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Transcript
Still waiting for my bonus there.
One second.
Hello, and welcome to the Erasable Podcast. This is episode 166, and I am Tim Wasem, along with Andy Welfle and Johnny Gamber. Hey, guys.
Hey.
Hey.
It's been a while.
Happy new fiscal year.
Well, I didn't roll over our finances, so our P and L sheets still left.
Still waiting from above. Bonus there. One second. Yeah. So, you guys, you know, y' all listening might have forgotten what we sound like because we kind of accidentally took a month off, though our Patreon friends did get an episode of Indelible in the interim. But we're back tonight. We're excited to be talking and catching up on some stuff that we've missed over the past month. So we're gonna have. We have an episode that's just packed with fresh points and all the things that you've been just on the edge of your seat waiting to hear us talk about or that we've been just dying to talk about with each other is the more accurate way to put that. So. But as always, we'll start with Tools of the trade. And let's start with Johnny.
So I finished Nickel Boys really quickly, and then the next book I wanted to read wasn't here yet, so I went just sort of poking around on our bookshelf and I found a copy of Things Fall Apart, which everybody's read and I hadn't read. So I read that book and got constantly hungry because they're always talking about food and spirits, but mostly food. That's what I remember. And speaking of food, we watched Grantchester from the beginning, which is interesting. Like, when you know that. Oh, spoiler. When you know they're going to change figures. It's interesting to watch the first one as he sort of falls apart and then doesn't fall apart and then suddenly leaves. Grantchester is about a small church in Cambridge, and it's sort of like Father Brown, the pre. Or the. The vicar helps solve crimes. But in this one, the policeman and the vicar are very good friends, unlike Father Brown, who famously just gets on everybody's nerves because he's too smart. Yeah, it's. It's. It's interesting. Kind of enlightened. And the guy who played John Little in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, is in it as, like, a very tall old man with blue eyes. So that's. It's worth watching for that, for sure. And I've just been using lots of different yellow vintage number two pencils that are stashed around whenever I need A pencil lately, mostly old Ticonderogas, and today I was using an old Eberhard Faber Mongol with the really big Eberhard Faber letters. It's just dreamy. I really like it. I Wish I had 50 dozens, but these are really hard to get. And I'm writing in my red field notes. How about you, Andy?
Nice. Well, we just started, I guess, since. Since last time we talked a new series that's on AMC called Kevin Can F Himself. Have you either of you heard about this?
I would like it.
No, Sounds great.
So it's. It's this really interesting show that plays with TV genres. So part of it is, like, this sitcom, and it stars Annie Murphy, who was Alexis in Schitt's Creek, and she's like this sitcom wife, and it really plays on that, like, that trope, that sitcom trope where, like, the King of Queens and it shows like that, where it's kind of like the schlubby guy and, like, the hot wife, and they just constantly sort of, like, rag on her and, like, do, like, dumb stuff. And then whenever Annie Murphy's character, like, walks out of, like, the room with her husband, it switches to, like, this gritty, like, drama. And I don't think it's a spoiler to say that her, like, secret plot is she's trying to figure out how to kill her husband because he's just, like, such a. Such a moron and just kind of oppressive. And so it really plays with both sitcom and, like, gritty drama genres. Just the lighting is amazing. Like, when it's on, you know, when it's in sitcom mode, like, just, like, a single camera and. Or, like, several different, like, stationary camera angles and, like, there's a laugh track and. Yeah, it's. It's pretty good.
How are you watching it through the
AMC app, which I wouldn't recommend. I mean, it's the only way I can watch it, but, yeah. So watching it through the MC app, like, a few days later than the episode airs, I think.
Gotcha.
I don't. Because I don't want to pay $5 a month or whatever. For AMC, there's AMC plus and there's also AMC Premiere. Don't know what the difference is. They don't know what the difference is. It's just a mess. But do you want to see some
of the worst Premier's more expensive. That's the difference.
Yeah. If ever you want to see some of the worst commercials in your life, you can watch it on the app. So watching that, I was thinking about since we have the app, like, trying to see if I can find some old episodes of Halt and Catch Fire, which is one of my favorite TV series ever.
It's on Netflix, I think.
Oh, is it?
Yeah, that's where I watched it. Assuming it's on there. You know, they. They switch in and out of their licensing all the time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peacock just. Just took off Columbo. And we're. We're just a little shattered because basically. Basically just missed all of the 80s. So we. Okay, so. So watch that. Did you see that?
Sorry. On. Wait, wait, don't tell me. There was something about Columbo and how. What's the guy's name? The main guy, Columbo, like the charact, like the actor.
Peter Falk.
Peter Falk, yeah. So there was some country. I want to say it was in Hungary or some. It was some Eastern European country that was obsessed with Colombo. And it was a country where in, like, the people were starting to protest and riot because they were convinced that the government was preventing them from getting more Colombo.
Instead of. It just was over.
Yeah, like, the. The country was trying to convince them, like, no, we are not censoring this. We're not keeping it from you.
Because.
Because it was. And I should figure out what the country is. But they actually had to have Peter Falk in New York record a video saying, like, hey, it's me. Just telling you. You really are. This is. The show's over. You haven't seen. You're not missing any episodes to convince them to not, like, throw a coup in their country.
Wow.
Apparently, the videos on YouTube of him, like, actually giving that, like. Like talking them off that ledge.
I will look to that. That's amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's such a good show. Like, I just, like. I don't know. Like, I. I love how it's different from other murder mysteries in that, like, you know who the killer is from the start and he just sort of, like, hounds them until. Yeah, until they solve it. And then also, William Shatner has been on two different episodes. And what's just. It's. What's so delightful is he just, like, is the worst. Like, his character is the worst. And, like, he. He manages to fit the idea of him being being unable to act into the character. So it's just like. I don't know, it's. It's art. It really is.
It's sort of like when Kevin Spacey pretended to be evil on House of Cards. And it turns out Kevin Spacey is actually super evil.
Turns out. Turns out he really was. Yeah.
So that's why he was so gay.
It wasn't a script. Yeah, it was like a dare. They were like pretend to be a senator. He's like, okay.
He just. He just do. And I'm also. I've been reading a bunch of kind of random science fiction short stories because on the behest of a co worker of mine, I joined this virtual science fiction reading group. Oh, neat. It starts on Wednesday and they give you two sci fi short stories each week. And I think all of these are related to like speculative fiction. And the first one we read in Ursula K. Le Guin story called the Showbiz Story, which is from this book of short stories that I could not find anywhere except for this, this Google Books scan that they provided a link to. And then also this book by N.K. jemisin that is from just a couple years ago. So yeah, that is what's going on with me. And I'm writing with a.
It sounds great.
Yeah, I'll send you.
I would love to be in a short story book club. I'd like to see the list.
Yeah, I'll send that to you. I think like even if you. What they're doing is on Wednesdays they have like a zoom that you can participate in and. Or watch or whatever. I haven't done any of this yet, but I'm sure you can just read the list if you don't want to. If you don't want to do that. So yeah, I'll pass that along. Cool. And then I am writing with a golden bear, a nice blue one in my brand newly, newly opened orange coffin op that I just started.
Oh, nice.
Which I will talk a little bit more about in FreshPoints. And Tim, how about you?
Nice. Last week I blew through a book called Killers of the Flower Moon. Have either of you read those?
Good title though.
Yeah, yeah, it's. So the, the full title is Killers of the Flower Moon. The Oage Murders and the birth of the FBI. And I had. It came out in 2017, I think. I don't know, but I just, I had heard about it and then sort of the, the sequence of events that led me to the book was that I found out that Jason Isbell was Mike. You know, I've talked about him a million times, but Jason Isbel and Sturgill Simpson had been cast in the new Martin Scorsese movie and I was like, what? Like that's, you know, that's pretty wild.
Wasn't it an actor?
Look this Is Jason Isbel's first time.
Yeah.
Wow. Sergio Simpson was in a. He was in a show on cbs. Like, it was like a drama about this Southern railroad, like, depot or something like that. But, yeah. So this is his first role, and it's a Scorsese movie with DiCaprio and Dairo, and it was called Killers of the Flower Moon. I mentioned it to a friend, and she was like, I've read that book. It's incredible. And so I picked it up and sure enough, I blew through it in, like, three days. And it is. It's a nonfiction book, and it's telling the story of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma who had been pushed around by the government here and there. Like, you can stay here. Wait, never mind. Now you gotta go here. Now you gotta go to here. And they ended up in this. The spot. And it was their right. Like, it was kind of. They're like, okay, finally you can have this, and we're not going to take it away from you. But then they found, like, crap, tons of oil. And the Osage Indians became the richest per capita people on the planet because of how much oil they were. Yeah. And so this is in the 1920s, and. And then some shenanigans started with white people being white people and being greedy. And, you know, several of them got hurt or killed or attempted to be murdered. And so when Herbert or J. Edgar Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it became like the first flagship case of what became the FBI. But it's super cool and something like the. The. The officers that are there doing the investigation, some of them are former, like, Texas Rangers and stuff. So it's not, like, who you'd think of as the FBI agents. They're these kind of, like, rough dudes. It's. It was great. It was fantastic. So I can't recommend it enough. I could talk about it all night, as you. As you can probably tell. But it follows the story of what happened to the women. These. These three sisters, or these two sisters and their mom. What happened in the investigation. And then the last section is what happened when David Grann, who's a staff writer for the New Yorker, who wrote the book what happened when he went to Oklahoma and ended up finding even more stuff.
Oh, wow.
Almost. Almost 100 years later. So really awesome book. And I've been listening to a lot of the Wood Brothers, who I've talked about, but it's probably been a while. It's just one of those things where you rediscover a band that you've been listening to for many years and kind of forgot about them. And then they come back and it's like all you want to listen to all day long. So good feeling, that's. I've been listening to a lot of the Wood Brothers through, especially an album of theirs called Loaded, which is wonderful. Jane and I have been watching the reality show alone on Netflix. Have either of you ever watched it?
I never heard of this.
Really?
Oh, man, it's. It's pretty wild. It's. This is. Apparently there have been like 10 seasons, so it's been around for a while, or eight seasons, something like that. But the concept is they take a group of 10 people, they take them out into the. Some spot in the world in the wilderness, and they're left by themselves with a certain number of tools they're allowed to bring. They have to find their own food, and whoever stays the longest wins. But this season is like, it's up in the. The Arctic. Like, it's like way up north in. In Canada. And they have. They have to stay 100 days to win, and the winner gets a million dollars.
Oh, wow.
So it's really intense. And these people are, I want to do this.
China's gonna do it.
I want to do this. I could do it.
Watch it first, because it is pretty hard.
I mean, I might die.
I mean, the last. Oh, yeah.
Better way of dying than most ways there.
Yeah. I mean, there are. There are people who have been training for it for like a decade. And it's like what they do for a living is like tracking and outdoorsy junk like that. And, you know, in like 13 days in, they're like, I gotta tap out. Something happened, you know, like, they have to come home. And then there are other people who are like, you know, running up to a muskox and killing it with a knife.
What?
It's nuts. It's nuts. So anyways, I. I recommend it. And it's. Yeah, it's. It's great. It's. It's a good, good show to watch. And it moves pretty quickly for a reality show. I think there's only like 10 episodes or something like that. But yeah, Jane and I watched that. And the last thing, which is inspired by the pencil I'm using, which is the Blackwing 64, which we'll talk about later, really enjoying that. And that kind of made me want to. After I had finished Killers of Flower Moon and then a couple other books, it made me want to read a graphic novel, which I'm very poorly versed in. Like, I'm illiterate in graphic novels and comics and things like that. And so I picked up. It was actually found on scribd, a PDF of Mouse. Yeah. Which I had seen a reference as, like, you know, a classic in the genre or, like, one of the first in the, like, modern graphic novel genre. And I just started that, like, a couple days ago. And so I'm, like, halfway through it. I'll probably finish it the next time I sit down and focus on it. But I'm really enjoying that. And I'm looking for recommendations. I have a list somewhere when we had Tiffany Babb on, and I know she gave me some to read that I need to find that list. But anybody else has recommendations of sort of. I'm really interested in reading, like, because I'm so new to this, like, canon graphic novels or comics that I can get access to fairly easily. I have this. I have Sandman. So I'm gonna read that. You know, gaming at Mouse. And I've got a couple other saved.
Does your library do. Oh, crap. What is the name of that app? It's not Overdrive Libby. I can't think of what it's called.
The Libby app.
No, it's not Libby. It does. It's for, like, multimedia. So I think it has something. But it has, like, movies.
Canopy with a.
Is that it? Something like that. I'll find the one that I'm. I'm thinking of. I bet that there's a bunch of apps like this, but they often have graphic novels.
Cool. Yeah. My library. At my library app, the Libby app, has some.
Oh, really? Okay.
So I've seen some on there, but it has. It's been kind of hard to find, and. And a lot of them are, like, manga books and stuff, which I'm not. Not really there.
Did you find the Escapist, the thing that they did with Shabon?
Oh, no, I've never read that, but I'm aware of that. I'm gonna write that down. But, yes, I'm eager for recommendations because I'm just. I've always been really curious about the genre of graphic novels and comics, and I did not grow up reading comics. Like, I probably read three comics growing up. It just was not something that I got into. I feel like I missed out, so I want to catch up, and I also want to better understand for the sake of helping my son pick out books that he'll really love and the stuff that's out there right now. So looking for Rex, There's. Yeah. So I'm Writing with the black.
There's one called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. That's super interesting if you could find it. No, I mean, did you know my. I had a teacher that recommended it to me just because of the name thing. And it was, like, really good. It was the 90s, so people weren't so sensitive about depicting violence. Consider it.
I did read. I did read a. I have a graphic novel version of Slaughterhouse Five from the library. And I just read. And actually this is the one that I had read a little while ago, but I read a graphic novel version of Moby Dick, which was a very, very wonderful way to take in that story. It was super great. It was really well done. And it's not 40,000 pages long with all the pictures. It was great. It was fantastic.
We get it. You hate the whale.
This whale sucks.
I know. Yeah.
So I'm. I'm writing with a Black Wing 64. And I am using a green field notes. Ambitious. A beautiful sticker of Sven from Frozen on the front that my sister, or I mean my. My daughter put on there for me.
Nice.
Yeah, that's me. All right, let's get into some fresh points. We've got a billion, so.
Billion.
Johnny, let's kick it back to you.
Okay, so speaking of billionaires, get us started, children. Rosie turns five in two days on Bestial Day. So they. My kids, we try to practice handwriting because, you know, kids don't write a lot. And then with virtual schooling, as you can imagine, they don't write at all. So she has two pilot Kikunos because she just, like, she likes them. She's got a white and blue and a white and pink, and she changes the ink around and she uses them until they're, you know, done and helps me clean them and stuff. So she looked up at me one day and it's like, daddy, can I have a fountain pen for my birthday? I'm like, yeah. So I just picked ones that I thought would be kid friendly. In purple. They had to be purple.
And the shark one is. There's a purple shark one.
She was scared of the shark one, the Jinhao.
Aw.
But she passed up what was on there. A purple lamy from last year, the candy one, Parker Vector, a pilot metro and something else. And she picked the new sport in lavender. So she wanted that.
Good choice.
And then she wanted a converter, and I don't have one for mine, so they were actually not a terrible deal to buy a two pack. So score for Daddy.
The Kaweco converter this thing is so tiny. It's so small. Like, it holds like. Like a hummingbird's stomach worth of ink.
She'll like that because then she can incredibly switch them out.
Maybe you could just use a hummingbird like a fountain pen.
You catch it.
It's not a bad idea, really.
Fine point. I mean, beak.
So, yes. That was about to get dark. I was gonna be like, I'm gonna go for the stub nib. Oh, geez. Sorry.
She did not want purple ink because we have a lot of purple. She wanted red, even though we have red. So she got red ink that sent it, like roses from she. Her bon. So that's her present from daddy. And she's, like, all excited. But she does use pencils constantly. She just favors, you know, Frozen 1 or Disney Fairies. She doesn't really care as long as it's cute and sharp. She's right. Ready to go. And speaking of sharp, I was wondering if Tim would weigh in on his new electric pencil sharpener.
Oh, yeah, I'm pushing you. Yeah. So I bought the same one that you got, Johnny. Right.
Yeah.
Or you've got two, but this is one of the same. Yeah. So it's a X acto. And so I. I love it. Like, the first day I sent. I think I sent you a picture, Johnny, or at least had sent you a message that I just walked around sharpening pencils. Like, I would just find pencils around the house. And we have one of my favorite. I don't know if I ever talked about this. One of my favorite accessories, stationary accessories in our house that I found it I got for free at school somehow. But it's a pencil cup that has a flat back, and it's about 5 inches long. And the flat back has a magnet, and so it just sticks to the side of our fridge.
Oh, neat.
And it probably hold. Holds like, you know, 20 pencils or something. I think over the course of the day, I just kept grabbing one out, and I'd walk over, sharpen it, and put it back in. And eventually I did the whole thing, and I like it. And one question I have, and I was actually thinking about this earlier today to ask you, Johnny, about yours. Does it. Does gravity matter with. With electric pencil sharpeners? Like, if it's. If it's on a table that's slanted forward or is, like, uneven, does that mess with the sharpener?
Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's tilted back by design, but, I mean, not all of them are.
I.
Mine. Yeah, I'm sure you've noticed that, like, the shavings sort of pile up instead of spreading out if you don't spread them yourself. And I didn't pay attention, and I didn't sharpen or empty it for, like, four months. So that peak, like, went up inside of the gears and I had to take it apart and, like, vacuum it. And it was a really big mess. But I imagine gravity would probably help that. Just spread it a little bit if it was tilted.
And I wasn't even thinking about those. It was just like. I was noticing that I had it upstairs in our dining room, which my wife was not crazy about for some reason.
I have one of the dining rooms, and so.
But it was. It was sharpening. Yeah, I've got. Got a little more room. So I was like. She's like, do we have other rooms that this could be in? So, you know, so. But I. And I. You sharpen was sharpening all these pencils. It was great. It was great. It was great. These perfect points. And then I took it downstairs and I've got it right next to me right now in our den, plugged it in, and all of a sudden everything was sharpening, like, off center.
Weird.
Are you like.
Like, it was canoeing? Everything was like, canoeing on the side. You know what I'm talking about?
Are you at a different angle when you use it?
I was hanging from the ceiling. Does that count?
Like, you know, underwater?
I.
Is it above you or.
We have zero gravity basement. I don't know what it's like in Baltimore, but that's Tennessee, so I don't know if that's. That's why I asked. Does gravity matter? We don't have gravity in my. In. In our den. If you're below ground level in Tennessee, then you float. That's. I don't know if that's. They taught you that?
No, Mine. Mine is up above my waist on my desk. So I'm sort of coming up at it, and I noticed it sharpens really well. And the one in the dining room, I'm taller than the. The half shelf. And that one doesn't sharpen as well. But that one's also different. The different version. So I always thought that was it.
Well, you know, that's. I don't know. That's interesting. I'm gonna mess around with it, but, like, it was higher upstairs than it is now. But whatever. I love it. It's been great. And I. I'm afraid to say that I haven't. It's like, I feel Like, I'm losing my purist status by no longer using my crank sharpeners because I don't think I've touched it in like, oh, you know what?
This is real purist, where you're not getting cutesy, you're just like, just sharpen the damn pencil and like, get moving.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't even care anymore.
No artisanal pencil sharpening here.
Yeah, they have one that has a little chainsaw.
I still have fun with my. My hand sharpeners, so I'm still using those, but in my hovel, still using that. Oh, you know, here and there. Because that's just too much fun to not use.
Yeah.
So, yeah, thanks for asking, but I. I do love it. I got a black one. It holds. Yeah. Like it would, I think in the first day. You'd be surprised at how much I filled it up that first day. I mean, it was like. It was like halfway full. I sharpened like 40, 50 pencils. I don't know, I just kept coming back to it. But I like it. It's staying. I'm keeping it.
Yeah. I just.
It.
You don't know when it's full because of the heaping thing. And also it's so dark and you get used to not emptying it. You're just like, whatever, I'm using it. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, my God, there's graphite dust on the wall. Like the window.
It's in my pockets.
It's rough just floating around the air because of the zero gravity.
Yeah.
Yes, the gravity does matter.
Problematic.
Okay, good.
So right now I'm. Yeah, I'm buckled. I have a seat belt that's holding me in my chair right now.
So make sure you buckle that graphite's gonna get.
If you hear something, if you hear something noisy, it's just the cat floating around.
It would be neat if they had one that had like a built in vacuum that went on when the blade went on so that it could suck it into like some sort of huge canister.
Like those, like the clippers that the barber has.
Oh, man, that would be a great kick.
It's like, what's the. In Wayne's World vacu suck? Or what was it called? Or that thing. It's like a vacuum cleaner that cuts your hair.
The Floby.
Yeah.
Is that what they called it?
That's the brand name in the movie.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, so it sure does suck. So we need like a vacuum sharp or something. Oh, yeah. Okay.
This is a good idea. Let's make some money.
Patent pending. Patent pending.
So we haven't been on in a while, so I put out a pencil zine like four weeks ago.
Maybe put out like six of them since we last.
The pencil one.
Just.
Just the one. It's purple. It has beach drawings on it that I spent a lot of time on.
But I say, Charlotte, did you draw those like yourself? Yeah.
I mean, I'm not super good artist, but Charlotte was taking forever to do her cartoons, so. So this time I pay her to do it. I was like, I'm not paying you.
This is late.
So now she's already most of the way done.
So not renewing your contract?
Yeah, I lied to her. I'm like, it's going to press Wednesday. So, like, have your shit in or you're out. And I'm gonna put a notice in there.
Being like, charlotte, you're done in this town. You hear you're pulling.
Pulling the Trump there.
Yeah, it's like, I want to be a car chase for the worker. So I figure this is good training some jerk editor. It's like, this is late. This is crap. I can see the blue line, but she. She uses like, you know, the non photo blue pencils and stuff and like, gets into it. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, it's still shipping free because the new one's delayed because I didn't feel like it. It's summer, so that'll come out soon. It'll be pink. I already bought the stock. It's like violently pink. Like entrail pink.
Did you say entrail pink?
Yeah. I apologize in advance. I mean, it's pink. The. The color name is just pink in all caps.
Like Pepto Bismol.
No, Pepto Bismol. If you were really high.
Pepto Bismol with a black light on or something.
A black light and the bong. I mean, is that what they call it?
Yes.
Yes.
The kids. Okay, I'm gonna stop before I embarrass myself more.
Well, I'm sure I'll find plenty of ways to embarrass myself. First one I'll mention that is a little embarrassing, but is a lot of fun is I just got a new keyboard already still on this train. This one.
I told you. I think I said, when you got your first one, I said that eventually we're going to have like a live episode and we're going to see a rack of them behind you. Like your wall's just going to be lined with keyboards.
This one I ran across, I think I was telling you about Seth McCombs who is somebody from the San Francisco stationary meetup. And he has. It's called a preonic keyboard. And basically what that means is all of the keys are lined up in like straight rows instead of, instead of staggered. It's still like a QWERTY layout and everything, but it just kind of like lined up. And because it's not staggered, you don't have like keys that are extra big. Like the backspace and the, you know, the pipe and the backslash key and the enter key. They're all just like the regular size. And that just kind of like gives you a. Oh, just. Just makes it more compact. So I was really interested in that and I bought1ondrop.com and it is a full keyboard, has the arrows. It doesn't have function keys, but you can like as a modifier key to make, you know, the top row functions. And it came disassembled. I basically just like screwed the circuit board into the base and screwed the key spacer on top of that and then plugged in the switches, which was kind of a fun thing to do. It made you feel like you were building something, but it wasn't like you didn't have to like solder anything, which is good. So I bought, bought that keyboard. And then I bought these really cool keycaps. I have a link in the show notes. They're called Dasher keycaps. And they're made to look like the keys from an old 1970s IBM Dasher key, like computer terminal. And if you look up IBM dasher, you can kind of see what that looks like. But really love the colors here. They're just kind of different colors of blue. And what I really like are the letters, like onto the top of the key the letters are like centered instead of kind of off into the left. So I assembled that and I'm still getting used to typing with it. It is because I feel like in
the middle does it feel very normal? And then the closer you get to your pinkies and then like the bottom row, it becomes foreign.
Well, I was noticing when I was typing with this and I don't know why this is. Maybe it's because I'm left handed. I have zero idea. But like when I type with all the stuff on the left side, like the QWERT and the ASDF and that stuff, it feels okay, but. But then the right side just feels completely off to me. And it's so weird because I can use it like accurately like 80% of the time. Because all the keys in the right order, but because they're not staggered like that 20% of the time is the real killer. Like, I'm just like. Yeah. So my typing productivity today at work has been a little, A little off.
Yeah. I'm looking at a picture of it and it's like F, T, G, H, Y. That area is pretty much like how it is on a normal keyboard. Just a little bit offset. But then I'm in imagining having Q, A and Z straight up and down.
Yeah.
And that would like, mess with my head.
Yeah.
Like big time.
Yeah.
And that the space bar I'm looking at is about the size of like a fun size Hershey bar.
Yeah. The space bar is the only key that's bigger than the other ones. And that's. That's the size of two keys next to each other. It's. It's weird. It's a weird keyboard. It's the alleged. Like, the reason that this exists is it's supposed to be A, it's like more compact and like, like good for space. But then B, it's supposed to be very efficient to use because if you use home. If you use home rows, you can like, your fingers can like reach everything. You don't have to like stretch too far more than like one or two keycaps away. So I don't use home rows. So it's like a little, A little weird. I just use kind of.
When you say use home rows, you mean like you always have your fingers at asdf?
Yeah, like you.
Yeah.
If you took like, if you ever took like typing in school, they tried to teach this to you. You would, you would rest your, your finger, like your index fingers on like F and J, and then you.
Yeah, that's, that's what I remember doing. Wilbur Wright Middle School Monster, Indiana. Mavis had a cardboard box over my hand.
Yeah.
So we couldn't see our hands.
I had my parents one time, you know how they had Mavis Beacon teach us typing? I had Mario teach the typing. And if you type the right letters, Mario, like as in like the Nintendo Mario would like jump. And if you type the wrong letter, he would get like hit by a, by a goomba or whatever.
At school.
Yeah. Yeah, me too. My grandma had one and I learned how to type and then I just like hit computer keyboards real hard because of that.
I still type too hard.
Well, you really need to go for a mechanical keyboard because I feel like it's made for like hard typing.
Yeah. I had one in college and like, I got Rid of it. When I, you know, when I got a new computer, I just, you know, I'm like, oh, I don't want this thing. It's loud. And then later on like, damn, that was so cool. It was heavy. Just put it on your lap and type this time. It's probably my father's garage. He doesn't throw anything away.
You got a project for this week?
Yeah, it's really. If you go to drop drop.com you can assemble it. You can assemble your own keyboard, you can pick out your own like size and form factor and your own keycaps and your own switches. You can get real, real into it. So that's what I've been thinking about lately. I also wanted to mention, I mentioned this on Indelible, which is that that other podcast that we do for Patreon subscribers. But if anybody in the Bay Area or on the west ish, west ish side of the country wants to come to the San Francisco pen show in late August, I will be doing some kind of a. On Saturday morning. So that I think it's the 28th, 27th, 28th June, August, that is. I think I'm probably going to have like a short presentation, maybe about like a broad history of pencils and then basically just bring a bunch of pencils and sharpeners and papers and erasers and things with me for people to try and play with, which was a big hit a few years ago at the pen show. But yeah, let me know if you are coming to the San Francisco pen show and let's meet up and hang out.
Jealous, jealous, jealous.
Come on out, Johnny.
Rosie starts school.
Get on that train. Yeah. See you in a long trip. Three weeks on the train.
Yeah, that's like. What is that? That's a good four or five days probably. Yeah, that'll be so fun.
Just a big, Just a train trip.
Yeah, I want to do it.
I also noticed recently and I wonder, I actually have no idea when pencils.com or I guess blackwing.com made this available. But we talked a while ago about the, like last year about the collaboration between Blackwing and Timeless Coffee, which is an Oakland based coffee shop. And they had like a special Blackwing blend and you could get a notebook that was kind of customized with the Timeless Coffees patterns. And they had a mug with the black going logo and the Timeless Coffee logo on it. And they. I really, really wanted, I mean, I wanted the coffee and I wanted the mug, but I didn't really care about the notebook, but the slate and finally they pieced out the bundle that they were selling and you can buy each of these components individually. So bought the, the really cool big diner mug with the Blackwing logo and the Timeless Coffee logo on one side and then on the other side it is a scorpion, a one eyed scorpion, which is Timeless Coffee's logo with a black wing kind of like wrapped around or his tail is wrapped around a Blackwing pencil. Awesome mug. $10, which is pretty inexpensive for a mug these days. Yeah, yeah, totally. Pick one up if you, if you think about it. And then I guess last thing I'll mention is. So I, I mentioned earlier that I started using a orange confidant. I started using a lined one that I just haven't used a line lined notebook for a while. So trying this out. And one thing I was lamenting about was that confidants, which I really love the size of and most of don't have a little envelope in the back. And after using that Leuchtturm for a year, I've just really grown to like that, that envelope, that little pocket. And your friend of mine, Johnny Gamber, messaged me when I was complaining about this, the lack of this, and he's like, oh, I'll make you one. What color do you want it to be? So I'm just like, what, you're just going to make one? And you did. And Johnny made one. He sent it to me. It's amazing. How did you come up with this, Johnny?
I just ripped apart a notebook and saw how it was made and measured.
Okay, fair enough. Yeah, I mean it looks really good. You did just a good job of like just attaching this to the, like that little, I don't even know what you call the little accordion like paper on the side.
Yeah. There's a really good glue stick. Elmer's Craft Blonde. It's the best glue stick ever. And they're cheap and they kind of smell interesting. But yeah, yeah, that stuff's super for stuff like that doesn't make a mess and it holds really well.
Well, you did a really good job. Thank you for making this.
Oh, thank you. My pleasure. Yeah, I bought some elastic. I was going to make a band for you to put around it, but I didn't think what I ordered and I ordered one that's way too thick. So if you come up with that,
the next thing I need is if you could figure out how to extend the confidant bookmark by just like a half of an inch. Yeah, because they're always just like a little too Short.
They are too short. Well, most skin fix ones that are like five inches too long, maybe they were like. We're not most.
Yeah, right. You have to tuck it back in. Did I tell you? Toward like a few months ago. So there, there are two bookmarks in that witch term. And one of the bookmarks just like just came out one day. Oh yeah, that's just like just fell out.
You could probably like coat it in glue and sort of open the book so that you can see down the spine and shove a letter opener down there. Just like jam it in there and wash the letter opener off when you're done.
Yeah, that's a good point. Well, that, that, that notebook is used up and in the archives, so you
could probably do that with the Baron fig. Just get a longer piece of ribbon and stick it down in the spine because they're really just usually glued. Glued in there when they put them together.
That's a good point. Yeah. Cool. That is. That's it for my fresh points. Tim, how about you?
First one I'll mention is I got a. A friend of mine here in town sent me a text with a link to a Twitter post and it just said this seems like something that you should know about. And the Twitter post was from a account called. It's like at Mr. Strange Fact, I think is what it says. It's loading very slowly right now, so I'm waiting for it. But yeah, it's all interesting. All things interesting at Mr. Strange Fact. And it was a picture of a pencil shop in Iran. And the pencil shop is about the size of a, like two phone booths side by side maybe. And I sent you guys this picture and is the most incredible thing. And we're gonna put the link in the show notes. But it is. The picture is just this guy who's like on the phone and he's looking and there are three walls to this shop. It's like, I'm guessing it's like a window or something or. Or maybe there's like a little stall door. But all three walls are just a sheet of pencils. So you're seeing the end of the pencils.
It. It's amazing because it would like double the size if those like, of that shop if those pencils weren't there.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Right, because there's just. Right. Yeah, because you're solid waffle. Yeah. You're losing.
Absolutely. And even at the top, one of my favorite little details is in the. In the back, the top, there is some Arabic words that are spelled out in Pencils. So it's like a bunch of black pencils and they use silver pencils inside of them to spell out this Arabic word which I, you know, I don't. I'm not sure what it says, but I want to go there so bad it really hurts. And it's just really a fun picture to look at in high res, like on your phone or something. You can zoom in on the side and see and just try to recognize things. And I'm guessing it's a lot of colored pencils, but I can't really tell. But it just makes me very happy that it's out there somewhere.
I just wonder like. Yeah, like there's no. Those pencils aren't labeled. Like, are people just like, oh, I'll take this one and this one and this one and this one.
Oh man, that sounds wonderful.
Yeah, right? Like just like tries to and yeah,
just kind of like whatever you find, you find, you know. Hey, do you have anything like this? I don't know.
Take a look.
I mean, there may be some organization to it, like section by section. I don't know if it's like, how, how. I don't know if this guy in the picture is the owner or if he's just shopping with a giant cell phone by his ear. I don't know.
We got to get Caroline to make a pencil wall like that.
Yeah, Be awesome. She earned. I wonder if he listens to this podcast. And then he started this pencil shop to rival CW Pencil. He's just like, there's this place in New York, you think that's pencil? You think that's a wall of pencils? Let me show you a wall of pencils. I'll show you a wall that's not a knife. Yeah, like you trans translate the, the Arabic up in the back and it says like doctor Pencils or something like whatever his, his initials are. It's just like, I'm coming for you. So anyways, that just made me very happy and we'll. That's. I feel like that's a front runner for the. Oh yeah, the episode art. Oh yeah, for sure. Because it's just so impressive. I have another front runner though for our art or our episode art here. My sister in law who's a interior designer showed me this amazing artist named Jessica Drank and she has all kinds of amazing art using different mediums, but two stick out in particular. One is if you go to the. The link, Jessica Drank. Jessica D R E N K dot com.
Such a good last name.
And she has a A collection called Implements. And all of these pieces of art are made of pencils. So this is like, you see those videos of people who take pencils and they like put them all together and they like add shellac or whatever and they make a table or they make a, you know, a big pencil out of smaller pencils. This is like a whole nother level where she's making pieces of abstract art out of pencils that are perfectly glued together in like a really amazing way with this big cavern in the middle. And then she carves out the outside. So some of the pencils, you're seeing the full length of the pencil in relief, and some of them, you're just seeing the tip kind of shaved at an angle. And it is. They're just absolutely. They look like something that was found in like a pencil cave that was just like a natural occur, naturally occurring substance of some kind. You know, somehow like pencils dripping for generations from the top of this cave. Because one of them looks like. Was it like stalactites and stalagmites like attaching to one another? I just found these really striking, like, really beautiful pieces of art. And she has another collection. After you check that out, there's another one that I really, really, really loved. And it's called Spine. And she makes these pieces of wall art that are the spine. Like looking at the pages of books and they're all lined up facing with the pages pointing out at you, like at different depths. And they're. They look amazing. I think she cuts. I think what actually does she does is she cuts the spine like the, you know, the title or whatever. She slices that off of the book, stacks them up, lines them up, glues them. And so like you're seeing what would have been the spines, but now you're seeing the kind of butt end of every page in the book. Yeah. Anyways, I'm just. Yeah.
There's also seeing our remains, which are. Which is made from old books in here, which is really cool. She like. It looks like she just like soaks them in like resin or something like that and then carves them away. And they just look like pieces of driftwood or something. Like petrified wood.
Yeah, yeah. There's a. There's another one called Tabula Rasa. You see that one where she. It looks like she takes a book and like encases it in some kind of clay or something, like bakes it surrounded with. I think it's with clay and then lets it kind of crack. And so you're seeing kind of A glimpse inside the book. So, so Analog lovers. This is just like some of the most amazing kind of like fine art I've seen in a while. I'm just smitten with this person. I would love to have her on the show. I would really love to have her on the show to talk about that. I think that would be really.
I'm sure she listened to.
Really fun. Yeah, Jessica, she'll hear it.
Yeah.
When we say pencil, they come running. No, not true. But I would love to talk to her. I'd love to hear about that problem process. I mean, it's really, really stunning. So. Yeah, so that's that. So Jessica. It's Jessica. J E S S I C A D R E N K drink dot com. Really, really amazing stuff. And lastly, I think we. There's one thing we forgot to mention, which maybe, you know, people might have thought that we would talk about right at the beginning or that maybe that we were being cagey by waiting until the very end. But I think we were just excited about all the other things.
So.
Yes, that's what we do. But the new Black Wings came out, which we, you know, I think I briefly mentioned them earlier. So we had The Black Wing 64 came out, which is an addition that is dedicated to the comic book. So I am not, I am, like I said earlier, comic book illiterate. I have very little experience with comic books. But even just looking at this, I can tell that the different sections and the colors they have here are what the original kind of oldest cheap pulp comic books. The color patterns they used to use to represent different colors. Is that right? I mean, Andy, I feel like you. Yeah. Maybe know more about this than I do.
Yeah. They're using, they're halftoning it. So they have various like halftone designs with. So apparently, I guess the 64 reference comes from how there were 64 colors that they used in early comics that were kind of made from those. From the cmyk. Right. Like the, the cyan magenta yellow and black and. Yeah, they're just kind of showing what, like some blown up half tones from, from that. Yeah, they look, they look quite striking. I. I'm not like, like blown away by the design, but I really appreciate like how they're showcasing that process. I think it looks like it's really interesting looking. I wouldn't say it looks good, but I think it looks really interesting. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, I said like, go ahead, Joe.
I'm just waiting for them to go back to Lacquer and stop the roll on printing, which is nice, but not all the time.
Yeah, yeah. And I can. I can see how they like how hard it must be to like, seamlessly connect, like this design together on the. On the back seam. So there's definitely a seam that happens. But yeah, definitely, lacquer printing would be nicely.
I like the.
The feel and the durability of a nice lacquer.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm like, questioning my taste because I think these look amazing.
No, it's. It's all right. It's like I. Yeah, it's visually like, it's so colorful and I completely get where. Where they're going with that and like, why they made these design. Design decisions. One thing that bugs me, that bright, pure yellow is at the very bottom in the back moment that you sharpen it. You sharpen away that yellow. Yeah, yeah.
And I agree with you on that. And I think I. Yeah, like, that's one of the reasons why I put the yellow eraser on the end was to kind of give it that symmetry back where you see all these different colors. But, like, I don't know why they started with gray. That's my only beef.
The eraser, you know.
Stupid. Yeah. That they.
I.
You've got the gray.
I was guessing that's in reference to like the. Because the comic. That cheap kind of pulpy comic book paper is. It was.
Yeah.
Was not white. It was gray. That would be my guess.
I think that's accurate. Yeah. And that makes sense. But also just. I mean, it looks so good with the yellow eraser. They did give. That was one of the extras. They give you some. Some extra erasers and some of these colors. And so I think it looks really good with the yellow because it gives you that, like I said, that symmetry. You also got a really neat hand. Like a hand drawn piece of comic book art.
Yeah.
Of.
What was it like? I don't have it in front of me. It was like black wing man, woman, man. Or I can't remember. Yeah. So I'm a big fan of this and I've been using it. I. I sharpened two of them right away and I've been using them a lot and I really enjoy. Has the edition and I plan to use them.
Has the 602 core, which. The firm core, which, like, I'm. I'm always a big fan of. So. Yeah, it was.
Yeah. Nice to have that one back. And it's just been. It's been a fun one. It's. It was kind of a perfect Blend of. I think it hit me so well and I liked it so much because I had this sort of subconscious desire to get back into comic books and like, experience them kind of for the first time and read some.
And.
And so it kind of hit that. That I had been already sort of thinking about that, and I was like, oh, gosh, that's cool. So now that really makes me want to do that. So that was a. A draw to it as well. But also it's a good blend of a. A neat concept that fits the season too. It kind of has a seasonal feel to it because it feels kind of summery. You know, once you sharpen past the. The yellow. The green and then the yellow, green, red. It's basically a Fourth of July.
Oh, yeah. It looks like a different. That's interesting.
It's like red, white and blue. All the way down. All the way down.
You know what?
So I might switch to, like a white eraser at that point. Yes, it'll be.
You know what else this pencil has that is really interesting, like, unique to it? I think so far it. The Blackwing and then the bullet, the 604 is double imprinted. So there's like a little bit of a. Like, they stamp it probably with something like without ink, and then they stamp it again with ink, and so it's like it looks slightly offset, like, like a comic book would. Which is pretty cool.
Yeah, I like that. Like, you're almost like you're squinting.
Yeah.
When you're looking at it or like seeing it. Like a magic ink or. What are they called? What are those pictures called where you
cross pencils or pictures.
Magic guy, Magic eye picture or something like. Yeah, I like that as well. So this is. It's not necessarily like busting into my favorite editions ever, but I was. I've been really happy with it. I really enjoyed it.
And I love the theme too. I. I was expecting. When they. When they released their teaser and they. They were talking about, like, they just basically just showed like a big, bright halftone, like, graphic behind. Behind the teaser for volume 64. A bunch of us in the group were thinking that maybe it was like Andy Warhol or Lichtenstein related, like pop art related and. Yeah, not. Not quite. But that would. That would also be like a super cool tribute.
That would be cool.
Yeah.
I think this is better. Yeah. I'm happy they went with this. But. But yeah. So yay.
Good job.
I like it.
Oh, they also. In kind of. In addition, you can also get a set of the point Guards in. In cmyk in blue and, like, cyan magenta, yellow and black. Which is. Which is pretty great.
Yeah, those are pretty.
Yeah.
Yeah, I forgot about that. So I've. I've kind of cooled off on those. On those caps.
Yeah.
Because I lost one. I lost one. And that was all it took to be like.
I.
Like, these are too expensive to lose.
That's why, like, the Katsua caps are for any, like. Right. Like the.
Yep, those are the best.
If you lose them, it's like, no big deal.
Yeah, the metal, like. Yeah, those. Those kits. We cat. Those are perfect. So I still have. I. Basically, I use my. I. Luckily, I didn't lose. I bought two of the Jackie Robinson caps because I was like. That was a cool theme that I really liked. So I got two of those. So I haven't lost those. But I usually. I've got my balsa bag that I keep pencils in, and the pencils that are in the Bols bag all have those caps, so they always stay in that. So that's good. I just don't carry them in my pocket anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we did it, guys.
Did it.
We caught up.
We caught up there.
To the. Yeah. The stream of pencil goodness that's been going.
Johnny, what are you. What are you blathering about in the show notes?
Oh, you never asked the same question.
You didn't see mall rats, like, 20 times. The magic Eye. Oh. There's a character who can't see the magic Eye thing, and people keep telling him it's a sailboat. And a little kid says, oh, it's a schooner. And he goes, you dumb bastard, it's a sailboat. A schooner is a sailboat, stupid. You know what? There is no Easter Bunny over there. That's just a guy in a suit. It was played by.
I mean, I've seen Mall Rats, but not quite to that level.
I'm older.
I've never seen. I've never seen mall rats, really. But I did have a dog named after a character in Mall Rats.
Which one?
Because of my brother. So I had a dog. I had a dog named Stiles for a long time. He got eaten by an alligator. I won't tell that story another time.
Wait.
Yeah, we're out of time. We gotta get. Yeah, yeah. No, totally true story. They moved to Hilton Head and he was blind and they left the door open and he wandered out and they found. He was like. He was a Jack Russell Terrier and He was, like, 16 years old. I mean, he was like Ancient. I mean, he looked like a zombie. When you saw him walking around the house, he just like. I mean, they. You know, it was just. It was one of the situations where, you know, like, modern medicine keeps pets alive. Alive a lot longer than keeps humans alive, you know?
Yep. For sure.
Yeah. And so, yeah, he'd seen better days, but he wandered away. They lost him. And then they got a call from the. Somebody who found his collar and. Yeah.
Wow.
Told him what happened. So it was. He made his way onto a golf course. And in golf courses in Hilton Head, something you might come across is an alligator. Wow. Styles, this episode is dedicated to you, bud.
Styles went out, like, in style. Like in.
Yeah, yeah. S, T, Y, L, Z. Yeah, yeah.
He lived through his name.
He wins that. The. If they had a dog version of the. What are they called? The. Not the Einstein Awards. The opposite of that. Darwin Awards. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, buddy.
I bet he put up a good fight, though. He was a good dog. Yeah. This is a really, really dark place to end an episode, and I. I'm kind of surprised there. Yeah. We're gonna end with dog death. Everybody's, you know, the most uplifting time. Yeah. Sorry about that, guys, but that's just a story that when I hear something that's. I hear. I hear mall rats. And then it reminds me of Stiles. And I can't talk about that dog, that wonderful dog that we had, without ending up talking about how he went because it was just too.
Yeah.
Wow.
One of a kind.
I thought you were gonna say his name was Brody or the.
No Stiles. Yeah. All right, well, better end this before I talk about other dogs that died in my life.
Let's do it.
All right. All right, Johnny, where can people find you on the end?
You could find me@pencil Revolution.com on social media at Pencilution, and you can pick up my awesome zines@etsy.com shop Pencil Revolution.
Andy, you will not find me on a golf course in Hilton Head. You can find me at. Andy, wtf. My website or on Instagram. And. And the other one, Twitter, at a Wealthley. How about you, Tim?
You can find me on Twitter imwassum. And I'm on Instagram TimothyWassom. And I finally worked up the courage to figure out why I can't get into my imwassum Instagram account and try to see if I can switch that over so they match, because I don't have to say that stupid thing at the end of every episode where I have Timothy on Instagram. So I'm Gonna figure that out this week. So hopefully next episode I'll just say, find me Imwassum at places everywhere, because that's what I am everywhere else. Yeah. It's not a popular username, believe it or not. That. So you can support us on Patreon. We have extra content that we send out. Certain levels get freebies that are sent to you in the mail. We've got. We've sent out T shirts this year. We also have an extra podcast we do called Indelible, which is a really fun pen podcast that we've been doing. Really enjoy that. So we send out about one of those a month. Is that what we've been doing?
Yeah.
Ish. Yeah.
More or less.
Something like that. Yeah. And if you donate at the $10 level, you qualify as a producer. That's the producer level of the podcast. And here are some of our producer level Patreons patrons. David Johnson, Phil Munson, Nate Rabeck, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Miriam Bokout, Allison Zepeda, Diana Oakley, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Kyle Paul Moorhead, Andre Squish, Alicera Jamelia, Stephen Franciscali, Frank solis, Aaron Willard, O.A. pryor, K.P. millie Blackwell, Chris L. Hunter, McCain, Bob Ostwald, Michael Diallosa, Adam Prabola, Jacqueline R. Myers, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Measure Twice, Michael Hagan, Chris Metzkus, Bill Clow, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave McDonald, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Provost, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Letzinger, Fourth Letter, Kelton Wiens, Scott Hayes, Hans Noodleman, Jane Newton, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, Chris Jones and John Wood. So thank you all of our supporters to help us pay for the things that help us keep this podcast going. We really, really, really appreciate you.
Thanks for the podcast. We're gonna. We're gonna be going to space soon on our very own spaceship.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think we're gonna. We're gonna beat by Richard Branson by three feet.
Yeah.
A little bit further up into space. So. Yeah. And it's actually gonna land right on our yacht.
Yeah.
Out in Perfect. Out in the Mediterranean Sea. It's gonna be pretty cool.
So
you can follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter at Erasable Podcast. We are on Facebook. You can join our group@facebook.com groups erasable. And you can like our Facebook page to get updates about episodes and news@facebook.com erasablepodcast the show notes for this episode can be found at erasable us166. You'll find the links to a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about today. If you have a second, if you could rate and review us on itunes or recommend us on Overcast or whatever podcatcher you use, just push us up the the Alpha algorithm algorithm a little bit. We'd really appreciate that. So thank you again for listening to episode 166 and we'll see you in
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