This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
I was wondering if you can crank up your volume a little bit.
So I got it in one take though. Hello and welcome to episode 153 of the Erasable podcast. We are live, like live for real this time on the Internet on Zoom. I'm Tim Wasem on head hosting duties and I'm joined by Andy Welfle and Johnny Gamber as you can actually see in front of you if you are part of our Zoom call. So thanks everybody for coming to listen. And Johnny and Andy, it's really good to see your faces.
Yeah, so we usually, we usually don't have video turned on when we record just to like, you know, save extra bandwidth for audio. So it's, it's weird. It's weird seeing your faces and seeing faces of so many other people who are here too, which is awesome.
Seeing your weird faces.
Yeah, it's super weird seeing your weird faces.
We appreciate everybody joining us on Sunday, an unusual day to record for us, but we wanted to make sure we recorded to do this, this little event recording at a time that was friendly to people in different places in the world so that we could see hear from everybody and not just those in our general area. So I know people have been spending tons of time on Zoom and so like I have with my students and you guys have and work and all that. So we're thankful for you allowing one more Zoom call in into your, into your week. So after our usual check ins, we're going to do our tools of the trade and fresh points. We're going to talk about what we're thankful for this year. A little positivity is good during 2020 and after that we'd love to hear from some of you that are here in the Zoom. So why don't we dive into it with tools of the trade and Johnny, get us started.
So I just read a book called in the Great Green Room which is a biography of Margaret Wise Brown who, who any of you with kids will recognize from like every children's book that our generation read, which was really good. She had an interesting life, but sad. She died in her early 40s in a really kind of freak way that I won't spoil. And like everyone else in the world, I'm in the middle of season four of the Crown because.
Because obviously.
Yeah.
And so my third thing is a band out of Bristol called Idols that I was thinking of streaming onto here but there's a lot of naughty language so I won't. But other stuff's on Spotify. You guys should totally Check them out. They're one of those punk bands that says they're not a punk band, but they have really interesting and woke lyrics and a lot of bad words you don't want your kids to hear. And I'm writing with the tiniest bit of a cedar point and I'm writing in a cool notebook that I'll talk about later. How about you, Andy?
Yes. I too have been watching season four of the Crown and it's been really good so far. Also watching. There are, there's a new season of Somebody Feed Phil, which is that show with Phil Rosenthal, the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, who's also like, travels the world and eats food on Netflix. And they did one in San Francisco, which was really fun. They did one in the Mississippi Delta, which was super fun. Yeah, that was a really good show. I've been reading this book called
I
can't remember if we talked about this last time. It's called Dark Matter and it is a anthology of science fiction written by black authors. And they have some from like, really long time ago. Like, they have some from like the 1880s and they have something written by W.E.B. du Bois in like 1930 called the Comet, which is about like a comet strikes the earth and they're trying to recover. And there's some. That's a little bit more, a lot more modern day. Really good, really good anthology stories. And probably here. Yeah, here pretty soon I'm probably going to read the new Barack Obama book that just came out. Yeah, Jenny, I can hear you slurping.
Oh, I'm sorry,
it's coffee.
Yeah, yeah. Jen in the chat says I'm English, so I don't watch the Crown. Like, that's just, that's just your everyday life. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to watch. I know that timeline wise, it's not super accurate. Like, chronologically there's a lot of inaccuracies, but I have zero idea if like they capture sort of like the ethos of the, the royal family and the history of that. But it's good television.
Sometimes I find that show, and I'm watching it as well, but, like, I find it exhausting because I expel so much brain power trying to like wrestle with how could they possibly know that? And then if they made that up, why did they make that up? It's just this like constant dissonance in my head of like trying to like reconcile the show to reality, but then also being, yeah, it's a great show. And these Are good writers. Wait, but did they actually say that? Or does this.
I like to think that Queen Elizabeth watches it and just sits around and just is like, oh, we are not amused.
Like science fiction that happened.
Yeah.
Or if she's like waiting for certain things to come up on the show, she's like, oh, God, I hope they don't touch.
Oh, God, I am.
Who plays. I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
Good. The actress who plays Diana looks like my youngest daughter with the short haircut.
She is going to look like Rosie Freaky. Yeah.
It's unnerving. Sometimes when she does something funny, I'm like, oh, no, my daughter.
That's funny. And I am writing with, with a write notepads gold field because I don't know why I just found it in my toolbox the other day and I was like, oh, I really like that pencil, which is, it's a bridge pencil. So it's really, it's really skinny. Right. With my gold field in my be stickered Leuchtturm notebook. Yeah. How about you, Tim?
Well, besides the crown, I have been listening to a lot of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings I think I've talked about before on here, but really incredible Americana duo. And the reason I been listening to him for years, but I got back into him because there's a really fantastic feature on them in the New York Times. It was last week. There's like almost two weeks ago. But if anybody here listens to the daily, the New York Times daily podcast, last Sunday they did an audio version of that New York Times story. Like they do it like audiobook style and have a, an actor read and, and then have like music interplay. Like music kind of comes and goes in between as they're talking about different songs. And it's really well done. So there's this writer from the New York Times went into Nashville and spent some time with them. And if you're, if you're not familiar with them, the, they're kind of the two ways that they're probably most well known is that Gillian Welch was one of the voices for several songs in oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Oh, she was in that trio of voices, the women that sang in that. And then she sang on a couple of your songs, like, so she came out that way, but she's kind of like a titan in the Americana field. And David Rawlings produces everybody. Like, you know, I know Ryan Adams, who's not really everybody's favorite to talk about right now, but he produced a lot of Ryan Adams and some of some other stuff.
So.
But yeah, really loving that. And they put out. They're putting out these new. It's like lost recordings sort of. But she. They tell the story in the New York Times article. But apparently she had a contract, like a songwriting contract, and she wanted to get out of her contract and move on, record her own albums. So in like, it was something crazy, like three days, they recorded 48 new songs.
Wow.
And he would just go through. She writes. And this is relevant. She writes in pencil in like a college bound. A college ruled notebook. She said. So I would write in pencil in these college ruled notebooks. And David would go into the next room and just kind of siphon through all of her lyrics and be like, hey, I like this one. And here's what I came up with. Give it to her. They'd record it like in one take and then they'd repeat. And they just did that over and over and over. So all those collections are coming out now, which is really, really cool to hear these, like, urgent songs that were written just in a flash, which is, yeah, really cool. So I'd recommend listening to any of her stuff. But also that New York Times article is fantastic. And then you can listen to it on the Daily. So enjoying that. There's also a new live album from the War on Drugs, which is a band I like a lot. It's called Live Drugs. Or if you ask Alexa to play it, she'll say, live Drugs.
Live drugs.
Living that drug life and now playing live drugs. That's what she says. And I am reading A Promised Land by a guy named Barack Obama. So wait, who? You might have heard of him.
Volume one.
Volume one on Jimmy Kimmel. I was watching his Jimmy Kimmel interview, and they're like. And Kimmel said, did you write 700 pages? Just so Trump wouldn't read it. And even in Obama was like, I don't think it had to be 700 pages to keep him from reading. I think 10 pages would have been too much for that guy. But. But it is beautiful. It is so well written and it's wonderful. I'm gonna talk about a little more later, but I highly recommend it. I got. Jane bought me a copy, the physical copy. My wife bought it for me. And it's really physically beautiful, well made book. And I also had the audiobook, which is read by him. It's like 29 hours of.
Yeah, somebody. They were joking about that on npr, that he's not a fast speaker. So how long he is not.
Yeah, he talks about that in the book that his kids make fun of him for talking so slow. Um, but yeah, well, I listened to him at 1.25 and it's perfect. So just. Yeah, that's me. And I am writing with pencil wise. I've got the Musgrave Vanx pencil that came with the nice that we're in. So I'm using that, which is really nice. So I love a good round pencil, so I'm always eager to use that. And then I'm using one of the Jeff Tweedy field notes there from the Wilco, using the Jeff Tweedy one, which has like, you know, honey or like be and honey imagery on it. It's really, really great. So that's all right. How about let's get into some fresh points and go back to you, Johnny, start us out.
Awesome. So first, we have sort of podcast announcement for folks who have subscribed to our Patreon. At $5 a month or more, you're supposed to get a subscription to Plumbago, but Plumbago is on hiatus. So we're going to be making a quarterly zine called Disposable just for patreon supporters at 5 and up. So it's like nice and exclusive. So if you don't subscribe, you should totally subscribe. And. Yeah, well, the next one will definitely. The first one will come out before the end of the year for sure. Probably sooner. And speaking of zines, I see Brandon, who is very small, who has a really cool zine called Wagon Full of Books, that's. I think it's addressed to children, but I mean, I enjoyed it. My kids liked it. It's not itty bitty like mine. It's huge and written on a typewriter.
And he's looking for it right now. Yeah, yeah.
So we'll have a link in the show notes to Brandon's shop.
Do you actually. Brandon, do you want to unmute real quick and tell us about. About this scene? And if you don't want to, that's totally fine.
All right.
Can you hear me?
Yeah. Hello?
Oh, hi. Thank you. And it's nice to meet everyone. This isn't intimidating at all.
You're great. You're doing great.
No, so this one, Johnny, you had it right. It started out addressed to kids and it remained kid friendly. It is still for your children. But as I wrote, like, I kind of discovered a lot that the adults would like. But I make zines using my film photographs. Here's my original one. And it started out being called no Damned Pixels and so the kids one is called no Darn Pixels and issue one is wagon full of Books. And it was a day that my kids school gave away a bunch of books because the principal got smart and did their library clean out at the time that Covid had shut the schools down.
That's perfect.
And when the kids came to get their possessions, which was kind of a scary event because there's a bunch of math teachers handing out garbage bags of kids stuff, he was like, take books, lots of books. Take lots of books. They're free. Have fun. And I documented it and kind of started writing and it ended up being like a treatise on banned books week and censorship and, you know, a little bit of affirmation that kids need to hear right now. Is any of this what you read, Johnny?
Like, yeah, I read it several times
and some of my friends got in on it from the typewriter community and started submitting their poems and art. And I won't give away the best one it. My buddy Sean came up with it, but it's the inside coverage. But I really appreciate you guys plugging it, but it's just. It's a nice analog zine for kids. I call it a zine for zine for little punks.
Where, Brandon, where can people buy this? By the scene.
I will send you guys a link because I tried to. It's still the square shop link. The generic one they give you. Because when I tried to make a custom one.
Yeah.
A lot of chaos ensued and I panicked and restored the standard one because all I just told the whole world I made a thing and then the thing could not be gotten.
Yeah.
So I'll send the link into the chat and to Johnny.
Cool. There's this really great place called the word distribution. It's a zine distro by our friend Ed Kemp, who is also here on this call. You all should connect if you haven't already.
Yeah, I will check that out because I'm trying to do the publishing and distribution myself and Johnny can tell you the results are bad.
Cool. Thank you, Rand.
Evan, thank you.
I appreciate it. Yeah.
Awesome. And in other zine news, I have issue nine coming out. Oh, wait, today it's already out with tiny little notebooks. So you can go to my Etsy shop and grab those. And non zine related, Musgrave came out with something this this week or last week called the Sidekick. Did you guys get one of those?
I didn't get one, but I saw them. They're very cool.
Oh, so pretty. They're red Cedar carpenter pencils. I don't think there are any other on earth made. And they're laser engraved with. It's like a bucking bronco. But my dad really likes Mustangs, so this was like a sale for him. Like, hey, check us out. But they're a little pricey. They're what, 12 or 13 bucks for a three pack in a really beautiful box. But I think they're totally worth it. They're so pretty. I haven't sharpened one yet. I will. And finally, Baron Fig came out with another really cool confidant notebook this past week called Letters to the Future, which is really cool. It's so pretty. And I say this correctly, it comes with envelopes and each page is formatted to be a letter that you could send. And the whole book is perforated, but the formatting is so low key, you could just use it as a notebook if you wanted to. So that was pretty cool. Like they've been making way cooler stuff lately than other people.
Do you have one of these in hand, Johnny?
I have one across the room.
Okay. Well, I was just trying to figure out how many envelopes does it.
Oh, not that many. Maybe five or more than five, less than 10. It made the box sit up a little bit. Yeah, but they're very fancy.
Yeah, they, it's. It's such a, it's such a cool idea. I was really, really hoping that there was going to be something that I don't have one, but that like you could send it to like Baron Fig and like tell them when you want them to mail it back or something like that. Then in like 10 years you get this letter back. Like, how cool would that be? What did Johnny do? Just knocking everything over, see bookshelves collapsing.
I'm almost disappointed there weren't more like expletives there when he. That happened.
Yeah, you should definitely just leave this in the show.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I love the box. Like the very shiny, like metallic look. I wish, I wish Les was here because she has one. So I have been in Johnny's apartment and it is not this big.
He might have gone downstairs, he was like, yeah.
Hey, you're back, Johnny. It sounded like absolute carnage when you, when you stood up. And I'm not going to care.
But to answer your question, how many envelopes are there?
10. Okay.
No, 12.
Sorry, 12. Yeah, I was telling Tim, I think it would be, it would have been really cool if you can like send these to Baron Fig and like you tell them like, hey, in 10 years, mail this back to me. Like, I'm sure they're not at all set up to do that, but how fun would that be?
I do that with my students when I. When I teach. When I was teaching freshmen, they would write letters to themselves as a freshman and then when they graduated, I would hand it to them and like they could hear themselves. Like a little time capsule. That was always fun.
That's a really great idea. Everybody just mail your letters to Tim if you want them to send them back.
They do have a little line that says open date. I don't know if this shows up.
Okay. Yeah.
But that would be an interesting service for USPS to offer. They had like a warehouse somewhere like, hey, mail us this thing and we'll send it in five years.
USPS has a lot of. Has enough other things on their plate.
Yeah.
Anyways.
Yeah.
Default.
Yeah. I really want to.
Good.
Sorry. Go on.
I was. Those are all of my fresh blankets.
I just need a furniture. Yeah. I feel obligated to point out I see Corinth cat on camera, which is. I'm obligated to point out a cat when I see a cat.
So Benadryl.
Johnny's just sneezing.
Cool. Well, Andy, you want to go next? Yeah.
I don't have a lot of new fresh points. I guess most of mine are like desk related. Oh man. Paul Moorhead is a cat too. Just seeing. I can't concentrate with all these cats. So for the first time in 12 years, I am betraying my millennial values. And I bought a printer and it is. It's funny, the last printer I had was WI FI enabled and it was. It's just like WI fi, like enablement was more of a suggestion than it was like an actual thing. Like it didn't just never really connected to the WI fi. And this one I bought a brother HL2350DW, which is very catchy of a name. Memorable. And it's like 100 bucks, $120 I think as double sided. You can prints out. Then it sucks it back in and prints the other side, which is great. But it connects to the WI fi like a dream. It just connects and it stays there. You can print from your iPhone or your Android, which is kind of magical. Like I know that this is technology that has been around for a minute, but like it's just.
And I love that you sound like you just discovered it.
Let me tell you about this thing called a printer. Yeah. It's just been forever since I've had one in my House. Because I've always just sort of like fed off that sweet mother's milk of having an office printer, and I don't have that anymore. So if I want to print like a random, I really. Johnny, I have to say you inspired me to buy it because now I can make my own zines. Like, just so I. I don't know quite yet what to do with it. I have some like, San Francisco related zine ideas that I think I'm just gonna like, leave around and the tiny bookshelves around the city. Um, but I haven't quite gotten there yet.
I think you should make something about cats.
I mean, might as well, right? Henry's request. Does Henry like cats?
Yeah. I feel bad being so allergic to cats because I can't even be around them. My kids really want one and then they want a dog and I'm allergic to dogs.
Maybe you should move.
I could just get my own studio apartment somewhere else in the building.
That's true.
That might be wonderful.
The. I mean, they, they. I was gonna say they make hypoallergenic dogs and cats, but like, they. There are hypoallergenic dogs and cats. Like, they're wire haired and they don't have as much allergy.
I actually really, really don't like cats.
He's all that too.
Keep that to yourself.
Yeah, sorry, I'm just not a big fan.
Yeah. Corinne's cat is. Is glaring at you for saying such a thing. I'm sorry.
Glaring at me from like two or three miles away.
Yeah.
Could be there in a minute, man.
So. So yeah, that is my. That is my. My printer story. I just like, I printed out a to do list for Whole Foods the other day just because I could. And the other thing I got. Let's see if I can detach my camera here. I bought a cutting mat to use as a desk mat. And I don't know if you can see it right here, but they had this really beautiful blue one on Amazon. I'm trying not to buy too much Amazon stuff, but it was like $13. The mat of this size is usually like in the 30s of dollars. Yeah, the 30s of dollars title. 30 so dollars. Yeah. Oh, I see. Hunter has a dog on the screen. Oh, man. So cute. You know, kids are great. Love seeing kids on the screen, but you know, cats and dogs. All right, Susan, I'm just kidding. Your kids are the best. What was I even talking about? Oh, yeah. So bought a cutting mat. I highly recommend it as a desk. Like a desk pad. Right. Like, I'VE been looking for one that fits this like weird ass desk that I have. And yeah, this is, this is really good. So that's, that's about all that here. I don't think I have any like new pencils on the horizon. We're all sort of waiting patiently for, for Blackwing last year they announced the new pencils like four days ago, 2019, like November 19, 2019. And I think we're still waiting. But yeah, except for my fresh points. How about you, Tim?
All right.
I just got a couple and one, I was going to go back to the bomb book and so I've been writing actually kind of a lot for the last two weeks, which just felt really good. It's just, you know, sometimes when it's just like bursting out of you, it just kind of happens in little nooks and crannies here and there and you don't even have to think about it. And I'm kind of in one of those phases and I'm hoping to write that out but. And I think part of the reason that it's happening, Andy, is that pen you got me in, our indelible pen. Swap it. Just like all of a sudden I just got like obsessed with it and I started writing. I've emptied it out twice, writing in legal pads and just like really getting a lot done in fiction writing. And I've been enjoying that. And in conjunction with that, I always like we've talked about it a thousand times right on the podcast about how like writing by hand is different and how much we enjoy that.
Everything all right? Yeah,
they're decorating for Christmas upstairs and it just sounded like like a head just hit the ground or something like that. Okay, sorry, that was really loud. But so in conjunction that reading Obama's book, he I think stated in the best way I've ever heard why I enjoy writing by hand so much. When I'm working on anything, really any sort of writing project, I'm going to
read it to you.
It's like three sentences, he said. And by the time I was ready to get back to work and sat down with a pen and a yellow pad, I still like writing things out in longhand. Finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends a half. And Len's Half baked thoughts, the Mask of tidiness. I had a clear outline of the book in my head. So it's from the preface and I just love that description, right, that, that Len's half baked thoughts, the Mask of Tidiness yeah, there's an episode title, the Mask of Tidiness.
The Mask of Tidiness.
Just put it up there.
But, but I, but I love that quote. I love it and gave me even more, more of a reason to respect. Respect the dude. But so, yeah, so there's that. And then the only other one I've got is that since we're talking about Zine so much, I feel like since Ed was on the show all we've done is talk. But I have one in the works that I'm working on and I have no sort of timetable set out for this, but I'm very excited about it and I've got it all planned out and I'm working on the first issue now, but I'm not rushing myself. But the title is Twilight Rock is the name of the zine. And the zine is focused on music and specifically artists careers after they. After 50. So like, um, I think like some of the most interesting stuff that musicians produce happens after they're 50, but it doesn't get any. Doesn't get as much love typically because we're such like a culture that worships youth and everything from the end of their life is compared to what they did at the beginning. But yet when they're at the end of their career, they're. They have this kind of like, I don't care what you think attitude and all of their influences from their youth and all the experience of their life kind of crash together and they end up making really interesting things. So I'm writing a first one that's kind of like a. Just making that whole argument about why I find this so fascinating. And then the second, the second one's going to be about John Prine. The third one's going to be about Mavis Staples. And then I'm going to do a series of a few about Bob Dylan. So those are the few that I've got mapped out so far. Yeah, yeah.
Tim, I, I assume you're. You're well versed in the, the John Prine controversy with Jason Isbell and who else?
Yeah, it was Amanda, his wife. Amanda Shires. The.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was not. So anybody doesn't know the story. He was. John Prine was not even mentioned at this year's Country Music Association Awards, which is kind of mind boggling. Not even in like in memoriam sort of thing. They didn't even talk about him at all. And so Jason Isbel and his wife were the first to then end their membership in the Country Music association. And turn in their cards. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, why don't we.
Why don't we.
Why don't we get. Get positive, start talking about. Start talking about what we're thankful for. So this has been, like, a super messed up year. We started out the year meeting in person, which was amazing. We got tattoos, we hugged, we podcasted in person, and we ate some really good food, stayed in Johnny's apartment. Two weeks later, the country shut down, and I haven't seen anyone since.
But no, I'm not saying it was. It was our fault, but I'm sor. Everybody. If it was, we'll do it in
the reverse and say that Covid was waiting for us to get together.
Yeah, that's true.
Or it unfolded.
That's a good point.
But since then, 2020 has felt surreal and unreal. But it's important to still find things that we're thankful for. And with all of us here with the Internet pencils to talk about friends, to make this happen, I think it's a good thing. So we'd start with five things for 2020. If you got five things. I don't even know if I have five things, actually, but five things that we're grateful for. And then after that, we'll open up the floor and hear those of you who are. Who are joining us in the. In the zoom call. So do you want to kind of go around the horn kind of one at a time, or should we just kind of roll through them one by one?
What do you think? What do you want to do, Johnny?
Let's do it around the horn. That's interesting.
Yeah.
Okay. So, Johnny,
so the benefit of going first is I get to say this first. I'm very thankful for my two co hosts.
Oh.
Our adventure, our tattoos, our podcast, all of you, everything. This is one of the constant bright spots in my life, so that's my thing.
Oh, that's wonderful. Well, that was first on my list too. But I mean, honestly, I think sort of like, you know, the. The extended irascible podcast universe, right? Like. Like this community. Just the fact that, like, you know, on a. On a Thursday, we're like, hey, we want to do a live episode. And then 40 people show up just to hang out and chat on a Sunday when you could be doing something else. This. That our, you know, Facebook community. Just the group of people who, like, have kind of, like, come together over pencils and extended the situations, like the Field Nuts group and the RSVP group. Like, this is A. This is a really good community. And in fact, like, everything with. Even with everything shut down, we're all still finding ways to come together, which is really cool. Yeah. In fact, it spurred stuff like this, which I probably would never have thought of if we were all just on zoom anyway, kind of locked in our houses. So. True. Yeah. So the erasable community, for sure.
Yeah.
And I'm might be a little bit of a. But I think it's just very closely related that I like to kind of piggyback Andy on what you were saying is that I would say that I am very thankful to have a safe space to be this interested in something that is not, like a common interest, you know, I think. But I don't mean that. Yeah. Not trying to be funny necessarily. I just am saying, like, it's something that I really love, something I'm really interested in. And to have this kind of a community in the Internet, it's like almost like the perfect example of what the Internet can be, because I don't have to worry about finding people around me and getting them to talk about this thing that I'm interested in, because I know I've got you guys, and I know I got people in the group, and I know I've got letters coming from people, and it's really. It's really a great comfort. And it's like to have this own little. Its own little universe that you can exist in in perfect comfort and know that you can say some. You can get out and say some totally obscure garbage about barrel shape and, like, how, you know, scratchy a pencil feels or whether an eraser is petrified or. And people will be like, I got you.
I got say no More fam.
So, yeah, so that's just to kind of close that thought out with all the. All that mushy stuff. I think I'm very thankful to have. Have all of you.
Yeah.
Oh, sorry. So for number two, I have to say mental health care and everybody that makes it possible and available because, you know, on a good day in America, one in five people has a diagnosable mental health condition. So, you know, that's not broken down during COVID and it's gotten stronger in
a lot of ways.
So very happy that exists. I know a lot of people who aren't doing well, and they would be doing a lot worse if there wasn't such a thing as teletherapy, if CVS wasn't shipping things they don't usually ship and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is. This is a, this is privilege as much as it is luck. But I'm thankful to be in a, in a job and a career that like, has not been affected too much by. By Covid. Like making, making software that, you know, people can, people can use and use at home is, is a privilege and a pleasure. And I'm thankful to have a, to have a job and be able to do that job from home in this, in this very room where I spend most of my, most of my time. So I'm. Yeah, I'm glad for that for sure.
And again, not to just piggyback on you, Andy, do it.
Do it.
Mine's almost like kind of an inverse of yours is that my, my line of work is heavily affected by Covid and it's just like constantly a struggle like where you don't know. I'm, you know, those of you don't know. I'm a teacher and I. We don't know until Thursday what the next week is going to be as far as schedule. Are we going to be 100% in person? Are we going to be hybrid? Are we going to be totally virtual? What is it going to be? We don't know. Like, it's a week by week basis. Like right now we're virtual and. Well, that is really frustrating and also feels a little bit like teachers just get kind of ignored in all this sometimes. At the same time, I'm very thankful for where I work because I started a new job this year and I think that my. Where I work now is kind of the best possible place that I could be during all this because they're, they're really good at virtual teaching. They've been doing it for a while and learning like LMS softwares and stuff. And so it's made this time just, I mean, just a little bit less scary and unusual because while you got it, you know, to start a new job during all this was scary in its own way. But I just, I work with really good people and they've made it really, you know, as good as it can be when. During a time when things are so unsure. Achy.
So I get to go one more time. I think that my children are doing so well with virtual school because last spring there wasn't a lot of synchronous time. So they just would get worksheets and I would print them out and they would finish their work in two hours or one hour and be like, hey, I'm bored. Oh my God. But this year they're doing well. You know, kids pick up technology freakishly quickly. And my oldest is a lot more outgoing now, and Henry kind of holds relatively still, sorta. Henry's there every day at lunchtime. I want to mash up some of my Adderall and put it as lunch,
but don't do that.
But, yeah, I think across Baltimore City, it's going pretty well for people. So I'm happy that the kids are all sane and happy and learning and, you know, getting to be kids a little bit.
Yeah. For my last round, I think. I mean, I think I want to get. Get pretty specific here, Johnny. I mean, some of it is because you. You did not mention it. I expected you to, but you didn't, so I'm just going to steal it, which is. I am thankful for our. I mean, let's be perfectly honest. I'm thankful that Ed Kemp came on and preached the gospel of zines and zine making, because I have a crap ton of them from. From Johnny and from other people and from myself. And there's like, this is a. This is the perfect. Honestly, the perfect thing to just, like, get the mail during this time during COVID So I like, you know, I feel like, Johnny, twice a week, I'm getting something from you in the mail because you. Because you make so many zines. And I've been, you know, buying some, and it's been. It's been a lot of fun. So I'm really thankful that this is something. I feel like this is like the third. There's probably. Probably more than this. But, like, to me. To me, for myself, this is like the third wave of. Of, like, scenes, right? Like, just kind of where I got super fancy and made some, like. Oh, can I point them out? Oh, weird. Sorry.
Yeah, I've been.
Look at this.
I've been kind of obsessing for a little while.
What.
What has happened to my video?
I keep waiting for your headphones to line back up. And
for those who are listening to this, my. My screen seems to have split. I'm using a GoPro as my.
You've been flipping us off this whole time on that other side.
Yeah. You don't even know. You can't even know. So, okay, here's. Here's my webcam. But, yeah, really weird. This little, like, plumbago zine. Like, I've been. I think we've been getting pretty, like, fancy and, like, well polished with this, which is still a lot of fun. But I. I love being able to just sort of go back to, like, you know, a kind of a handmade Hand printed, hand distributed scene, which is really cool. So, yeah. Don't even know what happened with my video there. How long has it been like that, Tim?
Five minutes, maybe.
Yeah.
Okay, great.
I'm not even looking at myself.
I thought it was just on my screen. I didn't want to say anything.
I seen that, too.
Yeah.
All right.
And my last one is similar in the sense of, like, creative. My creative life in the last year. But I would say that I'm really thankful for songwriting, which goes for both, like, doing it, but also listening to good songwriting with. I mean, I've talked about Jeff Tweedy's book coming out, and I've kind of, like, I grew up playing music constantly, and it's something that, like, kind of in my adult years, I had little kids. Like, it got harder and harder to do. And I know, Johnny, you can. You can sync up with me on this. Just, like, when you get to a point where you can kind of get back to playing music feels so great. And songwriting itself is so perfect for this time because it gives you. And I think I'm sort of stealing part of this from what I've heard Jason Isbell say that songwriting's power is that you're not held to any genre whatsoever.
Like, it.
It can be a little bit of essay, it can be a little bit of poetry, it can be a little bit of fiction, and you have, like, zero bounds for where you go with it. And I think that's really freeing and wonderful. And I just love playing my guitar, too, so. So I think songwriting has been a defin.
Playing.
Playing music during this has been something that's kept me sane for sure. And I'm very thankful to. To that over the past year,
and
thankful for the kids I hear in the background. No, that's great. All right, well, do we want to open up the floor to. To others just to kind of, like, talk about, you know, either stationary or other things in their life that they just want to discuss? Yeah. Trying to think of a good way to do this. Would it be better if, like, we asked people, like, raise their hands and I can, like, unmute them and, like, ask them to talk? Or would it be better to have people just, like, weigh in. In the chat, and then I'll, like, somebody will call on them? Or do we just want to have a free for all and everybody just go, what? How do we. How do we want to do this?
I like the first option.
Yeah, the first option.
Sounds.
Is there a way to do that
if you don't know how to do it in your zoom screen, there's a little thing that says reactions. And feel free to just choose whatever emoji you want to hand raise or a thumbs up or a heart or something. I think we will test this out on our friend Corinne Litchfield. Sup, Corinne?
I am good. I am down the street from our beloved Johnny Gamber.
Throwing distance.
Yeah. So my thankfulness is probably going to make you laugh a little bit. But when I heard you were doing this, I thought, well, there's only one thing that really comes to mind, and that is I am thankful for Chris Roth of Write Notepads. And I'll tell you why. Because it was almost two years ago that I met Johnny Gamber through Chris and he and I became friends. And I found out about the Erasable podcast and I invited you guys to come to what ended up being the last physical, the last hurrah of 2020, the BWI pun show. For folks who don't know, I worked as the assistant organizer on that show. And when I approached Johnny to maybe have you guys come do a live podcast, he was like, I don't know about this. Let's ask the guys. So I'm, I'm grateful for that reason. So.
Yeah, well, we're, we're grateful that you, you know, asked us to and organized it and got logistics together because, yeah, that was, that was a, that was a fun like, end to, to being able to go outside and travel to normal. Right? That was exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. Corinne, what's your cat's name?
The one that was just on screen? Yeah, that is Rooney Jackson, nine years old.
Aw.
Yesterday was one of my cat's ninth birthday, so.
Okay, very good.
Welcome to Cat Talk. I'm your host, India Corinne. Cool.
Thank you, Corinne.
Yeah, thanks. Corinne Hunter.
Hello.
Speaking of the pen show, we met you in person there.
Yes. That was great.
That was so much fun.
Very great. Last activity before going into lockdown. So I have a thing to be thankful for and then a question. So I don't know if this is what this says. This is what I always go to when I'm thinking of when I'm thankful for Thanksgiving. But modern medicine and doctors is, I mean, just life saving. So my, my wife had a. Had a significant surgery recently and you know, we had. The team was amazing. The surgeon, you know, we're very like very, very fortunate to, you know, the help we were able to get. So I'm always, always thankful that we, you know, have the opportunity to live, live with, you know, comfortably and In a way that wouldn't have been possible in the past.
Science is number four on my list.
Science.
I was just gonna say science.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All the luxuries of the first world. Kind of following on. Tim, you made one of yours was about the community and having a space to just talk about pencils. I'm not a Facebook user and I have as a alternative, I'm wondering what the interest would be in a Discord server for the erasable podc, very popular in the mechanical keyboard community, which is kind of where. What's got me thinking about it. But if that's something interesting, I've already put together a sample version.
We have a Discord, but we. But we don't really use it. And I would be happy to turn over the keys to you if you want to try to develop and build it.
Yeah.
Because if anything, that's not Facebook.
Yeah, I couldn't. I did not find a link to your Discord. But yeah, if that's something that's interesting to people, it's a pretty good platform for having kind of different avenues of communication and keeping topics separate and even having voice chat, impromptu posting pictures. So just want to put that out there if it's something you'd be interested in promoting.
I love having. Yeah. Like RSVP has done some live podcast recordings on their Discord. And I know that there's my friend Alex who is here in this very chat somewhere he has used Discord for his Twitch stream. So. Yeah, I know that it like. Yeah, it's, it's. It's really great. I think like I've been. Been toying with that and then also trying to like, see if Johnny and Tim want to try a test recording of an episode like live there. Because we used to do. We used to do live podcast recordings. Like a couple years ago we had this really like rickety setup with mixlr and. Yeah. And some chat service there. Yeah, we were doing that for a while and then we were just like, oh, hey, like this is. This is like held together by tape and string. So Discord seems like it could solve a lot of those problems.
Well, I just posted the erasable work in progress Discord into the chat if anybody wants to check it out and you see if they have any comments or we can stress test if I set it up right. Cause I'm also new to it.
But yeah, it's a great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Hunter.
Cool. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. So how do all your dogs for me? And tell your wife, I hope she's Is she recovering okay?
Yeah, she's doing well. She's recovering. She's actually had this surgery before and she's recovering, you know, quicker than last time. But it's tough, but it definitely will improve her life going forward.
And yeah, very happy about that.
Yes. And the dogs are good. We got the fourth dog. I only had three when we. Back in. Back in March when we got the fourth one.
So are you still living in a one bedroom in Manhattan?
No, we actually did just move. So we have a two bedroom now, which is very nice. I have a whole room just as an office and wardrobe. It's very luxurious luxury. Nice out of the twin bed.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Thank you, Hunter.
Thanks.
Anybody else? This is kind of an open forum. Like, I'd love to hear anything you're thankful for. If you have questions or comments or if you have something you want to plug, I think that we're happy to hear. Feel free. Anybody? Anybody? If.
I'm sorry, can I just jump in?
Please do. Hey. Hey, Ellie.
Hey.
How are you? I know, right? Yeah, totally. So to keep it positive, man, I have been knee deep working backwards from the current, you know, episode all the way back. I think I'm at 89 right now going through the podcast. But I will say that I'm going back to what you were saying about the episode with that was live and I think so. There's a few things in that just going through that podcast that I'm thankful for. One was Tim, I think it was during that episode that you guys had lost somebody on the call and you tried to call somebody back and it was just some random dude and you just asked him what he thought about pencils and he was all just all grumpy. It was the funniest. So that was one like, that was great. And then Johnny with the mouth heart. Come on, man. So good. And then I think Andy and I'm just trying to keep it light. Right. But for you, Andy, I think it was. There was an episode that you tried to recreate the. You guys were talking about the THX Dolby Lucas and you tried to.
Oh yeah, you tried to recreate.
Oh, I must have listened to that like 20 times, dude. Anyways, it was good stuff, dude. I'm thankful for that, dude.
I'm just saying.
Good.
I'm curious to know as like as you've been like going back in time and listening to like what we sounded like six years ago and what it's like now, like how like if you've noticed any big Changes or, like, little incremental changes over time that, like, we probably wouldn't observe.
Well, there's still a disdain for the wopex that is consistent throughout every Timeless. No, I think it's. I'll tell you what's fascinating is listening to, like, the new volumes that come out and knowing now what the current value of some of those are versus, you know, Johnny, you're talking about your kids, you know, running around with whatever it is, an 811 or, you know, or the 2 11, you know, it just. It goes on and on. So, I mean, I think it's held up pretty well, you know.
Yeah.
And it's curious to see how your tastes have changed through the years.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah.
But it's a lot to take in, dude, because it's. Well, 2020 alone has felt like it's 17 years long, but I. I feel like I've been listening to the podcast for 17 years. I mean that in a positive way, you know, but it's all I listen to in the car, so it's, you know.
Yeah.
The Onion had a thing the other day that said, like, a look back at The Onion's first 13,000 years of covering 2020.
So good.
That's all right.
Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Oh, please, go ahead.
No, no, I was just gonna say then all the people in the past year and some change that you've. You know, that I've befriended in the group and met in the group.
It's.
It's great.
It's awesome.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's good to see your face, and I feel like I interact with you on Facebook a lot.
But, yeah, totally.
You don't look like that line drawing of a person. No, no. In person, you look like a real human.
There's a lot of gray going on here, and I'm sure if I had hair, like, Tim and I would be, like, right there.
Yeah.
Anyhow.
All right.
At least everybody to see you.
Thanks, man.
And it's our friend who we've been talking about for a long time here at Kemp. Hey, Ed. At Kemp. Oh, no, he is. He's muted you. Do you have your. There you go.
There it is.
Oh, am I on?
Yeah, you are.
Oh. What's going on, guys? Good to talk to y' all again.
Yeah, we just had Ed on a few episodes ago.
Yeah. Say, how have you been since you've changed our life?
Yeah.
Like, obsessed with Z.
There's so much.
Things have been all right over here, but, yeah, I Wanted to say, you know, we're being thankful for stuff. Thank you for having me on. I mean, it was. It was really fun. It was a real shot that I needed a little behind the story for y' all listeners out there. I broken up with my girlfriend, like, three days before that episode. And so it was, like, really nice to like, get something, like, real fun, like, to still look forward to. But when we got to recording it, guys, nobody had told me that this thing would not be supported by my iPad, right? So I had these headphones all set up. But, you know, like, the Apple stuff doesn't really work with anything else. So I actually had to knock on my neighbor's door, and he lent me. In the age of COVID he lent me a pair of headphones that were nice and could not be sanitized because they had nice foam, you know? But he told me, I'm game if you are, man. So, yeah, I put them on and shout out to my neighbor, who's obviously not on the Zoom call, but go invite him over. Without him, that podcast would not have happened. And then, yeah, all the support that came after it. You, the pencil people are awesome, man. I love being part of this group. It mirrors the zine community so much, and it's so rad right now that there's so much mashup going on right now, and all these pencil people are putting out zines. It warms my heart to see. And, yeah, I love being part of this group. Thanks again for having me on the podcast. It was a blast. I'd love to do it again sometimes.
Yeah, for sure.
It's been. Yeah, it does seem like a perfect pairing, right? Like pencils and Pencils and zines. Yeah. Cool.
Thanks, guys. Thanks for putting this together today, man. Gives us a lot.
Any new zines in the shop that we should know about?
Did I see you hold up all those state flag zines?
Oh, yeah. I've been working my way through several State Flag. I have volumes 1, 2, and 3 of 6, and looking forward to the reviews of State Flags.
Yeah, I got those. Coming back into the shop, or for the first time ever, actually, all those. And I just came out with Pencil of the week 11.
Yeah, I have it around here somewhere.
I guess I should shout out. You just heard Mr. Alicera speak before me. He and I are working on issue 12 right now. It's going to be a good one. So, yeah, just looking forward to that.
And, yeah, cool. Would you post a link? Post a link to your shop in the chat, the Zoom Chat?
Yeah, if I can. I don't know, man. This thing is running mad slow. That's why it took me a while to myself. Nobody wrote me a message on here because it like will come through like 10 minutes later.
So. Yeah. Cool.
Thanks a lot, guys.
Good to see you. What else? Anybody else have anything? Oops. Stephanie Poll. Feel free to unmute. Yeah, I saw your real life hand raise. Hello.
Hi. Hi. Hi, everyone. I just wanted to mention that I'm also very, very grateful for this group. It's one of the few reasons I'm still on Facebook. I think you have mentioned that repeatedly before as well. And it's actually one of the most, I think the only group I'm really active in. And I come back to. Although I don't post that much but once in a while. And just in these times, all my online communities are just saving my life basically. You know, I'm not being able to meet physically and missing that. So it's just brilliant to have you. And also thanks to John who organized the previous Zoom meetings. And John also is one of the people I've actually met in person a few years back in Vancouver. And that was awesome. We spent two wonderful days in the city and that's just amazing. John is amazing. Anyway, now getting to know your faces are somewhat familiar and it's just awesome. And a big, big, big thank you to Johnny, you know, for the zines that just came a few days back and, you know, you added a few to the. I had ordered. So that's a massive thank you. That just makes my day. So the combination of, you know, having things online, otherwise it wouldn't work. This whole thing wouldn't work. But then having the, I mean, of course, pencils, you know, the analog really well. And also, you know, having a group of people that you don't have to explain yourself to. I feel less nerdy and less weird now that I found you. Excellent. Thanks a million.
Hey, John, do you want to mute and just say hi, John Morris, everybody. Hey, can you guys hear me? Yeah. I think it's interesting because as active as John is in the group and as much as like community building as you have done, I don't think your voice has ever been on the show. So we're excited to hear you and see you.
That's why.
Thank you very much.
Yeah. Are those real books behind you or is this a zoom background? It's a zoom background. Gotcha.
Yeah, My place is really messy, so thank you.
Yes.
I had the BBC news one where the BBC reporter Had his child come in during the interview.
Remember that one?
I had that one for a while. And they had the child in the back. It was pretty funny.
Yeah.
I definitely got the screenshot to use the Four Seasons landscaping backdrop.
I've got that one.
I haven't used it in school yet, but I'm excited for that.
Yeah.
This is the first time we've talked in face and voice.
I don't know.
Or live, anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really nice to see everyone here.
The group chat.
Like. Like Stephanie. I've had the pleasure of meeting John twice. One time I was in Vancouver and one time he was here in the bay. So that was.
Met in two countries.
Yeah, that. And that. That was. That was.
Right.
I mean, the month before everything shut down.
Right.
Like, that was in February of this year and. Oh, yes. Yeah.
You're one of the last erasables.
Yeah, one of the last ones.
I got to meet Mark Cohen.
He's in.
He was in the basic.
Was a bit.
And Field nuts as well, and a few other. Few other friends in this group. It was really nice to be able to travel and meet everyone.
That's right, because you saw him right before we did a recording. Because you showed up in Baltimore and it was like a scene out of an Al Pacino movie dumping cocaine on the table. It was like stickers everywhere. He's just like, look at all these things.
That's right.
That's right. At all. John is the. John is the Scarface of stickers. That is. That is for sure. I like stickers.
I like.
It's fun to make. You can give them to people. Oh, that's a cool one, Brandon.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's. It's really fun to take a passion and kind of make it so that you can paste it on a notebook, put it on a sticker.
Yeah.
Share it with your friends. I mean, you know, it's fun to share and it's fun to kind of pass around artwork with friends and stuff.
Yeah. John, do you have anything to plug right now?
Just busy with life and I mean, nothing to plug. You know, I think people hear enough of me, so I try to be low key, but nothing really. You know, I'm doing a lot of Christmas stuff. I mean, I'm working with a lot of. I saw somebody post a photo of their Christmas lights. Was it Scott? I don't know. I don't know if it was just a regular Facebook post, but. But I've been spending a lot of time just for the kids and for the neighborhood. Just doing Christmas light stuff and I thought once I'm done, I'll definitely post it in the group and pretend it's a big pencil. But I'm working on a big tree.
Yeah, yeah.
25 foot tree.
I think so.
Yeah. But yeah, the Etsy stores, you know, have that. And you know, we are still kind of trying to get all the custom erasables out with Paul Hoffman. Just takes a little bit of time. So, you know, every, every couple of nights we package up stuff and send them out. It's taking a while. It's also really cool. Oh, you guys have seen the natural custom erasable that we got made in the gray one. It's kind of neat.
Yeah.
So we haven't, we haven't sent any to you guys yet to see it because we, we only got a little, a few of the grays. But the natural is my favorite. I think.
I really like that. Yeah, yeah. I've never seen that gray one before. I don't think we've talked about it in the show, but I know the last round of Erasable community black wings that you've had, John and John's kind of like brokered the black wing, the community erasable community black wings for us. And yeah, this time around they came out. He's holding up for audio listeners here. There's a gray one, like a matte gray one and a natural one that they are imprinting, custom imprinting now, which is, which is pretty cool. I have not. Hadn't previous seen those. Those before. Are we. Did. Did. Are you the beta tester? Did we. Did the community beta test these things?
We are the first ones to ever get naturals and grays out. If you saw their Instagram, they, they said, hey, they're gonna, you know, release these colors and we got an opportunity to kind of like get a quick order and. And I guess we are the beta test.
Nice.
It's neat. This gray is apparently different than the 602. The 602 has a coating on it that makes it that a shimmer look or something. This does not have that. So this is like a base gray to that. I think Nick can probably explain it better. So it is a different gray.
Yeah.
And some people really like this color. I think I like the natural the most, but it's pretty neat.
Yeah. That was really cool. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, John. It's good to see you.
Yeah.
Hi, Tim.
Hi.
Johnny.
Dave.
Johnny. Cool. What else do we have going on? Anybody else want to plug anything? Andre, I see you.
Sweet.
Drink. Am I coming in clear. Yeah. Frequent Plumbago contributor and or a prevost. Everybody, I have something I'm thankful for and a question.
Canadian Thanksgiving was back in October, but I can still be thankful.
Absolutely.
Very thankful for the members of the Erasable community. Back in September, I was in a
pretty violent car crash and due to
Covid restrictions, can't have any visitors in the hospital. And I was hospitalized for about six
days because I was in a car accident.
I was going, I think 60 miles an hour in American speed.
So it was pretty devastating.
But I got a lot of messages and surprise care packages from raceful group members. So I was very thankful for that. It was made things a bit easier. Luckily my only injury was to my non dominant hand, so that was as good as it gets.
Yeah.
My question for you guys is, I don't know if I'm impeding on like the next recording session or anything, but did you guys see the Maggie Rogers book from Field Notes?
Yes.
How did you guys feel about those? Because I think this is their first signature edition collaboration, if I understand correctly.
They're so pretty.
They are wonder too.
She. Yeah, I had. I was like. I'd known her name, but I don't think I had like listened to her music a whole lot until like three days before they announced that because she did that song with her and Phoebe Bridgers. Did you guys see this? What was the name, that song? The Goo Goo doll song. Iris. They recorded a version of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. And I was like, oh, Maggie Rogers, I need to check her out. And then like a few days later that came out and it looks gorgeous.
Yeah, I was having a hard time just understanding like the thickness and the size of it, but I definitely want to get some in hand to like, see what those are. Like. I. I like. I like a perfect bound or like a signature book a lot. So this is, this is really appealing to me. But like I did. I guess I didn't like black ice that much. The black ice field notes, which was kind of their previous like pure brown note, pure brown notebook. And this, this doesn't look like that. It looks like a lot thicker. Anybody, Anybody here have these in hand? Andre, do you have one or are you.
No, they're not shipping until the end of the month.
Yeah, they're shipping 30th.
Okay.
But they look like the dime novel, just a little thicker.
That's what I was gonna say.
Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Andre, we're really glad that you Are all right and that you have on the road to recovery. And I'm glad that the community has. Has been able to come together and support you. So we're glad you're home. It's you. You got. You got lucky with your non dominant hand in a way that our friend Brad Dowdy did not. Poor guy. Yeah. Jacob Stovall. Did I see you raise your hand earlier? Oh, does not have a working mic right now. It broke me during lecture yesterday. I'll just, just read. I'll just read you what Jacob said.
Yeah.
Nice. Got your gallery Statler. Thankful for my impulsiveness leading to my absolute favorite pencil a couple of weeks back. Shout out to the Statler rally for being a cheap, pretty and extremely nice pencil. That is a really good pencil. It. Yeah, it just. It's. Yeah, it's a. It's one that like, I feel like is a really good, like, gateway to fancy pencils. Like, you can find them like at a lot of places and some people might like, might be picking them up and trying them out and be like, huh. Not everything is just kind of like a crappy Office Depot pencil. So I know we want to try to like sign off here. Not too long. Any last folks. Jamelia, I see your hand going up. I see you wearing your keep on your pencil of the week shirt. Is that right?
Yes, it's being broken in today. So I waited for the, for this episode to represent. So I have some other company shirts and I was like, they don't need. They don't need me to wear that.
I'll represent.
You know, I love them. I'm just. Yeah, they don't hear from me. So, yes, I thought I would wear my shirt. If you all haven't seen it, I'm gonna model the back too. Is that okay?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So obviously it says keep scribbling out if you have the. If you get the zine. And then on the back I can't see myself.
So hopefully.
Yeah, we can see it. Yeah.
So it's pretty fun and it feels really good.
Yeah.
I was excited to show it off, you know, to the group. And I love those zines. I love any zines. And so anyways, what I'm thankful for, and I say any zines, any zines that I've gotten from anyone, especially from the group. So I wanted to just say one thing that I was thankful for, which kind of goes in line with what anyone else has said, which is maybe not specifically, but I'm thankful for the Internet during. But during this Time, you know, almost decade long of quarantining. I mean, I know it's like a year, but it's a decade. So it just works out differently for 2020. And I'm thankful for Zoom or any type of way that we get to communic with each other, but Zoom has been really fun. In addition to Facebook, having all the different meetups with just the people from Erasables has been a lot of fun. There's been a bunch of little offshoots that we've done, and I bet you maybe once a month, some of us meet up. There's a little pocket of us that try to get together every. Every week. Excuse me, every other week or whatever. But that has been wonderful. And I'm also thankful for pencils or just writing instruments at all, because usually during those meetups, I will scribble down little notes, and I've just gotten some really, well, interesting things I've learned, but some really just fun quotes. And there's one I have to give to Ali that we were a part of that he's going to do something with, because it was just like he'd just talk about the most random things. Once, you know, people, even though we come together with pencils. Right. You just learn other things about them. And it had to do with beheading, and it was interesting and very, very funny. So I won't spoil it, or maybe I will, but I can't remember her name. I think it was Cindy, and I don't know if she's call or not, so.
Cindy.
Yeah, it's early for her to be. I don't remember where she's from. Allie, maybe you do, but I know it's not leads, but whatever. Anyways, I'm just thankful for. She knew some things about beheading and instruments for that, but
I'll post it in the chat.
Yes, that's all. Thank you guys for having this space in the podcast as well and making it a community where we can keep in touch with each other with knowing hardly anything at all about each other.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And thank you. I mean, thank you for doing all you do there. Yeah, yeah. D' Amelia is. You're. You're super active and super welcoming to new people who come along, so thank you for that.
It's chatty, but. Yes, thank you.
Thank you for being chatty.
Cool.
Anyone else?
Tim? Oh, actually, before. Before we go, I think I see Caitlin, our friend Caitlin, who was there with us for our 100th episode and
any other episodes I wasn't Gonna chime in, but I thought I would anyway.
We're glad to see you.
We're always glad to see you.
I love to see you guys.
I'm glad.
I'm really thankful for something to do on an otherwise gloomy Sunday. Most people I've hung out with in
who knows how long.
And I wanted to piggyback off of something that Jamila just kind of said that it's been a really tough year for me, but obviously for everyone. And I'm really grateful for stationery. And I find myself constantly coming back to it as something that's keeping me grounded and keeping me comforted in a
lot of weird ways.
It's like, it's weirdly comforting to go through my sticker collection and organize it and, like, you know, sharpen your pencils or write in your journal or what have you.
And it's like, when I can't do
anything else and I'm, like, stuck in the worst of my mental health, I
find myself turning to my stationary and
my gratitude for that. I don't know.
I constantly keep coming back to it.
Yeah.
And I've obviously. Nice to have this community to. I know you guys all get it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're. We're glad for it too. And yeah, we have. You know, this is. This is still. You know, they're great tools for introspection. Right. And what have we been doing a lot in 2020, but just a lot of. A lot of introspection.
It's. What an amazing thing that we are in a community of people who. When things go wrong or things get really hard, that we all have, like, share a common outlet, you know? Like, it's. Because I think a lot of us would agree with that. Like, when you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling, like, unwell, or you're feeling lonely or whatever. Like, one thing that we all will tend to gravitate towards is picking up a notebook and just trying to get something down on paper and enjoying this. And I think that's a really beautiful thing that we can all. Can all have that in common. It's kind of like a sort of like a cheesy. We're all looking at the same star in the sky.
It's true, though.
Looking at wopex and some of us are looking at better things.
Yeah, those are. We don't want them on here. Johnny, we love you.
I quit.
Yeah.
Looking for new co hosts. If anybody here is interested.
Must have lisp and add
lots of children.
Awesome.
Tim, should we. Should we button this up. Should we?
Yes, let's do it. This has been so much fun. Thank you everyone who's joined us on this call. And this makes me just want to do this all the more often. If anybody's willing to hang out, we should maybe make it a little more of a regular thing. But it's a really, it's very life giving, I guess, to hear people talk about things that they're thankful for and to just be together and not talking about being able to be together and not talking about any of the big kind of bugaboo topics that are going on right now that are just driving us, all of us crazy. It was good to get together and share this. So let's start. Let's just tell them, you know, our listeners, where they can find us. Andy, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me @andy, WTF and on Twitter and Instagram is at Awelfley. You cannot find me on Parliament.
Good.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, keep it that way, Johnny.
You can find me@pencil Revolution.com on social media at Pensolution and on Etsy at Etsy.com shop Pencil Revolution, I think sounds right.
You can find me on Instagram at Timothy Wasom and I'm on Twitter Imwassum. The show notes for this episode will be@erasable US153. We have a Patreon account which you can find if you go to Erasable Us Patreon. Big thanks to anybody who supports us. And if you're interested in supporting us, there's all kinds of extra content that we give out over time. We've mentioned the zines. We also do some bonus episodes, some bonus content, especially Indelible, which is our pen podcast that is only available to Patreon subscribers, which is a lot of fun to do. In the last one, we did a kind of Secret Santa thing for each other, buying each other a pen and some ink. And that was. That was great. So if you want to hear that, head over to Erasable Us Patreon. You can follow us everywhere at Erasable Podcast, on Instagram and Twitter. On Facebook, you can join our group, which has been mentioned many, many times tonight for good reason. That's facebook.comgroups erasable. You can also like our Facebook page, which is facebook.com erasablepodcast if you have a second, have an extra minute and you want to help us get a boost in itunes. If you could leave us a review or recommend us on Overcast or whatever podcatcher you use just to kind of give us a little more oomph in the algorithm. We'd really appreciate that. And we'll finish up. I want to thank our producer level Patreon supporters. You have Andre Torres, Kyle, Paul Moorhead, Andrew Squish, Gary Varner, Judy Molnar, Ali Sarah Jamelia, James Spears, O.A. pryor, K.P. james Dominguez, Millie Blackwell, Hunter McCain, Bob Ostwald, Michael Delosa, Jacqueline Myers, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Gangster Hotline, Joe Crace, Measure Twice, Michael Hagan, Chris Metzkus, John Bannon, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave McDonald, Leslie Chuzet, Mary Collis, Alex, Jonathan Brown, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Lutzinger, Fourth Letter, Kelton Wiens, Hans Noodleman, Terry Beth Ledbetter, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, and Chris Jones. Thank you.
And a lot of those people are here on this call. So a big round of applause to you. Thank you
your faces and thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Erasable. And we will talk to you again soon.
Let's all all unmute. If you're, you're all willing to do this and say goodbye kind of all at once. Love to hear voices. So yeah, bye everybody. Do you like our podcast? Most people like our podcast, but if you like our podcast, David will turn it off.