My Afternoon With the Boys of Rescue Ink

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet some incredibly special guys to interview for an upcoming issue of Cigar Magazine. Their names – Joe Panz and Big Ant – and they run one of the most courageous rescue operation units in the world known as Rescue Ink.

Maybe you’ve heard of the boys as their reality television show was incredibly popular on the National Geographic Channel. Or you might have seen them on the news, in a magazine, or on a talk show, because their little group ain’t so little any more. They are gaining recognition the world over for the unsung work they do, all in the name of love – for animals.

Rescue Ink started about six years ago when Joe Panz began hearing more and more about animal abuse in his neighborhood in Queens, New York. Since then, Joe has gathered a small army of his “street” friends, and the group has become internationally famous as the people to turn to when they simply have no more options and there’s no where else to turn.

The interview was set for lunch at Club Macanudo in Manhattan, thanks to General Manager, Mr. Mauricio Cordoba. He is a true gentleman, and he made sure our experience was excellent in every way. Although there is a dress code, Mauricio was kind enough to make an exception, allowing Joe and Anthony to enjoy the club in their everyday work attire, as you can see by the photos – and Mauricio, I thank you again for the outstanding hospitality. I have to mention that Club Macanudo is NOT private – it is open to the public seven days a week including lunch, dinner, and Sunday Brunch. Guys, there’s only a handful of places left in New York where you can enjoy a cigar, let alone along with your favorite drink and some spectacular food, and there isn’t a better atmosphere to revel in your favorite smoke.

My Rescue Ink friends are bigger than life characters – New York street savvy tough guys who have taken it upon themselves to protect helpless animals who simply cannot defend themselves against cruelty and abuse. When they receive a call or an email about a potential problem, a group of eight or so rescuers arrive at the abusers front door, warning them about their unacceptable behavior, while putting the fear of god into them, if deemed necessary. Trust me when I say that you DON’T want these guys coming back for a second visit… capiche? What’s amazing is that these brave souls put their life on the line every single day, entering neighborhoods so bad that even the National Geographic camera crews refused to follow them in. Joe says with all sincerity that he and his guys have NO fear, for if they did, they could not function in a manner that gets the job done. And if you were wondering, they don’t play the role of vigilante, because they know that breaking the law or use of excessive force would land them in jail – a place where they can’t be of any help to their animal friends.

I’ve done a lot of great interviews with some big name people, but I have to say that I enjoyed this one the most to date. The guys were an absolute pisser, showing up on their gorgeous Harleys and brandishing three hours worth of colorful “street” language to boot. I did my part to keep up with the expletives just so I’d fit in and not have any bodily parts snapped or removed… although, Joe was kind enough to give me a neck rub while Big Ant helped me find my chair. (See photo.) And as a side note, I have never seen three guys eat so much goddamned food in my life. Joe works out three hours every day and he and Big Ant wolfed continuous appetizers like the Russians were invading Newark. Yeah, I did my share to help, but after Club Mac ran out of food, we had a live steer brought in and butchered on the premises – and yeah, the guys volunteered.

The Cigar Magazine Story won’t be out for a few months, so I wanted to let you guys know about these modern day heroes who have answered a calling and need our help to continue. People think because they’re on TV that they have skads of money, but it’s not so at all. They spend a lot of their own money and precious time on the streets and they need your financial donations, badly.

Look Rescue Ink up on the web or call the Rescue Ink Rescue Hotline at 800-510-7355.

Rescue Ink LLC, 459 Columbus Avenue, Suite 1800,  New York, NY 10024.

Thanx my peeps, this is an amazing cause and we’re doing our best to give the boys our support.

Have a great week,

TOMMY Z.

JR Cigar Blog With the ZMAN

This past Saturday night I was thrown into a time warp of epic proportions. The place was Manhattan… New York City…the Big Apple… you’ve heard of it, I’m sure. I started the afternoon hooking up with my friend Denny, who was visiting from the left coast. We met at Club Macanudo on East 63^rd for lunch, cigars, and a major-league round of throwing the bull. Ah, the food was great, but now we’re off to midtown to a cigar shop for more smoking and hanging with the locals. Seven o’clock the place closes and we kill an hour at a ritzy hotel bar on 6^th Avenue. But then the clock strikes eight, and we are magically teleported to a time when life was a bit simpler and men were truly men.

Denny has set up our evening for some classic New York cool at the Carnegie Club on 57^th Street. I’ve wanted to go there forever though I just never seemed to make it, but my buddy makes it his stomping ground each time into the city, so I tagged along for the night… and wow am I so glad that I did.

For you cigar lovers in the audience, the Carnegie Club is a swank throwback to the forties and fifties, a time when men were kings of the castle… a time when you could groove on music of the era, enjoy a nice pour of whisky, good conversation, and of course, your favorite cigar. Thank God that the tyrannical Mayor Bloomberg has somehow grandfathered this place, allowing cigar smoking to continue in the tradition of old New York.

The club itself is elegant, stylish, with a nostalgic feel that transports you to a time and place of decades past. The look and feel is plush – small couches and leather chairs, along with a well stocked bar and humidor. There are 18^th century hand-carved wooden bookcases filled with leather-bound classics, a stone fireplace, funky art deco wall covering, and a more private mezzanine above. And best of all, the patrons are wonderfully friendly, well dressed, and all there for the same reason – to enjoy life the way it was truly meant to be.

While the club was just what I needed, the best part was yet to come. Denny happens to be good friends with Mr. Steven Maglio – and Steven Maglio just happens to sing the world’s finest renditions of Frank Sinatra – a performance so fabulous that even old blue eyes himself does a double take from the great beyond each time Stevie sings. And the best part is that Maglio does two Sinatra sets each and every Saturday night at the Carnegie Club.

Now admittedly, I’ve grown up on a steady diet of Zepplin, Queen, Judas Priest, Metallica and Alice In Chains – and Sinatra was never really my bag. It’s not that I didn’t like him or appreciate what he did, I just never really got into that scene. But I have to tell you, Steve Maglio blew my doors off with his voice and style and I have walked into a new world of cool and sophistication that I never, ever thought I would embrace. Now he’s not an impersonator – to me impersonators are so karaoke.  Steve’s voice is flawless and his charisma lights up the room, and in his own words, “I do it my way.” Hey plays in front of a live eleven-piece band, the Stan Rubin Orchestra and goddamn, they get the place jumping, starting with some classic swing era faves, then straight into the Frankie serenade. Steve does two completely different sets at 8:30 and 11:30 pm, and the place is packed (or shall I say, Rat Packed) with old fans, and new fans, just like myself.

So picture hanging at the swanky bar with a group of ultra cool cats – including boxing legend, Renaldo Snipes (what a gentleman) singing, smoking premium hand-rolds, sipping single malt, and listening to music that was from a time when the politically correct weren’t trying to protect us all from ourselves (and least I not forget – enough fine tail to get any man just a little bit crazy.) The term “It don’t get any better than this” certainly applies, my friends. I had such an amazing time and simply can’t wait to go back. Hopefully, I’m hooking up with Denny and Steve later in the week, and fun will continue on! It’s up to you. New York, New York.

So there you go – a pretty wild ride in the Big Apple this weekend and I’m game for another round. I think a MaCallans 12 and a Montecristo Certified Vintage for lunch is certainly in order.

Tommy Z

JR CIGARS Blog With the Zman

I now give you the short version of the announcers commentary for this past weekend’s Master’s Open Golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia…

Tiger Woods… Tiger… Tiger… Elin… Tiger… Mistress… Earl Woods… Phil Mickelson… Tiger… Par…Tiger Woods… Mickelson’s wife… Cancer… Tiger Woods… Tiger… Birdie… Tiger… Tiger Woods… Eleven Under… Tiger… Tiger… Earl Woods Commercial… Nike… Mickelson’s wife… Cancer… Tiger… Tiger… 3 Putt… Elin Nordegren… Bogie… Phil Mickelson… Mickelson’s wife… Cancer… Tiger… Tiger Woods… Eagle… Phil Mickelson’s wife… Cancer… Nike… Tiger… Tiger… Mickelson wins… Tiger Woods… Tiger.

The media is always brutal at beating a story to death, but the Tiger tale (tail?) is a non-stop circus act, complete with jiggling bimbos, a raging Nordic hottie, and a deceased family member giving lil’ Tiger a rump reaming. If you ask me, Woods, the PGA, and Nike are all whores, getting into bed with one another while orchestrating the admonishment of the prowling cat. I usually love to watch the Masters, but this year I couldn’t stomach 24/7 coverage of the rabbit toothed, Asian/Black/American Indian/ White golfer.

This Wednesday will be a cool gig for your friendly neighborhood Zman as I interview some awesome brothers for Cigar Magazine. Not too long ago a reality show called Rescue Ink was on the National Geographic Channel, featuring a group of born and bred, tattooed, New York tough-guys, who rescue abused and abandoned animals throughout the Big Apple. I’ll be hanging with Joey Panz and Big Ant over at Club Macanudo down by central Park South in Manhattan, smoking, eating, drinking and getting down with a manly-man interview. No, it don’t really suck to be me. Hey, wonder if the boys could help rescue Tiger Woods? A big thanks to Victoria McKee at General Cigar for having us at Club Mac. I have personally hung there for years and it is a quintessential must stop when exploring the isle of Manhattan. The ambiance is just gorgeous and the food is excellent. There’s not too many places left to enjoy a cigar in New York City, and Club Macanudo is a well-deserved rest stop for any lover of the leaf.

Hey… did you guys know that I love cigars? No, really… were you aware? Well, last night I was a guest on WIND Radio in Chicago on Livin’ Large with Geoff Pinkus. Geoff is a real Man’s Man whose 2-hour Sunday night guy-fest features cigar talk and all kinds of testosterone laden goodness. It was nice of him to introduce me to his audience as a feature writer for Cigar Magazine and the JR Blog Meister General, as we b.s.’d about our love for premium stoags and finely aged COUGAR mamas. The Pinker (as he’s affectionately known) is so enamored with the lore of the leaf, that he even has Gurkha making him his very own Pinker Gurkha – a girthy smoke, measuring in at a hefty 6 x 60. We are truly like brothers from another mother and hopefully I’ll be infesting the Illinois airwaves on a frequent basis! His website is great, and features live streaming of his show as well as past recorded shows. I highly recommend checking out his entertaining brand of manly-man bravado. Just great stuff.

Well, the beauteous weather this weekend (70 here yesterday in north Jersey) allowed me partake in a bevy of tobacco goodness. After much lawn work, rest time beckoned for a puff of the good stuff, and I just enjoyed the hell out of an El Rey Del Mundo Olvidados torpedo, right down to the ol’ nub-a-roo. Before dinner, I downed a Gurkha Legend, and after a pork chop barbecue, a rich, full bodied Macanudo 1968 hit the spot so well (I really do love that cigar. God bless the great Daniel Nunez!) Holy damn, I’m hungry again and I need a good smoke. The story of my life.

Hey… it’s nice out again today… SPRING IS HERE and after that brutal winter, I’m going to smoke cigars like a maniacal tobacco wacko. Of course my wife won’t let me anywhere near the bedroom, but sometimes you’ve gotta stand up for what you believe in. I know… I have no morals or common sense, whatsoever.

So that’s the scoop for this week. Take care my Brothers of the Leafy Goodness,

Tommy Z.

JR Cigars Blog With the Zman

The effects of the weather is obviously dependent upon where you live. And as you are well aware (after all of my incessant complaining) the elements here in the northeast have been as horrific as we’ve ever seen. This winter we saw a bevy of record snowfalls that brought about awful commuting conditions along with hours upon hours of shoveling the white stuff. Then it was torrential rains that delivered flooding – the kind you see every hundred years – twice within three weeks. Yes, Mother Nature has given us a prolonged bitch slapping we certainly soon won’t forget.

But no matter where you are in north America, you’re going to get your share of angry earthly activity… Heat and hurricanes in the south, tornadoes in the mid-west, arctic cold in the north, and some of you have to endure the ground shaking, as felt in southern California, just yesterday.

But something odd happened in my area on April 1. Exactly to the day on April 1^st, to start the second quarter of the year, like delivered by the hand of god himself, the weather turned magnificent. It was if old Momma Nature was having her period for six months and God just told the woman to cut the crap and deliver us poor people a shot of warmth and sunshine. And damn, if it hasn’t been sensational the past five days – low 70’s, blue sky, and bright sun. Spring has truly sprung and it’s amazing how everyone has just joined the collective consciousness and started smiling again.

As always, the long awaited springtime weather brings a lot of things out from hibernation… baseball, wearing shorts, yard work, grilling, low cut tops, and seeing the neighbors once more. But most of all, us cigartophiles (yes, a made up word, but it sounds plausible) get to revel in our favorite stogies amidst the confines of the great outdoors once again. Like animals who had slept in their lairs for these past frozen months, we have risen from our slumber and now realize that it’s time to fire up freely, once again. Oh happy, happy, joy, joy.

For the past five days I have been smoking cigars like a crazed tobacco demon, savoring every ounce of smoke each stick has delivered. I’ve probably done three a day during this time, as opposed to the 1 or two a week during the winter, where I huddled up in the garage while an oscillating electric ceramic heater deliver much needed warmth to my important parts. (Some more important that others.) I had a few yard gars for the outdoor work, medium bodied gars for afternoon enjoyment, and fuller bodied sticks for post dinner happiness. You know, I think I toked a few shorties while tossing a carcass or two on the grill as well. Unfortunately – or fortunately – depending on how you perceive it, my intake of alcoholic libationary goodness increased as well. I must say, I’m feeling rather relaxed, and I’m being awfully kind to strangers, small animals, and even New York Yankee fans (but that will wear off very fast, I guarantee you.)

I took a trip to JR a few days ago and stocked up on five packs, as they’re not only a great deal, but enable you to try a plethora of different smokes, as opposed to investing in a full box. I picked up the following fivers: El Rey Del Mundo Olvidados Torpedos, JR Ultimate Princpales Osuro, Gurkha something or other as they makes twelve-thousand different lines, Sancho Panza Extra Fuerte Pamplonas (maybe one of the best values in the cigar world today) and some jet black La Gloria Maduro toro sized beauties. I probably smoked at least two of each, along with a few other random singles I introduced to the weekend line up!

Good Lord people, I am In heaven once again! And while I admittedly have cursed Mother Nature, damning the wicked harlot to hell on several occasions during the past few months, I now praise the woman, and I thank her from sparing us all from the madness we endured for so long. I look forward to Spring, Winter, and the Fall, and I will certainly commemorate the joys of wonderful outdoor weather with the cutting, lighting, and puffing of many a premium hand-rolled happy stick delivered from a tropical climate south of our borders.

Who’s gonna join me?

Tommy Z.

JR Cigars Blog With the Zman