My 2017 Deletions Vision/Dream/Nightmare

[JohnS]

It was a warm summer night last Wednesday when I read @El Presidente's confirmation of the 2017 Deletions by Habanos S.A. Naturally, I felt downcast after reading this news, like so many here on FoH, I do enjoy my standard ring gauge cigars, and I feel a certain resignation to the loss of sub-50 ring gauge cigars, especially in the last 10 years. That evening I settled to watch the 2017 Australian Open Tennis at night when I fell into a dream or vision.

In my vision I was under the sea, walking along the sea floor, yet I could not remember why I was there, nor how I was there. In my mind I could hear the melody of "Octopus' Garden" by the Beatles and in front of me I could see a rock garden. From behind the rock garden swam a fish, yet it looked strange, since it had a pig snout for a nose. The fish swam towards me so I enquired, "are you a @PigFish?" "I am indeed mate, my friends call me Ray". I could sense an aura of profundity in the way the fish spoke, yet I did not think it strange that I was having a conversation with a fish. As I peered closer I could see that in its left fin was a Diplomaticos No.1, in its right fin was a Rafael Gonzalez Lonsdale and in its tail was a Partagas Seleccion Privada No.1. As I looked around again at my surroundings, the fish now had a fourth cigar, which it was smoking, a Partagas Coronas. I enquired, "do you have a Partagas Seleccion Privada in your tail?" The fish rebuked me sharply, "kindly do not speak such blasphemy in my presence!" Having immediately realised that I had offended the wise fish by referencing the 2014 Limited Edition cigar and not the original Dalia, the No.1, I responded, "Am I in cigar heaven?" and "Are these the end times for such cigars, for who has these Lonsdales and Coronas anymore?" and "Are you like a wise prophet who's going to tell me to take a promiscuous wife and then proceed to name my daughter, 'Not Loved' and my son, 'Not Mine'...because I quite like my wife and my son and daughter's current normal and simple names!" The fish drew on his cigar, yet, paradoxically, it was now smoking a Punch Super Selection No. 1. " I am not that type of visionary," the fish asserted. "What exactly is it you'd like to ask me...what is it that you want to know?" he queried.

Although I was somewhat hesitant, I was wondering how the fish could smoke a perfectly humidified Habanos cigar under the sea, however, I took the chance to delve into the fish's insight so I poured out my heart. "Ray, I feel so sad that cigars under 50 ring gauge continue to get deleted by Habanos S.A, when will we see an end to this...like the Kinks and the Rolling Stones in the late 60's/early 70's, will cigars return to a golden age?" "Surely you ask an earnest question!" the fish proceeded, "and I will give it the answer it deserves". "Reflect your mind, to a time prior to the revolution in Cuba. How many marcas and vitolas were there? Were they not numerous? All vying for market share among the nations. Furthermore, have you forgotten that before Cohiba, it was the El Rey del Mundo and later the Romeo y Julieta marcas that were esteemed. Why are you down-hearted? Don't you realise that there will come a time when cigars that are above 50 ring gauge will become homogenous and sub 50 ring gauge cigars will comeback again, for these things are cyclical. So, take heart and enjoy your quality cigars for now. For the time being they will be gone, but others will come and take their place."

I was greatly enthused to hear such wisdom, but I couldn't help but moan in reply, "Oh Ray, yet how will I enjoy beautiful Habanos cigars when I can't have the coffee and shortbread-flavoured H.Upmann Petit Corona, or the unique floral-marzipan Bolivar Tubos No.1, nor the smooth and subtle cedar and cream in my beloved Hoyo de Monterrey Le Hoyo du Prince? And I may not favour the Bolivar Coronas Gigantes because it an earthy cigar, likewise, I don't necessarily reach for the creamy coffee and chocolate Vegas Robaina Don Alejandro, but I fear I never will get the chance!"

At the very instance I muttered these words I was transformed to another place, a place without colour, a monochrome-pasteled bathroom. I could hear the fabled strings of Bernard Herrmann's score to the movie, 'Psycho', but it was me in that shower, behind the curtain. Without anyone telling me, I had a dreadful sense that someone was on the other side of the curtain, wearing an old woman's wig and branding a sharp carving knife. Without further adieu, the curtain was drawn, and I froze in shock as each thrust of that glistening weapon pierced my torso, quickly it developed a deep-crimson red wash that I knew was part of my soul, my very blood. I fell to the bath floor and for no reason I could recall, I saw Chris Martin from Coldplay singing in front of me, "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" from Coldplay's 2003 album, 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'. It was on my mind because my sister gave me the album last week and I was discussing it my son during a drive on the weekend. The video for the song was the same monochrome colour of the film Psycho, and in the video the actor, Paddy Considine slowly disappears. By now, I had a smile upon my face, but I could feel that I too was disappearing. As I turned my head to my attacker, I could see a man in a wig dressed as an old lady, but I knew that the old lady was both deranged and represented Habanos S.A. The room was turning black, and my last reflection as I lay there was how grateful I was that of the two people in that room, only one of us was a cold, heartless bastard.

[Fuzz]

Hey! I will have you know, that was not a wig, but my natural hair!!

[BuzzArd]

Good stuff, @JohnS.  Good stuff.  If that had been my vision it would have surely been my wife at the end who ran me through when she found out how many D/C'd vitolas I had been hoarding....

 

One question though; was the @PigFishfish speaking through an incision in its throat?  Or did you see an incision?  

Just wondering if the vision was of the past looking forward or in the present looking at the, well, present.

[canadianbeaver]

When you go to sleep tonight, tell your wife there is wonderful news. The pig is is the pen and the beaver is in the pond. Two licenced bars that allow smoking and nightly jazz live music. No corkage and you are welcome to smoke your own, or we have a great humidor for guests to try single sticks of your liking.

All we ask is that you dress nicely so the place looks cool.

Cheers, brother.

CB

 

 

[PigFish]

You should know that Hitchcock believed the you should not leave the audience hanging! I won't say a 'happy ending' but one with a conclusion that satisfies. I believe he would be displeased by the end of Habanos, the movie!

About the ending of Suspicion:

The scene I wanted, but it was never shot, was for Cary Grant to bring her a glass of milk that’s been poisoned and Joan Fontaine has just finished a letter to her mother: ‘Dear Mother, I’m desperately in love with him, but I don’t want to live because he’s a killer. Though I’d rather die, I think society should be protected from him.’ Then, Cary Grant comes in with the fatal glass and she says, ‘Will you mail this letter to Mother for me, dear?’ She drinks the milk and dies. Fade out and fade in on one short shot: Cary Grant, whistling cheerfully, walks over to the mailbox and pops the letter in. 

The smoker, like Hitchcock cries here for reciprocity, for neither should not be the victim of a shallow sensor! I am but the mailman...

While not all endings are happy, one can stand the worst of them with a  Bernard Herrmann score!... As a further note, somehow Bernard Herrmann epitomizes a Hitchcock move and as a fan of both I can tell you there was something about a nice diner downtown, a Partagas Coronas on the hardscape of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion while waiting to see Salonen conduct a live performance of Herrmann scores with the LA Phil.

What is there not to love about artisans creating their craft in many media, unlimited by those that sometime occupy the tasteless masses?

...and to all, a goodnight!

-Piggy

 

[BuzzArd]

12 minutes ago, PigFish said:

You should know that Hitchcock believed the you should not leave the audience hanging! I won't say a 'happy ending' but one with a conclusion that satisfies. I believe he would be displeased by the end of Habanos, the movie!

About the ending of Suspicion:

The scene I wanted, but it was never shot, was for Cary Grant to bring her a glass of milk that’s been poisoned and Joan Fontaine has just finished a letter to her mother: ‘Dear Mother, I’m desperately in love with him, but I don’t want to live because he’s a killer. Though I’d rather die, I think society should be protected from him.’ Then, Cary Grant comes in with the fatal glass and she says, ‘Will you mail this letter to Mother for me, dear?’ She drinks the milk and dies. Fade out and fade in on one short shot: Cary Grant, whistling cheerfully, walks over to the mailbox and pops the letter in. 

The smoker, like Hitchcock cries here for reciprocity, for neither should not be the victim of a shallow sensor! I am but the mailman...

While not all endings are happy, one can stand the worst of them with a  Bernard Herrmann score!... As a further note, somehow Bernard Herrmann epitomizes a Hitchcock move and as a fan of both I can tell you there was something about a nice diner downtown, a Partagas Coronas on the hardscape of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion while waiting to see Salonen conduct a live performance of Herrmann scores with the LA Phil.

What is there not to love about artisans creating their craft in many media, unlimited by those that sometime occupy the tasteless masses?

...and to all, a goodnight!

-Piggy

 

Must still be on some some serious pain meds, Ray...

 

Hang in there pal.  

[PigFish]

15 minutes ago, BuzzArd said:

Must still be on some some serious pain meds, Ray...

 

Hang in there pal.  

... does it show?

I am thinking about making a video review today in the shop of a Bolivar Demi Tasse. I am not supposed to smoke you know and it has been a month, my head in my sphincter, I mean, neck brace!!! I think more of a 'hello my friends (of Habanos)' than a review... I need to get out more!

Since I don't have Ken as a color man, I am wondering if he would feel slighted if I represented him as an AR15... sitting on a stool with a price tag on it??? -LOL

Yes... I am floating thought the rings of Jupiter now, or is that Uranus? Or, your-anus...? The neck brace, again!

Con... (Lady Piggy)! Where are my pain meds???-Piggy

[SCgarman]

6 minutes ago, PigFish said:

... does it show?

I am thinking about making a video review today in the shop of a Bolivar Demi Tasse. I am not supposed to smoke you know and it has been a month, my head in my sphincter, I mean, neck brace!!! I think more of a 'hello my friends (of Habanos)' than a review... I need to get out more!

Since I don't have Ken as a color man, I am wondering if he would feel slighted if I represented him as an AR15... sitting on a stool with a price tag on it??? -LOL

Yes... I am floating thought the rings of Jupiter now, or is that Uranus? Or, your-anus...? The neck brace, again!

Con... (Lady Piggy)! Where are my pain meds???-Piggy

Are your smoking days over for good, or is this just temporary? Cheers.

[Duxnutz]

Too much melatonin @JohnS !!! 

[Colt45]

submarine yellow

dreaming of cigars gone past

just say no to drugs

[PigFish]

16 minutes ago, NYgarman said:

Are your smoking days over for good, or is this just temporary? Cheers.

Just temporary, while my neck heals. It is held together with a plate and screws today, and the sooner it is a mass of bone, the sooner I can get back to being me... A short term sacrifice for a moderate term goal.

Smoking cigars remains a part of my life plan... Eat healthy, live clean, die anyway!!! -LOL I don't see cigars as toxic killers of men, women and children; I see them as freedom of choice! What people of character do as they balance some risk with reward.

A break from smoking is a small price for the bones in my neck to knit together. Any real and truthful correlation to bone re-growth and (cigar) smoking? Well maybe, but I am not cigarette smoker, or a habitual smoker in any form, and I owe myself a cigar.

It is raining pink ponies and pangolins and I don't even know if I want to go out to the shop in this weather! We shall see...

I am not a member of Camp Winnebago (or whatever they call the tent...) but I do have a manshop, less one, man-enough, to go into it and smoke so far today!!! -LOL -the Pig

[BuzzArd]

46 minutes ago, PigFish said:

I am not a member of Camp Winnebago (or whatever they call the tent...) but I do have a manshop, less one, man-enough, to go into it and smoke so far today!!! -LOL -the Pig

Would think as Camp W counselor you'd know the name.  Still, can't fault you if your hopped up on MSO4....  

Have that smoke.  Post your review.  

Enjoy the (pain med influenced) afternoon. 

[SaintMickey®]

@JohnS 

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, BuzzArd said:

Would think as Camp W counselor you'd know the name.  Still, can't fault you if your hopped up on MSO4....  

Have that smoke.  Post your review.  

Enjoy the (pain med influenced) afternoon. 

... I might have to print up membership/councilor cards! That way it will be official, and I will have a reference and not forget my standing!!! Forget the Viagra, the mind goes first...-tP

[soutso]

John, our dreams are a reflection of who we are. You dream of those long lost vitolas. Dreams are for those things that we just can't get.

I often dream about girls and in my dreams when I'm about to finally 'have' one of those women, I wake up.

In real life I married my dream girl. Some nights, in the rare event that our energy sapping 13, 9 and 3 year olds are all asleep and at bay, I woo the wife a little and just about the moment I get to 'have' her, I fall asleep ? ? ....

 

[OZCUBAN]

Forget the "Habanos" I want what @Johns is on 

[SlimOne]

what were you smoking????

[JohnS]

I will explain myself. I assure everyone that I wasn't on any hallucinogenic substance when I wrote this a few day ago. What had happened was a culmination of things. Firstly, the cigar deletions itself, then a period of 4 days last week where I assisted my brother-in-law on a kitchen renovation (you know, to save on labour costs, as you do). Since we are both on annual leave due to school holidays, I had time to concoct this fun story together.

I was thinking of @PigFish's current convalescence, my sister giving me the album 'A Rush of Blood to the Head', my weekend lunch get-together with my friend Steve who I've known for 20 years and recently had to step down from his assistant minister work in his parish due to burnout. He asked me for a cigar to smoke together so I took some San Cristobal de La Habana El Principes. I think we discussed that his former boss was going to do a series this year on Hosea and I thought..."yeah, good luck with explaining that one!" so hence, the reference to the promiscuous wife and kids with weird names ('cause that was what Hosea was asked to do!).

I watched 'La La Land' with my wife last week and I was having a Bolivar Coronas Gigantes from the Xmas Sampler out on the deck while she was inside the house. I could see the movie from where I was, but she remarked, "are you ok with the muted sound out there?" I said I was fine, in fact, I saw more of the movie in the visuals and that the director/scriptwriter (who also did Whiplash) spent a lot of time on communicating important information through these visuals, contrasting colours symbolically to represent different allusions to dreams and reality. I could appreciate the many, many references to films such as Jacques Demy's 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg', 'The Young Girls of Rochefort', Stanley Donen's 'Singin' in the Rain' and Vincent Minnelli's "The Band Wagon'...all wonderful technicolor musicals. So, I think this was on my mind when I contrasted the colours of wonderful Lonsdales in comparison to the black and white image of a cigar deletion!

Of course, Ray you are spot on in regards to old Hitch and his rules of suspense. One thing I appreciate about all Hitchcock films is the idea that they are about an ordinary person put into an extraordinary circumstance and then seeing how they would react. The film 'Psycho' stood out at the time in 1960 because a) it was in black-and-white b) theatres had instructions to turn away patrons who arrived late to each showing (which was unheard of at the time) and c) the main star Janet Leigh was killed off so early in the film (which has been copied since...think Drew Barrymore in Scream for example). In the same way, I'm just an ordinary person but I wanted to convey a humorous anecdote about how extraordinary these deletions were to me. They felt like a 'knife to the heart, to my soul!'   

I do truly hope, even if it is though vain and forlorn, that Habanos S.A will change direction someday and re-introduce standard ring gauge cigars. After all, how many larger ring gauge cigars can they produce until they are all the same? I mean, think of the upcoming H.Upmann Connossieur B release...how is that not practically the same as the H.Upmann Connossieur A? And they want to delete the H.Upmann Petit Corona...seriously?

And so, I did not intend to offend with my little story, just provide a little humour, even at my expense on account of my violent symbolic death. It was but a laugh, because I can't help it's better to do so than to cry!

[canadianbeaver]

[Dave001]

that's our obsession with Cuban cigars dreaming of them, smoking them and thinking about them  WE ARE ALL HOOKED!!

[PigFish]

Well, you don't have to explain yourself to me... -LOL

First, I am proud that I have some, perhaps I can call them profound effects on people's lives. And why not? Many, many of my friends, some of the guys here that I have never met, have profound effects on my life. To be thought about in life, to be appreciated more than being despised, is a positive, profound effect. With all the effects that one can leave on the life of anther, why would I not want it to be anything but positive and meaningful? Giving something to another that is of value to them is something that gives me great pleasure.

I find noting wrong with thinking of my friends, nor them thinking of me, even in slightly twisted machinations! I don't offer prayers for those that write on a cigar forum out of a courtesy, but as a desire to help in a way that I cannot. It is an extension of myself that I cannot visually, or physically make.

I am proud to be rented a small space in the reality of lives of my friends. They enter my thoughts and prayers as well. That makes them intimate to me. I am thrilled that some consider me the same or even somewhat the same.

I am flattered to be a part of your story John... I got a kick out of it, and find that if people are thinking of me, positively at least, there is no higher honor.

Cheers, Ray

[Colt45]

7 hours ago, JohnS said:

I do truly hope, even if it is though vain and forlorn, that Habanos S.A will change direction someday and re-introduce standard ring gauge cigars.

I kind of take a different tack - I'd much prefer to see open competition from Cuban privateers.

[JohnS]

36 minutes ago, Colt45 said:

I kind of take a different tack - I'd much prefer to see open competition from Cuban privateers.

I definitely see opportunities in such a scenario as competition could bring out better production processes and decision-making. And of course, so many more marcas were around pre-Revolution.

[Colt45]

24 minutes ago, JohnS said:

I definitely see opportunities in such a scenario as competition could bring out better production processes and decision-making.

Firstly, I guess full disclosure only fair - I'm not always in a position to purchase cigars I might like to, so the allocation of every ha'penny counts.

So to the point, I don't really care what HSA does anymore. Open up competition to people who care about producing a quality product - I'll direct

my cigar funds toward them. HSA can supply the cake eaters.