W:. Timothy Ferdon on DeMolay International Masonic Youth Organization

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
We have to decide what to do with the time that
has given us.
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 great

(00:29):
within each of us.
I have you now All right.
Welcome back to on the levelpodcast.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you for having me, brother brother.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Today we have a very, very special guest.
You've heard him once before.
You've heard him.
When he was in, you wereinstalled master of your lodge.
I think is when we had you on.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, no Grand.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Lodge.
Oh, that Grand Lodge, that'sright.
We were both masters of ourlodges, I think at the time.
This is Timothy.
Worshipful Timothy Ferdon.
Welcome back, timothy, good tohave you.
Well, thank you.
Thank you, worshipful Burmese.
Good to have you.
I was really happy about that,which means you'll have all the

(01:28):
titles soon, brother.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm starting to learn that two-letter word.
But that's like can the secretword of a master Mason.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
The one last word yeah, yeah, yeah, hey.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Tim what it turns into.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
You have a new title, right?
I mean, you're now, yeah,what's your new title?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I am the personal rep for the executive
officer for District 5 inDima-Lay, which encompasses
District 23 of MasonicDistrict-wise, the districts are
a little different.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So who do you report to Jody the executive officer
Jody.
Yep Jody Jody McGuire theexecutive officer, jody McGuire.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
That's Worshipful, jody McGuire.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
actually we're going to go there.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, Worshipful Right.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
The master of Hillsboro, Lodge number 25.
What an awesome lodge, man.
It's a great lodge.
I mean, that's what FreemasonLodges should look like.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I agree.
If we could all get the fauxfinish done and make the whole
place look like a temple, likethat everywhere, that would be
awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Do yourself a favor and go Google Hillsboro Lodge
number 25.
That's in Florida.
You will see a two-story lodgethat has actually three stories.
I think the dining hall isdownstairs in the main floor.
It's like a four-year kind of adeal.
And upstairs they have thebilliard hall and the actual

(03:02):
lodge itself.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
And it's also another layer.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I think it's got a second story on the lodge level.
There's like rafter seedings upthere.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I can't get over the offices they have there.
The Orchwell Master actuallyhas an office.
The secretary actually has anoffice.
It's not just a closet in theback of the lodge that you hide
away in.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, my lodge has.
It's the secretary's office.
The master's office is wherethe secretary puts his crap.
There's no way for the masterto sit in there and do anything,
right, I mean?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
not that I don't know , I didn't really need one when
I was.
I mean, I had to sign stuff forthe secretary but it all goes
back to the secretary, so it'slike I didn't really need a
thing like that.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
My routine was I'd get there early, I'd go in the
secretary's office what do youneed me to sign, sign, sign,
sign.
And then I'd never step foot inthere again for the rest of the
night.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, In our lodge.
It's where we keep a lot ofthings like before we started
putting them in the display case, like ritual books and
catechism and the mentorsmanuals and all that kind of
stuff.
So I would have to go in therefor that.
But with the exception of that,yeah, a couple of things I got
to sign and that's it.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, I have to say you're the first person that has
been a repeat guest on thepodcast.
We've never, ever had somebodyon a second time as a guest.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, why me?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
I mean I'll answer that because there's a very good
reason for it.
You are one of the bestexamples I know of what a Mason
should be.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I don't know about that, but well, that's.
I appreciate the compliment.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
I do say it and you to take it.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Thank you.
Just take it because I observe,I'm an observer, I'm somebody
who grew up like the only malein the household and you know we
moved around all the time, so Ireally develop people watching
skills and it's one of theskills that served me well in
Masonry because I could prettyquickly identify who was what.
With some rare exceptions Imight have been wrong, because I

(05:09):
wanted something.
I wanted somebody to besomething.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Maybe they weren't, you saw something you wanted to
see, something in them that justwasn't there.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, that I'm not going to say that didn't happen,
but by and large it served mereally well, and you were
somebody that I watched fromafar for a while.
We didn't really have a wholelot of dealings with each other
until we got close to beingmasters together.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, the very end of our senior warden year, like
and honestly, though, but eventhen it was only you know,
conversations a couple of timesor whatever, and it's not like
we were calling each other oranything until pretty much right
after we were installed, Iguess.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
And then we had like a year where we led our district
Really you and I led ourdistrict.
Let's be honest.
Yeah, no one wants to say thatout loud and I'm not saying it
to be copy.
It's just what happened.
We really rallied the othermasters together and even our
members together.
You convinced me to come to theesoteric nights that you were

(06:14):
already doing, and you're like Iconvinced you to host it Even.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I mean, it wasn't very hard to convince you,
though.
It was like we're doing thisthing, yeah.
And you're like, oh, I wantedto do that, why don't we both do
it?
And it was like, yeah, why not?
And you guys had the betterformula for the night and I just
had people that were actuallyshowing up to it.
We just needed to come togetherso we could build it even more.

(06:39):
I think is what the thing was.
We just took ideas from eachother and made it what it is.
Actually, we just had oneSaturday.
It wasn't super well attended,but we probably had I don't know
10 or 11 brothers there.
It was.
We had a great conversation, itwas awesome.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Like to most people, that would be awesome attendance
to have 10 or 11 guys show upjust to talk about Masonry on an
odd night, not at a lodge.
We got spoiled last yearbecause we had 26, 28 guys
coming.
That's where we grew it to, manRight.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, and I knew this one wasn't going to be the same
as what we ended it at, becauseit's the first one of the year
we got everybody back used todoing it.
We already had the second oneplanned.
I know a couple of people haveconflicts, but it was the only
day that worked in March formost of us, I guess.
But no man, it actually.
It was really really good weactually used your topic that

(07:30):
you brought up, which wasofficers lodge, officers, duties
.
Except for it didn't get awhole lot into that, it more
delved into to be an officer ornot to be an officer.
You know what I mean, what theperks of being, of getting in
the officer line, gettinginvolved that way versus not,
and it was good.
So those of you in district 23,march 30th, we're having the

(07:53):
next extra discussion.
I encourage you to come out.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
At some point I'll convince him to record these
sessions and we'll put themonline for other people to see,
probably heavily edited, becausethere's drinking and I mean
I've seen, oh, we wouldn't dothat.
We had one where one of theyounger guys who wasn't as
experienced in having somecocktails was a little messy by

(08:18):
the end of the night and if thatwas on video he would not
approve.
No, yeah.
So you know you got to becareful about that kind of stuff
.
But at the same time.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
If you're going to do that, if you're going to get a
little, out of hand.
There was not a betterenvironment for that to have
happened?
Nobody was going to let thatguy drive home and nobody was
going to let him get himself anNT kind of situation where he
would have been a danger tohimself or somebody else.
He might have emotionallyscarred one of my dogs for life,
but other than that.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, he did spend quite a bit of time on the floor
with the dog.
I mean, actually he wasn't onthe floor, it was in the grass.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, it was in your backyard Was healthy.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
I mean, they were just playing, but you know.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Right.
No, it was fun, I'm glad he hada good time.
Glad he had a good time.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
He did.
I drove him home that night andwe stopped to get.
I had a Tesla, I have a Tesla.
So I stopped to charge realquick because I wasn't going to
make it home.
And I turned around and therehe was about to pee.
He was trying to like hide it.
So he was like but I'm like,bro, bro, stop, stop, stop, do
not pee on the electricalmachine.

(09:24):
How about you go over there?
He was like, oh, thank you somuch, like no that's the last
thing we need Death by Teslaurination?
I mean definitely, that is.
So.
I mean yeah, fix with the Elon.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
But, we have a great time you know, and if it ever
got off course, we managed toget ourselves back on track.
It was.
I really missed those, thosemeetings.
I'm going to make it back formore.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Everybody was like what?
Chris isn't coming.
I'm like no, he's not going tomake it.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Everybody was like, are you sure?

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, no, not so much , man.
I was leaning on you.
I was looking forward to justhaving you run the damn thing.
Yeah, I'm tired of things.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
man, I'm just here running a podcast in my little
studio.
It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
You know I wanted to have you back as the first
repeat guest because, like Isaid, you try to slip out of
this one, but I'm not going tolet you.
I observed you and you werereally a great Mason in my eyes
and that was before he becamethe master and it looked like
you were doing everything forthe right reasons to me from the
outside, looking in, and thenonce we started working together

(10:37):
, I got that clear picture thatyou are the real deal.
You are an actual like.
What a Mason supposed to be andyou're really trying hard to
help other people.
And you know we had crazy yearsbecause we were trying to help
everybody that we could.
I know you traveled to otherdistricts to do degrees that
year and I was traveling toother districts repeatedly for

(10:59):
various things.
We really tried to just showwhat leadership should look like
.
It's true, servant leadershipis what we tried to, I think,
express in our year and thatyou're stronger together.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Right.
Well, my biggest thing was 90%of the job is showing up.
If you could just show up andactually be involved.
That's more than what most ofthe Masons do.
If you say you're going to havean event, go to it.
If there's an event in thedistrict that you want to go
support, go do it.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I told the guys behind me this isn't like any
other chair you've had where youcan just show up for the
meeting and then go home.
This is like going to beessentially a full-time job for
you.
You should be at all thedegrees.
You should be at all the MasterMason Association meetings.
You should attend everyinstallation you can get to.
You should try to go to otherdegrees in your district if you

(11:58):
can and bring as many guys asyou can with you.
This is a full-time job.
This is not a joke.
To be the master of a lot and Idon't know how effective I was
in drilling that into them, butone can hope that something got
through.
We actually created little docsto give it to them so they can
distribute it around year afteryear of what to expect and how

(12:21):
to prepare, Because everyone'shere for a year, but how?
No one ever told me how theywere.
Just like, you got to get ready, you got to make your plans and
I'm like what does that evenmean?

Speaker 2 (12:34):
And then the biggest thing I got was your
installation Plan for your ownPlaning aside for your
installation.
You got to, and that's prettymuch most of the advice I got
from the past Master's Officeabout installation.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
For those that aren't masons or haven't been in the
officer line, the master atleast in our district, the
master who's about to beinvolved plans his own
installation.
It's like planning your ownwedding, I guess, sort of.
So you got to figure out thefood and you got to figure out

(13:09):
the music, and is somebody goingto sing the national land?
You got to figure all thisstuff out and coordinate with
God knows how many people to getit done.
There's probably got to be 20guys easy that are involved in
an installation, from theofficer being installed to the
past Master's that are sittingin their chairs to the

(13:30):
installing officer and themarshal.
It's probably a good 20 guyseasy.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, right about 20.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
It's no joke.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And my biggest concern was the food.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that was the biggestthing for me.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
You don't want people to not, you know, have a good
time, right.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Right, and if you're going to, you know expect people
to show up to an event likethat for a couple of hours.
The least you can do is feedthem, in my opinion, Right.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
You know they're going to sit through your boring
installation.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
At least you can get them Right, I mean, and you make
it as little as I guess, asless boring as possible.
But I mean, at the end of theday, we were at each other's
installations.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
You were at mine and I was there.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, we got we got pinned as Illuminati at yours,
oh my.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
God, that's right.
I shared.
I was, I shared photos from myinstallation and there was a
nice candid photo somebody tookof me and Tim having just a
private chat after theinstallation.
Just I don't know who took it,but it was a pretty good photo
of us just chatting and itcouldn't have been like.

(14:41):
A month later I saw an ad forthe Illuminati and it had used
our photo as if we are theIlluminati and I was like I just
thought that was hilarious.
Everyone was so upset.
They were like you got to gethim to shake it down.
This is not like.
This is a great.
What are you talking about it?

Speaker 2 (14:58):
proves how much.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
BS.
This is.
This whole Illuminati thing isa bunch of BS.
They don't even do anything.
They're just stealing picturesfrom the internet and making it
look like they're doing stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's man.
How many messages do you getfrom the Illuminati?
I can't tell you how many I'vegot from from crazy.
What I could do is say it andyou know Join for the cause or
whatever it's yeah, it's crazy,seems to be all about getting
rich.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
All the Messaging I get is like get rich, you know?
Yeah, god, I don't know, butyou know, here you are second
time and now you're the personalrepresentative In zone five.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
District five for DMA .
Yeah, district five for DMA.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And we've never on this show talked about any kind
of a pen and body or outsideorganization other than
Traditional blue lodge basingring.
I mean we've mentioned Scottishride in York right and stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
But we've never really been motor core.
I think last time I was on wetalked a little bit about motor
core, but you know, yeah, thatwas just a wormhole, we got down
somehow or another.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Like a rabbit trail.
Maybe we for five minutes, butthis is the first time I thought
you know you're the guy now um,in our area, uh, for DMA, and
so I thought it'd be greatbecause I?
Um wasn't in DMA like myself,um, I was not a leader in DMA.

(16:29):
I for about 10 minutes I wasthe chapter advisor of chapter,
but, uh, I didn't get a wholelot of experience, um.
So you know, I've done researchand I thought it'd be great to
have you on, because a lot ofpeople listen to the show that
aren't masons, um, and so Ialways try to keep that in mind

(16:50):
and even people that are mason'sa lot of new guys Probably
don't know about DMA lay.
People that were raised withlike within the first 12 months,
they have never even they maynot even know their lodge has a
DMA lay chapter, uh, so Ithought it would be worthwhile
to have a chat with you aboutDMA lay specifically.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
It's a great subject, to be honest.
I mean, I am a senior DMA, lay,as can you talk?

Speaker 1 (17:15):
about your background in DMA lay.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
So yeah, I was like how it impacted your masonic
career um, I was eight years oldwhen I was introduced to DMA
lay.
My older brother started a uhwell, was a charter member of
Lake Sumter chapter in EustisFlorida.
Um, and I was.
I mean, back then I thought itwas so cool with the gavel and
the caves and all the Canariesgoing on and off and I thought

(17:41):
it was all cool.
Um, so I showed up to everything.
I was at every fundraiser theyhad, every cleanup they had, I
mean Anything I could be at Iwas.
I almost actually joined earlywhen I was 11, a couple of
months because there was aconclave in my birthday, wasn't,
like you know, two months afterconclave, and they almost just
let me just go ahead and join itat conclave.

(18:03):
But then it ended Enough tohappen.
Um what is conclave?
Conclave is basically it's aconvention of um that DMA lay
puts on once a year.
It's basically it's a week longWell, five day long event where
the boys just have a good time.
They are sports competitions,there's ritual competitions,

(18:24):
there are delegate sessionswhere the young men vote on
their own legislation for what,uh, you know what they want to
do and and uh, who they want toto run their, uh, who they want
to be officers and things, andsome of that's changed over the
years too.
Some of it Boys have a littleless say in.
The executive officer nowappoints certain things just

(18:45):
because of some things didn'twork out so they had to change
around.
Um, but also, uh, yeah, I meanit's a pretty cool just to have
Five days in a hotel room withyour buddies throughout the
state.
That was like the best memoriesI hadn't even lay was was a
conclave, because you know, evenwhen you weren't in the
competitions and stuff, you'restill spending a you know a week
Just about at a nice hotel withyou know, a bunch of teenagers

(19:08):
that you get along with.
Hopefully, you know.
So who pays for that?
So the chapters pay for it, sothey have to fundraise for it
throughout the year so that youknow because it's it's not cheap
either.
It's close to 400 bucks a kid,350 a kid depends on how many
kids are in a room, but uh, it'spretty expensive.
So if the chapter doesn't do agood job at fundraising, well

(19:29):
then you know each member is outof pocket or they have to look
for a sponsorship or orotherwise, like that which, um,
I know venice lodge helps out,usually helps send a couple of
guys every year to go toconclave Um different events.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, I know that.
Uh, your lodge, venice lodgenumber 301, has, as long as I've
been in masonry, has alwaysbeen like a pillar of the demole
community.
Uh, you have a very popularchapter there.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, we're all in restructure right now.
Uh, I love cialan patersonchapter.
I like the.
I love our namesake.
It's, it's great.
Um, he started, drew Drewwarmington and larry bernard
branched off of sarasota chapterto come down and start a new
chapter in venice and they chosethe, the name cialan paterson

(20:21):
after the uh past master ofvenice that was the founding
senior warden of of venice lodgeand the founding worstful
master of inglewood lodge.
The idea of cialan patersonchapter would be to be the
encompassing areas that Uh likeport charlotte, inglewood,
venice, and have the boys allcome there and then eventually

(20:41):
break off from there and maybestart a chapter in uh port
charlotte or inglewood or, youknow, or punagorda or whatever.
And it just hasn't got thereyet.
But we're in a restructure now.
We've got um, probably gotabout five boys that are
actively showing up uh all thetime and then we've got like 20
on the books.
But so right now it's uh, we'reworking on.

(21:02):
So we're working to Plan somemore fun events to get the guys
more active and and hopefullyeventually build the chapter
back up where it needs to be.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
So demole is, I mean big picture.
It's basically an organ, ayouth organization for boys, uh,
that are age 12 to 21.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
12 to 21.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yep and um.
The only requirement they have,similar to masonry, is that
they believe in a higher power,correct?

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Right, right, you have to believe in a higher
power, or that there is.
I have heard the argument of umAgnostic being perfectly fine
as long as you believe thatthere is something there.
You don't necessarily have toknow what it is.
But um, there has to besomething you know.
That's basically you to be abetter not an atheist, basically
.
No, not an atheist agnostic Iwould say yeah, but atheists no.

(21:56):
Basically, you have to havesomething to hold you
accountable for an obligation.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
So Are women allowed to join or girls allowed to join
?
Demole.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Uh, no.
So years ago they had asorority program, um, that was
well received for a little bitand it died off shortly
thereafter.
Uh, but no, um, we have thesweetheart program, which, if a,
if a chapter has a charter,they're eligible to have a
sweetheart, which is basically afemale Liaison, helps them with

(22:31):
, you know, planning fun eventsor planning a charity or
whatever you know, whatever thechapter needs, and they get a.
They usually get a nice tiaraand a sash.
Um, you know something, youknow, uh, sion patissons has a
actual a cape For the uh,sweetheart, you know, and their
costumes are the best.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I mean the demole costumes are these black robes.
It's like what I thought thenight temp are costumes would
look like.
But then I find out, no, youlook like a confederate soldier
wearing a captain crotch hat.
And I was like, no, no, that isnot what I thought demole is
gonna look like.
Then I saw, uh, then I saw thedemole.

(23:11):
I mean I'm I'm talking notdemole, I'm talking about the,
you know, the night, theTemplars the night Templar York
right in the consistory, Ibelieve.
Uh, because I was reallyinterested in that.
That's why I joined the York,right, I wanted to get involved.
And then they you know, theyshowed up and I was like, what
Are you wearing?
No, not for me.
But then I saw demole a chanceto oh, I heard it's like a grand

(23:35):
to put that costume together.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Oh man, it's bad yeah .

Speaker 1 (23:39):
To me it looks like a confederate outfit, basically
with like a you know it's got aship oh, isn't that what it's
called?

Speaker 2 (23:46):
a ship, oh, or something like that, got a nice
big white mohawk.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
It's real fluffy Right.
So I saw a demole and they'rewearing what I thought that an
actual night Templar would wear.
It's like robes.
You look pretty, pretty bad ass, I got to say.
And they're black, and you gotright, they're black now.
They're.
Oh, they weren't always black.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, they used to actually be different colors for
every position.
Oh, every position at its owncolor at one point time.
And then I want to say, likeearly 2000s, uh, a little after,
either before I joined or afterI joined.
We had both when I was when Iwas in, but I don't know At what
point they actually like quitusing them, because we would
still use them on and off.
But yeah, I can't remember allthe colors, but yeah, every

(24:30):
every office had a differentcolor.
Most of the offices have had adifferent color and then
Eventually they just came outwith all the everybody had a
black one.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Now, are you familiar with how demole started in the
beginning?

Speaker 2 (24:43):
uh, yeah, I mean a little bit.
I I have never read, hey dad.
I've never.
You know I haven't dived Deepinto it.
I've been told a million times.
To be honest with you, buthistory was never one of my
strong suits.
I know the important parts and,oh, I'm sure you do.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Well, I have.
I think it's fascinating.
I pulled it up, um, and Ithought I'd I'd read it real
quick.
Uh, the history in the way.
So in 1919, 1990, well employedas the social services director
for the Scottish Rite bodies inKansas City, missouri, frank
Sherman land Hired a teenager bythe name of Lewis Gordon lower

(25:24):
to perform odd jobs around thebuilding.
As the two became friends, landfound out that lower's father
had died a short time before andthat the young man missed
having to guide him some offather.
So lower had other friends whosefathers were not in the home,
whether from divorce orabandonment or death, and and

(25:47):
that these young men would alsolike to have an adult male that
they could go to for guidance,basically.
So he said, I tell you what whydon't you invite some of your
friends to the Scottish Ritebuilding and we'll talk about
starting a club?
Within a few days, lowerbrought eight of his friends to
a meeting and the nine menagreed that the idea of a club
was a good one, and soon theorder of D Malay was formed.

(26:08):
Within three years, chattrashad been established in 39 of
the 48 states, then 48 statesand the district of Columbia,
and it's now worldwide.
They've changed their name at DMalay International.
Fascinating to me that itstarted from a mason who saw a
kid who needed a dad figure andsaid go get some of your friends

(26:30):
, we're gonna start a club.
So the influence of masonry inD Malay has got to be profound.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, yeah, I mean, it goes without saying, we, it's
, it's our there are sponsoringbody.
Um, you don't necessarily haveto have a blue lives sponsor you
, but I mean, it's the mostcommon that you'll find is a
blue lives sponsoring and, yeah,or a mason of some kind,
whether it's if it's a shrine ora Scottish Rite club or or what
have you.
You don't have to have a.

(27:00):
You don't have to necessarilybe sponsored by a blue lodge to
have a D Malay chapter, thoughyou don't.
No, okay, no, there's actually.
Uh, I want to say, at one pointin Georgia, a friend of mine is
the executive officer there now, uh, mark griffis.
He was an advisor whenever inflorida when I was coming up.
Um, he, I think at one point intime he was talking to A prince

(27:22):
hall shrine club or somethinglike that, if I'm not mistaken.
I it, because it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Um, it's not an official masonic body.
Right the D Malay.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
We are.
We are an official dependentbody.
Yes, oh, we don't have to use.
Yeah, yeah, we are Um, I'm sureI know if we're not.
That's news to me.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
You probably are um, I'm.
What I'm showing is uh, ifyou're watching the video,
you're looking at the uh, thisis basically the logo for D
Malay the shield.
Um, yeah, um and the crownAppearing in the self adopted
heraldic arms, which is theemblem of the order, contains 10

(28:04):
rubies Yep.
You can see them around thecrown, each representing one of
the original nine members andthe organizations.
Founder frank s Lynch.
Yep frank and uh they used tobe all pearls.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
It says the one point one originally portrayed as
pearls.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
As each founding member died, the pearl
representing him was changed toa ruby Yep.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
So there you go, if you ever wonder there was still
a couple of pearls on there whenI got an issue, really, oh, 19,
19.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I guess they were kids so yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, no there was still a couple whenever I was in
.
The last one just died.
I want to say in 2014 orsomething like that.
I Could be wrong on that, I'mnot sure I know it was.
It wasn't super long ago.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
So you got.
You got the knight, the swords,you got the the.
What were rubies?
What were pearl?
Now rubies, to represent thosefounding members that bridge D
Malay, um there's actually a uhpresentation About this.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
It's called the shield talk.
Yes, about that, about the logo.
It goes all into, in depth intoit that I'm hoping we will have
one of the young men, uh in ourdistrict learn to start
presenting to the differentlodges.
There's a couple of differentpresentations that D Malay has,
like that the ceremony of light,the flower talk, the shield
talk.
Nighthood has one called therose talk, I believe there's.

(29:32):
There's several of them.
Basically, it just tells youwhat the organization is about,
what we stand for, and theirdifferent speeches, you know,
focusing on different aspects ofit.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
So that I guess that begs the question of what does D
Malay stand for?
Um, in my research I found, uh,D Malay has seven cardinal
Virtues.
They're taught as the basicideals of.
I guess being a Dima way is to.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Being a man, being a person, just being a man.
They are the standards of whichyou are to base your life, as a
Dima way, yes, they are filiallove, reverence for sacred
things, courtesy, comradeship,fidelity, cleanness and
patriotism.
Yes, exactly, if you use thoseseven things and you actually
use the teachings that we havefor them, you will inevitably be

(30:26):
a good person, a better person.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
A better man, a better leader, just like Masonry
, right, right, trying to makeyou a better person.
Exactly, exactly.
So it makes sense.
We see Freemasonry in thetenets of Dima way, although
it's a little different.
Like filial love is somethingthat you don't really hear a lot
of in western thought.
Like most eastern religion isbased on filial love.

(30:53):
Like it's all about don'tdishonor your family and you
bring shame to the family andliterally you'll kill yourself
for doing that because Right ofreverence for your family, but
you don't hear it much here inthe West.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
And it's your first one filial love, which is pretty
it's very first, very first oneman, you wouldn't be here
without your parents, you know,and just that by itself earns
some respect.
Now, I mean, you're going tohave those people that you know.
Maybe their mom wasn't in theirlife, maybe their dad wasn't in
their life, whatever else andI'm not going to say that you
still got to.
You know, treat them with thesame respect as anything else.

(31:27):
That's your battle to fight,not mine.
But if you do have parents thatare there for you and brought
you into this world and help youknow, help you survive, then
you owe them the very leastrespect.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Respect right.
But there's another kind offilial love, which is you know
we have an almighty parent, andso you can roll God into that
right, like you.
Love for God and respect andreverence for God too is part of
that filial love.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Then you have reverence for sacred things.
Yes, Wow.
That sounds cool.
Reverence for sacred things.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Reverence for all that is sacred.
A man crossing the threshold ofDima-lay for the first time
must profess as a deep andabiding faith in one living and
true God.
Without the steadfast faith andthe grace of our Heavenly
Father, our toil would be fornothing.
That's part of the ceremony, alight that I was talking about,
woo, yeah, so basically you needit's promoting having a

(32:24):
spiritual belief and following acode in that sense.
Now, you know, I think the mostcommon is probably Christianity
, but we are worldwide, so Imean there's Dima-lay of all
different religions, you knowthat's awesome.
It's basically just promotingthat, promoting, you know, what
you believe.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Here again we see masonry, because that's a very
basic tenet of masonry yeah, yougotta believe in higher power,
but we don't care what path youtake to get there.
Courtesy I like that.
This is kind of anold-fashioned concept that a man
should be courteous, kind ofrespect and philanthropy, all
kind of role in courtesy.
And I mean I didn't have afather growing up which was work

(33:11):
to my benefit because I used,like television, people that I
saw as my role model for a manand obviously that's not real.
But I learned to open door forwomen, to, like you know, be the
last one in to lift things andcarry things for people,
especially women, and so Iingrained that in my children,

(33:31):
my boys, and I'm so happy to seethat this is part of the tenets
or the cardinal virtues ofDima-lay.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
It's essential, man.
Just a little bit well, Ialmost almost said it the wrong
way just a little bit of caring,just caring about another
individual and you know, puttingsomebody else above yourself
every once in a while you know,Holding the door for that guy at
racetrack that's going into thegas station or whatever.
Just little things like that goa long way.

(34:01):
Then you got comradeship.
Comradeship that's the biggest.
Well, I mean, it's the one thatis put the most focus on,
because we are a fraternity, soany fraternity is going to
promote brotherhood, having asense of belonging with each
other and keeping each otheraccountable for things and
different things like that.

(34:21):
So that's why they put anemphasis on it being in the
center of the seven, because youknow millions.
Yet because of that camaraderieit should be, should hold each
other accountable and help eachother every chance you get.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
And the explanation I'm looking at says being a
faithful friend not only in goodtimes, but also in hard times
which is something whichcritically, which also means,
which also means telling afriend when he's messing up
right.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
You know, it's not just being there for him when he
asks you for help.
It's not just being there, youknow, to whisper wise counsel,
it's to tell him hey, dude, youknow what are you doing, Right,
this isn't going to end well ifyou keep doing this Right.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
I mean something you do for people you care about.
Nobody likes to have difficultconversations, but you care
about somebody.
It's worth your time to try tohelp them, and that's also
important in Masonry and it's wetalk about whispering wise
counsel in the ear of an airingbrother.
I don't know how many people dothat these days, but you know,

(35:30):
I'm glad to see that they'restarting with kids.
Well, a lot of people miss thatpart of whisper wise counsel in
the ear instead of you know anopen meeting and say it in front
of all the brothers, whateverit's on their mind sometimes.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Hey you did that wrong.
Yeah, exactly, oh God, here wego.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah Then.
Then you've got fidelity,fidelity.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
So I mean doing what you say you're going to do.
If you, if you hold a promiseto somebody, keep it, you know
whether it be the you knowpromise to God, a promise to
your friend, to your parents,whatever it is.
I mean, just say do what yousay you're going to do.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
essentially, Fidelity , and so even the, the namesake
for the organization, dima lay.
It comes from the man, jacquesDima lay, who would the grand,
the last grandmaster of theKnights Templar, the last one
the last one because the KnightsTemplar were disbanded sometime

(36:37):
around 1313.
We did a whole section on theKnights Templar.
Go watch the episode becauseit's there you go.
It's awesome, there you go.
I love the whole idea of theTemplars, what they stood for,
what they did in society thatpeople have no concept of how
important they were to our ideasof banking and oh my that's

(36:59):
yeah.
No, we could be on that topicforever.
We could be on that forever,yeah in a day when brigands
would routinely rob you and youhad to get from a to B on a long
trip, you can leave your reallyexpensive craft with people and
pick it up when you got there,like well, that's, that's
essentially what a bank is.

(37:19):
Here's my cash.
I'm going to go pull it out ofthe ATM when I get to Monaco on
my vacation and I don't want tobring my cash with me.
Well, there you go.
The Templars are doing it inthe 1300s.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
And sure they didn't have a keypad or a pin code.
You had to actually use thesecret word or a secret
handshake to identify your stuffRight, right.
Now we get to like how theTemplars are infiltrating
masonry, because we have secretwords and secret handshakes that
we use to identify.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Well, on top of the fact that I mean these are all
rumors and speculation, but whenit was disbanded, you know, all
of those nights had to dosomething.
So there's there's talk aboutthem going into, into different
workman's guilds, like maybe,brick Masons yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
And, of course, is that they had a huge naval fleet
that was never recovered.
I've heard this.
Yes, it's.
There's a lot of evidence thatthey actually went to the
Caribbean and and that thepirates of the Caribbean are
actually the descendants of theoriginal 10th watch that
disbanded.
I have heard that.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yes, it makes sense right.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
They have a code that they live by, the, the fire
code and all this stuff.
I mean, they would obviouslynot have had the capacity to
teach them to continue to beTemplars.
But generations later you wouldhave had people that still live
by some kind of code, becauseit would definitely pass that
down.
But I digress fidelity, we'retalking about Jacques de Molay

(38:55):
died.
He died basically upholding hispledge to his brothers Yep.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I mean, it was offered all of the riches that
he could imagine was to histried, was was, you know,
offered power beyond hisimagination.
And no, I know, give them up.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
No, right, he told me , if you got to, I'm not doing
that, no, he died, he hadactually, I believe, given some
kind of a statement that he haddone bad, that they were bad,
and, upon you know, thinkingabout it, when he came out and
he was supposed to say all thisstuff, publicly recanted and

(39:35):
said no, this is a bunch of BS,we never did anything wrong,
we're here for God and you know,this is a bunch of you got you
all.
You suck, you suck, you suck.
I'll see you in hell.
And then he left.
He burned at the stake.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Well, it wasn't necessarily that he came out
with a statement and thenrecanted.
It was that somebody said hesaid right, right he's like.
No, I didn't Right.
If you have documents sayingthat they're purged like,
there's no way that didn'thappen.
You know they burned him at thestake for it.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
I mean, these, these Templars are being tortured for
years.
It's not like you spent acouple days in the cell.
They were torturing you foryears to try to get you to say
what?
Just just to die, just admitsomething, so we'll kill you,
you know.
And when you get torturedbeyond that point, you'd say
anything to just make it stopRight.

(40:30):
That's what happened to most ofthose guys.
They were tortured to the pointthat they would rather go
against their order just to diethan continue to be tortured
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
I couldn't imagine being in that situation, man, to
be honest with you, I mean,we'd all love to say that we
would be Jacques de Malay andstand up on your principles like
that, but I don't know, no.
I don't know if I can tell youthat.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Not like getting burned at the stake is an easy
way to go.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
No, holy crap, dude.
Can you imagine and that'safter like seven years of
torture that they did to himbefore he was burned at the
stake?

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, no.
In his home country, in France,burned him at the stake and the
public was around to watch.
So wow, that's fidelity.
Then you have cleanliness.
Yeah, okay, here we go.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah.
But not only the bodilycleanness, right Cleanness of
every thought word.
Indeed, you know to actually,you know think about things and
not necessarily to use the foullanguage, or or you know all the
dirty stuff that we all, yeah,try our best to stay away from,
but some of us don't do a greatjob of it, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
As long as you're trying, that's all that matters.
Nobody's perfect, right?
We call this purity in masonry.
They call cleanliness in D-Mole, but I think it's kind of the
same thing, right.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, same thing.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's like being pure heart, pure motivations, coming
at things from a good purpose,and we wear white to symbolize
purity.
In free masonry White's, youknow white glove treatment We've
all heard it Like.
It's associated withcleanliness.
And, finally, patriotism.
I love for your country, yep,the willingness to defend your

(42:15):
country and your homeland,including public spaces, places,
schools, asylums or furnitures,hospitals, supporting people in
need.
That's all part of being apatriot, right.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Sure, and just living a good life in behalf of your
country, you know, just being abetter person because you're an
American or because you're, youknow whatever you're yeah, yeah,
insert country here, you know,because essentially you being a
better person is helpful to yourcountry.

(42:50):
It is work for you.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
You know what I?

Speaker 2 (42:52):
mean, yeah, you're representing so in D-Mole.
For years it's always thequestion, you know, the question
that you just you quiz theD-Mole with or whoever with if
you had to get rid of one candleor one, one virtue, what would
it be?
And most of the time people'sanswer is patriotism at the end
of it, because you know theythink about it just meaning

(43:14):
America or whatever else, whenreally all seven of them are
important.
But if you encompass all therest of them seven kind of just
what seven will happen anyway.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yes, yeah, that makes sense, but it doesn't end with
those seven virtues.
You've got a D-Mole defendsthree fundamental freedoms.
You've got you mean, I can't Ican't quote them off the top.
I didn't prep this, you nailedthose other ones.
I was like, wow, I didn'texpect you to know that as much.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I better know those.
The seven are talked about inevery single meeting, every
other, yeah, yeah, but youbetter know the seven right.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
The three fundamental freedoms that D-Mole defends
are religious freedom that'srepresented by any holy book,
independent.
Okay, now I know what you'retalking about.
All right, yes.
Civil freedom, yes, andintellectual.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Intellectual liberties.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
And that kind of you know.
There are three Ruffians in theMaster Mason degree Allegedly
yeah.
There's three Ruffians sellingcigars.
I can tell you, there you go.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
By the way, I got some people that want to try
those.
I need to get with Sean orsomebody.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
It's getting green launched.
We've got we've got new Wow,this is really sidetracking.
Now We've got new Sorry, newformulas and new wraps, so
actually it's improved andcheaper.
We're lowering the costs andincreasing the quality, so it's
going to be good, awesome, alittle something for everybody.
I still haven't tried theoriginal ones.

(44:53):
I mean, I haven't either.
I'm not a cigar smoker, so Icouldn't tell you.
But the people that know thisstuff say that it's it's gotten
better.
So I can't wait.
We're in the process ofrelaunching that soon, stay
tuned.
But you know, we in Masonry wehave people that try to take
away three, three timessomething important to you and

(45:18):
when you go through thementoring after the degree, they
kind of talk about how they're,what they're is this really
represents, is they're trying totake away your freedoms in
different aspects.
Okay, so you've got someonethat's trying to attack your
ability to speak, which is likea civil freedom.
You've got someone that'sattacking your groin, which is

(45:43):
your family, and you know that'sthe seed of your religious
freedom.
And then you've got someonethat's attacking your mind,
which is your intellectualfreedom.
If you think about it, thoseruffians are tying directly into
this.
When I see this, I see theruffians.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Hmm, I never thought about that, you know, but
there's a good chance that theguys that putting together the
ritual did.
I mean it was written by byScottish right Masons.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Makes sense.
And then you've got an ethicalchose composed of the following
statements Demo lay serves Godand Demo lay honors all
womanhood.
I like that.
One honors all womanhood.
But yes, this is importantstuff to teach young men that
women aren't your play thingsthere to be honored and
respected.

(46:34):
You know, right as people, demolay loves and honors his
parents.
A Demo lay is honest.
A Demo lay is loyal to idealsand friends.
A Demo lay practices honesttoil.
So you're not going to be agambler as a Demo lay.
When you grow up, you're goingto be earning an honest living,
something that's legal andrespected.
Demo lay, his word is as goodas his bond.

(46:58):
A Demo lay is courteous.
A Demo lay is at all timesgentlemen.
A Demo lay is clean in mind andbody.
A Demo lay stands unswervinglyfor the public schools.
A Demo lay always bears thereputation of good and law
abiding citizen.
And a Demo lay, by precept andexample, must preserve the high
standards to which, as he haspledged himself.

(47:19):
Man, I sure could use that.
When I was a young guy,somebody gave me these values.
You know we get them.
I got them from television in aroundabout way.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
But that PBS, I guess , was pretty good for for some
of that.
Yeah, depending on what showsyou were watching.
Mr.
Mr Rogers Neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
They were kind of teaching some of those kids, but
I don't know they don't getthat.
Today Kids are really growingup on like YouTube stars and
Instagram people and it's far,far from this what they're
learning.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
So yeah, unfortunately, but you know what
you know Never say, never,don't give up hope, one of those
things.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
I kind of see how important this is, now more than
ever, that kids have a placewhere they can go to learn like
to be honest and good andrespectful.
Kind but not only that likeDemo Lays, kind of giving them
opportunities to learnleadership right, like oh yeah,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
So that's kind of the for me.
That's the point.
Right, you get a guy in,because if you're just coming
there for a boring meeting andgoing home, then you know what
we.
What's the point?
So, like, right now we're inrestructure, we're not even, I'm
not even worried about ritualin most of the chapters in our
district.
Right now.
I want you getting the guystogether, planning a fun event

(48:47):
and go do it.
Meaning not you plan an eventand tell the boys to come to it.
No, you get with the young menthat you have say, hey, what do
you want to do?
Ok, well, what do we need to dothis?
Ok, first you need to whatyou're doing.
Ok, then you got to facilitatethe place.
Ok, is there a scheduling?
Do we need to find a time to dothis?
You know, do.

(49:08):
How much is it going to cost todo this?
Ok, how are you coming up withthe money for this?
Are you expecting all thechapter members to pay their way
?
You know all those things.
You're helping the young menput those together and then run
the event and then alsocommunicate to all the members
and whatever else.
So what I like to tell people isfirst you put somebody on a

(49:28):
committee.
So a committee is making thisplan to plan this event, ok.
And now you're, you're a voiceon this committee.
So eventually, after you'vebeen in a committee for so much,
well, why don't you try headingup this committee next time?
Ok.
And then, once you've headed upa committee and you're, you
know you're responsible for, youknow, facilitating the meetings
and figuring out everybody'sideas and putting it on paper

(49:51):
and giving a report at themeeting, ok.
Eventually, after you've donethat so much, then now go into a
leadership role in the chapter,become a counselor, you know,
because now you know how to dodifferent things.
You just have to put them alltogether.
Wow, kind of thing.
That's, in my opinion, that'show you build the future leaders
and that's how Dima lay canbuild the future.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
There's so much that goes into what you just
described, from like planningfinancially for something to
managing personalities on teams,to right dealing with failure,
because if you let those kids dothat stuff, eventually
something's not going to workout and it's going to be a shit

(50:34):
show, and that value issomething they're going to learn
from.
And yeah, as I, like I said, Iwas only limited in my
involvement in the Sarasotachapter.
I was for a few months but whatI saw was parents wanting to do
all those things you just saidthe kids should do.
Right, that's the problem.

(50:56):
That seemed to me like it wascreating a.
It was kind of like theopposite of what is supposed to
be happening where what are thekids learning if parents are
doing all that stuff?
It's just daycare at that point, right.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Exactly Right.
That's not what Dima lay is for.
Yeah, we're not just here towatch your kids for you for a
little while.
That's just not what we do.
Don't get me wrong.
We're happy to, but we're goingto have a purpose for it, you
know.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, imagine that a place where your kid can go and
try something out and try to bea leader and potentially fail,
and still get support after thefailure to show him that you can
.
You can basically learn fromyour failures and it makes you
stronger, smarter or better thenext time you do the thing that
you failed.
That those are crazy importantlife lessons.

(51:45):
Crazy important life lessons.
Right, and if they don't letthe kids do that stuff, they're
never going to learn thoselessons.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, no it's.
Is that it's right?

Speaker 1 (51:58):
now it's hard because I only had, like I said,
limited exposure in Dima lay andI saw that as a problem.
In just a couple of months Iwas exposed to it.
Is this a big problem in Dimaladies, would you say?

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, I mean it's.
We saw it whenever I was a kid.
You know advisors oversteppingbut there's a fine line.
It's not like there.
I mean there is a handbook butso I can't say there's not a
handbook, there's not a booktell you how to do this, or
there is, but it leavessomething to be desired.
I guess you know it doesn't.
It doesn't take into accountthe personal things with this,

(52:33):
because problem is you have somuch you're competing with now.
When I was a kid you had BoyScouts, sports and Dima, in
least in my what for what I knewabout.
Really now, with with theInternet, the kids today have so
many different options of whatthey can do to spend their time.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Sitting in a meeting learning about leadership is
usually not on top of their list, right which to your point when
you were saying aboutadvertising to the parents of
the of the young men.
That's why it's so important,because of course you're not
going to.
You know, a kid just wants togo on fortnight or whatever in
the heck they're doing now.
That's all they want to do.

(53:16):
Then, yeah, leave me alone.
I don't want to go sit in theroom with a bunch of guys
telling me I'm a 40 bettermyself.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
I'm about to be in.
Tomorrow I'll be a 49 year oldman, and if you left me to my
own devices, I'd be sitting in apile of my own feces within a
couple months.
Like we as men, need to bepushed outside our comfort zones
, and especially even for kids,because they have to learn at an
early age.
They learn a lot faster whenthey're young than an old guy

(53:44):
like me.
to change Now it's going to be,crazy hard, but when I was 12 or
13 I was like Clay.
You could have shaped me into agreat man if you took the time,
and these kids have thepotential to be great men.
They just need to be be molded.
But the key I think the keyproblem is you have to have

(54:06):
examples as leaders.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
If you have poor examples as leaders, how could
they, how are they ever going toget those lessons?

Speaker 2 (54:16):
I mean you know this is another thing to teach the
hip back on the worst fullmaster and just showing up.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, the things.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Yeah, I saw.
Now somebody can steal thisidea and run with it.
I'm happy if you do.
I wanted to make an award forfor Masons, called the past
worship of masters meritoriousservice award, because DMA has a
what's called a past mastercounselors meritorious service
award.
Basically, you have to follow astrict guidelines on how to run

(54:49):
your year, make sure youobserve all obligatory days that
you have you get.
You have to make sure that youall you and your officers know
your parts from memory to do allthe ritual work.
You have to get so many peoplein.
There's a whole criteria for itand then at the end of it you
can say I got my PMC MSA.
I had a good term I would sayyear but it's six months.

(55:12):
So I want to develop an awardlike that, but have it Masonic
youth base where the worst fullmaster has to attend X amount of
Masonic youth functions duringhis year, has to show up to
their installations, has to gowhatever else and be that face
of Masonry to the young men.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
That's what I want to do.
I'm not.
I'm not a lawyer, I don't.
I don't speak legally andlegislation writing is not my
forte.
But if somebody else wants todo that and you know I'm happy
to have a worship full at theend, to add a worship to the
bottom of the legislation, foryeah, yeah, well, I'll
definitely.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
if you like, I can include your email on the
podcast and if people want toreach out to you to help out
with that, they can.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Sure, yeah, I been a master 23 at Gmail.
There you go.
Now I'm going to get abazillion emails.
It'd be great.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Hail the light, illuminati.
It's got master in oh man Rightoh yeah, but you know.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Dang it.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
I think that when you look at DMA lay now it's 1919,
so they've been around for along time now and yeah, we just
had our centennial couple yearsago.
I.
The way I got exposed to DMAlay was through a man named
Rusty Russell Glendeni, greatman who was kind of somebody

(56:38):
that became a I don't want tosay a mentor, because he would
probably not like that.
He never mentored me, but hewas somebody that I watched
closely and tried to likeimpress in Mason.
I don't know what you call thatan influence influence me, yeah,
yeah.
Yeah, and he was huge in DMAlay and one day, oh yeah, he

(56:59):
sent me a video of himinterviewing somebody for the
International Hall of Fame inDMA lay, and so I was watching
him interview this famous personwhen he was a young man.
He was probably in his 20s whenhe was doing this interview,
which is crazy to see Rusty athis 20.
I knew him as a seven year oldman.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
You know, I was expecting to see it like a
dinosaur walking behind him orsomething when I watched the
video.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Yeah, Jurassic Park theme plays in the background.
So I mean I went down to Ratthe Hole.
You have Walt Disney.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
You have.
He was part of the originalchapter actually, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Bill Clinton, and you got so many famous people that
are in the International Hall ofFame, from sports stars to
actors, I mean I'm not going toname them.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
The undertaker was a DMA lay, actually, and he turned
down the Hall of Fame Really.
Yeah, yeah, he was.
He was approached for the Hallof Fame and he said, because he
did not base his wrestlingcareer on how a DMA lay should
be, he didn't feel he didn't, hedidn't want to have his his,
his picture, in that Hall ofFame for that.

(58:11):
He didn't think he was the, hewas the guy which I mean.
Honestly, there's argumentssays that that's an even better
reason for him to be there.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, that's very a little rick of him to try to
take the right rhythm, becausemost people, if they're offered
any kind of opportunity to be inany kind of lasting thing to
have their name in it, they jumpat it.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
So that means he learned the lessons, I think, of
DMA lay.
That's impressive.
I didn't know that there's acouple astronauts on here.
There's several politicians onthe list Pete Rose, famous
baseball player, air Forcecaptains, philanthropist
businessmen like these areimpressive names that were part

(58:54):
of this organization Right, andpeople always ask they think
Bill Clinton was a Freemason,but he wasn't, he was a DMA lay,
he was not.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
He was in DMA.
Lay, yeah, he was not aFreemason.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Which you know.
I guess you could say I thinkmaybe being a D-malay is more
impressive than being aFreemason, because to get those
lessons in your youth isprobably going to make you a
better man than coming into itin your 30s and 40s and trying
to learn how to be a better man.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
When I was coming up, it was a thing to put on your
resume If you were a past mastercounselor or anything like that
.
You know it was something thatI was told.
Anyway, that meant somethingand I mean today, as long as you
word it right it does meansomething if you think about it
and you actually go into detailwhile you're filling out your
resume what all you did, whatyour duties were.

(59:46):
You know it's a lot and itcould look good for you.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
It is a lot.
You're really a leader in youryouth.
So this is how I saw you doingsome ritual work.
I asked you to help me withsome ritual work.
You said yes, with way shortnotice Happened more than once,
let's be honest and I was like Idon't know what's up with this
guy, but he's some kind ofsavant and they said no, no, he

(01:00:11):
was a D-mole, Like it's known inFreemasonry.
If you were a D-mole, you'reprobably going to be a decent
ritualist as a Mason.
Is that fair to say?

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Right, yes and no.
So I grew up with a ton ofbrothers that hated ritual and
they knew their part, for, youknow, opening and closing.
If they had a part ininitiation, they knew that and
that was it.
But in just like in Masonry,there are brothers that you know

(01:00:42):
it either comes naturally too,or it's just that something that
they work toward to get good at, or either way, in my case, I
kind of had a natural thing toit and then also it was I
thought it was cool, I likeddoing it.
So for me it was something Iworked at.
But no, not all D-mole areritualists.

(01:01:05):
But they have an unfairadvantage, you'll say, because
they've had to memorizesomething since they were, you
know, a kid, I mean.
Even D-mole's obligation, I'mpretty sure, is longer than the
Master Mason obligation Wow, I'mpretty sure it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
And you have to memorize them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yep, oh yeah, they have a question and answer
similar to what Lodge has, butmost of theirs is the obligation
we were, whereas ours is a lotof things.
Also, there's an obligation,there's a couple of questions
and there's an obligation.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Do they do a proficiency like Mason?
Yes, they do.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
So now I'm not learned up on all of the rules
like as I should be at themoment, but when I was in, you
had to be proficient in order tovote in the Lodge in the
chapter.
You had to be proficient tocompete in any competition at
conclaves or many conclaves via,be it sport or ritual,

(01:02:05):
otherwise whatever, it didn'tmatter.
You had to be proficient to doanything.
Basically, now I think it's alittle more lax.
I think you still have to beproficient to compete.
Either that or be working onyour proficiency currently
something like that.
There used to be a proficiencyJBU that we had at conclaves
that you could take.
In lieu of being proficient,you just had to go through the

(01:02:28):
class to help you learn yourobligations and stuff.
Then you could still compete.
But I think it's a little morelax now just because of you know
we're all hurting frommembership at this point.
So if we can get five guys,like I said, and just get them
to start learning some stuff,we'll let any of them have a
vote, because it's what theywant to do.
It's their organization, notmine.
Just because I think that theyneed to do this might not be

(01:02:50):
right.
It's their organization.
I'm just here to guide you.
And if I sell them, no, Ibetter have a good reason.
You know, if you tell it as ademolay advisor, if you tell a
kid, no, there has to be areason.
You can't just say no becauseyou didn't want to deal with
that right now.
No, there has to be a reason.
You know, a while back, yeah,go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
A while back, we had a deal with one of the chapters
wanted to get PayPal up.
I wanted to be able to have anelectronic form of getting money
in fundraising-wise and one ofthe advisors was initially had

(01:03:36):
said no, and I stepped in and Iwas like, why is it a no Like?
Why, Because our bank won't dothat?
Well, we need to figure outwhat the problem is with that,
because any bank should be ableto do this and eventually they
were able to get it and whateverelse.
And the big thing is surethere's a reason that he said no
, because, well, that bank wastelling us that we can't do that

(01:03:56):
.
Okay, that's a legitimatereason why you can't do that,
but it's still a problem that weneed to solve that problem and
we're in the 21st century.
Paypal is the thing.
Why are we with this bank?
Yeah, Move to another bank thatwill let us do this.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
It's very progressive thinking.
You've got there, I hope.
Demolay moves quicker thanlodges because that would be
about a year and a half changeto get them to move banks at a
blue.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Oh, this didn't happen overnight, this was over
months of time.
This is just the fast forward.
I've been around for a littlebit, but yeah, how old are you
now?
I am 29.
I'll be 30 in September.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Oh my God, that's crazy.
I mean I know you're young, butI don't know, I don't know.
I guess we talk so much I neverreally think about the age
difference, but we do have apretty big age difference.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
It's a bit of a gap.
Yeah, I didn't realize how oldyou were.
I figured you were in yourearly 40s or late 30s.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, no, man, I'm going to be 50 soon.
It's crazy.
Yeah, I see that You're aboutto be 30.
I see that?
What?
Yeah, so it's like you don'thave to be a president of a huge
multinational organization tobe a leader, no, you just got to

(01:05:15):
be a good person, right, andlike trying to live the tenets
of this stuff because these kidsneed examples.
So if you're listening andyou're like, oh, I'm not on the
level to be leading kids, it'slike wait, but are you?
Because no one's expecting youto be like a political leader or

(01:05:37):
a Bill Clinton Like you don'thave to be that to get involved
in DMA.
What you have to be is somebodywho wants to help the youth
become better, to grow intobeing better men.
That's really all they'reasking of you.
Right To be involved in the DMA, right?
They just want you to be goodwith kids and like support them

(01:05:58):
and like teach them these valuesright.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Right yeah, and help them along where they need it
now, and also knowing that beinga leader doesn't mean do
everything yourself.
Quite the opposite, actually.
You know Everybody needs helpdoing it.
If you try to do everythingyourself in anything whether it
be Lodge, DMA, whether it be asports team, whatever it is
you're going to burn yourselfout.
Now you might succeed at it fora little bit, but eventually

(01:06:24):
it's going to come to a head.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Yeah, and then how do you repeat that, Like what
happens when you're gone, Likeit needs to be?
You got to create a coalitionof people and it needs to be a
leader.
Create systems that can bepassed down and replicated by
other people, not themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Right.
I mean, I'm a firm believerthat one guy shouldn't be in
charge, or one person shouldn'tbe in charge forever.
It needs to, you know.
So if you have an advisorycouncil and you have, you know
you have leadership in youradvisory council that needs to
change every few years, you know, just to get a new set of ideas
out, you know, or whatever, beit a chapter dad or advisory

(01:07:03):
chairman or advisory councilchairman, whatever, some people,
some chapters don't have theluxury because, you know,
chairman has to be a masterMason and maybe they only have
one master Mason that's anadvisor, so that guy is stuck
being the chairman foreverbecause, well, nobody else,
nobody else can do it.
You know that kind of thing.

(01:07:23):
But in most cases, like nowit's when I know a little bit,
before I joined only men couldbe chapter dads.
A chapter advisor, the officialchapter advisor, the liaison
between the young men and theadvisory council, is the chapter
dad or chapter advisor.
Now, now it can either be a manor a woman, it doesn't have to
be a master Mason, you know,whatever else.

(01:07:46):
And I've known some great womenthat were awesome chapter
advisors and I've known someguys that really suck at it Me
too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Me too.
Some of them were close to me.
I saw it firsthand.
Even though I wasn't terriblyinvolved, I did.
I did see some problems, andwhenever I see problems I assume
that it's not local, that it'sprobably stuff that you know.
That's.
That's like the first lesson Ihad in Masonry, all the negative
things I saw.

(01:08:18):
I thought I was just this lodgeor just this guy.
No, like, every district has alodge like that, every lodge has
a guy like that.
You know what I mean.
These are systemic things.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
It's just a person problem.
It's just.
It's always a type ofpersonality you have, seems to
always come down to being peopleas the problem, right Right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
So we need to be very careful about who we put in a
leadership role with children,because if they see adults
arguing with each other overwhat food's going to be at an
event, or they shouldn't even behaving that argument.
Right, that's the stuff thekids should be deciding.
But they do argue over thingslike that.

(01:09:00):
They do, right Right, likethat's what the kids see and are
going to take as an example ofacceptable behavior.
So you really do need to check.
I mean, that should be like atthe.
That should be the entrance ofevery entryway into a lodge.
Leave your ego here, don'tbring it with you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Right, yeah, no, well , as soon as it stops becoming
about the young men, you'rewrong, like as soon as it stops
becoming about them.
You're wrong, you're.
Whatever it is that you'retrying to accomplish, stop,
because if it's not for them,then you're wasting your time.
Yeah, you know, and you're notgoing to do any good.
You're going to do more harmthan anything.
And I have seen, unfortunately,in Dima-Lay, at the chapter

(01:09:45):
level, all the way up to thestate level, where there are
certain people that maybe theyget and get that notoriety in
Blue Lodge, but they could getit at Dima-Lay, and we have to
stop that.
We have to do a better job atguarding the West Gate, as we
say as masons.
But you know, for our advisorswe always need adult.
Yeah, oh, a lady just came inwith the kiddos.

(01:10:07):
So you know, fellow ego.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
So let's talk a little bit about you Now.
Everybody knows generally whatDima-Lay is.
Now we did a pretty good jobthere, I think, explaining it to
people.
It's Sure there's a lot more toit for sure that we could go
into, but that Dude I yeah,that's a good luck.
45 minutes is a good synopsis,so this is what it is about.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Sure, this is what we stand for, this is what you
know.
And the biggest question is howdo we help, how do we keep
going forward?
And I think, with the rightpeople in place, we can do that,
and we're starting to get agood sense of that, I think, in
our district anyway, of gettingthe right people for the right
job.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
I mean honestly, as a marketing guy I see so many
ways to grow the membership thatno one.
I guess I really haven't triedthat hard to talk about it, but
I could seeI mean we could blowDima-Lay up with just a little
bit of effort.
Let's do it, I'm in.
It's like you know you miss thepart that people don't like to

(01:11:06):
hear.
A little bit of effort, likeyou're going to have to, I'm not
trying to scare you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I know you're not scared.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
That's why you're in a position of leadership and you
probably are the person Ishould talk to about my ideas,
because you could actually getthem implemented in more than
one.
I certainly try.
You can definitely wish forwise counsel into people's ears.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Right, I can test your people.
I'm pretty good at that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Try to influence them , but in a positive way.
I do see this as needed.
I think the parents would jumpat the opportunity to have their
kids be part of an organizationlike this if they knew about it
.
They just don't know about it,and I think the kids, once you
get them in, will want theirfriends to be part of it too

(01:11:53):
once they see what it really isand they kind of get the bigger
picture.
So I think the first hump is toget the parents to understand
that this is a pretty low-costway to get their kids a very
high-quality experience.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
And $60 one-time membership fee.
Depending on your chapter.
Could be more, but for the mostpart like our chapter is $100,
but you get stuff out of itbefore that and it's lifetime
membership.
You don't have to pay to be amember at all after that.
The only thing else that'llcome out of your pocket is
whatever the boys don'tfundraise for it.
So if they don't fundraise forit and they want to go to
Conclave, well, the chapterdoesn't have the money for it.

(01:12:30):
They want to go.
I mean, you know one of thosethings you better, you got to
figure out a way.
But that's why we, you know,try to tell these guys fundraise
.
When I was in, if we wanted todo something we had to fundraise
for it.
I walked up every single stairin the UCF arena multiple times

(01:12:50):
as a kid selling peanuts at theShrine Circus, because it was
one of our biggest fundraisers.
I shut corn at a Zellwood atZellwood for their Zellwood Corn
Festival every year because weneeded to do, we wanted to go do
things.
We had to do things to makemoney for that, and that's part
of the experience I think isactually having.
It's not all fun and games.
Sometimes you got to work.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
You're touching responsibility and like how to
actually get something done,because that's going to be the
case throughout your whole life.
You're always going to needmoney to do things you want to
do, and it might require somehard work to get it.
And then you know I was.
There are so many communitieswhere kids just don't have
opportunities, opportunities tolike really be in a position of

(01:13:37):
leadership within their ownpeers.
They just don't, would neverhave it.
And Sarasota, there's acommunity that I wanted to hit
aggressively because I know it'sfull of kids that would, with
an opportunity to learn publicspeaking skills and organization
and leadership skills.
It would be a game changer fortheir future life.

(01:13:59):
And you're talking about $50 inSarasota, chapter $60 in Venice
.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
It sounds like it's a hundred in Venice.
Oh, a hundred, sorry a hundred,but that's for life.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
And from 12 to 21,.
That's the only investment it'sgoing to cost you to get all
these lessons and experiences.
There's just nothing comparableout there for a kid that can
offer that kind of quality forthat price.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Right, there are other organizations, don't get
me wrong, like, boy Scouts ofAmerica is an organization, and
they do a lot as well, and theywere founded by Masons.
Also, that's anotherorganization.
When I was a kid, it was alwayssaid Boy Scouts teaches you how
to survive in outdoorenvironment than the wilderness,

(01:14:49):
although that's not 100% true.
They also have core values tohelp with your day to day,
whereas DMALE is going to moreprepare you for a business life
and just life in general, whichI think that's a watered down
version of explaining it,because DMALE can be whatever
you make it.

(01:15:10):
They can teach whatever subjectthe boys need to learn about.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
I've seen it.
I'm on social media a lot, so Isee a lot of DMALE chapters
doing like.
Well, like you did, you did afundraiser that involved
paintball and like shoot anadult and get you know hey,
here's for X amount of dollars.
You can shoot Tim or you canshoot Chris and the kids can do

(01:15:36):
it and that's a fundraiser,that's fun.
But they got to organize it andthey got to promote it.
And then they got to, you know,get people to show up and have
food.
You organized the one that Iwent to.
There was two things going on.
I believe there was a chilicompetition or some kind of food
competition Mac and cheese, macand cheese.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
I actually didn't have anything to do with that.
I showed up, I was, I was atarget.
I did not.
But credit where credit is due,the boys had that, put that
that all together and theadvisors helped it along.
I had a.
I took a backseat for the lastcouple of years with the chapter

(01:16:16):
because I had some stuff and Istill have stuff going on now,
family life wise that I had todeal with.
That had to take precedent, butman it's.
I was really glad to see thatevent was a success.
You know, the boys showed up,they worked it.
No, they, I think they made agood little bit of a little bit
of money at that event I'm notsure the exact numbers, and it

(01:16:39):
was Bob Gaten's wife that wantedto and that was cool and you
know.
And we got to eat really goodmac and cheese and then we got
shot with paint balls.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
But you know, yeah, bob Gaten's is amazing, from
Englewood Lodge, englewood,number 360.
And I believe he's like seniorDeacon or junior ward and
something like that Junior ward.
Now Bob's junior ward now Gotto go to his installation

(01:17:09):
because Bob in our district thatI see as being a leader not
just in his lodge but also inthe district.
A really good experience.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
No right he's yeah.
Right, he's a business ownertoo.
I mean, you know just.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
He seems like a very solid person.
He is.
I always, in Masonry, try tosurround myself with people that
I felt were solid people, so hewas one of the guys that I
tried to bring in to my circle.
So that's someone that I could,you know, talk to about things
Right and to survive the year Ihad when I was master, I needed

(01:17:45):
that.
I needed you and Bob and BarryHart, and you know, tom, don't
get it twisted.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
I needed you too, shoot.
I called you several times fordifferent things, for one thing
or another.
It went both ways.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
We're kind of like all in it together.
You know we're all moving inthe same direction, we're all
trying to get the same kind ofstuff done.
We just happened to be inpositions of leadership in our
little patch of dirt at the sametime, which was for sure it is
for us, because we workedtogether really well.
It was no problem.
I never felt it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
I'm still so proud of what we accomplished last year
I'm going to come here, and wehad like a healthy rivalry.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
And then there are unhealthy rivalries where it's
like you start to teach peoplethat those people are bad and
these people are good.
I'm talking about young guyscoming up and then your lines
and some of that had happened inour district.
I mean, I was part of it, I sawit and again, that's like not
anything unique to us.
It happens in every district.
There's always lodges like that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Happens in more than one group.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
I mean it's not just because you can go into any
group Because, yeah, men andpeople are egos and our little
picks and quarrels and all thethings we caught in.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
As you'll learn in life, as anybody will learn in
life, people suck.
No, it's just no, it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
And we know we'll have to admit it.
But we suck too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
Yeah, yeah, me included.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
We all suck, you know , that's what I was kind of
getting at, because you've beena leader in a lodge.
Now you're a leader in a widerarea for another organization
and your leadership is going tocontinue into the future.
You will certainly be leadingin Freemasonry for a long time
in different capacities, are you?

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
I need to start learning the two letter word a
little bit better.
But yeah, probably, I'llprobably always have a job doing
something.
You will, I hope.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
I hope you will, if anyone is listening and you're
in the state of Florida.
He gave his email addresscontact the fan because he would
be a great leader in anythingin the fraternity.
He might tell you, you know ifhe's smart, but I think he'd be
great at it.
So please contact him.
But you know you consideryourself a perfect man or some

(01:20:01):
kind of example in your personallife for someone to hold up
Like I don't myself.
Nope, I'm aware of my issues.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
And I've got several.
No, there's a lot of reasonswhy you shouldn't neglect me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Like we're not perfect people here.
But the thing is, it's likewe're trying and this is what
Masonry and it sounds like whatDima lays about which is you got
to be trying?
If you're not trying, do yourbest and get outside your
comfort zone.
Do things that are hard for youto do, that you don't want to

(01:20:38):
do sometimes, and we've bothdone a lot of that service.
That's what servant leadershipis really.
It's like you know, if I couldhave done everything I wanted to
do, I would have had a mucheasier year.
I just said no, this is howit's going to go.
Shut up, sit down, enjoy theride, but it wasn't like it was
much more.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
You can't run a lodge like that.
We've seen that in the district.
You cannot run a lodge likethat because this is a volunteer
organization.
It just does not work that way,correct?
And some people had to learnthat the hard way.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
There are people that I saw not make it through their
entire year as a master of alodge because their lodge
essentially revolted againstthat because of the leadership
or lack of leadership that theytried to instill.
And you know, that's again.
That goes back to the cultureof the lodge, because how does

(01:21:33):
somebody get to be master andnot know that that's not going
to work and the only way is ifyou're in a culture that keeps
that kind of thinking going.
It doesn't happen.
Just one person.
This is a that's probably beena problem for generations of
officers in that lodge for thatperson to get to that place.

(01:21:56):
But you can always write thatship.
You can always turn it around.
All it takes is some guys thatwant to move in a positive
direction and they can do itLike you said in D-M-L-A.
D-M-L-A is whatever the kidswant it to be and, honestly, a
lodge is like that.
A lodge is whatever the peoplerunning it want it to be and the
brothers that show up want itto be.
It can be anything and you canchange it anytime.

(01:22:19):
All you got to do is stand upand use your voice.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
Be the change you want to see.
That's right, and be the changethat you want to see.
If you want to see something,do it.
If you want to see Mason'smeeting outside of lodge and
having a couple of cigars andsome beverages with each other,
well, do it.
Plan it, have it, have at it.
If you want to grab a bunch ofkids and go bowling on a

(01:22:45):
Saturday, well, figure out howyou're going to pay for it and
go do it.
It's pretty simple when youthink about it, it really is.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
Yeah, you just have to make the decision to do it
like you said.
So tell me a little.
I mean, we got probably likefour minutes left here.
I'm already 30.
Oh, do we have we been goingfor a minute?
It's an hour and 30 almost, andI only asked for an hour of
Tim's time, so I'm like way pastnow what he gave us.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Oh, you're good, I still got 20 minutes until I got
to leave for lodge.
Yeah, I got to just throw a tieon, so I'm going to get.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
I really want an enter apprentice degree tonight,
I believe sit on the sidelines.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
I think yeah.
That's funny, that you thinkthat I am.
I think I'm either sitting onthe sidelines or I might be a
conductor, but I think there'sonly two candidates, I don't
know.
So there's a chance.
There's a chance I could beconducting, but I think I'm on
the sidelines.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
Tech me and let me know what chair they put you in
when you get there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
No, no, no.
They've had several practices.
They did a good job on this one.
I think it's going to be acandlelight degree.
They got dispensation so theycan do all that, so they better
have all the chairs filled.
I would think that would bestep one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
So you're 29,.
You're past master of a lot.
You're now in a leadership rolein.
D-mallet.
What do you do for fun?
What are your hobbies?
How do you because it's a lotof pressure free missionary can
be a second job when you take itas seriously as you do, so how?
Do you compress.
What do you do for fun?

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
Believe it or not, it's a.
I got so much stuff going onthat sometimes D-Mallet is what
I need, because it makes mefocus on something else and get
my mind off of what I got goingon with all the other crap.
So it's like, like I said, lastyear, last year was a rough
year for me personally.
Lodge was the only thing rightthat I had going on.
So it was a nice escape for meMasonry even though it is a job,

(01:24:45):
it's a nice escape for me.
But I play pool every Wednesday.
I have a pool table in my house.
I actually play every day justabout.
I play on a league everyWednesday.
Occasionally I get togetherwith some friends and run
Dungeons and Dragons, that kindof thing.
Actually, the picture rightthere was from a campaign I was

(01:25:05):
in.
I was a character in and abrother, aaron Rowan.
He's the senior no, he's thejunior steward of Venice Lodge.
He ran a Sunday game and thatwas.
I think I was in that campaignfor two years and yeah, so he
had those made for all of theplayers at him.
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
I'm just so happy to hear of him because I'm old and
I wasn't even the originalgeneration that played Dungeons
and Dragons.
Like I was playing second andthird edition rules by the time
I was playing.
Like you know, that started inthe 70s I think, when I was born
, and it just makes me so happyto see that it's still going on.

(01:25:47):
That people still get togetherDungeons and Dragons is no joke.
Okay, you gotta learn a lot tobe effective at Dungeons and
Dragons.
There's a lot of rules.
Well, I mean sure you can go upand role play, ha ha.
But if you wanna be a goodplayer, you need to know what a
constitution check is.
You need to know there's a lotof things.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
But it's fun too.
I mean it depends on your table.
There's different dynamics forevery table.
It is, you know, if you wannago and play competitive D&D, yes
, you need to know all that.
But if you just wanna have agood time on a Friday night with
a bunch of your friends andgoof around and maybe kill a
couple of goblins or kill adragon or something or save a
damsel, you know, I've actuallyhad nights where you didn't kill

(01:26:29):
anything, where we you knowthey played different types of
poker using dice and it was arole play kind of session stuff.
I mean, it's whatever you wantit to be, you know.
So it doesn't.
You don't necessarily have toknow all the rules.
It's my job as a DM to know thecore rules and know how things
are supposed to work and helpthe characters that maybe cause.

(01:26:51):
You know, I get a lot of newpeople, fleet People's never
played before.
Help them.
You know I need you to make aconstitution saving throw.
Where is that?
Okay, go to constitution, go tosaving throws, go to
constitution.
It's plus five, whatever.
Roll a D20 and add the five toit, it's.
You know stuff like that.
So, yeah, you don't necessarilyhave to know all the core rules
.
It's nice if you eventually,you know, pick up on them.

(01:27:12):
But no, I don't think it's arequirement to know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
So when he said he's a DM, that means dungeon master,
that means he's the guy runningthe show.
He basically has to role play.
For all of the non-playercharacters that you're gonna
encounter, whether the good guysor bad guys, you're playing
them and you're ultimatelydeciding what happens to every
character good or bad.

(01:27:34):
You make the final decision onthat, so it's a big job to take
on being a dungeon master.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
I like to do it a little differently.
So the way I see it is, theplayers are building the story.
I'm just facilitating, I'msetting the setting, I'm putting
the setting in, but they'redeciding what they're doing.
And you know, I run kind of asandbox, I don't run a railroad,
you guys are going down thisroad now.
And you know, do you go left orright?
No, what do you guys do?

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
You know this is what you guys see.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
What are you doing?
It's more along those lines.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
That makes for a much more enjoyable experience for
everybody, because they feellike they're creating something
together.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
But it's a price.
Different strokes for differentfolks, though Not everybody
likes that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
It's much harder for a dungeon master to run again
that way, because it's mucheasier to just say I have every
encounter planned out and thisis what we're gonna do for four
hours and do it.
It's much harder to not knowwhat you're getting into.
You have a rough idea.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Probably you got a point in, so it's actually
easier for me for that reason,right.
So I tried running the modulesand my problem was not
remembering who this guy's namewas.
That's important because onthis other page you know, in a
next chapter you got to know whothat guy's name is because they
got to find it and all that.

(01:28:51):
Yeah, knowing all that andtrying to remember all that it's
a watch, because yourcharacters are gonna pick option
C either way.
Any way you do so I'd rather itjust be more of an improv base
than so.
I try not to over plan.
I have ideas of what my guysare gonna run into and I'll have
things that maybe I can movearound, but they're still gonna

(01:29:12):
run into this thing even if yougo that way.
But whatever, that's more alongthe lines of what I do.
I don't do the plan a wholedungeon thing where it's nothing
but a dungeon crawl and yougotta know where every trap is
and every monster.
I have done it.
I hate it.
So it's a lot of work I tend to.
I'm more of an open world kindof guy.

(01:29:33):
I sell.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
That's fun and I noticed that now they give
bonuses for role playing, likeit wasn't like that when I
played.
You were expected to role play,depending on your master, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
Depending on the dungeon master, oh, depending on
the dungeon so you can do well,yeah, it's inspiration is what
it's typically called.
You can do a lot of differentthings to incentivize it, Like
what I've done.
Instead of just giving somebodyinspiration, saying, instead of
saying I wanna hit that guywith my axe, I'm gonna do a
backflip over this guy, Do that.

(01:30:05):
If you're explaining to me howyou're getting there, how you
are doing that, then I'll giveyou an extra.
It might be a harder role.
You might have an acrobaticscheck on top of it, but if you
land it well, then you get extraamount of damage on top of it,
depending on how cool the thingis that you did.
So.

Speaker 1 (01:30:23):
There's different ways you can incentivize role
play to your players as a DM, Ithink the best way is to do it
yourself right, like when youplay a character, you play him
with an accent, you play himlike you do something, and that
pulls the beat.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
The old master of disguise, become another person.
Mantra yeah, and for me Ialways like.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
I'm drawn from movie characters that I like, right
Like I might have a Scottishaccent and I'm doing, like you
know, some kind of a.
What was his name?
He played James Bond.
I always imagine that guy islike.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Sean Connery, I would do?

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Sean Connery?
They had no idea, but that'swhat I was like, but you pull
from your life and things andyou kind of like you know method
.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
Acting, I guess, is what they call it.
Right, but no other than that.
So pool D&D and I like to hangout with some friends of mine
and have a beverage or two onoccasion, that kind of thing.
I'm pretty simple.
Nowadays, I don't have a wholelot of time for a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
So You're between work and family and Mason Rear.
You don't have a lot of timefor hobbies.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Like I said, I got a couple that I do and hyper
fixate on them.
But I have ADHD, so I also domartial arts and stuff and so I
got a million other things, butit's like what am I focusing on
this week?

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
What's the file?
Yup, well, I'm in a couple.
I'm in Roku Kempo through amaster out of Jacksonville that
I started with when I was alittle kid and I still talk to
and then Worshiple Hampton Krimiteaches a sanguku-bujitsu
Rinmei and I was in his classfor a while and I still practice

(01:32:08):
some of his kata and stuff,even though we're not meeting on
any regular basis anymore.
But yeah, a couple of differentones, all Okinawan K for the
most part.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
So you're training, stand up and grappling oh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
Yes, and I've done a little bit of small circle
jiu-jitsu, which goes hand inhand with that.
And then you know, I've done avery small amount of modern
Arnese or Kali.
It's a different form of Kali,Filipino stick fighting kind of
thing.
I'm not, I suck at it.
I tell people my IQ drops 30points every time I grab one of

(01:32:42):
those sticks.
When I'm at a seminar it's like, but I feel like I could do
better than just the randomperson that maybe never picked
up a stick before Right.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
I mean, that's kind of the key to martial arts.
That's what I tell people.
They think, oh, you're deadlyweapons hands.
It's like no, I coulddefinitely beat somebody that's
never trained before you knowthat's the advantage of training
You're better.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
You're hopefully going to be better than that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
Right, you put me in a competition with other guys
that have been training and it'sgoing to look pretty pathetic.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Right, yeah, no, I'm out on that.
I don't do turn, I'm out.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
Now I've also seen a lot of pictures of you in a
leather vest, with a widow's son.
Oh yes, so I'm assuming youride motorcycles.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
I am a motorcycle enthusiast.
I do have an Indian chieftainin the garage that I do get to
take out from time to time, andI haven't been doing that as
much recently, so it wasn't atthe forefront but yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
I just used to see.
That's how I used to seepictures of you online.

Speaker 2 (01:33:46):
You're always doing widow's son stuff before I knew
it Right, yeah, yeah, that wasbefore I was master.
You know I had a lot more timeto do all that I do love it I
get to go to.
I forgot about a meetingyesterday.
I still feel bad about that.
I missed it, but I'm startingto get back involved with that
too Now that I'm out of the Eastand I get a little bit more

(01:34:06):
time as far as that goes.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
That's a whole nother group we've got to talk about
one day the widow's sons.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Fascinating.
Widow's sons is a fun, fungroup.
I like that.
I like the widow's sons a lot.
A lot of great brothers in them.
Motor Corps is also a lot ofgreat brothers there.
A lot of the same brothers, alot of similarities between the
groups.
One's a standalone that'stechnically not a dependent body
at all and not a Masonic bodyat all.

(01:34:34):
It's just a body with masons init.
Then you know motor corps orshrine units.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
No, I appreciate you giving me your time and coming
on the show again to talk aboutDean Malay, which I know is
something that's important toyou and has been for a long time
.
Oh yeah, Hopefully people learnsomething about it from the show
and hopefully if they knowsomebody that has kids between
the ages of 12 and 21, they'llsend them to beadmalayorg when

(01:35:04):
they can learn about Dean Malay.
I'm sure on that website theycan even inquire about joining a
chapter near them and hopefullyget involved.
You've done a lot for a 29 yearold in Masonry, especially Been
the master of the lodge.
You know you've been in severaldependent bodies and now you're
in a leadership role in one ofthem.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
I think the term you're looking for is I'm a
sucker.
Yeah, no, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
I don't know what the word I'm gonna use.
I'm gonna use a leader.
You're a leader and Iappreciate you.
You have a platform here whereyou can speak to masons all over
the world.
We gave your email address, soI'm gonna encourage people to
reach out to you with questionsthey might have, whether it's
about being a master of thelodge or an officer, or being

(01:35:55):
involved in Dean Malay or any ofthat stuff.
They should say you know, youhave a lot of experience in this
area.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
So I hope they read there's certain things that I'm
better at than others.
Man, I had a good year.
I did my best.
But if you're looking about theguys that know all about all
the reports that you gotta doand that aspect of being a
master, I would direct yourattention to somebody else
because I had a mentor that washelping me the entire time get

(01:36:23):
through that.
But as far as managing people,I'm halfway decent at doing that
a lot of the time and managingevents that kind of thing I'm
decent at.
And Dean Malay.
I'm happy to answer anyquestions that can with Dean
Malay too.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
We have to go, but I wanna give you the opportunity
to speak last.
Is there anything that you'dlike to share with the listeners
?
That are probably masons wisdomfor them that we can leave them
with on?

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
the way out.
Once again, support Masonicyouth.
They are our future.
Without them, what do we have?
We are not in this situationwhere we have enough members to
where we don't need to build thefuture, and we'll never will be
.
So find a local Dean Malaychapter and do what you can,

(01:37:11):
whether it's financial support,whether it's just showing up and
being an extra hand, whetherthat's helping with if you have
a young man in your life and gethim involved, and not just Dean
Malay, but also Job's daughtersand the rainbow girls.
Look into those as well.
I don't know as much aboutthose two so I won't talk too
much on it, but they are alsogreat organizations that need
help as well.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Well, thank you.
Thank you for being on the show, thank you for the year, thanks
for having me.
I'm glad together, everythingthat you did for me, and I hope
you come back.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Yeah, brother, I appreciate you, man.
Anytime Give me a call, Tim for.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
Don.
This is it for on the levelpodcast.
Join us next time.
See ya, oin.

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