203 Down the Rabbit Bowl with James Foster

Well, mad friends, my name is Adam, and this is the Get By Podcast, where we love to pipe. And today, well, as always, I am joined by my good friend, Nick, a.k.a. The Producer Guy. Nick, what's up, man? Hey, Adam. How you doing, brother? I'm doing fantastic. I am ready to do a podcast for the 203rd week in a row. Ready to do a podcast. I was listening to AI Adam. I didn't feel like I sounded AI.

Maybe a little bit right there. I was listening to our episode. I think it was the last down the rabbit bowl we did just to kind of prepare. And I felt like I was super flat on the intro. which that was like episode 183, I think. So I feel like there's probably been some more flat intros since then. And then before then. So I tried to. Okay. I like that. I was like excited about it. Like I was, I was looking forward to.

I'm like, why do I sound sad? Why do I sound like bummed and flat? Like this is one of my favorite things to do. So I am doing good. I am. I was just thinking like we're, again, still working on redoing our room and stuff. And I'm like, I need to get a neon sign. Like I want to get a light up sign of, I don't know, producer guy or something. That could be cool. Back right down there. Or...

I mean, it's hard because I would get it like right next to me because I'm not in the middle now. I'm in a corner in a wall. So like I could get it right above my setup or right next to it type of thing. I feel like those aren't that expensive. I feel like you get some from... alibaba or china or something for a super cheap neon sign um let's see that's what this room needs honestly like a i would like a gold a orangey gold sign like in our whole logo

We had a listener send me a carpet. You remember that? I showed you that. Yeah. I love it. I mean, they have like 30% off right now. I don't know. Let's see. I can insert what I want. Oh my gosh, 50 bucks? Literally. What? Crazy. Anyways, I'm probably going to do that producer guy or something. I don't know.

stencil anyways that's a i could i could go down a rabbit hole on that and just like you know you could when i get we will we will be going down a rabbit hole today oh um but i was like i've been thinking like what do we call this Well, yeah, I see what you have and what the viewers are going to see is what the name is. And they're going to very clearly see that it says down the rabbit bowl.

But producer guy has written what's up in the rabbit bowl. What is it? The Texas pipe show with James Foster. It's a good name, but it works. No. what's up in the rabbit hole i know that's the only downside about like me being so um particular particular very particular with like we have our series and we can't deviate and i guess we have the small batch thing but this one's going to be weird because we're doing he's going to do a recap i mean i don't know maybe this

It goes completely different because we haven't got to the part yet. But when he joins us in just a minute here, we'll be talking about the Texas Pipe Show. But we do want to know about James Foster, Master of Pipes, and all of his writing from... uh, the pipes magazine and all that stuff, but, but we can get to that, but it will be, I assure you all of you, you all reading this episode, we'll see, uh, what's up.

No, damn it. Down the rabbit bowl. Down the rabbit bowl. Because it's been so long since we've done one. I agree. But dude, I've had some great stuff going on. I did it. I did a little hand roll the other day. You know, we had some nap time action and I was like, you know what? I did some, I did a lot of like stuff in the room, like trim and caulking and all that stuff.

house house homeowner stuff um so i was like you know what it's beautiful i'm gonna go i'm gonna go get a smoke so i got got me a little hand roll did um um was it um is it jim from Oh yeah. Emerson Southern Forge. Yep. Emerson Southern Forge. So I still have some of the tobaccos from Jim and it's, I used a, like a Virginia and then what.

I had left of like a dark fire, like a Kentucky, Tennessee, dark fire. It was great. But then I also packed a pipe, which was awesome. Packed my Bruno, my Bing. And what did I have in there?

I had something in a jar. I think it was Cornell and Deal Sweet English. I don't know. I got it way back in like 21, 22. I know. Dude, I'm also trying to just like... find random old stuff that i have and smoke and i think i did that oh i did i picked out the other day i tried smoking i posted this really cool photo uh well not a cool photo but a series of photos of a new pipe icon i don't know if you probably oh no you're not on social media right now

I have, yeah, no, I don't. Lame. Well, I posted, I got this new pipe. It's an Ehrlich. I got it from Ben Smith over at Redeem Pipes. He reached out to me. He's like, hey, man, have you ever seen something like this? And it's the Ehrlich company, Ehrlich pipe company in Boston that was around for a little bit over a hundred years. They, they manufactured pipes and that ended after a hundred years, uh, in house kind of thing, but throughout their entire history, they had been doing.

like contract pipe. So like, uh, I know they'd done some with, um, like drop, you know, uh, even some Sassini, uh, probably come away a couple others. Um, and, but this one was stamped, uh, made in Dublin, Ireland. And it's not a stamp you typically see from Peterson, but it was similar. And he was just asking me, he's like, it doesn't look like Peterson to me. Like I didn't even know that Ehrlich did that.

So I did some deep, deep, deep research and I found out that it definitely was Peterson. The bowl shaping was just super, you know, Irish-y in the sense that it was like thick and chunky and all that. really cool pipe but anyway so i broke it out that morning to do an instagram post and i went through my cellar looking for something old not old but like something that i just like okay i need to revisit this thing because i have it open and i don't need to try anything that i love

I need to try something that I didn't love and try to keep to just use it, exhaust the resource. And I picked a Burley Flake number one that it's an old tin that I had. Not good. Awful. Like I didn't love it the first like five to six bowls that I had of it, maybe even 10 to 12. I thought I was like, yeah, it's good. It's kind of lackluster, but it definitely dried out a little bit, probably over the past like six to eight months.

and like i it was just awful it tasted like a cigarette like in the bad kind like i'll i'll i'll enjoy like a nice little you know dart with the folks you know a little little heater with the friends is heater marijuana Because if that's the case, then not that. But I'm trying to come up with cool words for cigarette. But anyway, so it just was awful. So gross. So I undid that pipe and then I filled it with some GLPs, I think.

which was like, okay, now I can enjoy this pipe and make a little post on it. But no, I feel you, man. I was also actually, when I was looking for something to smoke, I was looking for some tobacco from Jim at Emerson Southern Forge. I know that he's co-host of the Pipe and Tobacco Talk podcast, I think it's called. And him in a...

Tim Beaumont with Papa Bear's Pipes. But they're going to be, I think they're going to be picking up soon here. So if you're interested in his tobacco, keep an ear out because he's been on like a little bit of a hiatus.

Yeah, man. No, it's been cool, though. You do anything cool for Thanksgiving? Well, I guess this is our Thanksgiving episode. Nothing Thanksgiving-y about it other than we thank you for giving us your ear and listening to... you know, a chat with James Foster here in just a bit. But what do you got going on? Anything cool? Parents in town? Something like that? Yeah. Do they live there? Well, they're gone. They left this past weekend. So they drove back to Florida. Okay. A couple things. One.

I'm always amazed at people that listen to us on Thanksgiving. So I just want to say that. Yeah, those ones are real ones. You're the real ones. And you're also still real if you listen after. Let's be honest. That's fair. Call an ace an ace. call a club a club i was thinking about that on my way to work today i was like what if i just like said it said like like saying phrases that are just slightly wrong but like you know what i'm trying to get at

It's not wrong. Call a club a club. You know what I mean? Call a spade a spade. If you're listening on Thanksgiving, you are a real one. You're more real than anyone else could be, right? You know, we've had people like, I'm cooking a meal. While listening to you guys, I'm like, hell yeah, brother. So I just want to say that. Second, we had an awesome weekend at work. We distributed like 275 bags of food to people fed over...

Ended up being almost 800 individuals, which is really cool. Damn. It's like great, great stuff happening. So if anyone out there wants to support what we're doing now, but... Look up manoministrytidewater.org. Or go to your local community first. Yeah, you know. Why is your community better than their community? Well, I mean, I'm part of it, so.

Oh, so it's a selfish endeavor. I mean, isn't everything selfish? I don't think altruism exists. I am one that does not believe in altruism. That's a chat for another time because I can't unlock my brain right now into that. All right, the third thing... First thing James Foster says is like, you know, I was smoking a pipe thinking about altruism. At the Texas Pipe Show.

No, we're hanging out with the in-laws, which is going to be good. They're like 35 minutes away. So we're not really cooking anything. We're in charge of dessert and some thing that goes on the turkey, not the stuffing. It's like a... glaze or something we're making. So yeah, going to be hanging out there bringing a whiskey. My father-in-law bought me recently because we were inspecting my parents' new...

condo and he didn't think the dishwasher would stop the cycle or it would drain or something if we stopped the cycle. So I was like, I bet it does and if I'm right, you owe me a bottle of whiskey. I was right. And then he bought me a bottle of whiskey. It was sick. So I'm going to bring that. We're going to enjoy a drink and just hang out. Dude, I love that, man. That's feel-good energy. It is. Yeah.

yeah i love that we're um that's type type shift type share you know what i mean type shift type shift dude there's so many like you know like the kirk keeners of the world who like are kind of like more in touch with you know like this like jet is it what what generation are we on it's past z generation alpha no um yeah that is a movie

I think it's a document. No, it's a film. Anyway. Yeah. Maybe it's. What are we talking about? Oh, anyway, let's let's loop this up before we. The listeners want to hear our good friend James Foster. So we'll do that in just a minute. But I have nothing really going on. We're going to try to get sushi. That's our goal on Thanksgiving. Because we've done the Friendsgivings. We don't have any family down here right now. And you aren't going up.

yeah and we're not going up and we try to do friends giving but honestly we've done we hosted a halloween party we've uh been traveling like to b-dubs a lot with a bunch of friends to watch pat's games and stuff so we kind of just want to like Just have some time to ourselves and bring baby and not make it a whole thing. So that's our goal. I say our goal because I just don't know. New England, the big thing is Chinese food. Well, that's for Christmas.

Yeah, also, but I know a couple of Thanksgiving. I mean, yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, it is Christmas. So we might be screwed on that. It's not bad. I mean, it's not bad. I don't know. I mean, I've never done it because it's like, we've always just done Thanksgiving. You know what I mean? Yeah, we have too. So that's kind of why. So this is, it's weird for y'all. Like, I don't know if this Japanese place will be open. I'm like, I like the Japanese. I'm not allowed to be thankful.

So we shall see. I will let you know if they're thankful or not. That's amazing. So that would be cool, man. We are actually hateful. Yeah, they might be. Well, hey, if that's the case and I'm getting some sushi, that's all I know.

True. Okay, so let's do this, man. Yeah, just kind of like some... Yeah, let's go talk to our friend. Well, hell yes, man. Don't forget to rate and review this podcast on Apple, Spotify. any other listening platform you listen to. And while you're at it, you know what? Give us a little follow so you never miss an episode at 4 a.m. every single Thursday. We've got a great show planned this week with another edition of Down the Rabbit Bowl.

And following our primary topic, we'll get into some over-unders, kind of about our Thanksgiving pipe-smoking stuff, and then we'll move into Name One Better, another Thanksgiving edition there. Hell yes. Big thanks to The Producer Guy for The Producer Guy Things. Now, before we move into our primary topic, I want to remind you to take a deep breath, savor this moment, kindle your flame, and pipe as you please.

Well, folks, we have got a great show planned today with another edition of Down the Rabbit Bowl. Down the Rabbit Bowl is our series where we get to interview... guests and talk to them and dive deep into who they are and what's going on, their importance in the pipe smoking world. And we've got a great one today. Adam is going to tell us all about our friend that has joined us today.

Yeah, we are joined by our good friend, very good friend over what, since 2022? Probably the first time I ever went to a pipe show. Mr. James Foster, master of pipes. So many other hats. I'll let you just do them. We could talk about how you're a certified tobacconist. We could talk about how you are an author. We could talk about how you're a president of all the things.

mastermind of the newest uh not newest but like the re reinvigorated uh texas pipe show which we will absolutely talk about a ton but james welcome to the podcast thanks for coming on with us and having a chat with us thanks for having me appreciate it

great to sit down and hopefully do a little recap of the show yeah we're excited man so so tell us who the hell are you uh i don't know i've been smoking a pipe the 90s give or take my dad was a bike smoker grandfather was a bike smoker great-grandfather was a bike smoker and uh i guess i started in college started in college and when i um moved up to the Austin, Texas area. We realized that there was not a lot of pipe community here and got into, we started our envelope in 2013.

And kicked off the Austin Pipe Club because I realized that pipe clubs are in much better run when they're community run versus industry. So, yeah, I ended up.

becoming the president of the awesome pipeline and uh and then we ended up popping out the uh dallas guys and kicking off the texas shoe damn yeah because um i mean the the buzz has definitely been all about the texas pipe show lately and of course that we had just recently what was the dates uh was it november 19 18 17 14th and 15th 14th and 15th so just to

That's too long ago. But before we get into that, I want to talk about how you are. The reason I know you, I mean, outside of person, was writing. You're an author, right?

You write a lot of articles, which I think are very well received, which is why you're still, quote, employed by the Pice magazine. But what turned me to you was your recaps of... different pipe events so you go to a majority uh if not all of the the pipe shows across the uh you know especially the united states and i'm sure we'll see at a a foreign place at some point in time

Uh, but, but it's, it's, it's really your, uh, it's really your writing man. So how do you get involved with, um, even just writing in general? Was it, was it always pipe smoking? Was it from being a pipe smoker and you got into the pipes magazine or? How did that all come about? I don't know. Back in high school, I wrote for the newspaper staff, and I guess it's where creative writing and editorializing came about.

And so I became an IT guy. So I went to college. That's right. Moved to Austin, got a job at Dell, a bunch of people. And I was, thanks for calling it Delta. My name's James. And that was the year 2000. And I quickly realized that I did not like doing that. kind of moved into IT healthcare. And somewhere around the seven-year mark of doing healthcare and IT, I got into marketing.

And I got back into doing writing, writing copy and things like that. And picked up, started smoking my pipe a whole bunch more. And when I... dive back into a subject topic right like a lot of guys um you you kind of dive headlong into it yeah next thing i know um kevin was asking me to write articles here and there for

events or random things. I ended up getting invited to go to IPCPR, which used to be RTDA. Now it's called the PCA, which is the premium technology. That's right, yep. It's the retailer's event every year. And so I was going to that for a handful of years and writing about what's new, what's coming down the pipe.

not only new products, but also what FDA regulations do we have to worry about in the pipe smoke community. I think one of the big worries still is now that we don't have Sutliff Jeremy kind of down working with the lobbyists you know it's like who's picked up the pieces of that

yeah how much um of that do you know about because that's something that jeremy really didn't have i mean he thought it was boring which is funny because we all would be so interested in what that process is but but i knew I knew that he was a big, obviously a proponent. I mean, his business was at war with him. So it was in his best interest and in our best interest. But how much of that do you know about? What does that even look like? And is there someone who could?

Take up the mantle there? I'm sure C&D, Jeremy Reeves, I'm sure he probably, and Sykes, right, are away with it. Yeah. So that the PCA and Cigar Rights of America, right, they're paying lobby firms and legal representation to help and fight in every single state. Pipe and Tobacco Association. I can't remember now if it's been years. We have one lobby group, but it's only available like us as consumers. We can't go. Yeah, that's right.

It's really like it was yourself in McBaron driving that. It was C&D. It was STG, right? So anybody that manufactured pipes and vacuums. have the opportunity to be a part of the association and of course I guess be on their board or whatever but I have not heard anything in quite some time.

It gives me pause. I think in our current political environment, they have other things they're worried about. So tobacco is not being focused as much based on the federal level, state by state level. There's always issues with state by state. That's something that we need to be aware of. And yeah, I'm going to get ourselves more well-versed in it. I don't know if there's anything else we can do.

consumer level so i'm the usual thing which they always tell you oh write your local congressman write your your senators etc i mean mine's down there he doesn't care about regulating pipes or tobacco so it's like i i can't do a whole lot from here because i've got a decent congressman decent senators yeah in some states that are and then it's up the constituents of those states to help rally

for our cause to make sure we don't get flavored tobacco or just pipe tobacco outlawed or taxed out of existence. Damn. Well, to talk on a happy note...

So obviously you have been very involved with the Austin Pipe Club as the president. How much of that shifted? Like what, before you took over the planning of the Texas pipe show, right? Like how much of that was from. like you being at the Austin pipe club and it's like, Hey guys, we got to make this thing the real deal. We got to bring these people in. We're like, was the Austin pipe club predominantly there? Or is it something you had to pitch to the club? Like,

How did that all come about, and how did the Texas Pipe Show start to grow? Well, it's definitely not just me that runs the show. It's Chris Dumoulin. Colin Rigsby and I were kind of the faces, right? But it's the Dallas, well, it's the Lone Star North Texas Briar Club, which is the Fort Worth, Dallas, North Texas area.

It's the Austin Club. It's the Syntex Fight Club now. It was originally the Waker Club. That was Steve Fallon's Fight Club. Oh, that's right. Yeah, okay. Started over at Jared Hughes. The San Antonio Club, which is newly reformed, run by Nate Clark. The Houston Club, Joseph of Big Joe Mellenco. He also does the Pipecast. Yep, he's in Pipecast. So all of those clubs have a way to make this show a success. And so we're continuing to grow and organize and make our Texas club stronger.

Tom Kuhn, and you know him this year's Master of Hypes and Hobbies. He and his sons are starting a new club in the Dallas area. They're going to call it the Lone Star Hype and Tobacco Club. And part of it's because... The drive over to the other side of Dallas, Fort Worth, where the North Texas guys meet is like an hour. So he's like, yeah, we're going to do a Dallas area club. We won't call it Dallas. We'll call it Lone Star. But whatever.

They bring the tobacco-sharing cable every year, and they share their massive jars with sandals, et cetera. And he, of course, runs the Pipes, Tobacco, and Whiskey podcast, if I get that right. So our club is Warren Bile, Turbo 10 is our VP. Alvin, you probably know. Oh, yeah. Everyone is Alvin. He's our treasurer. Brandon Peterson, who doesn't know it yet.

but he's going to be on our board as our new club secretary. And then Cale runs one of the pipe worlds in Austin. He's our member at large. So how did it come to be, right, that the Austin club? kind of helped out. So somewhere around 2016, 2017, some of us Austin guys drive up to this cheesy... Dallas pipe trunk show. It was just, it was a trunk show. So, and it was organized around when Sally, the pipe tart was in town. So she has, Oh, nice.

a relative that lives like down the street from my my house in the austin area city park area and so she'd come down once a year and visit um so they would when she'd come by she'd stop at this place called tobacco cabana in cedar hill texas kind of in between fort worth and uh in dallas but south and And so we'd go up there, and they'd do a slow smoke. And Wes, one of my other guys, and I would go up there, and we'd come in first and second and just kind of dominate the slow smoke.

So anyway, somewhere around 2017, 2018, I pulled Chris Collin aside. I said, look, I just helped run the New Orleans show with Toby Ducote. You know, I got that experience. I was like, what are we doing? We could grow this to be, you know, a larger event, you know, have some more vendors come in, but still keep, you know, same Texas flair.

so that's that's kind of what we did we we expanded the show at that location then for a period of time we went to this other place called pop safari room because they just had more indoor space um then pops had issues so we went back to to pop in a tent in front of tobacco cabana yeah for a couple years and you know got bigger and bigger nate king finally came one of those years i was like wow i love coming down here so we

We got to where we outgrew their parking lots. There was no place to park because it was all tents and people, etc. So the host of Tobacco Cabana is run by... Stephen and Rhonda Rast. And so they basically were like, all right, we're too big. We've got to find something else. I've got an idea. So Stephen found the Oasis Bart Grill in Midlothian. that allow us to go there. It's a private club. As such, we can smoke inside. Wow. It's a dive bar. It's a big Texas dive bar.

three dollar beers like five dollar whiskey right nice so so yeah so so for free because we don't have brick we're on shoot straight budget right so for free they'll let us do it as long as people are buying drinks they're like okay we'll have the staff there and make them available so steven and rhonda managed like getting the tables rented and brought in and then

You know, we're having to charge. We never charged anybody. We didn't charge attendees. We charged vendors. Now that we're having to rent additional tables, et cetera. We're having to charge the vendors, but it's $25 a half table, $50 a table. We're charging just above cost. We're trying to keep it as cheap and as Texas Flair dive bar-ish as we can.

Yeah, I've been looking at some of the photos that have been posted in our Galactic at Pipe Pipe Club and some that you've sent me personally. I'm really looking forward to the write-up that will evidently come out. Gosh, this is, I mean, it just looks awesome. It looks like it was a huge space. It looked like people were smoking. They were joking, enjoying some, you know, tons of tobacco, buying stuff, selling stuff, tons of artisans.

How many tables did you guys have? Yeah, I got some cool stats. Give us the stats. Like, tell us, get someone who's like, oh, I can't go to the Texas Pipe Show. I already go to Chicago, you know, and then I got to factor in Vegas.

I don't like going all the way to Vegas because I spend way too much money, but I don't need to go to Texas. Now is the pitch because I am buying in hard. So Brian Levine is going to be punching the air when he hears this because I'm at a crossroads. I almost came this year. And last year I didn't almost come. So if we do, if we, we can follow this trend, what's going to happen next year. So, so give us your pitch, give us all the details, give us all the, the analytics of this past year. Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, you know, here's the thing, right? Chris is a marketing guy. I'm a marketing guy. We both run events and stuff before. So, so we pay attention to a lot of this stuff. In fact, we, we just sent out a vendor survey and we sent out an attendee survey and I was like. wow, were we the first pipe show that actually surveyed the attendees and the vendors? Man, I go to, maybe. Anyway, over 320 people showed up. 50.

52-ish of those were vendors or significant others of vendors behind the tables. And we actually use taco math to figure that out. So we feed all of our vendors that have a table. So we run around and do a quick count. All right, how many people behind the tables? There were 52. So I went out and bought 104 plus tacos and brought back to feed those vendors.

We have bottles of water, et cetera. So 33% of the vendors, it was their first time attending the Texas show. And yes, taco math is a thing. Yeah. I love that. So everyone gets two tacos. Damn. So we had, and I'll dive into this later, but we had three food trucks scheduled. One was a coffee. And like bagel food truck called coconuts. Probably guess why they called it coconuts. Because they sold coconut milk, whole coconuts. No, the women.

We're dressed with coconuts. I had a feeling. You know what they say about Texas? Coconut women. Cowboy had some coconuts. Anyway, they bailed. They bailed. We didn't get anything out of them. And then we actually had a taco truck that was supposed to be there. And they also bailed on us. What? By 11 o'clock, Mijas, who is Mijas Barbecue, is like our tried and true. They've been with us every year, have amazing barbecue. And they do like little mini.

you know barbecue street tacos too which are amazing that's what the vendors are kind of used to is getting this awesome barbecue street taco anyway they've they arrived at like 11 30 and walked out there and we're like guys um you're the only truck and there's about 320 people in here who want to eat and So we ended up having to feed the vendors. We ordered out elsewhere because we were to let Mijas take care of all the attendees. So we had to do that. At least it worked out, it sounds like.

So it worked out. In fact, Nihas actually went and bought more meat to come back and serve. It's crazy. It was. So anyway, everything you're saying just like is the.

proverbial texas that i've imagined in my mind you know like my own the only thing i know about texas is that everything's bigger there and that you don't mess with it um but everything i'm here like what's a texas guy thing okay let's go buy more meat like every every other state i'm telling you they shut the doors down they close up the truck they turn it on and leave no yeah go down the road they get some more meat they cook it they keep serving right they're not gonna

They're champs. That's a good way to put it. That was really one of the only issues. I mean, there's always going to be an issue when you're running a show. That was pretty much it. So we were looking at the numbers. On this past Sunday, we had our kind of wrap-up.

looking at the feedback, et cetera, and trying to figure out, you know, when we do bad, when we do better, how can we improve it? And we're like, all right, let's look at all the vendors that we had, right? We had, as far as tables, it was like 32, 33 tables, I think. And then, you know, there's significant others that were that had come. But yeah, 33, a third of those vendors, it was the first time ever coming to the show. It's the most tables we've ever done for our show.

And, you know, you compare it to Vegas, right? 104 tables or whatever. Chicago with 200 tables. The difference is it's the attendee to vendor ratio. So we're eight to one. eight attendees to one vendor and so that high ratio means you have very happy vendors your car right yeah everybody is selling stuff right so one of the things we did we did um

a Texas pipe show and Texas pipe club co-op Kay Woody pipe. So Nathan Davis helped us out. We did 10 smooth pipes and 20 rusticated pipes. They sold out within a week online. And they will pick up only. And so everybody at the show picked those pipes up. They've got an awesome logo on them. And we're going to do it again next year. I'll probably say we're kind of limited edition.

And then we also did a limited edition show poster. Kind of like you'll tell us, right? Every year they did a show poster. The idea is we've got a famous comic book artist who draws from Marvel who helped us out with ours, and that's Brandon Peterson. That is crazy. That is so crazy. And I love that, too, because it makes it very unique outside of like the status, right, of a very iconic artist. Just like I love the branding idea of like.

you know, a yearly poster. I really love that because every other show's got, you know, Vegas has got their buttons, which I think is probably the most collectible piece that I come home with. um you know slight change in each one but it's cool i have all of mine over there i'm sitting on my desk um and then i guess chicago you just kind of what are they might have to hit up uh tim and tell him to start getting on something cool chicago's got um

We got the lanyards, right? Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, the lanyards. And I have all my lanyards. But, like, a poster is, like, I don't know. That's, like, Comic-Con-y. It's, like, of all types.

Um, even movie posters, you know what I mean? Like I remember going to see new films and every now and then like on the first day of the release, they'd have like extra movie posters, like little ones that you can keep. I thought that was always so cool. So that's a really, really cool aspect because people love pipe stuff.

So much that they want to put it on their walls. And I'm one of them. And I would love to have a collection. Yeah, my garage is going to start having, every year, have a different poster, right? Yeah. So it's pretty cool. And so we did. 50 posters and Brandon signed each, each one of them, you know, one of 50 or whatever. So it was pretty cool. Did not sell all of them. And that's, we didn't.

put them online ahead of time because we wanted to be kind of a limited thing we sold more than half of them so we are going to put for next year we're going to put the remainder on

online so it would be like oh i missed last year but i might as well buy the poster from last year yeah so that's one of the things we had at the show and then of course the show is the south's qualifier The UPCA, United Type Clubs of America, is the qualifier or the Southern qualifier type show for the Chicago slow smoke. So the winner of the Texas slow smoke gets to go represent.

the south in chicago and then you know hopefully go to the national or to do the world's thing but we we had 39 competitors at our slow smoke 12 i'm sorry Clay pipes. So, so we, we, we don't do normal briar pipes for the most part. And it's, we try to keep the cost down. So it's a lot of Hubs, Missouri, Mearsham, Corn Count pipes. It's, it's.

clay pipes from, and I forget the other, there's another vendor we've used. But the price is right on those. Yeah. So it was $40 or $45 for entry as opposed to $100. you know chicago or some of the other places yeah so so tiny clay pipe penny farthing which is a shag cnd shag penny farthing that was the choice and our thought was okay Because we always end up running over in the slow smoke. And we have to be out. We have to be packed up and out by 6 p.m.

Because they have a band that's going to come on at 6 p.m., 6.30 p.m., and they're going to start setting up. So it's like our show is very time regulated, right? We got in at 8 a.m., we had to beat. packed up and out the door, you know, like by 545. So, so we're, we keep trying to start the slow smoke earlier. Anyway, same problem happened this year. Two guys, James Friedman.

He came in at an hour and 13 minutes on three grams of shag tobacco in a tiny-ass clay pipe. Damn. That's crazy. That's so comical to me. And the other guy is Mac. I'll find it in just a minute. Mac Welsh. So Mac was actually a first time. attendee to the show if i remember right and he he finished second with an hour and four minutes that's crazy so everyone was out i think

Most people were out by like 30 minutes, 40 minutes. And these two guys kept going. So at the very end, almost all the contestants were crowded around these two guys on the second floor of this bar. It kind of overlooks everything else. Kind of rooting him on. It was nuts. And the crazy part is this is the second year as this happened. Last year, it was two guys. And the rule with cob pipes, which was last year.

As long as you can produce smoke, it doesn't matter if the cob itself is what the smoke is. I like that. They both burnt through their cobs. and i figured i'll have to go back and look but one of them one of them won because his cop didn't fall apart wow how gross yeah they were they were smoking i was like ah your mouth's gonna taste horrible so

It was, I think, so Joe Mellencone, he was one of the guys that was burning through his cop. So we do things a little bit different in Texas. And we had to actually get permission from the EPCA to... And they had to go internationally and verify that it's okay for us to use a clay pipe or use a pot pipe. And they did it, so we do. And that's probably the give station.

I was going to say, I like that a lot because I've been to like, there's no nothing to like hate on. There's no shade towards like spending a hundred dollars on a ticket to get in just slow smoke. You get a cool pipe. But the way I looked at it was. I mean, they're cool. I've had a couple slow smoke pipes and I'm sure I have them somewhere, but I'm this, I'm so particular with my, I mean, you could see my desk. I was doing a YouTube video. Like I'm, I mean, this is a lot of.

briar pipes but to me to adam to get pipe there's random 2023 slow smoke of this random place just doesn't fit in this collection just to me so it would go on a shelf and it's like it's an expensive you know shelf item whereas like a clay pipe or a cob even like it's affordable it makes me want to do it um

and it's unique so at the end of the day that unique piece can sit on a shelf because like oh yeah you know one of the only times i did a clay pipe slow smoke i think it's cool well in the cops that we do generally we we have them you know labeled like 2021 Texas Pipe Show or whatever. I think my favorite pipe actually was when the Chicago show did a Chaconne pipe. It was a very nice pipe. That one was super pretty.

So, yeah, like metal access. Yeah, yep, yep. So kind of back to like our slow smoke, a guy named Zachary Pingel, I think. I think that's how you pronounce it. So he was first out at 54 seconds. And of course, first out gets, just like anywhere else, gets the box of matches. But he also has to wear a giant... foam cowboy hat. The entire rest of the slow smoking. And the show, right? But, you know, some people don't want to keep wearing it. And then we hand out.

When it's plate pipes, we hand out fire-retardant gloves to those who go really long, those metallic-looking fire. Fire retardant gloves. We handed a couple of those out. And there's a guy named Reno Wilson. He's with the Silver Star Distillery and a friend of the show and the tobacco bandage shop. Every single person that went out got a wispy-pourer shot brought to them to shoot that shot after they went out. This is a fun show. This is a fun show.

So first place got Sir Jacopo Insaneness pipe valued at about 600 bucks MSRP and donated by John David of the Country Squire. So, and then. Mack Welch, who was the second place, he got a Rye Works pipe made by Pete Prevost. And Pete had this to say about it. He said, he's like, it's sort of a one-off C-52 bullcap with a domed.

Saddle. Kind of a Briarworks Moonshine hybrid that I've always wanted to put in production. So I made this one personally for the Texas Pipe Show Slow Smug. So I gave it a little extra love. And when... When Mac heard about that, it was touched. And then, of course, we also do a raffle, right? We have charity. So half of the raffle.

goes to a charity of my choice. Sometimes it's been Cigars for Warriors because they've got a chapter this year. Sometimes it's been, you know, flooding in Texas or, you know, Toys for Tots. Whatever's working. So last year and this year, we decided to donate it to the Free Pipe Project. Nice. Pipes for Soldiers that Dave Shane runs.

And he loves getting the cash because the shipping for these boxes of pipes and tobacco is like $7,500 a box. So last year we raised $1,300 for him. This year we had a much bigger raffle and raised $1,500 for him. you know, next year, right? Wow. We raised $2,000 for it. That'd be amazing. Uh, if we can boldly show up a little bit more. Yeah. So what's, um, what's the,

What I'll do is you had sent this in our, again, our pipe club online. So it looked like we had Nate, the king of pipes, king, Nate King, or as I would say, Nate King, the king of pipes. And Brian Levine would immediately be like, no, no, no. Hey, youngster, it's Nate, the king of pipes, king. It's not this Nate. You're Brian Levine is spot on. So, so somewhat we had.

One of our, you get to meet Nathaniel, Nathaniel Hummel. He's one of our publishers. Awesome listener, awesome friend, awesome human, awesome father, awesome husband, just a great guy all together and handsome. I'm just gaslighting and I'm gassing him. I'm gassing him up too high. But he had he was like, dude, I talked when I first met Brian. Your your impression is spot on.

Which I thought was hilarious. But anyway, so we so we had Nate King. We had J.Y. Pipecraft, David Kinsbury, the Country Squire, Two Pipes Crossing. Ladisi was there with Smoking Pipes. That's fantastic. Peterson Pipes had a presence. Eller's Cellar. Trim and Treen. Smoke and Barrel Briars. That's Ryan McCauley over there. Revere Cigars. Lone Star Briarworks. The Pipery. We know, of course, Dave Shane.

Blue Hill Tobacco, Great Tobacconist, Walt McKenzie, Mark Irwin, The Pipe Tart, Robert Vacher, M.R. Pipes, Mad Army Vet, Redeemed Pipes, Nelson Pipes, Bill Walther Pipes, Bill... Calum? Calum? Calumay. Calumay. Calumay. What is that? What is that? Calumay. I don't know. Robertson Pipes. That's Reed Robertson. Lazarus Estates. Jim. Watson Handmade. Ken Joyce. Tobacco Pipe Exporters Incorporated. Eckert's Excess of Tins. What a great name. I like that one.

Trey Rice Pipes, of course. Austin Pipe Club and the Texas Pipe Club. Smokers Haven. What a lineup, dude. This is crazy. Smokers Haven did not make it. They didn't make it? But still, this entire list is like, I mean, I'm not going to lie. What was it two years ago? How many tables did you have two years ago? 20, maybe. Maybe 18 tables like that two years ago.

Five years ago, we had like 10 potatoes. Damn. So, I mean, generally, right, we have local carvers, right, known for the amount of towns. We had Ryan Alden. We had Trey Rice. and a handful of other Bill Calamay and Mark Irwin showed up a few times as well. But this time he had his own table and was selling books, I'd imagine, signing some autographs. Yeah, he's come and done a prayer. He's just come and done a display. This time he was actually selling stuff. We actually had a...

last minute edition that happened, which is Brett Bullen. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So, so of all those, what was like, it sounded like the eight to one ratio you talked about is huge for the. for the artisan, for the seller, for the whoever is working a table. Um, but it's also huge for the attendees because it makes it more manageable, right? Like we, we do love the idea of having a thousand tables of Briar, but realistically that's not.

That is not fun or ideal because your eyes start to glaze over things. So it sounded like you had a very close-knit group. of folks that you could get to the time to actually chat with and go on to move over to something else. Maybe it's a different pipe. Maybe it's a different reseller, but.

From your experience, just being there without numbers, I guess, because you probably don't know exactly how each individual did. But what do you think was like the hot commodity here at Texas? Was it the artisan pipes or was it estates or was it tobacco? So our show has always been very carver focused, right? It's, you know, who do we have here that's local carvers and Sally, right? She's representing an animal carver. So it's always been very pipe focused. And if we had the ability to have...

are brought in and have some estate sellers. It's always been great, but it's generally been around the carvers in the area that come there. In fact, generally it's been... Trey Rice, who opens up his garage the night before the event, has the pipe car meetup. So this year, through happenstance of scheduling, he wouldn't be able to do that, but Josh Yee did, and so they still had the meetup, and Trey Rice made it there.

And one of the cool things is they all did a pipe together. Everyone had just a little piece of it and they stamped that pipe and gave it away in our raft. So he got it. I don't know his name. Totally forgot. Uh, one, uh, kind of like the last grand prizes, a couple of really big ones, like Nate King going in the pipe. The, the guy that was like a stack raffle.

This is the raffle. So Steve Fallon always donates like a box of tobacco. Right. They also included a whole bunch of pipes and they were like Chacombe, Mastercraft, Kay Woody's and all sorts of stuff. So it's like the raffle was, I think there was 50 raffle items, give or take. And we put together stacks of pins and pipes.

all going out at the same time and then as we were getting towards the end we started doing the the the amazing stuff like the you know making pipes etc but we also had this carver pipe they actually hadn't finished it so We ended up having to mail the pipe or the carvers were mailing the pipe off because they wanted to finish it and finish staining and shaping it. They were pretty much done and then stamping it with all their stamps. There was like six different carvers.

Touched that pipe, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, the listeners here have heard my story about the Smitty's event where they did something similar, and I'm holding the pipe that I somehow... won in the raffle, which was crazy. But I love that. I think that that is literally what makes me want to. It was the Smitty cigar event that made me want to go to Texas. And again, I'm holding that in the back of my.

my mind and in my heart that I'm like, I got to get down to Texas because I know Trey, I'm Trey's just an awesome human being. Um, and he's the kind of guy who would do that same thing that we got to do at, um, uh, Kevin Foster's, you know, so, um,

I'm so into that idea of that super close-knit. These are the things about, like I've said about the Smitty's thing in a show like Texas, where you just get that extra bit that is... genuinely open to kind of everyone right like so you to go to a pipe show and have the opportunity to get a pipe from a raffle from

you know, one that was crafted by a bunch of people is just crazy. That's insane. Like, you're not going to find that I'm not throwing shade, but you're not going to find that at the Richmond pipe show, right? You're not going to find that at Columbus. You just won't. Um, it's just different styles. Um, they have their, their, their set, um, you know,

uh show show isms uh but but a great show ism of like a texas is that close-knit piece and man ever since ever since i i won this pipe man at that smitty's event i was like wait i could do this again Even not to win it. I'm not going to go to the Texas Pipe Show to enter a raffle. I'll enter the raffle, but that's not the thing that's going to pull me. But it's just that whole idea of just a fun group of people who know how to put on an amazing event.

and share this crazy, beautiful, somewhat breathing, somewhat living, somewhat flourishing, somewhat dying hobby. And it's just a bunch of people, like-minded people. And those are the shows that I want to get to. And those are the shows that I know the listeners of this show, of this podcast, will want to go to. You have a good chance of winning something.

Think about this. The slow smoke, you had 39 people in it. We gave away 17 prizes for the people that smoked it. So the first 17 places. The raffle, right? 50-something people. won something, give or take. Some people won more than once. That's just because they bought more tickets. But 320 people, 50 people out of that win, win something. You have a good chance of winning something.

It's a 20% chance. Did some quick math on my calculator. You have a 20% chance of just getting something. Getting a pipe, whatever. Yeah. I've got some crazy stories, too, along with that. Where is it?

so um so john david does most of the most business out of any of the shows every year he sells the most tobacco texas show really interesting And so one of the interesting stories is so that this distiller, Reno Wilson, is the text, the silver star distilleries that's there as a vendor, but also, you know, handing out whiskey shots. He's a dyed-in-the-wool cigar smoker, almost exclusively. We went down to John David's table and told him he just didn't quite get pipe smoking.

It's a lot of work, and it takes so much. You can tamp it, and I don't know how to do it, and light it, and pack it. John David took the time at the show to walk him through everything. Had to pack, had to light, had to tend to the tobacco, and he's hooked. And then he wins a pipe and tins of tobacco at the raffle. He turns to John David. He's like, thanks. I'm set up for life now. Wow, dude. And that's that's one thing that.

You know, listening to John David on his his old show, the late country squire radio, that's his that is his bread and butter. Like he there was one thing I picked up on very early from listening to him and then becoming his friend and chatting with him. Like he is as a, as a very successful, I mean, it's definitely been a trying time throughout his career, but like as a successful business owner, he hates more than anything, all of the business aspects. He likes.

chatting with people, showing people how to do this hobby, blending tobacco, smoking pipes with people, recommending cigars, recommending different branded pipes. And so that just fills my heart so much that he had that opportunity to do that because to him, that's literally what it's all about. You know, if I had to ask him about thinking about room capacity and smoking laws and ordinances, I don't think he'd be very hyped on it. But if I could be like, hey, John David, I have a friend who's.

doesn't quite understand how to pack this properly. And he also says all aromatic sucks. What are your thoughts on that? I think you have a magical conversation to change that guy's life. So that, that makes me feel really good, man.

I think that's a great way to kind of capture that essence of the Texas Pipe Show. It just really does sound like this super cool and unique piece of our hobby that I really hope... you know gets i mean obviously with 320 people like it is known but uh i think it's definitely surprising a lot of people for sure i think it's surprising a lot of people that um there are pipe shows growing and starting

You know, especially with, you know, as we mentioned, the Indiana Pipe Club as their pipe show, the Indiana Pipe Show. Like, these are legitimate things to consider. These are legitimate places and locations to consider traveling to. Take a couple days off. Take a day off if you have to and go enjoy something that you already all love so much. And again, I always preface like if you're listening to this podcast, you know, an hour or whatever in.

Like you, you are the target audience for these shows. Like this is not just a closed off thing. You don't got to know anybody. You just show up. You see a guy with a Peterson. Yeah, I like Peterson. Oh, now you've just made a great friend for the rest of the time. So.

Dude, I gotta go. So tell me about the future. What does the future of the Texas Pipe Show look like? I would imagine there's going to be a 2026. Tell me about that. Tell me about the future of locations. Is it going to stay? What are the things that are... you know, starting to comb through your mind as you start to plan. So I'd imagine you're probably already pulling out the slack on planning. Yep. Yep. That, that really, the planning started in earnest after we wrapped on.

And I was a show on Sunday. So 2026, the name of the game is Refinement. It'll be the third year in our new location at the Oasis Bar and Grill in Midlothian. The second year with the expanded layout. in the second building so this so we were in just this main building last year um and we stuffed everyone in i think we had like 20 22 23 tables and it was as jam-packed as you could get it was

almost standing room only. This year they have built out a separate building with a whole nother 50 foot bar and had a whole bunch of extra space. And so we used that. And we'll have that available. That's how we expanded to have some odd tables this year. We're not going to add a whole lot more tables. It would be about the same. So we'll be tweaking how they show interest and the check-in.

goes the logistics we're going to do pre-sale on the merch kind of like i said so the poster will be available for pickup at the show we'll have a show pipe again We're working to expand the night before the event. So Friday night at Tobacco Cabana in Cedar Hill, which is like five minutes away from the oasis. So it's not like it's two different cities, but they're right next to each other.

So we did a tobacco pairing. So C&D, Smoky Pipes, the D.C. Stephen Aubrey came out. They brought some tints of tobacco. And then Silver Star and a few of the folks brought some liquor. And so we paired it to shots, had some tobacco, paired it with tequila too. So next year we're going to refine it. We may have a cigar. event beforehand. So Steve and Rhonda Rast are going to figure that out, but we'll have a lot more to do maybe early afternoon going into the later evening.

the the pipe carver event will happen at the same time but that's carver invite only so the rest of us attendees will be hanging out at tobacco cabana and like i said we'll have Probably some surprises, something very interesting for him to attend. This year was the first year kind of kicking it up a notch and it was a great success. So, yeah, we're working to expand that.

uh we had a lot more volunteers this year than we ever had before which is amazing so uh we're working on uh working on game fight volunteer hours etc okay for our team Oh, so Merrick Sickle, the guy who does the pipe beat, is a pipe carver, but he also does his playing cards. Yeah, yeah. So he offered for first, second place to get put into the 2026 playing cards.

as well as a handful of folks. So, uh, so like, uh, Christy Berlin and eyes, Vic Japby and, uh, uh, Warren, uh, Triple 10, they're, they're getting into next year's thing. nice yeah yeah we uh we were in we were featured in a 2023 version so maybe maybe that was when he asked us and then we i think it was the three i think that's right sounds right maybe it was four i don't know

Tom Coon are in last year slash this year. Yeah, that's a great... This is the place to be, man. Do you have like a set... I know it's like a revolving time, but is it... the third weekend in november or do you typically try to just find a time in november what's the typical timeline so moving up his window. It was early October, so it was great for us because we were early November. We're going to be the same weekend next year, so it'll be the 13th and 14th, so 14th of Saturday of November.

So it'll be a pre-afternoon event on the 13th, and then the 14th will be a full-day event. So the same thing we'll have for vendors, 2026, we'll have the website registration up by... March-ish. Same prices. It'll be $25 a half table, $50 a half table. We do ask if they're in harbor. If you don't have a lot of pipes, consider a half table. It'd be great.

Because it's still going to be a limited 35, 40 tables in total. We're not going to have intersection. And for attendees, the same thing. Somewhere in March, we'll have attendee registration, five bucks. And that really, what that $5 gets you is a drink. You get your drink ticket. So that's the only reason we're charging entry is for the drink ticket. And that's so the bar can go, okay.

we have quote unquote sold a drink. So that was the primary issue from last year. They were like, hey, you guys had a whole bunch of people there and no one was drinking liquor. And we were like, oh, well, we... First of all, we couldn't get access to the microphone to tell everyone to go buy drinks or tip your wagers. It was locked. The audio engineer didn't show up.

It's always something, right? Yeah, he was there this year. But we pre-sold attendees, and we handed that cash directly to the bar, and there was no issue this year. They were very pleased.

$3 beers, $5 shots of whiskey or sodas, right? And there was coffee that got run in last minute for $2. Dude, this is everything that... makes a great smoking event like but like not even just like the alcohol like the alcohol and the non-alcoholic like to be able to just enjoy i mean i'm just a beverage guy of all of all sorts so i just enjoy like just

drinking things whether it's diet soda or a beer or even coffee um like that's like the that's like one thing that i've noticed about the other shows that i didn't i didn't love i just felt like i spend this is the selfish part of me as an attendee i spent a lot of money to get here

I don't think I should. I don't want handouts by any means because I am a true capitalist. I like the idea that like, you know, I want something to go buy it. But also I just spend like a thousand dollars to get here. Some coffee would be cool or at least the opportunity to purchase some. not at starbucks uh for two dollar coffee you can't go wrong with that like that like that that i'm drinking coffee all day so um so i guess i guess that's what it is it's like how do you

how do you get those things in line and the best place to do the best way to do it is to be at a location that, Oh, we have these things. So that's, that sounds, I don't know. I, James, I think I might be. I might be in. I might be in. I'll sweeten the pot a little bit. So Nate King took time away from his in and out visits to convince Greg Pease to come out in 2026.

and come down to the Texas show. So he'll be there next year. Damn! That's big news. Every year, Pete Prevost, he sends his pipe to give away for a slow swim prize, which is amazing. And I'm hoping, maybe at 26, we can get him down there. as well okay well let let me know offline what we can do to help what we can do to whoever we can pull and if we got to go convince someone else we'll we'll get on it um it seemed like just an absolute blast man

um we we definitely want to get down there at some point or like and again it's i they say texas is definitely growing population wise but it's still so it's a generally cheap place to live i know That's a broad stroke. That is a broad stroke, but there's no bars in North Carolina that aren't being run down right now that I can get $3 beers. Let me just tell you it that way.

I am still trying to convince my wife that if we don't move back to New Hampshire, we're going to buy like a, what is somehow like for $400,000, like some like nine bedroom house with like a pool and like a castle in like North Texas. She's like, well, there's nothing around there. I'm like, yeah, but it's also $400,000. But no, we definitely want to get down. Last time I was in Texas was, gosh, $2,000 maybe.

Uh, maybe 1999. Uh, so I don't have a ton of memory of it. I do remember it was hot. There was bugs everywhere. Didn't love that. Um, but I guess there was like this, like you guys had like an, how long you been in Texas your whole life?

No. Where are you originally from? From Louisiana. Louisiana, that's right. So, okay, well, if you were in there in 2000, you could have been there during this big bug problem. I would, like, step on my... my mom's friend's farm and dude i'm telling you it would seem like a hundred thousand uh grasshoppers would just scatter like what was that about it happens and

periodically. What do you mean it just happens? Grasshoppers and crickets, they swarm. And then we have cicadas in the summertime. Not a big bug guy. That's locusts. Yeah, I was going to say Locus. Isn't it just the amount? Isn't it? Is that correct? It varies every year. Locus is just...

a lot of grasshoppers or cicadas or whatever it is. Is that it? I don't know. I thought locust was its own species. Locust's own species is flying. Well, it starts off as a crawly bug and then it pops out with wings and flies around. They mate and then they die. And my dog eats. Special treats. Oh, gosh. Yeah, not a big bug guy, but I can get past that. I bet November things calm down, right? Or what's the temperature like down there?

Normally, it's nice and chill, right? Normally, when we do the show, it starts off at 50 and the day ends 68 to 75 days in November in the Dallas area. This year, it started at like 60, and it was almost 80 degrees. It got super warm. So much so that I didn't even bother wearing my smooth ejector. It's too damn hot. So normally it's cool and we're all like wearing sweaters and jackets. I love that. That's my environment. So yeah, well, I think, uh,

I think I will do, do what I can next year, um, to get down there. So, um, we'll definitely be in touch for sure. And I want to keep a, we'll, we'll continue to promote it. It's just, it's everything we stand for. It just like, if you were to put a sticker of like. you know, this is a get pipe D type event or this one is, this one isn't, this one is, I gotta say like just everything I've heard of the Texas pipe show. And let me tell the listener, like James did not say, Hey, let me slip you.

like nine dollars change uh to to gas this up for me um no i'm just fired up about it so um James, thanks so much for hanging out with us tonight and for, for going into it. We still want to, you know, keep in touch and hear everything you guys are doing. So it sounds like March, we could start to see some, some significant updates and outs of the Texas pipe show, but.

But where can people find you? They can also find you writing some kick-ass articles online. So tell us about where we can hear more from Master Pipes' James Foster. Yep, usually find me on Pipes Magazine, by the handle of pylons, P-Y-L-O-R-N-S. I also run the pipe tool, so thepipetool.com, a place to store and chronologue your pipe tobacco cellar as well as your pipes and how much they cost.

And I'm, you know, I don't, the other socials usually is pylons or something like that. I'll leave the forums.

And that's it. I would like to leave you guys with two quotes, right? We did a survey of our attendees and I pulled these two quotes and I'm like, ah, this sums it up. It's pretty good. So, one of the... The first quotes I saw as feedback back in the show was, we need more places to sit. If it's the same next year, I'll be bringing my own chair to sit my fat ass in after walking around a bit. But I had a great time.

And I brought a group of guys in a rental van from Lameda, Texas, and we had a great time. We're already planning to come next year. Thanks for a great experience. Now, Lameda, Texas is a long ways from Dallas. how far are we talking because you know growing up as a kid right we we drive to california and it's you drive for eight hours and you're still in texas and you drive for another eight hours and you're still in texas

There's a sign. As soon as you cross the border from Louisiana, it says El Paso, 857 miles. It's a very long, that's a big, that's a big state. Yeah. And when they say everything's bigger in Texas, it's because it is. So one last quote. This is my first pipe show, and it was a great experience. I spoke with many people and learned so many things. I'm still a novice, and I only began smoking pipes in September of this year. I'm a huge fan of the vendor.

huge fan of the vendor that had a huge selection of tobacco for everyone to try. That was Tom Kuhn. He was given away free. What a guy. The Country Squire was a huge hit for me as well. I've been wanting to try their tobacco A-plus on the experience and the environment. So both of those kind of summed it up.

positive feedback. We got some great negative feedback too. We're taking it all in stride and going, okay, what can you do to refine and make it better? So thanks. Thanks guys for having me on to chat about it.

Yeah, no, I think you nailed that with the two. You had some sounds like an old timer or more of experienced guy and then like the inexperienced. So that that's that's my that's my pitch. And this especially that last comment where the individual was like, hey, I've been doing this in September.

uh that's two months and he's already at a pipe show and got a lot out of it so it's not only like that's that's the best honestly that might be my next pitch that might be my next move to get people to pipe shows It's not just to have vacation. It's not just to have fun and just talk to friends. Like, yeah, like, oh, I can do that online. I do that all the time. I'm smoking my pipe and I'm on your, your damn, your damn discords and your Instagrams and your Facebooks and TikToks or whatever.

But what you can do is learn some things from people, things that you can't learn through a video that you can't learn over a conversation on Discord or just reading an article.

yeah i love it man james thank you so so much uh we wish we're wishing the best of luck to the texas pipe show and all for its endeavors in the future we can't wait to hear more about it very soon um and hopefully hopefully get piping And get his, I don't want to say fat ass, but definitely not skinny, but his moderately sized ass down to Texas sometimes.

Segments. Segments. Let's go. I still hate it. Keep going. Today, we got a little bit of old Wanda and a little bit of name one better. But before we get into that, we again just want to say thank you so much to James Foster, who's obviously left the building at this point. And as always, by building, I mean our recording studio that is on the interwebs.

But it was awesome to hear about the show and kind of what they're doing, what they've done, just like the impressive stats from this year. Dude, all I could think about that entire time. was getting on an airplane, rattling all, like, I'm flying through the air, you get that hum of the airplane, and I'm just on my way to the Texas Pipe Show next year. Dude.

You know, this is your captain speaking. You're on your way to the Texas. I felt like I was on my way. My favorite part would be the takeoff when it's like, you know, it's kind of the loudest. And you're like. off to the texas pipe show your heart's like kind of like you just get that anxiety it's like you don't know the plane might not make it off the ground who knows that is true yeah no but um that's awesome

It's great to talk to him. Like he's, I also, I don't know if we've talked about it and I don't know if he talks about it, but like, I'm very always happy to see him, how he's lost a lot of weight. And I know that's like a year's. many years long process so i i know that's like i don't know if that's brought up a lot i don't but like he looks great man like that smoking jacket he wears yeah it looks great like i'm just i don't know

He's a great steward of the craft, both visually and physically and emotionally and intelligently. That's a good way to put it. A true master of pipes, which is awesome. Anyways, let's get into some segments here. We got over under first. This is our segment where Adam ranks things as overrated or underrated. We kind of got some Thanksgiving-y-ish, maybe. holiday-ish stuff going on. Definitely Thanksgiving, but let's get into them. First one is pipe trunk shows.

pipe trunk shows so specifically different than pipe shows um yeah this is a good one because pipe trunk shows tend to pop up this time of year right like you don't really see them too too much in the summertime

Um, but, but it's like, again, you're, you're probably, maybe you're buying a gift for yourself. Maybe you're buying a gift for someone else. You, you tend to see these trunks to us, particularly with La DC. Um, and, and they'll, they'll send a rep out to one of their cigar lounges or pipe pipe. tobacco whatever it is um they try to i think tend to go to places that aren't major pipe forward places but but it happens um so

Yeah, like a trunk show is just they're bringing a bunch more pipes and they'll leave with them. Maybe it's tied to a pipe club. Who knows? But they're great opportunities. But again, they're definitely different than... pipe shows right like it's a completely different thing this is a one-off this is an afternoon this isn't something you really stay for the entire day and actually it comes up at a good time because locally the pipe and pint

just had theirs this past weekend, but I was busy moving my friend, uh, into his new home, which was actually nice. I, I'm, I felt really good about going able to help out. Uh, and he also. Bought me pizza and beer at the end of it. Boston lager and some Domino. So I couldn't complain. Dude. It was a great move on his end. Uh, we, we lifted, we lifted some stuff and I was up and down those stairs a thousand times, but anyway.

I did miss the Winston-Salem pipe and pipe meetup. It's funny, a good friend, Pastor Joda, he texted me. He's like, dude, I got the out for you. I know you were saying you needed an out to get out of moving. this is the weekend today's the day this is where we're going to the pipe and pint uh so unfortunately i couldn't attend and i kind of wish i did but but at the same time i think oh man i'm gonna be sad this is gonna be sad i really want to say overrated

And that I don't want to say I want the Adam in me to get piped in me wants to say overrated. But I think the steward of the craft in me has to say properly rated or underrated. So take that as you will. I will let you decide what my answer was. The me inside of it is like, I enjoy going to pipe shows to buy pipes. There's very, there's seldom.

seldom times where if I want a Peterson or Savinelli or Sir Jacopo or some kind of, I'm kind of going all over the place here. I'm thinking in the context of La DC pipes. If I want one really bad, I'll buy one in a store or I'll buy one online. And 99% of the time, I'll just buy it online from smoking pipes. But if I go to a tobacconist...

like a Country Squire or LJ Peretti. You know, if there's something on the wall, just buy it there. I don't necessarily need a trunk show of more of them to come to me. Now, I'll caveat here the folks like the Escortes. Tommy Scordi will do his own version of a trunk show where he'll bring a number of Italian brands that his distributor works for represents. And so there'll be, there'll be Caminetos. There'll be.

um, you know, Sir Jacopo's, there'll be, uh, I mean, all, all of his other brands out there, just like, there'll be just pretty much every Italian pipe, some that they own, some that they don't even own. I don't know how it all works. Uh, the, what's the, um, uh, maestro i don't know we've been talking a lot those are worth going to you're you're meeting an artist and you're meeting like sellers you're seeing a product that you don't normally get your hands on

Very, very, very underrated. I would love to go see Tommy at a U.S. shop where he's selling some of his pipes. And it's a trunk show. But as the Ladisi ones, I see Ladisi all the time. on smokingpipes.com every Tuesday and Thursday when they release new pipes. So yeah, not, not that one's a little bit overrated for me. Um, but, but it could be underrated for you if you're just looking to get into pipes.

The representatives from LaDice are great to talk to and they'll give you so much information about anything pipe smoking, anything tobacco related. It could be a good opportunity for you. But yeah. I just gave you the range of answers. Overrated, underrated, properly rated. True. Wow. Is that a first? That might be a first. That might be a first. That might be a first. I love it. All right. Next one.

Black Friday buys for pipe cigars tobacco. Well, so we'll break this one down. I think this is a good one. Typically, your best, your most overarching best sales are going to come. uh, tomorrow at the time of this airing tomorrow, black Friday, uh, which many of you are probably listening to on black Friday or after black Friday. So you missed out, but let's be honest, black Friday tends to be the entire month of November and then goes into December.

Uh, so I don't know. It's all fake now, but, but at least through my experiences over the past, like six, seven, eight years of being a pipe guy on the webs and stuff, the interwebs, black Friday is a great day. It is a great day for pipe smokers if you want to stock up on something or purchase something that you've been longing for for a long time. Every single website except one, the Danish pipe shop.

will have a sale and the Danish pipe shop will be very clear that they're not going to do a sale on black Friday. I can't wait for the post. We don't do that. We already have the cheapest prices of all time. Um, and I love the Danish pipe shop. I do, but I'm just waiting for that post. However, on Black Friday, it might be worth going to the Country Squire online, taking a look at some of their house blends that might go on sale for cheaper than what you would have normally paid for.

For me, if you want to get pipe recommendation, this is the best time in probably the only time. If you want to buy an expensive pipe or several pipes, if you got them in the budget, this is the time to do it. Like buy three. pack them away, put the one, hey, don't open this until June. So when I'm craving to buy something in June, I just pull this brand new pipe box from outside of my shelf and enjoy it. There's your pipe. Like you can save a lot of money doing that.

The secondary reason would be tobacco. I would hazard you a, I don't think I used that phrase right, hazard you a warning. I would hazard you. I would caution you. That's probably what I'm going for. I would caution you. You're probably only going to see like a 10% off tobacco, which is good, right? Like that's, that's great. I'll take a 10% off over a 0% off. But if you really want to save up on tobacco, Black Friday might not be the best time to do it.

Unless, again, you're going to like the Country Squire where you're getting a very unique blend. But if we're thinking, hey, I want to get, you know, I want to stock up on Cornell and Deal, Burley Flake number one, if you really enjoy that tobacco.

uh, just wait for a Cornell and deal sale. They will happen six, seven, eight times throughout the year. It'll be 20% off. It's going to be more than what it will be on black Friday. So there's that, uh, cigars, cigars could be an asterisk there. I don't know much about cigars.

If you're a cigar guy, make sure you update people in the Galactic and Buy Pipe Club. But I'd imagine outside of the pipe websites, there's probably some really, really great deals on cigars from like these massive cigar companies that are just trying to offload stuff. So keep an eye on that.

So underrated. Yeah. I guess we're going to overarchingly go underrated. Okay. I love it. All right. And our next and last one. This will be good. Pipe after Thanksgiving dinner. That is a good one. I think it's going to be easy for everyone to say. Underrated, yeah, it's great. And I'm going to agree with you there, but I'm going to try to point you in some different directions. If you were to ask the question of pipe...

On Christmas, I'd probably say the same thing. It all depends on context. I think this is the one family gathering holiday that you can get away with smoking a pipe. with or excuse me for the people who are newer to pipe smoking you're not really known as the pipe smoking guy um for me i am known as the pipe smoking guy but like

I don't really smoke my pipe too often in front of my in-laws or my, really my own family. Like I just say my own family, my own, my mother and father, like I just don't typically do that. My dad, I guess, because he's a cigar guy. If he's smoking a cigar, I'll go have a pipe with him. Sometimes my mom will have a cigarette and I'll go have a pipe with her, but it's a little bit different. A good example is my in-laws or my cousins or whomever. I'm not just...

pulling out the pipe at the festival you know at the birthday party it's just it's just not happening it's out of place it's kind of an attention grabber that i don't really need i'm not trying to convince any of these people to be pipe smokers it's just i separate it completely

Um, they all know about it. They all know what I do. But, um, I think, I think, however, Thanksgiving day, Thanksgiving night after a big ass meal, that might be the time to do it. That might be the time. It's like, okay, there we go. We know Adam's the pipe guy. This makes sense. He just had a great meal. He's going to go off. He's going to sit by a fire. Maybe it's with family. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's alone. Really, really good time. Whereas Christmas time, eh, nope.

Just put it away, dude. You don't need to flex your pipe guy. Enjoy the pipe alone on Christmas night when everyone's gone. But Thanksgiving dinner. following that i think i think that could be a good opportunity to everyone just enjoyed a really really great meal we're thankful for everything let's go outside and have a chat um come with me you want to grab pipe too i'll i'll pack you one but yeah those those are my thoughts on that one i think that's underrated here

specifically Thanksgiving. Cool. I love it, man. I love it. Well, that has been over under. If you have any more over unders that you are dying to ask. Send them our way. You can send them to show at getpipe.co or you can send them to our discord where there's a specific over under channel.

And our second segment here, a little bit of Name One Better. This is the second, I believe this is the second time we're doing it. We're going to be doing Thanksgiving foods. We love doing foods with this. It was the first one we did. Well, we did fast food cheeseburger places, I think it was. Yeah, something like that. But this one, we're going to do Thanksgiving foods here. Okay, okay. Any and all foods.

There isn't really going to be any weird ones. There's like one that's a little weird. And explain how it works again. So basically I will start with A or B and you will choose. Say you choose B, then I'll do B or C. Say you choose B again, B or D, so on and so forth. So we're going to go until you're able to name the best. The last thing, whatever the end of the list is. Yep. All right.

So let's get into it. It should be quick, but it should be good. All right. We're going to start with cranberry sauce or gravy. That's a... A lot of people are like, oh, duh, gravy. But I like cranberry sauce, but I'm going gravy. Yeah, absolutely gravy. Okay. Gravy or mashed potatoes? Regular mashed potatoes. White, like white potatoes. I'm going gravy. Gravy, okay. Gravy or green bean casserole? I'm going gravy. Yeah, I mean, it's green beans. Yeah.

Well, the casserole's pretty good, but green... Yeah, I mean, that's fair. You get all the extra stuff in there. All right. Gravy or sweet potatoes? Probably mashed here with... The brown sugar. Yeah, yeah. Sweet potatoes. And the marshmallows. Yeah, yeah. Give me the sweet potatoes. All right. Sweet potatoes or collard greens? Sweet potatoes. Okay. This might be a hard one here. Sweet potatoes or dinner roll?

Oh, that is a hard one. I might even throw in the Hawaiian dinner roll. I'm still going to go sweet potatoes. It's very specifically like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes where they're... The sweet version. Yeah, yeah. Super sweet. Okay. All right. Sweet potatoes or stuffing? This is a hard... Stuffing. Yeah. Stuffing. Big stuffing guy. Are you the one who's like, if it's in the bird, it's stuffing? Oh, no. I'm not. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. No, I'm not at all like that. Stuffing is the thing that we all know. It's like fake bread. It's 3D printed bread in piles that I eat. Wait, what is it? Did you just say it's 3D printed? Yeah, I don't like what is. What is stuffing? I agree. It's just stuff. But it's so good. All right. Stuffing or turkey, like turkey breast? Dark meat or light meat? Ooh, light meat. Stuffing. Stuffing or shrimp cocktail. Stuffing. Stuffing or mac and cheese.

mac and cheese has a crust on top it's got that that's a good one if it's like and we're thinking like we're not you can't compare like the best stuffing with like mediocre mac and cheese like these are all just like yeah everything is prepared very good you know the classic you know, mom makes it type of deal. That's a tough one. From the movies, you know, is that beautiful? I think I'm staying stuffing. Wow. Yeah, I'm gonna stick with stuffing. Wow, that's a, okay. Stuffing or pumpkin pie?

Stuffing. Okay. Stuffing. This is a weird one, but apple butter. Like the topping. Yeah, that's good. Stuffing. Stuffing or like the sweet honey caramelized carrots.

stuffing dude i hate carrots bro really yeah i do i really wish i liked here i like hard carrots and cold carrots but really yeah i can't do the soft carrots there's a running joke with we have like this group thing we we do at church we get together pretty much every friday i always bring roasted carrots and everyone loves them wow i hate all of those people so uh

I'm just kidding. Anyway, stuffing, stuffing, stuffing. All right. We're at our last one here. This might be a showdown. This might be an easy one. I don't know. Stuffing or cornbread? That's a good one. Cornbread is fantastic. But I'm going to go stuffing. This is an unexpected. That was the end of the list. This is unexpected. So the question is...

You named one better. Is stuffing the greatest Thanksgiving item? I think it is. If you would ask me this question, if you asked me that question before all of that, I would have said no. like yeah stuffing's good but but when you get when you compare it like sweet potatoes gave it a run for its money mac and cheese but like those all those things you get like no one's having stuffing on you know september 1st

Or August 30th. Stovetop. I don't know why it was one day apart. The brand that we all know, it's called Stovetop. I've seen hundreds. if not a thousand of those boxes because we had the holiday stuff for work. Um, they make all their money in one month. Yep. And they're just like, they're like that. That big dude who like falls back on the giant stacks of bills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, it's great. Like the way I did that whole list or that name one better.

I thought of like, if I'm going to go up for seconds or if I'm going to want more of, what am I going for more of? And I like, no matter what, I'm always restacking, repopulating the stuffing reservoir. Like the. You know what I mean? I'll go for some more sweet potatoes for sure. Dark meat chicken or turkey. I like the dark meat turkey. Yeah, I agree. Dark meat's good. And that's kind of why I did the white meat. I'm glad you did that. That's fair. I didn't have to make the decision, but...

But stuffing is like, yeah, I'm always getting more stuff. I'm always replenishing the stuffing. Dinner roll is another close one, surprisingly. I love getting a couple more rolls. Throw some butter on there. Some butter. But. Yeah, stuffing. I guess I'm a stuffing guy. He's a big stuffing guy. Cool. Well, let us know what your favorite or your better, your best Thanksgiving item is.

that you eat. Maybe it's something your mom or grandma or aunt makes. Maybe it's something that wasn't on this list. Let us know what you got there and what your best one is.

Well, brother, this has been the show where, well, first of all, again, I'll reiterate great time with our good friend, James Foster. Thank you so much to him for coming on the show. Thank you to you all for listening on Thanksgiving or not. That's fine. No worries. But you know, those Thanksgiving folks, they're pretty, they're pretty sweet because I'll be honest.

I'm probably not going to be listening to any podcasts on Thanksgiving or anything like that. So if you're one of the however many people that listens, you rock. But anyways. Where can people find you when they're not listening to the podcast? They can find me on youtube.com slash getpipe for some of the premier YTPC pipe smoking content. I really think I'm going to have a YouTube video coming out this weekend, which is great. What? Yeah, yeah, I've been working on it. It's nearly complete.

So that's a little thing to be thankful for me on my end. I'm thankful for that, that I was able to do that and get to have some content for people to enjoy. They can find me on Instagram. That's at get underscore pipe. But if you follow me, make sure you follow my right hand man, GPP underscore producer guy. Lastly, join the glad to get by pipe club or discord and the Patreon and all that stuff. I love it.

I love it. Well, it has been an amazing, amazing show. But don't forget to share this podcast with any and all pipe smokers of new age, old age, middle age, whatever it may be. But don't just share it with the men. Share it with the women and the children too. But now we have a review or two. We still got some from our episode 200. Sure, send them. We said we'd hit it over the next couple weeks. Yeah, let's hit two of them right now. From our good friend Dylan, Reels of Justice.

He said, congrats on 200. Keep killing it, dudes. And here's another plug for the Bluey pipe-up episode that the people want. I will even get the ball rolling. Let me see what you did there, Dylan. Ooh, I don't get it, but I'll take it. Instead of the ball rolling, get the bowl like the... Oh, the bowl. Oh, yeah. Ooh. New series? Ooh. Ooh. Get the bowl rolling? Get the bowl rolling. Oh, I've been in such... We've been in a deficit of namings.

Naming ideas. Someone write that down. Write that down. He said, Winston's dad, pipe smoker. Sure. Winston is a... Is he a bulldog? I don't remember Winston's dad. I know Winston. I love the episode where Winston's jacked. Anyways. And our second one from Captain Kirk, 32, as always, Kirk Keener. Congrats on 200.

I'm stoked on the Kay Woody collab. When the Country Scrier rings came out, I told my wife I wanted it as my wedding band. And she said I could get it if I also got her new rings. And then he sent a picture of his band. dude i love that so much uh i've noticed that ring on his hand before and i was like i know that it's so funny like the country squire ring

This is for those out of the loop on that. The Country Squire, again, as Kirk said, they announced a ring dedicated to the show. And I mean, there's so many rings out there. But like for me to very clearly know this ring whenever I see it, granted it's on a pipe smoker, so I'm kind of already zeroed in on it, but like it's not like gaudy. It's very classy, polished wooden ring.

Um, but gosh, every time I say, I'm like, you are a country square listener. And I kind of want that for us one day. I don't know if it's a ring. I don't know what it is, but I really, really ring guy. I am. I am. I am a big ring guy. I'm not wearing any now, but I'd love to be. I was wearing one. But yeah, so Kirk, thank you so much. And Dylan, you guys, people like you, and of course all the listeners who...

do enjoy the show and have the same thoughts, but, but don't write in and don't join the discords or the Instagrams and all that stuff. Like we, we really want to just thank you. Um, and then what better time than Thanksgiving? Um, so thanks for the reviews and, and yeah, just, just. Think about something you're thankful for or many things like, you know, are you not supposed to count your blessings? Is that a bad thing? I mean...

Is that the phrase like don't count your blessings or is it? I think that's like not a good phrase. Yeah, because I was like, you should definitely count them and, you know, keep them in mind and think about them and think about all the good in your life. Think about all the bad in your life and think about how.

Maybe it could be worse or what you did maybe was good to kind of mitigate. I don't know. It's a good time, man. You get a dedicated day. Just like on January 1st, I got a dedicated day to be a new year, new me. Today is a good day, this Thanksgiving day. for you to be thankful for something. But I will tell you, I am so thankful for you guys. So you guys are the best. Thanks for listening. Thanks for continuing to listen.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lots of thanks on Thanksgiving Day. That was me being a pilgrim playing the pilgrim flute. But that is it for me, because for now, I am off to save the pipe-smoking world. Once again, I'm not sure how to pull it off. But until then, you've all just been piped. And until the next piping, we are out.