Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

no it isn't, but it is a nice bonus

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Congrats!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I've had a dialog with pnoon (Peter) and I have to say publicly that this guy is a real mensch (Yiddish for stand up guy).
I have never been treated this fairly and kind by anyone else associated with cigars.
I would love to sit down for an afternoon and smoke a cigar with this man someday.

Best Regards,
The Kat

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Pack it up and find a site or blog that appreciates the humor.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I appreciate the advice.
All good things take time.
I wasn't even a blip on the radar 4 months ago and now I'm writing for online cigar stores.
I will continue to be freelance and just see what happens. I'm 60 and haven't worked for over 2 years. I won't work again. I've given up looking.
I have some severe injuries caused by a skydiving accident in 2001.
The State of Wisconsin just gave me health insurance. I'm going to get all new MRI's and see all kinds of docs and apply for SSDI. My back is full of herniated disks. Maybe it's time to slow down after a lifetime of construction management.
Of course, I will continue to play bass in working bands. I'm not stupid....just cranky.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I'm going to need a new avatar. If I go freelance, I can't use 12 different ones. Famous owns the one of me when I was 24...they did photoshop it, though.
I know there are lot of great artistic cigar photos out there and in here.
Can anyone recommend a member that does beautiful photos and would be willing to let me use part of their photo for my avatar?

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Brooks W. is one of the best and being a professional photographer, you might be able to work out a purchase or something. Although with his own blog, who knows. I guess you'd just have to ask him.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Peter is good company. I enjoyed meeting him and the Mrs at Shack Herf IV. I was bummed to find out they were going to miss last summer's Shack V. If they are heading out for VI, it would be worth the drive from Milwaukee to Sandusky OH in August 2011.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Phillip, I just read some of your reviews over at famous. Entertainingly humorous, while still informative with the review itself.

Good luck with everything.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Thanks, Joel

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I'm an old fart. Been smoking cigars 42 years. My dad smoked cigars and so did his father. I couldn't wait until I was 18.
This cigar review thing is very new to me.
The marketing guys at Famous suggested I post at puff. I hadn't posted on any sites...ever.
Man, I got attacked from the left and the right. They were brutal. I may be new to blogs but not cigars. I'm a structural engineer. No work. Haven't gotten a dime from unemployment for 8 months. My wife doesn't make much. We lost everything and now live in the unfinished basement of my daughter and her boyfriend. Things are bleak.
I fell into the review writing by accident. I wrote funny short reviews on the Famous pages and they wanted someone sick like me to write more formally.
After being banned by puff a couple weeks ago because someone (someone I know) went after me and he succeeded.
I come here and everyone is warm and supportive. A lot of guys here got the same treatment at puff as I did so they're still licking their wounds as well.
Nothing like being treated unfair, to bond a group.
So I sit in my basement with my computer and enjoy the hell out of CA.
I shouldn't complain about Famous. They gave me this chance. They believed in me. But they didn't figure on over sensitive readers.
pnoon is allowing me to post my edgy reviews. Of course, he wants to read them first. LOL!
So I'm happy.
The guys at CA are clearly smarter men then at puff. It was obvious right away.
I've never gotten so much good advice...ever. The guys here are thinkers.
I have a site for my music too. www.myspace.com/pkohnbass
Just thought of a funny incident.....it was 1975. I was at the only big guitar shop in London....The Fender Sound House. I was leaving and grabbed the handle to the glass door. At that very moment, Paul McCartney was on the other side pulling the handle his way. My first bass was a Hofner. I idolized the Beatles and him especially. What a bassist!
Anyway, I froze. Paul is pulling on the door and I'm stuck, not moving, not letting go of the door. He let go and looked at me and said, "What's up, mate?"
My mouth dropped and couldn't speak. A moment later, I let go of the door and as he walked by, he said, "Cheers."
At puff, the jackals would have pounced on me for writing what I just wrote. I hope you guys don't mind. I have some wonderful road stories....I can name drop with the best of them. But I was always a fan, not a jerk.
Cheers!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Thanks for the post, Phillip, I look forward to reading your stuff!

(Hey, how did puff make it through the p*rn filter?! :lr)

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

We don't filter the word "Pvff" the way the Bloated Orange Fish filters the word "Asylum". Hard to talk about the band Soul Asylum over there. :r

We just rely on our members' good taste to avoid using it in a cigar forum type of context. ;)

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I did not know this. That word shall never cross my keyboard again.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Only in the context of smoking a cigar, Brother. :)

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

The only people talking about Soul Asylum ANYWHERE are the VH1 "Where are they now?" people!

:noon

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

They seem to have aged well.Attachment 8362

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSt3v_tvVQA

MMMMM....Claire Danes. :dr

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Make it work Phillip? I look forward to checking out your reviews

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Please go to the review section where I've posted my reviews/stories and read my plea for mercy at the bottom of the comments.
Thank you fellas

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Phillip, we accept you here because of your differences and opinions. Thats what make this place so wonderful, everyone supports each other.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

What you can't even talk about Soul Asylum over there.....that's ridiculous! I love me some runaway train and misery! BASTAGES!

NICE! Never saw that video.

Exactly. Opinions are great, I've bought many of cigars based on reviews and recommendations here.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Thanks Larry. I'm just not used to that mentality.
I live in fear...and fight crime at night with a can of Lysol and and a V cutter.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Same here, and some of them were real TURDS.:r:r Gotta love the Brotherhood.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Ouch! Luckily that's not my fault. I only did one review. Though when it gets warmer out I've got some decently nice sticks I'll be reviewing.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

If they dont like it they wont print em

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

But the goal is for a happy medium. I want the gig. They want me to write it. I have to tone it down so that nuns can read it and laugh. They have given me permission to publish the rejected ones here or on my personal blog:
http://open.salon.com/blog/katmancross

So all is well. I did not expect them to allow me to do this. I think it is very gracious of them to do so.
In the meantime, I got another writing gig because of what's been published on their site. My dander is no longer up.
Plus I just submitted a new review to them that I think is pretty good for being perfectly PC.
The problem with writing creatively is that you put your heart and soul into it and no one like's their baby rejected over seemingly petty items. It's an ego thing.
I should know better.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Amen, Larry. These crazy bastages will smoke ANYTHING!!! :r

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Cool! Sounds like a win win situation!!!:tu

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I just don't say it cause it makes me throw up in my mouth. There's a couple guys here with "banned pvffer" or something like that under their username, and that always causes me to make an awful curled up face, too.
Hard to believe the whole thing still smells so awful after all this time. *barf*

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Scott,
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I was really upset, for a week, after that verkakte schlemiel kicked my butt out. But I got over it. At the time, I felt personally persecuted. Now that I'm here, I realize it's not me. It's him. Typical Napoleonic syndrome. Power. At some point the cloud of power will take him down and the boards will be full of people dancing in the street.
But I've let go. Everyone here has made that possible. So I moved on.
Whatcha' goin' to do?

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

If everyone here donated a quarter, we could hire a toothless transvestite midget hooker to run up to capukeo in public and give him a big wet sloppy kiss like Jamie Lee Curtis did to Dan Aykroyd in "Trading Places".

Or maybe have a truckload of White Owl Pineapple tubos cigars dumped in his front yard.

Just a thought.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Why such a conservative plan?

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

OK. This is weird. Good things have happened since I became an inmate 10 days ago.
I now write for 5 cigar outlets and a cigar magazine. Wow. How did that happen? Padron 1926's for everyone...put it on my tab!!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Good for you Phillip!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Thanks Dave....I am truly flabbergasted. Obviously, there's an upside to writing silly, stupid, incomprehensible reviews that most people don't like.
The funny thing, is that I am still dirt poor and have about 15 cigars to my name. No one has delivered cigars yet.
The State of Wisconsin has granted my wife and I $76 per month in food stamps yesterday. And Jewish Family Services is sending me a couple of supermarket gift cards. And I'm $100 overdrawn at the bank.
Yippee. I'm a writer!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

:banger:banger:banger:banger:banger

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

x2, as much as it sucks it is their sandbox...I would not take direction from them and leave. Then again, my advice is not always the best :D

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I just read a couple of your reviews not bad I cant wait to see more especially the ones they wouldn't post.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=40965

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=40964

Thanks

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Ya know, you could have brain cancer. In jail. I think you're doin alright.
Look straight up and walk straight forward, my friend. :tu

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I know, I know.
I spend a lot of time telling myself things could be a lot worse. There are people who would give anything to live the life I am.
But after a long time, it gets old having to refer to that allegory.
But as a Jew, I have that extra DNA for whining. Can't help it.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

It's a done deal. I got a writing gig at Cigar Snob Magazine!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Congrats!

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Oh God! I just got the package with the U.C's in it. I opened the aluminum pouch and all I could smell was the strong scent of sweet pipe tobacco. God knows what a grape one or peach one smells like. I can't do it. I don't even want to put them into my humidor and be stuck with that scent for 6 months. Maybe in a quart size zipper bag in the toilet tank?

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Congrats on the new gig.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

I'm solidifying deals with all the different cigar outfits and I am overwhelmed by their kindness and enthusiasm. After two years of pure hell, I find myself sniffling like a little girl. Several are excited that I will be writing as Kat. No censorship. Pure freedom.

Last week, the State of Wisconsin manned up and gave me Medicaid. Everything is virtually free now. I truly believe that all of the support and good thoughts spewed forth from CA helped. Yeah, I'm an old hippie.
I have such severe pain issues because of the skydiving accident... and in the last 2 years, things have gotten so much worse. I saw a doctor today and he ordered MRI's for my back and neck. I'm seeing another doc next week for a complete physical.
Of course, I'm afraid of what they may find. But it's better to worry about that then continue in this miserable existence. I'm just a big whiny baby.

To all my buds, thank you for your kindness. You're all like family.
Thanks.

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

January 14, 2011
This is the review/story that my home review store F****s-S***e would have printed if they hadn't fired me because I took other writing assignments.
As stated earlier, my wife and I are virtually homeless. The cigar reviews that Katmancross writes seems to be liked and other online outfits have asked for my services. I may have found a way out of the hole. Some want stories like this. Some want 1-2-3 reviews. Some want anonymous reviews. Some are European online stores..one I have to write in German. And one is for Cigar Snob Magazine.
Now mind you, this store and I had no contract. I was paid a 5 pack for each review.. They did me a couple solids and sent me a Blazer lighter and this week, I got a bundle of an inexpensive cigars.
I have refused offers from the other big 4-5 outfits. Because I am loyal. The stores I am working with are nothing to sneeze at but should not get in the way of writing for F. They gave me my start and I am so grateful to them. But they blindsided me with this. No warning. Just gone. It's a shame because I would have been loyal to the end and written for them for two cigars. It's a shame. So I will be seen and read in other outlets. I wish F all the best.

I printed the review in the review section

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Glad to see new opportunities are on the horizon...:tu

Loyalty is a two-way street. Their loss...

Re: I'm at the Crossroads-Help me Decide
 

Yeah...all up in smoke because of their wrong assumption...what happened to phone calls?