The Pipes Magazine Radio Show – Episode 315
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- The Pipes Magazine Radio Show – Episode 315
- Kevin Godbee
- Sep 25, 2018
- 1 min read
Kevin Godbee
Thank you for joining us for The Pipes Magazine Radio Show—the only radio talk show for pipe smokers and collectors. We broadcast weekly, every Tuesday at 8 pm eastern USA time and are available on nearly all podcast sites and apps. Listen on your computer, tablet, phone and even in the car! Our feature tonight is the final episode of Storytime with Alan Schwartz. Alan has been in the business forever. He has been to all of the pipe and tobacco factories, and has great stories to tell. In Pipe Parts, Brian will give a recap of last weekend’s Kansas City Pipe Show. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
Tonight’s show is sponsored by SmokingPipes.com, Cornell & Diehl, Missouri Meerschaum, and Savinelli Pipes and Tobaccos. Please give them some consideration when making your next pipe or tobacco purchase.
We hope you enjoy our 1-hour show produced just for you—the pipe smoker and collector. The following link will launch a pop-up player. Alternatively, you can download the show in iTunes and other podcast sites and apps after the initial broadcast is complete here.
Alan & Joan Schwartz at The Chicago Pipe Show, May 2009
Written by Kevin Godbee
View all posts by: Kevin Godbee
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I confess. I’m a Latakiaphile. Ever since I first smelled the smoke of the dusky leaf, I’ve been in love with it. I know this is no surprise to anyone who has followed any part of my weird journey through pipedom, but I wanted to state it openly, get it off my chest. Mostly, because I seem to have been in something of a weird state of denial about this fact myself for some months. It started innocently enough during the heat of last year’s summer, a time when I find myself feeling the gravitational pull of lighter tobaccos. While winter weather and bigger, bolder Latakia mixtures have always been my ideal companions in the colder, moister clime, they can be a bit overwhelming to me when the mercury rises. While I enjoy the taste and aromas of those first few puffs, as the bowl progresses, my senses soon feel fatigued, overwhelmed, like putting on a comfortable but heavy top coat and wandering out into the blazing sun. In the summer months, I have always turned to “lighter” blends, sometimes with just a whisper of Latakia, more often with none at all. Virginias, with or without the added condiment of perique or oriental leaf are just the ticket when short sleeves and tee shirts are the uniform of the day. Even burley blends tend to feel more apropos then. I know there are many who smoke the same blends year-round, but I’ve never been one of them. If I’m honest, I am a little jealous of those folks. It’s a bit of a curse to have my tastes tied inextricably to uncontrollable forces of nature. (Though, I do recall a rather oddly delightful experience of finding myself, exactly once, smoking a pipe in the shower. Another story. Another time. Maybe.) Last year presented no exception to the rule. Once spring had come and gone, I put away the dark mixtures, and turned to the softer, gentler side of tobacco goodness. I always enjoy this little “reset,” but equally, I look forward to the return of the cooler days and colder nights when I can come back home to the comfort of those mixtures that have always provided me with an indescribable solace. I love fall and winter the most, and not just for smoking. I don’t really hate the sun, but I’ve never thrived in its heat; my constitution prefers cooler weather. I’ve always been a fall and winter lover. But, something strange happened last year. Even when the temperatures dropped, even when the air got misty, the rain began falling, and I traded short sleeves for sweaters, I kept reaching for my summer blends. Occasionally, I might dip into the jar of Westminster, prepare a slice or two of Spark Plug, or reach for one of my vintage tins of Orient Express #11 or Bengal Slices, but I found myself routinely returning to the lighter side of things when it was time to fill my bowl. Nothing about this should be upsetting, of course, but it’s just not who I am. It’s out of character. It’s like I was subconsciously denying something that is fundamental to the very core of my pipe smoking existence. Looking back on it now, it feels like I was in some strange parallel universe, an alternate reality. It strikes me as just plain wrong. It’s an odd thing. For most of my pipe smoking life, I’ve always enjoyed these forays into the lighter side of things, but at the same time, my craving for Latakia forward mixtures has always ruled. I remember when I first began exploring Virginias, I’d reach the end of a bowl, feeling somehow unsatisfied, and would immediately want something else, something smoky to scratch the itch that remained. As I became more familiar with them, that itch gradually subsided, but never fully disappeared. The pull of the dark side remained strong. I’d spend the summer enjoying my Virginias, but always looking forward to the season’s change so I could once again dive happily into the deep, smoky richness of my most favored leaf. Last year, though, I kept on an almost steady diet of Virginias all summer, of course, but also right through the cold and wet months. On a whim one cool, blue day recently, as the sun revealed itself from behind wispy clouds, I pulled an open tin of my beloved OE11 from the Tupperdor in which the open tins reside, savored the aroma for a few minutes, then filled a bowl with those luscious dark ribbons and enjoyed an almost magical smoke, rich, deep, satisfying, the wonderful incense-like scents enveloping me as I puffed in absolute bliss. Then, reality hit me over the head. With spring teasingly peering out from around the corner, last year’s winter having pretty much come and gone, I realized I’d managed to miss out on all those wonderful cold, damp days and the perfect harmony they create when the misty air embraces the leathery, campfire aromas and rich flavors from my beloved mixtures, and I didn’t even notice. It’s not just that the window of opportunity for my yearly Latakia fest was about to be slammed shut, but, worse, it’s that I wasn’t even aware that I was missing it. It’s not that my tastes had changed, or anything so dramatic; I’d simply fallen victim to the power of inertia. I was enjoying what I smoked, and simply, unconsciously paid no attention to the fact that the season was coming to a close. Hot weather is on its way, and if history holds, it’s probably coming fast. Soon it will be time to return full-stop to tee shirts, cold showers and lighter tobacco fare. It feels like I’ve slept through Latakia season, like I’ve missed out, and I’m feeling a little melancholy about that. I’ve got at most a few weeks to catch up, to make up for lost time. Hopefully, we’ll see a few more days of rain before that […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 600. Our featured interview tonight is with Dylan J. Schlender. This is the return of our series of interviews with “Journeymen Pipe Smokers” – guys that have been smoking pipes between five and 10 years. Dylan started smoking in 2018 with a Winslow pipe, and Captain Black. (He soon learned that he likes English-style blends much more.) He resides in CT and works in IT. He also co-hosts his own podcast, “Reels of Justice – The Official Fake Movie Court Podcast”. He is one of four co-hosts where they put a movie on trial each week. At the top of the show, in celebration of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, Brian will read “Paddy Larrigan’s 100th Birthday” by Chuck Stanion. It was originally published on SmokingPipes.com’s Daily Reader.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 599. Our featured interview tonight is with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA. Jeremy has been a pipe smoker for over a decade and is passionate about pipes, pipe tobacco, and blending tobacco. Tonight’s discussion will focus on Oriental Tobaccos, and Brian said HE even learned something. At the top of the show, Brian will continue the tour of his pipe collection with the “Satou Reds”.
February’s International Pipe-Smoking Day was more than just another moment of relaxation for Pundit. It took me back to a time in Paris when I was wandering somewhere around the 10th Arrondissement of that great city and happened upon a shop with a sign that read: Tabac. I had to go inside and look around and gaze at the goodies. Inside that delightful French pipe shop I had my first encounter with French pipes of any sort. Pundit was enamored of English pipes at the time and was dimly aware of much else. Let alone historic French-made. The shop owner walked us around his charming very French shop, flooding me with his broken English. My college French had lived beyond its best by date. The owner waltzed over to a counter and showed me a Chacom, of the famous Chacom and Comoy family of Saint-Claude, a small town in eastern France, which is the self-described “world capital of (the) pipe.” For good reason as it turns out. A billiard Chacom was purchased immediately. But now sadly, or perhaps inevitably, that particular Chacom pipe from the Paris Tabac shop has been lost to time. Who knows where or how it disappeared? Traded, perhaps? But the time in that tobacco shop was well spent. It was here that I learned something of Saint-Claude and its pipe history, foreign to me up to then. Never mind it was the birthplace of briar pipes. Yes, there are holes in Pundit’s knowledge of pipe history. Briar pipes were born in Saint-Claude, with Chacom. Giving the French pipe bragging rights as offspring originals of pipes we love today. It’s even more remarkable that we can still find pipes that have been seasoning in the historical air of Saint-Claude for years and purchase them at extraordinarily reasonable prices. Many pipe smokers are attracted to the history of pipes, Pundit included. And those made in Saint-Claude are some of the most genuine, historically relevant pipes that any enthusiast can enjoy. While roaming the “Ville lumière,” the City of Light, in the early 2000s, Pundit felt like a foot-loose expat in Paris, say of the 1920s. For Pundit it was something akin to hanging out with the original expats such as Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, and James Joyce, just to name a few of the Pundit’s favs. Naturally, a couple of these literary icons smoked pipes: Ezra Pound and James Joyce certainly. Hemingway—however, there are arguments on both sides of “did he or didn’t he?” smoke a pipe. Since Hem was a Pundit “code hero” I favor the “he did,” side of the question. Now before drawing any wild conclusions, this is no manner of imagination means to infer that Pundit is included in the writing circle of the above names. But you get the idea. The expats of the 1920s were singular. I suppose I became overawed when I discovered Hemingway’s Paris apartment and then later enjoyed dinner in the corner booth of the famous literary restaurant Les Deux Magots where Hem and wife Hadley had night-out repasts. You get the notion, I hope, that Paris was special. And the Tabac shop made it even more of an event of a lifetime. And if you need further reading on the birthplace of briar pipes, I suggest you check out Chuck Station in Pipe Line at SmokingPipes.com. His piece on the history of the Comoy and Chapuis pipe families is simply fascinating surrounding the advent of briar for pipes. And now, some pipe smokers of the past. Let’s start with Albert Einstein, the German-born master of theoretical physics. We think of Mr. E=MC2 as the greatest scientist of any generation. He was also famously known for smoking a pipe, mostly Revelation (of course) tobacco. Einstein was born March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, and died April 18, 1955, in Princeton, N.J. By now you are familiar with Einstein’s famous quote about pipes. If not, here it is again: I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs. Next up is Vincent Willem van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist. In his masterful works, Van Gogh painted self-portraits of himself smoking his pipe. And you can find some shapes named for him in Ser Jacopo’s Picta Picasso Pipes. Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands, and died July 29, 1890, in France. The famed artist demonstrates how much he loved his pipes with this observation: To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one’s fling from time to time, smoke one’s pipe, and drink one’s coffee in peace—Vincent Van Gogh. And to finish with a bit of musical flair is Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer known for orchestral music such as the mighty Brandenburg Concertos. Bach was born March 31, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany, and died July 28, 1750. And as we enter the stretch run into spring, here is a parting shot from one of the most celebrated of pipe smokers: In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours—Mark Twain.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 598. Our featured interview tonight is with Steve “PipeStud” Fallon. Steve has one of the most popular consignment-auction businesses for estate pipes and vintage tobaccos that he’s been running since 2006. If you know Steve, you know he’s a big fan of the original Dunhill blend, Royal Yacht. The last time Steve was on the show was in 2020, so we’ll see what’s new with him, and the estate pipes and vintage tobaccos business. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss what to do with the tiny bits of tobacco at the bottom of the tin.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 597. Our interview on tonight’s show is with Charles Lemon. Charles does pipe repairs and restorations, and is the author of the new book, “Brigham Pipes, A Century Of Canadian Briar”. It tells the story of the first 100 years of Brigham pipes, and includes an extensive shape chart with actual photos of the pipes. The book lays out not only the chronology of Canada’s most prominent pipe-maker but also never before compiled information on the pipes themselves, including the stamps, grading schemes and pinning patterns used between 1906 and 2006. In Pipe Parts, Brian talks to Jeremy Reeves, the head blender at Cornell & Diehl about growing, curing, fermenting, and aging tobacco.
Brian,
Another great show. I will miss the Story Time with Alan Schwartz. He was a joy to listen to. I am looking forward to your other guests that will continue in that ilk. I personally think it is a great format. It sounds like you had a great time in KC, as well as taking home a nice haul of tobacco. Congrats.
As always, I look forward to the next show!
Bill
Your series with Alan Schwartz has been excellent! He has an amazing wealth of information and experiences from his many years in the business and an engaging articulate knack for sharing them. I’m excited about your plan to have more story segments with pipe luminaries, including the visit you had with Sykes while he and his family were hunkered down with you.
Thanks for the shout out, and for playing Sweet Afton! Getting to play with Chris, Sean, and Sara on that recording and be part of the early years of Nickel Creek was extremely fun and rewarding. They’re amazing musicians, and phenomenal human beings!
You’re doing great work with the show, Brian! Thank you!
KC pipe show sounds incredible. I have to agree, though, I think the carver contest should be a separate event, but I get that they sell a lot of tickets that way. I do wish people would stop complaining about who did or did not make it, but that will always happen. Very solid end to the summer series with Alan. I love all of the insider secrets that he shared.
I greatly enjoyed the “Adventures of Alan Schwartz” this summer. And, yes, please get my “cousin” Mary McNiel back on the show, to do a series of conversations about McClelland and tobacco.
I’m a great fan of the Thiles, both as musicians and of Scott as a pipe maker.
Thank you, my friend, for another brilliant show.
Dino
Alan exceeded expectations yet again, and what a nice finale to the interviews. I very much appreciated and enjoyed the 3 nuns sample you gave me, and had a blast at the KC show. I was very impressed with Alexander’s pipes, and have added them to my “Christmas” list. My friend bought one and said he really likes it. I can’t wait to hear that interview. Chris Thule is an excellent musician and I loved the music. Pleasant smokes!
Maybe you can drop in on Brad Pohlman while you are in Portland.
You gave a very nice description of your trip to the KC pipe show. It always a pleasure to have you drop by the club meeting. It’s my favorite meeting of the year. For a crusty cuss Lee Von Erck is always a pleasure to have a meal with. And I imagine that 90 year old tin that Nate King had was interesting to try. That guy who brought the tobacco at bargain prices really offered some deals didn’t he? I got 2 pounds of 1792 for $80.
Shame it is the end of the series of “Talks with Alan Schwartz”. They were really good. I would love to hear Mary talk about her years in the industry. So many of us just think that Mike was the driving force behind McClellan but it was really Mary and Mike wouldn’t release a single tin of something new unless Mary said it was okay. She has an incredible palate.
Let me clear some things up for you. They shouldn’t have been selling raffle tickets at the show; it is against Missouri Gaming Regulations. But they have to do some of it as some people who register for the show don’t pay prior to coming to the show.
And because you don’t like the “Prince” doesn’t mean that it is a bad shape. It just means you didn’t like it. I don’t remember this hew and cry when we did the “Billiard” which to me is as boring a shape as one can imagine. This contest was technical challenge to see how well a carver could make a “Prince”. It was not a call to give us an individual take on the pipe design. Next year’s contest will permit the carvers to express there artistic instincts to be expressed. That’s what we do: one year it is technical and the next it is artistic. You will love what we are doing next year. You will get all the artistry you can stand in pipe design. And your call to do this at another time is just not practical. I guess you will have to tell us more on how we should do this.
LOVE Story Time with Alan Schwartz!!! Wish you
had many more hours of his stories to share.
Have you ever talked with Mark, at YouTube
channel, BREMEN PIPE SMOKER? He is
a great storyteller and just happens to be a
pipe smoking historian in Germany.