Episode 115 Tiger Man....We call it Corona....Free Premium Package

Episode Summary

Recorded at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown in Florida, Episode 115 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast finds Mike and Mike socially distanced at opposite ends of a newly extended studio table, talking through what the pandemic is actually doing to the cigar business. The big news: seven Nicaraguan factories — including AGANORSA Leaf, Drew Estate, Joya de Nicaragua, Mombacho, Nicaraguan American Cigars, RoMa Craft Tobac and Tabacalera Aragón — confirmed shutdowns, on top of the Dominican Republic and Honduras where every factory was already closed. The hosts note that all Nicaraguan factories close anyway for Semana Santa (April 5–11), question whether workers are still being paid, and discuss Nicaragua's downplayed case counts, government rallies, and the suspension of Spirit, American and United flights to Managua.

From there they connect the dots to the trade show calendar: if factories can't roll samples and new product now, what happens to the PCA show in July? Both hosts predict it won't happen. The PCA's newly launched web page listing which member retailers are offering curbside, to-go, delivery or limited in-store service also gets covered, as does the postponement of RoMa Craft's Weasel Fest 2020 to September 5th — with Skip Martin himself reportedly down with the virus.

The middle of the show is pure quarantine life: day one of homeschooling with teacher wives and packets inches thick, ABC Mouse, school-district tech that isn't working, Pornhub's free premium giveaway, a coronavirus-themed top ten playlist, Homeland binges, skinny margaritas, toilet paper hoarding, and a spoiler-heavy review of Netflix's Tiger King. There's also a show update: 186 YouTube subscribers, 4,070 on Podbean, and a #2 ranking on Feedspot's top 15 cigar podcasts behind The Cigar Authority.

On the cigar side, the hosts talk about the store's new small-group "virtual herfs" — ten people, one-on-one time with a brand owner — recapping the RoMa Craft session with Danny and teasing an upcoming one with Steve Saka, plus a wish list that includes Pete Hernandez. They gripe about Powstanie being out of stock, note Fratello is still shipping, and mention smoking an AVO and an Aganorsa Leaf Bradley Kindness during the episode. Listener gongs go out to Ryan and to John, the show's graphics helper riding out the outbreak in New York.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Social distancing in the studio
   The hosts open from opposite ends of an extended table and pay respects to country singer Joe Diffie, who died of COVID-19 complications at 61.
2. 02
   Homeschooling chaos in Florida
   Both hosts, married to teachers, describe day one of at-home learning: thick packets, crashing district portals, ABC Mouse and kids who won't read instructions.
3. 03
   PCA launches a retailer status page
   The trade association's new web page lists which member shops are offering curbside, to-go, delivery or limited in-store service during the outbreak.
4. 04
   Seven Nicaraguan factories shut down
   AGANORSA Leaf, Drew Estate, Joya de Nicaragua, Mombacho, Nicaraguan American Cigars, RoMa Craft Tobac and Tabacalera Aragón confirm closures as the DR and Honduras sit fully idle.
5. 05
   Will there even be a PCA trade show?
   With no cigars being rolled, the hosts question how brands can prepare new releases and samples — and predict the July show gets canceled.
6. 06
   Weasel Fest 2020 postponed
   Skip Martin moves RoMa Craft's Weasel Fest to September 5th while battling the virus himself.
7. 07
   Quarantine entertainment roundup
   Free Pornhub Premium, a coronavirus top ten playlist, Homeland, skinny margaritas and a spoiler-filled take on Tiger King.
8. 08
   Virtual herfs and show rankings
   The store's ten-person online herfs with brand owners (RoMa Craft done, Steve Saka next) plus a show update naming the podcast #2 on Feedspot's top 15 cigar podcasts.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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

Transcript

Welcome to episode 115 of a Cigar Hustlers podcast. This week, Tiger King, we call it Corona, in the free premium package. I'll listen more this week on a Cigar Hustler podcast. Welcome to episode 115, Michael.

Can you hear me? Can you hear me down there, Michael? Yeah. Social distancing.

Things are getting bad, Michael. We're doing our part. We're practicing social distancing. We are.

Distancing in the show. But... Oh, your boy died? Joe Diffie, 90's country's pickup man.

Country's pickup man. Dead at 61 from coronavirus, Michael. He was young. He was young, I know, not much older than me.

61, sorry. Joe Diffie, a consistent country music hitmaker throughout the '90s, died Sunday due to complications related to COVID-19. His publicist confirmed the death to Rolling Stones. Diffie was 61.

Did he have pre-existing conditions? Just high blood pressure, I believe. " And that's where he's going. Yes.

And John Deere Green. John Deere Green? John Deere Green. You don't know that song?

I don't, I don't know. You're not a big Joe Diffie fan? No. I went to a, I have remembered this.

I've never heard of him before. Oh, really? Yeah. I remember this last night.

I went to a Joe Diffie concert when I was married to wife number two. Yes. At the House of Blues, I believe it was at the House of Blues. Uh-huh.

Or it could have been Wild Horse Saloon. There used to be a thing over there, too. Really? Yeah.

I forget. We were there with one of our friends. I don't know who the friend was. But at the end of the concert, they went backstage and ditched me.

Oh. And left me for about 15 minutes. Wow. Yeah.

So not the- And now you're not friends with them anymore? Well, yeah. With Joe Diffie? That was a previous marriage.

He had a previous marriage, so yeah. You lost that whole sector of people. Well, that's okay. Right.

Yeah. Well, obviously those people weren't worth their shit anyways. It's been long enough for her to blow some guy in the band probably because she's got a guitar pick. Damn it.

So, that's probably what happened. You think that she went and sucked somebody off? Who knows? Jesus.

Who knows? Hmm. But yes, so that was very sad. I like that your mind wanders and goes right there.

Well, you know. Is that hair gel? I need some of that. Oh, fantastic.

Yes. How are they? This is ridiculous. This is amazing.

Good thing we went for the bigger table. Hey, glad we got this extension. Yes. Next week, I'll be sitting over here.

The camera's going to be in the other room next week. It's going to be perfect. How are things going at the house, Michael? Things are going at the house.

Today is the day one of mommy being the teacher. Yes. And it is, I think it's utter chaos across, on a national level. I think so, yes.

From what I'm understanding. At least in the state of Florida, it seems to be. So, I will say, I gotta give my wife credit, because she's fucking hell-bent on, like, figuring this shit out without hitting the teacher button, you know, and you could, and the teacher has sent out emails already throughout the day, so you could tell that she's getting inundated with fucking parents. So that's pretty funny, and like, poor Britney, man, poor Britney, she's just, she's looking at the stuff.

So the little guy probably doesn't have- No, but he's partaking, goddammit. Well, he's, oh sure, he wants to do what his brother's doing. Well, no, no, no, he doesn't, he doesn't, he's being forced. He's not just working ahead?

It's like, you're gonna, you're gonna trace these goddamn letters. We're drawing? I don't want. I will say this, they both like the ABC mouse.

What? There's like a thing called ABC Mouse. Yeah. Like, it's a Disney thing, I think.

They've been, you know, I've seen commercials of it since Jax was a little, a wee lad. A wee little fellow, yes. And it's something that we just, we plugged in for Justice because he doesn't really have a curriculum, and he enjoys that, so he's definitely learning from that. That's good.

But, you know, we also have him doing some other stuff, letters and stuff like that. Ah, well, my wife is on the other side of the computer. Yes. Yes, she is.

and Megan are all spread out on the dining room table. They have 100 children each that they're in charge of, and they are just on the phone all day long with the parents. Thank you, isn't it? Yeah.

Actually, because they're in high school, so actually it's kids. Oh, that's got to be worse. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Adrian was FaceTiming some young lady to show her how to do something, and Megan's got a blind girl because she's an ESC teacher, so, I mean, the packet's not doing the blind girl any good at all.

You know, look at line A, is it different from line B? Well, I can't see, so. Oh man, that's tough. Yeah.

You know, I think the bigger part there really kind of breaks down to parents, right? Like, especially if you have high school kids, like, if your kid is going to do the, "I can't do this," kind of throw their arms up in the air and whatever, you know, you got to become almost like a coach there and really prep talk 'em through it. Like, hey, you know, okay, so we got to, we'll dissect this problem one step at a time. Oh, if this isn't working, okay, so we've got to figure this out.

Like, you have to have, you got to teach your kids to have kind of that mentality. Well, yeah, with the older kids. Hey, we're going to get through this. It's a complete pain in the ass.

You know, my son was, he took, you know, Jax takes liberty on himself to do his own work sometimes. He doesn't read the instructions. So there was this folding thing that he was supposed to do where there's like three specific cuts that you're supposed to make and then fold it over. Yeah, he cut everywhere and fucking glued it together.

I was like, dude, this is why you don't do this without consulting. It looks the same, dad. It's the same now. No, the problem is he's really hard.

Yes, but we're out of glue. Once he screws up, he's really hard on himself. He's like, I'm terrible. I can't believe I did that.

I'm like, okay, dude, you're six. You're six. It's gonna be okay. It'll be okay, don't worry.

It's gonna be fine. It's not like you filled out the 1040 form wrong. Yeah, we'll figure this out, don't worry. Don't worry, it'll be acceptable terms given the circumstances.

So, yeah, and then we have like this Pearson Vue thing or whatever is what we're doing. Yeah, I'm familiar with that. There's an update. They started updating the site midday.

I'm sure that shit was crashing. Are you guys using some type of Microsoft meeting or something? No, no. Oh, that's what they're using over here in Volusia County.

It's some type of chat program or something. I think it's similar to Slack we use here. Right, I could see that. I mean, look.

" So, I mean, how do you even keep track? You'll be fine. Like, I don't understand why they didn't, you had, like, two weeks of downtime. You had an extra spring break.

Like, maybe we should have did, like, a test run last week. Well, I think hindsight's 20-20. I think everybody figured, you know. We'll be fine.

We'll be fine. After the two weeks, we'll all be back into school. Yeah, well, here we are. You would think, though, there was some kind of program already in place.

In case this happens. Especially for the public schools. Well, because they already have online schooling. Right.

You know what I mean? It's like, all right, you guys are all in online classes. Well, it doesn't work for the masses, apparently. Yeah, no shit.

I thought it would be like Zoom. Right. Where, you know, okay, everybody log in at 2 o'clock. We're going to do science.

And that makes sense. Right. Here you go. Apparently, that's not the way it's going.

No. They have these huge packets, inches thick and… It's a work in progress for the school board of Florida. Yes. But, you know, what's crazy about Jackson School is, you know, we don't have that Microsoft meeting or whatever, but our teacher is always accessible.

Right. Like emails, phone calls. If I sent her an email at 10 o'clock at night and said, "Hey, this is messed up" or, you know, something happened here or whatever, she'd respond. You know, that's lucky.

All teachers aren't like that. I like that. My wife used phone calls all the time from parents or students and a lot of parents, you know, well, it's after three, I'm not answering the phone. Exactly.

The online scam calls have stopped, though. I guess all those people are either sick or at home, too. So that's one good thing. Yeah, that is very good.

Should I start with the news while you answer your text messages? Yeah, go ahead, because I have a, you know... You have a what? My mommy teacher is...

Oh, alright. As you're all aware, our PCA members are faced with the PCA Launch's page to show status of cigar shops during COVID-19 outbreak. As you're all aware, our PCA members are faced with a severe challenge to the brick-and-mortar shops. As a way of us to promote our members who are offering new ways to service customers at this time, we have created a web page that lists all our stores in a given state, location, and what they are currently offering: curbside, to-go, limited customers, in-store delivery, etc.

This is constantly being updated as we get information in from our retail members, and hope this becomes a widely used and promoted source to help our retailers attract as much business as possible. If you do not see your business on the page, you can click the link above. Well, you can't do that because it's the story. Or you can go here.

You can't do that either. So, PCA has launched a web page where you can list your shop and what services you still offer. Well, I mean... They're doing what they can.

They gotta do something. I sent Greg the link, not knowing Greg was sick, so I don't know if he followed up on this or not. Oh, he definitely didn't. Because you have to log in with your PCA information, which I am not privy to.

Seven Factors Nicaragua shut down due to the coronavirus, Michael. As of Monday, this past Monday, Nicaragua's largest factor will be closed due to concerns about the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Drew Estate became the first large factor to announce that it was shutting down, a move that is likely to cause other Nicaraguan factories So far, 7 factories have confirmed to Half Wheel that they are shut down: Agronosa Leaf, Drostate, Hoya De Nicaragua, Mambacho Cigars, Nicaraguan American Cigars, Roma Craft Tobac, and Tablica Aragon. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong.

Tobacalera? Tobacalera. There you go. I got 6 out of the 7.

Come on. 6 out of the 7. As with normal factory closures, this refers to most of the workers at the factory. Some operations have likely stopped yesterday, such as workers who prepare the tobacco to be rolled.

Others, like the overseeing of tobacco, curing, and security, will continue with small numbers of workers. Unlike the Dominican Republic and Honduras, where all cigar factories are closed, the Nicaraguan government has taken a much more relaxed approach regarding the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic and how to combat its spread. As such, despite the fact that no cigars have been rolled in Honduras for the past two weeks, and virtually everything has been rolled over the last two weeks, and the last two weeks has been rolled over the last two weeks. Every Dominican factory was shut down by last Friday, there's only one factory, the one I can't pronounce, that was closed for the week.

Tablo, how'd you say it? Okay, so now I have questions. Tablo, okay, go ahead, I still have some more information on this, but you go ahead. Okay, go ahead, keep going.

While factories are making individual decisions about remaining open for the week of March 30th, every factory will be closed the week of April 6th because of Cima Santa, which lasts April 5th, April 11th, like many other businesses in Latin America countries, cigar factories are traditionally shut down for the entire week. Nicaragua has officially reported that four confirmed cases of the coronavirus, though many include those inside the country, believe the government is unreporting the spread of the disease. Of course they're not. Of course they're not, yes.

The government is touted... It's a third world country. The government is touted... Do you have tests for that?

to a Cuban drug, hmm, that always sounds safe, used to treat the disease. Though its effectiveness is unclear, it has done things that would run counter to the advice of most medical experts. Oh, good. Sound effects, bleeding ulcers in your ass, you know, coughing in blood, not only holding large rallies throughout the month, including recently this week, one specifically dedicated to the government's response to the virus two weeks ago.

Oh, good, they're rioting. That's always fun. Almost all of Nicaragua's cigar factor is located in SLE, where there is at least one suspected case. -based airlines have announced plans to suspend flights to Nicaragua.

Spirits stop flying to Managua on March 24th. American Airlines stopped today. United Airlines will stop on April 1st, unless that is the biggest April Fools' joke on record. I don't think it's a joke.

I don't think so either. Okay, what are your questions now, Michael? All right, so my first question is, all the factories that have closed down, I'm curious to see if they're still paying their people. There's only one that we can probably actually confirm, and do you know if they are still paying their people?

Well, I mean, we can ask Terrence. Didn't you say Aganorsa? No. Yes.

I don't have Terrence's phone number. I don't Facebook chat him. Oh. Hey.

I don't know. I think Skip said everybody was being paid. Yeah. I think he put that on Facebook.

Because of the holiday. I mean, they get their holiday pay. They get a week pay, yeah. Right.

What was my other question? I don't know. That's why I should just ask them instead of let you just go on your tangent. It wasn't a tangent.

It was a follow-up to my story. It's a damn tangent. It was nuts. You know, I'm out of Bradley Kindness, and I've found my way back to this AWS.

Man, I've missed this cigar. It's so good. I grabbed one this morning. I'm not sure which one I grabbed.

I was craving another EC. I had an EC this morning, but I wanted another EC, so I just went in there and picked the one you had the most of. Huh. Very nice.

Probably the industry. Far, it was the one on the far left, so it might not be the one you had the most of, because most I believe is a Perfecto or Bellicoso, this one was the one to the right, to the left of that. Okay. Anyway.

So, as far as the rioting is concerned in Nicaragua, they'll just shoot them. Well, they don't want to go out now, there's too many. They might catch COVID. Yeah, that's true.

You gotta pick up the bodies. And they're just giving them... It's funny that they're just giving them fucking... Here you go, just take this, you'll be fine.

Take this drug. We found it in Cuba. It's okay. Apparently it works.

Just ask the communist government of Cuba. They said that this solves all your problems. Okay. Well, the second biggest problem with the COVID virus, Michael.

I mean, you know- Do you like to know what it is? Well, the first was that Joe Diffie died. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Stop.

Sorry. So the other major issue is, okay, so if these factories are shutting down- Yes. Right now, this could parlay into a bigger issue of PCA. Yes.

So these cigars, they're supposed to be making cigars right now for samples and product and stuff like that that gets released at PCA. So if they don't have the ability to make those cigars right now, then what are you going to do at PCA? Well, the press conference this morning from the President of the United States, they're expecting this to peak around Easter, and then the death toll to slow down around June. Yeah, I believe that.

Well, the night, the shows in July, it probably ain't going to happen. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, you're probably right. He's probably not going to.

I hate to say that because I was looking forward to going, but it is probably not going to happen. We are going to cancel the PCA. The PCA that's canceled, so maybe we'll do a Zoom PCA. So we're just taking a year off of life is pretty much what's going on.

That's what's going on. And that's going to be Christmas and nobody's getting shit because there's going to be no fucking money. No money. That $1,200 stimulus package ain't going to fucking...

Oh, gee, some of the other countries can or you're getting eight grand if you're Canadian. Four payments of $2,000. I'm good where I'm at. Keep your eight grand.

Eh, it's cute. Fuck that. It's just cold. Yeah, okay, go get a cigar in Canada.

It's cold. Good luck. I'll take them with me from here. Oh, good luck.

Send me. I need to order. You're gonna pay double. I need to order some pens, Michael, some pens.

It doesn't work anymore, Michael. It doesn't work. I need to order pencils. Try pencils.

Your tricks don't work. Try pencils. Well, it was announced last week, Michael, that Weasel Fest has been postponed. Wow!

Today, this is from Skip Martin. Today, we made the decision to move our Weasel Fest 2020 event to Saturday, September 5th, 2020, closest to my birthday. Oh, nice. That's what's nice.

As we move forward, we will keep everyone updated on our plans and when tickets will be made available to purchase. Skip Martin said, I'm not going to do a funny voice here because he is my friend. We will get through, and I'm still slightly scared of him. We will get through this together and we'll come out the other end stronger with more resolve than ever.

He needs a cape, I figure if he says those things, does he stand up? Well, he's headlining Scarface and he got the COVID, he got the corona, I like to call it corona, so evil, yeah, so he's, you know, kind of rough there, kind of hard to do with the guy, on top of, you know, everything else, the way that things are... Mike Ross is still okay, from what I understand, he could have got him. I think he's going to be a little more expensive than Scarface.

Yeah? Yeah. You know. Well, could have had Joe Divi, but he's really cheap right now.

Well, apparently you still can have him. Prop him up to the jukebox. There you go. I hope they taxidermy his body, and they prop him up.

That would be amazing. All right, one more story, and then we will take a little break. We'll take a break. I have, let's see, reported illnesses have raised the corona.

We will continue to call it the coronavirus on the show. Reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms of severe illnesses and death for confirmed coronavirus diseases. Yeah. Let's see.

Here are the symptoms. If you get it, these are the symptoms. Runny nose. No, it's not one of the symptoms.

Oh. These symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure based on incubation period. Two to 14. Two to 14 days these may show.

So where did... Never mind. Yeah, exactly. Fever, cough, shortness of breath.

Shorten at the breath. If you develop emergency warning signs, get medical attention immediately. Emergency warning signs include: trouble breathing. Yeah, no shit.

Hey, I can't breathe. Dude, we gotta go to the hospital. Persistent pain or pressure in the chest. Okay.

And I may be having a heart attack at the same time. Yeah. Confusion or inability to arouse. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Oh, jeez, I gotta go. And then bluish lips or face, which I imagine is... Yes, which I imagine is from the trouble breathing.

Lack of air. Which is from the lack of air. Yes, the list is not inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any symptoms that are severe or concerning.

But no, a runny nose is a symptom of a common cold. Ah. That is where you decide if you have it or not. You know, what's really funny is, so I was looking at cases as far as overall across the state.

Yes. You know, I don't know, just one of those things. It was an article and they had this cool interactive fucking county by county hit the button thing. I'm like, this is amazing.

And I looked at it, and, like, it's funny to see, like, you can see, like, let's say Volusia County has 50 cases, right? But they've tested 900 people. You know, I'm like, holy shit. So how many people are panicking going, oh, my God, I've got to go.

That's just it. How many people are just going to get the test? It's like, look, if you can't breathe, you need to go to the fucking doctor. It's just that simple.

Do you have any symptoms? No, no, just stick to the swabbing. Swap me. Swap me.

Here's the deal. If you have a fever, Shortness of breath. Fucking stick it out. No, if you have a fever, stick it out.

If you're coughing, stick it out. If you're struggling to breathe, if all of a sudden you're like, man, I don't know, you better go to the fucking hospital. They have a new test where you get results in 45 minutes. They just send like 1,500 of them down to Brevard County.

They got one after that. It's five minutes. Yeah, but that one, they only have 500 of them. But they're supposed to be able to produce 50,000 a day.

Well, they must have just started today. Yeah. I think they did start today. Because the conference today -- oh, and I did notice on the news conference today, the governor and all the people in his little entourage now, they are social distancing when they stand up at the podium because they caught so much shit for being next to each other.

I'm sure that they have -- So there's like a guy there, governor's here, even the hearing impaired person was six feet away from him. Right. Yeah, that's why we're doing it. That's the long shot.

Now they've pulled back with the camera. Right. It's like, okay. No zooming because we will lose seven other people.

You got to lead by example, you know? Here we are. Here we are. We're making an honest attempt, that's all that matters.

We only have such room on the table. Yeah, hey look, the studio's only so big. Over here. It's kind of the same if you move from there to there.

Direct line. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna. Yeah.

We'll measure this way, three this way, three that way. Yeah, it's practically eight feet. Practically 18,000 feet. Yeah, look at that.

Well, you can do it out back. You can stand down below and I'll stand up and just hold my phone. I'll hold my phone and he's getting over by the tree. Alright, so what are we doing?

Are we taking a break? We're going to take a break because we're running out of information here. Running out of information on the news. So, we're going to take a break, and we'll be right back.

And we'll be right back. Hey, it's Mike too. Want to be part of the show? com/theCigarHustlersPodcast.

We have tiers starting at just $5 a month. For $10 a month, you get a special show swag, and then you're eligible for the weekly secret show. Secret shows cover in-depth cigar reviews, behind-the-scenes information, and sometimes we just talk shit about people. Choose which tier works best with your budget and become an official show hustler.

Thanks for the support! And we're back! And we're back! Okay, now what didn't you want to say?

Okay, so what's going on here with the laptop? It's not the laptop. It's the fact that I have to keep taking it apart and putting it together. But I don't know what I fucked up on that cord.

There's only one place it fits here, and only one place it fits there. So it's not like I'm putting it in the wrong holes. You're trying to make a baby, but you're not making a baby. I'm not making a baby.

Because last week we had audio problems with the YouTube. This week we may again have audio problems with the YouTube. Now, I know how to, I fixed it from last week, so I can fix it this week, too. My headphones cut out just a second ago, and then before that, I only heard stuff from the right side.

I think the virus is on the board. It's on the motherboard? I don't know. Okay.

I don't know what the problem is with the board. I mean, it's just, I didn't move anything unless something got moved while in transition or something, I don't know. But we had this nice, I put it in this nice Pelican case that's all padded and everything. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know what you did, Mike. I feel like you hit a button. You got to hit the button back on.

All right. For those of you either self-quarantined or government-restricted, Pornhub Premium is now free for everyone to encourage you to stay home. Adult content site Pornhub knows we are all social distancing, so if they decided to hook everyone up with a free Pornhub Premium to make our isolation just a little bit easier. So many options.

Starting March 24th, users can sign up at the site's special Stay at Home landing page. You'll join Premium for the next month. Are you getting paid for that ad, or what? No, you're just letting the people know.

Just letting the people know. Just sharing the knowledge. I'm just sharing the knowledge. Let's see.

Announced from Pornhub, with nearly 1 billion people in lockdown across the world because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is important that we lend a hand and provide them with an enjoyable way to pass the time, said Corey Price, The vice president of Pornhub in a press release, I picture him wearing a leisure suit and no tie, shirt on button, a lot of gold chains. Yeah, I'm sure. We hope by expanding our offer of free Pornhub premium worldwide, people have an extra incentive to stay home and flatten the curve. Wow.

That's so thoughtful. It's so nice of them. Isn't that nice of them? Daddy, what are you doing?

I got the premium package for free, son. Okay. Leave Daddy alone for the next 30 days. I'm in the garage.

Oh my God. All right. Now we have the top ten playlists for the coronavirus. Ooh.

Number one, by The Police. Do you want to guess the name of the song? Don't stand so close to me. That was easy.

Exactly. Sticks, Too Much Time in My Hands. Billy Idol, Dancing With Myself. Uh-oh.

The Georgia Satellites, Keep Your Hands to Yourself. I don't know that song. This is my favorite, MC Hammer. I can't touch this.

Oh good, he needs the money, so I'm glad that's going well. Tiffany, I think we are alone now, Eric Carman, all by myself, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, don't come around here no more, Block of Seagulls, I ran so far away, and the number 10, playlist for the times, Heart, Alone. Nice. So did you come up with that list?

No, no. This was published by someone else. Oh, well, who's it published by? I'm going to give them the credit.

I don't know. I found it on the internet, so it has to be true. Oh, good. So what are you doing to pass the time there, Michael?

I'm still watching Homeland. Oh. How's that going? I just started season three.

I got tired of it and didn't watch it all weekend. Yeah. I had to take a break. Apparently, you're not alone on the Homeland stint because there's somebody else that's...

I saw Skip Martin as well. No, no, Saka! Saka was watching Homeland Season Eight, though, which is, I should have, you know what, I almost watched it because Showtime was free over the weekend, free preview, and I could have picked up, but I figured, I turned it on once and Saul was there with a whole new terrorist, and that's when I got a little, I'm like, ah, they're just dragging this damn thing out, I think. That's a whole nother problem.

That's a whole nother problem, when she's still in the loading bay. That's five episodes away from me, five years away from me. Five seasons, yeah. Five seasons away still.

Um, so yeah, well, uh, I could tell you that one thing that we're doing for the store is like these little virtual hearfs. Yeah. Oh yeah. These little private events.

The one Friday seemed to be going better. I mean, I was quite tired and I had gotten drunk earlier in the day. Yeah. You could tell you were just done.

I was done. Yeah. I mean, so what we're doing is we're doing like a hearf with, with Captain 10 guys and it's, you know, uh, one-on-one time with, you know, uh, manufacturer brand owner. We had Rosales and Danny on.

Danny's fucking hilarious, dude. He's pretty spot on. Yeah, he got his shots in at me once or twice before I left. Some of the shit that he drops, man.

He had me rolling. Our dear friend, Nick's the Grammin'. Yes. He was one of the members, and his description...

Oh, he was unloading on him! " So, Danny goes, "Hey, in case anybody was wondering, Nick's watching us on his iPad Pro, So, and fuckin', 'cause it says it in his description, and just the delivery was fuckin' amazing, it was, I started dying laughing, so, I guess you had to be there. I honestly didn't know I was gonna be part of it, so, I, I, why wouldn't I put you, it was never mentioned, so, you know, I, but I would like to be, uh, you wanna announce the next one? Yeah, the next one's gonna be with, do it, Steve Saka, Steve, we can talk about Homeland, I gotta already get caught up.

Yeah, oh, you gotta do, now you, you got the whole week. Did you see his posts today? " He's doing his own. I'm bored with myself now.

Yeah, I mean, but those don't work. No. Those don't work. There's no engagement.

That's why I wanted to build something that's a little more intimate. Yeah, the ten people is a good number. Everybody was getting asked questions. Yeah, you get to interact and speak with those people, you know, like, that's cool.

I mean, it's not like he's the fucking, the rock that's like, you know, have you seen his posts? He'll sit there for 20 minutes, he'll answer Q&A after fuckin' working out, and I'm like, okay, well that makes sense, but, you know, Steve can only talk so much about tobacco. Oh, please, he can talk about tobacco all night, because he invented tobacco. I heard about that.

I think we should get Pete Hernandez on there too. Oh, yeah. I think Pete can do that by himself? Hopefully he'll be nice and shit-faced.

Everybody loves a good drunk Pete Hernandez. He's been drunk a lot, I think, lately. That would be absolutely fucking epic. Yeah, Friday I cut the grass, and then I was really thirsty, and I found that bottle of vodka and cranberry juice in the outside fridge, and then I just went to town, I just...

Got hammered. Just got hammered, and then that was it. Okay, well, speaking of hammered, so we have this place by my house called Mr. Margarita.

Yes. That we've recently discovered that has now been taken away from us because of this goddamn coronavirus. They're not doing deliveries or anything? I don't think so.

I think they're just shut down. So, Brittany had, whenever we go, she gets this thing called a Skinny Margarita. Yeah. It's pretty fucking spot on.

It's pretty damn good. So, when I go out and I'm in the hunter-gatherer sense, the lone wolf right now that goes out into the world to protect the kids, to get groceries and shit like that, you know, our weekly purchases, and the grocery list had the ingredients for the Skinny Margarita. One of the housewife ladies makes a bottle called Skinny Margarita. Okay, no, well, we just, we do it from scratch.

Well, actually, my wife does it from scratch, I don't get the credit. So, she went ahead and made Skinny Margaritas, I'm like, I want to try one of those things. The fucking thing was amazing. Yeah, they're good.

So, you know, we were sucking those down yesterday. That was help passing the time. The kids are just watching themselves. I'm just kidding.

I'm like, I'm only in school. No, I'm in school. It's time to take the iPad. No, obviously it was later in the evening.

And we started watching, or actually we finished watching, Tiger King. Oh, did you, you broke down. Oh yeah. We have yet to indulge in the Tiger King.

I gotta tell ya, I got mixed reviews, man. I got mixed reviews. There are some parts that I feel like this could have been done in like one or two episodes. How many episodes is there?

Seven. Ugh. I don't think, I'm not, I don't do good with documentaries. And some of the parts are definitely entertaining, but some of the parts, I'm just like, okay, all right, I get it, I get it, yes, okay, meth, yes, got it, okay, guy's full of himself, okay, you know what I mean, like, there are parts where I'm like, okay, I mean, now the guy, do you want to hear the end or no?

Yeah, go ahead, I don't think I'm going to watch it. All right, warning, spoiler alert. Spoiler alert, turn your thing up now, you can't hear it if you're watching the video. You can't hear it.

You just see the motions. So the guy obviously goes to jail, right? Just gesturing. And man, he really got fucking, in my opinion, I feel like he doesn't belong in jail.

He really got shafted. Oh, why did he go to jail? He always talks shit about killing this girl, Carole Baskin, in Tampa. He always does it, videos and all that.

And he crosses the line, he definitely crosses the line, but I think that he was kind of set up for this whole frame thing as far as like this whole murder plot for hire thing. Yeah. And so then they just fucking book him on other charges of like animal cruelty and all this other shit. So is he missing?

Oh, he's in jail for 22 years. Oh, so who did she feed to the tigers? Oh, her husband. Oh, he's not the husband.

No, no, no, she hates... So the dude with the missing leg and arm, was that taken by a tiger? Missing arm, yes. Missing legs, no.

I've just seen all the Facebook memes. And I gotta be honest, at this point, you don't, I mean, I could just sum it up for you, you don't have to waste seven hours of your life. The guy's a homosexual, and he's courted two heterosexual men into a marriage, and they eventually break off and leave him. Well, actually, one of them actually kills himself by accident.

Accident? Oh, yeah. Because they're all meth heads. Oh, okay.

Overdoses or something? No, no, no. He takes a gun and pulls a trigger to his head because he didn't think it would go off. Oh, gotcha.

And he killed himself. Oh. Yeah. And the other one married some other chick.

And so, like, he had – this dude had this tattoo. It said, like, property of Joe Exotic right across his crotch. Oh, nice. So then he gets it tattooed over, and it's, like, this gigantic head of a bull that's over his tattoo.

And it doesn't fit, doesn't completely go over his old tattoo. It's so fun, man. That was the highlight for me. I was like, wow, you know, you really kind of shortened, you know, you really could have just went a little extra with the fucking tattoo.

Right. Um, well, you know, we're going to place this, sir. It's not going to quite cover the, all of it. Eh, get what you can.

It doesn't seem like it's that kind of tattoo shop. He's like, yeah, sure, I can do it. Oh, nice drawing. Ah, well, it still says Joe Exotic Bull now.

" Yeah. It's definitely one of those situations. " All the tattoo artists in the state of Tennessee, I'm one of them. Exactly, exactly.

Exactly. I mean, this guy, you know, the dude, he's got three teeth. Oh, that guy. He's on a Facebook meet, too.

Yeah, social distancing. Social distancing with his teeth. Yeah. Amazing.

Fucking amazing. All right, we have a show update. Tell me. All right, let's see, we have 186 subscribers on YouTube.

Hey! 4,070 subscribers on Podbean, still the number one show on Podbean, number one cigar show. Killing it! On Player FM, we are the number four show.

Ooh! Behind Cigar Hacks, Cigar Talk, and Cigar Nerds. I mean, I understand why we're below hats, I mean... Hacks, not hats, hacks, cigar hacks.

Oh, it's hacks, oh, okay. Now it doesn't make any sense to you at all? Now I'm totally lost. On Stitcher, we are number 6, behind Cigar Authority, that's the only place they're number 1 at the moment, Cigar Talk, Cigar Dave, Cigar Hacks, and Cigar Snob.

Nice. You might have listened to Cigar Hacks, they're getting quite the ratings boost here. Are they really? Yeah, the names have been popping up.

com. Yes. They listed the top 15 cigar podcasts you must follow in 2020, and it was just updated on 3/28/2020, so just the other day. Yeah?

The top 15. Yeah? Tell me. Number one, the Cigar Authority.

Of course. But number two, a Cigar Hustlers podcast. Get the fuck out of here. Number 3, The Retro Hail, Number 4, Cigar Coop, Number 5, DE4 Live, The Half Ashed, Stogie Geeks, Cigar Snob, The Ash Holes, and Box Press.

Look at us just crushing it. All legitimate cigar media podcasts. That's the problem, they're not in entertainment. But we are in quite the company there, and we got number 2.

I was quite surprised we were number 2. I'm a little upset we're not number one. Well, you know, Cigar Authority's been around a lot longer. They have quite the reputation in the cigar media industry.

But I like beating them. That's fun. Well, they are 3,000 and something, so we're almost a good 1,000 subscribers ahead of them on Podbean now, growing every day. We have Listener Week this week, Michael, and we have the gong bag.

First, we owe Ryan. I had his online name on the top of my tongue right before we sat down. Bean Ryan. Is that what it is?

Bean Ryan? Bean Ryan? Ryan. All right.

Ryan here, we gave you a can last week. There's your gong, Ryan. Congratulations on the gong, Ryan. Congratulations on the gong.

Nicely done. And listen, Luke, this week is John Jogalite, which I still say his name right. John, thank you. There's a gong for John.

Jogalite. Jogalite. He's a big help every week with the show, Graphics & Things. He is a big help.

Thank you, John. I was just talking to him right before the show. I haven't talked to him in a minute. They're okay.

He's working from home. I asked him if it was Night of the Living Dead up there yet, 'cause he's up in New York. He said it's getting close, but not quite yet. So, they go out once a week for supplies, and other than that, they stay home.

Yeah, as they should. Yeah, it's getting bad up there. So John, please be safe because I have to find somebody else to help me. When I saw the video of, I want to say it's called Elmhurst, you know.

The hospital one that you and our medical staff posted, yes, I saw that also. That was a little scary. I mean, I was just like, God damn, that sucks, man. That fucking sucks.

I watched the video today of the Navy ship going into New York Harbor. That's a big boat. I have big boat. I like the red crosses that they have on it too, just in case you're wondering.

In case you're wondering. Yeah, don't shoot us. It's white with a big red. We're the hospital.

The hospital. But that is a giant freighter, you know, that would normally haul containers and everything, and they retrofitted it to be the hospital. That's pretty brilliant. And we have two of those, 12 operating rooms on that thing.

No shit. It's pretty scary seeing that thing come in the harbor. But there was a lot of people in the harbor waving at him, like, social distancing. This is exciting.

Well, it's fucking New York. I mean, these people are, you know. They're packed on top of each other anyway. They're out of their minds.

They're almost as bad as the Phillies, the people in Philadelphia. Crazy motherfuckers. Crazy. Crazy.

That's all I got. I'm out of paper. Out of paper. Out of paper.

We can just sit here and smoke for the next 20 minutes. I don't think that would be necessary. Say, Michael, sit back, smoke, don't you? So we got the hearth coming up.

We covered that. Tiger King covered that. I mean, you know, this is kind of, you know, this is the shitty part about the, the, the fucking next 120 days of our lives is that, um, it's not going to be a lot to report. Uh, Development Palettes did almost a 24 hour video.

Yeah, I mean, that was Aaron Loomis, right? Aaron Loomis, yes. Uh, Coop was the one promoting it all over Facebook. So, with a couple of Zooms that I've done, for like, having everybody get together, I think Aaron popped in once.

But I was asleep, I fucking took it out. You fell asleep on camera? " But they had, it looks like they had Fred Rui and some other people. Who's the gentleman from Cigar Authority?

What's his name? David Garofalo? But you see, he's done a couple of Facebook videos to promote his shop and stuff, and the first one, God love him, he was so awkward, and he didn't, he had the phone sideways, so the whole video was sideways on the screen. Hey man, you know, you gotta take the stab, you know?

The second one was much better. He did much better, if David's a fan and watching, David, I enjoyed the second one. He's definitely not watching, he doesn't listen, he doesn't care about us. I'm sure he does, I'm sure he does.

I mean, I see him at TPE, he didn't even make eye contact. Well, what does he want him to do? Come up and kiss the ring? We're the number one show now.

No, I want him to carry Powstanie. I want to at least write a back order for him, because I don't have any of it. That was the majority of the questions that I heard on the Roma thing. Anything going to ship?

No, not shipping. Well, hey, I mean, the good news is FQs should be shipping here soon, so. Aren't they closed too? Nope.

Really? That wasn't on the list? Nope. Oh!

Sure wasn't. There you go. Well, Matt Hunt's right in the neck deep of a home remodel, apparently. Oh, yeah.

I saw some photos. Yes. Lovely. Very lovely.

Taking the time. I mean, what else are you going to do, you know? Oh, well, we had your power washer, so I power washed the driveway, I mowed the grass, I power washed the house. I mean, the only issue with doing the whole reno thing is, like, you're going into Home Depot, and that place is probably fucking packed, you know?

I don't recommend that. Right. Well, it's spending money. Who knows how long the money's going to last?

It depends on what your industry is and how much money you got. Well, hey, I can tell you this, the show's going to go on. The show will go on. Wait, you guys are in lockdown in Seminole County.

No, we're not. I thought they issued a- Orange County, baby. No, Seminole issued, I thought- Yeah, a social distancing order. Oh, what's that mean?

It means, you know, do the right thing. It was kind of like, it was like a do the right thing speech. Oh. You know?

Isn't there a curfew though? No. I thought I saw some of us in Seminole County. I mean, maybe.

How about Seminole County with a... So what, I can't drive to work? I'm an essential business. It's essential.

It's essential. It's essential that we stay open. Alright guys, everybody be safe, wash your hands. That's it, you're done.

Sit away, don't talk to people. Well, you can talk to people, don't touch people. Don't talk to people. Wait, real quick, I saw a thing right before he came in.

I think right before he came in they showed the different type of greetings and how much germs you transfer. Yes. Shaking hands I think was 100%. Ooh, confirmed.

High five was 70. Fist bump was 90, or 10. 10. 10%.

And then, you know, this was none. What about the Demolition Man where you don't touch? You ever see Demolition Man? Yes.

I was afraid I was gonna... Hello, greetings! I was gonna post this again. Please explain the three shells now.

No, we're at the point where that's going to be important. I just want to normally, I mean, we usually buy Lysol every few weeks and, like, bleach spray every few weeks. I was happy to find toilet paper this morning because that's like a sign that things are getting back to normal. And that's what's kind of fucked up is, and you bought it.

You have it, and you bought more anyways. Well, just in case it goes out. " I only bought one. I didn't buy the entire counter.

Well, the limit was two. Right, I bought one. So you bought half of what you were supposed to buy. I bought half of my allotment.

And you didn't even need it. I might need it. You never know when it's going to be short again. You're part of the problem, Mike.

We will never run out of toilet paper again. Ridiculous. We have a little table in the bathroom closet, I don't know what that thing's called, toilet closet or whatever it's called. I pulled open the drawer, I'm just sitting there on board because, you know, going to the bathroom, pull in the drawer.

There are flushable wipes my wife's been hiding in the thing. Are you kidding me? No. She's been hoarding.

She's hoarding. There was four little packs and then a big holder. Oh, she's lying to your roommate. " Well, we have our own bathrooms and normally Megan does have the flushable wipes in her bathroom, but apparently they found some, it didn't tell me.

So I got the pack out and I, so now it sits on top of the table. So now she knows I know. So now she can't hide them again. This is here.

Yeah, just so you know, I found them. Now she's taping them to the top of the fucking toilet, like, you know, like you ever see where they do the gun, they fucking... You have to lift the lid not to get them out. Oh, no, we're totally out.

I ran out. I had a really bad day yesterday. Yeah. Terrible.

There's a lot of flow. A lot of flow. I did spray our microphone heads with Lysol when I came in. I could smell it.

I will say this, like, my scent, like, I can, I definitely, if smelling things is, or not, Superpower? If, like, not smelling things is part of the, like, indicator that you're getting the coronavirus. Oh, yeah? I fucking smell everything right now.

I don't know what's going on like I you know it's fucking crazy my cough is finally completely gone just in time for you to get it just in time for me to get you yeah you know did you see people are thinking that that real bad illness that went around in December was probably a strain of the coronavirus yeah all the symptoms I had remember I was dying dude I mean I could argue that I was going to argue the fact that Costa was patient zero right right from Philadelphia he flew to Vegas right he blew up TPE a lot of us got sick right because I got sick and I couldn't shake it I I had to get Z-Pak. Right. After like fucking 10 days, I'm like, damn, this isn't going away. You just coughed.

Yeah, because I'm dying. You know, a lot of people got sick. I know that Art, my boy Art Finch, his wife got sick, and she got pneumonia. So it's like, well, that's almost all the same shit for fucking coronavirus.

Yeah, same things. Right. So, mate, and then, you know, Philly is a hotspot, so, and that guy travels everywhere. Finch or Costa?

Costa. Yeah. He goes, you know, he could be patient zero for- For America? For Corona, period.

Did he go to China? I wonder if he went to China. You know what? Did he eat the bat?

He was talking to me about that when I was there. Did he eat the bat? But I don't think he'd been recently. I will say this, the level of memes right now are just through the roof, and they're pretty- I'm so tired of the Tiger Man memes, though.

Oh, yeah? Because you don't know what's going on. I like the other stuff, all the shit I've been through in my life, and I'm gonna die because I touch my face? So, I saw, like, Eat More Chicken, and it was a picture of a bat, and stuff like that.

Right. You know, so, have you seen, like, the big guy with the huge penis? No. Okay, so he's everywhere.

Apparently his name's Barry, so I learned that this week. Oh, Barry with the huge penis. I'll have to inundate you with some of the inappropriate photos that people have sent me privately. Oh, and apparently you and Boofy are sending pictures back and forth all the time now.

That came out of the first virtual hearf we did. Yeah, I mean, not all the time, but I try to go out of my way to collect them from other people. Of just him? Do you have a Boofy collection?

Oh, they're pretty funny, yeah. I'd have to rifle through my photos. They're not saved in that particular folder. Ah, gotcha.

But they are, whoever created them, it's pretty epic. All right, well, it's 3:05. You're now on the clock. I was on the clock five minutes ago.

That's what I mean. I'm gonna go work. All right, so, uh... Michael's at the shop tonight.

If you need your cigars, we're still open. Yeah, you're gonna post this tomorrow, though. I'm here tomorrow. So come in and get 'em for me.

There you go. All right, I gotta get to work. All right, guys. Thank you very much.

Ooh, it just jumped. That was weird. No rest. There is no rest.

All right, guys. Thanks a lot. Be safe. Wash your hands.

Don't touch people. The Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners, and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guests. Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike & 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 Szczepankewicz, 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. This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m.

for all new episodes. Hi, I'm doing, I'm Husto-E-Raw. Yeah, we just don't have to do a single podcast ever again. Ever.

I'm good, Mike and Mike, how are you guys doing? The Hojo Deeb. Hojo! It's the Hojo!

You didn't even let him fuck it up all the way. I couldn't get past Hojo! I don't even have to try it. We're gonna cover a lot of ground here, Mike.

All right. Try to keep up. That's a sign of a good podcast. It'd be like four cigars when I walked in a door.

All right, end this. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike Squared, Mike Squared.

Show Notes

This week all about what's hot!  Tiger Man!  Yep we still call it Corona and Premium Package is free!!!

Catchup with these two slapdicks on the world that we all live in now!

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