Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. In this episode we wrap Season 2, looking back on the year that was and highlighting some of the special moments of the season. Edge will be back in March with the launch of Season 3--join us then!
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. In this episode we wrap Season 2, looking back on the year that was and highlighting some of the special moments of the season. Edge will be back in March with the launch of Season 3--join us then!
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
It's the season finale. This podcast contains material intended for a mature audience. For proceeding, please check your local laws and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather, kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I am your host. Welcome to the season finale for season two.
Speaker 1:I am really quite surprised that the podcast has lasted this long, and I am looking forward to a new season to come. So in this episode I'll give a sort of state of the podcast and then go over the metrics, the numbers, and then I'll talk about some of my favorite moments from this past season, some of the highs, some of the lows, before giving you a preview of what's coming in season three. It should be a fun way to wrap up the year, so let's get started. I wanted to start by reflecting on the place this podcast has in my world, both within my lived experience but also within my quote-unquote media empire. I say that with just a bit of self-deprecating humor. Everything I do in terms of social media can be traced all the way back to my personal homepage, leatheredgecom, which launched in 1997 and was up for 10 years, and that was my first real foray into a very public presence, and it was certainly about crafting my leather image and it was certainly about trying to find sex. But it was also the first place where I started providing resources and my thoughts on leather and education and links to useful websites. It was the beginning of what I do now today, after its 10-year run, when it became so big for me that I just couldn't maintain it anymore, I took it down and eventually crafted the best parts of it into something I called the Book of Edge, which is still available if you go to LeatherEdgecom.
Speaker 1:Then for a while, I just sort of took a break. I just had many other things going on in my life, including the start of my recovery from my addiction to crystal meth. So I had stuff to do and at some point people kept telling me they were seeing my photos on Tumblr and I had never heard of Tumblr. I'm like what the hell is Tumblr? And then I discovered it and I thought, well, fuck this man, why are people stealing my photos? I'm going to post every single photo of me ever in my own Tumblr, so at least there is a definitive resource, and I did.
Speaker 1:My Tumblr was my primary social media presence for a long time and along the way, I created an Instagram, I created a Twitter and didn't really do much with those. They were just sort of adjunct to my primary photo archive, which was Tumblr. And, of course, tumblr went away, or went away in the way that we want it to be, and I shifted more to Instagram at that point because it was a visual resource, much like my Tumblr and Twitter was. I just could not get any traction on Twitter. I tried and could not get a lot of followers. My content was not resonating.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that was about and I'm not sure if I've shared this whole story, but in the beginning of the pandemic I posted a very short I think it was a 12-second video of me talking about looking and waiting for someone who can love you unconditionally, and for me it was just this sort of throwaway thing, like you know, 12 seconds. I did it very quickly. I happened to be wearing leather and I tossed it up on Instagram and I tossed it up on Twitter. It went not quite viral, but it became very popular and suddenly I kind of understood something that I had not understood before, which is that, looking the way I look, things that I say matter to people just because of having the daddy look and I became aware of the fact that my voice could have an impact. And that's when I made this pivot and I started doing more sort of affirmation videos and that morphed into more education videos and people told me they loved the sound of my voice and that led here to Fulcow. Fulcow was also a sort of hobby I picked up at the end of a relationship, a place to spend time and energy and to fill up what was suddenly a lot of empty space in my life and to have something to talk about.
Speaker 1:When I met people, I didn't really expect to do a podcast. I didn't really have expectations for the podcast. It was started not quite as a lark, but as a sort of therapeutic process as I was moving through and healing, and as an extension of the work I had been doing on Instagram and Twitter something a little more long form, because my videos on the other social media were about three minutes max. I've discovered that the podcast is capable of doing something very special and the way I've learned this is of all of my media. And oh, I've got a YouTube too. I mean, if you're really curious, that YouTube was a bit during the Tumblr era, but it was a lot of work to produce videos. I stopped doing YouTube, but across all of my media we're talking YouTube, tumblr, twitter, instagram.
Speaker 1:The feedback I get from you, the listeners of this podcast, is the most touching, the most meaningful, the most connected and the most fulfilling, and I want to celebrate that here in this season finale. I am eternally grateful to all of you who have reached out to me through email, through the Ask Edge segments, through running into me in person and telling me how this podcast has touched you, and I never expected that, I didn't think or imagine that was something that would be possible, and because of that I continue to place this podcast fairly centrally in my life. It is the one piece of media that I am bound to by schedule. Every two weeks, essentially, there's a new podcast episode and I have to produce it, I have to make the time for it, I have to think about it, I have to get the topics, all of that and it's worth it. It's worth it because there's something possible in this space between me sitting here in my office slash playroom on Sunday, december 10th and you listening to this wherever you are. There's something in that space between us that feels magical to me and I feel really blessed to be able to do this podcast. So I am again just sort of amazed that I've made it through two seasons, and two successful seasons. I think I have a really great season planned ahead and I'm being more thoughtful and intentional about balancing the workload of the podcast and the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:I will say I'm also maybe, maybe, going to be more bound to other media. I'm actually experimenting with subscription content on Instagram. I just launched that three days ago, but I have no subscribers yet, so I don't know if that's going to persist or not. But that's the only other place where I will feel hearkened to create content on a schedule. Otherwise, the podcast will remain very special, not only because of the rigor of production, but because of the extraordinary quality of the feedback you give me. So please keep that up.
Speaker 1:If you Like this podcast, if a episode resonates for you, if you feel connected to things I'm saying, please let me know Through an email. Or if you see me at an event, please, please, say hello. I love meeting people at events. I always have a big hug, I always ask for permission to hug, and those moments are Pretty sustaining for me. So I want to invite all of you to reach out. If you feel compelled to, you know you can just sit there and listen. I don't I don't Expect everyone to reach out to me, but when it happens it makes me feel Really, really, really, really, really, really extraordinary. So the state of the podcast is that it's more than I ever expected it to be. It does more than I ever expected it could do and it connects me to people in ways I never imagined, and that is pretty damn Special, probably special a lot. I was gonna say magical, but I feel like I've used magical a lot too. So please keep listening, please thank you for all of the feedback, and that's it, thank you.
Speaker 1:As you probably know, one of my constant themes in this podcast and I've actually Become aware of how constant it is that I was looking back at this past year's content is Is my sort of complaint that it's really hard for me to know the metric impact of this podcast. The data is dispersed across a number of different places and it never quite measures up to what I'm getting on the work I do on Instagram or Twitter, and you know it is such a constant theme that I have decided I am not going to Center it anymore, nor am I going to feed it any more energy. However, I am going to share some of the pretty special there's that word again, pretty special numbers that we've gotten from this past year. So in terms of sheer number of downloads and this is according to my podcasting host, buzz sprout there were 30.3 Thousand downloads of the podcast this past year. In year one there was 10.8 thousand, so about another 20,000 downloads. That's Fairly damn special. I gotta stop using the word special. The top three episodes Last year were leather, origins and submission. This year's top episode was Chastity, downloaded 435 times and according to Spotify, it was streamed 91% more than the average episode, and I'm not surprised. The Chastity episode Was really good and it actually really blew me away in many ways. I'll talk about that more later. The second most popular episode this year was again leather, and the third most popular again was the first episode, origins.
Speaker 1:The primary place where people are listening are on Spotify and Apple. That is not at all surprising and once again, I have listeners on every continent except Antarctica. I am still hoping for the kinky research scientist who will decide to listen to my podcast At the research station in Antarctica or perhaps you are on a luxury cruise to Antarctica and want to listen, just so that I can get every continent. The top two countries where people are listening, or the US and the UK, but there were a total of 100 countries listening this year as opposed to 83 Last year, so that's pretty impressive. The top cities number one, surprisingly, is London. Hello Londoners, hi, how are y'all doing? Number two Chicago. Hey Chicago, how are you doing? But there were a total of 2800 cities this past year. I will note that I still only have a single listener in Provincetown. So thank you, provincetown listener. Given its extraordinarily large queer population, I was kind of hoping to double that metric this year and have two listeners, but we're not quite there yet. Maybe next year someone else in Provincetown will listen.
Speaker 1:My demographic has not changed. You are probably probably 28 to 34. Over 40% of you are in that demographic and that is fascinating to me, because that is the same on my Instagram and probably the same on my Twitter and actually is also the same when it comes to the men I'm attracting. So if you're 28 to 34 and you're kinky, then we're probably going to flirt at some point. What I was really pleased to see is, according to Spotify, 13% of the listeners identified as non-binary, and that's up from 8% last year, and 4% identify as female up from 3%. That means a lot to me because I am trying to produce content that clearly comes from a very specifically cis, gay, male, homo perspective, but is meant to craft a space for anyone who's interested in kink, so to find people with different gender identifications.
Speaker 1:Listening to my content is very rewarding for me. Spotify also has some really great information. I was in the top 10 podcasts for 397 of you, top 5 podcasts for 281 of you and for 75 very dedicated special listeners. I was your number one podcast, thank you. 79% of you, according to Spotify, discovered me this year, so I'm grateful for all of you. New followers and Spotify tells me that I had a 282% increase in streams, 166% increase in listeners and a 205% increase in followers. So, even though I like to complain a little bit about tracking the metrics on this podcast, it's pretty clear when I look back on the year that it's doing Better than it was, that it's growing and that's heartening. Now I'm not living by numbers here, but it is. It doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt to know that what I'm doing is actually listen to people and that they like it. That does not hurt at all. And those are the numbers from 2023, which was the second season of full cow. So let's think next about the highs and the lows.
Speaker 1:Without a doubt, the highlight of the second season was the episode on Chastity. It was by far the most popular episode and, I think, my favorite episode too, in part because I'm just so damn passionate about Chastity. I'm more passionate than you know is what I will say there. There are things that have happened related to Chastity that I haven't shared yet. That's all I'll say. But it also led to a whole class which I taught at claw in Los Angeles over Thanksgiving, and I feel like it really solidified my ability to Speak on that topic and teach on that topic. It's also an episode where I had a number of people approach me afterwards and say, oh, I'm starting Chastity because of that episode, or oh, I'm, oh, I'm getting my first device. I'm so excited. So I felt like not only was it the most popular, but it was also the most impactful. I also my perception is that it was the episode that was shared the most and so probably really grew Followers or listeners, or at least had more people listening to the podcast, which I think was great.
Speaker 1:But you know there are a couple undiscovered gems from this past season that I'm surprised did not do better. One of the first episodes of the season was on leather care, which is A really important topic and is actually something that I find a lot of men I encounter have absolutely no idea how to care for their leather. So that's only had 604 downloads according to buzzsprout and I thought, well, that's surprising. You would think that's a topic a lot more people would want to tune into. So If you're, if you've not gone through the back catalog, that is an episode I recommend. The other episode that I think is an undiscovered gem is the one on daddy. Now it did okay, it had 944 downloads. It's sort of up there, but I thought it was really good episode. I was really happy with it and I mean everybody, everybody's about daddy. I just thought that episode was would really take off and it didn't, which is fine, but if you're again I want to explore the back catalog or want to revisit an episode, it is one that I would recommend.
Speaker 1:In terms of my favorite segment, I think probably the stuff on mind control. Um, that was a. You know, that was an episode I struggled with a little bit I had to produce it twice because I wanted to get it right and it's my favorite because it is probably the fetish of mine, the fantasy of mine, that I've yet to really live. And in the wake of that, and in the wake of some tweets I've done, I've had a couple more explorations with brainwashers. Um, still, as far as I know, I have not been brainwashed, but I loved the mind control segment because I love mind control and I'm still hopeful that someday I'll get to explore that more deeply, so deeply that I can't find my way out.
Speaker 1:In terms of my favorite interview, it had to be the special interlude on Hucao and bovine play. I had only barely heard about this and to be able to learn more about a whole fetish and to share a whole fetish with all of you, that felt really special and really amazing and I was thrilled to be able to do that. My favorite how-to segment was the fisting segment that I did in the interview with a hunger, ff ryan and I just and you know, fisting is sort of a growth area for me, it is a fetish. I expect that I will continue to expand my experience and knowledge and and having someone who is really Really centrally in that community, having ryan share his knowledge, felt super special to me and I was able to really learn a lot myself about fisting from him.
Speaker 1:In terms of probably my least favorite of the entire season, you know, in general the interludes Never do as well as the episodes, and I'm not sure if it's because, well, the leather creaking is annoying and people don't want to listen to it, or they're so short, I don't know. I don't think it matters because the interludes are fun and easy to do. But probably, if I look at the whole season, the one episodes I I liked the least was the episode on being disconnected from my leather, and it wasn't a bad episode. It's actually, I think, a really important episode for people to know that that happens and it's normal and don't freak out. I don't like it because I don't like being disconnected from my leather. Fortunately, I am certainly not there now. I'm not at all horny per se, I'm still Working out the gray sexual sex drive, all of that but I definitely feel very, very connected to my leather and that Is a beautiful development. So those are some of the highs and the lows from this past season. I'll add, I was super happy with the ask edge segment. People sent in some really interesting questions, some thoughtful questions. Uh, I was able to connect with some listeners through the ask edge segment so I was super happy with that and super happy that people participated and that I think Almost every full episode I was able to have some ask edge questions I don't think actually every episode, but Almost every episode and I was pretty, pretty excited about that. So that is something we're definitely going to continue. And that's sort of the highs and lows review of this past season.
Speaker 1:So let's think about what's coming next. So what's coming for season three? Well, the big news is that I am moving from this sort of continuous production schedule into something like actual seasons. So I'm about to start a hiatus. There will not be a new full episode of full cal until March of 2024 and going forward there will be a sort of nine month production season and a three month hiatus. And that allows me to rest. I have a lot of holiday travel coming up, I have a lot of january travel coming up and I just need some time to breathe, but I also need time to get ahead on production. I would like to have at all times A couple episodes in the bank ready to go, or at least some of the segments mapped out and recorded so that I'm not always under the gun.
Speaker 1:There were many times this season where I was Producing an episode on thursday night and it was about to be published on friday morning, and I don't think that's good for the podcast and it's certainly not good for me. So we're going on hiatus and I will be back in March. Now I will say, knowing me, I will probably just pop up some random interludy type Episodes between now in march, because I'm not very good at being silent and I'm not very good at doing nothing. But the next full episode will be in the first friday of march of 2024. That is the big change for the coming season. I will say that I've been more thoughtful about Lining up episodes in advance. So I've worked with one of my local boys, milk boy, who I don't know if I've talked about him on the podcast a lot yet, but he is really good at social media and helped me generate some new topics.
Speaker 1:So some of the topics coming next season include mentors and mentorship, rubber addiction and kink, consent, activism, bars, eco kink, which I'm really excited about. We're going to explore Alternatives to leather, vegan leather, things like that. Digital kink, which will include the whole history of my transition from a sort of print physical space based leather community into this online leather community, but also some thought about how to craft and navigate your digital presence in kink, and I'd like to do an episode on kink and disability. That actually was a suggestion off of my instagram channel, so thank you for people over there. These are um base topics, right, I may have something else I decided to do, but it gives you a sense that, yeah, at least I'm prepared and there's some good stuff coming up, so I hope you will tune in. For all of that, I do have new season 3 art. I have um Narrated it down to four or five selections, so that's pretty minor, but that's something fun for me.
Speaker 1:I'm also thinking about new theme music because you know, nope, a listener who I know made some comment about me using the sort of like banked, royalty-free music and no, actually I had the theme music. I paid to have that composed for this podcast. So I'm like, hey, wait a second. I actually worked to get that music. I kind of like it because it's sort of become part of the baseline of the podcast, but new season could open up new musical opportunities, so I may do that. No promises there.
Speaker 1:The other thing I am thinking about is moving my technological setup to the capability for live in-person interviews. As you may know, steve, who was on the Uniforms episode my bestie in town has suggested to me numerous, numerous times that he would like to do another episode where we are together in gear sharing cigars and talking about things, and yeah, that sounds great. However, that requires two microphones, that requires two windscreens, that requires two booms, that requires the special mixing board that takes the two microphones and then feeds that all into one computer. And it's not financially prohibitive, but it would be an investment. So I'm on the fence of whether or not to make that investment. It would be a few hundred dollars, I think. As part of that I would upgrade my microphone, because my boy in Arizona, who is a bassoonist and therefore all about music and audio oh yeah, he was on the podcast right and he had the most amazing microphone. I'm like how did you get what? So I want to get a better microphone so I sound as good as my boy, and then I would have to get the mixing board and all these sort of things, and then I'll also kind of figure out how all that then feeds into audacity. I actually think that part will be pretty easy. I think it's mostly buying the stuff and making the decision that it's worth the financial investment. And if it were just Steve, I'd be like, oh God, okay, you know what. It'd be one episode. But Milk Boy is local and we've also talked about having him on the podcast.
Speaker 1:And there may be other times where I have my slave coming in town or the boys coming in town, or I have friends coming in town and I might just say, hey, come on over, let's just pop out a little segment for the podcast. For interviews. I've been using squadcast. It's fine, it's great, but I think there is something more banterry about having two people together in the room that I might like to explore. The thing with squadcast is a lot of time when I am interviewing someone and they're talking, I mute my mic so that there's no kind of background white noise in the final audio stream, and that really reduces all the little, all the little feedback sounds I make when someone else is speaking and it reduces the banterability. So I think maybe having a two mic setup might be worth it. We will see.
Speaker 1:Now, part of that is also going to be related to my Instagram subscription experiment, which I mentioned briefly before. And you know, on the whole I have been against monetizing my content because when I was being mentored, no one charged me and I think it's important for me to pay it forward, to grow and invest in the future of my community so that it exists when I'm gone and so that while I'm still here, there are hot leather men that are hot in the way I like leather Right. So I've never really thought about monetizing, but things are getting expensive. You know, my home insurance went up, my condo insurance went up and my budget isn't strained, but it looks like it could be Fuller than usual. So my idea was to start this subscription thing on Instagram where I would generate extra content for subscribers, you know. So everyone else is still getting the educational videos, the twirly looks that I do that are more popular than the educational videos. All of that will still remain the same on Twitter. Everything on Twitter on Instagram, everything on Twitter will remain the same. Everything on Instagram will remain the same, but subscribers will get a little something extra. So If I'm able to generate even a small stream of income from that, then it makes the idea of buying a two mic setup pretty damn easy. Then I can really sort of grow and expand some of the production capability of the podcast. Now, I'm not poor by any means. I am far, far, far, far from poor. So I think the subscription thing could end up being a failure. We'll see. But regardless of how subscriptions on Instagram go, I am still contemplating the two mic setup for the podcast because that is entirely possible by itself.
Speaker 1:Beyond that, I don't have any sort of new sorts of segments planned. I do know that there are some specific episodes I will want to do interviews for, particularly, I'm thinking rubber. I would like to have we have locally some. Really we have former international title holders locally that that could do part of the educational lift on the rubber episode. So I will still be doing interviews. I'll still be doing all of my personal experience. I'll still be doing as much how to as I can. I think I have some more stories I can share. I do think it might be useful to do more meditations because I think people like that in the mind control episode. I've never received a lot of specific feedback about it, but I think it went OK.
Speaker 1:And then ask edge. I'm pretty happy with that, as long as people keep sending questions and I don't have to help you for the questions. So not a lot of changes coming in the format. Next year there will be the hiatus. There are a lot of great topics and then possibly there will be more kind of live Bantry co-hosted episodes with some of the people in my life assuming I make the plunge and get the two Mike setup. Regardless, I'm hoping there's just going to be a lot of more of the same. That includes my NPR podcasting voice, which I am hoping you enjoy. That includes all the stuff I know, all the stuff I'm able to offer from my experience, my strength, my hope. All of that will continue and I hope that you will continue listening as well.
Speaker 1:Now to wrap up this episode, to wrap up season two, we do have one ask edge question and that's coming next. And it is time for ask edge, the segment where I answer questions from you, the listeners. You may submit questions through two ways. You can leave me a voicemail at speak pipe dot com slash leather edge. That's LTHR EDGE. Speak pipe dot com slash leather edge. Or you can send me an email at ask at full cow dot show. That's ask At full cow dot show. And all of that information is in the show notes of every episode, and this time we have an email from Casper. Casper writes.
Speaker 1:First I'd like to say that I love your podcast and it has provided me so much additional information on kink. Your storytelling is beautiful and calls ears in to listen and stay attuned. Thank you, casper. I have a question for your podcast. When in your leather journey did you start to feel secure? What advice would you have for leather folks who are still early in their journeys? Additionally, I love cigars. I've been smoking them since I was a teenager. Do you have advice on how to find an or organize cigar munches with admiration, casper, these are two really great questions and I love that first question, so let me start there.
Speaker 1:When in my leather journey did I start to feel secure? On one level, the answer is never. I think there are still a lot of times where I am filled with doubts about my attractiveness and my ability. I think I don't know how many of us suffer from some degree of imposter syndrome, but I certainly do. Now that's occasional. I've done a lot of work on the inside and that is what allows me to kind of shout down that voice when it starts piping up. And I've been able to reach a point where I accept that. I accept the leather man I am and and I am aware of who I am and I am aware of the effect I have on men and I am aware of what I'm capable of in leather. So so I do feel, at my core, secure. When did that happen, goodness you know? I think it's happened over the past probably 20 years. It's been a really, really slow process for me.
Speaker 1:So there was a point from, say, the early millennium, the odds, let's just say through the odds, and if you listen to the podcast you know that's a point at which I was really transitioning to more of a dominant role. But there came a point where I realized that people found me attractive in leather, no matter how I felt about my body, and historically I've been a lot bigger. I was up to a 38 inch waist at some point. I'm currently around a 30 inch waist, so I was a much more heavy set person and I did not feel comfortable in my skin. But when I learned was that even if I didn't think I was attractive, other people found me attractive and the first step to my security was learning that I didn't have to believe something about myself, I simply had to believe that other people believed it. Let me let me slow down on that, because I feel it was pretty important to my journey. I never had to believe I was a great leather man. I never had to believe I was attractive. I simply had to believe that other people thought I was a great leather man. Other people found me attractive and I had evidence of that from the men who approached me.
Speaker 1:So part of my security came from looking at the evidence and not what was in my head. I learned to pay very little attention to my own thoughts and to look outside myself, to the actual record of my lived experience. Now I think this can translate to a lot of people in a lot of ways. You know, every experience you have validates who you are and what you're capable of, whether or not you believe it or not. And so looking at the actual record was the beginning of becoming secure for me, that's through the odds that grew in the teens as I also transform my body. Now, obviously, it's a lot easier to feel secure inside your skin if you kind of feel secure outside of it.
Speaker 1:And this whole negotiation of where am I going to find my self-esteem? Is it in what people think of me? Is it in what I look? On some level I've had to lean on things outside of me, what people say, what people think of me. But that's dangerous, right. I could not simply depend on the number of likes, the number of wolves, the number of cruises, because if I'm only depending on external validation then I'm fucked. What I had to do was use that as a kernel for building up something inside of me, and that, I think, was a lot of the process that happened in the teens, where I had to really internalize what people were saying and recognizing and recognize for myself who I was and what I was capable of.
Speaker 1:Now that is a movement from outside in. I Don't think it has to be outside in. That was my movement from outside in and it was accompanied with a shitload of therapy. You know, when I first started working out at the gym and I started getting muscles and I Realized fairly soon that it would never be enough. I could never be muscular enough, I can never be thin enough, I can never be big enough. I could never be enough. And then I was like, oh fuck, well, that's not gonna work, that's not gonna work. And I realized that I had to work on the inside as much as I worked on the outside.
Speaker 1:So fortunately I have a 12-step program which isn't just about staying sober and not using drugs and alcohol, it's also about becoming a better person. And then, in addition to that, I have therapy and I've used those tools to help me become secure. And that means Using what I see outside, what I learn from my lived experience as I move through the world, bringing that inside to recognize that what's happening outside in part is a reflection of some of my inner qualities and that if I Concentrate on growing those inner qualities, that's the thing. And that means being more confident, but also being kinder to myself, being gentler to myself, all those things right, all the good stuff we get from therapy. That eventually led to a Place of relative security, not absolute. I still have my doubts about myself, about my attractiveness, about my abilities. I'm very, very, very, very human in that way, but it led to place, a relative security I I recognize. Now that we're in the 20s, I recognize that I can Walk into pretty much any leather space in the world and feel completely at home, feel completely comfortable relating to others and connecting to others.
Speaker 1:That has been a journey of 53 years. Right, this, that's a lifetime journey. So my advice for you is For if you're early in your journey is be patient, be kind to yourself, but also learn to recognize, acknowledge and validate what you do have, what you have accomplished, what you have lived. That these things are utterly Absolutely true, more true than the voice in your head. And learning to distinguish the lies that you tell yourself from the truth of your lived experience for me was the start of Getting that sense of feeling secure. So if you're early in your journey, be kind, don't give up. Keep living, keep experiencing and then take what you learn from that lived experience and internalize it to create a, a crystal seed of esteem and security that you can grow now.
Speaker 1:Cigars, you know, I think it really depends on where you live. Now. I am ultra blessed in Wilton Manners, florida. This is in many ways Cigar smoker paradise. We have two cigar socials every week, one at the ramrod and one of the eagle, and we also have, remarkably, a gay cigar lounge. So getting together with people to have cigars is a No-brainer here and it will depend a lot on your critical mass and and how big of a city you live in.
Speaker 1:But what I would suggest is you start small. You know I did some Videos on forming community. You can find them on the archive at Dot-com that's T chick, t chick, dot-com. Once again Dot-com, that's T chick, t chick, dot-com. If you go, look at the archive and what I talk about in those videos on community is that you know you don't look at the forest, you look at the trees.
Speaker 1:So you don't think about things like how am I gonna form a cigar community? Instead you, you start by by creating one cigar friend, right? So if you want to start a cigar munch, start by finding one person that you can meet with To have cigars in a place that's fairly public, out at a bar, at a cigar lounge, whatever. Then that is the place that can then grow, right? So you need to start, you need to establish it with one person, and then it can grow and you can have a couple people and then a couple more friends join. That's my recommendation. Now you can certainly just sort of say, okay, we're gonna start a cigar night on this night at this place and I'm gonna blast it on Facebook and on social media, and that's actually how our cigar social started.
Speaker 1:We started, let's see, it was, my god, 2000. It was probably probably eight years ago, right 2015 ish and at that time I was meeting my friend TJ for cigars every week at scandals. One of the local bars which has a beautiful patio, and I think one of the bartenders there started this idea of a cigar social at scandals and sort of invited us to join in and Then it slowly grew right. So so that was something that happened, in part because TJ and I were already there, but also because someone had the idea to do it and then simply made it happen. So I would say, depending on where you live, depending on your population, you have two choices. You can either start by very local connections, connecting with one other cigar smoker and enjoying cigars together, or you can start kind of more by fiat, where just declare it's going to happen on such and such a night.
Speaker 1:In that be thoughtful. You know the two cigar socials we have. They're during the week, which is great for the bar, because no one else is at the bar during the week, and they're early in the evening, each one's at 7 pm, so people can have dinner, go out, enjoy cigar and gear, go home, get to bed so they have time to sleep before work the next day. So you want to be thinking about the timing of it. If it's during the week, make it earlier. If it's on the weekend, make it so that it's right before the bar crowd arrives, so you know you're gonna have a cigar social at 9 pm and then people can stay around as people start arriving at the bar. I think it's actually better to just start with that Sense of who. Do you know who smokes cigars? Can you all get together? If it's just two of you, if it's just three of you, if it's just Four of you, who can you all get together Regularly and commit to having cigars together? And that will grow it a little bit more organically. I think so.
Speaker 1:Casper, thank you for two really excellent, thoughtful questions. I hope those answers are useful to you and I want to encourage everyone. Please, you've got three months to submit questions, to ask edge. Give it a thought. I certainly value every question that I get, just as I value each of you as a listener. And just as always, I wish you an extremely blessed leather journey. And that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Please consider subscribing or you can send feedback to edge at full cow dot show. As always, may your leather journey be blessed.