Please Welcome Jon N to StogieGuys.com
6 Mar 2008
We are pleased to announce an important addition to our StogieGuys.com team. Effective immediately, Jon N will join the StogieGuys.com staff as our Los Angeles Bureau Chief – strengthening our reporting from America’s West Coast.
Despite being 28, Jon smoked his first cigar 15 years ago (do the math) in Las Vegas, as his new bio explains:
Jon Nathanson introduced himself to cigars at the tender of age of 13, when he and some of his enterprising friends procured a fake ID and purchased a box of hand-rolled stogies at a smoke shop on the Las Vegas Strip. Having no clue how to smoke a cigar didn’t deter Jon, and he inhaled a couple of premium sticks. His juvenile curiosity was rewarded with a severe headache, nausea, and a vow not to smoke again for as long as he lived.
Never a man of his word, Jon took up smoking cigars many years later at the age of 25. Since then, he has learned to treat the hobby with the respect, appreciation, and determination it deserves. Now, at 28, Jon considers himself an ardent enthusiast, if not quite a seasoned expert. His personal knowledge of cigars, the cigar lifestyle, and the history of the industry is still a work in progress – but he is learning a great deal more each day.
Jon holds a BA in English and American Studies from Yale University, and he is planning to attend business school in the fall of 2008. He has been working for over five years in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, the city where he was born and raised. When not working hard, or hardly working, Jon enjoys writing, running, fishing, pleasantly inept karaoke, and leisurely smokes on the beach in Malibu (where he is very careful not to start fires).
Jon’s enormous, garish, White House-shaped humidor is the envy of no one in particular. Nevertheless, it is always well stocked with a diverse array of cigars from around the world. Jon’s personal favorites include the Arturo Fuente Hemingway line, the Rocky Patel Vintage series, and most full-bodied maduros.
Jon’s addition to the StogieGuys.com staff will diversify our perspective on reviews, news, commentaries, and tips from the world of cigars. We hope you are as excited to welcome Jon as we are, and we know you will enjoy reading his well-written prose.
photo credit: Stogie Guys
Patrick Ashby
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Patrick Semmens
Co-Founder & Publisher
George Edmonson
Tampa Bureau Chief
Maybe you guys should hire a Middle East correspondent or something next. 🙂
In all seriousness, welcome, Jon. George has been such a great addition to this website, and I'm sure you will be too.
LOL, thanks. I'll try my best. I think George has set the bar extremely high, and it'll be tough trying to catch up to his level of experience, erudition, and enthusiasm. By the way: apologies in advance for the cheesy picture! I thought it was kinda funny, though, so I kept it.
Hottie!
I guess Jon answers the age old question, What do you do with a BA in English?
You've joined a great bunch of guys and it sounds like you will fit right in.
First George and now Jon…Stogie Guys keeps getting better and better. Congrats guys!
Yeah, I wish someone had warned me about that whole English degree thing back when I was making my early life choices. Oh well…
This is a great site, and I'm happy to be a part of such a good crowd of contributors and readers.
Whoa! That photo looks like a profile photo you would see on myspace! Welcome Jon. Jon what is it you do in the "entertainment industry" ?
LOL yeah those early life choices always seem to pop back up later.
Shep:
Yeah, it's kind of a MySpace-y/Facebooky type of photo. The effect is unintentional. I had to snap a quick photo as I was headed out the door to an interview, so I just took one really quickly. After realizing how silly it looked, I thought, ehh, whatever. It's kind of ironically funny. Incidentally, I've accordingly made it my Facebook profile photo. So I guess it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I appreciate the vote of confidence re: puttting "entertainment industry" in quotes! 😛 To answer your question, I've held a number of different jobs in LA. I've worked at a talent agency, then in TV development/production, and presently in digital and new media development. Having previously been on the creative side, I'm now on more of the strategy / analysis side.
Karaoke huh! Maybe we can convince you to put up a singing cigar review!
Welcome Jon. Look forward to your insights.
Hmmmm, nice. I look forward to reading his reviews and what's hot on the west coast. You guys are so cute. Thanks for including great pics on your site.
Welcome, Jon! Looking forward to more wit and wisdom from the expanding roster of Stogie Guys. – K
Thanks for the kind words, all!
Lucky7: trust me when I say that a singing review is just about the last thing you'll ever want to hear on this site. There's a good reason why I'm a karaoke star and not a legitimate rockstar. I find that it's best to keep that reason in mind at all times.
Isn't Yale full of glee clubs and all sorts of other wonderful singing troupes?
Anyway, I also look forward to your posts, Jon.
I was never one for the various a capella and glee club-type groups at Yale. Too, ummm, strange for my taste. I'll never quite understand what drives college-age men to band together in singing groups like those.
In the photo, he is not even smoking the cigar that he is holding!?!? If it was me, I would lite up, because I do actually like cigars.
As I mentioned a couple comments back, that picture was taken when I was running out the door to an interview. There wasn't really time to smoke it before the interview, and I wasn't about to show up to the interview smelling like smoke.
But I can assure you, that cigar got smoked later on in the day. And I do "actually like cigars," or I wouldn't be here. 😛