The Grey Range - Episode 28 – w/ Charles Biegel - “Plastic Islands"
Plastic Islands
Charles Biegel
Some say that today’s youth are going to be feckless zombies programmed by AI algorithms and government and corporate propaganda. Plugged into the Virtual Reality, or Augmented Reality world, living off UBI and creating nothing of value. I think every generation thinks that the ones that come after them are lost and ineffectual. But is it true? In the case of 20-year-old entrepreneur, Charles Biegel, proprietor of Stewart Leather Goods, it sure isn’t.
I first became aware of Charles while searching for a replacement belt for everyday use. About 15 year ago I had purchased a very nice leather belt from a leather smith out of Montana in the US, and it was about time to replace it. This time, I wanted something made in Alberta. Better yet, I wanted something local. After a few searches, I didn’t immediately find anything, so I moved on. Well, the social media algorithm remembered (it’s so convenient and not creepy at all how it does that.) After a few days, my social media feeds had dozens of leather products for sale, and one video that I saw on Instagram was from a young man right here in Grande Prairie, AB.
The product is “The Man Belt”. A 1.75” wide piece of stiff bridle leather. I was impressed with the product, but I was equally impressed with the maker. The videos online were not your garden variety clips shot from a smartphone. There was real thought and intent behind them. I was curious about the person behind them, so I fired off my now boilerplate message asking Charles if he wanted to join us on the podcast, and here we are.
Our conversation didn’t disappoint. From being one of 11 kids in his family, to playing faith based music in a band with his family, to learning leathercrafting and e-commerce to launch his business, to aspirations of becoming an inventor, and possibly cracking the secret of “Free Energy” Charles Biegel has a lot of runway ahead of him, and it seems like he intends to make the most of it. Kind of like the guy who made his own floating plastic island.
As always, we hope you find this episode as much fun to watch and listen to as we did while making it.
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Charles Biegel can be found through his Instagram and on Facebook. And you can find “The Man Belt” on his store (all links are below).
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“Plastic Islands” is a piece from my new collection “Whiskey Painted Holocaust”, which is available in our webstore, as well as on Amazon. "Children of The New Unknown", my first collection, is still available on both platforms as well.