SPEAKER_07 1:49

Welcome to another episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Laddie Howard, also known as L. Howard, a father, entrepreneur, and lobbyist. Laddie is a man of many talents. In 2015, he founded L. Howard Leather, driven by his passion for creating exceptional leather goods using traditional techniques. Since then, L. Howard Leather has maintained its commitment to producing handmade leather goods of the highest quality, using only the finest materials and craftsmanship. From leather bags, wallets, clutches, and belts, L. Howard Leather creates only the best of the best. In 2022, Laddie Howard, now the CEO of the company, expanded the product line to include fragrances that tell his unique story of coming of age. These fragrances are meticulously crafted with a blend of essential oils and botanical extracts to evoke a sense of nostalgia and memory. Each scent captures the essence of growth and transform and transformation, telling his unique childhood experiences during his childhood summers in Sumter, South Carolina. Besides being a lobbyist, Mr. Howard is currently the Director of Regional Governmental Affairs for the City of Columbia as well. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah, man. Really happy to have you.

SPEAKER_07 3:09

This is his first podcast, so this should be very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 3:13

To say the least. I'm going to enjoy this. And Lottie's my friend, so you know, we chop it up all the time. So this is like a regular day. But I wanted you guys to meet him because he's incredible.

SPEAKER_05 3:24

Yeah, I'm excited about this.

SPEAKER_07 3:26

But tell us a little bit about yourself for the people that don't know you, um, your background, okay, upbringing, influences.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

It's real simple, man. I'm I'm from South Carolina. I'm a country boy. I grew up between Sumter, where I'm from, and Bamberg, which is where my um my mother's family is from. And so I um have a lot of experiences that come when I talk about my childhood. I'm usually talking about both places.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Sumter and um and Hamburg. My both sets of grandparents, one from Sumter, one from Bamberg. Um finished high school in Sumter, went to uh South Carolina State University. Excellent. Uh left South Carolina State and went to law school. I'm an attorney. So I finished law school at the University of South Carolina. And while I was in law school, I started I became a lobbyist. And so I started lobbying. And when I was still in law, in law school. What I discovered about myself once I finished and started traveling, because I like I love to travel. I mean, I and I love to travel over the world. So uh when I was when I started there with my wife, I would always kind of do the same things. I would always, if I'm in Mexico or Italy or Savannah, Georgia, which is where she's from, I always go to the leather shops and cigar shops and and gravitate towards music. So it was funny because that eventually became my light, you know, fragrance and and leather, uh, it became my artistic expression. I never did anything like that much when I was a kid. I used to draw draw a little bit. I would always carve and and do little things, but it came out later in life. So as I as I developed and as I continue to express myself, and the things about kind of my personality just came out, and it became wine and leather and cigars and and fragrance.

SPEAKER_07 5:23

He really creates an experience, you guys.

SPEAKER_05 5:27

That's his voice is creating an experience right now.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

I ain't gonna lie, I've had to bother borrow your voice.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Man, my voice changed in the eighth grade. I didn't even know my voice changed. What? My voice changed in the eighth grade. A girl, I had this crush on a girl named Nancy Mayparla. And she was a little older. She was in school with my cousin. Yeah. And my cousin got her phone number for me. I'm like in Bamberg, I'm in the country, can't see her. And I got the phone number. I called her up. And first thing she said was, You have a deep voice. And it's crazy, you know, because when I was a kid at my grandmother's house, my my my father's mother was living in Sumter. Her friends would always call her, and I would, you know, when you're a kid, we didn't have cell phones or anything like that. So it was a big deal to answer the phone. So the phone would ring, I would run to answer the phone. And so I would answer the phone, give it to my grandmother, and my grandmother's friends would say, Oh, your granddaughter's with you today.

unknown 6:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Your granddaughter's busy because my voice was high. Sounded like a little girl. Yeah, you know, as a kid. And so, but in eighth grade, man, it just called that change. Yeah, flip.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I thought I was a little girl answering the phone when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

Dang. It was crazy. So how did you deal with that? That's this is a side question, but how did you deal with that change? Um, with like, were you being treated differently and et cetera, when you're when your voice changed? I had to ask this question because as a man, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

My voice wasn't, I mean, it was just that they couldn't tell about a girl or a boy. Because you know, kids, you don't know. You don't know, you don't have no gender, you can't tell. There's no masculinity or femininity, femininity to it for a girl. Yeah. It's just a kid's voice. And so it was nothing to real now. I had to deal with it when it changed. Yeah. I don't know if that's what you're asking. Yeah. Yeah. But when my voice changed, it became something to deal with because first it was really, I know it sounds odd, yeah, but it was a shock to me because I didn't realize that my voice had changed. You were still talking and being yourself. I was being myself. And then she told me that my voice had changed. And I was like, and then I started, and I I hate the way I sound. Shut up, really? Oh, yeah, I hate the way I sound. I don't like listening to myself. None of that.

SPEAKER_07 7:37

In the same way.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, y'all are weird. Both of you.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

And I'm trying to y'all don't sound bad. Really? You don't like how you sound.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I'm trying to know how to use my voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I don't like listening to myself.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

It sounds like uh fingers, uh, what do you say, fingernails on a dust? Yeah. Man, I'll I'll say, did you have any siblings growing up?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I have a I have a um one sibling. Okay. We're very close. Her name is Catherine, uh Wendy. Um everybody calls her Catherine. Um, no, no, I'm the oldest. Um, she's four years younger than me. She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. Uh husband, two kids. Excellent. Great husband, beautiful girls. Um, her husband is my fraternity brother, as a matter of fact. What's your fraternity? I'll let you guess throughout the there's only one.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Only one.

SPEAKER_07 8:25

There's only one. Can you tell by his confidence? He's a Scorpio.

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Yo, you're Scorpio. See, of course he's gonna know this. I still call this the Alpha Falpha. Yeah, man. There's only one. I already know all this.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Look at the Lord Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

That's cool, man. It's so cool. I'm telling like this, um, a lot of folks that we speak with always like to see confident black men.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:44

It makes uh, especially um growing up in the South. Um, I didn't, uh my brother and I, we moved from here to New Haven and Wilmington, North Carolina, and back here. And uh my father, the way that he raised us, always to be comfortable and confident in yourself and to also always be able to express yourself, right? Not to be afraid to do so. It's always cool seeing a self-actualized grown black man.

SPEAKER_07 9:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:09

Because there are not many.

SPEAKER_07 9:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Example wise, right? And it is sad. That's not that's not our essence. No, it's not. Our essence is to be leaders and is to be confident.

SPEAKER_07 9:21

How did you grow into your confidence of like your art forms and the different projects that you do?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

You know, I don't think you're anything without your family, good or bad.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

My mother and my father. Um my mother I mean both equal, but my mother in particular was just very insistent as I grew up that we have experiences. So my my parents, you know, we couldn't travel internationally. I mean, we're you know basically, and I say basically because you know, there's a fine line sometimes between middle class and and so you know, I grew up, had a great childhood, no problems. We traveled um, you know, in the US. My mother made sure that I read all the time, that we traveled all the time. I saw her reading all the time. Um, I grew up in the church. I grew up in the black church. Yep. So, you know, you got to do your Easter speech and do all these things. Yeah, all the things that we take for granted now. I grew up with those as a kid because we didn't have all the technology. So playing outside and being involved in activities if your parents are really concerned about you. My my mother in particular, I will say this. My mother always wanted us to be a whole lot more than she was. Right?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Um, and she's a great woman. And she, you know, my both of my parents went to college and are educated. Um, you know, they're first generation. Yeah, right. And so they traveled and really instilled that. When you're a kid, they get on your nerves. My mom got on my nerves because she was wearing me out, man. She was like between my whoopings and and pushing, making sure I had my, but my mom made sure I had everything.

SPEAKER_05 10:59

Yeah, you know. It's like you were the oldest, so you had to get those those first couple of whoopings. Oh, yeah. You had to be the example. It had to be drilled. I hate to say that, but we were just talking with somebody that's we could speak. His his elder brother and sister, they didn't make any mistakes, and he said he come on, he had to get all of the leather. Yeah, my mom said I had to get it.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

See, yeah. But it wasn't just my parents, man. Like I I, you know, communely blessed by my family. I mean, my grandparents. I had, you know, if you when we get into the talking about the the bags, um, each piece is named after a family member.

SPEAKER_07 11:30

Let's get into it. Yeah, get into it. Tell them about it. She's ready to get to the ready to get to the leather. She's ready, though, too.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

She was ready to get to the leather.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

That's a whole topic that she has read. But the reason that my bags are named after, obviously, family members is not just paying homage to them, but like my grandfathers, which so I knew my great-grandparents. Oh, really? Yeah, I knew my great-grandparents. Um, and each one, you know, just imparted something to me, particularly my grandparents, because I spent so much time with my grandparents. And I just, you know, I we're we're from South Carolina, so I didn't travel in occasionally during the holidays. I mean, I spent time here with my grandparents, growing up with them. So, you know, not just my parents, but the things that grandparents instill, especially for someone my age, you know, you have a lot of things that we are a bit removed from now. But you think about the older generation. It's not that long ago. It's not that long ago, and a lot of things that they had to deal with societally and racially, and you know, the things that they couldn't do that I could do. I remember my grandfather would always say, Boy, you're gonna be a farmer? Because he was a farmer, right? Oh, wow. Yeah, my grandfather, and not not a shearcropper, a farmer. A real farmer, yeah. One grandfather was a shearcropper, one grandfather was a farmer. Wow. And the grandfather that was a farmer, my mother's father, he had seven, they had, he and my my uh grandmother had seven children. And every child that wanted to go to college went to college. They went to the military, went to military, and he did that farming like 400 acres of land, had his own tractors. I used to sit on the tractors with him during summer, wore the seat of my pants out, riding on the tractor with my grandfather. Yeah, if you don't know about that, yeah. Yeah, they're bumping. Yeah, that Massey Ferguson, I mean, that that steel shoulder. I used to sit on that thing for hours and hours, man. But you know, when you spend time like that, especially with older generations, um, there is no way to explain how it how and what it imparts. It's invaluable. It's invaluable.

SPEAKER_05 13:37

I like that you said that because again, we always have a threat that we have somehow, it just occurs. It's nothing. That's why I said God works in mysterious ways. Whenever we have our our um podcasting sessions, and the one thing that is coming through today is generational gaps and communication skills, um, proper networking, um, presenting yourself in a way that people will take you seriously so that you can move forward and whatever ventures that you want to set out to accomplish. And I know the first interview that we had today with Chef Jay, one of her things that she talked about, she's talking about being around her grandparents and how they raised her and the stuff that she learned and things that were imparted upon her. And I was talking about the fact that um my brother and I, like our grandmother raised us for a couple of years. And I tell people all the time, they would be like oh man, my grandmother raised me. I was like, no, no, I'm so happy that that happened because we got to meet a lot of our older family and friends, uh, uh, relatives rather, but we got to learn certain lessons about preparation, um, being um timely with things, your management of your time, resource usage, how you need to make sure that you're ready to go out into the world, the things that are now that we take for granted that we don't need to take for granted because in a switch, it could go back. And so um growing up, we had a different mindset and perspective than a lot of the folks that we grew up with, and it was a good thing because now we're getting to see how it's important to our day and age now and what we do. And so speaking with somebody like you who's also telling us these things, I think it's important specifically for bridging the gap because our podcast is geared toward making sure that millennials have an understanding of that and that we have some kind of grasp on things to help us become successful in what we want to do. Because a lot of us, we grew up and we never had a handbook, we never had somebody to sit down and mentor us probably on what we should do because I hate to say it, we had crack that occurred between 1984 and 1995 that was really bad. And it kind of like wiped out a whole generation of folks. And we kind of missed out on a lot of education unless you were lucky enough sometimes to get um tutelage from the elder generations and et cetera. So when when folks listen to this and they hear you talk about that, you don't realize you're giving them gems. They're gonna be getting these gems, and you're gonna be getting out to um a group of people who normally wouldn't get to sit down and have these conversations. And I know that's when Tomai said, Hey, y'all gotta speak with you. Y'all gonna speak, we need to be on here. I understood what she meant by that because of course she's very well cultured on these types of things, and so she understands the importance of people hearing that, like sitting on that track and wearing that seat out. I know what you're talking about, right? And people are like, What do you mean? Because we have family members that own farms and the importance of being able to make your have your own food. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're quote unquote poor. If you can't have your own food, you're rich.

SPEAKER_07 16:18

But out of everything that he does, I feel like you you make everything yourself, like you engineer, you craft everything, and that goes back from your childhood. You see what I'm saying? Like you watched your grandparents do everything from start to finish.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

My father.

SPEAKER_07 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

So it's drilled into you in the vision to be able to problem solve. Yeah, oh my goodness, great critical thinking and problem solving skills is something that's lacking from our generation and the ones under it's because things are so handed, yeah. Microwave. Yeah, yeah, we get things across our culture, though. It's not just the younger generation.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Us don't I think there's a disassociation with having to do something and having arrived.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

And living, you know, a good quality of life. And I think a lot of times we confuse um standard of living with quality of living. And elaborate.

SPEAKER_07 17:11

Like, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Elaborate.

unknown 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Well, we have a very I I I believe, and this is just laddie, um, but we have a high standard of living in the US. And from most of the places that we come from, we have a very high standard of living. But nowadays, you know, after after running water and electricity back in the 40s and 50s, you know, our new standard of living, uh, where it used to be plumbing and lights for my for my father and generations after him, for us is internet access and the ability to have a cell phone. Right. And if you do not have internet access today, it is in many ways the equivalent of not having running water and plumbing and electricity from generations ago. And so now though, um all of those conveniences, all of those technologies, all of those things that we have to have, I'm not saying they're bad. Um there's a miracle to our technologies now that I appreciate. But we have a high standard of living when it comes to you gotta have the latest phone and you gotta have internet access, and everybody's driving a new lease car, and yeah, you know, you gotta take this trip and you're not doing anything on the trip, but going to a resort. So you're not seeing the culture. But you gotta be, you gotta post pictures on. And so there's a very high standard of what it means to be successful. Um, but our quality of life sucks because all we do is work to spend money to pay bills and to have these conveniences that basically we're so worn out from work from working to pay the bills and to upkeep the image that we are successful when most of the times all we're doing is just paying the bills. That's it. To have access to so you have the standard of living, but your quality of life is not there.

SPEAKER_07 19:02

Right. It's not at it's not equal.

SPEAKER_05 19:04

Yeah, that's what Chef J was saying earlier. Like I said, this is a theme to like she was saying, um quantity over quality, she says, please aim for quality. Yeah. Um, because of course her big thing is health, nutrition, and wellness. And um a lot of us, we don't we don't realize that we're doing that to ourselves, too. Um that the the ability to be aware.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, so I I wasn't here for her interview, but you know, by virtue of her being a chef and what I'm thinking the tenor and tone of her conversation was, you know, just with what she does, food. You know, we eat way too much. Oh my gosh, yeah, right on the money. Keeping it. And you think because you're doing well, we'll go to the we'll go to halls or yeah, somewhere else. Oh, yeah. And that's and it's great. I go there too. It's nice. I like it. It's nice. It's like it's nice. But I'm on this is my eighth day to mynosis. I haven't eaten since last Friday, right? Because I I go through these.

SPEAKER_05 19:54

I tell people you can do that. They think I'm crazy. They think I'm crazy. They think I'm crazy.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Thank you, thank you for co-siding me.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

I told them, they said, What do you mean? I say, No, it's scientifically proven. You don't need food for this much. They said, for real. No, you only think you need water. They said, What? I say, Yeah, you know your body does not need all that to run. It needs to be cleaned out every once in a while. They say, Cleaned out. I said, Oh my Lord Jesus. Why did I read these books? Because now I'm talking to people and they I sound like an alien. They don't believe it. They don't think they can do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, they don't. Man, if I don't have something to eat, I'll go crazy. Yeah. Um, it's it's uh, but it is when we talk about when Chef Jay was talking about quantity over quality, you know, because we don't grow our own food, right? When we go to the grocery store, most of it is crap.

SPEAKER_05 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

And we think we have to we have to have this level. If you're if you're really successful and you're doing well, then you want to, you know, you want to go to these restaurants and you want to eat this food and eat that food, and you want to do that every day. Every day is breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yeah. And so you're eating a lot of food when your body doesn't need it, right? So you're eating a lot of, you have a high quantity of food, and you're just stuffing, so diabetes and heart problems and cancer and all that stuff that we have. You know, it's coming from us just loading our bodies down with a high quantity of very poor food, although it costs a lot and it's presented in a way. Say it again, that's another part. It costs it costs a lot. So you're like, I'm doing well because I can go to these restaurants and do X, Y, and Z, or I go to the Publix, go to the grocery store and buy my food. But the most nutritious food, my mother, my um, not my mother, she'd kill me if I said my wife. Um, she makes these amazing tomato pies. Have you ever had tomato pies? I love tomato pies. And tomato pies, we're talking good. Good. So good. Nisha makes tomato pies. She makes it again. I'll let you know so you can come try it. But Stacy makes this tomato pie with tomato. She's made it with tomatoes that we buy from the grocery store. And then she's made it with tomatoes that I just grew outside in the yard. Uh-huh. Man, it's night and day difference. The one from the grocery store which you buy from there, they look pretty when you buy them.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

That tomato pie is watery and bland. When she makes it with the tomatoes that I grow in the yard, I mean, it's you would think you're sitting in the middle of Italy eating. I mean, they just picked out the basil, the rose, everything off the vine, you know, and just put it out. It was just magically there when you it tastes that good. Okay. But the the tomatoes out of the grocery store are nowhere near as good. That's the way it is with life, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:25

And I tell people, you know, um, this is something that I think is funny. And I tell people, do this test, and it's the easiest test in the world. Go to the grocery store, smell the food. Go to your farmer's market or go find a farmer who sells the stuff grown and go smell it. We've been growing our own tomatoes, right? I didn't know how good a tomato plant smells. It's almost better than flowers.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 22:48

Very fragrant. Very fragrant. It's supposed to have a smell. When you go to the grocery store and you realize that there's no smell on any other, that means that you are missing out on nutrients. The vegetable has not really had a chance to grow properly, or they've taken certain things out of it or turned it off through GMO to make it easier to grow so it doesn't like attract insects. But that smells supposed to be that attracts insects, but who cares? Because you get the B vitamins from the insects.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

If you want a good tomato, it's got to have a blotch on it.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

It's got to have a little blotch in your.

SPEAKER_05 23:18

If the bug wants it, then I want it. That means it must be good enough for them. Because you can put it out, you put one of those um tomatoes from the the market outside. I mean from the uh from publics outside. That thing would fly around here right now, like, yeah, that's not food. But there's there's some wisdom in that. And um, and that's one of the things, too, that I did learn from my grandmother with things that she would cook for us. And I remember growing up, I had an aversion towards squash. And onions and okra and tomato and all that stuff. And um, she would just like she would slowly like when we start moving in with her, it was like, well, we gotta eat this food. So she would like slowly cook it first in certain ways so we get to like it. And then I realized that she wasn't buying her food just from the grocery store. She used to take us, she used to tell you, she used to drive us up here to go to the farmer's market or to the PD farmer's market or to people that she knew that grew stuff and buy her eggs and et cetera, and everything. And we thought that this was no, oh, so this is how we were supposed to do it. And so I remember when um moving back in and being with my father and stuff, and he and um we were like, so why aren't we getting our eggs from that person on the street? Grandma, that's where she goes to get eggs from. He'd be like, Oh, because you're getting brown eggs, blah, blah, blah. And he realized, okay, so because that's who he raised to, that's how she did it. So he's like, all right, so y'all know now, y'all know what's supposed to happen. So my dad, his big thing is he cooked, he'll cook healthy.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Oh my lord. The egg from the farm. Yes. I tell people this all the time. People don't understand what eggs are supposed to taste like. Like the flavor, most people eat these eggs out of the grocery store. They're not eating what I grew up with. The flavor is completely different.

SPEAKER_07 24:53

And then I didn't know that you didn't have to like say it, refrigerator.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Put them in the refrigerator.

SPEAKER_07 24:58

Like somebody gave me eggs from it. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

You keep them out.

SPEAKER_07 25:01

She was like, no, keep them out. I was like, are you sure?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yes. It's sealed. It's man, and the flavor on just the organic, just the chickens that are running around the yard. It's so rich. It's so, it's just it's complete. It's buttery and happy. Yeah, it does have a buttery taste. It has a buttery taste to it.

SPEAKER_05 25:22

Like, I don't have to, you don't have to add anything to it. I don't need something pepper, nothing like that. You're like, really?

SPEAKER_07 25:26

So much.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

Yeah, yeah. But all right, my fault. I've got to be a big thing.

SPEAKER_07 25:32

We like the country, as you can see.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Okay, man. So I think, you know, the the great for me artistically, the thing about that is um everything that people aspire to. You know, they doctors, lawyers, you know, billionaires, millionaires, whatever. Um, people aspire to have that money for any number of reasons, but the number one thing that people want to do is to acquire stuff that comes from the country.

SPEAKER_07 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Oh, my good point. Yeah, all of the beautiful artistry.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Their landscapes painted on the countryside. Sometimes you have architectural paintings, but it's the art and the expressions are things that come from just nature and basically that people want to dine on. Now you're cultured if you're a wine drinker, right? Yes, true. Wine is nothing but farming. Yeah. It's as country as you can get. It's as country as you can get. They're they're aspiring to have the best wines from all over the world. People want to go to a restaurant, it doesn't matter. You know, people think that when they're in New York or Chicago or somewhere really metropolitan and very big and exciting, it's like that's where the best is. No, all of that stuff that people bring to the cities for people to spend a bunch of money on, it's curated from the country. Whether it be South Carolina, somewhere in Italy, or somewhere in Spain, or somewhere in Africa.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

You know, it's all curated from the countryside. Good point. And so for me, um that is kind of what melded my my artistry with just the way I grew up. It's like I just started expressing, you know, what my life and what my experiences have been. And to me, they're very beautiful. So you had the experience basically that people are paying millions of dollars to have.

SPEAKER_05 27:23

Right. You came from.

SPEAKER_07 27:25

So, you know, leather is like one of the like oldest, you know, professions in the world. Can you tell us about how you got started with making leather and your attraction to it?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

So, you know, I kind of told you about my attraction to it, uh, because as I started traveling and experiencing the world for myself, I was naturally drawn. I've always I've been a serious wine drinker for a long time.

SPEAKER_05 27:47

What's your favorite uh type of wine?

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Favorite green? So I don't have a favorite.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

No, I mean, so that's good. Yeah, I mean, I I I appreciate wine, right? So um wine goes with whether or not I have friends coming over and we're just drinking wine. Great point. I love to cook. Um, I I love to be in the kitchen. So if I'm cooking something in particular, whether it be, you know, fish or poultry or quail or steak or lamb chops, you know, then that's going to determine what you're drinking. What I drink. And so I've just I developed, you know, my appreciation or my taste for particular wines. You know, obviously there are levels to everything and quality to everything. So I curate what I like based on drinking it. But I don't have a favorite. If it's hot outside and it's the summer, I'm not drinking red. I'm gonna drink white rate.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Very true.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah, yeah, white rose. It's easier drinking, is you know, but if it's cold, if it's like this, I don't know what happened today that we're back in spring again. Yeah, man. See how we came dressed to India?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Welcome to South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

But, you know, just no, if it's if it's cold outside, then I I love now, I do love wines that most people that don't drink wine like I do, they can't drink it.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

That's why I asked, because like when you when you actually drink wine and you've had the chance to taste and go through wines, you'll start appreciating certain tastes. Like, I like funky wines now. I did not before. Before I like I worked at a very fine five-star restaurant, we had a huge, extensive wine list. We had to taste everything, we had to be trained on it, right? And so the specific, well, I'm gonna mess it up in my head at the moment. Um, it's from Eastern Europe. There it's a white wine. I'm gonna mess up the name. I have to make sure I look it up. But it tastes, it has a smell like old dirty socks. What's the name of the wine?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

What kind of one?

SPEAKER_05 29:35

Um, gosh, I'm gonna give it away. What do you think it is? Uh I think it's it's not it's not Grunabettliner. It's not, it's not. It's Gewürzster minor.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

So it's right on the money. Right on the money. Yes. So I mean, so I like Gewertzterminers and I like Rieselings.

SPEAKER_05 29:51

Oh, yeah, you're right on the money because my wife's a big Ries. She loves her dry Riesling. But um Dried Rieselings. Yeah, dry. Um, she doesn't uh like sweet stuff. But um uh I was just like, man, I didn't I didn't think I would like it because like you smell it, and I'm like, ooh, what is this? And I tasted it. I'm like, oh amazing, amazing. Other than that, I like to drink Pinot. That's my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I drink Salt Blancs and Pinot's. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

I love how it tastes, but so the the um I guess you asked me, how did I start with leather? And so it was when I traveled and started learning things like, you know, I'm I naturally love wine, and I would always end up in the leather shop. So um I remember going to Mexico, we're in Acapulco, and left Acapulco and went to Tasco, Mexico. Tasco, Mexico is where all the silver mines are. So when you look at silver, real silver silver has a stamp on it that says 925, right? And 925 um signifies that it's it's pure silver, and a lot of that silver comes from the mines in Tasco, Mexico. And I remember finding a leather shop in Tasco, Mexico, right below this this church. When it now everything's on the hillside, but all the buildings are white, red terracotta roofs that are so I have pictures of it.

SPEAKER_07 31:03

That's right, so pretty.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah, you know what it is. Um very beautiful place in Mexico, and I found this leather shop right beneath this church that was built in like 1492, and it still had the gold on it. Good God. Yeah, when you get out of the US man, you find real history, yeah, yeah, and real architecture. Um but you know, trips like that, you start discovering, man, I really love the leather. I have the bag to this day that I bought all those years ago from Tesco. But and then when I started dating Stacy, we she's from Savannah, and there is a store there called Satchel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a store called your daughter's name. Satchel is my daughter's name, yeah. But satchel was a leather store. Okay. And so, and this is before I ever did anything with leather because I didn't I didn't start working with leathers teaching myself until 2016.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Right. So it's pretty recent, yeah. Yes. I was I was actually um doodling, drawing. Um people say they're drawing, I call them doodles, but I was actually doing that. And my son needed a bag because he would always have his stuff in my bag or my wife's bag. And so when that happened, I was like, okay, well, I'll make him a bag. Just because I was doodling. I, you know, I'm a wine drinker, like I said. So I would not, I would not do the um, I would not drink wine as much as I like it when I got stressed out. Gotcha. So being an entrepreneur is very stress, it was very stressful, can be very stressful. Yeah. And so instead of drinking wine as much as I love it, I started doodling. So if you come to my studio, you'll see a lot of my doodles and things throughout the studio.

SPEAKER_07 32:40

He could draw y'all. He could really draw though. I like calling doodles. Yeah, it ain't no doodle. It's like good, full-blown sketches.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Like I just do I I I have I'm quirky, man. So I I'm quirky. I ain't angry about the modesty. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. Things like that. Yeah. But the point is, I stopped doing that when I started making the song back for my son. And then I haven't doodled since then. So I I mean, I have these people love them, um, but I don't doodle anymore. They're all in a book or somewhere. I have bunches of them. Um, but I started doing leather and people started asking for it. And that's how I started. I it wasn't intentional. I didn't intend to do this. It's just, you know, it's like on social media. Social media's becoming became big, and so you're keeping in touch with people that you grew up with. And I would say, hey, I cooked this today, or I'm trying to make this leather bag. Oh. Just, you know, just to show you something. This is what I'm doing today. I don't consider myself a chef, but sometimes I share that I cooked this today. It was the same thing with leather. Gotcha. But then that Christmas, I had people say, Hey, you showed a bag. Can I get one of those bags? I want to give it for a Christmas gift. And I was like, What? You want to buy a bag? You want one of these? And that's that's honestly what happened. I was stitching everything by hand and I bought a sewing machine. How hard is that too much?

SPEAKER_07 34:05

He does everything by hand.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Well, the stitching by hand is very difficult. With leather, yes. Yeah, you have to punch it. They're they're called um they're they're chisels, yeah, or or pinking irons. So you that's how I would do it. You'd have to make all of the holes and then go, that's not sustainable. Right? The leather process, and bags are expensive.

SPEAKER_07 34:28

And he also does his own dyeing, the dyeing process talking about that.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, so that bag starts off the same. I brought a couple of cases on the table. Okay. Yeah. All of those start off the same color.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

Wow. Can we show the cases too?

SPEAKER_07 34:41

Can they see it, Kevin? I mean, hold it up. The cigar cases. So yeah, explain to the different type of uh products that you do offer off for women on the city.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

So I design a lot of different things. Yeah. Right. So I have uh I just kind of classify between bags and accessories. But I'll I'll make saddle bags. This this is a uh briefcase. Um I love making weekenders. Uh the week the weekenders that I make are named after my grandfather. That's for the name. My backpacks are named after my grandmother's. Um, and then every piece has a name and it's named for somebody in the family. But I I do the accessories like the cigar cases and belts um and several other things.

SPEAKER_06 35:25

Some leather uh cuffs, um, what crossbody bags.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, and some things with the website and with things for being here today.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

He would have loved to see this. He loves those leather bags and stuff, yeah. Yeah, so between the bag, the bags, the accessories, and now the fragrances, those are the three things that I designed.

SPEAKER_05 35:46

Beautiful. Well, what I want to do right now is give you the chance to to show some of the stuff that we have on the table. Um, specifically uh the book, the bag, and then we can go through these fragrances so that we can get some scents on. Because we never had a chance to do this. This is really cool, man. So excited! Yeah, man. Um, so what would you like to start with?

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Uh whatever you'd like to. Uh that book. The book. So the book is just a is just a um compilation of some of the designs that I've done. Um, and not all of them are I've I've designed a lot of pieces now. I've I I make every single piece and I have pieces all over, right? Wow. I can't make all of the pieces all the time. That's what I've done. So the book is kind of an archive of some things that I've done in the process of doing them. But they're not all active designs that someone can just call up today and get.

SPEAKER_07 36:35

Can you make your own patterns?

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 36:38

Hey, Satchel.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

That's yeah, that's my daughter.

SPEAKER_05 36:40

Um, she's also one of my models. Oh, that's me. Yeah, put the children to work. Put the children to work. And I have a question. So if somebody did want um a bag or et cetera, from you, do you have like a season that you do, like a season of bags that you do, or so we're getting to that point now.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

So I do make every single piece, and we're going to production at some point. I'm trying to choose that production facility. So I because I I can't sustain it. I can't do it. With uh, you know, Christmas comes around and people start asking, and they, you know, they don't prepare for it in this last minute, and they're like, hey, I know that's what I was about to say. Yeah, like I can't pump that out. But so I'm I'm I'm actually moving away, and I've been trying to do this for a year, year and a half now. I'm actually moving away, trying to move away from making all the pieces because it's just not.

SPEAKER_05 37:31

I gotta get a piece from you before you start making pieces. So I can get an official original. And and another thing that I want to I want to point out, I thought this was interesting, is the symbol that you have here.

SPEAKER_07 37:46

The logo?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

The logo scorpion. Can you explain that Scorpion logo? So my my brand story is told around um L11.

unknown 37:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

So L11 is kind of it it encapsulates everything about me and what I've created. Um I was born on the seventh day of the 11th month. My name is Laddie. I'm a lawyer, I'm a lobbyist. Wow. You know, I do leather, uh, all that.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

It was not set up.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Yeah, and L is an upside-down seven. And seven is seven is the day that I was born. Um, eleven is the month that I was born, and also my last name, because the H is an 11 with a bar in. And so it just tells the story of me, of you know, how I was raised and became a lawyer and then found my passion in leather. Um, and it just tells the significance of the of the letters and the numbers. Um, and the scorpion, obviously, me being a Scorpio became a natural symbol for me to express the L11 story.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Oh man.

SPEAKER_05 38:48

Man, he just wanted to touch it. Had to. He just wanted to touch it. When you walked in, I'll say this, man. When you walked in, great smell came in the room. I'm telling you, man, like the fragrance of it, and etc. I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. I have to see. Whoa, stop playing with me. Nah, seriously. So, all right, so this is a piece that you made yourself. I make every single piece. Every single piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

I'm trying not to make every single piece, but I make like every single piece. I dye the leather, I stitch the leather, I make every pocket.

SPEAKER_05 39:20

Oh my goodness gracious.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

And I'm telling you, man.

SPEAKER_07 39:25

Yeah, it's like one of one. That's a one-of-one.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Yeah, you could tell, that's solid.

SPEAKER_07 39:31

No, my favorite. Um, I mean, I I always love the leather, but you know, I'm more attracted to the fragrances now.

SPEAKER_05 39:37

It's time.

SPEAKER_07 39:37

So every time I go see Laddie, I'm like, I need a new scent today.

SPEAKER_05 39:41

Get out of her way. I'm gonna let her have her fun.

SPEAKER_07 39:43

So definitely tell us about um the fragrances and like how'd you get started, crafting it, brute making it, how long does it process take, branding it?

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Yeah, the the fragrance is real. I've always been in the fragrance. Um, I have a pretty I have a pretty sensitive nose. Um, but for me, everything in life is really organic, right? So you don't just decide, hey, I want to be, I want to do something cool, right? I mean, I think people think what I do is pretty cool. Yeah. Um, but I didn't purposefully. Yeah, it wasn't what I always decided I wanted to do because I think it's dope. I um started doing the leather, which was very natural. And, you know, there were there was a period of time when I was just doing leather. First thing, black, white, young, old, you know, artistic, not into artistic. There are two things that people always say as soon as they walk into the studio. Um, first thing people always say is, man, this is a vibe. Yeah. And the second thing they always say is, man, it smells great in here.

SPEAKER_07 40:49

It does, y'all. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

And so I, and it's just like I don't like the way my voice sounds. Yeah. I don't smell my studio. Gotcha. You're there all the time. I'm there all the time. Yeah, you're like, this is normal. Yeah. But it was like the universe, like talking to me, because the first thing people say when they walk in is, man, it smells great in here. They're talking about the leather and they're talking about the incense and just the experience of coming to the studio. And so that was kind of the thing that started really laying the groundwork. Although I'd always been into fragrance, you know, it's not, you know, what I set out to do. Never set out as a. But then as people came into the studio and I and I realized that they they wanted to take part of that experience with them. And so that really got my mind flowing more artistically with what I was doing. And I realized, I realized that I could do it because my my family brought me a scent that they made for me for Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

And so that got me, that act got me in the in the uh studio where they had them done, had them made. And I went and I was there with the people that owned it. And the guy was like, Man, you're really good at this, right?

SPEAKER_07 41:59

He could literally smell something be like, Yeah, that's apple, cider, and just start naming stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Old factory. You know, I'm from the country, man. You can yeah, you got a chance to smell real smell. Everything. Yeah, so yeah, you had an experience. So anyway, that started the process. And then, so for me, um, once you start that process and you start expressing yourself, what has become unique about my fragrances, and I've gotten this from the industry, not from myself. Uh I had a guy come down that that works with Cody. You know, Cody owns Gucci and um Tiffany's and all they they all of those scents Burberry, they're under Cody. A guy came down from there and to visit me, and he was like, Man, your experience, you telling the experience, the story of where these fragrances come from is something that no one does. So you can buy whatever, even the even the larger brands, the Tom Fords and all the sense that people wear, you know, they smell, some of them smell good, yeah, but people have no sense of them. And when they come into my studio, they actually understand why I crafted the fragrance the way I crafted it. Because it's coming from a place, I'm not just saying vanilla and peaches smell good together. I'm actually telling you the story of how I grew up in my grandmother's kitchen.

SPEAKER_05 43:22

You're not a metrics man when it comes to making sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

No. It's about me imparting, you know, those, you know, man, when I was a kid, I'm 11 years old, right? Yeah. People can't relate to this much, but now my grandfather was a farmer. So he would go, he would go to the farmer's market and he would come back with bushels of peaches on the truck. Now I'm a kid, I'm out there with my cousins, and my grandmother didn't work. She, we're on a real farm.

unknown 43:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

She would go out if we were having chicken for dinner. I would catch the chicken, she would wring the chicken's neck, and that's what we would have for dinner. We had peaches on our batter bread at night. Peach preserves are just fresh peaches or canned peaches. My grandmother canned those peaches.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

And so what happened for me was my grandfather would go to the farmer's market, come back with peaches. I'm watching Soul Train on Saturday because usually that's when we gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

And my grandmother and my cousins are out there cutting up peaches and putting them in these large dishpans, you know. They take up two eyes on the stove. And my grandmother had these has these peaches cut up on the stove, and she's putting bags of Dixie Crystal Sugar in them. And we're watching Soul Train, and one eye is still open. Um, and they've, you know, they're they got to keep everything away from the stove, but they're sulfurate because they have a straightening comb and she's doing my my the same hair. Yeah. And so that's you know, that experience of fragrance, right? Because when you're when you come from a family that cans figs and peaches and pears and apples, that's an old factor experience, man. That's just right, it's just common to the way I grew up.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

So I'm telling that story, but then, you know, when I tell that story through nectar, how innocently I started loving peaches in my grandmother's kitchen, how it became my favorite fruit, it also became the symbol for what me as a as a man identifies with the most, which is women. And so nectar on the leaf became my coming of age from falling in love with the fruit in my grandmother's kitchen to falling in love with the fruit that is a woman. And so I had to express that differently when I went to Nectar on the Leaf. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

Oh, she's waiting for this to look. You wanna smell it.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Let me smell it.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

Yeah, let's get a smell on.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

I can ask you this because I think you would understand this. A lot of people think I'm crazy, I don't realize this. Because you grow up in the country, the smell of tobacco curing in a barn.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Mm mm.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

It smells like Like sweet, like honey smells. Tobacco's really sweet. Yeah. Has a good smell. I don't want to burn it, but I like how it smells.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

So I'm not going to show you nectar first. I'm going to show you lovers in the leaf. All right, lovers in the leaf. Lovers in the leaf is um tobacco. Oh, wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 46:04

Serendipity.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah. It's tobacco, honey, um, cherry blossom. Okay. And I'm not going to give you the whole formula, but it's it's I I made this fragrance because it's what it says, lovers in the leaf. And I enjoy tobacco. And I I enjoy the essence of smoke sometimes. And I wanted a fragrance that could allow lovers to share that smoke and express themselves throughout the evening and have a fragrance that kind of accentuated that and expressed that at the same time. So I made Lovers in the Leaf, and that's this first one.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

We have to zoom in on his facial expression.

SPEAKER_07 46:53

Let's give smell it. Look at him.

SPEAKER_05 46:59

Nah, because you don't get to get that. Watch this. Smell that, man. Yeah. No, because I know what he's talking about. The scent. The smell. No, you took it and made it. That's an elevated scent.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Then nectar. So this is the um, and there is a story that goes along with this. One day we're gonna do the story on video. And uh keep this over here. Yeah, come on. Okay. So this is nectar. To me, this is innocent. So artistically, every I think artists are are telling a story, right? The artistic story for me really is because I'm from the country, now this gets to the other side. I'm a I'm a um I grew up in the church. My father's a minister.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

And so when you're when you grow up like that, you know, we have certain morals and values about life and nature and the do's and the don't don'ts, right? So being a good country boy coming from a you know Christian family and all that stuff, I was raised right.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

I don't always obey. But I know better. I mean I do better. Yeah. But but I was raised a certain way. And as you become an adult, you realize that the way you are raised um sets the stage for who you become, but it doesn't always define it. And I think that there is this line from our innocence, uh, which I equate with nature to the forbidden, which is what I equate with the knowledge of our self and really expressing that regardless of how anyone else feels about it, right? And so I think that's a journey. Yeah. So for me, that journey started off very innocently with how I fell in love with the fruit, which was in my grandmother's kitchen. And like I said, the fruit eventually, there are all types of fruit. One is a woman, if you're for a man, and that's the next fragrance I'll show you. But that's the innocent, bright, beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 48:55

Nah, you're right. You know what you're doing, man. Wait.

SPEAKER_05 49:02

It smells like, and I'm gonna tell you this, it doesn't, it doesn't smell unnatural.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Right, it's an essence. Like most fragrances are like really, they're they're really synthetic. Yeah. They're strong because people want people to smell them when they walk in the door. Yeah. But I think the fragrance should be an essence of you. When someone walks by smelling like the same fragrance that somebody else has, they go, oh man, that smells like and it reminds me of. But when someone has a beautiful fragrance, like when a woman, when a woman walks by, and I'm sure women have the same feeling about men, but I can't, I don't know anything about that. When a woman walks by me, and she has just a beautiful essence of her, an aura that's left in the wake. I don't smell her coming towards me, I smell her like just in that instant when she passes. That is magical for me.

SPEAKER_05 49:57

Yeah, it is. Nah, he's not lying. That's true. Yeah, this is true.

SPEAKER_07 50:01

And this is why I've this is why I want everybody to experience Laddie telling the story and like come to the studio and to get the whole vibe because it's a whole experience. Like, clearly be blown away.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

So the story tells you how I was sitting in church when she came in, and how I just stolen peaches that morning because my grandmother had just canned peaches, and now I'm sitting in church and the and the preacher is preaching about temptation and the wages of sin. Oh and this girl is in church, right? Yeah, and I don't know what I can say on this podcast, so I'll be very you can say anything. Well, I'll just put it this way a peach. We all know what a peach means. We know what it is. And so when so there was a very there was a very simple moment for me.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Being in love innocently with the juice trickling down my chin. You know the sweetness on my tongue, really. I mean, that's it's in my grandmother's kitchen. I'm eating peaches. Yeah. And it's just, it's it's not erotic. It's not, yeah. But it's a total engagement of your senses, which leads to eroticism. And that eroticism happened for me in church. Wow. Because there you're you have nature. I believe growing up in the country, that we are afraid of nature and the urges it produces, right? And so we preach against it and we do all that. And so I'm sitting in church, and the preacher's preaching about temptation. That's crazy and the wages of sin. And there's this girl that I'd never seen before, and she don't look anything like anybody else. And I just stole peaches that morning. So the taste, the taste is still there, the experience. And you're tying it to that person.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

I'm thinking of the Garden of Eden.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

That's what it is. That's what it is. That's what it is. We all go through our own Garden of Eden. I'm just trying to put it into words and put it into an expression for people because you know, sometimes we say things artistically for the first time in a way that people haven't said it. Exactly. I'm able to do that with my fragrances. Um, and that's what happened for me when she walked by and her sundress, the scent, and her. You know? And you have why'd you do that at the church? Immediately, what you're gonna think is that that frame looks like a peach.

SPEAKER_04 52:11

And so you want to have to take his man. He's stealing your metaphors over here. You're acknowledging.

SPEAKER_05 52:18

Watch this. Yep. I agree. I agree. I'm gonna talk about my wife like this when I get home.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

When you when you when you have that experience, man, me, when I had that experience, you know, you're shy, because I'm like, I'm not a man, I'm a I'm a boy grown into a man.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

But, you know, our our merger with our essence and our nature, man, begins. And there's nothing wrong with it. No, there's nothing taboo, but we've been taught that these things are taboo.

SPEAKER_05 52:45

And I'm connecting with him because that's how I was raised. We're raised in Kevin, we'll tell you, we were raised in the church. Preacher would be telling us, preacher, like one of our preachers, he's an old farmer, and um, he remembered the Bible from back to front. I've read the Bible three times all the way through. I had it remembered because like I wanted to, I wanted to be a preacher growing up. That's what I want to do, is be a preacher, right? And so I was very afraid of certain things. Like I'm talking about spurgeon all the way up through all the way through till college and everything, right? Don't drink, not touch nothing at all. So people are like, dang, why you act like this? I'm like, y'all better be happy I didn't become a preacher. I'd be I'd be horrible.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Y'all would not be hard to deal with. Listen, man, you're sitting in church, there's a natural moment when you know you just look at a peach in your grandmother's kitchen. And at some point, after you first after you take that first bite and realize you love it, you love the sight of it, you love the colors, yeah, the curve. You smell it before it even enters your mouth because peaches and then you smell the peach, you know, and then you feel the peach. And this, you know, everybody knows that you know how to pick a perfect peach. If it's too hard, if it's too soft, it's real. You know, it has just the right firmness and consistency. So the feel of it. And when you bite into it, man, the taste of it, you know, the juice trickling down, all of that stuff, you naturally just go through that innocently. Your grandmother feels the same way. True, you know, but there is a moment when you see that proverbial peach and you want you see it, you want to smell it, you want to taste it, you want to feel it. That moment happens very naturally. And that happened for me, and that became nectar on the leaf.

SPEAKER_06 54:17

Ah sexy.

SPEAKER_07 54:27

This is facial expressions. I had to put you on on the commercial.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, man. You should smell it on though when it when it mixes with the bigger. That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_07 54:39

And that's the thing that he the yes on each person is a different thing.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

I wear that one, man. I wear nectar on the leaf. I love that.

SPEAKER_07 54:47

Like this right here.

SPEAKER_05 54:48

This right here? Spicy.

SPEAKER_07 54:49

That one?

SPEAKER_05 54:50

It's fruit, like it's what you want it. It's rounded.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

I think that's a very sexy scent. Yeah, it is. It's a very um, you know, to me, sexy and erotic are too. I I one, I don't say that very much. So when you so I gotta say sex and erotic now because whenever you see leaf, yeah, that's my code word for that. Oh, so when you see nectar on a lover's end, yeah, you'll see you'll notice that there are two fragrances there. The last one I'm gonna show you, but first one I showed you was um the I mean nectar was the second one I showed you. And that's just about the innocence of my grandmother's kitchen, so there's no leaf in it. Because that's just the peach. Right. You're right, you're right. Yeah, it's in there. Yeah. But and then ood and blue. Oodin blue is not. And it's very sensuous, but I'm not telling an erotic story as much as I'm telling the story as I see it of who I think the the person that takes us to that point where we realize that there is somewhat of a conflict between our gentle nature and the forbidden.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

And there's always a moment, and there's always a person that takes you over that edge. That person that takes you over that edge, I think, has certain qualities too. Right. That's what this fragrance expresses for me, because I think that sort of connection with someone is really deep, rooted, like a tree. It has to be. Right. Um, but it's expansive and it allows you, especially in the in an ideal world for us as lovers, um, a woman wants a man that is going to allow her to feel and know love, but to have the freedom to experience life and not be judged by it. And so that's like a an expansive sky or ocean. That's the blueness of it. This fragrance is called ood and blue. Um, ood comes from a tree. Um, of course, oh you'll you'll see when you express it. But this is what I think a person experiences in that moment with a person that allows them to let go.

SPEAKER_07 57:28

It's like soft and subtle, but still strong enough to capture you and be like, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

Strength and comfort.

SPEAKER_07 57:36

It's like Yeah, so how can people like actually purchase?com.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

Be on that website today. They can hit you know, go to our social media pages. LHoward Leather. Um most of them on Instagram is l.howardleather.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Facebook is just lhoward artistry and leather. And of course, the website, like I said, www.lhowardleather.com.

SPEAKER_05 58:12

You see Nantamaya over here, you done messed her up with the sense. Nantamaya's always still in my fragrance.

SPEAKER_07 58:21

On my way out. Yeah, on my way out.

SPEAKER_05 58:24

Man, I will say, I will say this. Um, you're one of the first persons that we had that bought in a product like this, and the experience of the product, man. I'm I'm telling you, sir, amazing. The storytelling behind it. Um, I know you don't like your voice, but I like your voice.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:39

So um I I know the man, I've never seen anybody put together fragrances in this sense. Because I've seen people sell oils and all this other stuff, right? But to put together the fragrance, the story behind the fragrance, the explanation, I understood exactly what you're talking about. I went back to my childhood sitting in the pew when you were talking about.

SPEAKER_04 58:59

I was like, I was looking at that, I was looking at that young lady at the church. And I was like looking at that at the church.

SPEAKER_05 59:06

I'm gonna read my Bible. I'm gonna read my Bible while this is going on. So um and then you read and then you read uh um Song of Solomon, right?

SPEAKER_04 59:15

Stop playing, yeah. That messed you up even worse. That messed you up even worse.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

I should have brought another frame. My uh last fragrance, I have 11 that I've made. Wow. I only have four that I make available to people. Um, but the the last one that I made is um it really tells my story of growing up in the country. It's called Summer and Sumter. And this I can tell you this story really quickly. Okay um and you gotta I have I ramble a little bit with it, so bear with me for two seconds. But growing up, I'm 53 years old. Okay. Okay. So I'm old enough to where we didn't we stayed outside all the time. I had to cut the grass with the push lawnmower, grew up on two acres of grass, gotta push it, right? Hard work. So, and I grew up on the farm with my grandfather, like I've already told you. So all of my summers were like that. So I remember, you know, in the 80s, we didn't have air conditioning. I mean, we had air conditioning, but we didn't run the air conditioning all day, every day like we do now. My parents turned it on when it was necessary to turn it on. So during a normal day in the country, when I grew up, the windows were were open. Open through. So I remember, man, those days cutting the grass, right? And you know what fresh cut grass smells like. And I had a horse out back. Um I lived in the country, so there was the pine and all that stuff. And I would cut the grass and go inside, and you can't be sweaty and stinking your mother's house, right? So I would cut the grass and go inside, and you know, you after you do something like that and you take that shower, first thing you're gonna do on a warm summer day, man, is fall asleep. Oh, immediately. You fall asleep under the window. Now you got that good sleep because the slava's on your hand. You know, you wake up, you're like, oh, you've only been asleep for 30 minutes, but it feels like you've been asleep for like three hours.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

But you wake up and you're like dazed, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

I would wake up like that, man, and the first thing that would capture me is the gardenia growing blowing in on the warm air.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

Because my parents had a gardenia under all the windows. Oh, that's so smart. Right. And so that would blow in on the air, and I would wake up and I would catch it, and I would catch the grass at the same time. And then I, you know, I associate the dirt because I sat on the grand on the tractor with my grandfather wearing a seat out on my pants. So there's always that dirt and those white creams flying down. You know, so I just I see that with the with the grass and the dog and gardenias. And there was always honeysuckle. I wrote a speech in college one time about how the honeysuckle is just always in the summertime where I grew up, perfuming the air. And it's not summer unless you're eating watermelon, and my grandmother made a coconut pie, something like that. All of those. Oh, that is the right thing. Yes. So that experience for me is what I call my summer in Sumter.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

And my last fragrance was called Summer and Sumter, and you just smell it.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:22

I had to bring them to the studio.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

You have to. My wife, her family, they're from Sumter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:25

Oh, that's how you're saying all this stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:27

Yeah. I'm like, yo, you better stop playing. Good Lord. I'm mess with her today.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:31

Like, you missed that.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:34

I told you you should have came because she her friends in town that she has been. I was like, she was supposed to come by with me today. But man, I can shake your hand on that, brother. I appreciate you. I greatly appreciate you coming. Um I appreciate you having us. I know um we're gonna wrap up, but uh just just to say, man, we do appreciate you bringing everything in and sharing your stories with us, um, your experience, your expertise. I didn't even bother you about anything about lobbying or anything you're doing. Because I didn't have to. I didn't have to. I'm gonna get you next time. All right. But um, I do want to sign off. This is DJ Ann What?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:03

Tamaya.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:04

Skipping the back and our esteemed guest. Thanks for having me, man. We appreciate you, Mr. Howard. Thank you for joining us today. Um, until next time, tell somebody next to them that you love them, that you care about them. Uh, and we will see you later. Peace.