Scribe

Good.

Doing great.

Yeah, great.

You guys get out early.

I want to sleep.

Sure.

So according to our Google app, here I am drinking something called the Irish Car Bomb, which is not, as you and I might know it, Guinness with a shot of Jameson. It is Irish breakfast tea with a shot of Jameson and a chunk of vegetarian dropped in before cheating. Kind of makes you want to throw up. But so. And really next to me, I'm trying to invent a new podcasting drink that doesn't involve, you know, half a glass of Wild Turkey 101, so you can have more than one of them and not, you know, slow your speech.

So in the garden of Eden, Mr. Hemingway talks a lot about having whiskey with Perrier in the summer, which is so good. So specifically, if you take one shot of bourbon, put it in a tumbler, top the tumbler off with cold Perrier, and three ice cubes, let them melt so that there's, like, a weird head at the top. Perfect. It's called the Papa Podcaster, so I'm gonna show you. I'm on my second one, and it's Bullet Bourbon. Really nice for this one. It's not too sweet.

And I'm writing with Ticonderoga. Renew our pencil of the week. How about you, Mr. Andy?

What is that?

Isn't it.

They make Mountain Dew in different colors.

You could have blue puke.

Say that really quickly.

That's such a good band.

How local?

So Pikes Del rye is pretty corrosive.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

I think they have it online in a few places. And Elizabeth sent me a box like maybe a year ago and I've been. I was hoarding them because I didn't know if I'd be able to get more and it's only a 10 bucks, which when you can't get a lot of them, you're like, oh man, it's not a dozen. But yeah, now they're. They're like what, 279 at Target, they're pretty cheap.

now, like, whenever I go, I just pick up a box. Like, God, I have them.

So, yeah, you can get them both for, like, five bucks and change.

They were carrying those woodless Staedtler pencils for a while. The Alex Wright slash full hb. Yeah, this is a while ago, maybe a year. And they have those Ubuy pencils, which is awesome. And of course, the colorful bix that no one likes but me.

It's one of those things where, like, you know, you buy one and they give one to a kid in need.

Until today. When I saw their. Their social media post about their anniversary, I was like, oh, man, I bet it's pronounced you by. So I could be totally wrong.

I probably am. You're the worst, Tim.

You're both off. And you didn't get the pencil.

This is gonna be the most boring damn episode ever.

Johnny, just listen to me, finish my drink and go to sleep.

Actually, I could just get on my bike and ride down to Chris's bindery, and I'll leave Skype on. You hear me cussing at traffic? There's a blinker.

Well, I already liked the Envirostik a lot because the finish on it was nice and smooth, but obviously still unfinished. And I liked the Ticonderoga ferrule with the green eraser and the green foil print. I thought it was all really pretty, and I was always kind of disappointed that it wasn't cedar. So this is like, you know, Johnny's dream pencil. So, I mean, I'd give this pencil an A. I really like it. The only thing that could make this pencil better would be if it was made in America and not China. But can't have it all, so it

Yes. It sharpens well. It smells good. The core is nice. Eraser works. The finish is very nice. Yeah, I've gotten long points on them, fat points, hand sharpened pencils.

I've never noticed anything.

I bet if used a really crappy sharpener, you'd notice, but none of us do that.

I wonder if you were using a knife, if you might feel, feel something from the glue there because the glue's got to be harder than the wood.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Plus they come in a box and all pencils that come in a box or a step up.

I'm going to make you wait for that one. My first fresh point is Happy birthday.

My baby boy is two today, so that and I don't have a lot of fresh points, but I am headed to Boston the last week of this month. So Les and I already talked about this. So we're wondering if we could do like a stationary meetup. So any folks who are listening to this who are going to be in Cambridge the last week of the month or Boston or Cambridge, maybe we can have a little meetup. Maybe I'll bring Charlotte. Because if it's not a bar, I'll bring Charlotte.

And she's got a cute little Omley haircut that makes her look a lot older. Now her curls are all gone.

No.

Oh, I love it. Do you ever pronounce things? It's really cute. The pencil.

But the fresh boat. You guys, I'm sure you're waiting for the new field notes.

Came out. And I didn't get the email until overnight last night, so I feel excluded. But my subscription's on the way, so it's really disappointing that they already did a Carpenter pencil in 2011, because this one would be perfect for a carpenter

But they're already giving you a free slip case and stickers. That's pretty sweet. And they're shipping everything in a box. It's got to cost more.

This one is called the Workplace Companion. Is that right?

Workshop companion. So they've picked, you know, six traditional, like your dad does it in the garage fields like plumbing, electric, woodworking, gardening, automotive, and when I'm forgetting plumbing. But they've. They've produced. So they're color coded notebooks. These have some sort of new heavy paper that is dot, grid, and brass staples, which is. I love when they mess with the staples. And they've printed on the spine, which is pretty cool. And if you're a subscriber, you get a magnet. So if you're not already a subscriber, this might make you a subscriber because that magnet looks really sweet.

Yeah, I Love their dot grid.

I don't know. I may use my sorghum to grow my sorghum.

The coolest one they've done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to sleep tonight.

I think some people go do local pickup.

This makes me very jealous.

Yeah, that's where I'm at.

Oh, I emailed them to ask them because when I didn't get the email, I haven't gotten a few of them for a couple months. They're like, no, no. Here's your shipping slip. All's good. You know, they. They always get right back to you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm stoked about this. And we're thinking about getting a condo, so painting is the only one that I have a, you know, conceptual use for. But I really like the spacing of their dot grid over some other brands. And Baron Figs is really good, too, because it's faint. But it'd be really fun to draw cartoons about things we see in our neighborhood, in our city that Charlotte and I like to do. And poop. My favorite thing to draw.

Yeah. Whenever I go to New York, I'm always horrified. I'm like, there's poop on the ground.

In Baltimore, there's all this, you know, social pressure. If you have a dog, people stare at you and watch you pick that poop up because, you know, we have a rat problem that's already pretty bad. And a lot of other problems just

Yeah, it's got very scatological.

They're going to be brown with yellow type.

A stomach bug edition. One of it like puke and one of those like toasts.

So for my next fresh point, I mentioned. God, it's been. Probably been a month or two. Those Bic extra fun plastic pencils. I noticed they're showing up at Walmart now too. They're showing up everywhere. I guess they're gonna be a big feature for back to school this year. So, you know, compared to some of the pencils that we champion, you know, the writing experience is not great, but they're sort of positioning them against mechanical pencils, which I appreciate. Yeah, the write is pretty similar to a mechanical pencil. You know, it's plastic.

But less breakable and way more fun.

And they're made in France, which is surprising.

And they're. They're not that expensive.

Every time I go near them, I kind of buy a pack. But yeah. So if you haven't found them yet, now you can get them at Walmart, Walmart and Target. So far, they'll probably show up at Staples. Also, they've got a lot of Bic products.

But, yeah, that's about all I have. I'm looking forward to Andy's first one.

It's the 13th pencil, just one of that dozen in the tube. I got the impression it was a sort of completely different pencil that was going to be only for subscribers.

So I kind of like that idea too.

Organic addiction, Brad.

Yeah, I didn't want it at first because I'm stupid and I thought it was 12 pencils for the year. We were talking about this on text.

And it turns out I'm the dumbest thing I ever heard of. It's four dozen and I'm out of black wings. That's actually not a bad price. $25 for dozen black wings.

Oh, man.

That's very excellent.

And

Sad face, they don't make it for Android yet.

Pretty cool.

Cedar Point would be Teddy.

But anyways, that's good pencils.

she has a person that she talks to on the phone.

They were bought and sold, not. Not long ago or.

Yeah, I think so.

No, no.

I did National Writing Month in pen because I couldn't handle the choices.

Yeah. Tim and I do a writing partnership where we do a short story a month. And the last time I did it, I sort of, kind of sat by myself in the living room with one notebook and one pencil and a knife. Just like I'm using this pencil.

I was undistracted by the pencil because I had no choice.

stuff with something about that click. The sound of pencil against pencil is very nice.

Let's do it.

Well, even though Tim is hosting tonight, I've sort of hijacked the intro of our guest because I have Chris Roth Write Notepads and company and Chris is a fellow Baltimorean whom I've met in real life in IRL several occasions. He sent us some cool notebooks to review for Pencil Revolution.

I think a lot of people know Cody Williams who makes the cool covers and stuff. So Cody and I have been down visit the Bindery. Just really, really cool place. And I thought the press referred to press as a media, not presses like the Heidelbergs. So that's, that's super cool. So my long way of saying we have Chris Roth on from Write Notepad to answer all of our Baltimore notebook questions and talk about brass lined paper and they're cool pencil. So welcome Chris. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. We really appreciate it.

were going to do something, pursue something, I guess if you want to even consider what we're doing, a more modern

separate ourselves from the rest prior to us. And by doing so we sort of kicked and pulled things that we love. So for me it would be the old industrial revolution feel and style and functionality of I mean let's face notebook

it in a way that screams days old, also using machinery from those days to create these products. As Johnny can attest he's seen, I

it's as simple as walking up to a copy machine and pressing, you know, however many you want. And it comes a completed notebook. There's so many sets of hands that go into each and every notebook and every step of the way a different set of expert hands touch it in order to get something that has consistency and quality throughout.

And the individuals, including myself that you may referencing in that photograph are my family members. So one is father, one is my brother and one of my uncle. And of course Nico, as Johnny had referenced earlier, is the little black rescue schnauzer wearing, I'm not sure exactly which

that's in the main area, in the front area where the offices are, where the press room is, even where a

I think each brand that's on the

We're very neurotic when it comes to

It was wound up being these long steel shafts with lead spacers and these beautiful old brass wheels that would run over an ink pot and basically lay down that continuous on the top and on the bottom of the sheet. And what I really, really like about that is that each page winds up being much like a fingerprint because there's no two sheets of paper that are exactly the same. You'll have variances on one end of a sheet that you hold in your hand from opposite end of the sheet. So it's these little divots, peaks and valleys in that line that you know, you'd really be hard pressed to find one. You know, two sheets of our notebook paper that look exactly the same. In addition to that I would have

caught a really bad rap and especially by way of the school systems. So going back to the birth of the idea at south by Southwest, Blake from Toms Shoes was one of the speakers that year.

philanthropic giving into their direct plan. We decided that exactly what to do. We wanted to connect with the community and we wanted to do it in a way in which we're connecting not only with the community, with the schools. Anyone who has one of our products is also connected to the community and that school by way of the five digit code that we incorporate into the inside of each cover that we, we change on batch lot basis. So one cover, 500 of them will have that number on it and then that number is thrown in the trash can and onto another one spreadsheet queued up with every city school on it. And everyone has been given a five digit code. So every school is in line. I think it's funded. I just think about that.

man, this is why I always need

off the cusp math doesn't really work. I think it's approximately 150 pages in each book that have just black and white covers. Has a feel kind of similar to the inside of our larger notebooks where it has a place for direct name, the course, the grade, things like that. We wanted to just keep it as neutral as possible so we wouldn't create any additional conflicts in those, in those environments.

privilege of seeing these things in use and it's really wonderful because you know,

How notebooks and books in general are something that are becoming a thing of the past in the classroom. Well, that may be the case by people that are a little out of place with what classrooms actually need. And I can tell you that each and every school, each and every principal, each and every student, each and every teacher that we've given these to have just their eyes have lit up. I mean, you, especially the kids, which was really surprising to see how a kid reacts to just a notebook and a pencil. I was really taken aback by that because I just figured nowadays with. With the way kids are subjected to all these technologies, which are great, it just seems like they grew up far too fast. And I never in a million years would have believed, nor could anyone have convinced me that by us giving a notebook that they would have genuine enthusiasm as if I were to give them an iPhone.

to implement journaling courses in tougher schools to help them have a release outlet for things that may go on in their neighborhoods in their daily lives, but they just don't have the budgets for it. So we basically solved that. It felt just incredible knowing that these notebooks to be used to help these kids.

So you guys have some really, really cool designs like you did the first. I remember how you met. You made a thousand of the Baltimore Press, where there was the Washington Monument, which of course precedes the one in Washington D.C. and since then you've had some for New York and you have one for Washington and a few neighborhoods in Baltimore. So could you talk about how does that design become a block? You can then press a notebook.

of things where, you know, I can

month we're going to go ahead and

It really. It's whatever strikes my fancy. It's kind of like the Cape Cod book that we created, where I love that I just kind of saw something and I put it together and it just all worked. And in fact, initially, when I created the Cape Cod, it didn't have the scrimshaw wailing scene at the bottom. And it just looked too empty. So I actually had the tops printed. So the outline of the Cape and the Cape Cod in red just shoved them for a month until I could figure out what could fill that void. I've gone as far as with one of the burrows where I had actually created it and then scrapped it because I absolutely despised it. So I said, you know what, I'm not gonna work on trying to fix this or anything like that.

the artwork, creating the artwork, things of that nature. Letterpress has its wonderful little nuances where everything is a 100% vector otherwise because you just, you can't do sort of unless you're gonna print like in a half tone style and multiple colors to achieve any sort of grayscale. And we love that sort of the stark blacks and the reds and things like that. And you know, in kind of keeping with what we're going for, where everything

But yeah, I mean that's really it.

and then lay something down so I can truly visualize what it going to look like. And it also helps with private label and custom covers where you know, I can placement. I have something where I immediately offer

I never did get that joke.

created to be taken totally seriously. Yeah. But at the same time, me being a lefty and a lot of my close friends since growing up have lefties. It's nice living in a right hand world to have a product that's thoughtfully created for us and then going back to the creation of it. So again, it was early on the notebooks were being prototyped and things like that. And I mean, by no means have I been running a letterpress for long. It's going on, like years now,

I realized, like, if we're gonna do a lefty notebook, it has to have a personality of its own. And I immediately went to my office,

So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna create this character. We're gonna call him Paul South. He's gonna be this fictitious guy that the. That's never existed, but we want to make it. And there's going to be far more coming on Paul south later on as we evolve. And hopefully that platform should wind up launching in time for the holidays. So I go onto my computer, I go onto the Library of Congress's website into their daguerreotype collection, and I find this character who. I'll send all of you guys the original photograph of this guy. He was an unknown figure from the middle 1800s who had these Princess Leia buns and this incredibly stern look on his face. I said, that's it all sound right there. It was a bit of a masochistic experience.

And we've done some chalk murals on there. And Paul south is prominently displayed as soon as you walk in the door.

and send it off overseas and then just go and pick up a container load full of stuff from customs. So then the real fun began. And you know, what we've learned is that for the most part people are true and honest. Others, you really have to do some serious investigative work to make sure that

in the United States, thankfully, so it's easy to procure true 100% American papers. The board cover stock for covers come from another family owned operation out of Philadelphia called Newman Paper Board, where.

chipboard stock. So that's where we get our chipboard stock from. Our rubber bands for books are made by Alliance Rubber Band, which is. I don't know that there is another rubber band company made here in the United States. They're in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Absolutely great people to work with. They've really worked with us amazingly well from day one. And for that we will always be true to them. Our wire comes from a company that we've dealt with for a very, very long time. On the commercial end, Spiral Binding Company out of.

company out of upstate New York. So all of the wire is, is American steel. It's extruded here and it's formed here and then of course shipped down to good old Baltimore. I don't know that I'm. I'm missing anything else.

Thank you.

before I used the right notepad, I used other brands, notebooks, and some that had straps. And I always find that the straps would break, and it's not necessarily by way of their manufacturing, it's by way

So I'd always find myself tying them

of manufacturing and like, the manpower and the time necessary to fasten these straps on here, given the style of binding that we're doing. We have machines to do. It's just. We didn't like. It just didn't feel right. It didn't look right. And then you have those two schools of thought where some people like having a strap on their notebook, some people don't. So we're like, okay, well, hey, we're going to give people the option for a closure. I'm going to get these gigantic rubber bands, which thankfully I haven't fielded any emails of children using them as slingshots, because they certainly could be. So, you know, the rubber band, it's one of those things where we like this. It's optional. You can use it on your notebook. You can use it to create a gigantic rubber band ball like we're in the process of doing at the boundary. Or you can leave it on a coffee shop table and somebody else learns what write notepads and company is. So it's like part function, part marketing, part everything, you name it.

So we're amongst friends. So you could admit if pencils are not your favorite thing. Cause I know one time in your office when Cody were playing with some, it was a black celluloid thing and it had this gold thing and this, like, liquid was coming out of it. Something like that. But what do you prefer to write with? And with these days?

I came from being a fountain pen user. It all started I was using a fountain Pen in high school, being a lefty, it helped me slow my writing down and write a lot neater. So I kind of stuck with that for a good while and then it sort of became one of those things. I really feel like unscrewing a cap and oh, my fountain pen's out of ink for me to take down a note on a phone.

So then it sort of give way to like whatever the hell I have available to me. So whether it's a gel, a pencil, whatever. But I've always loved pencils. And that goes back to grandfather. My grandfather would always have his little cross twist pencil and he actually have one of those little. And I do. I still have the pencil.

have migrated more to using a pencil than a pen. But Sharpies, I still use a ton of Sharpie markers. I probably go through more Sharpie markers than like a professional sports team does. It's ridiculous how many Sharpies I go through. But I have found something really cool that's kind of a hybrid, a pen and a pencil. And I'm sure you guys have probably seen it. Napkin forever pens, I believe that lay

Mm.

Yeah, Give that a try. But I think it's cool. I read a lot of the notes. So every time we process orders from the website, I put a handwritten note in each package. And I find more often than not, I'm using that. That little guy to jot down quick little cue.

And then the jumbo, which is my favorite.

But I know Johnny has showed me the way of using a knife, and I've had some successes with that. I must say, not nearly as much as some of the true pencil professionals. But our pencils too, are made here in the United States by Musgrave, great company down there in Tennessee. Been around forever in a day that, you know, they're really cool people and make products.

wound up doing is we wound up partnering up with Kum, and, you know, we've included a KUM sharpener, one of the little magnesium sharpeners in every pack. So, you know, it's not. You know, how terrible would it be if somebody gave you a gift of pencils and it's like, oh, thanks. Now I've got to wait and go find a sharpener. Now you can just tear right into it and sharpen.

Yeah.

I think I'd go with the round one with a very close second being the fat one. But if the round one had a pink eraser and with cedar, it would probably be my favorite pencil in the world.

Today, for instance, I was working on some accounting stuff and reached in.

This is no joke. I have a little cup on my desk. Must have had 25 pencils in it. Mix between. Because what we'll do is, like, any of the round naturals or the hex that we package that if there are scuffs or blemishes. I just take them and use them in the office. And literally not a single One of the 25 were sharpened. And I feel like getting up and going to like three runs over and digging for a sharpener. So I just wound up using a pen.

So perhaps incorporating some different styled insides.

And some things that go even beyond that more along the ends of of the journaling world. So, you know, stay in the loop because that's why I've been working seven days a week trying to get all this stuff queued up and keep some

So you guys also do a lot of personalization where you do like events and stuff. And I think I heard a rumor about ledgers that have the logo of

So can you tell us a little bit about your personal program? Like where is it? Where is it going? I know some other folks need have like very big minimums and it seems like you guys can do a little smaller scale stuff, right?

having everything necessary for manufacturing under one roof is their ability to change direction very quickly and very efficiently. So that really opened the door for our private label as well as custom notebooks.

where a company, an individual could order 50 units is the minimum of our regular traditional notebooks, the half eight and a half and the same 15 minimum on our pocket ledgers, the three by six inch guys. So. And then we have some parameters there where, you know, we've give them. We give them the option of

with one color and a certain placement. It's really the sky's the limit as far as what we can do by way of customization. So it's really fun and it's really fun working with different organizations and different companies that have really embraced us and we've made a lot of friends along the way for that. And I think you're right. I think your premonition was right about. There may be a certain pen podcast that has some finished notebooks sitting on a table in Baltimore.

Exactly, exactly. So what we've done there is for one, one line of most of the people that opt for that with a name, whether it be their own or a gift for someone else. Others put a little slogan on there, but it too is letterpressed, just like every other aspect of those covers.

Oh, man,

we don't talk about that as these days.

So you can.

But I think if history, which often has a tendency to repeat it is.

Both gonna be finding alternative things to watch come September. October.

Long as there's a good team playing. So you'll be in luck.

I am occasionally on the interwebs@pencil revolution.com I'm always on instagram@pensolutions.com and on twitter solution I'm sorry @justolution.com. how about you Mr. Tim?