This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
We're gonna eat some sausage and go to the Kroger and have some existential limerick. Ryman.
Look at it. He's got a bare ass. What's wrong with that guy?
Hello and welcome to episode 195 of the Erasable Podcast. We're well into springtime here, and we're thinking about bright colors and new palettes. And here with me, I'm Andy Welfle, are the Periwinkle and the Persimmon. Springtime colors to my palette, Tim and Johnny. Hey, guys.
That's beautiful.
Which one of us is which?
You have to decide. That one. I can't make it. I'll call Periwinkle. Okay. Where's the other one? Sorry, Tamia. Persimmon.
Yeah, that's fine. I can handle that.
Yeah, that's good. We're also joined by a very special guest many of you may know, Jane Newton. He's a longtime listener and Patreon supporter of the show and has developed quite a reputation over the years as a quick and clever poet.
So.
So I know that he's written at least three submissions to Plumbago, including a really great memoir called Dad's Change in our issue about collecting issue five. And really, whenever there's a limerick or six word story that comes up in the group, he's among the first and the best to contribute. So at one point, we even dubbed him the unofficial poet laureate of the Erasable Podcast. But recently, he's made that title a little bit more official with a new chat book that he wrote called Effigies through a major publishing house that we here on the show are big fans of. Pencil Revolution Press. You may have heard of it.
Yeah. Their editor is hardcore.
Yeah.
Kind of a jerk. Yeah.
Hey, Jay, we're really glad to have you here.
Thanks, guys. It is great to be here. I'm looking forward to speaking with you, like, live for a long time. So it's a real treat. Although I was under the impression that you'd be sending a limo or a car for me to bring me to the Erasable Studios to record this, and that has not. That has not arrived. So I'm going to do the best I can under these circumstances.
So no one knows where the Erasable Studios are still. So you're like, yeah, we could do. We'd have to blindfold you and, like, put a bag over your head.
But probably an intern messed up. I don't know who, but.
And you know what? We have a real big rat problem right there, right now. Gary.
Larry. Gary.
Yeah. So it's really. Studios are closed right now because of the rat problem.
I'll do the best under these circumstances.
I appreciate it.
We're pretty sure Brad Dowdy not, like, dropped him off and, like, let him.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it was terrible. So we. We wanted to have Jay on in April, and we had a few. Few hiccups. And we're able to do that just for National Poetry Month to talk about poetry and his poems. And we even have a fun thing that I'll talk about when we get to the main topic to do. And in the meantime, though, let's talk about Tools of the Trade. So, Jay, you are. You're very familiar with Tools of the Trade. Do you want to kick us off?
Yeah, sure. Thanks. Well, I am writing in. I've got some notes here in a. The newest field notes. I believe they call it Cityscapes. Yeah, it's kind of a sketchbook. And you can color in the front. I don't have the patience for that at all. But it's. It's pretty great, though. I like it. I think they come in. What do they have, three cities? I think it's Chicago, la, and Miami.
And New York.
Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. There isn't.
There's a little town called New York.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
They don't have.
Yeah, just made the cut.
And so I just got some notes in that that's working up pretty well. What else is going on? I discovered something recently. My kids have a Nintendo Switch. We got them a few years ago.
Yeah.
And I am by no means a gamer, but I like. I like two things, the Mario stuff and the Zelda stuff. So just the other day, last Friday, I think it was, the sequel to Breath of the Wild came out, which was called Tears of the Kingdom. And so I've been playing that. It's really great. It looks fun. It looks like a lot like the previous game with some unique twists. So I've been doing that lately.
And Jay, did you take the day off work, like a lot of people did, to play it when it came out?
I work from home, so nobody would know.
Perfect. Even better still get paid.
You can for sure do both at the same time.
Yeah.
Another thing, I recently discovered this show. I don't know, it's been out for a while. I think it's on Netflix. And it's called Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities. Half the time I get this wrong and say it's Benicio del Toro, the actor. But no, it's Guillermo del Toro, the director.
Are they related?
I have. I don't know. I don't know.
Sorry. Sorry.
Seems like that would have surfaced.
We'll have one of the interns check that up, you know.
Yeah.
And so it's really cool. It's kind of like. Like an X Files type of thing. It's a series of eight little, kind of short. I guess they're horror stories, but not. Not really horror in that sense. There's some like, Lovecraftian stuff in there and there's. You recognize a few of the actors? Like, one has the. I don't know his name. It's the. No, the. The red haired kid from Harry Potter is in one of them.
Okay.
And so. That's right. That's right, exactly. And so I've been. I've been enjoying that. Trying to limit my limit myself to one a day. I've been known to just binge watch those. And so I'm trying to savor those over time. That's been pretty cool. That's about it for me lately.
Nice.
Yeah.
The Cabin of Curiosities is interesting just because it's like it. That podcast that Harry Marks writes for, isn't that called Cabinet of Curiosities?
No, it's lore. I'm embarrassing myself in there, too.
Harry Maki has one though, right? Like called Cabinet of Curiosities?
Yeah, there was that. Mr. Wilson's cabinet of Curiosities. It was a big deal and a big place, apparently.
Yeah. Okay. Aaron Menke also has a podcast called Cabinet of Curiosities.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Crazy Guillermo, I smell a lawsuit. I don't know about you, but yeah, that looks really good.
Lawyer up, Harry.
Yeah. Guillermo del Toro is doing a new. Is it Pinocchio? Yeah, Dune movie. That looks really good.
He just did the. The get back, Right? Was that him? No, that was the Lord of the Rings guy. What's his name?
Oh, Peter Jackson.
Yeah.
Okay.
Ignore me.
I'm sorry, who said that?
Huh?
Tim, do you want to. Do you want to do your fresh points?
I better not.
Yeah, no, go on. You're just gonna. Well, I'll just fact check you on the fly.
Are we doing tools of the trade? Is that we're doing or we're doing fresh. Fresh points. Oh, okay. I thought you said tools of the
trade, but, you know, they're all. Maybe I said stuff.
So the first thing I was gonna mention is I was listening to a podcast that I discovered, and if you're a guitar player, I just discovered this podcast called Wong Notes. W o n g Corey Wong is the host and it's done by PremierGuitar.com and it's. It's really good. He talks to all these like, just incredible guitar players. He asks really good questions. He's like sort of like a jazz kind of like funk guitar player. And frankly, I don't care for his music. But really good interviewer. And he had a. He usually does like hour long interviews, but he did a two parter with John Mayer that was like total, like, I don't know, three hours long. I mean, it's super long. So I listened to it over the course of a couple weeks. But there's a point and I'm like sort of like a medium, like middle of the road. Of course, like all the stuff that he's done with Dead and Company with like the Grateful Dead music is amazing. And some of his newer albums I really like. But he has this new guitar that he put out. This is going somewhere, I promise. But it's with Paul Reed Smith. And it's like, it looks like a Fender Stratocaster, but it has that really hideous headstock that PRS has. Even though I love PRS guitars, I just took their headstock.
Yeah, they're based here. Next time you're here for. They do factory tours.
We're doing it. That's working. So he has. He like switched over to them when he started with Dead and Company because they made him like a replica of Jerry Garcia's guitar. And so in this interview, they're talking about their custom guitars, like their or their signature guitars or whatever. And he has one called the Silver sky, which looks kind of like a Stratocaster but has like best PRs headstock. And he asked the other guy, he's like Corey Wong, the host, he's like, did you ever, like, ask for like a weird color just to have for yourself? Because, like, everybody can have like the normal colors. Like, do you want to have like a weird color? He's like, not really. And John Mayer said, yeah. So I asked for one and I called it Eraser Pink. And so he has one. There aren't any others. He said, it's Eraser Pink. And he said, I also got like super close to getting PRs to agree to do one that's called Eraser Pink and one that's called Pencil Yellow. And we were gonna sell them in giant pencil boxes.
Oh, wow.
And I was like, oh, my God.
And Tim noted.
Noted. Yeah.
And then I went, worlds are colliding.
Yes, of course. That's like my favorite moments are when my, like, weird worlds combine like that. Like, my tombow Japanese baseball hat that's on my head.
John, John Mayer's always kind of been a. Like, a analog guy. Like, he's in that typewriter documentary. Yeah, yeah. He seems like maybe he's kind of a jerk, but also, like, stationary, so how bad can he really be?
Yeah, I mean, he's. He's just like. He's. He's sort of like the weird anomaly of being on TikTok and Instagram and all these things, but. And, like, being, like, out there so much, but also being, like. Like a loner and just kind of, like, doing his own thing. Like, analog stuff. He did. I think the. The sort of douchiest thing that he said the whole time, which he, like, justified. But he was like, you know who my number one listened to artist was on Spotify last year? John. I was like, ew.
All right.
Yeah.
But he.
Yeah, he had a justification, and it sort of made sense. But, yeah, I just thought that was, like, amazing. He was like, I got super close to convincing this big, like, fancy guitar company to doing the pencil edition, which was going to be pencil yellow or eraser pink, and it came in, like, a giant. He basically, like, described something along the lines of, like, a Ticonderoga box that it came in. Mm. Wow. Anyways, yeah, so that's that. The other thing I was gonna mention was the new Musgrave Notebook, which is called the Blue Notebook.
How do they come up with these names?
It's amazing. Yeah, it's very accurate. So this is the new iteration of what was the Yellow Notebook, which is the last one, which they did in conjunction with Shorthand Press, which is based out of Los Angeles, and it was a big hit the last time. I loved mine. Used that thing right to the last page. I remember that was, like, on my desk while teaching for, like, a very long time. So they've rereleased it with this really cool cover, which is.
I don't know.
It's not like, butcher blue, like, from the Field notes realm. It's a little more like of a royal. Would you say?
It's. It's like blue, blue, blue, blue. Platonic ideal of blue.
Yeah, yeah, totally. But these are awesome notebooks. I mean, it comes in dot, grid. It's got these brass. The brass rings, the brass binding on the end. You guys been using yours?
Yeah. I keep looking at it and thinking that the. The font they use for the front that's from a vintage poster would be a really good tattoo.
I Was gonna see this.
Oh, yeah, look at that.
Look at that.
I. I have not used mine, but now I. Now I want to.
Yeah, I love that. I love that font at the front. I love the. The royal blue on the navy print or. Sorry, the navy blue print on the royal blue cover. Just looks amazing.
So.
I mean, we're always fawning over them. They're just doing so many cool things.
Yeah. This has a nice heft to it.
Do we know are the Delgar's doing the, like, graphic design work on these or.
Tim was.
I would guess so, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like a family project, like everything in Musgrave. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This totally seems like they've been sort of like adopted into the Musgrave family. I mean, they're just like.
They're going to be adopted into the Musgrave family.
Yeah. Come on.
I might be too old.
We have collectively two kids named Henry.
That's true. That's true.
See, we should be honorary members.
They should just be. Is Henry Hulen like a. Like a third or a fourth or anything? I don't know.
I don't know.
Just tell them you'll give your Henry's like the fifth and the sixth titles. So start calling him Junior Nose Goes. Not me or Henry viii.
That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Never mind.
Yeah.
So anyways, these notebooks are awesome. The yellow one was like a limited edition, right. They eventually sold out.
Yeah. It doesn't looks like it's gone.
Yeah. So anyways, yeah, grab one. Of course. Support Musgrave. They're doing cool stuff. And these. These notebooks are real handsome.
Yeah, I'll sell you my yellow one. I wrote in it. The whole thing. That could be worth more.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, Save it for the archives.
Yeah. Remember which day I need it. Mustard?
All right, Johnny, do you want to fresh point us up?
So, on the same vein, we also. We should mention we got these for free from Musgrave. The notebooks and these pencils, which are the Party Bugle.
Party Bugle.
Like, I. I really, really like the Bugle. And for listeners who don't aren't that familiar with it, it's just a round pencil with the standard one has white stamping on it, no eraser, no ferrule. It's just like, here's a pencil. And I don't know what inspired them to do this, but it has like a fuchsia stamp.
Is this. This isn't a continuation of the one that Caroline had made, right? Like because she made a special bugle.
Yeah, those were. Those were cedar, which is the only thing this pencil's lacking. Hmm. But.
But she did some special. Oh, she did like a black and white one, right?
Yeah, they did a black and white one. And they did like red, yellow and blue ones.
Oh, that's right. That's right.
The end of the shop opening. Yeah, but these come in a freaking fuchsia box. They're just. They're so cool. But I. I wish I thought to ask the folks at Musgrave and the Delgers what inspired them to make this and what inspired them to call it the Party Bugle. I called it like a garden or something. Looks springy. But I love that they're calling it the Party People, so I feel festive whenever I use it, even though it's getting really small. But, yeah, I don't have any other fresh points, do I? What's in here?
Did you, did you cover all of your fresh points?
Oh, yeah, I have one of the. This is like, only marginally related. I have a new obsession with vintage awls, specifically ones that have replaceable points. So I have like all of these new things that I poke myself with, which is cool, but I am up to date on my tetanus shot, so it's. It's not as stressful as it could be.
But how do you sharpen all?
You can sharpen them, but I get the ones with replaceable points. You can just replace the point.
I'm.
I might have a tube of like 40 of them that are. That came with a box of vintage ones I got recently that weighs like 12 pounds. Awesome. I. I might have poked myself with them like many, many, many times in the process of cleaning it up before I realized. You take the point out before you clean it up. But yeah, one of the fun things about making books all day. You nerd out of the verb tools. Yeah, there's. I think Jeff Peachy has a collection of olfa knives, which is way cooler. That's very specific, Johnny.
I have to send you a YouTube video that Adam Savage made not too long ago where he interviewed this lady who is the curator at a bookmaking museum in San Francisco. And they have like, old examples like pre Industrial Revolution, Industrial Revolution, post Industrial Revolution of how they make books and the machines and pictures and it's really interesting.
Oh, my God.
You have to come out here and stay with me and we can go to the museum.
We'll talk.
Okay. Say it's a solid two week train ride, I think.
Yeah, it's like four days.
Okay, that's good.
Four days of no kids.
Yeah.
Chilling on the Amtrak. I can handle this.
Okay.
And it's only 10 bucks to get in a museum.
Nice. Did you find it?
Yeah, the American Bookbinders Museum.
Yeah, I need to look it up.
Oh, my God.
That's really cool.
We gotta make this happen.
Okay.
I picked him up on the way.
Yeah. Let's do a remote recording from there.
Oh, that's too cool.
Are you. Any other fresh points? That's all I have kind of a bunch, but they're pretty short one. I wanted to mention that. So I was in Florida a couple weeks ago. I was visiting my sister in Orlando and. And I spent a couple days in Miami just because I had never been there and I wanted to eat good Cuban food. So I went to Miami and did not expect to see them, but I went to a little bookstore called Books and Books in Miami, and they had the independent bookstore day Black Wings.
Cool.
Any of you picked these up?
Nice.
No, I forgot what weekend it was.
Nice.
Jay, did you. Do you have any of these?
No, I haven't gotten those yet. The independent bookstore ones? No, I don't.
Yeah, they're. They're going a different direction than some of the past ones. And they have sort of like this kind of like arabesque pattern on it. And it's. It's interesting because the pictures online and also the box makes it look sort of like this very bright kind of like orangey red. And you open it and it is a much duskier kind of like orangey red. It's almost brick color. And it's nice. It's. It's very nice looking. It just doesn't look like.
Compared to volume four. Volume four, the mars one.
Yeah. It's a little less orangey and a little bit more bricky than that one. Like a little darker, less sandy. Yeah, the. The design is kind of like gold leafed on. And it's really nice. The trouble is, is, like, it's at the very bottom. So as you sharpen it, like, basically, eventually you're going to run out of design.
But it's.
It's nice. It's a. It's a firm core. Yeah, it's just a very nice, very nice pencil. So, I mean, it's a black wing. Right. Like, it's going to be nice. But I like the way it looks a lot and I like the kind of new direction that they're taking. Independent bookstore day pencils.
Yeah. These look really sharp.
Yeah. Another thing in Miami that was really interesting. I went to a neighborhood called Wynwood which is kind of like their arts district. And I went to this museum called the Wynwood Walls and it's a street art museum. And there's a whole bunch of like, like wall murals. Like there's a big shepherd fairy one. There's a bunch of like just local artists in varying sort of like styles. And in the gift shop which has all sorts of cool art books and really good gift shop, they had these really weird markers and they were basically just a bunch of these little boxes that had just like Japanese writing on them and then big question marks and the, if you click through the. I put a link in the show notes to the Amazon page for these. They look super cool and they're just really intriguing. And I opened one up and it had this little chisel tip marker inside. But instead of like, like a sharpie barrel, like a plastic barrel, it had a little glass bottle. And so it's the size of a small medicine bottle but with like a, like a large chisel felt tip on the top.
I was like what is this?
And, and no real English like on the box and just wasn't quite sure what it was. And so I, I didn't buy it there. I had very limited room in my luggage. But I went home and, and I went on Amazon just cuz like it was cheap there and they had it get it delivered to my house in two days. So I bought a set of them, a set of 12. And it's this big box with 12 little boxes in each color of the marker inside. And, and they're just really delightful. They're, they're known, they're paint markers. They're known for being able to mark on anything. So if you just want to like go deface a building or something, like these are a good marker to do that. But also I'm, I, I mostly I just bought it for the design, like the, the label design. It's a brand called Terra Nishi and they make anybody familiar with guitar ink, like it's a fountain pen ink called guitar ink. Yeah, they make, they make this ink. I, I took them to the San Francisco stationary meetup on Saturday and some people are like, oh yeah, it's that company. So it's called the Taranishi Chemical Company and they make these markers. But I guess they're loved by. They definitely have that marker smell that some people like. But yeah, apparently it's very permanent and will mark on just about anything. So if anybody out here Needs to go to face a public building. I cannot condone it, but this is apparently the. The marker to use.
So are they very, like, smelly?
Yes.
They definitely have a. They're not quite as much as, like. I'm trying to think of one of the really bad ones, but they're not quite as acetone as some of them out there. But it's pretty. It's more smelly than a Sharpie, for sure.
Yeah, they're those new sharpies or Newish that write on cement that like.
Oh, yeah.
Even open them inside. They smell so strong.
They smell. You're just like killing brain cells even thinking about it.
Yep. Like lost a day.
Yeah.
Put that in a bag and just huff it. It's just.
I did it by accident.
Yeah.
So, yeah, got. Got some of those markers. Don't have much of a use for them, but I just think they. They looked really cool. So I was like, I'm gonna buy these. Another thing I got. I was not expecting to. I've been looking for a slimline backpack. So I have a new job, I think I mentioned, and I'm commuting into the office of a little bit more than I was before, like, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I wanted to just like a slimline backpack to put, like, my notebook and a laptop and maybe just a few other things in. And I was looking at a bunch of them. I was looking at rickshaw bags and Timbuktu and Topo and Tom Bin, and I randomly just went to go. I have a slim light backpack. I have the first of the Venture backpacks that Baron Fig made for their Kickstarter.
I think.
I think we. I can't remember. We all. We all bought like, one of the Baron Fig backpacks and. Or bags for that Kickstarter. And I got the backpack. It was like, fine. Right. And I noticed on their website they're now selling a third version of that backpack, the Venture 3.0. And I went to go look at it, and I was just, like, looking at it and looking at it, and it's. It's black, and you can kind of customize it with different colored shoulder straps. And it just. They're just really smart about the. About the space. Right. Like, they have a separate laptop compartment, which is nice. They have a bunch of, like, zips. They have some on the outside, some on the inside. It's just really nice. And it's $118, and it's. Which is pretty cheap compared to the other things I was looking at. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna give this a go. So I bought it, and I have to say, it's really nice. I am not by any means like a bag snob. Like, I like some bags, but there's some people out there who are bag snobs. But, yeah, I'm a big, big fan of this. So they have ample pen loops on the inside. Of course, they fit a squire perfectly. But they have two. They have like a. Like a little pen loop just. Just at the top, kind of horizontal, and they have one on the side kind of vertical. And they have. Of course, they're. They have a pocket that fits a confidant really well. Fits a leuchtturm really well too. But, yeah, huge fan of this bag, so can't recommend it enough. It comes in any color you want as long as that color is black. But you can get shoulder straps or like the backpack straps in blue and pink and green and orange, all kind of baron figgy colors. So. Yeah.
So this square doesn't just like, slide right through to the bottom of your bag?
No, no, it just sits in that pen loop real nice.
That's magic. Yeah,
they better. They shouldn't fail in making a squire fit. Yeah, they did a really, really good job with this. So, yeah, good job, guys. I'm a big fan of this.
I'll.
I'll. I'll do a follow up once I try it out a little bit more and just kind of like, see how it goes. I want to put. I want to put, like, maybe a couple pins on the outside. It's still cloth bound, and I'm guessing it's not waterproof. The other one is extremely not waterproof, and I found that out the hard way one day. But this one.
Andy, is. Is this backpack tactical enough for your. All of your numb chucks and your throwing stars and things like that?
That's a good question. I really, like, obviously I, I would have to saw off my shotgun if I wanted to put it in there.
He's got to keep those ninja stars close.
Did you do that already?
Yeah, no, I, I. It has. It has a nice strap for my bat left.
He's got a fanny pack for that stuff.
Yeah, that's true.
It is.
It is definitely, like, which I like about it. It, like, the style leans more toward just like, hipster tech worker than it does tactical. So, like, urban warrior. So definitely not quite the. The level of tactility that probably some people would want. But, yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely that. But yeah, I, I think I could probably fit like, like a. Oh, what's the. What are those little things that Raphael used to use?
Oh, size.
Yeah. Yeah, I could probably fit a couple of those in there.
What's the plural of.
That is the size of sizes, that is.
Yeah. I can't do it.
It's a nightmare size.
Yeah.
That's why he was always so rude.
He just wasn't sure how to say it.
His grammar issues. That's why he was so rude. Yeah.
The last thing I'll mention is I've recently been taking stock, as one does, of my press penny collection. Love a press penny. Went to Florida and my sister and her kids and I went to Disney Springs, which is sort of like the. The Disney shopping district that you don't have to pay to get into. They have a bunch of press peddy machines and it kind of stinks because it's a push button thing and you use a credit card so you don't have to put in two quarters and a penny. It just, it just, it just supplies the penny for you.
What?
That's pretty fun.
Yeah. And. And also you can push a button. Like there'll be one with like five different designs and you can push a button and it does all five, which like, you know. Yeah, that's not. That's not fun. I want to crank it myself. Right?
Yeah.
Come on.
So I. They have a bunch of those. They have one with a bunch of like Marvel people. They have one with a bunch of Star Wars. And so my sister got me all five of the Star wars ones. And then I found a couple other press penny just experiences around Orlando and Miami. And so now I'm just like, I'm running out of moon room in my little book. So I went on Amazon, as one does, and found this huge. It's basically like a traveler's notebook, but for press pennies. Like, it has like the COVID with the elastic that is also sort of the band. And you can fit your. Like, it has sleeves for 228 press pennies. You can fit a bunch of quarters in there. There's some large pockets and then there's a Penny adventure journal that you can use to just like take notes about where you found your pennies. It's quite something.
That's pretty fantastic.
Yeah, they have a bunch of different covers. There's like some kind of leathery looking ones. I have no idea if they're. Oh, they're vegan leathers, Johnny. And there's some that are. There's a tie dye one that's pretty Great. So I bought one for myself and then I bought one for my mother, who also collects pennies for Mother's Day. So there's a link in the, in the show notes of this, this penny journal. And it seems like you can get just the collector sheets. If you just want to add some to your, to your traveler's journal, to your traveler's notebook. They are. Gosh. How. What are the dimensions of these? I can't figure it out. But yeah, if you just, if you just want the sheets for it, you can add that to your own thing. So that's pretty fun.
Like if you just wanted to make some books with sheets in them, let's
say you just wanted to make your own journal cover. Yeah. And just like do your own. You can get just the, just the sheets, which is pretty neat.
Yeah. My kids are into like, have been collecting those too. And so I've got kind of gotten into looking for em. Have you. If you come across this website that has like a PDF of all like the registered ones around the world or around the country.
I found, I found a website that has. It doesn't like they let the domain expire like some time ago and it's just like the IP address.
It's.
And, and it's like a few months,
but yeah, it's way out of date. There's pennycollector.com.
okay.
It looks like their domain is back.
I mean, there's no way it's like comprehensive, but like we've hunted down a few that way. And actually one time we were like looking on there and I noticed that one of them was like a hundred yards from the school that I was teaching at last. And so I went there and got like four of them before.
Was it up to date?
Yeah, at that point it was. Or at least the one that I was looking at. I'll see if I can find it here in a second.
Yeah, there's pennycollector.com and yeah, if you, if you click on the list of locations, it takes you to the website of 209-221-138252 rolls right off the tongue. Yeah. And it separates it by state or by international country. And there's many of them that are out of date, like kind of crossed out. But generally it's useful for finding. I found one in Ojai, California randomly once from there that just sits sitting in an antique shop. So that was kind of cool. Yeah.
Yeah.
So that is it for my fresh points.
Yeah.
Let's get into our main subject and talk a little bit about poetry. I think those of you in the Erasable group all know JJ Newton or in the Patreon. He's, he's a writer. He lives in the Chicago area. His work has appeared on this podcast also in the Pen Post and Pencil Revolution and in Plumbago. And he just put out a chat book of his wonderful poetry late last year called Effigies. He's the, the poet laureate of Erasable, which is, we said it as a joke, but really, this is no joke. So, Jay, we're, we're really, we're really excited to have you here. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Thanks very much. It's great to be here.
Thank you so much.
Yeah. So at the end, we're going to just, like, talk to Jay a little bit about making poetry, but at the end, we, we kind of like, put him up against ChatGPT to write some limericks. So I'll talk more a little bit about that once we kind of, kind of get through the interview. So I will. I'll start us off. Jay, while poetry is indeed life, no one is a poet 24 7. I mean, some people I'm sure are, but can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and what you get up to when you're not, when you're not writing poetry?
Yeah, sure thing. Yeah. Like you said, I am from the Chicago area, the Chicago suburbs. My wife and I have two boys, 10 and 7. During the day, like most English majors, I work in the business world, so I work for an information services company. Yeah, right. So I work as a data analyst, which is I, I run reports and, well, I guess I analyze data, which is the complete opposite of what I enjoy doing with, with poetry and with the humanities. I was never a numbers person, but it turns out, I guess I have a. Some kind of a capacity to do that. So that's where I ended up. But aside from that, I absolutely love movies. Any mobster movie that you could think of in our house, it's, it's kind of a joke. Like when, you know, after the kids are in bed, when my wife and I go downstairs to watch some tv, it's like, which movie will Jay fall asleep to tonight? Is it going to be Goodfellas, Casino, the Departed, or the Irishman? And it really is true. How that works out, I like also, I think, I think you call it like a. I think Netflix calls them, like, gritty police dramas. So things like Mayor of Easttown, Happy Valley, Broadchurch, those kind of things. Yeah.
And Then bucks. Sorry.
I know, right? Yeah. I know that you're, you have a lot of information about those kind of things. I need to, I need to hit you up for some of those, some suggestions.
Just get Britbox. It's so cheap. It's so awesome.
I may do that.
Best advice.
Yeah, that, that's like, that was great. Like a, like an American attempt at like kind of those broad church, those really sort of like sullen, kind of like, I don't know, kind of barren landscape or just gritty.
Yeah, I think that's the perfect word for it.
Like, yeah.
Or like movies like that, like, like this is gonna sound depressing. Like Manchester by the Sea, like Gone Baby Gone. That kind of thing.
Yeah. Can hear Kate Winslet's attempt at a East Pennsylvania accent.
Yeah, yeah, that was great that I, I didn't see any of those, like 12 twists coming in that one, but yeah, what else? And then of course I like things like, I, I, I don't know what you call this genre. Is it sci fi? Is it like speculative? It's like the Twilight Zone, X Files, Black Mirror, which I hear is coming out with the new, new episodes in June, like room 104, things like that. So aside for movies, I love music. I've often heard that the music that you like when you're in your teens and early twenties is the music that you end up liking for the rest of your life the most. So that's for me, that's like 90s alternative and grunge. And of course, aside from that, the Beatles, all time greatest band. I like them. I mean really, besides movies. Movies and music, the kids really keep us busy chasing them around most of the time. So that, that kind of takes up the rest of all my time.
You have a couple kids?
Yeah, two boys, 10 and 7.
Nice.
Yeah, that's almost the same as mine. We have a, I have a 10 year old and 6 year old and I literally had a conversation today about that, like the, like the music you listen to. Because I was talking to some like college kid who goes to the church that we're at and he was like, so I hear you're into the Avett Brothers and the Wood Brothers. And I was like, yeah. He's like, my dad likes them. And I was like, yeah, I bet he does. I said, and I said I found him when I was in college. We were in college, right? He's like, yeah. I was like, well, whatever you're listening to now, that's what you're gonna like. That's all you're gonna want in like 15 years.
I. Yeah, I. I really got into the Beatles through my son. I have a. My 10 year old's on the autism spectrum. And one of the things that I was amazed, I. I just, I had this. What. Maybe it's an instinct or just a feeling that like, maybe music, like, could be the way in to kind of really, like, get in touch with them and really kind of connect with him. And I'm like, well, I guess I'll start with the Beatles. If I'm going to start with something, let's start there. And it's kind of amazing. So it's. I mean, he loves it too. And without really trying, like, I could say to him, like, hey, AJ it's the fourth track, like Magical Mystery Tour, and he knows that one. Or what's the, what's the third song in the Abbey Road medley? And he can tell me that. So that's been really fun to see him kind of embrace music too.
Cool.
Beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, love it.
Awesome. So we're here to talk about poetry. So what draws you to poetry?
Do you.
You are a good writer and you could write any genre. What makes you want to write these short, finely crafted little works?
Sure, sure. That's a really good question. I. I wish something in my brain, I'm drawn to these shorter, more distilled works. I wish I could write a novel. I wish I could write short stories. I have all kinds of ideas for them, but I just, for some reason my brain just doesn't work that way. But I can surely, like do a compressed, really tight, like, little, little poem. And like, I'll say this kind of my poetry origin story. Like a lot of people who like to write and write poetry, I had great English teachers, like in my early schooling, in high school and my senior year. Shout out to Mrs. Augustin if she's listening. We had. She introduced us to what became my favorite, like, genre of poetry, like modernism. And when I first heard like The Hollowman by T.S. eliot, that really had an effect like that, I can really say that changed me because until then I never realized that poetry could be kind of sparse, that barren, kind of. I don't want to say pessimistic, but. Well, maybe it is pessimistic, but certainly like that. Could it be that serious that it could express something like that? And like that really changed me. That was a great class. She introduced us to, like all the great stuff. I can remember early in that class, we started out with Madame Bovary by, By Gustav Flaubert. Or if you like, in a Chicago accent, Flaubert. And I was too young to really appreciate it at the time. And she said, jay, stick with it, because the good stuff is coming. And surely enough, it was. So we got. I got T.S. eliot, who are some of my other, like, real inspirations in terms of. Well, in terms of poetry. Elliot Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, EE Cummings, certainly William Carlos Williams. And then in terms of, like, other literature. I mean, Hemingway, of course. What did they say? Every American writer is influenced by Hemingway, whether you're trying to, like, imitate or, like, rebel against him.
Right.
So Hemingway, Joyce, Faulkner, Kafka. And that's the good stuff. So that's really where I got my interest in poetry at first. And I. She put up with me writing some awful things that she was kind enough to encourage me with at the time. I'm glad I don't have those anymore, because they truly must have been awful.
But, yeah, so that.
That's kind of the. The poetry origin story, if you will. Yeah, I was gonna say. I just. It's like the kind of poetry I like to write is. I love the ideas of Imagism, right? That images aren't decorations, like, they're the essence. When I'm writing, often that's the first thing I have for inspiration is some kind of an image or a description of an image. I think it was William Paris Williams who said, like, the direct treatment of the thing. There are no ideas, but in things. So when I write, I try to find language. Like, precise, you might say, like distilled, refined, sharp, almost. Almost merciless in its accuracy. You want to find. Not the second best word, not the third best word or something that's good enough. You want to find just the. The exact right word. Almost. Almost like brittle, like, to the point of cracking. I've heard the analogy of a Bunsen burner from your chemistry class. You turn that on right away, and it's that kind of orange and yellow flame whipping around like one of those inflatable guys in front of a car dealership. But as you. As you tune it and as you. As you, like, adjust the flame, you get that perfect thin blue line and of fire. And that's what I try to do in poetry. Find just the exact right thing in the exact right words.
I think you really. I was going to mention this later, but, like, I think you really accomplished this with, like, the orange bicycle.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, I think that really. I was going to mention that. So. Yeah, I think at some point, I'M going to see if. We're going to see if maybe you'll read a couple poems from your.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Tim, did you. Were you going to.
Yeah. First of all, I really love that. That's. When you're talking about the images like, that reminds me of Ron Rash, who's somebody I've talked about on here before, who's, like, one of my favorite novelists and poets. And he. And I've heard him interviewed where he talks about, like, basically every novel, short story, or poem he's ever written has started with like. And he's just like. All he's trying to do is do justice to that image that he's got in his head.
Yeah.
Like, figure out what's going on. Which I think is really. Which is like, for me is like, somebody tries to write. I write song that, like, is really super freeing to hear somebody who's just like, I see something in my head, it's intriguing, and I'm gonna figure out where it goes. I'm. Figure out what's going on there.
Yeah.
That's very, very well said. As far as. When you have those images and you've got like an image and you're getting ready to. Or whatever it is and you're getting ready to write something, what's your creative process like? I mean, is it. I mean, you can get into, like, sort of the shop talk of the gear or whatever, but just kind of like, how do you ease yourself into a new poem?
Sure.
And you can answer that however you want.
I can tell you what it's not, which is what I always wished it was. Nice, quiet study with a big desk, mahogany and burgundy like, leather chair and all that, where it's just. You could just. I can be quiet and contemplate that. It just doesn't happen. So I've learned to kind of embrace the chaos. I'll. I'll. I'll have an idea or I'll think of something. I'll hear a phrase or I'll hear a. Something in a song or something like that. I could be in the car watching the kids at the pool, in the parent pickup line at school. And I always, like, keep a notebook close by. And sometimes it just takes that to just get that. Get a few things down at the time. And then after that, really, I. I find I. I do better work at night if I. If I can stay awake after everybody's in bed, if I can scratch off a few lines here and there. And as crazy as this sounds, really, ideas come to me. In the shower too. I don't know what it is about the shower, but really good ideas are. I can. Maybe it's because you have a few minutes of privacy in there.
You could just.
I was gonna say it's the only time you're alone. Is it?
So speak for yourself.
But anyway, it doesn't count because they're coming in. If they need you, they're coming in.
Yeah.
Right.
All right. Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's. Yeah. And I. It's really kind of like composing amid chaos and I think sometimes that even informs the poetry itself. That's kind of the process. Yeah, I, I really use. It's pencil and paper in a. In a pocket notebook. First of all, I, that's, that's where the ideas go down. Although I love using this thing that Johnny, I got from Johnny made for me way back when. It's. It's like a. It's a vegan leather with a closure on the front. It's kind of a green, kind of a floppy notebook. It's perfect. I filled almost this whole thing up with notes and poetry and stuff. So that's great. But I, I'm kind of weird. Once I get those ideas down, it's like I have to see it on an 8 and a half by 11 size piece of paper just to see how it looks like, how, how the, how the lines look. Something about that is important to my brain. I don't know why that is, but I've got to see what that looks like on, on, on that size. The very last thing I'll do once it's done is I'll. I'll transpose it to like a Word document or whatever. But all, all the work and the pre. Work is all done just pencil and paper.
Nice.
I remember seeing a image of. I think it was Billy Collins when he's like working on his. Whatever book he has. Like he, he works in notebooks, but he always ends up putting things on 8 and a half by 11 paper and he like lays them all out on his floor. He like, oh wow. Arranges them on his floor to make his. He's just like, no, that needs to go over in here. Oh no, it needs to go over here. It's all like very physical and like that's just reminded me of that, like that idea. There's something about seeing it in its actual form.
And I often experience some kind of cognitive, cognitive dissonance with. Between seeing how it's written in my handwriting and then seeing it in Times New Roman 12, like on a Piece of paper. Sometimes it just, I don't know, it's just, it looks different than what you thought it was going to look like, if that makes any sense at all.
Yeah, I mean, I think poetry, because it focuses so much on structure, like it has more of an impact than if you're writing like a novel or a memoir or something like that, when you see it just kind of physically. So that makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. So in your, in your poems, Jay, you have some really big themes. Like, I'm looking at your chat book, like the Ostrogoth. Ostrogoth looks at 40, which, which I had to, I had to go look up. Look up what Ostrogoth means.
Yeah, it's that bird with the long. The bird with the head goes in the ground on the feather.
Yeah, yeah. So you got, you got that, that felt very kind of like big and sweeping. You have some small snippets of life. Theme house blend is one of them, which is, yeah, just you, you're talking about diff, different kinds of coffee. And some things that you're thinking about. I think it's, I am neither crisp nor mellow, which I think is one of my favorite lines. And then you, you have some, I mentioned before, like the Orange Bicycle, which is very, feels very William. William Carlos Williams, like, just kind of like this just very perfect single image. This is, I think this is your plums in the ice box right here.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah.
So, yeah, sorry, go, no, go ahead, please. Who are some, you, you mentioned a few of them. Just generally speaking, who are some poets who really, whose works really resonate with you and you kind of feel like you kind of have influenced you. Like, what if somebody wants to get the Jay Newton experience? Who else? Who else should they read?
Read T.S. eliot, William Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. Even some of the early modernists, like the Imagists, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, hd, Hilda Doolittle. I, I, I just really like that. Not, not that it's as, as short as possible, but no extraneous words. Every single word, every single syllable matters. And I just enjoy the craft of it. Right. Like paring it down, finding the, the perfect way to say it, the perfect word. Um, so I, I would say those are some, some, some really big influences on me.
Yeah.
Oh, that's really cool.
Yeah.
I was gonna say, I think in terms of themes, I like to write about. I, I, I love what Hemingway said. Write hard and clear about what hurts. And I think when I'm writing my more serious things, that that really stays in the back of my mind. I have a lot of interest in the relationships of fathers and sons. So I. I tend to write about that a lot. I enjoy thinking about like the mythos, or maybe you can say the myth of the American dream with. And is that still possible? Was it ever possible? Was it. Was it a myth all along? Sort of this like middle aged suburban desperation that's kind of creeping into the back of my mind as I get older. I also like. I find like beauty in the ordinary or beauty in. I don't want to say the ugly, but beauty in the like, non. Non traditional sense. I don't know if there's truth with a capital T, but if there is, I think that's where it's found. The everyday, the ordinary, the imperfect.
Yeah.
What else? Like, lack of faith in institutions. I mean, gosh, if they were writing about that in 1920, imagine how much less faith we have in institutions now. I mean, name one that you trust. What, financial, government, like educational. I mean, it's like everything's breaking down.
Right.
And so I think finally I would say this, like fragmentation, isolation, almost like a deconstruction of society to the point that. Not to sound too highfalutin to. To the point that coherence itself almost breaks down and you're left with these like sputtering fragments of poetry, sort of echoes to the past, echoes of pop culture. And I think that's. I think that's a heavy influence from T.S. eliot. Especially in the Wasteland, I think is where that. That's some. That's. That's where that must have gotten into my consciousness.
They didn't even have Twitter accounts back then.
It was fair.
All these, all these organizations that we were. They were discontented with or these institutions.
So can you talk a little bit about how you put your poems together into your chatbook? Like I laid out pages, but I have no idea how you came up with the order.
Oh man.
And the title of.
That's a great question.
And after that, if you maybe want to read a couple.
Yeah, I'll answer that question, especially the one about Vietnam. If you have some suggestions, I'll. I'll be happy to. If there's some you had in mind. I do. In terms of laying it out, man, I went the old school way of note cards.
I sort of.
I sort of put a. Yeah. Cause that seemed like the easiest way for me. Like old school three by five index cards.
I would do post it notes for. For layouts for Pambago.
Absolutely. I Just I try to. I try to group them by theme. Like, some of these are about, like, relationships. Some of these are like the more. The more image heavy ones. Some of these are family ones. So I kind of. There's a. There's an internal kind of sense of order, I think. But yeah, I use note cards for that. The title effigies, what I was going for there is effigies in the sense of images which are. Which are like, so important to. To how I. How I think about my writing. But an effigy, it's also something that you sort of. It's sort of raised up, but then also like kind of taken down.
Right.
Like you. You. Like you. You would burn someone in effigy, for example. And so I think I do that too. Like effigies, like symbols of power and different things like that. And sort of how those have crumbled or been taken down. Effigies.
My favorite songwriter alive right now is Jason Isbel, and he has a song where he has a line that says, we burn these joints in effigy, crying about what we used to be. I was like, oh, that's good. I remember I heard that for the first time. I was like, oh, my God, it brought that word to life for me.
Don't you hate that? Sometimes you hear you. You hear something, you're like, oh, man, I wish I'd written that. Now I don't like it because now I. I can never write that. That great line. I wish I'd never heard it.
Yeah, it's. I think. What's the song? It's called Elephant. You gotta check it out. It's such a good song, but it's about like a. A friend dying of cancer. But like just that word, effigy, Just like I remember, like, just. Yeah. Anyways, that's just such a powerful, like, pregnant word. So, um.
So yeah.
Do you.
Jay, do you have a. A couple that you want to read or. Johnny, you said you had some ideas.
Sure, Johnny, I'll. I'll take. I'll take suggestions.
I can't remember the title of the one about Vietnam, but.
Well, I'll. I'll do that one. Sure.
Oh, the Ladrang Valley U. My dad was also a nom, so I like that one a lot.
Sure. Let me find that here in my little thing. Yeah, this is called La Drang Valley.
U.
Like, like university. The inspiration for this is. I was once watching a documentary about. About Vietnam veterans, and they said the one gentleman was saying one of the hardest questions he gets, and it's always from young people who don't know better is have you ever killed anyone? And he's like, it's not that I'm upset that they want to know that or they ask it. It said they have no idea like what that means to me in my soul and what I would have gone through to answer that question. So it's kind of a flippant. It's kind of a flippant question when it shouldn't be. And so that's kind of what's behind this. My dad was in Vietnam too. And so I think there's. I think there's some of that in here too. And this is also about how people like us, I assume would not have gone.
We, we.
We would put in college and probably got a deferment because of that. Okay, so this is called Ladrang Valley U. Alright. It says with that smart ass look on his face, that college kid look like it's nothing. Like he's talking about the weather. Did you ever kill anyone? Just like that? What am I supposed to say? At night they told us shoot anything that moves. It was all cleaned up by morning. Far as I know, we only got water buffaloes, but it don't mean nothing. So there it is. And that's what we did over and over and over again, my friend. Close and continuous support. Polishing bombs and bullets in between. Guess I got my own kind of degree too. Professor of dirt, Doctor of mud, Dean of the College of Death.
I like the Eve of Destruction reference in there.
Yeah, I remember when you had a. You were listening to like every version that you could find, right? Every.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gosh, that's one really like it reminds me of the. Are you familiar with Tim o'?
Brien?
Have you read any Tim o'? Brien?
A little bit.
He wrote like the Things They Carried.
Oh yeah, yeah.
I'll have to find it in Sundb. He has this. That's such a beautiful poem. And it really like. It like took me right back. He has a. I don't know if it's an essay or a short story technically, but it's about like when his daughter asked him for the first time if he'd killed anybody in Vietnam. And it's like how he explains it to. I'll have to find that and send it to you, but absolutely, please do. Gosh, that's. That's wonderful. I really appreciate the, I mean like, like the precision you talked about earlier and the brevity and kind of like don't use words that you don't need to use. I could feel it there. It's wonderful. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you very much. That means a lot to me. What else, Johnny? Did you have another one in mind?
I do. Cool breezes.
Which one, Johnny? Oh, I'm sorry.
Cool breezes.
Ooh.
This is a dad poem.
All right. There's a theme here.
Oh, yeah.
Just bad jokes.
Yeah, right. Oh, yeah.
Hello, Palm. I'm Dad.
This is. Oh, Johnny, I'm glad you asked about this one, because this is one of those where you have these, like, echoes of the past and lines and lyrics and phrases from other. Other works and things like that.
So this one should probably mention. We should probably mention it's cool with a K. Yes.
Yes. Like. Like the cigarette. Yeah.
Cool.
Brings us.
Yeah.
Okay. Took us. Rank fumes of cigarettes seeping from an opened window and carried by the early spring winds. Our father who starts at seven. We lived in the flicker of his lighter who was anything but cool. Take him for all in all, he was a man. Foul ashtrays, yellowed walls and ceiling, Greasy windows filling the house and us. Those are pearls that. Where his teeth look. Snot rags, sweaty pockets full of okra slime. It is not now as it had been. Pourquoi donc, papa? Qu' il n' est CE l' evre pass? Forgive my French. Full fathom five, our father lies about the chronic angers of that mouse suburban Laocoon wrestling with reptilian wisps. Death by a thousand butts. Sweet Virginia tobacco proudly made in the USA for the discerning smoker. Rich and mild, kissed with wintergreen. Unlike the rest of us who lived in the flicker.
Thank you.
Yeah, that's. That's a. Lived in the. In the. We live in the flicker. That's Joseph Conrad. I can't take credit for that line, but that's a. I will gladly steal it.
Can you tell us why the. Why the French?
Oh, yes. Thank you. That's. Yeah. There's a. There's a painting whose name escapes me. And it's a father. It's a. It's a father son painting. And the father and son are watching hot air balloons rise. And there's one that is either malfunctioning or not working. And the boy's saying to his father, like, how come that one can't go higher, Daddy? What's wrong with that one? And I don't know that. That. That was meaningful to me in some way. I'm not sure I can express the exact way in which it was, but that. That had an effect, I think.
Yeah, that's cool.
Yeah.
If. If you don't mind, could I read one more?
Please do.
Yeah. As many as you mentioned, an ostrograph looks at 40. I really like that poem. So somewhere in the past, I watched a history documentary about Rome and the fall of Rome, and someone mentioned this. I don't know who it was, I don't know what show it was or when, but there was the idea that after Rome fell, in the decades that followed, in the centuries, there would have been someone who didn't know about Rome's past glory, walking around seeing, like, the Coliseum is a garbage dump now. All the marbles been stripped off the buildings. Something was beautiful here. And like, what the hell happened? They would look around and be so confused by this. Like, we're living in filth now. But this was a great civilization. How did it get to this point? And so that's always stuck in the back of my mind somewhere. So that's what this poem's about.
Okay.
An ostrogoth looks at 40, plodding through filth, exhausted and starving. Pockmarked civitates covered with black boils. Glints of crushed marble. Rats picking the bones of a she wolf. Broken columns to an unknown God. Finding the great city was, you might say, unsatisfactory. My thoughts are with Ravenna and the steps before that, south to the brackish sea. Father's father alongside Attila. The days of meat and milk. That one days of when things were better.
Like, I definitely. I definitely felt. Felt a lot of, like. I think one of the reasons it just seemed like such a big thing to me is it feels like aging. Right? Like, yes. People aging as well as, like, cities and systems and institutions and civilizations. Yeah. Okay. Just because I really like it, because it's coffee themed. Can you read one more? And can you read House Blend?
Oh, absolutely. This is directly influenced by the movie Patterson with Adam Driver.
Oh, good.
The.
The. The poets. The poems that he, like, writes, Slash reads in there are from a poet. Again, his name escapes me, but from. I think they call it the New York School of Poetry.
Right.
And so, yeah, okay, this is called Houseblend. My wife transferred the instant coffee into a smaller Starbucks tin and carefully labeled it Taster's Choice with green and white washi tape. She did this because the jar was too big for the magnetic rack that she stuck on the side of the refrigerator next to the cabinet that held the mugs. The new coffee replaced Starbucks Blonde Roast, which is probably for the best. I am not Tempted by anything blonde with or without a final E I am neither crisp nor mellow I don't know if it was helped by its new home. It still tasted stale and smelled faintly of beef broth, though I could not say why.
Perfect. Washi tape and coffee right in one. There you go. You know, one poem.
Yeah. Were you thinking of that poem about the matches from the film?
Yes, I suppose.
Maybe it was.
Yep. Yeah. That was great.
I love that movie.
Yeah. I think, Johnny. I think you mentioned it one time on the podcast, and that's. I finally got around to watching it. The. The final scene where he's talking with the Japanese man on the bench in the park. I could watch that a hundred times. That's just a great scene.
I watch that again soon.
Yeah. Yeah, me too. All right, so we've heard these sort of, like, really wonderful poetry. I guess you call them free verse poems, these sort of minimal poems. And like. But also we. We also know you for being really good with a limerick, which is the opposite. Right, right. With. They're very fun, and we've. We've joked around with them. But you've been. You know that it's your. We've brought you up. I think that was where our first kind of introduction to you is. You had these wonderful limericks that you. That you wrote for us that. Yeah, man. So could you talk about that form? Like. Like, what is it about that form that you enjoy? Like, what's your relationship with the form of the limerick? And what kind of, like, draws you towards it? Is it just pure joy?
It doesn't make any sense. You're right. I. Yeah, I don't. I've always liked limericks. I don't know. It's just something about. I guess they're sort of like riddles, in a way, or jokes. I. I like them because I get to, like, express some humor through them. I like that you're still flexing, like, your creative muscle, like your poetic muscle, but there's not that much at stake. Right. We're not changing the world here. It's a limerick. It's supposed to be funny and make people laugh, so. And I also like that it's so short, you're so limited, and the structure is so defined that sometimes you've. You've really got to work at it to, like, really, really make the meter work. I just. I. I enjoy him just from. It's a way to, like, express some humor while still writing poetry in a. In a strict form. I know, Andy, you love writing them, too. Yours are great too.
I, I love limericks and I, I think I like them best. So by, by profession I'm a UX writer, so I write like the language that grows, it goes into like apps and interfaces and error messages and things like that. And they, they're very much. It's something where you're trying to pack as much meaning as possible into a very like constrained space. And I think limericks are kind of some of the best encapsulations of that. Yeah, you have very limited space. You have this like bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Like this like pattern patois you have to hit. And like you said, it is very low stakes. But it's also like you can be, it's not like a haiku where you're trying to be very just like simple and powerful. You can make them funny. You can kind of like still get a lot in there. And I just, I love, and I also just love the wordplay, like the just ability to rhyme and the like the rhyming pairs that you come up with. So that's why I love limericks. And you mentioned it almost like a riddle. And I, I have always thought of as like a puzzle. So I think, I'm sure it's very similar to that. Yeah, I was just gonna say.
No, no, go ahead.
No, go ahead.
I was.
All I was gonna say was just that it's like when you describe it that way, it's like the linner is the creative version of like the Sudoku or something.
Oh yeah.
Where you're like, you're making it up. It has that same, it sort of like checks that same box in your head where you're like, you're not just organizing things. You're organizing things, but also creating something in like a pretty concise way where you can do it in a notebook while you're waiting for the doctor or whatever.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I was gonna say. Oh, I can't think of the name for this term. For name for this poetic term. I, I don't know, but it's where the, it's your accenting the first syllable of a two syllable word. Like lacking and backing. And like normally like if you write, if you try to write a normal, like whatever a normal poem is, but like, and you use that kind of rhyme, it sounds kind of sing songy and like, I don't want to say amateurish, but it doesn't sound serious.
Right.
We're kind of used to that like iambic pentameter where like the second syllable of the word has the accent, but in. In a limerick, you absolutely. You have to use it that way. And so you can kind of be like a little bit not silly, but you can not worry about sounding silly, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Love that. So, speaking of limits. Well, I guess before we do that, Jay, we would be remiss on this. On this show if we didn't ask you what your favorite pencil and pen, pencil and paper combo is.
Ooh, that's a really good question. Yeah, my favorite pencil and paper combo.
Didn't see that one coming.
Yeah, that's a surprise. I'm just trying to think like, is this a joke? Am I supposed to. Am I not getting the joke? No, no. This is a real question. I like a very toothy paper, and I like to use a sort of a firmer pencil, like an HB on a toothy paper. So you kind of like bring out the best of that pencil. Like, for example, like you get some 80 pound paper, you use like a Blackwing Four. It's gonna just. It's gonna crumble into nothing in one page.
Yeah.
But if you've got a pencil that would otherwise be kind of like too. Too hard or too firm or too hard to use, you can kind of use it on there. You can enjoy that scratchiness and the sound, and it kind of makes it a little bit better. It kind of like forgives its flaws that way.
Yeah, that's a good point. It like, softens it a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah, it really does.
Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah.
So specifics is there, like. Like, if you pick up one of those pencils you're describing, like, what's like a typical one that you'd pick up and. And use?
Oh, man, let me think here.
Oh, boy.
I'm not sure. I've got. I got. I've got a great answer for you. Let me say the paper thickness, like the field notes, utility graph or utility ledger. That's really thick. A pencil. Let's see here. Maybe give me like a. I love the Blackwing. The first. I think it was the first iteration of the eras that they did where it's. It's kind of like that dark blue. It looks very, like, serious and, you know. Oh, yeah, it's that. I love that pencil.
I love.
I love the Blackwing natural. That's a. That's a great pencil too.
Yeah.
So I would say something probably along those lines.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That feels good on. On that utility paper. That's a good choice.
Yeah, I'm I'm working through some pencils right now. I got. I made the mistake of going to the illustrious John Morse's Etsy site, and I ended up. I ended up coming away with, like, three different sample packs of green pencils. I like the color green. And I've got a bunch of, like, the early edition of Word notebooks. So, like, I'm. I'm writing in now, like, for my. My day to day list. It's like a. It's the word word notepads. Kindred spirit, I think they call it that. That paper is.
Yeah, I have one of those in front of me. I love. Kindred Spirit's one of my favorite. Yeah. Cool. All right. Yeah, let's. Let's move on to limericks, I guess, first, before we talk about the chatgpt thing. Jay, I have issue 6 of Plumbago in front of me, where you. We. We. We put. There was a. A limerick contest that we had, and you submitted not one, but three limericks to that one for each of us. And it was just so good. We just. I just had to write it. You appealed to our. Of course.
With some deep cuts in there, right?
Deep cuts.
Genius. Can I read?
Do you have these in front of you?
Go ahead, Andy. I probably have them memorized. They're not in front of me, but. Okay, let me read them.
A doctor named Johnny went walking. A diversion from Analog talking, but with Poe and Thoreau and his three kids in tow.
How.
How he finds time for Kelly Bishop Stalking. Definitely a deep cut to our discussions about the Gilmore Girls.
It's not stalking. It's fanship. Fandom.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes. Yes. That didn't rhyme, though.
So Christmas is a lot of syllables. Yeah.
This one is great, but also out of date. Our resident teacher called Wasum encourages his young minds to blossom. Rarely seen in our group. Does he need to recoup? Nope. He's watching the Cubs playing possum.
If you think I'm gonna write about Tim and not rhyme Wasam with possum, you don't know me.
Yeah, we have this.
We have this piece of, like, art that my brother made, like, in middle school, where they were supposed to, like, make their name, like, with images and his. Of course it had a possum on there.
Of course.
Now that. Now that I know you're from the Chicago area, I'm like, so are you a Cubs? Was that. Was that a dig at the Cubs or was that.
No, no, no, absolutely.
You're like, I know.
I know.
If the Cubs made you cry, As a child, you're a Cubs fan for life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that checks out. That checks out.
Yeah.
And then finally, Millennial. Millennial Andy switched cities and spoils adorable kitties. But between the lacroix and the analog toys, his accountant just shrugs with no pity. That's really good. So I like you. It's the correct pronunciation of lacroix. It's not lacroix.
No, no, no.
Yeah, this is La Croix, Wisconsin. So
yeah.
So to that end, with these limericks, Jay is a really great poet in all the ways that we talked about, but he's also, as we kind of saw, they're good at writing under constraints. So limericks and haikus and six word stories and other forms of poems where rhyme and rhythm are as important as the concept content. So we really share a love of writing hyper specific limericks just for fun. So lately I've been thinking a lot about something that a lot of people in the tech world and just kind of in general have been thinking about, which is ChatGPT, which, if you don't know, it's a. An AI language model that's just really, really, really uncannily good at writing. And it's not just writing blog posts or poems or something like that, but you can have it help you think through problems. You can kind of feed your own writing into it and be like, hey, help me like, look for, for assumptions, challenging assumptions that I'm making. Or I have a coworker who is, has a small farm in Atlanta and is thinking about like, how to best kind of use the land and what he should be thinking about. And chat GPT is like writing.
So I literally did that yesterday. I said I live in. I said I live in East Tennessee and it's May, and we haven't planted anything yet in our raised beds. What are some like, really hardy, easy things that we could plant in our raised beds that don't require a lot of work? And it gave me like this. It's kind of terrifying, actually.
Yeah.
But I planted it at all.
Well, it's, it's really interesting because when you. And I'm sure you have, like, if you look hard, you can really see the cracks. Right? Like, I one time asked him to write me a bio of myself for, I don't know, a conference. And it told me, it told me that Andy Welfle works at Google and wrote a book that is just a completely. I mean, it's, it's related, but like, just not the title of the book that I wrote. So it just Said it with great confidence. ChatGPT writes with the confidence of a white man, I believe is what we can say here. So one thing, one thing that also I really like. Yeah, one thing that I also really like about it is I like to ask it to write limericks. Because it's really in the uncanny valley about limericks. Like, it's just not quite there. Like limericks. As Jay said, it has to be both clever and also follow the constraints and it just doesn't quite get it. And I was like, you know what? I really want to pit it against a master limerick writer, Jay Newton.
Oh, nice.
So when we, when we asked Jay to be on the show, I was like, okay, can we get. I want to get like just like people on our Patreon to give us just hyper specific prompts for writing limerick about have to do with pencils. And I want to ask Jay to write and also chatgpt write and also like Jay, you're not as you. I mean, as far as I know, I've never met you. You're not a computer, right? Like, maybe you are not. Sure, I'm not a computer, but. So I was like, hey, you know what? It would be unfair to ask you to write that instantly, right? Like just on the fly.
Oh, yeah.
So we gave you a few days, right? Like, so we. You do have a little bit of an advantage over ChatGPT because it did it instantly. That's true. But I tried to give it back. So I wanted to give it not just the prompts, but I wanted to just give some context to ChatGPT because that's what you're supposed to do, right? So I'll read you the prompt for ChatGPT. You're writing limericks for an audience who knows a lot about wooden pencils, stationary, and other analog office supplies. I'm the co host of a podcast about pencils and we're having a guest on the show who is a poet and also knows a lot about pencils. We asked our listeners to give us prompts for very specific topics about pencils and we're asking our guests to write a limerick for each prompt and we'll compare it to the one we're asking you to write. So please write limericks that will appeal to fans of stationary wind pencils. Please write one limerick for each of the following prompts. Be sure it's on topic. The more specific the better, but also make sure it's very technically accurate. Follow the rhyme and rhythm structure of limericks. Here are the prompts. And so I'll give you these prompts as we go and kind of tell you who gave them to us. And Jay, do you want. I'll give you sort of like the. The house advantage. Do you want to go first or second?
I think I'll go second because I think I'll sound better after the Chat GPT.
Okay, cool.
Good choice.
Yeah. So this is a limerick about the struggles of using a pencil with an off course center. Donnie Pierce gave us this one. Tim, do you want to read the Chat GPT limerick?
Absolutely.
Okay.
With graphite, askew pencil's no fun. Off center core makes writing undone. The line dance and the lines dance and strife, disrupting, disrupting the life of precision. Alas, it's all gone.
So may I remind you, a robot wrote that. Right? Like, it's. It's pretty good. It's. It's a. It's about an off center core. Yeah. So that. That's. That's chatgpt. And Jay, let. Do you want to read yours?
Yes, I do. If there's one thing I simply abhor, it's a stick with an off center core. It may write as smoothly as Lapis lazuli, but some things I just can't ignore.
Yeah.
So just rhyming Lapis lazuli. I mean, that's smoothly.
Lapis lazulius. I don't worry. A very good writing combination. And. And one thing I've noticed before that chatgpt just like, really takes kind of the easy way out with the rhyming pairs. Like, maybe I should have said, like, be creative with the words that you're rhyming. But I don't know if it could. Right. Like, I don't know if it would. So. So that's. That's. That one, I think. Oh, you know what I said that second one was submitted by Donnie Pierce. I think that this is not. I'll have to look up and remind myself who wrote this, but who submitted this prompt. But it's a limerick about how the field notes pencils should be better than they actually are. So this one. Jay, why don't you go first here?
Sure.
Okay.
The pencil from Draplin is lacking. Does he not have financial backing? It scratches the page like a 1 million H. While Musgrave is counter attacking.
Oh, I love that.
So good.
Thank you.
That's so good. Johnny, do you want to read the chat GPT1? Sure.
Field notes pencils tout it with cheer, but their performance fails. I do fear smoothest. They lack graphite. Too slack, in need of Improvement. That's clear.
So here's the thing is, like, they forgot some verbs. Yeah, that's not actually what the thing is. That's wrong with the field notes pencils. Like, the smoothness is fine, but the
graphic is too slack. I don't know what you mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I was going to mention. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
So generation rattling around inside molecular problem.
I don't know.
The 1,000,000 h, I think is really good.
Thanks.
Yeah. I'm going to read. I'm going to read this. I just asked it to write one just right now, which you didn't have the heads up. And this one we might need to edit out of the podcast because I've never come across something on ChatGPT that, like, made me say, like, ooh. Like, oh, that's questionable. I asked it to write a limerick about being a pencil snob.
Okay.
And it said, there once was a pencil snob so dandy whose standards were truly quite fancy.
I know it's not.
You'd scoff at the lead if it wasn't top breed. So it lost the rhyme. Only pencils of gold pleased this pansy.
Oh, man. I mean, yeah.
Yeah, totally. And then, like, definitely it mixed up the lead versus lead or whatever. Like, he'd scoff at the lead. It wasn't this breed. I was like. I just. That was the first one it gave me. I was like, whoa, man. Usually. I mean, usually it leans into the. The synonyms. Yeah. But I appreciate ChatGPT, so I won't take a screenshot of this one and share it, but.
Interesting.
Sorry to interrupt.
Yeah. Stuff like lead and lead. And I've had ones before where it just like. Yeah, like. Like the one about slack graphite. Like that just.
It.
It doesn't sound quite right, but. Yeah, so. So that's. That's the second one. That's very good. Here's one from Kathy Rogers, a limerick about how there are only so many words that actually rhyme with pencil. So I'll do. I'll. I'll read chatgpts, which. Which I feel like it's doing that thing where it's like Webster dictionary defines. It's like telling me what the prompt is in the first line. Yeah, it's pencil a word. We off rhyme.
Do we?
Yet choices are limited. No time. Stenciled. Essentials, Potential credentials. Options are scarce yet sublime. And I have to say, I actually really liked that sort of like, middle couplet. The stencils. Essentials, Potential credentials showing that there are Words that we can rhyme with pencil. So I thought it did a pretty good job there. Yeah. So that is chatgpt J, how about you?
Okay, so this one, I, I, I think the question is sort of meta about like pencil, but I took it more like I just try to cram as many chords that rhyme with pencil in the, the limerick as possible. So, okay, A brooding baboon with a pencil.
Start.
I'm, start again. What, what, what am I doing with my life?
Okay. Writing limericks for, like, to compete against robots.
People are like, yeah, making contributions to society. I'm writing about a friggin baboon with a pencil in his tail. All right. A brooding baboon with a, with a pencil could trace with his tail a stencil. He found it intriguing that he was a being both prehensile and existential. Now I have to make, I have to say something. I know that there's a biologist in our group somewhere who's going to say a baboon's tail is not prehensile. And that's true, but brooding baboons scans better than like brooding monkey or something.
I also tell me if this is what you were thinking about as you're writing this, that you were going to rhyme pencil with prehensile, so you put the baboon in there, but then you're like, ooh, existential. But you still wanted prehensile in there.
Yeah, yeah, I for sure wanted the prehensile and existential in there. Yeah, that had to be there. Yeah. That's for Johnny. Existentialism.
Yes.
Love it.
I have to say, these prompts, I thought they were pretty tough. They were really good. The people that come up with them, these were a real challenge.
Yeah, Yeah, I think they went really well. And, and you also, Jay, you had a, you had a limerick just about like a bonus limerick.
Yeah, this one, I, I, I thought that maybe one of the topics would have been like, competing against, like, a robot or a machine.
Right.
And I have to preface this by saying, you guys know what a gobot was? The toy.
Oh my God, yes.
Shape like a knockoff Transformer. Like if you wanted a Transformer and your parents got you a GoBot for Christmas, you were really disappointed.
Right?
Like Roart Cranes. Yeah.
Oh, yes.
Okay, so Art, all right. Competing against a robot would hardly make one's blood run hot. It makes the heart warmer to beat a Transformer instead of this chatty gobot.
Right.
That's my coup de grace as I finish off the chat.
GPT I feel like we're just.
We're just doing a. Oh, what do you call it when you do, like, dis wraps at each other?
Oh, yeah, like, what do you call that, like. Or something?
Yeah. Battle rap. Yeah, we're just, at this point, we're just like, battle and ranking each other. Diss tracks.
Yeah.
So good. So I think, I mean, honestly, I think that. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. If you agree, like, think otherwise, guys. But just on creativity of rhyming choices alone and just. Just the creative, like, ways and the subject that Jay's going, I think he very clearly wins over Chat GPT. Oh, hell yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
So we'll see what happens when chat GPT 5.0 comes along. Maybe we'll have you back. Oh, yeah. See what happens then. But I'm gonna.
I'll get sucked into the Matrix.
You are.
He disappears.
It's like, oh, what's the Flight of the Navigator? Do you ever watch that movie where. Oh, yeah, you know, you. He's like, really good at playing video games, so, like, they come and pick him up so he can be the navigator. You're just like, you're just going to get sucked into the. The Matrix because, oh, my gosh, like, you're really good at poetry.
So they're going to make me, like, box with a virtual Ernest Hemingway, which I don't want to do.
Yeah, he's going to play dirty. You don't want to box with Hemingway?
No, no, no.
Yeah, he's pretty old by now, though, so.
That's true.
You have.
You have youth on your side.
He's a. Yeah, he's a crafty veteran.
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, this has been just a real delight. Jay, thank you for. Thanks for joining us on the show.
It's my pleasure. I loved it. Thank you very much for having me on.
Yeah. And can you tell people if they wanted to connect with you in the Internet? If you. If you don't want to be found on the Internet, that's totally fine. But if you do, like, where can people find you?
Probably the best way is through the erasable Space Cook Facebook group. Jay Newton in there.
Yeah, he's really good. Or. Or in. I guess we have not decided how one can get a hold of this chat book.
Yeah, we're working on that.
I'm not sure we can edit it in.
Yeah, edit in. Or tell you what, like, once we have a link, we'll put it in show notes.
So.
Cool. Check back when you listen to it for. For the show notes for a link on how to buy this. Okay.
Yeah. Hey, can I throw one thing in there before we move on from.
Yes, please.
Okay. So when we were originally gonna have Jay on, he sent us a message, and he sent. There's a story I told on the podcast where you talked. It was, like, about me and Henry with his, like, underground pencil smuggling scheme. Oh, yeah, yeah. And Jay sent me some lyrics for a song. It was styled. It's kind of sort of like Jay's version of, like, a Weird Al song styled on Johnny Cash. I'm gonna play it for you guys.
Yes.
Okay, hang on one second. All right, you ready for this? I'm gonna try to do the intro and everything. You guys hear me?
Okay, You're a little quiet. Can you move close a little closer?
You guys hear me? Yeah. All right, here we go. My microphone is literally rolling across the desk right now. Okay, here we go. Going broke not cash to CL not his business it rides. Me his dog reaches like this blackbird he is such a fright Blood hobby brings obsessed to my.
All right. Right. Get right. To each kid
see. Yay. I'm not gonna do it again because that was just that. That was one take. Wonder they call me but that. That brought me so much joy for my love of Johnny Cash. And also, like, I thought that was perfect. It was so good.
I liked it. Cedar, not pine.
My favorite line is sure is B is dark and H is light. That's like Johnny Cash if Johnny Cash was obsessed with pencils.
That's like, you've got to stay kind of true to, like the song. You know what I mean? Like, refer back to the.
The.
The specific lyric in there. They think it works better.
Yeah, yeah. My. This, which, like, this also brings it, like, to my week. This week. We introduced Henry to Weird Al Yankovic for the first time.
Oh, yeah.
He's 10 and, like, he'd never heard it before. And my son. This is. This is a total tangent, but this is, like, very relevant to me. When I was a kid, when I was, like, I was living in Chicago, I called. I called in on the radio. I called into Oldies 104.3.
Oh, yeah. WJMK.
Oh, yeah, man. And I called in and I called and I called and I called and I called until I got through, and then I finally got through, and they said. And I was, like, 9, 10 years old, and they're like, what do you want to hear? And I said, I want to hear American pie by Don McLean. I told that story, which is such A weird song for a nine year old to pick, but whatever. I told him. And I was like, that's the song I want to hear. I told my son that story one time, and he got obsessed with that song. Like, he just listens to it on a loop in his room, and I'm like, I swear, Jane, like my wife, like, not like, forcing him to listen to this song, but he keeps listening to it, and I still love it. And then we were. I was telling him about Weird Al, and I pulled up the Star Wars Weird Al songs, and there was one that I had never heard. It was called the Saga Begins, which is to the tune of American Pie, which is about the Phantom Menace. And like, he's been listening to it for like four days straight.
So I do. Jay, have a question about this. The lyrics in this song. I'm going broke. That's why I bank with chime.
Yeah.
Why did you.
Why did you choose that limerick? I don't know.
Just because it's. I thought it was funny and it rhymed. I don't know. There's no.
Do you wanna know something weirdly weird? No, I. I have a. A separate account that I use to like, bring in, like, money from Patreon. And really, we buy. We pay for web hosting with it and it's. It's with chime.
Oh, my God, that's funny.
I was. I was like, jay, Jay, have you somehow hacked my accounts? Did you know this as far as.
No, I didn't. Yeah, no, I had. It was. No, that's purely. That's funny though. Yeah, that's really. I was like, I. I wanted the part of like, I'm going broke, but then what rhymes with like. I got that, like, the I'm sound. So I don't know, I just chime. I keep seeing those commercials all the time. I think that was.
That was one line where I hear
something about your card being declined is also a good.
I don't think. I don't think I had that in there.
But. Yeah, but I like.
I said. I sent Jay a message afterwards. I was like, I love songwriting so much that I can't help but just like, keep pushing it. So that was one thing that I, like, tweaked. There was like a few things. I mean, most of it was the same, but I was just like, let's work together on this.
Let's.
Like, it's a code right now. Or in Nashville doing a co write. I was like, yeah, let's.
Yeah.
All at one is co songwriting credit. That's all I need.
There you go.
I mean, so you guys are really the, you know, the Elton John. Wait, wait, what's Elton John's. Hold on. Elton John.
Oh, yeah, I forgot that guy's name. But basically, me and Jay are going to come out with a Weird Al ish album of just songs about pencils.
Oh, my. So see, Tim, what you've done now, you've got that in the brain. And now I'm going to get nothing done for a month.
I'm like, you know, JFK being like, we're going to the moon. Everybody's like, what? We're going to the moon. Like, I guess we gotta go to the moon now.
Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Right?
Pencil parodies. Not because it is easy, because it is hard.
Guys, I, like, I had this moment, like, this, like, moment of clarity. I'm thinking to myself, we got. Andy here is trying to revolutionize, like, the auto industry with his electric car startup. Johnny is, like, bookbinding the entire Western hemisphere. Tim is saving the world with his. Not with his nonprofit. What am I doing? I'm writing about a baboon. What am I doing? Like, it's very. I got a wife and kids. I should be investing stuff and, like, working on the house. This is. What am I doing with my life? It's like. It's the absurdity of life. I could write about that.
I guess life's that line from a 30 rock where Tracy. Tracy Jordan's like, freaky Dickies need love. Too freaky.
I don't know what came to mind.
It's just like. Yeah, the weird stuff needs to come to light.
All right, guys, should we. Should we button this up?
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, so yeah, Jay. If you want to find Jay, come find him on the Erasable Group.
Or.
Yeah, like, if we'll. We'll have a link to where you can get a copy of this chat book for your own. Tim, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me on Instagram TimothyWassom and I'm on Twitter imwassum. And you can find my band on Instagram at Minor leaguestn.
Nice. Johnny, how about you?
You can find me@pencelrevolution.com on social media, at Pennsolution and at the Made in Baltimore Pop Up Shop.
How about your band?
I think we're in between bands right now.
Okay.
Everybody needs a bass player, so it's always good.
And I'm at Andy, WTF online. I'm going to be a real hipster here and say that if you are on Bluesky, which is a delight. If you're not, come find me at Andy WTF on BlueSky, which is just like if weird Twitter just sort of split off from Twitter on its own. That's Bluesky.
I was saying, isn't that like the light beer from Blue Moon? But that's called Light Sky.
I think so, yeah. It's named after a light, light beer. We are the Erasable Podcast. This is episode 195. You can find this episode recording and show notes and more@erasable.com find us, find our Facebook group that Jay mentioned and talk with him at facebook.comgroups erasable. We're on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook at Erasable Podcast and we have a Patreon. We have a group of supporters who give us a little bit of money each month to keep it making shows and that helps us kind of keep the lights on and keeps us in pencils. So I'm going to thank all the folks who support us at a ten dollar a month level or more. That is Liz Rotundo, Melissa Miller, Angie Aaron Bollinger, Andrew Austin, Tara Whittle, Ida Umphers, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, John Capilouti, Stephen Fonsali, Aaron Willard, Millie Blackwell, Michael Diallosa, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Michael Hagan, Bill Clow, Mary Collis, Kathleen Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Hans Noodleman and John Wood. Thank you folks for supporting the show and we will talk to the rest of you soon. Play us out.
Thanks everybody.