Not sure if I am posting this in the right place, but since I want someone from CA to read it, here will have to do...

How many of you would like to see fewer rich kid toys and more cigars in the magazine? I just basically flip to the interesting stories that are cigar related and the reviews. I'm really not that interested in owning a share in a private jet, a handcarved toilet seat crafted from the finest bubinga found on the island of San Serif or a watch that costs as much as a years mortgage on my home!

I'm considering cancelling my subscription to CA and just getting Cigar Insider. It's more money, but you get pure cigar reviews with out the window dressing. I'd gladly pay more for CA if you cut the fancy shmancy crap and doubled the cigar stories and ratings.

I know that CA has a wide range of incomes in it's readership, with a higher than average household income, but really how many of you out there would like to see more cigar reviews and articles with fewer solid gold bidets?

"Un día sin los cigarros es como un día sin el sol."

"A day without cigars is like a day without sun."

( * raises hand * )

Let the winds of change blow over my head / I'd rather die while I'm living then live while I'm dead.
-Jimmy Buffett's Growing Older But Not Up

I think the most recent issue (can we talk about putting that jackass Baldwin on the cover?) had more cigar stuff than usual. Savona sure worked his rear off.

Mike

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - Abraham Lincoln

[This message was edited by michaelsean on April 24, 2004 at 11:19 AM.]

Hopefully,a sign of things to come.


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"Have you got a helmet?"asks Wyatt. "Oh,oh iv`e got a helmet,I`ve got a beauty".

I agree, I'd much rather see the magazine do more features on Cigars than other things. Afterall, the magazine is called Cigar Aficionado, not "Aficionados OF A Bunch Of Stuff: Who Happen To Smoke Cigars".

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"If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral."
-- George Burns

Same here, fellas. I usually just buy the magazine, flip to back, and read the cigar ratings.

______________________________

"Those who want respect, give respect."

This is the exact reason I cancelled my subscription. I really could care less how much silk shirts cost the rich or how much a new super car will run me.

Chip

"Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."

..until I subscribed to CA. With every issue, I felt a little poorer.....

A cigar oriented magazine with just a little of the other stuff, toys, etc. would be ideal in my book.

I will also agree that i pretty much flip through the mag and usually only read the cigar related articles. I realize that the mag is also supposed to be a goodlife magazine for men, and i respect that, but the good life should include more about cigars.

Information doesn't kill you.-Frank Zappa

What are you talking about? When I saw the Netjet information in the Mag, I had to get one! Only cost me over 1 million dollars...

Money well spent... Got to go, I will be flying to Cuba for the weekend...

"eat like a horse, lift like a bull, juice like a herfer!"

I like a few of the neat things to be in there. But it does seem as though the toys are too often the dominant theme. I enjoy seeing them. I know I'll never be able to afford them. But I would suspect a large share of CA readers could drop $4650 for a Puro Humidor then light up their stick with a Bengie while there coked-out bimbo rubs them down for a bag of blow. It's just not my life-style.

I do think CA is a quality magazine. I feel more educated about cigars and the cigar industry since subscribing. Last month's article about Rick Meerapfel and his efforts to keep the Cameroon wrapper growing and the loss the industry has suffered by his passing makes me a much more informed cigar enthusiast. The wonderful article about CAO put real people behind the cigars I enjoy. The article with Dr. Cina with Davidoff was interesting as well. That is why I subscribe to CA and will keep up my subscription.

I understand that industry is relatively small. But it would seem more stories are out there about the people growing leaf, blending, making, marketing, and enjoying cigars. The review area could be twice the size it is. Not necessarily doubling the number of reviews (although that would not exactly suck), but expanding on the reviews.

I like the new Cigar Advisor area. Most of the info in the last issue was info that is covered here by regular posters, but had I not been here in the CA forums, I would never have known some of those things. I think this area has a lot of promise.

Kinda funny though. I definitely enjoy the magazine and look forward to seeing it arrive in the mail each time. Yet I am still being pretty critical of a large portion of it. Seems to me an awful lot like many of the cigars I have smoked. I have enjoyed almost all of them, have now learned to skip over ones I know I wont enjoy, but even in the ones I do enjoy I find parts of it that could be better (more enjoyable to me). Thus goes my pursuit of my perfect cigar. Thus too probably goes Marvin's and Gordon's pursuit of the perfect CA issue.

Brian

HERE HERE!!!

My votes with you!!

I'd like to see less of the rich boys toys and more articles about Cigar making, blending, manufaturuers, history, etc etc....

Tasting tips, lessons, selection tips, all the good stuff to educate the readers of the magazine and enlighten them with regards to their pleasureful passtime.

Here is the real quetion: are any of these issues going to be taken seriously by those that can make a difference? I can only hope that some will pass the message on to those who need to hear it. I am a full supporter of CA, but i am also in full support of making it an even better magazine.

Information doesn't kill you.-Frank Zappa

Agreed.

Believe it or not, MOST of us neither have a second or third home in the Hamptons nor own a Bentley.

Cigars may be a "luxury" item, but it doesn't follow that they therefore must be constantly grouped with Gulfstreams and Rolexes.

I am forced to save for months to buy a box of top-quality cigars. But I am able to do it--if I save for the rest of my life, I will never be able to buy a Lamborghini.

I think by far the majority of cigar smokers are people who live day to day, are not corporate executives, and do not own a small nation.

It would be nice to see more cigar-related articles (which appeal to all of us) and less articles detailing the joys of exclusivity and conspicuous consumption.

Then again, those Netjets ads are cool . . .

I will also agree. I must say the June 2004 CA is a good start. I hope it keeps up.

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's not me.

I definitely buy the mag for the cigar reviews. The minute my issue arrives I am tearing open the plastic bag and thumbing to the back. My girlfriend calls it my cigar porn. I find myself ogling over some Cuban that I haven't tried or comparing the ratings to my own perceptions of a cigar. I frequently compare the review to my own humi inventory; "Got it, got it, need it, hate it, need it..." I love the cigar stuff, hate the ultra rich geegaws and I am ambivalent towards the rest. If I wanted a magazine about the finer things in life, I would subscribe to The Robb Report or The DuPont Registry. Someone said above that we can all save up and buy a nice box of cigars, but few of us could save up and buy a Lamborghini. That was a great analogy. I also think that if you believe the magazine should take a different direction you need to be vocal. You need to voice your opinion on this forum, whenever you can bend Savona's (et. al) ear at a Big Smoke, etc. Marv didn't get where he is today by ignoring the demands of his customers. I think if enough people made some noise, they would notice. Let's try and make this the longest running thread in the Editors forum so that they will take notice and have to look at it daily!

"Un día sin los cigarros es como un día sin el sol."

"A day without cigars is like a day without sun."

Everyone I know who didn't renew their CA subscription passed for that reason: too much fluff.

Here! Here!

___________

To announce there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile...it is morally treasonable to the American public.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Hutch,
I've been driving my Lamborghini for a couple of weeks now, and I'm getting a little bored with it. Next time I'm in NH, I'll leave it in your driveway.

Mike

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - Abraham Lincoln

My Lamborghini broke down on the highway today. While waiting for the dealer to send an Astin DB-7 loaner, I lit up a pre-embargo Upmann Magnum 46 with a one hundred dollar bill and flipped through the latest issue of CA. After deciding I needed to get my own personal jet to avoid situations like this in the future, I looked down at my Rolex Superpresident Platinum watch and realized I wasn't going to make it in time for dinner at the club...

"Un día sin los cigarros es como un día sin el sol."

"A day without cigars is like a day without sun."

I had a subscription but let it expire. I don't mind the luxury stuff - in fact, I find it really interesting - but what got me was the space spent on sports and business news. Replace every baseball, football, and "news form the world of buinsess" article with cigars and you'll have my subscription back.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.