This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Put you on the Mars station with Elon Musk to, you know, finish out.
Oh, I forgot about that guy already.
You forgot about. Forgot about Elon Musk already.
Everything goes so damn fast.
Must be nice.
Hello, and welcome to what will forever be known as episode 227 of the erasable Podcast.
Never forget.
I'm Johnny Gamber, veteran of a recent Amtrak evacuation, and I'm joined by Tim Wasem, fresh from the Big Apple, and Andy was Andy Welfle, returning to these shores with all the French bread he could smuggle aboard his flight and he could share. Hey, guys.
Hello.
Here.
I hear it's good stale. You can just fry it and it tastes great.
Yeah, whatever.
It's fine.
Turn into crouton. Yeah.
French toast. Come on. Yeah. Hey, guys. It's super good to see your faces. Yeah.
It's been a while since we were all.
I was on the last one, and life's been wacky, but this is really exciting. I'm really happy to talk to you guys. Yeah. So we've had travel, right? Like, we've been, like, traveling all over. Yeah. I don't know. I just been, like, missing out on this stuff. So I'm talking a lot more later.
So fast it feels like it's been three years, but it hasn't been three.
That's like, the running joke at work for us is like, hey, do you know where that. Because for those who don't know, who are listening, work in international, like, aid and international development, and when Trump took office, he cut everything, and so it's been awful. So we'll be like, hey, do you know where that PowerPoint is? That's called something. I'd be like, I have no clue what you're talking about. I'll look it up. And I had opened it, like, three weeks ago, but it feels like nine years. I don't. That doesn't even exist in my brain anymore. Like, I don't even know. Okay. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. So since we're all back and we've all done interesting stuff and consumed lots of stuff, we thought we'd just do a fresh Points and Tools of the Trade episode. So who's up? Andy, you want to go first?
I just got done reading. I just. I can't even know remember how I discovered it, but I just got done reading a couple really interesting short books. They are by this publisher called Final Boss Books, and they are these very short books about, like, the making of certain video games. And I think I found it because I found A book. I'm holding it up to the camera if anybody is watching the video on Patreon.
It's.
It's the book for the Untitled Goose game, which is a fantastic Switch game.
It's like 33 and a third, but for video games it is.
It's exactly like that.
Yeah.
And so it's very good. And I also picked up. I just started reading one about Animal Crossing, kind of the history of the franchise. So, yeah, they're pretty good. I also read. So I'll talk about this a little bit more later, but I went to London and then to Paris and we took the Eurostar train under the tunnel from London to Paris. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to read Gertrude Stein, she wrote a book called Paris France just about.
Oh, cool.
Kind of moving to Paris. So read that on the train. It's interesting because she at one point in the past, because her partner, Alice B. Toklas is from San Francisco and Gertrude Stein also lived in San Francisco for a while. So there's this big part about like, kind of like the differences between San Francisco and Paris. And I'm just like, I understand many of these references, even though this is 1938. So one thing I didn't realize is she published this book in 1940 on the day Paris fell to Nazi Germany. So.
Oh, God.
I probably didn't get many readers, like right away, but rough timing. It's pretty good. I've only ever read Gertrude Stein's poetry like I. Or no, like, like journalism. And I have never kind of read her like more kind of literary books. So it's pretty good. Been enjoying it. I also, when I was on the plane, I finished off Andor season two, I guess last season of Andor. It was so good. Yeah, I. I think, yeah, the Star Wars Best of. The best of Star Wars. Like, I'm not like a huge Star wars fan, but like, I just like, yeah, love the portraying of like, you know, the Empire is not just the sort of like intentionally specifically malicious entity. It is made up of like little. Lots of bureaucracy and little micro decisions and people who like, are checked out and people who are like gaming the system and actually I'll link to it. But a. A friend of mine just wrote an essay, basically just like how Andor's Star wars is a great portrayal of how fascism happens. And yeah, it's like big and evil. The Empire is big and evil. But also like there's lots of little tiny micro decisions that go into that.
So I remember that thinking about that when Solo came out, which wasn't, like, the greatest movie, but, like, I loved it because it's about Han Solo, but it has that aspect, like, that part of that movie where he joins the Empire. Yeah. He doesn't know what else to do. Yeah. And he's like. He joins and he's, like, there, and he's, like, shooting people and, like, helping his fellow soldiers or whatever. And, like, you're, like, watching it. You're like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. Wait a second. Like, oh, you're in the Empire, so you're shooting innocent people right now. It, like, adds this whole, like, element, but it was just like, he didn't know what else to do. But that's. I've watched season most of season one, but I didn't even finish season one just because it's one of those that, like, Jane and I were watching and were enjoying, but, like, couldn't finish together because we kept falling asleep, so we had to watch.
The whole, like, prison industrial complex in there is just, like, so intense.
It was nice to see Andy Serkis, like, actually as a space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm currently in the middle of Doctor who, the new Nakuti Gatwa season of Doctor who, which is. It's good. All the actors are really good, but the writing is just weird and bad. Like, it's. It's. I think it's less about, like, when I think they started kind of this direction with Jodie Whitaker. And I think it's less of, like, bad writing and more just, like, the pacing and the sort of, like, framing or the quirkiness of it that they want to pick up. But it's not my thing. But I like the actor so much that, like. And I'm invested in that franchise, so doing that. And I am currently writing on my Midori notepad with something I picked up in London, which, like, I've had one of these pencils before, but I've never in this grade. It's a Castel 9000 Jumbo. It's one of those really good, chunky boys in 2B. Like, I only have had these in, like, really soft grades, like 4 and 6B, but they had HB and 2B at a couple little stationary shops there. So pick these guys up. And these are just a nice, satisfying, like, Sharpie of a pencil.
How are you sharpening it?
I haven't had to yet, but.
So beastly.
Yeah, I can. I might. Well, maybe to sharpen it, I can use my new Blackwing branded Hubble that Noah Beer gave me. So maybe I can sharpen it with that. But I also, like, I'm afraid of this particular sharpener because don't want to plane my finger off, so. But, yeah, that is me. How about you, Tim? Yeah.
So I was traveling too, recently, which, like, plays into several different things here. But the. Jane bought me. We went to New York. This is New York. We went to New York City. I've never been there before. It was our 15th wedding anniversary trip that was supposed to be in January, when our actual anniversary is. But when we were originally. I can't remember if I talked about on the podcast, but the night before we were supposed to leave, my son threw up all over our bedroom. And so we canceled everything and got, like, as much credit as we could to travel, but we rescheduled it and we did it and we were there. Jane bought me the new Frederick Bachman novel, who I've talked about, who wrote Man Called uva and, you know, all these books. His new book's called My. I think it's My Friends.
Yeah.
My Friends. But it's. And it's excellent. I am. I'm loving it. He's just such a great writer to like. He's so empathetic. But he's so. But it's still so funny. So it's like, you don't, like, roll your eyes at it. You're like, he understands who people are, but he also, like, will make the jokes that are available. But it's about, like, a. This young orphan who goes and sees this painting who all these rich people are bidding on. And she knows more about the painting. You don't know why she knows more about the painting. And she's, like, planning to vandalize it. And then I'll leave it there.
Yeah.
And then it switches back to the story behind the painting. So it's such a good book. It's been great. So I was reading that on the trip, and then while we were there, and I and Johnny, I know from, like, when I was at your place, when Andy and I were there, you've got some of these. But I was. We went to a few bookstores. We went to a McNally Jackson, and we went to Strand in New York, and I got a couple books on that trip. One of them was the Everyman Pocket series, which is my first one, and it's the Poems of New York.
Oh, cool.
Which was, like, a very touristy buy. But, like, even when I picked it up, I was like, that's touristy. But I started flipping through. I was like, oh, this would be awesome to read through.
Yeah, they just put a new one out about Dorothy Parker.
Oh, cool.
I remember walking. Walking by the Algonquin Club when I was in New York.
Just.
I wanted to go in and sit down and hang out, but didn't have time.
There's so many things. It's just insane. Like, I've only been there this one time, but, like, we spent four days wall to wall, and when we look at, like, the fraction of the city that we actually got to, like, see, it's insane.
Yeah.
You know, like, because there was all these. I wanted to go to the street where Bob Dylan took the picture for freewheeling Bob Dylan, you know, where he's walking down the middle of the street holding hands with Susie Ritual. Like, we could. We can get that. But we were like, right down the street, you know, like. But there was just so much to see. But I got this, and this was awesome. And since we got back from the trip, which was like three weeks ago, I think I have seven of them now. I mean, I got, like. I've got like a collection going. They're so. I love poetry anthologies that are well selected. Like, there's like, nothing better than if it's somebody you can trust. And they put together a collection of poems on a theme like this, like, Norton Anthology of, like, All American Lit. Like, get that out of here. Like, I don't. It's like, that's not gonna be poo poo. Get that out of here. Like, give me a. Get a theme. And it's so much better. Like, this is actually another one I have. Right here is one of my favorites, Zen poems.
We got that one.
That one's so good.
We have, like three shelves of them.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna catch up. This is one of those things. This is going to be like, I'm gonna meet you. I'm maybe in Levenger. True Rider. I'm not gonna meet you in your obsession. But this one, I think that's got another one today.
I've got.
I've still got my one right here that I love. And I'm so. And then the other book that I got while I was there, which had, I guess, just came out, which I didn't realize, that is the Flame by Leonard Cohen. It is.
I like that graphic on it.
Poems, notebooks, lyrics and drawings. So it was a posthumously published thing that his son was, like, leading. And it was a book that he had started putting together before he died. And it's just. It's Got a combination of lyrics and poems and his, like, artwork. That's cool. It's really great to flip through. But so the book. We got all kinds of books. We, like, left space in our bags to carry books back. The other one, which I don't have with me, it was called Exercises, Finger Exercises for Poets by. I know just.
Andy, come on. I thought you were gonna say for guitars.
I know, I didn't. I definitely didn't think about that as soon as I saw it. But it's. Finger exercises are a term for instruments.
Yeah.
And so it's like her Exercises for poets. A Dorian Lau. La ux. I don't know. Lau. I don't know. But she's a professor, a really great poet. But it's a really cool poem. A book that has, like, all these exercises for just, like, generating metaphors and interesting ideas that you can use for whatever. So, yeah, I did finish that Led Zeppelin book that I talked about last time, which was fine.
It was fine.
It was fine. I've been listening to Charlie Crockett, who is an Americana, kind of country guy. Like, if you hear him, he sounds like a throwback. So I'd recommend him.
That name sounds like a throwback.
Yeah. From Texas. And he, like, spent. He's, like, 40. He was, like, 35 when he broke out. But his stuff sounds very like Johnny Cash. He has a low voice, but his story is wild. Like, where he was, like, roaming around, like, working at ranches and stuff. And then went to New York City for, like, five years and was on New York. Was like, on the new. Like, on the subway cars. Like, singing on subway cars. And now he's, like, playing at Willie Nelson's birthday party and stuff. So he's really good. And then also on the way home, like, you were talking about watching. Andor when I was on the plane, I was like, you know what? I'm finally gonna watch Severance. I downloaded the first, like, four episodes of Severance. And just the whole plane ride was just like.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, staring at the screen. Like, that's one of those shows that you watch an episode and then you look around and you're like, everything looks different.
Yeah.
Like, why does everything look different?
I watched the first season when this came out, and I've sort of been putting the second one off just because it's, like, so intense, but so good.
I'm not done with the second season yet. I watched, like, the first season and then, like, the first three episodes of the second season in, like, a week. Wow. And now I'm like inching through the rest. It's. It is intense. And season two just like. It's like their little world just like erupts downward. And you're like, wait, what? Why are we here? The opening scene starts and you're like, what's going on? So it's been so good. And I've been watching the new season of Somebody feed Phil, which can't go wrong with that.
I need to know that. I used to love watching that.
Yeah, new season's great. It's really good. And then writing. I've been writing on and I don't actually have it in front of me right now, but it's. I got it. I actually got it at Walmart. It's a moleskin, like the K here, but it's like huge. It's like this big. And they're selling them at Walmart for like 11 bucks or something. And I was just like, I'll get one. And that's become kind of my go to like especially like songwriting and stuff. It's just such a great format. It's like my favorite red, deep red color. You know, I have it here. Yeah, it's upstairs. And then I've been using. I bought a box, first time in a while. I bought a box of bit crystals and it just been a happy camper.
Yeah, yeah.
They have plastic free packaging.
It's so great. It feels so good. I also. I got. We went to Muji when we were in New York City and I bought some notebooks and like I was literally in Muji for like seven minutes. Like it was pouring rain across from the library. I went in, looked around, just like grabbed a few notebooks and walked out. And they have these perfect bound, lay flat notebooks that they're really. Those ones. Yeah, yeah. So there's like the X, there's like the normal quality and there's like the better quality paper.
Yeah.
Six bucks.
Yeah. Tell you about when I first heard about those notebooks.
Best. They're so good. Oh my gosh.
Do you remember, do you remember on Gosh was It Life? Hacker is one of the Gawker blogs about that. And they used to do this series called this is how I Work. And they interview like celebrities and people who like. And they did one for Ira Glass. And yeah, Ira Glass would write all of his like, like editing notes in those Bungee notebooks. And I remember just being like at that point I was like really into public radio and I wanted to be Hourglass. And so I was like, I have to go to a muji and still in Indiana. So first time I visited San Francisco, which had mujis at that time. I bought so many of those notebooks.
Yeah, they're so great.
The ones they say have better paper actually like bound like a regular book. They're all sewn and.
Oh, nice.
They're not just spine glued. They just use a really thin strip on the spine so it's really flexible. I love them. Last week.
Yeah.
Because we don't have a muji either.
Yeah, that's New York's probably the closest one that I have. I don't even know. But yeah, but that's it for me.
How about you, Johnny?
So I'm finally reading the book the field notes are named after. I don't know if it's showing up. It's a River alive by Robert McFarland, which is like. If you're a fan of Robert McFarland, you'll like it. But I like it more than I usually like his books. Like seems like his writing stepped up and his writing was already so damn good. It's like, you know when you read a non fiction book that doesn't have like a story but you can't stop reading it. It's one of those. In a good way.
Nice.
That's cool. I've been looking at a lot of book mining manuals for inspiration because I'm feeling a little stale. But vacation was good. So now I have some Gotcha Mardi's and I bought a lot of really expensive paper while I was out and figured out a good way to get it home and it all survived. Just. And so my younger two have gotten Spotify and they're making me playlists. And Rosie likes Taylor Swift and what's that other person, Sabrina Carpenter. And Henry is really into my chemical bromance. And then Owen really likes Fallout Boy and like I was out with him yesterday and he had a Fall Out Boy shirt on. I was like, I'm not walking with
you,
but so emo.
Yeah, yeah. And whenever I go to Boston, I listen to a lot of you two. It's like the Irish connection. And speaking of like early generations of My Chemical Romance, Cure put out a remix album called Mixes of a Lost World that's a follow up to Songs of a Lost World from the Fall, which is like really good. It's a little less sad. Like that album is sad even for a Cure album. I think like five of the songs there made me like straight up cry the second time I heard them. Like, oh my God, he's gonna die soon.
Did you say your music kind of peaked at like 1995?
Is that about like, mine?
Yeah.
Or most of the bands I listened to were still popular in 1995. Yeah.
See, I have to tell a story. You mentioned Taylor Swift. Like, you're like, sales, whatever. But like, I have a friend of mine, we had band practice. He plays drums in the band. Like we're talking. He's like, oh, need to show you this. My. I'm not going to go into the details of how they're connected, but it's connected to his through his ex wife. So her name is Taylor, got remarried, whatever, had kids. They're all really close. And they were on vacation. They went to Mexico on vacation and there was a family wedding happening in Mexico, like on this. So they went for this vacation. They went to this family wedding. It was very small. They got there and he's like, look at this picture. And he shows me this, his two, you know, whatever you'd call them, like step kids or whatever. Like his. With Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, like, which is like, whatever. It's not just like, that's not the story. The story is not that they bumped into him. Like, cool. They spun. But they ended up sitting at the same table. And Taylor Swift was just like hanging out with him and talking. And her grandmother was there who she's like 80 or like, great grandmother was like 85 or something like that. And her great grandmother leans over after talking for like 10 minutes to Taylor Swift. He goes, so. So what do you do?
What do you, like, what do you
do for a living? And Taylor Swift was like, oh, I'm a musician. And she's like, that's great. Musician, yeah. And then her. And then Taylor Swift got up and made her a plate. How about that?
Oh, that's sweet.
Made her a plate and carried it back for her and like made her a plate of food, brought it back, set it at the table. That was.
That's very sweet story. I was like, it seems like something like, I don't know much about her, but that. It doesn't seem like Taylor Swift just sort of goes and talks to regular people.
I think there was some. It seemed like a pretty small connection, like. Or a small wedding. And like there was some kind of real connection that I had no idea about. But anyways. But yeah, sweetheart. So Travis Kelce looks like a D bag in the picture, but, like, he always looks like football player true to life.
Yeah, so. So I also watched Andor season two and Got teary at the end because he's not coming back.
Nope. We all know how that ends.
The next day, we watched Rogue One and I think Henry was like, what? What? Like, yeah, they all die.
Yeah. I love the Luthen's character. Like, just.
Yeah, I was really.
The way that they. He sort of transforms from just sort of like this, like, antiquities dealer, socialite with the, like, big wavy wig and everything to just sort of the, like, gruff Irish, like, like, spy.
He give up everything.
He switches so well. Like, he does such a good job.
And apparently Stellan Skarsgard had a stroke and he was having a lot of trouble remembering his lines.
Oh.
But for that, the famous monologue, season one, he knew.
He's like, my endor, my Dunes.
He's so good in everything. He was in King Arthur and he's like, we don't mix with these people better than Jared Lambeau.
Yeah.
And so for writing, I'm writing in my own pride notebook, which now I can't find, and a Muji fountain pen. And this pen that I don't remember I talked about before, I don't know if I'm gonna get it to show up. Showing up a little bit.
Oh, that's a normal.
Yeah, they did this endless pens. There's a thing called Hatch where they get, like, influencers to work with one of their, like, a famous brand to produce, like, the ink they always wanted or the pen they always wanted. So this was called Verdigris Muse. And since the form factor is different, like the titanium ones are, I assumed it was going to be copper, but it's not. It's acrylic, but it's so pretty and rose gold trim and has that cool streamlined caps. Like, I'm completely in love with it. And I put verdigri ink in it because how could you not?
Come on.
Yeah.
You said Muji fountain pen. Yeah.
I didn't see him when I was there this time, but I asked when
I was there before for my seven minutes that I was there, and they didn't have any. They stopped carrying them.
It's like a nice, simple pen. Amazon has them.
Last time I looked, Amazon sells Muji stuff.
I don't know if it's direct from Muji.
Third party fell off the back of the Muji wagon.
Yeah.
It's like. It's a good pen. It's smooth, has a nice grip. Takes international cartridges or international converters.
That one's somewhere around here.
Yeah, that's all I got. You want to get into fresh points? Yeah, yay. You want to go first, Andy?
Sure, yeah. A couple things first. Just a reminder. We sell erasable embroidered hats. They are for sale up in the store. That and then those little, little eraser friend lapel pins. We have those for sale.
Wear your.
Wear your pride is a very nice hat I have. I was wearing my erasable hat all over Europe. So there you go. Put it over.
My man.
I. Tim, I probably need you to send you a new one. You didn't you say you got yours all like gross from sweat and everything from just. Okay. Oh, you're muted.
Or just one day's worth. It'll be fine. Oh yeah, it was just. I wore it out. We were doing some like, gardening and I was like, oh, damn. But no, it's good. It's all good.
Got it. Cool. Also wanted to mention in a couple episodes from now, I don't have. We don't have an exact time because we still have some, some figuring out to do. There is a book by Alison King called the Phoenix Pencil Company. It is. Gosh. What is it? It's a. It's about a young woman in her relationship with her grandmother. And just like she's an Asian American woman, but her family runs a pencil company. And so I, the publisher of this book reached out quite a while to us to ask if we wanted to like talk about it and talk to the author, things like that. So we've been putting off a little bit, but I think that would be a good sort of like late summer thing. So I'll have a link in the show notes, but if you are interested, buy yourself a copy of the Phoenix Pencil Company by Alison King and like in a month.
Ish.
If we can't get her on the show, we will still do some kind of a book club discussion. So that'd be fun.
Yeah.
So I know and I think that she would come on because her publisher knows about us and reached out to us kind of specifically originally. So I think we can probably make that happen. I. Okay. So I will regale you with some stories from my trip.
Yeah.
Kind of the biggest and most related to, to the show is I took a. I had a, like a workshop tour of the Maker's Cabinet, which was really cool. Went and hung out with Noah Beer and Odin, his partner, and just kind of walked around and I took some video. I did. I've always wanted an excuse to buy those little, like those little beeper shaped microphones that YouTubers wear. You know what I'm talking about? And so I was like, I'M gonna, I'm gonna get it. So I bought some of those and just filmed a couple things and still need to put that video together. Johnny and I have been trying to wrangle these very large video files.
I did watch everything like twice just because it was cool. I'm like, oh, look at that machine. That's awesome.
Yeah. Trying to figure out the right mix. Like we want to have something that's sort of like free and open to everybody because I know Makers Cabinet wants to share it with their large mailing list and we'll probably have something that's for like Patreon members. So I haven't quite figured out that like collection of things yet. But that will be soon. I'm going to work on that I think over the holiday weekend, if not before. But yeah, that was really fun. Got to see some cool prototypes of like, you know, they're the Hubble and the Iris kind of before, before they happened. We talked about some of their like co branded stuff. Like they, they had this really cool line of like special irises with the Royal Mint, the British Royal Mint. And it's called, the collection's called like, called like 778 or something like that. And I was like 886. 886, yeah. Yeah, you just. And I was like, why is it called that? He's like, well that's the year that the World Mint was founded. Like. Like just three digits. 886. Like it's. Everything's so freaking old. There's so. He's like, that's what they think. The records don't quite go back super well that far. But yeah, there's some really neat stuff among there. So I did. That was the day before my. Before the conference and hung out. Eric and I went and had a beer at the pub down the street and it was just like, I don't know, very classic British experience. We walked in and it was like middle of the day, so not many people there and just the sort of like old kind of crusty British man and his dog came in and sat down and immediately the woman behind the bar like poured him a beer and brought it over and went over to the jukebox and like put on a song because it was his favorite. Every song he listens to every day. And it was. We were started talking about the. The Knights Templar with this guy.
Of course.
Of course. Yeah, that was really fun. We went to. I did my conference. It was pretty good. It was at the Barbican, which is this like massive like brutalist architecture, structure that after the blitz of World War II, they like. There's this huge part of the land, like part of London that was just leveled and they decided to rebuild it in sort of this brutalist style. So in the, I think early 60s, they finished it. It's just this huge maze like complex where there's some. There's like a tower of flats and then there's like a conservatory, like a botanical gardens. There's like a movie theater. Massive movie theater. They had a. The Europe premiere of the new season of Squid Games opening while the conference was going on. And so they had all these like creepy people in the Squid Games, masks, like standing around. It was weird. They have a bunch of conferences there. It's. Yeah, it's really neat. And the next day a friend of Erica's who lives in San Francisco but is from London and was back there, she. The three of us went out and just cruised around and we went to this really cool museum, a new museum. It's brand new, run by the Victoria and Albert Museum and it's called the Storehouse East. And it is like, it looks like a. Because it is a warehouse, like where they store a lot of their things, their antiquities. But it has kind of displays too. It kind of looks like an IKEA full of like 15th century, you know, chests of doors or something like that. Like we walked by, there was this huge, like big round looking crate and I was like, what's in that crate? And it was really cool and. But I but didn't have any signs or anything. So we made our way down to the first floor and we realized that wasn't a crate and somebody had like the Victoria and Albert Museum have preserved the entire ceiling of a Islamic mosque from the 1400s. And so the underside of it, like the underside of this crate was like open to this really elaborate like woodwork. And it's real cool. I'm just also just like, oh yeah, like, who plundered this? And it ended up in the Victorian album.
We found it. We saved it.
Yeah, yeah, it was great. They had a couple fell off the
back of a truck.
Yeah, exactly. Very large old truck. They had a really cool. They had an interior that Frank Lloyd Wright designed. It's the only. It's the only Frank Lloyd Wright interior outside of the US that's kind of this preserved and is there something else I can help with?
That was weird.
Did you hear that? My siri just went off. But it's gorgeous. I don't know if you can see this.
Oh, yeah. Mind your business. Robot.
Yeah. Yeah. Really gorgeous interior. Yeah, that was really fun that day. We walked so much that I hurt my foot. I strained like maybe a taral or something in my foot and we walked 30,000 steps, like 11 miles.
Gotta watch those tarals. Yeah.
So I wrapped my foot and I was fine. But it was a lot. We went to. We took the Eurostar to Paris. That was really fun. Just like, man, high speed rail so good. Like it sort of like barely functions in the US like probably. Johnny, you have like a. You have a best over there. But we don't got any good high speed rail out here.
So they're sending. I think they're sending the Acelo fleet out west because they get a new one.
Oh, yeah. Well, it was, yeah, it was just like two hours door to door. Like Paris to. Or like King. Saint Pancras station in King's Cross, London to like Gare du Nord in Paris. Was amazing. So easy. And got there. Yeah. Got a really cool hotel. Cool hotel by the Paris Opera. That was really fun. Did a few things. One of the, the highlights of it was I got engaged.
Yay.
Which was cool.
Oh, by the way. Yeah. Just. Oh, yeah. Congratulations. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Yeah, it was fun. I kind of had it planned, not for like a long time, but I was like, this is a good opportunity for this. And I figured that, like, you know, it's cliche to like get engaged in Paris or whatever. So I figured Erica would like, figure it out and she didn't.
She.
So it was fun. We went and looked at the Eiffel Tower and did not go in the Eiffel Tower, but sat by the river Sin and, you know, gave it to her. So that was fun.
That's awesome.
As one does.
Congrats.
As one does. Yeah. As one does. We just had a good time. We went to the Louvre. Like, I, you know, never been. First time in Paris, I really wanted to see the Louvre. Yeah.
You sent us a picture of the Mona Lisa and you were like, saw some paintings.
Saw this like random little painting. It's funny, like, zoom lenses on phones are very good. So like this, I have this picture of the Mona Lisa. But what you can't tell from there is it's actually this, like, I couldn't even get close because there's so many people just like between me and that painting. And there's also like this painting and there's amazing other paintings there. And in the like Egyptian wing, there's just like there's a cabinet that's, like, literally stuffed full of sarcophaguses. Like, there's probably like eight to 10 of them. And I'm just like, yeah, they're just, like, lousy with sarcophagus. Is like, when we were.
When we were in New York, like, that was happening where we were in, like, we went to the Met, and it's so big. It's so gigantic. And we were, like, running out of time. And I was like, I gotta go to one more place. Jane, like. And she's like, yeah, I'm gonna go check this out. So I went up and I was. There's like, a musical instrument swing. Yeah. Which was cool. There's like a Stradivarius, and you can violin. Whatever. There's two. Two Stradivarius. Whatever. There was, like, a Les Paul guitar. It was like, that was. The serial number on the back was 001. Oh, wow, that's cool. But on the way there, I was like. I was trying to find my way back, and I got lost, and I was like, about. I was picking up my phone to call Jane.
I.
It was ringing, and I turned around, and behind me was Washington crossing the Delaware. I was like, oh, just.
Just there.
You might want to come up to the second floor. Come see me up here. It's like this thing, like, we're like, oh, there's that.
You know, that's cool. I felt that way when I first went to the Air and Space Smithsonian Museum. And down by the gift shop, they had the original model of the Enterprise. Yeah. I forgot to mention, when I was in London, I went to President Correct, which is a really great stationary store there. And the guy behind the desk commented on my tattoo. He was like, it's like, oh, I like your tattoo. And I was like, oh, thank you. And then it just so happened. Erica's wearing an erasable podcast T shirt. And so we get up to, like, the front and check out. He was like, oh, it's a great podcast. This is one of the co hosts.
Oh, yeah. You should have been like, I heard it sucks. Yeah.
And he was just like, it's like, oh, that's so cool. And so he started showing me, like, some of his cool pencils. And yeah, gave me a couple things. So I have a few things to send to you guys.
That's so awesome.
In Paris, there was this really cool little shop that a couple people recommended to me called. I'm gonna probably butcher this because my French is terrible. It's Le Cretoire. It's, I think, like, the writer. L E apostrophe C R I T O I R E And really cool. Like clearly a really old store with that fountain pens. And they had their own sort of like house brand of ink, which is really neat. So I picked up a few of these to try. I went with just some classic. I got some Fram Bois, so it's raspberry, I think. I. I went with all food, kind of like food things. Here's the secret.
Like, so French.
Yeah. Sweet something or other.
No. And then they only have so many words to work with in their language
or like oral.
That's cool.
So, yeah, I didn't get any fountain pens. I got a really cool. It's not.
They.
Oh man, they had so many Emilio Braga books, which is neat. Yeah. They just got them this one. I actually have no idea where it's made because it was not labeled. But they're clearly handmade. This is very Japanese looking, but it was really cool. It's just like a really nice notebook. Kind of blank paper. But really love the look of this. It was the last one of this particular print. But yeah, it was a good trip. Yeah, did that. We went to the Paris Sewer Museum. So in case you did not know, I did not know Paris has the oldest modern municipal sewer system. So not like an aqueduct or like throwing your stuff into. In the street.
It was.
It was started being built in the 1300s, 1380s. And it is like kind of like a. They're very proud of their sewers. So very cool museum. It's like a working. Do we talk about this in the show? I can't remember, like before we were playing.
I don't think so.
Okay.
Yeah, you get it.
You go. Basically, you start, you go into the lobby, get your tickets and then take an elevator down to the sewers. And there's like literally like. Like river of waste flowing by you. So it does not smell great because it is a sewer, a working sewer. But it was.
We learned like this place smells like.
Yeah, we went to the gift shop. We went to again, gonna butcher this. That like really old cool cemetery. The Cemetery de Pereira Laches. It's where like Oscar Wilde's buried there. We're like, Jim Morrison is buried there randomly.
Oh yeah.
It was very cool and very old, but also it was very hot. And we had been walking all day and Erica got heat stroke and started vomiting in the cemetery. So that was fun.
Oh gosh.
We had a walking food tour planned the next day and. But she was just like, just sick and sick Coming back to the hotel,
she's like, both of those things sound terrible. Well, no, she was, no, thank you.
She was like, like, literally until two hours before this thing was supposed to start. She was like, no, it'll be fine. I can do it. I'm just like, no, we have to walk around in 93 degree heat where there's eating and drinking. Like, you can't. You cannot neither eat nor drink nor walk in this heat. So, yeah, we canceled and it was fine.
But yeah, it was.
She felt really bad, but it was. It's fine. We had a good time. So, yeah, it was just incredible how old things are there. Like, I know. Tim, you've been to Paris. Johnny, have you been to Paris?
Yeah.
Okay. Like, you know, we went and we saw the note, like, Notre Dame. That was really cool. You just walk like a block away and there's this other old church that like, just isn't famous or anything. There's nobody around it, but you can look at it.
It's just old.
So I went and I, I actually this trip was. Been using ChatGPT as like a tour guide of sorts. I take a picture of something that kind of like, seems important and I'm just like, hey, what is this? And it was like, I take a picture of it, send it to them, and it does a pretty good job. I cross jacket to make sure it's true. But it was a church called Igles Sans Severin, one of the oldest churches on the left bank of Paris. And I was like, when was it built? And it's like, well, it was originally built in the 11th century. So this church is a thousand years old. Like, much of it is like, has been rebuilt or added to or whatever. But like, just. I just can't get over just how old things are. Right. Like, yeah, there's that Ta Nehisi Coates book about between the World and me where he talks about like seeing a picture of like a door. And I think it was in Paris, I can't remember. And he was just like, this door is older than my country and like, older than like everything I've known. And I'm just like, that's just a door. And that's what Paris felt like to me and London too. But like, really Paris, it was just so old.
Era Sturgill Simpson, who I've talked about a lot recently, like, he has. He now lives like part time in Paris and, and when he played his last show from their, their European tour, they played in Paris.
And.
And I've heard this Before. So I'm not saying, like, Sergil's some, like, you know, amazing, original person saying this, but he, like, referred to it as a living masterpiece, like, which is like, that's when I was there. That's how it felt. It felt like you were walking through a painting. Yeah, that, like, was just, like, overwhelmingly beautiful. Like, I loved that city so much when. When I visited.
Was so cool. One last thing that I'll just mention and then we can move on. But I did fail in my mission, which was my mission was to find cool Bic pens that we don't have here. I found.
No.
No fountain pens. No Bic fountain pens there.
How dare you?
I know. Like, I can't even show my face on this podcast to record this. And I also saw, like, they had, like, every place had a bunch of multi pens. Like, so many multi pens. The one that I did not buy, which I regret, which I might try to get on Amazon or something, or ebay, is they had multi pen minis. And so it was the size of a regular pen. It was small.
Oh, they sell those here, do they?
Okay. I've never seen one.
Yeah, Staples carries them, or they used to.
I guess they haven't been to Staples for a while, but I should check that out. But I am going to, like, go on ebay or something and get some Bic fountain pens. I did, like, I was, like, kind of frustrated that I did not, you know, see these pens at all. And then was on the airport bus, like, on the way to the airport to leave Paris, and we passed by the Bic mothership, the corporate headquarters for Bic. Yeah, I sent this. I think I texted this to you guys. I was like, look what I just went past. And I almost want to be like, stop this bus. Let me out. But someday, yeah, I'll go back and, like, just actually go check out that headquarters. That'd be cool. But that is. That's it for me. Back and recovered and from jet lag and going about my life.
Yeah.
How about you, Tim? How's New York?
Well, New York was awesome. And, like, you Talked about using ChatGPT as a tour guide, which we did plenty of that, which was amazingly helpful. Like, I mean, we. We took a boat tour. Like, the first night we were there. We did the boat tour under all the bridges, and I was taking pictures of buildings. And we also did this on top of the Met where I take a picture of building. Be like, what's that? And I would say something stupid like, what's that pointy Building in the middle of this picture, it would be like, it's this. And I look it up, and it was right. Yeah, it's the opposite of Copilot. Because Copilot has been like, making me want to, like, punch a wall recently.
You know, I don't work there anymore, so I can say this. Copilot sucks.
It is terrible. Oh, my gosh. Today I gave it an outline. I was like, what do I need to give you to make a PowerPoint presentation for me? It said, like, give me an outline, Structure it like this. I was like, got it. Did it. Gave it to it. It was. It should have been like a 15 slide PowerPoint. It gave me back two slides. I told it what I wanted the, like, theme to look like, but it gave me back white background and everything crammed onto two slides. I was like, thank. Get out of my face. Like, I just, like, I can't handle this. And now where I work, they're blocking ChatGPT, like, on our work computers, so I have to use my other. Because they want us to use Copilot because of privacy. Yeah. Which I don't use it for work stuff. And, like, I'm just like, fine.
Microsoft and OpenAI are kind of starting to go to war a little bit, so.
Yeah. But yeah, like, we would take pictures and we'd just, like, tell us all this stuff, which is, like, really awesome. But on the trip. But chatgpt told us about, like, all these buildings, and then, like, we walk past this one building. Like, Jane, my wife, is like, the kind of person who will just walk up to a stranger and just be like, where should we go? Like, in, like, we're trying to get here. And I'm like, no, don't do that. And she does it. And then we end up finding the place instead of me following Google Maps. But, like, at one place, she did that, and she was like, I'm just gonna ask the doorman. I was like, okay, fine. We walked up to the door, and next to it, it said, next to the door, it said, longtime residence of jazz guitarist Jim hall, who's like Mount Rushmore jazz guitar player. You know, it's like, well, that's cool. So I took a picture, and it, like, tells me all this stuff. But on the trip, I do have some stationary stuff to report. I did find the. The notebook. So this is the one that, like, blew me away. This is the Muji notebook that I started using. Yeah. These things are incredible. I've been, like, writing songs. Like, that's some song lyrics. In this one. And I gotta say, this thing paired with this thing.
Yeah.
It's like, you can't get much better than that writing experience. Like, it's so good.
It takes fountain pen ink really well.
It does. And I just. Because I think the only fountain pen I took on the trip was this. The zebra, like, disposable one. It's the only one.
I am so paranoid to take fountain pens on airplanes.
Yeah, I just took that one. It was, like, in my pocket. Yeah, it was just in my pocket. Like, I didn't.
It's brave.
I feel like it makes it worse if it's, like, condensed into something else, but. But it was fine. I did get one thing I'm super excited about, which is a throwback to, like, way back at the beginning of the podcast, I got a new space pen at the New York Public Library.
Oh, that's good.
To the New York Public Library, which was super cool. I got other things to say about that. And I got the New York Public Library one in brass. I have probably used this four times. Look at what my hands have done to this brass. Like, look at that.
Oh, yeah.
We talked about my caustic hands that, like, turn everything. Like, I've seen stuff where, like, brass will turn people's hands green. No, like, my hands are on the offensive.
Like, salt water running through his veins.
Oh, I mean, the brass.
They all do that, but, like, that quick.
This is, like, what? No, I don't think I'm gross, but it's like, that was. After two times of using it, it looked like. I mean, you can see the original color right there. Like, when I bought it. I mean, it's super bright, but this thing is so great. I love it. So I've got two of these now. I've got a silver one. I brought the brass because they have the silver. I love how, like, janky it looks. And I've been carrying this every single day. I love this pen so much.
I have that one, too. And my hands made it not crusty, but it developed a texture.
Yeah, that's great. I'm looking forward to it.
I mean, polish. I don't know what it was.
I don't have. I don't have. My other one is from the Air and Space Museum in D.C. and that one has the grip right here. Like, the little, like, circles that grip. This one doesn't, but. But it's got the. I got the one that has the old logo on it. You're not gonna be able to see it, but it's like the old school logo that looks like a bus stop or like a subway stop on there.
Yeah, that's cool.
But this thing is fantastic.
So you went to. Which McNally Jackson did you go to?
It was the one. We were actually on our way to Hamilton. So it was like a block away from Hamilton.
Okay.
Yeah, it was right across from. There's a Nintendo store. So it was like right across the street from the Nintendo store. And they had just the night before had released Nintendo Switch 2. Yeah, no, they were out when. Yeah, I probably would have. I probably would have been like, well, we spent all this money. Might as well get something I'm gonna enjoy, you know, like, for a long time. But we were on our way to Hamilton, which was its own story. It was amazing. Yeah, Hamilton was awesome. But we showed up with StubHub tickets that turned out to be counterfeit, which I told you guys about, I think. But yeah, we walked up and we're like, we're going to Hamilton. Yeah, we're going to Hamilton. Walked up and they were like, that barcode is not the kind of barcode we use. And they sent us to the window. And she was like, happens eight to ten times a week.
Yeah.
Someone posts these like, bogus tickets and StubHub doesn't check that stuff. And they had like the number already printed out. They're like, call this number. And so we got our money back. That's the good. Like, we got all 100% of our money back. But they. She was like, I've got like a few more standing room only tickets for 40 bucks a piece. And we're like, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. You know, which.
Is it literally standing?
Yeah. So at the back of the orchestra section, like the bottom level, there is like a. Like just sort of like across the back, there's a platform that's like this wide that you can set drinks on and stuff. And you can just stand there and lean. So it's perfect. I mean, so we had like a great view. We saw the. Plus all the play. It was great. We saw Hadestown too, which was mind blowing. Hamilton, like, you felt like you were watching something where like the freshmen were now like leading the show sort of thing. Like, it was like, it was good, but it was like, man, it's not like the original, but the Hamilton. Like, I had listened to the cast recording of Hadestown. Sorry, Hades Sound. Like, I'd listen to the cast recording. It was great. The current cast on Broadway is miles better than the original cast. Like, they're so good. It Was so much fun. Blew my mind. My leg was numb for an hour afterwards because I'm too tall to sit in seats at a. Yeah. At a Broadway show. I just was like, I. I literally Jane, like got up to go get a snack. I was like, I have to stand here for a while because I can't move. I had to let my like blood flow through my leg again. But that was super cool. I did other stationary related thing I noticed, which is where I talked about going to the Met, which was really great. And there, this. There was a series of like Sergeant. What's his name? John Singer. Sergeant. Yeah. His like portraits and like all these portraits of like American, you know, well known American figures. And there were like European figures as well. They were always. For some reason I noticed that like American portraits, especially from that like era, very stationary heavy, which you don't see as much in the European ones I noticed.
But like the American ones, writing in a book or something.
Pen or next to him is like three ink wells next to each other. And like there's one pen in the middle one or there's notebook like laid out in front of them. And I was like fascinated by that. I was like, why is that? Like, you know, there'd be a pencil or there'd be something. They'd have like a pen like stuck into their shirt or like sitting on the table. Like, they made these choices, these like very like intentional choices to include stationary in the pictures.
It's like if I was having my portrait painted, if I was having my portrait painted, I would like pick a, like a golden bear or something like that and have it like in the picture, just like, like this or something and be like, now get that exactly right. Like I want people, I want everybody to organize this pencil.
Yeah, that orange color is not right. That's too red. Yeah, come on, fix it. So anyways, that was super fascinating to like look at these paintings. And I have got some pictures which I can send you guys. But like there were. I've got pictures of the pencils and the pens and things that they were in these pictures because I kept snapping pictures as we were going because it just fat. It was just fascinating. I was like, why do the Americans, which I don't know if it's like, you know, get all Freudian, just be like, oh, well, that's because they felt like they had something to say that other people did. Whatever. But like those pens represent dicks. Look at all these peanut pencils all over you. Was that the meme is like, look at all those chickens. It's like ducks or something. It's like, look at all those penis pencils we've got over here. But that was super interesting. And like a few weeks before which I sent you guys a picture of this. And then I wasn't on the next episode so I didn't get to talk about it. But we went on a weekend away as a family and went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Like where like Dollywood is like that sort of area. And we went to, for the first time, we went to the Titanic museum, which I had never been to. They have a Titanic museum. Why is it in Pigeon Forge? I don't know why not, but it is.
Yeah, landlocked.
It's great. Yeah, exactly like, but it's great. It's. It was super fascinating. And I grew up obsessed with the Titanic. I read books about it. My parents, like, my dad went on a trip somewhere and like went to like some museum and brought me back like a copy of the New York newspaper the night after the day after like it sank. And I like read it cover to cover over and over again because I was so I read books also. And we went and Lila bought a dip pen. She's like, I want to get this. I was like, yes. Henry bought a like Titanic notebook. It was like a leather bound like sort of notebook. He's like, I want this.
I was like, yes.
And then he's like, the other thing he wanted is like, it's just like a. Here, I'll show it to you. It's a package full of like replicas of things like tickets and, and all this stuff. And I was like, yes, like, let's do like. But I was like, yeah guys, you're doing great. Like this is great. But we went inside. There was this picture or this little display of a pencil. Edmund. It says Edmund Stone's pencil. And Edmund Stone. Let me find the original picture here. Edmund Stone lived in Southampton with his wife and 23 month old daughter. That's obnoxious. 23 month old. Just call her. Yes, this was Edmund's pencil. It was there like propped up on the picture. It said, and was well used. So this is in 1912 as a first class bedroom steward, he would have taken notes of passenger requests from the state rooms on edck.
And.
And this pencil, which was recovered from the crash is the most expensive pencil ever sold, valued at $20,000, which I sent you this picture but just as a reminder that's it's tiny. I mean it's like maybe it's Sign back stage for sure.
Yeah.
It's a $20,000.
I bet it doesn't even write that good.
This probably sucks. Yeah.
Yeah.
And there was a little thing next to it that said pencils. See that? Pencils is the heading. It says pencils. By 1565, lead was replaced by graphite. In the early pencils, I was like, true. That's not true. That is a false statement. The first mass produced pencils remained in 1662 in Germany. I was like, that tracks.
I thought it was Cumbria. The Cumberland Pencil Company, wasn't it?
They were mass produced.
Yeah, I guess. I don't know what mass produced.
It says mass produced. Like large amounts. It's like that feels red. In the early 1900s. So even just the fact that this museum jumped from 1662 to the 1900s. And so in the early 1900s, pencils and paper replaced slates in the classroom. They gave students the ability to write correct and save their work. Save their work. That's so funny.
It's like floppy disk.
Yeah, floppy disk. The original floppy disk was a pencil.
That's the title right there.
The OG Floppy Disk. So that was super cool to see anyways, just like seeing it. It was like super dark. Obviously it had gotten a little wet in the process. But yeah, so that was that. And the only other thing I point out is that I did go to at this. We went to Strand, bought some books, which was awesome. And then I found they had a whole, like, display which I could have honestly spent two hours going through the display of pens and pencils and like the ballpoints and gel pens and all this stuff. The only thing I bought in the brief time we had there before Hamilton was a box of craft design technology. The item 32 pencils and. Holy. They're so perfect. They're so perfect. It was a pack of three. I kicked myself for not buying like tons of them, you know, like, because there was like six bucks. But like I used. I don't know what was coming over me, I was just in such a rush. But yeah, yeah, they used to do beautiful pencils.
They used to be the Pentel black polymers. Like they like original craft design technology were those. And apparently those are really nice. But I. Yeah, I like the. When they switch to the candles, they're really nice.
They're great.
Yeah, but so good. So I think that's all I got. Yeah, we'll say that's all I got. But it was a great trip and just so much. There was like a lot of a million, like little like, stationary adjacent things that I could talk about where, like, I talked about, like, you know, we saw. We were at the New York Public Library and saw. Oh, it's a first folio from Shakespeare.
Yeah, cool.
Just that. Yeah. Hey, move on. And then, like, there was a Charles Dickens desk that he wrote at, which was like, incredible, you know, to see that. And then there was. But the two things that stuck out the most, like, as far as, like, handwriting wise. Because, you know, you guys know I love, like, seeing, like, handwritten things. And you guys love it too. Like, one was. There was this little piece. There's this piece of paper which I have a picture of, but it had these, like. It was like a heading and then it had a little description. A heading, A little description. I assume I walked up, I almost said zoomed in because I'm a millennial. Yeah. It's like, why isn't it getting bigger? But it was Miles Davis kind of blue, like his most famous album he's ever. He ever made. It was the handwritten liner notes by Bill Evans, the piano player. It was written in ballpoint on this pen. It was like on this song. This is what we were trying to do. Which was the first. It was. The first draft was like, that blew my mind. Like, that album and like that and a couple other Miles albums just changed my life. When I was a teenager, I was
like, oh, my God.
God. And the other thing, though, is when we were. Had another one of those moments where he turned around and I was like, what's this? Oh, it's the Bill of Rights. Yeah, okay.
Yeah, whatever.
The Bill of Rights.
You saved it.
Wow. Yeah. It's like I trying to look at. And I turned and there's a little handwritten piece of paper about this big. I was like, I gotta see that. And I walked up and it was the. It was a draft of George Washington's like, speech about leaving and not going for a third term of being president.
Yeah.
Handwritten on paper. It's like, wow, that was one of the original handwritten. I was like, it. Like, there were so many moments on this trip on things like that that were unexpected. Like, I saw that I'm not like a super patriot, you know, Patriot, you know, whatever. Like. But like, I saw that and it, like, brought tears to my eyes. I was like, holy crap. And, you know, especially, like, seeing that now where it's like, I was gonna
say that that is a very relevant thing too.
The amount of like. That's probably why they put it there, you know, like, it Was like, the intentionality of just, like, seeing a artifact of somebody that great just being like, I'm gonna do the right thing.
Yeah.
Because this is what I need. This is what I need. And also, I'm pretty sure it'll be good for y', all, too. Like. Like, it was. It, like, brought tears to my eyes. Like, there's so many of those moments on the trip that it was just like, holy crap.
Yeah.
So anyways, I'll.
I think City man hidden gem.
Yeah. I'm like, reading this Led Zeppelin biography, and it's like, we were on 5th and. What? You know, whatever.
Yeah.
Where we recorded this album and did a screening of the first Blood Zeppelin movie. And it's like, oh, I can see that from my hotel room.
Yeah.
It was so cool. Yeah. So cool. I think I'm ready to shut up. So. Yeah. That's all I got. Johnny, how about you?
Cool. So I'm gonna start with the patriotic angle also, because I just got back from Boston where everybody's talking about, you know, 2026, and everyone's talking about it here being in a port city where we gave the British the finger. And last year, we did a favorite American pencils episode. You guys remember? I was thinking, like, it'd be cool to do that this time. But then also, I was sad to think, I wonder if we're gonna have 4th of July, 2026. That is one that we all recognize. And then I got really depressed. Um, but anyway, I was doing a crossword this morning, and I used the Black Wing. And I was like, damn, this is soft. And I realized that I haven't used a non American pencil since, like, the winter. Maybe a little longer. Weird. I feel like an old man.
Like a non American, like, manufactured pencil.
Yeah. Everything is made in the usa. It's either Musgrave or something really old or generals. Yeah. Strange. Like this. Why is this so dark? Like, it's going blunt on me. But it was a Black wing. Eras. It's nice. Nice. And the one with the cutouts in the feral.
I don't know.
Oh, yeah. Those are so good looking.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I just got back from Boston and where I didn't go to Bob Slate because it was so freaking hot. We didn't do a lot, but we did go to Walden, which was cool.
And hopefully it was cooler by the water.
It was like, the one day it wasn't beastly. We, like, got up. We're like, Walden today, or we won't be able to go. Yeah, but you guys have Seen pictures, like, of Walden, the shore that's closest to where you enter the park. There was like big stone bath house, like, not remotely ADA compliant. Like, if you go in the men's room, there are those floor mounted urinals, like, abutting each other, like a dozen in a row. It's freaky. So they have this. They were going to start tearing it down on May 25th and replacing it. And we were there. It was already gone. And the foundations for the new one are there. And it's going to match the visitor center that went up like eight or nine years ago. Like, it looks like it belongs to Walden. It's wood. But that meant that the main beach was closed, so we thought it would be a little more secluded than it was. But, you know, whenever I go to Walden, I see teenagers, you know, sneaking a beer and swimming and canoodling. I'm like, this is Walden. Don't do that.
But no canoodling at Walden.
If people didn't do that, then Walden wouldn't be here anymore. Yeah, that's what people have always used it for. And it really is, like, so pretty. Water's so clean. It's really nice there. But they were doing some road construction not far from the house sites. Like, the whole place was very noisy. It was kind of jarring. But I did come home with a couple pieces of leaves that had blown off the tree that was a really windy day. And try to make some cyanotype images with them. First birthday.
Cool. Nice.
But yeah, they redesigned that, like, weird fake throwing company pencil to add, like, another arrow. But I only found one like that or I would have brought you guys one. But I've looked on the website. They might have them on there.
How do they. Where do they make those?
I have no clue. It's either Musgrave or they're made in China.
Yeah, I hope they don't do that, but who knows?
Yeah, I hope not. They have a lot of, like, you know, a lot of silly things like, hey, you know, Walden keychain. But lately it's more like books, not just by Thoreau. Like, they had the. Robert McFarlane's book was right there because he won the Thoreau Prize.
You know, who would have loved all the little tchotchkes with his name on it.
It's like, I want a sticker with my face. I mean, I would stick with my face, but I'm not Thoreau.
Remember we made stickers with our faces?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Great. I got some right there.
Yeah.
See you guys. Every time I turn around for my desk.
You're welcome.
Inside of my pencil stand, like, oh, see that? And I see a finger pointed up from preschool. Right. Notepads. I got it all right there. Every day.
So I didn't make it to Bob's late, and I broke a promise to Rosie because she wants the Kaweco sport and that new honey color. But her birthday's in, like, two weeks. Two weeks.
Yeah.
But I did go to the Muji store, like, many times because we don't have one here, and I forgot you can just buy the stuff online. And when you go there, I'm like, I don't know why you have these pens and not the other colors. But, you know, they don't have everything out. But they had planners out. They, like, they just open the boxes. So my kids each got their planners for the year. They were, like, super nice. They have this paper, and they open flat in a bunch of formats, bunch of sizes, which, like, really cool. So if they're on the website, that would be kosher. If somebody's looking for. They were academic year planners. It's hard to find an academic year planner that's not 18 months or not. Like a piece of crap. Yeah. So I think we're like 12, 14 bucks. Pretty cheap. Made in Japan. So they have a couple other little items. I don't know if you guys saw the. This year, Narwhal did two pride pens again.
I think you talked about those at the beginning of June.
One, it was the titanium one. And the entire thing was anodized as a rainbow. Everything. It's kind of like a headache. But they have this new one called the Fathom, which has never been out
before, but it tilts it a little bit or put something. Because I can't see you people with your blurred backgrounds. Come on. Anybody want to see my background? Keep going. Yeah. All right. I got enough. Yeah.
Oh, it says something on it. Oh, it says it gets better. It's the. With the nonprofit. But anyway, it's one of those vacuum pens where you pull the thing up and hit it down, and then ink explodes into it. It's pretty cool. But, yeah, they did one that was available from them and one that you had to buy from retailers. So that was an interesting approach. And they've redone their boxes so they're not stupidly huge, and they were cute, and they. It's easier to do a custom version. And in my world, I just did a book binding class at the Paper Herald.
Cool.
Which folks might remember from us having Ashley On a couple years ago.
Sorry, how many people came this year?
I remember people came. There were 15 tickets, and it sold out.
Oh, nice.
But last year, we didn't want people, like, cutting and poking stuff, and it had to be something you could do in two hours. So I basically made long stitch books and did everything except sew them. And then it could have gone better. So this year we did simpler sewing, but, like, hey, pick your covers, pick your beads, pick your, like, papers. And everyone was just, like, chilling. It was a good time.
That sounds fun.
People seem to be enjoying each other's company, which was awesome. And I got to meet some cool folks. Yeah, maybe someone listen to the podcast. Yay.
Yay.
And my only other travel story that was kind of funny was, I don't know if you guys know this, but Amtrak has to implement heat measures on the east coast because the tracks warp, don't they? Yeah. And they own them. So, like, there are no freight trains on them, so they usually can go at speed. So I found this website that updates every train's progress, like, in real time, like, every couple minutes. And it'll be, like, left New Haven 10 minutes late. And I'm watching it. As we got to Baltimore, the train was on time. And then we got stuck, like, a mile out of the station on a bridge. And they were very communicative. They're like, we're having a mechanical issue. My kids looked at me, and I'm like, well, if this was a plane, we'd be dead.
So we're just chilling.
We're not on a plane playing Minecraft and the air conditioning, you know.
Yeah.
And they said that the parking brake was stuck, and they came out and tried to fix it. And then they're, like, pushing the train, and they're like, it's smoking. Like, you're just kind of pushing it through the parking brake. So the next train that came in our direction, they stopped it, and they got everyone out through the cafe car across the little footbridge on the other train, and they're just like, find somewhere to sit. Because we were only going to Baltimore than Washington. Although I guess that train made more stops.
They weren't like, put your hand out the window, grab hands with somebody on their train, and they're gonna launch us forward. They're gonna, like, launch us. Pull you forward.
Just hold on.
I'm.
Look like my kids weren't freaking out. I'm like, this could be, like, really traumatic to somebody. But we woke up the next day to a very nice form letter being like, this isn't supposed to happen. Like, you got a refund for the trip or that part of the trip which I know. Like, I mean, Amtrak, that's their pride and joy, like the Acela. And we. I think we've talked about this before. They're replacing all the train sets on the Acela with these new trains that are supposed to be in service, like, literally any day. And we left Philly, and the conductor's like, look over there. You'll see the fastest trains in America.
And there's like, wicked fast.
Wicked fast if the brakes are working.
Thirty minutes later, our train got stuck, and we were on engine number 2000, which is the first to sell a. They only have 20 sets. Like. Okay. And I've, you know, I've noticed stuff like not cleaning the areas of the window like they used to see.
They're going to send those out to the west coast and they're just going to get worse.
I don't know how they're going to get there.
Apparently, we can't keep trains nice out here.
There are no electric lines that go entirely across the country.
Yeah. Like, put a big battery up there.
And you know what? Amtrak will put it all over their Instagram. Like, check this out.
Because, yeah, they're gonna, like, have everybody plug their cell phones into the walls and then suck power from the cell phone.
Yeah.
Power the train.
You thought you were charging yourself.
No, you're part of. Yeah, you're part of the solution here.
You know, we're just gonna get, like, a bunch of Tesla batteries and put them on the top.
And the train's on fire.
Yeah, yeah.
Explodes.
Yeah. Yeah. They. I mean, it's like, it's. I don't know if you guys have been on the seller. It's really cool because a tilting train, so you go around curves, you just kind of hear this vague whine, and then you hear it again, and you're like, the hell was that? Like, my Coke didn't spill.
No. The only Amtraks I've been on were very bad.
They're bad.
Very bad.
They're very bad.
They don't own their tracks for most of their lines, so they have to, like, you know, freight's worth more than people.
I told you how there was, like, just blood on the toilet seat, didn't I? Just, like, like, bright red. Just, like, fresh blood on the toilet seat. And we were in the, like, the. The first class cabins.
So what was on the second class?
I don't know.
Those were the.
It was the blood of the second Class passengers.
That's what it was, a sacrifice to run in the. Run the train.
Yeah.
So I don't have the kind of job most people have. So I wanted to ask you guys an etiquette question. So on the Acela, a lot of the seats are like four facing each other across the table. And this lady was on Zoom meetings, like the entire trip. Yeah, like, she had headphones on, but she was talking really loud. Yeah, like, no, I got this person.
I think the coke you had, you're supposed to pour it on the laptop, right?
On the laptop. Yeah, yeah.
What it says in the book of manners.
I take the Caltrain, which is like our, like, local diesel rail, which was. Now it's electric, but it's kind of like the metro in Chicago. It's like the regional. And yeah, people take it to work all the time. And yeah, people are just like. Most people are like, quiet. If they're working at those desks, like, or those tables, they're just like typing away or whatever. But like, yeah, there's the occasional person who's like, just loudly in a meeting and just everybody wants to throw them out the window.
So I think the. You're supposed to lean forward and say, I have rabies.
And then just like.
And then lean back and just see what happens.
I'm trying to put my kids up to like, put like putting their head in the window and introducing themselves and be like, hey, I'm Henry. I'm in the meeting too. They wouldn't buy.
Yes, that's what I was gonna say. Like, have Henry Lee probably be like. Or whatever. Yeah.
And on the way back, Owen was next to a guy who took one meeting and I'm texting him, like, dude, burp, like, nudge. Do something. He's like, no, that's so messed up. Okay. Sitting next to a child on a meeting is kind of messed up.
Yeah. Yeah.
I got some stories about that for another time on the Chicago trains. Oh, I don't know if I've told you this, but should I tell it now? Do you have time?
Yeah.
This is a two parter. The first time we met this guy.
Is this the Metro?
The L. This is on the Metro. We're going from Hammond, Indiana, up into Chicago. We were on the metro and like, we were on our way up and there was this guy who like, started talking to us on the way back. So we went. We, my friends and I would go up and we would go to like, version records and just do stuff in the city and then we would take The l. Back drive home because I lived like 10 minutes from there. And there's this guy who was super drunk, like, super duper drunk. And he was on the train coming back and he started talking to us. He's like, what are you guys doing? We're like, well, we just were at the record store. He started telling us these stories. He's like, I was. He was at some party and he told us about, hey, he always had some party. And he was. He's like, Lester Holt, you know, the guy who's now like NBC or whatever. He used to be the Chicago, like, newscaster. He's like, lester Holt was there at this party and he tells the story. He's like, I was trying to get. I was at this party and they were trying to throw me out. This guy was trying to throw him out, and I pimp smacked him.
What does that mean?
Lester Holt was there. It was like, he pimp smacked Lester Holt? No, the, like, guy who was like, I don't know who it was, but he was like, lester Holt was there. They pimp smacked me and threw me.
Lester Holt pimp smack this guy?
No, he said somebody else, but Lester Holt was at the party. He pimp smack. And we were like, listening to this whole story. It was actually, now that I'm remembering it, we were on. We were waiting to get on the train at home when he told us the story. Is this crazy story. Two years later, we get on the train to go to the city and he's on the train again.
Oh, no.
We did not engage this.
I'm sure he did not recognize you.
Oh, no, not at all. But all I remember is that he was sitting two sections ahead of us and was. Had a six pack of beer on the train heading to the city and was living his best life reading a Hustler magazine. Like, definitely reading. Just. He was there for the articles. Yeah, he was heading to the city, drinking a six pack and looking at Hustler. And we were like, hey, do you remember that guy? My buddy Peter was like, yeah, that's the pib smack guy. He's like, yes, yeah.
Lester Holt's best friend.
Hey, pimp smack guy.
Yeah.
He'd have been like, are you the police? And we're like, look at me.
Like, don't recognize this game?
Yes. Seven. I'm 17. Like, you know, I'm going up to Reversion Records. Radiohead album.
I used to see some stuff at the South Shore train. I would catch that in, like, I would drive to like, like, Michigan City. And take the South Shore in. Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's what we were on. We were on. Yeah, South Shore. Yeah, the South Shore train. Yeah, we would. That was. We would catch it because. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. I don't know. I forget how he ended up here, but like, that was just like that for a long time.
Yeah. Like, that guy was not on a Zoom meeting.
He was just like, hey, I got a story to tell you.
Yeah.
Do you know what. You know, Lester hold is. Yeah, yeah. That was a. Yeah, that was a core memory. As they. As the kids say these days was
rent free in your head.
Yep. I think about it all the time. I wonder what that guy's up to.
He's on NBC News now.
He's on the guy that Fox News, You know, Sorry, Johnny, it's like there's such a crazy. I hadn't thought about that and I don't know.
So five minutes last night at like 1 in the morning, I'm watching Law and Order and I hear this guy shouting racial epithets in a like, measured way.
Like, that's good.
Third word. I'm like, okay. I'm like, please, someone else call the cops on him. So I look outside and it's our local.
I thought it was on the show. So sorry. Yeah, okay, go ahead.
Oh, he's a guy who lives around here. He's got some problems, and when he's doing what he's supposed to do, he's like, really friendly. When he's not, he walks around shouting racial epithets. So I looked out another time and he didn't have his pants on. So I'm like, now I gotta call the cops. So I call the cops. And he was talking about someone. I don't want to repeat it on here, but I think he was doing other things.
You have to break out the top rider bill.
Yeah.
He thought no one could see him.
Okay.
And then the cops came out and just sort of yelled at him and
told him he was on a Zoom call is what you're saying.
No, I can see him. He wasn't on a train.
My camera's off my mind. Yeah.
I didn't want to tell the kids that. I want to freak out. And like, I love city life. Yep. And then when he left, the cops were like, anytime you got a call around here, it's Mike. Like, okay, but help him. He needs some help.
Yeah, usually. And I'll be like, mike, do you need a Snickers bar or something?
Cut it off, Mike. You go blind that way.
Mike went down the street shouting the same things he was shouting. Like, okay, they're probably going to come back for him later. I was sort of afraid something bad might happen. I didn't want to call cops at first.
Yeah.
Like, you know the three vehicles that came in like two minutes? Like three vehicles, really?
Yeah.
Yeah. All right. It's not related at all.
Yeah. Now that we're. Maybe this is some good, like Patreon, like after. After discourse.
Talk about urban stories. Yep. So thanks for tuning in. This has been episode 227 of the erasable Podcast. Do you guys want to tell folks where they can find you online and on the socials?
Sure I am, Andy. WTF is my website and links to everything there? I have a little blog that I'm doing called Asterisms. Asterism. Lol. Best domain name. And I actually just posted a thing about this Welsh computer company from the 80s and it has the best logo I've ever seen. So you want to see that logo? Go to my blog and check it out.
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. I'm at Timothy awesome on Instagram and not on. Well, I think I'm technically on X slash Twitter, but I haven't checked it.
And come over to Blue sky. It's fun.
16 months. I think I'm on that too. I just, like, I just been checking out from all of it. I'm just like, I can't handle this stuff. But Instagram, you can find me Timothy Wasson and yeah, that's me. How about you, Johnny?
You could find me on the Instagram at Pen solution, probably on X. I don't think I got rid of it yet, but when I get off my butt, I will. And you can find books I make@pencilrevolution.com and blog posts soon, which would be cool.
Oh, fun. Resurrecting that.
We are the Erasable Podcast. You can find us at Erasable Us in the sky, that great like, thing like the Batwing, but it's a pencil. And on Spotify and all of the other podcasters you like, you can check out our Facebook group at facebook.comgroups/erasable podcasts. Just erasable or just erasable. Okay. Yeah. And that is, like, the only reason I still have a Facebook account. Activate it. Although I suppose I need that for Instagram. Yeah, I think. But yeah, so if you.
We have a Discord too.
Oh, crap. See, I kind of don't really know what discord is.
It's sort of like chat. Do you remember IRC? Okay, that was a thing from like the early 2000s.
It's a.
It's a. It's like a slack. Probably. Johnny doesn't know what a slack is either. It's like. It's a chat room. It's an erasable chat room. The link to the discord is in the show notes because I remember chat rooms.
Yeah.
And I think if you go to erasable us/discord d I, S C O R D, I think it'll take you there. I think I made it.
Yeah.
Cool. Yeah.
Yay. I had two things to check out tonight. So we have a Patreon also. And if you see us right now, you are a Patreon supporter, you can find information about our patreon@patreon.com erasable and folks who are Steinbeck stage supporters are considered producers. So we like to read your names to say thank you at the end of each episode. So many thanks to Chris Berry, John Schroeder, Ellen Dana Morris, Liz Rotundo, Melissa Miller, Angie Aaron Bollinger, Ida Umphurst, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Valerie Drew, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, William Modlin, John Capellouti, Stephen Francali, Aaron Willard, Millie Blackwell, Michael d', Alosa, Tana Feliz, JAFX in the Midwest, Hand Sipe, Chris Metzkus, Kathleen Rogers, Hair doctor, Hans Noodleman, John Wood, and Dominique Wilkins. Thanks a lot and we will not be a month this time.
Do you like our podcast? Most people like our podcast, but if you like our podcast, maybe we'll turn it off.
Dominique Wilkins. That was me. Sorry, that was a person.
No.
Well, yeah, he was a legend in the slam dunk contest in the NBA when I was a kid. He is.
I got you on that one.
Dominique Wilkins is not affiliated with this podcast.
You know what, Dominique Wilson, we're going to give you a honorary producer membership.
I fully endorse Dominique Wilkins supporting this podcast. That was. I slipped that in at the last second. Yes. So, no, it's not. But he's. He was my favorite dunk contest contestants.