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Another summer will soon be here. In fact, with the recent hot spell it feels as if it has already arrived. As the days turn warmer, I am once again reminded of a Memorial Day weekend in the early 1980s. Back when the Gallery Bar on Maryland Avenue in Baltimore was a serious dress-code leather bar, two leather men showed up in full white leather outfits. They created quite a stir in the days when leather men only wore black leather. When asked what the hell they were wearing, they had a very simple reply. It was their “summer leather.” The crowd roared. It was quite an expensive joke, but I still remember that moment from that summer long ago. As the summer of 2013 approaches it is time to unpack that “summer leather” and once again welcome another season in the sun.

I am no expert on leather contests, but I have been attending them for thirty years. I have also judged quite a few, produced a few, and have been a contestant myself a time or two. (Although all my friends know that I am Maryland Mr. Drummer 2001- few are aware that I am also First Runner-up to Mr. Maryland Leather 2000.) Already this year I have attended three major leather contests and I have cringed once again as I watched yet another contestant commit a faux pas. So here we go. I can’t keep it in any longer. It is time for Rodney’s top ten leather titleholder contestant tips!

It appears that downsizing has not only become the buzz word on Capitol Hill, but it has also hit the leather community. So far this year we’ve seen a three-contestant Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather Contest, we have seen the Mr. SECC Leather Contest go from nine contestants in 2012 to three (maybe four depending on how you count the tag-team who were selected), and on the weekend of March 15 to 17, 2013 the fourth annual Chesapeake Leather Awareness Pride (CLAP) took downsizing to a new level.