don't get it. Maybe they have a lot of new stuff coming out. Well, they did release something new almost every week last year, but still. And we got the, uh, we got the, uh, the video game cigar today.

Yeah, the fool's. Fool's errand. Scan the prize, scan the QR code and win a prize or something. It's called Justin right now.

Are we speaker phoning him? No, I don't. Oh, I'm on it, baby. Dun-da-da-da-da.

I'm on airplane mode, so it should be connected to me. Let's see. Just in case. He's not going to answer.

I mean, he's going to do an event here. You think he would? Yo-yo. Hey!

Justin Andrews, you're on the air. Oh, my goodness. Justin Andrews. We thought you'd want to plug your vent you're having here, too.

The legacy, the legend of Diesel Cigars is, after 75 years, he has answered the phone on a Monday. Wow. You guys got very lucky. Our meeting got moved up one hour earlier today.

Is that every week? Did you move it every week so we could call you? It looks like, no, it looks like it's going back to regularly scheduled time next week. Oh, we're still going to call you.

Listen, I gotta know. So how long is the meeting? Is it an hour long? We try to keep it at an hour.

Usually, it's around an hour 15, hour 20. How much of it do you think is just dead space? Like, insignificant, this is not what the meeting is for type shit? I mean, honest.

We are 100% honest. We do have some meetings like that, but this is not one of those meetings. This meeting has got every important person from all of our factories, and we discuss all of our new products. but this one actually is pretty important.

Except Matt Booth. Which is why I never answer the phone. Right. Yeah, except you don't have Matt Booth on the meeting.

Actually. You already said at the TPE he's not part of the meeting. I did. Oh, damn it.

We have him on the other line right here. Matt, how would you feel about that? I don't like that. I threw my boy right under the bus.

Yes, you did. But listen, listen, we can't bog someone who's so creative and so, you know, just has his genius in this product development stuff that he does. We can't bog him down with meetings like this where we talk about- So wait, so the meeting about new products and product development, you don't want to have the guy that's the best in product development at the meeting? No, it's the creative meetings, you know.

Oh, it's a different meeting. It's a completely different meeting. When are you running for senator with that type of a response, sir? My goodness.

This is just a detailed meeting. This is not creative. We don't want to do that to Matt. We don't want to do that to Matt.

Pricing. It's probably money pricing and how much packaging costs. Stuff Matt doesn't even deal with. Oh, yeah.

Logistics. Big word, big word. Okay, so... He doesn't care about that kind of stuff.

So you're coming down March 17th, right? I am. Yeah, write that down. Look at your fucking calendar, buddy.

I already have my flight, so I'm booked and ready. We're gonna do a nice little private event downstairs in the private lounge for you and Matthew. And, you know, I think we're gonna have a good time. We're gonna enjoy ourselves, it's gonna be a little more intimate.

You can bring your pants if you want to, but it's not a necessity. We're having a meeting next Monday about this time again we'd like you to be part of. Yeah, we'd like to get the details of things working out. Yeah, we'd like to work it out.

It's going to be a Zoom. It's going to be about an hour, hour 15, hour, hour 15. Maybe an hour 20 on the outside. When was the last time?

When was the last time I was down there? It was before the pandemic, right? Yes, so it's like three years ago. Yeah, 2000.

It was probably 2000. Yeah, you don't get out much. Well, you know, seeing you guys once every five years is about my limit. Is that what you can handle?

That's right. I think that's all I can sign up for. I will find you. Last time he was here, Jack was here.

Maybe. Yeah. Jack came up to visit him though, but Jack had already fueled the growth. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, that's right. He had already fueled the growth. That's right. He still holds that over my head though, that he drove...

He'd taken up a collection of church. What is Orlando, two hours from Miami? That's like almost four. Almost four.

Almost Jesus Christ, well that's even worse than yes, but he does an event in Charlotte, which is like four hours from me, and he's like, oh no, I completely understand, it's not like I drove all the way to, you know, Orlando to come to one of your events, I'm like, oh shit. So yeah, so Jack did show up to support me, but he's held that over my head for some time now. He's really good at the guilt, I'm not gonna lie, he's a professional guilt artist. Is he Jewish?

Well, what does that have to do with it? Oh my god, here we go, one more, you gotta slide in a racist comment. Slide one in, there you go. Hey, if you guys, if you guys, if you guys get, go ahead, go ahead.

Jack is an emotional lesbian trapped inside a six-foot-five heterosexual cubans. I agree with that, 100%. Absolutely. If you guys ever buy Espinosa, can you fire him on the air for us?

Yeah, if you, if SDG consumes Espinosa, I expect Jack to be let go, and I want to, I want to have done on the podcast, yeah, 100%. Oh my God, I actually, so he came up to me in senior, and he was like, hey, just, he made some comment about us buying them or something, because the news had just broken about Alec Bradley, and I did, I said, Jack, you would be the first person to be let go by the same company three different times while working for three different companies. So yeah, so yeah, I think that would be, we should buy Espinosa just to fuel the growth, just to fuel the growth, just to fuel the growth, I think we'd have to keep Hector, but I don't know if Hector would want to stay, Hector would probably be like, you know what, it's a good time for me to retire from my second career now, rather than work with you guys, so I don't know. That's so true.

All right, well, we will let you go, brother. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys, though. I'm looking forward to seeing you as well. We just saw him last week.

But I miss him still. I miss him. You know what, he was so busy at TV. He was very busy.

I mean, we were standing right in front of him, we called him, he didn't answer. Couldn't answer the phone. Yeah. I don't even know who the fuck he was talking.

Not even when Matt Booth called, he didn't answer the phone. " I'm not taking his call either. Because before, he wasn't a client. He wasn't a client.

Now he's in. " He's not chasing around taking photos anymore. Yeah, exactly. No more pictures.

Nothing. Nothing. Okay. You guys are spot on.

Radley Ruben the same thing. " Oh, yeah. Now he's not taking the calls anymore either. It's done.

It's done. We'll just move the show. That's how we find out who they're going to buy next. Whoever's phone call he takes.

Right. " Yeah, how you doing? I'm going to take pictures with you. That'd be nice.

We'll take 20 minutes with Justin and see who he's all about, and then we'll know who's on the radar. That's it. Perfect. All right, brother.

All right, well, so let's got to get back to work. He's got another meeting. He's got another meeting. I actually, I swear to God, I do have a meeting yesterday.

Well, enjoy it. Oh, in one minute. Keep him on the phone for 10 minutes. Let me tell y'all this really exciting title of this meeting that I'm a part of now.

It is a Process Analysis for Opportunities and Lead Time Optimization. So... What does that mean? I love that.

That sounds... That could just be anything. Can you send me the link? I'd like to get in on this.

Somebody's got a good job. I've said too much already. So, I gotta go. All right, brother.

Take it easy. Thanks for coming on. See you soon. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Oh, it's Justin Andrews. Justin Andrews in a moment of weakness right there.

Answer the call. optimization and opportunities. Lead analysis. What does that even mean?

I don't know. It sounds good. Somebody graduated college. Somebody was using their dictionary.

Made it into the cigar industry. Wow. Here's what we're going to do. I need five extensive words.

That's going to do something. Five new buzzwords for the industry. So do you have a thing, though? Because we're past your 16 minutes of Phil's Insight.

Oh, yeah, 16 minutes. Yeah. Oh. You don't have one, do you?

You don't have one, do you? Oh. You don't. Phil's Facts, the 26 after, we'll move to 26.

Can we move it to 16? You just cut me in, cut me out. No, I'm going to roll you 26 minutes. Anything with a 6 in, it'll work.

Oh, he's Googling, he's Googling. No, I have the page. He doesn't have one. Oh, you have your own page?

com. I wish I did. That should be good. That should be a thing.

That should be good. All right, you ready? Well, if you're going to do it, you've got to turn your camera on. Yeah.

So you've got to get your mask back on. I paid a lot of money for that light up mask on clearance. I can't really see in this thing. That's fine.

I cut eye holes. It didn't have eye holes. You're still not on your camera. There you go.

Hello peoples. Hello my peoples. All right. Sorry, I'm going to have to put this up here because there's a lot of fur around the eyes.

You'd think you'd have it printed out by now, but that's okay. Oh. All right. So this one is not as fun as the other ones.

Okay. Okay. All right. The word cigar is the English translation of the word.

Don't look at us. Look at the camera. No, no, no. I want to see if you guys can get this.

Don't look out the window. Is translation of the word what? Either one? Anybody know?

No. Please go ahead. Cigaro. Oh, that's so deep.

Oh, that's Spanish. What a disappointment. Why can't you guys get that? Listen, I got to get back to my process analysis for opportunities and lead time optimization fucking meetings.

So you better hurry this up. You better hurry up. We have meetings. I control the cameras.

I control, I feel like, I'm looking at my camera, and I didn't look at my camera before, it looks like I might be, my head might be getting cut off, so. No, no, you're good. Okay. When it's on Palmer, your cigar is in his face.

Oh, perfect. Oh, that's nice. Good. Oh, good.

All right, we ready? Let's move on. Yeah, let's hit some news real quick, so we can wrap this up, because this is already going to be a long one. I mean, we have some big, big, long stories.

The good stuff, the good stuff. Good stuff. Or just go to the Florida stories. We have two Florida stories.

Just give me the cliff notes of the other ones. All right. That way we're still up to date with news. From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need.

The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report with Mike Toon. The FDA head says agency plans to announce flavored cigar menthol cigarette bans in fall of 2023. Oh. So the FDA is going to recommend that they ban flavored cigars, menthol and cigarettes.

It's like deja vu. Really? Yes. S.

Food and Drug Administration is aiming to finalize proposed rules that would ban or limit the sales of flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes by this fall. The information was shared by Brian King, the Director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco 2023 Forum. form king told those in attendance that the agency is working through roughly 250 000 comments that were submitted regarding the two proposed rules technically fda is considered the flavored cigar rules separate from the menthol cigarettes though the agency has to date kept the same public tie lines for the similar rules interesting let's see how that i see how that plays out mary schmack Joining PCA Executive Committee. Schmack.

Schmack. S-Z-A-R-M-A-C-H. Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. No, Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. Schmack. Oh, interesting.

There's an M after the Z. Schmack. Schmack. Schmack.

Schmack. Schmack. Put your mask on. Smoker Friendly's Mary, whatever her name is, will join the Premium Cigar Association PCA Executive Committee later this year.

What, two years ago they had just two guys and now they are just adding on the employees. Well, they had more before. They did, and then they cut down to two, now they're building the team back up. As part of this process, each board member will move up a position, meaning the PCA's new Executive Committee will be: Scott Regina from Emerson, Todd Zahif from ZT Cigars, Paul Groh, from Metro Cigars, Mary, from Smoker Friendly, and Greg Zimmerman, the Tobacco Company.

Oh, Zimmerman. This means that John Anderson of W. Curtis Draper will rotate off the board. Anderson is currently the ex-officio.

I thought Jay Davis was on that board, too. Not anymore. Mike Condor of Crown Heads is the final member of the six-person executive committee. He serves as the association liaison, a role created last year that allows one cigar company official to serve on the executive committee.

These are all retailers. The Executive Board is made up of all retailers. Well, I think that's good. What do you think?

You think that's good? I guess I don't know what they're doing. What are the rules for the PCA to help do? I mean, I know what the PCA does, but I don't know that this committee opposed to, do they have a committee of all cigar people?

These are all retailers. No. I didn't know they had all these different boards and directors. And is this a paying gig?

I don't know. It doesn't say it is or not. That's interesting. Plasencia suffers a fire at the facility in Nicaragua.

Oh, my. On Saturday night, Plasencia suffers a fire at one of his facilities in Oktal, Nicaragua, which, according to a report by La Radio, a Nicaraguan radio station, claimed a structure that contained boxes of cigars before local firefighters were able to put out the battling for two hours. From a company's perspective, this was a minor event, and yesterday we continued with production. Hank Bichoff of Placentia told Cigar Hustle Podcast told Half Wheel because the news is brought to you by Half Wheel where you go for all your information for news.

Is he paying yet? No, he's not paying. Did he answer? He's kind of been dodging me about paying.

Obviously we preferred this not to occur but primarily we're happy that no one was hurt. We would rather there was no fire but if it was going to be a fire at least nobody was hurt. He had a Placentia has a long standing policy and practice of having production facilities These are both Nicaragua and Honduras, and within those countries, each multiple facility and individual structures are to prevent events such as fires from spreading and causing greater damage, so I don't really space the buildings out. That's smart.

That would make sense. All right, now we have some Florida news. Excellent. Very good Florida.

This was submitted by Mark Rozanski. This is who submitted it last week. I'm very sorry, Mark. I forgot.

I even forgot that you sent it. Romotron. Yes. Yes, Romotron.

Legless Amphibians. He's also going to be a listener of the week. Legless amphibians, more commonly known as rubber eels, and more memorable penis snakes, have been discovered in South Florida. More of them?

Yes, the way they've discovered penis snakes in Florida. Penis snakes are now here. Penis snakes are now here. Okay.

These slippery little creatures were first found in Tamianni Canal, not far... Tamianni. Tamianni, that's what he said. No, not Tamianni.

Tamianni. Did you say the same word twice? Tamianni. What did I say?

Tamniani. Okay, whatever. Discovered in South Florida. You know I'm right, so we're just moving on.

I don't know how I said it, so we'll just see. Well, we have it on video. Not far from the Miami International Airport, so they must have flew in. The DNA test by the Florida Museum of Natural History has confirmed that they are in fact penis snakes from Colombia and Venezuela, technically making them an invasive species.

They can vary quite a bit in length, as penises can. Yeah. From just a couple of inches all the way up to five feet. Genetics are everything.

That's a big penis. The specimen captured in the C4 Canal was two feet. They also tend to thrive in shallow, warm bodies of water. Right.

Okay. Bodies of water with aquatic vegetation in certain areas of the canal do fit those criteria. There's still a lot about the penis thing scientists have yet to learn. They don't know a lot about the penis.

We've got to learn a lot about the penis. Oh, about the penises. Very little is known about these animals in the wild. wild there's nothing particularly dangerous about them and they don't appear to be serious predators wrote coleman sheehy from the florida museum of herpetology yeah collections and a special report on the animals they'll probably eat small animals and get eaten by larger animals which makes sense yeah they eat small ones and bigger ones eat them yeah this man's obviously overpaid uh this could just be another non-native species in the south florida mix this point we really don't know enough whether to say they are bad or good but they're here that's why we want to find out i don't think One day find a penis snake in Florida, so this was a huge surprise.

It's not a real snake. Yes, it is. Well, it looks like a lizard-ish, but it has very tiny feet, so they call this... Why did you just Google penis snake?

It says a worm. Two feet to five... Why would it be called a penis snake? You can't get five feet long.

It's a hell of a snake. Right. Oh, when I took down the bar yesterday, behind the old bar top from the original bar... Yeah.

There was a four-foot garter snake. Trouser snake? Garter snake. A gardener snake.

It was a BDP snake. It was a BDP snake. It was a BDP snake. It's a very big BDP snake.

Garden snake. Yes. Not a gardener snake. No gardener snake.

It doesn't like do the whole gardening thing. It's not a gardener. Just leave me alone. It's just a garden snake.

Alright, Volusia County, Florida. Daytona Beach man was bitten by a nine-foot alligator. Oh, I thought it was a snake. No, it was a penis snake.

A penis alligator. Said the attack happened after he heard a noise at the front door. He opened it only to find an unexpected visitor. Oh my.

I've seen this. Bing bong. Yeah. Scott Hollingsworth said he was watching TV with his wife in the home on Champions Drive when he heard a bump at the door.

Oh. I jumped up, I headed to open the door, stepped out while trying to reach the lights and barely got out the door and it got my leg clamped on. Started shaking violently, he said. Hollingsworth said in the dark outside, so he thought at first he had been bitten by a dog.

It happened so quickly, it wasn't a whole lot of time. It just totally surprised and shocked, he said. That's why you always answer the door with a gun in your hand. Or look at the ring camera.

We saw alligators behind our house. Let's not make sense, okay? It's a regular thing, but they always keep their distance from us. On the word said he was bitten in the upper thigh and taken to a hospital and non-life-threatening injuries.

I suspect I surprised the alligator as much he surprised me. Well, he knocked on the door, for goodness sake. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, he's obviously trained.

He's figured out that this is a good way to eat. Right. A trapper called by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission found the gator and euthanized it. Oh, he killed it.

As he should have. Oh, because he bit somebody. He bit somebody and he's over a certain size. Tasted the blood.

There's a six-foot gator in my neighborhood now. Don't answer the door. Yeah, don't answer the door. I tell my wife, don't answer the door.

Don't answer the door. Let's see, according to the FWC, nuisance alligators are euthanized and not relocated because there is a stable and healthy population in Florida. Relocated alligators often try to return to the captured site. He's just been at the door again, and ended up fighting with other alligators in their new habit.

FWC officials say, despite being bitten, Hollingsworth said he wished the alligator could have been spared. Oh my God. What a nice man. After he got bit?

Yeah, after he got bit. Oh, no kidding. Fuck that guy. I'm gonna fucking kill that fucking...

I worked on a farm growing up and haven't been out in the wildlife my whole life, you know. I love seeing the animals, but not that close. He lives in Champion's Gate. A little too close to me, he said.

Hollingsworth is expected to make a full recovery. Where's Champion's Gate? It's the golf community in, like, Orlando, Kissimmee. Well, it was Daytona.

Oh. Well, that's a different one. It's a different championship. It's gotta be the golf.

I've heard a kid. You know, he didn't check his ring camera. He must live in a really nice neighborhood. He probably does.

Yeah. Oh, I wonder who's there. I hope it's the Girl Scouts. Who could be at the door?

It's dark out. Open the door, Gator grabs your thigh. Been waiting for those Thin Mints. Oh, honey, they're here with the Thin Mints.

The alligator was making fucking poop bags on other people's doors. Lighting on fire. He got startled. I'll bite you.

Oh, shit. I was trying to light this. Hey, listener of the week, Michael? Oh, yeah.

Romatron. Listener of the week, Mark Rozanski, AKA Romatron. Ba-bam. You have a shot of the week?

Oh, I accidentally pocket dialed Brett Frye yesterday. Did you? Yes. Oh, I said that one.

I did. I accidentally was out working there. " And I called. He was getting on a plane going to Honduras.

Oh, I'm going to make the shop of the week. Yes. Secreto cigars. Have I done that recently?

No. No, we haven't ever done that. Secreto cigars, shop of the week. Ronnie, how is it?

If you could call Michael and tell him what he's doing wrong this week, we would greatly. And now every time he takes it somewhere, we always go, you know, we got here before fast. Yeah, that's what he said. They say it to me every time.

Every time. Every time. You know, last time I got here a lot faster. Last time we got here a lot faster.

I don't know which way you're going. all right anything else anybody i think that's it you want to plug anything you got anything coming up any personal appearances or anything yeah great smoke oh there you go the great smoke and our winner did get his prize so tim is all set with his prize excellent do you know tim's last name no off the top of my head no mick yeah something with a mc colin is it colin tim Tim. Oh, he's doing it virtually. Yes, he's doing it virtually.

Yeah, he doesn't live in Florida. Okay. He's Canadian or something. Yeah, so I checked with him when we got back from the TPA to make sure he had received his prize, and he had.

Excellent. He'd gotten his code. Congratulations, Tim. Congratulations.

Thank you for participating in our contest. Yep. Could have been Mark Gordon, but it wasn't. Yeah, he asked if Tim had checked today.

Oh. He asked if Tim, did the guy ever check? I go, yeah, yeah, he got it. Sorry.

Sorry, Mark. What was the other contest he said he won second? Oh, the Room 101 ring? He was second runner-up on that, too.

He got something, but he got something nice from Matt Booth with the OnlyFans thing. Oh, yeah, he did. He did. So stop cracking, Mark Gordon.

Yeah, you can't win all of them. You can't win everything. Like, Boots wins all of them. Oh, Boots did win.

Oh, he didn't win at the charity function, though. He didn't. He did win at the Espinosa thing. Well, yeah, he did.

Oh, yeah, Tia got the Crayola experience. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, she was outbid once, and she upped her bid, and then she got the second one. She's like, no, this is, I'm winning.

I'm winning. Well, that was her last bid, she said after this? I got the security guard thing. No one was taking it away from me.

What security guard thing? I got that thing, well, it's a day with the, well, he's retired, he left. Oh, oh, you got that. Oh, yeah, I got that.

Oh, that's nice. Oh, yeah, I got that. You don't want to have pizza with the father? The Last Supper with Father Charlie?

Yeah, Father Charlie. Pizza party. That was expensive. That was expensive.

$2,500. Yeah, that's a lot of money. It was. That's expensive Little Caesars.

It better be really good pizza. I mean, if it's blessed. It is blessed. It has to be kosher.

It has to be kosher. It has to be kosher. Interesting. Why does it have to be kosher?

It's a Jewish thing. It's a Jewish thing. Kosher's Jewish. It's okay.

Oh, it's a Catholic school. Look, they all go to the same school, they do the same thing. Is the school on the same grounds there? Yeah.

Oh. Yeah, it's all, yeah. It was a huge place, but I couldn't. It's a decent size.

Oh, and your kid's going to be the principal for the day. Yeah. Two principals. That's a big deal.

Two principals for the day. Yeah, that's a big deal. I was explaining that to Justice. What's that about?

Oh. Oh, really? Yeah, buddy. Yeah.

But that wasn't me. That was Eric. Which kid is going to be the principal? Justice.

Okay. See, Eric is Justice. I'm going to tell him that he's the head coach. I'm not the head coach.

He's the head coach. Oh, we're backing this up. Yeah, 100%. 100%.

Oh, by the way, you do coach another sport now, too. That's what he's doing right now, he's backing it up. Yeah, that only happened like one day. Oh.

Erik made it sound like it was an ongoing thing. He did, but he's backing it up right now. Well, because the reality is that if he says, "Hey, we're coaching this," I'll roll with him. " Oh.

It was another sport, though, wasn't it? Basketball. Oh, yeah, the one you told us you would never coach. Correct.

Oh, okay. Just clarifying. So he's going to own the gym. I just want you to know.

You didn't put your name on the gym there. Yeah, the Stepon Gavage Memorial Gym. I just wanted to know that I've worked on a plan B for that, I've approached the personal trainer that we use for Jacks, who specializes in basketball. Oh, it's the Michael Jordan guy.

Correct. Yes, Michael Jordan. Yes. Yeah, and I said, "Hey, listen, what do you think about coaching?

" Dude, that'd be epic. That's some real shit right there. Yeah. I wonder what his price is gonna be.

You gotta pay him? I would pay him. Michael Jordan price. You gotta pay him for his time.

He's coaching, it's a volunteer thing for the help of the children. I mean, if he wants to do it voluntarily, sure. " But it's not like he has kids on the team. Right.

I see what you're saying. If he had a kid on the team, then that's a different thing. But if he did it right, he could parlay it into more... A hundred percent.

Yes. But I'm going to tell you right now... Training more children. That guy could tell any...

" He didn't train Michael Jordan. I thought it was the trainer. He worked with Tim Grover who trained, he, Attack Athletics. I thought it was Tim Grover.

No. I thought that's who you said last time. No, it's not Tim Grover. Oh, okay.

It's a guy who knows, it's a guy who knows Tim Grover. Yeah, I pulled up in my Lamborghini today to sell cigars. What are you fucking, come on, man. No, I'm sorry.

What? I ain't got it like that, bud. I mean, that's what I thought, I was like, man, that's pretty dope. Of the three of us, Boots is the closest person that has it like that, just for the record, so.

Boots wishes. Phil says Boots wishes. Yeah, I heard that, but Boots is drugs as otherwise. Alright, that's it then, right?

This is episode 271. Stay tuned for the Jack and Hector exclusive. Thank you very much. Hey, welcome.

Which camera's on? Oh, this one. Cigar Hustler Podcast Special Edition. We are sitting here today with Jack Taranio and Hector Alfonso from Espinosa Cigars.

Yes. Yes. And we, he didn't say anything that what we could or could not say about, you know, this podcast. Well, we were ushered into this room really quickly.

I like that for that particular reason. I like that. Yeah, exactly. Keep going.

We don't like to have any, uh, you know. You do. We run a disclaimer, it's fine. You know, is there a disclaimer?

We always run a disclaimer. There's no disclaimer. There's no disclaimer. Okay, good, good.

Hector? You did read us the riot act on what we couldn't talk about, but I'm not reading you. What can I not talk about? You don't want to know, Mike.

You don't want to know, Mike. You don't want to know, Mike. It's for your own protection. Oh, okay.

It's for your own protection. Oh, we can talk about that. I don't care. It's out now.

Okay. Which was my point. We started a side business from in here called M&M Management. The banner's over there on the wall.

Oh, yeah, that's not what we were talking about. No, no, no, no, it leads to that. We tried to manage OnlyFans accounts. Okay.

So I'd never been on OnlyFans, so I had to do one to figure out how they work so I could do one for others. So I talked to my wife and let me take a picture of her feet. How disappointed are you right now? We started an OnlyFans account.

How disappointed are you that we couldn't, would you have been offended if we heckled you about that? No, no, not now, I mean in the beginning probably. No, not in the beginning. What are you getting?

Yeah. I was told at the TPE. First of all, sir, I'm going to need you to speak into the microphone. Into the microphone.

I was told. Thank you. No, no, you could have. Is this your first time on the show?

It didn't work out, because it's too hard to do. I got excited. That's what she said. You can't run somebody else's OnlyFans, because you have to work it.

Like, you have to sit there at night and work the crowd. Listen, the first time I told you not to say anything, that was when it was fresh, right? When you had brought it up again at TPE, it was just a question of were you going to be loyal to me or not? I mean, or were you going to keep pressing?

I don't like where any of this is going. I don't either. Speaking to the microphone. Speaking to the microphone.

No, I don't want nobody to hear that. You want me to carry that for you? I don't like where any of this is going. So we had four people we were doing them for, and we had to stop doing it because it wasn't working.

Well, I'll tell you, when I ran across it, it stopped the pressing. Well, let me ask you a question, because I do have a question based on what you just said. Okay, all right. You created, and it came to our attention, you convinced your wife to do this.

Right. Just her feet, and it wasn't her name. Okay, okay. I get it.

Okay. I get it. " Right. " Right, we're trying to work it.

Trying to work the angle. Couldn't she have gotten in big fucking trouble for that? No, it's her feet. Her name was never on it.

Her feet with a tattoo that is easy to identify. Well, we would assume that people on the OnlyFans, if they're on there, they're in as much trouble as she would have been if she was on there. Remember when we saw the picture? " And then he sent me the side by side.

It's Palmer's wife. I said, "Hell, I like her. " And now I like her feet. One of the things I was trying is the only fans thing on Facebook.

What part of your body were you going to put on? I didn't do one. I didn't do one. He went to look at me.

Oh, tell him. How about the guns? He went to look at me. Were the guns on there?

Were there a gun show on there? No, he wasn't. I was insulated away from him. I would think there were so many different things you could have tested instead of his wife's feet.

I said, look, I want no part of any of this. He was in for the idea, but after that, he was like, I don't want to do it. No meetings. It sounds good.

You guys do whatever the fuck you want. And that's it, I don't want any part of any of this. So is M&M management folded? Yes.

But the sign covers up the circuit breaker box on the wall, so we left that up. Yeah. I mean, it's still out there. You feel better now?

I do. You feel better, you got it out? Well, you know, listen, you thought we would offend Mr. Palmer here, and clearly we didn't.

Well, in the beginning, when we were still doing it, I didn't want people to know, because it was my wife, obviously, but since it's the funk now, I don't care. And you're not the first person who's asked. Somebody else asked too recently, I forget who it was. Probably Pete Hernandez.

No, no. Everything leads back to Pete. Well, he got a free pass. Oh, you leave Pete alone.

Pete is the best sales rep in the nation. He's no Tyler Jones. We're on the way here, Tyler Jones said to say hi to you guys. Oh, I love Tyler.

I love Tyler. I love Tyler. Let's call Tyler. I love Tyler.

I love Tyler. Tyler is amazing. He's amazing. We sent him another order.

He is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We submitted another order to Tyler. All right.

So, hey, let's get into some details here. So what's going on with you? Big smoke tomorrow, big guy. The big smoke.

The big smoke. Yeah, the big smoke. How was TPE? TPE was day one and two were fantastic.

Yeah. Well, wait a minute. Anything happen? I'm sorry.

Day one and three were fantastic. Day one and three were fantastic. Day two, not so much. Day two, the day was good.

The night got a little bit interesting. Yeah. You know, the night got a little bit interesting. Well, what happened, Jack?

I mean, I thought you'd be asking questions. I am. what happened this is what we call it palmer you're a better you're a better investigator tell us what happened jack that's you got the same question i'm trying to get your opinion on i mean i can lead you into it if you know look here's we're gonna get you would order some charcuterie from rooms so so you guys were there you guys were there hey turn up that filter shit is sideways over here i'm fucking melting okay so listen so since we have parted you all All of us parted ways in Las Vegas, so we said goodbye, I escorted you onto your plane, abandoned you, and went to the Centurion Lounge. Yeah, with Pete Hernandez.

Pete was there? Pete was on our plane. Why was he on your plane? Because he lives up here now.

He lives in Tampa. He lives in Tampa. That's right, that's right, what's going on over there? Why is he picking up the chair?

We all know how strong you are, relax. It was rolling up the mat. Oh. Since we've had, I mean, I'm sure you guys saw a picture today on social media.

No. No? Somebody sent it to me. There you go.

Okay, so I fielded a ton of questions. Hector's about to leave the room. I do have a ton of questions. Hector's about to leave the room.

I do have a ton of questions. Let me see the photo. I do have a ton of questions. It's a...

It's a... Fuck. I'll show you. I'm sure he's gotten 75,000.

Oh, he's probably got it right here. Well, I got it at three in the morning. I got it from... It's a background on his phone.

Oh, yeah, fuck. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Which isn't a surprise to me. But anyways, go ahead. Why is that? Why is that?

I want you to speak first before I go ahead and... Well, you just made a comment. I was about to start speaking, but now you... Okay, Erik is a super nice guy.

Well, no, no. Not even that. Like, you... From what...

The way that you were telling me how the situation may or may not unfold, I didn't see... It didn't... I wasn't feeling that that was going to be the way whatsoever. Right?

Well, I don't know which way you think it unfolded. Okay. So then I think that's why you need to kind of elaborate. So it unfolded, it unfolded similar to what you might be thinking.

All right. That Eric went there to kind of negotiate a truce. Right. Should have said Hector, but Hector, Eric went to negotiate a truce and came back with a picture.

Are they shaking hands in the photo? But the question was that we had gotten word that this kid was mortified, he wanted to apologize, he made a huge mistake, off of emotion. And listen, if everybody, if everybody held me accountable for what I did in my, I don't know how old this kid is, but it's probably 20s, late 20s, 30s, I don't know, if everybody would have held me accountable for what I did back then, I'd be in trouble. I didn't want to ruin, this is why I didn't press charges, I didn't want to ruin this kid's life, basically, or you know, whatever it was, whatever would have happened, I didn't want to do it.

But five days later, I had expected an apology from both of them, a sincere apology, and it hadn't come. So my thing was, I still got time to press charges. You know, if nobody's remorseful and everybody thinks they're just gonna walk away from this, then there's news coming. Eric wanted to handle it, and we had heard that the kid wanted to apologize and had been asking for my phone number, But nobody knew how receptive I would be to that apology.

So then, there's that meeting. They meet on, I don't know what day it was, Wednesday. Day before yesterday. Day before yesterday.

The microphone. Right here. It's a shotgun microphone. We can hear, you gotta talk already.

If you don't hear your voice in your ears, that means that it's not working. You know I'm a smart guy, I might not want to be heard on this podcast. I know, but I need you to be heard. Heard a number one podcast.

Okay, I hear that. I've got that link. Look, we have to paint a little, a little bit of a picture. Yeah, you gotta get a little background.

Okay, so a little bit of a background, everybody knows the issues that have been going on with these two companies. Sure, there's been circulating issues. On one side of this is a lot of very close friends of mine, including a family member. Right.

Miguel Chaudel, and you know, Brian McGee, Wes, a lot of people I care dearly about. Right. If you're right or wrong, I sided with them. Didn't want, not that I sided with them, because I never went public, never said anything publicly.

But they're your friends. They're my friends. Yeah. I-- You side with your friends.

You side with your friends. Period. You don't have to say anything more than that. Okay.

So-- Now, if you feel like they were wrong behind closed doors, you say, hey, I think you fucked up and here's why. Oh, yeah. If when this is over and done, if it's ever over and done, I will go back to them and go, what the fuck? Yeah, what'd you get me into here?

You guys, you know, it turns out you guys were full of shit, but-- Yeah, that's probably not likely, but okay. So, on set up day, and my only thing was, I'm not shaking anybody's hand, you know I'm certainly not, if somebody has done something to one of my friends, I'm certainly not shaking their hand, so on set up day, they came by the booth, and I never made, their national sales director came to say hi to me, I'm good friends with him, but the main man there, I don't know if we've even dropped his name, don't need to, the main man there, Got a clear message there that I wanted. Nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with him.

Right. For the time being. Right. Yeah, whatever.

Whatever. Look, I'm gonna tell you right now, I have shaken a hand of a person that has wronged somebody that I love and care about, and I have fucking regretted it to this day. So, I understand why you're like, eh, you know, maybe you could have gone about it differently, who the fuck knows, I mean, I'm not here to critique a quarterback. When you hear the story, because unfortunately you guys weren't there.

Right, and I'm not going to quarterback on Monday. Yeah, yeah. I'm just not going to do that. So we get to what is an Espinosa event from 7 to 9 at a bar at a cigar lounge in Las Vegas.

And he had finished or was supposed to have a meet and greet from 4 to 6 in the back room that I guess bled over to near 7 o'clock. And once again, I never went to the back room, I never made eye contact with him, I never did anything. You avoided them. I avoided them.

Right. I avoided any of that. " Right. " It's an Espinosa event.

It's an Espinosa event. Right. I'm here to fuck with. Right.

Oh. And he ran with that. Mm. And I would, and as I explained to him later, I would understand that if I had then gone.

Right. And, but I didn't. yeah yeah yeah i you know i mean if anybody knows who you are yeah if anybody knows the type of individual that you are that you're you know you're extremely jovial so anyway you're a bit of a prankster to some degree but you know at the end of the day when it comes to taking off your pants you're gonna stop at that line like you're not we're not getting naked you know what i mean all right i know what you mean yeah you ain't may threaten it but you ain't pulling it Correct. Right?

Correct. Right, Hector? Yeah, yeah. Just like this.

I thought this spot brought to you by M&M Management. So anyways, so the funny thing is, Salesman of the Year, Tyler Jones, had been standing next to me, and Richie is doing the selling. Richie's at the table doing the selling across the room. Right.

And I look at Tyler, and I said, "Tyler, you really have nothing to do here. Go get a drink! And you know that sentence hadn't even been completed when Tyler was off to go get his drink. Yeah, he was gone.

Thank God that he was gone, because it might have escalated to something else if there was posse for posse type of thing. Now I didn't even know that he was, I should have expected it, but I didn't know that he had his posse behind him. But as he's walking out, he stands in my face and now sticks his hand out. Right.

" Right. " Right. And then it became, everybody's lying, everybody's this. I don't care.

I don't care. But it continued. Everybody's lying, everybody's lying, everybody's lying, everybody's lying. Again, I don't care.

I know that he was punctuating it at one point, like this, that looked like he was gonna, and I said, "Don't touch me", and he said, "I'm not gonna touch you, but this is this, this is this". Like this, "I'm not touching you". Right, "I'm not touching you". "I'm not touching you".

"I'm not touching you". So the next thing I know, he calls me an asshole. Yeah. And I respond with, "You're a pussy".

Right. And then, out of nowhere, and thank God this kid can't hit. Right. You're very, you're very, you're very tall.

Yeah, there's a, thank God for many, many, bad aim, bad aim, bad aim, whatever, a sucker punch is thrown that grazes off my head, and then he's tackled, and the whole melee bullshit that never took place ensues with everybody grabbing and everybody pushing, and off they go one way, and I go in the other way, and I'm, the owner and the manager want me to press charges, and I'm like, dude, I don't come from that world, I'm not, I'm not pressing charges. Back in my 20s and 30s, I would have been handled way differently, and it would have involved law enforcement coming after us for the way it would have been handled. Right. He's retired.

I'm retired. He would have showed up with a bag of money to bail them all out. Back then, he wasn't though. Maybe when I was in my 20s and 30s, he was.

I was 15. You're five years younger than me. In the 20s, I was 15. 20s and 30s.

Okay. 15 to 20s. He had to go after you a little bit there. And so, you know, we left.

Apparently, the guy was supposed to be, not supposed to be. He was suspended from the show floor. But he was there. There he was.

And then I was told that he expected me to be suspended for some reason. So you think with every single time that you have heard or allegedly heard something was going to be done and it hasn't been done, You thought that they would honestly call you and apologize? I did, I did. Because before all hell broke...

You're a fucking sucker, bro. Yeah, before... Listen, I tend to see the good in people. Okay.

And when the dust settles, I tend to see the good in people. I did not instigate this. I did not initiate the first insult. I did not.

And I certainly didn't hit anybody. And I could have hit this kid because they had him around the neck. Right. I took the higher road.

Yeah, you know. so i i thought there would be there would be some sort of apology right some sort of but nothing five days later there was nothing yeah so that's where eric came in right and they told me to make a piece bro can't do the hand thing like bro i'm gonna sit down so yeah so we're gonna make a piece so we uh you know when eric came back and we talked in the office and i found out about the The picture, I wasn't too happy about it. It hadn't come out yet. No, because you know what, like that kind of seems like the MO is like he will take something and kind of make it a little bit more, right?

Yeah, yeah. So either way, in that meeting, I said, listen, I'm gonna call him. And he said, you're gonna make it worse. I said, I'm not gonna make it worse.

I'm gonna put an end to it tonight. Okay. I'm gonna call him. And I called him.

And you challenged him to a dance-off? No, I called him and I called him and like for 30 minutes, we spoke on my way home. He was in the car too. And I think 25 of those minutes, he was kind of telling me about his issues with this other cigar company, to which I was like, I don't care.

Right. Well, he's always defending his position. Yeah, and I got all this documentation, and I got all this, okay. He's always defending his position.

And I said, listen, I'm gonna go one step further. If you have everything you say you have, and if you, there's nothing worse in this world than being falsely accused, I wish you the best. Right. Clear your name.

Right. By all means, I wish you the best. I'm rooting for you. But if it looks like a duck.

you know listen i i'm not even gonna pass judgment on that but it is what it is but he said when he wasn't defending his his um we needed him on the podcast the next find out what the other company who me yeah who is he in a fight with who else is he in a fight with what are you talking about he said he's got all this information about something somebody else did to him or something oh yeah you just follow the breadcrumbs i mean this is a rhyme look if you want to talk Are you guys the worst? I'm going to tell you right now, listen, if you want me to download you on the Patreon, I'll download you on the Patreon. But it's not that hard, this is quite apparent. So anyways, we had a decent conversation, to which it ended that he would be with this kid in about half an hour, could he call me, because the kid's dying to apologize, he's mortified of what happened, and I said absolutely, so about half an hour.

I thought you were talking to the head guy, I thought you were talking to the guy that took the swing at you. No, not yet. Oh, see, that's why I didn't understand, I thought the other guy was in with something. Okay, alright, I'm with you now.

I'm sorry, Jack, he doesn't really pay attention. I'm older, I'm old, I'm trying to catch up. Who's the main host and who's the guy? It's a great question.

We argue about that every week. So I spoke to the kid, listen, the kid seemed very sincere. Right. He was a little bit emotional and I told him, listen, I am not gonna press charges, you acted emotionally, I can't tell you at your age, I wouldn't have acted the same way, or I can't even tell you if Tyler Jones would have been there, he would have acted the same way, but I can tell you this, any one of my reps takes a shot at another principal like that, unprovoked, and a sucker punch, they're gone.

Any one of Eric Espinosa's employees, including me and Hector, would have done that. Yeah, Hector's coming, eh. Okay, well... We would have been gone.

All right, well, other side of that, just wanting to know, if any of my people took a shot at somebody, I would probably support them. My guy. Because I'm a... A sucker punch?

If one of your people... I'm not trying to sort out the details here, I'm just saying, that if some shit goes down... No, listen, no doubt about it. And I have no doubt about it, Erik Espinosa would have supported me, had I thrown a second punch, had I retaliated.

Okay, alright, let me paint a picture for you. I am not your friend, and I am coming to kick your ass, right? I'm pissed off at you for whatever reason. Already the story's completely different.

Right, okay, but whatever. So you can paint whatever picture, but it's a different scenario. Hector knows that I am coming, right? I approach and he hits me in the back of the head.

Should he be fucking fired? should he be fired i have no idea that's a completely different that's just somebody sucker punched me you said flat out that hey yeah but you were coming for him you were coming for him this guy before he got there was not i i wasn't yeah whatever the case may be well there's you're you're talking premeditation there's no premeditation there's no there's no zero premeditation so if there's premeditation now you go there for stone then a sucker punch is okay you have to when you're going to compare looking for the detail and i told it listen i told this kid i said i would have respected you more if when he called me an asshole and i called him a pussy You got in my face and said, you can't talk to my boss like that, you can't talk to whatever, you know, you can't talk to, I would have respected him more, because now we're face to face. No, but listen, by far the kid made a mistake, right, and there's no issue, and I said that to you before over the phone, like, you know, face to belly button, he made a mistake, right, it's good that he owned his mistake, because that's the only way you grow as a person, right? I'm just simply saying that as far as a camp is concerned or people are concerned, my fucking people are my people.

They're with me for a reason. If they're assholes and they're eradicate all the time, then that's totally different. I wouldn't have them on my team. But if they fucking clip somebody and they didn't see it coming, I'm still going to back them.

No, you can't, you can't throw that blanket in your mouth. " Okay, so now, now, here, here's the problem. Yeah, only one? There's many problems, but, but, that his decision could cost them business.

By keeping somebody, now, now you... A hundred percent. Now, what are your employees... I totally agree.

knock somebody out, and now people stop coming here. I totally agree. Because he's still working here. I totally agree.

What do you do? I don't know. Boots is gone. I don't know.

Oh, great. Yeah. This is his plan. I don't know.

It depends upon how much I really like the person, if I want to die on that hill or not. You know what I mean? All right. I mean, that's going to be a case-by-case scenario.

And that's what I'm trying to tell you. It's a case-by-case. Well, it's a lose-lose for the... This is that crazy case you painted that nobody...

It's a lose-lose for this guy, 100%, without question. Yeah. Because it definitely makes the company look bad, right? it makes the individual look bad even though he is sympathetic and you know or apologetic right it's like it's still i mean listen how old are you jack he even 62 okay so to swing on a 62 year old man that in itself right like i'm not excusing explain that to him i'm not excusing any of that shit whatsoever i'm just saying that you know maybe if one of my my boys sucker part somebody i'm not gonna be like it's inexcusable and blah blah blah blah i just don't understand how we got That's a lot to like, Erik reaching out and burying the fucking hatchet, I just don't like- Well, Erik didn't bury the hatchet.

Erik didn't, I did. Okay, you can blame me for that. Listen, that is what it is. I don't want to get into that anymore.

I mean, Erik- Well, you didn't need this coming up every time you're on Intel. The industry's not that big. And it won't, and it won't come out. As a matter of fact, the kid even said to me, I'll be at, you know, I'll be at the big smoke.

I almost said his name, he told me- Lewis told me that he was punished in other ways. I don't know how, okay, whatever, I don't really care anymore. Only can eat the cheese on the board. Only the cheese on the board.

Only the cheese on the board. But the one thing you can't have, listen, what's going on with them and the other company, and now what went on in Las Vegas, and I told him, is a black eye for this industry. Oh yeah. Enough already.

A black eye for the industry. I mean, I don't know if it's a black, it's a black eye for his company, without question. But it's definitely not good for the industry, to have, you know, principles of companies, I'd like to say fighting, but being attacked by Sailor Rips, you know, Hector's got a comment. Hector, you said Hector was gonna say a lot about this.

I did, I did, I'm surprised. I haven't been asked a single question. So Hector, how do you feel about all this? How do you feel about all this?

What is your opinion on the whole thing? Are you done with Jack? Am I done with Jack? Are you done with Jack?

It all depends on what you say. Listen, I wasn't there. And I think it's, in hindsight, it's good that I wasn't there. I have a different opinion of this.

My opinion doesn't matter because I wasn't there. I agree with what Jack's saying. This is, it's enough of this already. Right.

We're going on a week of this. This is a micro-community. Everybody knows each other. Everybody knows, not only does everybody know each other, And this opportunity for Jack to come on here to finally clear the air will probably ease him getting the text messages about getting a black eye and spending a night in the hospital.

We're only showing that side of Jack for a reason. I heard you had an IV, all these stories. Listen, it's over, it's done with. Event posters.

It was a great event poster. It wasn't. It was not. It really was.

You got, see, what's really kind of funny to me is, like, I'm all about, hey, like, it's over and fucking move on and shit. It's over now. But like, it wasn't over when you put that up. So we can't do that one either?

That's so, so ridiculous. Not that one either, huh? Oh, that's, oh yeah, that was coming up. That was going to be the name of the segment.

All right, we won't use that either. Listen, I'm, I can only, I can't, I can't speak for him, but I can, I can tell you that. At our camp, you know, Jack is going through this, and Eric, this was not a comfortable moment for him. I've been with him 11 years.

He doesn't handle this well, because you have... Who doesn't handle it well, Jack or Eric? No, Eric doesn't handle this well in the sense that you have... Well, he's a nice guy.

He really is. Yeah, at the end of the day, he's got a big heart. His heart is always in the right place, but you have to, you have to, he's juggling what he would do, as in compared to what you did, what you should have done, how could we avoid this? He has other concerns that he has to worry about.

Of course. And I think, if Jack is happy this is over, he is happy that it's over. And I'm sure once this podcast... Oh, Jack is hopeful that it's over.

Right, and I hope so, too. It's over if you decide it to be over. No, and I think Jack has decided it's over. " and I said absolutely we're good he was also at the wedding the company wants to be alright Boots open the door and let him in here he is right here on the show so listen I'm just glad we could have set that up I'm going to apologize in person you didn't have time he's on the phone I spoke to you on the phone even though you hung up on me angrily for no reason Wow, that hurt you, huh?

It did. It hurt him. Very sensitive. It did.

It wasn't yesterday, it was two days ago. Whatever. It was before Erik was going to the meeting. I just want to know, I can hold a fucking grudge, pal.

Okay? You were in the wrong room. Yeah. But like, I even said to you at that time, like, dude, fucking apology or no apology, who gives a fuck?

Just move the fuck on. Okay, you understand, but this is what you need to understand. I would like to. I'm trying.

I've been fielding text messages, phone calls. Yesterday, a guy from Seattle, I heard you had a black eye and I said, dude, you were with me in the booth on Friday. He goes, I don't know, maybe I missed it or something. I said, you think you would have missed if I had a black eye?

I've been knocked out. I've been in a hospital again. So it wasn't the picture. It was what you wrote.

Fresh out of the hospital. You know when they hashtag too soon? Too soon. If I would have been on your show three weeks from now, maybe it was time to laugh about it.

But it still wasn't time to laugh about it. I think that it's always time to laugh about these sort of things. Well, you know how we weren't allowed to talk about the foot fetish on day one? Yeah.

We thought it was plenty of time to laugh about it. You said it wasn't. Okay. And we honored your request.

And we honored your request. Until you got here. Well, that was seven months ago. Yeah.

So it was. That was a while ago. There's a statute of limitations on fetishes. There's a statute of limitations on fetishes.

Interesting. And listen, I was all in with them. I was going to DM them on the side. Yo, dog, what you got?

You know, we can still work something out, Hector, if you want. No, but I'm not OnlyFan and shit. 99 a month. 50.

You just got the tattoo refreshed yesterday. Nice. Tightened up. Uh-oh.

No, there's only one OnlyFans page I look at. No, I'm just kidding. Mike. No.

Close. He found yours, Michael. Damn. Cereal fetish.

Cereal fetish. Hey, Michael sitting in bowls of cereal is what it is. Eating an entire box of cereal. Just milk and Cheerios dripping all over.

Dripping all over, yeah. Listen, if it pays well, I'll do it. That's where it stands right now. Yeah.

Might be able to get a little more out of me on the Pantheon. The Pantheon? The Pantheon. The Pantheon.

I don't know. Are we in Greece? Okay. All right.

The Protrusion show, whatever the fuck that other show is. The Patreon. What if he comes up with a great smoke, goes to shake your hand, and swings on you again? Oh.

We'll be there. That would be bad. Oh, Hector will be there. Hector will shoot him.

Hector will shoot him. No, you know what, dude? Like, honestly, I don't think that whether he... Listen, I've had a couple of companies already call, and they've called me, and they've called Eric, and listen, we're kind of, we're not carrying their cigars anymore, we're not, and both of us have said, not based on that, not based on that, don't base that on us.

Plenty of other reasons. You know, whatever your other reasons are, but please don't make a decision like that because of what happened. No, but listen, look, man, attempting to hit you is a lose-lose for anybody. It really is.

For one, you're a super nice guy, right? Yeah, everybody likes you, except these two guys. You know what I mean? I never got that feeling.

Oh, Greg. Greg, don't like anybody. I've been here 40 minutes, so I haven't gotten that feeling. I haven't either.

He's my friend. All right. So wait a second. So you think that friends are just supposed to be fucking Fluffy Bunny all the time?

That's what me and my four or five friends are. Let me ask you a question. So have you not always been Fluffy? So you're surrounded by yes people all the time?

Not yes, but just I don't. But if you were fucking up, like you have told me several times when I have fucked up. You haven't hesitated. I don't know.

You sent me a Christmas card. I think they're about to swing up. Listen, let me ask you a question. What if you had been standing next to me?

What if you had been standing? Because, I mean, I see your small t-shirt buffed appearance. That's an extra medium, sir. You would have thought Tyler did underreact.

It would have been bad. It would have been bad. It would have been bad. Because I get that from you.

Because, I mean, in all honesty, at that point, we're knocking everybody the fuck out. And then later on, we're saying, I'm going, what the fuck happened? Like, I don't even know. You know what I mean?

I'm not going to, I'm not settling the situation. Somebody's eventually going to grab me and I'm going away in handcuffs. I am. Well, I appreciate that.

Yeah. But hopefully I get away fast enough and, you know, they'll be looking for me for the, you know, the next 48 hours. Siri, find Bill Bondsman anymore. Yeah, exactly.

That would have been it. My mug, but here's what would have happened. I would have taken my mug shot the next day, and I would have put it on a cigar, without fucking hesitation, because that's fucking funny, you know? Okay, but what if you would have been, if somebody would have hit you, that would have ended the fight, and nothing happened to you, and then there would have been pictures out there of you with head bandages and black eyes?

I would have laughed my fucking ass off. You would not have yourself full of shit, you're a hundred percent. You tell me those guns don't come with ego? Come on, man.

They do come with ego. That's why I told you I would have knocked everybody the fuck out if you were fucking hit. Where's the bobblehead you got for Christmas? It's in my house.

The one where you can see the pee-pee. Yeah, it's in my house. Oh, you found it? What's going on here?

You found it? Yeah. What's happened? Teddy asks me about it all the time.

She says, Daddy, why are you naked? All the time. Boots get us all bobbleheads for Christmas. I've got to get back a little.

And unfortunately, Mikey's, we didn't notice, you could see, he's wearing like a diaper. You could see my balls. No, no, he's wearing a towel. Oh, he's wearing a towel.

Because he goes to the gym. Oh, he's going to the gym. He's wearing a towel. And you could see, there's a little tiny...

You could see a sack? Yeah. Yeah, it's got a ball sack on it. Jesus Christ.

They didn't show that in the picture. Where do you order these? It was online. M&M Management.

The M&M OnlyFans. Yeah, the OnlyFans. Bobblehead. Steven has just too much time on his hands and too much money.

I mean, there are plastic dicks everywhere in circulation. That's him. And he says that it's on him, he's the only guy that buys stuff, he sent Greg a, like a big, he sent a package to Greg that you have to sign, and it said, enjoy your gay cruise, and it's two guys on this picture, it's gigantic, and you have to have the mailman hand it to you for you to sign. " So he turns back around, and boom.

Not that there's anything wrong with a gay cruise. No, no, it's just funny. He also sent a glitter bomb to Greg's house. That broke his vacuum.

And then Greg tried to get him for a vacuum. You owe me a vacuum. He would have gotten one from me had I been invited to the wedding. So, what other scenarios would you like to know how I would have handled these things?

Because I honestly would have let it the fuck go. I mean, at that point, I would have laughed about it. And if people sent me images and shit, it's just funny at that point. If people sent me images, the image was funny.

It wasn't for social media yet. If you send it to me, absolutely. He just showed me one that's really funny. That's different than posting it on social media.

If somebody asked me if I was okay, I would have sent me a picture of me laying down on the ground looking like I was dead. Absolutely. I just wouldn't have been upset about it. Like you were upset.

I don't want you to be upset. Palmer would have filled that. Yeah. Are you kidding me?

You keep comparing it to people sending pictures of each other back and forth. Yeah. You put it on social media. Okay.

Let me ask you something. If that had happened to me, you think- I would never do that. Wait a second. I would never do that.

I know you wouldn't do that. You think thing one and thing two wouldn't fucking put things up the next fucking day? Yeah, but those are your crosses to bear. I would have showed it to you.

I would have showed it to you guys. But I would have been upset. Not me. Because there has been times where you- No, no, not him.

He would have put it up. I would have asked. Because there's been times you go, no, no, you can't put that up. And I'm not saying this to you for, you know, any reason, other than that like, you know, I don't know, I just don't want you to be upset about it.

I defer to the foot fetish incident. I protect my people. I protect my people. Clearly I'm not one of your people.

If I was standing next to you, you would have seen how much of a person I was when I was one of your fucking people. Yeah, good thing we didn't go. Yeah, good thing I wasn't at the fucking event. I don't think...

I think you guys were still at the booth. You spent three days at our booth. We love you guys. Yeah, that was awesome.

Did you cover, as media, did you cover anybody else? How comfortable were our chairs? They're amazing. Best chairs in the whole place.

Yeah. We covered them when they came to your booth. Yeah. Yeah.

We're done here. We're just... What's so bad is like, I think the Wasabi Lancero was new at the DBE, as I said on a podcast. I wasn't 100% positive, but I was fucking there.

You sat next to it for three days. It was right by your head. I was like, I'm pretty sure that that was a new release. Very thorough.

Very thorough with the media coverage. What do you want to cover? There isn't nothing to cover at TPE. Well, there was this year.

Yeah, there was a little bit of excitement. Well, you know, it's just a $72 million sale. Let me ask you another question. If I'm standing next, you think somebody fucking sucker punches you?

I don't know. I don't know. I think I might reconsider it. Yeah, it would have been a reconsider.

" It seems like he moved kind of quick. I don't think he thought much about it. I don't think there was much thought put into it. I don't think he, like, surveyed the room.

" But you were alone. I was alone. Yeah. Yeah, I was alone.

I had a media guy next to me. Had you not been alone, Charlie? That would've made it worse. Scratch your eyes out.

" I'm kicking his ass and I'm stealing her. Oh, God. Oh, no. There's a reason why we're number one.

All right, take a Jack's date with me. Look, I've taken. I'm taking. There is a reason why we are number one.

I owe him money still, too. Obviously, it's all about Viking law here. Of course. Give me your winch.

I'm clubbing you. I'm clubbing you, and your woman is mine, so yeah, I don't know, this is how I feel. Well listen, you should be happy, you got the exclusive story right here. I am happy, you know what, I'm happy that you're letting it go and just kind of moving forward, because I was upset that, you know, you weren't at that last conversation that we had.

Well listen, there were a lot of factors in it, one of them being, we're a guest in somebody's cigar lounge, I mean, that's insane to pull that, that wasn't the place for me to be confronted. I mean, you want to state your case to me, I don't know why, I don't care, you know, other than those are my friends, I don't give a shit, that wasn't the place, at an Espinosa event, that wasn't the place to do it, and then throwing a punch in somebody's lounge, now this week, here we are again, we got them right now at Big Smoke, next week, I'm pretty sure they're with me again at UG Fest in Dallas. m if you call me and you're not on my and and the only people there are my family there's There's four people that can make a phone call to me at that time, so if the phone rings at that time, oh shit, it could be trouble. Right.

When I was at the TPE, I get up about 6, 6:15 in the morning, one of the times that I was in line at Starbucks, and I missed, because it goes to private, a text message from Eric, you know, get me a cappuccino, that type of stuff. I missed it because then I said, fuck it, I took it off of private. I can't figure out how to put it back on private, so at 3:00 in the morning, when Skipper Chuck over here is texting me. yeah who's wide awake who's wide awake at three in the morning getting their day's tonight right and and not only three in the morning because i responded to his his text at seven in the morning and he responded right away yeah so hey he's just getting started at three yeah so so uh my my this thing lights up my room at three in the morning my wife freaks out somebody in the and i had to tell her no no no i took it off right don't worry about it don't worry about it's uh it's a problem It's Numb Nuts up there in San Juan del Sur.

Hey, the monkeys wanna know what's going on. I just want you to know he's my Numb Nuts, so you better tread lightly, pal. He's all of our Numb Nuts, he's all part of our Numb Nuts. Fucker was invited to the wedding.

We're all members of the fan club. He was actually legitimately invited. Hector was at the wedding. We're all members of the fan club, so you're not defending anybody.

I know, I'm just fucking with Jack, Hector. I don't want no shit. Hey, listen, you only got about three minutes. I know.

Let's give Hector a little time. Yeah, Hector. I'm glad to be here. So tell us more about yourself.

Oh, look, Hector's here. Hi, Hector. How are you? So what happened with Heckle & Jekyll?

Let me ask you that. Well, Heckle & Jekyll was a strictly COVID function. " Because it's all inside baseball, until it's not. I got you, right?

Well, I feel like you guys kind of broke up, and you went rogue for the last one. No, that was just so cool. It was a brand thing I was just trying to do. But it's just, you can't...

Listen, like it or not, information flows through Hector's office. We have access to a lot of things that are happening, and one of us was going to say something stupid on that Heckle & Jekyll. And when he says one of us, it was going to be him. Possibly, because Jack can't disagree with that.

Listen, we know a lot of people, and a lot of people have a lot of confidence in us. " It's not how many people are watching, it's that one guy who's watching. Mike was the tipping point who knows everybody else, and we were just going to get jacked up. So anyway, COVID was over, but it served its purpose.

COVID is over? Yeah, it's the flu now. It is in Florida. It's the flu now.

We never had it. We never had it. I'm glad I was here because I got to smoke a cigar and listen for the 90th time. I appreciate you guys coming on.

I'm going to end it at that. And the good thing is, it's over. And I'm glad that it's over. I'm glad that it's over.

It's going to start up again tomorrow. He is kidding. So come back next week and tell us what has to do with the kind of shit. This is why you're a habitual line stepper.

I know, I know. Habitual. It's what I do. Yeah, don't do it.

It's what I do. Don't do it. Things spoken by Jack are not to be taken seriously. There's a disclaimer on our show, don't worry.

There you go. Yeah, but only protect you two idiots. No, no. And the guest.

Oh, and the guest? And the guest, and the guest. You obviously haven't made that far. What if the guest is the one who says it?

What if the guest is the one who says it? That's fine. Yeah, that's good. That's good.

It's in there. It's in the third mile. It's all in entertainment. We're all here to just have a good time.

Just relax. These little iron skillet ashtrays are cute. Thank you. They were sent to us from a fan.

Yeah. Because we say you can't fuck with our pots and pans. Yeah. So he sent us pants.

He sent us pants. And you can't fuck with them. Can't fuck with them. All right.

Well, I have to cut this. Thank you so much for coming on. If you want to do the Pateon, Pantreon, you know, placenta. I'm in.

We can do that. I just got to do a quick reading. We're going to drop names on that show. All right.

Ooh. Okay. All right. All right.

So let's, let's, let me do my meeting, and then, um, I don't know, we can always dumb it down. We can pull out, pull a mic if we have to. But let's just close this up. Well, we can take his.

He didn't hardly talk. Yeah. Anyway, let's, let's close this up. I don't want to say any on Pampion.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys.

A Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners, and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guest. Statements or show topics are not necessarily Whether the beliefs of Mike and Mike Productions or the podcast providers and opinions between talk show hosts may differ, it is not our intention to libel, incite, or hurt anyone's feelings, we invite you to write the show's host, Mike Szczevankewicz, with any feedback or suggestions that you have for their shows, these broadcasts are presented and made public as entertainment in the hope that they will be entertaining to the audience. We'll be right back.

Show Notes

We wrap up the week as usual..tease you with a little industry news..then the world exclusive Story from Jack Torano and Hector Alfonso!