Meeting of November 2nd, 2022 of the Green Mountain Care Board. Good afternoon. I'm Owen Foster. Thank you all for your patience. We had a little technical glitch. And so today's meeting, we will be receiving a presentation by the Green Mountain Care Board staff on the gather health. Budget submission. So first, I'll turn it over to the executive director, Ms. Barrett for the executive director's report. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Yes, okay, so I will be brief since I've done this once already, but I will direct folks to our public comment site on our Green Mountain Care Board website. We have several ongoing public comments. One is regarding one care Vermont and they will be presenting their budget to us next week. Staff will present on their analysis on December 7th instructions to provide public comment or on our website. In addition, gather health is open for their FY23 budget for public comment. We will hear more from our staff today on that timeline and how you can comment. I do want to alert folks that we did yesterday receive the FY, excuse me, the five year comprehensive 2023 to 2027 Vermont health information exchange strategic plan and connectivity criteria. For 2023. We will hear from the agency of human services and the Vermont information technology leaders on that plan on November 16th and we ask for public comments to be provided before the Green Mountain Care Board analysis and the potential vote from the board, which is tentatively scheduled December 7th or December 14th. We've also we will be posting this afternoon information on the extension for the all the current all pair model. We will also hear from Green Mountain Care Board staff on that extension on November 16th. We have a potential vote scheduled for November 28th. Last but not least, we would have an ongoing public comment on a next potential all pair model. And those comments that we received, we share with AHS and the governor's office as they are leading those negotiations. And I also wanted to draw attention to information on our website on premium tax credits that were enhanced and extended earlier this year by the feds and also remind everyone that open enrollment. Plans on the exchange are is open. So please check that out on our website. There are links as well as the diva website for the exchange and I will turn it back to you. Mr chair for a second time. Thank you very much. We had two meetings last week on October 24th and 26th and I'd like to take up the meeting minutes of October 24th 2022 is there a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Second. Is there any board discussion? Those in favor of approval of the minutes of October 24th 2022, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That is four votes in favor of approval. Ms. Holmes abstained. I presume because she was not in attendance. Yes. Thank you. The minutes are approved. I'd like to take up the meeting minutes of October 26th. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Second. Any board discussion? Those in favor of the approval of the minutes from October 26th 2022, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And there is unanimous approval of the minutes of October 26th. And with that we're going to hear from Marissa Melamed and Julia Bowles relating to the staff's review of the gather health budget submission. Ms. Melamed. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board, members of the public. We're pleased to be back with you today for part two of the gather health budget review, which is the staff preliminary analysis and recommendations.  This will be brief because we did hear about this previously from gatherers themselves. And then we will move to the staff review and staff recommendations, board questions and discussion, and time for public comment and the next steps in this process. So quick reminder, what we're talking about today is the board's authority to review the budget of ACOs operating in Vermont. In this case, gather health ACO is an ACO that is accepting payments and has an agreement with Medicare only, so they're subject to budget review, but not the board's certification review. They also do not at this time meet the threshold of 10,000 lives. And so the scope of the review is a little bit more at the discretion of the board, the standards and processes that the Green Mountain Care Board deems appropriate within the rule. And the board develops a guidance for Medicare only ACOs, which gather health has responded to, as well as some follow-up questions that we sent them specifically and today is the culmination of the review of the information that we have to date and our preliminary recommendations. On the next slide to review, what is the board approving here? It's under 18VSA 9382 and rule five, the Green Mountain Care Board shall review and approve or modify an ACOs budget. Also, as a reminder, the board has the ability to sort of designate the criteria that is relevant to the size and scope of the ACO in this category, but they are subject to any and all required reporting obligations under rule five. Next slide. And again, here are the outline of the criteria. So number one, any benchmarks established under section 5.402 of this rule, there are no benchmarks that have been established for ACOs in this criteria or gather specifically. So what we really are looking at is two, the criteria that the board deems appropriate to the ACO size and scope and we have proposed criteria, which we presented last week and is in this presentation as well. Also, number three, we consider the elements of the ACOs pay or specific programs and any applicable requirements of 18VSA 9551 or the Vermont All-Payer Accountable Care Organization model agreement. So we have some questions and data that pertains to our reporting requirements under the All-Payer model that are applicable. And then of course, number four, any other issues that are at the discretion of the board. Slide six, we went over this last week. I don't need to review them all again, but for your consideration, here are the, I believe it's nine total criteria that we determined are the most appropriate to the size and scope of this ACO. And so the findings that we are presenting are meant to address these criteria. So that's slide six and seven. You can go to slide eight. What this builds to is after the board votes on the budget to so to approve or approve with modifications, the Green Mountain Care Board will issue a written budget order that sets out the findings, conclusions and conditions of the ACO's budget review. So what we're going to do today is provide some recommendations which adopted by the board would become the conditions of the budget order. And again, this is an opportunity to discuss these recommendations or bring up any other issues or questions. There won't be a vote today. And I'm going to pass it onto Julia to continue with the timeline and the beginning of the analysis. Thanks, Julia. Great. And can I get a nod that people can hear me? Okay. Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you. Yep. So continuing from what Marissa just covered, we wanted to just remind everyone of the timeline. Hopefully last Monday doesn't feel too long ago when we heard from gather themselves at their hearing. We are here today in November already with our staff analysis. And as Marissa just said, the vote is potentially scheduled for November 16th. So today is just the analysis and discussion. And as Susan reminded folks at the beginning of this meeting, there is an open public comment period on gather's budget. We asked to receive comments by Friday, November 11th so that the board can have time to consider them ahead of the vote. And at this time, we have not received any written public comment on gather's submission. So getting a little more into the details here, we wanted to start with the big picture. So we are reviewing gather health, which is a Medicare only ACO. They are participating in the Medicare shared savings program, which they also provided a lot of detail about last week. And this program has been around for a decade now. And it is a large national program with almost 500 ACOs and covering 11 million beneficiaries. The agreement as we think about the Medicare shared savings program is between CMS, the payer, the ACO, which is gather health, and then providers who are contracting with the ACO. And as part of the program ACOs that sign up for the enhanced track of the Medicare shared savings program are signing up for a five-year agreement with CMS. And 2023 will be gather health first year participating in the program and operating as an ACO in general. And they are working with providers across six states, including Vermont. So a reminder about how this impacts beneficiaries and their experience as it pertains to this model. So beneficiaries that would be aligned to the ACO are still in traditional Medicare. So this means that being attributed to the ACO does not change anything about their access to their Medicare benefits, their out-of-pocket costs, their premiums, or their ability to use supplemental insurance. Again, because it's kind of an agreement between the providers, the ACO and Medicare, sort of a little more behind the scenes. And additionally, there are beneficiary rights in the program specifically that beneficiaries need to be notified and have the option to decline claims data sharing. And furthermore, because as a patient attributed to a provider in this program, beneficiaries may also have additional access to in-kind benefits, which we will detail later in this presentation. So this slide has details about and sort of a summary of the CMS monitoring of the SHODE savings program. There's a lot here, but these are some of the things we wanted to highlight that are sort of already being monitored at the federal level. This includes that ACOs must have a compliance plan with specific elements that are specified by CMS. The ACO must have a public website with information, including their name and contact information, as well as the ACO governing body information, SHODE savings and losses, and performance on quality measures once those are available. Additionally, the beneficiary notifications that I just mentioned, and CMS also has a broad ability to ask for information from the ACO as well as its participants. So with that as a backdrop, we've covered the scope of the GMCB's review and a bit about the federal oversight of this program. So now we are ready to dive into gather health specific information. So this slide just shows the sections of the guidance on that document that Marissa mentioned earlier. So we organized our review around the section. So kicking off with section one, this section has information about the ACO broadly, as well as its governing body. As I just mentioned, CMS dictates the requirements for the ACO's governing body and the members are listed on Gather Health's website. There are 12 members of their governing body, and two of them are clinicians from the participating provider in Vermont. There is currently one vacancy on the governing body, which is an ACO beneficiary, which gather will fill once the plan year starts. Of course, they can't find a beneficiary until they have begun. So at this time, we don't have any recommendations as it pertains to section one of the guidance. Moving on to section two, which is focused on the provider network. So as I mentioned, Gather has providers in six states and additionally has stated their intent to expand their provider network in Vermont in future years. And in our question about their network development strategy, they detailed that they are seeking to work with providers who are committed to lifestyle medicine and helping patients achieve their goals in a community. So to put this more into perspective and give you sort of the picture of the Vermont piece of their network, this slide shows their submission information across the top. So Gather Health has contracted with Springfield Medical Care Systems on Rostar Health, and there are 58 primary care providers in the network. From those providers, Gather is expecting nearly 5,000 attributed lives. And as you can see from the map in the bottom right hand corner, there are practice locations both in Vermont and New Hampshire. So of those 58 providers, 52 of them are primarily based in Vermont. And at this time, Gather does not currently have information about whether these attributed lives are Vermont residents or associated with Vermont practice sites. And again, that's kind of an element of the fact that this is a national ACO and we're taking the Vermont to make sure here. So in terms of the key points on this section, we wanted to just sort of summarize the information that we feel like we already have through this review, which is the network development information which we ask in the guidance every year. We have received a copy of their contract with providers and CMS also has monitoring in this area. And we also wanted to remind everyone more broadly that under GMCB rule 5.501, the ACO is required to keep certain records and report them to the board upon request. So for example, if the GMCB in the future needed to know the number of Vermont resident lives attributed to the ACO, that could fall under this. So given the extensive existing reporting, we do not have any recommendation pertaining to section two at this time. And with that, I'm going to pass it to Marissa to cover the next couple of sections. Great. Thanks, Julia. Section three is the payer program. The most basic here, the Medicare only program. So the risk model is sent by the Medicare shared savings program participation agreement with CMS. And it's based on which track the ACO chooses. So this is not a negotiation or Vermont specific model. The attribution is preliminary perspective assignment with retrospective reconciliation and voluntary alignment. Again, these are set by the program terms. On the next slide, we've shown this before, but this is a general fund flow of the Medicare shared savings program. So the so gather health agreement with the provider is determined to be exempt from public inspection under Vermont law. So we created this to be a general depiction of how MSSP funds can flow so that we have kind of an understanding about how the ACO model works. So I think we went through this a little bit before, but the three vertical boxes are the entities that are involved in the agreements of CMS, the ACO and participating providers. We have a box here for beneficiaries as well because of the optional in kind incentive program, which gather is participating in. And so if you start at the top, all fee for service claims payments continue to go directly from CMS to the provider with 100% fee for service. And then if you continue down to the payments from the ACO, so in the middle to the providers, the ACO can pay providers additional payments, which are determined by the ACO and part of their provider agreement. And these arrangements can vary by ACO in the MSSP program. And then as well, we have the depiction of the optional in kind incentive program. And again, this is an ACO designed program that they can take advantage of through these agreements. And this can include in kind incentives that are reasonably connected to beneficiary care or preventive items or services or advance the beneficiaries health care goals and are not covered by traditional Medicare. And then as well, you'll see the shaded boxes which are potential shared savings or shared losses that can flow between CMS and the ACO and the ACO and providers under their shared savings and shared loss agreements. Next slide is the ACO risk model. So under the Medicare shared savings program agreement, CMS provides standard risk model options. Gather Health shows the enhanced track, which is the highest risk level offered in the program. And that is shown in the third bullet. So in the enhanced track, shared savings are first dollar savings at a rate of 75% on the dollar if quality performance standard is met. And this is not to exceed 20% of the updated benchmark and shared losses. It's first dollar losses at a rate based on quality performance with minimum shared loss rate of 40% and maximum of 75. So that's variable. And it's not to exceed 15% of the updated benchmark. So there is a bit of an asymmetrical risk corridor here that they can have 20% on the upside and 15% on the downside. And again, these are wider risk corridors than we're used to seeing in some of our state-specific agreements. And then for risk mitigation, CMS requires ACOs to have a repayment mechanism and a financial guarantee set by CMS in order for ACOs to participate. Gather Health selected 0.5%. The options are between zero and 2%. CMS requires ACOs to have a repayment mechanism. And CMS truncates claims at the 99th percentile to cut off some of the volatility. So again, these are sort of standard options that the ACO can choose from. Section 3 to sum up. So our key points here is that the payer program arrangements are set by Medicare in the participation agreement. As a new ACO in 2023, Gather Health first shared savings and loss information will be available from CMS in the second half of 24. So they have to go through a full performance year and then have the results calculated and those will be available in 24. And so that brings us to our first recommendation, which is that Gather Health provides to Green Mountain Care Board its shared savings and losses, which is already required to be publicly reported. But we would like them to be reported to us specifically and segmented for Vermont as feeable. So moving on to Section 4, which is the budget and finances. So then this again, this is a depiction of what they showed to us last week during their hearing. The slides here are projections that are based on assumed shared savings. So this is totally theoretical, assuming a 5% savings rate. It's just to show, it's just to give you an example about how the math works out. So the projected or could work out. The projected Vermont benchmark is $49.5 million, which is based on the roughly 5,000 beneficiaries at 9,900 per member per year spending per beneficiary, which comes from publicly derived Medicare data. Medicare payments to Vermont providers at assuming 5% shared savings would mean a little over 47 million. So that's, you know, making an assumption that the total spending is 5% below the benchmark. So then from there, the projected in-kind incentives and shared savings with Vermont providers is about $1.5 million. The estimated ACO care management payments are half a million. And then the, so the estimated operating expenses prorated for Vermont are $225,000 with the estimated net shared savings retained by the ACO at $255,000. So again, these are our theoretical budget assumptions based on theoretical results. So for section four, budget and finances. So the ACO is making payments to Vermont providers and paying for in-kind incentives for Vermont beneficiaries. The budget numbers in the previous slides are estimates that assume a 5% shared savings. And the actual shared savings shared loss results will not be known until mid-24. So that brings us to our second recommendation, which is that Gather Health provides an updated version of their Vermont financial summary with actuals, including a breakout for in-kind incentive spending. And the Greenmont Care Board staff will develop a template and set an appropriate deadline for when we'd like to see actuals if we want, interim or final. And that is to be determined or could be delegated to staff. I'm going to pass it over or back to Julia to go over section five and the model of care. Yeah, thank you. So section five is about the ACO's model of care. And as a reminder, these are some of the applicable criteria that were summarized in the slides at the beginning. And additionally, I think we've hit this nail on the head many times, but Gather Health is a new ACO. So also, as we think about this, 2023 will be their beginning of testing this model of care. So that's just a helpful framework to keep in mind. So their focus is on addressing chronic diseases through lifestyle medicine interventions. Within this, this includes a focus on transitions of care and using available data sources to support providers in this work. Additionally, they support beneficiaries health needs through those in-kind incentives that help beneficiaries manage and prevent chronic conditions. Gather is also supportive of providers engaging in local programs that have shared goals, such as the blueprint for health. And they are working to build community through the Gather Health platform. And to provide a little more information on that, we had asked them follow-up questions and receive responses last Friday, 10-28. So this is some of the information from their responses. So in describing the Gather Health platform, they said that patients interact with the Gather Health platform by enrolling, then engaging in curated interactions between them and others on the platform. The platform also serves as a main way to participate in the ACO's chronic disease care management program. Beneficiaries will work with Gather Health or their providers if they do not have or cannot navigate digital access. And the community is intentionally designed to focus on preventing and reversing chronic diseases by building disease-specific evidence-based community modules for beneficiaries to interact with and meet. So the key points from this section, again, are that Gather Health is a new ACO and they will be testing their unique care model beginning in January of 2023. And their care model includes a platform that beneficiaries will be using and interacting with. So based on that information, the staff had three recommendations pertaining to Section 5. The first being that Gather Health provides to the GMCB its quality reporting segmented for Vermont if possible with appropriate restrictions to protect patient confidentiality. And as a reminder, this would be the quality reporting that would not be available until the middle of 2024 due to needing to complete the performance here and then some time for the run-out. Our second recommendation on this section is for Gather Health to provide a copy of the terms and conditions given to beneficiaries upon signing up for the Gather Health platform as well as any other marketing or informational material shared with beneficiaries. And if the intended use of beneficiary data changes from what Gather Health presented to the GMCB on 10.24.22, which was their hearing, then Gather Health must report any changes to the GMCB. And finally, our third recommendation on this section is for Gather Health to provide a bi-annual update with the first report being submitted in conjunction with their fiscal year 24 budget, which would be October 1st of 2023. And that report would be about how Gather Health care model is working in Vermont, including the number of Vermont attributed patients who are registered to the Gather Health platform and any unique Vermont challenges. And the report template could be developed by GMCB staff. So there's one section left and this goes back to thinking about how this program relates to the all-payer model. So section six has a number of different tables that help us compare this ACO program, the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and its elements to Vermont's all-payer model. So I'll walk through some of the findings here. So for scale, the staff are still reviewing Gather Health information and the scale qualifying criteria. The second table in that section is showing that the Medicare Shared Savings Program arrangements are a Category 3B on the HCP land categories, which is a framework to help classify alternative payment models in a more standardized way. The financial targets are well aligned between the all-payer model and the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and finally the quality targets in the Shared Savings Program are a bit narrower than the all- payer model, but there is a lot of overlap, especially as it relates to clinical depression, hypertension, and diabetes. So at this time, the staff do not have any recommendations on this section. So in closing, we wanted to reiterate the special public comment period for Gather Health budget. The public can submit comments through November 11th in order to allow time to be considered ahead of the board's potential vote on November 16th, and more information on this can be found on the GMCB's website. The remaining agenda for today is board questions and discussions, HCA comments, and then public comments. So I'm going to go to the next slide, which I'm happy to leave on the screen, which has a summary of the recommendations, which we thought would be helpful potentially for board discussion. So with that, I will turn it back to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both very, very much. You guys have done great work on this. I appreciate it. With that, I'll turn it over to my fellow board members for any questions or comments they may have. Hearing none, I have two quick ones. I think it was slides 23 and 24, section four, related to financial backing. I found that their business model description was a bit opaque, and it gave me some concerns regarding the financial backing and wherewithal. Before voting, I think it would be beneficial for me to understand and see the corporate organizational chart and if there are any related entities and where the gather health platform sits in that corporate structure and also if there's any commingling of funds or sharing of data or use of data with other entities that may or may not be related. The only other comment or question I had was relating to recommendation number four, whether or not we can have a certification signed by executives indicating whether or not there's been any changes in how they're using data on behalf of any third parties and or selling identified or de-identified data. I think this is important for monitors to know. I appreciate their representations. Things can, of course, change in a business's life, and if they do, I think everyone has a right to understand it as it can impact the bottom lines of the ACO. Thank you, and with that, I'll see if there's any other board questions or comments. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't get to my mute button. Finally, actually, my mouse was not working, so I think I'm good now. Can I ask two quick questions then? Please, of course. Thank you. I'm just wondering on recommendation two, what is the frequency with which the staff's recommending updating their version of with actuals? I think I heard you say at an interim basis or at year end that I'm wondering if you're thinking at midpoint and then at the year end or just the year end? I do not have a recommendation at this time, which is why we said staff to develop. I'd like to discuss with gather to see when that might make sense, like when we would have some meaningful results. So I'd like to defer sort of the frequency for now, but I'll see if I can get an answer for that prior to the vote if possible. Okay. No, that's great. And then I'm just going to add to recommendation five. I think it would be helpful to understand not only the number of Vermont attributed patients that are registered to the platform, but some measure of their usage, their, you know, the frequency of their engagement on that platform. I think it's, you know, it'll be interesting lessons learned on how this, you know, new model of care management works to understand really how fully engaged or how frequently people are actually on the platform to get a sense of how well it's working. So those are my two comments. Thank you. If I could just piggyback onto that. The thing that comes to mind from Jess's comment, if we could, if we could understand the total number of visits to their platform and unique visitors, that would be helpful for us to understand the amount of engagement and how they may overcome the challenges of our geography and us, Vermonters, and willingness to participate. If I may respond to those two comments, this is really helpful and exactly the kind of thing we're looking for in this discussion because as you can see how it's written here, we sort of defer the development of the template because we didn't have enough time to figure out exactly what that would look like. So these suggestions made here are very helpful in helping us develop that. And I believe we can check with legal, but I think we can either try to hash it out by the time you vote or I believe in the past we have sort of delegated template development in the budget order to a staff process. And so we can figure out the best way to do that just to make sure that we get it right instead of rushed. Thank you. Great work. Dr. Merman, I see you have your light on here. Go ahead. I still would like to learn more about these curated interactions through the template and I'm trying to figure out what it is that we could ask them to gain better insight as to how the curation occurs. I think that if we're having patients engaged in a clinical environment that's I mean they use the word curated that's different than typical clinical environments or even non-clinical environments I feel that there should be some reporting of that process. So maybe I might want to work with you a little bit more on crafting a recommendation or something to ask gather to report on with regards to that. I'm still trying to figure out how to specifically ask that. That's great. I think again we can work those thoughts into recommendation five reporting but that's exactly what we're sort of trying to get at is a better understanding. So that's why we made that recommendation. Wonderful. And if there are no other board questions or comments I will turn it over to the health care advocate. Thanks so much for your foster. I just want to start off by thanking board staff for their presentation and give our support for the recommendations that Marissa and Julia outlined today. Also want to support your comment chair Foster regarding requesting more information about the corporate structure. I think it was also well I know it was feels opaque to us to a certain degree particularly around how much the platform is financed from within and under what terms. When we have the HCA look at and hear about issues facing Vermonters what we see is a crisis of affordability access and quality. And I know we're not alone in that perspective. So if we look at gather's approach and mission from that lens based on what we've seen and learned from the presentation and the board's review we're skeptical that their for profit data platform and application meaningfully addresses those issues for Vermonters. There's not a strong evidence base for health care IT startups like this moving the needle in these areas of need for the public. And if anything there's some emerging evidence that they increase overall costs. So with that public interest in mind and the knowledge that the board can't deny gather health stability to operate Vermont we recommend that they exercise that you exercise regulatory oversight and clear reporting requirements for gather. And we think that this oversight is important and appropriate to ensure that gather health promise benefits are actually realized. Thanks. Thank you very much for that input. We appreciate it. At this point if there's nothing further from the health care advocate I will turn it over to public comment. Please use the hand function. I myself have no clue how to do that. So I'm hopeful you do. And I'll call on people in the order in which their hand is raised and please identify yourself for the record. And the first hand I see is Walter Carpenter. Walter how are you? Please go ahead. Oh and I'm hanging in there for an old man hold health care activist. I'm Walter Carpenter health care activist from Montpelier. And I'm just I thank all in for his comments about the corporate structure and I thank the health care advocate for their comments and the staff of the GMC or Melissa and some company for their presentation. I'm just in their outlining of their issues about gather. And I agree with most of the comments that gather should be strictly monitored. Is gather a DCE direct contracting entity? I can answer that. Gather health is not a direct contracting or ACO reach entity. They are participating in Medicare's sort of flagship shared savings program which has been in operation since since 2012. So it's it's not operating under the the DCE model which has been sunset and is re emerging as the ACO reach model in 23 of which we do not have any ACOs participating in that model in Vermont for 23. And who are the shared savings going to? And then on their platform Tom raised a good point and I think a person with a serious illness is going not going to have much time to engage on a platform with a whole bunch of steps that you have to click through and procedures and bureaucratic hurdles. I know because I've been through them before. Thank you very much, Walter. Next I see a hand raised Dale Hackett. Mr. Hackett, the floor is yours. Thank you. Could you clarify first, did I hear it said that this is for profit? Gather health is in LLC. So yes, it would be a for profit entity. Blue Cross, Blue Shield, MVP, our hospitals, CMS, are they for profit? Thank you for the question, Mr. Hackett. I think that I don't have, I think I know the answer, but I think you can look up 501C3 status on public filings. If you'd like generally hospitals obviously government entities, etc, are generally not for profit. So my comment would simply be that while I haven't heard all the presentations, those conflict and scheduling for me, I couldn't be there. I would have concerns about where this is going and the ideology actually being in conflict. And I think others have already said that in terms of how it's really going to serve the patient. We'll see. But I would strongly suspect that it's probably not going to be the cheapest option. But maybe somehow it's more efficient if it does away with various gatekeeping or something like that, if it's streamlines or services, but then who benefits from the streamlining? Or their workforce shortages and so forth, or it's still be concerned about how fast services could be delivered, or if there's even a workforce to deliver to services, the ACO is looking to deliver. That's it. Thank you very much for sharing those thoughts, Mr. Hackett. Thank you for letting me. Of course. Are there any other public comments? Great. Marissa and Julia, thank you very, very much for your time and your effort on this. I know it was a lot of work and we appreciate it very, very much. It's a great job. With that, is there any old business to come before the board? Any new business to come before the board? And is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. And all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries unanimously and we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.


Hello everyone and welcome to this I'd Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host and producer of the chats, which are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today I am interviewing Cain Burlinger. Cain is an old school Leatherman and I'm very honored to be able to have him part of the chat series. Hi Cain. Hi Doug. All right. When I was preparing for this, when we were both preparing for this interview, I learned that you are one of the most celebrated leaders in the Leather community. Why do people say that about you? Probably because I've been around a long while. And that's usually the whole, some of it is that you just have to be there. You know, and I was there a lot when there was, when we were in our heyday and we had events and we had runs and there were very few people of color present. And usually I was the only one there. Probably because I liked the attention. Nothing wrong with that. Well, being one person of color and feeling fulfilling so many people's dark fantasies. It was almost a given. Dark fantasies? Well, that'll be covered later in the interview. All right, that's fine. Doug, do you see yourself as a community leader? I felt myself placed in that position because people do ask me a lot of questions about the community. At the time it was a lot of questions about, about race in the community. Because as I said that because there were so few of us in the community. People that wanted to know more or ask questions that they didn't feel comfortable about. And they felt comfortable around me. So they would come to me and ask me questions, like a certain events, people will be into race play at the time. And for some reason they were, they were kind of seek me out. I don't know whether it was, some of it was just to inform me this was going on. Or that to ask my approval. I don't think it was for invitations because they never got any. But a lot of people asked me my feelings on the subject, which led to my writing of my book Black Men and Leather and why you see them. Because so many of those questions were being asked of me. So I was kind of placed in that role. And then there were a lot of panels coming out at the time. And I think there were probably more, more events then also. I mean, because of the pandemic and everything, but even prior to that, I think the meetings were going down a little. Because when the internet started, there was less, it was all done online. It was no longer the events, the gatherings and stuff where you could get panels together and talk to people. You know, we're doing it now on Zoom these days. But then we actually got people together and they felt better about asking questions and things that they wanted to know. And then they were curious. I think a lot of that's coming back now. You used an interesting word a moment ago. You used the word approval. Why were people asking for your approval? For some reason that they had political correctness come out. And people weren't always comfortable using which words. Well, you sing a lot of that now. Especially with all the new speak and all the new dialogue and people don't know what to say now. If you're running into transgender people, you don't know whether to use the term him, her, his, whatever. I'm still at odds because I'm still speaking.  And I ended up unintentionally offending people because I just simply don't know. I'm used to concerning, but I figure at my age now I can just chalk it up to being cute. My grandpa at the Thanksgiving table, you know. Before we go too far though, I'd like to go back to sort of the starting point of this. You're originally from Ohio. So am I. Tell me a little bit about how you emerged into the community coming out as a gay man coming out into the King community. What did that start for you? Okay. Coming out was. I would say I don't think I get officially came word depends on what you mean by coming out. When I was a young young guy in New York growing up in New York because we moved from Ohio to New York. I was about nine or 10. And as I got further on. New York was different than a lot different. And one of the things that were different were the public washrooms. Where it's 20 20 cent token would take you on the subway and you can ride all up and downtown. Well, while doing that, you discovered that that dime that went in there opened up doors to to sexual playgrounds. That became later baths backgrounds and stuff. And you would say my coming out would have been there. Because there was the private places. There was where everybody was using was using these public facilities as play spaces. You could do a whole story and a whole book just not alone. And eventually that spilled over into my school. Now, where I went to be with Clinton, which was an all boys school at the time. And it just kind of happened. There was no great epiphany or anything. I mean, there are always incidents and the public washrooms and the back stairs of schools and it's all those students who would be experimenting like you and in the gym room and this would happen. And there were just there are stories I'm wondering whether I should tell or not. We're going to edit this later, right? Yes. I'd love to know how did you even know about these public washrooms? It was just by accident. We lived in White Plains. I think my school was in White Plains. I think it was so many years ago. Anyway, I took the subway. I had to take the subway there. And no doubt, innocently a little boy had my dime. I had to use the facilities and as I say, the rest is history. And this went on for many, many years until one day some public citizens said we should not pay those extra dimes because we're paying the fare. So we should have use the facilities. But those dimes are paying for the maintenance. When those times stop coming, the maintenance stop coming. And it's now like, you know, the home of God knows what. So you don't see them in action anymore. So like the way of the dodo and all the venues, they just kind of passed on to the next, the next new thing. So, but yeah, that's pretty much how it came. And then I remember I had, I was living on my own at a certain age after I left school. And I was sitting down. I was visiting my mother lived in Richmond, her Queens at the time when she sat down. And she just said to me, period, just came on set.  And I was very defiant. Yes, yes, I am. And she said, oh, I just wanted to know. Wow. That was it. So I'm always wondering who's coming out. I don't really remember coming out. It just smoothly moved along. So I was very happy. My mother and I have up until her death in 97, I believe we have a very good relationship. We had a very close relationship.  So mine were always good. So what was your first experience in one of those public toilets, one of the washrooms? Oh, I don't know.  Not really because my earliest memory of touching another male came on my fifth birthday. My fifth birthday party was five years old. And let's see, hold on a second. I'll give you a treat. I hope you can get this. Photos. Yes. Can you see that one? A little bit. Not well. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Now, I'm not that's I'm big. The one in the light shirt. Is my childhood friend Tyrone. Okay. And that was taken on my fifth birthday party. And when they were bringing out the cake, they were looking for me. And me and Tyrone were out in the backyard touching each other's tippy. That was my first and earliest experience. And I still have it on my wall of fans. So that's pretty much how and then there were like little, little incidents, you know, because I was often on my own a lot because of my parents separated off and on. And we were left with the neighborhood kids. And we were all experiencing whatever it is you experienced at that age.  Yes. And in any place your parents aren't there and you have free reign with your friends. You know, the sky's the limit. You experience so many things. I would like to say it was abused, but unfortunately I wasn't. I had to learn it on my own. These kids today, they're all abused. They're just squeezing. Please, nobody take offense at that. Well, you, you were living in New York City when you were young and that was a very unique time. I think very different from the New York City we know today. Oh God. Yeah. What about some of the differences you notice or things that you know about that?  Both. Both that and regular. Well, let's say when I was coming up, let's say about from 17.  I didn't do anything. I just liked walking up and down the streets. And at that time I was 300 pounds. Also, I should point out. And there are no immediate pictures of that anywhere. But I was a big at that time. And I would just walk up and down 42nd from eight to six, eight to six. Excuse me. They were attractive and they were sexually appealing. And I just like looking and then eventually there was a line of theaters. There's a lot of old movies with there's all and I went to some of the X movies and they were straight.  And there was some activity in the audience, which observing a young man that I am, I saw that. And then later on, a friend of mine that I went to school with, he was kind of a friend of me. He asked me also if I was gay. And also another person I was, I wanted to throw it in someone's face because I had been kind of socially conditioned that this was a bad thing. Right. And whenever I was going to someone asked me, I would say, yeah, I'm gay.  What is that? But that was not the reaction I got. And my friend, he said to me, he says, so have you been to Christopher Street? And I said, no. He said, how can you say you're gay and you've never been to Christopher Street? And I said, okay. And I put it off for about a week or two weeks. And then I decided one night that I was kind of bored with 42nd Street. And I said, well, let's see what's happening on this Christopher. Well, as it were. It turned out to be, I think it was the night after or the day after the Stonewall riots. Wow. And I went down there and all I saw were just this explosion of gay men. And I walked from six again, from six Avenue. All the way down to, to the, at the time where the warehouses. Okay. And I must have made that walk about 20 times in one night. And at the time I had a curfew because I was still in high school, I think then. And my curfew was first it was midnight. And then it was dawn, depending on the grade I was in. And I was singing here. My mother said, be on before the sun comes up, which was really kind of rushed and pushing it. And I just walked back and forth just my mouth like hanging. And the people you met on the way, I mean, Sylvia and Marsha were already out there already. I knew them all and we were all hanging out because at the time when I left school and I also was working. And a lot of those people weren't working. They were the street people there. And they were activists because they were there. If you were there and you opened your mouth, time will record it. I mean, look what's happened with Marsha and Sylvia. Yeah, they didn't, I'm sure they didn't set out to be activists. But history is recorded them as that because they spoke out. They, they, they championed the cause. And I think anybody in that time, we had to march. It was just where you had to be. And, yeah, that's where we were. And that's, that's how my thing kind of gradually kind of got more into it. Now, of course, the longer I was out there, I lost about, I went from a 44 waist size to a 30, to a 31. Wow. And three months. That's a lot of work. Yeah. I remember the pair of gray pants just went like this. And when I went back into school, people didn't recognize me. It was great. So for the benefit of the audience, for people who may not know to whom you're referring, would you please explain who Marsha and Sylvia were? See, I just assume people know. But I'm thinking there may be some young person out there. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are. Yeah. And, you know, fortunately, there's a lot of, a lot of documentaries and stuff I've told about it. They were, they were activists who simply advocated gay rights and gave us a voice and took us to a political level. Because, you know, unlike popular opinion has it that, oh, the Stonewall riots came the next day, life was a bowl of cherries. It was not like that at all. As a matter of fact, I think maybe a week later, there was a, there was, what the heck was the name of the club? There were, there were two clubs. One was called the psychedelic shock, I think. And the other one was something that started with P. It'll come to me. Oh, maybe not. But the clubs were raided and furniture was slashed and the place was defaced all like a week or two later. There was another club at the end of Christopher called Christopher N. That I remember because that used to be the doors for the music be playing at one at night. And suddenly the DJ plug would be pulled on the video box on jukebox. And they say, okay, it's a raid. And all the customers knew to pile out while sources went in and collected the money went out.  And those, those raids were was still pretty ongoing even after and during Stonewall. So it did take a lot, a lot more time after that to occur. So tell us a little bit more about Marsha and Sylvia. That was Marsha Johnson. Yes. Right. Okay. Well, there was so much I could tell except that when we had to sit in at NYU because they weren't going to do dances anymore. They were there for that. And a lot of the street kids that came to them, they usually went to them because they were the eldest. And they were, as I see it now from, from visual and not from experience that they did take care of a lot of these kids. And they all had a thing going in. I remember we had, because I was living partially at home and I was working still. So I wasn't living on the streets. But the times you had, like at night you would go down to the Silver Dollar restaurant. And we didn't have a lot of money, but we would go in there at like one at night. My truckers would be there and we'd be hanging on to one cup of coffee for most of the night. Just, just thinking of new reading, new dish lines to do.  I wish I had written down a lot of the things that you'd heard. I mean, you know, and they would, it would be like rapid fire. You know, you can you really, I would, Ryan Murphy did a good thing with pose. He captured just that little bit of it with the dancing. And that was one of the things I miss. They didn't do the ballrooms. They had different goals. And I wanted to get out of Queens. I didn't think the ballrooms would get me there. And I knew them. I knew them to talk to them and to share stuff with them. And I'm trying to pull out memories, but they're very few. They weren't, they were friends. You know, they were there. Oh, they were special. We were close. I mean, at that time, especially coming in from the 60s, new people, a lot of people from the, the Velvet Underground from Andy Warhol's group. You know, and Holly Woodlaw would be there. What else did we know through that? That entire, that entire group was they weren't special because they were friends. You know, they were talented, but not to us. They just could do stuff later. Now it's like, oh, yeah. But yeah, yeah. Capturing memories and trying to stick to a timeline and trying to remember names isn't always easy to say. Yes. I do know that today, Marcia Johnson and Sylvia Riviera are viewed with a bit of iconic status. How do you feel about that? Well, it was just a matter of being there and being loud. I don't think they possess, I didn't know them well enough to see that they possessed any particular swaying power. They weren't marching to the halls of Congress or anything. They were doing what any of us in that era did. They just happened to be probably at every event. But there were others of us who were at every event and who were loud. And they were always, by their appearance alone, was always exceptional. They didn't necessarily blend into the crowd. Well, in our crowd they blended in, but to the outside, they didn't. I remember the first gay pride was just that little stretch of land on Christopher. To me, at that age, all that time was magic. We just viewed, my partner and I, we just viewed the village people and you can't stop the music last night on Prime. And I was in heaven because I knew a place, the people, the area, everything. And I remembered that that movie was not particularly well received at the time. And then you're reading the reviews now and it's like four and a half stars and it's like the personified musical comedy era of that time. Oh my God. All you have to do is just be better. If you can outlast the critics, you know, it becomes fine. I mean, when people started at the point calling me iconic or legendary and stuff like that, it was flattering, of course, but I'm thinking I shouldn't really do anything. I was just there.  I think, I speculate that a lot of people, particularly my generation and younger, wish we had been able to be part of that magical time. So for us to hear it from someone who lived it, is fascinating. I think, and I was commenting also on this last night too, is that I think every young person's life normally, just because you're younger and probably prettier and more vital, it is a magic time no matter what things are going through. And I'm thinking my life wasn't particularly golden. I mean, I had a good, nothing to complain about during my life and stuff. And I'm thinking like during these years, though, when there was all this crime and all this dirt and all this stuff and people are saying how horrible it was, to me, I think it was magic. Everything was magical. You know, you'd go out at two and you'd see celebrities all the time and people that were doing stuff and the clothes, the mood, the music. And I wasn't even doing drugs. I can imagine what other people were going through. So I think, and I try to know when I tell these things and people ask me and so forth, I try not to glamorize it too much because I don't want to make small of what they're doing.  Oh, that was really something. This is eh.  Oh my gosh.  The perfect example is I didn't go there for years because I hated the weather. And I finally took a bus one day and went and I was just blown away mostly by the ice sculpture around the buffet thing. They used to have an ice. And now of course, you know, it's nice. But no ice sculpture. But I try to put a little bit in there because we create, we, you know, it was a different time, you know, now a lot of people are going to the Internet and they're going to make something out of it. Maybe the people are realizing that contact is best. Maybe something, something to come out of it. I'm a writer and they say, what science fiction writers write will come true. So maybe what I write will come true. We can hope. Yes. Let's look at your writing a little bit because it's absolutely fascinating. You've looked at my stuff. Well, what I can. And I would like to know, I rather let me rephrase that. You've said that you came of publishing age during the outlaw brashness of New York City in the 70s. Now, what does that mean to you? How do you explain that? At the time, the city was in the throes of the mafia. So, so it says. And I had, I had started writing when I was in school. I wrote comic books. They did a lot of little graphic novels and things by hand. And so I had a bit of an imagination. And I'm not sure when I decided to actually put serious pen to paper. But when I decided I wanted to write, I don't even remember what the first thing was I wrote. I would like to say other voices other rooms, but no. That's someone else. And I said, okay, I'll write this. And I wanted to write. Right. I wanted to write. And all the venues that you had Christian writing, romantic writing, novelist stuff, none of it seemed to pay anything. And it wasn't about the money. But you know what they say when they say it's not about the money, it's about the money. But it really was. But it really wasn't because you get paid a penny per word, that sort of thing. You send it out. You get so long to. We'll look at it. We'll get back to you. But when I started writing for the game magazines, which was also a chance. It's kind of a, if you can dig up the history on that, the, the owners. They said to me, they, they would tell you, we get it. We'll read it. If we take it, we'll take it. If you will print it, you'll get to check. When the issue comes out. If we don't want it, we'll let you know within a week, whether we want it or not. So it was really kind of snap, snap, snap. And that was wonderful. A lot. And I was getting, I got, I got a few rejections of course. Not a lot, not a lot, not a lot to paper anything. Very few. And on occasion. I would read on one where they would change something in it without consulting me. But I just paid. And then, you know, which is why I very rarely reread anything. Once it's published, I don't look at it anymore. And, but they were, they would come with a credible artist would be illustrating my stuff. I think eventually I wrote for drama magazine, which wasn't mob on there. It was never a mob on there. Don't get me wrong. This is after that period of all the magazines that they were printing, they. Printed my story did a brilliant editing job. Marcus Wanaka. I got to give him props. And he made the story better. And the illustrations were spectacular. And my name and print. And that was the first time that I actually really felt really proud of what I was doing. Because before I was printing a lot of stories in New York under the mob things. And I felt they called it organized crime for a reason. Because they were certainly organized. They got that check there. They got it. When it changed hands, when that era was over, you know, it was a whole nother kettle of fish. You know, not to say anybody was any more or less, but. Wow. But I pointed to the drama issue because it was a three-parter. And it was a real. That's when I really began to put a lot of effort into what I was doing. And then I answered a contest. And they called me. And it was $100 and they're going to print my story. Well, as it turned out, the company was. Love you divine. And they printed everything I wrote. And that's, I don't know where they were. Yeah, it was probably, it was a very prolific time. And I would be turning those things out. Like. Xerox. And they were, they were. For a story, it's what can I say. But like every direct actor needs a good director. I think every writer needs a good editor. Yes. And especially so, because I've experienced brilliant editing. And I've experienced that he even read this. Because they were just. Oh, can you do him great stuff, great stuff. And I was almost overnight. I'd be banging them out because it was like, I think 200, 2000, 2000 words. And I could zip that right out. And then they started. Putting covers to my stories. So it was my name. Slashy covers. So I didn't, I was just all about the story and producing me, me, me. And for a while, it was, it did pretty good. And apparently though, there were drags where they were robbing me. They weren't showing this. They were printing double ISP numbers. Just a whole lot of mess. But it ended up with me doing something like a 80 stories. And boil it down to like eight anthologies. Of about 20 a piece. And then, you know, I did a series of fitness books, meditation books. And of course, the black man and leather thing, which was my real big thing, which was, which really deserves a second coming because the, in the beginning, there were interviews that I had done with, you know, Tony de Blas and, and so many other names and so forth. So when it comes right to mine. And Luke Owens was editing it for me in Los Angeles. And I was doing the earthquake. And I was before we were saving stuff on computer, blah, blah, blah. And it was lost. And it was the better part of the book, even though it's, it's still good. It was a better part of it. Before we go too far into that, I'd like to take one step back or maybe two steps back.  How have you done that? Lines, all lines. Well, when I was younger, it was easy. And, and when I was about 25, I think it was, I moved to Europe. Okay. And that was a whole, there was a whole lot of stuff around that. My, my then partner at the time was a Swiss airline. Attendant. And our fair was Switzerland, Toronto, Switzerland, Toronto, because I was living in Toronto then. And we moved together and then later it was Amsterdam, Toronto, Amsterdam, Switzerland. And then that crossfire, I opened a bar, Cuckoo's Nest. Yes. Cuckoo's Nest was the Amsterdam's first daytime back room leather bar. It wasn't that in the beginning. There was a cocaine tent, and the police closed it down. And my then partner happened to be smart enough to catch it at the moment that the landlord was there and he took over the lease. And we had a bar. And the bar looked, didn't look like a bar. It certainly didn't look like it did now, like it does now. And Nigel Kent, who was a Australian piercer, used to come to the bar regularly. We had regulars of maybe three customers, so about three or four beers a day. A day. Yeah, that was. He said to me one night and a drunk and anything that, you know what you ought to do? You ought to paint the bar pink and open it in the daytime. I said, well, we don't have the money to paint it pink, but I can open the daytime. I did have a daytime license. And from there, the bar took off. And it's still going on. I just went back for it's 30, I think 35th year anniversary, I think it is. And then they did me good too. When I went there, you know, they, you know, yeah, here's the old guy who opened it up. That's always rather nice, you know, because a lot of people say, I have my first thing at the Cuckoo's Nest. And I thought that was kind of nice. Because it was, I was, well arguably the biggest back room in Europe. It was huge. And the stories you could tell on there. Well, I visited the Cuckoo's Nest many times. Oh, well, you ought to have me buddy. Oh yeah, that was, no, we had, we had time with it. And that's where all the parties came from. And originally when we started the fisting parties there, was when one of the fire, the fire, the firehouse used to throw parties to Amsterdam, gay parties. And they also at the time lost their lease. And I was there to catch it. And know how, you know, I rushed and had the signs printed out that we're having a party on the full moon. I started the full moon parties. And the slings, where did they go to? The slings at the time made a journey. They made a journey to here to Wally. Wally ended up with them from the lure. And where do they make their other circle? They made, oh, well, like fisting parties that I started throwing here for the last 10 years were there also. So the slings have been around. I recently sold them when the pandemic started because I wanted to get out of business. And, yeah, that's how that's all the parties started. And of course when you're promoting a bar, you went and fortunately in Europe too, where they, you know, you can get on the bus and be in another country. So you were always going to the parties and being promoted there and pushing the parties. And every party that you had a reason to go to for me, which was always promoting something, promoting a book, promoting a lifestyle, promoting a business. Usually if I'm not promoting something, I find I don't enjoy myself as much because I don't feel I have as much to do. It's like I say that twiddling my thumbs. Let's take a step back though, because I read that your works, your writing can be a bit shocking and it's not for the faint of heart. What about that? Well, last publisher or the last two publishers, they according to my now publisher said they were marketing me to women. And a lot of the reviews came from women and a lot of stuff that turns men on, especially in our kink scene, doesn't necessarily appeal to women. And I have dark fantasies and I got a lot of those from living in Europe. I mean, at the time I was living there, especially with me, I kept running into a lot of people that I must say used to me as a top. And I say that I put this way because most of the guys that ran into a lot of Germans, they would always act first and ask later. But it was kind of like, okay, here's the path or here's the where for it. Here are the needles. This is what you're going to do to me. So you're kind of standing there, and I'm always identified as a top, but not versatile. Just in case you can always learn something. But they would always, this is what you're going to do. And so I always say that I can give as good as I get, but I really can't. But they trained me in such a severe way that I embraced it completely. And of course, the better the top you are, the more the bottoms will tell people and the better your reputation is. So I worked on that. You know, ego always plays a part in it. Yeah, good times. You've mentioned earlier, one of your books in particular, and that's Black Men in Leather. Yeah, it's a non-sexual book. Tell us about that, because I know it's very famous, it's well-received. A lot of places you were in, people were always asking you questions, especially about the black-white dynamic. And Kinko's relatively new in the black community, and it was kind of not as prevalent as it was in the white community. So they were asked these questions, and I would write down and take note of some of the questions they asked. And I sent out like something like almost a thousand questionnaires. And I did a few workshops around the country, too. And they include, that's where I got some of the answers and some of the questions. And then I eventually put it together. And at first I did it the way Kinko's. Kinko's was my first publisher. It was in the Spiral Notebook. And actually my other book, Pain, is also in the Spiral Notebook. And now, thank goodness, it's much easier, you know, to be self-published. And those were self-published. And every so often it gets a rush. It gets a rush of sales and then another little rush of sales.  And let me put that right. Mindy, who is a professor right now, she teaches in her class in Washington and Black Studies. And she uses it there. There you go. Okay. And like about now, especially with the George Floyd thing, it's also people are taking an interest in it again, especially the new generation. So, and so I'm just starting my work on my new foundation on supporting writers of color who wish to promote our alternative lifestyle. You have to worry that diverse community writing about alternative lifestyles. Since, for instance, if a writer is having difficulties with anything, like to help them along, help give them a promotion. It's my way of preserving hopefully my legacy and helping a lot of writers and people in the arts, because it's for screenplays, actors, dancers, that sort of thing.  You'll be hearing about it later, probably after this. Let's come back to the book though. What does the book have to tell us? It tells you about how people are seeing relations, black, white relations in their relationships. You're seeing how are they being perceived outside?  Let's talk about that. What are your issues? How does that make you feel? Can you use the term, the N word in the context of the bedroom or out of the context of the bedroom? When is it right between two kingsters to decorate one or the other? You humiliate that sort of thing. It's a fantasy. You have to decide when does politics enter or if it enters your bedroom. Some of the other things. I could get a copy of the book and check it out. Clearly, it's definitive. It's a definitive book. Of that time, unfortunately, maybe still from what I'm being told. Do you feel that helped shape perhaps the next generation of people coming into the scene? I think it'll provide answers. If I don't provide them, I hope that through the internet or whatever, other people will. But people take it information differently. They may accept something from me that they wouldn't accept, say, from you or anyone else. It depends on how you can never tell. You never tell how that works out. One guy says in the book about being kinky. We were always kinky, but we always called it just being a freak. I never actually started using the word. I probably used it in my writing, but it's never been something that rose constantly over in my head. Currently, I've been alerted to this new thing about knotting and transformation sex and everything that supposedly is all the rage. It's been a challenge writing that sort of thing on one hand, but on the other hand, it's all fantasy. It's kind of easier to write because there are no set rules for fantasies. It's been a lot of fun writing it. We're working on an anthology now, but it's all transformation. Tell us about America's first black sex action hero, and that's Hannibal Rex. Oh, Hannibal.  My Dave Chappelle says in one of those Netflix specials that he writes the punchline first and then builds the joke around it and he gets to the punchline. So that's what I did with this, and I said, it's going to be pure jail fiction. Just... And I had a great deal of fun writing it. There's just a writing around it, and then I had a guy, a Dutch boy, who offered to do the editing for me if he could masturbate while he was writing the story. I said, great. So let me know how good it is. So he sat in my den at the time, I was living in Amsterdam, and he was sitting there, and I said, and he goes, I forget how many stories there were. And then I solicited, I think, seven or eight artists to illustrate each story. And they were all diverse artists, you know? Some names I could look up and find for you. None of the major people like you would see from the... the major leather magazines now, the glossy ones that come to mind. But very good artists, some that are known. And it was a different style. So it was all... And because it was like 8x10, I included a box of crayons with each cell. So it was kind of an adult coloring book. And the first stories were printed in... Mr. Toy SM in Denmark. And it was translated into German. And I think there were about four or five stories that were printed out. And then later when I came back here, a couple of them appeared in Black Leather and Colour. And that's when I made the stories, put them together, re-edited them, re-imposed them, and put them out as the coloring book. And so they're still available. Make wonderful Christmas decorations, stocking stuffers. But your book, Sex in the Dungeon, is celebrated for saving countless lives. Tell us about that. That was... Again, something I don't remember where my inspiration was, but I'm diabetic. And I realize that there are certain things that actually I haven't run across really in sex play, but I know of others who have mentioned it. And there's certain protocols, things you want to check, things that are in bondage, make sure circulation is right. You want to make sure the blood sugar is not too high, not too low, things to recognize, drugs that interfere with that. And it was a little booklet that should fit into what we used to have with toy bags. Back in the day, we went to the bars and we had toy bags, because we were going to really seriously play. You don't see those anymore. But it fit in there. And it also now fits in your wallet or whatever. And it's a handy thing to use. And people have told me about it. And I gave it whenever I went to events. I brought about, you know, 100, 200. And I just got a recent request from my Carter Johnson library. And it came out of my own pocket, but it wasn't like, you know, a major expense because the booklets were small and they opened up into a lot of pages. And it was a reference kind. And talking about redoing that too. Because it is slightly dated. I don't think much information has changed though. You know, sugar is still sugar. And unless they come up with a cure, you know, this is what you're doing. I got a community service award for that. Very surprising, very pleased. So, you know, I got it from one of the black events. And I was presented by Jill Carter and now by Johnson and stuff like that. And she asked them, they know a lot about my timeline better than I do. Well, I am going to do an interview with them next month. Or you'll get to Vi, you'll use all your film. She knows everything. Tell us about your, I guess it's ffslinger.com.  Tell us about that. Well, I have the slings. And I think I brought them in from Amsterdam. And I wanted to have a club started here in New York. Rent one out. And there was spaces. And they wanted, you know, so much for a door thing and share it and stuff. And these slings are supposed to be portable. And they're portable if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger. And at the time we were like, what? 5756. And we carded them down and it was a real hassle. I think it was about four or five slings. And the owner of the building said he didn't want to store them. For some odd reason. Who knows why people do things. And I have a fairly large apartment. And I said, you know, we could do this here. And actually I said four slings, four, five slings here and one in the bedroom. And I had those set up and tarp on the floor and the whole thing and music and Crisco's in town. Just a regular set up because I, you know, God knows I've been around enough of them. Pencil here. And I actually got surprised too because my setup is a lot better than some setups and professionals. Well, in other places that pass. And it was like less than I learned in Cuckoo's Nest. She can't please everybody. Do it Monday. Do it Tuesday.  But we get good ideas from people. People. I had Wednesdays. I had some Fridays. I had Saturdays. I had some Sunday afternoons. And it was for people who were seriously into this thing. And the thing was that the thing, the thing was, do not come over to watch. This is not a tourist site. You either play, you either play, you have to leave. And it's not because I'm that demanding about it, but this apartment is only big enough for people who are playing. It's not big enough. It's not big enough for a meet and greet, you know, which eventually my kitchen turned into a meet and greet. But and work that around very quickly. Especially through Europe. My cases to Europe were very good. And it would catch on and drips and dribbles, you know, like people would love it and they come for three to four times and then they didn't. Yeah. And the same, they had the same beginning that Cuckoo's Nets also had. It was a guilty pleasure. It's where the partners of employed partners will come in the afternoon, use the playroom, drink and so forth, but they would keep it a secret. So nobody would know. Eventually, though, because there was no ventilation and Cuckoo's Nets at that time, the smell of the beer and the cigarettes went into your clothes. So there was no way you could keep it a secret any longer. But that's the way the fisting party started, too. Everybody liked them, but they didn't want people encroaching on their turf. And they come and they say, where's the new people? And I say, how many did you bring? Yeah. And I would do as many promotions, two for one. If you're coming up this time for $5, you can have an extra much week. Didn't work. Every once in a while they'd drop in, but anyway, even with that, it ran for 10 years. And the pandemic fell just about the right time. It was, okay, fine. This is the cutoff. And do I miss it? My partner and I are pretty much up there in years and we cannot be taking seven slings up and down every week. You have been an activist, a contest judge, a promoter, a bar owner, and of course, a very successful writer. What advice can you offer people who are new to this community? Well, pretty much what I said in the beginning, just be there. Be a part of it. It's not even that you have to actively hard participate. You do just be there just to soak up the entity, the ideas, the activism. And sometimes you'll see something that, oh, I can do that or I would like to be part of that. Or hey, that's something I can do. Sometimes you watch television and you see all these amazing people doing amazing things.  You haven't lived yet, but they have. But it doesn't mean you have to start being a king star. You haven't had three years old. Yeah. There would be wrong. But yeah, no, just be there. Like if somebody says, I need your help for something, offer a hand because everybody's got something to offer. You know? But don't offer them always sex because sex sometimes is a lot easier to get than you imagine. What are your thoughts on mentoring? Give me an idea. Well, for example, a new person coming into the community, seeking guidance from established people. How do you see working with new people in that particular way? Well, I would like to say listen, pay attention, be there. Don't talk. But that would be wrong. Because I think mentoring goes both ways. I think taking somebody into your wing, I don't know if I could do that, but I think it could a little bit, little ways. But I wouldn't want my whole imprint to be on him. I'd also want to learn something from him. Or, you know, I'm not about that. And I've always considered myself broad. I mean, when I started the parties in Cooper's, that's the fisting parties, I made them co-ed. And of course, oddly enough, there was a lot of flag. And the women didn't stay too long, but they were there. And that's what I wanted. And I put Monica behind the bar. She was the first girl behind the bar, a leather bar, and cuckoo's nest. And she was very heavy into leather, very heavy outfister. And I was kind of stunned because for Amsterdam, the city with that kind of reputation, they really half came down against her. They wouldn't even let her in their leather bars on Varmistrand. And lost a few customers because of it, but also gained a lot of new customers. Because I've always promoted, you know, it's the same thing also with the fisting thing. I had women come in. A guy used to come here often, up to the own room, and he asked me one day if he could bring his wife. And I said, is she into fisting? And he said, well, she taught me. And she was, and she's been amazing. Whenever she's here, the party rocks. I mean, she, well, German, another girlfriend of hers was German. And there was, you know, I would have liked to have made movies, but I used to take pictures at the beginning, but it drained the energy when you take the picture. So I stopped taking pictures. So I could have made movies. But I also think that is having the women there added to the extra energy. And people will come in and say, well, I don't think I can get a hard time. I say, well, first of all, it's a fisting party. You don't really need one.  There's four things in the front. And at this time, there were two things in the back. You don't have to be there. You know, but I always kind of advocated an all around thing because my experience has always been just because I'm not into it doesn't mean somebody else isn't. Yeah. And I find, I think you meet a lot of interesting people who have a lot of interesting sidelines to their kink that you didn't think about. And there may be five things of this particular kink that's pretty gross to you. But there's one thing in there that really turns you on. So, you know, live and learn. What is the biggest misconception about you? About me. It's the biggest misconception. Well, I always say is a lot of people don't see, I can see my people laughing now and rolling their eyes. Is that I'm probably more open and compassionate than they think.  And I think a lot of people are guilty of this too. But as soon as they see you, they tend to label you. And as soon as I enter the room, my reputation and so forth, and just based on, they just automatically assume, I'm on your knees, boy, type of talk. And that isn't always true. You know, as I was saying, goes, daddies need daddies too. I mean, I've got to thank you for an amazing interview today for Inside Another History, a fireside chat. Oh, thanks for some pretty good questions. Had to think about them. Come back to me, of course, when you need me to refer and find some answers. Names of places, times and dates. Things that round out can't be true.


So my beauty for people, I am back with another hour of the ring video and no guys, no the title of this video isn't clickbait, I legit have found a Dark Souls 3 weapon and also a popular weapon called the dragon slayer, great axe, it just comes under a different name, today we're getting to ooh, how's it going guys, my name is dpj, if you enjoyed the video leave a like if it helps out and if you like what you see and want to see more, be sure to subscribe, ok so I was farming away just searching for weapons I hadn't had and I came across an enemy I hadn't seen before, looking on a wikipedia as I think there's two or three across the entire map, so no surprise I haven't seen it before but I killed him, the first time I killed him I had a weapon drop, now as soon as I looked at the weapon I thought I have seen that before, upon equipping it guys I knew straight away this is an easter egg to the Dark Souls 3 weapon the dragon slayer, great axe, absolutely down to 80 in design, more so design but also that luck, now once I started using it guys I also realised it more or less has the exact same moveset too, 95% I'll explain in a second what I mean there but yeah the moveset is more or less the exact same, I'm thinking wow I looked online and I saw a post on Reddit from about two months ago, I've literally two people talking about this weapon and how it seems as though it is the dragon slayer great axe from Dark Souls 3, so the weapon itself guys is called the execution of great axe, it requires 34 in strength and 18 dexterity and it scales with both, now the only thing it's missing from the dragon slayer great axe is that weapon skill, this one has a basic standard war cry on it but you can apply an ash of war to it, now if you guys remember the dragon slayer great axe it kind of shut lightning down upon its folds, that's the only thing it's missing, well actually guys no it's not because there is an ash of war in this game which acts exactly the same as a dragon slayer great axe did and it's called the lightning slash and you'll see right there, now what we'll see is guys this is a ascaling strength weapon which is pretty cool too, but that ain't what this video is about, so if I put this on you'll see guys this is that dragon slayer great axe, it's just it's just a weapon, I don't think anyone's gonna argue with this, utterly crazy, okay so where did you get this thing from, I probably shouldn't start the video with this and I apologize about that but the weapon like I said looking on a Wikipedia it comes from a couple of spots, so yeah this is the first grace point you'll come across upon defeating Margie and then guard you the grafted, I may have got them mixed up, I may have said them the wrong way around but you know what I mean it's been ages since I fought them guys literally at the start of the game but yeah the first grace point you'll come to is the lake facing cliffs which is that grace point right here and from here guys you just want to go to the top of this hill, now there's three skeletons at the top of this hill, two of them are hanging from a tree and one of them spawns out of the floor, the one that spawns out the floor is the dude that drops this axe, now I got it straight away like I said I'm not sure if it's a guaranteed drop when you're killing him the first time, if it isn't and you do have to farm it use what you can in regards to silver tier mask, silver scarab to help boost that discovery and do what you gotta do guys and as you can see there's two skeletons hanging that tree there, they will fall down and the guy spawns here, simply as just taking them out, now the dude hit kind of hard even on my high shell level, still kind of hit hard am I gonna lie, love the get as well guys, skeletons have that second life, that revive mechanism which is a pain in the ass, I'm pretty sure holy weapons eliminate that, also I read somewhere but yeah like I said that guy there is the one that spawns out the ground is the guy that drops this weapon, if you don't get it first try guys just simply go back to the grace and rinse and repeat the farm, now the ash of war, the lightning slash, ash of war comes from up in the capital right there, so any grace point around this area guys you can see where I'm at, any grace point around this area I'll just go to this one, okay so from this grace point guys you want to head up through that door right there, I said door massive opening, that actually surprised me like I said how people put two and two together and applied this ash of war to this weapon, hey is what it is, I have you covered, okay so this second because there's a camp here which isn't the one and it's a camp right here guys, this is the camp you want to come to the ash of war will be obviously a scarab beetle pushing along the giant poop, it's literally right about there it's in the middle of this spot you won't miss it guys, just chase him down and chop him up it really is that simple guys and that is how you get the ash of war, this is how you get these amazing weapon, the executioners great axe which is 100% homage to the dragon slayer great axe from Dark Souls 3, guys if you enjoyed the video leaving a like really helps out, if you like what you see want to see more out on ring be sure to subscribe and hopefully might be beautiful people I will see you on that next one