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Transcript
Johnny, do you want to. Do you want to get us started? Yeah. Hello, everybody, and welcome to a very special episode 137 of the erasable Podcast, featuring our very first attempt at a webinar format. I'm Andy Welfle. I'm holed up in San Francisco, and I'm joined by Johnny over in Charm City and Tim in Johnson City, Tennessee. Hey, guys. How you doing?
Hanging in there.
Yeah. So I definitely owe somebody a pencil, because I'm going to say here that the world is in crisis right now as COVID 19 spreads through nations and cities across the globe. A lot of us are spending our days stuck at home, and work looks very different for a lot of different people, but life feels very strange these days, and it's difficult to know what to do. So we were thinking, what can we do to help, even if it's just a small amount for a little bit? Well, as pencil podcasters, we all know a lot about stationary, and we use it every day. So we decided to depart from our usual recording schedule to bring you an episode featuring some suggestions to help keep your wits about you during this time, and we're bringing it to you live. So at the end, we're going to try to figure out how to invite our listeners to share how they're using stationery to cope with life in the pandemic. So we are using zoom. And thank you for the, wow, 63 people who are joining us. Um, we are definitely. I'm learning how to use this as we go, but many of you have found the chat pod, the little chat area down the side. Feel free to talk to us and talk to talk amongst yourselves there. And then also we can. We can take questions over in the Q and A chat pod, Q and A tab. And what we're going to try to do is if you have a question to ask in there, I think I can put you live, like, basically invite you to come chat on the show if you have, like, a microphone hooked up. If you'd rather not do that, that's totally cool. We can answer it just kind of as we go, but I wanted to give you that option, so. Yeah. You guys ready? Ready to do this? Yes, indeed. Go for it. All right, so first, just a quick check in, because I think that, like, it's important to know how we're all doing. How you doing? How's the status of where you are? How you holding up, Johnny?
So we have a very proactive governor. So today we don't have the order to shelter in place but they close the rest of the businesses that are non essential. But there's a huge list of things that are essential. So basically you can't go to like the cool little boutiques which were mostly closed anyway. Schools are closed this week officially. We go back Monday, but that's obviously not going to happen. And yeah, you know, I think it's the same as everywhere else. People are hoarding toilet paper and alcohol
and frozen pizza as you do apparently. Those flies.
I'm not ordering any of these things, but I do have several pounds of coffee.
Oh, good. Well, priorities, right? Yeah. How are you, Tim?
Doing okay? Yeah, we've been at home a lot like most people have. Tennessee is definitely take one of the. Taking more of the stance of here's what we think you should do. That's coming from the ground, like here's what we think you should do. But every local area can just decide for themselves, which means that we're all going to end up in the same place eventually, but just a lot slower. So it makes us a little more concerned. So we haven't been going out at all. I had a. Both of us actually had several meetings today and we were just doing them telling everybody like we're just going to speaker phone in. Even though they were meeting in person just because it seemed stupid because we just don't know this testing is like just starting in our area. So I mean, all in all, pretty well keeping the kids busy, which is a lot of work. But we've been having, having a good time.
Nice things here in San Francisco are mostly fine.
I'm.
I mean we're all hunkered down. We've. This is what like day eight of the shelter in place policy. It started last week. We were, I think one of the first. I think we might have been the first municipality in the. To do that. And the state has followed suit. So it's really like for people who aren't sure what shelter in place is, yes, we can leave home mostly for essential travel, groceries, medical care, things like that. But lots of people are taking walks around the neighborhood and getting exercise. And yesterday we had some friends stop by. In other words, they stood in the street and we stood way up on the driveway and had a little chat. So yeah, we're still, we're still able to get out and do stuff. There's no locks on doors or anything like that. So
we did like a virtual happy hour. Some friends. Have you done that yet?
Um, yeah, we, we did a lot of checking in with family.
Yeah. Yeah, we just did like, a group Skype thing with. It was like six friends, or I guess three groups of friends. Like couples. Three couples. And we just, like, talked for like, an hour and a half, which is
a lot of fun. Yeah, that's really nice. Um, last Thursday, we tried out. I have a small team at work that I manage, and we all had a virtual happy hour, and that was interesting. We're learning the sort of upper limits of, like, how many people you can have on a call before conversation just stops because everybody's trying to talk at once. So the answer is seven. Seven people.
Seven. I'm going to write that down. Yeah.
Or for us, that was.
Hey.
Hey, Nicole. Our friend Nicole from. Well, from Musgrave. Not from Musgrave, but working from Musgrave, just said hi in the chat. So we have about 76 attendees, which is pretty. Pretty amaz. Yeah. Cheers. Water. Cheers. We're all. Well, we're going to get to Tools of the Trade and find out what we're all consuming and writing with and on and spoiler. Lacroix. Tim, do you want to tell us about what you're consuming?
Sure. I mean, the big one hasn't changed much since our last recording because it hasn't been that long. But I was talking about that Rise of Theodore Roosevelt book, so I'm still reading that because it's like 700 pages long. It's massive, so I'm still reading that. But I did start reading and just yesterday started reading the Circle, which we've talked about before by Dave Eggers. And the reason being that through a relative's book club, I'm gonna get to talk to him tomorrow. And so I am super excited about that. And so I had their book club read the Circle, and she facetime me out of nowhere. She's not somebody who I facetime with very often. It was kind of a surprise. And I answered. I was like, oh, hey, here are the kids. And she's like, hey, actually, I need to talk to you. Dave Eckers, his, like, publicist, whoever said yes, that he met that he's willing to do this, which is super interesting. And also, just for everybody's reference, I was like, how did you do that? How'd you manage me to figure that out? And she said, I just asked him.
So as 80 people go bug Dave Eggers on Twitter now.
Yeah, he's definitely not on Twitter. He's, like, famously on nothing, which is kind of crazy. He won't even video chat. He just. He's only doing, like, speakerphone or whatever. But yeah. And she was like, I'm thinking about asking Rafael Nadal if he'll come to my tennis club. Because it worked with Dave. With Dave Eggers. But yes, I'm reading the Circle, which is his book about like the. Yeah, I mean like the tech social networking companies. Andy, you've talked about it before on the show because you read it at a either opportune or inopportune time.
Right. I read it when I was on the plane traveling, moving from Indiana to California to go work at Facebook. So it was definitely a weird headspace to be in to read that book. But yeah.
So we, Dane and I are watching or actually just finally. We just finished Madam Secretary, which is a show that we both really love. It's kind of our West Wing light that we've enjoyed. Definitely one worth watching again. So we just finished the whole series because it's done now. So we finished season six. It was very good. So it's an excellent show. And lastly, just as kind of a pick me up around the house as we're listening to music, we've been spending a lot of time listening to Van Morrison.
Nice.
So that seems like it's felt like a right choice during these times. And so the Van Morrison Pandora station has been on heavy rotation in our house. Yeah. And I am writing with this guy. Been writing with it all day. My Blythesdale calculator. Because yolo.
Right.
My new favorite category of pencils. YOLO pencils. Which I'm gonna talk about that later.
But yeah, this is the, this is the time.
Now more than ever, I'm saying sharpen those things up, write with them, have fun with them. So I have been using that today. Blythesdale. And I'm writing with.
I have one too.
My nice writing with my new Write notepads hardback notebook which I started using yesterday because my exist. I was using that Black Wing slate which is blank pages. And the kids and I have been doing so much drawing and doodling and stuff that I've. I've turned that into my doodle book because it's got nice paper for that. And I'm using this for my, for my journal. The Write notepads. Yeah. How about you, Johnny?
So I want to read more, but I've been watching a lot of tv. We've been watching DCI Banks, which is a British crime drama. It's on Amazon, I think, but it's one of those things where it's like a 45 minute episode. Oh. But it's only half it you have to watch the other 45 minutes. So you always feel kind of naughty on a weeknight. Like, let's watch another one that's, like, good and immersive. We just watched the Coldest Game with Bill Pullman on Netflix about the chess tournament and Cold War, which was super good. Like, Bill Pullman was amazing. I just discovered Dharma and Greg's on Hulu. So
that is a. That is a call from the call to the past, for sure.
I think it came out the year I started college, so this is making me feel super old.
Came out the year I started high school.
Those are baggy jeans. And I started 100 Years of Solitude. But, like, not the right time to read that book. Wait, it's been slow going.
Wait, what are you reading while you're in A Hundred Years of Solitude?
Meta. And finally. So I just. I don't know why I felt like listening to Nirvana. And I just realized that I've been wrong for, you know, 30 years. And bleach is their best. So that's it. And I'm writing with an everhard Faber American naturals that's a little younger than I am and scratchy and delicious. I love it. And.
Hey, Asha.
Hey. Asha's butt. Your origin pencil, right?
Yes, this is. I have four or five iterations of it that Frankie thinks I should do a post about and call it Pencil Evolution. Yes, that'd be fun to do over break. And I'm finishing up. Right. Notepads. Black Elk.
Nice. Cool.
And drinking Topo Chico.
Oh, yeah.
I found it in the fridge. I don't know how long it's been there, but it's water, so it's fine.
Johnny, don't you wish you had a cat to show?
Nope. I would be on Benadryl all the time.
Yeah, he wants to be here for sure. Say something in the microphone. Okay. He does not want to be here. What am I consuming? Katie and I have been watching now that I'm working from home, we've been taking our lunch breaks together and watching episodes of House Hunters during lunch, which, if ever you've seen House Hunters. It's a show on HGTV where people look at three different houses and kind of walk through them and decide on them. And, like, I suddenly get why some people talk about how they love to hate watch things. Because the people on House Hunters are the worst. They never agree. There's always something, like just some big problem that the poor realtor has to, like, kind of get them through. So it's a. It's A good. It's a good. It's a good lunchtime show so you can eat your sandwich and yell at the TV
like any good American.
Like any good American. Johnny. We signed up yesterday for a seven day trial of Britbox.
Oh my God. So much good stuff on there.
We've just been looking through that. The only things we actually have watched on it so far are the half an hour special called Young Hyacinth, which is Hyacinth Bucket from Are you Being Served? Excuse me? From Keep it up. Appearances. But like a prequel, it was quite good and quite bad at the same time. And then also the Are youe Being served? Remake from 2016 where they just recorded a half an hour pilot episode where they like recast all the characters from Already Being Served, which is this show that takes place at a department store in like the 70s and 80s. Also very good. I love the original show and they recast them really, really well. But we found lots of good, lots of good stuff for future watching on there.
So yeah, Brit Box.
And then also I've been consuming. Oh. Something I think is relevant to everybody's interests. Here is a podcast called the Shelf Life, which is created by our friend Harry Marks and at one point stars. Not stars. There's voice appearances by the three of us and other people too. So it's a podcast sitcom complete with a laugh track. So it's pretty good. The first episode is out.
It's delightful. I love that first at the beginning that says this episode was recorded live in front of a fake studio audience.
Yeah, it's pretty good. So in future episodes you'll start to see more of or you start to hear some familiar voices. And if anybody listen to the 1857 podcast, you know that Stuart Lennon is a main voice on that. So have a listen to that. Don't know how we're going to share show notes with you, but when we publish this on the web, I'll make sure to include show notes and also just. Yeah, look in your podcast directories for the Shelf Life. That's that. And I am still reading the book that I was reading last week when we recorded our last episode, which is the future of another timeline by Annalee Newitz. Still working my way through that and thinking about reading. There's a book of essays by Charles Bukowski called On Cats. He has a series of essays about cats that I'm. Have you ever read this, Tim?
No, no, I actually never read any Bukowski, so he's one that I've just generally skipped that I probably thought I would have hit at some point, but I'm not a.
Necessarily a huge fan of Charles Bukowski, like, in general, but, like, I would definitely read his writing specifically about cats.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Tell me how it is. Yeah.
And I am writing with a freshly sharpened Musgrave test scoring 100 pencil, and I'm writing in my freshly cracked, open lich term red dot notebook with a really beautiful sticker on the front of Sutro Tower, which is a San Francisco landmark. Has these really beautiful, like, red lined pages. And the dot grid on the inside is. Can't see it in this camera, but it's also red. And I'll be talking a little bit more about it later in this episode about what I'm doing with this notebook.
Lichterms don't always come with the pen loop, do they?
No. As soon as I got this, I ordered pen loop on Amazon. They have so many colors, but they don't come standard with it. But they cost, like, six bucks on Amazon or on your local stationer.
Yeah, that's the adhesive one sticks on.
Yeah. Yeah, it just sticks. I just stuck this to a little envelope in the back. Yeah. And I like to stick mine about two thirds of the way up, because that way I can tell at a glance if this is. If this is up or down. Yeah.
Cool.
Well, we are skipping our usual freshpoints section of this show because it's a very special episode, and we're gonna go through just activities and things that are kind of keeping us occupied and maybe some suggestions how you can stay occupied during your. Your sheltering in place and your social distancing and whatever else your community is calling it. So I definitely invite you to ask questions in the chat pod. Excuse me. In the Q and A pod. We'll have some. Some time where we'll open it up to just discussion and chat with y'.
All.
So. Yeah, please feel free to do that. How do you guys want to start this? Just talk about, like, some. Some things we've been doing that involve stationary. Some ways we can. Ways that we're coping. Yeah. Do you want to start with some?
Sure.
Something you've been up to.
So I've been writing tons and tons of letters.
I.
You know, I usually write a couple a week now. I'm usually writing a couple a day. The postal service will deliver you stamps for $1.30, and you can get a good variety of stuff, which is cool. I have some Halloween ones on the way.
Yes.
So my kids and I made postcards, which I don't think was very successful because half of them didn't make it because there was a lot of glue, so. Oh, that's not the best idea. But my kids are writing letters to folks. They sent something to Nicole's kids and Nick's kid in Australia recently. And Henry's have been communicating.
Message from my Henry coming soon.
Yeah, my Henry's like, he doesn't want to write that much, so he just draws really cute pictures he thinks people will like. It's like a hug on paper. Yeah, so funny. We tried to do some, like, structuring with the kids. Like, Charlotte has a bullet journal. So Henry stole a dot grid.
Moles.
Dot grid. Yeah, dot grid moleskin for me today so he could have fun. Like, oh, dude. So I made them write out their own schedule for the day. Like, we're gonna do schoolwork now and reading now and, you know, maybe you can do some prodigy later. But they did their homework like really fast and blew the whole day up. So it didn't go so well. But yeah, like there. There are a lot of fun little things that are analog the kids can get into, but they tend to require a little more attention from parents versus being like, hey, go play on, you know, Amazon freetime for a while. But yeah, that and the kids have been reading a lot and we've sort of been just buying them Legos and books constantly.
All that money you're not using to eat out is now going into.
And Frankie's not going to work, so he's not taking Uber to work. So that been a nice book budget that, you know, they get books anyway. Yeah.
Tim, I'm sure everything with your kids are going just fine and smooth and no problems whatsoever, right?
Yeah, I haven't talked to him in days. They just kind of do their going
off to their own thing, doing their
schoolwork and not bugging each other at all. Not wrestling in the hallways, not chasing the dog around, screaming at each other. Yeah, a lot of the same. We've read like every book in the house, so. And that's actually one like, Johnny, you were going to mention you're going to talk about reading. Like, and I think that's one big thing in our house has been reading things that get your mind off of just what's going on. And I think for us, and I think for me, I've been flipping through, like, in between reading those books that I mentioned earlier, I've been flipping through some of my favorite books that I've already read before. You know, just kind of like these little rereads, which has been really fun to go back through books that you love and not even necessarily commit to reading the whole thing, but just kind of hitting some hot spots and reading it. I did that with east of Eden yesterday. I did that with A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash, and I did that with the Brothers K by David James Duncan, some of my favorites. So. And the kids have really enjoyed kind of digging into some of their old books. And Henry has been reading some of his old. Like he doesn't read anymore. He's older. Reading those to his sister more during break, which has been a really cool development. So we're trying to block off a couple hours a day where books are the only permissible item. What?
Sorry. In the chat pod, I was just talking to Charles Berlsheimer and telling him to check out my awesome shirt. That's from years ago. Do you remember Ben Sorrel? Yes. He made that into shirts. Sorry, I was trying not to disrupt the conversation.
I can't tell if Johnny was frozen or if he's just still shocked you got stuck like that.
Cool. Yeah, I was. I don't know, I haven't been reading many, I guess, like non genre fiction or nonfiction. I've mostly just been reading my very sort of escapist science fiction book lately. I don't know, I've been having. I've been having trouble getting into a reading headspace at night lately. I think it's just from compulsively checking news, compulsively checking Twitter. But often like I'll just like try to get to sleep by browsing, looking through Reddit or doing something like that. I'm trying, trying not to. I'm trying to like focus a lot more, but it's been, it's been hard.
Yeah.
I think the most effective distraction we've had so far, which I didn't mention in consuming, was we've been watching the oceans movies.
How many are there now?
Well, there's the original 11. Then there's the newer 11 and 12 and 13. And there's Ocean's 8, which is the all female cast one, which is the one we watched most recently, which was. I mean, when those movies start, I think it's just me, like the personality. But when one of those movies starts, my brain cannot think about anything else except trying to figure out what I'm missing on the screen. So that's heist movies serve as an excellent distraction.
I've been thinking about watching. I saw that Mark. Mark Wahlberg is going to be in a movie coming up, and I was thinking a lot about the Italian Job. Did you ever watch that back in the day?
Oh, yeah, that was good.
That was a really fun one. Just driving the little Mini Coopers around. I've been thinking about watching that again.
Yeah.
See if that holds up.
It makes me want to watch the Perfect Storm too. That was one of my favorite movies.
Oh, yeah.
Like, oh, man. And he's.
The movie was terrible. I read the book right before I movie, and I'm like, they changed the ending.
Oh, I need another one.
I don't know what happened. The Perfect Storm on my list. Sebastian Junger.
Okay.
It's good escape literature. Oh, my God, the book is so good.
But it's gonna mess up the perfection of the movie. Johnny.
Yeah. The only thing about that movie that was perfect is that it was perfectly crappy. No, it was. It was.
You're saying it's like the whoopix of this.
Oh, Wopexes are awesome. Neon Wolpex.
The Mark Wahlberg of pencils. Or is it Mark Wahlberg, the Wolpex of actors?
Diane Lane's awesome. I love him. Yeah.
Every time I think about Mark Wahlberg, I think about that SNL skit, Mark Wahlberg talks to animals. And he's just like, how do your mother for me?
I forgot about that.
Charles says in the chat, Andy probably doesn't remember the original Italian Job. And that is correct. I was not alive when that came out, but I watched it on Quiet. Yeah. I've watched it since then. And also the original. Or the original Ocean's Eleven, which, like, I think are still such good movies with such different pacing than their.
Oh, yeah. I love the original Oceans 11 parts.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think original Ocean's 11 was just a chance for, like, Frank and Dean and Sammy to just, like, get
drunk and make a movie get even richer. So, yeah, I think I could. I could jump in with another kind of, like, quarantine. Stationary activity. Yeah. Which is. I alluded to it earlier, but I just really felt compelled to, like, on a daily basis, as I'm using stuff and carrying around to work and around during the day, I try to commit myself to finishing things and actually getting done with things. But when we're. We're home, I just. I kind of gave my permission to use some stuff that I typically wouldn't use, you know, so, like, hence using calculator.
Yeah.
Like using. Using awfully expensive pencil. Just because, I mean, I've got one. D. I. The whole plan is I have one to use and I have one to save. And so what better time to like, make use of it and journal with it and stuff like that than right now? And also, even with notebooks, I give myself permission to just get myself into a position where I love the things that I'm using because I've got that. The black wing slate notebook, which I love. But it's one of this time is I think you probably. I know you guys have experienced this some point where a notebook has become clogged up with so many different things that you kind of lose your attachment to it. So it's like it was a journal for a little while, and then I was drafting stuff in it for a while, and then I was jotting down notes in it for a while, which is just like. So now I had my. Gave myself permission to just say, that's gonna be my new doodle notebook, my drawing notebook with my kids, because it does really well with sign pens and pencils and all that stuff. So. And then I started this. Right. Notepads notebook. So, yeah, just give myself permission to like, use stuff that feels right in the moment. Yeah, you don't want to. You don't want to feel like you're slogging through something which, you know, not by fault of the product, but just because, you know.
Yeah.
Being really, like wanting something to be really focused. It's been a while since I've had a journal that stayed a focused journal for an extended period of time.
Yeah, I'm actually trying to do a. But I don't know, the opposite of a focus journal, which is. I'm trying to incorporate like to do lists and work from home productivity into. And journaling together. I don't know quite how that's going. It's a week on and it's still going pretty well. But I was thinking a, like, two things kind of came together. One, I was going to try to. I was going to try to bullet journal a little bit more after being. After hanging out with Johnny at his house and watching him just kind of like sort through his bullet journal in the morning and write things down and pull things out and go through was really interesting. Just kind of like. See, the process as Johnny was doing was that combined with the idea that somebody. Somebody in the group said that we should all be keeping a record of this moment in history and taking. Doing a journal that is water pouring in the background, by the way. I swear I'm not peeing.
We will not stop this podcast for any reason.
No, I'M just going.
We all have little buckets under our desk, right?
Yeah. That's why we don't do it. So that was. So somebody suggested that we keep records of this time in history that, like, you know, kids and our grandkids and people are going to really want to. Want to know, like, what's happening and what it's like to go through this, because this is pretty historical. And then Adam Webb, who is our friend from the Take Note podcast, I don't know if he's here with us today, but Adam wrote a really good blog post on the Takenote space blog about how he is keeping a coronavirus journal. That was pretty good. In fact, I will. For those of you in the chat, I will paste that in chat right now so you can take a look. So I've been trying to do a little bit of both. I figured since I have a new page going for each day, I'm going to also kind of record what I've been thinking and doing. So nobody. I didn't have much going on Friday, so I'll show off that. That spread. But basically in my journal, I had a few lines of very quick thoughts and things that are going on. You can't. Don't read it, don't read it. And then I have a column for things I need to do today, and I have a column for things I need to do in the future.
Take a screenshot.
Enhance. Enhance.
Enhance. Enhance.
I. That's not really bullet journaling in sort of the Rider Carroll sense of the word, but it is nice. Nice sunglasses, Johnny.
Well, he would say whatever works for you is bullet journaling.
Okay. He would. I thought he was kind of a purist. Okay.
No, like, you know, there's some. His followers. Yeah, Purists.
That's true. He's like, yeah, they're like Ryder Carroll Bros.
The Cult of Bujo.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, you have to belong to that one special group that's for men who bullet journal because apparently we're not the Brojos.
Les and I infiltrated the. That was an interesting group. I wonder if they're still around.
Bro.
Bro. Let me look at your bujo, bro. Anyhow, that's the layout that I've sort of evolved into over the last week. And I am a fan so far. Just like a little bit to do list and a little bit just like brief capture of what I'm thinking and feeling that morning.
So are you doing sort of mine out my bullet journal?
Your bro joke.
Mine is like, that was a terrible joke. Like, I Go down on a page and make a line. That's like stuff I need to do.
Yeah.
And you know, bullet journaling stuff. And the rest of it is all like regular journaling.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean I think that as I'm trying to make sure that this layout is adaptable for like if I have a bunch of stuff I have to get out and journal but only have a little bit of to dos I can fit. I can fit that in there. But like I feel like probably at the moment most of my compulsion to write things down. Not compulsion, but like what I'm compelled to write down is to do's. And I also need to leave more room so I can journal later in the day because right now I'm doing it just right when I wake up while I'm waiting for my coffee to brew. And that is not a good time for my brain to be producing words. So this is surprisingly like. A lot of people are surprised about how kind of undisciplined I am around journaling because I'm terrible at keeping a journal. I'm very bad at it. I'm not in the practice of writing things down consistently on a daily basis. I couldn't even do it when I was like had to write a book last year. So I'm still trying to learn. And this is so far like a week and a day and it's working pretty well.
You got the book done?
Barely. I don't know. Michael was my co author was in this. In this chat a little bit earlier. So I. He knows that there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in order to make that happen. Oh hey. Just Michael just said can confirm it was just Bailey. Barely. Maybe later we can get Michael to come in here with us and yeah. Can do a tell all. Yeah. Jen. Jen says. Hate to tell you, Andy, I've kept a daily a diary journal since I was 14. Every night write a page. That's such a good practice. I know Jan is of a very advanced age, so I'm sure that's been for many years. Piss off, she said.
That makes me think of a last time we recorded. Did I talk about the Taylor Swift documentary?
Yes. No. No, you didn't. I think you talked about it in private to us.
Okay, good. Talk about it in public.
So I watched.
I watched Miss Americana. Like I rarely watch things on a whim these days. Just because your list of things to watch is always like 47 deep. Right. That's like just the age we live in. But I just Saw it. I was like, you know what? I'm going for it. And I played it and loved it. It was so good. And in it she pulls out all of her notebooks. Have you watched it?
Caroline watched it when she was on the show. She talked a little bit about it.
Okay. So. Yeah, but she pulls out and she's been keeping a journal. Yeah, like, since she was old enough to keep a journal, basically. And so she pulls from like. And she starts talking about that throughout the entire documentary. So it's cool. You get to see like all of like her big stack of journals that she's kept over time.
Yeah.
I wish that was me. I wish I could not. Maybe not just Taylor Swift. I mean, sure, I'd be Taylor Swift. That sounds fine. I just met like.
I wish you were Taylor Swift too. Wouldn't it be great if Taylor Swift was on this podcast?
Thanks, Andy. Voices are basically the same. So it's not.
Yeah, it's true. Suddenly it's all about ex boyfriends.
Yep. It's like, this isn't. Yeah.
The ex boyfriend pencil.
Are you.
Are you volume 1989, Charles?
Yes.
The Taylor Swift edition.
Oh, yeah.
No, I think that'd be amazing.
It's glittery. We were talking about how we need a glittery blackwing because somebody just released a blackwing knockoff that has the elongated ferrule, but it's all sparkly. Who was that? It was somebody posted in the group
Barnes and Noble. I don't remember what.
That's it. Yeah, they had that same feral that the. And it's round, so. Don't mind me. Johnny's just cleaning.
Sorry,
are you. Are you all doing. Doing anything differently in your analog lives to. To stay productive while you work from home? Tim, what does your day to day look like now that you're teaching online?
Well, I actually am not yet. So we. They called our school off and I've got. They basically extended our spring break by like three days. So I'm on spring. My official spring break right now. So I don't start teaching until next week. But I did. I mean, I. I've been wearing out some legal pads, just preparing for some like trying to gather all the ideas I have of stuff that will, I think will translate well to Google Classroom. So I've made a legal pad that I've been splitting into sections, kind of like making my own grid. And like I've got like a literature section, a writing section, a grammar section, and then just like a creative section. And I'm trying to mix things in so that every day I can do something different. But this is not stationary related. But I've resorted to just really focusing on Google class, Google Calendar to organize what my kids are doing, especially Henry, like doing the homeschool thing now. So trying to keep that as organized as possible. But I have, I like Johnny, I like hearing you say that you have the kids write their own schedules because I think that's a great idea and have. So I think having them giving them that little bit of ownership and being able to use them. And Henry, I have some pictures I'll send you guys later. I mean he's been doing, doing all of his math homework with a black wing and use. Using a bullet pencil the other day to do his work. So that was very happy. So. Yeah, so I don't know. Yeah, it's my stationary flow of that kind of stuff is more like I'm in survival mode there. So I don't, I feel like I don't have the headspace to get creative. But I will as soon as I get, get situated this next week because we're, we're guaranteed to teach online all of next week. And then they're going to decide whether we're gonna keep on your night because North Carolina shut down schools until May 15th and Virginia just shut down schools for the rest of the year. Like they're just closing.
Yeah.
Pretty wild.
Yeah.
Like, I think everyone's gonna do that, but in Baltimore it would just be chaos if they told anybody. Hey guys, you're done.
Yep.
You said it.
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, we, productivity wise, I mean, I work at a desk job in an office usually and it's a very easy transition to working remote. And most of what holds, I feel like most, what holds most of those kind of companies back is just like, you know, kind of mistrust that people are actually going to be productive when they're not like physically present. I feel like Adobe has adopted. Adapted pretty well. We've been doing this now this is going on week three, working all remote. And it's so far been fine. The first week we had a lot more meetings. People I think were trying to like, basically A, like feel a little bit more connected and isolated, but then B, show that they show that they were working by being in meetings and being productive. I don't know if you know, that's actually true, but that's what it kind of seemed like. And so far so good.
Right.
Like I have a schedule down, I have my regular amount of meetings. Again, we're just using Slack, which is a chat app a lot more. So yeah, I guess what's really nice is I don't have a commute in the morning anymore, so I have a lot more time to just sort of like sit down and make coffee and think about things and collect myself and write a few lines of journaling and, you know, proceed.
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah. Want to talk about anything else before we just maybe take questions or open up to chat with anybody?
Yeah, I think. Oh, go ahead, Johnny.
Are you guys doing any sort of. Oh, Tim, you meant digging deep. Are you doing any organizing my stuff?
Yeah, a little. I did a little bit, but my stuff has been pretty organized recently just with that, the pencil organizer. But I did work on my notebook stash and I like went through and weeded out the things that I wasn't sort of dedicated to using at some point and gave all that stuff to my kids. So that was, that was fun. So I went through and just kind of weeded out some notebooks that I didn't need. Actually saved a few aside that I'm gonna give as like rewards to students. So I'm gonna, for whatever, like just send them to a few students throughout this weird period. Just saying, hey, good job. Here's a cool notebook.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah. We spent the weekend just kind of cleaning. Cleaning and organizing. We converted. We live in a like a moderately sized one bedroom apartment and we have like the back half of the living room with like a futon in it that we kind of were using as a guest room. And we, we took that out and kind of converted that into more home office space so the two of us can work from home. Little bit simpler. So we spent a lot of time doing that. We bought some new, more comfortable kitchen chairs because I'm set up at the kitchen table right here. And I had a dresser full of the things that I did not process after the Baltimore trip. So I had not books and stickers and all sorts of things. And I basically spent the weekend just kind of like sorting that back out into all of the various home office like cubicles and stuff that I have. So it was trying to think here. Yeah, it was a pretty good. Pretty good clean and organizing period. I still have a little bit more to do. We ordered a new bookshelf that's kind of my like bedroom junk bookshelf. I'm gonna try to like sort through. But yeah, we definitely. This is a good opportunity to clean because we're just. I'm gonna be in the space, like so much more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I went through this weekend. I wanted to see how many American naturals I have. And it turns out I have a lot less pencils than I thought I did because I've been regularly, like just, you know, getting a box together and taking it to the kids school. Like, I'm never gonna use these and kids will like them.
It's only in the six figures, you're saying.
Yeah.
Nothing over. Yeah, it's like every time I go through, I can find like, you know, one or two gross of pencils to get rid of or get rid of that I'm never gonna use because, you know, I'm 40, I'm half dead. So it's time to start thinking about what I'm gonna live long enough to use. All those two 11's yeah. So that was like a nice way to start my weekend. After several hours of cleaning to be like, oh, I thought that I had pencils in this. And then I feel a little less horrible about myself. So I didn't tackle the notebooks. That's a whole other thing because they're all full and I can't get rid of them.
Do you. I think we talked about this before, but Tim, you. You get rid of old note, like used notebooks, right? You don't keep them, Is that correct?
The pocket notebooks I don't keep.
Okay. Yeah.
Like full size notebooks I generally keep. Unless it's just like full of random lists and stuff, then I don't. But the old, like old field notes and stuff I don't hold on to. Yeah.
Johnny, you keep all your, all your notebooks, right?
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah. I also keep. On mine I have a. Just a drawer full of old notebooks. And honestly I sometimes enjoy just like going through and looking to see what I was thinking about and what I was doing. And if I can interpret some of the like old lists and things in those notebooks, sometimes they're just scribbles or just random words on pages that I'm trying to.
Sherlock Holmes story.
Yeah, right. It's like I deduced that back then. I was thinking. Yeah, I. Yeah, I usually keep mine. Keep mine. Unless I've had a couple just like, like straight up just fall apart. In which case, like. And I think I washed one of mine once and I couldn't keep that.
But yeah, I wanted to show you guys the stuff when you were here, but I was really embarrassed and you'd be like, how many field notes have you filled out?
It's Johnny, you're considering the number of people who live in the apartment, the size that you have. It is remarkably clean and tidy. So I went to like that. I want everybody here to know that Johnny is an extremely, extremely good host.
Mind blowing.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah,
do it again.
Yeah, I'm down. Corinne, let's start talking about 2021. So any, any other, any other things we want to discuss, I was going
to bring up, and I see this in the, in the doc, but. So, Johnny, I think you put it in there. But just. I've been drawing more than I think I ever have in a week span, which I'm not much of a visual artist. I don't do a lot of drawing. But we have been just in love with the Mo Willems series. That is, I know a lot of people have probably been doing the lunch doodles with Mo Willems. So if you don't know who Mo Willems is, he's a children's book writer and illustrator who's made the pigeon books like Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Don't Let the Pigeon or the Pigeon Has a Hot Dog or whatever. He also does the Elephant and Piggy books. They're all incredible. They're so good. Our kids love them. He is doing this thing through the Kennedy center in which he is sitting down and recording like a 30 minute video every day. Every. Every day, Monday through Friday. And he does like a doodle with you, the kids, or whatever. I love it just as much as the kids. And then he also gets into. And this is the part that's super fascinating for me and I think for a lot of people listening would be really fascinating. He gets into his process for making. And so he goes into his archives and he shows you like, oh, here's the checklist of things I went through to create this book. And then here he opens up his drawers and here's the original drawings of this. And he shows you his old notebooks. And he's got these. I don't know what they are. They. This is on video, you guys can see, but it's like this like long rectangular shape notebook that looks like a moleskin but opens wide and it has like a belly band on it. But that's what he uses on a daily basis. And so his workday, he talks about using this, like, why belly band notebook? To just doodle his characters until he comes up with a story, until a story rises out of it. And so every day he gets into where ideas came from, how does he Develop his style. Where did that come from? And just going through his archives, which he has these drawers and drawers and drawers behind him for all his books is really fascinating. So. And he does a good job of explaining all that stuff that like a six year old can enjoy it too. So I've. I've just been fascinated by it. So that's been awesome. I know the Pete the Cat books is also doing something similar. He's.
He's recording videos like almost every day in which he like doodles with the kids. So that's cool too.
Yeah. This whole thing has been so fascinating to see. Like yesterday, Caroline Weaver went, went live on Instagram and took questions and a couple other friends I have are doing various creative projects and they've been streaming live and we're doing this. And this has really been kind of the dearth of free content. Free programming for people remotely has been really, really cool to see. So I wonder how this is just sort of going to affect things moving forward. Yeah.
Cool.
So one more thing to mention, like, are you guys doing any sort of maintenance? Like pencil sharpener maintenance?
Why did you say that in such a. Such a sly way?
Yeah, you heard a lot of innuendo in there.
When I do maintenance,
I'm cleaning my pencil case.
Are you manscaping?
You already know that.
Pants check. Are we all wearing sweatpants here?
Jeans.
I'm wearing some. Some khakis.
Nice.
Wearing sweatpants. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Real pants on. I got big boy pants on like
a man got man pants.
So anyhow, I'm finding lots. I'm finding dirty pencil case and pencil cups and stuff and cleaning them.
I've not been doing that. I probably should, though.
So when I wrote the doc, I meant, I said you should use a kneaded eraser, then a plastic eraser and then a napkin. But I've discovered that a who the hell makes them? Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will seriously clean the inside of your pencil box.
Those things are incredible. Those things remind me of the. What was that movie with Jack Black? Envy. Is that what it's called? Where he makes that spray that makes poop go away? Like dog poop?
No. You know this. Awesome.
There's a movie of Jack Black's character, like invents this aerosol spray that you spray on dog poop and it disappears and everybody's like, where's all the dog poop going? Whenever I use those, those magic erasers, I'm always thinking that I'm like, they just disappear. They work incredibly well. But it's all just disappeared. So I'm like. I feel like I'm breathing it all into my lungs, but they're. They're amazing.
Yeah.
I keep hearing from people that they. They don't know how to use them, but use it like a sponge. You use it like an eraser. Like that actually works.
Yeah, that's cool.
I have not been getting that far, but I'm sure as time goes on and we get more and more bored cleaning up my pencil cups, the only
cleaning I've been doing is basically following my kids around the house with a trash can. Just like dealing with all the wreckage that they're causing around the house.
Different vacuum cleaners.
Much of it isn't in this room right now, which you can't see. Looks very tidy when you can only see the ceiling.
Yeah, I see the poop molecules flying around your head, Tim. Just hovering. All right, cool. Anything else we want to. Want to make sure we're. We're chatting about as far as activities go?
I have one more which is something I haven't done yet, but I've really wanted to do is I got me once having this amount of time on my hands and also doing so much like one on one with my kids more than I usually get to, because usually at school and I'm at work or whatever, but I got to thinking about Larry Grimaldi and his scrapbooking method that he does with his daughter, like, in their. In their field notes, notebooks. So just a shout out to that, like, and maybe we could link to that episode, because I think that is a really cool activity for people to do. That sort of method of taking a notebook and leaving messages to each other and also, like, just recording things in kind of a multimedia fashion in a pocket notebook. I think that's something that I really want to. Want to get into once we get into a groove now that we're basically going to be. We're guaranteed to be in this situation for at least another month.
Yeah, at least.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. All right. Do you want to go through some Q and A?
Sure, totally.
I'll make it bigger to see people.
So from here on out, I should say, if you. When you ask a question in the Q and A pod, if you want to, please let us know if you want to come on live and talk about it, either through audio only or video, I think I can invite you to both. Maybe just audio. We'll see. Please, please let me know. Or if you would just rather us, like, read your question out Loud and answer them. We can do that, too. So I'm happy to do that. So, yeah, just kind of going down the chat pod, the Q and A pod here. Ethan Siegler says. So excited. You guys are awesome. Thank you. Ethan, you are awesome, too. Question. But, you know, nice to hear. Thank you very much.
Good start. Good start. Very nice.
Sadman, you had a couple. You had a couple questions here. And is that do you want to go live or do you want to. Do you want to. Just us to answer your question, like, read your questions out loud. I can do either one. I don't think Sadman is actually here with us at the moment. So let's see what they say about that and then we can jump back.
We have a question from Jason Cobb.
Jason Cobb in the chat, in the Q and A pod.
There's a Q and a pod. Oh, my God.
Yeah, there's a separate.
Yes, he's talking about one in the chat. So Jason Cobb says he's watching with a couple of his daughters and they want to know how many kids each of us have.
Actually, we can. Let me see if I can. Jason, if you are. If you have a sound source hooked up, you are now live. We can hear you. Hey, good evening, guys. Hey. It's good to hear you. Wow, this works. I just want to make sure it worked.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I've got a couple of my daughters here. They enjoy listening with me. Willow and Felicity. Say hi, girls. Hey, Willow. Hey, Felicity.
Hello. That's cool.
I just wanted to know how many
kids you guys have.
Yeah. Too many.
Yeah, I'll go first. I have two kids. And I have a daughter named Lila who's three years old. And I have a son named Henry who's 6 years old.
I have three. Charlotte will be 10 in April, Henry will be 7, and Rose will be 4 this summer. And they all do like pencils.
And I only have four children, so Sebastian is a cat and he is seven. And Rupert is a cat and he is five. So my house is considerably less. Less chaotic than my co hosts usually.
Usually at the middle of the night when they're probably sprinting around in circles around your house.
That's true. I mean, I assume your kids do that, too, right in the middle of the.
They do that all day long. That's.
Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Felicity. Thanks, Willow. And thanks, Jason. Yeah, I'm going to disable your talking now.
There's got to be a better way to say that.
Yeah. There's got to be a better way. Taking away your voice yes.
Remove.
So, boy, I'm just kind of going through the list here. So something that Sedman asked, which I don't think he's here anymore. What are your thoughts on the Blackwing 840? They still haven't released in the UK. I'm curious if they are worth buying. So we kind of introduced them. We just had them in our possession during the last episode, but we haven't really. But now we've been with them for like another week or so. So what do we, what do we think? Are they. Are they worth buying? Yeah. Remember, Charles is listening.
Oh, here, hold on.
Pause. Nice. Yeah.
Mo Willems did that in his first video and I laughed my butt.
I think they're great. I think they're. I've been using one before. I sharpened up this test scoring 100. And you know, the pearl is not my, like the. Sorry. The medium, the balance core is not my favorite of the course. In fact, I think it's my, like, out of the four cores, I think it's my least favorite. But it's still to say it's pretty nice and I like it a lot. I like that gold. It's kind of hard to see as the execution of the theme, like as California's coast when it's kind of wrapped around a pencil. But I think it looks really nice. I love the color.
Yeah, I don't, I don't have them in hand, but I, I am more and more attracted to them the more pictures I see because I really like that it has a. Like an asymmetrical design to it. I like what you're saying, like where you can't see the whole coast. I actually love that. I love that it's kind of different every direction that you're looking at. So.
Yeah.
Just haven't. Haven't pulled the trigger on yet.
Yeah. Paul had a question for me and he said please, please, no audio or video. So I'll just read it here. Way back on episode two, which I need to listen to that. That was a deep cut. You mentioned a pencil holster to be worn on the belt. Care to model it? A couple things. First, no way to wearing sweatpants. No way to like have a belt. But B, it's also buried where my box is. It is pretty interesting though. And I don't even remember where I got it, but it's basically just a little like leather, like dongle for my belt that has two slots on it that you can put a pen or pencil in. Real nerdy looking.
I have no memory of that. Whatsoever.
I don't know what he's talking about. So I. Yeah, I. I should figure out where I put that and pull it out because it's. It's pretty bad. It reminds me. It has a biggest, you know, that, you know, like boomer dads have the like cell phone on the belt kind of look. Yeah, that same kind of look to it. Julie McFarlane. McFarling has a question for Johnny, or excuse me, for Tim and Julie. If you have an audio device on, you are now live and you can ask your question. And if you. If you don't, that's fine too.
The little audio thing has a line through it.
Yeah, looks like. Yeah, looks like she is muted. So I'll just ask the question. Tim, how's the guitar playing going?
Oh, it's going great. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I've been playing a lot more, actually, just in general, but even like, as going into this, like, crazy quarantine state, I've been playing a ton and I've been enjoying. I've got this parlor guitar that I've talked about before that I've been playing all nonstop and I'm. I'm trying to work through. I'm trying to work up a set list because I want to record like some videos just like share with friends and family. It was kind of the idea originally. I've got some friends who like to play a lot and so I was just gonna like swap videos with them and stuff. So I've been practicing some tunes.
Do you have your guitar with you?
I don't right now, actually. Sorry. Oh, shucks. They're both upstairs actually. But yeah, and I've been writing some songs. So I've written. I got like three or four songs written in the last month, which I've really been.
We got a really nice preview of one of those songs in person.
Yeah. So I'm gonna. That's one thing I definitely hope to spend some time on over just this extended time at home, is to take a few evenings and do a better recording because I just shared with them, like, what I did on Music Memos, but I'd like to record a better version and I. I've got plans to get together with my friend Jason, who's co host of the Membership, another podcast, and we're going to do some FaceTime writing sessions to write some more music together. Thanks for asking. I've been playing more than I have in years.
Thank you, Ethan Siegler. If you have a microphone hooked up, you can ask your question for Johnny. I Assume.
Well, you guys spend time here.
You guys. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hey, that would be great.
I just want to hear that accent live and just thick.
It was so funny on the podcast.
I'm feeling on the spot. I don't know what I ought to say in the. Baltimore used to have. I think Andy and Tim do a pretty good job. They've been here. They met my dad, so that's pretty.
So I can't remember. I can't remember if we talked about this on the show or not, but I admitted to Johnny that I, for a very long time, thought he was making it up. I had never heard anybody use a Baltimore accent. And then I hung out. Right.
That funny.
Oh, no. And then Johnny and then Andy and I sat in the back seat of your dad's car with you guys in the front seat and, like, had a moment of, like, looking at each other
like, oh, my gosh, Johnny. Johnny is. Well, first. First we heard Johnny's dad talk, and we were like, Johnny is so channeling his dad. But then we heard his mom talk.
Yeah, she's an original hun.
We're sitting there in, like, a food hall, and she's like, oh, I'm gonna get some of those hands. Like those noodles. I can't even do it. I watched them. Nachos. Nachos.
I wrote about nachos in my poop, Joe.
Yes.
So, yeah, that was. Yeah, that was pretty. Have you ever been to Baltimore, Ethan? Have you heard of Baltimore Accent, like, live? I've never. No, not even close. I didn't know it was that. That thick or that real of a thing.
It's awesome.
Johnny is not exaggerating.
No.
Yeah.
I'm glad that you thought I was making it up because that means I successfully covered up most of the time.
Yeah, we had some. We had some lift drivers, too.
You cover it up really, really well. That's kind of a surprising thing.
Apparently, if I've been drinking, it comes out, like, big time. That's why I don't drink.
Ethan, thank you. I'm gonna hit you, put you back. Good chatting, Judy. Judy says since meeting in person. Well, actually, Judy, do you want to go live? And if so, you're here. And if not, that's fine, too
Cool.
I will. I will take Judy's question. Since meeting in person, what is your connection like now? Which is a really good question. Yeah. Anybody? Anybody? Take him or leave him.
It's definitely different. Yeah.
I mean, I feel sad when we're, you know, just doing audio like, it
was such an intensive few days. That was what was so crazy about it. Like, you go from. You talk to some people for. I mean, we've been talking for six years online. Never all in the same room, but talking a lot. Like, what do we have, like, 200 hours clocked on Skype or something together? Probably more than that. And you spend three straight days together, like every moment of every day. And almost literally, because we didn't sleep a whole lot. We were up until like 3:00 clock and then Johnny was making his coffee at 7:30. So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely. It makes talking a whole. A whole lot different. You kind of get a better feel for the other person's. Like, I know with Andy, because I'd never been in the same place as Andy before, but, like, just being together for the first time and then talking online, it's very different because I can kind of read you better, you know, or something.
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a good point. Like, we've. I mean, we've been in video chat before and. But for sure, for sure. Like, just seeing everybody's kind of live mannerisms and the way you are and like, you know, Tim is his, you know, whole entire person, rather than just what I hear online and what I talk through. You know, how we talk through text every day. So I definitely feel like, yeah, we learned that, you know, this is a friendship that is well past just having a podcast together. Right. Like, yeah, hang out and have fun.
There's absolutely zero. There was zero moment of weirdness. Like, after we, like, met up at the airport, like, when you guys came to meet me at the airport, it was just like, all right, here we are, we're going. There's no sort of awkward transition. It's just like, I know these guys. Let's go. And that was really fun.
Yeah. So thank you, Judy, for your question. Trying to think of ones to go through. Johnny, did you want to answer the anonymous attendees?
Are you guys open to new pen pal letters to new pen pals to share letters with? Like, yes. Speaking for myself.
Yeah, I can't promise a timely response, but I think that'd be fun.
Ditto. I've got a pretty poor track record with at least a quick response, so I'll get back to you at some point. But yeah, I mean, for sure.
Maybe we can. We can put our addresses in the chat pod or how we want to do that.
Yeah, look at that.
Or like, yeah, good question. Well, maybe. Maybe the best thing to do is, like, if Y' all are in our Facebook group. Hit us up at. In private messages there. But then also, if you are not just at. Yeah, email us@erasablepodcastmail.com we can. We can exchange physical addresses there. Almost everybody has my address if you've ever ordered a plumbago or not. But yeah. Andrew Rice, I. Let me see. Here you are.
Oops.
So it will not allow me to let Andrew talk because you are using a. An older version of Zoom. But I am happy to take these questions from you, which is to say, which level of shelter in place are you each experiencing? I'll take my answer off the air, which is. Yeah, he answered your question right there. We talked a little bit about it at the beginning, which perhaps you weren't here for, but I think San Francisco is the. Probably the strictest right now. Maybe we are sheltering in place officially, which means that we're not supposed to leave unless it's for essential travel, which could be grocery shopping, could be picking up food. It could be caring for people with medical needs, that kind of a thing. Nobody's, like stopping anybody. But I've heard tell in the Bay Area of people issuing tickets for not maintaining social distance, like citations by the police. That's here in San Francisco.
I meant to tell you that we. We have a couple that we're extremely close with that live in Atlanta and they both work for the cdc. And one of them was in San Francisco for a while as that when that ship harbored kind of processing the ship and doing. Doing a lot of stuff there. So pretty interesting. I was talking to him about that the other day. So here in Tennessee, it's that we. Our governor is taking the stance of here I'm going to tell you that you shouldn't meet in groups bigger than 10. And I'm going to say all these things about what you should do, but ultimately I'm going to leave it up to all the different counties to make their own decision, which is annoying because they're all going to end up in the same place eventually. It's really annoying. So.
So
they did announce today, like an official. No restaurants are allowed to open. Like, they can only serve takeout or pick up kind of food. So that's at least something. And they said no people in groups larger than 10. But at least in my area where I am, people aren't really heating it very much. I mean, you definitely notice as you drive around, I had to go out today, which, I mean, this is stupid, but I'm just gonna say it I had to go out today because we have been planning for like a year and a half to buy some new appliances, and we were waiting for this, like, sale, and so I had to go to Lowe's and buy, like, multiple appliances today. And I was, like, freaking out about going because I think our family is taking a stricter stance on it than most people around us are. For good reason, we think. So we've been staying in, but I went to Lowe's and there were like 11 people at Lowe's. It was. It was crazy.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
How about you, Johnny?
We are not shelter in place yet, but the governor is closed. Like, most everything but food venues can stay open.
Johnny froze. He looks very pensive right now.
He's just thinking. Just let him think. Let him think, Andy.
Yeah, but bless you.
We. I think you. You froze for a good 10 seconds and. Oh, God, you were. You were stuck like this. Okay. But you're back.
I wasn't stuck.
You just blacked out for a minute.
Yeah.
Pause.
Yeah.
Cool. John. John Morris. I don't know if you have a. If you have a microphone hooked up, but you are now here to talk. If you would like to.
You have to.
Yeah.
Sup, John?
Hello, everyone.
Hey, John.
Hey, John.
Yeah. Nice to meet you by voice. Yeah, nice to meet you.
Likewise.
So, obviously a lot of us were jealous that you had the lovely event and the east coast in Baltimore at the pen show.
Looked awesome.
Sounded awesome. I wish that was there. I know a lot of us wish we were there. Are you ever going to consider coming out to the west coast either? San Francisco? Seattle? Good question. Good question. Johnny. Tim, obviously not now. Yeah, yeah, someday. Right, Johnny. Johnny doesn't really fly, so I think that train ride would be kind of. They do have.
You know what? That would be such a fun trip by myself with no children.
I feel like that was. That was mentioned when we were in Baltimore, I think in private. Like, we talked about that, didn't we? Like the next option. Trying to go somewhere else for that. So. And I mean, I'd be definitely down for. For a West coast trip. It's just. I feel like it's. The logistics are always crazier.
Yeah.
So make you.
We'll make you come down from Baltimore or, excuse me, from Vancouver, If. If that happens, John, I would totally do it. Totally do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
Maybe, like. Maybe California would be the best. Yeah, we have. Charles is really great. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's.
That's.
That's close to all the tech buildings, right? Yeah. San Francisco, close to the Oracle Building and. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was. I drove by that place with Mark when I was in San Francisco for the. Yeah. For the meetups. Yeah. Yeah.
Well.
And I'm hearing in the chat that Charles Berlsheimer is happy to host a West coast erasable podcast at Black Wings headquarters. So. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah.
Somebody screenshot that.
That's amazing. Yeah.
Good chatting, John.
Hey, John.
It's good.
Good talking to you.
Yeah. Nice, guys.
Cool.
So, Charles, speaking of, who do you. You can now talk, if you would like to Charles, and ask your question, if you have anything hooked up. My question. Oh, I'm up. Hey. Hey, guys. Hey. How's it going over in where. You're in Monterey right now, aren't you? I'm in Monterey, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I was asked. I was thinking about your parents. I know this has been an interesting, challenging time for my parents, so kind of wondering what's going on with you guys and your families outside. Everybody asked about your kids. Yeah, yeah. That's a.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah.
My parents live in Fort Myers, Florida, with my grandmother. So my last living grandmother on spring break. Yeah.
Yeah.
My nephew had it before he left Syracuse. He went to spring break. I couldn't be any.
Yeah, yeah. I've seen some videos of people of that.
Yeah.
Like. Or just not of your nephew, but just in general. People still doing the spring break thing? Yeah, they live there. Actually, all three of them got hit with the flu really hard before all this happened, or my mom and my grandmother did. My grandmother's turning 90 this year, but my dad got really sick, and my mom is. Is the one who pointed out yesterday that a few days before he was sick, he spent like 10 hours in the Seattle airport, and it was right around the time that stuff was going down. And so she's like, he might have had it. Like, we don't know. He might have already had it. But right now they're doing well and they live in the same complex. And so they've just stayed inside exclusively and just kind of taking care of each other and trying to stay out of everybody's way. A lot of the people who live there have left to go back to where they live the majority of the year to be closer to their. Their doctors and things like that.
How about you, Johnny?
Cool. So my parents both compromised immune systems and they're both retired. So today my brothers and I finally talked them into not going anywhere anymore,
but we've been dealing with the same thing.
Yeah.
They live like three quarters of a mile from here. So if they need something, I can like, you know, leave it on their steps and run. But they're just restless but safe.
Yeah.
My parents are in a similar boat to Johnny's. They both have immunocompromised situations and the. So my sister who lives in. She goes to school at University of Texas in Arlington, headed back home because they shut down the campus and told everybody to leave. So she went back to Indiana and she got back on Friday and she spent the next few days just like going and hanging out with friends and going here and going there and I was just like, stop, stop. So a bunch of very, very urgent sounding texts and just like going on tour. Yeah. And just like. Which is what she normally does when she goes back home for Christmas break and for spring break and stuff, summer break. So she. That's her usual thing. And so finally convinced her to shelter in place. And you know, Indiana's. Indiana's gonna require that coming up here and on Wednesday, I think. So they're. They're good so far. My mom has kind of like a permanent respiratory thing. Like she. We just hung out in Tucson the week before we went to Baltimore and she had a cough and I'm almost certain it was not a COVID 19 related cough because she just always has a cough and she didn't have a fever or anything. But I know that she's compromised. So I'm hoping people are going to start taking it seriously and play it safe.
So.
Yeah. So, Charles, hope your parents are. Stay healthy and stay safe. They're, you know, they're in their 80s, they're having fun trying to, you know, trying to keep them. My mom actually went out and got a hair, went to the hairdresser. She sent me a photo and they opened the shop just for her. The receptionist came and the. And the hairdresser. And the hairdresser wore a full Hazmat suit. Wow. I'd share the photo, but I know it'd become a meme on the Internet. That would be amazing. So, you know, it was challenging to keep them to stay in, but. Yeah, I hope you and Ginger are staying safe and staying in and. Yeah, no, we're good. So everybody's good at Blackwing and we're doing what we can to share and communicate with everybody and just. Well, you're. Well, you're here. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't ask if you want to give us any spoilers for upcoming releases. Spoilers?
We can we can make the last
one out, you know, it's true. Yeah, no, it's. That's quite all right. We have some fun things coming up,
but, you know, cool who.
We'll see how it goes. Yeah.
Has the Blackwing headquarters been effective? You said everybody's doing well there, but have you had to, like, alter any sort of, like, hours or operations?
No, we went about a week before the California order, you know, shelter in place order or stay home order. We went to work at work at home. So we've been working at home. Our group all works with, you know, slack and asana and all those tools. We started using Zoom today. We had a big Zoom conference call as a first assignment. After a week and a half to see everybody in one place, just to kind of check in and visualize. It's great, you know.
Yeah.
But we have a small crew that kind of holding the fort down, trying to get a few products out here and there when we have orders and all that. So just trying to catch the backlog up because we did have delays in the supply chain going well. Thank you. Thank you all for still going on, and also thank you for this amazing Blackwing sharpener. It is fantastic. The new one stage. Yeah, that's been a fun one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Cool.
We should. We should have you on more to talk about the creation of that because it's. It looks like there's a lot more than just, you know, slapping your name on somebody else's sharpener in place for something like this. That was a long. We've been talking about where. When are we going to do our sharpener? Yeah, yeah, that's right for us and what's the right and that? You know, I can't claim much credit for that. We have a great team. Alex, you guys have had on before. He led that project and leads most of the new product. Cool Blackwing these days. So, yeah, you can just hang out in Monterey and live the life. Well, I don't know. Yeah, whatever that is. Whatever that is. If I actually did my bullet journal for a day, it took me about five minutes. You know, wake up, got a pee, go back to bed, try to sleep. Wash your hands before you go back
to bed, though, Right.
All right, Charles, thank you for hanging out and I'll put you back. Put you back in the attendee list. Good chatting.
Thank you so much. Thanks for the question.
I think we have another 10ish minutes to go, so I figured maybe we can just go until we hit the end. Alan, Alan Troutman, I don't know if you're still on, but I don't see you in the attendees list. So the question Alan had was what are the best tools you trust your kids with during this time? Which I. I don't trust my kids with any tools because they'll. Table. For those of you with actual kids, that's a good question.
Tools like most expensive pencil.
Maybe just ask the question.
Like the most sacred objects, stationary objects that you allow them to.
Like any lxo Casco sharpeners or anything like that.
They've broken so many of those I've just lost count. Yeah, I think, I mean my, my kids have their own classroom friendly crank sharpener which they, my six year old is better at using that than all of my high school students combined. What is this? I don't understand. Like there's like they, I watch them like try to stuff it in there for like a minute. Like. Guys. Okay, just give it to me. Give me your pencil. So that's one. I mean Henry, just in general. And I know your kids, Johnny, you'd say the same thing there. He's pretty flesh. Black wings. So I feel like that's just as far as pencils go. He's got access to anything he wants. So he comes down and roots through my, my little cubicle organizer thing that I've got in my, in my office and pick something now and then.
Yeah.
And field notes. He's like always stealing field notes. That's. He uses them up so fast and he like cuts, cuts pages out of them when he does drawings that he likes. Like keeps them up on his wall.
Yeah. Like.
Yeah. Butcher Blue. That'll, that's fine.
That's great.
I wish.
Yeah. Johnny, how much?
Yeah. My kids, they don't always wait for me to say yes. So sometimes it's something like, oh, I had more black wings than this. And then Rosie's got some black wings.
So there's two elevens everywhere.
Yeah.
I guess the short answer is if I don't want them to have it, I hide it. And then like my missing box of two 11s. I don't know where the hell it went. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's gone.
But
Charlotte has a box of D4s around, but she guards those herself.
A box of what?
The 54. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the fuchsia ones.
Yeah.
Aaron Day, you are, you are on air if you want to. Oh, I see a nice picture of you very jovially sitting on a velvet couch. Please ask your question.
Hey, Aaron. What's up?
How's it going?
Good.
I love the couch. Oh, my God.
It's at a coffee shop brewery here in Kansas City. City.
Yeah.
Anyway, so my question was, do y' all have any practical tips on pursuing writing when y' all are either tempted
to leave the inner dialogue, story or whatever inside of you or.
And more specifically, like, in this season where more people are isolated and possibly tempted to despair? Hmm. So despair makes for really good creative writing.
Can I go first? Routine.
Like. Like anything. Like, I have add, adhd, so I need routines. And if I want to get writing done, I have to have, like, that time that I always set aside, because then my Catholic guilt will kick in and, oh, I shouldn't be, like, you know, playing my base outside and drinking coffee.
Right now.
I'm supposed to be doing some writing. I do that, like, in the morning when I first wake up. And then later in the morning, if there's anything I have to do on a computer that involves writing, I'll do that. But, yeah. Long way of saying routine. Definitely.
Cool.
Yeah. I think with, like, I was talking about the songwriting earlier, and the biggest difference with me with doing that over the last couple weeks has been, like, being limited to being inside. And so it's. It's given me the great, great joy of just having no choice but to finish things. So that's been really great for me to have smaller assignments. I mean, a song is not a small assignment, but it's. You know, you can run through one pretty quickly, and then you can spend forever revising it, but you get that really satisfying first draft of that song done within, I don't know, 20 minutes, and I'll have that and just really have fun playing with it for the next few days or something. So I think that's the biggest thing to me is just giving, because you can cut out. When you are forced to cut out all the different voices that you're passing by every day throughout your life, and the people that you see, and maybe you don't even realize they're the critics in your head that you see at work or you see coffee shop or whatever, when they're gone, then suddenly it's a lot easier to quiet the voices in your head. At least that's what it is how it feels for me, because that's just like, the voice in my head is just begging to be heard over the sound of shouting children. So, yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah. Thank you.
I owe you a letter.
Aaron, by the way.
So I saw your comment.
Yeah.
We've exchanged many letters and I owe you one. So expect that soon.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Let's take maybe just a couple more and. Yeah, that we can, we can wrap it up. Dan Douglas, if you are, if you are around, you are promoted to being able to talk and ask questions.
Permission to speak.
Thank you very much. Hey, Dan. Having grown up myself in the cornfields of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Really. Oh, hey Dan. I fell in love with pencils back in the 70s with this really cool pencil with a rectangular eraser that you could remove. What was it that started it for you guys? Yeah. Well, first, Dan, where did you go to school? I graduated in southwest Allen county at Homestead. Yeah.
Okay.
Nice. Sorry.
Fellow Hoosier.
Fellow Hoosier here. So the pencils that we use. So I went to through the Catholic school system. I went to St. Jude for grade school and middle school. And when we were like 1st, 2nd, 3rd ish grade, we used those like semi thick Dixon school pencils that are like kind of a navy blue and say Dixon on them and big letters and they're unfinished at the top. And we always had like those big like those pencil cap erasers. But we had like special kind of like semi thick ones. And those are what I used there. But I didn't like them very much. And I will admit that I spent most of my time wishing that I could write in pen because that's like grown up, right? Like. But I, I think for me I was the exact right age where Yikes. Pencils were the cool pencils that we all wanted to use. So used a lot of yikes. Pencils at home and when I was permitted at school. And then also those crappy pencils that have the like little points that you take out and you put in the back and you know the. Oh yeah, yeah. Hate those now, but I love those back in the late 80s, early 90s.
Yeah.
What about you? What about you, Johnny?
Probably the Eberhard Faber and Faber Castell American. I think this is what my parents bought. And they have the same little ferrule as this. They're very simple. And like whenever I like fancy pencils, I always sort of gravitate back toward the aesthetic of like late 20th century cheapish American pencils.
Nice.
Yeah.
And I like getting into all the heavy duty stationary stuff. I got into fountain pens first and so I went through that in high school. Yeah, like, I didn't really like, I didn't think about pen. I wasn't, I didn't really get into pencils until I was Much older. So like I got. I was. I loved good pens when I was younger.
And then.
And then the pencil that broke me out was. Or that got me into this was that I found a Dixon Ticonderoga round, which I've never found another one since because I don't think they were like that. They didn't make a ton of them, I guess. Or at least, or it was older than I thought it was because I found a half sharpened round Ticonderoga, like really like got my mind running because I liked round pencils. And I think I had some Steinbeck stuff going on in my head where I knew. I knew I was looking for some kind of round pencil because I was so obsessed with Steinbeck. I will say there was one pencil and it was a. A pencil type that shall not be named, rhymes with reconnaical. But my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Harveth had mechanical pencils that looked exactly. That looked like wooden pencils. Like they were colored and they colored to look like an actual wooden pencil. And now you see a lot more of those. I think paper mate makes one. But it was something like that. And that was the coolest thing to all of us that entire year of fourth grade. So we all wanted those. So I remember being being like obsessed with that.
Well, thank you. Dan. Do you still live in Fort Wayne? Are you elsewhere now? No, I'm up in Cleveland. Oh, nice. Very cool. It's funny, I know a guy named Dan Douglas in Fort Wayne, but I. Yeah, I don't think he is you. Nice chat and thank you for coming on.
Thanks, Dan.
Thanks. So we should probably wrap it up. I have a bunch more questions on here and maybe what we can try to do throughout the next little while is just like type answers out to some of these questions where that's easy to answer if anybody is interested in that.
You're doing a lightning round.
We have to do Terry Beth's Terry Beth question.
She just wants a happy birthday.
Okay, so let's hold on a second here. Terry Beth, if you are. If you have audio hooked up. Hey, Terry Beth. Hey. So, yeah. So Sunday it's your birthday. Yeah. Should we all sing Happy Birthday?
You should.
Yeah.
Actually, you know what I'm gonna do? I can unmute everybody in this call, so. Oh, shoot. You know what? I can only unmute all the panelists. Somebody else say something like, not one of us.
You don't have to sing.
No, I want to sing. Okay. I think I've just unmuted everybody, but maybe it's Just the three of us. But should we sing?
Let's try it. The delay. We'll make it happen.
The delay is gonna be really hard, but it's gonna be amazing. Let's try it. It's gonna sound great. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. That sounds. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday Ter. Beth Ledbetter.
Happy birthday to you.
Yeah, sorry. But thank you.
I'm sorry.
Good chatting with you. Cool. Thanks, Jerry. Beth, Happy birthday. We should probably wrap it up. Are you guys ready?
Sure.
Yeah. Johnny, where can people find you on the Internet?
I know where to be.
You can find me@pencilrevolution.com where it has been updated more lately obviously. And on social media ensolution.
That's Tim.
You can find me on Twitter timwassom and I'm on Instagram timothywassom.
Nice. And I am@woodclinch.com my first post in months. Now put that up yesterday. Or Andy, wtf? And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram as wellfley. So this is the Erasable podcast. Johnny, prep your outro music. Get ready. This is the Erasable podcast. We are at Erasable Us. You can find this episode at episode 136 at erasable US136. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook as erasablepodcast. And you can join our Facebook group which is@facebook.com groups erasable. So I'm going to go through and thank our producer level Patreon subscribers. By the way, you can find our patreon@patreon.com erasable that is Alex. Jonathan Brown, Anne Sipe, Bob Ostwald, Bobby Lutzinger, Chris Jones, Chris Metzkus, Chris Ulrich, Dave McDonald, Dave Tubman. Fourth letter gangster hotline. Hans Zunleman, Hunter McCain, Jacqueline Myers, Jason Dill, Jay Newton, Joe Crace, John Baynon, Johnny Baker, Kathleen Rogers, Kelton Wiens. Larry Grimaldi, Leslie Tuzo, Mary Collis, Measure Twice. Michael Diolosa, Mike Hagen, Random Thinks. Sarah Hunter, Stuart Lennon, Tana Feliz, Terry Beth Ledbetter. Thank you. Happy Birthday and think Travel Eat. Thank you all very much and we will see you very soon. Hit it, Johnny.
Stay safe. Which one of you is gonna sing?
Sing. That's you, Johnny. You're a one man band.
A singer in the band.
Well, maybe just the music then. Oh yeah. How many times did you go?
I don't remember.
More.
Yeah. Or next time. Okay. Thank you all for joining us. And yeah, we will. We will catch you next time.
Love you.