I think Television is no longer the right word to describe what we watch each night.  Me and LaVonda have been watching a show called The Good Wife. Every night we spend about ten minutes trying to find the damned thing because we can’t remember what service we were watching …

Thursday afternoons have always carried a different pace. The work is mostly done, the weekend is close enough to see on the horizon, and life seems to slow down just enough to appreciate the little things. On this particular late afternoon, I loaded up Saber, my faithful Belgian Malinois, into …

I’m sure everyone was spellbound watching the Spurs vs Knicks Finals. I couldn’t believe how four of the five games were an amazing repeat come behind win for the Knicks. What was even more amazing was that in game four when they were behind by 27 or 29 points in …

There are some cigars that fit a moment so perfectly that you almost wonder if they were blended specifically for it. The Crux Bull & Bear Toro became exactly that cigar for me on a quiet weekday morning in my cigar lounge—which also happens to be my office. The trading day was …

Well, I thought I was finished writing about GANGSTAS for a while, but one story seems to beget another. Since I finished off the GANGSTA piece last week writing about how we sent cigars to a boat in international waters, and to various prisons all over the USA, it reminded …

Some days are simply satisfying. Others feel earned. This particular evening fell firmly into the second category. Earlier in the day, I had spent hours tending to a brisket. As any serious backyard pitmaster knows, brisket is not just food—it’s a test of patience, discipline, and attention to detail. There …

I just spent the better part of an hour trying to find my cell phone. It’s something that seems to happen to me a few times a day as I get older and stupider. My daughter Samantha says I should use my “find my phone App” – I don’t know …

Some afternoons offshore are measured by the fish you bring home. Others are measured by the moments you never want to end. That evening aboard The Reel Paws turned out to be the second kind. The late South Florida sun hung low over the Atlantic as I eased the boat just off …

Holy Smokes! This is such a long story that I’m not sure where I should actually begin, but let’s say… the fall of 1972. Me and LaVonda had just moved back to Manhattan from “the middle of nowhere”. We had lived on a farm about 5 miles outside of Marion, …

There are cigars you smoke… and then there are cigars that become part of a moment in your life. The El Titan de Bronze 30th Anniversary became exactly that for me. I was walking through the heart of Little Havana with a few out-of-town friends on a warm Miami afternoon, …