Scribe

This is a side note, but we need to go on, try to, like, find somebody on, like, Amazon or somebody that's written, like, a really aggressive review for a pencil just because they're, like, an angry reviewer, and then find them and get them onto the podcast. Hello, and welcome to episode 147 of the erasable podcast. This is Tim Wasem on head hosting duties. Andy and Johnny are here to cast some pod. How's it going? Hello.

Yeah, man, it's good to talk to you.

This is the first episode in which we will be previewing our new podcast, which is called Indelible, our short Patreon extra that we do about pens, which the first one was very well received, so we plan to make more in the future. And the main topic of our podcast of this episode. Son of a bitch, Johnny. I even made it past the main toilet part and I was like, I got this. I got this.

Okay, I'm starting over.

Hello, and welcome to episode 147 of the erasable podcast. This is Tim Wasem on head hosting duties. Andy and Johnny are here too. Let's cast some pod, guys. How are you doing?

I'm doing all right. It's the first day back of school for me, and it's been a long day for me and for Henry, and so we've. We've had a. We've had a long day of virtual teaching and learning, so. But we're. We're doing good. It was. Overall, there will be.

Good, good, good. I'm. I'm sick of it. Tell you, I'm sick of it. So the. The first episode. Yeah, once three o' clock hits, I'm not learning a thing. This is a closed mind right here. The first episode of Indelible, our short Patreon extra about pens, was well received and we plan to make more in the future. And the main topic of this episode can be viewed as a sort of preview to the future Patreon extras that we might do. So if you enjoy this and you want to hear more Indelible, subscribe to our Patreon at any level, even just $2 a. To get in on some inky fun. But of course, this is still erasable, primarily. And so we plan to bring you the usual, like, pencil goodness tonight. But we're also lucky enough to be joined by Jessie Rain, who will be with us later to share her wisdom about vintage Esterbrook fountain pens. Vintage Pen restoration and other fun topics. So this is an all out writing instrument extravaganza. But before we start this party, let's start off with our tools of the trade. So, Johnny, since you're just my favorite, why don't you start us out right now?

That was. That was sarcasm, Johnny. You're trying to kamikaze me in the. You're trying to kamikaze me in my. My. My script, man.

You sure do. Yeah.

The whole episode's not about fountain pens.

I watched the first few seasons, I think.

Not apologies. I didn't say it was a bad name. Yes. It just sounds like somebody from Orlando.

So I was like, oh, okay.

Yeah, I have on, on the subject of Davis Sedaris. Johnny was talking about that book. I go through a phase probably twice a year where I just can't do anything but listen to David Sedaris audiobooks and read his books because he does all the audiobooks himself and he's a really good performer. And if you haven't heard him, you need to check him out. He kind of came to being well known for being on this American Life on NPR with some really amazing essays and those are still out there too. But I have been actually reading, which I had it on my Kindle and had gotten away from it. But after talking with Johnny and kind of going through one of these Davis Sedaris faces, I got back to theft by finding which is his, his diaries, like excerpts from his diaries over the course of like 30 years. So he had been keeping these diaries for a long time and there's going to be another, I guess another volume of it eventually. But he is a. And I really love his method of keeping a diary. So what he does is he keeps a notebook in his pocket. And right now he, he uses Rollbahn like. Oh yeah, kind of like reporter reporter style notebooks.

Yeah. So he, he said that I saw somewhere that when he was in last time he was in Japan, he's like, I bought these notebooks which have a German name but are actually made in Japan. He bought like 50 of them. Like he just, just like bought a ton. And so he, he keeps one of those in his front pocket and he keeps notes all day long just, you know, jotting things down in this little hardback flip notebook. And then at the end of the day or whenever he' whatever his writing time is, he keeps a diary on his computer. And then at the end of the day or at the end of the season or whatever it is, he, he prints off his entire diary. And then he has them bound or he might even bind them himself actually, because he mentioned that he takes a, he's taking classes and in binding. So. And I'VE heard from him somewhere. I forget where I heard this, but Yale bought all of these, like the complete diaries of David Sedaris, which are going to be available in some fashion, but he released a curated selection of them and they're very good. They're very. In these short little entries that he does. I mean, most of them are pretty short, but very entertaining. But I, I just. I've always been a big fan of reading the journals of writers and the collected letters of writers because it gives you these very, like, hyper specific, unfiltered thoughts from them. So I'd really recommend it. It's a big book, but it's a book that you can read just in little bits over time. But yeah, so I've really been enjoying that. I've also really been enjoying the new Taylor Swift album, which is a big jump from the, from, from David Sedaris. But have you guys listened to this yet?

Yeah, it's. She kind of surprised everybody and came out with this album that nobody knew she was making. It had been less than a year since her last album, Lover, came out, and it's called Folklore, and she did most of it with the. The Brothers of the National. Is it Destner or Dressner? What's their last name?

But yeah, she made this album remotely with them.

Exile, I think it's called.

You can actually hear his voice and he's so. His voice is so low. It's almost like shocking.

It's like a. It's an impressive thing to sing that low and that, like, on pitch, you know, like, it's pretty cool. So I've really been loving that album. And I was. I got some. Jane got me for my birthday some night. It's not my birthday yet, but she gave them to me early because I can use them at school. She gave me some noise canceling headphones, like, and so today I was working and like between classes I was listening to that album on noise cancel. Noise canceling headphones. And it was, it was Amazing. So.

Was Mr. Wasson, please answer my zoom call, please. Another album I've been listening to is an album by Mavis Staples, who I've talked about before is like one of my favorite voices ever. But she made an album with Jeff Tweedy from Wilco a couple years ago called if All I Was Was Black. And Jeff Tweedy wrote pretty much all the songs or co wrote all the songs with her. And it is, I'm not going to say it is just an incredible album. It is so good. It is kind of a perfect album for right now. So if you haven't heard it, check it out. I, I was stumbling through. I. I went to Barnes and Noble for the first time in like six months to check on something and they had a 50% off final sale.

Yeah. And it was. So I got that and then I got the Yo Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone, like his, his scores from Good, Bad the Ugly and stuff. Yeah. So I got, I got those two albums and came home and was like a little like excited schoolboy. So.

Yeah. But it's a great album. So if All I Was Was Black by Mavis Staples, great album. And then the last thing I'll mention is I just started listening to John Dickerson's new book, the Hardest Job in the World, which is his. An amazing, so far amazing book about the history of the presidency and the scope of the presidency and what we should be looking for in somebody who's a president of the United States, how the jobs changed over time. It's fantastic. I'm really loving it. And we also need to talk about it because there were black wings.

Associated with it. Yeah. So he, he had there. They released is questionable how it was handled by, by blackwing. But they're like, hey, check out these pencils that weren't available to you. And so apparently they were made so that he could give to his like the people that he had interviewed or the people that had been involved in the book. I guess there were some mention that they were supposed to go to people who preordered the book. But I know Adam on Take Note says I pre ordered it from his website and I definitely didn't get pencils and I would be, you know, like, like that would be the person who would notice if he got the pencils. So. But they did take like they put out a, a questionnaire where you can request to be notified when they're made available. But they have really Good. Like kind of semi obscure quotes from. From Presidents on the side. And they have a. They're like a two tone color. I forget I don't have them in front of me, but I think it's like red and is it red and white with blue writing? Is that what it is?

They are, yeah. I mean I. So I put my name on a list. If they come out and sell dozens of those. I mean, I would definitely, definitely want those. But. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I've been very long winded. But. But that's what I've been consuming, aside from what I'm teaching. And I am writing with a blackwing eras in my Moleskine pocket hardback notebook. Yeah. All right, well, let's. Let's jump into freshpoints and Johnny, go for it.

I still say Blackwing eras.

They're sold out though, right?

Yeah. Mine were somewhere in between. Like, mine were not like pristine, but they weren't like perfect. So, like, not enough to bug me. So, like, I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

Using it recently and I talked on the last episode about some of my thoughts about, like, just the idea. Because I know, like about some of the, you know, questions that people had about the idea of putting out a replica of a vintage pencil from a company that didn't make the vintage pencil. Like, they didn't make the old one. But, yeah, I won't re litigate that. But like, I've been. I've been enjoying mine quite a bit. I mean, I've been using it a lot and it's. It. I. I like the minor touch that they. And this always seems like it might be a placebo effect or whatever, but I like the minor touch of making it a little harder than what we think it would be because that almost makes it feel older, you know?

of a harder point, like. So I think they, they did, they did good on that side of it. But I've really been enjoying mine. I'm about halfway through one and I ordered. I got two dozen. My second one I haven't gotten yet, but it's not like I'm hurting for it to show up, but it's because they've been swamped with that. So, yeah, I've enjoyed them quite a bit. So I'm sorry, Johnny, that yours showed up in such rough shape.

Please send pencils.

Was.

Interesting. Yeah.

Parker.

Yeah. So I mainly I really have one thing. It's not like a news thing per se. Oh actually I'm going to back up. I got one thing I want to mention first that I found at school. So I got this new teaching job. When I got there, one thing that was left for me from my predecessor was something called metaphor dice. Have you guys ever seen these? No.

They're kind of like that along the same lines. And so they come. It's a. It's a set of nine die. So it's. There's three red, three white, three blue. One of them is a. Like a noun. One of them is a descriptive kind of phrase. And then the last thing is an object. And so you. Every time you roll, you get one of each color and you roll them and then it gives you like Blank is a blank. Blank is the. The way that you use it to kind of spark an idea for like a poem or whatever. And you don't have to use it in that how it lands. Of course you can spread it out and you can spread out throughout a poem or whatever. But the guy who makes them is a poet and like a teacher. His name is Taylor Malley or Molly. I don't know if what it is but like there. There are a couple different versions of it but I was. I would inherited a set of these and they are so entertaining. And there's also an app you can download. It's two bucks and it's. It's the dice as well. But for some reason the. The dice are more satisfying. There's fewer options that you get from the dice. But there's something like really satisfying about that. So I made a list. So I'm going to read you a list of some of the metaphors I got from my hand rolled dice. And I'm actually missing one of my cubes. But these are some that I got as an inspiration for a poem or whatever. The future is a last second promise. Hope is a rugged thunderstorm. This might be my favorite one. Love is a handed down trophy. My Birth is a broken promise.

The future is an impossible brand new toy. Which. That one's pretty great, too. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, I don't know. Metaphor dice. It was really fun. So I was. And there's a couple different versions of them. And there's an app that you can get that you, like, swipe and it rolls the dice and then you can write a poem and everything. So I recommend that. And the only other thing I was going to bring up is I had a little bit of an epiphany. And in order to tell you guys about my epiphany, I have to tell you about a fantasy of mine. And this fantasy.

Buckle up. This fantasy of mine involves something that is going to be shocking to both of you. It's going to seem like something impossible. Like, how would that ever happen to somebody like Tim? And that is. The fantasy is that I would one day run out of stationary. So I found myself thinking, I was like, man, I wish. Because. And David Sedaris prompted this because he was talking about. I read a interview where he's talking about his notebooks and how he has this one caran d' ache pen or whatever that he uses that. It's like, it's his one pen. I was like, he has one pen. I have 700 pens. Has one pen. And I have all the pens. And this is driving pencils and this is driving me nuts. And so I just, like, was fantasizing about it and I realized. And so just follow this logic. So basically, like, what I started thinking about was the fact that, like, running out of and needing to pick out something new seems so attractive to me. But me and you. Me and you too. Like, and a lot of people who listen to this, we share, like, a collective sickness, which is an assumption that these things that we love will be gone one day. Like, that they're going to disappear. And so I've got the antidote to this. The alternative to this antidote is me, like, liquidating my supplies and starting over, which is just insane. That's not going to happen. Like, spent too much, too much time on this. But the, the, the. The antidote is trying to, like, for me at least, is trying to focus what I'm using on a couple things until I finish them and then treating my crazy stockpile like a really awesome stationary store that's in my basement.

Yep. I'm gonna be like, I finished that pencil I was using and it was so great. I need another Pencil. And I'm gonna go down and maybe I'll borrow some of my, like, kids fake money and I'll, like, pretend to pay for the stuff that I get from my. From my store. But, like, that's how I'm gonna think about now. It's like, I'm gonna pretend, like, because, I mean, I've got so much stuff, and it's not like I'm gonna start giving it away so I can start buying crap again. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna treat it like it's my own private stationary store that I can buy from or, like, buy gifts for other people from. And then that's going to be how I sleep at night. So can't.

Rob myself? Yep. I. I wake up in. In the morning. I. In my bed and I wake up, I got, like, pencils all over me. I'm like, what have I done?

Yeah. So that was it. That's kind of like a weird. That's a weird one. But that was a thought that I had to go through over the course of a couple days. And I feel like I ended up at a. At a decent place that didn't involve me doing something stupid, but also involved me feeling like a minimalist even though I have, like, an entire room full of stationary. Yeah. Nice.

All right, well, you guys want to get into our main topic tonight? Sure.

Let's do this. Hello and welcome to episode number two of the Indelible Podcast.

And we were excited on the second episode to introduce our first ever guest, Jesse Rain. Jesse is known far and wide in our inky circles and on the pen show circuit for her careful and detailed restorations of Esterbrook fountain pens, a grand old American brand that made versatile, accessible steel nib fountain pens throughout most of the 20th century. Jesse, thank you for joining us.

Yes, it's true.

Yes, it's very important. I'm trying to turn things around in my life, and it just seemed like the right choice to kind of adding extra letters. I think some more. More letters equals more respect. So that's what I thought.

That's what we're trying to do here. So for the benefit of those who are listening at home who may be pencil purists and don't, you know, don't mark that against them and might not go into pen shows except to see their favorite podcasters perform live. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Nice. And that's a. I mean, a perfect segue into my. My next question was about those. It seemed like they're back or whatever. Like, I remember being at the. It was at the. Was that the D.C. pen show, Johnny, where we first met.

Which one was it?

It was dc. Yeah. We were in DC and they had like, Esther Brooks. It was like kind of the thing at that point that they were coming back in this, like, latest iteration. So is this like an actual true continuation of the company or is this sort of like a picking up the torch or like, oh, you've let this sit here and no one's using it. So we're going to take it and make something completely different or make something our own version of it. Kind of like Blackwing did or something with pencils. But which of those two is it?

Well, so you can go and buy old nibs and then buy like a. If you needed to, for whatever reason. The pen bodies you get from. I forget the name of it. What did you say it was? The company that bought it?

Hi, my name is Tim. Nice to meet you guys. I just got here. Whatever. The V company that bought it.

Kenro. Kenro, the K company. I'm sorry, it's been a long, it's been a long day. So they. So you get the bodies from those you're saying will fit with these vintage nibs that you see all over ebay or see on websites and things like that.

Yeah,

The pens that you're. You have listed for sale are not only like, restored on the inside, but you also do, like a beautiful restoration on the outside. They look really clean. So what other kind of things do you do to restore an old Esterbrook on the outside? Like, what's that process like again, without giving away too many secrets?

By the way, you're like, like Clorox wipes.

Oh, yeah, please.

Of course it is. That's awesome.

Just stop talking.

So ever since I got into fountain pens, I have been kind of obsessed with the idea of the Esterbrook dollar pen, though I don't have one myself. But just like that idea of a, of an affordable pen that performs well and is sturdy and holds up and all this. And so the reason I was obsessed with it is I always was curious, and I still am curious. What are modern equivalents to that, like pens that are fountain pens that are made today that are some of your like favorite contemporary fountain pens that might also fit in that niche of being affordable but also really good performers that'll last a long time. Kind of like if you put them in a time machine and took them back to when the dollar pen was at its height, like would be a sort of a comparable. A comparable sale.

Yes, basically. And yeah, and especially in like the affordable realm. I'm not talking about like sailor pens today that are like 200. That back then would have been 20 or whatever. But like some of the less expensive pens today that would have like held up in some way or maybe there's nothing that would fit this category, but just that would. That would hold up next to like a Esterbrook back in the day.

Yeah.

It's all been a setup for this question right here.

Pencil. Never.

Come on.

Yeah. Well, I think. I think a future episode of this podcast has to be that we send you a sampler of pencils and then you give us your, like, totally honest opinion, and then you can be like, black wing. What is this? I think we need to. I think we need to make this happen. We'll. We'll send you. Send you some pencils to try out, and then you can give us, like, a pure, you know, like, outsider pencil.

Yes, that sounds like. That sounds great.

And then we just like, spend the episode being defensive.

you don't get it. You just don't get it. What kind of sharpener are you using? Come on, let's go back.

You can try, but I don't think it's going to work.

and over and over.

Oh, no, but you have to do it every 10 minutes.

Yeah, that's what I have my teacher's assistant do it. Oh, yeah, it's like, just hand them pencil sharpen sharp. No, I better do it again. I've got an idea.

I don't think I ever do that. I do remember getting in trouble for taking too long to sharpen my pencils.

You're, like, cranking it. Cranking it too slowly.

Yeah, wait till the teacher says something and then crank it again.

Yeah, sometimes.

Come on.

Earlier.

Yeah, it's kind of incredible. Yeah.

That's the only option we had. It was either. Yeah, it's like either a pencil show or a pen show or like a pipe fitting show and pen seemed closer. So it's like.

There's no pencil shows. Well, no, no.

Well, Jesse, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a lot of fun and we definitely want to have you back on at some point. Can you tell people where they can find you on the Internet to, to check out the, the pens that you're selling or just to, just to follow you in any way that you like?

All right, Andy, where can people find you?

How about you, Johnny?

and I'm Tim Wasem. You can follow me on Twitter timwassom or on Instagram timothywassum because I'm fancy on Instagram. And if you are, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting us on Patreon at Erasable Us Patreon. That'll give you a link to our account. This we we give out extra episodes every month that'll be things like this where we give kind of. We will give out episodes that are a little different than the norm of what we do. Or they might be like extras where we take a have a guest go beyond what we talk about on the episode. So it'll be extra content and also some goodies that'll come along the way. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter erasablepodcast on Facebook. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com group erasable and like our Facebook page at facebook.com erasablepodcast Please take a second if you haven't already and rate and review us on itunes or recommend us on Overcast or whatever podcatcher you use. I want to take a second to thank our producer level patrons on Patreon. Alex, Jonathan Brown and Sipe. Bob Otswald, Bobby Letzinger, Chris Jones, Chris Metzkus, Chris Ulrich, Dave McDonald, Dave Tubman, Fourth Letter Gangster Hotline. Hans Noodleman, Hunter McCain, Jacqueline Myers, James Dominguez, James Spears, Jason Dill, Jamelia Joe Crace, John Banon, KP Kathleen Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Leslie Tosette, Mary Collis, Measure Twice, Michael Diallosa, Michael Hagan, Millie Blackwell, OA Pryor Random. Thanks. Stuart Lennon, Tana Feliz and Terry Beth Ledbetter. Thank you so much for your support. We couldn't do it without you and thank you for listening and we will talk to you soon.