Leather at the Piggly Wiggly

A while back at the Leather Leadership Conference in Detroit, I attended a meeting in which the topic of discussion was basically outreach from the kinky community to the straight community. The presenters described how they had managed to package their material in such a way that typical straight people would be more likely to feel comfortable with the topic of non-vanilla sex. At one point, one of the presenters commented that she would not wear her leather to the Piggly Wiggly, as that would be inappropriate. It was at that point that I began to realize that I was not like many of the people in the room. I WOULD wear leather to the Piggly Wiggly and I really didn’t give a damn WHAT the straight majority thought about it.
One of the discussants pointed out that their goal was to convince the straight world that “we are just like them”. Of course, it was at that point, that my decision to shut the fuck up and just let them pontificate fell by the wayside and I shouted out that I was NOT like them!!!

I am an anarchist. I believe that it was the Stonewall RIOT that caused our world to change and started the modern gay rights movement not the Mattichine assimilationists trying to look like mormon missionary/accountants who just happen to suck cock.

At the LLC meeting mentioned above, I realized that I think of leather as something that permeates almost every aspect of my life. Most of my friends look like leathermen no matter what they are doing or what they are wearing. In fact they stand out as leathermen even when they are naked. It might be all the piercings and tattoos or the flogging and whipping marks, but it might just be the way they carry themselves. For the non-gay kinky people, leather was lingerie. It was a costume they put on to fluff up their sex life. That helped explain to me why so many of them were wearing that cheap Kookie Leather crap made in Pakistan. If leather is just a costume, you are not going shopping at Mr. S, 665, or Rough Trade.

When the ole gal mentioned that she would not go to Piggly Wiggle in leather, my first thought was I WOULD!! I even know who I would take with me. I would go with the monkey of course but I would also take Tommy T and the Gnome. I know they would go with me because they already have. For the Gnome’s birthday we did another Leather Invasion of the Getty Museum. We go the Getty but we go in leather. Why?....Well because we are leathermen and that is what we do. We are not trying to build bridges, We are trying to push the limits a little. It is fun.

There are three basic reactions we get. One is the giggly, finger pointy, “those guys are weird reaction”. Yesterday I got that from a group of Japanese ministers. Well they were wearing clerical collars and were horribly judgmental. They HAD to be ministers. They actually pointed and said things in Japanese while laughing. That reaction is more common among young school children but age and maturity are not always synonymous.

Two….two is the “HEY YOU….can I take my picture with you? Or…HEY YOU…you guys look hot. This reaction is one of my favorites and often allows us to tell somebody about our community or about an upcoming activity they might consider. For some reason it is usually from “fierce” black ladies. They are usually dressed to the 9’s and have really high heels and lots and lots of attitude. They are cool.

Three…well three is my favorite. Three is the “stare and smile” reaction. It is usually from youngish guys. Sometimes they are really young and I think we are just a reminder to that kid that if he just hangs on through all the crap in high school, he can be himself when he is a little older cause obviously we did. The other is a 20 something guy who is just becoming aware that he is wired a little differently than everybody expects him to be. He can tell that we are the guys who like to tie each other up, He can tell that we are the guys who think that water sports do not involve a swimming pool. If we smile at him he might blush and walk away, but at the Getty he will usually sidle up next to us as we are looking at something so that he can overhear us bantering with each other. The key to this is that we are having a hell of a good time. We are having more fun than all the other people together. We are affectionate toward each other and don’t give a flying fuck if it bothers somebody. We are VERY polite. We hold doors for little old ladies and offer them an umbrella if it is raining. We have deep discussions about the art and we laugh and enjoy each other’s company.

IF you saw us at the Piggly Wiggly you would know that we are DIFFERENT. Different in a way that makes us really happy. Different in a way that makes some people uncomfortable or even mad. We have been through the coming out process and know that it may have a price but being in the closet costs a lot more. A lot of the people use scene names. They are afraid to use their real names. They might lose their jobs or their friends. They might get kicked out of their nice little church. They talk about how rough kinky divorces have been when “slave stinky” decides to fuck over “Master Nutball” and shares the intimate aspects of their relationship in court in order to embarrass the hell out of her master and get bigger alimony. We understand that there are a lot of people who think that pissing all over daddy in a play scene automatically disqualifies you as a loving parent. BUT we have learned that unless you fight, such small mindedness can control your life. We have lost our families and our jobs because straight people have taken them from us. If the straight vanilla people have an issue with straight kinky people, we can tell them what they should do from our experience. Been there done that…got the t-shirt.

Several months ago, a group of us were invited to an Imperial Court function. As I sat in the audience trying to understand both the purpose and the protocol of what I was watching, I realized that I was seeing the horrifying potential future of the leather contest community. Not the leather community per se, but that small part of it that is engaged in the leather contest system. There were several things about that evening that have continued to percolate in my mind and I thought now was a good time to share some of those thoughts.

The Imperial Court system raises huge amounts of money for a variety of good causes. They have a rich history and I am sure that the people involved in it have a wonderful time. I have met a number of the notable folks in the Imperial Court and find them to be very nice people. But as I sat there that evening, I realized I had NO interest in their “world”. I was not interested in the glamour of exaggerated femininity crusted in rhinestones and pretending to be empress such and such. I have enough problems with the idea that some people use scene names to be very comfortable with Empress triple extra large of the royal house of Muleface and her entourage of minions. It was not my gig.

As I stood in the wings waiting to be presented to the folks who were “stepping down” I realized that there was a LOT of protocol to learn. Walk this way, present yourself, take the empress by the hand, accept a small token of their appreciation, and for gawd’s sake don’t look at how her wig is starting to slip or the ugly mole peeking through the five o’clock on her chin. The person telling me all this crap reminded me of some of the folks around the leather contest system who seem to have popped up lately and consider themselves experts.

These so called experts speak as though there were definite right and wrong ways to approach the leather contest experience. They are the ones who tell titleholders
that you CAN’T do something or MUST do something as though there is some kind of rulebook for this shit. These rules seem to run the gamut from when you should and should not wear your medal or title vest to aspects of a titleholder’s personal life such as whom they should or should not fuck. The idea that you might have a great time and have sex at MAL has become “you have to go if you expect to do well at IML.”

In recent years the number of “mock interviews” has increased with plague like proportions. Each titleholder is being given enough expert advice that we are in danger of creating manufactured clones of what each so-called expert thinks a titleholder should be. No longer are contestants just given suggestions about how they might best present themselves, they are now being given the “right” answers they should give to potential interview questions. The questions often take on the appearance of “Leather Jeopardy”….”who was IMsL 1999”?. What is the hanky code for plushies? Who invented leather? Who is your county council representative? Well who the fuck cares? These are not questions designed to get to know a contestant. These are questions designed to impress upon the potential contestant that they better know arcane bits of leather minutia or they just won’t do very well. If contests are selecting these people to be judges we better take a serious look at ourselves and potential titleholders would do well to tell them to piss off.

The leather contest system grew out of the leather community. It is essential to remember that. Over the last couple of years, the leather contest system has become an entity unto itself. We all know guys who are ONLY involved in contests and have only minimal connection to the leather community in the greater sense. That’s fine. For some titleholders their contest serves as an introduction to the community. While a contest plays around with the erotic energy at the core of leather life, it is only an illusion of the deeper more meaningful experiences that can be possible. It has become more and more common for new titleholders to be introduced to kinky sex during their title year than it is to select kinky guys to represent a title. When titleholders are being coached to avoid erotic expression because it would demean their title, this whole thing has become absurd. How do you represent a community that is defined by its sexual expression by castrating yourself and becoming a eunuch in a title vest?

In reality most aspects of the origin of the contest system are cloudy and unclear…and also unimportant. Currently, it is clear that contests provide an opportunity for brotherhood, service, and a lot of other desirable side effects. Those of us privileged to produce contests can share moments that made us laugh and moments that were deeply meaningful. None of those moments were the result of coaching.

I hate to think that we are going to turn this whole thing over to the “stylists” who think that what matters most is who makes your leather “outfit” and insist that this whole thing is all about image. Especially when that image is an idiosyncratic vision of what being a leather titleholder should be. If we do, we will have become the Imperial Court of Leather. We will have rules about how you should address the royal titleholders and what “costume” is appropriate for which state function. There will be more contests, more raffles, more fund raisers, and little by little there will be less and less erotic energy. Eventually, what once made the whole thing so much fun will be lost.

I understand the idea that anybody who stands on a stage wants to do his best. BUT lets try to focus on the idea that it should be HIS best and not what some so-called expert thinks is a universal best. Oh sure…all boots should be shined, leather should fit, and it is never a good idea to say something that pisses off the crowd. In a perfect world a lot more of us would look like Tom of Finland drawings but we don’t.

At the core of all this, if your dick is hard, that is a pretty good indicator that you are on the right track. The idea that there are rules to govern a community of outlaws seems pretty absurd. Good advise is always welcome. Mentoring is an essential part of our community. BUT let’s celebrate the wonderful individuality that each titleholder brings to this process and support him rather than try to change him into some ball-less beauty contest clone. We may not agree with each decision but let us at least respect the men who make them. Because they are acting like men…like LEATHERMEN.

Never let them take your picture with a drink in your hand...

So...some where some body started telling leather title holders that they should not let themselves be photographed with "a drink in their hands". While the absurdity of this seems pretty straight forward. I mean quite a few titles are sponsored by BARS...what do they think men drink in a bar...TEA? Actually, I suggested that all the title holders should start carrying tea cups and saucers and only folks in the know would know that they were full of cheap scotch.

BUT as usuall, my weird little mind starts to explore the "other" issues this brings up. Why would it possibly be important that a person NOT be photographed with a drink in their hands or hiding any other perfectly legal and normal behavior. There is usully a reason people try to manage and manipulate an image. FDR always hid his leg braces because the Nazi's would have won World War II if they had known he had polio. And Bill Clinton hid his cigar smoking because we would have known he was sticking it in Monica's cooch if we had seen a picture of him smoking. But unless you are the president of the united states and trying to hide something why is it important to hide the truth about the kind of things we do? Well, because somebody with a stick up their butt, thinks that some of the things we do are just not all that acceptable and they want to manage the image.

Rather than allowing each title holder to determine how they would take up that role, people begin to tell them what they have to do to move up the next rung on the ladder and what is the "correct" way to do things. Can't we just remember that this was supposed to be fun and that fun is hard to "manage"? Can't we just let guys do what guys do in dark corners of a bar when they are hot and sexy? No...we have to tell them to never do anything that might make their title look bad.I think it might be better to pick the kind of guy who has sufficient power to tell these image manipulators to fuck off. 'If we select the kind of guys who accept being manipulated, I got news for ya... that is the best way to turn this whole thing into the march of the eunuchs.

Oil and Water, ponies and perverts

A recent conversation regarding a "fetish group's" participation in a "leather event" has caused me to do some serious thinking about group boundaries. How do we define who we are?

Recent interactions with assimilationist bullshit reminds me how important those group boundaries can be. There are plenty of people who want us to give up our unique identity and pretend that we are "almost" "just like everybody else". They often fly the flag of "normal". In other words, if we give up our identity as a GLBT community, we can join all the other mainstreamed outliers and make some kind of progress. This argument didn't work before Stonewall, why do they think it will work now?

So how do we define who is IN the leather community and who is NOT. The first step seems to be to accept that there will be some kind of boundary. Every time a title holder talks about "building bridges", he is really suggesting that we minimize the role that those boundaries play. A good friend has pointed out that when you walk into a leather bar in gear and get attitude by a bunch of guys in chinos and polo shirts it is the result of "building bridges".

That is not to say that there aren't times when groups interact and enjoy each other's company. But I do think that there is a danger when we try to form chimeric events and organizations that try to meet every body's needs. This issue comes up every time we discuss all men's or all women's events. As a community welcoming of a non-dichotomous version of gender identity, this is even more difficult. But despite that difficulty, we often draw a boundary of some sorts especially at "play" events. Sometimes that boundary works and sometimes it does not.

In a recent email conversation, it was pointed out to me that a person whose primary identity (at least to me) was someone involved in "pony play". (for info http://www.maximumawesome.com/pervfriday/ponypeople.htm) When I suggested that an event was primarily a leather event, she was quick to point out that she identified as a member of the leather community. It caused me to think about how we define the concept of "leather community" and what are the boundaries of that community. I believe that it is at the boundaries were our unconscious comes out to play. Patient's in therapy often discover that they become much more aware of unconscious issues as they approach a "time boundary" at the end of a session, etc. So I am trying to discover what is percolating around in my head about this issue.

FOR ME (your milage may vary) LEATHER has usually meant gay men who are kinky and into leather. Fetish has usually mean kinky people who may or may not be gay, or men, or into leather. Okay that is pretty simple. BUT WAIT....what about people who are into latex, rubber, or sport's gear. A trip to RECON will quickly make it obvious that there is both overlap and exclusivity. The boudaries seem to be more fluid than one might expect. The Los Angeles LEATHER Coalition is made up of groups and organizations that include all kinds of kinky folk, many of them pansexual or mostly female in their membership. WHAT THE HELL??? It is an issue with which we have to deal everytime a group wants to join the coalition. It is not always easy.

There is a saying that you never criticize another man's fetish...(until he walks away and then you talk shit about him behind his back). I worry that "Pony Play" is not my cup of tea and that I can't understand how it would contribute to a gay men's leather event just because it doesn't float my boat. That is why I went to a lot of other people, whose opinions I trust, and asked them to make sure that I was not missing something. UNIVERSALLY, they had little enthusiasm for including the pony people. Maybe it was a function of selection bias. But I have to admit that there was a resounding lack of interest.

THEN I remembered, something. Years and years ago, I was in at the Gauntlet II and it was somebody's birthday. People were giving the birthday boy a few swats on the ass when somebody brought out a paddle. (gee a random paddling in a leather bar). At one point somebody pointed at a good friend of mine and suggested, "hey let's paddle him". With great dignity and grace, he looked the guy in the eye and simple said "Not my scene". It has always stayed with me as an interesting way to handle such situations. In the enthusiasm of play I have sometimes used it myself. I realized that when it comes to Pony Play....NOT MY SCENE. AND it seems it is not a scene that very many of the leather folks seem to share.

SO I guess MY boundary does NOT include the pony people. I have issues with people who do not use their real names in the "leather community". It seems much more common in the het community for people to call each other "Master Something" or "Mistress Something". It is a rich and honorable tradition...in their community. BUT in the gay community it smacks of being shame based and in the closet. People who call themselves by the names of animals are even further out on a branch most gay folks trimmed off the tree on their way to self acceptance.

Now having said all that....what about puppy play? HELL they even have puppy events at IML. Well he truth is...I DON"T GET IT. Oh sure, some hot guy with a rubber tail in his ass sniffing some OTHER hot guy. What's not to get? Some guy rolling around on the floor sniffing another guys butt...Seems pretty straight forward. "I don't ever have sex with my master when I am in puppy head space"...Are you nuts? See...not my scene.

I have heard people negotiate a scene in which they spoke about "hard limits" and "soft limits". You know "I don't really like to wear a blindfold but I will" versus "If you cover my eyes there will be chaos". MAYBE the issue is one of a hard boundary. If I think of it like that, the issue is a little easier to negotiate. It is a function of individuality. Communities need to have that same kind of individuality.

It is late and I have no idea how this will resolve. It is way too long now but I guess there will be more. OH.....btw....my FAVORITE play has always been Equus...go figure....

Joke Religion

I joined a joke religion. Not the usually "a priest and a rabbi walked into a bar" kinda joke religion. I joined one of the one word punch line religions. "What are ya a mormon?" Badumpbump. I'm here all week...tip your waiters.

I have said before that when some little kid tells you he saw god in the bushes you DON'T give him 10% of you income...you give him Haldol. Mormonism is wacky. It is seriously bizarre. Oh I know they want you to focus on those nice kids in white shirts but face it...they brought polygamy to America. Oh I know they claim they don't do it anymore. But do you see new age Aztecs trying to convert people to their cult and telling them: "Hey we really don't like to focus on the human sacrifice...we stopped doing that a while back"? So let's just admit this is a rather bizarre bunch of folks.

BUT....the true level of crazy is really not revealed until you start hanging with the exmormons. When I left mormonism, the exmo world was a big help. There were people who had researched the wacky church history and were very knowledgeable. They shared some of their research and understanding and it really helped me question things that I had always just assumed I knew. The history you learn in church is pretty inaccurate. They leave out things like Joseph Smith having more than 30 wives and that some of them were already happily married to other guys while others were as young as 13. It was pretty fucked up....and who knew?

So the exmo world was helpful...AT FIRST. After a while you begin to realize it is a hang out for bipolars and borderlines. I mean these people are NUTS. I have gone on the site from time to time just for curiosity. But now it is just too painful to have to read the ramblings of these weak minded dolts. They pose idiotic false dichotomies like "would you rather your kid was "unclean" and had sex out of marriage or was dead?" They tell the same fucking story over and over of how miserable they are because they hate the church but they can't leave 'cuz great gramps crossed the plains in a wagon and the family will be destroyed if they leave.They stay married to people who hate them or continue to hope that the mormon church will start treating gays right. They ask for which book, passage of scripture, magazine article, website, or god knows what they can show their family, friend, bishop that will make them leave the church. They are nuts.

I seriously believe part of why it is so hard to recover...is that you have to admit you were a moron to believe in the first place. So instead of just taking your lumps and moving on, you have to convince everybody, including yourself, that you were a victim and that the joke religion can control your life. Sure it can if you let it. But there was always the option to just leave it. Take a look and you will see that these ex-mo folks have done just exactly that.

Some of my friends used to go to El Coyote. There was an email about one of the owners having donated to the Yes on 8 campaign. I responded to the email..........

I was unaware that there was a mail group for those of us who have downed a few too many margaritas at El Coyote. BUT....since I was included I figured where better to pontificate.

I have no interest in gay marriage. I think state involvement in people's lives ought to be kept to a minimum. I think we ought to get rid of marriage all together, replace it with domestic partnership for EVERYBODY and let people add what ever religious mumbo-jumbo to the process that they like. You could register your relationship at the county courthouse in the morning and have your wiccan high-priestess spilling candle wax all over the Berber carpet by lunch time. I think everybody ought to be entitled to all FEDERAL and state marriage benefits no matter what their relationship might be. Yeah if some guy wants to marry his toaster we will just deal with that on an individual basis....by putting a butterfly net over him and upping his Haldol.

AS for the current protests (and boycott of El Coyote)....well that seems to be a slightly different matter. The mormon church, based in Utah, sent letters to their congregants and suggested how they should vote and how they should spend their money. It is a violation of their 501 c 3 status. Additionally, they used the money to lie. They sponsored adds that were deceptive and homophobic. I think that there are more than 5% of the people who voted Yes on 8 who would have voted differently if we had pulled back the sheet of secrecy and revealed the involvement of the mormons in our polititcal process. I think more than 5% would say that they were duped and that they would have changed their minds. So....while I don't give two hoots about gay marriage, I DO care about the way the mormon church subverted our political process. They did it before with Prop 22 and they did it again and they will continue UNTIL we raise holy fucking hell about it.

I think the protest marches are great. I am the one who keeps reminding my fellow CSW board members that we have turned the march into a parade. We celebrate a riot that changed the landscape for human rights in the whole world and it is time we chanelled that energy again. BUT having said that....I think we are marching in the wrong place. Rather than blocking traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. I think we need to block the driveway that leads into the LA Mormon Temple. Block it on Saturdays so that all those sweet little mormon brides won't be able to get in to the temple to get married. Let them cry how we have ruined their marriage plans. Let them moan when they won't be able to learn the secret handshakes to get into heaven and have to postpone the reception being held that afternoon on the basketball court at the church. AND best of all.....let the potential husband have to wait to finally FINALLY have sex for the first time. Let the irony of the whole situation that THEY can't get married drip all over the place.

Mormons believe that men will have multiple wives in eternity, they believe that people of color were not valient as spirits, and those who were not born in the church are not as good as those who were. They believe that they are the ONLY true church on the earth and that baptisms and wedding performed by non-mormons have no validity. They believe that dead people ought to be baptized as mormons by proxy and do geneology so that they can do that for people. Recently that has included holocaust victims despite the pleas of the relatives to stop doing it. They believe that they are lead my an old man who talks face-to-face with god usually in the temple in Salt Lake City. They believe that there is no such think as gay or lesbian just people who struggle with same sex attraction. AND these are the people who determined the outcome of Proposition 8. And we let them.

We gave control to the assimilationist "leaders" of our community. We let Equality California take charge and try to act all nice and proper because they think if we just behave ourselves we will be accepted. They want people to believe that we are just like straight people except we suck each other's dicks and fuck each other in the ass. And they are not TOO comfortable with that. If we get married at least then maybe we will only do those awful sex things with one person. Remember the Mattachine society tried to do that and failed. It was a bunch of ugly drag queens who fought back and the world took notice. There are currently people trying to make sure that our protests are neat and orderly. They want us to listen as political hacks and hollywood flunkys tell us what we should think and how we should feel, They want the choas of change to be comfortable and risk free. And they will be swept up in the change and forgotten to history as just like those stupid Mattachine members.

There are members of our community who are already planning their future politcal careers. They want to be the "go-to" guys that the LAPD or City Hall can go to as liasons to the Gay community. They have chosen whose side they are on and want to deceive us that it is our side. It is not. They are standing on the sidelines trying to control the flood of progress by asking if we can't just be a little nicer. This is not going to be pretty. Hopefully, it is going to be effective.

Ya know, I am not a nervous flyer. I actually enjoy flying. But the night before an early morning flight I don’t usually sleep all that well. So rather than annoy Logan, I thought I would spend a few minutes and send an email. In other words…..I’ll annoy you guys.

As we get ready for LA PRIDE, the next in a long line of “events” ever since LAL, I just wanted to thank the folks who do so much for our community. Tonight, I met with part of the team that is working on Erotic City. I sat in that room and realized just how fortunate we are as a community and how lucky I am. Here we are less than 15 days away and fresh and creative ideas are still flowing. People are thinking of new things and how do to old things better. They are giving of their time, their resources, and themselves. It will be another gathering of our tribe.

A year ago, some of us had the remarkable experience of sitting in the Chicago Theatre when Mike Gerle was selected as International Mr. Leather. What an exceptional year, and what an exceptional leader. Mike came to an LALC meeting right after IML and passed his medallion around the room so that each of the folks in the meeting could “sorta” put their energy into it. It seems that each of us may have been just as touched by his energy as well. Now some of us are headed off to Chicago so that Mike can step down and I can hardly imagine what that will be like. Oh, not the speech…the change. We have celebrated his year at several events, but suddenly it hit me how much has happened and how fast.

We are also going to IML because Ross is going to stand on that same stage this weekend. A bunch of us were having dinner at Long Beach Pride and Ross happened to walk by. I sat there realizing that we are sending a pretty remarkable Mr. LA Leather to IML AGAIN! He has already demonstrated his leadership and his warm and caring spirit. Ross shared that he has had some pretty incredible things happen already. I thought of all the folks who helped make it possible and wondered if they knew that they had had a part in that process. I wanted to make sure that the members of the coalition were aware of what their efforts had produced.

As I was thinking of the Mike and Ross, I started to think of all the other people who have been in their spots, and then all the people involved in those events, and it sorta became overwhelming. There were an awful lot of people both “out in front” and behind the scenes who were involved in all that we do. Sure some came and left, but an awful lot of them stayed and are “connected” no matter what role they are in.

See maybe that is what is keeping me up….instead of my fear that I will oversleep and miss my flight. See, when I left that Erotic City meeting, I wondered if people knew all the things that go on behind the scenes. Not the hard work, I think people recognize that. I was wondering if all the folks doing the hard work recognized all the good their hard work was doing. See, I realized it is all about the working together. Sometimes it seems like the event itself matters. But the real secret is that it is about working together to make something happen between us. In that process, we grow, we learn, we solve problems, and we CONNECT. We start to work together and we become friends, hell, we become family. When I thought about all the “events” I kept seeing faces in my mind. The faces of the people I love and respect that make these things happen.

This weekend a lot of people are going to work hard to produce IML. Mike will step down as IML and Ross will step across the stage as the first Mr. LA Leather to follow in his footsteps. But the people who come from all over to make that happen will have connected. They will form their family and it will overlap with ours. And maybe part of what is keeping me up tonight, is knowing that both families will be missing someone who we came to think of as part of us. Steve Johnson won’t be at registration for LAL next year and he won’t be in Chicago this weekend and I for one am going to miss him. A lot of people are. His passing has reminded us of the fragile nature of our connections. His passing reminded me of how lucky I am to know some pretty remarkable people that I got to meet when we as a community put on “an event”. Knowing he would not be there this weekend, I was reminded to say thank you to all of you, not just for what you do, but for who you are, and not just for who you are in our community, but for who you are to me. Thank you.

We will never produce a perfect event. BUT in the process of trying we will build our tribe and our family and we will connect. Let me express my appreciation to those of you who are always there. I appreciate the connection that we have built working together. There will also be some new folks who offer to pitch in and help. Not just because it is fun but because they want to be a part of our tribe. Welcome them. If we have learned anything about the folks who show up, it is that they are full of surprises.