Episode 80 Mikey's Birthday Show
Episode Summary
Episode 80 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast is a loose, celebratory show built around Mike Two's 35th birthday — complete with new headset microphones, a ringing hotline phone, and a stack of birthday voicemails from industry friends and novelty "celebrity" messages. Before the party starts, the hosts offer a defense of Wes Thornton of Crowned Heads, who had a family emergency before last week's appearance, and give a shout-out to Great Smoke Cigar Company and Lounge in Yulee, Florida for playing the show on their big screen every week.
The meat of the episode is industry talk. The guys dig into the PCA's reported attendance figures for the 2019 IPCPR trade show — roughly flat year over year, with a ~1.5% bump in retailers and ~2.5% in overall traffic — and question how reliable badge-printing numbers really are as a measure of foot traffic. From there they walk Cigar Dojo's "must-have cigars of IPCPR 2019" list from #11 to #1, saying which ones they've actually smoked and which they'd put on their own list: Guardian of the Farm Night Watch, Camacho Distillery Edition, Room 101 Farce Maduro, Protocol Sir Robert Peel, Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Connecticut, Crowned Heads La Coalición (plus praise for the value-priced Juarez), Plasencia Alma del Fuego, Tatuaje Mexican Experiment ME II, J.C. Newman The American, Dunbarton's Sobremesa Brûlée, and RoMa Craft's Baka at number one.
Other segments include a discussion of brand ambassador programs — both hosts find them a bit inauthentic compared to just gifting cigars to people you genuinely like — and a rant about cigar shops posting Instagram walk-throughs of messy, unorganized humidors. The episode closes with birthday messages from Nick Ruggiero, Danny Vasquez of RoMa Craft, Hector Alfonso of Espinosa/Small Batch fame, Mike Two's wife, and a string of AI/celebrity-voice gag greetings, along with talk of Mike's upcoming Cigar Dojo appearance and cigars still on the wish list like The Tabernacle Havana Seed and a promised RoMa Craft turtle.
In This Episode
- 01Defending Wes Thornton & New HeadsetsThe hosts explain Wes Thornton of Crowned Heads had a family emergency before last week's episode, and show off the new headset mics that inspired the whole birthday format.
- 02Shop Shout-OutsGreat Smoke Cigar Company and Lounge in Yulee, Florida gets a shout-out for playing the podcast weekly, plus an offer for other lounges that tag the show.
- 03PCA / IPCPR 2019 Attendance NumbersA skeptical breakdown of the PCA's flat attendance report, the ~1.5% retailer increase, and whether printed badges can really measure foot traffic.
- 04Cigar Dojo's Top 11 Must-Have IPCPR 2019 CigarsA countdown from Guardian of the Farm Night Watch to RoMa Craft Baka, with the hosts noting which they've smoked and which they'd actually recommend.
- 05Are Brand Ambassador Programs Worth It?Responding to a question of the week, the hosts argue scheduled ambassador packages feel synthetic compared to genuinely gifting cigars to friends.
- 06Clean Up Your Humidor Before You Post ItA rant about retailers filming Instagram humidor walk-throughs with cigars scattered everywhere — and dirty thumbnails in cigar photos.
- 07Birthday Voicemails from the IndustryMessages from Nick Ruggiero, Danny Vasquez of RoMa Craft, Hector Alfonso, John Yoguelite, and a run of celebrity-voice gag greetings.
- 08What's Next: Cigar Dojo Appearance & Cigars to ComeMike's upcoming Cigar Dojo guest spot, the Sobremesa Brûlée, The Tabernacle, and cigars the hosts are still waiting to try.
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
*Music* It's your birthday today Michael! It's your birthday today Michael! Rock and roll and celebrate Celebrate, we will! Cut the cake!
Cut the cake! Cut that cake! The night is your destiny! Away!
Away with me! So jam toast with your closest mates! Here's your birthday to me! Michael!
Michael! Okay, now we're on! I forgot my, uh... Welcome to Cigar Hustlers Podcast!
West, episode 80. Go ahead and close that. Thank you. It's Mikey's birthday show.
We have a lot of things lined up for Mikey's birthday show. I got cool headphones. Oh, look. There are screws, are there?
First... He said look harder. Yeah. First, I think, West Thornton.
Thornton. Thornton. Thornton. From Crown Head Cigars.
He sent us a handle for the door because he got trapped inside. So, let me defend West real quick before we get into it. Oh, yes. For last week's show.
He had a family emergency before he got on the podcast. Yes, is he an asshole? Yes, but he's a really nice guy. And you know, his mind wasn't in the right place.
So, give him a pass. When you meet him, he's a good dude. If you haven't met him already, you know, I like the guy. So, please consider that moving forward.
This is spiking and I don't know why there's something missing off my screen. Okay, anyway, no, no, we're good. We're good. So, when's your birthday officially?
July 29th. Which is Monday. Monday. Monday.
Monday. So when this comes out Tuesday, it will have been your birthday. Yes, we would have lived it. We would have lived your birthday.
It would have been excellent. Very exciting. There's people probably getting ready to party in the streets and everything. You didn't ask how old I was going to be.
I figured a man of your age did not want to tell his age any longer. No, I don't give a shit. How old are you going to be, Mike? You've got to embrace the gray.
First, let's discuss this wonderful headset you have. Yes, exactly. Do you like hearing the show as it's played? This is fantastic.
Is this my birthday present? That is one of, that is not the birthday present. Oh, I got two. And I disclosed the gift to your wife today, and I thought she was going to tear up a little bit.
Really? I got to give you credit when it comes to these sorts of things, because you put a lot of thought into gifts. I am very good at the gift game. I did make my father cry one time when I gave him a gift.
Can I solidify you for writing my eulogy at this point? Sure. I'd like to lock that in. Well, odds are I'll die before you.
I don't know. Would you like me to write it now? I don't know. I want to be safe.
I might have a stroke during the show and just write it now. If you stroke out during the show. I thought I brought the phone out. Apparently there's more than one in here somewhere.
That's fantastic. Let's let that ring. Hope nobody answers it and it just rings for the whole show. Yes, hello caller.
You're on the air. That's one of the surprises. Please, go right ahead. Where's the second phone?
I don't know. There's only one out there on the floor. I've been running around with one phone today. Well, there's your answer.
Evidently, it's hidden in here somewhere. So, yeah, well, I'm 35. Did I say that already? Nope.
Okay. 35. 35. 35.
Mid-30s, right there. Please, I'm 52. But you look so great. You know, you look amazing.
I'm better at 35. Have you seen the pictures of me on the horse with no shirt? What marriage were you at at 35? Probably in the beginning or middle of two.
Okay. So I'm doing all right then. Have you seen the pictures of me shirtless on the horse? Yeah.
That was 35. Have I seen it? It's in my bedroom. It just came up the other day, but I refused to post it.
Oh, you totally should have shared that. This is me. This is me right before I fucking met the Russian president. That is why Putin rides a horse.
Yeah, that's his name. Putin. Putin. Vladimir.
Vladimir. Well, it's probably pronounced it like Votek and Poshik and Postanya and whatever God forsaken things. This mic is freaking me out a little bit. Really?
You sound good. I can hear myself, and I'm like... Oh, so you should wait till one of the times when the machine fucks up and there's a delay. So why do I have these amazing headphones, Michael?
Well, you always wanted a headset microphone. I did. And they were on sale on Amazon. I thought we would give it a try.
And it works well. A couple little tweaks of the soundboard and the equipment that came with it, and boom! Look at that, you can turn your head anywhere you want. We're in business.
We're in business. Life is good. I didn't like it. I tried it.
I did not like it. Really? I like this. I'm old school.
I'm an old man. You look very professional over there. I like this. I like my big microphone and my headset.
I need my freedom. My freedom and my efficiencies. Oh. You know?
Wait 'til Fred Rui comes on again and he still doesn't get a headset. Yeah. We don't give him shit. He disagreed with me on my rapper conversation at San Andreas or something.
He did make the show very cigar-ish. Yeah. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Well, he thinks he's doing a cigar show.
It's a cigar show. Yeah, this is not a cigar show. It's not a cigar show. It's a cigar show.
It's ridiculous. Okay, I have some things to go over from last week. The West Show was going so well, I just didn't bring any of it up. Yeah.
I have no time last week. Fucking train wreck last week. Alright, shout out to Great Smoke Cigar Company and Lounge in Yulee, Florida. They play our show every week on their big screen TV.
Really? Oh, they definitely deserve it. Yes. Nice.
So, if you have a lounge or a cigar shop and you play the show, If you put a picture up on Instagram, and hashtag the show so I see it, we'll give you a shout-out on a future episode. Nice. Yes. We should build, like, some kind of thing that we can fucking send.
Send? What, you want to, like, send them the banner? Yeah, something like that. Rotate it around?
Or maybe, like, do, like, some... Here, you get the banner for a week, and then... We should be able to do something. Oh.
What do you want to do? I don't know. We have magnetic stickers, but they're very small. Yeah.
Yeah. No, like when we were in Opus' account, they gave us this picture. Now we're not. So we have this really old… We need more of these.
A gigantic sign. A gigantic metal sign. I'm afraid it'll tap it, it'll fall. A metal sign to hang up in your shop.
1995 plus shipping. Okay. Act now. But wait, there's more.
But wait, there's more. So, okay, all right, sorry. I didn't mean to… but Great Smoke? Yes, the… And they're in Florida?
The Great Smoke Cigar Company and Lounge in Yulee, Florida. It's up by Jacksonville. Oh. Well, we should go and see them.
We've been there! Oh, yeah! That's my dude. Yeah.
He's a good egg. He is. He's a good guy. And they play the show every Tuesday.
So they do it either every Tuesday or Friday. I forget which day they do it on. They play it on the big screen TV. He'd be the only reason why I'd go back out there.
There you go. Did you play it this Sunday, here at the show? No, I didn't. I was busy cleaning.
That's what you should have had on. And you guys were taking pictures of me. Oh, that's right. I was here.
I should have turned it on. I turned it on. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks. Okay. Let's see what else we got. The PCA has reported the attendance numbers for the 2019 IPCPR trade show.
Mm-hmm. It's flat. Yeah. No increase, no decrease, about the exactly same as the year before.
It's like, you can't, how do you, you know, at this point, people are calling them on their bullshit. " So they figured that they could still just say it's flat, I guess. Well, but what they're saying is... What are they saying?
That's just how many badges they print. Right. So if you own a shop and you automatically get three badges, they print three badges. Right.
Whether you show up and pick them up or not, nobody knows. Oh, so really? Yes. They have no way to find out if you picked them up.
That's where the original numbers were. " No. Because there's no way for them to track, unless they count how many are left at the end. Is that what they're doing?
I mean, you could determine what you've printed and given out. I mean, that shouldn't be that difficult. Well, if somebody's keeping track, but you've seen how they hand them out. I mean, it's going crazy, and sometimes they print some right there.
And they don't even have plastic anymore. Right, yeah, they're just paper. So, yeah. Paper.
52 increase in overall traffic, which includes manufacturers, media, and other members. When did they include that? This year? This compared to 2018.
Retail accounts totally were pretty much the same as last year, and explicitly there was a spike in actual retail stores attending the show. Interesting. These figures are based on printed and actual foot traffic of people who attended. Oh, there's a disclaimer at the end?
Yes, a disclaimer at the end. Wow, I like how you throw it, that's nice. Yes, we ran over this last week, I like to throw it. But that one went right back down on the table.
You know, I also like the fact that we stopped the recording. Oh, I thought that you didn't have your cigar, because you forgot it, and then we had to get Earl to start the camera again. Yes. Hi, Earl.
I have a photo of Earl. Did we name the guy? No, we don't have that this time. We don't have that?
We don't have that information available. What have you been doing all week? Working here at the shop. That's actually, you don't, no.
Yes. It's a lie. I don't believe you. As far as my time clock shows, I've been working here to shop.
It's a complete lie. Okay. This episode brought to you, okay, hold up, one, two, three. Dang!
They are not a sponsor. We're working on that. I can't even get them to call me back. The official drink of the cigar industry.
Oh, it's so delicious. I cannot even get them to call me back to carry the product in the store. I'm drinking Blue Res. What are you drinking, Michael?
Oh, it looks like a delicious cotton candy. Do you see what the new flavor is that they released? Birthday cake. It is birthday cake.
I'm excited about that. I want to try one. I can't wait. It's probably going to be way too sweet like the cotton candy.
I'm sure it'll pair very well. With the cigars we're having? Yeah. Yeah, it's a fine pairing.
Next, not this already, a week from this Friday, Michael will be on Cigar Dojo. Ooh, yes. I can't wait. Yes.
That's exciting. You're doing a PR stint around the industry. I have the list of the top 11 cigars from Cigar Dojo must have cigars from the IPCC. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I saw that. I did see that list. Did you see that list? Yeah, go ahead.
Okay, we're going to start at the end. We're going to start with number 11. Okay. I said I had 20 minutes worth of stuff.
Right. We're going to have to talk really slow. No, man. We're fine.
We're solid. I got like 10 seconds worth of stuff. Other birthday prize surprises. Yeah, we have birthday stuff, believe me, this is not going to be a short show.
All right, number 11. It'll be a decent show. You need to see if you smoke these, because I think I only have... Okay, I will tell you if I smoke them, I will say, here's what I'm going to do for you, Michael.
I'm going to tell you... I really like you with that headset on. I'm enjoying this. I can hear myself.
It's like having a mirror. It's just fantastic. See, now there are two listeners of the show. Yeah.
So, I'll tell you if I have smoked it, and I will tell you if I am - I like how you can look at me and you're still on mic, I never have to yell - This is great, this is great, this is so much freedom - So I'll tell you, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you if I wanna smoke it or not - Careful on the wall, this place is falling apart faster than I can keep it together - I'm gonna tell you if I want to smoke it or not - Okay, here we go, number 11 - Yes - Guardian of the Farm Night Watch - I smoked it, It's a great cigar. Belongs on the list. Okay. I thought you'd say more.
What else do you want me to say? I like the factory. I like a lot of stuff that they produce. I mean, you know, I think that they're getting better at some of the things that they do.
I think they usually keep running me over as I'm speaking. Because you're doing a great job. You're doing a fantastic job. Keep it up.
Keep it up. So, no, yeah, I like that cigar. I can still turn your mic off, just so you know. I can still beat you to death with the soundboard, just to let you know.
Oh, it's too expensive. We can get the video. It's probably still on the credit card. It's definitely on the credit card.
It's the most expensive soundboard we've ever had. It's the only soundboard we've ever had. 7,000. That's the second one.
The first one was completion. We sent it back, though. We didn't keep it. I'd like to return those.
Okay. Number 10. The Camacho Distillery Edition. Not excited about it.
Didn't smoke it. Oh. From Camacho. Yeah.
Ooh, your phone's plugged in. That's the ring. So it rings on. That's all.
And your watch is going off. Everything's going off. Oh, this is epic. Number nine.
You're a fine producer, Michael. Nobody's ever called my phone during the show. Yeah, 'cause you usually turn it off. I can't turn it off this time.
We have to use it. Right. Number nine. The Farce Maduro.
Is that how you say that? F-A-R-C-E? Farce. Yeah.
That's from room 101. Say nice things. We want him to come on the show. I didn't smoke it.
We have not had the opportunity yet to smoke that cigar, Mike is very much looking forward to it. Mike's looking forward to it. You know, Matt's a cool dude. You want to get Matt Boofy on the show.
Yeah, he's a nice guy. I want to be able to call him Boofy. I want to be my friend. Okay.
Okay. So, Mike's really excited about it. All right. Number eight.
The Protocol Sir Robert Peel. Yeah. By Protocol. Mm-hmm.
Well, I mean, you know, tied into Espinosa. Juan Cancel. Juan Cancel. I could see why they would put that on there.
He's got a lot of teeth. But that's tied in with Famous and stuff like that, so I mean, I wouldn't put that on my list if I was in Dojo, for sure. Oh, gotcha. Juan Cancel's a good dude.
He's in Florida. We might be able to get him. He's in Florida? He used to be in New York.
Oh, he spends a lot of time in Florida, then. Yeah. Down with Abe. Does he?
Spends a lot of time with Abe. Oh, then fuck that guy. No, I'm just kidding. Did you see who now lives in Florida we should get to come on the show?
Who? Casey? Casey who? Uh, Adu...
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he just moved in on the Boca West Palm area. Yeah. He's with JSK now.
Mm-hmm. I like Casey's a good guy, too. Yes. Casey, if you want to come to the show.
Casey doesn't listen to the show. He will when I tag him this week. Mm-hmm. Okay, number six.
Oh, number seven. The Antono? A-N-T-A-N-O? Antono?
The Antonio? Antonio. Probably Antonio. That's almost as bad as Jake doing.
Oh, look at my children. T. Hoya de Nicaragua. Yeah.
haven't smoked it looking forward to it not looking forward to it no i mean not really okay number six the la colision from our friend west yeah good cigar oh it's a great cigar great cigar it surprised me comes with a handle for a door yeah no it's a good cigar um smoked it okay i'll put that on i'll put that on the list oh do we have it here yet no it doesn't come out until Oh, it's not coming out. We have the Juarez. Which is actually a really good cigar, too. It is a good cigar.
I really enjoyed it. For the price point, yes. Okay, number five, the Alma Del Fuego from Placencia. Placencia.
Placencia. Placencia. Okay. And number four, the Me Too from Tatuaje.
Oh, the Me Too, the Mexican experiment. Me Too. That was a good cigar. It says Me Too.
Okay, I could put that on the list. I heard they were going to name it the Mike-2, but they figured I was already taken, so. Yeah. Because that's me.
I'm Mike-2. We have to go after them. I am Mike-2. We don't have any trademarks, though.
There's nothing we can do. We're not selling anything, so. Okay. It wouldn't work out that well.
Number three. Yes. C. Newman.
I've heard a lot of disappointment with that cigar. Really? Yeah. I've heard a lot of people have laughed.
I've heard both, actually. But I would like to try it. If, you know, our friend John Oliva is headed this direction and would like to bring one by. Yeah, I don't know if he...
Can he get us that? Can he give it to us? C. Newman.
I understand that, you know, but... Oh, it's an exclusive? I don't know how... I don't know.
I don't know anything about this. I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, I bet we could make a phone call out to the lounge and find out. Hey.
Hey, by the way. Okay, the number two cigar from Cigar Dojo must-haves after the IPCPR 2019. Yeah. The Sober Mesa Brulee.
Okay. By Mr. Flock. From my friend?
For your friend, Steve Flacca. " and he just dead-eared me. Motherfucker. So he's no longer your friend.
So, I don't know, it's kind of a love-hate thing, I guess, we'll go up and down. He did not leave you a birthday message either. Yeah, he's busy, busy man, he's a fishing man. Okay, then the number one cigar, Cigar Dojo Must Havs, is the Bacca.
Of course it is! By Homacraft. Mike, that doesn't surprise me. At all.
Why wouldn't it be? No. You know what I mean? Am I excited about smoking it?
Yes. Have I smoked it? Hell yeah. By the way, there is one out there.
It's been more than three days I'm taking it. No, you're not. You can't take that one. That's for somebody.
I guess I should have asked before I smoked it this morning. It'll be gone before these shipments go out today. Okay. I wouldn't grab something like that anyway.
That was a special one there. Some reason I have... That's my boy, Derek. I have soccer question of the week on the paper, but I have no idea why by this time.
Soccer questions? He does a question of the week on Facebook, and two weeks ago it must have been a good question, but that was two weeks ago. What was it? I don't know!
Let's bring it up. Oh wait, there's another piece of paper! Oh, and it has one line, the question of the week. You're really selling it.
How do you feel about brand ambassadors? Yes, no, or why? I actually commented on that. Yes, you did, that's why I thought we were discussing it on the show.
Okay, so what do you want to discuss? How do you feel about brand ambassadors? For people that didn't see your comment on Mr. Flock?
It's just kind of silly. Yeah, I think it is, too. So, like, hey, thank you for supporting our brand. The fanboys will do it anyway.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to schedule every... Oh, we're at 21 minutes. Right. " Like, it just seems silly.
Like, I'd rather say, "Hey, you know what, dude? You're a good guy. You're a solid dude. I have some of these and this is for you, like, I don't wanna, like, how do you, you know, make friendship, like, fuckin' synthetic or whatever the hell, like, not authentic?
Right, then some people will start doing it in hopes of... Right. So it's not genuine. It's just kind of, yeah, it doesn't work.
Oh, hold on, we're gonna take this call. Why? We're gonna take this call, hold on, see if this works. Call from...
John Yogolek. Have we been saying his name right? Have you been saying his name wrong? To accept, press one.
Hey John, can you hear me? You gotta press one. To accept, press one. Oh.
No, he's on the other thing. John? Hmm. He's on the other thing.
Damn it. It didn't work. Jergalite. Yeah, have we been saying it wrong all these years?
It wasn't even close. He never corrected us. Never did. Son of a bitch.
Son of a bitch. We've been saying his name wrong. Okay, before we get on the other- You can't say my name right though. That's true.
That's true. Okay. That's always my flex. I have to get up and run across and turn the camera off.
Okay. We're going to take a break. We're going to go to commercial here. Earl, if you'd turn that camera off.
Okay, we'll be right back. Hey, this is Mike T from The Cigar Hustlers Podcast. If you're enjoying the audio version, make sure you get over to YouTube to The Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Okay, and we're back.
Hey, we're back. We're back. Thank you. Throw that away.
Okay. What do you got? Here's something that I wanted to kind of talk about. Yes, what is it?
I saw some of this shit on Instagram, living my best life. Yes. If you're gonna, like you did a post actually recently with our humidor, right? Yes.
There's a 3D and like people dug it and there's the phone ringing again because it's... That's right. Oh my God. I'm sending the voicemail, which is what he wants to do anyway.
So anyways, so like, you know, I'm on Instagram a lot and social media and you did a post of our humidor actually after I saw this and you know, it looked great and the people, you know, you get Spencer circling photos and stuff like that, you know, which is pretty cool. I saw one where, you know, a guy walks in and does like this little scan through of his humidor like showing all the product that he has for sale. In a shop? Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, like this is his store. Okay. Here's the problem.
Straighten out your shit. You fucking, it looked so bad. Oh, he did not like... The cigars were all fucking all over the place.
It's like, dude, you're letting the world... I mean, he probably got, including myself, two views. But, you know, if you're gonna do that... Right.
You need to take a little bit of pride in your humidor. Right. You know? Straighten it up first.
I walk into a humidor, even if it's not my humidor, I start straightening shit out. It bothers me. That's like posting with a dirty thumbnail or something. You just can't.
And I've done that. That drives me crazy when people do that. Oh, God. Picture they're holding a cigar.
Let me take that down. Oh, could you clean up your fingers? You know. Jeez.
I'm going to start putting it. Like the one with the beard today. I straightened it up all nice and neat and made it look all nice and pretty. Right.
Right. Exactly. You got to set the flaws up. You got to have the fluff, you know?
He probably is all excited. He might have even, oh, was it before I did? Oh. He probably thought he was doing a good thing.
I was going to mention this at last week's podcast, but it was just going so well that I just, you know, I'm going to let that go. I don't know why stuff came up. Plus, it got so smoky in there. Yeah, because we didn't have that ventilation going.
There's four guys in here smoking, too. That Juarez was a very smoky cigar. So that was all I was gonna bring up. That was it?
That's all I have. That's all I have. Please, talk about something. Went to Universal yesterday.
Yeah, it was a very late night. It was a very late night. Very late night. But I'm here, goddammit.
That's all that matters. Your wife made it here for you, didn't? Well, she's better than me. With the children.
And one in the belly. And, believe me, she brought that up. I got that up. Hey, but I drove both ways.
I mean, that counts for something. It's not that far. It's far. And it's raining out.
It's, what, 30 minutes from your house, if that? 45. I had to go to Kissimmee. Oh, that's right, from the giant 12-bedroom, 12-bath house you guys went to go visit.
Thank you. Thank you. It was 8/8. I was trying to make it sound better.
Okay, we have some surprise birthday messages from some fans. Oh, can't we? This is going to be exciting. That's going to be exciting.
This is the whole reason for the headphones. This is great. Oh, who's texting? Oh.
I hope that it gets interrupted with phone calls. Oh, no, but my wife has texted. Mm-hmm. I'm leaving you.
No, she wouldn't text that. She'd just leave me a note. Bye. I can't really ask you this on the air.
Mm-hmm. Ooh, that's a good one. No, no, it's just about the festivities. Oh, yeah.
Okay, so here is the first one. Let's see if we go back here. Here's the first one. Okay.
Let's hope this works. You have to guess who this is. Some people don't say who they are. Okay.
Okay. Hold on. Waiting. Hold on.
Any minute. Happy birthday to you. That's fake. No, it's not.
Happy birthday to you. Yeah. Who is it? It sounds like The Rock.
It's The Rock. He's singing your happy birthday. Yeah. Yeah.
That's nice. You like that? Yeah. We're close.
All right. Thank you, Rock. That was very nice of you. That was terrible.
All right. So go ahead. It brings a tear to my eye. Okay.
Okay. Here we go. Here is... Let's go with this one.
Yeah. I couldn't get that one from the message. We had to get that one from like YouTube. Michael, happy birthday.
That's Nick. Happy birthday, baby. Happy birthday, baby. Nick Ruggiero.
Nick Ruggiero. Have a good one. At Nickstagrammin. Alright.
We have two from this person, so we'll play the longer of the two. That's Danny Vasquez. Some people need a couple of takes. Yes.
I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. He texted me yesterday. " Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't see the thing. Yeah, I didn't know about it.
Alright, well, here you go. What's up? It's Danny Vasquez with Romacraft. Happy birthday to Mike.
Nice. You did it right. Love you buddy, happy birthday, and we'll see ya. Aw, that's so sweet.
Isn't that nice? Okay, we have another celebrity. Another celebrity? Oh yes.
This is actually several celebrities. Ooh. Let's see, I'm excited. You make me blush.
Oh, is that working? Happy birthday! What the hell is this? Listen, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, I admire you so much, you're talented, you're funny, you're kind.
Yes! Happy birthday, I've been given the daunting task of going over your career highlights, some of the great things you've done. You're an idiot. Hold on.
He had a hard time thinking about something nice to say about you. No, that wasn't you. That was some of you singing home. I'm glad to join many of your friends in wishing you the best of this day and in thanking you for another year of making us laugh and making us think.
Big fan of the show. I am so happy to say happy birthday to you. Dude, I hope that all of them contact you and meet you with a feast and desist. He called in.
Idiot. Ricky wanted another shot. Conan. He gets you confused with Conan O'Brien, who also does a podcast now.
It's your birthday. And what a glorious world this is because you were born and you're on it. Sandra Bullock, Michael, called the show. That's nice.
I felt that no amount of money could buy you the right gift. We call it Sandy. I didn't buy you one. Oh, you're us?
I would assume, yeah. I'm just going to give you my words of love. and um this is this is brutal i'm gonna give you my shoes i'm gonna give you my shoes that's um that's great oh they're very lovely shoes it's your birthday i am doing this against my will and against my better judgment i don't remember his name happy birthday hey it's your birthday hope you party like it's your birthday drink bacardi like it's your birthday oprah in That's nice, that's nice. Oh my God.
At this point we've lost all the listeners. Justin Hoffman, who's in a little bit of trouble right now, but he still took time to call in. Okay. How much longer is this?
I have no idea. 50 seconds. Lady Gaga. Holy moly.
Lady Gaga. Everybody gather round. Gather round the cake, please. Come on, move it.
Adam Sandler? Yes, Adam Sandler. Wow. We're singing the song.
We're doing pretty well. Together. Happy birthday. That's because I'm close to all of them.
Happy birthday. I like that. Happy birthday. Jack Black.
Okay, we'll just end with Jack Black. All right. Thank God. But we have some.
Oh, my God. That was so tough. We have some little. How silly are you, man?
Lower. Oh, my goodness. Should we play Danny's second attempt? It's really short.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, perfect. Okay. Oh, by the way, I got a message from Ronnie, uh, Vcut, everything?
Yeah. He almost crashed his car listening to you read the information about Wes off that card that I gave you fake information. You sabotaged me? Yeah, let's talk about that.
He goes, that was great, do that every time. Oh my God, so he sold cars? No, man. He's like, son of a bitch.
I couldn't find anything about him online, except that he played drums. Okay, here we go. Hey, what's up? It's Danny Vazquez from Roma Crafts.
Just want to say happy birthday, Mike, Cigar Hustler. Love you, buddy. We'll see you soon. Oh, that was, he was amped up on that one.
He was. It must have been after he had his thing. That was, I would have went with the second one. That was, you know.
All right. All right. Here we go. Here's another one.
Is it Oprah again? Happy birthday. I don't know who that is. I don't either.
Cool. Happy Birthday. No idea, it's a young lady, evidently. Well, hopefully we can find out who they are.
Thank you very much. That's very nice of you. Alright, here's another one. If my mother called.
Hey, Mikey, it's Mike Cue's wifey. Happy, happy birthday, and tell you, you make us a better person by being in our lives. Aww. Oh, that's sweet.
Aidy King Palmer, she's so sweet. That's so sweet. I didn't pre-listen to that one. Okay, we do have two more.
It's the same person, we have two. I was requested to play the second one, if I have to play any of them at all. Okay. You might get some more for next week's show.
Oh, interesting. I'm having to solicit now. It's not as popular as you think you are, Michael. I didn't think it was popular in the first place.
All right, here you go. Hey, this is Hector Alfonso from Smilson Cigars. I heard you were celebrating Mike's birthday, okay, happy birthday, seriously, happy birthday, Mike, congratulations. He's a good dude.
He is a good dude, that's all we got right now. That's awesome. That's it. I get it, that's cool.
That's why Hector's my favorite in the industry. Okay, now, I asked your brother to call, he's busy. He's always busy, he's a very busy person. " I said, "A couple hours?
" Ten seconds to call. Super busy! He's a busy man! Oh, wait, I can tell the story about buying liquor with your brother.
Sure. He said he needed a ride. You don't ask where, you just get in the car, you go. So, we drove up to Walgreens.
He bought every bottle of scotch, practically, in that building. He sure did. He's a big bulk buyer. He got a discount on every single thing.
" And the guy goes, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9. " So, he did get a hell of a deal, but he bought 15-ish bottles of scotch. Yeah, he posted it on Instagram. Oh, that's right, he did.
" Right, and I think he had a small problem. But the problem is not that he's out of scotch, so... And it's sad. He's very busy, and it's sad.
Maybe he can't focus to the telephone. He's like, he can't get a number. Oh, poor Greg. Now we're slamming my brother.
Jesus. Oh, well. He did also throw a birthday party at his house. That was a lot of fun.
Yeah, yeah, I heard about that. Because he hates having people at his house. Epic proportions. " You mean he let them into the lair of Dracula?
He let me give the tours. Like, doo-doo-doos. -I had to give the tours. -He goes in, he's got like the, the wig.
You ever see, uh, there was a, there was a, um, a comedy with Leslie Nielsen and he was Dracula. -Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. -And he put on the two-butt looking wig thing. That's Greg.
He walks in the, he puts on his robe, he puts on his plume and just floats around his house. -Excellent. -Yeah. -I don't think I look at the camera once this show.
-So you got anything else? We're at 32 minutes. -No, I mean, I think that that was good. We did, we did great.
We did great! We did great! I mean, look, we're surviving the times here. Right now, we're down to one employee at the shop.
It's more bang, this delicious bang! It's getting crazy! Oh, I have so much energy after drinking this! It's getting crazy!
So, I heard you sold cars for a living! You rat bastard! So, if I put that on everybody's card now, will you know? If I look down and I see sold cars, I'm gonna look at you and I'm gonna be like...
You're just gonna hit me with the headset! You know what? We haven't really done that point of reference. I don't even know...
No, we haven't done that in a while. The card? Yeah. Yeah, no, we haven't really had a guest.
So, like, I don't even know what I was thinking. No, we have had a lot of guests, but we don't run it like we used to. Yeah, I was like, okay. It's not the...
All right, well, hey, there's some info. Maybe I didn't, you know... Maybe there's some information I need to know. Like, you started...
My original idea... What was the sound of a university or something? My original idea was to make him... No, no, I did not.
Make him sound like he lived next door to you. I was going to say I was born in Boston, moved to South Florida. We were doing the same thing. We were in the same high school.
That's amazing. No? I'm from Tennessee. Did you hear my accent?
All right. Well, Michael, I didn't give you a happy birthday message. Oh, I should have left a birthday message. You totally, see, you really blew it.
You could have set yourself up. I could have done voices. I mean, you know. Hi, this is Earl, the cameraman.
We had a whole minute of celebrities wishing me a happy birthday. They were all very adamant about leaving you those messages. That was very nice. That was very nice.
Especially Ellen. She's very sorry she couldn't be here in person. Yeah. Yes.
I could see that. We laughed over Samuel L. Jackson. It was a quick one.
He was in a hurry. Busy man. Yeah. Well, he's in 7,500 movies.
I was gonna say, it's either him or the other guy in the movies all the time. Him or the other guy? I couldn't think of his name. What was the other guy?
Is there another one? No. Yes, there is. The leading man.
Samuel L. Jackson is not an orderly leading man. Denzel! That's his name, Denzel Washington.
I don't think he's in as many movies as Samuel L. Not even close. Oh. Okay.
You want to end it on that note? Who's the guy in Robin Hood? Now that you sound racist. Who's the guy in Robin Hood?
Which Robin Hood? Kevin Costner? Yes, thank you. Yeah?
That wasn't Samuel L. Jackson. In Robin Hood? Yeah.
Played the... No. What was his name? I can't think of his name.
I don't remember his name. Morgan Freeman. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Skip's got a good story for Morgan Freeman. Does he know Morgan Freeman? Man, I can't tell that story. I cannot tell that story.
You should tell that story. Skip needs to tell that story. Change the names to protect the innocent. So it's really Denzel Washington.
First of all, you can't... Earl the cameraman. You can't change out the names to the story. You can't change the names.
No. All right. Skip's got to tell that story. I mean, he'll be listening to it, And then he'll, you know, so this is how, this is how the podcast goes.
Skip will listen to this, he'll analyze it and be like, well, fuck that, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never send a message anyways. I tagged him too, he didn't listen to me. Yeah, exactly. And then, um, and then he'll tell us what we went, where we went wrong on this podcast.
I'm surprised we haven't got his, uh, critique of last week's. Does he send critiques? He needs to start critiquing our podcast and send a message and I'll play it on the air. So Skip, start calling, leave a message on the hotline?
He's never gonna do that. He'll never call. Can he call from Nicaragua? Would it cost him an arm and a leg?
I don't think that it would. He probably could call, but... Well, yeah, but it'd be very expensive, I would imagine. Yeah.
Something. He's busy. Just send a video. He's very busy as well.
He's a very busy man. Him and Greg are very busy together. Skip is actually busy. Greg had a meeting with Skip.
Well, the difference is Skip is legitimately busy, but great. Your brother should be here in eight minutes. No, he's here. He tried to open the door.
Oh, did he already? Yeah, yeah, he tried to open the podcast door, and he stumbled away angrily. I need my desk. Yeah.
All right, we're gonna wrap it up. This is episode 80, Michael's birthday. We made it to 80. Made it to 80.
I mean, that's, whew! Uh, apparently a podcast season is 36, so we're almost in our third season. We're, we're, pfft, we're veterans. We're old timers.
I got headphones. Oh, you do have headphones. They work very well. They're fantastic.
It'll be a regular thing here. I did have that microphone right out of the shot there, just in case something happened. " Oh, I gotta get another panel. And we're gonna be like, "No, no, no, it's okay.
" Oh, because I have the red ones. " It matches my mouse, it's red also. And your shirt. Today it's red shirt Friday.
It's nice. Nice. My pee's coming off. If you could fix this, I know it's three years old, but if I can get a new one.
It was a good run. It was a good run. Ostania. The new brand from the Irish.
Ostania. All right, got me some Ostania cigars here. Yeah. All right, everybody, thank you very much for listening.
And watching. And watching. And that number will work. If you'd like to send a message, just a random message, we will play those again on a later show.
But you're going to have to screen all of them if you can leave it wide open. Oh no, wide open, no preview, say whatever you want. Wow, that's never going to happen. You won't know, I'm in charge.
" Oh, well, if you don't say anything bad. Yeah, well, you just opened it up to all five of our viewers. I thought you meant language-wise. No, yeah, no, it'd be something like, you know, tough.
I hate that cigar, it tastes like paper towels and bounty. Yeah. Well, we didn't, what, I guess, did we address what, what I think should be smoked from the show? No.
I mean, we did that, we kind of did that at PCA. We did, uh, no, no, we never did. Yeah, we did, I said that was a good cigar. We mentioned all those things.
Like, the Brulee, I thought was good. Oh, from the list. The Tikki-taki was good. Uh, let's see, let's go up Tuesday.
Oh. Next Tabernacle. So, the next, the next show we do. High Claire I Didn't Taste.
More than likely will be after your. Supposedly sending me some. Dojo appearance. Yeah.
Uh, Hector's supposed to be sending me a turtle, too. Oh yeah, an insomniac turtle. A psychedelic turtle. Yeah.
I don't think it's happening. I think the insomniac turtle would have been better. Turtle that doesn't sleep. Oh.
Nightmares. Alright, I've tried to sign off three times, now you're dragging it out. I'm just gonna get up and leave. Why not, let's talk more.
Alright, cool, I'm done. This is cool, 'cause now when I'm done, I can just do this. Careful, don't throw it, though. Okay, welcome to the...
Bye. Welcome to the Mike Show. I am Mike, and I'm Mike too, and he's the Cigar Hustler leaving. All right, everybody, evidently the show is really over.
Bye. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from the Correctional Institution. This call is subject to recording and monitoring. To accept charges, press 1.
To refuse charges, thank you for using T-Netix. Hey, Mikey, this is John Yoguelite just calling and wanting to wish you a very, very happy birthday and many more, buddy. Thanks for being you. Be cool.
Ciao. He is Mike, and he's Mike too, but today is Mike's 35th birthday. Hey, Mike, I hope you have a great birthday, brother. See ya.
This is Bernie Sanders, making birthdays great again. Vote liberal. Happy birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, USA.
Show Notes
This week we celebrate The King's Day of his Birth!!
We have singing, call in messages from you the fans, Celebrity Birthday Wishes and a few very important Industry people call in as well!
Oh yeah a little industry new and some important information on how to be a "Should Out" lounge/shop.
As always we welcome your comments and show ideas on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast'. You can follow the show on IG @cigrhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and "Mike Too" @fcc_mike.
Please remember to rate, review and subscribe on whichever of our providers you use!