Everyone loves making lists. You don't have to put much effort into finding rankings of the top 10, 20 or 100 people in every category under the sun. There are even rankings of the top cigar smokers in history.
One thing that comes to mind when I read those lists are the cultural changes we've undergone as a society regarding cigars and how we think of them.
Looking at the older names on there, it's hard to picture any of them without a cigar in their hands or in their mouth. Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, George Burns, Milton Berle, Babe Ruth, Red Auerbach ... these are historical figures we associate with cigars. They're as much a part of Churchill as his hat, and of Marx, Burns and Berle as their trademarked glasses ... all of which have also gone out of style as time passes and tastes change.
There aren't many modern celebrities that I see in the same way. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for sure. Rush Limbaugh, if you consider him that kind of celebrity. That's all that really comes to mind.
Whereas cigars were once associated with individuals, I think now they're more associated with characters and occasions. For example, I can't think of Gordon Gekko without a cigar, but it's not like every Michael Douglas role has him smoking those Wall Street stogies. And the only time you see cigars and sports figures these days is during championship celebrations, or at the poker tables in Las Vegas. I see plenty of famous people smoking cigars, but they tend to be at a party where everyone is doing it. Cigars don' seem to be anyone's trademarked accessory any more (besides Arnold) as they were in the past.
I wonder sometimes that when a similar list is made in 50 years, how many of our contemporaries will be there? Maybe I'll make a list of the possibilities to help me figure it out.
One thing that comes to mind when I read those lists are the cultural changes we've undergone as a society regarding cigars and how we think of them.
Looking at the older names on there, it's hard to picture any of them without a cigar in their hands or in their mouth. Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, George Burns, Milton Berle, Babe Ruth, Red Auerbach ... these are historical figures we associate with cigars. They're as much a part of Churchill as his hat, and of Marx, Burns and Berle as their trademarked glasses ... all of which have also gone out of style as time passes and tastes change.
There aren't many modern celebrities that I see in the same way. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for sure. Rush Limbaugh, if you consider him that kind of celebrity. That's all that really comes to mind.
Whereas cigars were once associated with individuals, I think now they're more associated with characters and occasions. For example, I can't think of Gordon Gekko without a cigar, but it's not like every Michael Douglas role has him smoking those Wall Street stogies. And the only time you see cigars and sports figures these days is during championship celebrations, or at the poker tables in Las Vegas. I see plenty of famous people smoking cigars, but they tend to be at a party where everyone is doing it. Cigars don' seem to be anyone's trademarked accessory any more (besides Arnold) as they were in the past.
I wonder sometimes that when a similar list is made in 50 years, how many of our contemporaries will be there? Maybe I'll make a list of the possibilities to help me figure it out.
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