The 3 Ruffians: A Journey with Cigars, Charity, and Ritual Preservation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
All we have to decide is what to do with the time of
the Skeletons.
You've reached the Internet'shome for all things masonry.
Join On the Level Podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
craft and try to unlock themysteries, dispel the fallacies
and utilize the teachings offreemasonry to unlock the

(00:30):
greatness within each of us.
I have you now, thank you.
Thank you, welcome back to Onthe Level Podcast.

(00:53):
We have a very special episodetoday because it is the three
ruffians joining On the LevelPodcast, our favorite sponsor
because we have so many sponsors.
You're our favorite sponsor,the three ruffians joining On
the Level Podcast, our favoritesponsor because we have so many
sponsors.
You're our favorite sponsor,the three ruffians.
So that's why, if you'rewatching, you'll see we've got

(01:14):
four gentlemen here.
Three are wearing fedoras.
I dare you to figure out whichthree of the four you can see
are actual ruffians.
Let's go ahead and introduceourselves.
Boys we have.
I don't know where your squaresare.
I feel like a very Brady Bunchwith all these people.
It's like I'm looking up at Jan, and there's Marsha.

(01:38):
We have John Schaefer.
John Schaefer of Sarasota,lodge number 147.
Welcome to On the Level Podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Good afternoon.
Thanks for having me, Mr Burns.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
You've been on before .
People who have been listeningfor a while have heard John pop
in.
When we traveled to DC youjoined us a couple of times,
very briefly talking about therough years.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Agreed Very briefly.
It's usually the way I like itVery briefly.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Agreed Very briefly, it's usually the way I like it.
We also have another repeatvisitor, brother Sean Cooney of
Sarasota, lodge number 147, thejunior warden, the sitting.
Junior warden of the Lodge.
Welcome, brother Sean Cooney.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Hey, what's going on.
Fellas, how have you been, youknow, living the dream, living
the dream.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
We had you on with.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Brother Dwayne from the Past.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Masters Thoughts.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Good times, Good times yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, that was a really good episode.
I had fun with that one,dwayne's a good brother.
He is a really you know, he isreally good.
I was in a bad mood one day andwe were posting in a Texas
Freemason group and there wassome stuff there that wasn't
good about masonry and he couldtell I was down.
So he private messaged me andgave me a little motivational
pep talk and I thought, wow,this is a good brother.

(02:57):
He didn't have to take his timeto do that and with us out of
Washington State, I believe, isBrother Nick Bailey.
Welcome to On the Level Podcast, brother Nick.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Would you like to state your lodge and your
position?

Speaker 4 (03:18):
Yeah, so I'm just a brother.
I am not a sitting member, butI'm a member of Horace W Tyler
Lodge number 290 in UniversityPlace and I have a plural
membership with Steilacoom Lodgenumber 2 in Tacoma, in Tacoma.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Wow, how long have you been a Mason.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
I was raised in January 13th of this year.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
A baby Mason.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
I'm a very baby Mason , yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Nick gets down though .

Speaker 1 (03:50):
He's making a lot of moves over there.
Oh, don't cry, baby mason.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Okay, it's okay, it gets better nick's one of those
guys where you could see him assoon as they walk in, you'd be
like, ah, this guy's gonna be inthe line.
You just know it.
He's a go-getter.
He's always doing everything hecan for that lodge and for us
too.
He's a good brother also.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
And he likes rabbit holes too, so this will be
perfect for the podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh, this is dangerous .
He said he has all afternoon.
This is going to be a marathonshow.
Guys.
We're covering aliens, sexdrives, everything is going to
go down today.
I'm just kidding.
We're not going to talk aboutthat.
What we are going to talk aboutis the three ruffians.
People listening probably havean idea that I'm somewhat

(04:39):
involved in the three ruffiansbecause it comes up, it's been
coming up for like a year on thepodcast and yeah, I am, I'm one
of the three ruffians.
I like to say it to the world.
There are three ruffians in thethree ruffians Chris Burns,
sean Cooney and John Schaefer.
And here we are.
It's good to have you guys inthe podcast.
So we've been going throughsome revamps as a Masonic

(05:04):
company, absolutely.
In fact, we've actuallycompletely resourced our product
.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's a relaunch maybe , yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
A relaunch?
Yeah, not a rebrand, becausethe brand is the same, it's the
same concept.
There's already a great Masonicbrand out there called Hiram
Solomon and if you're a Masonyou've probably heard of them,
you've probably tried it.
It's a good product and it'severywhere.
Every Mason has a Hiram andSolomon cigar, probably in their
house.

(05:36):
But you know, when we were like,let's do something that we can
do fundraisers with, we can givesome money back to charities
like the Shriners Internationaland we can have fun together, we
were thinking of brand namesand I don't know whose genius
idea it was.
But we were like, well, let'sgo the exact opposite of Hiram
and Solomon and make it the badguys, let's make it the three

(05:59):
ruffians and we'll lean intothat as a brand instead of the
heroes of the story who areHiram and Solomon.
And it made sense to us becauseHiram and Solomon wouldn't be
smoking cigars, drinking whiskeyWell, they might, you know,
they were both really rich, butthe ruffians definitely.
There he goes, he's got hisapple juice.

(06:20):
At least it's not in a sippycup yet.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Give me time.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
The ruffians kind of embrace that superfluity of life
, that they aren't afraid toindulge a little bit.
And if you're smoking cigarsand you're drinking whiskey like
a lot of masons I see postingall over the internet you're
okay with superfluities in yourlife too.
Hey, good job.
You know you do want to limitthose things as a Mason, just

(06:49):
throwing that out there.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, we're not perfect.
We're not perfect, we're alljust men.
We're always just trying to bebetter, and those first EEA
working tools are the ones thatI'll continually have to use,
more than any other tool thatwas given us, to constantly chip
off those rough edges and thosevices and super fluidities.
That being said, you know whodoesn't like to indulge a little
bit here and there on, you know, a good cigar or a good bourbon

(07:17):
, you know, from time to time,as long as you don't get too out
of hand.
I think that's what it's about,cause a perfect ashlar needs its
imperfections.
It's not completely smooth atall.
If it was completely perfect,the cement wouldn't bind it and
the stone would just slide rightoff it.
So we need our littleimperfections, but we can't be

(07:38):
completely imperfect either.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Small imperfections.
You don't want to see it cominglike oh wow, that building is
leaning, like no, we're talkingabout tiny imperfections.
You don't want to see it comingLike oh wow, that building is
leaning.
We're talking about tinyimperfections here.
I'm really excited because I'mnot a cigar guy myself.
I smoke a cigar now and then,but I couldn't tell you a $1,000

(08:02):
cigar from a $5 cigar.
But people I trust includingyou two are telling me our new
lineup is ridiculous.
Does anybody want to like forthe cigar-o-fish?
You know what is out there wantto give them a little hint of
what they can get from the threeruffians which we will be
launching officially at theGrand Lodge session on May 27th.

(08:26):
We'll have a booth, we're goingto talk about that.
But what can they get?
What can they get?
What are we going to beoffering there?

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, it's very exciting because, like we
changed completely differentroutes, we were pretty much
stuck in only being able to getNicaraguan sticks with
Nicaraguan fillers, nicaraguanbinders, nicaraguan sticks with
Nicaraguan fillers, nicaraguanbinders, nicaraguan leaves.
Now we are broadened completelyand we can pretty much do any
kind of blends now, so we'remessing with a lot of different

(08:54):
types of blends, our new lineup.
I believe our brother, johnSchaefer over there, has some
descriptions of the new sticksthat we got coming.
So, john, if you want to goahead and talk about the new
stuff, yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I mean, first of all, just to reiterate what Chris
said.
I think we're just oh so veryexcited about the relaunch of
our new cigars.
Definitely, within that, we'rebringing higher.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Love that.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
There it is.
We are bringing higher qualitycigars with superior branding
and also improved pricing aswell.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
So I think all three of those things are great,
they're going to pay less andget higher quality.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Can you believe it?
We can't either.
We've come a long way in a yearand we've done this because
we've got a new partner, and Ithink maybe in the future we'll
talk more about that partner,but he's been a wonderful
addition for our company and thegrowth of our company.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
So shout out to Brother Musa for hooking us up.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah actually it was a sonic connection, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
This connection happened at Grand Lodge last
year.
Brother Cooney met a brotherwho recommended a friend of his
who's very, very big in thecigar world you would know him
or try his stuff for sure and uh, you know, it turns out he's
just a guy, um, like us.
He's actually, like, I think, asecond or third generation

(10:16):
right in his family.
Dad was doing this for sureright now.
Uh, so he I believe we he's atleast second generation in this
business and he's really tryingto do the right thing from what
we can tell, and he really cares.
So he really helped us out a lotand they've made a lot of

(10:36):
concessions to help us out, sowe're eternally grateful for
them and we'll talk more aboutthem when the time's right.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's incredible, you know, like we went from this you
know super small private thingto now we're sharing the same
farms as like big companies likeAleva and some other really
well-known brands which I'm sureJohn can go over.
So first of all, I just want tomake sure that we mentioned
that we're still sticking to thetrue three ruffians and keeping

(11:05):
the same names of the firstthree cigars.
Anyway, there are going to befour in total.
We're going to have the firstthree as the JA, and that's
going to be our box-press cigar.
We're going to have the JO, theHabano cigar, and the JU, which
is going to be our Maduro cigar.
Maduro, yeah, and then ourfourth cigar is going to be our

(11:26):
Maduro cigar, maduro, and thenour fourth cigar is going to be
a barber pole cigar.
So that's going to be a newintroduction and we're going to
be calling that the WindingStairs.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I like it.
I like it.
So you've got a light and darkwrapped together.
Is what that is correct?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yep, a barber pole?
Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
For those that don't know what a barber pole cigar is
, you can imagine.
You know what a barber polelooks like.
Imagine that on a cigar withdark and white, and that's what
you'd have.
It looks really cool.
That's one of the coolestcigars I've seen.
It is, I know you were reallyexcited about it, John.
He was really excited aboutthat one.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Oh, Sean's got one on hand.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
All right, if you can see.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
There you go, you got to put your hand behind it.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
So the there you go.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
There you go.
That's a secret.
You're so smart.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Looks good, looks good.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
They are good man, they're tasty.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
So we're keeping it simple to start.
We want to see how this goes.
Definitely, we've alreadytested this out.
People are giving us reallygood reviews.
We can't wait to hear what themasons think about these things.
So we placed a nice fat orderfor our Grand Lodge.
We're going to be bringing aset of sampler packs that we'll

(12:45):
be selling.
Are they getting three or arethey getting four in the sampler
pack?
John, it would be four in asampler pack.
Yeah, so last year we soldthree in a sampler pack.
For how much?
50 bucks, $50.
And this year we're coming toGrand Lodge with higher quality
cigars, four of them in asampler pack.
So surely it's going to costmore, right, john?

Speaker 2 (13:06):
No, sir, that improved quality and pricing is
actually going to be.
We think we're still landing ona final pricing, to be fair,
but I do believe we're going tobe better than $50 for an extra
cigar.
Better branding and again,higher quality yeah, very
exciting.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Wow, that's good, that is exciting, and they'll be
able to buy some individuallyif they just want one-offs, I
imagine.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yep, well, that's the thing.
You know what I mean.
Like, we want to give the mostvalue that we can.
You know we are Masonic andthis is a fine line that we're
constantly having to walk isbetween, hey, we're a cigar
business and we're also masonsand brothers, and we don't ever
want to lose sight of the factthat, hey, we are brothers and

(13:51):
we got to be careful, becausewe're not trying to take
advantage of our brothers, we'rejust trying to, you know, give
something that's ours and havesome fun doing it.
It's a for masons, by masons,product that everybody can enjoy
, that if you're a cigar smoker,and that's what we're getting
down to and we're trying toreally push in on on giving back
to.
You know other lodges as well.

(14:12):
You know, I mean after, uh,after you go ahead through these
descriptions, we'll we'll touchon that as well I'm actually
really glad you brought that up.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Let's talk about that for a second.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think it's a good point.
Actually, when I was thesitting master.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Last year, way back in the day, I actually shared a
post from the Three Ruffians andsomebody who's a Mason said
this is really horrible to see asitting master using his
position to promote a business,and it actually made us all
pause.
I think and think about what wewere doing in that moment,

(14:47):
because prior to that, I didn'tthink of it that way.
I thought we were just havingfun.
And people say, making money,but we have only spent money, a
good amount of money each of ushas.
So let's clarify that To me.
I was investing money insomething that was going to be
for Macy's life.

(15:07):
That was fun.
And you know, we I don't thinkall three of us are pretty well
set when it comes to our jobsand our finances.
Cooney's got his own business.
He can't even barely, you know,use the port-a porta potty out
there to take a crap, becausehe's so busy.

(15:28):
He's got to just wear a diaperon the job.
And I'm the same way.
I have a digital advertisingagency with like 15 employees
and I'm constantly dealing withcrap.
And John is in the IT world andhe's on conferences.
You were just traveling forwork.
We're professionals.
Okay, guys, we are Masons andprofessionals.
We didn't come here to get richoff Freemasonry.

(15:51):
I've been a Mason since 2018and I tallied it up with my wife
.
I've invested about $6,000 intothe fraternity since I became a
Mason and I've given away somany free services from my
business to Masons that haveasked for help.
So the idea that we're makingmoney to me at this point is

(16:14):
ridiculous.
But I understand you don't knowthat.
The average person out there sothat would be my thing it's
like, hey, we're not here tryingto get rich.
This is a fun company and it'smeant to raise money for
Shriners International andlodges and we want to try to
find creative ways to help allMasons use our brand to maybe do

(16:35):
some fundraising and help theirlodges out.
And, that being said, I'm avery active Mason.
I tried to buy new costumes forour lodge for the second degree.
It was going to be about$25,000.
And there is a Mason who has acompany that does custom clothes
for the second degree.
There are Masons that makegloves and aprons and pins and

(16:59):
hats.
There are Masons that make themetal pieces that go on your
rods.
There are masons that put thecarpeting in our lodges.
Masons make money in masonryall the time.
That doesn't make you a badperson okay.
It's a byproduct of the wholesystem.
We don't come here for thepurpose of making money.

(17:20):
We come here for the purposesof becoming better people and
helping people.
But if you can make friends andhave a business that helps
Masons, I don't see that as anegative.
My two cents how do you guysfeel about it?
I agree, I agree 100%.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, when we started this business, one of the
biggest things to me was itbetter be fun, because, like you
said, we're all busy enough inour own professional worlds,
right?
So if we're going to spend sometime to do this, let's make it
fun, and if it stops being fun,I don't know.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, when we stop doing it.
That's we agreed on that, youknow at the beginning of the
year.
We we touched on that.
You know, our goal was just tokeep bringing the fun yeah, and
I mean, if we can raise a littlebit of money and if we, if we
do make a little bit of money,that's always not a bad thing
either.
Like it is a fine line.
It's a fine line that we got towalk.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
There's no chance that the three of us are
retiring because of this company.
Let's know.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
There's no chance.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
There's nothing in the world that could happen.
That's going to make that areality, and so calm down if
you're upset about that.
Okay, we're not getting rich.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Uh, here it is also it is super cool when you see
guys in like kansas you know,smoking our cigars or wearing
our shirts.
You got brothers like nick outin washington and enjoying our
cigars and you know he's givingus nothing but love.
It's fun, it really is.
It brings us all together alittle bit more and it's
something to do that with.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know what I mean we never would have met Nick if
it wasn't for cigars.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
What a great connection you guys had
something on your website thatsaid if you want to be involved,
reach out.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I did.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
I think we've all been chatting ever since then.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
This is the first time I actually have seen you
with my own eyes, but I feellike I know you already that's
true.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
You weren't on the original zoom call.
That we know I wasn't uh Idon't know why, uh.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
But you know, brother , nick, I, I definitely want to
get to what you're doing, um,with your raffle and some of the
other things that are going on,but I thought, thought first,
uh, it'd be nice to just meetthe guys, really talk about, uh,
the cigars themselves andwhat's going to happen at grand
lodge and what people can expecthere coming up in a few weeks.
So, with that being said, uh,everyone knows who I am if

(19:37):
you're listening to this.
So, john, if you could justgive us a little history of
years, your personal life andyour Masonic life, so people can
get a snapshot of who you are.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Wow, okay, well, I'm a relatively newer Mason is what
I would say.
I was raised with Brother SeanCooney as well with five
additional fellows, so we cametogether through as a group of
seven and we were raised May14th of 2022.
And I just had to look that upjust to confirm that.

(20:09):
But yeah, so it's been a littlebit.
I've been enjoying the ride,met some amazing guys at
Sarasota Lodge 147, probablysome lifelong friends, which has
been absolutely fantastic.
That's one of the biggestreasons I actually joined
Freemasonry is so that I couldexpand my network of brothers,
and boy did it ever do that?

(20:29):
So very happy about that.
Shortly, briefly, I guess myprofession that we talked about
earlier.
So I am a project manager and Ihandle projects for our M&A, so
our mergers and acquisitionswithin our company, and what we
do is we acquire companies andwe'll bring them into our

(20:51):
organization.
That includes systems, peopleand processes and all that good
stuff.
So that's what keeps me busyduring the day.
And then I do enjoy, certainly,smoking cigar with some bourbon
.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Well, john has been helping me.
Last year he helped me bring in20-some masons into the lodge.
Yeah, he really got adept.
I kind of passed off in ourlodge the Grand Lodge Marketing
Reimbursement Program, which isa program that the Grand Lodge
of Florida I helped create andthey've been doing it for some

(21:26):
years and it really helps people, helps masons control the flow
of people coming into theirlodges, which is a huge
challenge for most lodges.
But this program makes itreally easy and free because the
Grand Lodge reimburses you, andfree because the Grand Lodge
reimburses you.
And so John has done such agood job that the incoming

(21:47):
Grandmaster in Florida hastapped him and asked him to join
the team.
On the state level.
John is a committeeman now forthat marketing reimbursement
program.
He'll be serving mostworshipful when he's installed,
don Coward.
So congratulations to you,state chairman.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
All right, thank you, that's awesome, buddy.
Couldn't have done that withoutyou.
State chairman.
All right, well, thank you,that's awesome, buddy, I
couldn't have done that withoutyou, chris.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh, wow, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
That was the wrong.
No, it's accurate.
It's making me want to cry, mybuddy.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
There we go.
That was the right one.
I got to get a little.
There we go.
You're used to those.
Yeah, actually I won't be onthat.
I've been asked to leave thecommittee as I have relocated
out of the state and the humangrandmaster thought it would be
inappropriate for me to serve onhis committee, asked me to
leave.
So, john will be the closestthing to me that you've got in

(22:40):
the state, so please, I'm sorry.
Use him as a resource and reachout to him Absolutely.
He can help you learn how tobring members into your lodge
and that's really about right,Masons making masons.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
So it really is a great program that Chris did
establish and a lot of us arejust running with it and I will
continue to run and if there'sany way we can find a way to
help, absolutely reach out andlet us know.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Brother.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Cooney what's?

Speaker 1 (23:07):
up dude.
Who are you?
What's going on with you?
Tell us.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
I am a hooligan.
That's what I am, a hooligan.
I was raised with Johnny.
I was raised with Johnny at thesame time with all those same
same boys and um, so I was likeI had one of those wild
upbringings.
You know I'm saying I'm notgonna go too in depth about it,

(23:31):
but you know what I mean alwayswas mixed up with rough and
tumble characters.
My entire life and I've, uh, Ihave affinity for being a wild
man at times.
Um, masonry brought me in andgave me this lovely beautiful
accountability to where I'mconstantly accountable to all of

(23:52):
these men, and they hold meaccountable and they won't let
me, because if you leave me tomy own devices, I make bad
decisions.
I have time and time again andit's so nice to have all of
these men that I need to rise upfor and make sure that I am on
the level and I am on the plumband I'm doing what I'm supposed
to be doing, you know.
And so that's my support systemand um, it's given me so much

(24:16):
like so much, the, the lodge,the fraternity, um, I'm sitting
junior warden somehow, becauseyou guys said that it was a good
idea and I'm doing the best Ican.
There's just so much in ourfraternity between you know, the
district and District 23 ingeneral is really really, really

(24:39):
strong and we all talk to eachother and we're there for each
other, and that's what masonryshould be.
And I don't know, I'm just a aguy and I try real hard to not
suck and that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
What do you do for a living?

Speaker 3 (24:55):
I work in the contracting business.
I build houses um, do a lot ofcustom kitchens and baths and
fireplaces, additions and all ofthat stuff and we're just going
nonstop.
It's ridiculous the amount ofbuilding in the state, but it
keeps me fed so can't complain.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Awesome man and I'm really.
I mean, I've seen you growsince you joined the lodge.
Obviously, I believe I wasthere at your initial meeting
that you did at the open house,I think and was with you the
whole way through and I'vedefinitely seen you grow as a
man.
I think you know you werealready a good person.

(25:34):
All of us, you know that.
Come to the fraternity they saywe're already, we're a Mason in
our heart, before we ever madea Mason in the lodge and we're
drawn together.
So we're supposed to betogether.
It's unavoidable, it's ourdestiny to be together.
But I've watched you grow andbecome a much more, as you said,
a reserved person in a way.

(25:56):
I mean, I've gotten the callswhere you're about to beat the
shit out of somebody who hityour truck and you saw me sign.
You're like, oh, I thought Ibetter call somebody help me.
You know because, uh, you got,you got heated, but you kept it
under control and you attributedm mason sign and you're like,
oh, I thought I better callsomebody to help me Because you
got heated but you kept it undercontrol and you attributed
masonry to the reason that mandidn't get a beating.
So there's physical evidencethat this is working in your
life.
You're not in jail from littletiny fender benders like that,

(26:20):
whereas in the past you mighthave actually taught that man a
lesson and wound up going tojail.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
But it's the tools that I was given to use.
Like, hey, man, listen, you'renot, that's a bad decision to
make.
Just run it through the workingtools and then you make better
decisions.
And I'm not saying like I'm,like you know, criminal, because
I'm definitely not.
I wouldn't be able to be aMason if I was just a convict or

(26:47):
something like that.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
There's a little ruffian inside there, though,
right Definitely.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
There's a ruffian inside each and every one of us.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Absolutely.
Here's your three ruffians,real guys, real Masons, based
out of Sarasota, fedora wearingbadass, friendly, don't mess
with us, but we will love you,masons.
And we've got with us a goodfriend of the three ruffians.

(27:19):
This is somebody that reallyearly on kind of reached out and
wanted to just help out, didn'treally care about anything for
himself, just wanted to know howhe could help.
And so we let him know that alodge in our district had done a
fundraiser and you know it wasour first try at it.
Our cigars were more expensivethen, it was harder to make

(27:41):
money and we've been reallyretooling everything to try to
get this better and so thatLodges can actually make more
money and people will getsomething out of it.
And he's been running his ownraffle with the Three Ruffians
Cigar Program.
I believe as of today, I saw atext You're going to be

(28:03):
profitable, no matter what.
At this point it was just amatter of how much money you're
going to be making, correct.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
But tell us about yourself and what brought you
here.
Yeah, so my first contact withMasons up here in Washington was
in January of 23.
And it just so happened I metwith my district deputy.
He likes to, you know, havefirst contact with most masons
in that in horse tyler lodge,and I went to my meetings, got

(28:29):
everyone.
It was, uh, initiated in juneand ever since then I've been
going headstrong.
We meet at his house for studynights every week and I just
kind of dove headfirst into it.
Uh, was raised, was raised thisJanuary and have been just
knocking stuff out and trying tosupport Masons wherever we can.

(28:51):
I take my obligations veryseriously and I was unemployed
for a little bit and was ony'all's website ordering cigars
like I probably shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
Yeah, and I reached out to you guys employment
discount there.
No, it's good.
It's good, uh, supporting youguys who support the shriners,
which you know, brotherssupporting brothers, supporting
brothers, which is you know whatwe're all about, and seeing
something on y'all's websitesaying if you wanted to help to
reach out.
So I reached out and, um, westarted up this cigar raffle

(29:26):
that I seen that you're, Ibelieve, liberty lodge yes, was
doing yeah and um got it passedfrom my lodge to start doing as
well.
We've been running it for threemonths now.
I think we have just a coupleof weeks left before the drawing
date so people can still buycigars and get into your raffle.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
What?
What are they going to win inyour raffle?

Speaker 4 (29:47):
So it's the same deal as Delivery Lodge.
We're doing a pack of 25 Madurocigars and a pack of 25 Torpedo
cigars.
The first person drawn gets topick which one they want.
The second person gets theother pack left over.
How much are?

Speaker 1 (30:03):
the tickets.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
Our tickets are $20, and you can log on to our
website, which I'm sure Chriswill link into the description
and shoot me an email, and Itake Zell and Venmo and I'll
send you a copy of your ticket,either photogenically or through
the snail mail, if you preferit that way.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Shout out your Zell and your Venmo.
Shout it out dog.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, the Venmo is at nbailey87.
And I don't know my Zelle.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
I'm sure we can drop that in there for you.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yeah, I'm sure we can link it all.
I'll get it to Chris.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, I'll definitely make sure it's available, the
website and everything.
I'm sure we can link it all.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
I'll get it to Chris yeah, definitely make sure it's
available.
Yeah, and I'll the website andeverything we have up there.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
I actually haven't pulled up right now, If you
visit if you visit on the levelpodcast Facebook page or the
three ruffians Facebook page,you'll find all of the
information there too.
And so he says you've got acouple of weeks.
It sounds like you don't haveto be present to win.
So they can win those cigarsfrom anywhere in the country,
anywhere in the world maybe.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Correct.
The only thing is that you needto be at least 21 years or
older to purchase a ticket, and,yeah, we will ship them for you
.
You don't have to worry aboutshipping costs or anything, just
the cost of the tickets is allthat you need to worry about.
And what has your lodge decidedto use the proceeds of the

(31:33):
raffle for?
So?
A few years ago this is beforeI became a mason our boiler room
caught on fire and the lodgealmost went.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
I saw this movie.
It's a freddy krueger, I'veseen it right, the the lodge
almost went well.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
The lodge was going bankrupt and my district deputy
was Warshaw Master at the timeand there was some discussion on
selling the building or fixingthe building up and saving the
building.
Our building is one of the fewbuildings in Washington that was
actually built for Masons itsentirety, so we kind of wanted

(32:02):
to save it.
So he buckled down and we'vebeen raising money.
We have a goal of $100,000before we start putting out into
the community and stuff likethis.
So the proceeds for this willgo into our investment fund,
which will help.
We're over halfway therealready.
In just a few years, nice, andin July we're putting on a hula

(32:28):
festival, a luau, there you go,a Hawaiian thing, yeah, our
Worshipful Masters from Hawaiiare sitting Worshipful Masters
from Hawaii, so he's putting ona luau and so some of the
proceeds are going to go to thestartup cost for the luau.
The rest is going to go intoour investment fund so we can
reach our goal.
That is awesome, very cool.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Very, very cool.
All right, so there you gothat's who you're dealing with
here and wean yourself somecigars before you come down to
Grand Lodge, because that's whatwe're going to call our old
product.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
At Grand Lodge.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
You have an opportunity to get some of our
new product Now the old product.
At Grand Lodge you have anopportunity to get some of our
new product Now the old productis good.
From what I hear, people reallylove those cigars.
It's just for us.
They were expensive.
It was expensive to get, whichis why you were paying more than
you probably wanted to If itwasn't cold and rainy here, I'd
be sitting outside smoking thebox press.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
It's the last one I got.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
That's John's favorite too.
I think that is my favoriteabsolutely.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Mine too.
The new ones are all Toros, sowe got rid of the box press.
They're all the same Toro size,but we have an actual, true
Connecticut coming with that.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh boy, Wait until you see our new bands on these
cigars.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
I'm looking forward to that, and I'm looking forward
to seeing some stuff somehigher.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
I mean we really leveled it up.
I believe there's some foil.
It's pressed right, it's liketextured now it's a legitimate
band, absolutely legitimatesticks, like we can do custom
blends now too.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
So this won't be the end of it either.
Every so often we'll have newlimited runs for people to look
forward to, because our we'renot shackled to one product
anymore.
We can recreate things we can.
Now we get to just have funwith it, because I mean, I'm a
cigar guy, I love me somedominican puros, you know what I
mean.
I'm an open opus x guy.

(34:26):
You know I love anything arturo, um, and we can play around
with a lot of different blends.
You know that's just fun andexciting.
So we're not just shackledanymore.
And then I think this is goingto be a good good, relaunching
good, reintroducing everybody tothe, the old three rough ends,
and show them what we're we'remade of, give you a better bang
for your buck oh yeah, you'regonna get.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
You're definitely gonna get your bang for your
buck.
Now we're.
We told you we're about havingfun.
Let's talk a little bit aboutour next big event.
Now we are going to berepresenting at a golf outing in
florida for another lodge yeahI guess you could throw that out
there.
For Inglewood it's InglewoodLodge, correct.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, so it's Inglewood Masonic Lodge, number
360.
And I believe it's their fourthannual golf tournament that
they do.
It's on May 18th and, yeah, thethree ruffians are actually
going to be sponsoring one ofthe holes and we're donating
some cigars and some-shirts asprizes and, uh, yours truly is
actually gonna be playing in thetournament.

(35:29):
Really so uh yeah, alongsidethree other sarasota lodge
brothers, we've got uh, marty,austin, derrick and myself oh
wow, it's a stack team.
Well, we'll see about that.
So I'm hoping those three guysare good, because I know I
haven't played probably overfive years and I'm going to have
to get the dust off my clubsand see what I can do out there.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
You need to get to a driving range before now and
then.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
I know that's what I should be doing today, but I
think I'm a bit of this podcast.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
As long as you're looking good and having fun,
that's all that matters right,exactly I'll have a cigar in one
hand and I'll listen.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's exactly that, just about having the fun.
It'll be a blast for a goodreason.
It's all good, it's a win-winday.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I'm coming into Orlando Sunday I believe that's
May 26th we will have a booth, atable, all day, may 27th, at
the Grand Lodge of Florida,which is being held at the Rosen
Plaza Hotel on InternationalDrive in Orlando.
So anyone can come to thatGrand Lodge session.

(36:35):
You don't have to be an officerliterally any Mason.
We have a Mason from our lodgewho isn't in the line, he's just
a brand-new Master Mason fromour lodge who isn't in the line,
he's just a brand new mastermason.
He sees come and he, he got asuite that he is allowing us to
utilize for a secret, privatethree ruffians party brother
charles allen yeah, brother,charles allen, uh, we aren't

(37:00):
going to stay where it is or howto get there.
Uh, if you go to, uh, the threeruffians website, there will be
a pop-up there where you canenter your email, um, and we
will shoot you an email the dayuh before or the day of where
that party is going to be, andyou can let us know if you want
to have a private little gettogether with us.
We will have alcohol that wewill be giving away to anybody

(37:22):
that comes to have a drink withus, and we will obviously have
some sticks there that we willall be smoking, I'm sure, and we
will be giving away.
We'll be drawing from theraffle that's going to happen
all day on Monday.
So this raffle idea, what we'regoing to do is make it a little
fun.
We're going to have a booththere All three ruffians will be

(37:43):
there, full of fedoras.
I don't know what we'll bewearing, but there will be
clothes.
Don't worry, I got a nice creamsuit I'm thinking of bringing
with maybe a black t-shirt.
We'll see, we're all going tobe looking fly.
You will get to pick whichruffian you want to go
head-to-head with in astraight-up game of 21.
So best two out of three youwill play the ruffian of your

(38:06):
choice and if you win, you willbe entered into a drawing to win
a free sampler pack at thesecret, super secret, super cool
after-party that night.
And if you lose, you will geton your knees and kiss the ring
of that ruffian.
You will be humiliated and youwill bow down before your

(38:27):
champion and show fealty to himby kissing his ring.
So there is a risk here.
Okay, don't play if you're notwilling to pay the price, but
we're looking forward to meetingyou guys.
Uh, even if you don't have tobuy anything from us, you can
just play, um, if you, if youwant, but you got to be prepared
to kiss that ring if you lose,because we're going to be
prepared to potentially give youa four pack sampler if you win.

(38:52):
So, uh, in addition to that,you'll be able to buy our
sampler packs or the singles,and john will give you an
autograph, probably.
Uh, sean, if he's stillconscious, we'll be able to give
you an autograph.
I know he gets started a littleearly in the day, that's the
only thing that I can sign myown.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
My handwriting is good only on my signature,
that's it when he starts writinglike overhand.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
You know that it's not good yeah, I got your
signature here.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
Yeah, no, it.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
no, it's going to be a blast.
We're going to have fun, andthere'll probably be some
T-shirts and other things theretoo.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, there's a ton of new fun stuff.
We got coasters.
Oh my goodness, we got blasts.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
What have you been doing?
Tell us what you've been doingwith all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
I've been, since I build stuff.
I've been down in the garagebuilding some cigar boxes.
I got a laser engraver nowWe've been playing a lot with
that.
It's fun burning cigar, burningour boxes up and burning.
We got flasks.
We got coasters that we'll alsobe bringing to Grand Lodge.

(40:00):
We got a bunch of matches, youknow, matchbooks, three ruffians
.
We got a bunch of matches,matchbooks, three ruffians.
We got a bunch of fun stuff tocome check out, also with our
normal t-shirts and all thatkind of merch too.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Every single item has been embedded with actual DNA
from Sean Cooney.
You will have authentic, themost authentic products on the
planet.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yep, my DNA is full of love.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yes, yes, yeah, no comment.
There's a good joke there, butI'm going to leave that one on
the table.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Figure.
I'll throw it out there and seewhat you do with it.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
I had a great one for it too.
So I mean, what else?
Is there anything else thatpeople can actually get their
hands on there?
And I know we'll be thereMonday.
I'm flying out Tuesdayafternoon, but I think you guys
are probably going to hangTuesday, right?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
I mean, we're going to be there for the long haul
probably.
It's going to be probablyMonday, tuesday and we'll see
what pitters out come Wednesday,but we're going to be there for
sure.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
I do think a lot of the booths, though.
They shut down Tuesdayafternoon, so I'd imagine it
won't be about the same, yeahRight.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Monday is where it's at.
So come Monday early, find usbefore Grand Launch Session
opens.
They have like a million breaksbecause, let's face it, the
average age is 80 and they canhold their pee for about 10
minutes a pop.
You get plenty of breaks.
Guess who's going to be outthere.
Every time you come out withsmiling faces on your three
ruffians Ready to say hello.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
I wish our state of communication wasn't Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday.
I'd be willing to go.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
It's a holiday Memorial Day.
They always a holiday MemorialDay, too, memorial Day, so they
always do it over Memorial Day.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
I happen to be going deep-sea fishing that weekend.
Ah okay, I'll be taking some ofyour cigars with me.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Something fishy about that story.
I don't know what it is.
So that is big news.
This is something that we'vebeen dying to get out there
again with our new product.
We've been a long time tryingto retool the back end of this
whole operation and make it alittle cheaper for everybody,

(42:19):
because we felt like we were waytoo high priced to be something
that people could really enjoy,and I think we fixed that
finally so you can enjoy it.
You can have fun with it.
If you have a lodge out there,we think you're going to be able
to make even more money nowwith these raffles for your
lodges, and so we now have twocase studies.

(42:40):
Well, we will have two.
When Nick gives away a car athis raffle or whatever he's
giving away, definitely not acar.
Not a car, just cigars.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
Just a lot of good smiles and brotherly love and
some cigars.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
That's awesome.
So what has been yourimpression?
You're the newest of us.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
I am.
I am the newest Mason.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Have you found it to be everything you hoped it would
be so far, or is it ups anddowns?

Speaker 4 (43:09):
I would say everything that I hoped it to be
, everything that I expected.
I've been looking into Masonrysince 2010.
2009, actually, I've beenlooking into it and just haven't
been able to have been settledsomewhere long enough to
actually uh join, and when Imoved up here, I decided to just
pull the trigger.
Let's just, let's just go forit, and I met a lot of really

(43:31):
good people, a lot of reallygood friends that I can count on
and, um, you know, going overto our study sessions on Sunday
nights, even though it's Sundaynights, I'd leave there if I had
a bad week.
I leave there in a better mood.
Um, then I, then I arrived inthere.
Uh, but it's, it's been great.
I've met nothing but wonderfulpeople and I look forward to

(43:51):
doing all the traveling that Ican possibly do to meet even
more.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
That's the key to I.
Getting the most out of masonryis being a traveling man.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
As much as your life will allow you to be, the more
you travel, the more people youmeet, the more, I think,
enjoyable the whole experienceof freemasonry becomes, and I
think it was a month or so agowe had the uh grand masters
convention up here in seattleyeah and I uh, volunteered to
greet brothers at the airportand, uh, some of the security
detail that they did.
That was so much fun justmeeting different people from
all over the continental NorthAmerica.

(44:29):
It was wonderful Nice.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
What was the youngest guy that you saw?

Speaker 4 (44:37):
I would have to say it would be Right Worshipful
Brad Billings out of Texas.
Okay, yes, he's coming, bradbuildings out of Texas.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, yes, so he's coming on the podcast We've
talked.
He's been dealing with somestuff out of Texas, obviously,
but he is excited to come andtalk about that Now that it's
kind of behind him.
Brad, I believe he's in histhirties.
He looked like so yeah, prettyyoung guy.
And now he's a past.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Grandmaster and Grand Secretary.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Grand Secretary now, yeah, and he was at the heart of
revolutionizing TexasFreemasonry.
Basically, there was a bit of achanging of the guard.
I guess you could say at theirGrand Laud Session this year in
January A changing of the guard.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
I guess you could say at their Grand Laud session
this year in January.
I follow that story pretty wellbecause I'm actually from Texas
, so following that story andthen being able to just say hi
to Brad was awesome.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, he's a good guy and wherever he goes people
seem to follow and he seems toreally have good intentions for
the fraternity in everythingthat he does, which is always
good to see our leaders doingwhat's right for the fraternity.
Especially, you know, in Texas.
They're coming out of asituation where their leadership

(45:55):
was in a more negative place.
They were doing things forthemselves more than for the
fraternity.
Allegedly I don't know, I'm nota Texas Mason, I just report
stories.
But it didn't sound good.
It didn't sound good at all.
And you know I got a letterfrom our Grand Lodge in Florida

(46:16):
that we had just unilaterallyremoved recognition from a lot
of countries at once and itwasn't a good situation in my
mind.
I have done a little bit ofresearch and the things I found
aren't great in some cases.
But I'm not really prepared togive a whole accounting of that
until I know more.
But it's everywhere.

(46:37):
I mean you know, in everyjurisdiction you're probably
dealing with some level of stuffeverywhere.
I mean you know, in everyjurisdiction you're probably
dealing with some level of stuff.
The key is, I think, for us asMasons to be educated about
what's going on.
Don't be ignorant, like reallypay attention.
If you get a report or a letterfrom your grand jurisdiction,

(46:58):
make sure you know what it means, because it does apply to you.
I have a district deputy and apast master in our state who are
good friends of mine now I metthrough the podcast that can no
longer visit their home grandjurisdiction in France because
our grant lodge just decided tounrecognize them as part of that
group.
So they had to make a decisionand I imagine it didn't put them

(47:20):
in a very good place there fora minute and I feel really bad
for those guys.
But you know, if they didn't payattention they might have
accidentally done something thatcould have got them in trouble
in their jurisdiction here inFlorida.
So you really do have to payattention when you get those
letters because it might applyto you.
It's not all junk mail,especially if it's coming from

(47:41):
the Grandmaster.
I don't know if they mail themout.
They probably just distributethem electronically.
I see them on our District 23group but I don't know that
every district has a group likethat where they share things
publicly.
Do you guys do that up in yourneck of the woods?
Do you have online groups whereeverybody congregates to share

(48:03):
information?

Speaker 4 (48:05):
I would say that we use a system called Grandview
for our major communications.
This is kind of where we're atright now.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
That's probably similar to what we use called
Circumscribe, where you got yourMasonic records and paid your
dues and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Grand Lodge of Florida has switched over to
Amity.

Speaker 4 (48:28):
I'm jealous of you.
That's about as far as I cansay on that one.
I got to speak with one of thefounders of Amity at the Grand
Masters Conference.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Is that Jason Barnes?

Speaker 4 (48:40):
I believe so, yes, yes, I won't bring that up.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, yeah, he's a.
Very well, he's going to be atthe Grand Lodge of Florida.
He will be at our after partywith his lovely lady, and so if
you want to meet the owner ofAmity, put your email in.
Come to our super secret, supercool.
After party You'll be able toshake hands with Brother Jason
Barnes.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
He's a really great guy, super easy to talk to as
well.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, really smart, really sharp, and I interviewed
him on the podcast.
There's an episode.
If you haven't seen it, checkit out.
He talks about his Masonichistory and it's really
interesting.
He has connections to Dan Brownand, obviously, dc.
When we went to DC it was hislodge that was doing their

(49:27):
installation and it was theoddest thing to see somebody you
know going up to people thatwork at the Capitol building or
people that work at these crazyplaces and he's negotiating with
them because they have ourstuff, they have the george
washington gavel on display andhe needs it for his lodge.
So he's going to pick it upfrom them like, hey, where's

(49:48):
give me my shit?
And they're like, oh, yes, sir,yes, sir, I'll get it right
away.
It's pretty impressive to be inthat environment, in that place
and see that.
And then you go to the actualinstallation and there it is and
he's in their installation andhe's such an.
All of those brothers are justawesome people and for us from
Florida to get to go up thereand share that experience with

(50:11):
them, to me it was reallyspecial because their ceremony
is different than ours and inmany ways it was more compelling
and more engaging than ourceremony.
I don't know how you felt, john, but when you level the lodge
at the end and everybody comesliterally down together and
stands around that altar, I gotchills.
I felt something there and Ihaven't felt that in a lodge in

(50:34):
a long time I would agree it wasa very, very cool experience.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
And the other thing I noticed outside of what you
said is how closely knit a groupthose officers were.
It was incredible.
I mean, there was a very, verycool experience, and the other
thing I noticed outside of whatyou said is how closely knit a
group those officers were.
It was incredible.
I mean, there was a changing ofthe guard right and tears were
shed.
I'll put it that way.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
And it was incredible .

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, and a lot of those good brothers out there
smoke cigars.
So once we found that out, weshipped some cigars up for them
to enjoy as well.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
We gave them some free cigars on us Absolutely
Good group up there, solid guys.
Really cool thing that I noticedthey did that I did at Zach's
installation.
You probably didn't notice.
The Worshipful Master of theLodge often leaves the east to
come down for various reasons.
He stuffs the gavel in hisapron string almost like it's a

(51:20):
weapon, and he walks with theapron kind of there and does his
stuff.
Then he comes back and takesthe gavel back out and uses it
again.
So when I left the altar atZach's installation I put it in
the same position and carried mygavel for the rest of the night
on my apron Because Zach hashis own.

(51:41):
You know Most masters havetheir own gavel for the rest of
the night on my apron BecauseZach has his own.
You know Most masters havetheir own gavel.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yours is a special gavel, as I understand it.
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (51:51):
I mean it's not that special, it's got my name on it.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
It has my name in the year that I was the master.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Actually it is a well-worn gavel if you look at
it.
I'm really proud to look at itnow because it's beat up and you
can see I really use that thing.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
You had to keep us in order quite a bit.
Is that what you're saying?
No, all the greens all themeetings.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
It was a lot of times that I was in the East using
that gavel.
It wasn't just 24 meetings.
We did a lot of degrees lastyear.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
We do a lot of degrees up here, Do you?
My lodge has taken and I'veparticipated in a lot of degrees
since I was initiated.
I started doing degrees when Iwas a fellow craft.
We've put on at least 10 EAdegrees in my short time of
being a Mason.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
So do you have a favorite role that you like to
play.
Favorite position.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
I enjoy the junior deacon, but I also enjoy the
senior steward.
I like being able to play thatrole in the degrees as well.
A lot of floor work, yeah a lotof floor work.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, a lot of floor work.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
I like the floor work .
I haven't actually been in athird degree yet we have a
couple coming up and I'm hopingI'll be able to make the third
degree so I can at least watchone.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Oh, you gotta get a role in that third degree.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
I'd probably get suckered into a role, for sure.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
If I could recommend, ask about the three ruffians.
Those are three pretty goodroles to play.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I've heard I played a ruffian in my first One that
I've done.
It was fantastic.
It's really cool to be a part ofit, though, after I've gone
through it, and then to be ableto watch it, and then to be a
part of it.
All three of those bringsomething different and I
thought each time I saw it, orand then to be able to watch it
and then to be a part of it.
Like, all three of those bringsomething different and I

(53:46):
thought each time I saw it orwas a part of it, I saw
something different it waspretty cool.
It's one of the most movingdegrees.
You know what?

Speaker 3 (53:50):
I'm saying You're confronted with this big thing
in your life.
You know what I mean and it's apretty impactful one.
So to be able to go through itis it, it's a, it's its own
experience, but then to be ableto bring other guys and to
experience that is really anhonor.
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
Yeah, I really enjoy doing the apprentice degrees
because I get to introduce abrother into their fraternity.
Yeah, the second degree inmiddle middle chamber lecture is
just perfect.
I love that one.
I'm actually going to startlearning, uh, that degree here
in the next.
The second degree in middlechamber lecture is just perfect.
I love that one.
I'm actually going to startlearning that degree here in the
next couple of months.

(54:28):
Start memorizing that lecture.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
But the third degree is my favorite degree.
It's the same as ours.
I wonder if all of theirlectures match our lecture.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
I would love to find that out and compare notes as
well.
Pull out the blue book, dude.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Well, anytime you want I happen to know those
lectures I'll recite whatFlorida's got and you tell me
how different it is from whatyou've got.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
I've listened to your podcast that you did on all the
lectures.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Yes.
I think they're, for the mostpart, very similar, but I have
to go back through and read yeah, because now I'm in South
carolina and uh, I called up alodge and I said, hey, I'm
thinking of coming to visit.
And they're like, we're doing afellow craft degree, we're
practicing tonight, why don'tyou come?
And uh, I was gonna go and inmy mind I was like, man, I
wonder if they'll let me do that, the lecture, you know, but

(55:17):
it's not their state, so I don'tknow if they would allow it.
And uh, but it's not theirstate, so I don't know if they
would allow it.
And I got to be honest, Ihaven't been able to bring
myself to step into a lodgesince I left Sarasota Lodge.
I don't know.
That feels like my home and Ialmost, in a way, feel like I'd
be cheating on my brothers bywalking into a lodge up here.

(55:39):
I know that's not the case, Iknow, but there's a part of me
that feels that way and has keptme from going to lodge up here.
So I need to just buckle downand do it one of these days.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
You will always be part of 147, but you're welcome
to go check out our lodges aswell, and you should.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
I'll check it out, but you know me as soon as I get
in there, I'm not going to haveto control myself.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
man, Are you a perpetual member of 147, Chris?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
No no.
I'm just a regular old member.
I still pay my dues likeeverybody else.
Yeah, I'm not a perpetual Ishould have, but I don't know.
I just like paying my duesevery year.
I'm not a perpetual I shouldhave, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
I just like paying my dues every year.
I guess, are you a perpetual?
I got a feeling that somebody'sgoing to make an honorary
perpetual membership motion herecoming next week.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Please, I've never had a black ball on my Masonic
record and I really don't needone now.
So it's okay, you don't have todo it.
I'll keep paying my dues.
I promise, Don't kick me out.

Speaker 4 (56:48):
I would be curious to know the differences in the
lectures from.
I think it's just what twostates up, one state up right.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah, but I think in South Carolina it's ancient,
free and accepted, so it'sslightly different.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
They're the only state in the US that's ancient
free and accepted right.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
I don't know if they're the only one, but I know
that there's not many that are.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
North Carolina is too .

Speaker 4 (57:12):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
For the most part.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
I want to go there yeah.
I'd love to sit in a Texaslodge, and then my fiance has
family in Arizona and the grandsecretary told me that I'm more
than welcome to visit anytimeI'm there.
So I'd like to go visit Arizonaand see the differences.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah, that's the key.
It's like really interesting tosee the differences and usually
it's, you know, based on whatI've experienced from what we
saw in Washington DC versus us.
It's the same ceremony.
It's like they made slightlydifferent choices in the framing
of certain words and phrases,but it's the same.
Some words are probably goingto be a little different, but

(57:52):
it's the same ritual work at theend of the day.
In DC the junior deacon does alot more interesting things with
the door that we don't do inFlorida.
I did notice that it's the sameritual.
They just added a little bitmore flair to what they're doing
in some cases.

(58:13):
I imagine it's not wildlydifferent.
We've had brothers from Cubacome and they say it's pretty
much the same, except we don'thave staff.
We carry swords.
I thought, wow, that's prettymuch the same, except we don't
have staff.
We carry swords.
I thought, wow, that's a coollook.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Yeah, I want swords, dude.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Yeah right, Instead of staffs.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
The demons walking out of the sword, yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
So what did we miss?
What did we miss?
Is there anything else that weneeded to cover for the three
ruffians guys?

Speaker 2 (58:44):
No, no other than the shameless plug that you can
always check out our website atthe three ruffians dot com, the
number three, and we can alwaysship cigars out to you if you're
not in the state of Florida andcoming to one of our events.
So, yeah, come check us out.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
I think we might even be getting an updated website
pretty soon here too, yeah yeah,I think that as soon as the new
product comes in and we havenew photos, we'll be able to
update the website and it'll geta new and it'll get a new fresh
baby face.

Speaker 4 (59:12):
Look, yeah, it'll look as new and fresh, as nick
bailey is in the fraternity hey,if you guys ever, ever need
someone to write honest reviews,I would not mind writing a
review on.
Luke's cigars, that's right.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
If you just need a reviewer, we love feedback
absolutely.
The good, the bad and the ugly,we take it all.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
That's right.
I write honest reviews andnothing other than.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
Good, we love keeping it real.
And some people don't like that, you know.
They want you to say only thegood stuff, but we like to keep
it real.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Absolutely.
We're ruffians after all.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
It's a Mason thing.
I guess the ruffians wereMasons as well.
Yeah, and it's fascinating.
You know, we in our men, do youhave a mentoring system?
Where you're, when you gothrough the degrees, do you get
official mentoring from somebodyin the lodge?

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
So my home lodge Horace W Tyler Lodge doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
It's no.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
So right there at the , at that point in time where
you get your mentor assigned toyou, it's known that we meet at
our district deputy's house onSundays and that information is
passed out and that just helpsus.
And if you can't get along ornot get along, but if you can't
make those Sunday night studynights, then we're more than

(01:00:36):
welcome to assign a coach orsomeone to get together and help
out learning the catechisms, asyou guys call it, the
memorization part correct.
Yeah, learning, learning thatbut for the most part we meet up
.
There's about two or threelodges that meet up at our
district deputy's house.
He's got a little basement downthere and we just secure place
for instruction.

(01:00:56):
You know we're able to go overthe posting lectures and any
Masonic questions possible, butother lodges do have their
coaches assigned to them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Oh, they do.
Okay, so you do get mentoringofficially in some capacity.
Yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Because we have the catechism instructors assigned
basically day one and that'syour catechism instructor, and
then mentoring is mandatory aswell, but that's not your
catechism teacher.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
It's a separate mentoring system that we have to
implement.
Yeah, so a lot of lodges uphere have their own study nights
that they do and invite membersof the lodge and other lodges
to come do study nights.
It just so happens my homelodge we meet at district
deputy's house because he's amember of the lodge and go over
that that way.
But yeah, it's, it's a.
It's a really cool system.

(01:01:50):
I moved through the degreespretty fast because of that and
being able to call up a brotherand saying hey, I'll feed you
spaghetti If you come spend anhour with me going over my ocean
lecture.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
It works out, you know really well, yeah, you
might have to lean in on mrjustin broom because he's also
the current right honorabledistrict um instructor, so we
might have to, and he's going tobe our district deputy
grandmaster coming in, so Imight have to leave.
Hey, judd, you want to haveeverybody and their mother at
your house next week?

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
And if he's not available, we usually go to one
of the lodges, you know, becausewe all have access to our
personal lodges.
So our lodge is always open andI tell anybody.
If you need to get into thelodge to study because I know
sometimes it's better, you knowreciting certain things from
certain spots in the lodge I'mmore than welcome to, or more

(01:02:43):
than able to, go to that lodgeon a day and we can just sit
there and go study all day longif you want to do it in the
lodge.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
If you can do that all day long, you're superhuman.
Well, I was unemployed forthree months, like I said
earlier, and I spent many a dayat the lodge trying to learn.
You know opening and closingand the rituals.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Yeah, I, um, there's something to sitting in the
lodge when you do that ritualwork, even if you're just by
yourself.
To visualize what it's going tobe really does help when the
time comes and you're actuallyyou know.
That's one thing nobodyexplained to me fully was that
when you do this stuff, you'retaking part in a play, you're
acting, and I never did thatbefore and I always thought

(01:03:27):
acting was easy and I would.
I had sisters and I'd make funof her soap operas and I'd be
like, oh my God, this is theeasiest job in the world.
They like, they look likethey're smelling farts all day.
It's like it's like dudesmelling farts all day.
It's like it's like dude.
That's not hard.
Anyone can do that, and nowthat I've had some experience
with it, it is hard.
You do have to practice a lotto make it look natural, because

(01:03:49):
if you try to do it in one goand it actually is natural, it's
incredibly awkward andsomething that I've, that I've
tried and our study group triesto enforce, is word perfect,
because the district deputies inour jurisdiction have the plain
text.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
So if we have the plain text available to us, why
not try to learn it as wordperfect as we can get?
And then I've seen some peoplein lodges and I'm sure you guys
all understand this and othermasons listening to when they
recite their parts.
It's, it's like a robot, verymonotone and just like they're
reading it look right, right,like they're reading it and

(01:04:29):
we're.
We're more like myself and a fewother brothers that I I hang
out with a lot and study a lotwith.
We try to make it our own yeahum, that's the proper way to do
it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Make it your own right, just like I've.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
I've heard some people the junior wardens part
and the opening and closing.
They just ramble right throughit.
But if you slow it down and youinsert your commas where the
commas need to be inserted, thenit actually makes sense as to
the junior wardens role in thelodge.
So I try to slow down and makeit as word perfect as possible
and recite it as many times as Ican so I don't have to look at

(01:05:01):
the book whenever I'm shoved ina spot like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
It needs it needs an extra person.
You know, Freemasonry turns outgood actors.
We could all go into acting now.
We know how to memorize linesand practice and rehearse and
all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Oh yeah, I've sat in the world with such people in it
.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
Could I have some porridge?

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
master.

Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
Yeah, I've sat as junior deacon in three or four
lodges for their stated meetings, just because they needed
someone I can junior deacon theheck out of them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Yeah, junior deacon is a much harder role than
people give it credit for.
I always thought it was likeone of those easy chairs, until
I sat in and I realized this isquite complicated actually oh
yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):
So there was, um, the last time I sat as a junior
deacon, it was, uh, thegrandmasters, uh, he was
visiting the lodge and mydistrict deputy just waved me
over and said hey, I got a.
I got a junior deacon for you.
He's a really good juniordeacon.
I'm sitting in the chair andwe're opening and then I go to
you know, do my part.
And then I'm sitting back downand going wait a second, the

(01:06:09):
grand master's on the other sideof the door.
What am I doing now?
And I just stuck with the, uh,with the part and knocked it out
of the park.
I've got a lot of a lot of pathsin the back on that one, if I'm
trying to stay as humble as Ipossibly can.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
You were talking about the junior wardens just
going through the lines in theopening and closing Right, but
in reality the junior wardenoftentimes isn't talking to the
master, he's talking to thecraft.

Speaker 4 (01:06:38):
Correct and so.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
I make a point of looking at everybody in the
craft when I'm saying thoselines, because you're talking to
them.
That's something that simplecan make it more interesting
than just standing there sayingyour lines looking at your
pedestal yeah, uh, well, it'spretty easy for this guy,
because it's just the beauty andthe glory you know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
I was wondering.
They say the Junior Wardenrepresents beauty.
I was curious how you got theLodge.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Look at his hair.
He locks over here.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
Oh, that's what it is , those Luscious locks, huh.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, he has his little pony going and he
flops it around sometimes and,yeah, I'm going to stay in that
chair Until he turns gray.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
I am turning gray.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
How's your year this year?

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
Probably from that chair.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
I mean, you've been in other chairs.
Now, where you were appointed,this is your first time being in
an elected position.
Is it different?
And if so, oh yeah, waydifferent.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
There's a lot more that comes with it and it's just
it's because, like a fullrepresentative of sarasota, 147
and everything I do, everythingI say I'm representing 300 and
some what is?
Is it 350 guys?
So I mean there's weight thatcomes with that.
You know I'm in charge of allconduct when Lodge is not in

(01:08:05):
session, right like when we'rein refreshment.
So that means there's.
You know, there's quite a bitthat comes with it and it's not
to be taken lightly.
You've got to be able to snapin.
So I'm a goof, I love goofingaround.
I'm a goof, I love goofingaround, I'm cracking jokes.
But when we got a snap in themilitary band, we get it done?

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Is y'all's junior wardens responsible for the
dinners before lodge andrefreshments?
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
He has the help of his stewards, obviously, to help
him with that preparation.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
I got the best.
I got the best stewards.
He does have the best stewardsmario, mario and big daddy wade,
who can't, can't go wrong.
Oh, my god, man I am so jealousman I wish I could be you right
now and have those guys as mystewards yeah, they are rock
solid and they're both reallyinvolved too right now, like

(01:08:58):
we're really trying to build outthe retention committee and
mario is heading that right nowand big daddy wade you know how
smart that guy is with his likeI just drop these gems of
knowledge on you and that'llchange your entire life.
With like three sentences, it'slike wait, stop doing like I
wasn't ready for an epiphany.
You know, like you know, butthose guys are just so solid.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
We are lucky over at one point.
The guy he's talking about,wade Botkins, is a Psychologist
or psychiatrist.
I can't tell the difference.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Let's just say yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
He owns his own practice.
He can be intimidating in asense, Because you can tell that
he's really listening whenyou're talking, and to me that
means he's like picking up allthe things that most people
aren't you know Always.
And I get a little like scared,like, oh God, what does he say
or think about me?
Oh geez, maybe I won't talk tohim because I don't want him to

(01:09:56):
know all this stuff about me.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
He already knows, he already knows.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I got to say there were times when I was the
worshipful master and with workand everything else I got really
stressed out and Wade actuallywent out to lunch with me and
gave me a little help.
So I'll always be forevergrateful to Wade because he's
like the most even-keeled manyou'll ever meet in your life.
Right, he's never gonna makeups and downs, he's always just
solid ass wade yep so stuff wedon't know, dude, he does, he

(01:10:28):
knows.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Stuff we don't know, he just does, and he's like
super quiet for the most part,like, but I mean he'll crack
jokes, you know what I mean.
But whenever, sometimes he'lljust open his mouth and he'll
change your entire thoughtprocess with a couple of words.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Yeah, yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing his
masonic career, because I thinkit's going to be quite
interesting, as those guys areboth destined for the east, for
sure.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
They're strong leaders.
We need good, strong leadingmen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
His other steward is mario patrick charles.
This is a brother who dealswith kids that are in trouble
and can't go to adult prison.
He deals with them in whateverplace they send them to.
That's not adult prison.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
So it's a special school for troubled kids that go
through a lot.
They've got hard upbringings.
They're a little rough aroundthe edges.
It's one step before they doget themselves in legal trouble
usually, you know, and he'sdealing with all this troubled
youth and he's on the groundevery single day and he's like
the disciplinarian, he's dealingwith the wild stuff.

(01:11:32):
He's, you know, and these kids,they all lean in and trust him
because he's a hundred percentgenuine and that's hard to find
these days.
He'll connect right with thesekids and look them dead in the
eye and be like yo, you'rescrewing up, don't be a jerk.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Like oh, you don't think.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
I know what this is.
You're being an asshole rightnow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
He's also a Brooklyn guy, so they also know down
pretty quick if he has to uh but, you find something that you
can connect with in people, andfor me, with mario.
Uh, he was coming up, um, Ithink he might have been made a
master last year while I wassitting in the yeah, yeah and um

(01:12:13):
, he was so paranoid about doinghis catechism perfectly that I
I watched him doing instructionwith three different people.
I think he was connecting withanyone that would spend time
with him because he just wantedto work so hard at it.
He was doing it alone, withouthis group, and to the point
where I started personallyhelping him on top of everybody

(01:12:35):
else, and that bled into himdoing degree work.
He approached it the same way.
So these are people that careso much about the fraternity
that they're investing that muchof their personal life to get
it word perfect, like you said,because anyone can do it pretty
good, you know, with a littlebit of effort, but to get it
word perfect, that's anotherlevel of practice and effort.

Speaker 3 (01:12:58):
And that's Mario, 100% too.
Like he'll get upset withhimself and miss a word.
Like he'll literally.
He's like no, I need to do thisby the book, dude.
And he's doing so much too.
He's catechism teaching.
You know what I mean?
He's got himself a catechismclass.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
He's going to all of the funerals and stuff like that
, which I mean that's a totallymoving experience for me
personally, like, yeah, we'vedone a lot of funerals, yeah,
yeah, I know you feel exactlythe way I do this.
It's.
It's a horrible situation to bein, but at the same time,
there's something reallyrejuvenating in your heart about
going to those things andparticipating in them and
helping the families you know,helping them see what they did
when they were in the fraternityand kind of people.

Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Mario's like a lot like you, nick.
What I'm what I'm saying islike certain guys walk into the
fraternity and you just knowthat they're going to sit in the
East.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Like as soon as they walk in and you're like all
right, he's a go getter, he'sexactly what we need can sit in
the East, but these are peoplethat you can't wait to see sit
in the East because you're like,well, it's going to be special
when they do it.
It's not going to be like justanother year in the East.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Because there's so many people that just want to do
stuff, but nobody actually.
There's so many wanters and notso many doers.
There's a very few amount ofpeople that actually get
involved, invest their time andenergy and make a difference to
changing stuff or making stuffbetter, and unfortunately, it's
just.
We see it all the time.
You'll see a select few guys ina lodge, in every single lodge,

(01:14:28):
and those are the guys that getshit done.
And then there's other guysthat you know once it's a
winning team and then they'll gojoin it because everybody wants
to be a part of a winning team,but every single time there's
like a select few guys that doall of the work so, uh, mario
also came through the chrisburns and the ramon hernandez

(01:14:49):
school of overacting, so whenyou see him do work, he's gonna
do it with a flourish uh don'ttouch my door, yeah that's
waiting for that to come up.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
Yeah, so you know about mario.
When he started to come tolodge, I think it was his son.
That was amazing.
Before he was, yeah, he came toour lodge just to find out what
this was all about.
But that brother just keptcoming, coming back to our uh
tuesday's dinners.
That's right.
I think he must have shown upat four or five before even
applied.
Uh, go through the applicationprocess.

(01:15:21):
It's great because he had agreat chance to meet a whole
bunch of guys before he evenstarted.
I commend him for that journeythat he took there.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
Remember at Poker Nights we leaned right at him
and told him hey, listen, bro,you're going to be a pillar in
this lodge.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
You don't even realize it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Yeah, he'll be at somebody's lodge and just send
me a text with the photo andhe'd be like look what you did
to me and I'm like you're makingme proud, brother, you're
making me proud traveling manthat he is he is, and that's,
that's what you know.
Nobody knows these people we'retalking about, but everybody has
people like that in theirlodges.
You got people you know likethat, I'm sure, in your lodge

(01:16:04):
that are like you know they'regoing to be epic legends someday
in the fraternity and you getto come up with them and do
things with them.
It's exciting.

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
And it's trying to stay as humble as I possibly can
.
I am a part of, like I said,that study group that we do.
We call ourselves the Barlowguys because that's his address,
and there's three or four of usthat are destined to wear
purple in the next, you know,coming at least in some part of

(01:16:34):
our Masonic careers, and we'restriving for that.
We have a little plan going on.
We want to I think all three ofus want to do more public
presentation in the public toget away from the bad stigmas
that we have, and more inparades and more community and
charity work, for sure.

(01:16:55):
And so that's my goal for when Isit in the East, whenever it's
the will and pleasure of thelodge for that to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
That is a big deal getting out there and showing
people who we really are Notwhat you're talking about on the
internet but, like here, we areright here in person and you
get to see who we are.
You can't fake the stuff we'redoing.
We were putting on movie nightsevery weekend, outdoor movie

(01:17:22):
nights, where we had aninflatable huge theater and we
were giving away free popcornand stuff and those kids we
talked about this they're gonnaremember.
I don't know anything about theMasons, but I can tell you this
when I was a kid I had so muchfun and they had snow cones and
it was the best time and thosememories you're making for those

(01:17:43):
kids will hopefully in thefuture help change this negative
sentiment that's out there.
If we can do it enough, if wecan get enough people out there
just not acting, but actuallyshowing them who we are in
reality.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
Agreed, that's right Like the last Easter thing that
we just did.
You know what I'm saying.
We were planning on like nobodyand we ended up having people
show up.
Our parking lot was full beforewe even opened the event.
I mean we had a revolving doorof children and families coming
through.
That I mean it was absoluteinsanity and a couple of things
that really stuck with me.
This one lady she comes in,she's like oh, I didn't realize

(01:18:18):
that it was like you guys arefreemasons, like you guys aren't
like illuminati or satanist oranything.
It's like she literally saidthose words.
She's like you guys are alljust like good guys.
Huh, yeah, that's what we'redoing.
yeah, and it's so important toget out in front of the
community, yeah, and show them,hey, listen, you, we only have
our secrets.

(01:18:38):
For the reason, in my opinion,is that when you it's important
to have that skill to keep asecret, if somebody comes to you
and says, please don't tellanybody this thing, that you
have the ability to keep yourmouth shut about it.
And that's the reason, in myopinion, why we even have any of
the secrets that we have.
They're not that secret, youknow it's.

(01:19:05):
Just can you actually do this?
When somebody asks you not toand to get out in the public
again and show them, hey, listen, this is actually who we are is
so important.
We want to be more involved inthe community and be out in
front of the community.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Um, the problem is, most lodges are stuck in a place
where their their lodge isdilapidated and falling apart.
The members are clicky andfighting each other from the
inside out, and they're in nocapacity to help anyone else,
let alone themselves.
And so you've got to get yourhouse in order.
If you're listening, get yourhouse in order.
Get your lodge straight.

(01:19:34):
Stop the bickering internally.
Start talking about what youcan do together Okay, bickering
internally.
Start talking about what youcan do together, okay.
And if you can't do that, it'stime to start bringing in new
people with fresh ideas thatdon't have the baggage that you
guys have, because they'll getit done if you can't do it, um.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
But the key is so grateful for our district.
Our district is one of thetightest ones in our state.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
It really is I mean you just?

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
I know other districts that can't even put a
master mason degree togetherthey're just struggling to even
do that and District 23, betweenour leadership, that we have
our current leadership and ourincoming leadership, we're just
a strong district.
We all visit each other, we'reall involved in each other and
that's so important to being one, because when we go to Grand
Lodge we're not Sarasota Lodge147.

(01:20:19):
You know what I'm saying?
We're.
We're district 23 and you'resitting there.
That is our lodge, our districtis our lodge.
And if everybody thought likemore collectively instead of
this is me, this is me, this isme instead of us as a collective
fraternity, we could reallymake a lot of differences.
You know, um, I don't want tospill too much beans, but but
I've been talking to theincoming district deputy

(01:20:41):
grandmaster and I'm also reallyclose with someone in the Rotary
for their charity division andwe're really looking at doing a
group event.
They're looking at pretty muchhosting and letting us join them
and putting Freemasonry out inthe public again for one of
their massive events.
And I think that if we startleaning and working together

(01:21:03):
with other like-minded people,we'll be better off and I think
it could be potentially reallygood.
So in the future, you know,after Grand Lodge, district 23,.
Please reach out to me.
If you're watching this, youknow what I mean and I'll let
you guys in on that and we'llset something up with that lady
so she can speak to maybe at oneof these Master Mason

(01:21:24):
associations that are coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Nice, perfect, that's awesome.
Well, I appreciate you brothersfor coming on.
It was nice to get to knoweverybody a little better.
Nice to meet you finallyvirtually, brother Nick.
I've been listening to yourpodcast since, I think, the
beginning that means you werelistening before you were even a
master mason that is correct.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
I did skip over all of the episodes.
I skipped over all the episodesthat involved lectures or
anything with degrees until Iremember driving to work and
after I became an internapprentice I was like they have
a podcast over the internapprentice degree and lecture
and I listened to all of thoseand I went listening to those

(01:22:09):
until I absolutely got thatdegree.
I didn't want to spoil it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
That's good.
That's good.
Everyone should do that,because it's not just the
podcast.
You can go Google this stuffand I think a lot of people do
google this stuff and you'rereally robbing yourself of a big
part of the experience, whichis the not knowing what's
happening while it's happening.
That's a really important partof the experience so don't spoil

(01:22:33):
it for yourself.
Don't go out and check theinternet and read, read things
and look at youtube, things like.
Really let the lodge do theirjob with you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:42):
I think you're robbing yourself a hundred
percent you're stealing fromyourself and things do vary from
things do vary fromjurisdiction to jurisdiction,
you know.
So that's true too.
Um, you might not even begetting the right information.
Yeah, and, as brother sean wassaying, I had a brother stand up
and lodge last meeting and he'sbeen a mason for 64 years.

(01:23:03):
And yeah, and instead of sayingyou know that we're a secret
organization, secret society, wedon't really have secrets, we
just have stuff that's privateto us for certain reasons.
And if people in the thecommunity can start looking at
it as more, it's just private,it's not, it's just not meant
for everybody's, everybody'sknowledge and everybody has, I

(01:23:25):
think we can get everybody doeswe all have everybody has.
You don't want everybody forsure.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
I tell that story a lot, because my wife's father is
very like a russian orthodoxconservative and he hates
masonry and the only thing hecan point to is the secrets.
And I said, oh, you don't havesecrets.
And he said, yeah, I havesecrets.
I'm like do you want everyoneto know them?
He's like no.
I'm like does that make you bad?

(01:23:50):
No, but it's different.
It's different.
They make you keep the secrets.
I'm not telling you and makingyou keep the secret.
Like, oh man, you can't winwith some people yeah, I, I, uh.

Speaker 4 (01:24:01):
My fiance's mother is is very curious about masonry
and I can only tell her so much,and so I let her know.
One of my lodges is actuallyraising money.
They used to do a program bikesfor books what was it?
but we're.
It's called bikes for books,books, bikes for Books, okay,
bikes for Books.
And now we're kind of workingwith the public library who's

(01:24:23):
getting into the individualschool districts and they have a
reading program and I thinkwe're going to donate a couple
of Nintendo Switches to the topreaders, nice that sign up for
the program, and we're doingstuff like that versus super
secret organizations, stuff likethat versus super secret
organizations.
We're paying bills and thenalso trying to help the
community.

(01:24:43):
Read more books you get inNintendo Switch.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:24:49):
I'd love to bring more awareness to that, and then
youth groups as well.
I think the community needs toknow that these things are
possessed.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
You have a perspective.
I think we need more secrets.
If I'm being honest, we don't.
I think we need more secrets.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
If I'm being honest, we don't have enough we need
more Like the recipe to thespaghetti and green beans,
Something like that yeah, One ofactually Brother Cooney's
friends, Matt Stone, sent me atext.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
He's very religious and I think he's catching a lot
of flack from his religiouscommunity for being a Mason, I
think.
I don't know, maybe not a lotof flack, but I'm sure there's
questions about it.
And, um, you know, he sent me apicture and he was like I can't
explain this.
It's like I can explain a lotbut I can't explain this.

(01:25:37):
And he was looking for somehelp and it was really fun for
me because I got to go down likemy detective hat, like Batman
rabbit hole, right, Because Igot tricks, Like I know how to
put the image in Google Imageand it'll show you where the
picture is on the Internet andyou know who's sharing it and
stuff.
And it turns out it's alegitimate picture.
And if you look at it I showedit to my wife out it's a

(01:25:59):
legitimate picture.
And if you look at it I showedit to my wife she's like that is
horrible.
It does look horrible, it looksbad.
Okay, but if you look at almostanyone's private rituals,
including the catholics andchristians and hindus and
muslims, your ceremonies lookscary too from the outside
looking in.
If you don't know the context,it can look pretty creepy, and

(01:26:19):
this one looked creepy.
It was a man.
He was like escorting a littleboy who had a veil on his head
and there were masons standingall around and it looks like
he's marrying this little kid,right.
It looks pretty, yeah, it looksnefarious, but when you find the
underlying meanings behindthings, then you find it's
virtuous, actually, Apparentlyapparently there's some
jurisdictions that have thelodge of adoption and if your

(01:26:42):
father passes, the lodge willsymbolically adopt you into the
fraternity and take care of youand and takes the responsibility
of keeping your virtue, bothphysically and spiritually, like
your father would have wanted.
And they get a certificate thatthey are a friend of the lodge
and and when they become a Masonthey don't have to be tried or
investigated.
And so, yeah, they put whiteclothes on the kid and they have

(01:27:06):
like a white veil, and thewhite is to symbolize their
purity right and the protectingof the purity.
And so when he gives theobligation, the veil comes off
because he doesn't need itanymore, because he's under the
protection of the lodge now.
So symbolically it's thisbeautiful thing that's really
loving and supporting offamilies and children.
But if you take a snapshot of arandom ceremony and share it on

(01:27:30):
the Internet, it looks creepyman.

Speaker 3 (01:27:32):
It's like a sound bit .
You know, a sound bite thatthey can grab.
Oh well, he said this.
Well, you take it completelyout of context.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
You can make anything look like anything if you.
If you try to tell someone thatyou're drinking another man's
blood and eating his flesh,they're gonna think you're crazy
.
But when you talk about whatjesus is and what he means to
you, it's a whole differentmeaning behind that thing.
So, like, let's not judge eachother's ceremonies and private
rituals, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:28:00):
It's all about respect.
Respect everyone's beliefs.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Yep, it's better to do a little research, although
it's hard for people, becausewhen you see an image, you just
want to share it and be donewith it and feel like you did
something smart.

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
Look at see, I told you these masons are nefarious.
Look at that.
It's like yeah, you mean thekid that lost his father, that
now has probably 30 to 40fathers.
Now you know what I mean.
Yeah, that's nefarious, Super,super nefarious.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
It's not just the boys, their mother is an answer.
This is a public ceremony, it'sfor families.
You know, it really is abeautiful thing.

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
And that ties into part of us, as
masturbationsasons areobligations as well, which is
even, once again, if youunderstand that, then that
ceremony means even more thanyou can imagine.
Yeah, there's a, there's atruly deeper meaning down and
tied into that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Yeah, and if it's nefarious, it's way down in
there, because there are a lotof good people that are getting
fleeced for for 300 years, uh,and and they're not seeing the
evil part.
Uh, so if it's that far down,is it really that dangerous?
Anyways, come on, I mean, if wedon't even know about it, I
don't mean.
The same thing is to be saidwith certain churches and other

(01:29:15):
religions.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
I mean there's.
You know, there's bad peopleeverywhere.
You know what I'm saying.
It doesn't mean that thatorganization is bad just because
you got a bad egg or two.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
Well, that's my thing .
Where are the public cases ofFreemasons molesting children or
Freemasons stealing from people?
I don't see that in the news.
It doesn't seem like generallyFreemasons are doing bad things
in the world.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
I've looked into almost every conspiracy theory
that there is on YouTube.
When you dig deep enough andyou watch enough videos about it
, they're all debunked.
There might be one that's alittle questionable.
They're all debunked.
Yeah, there might be like one.
Yeah, that's that's a littlequestionable.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
But other than that, the Morgan affair in our
research Right.

Speaker 4 (01:30:05):
The Morgan affair is the one that could potentially
have legs.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Maybe something weird went down.
But if you're right, right.

Speaker 4 (01:30:12):
But that was a, that was a handful of brothers.
That wasn't the organizationRight At its if allegedly it
happened.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Right.
So, yeah, because even thatside has like two compelling
stories Like I could see thattotally happening based on one
set of facts.
And then there are another setof facts that make you go, oh,
this is a bunch of BS, right,exactly?

Speaker 4 (01:30:36):
So I mean, if you dig deep down into it and watch all
the videos like the Colorado,the Denver airport, one is
honestly one of my favorite ones.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
Yes, my sister's brothers hit me with that one
that the lizard people and themasons are like have a home base
under the airport there there'sa video on youtube that
completely debunks it.

Speaker 4 (01:31:00):
This guy walks through and says well, this is
what I've heard.
And then at the end of theepisode, the lady's like yeah,
this is the explanation foractually everything that's going
we like laid a cornerstone orsomething.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
So there's a masonic, there's a masonic at the
airport, and so they're like ohthe masons, they have secret
facilities under the airport,yeah it says new world.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
I think it says new world order on there and then
the masons are there.
But it's.
It's something different.
They're the different airport.
Tried to be super awesome andthere's pictures, right, there's
like uh pictures and they'relike oh, look at the picture,
there's like a lizard, yeah, andthere's, there's underground
tunnels and that was justsupposed to be to help with the
baggage claim but it became toowet and drippy and stuff and

(01:31:39):
they had to abandon it and it'sjust.
It's just hilarious watchingall those.
But yeah, that if you, if youdig deep enough, you you'll
ultimately find out that it'sall just conspiracy theories and
nothing is nothing is valid.

Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
There's no biggest one for me is the illuminati
thing, like yeah, but that youknow.
But that is founded in kind offact that we were infiltrated
and they used and trying torecruit through masons and
masonry and steal some of ourritual for their own personal
thing, which is not Masonic inour nature anyway, but you know

(01:32:14):
how many organizations have thesame story the Klu Klux Klan,
every fraternity, in everycollege in the world.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
There's, like so many people in organizations that
have snatched from free mediaSkull and Bones is one of the
most secret societies there isknown to mankind.
And yeah, it's, we're not thatsecret nefarious thing.
We have secrets for a reason.
We have private information fora reason, and that's it.

(01:32:45):
We're not, you know, lizardpeople.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
No, but what I love and through.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
On the Level which has been unveiled, there's
really only a certain amount ofstuff we can't talk about.
The amount of stuff we can'ttalk about.
You know, I mean the amount ofstuff we can talk about and like
.
So we, our few secrets that wehave are just in code and that's
it I can.

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
I can answer 90 of everyone's questions, right?
Yeah, exactly, yeah, 90 of 90of anyone's questions I can
answer.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
I just had a conversation with my future
mother-in-law and I was able toanswer all of her questions,
yeah because they're never goingto ask about the things that
are secret to us, which arehonestly our secrets, primarily
our modes of recognition, so wecould identify which degree
you're in.
Right, those are secrets, forsure our rituals our rituals
aren't even fully secret.

(01:33:37):
A lot of of our rituals inFlorida are not secret.
We're allowed to talk about alot of it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:43):
You guys are allowed to talk about a lot more than
we're allowed to talk about.
I can tell you that much.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
We don't specifically talk about the obligations,
Other than that the ceremoniesare pretty open.

Speaker 4 (01:33:55):
Our modes of recognition are super secret up
here.
Our obligations are secret andthe rituals are secret.
There's parts of the lecturesthat everybody can can read.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
That's in plain text.

Speaker 4 (01:34:14):
But other than that, yeah, we don't have that many
secrets in Washington as well.
I mean, I'm looking through thesecond degree lecture right now
and I would say 90 of it's inplain text yeah, it's just
different words, but it'sactually the same content the
exact yeah exact same contents.
I, I guarantee you guys, gothrough tuscan dorian corinthian

(01:34:35):
composite Exactly Yep, it's allthe same.
Most of it is open.
Actually, now that I look at it, it's about 90% of it's open
and I like to consider myself aproud mason.
I don't have a jacket that Iwear around, but I wear my ring
everywhere that I go.

(01:34:55):
I have a necklace that wasgiven to me that I wear when the
attire fits, and I want peopleto have a necklace that was
given to me that I wear when theattire fits, and I want people
to ask me what that symbol is sothat I can explain to them who
we are, what we are and get ourpresence out there.
I had a nice conversation with agentleman at a cigar bar just a
few weeks ago after one of ourstate meetings, and he was like
well, I heard basins can saythis and get out of anything if

(01:35:17):
they're in court, and I was likethat's not true.
Can say this and get out ofanything if they're in court.
And I was like that's not trueand and to be honest with you,
that is, I would say, one of ourmost best kept secrets, but at
the same point, it it's used inlife or death situations.
I would, I would.
I would bring that back to likethe civil war reasons as to why
we would need to use that andit was used in the civil war.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
You've heard of the situation right, tons of
situations.
There's a to use that and itwas used in the Civil War.
You've heard of the situationright.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
Tons of situations.
There's a few situations thatit was held into.
You know it's, I would say,brothers from the North and the.

Speaker 1 (01:35:49):
South were fighting each other and a soldier from
the North saw the soldier fromthe South giving a Masonic sign
of distress and came to his aid.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
Yeah, I would say, the elevator speech to people is
you know, we're a fraternity,we're the oldest fraternity, we
look out for each other.
I don't know if you guys have aclosing charge you give.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
It's not required, but it is an optional thing that
we sometimes do.

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
We've been doing it this year, yeah, so in part of
that, in that charge it saysthese generous principles extend
further, for every human beinghas a claim on the year kind
offices.
So we're not just about helpingout people in the fraternity,
we're about just taking good men, teaching them how to be better
men and how to project thatgreatness onto other people.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
Think about it, that's how you that's how you
build society and strengthensociety.
You teach men how to do goodand then you send them out in
the world to do good and thenother people see that it can be
done.
You don't have to be a shystybackstabber.
Oh wow, I can get by by beingan upstanding guy that people
respect and I people.

(01:36:59):
It's like a light in the dark.
They will come to.
They're attracted to thatbecause they want to do good,
they want to be better.
They just don't see it in theirworld.
Nobody's doing that.
Everybody's stabbing each otherin the back.
They're all talking crap abouteach other.
So if you're the one in thelight wearing a Masonic ring,

(01:37:24):
even without the ring, to behonest with you, they're still
going to come to you and beattracted to try to find out
what's up with you, but the factthat you're wearing the ring is
how you honor the fraternity.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
Yep, and we had a guy come in and started visiting a
lot and she's, he's looking tojoin the fraternity and, you
know, one of the questions Ialways ask is what are you?
You know, what are you tryingto get from this?
And he said that he had afriend who was doing pretty bad,
going down the wrong road,joined the fraternity and seen
him turn himself completelyaround and he's like, well, if

(01:37:51):
Freemasonry can do this to myfriend, then what can it do for
me?
You know, and that's what we'reall about, we're taking good
men, we're making them better,we're teaching them moral
lessons and making them bettermen to take out and spread
throughout the world, not justpeople in the fraternity.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
The reality of the fraternity is it gives you the
tools to do that for yourself.
You need to make that choice asa man.
The fraternity isn't going todo shit for you.
You're going to make the choiceto do it or not for yourself.
It's just going to give you thetools and a system that's going
to give you the freedom to dothat.
But you've got to take theaction.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
Oh yeah, and I've received all the tools that we
have and I think Sean hit it onjust fine.
My favorite tool is the 24-inchgauge.
It's one of the most importanttools that I think we received,
and we received that in thefirst degree, and it's If you
live by that, then you can, youknow, be better yourself just by

(01:38:50):
just by that itself.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
Well, I appreciate you guys coming on and being
open and honest, letting peopleget to know you a little bit.
Hopefully, if they want to getinvolved in your raffle, what
was the website they can go to?

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
So they can go to tylermasoniccentercom and click
on the fundraiser tab at the topof the page.
All communications comedirectly to me as I manage the
website and the email address.
They can also emailhoracewtylerlodgeno290 at

(01:39:28):
gmailcom and that'll come to meas well.
The website's a little easierthough.
Our drawing date is, I will say, on the 21st of May.
It's going to be our statedmeeting for this month.
So you guys, so about 5 o'clockI'll close off.
I'll close off everything so Ican get everything good to go
and make sure I have everythingsquared away.

(01:39:50):
Our dinner's at 6.30.
So yeah, before 6.30 we'll begood to go.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
Your Instagram tag is at Horace underscore, Tyler
underscore Lodge.
They can Venmo you at NBailey87.
I'll put the Zelle info in thecomments.
Also, Three Ruffians Peoplemight want to get access to our

(01:40:16):
super secret, super cool drawingparty.
You can go to the3ruffianscomor you can just email John.
What's your email?

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
John, maybe we'll throw it in the chat.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
He doesn't want to get too mad.

Speaker 4 (01:40:35):
I'm on your website now.
I was going to sign up for that, even though I'm not going to
be on Washington for the time.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
Yeah, it's not active .
I just made it up while we werehere on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
So by the time it releases.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
it's going to be there, though I thought of it
while I was saying it, because Ithink it's a good idea.

Speaker 4 (01:40:54):
I think it's a great idea.
You guys are doing great work.
Like I said, I pitched this tomy lodge saying you know, this
is a Masonic company owned bythree brothers out of Florida.
So we would be brothers helpingbrothers helping brothers out
and in the end, that's all thisfraternity is about is helping

(01:41:14):
people out, that's right anddoing what we can do to better
the world.
Leave the world a better place.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
And I think the cool thing about the fraternity too
is that there's strength innumbers, and if we can work
together, not just even locally,but regionally or as far as we
want to go, I think it can beeven a more beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
This is the exciting part, because in the past that
wasn't possible in thefraternity, but now we have ways
that we can connect and worktogether like never before.
Let's do it Use the internet.

Speaker 4 (01:41:45):
It's not about just your jurisdiction.
It's about the fraternity as awhole.
It doesn't matter where you'reat.
As long as you're a good personin the fraternity, then you can
do good things.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
Well said.

Speaker 1 (01:41:54):
Thank you, Brother Nick Bailey, Brother Sean Cooney
, Brother John Schaefer, from Onthe Level Podcast.
Until next time we're out.
That's your horn.

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