BS: A great big fat ceegar!

Subject: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 11:38 AM

When my dad was a sales manager back in the fifties and he wanted to be jovial....or celebrate something to do with business...or God knows what else, he'd always say "This calls for a great big fat "ceegar"...and surprise surprise, he always had a couple of them in his pocket.

But he never smoked them himself...they always went to one (or more) of the salesman who'd drop by while on their way outta the province (we lived in Baie d'Urfe Quebec) on their way to Ontario or Manitoba or whatever.

I remember times when I'd look downstairs into the basement and the "Ceegar" smoke was so thick, even I couldn'd breathe upstairs. Lord, it seems so weird today. I guess no one even considered saying "outside if you MUST do that!!" What on earth did all the folks who freak at the hint of smoke today do? Did people with allergies just keep their mouths shut....or disappear til it went away?

I'm told that in certain circles it's coming back big time. I sort of doubt it, despite the glossy magazines and a hilarious character on the radio called the "cigar general".

Have a CEEGAR?

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: C-flat
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 12:59 PM

"Did people with allergies just keep their mouths shut....or disappear til it went away?"
I expect that's exactly what they did Rick, as they were most certainly a small minority of the population surrounded by smokers and fashionable images of smoking.
Future generations will undoubtedly look back at our toleration of exhaust emmissions and factory pollution with the same bewilderment.
For the record, I'm partial to the odd fat ceegar myself but I'm very careful about where and when I indulge.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 01:03 PM

Although in Victorian times, gentlemen put on their smoking jackets and went to the smoking room so as not to offend the ladies' sensitive natures.:-) Very civilized, ya know?

I think it was in the 1980's that a new magazine started up, devoted entirely to cigar afficianados and they predicted or were celebrating a big comeback.

Remember cigarillos? Tijuana slims or something? LOL

kat

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: C-flat
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 01:29 PM

Hey Kat! I think I might try one of those smoking jackets!
Although I wouldn't be able to wear it outside.
"Hey Mister!..your coat's on fire!"
"No man, it's a smoking jacket!"
Or if it got wet I'd wouldn't get the thing to light!

Maybe a smoking Sou'wester would be the thing?....

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: gnu
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 01:33 PM

"Very civilized, ya know?" Naw, it was just another excuse to get away. Some guys would rather kill themselves than spend another minute with whatshername. Not that there's anything wrong with that.... wait... I meant... er, uh, well, you know.... I hope... c'mon now... shite... I'm goin out fer a smoke.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 01:35 PM

I had an occasion a few years back to get to rub elbows with some of the really really rich in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (I was a member of a board appointed by the city council, and as such was sent a gratis invitation to this event held on city property managed by the board). It was pretty astonishing to see a few of the very rich young women strutting around with their big stoggies, practically doing Freudian posturing in the process. It looked clearly like an affectation to me, along the lines of some of the gowns, jewels, and furs they wore simply because they could afford to. It was a way of showing off.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: gnu
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 02:00 PM

Yup. I was a graduate student at UNB and every Thursday we hosted a speaker of note, whether an acedemic, politician, businessperson, whomever. Afterward, we would convene to the Faculty Lounge in The Old Arts Building and drinks were on the UNB chit, along with expensive cigars. Much ado about showing off.... I sahhyy, rahthuuuuur. Can't believe I was ever a part of that crowd. They REALLY musta slipped up when they signed me in ! Yee can take the boy outta the country...

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 02:55 PM

I guess I should be grateful for smoking regulations, because it made it easier for me to quit. I tried for twenty years to give up, but my recidivism rate was 100 percent when I was in constant contact with smokers.

Still, the smoking restrictions seemed to mark the onset of a shift in our culture toward regulation of all sorts of things, and I don't think I like it. Once upon a time, if a person was sensitive to smoke, or peanuts, or nightshades, or milk, or meat - that was the problem of the person who had the sensitivity, and he or she learned to deal with it. If you were allergic to meat and milk and nightshades and went to somebody's home for dinner, you just quietly passed up the meat and potatoes and ice cream, and you ate a hearty portion of vegetables and bread. Now, it seems that people respond to dinner invitations with a list of their food allergies.

I know it's a sacred cow and that it's politically incorrect to talk about it, but I think the same could be said about a lot of laws intended to help those with disabilities. We went to a hotel last month and wanted to stay in the same room we had last year, which had a beautiful view. We couldn't have the room, because the room had been designated a "handicapped" room and had to be reserved in case a handicapped person might show up in the middle of the night. This was mid-week and only five rooms were occupied, but two rooms had to be kept empty for handicapped use.

I suppose that society was too insensitive to special needs in the past, but now it seems that the tables have turned to the point that we're all bound in a web of regulations intended to accommodate every conceivable disability.

I think we need to find a balance, one that protects feedom and common sense, along with the needs of those with special concerns. I think that people with particular needs need to do what they can to provide their own accommodations, and that society needs to make up the difference with reasonable accommodations - keeping general freedom and common sense in mind at all times. I think we all could be a little less fussy and self-concerned, and a lot more tolerant.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 03:50 PM

But Joe, we can't say "I'll pass on breathing" while others around us fill the air with smoke. This was a point of argument in my mother's home as far back as I can remember. We were a captive audience, and hated her smoke. I was stuck sitting beside her at the dinner table where a cigarette was always burning in the ashtry to my left. For anyone else who has been in that situation, you don't give back any ground you win when smokers have to take it outside and away from the doorway.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 04:37 PM

Like I said, the smoking restrictions are probably good - but they opened the door to a change that has tilted the balance far in the other direction. We all have to step on tippytoes now, worring whether we will arouse somebody's self-righteous wrath because we said something or ate something that offended their sensitivities.

In general, I think my permission to tailor the world to my specifications should stop at ME. Still, I wish those damn libertarians would stop dumping their garbage on the side of the road that goes past my house.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 04:40 PM

"Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar."
                      --Sigmund Freud, a cigar smoker

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 04:52 PM

Joe, were you thinking of 'Spaw?

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 05:02 PM

Joe don't worry about "political Correctness" on this thread. What we believe in is "Ethical Correctness" (either kat or myself may have coined the phrase) it's VERY different.

Well here's something that I did a few weeks ago. I went up to the attic and brought down to big bags of my summer clothes. I haven't smoked since June12th of last year....and the whiff that came out of that bag was "NUKULUR"! My gawd what those smoking jackets must have smelt like!

I didn't even TRY to clean the clothes.....just chucked 'em out.

I will NEVER EVER be a hard line, in your face (see, I was able to avoid "that" word) anti smoking advocate...but boy..I can sure see it from the other side now.

Bit of trivia. A friend of mine who was a big shot media guy, and travelled to the States all the time told me that he was R. Limbaugh's Cuban "supplyer", through a recording engineer in New York. He said "Guys that rich, simply DON'T smoke cigars from other countries.....despite their politics!

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:13 PM

What I remember best in the world of ceegars were/are the Dago Stinkers. Now I have smoked some fine cigars but what always comes to mind are those damn things. I'd been smoking cigaettes fro a few years before I tried one, recalling all of those guys back home who had one clamped in their teeth. Do you know these things? Parodi is a main manufacturer. I have no idea what is in them but they smell to high heavens. It seemed the other place I always saw them was in the men's room of theatres and police stations lying in the bottom of a urinal...What a distinctive aroma that is!!! gawdddam......I can smell it NOW!!!

I figure they were made out of the stalks of tobacco plants, assorted floor sweeepings, wrapped in the worst leaf to be found, and then coated with tar or pitch or something.... They are about 4 inches long and have the consistency of a petrified twig. So wanting to be cool, I bought a two-pack and lit one up. Lighting them takes about a book of matches because they just don't seem to want to burn. After much sucking an flame, I got the thing going. Now I inhale cigars....I know that's not the deal, but if you really smoke, you inhale everything. So I take a big drag............The world suddenly went sideways, started spinning in different directions, and my knees buckled. I wind up on the ground on my hands and knees alternately farting and coughing and considering barfing. This preceded a truly monstrous coughing fit during which I began to understand why so many guys chewed them and only lit them rarely. Used in that way, a Dago Stinker would last you all day!

I got up from my hands and knees and wobbled down to get some water and find some Maalox. Several times since I have given them a try but the result has always been very similar. I conclude that they are best boughten, lit with a torch, and then thrown into the nearest urinal.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 01:03 PM

Never smoked one actually. I bought a giant cigar at a novelty store in New York when I was 13 (for about ten cents) waited til I was alone...lit it, put it in my mouth, choked...possibly threw up and that was THAT.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 03:34 PM

I will have to admit to a prejudice toward cigar smokers. I think the expression, "selfish pleasure" may have a new meaning in the case of those who smoke those nasty things in the presence of anyone else. I can honestly say I have rarely known anyone who smoked cigars regularly who was not both ostentatious and obnoxious.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: DougR
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 05:27 PM

I quit smoking cigarettes one time and started smoking Tiparillos, a small cigar with a plastic tip. When it became apparant I was becoming addicted to the plastic, I quit those. Only cigars I ever smoked on a regular basis. Haven't smoked anything for over twenty years now but when I go to my favorite pub I come home and immediatly hang my clothes outside to air the smoke smell out.

Funny you mentioned Limbaugh, Rick. I was going to mention that he was a avid cigar smoker/promoter, but was hesitant to introduce politics into your thread.

SRS: how can you be so sure those folks were wearing their finery to show off? Maybe they wear them to bed, the grocery story, wherever! Sounds a bit to me like sour grapes.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:08 PM

Doug, Doug, Doug!!!! You can ALWAYS introduce politics into any thread I've started. I try not to be overly serious with anything here....although I had some difficulty a few days ago (but that wasn't about politics)

I know what I believe (and why) and if anybody saw stuff I started writing from four years ago they'd know I try to make up my mind on each issue as it comes up......Rush's mushy middle (but with a HELL of a lot of research!) but I'm not EVER goin' to have a heart attack on the Cat because of a political opinion.

See, I think George Dubya Bush was a "marketable, youthful, winnable" candidate, but I think his handlers underestimated how difficult it was for him to absorb information, and how panicked he looked when not speaking from a carefully prepared and edited text. The fact that rumours appear to be spreading about a 'glazed megalomania'....really DOES scare me, but..... I don't think you get very far by taking shots at him. Hit in in political gut, that'll be more effective.

Does anyone actually LISTEN to "The Cigar General" from "Cigar Headquarters"?

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:29 PM

Rick,

You have to admit, the guy can stay on task. That's probably because he doesn't let the issues confuse him.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 11:35 PM

Actually Silly, I think that he, Colin, Condoleeza, Dick and Don, all sit down with big Cuban stogies after those stressful moments. They just puff away their troubles.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:09 AM

STilly--as short for "Stillaguamish River" (where the native smoke is kinnick kinnick).

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:25 AM

Last time I smoked a ceegar, I was sharing with a couple of guys. We were sitting around getting drunk, listening to scratchy old blues records and sharing a big old, fat, fairly expensive, very tasty cigar. I don't know what brand it was but it had a nice rich flavor. Anyway by the time we were half way through it it was getting pretty slimy. John said that is the way you had to smoke a cigar, by kinda sucking on it and chewing it and getting it all slimy. Well we smoked that cigar down to the butt, but I couldn't help getting images in my mind of this slimy cigar and imagining that it must have looked similar to Pres. Clinton's and Monica's cigar when they were done with it!
Haven't smoked a cigar since, thank you very much Mr. President,Rustic

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:53 AM

As one that is fully convinced he will take up the old pipe once the mortgage is paid and insurance is no longer required!

I am sure smoking is OK in it's place - In English pubs there used to be a smoke room. Why not re-introduce such a concept?

Anyhow, on a different tack, I am sure it will never be as politicaly correct in the USA as it is in the UK to nip outside for a quick fag...;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:53 AM

JEEZUS REBEL!!! WAS THAT NECCESSSARY? Yeucccchhhh! I'd almost forgotten that tacky little bit of folklore! Ha ha!

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:23 PM

"Selfish Pleasure".......cigars.. my God I am tired of these self righteous terms. Most modern pleasures would be termedelfish" by the "let me tell you how to live crowd"..let us now fillify the following.. rv drives, snowmobilers, ski doers, pwc does, car drivers, 4 by 4 drivers, perfume wearers, peanut butter manufacturers..where do we stop ? I am highly allergic to perfume..Let's ban it...it would just cause me to take toooooo much responsibility to avoid it. Let's grow up here and live and let live.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 04:36 PM

Allan, you have never met Mister. He smokes cigars regularly and is neither ostentatious nor obnoxious. He also has the good sense to go outside and smoke. We have a screened-in porch, so it's no big deal.

I like a cigar now and then, although it's been quite awhile since I smoked.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 05:06 PM

Rick-Necessary, well no I suppose anything I say that is smart-ass is unnesessary, but you know how it is. You got to talking about politics and cigars, well, what can I say, the story just came to mind! It was just an historical fact of the many uses of a cigar!
Peace. Rustic

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 05:24 PM

Oh how I used to suffer through day long sales meetings during which everyone smoked but me and the VP of Sales always had one of those huge phallic symbols stuck in his mouth. He fit the stereotype - arrogant, obnoxious. He thoroughly enjoyed making a scene in the very BEST (read: most expensive) restaurants in NYC over his right to smoke a cigar and ruin the meals of ten tables around him.

Then again, I know one cigar smoker who truly enjoys a good one now and again - nicest guy in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Jimmy C
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 05:46 PM

I quit smoking back in 1988, I still miss it. Never did get the taste for cigars, tried the pipe but never got the hang of it either. I think common sense will surface, and smokers will respect the non-smokers and go outside even further away from the house. I used to enjoy a cigarette, sitting by myself under a tree. Anyway, all this talk about Gigars reminded me about this story, it's supposed to be true but I can't vouch for it.

Subject: Fwd: Only in America

> > >
A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive
cigars, then insured them, among other things, against fire.
Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great
cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series
of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued...and won!

In delivering the ruling the Judge agreed with the insurance
company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the
insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires."
> > > > >>
NOW FOR THE BEST PART...

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him
arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!!

With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case
being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally
burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a
$24,000.00 fine.
> > > > >>
This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent
Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

Subject: RE: BS: A great big fat ceegar!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 08:52 PM

Rick this is good news. I saw you last fall, but I didn't realize you had quit smoking. I quit smoking in 1994, when a beautiful young woman said it would improve my love life.
It did, but not with her....

So, Rick how are things going???
Inquiring minds want to know...
-Joe Offer-