Category Archives: legs

Odds and Ends:

Posted on by

- Cutting the grass is a great time to smoke a cigar. Preferably not a super fancy one, though, as it can be a little jarring and the smells can interfere with the enjoyment thereof. However, not while pouring gas INTO the lawnmower (as manly as that sounds).

- After World War II, there was a lot of productivity and discoveries made. After WWII, people drank during work lunches and smoked like chimneys. Now, most people do neither. The economy sucks. My economic recovery act? Three martini lunches (six for bosses so they leave workers alone after lunch).

- The reason pinups aren’t as big a deal now as they once were: In the 1950s and 60s (and even 70s), women looked like… well, women from those decades. Since the 80s there’s been a trend toward weirder and weirder looking women being “hot”: Ellen Barkin? Bo Derek? Both of them have alien faces. No thanks, 80s! Jenny McCarthy, Pam Anderson? Again with the alien faces and now with added 90% plastic bodies. Don’t even get me started on the naughties and teens. (There were people counting down until the 18th birthday of the malnourished Olsen Twins).

Pinups require women who look more like Jennifer Connely in Mulholland Falls, and less like Jennifer Connely now.

- Another thing that is missing from the 50s: Men wearing hats, other than the baseball cap variety.

Men should wear hats. They are very utilitarian. Even the tricky Japanese tanooki wears a hat to protect himself from bad weather.

Also, the new douchebag cap with the really odd shaped brim is not a hat to be worn by an adult man.

I wear my Tilley Hat all the time. Because of the sun. And wind, and rain. It helps. Also, it has a pocket in it which is just — another pocket! Pockets are great.

- Speaking of wind, we’ve had quite a lot of it in the last seven days down here at Casa de Cigars and Legs. More than normal. I blame Al Gore — he invented global warming!

Dinner for two – Cigars and Legs Style

Posted on by

On occasion, I get the urge to cook something new (to me). A few weeks ago that idea was steak with eggs (from Bold and Determined — he’s a body builder so he takes it a little further than I do, but he’s using every calorie he takes in, too.) I’ve cooked eggs and I’ve cooked steak, but never together.

You will need:
A large cast iron skillet.
Two steaks. I used 3/4 inch rib eyes.
Eggs. I’m fond of what are sometimes labelled organic. What the chickens eat affects the quality of the egg.
Butter. I use Kerrygold butter because it comes from grass fed cows. You are what you eat and so are the livestock.
Black pepper
A woman with nice legs to feed some of this to. This is key.

First step: let the steak soak in… nothing. Buy meat that tastes good on its own. The steaks, while cooking, should be the second best pair you see that night — the first should belong to the aforementioned lady.

Rub it down with black pepper. Cook the steak in the butter. The amount of butter depends on how big your pan is.

Cook the steaks until they are done.
Put the eggs in the skillet.
Cook them until they are done.

Done is whatever your preference is.

I recommend red wine with steak. Merlot is good with steak. You can get good Merlot on the cheap (sub-$20) if you look around and try different brands. The cost of this meal depends on what you have on hand; we always have eggs, butter, pepper, and I usually stock some Merlot in the house. But even if you buy it all outright you’re going to spend less than half what you would at an actual steak house and you get more control over what goes on with your food.

After the meal, there are two courses of action. One involves cigars, one involves legs.

The Choosing of, Care and Feeding Of, and General Tips Regarding Legs.

Posted on by

For this month’s Tobacco Tuesday, I need to address the best accompaniment for a cigar. No, I don’t mean Scotch (shock!): I mean the legs, and the woman attached to them (or man, if that’s your thing). They go great together for a variety of reasons. First off, like cigars, legs come in various widths and lengths. I’m more of a long leg kind of man, and my cigars tend to match. The more there is, the more there is to enjoy. (My wife’s legs are on the cover of The Boots Are Red, if anyone is curious as to what I’m sitting next to when I enjoy my vices.)

But it’s not just about the physical appearance and appeal of the legs. It’s also about who is attached to them. Nobody likes a goody-goody snob, and I doubt she’ll sit around with you as you smoke a stinky cigar and drink vile Scotch (channelling the snob, there!). Obviously, you want someone who is interesting. A large cigar, taken at an enjoyable pace, can last for hours. Her conversation has to keep up.

Not that the Legs should be carrying the whole conversation, but it takes two to tango. You can be the World’s Most Interesting Man, but if there isn’t someone there to talk to, you’re just dictating to empty space. That’s no fun.

My preferred time to take a drink and smoke also happens to coincide with the sun setting and stars coming out. This means there’ll probably be a bit of a romantic slant on your relationship with the Legs you choose. I recommend this; I have buddies I smoke with, and that’s fine sometimes, but sometimes I want to sit there and drink and smoke with a lady who I have a more, ah, intimite association with.

Now, on to the care and feeding part.

Legs are like horses or other fine animals, they have to be cared for. It’s not just up to the person they’re attached to. Legs require a certain amount of attention from the significant other in the equation: rubbing, caressing, exploring. I’m not going to offer tips on that; each pair is different. But in general, I recommend a nightly inspection and detailing. Help her clean them, if that is an option. If not — watch her clean them. (And may I recommend that you also watch her as she washes her hair. Va-voom!)

In addition to this care, you will need to provide the Legs with a certain amount of stimulating exercise. Sure, the owner may have a routine already in place and she may do this regularly. But this exercise can only be accomplished with two people, and is especially good for the Legs if done correctly — they’ll be positively jumpy over it.

As for the feeding of the legs, I’d recommend asking the owner for their advice on that. But the occasional swinging by a restaurant the Legs prefer is, in fact, greatly recommended.

So, to summarize: A generally pleasing appearance, fitting the tastes of the cigar smoker (as with most things, fit it to your taste!). Regular inspection and caressing. Good conversation. Regular cleaning. Fitness exercise. And a nice meal. That’s pretty much all it takes.

Can’t Sing, Act, or Talk: Terrific!

Posted on by

The title of this week’s Leggy Lady is taken from a quote about our subject: Ava Gardner. Gardner had a career spanning just over forty years, but her career really picked up in the 1946 adaption of Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers”, was married three times, and was friends with Howard Hughes.

Gardner was a Southern girl, born in North Carolina, and had modest roots. It was only when she was 19 that she was discovered buy a fink posing as a talent scout. (Fink being the only way to refer to someone who posed as a talent scout to pick up cute-but-dumb women.) The title is paraphrased from what Louis B Mayer, the head of MGM, said after seeing her screen test.

In the year the Cigars and Legs series starts, Gardner was in the Barefoot Contessa as Maria Vargas… opposite this author’s favorite actor of all time, Humphrey Bogart.

Her marriages were first to Mickey Rooney, who apparently enjoyed their sex life far more than she did (show of hands, ladies… how familiar is that?) for only around a year. After that, she was briefly married to Artie Shaw — for around a year. Finally, she was married to the chairman of the board himself, Frank Sinatra. That marriage lasted a whole six years. In addition to being the wife of Sinatra, Gardner was apparently much of his inspiration.

Gardner, like most celebrities of the time, smoked for her entire life, and that was part of the end of her: she has emphysema and suffered two strokes, but died of pnuemonia. She was only 67 years old, and was buried back in North Carolina.

Still, she is remembered for many roles and was in many classics. She never won any of the major awards of her time, but was nominated more than once. Also, c’mon, she played a character named Agrippina, how cool is that?

Bogey’s Baby: From the Big Sleep to the Sopranos and More

Posted on by

Bogey and Baby
It wasn’t easy picking the first person to talk about for the “Legs” part of the Cigars and Legs updates. But someone who was married to Bogey has a distinct advantage in the running for that. This week I’m going to talk about Lauren Bacall, a successful actress, mother, and the last wife of Humphrey Bogart.

A few vitals:


Bacall, who will be eigthy in a few years, has had over seventy roles. During the 40s and 50s, she was in a few film noir movies or movies where she played a femme fatale — the Big Sleep, Dark Passage, Young Man with a Horn, and others. She even starred in a radio show with Bogart called Bold Venture. Her roles ranged, though, from the serious tear-jerkers, to film noir, to those 1950s comedy movies that are sometimes just downright weird when viewed now, and playing herself on the Sopranos.

She was married twice: first to Bogey, who called her Baby, for the last twelve years of his life, and then to Jason Robards from 1961-1969. Looking at the two men, I think we can guess at her type. From those marriages, she had three children: Stephen and Leslie Bogart and Sam Robards.

Throughout her career she’s been open about her relationships, marriages, and her politics, but at no point has she been obnoxious about it. She has her beliefs, she sticks to them: She’s campaigned for presidential candidates and she’s made stands about important issues. She and Bogey were very vocal about censorship during McCarthyism. That’s downright heroic given the hysteria of the times.

She’s the kind of woman Ron Cavanaugh would definitely have a poster of in his room — if Audrey would let him and he were a teenager in the ’50s, anyway.

And as a piano player, well, I’ll let this image speak for itself:
Bacall and some old politician

Images, though public domain, are from Wikipedia, as are a significant number of the random facts in my head (related and unrelated to this article).