Hi...Billy Mays here!

Yeah..I am shocked. Billy Mays dead. Someone so "alive" and with so much enthsiasm, and so young. Anyone who tries to be him will fail miserably, but I do believe a big hole is now there and is waiting to be filled. Someone has to reinvent that role.
After watching Pitchmen for the past couple months, I saw a different side of him..one that I really liked. I especially liked it when his Dad was on and his son. Neither one was like him though.
He really was the last of a dying breed if you think about it. The younger generation, younger than 40, that is, just thought he was irritating, and I understand.

You probably "got" him, like I did.

That Jersey Shore pitchman/barker was part of our lives.

Billy Mays' "thing" was familiar to us. Anyone from New York or Philly or anywhere in between "got it".

He was a sales type from another era and region.

We could picture him saying "Step right up...see the wolf boy, the bearded lady, and the human rubber band. Real...alive...right before your very eyes!"

 He's not that different than the televangelist who speaks of the miraculous and amazing as if they were everyday occurences.

Yeah, he was an act...even Billy Mays couldnt wake up and be "Billy Mays".

I will personally say rest in peace Billy Mays. I did like you. I hope you had Peace and are walking on streets of gold now. I am sure God did not have to introduce you.

He served a purpose here....and did it with an enthusiam we all should respect.

I did not know him personally, but would have loved to have lunch with him, had a cigar with him and picked his brain.

I ask questions about everything. One time I had it in my head that I was going to build my own custom cigar humidor and I was going to go to my local big box home store and get some cedar wood. A friend told me “NO! ... don’t use American Cedar in a humidor…you must use Spanish cedar” Of course, I had to question that and did some research on the topic.

Here’s what I discovered. Spanish cedar is not really cedar as we know it here in America. It is actually a deciduous tree which means that it has that leaves fall off once a year. It does not have needles like the cedars we know. It has a fragrance similar to our cedar, but much milder. It actually is a very beautiful wood. The grain is magnificent. I once seen a guitar made from Spanish cedar and thought it was the most beautiful guitar I have ever seen…and smelled.

Now if you use American cedar, you will impart a very unfavorable aroma to your cigars. American Cedar is great for your cedar closets and keeping moths out of your wool and silk garments, but not great for your cigars.

It is grown and harvested in Central and South America, the home of my personal favorite cigars. It is beautiful in color ranging from pinkish to orange to reddish brown. Take an old cigar box, sand it with a fine grit paper, and rub Linseed oil into the finish, and you could have something pretty enough to be a gift. A stack of various sized Spanish cedar cigar boxes on your desk or a shelf is a attractive accessory no office should be without.

Every boy should have a cigar box or two on his dresser or nightstand holding everything from baseball cards, jack knives, marbles, plastic army men, and of course, his iPod. All boys remember seeing a cigar box somewhere in their home. Dad may have emptied his pockets into it every night. It may have collected receipts, scratched-off lottery tickets, bottle caps, or nuts and bolts in the workshop. Believe me, it was there…somewhere.

Need a unique gift wrapping solution? Go to your local cigar store and most of them sell their empty cigar boxes for a dollar or two. It’s cheaper than wrapping paper or a gift bag and so much prettier. Your recipient may end up liking the box more than the gift and they will probably hang on to that Spanish cedar box for the rest of their life.

Discover the beauty of the iconic cigar box. Every cigar box is a work of art, courtesy of the Creator who put that beautiful grain, color and fragrance into the Spanish cedar.

Evangelical Christians are the soul of the Republican Party

Certain foods are no good without their main ingredient. Italian food is blah without garlic. In my mind, certain foods without sugar or substitute make no sense. I’ve always thought “What’s the point with decaf?” Without caffeine, coffee has no appeal to me.

Without Christians, the Republican Party is dead. Evangelical Christians are the soul of the party. Just like a body without a soul is nothing but a corpse, the GOP is just another lifeless political organization without evangelical Christians. You may remember my Jeff Foxworthy type rant in my blog about eight months ago; “You just might be an evangelical if…” I won’t rehash the whole thing, but you can re-read it here at: www.happyhour.blogtownhall.com/2008/10/14/you_just_might_be_an_evangelical_if.thtml

I have seen way too may people in the Republican Party try to distance themselves from the party saying that the party has been “hijacked by the right wingers” and that the party needs to be more moderate, more centrist.

The flight of Arlen Specter, is used by Democrats as an example. The example of Colin Powell is another.

My contention is that the Christians are the soul of the party. They take the saying of Jesus seriously when He said “You are the salt of the earth…” Salt enhances the flavor of whatever it is added to. Without it, some food is no longer attractive.

The party is as seriously divided as the two main parties are. The GOP needs to recognize that without the evangelicals, the party is not conservative. The distinctives of the party are provided by evangelicals. (Exclude the wacko’s,the over-the-top televangelists, and extremist nuts that exist in every organization). All of the “talking points” of the GOP are truly Christian concepts and products of a Christian worldview, ie: sanctity of life, good stewardship of money and natural resources, fairness, care for the poor, and helping people be all they can be.

Dear GOP…please understand that your evangelical Christians add something to the party that you should be proud of. They are your strongest supporters, have more gusto than mere ideologues, and are willing to die for what they believe in and have been dying for that cause for two thousand years. Don’t ask them to die for the party. They won’t do it. Just let them be the believers that God had called them to be and they will fight and vote for the right thing. It’s not about getting the right person or wrong person in the White House. To an evangelical Christian, it’s about doing what is pleasing in God’s sight as stated in the Jewish scriptures, Micah 6:8; He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Dear Christian, keep being salty and don’t lose hope. You’re doing the right thing.

In the same way that pipes bring back memories to me, cigars just take me away to another time too. Here we go with a another distinctively and unapologetically male rant and walk down memory lane.

So many people are fond of pipes and pipe tobacco. It reminds them of their dads, uncles, neighbors, professors and I wrote about it in a previous blog. (http://happyhour.blogtownhall.com/2008/11/15/masculinity_disappeared_with_the_pipe.thtml )

My readers really liked and responded to that particular piece even though it was written slightly tongue-in-cheek.

There is a cigar culture. It’s a more sophisticated culture than the cigarette culture, if there is such a thing.

Here are a few thoughts on cigars.

You can’t hurry a cigar. You choose your cigar knowing that you must have the time set aside to enjoy it. Once you light it, you can’t hurry it or it ruins the experience. You cannot put it out and finish it later. Actually, you only do that once…. And you clearly remember that experience. It’s like touching the stove or putting your hand in a snow blower. You do it only once and learn. A re-lit cigar is fairly nasty and does not give you anywhere near the experience that you originally set out to have. So, if you don’t have that 20 to 90 minutes set aside, you don’t do it. No such thing as an impulsive cigar smoker. Cigar and Impulsive don't fit in the same sentence. 

You can’t hurry it, you have to plan. It forces you to think ahead ... or a least think. There’s no such thing as a cigar break. All your co-workers run outside for a quick smoke break to get their nicotine fix…but not you. You have self control. You don’t smoke a cigar for the nicotine. There are more efficient ways to get nicotine if that’s your thing. A cigar is planned and thought of as a reward for your hard work at the end of the day.

It’s similar to a pipe with all the fussing and gadgets. The cutters: should you cut it or just nip the end or like the three stooges did, just bite the end off. Is it properly humidified at 70% and kept at 70 degrees. Affectionately known as “70-70” to aficionados.

What wrapper are you going to have? The Cameroon, the Maduro, or the mild Connecticut? Each has their own distinct aroma. Does it have long or short filler? Is it machine made or hand rolled? I love the sign for See-Gars, a classic Nicaraguan cigar whose motto was “lovingly rolled on the thighs of Nicaraguan virgins” Oh my…how could you possibly not fall in love with that cigar? The mental picture of that young Nicaraguan as she sacrificed for you is just overwhelming….OK, now…snap out of it! Let me finish my article!

How you light it is important too. You either use a wooden kitchen match or butane lighter. Never … ever … use a Zippo. The Zippo would impart a petroleum-like smell to the cigar thus ruining the experience. If you’re gonna do it, do it right.

Now, the purists will tell you all about the humidification, the richness of the smoke, and the actual aroma of the cigar before it is lit. They will talk about aged tobacco, the island or country it was grown on, and the length and ring size. The length is exactly that. The ring size is actually the diameter of the cigar. See, I told you there was some intelligence involved here. Cigars make you smarter in math. Cigars are measured in 64ths of an inch. Sooo…a cigar with a ring gauge of 28 is about the thickness of a “Sharpie” marker. A cigar with a ring gauge of 55 is little smaller than a diameter of a quarter. My preference is a 5x54 which means I like a cigar that is 5 inches long and has the diameter of a nickel, maybe a little bigger. That is good for about an hour if you smoke it correctly. One puff about every two minutes is good. Never inhale, and never hold the smoke for too long. You will gag, get high or sick, or have to lick the ground to get the taste out after, or all of the aforementioned. Again, you only do that once, maybe twice.

Bigger cigars burn cooler than thinner cigars. You would think it’s the opposite, but it’s not. Cooler is better. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but there is nothing worse than a burnt cigar flavor. What you really smell in a cigar is the oils that occur naturally in the tobacco leaf as they are being combusted.

Try to keep an ash of about an inch on the cigar. For some reason that’s the ideal length to keep the ember at the proper temperature.

Many guys will carry a cigar all day and occasionally take it out and smell it and then put it back in its cellophane wrapper or tube case. I enjoy that. I love the smell of a good cigar even before it is lit. That’s part of the experience for me. I enjoy that experience maybe once a week, when I have time, and always outside on the back step.

It’s a time I look forward to. I watch the smoke rise and disappear. I think about the day I had. I think about my life. I ponder possibilities and dream a little. I’m in no hurry and when I am done, I feel like I just got out of a Jacuzzi, had a 90 minute massage, the best therapy session, and a thousand compliments from my closest friends. I know many men feel the same way but would never admit it…or say it in those terms. If you can have that experience with a friend or two and maybe enjoy a favorite adult beverage, then it is absolute bliss.

I said all that to say this. Cigars are so much more than the experience for me. Yeah, I like the fussing, the routine, and the outcome. What I really get out of it is the memories it stimulates for me.

My grandfather smoked a cigar. I loved my grandfather…cigar and all. It reminds me of him. People I liked as a kid smoked cigars. Every Italian guy I knew smoked a cigar. There were some who I thought had one surgically attached to their mouths because they were never without one…ever. At six o’clock every night you would smell the aroma of cigars wafting through the neighborhood which only meant that all the working class men were done eating dinner and were outside having their cigars. You could stick your head out my front door and look to the left or the right and see the Dads with their cigars on the front stoops. Some had newspapers with them. Some were indulging their kids in Red light-Green light or Simon Says. Some watched as their kids performed the latest pop tune or skipped rope or listened as their son told them about their day at school. It forced the tired, weary, calloused-hand dads to slow down for a moment and be an audience to the ones who loved him more than anything else on earth. Dads up and down the block chuckled at impressions, dances, magic tricks, and silly songs from kids who were not allowed to perform those things twenty minutes earlier at the dinner table. He loosened his laces, sat there in his work pants, a t-shirt or muscle shirt and his hair slicked back. He sat there on that stoop with a cigar in one hand and with the other hand felt a little boys bicep when the boy said, “Hey Dad, feel my muscle”. Every Dad had the same response. “Wow, you’re strong”. A few of the Dads would then say, “How about this?” as they flexed their own biceps and their little kids swung on them like a monkey with a big grin. Yes, it was six o’clock. I didn’t know it from a clock or watch. I just knew because it smelled like six o’clock on my block. The beautiful smell of six o’clock, Dads, grandfathers, and neighbors. We didn’t know what a ring size was. We didn’t know short from long filler. We didn’t care what wrapper it was. We didn’t care what vintage or what island it was from. It was the smell of an era long gone.

Now I’m a father. A man nearly a half century old. My Dad is a grandfather now four times. I live in a world now where few friends still have both of their parents. I have both of mine, thank the Lord. The memories I have of my grandfather are “aromatic” memories. The sights, sounds, and yes...the smells. Only few sights and sounds take me down that memory lane. But it’s the smells that bring me there in a split second.

I’m sure my Dad doesn’t remember this, but I remember sitting out back with him one night in Florida where they have lived for 25 years. Mom had gone to bed a couple hours earlier. I said to Dad, “Let’s go outside and have a cigar”. He poured some Crown or Chivas on the rocks for both of us. We sat out back with cigars in one hand and glasses in the other. The lights were out. It was pitch black so the Florida bugs wouldn’t eat us alive. I do remember they were Bauza Cigars from Mikes Cigars. They were a 5x50 Robusto. Both were lit. All I could sense of Dad was what I could see and smell. I could smell the aroma of the cigar. I would see it glow brighter as he puffed on it periodically. I could hear the jingle of the ice in the glass as it tipped up every now and then. We didn’t even speak much. I have no memory of the conversation at all, but I do remember the smell, the sound, and the sight. I’ll never get that out of my head. As a matter of fact, I tell that story to one friend and he starts to tear up saying to me he wishes he had that kind of relationship with his Dad and I never once mentioned anything about relationship. It just happens with a cigar. Sometimes just sitting with someone and having a cigar is all you need. You don’t even have to talk.

The other weekend I had the kids. It was about 9 PM. We were all watching TV. I thought I would go sit on the back step and have a small cigar. My daughter was dozing off and I told my son I’ll be out back. I went out back with a cigar and an iced tea. I sat there quietly and enjoyed my cigar. When I was near done, I turned around and there was my son in the doorway just standing there quietly. I asked how long he had been standing there. He replied “The whole time”. I asked if everything was OK. He said “Yeah, I was just watching you”. All he saw was a Dad at the end of his day…relaxing…looking at the stars, thinking about his successes, failures, his future, and how he could make a better life.

I said “You tired?” He said “Yep”. I got up and we both went in.

I’m probably the only person that can romanticize a cigar, but don’t we all do that with something?

Interview with a Barber

#10

William John Bennett (born July 3, 1943) is an American conservative pundit, politician, and political theorist. He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or "Drug Czar") under George H. W. Bush.

Bennett was born in Brooklyn but later moved to Washington, D.C., where he attended Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from Williams College and went on to get a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Political Philosophy. He also has a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

From 1976 to 1981 he was the executive director of the National Humanities Center, a private research facility in North Carolina. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan appointed him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he served until Reagan appointed him Secretary of Education in 1985. It was in 1986 that Bennett switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Bennett resigned from this post in 1988, and later that year was appointed to the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by President George H. W. Bush.

He is host of the daily radio show called Bennett’s Morning in America. I cannot listen to anything else after checking him out for about a week. He raises the bar of conversation, political interchange, and son-of-gun…..he makes sense.

He is not perfect and he’ll be the first to admit it.

I just finished his America: The Last Best Hope, Volume 1. This is probably the best “in a nutshell” version of American history WITHOUT the revisionist perspective. I’ll give you an example. Rather than hammering America for slavery and talking about reparations, he says…and I paraphrase…we have seem to forgotten that America blazed the trail for ENDING slavery in the world. Slavery had gone on for thousand of years. It was NOT invented by America as liberals would have you believe. It was tried here on this soil and IT DIDN’T WORK. In the light of thousands of years of world history, slavery had its debut and demise here in less than a century. Bondage and freedom cannot co-exist.

I can’t wait to dive into Volume 2 and also the American Patriots Almanac.

On a daily basis, he hammers away at the irrational logic of the current administration and the creeping and creepy socialism that is being thrust on us much faster than we ever thought.

He does make it pretty clear that he is a conservative FIRST, and a republican second. Yes, there is a difference. The next election will be a culturally conservative election that will be powered by conservative media and web 2.0. My prediction is that the 2012 election will be cultural and not political. Bill Bennett is one of those leading that charge.

Why I go to a barbershop … and not a national salon chain.

I know the beauty industry. Mom was a cosmetologist. Dad was a barber...and still is. The bar for haircuts was raised pretty high in my house as I grew up and after I left for college.  I couldn’t stand the fact that I had to get my haircut by someone other than my barber father. I remember going months without a haircut and driving home from college to upstate New York six hours knowing that I would get a good haircut from Dad. For a short time, I worked in the esthetics industry and had access to some of the best stylists in the country...but still...no one gave a haircut like Dad.

I remember hanging out at the barbershop on Saturdays when I was a kid. The smells were only the smells a barbershop could have...and not those a woman's salon could have. I used to practically gag at the smells in a salon. Perms, straighteners, dyes, bleaches. Yuck.

The barbershop would have the occasional cigar smoker, which I really didn’t mind too much because all the Italian guys I knew smoked cigars and it was a familiar smell to me. The smell of cigars made me feel safe as a kid because real men smoked cigars and nobody messed with real men.

There was the smell of the hot Barabasol lather from the hot lather machine, the steamy hot towels, that blue liquid that disinfected combs and blades, and of course the French Pinaud aftershave in the tall skinny bottle on the shelf in front of the mirror. The smell of talcum powder as the barber brushed the hair clippings off your forehead, neck, and face. You knew to close your eyes and keep your mouth shut.

There were the sounds that you could only hear from a barbershop and not a salon. The sound of the lather machine, the sound of slip-slap slip-slap as the barber sharpened up the straight razor on the leather strap that hung off the arm of each barber chair. The sound of the barber chair hydraulics as he pumped up the height of the chair. The sound of the broom as a barber swept up the hair in between each customer. The sound of the bell that jingled every time a customer came through the door.

Then sight of men lined up in chairs reading newspapers, National Geographic, and LIFE magazine. The black and white photos on the walls of people like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Jerry Vale, and others of that genre of music. Some of them even had autographs of the singers on them.

They didn’t need an OPEN sign on the door, because when the barber pole outside the shop was lit up and spinning, you knew it was open. There may have been a black and white TV with rabbit ears on. It could have been a sports game or an old movie. There was talking back and forth between all the men and the barbers. The guy in the chair had to rely on the mirror to see who was talking because if he turned his head, he might lose an ear. Blades were flying all over the place in those days. God forbid you get nicked. Then the barber would put this thing called a steptic pencil on the cut which stopped the bleeding, but not without stinging like hell first. And it was never the barbers fault….even if it really was his fault. It was because you moved. Period. End of story. You never argue with a guy who has a super sharp razor to your throat.

The barbers pretty much gave the same haircut to everyone in those days unless it was a crew cut or a flat-top. The lines were perfect. You smelled good. You felt good. You itched like hell for the rest of the day, but you didn’t mind. He always applied a little greasy stuff, VO5, or spray in your hair. These were the days before gel or mouse.

You paid and the barber pressed down two buttons on the old cash register and the drawer opened with a ring of the bell. You never saw the price of the haircut on the register. He just went through the motions of opening the register. If there wasn’t enough change in the drawer, he always pulled a wad out of this pocket. The thickest wad of dough I had ever seen. He peeled off a few bills and then you gave one or two back to him as a tip. You both knew what the protocol was, but you went through the motions anyways. He thanked you. And you always came back a month later.

I remember riding my bike to the shop at 6pm on a Saturday when the shop closed. My Dad would then ride the bike and I would be sitting on the handlebars as we drove back home. He couldn’t wait to sit down and relax after being on his feet all day long.

My folks are in Florida now. Mom only cuts Dads hair now. Dad still cuts all the neighbors hair in the garage. They line up in lawn chairs, shoot the breeze, drink homemade wine and leave my Dad more money than he ever made when he was working in a barbershop. The chair is there, the mirror is there, the strap is there, the shelf with various products is there. And most importantly, Dad is there. 73 years old and still cutting hair. He listens to woes, stories about lay-offs, grown children that never became doctors or lawyers, cancer, mistresses, and then somehow makes them feel better about their sins, struggles, and dreams… no matter how old they are. The barber is a pretty special guy.

You can take a New York barber and stick him in a garage in Florida and you still feel like you’re in a barbershop. That only leads me to believe that it has more to do with the barber, than the shop. It’s the barber that creates that experience. No man, other my doctor, can come that close to me. Other than God, there is no counselor, no priest, or magistrate that hears the things my barber hears. There’s no other man that I can take my own boys to and say “…clean him up a little”, and then thank him and give him money. Barbers do one really cool thing for me...for a moment, I get a glimpse of what my boys will look like as men. He makes them look like little men. He parts their hair perfectly. He uses a combination of scissors and clippers, not just clippers like at the salons. The barber understands #2 on the sides and a 4 on the top…but he doesn’t like that. That’s what a male customer says after he’s gone to a chain salon for years. The barber sympathizes with you, but doesn’t judge you. It gives him an idea of what you want. The good barber knows what looks best on you. He knows what cut looks good with the shape of your face, by how you dress, and the work you do. The good barber takes mental notes on all those things. Trust the barber. Just let him do his thing on you. It will look good.

The barber is a pretty special guy.  I can’t get to Florida to Dad’s garage as much as I’d like, but you can bet that when I need a haircut, I don’t go to a "haircut factory"…I go to a barbershop.