Episode 48 Weekly Recap
Episode Summary
Episode 48 is a catch-up "weekly recap" after both hosts spent weeks on the road. Mike Palmer runs through a South Florida sales trip, detailing new accounts and shop visits: Downtown Cigar Bar in Fort Lauderdale with Ozzy Gomez (who is opening a second location in Coral Gables), Prime Cigar & Whiskey Bar in Brickell with Shai Goldberg, a shop on Bird Road, Cigar Boutique in Little Havana with Cesar, and Billy's smoke shop in downtown Miami. Along the way he explains how the Casa de Montecristo/JR licensing arrangement actually works for some shops — name and humidor space, but independent buying — and praises Smoke on the Water in Weston as a favorite lounge, while griping about smoking allowed inside the humidor.
Mikey covers his own tri-state run through New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey, including an event at Mom's Cigar Warehouse and a big night at B&B with Vince Hill where they gave away 320 Sycamore, a look at a not-yet-open shop called High End Cigars, and stops at Barristers and other retailers. He also talks about scoring a 92 rating from Half Wheel on the SBC 18, which reviewers he trusts and why he never sends cigars out for review or asks for coverage, plus whether cigar ratings still move product. The unplanned early announcement of the upcoming Powstanie "war bear" (via a Danny Vasquez post) gets a brief mention, as does Mikey's return appearance on Kiss My Ash Radio.
The back half is a listener Q&A pulled from Instagram, with questions from Casey Hogan of Crux, John "Yogi" Zurgulet, Danny Vasquez and listener "HC." Topics include plans for a video podcast and YouTube presence, the show's new Podbean-assigned sponsor, why phone-in guest interviews are a hard no (come to the studio or don't come at all), a possible listener call-in trivia segment, the ongoing quest to get Skip Martin on the show, a request for a custom show jingle, and a joking rundown of what Mike Palmer actually does at Cigar Hustler. They close with congratulations to John "Frenchy" D. Oliver, formerly of Xikar, on joining RoMa Craft, and plans for a 2018 retrospective episode.
In This Episode
- 01Get-well shout-out and catching upThe hosts open with a get-well message to John "Yogi" Zurgulet and admit how out of practice they are after weeks apart.
- 02South Florida account tripMike Palmer recaps new accounts and visits in Fort Lauderdale, Coral Gables, Brickell, Little Havana, Bird Road and downtown Miami.
- 03How the Casa de Montecristo/JR arrangement worksA look at licensed-name shops that share humidor space with JR but handle their own buying and ownership.
- 04Smoke on the Water and lounge pet peevesPraise for the Weston shop's back room and outdoor seating, plus a debate about letting customers smoke inside the humidor.
- 05Tri-state road storiesMikey recounts events at Mom's Cigar Warehouse and B&B with Vince Hill, a 320 Sycamore giveaway, and a preview of the unopened High End Cigars.
- 06The 92 Half Wheel rating and cigar reviewsWhy Mikey never solicits reviews or sends free samples, which Half Wheel reviewers he respects, and whether ratings still sell cigars.
- 07Listener Q&AVideo podcast plans, the new Podbean sponsor, why phone-in guests are refused, call-in trivia ideas, getting Skip Martin on, and a request for a show jingle.
- 08Industry news and 2019 plansJohn "Frenchy" D. Oliver moves from Xikar to RoMa Craft, the accidental "war bear" reveal, and plans for a 2018 retrospective episode.
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
Every day I'm hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling. Every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling. Welcome to Cigar Hustlers Podcast, where we take a closer look at the people of the cigar industry, with your host, Mike and Mike. Are you ready?
No. Oh, I started it. It's going. How the...
You know, I'm so unprepared for this one. So, I don't know. Have we met before? My name is Mike.
Have we met? I mean, I haven't seen you in, like, months. Hi, Michael. Hello, Michael.
I'm Michael as well. This is a good podcast. Okay, we'll jump right through that real quick. There we go.
Slide that bitch in. Slide that in there. It's done. First, we've got to give a get well to everybody.
John Zurgulet, Yogi? Yeah. I told him we'd give him a shout-out, so there's your shout-out. Oh, that's very nice.
Yes, yes. You're a sweet man. He's my buddy. We chat every day.
You know what's funny is that thought did cross my mind as well as the thing that needed to be said, but I feel like this podcast is going to be a Palmer podcast. Like, you're excited. Well, we haven't done one in so long. You've got a lot.
much has happened and we've been both have been traveling and you've got a lot to say and uh well you know i was gonna do one last week by myself yeah i had an opening and everything i mean it was going and it sucked so no i didn't do it i didn't even save it i mean it's nice to have somebody to play off of right you know yeah oh it makes a big difference and sitting there talking to yourself well you could do the one on yourself but like it takes a a significant level of preparation and you've never done it before so uh i had notes and everything i was going to talk about and it was going to be like maybe 10 15 minutes long it was like five five minutes five minutes so but that was your first first run at it you know yeah i'm watching screen something weird's happening um okay uh well one of the things i set up when you were gone i took uh questions from the audience would you like to do the questions as you're writing your notes down Are they getting things ready? Well, I don't... Save questions for the end? Yeah.
I think that'd be cool. Okay. All right. We'll save questions for the end because we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
We have, like, ten questions. Ten questions? Ten questions. Well, four people.
They all ask multiple questions. Adam Acree, Hugh... No, no. None from Adam.
None from Adam. Really? No, no. He must be busy.
Must be. Must be. I didn't hear from him last week, though. It wouldn't be said hello if I went to Caribbean and saw somebody that he knew.
Alan? No, no, somebody else. You know, I never made it down there. Yeah, because you're busy with Johan doing- My lighter's dead.
Do we have another lighter? Slapdick stuff at Florinata. Florinata. You know, fucking sitting at pools or whatever the hell you were doing.
That was his balcony. I don't want to ruin things. That was his balcony. Oh.
I feel like, you know, I don't want to get ahead of myself. Tell us, please. Alright, it's working. I got, I have a better, more superior lighter than that here for you that makes less noise.
But you're gonna have to keep it somewhere because I'll probably need it as well. I'll give it back to you just a second. Yeah, I don't even want you to talk about what you're smoking. But, no, no.
It was a gift. I'm having an EC. Intemperance EC is how I always start my day. It's probably about 80% of the time.
Yeah, I'm having a nondescript cigar that somebody gave me. Yeah. So we won't talk about that. We'll see, we was down in Miami for the week, we had a good time, we went to a lot of shops.
Did you just have like a... I had a bang. Yeah. I had a bang in the car.
We can tell. And now I have a coffee. And keep the coffee. I'm caffeine loading.
The crash that you're going to experience later is going to be terrible. That's right, we're going to a basketball game tonight, so I'm just... I'm going to a basketball game. Okay, but I'm excited, this is fun, I've missed doing these.
Yeah, me too, Eddie. So, I opened up a couple accounts. Yeah? Had some really good shops.
Okay, so who'd you hit? Well, I went to Downtown Cigar Bar in Fort Lauderdale, Ozzy Gomez. He's opened up a second location in Coral Gables, I think it is. Yeah.
So, he's taken the whole cafe line for the new shop in Coral Gables. Yay. The Prime, wait, wait, I got to say this right, the Monte Cristo, and how does that work? It's the Prime and Brickell, Shia Goldberg, he's picking up both lines, and they're open two more locations next year, and I'll go in those too.
So how does that work? Because generally, he is, well, the way his deal, okay, sorry, I know what your question is. Right, but they don't know what the question is. So generally speaking, if you deal with a Casa de Monte Cristo location that's through JRs, you have to deal directly with the Santa Clara connection, and then that then gets distributed accordingly across the nation by whatever, you know, manager is running each individual shop.
Right, okay, I don't want to give away any specifics that he told me that I might not sure to talk about, but they are not completely owned by JR. They have a deal where they have certain space inside their humidor, and they use their name. But other than that, they do their own buying. Aha.
He has two partners. I met one of them while I was down there. All right. So, yeah, so they're opening up two more shops in other spots in South Florida, and I'll go in those also.
And then you're in the cigar shop on Bird Road. Come smoke with us, George. Yep. Yeah.
Good people. Yep, he is a very nice man, we're going in there, and there'll be an event in January there with the club and Florinata together. Very nice. So I'll be going back down there for that.
The guy that works there, Steve, is really, really good dude. The guy that works on Bird Road? Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a very nice guy.
He sat down and talked to us for like an hour. Yeah, but he's still very attentive and very hospitable. Yes, he was, he does. " and all that kind of stuff.
Which people don't understand that that's what it takes to be successful. To be successful. That is what it takes. We actually had that discussion in a different shop.
Yeah. I met Cesar at Cigar Boutique in Little Havana. I liked him a lot. He was a very nice man.
Okay. Billy, downtown Miami, Smoke Shop on 3rd. Oh, Billy. He's hilarious.
That's the shop that's near Joan's house, so we went there several different times. Johan. You must call him Johan. No, I'm not calling him Joan.
That's his name. Johan. You can call him what you want. He doesn't send you checks in the mail.
So, I'm going to call him Johan or Mr. Rodriguez, whichever one he prefers. He doesn't like being called boss. I kept calling him boss.
He doesn't like that. Yeah? Yeah. Huh.
And then, there were other shops, but those are the ones that I opened while I was down there. So, that was nice. I had a good trip. The club had a big vent at the Smoke on the Water in Weston.
Now, those are my dudes. Yeah, see, the guy kept ducking me. That's a smart man. Yeah, I know.
Who's it, Danny? Well, Danny was who I originally asked for, but I don't know which one was there that night we were there. And Joan and I was there. " Yanni?
No, Yanni's the guy with the long hair. Have you ever been down there? Yeah. Okay.
There's a thin guy with long hair. Nick? I think that's Nick. He was there the daytime that I went, but he was the only one.
He was the only one there. And then when we did the event, the guy that's in charge of the humidor came out later in the evening as we were leaving. Sean? Another guy with long hair and a beard, but a thicker fellow.
Not heavy by any means, but just he wasn't tall and thin. They're a bunch of good dudes there. Are they? They are.
I don't like that they let you smoke in the humidor. Yeah, but it's not like... And the register's in the middle of the humidor. I mean, I agree with that, but like, it's not, it's still separated.
It's not like it's... It's-- No, it is separated from the lounge. Or the bar. It's like a bar.
And it's not like a fuck ton of people are kind of hanging out there. I see what you're saying, and yeah, I agree with you. It's just that it doesn't happen a ton, so people are kind of in and out. I went to go walk in, and I'm standing at the door looking where to put my cigar before I walked in, and then I noticed, oh, they get behind the register smoking a cigar, so.
Have you gone in the back? This is okay. No. Their back, too?
Yeah. No, I didn't go in the back. The back is ridiculous. It's probably my favorite shop.
Oh, is it really? Yeah. The guys from the club go there a lot because it has outdoor seating and it's a nice location and it's kind of midway between the Miami and West Palm Beach guys. Yeah.
And Danny's just kind of like a no bullshit individual. And I appreciate that, right? You just kind of, he's not egotistical, he's not full of himself, but he's real, you know, so. They had carried Florinata and sold out and won't reorder.
Yeah, that was a question of the pace and the tempo and the effort. I'm sure there's reasons, or maybe Johan's just sent too many emails and phone calls, too. You just called him Johan. I know, that's because I said something bad.
So, but like, ah, more coffee, more caffeine! Yeah, so, I mean, alright, moving on, what else you got? Moving on, um, that takes a moment to go to the questions. You're like, you had so much content.
Well, I told you, it always seems longer when I'm writing the down. Oh, it doesn't help that you just had a bang. Oh, I know what it is. We are a sponsored show.
We're a sponsored show? Through Podbean. Podbean gave us a sponsor. What does that mean?
The agreement we have with them, they can assign a sponsor, and we get paid a small amount. Yeah? Yeah. It says that they're on there, and if anybody's heard it, send us a message and let us know if you heard the commercial, because I've heard the commercial, but I can't find it when I listen to the show.
So when do we get our check? When it plays for so long. Okay, so here's the thing. I actually have that in my notes, talking about sponsors.
Oh, you want to know who our sponsors first? Yeah, go ahead. The University of Denver, or the University of Colorado, some college out in Denver, we are sponsored by their doctorate program. Excellent.
Yes. I'm totally fine with that. So please, everyone, go to the University of Colorado, Denver, and get your doctorate. I figured you'd be okay, because it was not a tobacco thing.
Right, here's the thing: they chose us. Look, at the end of the day, if a sponsor approaches you, and you know, you want to work out details, we can handle the negotiations for that, that's totally fine. It will not be anybody affiliated with the cigar industry, it could be somebody who's pushing erectile dysfunction meds, I don't give a fuck. But it's not gonna be...
Have you heard the commercial where the little blue pill is talking to you? No. " But I'm highly effective. But I'm highly effective.
And you can call this number and a team of doctors will write you a prescription. Are you feeling like no longer a man? Is your game on course or something like that? Are you up for the challenge of all sorts of innuendos and things?
For the challenge. It's hilarious. It's my favorite commercial. Well, I too have been traveling, Michael.
Yes, you have. Where did you go? I did- Nobody cares! Oh, sorry.
I did a little tri-state action. I did New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey. That whole shebang. New Jersey.
And you didn't get sick, which is good. I'm glad. No, I had an event. No, but yeah, you tried to jinx me, you fuck.
I didn't try to jinx you. I didn't get the flu. Well, Mr. Jurgulette got the flu right after pneumonia, right after he saw you.
Yeah, well, calm down. I'm a well-trained, high-immunity specimen. I just wanted you to make sure you washed your hands one extra time before your lovely wife and children got there. Exercise daily.
Got to stay on top of it. Even on the road. Eat right. Well, I mean, I did fall off.
I'm not going to lie. I did fall off. But when I was working, working, I did work out. I did exercise.
Oh, I lost weight last week while I was gone. Yeah. Just because it was all worky, worky, worky, a little bit of eating. I feel like you asked me a question and I didn't really get to fully answer the question.
I was commenting back on your things. Okay, everybody, that's three drinks you should have taken because I interrupted Michael three times. So, I bet you somebody does that game. So, my wife and kids came up there.
Obviously, you kind of led into that. When they were with me, I didn't work out at all, which kind of sucked, but... I love that jacket you had, that big puffy black leather jacket. My bomber jacket?
Yeah. That was my dead uncle's. Oh, was it? Yeah.
Oh, did you get that while you were up there? No. Oh, you already had it. Yeah.
My dad had one that was super 1970s, like, extra gangster. It was like this lambskin, and it looks like retro, right out of the 70s, and I was gonna sport that one, but it didn't have buttons when I went to go put it on, I'm like, "Oh, this shit doesn't have buttons," and when I put it on, I was like, "Oh, this is, this is, I don't know about this," but I just tabled it. I feel like it's gonna make its way out, eventually. Is it supposed to have buttons, or they're just gone?
It's supposed to have buttons. Oh, maybe buttons would be a good gift. Well, I mean... A buttoning.
They're going to have to be big buttons. Well, you just take it to a place that does that. Like a guy? Yeah, I got a guy, actually.
A button guy? I got a tailor. At what point? Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
Button guy. So, a couple, just honorable mentions of a couple places that I went to. I obviously did an event with Mr. Rosales at, excuse me, at...
Oh, you're sick. At Mom Cigar Warehouse, with my boy Matul, owner of Fable. Oh, very nice. Which was really cool.
I was talking to someone last week, who was it, that went to Matul's, and they were treated very, very well. Yeah. Can't remember who it was. Uh, yeah.
Oh, it was Drew. Drew Carpenter. Oh. Andrew.
Very nice. Andrew and Jesse were up there. So, um, so that was cool. You know, got to hang out with some of the regulars there.
Shout-out to Tiffany, she was pretty badass, very cool person to hang out with and shoot the shit. Hello, Tiffany. She'll probably never listen, but you know, whatever. Then I did, the big one was at B&B with my boy Vince Hill.
I don't know these people. And we gave out the 320 Sycamores since it's Christmas. Oh, the one I've never had. Yeah, it's delicious.
It's too bad you haven't experienced it. And there's, what, Powstanie Bearclaw or something coming out too. Yeah, yeah, there is, but you're getting ahead of yourself. Sorry.
In the midst of me traveling, I got to check out a place called High End Cigars, which isn't open yet. Oh. By a gentleman by the name of Anthony and his wife. Anthony?
And his wife, Karen, yeah. Anthony and Karen. I didn't get to meet Karen, but Anthony's a super cool dude. Yeah?
Yeah, I like what he's doing. I like what he's doing. He's got some really cool principles and, you know, he's pretty badass. Very nice.
Got to hang out with my boy Moe. Shout out to Tatlat Moe. Tatlat Moe. The dude is, he's an amazing guy.
Really is. Really? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, that was it.
I mean, I hit some other shops, obviously. Smokers of Light, Barristers, and you know. Oh, I like the name Barristers. Yeah.
They were cool. I just like the name. That's what the English call the lawyers. Yeah.
Barristers. Really? Yeah. Really!
Really! So, I got a 92 rating. Oh, for your SBC 18? Yeah.
On a half wheel. I saw that. No smoking issues, no dry issues. No, I'm sure that there were issues.
Burn issues. But like, I don't read it. I just go to the list. Oh, I read it.
Oh, really? I had to go find it. I purposely went and found it to read it. You seeked it out?
I seeked it out once I saw it was posted. So, you know, there's a couple people that do the reviews on Half Wheel. So, I mean, I don't think Charlie knows what a 90 or above is. Well, the 90 is the one that tastes like Froot Loops and yogurt.
He's never experienced that. But Patrick is my dude. Is Patrick the guy that lives here in town? No, that's Brian.
Brian, that's right, that's Brian. You mean the guy that lives in town we've never seen? Yeah, that guy. Yeah, that guy, Brian.
Yeah, yeah. I tag Half Wheel every week when we put this up. Really? Nothing.
Not a story. Not a mention. 0. Nothing.
So, yeah, Patrick's my guy. He's a good dude. I went and read some of his other reviews. They were actually good.
He's very accurate. He's very fair. Yes, he is. So, I like Patrick.
Patrick is my favorite. Hey, how does that work where you get them to review? Because they've never reviewed Florinanda. I don't.
You don't ask. I don't ask them to review. Oh, you didn't have to, like, send them a handful or something? They go out and get them?
No, that's another thing they do is they purchase all their own stuff. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. " Well, I just figured maybe you send them and they'd do it, that type of thing. I would never do that.
Oh. Okay, that's just, I mean, to me... Well, especially if they trashed you the last time. Oh, I don't give a fuck if they trashed me.
They could rate me 40. It doesn't affect me in any way, shape, or form. Does anybody put that much weight in the reviews anymore? I think that yeah I think a lot of people you know I mean I've I've been in shops now and people come in they go you know I've got I'm with blah blah blah cigar and it's got a 92 rating and Uncle Moe's cigar diary well I mean I don't think a lot of people are reading Uncle Moe's but that one particularly but I shouldn't mention anything specifically but in reality I think that you know people still listen to it they were you know respect to some degree and if anything it's very entertaining.
" Can anyone try that out? There have been people that come into the shop and they'll go, you don't have to hold up the magazine, do you have this one? I mean, Aficionado's number one cigar of the year is right around the corner, and fucking, that's gonna be chaos, no matter what it is. It will, no matter what it is, yeah, that's true.
Unless it's a Cuban and then you can't fucking get it. It's still hard to find the bulls. Yeah, well, I mean, that's a whole other animal in itself, um, but yeah, yeah, and then, uh, yes, the bear was announced. That wasn't, that was not planned.
I would imagine it wasn't. That was not planned. Thank you, Mr. Danny Vasquez.
Yeah. Danny did the post. Let that cat out of the bag. Charlie jumped all over it.
Oh, I have not read the halfway article. We're working on the war bear. The war bear. The war bear.
Yeah. I also forgot to mention I was on Kiss My Ass Radio this past Saturday. Yes. Yes, I forgot all about that.
It went really well. Yeah. I had a good time. I've already been asked back for a third time in the spring.
Really? Yes. They like me there. I do well.
I've gotten good feedback from them and listeners. That's pretty cool. Well, we do this, so I have a certain level of comfort, I think, that most people don't have. Be a little more confident.
Stick the microphone in front of their face. I was so worried that Joan was going to lock up. I made him empty his pockets, take the cell paint off his cigars. You know what?
You're like the best thing that ever happened to Johan. And the fact of the matter is that he didn't like the microphones here, and there you have to wear the headsets, so I was like, "No, closer. " I like those headsets, man. Those things are...
They do. I like the headsets, too. See what I mean? Yeah.
And then we have this bullshit. I don't know. Well, I don't... I don't know how to...
It's so dirty back here because nobody's touched this thing in two weeks. There's dust all over. But at least the office is operational. The office is operational, yes.
Alright, so let's get to some of these questions. Okay, questions. We're only 20 minutes in. That's all we got so far?
I think that covered kind of a lot of ground. What else do you want to talk about? I don't know. Okay, we have questions.
I mean, if we're 20 minutes in, and you were super, first of all, you said you were super psyched, you had a lot of content, you had about five minutes worth of shit. It always seems longer. Well, considering normally I have none. So here I am, three quarters of the fucking content, and you're telling me that you had stuff to talk about.
I do have stuff to talk about. Well, you had stuff to talk about, but you drank a fucking bang, you rushed through it, and here we are. You didn't emphasize on any of these things. First question.
You didn't say anything about any stores you're at? Nothing strange happened? I mean, shit happens all the time. Thank you for reminding me.
I do have a story at Boutique Cigars in Little Havana. We walk in, and there's an older guy sitting there, a guy slightly younger than me, but not a young guy. He yells my name. He goes, Mike, Mike Palmer, and starts pointing at me.
I was like, hello? " And you're A/B positive. So he used to be in the club a couple of years ago. You booted him.
No, no, he left. He got off Facebook and stuff. But when he said his name, I knew who it was. His name was Vern.
I don't know if he listens, but Vern, it was nice seeing you, and you did freak me out a little bit, but still. I love when that shit happens. But he knew so many details about, you know, specifically like the beer I like and the name of the bar in my backyard. You know, if he just said my name, because I had people notice me in shops, and I'd look at John, and he'd just smile.
" Well, that also reminds me that I've got to do a couple shout-outs, too, to my boy Ray12, and, you know, and obviously John, because I hung out with them. And one of their guys I ran into at Sanjay's shop, Dan Likes, @danlikes on Instagram. Oh, that sounds familiar. ", which is always awesome and kind of a humbling experience, because, I mean, who the hell are we?
You know what I mean? " And he said, I forget what his name was, but it was a guy in a suit and tie. Yeah. He was a very professional-looking man.
You say, yeah, do you like my shit? Why don't you comment? What the fuck? You know?
You Instagram stalk me? Weird. It is a little weird sometimes. I mean, I was just there looking around.
I'd never been to Thompson's before. I just wanted to see what was there. Some guy walks up to you and taps you on the shoulder. That's nice.
Hey, you're Mike Palmer. I don't post a lot of pictures of my face. See, I do. I try to do every other one.
Ah, you have like a method. I want to be recognized. You want to be recognized. I mean, they need to see who I am, because what good is it?
Because we have a lot of guys in the club, I mean 746 or something, but a lot of guys, it's just their cigar, or their hand, or, you know, what they're drinking. " Yeah. " All right. That's what I'm going to start doing to identify myself now.
" and shove my hand out with a cigar. With a cigar. " You need some type of, maybe use the other hand to get some kind of weird bracelet or something. No.
So I recognize you, a hand's just a hand. I mean, you do have a big, meaty paw, but... For me, it's all about simplicity, dude. I don't need to overcomplicate things.
Just fucking, I have like 10 of the same shirt at this point, and I roll with that. So it's easy, efficient. I don't have to think about it. I got a lot of shit I got to do.
I don't want to, I don't need it. I don't need additional accessories. Now you have a twitch. I'm shaking my head no, I don't need additional accessories.
All right, back to the questions. All right, here we go. First question is from Mr. Casey Hogan at Crux Cigars.
Oh, Jesus. Oh, he called me, I didn't answer. Oh, maybe this is why then. " Yes, I love you, Casey.
Next question. And are you riding? I don't know what that means. Am I riding?
I don't know. Riding the cotton pony? I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know.
I guess, I don't know. Maybe. I might be riding. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure. Oh, gotcha. I don't speak Jive. Excuse me, stewardess?
Don't speak Jive? That's an airplane joke. Have you heard the commercial that's on the radio? There's a new phone service called Jive?
Yeah. Have you heard that? Jive don't want none, jive don't get none. No, it's not that.
It's some service that routes all your business phone calls to your cell phone. Yeah. But they call it Jive. And every time they say it, I say it in that guy's voice, I yell Jive back at the radio.
No matter what I'm doing. Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive. Jive do they got no brains anyhow. We have several questions from Mr.
John Gergelet. Oh, Jesus. Yogi 1966. Well, since he, yeah.
Let's go. Will there ever be a video podcast? Yes. Yes, there will be a video podcast.
You know, I was thinking about doing it today, but I forgot to bring my little holder. No, we're not going to half-ass the deal. We're not going to Facebook Live it? It's got to be done right.
I don't care if it's Facebook Live, that's totally fine. I'd rather do that, because I really don't want to have to edit it. But, we'll have to discuss that. But I think that, you know.
We need an intern. There's nothing wrong with YouTube and it. If you'd like to be an intern for the Cigar Hustlers podcast, send your resume to Cigar Hustler, 829 Delthona Boulevard. I think that, you know, in reality, this is close to being acceptable as far as video, but you'd have to tweak a few things here, you'd have to, and there should be a YouTube page.
We have a YouTube page. The audio goes to it. Okay, but there should be video on the YouTube page. Well, I just converted a YouTube page I already had.
I mean, the fact that you're doing it's pretty impressive. I'm not even mad, I'm impressed. We have also applied to be on iHeartRadio. Oh, that's cool.
Aren't they going bankrupt or something? I don't think so. Oh, okay. I certainly hope.
Well, it's just free content for them, they don't pay us for it. I like it, I like it. The empire is growing. It's almost time for us to quit.
John would also like to know, will we ever do a call-in segment? It's a call-in segment. We actually have that same question from other people. So here's the thing.
Somebody else asked that same question. Oh, Danny Vasquez. That was Danny Vasquez's question, too. Okay, so here's my answer to that, because I know where he's going.
The answer's no. Well, he doesn't want to walk his ass over here. Right, that's the problem. He comes within 45 minutes of the shop and he can't come over here.
Right. I think that if you want to be on the podcast as a guest, it's important for you to be here. Because for me, it shows that, you know, for one, it's significant enough for you to take the time out of your day to come in, and for two, you're gonna sound better. I don't like the brr, brr, brr, brr, brr.
Now, as far as somebody calling in, like a questionnaire or some shit like that, I mean, that might be something we could do. See, that would almost have to be set up in advance, because we do this, it's not like we do it every day, you know, every Tuesday. Yeah, but like that wouldn't be that difficult. " Yeah, just put it up on Instagram like we did the questions.
Yeah, and then you say, "Hey, all right, we're going to have you on between this and such and such," you know, whatever. All right. Next set of questions is from HCBalos2. I don't know his real name.
I don't know if you know him on Instagram or not. I do know that name. Okay. He wants to know when Skip's ever going to be on the show.
Oof. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. Kiss My Ash would also like to have Skip on, he mentioned. " He goes, "No.
" Did you drop that? I did. Oh, yeah. That's awesome.
Let me just throw that out there. I like giving Abe shit. You're sitting there. That's awesome.
We have twice. So that's pretty cool. I don't know. I mean, you know, Skip's a busy guy.
Like, he's got a lot going on. He's a, you know, he's traveling a lot, but he's also in the factory a lot. And, you know, if the stars align right and he's in here, the right place, right time, then yeah, of course. Would you let Skip do a phone-in interview?
Fuck no. Is there, okay, listen, okay, this is, I like this stuff. Okay, is there anyone in the industry that you would let do a phone-in interview? And the answer is no.
Oh, very nice. Because I believe in this, I don't believe in cutting a corner, and I'm not going to, I don't give a shit who the fuck you are. You know, if you don't want to put in the time to come here, then I'm not gonna Skype you in, you know? Sorry.
It's a very small machine we'd have to buy to do phone calls. Yeah. And that's not Skype, that's that actual through the phone. Like, for one of the guests to call in.
Yeah. It'd be cool if we did, like, some kind of trivia thing with them or some shit like that, and, like, you had them call in, and if they got the things right, then they want something. That'd be pretty bad. Oh, listeners?
Yeah. That'd be fun. That would be fun. I'd be okay with that.
That'd be cool. But as far as a guest? No. Bring your ass in.
Okay. Next question. Why is Mikey always in a bad mood? Who asked that question?
These are all from the same guy. I'm not always... C. Ballos 2.
I'm all... You know, that's... Man, I'm sorry that I come... I thought that.
I thought it was funny. I'm sorry that I come across that way. I'm not... " I'm not always in a bad mood, but I just think that, for one, you anger the shit out of me sometimes.
That's a whole concept of the show. And for two, I just think that I'm a little more real than a lot of the fluffy bunny bullshit that you catch on some of these other shows. Yeah, that is true. We don't work from a script.
We don't have prefabbed questions. But we don't have things setting up where we're just going to, hello, my name is Mike, I am on Cigar House, I mean, we're just off the cuff. I mean, I just say it like it is. I mean, the fact of the matter is, 80% of the retailers that are in the industry suck.
They're terrible. I don't, you know, I'm not angry about it. It's just a fact of life. I wish I could say it was the other way around.
I wish I could say 80% of them are great. But, you know, you go on the road, you walk into some of these places, and this is like, dude, your fucking couch is from 1980. Katie, come on, man. Like, put a little bit of pride into your work.
No wonder why you're just scraping along, you know? Right. I mean, that doesn't make me angry. You do.
You come off angry. Just disappointed at some of these people. You're not very angry. You yell at me a lot.
On and off the air. You deserve it. Oh, so hurt. So hurt.
You tried to yell at me yesterday. I didn't yell at you yesterday. You tried to, though. No, I didn't.
You were just, uh, never mind. We don't need to discuss that. You can't respond to your texts fast enough. Or ever.
Like the one yesterday, I had to resend again this morning. Dude, sometimes I miss this shit, I don't know. I don't want to be a, you know, I can't text after 6pm, so. You're not a pest and you can text me anything.
I don't want to be a pest. Anytime. Okay, Mr. HC, we're just gonna call him HC going forward, because I don't understand the whole thing, so HC.
He also thinks we need a specific jingle for the show. Ooh. Not "Everybody's Hustlin'. OK.
I don't know how we go about that. Yeah, I don't know how we go about that either. I mean, there's websites that will do musical intros for your show for a fee. No, no, no.
Yeah, there are. No, man. What, you and I gonna play an instrument? I'll get my kazoo, you bring in your slide whistle.
It's gotta be, it's gotta come from the heart. It's gotta come from somebody who wants to do it, somebody with meaning or something of that nature. OK, so if there's someone out there who would like to do a jingle for the And if you're on-air credit, we will give you on-air credit, and we will use your jingle if it's appropriate. Yeah, so, but here's the thing.
Okay. So first of all, we will play the jingle. We will talk about the jingle. Yeah, we'll play it, we'll talk about the jingle.
And then, I will tell you if we're gonna take it on or not, but like, you have to be... Yes, this is not a democracy, this show. This is a dictatorship. Nothing happens without Mr.
Stepankiewicz's approval. What about you? You too, pal? We work, this is a team effort.
It's a team effort, but you have the ultimate secret. There's other things I would have already done that you won't let me do. Sound effects and... Yeah, well, you've tried that.
I'm like, what are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? Have you listened to the last couple of shows? No.
There are applause now when we announce a guest. Oh, my God. Money. So what else you got?
Okay, his final question. This is the last question. Man, he hit you hard. He did.
He had a lot of questions like this. What does Mike Palmer do at the shop? Everything. And nothing.
Mike Palmer does everything and nothing all in one. So, Mike Palmer obviously has a key to the shop and his own security code to come in. He knows how to run the register, handle the customers, and he knows where everything is. So, like, if I can't find my keys, for example, Mike is the first person I call or I ask if he's by me.
" Yeah, whether I'm here or not. Have you found, have you seen this? And 95% of the time, he'll tell you where it is. The small black jump driver, whatever it was that you lost that day.
That was my most impressive one so far. That was pretty good. Because I don't know when you ever touched that last. Right.
So, Mr. Palmer is the keeper of things, above all, which is very impressive. And you guys have a new POS system coming in soon. We do.
I have to schedule my training. Yes, we're going to have to do that. And then we're going to have to subject you to Cruel and Unusual Punishment and have you run the shop when we do-- Greg mentioned that briefly in a phone call the other night. When we do our wig gold thing, so-- Yeah, they're playing wiffle ball or something?
And we'll see where we go, but it's a whirly ball-- You heard of pickleball? Pickleball's the new thing lately. Possibly Topgolf, I don't know. Ooh, that's way over in Tampa.
No, man, there's one on iDrive. Oh, is there one over there now? Yeah. Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
What else you got? That's all the questions we have. Wow. That's all the questions.
I'm sorry if I come across as angry. I'm not. I'm a pretty positive, happy guy, so... You got anything, any events between now and the end of the year?
Ooh... That's like in two weeks. Yeah, it takes two weeks. I got nothing.
I would say no. I mean, I've got some stuff going on here. One of my suppliers is actually shutting down starting this Friday. Yeah?
Yeah. Until January. But isn't this the time of year all the factories over there shut down anyway, too? Uh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure everybody's used to that anyway. Yeah.
So that's... Joan is not leaving until he's going back to Dominican with his family too, but I think he's going in January. Johan. Johan.
So yeah, there you go. There you go. Oh, hey, you know what, and congratulations to my boy Frenchy, John D. Oliver, formerly of Zykar, who is now joining the Roma Craft family.
Oh, is he? Kind of a big deal. Oh, what's he going to be doing for them? What are you going to be doing for them?
That hasn't been on half of it yet. He's going to be on in-house accounts and stuff. Yeah, I know. Well, Skip announced it on his Facebook page, so I know that it's at least starting at the beginning of the year, you know, John was at one point a customer to Cigar Hustler before he got in the industry, and then, you know, he got… Oh, was he really?
Yeah. He lived here locally? No, online. Oh, okay.
And, you know, he's just an all-around awesome dude, so he's going to be a great fit for them. So, is Danny being promoted? I have no idea, you know, the inner workings of how that's gonna play out. Oh, Danny's probably being let go.
No, Danny's not being let go. You have plenty of time to come in for the interview now. I can't imagine anybody in the team being let go because it's a small team, but they're very efficient at what they do. But it's growing, it's good.
It is growing. Maybe skip a lot of free time now to come in. Yeah, maybe. We'll see.
It doesn't really help. Skip, we're at 829 Deltona Boulevard? But John doesn't really help skip on Skip's end. Oh, that's true.
You know what I mean? That's true. He's more of an effort on stateside, so. Yeah.
Yeah. I like the questions. That was nice. I like the questions, too, wasn't it?
I'll have to be happier from now on. Yeah, be happier. Hi. And we need a jingle.
And we need a fucking jingle. And a jingle and some way for people to call in. That's what we've got to work on for 2019. Oh, do you have any plans for the show?
We're gonna have, we'll have one more show, won't we? Yeah, yeah. I wish we could get the year show out of the way. Oh, it's like, it's like out there, but we can't get to it.
It's close, it's coming. This is, uh, episode 48, I believe. Nice. So we have four more.
We won't get it by the end of the year, though. All right. It'd be nice to wrap up the year. You know what we should do next, we should do, uh, for the last show, which will be next week for the year, we should do a, uh, 2018, a recap of everything, everybody we've had on, We'll see you later on in what we did and how the show has changed and it's like a retrospective.
Whatever you want to do. But we should also give away some sycamores on that show too. The 320 sycamores. The one I'll never have.
The one you're never going to ever have. Ever, ever have. All right. That's all right.
All right guys, thanks for listening. We appreciate all the listeners. We're sorry we didn't have an episode last week, but Mikey was in a mood. He was a bad man.
The road takes us where we need to go. The road takes us where we need to go. I wonder if we could do a phone interview between the two of us, do a phone-in show. We do a phone-in show.
That sounds terrible. Yeah, but it'd fill up. I'm done with you. I'm leaving now.
You're leaving. You're leaving. All right. All right, everybody.
Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you later. Bye. This is the operator with a collect ball from...
To accept the charges, press one, now. All right, folks, that's it. Show's over. Thanks for listening.
You can send in any of your questions or suggestions for guests to a Cigar Hustlers podcast Facebook page. You can follow the show on Instagram at a Cigar Hustlers podcast. You can follow Mikey at Cigar Hustler. You can follow me at FCC_Mike.
Remember to please rate, review, and subscribe to whichever our providers you listen. The end of the day is the way you can go. Do you wanna ride? Ride with me.
With me. Your spot is reserved, family. Do you wanna ride? Cigarette boats, yachts.
They know where we can't go. We in South Beach in the Hamptons too, baby. You know why they call a project a project? Because it's a project.
An experiment. We're in it. Only it's objects. An object for us to accept.
Okay, everybody, this week's secret hashtag is Yogi. Hashtag Y-O-G-I Yogi for our buddy John who just had surgery yesterday.
Show Notes
Its been two weeks without an episode....we are finally back and having a good time again!
We catch up on our travels, discuss our travels, events and my appearance on KMA radio.
Big should out to John (Yogi) and success with his surgery! Plans for the show and we answer your questions.
As always you can contact the show on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast". You can follow the show on IG @cigarhusterspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and Mike @fcc_mike or @floridacigarcollection.
Please remember to rate, review and subscribe on whichever of our supplier you use!
Thanks for listening!