The only moment that matters is now. Outie feeling different, 2016 new to me, that's how I'm livin'.  Wake up, bro, I'm livin', yell and fluster by existence. Anybody listenin', are we free, are we trapped? Is there somethin' that I'm missin' damn? Give me a sign, one of a kind, starting to think I'm divine. Signin' my copy, but what can I say, I'm a guy that's part of my life. Drop a few bars just to start the show, spittin' Mentos in the coat, no cat.   That's wind, bro, that's gas, that's air, that's now, that's oxygen, I'm spittin' heat. Florida bars, get it? What's happening, what's good? Is this a dunk tutorial? Where am I? What the fudge is happening right now? Where am I? For real. Ooh, we're here with podcasts. I get to talk about what I want first, because this is my show. This is what I wanna do. You can skip ahead to tutorial, but you're gonna be out of the loop. I didn't mean to rhyme there, but you're out of the loop. When I'm famous, you won't get any of my jokes, bro. I say it like so certainly, but here's the thing. I love entertaining, it's what I am, it's who I breathe, huh? That's who I am, and you need an audience. I have to be famous to be an entertainer. It's like, what are you, a trainer, and you have no clients, right?  If you don't have no sales, you're not a business.  What are you?   So you're not teaching it though, so you're not a teacher.  Hence, furthermore, in addition to and as well as, I'm an entertainer. I'm famous, okay? Mentals in a Coke. I'm gonna blow up, okay? Put them in. I spit that.   No cap. Good. Welcome to the show. We're gonna get right into it.  You'll understand by the end of this. It'll be a lot of energy. It'll be like a whirlwind. We're gonna get through it. I'm gonna try to stay coherent. I have some good points, but you'll definitely get some valuable information. If you're listening, it's a lot of tips. You'll see from the video, but I'll describe it. You'll definitely get a lot of value out of this. What I want to talk about is first, I watched that show yesterday. I think you should leave on Netflix by Tim Robinson. I believe hilarious sketch comedy, absurd. Just like takes things to the extreme. You gotta be in the right mood for it. You gotta watch it with your boys. It's a lot better when you watch it with people that like the same stuff. It's so funny. Hilarious. And I actually, this is what I like about the podcast. I like to share other entertainment that I like. I learned about it from the Your Mom's House podcast with Tom Sikura and Christina Pajitski. And they had Anthony Jesuelnik on, who was a comedian that I love as well. And what I loved about, he mentioned the show, but what I love about Anthony is that he was explaining his stand-up routine, how he wants to make it the best it could possibly be. And he wants to be one of the greatest. And I love learning about people trying to master their craft and how much goes into it. And that's just what I love about podcasting and what I love about the entertainment things. And just what I love about life is people going hard. I'm all about maxing out everything. So that was a perfect example of where I learned about a comedian. I love his comedy already. I think it's incredible. And then to hear his work ethic and how hard he's pushing himself is inspiring. And then I learned about this great show and watched that show. It was so funny. And so I also recommend it. So go watch that. It was great. I love comedy a lot. Okay. So now I'm famous.  And let's just get into it. I got to let my video program load up.   Hopefully we make this efficient. I do think this is very valuable. And I do think you will learn a lot. So here we shall go. Here it is. Okay. So there's factors in jumping that I'm good at doing off the lob that I'm not good at doing off the dribble.   It's just weight in your hand and you don't have as much arm swing. It just makes sense physically. Me, I'm very drastic. I have a very big drop off from my dribble dunk. So I'm trying to raise it up and it's actually getting a lot better. But I'm going to get through all the things I'm doing wrong. And all the things I'm doing right. And I think by the end of it, you'll see why there's such a big disparity. So here's a first, a dribble dunk, 10 feet pretty easily. And what I want to point out here is that it was kind of in the warm-ups. It's a 10 foot rim. I dunked it pretty easily. And my form and footwork and technique is really good. It breaks down when I try to add speed because and that's the style of jumper I am. I'm very fast.  So if you look here, off a self bounce, I even get the two hands, which is my worst dribble dunk, which I'll get into. The thing is with the slow approach like that, I plant correctly, I go straight up and I can, I have a lot of bounce now or a good amount. So like going slow and going into the approach like that, I do it correctly. Now this is why I'm good at off the lob. Here we go into it. So that was good form. You can see I'm jumping very easily and I get up with good form. I didn't dribble dunk the second one, but it just points out I can do two hands with low effort and I'll get into why I can't off speed. So now beautiful backboard dunk. Yeah. Oh, let's go. Okay. So now if you look here. Okay. So what happens here is I come into it really fast. My penultimate is really big. And now the backboard dunk is a great indicator of what all the things I do right are in a lob dunk. So with the backboard, I'm coming into it with a lot of speed, right? The ball is already up on the glass and I have to go get it.  And then that's really good positioning. That's how you want to position your body. Then the ball is coming off the rim and I have to go get it quick. So it makes me plant my penultimate and my takeoff. It makes me load and explode, load and explode super quick and go get the ball. And then because the ball is coming behind me as I'll get onto into in my other lobs, it makes me open up really fast. Okay. So that makes me go straight up with it and then I am it. Okay. So I use that speed correctly. I plant quickly. I go upright and that's because I have the cue of the ball coming off the backboard. Okay. So this was actually one of my best sessions ever. Probably my number one session, meaning without the dribble in my technique and it was pretty recently. It was on 10 feet and here's two dribble dunks. I'm going to show you side by side. And by the end of it, you'll see the difference. So in this session actually has some of my best dribble attempts and dribble dunks ever on 10 feet. So here's one. Okay. The good one, the good points here, super aggressive. I came in really fast. I took off fast and I attacked the rim. Now that I did some negatives, but here I'll tell you even better one here. Okay. So now you might be able to see the difference just from those first clips, but the difference are is that I'll show you side by side right now is that the second one, the one I just showed you, I came in fast and I was able to pop a little better. If you notice, I went a little more straight up. Both were really aggressive. Both were back rim misses, but one was a little bit different and one was a way better form. So here's the side by side and I'll explain. Okay. So I take off. You can already see in the one that's bad on the left that my foot is turning outwards, which is an indicator that I kind of past my plant. Like I put my foot down. I don't know if it's the block foot or not. I don't use that term incorrectly, but my first foot, the plant foot is already past it. Now look because of that and because I'm not, I'm not trying to go up with it. My torso in the left one is a little bit leaning and my one in the right one is, is in line. Like my head from my spine all the way down looks almost completely straight, which is what you want because you're maximizing your vertical. You're trying to go upwards with it. So in the, in the good one, it looks like I used my momentum correctly and went up with the dunk. They both look about the same height at the peak, but the difference is maybe a fraction of an inch to an inch. It's hard to tell from this video, but even if it's a half an inch and that's one factor that I took off straight instead of forwards, that's a half an inch. So other factors like speed with the ball in my hand, that's going to be another half an inch. The point is it adds up to a lot of inches. Okay. So what I want to focus on right here is that another thing about these dribble dunks is that what I did right with the, with the good one is I opened up and it went up with it, right? And I also had the right amount of speed coming into it. The first one might have been too fast even, you know?  Now, one thing, one way I learned about this, let me show you more about the cues.  Okay, there's one, Jesus Christ.  And Jesus, St. Mary and Josephine. Okay, I dunk those hard as hell. It's a baby rim, but let me just show you this one because it's one of my favorite dunks of all time. Watch how fast I come into it. Now we're getting into the positives of what I do and I'll combine them both in the end. The positives and the negatives of why the disparity. This is what I do really well off a lob. I come in faster than a lightning bolt that comes straight from a rocket ship that Elon must put into orbit yesteryear. Okay. One more time. Super fast. Now look at the footwork. My penultimate is the size of the, of the equator. It's literally wraps around the whole world. It's so long. I plant and I plant my feet so quick. They're straight and solid and I'm already going up. Look how upright I am before I take off. I'm just almost in the vertical. Okay. Now the reason for that is because the ball is behind me so I don't even have time to go forward. I have to stop and go get it. And I also have to reach behind me, which makes me open up. That's why the lob is so good for me. I can use my speed. I use a crazy amount of arm swing. And I go for that ball. And I absolutely. Let's go. Okay. So that's all the things I do right now. When the, that cue is really important to know. So that when I go off the dribble, I have to think to open up. That's a really big part for me. Even on the vertex at dunk camp, I didn't jump my best. When I was looking afterwards, I kept passing my plant. Even though I was looking at the thing, I wasn't staying tall enough because I was looking at the vertex. And even though I was looking up and focusing on looking up, I was still looking a little bit forwards up. When the ball is behind me, I'm like opening up. So I have to think look up, but also like go up with it. Cause I was like reaching for the vertex, you know? So all those little things add up to lower and lower jumps. But here's, here's a good example of when I was actually, here's a cue that told me to go crazy off the dribble. This is one at the time. This is my best dribble dribble dunk of all time. And not even because it was over a defender, that's six, seven. It was, it was literally my best attempt, best completed dribble dunk because of the cue. Before this, I never tried to really dunk on somebody, but just take a look and then I'll explain. He is six, seven and I dunked over him. Yep. I know no body, but Jesus Christ. He literally went for it. He's got no hops. He has no bounce, but still he really went for it. He really thought he could block me and I went over him. Like I went, he reached for it in my hand when it was crazy. Okay. So now what did I do right? So because he was coming at me, I got a cue that I normally get off the lob or similar cues that make me stay upright. He's coming at me. I have to plant quickly. I have to get up. Right. I'm thinking about going over. I'm like, oh, I'm kind of like almost like reaching so he can't reach my ball. Right. So if you look, I plant and I go immediately like this. And I do do that in the other ones, but my mindset is going at the rim forwards, but with the ball in my hand trying to go over him, like, oh, I'm trying to go up as high as I can. And I had the right cue. So I take off really well. And that's it. And that's something I have to think about and something I can learn from a defender coming at me. I plant quicker because he's coming at me. I don't have time to like just think and load up. Cause when I'm, when there's no defender, all I'm thinking is take off and try to attack the rim, but I really have to think about jumping and going up.  I didn't know it. It wasn't just like a one time thing. And I learned it. I had to over time realize the difference. And so on top of that, because I was doing it improperly, I was building bad patterns into my dribble dunks. That's why it took so long to overcome it. Cause not only did I not know it, but I was also repeating bad behavior patterns off the dribble. Okay. So now the windmill. Another thing I learned from the windmill dunk, we know off the dribble 10 feet. Let's go. What I learned is that I'm super aggressive with it. So when I go for a windmill and I'm taking off at the rim, I jump really aggressive and I never really think about that.  But when I'm going for like a two hand drunk, I don't have that same aggression cause I'm just trying to reach. I don't have that same aggression that I want to punch it. So it's just that mentality came into my head from learning how to dribble windmill or attempting dribble windmills. I'm like, Oh, I'm jumping more aggressive. I can jump more aggressive off the dribble. And then what's next? Here's just another dribble attempt. And even though I made it, it wasn't the best, but you can see I can make it pretty good form. Maybe not the most up, but I was able to make it and dunk it pretty well. A little bit of extension. Pretty good. And now what I learned recently, this was just last week. I didn't really learn anything, but this is all of it coming together and you can see progress. Okay. Baby rim nine nine, but the point is I went through it. I'm not even using that much speed. So I had to slow it down because I need to focus on my footwork first, but my foot's not the best, but I did go pretty much straight up. Right. I got some good pop. Usually I don't even get my, get through my motion. I usually lose like through my weird plant. I kind of lose some of my juice. And I went up with it, felt like a good pop, felt like a good explosion in my arm swing. The Tomahawk helps with my arm swing and I dunked it correctly. When I watched my other attempts, if you go back to that session, some of them I even talk about, I jumped forward because I'm attacking the rim, but I really need to jump up first. So you could see it coming together here. I'm going super slow. And now going forward, what I'm going to do is practice slowly. So what I did this day is just do a basic two-hand dribble dunk where I just kind of walk up, get my form good, feel that pop cause I want to ingrain that in my brain to feel that pop at the final parts of my approach. And then I'll start adding steps and start adding speed so that way I can build up a full approach with correct patterns. And that's the difference. And let's watch this easy amp one more time. Okay. I just want to watch this one more time. Ready? One.  And three. Yeah, da, da, da, da. Okay. So that is the end of the tutorial. I hope you learned something. If you have any questions, please leave them below. The other thing I wanted to say is that yesterday I talked about the center of mass. When you have the ball in your hand, you don't get to use that center of mass trick. You don't get to do that. So with two hands, it was very, it's very difficult for me to get that pump. That's why the windmill also helps me too to dunk it off the dribble because I'm getting that little pump. You could check yesterday's video for what I'm talking about. But all those factors in conclusion, the factors of the speed I come in with, without the ball in my hands, I can run full speed. The ball in my hands weighs me down literally. I don't get the arm swing. I don't get the center of mass rotation of like a windmill or one handed. I don't get to lean with one hand what else is there? And I just take off correctly and fast because of the cue of the ball. So all those factors play into my dribble dunks being poor. And then on top of it, the mental patterns and being not as aggressive and also teaching myself wrong things like taking off too close, taking off forwards instead of up, all those different things. I ingrained bad patterns that I had to unlearn first and learn about first. I had to even understand them before I could unlearn them. So it took a long time, but there's a lot of progress. And that's actually feels therapeutic.    All right. So now on this day in history, I'm going to wrap this up. Thank you guys for listening. Thanks for everything. There's nothing that good today. I already looked it over, but I wanted to say this 1971 Bobby Orr signs a five year contract with the Boston Bruins. Hell yeah. First million dollar contract. We making money. Famous. I'm going to make the first. I'm going to make the first million dollars as a dunk, as a dunk fly for. What does that mean? Don't play for the day from the last podcast. Bro, you got so much weirder on your channel. Oh my God, says Dylan Shepherd. Bro, you got so much weirder. Listen, it's not about becoming weirder. It's about chipping away the veil of normalcy. Okay. This is who I am. This is the real me. So if you're staying into my podcast, this is me, bro. If you want to see the vlog, that's all business, baby. We're on the court. By the way, I'm dunking today.  That's it. Be your full self. Chip away.  You know that analogy. Look it up. I didn't make it up. He saw the marble and he chipped away everything that wasn't David, the statue. That's what I'm doing. I'm chipping away. Enjoy your day. Keep the rhymes coming and I'll keep them coming all day.  What else can I say besides? Toot-a-loo. Thoughts got my top changing office. Skydy Pickman. No fucks giving. Wake up, bro. Yo, I'm flustered by existence. Anybody listening? Are we free? Are we trapped? Is there something that I'm making damn? Give me a sign.


Watching two videos in this segment. The first one, I believe, Adelheid is the urban safari project. That's about 25 minutes. And then the second one, the crossing, the sleeping with the, going into the theaters, the state theaters and bringing people with them. Adelheid is here. She's not formally, formally doing a presentation, but in between the two videos, if you have questions that you want, some clarification, then she can answer your questions. So enjoy. And it's great what you have to ask her, when the nuns talk, or when you make a research on us. And for me, for us, a very strange thing is that, for example, people in Holland never go there, are a bit afraid to go there, they live with the idea that it's always dark there.  So we have eight adoptives, eight actors. And it starts with what I told you that, so it's a registration. It's not really a movie or something. But we try to give an impression. And this is what you see is what the actors do every day. They call the public, what I told you, well, and the rest. Thank you so much. Where have you been? I was born in October. And then I was born here, in the early 20s. It's an apartment complex, but only Chinese. And these parents are 50 years old. It's been a year at home, so there's a lot to worry about. Routo. Routo. Ruren. What was that? Ruren is very clever. You are happy to be with children. All in university today. All in the three days. Ruren was a very young kid. We're going to see him, he's going to be with us. We'll talk about that. As you've said, I'm very happy. You have to do everything else for this year. You have to be home, study, The children spoke to each other in a different language. I spoke to a friend of mine who spoke to me in a different language. The letters I wrote to each other were written by the North.  And I wrote back, I do good things, I give you no shame. We lived together for 17 years. We lived up and down. What happened? Sinister then jizzle. In castle is tension. For so many years, in Nürburgring, you come here to the Beelder and then you come here to the school for example of integration. Those are very big words, but I know it is very important. And that you, following the image I had of Chinese, that you introduced it, that you also have a heart for me. We can stand each other, like in the movie, but I just have to calm down that you are playing in the Netherlands, on your side. And I speak Chinese, that's what they say.  And that's why I want to speak together. And I'm not going to speak to you, but I want to speak to you. I want to speak to you. I don't want to speak to you. That's why I want to speak to you. That's what it is. Let's go, let's go to the world. We're going with a line to see each other in the mirror. And we're going with the drama of the world. Shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers. What's this? Shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers, shers. I think it's become a trend because people have come and they keep coming. That's the last thing you can do. That's the writer, the writer is for one euro, all of his work, a great success. We're standing here in the heart of the Berlin Museum. The park is actually surrounded by the royal architects. People who were allowed to go out they didn't have to play a lot. The connoisseurs, well, they were also included in the museum. And Marjan Markelo, that's a winter priestess, who knows, I'm not going to see her. New life in Belausica. Can I sit here? Can I sit here? The only thing on our front row is when the water stimulates our spirit and our image. Can you answer the question where do you feel like you're becoming a priestess? Who is that person who stands against you? I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priestess. I'm a priest. I'm a priestess. I'm a priest. I'm givenかな?  I'm just a priestess. Okay, I got some scare! I'm going to cross to you the next week. We're going to get the� further. We're going in with Louvain. We're going to Valub tallest Oh my mother, he doesn't want me to serve him, he doesn't want me to cook for him.  Well, think so later. At cost. Oh, they're all smart. What is all this? They never know what's never how, all this. They never know what they're doing. That's a 26-year-old spirit you need to know. One child then? How do you not have to work with a poor dog?  It's very difficult to hear that you have a good life here. So don't test that opportunity. Until all week. Don't you want to pass you? No, I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. I don't want to pass you. As a child, you don't know what to do. There is no one to save you.  You must swipe, they'll hold you. And they say, I can't hear if I don't understand. Do you want to ask them if they can find something they don't know? I think it's very nice, but I don't understand. I don't want to pass you. Sometimes I'm dressed like a Muslim, but I'm a Christian. You see the gentleman there? This is my European world. Yes, I'm dressed like a woman at the ABL Amur. I'm a woman, but I'm not a Christian. There is a free reception. Then you have to go on Instagram. And I come out of the stadium, and then I have the same group of people who are here. And I see a lot of people. My baby is not so fat. In this case, he is four years old. The other one is also with me. On the other side of the table, there are one and two heads. They are the wrong ones, and the upper ones are the upper ones. I saw him first at the school center in Maghreb. I got him to eat, and then he was in his post. Then he was in his program. He was very beautiful. He was beautiful. You could also see him sitting over there, in a bit of a peek. Yes. He was very beautiful. The man is always very beautiful. So when especially said, I come home again here, there is a lot of beauty here in the house. is so erotic and that you can tell if someone with a handkerchief has a feeling that they are fascinated and actually that's what happens with an actual person. Older people don't lose. I want to do it and do it. Is there any joy in being around you? I mean, no, and no again. So the one I'm looking forward to is a woman who will multi-check with me every Saturday. She'd get the better of me. For a face-to-face, I get mad. And this time, I forget the woman I'm talking to in two months. That's difficult. I think I've been doing this for a long time. I think I've been doing this for a long time. I think I've been doing this for a long time. I think I've been doing this for a long time. On the edge of the pole there is the first complex on the right of a satellite station for 110,000 inhabitants. I can't explain why it is so difficult to make it open. Here at the Breedersrohr, I have lived the last two months. The first two weeks, the colors, were on 1 and 2, because it was full stop. Here, on the Belmerwurst, there is the plethora of people, the homologues, who come in and pose their hands, cry in the crowd, look for their way. But is there a plethora? And on the back of the plethora, there is a plethora, a plethora of people who have just passed away. Cultures, which were built between the 80s and the 130s. It is a collective task, to create a society, that at some point, there should be something, something or something smaller. That is the question. There is no one to say that it is a plethora, but it is a reality. Of course, you don't want it to be a plethora. I think that it is a plethora of people who are in the middle of the world, and people who have been living in the middle of the world, And we are not so sad about it. But we are not so sad about it. We are sad about it. We are sad about it. And how can you tell me that? How? I have no idea. I have no idea. I am afraid of the sad moment. I am afraid of the sad moment. But do you have a story to tell us? You have a story, right? The system in the office, the management workers. I will put it on for the audience. Rant in the power of men. Because if they keep the system in the office, they will be able to interact with each other. They have a different story. Only people who love them, who have the power to do that. They are not as bad as the people who work here. Hotel. And I am 68 years old. I feel like, who are you here? To a spirit. Hey baby, what was that? Make that time, take that time, spend that time in that YouTube time, or at school that time. Is that your time or my time? From who is time? Or is it time, late, that your time can get better? No, it's full stretch, healthy. Blow the sister! Jump on the brush! I don't care, I don't care. And this is what I'm talking about. Good man. You begin with the community. I explain to the community. To all the people, or without the care of these people. Because you have to be brave for your day. I look at you and my blood, you have it.  No wounds, no bleeding, no bruises, no bruises, no bruises. No scars, no bruises, no blood, no bruises. He is free. You are free. I don't care what you're doing. Sorry. I think that they want to go home. You have to understand.   You have to be. I chose the perfect one for you to come home. I'm not like my baby sister. And not sensitive. No, I can't do it. I can't do it. Two years. I don't care about the little girl. No, Kroelend, Kussend, Kroelend, you are free. Three or four smells. It can go bad after the rent someone says. No. You are free. Kroelend, Kussend, Kroelend, you need to take him out. No, you are free. Kroelend, Kussend, Kroelend, do you want him. I don't care. I'm taking to the last one, only once – you have to go and take care of him. No problem. It's a beautiful, trochę good job. Oh, then, catch up. I can't see anything else. He's scaring me. He's stealing my hair back to his house. You know what I mean? I'm deaf. I don't know, I think you're deaf. Because you're in the system. What if you're deaf? What is the problem? I'm deaf here. Man, there's something wrong with this. I'm sitting in the middle of a car. I'm walking out of my house. I can't see anything else. I don't know. I don't know. What's the problem? I'm not deaf. I'm not deaf. I can't see anything else. I don't know. I'm afraid I'm deaf. I'm in a bad mood. I don't know. I'm in a bad mood. I don't know what's wrong with this. I can't see anything else. I don't know. I have a lab. I'm in the house. I don't know anything else. I'm in the room. There's nothing wrong with the instruments. I don't know. Mario is in the hood. He's in the hall. We are in the Awesome Ball tree. Since December been here. We were friends, right? America, Europe, Africa, I don't know where they are. And also I see for the time being, I'm in shock.  So you're crossing the Sahara? Well, I think we are people. So you are crossing the Mediterranean Sea? No, no, it's a plastic boat. Plastic boat? How many people? Some of the people. Some of the people. Some of the people. It's like a chain of smugglers. You had to have a chain. Was it at fault? Very small. I mean, I don't understand what you're saying. Basically, I go out and go to the beach. How long did you do that? Then I didn't do anything. Taylor, I went to the beach. I was walking in there for 15 days. I was there an afternoon. Winter has been nine months. I've been walking back to winter has been one year. I gave it to you. So how many people are doing it? How many children do you have? Half a certain children. They are with their mother. When the military court caught me, they beat her, and then she gave her a problem. Four, six years she died. Do you have anything to fall in love again? No, of course. It was very bad for me. Look, in my room, three by three, my most important job is to see my mother for once before she dies. To speak to her, to put her in a good mood. Then we go to the court, and we go to the court. And we go to the court. I don't want to make a problem. You were in the court, so who gave you the green light? Who gave the green light? I gave it to him. And if I didn't give it to him, I would want to get a new light. I want a new light. I want to get a new light. I want to get a new light. So under the Nationalist Party, the Palestinian refugee camps are either not visible. You have four, two children, one in a house and one in a house.  Yes, you did. One day I woke up in the morning and I was like, I called her and I told her mom, I have a secret that I've been hiding for the last 17 years. I think she already knows, some of the dates I've told her. Yeah, I know that, but you know, I wanted to grab that chance where I can't see her in front of me. She held her hand and told her that, look at her in the eyes and tell her that she deserved that. I deserve to be closer. I always imagined that my mother that I would sing that traditional song where every Palestinian mother would sing that song for her son when he wants to get engaged. But I never get married. I'm the beautiful son of God. I'm the version of you. I don't want to be beautifully married to her now. Let's say that you have the chance to get engaged. I will tell her that if I could explain myself what I really want to get engaged with her, I would accept the opportunity to get engaged with them. Okay mom, I would love you to later. The first time I see you there, I don't feel comfortable at all. Because I don't feel comfortable at all. And what's going on, ladies and gentlemen? Did you know that we had a boy and a girl? We were... We were in a relationship. When it comes to this, you're not going to get married. Yes. So as a brother, you're going to have a marriage. You're just going to take your place, right? What does that mean? Well, later. The only woman I've ever heard from in my life... I think it's cool. With your girlfriend, you're going to have your brother and your brother in for four weeks. After one and a half weeks, I finally realized that I had arrived safely. Stop. Don't come again. Stop. After that, I had to go to the church for two days. I had to go to the church. And the world started. I was eleven. I was like, hey, come in. Come in. We had a conversation. And that voice, that voice was only fifteen. The world... Well, we went into it, as they say. You remember your relationship with your girlfriend? Yes, with my girlfriend. Your girlfriend was here? Correct. Then we promised, we won't go in. Unless we look further away. I don't know if that's what I was supposed to say. I don't know. I don't think you know. No. Is that right? So you're very kind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what you're doing in school, you say, do I have to do something about it? And then you go back to school, and you say, do I have to do something about it? Yeah, I have to do something about it. Yeah, I have to do something about it. I think we'll be able to do this. We'll be able to do something about it. I've seen you in a junior school. The boys and girls. You were there the whole time. Hello. I just wanted to know if this performance was going for the entire day. And people went all to the same to the various locations within one performance. It's on. It's on. So did the various little encounters, did they all happen within one day? Yeah. How long did it take? Four and a half hours. Wow. Which kind of people did you get to see this performance? Because I feel like the people who see it probably are people who are already educated in that sort of cultural exchange, and the people who should be seeing it. And who are the public who should be seeing it? People wouldn't dare going there, probably. Who wouldn't even buy tickets for this. I don't know. I'm so curious what kind of people did see this kind of performance? Or what kind of outreach you did to promote this performance? Well, the thing is actually that we open it up for a large amount of people who live in the neighborhood itself. But always when I get this question, always when I get this question, I come up with the question from the perspective.  So I like actually when there is a lot of people coming from the center who buy the tickets because they have the judgmental it was even with myself. Then when Shaheen who made the music he was explaining I said, oh no, please, not this. Oh no, I hate this. Oh no, man. Oh no, not that. And that are, for example, all kind of discussions or not even discussion, but talks we get into. I think like, okay, but what is actually what is the meaning? Okay, where do you get it from? So it's, you know, you are composing in a completely different way a work because you think like, oh yeah, that's maybe also, yeah.  But for them it's the most natural thing to do you know every day when they, when the mother puts the music on before dinner time. And I think why do I want to take that away? So the thing is we open up the general rehearsals that are five days because we need long general rehearsals because we have to time it completely exactly and of course when, well we, there was not so much in it of the real scenes because that is for the registration, yeah, then you have to make a film of four hours, so you, but this is more like where you go and how you go and you go from one location to the other. But that week is without a ticket is open for the whole community. So they have five days with all of them and families come, neighbors come, da, da, da, da, da, da. And then after that we start with the tickets. But for me it's always very important or the switch, the, you know, the the movement I make is I make the, for example the urban safaris in the neighborhood and then actually I like the people from the public from out of the center of the town come to the neighborhoods because I made it actually for them together. And when I make something at Tuneilgrub for example in the main hall theater then I get all the public from the neighborhoods and bring them to the center. Now, well when I leave out the the search for the money don't leave it out don't leave it out. So, artistically spoken it's a year so one year before May or June of a year I make the the project then I look for the co-productions then I start doing the research and I start to cast the actors. And because already in March we start the adoption period and then the writing and then the rehearsals for six weeks so then May, June you play so then I start one literally one year before and with funding two years. Oh, I forgot your name. Sorry? Helen, yeah Helen. I was talking to Helen outside and I said I have to knock it on wood is a Dutch expression but it never happened. So only what I told this afternoon for example that the husband of Fatma died and that his wish was to be buried in Turkey so she had to leave for a week and then Nasmir took over the whole scene and for example Alec he was a Kurdish man and he was by the judge for ordeals court ordered for leaving his house because of domestic violence so then but the actors could stay in his house and then we shoot him on film so and then the scene in his house was like 40 minutes and we took 5 minutes extra for the first location outside and then we walked to the area where the judge allowed him to be and there we met the public met him in the park so there were situations like that for example but nobody ever stepped out.  I understand I never wear helmet on my bicycle but in Germany it wouldn't be allowed in America I gather also not it's not important I just wanted to know if this is legal are you afraid of people falling off the back of the motorcycle I think it's we have of course I did a research on this I did a research on every detail every detail but I forgot the number of kilometers but you without a helmet is allowed I think to 28 or 25 oh thank you kilometers in an hour and then I don't have to use the helmet because I hate it and you're so locked in and I like oh man it's gorgeous I do the well actually I choose I choose or actually I don't choose so we do the research and in the dialogues with the people it will sort itself out yeah but that's what I call the research what is the research oh I didn't understand oh sorry we do literally ringing bells we go to houses we are with a group of in the beginning with eight members of our group sometimes even the people of our office go with us and then we write the addresses and contact in a word document and then after a month the real our real research group that's four people start and they work for month and they go door by door by door and they go to community houses to churches community house yeah the city hall has little the local community board yeah yeah right the local community board and we go to supermarkets and you go to weddings you go to funerals where you are allowed to come we go from one to the other and we all make notes in the word document with the contacts and then sometimes they have we organize short meetings or receptions or how do you say drinks somewhere in the neighborhood so we open the doors say like we are sitting here and here we have snacks and drinks and then people can come for talks and information and then the next day we go ringing the bells ringing the bells from one to the other and then you find people and actually I never have to say no because I try to find always on a yes to say to everybody who wants to participate a yes because the strange thing is when you put energy in the no you are so busy with nothing and when you say yes to everybody then in the periods of five months then people come to you and say like oh we are moving you know oh my mother is coming to live with me because she is a bit ill I am so sorry I will make the cakes afterwards but I cannot join it but I will be there when the show is over at six o'clock and da da da da and of course for the adoption houses that is that we really of course make a list like that is a possibility but I say to everybody who wants to be an adoptive house I say yes I do no check so for example the man who had to go to court and I didn't know I also worked two times with criminals I didn't know and actually I like that very much oh wow you are a criminal oh how special wow what a life what did you do man oh no ok so now you are going to adopt us you know and that is actually it opens up a different relation or you know a channel for so maybe now we should go to the next clip tell us a little bit what that is that is the opposite that is why I took these two and the opposite is take the people from the neighborhoods to the center and then really in Amsterdam to the main whole theater with tunnel of Amsterdam is really the group and the building and that were 100 people that was actually for me kind of angry but also I think for me it was a kind of glance to knock on the door of huge theater buildings and the theater buildings in our country are paid by the governments so it was a knock on their door like you have to open up for people even if they have no money but everybody should go to theater if they like to go or could go to theater you say maybe could go I slept for a month with 100 people out of the areas of Amsterdam and Utrecht and Eindhoven Rotterdam and wherever we played so you had a professional group Danton's death it was directed by Johan Simons who was then part of tunnel of Amsterdam and we broke into that building broke into that piece went ate our soup because Jan Verswijfeld who is the partner of Eva van Hove made the scenography so I was in touch with him about he said like okay then I make a little kitchen in that decor so you can have your soup with your 100 and then in the end we came back and we did we took out our clothes and put on our pajamas and then I asked when it was all finished I asked the director of the the chairman of the theater to read our bedtime story and then we slept and then the next morning we had a breakfast and that was really what I I forced them the theater to prepare a breakfast for 100 with their total staff and then I gave every theater a list with the 100 names of people who live in their suburbs who have no money to go to theater who have never been to theater a list of 100 names, 100 telephone numbers, 100 email addresses it's all also all the work we did to only say I knock on your door and this is your start and here you have 100 names with all the contact information and now you have to open that building so that was the message behind this you don't know where to put your name on the wall 20, 90 guys, and this is self-made hard or it's not 20, 30, 30 30 if you like to be on the roof to keep your breath I would be able to write very sad verses for example the night is in a sharp fall and far away we hold the star you have to be able to stand standing and say that you have to stay on the roof and every time you have to stay on the roof I think that what happened between me and Tussi is that what made me really angry she is very special to me I saw in the first time that she has a very good tonality she does something a very good actor she doesn't put anything she doesn't do anything she just looks at me and I like to create a ton and it why don't we come here of course you know so much about your superiority because you know you are playing and you have the superiority to be able to be as good as you do always people the advantage they have because they can But most of the time, I can't do anything about it, because I just see all my life standing there. I ask all the people there, if something happens to me, we are going to do something about it. It is applied. It is very important for me to make a home in my little room in my little room. There is nothing in my room except that I really want to do something. And I think that all these people can walk through and have to be able to walk, to be able to find a building where you can make your own space, what is your own place. And maybe you just want to show your children, look at this, it's in the toilet. And I think it's so hot, or even better, or if you have money, then you can walk through three floors. But I believe that we all from the theater, for example, may not be too big for ourselves, but we can do that. But really forget that a lot of people in the theater want to be there, and then theorize that we should do something about it. But I don't really see where we are going to leave ourselves. And that's where I think it's important. I believe that this building and you, and also our children, must be thankful that we did it. Thank you.


of Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host of the chats along with Mistress Joanne Gatti, executive producer. Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat is a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. And our guest on the chats today is Fraser Lee. Fraser is the president of Leatherman Scotland. Yes. All right. As we were just beginning this, you started talking a little bit about the backdrops. Would you speak a little bit to that, please? Well, the flag I've got behind me, I thought a couple of weeks ago, I thought I need to have something more suitable as a backdrop. So I had to look online and we haven't done many in-person events before all the lockdown happened. So we didn't have things like flags and all that at the time. So I ordered this from Canada and it arrived about three hours ago. Oh my gosh. It is actually supposed to be, well, it is double-sided, but it's supposed to have the other logo, the Gallant version of the logo on the other side. And it doesn't, it has the English one, but it's fine, we will use it. Well, tell us a little bit about where you're from, a little bit about your background and family. I grew up in a kind of 70s, 60s, 70s housing estate on the very edge of the city, outside the city, in a village which had become part of the town of Clydebank. Clydebank was a shipping town that was almost completely destroyed during World War II. Oh. The Luftwaffe missed the shipyards entirely and completely destroyed the town. Oh. It was kind of town life rather than city life because we were kind of on the edge of things and family were close by, they were on the west side of the city, so it was kind of, you had the country on one side and the city on the other. My dad's family originally were from the very far north of Scotland in Caithness. I traced my mail line back to 1560, where I can't go any further because there's two names the same and there's no way to tell the difference between who's who. But yeah, Caithness through and through, they had come to Glasgow and my great-grandfather moved the family down because they had to work, they had to, they were fishing and farming what crofting communities really would call them, but they were also carpenters, joiners and so it came to Glasgow to get work and have been here ever since. You depicted coming from a housing estate sort of on the edge of the countryside there. How? Yeah, it was kind of a traditional, we have a long history in the UK in Scotland of council housing where local authorities would own housing and that's all changed now. It's all going into housing association ownership but this was like one of the large building companies that would have built a private estate and they've dotted all over central Scotland every large town's got them.  I think that nickname still sticks in most areas as well and certainly with other friends I knew later that their estates were confiscating. Oh, that's funny. Wow. How did you come to know anything about homosexuality growing up in that environment? It was very sheltered environment. It was a very, very normal environment. My dad's mum and dad were very well-to-do and very well-spoken and my mum's mum and dad were more down to earth and working class and my mum's dad had become a born-again Christian at some point, although it's something that largely passed me by because it wasn't forced on to us. It was just there in the background and my memories of that were the excitement of going to Candlemas Christmas in New Year just because you got to light a candle and sing. That was my only memories of it really. But yeah, it was a totally normal life. We would go as a family. My dad was a joiner and there was my mum and dad, my older brother and myself and we would go on holiday every year within Scotland because we didn't have fun holidays at those times. And my mum's mum and dad would come with us so it would be two cars and all of us and a dog going on holiday every year for two weeks somewhere in Scotland which was a great childhood. But it was totally normal. I wasn't exposed to any of these things. I have memories of the 70s television where there'd be someone really camp and it would be a figure of hilarity rather than anything else. To an adult, an adult would understand some of the jokes that children wouldn't understand. And I was probably just growing up at the time when things like children's television started, things like that. Television wouldn't be on during the day before that and there were three television channels at the time. So I remember the fourth and the fifth one starting sitting waiting on the fourth television channel to start with a countdown clock. But it was totally normal. I do remember my dad had friends who, one friend was a beat policeman and I overheard a story. They probably just thought I wouldn't understand it anyway so they were having an adult conversation and there was a story about there were gay men dropping contact cards in a park and it was outrageous. And I barely really understood these things at that time but as you get a little bit older you know yourself, you start to question things in yourself before you even know what words to call them. And when I did eventually start going on scene I was 19 and I was at college then and so I had more freedom. So it was handy being close to a city. I could be in the city in about 45 minutes by bus also and you could get the very last bus home just after 11.30. Really? Yeah, early, early. But later on there were night buses and friends and I frequented the night buses very often indeed.  How did you even know about it? When I started a part-time job when I was at college it was working for a coach company and it was like intercity services. And so you got to meet more people and there were gay people. At that time there were drivers, conductors or stewards who would serve tea and coffee and things on coaches and so you would get to know people that you would never have known otherwise people from all walks of life. And you got to see and hear more things and one day I think one lunchtime we went to the pub and it was where they gave us some glasses. And it was a kind of place where after that you had to go yourself. And so it was standing at the bus stop outside pretending you were waiting for a bus until it was all clear and then down the stairs into the bar.  And other people are just going about their daily business and aren't even noticing. Why did you even know to go to the bar you just mentioned? Well that was just with people at work. There was a couple of them, they were both shirts and one of them later took a job within the office in the centre of Glasgow. And it was like a family, it really was like a family and he was the first person who I was fairly close to that I had all sorts of stories from. And he was also the first person who one day came in and said that he was HIV positive and really very early as I remember and within about six months went from telling us to being in a hospital where we couldn't visit and blind with KS and died shortly afterwards. When I was at that age, we were that generation where we were just at that age and the government had put out this terrifying advert of like a tombstone falling over and don't die of ignorance and leaflets to every house in the country. So we were right in the middle of the fief of that. And when I started going out it was very much the time of the scene and whatever charities and volunteers had set up that they were distributing condoms to every venue. I remember them being freely available just at that time where that started to happen. It was a great time to come out. I didn't come out to my parents. I was out rather awkwardly. I got home one day and my mum had been apparently I'll never know the truth because I won't ask her but apparently she'd been looking for we call it Tipex whiteout correction fluid and apparently she'd been looking for that and she found like a gay newspaper. And I got all the tears and how could you let them talk you into it? I'd never really heard that said before but it's the kind of thing I'm conscious of hearing now and still coming from America where religious communities seem to believe that you're being recruited. So that was a bit of a shock because you've got the trauma of oh my God what am I gonna say to my mum along with how could you let them talk you into it and just all the misconceptions and all these things. That was a difficult time. But you gave her a book. Yeah I did. I can't remember entirely where I got the book because it was before the internet I mean now it would be easy but it was before the internet then. So I think it must have been one of the large book stores in town and it was a book called how to cope if your child is gay. And vaguely remember all sorts of things like religion and I would be a grandparent and all these subjects, sex, what about HIV? All these things were all covered. Obviously I've seen the book since and it's been updated for more modern times but it did very much cover all the things that she really needed to have a different perspective on somewhere else's outside perspective on. And she told me at the time I'm not reading that because it was almost felt like she thought it was giving her some kind of propaganda. But I did notice that there was a bookmark and it was slowly going down the pages so it was being read. And it was never mentioned, it was never talked about but over time there was a better understanding that was surprised that my brother and I are so liberal but then they brought us up to be that way they brought us up to make our own decisions and make our own choices so that's a good thing. I remember my brother was interviewed one evening did you know, why did you not say? He says, nothing to do with me, it's not my thing to tell you which was quite nice but things changed especially as when I started seeing my partner who I'm still together with now and it turned out and discovered completely accidentally that my dad and his dad worked together for years. And so I think that really smoothed over the normality of things and so there's no awkwardness. Let's take a quick step back to the Glasgow scene that you knew when you were first coming out tell us a little bit about that. There was an earlier period with earlier venues which I never knew although I'd have names newer places where. This was a period where there was an older bar called the Waterloo an older style of bar, more traditional and then there were other ones that was like a long, a long thin basement bar because the Glasgow's a very Victorian city and so you tended to have offices and houses and there may be basements and there may be bars and things in basements underneath all perfectly well, not anything particularly secretive but most of the gay bars were concentrated in the sort of South-Eastern quadrant of the city centre which has got the name Merchant City because that's where the city began with the merchants dealing with the West Indies and sugar and all these kind of things but most of the bars were based in that area. One bar I always remember it seems to be too late as being fighting it seemed to be perpetual I don't know I think the stick in my head but yeah there were places frequented by younger people the same as other cities where there is a little bit of choice people seem to move into their own little groups of it and it's good, the same is good in Glasgow it's always been good. How did you learn anything about the leather kink scene? I do remember I must have been 19 I must have been about 19 I remember the first leather man I ever saw was outside one of the nightclubs in Glasgow outside Bennet's still there but it's not called Bennet's anymore and this guy was in full leather and I was just someone come up and close my mouth and that was the first time I'd ever seen anyone and not too long after that a friend and I we went to one of the the nearest big English city that had a large scene was Manchester and it still is because it's got its own kind of village which is like everything's concentrated in one area and we visited there and it was the age of the clones and so people were very recognisable at that time but yeah it was something that I knew was attractive How so? The look just really struck a chord I always had a huge thing for guys with a mustache and a cap and Manchester seemed to be the centre of it When you were drawn to the image of the leather man but how did you begin to explore the entire leather lifestyle? Very early days were certainly things like when eBay came on the scene eBay must be the beginning of so many people finding out what they like I think it was like a harness or something like that for sale or eBay and butter We were going to places that Manchester was more eye-opening because Manchester had and still has a gay store clone zone selling all sorts of gear and leather and postcards so you'd see all the early postcards with the iconic images that we used to see in the early days of the internet and in magazines and things like that so we had never really seen these things before we'd only really seen kind of weekly or fortnightly newspaper style magazine about the scene in the UK and so those things had listings of all the bars and clubs and groups throughout the UK and just before the internet and so you got to know you would read these things cover to cover obviously and you would know every place and you would go to Edinburgh for the day and you would see what places were like and a lot of places have changed now and a lot of places have gone the internet did change things some for the good, some for the bad it's not all bad, not all good I remember a company bar in Manchester I had a good time there The first sort of leather-ish bar I was ever in when I was still 19 I don't know how I got away with it but I went to Amsterdam and I remember going to this I'm almost certain it was called Company as well which is why I remember it then and there was a dark room up the stairs which I did venture into because we don't have these things here there was a new thing entirely so no experience of those kind of things it didn't be a lovely German gentleman but yeah, I was all around all the places in Amsterdam and cafes and having lunch and just hanging out on the scene because you could it was a good time so that was probably the first kind of slightly more leathery place although after that there was an American guy he was from Minnesota or something staying at the same hotel and so we were just talking and then we went to the web one early evening and to my absolute horror I had to be taken outside by him because the wall of poppers that hit me was just like it was just I got an eyeful of the surroundings and then I had to go take too much so that was my real first look at these things but yeah, it was a while before I got to go back to anything like that really Now, how did your interests evolve such as how did you learn your sort of protocols in the community? I first had to see my partner a couple of years after that I really stopped frequenting the scene so much I did go through a patch where with the clear benefit of hindsight I was very depressed overthinking the worry and I phoned the doctors, went to the doctors and I was introduced to the marvel of Prozac and I went from having a negative attitude which was just my whole outlook was negative whereas now I would be planning something so I had things to go to rather than to get out of and it totally changed my outlook I wanted to do things again and that was really what kickstarted the I knew I loved gear a few years before that there was a website called gear fetish there was a modern version of it but it isn't the same one but that was a time when there was everything on there leather, rubber, uniform, everything so I was exposed to all these things and started seeing things that I liked at that time but that didn't really happen well loads of fetishy stuff leather, I've always liked leather also like sports gear, I like shiny gear so shiny black, it wasn't such a huge jump to leather but these things just kind of gradually introduced you and so you saw more things, I wasn't really aware I knew, even going to Manchester I knew there were leather guys but I wasn't really aware of any deeper level of seeing beyond that what fetishes do you enjoy, what activities I would say I am mostly sub not entirely I still have possibilities but yeah, emotionally it's more satisfying my partner and I went to Berlin probably about 2015 I think but just before we went I had been talking to someone online and I asked if I could meet this guy and my partner said he didn't want to go so we had a rough few days trying to talk and then by the night before it was clear we were going and we went to Berlin and had a lovely time and visited all the tourist places and there we went into the gay places really we did all the touristy places and one night we finished dinner and he went to the hotel and I went to meet this lovely German gentleman with full letters and he's been playing who absolutely blew my mind and that was the first time I'd ever met anyone quite like that and then when I came back from that I within a within a very short period talking to someone purely by chance online and he was at home in the midlands of England and I went down to see him and I was visiting him basically every month for two years from then actually I would have caught her for a year as well and it was an amicable and I think as him and his partner were kind of moving away from the scene that was when I needed to be in the scene I needed the friendship I needed the people around me but he actually took me to my first leather social and took me to get measured for leather jeans and a waistcoat was the first that I got I went myself quite fine let's explore Leatherman Scotland tell us how did that begin I knew I would never have got onto the scene without someone taking my hand and taking me I can remember at the hotel we were in in Manchester getting ready he was in full leather he was in the lab the works looked awesome but I remember I needed someone to take me and show me it's okay and meet some people and actually before we went in Manchester they do normally in October they do the Manchester Leather Weekend and I had actually booked for that and paid for it and booked my hotel and asked for in order to force myself that this is done you are going and then I had a thought I'm going to need to know a couple of people realistically before I go so he took me and we met some of the regulars at the social people come and go but there's still a lot of the people who were there at that time still and so at the time I was looking for some kind of community here a couple of the guys at Manchester Leather Men suggested why don't you try a social in Glasgow and so I did April 2019 yeah April 2019 I started a social advertised that as much as I could online, Twitter everywhere word on mouth etc I'm a partner came with me I'm thinking oh my god no one's going to turn up but people didn't there were about 15 people or something and that was even with it was Easter and the big event in Europe then it's Falsum Easter in Berlin and so some of the guys now who are regulars were away so the whole ethos what I wanted it to be was to encourage people to come out and to give them the help to come out and that was even down to no dress code and a venue which was bright and open and accessible instead of the more natural venue now which is a place which is down a dark staircase around the corner around another corner into the darkness and new people young guys a little bit frightened of that so chose one venue which is complete glass front lovely and open bright an outside smoking area an outside front seating area for nice weather and we actually went to Pride that year I grew up on about 20 of us we were right at the front of the Pride march and we were second in the march and it just gradually grew and grew little by little and at the year our last in-person social was March 2020 and at that point we knew we were going into lockdown very soon and we had planned we were going to have an in-person meeting in the April because that was a year and we were going to decide what do we want to do at that time we were actually we were actually just calling it Glasgow leather men or Glasgow leather social really but what we did was we had an online meeting quite a lot of people came quite a lot of the regular people came along because we had a group on Facebook that we've really kind of held everything together and we decided in the April that we wanted to become a club still with the full intention that socials will be open to all and at the time when lockdown did come we just by chance on social media saw information that the Scottish Government had a fund which they were distributing through a charity the Equality Network and their intention was to try and to try and help with social isolation during lockdown in particular and at that time applied for that and got funding for a Zoom licence every month so every month they paid for that so it was supposed to be two or three months and here we are the funding ends on the 31st of this month and they emailed me last week to say if you apply for a one year licence now we will pay for it so they've actually they've actually overall paid for 12 individual months and a year on top of that all sorts of things we've done a cocktail class we've had game shows rip offs of 70s and 80s game shows we've had quizzes bingo all sorts of things, cards against humanity that's our favourite and as well as being helpful for various people it's been helpful for me I would previously have said suffering from depression I would have said I was introverted but there are things that you do because you have to because you're in that position with the social I made a point that no one would be left standing on their own, they would be welcomed and brought into the group and just where the person and social ended and we moved online there were some people who were just about to come to the socials and started coming online and now they know everyone and now they feel part of it in fact one of them is now membership secretary because he's so invested in it and it's allowed people to get to know each other and we are actually now at the stage where we are about to tentatively try to take a step back out into face to face social world we are planning to have an in person social with allocated seating and table service in late June so fingers crossed on that and to show the demand for it and the friendships that are built up then 24 hours 34 people had applied to attend wonderful we extended people's memberships by 3 months if they joined before Christmas so the first memberships because we started in April the first memberships finish in July but currently we are 91 members a couple of those are people who we have subsidized because we very much wanted at the beginning that cost shouldn't be a factor the same as everyone worries at the beginning that their gear isn't good enough that they are not good enough people worry about I can't afford that £15,000 jacket so we don't want that when people were joining or new members were joining we had an option where they could join at £12 a pound a month or they could pay £15 and that extra would go towards subsidizing someone else and the vast majority paid extra in fact some people paid quite a lot extra I may have had various donations and things like that and we have struck up a very close friendship with the other men of Ireland over that we we essentially joined together we go to each other's events and we make sure that we don't clash they held their first birthday party and we all attended one of their members Jon O'Brien who is quite well known I know Jon he regularly held fundraising events for the gay switch boat in Ireland and can't do that just now because of Covid they would do things like second hand gear events and things like that and so there was an online event and there were a hundred of us there two teams from our group other groups from across Ireland and people from all over the UK so there were a hundred of us they all together and one of our teams that I was in came second and we won a hundred euros and they wouldn't let us donate it because we had raised so much money already we gave us a hundred pounds and we donated that to two gay charities one Waverly Care which is hospices and the other one was the Equality Network the group who had overseen the funding for Zoom from the Scottish Government so we wanted to try and give a little bit back to them are you looking to join the ECMC the overall consortium we initially initial thoughts were my last time at Falsum was in 2019 Falsum Europe sorry was in 2019 and I had met various people from ECMC including Daniel Dumont very very nice and very very encouraging huge loss and others from Belgium we started out at the Belgium Museum from Amsterdam and they were very encouraging and we learnt at that stage that NSC Scotland were closing they were winding up and we had thought in order to retain the history perhaps we can merge and move forward but it became impossible and dialogue just wasn't there and so it was hoped at that stage that we could retain the ECMC membership because they were going to give up otherwise but in order to shed what was obviously baggage in the background that we didn't particularly know about we let it go and so at our our first AGM back in April this year one of the propositions at the AGM was that we would like to join ECMC and that was unanimous a unanimous decision and various other members were there who come from Manchester Leatherman, Leatherman Cymru in Ireland Leatherman Cymru in Wales and someone from London Leatherman said out loud we will support you we need the support of two full member clubs so that's we have to support three full member clubs so is there any intention to apply to join at the next AGM of ECMC and then that would make us if accepted that would make us a provisionary member for a year and then we would apply to become a full member that is what we would like to do at the last AGM which was online Leatherman Cymru allowed me to join as an observer so I could see the process and I have seen many of these people at places like Falsum Europe and Manchester Leather Weekend it really brings everyone together even more than a single club does ECMC in particular did a lot of work on raising funds to get people out of Chechnya the Rainbow Railroad raised a lot of money for that so there are things to be done and joining together to do more is a good thing and that is if I have my acronym correct it's the European Consortium of Motorcycle Clubs correct? I did have a motorcycle in my thirties I missed out that was one of my earlier attempts to try and find some kind of scene but it was unsuccessful but I did have a motorcycle for about six or seven years or so and the levels but tell me what is unique about the Scottish Leather King scene? It is a far smaller scene we do have quite a lot of members from Goodwill, from outside of Scotland great, fine we have quite a number of very invasive members from the north of England north east of England and around Manchester in particular I do have a lot of friends there are a lot of friendships but other people have been drawn in and I know of several people who we were just there at the right time for them and they needed something people to grab hold of them and say come in, it's fine and we did that a little in person I talked about how we don't have a dress code at the events it is difficult to walk through a city in full gear the one difference I've done it a number of times places like Berlin, no one backs an island places like Manchester people will go why etc but in Glasgow you get a bit of what we would call banter I've walked through a few times with other people and if you don't have your cap on people don't notice the cap freaks them out and so I remember one person who is unfortunately no longer involved they didn't come the first month because they were too nervous second month they came in jeans and t-shirt and the fourth month they came and marched in pride in full gear I'm going to show you the steps and confidence of being able to do that and knowing it's okay it's fine and we have trans members and non-binary members mostly men it's a couple of women including women I used to work with years ago who's a biker but we have a good split of people in the west of Scotland and the east of Scotland but we've done all sorts of things like we had gone into in order to not make it all based around a bar and alcohol Scotland has a long problem with alcohol we started doing lunch or brunch before and it was a chance to meet and have a coffee or food and we want to start that again where we can we did Christmas just before Christmas in 2019 we had Christmas dinner and there were 32 of us along a huge table in this lovely Italian restaurant but we wanted to do more things like that we had plans to do whiskey tasting events and all go for afternoon tea and a posh hotel and all these things open top bus tour and they're all on the plan that we still want to do when we were preparing for this I was a bit naive when you told me that you conduct your meetings bilingually tell us about that the plan from day one was to try and do certainly online things bilingually Scottish garlic is an old language and is now spoken by about 2% of the population and there is a fear it could die out related historically to Irish but quite different now but we do have a Welshman who lives in Central Scotland who learned garlic and now teaches that school a class at school through the medium of Scottish garlic so it's like teaching physics through garlic and we also have another gentleman and his partner who have just joined and he is another who is fluent in garlic I'm not fluent but I love it so we made a big effort to have a couple of the main information pages on our website the hello about us page and the one for the join as being bilingually and on a desktop machine their side by side on a mobile that's her intention and I've got badges and stickers ready for events in both languages because people don't want both because it's a unique thing where do you see the group in 5 to 10 years it's difficult to know I think we have a significant number of people just now who are invested in things and their investment is what makes it happen we know there are other people here who don't come who don't get involved and that's fine you can't make people get involved things like zoom some people just don't like that it has held us together very very successfully it enables this interview exactly but we've also tried things like quiet sessions because we've had somewhere we always try and make sure everyone gets a chance to talk because there are people who are naturally more outgoing than others and so at the moment we're having a fortnightly Wednesday evening quiet chat and that's with one of our gaelic speakers who host that in English and we do intend when we're able to go back fully to in person things that there will still be some online because it's clear that there are good strong friendships and people want more time together it's easier for them than having to travel 60 miles to meet in a bar on a Sunday afternoon and they want a bit more than that initially the reason it was the third Sunday of the month the Manchester Leather Social was the first Saturday of the month we would go to that so it would make it kind of halfway between each other and we were going to try initially we would do a Saturday but then these bars are full on a Saturday a Sunday afternoon you can take over the place you can take over the venue you can talk we have some people who really really got into karaoke and so we had a bit of that as well we would serve as myself included to like a cigar and we've got the opportunity to do that we weren't just getting to the point where the venue was really wanting to support us and so they were going to give us sandwiches and things like that and then Covid and we couldn't do that anyway even if we could go to the venue we couldn't work that up again it was actually the venue owner because it's obviously been difficult for all of these venues and it's worked very hard and he actually got in contact and says I want you back how can we make that happen so yeah we haven't seen each other in person for like 15 months or something it could be a little rowdy and we'll have to control people and make sure they stay sitting down because it has to be seated and it has to be table service but we're going to try it and see how it goes because people are desperate to see each other again they really are what's the biggest misconception about you I have had and as part of this group I have had to force myself to do things force myself to be more outgoing if something goes wrong I'm the one ultimately in charge and I have to deal with it and I have to take the flag as well as the praise but the praise gets shared amongst the group generally we make it if it's something good publicise it as the group not an individual but yeah the biggest misconception about me is that I'm extremely outgoing there is a lot of fake it until you make it well Fraser Leith I'm not sure I'm getting that right Leith Fraser Leith I promise I'll practice I thank you very very much for being part of Inside Leather History of Firesight


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